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“Bloody hell,” Phil all but groans down the phone. “They’re everywhere.”
“Who are? The viewers?” Dan questions from his leather seat in the office back in London.
“Yes, the subscribers. Someone saw me running and tweeted about it and then #WhyIsPhilRunning ended up trending. Didn’t you see my tweets?”
“Hang on, running? Isn’t that a bit wild for you?” Dan snorts down the phone as he settles back into the chair, curls his legs up around himself and saves his editing progress. He’s finished merging together around three quarters of the new gaming video out of 30 minutes of footage (waffle) and he decides that he’s taking a break. “And no, I haven’t, I’ve been editing. I don’t stalk your twitter waiting for you to tweet, believe it or not.”
“Yes, running, but only to catch this damn train. The taxi ended up in crazy amounts of traffic and I had about 6 seconds to spare before the doors closed and crushed my feet in the process. Not that you have any reason to be laughing at me running, Mr I Say I’ll Take Up Running Every New Years And Have Given Up Completely Every Time By April. And sure, you don’t stalk me, that’s why you were first reply to anything I ever did on social media in 2009.”
“Details, details.” Comes his reply, and Phil can hear the mirth in his voice. “Did they take any photos? Now that is one thing I would pay good money to see.”
“Oh, shut up, and as far as I’m aware your search will prove fruitless.”
“What a shame. Why are you calling anyway?” Dan queries.
“No reason. I just wanted to hear your voice.” Phil admits. “I’m about halfway there, somewhere around Coventry I think.”
Dan’s heart flutters more than he’d care to admit, even now, at the first revelation but he keeps quiet.
“What are you up to? Have you had dinner yet?” Phil asks.
“Not yet. I just saved the video and I’ll go and find something after I’ve finished speaking to you. Did we ever finish that spaghetti we had last week?”
“Nope. Check the freezer, third drawer.”
“I’m not even going to ask how you remember that.” Dan says as he pushes his seat back and stands up.
“One of the many reasons why you love me,” Phil chuckles down the line. “Well, I’d better let you get on then. I’ll tell you when I check into my hotel, okay? Try not to miss me too much.”
“Ha, you wish. Okay, I’ll speak to you later. Don’t fret too much about tomorrow, I know you were worried but you have no reason to be.”
“I know, it’s just the fact that I haven't seen some of these people in years and it's weird. Even some of the people I knew best I don't anymore and it throws me off balance to know that I've missed out on so much. That was one of the worst things about moving to London, there's only so much Facebook can tell you about what is happening in someone else's life.”
“Stick with the people you were closest with, and don't worry about it. The whole point of the reunion was to catch up and maybe seeing each other again will make everyone try harder to keep in contact with each other. Love you.”
Phil mulls over his boyfriend’s words.
“I guess you’re right. I love you too.”
Phil texts a few hours later to say that he’s at his hotel and waiting to be checked in. Dan is in the lounge at the time, flicking between news channels all reporting on the numerous disasters happening all over the globe. He types out a simple reply and wishes his boyfriend a good night out with his friends, before he presses send and slides his phone into his back pocket. He stands up, turns off the TV and takes his dirty plate and glass from dinner to the kitchen. He puts them in the dishwasher and then just stands there, engulfed in silence. It’s weird not having Phil there, telling stupid jokes and leaving the cupboard doors open no matter how many thousands of times Dan has told him to shut them. It’s early evening and the flat is completely quiet and the only sounds are the movement of the city outside and suddenly Dan feels very alone.
He’s in bed and his mind is racing. He thinks about everything he’s done so far this year, the app, the book, the tour and the other projects that the fans don’t even know about yet. Filmed for the BBC documentary all across Europe, and recorded, edited & uploaded videos both for his own and the gaming channel. He’s even presented the BRIT awards and hosted the Paper Towns premiere, and yet he feels like he’s missing something. He can’t shake the feeling of under accomplishment, the feeling of I-have-done-so-much-and-yet-it-doesn’t-feel-like-enough. Which is silly he muses, because Dan knows that he’s been struggling to get enough sleep as it is what with juggling all the thousands of different projects and still trying to find the time to maintain a good relationship with Phil. Phil. Dan wishes that Phil was there, but he’s 200 miles away having dinner and some drinks with his Uni friends that he hasn’t seen in years and Dan doesn’t want to drag him away from them. He knows that if he tells Phil how he’s feeling, his boyfriend will just worry. He also feels stupid, because it’s like he can’t function without Phil and that isn’t true, and Phil doesn’t erase every problem, but he can distract him. It’s his uni reunion tomorrow and he wants Phil, who was already nervous about it, to enjoy it and not spend the time wondering how Dan is. He’s not sure what he’d tell him anyway. “I am missing something and I don’t even know what it is,” isn’t exactly easy to put into words.
It’s nearly 10pm according to the green of the clock that’s light is reflected in the glass full of water beside him and if anything Dan feels worse. He’s been lying there for hours, his mind delving in on itself and he is exhausted. A swirl of negative emotions are hitting him in a landslide and he doesn’t know what to do. Worrying seems almost natural to him by now - from the constant concern over whether Phil felt the same way in 2009 to now, where he can’t help but think his content and his persona are, quite frankly, shit. He knows he shouldn’t do this to himself, shouldn’t doubt every decision he’s ever made but his mind has this problem where it doesn’t listen to anything - including itself. Dan is not sure that he even knows himself anymore, whether he knows where the line between Dan Howell and danisnotonfire lies. Is there any contrast between the two? Is his constant evasiveness about his sexuality, his relationship, hell even the most mundane of questions truly him? Dan is sure that there are some things that simply need to stay private, his bond with Phil being one of these things, but sometimes not even being able to look at Phil in a video without it being reblogged ten thousand times on Tumblr does his head in. He doesn’t know what's wrong and he doesn’t know if he wants to.
"existential/identity/quarter-life/creative - just call me captain crisis!"
He regrets is the moment he tweets it, but he feels like he needs to have some sort of explanation for the lack of content, for his inactivity on social media. He checks the replies and sees the words “are you okay?” so many times that his vision begins to blur and thinks, no, i’m not. But he doesn’t know why he isn’t.
Ten minutes later he tries to backtrack, tweets "tweeting indirects about your own problems as a cry for help" along with a laughing face but even he knows that no one will believe him. He’s too cynical and emotionless normally and his audience are clever, too clever. They might not know him personally, but they know his habits and his traits and they know that the fiercely-protective-over-his-privacy Dan wouldn’t tweet that without a reason to. He inwardly curses himself, favourites Cat’s reply when he gets the notification for it without bothering to read it. He wonders when Phil will see it and then curses himself again because fuck, the whole point was not to worry Phil and now he will see it along with his millions of followers. Louise DMs him and he brushes off her gently worded question, says he’s joking, and when he reads her tentative reply he can feel that she is not fully convinced.
Twitter is blowing up and his head fucking hurts and he wishes he hadn’t tweeted at all. Nearly an hour since his first tweet he decides to reply to someone, tells them "i’m just joking everything’s a joke i’m a joke help" and exits the Twitter app before he sees any of the replies that suggest that everyone knows that it’s all him being mendacious. He feels even worse for lying to his audience, for always brushing off his comments about how he feels as a joke but really what more can he do?
It’s 1am and he knows Phil will have seen it by now, he’ll have probably slightly tipsily stumbled back to his hotel room and checked his social media after flopping into bed, seen all the people asking him if Dan is okay. But he hasn’t said anything to Dan and he can’t help but feel relief, knows it’s bad to try and evade Phil but he doesn’t think he can handle kind words and gentle questions tonight. He knows Phil only means well, because when doesn't Phil always mean well, but sometimes Dan just needs some time away. He stumbles to the kitchen, takes some sleeping pills, brushes his teeth and goes back to bed before ultimately falling into a restless sleep.
He wakes at ten to the sound of a text. He groans and rubs his eyes, because nine hours sleep is seemingly not enough and takes a sip from the glass of the water on his bedside table. It’s over a day old and tastes a bit shit, but the liquid begins to wake him up and only then does he roll over to check his messages, still blinking back sleep. It’s from Phil, of course.
“If you feel up to it. You don’t have to, and you don’t have to come to the actual reunion, but I can extend the hotel room for a few days if you'd like and we can revisit the city for a while before we fly to Cyprus. I love you.”
Along with a screenshot of a train ticket from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly - leaving in 3 hours.