Chapter Text
Dan wouldn’t go so far as to say he was obsessed. Infatuated, maybe? Addicted? Who knew. He for sure did not have a clue. It hadn’t started as an obsession, probably more of a distraction. Sixth form was hell, revising for his exams was consuming his life. Somehow, it, or rather he, had become a constant outlet, a means of escaping his shitty mundane life. It was incredible how one other person could have single handed changed the way he thought about his own life and yet, somehow, it had happened. Absurd video's and crazy ramblings allowed his own life to take a back seat; he could pretend, for at least five minutes, that he was a part of that world.
Course, he knew he wasn't. Drowning in coursework deadlines, failing at maintaining a healthy balance between drinking socially and drinking for the hell of it was the situation he more often found himself in. Drowning in himself, pretending that certain parts of his past didn’t exist, that some people didn’t still taunt him at every opportunity they got. All of that became easier to deal with when he was enthralled in a world that didn’t quite feel like his own.
The pretending and idolising were the one thing, probably the only thing, he thought he couldn't fuck up. He had no control over it, he just watched, an active audience member. Until it gradually began to change. His obsession intensified and the thought of letting go terrified him.
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Dan's phone buzzes loudly on his desk, his heart leaping as he looks at the notification AmazingPhil is now live on YouNow. Minimising his geography homework, he tabs YouNow open smiling instantly when he sees the grinning face of the other man smiling on screen. It was a weight being lifted, a breath that he didn't know he had been holding spilled out.
Phil started to chat idly about his day, the past week and the last video he had uploaded. It wasn't riveting content, but Dan didn't care much. He was only half listening as he picked up his phone, tapping out a quick twitter DM.
your hair looks good today
He hits send on the message, before he has a chance to think twice about it, before he thinks that maybe that actually was weird to say. Would Phil think he was a creep for telling him his hair looked nice? Seconds later Phil flicks his eyes down, presumably to where his phone was. Dan watches, smiling as Phil’s own mouth pulls up in a slight half smile, before his attention returns to the live show.
“Someone in the chat just said my hair looks nice today” He says to the camera “thank you, I’m sure they also look good today”. He carries on chatting, answering a few questions and before Dan knew it the half hour was up, Phil was saying goodbye. Sighing, he clicks back onto his geography coursework staring blankly at the word document until his phone buzzes again and he smiles as this time he sees the reply from Phil.
I got it cut yesterday, didn’t think anyone would really notice!
Dan rolled his eyes and typed out a quick reply iterating the fact that of course he would notice. The read notification popped up immediately and Dan knew his chances of getting his work done on time had gone completely out of the window, knowing that he was inevitably going to be spending the evening messaging Phil back and forth. Not that that was anything to complain about, messaging Phil had become his new favourite pastime. Whether or not Phil enjoyed talking to him as much he did; he had no idea, for all he knew Phil could message a large proportion of his audience because he enjoyed interacting with the people that watched his videos.
Dan was never the special one, never the one that anyone really wanted to speak to. He was the person that would be seated next to someone in a new class, they’d be friends for a week until they eventually and inevitably found someone better to be friends with. Dan stopped letting it bother him, he had people he could hang around with and sit with. He had parties he could go to and people would invite him. But he was never the one that someone would willingly choose to speak with, especially if there was a group of other people there. It was what made talking to Phil so much more surreal, the fact that Phil would reply, when there were so many other people he could be talking to.
So, his heart almost leapt out of his skin when, after about an hour of messaging, Phil’s next reply came through.
Why don’t I have your number yet? It would be so much easier than constantly messaging you on twitter!
Dan’s entire insides felt as though they were melting, at least that seemed like confirmation he was enjoying talking, just as much as Dan was. He sent him his number grinning like a fool and set his phone down, hardly daring to believe that Phil was about to text him. Texting seemed so much more personal than messaging via twitter or Instagram, like Dan was actually going to be talking to the real Phil Lester rather than AmazingPhil who Dan currently spent most of his time talking to.
If you were to ask Dan how it had started he wouldn’t really be able to tell you, one day he was commenting on Phil’s videos and liking his Instagram posts and replying to his tweets, the next week Phil had followed him back on twitter and Instagram; Dan had pretty much fainted on the spot. It was one thing to follow someone back, but the fact that Phil had gone through his Instagram and liked a few of his older photos was enough to make him feel ill. And then as if it was the most normal thing, Phil started replying to his lousy tweets and messaging him encouragements when he felt like sixth form was drowning him. He would always be there with some crazy anecdote about his day, never failing to make him smile. About a month later and here he was, waiting impatiently for a text to come through.
His phone chimed, and his head snapped to look at it, feeling slightly disheartened to see it was from his…well he wouldn’t go as far as to say girlfriend, more like girl who was his friend who he had been on multiple dates with and had sex with a lot over the past year. Grimacing he cleared her message telling himself he would reply later. They had been friends since year seven, until a house party in year twelve had them getting off with each other in a game of truth or dare. Their relationship had sort of spiralled from there. They began spending more and more time together and Dan found himself enjoying her company more and more and looking at other people less and less. Maybe she would consider herself his girlfriend, and his family and friends would consider her as such. Dan wasn’t so sure. He loved her in a way, in that she was his best friend and the person he could talk to about most things, but he wasn’t so certain he was in love with her. Not like she was with him, and he tried to tell himself that he wasn’t stringing her along for his own selfish needs, but half the time he just pushed it to the back of his head and hung out with her, half wishing he could feel the same way about her.
Dan glanced at his phone again, seeing that Phil hadn’t messaged him, decided he felt bad for ignoring Olivia’s message.
Oi dork, you haven’t liked my new insta post, it’s a good one.
He rolled his eyes, but never the less opened up Instagram and sure enough her post was the first one on his feed. She was right, it was a good picture and it was undeniable that they looked good together. The picture had been taken that morning, they were both still groggy from sleep and Olivia had insisted on taking a selfie. Dan’s hair was curly, he had given up on straightening it, he insisted to himself it had nothing to do with the fact that Phil had liked and commented Your hair looks good today!! on a recent selfie of his where he had left his hair in its natural state, and more to do with how Olivia preferred it that way.
Olivia’s picture had her lying on his shoulder, her blonde hair fanning out around her face and across Dan’s bare chest. He was smiling at her with such a sappy look on his face, that, he couldn’t for the life of him remember doing. Olivia was smiling brightly at the camera her full pink lips drew Dan’s eyes to them immediately and he licked his lips involuntarily. They really did look good together, and it seemed the hundred-odd people that had liked her picture seemed to agree. He dutifully tapped the heart and left the obligatory heart emojis in the comments, before he tapped out a quick reply to her text.
you look good in that pic. Her reply was almost instant I know I do, we look good together. Dan smiled and threw his phone to the side.
Dan woke up with a start the next morning, Olivia was sat at the end of his bed, laptop perched precariously on her knees, typing away furiously.
“Morning” She trilled not looking up, just noticing the sudden movement from Dan’s end of the bed.
“Hi” Dan croaked out “You’re in my room?”
“Your mum let me in, like, ten minutes ago you’ve been snoring your head off. You do realise our geography coursework was due today right?” She carried on chatting away, Dan mostly tuned her out as he sunk back into his pillow and grabbed his phone off the night-stand, his heart missed a beat as he saw the message from the unknown number, momentarily having forgot he’d given Phil his number last night. He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face as he read.
Hey Dan, its Phil. You know the amazing one, I’m not sure you know any other Phil’s actually, I mean I probably am the most amazing though right??? Sorry that was rambly. Anyway, sorry I didn’t message you straight away I got caught up in some family stuff. I hope sixth form isn’t too bad today and that you managed to get your coursework done! Have a good day!
“Shit” Dan muttered “The geography coursework is due today.”
“I knew you weren’t listening to me” Olivia grumbled “I literally said that two minutes ago!”
Dan mumbled under his breath something about going to take a shower and headed out of his room leaving Olivia sitting on his bed rolling her eyes in his wake.
It was a few hours later when Dan finally got around to replying to Phil, after his shower that morning he had hurriedly typed out a few hundred words regarding the coastal landscapes of Dorset, resulting in Olivia speeding on the way to sixth form to prevent them from being late again. He was lounging in the common room, his friends chatting animatedly around him, but as normal he was paying no interest in the conversation and had instead found himself glued to his phone instead. He thought for a moment before typing his reply, not wanting to seem too over-eager, though by now if Phil didn’t think of him as some crazy over-eager teenager anyway it would have been a miracle.
hey phil the amazing, being as youre the only phil I know I guess that means that youre the most amazing but also the worst lol
sixth is a drag as usual finished my coursework this morning thank god…
i hope everything is okay with your family.
He tapped his fingers impatiently waiting for a reply, he only had fifteen minutes before his next class not that he was expecting Phil to reply straight away, he was pleasantly surprised when a message came through a few seconds later, grinning he opened it and began to reply.
“Dan!” Someone shouted, he looked up from his phone to the sound of the voice “I’ve shouted you like, three times!”
“Sorry” he mumbled locking his phone and putting it in his pocket making a mental note not to forget to reply to Phil. “What’s up?”
“Just wanted to know if you were coming to my house party on Saturday?” Of course, Ryan was having another house party, there was one most weekends, with his parents often working away he made the most of it. It had been one of his house parties where he and Olivia had first kissed. If he was honest with himself, the parties were getting a little boring, the same people in the same house week after week, drinking themselves into oblivion. Inevitably during some point of the night, he and Olivia would wind up in an argument that would never get settled, they’d just end up in the spare bedroom getting each other off. It was tiresome, Dan didn’t know if he could deal with it anymore.
“Sure, I’ll be there” he muttered, if he didn’t agree someone else would only end up talking him into anyway and he’d probably be even more miserable while he was there, plus it gave him a chance to drink without needing a reason.
“Nice!” Ryan said moving on to ask someone else.
Dan looked back at his phone and carried on his message to Phil, they messaged back kand forth a few times until the bell ran and Dan had to get to class, with the promise of texting Phil once he got out of school.
The rest of the day dragged by, Olivia drove him home after class had finished and his mum invited her to stay for dinner, Dan tried to insist that they both had coursework to get done, just wanting an excuse to be alone in his room and finally get to message Phil. However, Olivia had insisted that the work they had to do, they could do together. Dan tried not to look too disappointed and smiled at Olivia’s enthusiasm.
It was a relief when she left at 11:30 and Dan could finally get a chance to read Phil’s reply that had been sitting on his phone all day. He flopped back on his bed and replied apologising for how late it was and then spent a few minutes scrolling through twitter waiting for the reply. It amazed Dan how instant Phil’s replies were, he had to remind himself that Phil probably had his phone in his hands most of the time checking his YouTube and twitter notifications, it wasn’t like he was getting Dan’s messages and stopping everything he was doing to reply efficiently.
Dan laughed out loud as Phil’s message recounted getting chased by a pigeon as he walked back from Tesco earlier in the day. He could hear Phil’s voice in the way he had wrote the message, as if he was saying it in a video, the way his voice quirked up at strange parts of the story and said as such to Phil.
Maybe I could ring you at some point, you could actually hear my voice as I told you the story, came his reply.
Dan felt sick bubble in the back of his throat at the thought of talking to Phil, it would just be Phil talking directly to him. Whenever he heard Phil talk before it had been to an audience, whether it was a live show or a video. He didn’t exactly feel anxious about talking to Phil per se, but his stomach had knotted up slightly. What if Phil hated his voice? What if they couldn’t hold a conversation? What if Dan said something stupid that he couldn’t just delete before sending?
You can ring me now, if you want to? Dan hit send before he had a chance to back out and work himself up too much. His phone rang a few seconds later.
“Hello” Dan said, hating how much it sounded like his voice was shaking and how he could feel his anxiety rippling through his body. He was pathetic.
“Hey” Phil replied, Dan could practically feel the smile coming through Phil’s one word “You alright? How was your evening?”
It wasn’t so scary, Phil seemed so confident, and besides that he spent half an hour each week talking to a webcam in a live show getting no real responses, it wasn’t like there was any awkward silences then. Phil was one of those people it seemed that could just fill a silence with any kind of unimportant chatter. This would be fine, Dan told himself, it was just Phil.
“I’m alright I just spent the evening with Olivia, nothing exciting to be honest.” He paused for a minute, he wasn’t sure he had ever bought up Olivia to Phil before, he must have been aware of her to some extent being as she was in a few of Dan’s Instagram posts. But when Dan was talking to Phil he never felt the urge to talk about Olivia, he didn’t really feel like talking about Olivia right now and quickly moved on before Phil could say anything, “But literally all I care about is this pigeon story, please elaborate on how you felt so threatened by a flying rat”
Phil laughed, and the sound felt like electricity tingling down Dan’s spine. It was different to the way he laughed in videos, it was deeper and sounded less forced, Dan had just elicited the first real laugh he would hear from Phil. In fact, Phil’s voice in general sounded different, less put on, more natural. He had a deep gravelly undertone that Dan had never really noticed before and now he had noticed it he couldn’t help but think how attractive it sounded. Dan rolled over in bed and engrossed himself in Phil’s story.
When they finally hung up, Dan wasn’t sure he had ever felt so alive during a phone call before, there were no awkward silences. Dan didn’t want to shrivel up and bury himself in the ground because of something he had said. He made Phil laugh countless times, though he wasn’t sure now what he had said to make him laugh so much. Just knowing that if he could carry on making Phil laugh; his own quality of life would be greatly improved. He glanced at the clock, shocked when he saw it read 3am, had they really been on the phone for that long? As if he had just had the same thought Dan’s phone chimed with a message from Phil.
Oops, sorry to keep you up so late, I hope you don’t wake up late for sixth tomorrow. It was great to finally get to talk to you!
Dan smiled ear to ear, Phil thought it was great to talk to him, what the hell did he do to deserve that.
i don’t mind being late tomorrow talking to you was worth it
It was a mushy text, Dan knew that, but he was exhausted and half asleep and he felt happier than he had done in a long while.
If Dan thought he was obsessing with Phil before the phone call, that was nothing compared to how he felt the next day. Every fibre of his being itched to talk to him again. To have Phil make him forget how bogged down with life he was. The constant parental nagging, the worry of sixth form, the constant niggling at the back of mind that he was with Olivia for all the wrong reasons, the way he wanted to get over it all by downing shots of vodka every weekend disappeared. Phil was a breath of fresh air and it was addictive.