Chapter Text
Phil fixes a tiny fringe gap splayed across his forehead and squints at his laptop screen, “‘ Tell us about the glitter fiasco!’ ” Phil laughs, “Oh yeah, ok, so.” The comment stands out in the otherwise largely nonsensical flood rushing down the YouNow screen, and Phil always has to say a little thank you in his head for viewers who actually give him something to go off of during live streams. Not that he hasn’t spent entire streams successfully talking about topics like vegetables and rock-paper-scissors, but it doesn’t hurt to have some actual content. “If you haven’t already seen the video up on AmazingPhil, go give it a little watch. So a couple weeks ago, I made slime. I know, don’t judge me. Like I said in the video, you’re not my real parents.”
‘I am your parent. Go to your room.’
‘You’re the daddy, daddy.’
“So, I made some slime. Fluffy slime because I reckon that’s the best slime. Dumped probably way too much glitter in there,” Phil mimes the act with over exaggerated hand motions. “And because I’m the clumsiest person in the world, I got it all over my bed sheets. Aaron says, ‘ Oh no, Phil.’ But wait, it gets worse.” Phil smiles sheepishly. “I stuffed my sheets in the washer, but didn’t really think about how the glitter would just stick to the washer…”
‘Glitter clothes!’
‘Asdhklj phil ur so dumb’
‘Rly philip?’
“Everyone’s yelling at me!” Phil hides his face behind in hands, only to peek through them seconds later. “Look, my roommate, Thomas— you all know Thomas— he already yelled at me enough when he ended up at work in a glittery button-down. And I will be punished for the next two months with glitter attacking my own clothes, while I just hope that it’s being slowly absorbed by the atmosphere. ‘That’s not how science works.’ All right, Ally, I didn’t know there was a glitter scientist watching my live stream. But, like, seriously where does glitter go? Will it be in my washer forever?”
Phil continues his stream, trying to be a present as possible for his viewers. Trying not to think about how much he’s looking forward to logging off, eating some takeaway, and watching the new season of American Horror Story.
He also has a flight to book to Spain tonight for the YouTube Creator Summit next week. Thankfully he doesn’t have any Q&A’s to prepare himself for or presentations he has to plan. He’s just got to show up and be a YouTuber. Although, there will be cameras everywhere, which always requires a little mental preparation on his part.
Thirty minutes later, there’s a natural lull and he’s largely run out of topics to talk about. Phil suppresses a sigh and hides the awkward pause in his one-sided conversation in a glass of Ribena. He loves his audience and he loves live streaming, but it’s also stressful for someone with social anxiety. He hates awkward pauses, which is why he started writing down topics for himself on a pad of paper. He never knows what someone is going to say or what his audience will latch on and spam the chat with.
Phil swallows and sets the glass down. He opens his mouth to talk about his growing excitement for autumn, when his eyes alight on a single comment that makes his mouth go dry and his heart beat faster.
‘Dan Howell dissed your slime video in his live show phil did you see?’
His eyes catch on the comment, before it’s gone just as quickly as it appeared. He doesn’t respond to it, because it’s been years since he has publicly acknowledged Daniel Howell. Phil’s not the type of person to engage in YouTube drama with his audience, or with anyone really.
He tries to do what he always does with such uncomfortable topics that he wants nothing to do with, and just ignore it.
But the comment distracts him for the rest of the live show, echoing in his head until is feels like the only thing in his mind is Dan Howell Dan Howell Dan Howell. It’s been a really long time since he’s thought about the guy.
So Dan’s gone ahead and said something about Phil’s new video. What did he say? Why did he say anything about Phil? How long did he talk about it? Was it a quick comment, or a classic Dan rant?
Phil hopes he doesn’t look as distracted as he feels.
When Phil finally gives a little wave to the screen and clicks to end the show (struggling to find the correct button as usual), he can’t even be excited that he can turn his brain off and power down the “AmazingPhil” part of him. Against his better judgement, Phil exits out of YouNow and finds his way to Daniel Howell’s second channel, which is interestingly enough still called danisnotinteresting, despite the YouTuber’s recent rebrand from the apparently “cringey” danisnotonfire. Phil is about to click on Dan’s most recent liveshow, enticingly titled “Sipping the Tea with Mr. D,” when he stops himself.
He should not be doing this. Any interaction Phil has had with Dan is a thing of the past, and there’s a reason for that. Phil has carefully cultivated his online and physical avoidance of Dan.
Phil exits out of the webpage like it has burned him. He leaves his laptop on the end table in the live show nook he has set up and flees the room. American Horror Story will clear his brain.
It doesn’t. Phil gets through two episodes, knowing he’ll need to watch them again to understand the plot of the season. He wishes Thomas was home so he could distract Phil with conversation, even if it’s a boring conversation about Tom’s recent adventures with being a financial adviser in London.
Dan Howell has dissed his slime video. It’s not super surprising; Dan is well known in the YouTube community for putting his foot in his mouth and being a little too opinionated. Or maybe that’s just Phil’s biased opinion of Dan. Either way, Dan has said his fair share about Phil— mostly with ambiguous subtweets over-analyzed by their largely overlapping audience— without ever being too obvious about their history. Not that their audiences aren’t aware of their history, even if it’s all well evidenced speculation to them.
But Dan hasn’t mentioned Phil in a video in a very long time. Even a live show. It’s driving Phil nuts.
Phil makes himself popcorn and turns the volume up on his television, as if he can drown out his thoughts.
Did Dan just stumble on the AmazingPhil channel? Did it autoplay and he was just too lazy to click away from it? Or does Dan still watch Phil’s videos, like Phil sometimes finds himself always watching Dan’s?
Phil physically shakes his head, trying to clear his mind. The front door to Phil’s shared flat opens and Thomas bursts through, his suit jacket slung over his broad shoulder. Phil sighs with relief; maybe his roommate will provide some much needed distraction.
“Evening, Philly!” Thomas drops his briefcase to their floor with a satisfying thunk and rounds the side of the sofa to collapse on the worn cushions. “Shit, that’s good,” he groans, loosening the green tie that Phil knows is his favorite because it makes his hazel eyes more green. Ladies love green eyes, Philly. Tom undoes the top three buttons of his shirt and drops his head against the back of the sofa.
“Hey.” Phil pauses the TV. “You eat?”
Thomas grunts and Phil assumes it’s an affirmative grunt. Tom confirms this assumption by adding: “Went out for fish and chips and a pint with some mates from the office.”
Phil knocks his shoulder against Tom’s, “That sentence is disgustingly British and you should be ashamed.”
“Not my fault you’re a sad excuse of a British person. You and your coffee and sweet breakfast,” Tom grins and shoves back against Phil with ten times the strength, ignoring Phil’s yelp.
“Ow, I just don’t like tea or English breakfasts. Stop bullying me; you know I bruise like a banana. Hoping to not look like I fell down some stairs when I go to Spain next week, thanks very much.”
Thomas hums, then pushes himself off the sofa again. “Forgot you were going to Spain. Any plans to hook up with any—” he steps between Phil’s legs and shimmies his hips, “— mujeres o hombres españoles ?”
“Go away,” Phil rolls his eyes and threatens Tom with pointed jab of his knee toward his roommate's groin area. Tom jumps back away from Phil’s knee, stumbling over Phil’s long leg in the process. Tom is a little bit vertically challenged compared to Phil. Phil would be lying if he said he didn’t sometimes take advantage of that. “It’s for business,” Phil adds.
Shaking his head, Tom heads for the kitchen and takes a bottle of beer from the fridge. He yells out to Phil: “Yeah, like you’ve never gotten any on your YouTube trips. Someone’s grumpy and needs to get shagged.”
Phil waits for Tom to return to the living room and neck half the beer in a gulp before answering. “Yeah, maybe I’m a little grumpy.” Phil pauses, wondering if he should even bring it up. Sure, Thomas has been around since uni, and was very much present for everything that went down with Dan. Phil briefly remembers Tom holding Phil while he cried about Dan. Promising to take Dan’s place as his flatmate. But, Phil should be over his whole fling with Dan by now. Phil swallows, figuring if he can’t tell Tom, he can’t tell anyone. “Apparently Daniel Howell talked about my recent video during his live show.”
Tom pauses and his mouth stretches into a stiff, thin line and he sets the beer down on their coffee table. “Oh.” He wipes beer off his mouth. “Bad things?”
Phil shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “I haven’t seen, just heard. Although they said he dissed it, so. I’m guessing it’s not a glowing review.”
“Does it bother you?”
“What?”
Tom sits down next to Phil again and rests an elbow on the armrest. Leave it to Tom to immediately see through Phil’s pseudo-blase attitude. What else would Phil expect from someone he’s been best friends with since the beginning of his master’s program? “Does it bother you that Dan is talking shit?”
Phil pulls the bottoms of his shorts down over his knees and plays with the hem. He shrugs again. “I just want to know why. Why now? Why six years later or whatever?”
“He’s talked about you before, though.”
“Not in a video. Just vague tweets or stuff to our mutual friends. I dunno, I’m just being stupid. But I really want to know what he said. I don’t even know why I care. He’s condescending and stuck-up, and thinks YouTube is only for videos with fake-deep morals at the end. That’s not how I run my channel, so obviously he would have something to say about that.” Phil breathes out harshly, then lets out a sharp, cutting laugh. “Probably something about how meaningless a slime video is; I don’t even have to watch his live stream to know that he’s said it was cringe or something.”
Thomas pats Phil on the knee. “Just watch it. You’ll go crazy otherwise.” Tom, ever the level-headed one, suggests. Tom can get rowdy with his lads, but he’ll always be a much-needed voice of reason for Phil’s anxiety-addled brain. Tom grins and continues, “But, who cares what Dan has to say about you? He’s a twat who spends too much of his life regretting the shit that he does do. You’re unapologetically you . Hey, that rhymed.”
Phil has to smile at that.
The smile doesn’t linger. It’s not 100% true; not anymore. There is a lot that he does because he knows it will make him money. That it’s what his YouTube audience wants to see, or what the algorithm will promote. His online persona is an exaggerated version of a piece of him, yes. But it’s not 100% him. Not by a long shot.
Even so, Phil gets ideas for YouTube videos and makes them. His content doesn’t have to be earth-shattering and he isn’t obsessed with making a mark on the world . Videos can be silly, fun. Tom’s right in that respect.
“Yeah. I’ll watch it. You’re right— otherwise I’ll go mental. But, also, forget him. He’s got his style; I’ve got mine.”
“There ya go. And, anyway, you’re going to Spain next week. Now is not the time to worry about what Dan Howell has said about your slime video. Anyway, what I have to say about your slime video is more important, because, damn it, Phil! This shirt still has purple glitter all over it, despite me putting it through the wash again.”
Tom slings an arm over Phil then and squeezes him roughly. It makes him forget about Dan for a little bit.
***
That seems to last until Phil is in his bed. The impractical wicker bed frame complains every time he moves. And he moves a lot, tossing and turning and trying to get Dan Howell out of his head.
It’s dumb, because it’s been years since his relationship with Dan. Throughout the years, Phil has seen the other YouTuber some and heard about him plenty.
Phil’s head spins with a conflicting images of Dan in his head; the Dan of now versus the Dan of his past. When they first started skyping back in 2009, Dan was vulnerable, fearful. He was brash, but it always seemed like a defense mechanism. Dan brought out Phil’s every instinct to protect and reassure.
Fat lot of good that did him.
There’s still a bit of Phil that wishes things had gone differently with Dan, and maybe that’s the part of Phil that’s so drawn to hear what Dan is saying about him these days. Except, Phil already knows it’s nothing positive.
Phil lets out a frustrated groan and he sits up in bed.
Darkness has enveloped Phil’s room and it's quiet, but for the occasional creak of a water pipe. Phil has his phone shoved on the far side of his bedside table, but it calls to him. It would be so easy to open up Dan’s video on his YouTube app and passively listen to it, or find someone in the comments who has probably time-stamped the drama.
Finally, Phil gives up. He feels a little bit of relief, like he’s scratching an elusive itch. He finds the video quickly and just puts it on, lays down, and closes his eyes against the image of Dan Howell on the screen. He doesn’t need to see those brown eyes.
The first six minutes are boring. Dan talks about moving apartments, his liveshow background, a TomSka sketch he’s been in, and a lot of other little stories that don’t really interest Phil, but that he knows audiences love. At least Phil’s audience loves them.
Objectively, Dan has a calming voice and he’s mostly kind to his commenters. So listening to him isn’t all that unpleasant. But there are still moments that make Phil roll his eyes; Dan just has a way with being... passively dismissive.
“...Someone that I spoke to in the video did not want to be in the video and Tinder decided it should not be there out of respect for the person, which is totally fair enough.” As Dan tells this particular story, Phil can’t help but feel a little bit bad for Dan. Phil knows that it isn’t fun to work hard on a video, only for a sponsor to request to take it down. It’s disheartening. “Can we have a moment of silence for ‘Would You Date the Real Dan?’” It was a pretty funny video, too, if Phil is being honest with himself.
After a split second pause, Dan continues. “Now there’s an even bigger gap in my channel, since it looks like I didn’t put a video out this month. I mean, I could do what other YouTubers do and just do an eBay mystery unboxing or make slime.” Any sympathy Phil feels for Dan is immediately lost. “Could you imagine me stooping that low?” Dan in the video laughs sardonically. “‘ Oooh, throwing shade.’ Is it shade, Sara? Sure. Sipping the tea with Mr. D.”
Phil’s heard enough. He forcefully turns off his phone and tosses it back onto his bedside table with a clatter. It’s so clear that it’s Phil who Dan is “throwing shade” at, as Phil put out both of those videos within the last couple months.
Condescending, cynical, posh Daniel Howell. Phil doesn’t know why he even let Dan worm his way into Phil’s brain. Phil squeezes his eyes shut, willing sleep to take him to a dreamless land where no Daniel Howells will be there to snark at him like he wasn’t Phil’s biggest fan eight years ago. Unfortunately, it takes another hour for such sleep to come.
