Fiction

Love is a minor madness

"Perhaps love is a minor madness. And as with madness, it's unendurable alone. The one person who can relieve us is of course the sole person we cannot go to: the one we love. So instead we seek out allies, even among strangers and wives, fellow patients who, if they can't touch the edge of our particular sorrow, have felt something that cuts nearly as deep."
~Andrew Sean Greer

Dan POV

The doctors say that Phil is doing well for someone with his degree of injury. They say that he should make it, providing he wakes up soon.

They can, after all, only keep him on life support for so long.

It has been three days since he jumped off that bridge, and three days since I got a any real sleep, or ate more than the few bites that Izzy forced into me. She's probably the only reason I wasn't in a hospital bed next to him, and for that I am more grateful than I can say.

She is sleeping on a sofa in the corner of the room at the moment, having spent most of her time over the past few days in the hospital with me, as we both have nowhere else to go. She seems surprisingly happy for someone in her position, and whilst I know she's probably putting up a front, I can't help but think she's doing a very good job of it. I've been trying to copy her, and seem to be doing better now than I was before, or, at least, until I'm alone.

Phil's hand twitches in mine, and my eyes dart to his face, searching desperately for any other signs of life. He seems to twitch like that a couple of times a day, as if he is having a nightmare, and I have come to expect it.

That doesn't stop me from hoping.

The monitor next to Phil's bed beeps a little faster than normal, but that tends to happen whenever he twitches. That only builds up my theory of nightmares.

The nurses and Izzy say his heart beats faster whenever I'm not touching him as well.

Izzy stirs restlessly on her sofa, muttering something under her breath about flying cabbages.

I have learnt not to ask about her dreams. They often sound like she's on drugs, or at least a little bit drunk. The last one she told me about involved a singing velociraptor in a top hat. That made me laugh a little bit, before I remembered where I was.

Phil's parents came by to see him yesterday, but couldn't stay for long. They had to get back home so that they could go to work, and the paparazzi outside the window seemed to be a little too much for them.

Both Izzy and I had learnt to tune them out, and not read the articles online. The last one implied a threesome.

I just hoped Phil would wake up.

***

Phil POV (he's alive!!!)

I was dreaming. The world was melting. I was screaming.There was no sound. But there was.

A girl's voice. A man talking about me. And Dan. Dan was here. Dan was here?

Why was Dan here?

Dan had left me. I did not want to see Dan.

I did want to see Dan. Dan was here. I could open my eyes. I could see Dan. But Dan was gone now.

I was scared. There was a girl. She was talking, but I could not hear her. I wanted Dan. Dan would make it better. Dan always made it better. Who was the girl? Why was she here? I did not know the girl. She moved my hair out of my eyes. Her hand was warm.

"Phil." She said. She sounded like she was sad. "You don't know me, but I just wanted you to know that we're all worried about you. I think the hospital are starting sending flowers to war memorials and things like that because you're getting so many. My name's Izzy, and you saved my life once. You and Dan. He misses you a lot, you know. He blames himself, and he's barely functioning. Wake up, Phil. If not for yourself, then for him."

The girl had nice words. She was kind. Maybe I could wake up.

Or I could sleep again.

I went back to my dreaming.

***

Chris' POV

It was weird to see Phil hooked up to so many machines. Most of them looked scary, like they were going to hurt him. Dan was sleeping in a hard plastic chair next to Phil's bed, his head resting next to their entwined hands. A girl in a blue TARDIS jumper was playing on her phone on a sofa in the corner of the room, and looked up as PJ and I walked in. She waved and smiled, before beckoning us outside into the corridor.

"Hey." She said holding out her hand for me to shake. "I'm Izzy. I don't know if Dan told you about me?" She asked.

"Only briefly." I said, shaking her hand. "He said you were helping him, and he was helping you."

"Yeah, I guess that's a good way to put it. I'm out of a home, Dan's in a state somewhere between shock and depression, we're both a little messed up in the head, so we're helping each other get a bit better." She said.

"Is Phil okay?" Asked PJ worriedly.

"The doctors say he'll be fine as long as he wakes up in the next couple of days. They say it's only going to be a problem if he stays in this state for very long, and they can't keep him on those machines forever. If he stays under too long, there's a chance he might never wake up."

"But he'll be fine if he does wake up?" PJ checks.

"Yeah." She nods. "If he wakes up."

Hey guys!

So, sorry.

Again.

I'm a horrible person for not updating, I'm a horrible person for what I've done to Phan, I'm a horrible person in general.

Don't kill me!

I'm totally not worth killing!

It will all be solved in upcoming chapters, I promise! I think. Maybe. To be honest, I have no clue.

Roll with it.

In other news, I have mocks in the next couple of weeks! I should probably go to sleep, but I'm not tired and I wanted to update this.

I will try to not be such a shitty person.

I will make an effort.

Love you guys!

*bakes pancakes and makes a tower of them so I can reach your window and throw rainbow glitter at you*

Peace out, bitches!

~RuneStarArrow