#mirrorf28

It would all have been a lot easier, in Dan’s opinion, if Phil had been a guy.

Or at least if she were insanely popular. Because then it would look totally normal, the way Dan’s making an effort to travel across half the country just to collab with her. The commenters on DailyBooth wouldn’t coo so much. His own mother wouldn’t be so insistent he take a strip of condoms in his overnight bag.

“She’s my friend,” Dan says for the gazillionth time.

“That may be the case right now,” his mum says. “But you put a teenage boy and a teenage girl in a house where there’s no adult supervision-”

“She’s not a teenager.”

“Ooh, an older woman?”

He stops arguing and lets his mother watch him put the condoms right at the bottom of the bag. As he does so, he catches sight of himself in the mirror across the room. He sees the image like a photograph, Boy holding Condoms c. 2010, entirely detached from the thought processes behind the action. The body in the mirror doesn’t match with his mind.

But how the hell do you show what’s going on inside your head, anyway?

Dan has absolutely no idea how he first stumbled across Phil’s videos. He used to watch gaming channels, plus the occasional fit American female vlogger. Not that Phil isn’t fit, but - well, Phil’s decent, but she isn’t fit. She’s pasty white, with long hair which was clearly first dyed black and straightened to within an inch of its life during an emo phase and has suffered for it since, slightly dry and cracking at the tips. Her eyes are too pale to be striking, and her nose is simply too big for her face.

She is funny though. And quirky. And she has a similar taste in music to Dan, and she also likes video games (and is considerably worse at them, which makes Dan feel better), and she’s - okay, she’s a bit girly what with the lion toy she puts in every single video, and she’s kind of a bit ridiculous with her whole sweetness and light thing, but somehow she’s become a mate. But not like that.

It took a while for her to agree to talk to Dan. She tweeted him back happily enough but didn’t follow him for months after they first started chatting, didn’t offer her Facebook details or Skype name until they’d been mutual followers on DailyBooth for a pretty long time. Dan quite likes DailyBooth for that reason - it’s really hard to pretend to be someone you’re not when you’re posting a new selfie every day. It was DailyBooth which convinced Phil that giving Dan her phone number wouldn’t lead to stalking or something, and the beginnings of his YouTube channel also marked a distinct change in how much she texted back. Even then they hadn’t ever really intended to meet up, not until Dan got an unconditional offer from Manchester University to read for a BA (Hons) degree in Law.

Dan Howell @danisnotonfire @AmazingPhil ahhh, coming to live in your neighbourhood!!!! twitpic.com/aklq34

Phil Lester @AmazingPhil @danisnotonfire omg well done!!! Unconditional! Guess we should actually socialise irl in that case?

Dan Howell @danisnotonfire  @AmazingPhil xD

Phil Lester @AmazingPhil @danisnotonfire we could do a collab video! let's do that!

Dan’s course doesn’t begin for a couple of months yet - it’s still June - but Phil offered to show him round Manchester a bit and, because taking the train up for a single day would be a complete waste of time, also offered to let him stay at her house. She’s still a little bit iffy about that, Dan can tell, because her parents aren’t going to be in. He kind of wishes she trusted him more, but then he is just some guy off the internet at the end of the day, even if he's now technically a YouTuber too. He decides to let it slide.

It’s her who hugs him first, though, so that’s okay.

“Look at you being real and stuff!” she grins. “And even prettier in the flesh. That’s just not fair.”

“Oh, I apologise for my face,” Dan says, rolling his eyes. “Also, pretty?”

“Yep. Or maybe you'd prefer pretty as a picture. Pretty as a picture of a princess. A pink picture of a princess.”

He huffs. “Pretty’s fine.”

“Thought so. So, grand tour of Manchester!”

Dan’s seen the university before on open days but they start there nonetheless. It makes sense to know where everything is in relation to campus anyway. From there they head into the town centre for a bit, take pictures at the Apple Store and post them to DailyBooth, then just wander round. Phil points out various landmarks, including both the Manchester Eye and the best place to get cheesy chips, and Dan tries his best to actually remember some of this.

“I’m gonna be glued to Google Maps when I get here properly, aren’t I?” he says.

Phil laughs. “Yep. No way round that. Actually, it’s kind of weird learning a new place, like - when I was in York, I learned so much of the geography from Google Maps that I started thinking like a sat nav. Bear slightly to the left and continue for seven hundred yards,” she mimics, deepening her voice so it sounds sort of smooth and faux-sexy. “It was kind of weird, I started thinking in terms of like ‘oh, this bookshop is a couple of minutes north of the minster’ - I couldn’t tell you where on earth north is back in Rossendale. I mean, I could tell you where on earth north is - but you know what I mean. Boys are supposed to be better at that, aren’t they? Knowing the compass points and that.”

“Not me,” says Dan. “Google Maps all the way. Don’t pigeons have, like, magnets in their heads for navigation and stuff?”

“You mean pigeons are magnetic? Could you stick tin cans to their heads?”

Dan laughs. “Um. Maybe mini tin cans? Is tin even magnetic?”

“Or is that aluminium?" Phil's nose wrinkles as she thinks about it. "I can’t remember which way round it is.”

“Me neither.”

This being June in Manchester, neither of them is particularly surprised when it begins to rain, although Phil scowls at the sky.

"I just straightened my hair this morning!" she complains, pointlessly.

"Oh, and the secrets come out," Dan teases. "Next you'll reveal your natural hair colour isn't actually black."

Phil blinks at him, deadpan. "Are those curls I see returning?"

Dan's hand shoots to his head to check before he realises he's been had.

"Okay, fine, shut up." He'd be blushing if that were a thing his skin did. "Come on, is there a Starbucks somewhere round here?"

Indeed there is, and they grab a table by the window where they can dry off and sip caramel macchiatos whilst also watching the poor passersby undergo the conversion from damp human to drowned rat.

"Ooh, she needs to invest in some waterproof mascara," Dan says, nodding at a twenty-something girl with noticeable black marks round her eyes.

"She might just have been rubbing her eyes a lot," Phil argues. "Maybe she worked a night shift last night and hasn't had the chance to sleep yet. Maybe she's actually leading a double life - she might be Catwoman!"

"Just so long as she isn't a makeup artist by day," Dan quips.

"You're no fun. Come on, who do you think he is?" She points at a businessman holding a briefcase over his head as he scurries past. "Office underling, secretly working to bring down the corrupt CEO?"

"Or maybe he is the corrupt CEO, and Catwoman's going to bring down his business empire somehow."

That makes Phil grin; she nods at the harassed barista clearing a table across the shop. "She could be her accomplice, putting hallucinogenic chemicals in the evil workers' coffees."

It takes Dan a little longer to spot a next potential cast member. "Sexy secretary by the post box over there, wearing the red coat. She's only on the CEO's side because he's rich."

"Brainless henchmen - those two guys under the awning of Marks."

"And the bedraggled dog next to them is basically the fluffy white cat. Catwoman, I've been expecting you," he says, deepening his voice dramatically, and ruining it by coughing.

Phil hides her smile behind her coffee mug. Dan clears his throat.

“So, is Phil short for Philippa? I never actually asked.”

“Yep. Predictable, right?”

“Why d’you go for Phil though? Why not… Pippa, or something?”

Phil shrugs. “Everyone else’s nicknames were just the first syllable of their names. I mean, you're Daniel, right? And I was friends with Sam - Samantha - and Tom - Thomas - and El - Eleanor - so we all thought that was how it worked. My mum calls me Pip, sometimes.”

“Has she got great expectations of you or something?”

Phil blinks. “That’s a reference to… the book?”

“Yeah, Charles Dickens.” Dan blushes. She knows that, of course she does. “Sorry, it was in my GCSE.”

He immediately regrets saying that, although he’s not sure why he’s embarrassed - it’s not like he’s only just finished his GCSEs, and Phil knows exactly how old he is. She doesn’t seem to notice, anyway.

“Oh yeah, Miss Havisham." She makes a face. "I probably should have changed my name for YouTube,” she says. “It’s not like with J. K. Rowling, where she could just, like, pretend she could be a guy - I just get a load of comments asking why I was pretending I wasn’t a girl. Apparently my face kind of gives it away. Or not, according to some of the trolls.”

Dan doesn’t know quite what to say to that, so he doesn’t.

They spend a while in the Starbucks until it becomes clear that this isn’t a passing shower, and that there are people who could really use their seats.

"Thank you," a young mother says earnestly as she places one child on Phil's seat, dragging the other onto her lap.

"Welcome," says Phil.

She trails Dan out of the shop until Dan remembers that he has no idea where he's going and waits for Phil to take the lead again.

Phil blinks again at the rain. "Cut our losses and get a bus back to mine?" she suggests.

"Sounds good."

They nearly miss a bus but manage to scramble on when the bus driver takes pity on them and delays closing the doors for a few vital seconds. To be fair, Dan doesn't see how anyone with half a heart could leave a bedraggled Phil out in the rain.

"Two singles to Rossendale Church Lane," she says.

Dan doesn't say anything then because they've already made the bus late, but once they've taken their seats he nudges Phil and says, "How much do I owe you?"

"For the bus? Seriously, don't worry about it."

"But -"

"Dan, you paid for your train fare to get here, and that was definitely way more than a single bus ticket. And plus, you're nearly a student. Gotta get used to taking free things wherever possible. Never turn down free food, always turn down free drink."

“Got it,” he says. He nudges her shoulder. “Thanks.”

They sit in companionable silence for a while. Well, mostly companionable. They’re still a little too new to each other, a little unsure how they fit together IRL. This is the first time Dan’s actually met up with someone ‘from the internet’ before, though, and he’s really pleasantly surprised how well the whole thing’s going. It’s less like beginning a conversation, and more like continuing one, even if he no longer has the chance to edit his contributions to that conversation before pressing send.

“It’s kind of a long bus ride. Sorry,” Phil says eventually. “I’d’ve driven, but Mum took me off the insurance policy on her car. Seeing as I’ve spent most my time in York for the past three years, and then I’m moving out soon, so-”

“It’s fine,” Dan says. "I'm spending the night with you, I'm sure I can stick a couple of hours."

They end up having an iPod shuffle competition - whose music is least embarrassing when all songs are shuffled? It's a close call, mainly because they don't have an impartial judge to agree with Dan that video game music belongs in video games, not on iPods.

"But it's cute!" Phil protests as ‘Interrupted by Fireworks’ plays gently away in their shared earphones.

Dan wrinkles his nose as he listens. "Maybe if it were done by proper instruments it would come out of the 'embarrassing' category. It's all thin and video game-y. It's like - it's like the difference between talking to someone on Skype rather than in real life."

"It can be your song, then. And if it's your song, you can't say it's embarrassing without also calling yourself embarrassing."

"Fine! You win on that one. Okay, let's try mine."

The argument about whether it's embarrassing or amazingly classy for a nineteen-year-old to have classical piano music on his iPod never reaches a satisfying conclusion, but instead tails off as Dan yawns.

"You tired?"

"No, you just bore me," Dan shoots back.

It only occurs to him a second too late that they might not be close enough for that joke to work, but Phil folds her arms and huffs dramatically.

"Oh, I see how it is."

Dan grins. "Nah, you know what my sleep schedule's like. Getting up for the train this morning was basically torture."

"Worth it, though?"

"Yeah."

Chopin's nocturnes give way to Paramore's 'All We Know', and the abrupt change breaks the moment. Probably for the best, Dan thinks.

Phil's house, when they eventually reach it, is a little bit spooky, although that may have something to do with the fact that it's dark and there's no one there. Phil's room is exactly how Dan expected it though, the background of videos and Skype calls suddenly made 3D. He stares for a couple of seconds at the blue and green checked sheets, and wonders why the reality of Phil’s room is so much stranger to him than the reality of Phil herself.

“You can sleep in Martin’s old room, if you like,” she says. “He moved out a while ago, so. Or you can sleep in here - we can get the camp bed out.”

“Proper sleepover style,” Dan grins.

And that’s what they do, after a dinner of stir fry which Phil makes and Dan hovers over, feeling slightly awkward. It’s the unavoidable effect of being a first-time houseguest - he’s not sure how much he should be offering to do to help - but as the night wears on, that sensation fades away. Phil's just so easy to be with; the conversation flows naturally and happily all evening, ranging from tips on video editing to discussions of uni life to the all-important question of which is their favourite Pokémon.

They don't stay up massively late - Dan's been yawning all day anyway after he got a grand total of four hours' sleep last night - and fall asleep around two, mid-conversation about... something. Dan will never remember what on earth they were discussing, although he has a feeling that llamas came into it somewhere.

The next day begins with a breakfast of super-unhealthy cereal ("do I even want to know what you're like when you've had too much sugar?" Dan asks) and making plans for their collab video.

"How many questions did people send in?" Dan asks.

"Loads! They're all kind of random, but random's good."

"I'm scared."

"You should be more scared of the fact that I'm editing it after you've gone home this evening. What time's your train?"

"Open return. Need to look up the times, and then given the bus journey..."

"We should probably make a start then. D'you want to go and shower while I wash up?"

By the time they sit down to film the video it's getting on midday, and if it weren't for the cloud cover the light from the window would make it far too bright to film.

"How we doing this then?" Dan asks.

Phil shrugs. "Read out the questions and answer them?"

For the sake of posterity, it's very very lucky that the first question is 'why do you always make cat whiskers on your face?'

"Cat whiskers!" Phil shouts, and scrambles over to her makeup bag, almost kicking Dan in the face in her haste. "My eyeliner's broken! Why do I never have a sharpener?"

"Just use pen," Dan suggests.

This will later prove a terrible idea when it takes half an hour to get the traces of black marker off their faces, but at the time it's just kind of hilarious; Dan's hand shakes a little as he puts the whiskers on Phil's left cheek, her nose getting in the way of his hand, and Phil only just manages not to sneeze.

"It smells all fume-y," Dan says, wrinkling his own nose as Phil returns the favour.

"We're basically going to get high filming this video, aren't we?"

"Yay, stoned videos!"

The fumes probably aren't half as intoxicating as the resulting video would make it seem. They muck around, collapse against each other laughing for minutes at a time which will need to be cut from the finished product, and it's like the giggles and the silliness are cumulative: they build up until they're frothing over, pouring out of them in a never-ending wave of happiness.

"What sound does a giraffe make?"

Phil makes a strangled sound in the back of her throat which sounds more like - well, Dan doesn't really know, but he can't contain his grin.

"I swear every animal makes that noise with you," he says. "Do a baby elephant?"

She obligingly makes the exact same noise again, and already they're laughing. It sets the tone for the rest of the video, and if they'd ever entertained any notion of answering a question seriously, it disappears immediately.

"Speak French," Dan commands.

Phil looks straight into the camera. "Je mange les petits enfants."

"Tu mere est... prostitute."

"Ou se trouve la salle de jeu - that's the only thing I actually remember from French at school."

"Tu mere est la salle de jeu," Dan insists.

"Well, tu mere est mange les petits enfants."

And off they go again.

"What does it feel like to be a real woman now?" Phil reads out. "Oh, I'm a real lady, I am. I have a sewing machine and everything."

She stretches over Dan's lap to pull said machine out from under her bed; it scrapes heavily across the floor.

"Really ladylike," says Dan.

"I'm a lady!" Phil protests à la David Walliams, which sends Dan off into further paroxysms of laughter.

The camera light starts blinking at them eventually as they approach the end of its battery life.

"We should wrap up," Phil says. "Ow, I actually have a stitch from laughing."

Dan fights down his grin and turns to the camera. "Well. This was the most fun I've ever-"

But that's as far as he gets, because Phil seizes him round the waist and pushes him to the floor. His hands come up reflexively to grab her but he stops them at the last second.

"Pinned ya!" she crows.

"I thought you had a stitch!" Dan splutters - half of Phil's hair seems to have made its way into his mouth. "Get off, your boobs are suffocating me."

She's still laughing as she pushes herself off him, though her giggles are interspersed with 'ow's. "Get up and say goodbye to the camera."

They make hand hearts into the lens at Dan's behest.

"This is so cheesy," Phil says.

"It's supposed to be!" Dan protests as Phil goes to turn off the camera. "Honestly, you have no appreciation for the art of the ironic cheesiness."

She laughs at him, and then groans. "Okay, now I really have got a stitch."

Dan laughs at her in turn, but then he catches sight of the clock on the wall and deflates.

"I have to go soon, don't I?"

Phil follows his eyeline. "Yeah, I guess. Unless - do you have to go back tonight?"

It's so tempting to say no, I can stay, please let me stay. "My ticket's only valid today. I don't - I mean, I'd buy another one but it's expensive, and I really can't-"

"It's okay. I'll see you soon, won't I?"

"Well, I'm coming up to uni in September. And - we can Skype, and stuff?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Sure you wouldn't survive without seeing my beautiful face for that long anyway."

Phil rolls her eyes, but she's grinning still. "Come on - is all your stuff still in your bag? We've got like half an hour to the next bus."

Thanks to the amount of time it takes to remove the cat whiskers, they run out of time to actually look up the train schedules and bank on the fact that there are always trains between Manchester and London, and then from London to Reading, and end up waiting for twenty minutes before the next train. Dan buys a sandwich and a packet of crisps for the train, and Phil buys a Snickers for the bus journey which, to be fair, is almost as long.

"I'm moving into Manchester properly in a couple of months, getting my own flat," she says suddenly. "Well, sort of. Gonna flatshare with my friend Charlie."

"Oh, cool. Did you get a job there then?"

"Yeah, but not like a graduate job, just working in a WHSmiths, starting next month. That plus the YouTube revenue, it's just about enough. And it'll be brilliant for people-watching, anecdotes and stuff."

"All the crazy people you seem to attract," Dan teases. "Maybe you'll make it big time on YouTube, end up with that as your job, like charlieissocoollike and nerimon, those sorts of people."

Phil laughs. "I'd need a hell of a lot more views for that. Also merchandise. Hey, maybe I could sell replicas of Lion."

"Absolutely. Totally feasible. Definitely not gonna run into trouble with the people who actually make the toy."

She sticks her tongue out at him. "Anyway, what I was going to say was that you're welcome to come round if the people in your halls are annoying, or loud, or have sex at inappropriate times or whatever. Not that Charlie isn't annoying, loud, and prone to bringing boys back for really enthusiastic sex, but at least there's only one of him."

"I'll probably take you up on that," Dan says. "Thanks."

"Welcome," she smiles.

Dan glances up at the noticeboard - his train should be arriving any minute. "Should probably go," he says. "Thanks for this - I've had an amazing time. Seriously, like, thank you for inviting me."

"Thank you for coming," Phil rejoins. "Text me when you get home."

"Will do."

This time it's Dan who goes for the hug. He's not all that much taller than her; he bends down slightly so they're on the same level.

"See you soon," he says.

"Not if I see you first."

***

The day that Dan arrives in Manchester, Phil comes round to help him unpack and generally tide him over the 'oh god this is the first time I've properly moved out' nerves. It's only the second time they've seen each other face to face, but Phil suddenly seems like the only safe thing, the only familiar thing. It's probably just the effect of being in a scary new situation.

"Brought you a present," she says cheerfully, brandishing a poster tube. "Gotta use that WHSmiths discount for something."

It's a Paramore poster, which Dan takes gratefully.

"Look at these walls!" he says. "It's like an actual prison cell! Was that the vibe they were going for, d'you think? Was the idea to make first years feel as uncomfortable and trapped as they possibly could?"

Phil glances round. "It is a bit... yellow."

"You think?"

It doesn’t take longer than half an hour to put all Dan’s things in drawers and the small wardrobe, and in the case of his shoes, under the bed for want of a better storage space. Phil flumps onto the newly made bed to test the mattress out while Dan starts organising the wires underneath the desk, including an ethernet cable. No wifi, that’s going to be weird.

“Well, the mattress isn’t too bad,” Phil decides. “And you can probably stretch the ethernet cable over here if you wanna use your laptop in bed.”

“Yay, I retain the ability to watch YouTube videos until four a.m.”

“That reminds me, congrats on the subscribers, by the way," she says. "You're nearly level pegging with me, and I've been doing this for two years now."

"Yeah, well, I got most of them from doing that collab with you," Dan says. "Never gonna beat that. Even if most of them seem to think we're going out."

Phil laughs. "Get used to it - every time I'm in a video with a guy, I'm supposedly having sex with them."

"Cos there's no way a guy and a girl can just be friends."

"Exactly." Phil makes a face. "What are you doing tonight, then? Have you met the rest of the people on your floor yet?"

Dan shakes his head. "| know I should."

"Go on. I can't do anything tonight anyway, got work in the morning. I'll go home and let you socialise."

"Ugh, socialising."

They're interrupted by a timely knock on the door. Dan throws Phil a melodramatic glance before getting up to answer it.

The girl outside is quite short, has a nose ring, and is smiling in a way that makes Dan think she’s probably been told that her normal smile isn’t actually that friendly.

"Hey, I'm Lizzie," she says. Her voice is lower than Dan expected. “Molecular biology, room 212. You?"

"Dan, Law, room - well, this room, obviously," he finishes awkwardly.

"It could have been someone else’s," she shrugs. "Like - sorry, what's your name?"

Phil gets up from where she was sitting on the bed and does a little wave. "Phil, not a student - I'm just helping Dan settle in."

"Oh, cool. Well, I was going to say that it could have been your room, but yeah, anyway.” She clears her throat. “I was just coming round to introduce myself, really. And does anyone have any plans yet? Like, I really don't feel like cooking, first night and everything, wanna go for a wander with the rest of the flat and find somewhere to eat? You're welcome too," she says to Phil. "The more the merrier, right?"

"I've got work in the morning, but thanks," says Phil.

"Yeah, that sounds good," says Dan. "Have you asked anyone else yet?"

"Nope, you're the first. Meet in the kitchen in a bit?”

“Cool. Nice to meet you.”

She smiles more naturally now, and yeah, she does look a bit sardonic, but also a lot more relaxed. “You too. See you in a bit.”

As soon as the door closes behind her, Phil nudges Dan’s shoulder. “See, not so scary.”

He shoves her shoulder in response.

Thankfully, it turns out that his flatmates aren’t bad people. Out of the twelve who will eventually share their windowless kitchen, only five have turned up today and Dan doesn’t clash with any of them, which is a good start. There’s Lizzie, who is a little bit intimidating but kind of talkative, and then there’s a guy called Steven who’s a bit of a lad, and Ben (“please don’t call me Benedict”) who’s quite posh-sounding and studying Classics to boot, and Noemi who has a bit of an accent but English grammar skills to rival any native’s. They stumble across a noodle place with fifteen percent off for students and grab a table, at which point they learn that Ben is a vegetarian and Lizzie is allergic to peanuts. Steven keeps trying to flirt with Noemi, very badly, and Noemi rolls her eyes every time and gently shifts away whenever he tries to put his arm round her. Given that she’s in between him and Dan, this means Dan is getting steadily closer to being pushed off the edge of the bench.

“Leave off, she’s probably got a nice boyfriend back in Spain who doesn’t want you touching his girl,” Lizzie says. Her voice is light, but possibly a little deliberately so.

Noemi throws a grateful glance at her and clears her throat. “Yes, actually.”

Steven backs up and raises his hands. “Sorry. Can’t help it if I think you’re hot.”

“So what about everyone else then?” asks Ben. “I suppose you’re single, Steven.”

“What a surprise,” Noemi murmurs to Dan.

“Dan’s got a girlfriend, haven’t you?” Lizzie says. “That girl round yours today?”

He shakes his head. “She’s just a friend.”

“Oh right. Well, it was nice of her to help you move in.”

“Yeah,” says Dan. “What about you, then?”

This is a smart move, because Lizzie happily complains about her Sixth Form boyfriend for a good ten minutes, and then Ben very quickly mentions his boyfriend (probably the reason he began the conversation, Dan thinks, to get coming out over and done with as soon as possible) and then the food comes and the conversation turns easily towards favourite foods, and how much each of them can cook, and whether they should consider cooking for each other, maybe on a rota or something.

By the time they get back to their halls, another three people have arrived, and Dan feels decidedly less nervous about joining everyone in the kitchen for a drink and a chat. He confesses as early as possible that he has a YouTube channel (“so if I’m wandering round with a camera I'm not just being a perv or something”) which naturally results in at least three calls of “ooh, let’s have a look!” and when he shows them ‘Phil is not on fire’ on Phil’s channel (no need to actually give them his own username straight off), Lizzie throws him a sceptical glance.

“Don’t say it,” he warns her.

She rolls her eyes, but nods.

***

Dan first visits Phil’s flat only a couple of days later. Lectures haven’t started yet; it’s just been a series of fire drills, emails from professors with terrifying reading lists attached, emails from various societies with even-more-terrifying social itineraries attached, and of course a fair bit of drinking. Freshers’ week is everything Dan has heard about and a lot he hasn’t - he’s fairly sure that at least half his flatmates have had sex with people they’ve never met before, and he’d never expected to be quite so knowledgeable about the various types of alcohol-flavoured vomit he’s seen spattered around campus, and it’s only day three. It’s not been too bad though. He spent a fairly hilarious half an hour with Lizzie trying to work out how the hell to turn the oven on in their windowless kitchen, only for Noemi to poke her head in and say “there’s a switch on the wall”. The whole uni experience can so far be summed up in the expression ‘muddling through’; no one has a clue what they’re doing, but they’re all fairly sure that nothing terrible’s going to happen if they muck up a bit. It’s an odd mixture of optimism and anarchy, and altogether very enjoyable.

It is a relief to visit Phil’s flat, though. It feels a lot more normal there.

“It’s a bit white,” she warns him as they ascend in the lift together. “And boring. We haven’t had much of a chance yet to do anything to it.”

“You have seen my room?” he reminds her.

And of course her flat is a lot nicer than his uni room cum prison cell. The lounge and kitchen are open plan and separated by a breakfast bar, with glass doors leading out to an actual balcony (which is still somehow less impressive than the breakfast bar, possibly because it looks out over Strangeways Maximum Security Prison), and Phil’s room is light and quite big. True to her word, she hasn’t decorated it much beyond the one wall that appears in her videos, but there are a couple of pieces of wirrow’s art up on the walls, and her familiar blue and green bedsheets add a burst of colour and character.

“I like the mirror,” Dan says. He’s seen it already in the background of a vlog, but it’s cooler close up. It’s a full length mirror, hanging on the wall next to the bed, but it’s not one piece. Instead, it’s made up of lots of circles of varying sizes, each with a normal silvered back, and the glass between them is tinted slightly blue.

“Thanks,” Phil says. “I got the ensuite on the basis that Charlie’s terrified of seeing the naked female form,” she tells him. “And it was also on the condition that all my friends use it rather than his bathroom, just so you know.”

Dan nods. "Got it."

They head back out to the main room and Phil goes to make coffee, kicking shut three cupboard doors as she passes them. "Sorry about the mess," she says.

"This is not messy," Dan tells her.

Or maybe it is, but the mess in Phil’s flat is different to the mess in Dan’s shared kitchen. There, it’s careless, uncaring - it’s seeing how long they can hold out before someone else will step in and do the washing up for them, and not really caring if that takes a week or even more. Here, it’s obvious that this is a home. There’s stuff littered round the lounge but it’s stuff that’s going to be picked up and used again: a black hoodie is left draped over the sofa arm, a cacophony of brightly-coloured mugs sit on the breakfast bar, a set of headphones is sinking slowly into a beanbag.

There’s a tripod set up too, camera still perched on top. “Were you making a video?” Dan asks.

Phil makes a face as she brings the mugs over. “There’s this competition thingy I found - some band wanting promotion for their song, so they’re getting people to make music videos for it. It’s called ‘Check Yes Juliet’ by We The Kings - have you heard of it?”

Dan shakes his head, taking his mug and sitting down next to the hoodie. “Thanks. So you’re going to enter?”

“Yeah, it’s just difficult to know what to do. The brief is that you’re supposed to do a day in your life, but you have to find the balance between going out to, like, the Manchester Eye and pretending that’s something I do every day, and showing the truth.” She brings her legs up on the sofa so she’s sitting cross-legged, her hands wrapped around the mug. “And then there’s how much I want to put in in terms of effects and stuff. I always worry that I’m gonna go too far, put in too much, and come out looking like I’m a sixteen-year-old trying out every effect on Windows Movie Maker.”

“But on the other hand, you’ve got a Masters in editing and you need to show that off,” Dan finishes. “Yeah, see what you mean.”

“Exactly. So, I was just filming some sort of stock images for that, but that’s all really. What about you - you haven’t put anything up since you got here.”

“I’ve only been here like three days! I’ll do a video once term’s actually started, just an update. I’m at uni now; no, Americans, I do not have a roommate; no, everyone else, there have been no gorgeous sexy parties, probably with lesbians making out in the corner; yes, my room does look like a nightmare, that sort of thing.”

Phil rolls her eyes at him. “But it’s alright, so far? Nothing’s gone horrifically wrong, you’re not drowning in work yet…?”

“Just in reading lists. I’ve got a library tour tomorrow morning, so I figure I can start after that.”

“And thus the procrastination begins.”

Dan sticks his tongue out. “Fine, I won’t come and see you.”

Naturally, this turns out to be a very empty threat. Within the next fortnight, Phil has to kick Dan out no less than three times so he’ll get to the library before it closes. It’s bizarre thinking that they’ve barely spent any time together in person; falling into friendship is as easy as falling off a log. But although Dan spends probably too much time round at Phil's, it's not until week three (and, as luck would have it, the first time that he sleeps over) that he bumps into her flatmate.

At nine o'clock in the morning. Whilst Phil is in the shower. And most importantly, before Dan's had a single cup of coffee. Fuck his life.

They stare at each other a second, Dan in his pyjama bottoms and newly acquired University of Manchester hoodie, and Charlie in what looks like the outfit of the night before, and before Dan can regain his wits enough to say something normal, like maybe 'you must be Charlie, hello, I'm Dan, nice to meet you'-

"Philippa!" Charlie shouts. "Why is there a straight boy in our kitchen?"

Either Phil elects to ignore this or she genuinely can't hear him over the shower, leaving Dan to blink, wrong-footed, and say the first thing he can think of.

"Why d'you think I'm straight?"

Charlie rolls his eyes. "I do watch Phil's videos, you know. You were all over her in that collab thing you did."

"She jumped on me," Dan protests.

"That's just what she's like, though. You were all puppy dog eyes and pulling her pigtails-"

The kettle clicks off, and Dan is reminded of exactly how much he needed caffeine even before this nightmare of a conversation started.

"-and generally flaunting your heterosexuality, and I don't appreciate your presence in our kitchen at a time which suggests you never went home last night when she's specifically told me she doesn't want you like that."

"I was on the sofa!"

"Oh, a straight boy who pretends to be a gentleman, even better-"

"Fucksake, would it help if I told you I'm bi?"

Charlie actually pouts as he considers. "No, probably not. "

"And it's not possible that I'm just interested in being her friend?"

"Tell me honestly you've never thought about her like that. You can't, can you, because you're a hot-blooded non-gay male, and put one of those in the same vicinity as a female..."

Dan's totally at a loss. He really did not expect to wake up to the Spanish Inquisition this morning, and definitely not before he'd drunk a mug of coffee. And - well, okay, the thought of Phil 'like that' has crossed his mind, in those small moments where she tips her head back to shake her hair away from her face, or grabs a pillow to hold to her chest whilst they Skype, and he thinks 'maybe'.

"See, not going to deny it, are you? Straight boys, you're all the same."

"I'm not straight...?" Dan says weakly.

"Charlie, stop terrorising my friends."

Phil's hair is wrapped up in a towel, and she's only wearing a thick blue dressing gown. Dan has never been so happy to see her.

"Just letting him know how the land lies," Charlie says primly.

"Yeah, I got the message, thanks." Dan winces at his own words. Is that a bit harsh? Not that Charlie hasn't been harsh, but he is Phil's flatmate and presumably one of her best friends. Probably best to stay on his good side. "Want a coffee?"

"Oh, and now you're offering me my own coffee."

"Charlie!” Phil scolds. “Be nice or shut up, okay?"

"Shutting up. Black with sugar."

With that, he stalks off, which doesn't really work in a flat which is really quite small and also quite open plan and results in Charlie slumped mutinously on a sofa less than five metres away from where Dan and Phil are still standing by the kettle.

Phil seems to be finding the whole thing quite funny. "You know, you two have a lot in common. Well. You have the general inability to function before midday in common."

"Thanks," Dan mutters.

She starts retrieving mugs and coffee from their respective cupboards. “Seriously, he’s sweet as a kitten most of the time. When’s your lecture?"

"Eleven. Two hours as well - who puts a two hour lecture right over lunch?" he complains as he grabs the sugar.

Phil smiles. “Kind of glad you’re clearing out - I want to really get on with editing today,” she says.

“This still the competition video?”

“Yeah, that. There are loads of entries up already, so at least I know what other people are doing now. I dunno if I’ve got a hope in hell of winning, but it’s worth a go.”

"You'll blast them all out of the water," Charlie calls.

Phil laughs. "You have to say that, the prize money would be going towards the rent."

Once he's finally gotten his caffeine fix, Dan goes and has his own shower (in Phil's bathroom, as per Charlie's rules) and returns to find Phil and Charlie watching some anime programme that Dan doesn't recognise. Charlie's laughing, perhaps at the show or perhaps at something Phil's just said, but as soon as he sees Dan he stops. He doesn't glare like he did earlier, but it's like Dan's mere existence is enough to put him into defensive mode. It occurs to Dan that perhaps it's not actually personal; it might just be a reaction to straight (as far as Charlie's concerned) males, which would kind of be a lot more reasonable. He decides he doesn't particularly like Charlie, but he doesn't actually dislike him, at least not yet.

Back at university, too, everyone’s sort of settling down into friendships and cliques, deciding who they like and dislike, moving on from the initial first impression of ‘none of these people is terrible’ towards ‘none of these people is terrible, but these are the ones I like hanging out with most’. Noemi and Ben have struck up a strong friendship because Noemi can speak her native Spanish with him; Ben has apparently never studied Spanish, but he did do French, Italian and Latin to A Level (definitely posh, Dan thinks), so he can understand a fair bit. It’s quite funny, listening to the pair of them talk: Noemi says something in Spanish, Ben replies in English, and on they go.

Dan doesn’t hang out much with either Ben or Noemi; they’re both a bit quiet and whilst he’s totally fine with quiet, he’s not so good with awkward silences. Apparently Noemi gets tired if she has to speak in English too long, anyway, and Dan’s grasp of Romance languages is next to non-existent. He’s probably closest with Lizzie, although most of their time together is spent with her talking and him nodding and saying ‘yeah’ at the appropriate juncture. It’s not an even partnership, not like with him and Phil.

One person who he is beginning to dislike is Steven, the other guy who arrived on the same day as him. To begin with, Dan thought he was alright - bit of a lad, yes, but with his heart in the right place. They’ve even bonded a little bit over video games - Steven actually brought an Xbox to uni and hooked it up to a cheap old TV he bought at a secondhand store, so Dan's spent a few evenings with him murdering lots and lots of pixels. Unfortunately, this seems to have given Steven the idea that this means they're mates, which is not quite how Dan would have put it. He’s just a bit… crass.

This is probably how he ends up showing him his ‘University Life’ video. Seriously, Dan could swear he hadn’t actually intended to say “yes, of course you can watch my latest vlog” but Steven had expressed interest and Dan just… hadn’t said no. Dammit.

“That’s fucking weird, man,” is Steven’s verdict.

“Thanks,” Dan says dryly.

“No, it’s cool, just weird. Play it again?”

This time through, Steven seems to get over the weirdness of the vlogging format which means he can pay attention to the content. He laughs aloud a couple of times, once when Dan zooms in on a random girl’s window, and again when he asks Noemi and Lizzie to make out for the sake of his thumbnail.

“Their faces!” he crows. “Fucking priceless.”

It’s at this point that Dan begins to wonder if Steven knows any adverbs other than ‘fucking’.

“And I swear that’s the most I’ve ever heard Noemi say.”

Possibly because you’re a douche so she doesn’t speak to you, Dan thinks.

The video ends with the random cat and Steven shoves him good-naturedly for the whole ‘you just lost the game’ thing.

“You get a lot of girls watching you?” he asks.

“Um, yeah,” Dan says.

Steven nods appreciatively. “Nice. Go with what you got, right?”

Which is possibly the most backhanded compliment Dan has ever received, and he reads YouTube comments.

“Anyway, I’ve got a presentation to do for tomorrow, so I’d better go to the library,” Dan says. “Sorry.”

“Nah, s’cool, I’m going out with the footie lads soon, gonna get on the pre-lash.”

“Right,” says Dan. “Have fun.”

As Steven leaves, Dan makes a mental note for future videos: maybe don’t try to exploit your female friends by asking them to make out, even if you do get permission from them to put the clip in, and definitely don’t zoom in creepily on girls’ bedrooms.

***

Phil texts Dan when her video goes up - it’s not something they normally do, but she’s been working so hard on this one for weeks now.

Eek, it’s online! Are you busy? Tell me what you think!

nope, not busy, give me a sec.

He opens a new tab and bypasses the subscription feed in favour of going straight to Phil's channel - YouTube being what it is, the video probably won't have arrived in his sub box yet. There are a couple of views already there on the video, although they're probably all Phil checking that it works at different qualities and so on. There are no likes yet, anyway. He clicks on the video and sits back to watch.

His first impression is that it's good. It's quirky, of course - when has Phil made a video which isn't? - and he likes the balance she's achieved between a realistic day in her life (scrolling through twitter, straightening her hair, giving lion a mohawk) and the odd little story she's put through the middle of it (including making herself a friend out of magazine clippings and becoming the victim of an alien abduction, because of course). There are quite a few effects, but what makes Phil's editing skills clear is the timing of the whole thing; the cuts are sharp and to the beat, and she's not afraid to use very short clips. She does seem to run out of footage as the three minute mark is reached, and the fanart, although very cool, probably flashes up a few too many times, but generally, it's a very good video.

He plays it through once more, and then grabs his phone again.

you’re making me feel bad about making videos with pombears on strings. it’s so good! well done you <3

It’s not too boring? Was trying not to go overboard…

no way! it has a freaking alien abduction in it! it’s fun. and plus it’s got you in a bra - what more could anyone want. :P

:/ I was worried about that too. And the shower bit.

it’s all shoulders and above, it’s fine. stop worrying, it’s a really really good video, promise.

:D Thank you. Gonna submit it to the competition website now - fingers crossed!

touching wood right now.

That’s what she said.

phil!!!

Dan watches the video once more that day, but doesn't rewatch it after that, and that's how he misses it. The explosion of views happens a few days later, and the first he knows that anything's wrong is when he turns his phone off silent after a seminar and his twitter mentions have blown up: "what's wrong with phil????" "is phil okay?" "DID YOU BREAK UP WITH PHIL?"

He goes straight to Phil's twitter, and sure enough, she tweeted whilst he was in the seminar:

Phil Lester @AmazingPhil 0_o okay this is scary

And then ten minutes later:

Phil Lester @AmazingPhil Um, taking a bit of a break from the internet for a bit guys! Not feeling good here right now. Sorry <3

Uncharacteristically, those are the only two tweets in the past hour; normally when Phil tweets something, she'll stay online for a bit to answer replies from her subscribers. Dan would be lying if he were to say he wasn't a bit worried. He exits twitter and texts her:

hey, saw your tweets, you okay? x

He waits ten minutes as he walks back to his room, but she doesn't text back. Okay, that’s a bit worrying. He opens Safari as he enters his building and goes to her tumblr, which is basically useless because there’s no time stamp and he can’t remember if he’s seen the first post or not. Finally, he uses the phone for what it was primarily designed for, and calls her. It goes to answerphone, and he hangs up.

By this stage he’s back at his room, door propped open as it usually is when he’d rather be interrupted than do actual work, so he flips his laptop open in the vain hope that he might have an enlightening email or something. There’s nothing there, of course, and in mild desperation, he goes to Phil’s YouTube channel.

That’s when he notices the view explosion.

Phil’s videos get a pretty consistent amount of views. Their collab got quite a few more, maybe one and a half times as many as the average, but generally there’s not much difference from one to the next. Dan’s views fluctuate a lot more, probably because he’s newer, and because - may as well be honest about it - he fits the mould of the popular YouTuber better. He’s a British boy with a fringe. People are more likely to randomly click on his thumbnails, but not subscribe. Phil, through years on the site, has built up a solid audience who watch her videos no matter what they’re about, no matter what they’re titled, no matter the length.

Her latest video, the day in her life, has five times the regular amount of views.

At first he thinks it’s probably just because of the competition - did she post it somewhere in order to enter? But then he sees the comments.

i’d do her

look at her tits

7/10

more tits!

pasty fucking bitch ugly as fuck

i would

And so on and so forth. Some of them aren’t too bad, just the sort of laddish thing he’d hear round uni all the time: the ratings out of ten, the ones which are sort of compliments. But then there are the ones which are outright - well, there are no words, really. He scrolls down a bit further and sees

i’ll rip ur fucking cunt in 2

“Ah, shit,” he says aloud. Okay, he can see why that’s scary, although it’s not like they’ll be able to find her. Not like they’ll even try. It’s just - well, it’s highly unpleasant. It’s not like it’s a porn video or anything, she’s just in a bra for about half a second, and there's a shot of her washing her hair which is strictly shoulders and up. It’s just annoying that they’ve taken a really good video and ruined it with such unpleasant comments.

A knock on the open door. “Hey, what’s up?”

Dan looks up. “Hey Lizzie. S’nothing, it’s just - um, you remember my friend Phil, the one who does the YouTube thing?”

Lizzie leans casually against the doorframe. “You mean the one whose house you’re always at when it’s your turn to clean the kitchen?”

“Shut up. Well, looks like some perverts have found her latest video or something. Look.”

He pushes the laptop towards her, and she comes over to the desk.

Her eyebrows raise as she scrolls through a few. “Shit, man,” she says.

“Yeah.”

She makes a face at a particularly vile comment that catches her eye. “Ew. I guess that’s just the internet though, isn’t it. If you’re gonna put yourself out there… What’s she gonna do, take the video down? Can you turn off comments or something?”

“It’s not just the internet though - it’s like, her livelihood. YouTube’s her job. And turning off comments…” He thinks about it, thinks about the community of people who follow her videos, considers the implications of shutting them out like that. “I don’t know, maybe just for this video, if she explained it. It’d be a bit like giving in, though.”

Lizzie straightens up. “Listen, as a girl who’s walked past a building site and over campus wearing a skirt which made my legs look fucking ace, I can tell you that I would love a button to turn off the comments. She should take advantage.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He shifts in his chair to face her. “But - like, sticking with the analogy, it’s not just turning the builders and the lads off, it’s turning everyone off. Her friends, the people who’ve watched her videos since like 2006…”

“So she’ll just have to deal then,” Lizzie shrugs. “Welcome to being a girl - either you shut yourself in your room or you learn to deal.”

The text on the screen shifts down suddenly, catching his eye, and he sees that YouTube has refreshed to accommodate a flurry of new comments. Dan shuts his laptop. “I’m gonna go and see her, I think. See you tonight?”

“If I’m not locked in the library overnight. I fucking hate lab reports.”

“Have fun with that,” says Dan, and laughs as she flips him a two-fingered salute. He grabs his coat, phone, wallet and keys and follows her out.

When he arrives at Phil's building, it’s Charlie who answers the intercom.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Charlie, it’s Dan. Is Phil there? Can I come up?”

There’s a pause as Charlie considers his options.

“Fucking heteros.”

It’s the only response Dan gets, but the door buzzes open, so he ignores it and heads swiftly for the lift. The journey to the nineteenth floor is long and boring as always, and he rocks back and forth on his heels, willing the lift to go faster.

Again, it's Charlie who opens the door, but he doesn't look as angry as Dan was expecting.

"She's in her room," he says. "I don't think this has really happened to her before. Not like this, anyway."

Dan nods. "Is she okay? Only I tried calling and texting-"

"No, she's not. Look - shit, I can't deal with this right now. Can you stay with her for a bit?"

"Yeah, course. See you later?"

Charlie snorts. "Probably not."

And he leaves, brushing past Dan towards the lift which is still there, still waiting on their landing. Dan watches him go before heading into the flat, shutting the door behind him with a gentle click.

Phil's bedroom door is closed; he knocks. "Hey, it's me. Can I come in?"

"Yeah, sure."

She makes a pitiful picture, sitting on her bed. She's not crying or anything, but she is very still, unnaturally still, and her laptop lies on the opposite corner by the foot of the bed like a snake or a spider she's trying to convince that she isn't there. Dan puts it on the floor and takes its place.

"Hey."

She smiles miserably. "Hey."

"Charlie went out," he tells her. "He looked a bit..."

"He's not got the best history with online hate," Phil explains. "Sort of what we bonded over. The same troll was calling me a man and him a girl. He'll be alright tomorrow."

Dan nods. "Is it - it's just the comments, isn't it? They haven't done anything else."

"No."

She doesn't seem inclined to expand on that. Dan clears his throat awkwardly. “Do you know where they came from?” he asks. “Like, how did they find you?”

"Give me my laptop?"

The tab with the comments is still open; she closes it quickly and goes into her YouTube analytics, to referral sources for the new video. Most of the list of URLs is standard: twitter, Facebook, tumblr, everywhere Phil normally advertises her videos, and then there’s the competition website bringing in a fairly hefty view count, and then -

snowwhitekinks.net

“The number keeps going up,” Phil says dully. “Every time I refresh.”

Dan can’t help but think it’s a fairly shit name for a kink forum. “What is it, have you looked?” he asks.

“I don’t want to look,” she says. “I really, really don’t want to look.”

There’s a heavy pause. “Do you want me to?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. God, what did I do? What have I done?”

“It’s not your fault they’re being dickheads,” Dan says.

“You’re just saying that, that’s just what people say. I put the video online, I put myself out there, I left that clip in - something made them embed my video onto a kink forum.”

Her whole body is tense, like a coiled spring, but there’s nowhere for the energy to go. She won’t shout, or hit something, Dan knows. She probably won’t cry, not whilst she’s angry at herself.

"Is there any way to get it removed?" Dan asks.

She shakes her head - a quick, stuttery movement, ever so slightly out of control. "Can't claim copyright because it's embedded or linked, not rehosted. Plus I couldn't claim copyright anyway - it's got someone else's music over the top. I'd have to get in touch with someone on the site, just ask them to take it down, and-"

And given that she can't even look at the site, that’s not going to happen.

"I don't want to think about it," she says abruptly. "Can we do something else, just anything else?"

They try. They steal some of Charlie's tortilla wraps and make fajitas, and they get Sonic the Hedgehog out and criticise each other's gaming techniques soundly, and Dan practises next week's presentation on property law, Phil nodding as if she understands despite the fact that it's mostly a lot of made-up nonsense because Dan doesn't have his notes or his slideshow with him.

"B+ for effort," she says.

But underneath all of it they know this isn't just a regular evening of mucking about. Dan has to keep resisting the temptation to check his phone, because he knows Phil isn't touching hers, and Phil is restless, continually glancing at the window as if there might somehow be someone out there, out to get her. Dan's tempted more than once to remind her that she lives on the nineteenth floor, but he knows that would be less than useful.

Charlie doesn't come back, and Dan sleeps on the sofa. He's woken up at seven by a sudden weight on his toes; he makes a muffled noise of protest.

“Sorry,” says Phil. She shifts slightly to let him withdraw his feet from beneath her. “Couldn’t sleep. I looked at the website.”

It takes Dan a couple of seconds to remember the events of yesterday, to figure out what website Phil’s talking about. He sits up, rubs a hand over his eyes. “You did?”

She nods. “Does what it says on the tin, apparently. They have a fetish for girls with pale skin and dark hair. That’s weird, though, isn’t it? What sort of a kink is that?”

“Everything’s a fetish,” Dan says. He’s not quite awake yet. “Seriously, though?”

“So what do I do about that? Dye my hair again, go back to ginger? Use fake tan?”

He has to blink away the mental image of a Phil with orange hair and orange skin. “What?”

“How do I get rid of them?” she asks urgently.

Dan shakes his head. “What d’you mean? It’s just the one video, isn’t it? They’re not - I mean, it’s terrible, yeah, but it’ll end soon.”

“You don’t - Dan, they subscribed to me. I’ve got like fifty new subscribers, and I can’t - I can’t - even if I block them, they can still watch me, and that’s just the ones with actual accounts - I don’t know how many of them are watching me and - and -”

“But they can’t do anything to you,” he says. “You’re safe, they can’t touch you.”

“They can watch me,” Phil repeats. “They can watch me and wank to my videos, probably on mute, and they can click from my channel to someone else’s - say Becky’s, or Lex’s, or the Five Awesome Girls - they can just keep doing that, and don’t you get it? Don’t you get how creepy that is?”

He’s not sure if she’s really talking to him, or just talking to herself. He wants to hug her, or at least touch her arm, but something’s holding him back.

“You know the worst thing is - most of the new subscribers, they don’t speak English. Or you go through their subscriptions and it’s just rows and rows of girls with dark hair and pale skin, and you just know they’re not gonna listen to a word I say, they’re not even seeing me like - like a human being. I’m just - just an image on a screen. Just a - a - a thing. It’s actually really scary.”

“Why’s that scary?” he asks. “Like, I get why it would be annoying or disgusting or - but why scary?”

Phil doesn’t answer for a minute. She twists her hands in her lap, picking at her nail varnish - midnight blue chipping away, flake by flake.

“You kind of really freaked me out when you first started talking to me, you know that?” she says eventually.

It doesn’t sound like a question, but it definitely should have, in Dan’s opinion.

“Seriously?” he says. “I got that you were being sort of - cautious - but I actually scared you?”

“Well, yeah. You were kind of insistent. Like, one day I woke up to comments on about twenty of my videos in a row, and you’d tweeted me, and you’d left a comment on yesterday’s DailyBooth, and then for days afterwards you just sort of kept going.”

Dan doesn't really remember it like that. "I think I was just bored one evening, and then - well, I stumbled across your videos and I liked them. I just wanted to - I don't know what I wanted to do, really. I don't think I was even trying to get you to notice me or anything, I was just - well, you like a video, you comment on it. That's just what you do. Same with the DailyBooth, really. Tweeting you, yeah, but-"

Dan's own YouTube channel has been going for about a year by now. He only turned off email notifications for comments a few months ago, and still has them on for DailyBooth. There aren't all that many people who actually use DailyBooth. He wonders when Phil turned off her notifications going through to email. He imagines waking up to dozens of emails telling him that one person has commented on every aspect of his online life, has followed him on twitter, followed him on tumblr, is following him. He wonders who came up with that terminology. There’s someone following me.

“I’m sorry,” he says weakly. “I didn’t realise.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she points out. “It’s just - society. Made me paranoid. Cos every time a man I don’t know talks to me, or looks at me weird, I have to think - am I prepared to deal with this. Whatever ‘this’ is. Every man is sort of guilty until proven innocent, or else I’m being stupid, but I haven’t - I haven’t seen many of the guilty ones, I guess. And now…”

And now she has to look at every man and consider him guilty until proven innocent of looking at her like an object. She has to consider him guilty until proven innocent of wanting to-

“I’ll be okay,” she says. “Just gotta adjust. There’s nothing to do, is there, so… I just have to deal with it.”

It harks back to what Lizzie said yesterday: the choice is between shutting yourself in your room or learning to deal with it.

“That’s not right,” Dan says.

Phil closes her eyes. “I guess not. It’s not my fault, is it? If it’s just… my skin, my hair. Just the image in the mirror, not actually me. But that’s life.”

***

Four weeks later and AmazingPhil is back in full force with a new video. Her hair is straight and shiny, unapologetically so, and she’s as witty and quirky and confident as ever, but for some reason what catches Dan’s attention is a gap on her bedroom wall. He stares at the patch of white, only half-listening to Phil’s light-hearted apology for being away so long, wondering what it is that seems different. That patch of wall didn’t used to be bare, he’s sure of it, but what was there before?

It’s not until Phil says “and today’s ‘draw Phil in disguise’ is!” that he realises that Phil has taken her mirror down.

fin

************************************************************************************ 

Author's notes: I have not looked up ‘snowwhitekinks.net’ to see if it exists; I made it up for the purposes of this fic. However, this was based on real events, just a different kink forum. Yay. Was a lot of fun, that.

I’ve played havoc with the canon timeline here, but here’s the major change which makes most of it fall into place: Phil started YouTube about a year later in this universe than the real Phil did. The other major change I made to reality was moving Charlie from Greater London to Manchester; please just assume he moved at some point because it’s cheaper in Manchester than London.

Dan’s university friends and acquaintances are figments of my imagination; the two girls are based on those in his video, but we know absolutely nothing about them beyond that one of them might be called Ellie or Lizzie, so consider them OCs.