i'll try to save you//dan smith

XVI

joy's pov

i grab the flyer and shove it in my pocket as dan comes back from the bathroom. "shall we go?" he asks with a slight smile. i nod, we grab our bags then head out.

by the time we get home it's a little bit after noon, dan and I stand in the hallway. "i'll be at your place in a few minutes, i just gotta put your gift away" dan says as he rushes into his flat.

a few minutes later, i hear a knock and there dan is. he's holding two bottles of wine, "may i enter?" he asks in a funny voice. i laugh and move out of the doorway. "two bottles?" i ask, dan turns to me and puts them down on the kitchen counter. "i assumed we'd be here for a while" he tells me with another grin. "okay, i'll find some glasses" i say as i walk towards a cabinet. "no need for glasses when we have two people and two bottles" dan raises an eyebrow, holding up one bottle. i laugh at this, looking for a bottle opener "alrighty then".

dan's pov

we clean and clean for longer then needed. I purposefully did everything slow just so i could be with her longer. having joy with me made me forget that i'm a loser. she made me feel loved, loved for who i am.

 but i know that she'd never love me

i love her though, i love her so fucking much it hurts

we sit on her grey couch, it's about five thirty now. "do you wanna get something to eat?" she sits up and asks hahaha, no . "no thanks, i'm kinda exhausted" i reply, joy kinda sighs. "o-oh well if you want to go, that would be cool i guess". what? oh no dan you've made her sad! undo this. "nonono that's not- i meant- we should just stay in" i blurt out. Joy's expression resorts back to normal, that's good. "oh okay well i don't have a lot here. would chips and salsa settle?". "i mean, i won't be eating anything so it's up to you" she sighs and then morphs back into one with the couch. "nevermind" she bluntly states "let's just watch a movie". "sounds good!" i grab the remote from the coffee table in front of us "something christmas related?" i ask as i flip through the selection of movies. "sure" she says. 

after settling on "it's a wonderful life" (a fucking classic) and watching that for a while, joy suddenly gets up from the couch. "i almost forgot" she says as she rushes into the kitchen to retrieve something. "i found this today" she hands me a flyer, "it's this competition leeds is having. you should enter!" she sounds so excited. 

But to be honest i've already seen this, ralph texted me a photo of it. i'm terrified of preforming in front of people so i've tried to avoid this paper. "oh wow, looks cool" i say, not trying to kill the mood. "yea! it would be so fun dan" she replies. "yes it would be, but i don't think i'll enter" well now i've killed the mood fuck daniel. "why not?" she questions, "look, i just don't like to show people my music" i say as i fold up the paper and put it aside. "fine then" she huffs and then swigs her bottle. 

"come on, why are you mad?" i ask, unintentionally putting my hand on her arm. she shifts away, aaaa shit dan! she doesn't like you. "sorry, i'm not i just have my mom's temper that's all" she says, shifting back a bit closer to me". "you never told me much about your mum" i say, wrapping my arm around her, trying not to be too awkward. she leans into me yes, LEANS INTO ME. "fuck, you don't want hear me vent about her" she says. "no, please what else is there to do?" i reply, still trying not to loose my shit that she's resting on me. "well then, where do i start? she would just constantly yell at me and my siblings because she was upset about her relationship with my dad. he got knocked out of the picture when i was about ten. that's right about when she started sleeping with her boss to take her mind off that her children were deadass raised in movie theaters-" "wait wh-what? you were raised in a cinema?" i laugh. "basically, my dad would take my siblings and i to the theater all the fucking time, that's when i became a fat child, obviously nothing has really changed" "oh shut'up you're fine" (that was code for 'shut the fuck up joy, you're amazing stop thinking that you're a walrus) "whatever you say.. anyways, a few years later, we moved in with my grandparents. great right? no more screaming at us. sure that part was good, but she still managed to make us miserable. when i was a teenager, she would talk shit about me to my siblings. then one day she tried having a civil conversation with me. i felt bad, she was trying to mend our friendship but it was already so dead. after that day, she never tried again. she would then leave on the weekends and be gone for a few days. this went on for a while. one day she didn't come back. and that was all..." "holy shit joy, i'm so sorry" i wrap my arms around her. "it's okay, after that. my grandparents thought it would be best to just give us to an orphanage and hope for the best. they were both dying, and going broke. i didn't know them that well though so it was okay with me i guess. so we ended up being given to this older couple that couldn't have children. they were our new parents." "well that's good... right?" i ask "yes of course" she replies.  I glance over at her bottle, it's now empty

oh no she's drunk, she wouldn't have said all that if she was sober! fucking hell i should've known better then to ask questions while drinking

I look over to the kitchen stove to see what time it is, "20:58" it's not even late. I then feel an arm on my chest, it's joy and she's asleep. i wish i could stay here, but i can't. I slowly get up and lock the door with her spare key. feeling like taking a walk, i rush outside

it's now about ten and i'm walking around london. i'm having quite a peaceful time, the cold hair fills my lungs but i still feel warm. tonight feels like a good song-writing night, i rush back to my flat. on my way up the stairs, they creak loudly so i walk slower. it would be a shame to wake joy after the night she's had. when i finally get back into my flat, i sit down at my keyboard and continue a song that i've been working on recently.

words are all we have we'll be talking
we'll be talking these words are all we have
we'll be talking

after a few more hours, i continue the song i low key wrote about an ex

i don't love you but i love your songs
i don't love you but your words make me feel like i belong 

an- in my "dan smith imagines" book i said that i wasn't going to write for a while b/c i got surgery on my hand. but tonight i'm getting a wave of 'sad' causing me to write something. i hope you enjoyed this chapter <3