Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dan is six years old when he sees it happen for the first time.

His mum’s got a gentle grip on his hand as she tugs him along through the shopping centre. Dan would much rather be home watching Winnie the Pooh, but the promise of new toys was enough to lure him away from his favourite bear long enough to get some shopping done.

It’s not like shopping is his least favourite activity, either; while new clothes don’t hold his interest, what does is all the different kinds of people he gets to see. He tends to get bored of the people he’s exposed to at home - his mum and dad, who both have dark hair and dark eyes, and his baby brother, who does nothing but cry and drool all over himself. But the strangers he sees at places like the shopping centre intrigue Dan to no end. The people with folds etched into their skin and others with tiny ringlets of curls on their head that Dan thinks would be interesting to touch. He may not understand why these people look the way they do, so different from him and yet still familiar, but he likes to look at them nonetheless.

His mum stops for a moment to observe something in the window of a store, and Dan’s gaze falls on two small boys around the same age as him standing with their own mums. One has dark hair and is hiding his face in his mother’s pant leg, and the other, with a messy mop of light fringe, is smiling and trying to get the other boy to look at him.

Dan’s about to turn away, already losing interest, when the dark haired boy finally looks up and immediately begins crying. Not the loud wailing Dan’s brother does, though - just tears streaming down the boy’s face as he stares at the shorter boy before him, his eyes squinting the way Dan’s do when he looks into the sun. When Dan’s gaze travels over to the boy with lighter hair, he’s crying, too, and Dan doesn’t understand.

His mum is starting to walk away, but Dan tugs on her arm, pointing to the scene.

“Mummy, why are they crying?” Even though she can’t possibly know exactly what the boys are feeling, Dan’s mum is smart and knows the answer to a lot of things, so it makes perfect sense to ask her.

Her gaze follows his finger, and when she takes in the scene before her, she smiles. If Dan was confused before, he doesn’t know the word to describe what he’s feeling now because these two boys are crying and his mum is smiling about it? His mum never smiles when he cries - she always gives him hugs until he feels better, and Dan doesn’t understand why the boys’ mums have the same smile on their faces that his mum has and why everyone is smiling in the first place.

A hand on his cheek turns his head away, and he looks into his mum’s eyes, who’s now crouching down to his level beside him.

“It looks to me like those boys have just found their soulmate,” his mum says, and even though it’s an answer to his question, Dan doesn’t know what that word means and he’s still lost.

“What’s a soulmate?”

His mum brushes his curls out of his eyes before she answers.

“A soulmate is like your best friend,” she says. “Like how Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh are best friends, but more special. You love and take care of each other, like best friends do, but a soulmate is a best friend who brings you the colours. Black and white and grey become red and blue and so much more, and I know you don’t understand what those are right now, but some day you will. And it will be beautiful, Dan, you will love the colours and you will love sharing them with your soulmate. Do you understand?”

Dan looks back at the boys, who are wiping the tears from their eyes and staring at each other with expressions that let Dan know what they’re seeing isn’t the same as what he’s seeing. And while he still doesn’t quite understand what that is, can’t possibly fathom what colours are and what they look like and how they will change the world around him, he trusts his mum when she says that they’ll change everything.

His eyes meet his mum’s again and he nods, and she smiles at him and kisses his forehead before standing and pulling him away from the boys who can see what he can't.

***

Dan is seventeen years old and he’s never felt more alone.

It’s more than the fact that he’s sitting by himself in his bedroom right now, browsing through YouTube and pretending the kids talking to cameras in their bedrooms, somewhere far away, are talking to him. All of his friends are out partying right now, probably drinking themselves sick and having a good time, and Dan is sitting in his old childhood bedroom, tragically sober, wishing that these people on the other side of the screen were with him

It’s not even like he wasn’t invited to go out, and he certainly doesn’t aspire to be an alcoholic, but he declined the invitation because he doesn’t want to be a burden on his friends. They’re all going off to uni in the fall, ready to trade their same old monochrome surroundings for shiny and new - but equally monochrome - surroundings. And Dan is staying here, in boring old Berkshire in his boring old bedroom, because he’s not ready for kind-of-adulthood.

He’s just never really been the school-type. After spending the majority of his life in education, Dan needs a break. He’s earned a break. And that’s why he’s taking a gap year, so he can spend at least the rest of 2009 relaxing and doing anything that’s not school work. Of course, he has an internship at a law firm starting in the new year, but that’s not something he has to think about for a few months.

The problem is that all of his friends are going to uni, leaving him behind and alone. Of course he can see them on some weekends, but he doesn’t expect them all to come home every weekend when he’s the only one here. It would be different if he was really close to them all, but he’s not. None of them would choose him over anyone else, and that’s fine, Dan knows that he’ll find someone who will one day, but it’d be nice to find them now.

He would probably be better off if he was still with his girlfriend, but she sees the colours now and he doesn’t blame her for leaving him behind.

Of course, he would have done the same if he found his soulmate.

It’s not that he’s upset that she found hers first; honestly, he’s incredibly happy for her. He loved her, he really did, but never like that. They were together for convenience, mostly. Someone to keep the loneliness at bay. And if they were still together, she would have visited him on the weekends, or he would have visited her. But she found her soulmate, and she’s seeing the colours, and Dan is all by himself in his dull grey world.

He’s not really alone, though. There are so many people who haven’t found their soulmates yet, and one of those people is his soulmate. He just needs to find them, and he wishes this whole thing was easier and he had some sort of GPS in his head that directed him to his other half because he’s tired of seeing in black and white and he’s tired of being alone. He wants to be blinded by the colours and by love and he wants someone who will choose him over anything else in the world.

He wants his soulmate.

And it’s hard, it really is, to know there is someone out there meant for him and him only, but have no idea who they are or where they are or when he will find them. And it breaks Dan’s heart; it scares him. It scares him to think that he’ll never find his soulmate, that he’ll live the rest of his life searching through black and white and grey for that one spark of colour, for someone to flip the switch and give his life purpose.

It scares him how much he relies on finding his soulmate to bring him happiness. It scares him that all of his friends are finding their own soulmates, entering this wonderful world of colour that’s so amazing they can’t even describe it to Dan, and Dan is afraid that he’ll be stuck in this colourless hell forever.

He’s wanted this since he knew what soulmates were, that day his mum explained it to him in the shopping centre when he was six. He still thinks about those boys sometimes; thinks about how lucky they are to have found their soulmate at such a young age, to have lived more of their life with colour than without.

And how Dan wishes he could be like those boys, that at seventeen he still wouldn’t be wondering what colours looked like and exactly how they could change his world so much. His mum has assured him so many times over the past several years about how wonderful his life will be when he found his soulmate, but Dan’s at the point where he wants to know for himself. He’s terrified that he won’t meet his soulmate until he’s 70 and in a retiring home, and then he’ll only have a few years with his greatest companion and the colours before he dies. Or worse - before his soulmate dies and leaves him alone in monochrome solitude forever.

He’s tired of waiting, and he’s incredibly jealous of all the people who have found their soulmate before him: the two boys at the shopping centre eleven years ago, his ex-girlfriend, and even his little brother. None of those people wanted to find their soulmate half as badly as Dan does, yet Dan is the one who’s still looking.

But thinking about what he doesn’t have makes the hole in his chest bigger, and so he tries to make it a little smaller with the pixelated faces of people talking to themselves in their bedrooms, pretending they’re his friends. Because not only does he not have his soulmate, but now that all of his friends are in uni, he doesn’t have them, either. So, logically, the only people he can turn to are the ones who don’t even know he exists.

He’s just finished watching a video about hats by YouTuber youraverageadam, and Dan thinks Adam is funny but now he’s watched all of his videos, so he turns his attention to the suggested videos.

It’s the thumbnail that grabs his attention: a boy with long fringe is making a distressed face and holding up his hands, and he’s taken the image to MS Paint and drawn lobster claws over them. The title reads “my mum is a lobster” and was posted by user AmazingPhil.

Curiosity gets the best of him and he clicks on the video, waiting for it to buffer for a few minutes - thanks to his ultra slow internet connection - before it finally starts playing. The boy begins speaking, showing off a playing card before launching into a silly little tale about his mother having a claw and therefore, is a lobster.

It’s silly and it’s random and Dan loves every minute of it. He doesn’t hesitate to follow the link to AmazingPhil’s channel and watch all of his videos. He seems to update quite frequently as well, and after only watching three videos, Dan clicks the subscribe button.

Phil is different from a lot of the other YouTubers he's watched. He’s quirky and creative; his editing style’s a bit sporadic but attention grabbing. Crappy MS paint drawings don’t take away from his videos - they enhance them somehow. And even in the greyscale 256p quality, he’s still beautiful. Dan’s fingers are usually tapping against the surface of his desk in restless boredom, but now they’re tapping away at his keyboard, typing out comments on almost every one of Phil’s videos. And when he sees the link to Phil’s twitter, he finds himself making an account for the sole purpose of following one @AmazingPhil.

It’s people like AmazingPhil who make him want to start doing YouTube. He has a camera, he has enough privacy to make a video without his parents hearing him and wondering why he's talking to himself. But the only thing he’s lacking is the courage. He’s a boring 17 year old boy who’s wallowing around in his gap year because he doesn’t have any friends. That’s not really going to be appealing to anyone, except maybe people who are even lamer than he is.

He wants to be like Phil - Phil, who’s creative and interesting. Phil, who, after watching only a handful of his videos, is inspiring Dan to turn on his own camera. Phil, who he’s already pretending is his friend even though it will never happen.

He wants it to, though; he wants to understand the thought process behind Phil’s videos; if there’s planning that goes into each and every one or if he just turns on the camera and spits out whatever’s on his mind. He wants to know all of his stories about running into weird strangers before anyone else does. Something about this boy on the internet has sparked something in Dan - and he wants to be just like him. To have someone find him as interesting as he finds Phil. But Dan knows that person would be his soulmate - and he’s about as close to finding them as he is to becoming a YouTuber, while his camera sits untouched on his desk.

For now, he’ll just imagine that his favourite YouTubers are his friends and respond to AmazingPhil’s tweets seconds after they’re posted, remaining on the viewer side of the spectrum until he finds the courage to be the one behind the lens.

***

It’s the 2nd of June when Phil replies to him on Twitter.

He’s been scrolling through his twitter feed, reading tweets from his favourite YouTubers and tweeting about his own mundane life when Phil tweets about seeing a movie that Dan has already seen. Dan, of course, replies immediately, not that he expects Phil to say anything back. And he doesn’t get anything back; Phil doesn’t tweet again for the next few minutes, and Dan sighs and leaves his computer in favor of making himself a sandwich downstairs.

He takes his time spreading the peanut butter on the bread and putting his sandwich together, knowing he has nothing better to do. He cuts it in half - triangles, not rectangles - and heads back upstairs, flopping down onto his bed and taking a bite before checking Twitter.

He’s not surprised to see the the (1) sitting next to his notifications tab; sometimes random people favourite his constant tweets to Phil, so it’s nothing new.

It’s not a favourite though, it’s a reply:

@Dan_Howell i can’t wait :]] (it’s too hot to jog tho, can i just sunbathe plz. i am brave

It’s from Phil.

Dan’s heart is pounding, double checking the twitter handle four times - sometimes people will have twitter handles like ArnazingPhil or AmazimgPhil and when those people favourite his tweets he goes into cardiac arrest - but this is the real deal. A-m-a-z-i-n-g-P-h-i-l. And even then he’s not convinced, has to go to Phil’s twitter page and see his twitter handle glaring at him in Phil’s most recent tweet to believe that AmazingPhil just tweeted at him.

He swallows the peanut butter clinging to the roof of his mouth and tries to remain calm, tries to ignore the way his hands are trembling with excitement and his heart is trying to burst through his rib cage. He can be cool about this, yeah. Phil’s a regular old guy, just like him. He’s just a person, just a Phil. There’s no need for Dan to get all worked up over a silly little reply over Twitter.

Except there is, because Phil is so much more than that, so much more than just Phil. He’s AmazingPhil, he’s Dan’s favourite YouTuber, he’s the reason for the giggles that push through Dan’s lips at two in the morning when he’s supposed to be quiet. He’s Phil, and he’s Amazing, and he means everything to Dan. He’s the only reason Dan has been staying afloat for the past few weeks, the only reason why Dan hasn’t been suffocated by his colourless, lonely existence. And the fact that Dan got a reply from him on twitter, a little snippet of a barely-conversation, makes him so happy that’s he’s actually really not sure what to do with himself now.

He doesn’t reply to the tweet, partly because he assumes Phil is watching the movie and won’t see it, and partly because he can’t think of anything interesting to say.

Phil tweets his review of the movie later, which Dan responds to - twice - and his tweets go unnoticed. He doesn’t mind, though. He’s actually not really sure if his heart can take two Phil replies in one day.

He goes to sleep that night and tries to keep the smile off his face. He fails

Nine days later, on his eighteenth birthday, Phil uploads an interactive series called SPACE ADVENTURE. Dan knows that Phil has no idea it’s his birthday, but he still treats this mega-upload as a birthday present from Phil to him, as if Phil knew it was his birthday and had the whole thing planned. And it’s amazing, no pun intended. By far the best thing Phil has ever uploaded. Dan can tell how much effort Phil put into this, from the script to the soundtrack, and he tries every single path he can take and comments on all of the videos.

He’s tweeting before he can stop himself.

@AmazingPhil I literally followed every single different path. That was one of the best things i’ve ever seen, was seriously worth the time.

@AmazingPhil As for the soundtrack.. I think I love you

@AmazingPhil I think i have a crush on you

He tweets all three of them within seconds of each other, and it's not until after he's sent them that he really realises what he's said.

I think I have a crush on you.

Does he have a crush on Phil?

Maybe he does - or maybe he's just projecting his desire to find his soulmate into his feelings for him. In the most basic sense, he's certainly attracted to Phil, but he's been itching to see the colours so badly, to find the person who’s going to set fire to his world and his bones and every inch of his skin, and maybe he wants for Phil to be that person so badly that he’s tricked himself into thinking that he has a crush on him.

No, he thinks, running a hand through his fringe. He definitely has a crush on Phil - or, at the very least, a deep desire to be his friend. Phil’s been the only light in Dan’s dark world these past few months, and maybe Phil’s not bringing Dan the colours he’s been yearning for, but he is bringing him the light, and that’s something, isn’t it?

He’s also been bringing Dan angina, because (4) appears next to his notifications tab on Twitter and Dan is sure that his heart is actually going to stop this time.

It’s not that Phil has just favourited all three of his tweets, but instead the notification sitting at the top of his feed:

@AmazingPhil is now following you!

He’s not breathing, even though his mouth is open, ready to provide his lungs with the oxygen they need to keep him alive. But he’s not sure that he really needs to be alive anymore, because Phil just followed him on twitter and is going to get Dan’s tweets sent to his timeline - that is, if Dan ever tweets again, because he could die happy right now.

Okay, that’s a lie. He wouldn’t be happy dying right now, because he really wants to see the colours and he really doesn’t want to die with the knowledge of his soulmate being trapped forever in this shitty greyscale life they’re leading. He doesn’t want to die without getting a taste of true love - real, requited love, apparently the best feeling in the world. But he is smiling bigger than he has in weeks, years even, and damn, does it feel good.

His heart skips another beat when he sees a (1) pop up next to his DMs inbox, and at this point, AmazingPhil better be paying for his hospital bills when Dan is diagnosed with a heart defect.

Thank you :] <3

that’s okay! they were seriously amazing, he types, resisting an urge to write a ‘thank you’ of his own. He wants to thank Phil for so much; for following him, for giving him the best birthday present ever, for shedding a tiny light in his dull and dark existence.

He doesn’t, though. Instead, he stays up too late having a real conversation with Phil, trying to ignore the way his heart skips a beat every time Phil sends him a message.

hahah thank you again :] i guess that’s why my channel name is amazingphil then

well you definitely live up to it :P

thanks :P

it’s alright :P

too many :P faces we need to stop x.x

agreed xD

And every time Dan thinks Phil is going to stop responding because Dan is So Boring and surely not entertaining to talk to at all, Phil surprises him with another response. Dan finds that they have so much in common, more than he had even originally thought; they spend an hour alone talking about Muse, comparing albums and discussing which songs are their favourite. They enjoy all of the same movies and video games and give each other recommendations, and it’s all very casual, but it’s the beginning of what Dan hopes to be a real friendship, and the thought of having that with Phil makes him feel giddy

They stay up all night talking, and Dan’s never met someone who’s been so interested in what he has to say, but Phil actually seems to enjoy talking to him. And honestly, this is all so weird because this is AmazingPhil, and Dan isn’t in any way Amazing, but Phil seems to think that he is, and Dan isn’t going to waste his time arguing; not when he’s finally gotten the chance to be friends with Phil.

He’s never had someone to call his best friend, someone who will stay up late talking to him because they genuinely enjoy hearing what he has to say and knowing that that person would choose him over anyone else. It’s a bond that he’s wanted his entire life, and even though they’ve just started properly talking, Dan has the feeling that Phil will be a very good friend of his.

So he keeps his mouth shut regarding his severe uncoolness, but he can’t keep the smile off his face as he talks to Phil all throughout the night. He falls asleep with that same wide grin on his face and his phone in his hand, dreaming of the boy with dark hair who gives him the light.

***

Dan’s not one to brag - much - and he doesn’t have anyone to brag to, but he certainly has a lot to brag about.

He can now say with certainty that he has a best friend, and that his best friend is none other than the actual AmazingPhil. The same AmazingPhil who has tens of thousands subscribers on YouTube and who definitely lives up to his channel name. The same AmazingPhil who has started putting smiles and hearts and x’s after most of his messages to Dan, who makes Dan blush and tug at his already chapped bottom lip with his teeth, trying to hide the smiles that appear when Dan’s talking to him.

At first, Dan thought it was just going to be the DMing. But three days of DMing turned into Phil asking Dan for his number, and then they became Facebook friends, and since his birthday Dan’s shiny new iPhone has been in his hand at all times, his fingers constantly tapping yet another message to Phil.

To be honest, Dan finds this all to be a little insane. It was just a few months ago that he was pretending that Phil’s videos were all for him, that Phil was actually his friend, and now Phil is actually his friend, his best friend, and it’s incredible to see how far Dan has come. He’s started actively trying to spend time with his old school friends, actually accepting their invitations to hang out and seeing them for the first time in months. He’s started reaching for his camera again, and although he hasn’t actually filmed anything yet, he’s getting more confidence to do so each and every day, and he’s sure that any day now, he’ll be able to press the record button. Even his parents have noticed he’s happier - his mum even made a comment the other night over dinner about how she’s glad to see so much of his smile recently, and although Dan had been embarrassed and told her to stop, he has to agree. He has been smiling more lately and it feels good.

He went from being a sad, lonely little boy with darkness in his heart to someone with a best friend, someone who can proudly say that he has a person who will choose him over all of his other friends and that’s a feeling Dan has wanted to experience his whole life. It’s not the colours, but it’s half of everything he’s ever wanted, and it’s enough to clear the storm clouds that have been thundering deep in his chest for years now.

And now here he is, mussing up his hair just right in the reflection of his laptop, because he has a Skype date with Phil in three minutes and he’s kind of freaking out. Tonight, he’s getting his very own Personal AmazingPhil Video, something he’s always dreamed of, only better, because it’ll be a real conversation with them actually talking and Dan can’t believe this. He can’t believe he’s gone from pretending to talk to Phil to actually talking to him - it’s much better than rehearsing conversations with paused AmazingPhil videos. He feels so lucky that, out of all of Phil’s subscribers, he’s the one Phil noticed.

His Skype window beeps at him and he’s got a contact request from Philip Lester and his fingers are shaking as he moves them across his trackpad to click the accept button. And then his Skype beeps again, with a message this time, reading, “should i call u?? :]”

“go for it,” Dan types back, and he might actually gnaw a hole through his lip if he keeps chewing on it like this but he’s so nervous and excited. He feels like his organs have been replaced with tiny butterflies, fluttering around his ribcage and making him want to fly away. But he won't, because he's exactly where he wants to be.

A box pops up on his screen accompanied by a bubbling ringtone, and he makes sure to read Philip Lester Calling even though he already knows it's Phil. His teeth drag across his lip and he hits the button to answer with video, crossing his fingers in his lap and hoping his voice doesn't crack when Phil finally hears it for the first time.

It takes a moment for the video to load, and then Phil's smiling face pops up on Dan's screen, immediately followed by a blinding light and a flash of something Dan can't put a name to before he's shutting his eyes and digging the heels of his hands into them.

There are lights dancing behind his eyes, bright flashes bounding around in the darkness and Dan lets out a sharp exhale, blinking a few times and waiting for his vision to clear. When it does, he’s looking down at his hands, the same old hands he’s always looked at, but they’re different. They’re not the same shade of grey Dan’s been used to his whole life, they’re...Dan doesn’t even know. He doesn’t have a name for what he’s seeing.

He looks up to his screen, expecting Phil to be giving him a strange look for the mini seizure Dan just experienced, but Phil is looking down at his own hands as well with a confused look on his face. He finally looks up and just stares at Dan for a moment, mirrored dumbfounded expressions on their faces in the tiny Skype windows.

Phil clears his throat a moment later and breaks the silence. “Did, uh, did that happen to you, too?” He asks, vaguely waving his hand towards his eyes.

Dan licks his chapped lips and swallows. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, it did.”

“Was that...are you seeing in more than black and white right now?” Phil asks.

Dan nods. “Yeah, I am,” he replies, tugging on the end of his fringe. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

Phil shakes his head, his dark hair falling into his eyes as he answers, “No clue. I don’t - it’s not colours, I don’t think. But it’s not black and white either. It’s like -somewhere in between?”

“Yeah, yes,” Dan responds. “Did you see that bright flash when I answered the call?” Phil nods. “I think that was colour. But then it’s like someone sucked it back out but didn’t get it all. Am I making sense? I feel like I’m not making sense.”

Phil laughs though, his tongue poking out between his teeth. “Yeah, it makes sense,” he says, still smiling. “You’re really cute, by the way.”

Dan can feel his face heat up and he chews at his lip again. “Thank you,” he says, his voice cracking, and the heat spreads from his cheeks to the tips of his ears.

Phil laughs again. “That’s okay,” he says. Then he starts biting his lip, looking nervous. “So, um, that flash of colour that happened when Skype loaded - does that uh, does that mean that we’re soulmates?”

“I don’t know,” Dan replies. He bites his lip again. “Do you think we could be soulmates?”

“Definitely,” Phil responds immediately. “I mean, I know we’re not seeing the colours, but it’s not greyscale, either. It’s somewhere in between. That has to count for something, don’t you think?”

Dan nods. “Maybe it’s because we haven’t actually met? I mean, everyone knows that you see colours for the first time when you meet your soulmate. We haven’t technically met, but we’re Skyping, which is talking to each other face to face for the first time. So maybe since we haven’t actually met, we didn’t get the full effect.”

“Gives me a good excuse to meet you then,” Phil responds with a smile, his tongue poking out between his teeth again. The fact that Dan thinks this is incredibly cute and that Phil wants to meet him make his face heat up again. “Come to Manchester. I can take you round the city and you can stay over my house.”

“Do you really mean that?” Dan asks, trying to keep his voice steady. “You really want to meet me?”

Phil’s smile only grows wider. “‘Course,” he says, “You’re my soulmate.”

Dan resists the urge to hide his face in his hands, but he can’t stop the smile that’s tugging at his lips. “You don’t know that,” he says shyly.

“True,” Phil responds, “But I mean, c’mon, there’s a really good chance you are. We’re basically the same person - we even have matching haircuts! Why didn’t I see it before?”

“Stop,” Dan says, but he’s giggling, and that only fuels Phil even further.

“I should have known,” Phil muses. “You like Muse and you have my haircut; screw the colour theory, that should have been the biggest clue!”

Dan’s laughing again, covering his mouth with his hands. “Phil,” he whines, “Stop it. You can’t know who your soulmate is based on their music taste and haircut.”

“Who says?”

“Me,” Dan shoots back. “Pretty sure the whole kind-of-seeing-colours thing is a better indicator that we’re soulmates than the fact that we both love the sweet serenade of Matt Bellamy’s voice and that I cut my fringe the same way you do.”

“I don’t know, I think my theory is better than yours. Based on these undeniable similarities between us, I can say with certainty that you are my soulmate.”

“Shut up, you dork,” Dan replies, laughing again. “We still can’t know for sure that we’re soulmates.”

“But we are,” Phil says. “You think I wouldn’t know my soulmate when I saw him? I’m offended, Dan Howell. Absolutely insulted. Gonna have to take you to court over this, it’s a good thing you’re going into law.”

“You’re a loser,” Dan tells him.

“I’m your loser,” Phil replies. “And you’re stuck with me forever, cause you’re my soulmate. Seriously, come to Manchester. I wanna see you in full 256 colour.”

Dan bites his lip again, trying to hide his smile.

"You’re serious?”

Phil does a motion over his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die,” he says.

Dan’s face relaxes, as though surrendering to Phil’s charm. “Okay,” he finally says.

“Yeah? Okay?” Phil clarifies, breaking out into a wide grin.

“Yeah,” Dan repeats. “I’ll come see you.”

They agree to work out the details later, both of them brimming with excitement. They spend the next five hours on Skype, an endless stream of talking and laughing, and Dan’s chest feels warm. He’s gotten halfway out of his dull little world, with Phil by his side. Of all the people who could have joined him, he’s glad that it’s Phil.

When they hang up, the warmth in his chest stays, but it feels like something is missing. He crawls into bed, trying to ignore the fact that the sun is beginning to rise and light is starting to creep through his shades, and plugs his phone in just as it lights up with a text.

miss your face already :P feels like part of me is missing. goodnight bear <3 xx

Dan smiles so hard that his face hurts, and he can’t keep that smile off his face as he finally falls asleep.

***

“People are going to think it’s stupid.”

"No one is going to think it’s stupid.”

"People are going to think I’m stupid.”

“No one is going to think you’re stupid.”

“Phil,” Dan whines.

“Dan,” Phil whines back.

Dan’s mouse hovers over the ‘upload’ button on YouTube, and he’s actually so nervous he could die. Phil is peer pressuring him into uploading his first video, as Dan has mentioned to Phil several times in their nightly Skype calls over the past two weeks that he’s always wanted to be a YouTuber but has always feared he’s not interesting enough. Phil has assured him several times that he’s Very Interesting, and convinced him to at least try it out - if he didn’t like it, he didn’t need to upload anything else and he could pretend like nothing happened.

It’s important that he gets this video up now - or very soon - because he’s meeting Phil in four days. He booked the tickets a few days ago and he has them all neatly tucked away in a small envelope. He’d expected his parents to be totally against the idea; after all, he was traveling nearly five hours by himself to meet a guy who’s four years older than him. To Dan’s surprise, though, his parents were all for it once he explained what happened when he and Phil Skyped and the possibility of them being soulmates. His parents knew how lonely he had been recently, and finding his soulmate could remedy that, so they agreed to the idea as long as Dan texted them frequent updates on his location and safety.

Dan needs to have at least one video up before meeting Phil because Phil is determined to make a video with Dan. Dan doesn’t think he’s earned the honour of being in one of AmazingPhil’s videos, but Phil is insistent that he has and refuses to let Dan go back home to Berkshire without making a video with him.

Secretly, Dan wouldn't let himself leave without making a video with Phil, either.

“You’re never going to know what people think unless you give them something to think about,” Phil says. “Just upload it and see what happens. Who knows, maybe you’ll be more popular than me some day!”

“Impossible,” Dan scoffs, but he presses the button anyway. “Alright, it’s uploading. I’m going to go crawl into a hole and die now, thanks.”

Phil frowns. “Don’t do that,” he whines. “Then you won’t be able to see me in four days.”

Four days - the thought makes Dan’s heart flutter. He’s actually going to be meeting Phil in four days - real live AmazingPhil in HD rather than the grainy webcam quality he’s used to. He’s going to find out once and for all if Phil is his soulmate. In four days, he might be seeing full colour, and that’s enough to make him break out into a smile.

“Four days,” Phil repeats, a matching grin on his face. “Can you believe it?”

“No, it’s crazy,” Dan replies. “I can’t wait to see you in 3D.”

And it really is crazy, because just five months ago Dan was just another face to Phil - just another comment left by an embarrassing YouTube username, just another Twitter reply that he read but didn’t respond to. And now Phil is Dan’s best friend, possibly his soulmate, and Dan’s meeting him in four days and if someone told him five months ago that this would be his life, he’d laugh, and then probably cry, because it’d never be a reality.

But it is a reality - more specifically, Dan’s reality. He’s not sure how it came to be, but he’s certainly not going to question it.

Phil talks him through his nerves, which inflate dramatically when the video is actually published to YouTube and even more when Phil tweets the link, but they finally subside after nice comments start popping up. He can’t help but smile, feeling absolutely giddy because he’s just uploaded his first YouTube video and people like it and like him. He’s wanted to do this for years now, his channel sitting there completely vacant and just waiting for him to upload something, and now he finally has and people are receiving it well and Dan can’t believe that he’s actually done it - he’s actually become a YouTuber.

Phil’s incredibly proud of him, smiling so big and his tongue is doing that thing it does when he smiles that Dan thinks is so endearing, and he thinks he’s falling in love with this dark haired boy smiling at him from hundreds of miles away, and he knows deep inside that Phil’s going to be the one to bring him the colours.

***

Dan isn’t sure if it’s possible to be bored to death, but if it is, he should start making funeral plans.

Although he’s in the middle of his gap year, he’d agreed with his parents to look into internships for the spring and see if there was anything that caught his eye. With Phil consuming all of his time recently, he’d neglected to look. Now that it’s getting close to January, his mum had insisted that he put more effort into his search. She had even threatened to not let him meet Phil the following day - and he certainly wasn’t going to risk that.

Dan’s not going to lie; none of the firms look interesting to him. He’s not even really all that passionate about going into law - he figured it’d be a good idea to get a degree in it because it would make him seem employable. He’s also incredibly stubborn and has an incredibly sophisticated and broad vocabulary - perfect traits for a lawyer. So, for now, law seems like the best option.

It’s not that he’s not concerned about getting an internship, because he is - it is getting pretty late into the year, and he probably should have been looking into this months ago. But he can’t even begin to worry about something that’s months away when he’s meeting Phil tomorrow.

It’s impossible to keep the smile off his face when the thought crosses his mind - twenty-four hours from now, he’ll be with Phil in Manchester. He’ll have his soulmate and the colours and happiness and companionship, and even if it’s only going to last for a few days, Dan knows that if Phil really does turn out to be his soulmate, the bond will last a lifetime.

As if Phil can sense that Dan is definitely not looking at law firms and can’t keep his mind off of their meeting tomorrow, Dan’s phone vibrates next to him on the bed and the words Phil Lester calling appear on the screen. Dan chews at his bottom lip to stop his smile from getting any bigger as he picks up the phone and unlocks it, bringing it to his ear and murmuring a quiet greeting into the receiver.

“Hey, you,” Phil greets him, and Dan can hear the smile in his voice and gives up on trying to hide his own.

“What’s up?” Dan answers, bringing his knees to his chest and picking at a thread on his thigh.

“Nothing really. I just wanted to give you a ring because I’m really excited to see you tomorrow. Also because I wanted to hear your voice.”

“Oh,” Dan says, and his cheeks are growing hot but he’s smiling anyway. “I’m really excited to see you tomorrow, too.”

“It’s gonna be so great!” Phil exclaims, and he sounds as excited as Dan feels. The thought puts butterflies in Dan’s stomach - he’s equally as important to Phil as Phil is to him, which is something he’s never experienced before. It’s new and maybe a little scary, but exciting nonetheless.

“We’re going to have so much fun,” Phil continues, speaking quickly. “The first night I’m gonna take you around the city, maybe show you the university campus since you said you wanted to go there. And we can go on the Manchester Eye and just walk around the city until one of us gets tired. Does that sound boring to you?”

“Not at all,” Dan replies quickly. He wants to tell Phil that he could never be bored if they were together, but the words refuse to leave his mouth. Phil continues on anyway.

“Great,” Phil responds, and he’s already out of breath from talking so much but he continues anyway. “The next day we’re going to film our video! I’ve been thinking about what to call it - should we go with ‘Phil is not on fire’ or ‘Amazing Dan’?”

Dan only thinks about it for a moment before he responds.

“Phil is not on fire,” he decides. “We can use ‘Amazing Dan’ for my channel when we do collabs.”

“Excellent. We can even draw cat whiskers on our faces - after you meet Lion, of course.”

“Yeah? I have to meet Lion to draw whiskers on my face?”

“Cat whiskers,” Phil stresses. “And duh, of course you have to meet Lion. He has to approve of you and make sure you meet his whisker standards.”

“Sounds like a pretty rigorous evaluation process,” Dan says. “I’m not sure if I’ll make the cut.”

“I’m very confident that you will,” Phil insists. “He’s heard a lot about you. All good things.”

Dan is starting to think that Phil is on a personal mission to get Dan blushing and stuttering over his words, but he doesn’t exactly dislike it.

“O-oh? Have you been putting in a good word for me?”

“Of course,” Phil says. “He’s actually starting to grow a bit annoyed because I talk about you too much.”

“I hope you’re not hurting my chances by boring him to death, Phil.”

“He’s just annoyed because I keep going on and on about how cute you are. He wants some real facts. I told him that he’ll just have to wait until he meets you in person.”

“You’re such a loser,” Dan tells him, putting a hand over his face. It does nothing to cover the smile there, though.

“Takes one to know one! Besides, I’m your favourite loser.”

“You’re my favourite anyone.”

“You’re my favourite anyone, too.”

***

Dan’s shaking and oh, god, he’s so nervous.

He’s on the train to Manchester Piccadilly and he’s responding to Phil’s texts with trembling fingers, endless variations of i can’t wait to see you :] <3 and frequent updates reminding Dan how long it would be until his train pulled into the station. The most recent one reads 5 MINUTES!! :D and Dan is biting his lip so hard that he’s surprised he can’t taste blood yet.

He’s not ready for this.

In five minutes, everything will change. The likelihood that Phil is his soulmate is too great for Dan to ignore, and that means in five minutes when he steps off the train and finds Phil on the platform, he’ll be seeing colour. Not the black and white he’s been used to for the past 18 years or the desaturated hues he’s been experiencing for the last week and a half. Everything is going to be colour and Dan has no idea what to expect, can’t imagine how everything around him is going to become so drastically different within a matter of minutes.

He’s sure it’s all going to be beautiful; he’s gathered that much from what his parents and friends have told him. And he’s sure that Phil’s going to be beautiful, because he knows that Phil would be beautiful in any colouration.

What he’s worried about is himself.

Nothing about him is very impressive. Not like Phil, who has dark hair and light eyes and a smile that could light up any room even without the aid of colour. Dan’s hair is dark, but not pretty like Phil’s, and his eyes are dark too. Not to mention that his face is still filling out and his voice still cracks and he’s chubby in all the wrong places. Phil shines so bright and Dan’s so dull it hurts, and Dan can’t help but feel a little bad for Phil for being stuck with such a lackluster soulmate.

Not that he even knows they’re soulmates yet, either. Maybe this whole half-colour thing was a fluke.

He doesn’t have any more time to dwell, though, because his train comes to a stop and a voice announces to his cabin that they’ve arrived at Manchester Piccadilly station. Dan takes a deep breath and grips the strap of his messenger bag tighter, stepping onto the train platform and immediately scanning the crowd for Phil.

He glances down at his phone, reading a text from Phil saying that he just saw Dan’s train pull in and telling him to look out for a tall guy in a plaid jacket. Dan takes a few steps forward, biting his lip and trying to pick Phil out of the mass of desaturated faces around him. It’s hard, and he wishes more than anything that he had colours to help him out. Tears begin to pick at his eyes at the thought of being lost in a station as big as this one, and not being able to find Phil and never getting to do all the things they talked about -

“Dan?”

Dan turns to his left and nearly bumps into Phil, and when he looks up and meets Phil’s eyes, he gasps. There’s a burst of radiance - a sharpness that spreads out from Phil’s irises like focusing a camera lens, and suddenly everything is brighter and Dan now understands why it’s impossible to describe colour. It bleeds into every inch of his vision, all of his surroundings, but despite that, he can't take his eyes off the boy in front of him, who has somehow become even more beautiful now that Dan realises just how limited his view was before. When the shock wears off, he lets out the breath he had been holding and launches himself at Phil, wrapping his arms around Phil’s neck and Phil nearly lifting him from the ground in return. Tears are streaming down his face, and while Dan’s not sure if it’s because he’s been blinded by colour or if he’s happy to see Phil, he finds that he doesn’t care.

“I told you,” Phil whispers in his ear, kissing Dan’s shoulder and squeezing him tighter before pulling away. He smiles down at Dan and his eyes are raking over every inch of him, drinking in what Dan looks like in full colour and in the flesh.

“Shut up,” Dan says, smacking Phil on the arm, but he’s smiling. “I can’t believe this. Like, you’re real, and you’re my soulmate, and this is absolutely mental.”

“I know,” Phil responds, brushing Dan’s fringe out of his eyes and letting out a fond chuckle when he sees Dan’s cheeks flush. “But I’ve got you, and I’ve got colours, so instead of trying to wrap my head around this whole thing I’m just gonna enjoy it and let it play out. Plus, we don’t have time for that anyway. I have a lot of things planned for us today, mister, so let’s get going.”

Dan nods, and Phil’s about to start moving before Dan lunges himself at Phil for a second time, wrapping his arms around Phil’s neck and squeezing tight. He’s still in awe, barely able to comprehend that he’s here with Phil and he can touch him and hug him and feel Phil’s body pressed against his own, feel Phil’s arms around his back and feel Phil’s lips in his hair.

He gives Phil one final squeeze before pulling away, feeling his cheeks heat up at the amused smile Phil is giving him.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, still smiling. “I just can’t believe you’re real.”

Phil smiles fondly at him, tugging lightly on the end of Dan’s fringe and saying, “Believe it, dork,” before taking Dan’s wrist into his hand and pulling Dan even further into his world.

***

They end up walking to the Apple Store in Arndale Center because Phil insists that they have to take a picture for DailyBooth immediately. It’s only a fifteen minute walk from the station, and even though Dan isn’t too fond of physical exertion in any way, shape, or form, he doesn’t mind the walk because he’s with Phil. Fortunately, it’s not too crowded in the store, as it’s a Monday and a lot of people are working, so Dan and Phil find a computer easily and take a picture for Phil’s DailyBooth.

After they’ve uploaded it, they decide it’s a good idea to look up some colours and find out their names; now that they can see colour, it’d be smart to figure out exactly what they’re seeing.

They learn about basic hues and how each one can be altered by either adding black or white, creating tints and shades respectively. There are far too many colours for them to remember the names of all of them - ones called fuchsia and lavender and sapphire that all sound complicated and difficult to remember. They stick with learning the basics for now, figuring that everything else they can learn later, when they’ve been seeing the colours longer than an hour.

They start pointing out colours to each other, mentioning things like how Phil’s plaid shirt is green and white and Dan’s eyes and hair match - both brown. Dan doesn’t think that brown is a particularly interesting colour, at least compared to the others, but Phil seems to like it a lot so Dan doesn’t say anything.

He learns that blue is one of the colours in Phil’s eyes - the most prominent one, the first colour that Dan saw - and he decides that it’s his favourite.

***

They catch a cab back to Phil’s place so Dan can drop his things off, as apparently Phil has the rest of their night completely booked and doesn’t want Dan to be hauling his bag around Manchester. It’s surreal for Dan to be in Phil’s house, to see the background of Phil’s videos in person and actually be standing in the room that’s already so familiar to him.

Phil doesn’t have any food for him - something Dan calls him a horrible host for - so they head out to the city to grab dinner. Phil pays for both of them and smiles as he pushes Dan’s crumpled notes back towards him, insisting that Dan’s his guest and that this makes up for not having food in his house. Dan sighs but smiles and he and Phil leave the restaurant, shoulders constantly brushing but neither of them moving to hold hands.

The thing is, they’ve been flirting for a little while now, and toying with the idea of them being soulmates for a few days, but now that they know they’re actually soulmates, they aren’t sure what the other wants their relationship to be like. Dan knows that a lot of soulmates end up getting married, but there are plenty who remain platonic; his grandmother met her soulmate at a young age, and while they’ve remained the best of friends, they both went on to marry other people. And even though Phil has been hinting just as much as Dan has that he wants to be more than friends, it’s easier to say those kind of things over text or Skype calls. Now this is the real deal - they’re actually together and things could happen, and neither of them know what to do.

Phil insists they go on the Manchester Eye, and Dan’s not the biggest fan of heights but he doesn’t protest because Phil grabs his hand when he drags him over to the wheel. They only have to queue for a few minutes before they’re boarding their cart, Phil getting in first and holding out his hand to help Dan in as well. They’re sat extremely close to one another, something that Dan is sure is intentional on Phil’s part. He’s not complaining, though, and their car jerks a moment later, moving them up a space so the next couple in the queue can board.

The pattern continues, and soon enough Dan and Phil are hanging from almost the top of the wheel. Dan has one of his arms linked with Phil’s, leaning into him and away from the edge where the height will make him nervous.

“I didn’t know you were afraid of heights,” Phil comments, looking down at him. “I wouldn’t have brought you on the wheel if I knew.”

“It’s alright,” Dan responds, squeezing his arm tighter. “You’re here, so I’m okay.”

Phil presses his lips to Dan’s forehead, but as soon as Dan feels them they’re gone again. Phil is tense beside him, as he had been intermittently the whole night. Dan wants to know how to get the ice to thaw between them - the solid barrier of ‘maybe’ he thought they had already chipped away at the last few months. But now it’s returned, thicker than before, and Dan is left wondering yet again how to get it to melt away.

He knows he wants Phil in every sense of the word; his best friend, his boyfriend, his soulmate. He doesn’t want to share Phil with anyone, doesn’t want Phil to fall in love with someone else someday down the road because their relationship never breached more than friends. Phil has brought so much into his world - light and companionship and colour - and Phil has ignited far too many feelings in Dan for him to continue dancing in circles around him when he has the opportunity to turn their friendship into something more.

“Phil,” he says, and when Phil turns to look at him, Dan grabs the collar of his shirt and presses their lips together. Phil kisses him back and Dan feels like every inch of his skin is on fire - he realises now that he may need to reconsider his channel name.

Phil’s lips are warm and soft and Dan can feel his heartbeat thundering in his ears as he grips Phil’s collar impossibly tighter, his fingers beginning to ache from the effort. Phil’s got his hand on the side of Dan’s face and his thumb is stroking Dan’s jaw and Dan’s never felt so much affection from a simple touch, nor has his heart ever swelled so much just by pressing his lips to someone else’s. He breaks the kiss because a smile spreads across his lips and he pulls away from Phil to see the same expression mirrored on his face. He’s looking at Dan like Dan’s just given him the whole world, and Dan doesn’t necessarily think that’s true but he smiles even wider and kisses Phil again.

***

Phil waits until they’re back at his until he kisses Dan again. In fact, they’ve barely stepped foot over the threshold of the house until Phil’s mouth is on his, shutting the front door behind him. Their lips are sealed for mere seconds before Dan pulls away with a laugh, tugging on the string of Phil’s hoodie.

“What?”

“We haven’t even been inside the house for three seconds and you’re already kissing me,” Dan points out, smiling wider when Phil’s cheeks flush a pretty colour - pink, he thinks it’s called, though he’s not sure.

“Is there something wrong with that?” Phil asks, and Dan tugs on Phil’s hoodie string again, this time pulling him down to press their mouths together again.

“No,” Dan says when he can spare a moment to breathe. “I just thought it was quite funny, is all.”

“It’s not funny,” Phil insists. “You’re a very kissable person and I’ve spent the last two hours not kissing you - I’m deprived!”

“And I’d be more than happy to help you fill your kissing quota,” Dan responds, lacing their fingers together. “But you can at least wait until we get upstairs.”

Phil pouts at him, but he sneaks one more kiss before pulling Dan up the stairs to his bedroom. He brings Dan to the middle of the room, nearly tripping over Dan’s bag along the way.

“Are you happy now?”

“Very,” Dan responds, wrapping his arms around Phil’s neck and pressing their lips together once more.

***

They’re lying in Phil’s bed later that night with their fingers intertwined and their eyes locked on one another when Phil asks Dan what his favourite colour is.

“Blue,” he responds without hesitation, playing with Phil’s fingers. It’s still hard to wrap his mind around the idea that all of this has happened; 24 hours ago he was staring at the ceiling of his dull and nearly grey bedroom, and now he’s here with Phil, actual AmazingPhil, with colours all around him and swollen lips from all the times Phil has kissed him tonight.

It’s surreal, to say the least.

“That was quick,” Phil says. “Why’s that?”

Dan blushes.

“It just makes me happy,” he says, shrugging.

“Reason enough,” Phil says, leaning forward to kiss Dan because he’s here and he can.

Dan smiles and kisses Phil again. “What’s yours?” he asks when he pulls away.

“Hmm,” Phil hums. “I quite like blue a lot as well, though green is also really cool. And purple, that’s a nice one.”

“It’s kind of hard to choose,” Dan says. “There are so many.”

Phil laughs, agreeing. They fall silent after that, just staring at each other and drinking every part of each other that they couldn’t see through Skype calls and lack of colour. When he’s up close like he is, Dan can really appreciate that Phil’s eyes aren’t just blue; they’re green and yellow, too, radioactive and the most beautiful thing Dan has ever seen. Of all the new colours he’s seen today, none of them compare to Phil’s eyes and Dan’s not sure if that’s because they’re soulmates or because Phil’s eyes are beautiful.

He never reaches a conclusion on that, but they’re the last thing he sees when he falls asleep that night and the first when he wakes up that morning, and Dan loves to sleep but he’s decided the 8 hours he wasn’t looking into Phil’s eyes was a waste of time.

***

filming a special video with @danisnotonfire! send us questions ^__^

Questions start flooding in minutes after Phil posts the tweet, and unsurprisingly, at least half of the ones they’ve received already are about whether or not they’re soulmates. They’re taking screenshots of the questions they want to answer, and both agree that it’s best if they ignore the soulmate questions; they’ve just only found out they were soulmates themselves, and sharing that piece of information the next day doesn’t seem right to either of them.

When they’re satisfied with the number of questions they’ve received, they sit down to begin filming. Phil gives Dan the honour of hitting the record button, takes Dan’s hands into his when Dan tries to fix his hair using the viewfinder and tells him he already looks perfect. Dan smiles when Phil grabs his chin and draws the cat whiskers on his face - after being approved by Lion, of course - and the smile stays throughout the entire experience. Just a few months ago he would have been the one sending in questions for a Q&A video and now he’s here answering them with Phil. He’s been with Phil for 24 hours now and he still can’t believe that all of this is real - the colours, the filming, and Phil himself.

Phil tackles him at the end, knocking him over and laughing before kissing all over Dan’s face and sealing their lips together. Later, Phil has to edit out an hour’s worth of him and Dan kissing on the floor, but it’s worth it.

***

Dan finds the days leading up to Halloween to be very difficult. He thinks he’s being a bit ridiculous - after all, within the month, his life has completely transformed and he’s happier than he’s ever been. No longer does he have to deal with the dark and depressing grey-tones all around him, nor does he have to wonder when he’ll find his other half. He has his colours and he has his Phil.

But that’s the thing; he doesn’t.

Being away from Phil is hard. Dan thinks he might be exaggerating, but he feels that ever since he got on his train back to Berkshire, there’s been a permanent ache in his chest that he knows has everything to do with Phil’s absence. Even the colours seem less bright.

This whole distance thing sucks, and while Dan wishes he and Phil didn’t live so far away from each other, he supposes it’s better to know who his soulmate is and be away from him than to not know at all.

Fortunately, it’s not too long until they see each other again - there’s this YouTube Halloween Gathering in London, and since Dan lives closer to the meetup than Phil does, Phil is going to be spending the night at his house following the get together. The days spent leading up to the gathering are filled with Dan sulking around and pouting at Phil over Skype calls, but it’s all worth it when they meet again at the bus station in London, already dressed in costume.

The gathering is everything Dan hoped for and more. Now that he’s finally getting into YouTube, it’s nice to be able to talk to other creators and have discussions about what he loves doing. He’s not sure if he’ll ever do YouTube as his full time job, like some of the people he meets do. But at the very least, it’s a hobby he’s incredibly interested in, and it’s nice to talk to people who share his passions.

Phil is by his side most of the night, sometimes contributing to the conversation and at other times staying silent and just listening to Dan while he talks. They’ve been there for a few hours and it’s starting to wind down a little; some people have left to catch a train or bus back home, but Dan and Phil remain among the several groups of people scattered around.

Dan blushes when Phil grabs his hand, intertwining their fingers together and pulling him away from the other people around them. Dan doesn’t mind, though; the sole reason he came to the Halloween gathering was for Phil, anyway, and while he enjoyed the company of the other YouTubers, none of them really matter compared to Phil.

Phil leads him outside and brings him to the fountain, sitting down on the edge and pulling Dan down next to him. He presses his lips to Dan’s, a quick peck, never letting go of his hand.

“I really love your costume,” Phil says when he pulls away. “It’s fitting because bear is your nickname - though I’m sure you did that intentionally.”

Dan blushes, and he doesn’t understand why even the slightest compliment from Phil always makes heat rush to his cheeks and the tips of his ears. “Shut up,” he says, but he’s smiling and he squeezes Phil’s hand, a silent thank you.

“You look so nice in brown,” Phil continues, like making Dan blush is his day job. “It’s one of my favourite colours, I think.” Dan can’t help but make a face at that, and Phil’s eyebrows furrow together, asking Dan for an explanation.

“Brown is just...gross,” Dan says, struggling to come up with a better word. “Think of the things that are brown. Poo is brown. Dirt is brown. Filth in general just has a brown feeling to it. Of all the colours in the world, I’m deeply and seriously offended that both my hair and eye colour are brown.”

“Brown is a lot of pretty things, too, though,” Phil argues. “It’s chocolate and bears and it just makes me feel warm, y’know? And for the record, I think your eyes and hair are both really pretty.”

“Shut up,” Dan says again, but pulls Phil in for another kiss anyway. Sometimes he can’t tell if Phil is being genuine when he says things like this or if he’s just doing it for Dan’s sake, but regardless, he makes Dan feel nice.

When they pull away, Phil gives him this big, goofy smile, and Dan doesn’t understand how one person can be so beautiful. The sun and the stars and the moon all shine for this boy, and Dan doesn’t quite know how soulmates are determined, but he does know that he lucked out with Phil Lester being his.

“If you couldn’t tell, I really like you,” Phil tells him, his fingers on the back of Dan’s neck and his thumb playing with Dan’s earring. Normally the contact would make him squirm, but Phil’s fingers are warm and soft against his skin and it’s comfortable.

“If you couldn’t tell, I really like you too,” Dan says in a soft voice, and his cheeks hurt from smiling so much, but he’s found that it’s pretty impossible not to smile when Phil’s around.

“Be my boyfriend,” Phil says, and it’s only three words, but Dan’s heart is pounding because somehow he went from rock bottom to standing at the top of the world, and for some reason Phil wants to be right there beside him.

Dan lets out a little giggle, and he probably sounds like an idiot, but he’s too elated to care.

“Yes, yeah, I’ll be your boyfriend,” he mumbles, and Phil smiles like Dan’s given him the universe in his words.

***

The next gap between seeing each other is longer - a whole month, to be exact - but they’re soldiering through it with daily Skype calls and texts. In the meantime, Dan has started making more videos, finally starting to get the hang of this whole YouTube thing. Although he’s sure the majority of his subscriber count comes from Phil, who promotes him every time he posts a video, he’s still gaining around a hundred subscribers a day, which he thinks is quite impressive considering he only has four videos so far. Overall, he’s just happy to finally be able to exploring this new hobby - he’s always known it was something that he would love, and now that he’s actually doing it, he knows he was right.

It’s snowing as Dan looks out the train window, and he pulls down on the flaps of his furry hat even though he’s not cold. He’s reading through the comments on his most recent video - How To Befriend Your Favourite Internet Stars - while on the train to Manchester to see his favourite internet star. He hasn’t filmed anything for a little while, but he’ll be filming videos with Phil at some point during his five day trip. Of course, that all depends on whether or not Dan can detach himself from Phil long enough to film something decent.

For the first few days, though, Phil insists they’re just going to relax and enjoy their time together. It’s a far cry from the first time Dan visited Phil, when his boyfriend had nearly every minute of his stay filled with plans. It’s a nice change, though - just being able to spend time with Phil without any obligations or worrying about being at a certain place at a certain time. Five full days of just him and Phil, nothing else, and that’s exactly what Dan wants.

The first three days are spent with Buffy marathons and cuddling for warmth, and on the third day, Britain decides to dump several blankets of snow over Manchester and both Dan and Phil have declared it the snowiest day ever. They go outside for a little while, making snow angels together and writing messages in the snow, before returning inside and making some hot chocolate before retiring in Phil’s bedroom and watching Wall-E on Dan’s laptop.

The ending credits of Wall-E are rolling when Phil kisses him, and Dan laughs against his lips - the night before, when they had been watching Buffy, Phil had kept trying to kiss him in the middle of the episodes. Dan had scolded him and told him to wait until the show was over to make out with him. He thinks it’s quite cute that Phil actually let him watch the entire movie and waited until it was over to kiss him, and he laughs again.

“What’s so funny?” Phil mumbles against Dan’s mouth, barely pulling away.

Another giggle bursts out of Dan’s lips and Phil pulls away properly now, giving him a pout.

“Why are you laughing?” Phil demands, though it comes out more whiny than threatening. “I’m trying to kiss you! What’s so funny about that?”

“Nothing,” Dan replies, but he laughs again and Phil’s frown deepens. “It is nothing! Seriously!”

“Do you just have a case of the giggles then?”

“Maybe,” Dan says. “I’ll stop, though. Kiss me.”

“I dunno, Dan,” Phil says, turning his head every time Dan tries to kiss him. His hands are resting on Dan’s hips, just underneath the hem of his shirt and touching bare skin, and suddenly, Dan doesn’t have a good feeling about this.

“I swear to god, Phil -”

He’s cut off by his own laughter, Phil’s fingers running up and down his sides and his stomach as he tickles him. Dan keeps trying to shove his hands away, screaming, ”Stop it, you twat!”, but Phil’s surprisingly fast and always finds a way to continue his tickle attack.

The battle goes on for several minutes until Dan’s foot collides with his laptop and almost sends it flying off the bed - luckily, Phil is able to catch it before any damage is done, and Dan sits up, breathing heavily.

“If my laptop had been broken because you were tickling me, I would have sued you.”

“You don’t have a law degree yet, Daniel,” Phil responds, closing the computer and setting it aside, out of harm’s way. “Good luck with that one. Besides, you can’t tell me that you would honestly miss that dinosaur.”

“It’s not a dinosaur,” Dan insists, crossing his arms. “It’s a laptop.”

“It’s a PC - that automatically makes it a dinosaur.”

“You’re such an Apple elitist, you know that?”

“Apple is better,” Phil says simply. “I use Final Cut Pro to edit my videos - what do you use, Windows Movie Maker?”

“What’s wrong with Windows Movie Maker?”

“What isn’t wrong with Windows Movie Maker?”

“You’re being a twat, as usual.”

“Aw, I’m not a twat,” Phil says, pouting again.

“Are too,” Dan argues. “In the last five minutes you’ve tickled me, called my beloved laptop rude names, and insulted the hardworking people who put blood, sweat, and tears into making Windows Movie Maker - a wonderful editing programme with a simple interface that makes video editing easy for simpletons and YouTubers alike. That’s definitely twat material.”

“Okay, first off, you’re the one who started it by giggling when I was trying to kiss you - I only get to kiss you like, once a month. You’re crushing my dreams.”

“You’re being dumb -”

“Let me finish, Rude Pants,” Phil cuts in, covering Dan’s mouth with his hand. “Second, Apple is better. You can’t honestly tell me you think Windows Movie Maker is a good editing software.”

Dan licks his hand and Phil pulls it away from Dan’s face with a noise of disgust, wiping it on Dan’s jeans rather than his own.

“Like I said,” Dan continues. “It has a user-friendly interface -”

“You have a user-friendly interface.”

“I literally hate you,” Dan declares, turning his head away when Phil tries to kiss him.

“No you don’t,” Phil whines. “I’m your soulmate and your boyfriend and you like kissing me. Why aren’t we kissing?”

“Because you’re a prat.”

“I’m not a prat,” Phil insists. “C’mon, you wanna kiss me, admit it.”

“You’re mistaken - you’re dumb and gross and I want no part in putting my mouth anywhere on you.”

“Now you’re just lying. Ten minutes ago you told me to kiss you.”

“I was young and naive.”

“You haven’t grown any older in the last ten minutes, Dan.”

“Maybe I have. Maybe I’ve been lying to you about when my birthday is.”

“Your birthday is June 11th,” Phil says matter-of-factly. “I know because I uploaded my Space Adventure video on that day, and you sent me a bunch of tweets freaking out over it. And then when I followed you and DM’d you, you told me it was your birthday and that my video was the best birthday present ever.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Dan mumbles, hiding his face in his hands. “That’s so embarrassing, I can’t believe I did that.”

“I thought it was cute,” Phil says, pulling Dan’s hands away from his face and kissing his nose, letting out a soft laugh when Dan scrunches his face.

“No you didn’t.”

“I did,” Phil insists. “I still think you’re cute.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re my boyfriend,” Dan argues, but he’s got a small smile on his face and his heart is doing flips.

“I said that before I was your boyfriend,” Phil points out. “But now that I am your boyfriend, can I please kiss you?”

Dan rolls his eyes, acting indifferent when he says, “Yeah, I guess,” even though both he and Phil know he’s definitely a lot more eager than he’s letting on.

And it shows; it’s not long before he’s tugging at the hem of Phil’s shirt, craving skin on skin. When Phil’s shirt has been discarded, he does the same to Dan, gently - always gently.

Phil’s incredibly sweet about the whole thing, constantly asking Dan for reassurance that he’s okay, and it’s everything Dan wanted it to be and more. He never imagined that he would have sex with Phil after arguing with him about the pros and cons of Windows Movie Maker, but he does. And it’s amazing - though Dan did expect sex with AmazingPhil to be amazing.

Afterwards, when Phil has cleaned them up and the room smells of sex and cherry - a bad idea, Dan’s decided - Dan’s laying with his head in the crook of Phil’s neck, leaving tiny pecks on a love bite that’s blooming there, when he suddenly tenses.

“Phil,” he says slowly, raising his head to look at his boyfriend.

“What?” Phil asks, fighting a yawn.

“Uma Thurman just watched us have sex.”

Phil gives Dan a confused look and Dan points across the room, where Phil’s bedroom door is open and displaying his Kill Bill poster. Uma Thurman is staring straight at them, Dan is staring wide-eyed back at her, and Phil rolls his eyes.

“You’re twelve.”

“She just watched the whole thing!” Dan insists. “We just -we basically just made a porno for her, Phil. We made a porno for free. We should have at least charged her!”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“Of course I’m not joking,” Dan says seriously. “If we’re going to make a porno, we should at least profit for it, right?”

Phil rolls his eyes, turning over and muttering, “Go to sleep, Dan.”

“I can’t go to sleep, Uma Thurman is watching. I need to tweet about this.”

“Are you sure that’s the best idea?” Phil asks sleepily, watching as Dan gets up and takes a picture of the poster with his phone, butt naked. “Everyone knows I have that Kill Bill poster.”

“It could be anyone’s Kill Bill poster,” Dan points out, tapping away at his phone. When he’s finished, he shuts the door behind him, muttering, “No more free porn for you, Uma,” under his breath, making Phil roll his eyes again.

“Stop being twelve, turn the light off and come cuddle with me.”

“Your mum’s twelve,” Dan says, but he does as told, flicking the light switch and settling himself in Phil’s open arms.

“That’s impressive, considering I’m twenty-two and she would have had to given birth to me when she was negative ten.”

“I’m going into law; I never claimed to be good at math.”

“Be good at math in your dreams and go to sleep,” Phil says, squeezing him tighter and kissing his head, so Dan does.

***

“I wish we were together right now,” Phil sighs, and even though the grainy Skype picture doesn’t do nearly enough to capture Phil’s essence, it’s still comforting to know that even though they’re so far from each other they can still be somewhat close.

“I know,” Dan says. “Stupid India, such a cockblock.”

It’s February now, and the snow is falling down heavily in England - but not in India, where Dan’s on holiday with his family.

“Berkshire isn’t much better,” Phil replies, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

“Four hours apart is better than a four and a half hour time difference.”

“Good point,” Phil says. “Speaking of that, shouldn’t you be in bed? It’s almost two in the morning.”

“Details.”

“Not details. You should go to bed, it’s late there.”

“I wanna talk to you,” Dan insists. “We’ve only been Skyping for an hour - that doesn’t even come close to our four and a half hour record.”

“I’m still going to be here when you wake up,” Phil points out. “Well, maybe I won’t be conscious. But we have plenty of time to talk tomorrow. Plus, you’re visiting my house the day after you get home, so we’ll see each other soon enough anyway.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me, Phil?”

“No!”

“You seem pretty insistent upon me going to bed - what are you planning?”

“I’m not planning anything -”

“Is there someone else?”

“What? No, Dan -”

“It’s Lion, isn’t it?”

“Wha -”

“I always knew this day would come,” Dan says, desperately trying not to laugh at the incredulous look on Phil’s face. “This is goodbye, Phil. Enjoy your new life.”

“Dan -” Phil starts to say, but is cut off by Dan hanging up on him. Dan’s not surprised to see Phil calling back just seconds later, but he declines the call and logs out. Phil has a pretty good point - he is getting tired, and his mum did say that she wanted him to get out of bed before noon the next day and actually accompany the rest of the family to the complimentary breakfast in the lobby.

Barely a minute after he powers down his laptop, he receives a text from Phil.

you’re a brat and i hate u

i’m not a brat, i’m your favourite

you are. come back :[ 3

i’m taking your advice and going to bed. goodniiiight <3

oh ok. night bear <3

As he locks his phone and plugs it into charge, he sighs. It’s officially February 14th. Ideally, he would be with Phil right now - but his parents have had this trip planned for months, before he and Phil started properly talking, and getting out of it just so he could see his boyfriend on the iconic holiday was simply out of the question. So, they agreed not to do anything special for Valentine’s Day, but honestly, Dan wished they had been able to. He’s had a few proper Valentine’s Days with his old girlfriend, but Phil means more to him than anyone ever has, and it would have been nice to celebrate.

There’s nothing to be done about it, though, and Dan figures that even though they can’t spend the actual day together, the three they spend when he gets home will make up for it. With that in mind, he finally falls asleep, with what he’s sure is a dopey grin on his face.

***
When Dan wakes up, the first thing he does is check his phone. For the past few mornings, he’s woken up to several texts from Phil, and now that he’s accustomed to it, he’s always eager to see the influx of notifications from his boyfriend. However, when he unlocks his phone, he’s almost disappointed to find only another goodnight text and a DM notification from Phil on Twitter.

He unlocks his phone, his eyes barely open, and notices it’s already half past twelve. So much for getting up at a reasonable time; his family has most likely already had breakfast and are now all lounging by the pool without him. Although he knows it would probably be best to put on his trunks and head down there now to avoid minimal scolding from his mother, instead he grabs his laptop and settles himself back in bed.

Once his laptop has finally powered up - Phil might be right about him needing to invest in a Macbook, but Dan will never admit that - he opens a new tab in his internet browser and immediately logs into Twitter, checking his DMs. Sure enough, just as Dan suspected, the only message he has from Phil is a YouTube link. This is a common occurrence; Phil often sends Dan his videos before he uploads them, in search of another seal of approval before publishing it. Because Dan has a PC and Phil has a Mac, they can’t send video files directly to each other because of the incompatibility, so they always do it through private video links on YouTube.

When he clicks on the link, however, he’s surprised to see that it doesn’t bring him to a normal video; it’s titled ‘Awrf :3,’ and uploaded onto Phil’s side channel, LessAmazingPhil. Based on the title alone, Dan gathers that this video is for him and no one else. His assumptions are confirmed when he presses play - his heart even lurches when he recognizes the background music Phil has chosen, but Phil has already begun speaking.

“Awrf, hi, Dan,” he says, and Dan realises the video must have been made last night - Phil is wearing the same outfit he was during their Skype call. ”Happy Valentine’s Day! I know you said we weren’t going to do anything for Valentine’s Day, but you had to go to bed, leaving me for five hours with nothing to do. So, I have made this video because I love you, and -”

Dan rushes to pause the video, his fingers shaking. He rewinds back a few seconds, making sure he heard Phil right, before pausing it in roughly the same place he had before. His heart is pounding in his chest, doing flips, and it’s been quite a while since something Phil has said or done has made Dan’s heart try to escape from his chest, but he finds he’s almost missed the sound of his heartbeat thundering in his ears as Phil’s words echo in his mind.

It’s the first time Phil’s ever said “I love you,” to him, and he can almost feel tears coming at the thought. He’s been in a serious relationship before, three years with his ex-girlfriend that, before Phil, were some of the best in his life. I love you’s had been exchanged and they had meant something to Dan, and they still do now. But they weren’t soulmates - not like he and Phil are.

Phil brings out the best of Dan, making him want to try new things and inspiring him to be creative and passionate and share his thoughts and feelings. Dan used to be so obsessed with finding the colours, but Phil has brought him so much more than that; happiness, companionship, love. And Dan’s had all of those things before, but never as intense as this - never has he felt the way that Phil makes him feel, and as he unpauses the video, his chest heavy with everything he feels for Phil.

“-and I’ve never had Valentine’s Day with anyone before. So, this is me saying I love you. Plus, you got me loads of awesome birthday presents and I wanted to repay you somehow, because it’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.

“The first time we met, I was the nervous-est person ever,” Phil admits, looking down and blushing. “I was so sure you were my soulmate, but at the same time, I thought it might be some sort of fluke. Like there was no way that someone as perfect as you are could be my soulmate.

“But then you stepped off the platform,” Phil continues, a smile appearing as he finally looks back up into the camera. “And I saw you straight away, and we saw the colours and we both cried and it was the happiest day of my life.

“I was still so nervous after that, as you could tell, and I was clawing at you, and biting you, but that was just because I really liked you, and I didn’t know if you wanted me in that way or if you wanted to be just friends.

“But, luckily, you saw through that. And then, when we were on the big wheel, I was like, ‘I really hope he likes me, too.’ And then you kissed me, and my heart did that flippy over thing, and it’d never really done that before, so...that was nice.”

Phil’s smiling wide now, his happiness infectious, and Dan’s smiling, too, nearly crying when Phil shares their favourite memories together and how he fell in love with Dan over the course of the few months they’ve been together.

As the video draws to an end, Dan is properly crying, filled with so much love and appreciation for Phil that he doesn’t even know what to do with himself. Phil tells Dan he loves him two more times before it cuts to an end card, another adorably crappy Paint drawing of the two of them replacing Phil’s face.

All Dan wants to do right now is to call Phil, return his love confessions and gush over his boyfriend for hours on the phone. But he knows Phil probably isn’t even awake - the whole video must have been filmed and edited before it even hit the fourteenth in the UK. Dan’s sure that Phil had a long night of putting the whole thing together and is most definitely still asleep, especially considering that it’s barely nine in the morning where he is.

Instead, he types something out in the comment section, trying to contain his emotions long enough to type a coherent response. His fingers keep slipping and hitting the wrong keys because he’s so overwhelmed that his fingers are trembling a little, but he manages to post something literate before he resigns to waiting for Phil to wake up. He should probably go join the rest of his family down by the pool, as it’s one of their last days here and all anyone wants to do is relax, but he doesn’t want to be near anyone who’s not Phil right now. He knows his mum will chew him out for it later, but Phil is worth it - he always is.

Phil texts him just a half hour later, a simple good morning text, and Dan has no doubts that his boyfriend purposely rose early so he would know what Dan’s reaction to the video is. Instead of responding, Dan calls him, barely hearing half a ring before Phil answers.

“Good morning, Bear,” Phil says, his voice quiet and thick with sleep. “I take it you saw the video?”

“Yes, I saw the video you little shit,” Dan says, but the anger in his voice isn’t genuine. “What happened to not doing anything for Valentine’s Day?”

“Like I said in the video, you got me loads of birthday presents and it was really nice and I wanted to repay you. And going off the comment you left me, you seemed to really like it.”

“I loved it,” Dan corrects him. “I loved it and I love you. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Phil says. “I love you, too. Lots and lots.”

The rest of the conversation carries on that way, an endless stream of confessing their undying love for each other, but Dan doesn’t mind. When Dan returns from India and goes to see Phil in Manchester, their conversation takes the same format, but this time while they’re facing each other and lying in Phil’s bed. They’re disgusting and gross and obnoxious, but Dan loves everything about it and he’s never been happier to call someone his.

***

Dan is twenty years old and, to his delight, incredibly content.

For the first time, it seems as though every aspect of his life is falling into place - even though he dropped out of university just last month, he’s starting to trade in his feelings of failure and focus on the positives in his life. His YouTube channel is really starting to take off, which is something he owes partly to Phil, who stays up late with him helping him edit and tells Dan which takes to cut. He would even let Dan borrow his flat so Dan didn’t have to film in university dorm halls, but Dan stopped needing that when he and Phil moved into a flat of their very own.

Living with Phil is arguably one of the best things to ever happen to Dan. He no longer has to worry about how often he’ll see his boyfriend during the week, for now he doesn’t go a day without seeing Phil. It’s nice having Phil’s face be the last thing he sees when he falls asleep, and then the first when he wakes up the next morning. It’s nice not having to hail a cab late at night to bring him back to his dorm, or, when he stayed the night at Phil’s, worry about catching one in the morning to get him to class.

And Phil is the perfect flatmate - for the most part. They never argue over what to watch on television or what to make for dinner, and his sex life has certainly taken a turn for the better now that he lives with his incredibly hot boyfriend and doesn’t have any law textbooks to stress over. The only thing that really annoys Dan about living with Phil is the fact that he does the dishes all wrong and always leaves all of the kitchen cabinets open, but now that Dan has banned Phil from participating in kitchen chores, the problem is less pressing.

The thing is, Dan can barely remember his life before Phil - he’s all but forgotten the feeling of being trapped in a dull and grey bedroom back in Berkshire, desperately seeking companionship and the colours that were promised to brighten his world. Dan used to think that it was going to be the colours that were going to turn his life around, and while he admits they’re as beautiful as ever, Phil is really the one who turned his life around. Phil has brought him something he never even imagined; sure, he knew about the colour and the lifelong bond, but what he wasn’t expecting was everything else. The feeling of adoring and being adored, the pair of tiny wings his heart has grown that flutter whenever he looks at Phil, the sense of security that Dan is Phil’s and Phil is Dan’s for the long haul. They are two halves of one whole and although Dan spent a decade of his life yearning for his soulmate and things he would never understand, Phil was worth it all. Phil will always be next to him in his life, the same way he’s next to Dan in their bed, sleeping in the same city that brought colour and love into their lives, and Dan’s smiled more in the past two years than he ever has in his whole life.

He’s having a nice dream about marrying a dark haired boy under a blue sky when he feels a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. He barely opens his eyes and sees Phil staring back at him with an urgent expression, and Dan fights the urge to roll his eyes.

“What time is it?” he asks, yawning and running a hand through his hair. “If it’s before ten, I’m going to kill you. I told you to stop waking me up at ungodly hours for morning sex -”

“It’s past ten,” Phil says, shaking Dan again, much to the younger boy’s annoyance. “And we have a bigger problem than my morning wood.”

“It’s extremely difficult for me to imagine anything bigger than your morning wood,” Dan says, and Phil rolls his eyes.

“Shut up, you twat,” Phil says, grabbing Dan’s phone and unlocking it for him. “Check Twitter.”

Dan resists the urge to shove his stupidly attractive, stupidly naked boyfriend out of bed when he notices it’s only four minutes past ten, but he opens his Twitter app anyway. As usual, a 99+ bubble is hovering over his notifications tab, and he taps on the screen, beginning to scroll through the tweets.

Dan’s always thought it wasn’t physically possible for your heart to drop to your stomach, but he swears his heart is taking a trip through his intestines and he thinks he might throw up all over the duvet.

His mentions are filled with questions about “Phan,” and while that’s not unusual, what does stand out is the YouTube link attached to most of the tweets. When he clicks on it, it brings him to a video published by LessAmazingPhil titled ‘Awrf :3,’ and Dan’s not sure if he remembers how to breathe.

“I didn’t do it,” Phil swears before Dan can even ask. He pushes his glasses further up his nose, something Dan has noticed he does when he’s nervous - it’s always funny to see him attempt the same gesture even when he’s got his contacts in. “I - I guess YouTube had some major fluke and it published a whole bunch of unlisted videos.”

It’s silent between them for a minute before Phil speaks up again, giving him a worried glance.

“Dan? Are you going to say anything?”

“I don’t know,” Dan stutters finally, his mouth dry. He doesn’t understand how something like this could have happened, how his whole life could have turned upside down overnight. And, not for the first time, he has no idea how to fix it. He looks up at Phil helplessly, fighting tears. “What are we going to do?”

“Um,” Phil says, and while Dan trusts that Phil will come up with a solution, he also knows that Phil hasn’t had enough time to think about this yet. “I’ll just - I’ll go on damage control, okay? I’ll delete the video and we can figure out what to do after.”

Dan nods and Phil mimics the movement, pulling a pair of sweatpants on and kissing Dan’s forehead before leaving the room. Dan hears the door to the spare room - what the fans think is his room - open a moment later, the creak of the desk chair under Phil’s weight sounding moments later.

Dan stays frozen in bed, setting his phone aside and running both hands through his hair, his fingers getting tangled in his curls as he leans back against the headboard. He’s having a hard time wrapping his mind around the situation; just last night everything was perfect, Dan was happy and Phil was happy and they were happy together. Less than twenty four hours later and now everything has changed, and Dan isn’t sure if it will ever go back to the way that it was.

Of all the videos for YouTube to accidentally unprivate, it had to be this one - the video that’s most important to him, the video that marked a major milestone in his relationship with Phil and that he still turns to sometimes when he’s feeling down. Now, it’s on display for the rest of the world to see, and Dan’s never felt so violated and upset. This one thing that was supposed to be his is now everyone else’s, too, and it’s not fair because Dan knows that there’s no coming back from this. Whether or not the video is removed doesn’t matter anymore, because now everyone knows that Phil is his soulmate and that they’re together, and there’s no way to hide that.

And Dan’s not ready for that in the slightest - if he was ready to be public about his relationship with Phil, they’d be out already. Their fanbase has nearly doubled within the past two years; twice as many people are going to be prying into his private life and relationship with Phil, and Dan’s not sure if they can handle that. He’s seen relationship after relationship crumble under the scrutiny of the public eye, and Phil is the most important person in Dan’s life, so the last thing he wants is for that to happen to them.

The only problem is that he has no idea how to cover this up. There’s no concealing the fact that they’re soulmates, and it’s going to be just as hard to hide that they have a genuine relationship, especially with all of the speculation already surrounding the idea. Even if they do have a good excuse, Dan has a bad feeling that this is going to haunt them for weeks to come, and he’s deeply upset that something so personal and something that he cherishes so much has been tainted.

He has plenty of time to dwell on the situation as well, as it takes Phil almost an hour to flag copyright claims on every repost of the video. Dan has wrapped himself in Phil’s York University hoodie and has moved his crisis to the sofa by the time Phil has finished. Phil enters the lounge still shirtless and looking completely drained.

“I could use a cup of coffee,” he says, making a beeline for the kitchen. “Do you want some?”

“Coffee would be nice,” Dan replies, moving from the sofa and going to the kitchen, wrapping his arms around Phil’s waist from behind and resting his cheek on the back of Phil’s shoulder. “How are the tags?”

“What you would expect,” Phil says, his voice sounding tired. “I claimed copyright on every post of the video I could find, but who knows how many more times it will be reposted in the next few days - weeks, even.”

Dan sighs, having expected that sort of answer. As much as both of them wish that everyone would just forget about the whole thing, they both know that the video is going to be the topic of discussion for weeks to come.

“Go sit down,” Phil says, turning around and leaning up to kiss Dan on the forehead. Dan is taller than him now, but Phil is still older, and despite their height difference, Phil still definitely acts more grown up than he does. “I’ll get the coffee and then we can talk.”

Dan does as he’s told, kissing Phil’s cheek before returning to the couch. The coffee only takes a few more minutes to brew and then Phil is sitting next to him, handing one of the mugs to Dan and taking a sip out of his own.

“What do you think we should do?” Dan asks when Phil’s settled next to him.

“I’m not sure,” Phil says, sighing. “It’s everywhere. Everyone has seen it. There’s no way that we can pretend it never happened.”

“This sucks.”

“I know,” Phil agrees, sighing again. “I can’t think of what to do. I mean, unless you want to come out -”

“No,” Dan says immediately.

“Why not?” Phil asks. “There’s no use, Dan. We can’t hide that we’re soulmates, we can’t hide that we’re together - there’s no point.”

“Yes there is,” Dan insists. “I’m not going to be forced into coming out because YouTube fucked up and published a private video that was never supposed to see the light of day.”

“And I agree with you, I don’t want to be forced into it either. But we are, Dan. We can’t come back from this one.”

“There has to be a way,” Dan argues.

“There isn’t,” Phil insists. “Listen, I’m not happy about the situation either. I feel so stupid for not taking into account that something like this could happen. But would it honestly be so bad for us to come out? Not having to hide our relationship? Right now the fans are all freaking out but they’re all really excited - I know they would be fine with it.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Dan says, trying not to get frustrated because Phil hasn’t really done anything wrong. “What I’m worried about is them being too invasive - they already fetishize our relationship as it is, and they don’t even know that we’re more than friends. If they knew the truth, they’d try to pry even more.”

“Not necessarily,” Phil says, and Dan fights the urge to roll his eyes. “If we make it clear from the start that they need to respect our privacy if they want us to be public about our relationship, then they will.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to come out, Phil. End of story.”

“Fine,” Phil says, setting his coffee down on the table next to them. “Then what do you reckon we should do? Because you’re going to be the one who’s coming up with the plan, here, not me.”

Dan bites his lip, trying to think. And even though Phil just told him that he wouldn’t help think of a plan, he’s biting his lip, too, obviously trying to help think of something.

“Well,” Dan starts slowly. “I think you were right when you said that we can’t hide the fact that we’re soulmates. In the video, you referenced a lot to colour, and anyone who can see colour will know you’re not lying. So we have to come out about that.”

“Right.”

“But as far as our relationship goes…” Dan trails off, trying to think. “I think we can cover that bit up.”

“How?”

“We tell them it was a joke,” he says. “Tell them it was supposed to be for April Fool’s Day or something, like, a thing to troll all the shippers. But then we decided against it because we thought it would be too mean.”

“No one is going to believe that, Dan.”

“They are if that’s what we tell them,” Dan insists. “Maybe some people will be skeptical, but if we insist it’s the truth, they’ll go along with it.”

“And what if that doesn’t work?” Phil asks.

“If everyone thinks it’s bullshit and no one believes us, then fine, we’ll come out. But if we sell it, they’ll buy it.”

“Okay, fine,” Phil agrees. “I’m going to go get my laptop.”

When Phil returns, Macbook in hand, they write a text post on Tumblr together and post it to Phil’s blog, since he has more followers and subscribers between the two of them. They go with Dan’s idea, explaining that while, yes, they are soulmates, their relationship is completely platonic and the Valentine’s Day video is an April Fool’s prank they never went through with. While Phil is still skeptical over people believing them, Dan insists that it will be fine, and the problem is solved.

***

The problem isn’t solved.

As it turns out, not very many people believe them, and there are still people just discovering the video and flooding their social media with questions. No matter what they tweet or post on tumblr, they’re both getting bombarded with questions about the video, and it’s been almost two weeks now since it happened.

Phil is ignoring everything about it, choosing not to comment on anything and carrying on like everything is normal. Dan, however, can’t help but grow more and more frustrated; the video keeps popping up everywhere, and even though it is real, they’ve said it’s not and the fans should accept that. The video is being treated as proof that Phan is real and it’s spreading like wildfire, despite Dan’s attempts at insisting that it’s not.

At this point, he’s not being too nice about it - going off on people who ask him about it or insist that Phan is real - but he can’t help but be frustrated. It’s not like people are spreading lies behind his back, but they’re spreading theories about him and while that kind of thing normally doesn’t bother Dan, what does is the fact that these theories are being presented as fact. And even though some of those theories may hold some truth, the fact is that Dan’s personal life is being completely invaded and his feelings are being disregarded, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. And honestly, he does feel quite bad about lashing out the way that he is, but he’s trying to protect his relationship from this same type of behaviour and he’s doing what he thinks is best.

Phil doesn’t seem to agree. Or, at least, Dan doesn’t think he does. He’s been moping around a lot lately, steering clear of Dan every time he’s near a computer, and they’ve barely spoken a word to each other since they published the post on Tumblr. Dan’s never gone so long without having a real conversation with Phil, not even when they lived four hours apart, and he’s starting to miss his boyfriend.

Even now, they’re sitting in the lounge together, but on separate couches and both paying attention to their Macbooks rather than each other. Dan is switching back and forth between Twitter and Tumblr, replying to comments and asks that particularly piss him off, and every time Dan tweets or posts an answer to his ask, Phil shoots him a glance and sighs. And honestly, Dan is starting to grow annoyed with him, because if he wants to say something to Dan, then he should just say it, especially considering they’ve barely spoken in the two weeks since the video leaked. He knows that Phil isn’t the type to start a confrontation, but his passive-aggressive attitude is really starting to frustrate him. He finally snaps when Phil sighs at him for what seems like the twentieth time, and he sets his laptop aside, crossing his arms.

“What?” he demands.

Phil looks up from his laptop screen, raising his eyebrows.

“What do you mean ‘what’?”

“You know what I mean,” Dan snaps. Phil shrugs, turning his attention back to his laptop.

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific, Dan.”

Dan lets out an angry huff, resisting the urge to raise his voice.

“Why do you keep sighing in my direction every time I tweet or post something on Tumblr?”

Phil closes his laptop, setting it aside and pushing his glasses further up his nose before finally looking at Dan.

“I think you’re being ridiculous,” Phil admits. “You’re wasting all of your energy responding to these comments. Why not just ignore them?”

“Because I’m defending us, Phil.”

“You’re adding fuel to the fire, Dan,” Phil retorts. “All you’re doing is causing more and more people to talk about it. How do you expect them to forget about it when you won’t drop it?”

“I’m trying to get them to believe us,” Dan says, struggling to keep his voice calm.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Phil replies, standing up. “No one is buying it, just like I said they wouldn’t.”

“And we said we were going to keep feeding it to them until they did buy it, which is what I’m doing.”

“We also said that if they didn’t believe it, we would come out,” Phil reminds him. “And honestly, I don’t see why you’re so opposed to the idea. Everyone knows we’re soulmates and they’re not buying the excuse we’re giving them, why can’t we just come out? Clearly everybody is pretty keen on the idea. And if they’re not, then who cares, they’ll unsubscribe and we don’t need them anyway. But the majority of our fans will be happy to know that we’re happy, and if we’re happy together, then why can’t we tell everyone that?”

“Because I don’t want a bunch of thirteen year old girls prying into my relationship, Phil,” Dan says, standing up. “Like I said, they’re going to pry and be creepy and ask too many questions and it’s going to be exhausting. Any time we do a collab together people are going to demand we kiss and we’ll never get an innocent question for Phil is not on fire ever again. Is that what you want? People invading our privacy?”

“No, that’s not what I want,” Phil insists. “But like I said, we can be clear about this from the beginning. If we ask them to respect our privacy, they will. You underestimate them, Dan. Yeah, there will be the twelve year olds who don’t know any better, but the ones that do won’t bother us. And if we come out, all of these questions and people pestering us about the video will stop, don’t you understand? It’s the best option!”

“No,” Dan says immediately. “It’s not. People - especially our fans - have no boundaries, and I’m not going to be bullied into coming out by a bunch of thirteen year olds. That’s not happening.”

“The fans are always going to be a factor, Dan,” Phil says. “We’re not quitting YouTube any time soon. This is always going to be a problem. Are you telling me that you never want to come out because you’re afraid of what some teenage girl is going to do about it?”

“I’m not saying I never want to come out,” Dan insists. “I do. But now is not the time.”

“Now is the time, though!” Phil stresses, throwing his hands out and nearly knocking over their table lamp. “Everyone knows that we’re lying, Dan! We’re going to get caught in the lie eventually, you know. I don’t see why we can’t just be honest and tell everyone what they already know - I mean, unless you’re ashamed of admitting we’re in a relationship.”

“Are you fucking mental?” Dan asks, almost letting out a laugh. “Of course I’m not ashamed of you. Don’t be stupid, Phil.”

“‘Don’t be stupid, Phil,’” Phil repeats, his voice flat. “That’s the same thing you’ve been telling everyone else. ‘Don’t be stupid, Phil and I aren’t together.’ ‘Don’t be stupid, the video was just a joke.’ Except we are together, and the video wasn’t a joke. You realise that you’re calling people stupid for noticing what’s right in front of them, don’t you? Did you expect me to see all these comments about how the idea of us together is disgusting and that people are mental for even thinking of it and brush them off? Act like you hadn’t said them?”

“I didn’t think you were reading them,” Dan chokes out, as if it’s a valid excuse.

“I follow you on Twitter and Tumblr,” Phil says. “How could I miss them? It’s all I ever see.”

“Okay, maybe I’ve said some things that I shouldn’t have,” Dan admits. “But I’m not ashamed of you, Phil. I love you and you know that, I’ve told you it a thousand times and I’ll tell you it a thousand more.”

“This isn’t about you telling me you love me,” Phil says. “You can tell me you love me as much as you want and I’ll always believe you, but you haven’t even told me that much in the last few weeks. In fact, you haven’t told me much of anything at all. Communication is essential in relationships, Dan. How can you expect me to know that you’re not being serious when you say things like that without relaying the information back to me?”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” Dan mutters. “I’m just - I want people to butt out of our relationship.”

“It feels like you’re butting me out of our relationship.”

“That’s not my intention at all,” Dan explains. “I’m just trying to stop people that we don’t even know from making assumptions about our relationship and being creepy and ruining what we have.”

“The only thing that’s ruining what we have is us not being honest about what we have.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dan asks after a moment of silence, his throat dry.

“It means that I want to come out,” Phil says softly. “And if you’re so insistent that we’re just friends, then maybe we should only be friends.”

Dan feels as though he’s been punched in the gut. He stands there for a moment, barely able to comprehend what Phil just said, before finally forcing the words out.

“You’re breaking up with me because I don’t want to come out?” he asks, his voice cracking in all the worst places.

“I’m breaking up with you because you don’t want me,” Phil explains, his tone still soft, and Dan thinks he prefers the yelling. “Ever since that video leaked, we’ve barely spoken a word. But, clearly you’ve had no problem running your mouth to strangers on the internet about how we’re just friends and denying everything we’ve had in the past two years. All you care about is proving that ‘Phan’ isn’t real; at least now those statements will hold some truth to them.”

“Phil,” Dan chokes out, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Phil, you can’t.” But Phil doesn’t ask him to elaborate, and Dan’s not even sure he could produce the words if he had. And instead of rushing to Dan like he always does, wiping away Dan’s tears with his thumbs and kissing all over Dan’s face, Phil grabs his laptop and leaves the room. A moment later, Dan hears the door shut and the lock click into place.

He sinks onto the sofa, burying his face in the sleeves of his hoodie as his body shakes with a sob. His chest aches and his throat is tight and he can’t believe that this just happened. Dan’s been dumped before - there was a girl who thought he was insensitive for bringing her to a horror film on their first date. The was another who grew angry with him for ignoring her texts and calls in favor of playing video games. And most recently, the girl who he’d been with for three years, who had left him because she found her soulmate. That one had hurt the most, and he had cried a lot for a long time, feeling horribly lonely and unlovable.

But when he found Phil, he thought that he didn’t have to worry about break ups anymore. They were soulmates, bound together for life, and nothing could change that. He didn’t have to worry about Phil getting upset over horror films or over Dan’s obsession with playable fictional worlds, and he certainly didn’t have to give a second thought to Phil leaving him for someone else. Dan thought nothing he could do could ruin what they had - he thought that any problems that arose between them could be worked out, because they were meant to be together for life, and he thought that was enough.

The more he thinks about it, crying on his sofa in the middle of the night, the more Dan realises that no relationship he’ll ever have will be immune to his propensity towards screwing things up. Soulmates or not, he shouldn’t have hoped things with Phil would be different.

***

Dan learns that living in the same flat as his ex-boyfriend is incredibly quiet and incredibly awkward. It’s been two weeks since the breakup, and they’ve only had one proper conversation. Phil had sat him down and reminded them both that they were friends before they were boyfriends, and that a breakup isn’t going to change that or the fact that they’re soulmates. He insisted that he wanted to keep Dan in his life and rebuild their friendship together, and while Dan had agreed to the idea, it was much harder in practice. Both of them were still too upset to take any action towards that, and so the silence wore on.

Not only is Dan upset about the breakup, but people have also started noticing that he’s clearly not back at University, and he’s getting bombarded with questions about Phan and school at the same time. He still responds to the comments about Phan - more harshly than ever before now that there really is no relationship - but ignores the ones asking about school, knowing that he can’t sum up the story in a simple tweet or text post.

He decides to make a video, and once Phil learns of what he’s doing, immediately offers to help. Dan is usually glad to have Phil help him film; even though Dan’s been making YouTube videos for two years now and can definitely make his own videos without Phil’s help, it’s always nice to have someone else assist him and make the whole experience easier.

The only problem is the tension that’s still present between the two of them, despite their agreement to push all awkwardness aside and learn how to be just friends again. The tension is evident in every scene they film together, and Dan wants to cry because not only is he making a video that a lot of people are going to judge him for, but the video is shit.

And being around Phil isn’t helping much either. Ever since their relationship ended, Dan’s noticed his colours have dulled and grown bleaker - even Dan’s started to go dull and grey, his reflection more boring and completely ordinary than usual. But not Phil; Phil is still as bright and beautiful as the day that Dan met him, and this isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that Phil gets to remain the one gorgeous thing in his life when he’s the one thing Dan can’t have. But if he were Phil, he wouldn’t want himself, either.

They’re filming the reenactment of Dan’s actual breakdown about uni, and although it’s in his script to start getting worked up to the point of breaking, Dan finds that he doesn’t have to act at all. Everything that’s been stressing him out over the past few weeks suddenly comes crashing down on him: the break up, the fans’ invasiveness, feeling like a failure about uni. By the end of the scene, when he’s supposed to be pretend crying, he actually cries as he buries his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking.

It clearly doesn’t take long for Phil to notice that Dan’s no longer acting, because he’s off the couch in a second and pulling Dan into his arms. He knows that Phil thinks he’s just stressed about uni again, and while that’s true, it’s not the only reason he’s upset. He cries because he’s not good enough for uni and he’s not good enough for Phil and he’s not good enough in general. Phil holds him like always, rocking him back and forth and trying his best to comfort him, and Dan cries because it doesn’t feel the same.

***

Dan is twenty-one years old and is struggling to keep up with everything that’s happening in his life.

He and Phil just finished their first broadcast for the official Dan and Phil on BBC Radio One, and Dan’s still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that him and his best friend are actually radio presenters for one of the largest broadcasting companies in the world. He never anticipated that their online popularity would help them achieve this level of success, and while it’s something that he’s still adjusting to, he’s glad that it’s all happening with Phil by his side.

Since their breakup in 2011, Dan and Phil have made no attempts at reviving their romantic relationship - to be truthful, it had taken longer to mend their friendship alone than Dan is willing to admit. The Valentine’s Day video going into circulation every few months did nothing to help the process, and Dan and Phil went from having lengthy conversations every day to barely speaking at all. It was a rough time in their friendship; one that Dan doesn’t like to think about.

It wasn’t until the BBC started throwing around the idea of giving them full-time positions did they really start to work at fixing their relationship. They’d sat down and had a long conversation about it, how their bond as friends is not only important for their careers, but important for them to move on. They’d both been so hung up over the breakup that they had nearly forgotten that they were soulmates, that there was a reason why they were together, and post-breakup tension or not, that was something they couldn’t ignore.

They’d packed up everything and moved to London, and even though they were broke at the time and could barely afford furniture, they’re much better off now. Their YouTube channels have really started to take off, which certainly helped with the money issues - Dan just reached one million subscribers days ago, more than Phil now, and he’s still having trouble understanding that.

A lot has changed, and even though Dan can’t say that he’s the happiest he’s ever been, he’s content. He’s glad to have Phil back in his life, glad to have the opportunities he’s been given, and glad to be surrounded by such a supportive group of people. Tonight, their flat - for once - is currently filled with those people, YouTubers and old friends alike all celebrating the success of their first official Dan and Phil broadcast, and Dan feels happy.

Dan’s leaning against the wall, drink in hand, his eyes locked on Phil having a conversation with PJ. Even though it’s been over a year and their friendship is stronger than it’s been in a long time, Dan’s feelings for Phil still linger - not that he expected them to ever go away. Even though his ability to see colour isn’t as diluted as it was the months following their breakup, there’s still a notable difference when he looks at Phil, and his soulmate remains the most colourful thing in every room.

There are, however, some who shine brighter than others, and one of those people is Louise, who’s approaching him now. Even without the aid of the hot pink at the ends of her hair, she’s one of the most positive and caring people Dan has ever had the pleasure of meeting, and he’s glad to have her brightness in his life.

She leans next to him on the wall, taking a sip of her drink before smiling brightly at him.

“Hello, Mr. Danisnotonfire,” she says happily. “How are you on this fine evening?”

“Recovering from the terror of being live on Radio One,” he answers, giving her a small smile in return. “How are you?”

“Incredibly proud of my chums who are big shot Radio One hosts,” she responds. “You were great, honestly.”

He thanks her, feeling relief at having not massively screwed up during the show. They fall into a comfortable silence, and Dan’s gaze immediately travels back to Phil, who’s still deep in conversation with PJ. Louise follows his gaze and, when she sees who Dan’s looking at, she nudges her elbow into his side, giving him a small smile.

“He’s your soulmate, right?”

“Yeah, he is. But -”

“You’re not together,” Louise finishes for him. “I know. You aren’t too shy about telling people to sod off when they assume.”

Dan blushes, nodding and taking a sip of his drink. He hasn’t really gone off in the Phan shippers in quite a while, finally learning how it important it is to pick and choose his battles. But it’s still something that he did a lot - the reason why his relationship with Phil ended - and it’s not something he likes to think about.

“Pardon my asking, but have you ever thought about it?” she asks, and Dan almost laughs at the irony. “I mean, I know platonic soulmates do exist - obviously. But nowadays, everyone seems to be ending up married. With all this stuff about ‘Phan’ going around all the time, I would think the idea would have crossed your mind once or twice.”

“We were together for almost two years, actually,” Dan says, his voice quiet.

“Wait, really?” Louise asks, and she genuinely looks shocked.

“Yeah,” Dan says. “We were together from later October 2009 to early October 2011.”

“Wow, I had no idea. Honestly,” she says, and that’s something Dan loves about Louise - no matter what she hears from anyone, she’ll never jump to her own conclusions without making sure she’s right about them. “Is that why you’re so defensive over people thinking you’re together?”

“I guess so,” Dan says, shrugging. “Though that’s also the reason why we broke up.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, and Dan sighs.

“Long story short, he wanted to come out,” Dan explains. “And I didn’t. Not because I didn’t want people knowing about us, because I did - I was just afraid that if they did know, people would start prying into our personal lives, you know what I mean? So, I kept calling fans out, insisting that Phil and I weren’t together to get them to back off, and I said some pretty horrible things that Phil wasn’t happy about. He told me that if I was so hellbent on proving that ‘Phan’ wasn’t real, then maybe it shouldn’t be. And now we really are just friends.”

“Wow, that’s got to be hard,” Louise says quietly. “Having something like that happen between you and your soulmate. I can’t even imagine.”

“It sucks,” Dan says, letting out a bitter laugh. “It feels like there are walls between us that we can never get over. And it’s like someone has put a filter over my colours, except for him - he’s still as bright as ever.”

They’re silent for a moment, and Dan’s gaze falls back on Phil. If he’s noticed how much Dan is staring at him tonight, he’s not doing anything about it, and Dan is grateful that his stares are going unnoticed.

“You still love him, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Dan replies immediately, still staring at Phil. “More than anything.” He turns to look at Louise, who’s got this twinkle in her eyes now, and he sighs, looking down at his nearly full cup.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” he tells her, looking back up and giving her a sad smile. “It’s never going to happen. He doesn’t need me the way I need him.”

“I’d be willing to bet that you’re wrong about that,” Louise insists.

“Yeah, well, I’d be willing to bet that I’m right.” He sighs again, hoping she doesn’t argue - above all things, he doesn’t want her to get his hopes up.

“You’re his soulmate, Dan,” she says softly. “You’re literally destined to be together. Regardless of your relationship status, he’s always going to need you, and want you, and love you. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be your soulmate. I know you’re stubborn, Dan, and you can believe what you will, but fate doesn’t mess up - I’m sure of that.”

Her eyes dart to Phil and then back to him, and Dan looks up to see Phil staring at him. When their eyes lock, Phil beams at him, and Dan can’t help but to smile back.

***

“Dan, do you need anything from Tesco?” Phil asks, entering the lounge where Dan is playing Super Smash Brothers on the Gamecube.

“Chocolate,” Dan responds immediately, not looking up from his game. “Maybe also something for dinner.”

“I can pick up Chinese on the way home,” Phil suggests, and Dan hears him zipping up his jacket.

“Sounds good,” Dan replies, angrily mashing at the buttons on his controller.

“Have fun,” Phil says. “I’ll be back in around an hour. I’ll text you when I’m on my way home.”

“Gotcha,” Dan mumbles, far more interested in his game than in what Phil has to say. Phil rolls his eyes, ruffling Dan’s hair before heading out.

Dan barely notices, already having lost himself in the game again. He has a tendency to get wrapped up in the games he plays, especially since it’s a cold day and he’s been playing for hours now. It’s not snowing outside, but it’s cold enough to give the apartment a chill, and Dan dreads to think what it’s like outside. He’s cuddled in the beanbag wearing his favourite jumper and pyjama pants, and he’d be content to never move again.

It only takes a few minutes for him to beat the quest he’s on, and he sighs, setting his controller aside and letting the credits roll. This is the fifth time he’s played it through now, and he just beat it on the highest difficulty. He had started playing not only out of boredom, but also because he’s trying to put off talking to Phil - something he promised to Louise that he would do today.

Since their conversation just a few weeks ago, Dan and Louise have been texting back and forth almost every day. Dan really enjoys talking to Louise; she never judges him, and she always understands his feelings and tries to help him work through them. Since he confessed to her that he still loves Phil, that’s what they talk about most of the time. Louise has been pushing him to talk to Phil about it, insisting that it’s not good to keep something as important as this bottled up - especially since he’s been doing so ever since their breakup over a year ago.

And Dan wants to tell Phil - he really, truly does. But every time he thinks about it, laying in his bed and hearing Phil laugh at dog videos through the wall, he can’t bring himself to get up and initiate the conversation. He’s terrified of rejection, terrified that Phil doesn’t feel that way about him anymore and that he’s moved on to bigger and better things than Dan. And Dan cherishes their friendship too much to let his feelings for Phil ruin what they’ve worked so hard to build back up in the last year. He doesn’t want to go back to weeks of barely saying a word to each other, of diluted colours and hurting every time he looks at Phil. He never wants to go back to that again.

But Louise is convinced that Phil feels the same, and even though he thinks it’s all a result of Louise getting his hopes up, Dan has the slightest feeling that she might be right. Phil still looks at him the way that he always has - like Dan is his whole world, and even though Dan still doesn’t understand why, he’s not going to ignore it. He’s tired of letting his doubts control his ability to take action, and he pulls out his phone, typing out a quick text to Louise.

he’s gone to the shop, but i’m going to tell him when he gets back.

Eeeee! You can do it! Let me know what happens <3 xxx

obvs. you’re the number one phan shipper of course i’ll keep you updated

I’d like a medal so I can wear it everywhere I go and brag about it x

i’ll see what i can do

You’re the best, Dan Howell <3 Good luck!!

He takes a deep breath, setting his phone aside and getting up to pace. He’s trying to think about what he’s going to say - it’s not like he can just waltz up to Phil when he gets home and say, “Hey Phil, thanks for the Chinese, by the way I’m still in love with you!” He thinks that maybe that works for some people, but it certainly won’t work for him. He has to approach this prepared, because if he doesn’t, it’ll all come out jumbled and he’ll lose his confidence.

But Dan’s not even sure where to begin - how is he going to tell the most important person in his life that he’s still madly in love with him?

He starts thinking of possible scenarios in his head, even saying the potential conversations to himself out loud. He’s been pacing for what feels like hours - even though it’s barely been ten minutes - until the power goes out.

Or so he thinks.

Everything goes dark for a moment, and Dan stops dead in his tracks, holding his breath. He’s terrified of the dark when he’s by himself, and of course the power has to cut when Phil’s out of the flat - not to mention the fact that the heating won’t work without the power, and it’ll be freezing in a matter of minutes.

However, the light comes back to him mere seconds later, but when Dan looks around, he notices something disturbingly off about what he’s seeing.

His colours are all but gone, and Dan stands there in shock for a moment, trying to comprehend what’s happening. It’s not like he’s had a particularly colourful existence in the last year following the break up, but while his colours have been filtered, he was still able to distinguish between them - he knew the difference between blue and red, could even tell between several different shades of green or yellow without any trouble.

But what he’s seeing now is completely different. It’s certainly not black and white, not yet - he can still tell, faintly, that the cushions on their sofa are blue and pink and purple. But it’s hard to distinguish between that and the grey of the couch, and as he frantically looks around the room, he’s finding the same problem in almost everything he sees. Even their Tetris light’s distinct sections of colour are hard to tell apart, and Dan knows something is horribly wrong.

The last time he remembers seeing everything this desaturated was when he and Phil had Skyped for the first time, and they hadn’t gotten the full effect of colour since they hadn’t met in person. It sometimes gets pretty bad when Phil is in Florida with his family, since they’re so far away from each other, but never like this - and besides, Dan knows for a fact that Phil is in London. There’s no way that he could have gotten so far away from Dan so quickly.

So what’s going on?

He grabs his phone, disregarding the text from Louise and immediately dialing Phil’s number. It goes straight to voicemail, and Dan curses, trying again. He gets the same result, meaning Phil’s phone is off, and Dan has no idea what’s going on.

He attempts to reason with himself, trying not to jump to any conclusions. So yeah, maybe the fact that his colours are all but gone and he can’t reach Phil is a little worrying, but there’s probably a reasonable explanation for this - one that doesn’t involve Phil half dead in an alley somewhere. But now that he’s thought of Phil half dead, that’s the only thing he can think of, and he nearly starts hyperventilating. He’s well aware that when someone’s soulmate dies, the remaining person goes back to seeing in black and white. He’s been seeing colour for three years now, but he can’t unsee eighteen years of black and white, and he never wants to go back to that. But his colours are so diluted that it’s almost black and white and Dan begins properly hyperventilating now.

He rushes to his room, trading his pyjamas for a pair of jeans, slipping on a pair of shoes, and pulling on his jacket before rushing down the stairs. He hopes that he’s just overreacting, and he’ll bump into Phil on his way home, but his gut feeling is telling him that whatever is happening isn’t good.

It’s not a long walk to Tesco, but the minute he’s out of his apartment, he’s focusing on evening out his breathing in an attempt not to look mental. He’s barely made it down his own street before his phone is buzzing in his hand, and when he looks down at the screen he doesn’t recognise the number.

He answers it anyway, hoping it’s just someone trying to sell him something, but he’s terribly wrong.

Dan’s heart nearly stops when the woman on the line informs him she’s calling him from their local hospital because he’s the emergency contact for Phil Lester, who's been involved in a serious accident. He’s surprised he’s able to stay on the line with her, confirming that he understands the situation and that he’ll be there as soon as he can. He’s even more surprised that he stays calm when hailing down the cab, telling the driver where he needs to be in a perfectly even voice. He nearly starts crying while sitting in the back of the cab, but he reasons with himself that not only would that be incredibly mortifying, but he doesn’t even know how bad Phil’s condition is - it certainly worries him that it’s taken such a great effect on his colours, but he figures it’s best not to completely freak out until he knows more about the situation.

When they arrive, Dan hands the cab driver more than enough to cover the fare and thanks him quickly before getting out of the car, rushing through the doors of A & E. He makes a beeline for the main desk, where a woman looks up and smiles at him before asking him how she can assist him.

“Er,” he mumbles, not really sure what to say. “I’m here for Phil Lester? I got a call -”

“Name, please?”

“Dan Howell,” he answers immediately. “I’m his soulmate.”

She nods and closes her mouth, as if she were about to ask him a similar question. She starts clicking away at her computer, and Dan has to hold his fingers to keep them from tapping against the desk.

“He’s been in an accident. He was hit by a vehicle while crossing the street. He was in critical condition when emergency services brought him in, and he’s in surgery right now. I’m afraid that’s all I know,” she says sadly.

Dan nods, trying to stay calm.

“Um -when will I know if he’s okay?”

“We’ll give you updates when they’re available,” she says, smiling at him. “In the meantime, make yourself comfortable - you might be here for a while.”

He nods again, thanking her before heading over to a small, unoccupied area with couches a little ways away from the desk. He lowers himself onto one of the sofas, burying his head in his hands and wondering how everything went so wrong so quickly. Today was supposed to be perfect - he was supposed to tell Phil everything, about how much he still loves him even though it’s been a year, and, if all went well, Phil was going to tell him the same. Now, judging by the current state of his colours, Phil is on the brink of death, and Dan might never be able to tell him anything.

He figures he should call someone - Louise, PJ, probably any member of Phil’s family - but he can’t bring himself to speak to anyone right now. Phil’s life is literally on the line, and he’s far more concerned with finding out if Phil is okay or not than anything else.

Dan sits there for what seems like hours, and it actually might have been. He’s doing everything he can to avoid thinking about Phil’s current life or death situation - wondering if he remembered to lock the door in his hurry out of the house, thinking about his favourite dog breeds and the type of dog he’d love to own one day, even thinking about how he’s going to word his feelings for Phil again, provided that he’s given the chance to share them.

He starts feeling a bit better as time passes, though. While his colours still haven’t been fully restored, they’re starting to come back to him; slowly, but surely, he’s able to tell the difference between the green of the sofa and the yellows of the throw pillows, and he figures that’s a good sign.

It turns out that it is - mere minutes after he notices his colours returning to him, a doctor dressed in scrubs approaches him.

“Are you here for Phil Lester?”

“Yeah, I am,” Dan replies immediately, standing up. “Is he okay?”

“He’s doing much better,” the doctor replies, and Dan sighs in relief, feeling as though a huge weight has been lifted off his chest, but he’s still wary of the surgeon’s wording. “He’s broken quite a few bones, though - his right arm in two places and his leg in one. He’s suffered a few fractured ribs, as well, which caused his right lung to collapse. We got him into surgery almost immediately to repair it, and he’s been in post-op for several hours. We expect a full recovery.”

“Thank you,” Dan says, tugging at the end of his jumper. “Um, can I see him?”

The doctor nods, and along the way to Phil’s room, he explains to Dan that they can discuss Phil’s recovery plan later. He briefly explains that Phil, given the broken bones and lung puncture, will need a lot of pain medication while he heals. They might need to look into options for physical therapy, depending on how the breaks heal, but in the meantime, he encourages Dan to just be there for him when he wakes up.

***
Dan stays in Phil’s room all night, relieved that Phil is on the path to recovery, but also incredibly exhausted from all of the stressing he’s done over the last few hours. He can’t fix Phil’s physical ailments, but like Phil’s doctor said, he can at least give him moral support, and Dan knows he won’t be seeing much more than this very room for the next few days.

He ends up falling asleep in the chair he’s pulled up beside Phil’s bed, completely worn out. He regrets not passing out somewhere more comfortable, though, because when he wakes up the next morning, his neck and back are both stiff and sore and giving him an ache he’s sure will last all day.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” He hears from beside him, and Dan looks up to see Phil awake and alert, giving Dan a smile. Dan stares back at him, mouth hanging open, torn between being elated that Phil’s awake and okay and being angry at him for putting himself in hospital in the first place.

Instead of expressing either, he says the first thing that comes to mind.

“You’re awake!”

“Am I?” Phil asks, still smiling. “I hadn’t realised.”

“Fuck you,” Dan says, definitely deciding that he’s angry with Phil. “You don’t get to joke around after nearly getting yourself killed.”

“I didn’t break my humerus, though.”

“Phil,” Dan says sternly. “I’m being serious. You nearly died, can we stop joking about it now?”

“Sorry,” Phil mumbles. He reaches out for Dan’s hand and squeezes it. “I’m okay now, though.”

“Are you?” Dan asks. “Are you in pain?”

“Not currently, no,” Phil says honestly. “I’m on a lot of pain medication. I mean, it hurts a little to breathe, but other than that, I’m fine.”

“Good,” Dan says. “You’re an idiot.”

“Harsh,” Phil responds, wincing. “I get hit by a car and this is what I get? Who needs flowers when you can have your best friend calling you an idiot, right?”

“Can you please stop making a joke out of this?” Dan asks, pulling his hand away from Phil’s. “This isn’t something to joke about. You literally almost died - there’s nothing funny about that.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m just trying to lighten the mood. I didn’t know you were that upset.”

“Of course I’m upset!” Dan responds, trying to keep his voice down. He gets up, starting to pace around Phil’s room while continuing to rant. “My soulmate nearly died because he wasn’t paying attention while crossing the street - why wouldn’t I be upset about that? I had no idea what happened to you, Phil. One minute everything was fine, and the next I’m practically seeing in black and white - can’t you see why that would upset me a little?”

“Okay, yes,” Phil says, sighing. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you in that situation.”

“Good, you should be sorry,” Dan says, finally standing still and crossing his arms over his chest. “I mean, hell, black is my favourite colour, but I’m not ready to give up all of the other colours yet -”

“Black is your favourite colour?” Phil asks, clearly confused. “You told me it was blue.”

“I told you that nearly four years ago,” Dan says, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “People can change their favourite colours. Besides, that’s not even the point. I’m trying to say that I don’t want to see in black and white again for a long time, so you better not get yourself killed any time soon.”

“When did it change?” Phil asks, and if he wasn’t already in a hospital bed, Dan would have punched him.

“I don’t know,” he says, rolling his eyes. “A year ago? Why is this relevant?”

“After we broke up?” Phil asks.

“Yes, maybe,” Dan stutters, blushing. “I don’t know! What are you, the head of the Change Your Favourite Colour Department? Stop distracting me with your stupid questions, I’m trying to scold you!”

“Brown is still my favourite colour.”

“Phil, shut the fuck up,” Dan snaps.

“It was the first one I saw, you know,” Phil continues, as if Dan hadn’t even spoken. “Because of your eyes. Is that why your favourite was blue? Because of my eyes?”

“Would you stop?” Dan demands. “We’re not having this discussion. You’re the one who broke up with me. Shut up and let me talk.”

“No, you shut up,” Phil retorts. “I know you’re mad at me, but hear me out. I almost took blue away from you forever. Do you even realise that?”

“Yes, I realise that, you idiot,” Dan spits. “What do you think I’m trying to yell at you for?”

“I still love you.”

“What part of ‘I’m trying to yell at you’ do you not understand?” Dan demands, his heart racing. He’s lucky that he’s not the one hooked up to the heart monitor, because surely a doctor would race in, thinking he was having a heart attack.

“I understand all of it,” Phil says calmly. “You’re mad at me because I nearly died and took blue away from you. I was stupid and made a mistake that almost cost me my life.”

“Exactly,” Dan says, exasperated. “Except I still want to yell at you a bit more, so stop talking.”

“No,” Phil says. “I almost died and I still love you, and I know you still love me. I know your favourite colour is still blue, and I almost took that away from you. I almost took so much away from you. I almost died without getting to tell you how much I love you, and you would have spent the rest of your life in black and white wondering if I still felt the same. I do feel the same, I have this whole time.”

“But you broke up with me,” Dan protests.

“I know,” Phil says. “I thought that was what you wanted.”

“It wasn’t.”

“I know that now,” Phil says. “But I didn’t back then, and I wish I had. If I did, I never would have done it. We’ve wasted so much time, Dan. You only get one soulmate, and you’re mine and I’m yours. I want to stop wasting our time and I want the colours to be as bright as they were when we were together.”

“You’re stupid,” Dan says, but he’s crying, the stress of everything that’s happened in the last sixteen hours finally catching up to him. He takes his rightful place next to Phil again and grabs his hand, squeezing it tight. “You’re stupid and I hate you, but I also love you even though you’re the worst person in the world.”

“But I’m your favourite person, right?”

“Yes,” Dan admits, scowling at Phil and wiping at his eyes. “Just don’t take blue away from me ever again.”

“Deal.”

“I love you,” Dan says. “Really, I do. A lot.”

“I know,” Phil says. “And I love you.”

They’re not back to how they were yet - not even close - but it’s a start. And this is one change that Dan is not only willing to adapt to, but looking forward to it.

***

Sunday, 19 October 2014

An Announcement

Hey guys! Dan and Phil here (Phil typing, Dan watching creepily over his shoulder) with some important stuff! Some of you might think that this is the most exciting thing ever and others of you might think it’s super boring, but either way, this is important to us and it’s something we’d really like to share with you.

Dan and I have both been doing YouTube for a long time now, and while we love it and wouldn’t give it up for anything, there are some things we don’t love so much. We love seeing how much our videos inspire you (we don’t tell you enough, but we really are amazed by the “phanfiction” and the “phanart” you guys create), we love seeing you form friendships because of our videos, and we love that we’ve somehow created this whole community of people just because we’re two nerds who make videos and post them on the internet. What we don’t love, though, is the lack of privacy that sometimes comes along with the job.

Five years ago today, we met and found out we were soulmates. That’s the part of the story that you already know. And we figured that since it’s been half a decade now (wow!), it’s time to tell you the part of the story you don’t know.

Dan and I started dating in October of 2009. Back then, neither of us had a crazy number of subscribers to worry about, so it was easy to keep our relationship a secret. Of course people still “shipped” us, and we were constantly getting asked questions about our relationship, but it was much easier to hide when we didn’t have millions of you watching. When we started getting more popular, more people started to ship us and we got even more questions and comments about it. Still, it was easy to ignore because no one knew the truth, and we were planning on keeping it that way.

In September of 2011, a video I had made for Dan on Valentine’s Day the year before accidentally got leaked by YouTube, and a lot of you guys saw it. Then it wasn’t so easy to hide anymore, because everyone knew what was really going on and there was no good way to cover it up. We were both very frustrated, as there was no way that we could have seen this coming since the whole thing was an accident. We were overwhelmed that everyone knew our biggest secrets before we were ready for them to, and even though we did manage to hide that we were together, we ultimately broke up (something that we won’t go into detail about, but it was something between us and not caused by you all so don’t worry ^_^).

Before you get upset, we are back together now and have been for over a year and a half. We know that Phan being real is really exciting for some of you (Dan: my OTP iz real !!!1!1!), but we’re hoping that we can continue to maintain our privacy regarding most of our relationship. That means we’re not suddenly going to be kissing in videos, or start being really affectionate (and disgusting, according to Dan) on camera. Our content is going to stay the same. The only difference is that now you know we’re together.

All that we ask is that you please respect our privacy and know your boundaries (and if you are not sure if you’re crossing a line or not, it’s probably safe to assume that you might be and keep whatever it is to yourself!). It’s taken us five years to be honest about this, and we don’t want to have to start hiding again because we’re sure you guys don’t want that either!. All we ask is that you guys respect us and each other while we all get used to this being out in the open.

Please don’t let this change too much - we are still the same Dan and Phil! But now you know that we’re together and we’re very happy, and we hope you’re happy about it too :D As always, we appreciate your support. <3

Much love,
Dan and Phil/Phan