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Dan fiddles with the frayed black straps dangling from his jeans, the fabric worn soft from this nervous habit, as Phil vocalizes along with their bright, upbeat intro music. A smile creeps across Dan’s face as Phil wiggles his body to some melody that seems to exist approximately three beats behind the tempo everyone else hears.
Phil leans into his mic. “Happy Hard Mondays, everyone,” he says, just as the last notes of the music fade.
“Who up Hard-ing their Monday?” Dan says. He reaches over for his water, expecting Phil to carry the next beat of conversation. The more episodes they record, the easier it gets to just fall into a flow state, knowing the exact rhythm that works best for the both of them to keep each episode interesting. He takes a long sip just as Phil tilts his head toward him.
“Hard-ing their Monday? What does that mean?”
“You know,” Dan says, placing his glass back on the table, “making their Monday hard.”
Phil nods solemnly. “Mondays are hard.” Dan’s lips twitch at the corners, and he bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing at how serious he says it. “But hopefully this podcast can make it a little easier.”
“That’s if they’re listening on a Monday.”
Phil’s forehead creases as he frowns, making his blond fringe shift slightly. “What, they’d listen to the podcast later in the week?”
Dan shrugs. “Maybe it comes out on a Tuesday for them. Time zones and all that.”
“What time zone is a whole day later?”
“I don’t know, Phil,” Dan says, leaning back and making his chair squeak in a way he hopes isn’t getting picked up by the mics. He readjusts his body until he finds a comfortable position. “Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, maybe.”
“Do you think we have a lot of fans in the Pacific Ocean?”
Dan turns to look at him fully. “In the–in the Pacific Ocean? Yeah, they’re drowning, and instead of calling the coast guard, they’re like, ‘Let me first listen to Dan and Phil talk about dicks and piss for half an hour.’” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he knows he messed up.
Because there’s a sudden dangerous sparkle in Phil’s eyes – the unmistakable glint of mischief that often precedes Dan’s public mortification brought on by what comes out of Phil’s mouth.
“That’s the perfect segue for what I wanted to talk about today.” Phil’s voice is honeyed with fake innocence as his pale fingers tap against the arms of his seat. “Everyone’s dreaming about Dan and piss.”
Dan sits up so violently that he nearly knocks over the table (again). His face heats up as he glares at his boyfriend. “Whoa, wait, okay, you can’t say it like that.”
“That’s what it is!” Phil’s voice cracks with barely contained laughter, because if there’s anything Phil loves more than Dan in this world, it’s pissing Dan off for his enjoyment. “You with piss over your head–”
“It’s not–it’s not–it’s the word ‘piss’ hovering over my head.” Dan’s long fingers gesture frantically above his head, and then draw a rectangle in the air with both hands as he frames an imaginary sign.
“That’s what I said!” Phil says, fully leaning over the armrest, his shirt riding up slightly as he doubles over with laughter at Dan’s increasingly exasperated face.
Dan jabs a finger toward him. “Oh, you know that’s not what the people listening on Spotify were thinking.”
Phil’s shoulders shake as he dissolves into uncontrollable giggles. Dan watches him through narrowed eyes, tapping his foot in annoyance until Phil finally presses a (trembling) hand over his mouth to stop his giggles and sits up.
The large monitor across from them flickers to a new image. Dan notices but pretends to study the light reflecting off his microphone instead.
“Okay, it’s the word ‘piss’ hovering over your head on top of a hill,” Phil concedes, adjusting his glasses with his index finger.
Dan sighs. “Apparently, a few people—”
“It wasn’t a few people! I saw the Tweets. It was even a trending topic, Dan.”
“Yeah, because people were probably wondering what was up with the ‘Dan Howell Piss Dream,’” Dan says, rolling his eyes. “I’d click on that topic too.”
Phil gives him a look with one eyebrow arched above the rim of his glasses. “I bet you would.”
“I–okay.”
“What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me.” Dan sits forward and brings the mic close again. “We need to explain to the people who have no idea what we’re talking about.” Because he sees the Tweet on the monitor with its white font glowing against the black background. He had a feeling they would discuss this today, especially after Phil enthusiastically shared it in the group chat they have with the Phadmins and the group chat they have with PJ.
Phil leans forward and squints at the monitor, reading off the words that Dan knows he already has memorized (because ragebaiting Dan is his favorite hobby). “Twitter user @padoisme said, ‘I just woke up and I had a dream mostly related to dnp but I had to climb up a hill and at the top there was a mirage of Dan, a rainbow behind him, and the word ‘PISS’ just floating above his head. He was gone when I got to the top.’ And then they drew this lovely fanart of Piss Dan.”
“Don’t call it Piss Dan.”
“Piss Dan Hill.”
Dan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Shut up. Anyways, it seems like some people also had a similar dream—”
“No, no, they had the same exact dream!” Phil says, as if Dan doesn’t already know that. As if they haven’t had this same conversation in two group chats. Of course Laila pulls up another Tweet. One with over 400 retweets. Phil’s already reading it off before Dan can say anything: “@phphrog replied, ‘Wait, this is so ominous. I had the same dream.’” Dan can already see Laila and Emilia giggling to each other as another Tweet is pulled up, this one from @mothmanbussy—always at the scene of the crime. Dan opens his mouth to speak when Phil suddenly says, “Did you see that April Fools’ Day fanfic about me peeing on you?”
Instant laughter from Laila and Emilia fills the room, and Dan gives up, moving the mic to prop his elbows on his thighs and press his forehead into his palms.
Phil, the chaotic demon that he is, doesn’t wait for Dan to reply because this tangent is obviously more important than the piss dream. “Oh, wait, I think you were pissing on me. You were holding your piss? Something like that. And then it turned into the Bee Movie script.”
All those words are in the dictionary.
Do they make sense? No. But they are in the dictionary. Those are all words that could, hypothetically, be said together.
And those words are recorded being said together in that order, and Phil has now attached those words said in that order to their brand as DanAndPhil. Those are words forever connected to them.
“Why are you reading fanfiction about us?”
“People were talking about it! I got curious. It was really—” Phil stammers – laughs – and Dan looks up to see his cheeks flush red. “It was really out there.”
“Stop reading porn about us. They don’t want us seeing that.”
“It was really well-written!” Phil says, as if that’s the major concern. “I–I even forgot that I was reading about us—”
Dan grins, silently thanking the universe for serving him his revenge on a silver platter. He leans forward, delicately bringing the mic up until the cool metal brushes his lips, and says in a teasing whisper: “Did you get turned on reading about me pissing on you?”
Phil crumbles into a sputter of denials that Dan laughs over in triumph. Dan turns to the camera, sitting up as if he’s making a formal announcement, and says, “You heard it here first, folks: live on the Hard Launch podcast, Phil Lester admits he’s into water sports.”
Laila and Emilia are having the time of their lives. Dan sees them lean against each other, giggling and wiping tears from their eyes. Dan’s happy they’re having fun. Especially when it’s not at his expense (though he doesn’t mind being the butt of a joke). Dan glances at Phil whose whole body is flush, but he’s laughing too.
“In the story,” he says, “you thought it was the kinky kind of water sports when I just meant jet skiing.”
“Oh, you remember that much, do you?” Dan shoots back because when you’re in a relationship/partnership/situationship with Phil Lester, you always have to be quick at the draw.
Phil just shrugs instead of coming up with a comeback. “I’ve just never read anything like that about us.”
“Our audience is so creative,” Dan says, sitting back in his seat because that’s enough to conclude this talking point. He adjusts the mic stand with careful fingers and finally allows himself to relax.
Dan’s almost satisfied with how the mic is placed when his chest tightens, realizing there’s been too long of a silence.
Oh no.
He loves Phil. He really does. He loves how kind and funny and spontaneous his boyfriend is. He loves that Phil really is the color in his dark world.
But that doesn’t stop the sudden chill that runs through him when he looks over at his partner-in-everything for the last 16 years, and sees him leaning his chin on his hand, eyes too focused, obviously deep in thought.
Right after they’ve mentioned water sports on their podcast.
Even with them partially blocked by screens, Dan can tell that their producers are watching them, pupils likely bright with anticipation because they know Phil’s tells as well.
“Do you think…” The world goes in slow motion as Phil’s words drift out, into the air, into their recording software and ready to go into the ears of the hundreds of thousands of people who listen to their podcast. Dan’s heart jolts. He considers pushing the mics over, just accepting how much it would cost to replace them. “...our fans…” They’ve already gone on their vacation. They don’t have to do another this year. They’ll use that money to replace the mics. “...are into piss..” Dan’s eyes flick over to the row of black cameras as he tries to calculate how long it would take to knock them all down. He’s tall; he could get to each one within seconds. “...because we talk about it so much or they became fans of us when they saw how much we talk about piss?”
Dan loves Phil so much.
And he knows Phil loves him, and he knows Phil won’t be offended, that’s why Dan looks right into the camera and yells at the top of his lungs: “Richard!”
Emilia can barely stand with how hard she’s laughing, but she manages to slide the gacha machine over to them. Dan’s already on his feet before Phil can finish saying, “You have to get it—”
“Gladly,” he replies as he cranks the handle. The balls shift and separate until one drops. “Blue ball this week,” Dan says as he grabs it. He falls back into his seat and raises the ball right over the mic as he cracks it open. The sound is solid.
“Ooh, that’s a good crack,” Phil murmurs into his mic.
Dan nods as he unfolds the slip of paper inside. “The topic is—oh for fuck’s sake.”
Phil leans in, trying to get a peek. “What, what? What is it?”
Dan holds the paper to him. “The topic is…weirdest dreams.”
Phil’s face splits with the widest smile. He claps as he laughs. “It’s fate!”
“Oh, shut the fuck up.” Dan throws the ball and the paper at Phil (almost hitting him in the center of the forehead, but thankfully Phil moves in time), and then shoves Richard away with his foot. Emilia wheels her the rest of the way out of frame. “This is rigged. Someone’s messing with me.”
Phil’s eyes dance with glee. “Do you think that now we’ve talked about Piss Dan Hill—”
“Stop calling it that.”
“---it’ll show up in our dreams?”
Dan rubs his face. Maybe this is a dream. A terrible, terrible dream. “Can I get another topic from Richard?”
“Wait, before we move on.” Phil digs into his jeans pocket and pulls out his phone. He holds up a finger as he searches for something. “I just want to bring up a Tweet I saw that I thought was really profound. From user @goosemi: ‘This is a metaphor for life. We’re all climbing up that hill, trying to get to the mirage of Dan Howell with the word piss floating above his head, hoping he won’t be gone by the time we reach the top.’ Isn’t that beautiful?”
Dan crosses his arms. “Is it? Is it beautiful?”
“I thought it was beautiful.”
Dan looks at the camera and then back at Phil. “So instead of Camus’ ‘One must imagine Sisyphus is happy,’ the great philosophers of our time have come up with, ‘One must imagine Dan Howell won’t disappear by the time you reach the top of Piss Mountain.”
Phil leans in close to the mic and whispers, “It’s not a mountain. It’s Piss Dan Hill.”
Silence.
Dan looks into the camera. He holds his gaze there for a long moment, letting the silence stretch until, in the corner of his eye, he sees Phil wiggle uncomfortably in his seat.
Then Dan pushes the mic back, stands up, and stalks off-camera.
Behind him, the room erupts with laughter as Phil, between giggles, calls for him to come back.