Finding the Phandom: A Dan and Phil AU

Chapter 3

Phil was shocked. He had seen an overwhelming response to his most recent video. So many comments and @replies on Twitter. Dan's name and tag coming up more times than he could begin to count. danisnotonfire is becoming a common name on his feed, and Phil had never even seen one of his videos. He was most surprised to see the sheer number of people demanding Phil watch Dan's newest video, uploaded late last night, this morning technically.

Phil tells himself he will watch the video later. But for now, he had just woken up. He hadn't even gotten out of bed or put in his contacts yet. He stretched his extremely tall frame and rolled his way out of bed, haphazardly throwing his duvet back onto his bed, not bothering to make it look neat, since he wasn't planning on filming any new videos today. He grabs a pair of black skinny jeans, a white t-shirt, and a bright green button up, and heads to the bathroom. He showers quickly, not wanting to dawdle in the bathroom since it was so small the humidity made it unbearable after he gets out of the shower, and the hot water doesn't last that long anyways.

After his shower, he blow drys his ebony hair and straightens out a kink or two. He puts in his contacts and places his glasses in their case, ensuring they would be there when he was getting ready for bed that night. Lastly, he brushes his teeth and gargles some mouthwash before he sets out to start his day. He was having Tesco delivered this morning so he has to wait for them to come by, and then he planned to go out. He wasn't sure where exactly, but he wanted to leave his tiny flat for a little while today.

He debated texting Chris and PJ to see if either of them wanted to hang out for the day, but decided against it. Chris and PJ weren't on the best of terms as of late and when they fell out with each other, Phil got lost in the shuffle. He wasn't sure why, but neither one really went out of their way to see Phil anymore. Phil thinks it may be because they all had a lot of memories together, that being around Phil tended to dredge up old feelings that they didn't want to feel.

So Phil decided he would take a walk. Maybe go to Starbucks. Or that Bubble Tea place he has heard a lot about. He would just kind of see where the day took him. Tesco was supposed to arrive around 11:30, and it was currently only 10:45. So he had about 45 minutes to waste before he could go out. So he decided to see what all the fuss was about on social media. He opens up his Twitter and sees hundreds of @replies telling him to watch Dan's video. So he decides he will.

Phil opens up his YouTube app on his phone, and types in 'danisnotonfire' into the search bar. Dan Howell's channel came up immediately, his straight brown hair and brown eyes greeting him with a sad smirk. He clicks on the channel and is instantly drawn by his subscriber count, he has 6.3 million subscribers. Phil had a small pang of jealousy in his chest, but brushes it off. He knows that if Dan has that many subscribers then he has earned them.

Phil's thumb flicks to the About page on this channel, reading his description of himself. "hello i'm dan and i make videos about how awkward i am and people laugh at me" There was zero capitalization and punctuation in the description. He chuckles as he sees that Dan calls his channel the "INTERNET SUPPORT GROUP", which was the only thing on the whole page that was capitalized. It appears this is a common trend with Dan, if he can tell anything from his community tab. In all of his thumbnails Dan looks so sad. Maybe it's just his resting face? Like resting bitch face, but with sadness?

Phil goes to Dan's video page and sees the thumbnail and title. Phil's own face is included in the thumbnail, and the video is titled "FOLLOWING A TREND: Dan takes quizzes about himself." Phil didn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't this.He wasn't expecting Dan Howell to, not only see his video, but also like it so much that he copied the idea behind it. Phil looks at the picture of the brown hair, brown eyed boy and is shocked by a feeling in his chest, unlike any feeling he has felt in a long time. He pushes the feeling away, sure that it was nothing, and clicks play.