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hey phil, i hope this isn't weird but i wanted to tell you i really enjoyed your video
i've thought about doing a sort of house tour (but not a house tour) of my own, but i never quite landed on how to do it properly, you know, so it didn't just end up an actual house tour. i had to find the joke first. oh well just another idea added to the file, you know me. you did a great job, it was really funny. not that you need me to tell you that obv, i just wanted to. it was really good. your houseplants look great #houseplantgoals
Dan slammed his laptop shut. What was he even doing? houseplantgoals? He stood up from his chair and indelicately flung his macbook onto the indented seat. Your houseplants look great? Dan shook his head at himself. Idiot. He went to the kitchen and aimlessly rummaged through the empty fridge; he had a lot of condiments but nothing to put them on or dip in them. He made a mental note to order groceries tomorrow. The same mental note he had been making daily, and ignoring daily, for over a week now. There was a shop practically next door to his flat, but the thought of anybody recognizing him and talking to him kept him from going out. He didn't want to have to smile or answer questions. He didn't want to be human right now. He just wanted food delivered to his door with minimal eye contact and lots of cheese. Tomorrow, then. He even set an alarm on his phone.
Dan rolled his eyes thinking about the email. Houseplants. This is what it had come to. This time last year he and Phil had been having the time of their lives, and now Dan couldn't even write the man he had shared his entire adult life with a simple email about a YouTube video. Something small twinged in Dan's chest as a feeling of déjà vu flooded him. Time really was cyclical—two people end just as they began: as strangers. Maybe Dan would find it poetic if it wasn't so cruel. He grabbed a glass of water and splashed some on his face for good measure. He took a sip and again shook his head at himself, at the lie. This time last year was enjoyable, yes, but there were already cracks in the glass that not even whale-watching in Australia could hold together. It only took them until November to shatter apart completely.
Dan took his water and went back to his chair in the corner of the lounge, picking up the laptop with more care than when he'd put it down. What could he say to Phil that wasn't about houseplants? He probably shouldn't even mention the video, that could just open up a dialogue about when Dan might post, if ever. It was August 2019 and he hadn't posted anything of his own since January. They still had a backlog of gaming videos filmed in November that had been going up every 4 weeks or so, but they only had 2 left. And then what? Maybe he should open up that dialogue, someone had to.
hey phil, i loved your video today! are we abandoning the gaming channel after the last video goes up like we abandoned our relationship?
Dan stared at the screen for a moment before backspacing it all away. Nobody had abandoned anything. Hindsight is a malleable thing; Dan knew he remembered things as and when they suited him. If he was feeling mad at Phil, he remembered that night in America when Phil told him to stay in his own room that night before loudly closing the door in Dan's face. If he was feeling guilty and missing Phil, he remembered telling Phil earlier that same night that he was sick of Phil holding him back from the life he wanted. Dan cringed at the memory and wished hindsight was malleable enough that he could time travel to take those words back. "You're holding me back"—that was what he'd said to Phil. It wasn't even true. Phil had given him the world. But they could no longer decide how to exist in that world together with their changing wants and needs. They were at a standstill. That barrier combined with months of jaw-breaking smiles at meet-and-greets followed by the show and then chlorine-scented hotel sheets before doing it all over again the next day... there just hadn't been enough alone time, truly alone, for the two of them. Dan had felt more and more like a robot playing a role alongside another robot; they had become Dan And Phil—the exact versions of themselves the entire tour was intended to dispel. How's that for irony? Dan often wondered.
Dan closed his laptop again, but pulled his phone from his pocket. Fuck email. Email was for business and Dan didn't want to talk to Phil about business. He scrolled through his messages until he saw Phil Lester—their last exchange had been months ago and had pertained to decisions about upcoming merch. Okay, maybe texting was also for business, but it felt less formal to Dan. Like so many times over the last several months, Dan's thumb hovered over the screen as all the possibilities of what he could type flashed through his mind:
i'm sorry
thinking about you
fuck you
this is your fault
fuck me
this is my fault
i want you to fuck me
can we talk
Unlike the last several months, however, Dan didn't turn off his phone and go have a wank in the shower instead. This time, he typed out the words:
your vid was v lol
and sent it before he could change his mind. Not expecting a response any time soon, Dan placed his phone on the table and thought maybe he would go have a wank in the shower after all, but the thought had barely crossed his mind before his phone let out a familiar alert. Text message received. Dan looked at the screen, barely believing the words Phil had sent him after months of nothing:
do you wanna come over?