#last week the game kept crashing when submitting so I nearly gave up again

[dressupdragonne]

Competition Entry - Brilliant Dream

Final Rank: 162

[stilesomega]

Dan’s Secret (Note: This is Fiction)

Dan sat in front of his camera in his room, chewing his nails deciding if he wanted to go through with this video idea or leave his biggest secret hidden. Even Phil didn’t know this secret. He had a backup plan, a second video idea so Phil wouldn’t notice that he’d backed out of filming. He reached for the camera and his finger paused over the record button before he finally pressed it. He took a deep breath and started talking. He’d rehearsed it and despite his nerves it was all coming out easier than expected.

“Hi Guys, so I have a secret to tell you. I’ve kept it to myself for ten years, even Phil doesn’t know…” Dan had kept his door shut, more out of psychological reassurances than necessity; Phil was editing his own video in the office and couldn’t hear him. He kept it slow, he could edit out his pauses later. “Everyone knows how I met Phil. I know I lied back in 2012, but I finally admitted the truth in 2015, that I’m Phil Trash #1. But there’s more to it than that.” Dan spun around, straining to hear if Phil was approaching. He didn’t want Phil to hear him in person and ruin the shoot. He needed to get it out on video and then he’d tell Phil before uploading.

He turned back around and looked down at the paper in his hands, he didn’t want to forget anything but a computer screen glow would wash him out, so he kept it old school. He knew the paper could be heard on the mic but needed the notes more than the inconvenience in editing it’d cause later. He took a deep breath again, trying to flush out the redness in his face and neck that was forming. This secret went so deep, his feelings about it well rooted, and it took nearly everything he had to school his reactions.

The guilt his ego submitted him to put him at war in his own head. Knowing his life would be absolutely nothing like it was if it wasn’t for this secret. What would he be doing with his life had this not happened? Would he have finished law school? Would he even have gone to Manchester to study law if he still had gone to school for it? Would he be a successful lawyer in London, living his life in suits and courtrooms instead of cartoon onesies in his lounge?

Knowing no one else knew of his biggest secret even though it is so close to the truth scares Dan. Having hidden something so big for so long used to be easy. His audience only knows what is given to them through the camera, but it feels as though they already know. They can’t know, but this secret is so influential to who he is and where he is he’s having a difficult time finding the line that separates his truth and his audience’s truth.

“I’ve said before Phil and me talked on Skype a lot before we finally met up in person….” His hands were shaking and the shame flooded his system. How could he have not told everyone sooner? It’s not like it’s a terrible secret. He didn’t do anything wrong, nothing illegal, but it’s exactly that. He didn’t do anything. He wasn’t the one who did what he’s so scared about telling everyone. Technically it was Adrian. He was ashamed of what Adrian did. Adrian didn’t do anything illegal either, this secret isn’t bad for anyone in that manner, but Dan still can’t help the feeling flow through him.

“Of course, I messaged him first. I didn’t have an active YouTube account with videos and such, so he didn’t know I existed yet….” Dan kept taking deep breaths, ruining each take with tiny breaks. He wanted to get this right, needed to. His perfectionist quality about him kept nagging at him even with his other emotions wreaking havoc on his mind. He kept checking his hair, kept repeating himself until he figured there was a good take in the dozens of repeats for that one bit before moving on.

“I had written my first message to him weeks before I actually sent it…” Adrian had been seven years old when this happened, too young to remember what he’d done. Too young to understand Dan’s reaction that day in his old brown room. He was just a hyperactive seven-year-old trying to get his grown older brother to play with him. Busted into Dan’s room full of sugar and energy, breaking Dan’s nervous concentration.

“I was sitting on my bed in my room at my parent’s house when I was seventeen…” Adrian had run in with his plane and truck toys making noise that only seven-year old’s can and shoved them in Dan’s face, demanding play time.

“My brother had come in my room without my permission. Remember I was seventeen and just like any other teenager wanted nothing to do with my baby brother…” Dan had put his laptop down on his bed, reluctantly taking the truck Adrian had forced on him.

“He wanted to play Plane Crash again, a game he had come up with. Basically, I needed to be the paramedics to his plane crash. Very destructive, mostly because Adrian would jump off my bed and land on me, throwing the plane into the floor…” Adrian had primed up his ‘descent’ and Dan waited sitting on his legs on the floor for his brother to launch himself at him. Adrian pretend screamed the horror of the passengers and began flying towards the floor.

“He jumped but his feet slipped and I had to dive forward to catch him before he bashed his head off my guitar hero drums. He landed on me fine and was alright, but I had landed on my ribs on his truck and was in a lot of pain…” Adrian scrambled off Dan and quickly got onto the bed, hiding at the head of the bed, pulling the pillows around him. Dan had a bit of a temper when Adrian bugged him too much and normally yelled for him to get out of his room.

“I laid on the floor holding my side unaware that Adrian had hidden under the covers of my bed because he thought I’d be mad at him for me being in pain. I stayed still for a long while, breathing through the pain cycles that the square truck had put me through…” Adrian’s attention to Dan’s pain faded quickly and was adverted to the computer sitting inches from him, a simple white screen with text and a blinking cursor.

“Once the pain started to fade I sat up and saw Adrian on my computer. Nothing really unusual about that, he’d used it before, we’d even watched movies together on it, so he wasn’t clueless about it….” Adrian had forgotten about what had just happened and he saw a red button on the screen and the text looked like one of Dan’s school reports that needed saving. Adrian knew that Dan had lost a few too many school reports on his computer and figured he’d help his big brother out by saving it for him.

“I was getting up off the floor and reached for my laptop when Adrian clicked the mouse and turned and smiled at me. ‘Dan I saved your work! Look!’ he had said so excited. I knew I paled at that moment. But the reaction went unnoticed with him and he jumped off my bed, took his toys and ran out of my room without a care to what he had just done…” Dan slowly grabbed his laptop and turned the screen towards him, hoping to everything there was he hadn’t left it on YouTube.

“My heart stopped when I saw he had clicked ‘Send’ on the message I had written to Phil weeks before. I wrote the message but had spent weeks Almost sending it. I was too scared to reach out to my idol. I had come close so many times, but never had sit send…” Dan stared at the screen, seeing his message in solid black, on a video of AmazingPhil’s YouTube channel. This was during the time where deleting a comment wasn’t possible. If sent, it was out there for good. He couldn’t do anything about it. He had to accept that his brother had been the one to force Dan to reach out to Phil for the first time.

“I don’t remember how long I stayed kneeling next to my bed, starring at the bold black letters of my message in shock. I was scared of so many things at that moment…” What if Phil didn’t see it? What if he never checked his comments and this was lost forever? Dan would never know if Phil wasn’t aware or if he was intentionally ignoring him. What if Phil saw it and told him off? The possibility of acceptance and friendship never seemed like a major chance.

“I spent the rest of the night sweating it out in my room. Thankfully Phil responded seven hours later, I’m glad he’s a night owl like myself. I don’t know if I could have lasted that whole night without a response…” Dan checks his camera viewfinder and realizes he’s been talking for twenty minutes. He hopes he can at least get six minutes of footage out of his ramblings and nervous behavior. He shifts in his chair knowing he must add in his end screen and clears his throat, nervous Phil might be just outside his room listening.

“So, that’s my big secret. I wasn’t the one who initiated mine and Phil’s first contact. My little brother was. Yea I wrote the message and put the text in the comment box, but he hit send when I couldn’t. I had done it all a dozen times before, but Adrian was the one who put Phil and I’s friendship in motion. I’ve kept it from everyone, even Phil. It never seemed like an important bit of information but it still has eaten away at me. I don’t know if I would have ever hit send on my own...” Dan sighed in relief getting his weird shameful secret off his chest. He can’t say for sure he’d be where he is now without his brother that day. Dan is beyond grateful of Adrian for catalyzing his friendship with Phil and he hates that his brother needs to hide from the very fans he opened the door for years before they even existed. How he needs to be hidden from the people who love Dan so much just because he’s half of the Dan and Phil Adrian helped create. Dan will protect his brother with everything he has, his brother gave him so much and this is the least he can do.

“Who knows, there might not have been a Dan and Phil if it wasn’t for Adrian. And of course, Adrian was seven when this happened, he doesn’t remember this, but if you’re watching Adrian, thanks bro. I really owe a lot to you for that.”

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