#phan angst

Dan was always nagging him about that last one. You can’t just edit away what’s going on. He’d scold gently as he’d pull his laptop off his lap, going full-therapist on him. And if you don’t deal with it now, it’s bound to come back to you.

He was right, of course. As much as Phil could roll his eyes playfully and begrudgingly let Dan lead him through whatever breathing exercise he was trying at the moment, it did feel good to let go of that energy properly instead of just shoving it aside. But with an ever-growing list of “to-do”s-packing boxes, talking with the builders, planning Stereo shows, focusing on merch designs-it was easier today to push it aside and focus on methodically editing to get lost in.

It’s not working today, though. Dan hasn’t come out of his room, and when he hears some soft noise coming from the other side of the wall during a quick pause, he finds himself pausing to listen to the noise. 

He can barely hear it, but he’s sure can make out both of their voices, and so he carefully sets his laptop down and makes his way to the other’s room. When he opens the door just a bit and peeks in, he can’t help but let out a silent sigh.

Dan’s got his back to him, huddled up as he stares at his screen, where Norman flicks back and forth, both of their voices softly discussing their fish on their livestream the previous year. As Phil hears a soft sniffle come from the huddled figure, he shakes his head and walks over.

“You miss him, don’t you?” He murmured, wrapping his arms around Dan’s shoulders. As Dan jolts, Phil sits next to him, holding him close.

“He’s-he was just a fish.” Dan mumbles, closing the laptop. “It’s all...stupid.” Phil hums, stroking Dan’s hair slowly. He’s more accustomed to loss in this way-from losing family, to his friend at Uni, to watching his Dad get so close to the edge in his sickness-the pain still hurts, but it’s more familiar than it is to Dan. It’s why Dan can joke about it so easily, while Phil just quickly changes the subject to immortality and futuristic robot bodies. 

“It’s not stupid if you’re caring so much,” Phil said gently. “He was important to us. So it’s okay to miss him.” Dan shrugged gently, curling up a bit more as he opened the laptop again, staring at the still of Norman. After a minute he speaks again.

“I keep having dreams about him. And then I wake up, and I want to check on him, and then I remember. And it’s like you just texted me about it, all over again.” Phil nods. He had been silently grateful he had been the one to find Norman while Dan was out on a walk, texting Dan after he had found a little box to put him in before meeting Dan at a park and properly burying him.

Dan had rolled his eyes a bit as he stood guard, making sure nobody could see the grown man digging at the ground with the random spade from under his bed. Phil knew, though, Dan would be grateful by some point that they had a proper burial instead of just dumping him down the toilet.

“He wasn’t even a real pet.” Dan continues, his voice wobbling a bit as he gets louder. “I mean, it’s not like he was a dog or something. That would make sense. But I’m this sad over a stupid fish?!”

Phil pressed his nose to Dan’s hair. The words stung slightly, but he knew Dan’s anger wasn’t genuine. 

“You’re sad because you loved him. Even if he wasn’t a typical fish. He was a sign of-of us, looking after another life for the first time.” Dan looks at him for the first time, eyes rimmed red as he kept going.

“He helped make this place home, too. And he was always there. Losing that stability isn’t easy, especially right now.” Phil isn’t great at introspection-he bottles it up until it all gets too much, and then it comes out all messy and mixed-up and it takes ages just to make it make some sort of sense. Usually, it’s enough to just be an ear for Dan and a reassuring voice that it’s okay, we’re okay, you’re okay. It feels almost alien to hear his own voice define his thoughts so outright. He’s about to walk it back when he feels Dan snuggle a bit closer, silently affirming that he got it right.

“Do you miss him?” Dan whispered finally.

“You know I do. But we’ll always have memories of him. And he’s not going to be the last pet of ours, even if I have to get shots to deal with fur or we have to find a way to keep our eyes on them all the time.” Dan laughed weakly, moving his arms around Phil’s in return. “Are we emotionally ready for that?” He joked gently as Phi snorted.

“Probably not. But Mar says you’re never really ready to become parents, anyways.” He teased, nudging him lightly.

“Martyn wanted to name her Excelsior, I’m not sure if we should take parenting advice from him.”

“It’s a cool name!” Phil grinned. “Maybe our next pet will be Excelsior. In honor.” As Dan rolled his eyes and laughed as Phil started coming up with equally stupid names, Phil felt himself relax a little bit.

Fifteen minutes before Liam had to be at his swim lesson and twelve hours after he, Dan, and his sister Fiona had painted their nails a matching cherry pink, he knocked on Dan’s door asking for the nail polish remover.

Dan sighed and opened it. “Liam? Where are your swimming trunks?”

Liam ignored him. “I need the nail polish remover.”

Phil appeared from behind him. “Liam. That wasn’t a very nice way to ask your dad for something.”

Liam scowled, but asked, more politely, “Dad, can I borrow your nail polish remover, please?”

Dan looked at Phil. “I don’t know if you have time to take your nail polish off, Liam. Don’t you need to go to your swim lesson soon?”

Phil nodded. “Sorry, Liam, we’re already late.”

Liam pouted. “I don’t want to swim with nail polish.”

Dan put on his best patient parent voice. “Why not?”

If Liam stuck his bottom lip out any further he would be stuck looking like a Kardashian for the rest of his life, Dan thought. “I don’t want to,” Liam said stubbornly.

“But why?” asked Phil, who was infinitely better at faking patience than Dan was.

“I don’t want to!” Liam said in a voice dangerously close to a wail.

“Okay, okay,” Phil said, recognizing the danger he was in. “How about you get your swim trunks on and go to your swim lessons and then we’ll take it off when you get home? How does that sound?”

Liam shook his head. “No,” he said, “I want it off now.”

“I know, but we’re going to be late if you don’t get ready right now,” Phil tried to reason.

This was the wrong thing to say, apparently. Liam’s face screwed up and he broke into tears. “I don’t want to,” he sobbed, “I want to take it off.”

“Liam, it’s just nail polish.” Dan couldn’t help the irritation forcing its way into his voice.

“No,” said Liam, his voice almost frantic, “Don’t make me wear it, Daddy, I don’t want-”

“Hey, hey,” said Phil soothingly. He knelt next to Liam and glanced at Dan. “No one’s making you do anything.”

Liam just kept sobbing.

“Liam-” Dan reached for his son, but Liam twisted from Dan’s grasp and threw himself on the floor.

Dan felt a headache building.

Phil crouched by Liam’s body. “Shh,” he said soothingly. “Liam, honey, it’s okay, if it’s that important to you-”

“Phil, can we speak for a moment, please?” Dan interrupted. He winced. He knew his voice had come out harsher than intended.

“Sure.” Phil stepped over Liam’s dramatically thrown body into Dan’s room and closed the door.

“What are you doing?” Dan hissed. “He needs to get to his swim lesson. Just because he’s throwing a fit about it doesn’t mean-”

“Dan.” Phil interrupted him, but looked reluctant to speak.

“What, Phil? What am I missing? Tell me, because I really don’t know why you’re giving him what he wants just because he’s upset about it.”

Phil hesitated.

“What?” Dan asked again.

“Dan,” Phil said softly, “Do you really think he doesn’t want to wear nail polish to his swim lesson just to make your life difficult?”

It hit him in a rush, like a kick to the stomach, like the names the other boys had called him in the schoolyard, like the anger and the self hatred and the shame that hit him when he realized the names were right.

If he said anything to Liam, or even Phil, he didn’t remember it later. The only thing he remembered was getting the nail polish remover wipes from his bathroom and swiping at his son’s tiny fingers until the wipes were cherry red and his son’s nails were as clean as snow. By the time he was done, Liam was going to be ten minutes late to his swim lesson. Phil herded Liam out of Dan’s room and down the hall towards the car, and Dan threw the wipes in the bin. He stared at the slightly clumpy, brightly colored paint on his nails that suddenly felt jarringly out of place. He reached for the wipes again, but hesitated.

He let his hands fall back to his sides. He listened to the familiar noises of the house he shared with his husband and children, the weird old house noises and the light footsteps coming from his daughter’s room down the hall. Now that Phil and her younger brother were gone, she was emerging from her pseudo-teenage shell to eat breakfast.

Fiona had already poured herself a bowl of cereal by the time Dan got to the kitchen. “What was Liam’s deal this morning?” she asked through a mouthful of cereal.

“He didn’t want to wear his nail polish to his swim lessons,” Dan said, searching the cabinets for breakfast of his own.

“Oh,” she said, clearly disappointed that her younger brother wasn’t in any trouble. “Why?”

Dan shrugged, pulling down his own box of cereal. “He didn’t say.”

Her eyes flickered downward. She ate another spoonful of cereal. “Well, we’re still matching, aren’t we?”

She lifted her hand to Dan’s. Her entire hand, outstretched fingers and all, fit inside Dan’s palm.

He smiled, an unexpected wave of tenderness flowing through him. “We’re still matching.”

As soon as her hand was there it was gone again, dropped to her side. “Little brothers are stupid,” she said.

Dan happened to be quite fond of his younger brother, but he didn’t say so. “They can be annoying sometimes.”

“What’s his problem with nail polish anyway?” Fiona asked, her face pulled into a righteous scowl. “Just because some people think it’s girly-” Her scowl tightened.

Not that there would be anything wrong with it if it was, Dan wanted to add. Not that there was anything wrong with being a boy and being girly, with being a girl and being girly, with being a queer formless blob and being girly, with being anyone and being girly. The words stuck in his throat.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s silly.”

“So, that’s really it then,” Dan said looking at Phil who was sat on the sofa across the living room of their flat.

He had just received the twitter notification telling him Phil had tweeted the new Phil Is Not On Fire video to all their fans.

“It is,” He replied looking down at his phone.

Dan assumed he was going through some tweets, looking to reply to a few fans. This year had felt different than the previous. They had accomplished and shared so much of themselves with the people who supported them. They both knew it was time to pull back, move on to bigger and better things.

“Remember the first time we wiped the cat whiskers off in the tiny bathroom of your flat?” Dan asked.

Phil chuckled, “God, how many subscribers did I even have back then?”

“I’m not sure anymore. Remember that night though? Laying in your bed after we filmed the first one?” Dan reminisced.

He no longer felt comfortable with the distance between them. So, Dan stood up and moved to join Phil on the sofa. Phil adjusted so Dan could curl into his side. He wrapped his arm around the younger man to provide comfort. A comfort they felt they both needed at that moment. Dan watched as Phil continued scrolling through his twitter mentions as the tidal wave of excitement came in. The moment so many fans had been waiting for and asking about had arrived. The tsunami of thoughts came with it.

“Dan, how could I ever forget that night? Your nose and cheeks were red as a tomato from trying to wipe the sharpie off. It was the night I knew we had started something good that was going to last,” Phil spoke softly.

He sighed and pressed a gentle kiss to Dan’s head. He then squished them a little closer together as he needed to write our replies to fans still. Dan didn’t mind though. He liked to see what was being written. He still wanted to talk about that night though, today was the finale but that didn’t mean he couldn’t reminisce their beginnings.

“Do you remember what we talked about that night?” Dan asked.

“Some,” Phil replied.

“I asked you if you’d show me the world. I asked if we would be all in for the future,” Dan felt embarrassed trying to jog Phil’s memory.

“And I promised you I didn’t want it any other way,”

“I never thanked you,” Dan said nearly interrupting Phil.

“Never thanked me for what, Dan?” Phil laughed.

With Dan and Phil, serious conversations were always a business thing. Even then they liked to keep it light, but today felt different.

“I never thanked you for keeping your promise. We created our own universe and the world came with it,” Dan said sniffling a bit.

“Was it the most fun you’ve ever had?” Phil joked putting his phone down to pull Dan into a hug.

“You’re an idiot, you know?” Dan smiled a few tears still making their way out of his eyes.

“I know. I can tell you I never thought we’d end up here. I can’t believe it’s been ten years,” Phil said

They had had a lot of discussion of when the perfect time to pull back would be. They needed to go out with a bang that only they and the ones close to them knew would be the grand finale. A second tour seemed fit. A second tour closed off with a final tribute to the place where it all began. In a bedroom answering questions from the people that brought them to where they were.

It was sad in a lot of ways. They had so many great accomplishments behind them and so many lives they impacted lying in all corners of the globe. And this one video would reach them all. An unknowing thank you to the person behind the computer screen for the years they had all spent together.

They both knew that the future was uncertain, and it was their turn to slow things down. It was time for Dan and Phil to build a home and move forward with a life away from YouTube. It was time to use the momentum the years had given them and create projects that would change the way people saw them. They wanted to build a life and now seemed like a good time.

“One last question Phil. Then we can just really enjoy the wave of content everyone is creating,” Dan spoke after a brief silence.

“What is it, Dan?”

“Back in 2009, did you ever think we’d end up here?” He asked quietly. Not much above a whisper.

“Not in a hundred lifetimes,” Phil stated sincerely.

“I’m so glad that this is life one hundred and one then,” Dan smiled

Phil Is Not On Fire had a good run. Both boys knew it was time to say goodbye. The series had become so much more than a pair of cat whiskers and a Q&A and they couldn’t be prouder. Life had so much in store coming up for them though, and now seemed like the perfect time to give their final bow.

Not even they really knew it yet, but this marked the end of a book in their life and a sequel was in the works.