Title: Forever
Author: EJwhiskers
Pairing: Phan (AmazingPhil/danisnotonfire)
Genre: Angst
Rating: Um
Warnings: I don't want to spoil it D:
Author's Notes: This song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrk

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He'd always been an artist. Or, at least he had been as far as I was aware. And a good one at that. In the six years I knew him, I never managed to fully understand what went on inside his head; I don't think he really understood himself. Poor kid. He was lost, constantly in a degree of pain too vast for my inferior mind to fathom. Yet, he managed to take his suffering and expel it through the end of a paintbrush to create such unbridled beauty. How he did it, I'll never know; but I think many people would call it a miracle. A miracle born of pain and sadness but still so breathtakingly beautiful.
Over those six years, he painted a large variety of things. Sometimes, he would paint visual things such as landscapes and particularly tonal objects. Others, he'd paint things which could only be seen through his eyes; the wind and the music spewing from various instruments. Occasionally, he painted the people only he could see. People he created within his own head. Hallucinations but, in his eyes, as real as you or I. No matter what his nimble hands created, every aspect of the image was utter perfection, the harshness of reality soothed beneath his loving hand.
The creations of his mind consumed him almost completely. They sucked him into their grasp only to torment him relentlessly, never leaving him alone. The medication helped to some extent, reducing the hallucinations to shadows on the hills of his mind's eye. But nothing ever banished them completely. They clung to him with growing strength, never faltering and forcing him to ingest more and more pills to prevent them from taking his sanity. I think he knew, though we never spoke of it, that they would take him eventually.
The psychiatrist did nothing for him, only providing him with free passes for higher doses of the medication which only seemed to be slowly suffocating the creative spark inside him. Useless. Sometimes, I wonder if she even tried at all. I think she could only see him as another lost cause, another troubled artist with nothing left to give but meaningless paintings of no real value. She wasn't the first though, and she certainly wasn't the last. Nobody really listened to him, simply labeled him as crazy and that was that. Attending the sessions became more of a formality than an actual benefit, his sustained prescription dependent on his showing up twice a week. The system was flawed but there was nothing to be gained by fighting it.
It wasn't that he didn't want to be helped. Quite the opposite. He'd tried to reach out countless times; to me, to his psychiatrist, to anybody who might be able to drag him out of the downward spiral he'd gotten himself trapped in. He'd made hundreds, possibly thousands, of attempts to explain the complexity of his thoughts but nothing ever made sense once it hit the real world. She couldn't understand him. Stupid really. What's the point in a therapist who can't provide therapy? She used medication like a shield, hardly even bothering to decode his tortured words before drugging him up on pills. I hated her, still do. Probably always will.
Although it would not have calmed the hallucinations if things had been different, I still blame society for refusing to accept him, for forcing him to retreat back inside the shell I'd spent years drawing him out of. Leaving the house was limited to therapy sessions only and nothing else; even then, he was still reluctant. Love radiated from his very being like heat from a fire and every little thing about life fascinated him. In many ways, he was like a child discovering existence for the first time, desperate to be friends with anyone and everyone. But nobody saw past the label and, much like the new kid at school, he was pushed away. People kept their distance because they did not know how to listen to him and were unwilling to learn. When he was rejected by society, that's when his eyes lost their spark.
It was a few months before it happened that he became much more withdrawn. He stopped speaking and began to communicate exclusively through his art. Now, the only time he'd speak would be during his breakdowns, which were becoming much more frequent. The art he'd created previously was nothing compared to this. These were a complete outpouring of his heart and soul; it was almost as though he were emptying himself. Preparing himself. I think we both knew what was coming for him.
I don't know what finally made him snap. I don't know what it was that eventually killed him from the inside out. The voices, the hallucinations, the pain, the rejection. It could have been any number of things, I just don't know. All I know is that I arrived home that day to an eerily empty flat. I found him in his bedroom, lying flat on his back atop the pure white sheets, blood flowing from his damaged skin. Each cut was equidistant to the next, evenly spread out along each forearm. The glinting razor lay discarded by his hip, the silver thorn which brutally slashed my bloody rose and sliced through my heart in the blink of an eye.
Devastated though I was, I couldn't help but appreciate how disturbingly beautiful the scene before me was, clearly planned and executed down to the last detail. Somewhat poetic. The red bleeding onto the pristine white of the bed sheets, showing how his innocence had been gradually soiled by his illness and the mental abuse it carried with it. The perfectly aligned cuts, all the same length and no doubt cut the same depth into his flesh. The note, folded exactly down the centre and held with just enough pressure between his thumb and forefinger. His life had drained away just like his sanity had done. The inevitable was finally upon us; the shadows had engulfed him.
I still cannot bear to part with his paintings despite the intense heartache they shoot me with every time I lay eyes upon them. I've never really noticed before but, now that I have more time to focus on them, they all have one thing in common. The people, while all so clearly different, all have the same eyes. Dan's eyes. So full of pain and desperation. So very alone.
I've hung them up all over his room and I'm just checking them over one final time before I lock it up for good. I may not be able to part with them but I can put them away. In some ways, it's like a memorial for him and his tragically beautiful mind. As I turn to leave, I see it; the note folded carefully down the middle, lying neatly on the sheets. The blood stained sheets. I never could bring myself to wash them. I pick up the folded paper and fiddle with it, twirling it around my fingers before clutching it close to my heart. And I take it with me as I leave.
I stand outside his doorway, clinging tight to the only thing I have left of him. His final masterpiece, his suicide note. And I've no doubt it will be as beautiful as his soul. As I stare at it with weary eyes, I know that I'm finally ready. I'm ready to read his final words. Fingers trembling and sweat on my forehead, I whip the fold open in one swift flick. And there it is. One line. Only one line but it's enough to send me sobbing to my knees. Those words. His final words. The only words he'd uttered during those months of near silence. The words of his breakdowns, his depression and hopelessness. It's breaking my heart because now I understand what he was trying to say to me. It's tearing me apart inside because I know he's right. Just five words, in his perfect, italic hand.

The Sadness Will Last Forever