A Hundred Days | Dan Howell x Reader

Chapter 14.

These days everything was a blur of colours and sounds, broken images and forgotten words.

Your weekdays were all the same: wake up to some sort of text from Dan (an apology, a hello, a good morning, etc.) which you would promptly ignore, arrive at work at eight every morning and work until six, head out for dinner with Michael or pop back to his place where he'd cook for you, then make for the City University and take your classes from seven to nine, and finally, at around half past nine, plonk down on the sofa beside Eileen who was constantly munching M&Ms and or green Pringles.

Wednesday evening, following your routine, Eileen was sat watching reruns of Doctor Who, a green Pringles container hugged to her left side, a peach ice tea in one hand, Pringle in the other.

"Jesus christ, Martha, no way!" Eileen made a vulgar gesture at the television screen.

"Martha Jones being slow again?" you asked as you flopped down beside her, taking the remote from the table to turn up the volume.

"When is she not?" Eileen sighed heavily and you leaned tiredly against her.

She patted your hair and you looked at hers. It was now firey red instead of electric blue.

"Long day, Y/N/N?" she prodded your shoulder.

You exhaled slowly, "Often I wonder what the point is".

Eileen's eyes left the telly to give you an incredulous look. "Have an existential-crisis today?"

"Mm-hm", you said, remembering the global warming article you'd written four or so weeks ago.

Four weeks. You hadn't seen Dan Howell, your neighbour, for four whole weeks. You saw Phil often enough in the hall, and he and Eileen now met up for afternoon tea and a banter every Wednesday and Friday. But Dan was never there, and given the terms you'd last seen him on, there was no temptation to ask Phil of him. And you sure as hell wouldn't be answering the texts of that foul-mouthed, insensitive, stuck-up, cruel, idiot with such pretty eyes—

Shit.

It was time to put your focus to something else, stop thinking lovely thoughts about the person who had— what was it he had done? Was it really so bad? You could hardly even remember. Was that why you were blantly, rather rudely ignoring him? Or was it something else? You'd been friends, hadn't you?— especially since you weren't even single.

"Hey, how was afternoon tea?" you tucked a cushion between your head and Eileen's side.

"Oh, absolutely fucking gorgeous, as ever", she bubbled.

You rolled your eyes. "The tea or Phillippé?"

"Darling, both", she replied with a smirk.

Shaking your head, you took a few M&Ms from the bag beside where Eileen's foot rested on the coffee table, glancing at her slim form.

She ate and ate and ate but would run and run and run and swim on a regular basis, so with her high metabolism, none of the things she consumed ever showed. She was home at three o'clock everyday from her glamorous job at the BBC— she was currently the director a top-secret project: a new sci-fi drama programme BBC One would be launching the following year.

It was hard not to envy her, at times.

But she'd been your best friend since before you could remember, your parents telling you stories of how you slept over at each other's houses, aged two, and only cried when you had to go home. She'd always stuck up for you and always pulled through, a sarcastic comment to save your day, a pair of ears to listen and red-painted lips to give advice. She'd been your role model for some period of your life, you'd had a crush on her at one point, and she'd even kissed you, before the two of you decided that neither of you liked the other that way. She'd answer your calls at 3AM, and as she preferred to text you'd answer those at four, you talked about everything together, everything from Eileen not knowing her sexuality ("When someone finally took the liberty to explain to little Eileen what 'gay' was, and then the whole queer and LGBTQ+ community was, it just sort of went off-kilter, y'know?"), to the irony of making a movie about the use of technology killing the world. Eileen knew everything about you, how to annoy you, comfort you, cheer you up, even when your parents could not, and vise-versa you for her. You trusted her with everything, and she everything to you. The two of you had your own little language, almost, mere eye-contact contact conveying a thousand thoughts, a million memories. You just, worked.