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It’s the first time Dan’s attending Vidcon in years. After his little YouTube break, and then going on tour, Dan thought he owed it to his viewers to go to one of these events.
So far, he’s spent the entire first day meeting a bunch of lovely people, and catching up with other creators he hasn’t been able to see in years, which is always a good, chaotic time.
Dan finally steps into the elevator and pushes the button that leads to his floor, which is the fourth floor. He moves to lean against the wall, and lets out a breath. Dan absolutely adores meeting his viewers, but he’s quite excited to get in bed and relax for the rest of the night.
“Yeah, I’ll see you later, mate!”
Dan looks up when he hears the unfortunate familiar voice, and he closes his eyes when none other than Phil Lester steps into the elevator right before the door closes. “Great,” Dan mumbles.
“Howell,” Phil greets in a surprisingly calm voice.
“Lester,” Dan grumbles, and he crosses his arms against his chest. He’s gone all day without running into his number one enemy from YouTube, and it’s been wonderful. Of course, Dan’s caught him from the corner of his eye a couple of times, but he’s been able to avoid him right up until this very moment.
“Surprised to see you here,”
Dan raises his eyebrows as he looks over at Phil. “Really? You’re going to try and make small talk?”
“No, I’m just stating a simple fact. I am surprised to see you here, as in here at Vidcon” Phil retorts. “But, uh, I see you haven’t changed one bit since the last time I saw you.” He scoffs.
“You don’t know shit about me,” Dan snaps.
“Yeah, well-” Phil’s caught off by the elevator suddenly stopping, causing both of them two tumblr a little. “Holy shit. What was that?” He looks over at Dan with wide eyes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dan groans, and he walks over to the buttons, and repeatedly hits the fourth floor button, praying the elevator will start up again.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not what you’re supposed to do when the elevator breaks,” Phil says, and he walks over to hit the elevator emergency button.
Dan blinks as he looks over at Phil curiously, who seems unusually calm for the two of them being stuck in an elevator together. He’s not sure about Phil, but this is certainly not how he wanted to spend his Friday night, especially after a long day of meeting viewers.
“Hello, how may I help you? Are you in need of an emergency?”
“Yeah, uh… hi, the elevator stopped. We’re… stuck?” Phil questions, and he looks over at Dan.
“Okay. What floor are you on?”
“The second floor, we were going up to the fourth floor,” Phil explains.
“And how many people are in the elevator?”
“Two,” Phil tells the woman. “Phil Lester and Dan Howell.”
“It could be up to an hour before our maintenance guys show up. Are you both okay?”
“We’re fine, thank you. I have water in my bag. We should be fine until rescue,” Phil says.
“That’s excellent to hear. Please press the emergency button again if anything changes. We’ll try to get this fixed as soon as possible. Our apologies,” she says before hanging up.
“How the hell are you being so calm about this?” Dan asks, his voice shaky.
“One of us has to be,” Phil retorts, and he looks over at Dan, before digging into his bag and pulling out a water bottle, handing it to Dan. “Drink this. I don’t need you to have a panic attack on me.”
Dan scoffs, though he takes the water bottle from him, mumbling a quiet thank you to Phil, because he’s not that mean. “Whatever. I’m not going to have a panic attack,”
“Really? Because, your shaking hands say otherwise,”
Dan scoffs. “Well, excuse me. Our fucking elevator just stopped and we’re probably going to be stuck here for at least another hour. I’m exhausted. I just wanted to go to bed,”
Phil chuckles, and he backs up so he can lean against the elevator wall, crossing his arms. “You’ve barely done anything today. How can you be so exhausted ?”
Dan glares at him. “You don’t think meeting people all day is exhausting?”
“It’s rewarding,”
“Of course it is,” Dan agrees, before sighing. “But it’s still exhausting. You’re constantly on your feet, talking to people all day, and you have to look like you're happy on the outside even if you aren’t. I mean, not saying I wasn’t happy, but it’s a factor that you have to consider,”
“Okay. I guess you have a fair point,” Phil agrees, nodding.
“Gee, thanks,” Dan mumbles. He sighs, and he glances around nervously. He’s trying not to freak out, because he knows for sure Phil would make fun of him for it.
It’s quiet for a moment, and Dan already feels like he’s going to lose his mind.
“Well, uh, if we’re going to be here for a while,” Phil says after a few moments of silence, and he slowly sinks down until he’s sitting on the ground. “Might as well make ourselves comfortable, huh?”
Dan blinks, and he looks over at Phil. He pulls out his phone, and sees that he has some messages from his friends. He decides to text Louise first, sending a quick stuck in an elevator help text message.
Louise calls Dan instantly, which doesn’t surprise Dan. Dan looks over at Phil. “Do you care if I take this?”
“No, I don’t care, go for it. I’ll be surprised if you manage to get a call through at all. Phone service usually sucks in elevators,” Phil says as he looks up at Dan curiously.
Dan shrugs. “Well, I guess we’ll find out,” he mumbles. He answers the call. “Hello?”
“What do you mean you’re stuck in an elevator?” Louise says as soon as Dan answers.
“What do you think I meant?” Dan asks, standing straight.
“What a way to end your night, huh? Are you alright? You’re not alone, are you?” Louise asks, because she’s such a mother hen, always mothering everyone. Dan finds it endearing.
“No, I’m not alone. I’m uh, I’m with Phil,”
“Phil?” Louise repeats. “As in, Phil Lester? Shit, Dan. Don’t you two hate each other?”
“I mean,” Dan coughs. “That’s not the point right now. It’s fine. I’m fine. I just-”
“Dan, hold on. You’re breaking up, I can’t hear you-”
“Lou?” Dan asks, frowning when static comes through the speaker, and he can barely make out anything that Louise is saying. “Louise, are you there?” He sighs when he doesn’t hear a response from Louise, and decides to hang up. “Great.” He plops himself down on the ground, crossing his legs.
“Are you enjoying Vidcon so far?” Phil asks.
Dan raises his eyebrows and he glances up at Phil. “You’re really going to make small talk right now?”
“I’m just curious, is all. You took a break for… how many years? You were the most anticipated YouTuber that people wanted to see this year. Everybody’s been talking about you,” Phil says thoughtfully.
“Why do you care? We’re supposed to hate each other,” Dan grumbles.
Phil lets out a laugh. “I don’t hate you Dan,” he says, which obviously surprises Dan, because they’ve been enemies ever since Dan came onto the YouTube scene a few years after Phil.
“What are you talking about? I thought you… I mean, you said all those things about me,” Dan argues.
“I’ll admit that I was definitely jealous when you started making videos. You came out of nowhere, and people loved you. I’ve been working on my videos way before you even came along. I felt like you didn’t have to work for your success,” Phil says, and he holds his hand up when Dan opens his mouth to argue. “Which I know isn’t true. I know that now. I never got the chance to apologize because of the feud.”
“Oh,” Dan breathes. “So, uh… you don’t hate me?”
“No,” Phil confirms, shaking his head. “In fact, I think what you did was very brave. Congrats, by the way. Your coming out video was beautiful. I left you a message in the comments, but I doubt you saw it.”
Dan shakes his head, and he suddenly feels very silly for how he’s felt about Phil this whole time, but Phil never said any of this stuff before, so Dan never had a reason to believe Phil didn’t hate him. “Uh, thanks,” he mumbles. “I worked really hard on it.”
“It shows,” Phil says. “So, you’re enjoying Vidcon?”
“I’m enjoying it,” Dan finally answers. “It’s just… weird, you know… being back after so many years.”
“I can only imagine,” Phil nods in understanding. “I’m glad you’re back.”
Dan finally looks up at Phil, too shocked to be hearing Phil Lester be saying such nice things to him, after the way Dan’s treated him all these years. It would be nice to not be enemies with Phil anymore.
Dan sits up, making himself more comfortable. “What about you? Are you enjoying Vidcon so far?”
Phil looks up at Dan and grins.
Dan and Phil surprisingly easily start a conversation with each other, and start getting to know each other as they wait for rescue. They both even vlog a little, knowing their viewers would love the content.
It’s about an hour later when suddenly the elevator moves, which causes Dan to jump up on his feet. “Holy shit. The elevator moved!” It moves again, and Phil jumps up as well. “We’re getting out!”
Phil hesitates, before grabbing a hold of Dan. “Dan?”
“Yeah?” Dan replies, and he looks at Phil. He’s caught in surprise when suddenly Phil’s lips are on his, and Phil is kissing him. Phil bloody Lester is kissing him . Dan starts to kiss Phil back. They’re so engulfed in the kiss that they don’t even realize that the elevator door has opened.
Louise is standing on the other side with the electricians, and she’s shocked when she sees the two.
“Well, well, well,” Louise begins, crossing her arms against her chest. “What do we have here?”
Dan instantly jumps apart from Phil, and he looks over at Louise with wide eyes. “Louise-”
Phil clears his throat. “Right, anyways. Lovely seeing you Dan,” he says, before stepping out of the elevator. He looks back at Dan and flashes him a smile, making Dan melt.
Dan doesn’t understand how he could go from absolutely hating Phil Lester to wanting to kiss the ever loving shit out of him in the span of an hour, but he supposes that’s the Phil Lester charm that everybody’s been telling him about all these years.