My Spirit Love (phan)

四十三 - 𝓣𝓲𝓮𝓭 𝓔𝓷𝓭𝓼

It's not an everyday task to stand in the doorway of your living room, stepping forwards with your hands between your thighs as you dance your thumbs together, approaching your family and telling them you're leaving to die with your fiancé. But that's what Phil was doing two weeks after Dan's burial. He wanted to leave it as long as possible, but with his birthday approaching he didn't want any talk of a future he wouldn't be able to have.

"Guys?" Phil began, taking a seat on the sofa away from them all.

"Phil?" Katherine asked, able to read from her son that something was absolutely, truly wrong.

He'd rehearsed these words thousands of times in his head, but as he sat here ready to say them something just didn't feel right about them, so the words he planned fell away and he took the explanation as it came, "I've not told you the whole truth. Dan's back, but he's back as he was before, taking my energy and taking energy that I don't have much left of." he saw his family's confused expressions, believing he was doing a poor job of telling them he was choosing to die, "I'm dying." he spat out, "Because I don't want to live without Dan and that's just what I'll have to do if I don't do...this." he shrugged.

He couldn't plan beyond this. He wasn't sure if his parents would cry, or shout, or try and persuade him to take any other options.

"We're not going to stop you." Katherine admitted, looking down at her lap. She didn't want to lose Phil and watch him slowly diminish into nothing but a lifeless body, because no mother wants that for her son. But she saw the expression in his eyes and she knew that if she tried to stop him she'd be wasting the precious time they had left, so she stayed quiet, sucked it in, and let the truth settle against her.

She and Nigel couldn't cry of sadness. They'd spent their fair number of nights huddled into each other, weeping over their youngest son and the life he couldn't have, but the one they wanted him to. They'd yelled until their throats were soar and cried until their eyes nearly bled. They'd had the conversations on whether or not they should leave for their separate ways, and they've had their days where they didn't care what happened in the world as long as they were by the other's side. Philip Lester was an impossible child and they almost believed he was a curse. If it wasn't for his charm and his loving nature, they'd have believed he was sent from hell. But that was just it, it was his undespisable nature that made everything so much harder because maybe in another universe he'd have been the perfect son. But, in this life, he'd dragged them through his life with ropes on their ankles and they'd never admit it to themselves, let alone to others, but watching him go in peace would be like closing the last cover of a peaceful book. In their hearts they knew this was okay, maybe a part of them even wanted it, and that's why they truly didn't stop him.

Instead they looked up at the tearful boy, smiling at him with their hearts ringing in their chests. The three of them stood up, holding each other in a bundle until Phil pulled away, glancing into space to protect himself from the pain.

"Phil." Martyn spoke, not quite sure how he was going to react, "Let's go for a walk."

"You can't persuade me out of this." Phil whispered as they grabbed their coats from the hallway, then stepping out into the cold, open air.

"I'm not going to try to." Martyn admitted, pacing his stride as they walked to the park.

"Then, why..."

"Can't I just talk to you?" Martyn sighed, "Is it so wrong for me to want to sit down with my little brother knowing no one else is around?" Phil felt defensive of Dan, knowing he was the victim of this statement, and Martyn knew that, "I'm sorry." he sighed.

Phil sat on a park bench, leaning back into it and staring into the distance, "Don't be." he calmly told him, "It's not every day you're told by your brother he's dying, I guess."

"That's just it." Martyn admitted, "And it's this guilt that I think I could be doing something and knowing that there is another option you're just not taking it..." he sighed, rolling over and burying his face in his fists.

"There's not another option, and there's nothing you can do-"

"I know." Martyn nodded, shuffling towards his brother and wrapping an arm over his shoulders, "I'm sorry...for anything and everything. It shouldn't take you to be fucking dying for someone to sit down with you and admit where they've gone wrong, but here we are. I'm sorry for never speaking up. I'm sorry that I ran away whenever things got difficult. I'm still bloody sorry for telling you to not fall in love with Dan, but part of me thinks I should've said it twice." they both chuckled, "Look, there's so many things that I wish I could go back as a 'if I'd have known' situation. Your fucking overdose, for one.

"I've known you for twenty years, and now I've got to say goodbye because the world was too cruel to give you another story. And I know...I know you don't believe in the Western mourning, and if I could sit here without a bucket load of regrets then I would celebrate your life for what it's been, but if I'm honest, it feels like this is losing a battle. Anticlimatic, really. Been with you the whole way and now this is the end...and what was it all for?"

"If you need some divine reason for why my life happened, why Dan's around; some greater scheme of the universe. Then, just think, I've pathed an easier road for people who can see spirits in the future. I might be the first to fall in love with one, but I won't be the last."

"I won't let the world forget your name, Phil. People say you die twice: once when your heart stops beating, and another when your name's spoken for the last time. No one will ever stop saying your name. Your life has been too great for that. You might just see it as a website and a book, but the rest of the world doesn't." Martyn smiled at his younger brother, his arm still over his shoulder as their breaths were released as hot clouds into the cold air around them, "That's just another reason for why you're perfect, isn't it? You don't see how bloody amazing you are. But you are Phil, both you and Dan are. That was written in the stars."