Phan Oneshots

A World Without You

Summary: Soulmate au where if your soulmate dies, you also die.
Word Count: 1013
Warnings: major character death, anxiety
A/N: this is some sad shit! i got this idea randomly as i saw a post that said "soulmates never die" so you're welcome. I never write character death, but this is different for a change :') shout out to my group chat, the "Church of Sanjay" for making me do this.

-

Dan lived a constant state of fear.

In this world, there was sorrow. There was an underlying feeling that something horrible was awaiting them at every turn. Like there was a monster under the bed and you had to get a drink of water, only for the creature to grab your ankles and drag you under.

See, Dan lived in a world where soulmates existed. Soulmates were a person's other half, in the most literal sense where they shared the same heart. You could feel it when your soulmate was happy, could feel it when they were scared. Your heart beat to the same rhythm.

But this also meant the unthinkable: when your soulmate passed away, you followed suit only moments later.

Dan didn't want to think about it, but it was hard to avoid the topic when it was all over the news. A surgeon had been doing heart surgery on someone, only to have their patient die. A few seconds later, the surgeon dropped dead as well. Or when someone was driving a car and their soulmate had passed, leaving them to crash into four other vehicles. One life for the price of four.

Dan couldn't even fathom what he would be thinking if his own soulmate, Phil, died. He didn't want to think about it, didn't want to imagine the few seconds of realisation, of pain, where he could feel his heart giving out and the only thing he would be able to think about was Phil died, Phil isn't here anymore, Phil is gone. He hoped that he wouldn't have to know that pain until several years had passed and they were old men holding hands in their forever home, smiling as death took them because they'd had several years of happiness and they could finally bask in the knowledge that their time was up, and they were going together.

But Dan didn't want to go through it until then, didn't want to go through that until they'd had children together, until they'd bought a dog, until they had seen the entire world and finally gone to Brazil. Spending six years together was not a long enough span of time for Dan.

When Phil left one evening, claiming he was going to run some groceries, Dan had to hold himself back from catapulting himself at Phil and begging him not to. He had always been afraid of the unknown, so being apart from Phil made his anxiety so much worse than it already was. But Phil always told him not to worry, always gave him a kiss and promised him that he wouldn't be leaving Dan just yet.

He always promised to be back home before supper, and Dan would laugh and shake his head and bask in the feel of Phil's lips against his own.

But that night, something changed. And Dan could feel it.

Phil was gone much longer than expected. He didn't know why. Nothing showed up on the news, and his heart hadn't dropped or anything, so he knew that Phil was alive, at least. But it was getting dark out and Phil still wasn't back, and so Dan spent his time waiting pacing around the flat.

He chewed on his thumbnail, muttering to himself that it was okay, that Phil was okay, that Phil wasn't dead. It didn't really help his anxiety, but it did keep him from going crazy, at least. He turned the news on, watched out of the corner of his eye. Eventually he had to switch the television to the kids channel, because hearing the news presenter talk about all of the soulmates who passed away that evening was making him worse.

He took some deep breaths. Tried to focus on the cartoon. He really needed to stop being paranoid. Phil always told him that his paranoia was going to kill him one day, that Dan was worrying about nothing, but Dan just couldn't help it. He just wanted a nice and happy life with Phil, and anything that jinxed that made him freak out until he couldn't possibly relax.

He decided to get some ribena to calm his nerves. The clock read 8:34pm, and Dan eyed it as each minute passed. He poured the ribena into his glass and took a sip. It was tasteless, but it wet his parched mouth so he took another sip. He felt slightly more refreshed with the intake of liquid, and sighed a bit, feeling his heart rate begin to slow down.

And then it slowed down a little bit more.

Dan choked on his ribena as his heart suddenly dropped to his knees. He could feel the glass drop from his palm, but he couldn't hear it as it shattered on the floorboards like all of his hopes and dreams. Dan followed suit, dropping to his hands and knees. His skin cut on the glass, but he couldn't feel it in the slightest.

All he could feel was the overwhelming sadness suddenly crushing his body, the realisation of what was happening making his head spin. He began to sob as he felt his heart begin to slow bit by bit, but it felt like it was taking forever.

Phil was dead. Phil was dead and they weren't going to have a whole new future together. They weren't going to have a daughter named Layla or dog named Benson. They weren't going to die happily in each other's arms, old and gray and ready to take on death together. Instead they were going to die now, apart and filled with fear.

Dan's vision began to get fuzzy, rimmed with blackness. He rubbed at his eyes, but that didn't do anything other than smear ribena all over his face. He could feel himself getting weaker, and collapsed completely to the floor, not even able to laugh at the fact that the paramedics were going to find him all bruised and bloody amidst a pool of ribena.

He closed his eyes instead.

At least I don't have to live in a world without Phil.