Deja vu (phanfic) DISCONTINUED

Déjà Vu // Unexpected Meetings

"Daddy, when can I see Mummy?"

"She should be here soon," Dan repeated for the fifth time, looking around the cafe again. The three year old crawled into his lap and he hugged her close. "Daddy, why are you sad?"

"I'm not sad, I'm just going to miss you, Trish. But you'll have fun staying with mummy for the weekend, won't you?" He said, kissing her hair lightly. She smiled, nodding, and curled up against him, his arms wrapped around her protectively. He loved his daughter to bits - he knew he spoiled her, but he just couldn't say no to her. This weekend was going to be horrible without her. Like every other weekend when she was looked after by her mother, Carrie. She lived over an hour away from Manchester, so Dan didn't see her much. Not that he particularly wanted to, it was just that Trish needed her mother, even if Dan was trying to be the best dad she could have.

The door opened, and Dan's head shot up to see if it was her. No, it wasn't. Dan breathed an internal sigh of relief knowing that he still had another few minutes to spend with Trish. He heard a familiar voice drifting over the quiet hum of traffic outside and murmer of conversation, and he looked up in disbelief. A man was leaning against the counter, grinning stupidly with his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth, probably flirting with the barista. Smiles just like he did... but he had gone, he left four years ago, and Dan suspected it was just deja vu. He looked away quickly. He didn't want to remember, it hurt too much.

But Dan couldn't help glancing at him constantly, just to see how much the man looked like him. His hair was dyed black - not that unusual, Dan supposed, it could still be anyone...

He focussed on Trish instead, listening to her little voice talk about stupid, meaningless things, which always made him smile. Until he heard someone call his name softly: "Dan? Dan Howell?"

He didn't even look up. "Hmm?" He said distractedly. "Dan, is it really you? I haven't seen you for four years..." at this, Dan's head shot up sharply to see who was talking to him. "Phil..." he breathed.

He remembered the smiling blue eyes, exactly the same bright shade as four years ago, standing out against his pale skin. He had hardly changed at all, and Dan could still recognise him in an instant. He seemed different though - his smile was different, more hidden. Dan couldn't tell if it was just age or something worse that had changed him.

"Daddy, who's the man?" Trish whispered, shyly hiding her face against Dan's jacket. "Shh, it's ok, he's just one of my old friends." He reassured her, and she looked at him again. "Daddy, why does he have drawings on his arm?"

Dan looked at Phil's arm in surprise. He was wearing a short-sleeve t-shirt, and sure enough, black ink was curling from underneath the grey fabric. He also noticed the silver ring on his eyebrow and the stretcher in one ear- maybe Phil had changed more than he'd thought.

Phil just laughed and rolled up his sleeves even further to show her properly. "I think it looks pretty," he explained, crouching down so he was face-to-face with her. "It looks weird," she replied, and he laughed again. He glanced up at Dan again. "She has your eyes," he said softly.

"Yeah," was all he could reply. The first thing people usually said about her was how much she looked like Carrie - Phil was the first one to recognise her eyes. It was nice to think that Phil had still remembered Dan from four years ago, that the first thing he thought of when he saw Trish was her eyes - and how much they looked like Dan's.

"You've changed a lot," Dan said awkwardly, not really sure where to start after four years.

"So have you! Parenthood, huh? That's pretty big-"

"Do you remember our gaming channel? It never did really work out, did it? I stopped making YouTube videos after you left. It... it didn't feel right anymore, you know? I pretty much abandoned the internet altogether. Everyone was asking about you. Everyone had thought you'd died or something. But I checked your channel every day for a year, and I'd watch back all our videos together. I still do. Because I thought that remembering you might bring you back somehow. I thought that it would stop me missing you so much. You didn't even say goodbye. You just left. It hurt like hell." Dan could see the tears sparkling in his blue eyes.

"I missed you too," he whispered.

**********

Hey guys! So this is the first phanfic I've ever published on Wattpad so I'm sorry if there's spelling mistakes or whatever. This wasn't really meant to turn into a long phanfic so if you want me to update, comment and I'll see what I can do! ILY bye!

Additional note: So I changed the age of Trish and the years of non-contact from 6 to 4 since I wanted them to still be quite young, also this was writted when Dan and Phil games had just started out so bear that in mind please xD