i wanna be yours // phan

five

dan

i can't breathe.

i squeeze my eyes so tightly shut that it hurts and i can see white spots at the edges of my vision in an attempt to fight back tears, my chest heaving with the effort not to sob brokenly into my pillow.

he isn't mine. he'll never be mine. even if he was, his mind would still be on her.

i wish he was a string. i wish he knew how it felt.

i wish he wanted me. i wish, i wish. i wish the rain would break my window and flood my room, wash away every wrong thought until i could just be his best friend and his wingman and his nothing. because that was what he wanted me to be.

it felt like i was caught in a riptide, unable to struggle or fight, unable to swim toward him. but he won't help me, even when i'm drowning, even if he has a life vest in his arms. he'll watch me choke to death on my own tears and only when i've collapsed in his arms, no breath on my lips, will he notice. and even then he'd only be concerned that he had no one to find his soulmate. i was the only one who could.

it was such a fucking curse, belonging to phil lester.

i whimpered against my pillow, hugging it to my chest, tears clinging to my eyelashes in the struggle not to run down my flushed, splotchy cheeks. i remembered meeting him... even back then, i think i knew what i was in for. we were only children, but we're just as naive now.

he asked for my lunch and i gave it to him. everything i had was always his, everything. if he asked for my body i'd give myself to him without a second thought.

he gave me a green pen in return, but that didn't change the fact that my stomach was growling and i hadn't eaten that morning. i hadn't complained, just took it quietly.

we weren't the ones who found out how we were connected. a teacher had. we were the first ones to find each other in our class, and i remembered mrs. kennedy whispering excitedly into her telephone while we sat on a couch that smelled like cigarettes. after she hung up, she told us what we were. she showed us with a white shoelace.

"this," she had said, her long red nail tapping on a knot she had tied into one end of the shoelace, "is you, phil." she smiled at him. she had lipstick on her teeth. "and this..." i watched her fingertip drag down the string. "is you."

i remembered grinning and leaning over toward phil. "i'm longer, that means i'm better," i had told him smugly. mrs. kennedy smiled at him in a way a parent would smile if they were about to tell their child that they loved their sibling more than them.

"you are not!" phil shoved me and i giggled happily.

the teacher cleared her throat.

"who's that, miss?" phil had asked, pointing to the knot on the other side of the shoelace. the teacher's smile became less forced and awkward.

"that," she said quietly as if telling a secret. "is the girl you'll marry someday."

phil's eyes were wide and they flashed with curiosity. "really? who is she?"

"you don't know her yet. that's dan's job. when the universe decides it's time, he'll be able to see her and bring you together. like a superpower."

"i have superpowers?" dan asked in wonder.

"kind of."

phil seemed excited by the prospect. "can i meet them now?"

"it isn't time yet." mrs. kennedy smiled at him encouragingly. "you'll have to wait."

for a while, phil had dropped it. he was happy being a child and having a new best friend to play with. just recently, though, he had become even more obsessed. maybe it was the universe telling him the time was near... god, the universe fucking sucked.

and it hurt. really bad.

dan sighed, tangling his fingers in his pillowcase to have something to hold on to. he couldn't live this way, live knowing he was wrong, he was some kind of defect who fell for someone who already belonged to someone else. phil needed him, but only as a technicality, and dan couldn't live with that.

but he would anyways.