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Daniel's Last Goodbye
by Willow
Author's Note:No money is made, only for entertainment purposes, hope you enjoy, might need tissues
**********************
Darren sat in the bedroom. The bedroom that had once been Daniels. He sat on the side of the
bed only inches away from the pillow Daniel had once layed his dirty blonde head upon at night.
There was a big gaping wound inside Darren. A fresh cut.One that would continue to bleed his
own blood just to let him know that his heart was still beating,that he was still breathing. A
deep wound that would not heal over soon. His eyes were red. He had been crying. Now they ached
because he had cried his eyes dry.
Even though he was staring strait at the wall, all he could see was that damn recurring dream
that had been playing in his head.In the dream he was crying and running after a plane, and
even though it had taken off and was already hundreds of feet in the air,one thing he could
see plain as day. Dan was in the front seat waving back at him. Daniel was saying goodbye to
him. Daniel didn't like plane's but he was smiling and waving just as pretty as you please. He
hated planes with a passion. He would always get nervous and jittery, and he would always puke
at least once before they landed.
Even though his heart felt numb, he missed Daniel, and somehow, the comfort his family had
tried to bring him, even though he coldly rejected it. Back at the house after the funural,
even Dan's brothers had hugged him, while he stood there staring off into space. He being the
overly emotional one he was, wasn't able to attend the funural. He knew that if he had he would
have grovelled at Dan's casket and pray aloud, tears streaming down his face, begging god to
bring him back, begging the people around him to do something instead of just standing there
like bloody fools. What's worse was he knew that he would have told him then and there how much
he loved him. He loved him as a best friend and as a partner, but even more than that. He loved
him as a soulmate, lover, god knows what else and no one even knew. Not even Daniel himself,
and to top it all off that was the reason Dan had died. Commited suicide, rather.
No, he had decided, I wont make a big scene like that. I shouldn't even go.
He knew no amount of begging and praying would ever bring his beloved Daniel back to him. No
matter how hard he prayed, It was simply a fact that he would have to accept and live with.
Unaware of his actions he turned his dark head and looked out the window that served as the
only light in the dreary room. Outside it was dark, dreary and gray. Just like the inside, or
so it seemed. Inside of everything, the house, the car, the room, and especially Darren's heart. Inside
his heart it was storming. The storm was raging angry and powerfull inside his aching heart,
and it was making his blood boil with anger, causing him to see red. He got up and stomped toward
the window and stood to see the drizzly day. The slick wet pavement, the howling wind, the dripping
trees. He cursed it all.
He cursed the memory it left him. Drizzly days used to be his best days, but never again. Drizzly
days were the days that left him dizzy with hate and anger and bitterness, for it was on the
very same type of day when Daniel died.
He remembered it as if it were yesterday. It almost was.
///\\\
He had been jarred from his sleep by the rude awakening of the telephone ringing off the hook. He,
with his eyes still shut, extended his long muscular arm out and picked up the noisy phone.
"Hello" he had said in a husky whisper. Dan was on the other line and he could tell by the quick
and shaky breaths."Darren?" His voice sounded mournful, and had a melancholic edge.
"What Dan? Are you sick?"
"No" He said in a strained whisper.
"You sound like shit"
"Are you angry?"
"Why? What've you done? Besides wakin' me up at bloody eight o'clock in the morning"
"S-s-sorrrry" He was nervous
"Dan, what is it?"he said, trying to be calm and gentle, so as not to cause Dan to retreat
into himself, as he often did when confronted with Darren's outspokeness.
"Oh, I just wanted to ask you what you thought of me"
"Dan, for christs sake, its too early in the morning for this." He sighed. What was wrong with
Daniel? He had been asking people exactly what they thought of him lately, especially Darren,and
he always seemed at least slightly dissapointed with their answers. "Dan, you're my partner,
and I can't live without you"
"W-what do you mean by that, Darren?" his voice was high and shaky.
"Oh, Jonesy. I can't live without you. If you werent here with me, then you would be somewhere
else, and if you were somewhere else, then there wouldn't be a Savage Garden, and if there
weren't a Savage Garden, then I would be unhappy and making no money, and with no money, I would
have no food, so therefore, I would starve, or eat myself, one or the two. So, logically yes,
I cant live without you. What's really the matter, Danny boy? You can tell me."
Ignoring Darren's question, he continued quietly in a low whisper "N-n-nothing more?"
"You are my best friend, Daniel"
"But I'm nothing else to you, eh?"
For a moment, Darren's heart skipped a beat. Had Daniel somehow found him out? Had he found the
love Darren had for him, even though he hid it so deep and so well? Had he been acting queerish?
"Darrrrren?"
"No, no nothing more." He had said hastily
"Well, thats all I wanted. Do you mind if I leave?"
"Where you going?"
"I hafta leave this place" he sighed drearily
Assuming Dan had meant his home, Darren said that it was fine by him, and they said there
goodbye's and Darren had even said goodnight.
That had been the last words he had spoken to Daniel, the last of many clues that could have
lead Daniel to help. That could have given him another way out. But because no one picked up
on the danger signs he was putting up, he had felt he had no other choice.
///\\\
He walked over toward Dans bureau drawer and opened the first one on the top. Immediately the
scent that Darren missed only slightly less than the bearer of it, floated out into the air. It
was a sock drawer and Darren began rumaging in it, looking for perhaps a song, or a peice of
jewelry that might bring back a happy memory of he and Daniel together. Dan would always hide
his music from him, and wouldnt let him see it until it had been criticised, scrutinized and
looked over a million times.
He missed Daniel so much, and what made him more depressed was that he had not even had the
chance to tell him so. Seeing Daniel alive one last time, knowing the pain that lay ahead would
have brought forth the feelings and the words that were always left hanging, unsaid, in the
air between them. The ones that he knew now had always lay formed in the back of both their
throats and he knew now that each of them had lost sleep for fear that their sleep talking
would reveal too much.
He caught a glimpse of something at the very back of the drawer, beneath an unmated sock.He
grasped it with a shaky hand and he lifted it into the light so he could see it.It was he and
Dan the day they rode the scooters around the tennis court.Dan was a full head taller than
him,and his smile was the same genuine Daniel smile that he had had ever since Darren met him.He
flipped it over to the other side and in Dans shaky handwriting he could make out the words
I love you more than you'll ever know.
He longed to hear Daniels low genuine laugh and to see his seductive smile so badly, that
his heart ached to look at the picture. His hands twitched to tear it into bits and throw it
in the furnace, but instead, he shoved in his pants pocket, because he knew that even if he
didnt want to see it now, he would later.
He walked back over to the bed where he had slept the last few nights since Dan had left him. Him
and the whole world. He thrust his hand beneath the silken pillow and retrieved the letter that
had also been scribbled in Dan's shaky handwriting. Before he read it, a flood of disbelief
came over him. A disbelieving that it was Daniels last goodbye.
He remembered
the disbelief he had felt when he first got the call that told him that Daniel was dead.
///\\\
He was sitting on the couch around noon watching telly. Not really watching it though, but
trying to grasp what he had just been told on the phone. His heart was telling him that Dan
had just gone for a little ride and he would be back in a few hours, but his head, of course
was telling him that Dan was dead. That Dan had gone driving recklessly on the slick roads and
when driving under a bridge he careened off the road, and after flipping over a few times,
had crashed into a pillar. He couldn't believe that Dan was dead, it hurt too much, and it made
him sick, so he kept telling himself it was all a lie, only to find that it hurt worse when
reality caught up with him. He realized that he had known really, that morning, after the early
phone call. That somewhere in the back of his mind he had known all along what Daniel meant
by 'leaving' and he had also known that he would never see Daniel again. That day Darren had
physically felt heart ache.
///\\\
With trembling hands Darren unfolded the letter that had been found in the glovebox of Dan's
mutilated car. With watery eyes,that fought to no avail to keep back the tears, he began to read.
Dear Darren,
I have tried to tell you so many times, that I have fallen in love with you. I couldn't bring
myself to tell you, because I thought that you would think I was a freak.
Darren lifted his head to the stark-white ceiling and closed his eyes,letting the tears fall. He
could not believe he had been too busy hiding his own affection, that he had not notice Daniel's.
I thought that you would forsake me, and I thought having you as only a friend and partner
would be better than nothing at all. That is only partly true. I have been overcome with guilt. Guilt
of my pleasure filled dreams and wishes, and I can no longer live like this. Please, do not hate
me. I will always be with you. I am alone in a world full of people, and I have hundreds of fans, but
I still have found no love. Who knows. maybe I will learn to fly without puking? Perhaps travel
for pleasure? Perhaps to Spain? I have always loved it there. Please Darren, do not forget me,my
beautiful and emotional,but ever so blind companion.
I will love you as long as the sun continues to set.
-Daniel Jones
Darren sniffed as he folded the letter back up and placed it beneath Daniels pillow case again. He
turned up the radio so he would not sit and relish in his suicidal thoughts. The thoughts that
wore him to the bone, and made him exhausted and bone-weary. He had even tried to kill himself
the evening after the funeral. A razor blade had found its way into his hands, but he had heard
Daniel calling to him. He had spent the rest of the night searching for Dan, but he had ended
up falling asleep on the porch.As soon as the radio came on, Foo Fighters' Learn to Fly, played,
and he found himself watching himself in the dream that he kept having.
He was screaming after Dan who was in a plane that had already taken off. Dan was waving and
smiling,and the word Spain, was written in the clouds. The engines and the wind were roaring
and all of a sudden everything was muted and he heard Dan say "I love you"
Darren woke up crying and he realized the song 'Daniel' by Elton John was playing.
"Daniel is travelling tonight on a plane.
I can see the red tailights heading for Spain.
Oh and I can see Daniel waving goodbye.
God it looks like Daniel,must be the clouds in my eyes.
They say Spain is pretty though I've never been
Well Daniel says it's the best place that he's ever seen.
Oh and he should know,he's been there enough.
Lord I miss Daniel,oh I miss him so much....."
Darren was surprised that it had been so like his dream. Was it a coincidence. He didn't think
so. He thought about what Dan would have said if he was there right then. The ever skeptical
one that he was. Or had been. The thought sent him into a fit of angry tears. He was angry that
Dan had left him. He was angry that he had been too blind, and he had only fed Daniel's flame
of lonliness. Angry that they had missed happy lifetime together all because they were too afraid
to speak their god damned minds! He balled himself up on the bed and his body wracked violently,
as the sobs continuously came, his gasps for air interupting the song.
".....Do you still feel the pain of the scars that wont heal?
Your eyes have died,but you see more than I.
Daniel,you're a star in the face of the sky.
Daniel is travelling tonight on a plane.
I can see the red tail lights headed for spain.
Oh and I can see Daniel waving goodbye
God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes.
Oh God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes"
///\\\
He walked down the street that had been lined with stuffed animals and cards and roses. Even
though it had been a month now Dan's name appeared to be everywhere. Darren was thankful that
there were no mourners at his grave. The grass was green and the sky was blue, and there were
flowers everywhere. There was a fresh pile of dirt with newly planted grass. He stood beside
his double tombstone that he and the Jones family had carefully selected, leaving a place for
him to be buried, and whispered "I love you too Daniel"and bent down to kiss the gray marble.
He stepped back from the headstone and looked up at the clouds. The sun was shining and birds
were singing and the wind was blowing. He wiped a tear from his eye. He had promised Dan there
would be no tears.Darren could feel him there with him, and as Darren walked away whistling
'Daniel' he could have sworn that he heard Daniel say "Meet you in Spain,Darren."
Then
Darren did something he hadn't done for a full month. He smiled.
~fin~
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