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I sighed contently, stretching my arms and looking at the sky. I was lying there, alone, watching the stars from your favourite hill. They were bright today, just how you liked it. The fiery balls were swirling around in the skies, they always looked so good in your paintings. Everything looked good in your paintings, even I did, but the stars were always my favourite part. I especially liked it when you painted them, your hand moving around in elegant circles as you drew line after line after line.
I propped myself up on my elbows and lifted my head, looking down at the bright and busy city from the green hills. I knew your house was down there, somewhere. I resisted the urge to run to it, knowing you weren’t there anyway. You were here with me, you always are.
I dropped back to the ground when my arms grew tired, spreading them. I turned my head, breathing in the smell as the blades of grass tickled my nose. My fingers trailed through the dirt, feeling every grain bumping against my fingertips. The swirls reminded me of the first time I had ever watched you paint. I smiled.
That was certainly one of the best decisions in my life.
Phil really didn’t know what motivated him to go into the tiny art gallery. Maybe it was the charm of such a small building in the huge city. Or maybe it was because of the cute brown-haired boy he caught a glimpse of earlier when he peered into the building. It wasn’t like it mattered anyway, he couldn’t turn back after my hand pushed against the wooden door.
The bell rang softly through the gallery, the sound bouncing of the walls. Phil blinked a few times, his eyes adjusting to the unexpected darkness. There weren’t many windows in the building and the chestnut colour theme didn’t reflect what little light there was. He looked around the small room, feeling nervous under the gaze of so many unmoving eyes. The dust twirled around in the sunbeams as Phil looked around for the brown-haired boy. He didn’t see him anywhere.
“Hello?” Phil asked. “Is anyone here?”
He shifted when the room stayed silent. Maybe the gallery wasn’t even open to customers. Phil walked to the side of the room, the noise his footsteps made echoing through the room. The paintings he saw were dark, angry people sitting around a table with just potatoes. A painting of a little boy with a tear streaming down his half-torn face caught his attention. He shivered. It was horrible to look at, such a little boy being violated of his innocence. He couldn’t imagine how it felt.
“Wait there,” a voice suddenly yelled from the back, “I’ll be there in a second.”
He looked around, startled, to identify the source of the voice, but he couldn’t see anyone. He presumed it was the boy from before, he hadn’t seen anyone else in here. His eyes caught sight of a door, half opened. The scent of paint was flowing from the opening, and you could hear the creaking of floor boards.
Phil followed the trail of light coming from the opening, the dust swirling away. He heard the noises get louder, as if someone was doing it more passionate. When he reached the door he brushed against the door handle with his hand, the cold metal making him hiss quietly. Should he go in? The boy had told him to stay, after all.
Before he could rethink his decision he pushed against the door with his hand, fully opening it to see a boy with curly hair. He had a palette in his right hand, blue and grey shades splattered all over it. The paint was gleaming in the sunlight, only making way for the soft hairs of a paintbrush.
He followed the paintbrush with his eyes watching how it gently pressed down on the canvas, creating blue lines on it. The swirls were complex, way too complex for him to understand, but he tried to anyway.
His eyes trailed up the paintbrush, coming to rest at the boy’s hair. The swirls on the canvas were reflected on the boy’s head, the curls twisting and turning the same way the paint did. The different shades of brown merged perfectly and Phil wondered if he’d ever be able to paint a thing as beautiful as those swirls. He stepped forward a little, the floorboards creaking under his weight.
The boy flinched, his back tensing and the swirls in his hair moving. He turned around, swinging the paintbrush about, making paint fly in all directions. He looked at Phil with wide eyes, the blue colours of the paint stuck in his hair, making it stick together.
“What are you doing here?” the boy shouted. “I told you to wait outside! Are you deaf?”
Phil blushed and looked down, rubbing his feet against each other. The denim of his jeans rustled slightly, as if trying to break the tense atmosphere the boy had created. Phil looked up through his lashes, trying to steal a glance. The boy’s eyes were boring into him, a raging fire burning in their depths.
“I’m sorry,” Phil muttered, “I didn’t mean to do it. I was just curious. I hope I didn’t offend you.”
The boy’s eyes softened, turning into the same shade as his hair. The blue paint slowly dripped down the boy’s face, contrasting with his tan complexion.
“It’s fine,” the boy mumbled, a gentle smile taking over his features, “I shouldn’t have yelled. You just surprised me.”
Phil hesitantly smiled back, his eyes crinkling around the corners. He saw the boy’s eyes drift over to them swiftly, but the boy corrected himself and looked down at his tattered sneakers. Phil followed his gaze, looking at the intricate pattern of paint flecks on them.
“Don’t worry,” Phil smiled. “I won’t hold it against you.”
The boy’s gaze shot back up to Phil’s eyes and Phil looked back with an unwavering stare. The boy’s cheeks began to colour, a shade of pink dusting over them and Phil smiled.
“I’m Phil by the way,” he stated suddenly, saving the boy from any further embarassment. “Phil Lester.”
The boy’s pink lips silently formed the words, as if trying out how it sounded. Phil smiled and held out his hand, waiting patiently for the boy to shake it back.
“I’m Dan,” the boy spoke. “Dan Howell.”
Dan grabbed Phil’s hand and Phil almost gasped. Dan’s hand was warm, warmer than he expected, and the callouses from moving equipment and canvases felt rough against his palm. He looked down at their hands, seeing their skin tones mingling together. When he looked back up, Dan was looking at him, his eyes warm and welcoming.
Coming to the art gallery was beginning to look like a good idea.
I fell in love with you in that moment you know? Seeing you paint was good enough to steal my heart, being you just made me love you more. You’re absolutely perfect.
You always think you are as worthless as the grains of dirt, undistinguishable from the others and insignificant. You aren’t to me though. I cling unto like you’re my only hope. In a way you are, just like I was yours sometimes. I was your paintings’ only hope too, most of the time.
“You shouldn’t be ashamed of them or throw them away,” Phil muttered. “They’re really good you know?”
Phil stood in front of the painting of the boy that had captured his attention a few days ago, observing the intricacy of the painting with the wonder of a child. He brushed his fingers over the canvas, the ridges of dried paint bumping against his finger pads. It was incredible to see how all these singular strokes made one complex entirety. The attention to detail was fascinating, he could count the portrayed boy’s eyelashes, all the black lines forming a tangle of fine hairs. He dragged his fingers downward, over the boy’s cheek to the tear rolling down his face. Phil’s fingers lingered there, wondering if the tear had some significance.
“Back off,” Dan hissed suddenly. Phil pulled his hands back, scared by Dan’s sudden outburst. He put his hands up in defense, his muscles protesting after having stayed still for so long. He looked at Dan’s eyes, seeing the protective glint in them. “And no they’re not. I suck at painting.”
Phil frowned. In the few days he’d known Dan, he’d also discovered the considerable lack of self-esteem he had seemed to gather in his few years. He’d thought it was a joke at first, that Dan wasn’t serious when he said his paintings were horrible, but it turned out he was. What was even worse than that, however, was that Dan, the boy with the intricate curls, didn’t like himself. Now that, Phil thought, was completely and entirely unacceptable.
“No you don’t, ” Phil defended, scoffing a bit, “and if you won’t admit it I’ll be forced to take drastic measures.”
Dan grinned at Phil’s response, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and he sat down on the table behind him. He wiped his dirty hands on his jeans, his long fingers stroking softly over the fabric, making blue spots appear on the black denim. His curls bounced against his head and Phil watched them, mesmerised by their complicated pattern.
“If I may ask, sir Philip, what drastic measures were you planning on using?” Dan joked, his eyes shining with a mischievous twinkle.
Phil smirked, one corner of his mouth turning up. He’d found that the one thing Dan enjoyed besides painting endlessly was banter, and Phil was more than willing to give him just that. It made Phil feel closer to Dan, closer than he’d already felt since he walked in on Dan painting. It wasn’t, however, close enough in his opinion.
“Well Sir Daniel,” Phil spoke in Dan’s voice, trying to mock him, “I was referring to my awful drawing skills.”
Dan laughed, the sound reverberating through the gallery. Dan had an awfully loud laugh, one Phil was sure would wake his neighbours at night. Phil didn’t mind though, especially not since whenever Dan laughed, his nose would crinkle and his eyes would shine like the stars Dan liked to paint.
“Seriously though,” Phil added, “don’t throw them away. They’re beautiful.”
Dan looked down, his curls brushing over the pink tint beginning to cover his cheeks, like he had started to colour them with a pencil. Phil laughed, the fact that Dan thought he could hide his mortification was endearing.
“Okay,” Dan whispered, looking up again with a different twinkle in his eyes. “If you like them I won’t.”
Your reluctance to even admit you liked someone, whether it be friendly or more, was one of your traits I enjoyed a lot. Making you blush just gave me a certain sense of satisfaction, especially in the beginning, when I still thought you were calm and collected. I did, however, soon learn that was not the case.
There were a lot of things I still haven’t learn though, which is quite a shame. I never learned about your fascination of stars, for example. Not that I minded, you painted them more beautiful than they were in reality. I didn’t mind that whenever I looked up at the stars I could think of you either.
What I did mind was what I learned after that. That were the things that made your stars go away, which haunted you in the night. It hunted you down, but it could never catch you, just like the grass that moved fruitlessly after the wind against my arms.
Phil smiled as he walked over the snow, the flakes crisping against his feet. The colour made reminded him of the canvases Dan used, snowy linen land painted with colourful daffodils. Dan could always capture them so well, the flowers on the hills outside of town. Nothing could surpass Dan’s stars though. They were the best part, both in paintings and in Dan himself.
“Where’s your boyfriend now, fairy boy?” a voice suddenly shouted, booming through the streets. Phil turned around, his attention no longer captured by the pale snow. As he moved onward he started to hear sounds, flowing like the paint from Dan’s paintbrush.
A person was lying on the ground, crushed and broken on the virgin snow. It was to dark to see who it was, but Phil pitied the guy. He’d been bullied enough in secondary school to know how that felt, lying helplessly on the ground with no one around to save you.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” the person muttered, shifting slightly. Vivid red hues were starting to leak down onto the pavement, colouring the stones. Phil swallowed. The tangy scent of metal in the air was making him nauseous.
“It doesn’t matter, it isn’t like he liked you or your paintings anyway. Nobody does. You’re a freak, you don’t belong here,” the apparent leader yelled again, kicking the person in the stomach again. He coughed, blood dripping down from his mouth. Phil frowned. Paintings? They weren’t talking about Dan, were they?
“You shouldn’t have come here in the first place Daniel, nobody wants you. You should just leave.”
The guy kicked against his skull, an awful sound echoing through the alley. The person whimpered, before going limp, like he was giving up. Phil gulped. They were talking about Dan - his Dan, the wonderful, incredible guy who painted beautiful things. He couldn’t stand to see it anymore, so he ran forward, charging at the gang hurting Dan.
“What are you doing?” he yelled, sounding more confident than he was. His voice resonated through the dark alley, making everyone look at him. The leader smirked, his yellowed teeth visible between his lips. Phil shivered. He didn’t like the way they were looking at him.
“Hey look, it’s your boyfriend,” the guy whispered to Dan. “Want to see how we hurt him?”
Phil knew he shouldn’t have done this, but he couldn’t just leave Dan there. Dan craned his neck, looking up at him like the boy in the painting, with a single tear streaming down his face. He was covered in blood, his curls sticking together. Phil ran to him, cradling Dan’s head in his lap. He stroked Dan’s hair, the normally soft curls feeling hard with dried blood.
“Phil,” Dan whispered, and Phil felt Dan’s breath fly over his face. “Go. Please.”
Dan was wheezing, his breathing sounding a lot harsher than it should. His chest was heaving against Phil’s legs, a rumble resonating through them every time Dan exhaled.Phil smiled, a tear rolling down his face. “Stupid,” he whisperd, kissing Dan’s forehead. “I’m not leaving without you Dan.”
“Aw, look how cute they are,” the leader said menacingly. “Too bad we’re still here.”
He charged at Phil, knocking him down to the ground. Phil gasped, the air leaving his lungs. His ears were ringing.
“Phil!” Dan screamed. Phil blinked, trying to look at Dan, but all he could see was a blur of brown, kicking and screaming as someone held him down. Phil stood up on shaky legs, shaking his head to get rid of the red clouding his vision.
“Look how cute guys,” the leader mocked, “the fairy thinks he’s standing a chance against us.”
Phil huffed. Suddenly he was glad his mum had made him take self-defense lessons. He put his leg back and swung forward, channeling all the ringing and redness in his head through the punch. He quickly grabbed his knuckles after he hit, blowing on them.
The leader looked surprised as he slid down, looking completely unconscious and joining Dan in laying in the red pool.
“You will not lay a finger on him again. Do you understand?” Phil hissed, looking at the rest of the gang. They ran away as fast as they could.
“Are you okay?” Phil asked when he sat Dan down on his bed. Dan looked so tiny, curling up in his sheets. He couldn’t really bring himself to care when Dan smeared blood all over them.
“I’m fine,” Dan muttered, looking at Phil’s wallpaper. There was nothing on his walls, except for the blue-green stripes. Phil thought it was a bit empty. He’d wanted to buy one of Dan’s paintings, one with stars.
“Are you sure?” Phil asked, concerned. “It looked like they were really-”
Dan flinched, turning away and hiding his face into the sheets. He cried silent tears, the colours becoming darker the more water came into contact with it. He almost smiled because of the irony.
“I’m fine Phil,” Dan hissed.
Phil sat down on the bed, sighing. He stared at his walls, at the blankness they portrayed and how they seemed to close in on him.
“Okay,” Phil breathed.
He trailed his fingers of the the soft edges of his matress, smoothing down the creases in the fabric. Phil felt out of place here, even if it was his own room. The silence was suffocating, closing in on them like the colourful bedroom walls, waiting to be broken by a noise, some sign of life in this madness of feelings and swirling colours.
“Why did you help me?” Dan whispered brokenly, his voice muffled by the fabric of the sheets. Dan’s voice broke halfway through, the tears inside of him flowing out with no means of stopping. It broke Phil’s heart, to see Dan - his Dan - like that, so much intense pain but Phil couldn’t stop it. It was like blue trying to mix with red without forming purple, completely impossible, and Phil knew it, so he just sat there on his bed with his back turned to Dan, trying not to break himself.
“Because you’re my friend,” Phil muttered, letting his useless words flow into the empty room. It was heartbreaking, seeing Dan’s world crumble around him, and him just being a spectator to Dan’s demise was killing him. Dan’s silent tears were even worse, making the room achingly silent
“How long have they been doing this?” Phil asked, desperate to break the tense quietness in the room. He was worried about the answer, worried about what they’d been doing to Dan when he hadn’t been there.
“Two years now,” Dan breathed through his tears. “But they were right. I am a freak.”
Phil breathed in, desperate tears starting to roll down his face. He shook his head, his hair bouncing softly against his temples. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t. He dug his nails into his palms, feeling a trickle of blood sliding through his fingers.
“Dan, listen to me,” Phil cried. “You’re not.”
Dan shifted, the fabric of the sheets brushing against his jeans. He turned over on his side, watching Phil’s back tremble like leaves in the wind. He felt awful, knowing he’d made Phil cry like that, but he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it.
“You don’t understand,” Dan whispered. “I am. You just haven’t seen it yet. I’m a horrible, terrible person and you’ll hate me eventua-”
Phil turned around, looking despairingly in Dan’s eyes. He couldn’t bear to hear Dan say that, not when Phil thought he was perfect and beautiful and Phil might have a little crush on him. He grabbed Dan’s chin, his other hand coming up to wipe away the tear that had been permanently fixed there like paint. He bit his lip, looking down.
“Don’t say that,” Phil stammered. “I love you.”
He heard Dan gasp, his mind reeling with shock. He didn’t just tell Dan that, he couldn’t have. He’d ruined everything now, he would become like the boy in the portrait, perpetually sad because of something he lost. Suddenly he felt calloused fingers gliding softly against his jaw, guiding his blue, teary eyes upwards to the brown stars.
“Thank you,” Dan murmured, his breathing flowing over Phil’s face. Phil shivered, bringing his lips closer to Dan’s. Dan’s lips were the same shade of pink as his cheeks, Phil noted, a colour he had always thought of as wonderful. His eyes flicked back to Dan’s, as if asking for permission. When Phil looked into Dan’s eyes once again, his expression was intense, almost threatening.
For a moment, Phil thought Dan might be angry, but before Phil could ponder it further, Dan yanked Phil to him and covered Phil’s mouth with his in a hungry kiss. Dan’s mouth was warm, the caress of his lips softer than the fine hairs of a paintbrush gliding against a canvas. Dan tasted slightly like blood, but Phil couldn’t bring himself to care. He buried his hand in Dan’s curls, twirling them around in his fingers as their lips moved against each other. Phil bit Dan’s lower lip and Dan groaned, opening his mouth slightly. Phil soothed the spot by licking over it.
A hand pushed abruptly at Phil’s chest, prompting him to lean back and end the kiss. He looked over at Dan, worried he might have done something wrong, but Dan smiled and shook his head.
“You didn’t do anything wrong Phil, don’t worry,” Dan reassured him. “You did everything right. That was the problem.”
I kissed you that night. And you kissed me back. I think that was the one moment in my life where I felt such intense happiness. I was so worried you would reject, but you didn’t.
I still wasn’t enough though. I knew I wouldn’t be, but I still tried. Your first breakdown was scary, I was so afraid you were going to off yourself. You didn’t, luckily, but it still scared me to see you like that. You were always so calm, even when you were angry. That time, you weren’t.
“They won’t listen Phil,” Dan screamed, throwing canvases at the floor. “No one cares.”
Dan was so beautiful, Phil thought. So incredibly beautiful, but he didn’t think he was enough. Even when the tears streamed down his face, his curls sticking together from the sweat, he was beautiful.
Beautiful was never enough.
“Don’t say that Dan,” Phil murmured. “Of course they do.”
Dan screamed, dropping to his knees and burying his head in his hands, tugging on his hair. Phil rushed to him, worried he might hurt himself. He already had, judging by the dark red lines running over his arms. His nails dropped to his arms, digging into the soft flesh. Phil clasped them, running his thumbs over the back.
Liquid velvet rolled down Dan’s arms, flowing through Phil’s fingers like the paint Dan used to paint his stars.
“They don’t. Nobody understands. I’m alone,” Dan whispered softly into the seemingly neverending void of nothingness.
Phil flinched, the scorching hot trails of tears burning marks into his skin. How could Dan not see how much he meant to Phil. He was everything.
“I’m here, I care,” Phil muttered into Dan’s curls. Dan made a broken sound, slumping against Phil. Phil’s heart started to break, the cracks in them getting more and more painful, as if Dan had taken the stars of the painting lying on the ground and burned them into Phil’s heart.
“You don’t count.”
It broke my heart, seeing you like that. It reminded me of the boy I saw in the painting, which I had eventually deduced was you. You when you were bullied, you when your parents died, you when I wasn’t there to save you from yourself. You when you walked through the stretching emptiness of the world, which was barely enough to contain the sadness of a single wandering soul trying to find some sort of purpose to this endless, supposedly enjoyable fall called life that inevitably kills you. You when you carried all the sadness of the world in your heart, when the burden of unshed tears became too much.
I’m not going to lie, I did pity you in the beginning. I thought you were so young and so, so incredibly sad. I thought you didn’t deserve it all. I quickly figured out you didn’t want my pity, you just wanted someone to love you, like no one ever had. And I did.
For a moment I soothed the torment in your head, like your hands lovingly glided over the pain-stricken faces you painted. We reached the stars and further then, and I will never forget the way you looked when you realised you finally saw the blinding light you dreamt about.
I failed though, like I knew I would. We both knew, but we were looking for something, anything to hold onto. That was, until you decided to take the plunge and I was too terrified to follow you.
The neon lights from the billboards made Phil’s eyes hurt, the intensity almost burning. He didn’t care though, he’d gladly take blindness and not being able to see Dan’s paintings anymore over what Dan was about to do any day. He looked around the square, trying to find swirling brown curls on someone’s head. There was no way he’d be too late, he couldn’t be. He’d promised Dan he cared, that he’d always be there for him. He wasn’t about to fail in keeping that promise.
“Oh my god,” a woman screamed. “Get down from there!”
Phil turned his head, looking in the general direction of the scream to find waves of brown hair blending in with the stars, looking like one of Dan’s paintings. There, on top of that building, was Dan - his Dan - about to jump off a building. Phil knew why, he knew he’d never be enough to take away the pain of being so incredibly alone, he just wished he could’ve tried.
Phil ran to the building, his footsteps seeming to echo through the square. He ran as fast as he could, until his legs burned and his head began to swim. It wasn’t fast enough, he had to go faster, he had to save Dan.
“Dan,” Phil shouted, his lungs protesting, “please don’t do this! It’s not your fault they won’t listen! They don’t know how! Please stop this!”
He saw Dan’s head snap up, looking down at him while his curls blew wildly in the wind, framing his head like a halo. Phil had always thought Dan was an angel, he just never thought Dan would try to fly some day.
‘I’m sorry,’ Dan mouthed, his pink lips forming the words.
Phil shook his head. This couldn’t be happening. He needed Dan, he couldn’t leave. He watched, mortified, as Dan stepped over the edge, never once closing his eyes.
Phil made sure the last thing Dan would see, would be blue, his favourite colour.
I brought my hand up to wipe away a tear rolling down my face, leaving a scorching hot trail in its wake. I smiled faintly. No matter how many years had passed, the memory of you still made me cry.
I could feel your hands on me like you were still here, and you were. You were always with me, you never left, not for me. I never found another partner after you. Sometimes I wished I never would’ve met you, maybe then I wouldn’t be so lonely. My heart always clenched at that thought, I was unable to let you die.
I raked my hand through my grey hair, trailing it over my wrinkled face. According to my friends I hadn’t changed much in the last 50 years, apart from the wrinkles and grey hair. I hoped you would still know my name if I saw you in heaven.
I opened my eyes, staring up at the stars, at you. “Dan,” I muttered, “if you can hear me, please know that I still love you.”
A warm gust of wind blew across my face, feeling almost like a caress. I smiled, more tears escaping from my blue eyes.
“Dan,” I sighed as I stood up from my spot in the grass. I smiled brighter when I looked down at the glowing city bustling with life again. You could still see the art gallery from here, even if it had decayed over time.
I spread my arms, the wind blowing through them again.
“This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”