A/N: Original idea of the multi-verse from Gaby Dunn, adapted for fanfiction by 1ooo-w0rds, used with permission in Shadowhunter Drabbles by Imagination Is a Gift, which inspired me! Credit goes to them. Concept used with permission from 1ooo-w0rds, whose stories are amazingly written, go check them out! I also had some inspiration from TomSka's Meanwhile.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and this is completely fictional. Nothing in this fic actually happened, to the best of my knowledge.
It was probably a Tumblr post that started it. Both Dan and Phil were scrolling on their own laptops, TV on low in the background, the little light they had streaming in from the kitchen. Neither knew what time it was, although from previous experience, they both innately knew not to check the clock. Doing so would mean facing the reality of yet again having stayed up far too late.
Phil was going to stop anyway, and go to bed. Dan always stayed up later than him and he knew there was no point in arguing, but tonight Phil was tired. He closed down the page he was on, which was some random Tumblr blog with a million pictures of puppies being cute.
He was about to close his laptop, too, when he had a thought. It was one of those thoughts that you only really get when you've stayed up too late and had too much caffeine throughout the day. As per usual, Phil voiced it.
"Hey Dan," Phil started, earning him a grunt in response, "do you ever wonder about parallel universes?"
"Generally, I try not to," Dan said, looking up.
Phil persisted. "But like, every little decision matters, right? So there has to be alternate realities where you made your decision differently?"
Dan reflected on that, a faraway look in his eyes for a moment before he snapped out of it. "Like, if we'd died horrifically in a car accident?"
"I was thinking a little less dark," Phil said. "Maybe there's a parallel universe where something really little happened, and big things changed."
The place was the VidCon after-party, the year 2014. It was wild that year, the many people in one space combining with enough alcohol to have it rival any college party. The difference was, of course, that most of the people in that room were not broke college students – on the contrary, they were ad-revenue millionaires.
Some of the people in the room had fallen asleep, or were close to it, and the pranksters in the room had taken it upon themselves to pull small pranks on the sleeping people. Nothing offensive, of course, and nothing harmful – they were even giving them good vlogging material, should they choose to use it.
There were a couple bottles of nail polish procured from one of the involved girls' purses, and she could barely contain her laughter as she carefully painted all of the fingernails she could reach. After a while, she got ambitious, painting little designs on some of them and matching the colours to the unlucky people's clothing.
Dan wasn't asleep, but he was drunk enough not to care when the girl approached him, wielding her bottle of nail polish. Phil wasn't, and side-stepped her, continuing to talk to Dan about how they should probably leave soon. Dan agreed with him, but he was just so tired, and so he didn't complain when the girl started painting his nails matte black.
They had a panel to do the next day, and by the time they woke up, neither was well enough or thinking straight enough to remove the polish. They ended up doing the panel, which was a Q&A, just as planned. It was a huge success.
And Dan became quite a fan of the nail polish, once he'd got used to the million and one pictures of his hands being circulated around Tumblr. He bought a bottle and wore it ironically at first, until it wasn't actually ironic anymore.
His self-confidence was boosted, leading "Wholesome Howell" to become a meme two years sooner, and the pastel edits also came along for the ride. Wholesome Howell had a segment in TATINOF, and while it might not have seemed hugely significant, it was a change in the mind-sets of the Phandom forever.
"Or, like, if you didn't go to university in the first place," Phil mused. "We may still have met."
Dan Howell, more commonly known as danisnotonfire, was an eighteen-year-old YouTuber who had just made the difficult decision not to go to college and instead focus solely on his steadily growing Internet career. Although his family had wanted him to study law, and for a long time he had wanted that too, there was so much opportunity in the Internet instead.
Of course, he still had to move out of his parents' house, because he was an adult, and moving out of your parents' house is an adult thing to do.
He didn't mention any of his recent turmoil over his decision in his videos. Those mostly revolved around comedy skits and the ever-popular "reasons why Dan's a fail (yay!)". He just briefly mentioned that he was moving out and so his video upload schedule may be even more sparse than usual for a little while.
He moved to York, finding a little studio apartment the best place for being a full-time Internet hobo in peace. It was small, but cozy, and ready to fill with his many knickknacks and collectibles.
However, it was a little more expensive than what he was making from the Internet (which was almost nothing), and so he had to look for a part-time job to fill in the gaps.
There was a quiet bookshop down the street, and Dan figured that not needing public transport would be great. It was close enough that even with his loathing of exercise, little effort would be needed to get there. Maybe they were hiring.
Opening the shop door, which creaked and had a small bell attached to the top, Dan walked inside. It smelled like new paper, and was very clean. It wasn't an old bookshop, but it clearly wasn't a chain store, either. The owner had taken good care of it over the years. There were two or three customers quietly browsing, but no employees in sight.
The first thing he heard was a thump that sounded suspiciously like somebody had dropped a book or two. Dan looked around a bookcase, and was met with the sight of a tall, dark-haired man, maybe a little older than Dan, sitting on the floor from where he had obviously tripped.
"This was not a good idea," the guy muttered, standing up. "I'm too clumsy for this."
He stood up and turned around, and Dan immediately recognized him. This guy was a YouTuber! His channel name was AmazingPhil, and he was one of Dan's biggest idols – had been for a long time.
Almost shyly, Dan picked up the two books from where they were lying on the floor and handed them to Phil.
"Thanks," Phil said, taking the book. He nearly started to walk away, but then seemed to remember something and turned. "Can I help you find something?"
"Are you AmazingPhil?' Dan said. He had to know for sure.
Phil smiled broadly. "Yeah! It's not too often I get recognized, though! What's your name?"
"Dan," Dan smiled.
Dan was warming up to the idea. "What about a universe where one thing is completely the opposite, but everything else is the same?"
Phil sighed, closing his laptop. He'd taken a leaf out of Dan's book and been on Tumblr for the evening, but he was absolutely fed up with the way their subscribers were acting. Usually they could do anything and it wouldn't really matter, but this was just too much for him tonight.
Dan walked into the lounge, probably to retrieve his laptop from where it was sitting next to its charger, and noticed Phil's expression.
"What's wrong?" he said immediately. "And don't tell me it's nothing."
When Phil didn't respond out of guilt, Dan tried to lighten the situation. "Have you finally cracked under the guilt of stealing my cereal?"
That didn't work at all; Phil's face was as impassive as before, and Dan starting to get worried. "Come on, you can tell me. It can't be too bad."
"It kind of is," Phil muttered, under his breath.
"Did someone die?" Dan said loudly.
"No! It's our freaking fans!" Phil yelled.
Dan went pale. "What did they do?"
"Why do they keep saying we're just friends when we're clearly dating?"
"But if there's parallel universes," Dan said, and then stopped. "Honestly, I don't want to think about it too much. You know where that goes."
"Yeah, I do," Phil agreed, and with the words "existential crisis" left unspoken, they dropped the subject.
At least, until Phil mentioned "alternate dimensions" the next night.