What would you do if Ross died?
((First of all, im so so sorry this took so long to answer. Life kind of got in the way, but I hope to be back for real!
Second off, i am sorry about the sads to come. (i treated this like a prompt i hope that works))It doesnât happen the way he imagined it would. They would grow old together, laugh to death, die in their sleep, something that wasnât this. Danâ throat felt cracked and dry, his eyes burned. He hadnât moved from his bed for what felt like days. What point was there to getting up. He would never see Rossâ sly smile, hear his happy cackle at his own terrible jokes, or touch his feathery hair again. The world was bathed in grey to Dan, and his only thoughts were of how it could have been different.
Blue eyes were plastered all over his mind.
All he could do was play back the night over and over in his head. He wasnât even there, dammit, but he could hear the screeching of the car. He could hear the screaming, the cries in his head. They haunted him. And he wondered, what if he had been there, would anything be different. Maybe he wouldnât have been left to rot on this earth alone.
He heard a loud knock at his door, but all he could do with the strength he mustered up was turn over and ignore it. The knocking only got louder, but Dan just couldnât get up and face whoever may have been there.
âDan.â He heard a gentle deep voice. It must have been Barry. âDan, everyoneâs worried bout you. Im going to come in.â He heard the gentle steps of his roommate and breathed deeply. He felt Barry barely sit on the edge of his bed. âI brought you some water, food and uh, a shirt.â Dan stirred a little at the mention of a shirt. What could he use a shirt for, all his clothes were here, in piles.
âIts uh. you know, â Barry trailed off and Dan filled in the blank. Ross. Danny sat up immediately and held a hand out for the shirt. Barry handed it the folded fabric to him, sadness in his eyes. Danny inhaled against the shirt and tears started to pour from his eyes. He turned back into bed and Barry rubbed his back for a while before he left, the water and food rested on Danâs nightside table.
Danny held tight to the simple shirt, and would on occasion kiss it. For a while it smelt like Ross, and after that it still held the softness all of Rossâ shirts had. But too quickly it lost all but the memory of Ross. After that point Danny finally emerged from his Room, startling Barry and making him worry to no end.
Danâs ribs were showing, he had dark circles under his eyes and a beard was growing. But Dan ate that night, and drank water. In the morning he took a shower, and the day after that he showed up at the grump space. Everyone welcomed him back, and he smiled sadly all day long.
Eventually he fell back into a routine, he laughed again, he joked with Arin, he lived on. But all through out, everyone noticed, he carried a shirt around with him, and would, on occasion kiss it.
And Many years later, when all the grumping was over, and he lived alone in a small house. He still carried a small square of fabric, that perhaps was once from a shirt, everywhere he went. And on occasion, if he swore no one was looking, he would gently kiss it.