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Another month progressed with great events unfolding, both globally and personally. At the time the real world was a chaotic and horrible place, maybe it always was and probably it always would be. At least the internet was a safe space where he could take refuge from terrifying events. Or rather, it used to be.
He had been lying in his bed for hours, in the dim light of the room, absently browsing Twitter with his cell phone while letting his thoughts wander.
Before the YouTube explosion, Dan could enter any space on the internet and spit out his thoughts without major problems. He could interact in various fandoms without feeling that abominable pressure. Using the internet was more entertaining in those days.
Even as his rise to ‘fame’ he began —he always hated the concept of being considered famous and that wasn't going to change— during the early days, interacting in virtual spaces had been easy and fun. Everything seemed more relaxed at those times.
It was still unreal to think that his job was to create content for the internet. To think that people were interested in listening to his stories, anecdotes and opinions. That this activity could sustain him, that thanks to these people he could maintain a very good standard of living.
And that wasn't even the most surreal thing of all. The economic benefits were remarkable, clearly, but they were not the most important thing. This job allowed him to do something that filled him, that gave a little meaning to his existence. It allowed him to build a community. A space where he felt loved, understood and accepted that he had lacked so much in his adolescence.
The growth of his fanbase had been exponential and rampant. In a short period of time he went from being the awkward nerdy teenager to a supposed mass referent. Now thousands, no, millions of pairs of eyes rested upon him, on each of his movements and actions. He knew that constant scrutiny was the price of having a large audience, one of the few cons to his incredible career. All that attention to himself was uncomfortable from the beginning, but over time he learned various mechanisms to manage it.
Admittedly, in his early days, the strategies he used were not the best, but his audience was critical enough to point out his mistakes and help him grow. In fact they continued being it. If there was something that characterized the relationship with his audience was the continuous coming and going of criticism. While it could be painful at times —really, who liked to have their mistakes pointed at them?— it was a good dynamic. It fostered critical thinking and grounded him to reality.
But, since his last video, something started to change. His ‘fans’ were used to long periods without content, with relatively few virtual interactions, so when he made the decision to take a break, he didn't imagine it would be a big problem. Oh my! How wrong was he.
His almost complete retraction from social media was taken as a sign of detachment rather than what it really was, a moment of introspection and personal search. Some narratives began to emerge in which he no longer cared for his audience, in which whenever he interacted was part of a great scheme to be able to push new merchandising and who knows how many more.
In recent months, these narratives seemed to have multiplied and invaded all spaces. Dan understood where they came from, especially considering recent events. The pandemic, the global quarantine, the distress reported by social movements had everyone on edge. Terrifying times were being lived and people were lashing out on whoever was close. He had done it more than once recently. But, even knowing this, he couldn't help but feel a little discouraged when he came across these ideas.
There was a very simple solution to the ‘problem’, or at least that's what some people within the fandom said, giving the people what they wanted. Getting out of his virtual isolation and interacting. It was such a simple thing and still he couldn't muster the energy to do it. It wasn't that he didn't want to or that he didn't care, he just couldn't.
Anguish and anxiety swirled in the pit of his stomach at the thought of tweeting something , of saying something. Finding the delicate balance between being funny enough and relatable without losing his own style and deep message was very stressful. Thinking clever responses to the cascade of tweets that would come his way was just too much.
This was not something new, he had always been someone who overthought things. His long career was riddled with moments like that, where anxiety consumed him when he had to think of something to post on social media.
Anyway, it's not like it was of any use. The times he followed the ‘advice’, ignoring the emotions that settled in his stomach like stones, and tweeted something, nothing was solved. The criticisms were still there and new ones appeared. That his interaction had not been real enough, that it was performative, or that he was only doing it because they asked him to.
At this point Dan no longer knew what to do. He felt trapped in a spiral from which he found no way out. Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. This was how his relationship with his audience had shifted in the last year.
“Phil!” He called out with a shout as he tossed his cell phone across the bed. "Can you come over for a minute?"
He heard a slight growl in response and his partner's footsteps slowly approaching the room. The past few days had been particularly difficult. His birthday celebration and socialization, while virtual but socializing anyway, had left him exhausted. Additionally the current drama with his audience only made the situation worse. No wonder, when he woke up that morning, he felt as if something inside him was out of focus.
His fandom’s space on Twitter was on fire. It had all started a few days before. The expectation generated by the dates was palpable in the virtual environment. During his secret searches he found thousands of tweets anticipating and theorizing his position regarding the commemorations. Would he make a public statement? Would he interact with them? Would Phil maintain the tradition of posting photos?
Each of those tweets, each opinion was a small stone on his back. They burdened him with a responsibility he was not sure he wanted to return. Ignoring that thought, he had decided to tweet on his birthday and on BIG's anniversary day and interact a bit in replies to them. That was all he could force himself to do at the moment. That should be enough.
He was clearly wrong.
The phandom was a starving beast and the crumbs Dan offered them were not enough to satiate them. The mob mentality was a scary thing. At first the outraged voices were few and completely overwhelmed by the positive messages that wished him happiness in his day. But little by little the more time passed, they spread like an infection, turning his mentions into a wall of screams. They demanded exposure, they demanded interaction and recognition of the art they had created especially for the dates.
The door to the room creaked open and the tall figure of his roommate crossed the doorway. The image of Phil, dressed in his pajamas, wearing his glasses and a little tousled, shouted domesticity and home. That image, reserved only for the few people who were his family, had incredible power over Dan.
Phil watched him from his position by the door and there was a question on his face. He knew that Dan was on one of those days that required solitude and quietness, getting away from the whole universe to recompose the part of himself that had decided to malfunction.
"Come sit with me," Dan said, patting the side of his position on the bed, "I wanna ask you something."
Hearing him, the intrigue he was showing turned into concern. Dan thought he had concealed his emotions well enough, but Phil seemed to have realized something, perhaps because of the voice he used or because he was the person who knew him the most in this world.
Phil approached carefully, always keeping that worried face and, without saying a word, took a seat next to him. Instinctively he reached out to take Dan's hand in his but, a second later, he stopped and returned it to its original place.
Dan knew where that caution came from, and while he would normally be grateful for it today it was irritating. Letting himself get carried away by that violent emotion, he took Phil's hand in a sudden movement.
"You don't have to treat me like I'm made of glass, you know?" He snapped, letting the frustration mix with his words as he laced his fingers through his roommate's.
"Sorry." Phil looked at him regretfully and squeezed his hand slightly.
That deep blue gaze was a direct dagger to his heart. Now Dan felt like shit. He had just released his frustration with the most important person in his life even though he was only respecting his boundaries.
"Sorry ... I didn't mean to yell at you," he apologized, looking down at their clasped hands. “I'm a mess and… ”
“It’s okay, Dan,” his voice was soft and comforting, “I get it, don't worry about it.”
And there it was again, that warmth that surrounded him every time Phil showed him that he understood him, that he accepted him as he was, even when he said some shit in a fit of fury.
“So? What did you want to ask me?”
"Oh yeah, right." He shook his head a little to help control his emotions. “Hmm ... I don't know if you know what's going on on twitter but …”
"I'm aware," Phil commented with a knowing look on his face. “Your mentions are exploding.”
“Yeah. About that, I really don't know what to do. ” The desperation he had tried so hard to contain began to seep into his voice. “There are so many messages and they want me to react to everything but I can't do it and I know they are getting mad at me and I don't want that but I can't interact with them either and…”
With each word that came out of his mouth his pulse accelerated more and more. The image of thousands of people screaming for his attention fluttered in his brain and made him lose his breath. His body seemed to have collapsed because of the intense emotions he had been bottling up, he couldn't breathe, his stomach was churning and his mind was full of screams.
Phil could see the panic in Dan's eyes, how his own words had been the key that overflowed the dam that kept it contained. It was so palpable and present that it rubbed onto Phil. Thousands of thoughts crossed his mind, he didn't know what was the best way to help his boyfriend right now. What did Dan need right now? Physical contact or space to recover and breathe?
Phil searched for answers in the face of his partner, who seemed lost in another universe, one where his thoughts would be destroying him.
“Dan!“ He said, raising his voice to get him out of his trance, "you have to breathe."
His eyes fell on Phil's at the sound of his voice. Brown interconnecting with blue. Behind the fear that housed in those mahogany orbs lay a cry for help. That was all the confirmation Phil needed to take his partner into his arms and place him on his chest.
"Shh, shh, easy," he comforted him tenderly as he stroked his hair. “Breathe with me, in, out, in, out.”
After several minutes he was finally able to catch his breath. The rhythm Phil was leading was soft and light and the sway of his chest helped him calm down. Throughout the process he continued repeating words of encouragement and stroking his hair gently.
Once his breathing returned to normal, Dan distanced himself a little from his partner, undoing the hug. The ball of anxiety was still located in his stomach, threatening to make him vomit at any moment. He could feel the reflux making his way up his throat and, in less than a second, he was up and running to the bathroom. Gone was Phil, in the dark room with no explanation of what was happening.
His spectacular run allowed him to get to the toilet just in time and empty the entire contents of his stomach. If only that act allowed him to eliminate all those negative emotions that had made a home in his digestive system.
He flushed the toilet as he wrinkled his nose at the rancid smell that filled the bathroom now. That acid stench perfectly reflected the accumulation of emotions that brought him to that place. He took his toothbrush and started cleaning his mouth. His movements were quick and rough, as if the filth and bad breath from the vomit wasn't the only thing he wanted to brush off.
When he returned to his room, after brushing his teeth several times, he was a little surprised not to find Phil there. He didn’t want to think about it too much and opted to lie back on his bed and return to his previous activity. Asking Phil about It had been a mistake, it had been useless and had only left him feeling worse than before.
But for some reason he couldn't find his cell phone where it should have been when he had thrown it on the bed. He looked for it everywhere, between the sheets, under the bed, under the pillows, but it was nowhere.
At that moment, the door opened again and a Phil carrying two mugs in his hands entered the room.
“Phil, did you see where my cell phone was?” Dan asked when he saw him.
“No no no. No cell phone," he replied in a slightly uncharacteristic authoritative voice. "We saw what just happened to you. For now you will not use it.”
"I have to do something with what's going on."
Dan knew that was a lie, he hadn't done anything before and he probably couldn't do anything now. But he had to keep trying, even if that meant episodes like the one just before.
“No. You are clearly not ready to handle it. For now you are going to ignore it, have a drink with me and we are going to see Buffy together, understood?”
"But Phil!” He complained in that high-pitched whiny voice.
"No buts, here's your tea," he said as he handed him one of the steaming mugs.
Although he continued to protest as Phil took him to their living room and prepared everything to watch the series, his roommate didn't give in one bit. He was determined to make him ignore everything related to his audience for a while and, deep in his being, Dan was grateful for it.
While watching the series Phil made comments on the plot of the chapter, on the tension between Buffy and Willow or how attractive Spike was. It was obvious to Dan that his partner was trying hard to fill the room and keep him from drawing back into his own mind. He wanted to get him out of that dark and damaging place where he had locked himself in for the past few days.
That stab of anxiety in his stomach was still there, albeit much lighter than before. The guilt, both for failing to meet the expectations of his ‘fans’ and for annoying Phil, began to take place in his body. Letting himself get carried away by his boyfriend's intentions, Dan ignored these sensations and snuggled closer to him. Phil put an arm around him and placed a chaste kiss on his forehead.
He was carried away by the plot of the show, the mediocre performances and the silly comments of Phil. Maybe later or tomorrow he would be able to do something about the drama on Twitter. Now the only thing that mattered was the hug and affection that his partner gave him.