Dan & Phil: Not of This Earth

16 | Howlter

Word Count: 976

     2009 brought many things: Muse's The Resistance album, "HELLO INTERNET", Dan and Phil's first physical reconnection since '92, and the first of many "Phil is not on fire" videos. A friendship had been rekindled and...maybe something else was stirring. Something private and more than confusing to both Gems.

     Society had brought them up much differently than Homeworld had. There, there was no "bringing up" nor was there the love and affection they had received in their respective families. Homeworld had never taught a single Gem anything about love whether it had been platonic or otherwise. Any sort of love on Homeworld was superfluous and often deemed illegal by the Diamond Authority.

     Earth was open to love in a variety of ways. It, too, had its restrictions, however. Restrictions that forced people into closets and out of the public eye. These were things that were kept private and were supposed to remain private, even to the prying eyes of others.

     During the week of October Dan and Phil had recorded their first collaboration, Dan stayed at Phil's house for the week, catching up on whatever they hadn't already spoken about over Skype. "So, is your brother over that cold yet?" Dan asked, stabbing a cooked carrot from his bowl of reheated stew.

     "Almost. He's still got a nasty case of the sniffles, though." Phil scooped a forkful of vegetables into his mouth next. After swallowing it, he asked, "Do you want to see Avatar in 3D when it comes out? It looks so cool! It's crazy to think that sort of technology exists this day and age. Imagine what else will be possible in a few years!"

     Dan chuckled. "You really have turned into a nerd."

     "Pft, like you haven't? You think it's cool to watch YouTube and be part of it?" Phil joked.

     "I do actually," Dan sassed back, playfully sticking his nose in the air. They both laughed at this. YouTube was one of Phil's passions and it was slowly spreading to Dan.

     They ate without speaking again for a few minutes. "You know," Dan began, "it's just so bizarre to be interacting with you like this again."

     "What do you mean?"

     "I know you said this would happen but... I was never sure how or what it would lead to." He sniffled, not out of sadness but out of not wanting to seek out a tissue. "Have you missed being Dil?"

     Phil nodded without hesitation. "Definitely. Do you want to fuse now? There's nothing stopping us." No one else was home, after all. "I think it would be really neat to see what 2009 Dil looks like, you know? We're both so different now."

     Dan would have been lying if he said he hadn't been wondering that himself. Every so often during one of their Skype calls, he had wished they could fuse through the screen.

     They quickly made their way into the den. Phil pulled The Resistance from the shelf and set the record in the player. He moved the needle to the second track and let it play. He met Dan in the center of the room with a huge smile on his face.

     "Oh my god, this song, really?" Dan laughed. "How do we even dance to this?"

     "I don't know! Let's just have fun with it! We're just going to fall anyways!"

     Together, they spun and hopped to the song. The dim yellow lighting illuminated them as they moved closer to one another. The spots in which their gems should have been glowed with their respective shapes, a heart and a four-point star. Then, just as Phil said, they fell into one another, initiating their long awaited fusion. (To be entirely frank, Dan started falling and tried to stop it by grabbing Phil's shoulders.)

     On the floor, face to the ceiling, lay Dilion Jamechal Howlter. His eyes were green, his shaggy hair was a dark brown – almost black now due to Phil's black hair dye. He now wore a hoodie donned with a yellow-plaid print with a plain black tee underneath. His jeans were a dark grey and he wore a belt, which proved later to be mildly useless although the jeans were some variety of skinny. A few bracelets hung off his wrist, and a huge smile remained on his lips.

     "Oh god, I missed being me," he sighed, his accent remaining posh, sounding closer to the queen than anything else. His voice was its own tone, finding its pitch somewhere between Dan's deeper, sarcastic voice and Phil's higher, bubbly voice.

     Dil sat up and stretched himself out, settling back into his existence. He looked to the record player, Muse still strumming on guitars and beating on drums. Letting it finish out the rest of the songs, Dil wandered back to the kitchen and finished both Dan and Phil's meals. He then tried to wash the bowls, successfully dropping and breaking both of them.

     "Your mum is going to be livid," Dil said, his eyes brown.

     He blinked and they turned blue. "No, she'll understand."

     Brown. "We should go to the shop and replace them. Like, now."

     Blue. "Dan, it'll be fine."

     There was moment of silence as the lanky young adult stood over the white shards of ceramic before his mismatch grey socks. His eyes were green once more. "I don't think the shop is open at this hour." He gathered a broom and dustpan and swept up the mess. That was the end of that.

     Without speaking again, he turned off the record player and walked upstairs to Phil's room. He found his camcorder and recorded a video that wouldn't see the light of day for almost two decades.

     He sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Phil's bed. He waved at the camera with two fingers and his thumb. "Hey, Internet! I'm Dil Howlter!"