Phil and Dan: Chapter 2
"Phil? Phiiiilllll?" Dan called as he knocked on Phil's door. "C'mon Phil," Dan pleads. Finally Dan sighs and opens the door himself.
Phil has obviously been crying. His eyes look red-rimmed and his normally exuberant smile looked as if it had been dimmed.
"What Dan?" Phil asked irritably. He was mad at Dan, mad at YouTube, mad at stupid haters (as stereotypical as it may sound). His heart softened only a fraction as he saw Dan nervously playing with his middle and ring finger, but the black haired boy savagely quashed those feelings. His blue eyes bored into Dan's as he waited for the younger boy's answer.
"Er, I, um, was just thinking…lunch? Kind of feeling hungry and our fridge contains leftover Delia pancakes and potentially some old yogurt." Dan said. Phil didn't respond. Dan pushed forward. "So, I was wondering if you wanted to head out and grab some lunch?" He ended, trailing off.
The thing was, Phil was actually starving. But the last thing he wanted to do right now was go out for lunch with Dan. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He loved having fun lunches with Dan. He just didn't like all the inevitable things that came with it. The "dangirls" and "danosaurs" all approaching Dan, and their confused eyes as Dan introduced them to Phil. As they struggled to remain cordial, pretending they knew him and watched his videos. Then, the worst moment came when they recognize him only because he was in a video of Dan's. No, it would be much better to stay at home.
"Could you…maybe just grab something? I don't know if I'm feeling so well." Phil said tiredly. Dan's expression seemed to be one of mild frustration and a lack of understanding. He didn't know why Phil was acting so strangely and it didn't look like Phil was going to be telling him.
"Alright." Dan said finally. The younger boy gave Phil one last glance, an offer, but Phil declined, lowering his head back to his laptop. With a barely audible sigh, Dan donned his jacket and left, closing the door forcefully on his way out.
It was then that Phil let tears leak from his eyes as he angrily stared at his laptop screen.
"Maybe I should just give my channel to Dan like everybody wants." Phil muttered to himself, slamming his laptop shut and rolling over to bury himself in his blanket.
When Dan returned with lunch Phil took it with only a small nod of thanks. They worked alone again until Dan ran out to grab groceries from Tesco and prepared them both some stir-fry for dinner. Dan got Phil to laugh a little as he recounted his most recent awkward experience while buying groceries and things seemed normal. But, as soon as Dan very cautiously broached the subject of video topics, hoping to narrow it down and ask Phil once again to do a video with him, the glow in Phil's eyes disappeared once more. He cleared his plate and left to his room.
"What the hell Dan? You massive fricking twat, look what you've done now," Dan thought to himself as he sat alone at the table. A few hours after dinner, Dan thought it time to approach Phil (he wasn't really one to give up easily when it came to Phil).
When Dan entered Phil's room, he saw a large lump on Phil's bed covered in a cocoon of blankets and sheets. The younger boy stepped forward slowly. He peeled layer after layer of blanket off of Phil. When he finally got Phil in its core he straightened back up and grinned, staring into Phil's eyes.
"Listen Phil," Dan started. "As you know, I do not have good social skills. And, even with my lack of instinct in these matters, and crap social ability, I am able to see that you are not okay. And I'm going to give it to you straight here Phil. I don't like you being unhappy. When you are unhappy everybody is unhappy. So why don't we just figure out whatever is wrong, and we can fix it, yeah?" Dan said. Phil didn't respond. "Phil. Talk to me. What's wrong?" Dan asked.
This is where Phil blew his top.