Complicated Love (Phan)

The End Of It All

Dan's P.O.V.
The days pass by slowly, blending together into weeks, then months, then years. I love him and he loves me more and more as the seasons pass by and as we get older and older. But we're not as young and energetic as we used to be. It's not the same as it was back then.

We walk, hand in hand, up the stairs to our bedroom, but he doesn't make it the whole way. Old age has taken a firm grip on him, and he falls, aching knees bent and pale arms stretching out to stop himself. I catch him by his waist before he can hit the stairs, slowly pulling him back upwards, straining with the effort. His mouth opens, but the words he was going to say never come out as he faints, his weight doubling as I struggle to keep him from falling again.

His cold hand in mine, I hold it as tight as I can. I can't let go. He can't let go. I can't lose him. I vowed that that would never happen again. A weak smile, as weak as he is, spreads across his face, blue eyes still holding a certain shimmer after all this time. Tears start running down my wrinkled cheeks, but I don't mind. I have a feeling that we are going to be great friends, this growing sadness and I. He brushes them away with his other hand, stopping to cup my face and to bring me closer, pushing his shaking lips on mine. The kiss is gentle and as sweet as it was the first time, and the many times after. Laying back down, he opens his mouth to speak, and I know that these will be the last words I will ever hear from him... his final goodbye.

"D-D-Dan," he chokes out, his voice trembling as much as I am. "I-I love y-you, s-so much. Yo-you mean the w-w-world to me. I'm s-s-so grateful an-and happy that I g-got to sp-spe-spend the rest of t-this l-life with y-y-you."

"D-don't d-don't leave me Phil. P-please... I c-c-can't live with-without you. Please." I shallow, trying to get the words stuck in my throat out. "Please," I sob, tears pouring out faster now. "I-I... I love you... too. I-I... I need you." The smile comes back for a second but then disappears, folding away, to never be seen again.

"T-that's the o-only only th-th-thing I wanted to h-hear. Thank... thank y-y-you Dan. T-Thank you for everything. I'll be seeing... you... s-s... soon." As his voice fades away, so does his last breath. The color in his face starts to ebb away, till his skin is left a pale gray, the color of death. His head hits the pillow, and it all slips away from my control right then and there.

The only things I feel is the coldness of the tiles below sinking into me as I fold, crashing to the ground. Then there's the pain and sound of my frail heart being shattered into millions and millions of pieces, tangled up in the sound of my sobbing. And numbness.

Just... numb.

I don't feel the nurses help me onto my feet, patting my back and pulling me away from him. I don't hear their voices, their fake words of condolences, full of fake sadness, a mask that put on just for show. I only see a pale boy, a pale man, laying still in a white bed, as white as him, resting peacefully, looking like he's only asleep and he's going to wake up any minute and look at me, and smile at me, and love me once more, like he did for all those years. I'm numb to my shouting and the way it cuts up the inside of my throat. I'm numb to the pain eating me alive, wasting me away, leaving me hollow. I'm numb to it all. All I know, all I care about, is that my only sun in this dark world had disappeared, leaving me cold and alone, without a single place to call home.

I feel nothing as the world fades away from me like it did for him, years later. The black and white world around me darkens, further and further, darker and darker, till all I see I black all around me. Everything slips away from me, all those memories I've kept, all those things I've remembered and held on to, to feel less lonely at night. Emptiness, all around me, and inside me. I remember those words that he told me, all that time ago, when he was taken away from me. He promised that we'd meet again some day, some day soon.

I smile, for the first time in what seems like forever, because I'll finally be able to see my Phil again.