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phanficexchange · 9 years

Text

For Somethingcharming

Recipient’s username: somethingcharming

Title: love me like you do(n’t)

Rating: R

Warnings: cursing. so, so, so much cursing.

Word count: 5.1k

Summary: “In comparing Dan and Phil’s relationship to the Stock Market Crash of 1929, you could say that the first two years of their friendship were pretty much all ups and no downs, while the unprivating of that video was like Black Thursday. Aka, things would only get worse from here. And they did.”

Author’s note: this took a gross amount of time and i want to apologize to everyone involved in this process as i am easily one of the worst people to work with. i did not know my life would get this crazy and this is so super late because of it. nevertheless, it is a semblance of what i wanted it to be, and i hope you enjoy.

2009.

or: where it started.

There are miles of distance and Dan wakes up on lazy Sunday mornings with Phil staring at him through a laptop screen. He avoids talking about the butterflies that gives him (every single time) because they’re probably nothing but reassurance that he’s finally got the best friend he’s always wanted.

Seasons have changed from summer to autumn and leaves are falling from trees (and Dan is falling for Phil, but he wouldn’t dare say that) (because there’s a boy named Charlie mentioned sometimes, offhandedly, and Phil never explains) (and Dan never asks).

They know practically everything about each other, and Phil seems to know Dan better than Dan knows himself. Impatiently, Phil invites him up to Manchester more than once, and nervously, Dan keeps saying no.

“Is it because you don’t want to see me?”

And then Dan feels guilty.

“You know that’s not the case, Phil—“

“Then what is the case?”

There’s a tense undertone in his voice that suggests something else than just upset over a good friend, and Dan finds that his own vocal chords have stopped working at the exact same convenient moment. A head of black hair is staring at him through some crappy Macbook webcam waiting for an answer that’s yet to come, and he scrunches his eyebrows,

“Dan?”

The man in question coughs, choosing to stare down at his bed sheets, and Phil groans. Dan knows how much the silent treatment kills the older man; at the beginning of their relationship (or whatever the hell this was) (Phil wouldn’t specify and Dan didn’t ask and that’s just how it was), Dan would sit for an hour and a half straight in complete silence out of sheer nervousness, and Phil’s consistent groaning and complaining didn’t make it any better,

“You’re giving me the silent treatment? Really? I didn’t do anything to you!”

Dan takes a shaky breath, feeling a bit like a child being lectured, and all because he was too fucking scared to say what he actually wanted to say. He considers just shutting his laptop because it’s only twenty-seven minutes past nine in the morning and he’s definitely too sleepy-eyed to handle this situation properly. Dan moves his hand to close the lid, only to be shocked out of it by a screaming Phil,

“Don’t you dare.”

Dan’s hand drops, defeatedly, and when he looks up at the screen of his crappy fucking Sony Vaio (he hates it more than he hates this exact moment), he finds a regretful looking Phil Lester,

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. Please don’t hate me I just—“ and he sighs, and Dan gets it, because he wants to just, too.

“We’ve been talking since June and you’re so incredible and I really just want to be able to actually play DDR with you in person instead of over Skype.”

(And Dan wants that too, but more so he doesn’t want to fuck up what they’ve got) (because Dan wants to play DDR with Phil but he also wants to play Seven Minutes in Heaven).

“I’m just scared,” Dan admits, his eyes widening when he realizes he’s spoken out loud, and Phil mirrors his reaction momentarily,

“Why? Am I scary?” And then he’s back to joking around, raising his eyebrows repeatedly and earning a small laugh from Dan,

“You’re the least intimidating person I’ve ever met, Phil,” and he’s lying through his teeth, “I just…really like you,” fucking hell, “I mean, like, you’re really cool and I’m really me and I just don’t think that’s a good combination.”

Phil pauses for a few moments, and Dan’s hand grips at the bottom edge of his laptop screen, just in case he needs to bail out quickly. There’s a heavy awkwardness in the air, despite the fact that the two of them are separated by too many fucking miles (and Dan wishes their bodies were pressed together instead), and Dan’s had the website to buy his train ticket open for two weeks in a Chrome tab next to Phil’s Twitter, and then said boy actually speaks again,

“Well, I think that you being ‘really you’ is a good thing, ‘cause I like you a lot, you weirdo, just the way you are. Even if that includes you giving me the silent treatment for hours on end with no explanation. I’m not asking you to marry me, just asking you to come spend a couple days with me or somethin’. My parents are going to be out of town for some time in October?”

“Any reason why your parents need to be out of two?” Dan raises his eyebrows, questioningly (and he’s joking, mostly, a solid 75% kidding) (but a solid 25% serious).

“Shut up, nerd. Just book a train ticket and come see that I’m not a scary predator on the Internet.”

“You’re not?” Dan gapes, mockingly, proceeding to give Phil a fake pout, “That was half of your appeal.”

This isn’t supposed to be happening (because they are best friends) (and Phil is careless) (and Dan will be inevitably broken).

Memories come in blurs; they were filming, then Phil pushed Dan to the floor, then Dan was on the bed, then Phil was on top of him, and oh.

And it isn’t that he doesn’t want it (because he does) (because he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about this exact moment) and that’s the main problem.

A, “Phil,” is murmured between bruising lips and merely acknowledged with a hum from the man in question, who is straddling his legs across Dan’s waist (and this should feel like Heaven) (but it feels like Hell).

“Phil,” Dan says, a bit more authoritatively this time, causing the black haired man to pull away from the kiss in a huff,

“What?”

And Dan chokes up, because Phil seems mad and Dan has so many questions and this isn’t exactly how he expected this weekend to go (because hopes and expectations are two different things) (and they don’t often meet).

“I just…I…this is…”

“Am I doing something wrong?” Phil asks, his tone fluctuating from frustration to concern in a moment’s notice, and then Dan feels guilty like he always does (because Phil is good at playing the game) (and Dan doesn’t even know the game exists).

“N-no! No no no,” Dan rushes, digging his fingers into Phil’s arms in some sort of rushed gesture that is supposed to back his words, “This is just really sudden and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel—“

“How about we play a game?” Phil punctuates his sentence by pecking his lips, only once, to Dan’s neck, who shivers in return, eyeing Phil curiously,

“Bit of a bad time for a game, isn’t it?” Dan questions, earning a smirk from the older man,

“It’s always a good time for this game, and besides, babe,” another kiss, to the neck this time, and Dan tenses up, causing Phil to laugh and raise his eyebrows, “I can tell you’re nervous.”

“Not nervous, just confus—“

“This’ll help with that too,” Phil cuts in (and tomorrow Dan will understand) (but he cannot see the future), running his hands up and down Dan’s still clothed chest.

“Alright, I guess. Rules? Do not pass go? Do not collect 300 pounds?”

“Always a comedian,” Phil roles his eyes playfully, “Nah, none of that. One simple rule, but I think you’ll have quite the hard time following it.”

“I’ll have you know that out of every detention I ever received, not a single one was for insubordination. Test me, Philip.”

The aforementioned smirks again, leaning down and hovering his face over Dan’s, which gets the younger to shut up pretty quickly, “Don’t think, don’t feel, just do.”

“But—“

“Ah,” Phil scolds, “What’s that?” He presses their lips together once again, moving his hands down only to push Dan’s shirt up and pulling back just to speak one final time, “Let yourself have this moment and we’ll figure it out in the morning.”

And as Dan screams out Phil’s name that night, he doesn’t think and he doesn’t feel.

(Because there’s a promise of clarity in the morning) (clarity that will never exist).

Dan wakes up alone to a text from Phil, who claims to have needed to ‘take care of some things’ and run some errands, and Dan doesn’t question it (not initially).

When Phil returns, he ignores Dan’s questioning glances and talks as if the previous twelve hours were a figment of Dan’s imagination, and Dan’s beginnings of honest questions are all interrupted (and Dan is officially broken) (but he shouldn’t have expected any less) (because hopes and expectations are two different things) (and he now knows they don’t ever meet).

At the end of the weekend in a busy train station, Phil gives Dan a hug and tells him that they should, “Do this again some time.”

(And they will) (many times) (too many times) (because Dan is merely a pawn in a life size game of chess) (and Phil’s just knocked him off the board).

2010

or: the forecast.

Dan is not sure how he feels anymore.

Admittedly, he sees Phil often and when they see each other they really seeeach other, but it never amounts to more than a quick fuck and a hug at the end of a long weekend. Dan never asks and Phil never talks.

And it works. It’s messed up and it’s wrong and it shouldn’t be happening (because they are best friends) (and Dan thinks he might be in love), but it does. It happens relentlessly and every time is another stab into Dan’s open wound.

And it only gets progressively worse.

Dan truly believes that Phil has the words ‘just friends’ carved into his chest, because it’s the only mantra he’s got for the two of them and it’s the only label he’ll put on them. Dan’s not even worthy of ‘friends with benefits’.

When Dan huffs off after a particular argument on the subject (and there were many) (too many to count) and fails to say goodbye to Phil before he’s on a plane to India with his family, they don’t talk for weeks.

It’s not on purpose, and Dan feels guilty about the entire situation, but the hotel internet is shit and, besides, he’s on holiday with his family. Why should he bother?

Except he rationalizes every reason in his mind why he should bother, and when he logs into Skype the night before Valentine’s Day, he finds that his suspicions are, indeed, correct. His best friend is online.

Phil calls him in less than a minute, and when the call finally settles after taking a solid five minutes to properly connect, the older of the two is off on an apologetic rant,

“I’m so sorry, Dan.”

“You’re my best friend in this galaxy and I can’t lose you.”

“I know I don’t treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”

“You make me so happy and I wish I could do the same for you.”

“Please forgive me.”

“You are so important to me.”

Dan stays silent throughout Phil’s pleads, and when the black haired man has taken a deep breath and there are oceans staring into Dan’s dark irises through a shitty computer screen, Dan wordlessly accepts his apologies.

(Because Phil is still good at playing the game) (and Dan’s just barely noticed the game’s existence.)

After an hour and a half of reconciliation and sweet nothings (that Phil will inevitably ignore in the future), Dan notices how late it is on his own end, and he sighs to himself,

“I really should be getting to bed, Phil.”

The older of the two sighs, about to protest that it’s only 9:37pm until—

“Oh, yeah, you’re in India.”

Dan smiles softly, saying a simple goodnight and moving his mouse to end the call until,

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Daniel,” Phil breathes, and when Dan looks up from the ‘end call’ button to Phil’s expression, there is genuine nervousness on his face.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Philip,” Dan chuckles, mumbling another goodnight and ending the call.

And for some reason, one that he can’t put a finger on, he feels like maybe, just maybe he’s got a chance.

Dan wakes up alone (but this time he expected it), but he wakes up with a smile on his face (because his hopes and expectations are back again) (and this time he’s hoping they’ll finally meet).

Upon checking his email, he finds that there’s a cheery looking message from his best friend, clicking on it so quickly that he nearly breaks his trackpad and rocking back and forth the whole two minutes and thirty seven seconds it takes for the email to just fucking load already, and when he opens it a mixture of disappointment and excitement floods his veins.

The subject line merely said, “For you x,” but that wasn’t something new for Phil. Most of his texts to Dan ended with those stupid little x’s and Dan’s heart fluttered every single time one of them was on a screen in front of him, but somehow this email was different and instead his stomach was twisting itself in knots.

Enclosed in said email is a mere sentence, “To you, my best friend, on the happiest of Valentine’s Days. :] x,” followed by a Youtube link, and Dan groans internally because he can’t even imagine how long that’s going to take to load; he’ll come back to the hotel room in twelve hours and be lucky if it’s even half loaded.

Sighing, he opens the link and waits the five minutes it takes for the page to even load up. After brushing his teeth and coming back to his laptop, he notes that the framework of the page has loaded and it’s just a matter of the video now. Upon looking at it, he’s mildly confused; usually Phil would send Dan his videos to look at before posting them, but this didn’t seem to be the case this time.

It was on LessAmazingPhil, for one, and it didn’t seem to have a title (except for “:3,” but usually all of the information on the video was correct and ready for publishing, just privated so that it wasn’t seen by the world yet), and the description was strange.

In general, everything was strange.

Dan decides that he’s not going to harp on it too much; he figures it must just be one of his finished videos that Phil wants review on, and that can wait until later, can’t it?

When he’s back from a long day in the Indian sun and the video is finally viewed by a certain Dan Howell, he discovers that it may not have been the best to keep it waiting.

But on the same accord, maybe it was, because as he waits three and a half minutes for the comment he’d just written to go through, he’s bawling his eyes out uncontrollably.

(Because Phil cares about him) (maybe) (Phil loves him) (maybe) (and that’s all Dan’s ever wanted).

It seems to most that Dan and Phil become a couple, but neither of them admit to it and neither of them talk about it. Nobody brings up the fact that they become practically inseparable once Dan begins university in Manchester, and nobody asks why Dan spends more time in Phil’s flat than he does on campus.

Any question pertaining to the subject is answered in one way, and one way only: “We’re just best friends.”

2011

or: calm before the storm.

Dan’s confused; this is not some sort of shocking revelation, as Dan does not spend many moments in his life in realization and understanding, but this confusion is particular and completely the fault of both himself and a certain man named Phil Lester.

Whatever Dan thought he felt last year had since faded away; sure they kissed a lot and maybe they fucked every other weekend but it wasn’t, like, a big deal or anything. Friends with benefits existed, after all, and even if they were bordering on uncomfortable, awkward territory, they always knew when to back their asses up.

Regardless of this, their seemingly overnight shift from “I sorta might be in love with you,” to, “My pal, buddy, best friend, we are such GOOD FRIENDS,” is a confusing one and is not lost on Dan.

Life had gotten significantly better and significantly more boring all at the same time. For Dan, university was fucking awful and he couldn’t stand the coursework and how it was affecting his videos, and then he felt horrible for putting a website in front of his law degree.

And it grows and it gets worse, so much to the point where he fails one of the most important exams of his life and decides to damn it all to hell, taking another year off.

Because fuck it; whatever, man.

The two of them decide to get a flat together, one that actually has adequate space for two people and can match their “ol’ buddy, ol’ pal” personas. It wasn’t necessarily that anyone was getting suspicious, but who was to say that people wouldn’t start to get suspicious?

The fact that Dan is essentially a college dropout is not originally common knowledge, and he’d much rather it that way. His subscribers understood that his content was shit because he was in uni, and if he was honest, he wanted to milk that for a few extra videos. Just to get himself back on his feet, of course.

In September, everything goes to hell.

Dan and Phil learn that, while Youtube is basically their employer, it is also a giant sack of shit, and that dumb fucking video from dumb fucking last year is somehow unprivated by a glitch, and the two of them are reminded of ancient history.

Scrambling for some kind of excuse, some kind of explanation (and Phil kinda doesn’t think they should lie) (but Dan kinda thinks Phil should shut the fuck up right now), the two of them opt for an April Fools prank.

They didn’t claim they were looking for a good excuse, after all.

It was just a prank they planned to troll some hardcore shippers of the two of them. They were going to “accidentally” unprivate the video on April Fools Day and see what kind of reaction they would get, but the both of them decided that it would be too mean to actually play the prank and they never went through with it. Phil was just stupid and forgot to remove the video.

Again, they didn’t claim they were looking for a good excuse.

When the explanation is put out there and the two of them are expecting the worst, they are met with generally positive reception from most of their fans, and the worst of the storm seems to be over.

Little do they know that this storm is just the beginning.

2012

or: the downpour

The video ordeal is over, but it affects them regardless.

Dan’s distance from his best friend is evident and, if anything, a bit surprising considering their track record. As the one who generally pushed closer to Phil, he can now be found purposely making distance between them, whether it be in videos together or when they’re sitting in the living room watching television.

When Phil questions Dan about it (and the role reversal here is hysterical, really), he’s met with silent treatments and one word answers that are reminiscent of their first few months knowing each other, and Phil learns that asking about it only leads to awkward glances and dead end conversation.

And it shouldn’t, really, because if they were secure in their friendship this wouldn’t be a big fucking deal. But they’re not; neither of them are “secure” in their so called friendship and everything’s just a bit messed up by it.

Tumblr becomes a big thing; Dan tries to brand himself as a hip, young, British dude eternally stuck in an existential crisis rather than one half of Dan and Phil; it works, to an extent, as his popularity soars and he’s “relatable” and people like him.

Everything is awkward but life moves on. It has to. In comparing Dan and Phil’s relationship to the Stock Market Crash of 1929, you could say that the first two years of their friendship were pretty much all ups and no downs, while the unprivating of that video was like Black Thursday. Aka, things would only get worse from here.

And they did.

On the Black Tuesday of their relationship (which, ironically, is in October, but is not the 29th and, in all actuality, has nothing to do with the American stock market), shit hits the fan all over again.

Dan wakes up to too many Tumblr messages and too much confusion, and it isn’t until he does some searching that he finds out what the fuck’s going on.

And he’s not happy about it.

“That fucking video,” Dan growls at Phil, who is quite distracted by his laptop on this particular morning, but not yet for the reason that Dan wants him to be.

“Hm?” The older questions, his eyebrows furrowing as he looks up from his most recent editing project to his best friend, frowning when he sees Dan’s expression, “What video? What’s wrong?”

“You know exactly what video, Phil! The same video that got us into this shit last year!”

Phil’s eyes widen, and he shuts the lid of his Macbook, placing it onto the living room sofa, “But we cleared that up with—“

“With nothing!” Dan screams, the hysteria in his voice ever present, “That excuse was bullshit and you know it, Phil, and now it’s all fucking over Tumblr and people are asking me so many questions and I can’t believe—“

“Calm down,” Phil sighs, standing up and reaching out to grab Dan’s shoulders, but the younger man pushes him away,

“Don’t touch me, Phil.”

Phil’s eyebrows furrow again, and his arms drop to his sides helplessly, “Dan, come on—“

“This is all your fault,” Dan trembles, just slightly, because there’s all these emotions coming back, and he’s thinking about the first time he watched that fucking video and he’s thinking about how many times Phil kissed him when he got home from India and he’s thinking about how much of a fucking mess his life is going to be forever because of this one fucking video,

“This is your fault. You never had to post it. You could’ve just…you could’ve waited until I got home or you could’ve just never made it in the first place. Hell, you could’ve just never fucking talked to me—“

“Dan, what is going on with you lately?” Phil breaks in, and he’s not quite yelling but he’s definitely louder and more accusatory than usual, “Look, I’m sorry about the video. I’ve told you that three thousand times and I don’t know what else you want from me!”

Dan is shaking, now, and he feels like a small child trying to figure out a decent stance in an argument he knows he’ll never win,

“I want this video to fucking go away, and right now I really want you to go away because you’re the reason this whole thing is happening in the first place! And now I have to go try and fix this all by myself and I don’t know how I’m going to—“

His ranting is interrupted by a soft pair of lips, a familiar pair of lips, and maybe two years ago this felt like Heaven, but to Dan in this moment it felt like Hell, and Phil was pushed away so quickly he didn’t even see it coming,

“What the hell, Phil?”

The older of the two seems so shocked at the rejection that he doesn’t really know what to say. What could he even say? There was no excuse for that kiss. The two of them hadn’t slept in the same bed in almost a year.

Things were different, but Phil hadn’t realized just how much,

“I just…I…I don’t know. That used to work.”

“You can’t just do that. Not anymore. We’re just friends, remember, and that’s all we’ve ever been,” And it’s sadistic, in a way, because now the roles have reversed and Dan is the gaping asshole in this situation, but at the same time he can’t help but feel as though it’s deserved.

“I know, I know. I shouldn’t have…I just thought…never mind. That’s not important right now. How do you want me to help you?”

Phil is obviously shaken by the entire ordeal, and Dan should feel bad but he doesn’t. There’s too many emotions against that damn video in this moment for any of them to shift over to his clearly disturbed best friend, and rather than comforting him he starts listing off a strategy plan for them to put this fucking video to bed once and for all.

(And Phil goes along with it wordlessly) (because Dan’s mastered the game, now) (and Phil’s given up all knowledge of it).

After the Second Great Awakening of the video, the two of them don’t talk for a month straight.

They live together, they coexist, but they do not speak to each other.

If Dan concentrates enough, he can block out the muffled sobs he hears from his best friend’s bedroom every once in a while.

2013

or: flooded cities

Life goes back to normal. Slightly.

The two of them don’t talk about the video or the kiss or the period of complete silence. It ends, they apologize curtly, and life moves on.

It has to.

It goes back to normal, but this normal is not the same as the previous normal, not really, anyways. The distance between themselves in videos becomes even more apparent, if it hadn’t been already, and they rarely speak to each other outside of basic household conversation (who’s doing the dishes, what are they having for dinner, who is filming what, when, and why).

In the most convenient of timing, the two of them begin a radio show, and it’s the ultimate acting job for the both of them to put on faces and act like everything is fine and dandy between the two of them. It’s not necessarily a lie, but to say that they were the way they used to be is reaching quite a bit.

(But everything is normal) (Dan swears).

Half of Dan wishes that the both of them could just get over themselves, and the other half wishes that he’d never met Phil in the first place because life would just be easier that way. It wasn’t that the years since they’d met had been bad (because Dan was maybe still a little bit in love with Phil) (and maybe he was still holding out hope that Phil was maybe a little bit in love with him too), but he also wouldn’t wish this fate on his worst enemy.

The real recovery is slow, but it happens.

They begin to sit next to each other on the couch again, laughing about the television shows that they’d been watching together for years and playing Jenga at three in the morning just because they’re both awake and they can.

When Dan sinks into one of his personal lows, Phil is there to try and prop him back up, and it’s the shortest period of existential crisis Dan had gone through in the last year.

Not everything happens immediately, and the things that do happen take months, but it’s starting to show to other people as well as to themselves, and if anything, Dan’s just happy that he’s still got his best friend.

There are still issues (and there might always be, at this rate) since Phil still unexpectedly kissed Dan and the two of them never talked about it, not to mention their unexplained relationship status for their first two years of knowing each other.

They don’t talk about it, they’ve never talked about it before, and they probably never will. To themselves and to anyone else who’s concerned, they are just friends and they’ve always been, and that’s everything. Dan won’t extrapolate the situation and Phil won’t even dare bring it up; unlike history teachers who claim that the past needs to be discussed so that it isn’t repeated, Dan and Phil would rather leave that one buried in the sand.

It’s probably not the best idea, and Dan figures that it’ll come back to haunt them eventually, but for now, in this moment, the two of them are back in some sort of functional rhythm as best friends.

It’s not perfect, not really, but it works.

2014

or: overcast

With the clouds hanging over their heads and the noise of London traffic buzzing in their ears, the two best friends are sat in a secluded area of some park near their flat, talking about God knows what (the topic of conversation isn’t important; not yet, anyways) and enjoying the fact that the two of them are back to normal, their normal, and it just happens.

Straight out of left field.

Dan turns his head to Phil, his best friend in the whole world, and chuckles a bit,

“You know I used to be in love with you.”

2015

or: rainbows

The two of them have just finished their monthly radio show, and the sad yet joyful feeling of having to wait an entire month to be back in the studio live kicks in just as it had every month since the show had been all switched around.

There was little talk about Dan’s admittance of past love for his best friend; it was said, they laughed, and it was done with. Maybe, maybe, had it been any other year, it would have been taken a bit more seriously, but the two of them were too content with the lives they had now to complicate them anymore. Especially after their track record.

It’s bittersweet in that the two of them might have made a good couple (plenty of people ship them together, after all), but with the dynamic that existed now, it wouldn’t make any sense to backtrack that far. Relationships go through phases, and to them that was just one of them.

It happened. It was years ago. They were over it.

It’s not until the two of them had taken off their headphones and Phil had assured that the two of them were off air that the subject is brought up again, and this time it’s not pertaining to Dan’s feelings,

“You know I used to be in love with you, too.”

#fic #somethingcharming

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