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Dan shifted in his chair, pulling on his headphones where the pressure on his ears was just starting to hurt. They were comfy as hell, but even the best headphones started to ache after such a marathon session. Gaming had given way to Wikipedia, which had given way to YouTube, and now twenty minutes into a thirty-seven minute long video, Dan’s back, knees and ears were protesting the long period of inactivity.
He’d move soon, he told himself, but first he’d just finish this video. And maybe one more, he thought, glancing at an interesting-looking related video in the sidebar.
He hadn’t noticed how dark it had gotten until a flicker of light caught his eye. Glancing up, he did a double-take at the sight of Phil appearing in the room, carrying a small cake with two lit candles on the top - a one and a zero.
Phil was saying something, and Dan stared dumbly at his moving lips for a moment, the sound completely muffled by his noise-cancelling headphones.
“What?” he said, simultaneously sliding them off and hitting pause on his video.
“I said, happy tenth!” said Phil, bringing the cake closer. Dan straightened in his chair, back clicking in protest.
“Wow, Phil,” he said, eyeing the candles. “I know I look young, but ten’s a bit harsh.”
Phil ignored him. “A little bird reminded me that today just might be the tenth anniversary of a certain video.”
Dan frowned for a second before awareness hit.
“Oh, God.”
“Hi!” said Phil, grinning wider. “My name is - ”
“No,” said Dan loudly, taking the cake and placing it on the desk before Phil dropped it and he really was on fire. “None of that.”
He looked closer at the cake, which was covered in colourful icing stars.
“Was this little bird Twitter, by any chance?” he said, glancing up at Phil.
“Maybe,” said Phil, who was still smiling.
“Is it actually today?” he said, turning back to his computer and clicking on his account. A few seconds of scrolling took him to the bottom of his video list, and he selected the culprit, pausing it as quickly as humanly possible once it loaded.
Well, bloody hell. There it was.
“Wow, ten years,” he said. “I was gonna say it doesn’t feel like that long, but it actually feels like a lot longer.”
“I know what you mean. I can’t believe it was ten years ago I went to meet a certain rat off the train for the first time, as well.”
“Fuck, that’s this week too, isn’t it?” said Dan. “Do we get another cake?”
“Maybe. Though I was actually thinking pizza.”
“They could make a ten out of green peppers or something, I guess.”
“Exactly!”
Dan looked at his empty old bedroom on the screen, and something made him tap the spacebar. The video was still relatively fresh in his mind from VidCon - he couldn’t imagine he’d have chosen to watch it again otherwise - but without a camera filming his reaction he felt no need to react at all as he watched his own face slowly appear in shot.
“Awww,” said Phil from beside him. Dan could hear the smile in his tone.
“Shut up,” said Dan.
“What?” said Phil. “It’s cute.”
“Cute?”
“Yeah. Look how young you look.”
“An actual foetus.”
“Yeah.” Phil ruffled his curls.
The video had no sound, still routed through his headphones, and they were silent for a moment as they watched eighteen-year-old Dan introduce himself to the world.
“Okay,” said Dan, pausing again. “Think that’s enough.”
“You don’t want to watch the whole thing?”
“Hell no.”
“Blow out your candles!” said Phil. Dan rolled his eyes, but leaned in, closer to the cake.
“Make a wish,” Phil reminded him.
Dan looked into the flickering flames, as a drop of melted wax slowly inched its way down the side of one candle. He thought about what he might have wished for when he posted the video in the first place, and how he now had all of it, and infinitely more, and he thought about the ingratitude of asking for even more than he already had.
Phil was looking at him expectantly.
But there was still so much more to come, wasn’t there? For him and for them and, just maybe, even for his poor old YouTube channel.
He looked once more at the young, long-haired boy on his screen, closed his eyes, and blew out the candles.
Phil’s arm rested across his shoulders. Dan pressed his cheek into Phil’s stomach, wrapping an arm around his waist as he watched the candle smoke curl up into the air. His fingers brushed the handle of something big in the pocket of Phil’s jeans.
“What the hell is this?” he said, fingers closing around the handle. Pulling on it produced a large knife - fortunately in its plastic sleeve - from Phil’s back pocket.
“Jesus,” said Dan, looking at it. “I see how it is. Ten years was more than enough, let’s end it now.”
“You gonna cut the cake or what?” said Phil, removing the cooling candles. Dan removed the knife’s plastic sleeve with a flourish, and Phil winced out of the way.
“Careful,” he said.
“Coming from you,” tutted Dan. “Okay, well, here’s to the biggest mistake I ever made, I suppose.”
He cut into the cake and glanced up at Phil.
“Well,” he said, licking a bit of icing from his thumb. “Second biggest.”