Chapter 1 - First Met

Star liked wandering the convention hall. She liked talking to subscribers and laughing with them and smiling. Sure she was an introvert and would be about ready to collapse by the time she got back to the hotel, but she loved being around her subscribers. They were all so excited to see her—and she was always excited to see them.

In particular she loved hugging them and taking pictures and just acting like they'd all been friends for years. She had a few buttons made up with little inside jokes from her channel on them that she'd give out if people knew she had them.

She threw her lanyard over her shoulder to get it out of the way in order to take a selfie with some girls who were squealing and laughing before turning to the camera and grinning widely.

After a couple hours of the same routine, her feet were aching and a dehydration headache was coming on. She retreated to the back room where there were a few chairs for the YouTubers to sit on and relax for a bit. Flopping down, she pulled her water bottle and a headache pill out of her bag. She hated brand-new, never-been-opened water because she thought it tasted funny, but if she absolutely had to drink it, she would. And a headache was reason enough to drink the weird water. So she guzzled enough to make the water line disappear under the label and took the pill to ease the pain that was starting to pound in her temples.

Once she set her water on the floor, she started to read through the texts she'd gotten from friends back home, replying as she went. There were only a few—as she'd never been particularly popular but the friends she did have hoped she was okay—so it didn't take long. Once she was finished, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back, taking a moment to relax. She'd return to the convention floor in a few minutes, but for the moment, she just reveled in the silence.

For a several long minutes she sat in the peace and quiet, phone tucked under her leg so she'd feel it if it vibrated. The muffled chatter of the thousands of convention attendees was white noise that she tuned out to listen to the silence.

Silence that was broken when the door opened and two voices entered the room. Star peeked one eye open enough to see two very tall men walking towards the chairs near her. One was wearing a black shirt and black skinny jeans and had brown hair. The other had black hair and was wearing a blue shirt and black skinny jeans. She couldn't make out any other features because her eyelashes blurred their faces. But their accents were distinctly British. Unconcerned, she closed her eye again and sighed, trying to relax again, despite the interruption.

That proved to be impossible. One of the newcomers had tripped over her extended leg, spilling his open water bottle over the carpet. Several things happened at once. The black-haired klutz yelped and caught himself on his hand. The brown-haired man shouted, "Phil!" And, startled, Star lurched back—making her chair tumble backwards. She landed with a heavy thud and a sharp jerk in her neck.

Giving a pitiful grunt, a discombobulated Star tried to reorient her muddled brain and figure out how to stand up.

The brown-haired man, seeing that his black-haired companion was fine, circled around to help Star, kneeling on the carpet and disentangling her lanyard from her hair where it had wound and was close to strangling her. He took a good look at the ident card on the bottom since he didn't recognize her face.

Name: Star Fay

Channel Name: Starquake Dreams

Passion: Writing, Fandoms, YouTube, Fireworks, Collecting Gems

Her handwriting was nice and neat—with a crazy half-and-half mix of print and cursive. He dropped the ident card and offered her his hand.

Star grabbed his hand and let him help her back into an upright position.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

She nodded blearily. "I'm fine," she replied automatically. "I mean, my head hurts but other than that, everything's good." All three of them were standing now and Star's headache still hadn't quite gone away—made a bit worse by falling backwards.

Blinking the pain away, she looked at their lanyards' ID cards. She didn't recognize them either.

The brown-haired man's handwriting was really messy and hard to read, but she managed to figure out what he'd written.

Name: Dan

Channel Name: danisnotonfire

Passion: dogs

In comparison, the black-haired man's writing was quite easy to read.

Name: Phil Lester

Channel Name: AmazingPhil

Passion: PANCAKES

Star looked up from their torsos where the cards were hanging and smiled at them. The famous Dan and Phil. She'd heard a lot about them from her other YouTubers friends, but had never met them or seen their faces—despite how many YouTube conventions she'd attended. Apparently fate had tried to keep the three of them from meeting.

No. Star didn't believe in fate or destiny. She'd never met Phil or Dan because they were well-known and probably always busy with big-name YouTubers and meet-and-greets and whatever. Fate had nothing to do with it.

"Nice to meet you," Dan offered, holding his hand out. His left hand. Star smirked. He was a leftie. She shook it. "I'm Dan Howell."

"Star Fay," she replied, shaking his left with hers.

"Phil Lester!" Phil, the black-haired one, offered brightly with a big grin, sticking his right hand out. "Sorry I tripped on you! I'm the clumsiest person on the planet!" Star smiled as she dropped Dan's hand and took Phil's to shake in greeting.

Once she'd gripped it he yanked her closer and gave her an apologetic hug.

"It's… it's okay really," she commented, her voice muffled by his T-shirt since she was a little over a foot shorter than him and Dan and her mouth only came up to the top of his abdomen while her eyes were looking at his sternum. "It hurt a little bit, sure, but it's going away." That bit was a lie but she didn't want Phil to feel bad. He had a reputation for being kind and empathetic, and she didn't want to hurt his feelings.

At that moment, the door opened again to reveal Louise and Zoe. "What's going on in here?" Louise demanded teasingly.

Star forcefully shoved herself away from Phil as he let her go lightly. She rushed over to Louise and grabbed the older woman's shoulders. "Whatever you do, you can't tell Ben! Phil was apologizing for tripping over me but Ben is so jealous we'd get into a fight over it!" Star told Louise pleadingly, looking between her and Zoe. "Both of you. Please!"

"I didn't realize you and the boys knew each other!" Louise commented as though Star hadn't spoken. "I was just about to come find you both and introduce you!"

"Yes, we met about thirty seconds ago," Dan put in.

"Louise!" Star hissed. "Promise me you won't tell Ben!"

SprinkleofGlitter smiled and gave the much younger girl a comforting hug. "You know I won't, kiddie. You know I'd hate to ruin your relationship," Louise said into the girl's long, thick brown hair. Both Dan and Phil perked up a bit.

"Wait. Someone's been successful in getting into a relationship?!" Dan demanded sarcastically.

"Congratulations!" Phil added.

Star snickered as Louise let her go and Zoe promised she wouldn't tell Ben either. Star turned to the boys and smiled. "Thanks. But I wouldn't say 'successful', per se. No relationship is without its faults. And me and Ben have a slew of our own." Star's voice dropped until she was almost talking to just herself. "Sometimes I wonder why we're still even together," she muttered under her breath. Dan and Louise both gave her a surprised look, but Phil was paying more attention to his untied shoelace than the girl with the long brown hair—that was lighter than Dan's and not as rich, but thicker than his—and brown eyes—that were darker and more evenly-colored than Dan's.

Zoe nudged Louise and Star in the arms. "We really ought to be going," she murmured quietly.

Star looked down at her watch. "Shoot," she hissed. She'd been in the back room far longer than she'd thought. She grabbed her bag from near the chair and called a quick goodbye to everyone before rushing out.