Colors (Phan AU)

thirteen

"By the way," Dan said to Phil, "thanks for coming with me."

They were sitting in Dan's car, parked on the side of the road in front of Chris's house. Only one car was parked in the driveway, which Dan guessed was Chris's mom's car.

Dan looked over at Phil, who nodded as if to say "let's go". So they both got out of the car walked across the pavement that lead to the front porch. They stood in front of the door, scared to knock.

"Come on," Phil said. "We've spoken to her before. She's nice, remember? It'll be okay." Phil glanced over at Dan and then knocked on the door. Dan glared at him as if he'd just murdered someone. Phil rolled his eyes.

A few moments later, Chris's mom opened the door. "Oh hello boys!" She smiled widely, her perfectly white teeth showing. "I haven't seen you two in forever!"

Dan cleared his throat. They weren't there for small talk. "We want to look through Chris's belongings, if that's okay with you?"

She looked slightly offended, but smiled anyway. "I'm sure he won't mind. I haven't touched anything in his room, so it's all exactly how he left it."

Chris's mom welcomed them in and lead them to Chris's room. She then went to do chores around the house, leaving Dan and Phil alone to search their friend's bedroom. The room smelled just like Chris, Dan noticed.

"Alright," Dan said, " where do we start?"

Phil shrugged. "His laptop, maybe?"

Dan nodded and grabbed Chris's laptop from off of the floor and sat on the bed. The Winnie The Pooh sticker Dan put on the laptop months ago was still there. Dan smiled when he saw it, remembering that moment.

Dan had been sleeping over with Chris during the summer before school started. Dan had had the sticker in his back pocket and when he got up off of the bed, it fell out of his pocket.

"What's this?" Chris asked as he reached out to grab it. He looked at the sticker and giggled. On the sticker sat Winnie happily eating a jar of honey. "This is cute."

Dan felt embarrassed for a moment but quickly got over it. "You can have it if you want."

Chris looked at Dan with a smile on his face. "No thanks. I'm not really into Winnie The Pooh."

But later that night when Chris had fallen asleep, Dan put the sticker on Chris's laptop, right below the keyboard. Dan hoped the Winnie sticker would remind Chris of him every time he opened his laptop.

"Dan? You okay?" Phil's voice brought Dan back to reality.

"Yeah, yeah. Phil, why don't you go ahead and look through his drawers?" Dan suggested. He scrolled through the pictures on the laptop while Phil dug in the dresser drawers.

Dan found nothing of interest in the pictures, so he looked through the documents next. Nothing but school assignments. The web history was the last thing Dan checked. Chris had obviously cleared the history, as there was nothing to be found.

The drawers Phil looked through contained clothes, nothing more. Both Dan and Phil were bummed because they found nothing. They then began looking in every place they could think of. They looked under the bed and mattress. Nothing. After searching in the closet, they found nothing. They even checked the underside of Chris's desk, and still nothing.

"Dan," Phil said sadly. "I don't think we are going to find anything."

Dan was digging through the dresser drawers again like he wouldn't stop until he found something besides clothes in them. He had almost become obsessed with searching the room. He muttered, "there's got to be something."

He slammed the drawer shut and said almost at a yell, "there's got to be something. Chris would've left a note or something for me."

He started walking towards the bathroom that was connected to the bedroom. His feet made soft sounds against the wood flooring until

Creak!

Dan stopped in his tracks. He turned to look at Phil, who had also stopped moving.

"Phil do you think..." Dan trailed off as he stared down at the floor.

"Maybe," was all Phil said. Dan stood on one end of the creaking board so the other would rise. Phil then moved the end of the board, uncovering a small hole under the floorboard. The hole wasn't very large; if Dan were to put his foot in it, it'd barely fit. Inside the hole was a neatly folded note.

Phil unfolded the note and handed it to Dan. "It's addressed to you."

Dan took the note and began to read it.

Dear Dan,

I'm so so sorry. I never wanted to do it. I never wanted to do any of it. I was forced to. I just want you to know that I love you, and so did Caspar and Pj. I'll admit I was jealous, but I regret everything. Please, Dan, forgive me, that's all I ask of you. I'm so sorry.

Trust me, you'll move on. When you do, just know I never meant it.

Xoxo, Chris

The note fell from Dan's hands as soon as he finished reading it. His knees felt as if they were going to give out and tears threatened to sneak out of his eyes. He covered his mouth with one of his hands and stared at the note on the ground as if it was a person he'd accidentally murdered. His whole body was shaking as his vision went blurry due to the tears that were then streaming down his face.

Phil pulled Dan into a hug, hoping to comfort him. Dan just wiggled away from Phil's arms and stormed out of the room. He headed downstairs and out of the house with Phil following behind. Dan ended up by his car and fell to the ground in tears.

He wondered if he should end his suffering like Chris did.