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"Stop," Phil groans, walking too quickly - in Dan's opinion - for a man balancing a plate with a little cake on it in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
He fears equally for Phil's skin when he splashes scalding coffee on himself as he does Kath's lovely and probably hard to clean rug.
"I have to watch it one more time," Dan says. "Just for the final edits."
"I can't keep staring at myself when I was that young," Phil says. "It's making me feel actually ancient, Dan."
"You're immature at heart," Dan says. "So that balances it out."
Phil sticks his tongue out at Dan. He stands for a second in front of the sofa, then decides to risk life and limb by putting the cake on the plate on the arm of the sofa while still holding onto his coffee as he sits.
But Phil's knee still bumps the plate, somehow. Dan's arm shoots out across Phil's lap like a driver that's just slammed on breaks, keeping the plate from falling.
"Did you have him take that one bit out?" Phil asks.
"The email address? Yeah, I did. She was a little confused."
"Well," Phil says. "We don't pay her to be confused, we pay her to edit."
Dan snorts. "Delicate cinnamon roll Phil who would never hurt a fly."
"I wouldn't," Phil says, and sips his coffee. "But a fly doesn't work for me."
"Cold hard cash brings out the worst in you."
On the screen in front of them, Phil of the distant past is rattling off the word penis while Phil of the recent past talks about traumatizing his parents.
Dan hits pause again. "We should do a react to reacting video and have your mum watch this."
Phil glares at him. "No."
"Why not?" Dan asks. "She literally shouted fuck me sideways when she stubbed her toe last night. She's not going to be scandalized."
"She's allowed to curse," Phil says. "She's the mum."
"You're literally older than she was when she had you."
"Don't make me do that math," Phil says. "My mum doesn't want to be in another video, anyway."
"Can't hack the life? Tired of thirty something lesbians begging her to sign the adoption papers? Pleb," Dan says.
"I don't think it's the ones that want her to adopt them she's afraid of," Phil says, and shudders slightly.
They watch the video in silence for a few more seconds. Phil starts to work on his cake. It smells gingery from where Dan sits. He might go have himself a bit when he finishes the edit. He knows he can't stop now, even in pursuit of sugar. If he does he'll get distracted by a dozen different things and it'll be boxing day before they post.
"They're going to notice that," Phil says, when the moment they decided to cut out passes. "It's too noticeable."
"It could be the most seamless jumpcut in the world and they'd notice," Dan says. "So there's no point in hiding it. They can just consider it one of the new mysteries of life. Vegas video what, now it's Dan and Phil jumpcuts era."
"We should just dub over it," Phil says, giggling at his own idea. "Have you ever played gay chicken? Would you ever play it with Phil on camera?"
"Yes," Dan says, and turns to stare Phil directly in the eye.
"That's not the line, Dan!"
"So? We're evolving." Dan smirks at him. "Are you afraid?"
"Afraid to what? Play gay chicken with you?"
"Yeah," Dan says. "Come on, Phil. We give the people what they want, don't we?"
"No," Phil says. "That era is over. Now we give them what we want."
"Well, what if I want to play gay chicken with you, hmm? How about that?"
"What's the prize?" Phil asks.
Dan rolls his eyes. "Always a prize with this one. Fine, it's - your cake."
Phil reaches a hand out to shield his cake. "But that's mine!"
"So win and you keep it."
"Fine," Phil says, and turns to stare at Dan. They both lean in and in, trying not to break.
Then Phil surges forward and smacks a kiss right on Dan's mouth. "I win."
"What?" Dan squawks. "How is that you winning?"
"It just is." Phil shoves what's left of his cake in his mouth. Through the mouthful he says, "Mine now."
Dan licks his lips, tasting the remnants of a stolen victory. "You are a dirty little cheater and I'm telling your mum."
Phil does not have the decency to look ashamed.
Dan hits play on the video again. They make it through to the end this time in silence.
When it's finished Phil says, "We were so young."
"The stupidity of youth," Dan says. He's distracted by all the sore spots of that age that haven't entirely healed over, even if he's had enough therapy to think he's come pretty far.
"We were sweet. When you remember that, don't you just ever think, we were sweet? With each other, I mean."
"Yeah," Dan admits. "I mean, no, I don't think about it like that, but you're right. That was like - I dunno. I remember feeling so adult because I had a boyfriend and we were like, taking holidays together, and then you had your own flat, and it felt all serious and looking back we didn't even know what we were doing. We failed upwards, at least."
Phil frowns the smallest bit. "We didn't fail, though. Don't do that thing you always do. We were young and we didn't know as much as we thought, but those two guys got us here, didn't they? So they were doing something right."
Dan could argue that it was luck or random chance. But he looks at his image on the screen, frozen in time at eighteen years old. That guy wouldn't believe where he is now, but probably would have no problem comprehending who he's with. That guy was already convinced Phil was his savior and soulmate all in one. Fifteen years? Drop in the bucket, if you asked him. That guy didn't know anything for sure in life except that he loved Phil Lester and would be with him forever.
The savior complex fell away with time. They've had fights and struggles and times the thread wore so thin it almost broke, but Dan has gone through phases of less conviction but he thinks it might have been that kid's resilience that kept him from bolting. So maybe in one way, at least, his younger self was smarter.
"Hey," Dan says, and waits until Phil turns to him. "I love you."
Phil looks surprised by the timing of the comment, and maybe a little confused, but he replies, "Love you, too," with practiced ease. "What was that for?"
Dan shrugs. "NordVPN paid me to."
Phil laughs. "Daddy."
Dan shoves the laptop at him. "Your turn for the edit."
"Hey, where are you going?" Phil whines.
Dan grabs Phil's abandoned plate and says, "To get some of your mum's cake."