#but i love that so many of us have these dreams about dnp

[simplydnp]

re: your last post. when the 'have you had a dream about d&p?' poll was going around, i was going to reblog to describe an extremely vivid nightmare i had of them before realizing my mother constantly tells me about her allegedly psychic dreams & i don't want to speak that into existence in case i inherited that. all this to say you're just like me fr.

ohmygod anon youre just like phil lester

[dnpoll]

my personal explanations below the cut!

also i scheduled this poll and i realised i forgot ARIANA GRANDE that's deep lore... GOD

muse: one of the things that dan and phil bonded over when they met each other - phil's favourite artist with his streams making it dan's top artist from 2014-2016. they have also seen muse at least five times! dan has played muse songs several times on the piano (specifically sunburn) + they did a lip sync video to muse for bbc radio. also they made fun of kristen stewart a lot when they were younger (they have since apologised and called her an iconic) and she was in twilight and muse supermassive black hole is famously in twilight so...

final fantasy vii: the soundtrack with interrupted by fireworks! dan said it reminded him of phil in a formspring answer <3 and that's all...

fall out boy: firstly "no but seriously imagine if:". secondly they have interviewed fob several times for the bbc! thirdly, specifically with pete wentz, he was dan's icon in his teenage years. he followed dan because of the interviews with him - he even prank called dan in call or delete. but as punishment in a best friend quiz video, phil tweeted "sometimes i dream about being one of the reindeer galloping through the sky with leather straps tying me to my friends mm yes carrots please" from dan's account - and pete wentz unfollowed fob. i am also convinced they think the milk fic is a petekey fic or something

the 1975: dan and phil called into the radio as fans when they were not hosting and the 1975 was there! dan said he was there with "his friend phil" and matty healy immediately recognised them as "dan and phil from the radio" despite them trying to be sneaky about it. dan also LOVED a brief inquiry into online relationships which he posted on his story and said he was "personally attacked by literally every song on the album". mm okay

my chemical romance: firstly "no but seriously imagine if". secondly dan specifically was/is a huge fan of mcr - although phil did sing welcome to the black parade (incorrectly) in a yasuhati video). mcr was also referenced in dan and anthony padilla's stop emo hate video, basically i'm gay and the dream daddy series, just to name a few (they g note a LOT). also hesitant alien featured in the tour of dan's brain video! gerard used to follow dan on twitter but doesn't anymore... beef?

panic! at the disco: firstly "no but seriously imagine if". also brendon and ryan are in the milk fic which they constantly reference. also there's a dnp edit with 57k views to house of memories

frank ocean: dan's top song in 2012 was "thinkin about you" by frank ocean which ppl talk abt a lot for many reasons. he also said his religion was frank ocean in 2016 LOL

troye sivan: YOUTUBE FRIENDS LOL - the iconic pic with dan, phil, troye and tyler! also dan and phil were the first people to play troye sivan's happy little pill on the radio, and are thus partially responsible for his success. troye sivan also led to chappell roan's success, so basically muse is responsible for chappell roan. troye also featured in a phil glasses video!

one direction: firstly, dnp interviewed them - a harrowing event that they outline in detail in tabinof. secondly, the iconic dan eating an orange picture behind a 1d concert. lastly, they talk about harry styles quite a bit - phil posed as him in a viewers pick my outfit, and of course the rotisserie chicken situation

nick jonas: hey buddy you in london #dick

smash mouth: more recent dan-based lore but mark (tour member) made an instagram story asking how to get all-star licensed. a phannie (royalsdnp on twt) then tweeted about it, and smash mouth (the twt account) saw it. dan then tweeted at the account asking for it, and it worked! smash mouth is now an official dannie, having tweeted orange for wad, and also offered the original demo for shrek to be used, saying it can maybe be for dan's next special. generally insane because dan has ofc always been a huge shrek fan as a part of his meme personality in the 2010s, even dressing up as him for a calendar

[ahappyphjl]

somehow I just stumbled upon a tumblr post of everything Phil did for his birthday 2020 and it made me fully cry, because he is so loved and such an amazing person. and then it hit me that we've bad the honor of watching dan and phil grow and change for so long now, watching queer people just live when that was something we didn't get outside of fantasy tv shows when i was a kid. they've made me so much less afraid of getting older because things just keep getting better for them and they're happier than they've ever been now and maybe growing older is something to look forward to instead of worry about :')

aaaaaa omg this made me cry, you worded that so beautifully 🥲 it really is an incredible thing we have dan and phil to show us how things can truly get better with time and that queer joy is something that should be celebrated, and that it’s possible!! when i was a kid i didn’t have any queer people to look up to either, not until i found dnp and learned that they were openly bi online (at the time!!). after i watched their coming out videos i cried for hours, partly cause i thought about who i was when i didn’t have those queer role models or even tv characters growing up, and now millions of people would see dnp’s videos and hopefully get that glimmer of hope i once did.

despite their, and i think especially dan’s, fear of getting older they’re now both the happiest ever and still achieving new things and making dreams come true. just goes to show that like you said, getting older is a beautiful thing to look forward to and so many possibilities come with that – both external and internal. seeing dnp be so authentically themselves now and having hope for the future, makes me feel like i can do anything too and being my true self is the best i can be. how lucky are we to have found them ❤️‍🩹

[feelingofcontent]

DNP Rewatch: Gay And Not Proud - Daniel Howell | YouTube Pride 2021

Date video was published: 06/25/2021 (X)

DNP Main Channel Rewatch: 443

A Dan video?!?! What is this?! Dan had filmed for this earlier in the month, all in a single day. Also, the tweet promoting this video is still Dan’s pinned tweet at the moment.

0:05 - the “hello Internet” to start...of course he had to. also I still can’t decide if I like that jacket or not

0:20 - he is very scripted in this

0:56 - dramatic shot and lighting there

1:45 - I am sad that we still don’t know what YouTube content he was planning that didn’t pan out

2:00 - sometimes I forget that I am the same age as Dan

2:33 - Dan really cannot do time estimates 😂 he came out 2 years before this

3:00 - there is a lot of follow-up and re-stating of some of the same things he talked about in BIG

3:12 - he really did mention the “commitment” thing a lot in 2021...still hard to say what he really means by that

3:25 - lol at the little kiss there

4:20 - “a metaphorical mind palace” indeed

5:51 - still can’t get over Dan writing Phil into this as Phil just living in his mind 🥺

6:09 - they actually look their heights in this

6:14 - Phil just distracting Dan with fun so he doesn’t have to think about the hard things...and then Dan saying this bit was “radically authentic” ...help

6:44 - and the implication that Phil will let Dan do the growing he needs to, but will just be there waiting

7:01 - WHAT?

7:18 - laughing that they must have had all this tour stuff in storage somewhere. I wonder how much they still have, or if they did a clean-out when they moved

7:37 - I had not noticed the little jar of notes “for gloomy days” before 🥺

7:47 - I like this mirror shot. Phil talked about the struggle/fear with media interviews while in the closet as well...that must have been very stressful for both of them

8:26 - I love that they had some actual fans be a part of this...when this part started I thought it might be really cringe but it ended up being so cute. I wonder if Dan pitched this idea to YouTube to include in this?

10:00 - Dan sounds less scripted here and I like it

10:08 - how much Dan says he has been impacted by meeting fans is something he has continually talked about with appreciation over the years

11:01 - this response was so good!!

12:05 - Dan seems like he’s really listening during this part too

12:48 - love Dan’s dead-pan look at the camera here 😂

13:10 - part of this YouTube Pride thing was asking people to submit video clips that would be included; it was very unclear how they would be used until it was put together here

13:27 - see, we’ve gotten so many more stories like this from Phil pco, and so few from Dan...it’s nice to see him talk about his past with more authenticity. I love that he talks about this further later in the year in Hometown Showdown too

14:03 - “imagine if the boys kissed” I love it. I think I actually find Dan more entertaining when he is less scripted

15:43 - oh yikes

16:27 - something he talked about in BIG

16:56 - the casual okay-to-say-something moment is relatable for me, actually

17:51 - lol at THAT being the one he chose to “not answer”

18:19 - I love the teasing here so much! and the tweet (which someone must have timed/planned to post at this moment when this video premiered)

19:25 - the Dil inclusion throw-back to TATINOF...just for fun I guess

20:23 - the sign and outfit from when he went to Pride in 2019

21:00 - it is interesting to here him talk more about how he felt about things while in the closet

22:04 - in all the photos from that day he looks SO happy

22:45 - “like a dream” oh Dan 🥺 and his interactions with subscribers that day were so sweet!

23:40 - yes good points from Dan

24:04 - honestly I did not know who Will Young was before this video. he is from Wokingham too, so that was a nice tie-in with Dan

24:39 - and Dan talked in BIG too about wishing he had had more representation to look up to when he was young

27:08 - I don’t know about the Dan-watching-awkwardly shots

27:19 - this whole bit seems a little awkward. I think it’s partially Dan sitting far away and Will standing so close to the camera? Was that a social-distancing thing maybe? I don’t know but it’s slightly strange

28:32 - the conversation is actually a good one though

29:48 - and an interesting question from Dan, because he and Phil had talked about being worried that coming out would affect their careers

31:23 - I like the “it’s so boring” point about continually coming out. that was one of Phil’s points in COTY too, actually

31:50 - just from this conversation, I like Will and what he has to say a lot

33:30 - if a Pride event happens in my town this year I really want to go...we’ll see if I get myself together enough

34:45 - Dan liked the “no one’s born with shame” point there

36:23 - there is really no consistency in what door he goes in and comes back out of for these segments

36:49 - lol at the llama reference

37:15 - foreshadowing of going in that door later, obviously

37:53 - the “subscribe” pop-up 😂

38:06 - “the only person in the world that tolerates me is called Phil” he just said it, huh?

38:29 - the parallel of this to Phil’s answer to it in Answering Questions I Would Usually Avoid ...did Dan write this joke after seeing that Phil video

39:14 - I don’t really follow what Tyler’s doing anymore, but he’s always seemed like such a good friend and supportive. I like all the collabs that both DNP did with him over the years

40:12 - someone describing Dan as quiet is so surprising...reserved makes some sense though

40:38 - big Dan sigh there

40:48 - “I just figured it wasn’t my business until you said anything to me” good friend Tyler!

41:22 - that is something, that for a while he was afraid to even interact too much with queer creators

42:06 - this must have been at VidCon 2019 

42:21 - “a surprise wig party” I love it 😂

43:08 - “there’s no rush. when you’re ready, I’m ready” yeah I really like Tyler

43:41 - “make out with somebody dressed as a dragon” ...um no comment. I will say Dan is a expert at walking the line of what he says having one meaning/not meaning anything to the general public and a entirely different meaning to DNP’s long-time audience

44:15 - the first time I watched this I really thought this was a different person/an actor...does not look like Dan at all

44:40 - this feel like honest-Dan

45:08 - Dan loves a dramatic shot

45:49 - Dan had filmed this on June 8 and then a week later tweeted this. definitely not just a straight path forward for him though

46:10 - a reference to a bit with a furry in it (1, 2) that ended up getting cut from this main video

46:15 - I like Abigail so much! I was excited to see her in this

46:43 - Winnie the Pooh reference is a nice detail

47:54 - I think Dan said at some point that he scripted this so he’s talking to himself here

48:47 - getting a lot of actor-Dan in this as well

49:10 - the details of the posters in the background that Dan came up with are hilarious 😂

49:36 - apparently emo Dan sent Phil “vividly back to 2011″ - love that he shared a photo of that with just Phil first before publicly (also his feet/socks here still slightly disturb me)

50:05 - a pco “message for my younger self”

50:40 - still cannot see that person as Dan for some reason. why does he look SO different to me?

51:00 - yeah I wasn’t expecting to cry the first time I watched this

51:40 - doing the hardest thing and then immediately calling for Phil/going ‘home’ to Phil. 😭 really being loud about what Phil means to him. and the parallel to the end of THE WARDROBE

52:39 - and the asking Phil for advice

52:53 - Phil doesn’t want Dan to change who he is now, and the “you’ll be fine”...“I’ll be fine” 🥺

53:13 - can see even more of the posters here!

53:38 - “all this stuff makes me the person that I am now” kind of echoing what Phil just said there

53:55 - and the final BIG parallel

54:11 - so many references to his videos over the years

54:53 - thanking his followers as he so often has

55:54 - Dan just wanted to smash some things 😂

56:27 - I do love the literal smashing of the closet

56:59 - big Dan smile and laugh to end it

Admittedly, this is not really what I was expecting from any of the description or promo that Dan did ahead of time. I enjoyed it the first time I watched it, but it’s not something I really rewatch. Even with the YouTube editing/control/etc., parts of it still feel like a very “Dan” video to me. (As in scripted, YouTube-persona Dan...he seems so different in live shows or even conversations with people he’s truly comfortable with.)

Dan also shared some outtake photos...the second one made me say “what the fuck” out loud when he posted them. And then Phil sharing it too with some trivia bits about his part! 😭 

[fourohfourlifenotfound]

RPF History: DNP vs DNF

I'm someone who has existed at the generational divide in fanfiction communities. I'm old enough to have started on ff.net and young enough to see fic recs for my Fandom on tiktok. Today I'd like to rant about how much RPF has changed in the last decade or so.

For those who don't know, RPF stands for real person fiction. Famously one direction falls into this category. I'm going to be comparing the two rpf fandoms I've existed in: Dan & Phil and Dream SMP.

Dan and Phil's peak on the internet fell into place with the first generation of youtubers. This generation went from nobodies making videos in their bedrooms to celebrities in an age where fame came from money or more traditional media. The difference between YouTube and traditional media was the focus on relatability. These were normal people, just like their audience. And as a result, a lot of boundaries got crossed.

Specifically in the case of Dan and Phil, there was a lot of shipping. Two nonmasculine emo guys living together for many years? Yeah, a lot of people had suspicions about their sexualities and relationship status. This isn't uncommon today: everyone looked at Dream and George in 2020 and thought the exact same thing, despite them living an ocean apart (this is likely a hallmark of the pandemic: the idea of love existing through screens and despite physical barriers).

The difference was that Fandom back then didn't know how to interact with creators. There were no norms for boundaries. This went far above and beyond awkward questions. People zoomed in, took screenshots and did analysis of everything. If one mentioned buying a fan to use on his bedside table while he slept and it was spotted in the background of a visitor's vlog in another room, then people flipped out. And there were things even worse than this deep cut analysis... if you were in this fandom, you might remember the fallout from the vday video. It was the wild west out there, and it hurt a ton of creators.

Dan and Phil also existed on the internet during a revolution in the fanfiction world: people stopped being afraid of legal consequences for writing fanfic. As a result, fandoms got louder and prouder about their fanworks. It became a lot easier to find. Dan and Phil, who have openly mentioned being on tumblr frequently, ran into it easily.

If you watch enough of their content, you can see Dan and Phil struggling to navigate their position as the subjects of one of the biggest rpf ships of the time. I distinctly remember Dan brushing off shippers at some points and then joking in a video about not caring if you wrote smut about him and Phil so long as you got his favorite Pokémon right. As time goes on, you see less vlogs as they learn to keep more of their privacy.

This fan-creator relationship now looks wildly different, from both ends.

You see creators learning from their predacessors to keep more of their privacy early on. Ranboo and Dream and Corpse are prime examples for not revealing their real names or their faces.

You also see fandoms respecting the boundaries of their creators far more. I can google the name of any dsmp member followed by "boundaries" and get a complete up-to-date list of everything that they are comfortable with their fans doing, from shipping to smut to art to names to pronouns. I've seen Ranboo fans being supportive of him keeping his privacy and not pressing for a face reveal after he expressed his discomfort; in fact, I've seen people weirded out at the idea of knowing what part of his face looks like because they're more used the idea of him keeping his privacy.

But despite all of this, I would say that rpf subjects haven't distanced themselves from shipping and fanfic; they've embraced it and gotten closer to their fans.

Heatwaves was historic in that it was the first fanfiction to go truly mainstream. It caused the popularity of its titular song to skyrocket and it got recognized by every content creator in that space. The author was uncomfortable with the ccs finding it initially, and rightfully so given the past boundary crossing of fandoms and reactions from creators. But they did find it, they made an account to read it, and they were okay with it.

Wilbur Soot is the first instance I've seen of a writer with a work that has an established fan base posting original content for that work to a fanfiction website.

And this week, Dream called himself a "toxic shipper" in a tweet. About shipping himself with his friends. This is very new for the world of rpf.

New Fandom: I want you to understand what it used to be like, where we came from. The norm used to be really bad for both creators and fans. I want you to think of this and keep improving upon what's been built.

Old Fandom: I want you to see how far new Fandom has come. They may not understand how to properly tag things or keep content where it's supposed to go, but they've made leaps and bounds in terms of establishing a fandom-creator relationship.

[dramaphan]

Dramaphan weekly recap - June 28 - July 4

Some people are mad at Phil for using he/him for Dan - anon predicted it.

Brad Mondo shut up challenge.

Underwear sized like they do bras.

Anon dreamt Dan and Phil had threesome with not a man, sexuality discourse.

"Candle haul on tour but Dan's going to gwyneth paltrow his candles - cumdles. "

Manifesting Phil react to his straight videos video and Phil dyes his hair silver video.

1984.

Boob lady.

Coming out for you - Dan made Phil come out to the Howells first to test the waters.

We threatening Phil to upload or we'll manifest another injury or accident by talking about death again.

Dan and Phil didn’t meet each other in 2009 but grew up together. The blue eyed boy Dan fell in love with at school was actually Phil. Dan is Phil’s age.

Pinof picture (x).

Twilight memes. Supernatural memes.

Dan goes on a 12 week tour. (x) (x)

Phil Lester 🤝 Paul Rudd being products of incest yet looking good.

Dnp brothers.

What would have happened if Phil came out first and Dan chickened out? Half the phandom would treat Dan like the Best Straight Ally; half of the phandom would try to out him; A small part would be angry that Dan didn’t also come out. Queerbaiting discourse. Dan would probably have a breakdown. They would have both ended up in the psych ward.

Funeral live stream. Dan brings a guitar and sings a song he wrote. We're yelling at some journalist for titling an article "YouTuber serenades his late best friend with a heartfelt song ".

More twilight memes and a lot of talking about twilight in general.

Phil's a manic pixie dream.

McDonalds is making a Dan and Phil meal - Big Mac without meat and fries with ketchup.

Dan and Phil come out as straight for the entirety of 2022. Double wedding with two women and then in 2023 it turns out Dan and Phil married each other and same the women.

More twilight.

We are learning about religions.

Different types of phannies in the twilight universe

I don't know what is going on in the twilight conversation anymore.

More twilight memes.

It was very twilight heavy this week. There’s so many more sitting in my inbox because Cole is a maniac but I’m saving them to give you all a break

[mariaiscrafting]

Not sure which part of the dnf conversation this is relevant to but I have the feeling that it is and have been waiting for a chance to say it: Another thing I've noticed is that a lot of the dnf shippers seem to have crushes on george/and or dream. I've been lurking on the mcyt tag for a couple of weeks now and regularly I'll see dreamnotfound shippers talking about "how pretty george is" and "how hot dream's silent streams are" and so I'm adding that to the table, hope it's useful

I mean yeah, this is a trend that I’ve noticed but never really brought up. As I’ve said before, the thing to keep in mind when creating or engaging in any kind of shipping fan content is whether or not you are doing so for your own sexual/romantic pleasure, and if so, if you’re crossing the line from respectful and humanizing to objectifying and flat-out disgusting. Both intent (subconscious or not) and outcome matter. 

I tend to use this example because it seems to be something people in this fandom understand more than me just trying to explain fetishizing mlm ships. Take a woman-loving man, who is into lesbian porn. What matters is both intent and outcome, right? So, if you’re just watching lesbian porn because you find the two women attractive, this is a symptom of fetishizing thought, but it’s relatively harmless, right? But, you need to make sure that your intent does not make you act in a way that is, or say things that are, homophobic and objectifying. A man who watches lesbian porn - not because of the same reasons they would watch any other form of porn, but specifically because it is two women, to whom he is attracted - becomes homophobic when he thinks of lesbian women as objects for his own pleasure, and acts in such a manner in the real world, with lesbian women he knows, with regard to lesbian women in the media he consumes, etc. 

A similar concept can be applied to the phenomenon of men-loving women who ship mlm ships. Like yeah, a DNF shipper finding dream or george attractive is relatively harmless in and of itself, but to then take that sentiment and warp DNF to something that is solely for your own pleasure is homophobic. This is the act of fetishization, in which a queer relationship or dynamic becomes the object of your own pleasure, and leads to the many dehumanizing practices exhibited throughout this fandom - becoming obsessed with dream/george/dnf to the point of stalker-like behavior, discussing dnf as if it is not a falsified dynamic that might not be indicative of anything beyond your own fantasies, treating dnf like it consists of fictional characters, stripping the two parties in dnf of any agency as a real human being. It’s a trend that happens in all aspects of society, mostly unthinkingly, and throughout Internet fandom history. MCYT is one of the better fandoms when it comes to this, by far, but it, of course, isn’t without its flaws. 

But then again, at least it doesn’t compare to other fandoms I’ve observed, like DNP and BTS stans, where the issue of mlm fetishization was seemingly ten times worse :/

[dancefevers]

oooo it’s an ✨interview tag✨ thanks @maybebi47 !! 💖🌸

gender: girl [help] 🤪

star sign: pisces ♓️

height: 5’7”ish idrk

time currently: 10:28 pm wait edit i actually posted this at 11:28 i fully worked on this for an hour 😶

birthday: february 22

fave band/group: twenty øne piløts, florence + the machine

favorite solo artist: harry styles, lizzo, billie eilish, ariana grande is the definition of problematic fave for me 😗✌️

song stuck in my head: from the dining table, also ever since new york (weird i haven’t listened to that album in a little while) also a song from animal crossing

last show i binged: servant (new episode tonight !!) it’s So wild

when i created my blog: august 2020

last thing i googled: “definition of men” 😌✨

other blogs: alright alright we got @straggy-luvs-u, which is actually my full time job, @phanniebdays (birthday calendar for dnp fandom), i have like 3 other dnp/straggy usernames saved for some reason including my beloved @straggy (will be used as a straggy archive at some point), i have another username saved for being an undertale specific blog but idk if i’ll ever have the energy to do that, and @candacespencilneck which is my absolutely banger pnf blog 🤩

why i chose my url: it’s a really silly deltarune reference :-)

how many people am i following: 228 currently

how many followers i have: on this blog exactly 50 (which is like very few but it’s very very funny to me that anyone follows this blog at all)

avg hours of sleep: oh boy it changes all the time but rn i get like 7 or 8 (but at the absolute wrong times)

lucky number: 2 or 22 maybe? idk

instruments: i can’t really play anything but i like to piano and ukulele a tiny bit just for fun

fav food: french fries

fav song: i literally could never choose<3

dream trip: honestly i don’t know, i’d just love to leave the country some time :))) (maybe i’d visit my family in the netherlands that’d be lovely)

what i’m currently wearing: my Mettaton Brand Mettaton pajama pants :)))))), fluffy socks, comfy shirt, and my brown sweater

dream job: uuuuuuuugh i really don’t know like i guess being a teacher but honestly i have no idea i’m gonna stop thinking about this now so i don’t cry 🥳

nationality: a mix of a lot of western european countries, but irish is the biggest one (about half)

i am so truly lazy to tag people but if you would like to then you should do it i’ve tagged you 💖💞✨🌸

[tarredion]

Had the weirdest dream last night.. It was about a liveshow

..and maybe it was the most wishful one yet, even if i’ve been dreaming a lot about dnp lately (essentially every one I can remember afterwards). 

i’m also not sorry if I make you miss what we’ve never had (yet), but know i suffer w you and sympathize. tho commend my dummy brain for creating it!!

Here it all goes .. strap yourselves in, it’s a long one!

Phil did a more casual liveshow, in the lounge or in their bedroom or something (probs both, starting in the lounge), with glasses (can’t remember the topic though. just he was fly and happy and in his pajamas). My pov was both from 3rd person inside their place, and, like, watching the ls uploaded to youtube later too.

Towards the last ten minutes, he was doing a q&a segment and drawing (can’t quite remember) where Dan suddenly came in. But in a weird way.. Phil was filming something using back camera (on MacBook, so impossible), when Dan came up w his soft curls, all giggle, and somehow (impossibly) pressed his cheek to it (though we knew he was there before as Phil addressed him, and I was watching from third person). On screen, it looked like he’d pressed it to a thin, smudged piece of glass, it was kinda strange. Obviously, that kinda messed with what Phil was doing, who was also trying to swat Dan away so he could finish, but it only made them both gigglier. 

Once he decided not to mess up the ending even more, and Phil was talking to us on ’front camera’ again, he went in for a kiss but caught himself and instead gave Phil the lightest peck on the cheek, dragging his hand through his quiff in the process. The he just left the room. It wasn’t mentioned again, but that didn’t mean Phil wasn’t.. well.. blushy as heck. 

Dan came back in just as Phil was saying goodbye, again, swaying his hips in a weird way, which was commented on- that ended up being the last words Phil said on his own liveshow, as Dan spoke last then took the computer, saying they should ‘watch out for something’ as he turned it off.

Not that it ends there though! 

It turned out that Dan was going to do a half-planned half-not ls (one he’d wanted to do but not quite been sure about, and he started it up literally a minute later), where he both discussed voting against tr*mp (so with a title that’d seem slightly familiar) and other topics. He was in his sexual-fantasies hoodie and only boxers, but as it’s long enough it didn’t matter if he got up or not. Didn’t stop Phil from being flustered though before he left the room to let Dan do his own thing (he was now in the bedroom, guaranteed). 

Dan’d get up at a few points, get himself a glass of water, so on, and’d then make small comments about what he’d supposedly just discussed, but from what I remember I can’t pinpoint much else about the actual conversations (it’s like a montage of the ls at this point - even when not from the pov of the actual ls - aka inside the apartment). 

His long, soft curls and incredibly flushed, pretty cheeks were a hot topic / noteworthy, ofc. He also.. (and don’t quote me on this obvs) looked almost glowingly happy. He had a bounce in his step that.. I can never pinpoint him doing before. 

Anyways, despite all of the fill, the thumbnail to Dan’s ls video was the absolute most memorable (the pov was crucial for this; it switched at one point from ’being’ the ls to watching it in first person) and there was a couple of reasons as to why. 

1. It was not a typical one pic thumbnail, but rather a collage-like montage dnp channels use/d when compiling only the best bits from the live shows. 

2. It included a shot of him standing up, coming back with the glass one of the times, knees out. In that moment he’d also said something about not wanting to make ”lovely Philly” do more work than necessary, therefore not asking him to get water for him (idk why i remember just that.. tho guess). 

3. Another picture was of him sitting kinda turned sideways like in many other live shows, his soft curls and rosey patch on show, and yet again, looking v v happy and content. He was also blushing for a specific reason, but I can’t remember exactly why (had something to do w either his new project or Phil in some capacity, though). 

4. One of the other pictures had a snapchat filter on it, while another was a random black frame. The forums loved that (last tid-bit of the dream before i woke was about internet discussing it, though i don’t have any more detail than that). 

5. The quality of the pictures were very 2014-15, like the old live shows (as if he wanted to make that impression one way or another, like in the thumbnail), while the actual liveshow was more like later live shows, though still not as good as Phil’s current ones (for obvious reasons *cough camera*). 

All throughout, was all very cute, very soft, and surely more domestic than any they’ve, well, ever, done. They were very open, and very much them, but turned up a notch. Think plant-video Phil combined with coming-out-anniversary-video Phil, just late at night, sleepy, domestic, even more energetic in a way, and soft (for all the reasons above). 

And that’s essentially it!! Now I’m just going to crawl into a corner, resisting to start writing this fic (( hi hi @thoughtathought , this is yours ofc :P )) until after I’ve tended to all my crucial, life-necessary matters

But it won’t be long before it blossoms and becomes alive! stay tuned

And stay safe, be kind, hydrate <3 and have some hugs, too, sweetums

[freckliephil]

is it ok to not be able to get rid of a small fear of dnp revealing they’re single/dating other people soon. like i /want/ to be positive but i’ve been rooting for them for so long that i’ll probably just be a little heartbroken if they’re not together anymore. i know people don’t like breakup discourse and i don’t want to fuel that, just want to talk about the one fear i can’t get rid of even though i’m trying not to be too emotionally invested.

i get the fear, i really do. its kinda like how dan mentioned in his video: people get invested in the story of their lives, but at the end of the day they're real people. they could metaphorically pull the rug from under us any day, and then this whole thing falls apart and we're left with a miserable toxic fandom and a bad taste in our mouth. ive been there. when 1d split, when glee started turning into a shitshow, when supernatural got renewed for an 8th season, ect ect. it sucks, its a bad feeling to lose something you really had stake in, especially when it comes as a shock.

the thing is, fear is one thing. fear will be there any time you're in fandom bc it's something you can't control and its a community a lot of people count on, so the thought that that could dissapear is scary. but this fear can't be the lens you observe from, and especially with dan and phil, because they haven't given us any reason to be afraid of them.

i was talking about this with @freckliedan -- a couple months ago, den and i were talking about how the way they've been acting for the past year has been leading up to something big (go back and watch the christmas liveshow that came right before hiatus, they gave us SO many hints). and now think about how toxic fandom got between these last few months, and how everyone was losing trust for no reason (dan kept saying he was coming back, they NEVER implied the gaming channel was done, they've repeatedly said that they love working together and nothing was changing in a bad way. they've been preparing us for this coming out for a whole year). people got mad, sad, afraid, and ripped each other apart for even dreaming a positive outcome such as the one they just gave us. i remember bc i was one of the people saying "hey occam's razor- maybe they're coming out?" and people genuinely ran me off tumblr for even saying that.

they came out together, two weeks apart. dan called phil his soulmate. the part in basically i'm gay where he talks about phil is genuinely one of the most romantic and soft things i've ever heard. they're going to pride and vidcon and vegas together, they've both been so supportive over the other's work, and they've taken every single step together in this process. do yourself a favor and go back and watch any video from 2018 and tell me it doesn't watch the same as, say, a jenna and julien vid, or any other youtube couple. they're together, they're happy, and they don't need to kiss on screen or explicitly tell us every detail of their relationship for us to trust them. the most obvious answer is that they're both gay and have been together the whole time. dan basically told us that with his words (if you don't overanalyze everything out of fear), and they've been telling us with their actions for years. they always choose each other. they're together in everything. they're partners.

and to just give u some comfort, think about the dan and phil we just met in "basically im gay" and "coming out to you", and think about the dan and phil we've known for years. when have they ever, ever, ever pulled the rug out from under us in a bad way? dan and phil going separate ways or saying they're not together, after literally all this, would be the biggest shock in the world to me, which is why i know its probably not going to happen. they love us, like, a lot, and this isn't a drama tv show where breakups and stuff like that are just fun little character development opportunities. they know we care about them and look up to their relationship, and if that wasn't something they were going to highlight in their content anymore, they wouldn't be sneaky about it. they wouldn't make promises like bringing back the gaming channel or yearly mukbangs or continuing baking vids if they didn't plan to. they've always been so very good to us, and i highly doubt that they both went through all the work of coming out to millions of people on the internet just so that they can stop doing that.

[homodnp]

creator tag

rules: It’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2019. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

thank you to the lovely @judearaya @outphan and @alittledizzy for tagging me!!

1. life is but a dream (fic)

an underrated lil baby of a fic, at least in my biased opinion. i’ve always found most comfort in understanding and using natural imagery, so although those lads never go outside i wanted to write a fic about what might happen on such an occasion. at the time it also didn’t help that i’d asked a friend of mine (whom i’ve liked for years) to go rowing together cus it was late summer and why the fuck not. we were making arrangements, but then she just stopped texting at all for two weeks and nothing came of it. it was rough, so i vented my heartbreak by imagining a universe where at least someone else could get the rowing date they wanted.

2. the king (fic)

again, this was a result of my own personal life - you guessed it: heartbreak! i was driving into town, healing over someone who had recently rejected me, listening to this fic’s song, and then i realised “this is like how i imagine phil felt in 2009 before oct 19.” because pining for someone who is sending mixed signals, pining for someone who seems confused even though in your eye there is no clearer answer? that is some relatable shit. writing this was largely therapeutic and helped me come to terms with my own situation, through exploring fic!phil’s feelings. because this fic was more than just surface pining: it is about all the insecurities, all the anger, all the panicking which comes with it. the key to it was that anyone reading it knows that things do turn out for the better and dan does choose phil, even if neither can see it now. so for myself, it was reassurance that when life hits rock bottom there’s only one way up, that the present does not reflect the future. but at the same time, even if things are destined to improve, it is beyond your knowledge and your feelings now are still valid. you are allowed your anger and your sadness, but do not take it as the end.

3. ‘talk abt dnp love languages and the way they express them pleasee’ (meta)

back in days of old when i got anons, sometimes i did a bunch of interpretation/analysis stuff, and this was probably my favourite to write. i don’t have much to say about it here other than that it’s something i’ve seen people discuss at length and i hopped on the opportunity to give my two cents on it lol

4. ‘you are the drum!’ (gifset)

my first ever gifs, the day i got photoshop completely legally *cough*. are they good quality, rich in technique? fuck no! was i, and am i still, pleased with them? fuck yes! especially because if every phannie were to have a ‘niche’ in what phandom stuff they like to indulge in, phil being a fond guy is definitely mine. :’)

5. first impressions (gifset)

for what is probably one of my favourite gaming vids of theirs ever, my second of two gifsets i’ve done so far - i would have done more but i have legit no idea what i’m doing wrong that makes them so low-definition. each gif was also more saturated than the one before, which i did not intend. oh well, i am not a good gifmaker and i own it! (but send me all your tutorials please, i need ‘em!)

overall?

the reason i only included two fics in this list is because they are my only two so far. i want to do a lot more fic-posting - you will not believe the number of wips i have in my fic GD folder right now. my 2019 has been absolutely chaotic which is why i haven’t posted much, in many ways i’m surprised i’ve got anything done at all lol. but it’s been a good year for me, definitely a brilliant one for the overall phandom. may 2020 be kind to us all. happy new year!

i am so sorry if i miss anyone, it’s just off the top of my head that i am tagging: @karcathy @elisethephangirl @phlanetary @toxicnebulaae-deactivated201912 @imdyingriprip @autumn-in-phandom @calvinahobbes @itsaravetree @throwing-roses-into-the-abyss @owodnp @incognitovampiregoblin

[librarylexicon]

21 questions

Answer 21 questions and tag 21 people! (Bruh this isn’t even 21 questions but okay)

tagged by @drycerealthief

name: [redacted]

nickname: [redacted]

star sign: Sagittarius

last movie i saw: I had to think about this for too long because when I haven’t been holed up studying I’ve been bingeing The Office (which doesn’t count!). I think maybe Kiki’s Delivery Service?

last thing i googled: I habitually google everything in private mode so idk. It could have been some linguistic definition for an assignment

other blogs: @anneofgreengableswiki and @yourwizardrockresource, both for hobbies. And I technically have a private dnp blog, which is a relic from my IDB days.

do i get asks: only very occasionally but I love it when I do!

reason for my url: my previous url had my name in it, and I decided I wasn’t about that life, so I changed to the title of my favourite chapter in the book Rilla of Ingleside. It’s since become my ficwriting pseudonym as well.

following: 588 blogs apparently, although I’m sure a bunch are inactive bc I’ve been here for 6+ years

average sleep: maybe 7 hours? Don’t ask when I go to sleep or when I wake up though...

lucky number: none

currently wearing: grey hoodie, faded grey trackpants, fluffy boots (hey, it’s cold!). NB: the greys do not match.

dream job: novelist or comic book author (I’d let the Batfamily be happy for once!)

dream trip: P.E.I.

favourite food: char kuay teow (Malaysian stir-fried flat rice noodles)

favourite song: I’m on a bit of a Beatles kick right now, and I love While My Guitar Gently Weeps (specifically the Love version), but also For No One, Eleanor Rigby, Penny Lane, In My Life, Something, Here Comes the Sun ...

instruments: aesthetically, I love the sound of a harp. If we’re talking what I can play, I’m very out of practice but I can play piano, recorder (if that counts), ukulele and some guitar.

Okay I’m going to add a few more questions to bring the total back to 21!

hobbies: reading books and fic, writing, collecting wizard rock info

favourite childhood book: Anne of Green Gables

an infinitely rewatchable tv show: The Office (US version), The IT Crowd, Blackadder...

reason for joining tumblr: I wanted to follow a now-inactive blog that posted writing critiques of the Twilight books (it was @reasoningwithvampires if you’re curious)

21 people is way too many to tag, but I’ll pick a couple from my notifs, and anyone else who reads this can do it!

@wizardsbatcave @luftsparke @ky-kyon @sartysarty @feel-the-beat-of-the-tangerine

[yikesola]

But Renee I want you to talk about all the fics! Which is probably not gonna work bc you have 113 of them on ao3 right now!! Have you talked about the breakup scene in odd uneven time I feel like you have but you could do it again? Or could you talk about something in one of your first commissioned fics? Or anything in A Unique Problem? But please, I would rather hear A Lot about any of these than a little about one of them xxx

cal🥺🥺🥺🥺 i’m always happy to ladle up some brain soup for ya!

so the breakup scene in “The Odd Uneven Time” was something i wanted to be v careful and intentional about— it was something that had me big nervous, bc even with the 2009 timeline there’s lots of things that are open to interpretation (like whether dan was single at the time of his emo tweets on Oct9, for example) and though BIG cleared up a lot in terms of dan’s feelings of his own sexuality at the time, the A+ line “Wow, I had a lot fun with many different kinds of people in 2009. Let's just say I got a lot out of my system. Got a couple of things in my system, too. Sorry.” does little to clear up for me when The Breakup happened (information i’m not demanding btw, i only want it for i want my fic to be Accurate and Right reasons and those.. simply aren’t good enough reasons lol) sooooo ,, basically i had to look at myself and say “there’s no way this fic is gonna be 100% and you have to be okay with that.” and i am! now ..... alskfks at the time of writing it i was needlessly stressed. and the breakup scene was one of the more stressful — i wanted it to be clear that dan should’ve done this earlier, i wanted it to be clear that alice is being hurt but also could have done something earlier as well, that they’re both being stubborn and scared and eighteen years old and that at the end of all things, it’s good they’re breaking up and they’ll both be okay. i think i did that ,, i hope i did that.

so my first bundle of commissions were for @oriharakaoru and i had such a lovely time doing them, i’m forever pleased that i was given some v specific prompts but also some “surprise me!” freedom, it was a wonderful balance to learn how to fulfill. i’ll talk about “Resourcefulness” which was my second commission and one without a specific prompt. i’d seen this text post a few months before and tucked it away in drafts bc i was like “this is of course a dnp fic waiting to happen.....” (i almost always have a loop of dan’s face when phil says “you should never go to sleep on an argument, it’s one of the mottos i live by” in one of the dream daddy episodes😩 like.... frustrated dan has been on the end of “let me fucking sleep phil” / “no, we’re not gong to bed angry!” and you can’t tell me otherwise) this combined with my semi-occasional rant with keelin about the Cold Beers Hot Women shirt (godddd i hope that shirt was bought by some manchester lesbian after dan donated it while clearing out his closet..... it’s camp and i half love it, half hate the implications of dan choosing to wear it in these years🥺😭) and that’s..... how i wound up with “Resourcefulness” 👌

i love love “A Unique Problem” for a lot of reasons, one of which is bc i think it’s arguably the spiritual sequel to my very first phanfic baby “Conjuncture” — mostly bc they both have a focus on dan’s depression recovery in how it relates to 1)asking for help, and 2)phil’s role. the radio show moment “A Unique Problem” is based on reminds me of the liveshow moment “Conjuncture” is based on: they’re moments i was introduced to via “cute phan proof complications 🤪🙌” i clicked with general frenzy in my reintroduction to the phandom back in summer2018 (wow..... has it been that long? 🥺 i love y’all) and was just like “okay youtube recommendations, catch me up! what did i miss in the last six years of dan and phil? (the answer is, of course, A LOT). they were moments giggled over, moments with zoom ins and funny comic sans captioning, they were light. and they were also moments that the more i watched them, the more my heart broke. phil’s terror in his eyes when he sees dan left his phone behind? heartbreaking when you have the context that dan would do this during bad days and that phil was really fucking worried about him but had to keep up a face for the rest of the liveshow. dan’s terror in his eyes when phil says the word “boyfriend” on the bbc? heartbreaking when you have the context that they’re live and dan can’t do anything about the fact he’d rather phil not even nudge their plausible deniability right there. i wrote both fics as a way to work though that heartbreak i guess, and to understand these little moments as they fit into the tapestry of dnp’s lives in front of us, mental health and all, as a whole. and i’m pretty proud of them😌

hope this was what you were looking for bb😭💞

[feelingofcontent]

DNP Rewatch: Buying The 9 Creepiest Things From Wish!

Date video was published: 10/31/2020 (X)

DNP Main Channel Rewatch: 425

Another Wish video. All of these were pretty close together; the last one was just in April. He posted this on Halloween, which was a surprise since I had figured the previous video would be his Halloween one for the year. He also tweeted that they might watch Hocus Pocus , which amused me because I traditionally watch that every year on Halloween!

0:00 - Phil loves a chance to use “creepy” editing effects. also the Nicholas Cage pillow case from the last Wish video in the background is terrifying. he’s also had a haircut since the last video

0:29 - this Wish video has a specific theme, unlike the last two

0:47 - yes, but perfect for a Halloween party

0:53 - of course Phil has a unique backstory thought for it

0:55 - “not to be a cannibal” ...um.

1:05 - Phil not remembering what he ordered in unsurprising

1:14 - hahaha, this is true 😂

1:20 - using the “unbelievably censored” bar. who would buy this?! also, the man in the image is...um...having a good time 😳

1:27 - I’m just disturbed

1:49 - he says, but apparently gets over that concern

2:09 - Phil was surprisingly forward about masks and such in his videos. and that annotation!

2:36 - “and live the dream” okay then

3:10 - so many packages! also, the TATINOF cube stack stand never fails to amuse me

3:22 - he actually has scissors to open packages for once!

3:29 - “that’s a sexy demon” what.

3:45 - can’t believe he went for the face, actually

4:02 - “color me wrong” Phil idiom!

4:18 - this wasn’t in the list from the start

4:30 -  this was his fault for what he said in the Taking Quizzes About Myself! video. Dan had continued the joke a couple times as well (1, 2)

4:51 - love that he decided the pumpkin suit was worth keeping on 😂

4:57 - NOPE. this is even worse than the paper masks that also disturb me

5:15 - Phil just saying random things is hilarious

5:30 - his quiff held up surprisingly well through that

5:41 - jump scared himself! he keeps doing that in the Wish videos

6:11 - WHY

6:42 - “or you could just do something kinky” did NOT remember him saying that 😳

6:47 - “I don’t like that I own it” still gives it two stars

6:49 - what happened to the scissors

7:09 - that is very loud

7:13 - I am impressed along with Phil that it actually works

7:33 - get a look at his full filming set-up there

7:35 - he was very amused and entertained by that

8:06 - that is pretty cool in the dark

8:17 - rave mode!

8:25 - I don’t want to know what it was wet 😨

8:37 - immediately broke it; that’s not good

8:53 - like that he took a moment and rearranged the background there

9:17 - “it’s kind of satisfying” well now we know I guess.  also, someone told Dan he should try on that mask and he tweeted this, so...

9:42 - nice little throwback weird!Phil editing touch there

9:50 - by the end he just wants out of all of it

Love to see Phil touch and react to random textures and things. A good Halloween video too!

[kae-karo]

hey! you're a phanfic writer, and i started writing a phanfic that i was intending to get back to, but i saw the video, how much phan has affected dan. in your opinion, should we as a fandom write fics about them now? creatively, i want to get back to mine - youtuber RPF was how i got into fandom and fanfic in the first place - and i was proud of what i wrote. ethically, i never want to pry into real people's lives again. if you choose to answer this, thank you. 💖

hi dear! oof, this is such a controversial question and lately for me (even before dan’s vid, but especially in light of his openness with what he’s chosen to share) i’ve questioned whether i feel comfortable writing phanfic - for me, the characters i write are based on dnp but, of course, i never actually see them as the real human beings dan and phil who i am actually writing about. which sounds kinda weird i guess as a clarifier but i don’t see the people i’m writing about as dan and phil, i see them as characters who share some key characteristics, but that doesn’t inherently change the fact that these are stories we collectively agree are based on dnp (or, in some cases, written about their actual real lives to the best of our abilities and knowledge and speculation and wishes) and, perhaps for me, it’s time to acknowledge that i may not be as okay with that as i was initially when it was fun and shiny and new and i didn’t feel the same empathy toward dnp as i do now cause, hey, they were just on the internet! they didn’t feel like real people to me (yet)

it’s easy to see dnp as these other beings, separate from the space we occupy as fans. which isn’t necessarily bad, but it can lead to a lack of empathizing, an entitlement to feeling like we deserve something for our hours of commitment to them - entitlement to knowledge, entitlement to their lives, entitlement to [insert thing here that we want and are not getting]. and an entitlement to do with ‘them’ (or their personas, or the concept of them put into fictional stories) whatever we want. and i think it’s that kind of mindset - a mindset a lot of us have had with dnp and have been conditioned to have by the phandom and the ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’ mentality - that led to the invasions of privacy dan mentioned in his vid

now. to be clear. i think fanworks are incredible and amazing and the writers are so talented and thoughtful and imaginative and well-spoken, but maybe now’s the time to sit back and acknowledge how much we love them, how much we genuinely care for and support them. we had this outpouring of honesty and openness from dan the likes of which we never expected, barely hoped for in our wildest dreams, and alongside it we were presented with a request: privacy

is writing phanfic inherently going against that request? on the one hand, i and most writers acknowledge that our characters are not dnp because we will never know the true dnp by virtue of the fact that they do not share every little thing about them and their lives with us. but on the other hand, is it not still invasive to write as if we know them? as if we have all the intimate details of their lives? their relationships?

idk this has been a bit of a crisis for me as well, when i allow myself to think too hard about it. i love writing about these dorks, i really do, but there’s a piece of me that has always felt a little inkling of doubt about it, and it’s grown much larger in the past 6mo or so - i can never know for certain what they think about what we write, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable of them to feel uncomfortable about it. i wouldn’t blame them. they didn’t ask for us to write about them, about their lives, about our hopes for them or our issues projected onto them as a form of self-therapy, about them as a way to explore or even flex our knowledge of things so personal to them or their relationship they’ve been buried or deleted. they didn’t ask for us to pick and pull at perceived traits of theirs and expand them into entire personalities, such that we’ve created stereotypes among our own fandom about them that bleed back into the way we treat them, talk about them, talk to them

i’ve written over seven hundred thousand words about these dorks, and some of the things i’ve written are, for all intents and purposes, about dnp’s lives. they’re ‘canon’ works, as much as they can be, but so many of my more involved stories have never been about dan and phil, they’ve been about these characters who could really be anybody except they have black and brown hair and blue and brown eyes and they both like muse and mario kart and so hey, it fits pretty well, doesn’t it?

but the reality is that maybe it’s time to make my stories about other people, ones that don’t exist as false approximations of actual humans in the real world. my empathy gauge is painfully strong sometimes (i have trouble with like,,,,,,,even just pruning plants okay like i just really feel for everything so much) so perhaps this is something that weighs heavier on me than others, maybe i’m overthinking it or maybe i’m being too sensitive, i’ve certainly been called that before. but i think perhaps, as dan moves on to his new chapter, maybe it’s time for me to do the same

[dvp95]

don’t complicate it

pairing: dan howell/phil lester

rating: t

warnings: none

tags: magical realism, canon compliant (not anymore! it was canon compliant in 2017), psychic abilities, phil is a psychic and dan is an embarrassment

word count: 11,289

summary: A magical realism au where everything is the same except sometimes, Phil's dreams come true. Featuring YouTuber cameos, existential crises, and a love story. (Or: It's 2017 and Dan Howell's entire universe has been flipped upside down.)

NOTE: this is not a new story! this is my first dnp fic and i’m just transferring it here to have all my shit in one place, basically. i wrote this two years ago and if i were to write it today, i’d change some stuff, but. i’m generally still pretty pleased with it! so i hope y’all get a kick out of old daye’s bad pacing and shaky dialogue 

read on ao3 or here!

If there's one thing Dan knows for sure about his housemate, it's that Phil Lester is weird. He's always been weird - weird to film with, weird to listen to, even weird to look at since he's usually pulling a face for no reason or turning his hand backwards to fit in his pocket - but living with him has made Dan eternally grateful that he is so fond of Phil's weirdness, because otherwise this friendship thing just wouldn't work.

In addition to the general weirdness, Phil has more superstitions than Dan's entire family. Dan has been yelled at for putting a box of new shoes on the table, yanked away from ladders rather violently, and asked if he's angry if he leaves his cutlery crossed on his plate. It would probably be annoying, if Dan ever got seriously annoyed by the things Phil does.

It's funny instead of annoying, like most things about Phil, but Dan has to draw the line somewhere.

"What do you mean, I can't use my laptop today?" he asks Phil slowly, trying very hard not to freak out. "What have you done to it?"

"Nothing!" Phil insists. He holds up his hands like it somehow proves his innocence.

"I don't believe you," says Dan, "and I'm not going to stay off my laptop for an entire day, you absolute donkey. Give it back."

"I can't give it back to you." Phil sounds exasperated, which is the exact wrong emotion for him to be feeling after hiding Dan's laptop at ten in the morning. "If you use your laptop today, it's going to break. We can't afford another iProduct."

Dan narrows his eyes. First of all, he has his own bank account with his own money, and there is no 'we' about buying Dan a new laptop. Secondly - "My baby is perfectly fine, assuming you haven't done something to it and you're planning on replacing it before I notice."

"That would be stupid of me, of course you'd notice."

"Phil."

"Can't you just trust me?"

If it was anything else, Dan would probably let the argument drop and let Phil be weird about this, too. His laptop, though? That's off-limits.

"No, I can't," Dan says, holding out his hand. "Give me back my laptop. Right now."

Phil sighs heavily and leaves the lounge, returning after a few minutes with Dan's laptop in his hands. He hesitates when Dan reaches for it, but passes it over reluctantly.

"Just... don't click anything Felix sends you," says Phil. Dan rolls his eyes and agrees in order to placate his friend, but he has a bad habit of forgetting things Phil has told him - and can he be blamed? He has eight years' worth of Phil-specific information to retain, it can't all stay at the forefront of his mind.

That's his reasoning for clicking the link Felix emails him, despite explicitly being told not to. He inhales sharply when his screen immediately goes black.

Phil turns to look at him from the other end of the sofa, expression already resigned. "I told you not to click it, Dan!"

"What happened?" Dan asks, panicking as he tries every keyboard shortcut he knows.

"I don't know," Phil huffs and pulls out his phone. "I'll ask Felix, I suppose."

It turns out that Felix's email got hacked, because of course it did, and everyone on his contact list got an attachment full of scary computer viruses. Felix gives everyone a heads-up on Twitter, but the damage to Dan's laptop is already done.

When Dan gets back from the Apple store with bad news and a shiny new laptop, he stops in Phil's doorway and frowns. "How did you know Felix got hacked?"

"I didn't," Phil says without looking up from his own laptop. "I just had a feeling you'd break your laptop today."

"No, you told me this morning not to click on anything Felix sent me. That's more than 'a feeling', Phil." Dan struggles not to look or sound sheepish. He isn't the one who needs to explain himself, here.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Dan," says Phil.

"I want you to tell me how you knew about this," Dan insists, pointing at his shopping bag even though Phil isn't looking at him. "Did you and Felix plan this?"

That makes Phil look up. "Of course not!"

Phil is the worst liar Dan has ever met, and the hurt in his voice at being accused of murdering Dan's laptop on purpose is real enough. Dan bites his lip so that he doesn't apologise reflexively. Even if Phil had nothing to do with the death of his laptop, the fact that he knew about it beforehand is suspicious enough to withhold apologies.

"Okay, so tell me the truth," Dan says instead of apologising like his mouth wants to.

"The truth," Phil repeats, looking back down at his laptop to close the lid. "I mean, okay, but you won't believe me."

"Try me," Dan challenges.

"I had a dream about it," says Phil, making careful eye contact with Dan. "That's it, that's all that happened. I dreamed that your laptop died because of an email from Felix, and then it happened, because my dreams come true sometimes."

This is not the first time Phil has made such a claim, but it's definitely the first time he wasn't at least half joking. Dan's scoff dies in his throat at how genuine Phil is acting.

"You're not psychic, Phil," Dan says slowly.

"Of course I'm not." Phil rolls his eyes, and Dan has a moment of relief before Phil adds, "I'm clairvoyant."

"Those are the same thing!"

"They actually aren't, interestingly enough. See -"

"Please stop," Dan groans, holding up a hand. "Stop right there. I don't believe in any of this nonsense, and you know that. I'd sooner believe you became a master hacker overnight and sent me that virus yourself as an expensive and unfunny prank."

Hurt flashes across Phil's face before annoyance takes over, and he shrugs. "Believe whatever you want, Dan. You asked for the truth and I told you."

"Your 'truth'," says Dan, air quotes difficult with a shopping bag but necessary, "is scientifically impossible."

"Fine, I won't tell you about my dreams anymore," Phil huffs, standing up to pointedly start getting ready for bed.

"Well, good," Dan says after a long pause. Phil doesn't deign to reply to his cutting wit, so Dan goes to his own bedroom and starts setting up his new baby. The first thing he does once he can start using it is type in the word 'clairvoyant'.

Google doesn't tell him anything he doesn't already know, so that's a non-starter. He ends up in a Reddit thread about premonitions during sleep, and even though the stories are interesting, they can't be true. That isn't how the universe works.

There's a lot about the universe that Dan doesn't understand. He knows that better than anyone, and it's the cause of many a crisis in his life.

Magic, though? Fortune telling? That's just factually wrong.

Dan decides, when he hears birds start to sing and realises he's spent all night in a Google vortex again, that what Phil experienced was nothing more than a coincidence.

It has to be a coincidence, or a joke, or else Dan is going to lay facedown on the floor for an entire week.

--

Phil is acting weirder than usual.

They're recording for a danisnotonfire video that Dan isn't sure yet if he actually wants to upload, and Phil keeps looking over his shoulder and reacting to every small noise outside their building. After ten minutes of this, Dan tells him to stop the camera for his own sanity.

"I can't use any of that," he says like he wasn't second-guessing the idea already. "You're so jumpy! Did you play spooky games without me?"

"No," says Phil.

He doesn't elaborate, which forces Dan to respond with a slow, "Okay, so why are you acting like a small rodent?"

Phil opens his mouth, probably to bicker about exactly what he's doing, but he's interrupted by the sound of someone banging on their front door. As if this is what he's been expecting, Phil leaps to his feet and bolts out of Dan's bedroom.

"That was weird," Dan tells the camera. It's no longer recording, but he has no one else to commiserate the weirdness of Phil Lester with.

While he waits for Phil to get back, he wonders who's at the door. It's not like they have many friends in the city, and the ones they have tend to text or call before showing up. Louise always says it's so she doesn't 'interrupt anything', which Dan tries not to read too deeply into.

Dan gets bored and follows Phil down the stairs, where he hears a loud and familiar voice drifting up from the entrance.

"- and I'm only trying to get to Dublin, right, but Heathrow decided I was suspicious somehow and I make inappropriate jokes when I'm uncomfortable - stop laughing - so they detained me and I missed my flight!"

"And we're the only people you know in London?" Dan hears Phil ask, and he sounds amused but not at all surprised. Which is weird, because Markiplier being in London without warning is pretty surprising stuff.

"I don't know anyone else's address," Mark admits, sounding good-natured despite an apparently difficult airport adventure. "Yours is in my phone, but I don't remember putting it there."

"Pretty sure I added it at VidCon this year," Phil says, starting to climb the stairs. "I had a feeling you'd need our sofa at some point."

That's a sufficient enough explanation for Mark, who has moved onto asking what they have in the way of coffee and food, but Dan hurries back up to his room to have a minor mental breakdown. He checks Mark's twitter and Facebook, but there's no mention of a trip, and it wouldn't make sense for Phil and Mark to have planned this to trick Dan, with the way they were talking downstairs.

So how did Phil know that Mark was coming? Why did he have a feeling, months ago, that Mark would need to know the address of someone in London at some point?

It doesn't make any logical sense. This isn't a joke or a coincidence, it's just really fucking weird.

Dan eyes his floor, considering lying down on it, but they have a guest. Existential crises are not proper host etiquette. Still, he waits for Phil to shout his name before getting out of bed and confronting this very strange turn of events.

Maybe the universe doesn't work scientifically at all. Maybe scientists are just people who make shit up and act like it's the truth, because Dan is starting to think that Phil might not have been lying at all.

He doesn't get a chance to say anything to Phil, between getting shot down for an impromptu collab - "No offence, boys, but I'm on vacation, maybe on my way back!" - introducing Mark to their current favourite anime - "Fuck you, I'm not crying." - and setting Mark up on the sofabed in their gaming room - "It's too small for either of us, but you're about a foot shorter, aren't you?" - until they're walking downstairs together in comfortable silence, arms brushing.

"You knew Mark was coming," Dan says, not bothering to make it a question.

"Yeah," says Phil.

Dan appreciates that Phil doesn't try to lie, but it only adds to the paranoia that's been building all day. "And like, you already knew about that? At VidCon?"

"You were listening?" Phil asks with a surprised grin as they reach their main landing.

"Irrelevant," Dan sniffs, crossing his arms.

Phil laughs at him, but it's not mean. Sometimes Dan thinks that Phil doesn't have a mean bone in his entire body.

"Yeah, I had this dream at VidCon," Phil leans against his bedroom doorframe, "and Mark was wandering around London without a travel plan on his phone, trying to find a hotel he could afford. I just thought it would be easier and more fun for him to come here."

"And you had the same dream last night," guesses Dan.

"No, last night I dreamed he ate all my cereal, which only makes sense if he's in our apartment."

"Good, you deserve to have your cereal eaten," Dan says automatically, because that's something he understands. The universe might get turned on its head if Phil is actually magic, but at least Dan can find comfort in the fact that he's still a cereal thief.

"Shut up," Phil laughs and reaches out to push Dan's chest lightly.

His hand lingers, but Dan is far more concerned about the fact that Phil might be psychic.

"I want to hear about your dreams." Dan knows as he says it that this is a mistake, that if magic exists and it isn't being used to his advantage, the world will be a scarier place than it already was.

"All of them?" Phil asks, still smiling. "Or just the clairvoyant ones?"

"You can tell the difference?"

"Sure. I mean, if it's realistic or boring, it's probably going to come true. My regular dreams are frickin' cool."

Dan can feel a grin tugging at his lips. "I suppose if they're so 'frickin' cool', I want to hear about those dreams too."

"Cool," Phil giggles a little and steps away from his doorframe, looking more relaxed than he has in days around Dan. "I'll keep a detailed dream journal just for you."

"You'd better," Dan says faux-sternly.

This entire situation is one of the most unsettling things Dan has ever experienced, but the bright smile on Phil's face when he says goodnight is worth every panic attack Dan is going to have about the makeup of the known universe. He seems so happy to be believed that Dan wonders if Phil has ever told anyone about this in so much detail.

Probably. Phil is basically an open book, after all.

If it makes Dan feel better to pretend as he's falling asleep that Phil has confided something in him that he's never divulged before, nobody has to know.

--

Dan wakes up before noon on his own, for once, and he startles when he sees someone in his kitchen before remembering that they have a guest. Yawning, he opens the kitchen door and greets Mark with a distorted, "Morning."

"Hey," Mark grins, leaning against the counter with a bowl of Phil's cereal. "You think Phil's gonna mind if I finish this?"

"Course not," says Dan, "you're the guest."

They both maintain a straight face for a couple seconds before Mark breaks and causes Dan to start laughing too. It's always comfortable to hang out with Mark, but Dan would be lying if he said he liked having guests spend the night. He doesn't like the feeling of someone being in his apartment while he's asleep.

It's nice, then, to be reminded that Mark is funny, and warm, and leaving in a couple of hours.

"So, you're going to see Jack?" Dan asks, because Phil had elbowed him every time he tried to ask the night before. "Shit, I mean, Sean."

"I fuck that up constantly," Mark admits, rinsing his bowl in the sink. "Yeah, I'm spending the weekend at his place. We're trying not to make a big deal of it, because - well, you know."

"I do?" Dan raises his eyebrows and starts making coffee for three.

"Obviously." Mark points at the mug that Dan pulled out for Phil, the one with Daddy emblazoned across it.

"That's a joke," Dan says automatically.

Mark starts laughing again, far too loud for the subject matter and time of day. "Bro, I know it's a joke. I meant you obviously know why we're keeping it on the down-low because you also have crazy shipper fans who think you guys are going to get married and die in each other's arms."

"I prefer to think of them as 'dedicated'," Dan says, turning away from Mark until the heat in his cheeks settles down. "But yeah, I get it."

"Didn't mean to make it weird, dude," Mark says apologetically. Apparently Dan didn't hide his face fast enough. "I figured you were, like, comfortable joking about it."

"I am." Dan glances at the kitchen door, paranoid that Phil is listening and getting the wrong impression. "For a second I just thought you were saying that you and Jack are together, and then I felt stupid when I realised you just meant the fan speculation."

The ensuing quiet is strange, considering his conversation partner, but Dan doesn't look up from the mugs.

"Wait," Mark touches Dan's shoulder to get his attention. "Wait, hang on, are you saying that you and Phil are in a relationship?"

"No, but I guess we're closer to it than not," Dan half-jokes. "So sometimes I forget we aren't."

It's the truth, but it seems to shock Mark into silence.

The fact of the matter is that Dan knows who he's going to spend the rest of his life with. He knows, despite everything, that Phil is the most important person in his life and probably always will be. Nothing about them has ever been on the down-low, because they have nothing to hide, but there are times when it slips Dan's mind that the fans aren't onto something.

After coffee is poured and Dan has drank half of his own for something to do with his hands, Mark finally speaks. "I don't think Sean and I are thaaaat close, so I get why the joke was weird coming from me. Also, I'm pretty sure you should tell Phil that you want to be with him."

Dan nearly spits coffee onto the floor.

"What?"

"I know it's not my business," Mark says with a shrug, "but it sure seems like you're pining."

"I am not pining," says Dan, affronted.

"You totally are."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are - look, I'm not getting into this with you." Mark looks like he's trying very hard not to laugh, and Dan glares at him. "I'm just saying that I'm never going to just randomly forget that Sean and I aren't in a relationship. and it's weird that you do."

"Phil being my platonic life partner is the least weird thing in my life," Dan says dismissively. Mark rolls his eyes.

"Whatever you say, dude," says Mark.

To Dan's relief, he lets the topic drop for the next few hours. They play Mario Kart until their shouting wakes Phil, and then they take turns kicking Phil's ass. Phil is pretty good-natured about the whole thing.

As fun as Mark is to be around, Dan is relieved to see him to the door. He doesn't need any more of the pointed looks Mark keeps sending his way whenever he grabs Phil's arm in excitement or leans in close to psych him out.

"You should come round again sometime," Phil is suggesting as they gather awkwardly in the small bottom landing.

"On purpose next time," Mark agrees, giving each of them a one-armed hug. It's nice - Mark is a champion hugger, even while holding a duffel bag.

"It was good seeing you," Dan says truthfully. "Next time, maybe a heads up?"

"Nah, I think I'll be spontaneous again."

"What if we're not home?"

"That's a good one, Dan."

"You'll miss your flight if you keep bickering," Phil interrupts with a laugh. He squeezes Mark's shoulder and cryptically adds, "Don't eat the sandwiches on the flight. It'll make you sick."

"Okay," Mark says easily, hefting his bag onto his shoulder. "I'll see you boys around."

The ensuing quiet in Mark's wake is welcome, but all Dan can think about is how close together he and Phil have to stand in order to fit on this landing. Thanks to the proximity, he can see uncharacteristic bags under Phil's eyes.

Dan reaches out to press the pads of his fingers gently against Phil's skin there and hums, "Mark being sick kept you up?"

"No," Phil says with an indulgent smile.

"You promised to tell me about your dreams," Dan reminds him when Phil shows no sign of continuing. He's probably been touching Phil's face for too long, so he lets his hand awkwardly drop to his side.

Still smiling, Phil shrugs. "It wasn't that interesting, Dan. Just hard to figure out."

"I can help," says Dan.

He wants Phil to confide in him, even about the weird things. As much as this situation freaks him out, and it's a lot, Dan doesn't like Phil keeping anything from him.

"I just remember being anxious, and I couldn't figure out why," Phil admits at long last, sitting down on the steps. "I wasn't at home or anywhere familiar, which just made it worse."

"Were we travelling?" Dan asks, leaning back against their front door instead of sitting beside Phil on the narrow steps, like he wants to.

Phil grins and shakes his head. "You just assume you were there, huh?"

"Of course I was there," says Dan.

"You were." Phil's grin widens as he looks down at his hands. "Obviously you were there. You kept telling me to calm down, but I couldn't, and then you left the room."

"I left?" Dan asks in disbelief. "I literally left?"

Just another piece of evidence supporting the fact that Phil does not have psychic dreams - Dan wouldn't leave Phil alone when he was in the middle of freaking out, that would never happen. When Phil is freaking out, the only thing that calms him is having someone talk him through the situation.

"Yeah, that's what confused me," Phil hums. "You don't usually leave."

"I never leave," Dan corrects him.

Phil looks up at him with an expression that Dan can only categorize as, well, fond. It's the expression that somehow means 'you're an idiot' and 'I'm glad we're doing this together' at the same time. The internet has probably labelled it as something else, since there's a good chance the expression has been caught on film, but Dan doesn't think anything will describe it quite as well as fond.

The moment is stretching into something harder to laugh off, and Dan has to clear his throat before the quiet becomes suffocating.

"Alright, did you figure out why dream-me left you alone?"

"No, but I'm sure you have a good reason," says Phil in a soft voice. He stands and stretches, purposefully breaking eye contact with Dan. "You fancy a tea?"

Dan shakes his head and watches Phil climb their narrow stairs, wondering if there's something Phil isn't telling him.

--

Phil's smile disappears as soon as Dan turns the camera off, which isn't unusual when their filming takes a long time, but Dan gets worried when Phil sighs and puts his head down on the desk.

"You okay?" Dan asks, resting his fingertips on Phil's shoulder.

"I'm tired," says Phil into the wooden surface, "and I keep having bad dreams whenever I try to rest."

This isn't news to Dan, as Phil has been keeping him in the dream loop for the past couple weeks, but Dan didn't realize it was getting so bad. He feels guilt settle in his stomach for not noticing before Phil faceplanted into their desk.

"Is there anything that usually helps? Like, stops you from dreaming altogether? I think we still have that vanilla vodka from New Year's, that usually conks me out."

Phil tilts his head on the desk to give Dan an indulgent smile. "No, getting drunk doesn't help."

"That's a shame," says Dan.

"I don't know, nothing really stops me from dreaming," Phil says when it's obvious that Dan isn't changing the subject. "Like, I guess there are things that help make the dreams blurry and more fun to be in, but I've never woken up and thought, 'wow, I didn't have a single dream last night'."

"That sounds... exhausting," Dan admits. He has more dreamless nights than not; he thinks that if he had dreams every night and also, some of them might come true, he'd go mad.

Phil doesn't bother to respond to that, because obviously it's exhausting, but he sighs again and closes his eyes.

"You can't sleep here, c'mon," Dan murmurs, squeezing Phil's shoulder before standing up. "I'm sure your bed will be more comfortable than wood."

"Your mum is more comfortable than wood," Phil says, nonsensically.

With a bit more prodding and cajoling, Dan gets Phil to his feet and guides him down the stairs so he doesn't wipe out. Phil wrinkles his nose when he looks at his bedroom, so Dan finds himself saying, "Will it help to sleep in my bed? It's not like I'm using it right now."

"Why would that help?" Phil asks, which isn't a no.

"Change of scenery," Dan suggests, opening his door and gesturing for Phil to go in. "Make yourself at home - within reason, like."

"I'm going to snoop through everything," Phil threatens weakly. Dan rolls his eyes and gives Phil a gentle shove into his room. "Okay, okay. Thanks."

Dan stands in the doorway long enough to make sure that Phil gets to the bed without colliding with anything before turning to leave. He normally stays in his room for a good portion of the day, but he doesn't mind taking up the browsing position in their lounge so Phil can get some actual sleep.

Before he can walk away, though, Phil mumbles something that makes him pause.

"What's that?" Dan asks without turning around - just in case Phil hadn't said anything at all.

"Will you stay?" Phil repeats. His voice is quiet and muffled by Dan's comforter, but the request is unmistakable.

Dan isn't sure how this will help, but he smiles over his shoulder and says, "Sure. Let me grab my laptop from the kitchen, I'll be right back."

Considering the exhaustion, he expects Phil to be asleep by the time he gets back with his baby, but Phil's half-closed eyes watch Dan hesitate and look between the desk and bed uncertainly. He doesn't say anything to guide Dan, which is annoying, and Dan ends up making a frustrated noise before flopping onto the far side of his bed and opening Tumblr.

Phil makes a contented noise and curls around Dan, close enough that Dan can feel his body heat but not quite touching. Dan isn't sure if he should feel relieved or disappointed.

It's easy to get lost in the void of Tumblr, and it isn't until Dan gets a text that he realises actual hours have passed. He doesn't want to disturb Phil, but he thinks it might be worse if Phil's sleeping schedule gets all out of whack, so he shakes Phil awake before checking his phone.

"Huh?" Phil bleats, startling awake and blinking a lot.

He has a half-quiff and his eyes are redder than usual. Maybe he should have taken his contacts out before napping, but Dan refuses to feel guilty about that because Phil is a grown man and has been able to take his contacts out without reminders in the past.

"Your nap was becoming a coma," Dan says, picking up his phone before he forgets to check the text.

"Oh," Phil says around a yawn, curling further into Dan so his head is sort of resting on Dan's tummy. "I'm sorry for taking over your bed."

"It's fine, you doofus," says Dan. He's paying more attention to the fact that his mum actually texted him than this conversation, and that's his excuse for carding his fingers through Phil's weird sleep quiff.

Phil doesn't seem to mind or even find it weird. It would probably be weirder to stop doing it now that he's started, so Dan just keeps absently petting Phil as he reads through the strangely long text from his mother.

"What're you looking at?" Phil asks into Dan's shirt.

"Mum texted."

It's such an unusual occurrence that Phil rearranges his entire body in order to stare at Dan whilst keeping his head on Dan's stomach.

"Your mum or my mum?"

"My mum," says Dan, and when did the word 'mum' turn into something that needed clarification in his life?

This is what he'd meant, when he told Mark that sometimes he and Phil are more like a couple than not. He can't picture any of his other friends in this situation, can't even fathom having his hand in someone's hair and talking about their shared mums in bed if there wasn't a romantic element.

With Phil, though, this is just what their friendship is like. Dan honestly isn't sure if things would be easier with said added romantic element, because things are already so easy.

"Dan?" Phil is saying, his voice slightly raised, and Dan guesses that Phil's been trying to get his attention for a while.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said what does she want?"

"Um," Dan looks back down at his phone, trying to collect his thoughts and hide his flushing face, "my family's going on holiday, so she wanted to let me know."

Phil plucks the phone out of Dan's hand and ignores the squawking protests to sigh, "Dan, she also asked you to water her plants."

"So?"

"So, you have a job in London," Phil says, his lips pursing unhappily. "She always thinks you have free time."

Cheeks burning, Dan snatches his phone back and pushes both Phil and his laptop off of him. He doesn't need to be told that his family doesn't take his job seriously, he knows that already.

"Will you come to Reading with me or not?" Dan asks, swinging his legs out of bed and stretching to avoid looking at Phil's apologetic face.

"Course I will," says Phil. "Are we going for a day or the whole time they're gone?"

The idea of spending an entire week in his childhood home is unappealing to Dan, so he responds that he'd prefer only staying over for one night. With any luck, he won't run into anyone he knows while he's there.

Phil doesn't push the topic. He knows when to stop, when all he'll get from Dan is sullen glances and 'I don't want to talk about it, Phil' if he says one more time that Dan might be happier if he tried building stronger relationships in his family.

It's no wonder that Phil doesn't get it, since the Lesters have basically adopted Dan as one of their own.

That's not who the Howells are, though; they aren't sunny and jokey, they don't watch his videos and text him thumbs up emojis, they don't invite Phil over without prompting.

Dan loves them all the same. Of course he loves them, they're his family.

It's just that - when Dan gets homesick, it isn't for Reading. It isn't for Manchester or this crappy London flat either, really. Sure, he misses his sofa crease and the cracks in his bedroom ceiling when they're on the road, but only until the next moment that Phil catches his eye and grins brighter than the sun.

Dan doesn't get homesick often.

--

"I can't even read your writing." Dan tries very hard to sound exasperated when all he wants to do is laugh.

"My writing is so much better than yours!" Phil says defensively, making grabby hands at his dream journal. "A dramatic reading of my dreams was not included in this deal."

"It should be, that sounds hilarious."

Dan doesn't give the journal back, because he's just winding Phil up. He flips open to the last page, ignoring Phil's annoyed squawk of a noise that he's only capable of making before his morning coffee, and starts reading.

Lots of the dream descriptions are straight-up impossible; Dan notices that there are stars marking the most realistic entries and a fair few with just a giant question mark. He also can't help but notice that there are places where pages have clearly been torn out. Judging by the dates on some of the earlier entries, Phil has had this journal for months longer than Dan expected, and Dan wonders what Phil wanted to keep to himself.

To be fair, he's had plenty of dreams that he would rather Phil never heard about, but he also would have never written them down in the first place.

Phil leaves the lounge to make coffee at one point, returning quietly with two mugs just when Dan thinks he's had enough of reading older dreams that have already come true. He closes the journal and accepts his coffee before mumbling, "Thanks. Did you make some of these up?"

"No," says Phil, rolling his eyes.

"These ones have happened," Dan says unnecessarily. "You should really keep better track of which dreams have passed."

Before Phil can say anything, Dan fishes for a pen between their sofa cushions and puts a checkmark beside a dream about Dil becoming a nightmarish crafts project.

"Oi, don't mark up my journal," Phil says, but he makes no effort to take the journal or pen from Dan.

Dan ignores him to ask, "How do you not live in constant fear?"

"I dunno." Phil is shrugging when Dan looks up with an expression of disbelief. "I mean, I don't usually dream about anything bad, so it's not like I have death and devastation hanging over my head all the time - unlike you. Don't hit me, I have coffee!"

--

The train to Reading isn't long, especially compared to some of the treks Dan has had to do with a caffeinated Phil at his side, but he still hates every second of it.

It makes him feel younger, and he isn't sure if he likes that feeling. Young Dan was embarrassing and judgemental and so, so terrified that he wouldn't be liked by anyone that he made a lot of choices to make other people happy.

Plus, he can't move the whole journey, since Phil has decided to fall asleep on his shoulder.

Phil's steady breaths are normally quite calming, but he keeps mumbling things that Dan can't quite catch, and it’s driving him crazy.

He never used to care this much about dreams, even his own, but he thinks that the paranoia is justified here.

This whole clairvoyance thing has made Dan incredibly anxious. He can't help but wonder what other things in this universe he doesn't understand, if a form of magic is real. Part of him hopes that this is all an elaborate prank - he'd be mad at first, but it would be better for his mental health all around.

When the train finally starts slowing down, Dan gently shakes Phil's shoulder.

"Dan?" Phil mumbles, not sounding fully awake.

"Yeah, 's me."

Something about the moment that Phil blinks up at Dan without moving from his shoulder causes the breath in Dan's throat to catch.

"I had such a weird dream," Phil confides. "Like, an actually weird dream. Tyler Oakley was doing a collab with Leatherface."

"Sounds harrowing," says Dan.

"It was, a bit," Phil says on a yawn, sitting up properly and blinking at the train window. "Oh, I didn't mean to sleep the whole trip! You must have been so bored. I'm really sorry, Dan."

"The quiet was a nice change," Dan says instead of admitting that he was in fact very bored without Phil's chatter, "and you needed the sleep."

"I did," Phil agrees, before pulling out his phone to check his fringe in the camera app.

"Shut up, you look fine."

"Wow, Reading puts you in a bad mood. We haven't even got off the train yet and you're a grumpleton."

Dan doesn't grace that comment with a response, as Phil is right anyway - Reading does put him in a bad mood. He just stands up and nudges a still-sleepy Phil to do the same when the train is stopped completely.

They take a cab to Dan's family home and Phil talks the entire time about absolutely nothing. Dan appreciates it; the chatter helps him tune out his surroundings so he isn't thinking about the time he threw up on that bench over there or when he got caught shoplifting at the nearest corner store.

Walking into his parents' house is always so weird, because Dan half expects it to have stayed the same since the last holiday he visited. Obviously, it never does.

Part of Dan can't help but think of their books, proudly displayed on the Lesters' coffee table, while looking at the cringey graduation photo on the wall of his own parents' lounge.

Somebody else is growing up here now, is the thing. The photos of Dan on the wall have been the same for five years, but Adrian is still going through the motions of becoming a person, and it's weird for Dan to see that happen in chunks.

"He's getting so old, it's weird," Phil voices, looking at the new photos next to Dan's awful ones.

"Tell me about it," says Dan. "We are all dying."

Phil laughs, because that's what he does when Dan makes a joke about death, and carries his bag upstairs. Since he's feeling listless and like a stranger in his own family home, Dan follows.

--

Dan was upset with me? is the latest thing written in the dream journal that Dan sneaks out of Phil's bag when he can't sleep. It doesn't help.

--

When Dan wakes up in his old bed, the afternoon sun filtering through the blinds in an all-too-familiar way, he has a moment of absolute panic that he's gone back in time - honestly, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing in his life right now - but he’s too long for his bed and he can hear Phil singing in the kitchen.

Dan only has a couple of hours before their train leaves, so he pushes himself out of bed and doesn't bother with getting dressed to water his mum's plants. On his way downstairs he calls out, "Good morning."

"Afternoon!" Phil's voice comes back, bright and loud and not suited for Dan's old house at all.

"Can you get me some water?" Dan asks as he ambles into the kitchen.

"For you or the houseplants?"

"Both, I guess."

"I already fed the houseplants," Phil says with a smile, opening wrong cupboards until he finds a cup. "You want lunch?"

Swallowing around the sudden, inexplicable lump in his throat, Dan murmurs an affirmative. There's something about Phil making himself so at home in a place he hasn't been overly welcomed that is making Dan feel some kind of way that he isn't prepared to deal with at this time of day.

His parents like Phil well enough, but they don't really understand him; they don't understand the person he helped Dan become, either.

Even if Phil is feeling weird here, he's going out of his way to make Dan feel comfortable.

"Why was I upset with you?" asks Dan. His voice is almost too quiet, and he watches as Phil's fingers slip on the loaf of bread he's slicing. "In your dream, I mean. I couldn't sleep so I - yeah."

"I'm not mad you looked," Phil says over his shoulder, "since I made it for you and all."

Dan knows that isn't true from the dates and level of detail in the journal, but he isn't about to call Phil out.

"Well, that's good. So?"

With a heavy sigh, Phil starts to spread peanut butter on bread for Dan - the exact amount that Dan prefers, not that he notices.

"I'm really not sure," Phil says slowly, not looking at Dan. "Remember when I had that dream about me freaking out and you leaving? It was like, the exact same, except you were really upset that I was freaking out instead of trying to calm me down."

"That doesn't sound like me," says Dan.

Phil shrugs and holds out Dan's finished sandwich in response. Dan has to stop himself from squeezing Phil's hip in thanks like he usually does, because Dan is half naked and they're in his old house and he thinks it might be weirder here and now. Then he thinks maybe it's weirder if he doesn't do it, but Phil has started moving towards the lounge before he decides.

Around a mouthful of peanut butter, Dan asks, "How many times have you had this dream?"

"A few," Phil says as he flops his whole body onto the sofa. He leaves enough room for Dan to sit near his feet, which is considerate of him.

"Have you considered that it might just be... a dream?"

"I have done," says Phil, "but it just feels so real, you know? And it's been the same weird room, not on like Jupiter or something."

"I'm not sure what we'd have to argue about on Jupiter," Dan muses out loud. If Dan is honest with himself, he can't think of anything in the entire universe that would make him angry at Phil during what sounds like a panic attack.

"Maybe I stole your space cereal," Phil jokes, poking Dan's thigh with his toes.

Dan wants to say that he wouldn't be legitimately angry over cereal, that he's never been more than irritated by it, that he plays his reaction up for his own entertainment, that almost anything he buys is for Phil too, but all that seems too serious for the moment.

Instead, he cracks a joke and changes the subject so he can make Phil smile for a little while longer.

--

It happens so slowly that Dan doesn't even notice until it's already out of hand.

They've been back from Reading for a week, and Phil has been acting weirder than usual the entire time. Dan didn't see this as a reason for concern, because sometimes Phil is weird for no reason, but when he catches Phil eating his cereal and the first thing out of Phil's mouth is a frantic "sorry!" instead of his usual squawk of "don't look at me!", Dan gets concerned.

"Phil," he says slowly, running a hand through his bedhead and trying to act more awake than he is, "I don't actually give a fuck if you eat my cereal."

"You don't?" Phil immediately puts his hand back into the box, the little shit.

"I mean, it's annoying, but you looked like a startled deer just now," Dan says around a yawn. "I'm not going to yell at you."

An emotion passes over Phil's face too fast for Dan's tired brain to categorize it. Phil shrugs a shoulder and looks back at the box of Crunchy Nut like he's deciding whether or not he wants to eat more.

He's been like this all week, careful and anxious and avoidant, and Dan doesn't know what to do. If he confronts Phil about it, Phil will just deny everything and try too hard to be normal - Dan remembers 2012 vividly - but he doesn't want to encourage this behaviour either.

"Are you alright?" he asks, hoping the simple question won't spook Phil.

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean... you're being weird."

"I'm always weird, Dan."

Dan decides to drop it for the time being. The last thing he wants to do is push Phil further into this weirdness by interrogating him.

"How did you sleep?" he asks instead, noticing the way Phil's shoulders relax when he changes the subject.

"Pretty good, thanks," says Phil, "my dreams were boring but, like, peaceful."

It only takes a bit of prompting from Dan before Phil gives him a play-by-play of his dreams, and since they're as boring as advertised, Dan lets himself zone out and worry about Phil on his own time.

Phil doesn't get any less weird after that, but he tries harder to cover it. Since Dan is a good friend, he pretends like he doesn't know that Phil is still jumpy and anxious underneath the bad jokes.

Honestly, it sucks. Dan wishes that Phil would just open up and say what's on his mind so they can both move on.

That is, until Phil freaks the fuck out.

See, they've been looking at bigger places to live for a few months now, but they have time until their lease is up so they're in no rush.

Dan gets a notification for an available duplex a few weeks after he tried getting an answer out of Phil, and it looks confusingly laid out but otherwise a good fit. It's exciting, but he hesitates before texting Phil about it - does he really want to play the 'everything is normal' game while meeting a potential landlord? For all he knows, Phil is going to come across as a serial killer.

Instead, he texts Louise. She responds with more emojis than characters, but agrees to check the place out with Dan.

The duplex has so much room that Dan has a startled moment of bewilderment. Does he own enough furniture to fill this place? Before he can voice the concern, Louise waves him off with an easy, "Stop worrying, you dingleberry."

"I'm not worried," Dan lies.

Louise rolls her eyes and starts snooping in the closets. "Oh, blimey, can I keep some of my things here?"

"No," says Dan, although he's sure that at least one of his closets will be taken over by Darcy's old toys and Louise's heels. "Me and Phil need the storage for all our miscellaneous shit."

"You could always, I don't know, get rid of some," Louise suggests.

"Maybe during the move we will," Dan allows, gently guiding her out of the closet before the landlord gets concerned.

Aside from a few awkward moments - inevitable, with Louise at his side - Dan thinks that the tour goes really well. He likes the space, the road is blissfully free of loud noises, and the landlord doesn't immediately think he's in adult films when he mentions where lights could go.

Dan likes it so much that he's reluctant to leave, but Louise reminds him that he isn't the only person whose opinion on the house matters.

"You know Phil has to live here too, right?" she says with a laugh when Dan starts asking pointed questions about when the place will be empty. Dan makes an exaggerated huff of a noise.

"He'll take what I bring home and he'll like it."

The landlord gives them an indulgent smile. "We can arrange another day for you to bring your boyfriend by, see if he likes it here?"

"Sure," Dan says automatically, trying to ignore his heart beating faster and Louise staring a hole into the side of his head. He knows that a Talk is coming. "I'll talk to him about it tonight. Thanks for, y'know, having us."

Dan hopes that ignoring Louise on the way to the tube will delay the Talk, but Louise is not easily deterred.

"Boyfriend, eh?" she asks in a lilting voice, elbowing Dan in the side.

"Shut up, it was easier than explaining."

"I actually think that it wouldn't be hard to say 'Phil's my friend and roommate'." Louise, he thinks, sounds far too amused by this situation. "Now if you get the place, your landlord will think you're a couple the whole time!"

"Would that be so weird?" Dan asks. "I mean. It's what people already think when they meet us, and sometimes I forget that we aren't."

Months ago, Dan had said the same thing to Mark; he doesn't expect Louise to react much differently.

"Well, duh," Louise says matter-of-factly, "because you love him."

Dan almost walks into a telephone pole. "Excuse me?"

"Don't be daft, you light up every time he comes in the room," says Louise. "Plus, I can feel your heart rate speed up."

"You can... feel that?"

Wrinkling her nose, Louise shakes her head. "Maybe sense is a better word, but your emotions are so much louder when Phil's around. It's given me migraines in the past, you know."

"Exactly how many of my friends have magic powers and why don't I?" Dan exclaims. He resists throwing his arms in the air dramatically, but only just.

"Ooh, who else?"

"That isn't the point! What the ever-living fuck, Louise? You can sense emotions?"

"Only really strong ones," Louise says with a shrug, like that isn't a big fucking deal. "That's how I know when you do something awkward that makes you want to die - honestly, I thought I already told you this!"

"If you did tell me," says Dan, "I would have assumed you were joking."

Louise rolls her eyes and pulls out her phone as if Dan is boring her. "That sounds like a you problem, then."

She changes the subject when they get to busier streets, chattering about her new boyfriend while Dan, once again, re-evaluates his entire worldview.

--

So, Phil freaking the fuck out.

It takes Dan by surprise, because Phil seems excited by the prospect of more storage and less drilling, but he tenses up as soon as they walk inside the duplex. The landlord doesn't notice, busy repeating the same things that Dan has already heard and gesturing at all the closet space.

Dan doesn't want to draw attention to Phil's weird stiffness, so he makes idle conversation until the landlord leaves to take a phone call.

"Are you okay?" he asks, reaching for Phil's arm.

It's one of the most bewildering moments Dan has ever experienced - and that includes recent magical discoveries - when Phil jerks away from his hand like he's going to be burned.

"I don't - I don't -" Phil stammers, his eyes wide as saucers, "- I mean, it's that - I know this place."

Dan feels useless with his hands at his sides. "Did you see it online?"

"No, I - in my dreams, I -"

It clicks.

"Phil, are you panicking because you had dreams about panicking here?" Dan asks slowly. He doesn't want to laugh or show any irritation in case it makes Phil's hands start to tremble even more, but this is a little funny and a lot annoying. "You know that's such a catch-22, right?"

The look of absolute distress that Phil gives him says that yes, he knows that very well, but he doesn't seem to be able to stop hyperventilating.

Dan sighs and runs a hand through his own hair, letting his fringe do whatever it wants when he does.

"Okay, mate? I'm going to tell the landlord that you aren't feeling well and that we're leaving so that you can have a panic attack in peace. I'm not in any way leaving you alone because I'm mad or because I hate you, alright?"

Phil gives him a shaky thumbs up before covering his face with both hands and making audible attempts to breathe deeply.

The last thing Dan wants to do is leave Phil alone like this, but he does. He doesn't want a potential landlord thinking that they're batshit, after all, so he relays the not-feeling-well lie and comes back to lead Phil outside by the elbow. Instant relief washes over Dan when Phil allows the physical contact.

"You're so weird," says Dan.

He means it to come out as exasperated yet still fond, keeping grip on Phil's elbow for his own peace of mind, but something about Phil struggling to breathe evenly has Dan sounding unexpectedly soft.

To his surprise, Phil huffs a breathy laugh. "Thanks, I think? And thanks for, um, not leaving me alone for long."

"I told you that didn't sound like me," Dan says, squeezing Phil's arm, "you've been trying to avoid a fight that was never going to happen, you absolute knob."

Phil laughs again, loud and genuine. He's starting to sound more like his regular self, so Dan lets go of him to hail down a taxi. It would be silly to put his hand back immediately, Dan thinks, because if Phil's panic attack is over, he has no real excuse to continue touching him. He opens the taxi door for Phil and clamps down on every instinct that wants to help him in - Phil is thirty years old and capable of getting into a car on his own, thanks ever so - and folds his own hands on his lap once they're both buckled in.

"I quite liked that place, actually," Phil admits. He's twiddling his thumbs, and Dan is proud of himself for not putting his hand atop both of Phil's to make him stop. "Do you think they'll let us come back?"

"They seemed to like me," Dan says, because making a good first impression is a point of pride.

"Maybe they'll only rent to you, then," Phil says in the cadence of a joke.

Even though Phil is finally himself again, Dan can hear the uncertain edge to his words. After all, neither of them need a roommate anymore.

Dan looks out the taxi window so it doesn't feel like an admission when he says, "No, we're a package deal. The landlord knows. Honestly, I'm pretty sure everyone knows."

There's an eerie silence from Phil beside him, but Dan focuses completely on the scenery changing to more familiar buildings. The cabbie isn't paying attention, thank the lord, so Dan isn't completely mortified by having this conversation in front of a stranger.

He's still slightly mortified.

It feels like an honest-to-God jumpscare when Phil puts his hand on Dan's knee and squeezes - Dan is pretty sure the noise that startles out of him isn't human.

Phil laughs, not unkindly, and leaves his hand there. "Yeah, I suppose we are."

--

"You're not acting weird anymore," Dan observes later that week as they wait for a Sims lot to load.

"No, you were right about that dream," Phil says with a sheepish smile. "You didn't get mad like I kept expecting you to, but be honest - you were definitely annoyed."

"Of course I was annoyed, you made yourself panic," Dan says with a fond roll of his eyes. He hates when the fantastic is logical, but the evolution of Phil's dream makes a lot of sense; at first, Dream-Dan was worried, and then got angrier as Real-Dan learned about the dream.

Phil elbows him in the side. "Shut up."

The game loads, then, so they stop discussing it and lose themselves in Dil's world for a while. It isn't until Dil becomes 'VERY ANGRY' that Dan remembers he wanted to share some information with Phil.

"Right, you've been acting so weird that I completely forgot to tell you," Dan says, pausing the game. "Did you know that you aren't the only person with weird powers?"

"It would be pretty egotistical for me to think I'm the only one, Dan."

"Shut up," says Dan, "Louise can feel other people's emotions."

The look on Phil's face is totally worth springing this on him. He goes through a whole face journey, starting on pure shock and ending in something that looks strangely nervous.

He looks away before Dan can analyze the expression further, pointing at the computer scene. "Like - like, she can see when people are focused or inspired, like we’re all Sims? Dan. Dan, that's terrifying."

"She said it only worked with strong emotions," Dan laughs, batting Phil's hand away from his monitor so he doesn't leave finger smudges.

"Do you believe her?" asks Phil.

Do you believe me now?

Dan gives a noncommittal shrug, his first instinct to being asked an opinion, and adds, "Yeah. You've both made a pretty compelling case for magic being, like, a thing."

"What did she feel off of you?" Phil asks curiously, and Dan accidentally-on-purpose presses the pause shortcut so their attention can be consumed by their odd little virtual family again.

--

Dan assumes that if Phil asks Louise anything personal, Louise will keep her mouth shut. He has a lot of blackmail material on her, after all, and friends don't tell people that a friend is feeling Things without consulting that friend.

As the month comes to a close, though, Phil starts pretending he can't find his dream journal and gives Dan looks when he thinks Dan isn't paying attention. It's nerve-wracking.

Luckily, Phil is his regular self aside from that. Dan lets himself revel in how good it feels to have his best friend in top form and cracking decent bants again.

He wants to ask Louise if she's spilled the beans on what are certainly misunderstood feelings, but he's a little scared of the answer. If he doesn't ask either of them, Dan can pretend that everything is back to normal and that he isn't hyperaware of his own body every time Phil touches him.

To make a joke of it all, Dan texts Markiplier without context that he finally understands how Schrödinger felt, because Mark and Louise are the only ones who have an inkling about this situation.

From Mark: Dude, it's 5am here. Shut the fuck up and tell Phil how you feel.

To Mark: that's not what i'm talking about

From Mark: Ohhh, so you ACTUALLY have a maybe-dead cat in your apartment? That's so weird. Maybe you should call someone for that.

To Mark: you're enjoying this too much

Mark, the twat, leaves Dan on read - presumably to go to sleep - and Dan hovers over Louise's contact photo before groaning and opening Tumblr instead.

It's best if he doesn't know. He's pretty sure a cat inside a box is eventually going to die.

--

I should examine this, probably, Dan thinks as another casual brush of Phil's fingers causes his heart to jump into his throat. He doesn't particularly want to end up facedown on the floor, so he decides he'd rather play Mario Kart.

--

Unlike their brief attempt to buy a house, which went sideways in the worst way, signing a lease at the new flat is deceptively easy.

Phil is talking the landlord's ear off while Dan reads the paperwork over and tries to look like he knows what he's doing. He has uni flashbacks at the legal buzzwords, but he tries to focus instead of interjecting in all of Phil's stories and questions. It's working relatively well until Phil has to ask, "Are we allowed a dog?"

"No," Dan answers before the landlord can, tapping a line in the lease. "Sorry, Phil, a dog will have to be got when a house is bought."

He notices that Phil looks a little disappointed but not surprised, and he wonders if that's because Phil anticipated this downside of renting or if he had a dream involving their lack of pets.

"Fair enough," Phil acquiesces, squeezing the back of Dan's neck casually.

Their new landlord smiles at them and Dan is feeling quite good about this whole situation until they ask, "So, how long have the two of you been together?"

"Excuse me?"

Phil doesn't sound offended or even bewildered, just curious. It makes sense; they get mistaken for a couple quite a lot. For his part, Dan is trying to become invisible by melting into the sofa, because he knows that their landlord's assumption isn't coming from nowhere.

"Sorry to pry," they say politely, "Daniel mentioned that the two of you have lived together a while, and I do enjoy a good love story."

Dan hopes that the floor is going to open up and swallow him whole. He feels Phil's gaze but refuses to meet it, face burning.

After a couple of seconds - during which Dan contemplates death or, at the very least, running away to Tokyo - Phil returns his hand to Dan's neck and easily says, "Eight years."

With a mortified noise, Dan hides his face in his hands and tries to ignore the heavy thumping of his heart. Their landlord is saying something else, probably asking what the fuck is wrong with Phil's boyfriend, but all Dan can pay attention to is the weight of Phil's hand and the sound of his genuine laugh in response to whatever question he's asked.

"He's just embarrassed because he hates telling people how we met," Phil stage-whispers. "He basically stalked me online until I noticed him."

"Oh my God, I hate you," Dan groans into his palms.

"No, you don't," says Phil cheerfully.

New landlord chuckles before a phone rings and they have to leave the flat to take the call, murmuring an "excuse me". The silence left in their wake is horrible, and Dan thinks that he's never going to come out of the safety of his hands again.

It takes a few minutes for Phil to move his hand from Dan's neck; honestly, Dan is expecting him to laugh or ask questions that Dan doesn't have answers to, but Phil just takes Dan's hands in both of his and gently pulls them away from Dan's face.

"Did you tell our landlord that we're a couple?" Phil asks, his voice lilting strangely on the last word.

Dan nods, biting his lip. He can feel the heat of an ugly blush radiating off his face, and he has genuinely no idea how he's going to explain this away.

"Why?"

It's a simple question, and certainly a fair one - anyone would want to know the answer - but it stumps Dan. He'd done it because the landlord had assumed, but seeing as most of the people they meet have the same assumption, the logic doesn't really hold up. He could say he'd done it ironically, which he thinks that Phil might accept as an answer, or a joke, which he thinks Phil would disapprove of.

He could say a lot of things, but they all feel like lies. Dan looks down at where Phil is holding his wrists between them on the sofa so he doesn't have to make eye contact when he answers, "Sometimes it feels more like the truth than saying we aren't."

"I guess I can see that," says Phil. To Dan's absolute bewilderment, his voice is calm and his hands aren't shaking. Dan's are. "Tell me something else, then? What do you want to be the truth?"

That... is a less simple question.

"Dunno," Dan shrugs, because he can feel Phil watching him and he doesn't want to take too long to answer. "I never really thought it would be a relevant question."

"Well, do you still want to live with me?" asks Phil. The question is filled with such genuine concern that it startles Dan into looking up to shoot Phil an incredulous expression. He's not prepared for how close Phil is, even though personal space has long been a myth between them.

"Of course I do, you fucking buffoon."

A corner of Phil's mouth curves upwards and Dan tries not to show how nervous he is, because Phil is still weirdly calm.

"Okay, okay," says Phil, squeezing Dan's wrists before letting go, "we should sign, then."

Dan had completely forgotten what they were doing before Phil asked if he wanted to be in a relationship, so he's grateful for the reminder. He skims the rest of the lease as thoroughly as he can with Phil watching him.

There aren't any surprises in the paperwork, which Dan is grateful for - he isn't sure he'd be able to debate with the landlord in his current state. He signs quickly and hands the pen to Phil as their new landlord walks in, pocketing a phone.

"You're all set?" the landlord asks with a smile.

"We are," Phil answers for them both. He stands up and shakes the landlord's hand, making small talk while Dan forcibly drags his gaze away from Phil.

He doesn't know what he wants. It should be easy, sorting through his feelings and deciding yeah, that's how I want things to be, but there are serious downsides to any decision Dan makes right now.

Ruining their friendship would be unacceptable, but honestly, Dan doesn't think anything he says will make Phil stop being his best friend. It would just be awkward if Dan wanted something Phil doesn't - and why didn't Phil say what he wants, so Dan isn't freaking the fuck out and wondering? - it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Dan thinks it would be pretty damn close to the end of the world if they tried, failed, and had to dance around each other as awkward exes. That's the darkest timeline, right there.

Or maybe it's not.

Phil is gesturing for Dan to leave with him, smiling widely, and Dan considers what would happen if nothing changed between them. It's certainly the path of least resistance, but as Dan stands up and Phil leans into his space out of sheer instinct, Dan has to admit that not addressing the way his heart reacts to Phil is the worst option on the table.

The landlord says things and Phil says things back, but Dan isn't listening. He's too busy forcing himself to imagine Phil moving out, Phil getting a dog without him, Phil finding someone else to share his life with, because that's what best friends do.

By the time they hail a cab to their terrible current flat, all Dan can say for sure is that he really, really doesn't want to do nothing.

Phil is quiet for once, looking out the taxi window and letting Dan have space to think, and Dan is so fond and so sure, at this moment, that he reaches out and puts his hand over Phil's.

It only takes a moment before Phil registers what he's doing. He grins so damn brightly that Dan hates himself for not considering his options before this.

"Is this your final answer?" Phil asks, affecting a silly announcer voice to lighten the moment.

Dan snorts and says, "Yeah, alright."

It's all he can manage out loud right now, but Phil beams at him and turns his hand over so they can wind their fingers together properly. It's not the first time they've held hands, but it's the first time it's meant something so important.

Things could still go so wrong. This might not work, and things will be awkward, possibly forever.

Dan, well. He chooses to hope for the best here.

--

"Did you dream about this?" Dan thinks to ask during a commercial break. Phil is curled into his side, lanky giraffe legs thrown over Dan’s lap. It should be weird, since they've never cuddled quite like this before, but Dan feels warm to the core. "Us, I mean. Is that why you hid your journal?"

"I didn't hide it," Phil lies, "I lost it."

Dan huffs his disbelief and pinches Phil’s thigh. "You can tell me. In case you didn't notice, I'm not going to mind."

The grin Phil shoots him is almost shy, which tugs at Dan's heartstrings. He smiles back and runs his fingers through Phil's hair, because he can.

"Does it really matter what I dreamed?" Phil hums, leaning into Dan's hand like a cat. "I've had dreams about us for years, to be honest, but I could never figure out if they were premonitions or just, like, wishful thinking."

"You weirdo."

"Your weirdo," counters Phil. The words are a bit stilted, like he isn't sure if Dan wants to hear them, and Dan can't help himself - he presses his lips to Phil's, quick and chaste and easy as breathing. He'd worried that maybe it would take a while for them to be comfortable with kissing, but honestly, it feels like the natural progression of their relationship.

Phil grins and chases Dan's mouth as he leans back, pressing light kisses all over the bottom half of Dan's face until Dan is laughing breathlessly.

"Okay, fine, you're my weirdo," Dan says as Phil smooches the tip of his nose. "Now shhh, the show is back on."