WARNING: DEPRESSION, MENTION OF DAN'S SUICIDE ATTEMPT, ANGST
Phil's POV
Oliver was shocked. As if in a trance, I had been sitting on the stairs forever until I felt Oliver's hand on my shoulder. I had never seen Oliver so worried in my entire life. He had sat next to me. He had apologized, but I didn't know for what. I just shook my head, that absolutely nobody had to apologize for anything.
We went straight to the hospital, where the doctors told us they had to put Dan in an artificial coma. The doctors also told Oliver about the substances floating around in Daniel's body. I could never have imagined how bad it would be to be trapped in a waiting room with Oliver.
"You knew it?" He asked, shocked, irritated, angry. I had swallowed hard, ignored how my heart ached. I hadn't said anything what made him turn away in disbelief.
"You didn't tell me anything?" He asked and I understood why he was angry, but I was too. I was angry with myself, with him and with Dan. With every person who had anything to do with this fucking mess.
"What would you have done, huh?" I asked irritably.
"Put him in a clinic, Phil!"
"Exactly! You can't thread him like this, you have to talk to him. You can't just hand out instructions, Oliver." His eyes softened but were still stern. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything. I couldn't, he would have never forgiven me for that. I tried to help him, Oliver, I really tried."
Then he was already sitting next to me with his hand on my shoulder. We probably both agreed that it didn't matter that he didn't know about it.
Oliver had brought me to his house that day, stood by me, even though he was visibly done himself.
And for the next few days I had been sitting with Dan all the time, hoping that he would wake up sometime. Oliver took care of everything else and made sure that the media didn't know about it. If our fans found out, the world would probably down.
Dan's POV
When I woke up, I felt the soft fabric of the bed against my skin. Heard the monotonous beep that conveyed that I was still alive.
Fuck, I was still alive.
I slowly opened my eyes, was blinded by the sterile white. My eyes moved to the left, saw that there was an infusion in my arm. I swallowed hard, stared at my arm with my eyes. Everything was so bright.
"Daniel?" I suddenly heard a voice, turned my head to the right and then he sat there. Phil looked at me with wide eyes and it felt like someone was ramming a knife into my chest. He was here? With me?
And suddenly I remembered everything that had happened before I landed here in the hospital: our argument, what I had done in the bathroom, that I asked him not to call an ambulance. Still, he was sitting here. Nothing in the world could have prepared me for what I was feeling at that moment.
We stared at each other for ages until I tried to sit up, where he helped me a little because I didn't want to strain my left arm too much. When I was sitting halfway upright in bed, Phil looked at me indecisively until he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled me into his arms.
I let it happen, let him press me closer to him, give me a bit of his warmth. I slowly put my arms around him too.
"Fuck Dan, I really thought you were going to die." I heard him say while he was still hugging me.
Only now did I realize what all of this meant. I almost died, I almost killed myself. I would have just left everything behind without even thinking about what it meant. Phil thought he would never see me again and our last fucking conversation would have been an argument.
And even if I loved lying in Phil's arms right now, even if I loved him, I wished at that moment that it would have worked. That we didn't have to deal with this situation. I didn't want that.
Phil slowly let go of me as we looked into each other's eyes for a few moments. He wanted to kiss me, right? I think he wanted it, but he didn't, he reached for the glass of water that was on the small side table.
"Have a drink first." That actually sounded like a good idea, whereupon I took the glass and drank it empty. I hadn't realized how dry my throat was.
"Thanks." I said in a scratchy voice before I felt Phil's hand on my forearm. We said nothing for a while, I just felt the warmth emanating from him, rubbing small circles with his thumb into my forearm and something told me that he had been doing this the whole time.
"Do you remember what happened?" He asked, still not looking at me. I in turn couldn't take my eyes off him.
"A little bit. I know I was in the bathroom and what I did there, but everything else is gone. I don't even know how I got into the bathroom." I deliberately lied. I didn't want him to know that I remembered every fucking detail. Otherwise we would talk about it and I didn't want that.
"Why, Dan?" He asked carefully, scared, desperate and it broke my heart, because when he looked up I saw that he had tears in his eyes and at that moment I didn't want to mean so much to him.
Phil's POV
I had to know. In the end, what had driven him so far that he thought that would be the solution. It wasn't an accident.
Dan was smart. The moment he did it, he knew he was overdosing. He wanted to die, I saw that in his eyes.
I remembered our last conversation, what he had said. He had sounded so hopeless, so desperate and I should have known, yes, but I really hadn't thought that far. Never in my life did I have to think for a second that Dan might do something to hurt himself.
I still couldn't believe I misjudged the situation.
I slowly reached for his hand, feeling that it was cold. It was loose in mine.
"I don't know, Phil." he said after ages and I swallowed hard. I could have expected him to not give me an honest answer.
"Dan, I swear you can trust me no matter what it is." I said, placing my other hand on his so I could warm it. I saw him swallow hard, he looked at our hands.
"I know." He nodded weakly and I knew he was serious. "I don't know what's going on."
It was a start, something honest, which showed me that he was approaching me. I nodded, trying to show him that it was an answer that was okay. It was okay. He was still alive and I felt his hand get warmer and it was so okay.
"We can do it." He nodded weakly, not taking his eyes off my hands. "I should really get a doctor."
"Don't go." he said quickly, reaching for my hand. "Please."
"I'll be back immediately, I promise. I'm not leaving you alone, right?"
He looked at me uncertainly for a while, until he slowly let go of my hand and I got up.
I wanted to kiss him, but I didn't.
"I'm sorry, Phil." he said softly, barely audible, but I heard it. I turned to see his sad look, like a puppy that was just being weaned. I immediately let go of the doorknob and sat down again on the bed with him.
His look told me that he just understood what was going on. He had realized it before, I was sure of it, but it just seemed to hit him fully. He looked so sad, so sorry, so desperate.
When our eyes met, he broke down, started crying and I just hugged him, told him that it is alright, that we will fix it. We had to fix it, I didn't even care how we would manage to.
"Get some rest, Dan. I'll be right back." I said after a few minutes, after I was sure that he calmed down. He just nodded, and I kissed his forehead before he laid down again and I left the room.
Dan's POV
There has never been a day in my life when I didn't want to see Oliver. Oliver was like a brother to me, has looked after me since we first saw each other. He had accepted me into his family. Oliver wasn't always that cold, logical asshole. He could be emphatic if he needed to be. But even today I didn't want his empathy. I didn't want to see him.
Even so, he was sitting next to me and there was absolutely no way to avoid this conversation. Phil had left saying he would get us coffee. I understood that he didn't want to be here. Oliver had probably also told him not to be there.
I just sat there, trying to avoid his eyes at all costs.
"How are you, Dan?" He asked after ages of silence and I swallowed hard, started pulling on the sheets.
"Fine, I'm fine." I lied, obviously. I wanted him to go. He should go home thinking it was just a stupid accident. I wanted to go home. With Phil.
"Dan, it's time to stop lying." He said it gently, probably Phil had told him not to be too hard on me. I still couldn't look at him. In vain I tried to hide my tears, looking the other way all the time.
Nothing bad had ever happened to us. The worst thing he might have to go through with me was when I was nineteen and had alcohol poisoning. And now we were sitting here, just two years later, and I had overdosed. Tried to kill myself.
We both probably didn't know how that happened. I was always happy, really. I had hope, saw everything in the bright light, even if something didn't go according to plan. Oliver was always proud of me. We had achieved so much together. We started small, with silly videos, until we succeeded and even moved to London.
And now we were here. At the lowest point.
"I'm sorry Dan." I heard him say and only then did I turn to him. "I'm sorry I didn't notice that something was wrong. Maybe I noticed it and just ignored it because I thought it was all right. I'm sorry Daniel."
"It's not your fault." I just said, feeling like someone was choking me. I wanted to throw up. Fortunately, I haven't had any withdrawal symptoms yet, or they have been dampened by all the medication.
"Why did you do that?"
"Doesn't matter." I shook my head.
"Doesn't matter? Fucking hell, Daniel, you almost died. You would be dead, gone. Then what would we have done, Dan? What would I have done?" I swallowed hard. Sometimes I actually forgot how much I meant to Oliver. Actually, most of the time I felt like a burden he had to carry around because someone had to do it. But here he was with tears in his eyes as he told me how much it hurt that I just wanted to leave.
"Now tell me what's wrong, so-"
"I know I fucked up, I know. And I'm sorry, Oliver. I'm so fucking sorry. But I can't tell you what happened. I can't. Really." It just bubbled out of me. In fact, he was silent, didn't dare to try again, and I felt the one tear that found its way down.
I was really sorry. I looked down again, played with the covers. I saw my hands shake, but it wasn't the withdrawal. I was just scared and I didn't even care because I was scared all the time.
"Listen to me, Dan, I want to help you."
"You can't." I muttered until I started nibbling on my nails. I could see Oliver swallowed hard.
"What the fuck happened to you?" He asked almost shocked and I shrugged.
"Nothing good, apparently." I said coldly now, looked at him. He should know, for fucks sake. He knew me, not as well as Phil, but still. He knew me, he should have noticed that something was wrong.
No, this wasn't the time to blame him or anyone. I sighed.
"Does Phil know?" He asked and I closed my eyes.
"Yes." I said shortly. "He somehow squeezed it out of me."
"I mean, he knows you are coking too." My eyes opened and found his immediately. It sounded like an accusation, and it probably was. I gritted my teeth, tried to deny it, but there was no point. He knew how I wanted to kill myself, what was floating around in my body. So I didn't say anything, just looked at him.
God, I was so tired.
"Jesus fucking Christ, why, Daniel? The stuff kills you, you know how dangerous it is. Your drinking was already borderline but that's a completely different level!"
"I know! I'm sorry, okay?" I felt cornered. Oliver sighed, leaned back in the chair where Phil had been sitting a few minutes ago.
"I don't know how to tell you that, so I'm just going to say it. You will go to a clinic."
"What? No I won't!"
"Yes, Daniel. Listen-"
"That's why I didn't want to talk to you! Of course you immediately put me in some clinic, you don't give a fuck about everything else! Phil has-"
At that moment the door opened and Phil was standing in the door frame, with coffee and a worried look.
"Tell him that I can't go to a clinic, tell him!" I immediately yelled at him. My hands were shaking, my brain was working at full speed and if I weren't so scared I would probably start crying.
Oliver and Phil exchanged looks that I didn't like at all. I looked back and forth between the two. Oliver stood up while Phil slowly moved towards me and sat on the edge of the bed.
He put his hand on mine, but I don't think Oliver saw that.
"You promised me you wouldn't put me in a clinic." I said desperately and Phil nodded understandingly.
"I know. But the circumstances were a little different. Daniel, the doctors will tell you exactly the same thing. You have to go to a clinic, do therapy, learn to live without the stuff." He tried to explain me gently and I swallowed hard. "The media will never find out what happened."
I swallowed hard, realized that it made sense. He slid closer to me.
"I want you to get well, Dan. You mean a lot to me, really." He said it so quietly that only I could understand it. I swallowed hard, knew what he was trying to tell me. "Can you go there? For me?"
It felt like an eternity just looking at him. I didn't want to mean so much to him, but apparently I did and I loved him and I think at that moment our feelings were an open secret to us.
"Okay." I nodded and Phil smiled softly.
And I hadn't meant it for a second.
But after two weeks, the day came when I had to leave the hospital. I would actually be taken straight to the clinic. It felt like I was being transported from one prison to the next.
I had had some terrible days and nights when I almost went crazy because I couldn't satisfy my addiction, but by now the physical complaints were at least somewhat better.
In the past two weeks I had spoken a lot of people that know their stuff and there was no way around a clinic. I was supposed to do some kind of therapy to teach me how to keep my hands off the drugs forever and not to relapse immediately when I wasn't feeling too well.
I didn't think much of it, but I had no choice, if only because Phil kept pushing me to do it.
"I'll visit you very often." Phil promised emphatically. I could see how much hope he put in this rehab clinic. In the end, he himself hadn't managed to tear me away completely. Even if I kept reassuring him that I wouldn't relapse as long as he was by my side, he no longer trusted it.
I could understand if he had just lost confidence in me, but it looked much more as if he no longer believed he could help me.
I actually knew that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't help me.
We'd often talked about it for hours, but his guilty conscience just didn't leave him. He blamed himself for the fact that it had come to this, that I almost died of an overdose.
But it wasn't his fault and he couldn't help me. I didn't want any help. I just wanted to be high the entire time and forget what happened. I wanted to be wrapped in this safe bubble that the cocaine built around me. I wanted to be safe from my thoughts and and every second that I couldn't satisfy my addiction showed me that I couldn't feel that way without drugs.
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i don't know what to think about this chapter.
i wrote some parts of this chapter after having a really fucked up day, so forgive me if some parts aren't that good. sorry, but the writing helped me to deal with the situation.
if you liked it, please let me know. i know this chapter is a sensetive issue/topic.
i love you guys a lot and please stay safe.