Phan oneshot collection

An ancient curse

Genre: angsty fluff inspired by a post I saw on tumblr and a bit weird but roll with it and you will be fine.

Word count: 3882



I was cold, I was hungry, and I was still alone. It had been 6 years since I had been split. I shouldn't complain, this happens to everyone, it's just, most find their half faster than me.


It has been 6 years since I have been able to eat, able to breathe, stuck in the shadows. I lost them at 16, my body just shut off and then suddenly when I woke up, they weren't there. They were gone, and I just felt so lost without them.


That's why I am huddled here in this damp corner at night, only dark feelings pulsing through my body. Anger, cold, hunger, heartbreak. I wanted my half back.


I should probably explain a little more. My name is Phil. I don't have a middle or last name, well at least I don't remember it. To start with, humanity was created from an old Greek legend where there were once two people who joined together to be in love forever. But one day Zeus's daughter Aphrodite got jealous. She had taken fancy to a mortal who was in love with another, so deeply that they had joined together to become one. They were the first, and Aphrodite had a temper when things didn't go her way, especially when none of the tricks had worked on the mortal. She tried using her looks, her charm, bribes, weak spells and anything she could but it would not work on the man. Once others saw the bond these two had shared the humans started finding their own soulmates, and becoming a single person. But with 2 heads instead of one, and control over half the body each. Like I used to be.


Some had said those few years had been glorious, but the sad thing was how cunning and viscous a goddess can be when she doesn't get her way. Aphrodite cast a spell on her mortal love, so that his other half died, and he was then only half a human, hardly breathing alone, forced to carry the weight of his dead love wherever he went. What wasn't known was that his sadness would spread to anyone who touched this broken soul, and that happened to be a young person, a 16 year old boy and girl, who used to be joined, but as soon as a comforting hand laid again the lone man's shoulder, a flash of light spread over the world, and when they young boy woke up, his female half was gone.


And so, the curse age was set, making sure all humans would feel the suffering Aphrodite had felt when she was not loved back, the suffering the man who lost his true half felt for part of their lives, simply because someone tried to comfort him.


I wish it had at least been someone older, I would have got to spend more time with my own half.


If you were wondering, the boy found his girl soon later. She was lucky enough to be only a city over in Athens, and as soon as he saw her, he ran to her, and as soon as they embraced, they were one once again, only this time, in two separate bodies, but fully alive. So that's the human race at the moment, continued for centuries bringing love and despair on everyone who lives.


I hate to say that not everyone does live. I said before that we were half living as we are part of another person, so only half of us is conscious, we only live when we rejoin with our love. But although we aren't truly alive, we can still die. We are more like a vessel, an empty shell containing only bad feelings until we are reunited. It's a horrific fact that some people commit suicide over the matter because they can't take anymore of feeling so hopeless and alone. This only happens in the worst consequences, as it is known that when one half dies, the other does too. Never one without the other. Maybe they would get to be together in the afterlife though, that would at least be a slight good outcome. I have thought about it sometimes myself actually. I wish I hadn't, but sometimes i feel like it would just be easier than having the keep looking before I can hopefully see my other half. I know I won't though, as I can't kill my soulmate, I physically wouldn't be able to do it. So I am going to keep looking.


I am at the half stage, where I have lost my love and my memory has been blanked, and all I feel is the suffering. Half alive, no goodness inside of me. I don't get pity though. Sometimes I meet people like me who are also trying to find their half, but I never stay with them, because the last few times I found someone and travelled with them, they always found their halves while I was there, and I was left alone again. You get abandoned as soon as this happens, and honestly, it's shit. I have been around all of Britain and still not found them. I have been across the world, and I still haven't found them. So I am back in London, huddling in the corner wishing I could feel warmth so when the sun rises and I can restart my search I won't feel so alone, have some comfort. But I can't. And I am just so tired of searching.


The worst part is that I have been away for so long, they will look different. My hair is now black from sadness I carry, and my eyes pale like tears. The only thing I can remember of them is a flicker of brown, and their laugh.


Sometimes when I think about that laugh, I feel like I can actually feel something other than hatred, but it is always gone a second after. The only time I can feel happy is in my dreams. And mine are always nightmares.


*****


The cold sun blinks my eyes awake. I stretch out and feel the coolness along one of my sides and my heart tinge as I wince. Oh did I not mention, I have no heart. And neither does my other half, wherever they are. I don't get it back until I can share it with them again, and I won't feel the warmth from it or anything until I do that. So I have no choice but to keep looking, even if it takes me my life and I only have one remaining minute with my love.


Standing up is always tricky in the morning, but I get up, and start walking towards the park, seeing no one around. It's only dawn, of course no one would be up. Unless they were like me.


I wish there was some easy way of finding my half, like I could feel it if they were near to me, like the same city or something. There have been rumours that when you are near your half you get dragged closer like a magnet, but I haven't felt it before. Apparently its only short distance too. But I still follow my feet, just in case. They haven't walked me to them yet.


This would be so much easier if I knew what they looked like. Considering all I remember is something brown, which I think was their hair and their smile, it won't get me far. I doubt my other half would be laughing though, so literally all I have to go on is the colour brown. Well that's great isn't it? I throw myself down into a bench by a pond. I hardly remember London, even if I grew up here. Its incredibly stupid that I have all my background information (apart from some of my name) but none of what I need. I pick a newspaper up from the bench and throw it angrily into the water. I watch as the paper fades translucent and slowly sinks and disappears. The only thing I read off it before it is devoured is the date. 3rd of December. Happy birthday to me. Or just birthday, as this is not fucking happy at all, I don't even know the feeling anymore, it was wiped along with my most important memories.


It has now been 7 years since I have been looking, and I need to find them before I go insane.


This is also my one day to pray. One prayer per year in the hope Aphrodite will take pity on me. I close my eyes and think deeply.


Please help me goddess Aphrodite. I know I can offer you nothing and you are unlikely to listen, but just please. I need my other half. 7 years today is strainful, and I really don't know if I can last. And I need to for them. So please, fucking please, send me a sign, send them to me.


I open my eyes and sigh, of course she won't hear me, or probably bother. I stand up and begin to walk, but a cannonball of images flood my mind, and I loose thought.


Tall figure, dark brown hair, chestnut eyes, light tan skin, male. His lips still the same, but youth gone, replaced with sadness and longing from dark shadows under his eyes. Also dark clothes and black backpack. And his name, is Dan.


My eyes flash open and I feel something stretching my lips, curving them upwards. I think it's a smile. I haven't felt one in a long time. One of the half positive emotions we can feel is hope, which can either be heavenly, like how it is to me now, or deadly, for when it crumbles around me. This curse was really meant to hurt, Aphrodite must have really loved this man.


I shut my eyes and pray a thank you to my goddess and begin to walk towards the centre of the city, hoping maybe to see his face there. Dan's face.


*****


It has been 3 months and I am still looking for Dan. I am starting to think maybe Aphrodite played a trick on me, but I hope for hell she isn't that cruel. I am in India now, and it's valentines day. I wish I could celebrate it with him, just like I do every past year we have been apart. But I know one day I will be able to. I can almost feel it.


*****


2 months after India and I am trying Florida. I have been to china as well. I remembered that I went there with my parents, so I'm guessing Dan could be there too. Every time I hear his name in my head it feels like honey has washed over my tongue, an undetectable sweetness smothering it and I shiver.


The problem with anywhere in America is that it's so big, I might miss him and he be a street away. But hopefully if he was, I would be able to follow my partially blind senses and be with him instantly. Cross fingers. I have already tried most of the places I remember meant a lot to me, and the Disney studios were interesting, I used to like those films a lot I think. I need to keep moving around though, there is still so much of this country left to search.


*****


Not in Vegas.


******


I have now been to about half the states in America. There is quite a lot to see and it is all fascinating but nothing compared to what it would be like to see Dan. Oh well, only 26 states down, a hell lot more to go.


*****

Last stop in America is New York. I know it wasn't the most logical geographically, but it seemed right. And I have only been following my feet. I am walking along the busy streets towards the centre of the whole city now I think. Time square. I am trying not to look at any couples that walk past too. It feels a bit like my chest is being stabbed when I do, a knife plunged where a heart should be, but nothing is, so the pain comes, and I just keep living. I turn a corner and there it is. The centre of it all. Huge billboards are advertising everywhere and there are so many people I can't help but look around in awe. Everything is so amazing, and shines so brightly. I take I step back and suddenly am pushed roughly and my head makes contact with the concrete floor, cracking loudly. I suddenly feel heat dripping from my forehead slowly and I try and raise a hand to it as shrieks erupt around m. My vision blurs and my hand falls, and my mind turns black.


*****


"Is he awake?"
"I don't know, he's breathing though, maybe he can hear us."
I groan loudly and I head quiet gasps. I slowly open my eyes and see random faces above me, but not the one I dream for. It's never him. I sit up slowly sighing to the sounds of people telling me to take it easy, but I can't. Everyone has disappeared. A dark figure under the largest board is the only thing around, and suddenly I am up, walking, running towards it as it gets closer, the back of the one person I have wanted to find my entire life.


My Dan.


I yell his name, my voice breaking with effort as I feel more red drip down my face into my eyes and he spins around, his mouth forming an 'o' before his eyes widen and a smile catches on his mouth. I am hardly a few metres away, before my vision is blurring once again, and I can hardly see anything, only the dark. I can hardly think, my body is collapsing. I trip, and feel myself fly at the floor feeling my skull split. I don't get the feeling of peace I have heard people feel before death. I feel hatred and heartbreak.


I never got to tell him.


*****


White blinds me. An endless scream is filling my ears but it's not my own, or thank the gods my love. It sounds like a woman's. A high pitched shriek as a new feeling starts pulsing through my body. My lips tingle as heat surges through them, searing hot as it flows through my skin, slowly crawling into my chest where it suddenly feels like a drum has been placed inside, and my heart beats.


I flick my eyes open to see closed above, and only then do I realise what has happened. Dan pressed his lips against mine, and now I can finally kiss them back. So I do. I see his eyes open in astonishment and meet mine, and then a flash sparks, ejecting from around us and swallowing the world around us into stars, me clinging to Dan as our lips pull apart in shock. I see him stare around us, and all I can see is the dark scattered with tiny glowing crystals. The night sky. He turns his view back to me and stares into my eyes, and all I can see is the love and confusion behind them.


"Hey," I tell him and he smiles at me. The smile I have waited for for so many years. I know I should care more about what has just turned the world into space, but why should I when I finally have my soulmate with me? He's the only one in my universe. The brightest star.
"Hey stranger," he replies.
"I think, even though this probably isn't the best of timing considering where we apparently are, I should say I love you, in case I almost lose my chance again," I say softly, reaching a hand up from his shoulder to brush some hair out of his eyes.
"I love you too Phil. I'm so glad I found you again," he laughs, and a tear rolls down his cheek which I slowly brush away.
"We can cry later," I tell him, looking past his shoulder at a blonde woman standing behind him. "But I think we need to sort some things out before then."


He follows my gaze and turns back, helping me up, wiping a small smear of blood from my forehead before clasping my hand tight as we look towards this stranger.
"Hello boys," The woman said gracefully.
"Hello. I'm sorry, but we don't know who you are," Dan told her politely and she shook her head in an amused fashion.
"You wouldn't Daniel, but you have both heard me before," she explained. "I am Athena, and I am the one who had been answering your prayers to my dear idiotic sister." Phil's eyes opened in shock and he felt Dan's grip on his fingers tighten.
"If you don't mind me asking goddess Athena, if it isn't so rude, why did you help us? I am quite sure, however thankful we are, that you have had better things to do than to help us find one another, you aren't the goddess of love," Phil said cautiously, his mouth dry.
"But I am the goddess of wisdom Philip. I know my sisters power well, and I knew how to break this curse she laid on humanity for he own jealous reasons. I wanted people to be free to learn and bestow knowledge, but with this curse, everyone was too busy trying to find their soulmate instead of acting well, human. That's why I have been helping you, I know I could have done a lot more but as you said, I am rather busy," she explained.


"So erm Miss Athena, how do we fit into this?" Dan asked nervously, Phil feeling his hand beginning to sweat a little.
"Well Daniel, there will always be a weak convection in the chain of a spell. Which turned out to be you and Philip here. You two are descendants of the human my sister fell so intently in love with. You created a bond so strong between you that when it was broken and strengthened yet again by you ancestry that when it was smashed it gave you the power to fix the human race, rewrite it even. So Philip, that scream you heard was my sister."
"So how do we fix the human race up again?" I ask her and she laughs softly at me, her big grey eyes gentle at my words.
"Dear boy, you already have. You were dying, and because of that, so was Dan. So as you faded he did the only thing he wanted to do, and that was touch you, in his choice, a kiss. It's the touch that fuses a humans bond with their soulmate back together, and in that, he saved you. You have rewritten the code for human love and I am here to firstly, explain this to you and secondly, to thank you," she spoke calmly and I looked at Dan, rubbing my thumb softly over his hand feeling touched he had devoted what was meant to have been his last few seconds to me.
"Why thank us?" Dan wondered and she laughed at him again. She tucked a stand of hair behind her ear, almost like a young girl, before she became majestic once more.
"For being alive. And for annoying my sister. My father has forbidden her to weave any magic like this again you will be happy to know so you mustn't worry about anyone losing their love again. But because of this, there are going to be some changes to earth, and I want to warn you before you return, as humanity won't remember and will continue as the used to." She said delicately.
"What changes have happened?" I ask a little worriedly. I don't want to have made things worse for others, or end up losing Dan again.


"Humans are no longer created as a combined person. Every one will be singular and meet at the age of 5, where their bond will start from. Their bond will never be broken but it won't always be noticed as love until later on in their lives, and it is up to those people to realise it. This way they decide when they will be truly together, not us. They will live as singular people, and die as singular people, but if the bond is strong enough, they will leave at the same time so they will always be together at the age they first realised their love," she tells us and I feel a smile creep over my lips.
"That sounds a lot better. So when we return, everything will be like that?" Dan asked beside my and I squeezed his hand happily.
"Yes. I have to leave now but know that you two will always be a beacon to other mortals, written down in words to be remembered in the future, even if it is only believed as fiction. Goodbye Philip Michael Lester and Daniel James Howell, may I hope not to have to see you again," she spoke and I felt a tug on my stomach and I blink as I jolt, seeing the earth back natural once again.


"So now everything is back to normal and we are still alive, what would you like to do?" I ask, blushing as I feel a new shyness wash over me. Over 7 years is a long time of not seeing someone.
"Move in together," he says plainly.
"Maybe we should go on a date first," I joke and see him smile back at me, taking my head gently in his hands and pressing his lips softly against my own. I felt this new warmth spread through me and I couldn't help but beam.
"Anything is fine as long as I have you," Dan told me, and I kissed him gently on his chapped lips.


I was no longer alone, and never would be again.