Too Far (A Dan Howell Fanfiction)

2- Take a Chance.

"It's 8:30 Ella!" I yelled from the front hall. I was tapping my foot and checking my phone every 10 seconds or so, waiting for her to come downstairs. I could hear her closing the curtains upstairs. Our 'upstairs' is just really a lounge. No more than that. There was a railing, and you could see down into the hall from it.

"Ok, ok, ok." She jumped down the stairs, straightening her coat.

"Why are you wearing that?" It was a pleasantly warm night for London, and that coat may have been a bit much.

"I wanted to be detective-y." She pouted. She was 22, but if you only knew her from her dialogue, you would think she was as young as 12.

"Ella please, I'm not going out if you wear that tonight." I crossed my arms. It's not just that it was a coat, but it was a think polka dot one that was for snow, which had been gone for a few weeks now.

"Ok whatever." She hung it on the rack on our way out. We walked to the Starbucks which wasn't very far, and scanned around the room for a place to sit.

"What about by the window?" I pointed to the booth in the back corner. It look comfy as I was tired for no reason.

"No, we need to sit near a couple. Listen to their conversation."

"What? I thought we were going to just predict their pasts and stuff based on their actions or something."

"Nope. We're going to listen in."

"Isn't that a bit stalker-ish?" We were still standing in the middle of the café, looking around. Some eyes turned to us as we looked a bit secretive.

"Ooh." She pointed to the other side of the room. There were two guys sitting in a booth across from eachother with their laptops open. "Sit behind them." She started towards them.

"Wait. I pulled her arm back. Are you sure? They don't really look couple-y. And they're on their computers, they couldn't even be on a date."

"Trust me. I've got a feeling about this." She looked at me in the eye. She had this 'Phoebe Buffay' vibe she gave off. She always knew when something would be good or bad. She was also usually right about it. I mouthed the word 'ok' and followed her into the booth behind the two guys. I sat on the side of the booth that was touching their booth and she sat across. We tried to be quiet and pay attention to what they were saying. It wasn't loud in here, not quiet.

"So I'll send you the files?" One of them asked the other. I looked at Ella, telling her that these guys were just working on something, but she motioned me to hold on and wait. I wasn't sure what was going on yet.

"Which files?" The other replied. He sounded confused. His accent sounded northern, a bit like Ella's, but not as strong.

"Which files?" He mocked him. "The videos we just recorded, you outdated meme." I kept thinking of what kind of videos recorded, but I could only think of sex tapes, which they probably weren't working on in public. Or at all.

"Oh yea." The other laughed.

"Oh my god, Phil. I swear your attention span is this big." Ella and I looked at each other and broke into laughter when we noticed that she had said the same thing only an hour ago. We tried to keep quiet and kept listening. They said things that couples would say to each other and it was so cute. We hadn't got any specific information on them, except that they made YouTube videos. I mentally scribbled out sex tapes. Their names were Dan and Phil.

It felt weird spying on them and writing down cute things they said to each other. They didn't call each other pet names or anything that would reveal they were a couple, but wasn't it obvious? They talked about their week and told funny stories. It gave me a few ideas for my writing. After a while, Dan got a phone call and told the person on the line that they would be here around the same time tomorrow. Soon, they started packing and cleaning up their booth, walking passed us as they left. I couldn't tell who was who, only by their voices. They were both really tall, more than half a foot taller than I was. The brown haired one gave me a friendly smile as he walked passed me. He looked kind of weirded out actually, as I realized I'd been so focused on them, I was staring. I quickly smiled back and slumped down into the seat. As soon as the little bells on the door chimed when they walked through, Ella spoke up.

"We need to come back here tomorrow!" She looked excited, but when wasn't she excited at this point.

I took a little time to process what she said. "No... Are you mad?" I was against all this in the first place. "I have enough inspiration to start writing.

"But they had such adventurous stories. Don't you wan't to know more about them? How they met? Things like that." I was interested. I didn't want to show it, but I really was. I felt like I really wanted them in my life; that sounded weird. But I just couldn't let them and their story go.

"Maybe." was all I said.

"Trust me. You won't regret it." She assured me. We got home and it was almost 11. I put my backpack on the floor next to my desk and changed into some comfortable clothing. I then brushed my teeth and did all of the other things you need to do before bed. I walked back to my room and Ella was sitting on my bed with my laptop open.

"Hey, what are you doing?" I sat next to her, putting my hair up into a ponytail, my bangs falling out onto my face.

"I wanted to go through all the notes you'd taken."

"Go through it tomorrow, it's getting late.

"But you'll be thinking about it all night. Please? It's not super late." She pointed to my wall clock that read 11:18. It wasn't too late to start making up something.

"Ok names." I started, taking the laptop from her.

"Why not use 'Dan and Phil'?"

"What if they find out?"

"They don't look like the type to read fan fiction."

"I'm not writing fan fiction!" I protested. They weren't even famous enough to have it called that. Is YouTube a big thing?

"Ok, whatever. They won't find out." She once again assured me. I knew this would come to bite me back, but I was tired and didn't want to argue. We came up for possible ways they met and played around with some of their stories.

"Do you think they're married?" I asked. I didn't look at their hands. I didn't really look at them at all until they stood.

"No. They didn't give off that vibe." She spoke. Together, we wrote a beginning to the story and it was really cute. I was proud to have done it. It was realistic and that was one thing I believe that fiction wasn't.

"Should I publish it now?" the mouse hovered over the little orange button.

"No, go over it a few times and make it more interesting. It's the little details that matter."

"I think it's fine."

"Millions of books are 'fine'. Only a few live to the point of 'Amazing."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Do anything you can. You need to sell it. Oh, make sure you label it 'based off a true story'."

"But we made it up?"

"But it's based off of those people. Trust me, people will want to read it 1,000 more times than if it's fiction. Plus, your not lying. It is based on it. Trust me."

"There has been lot's of trusting in our little adventure."

"Sometimes the risk is the only thing missing from a story. Hey, maybe when you're a famous author, you can write about this!" I rolled my eyes.

I typed all she had told me and then published it around 3 AM. It was too late to get enough sleep, so we pulled an all-nighter full of coffee, writing plots and ideas. This was a really big commitment after all. Why not take a chance.