jestbeeextras

[jestbeeextras]

Unfinished: enemies to lovers YouTuber au

Originally written: 22 June 2018

This was my attempt during fedij 2018 at writing enemies to lovers YouTuber AU because I was reading a lot of Drarry and i wanted that whole "i hate you but i really love you" thing. but I realised that what I was writing was too close to Ships. I might like to revisit the idea one day, but I need a bit more distance from Ships so as not to evoke the same kind of feeling

---

It is a perfectly lovely evening. The pub is kind of crowded, which he never likes, but he hasn't seen Louise in ages so it's nice to catch up with her. YouTube events were always good for that kind of thing, when for a few days they could leave their actual lives behind.

It's the first night of the event, and they're gathered in a pub down the road from the hotel they're all staying in for some kick-off drink. He's had a full half hour of undivided Louise attention, asking about Darcy and leaning across the table to talk to a number of the other YouTubers gathered there too.

He's had about three drinks and he is feeling cheerful and loose and carefree in a way that he hasn't in a while. Which is why is makes it all the worse to look up and find the door opening on someone he really didn't want to see.

"Oh no," he says.

Louise follows his line of vision to where Dan Howell is entering the pub and making eye contact with someone in their group, waving a bit. She looks back at Phil with a frown.

"Philip," she scolds, "not this again."

"He's just so irritating," Phil insists.

"Is this about what happened last time? Because he really was just trying to be nice."

Phil had forgotten about last time, but he feels a huge rush of prickly anger up the back of his neck now he remembers.

"It's not that," Phil shakes his head, "I just don't like him, okay?"

"Just..." Louise sighs, like she's been through this a million times and is this close to giving up. She sort of has. "Give him a chance."

"No promises."

"Then, be civil?"

"I don't get why you're friends with him," Phil says.

Louise is just nice to everyone, is why. She's too nice most of the time and people like Dan Howell walk all over her.

"I don't get why you're not," she says, "don't you think it's gone on for long enough now? Can you even remember how it started?"

"I can remember."

"Well I can't."

It had started small. It wasn't one thing in particular, just the way that Dan Howell had come out of nowhere, tall and British and a bit nerdy. He even had the audacity to wear his hair in a fringe over his forehead the same as Phil.

It was pathetic really.

And sure, now Phil sounded like a bitter has-been mad with the younger model for stepping on his branding. But Phil had tried, in the beginning, to be nice to him. But Dan had ignored him. At YouTube gatherings and other social occasions they happened ot be at, Dan stayed clear out of Phil's way and barely said two words to him.

Then he'd started mentioning him in videos. Talking about how Phil was an 'influence' of his and how much he admired him. It was vapid and shallow and completely untrue. Phil didn't have time for it.

Phil hadn't shaded him or anything, he really hadn't intended the video he made after Dan's video to get so much traction and all he'd done was make a throwaway comment about YouTube culture and the stealing of ideas, but fans had taken it to mean he was talking about Dan and well... it was kind of  just accepted fact at this point that Dan and Phil had drama.

Nowhere near as sensational as people on Twitter would imply it, but there was some basis to it.

Phil just shrugs at Louise and doesn't have time to say much more before Dan is sidling up to their table.

"Hi Lou," he says.

Phil picks up his drink and sips it, avoiding eye contact entirely. He could get up of course, find someone else to go talk to, but he refuses to let Dan Howell drive him out of his seat.

Thankfully, PJ wanders over at the minutes to sit down on the other side of him, Chris trailing behind him.

"Hey Lou," he says fleetingly, before hitching a leg up on the bench they're sat on and facing Phil. "Settle an argument, Phil."

And then PJ and Chris bicker in front of him for long enough that he forgets Dan Howell is even there.

It isn't until they've gone, and he turns back to talk to a shifting Louise that he remembers.

"I've got to get going," Louise says, "you boys play nice."

And then she pats Phil on the cheek a little too hard and is out of her seat. Phil tries a little noise of protest as she leaves, but it's no use.

Dan is sat a little further along on the bench and he's got a drink in his hand that's barely touched at all.

Phil clears his throat, maybe a little too loudly, and contemplates how much he cares about staying in his seat. Suddenly keeping it, when it might mean making polite conversation with Daniel Howell of all people, doesn't seem worth it.

He drums his fingers on the table, once or twice, and then rises to his feet.

"Am I that bad?" Dan asks.

"Sorry?"

Phil pauses, half out from behind the table, one foot in the aisle between their table and the next.

"You can't even bear to spend like, five minutes in my company. Am I that bad?"

Phil fights an urge to roll his eyes. Because of course Dan is making this all about him, and of course he has no idea why Phil wouldn't want to spend any time with him.

"I just need to go and see someone actually," Phil says, because starting a fight isn't on the agenda tonight. "It isn't all about you."

Oops.

"Sure."

Dan looks away from him, picking up his glass and taking a sip. Phil seethes, Dan's biting sarcasm is so apparent that it takes everything within him not to turn right back around and tell Dan that yes, it is about him. Him and his arrogance and his irritating little smile. Him and his stupid hair and that perfect dimple.

Shit.

"Think what you want," Phil says instead, "But I need to go."

Dan looks like he might have something more to say but Phil doesn't give him a chance. He stalks towards the door of the pub, angry and disgruntled at just how infuriating Dan is. He's annoyed at Dan, at Louise for leaving, and at himself for allowing Dan to rile him up so much.

"You leaving?" PJ says, catching him at the door.

"Yeah," Phil shrugs, trying to seem nonchalant even though he can feel hot anger creeping up the back of his neck.

"Oh come on, Phil," Chris says, sidling up alongside PJ and slinging and arm around both of them. "Stay for one more."

"I really have to go," Phil insists. "I've got a busy day tomorrow."

Chris gives a too-loud laugh like he really doesn't believe him. Chris is always far too excessive, loud and extroverted in a way Phil will never be. Phil can't help looking over to see what Dan might have made of that but he's not paying attention. Instead, he's looking at his phone with a scowl and not talking to anyone at all.

PJ side eye's him across Chris's front and then hooks his head over to see what Phil is looking at.

"Sure," he says, turning back with an amused expression on his face. Most likely because he has no reason to believe Phil at all considering they have a similar schedule all weekend.

"I do," Phil insists anyway.

"What?" Chris says, missing the thread of the conversation entirely in favor of looking over in Dan's direction too. "Dan Howell?"

Once again Chris is far too loud and Phil pushes at him, palm flat to his chest, sending him stumbling back half a step. "Fucks sake, Chris."

Chris is just laughing as Dan looks up from his phone. His brows twitch in to an even deeper scowl in their direction. Phil grabs Chris by the shoulder and turns them around so they're no longer looking at him.

"You need to get over this Dan Howell thing," PJ says.

"Ooo, what Dan Howell thing?" Chris asks in sing-song.

"Nothing," Phil spits through gritted teeth.

"Does our Phil have a crush?" Chris asks.

He really is fucking oblivious sometimes.

"No. Definitely not."

PJ shakes his head. "I don't know, Phil. You are kinda obsessed with him."

"I'm not obsessed," Phil says. "I <i>dislike</i> him."

"No reason you can't fuck him," Chris shrugs.

Just how many drinks has he had, anyway?

PJ shoots him a bit of a pitying look and jabs Chris in the ribs with a pointed elbow.

"Leave off," Phil says, "that's horrific."

"Not even a hate fuck?" Chris asks, "I love a hate fuck. They're so… bitey."

Phil pauses, raising his eyebrows in Chris's direction wondering if he has any shame at all. Probably not, is the answer, but at least PJ seems like he's on Phil's side.

"Ignore him," PJ says.

"Who, Chris? Or Dan?"

PJ shrugs, "Both, I guess."

Phil shakes his head and looks longingly at the door.

"Nah," he says, "I'm gunna head out."

"Alright," PJ says, "We'll see you in the morning?"

Phil just nods and raises a hand to wave at them. This isn't how he'd thought the first night of this trip would go. He'd been excited to be in Florida and to be at this event with all the people that he liked. Now he's just mad and disappointed and it's all Dan Howell's fault.

He just hopes that's the last he sees of him this weekend.

---

If you like this, and are so inclined, you have my permission to finish it, remix it, make it your own. I'd love to see what you do with it.

[jestbeeextras]

Unfinished: Time Travel

Originally written: 16 April 2017

Much like my previous post with the Mind Reading fic, I thought that maybe I'd one day write a time travel fic.

In the end I decided I didn't want to finish this, there is already alot of time travel fic around and my originally idea was too convoluted for me to pull off.

---

It wasn’t weird. He’s done this a bunch of times, it’s just something that happens. He’d learned long ago not to question it.

Sure, the first time had been weird. He’d been hesitant and he’d been paralysed with indecision, fear. He’d wasted that first time contemplating the consequences of any actions he might take. Step on a butterfly, create a monsoon. Or something.

Once he’d worked out that these little trips actually have no bearing on his own timeline, he’d relaxed. After that, things got a lot more interesting.

He only ever seems to visit Dan. Re-visit, more appropriately. And Dan accepts his presence with little fuss, never really questions it. Maybe the first time, but Phil can hardly remember that time. But Dan does. While his visits have no effect on his own timeline, this version of Dan seems to remember. Which is a bonus honestly.

This time Dan had barely glanced up from the video game he was playing when Phil popped into his old bedroom. He doesn’t know where this timeline’s Phil goes at these points but, rather maliciously, Phil hope he’s just wandered off somewhere and doesn’t know what he’s missing. It’s probably worrying that Phil feels that competitive with himself but it’s an emotion he tries to push down. It's not like Phil was doing anything about his repressed feelings back then anyway.

“Is that any way to greet me?” Phil had said, low and rumbling. It hadn’t taken long after that.

Now he's sinking teeth into a prominent collarbone and Dan is making soft mewling noises in his ear. This is 2009, Phil thinks, sometime around Dan's second visit to his house which, coincidentally, is after the first time Phil had come back. So maybe that's why he looks surprised to this Dan, they've only done this once before.

It's fairly early, he doesn't usually go back this far. Usually he gets 2010 Dan, or 2011. Never 2012 for some reason. But he's always open and eager and perfect. If this is all some crazy psychotic dream then that is probably just a projection of Phil's own desires, and he should probably be worried that he is fantasising about going back and doing all the things he should have done back then.

To prove the point he runs a hand down Dan's chest and tugs his shirt up over his head. He watches as a blush spreads across Dan's chest and revels in the gasp that escapes him.

He's always overcome in these moments with wondering what would have happened if he'd actually done this, if he'd just acted on what he'd thought was possible instead of hesitating. That hesitation had lasted too long and by the time he had made his mind up,

---

As always, if you liked this as feel so inclined, feel free to extend this, remix it, or finish it. I'd love to see what you do with it.

[jestbeeextras]

Unfinished: Searching for Starlight

Originally written: 16 Feb 2017

I think I've shared this one before at some point, but I can't remember. I nearly put it on ao3 as is but decided against it.

I was in a bit of a dark place and working some stuff out, I had just read, or re-read, Litany in which certain things are crossed out and I guess I was stuck in that feeling. Anyway, I decided against finishing it for fear of where it might go. The text in the doc is purple because its quite purple prosey, and I don't know how many times I can write them LITERALLY bumping in to each other. Lol

---

Mornings are nothing but haze. Dan is always lost, still stuck in the clinging tar of his night times. He’s like an abandoned road under a starless sky, desolate and alone. He rises on his couch, stumbles from a dirty cushion to dingy sheets and lays on his back, contemplates the crack in his ceiling.

He’s trying to remember all the things that he should but he’s coming up empty. There’s a faint memory of damp, heated skin and humid pants against his collarbone which is something akin to feeling, he supposes, but mostly it’s just numb and void and it’s definitely the way he likes it.

The distance is better, the desolate, separate roads and starless skies are better. Because stars are meant to shine, and Dan is a black hole, a singular point where all light disappears. And stars make him feel insignificant, small and inconsequential.

He has to drag himself up at some point, but only once the morning has given way to the afternoon and the sun has tracked a path over its highest point. It needs to be going down when Dan greets it, because anything on its way up would fall at the mere sight of him.

And this is routine too.

The coffee shop on the corner is routine, and the shift at the bar and the beer he throws in to glasses and slides into ungrateful, dirty hands. The chatter that floats into dead air is routine and the bearded man shooting eyes at him, and buying him hard liquor before going home to his stoic wife shouldn’t be routine, but it is. Dan feels the burn of the alcohol on the way down, but it helps him stop feeling much else so he doesn’t mind.

It’s here the routine varies. Between destruction and vague attempts at creation. There are the nights, when the final patron has departed and he’s staring at a row of glass soldiers filled with blessed numbness, that he’ll decide to self destruct. To blow away the remaining fragments of hope he’d had that today would mean anything other than the inevitable, and he’ll fix himself a drink, and another, and he’ll lose himself on that desolate starless road he’s so often wandering down.

Few times he manages to break ranks, drag himself home bone tired and weary and perch on his couch as if poised for something. With nerves and muscles bundled so tight, he’ll set pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard and he’ll leak words until the sun is nearly up. He’s searching for starlight maybe, somewhere, always coming up empty, or wanting. These nights, of pointless creation, he’ll file away somewhere, or leave loose leaf pages scattered and haphazard around his tiny flat, crinkled, misused, and unseen. He doesn’t glance back to them, but keeps them as a reminder, to keep searching perhaps.

Dan is forgiven for being surprised that he’s only twenty two. It’s worn him down the last few years, and he’s exhausted from making it this far. He’s pretty convinced he wouldn’t make it another twenty two. Or ten. Or two. He’s got no definite plans, but tiptoeing a line between creation and destruction night after night isn’t going to last. He would offer up his own destruction if the creation meant anything. But all he has to show for his perfect demolition is a flat littered with torn up pages, protruding hip bones, and a penchant for straight vodka and skin that isn’t his own.

He’s studying the glinting bottles today, weighing up his options. He’s been over them a thousand times before tonight and no doubt he’ll go over them another thousand after it, but he persists, because he won’t fall into inertia, it has to be an active decision. He has to choose to self destruct.

But suddenly there is a manager at his hip, stuttering around clipped sentences about trivialities while his fingers slide into the belt loop of Dan’s jeans. Dan lets a sigh slip past his lips, and it’s almost relief, because the decision to give up on creation for the night is easier when he doesn’t have to blame it on loneliness. It’s a poor substitute for something real but they’ve reach an impasse where they both know it’s nothing, and empty, and pointless, but neither cares enough about the hollowness of their coupling to put an end to it. It’s not all the time, but it’s sometimes.

Dan sets a smile on his mouth. It isn’t real, but it’s the ghost of something real, and he pours himself a drink. It’s quick and heady and they don’t use a bed. Instead Dan perches on the top of a drinks crate in the cellar head and the man at his feet kneels on the cold concrete floor.

When he comes he doesn’t see stars, but he squeezes his eyes tight shut and does enjoy the darkness on the inside of his eyelids and the faint pulse of his blood in his ears. It reminds him that it’s still pumping through his body, that he’s still existing. It’s not comforting, but it’ll do.

Afterwards Dan downs another mouthful of something acidic and burning. It rests in his stomach, queasy and thick, until it enters his bloodstream and helps him to forget.

And then its back to his couch, and the crack in his ceiling, and the routine starts again.

-

Objects in motion stay that way until external forces are applied. Resistance, friction, opposition. Dan's existence isn't so much motion as it is a slip stream, a meander through a pointless narrative he's always trying to pin down. He'd been drinking until the rising sun tinted the tips of rooftops visible from his apartment window in pink, and then laid unconscious and not dreaming for a few hours before rising in a fog.

He should be worried that he's sluggish. That his head is clogged and fuzzy and his tongue feels coated and thick, but it's all such repetition that he stopped worrying about it long ago.

He shuffles into clothes from the night before, needing them only because he doesn't want to be accused of public indecency. He's already indecent, but he covers his bare skin, pale and jagged over his bones, to save onlookers the trouble of looking. It’s not like he feels attached to it, his own body merely transportation for his rambling mind.

Back to the coffee shop, and the sugary caffeinated air. He orders it black, with an extra shot, hoping that the stimulant will enter his bloodstream. It’s a more acceptable drug at this time in the morning, but he knows he’s just counting down the hours, until he gives in or the muse takes him.

This morning there’s a collision. As he turns from the counter, hot salvation in one hand, lid lifted to allow the steam to escape and the liquid to cool, he meets resistance. His front pressed up to another person’s while hot coffee is expelled from the cup in a burning stream that coats both of their shirts. It’s seeping through to his skin and the added irritation of being practically scolded on top of the thrumming headache at his temples is enough to make him yell.

He looks up into bright blue eyes beneath a shaggy black fringe and his whole world focusses in. He’s in pain, and the world is sawing at his already frazzled nerves and he doesn’t like the extra shock the sight brings him.

The guy is smiling and apologising, telling Dan he’s the clumsiest person alive and all Dan can see is blue eyes and black hair and he feels disorientated.

“I’ll buy you another one,” the guy says, swabbing at Dan’s shirt with a handful of useless paper towels.

Dan wants to bat him away, save him the energy of trying to clean up a mess Dan’s involved in. It’s an old shirt, and old skin, and he doesn’t care if he’s burnt. It’d be one more injury to stack on the others and it barely matters in the grand scheme. The fact that the pain has whitewashed his brain is neither here nor there because the face of this stranger is more vivid than anything else he’s allowed himself to be exposed to recently.

He’s been living in a grey world, the shades of it too subtle to distinguish the differences between his nights and days. This guy is a whirlwind of colour, furious hands moving over Dan’s shirt and Dan using his own to move him away.

When he takes the guy’s shoulders into his hands, he’s more gentle than he can ever remember being, scared his destructive fingers will mark this elusive thing.

“Don’t worry.” He’s saying, and his voice is cracked. These are the first words he’s spoken today, besides the order for his coffee. “It doesn’t matter.”

But this is a dismissive the stranger won’t accept, he’s already spinning them back to the counter, still apologising and moving with an ease that makes Dan notice his own creaking bones.

“Um, what were you drinking?” He asks, face turned in expectation.

“Coffee,” He manages to croak, straining for control over how dry his throat is, how rasping he sounds. He swallows around his words.

“Black coffee,” the stranger is saying over the register, and then “caramel macchiato.” Which makes Dan chuckle, because of course this unbelievable and unexpected being has all that sugar and all that foam and all that extra nonsense in his coffee.

“Why order coffee if you don't actually like coffee?” Dan hears himself asking. He's engaging with this person, conversing like a normal, albeit sarcastic, human being. He's dipping his toe into the theory of social interaction, and he's rusty, he hasn't done this in so long.

“I like coffee,” blue eyes says simply, shrugging off Dan’s tone, which must sound confrontational despite his best efforts.

“Coffee with a bunch of sugar and stuff in it doesn't count.”

“Who are you, the coffee police?”

Dan wills the smile on his face not to appear, not to crack through his weary and jaded facade, but it happens anyway. He knows it's the one that makes his dimple appear, fills his cheeks, crinkles his eyes. He doesn't think he's worn that particular smile in quite a while. Not since--

“If I were,” he quips, so he doesn't have to think, “you'd be in trouble for assaulting an officer.”

And his stranger laughs. The tip on his pink tongue poking from the side of his mouth, head crooked slightly backwards, eyes lighting up. Dan thinks he probably doesn't deserve to witness something so beautiful.

He definitely shouldn't be lingering in the conversation once the coffee is pressed into his hands but there is something about the warmth of the stranger that's drawing him in. There is nothing of the drink he had last night left in his system so the gentle vibration running through him at the sound of this guys voice is a mystery. A wonderful enigma Dan wants to capture in over egged prose, scatter this man in the spaces between words.

His brain hasn't been this quiet while sober in a long time.

“What are you?” He asks. Quite accidentally out loud.

“Not the coffee police either,” the warm voice rolls back, across the distance between them as they move from the counter. “Though nearer. I actually work here.”

Dan raises his eyebrows.

“I know.” Thin fingers push their way through a black fringe and the pads of Dan's own itch to follow them. “You think that would mean that I'd be able to navigate the place without crashing in to someone but… There you go.”

Dan can feel his head nodding and is almost surprised at the laugh that makes it way out of his mouth. He certainly hadn't agreed to make the noise, not consciously anyway.

“So that's what I am. Coffee barista. Well… Coffee barista slash graphic novelist.” This is said all in a rush, with a slight frown as if his stranger doesn't know why he's saying it. “What about you?” He settles for eventually.

“Pub down the street. The Three Bells?”

The dark head nods.

“I know the bells.”

“Know it, or know of it?”

There is a smirk that Dan probably deserves. And anyway, he doesn't even know why he's bothering to ask, it has no bearing on this temporary meeting, this fleeting encounter that will no doubt be a mere memory by morning.

“I know it.”

“Ok.”

There's a moment of silence and Dan wonders if this is the space in normal conversations where one should make a move to leave. They aren't moving to sit together, there's no reason why they should, and they're half blocking the gangway between what the counter and the seating. Dan shuffles his feet and tries not to look indecisive.

“That's a new one.”

“What is?” His enigma doesn't make a move to leave, so Dan doesn't either.

“Asking if I know about a gay bar, to establish if I'm queer. Effective but… A bit round the houses isn't it?”

Dan swallows. It hadn't really been what he'd meant. Not really. It's inconsequential what this person does or doesn't like, who or what he is, when he means nothing to Dan, never will and definitely shouldn't. Not if he knows what's good for him.

“Not that I'm not enjoying this little meet cute we've got going on,” Dan says in lieu of answering properly, “But I have to get going.”

“No problem,” there's a confident smile set on pale pink lips and Dan has the sudden and intrusive idea that he wants to wipe it away with his own mouth, “meet cute?”

“A bad one.”

“Is that your slash then?”

“Excuse me?”

“Me. Phil. Barista <i>slash</i> mediocre graphic novelist. You…. Staff in a gay bar slash… Movie writer?”

Dan laughs for a second time and wonders if the sound can really be coming from him when he can't remember actively making it. It sounds wrong anyway, alien, separate from him.

“Dan. Beer slinger slash shitty novelist.”

The confession startles him. It's an admission of a dream only, not a fact. A half truth, sitting flush up against the lie but not quite there.

“Well, Dan, nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, err, likewise.”

“Is this the part of the meet cute where I ask for your number and, noticing that you wouldn't want to embarrass me any further than my own clumsiness already has, you take pity on me and actually write it down?”

Dan glances around him just once. The coffee shop looks the same as it always does, the tinkle of cups echoing in the distance, below the din, the smell of caffeine thick in the air. And yet.

Yet here Dan is, enacting a perfect replica of an everyday encounter. Bumbling through his own timeline, swerving against someone else’s and taking the moment to decide if the two narratives should converge. If feels like a next chapter to a book he thought he'd stopped reading. Not a sequel, just… A potential beginning.

He could type the number into Phil’s phone but instead pulls a beat up biro from his back pocket and, resting his coffee on the edge of a shelf, smudges the digits onto Phil’s palm, holding the back of his hand gently and pressing pressing the nib down. With it, Dan leaves the decision of where this chapter is heading to Phil, not knowing on which side he's pinning his hopes. A beginning or another inevitable end. They're the same of course, but the former has more delay, and perhaps more pain traded for it.

It's a blip. An anomaly to an otherwise steadfast routine. He barely thinks of it again.

Instead, he tries his hand at adding words to paper on his coffee table. But, unsuccessful and only barely annoyed about it, he spends the rest of the day wavering between sleep and awake beneath his threadbare sheets. Later, bleary eyed and a bundle of frazzled nerves stretched over jangling bones and translucent skin, he returns to his humdrum. To the night time and that endless road, starless skies calling to him between shots of something stronger than he is. He's not lost, he tells himself, because he didn't even know where he was headed.

---

If you like this, and you are so inclined, you have my permission go take this, extend it, remix if, make it your own. I would love to see what you do with it.

[jestbeeextras]

Unfinished: Mind Reading

Originally written: 17 May 2017

I toyed with writing a Mind Reading fic for a while and started this. Over time, I decided that if I was ever going to do it, I would go in a different direction with it.

It's free to the world now, enjoy.

---

It's rare, but it happens. Something about being on a literal same wavelength, tuned in to somebody's frequency. At least, that's how they spoke of it. In hushed, reverent tones, like an urban legend they didn't quite believe in. Most have never seen it with their own eyes, and would probably flinch if they did.

It isn't a parlour trick, though it's often dragged out as a damper against the talented, a final fallback argument to explain the hyper intelligent. Still, most will never find anything concrete but then, it's easy to hide what is only in your head.

There isn't much literature on it, no studies, because who wants to face that wrath, let alone share something so personal in order to give insight to those who could never hope to understand.

As such, Phil has no real background knowledge to work from when it starts happening to him. At first it’s just an undercurrent, a whispered voice layered below the spoken one. It takes him a while to notice that it only happens when Dan is talking, but he’s so freaked out at hearing it at all, he supposes he can be forgiven for that.

It’s sort of a jumble, the odd word here or there, but mostly it just evokes a feeling. Like a rush of emotions spoken directly into his own head. It’s sad, and it gives him a headache. It’s probably a good thing that, in those early days, they didn’t see each other all that often.

When it starts coming into focus, it’s jarring, hearing the flipside of any conversation. It’s like they’re always saying two things.

“Didn’t think you’d still be up” Dan says, and the voice in Phil’s head which sounds like Dan but less sure, less cocky, says I didn’t think anyone would want to talk to me.

“I’m so tired,” Dan whispers, head in his hands on a grainy Skype call. And Phil hears I’m so sad and alone, I wish you were here.

Phil swears he’ll never use it for anything other than gaining some insight every now and again. But it does make him unusually good at being there when Dan needs him, even when he doesn’t ask.

When they move in together it’s more difficult to keep that distance. It’s a constant litany of self hate. He doesn't know how to turn it off. It was probably an argument for not asking him to move in, but since when has Phil ever listened to reason when it comes to this boy?

It doesn’t work when they aren’t actually in within talking distance. If he can hear Dan’s voice, he can hear the other one too. But where the verbal is out of earshot, so too is the constant flurry of mental narration. Mostly it sounds like a mumbled whisper if he's in the next room, or a quieter narrative if they're next to each other. Occasionally it shouts across a crowd at a party, gasping and screaming that he’s had enough. Phil knows this is when he needs to sidle up next to him casually and suggest they go home. Dan often stares at him in wonder, but he doesn’t seem to catch on.

There are a few times when he considers telling him. But Dan is skeptical, logical, a cynic. It doesn’t bode well that when he sees any mention of telepathic pairs on the television he scoffs. The voice in his head does too, Phil can’t miss that.

The biggest reason though, is that it isn’t reciprocated. He’s never heard of that before. Usually any mention of it is golden and romanticised, partners so in tune with each other they can hear each other’s innermost thoughts. It’s a nice idea, but in practise it isn’t turning out to be Phil’s reality. While Dan’s voice rings clear in his head whether he wants it to or not, no matter how hard he tries- and he has, numerous times- Dan doesn’t seem to hear him.

It works, for the most part, as long as Phil doesn’t get caught off guard.Occasionally he finds himself answering the voice in Dan’s head, if he’s not looking directly at him.

Do we have any cereal?

“I ate it all.”

“What?”

“The cereal. I ate it, sorry.”

“How did you…” Dan’s eyes narrow and Phil realises his mistake.

“Oh… I guessed. I mean you look hungry and this is usually the part where you start yelling at me because I ate your cereal. So, yeah, I did.”

Dan mouths a little ‘oh’ and seems to accept his hasty explanation. It was close, but so far not disastrous.

-

If you at all liked this, and feel so inclined, you have my permission to take this fragment, extend it, remix it, make it your own. I'd love to see what you do with it.