Chapter Text
7 hours to go.
Phil Lester glanced at the glaring digital clock perched on the nightstand next to him.
3:07 A.M.
He groaned and burrowed into his comforter in an attempt to fall back asleep, but his nerves proved to be too much. At this point, any effort to rest was futile.
With a sigh, he lay on his back and pondered his situation.
Sprawled on a rock-hard mattress in a cold and uncomfortable room, Phil found himself approximately 9000 kilometers away from home.
Just meters away from him slept Dan Howell: star of the figure skating world, fellow rinkmate, and biggest rival. In a matter of hours, Phil and Dan would go head-to-head in what would be the most anticipated showdown of the figure skating season: The 2018 Winter Olympics Men’s Figure Skating Event.
It didn’t take a genius to find out why Phil was unable to sleep.
Phil’s stomach softly rumbled in fear. Yes, he was nervous right now, but his stress at the moment was nothing compared to what it would be like in a few hours. So, while he still had his sanity, Phil decided to mentally prepare for the first day of competition.
Figure skating competitions are divided into two segments: the short program and the free skate. The short program is the first routine a skater does, and is, as its name suggests, shorter in length than the free skate. The free skate is the longer of the two, and the competitors have more freedom in deciding which elements to incorporate into their routine.
Skaters are judged based on the difficulty and quality of their jumps, spins, and moves (technical score), but also receive marks for their artistry and presentation (component score). The technical and component scores are added up to produce the score for each program(segment score), and the segment scores are then totaled to yield the final results.
Dan was a technical powerhouse, consistently performing grueling jumps and spins in a precise and controlled manner. The seemingly indefatigable skater had the highest technical score of any competitive skater, and was thus hugely formidable. His ineffable athletic ability had given him the lead over Phil at nearly every competition of their careers.
Contrary to Dan, Phil’s forte was the artistic side of skating. Although clumsy off the ice, Phil exuded grace and poise while skating, and his spins were described by many as ethereal. His signature move was the Biellmann, a spin popular in the ladies’ category, but not so much the men’s.
But despite his distinctive moves and remarkable artistic ability, Phil had almost always lost to Dan throughout the seven years they competed against each other.
At the beginning, the 14 year old Phil loathed losing to Dan and resolved to do anything in his power to defeat him. No matter what Phil did, how many extra hours he practiced, how many disgusting “health smoothies” he drank, or how many times he hoped Dan would lose, nothing was ever enough. Dan would always win the gold and Phil would always be stuck with second.
Eventually, Phil reluctantly grew to accept his silver medal streak. Earning silver wasn’t horrible, and Phil was still definitely considered one of the top three skaters in the world. Being constantly in second place kept him relevant, but didn’t expose him to the extreme pressure Dan faced from the figure skating world.
But no matter what he told himself, Phil had always wanted to come out from behind Dan’s shadow. He was tired of Dan always being in the spotlight. Everyone obviously loved Dan more. It was Dan who had all the endorsements, was featured on all the posters, and who had hordes of screaming fans bombarding him at competitions. (Not that Phil wanted to be stalked or anything, but it was the principle of the damn thing.) Even their coach preferred Dan! Dan always received an exorbitant amount of praise for everything, while Phil only got indifference or nagging.
Phil huffed in indignance, momentarily forgetting that he was sharing a room with Dan.
Dan heard Phil and groaned.
“Could you shut up? Some of us are trying to sleep, mate,” Dan grumbled angrily.
“Sorry!” Phil whispered.
Phil shrank back in his bed. The brown-haired skater was not only intimidating on the ice, but off ice as well. And to make matters quite worse, it was no secret that Dan hated Phil.
Dan hadn’t always hated Phil. In fact, he didn’t even start hating Phil until a few months prior to the Olympics.
The enmity began at the Grand Prix Finals. For the first time ever, Phil had taken the lead over Dan in the short program. And though Dan ultimately ended up winning the competition, the small defeat still surprised him, and he reacted by becoming colder towards Phil. Now that was all tolerable, and frankly Phil expected it to happen.
But what he could never have prepared for were the subsequent European Championships.
The European Championships happened about one month prior to the Olympics. It was a sort of practice run for the Olympics, and as usual, Dan was the favorite for the competition. It should have been a cinch for Dan, really. But somehow the universe compelled Dan to make an uncharacteristic mistake in the free program, leading Phil to the gold.
In seven years of skating against Dan, it was the first time Phil had defeated him.
And it could not have come at a worse moment.
Because of the competition’s proximity to the Olympics, Dan began seeing Phil as a veritable threat. Instead of the frigid interactions of before, now all of Dan’s ire was targeted at Phil.
Not a day would pass that Phil wasn’t shoved, glowered, or jeered at. Dan found every opportunity to make Phil regret his win. During practice, Dan would constantly taunt Phil, rudely pointing out his mistakes, and smirking when he fell. It was beginning to affect his skating, so Phil notified the coach, but the coach scoffed and told Phil to grow up.
Phil was all alone. Sure, he had the support of his family and fans, but none of them were able to protect Phil from the hate.
The media was eating all of this up, of course. They painted Phil as a disgruntled underdog out to snatch Dan’s title, and Dan as a glorious champion fighting to keep what was rightfully his.
People derived satisfaction from pitting them against each other, and legions of fans flocked to South Korea to watch the two duel it out. Endless promotional posters featured the two and their much anticipated face-off, but deep down, Phil knew Dan would most likely win. After all, Dan had remained undefeated for many years, whereas Phil had only won one out of dozens of competitions against Dan. Dan held every single world record, and although Phil came close to breaking those, he still always came up short.
Phil anxiously looked at the clock.
3:58 A.M.
6 hours to go.