Dan & Phil: Not of This Earth

19 | An Itch

Word Count: 1183

     Dan switched off his camera and stretched. Another video done, and it had only been a couple of weeks since the last one! He'd have it edited and done in a few days. Dan freed the SD card from the camera, grabbed his MacBook, and wandered into the lounge.

     Phil was tentatively playing "Animal Crossing" on his 3DS. "Hey, Dan. How'd the video go?" he asked without looking up.

     "I think it went pretty well. We'll see when the editing is over with." Dan promptly sat on the couch, about a meter from Phil, and opened his laptop. Then he picked up the TV remote and flicked on the news. Nothing more than politics and...news. This kept Dan's attention for some time before he decided he had to start editing.

     "I fell through the floor again this morning," Phil said at one point.

     "You did? I thought you went out for some fresh air."

     Phil chuckled. "I wish. I'm not fond of starting my mornings standing in a basement puddle."

     "Oh, landed on your feet this time?"

     "Almost faceplanted into the furnace but yeah."

     Dan shook his head, deleting a chunk of video where he had consecutively misspoken five times. He had even taken about a minute between one take to repeat his sentence a few times before trying again. The desktop behind him had also decided to glitch in this timeframe, so he was killing two birds with one stone, really. "You should have that under control by now. It's been a few years, hasn't it?"

     "Have you perfected your telekinesis yet?" Phil prodded with a sassy head movement.

     Dan looked up from his screen and held his left palm towards Phil. The 3DS and its stylus was pried from his Phil's hands by an unseen force and floated above his head. "Oh, I don't know. What do you think?" The device twirled slowly in a circle.

     "I think you're an ass," Phil fired back, giving Dan a quick poke to the ribs.

     Dan jumped, a smile forced across his lips. "Ah, don't!" The red game only shivered in the air.

     "Aw, that usually works," Phil whined playfully. He stood and grabbed his things out of the air. "My intangibility usually works best when we're Dil. You bring a certain amount of control to the table that I can't seem to get a grips on." The black haired Gem fell back into the sofa cushions and looked onto the TV, noting the week's coming weather. "Aw man, it's going to be 32 degrees* tomorrow!"

     "To be fair, the air conditioning in this apartment isn't that bad," Dan reminded his flatmate.

     "Yeah but uggghhh..."

     "You'll live, Phil."

     "Noooo! Stick my gem in the freezer!"

     Dan laughed. "Because that'll do something!" He leaned over and tapped Phil's shoulder. "Hey, at least you haven't passed through a fan while trying to hug them."

     "That's true." Phil wiggled in his seat, managing to twist his red NASA t-shirt in such a way that required a bit of fixing. He exhaled in thought and looked to Dan's face of concentration. "Do you..." he began before changing his mind.

     "Do I what?"

     Phil rubbed his face and removed his glasses briefly. He again faced a blurry Dan who was...probably looking at him? When he couldn't decipher his friend's facial expression, he replaced his glasses. "Do you think we should tell them who we are?" Phil's face was serious with his brows curved in faint distress.

     "'Them' who?" Dan tilted his head. "Our fans? I don't think they'd take it seriously. Knowing them, they'd take it as an art piece or some kind of interpretive video that confirms phan through a line of complex reasoning."

     "I don't know about that. I saw a theory on Tumblr earlier today that said you're an alien," Phil explained.

     "Pft, oh yeah? What was their proof?"

     "You tend not to understand certain human trends and terminology. There's also the matter of you not knowing how to hold a cell phone and wearing all black in 30-degree weather, among other things." Dan pointed at him without a word. "I was included in most of their reasoning. They also considered our friendship alien. Like, we've been friends longer than most couples are together."

     Dan snickered. "No shit. Most couples aren't together for thousands of years." He crossed his legs and readjusted his laptop. Then realization crossed his face and he wagged one of his fingers. "Thaaat's not what you meant. Besides, that was probably just a joke theory or a fanfiction you were far too invested in."

     Phil groaned and shook his head. He rose from the couch and partially stomped into the kitchen. Some pots clanged against each other from the kitchen and Phil made a small yelp in response. "I just don't like lying to them like this, Dan," he called back afterwards.

     "It's not lying; we're just leaving out details. Do you really think we wouldn't be kidnapped by the government? Experimented on and forced into fighting North Korea or something?" Dan closed his laptop and met Phil in the kitchen. "Phil, be logical with this, would you?"

     Blue eyes pricked him before returning to prepare some ramen. "I just feel bad about not telling them who we are. With our videos, our tours, the book – they know so much! I just feel like we're hiding such an important part of our lives."

     "Important part? Phil, when was the last time you brandished your gauntlets? We don't do anything with the fact that we're Gems besides staying up for two days at a time." Dan pulled a beer from the fridge and popped it open. "It's not even relevant, really."

     "You've been taking fencing lessons and you just signed up for a sword fighting class." Dan attempted to retaliate but Phil was faster than him. He pointed to his chest. "Future feeling." His lips tightened into a thin line. "You also accidentally used my credit card to pay for the sword fighting class."

     Dan swished the beer in his hand and sighed. He let it float in mid-air and grabbed one of Phil's shoulders, gesturing with his free hand. "Okay, I'll admit it; I've been having this horrible itch to swing a sword around! Haven't you been wanting to rip something to shreds with your claws?"

     "Not really. I think they're cool but I've never had the same yearning you do." Phil mixed the water and ramen before him with a wooden spoon. "What do our weapons have to do with this? When I'm talking about our Gem origins, I'm talking about our identities and what all we've been through." He tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot and set it aside. He broke from Dan's hand and grabbed the beer floating nearby, taking a generous swig of it. "It just really bothers me."

     Dan took the bottle back and replaced it in the air. "Phil, don't worry about it. No one is actually onto us, anyways. That Tumblr post will never hold water. It's a Tumblr post."

     "Eh."

*32 C is about about 90 F. 

//37 C is the human body temperature (98.6 F), so if it's around 30 C in England, it's fricken hot.