The most difficult thing in the world proved to be waking up with Dan Howell practically attached to your chest, because in that moment it was painfully unavoidable to accidentally shake him awake or to even wiggle away without bringing him back to consciousness. Somehow I detached myself from his grip and fell out of bed, not daring to leave his little apartment. He said he didn't want to be left alone, so I wouldn't.
PJ and Cat were scraping at cups of yoghurt with plastic spoons and sitting cross legged on Dan's poorly repaired couch, watching cartoons and assumedly waiting for one of us to wake up.
"It's pouring again," PJ announced "class is cancelled."
Sure enough, the view out the window showed the entire lawn area had flooded, and the rusty fountain in the centre of a soggy garden was overflowing with rain water.
"You can go back with him. Scratch that, you should. He likes someone there when he wakes up." Cat said without looking away from the TV screen.
56 temporary lovers; I guess that's more than once he'd woken up with cold bed sheets next to him or a painfully written note on the counter that said he had been left alone once again. So I crawled back under the covers and pulled Dan back to my chest, and he hugged me closer. And in that specific moment I remembered what PJ said to me on the first day I'd met him, which was a horrible idea.
"He's not going to fall in love with you"
And I looked down at the mess of hair settled under my chin and the warm arms wrapped around my torso and I thought "well maybe this time it'll be different", but deep down I knew I wouldn't be #57, and I didn't want to accept the fact because I never wanted him to forget me.
Dan rustled and rolled over away from me, sitting up and swiping at his eyes. His hair stuck up in nearly every direction, like he'd gotten his hair rubbed with a balloon overnight. He combed through it smoothly once with his fingers and somehow it was back to being perfectly messy.
"We're gonna be late for class-"
"Classes are cancelled. It's pouring outside."
At the word 'cancelled', he was flinging the covers off his body and sprinting out of the room, practically swinging sideways off the door frame. When I turned the corner to his living room, Dan had his face pressed against the window, his fingers following the rain drops sliding down the glass. PJ and Cat did nothing to acknowledge the childish act, which I wasn't complaining about but was a little confused by.
"Does he always do that?"
PJ looked up from his yoghurt and gulped down the rest before he answered me.
"He's done it since I first met him. I met him through 55 of his 56 heartbreaks and not once did I see anyone teach him it. Might've been #1, but he doesn't like to talk about it."
I watched him trace the rain for a few minutes, the pre-recorded cheesy laughter on the TV filling the silence. Dan looked so content and focused on the dribbles until he stood up, whirled around on his heels, and grabbed a jacket from the chair next to the door I'd never seen until now. His raised eyebrows looked like he'd expected me to follow him outside, so I picked up another jacket he handed me and let him pull me out the door.
"Don't go too far, and Phil, make sure he doesn't drink. Alcohol upsets his stomach when it rains." Cat yelled just before the door closed.
"I feel like a proud parent." PJ whispered with false tears in his eyes as the lock clicked in place and we headed down the hall.
Dan led me down the spiral staircase and out the building entrance, where we stood for a moment appreciating the rain falling on top of the overhang and I felt like I was drowning even though the puddles only soaked an inch or so of my boots. Everything seemed so simple, because the only thing that mattered was sticking out your tongue and scrunching up your nose when the drops landed everywhere but your lips and seeped through the warm fuzzy sleeves.
Dan looked like he was having the time of his life; spinning in lazy circles and his arms outstretched in the swampy mess of overwatered flowers and jumping from puddle to puddle like the areas without pooled water had become lava. And all I could think about after lava was planted in my head was fire. Fire that burned down bridges and ravaged through towns like it was nothing.
Daniel Howell was a fire rushing across the field, ready to burn anything in sight with no regards simply because there was no stopping him. And I was the small wooden house at the other end of the field, watching the monster grow closer but never distancing myself away from it in the slightest hopes I could be able to slow down the inevitable flames and possibly grab a hold of them to create something beautiful from the wreckage while they lasted. Because losing 56 people can do something to you, and it had happened to him and it was only a matter of time before his fire sparked and he became dangerous.
And all of a sudden he stopped running and shivered, sighing loudly and coughing up air. Every breath he let out froze, suspended for a moment before disappearing never to be seen again. He turned to me sadly with the rain colouring his jacket to a darker shade and then to the bench right next to him, which he lightly patted with his sweater paws and unsuccessfully attempted to wipe off the water so he could sit on a dry spot. As I got closer, he shoved his hands in his pockets like I had done and flopped down on the seat without a care in the world, eyes shut and face turned up to the blank sky. So I sat next to him, trying to ignore the fact that my jeans were probably soaking up all the water on the seat and that my boots were starting to fill up with endless drops from the sky.
"We have paper hearts." Dan muttered, barely heard over the roar of the rain. He sat up but didn't remove his back from the bench. "They're like cardboard, with forever changing shades and a representation of everything love is. They are also easily crumpled and lost, torn apart and replaced by a paper heart with prettier colours."
He slid down slightly, and didn't even bother to look at me for a reply. Not that I could've provided one, but I felt like that time would've been a good moment to respond. If it was even possible, it started raining harder.
"And when you've loved as many people as I have, Phil, you run out of paper hearts, no matter how badly you need more for one last person. And I wished I saved that last heart. Not because I wanted to pass it on to someone either, but because it seems like it would be a great accomplishment to realise you've still got one little heart left after losing them all."
I couldn't answer him because there was no way I'd ever be able to outthink his words out of pure fear they'd be replaced in my mind, because I didn't want to forget those words even if I never saw him again after today. Yet I decided to speak up anyways.
"Is it better to have them all or lose them all?"
Dan frowned, deep in thought already, and stuffed his hands further in his pockets, watching a small flower drift through a tiny river created by the running water.
"It's better to keep them all, because then you'd never have gotten hurt in the first place."
YOU ARE READING
Paper Hearts (Phan)
Fanfic-NOT MINE- All credit goes to the original author, imaginary-numbers This is just a rewrite of the original story about a different ship so all I changed was (most of) the characters and the American to British stuff. I rewrote this for my best fri...
