Work Text:
“Fuck you, fuck your mother, fuck your entire bloodline! I hope it fucking chokes on Tiger Tony’s dick! I hope you’re the last in a long dynasty of Princess Peaches and you’re bringing shame and dishonor over your entire name by dying with large furry balls on your face, you fucking–”
Dan gets hit by yet another red koopa, swerves off the road, spins, and finds himself in last place as Baby Bowser overtakes him. There’s a tense silence falling over the room.
“So, thanks for participating in today’s stream,” he says, just a tad too cheerful to be genuine. “Hope you had a great time! Cutting it short today because otherwise I will tear my own hair out and feed it to Baby Bowser until he fucking pukes!”
If he yelled any part of this statement, well – his neighbours are used to it. Probably.
He glances at his Twitch chat, which is a mix of “nooos” and people laughing at him. In the middle of a spam of mocking Twitch emotes is that guy again – Snowdude. Dan knows that whatever he’s about to read is going to snap the last remaining thread holding his sanity together like a twig, but he can’t stop himself from doing it anyway. Maybe it’s the masochist living inside of him, but all Dan can focus on right now is white hot glaring rage, and feeding into it is good. It’s hungry.
Through gritted teeth, Dan reads his message out loud.
Snowdude: wait, I’m confused – how is it baby bowser’s fault that you took the curve so badly?
One day, Dan will ban him. He’s not sure why he hasn’t yet. It’s like Snowdude only exists to enrage him.
Then again, he does know why – there’s compilations all over Tiktok after all, of Dan reacting to him from years of chat interactions between them. People think it’s hilarious.
Yes. He’s laughing so hard right now. On the inside.
“I assume you’d have taken the curve better, wouldn’t you?” he sneers.
Snowdude: I mean… probably not? That’s why I’m not a gaming steamer though lol
“That’s why I’m not a gaming streamer,” Dan mimics him with exaggerated tone, his heart beating searing hot in his chest. “Maybe it’s also because you’re a fucking pain in the ass and no one would subscribe to your know-it-all fuckery,” he adds in his normal voice.
Well. Maybe a little louder than his normal voice. Whatever. His neighbours are definitely used to this.
Snowdude: aw I know I’d at least have one viewer <3
Snowdude: after all you’re my biggest fan
Dan suppresses the urge to throw something through his monitor. Preferably Snowdude’s head.
Meanwhile, his chat is giggling like fucking school children.
Dslice5evah: omfg
HowellingHowl: loooool clocked him
WereAllDespawning: snowdude trash no1 <3
DanniLeetShowFeet: he can’t be snowdude trash no1 when he’s already AmazingPhil trash no tho
Nope, nope-di-nope. There’s only so much Dan can take today before losing the frayed, shattered remains of his patience, and teasing about his apparently painfully obvious crush on Phil is not on that list.
Taking a deep breath, Dan decides to bring this stream back on the road.
Quite literally, at that.
“Alright, one more round against the community,” he says, and Dan swears he can see his own eyes glitter in the camera feed as a plan forms in his head. “Snowdude, since you’ve got such a big mouth, why don’t you check your DMs? We can make a match out of it.”
And you’re going to lose, Dan doesn’t add, keeping his smile sickeningly sweet.
Snowdude: lol
Snowdude: I mean, if your ego is that fragile :) sure!
“My ego is just fine, I’m just curious about your skills, since you seem so well versed in Mario Kart.”
Dan is still giving it everything he’s got just to keep his voice calm and even. The chat however is erupting in giggles and teasing, so he’s pretty sure he’s doing a miserable job at it. Great. Fantastic. Whatever. Once he wiped the course with Snowdude’s remains, he’ll be the one who laughs loudest.
Snowdude: Give me a second, gotta charge my switch, it’s been a while
“Aw, it’s been a while, you hear that guys? He’s already preparing his excuses.”
Dan sends him the DM with the code and then does a couple laps to bridge the time. If he knows anything, it’s that the Switch takes hella long to start once you’ve let it run out of juice, so he can’t even blame the guy.
Of course, he’s going a bit overtime now, but whatever. Fuck it. He needs Snowdude crushed and on his knees before him, begging for–
Dan blinks. In his momentary distraction, he’s made the oldest mistake in the book and driven over a banana peel. What the fuck.
He clears his throat.
“No one saw that.”
Chat definitely saw that, judging by their reaction, but Dan tries not to pay them any mind, gritting his teeth. It doesn’t matter. What matters is his performance against Snowdude, and that will be immaculate.
Two rounds and quite devastating losses later, Snowdude still hasn’t come back. Dan is overdrawing his stream time considerably now, he’s hungry, he’s exhausted, and he still hasn’t seen the newest AmazingPhil video. He’s starting to get just a tiny little bit peeved.
“That whiny little bitch – spits big words and then he just doesn’t show up. Well, I guess that’s it for Snowdude, that pathetic loser will never show his face here again, mark my words. What an absolute embarrassment!”
Just moderately peeved, really.
“Well, I guess that’s the anticlimactic ending to this stream – if you’re disappointed, please, by all means, blame Snowdude. I wanted to give you the showdown of a lifetime.”
He waves at the camera with cheer – because after all, Dan is only considerably peeved – and turns off the stream.
Fuck that dude.
He watches the new AmazingPhil video over angry cornflakes. It’s just him, a bowl of shreddies that get shovelled in so aggressively, the milk hasn’t even begun softening them yet, and Phil cheerfully talking about his life in the background of the insistent “crunch crunch crunch” of Dan’s chews.
God, he’s so pretty. It’s genuinely not fair. Dan would do anything to have those blue eyes on him and him only, just once in his life, just for five minutes, just– God. A while ago, Phil has given up on dying his hair black, and given up on the quiff he’d been sporting for a while, and while Dan has fallen head over heels back in 2009, when he’d first discovered Phil and his emo hair, he still thinks this is maybe his favorite Phil look.
He’s got messy brown hair hanging in his face, perfectly mirroring the level of chaos this man constantly surrounds himself with while making his eyes seem even bigger. He’s got a smile that makes Dan’s heart flutter. He’s absent-mindedly slowing down his chewing, just staring at the screen as Phil stares back at him, unblinkingly and beautiful. Those lips, wrapped around his dick could possibly cure his depression.
… God. Dan can’t even imagine it without feeling like he might explode.
(And yet, he imagines it quite regularly.)
Phil is doing another Q&A and Dan has sent in so many damn questions, but he yet again didn’t get picked. However, at the very end of the video, Phil giggles at a question that is basically just the same one as Dan had sent in.
“Oh, Snowdude, that’s such a good one,” he grins, and Dan swears he feels his heart sink all the way down to his ass. What the fuck? Did he just say–
“To answer your question, Snowdude, I think it’d be a pretty even match. I mean, honestly, Buffy against Cloud is… it’s tough. They’re both strong, and fast, but Cloud does have the Buster sword so… hmmm…” He taps his lips, clearly thinking about it deeply. “I think maybe they’d simply team up to take down the baddies,” Phil smiles, clearly proud of himself. “Why would they fight to begin with? I bet they’d get along!”
What the fuck? What are the odds of someone – no not someone, Snowdude – asking the exact same question he did? Did that fucker steal his question? His perfectly picked question to show that he understood and knew Phil’s interests? That fucking–
“Thank you so much for the very thoughtful question, Snowdude!”
Dan feels something inside his stomach turn. Maybe the shreddies were a mistake, actually.
Phil ends the video with his usual cute outro-spiel, and only the wideness of his smile and the sound of his little laugh are what’s keeping Dan from smashing in his laptop screen.
What the fuck?
“So you’re mad because… some guy made fun of you in chat for losing in Mario Kart?” Louise asks, her face all scrunched up from trying to follow the story that Dan told with absolutely zero angry rambling involved. For sure. “Doesn’t your whole chat kind of do that, though? I’ve seen some of your streams, you know?”
“It’s different when he does it!”
“... Why?”
Why? Why? Because he’s a little bitch, is why! Dan takes a sip from his drink to come up with socially more acceptable terminology that won’t offend his long-time friend and comes up empty-handed.
“He’s annoying.” It’s an understatement, but it’ll have to do.
“Right,” she says. “Sounds like maybe you’re a bit too focused on this Snowdude.”
“No, I’m not.” Is he? No, he’s not. He’s just really that annoying. “He even stole my question for Phil!”
Louise stares at him. Whoops.
“Phil?” she asks. “AmazingPhil?”
He was very happy when Louise rang him up to catch up with him. They’re both very busy, him with streaming and her with her family, so they don’t see each other often anymore, but every time they do, it’s like no time has passed at all. He appreciates things like these, her remembering the important details about his life.
“You’re still fanboying after Phil?”
He appreciates it most of the time.
“Your interests don’t just go away when you turn thirty,” he says defensively, not holding her gaze and instead staring down at his drink.
“Uh-huh,” she makes. “Not what I mean, and you know it. You’re a grown man with a respectable amount of subscribers – just message him already.”
“I do! I did! I sent him questions for his Q&A–”
“That is not what I mean,” Louise says again.
“- and Snowdude just stole mine! And got all the credit for it!”
“Not again– You know what, Dan? Forget Phil. Message Snowman instead! You’re clearly into him!”
Quietly, with his eyes still pinned to his drink, one hand lazily swirling around his straw, Dan says “Snowdude”.
Louise just stares at him a little too knowingly. Girl, whatever.
The new Poppy Playtime episode is a nightmare and Dan would very much like to be off this train. Why did he ever let himself be talked into playing this? Huggy was bad enough but this fucking spider making him jump through hoops while giving him weirdly erotic, and emotionally confusing speeches? He’s had enough, thank you very much.
Still, he’s determined to finish the rest of this episode in one sitting today, so that he has to never, ever look at it again. He can’t be far from the finish line now, he’s done so many of the fucking mini games ‘Mommy Longleg’ has demanded from him, now he just has to–
His phone vibrates.
Dan feels an actual bead of sweat form on his forehead as he glances from the monitor to his phone, back to the game, then to the chat, back to the game, chat again.
DanIsNotAGodGamer42: omg new phil video
Snowell69: watch him end the stream in 3..2..1..
DanDude: phil is cutting his own hair?? wtf
Phil what now? Dan’s hand on his keyboard trembles. No. Surely not. No. Dan likes his hair the way it is, and quite frankly – he does not trust Phil with a pair of scissors. And cutting his own hair? What, how would that even– No. Not his hair.
Snowdude: What, who cares? Just finish the game
What the fuck is he doing here? He should be hanging his head in shame from backing out of the challenge and leaving Dan stranded with an excited chat waiting for a match that was never gonna happen. Fucking hell!
“Oh, you don’t care, do you, Snowdude?” he asks with a sneer, not even paying attention as his character miserably dies on the screen in front of him. “You’re just so above caring. Not above enough to not steal my question for Phil’s Q&A, of course, but just above enough to not care about his hair? How cool you are, how edgy! Anyway– Guys. I was just thinking– I’m a little peckish. Maybe it’s a good time to end the stream for today.”
Snowell69: called it lmao
AmazingDan: omg it just got personal– Snowdude did WHAT?
WereAllDebuffed: not Dan whining about not making it into the Q&A, I am crying
HowellingHowl: one of us one of us one of us
PhillyNotOnFire: one of you maybe, I made it into the video
Snowdude: me too :)
Dan shuts off the stream without another word. He’s pretty sure if he opened his mouth now, Twitch would finally give him that perma ban he lives in constant fear of.
Dan sits down with the new video and watches with abject horror as Phil cuts his own hair – if you can call it that. It’s really more of a horrifying supercut of Phil shaving off random bits of hair that seem pretty essential to his general hair structure, until he has afflicted himself to a couple horrible fades that are way too short, some sort of accidental mushroom cut right above his ears, and some spots on the back of his head that look like some animal took a big bite out of his head.
Dan never wanted anything more than to run his hands through those strands of hair that look so soft, and so, so butchered, and save them. He’s not sure how he would do that, considering the absolute trainwreck that Phil has created, but – God. He wants. Dan wants and wants and wants.
Maybe Louise has a point – it’s crazy, isn’t it, how many years he’s spent yearning for something he can’t have, instead of moving his life forward. But it’s hard. He likes the guy. Has always felt like Phil would like him too, if only he had one damn chance. He’s creative and funny – so fucking funny – and smart (even though he makes quite questionable life choices) and beautiful, and it’s killing Dan slowly.
Even now with the world’s worst haircut, Dan feels himself drawn to this goofball of a man. What the hell is he supposed to do? Find himself a real life man and constantly compare him to what he actually wants? That doesn’t seem fair.
He hears Louise in his mind again, biting his lip as he stares at the frozen end screen of the video he just watched.
“Forget Phil. Message Snowdude instead! You’re clearly into him!”
He’s not, though. Sure, if he was, Snowdude would be a lot more accessible to him and all that but– that guy is just a pain in his ass.
Snowdude is there for Dan’s next Mario Kart stream.
Snowdude: I was gonna come back last time but you had already gone off??
Snowdude: I figured you were just scared of losing :)
He’s so fucking full of shit.
“I waited for three extra rounds,” Dan says through gritted teeth.
Snowdude: I saw! And you lost all of them :( Lost all your courage too, did ya?
“I did not lose my courage!” Dan spits. “In fact, I’ll beat you right fucking now. Come on, hop online, or are you gonna wuss out again? What excuse is it this time, huh?”
Snowdude: oh okay, yey! send me the code then!
Yey?! What does he mean by that? Does he not realise Dan is about to wipe the fucking race track with his fucking Santa Sleigh?
He sends Snowdude a new code, glaring at the one-sided message thread. He’s not holding his breath for that fucking coward to join the stream this time, but if he is… oh, he’s going to get what’s coming for him. Dan is a pro. He’s played more Mario Kart in his life than any healthy person should, really. He will win.
Snowdude does actually join the next game he starts, and he’s genuinely ridiculous. He’s playing a Shyguy in a fucking cloud mobile. It’s such a horrendous choice for the rainbow race track Dan has chosen, that he can’t help but laugh out loud.
“Oh God, you’re going down mate,” he tells him right before the countdown. “There’s absolutely no way you’re gonna beat me in the fucking cloud mobile. Have you ever even played this game before?”
He starts his motor right in the sweet spot and speeds ahead of most of the cars, his eyes solely focused on the screen, ignoring chat, ignoring everything else. He has to give Snowdude some credit – he’s keeping up. He’s not far behind Dan, and Dan feels himself growing nervous because he’s painfully aware that a koopa shell could hit him at any given time.
“Come on,” he mutters to the screen. “Give me something to protect myself here.”
He gets hit.
It’s not even Snowdude that does it, he doesn’t think – the damn red shell had come from further to the right, but whoever threw it didn’t even overtake him, no. Snowdude did.
“You’ve got to keep in mind,” he tells his chat with a strained voice, “that I am streaming this – so he can really see what I am up to at any given time, it’s a huge advantage. Not that it’ll get him anywhere!”
Dan rolls his eyes when he sees chat laughing at him and works on his recovery, following behind as fast as he can, taking every possible curve as narrow as humanly possible. He gets three green shells, uses one of them for protection, and then works on lining himself up perfectly to hit Snowdude with the remaining two. Nothing’s yet lost. In fact, he can see the fucking ridiculous cloud mobile come closer and closer with each passing second.
His phone vibrates. Dan glances at it from the corner of his eye and sees a tiny little pop-up telling him that Phil posted something on instagram. Instagram. Shit, if it’s a story, he’s going to want to go in there quickly.
Keeping one thumb on the joystick and the side of his hand pressed down on the acceleration button, Dan frantically reaches for his phone and taps on the notification. Whatever, it’s a straight patch of track right now, and Snowdude is continuously losing momentum. He only has to take one glance at the photo and–
Holy fucking shit. Holy fucking– what?? What?!
It’s Phil, and he’s blond. Blond!! He’s blond, with that butchered hair cut saved and looking fucking great now, actually, standing with a phone in his hand, chin high, looking smouldering hot. Dan completely loses track of everything he’s been doing, his controller completely forgotten as he takes his phone into both hands, staring.
On the screen, the race ends with him in fourth place, while Snowdude makes it in first.
SnowdudeTrashNo1: oh no he’s gonna crash out
AmazingDan: phil came in clutch with that selfie omggggg
WereAllDespawning: tbf he looks hot af
FiringDans: does anyone know what we do now???
DannySnotOnFire: he always looks good
DannySnotOnFire: nvm just saw the photo omggggg???
HowellingHowl: is Dan breathing can someone check?
YouWillGetThroughThisStream: he hasn’t said anything in like. two minutes.
Snowdude: I mean, it doesn’t even look that good?
SnowDanny: dude don’t say that here, they’re all nuts for that Phil guy
Dan blinks.
“A-anyway,” he says, finally regaining back any semblance of consciousness, even if it feels shaky, like Bambi on freshly born legs. “Uh, I– I guess, I lost. I just– I’m just gonna. Uhm. I just got a very important message from– someone in my family–”
Dslice5evah: Phil
HowellingHowl: Phil
WereAllDebuffed: definitely Phil
AmazingDan: we know you saw the selfie
PhillyNotOnFire: it’s okay we’re all thirsty af too
Snowdude: I don’t get it
Dan stares at his screen, where the scores still show his latest loss against Snowdude. He stares at his last two chat messages. He hears Louise’s voice in his head again, taunting him, and something inside of him snaps.
He bans him with a single click, smiles at the camera, and ends the stream.
Fuck that dude.
Dan gets up, ready to take this show to the sofa, feels his entire world spinning and a familiar feeling of lightheadedness as his blood pressure crashes, and falls to the ground ass-first.
Yup. That just about checks out.
“How’s it going with Snowguy?” Louise asks him over the phone.
“Snowdude! And I banned him from my chat.”
“No, you didn’t! Why!”
“He said Phil’s new haircut didn’t look good.”
There’s a long pause. Dan can practically hear the judgement oozing from her through the line. Finally, she says, “Dan.”
“Have you seen him?” Dan asks defensively, his voice immediately getting louder. “I swear I almost passed out! When I tried getting up after the stream, I crashed back down on my ass! The phlond is too good!”
“The what?”
“Oh, yeah, we add a -ph to everything because he’s Phil– Don’t ask. Really.”
“I wasn’t gonna,” Louise responds dryly.
She’s lucky, really, that he doesn’t have a lot of friends. He’s banned people on Twitch for less. Evidently.
“I think you’re making a mistake,” she finally sighs. “You and Snowboy have something going on here, and you’re throwing it away because you’re in some weird parasocial fanboy relationship with someone who doesn’t know you exist.”
“Phil knows I exist!” Dan insists. “He answered a tweet of mine once!”
“Wow,” Louise replies dryly. “I didn’t know. You didn’t put it in your Twitter bio.”
Dan opens his mouth to tell her that he did, indeed, do that, but then remembers she doesn’t know about his undercover AmazingPhil fan account.
… Maybe for the best.
The next morning, Dan sees a Twitch notification stark against the contrast of his new phone background (phlond Phil). It’s a message from Snowdude.
Dan glares at the notification for a solid minute, then opens it.
Snowdude: Hey, I couldn’t help but notice that you banned me? Bit much just for losing a round in Mario Kart, isn’t it? Can you please unban me, I promise I won’t make fun of you anymore if that’s what you want, but I’d miss your streams :(
Dan squints at the message. What the fuck? The audacity of this dude to now act all buddy buddy and pretend like he’s actually enjoying Dan’s streams rather than spending them trolling him day for day.
DanIsNotOnTwitch: dude, I banned you for insulting Phil in my twitch chat, not winning in Mario Kart, just how petty do you think I am?
Snowdude: you do not want me to answer that
Snowdude: also huh?? I didn’t insult Phil.
Snowdude: like. I really didn’t.
DanIsNotOnTwitch: you said his hair doesn’t look that good?
Snowdude: … how is that an insult, I just meant-
Snowdude: I mean everyone was losing their minds, it was just a haircut, no?
Snowdude: Not like he invented blond hair
DanIsNotOnTwitch: you don’t get it!!! it’s a cultural shift!! he was the emo icon in the early 2000’s and now he’s had such a glow up and he looks great!!!!
DanIsNotonTwitch: you wouldn’t understand it
Snowdude: I wouldn’t understand it?!
Snowdude: … fine but that’s not a crime, right? I just didn’t want you to end the stream. So can I please get unbanned?
DanIsNotOnTwitch: ….
DanIsNotOnTwitch: ugh whatever, I guess my viewers like you, so fine.
DanIsNotOnTwitch: but if I see you lose one negative word about Phil again, you’re perma banned
Snowdude: … okay?
DanIsNotOnTwitch: We don’t play about AmazingPhil on this channel!
Snowdude: I mean, I think he’s alright, I don’t hate him or anything!!!
DanIsNotOnTwitch: good
Snowdude: You know. I thought your viewers were mostly joking, but you really are a bit insane about Phil, huh?
DanIsNotOnTwitch: … No idea what you’re talking about
DanIsNotOnTwitch: if anything, I’m the appropriate amount of hyped about Phil! He basically invented the YouTube culture we have today, he significantly shaped the content we have today, and he’s so funny and sweet and tries to fill a very fucked up world with joy and whimsy, so actually, you’re the one who’s crazy for not getting it!
Snowdude: Right. Okay.
Snowdude: I didn’t know you were such a fan, that’s kind of cute
DanIsNotOnTwitch: your mum is cute
Snowdude: I’ll let her know you said that
DanIsNotOnTwitch: pls don’t
Dan unbans the guy – for now – and thinks that’s the whole thing over with, but as the days tick by, somehow, the messages between them never quite stop. Dan is beginning to think that maybe he was wrong about Snowdude, because when they talk in private, he seems genuinely quite alright. Fun, even.
Snowdude: So, what’s your favorite AmazingPhil video then?
DanIsNotOnTwitch: that’s like asking me what my favorite game is, it changes weekly, there’s recency bias, there’s completely different genres of AmazingPhil video because he branches out quite a lot – do you want to know about his experimental videos, the creative writing videos with a plot, the ones where you pick your own ending, or the gaming ones, or the ones that came a bit later, where he just talks about his day or the ones where he started building on the parasocial expectations people have of him and spill the beans about his private life a little with silly party games?
Snowdude: uhh
Snowdude: Okay. Uhm. Wow.
Snowdude: I guess? I was wondering. If you had to pick one video to watch right now, which one would it be?
DanIsNotOnTwitch: oh right
DanIsNotOnTwitch: Space Adventure
Snowdude: what you haven’t liked a video since 2009??
DanIsNotOnTwitch: OF COURSE I HAVE!!
DanIsNotOnTwitch: that’s why I fucking asked you for the fucking genre you pretentious bitch!! they’re all very different and they each have great videos!! But you asked for my comfort video and that’s that!! Fuck you!
Maybe not that alright, actually.
… Hold up.
DanIsNotOnTwitch: hey you knew what year that video was from pretty quickly actually
Snowdude: :)
Dan remembers, all of a sudden, that Snowdude had made it into the last Q&A video. Stolen question or not, if he even bothered to make it, he must be a fan. Weird that he wouldn’t just say that to get unbanned, weird that he was in the chat flaming Phil but… hm.
So, he’s not just Mario Kart competition then, he’s also after Dan’s title of number 1 AmazingPhil trash.
He stands no chance, of course. But it is oddly endearing. He supposes maybe he had it right all along – before he had it wrong all along – and maybe… maybe this Snowdude guy isn’t all that bad.
The feeling lasts for a couple days of messaging back and forth, and then Dan streams Slenderman.
It’s a silly Halloween tradition that he likes, and chat has been excited for it for a while. They’re mostly thrilled to watch him fail and rage and lose his fucking shit (and are waiting on the edges of their seats for Dan to accidentally fall off his), but also there’s this thing he does every spooky season that has him give out a certain amount of random gift subs whenever he dies in a horror game that has everyone scrambling for his downfall.
Which is fair enough, he supposes. Eat the rich, or whatever. (Actually, he’s not that rich. He’s got a reasonable amount of subscribers and can actually cover rent, but he’s no AmazingPhil, let’s be for fucking real).
So, that’s how Dan ends up in a stream almost shitting his pants, with his entire chat rooting against him, and somehow – somehow – after a couple days of chatting, he’s got it in his head that of all people, Snowdude is the one to trust.
Snowdude: I think I saw a page over there by the tree
Snowdude: no the other one
Snowdude: behind the big root over there
Dan turns and turns his character until he sees what Snowdude is talking about, a large oak (or something like that – Slenderman graphics aren’t exactly detailed) that he just passed by. He takes a tentative breath and slowly makes his way over there, the same direction he just came from. Suddenly, he hears his character’s heartbeat wildly in his headset, and his vision tunnels down in panic immediately. Dan runs ahead, and walks straight into Slenderman, as he pops up behind the tree, killing him instantly.
Dan closes his eyes, and instead of shouting, punishes the universe (okay, mostly his chat) with absolute silence.
… And then he shouts anyway.
“You fucking cunt did that on purpose! I was only missing two pages! Now I have to do all of it again just because you thought it would be funny to lead me straight to my death, you absolute fucking– I hope you have a fucking snowboard accident and land head-first in the snow like a reverse ostrich and then get frozen solid and used as a coatrag in the middle of the fucking slope, you absolute mindfuck of a person!”
Snowdude: why would anyone want to hang their coat up in the middle of a snowy slope?
“I’m calling you fucking pointless, you idiot!”
SnowflakeDan: awww they love each other so much <3
AmazingDan: top 10 anime betrayals
DannyLeetShowFeet: GIFT SUBS GIFT SUBS GIFT SUBS
LestieBestie: enemies to lovers frfr
DanIsStillNotPlayingDarkSouls: GIFT SUBS GIFT SUBS GIFT SUBS
Snowdude: It’s really not my fault that you’re blind…
DannyDorko: I hope I get one
Dan grits his teeth and bites his tongue and gives his chat what they’re clamoring for – whatever. He’s lost, but at least they all are happy about the gift subs. He actually usually really doesn’t mind doing this.
Today, however, RNG is a bit of a bitch.
Snowdude: oh nice, got one! Thanks!
Dslice5evah: lol
Snowell69: lol
HowellingHowl: lol
SnowflakeDan: lol
He’s going to kill everyone in this room. Which is really just himself. Good fucking riddance.
Phil finds the most random shit – there’s a horror game that responds to your blinks, making the character blink in perfect sync with you. It’s fun, it’s a cool concept and genuinely creepy – Dan can tell from the way Phil’s shoulders tense and his voice gets thinner and thinner with ongoing commentary, but it also might just kill him. Because mixed with the urge to reach out and protect him, he’s also stuck watching Phil’s wide, blue-eyed stare. It’s usually doing things to his heart under normal conditions but now that it’s front and center of the video and Phil finds himself under obligation to blink as little as possible, it’s like Dan’s heart is being pierced.
He’s so pretty. Dan will just die. He will just die and come back as a speck of dust under Phil’s feet, and he’s gonna thank the universe for the opportunity.
After the video is done, he rewatches it. And again, and again, until he’s seen it four times. Only then does he grab his phone and text Louise.
Dan: help
Dan: he’s trying to kill me
He sends her an array of screenshots he collected from Tumblr, a beautiful yet deadly best of today’s Phil cam and Louise responds with several eye rolls emojis and a single, solitary “Just message him already, jesus christ”.
Right.
Like it’s that easy.
He doesn’t message Phil – of course not, like that would ever work – but he writes him a little comment.
DanIsNotOnFire: Love that game, that seems so interesting. :3 You did really well, which doesn’t surprise me, do you ever blink?? Anyway– gave all of us a chance to admire your beautiful eyes. :3 I swear you could go swimming in those eyes…
Is it too much? Probably. But it’s not like Phil will ever even see it.
Snowdude: did you like the new video? :)
DanIsNotOnTwitch: …I’m not talking to you
Snowdude: Aw come on, it was an accident. I didn’t know Slendy would be there!
DanIsNotOnTwitch: I watched the vod back, you did know, and there was no page
Snowdude: … okay, but I got a gift sub out of it, so can you blame me
Snowdude: no more ads for me :)
DanIsNotOnTwitch: you deserve nothing but ads
Snowdude: But did you like the video :]
DanIsNotOnTwitch: obviously I did
Snowdude: you should play the game!! I think that could be fun!!
Huh.
Yeah, actually – this might be one of the exceedingly rare moments where Snowdude kind of has a point.
“So, I’ve seen this really cool game on another channel and I thought we’d give it a try,” he announces brightly to his chat the next time he streams.
DannyLeetShowFeet: “””Another channel”””
DannyDorko: phil
AmazingDan: PHIL
WeHaveAnthonyPadillaAtHome: phil
LestieBestie: pHIL
NotMoLester: Phil
“Oh, did Phil play it too?” asks Dan, and he knows he’s not convincing anyone, but hey, whatever. “I’ve had no idea. Anyway– lets get day three of spooky season on the road, right?”
He sets the whole thing up, which thankfully isn’t too complex, and takes a deep breath.
Horror games are already stressful under normal circumstances, even though Dan would never admit to his audience that he is, indeed, a huge softie, so right now, as he forces himself not to blink and tries to navigate the cramped, run-down aisles haunted by some horrible monster of sorts, he’s not too sure why he’s doing this to himself yet again.
It always ends the same way – with Dan freaked out, his heart racing and his hands sweaty, the chat showered in gift subs, and once in a while he’ll land with his ass on the floor because he’s literally jumping out of his chair.
“Not today,” he tells chat. “Today my ass is firmly planted onto the chair. No slippery business whatsoever. I will not – I repeat, I will not – fall out of this chair.”
Dan is locked in. He keeps his eyes wide open, only chooses safe moments to blink. Once he sees something in his periphery, like a shadow rushing past him, and freezes with his eyes torn open like he’s being invaded by a Weeping Angel, but he makes it out alive. Everything goes reasonably well – and then his phone vibrates in a moment of critical need for open eyes.
It’s an automatic response. He hears the vibration and his eyes flicker towards his phone on instinct, heart rate speeding up. Phil can’t do something as drastic as going blond again in such a short time frame, so it should be fine. Right? Right? Right.
He decides to ignore whatever is happening and focuses on the screen again. Everything’s not yet lost. Dan manages to save himself by hiding behind a couple of boxes, cowering and terrified. He takes a couple deep breaths, blinks as often as he can, as if trying to store relaxation for his eyes, and then steps back into the action.
Just as he hears the monster approaching from a distance, his phone vibrates again. Dan blinks, and suddenly he gets jumped by the creature and screams. His entire body flings backwards, but he stays on the chair. Little victories, he supposes. Dan leads his character away from the monster in high-speed and somehow, inexplicably, makes it to a safe room.
He picks up his phone with shaking hands and checks his notifications.
Oh that fucking–
Snowdude: do you have message notifications for Twitch messages by the way?
Snowdude: huh seems like you do
Snowdude: I hope those don’t distract you too much :)
Dan opens his mouth to say something, but he doesn’t particular want for Snowdude to know that he’s getting to him, and much less so he wants for his rabid chat to know that they’re talking privately – it’s already bad enough that several of his most active chatters have adopted shipping names for him and Snowdude (yes, he’s noticed, thanks). He doesn’t want to make it worse. They’ll act like Louise, which is already bad enough on its own – he’s not into him. He’s not. He hates his fucking guts, is what he does!
So, Dan turns off his Twitch notifications and puts his phone back down, getting back into the game. He’s still alive, he’s a little pissed off, and he’s ready to take on this bitch of a monster.
He sneaks through the rooms with new-found determination, gritting his teeth as he speaks quietly to chat and reminds them to be quiet. Just as he’s finally managed to find and collect all the necessary items to finish this stage of the game, and it’s incredibly crucial that he’s careful and quiet and keeps his fucking eyes open, the phone vibrates again. Dan feels his eyelids twitch from the effort of not flinching and blinking. And then it vibrates again. And again. And again. And a fourth time. Usually, when something like this happens in this quick succession, it’s a Phil notification, followed by all the different AmazingPhil update accounts he has on notifications, just to make sure he’s not missing anything.
Well, fuck.
Blindly, Dan stretches out one hand to grab his phone, eyes still tiredly focused on the screen, and unlocks it.
It’s Phil, alright. Dan’s eyes flicker down momentarily, and then before he’s been able to get anything done in the game, back down again for longer, staring, his mouth falling open.
It’s Phil, responding to Dan’s comment.
“What the fuck?” he whispers, completely forgetting for a moment that he’s live. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the–”
AmazingPhil: Aww, thank you! I do blink sometimes, I swear, it’s just the contact lenses… and some unfortunate habit to space out hehe :3 Your eyes aren’t bad either!
“What does he mean? Where has he seen my eyes? My profile picture? But you can barely – maybe when you zoom in? Guys, can you zoom in on a YouTube profile–”
He looks up and in that exact moment, the monster finds his character and jumps him, the sudden movement making Dan jump back in his chair, screaming like a little baby. He feels the chair topple over from the sudden weight against its back, tries to catch himself with wild fluttering arms, and then falls over backwards anyway.
Fucking hell. Every fucking year.
As he lies on the ground, contemplating his life choices, he’s still holding his phone clutched in his hands.
“Guys,” he groans from the ground, knowing right now they can’t see anything. “Where has he seen my eyes?”
He looks down at his phone, where another message from Snowdude waits in his Twitch inbox.
Snowdude: LOL he’s probably watching your streams and just watched you fall off a chair because he replied to you <3
Dan doesn’t even say anything. He types his reply as a message before finally clawing his way back up, bringing the chair with him.
DanIsNotOnTwitch: there’s a special place reserved for you for after you die, which might be very soon, and I don’t think it’ll contain a lot of snow <3
On his main monitor, he’s looking at the game over screen and on his second one, a flow of incoming messages in his chat mocking him. Because of course there is.
DanIsNotAGodGamer42: sdnjkfsd he fell off his chair again
“Technically, I stayed in the chair,” Dan points out uselessly.
AmazingDan: phil replied to him guys, I just saw it on Twitter, that’s why
PhanTruther555: omg they’re just flirting now wtf??!
PhillyNotOnFire: do u think Phil saw him fall??? lmao
Dslice5evah: immediately lost all rizz again, oh this is embarrassing
WereAllDespawning: amazingphil being like “wow I should check out this – wtf” LOL
Snowdude: Aren’t you going to respond to him?
Shit, isn’t he? He should. Fuck, what is he even going to say, though? Thank you? Where have you seen my eyes? No, seriously, where the fuck have you seen my–
Dan rubs his forehead, suddenly feeling exhausted.
“I don’t– What do I even reply, you guys?”
AmazingFireworks: omg just??? flirt back? like it’s rocket science
AmazingDan: “if u like my eyes, you should see my–”
PhillyNotOnFire: @amazingdan LOOOOOL
“Okay,” says Dan dryly. “I think I am done taking suggestions from you now, forget I asked. Forever.”
Just then does he, in the slew of all the messages rushing in, catch Snowdude’s reply.
Snowdude: just tell him you’ve streamed the game because of him and go from there?
Hm. Maybe not the worst idea, actually.
DanIsNotOnFire: they can’t be that good because I’ve started streaming that game because of you and I just died :C
There. That– that is normal communication, right? In his experience, Phil never answers the same fan twice to actually make a conversation out of it, but it’s okay, he might still see the response. A notice is a notice, right? It means Phil is mildly aware that he exists, that’s— well it’s something.
He turns back to his chat, thinking he can give this game another try, and then his phone vibrates again. Shocked, Dan stares at his camera and watches from the corner of his eyes as his chat rushes through with a speed it’s never shown before.
“He hasn’t!” he says.
But according to chat, he has.
Dan checks his notifications and gulps.
AmazingPhil: huh…? What does that have to do with your eyes?
What– that–
“What do you mean?” Dan asks the room out loud, his voice high-pitched. “It’s a game that requires– what are you not getting? Why are you not– come on, you can’t be serious! I was trying to make conversation, why are you– what?!”
DanIsNotOnFire: because it reacts to your blinking and stuff?
He doesn’t get an answer for the entirety of the stream. He’s an idiot. He’s an idiot. Phil was literally flirting with him, complimenting his eyes, and Dan went ahead and babbled about some fucking video game. Why did he even do that?
He finds another Twitch message in his inbox after the stream.
Snowdude: That’s too bad, I thought your response was great! Very thoughtful of you to steer it back to safer topics, like the game :)
Oh that’s right. Snowdude had suggested– Oh God, that fucking, manipulative cunt. Dan is actually being sabotaged.
DanIsNotOnTwitch: pray. pray to every God that you believe in. That I will never find your scrawny ass in real life because I will. Paint the snow red with your blood.
Snowdude: You have a very odd disposition to blame me for everything that goes wrong in your life :(
DanIsNotOnTwitch: BECAUSE YOU’VE BEEN A LITTLE PEST EVER SINCE YOU SLID INTO MY CHAT YEARS AGO, I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING
DanIsNotOnTwitch: I FUCKING HATE YOU
Snowdude: So why do you keep messaging me? <3
DanIsNotOnTwitch: fuck you
Snowdude: You could just block me, you know
DanIsNotOnTwitch: you’re the worst
Snowdude: You even unbanned me when I asked
DanIsNotOnTwitch: I can’t stand you
Snowdude: You keep listening to me, too. Your lack of common sense is genuinely a little astonishing
DanIsNotOnTwitch: get out of my life
Snowdude: I think you like me <3
Dan, unfortunately, is beginning to think that too. And he’s not sure what that says about him and the state of his mental health and capacities.
DanIsNotOnTwitch: I have never hated anyone more
“I can’t talk long,” Dan tells Louise when they facetime later that week. “There’s gonna be a livestream in ten minutes.”
“Let me guess,” she sighs, “Phil?”
“Well. Yes,” he shrugs.
“Have you messaged him yet?”
Dan bites his lip.
“We uhh. He… replied to one of my comments? And it kinda seemed like he was flirting with me? And then I kind of… missed the mark and didn’t flirt back? And he seemed confused and then… stopped replying.”
For a very long moment, Louise just stares at him.
“How the fuck did you not flirt back– are you crazy? You’ve been talking about no one else than this guy for over a decade. Get a grip, Howell!”
“I don’t know– I was listening to Snowdude, which was my first mistake, I guess–”
“Not Snowdude again. I take it back! You do talk about exactly one other person.”
“He’s just in my chat a lot.”
“Didn’t you ban him? A lot of people are in your chat a lot, Dan. You clearly like him.”
“I–” Dan sighs, his eyes flickering to the clock in the corner of his laptop screen and back. “I dunno. He’s annoying, but it’s weirdly fun.”
“Always said you needed someone who can give it to you as good as he gets. Maybe Snowguy is the one and you just… have to let the whole Phil thing go, you know?”
“Snowdude,” Dan corrects her instinctively. “And how dare you. Phil is– He’s amazing.”
Which, he supposes, is in the name.
Louise snorts out a laugh.
“So – message him. God.”
Dan allows himself to think about it as the stream starts, really think about it. Sliding into AmazingPhil’s DMs. Having a conversation away from prying eyes, a real one, where he feels less like an annoying fan fighting for his attention and more like… what? An equal? A fellow creator? He could use that as a bridge, he supposes. It wouldn’t even be far-fetched. He’s mentioned streaming in his reply to Phil, one that Phil had seen. It wouldn’t even come out of nowhere.
Phil’s face on the screen makes him drift comfortably back to reality. He’s chatting a little, about his day, about some new merch, about whatever the chat throws at him. Once in a while, Dan comes up with something to ask that doesn’t feel like a repeat of the ever same three questions, even though he’s reasonably sure he knows everything there is to know about Phil by heart, and he posts them in the chat, knowing damn well he doesn’t stand a chance.
Except –
“Oh, someone asked about which Cryptid I would find the most fuckable,” Phil giggles and Dan’s heart actually skips a beat. That’s him, that was him, he asked that very profound question! Holy shit!
“Thanks snowdude, that’s a great question… I suppose.” Phil is still giggling. Dan feels like he was punched in the gut.
Snowdude?!
“I suppose Mothman would be a solid choice? Or Bigfoot… mhhh, Bigfoot. You know what they say about a man’s foot.” Phil is smirking at the camera, and it immediately extinguishes all of Dan’s rage like snuffing a fire with a blanket. He’s just sitting there, dumbstruck and a little horny, and trying his little best not to picture Phil getting railed vigorously by Bigfoot. It’s not– he shouldn’t– it makes such a pretty mental picture, though. Maybe Bigfoot can have curly brown hair. And eyes that “aren’t bad” that Phil has somehow seen before.
Who knows.
God fuck. It’s childish, he’s not eighteen anymore, it’s not 2009, he’s not sitting at home, alone in his way too brown bedroom, daring to explore his sexuality for the first time while Phil flirts with the camera, but he still has the same damn effect on him. His stomach swoops, Phil’s voice is making him shiver, his face entices him with almost ethereal beauty, and Dan suddenly finds himself with a hand wrapped around his dick and his pants half-open, taking long, slow strokes.
These are the things he can’t tell anyone, certainly not Louise, but God, are they worth the overwhelming shame, because the heat is delicious, and watching Phil’s lips as he speaks, voice low and familiar is doing it for him more than he should, and within a couple thrusts into his hands, he comes, spluttering cum all over his palm.
“Snowdude could never,” he mutters like it’s a compliment to have someone jerk off to you while you’re talking about your favorite cereal.
This part, he won’t tell Louise ever, which is fortunate, because he doesn’t think he could survive another session of her pointing out that he really shouldn’t be thinking about Snowdude while beating his meat to Phil.
This is getting weird. Everything’s all weird.
(But then again, when has his life ever been normal?)
After the stream, Dan still sits there. He’s cleaned himself up and eaten some of his pizza, but he’s still staring at the screen where Phil’s chat used to be and thinks. Somehow Snowdude is beating him to all his questions, but if he… if he did message Phil like Louise keeps suggesting… Snowdude couldn’t intercept that. It’s worth a shot, right?
It’s just– urgh.
The truth is, he’s been thinking about it for a while, years actually, but the unfortunate side effect of his old profile he made as a teen being connected to all his accounts is that… well.
When he opens the direct message window on Twitter, he can still clearly see the DMs he sent to Phil back in 2009, DMs he never received any kind of response to.
And that’s fair enough, because God. He’d just freshly turned eighteen, and shot his shot so hard, it would’ve probably punctured one of Phil’s internal organs if he had actually been there to receive it. No preamble, just Dan barging in and declaring his undying love. Basically.
(Okay, not just basically.)
DanIsNotOnFire: I loved your space adventure videos, I literally followed every single path. That was one of the best things I’ve ever seen, was seriously worth the time!
DanIsNotOnFire: As for the soundtrack, I think I love you.
DanIsNotOnFire: I think I have a crush on you
So, yeah. He can just send a message to Phil, because that window had been open for him all these years ago, and it stays open once you get a foot in but– that would mean Phil can easily scroll back to see all of… this.
Urgh.
Whatever. He can give it a try, right? Chances are, Phil is never going to see anyway.
So, Dan formulates what he hopes is a much more mature and less disturbing message.
DanIsNotOnFire: Heyya Phil, sorry, I hope it’s okay that I DM you here. I know, I uhhhh, sent you some questionable messages in the past, if we could just pretend that never happened, that’d be great! I was eighteen, I swear I am normal now.
Uhm. -ish. Anyway. I do gaming streams on Twitch, and I’ve got quite a lot of subscribers now, and for a while now, I’ve been thinking about posting my VODs on YouTube for a broader audience and for rewatch purposes, but I just don’t have a whole lot of experience in editing and all that. I suppose, I was wondering if you would be willing to give me some editing tips? Since eighteen year old me had a point at least, in that I think your videos are really great, and I’d love to learn from the best haha :) <3
Anyway, that’s all!! Feel totally free to ignore me if you wanna, it’s fine, I was a weirdo to you, I get it, I get it. Also pls never again cut your hair yourself, oh my God
Right, that’s not too bad, is it? Almost makes him seem normal. He even tried really hard making it grammatically correct and all that shit. He overthinks it for a couple of minutes, then thinks “fuck it” over a glass of Rosé and hits send.
“There you go,” he mutters. “I bet Snowdude can’t– okay I really need to stop doing that.”
He lies down on his sofa, long limbs spread out and hanging off the upholstery, and tries to get some clarity in the jumbled mess inside of his mind.
He’s liked Phil all of his life, but he’s unattainable. An idol more than an achievable boyfriend goal. Snowdude is a pain in his ass, but if Dan is being honest… he kind of likes it. Being kept on his toes, having the thrill of being mercilessly teased by someone who can keep up and outplay him and laugh about his rage in the aftermath.
But he knows nothing about the guy, realistically, other than that he’s smart and somewhat, as he begrudgingly has to admit, funny. So is that a genuine perspective for him? Not at the moment, but he could try and get to know him. Maybe.
It’s at least more feasible than fucking AmazingPhil ever showing a spark of interest in–
Dan’s phone vibrating tears him out of his thoughts. It’s probably just the same fucking Uber voucher spam notification, they always send five hundred in a row when you don’t react.
Except when he unlocks his phone, his mouth dries up. Holy shit. It’s Phil.
AmazingPhil: Awww, oh my God, I can’t believe I missed little eighteen years old yous message, that would’ve probably made my entire week back then haha <3 Don’t worry about it, I really appreciate it! :’] And you probably would’ve been my type too, damn Howell… should’ve been a bit more persistent!
I’ve seen some of your streams, aren’t you the one who always fights with that Snowdude guy? He’s hilarious, I love that guy!! Isn’t it so cool that he snowboards? I think it’s really cool! I always wanted to get into a sport myself, but I think I would simply fall and die unfortunately :[
Hey, I’d love to give you some pointers!! Maybe we could meet up and you could join me for one of my videos? I’ve got one coming up that kind of requires a second person, and my friend PJ is super busy right now, and uhhhhh. You’re funny! So. If you’d like. :] You live around London, right?
Dan literally stops breathing – What the actual fuck?
Phil wants to meet him? Him? AmazingPhil? Wants him to take part in one of his videos? Phil watches his streams sometimes? He would’ve been Phil’s type? Phil knows his surname. Phil knows of him. Phil has seen his eyes before and thinks they’re not bad. Phil–
… thinks Snowdude is really cool.
“I love that guy.”
Dan is going to piss in a bottle and send it to Snowdude as a Christmas gift. Fucking hell. He hates his life.
But you know what? Whatever. What does it even matter? AmazingPhil wants to meet him.
Dan’s hands are sweating and his heart is pounding in his throat. This is weird. This is so weird. Why did Phil do this, just invite a total stranger – a very obvious fan, at that – to his house? They’re not even meeting in some public, neutral place, no, he’s straight up given him his address.
And now he’s standing here. The lawn is unkempt, the mailbox overflowing, and Dan stands on his doorsteps, trying to bring up the courage to ring the goddamn door bell, feeling like he’s not supposed to be here, like he’s intruding, like he’s dreaming and about to face a killer clown instead of Phil once his sub-consciousness catches up.
And maybe that’d be less scary, honestly.
He is just lifting his finger for the third time, still not quite able to bring himself to bridge the distance and actually press the button, when the door opens and Phil’s head peeks out, the sight startling Dan into a freeze state.
“Oh, hey!” Phil’s familiar voice rings, a wide smile on his face as he looks at Dan. “Dan! You made it, yey!”
Dan opens his mouth and closes it again, like a fish out of water. He swears he doesn’t know where to put his tongue, all of a sudden, it feels too big and spongy for his mouth, really unsuitable for formulating words.
“H-hi. I was just about to ring.”
“Oh good, I’m sure the fourth time would’ve been the charm,” Phil grins.
Dan stares. He’s mocking him. Oh God.
“I would’ve done it sooner, but I was too entranced by the state of your lawn,” he quips back, the instinct to defend the shattered remains of his image coming to him before he can fight it. “It really needs mowing.”
“Are you offering?” Phil asks, face lightening up. “That’s nice of you.”
Dan blinks.
Looks from Phil to the lawn and back.
“I mean, I suppose I– could.”
Phil looks at him with those blue eyes that make his heart skip a beat, open and gleaming, and a little smile tugging at his lips. Dan swears there is something in that gaze he can’t read, something he’s rarely seen in any of the videos, and he likes it in the way he likes to watch tiktoks of flowing lava, thick and mysterious, feels the indescribable urge to reach out and touch it and get burned.
“Why don’t you come in first?” Phil steps aside, and Dan follows him inside with weak knees.
He’s seen the inside of this house as the backdrop of a million videos, and it’s absolutely surreal to stand here in its entrance hall now. Phil leads him into the living room, offering him some Ribena which Dan is actually more than glad for, because it’ll give him something to do with his hands and something to buy himself time with when it comes to speaking.
“You know,” Phil says when they’re both sitting on his sofa with drinks. He’s got his legs pulled up and is sitting cross-legged across from Dan, wearing soft-looking joggers and two different socks, and he looks so soft and achingly familiar and unreal that something inside of Dan aches, yearns, longs to reach out and touch him, make sure he’s real and not separated from him through a screen anymore. “It really does get a little lonely, doing all these videos alone. I feel like a lot of them could profit from someone to film them with, but oh well. I’m not the most social of creatures.”
“Yeah, that– yeah,” Dan splutters. “Me neither, I– really, I’m quite shy.”
Phil raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah, I suppose it doesn’t show in my streams–”
“When you yell and rage and call people every creative insult under the sun, you mean?” Phil giggles.
“Yes, that– I still can’t believe you’ve seen that, God.” Dan actually feels himself blush as he covers his face with both hands. He can really only hope the streams Phil has seen didn’t involve his audience’s merciless teasing about his crush on the guy. Though, knowing his luck…
“I think it’s fun,” Phil assures him. “You’re fun. That’s why I want you in this video.”
“What video is that gonna be anyway? You didn’t give any details.”
Phil shrugs.
“You’re new to the channel, so I figured we’d do something fun that also allows people to get to know you. Have you seen my Sip or Spill videos?”
“I mean. Yeah,” Dan says. “Though they really just devolved into Q&As because you had no one to– oh.”
Phil nods eagerly.
“Perfect, right? I can finally play the game properly, and my viewers get an idea of who you are.” There’s something in his grin, something almost wolfish. Dan gets the impression that Phil is a lot less innocent than he likes to play for the camera. He’s ridiculously attracted to it. Given the chance, Dan would follow that impression all the way down to the darkest pits.
“Okay,” Dan finds himself saying, not even thinking about it. “Sure, alright. So we’ll– get drinks?”
Phil nods. “Yeah, I’ve got some wine, nothing too strong. I want you to make it safely back home.”
That’s sweet. Kind of. It’s just – it doesn’t sound sweet when Phil says it. When Phil says it, he makes it sound like a joke, like he doesn’t expect Dan to go home at all tonight. Which can’t be it. Surely. Can it?
… Can it?
Phil comes back with some wine and some cameras and sets them up. Dan watches, quite frankly fascinated. He’s got some camera set-up for his streams, but it’s a lot less professional than what Phil has. He hands Dan a clip-on microphone, watches him fumble around with it for a bit, and then there’s cool fingertips crawling beneath the collar of his shirt, pulling it back slightly to help him attach the microphone and– Oh God. Oh God. Can he feel Dan’s pulse throbbing against his collarbone, panicked and thrilled? Surely not. Surely he can’t. Surely life wouldn’t be this cruel (but oh, it would, his life is a fucking joke).
Dan could swear that Phil’s fingers linger a little longer than they have to after attaching the mic, but that must be his imagination. Wishful thinking, that’s all it is.
Except, when Phil catches Dan’s gaze, he winks at him once, and then pours him a glass of wine.
“Cheers,” he says, clinking his glass against Dan’s in advance, before finally standing up again to turn on the cameras. “Don’t worry too much, will you? Just be yourself. Imagine it’s just your viewers, who already know and love you, that always helps me.”
Dan nods. That’s solid advice, he supposes. He doesn’t have to pretend to be someone he’s not, play any role with Phil, because he’s already someone on the internet. If he pictures his chat, he feels more comfortable. They understand and know him at least. They might tease him endlessly, but at the end of the day, he knows they’ll always have his back.
… Maybe not Snowdude though. Urgh. Actually, maybe him most of all. Whatever.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” Dan lies. Phil seems to know, because he grins as he starts the camera and walks back to sit next to Dan, so close that their thighs are somehow touching, and starts the intro.
“Today, I have my new friend Dan with me – some of you might know him from his livestreams on DanIsNotOnTwitch – to spill some deep, deep secrets of ours.”
He grins at Dan. “I hope you come packed to the brim with them.”
“I’m not even sure I have any embarrassing life story left I haven’t already shared with the internet,” Dan responds dryly. “But I’ll give it my best for all of you.”
“We’ll play Sip or Spill! This time properly, because I finally have my trusted girlfriend Dan.” Dan lets out a snort as Phil leans into him, smiling brightly. “It says this game is perfect for us to bond over for girl’s night, isn’t that great?”
“Wouldn’t be as entertaining if we didn’t needlessly gender our games,” Dan remarks, making Phil laugh.
He might have to ingrain the sound into his brain forever. He’s heard Phil’s laugh a million times, but never because of something he said. It’s unreal. How can any of this be real?
“Okay, Dan starts.”
Oh great. Fantastic. Amazing.
“Hit me. Any– I’m ready for anything.”
He’s so not ready.
Phil pulls a spill card from the pile and immediately starts laughing.
“Shit I can’t–”
“What? What is it?”
Phil has legitimately tears shining in those damned blue eyes when he looks at Dan and tries to get the sentence out.
“Have you ever squirted?” he asks. “If yes, lol nice.”
He loses it mid-sentence and Dan can’t blame him, following suit shortly after.
“Oh my God,” he manages to bring out. “That can’t be real. How is that the first thing you drew?”
“Tell us the truth, Dan,” Phil laughs, leaning in. “Have you ever squirted?”
“Please stop saying that,” Dan whines.
“You have to tell us or sip!”
So Dan sips. And he’s never been more grateful for the familiar warmth of the alcohol settling heavily in his stomach, calming him a little even though he knows that he needs a whole lot more wine to actually get anywhere close to tipsy.
The game goes – well, the game is unhinged, but the video goes well, Dan thinks. They’re genuinely funny together. Phil is so easy to banter with, and he goes along with all his jokes, laughing and taking them further whenever they need to be taken further. They play off each other well. Dan always thought they would, if he’s being honest, one of the reasons it had sometimes almost torn him apart that he couldn’t just chat Phil up. And now here he is, on his living room sofa, starting to feel the buzz of the wine from Phil’s kitchen, and getting high off his laughter.
It’s addictive, it’s dangerous, and it’s starting to make him feel fuzzy and comfortable, way too comfortable. He’s going to start to spill, he knows. He’s going to start letting himself believe he can have this.
The questions are wild – “Tell us about a time you were dumped” leads to Phil telling a story about a girl who forgot she was dating him, and Dan feels genuinely bad for him, but also it was so long ago, and the guy is so fucking gay that it’s easy for them to dissolve into laughter.
“We kissed!” Phil says. “It just wasn’t very good because… I didn’t want to kiss a girl.”
Dan wonders if they’d have a better kiss. He likes to think they would. He’s not unattractive, he knows. And Phil said his eyes aren’t bad. That he would’ve been his type, back when. So maybe that means he’s still his type today? Maybe they could– no, for fuck’s sake– he needs to stop daydreaming. Dangerous territory. Thin ice. Behave, Howell.
“I’m that forgettable, guys,” says Phil and Dan swallows down the urge to tell him that he’s really not. That he’s spent almost fourteen years trying to forget the guy and hasn’t managed even once. That any girl or boy forgetting about Phil Lester is an idiot.
Dan then goes on and forever ruins his chances by telling Phil and the entire internet a story about how he wet a bed at a sleepover party.
He fully expects Phil to sip when he gets a question about his “go-to move in bed” and his heart almost stops when Phil actually starts talking.
“Shut up, as if you’re not taking a sip right now!” he calls out and Phil just grins and keeps on talking.
It turns out the idiot is talking about bedtime routines instead, and goes into a long ramble about opening his windows to have crisp bedsheets.
God, Dan wants to take him apart so badly.
He makes him drink for that, though.
It goes back and forth like that for a while, until they’re both buzzing, loose and giggly from all the wine they’ve drunk. At some point, they agree to do one last round. Dan answers a question about his harshest romantic rejection with a rather tragic story about his girlfriend breaking up with him via phone at a party in front of all of his peers, and Phil is sweet about it, really sweet.
And then Phil draws a card that says, “Spill a secret no one in the round knows about yet”.
“Ohhh, now it’s getting juicy,” Dan grins. “What skeletons are you hiding in your closet, Phil Lester?”
“Welllllll…” Phil says, drawing out the word. He’s got a finger on his lower lip, tapping it thoughtfully. “Less of a skeleton and more of a snowboard, really.”
What the fuck does that mean?
“Please don’t tell me you have a secret snowboard career plan,” he sighs. “We talked about this, you would fall and break your neck.”
Phil laughs. “No, not me, but my alter ego might. Look – here’s the thing.” Phil takes a deep breath, as if bracing himself, but he’s biting his lower lip with badly suppressed laughter as he looks Dan straight in the eyes and says, “I’m Snowdude.”
Dan is pretty sure he’s heard him wrong.
“No, you’re not.”
Phil lets out a little huff of laughter.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
“No you– what?” asks Dan.
“I’m Snowdude,” repeats Phil.
“But–” Dan stares at him. “Why?”
Phil shrugs. “It was fun.”
“Fun? You–” Dan has to focus, really focus, the wine clouding his thoughts a little, and think back. Snowdude, in his streams, for years, quite frankly. Actively teasing him in chat. Snowdude, who– who–
He narrows his eyes at Phil.
“You cheated! You cheated in Mario Kart! You posted that selfie to… Oh my God!”
Phil knows. Phil knows everything. Dan’s crush on him. Dan’s incessant fanboying. And he’s been there all along, making his life hell. Oh God.
Phil breaks out into loud laughter, and the sound does something funny to Dan’s heart, makes it about ten kilograms lighter and jump weird little loops inside of his chest. Not now, he thinks aggressively at his heart, because allegedly it’s supposed to be connected to his brain. We’re angry right now.
“That was so much fun, I didn’t think you’d be that easy to be honest.”
“I’m not– hey,” Dan yells. “The blond just looked really–” Dan’s jaw drops. “You’ve been– playing me all this time, what the fuck? Why?”
“It was fun,” Phil repeats with more emphasis now. “You’re very cute when you rage.”
“I don’t–” Dan stops the sentence abruptly, staring at Phil who’s smiling back. “Cute?” he finally asks, unable to stop himself.
Phil nods.
“And funny. HIlarious, really. Always made my entire day to watch you come up with the most creative insults I’ve ever heard. And you know what was really fun?” he asks, and there it is again, that gleam in his eyes that makes his grin seem almost wolfish, predatory.
“What?” asks Dan with trepidation in his tone now.
“To watch you stumble through all your anger and still do absolutely everything I tell you to do.” Suddenly, Phil has completely taken over Dan’s space. He’s leaning in so close, Dan has to lift his eyes to still be able to look into Phil’s, his eyes drawn to that ocean-blue like they’re magnetised, and there’s a thumb on his cheek that he barely even registers, soft and cool as it strokes Dan’s skin, right where he knows his dimple is.
“I haven’t–”
He has, though, is the thing, and he knows. He knows that he’s been doing it. He’s danced to Snowdude’s every tune, done exactly what he wanted him to do, fallen for every single one of his traps, and then he’s sat down, fuming and exhilarated, and jerked off to Phil’s newest video, and pretended all the while he had no idea what he was doing.
Fuck his stupid Phillie life.
Phil watches him with both eyebrows raised, grinning like a cat that got the cream.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he smirks. “Kiss me?”
So really, why stop now? Dan is confused, torn between anger and lust and pure, unadulterated wonder, and he settles somewhere in the middle. Right now, he’s got everything he ever wanted basically sitting in his lap, and he’s not an idiot, he reaches out and takes it, crashing his lips into Phil’s and pulling him in. Over a decade of dreaming of it, and now suddenly it’s right here, sweet like the wine they’ve been drinking. Phil climbs into his lap fully, rock-hard as he grinds against Dan and oh, oh God. He almost comes in his pants just from that little friction, so far gone for this man who’s jumped straight out of his gay wet dreams into his arms.
Breathless and panting they pull apart, and Dan can literally see a thread of saliva form and break between them.
“Come on,” Phil suggests softly. “I’ll show you my bedroom.”
Dan follows. With Phil, It’s all he’s ever known how to do.
“So that time I banned you from my chat because you were shittalking yourself–”
“Adorable,” Phil huffs and then groans. “Will you please stop thinking about that right now? I am literally riding you.”
“I just– I just–” But Dan loses his train of thought as Phil lets his cock slide inside himself all the way to the hilt, his teeth burying into the tender skin on Dan’s shoulder, sure to leave marks. Fair– fair enough.
“All this time,” Dan growls, “all this fucking time you’ve been toying with me. You bet your pretty, fat ass that I’m making you pay for all of it.” He’s thrusting hard into Phil, over and over again, a merciless rhythm that has his slender body trembling beneath Dan, but every sound that spills from Phil is moan after moan, begging for more.
“I just think,” Dan says, pulling away from Phil’s dick for the fourth time that night to make another important point, “I just think reading all my questions and attributing them to yourself was a little much.”
Phil pulls his mouth back onto his cock by his curls and Dan moans around him, taking him in deep, the taste of him, the heavy, magnificent weight on his tongue immediately keeping him occupied again.
“Oh my God,” Dan mutters as he kisses his way up Phil’s spent, sweaty, beautiful body, words breathed against the flushed skin he’s caressing. “You made me answer to your flirting and then pretended not to get it!”
Phil pulls him up for a proper kiss, lips pressing against the corners of Dan’s lips after he’s done, then further out to kiss his dimple.
“Do you ever stop yapping?” he asks, sounding exhausted but sated.
Dan snorts out a laugh.
“Well, Snowdude, you’ve got a lot to learn about me.”
Phil kisses him again. It’s soft and sweet and cuddly. “Did you let it all out now?”
Dan takes stock. Is he still angry? Not really. Is he still horny? Not right now, he’s never come so hard in his life. Is he still madly in love with Phil? Yup, sure sits there, in that spot in his heart where he’s always sat, painful and comforting, aching and empty, but now finally it’s like the sun is rising over snowy wasteland, melting away the cold.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “I suppose so.”
He can feel Phil’s grin grow against his skin rather than see it, and could, unfortunately, grow used to that feeling.
He will.
He does.
4 years later
“I have a video that I could’ve released instead,” Phil tells Dan more than the camera as he holds his forgotten slice of pizza, “that would’ve just completely destroyed the internet.” Dan glances at him, eyebrows furrowed, and takes a bite out of his own slice while Phil giggles.
He has no idea what he’s talking about, to be honest. They like to go into their pre-tour mukbang videos with a bit of a story to tell, secrets to spill, so to speak (which he supposes is how they started their joint YouTube career, back when their first Sip and Spill video had completely taken off), but Phil hasn’t mentioned anything about any video to him beforehand.
Leave it to his boyfriend of four years to still keep some aces up his sleeve. God. Metaphorical sleeves, Dan supposes, considering they’re both wearing matching sleeveless shirts. One of them by choice, and one of them by force thanks to Phil’s horrific skills with a pair of kitchen scissors.
“What?” asks Dan between chews.
“I have a video – Sip or Spill – of us kissing.”
Dan throws his piece of pizza down. “What?”
“We kissed, back when we first filmed the video, don’t you remember?”
Dan does. Vividly. They did a whole lot more than kissing, back then, but he hadn’t even considered that the camera was on at the time. Phil had removed that part from the video with a very precise scalpel, only left in the Snowdude revelation that they both agreed would make quite an engaging and hilarious reveal to both their fanbases and the merciless shippers in Dan’s chat.
“I had no idea you kept that,” he finally says.
“‘Course I kept it,” Phil grins. “It’s hot.”
Dan’s partner is a menace, an absolute terror of a man, and he supposes that, maybe, Louise had been right all along – it’s exactly what he needs in his life.
Louise, of course, had never been anything but smug since the day Dan revealed to her that he’s not only dating AmazingPhil, but also Snowdude, because they’re one and the same person.
He’s really trapped in a constant humiliation ritual.
Oh well.
“Show me?” he asks Phil, who giggles.
“Uh, lets end this video first, before we film a new clip that we can’t show the internet and then create and endless loop of clips that we’ll forever–”
“Okay, Jesus. Pizza first, I guess.” Dan shakes his head. “Unbelievable. How am I supposed to focus on this now?”
Phil shows him after dinner. He’s right, as he always is – it’s hot. Dan watches himself, clueless and overwhelmed, sink into Phil, go with his every whim, and it’s funny, how little they’ve changed, really.
But, nowadays he’s a lot less helpless when it comes to paying Phil back a little.
“You know, I’ve not missed the fact that you were watching my streams for years too, Mister.” He points at the screen. “Well, back then, I clearly missed the implication, but I’ve thought about it since.”
Phil laughs.
“Took you four years to scratch all your brain cells together, huh?”
“Fuck you,” Dan laughs. “It did not take me four years, you twat.”
“I told you back then. I liked you. You were funny, and pretty, and easy to rile up.” Phil grins.
“Past tense?” Dan raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah, now you’re only old and run-down,” Phil replies, and promptly gets a pillow to his face for the audacity.
Not too hard, though.
Dan loves him, is the thing.
Plus, he still needs his pretty face for their next gaming stream. They’re going to play Mario Kart. Dan deserves his rematch after the last four times, he’s lost each time because Phil has played footsies with him under the table.
Fucking rat can’t win a single Dan vs. Phil without cheating.
(That’s kind of why Dan lets him do it every single time.)