Dan & Phil: Not of This Earth

23 | The 27th of March

Word Count: 535

     The year was 2026, and neither Dan or Phil had aged a day. Phil had celebrated his 39th birthday early in the year but he didn't look it. He still looked like the 19-year-old Phil that had just sat down in front the camcorder he had won from a box of cereal for the first time in 2006. To say their fans weren't suspicious was an understatement.

     Many prodded him for his beauty secrets and what he did to keep the wrinkles at bay. There was also a copious amount of "Dermatologists hate him!" memes floating around the internet.

     Dan still had his baby face, of course. No one particularly questioned it considering Phil looked still 19 when he was 30, so he was in the clear.

     "We can't avoid this forever," Phil had said.

     "I know. The, uh, alien conspiracy is, like, the only thing on my Tumblr feed anymore." Dan opened his laptop to show Phil exactly how crazy the Internet was going over them. He pointed to one that had a sketch of Dil from someone's Shakespeare textbook. "They're also beginning to find evidence of our...past lives," Dan sighed.

     They were both silent. They feared for their lives and feared losing the love and respect they had from the phandom. Dan solemnly shut the computer. "When should we...?"

     The shorter Gem thought for a moment. "March...when I posted my first video. I suppose a 20th channel-versery should be special. And I would hate to put off PINOF 17 for this, and that's a bit too far in the future, wouldn't you say?"

     Dan nodded thoughtfully. "Well, we've got over a month to figure this out, so...it'll have to do. And it does seem rather appropriate."

     They got to work, writing a basic outline of what they wanted to talk about and how to go about it. They would be in Phil's room, of course; it was his video. Dan still had more subscribers than Phil at this point for whatever reason, so he would post a video the same day, urging everyone to view Phil's video.

     Each Gem hyped the video in small doses. Phil tweeted a few things about being prepared for March 27th, being particularly nonspecific about why. Of course, there was speculation he and Dan would be getting married or they were announcing they had been married for several years. It was sort of a revival of 2017 phans thinking they were getting married in 2022, but it didn't make it any less bizarre. Others were determined it was PINOF 1 bloopers or even the rebirth of "Amazing Dan."

     Dan tweeted "March 27th" exactly 27 times in February. When March actually hit, he kept it pretty cryptic. He left certain letters capitalized to leave messages such as "PHIL TRASH," "ACE," "RELIC," "OLD EMO," and so forth. A fan put together the phrase "PHIL IS AN ACE RELIC AND EMO TRASH." It was unintentional on Dan's part but it was entertaining nonetheless.

     Before filming Phil's big video, they originally agreed they would need to make separate videos explaining themselves thoroughly. They'd be sure to save the good stuff, knowing Shakespeare and all that, for other more fun, laid back videos.