Finding the Phandom: A Dan and Phil AU

Chapter 4

Dan's phone pinged with a notification, his phone had just refreshed his subscriber count. His phone notifies him every hour if he has gained any new subscribers. He glances at his phone, he has gained five new subscribers today, but only one in the last hour. He swipes his notification and unlocks his phone, just trying to clear his notifications. Usually he doesn't look at who subscribes to him, since he has over six million subscribers. He double clicked his home button but before he swiped up, he swears he had a stroke. 

He reopens YouTube and is dumbstruck. "One new subscriber: AmazingPhil." He stares at his phone in silence, his mouth hanging open. He didn't know what he was expecting to come from his video, but he certainly wasn't expecting Phil to see it. Or to subscribe to him. Dan had to take a breath. He was incredibly happy, but also terrified. Phil was his favorite YouTuber of all time, he has been looking up to his for years, watching his videos and honestly, helping shape him into who he is today. 

Phil was the person Dan looked to when he needed an escape, and when he needed to smile or laugh. He had saved his life many times over the years, through videos, live shows, and tweets. And now he was subscribed to Dan. What was he going to do? He wanted to acknowledge it, but he didn't want to show how much it meant to him. He wanted to reach out to Phil, but he didn't want to scare him off. His head was swimming with thoughts and emotions, it was becoming too much to handle. So Dan had to let it out. 

~

Phil had fallen asleep watching YouTube last night. To be honest, Phil hadn't done much of anything yesterday. He spent all day watching Dan's videos. He started back with his oldest videos and watched in chronological order, watching Dan grow up. Watching Dan's confidence grow, his editing skills increase, his content take form, and he watched how Dan had changed. He noticed little things, as he watched years of footage right after another. Dan always wore long sleeve shirts, always wore all black, and he almost always had straight hair. There were a few exceptions to the hair thing though, as Dan had posted a few videos over the years of him with "Hobbit Hair," though those were few and far between. Phil personally really liked his Hobbit Hair, he had one very prominent curl that fell on his forehead in just the right way.

Dan was a very attractive person to Phil, there was something about his tall, slim form, and the his chestnut brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. And god help him, Phil was obsessed with Dan's dimples, as was most of Dan's audience, it seemed. Phil can feel himself becoming addicted to Dan's videos, he is becoming a huge fan who may even resort to fangirling if he doesn't figure out how to contain it. This only increased when Phil stumbled upon Dan's Tumblr tag. He started scrolling through endless screenshots of Dan. Dan smiling, Dan laughing, Dan making jokes, Dan being sarcastic. He scrolled through the Most Popular section first and remained there for a while. When he switched to the Most Recent he was blown away.

He was everywhere. Fanart of him and Dan, screenshots of his latest video, screenshots of Dan's latest video, Fanfics of him and Dan. It was everywhere. Apparently, him and Dan had a similar fanbase, which didn't surprise him too much, since he and Dan had similar interests, from what he had seen. He scrolled through the posts for a while, before finding a rather explicit drawing, and decided he had seen enough for the time being. Phil decided to turn to Twitter. He opened his Twitter to see infinite mentions. 

He scrolls through a few of the mentions, seeing so many people tagging him in miscellaneous fanart, photos of small animals, and lions. He retweets a gif of a hedgehog sleeping, then decides to check out Dan's Twitter. He types danisnotonfire into the box, and his profile comes up immediately. He has 4.9 million followers, but that isn't what causes Phil's jaw to drop.  Right next to his Twitter handle was a little grey box. "Follows you." How long has Dan been following Phil? Was that a recent development? Phil clicks the follow button. He thinks he needs a coffee.