Procrastinators on Camera (Dan Howell/danisnotonfire fanfic 2) *unedited*

Part 42- Mark and Ethan

As much as I wanted to spend the day researching job opportunities and genuinely searching for courses I could take on absolutely anything before university, the next morning started out like any other Friday would, with the added nerves of Mathew’s arrival. I would be out when Mathew arrived, but I’d left him a note on the kitchen counter saying that I’d be back soon.

I’d woken up still wearing my glasses after I hadn’t removed them the night before, my hair was a mess and I had to get to work. As I got dressed, my mind flittered between options and scenarios of what I could do alternatively with my life. Dan featured in these scenarios a lot, basically in every scenario. Most of the ideas involved the two of us being reunited, or me purely being able to apologise and tell him everything. It sort of felt like my thoughts were meant to be secrets, as if I couldn’t tell them.

I sighed as I lowered my arms from tying my hair back in a ponytail. I was stood in front of my mirror, dressed in my black skinny jeans and work shirt. I looked plain and simple, like someone who would easily blend into the background and go unnoticed. I twitched my nose as I picked up my coat and scarf. My eyes lingered over the black and white jumper that had been hanging over my desk chair for the past six days. Sometimes, when I was feeling at an absolute low, I’d smell the fibres of the jumper. They barely smelt of him anymore so the jumper might as well have been my own.

A pounding sound came from my window, signalling that the rain had arrived. I moved over to my window, picking the jumper up off the back of the chair and pulling it over my head as I walked. I pushed my glasses level and smoothed down the base of the jumper as I looked outside. It was grey and miserable, a typical British winter’s day. The rain was turning into hailstones and snow, which wasn’t a good omen for my journey to work. It may only take me thirty minutes to walk there, but it would take me at least sixty in this weather.

I exhaled loudly, forcefully putting on my jacket and scarf, before grabbing a piece of toast left over from Nic’s breakfast that she’d left on one of the sides in the kitchen, and leaving the house.

The snow whipped loosely round me, reminding me of the storm that had been ripping through London last Friday, when I’d been trapped with Shannon, Phil and Dan in their apartment. Even the very thought of those three names made my whole body lurch with emotions and sickness.

My shoes struggled to keep me steady on the path as I looked through the thin layer of hail and snow at the road I was walking beside. The road was silent, either because workers hadn’t bothered to leave their homes in this weather, or because I was on the wrong road entirely. I tensed up my shoulders as I shivered and pressed on.

I stopped at the path corner, under the mild cover of an overgrown hedge and the bus stop shelter. I clapped my gloved hands together before I fumbled in my pockets for my headphones and iPod. My thoughts were getting too hectic for my liking, and music seemed to be the only fool proof way for me to completely escape their claw like grasp on me.

With the sounds of Smosh’s ‘Firetruck’ playing, I walked on, keeping my eyes peeled for the journey I walked every day, and new practically by heart.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, probably from Mathew saying that he was setting off, but I ignored it. It was the way I had to deal with this now, and I hated it, but I didn’t know what else to say. Everything I loved and cherished would end soon, so maybe, my relationship with Dan should be ending sooner, just like Nic suggested. At the very least, I had to achieve something; something which could possibly make me feel like I could be the girlfriend that Dan deserves.

“Hey! Look out!” a voice yelled to me from somewhere in the snow ahead of me. I froze, glaring wide eyed out towards the sound of the voice. Suddenly, a person on a bicycle hurtled towards me, only veering away from me at the last second. The rider flew past me, their bike tires sliding and turning dangerously on the icy pavement, before the person tumbled headfirst over their handlebars into a snow drift in someone’s front garden. The bike flipped onto its side and lay still next to the bank of snow, its wheels still turning lazily.