How Did We End Up Here? - A Phanfiction

Chapter Nineteen

Phil woke up to see Dan curled into a ball next to him. He looked so peaceful... Phil knew that wouldn't last today. He sighed and got out of bed carefully, bringing Anna into the living room with him. Maybe if Dan had the room to himself he'd get to sleep in a bit longer. Anna stayed asleep, and Phil plopped down on the couch, sighing as he turned on his phone.

Of course.

All of Phil's social media and messaging apps were overflowing with notifications, and the minute he opened up Twitter he saw the news articles headlined, 'FAMOUS INTERNET STAR VIOLENTLY ATTACKS FAN?', 'WELL KNOWN YOUTUBER DANIEL HOWELL ASSAULTS MINOR', 'DAN HOWELL FINALLY SNAPPED?', and many many more. He sighed, and thought about how to compose this tweet. Eventually he had it all worded out, and posted,

Hey guys, yesterday we got harassed on the St and Dan made a mistake. He feels awful and I hope you'll wait and let him apologize. Thank you

The tweet ended up exactly at character limit, and though Phil wasn't sure it was the absolute best thing he could say, he knew one of them had to say something on the sooner side. Immediately he was hit with a flood of comments, some saying things like, 'Oh my god I'm so sorry', 'of course we'll wait for him to talk about it', 'are you okay?', 'Is Anna okay?', 'fuck anyone who harasses my boys', etc... while others were less supportive, reading, 'fuck you, you entitled pricks, you can't just go around hitting fans', 'just because you're famous doesn't mean you can get away with assaulting a minor', 'never watching your videos again', 'you should leave him', and many many more. Phil couldn't take it after about five minutes of reading comments, and he switched his phone back off.

He wanted to go back and never go to that hospital in the first place. He felt so helpless, not knowing how to protect Dan. Anna woke up after a few minutes, and Phil brought her into his lap, rocking her slightly.

"Everything's going to be okay, Anna. Your daddies are going to be okay, this will all bow over." And he knew he wasn't saying these words for Anna's sake. She looked up at him and smiled, dimples appearing on her cheeks.

"Dada!" She exclaimed, and Phil felt a small smile tickle the corners of his mouth. Everything would be okay. It might be tough, but he and Dan had each other, and they had Anna, and so long as that was true everything was going to be okay. His previous worries that Michelle could take Anna from them had disappeared after the visit yesterday, and it helped him relax. Poor Michelle. She had gone through a lot with Alice's death, and clearly wasn't handling it well.

Phil wondered if she had struggled with some of her mental health issues before Alice's death. He had never known about any of them, but now that he thought back he definitely remembered being in groups and watching Alice pull Michelle over to the side and talk to her, calming her down from something. He remembered a few times when Alice and Michelle would leave parties early or go on long walks in the middle of something, and whenever they'd get back Michelle would seem happier and her eyes would look clearer. Phil just figured that Michelle got overwhelmed sometimes in social situations, and that Alice, being a living angel, was in tune with that and able to help her out. Now he wondered if it was something more.

Eventually he got up and brought back some applesauce for Anna, spooning it into her mouth, watching as her face lit up. She loved applesauce. He felt a somewhat bittersweet smile cross his face, and he wiped her mouth off when she was done.

"Morning." Phil turned around to see Dan in the doorway. He got up and made his way to Dan, wrapping his arms around the brunette, pulling him in for a long and tight hug.

"Morning." Phil responded, inhaling the scent of his boyfriend.

"How bad is it?" Dan asked, pulling away from Phil a bit so he could look him in the eye. "I'm too scared to check myself."