I'll Leave You With The Outtakes // Phan

Part 8

The more Dan researches the more he realizes that he just cannot do this. He scrolls through articles on his phone, on his laptop. Reading ceaselessly about the symptoms, and the time lines, and the side effects of the drugs he's supposed to take to try and slow down the inevitable.

His hands sometimes start shaking for reasons that have nothing to do with his ALS.

Just the thought of three more years, or two, or ten...each year getting harder and harder makes Dan sick. Dan doesn't want any of it. For fucks sake he just wants to travel, and go back to Japan, and see his friends grow up and get married. He wants to have crazy kinky sex, and learn to speak a random language, to try escargot. To buy a house, get a dog, write an adventure novel, retire. See Sherlock series four, go star gazing, visit so many places and see so many things. And Dan doesn't want to do it in a goddamn wheelchair. He wants to fix everything, and say goodbye to everyone.

Most importantly, Dan doesn't want a long goodbye. He doesn't want the world to have to see him lose his arms and legs, or have to hear him through a cold computerized tone. He wants to be remembered as he is now, not how he'll be with late stage Lou Gehrig's.

He doesn't want five years. And it scares Dan when his mind whispers that he doesn't have to have five years. He doesn't even have to have two.

One's enough.

He starts researching something entirely different.

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Its two days after the diagnosis when Dan actually finalizes his decision. It slaps him across the face as he's cleaning up the dishes and he nearly drops the cup in his hands. Phil's in the lounge, just a wall over, listening and waiting for Dan to come back. They've been like this all day...oddly codependent. Not arguing, but not talking about the elephant in the room either. It's been a day of icy peace. Phil doesn't film anything. He won't leave Dan alone, actually. He won't leave the flat.

It's okay, Dan doesn't mind pretending that everything is normal. Except if it were he wouldn't be doing the dishes and Phil wouldn't be choosing an anime for them to watch together. And Dan wouldn't be thinking about the topic his mind is stuck on.

Dan will have to tell Phil, and he should just walk forty steps into the next room and say it, but just as he considers doing so...all at once, Dan can't do it.

He's not used to crying so much but now it feels like there's an endless supply of tears waiting to come raining down his cheeks because he can't fucking do this. He doesn't want to die, but he's going to die anyway, but if he tells Phil the truth it's going to kill him, because he knows Phil wants him to try. Phil wants to exhaust every single moment. Dan knows he means well, but...Phil's not the one with ALS.

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The clock on his laptop says four twenty-five am when Dan ends up staring at the blank space of an empty document. The cursor blinks at him, challenging him to start. There are so many things flooding Dan's mind that he can't begin to comprehend what's most important. He has lots of lists. Lists of video ideas. Book ideas. Ideas for his and Phil's tour.

Dan takes a shaky breath, and suddenly his fingers can't move fast enough to keep up with his mind. He starts typing. This is a new list, one that supersedes videos and books and tours. It is the ultimate To Do List.

In no particular order, Dan's unstable fingers tap out line after line of goals. At the end, after he combines a few, erases a few, and reorders them into priority Dan has a long row of bullet points.

All of the things he wants to do before he dies.

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