Yes, this is the 'Dan had to call Phil an Ambulance" story once again.
It seems like everyone and their mother is retelling this story and honestly? I can see why.
Anyway, if you like this version, don't forget to kudos and comment! Enjoy! X
Daniel Howell can legally say he's had a lot of bad nights over the course of his entire life and he's not lying about that either. He's written a whole book to prove it. It never gets any easier however, despite that information.
He can still remember nights as a kid when he had so much anxiety gnawing at his brain and in his chest that it made his heart race, the shadows in his room becoming crawling, shapeless beings more than just stationery objects he'd neglected to put away in cleaning his room like little boys should, pulled from the light in a new way that was terrifying to a child.
There are nights that are clear as day and some that are a haze of colours and sounds from when he was a teen, angst and depression as well as a sprinkle of questioning his sexuality quite violently several times over making a curtain of rain over certain events, like a windshield on a car without working wipers.
Sometimes the wipers were alcohol, sometimes it was work that distracted him from his internal storm and sometimes they were something more sinister. Things that he doesn't like talking about, but multiple therapists insist he do so. For his own good, they say.
He never sees it that way.
He doesn't know exactly how he managed to land Phil of all people, much less be lucky enough to call him his one and only, but he's bloody grateful.
He often wonders what they would have been like should he have braved the late nights of uni still, the words of an essay he'd be slaving away on blurring into each other like a math equation as he worked on a law degree he never wanted in the first place, but his mind soon returns back, head turning to seek out Phil and anchor him back to the present.
His life is something he never imagined it would ever be and he honestly doesn't know just /how/ he got to this point, but he's damn well never going back to what life used to be.
So it makes sense that when he and Phil decide to buy a palace of their own with their hard-earned YoutTube money and start life anew, that things would go wrong.
Dan's exhausted, so much so that the entrances to rooms are warping in shape, but there are still a ton of boxes to unpack and move and recycle, even if it is 2 o'clock in the morning.
They need to set up the gaming room, their bedroom, the living room, Phil's setup, his setup...the list goes on and on, yet all his thoughts for the moment are falling through his mind like sand in a sieve and instead of making him anxious like normal despite his antidepressants, he's barely giving them any comprehension as he shuffles from one box to another, lazily pulling out items to check if it's worth putting effort into relocating them.
Everything sharpens however, both hearing and seeing Phil wander into the room he's currently buried up to his chin in, as he knows something is wrong. Phil's eyes are wide and panicked and he's clutching his throat like a vampire just took a bite out of it, hand shaking.
Now, it's a fair point that Phil had already earlier attended the same space as him, broken glasses in hand, to tell him in gratuitous detail how much of a fucking idiot he seemed to be already (no normal, fully functioning adult puts any glue, let alone superglue in their mouth, JFC) in the house and already, Dan was feeling iratable in the haze of the early morning after a long day of throwing things into cupboards and onto shelves, but it seems that the night is about to get a whole lot longer as Phil is just standing there before he suddenly speaks, quiet, yet more serious that Dan's ever heard him be in their whole time of knowing eachother. "Call 999."
It takes a moment to register, as everything does when you're still awake at some ungodly hour, but once it kicks in, he's awake. Very awake. "Phil, what have you done?"
"I...I think I swallowed the glue." Shit. Fucking shit. Is he actually serious?
Now, Dan is not a medical expert of /any/ kind, but he's pretty sure that Phil is either playing the great practical joke of all time or he's actually gone and managed to actually find the path to ruin once again through a dumb action.
In the stray whispers of his mind, he hopes that Phil's just having a panic attack from realizing what danger he put himself in earlier and it's just coincidence that he /might/ have swallowed glue, but his hands is already around Phil's shoulders and pushing him out of the room to the mostly uncluttered hallway to sit him down somewhere, phone in hand and internally freaking out as he watches his life partner struggle to take a breath in.
Thankfully, the call to the appropriate authorities goes quite quickly and despite the judgement he hears in the responder's voice at the notion that his 34 (not 4) year old boyfriend somehow swallowed glue unattended trying to fix his glasses, he is informed that an ambulance is on its way and to just keep Phil situated exactly how he is.
Despite them not saying it's going to be an overnight stay (nor that there is going to be a visit from poison control sometime in their near future), he knows that Phil is not going to be able to leave the house without a bag. Always prepared, as they say.
By the time the ambulance quite quickly pulls up on their doorstep, sirens screaming and blue lights blinding them through their newly cleaned windows, he's pretty sure that he's actually sending off his boyfriend to war and not into an NHS funded vehicle.
Thanks to the fucking virus (which he's been both blessing and cursing to kingdom come), he has to stand out there in the cold and dark like a tall, more emo version of Slenderman as Phil is ushered in to be checked over.
He takes a picture to pass the time (also to send to the man's mother as to show her how her son is doing in the new house) and watches as Phil slowly seems to calm down, making his heartbeat become a little slower too (not that anyone knows he's on the verge of panic as well) as he takes it all in.
Eventually, after a hell of a long time (and another small turn of events when Phil's mask gets stuck in one of their big fancy machines, seems chaos follows wherever they go) and several too fast heartbeats for Dan's liking, they finally emerge, admitting that they were, indeed, going to take the 'glue guy' (he's never letting Phil live that down, oh my god) to the hospital to check if he's going to be okay. He's never been so thankful, but also, never been so scared in his life at those words.
He knows he can't come with, even if Phil is admitting he needs him because he's scared and doesn't want to be alone and everything is too much, but he still wishes he could as he watches the hunk of metal containing his best friend and more pull out of their street and disappear into the early dawn before stepping back inside.
He doesn't exactly know what happens between him taking off his coat and him sitting down on the couch in their box covered living room, but he suddenly folds over and starts weeping out of nowhere, everything hitting him at once. Dan Howell doesn't cry, yet it's like 3 am on a weekday and he's on his sofa sobbing over the potential harm of his best friend. Christ.
It takes him a moment to collect himself, but even at Phil's instance, he doesn't sleep. Not without him. Not without their routine, not without Phil's slightly high pitched breathing in his ear, not without feeling a cold hand around his wrist. He can't.
So he works, more so than before. He doesn't think he'd ever get so much fucking done in the space of a few hours, but given he's been doing the same all day previously, he supposes he's just running off of pure nerotic energy right now and apparently, that's good for re-packing and unpacking belongings in the fucking early hours of the morning.
The only words he gets from Phil are two texts telling him his phone's almost dead and for a brief second, he has a small heart attack thinking about having no contact with him, before calmly telling him to get off the phone so help me god and save the battery to Uber home.
It's nearly 7AM when from the kitchen where he's written Phil the equivalent of a large print warning label in case his glasses are still as useless as they have seemed to be lately, Dan hears the door open and he can't help but sigh quietly in relief.
Opening doors means someone has a key. He and Phil are the only ones who have the keys. Phil is home and clearly, not dead. He tries to feel so annoyed at that.
He doesn't mean to startle Phil as he suddenly appears beside him, but his ire is slightly less when he sees Phil jump after turning around, shaking his head. "I thought you were asleep!"
"I couldn't. Thought I may have forgotten your keys in your bag." He lied and he knows his eyes looked suspiciously pink in the early dawn, but he hopes Phil doesn't notice.
"Right." Phil smiles a little, although his gaze drifts to the ground. "They said that I possibly swallowed some, but that it would fix itself. Apparently, bodies are freakier than we thought. Regeneration and all that. Looks like I just had a panic attack after that fucked me up."
"No shit." It's not said with malice, despite his internal monologue now practically rage screaming at Phil incoherently. "Well, now that horrifying experience is over, you and I need to go to bed, glue boy. Before one of us /actually/ dies by misadventure due to exhaustion."
Phil groans, eyes closing. "Don't you ever call me that again. That was the worst experience of my life. Why do you get the godlike paramedics when it's something stupid?"
"It's called karma, bitch."
"Stuff you, Dan."
"More like stuck /with/ you, Dan."
"Stoooooooop."
"I love you too, Phil."