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[jestbee]

Ships that pass in the night (Chapter Sixteen)

Title: Ships that Pass in the Night (Chapter Sixteen)

Tags:  Alternate Timeline, AU, Slow burn, strangers to friends, friends to lovers Words: 3.5k Summary: Dan and Phil are YouTubers. The catch? They’ve never met, and Phil doesn’t want them to Author’s Note: I blame @ineverhadmyinternetphase for the fact that this got started because I said if she posted her fic Missent Text that I would write some of this in return. Then @charlottekath made vegan cheese from scratch and put it in a pie with whiskers on it and well… how could I help but be inspired?

Also I'll level with you, I wanted to finish all of Ships and post it all on Xmas day but the next chapter is proving really difficult so I couldn't get it done. So… you can have this one.

Merry Christmas!!!

(also this is completely unbeta’d becuase I didn’t want to disturb my beta at the holidays) [AO3 Link]   [Tumblr Masterpost]  

The glass is still there the next morning. He shouldn't have expected it to be gone but there it is. Freaking out tends to do funny things to his brain, like he's viewing them all from a distance or it happened to someone else.

He doesn't know whether he's grateful for the potentially dangerous reminder that Dan had turned up at his flat, or not.

He keeps his promise early morning, setting the phone to ring on loudspeaker while he tries to clear up shards of glass from a mildly wet floor using the smallest dustpan and brush ever created.

He narrowly avoids cutting himself, but he does avoid it.

When PJ answers he's reminded that not everyone has taken to bed for a week and are consequently up really early. He's reminded that some people have normal sleep patterns where their thoughts don't keep them up late and wake them early, filled with a jumble of everything, everything, everything and how much of a mess it all is. The world has continued outside of his bubble and that feels unwelcome, somehow.

"Hello?" PJ's voice croaks.

"Peej," he says, jostling the plastic bag and the brush and the dustpan and all of it threatening to end up back all over the floor anyway.

"What the hell, Phil? It's eight in the morning."

"I'm er…" He ties the top of the bag and sits fully down on the floor, facing the phone, legs crossed, still talking into the loudspeaker because it's nice to have noise in his flat. Sort of. "Calling."

"I know that."

"No I mean… you know. Calling. I need…"

He hears the rustle of bedsheets and he feels, for a moment, that sinking sensation of guilt that always comes when he's burdening someone with all of his mess. When he's this close to letting it spill over he feels the urge to build that wall back up, to keep everyone at arm's length for their own good. But this will never be solved if he does, and he needs to somehow sort out the jumble of thoughts and confusion and mistakes he's made over the past few days. Besides, he'd made a promise. And on this occasion that's enough to make him take action. Once upon a time it might not have been.

He's acutely aware that may mean he's gotten better, that he's somehow stronger than last time but he doesn't exactly want to test that theory.

What is it they said? There's strength in asking for help, too.

"I'm here," PJ says, louder, clearer, like he's stepped into a different room. Gotten out of bed probably.

Phil sighs, picks up the phone. He's still on the floor, legs crossed in the middle of his hallway but he turns off the loudspeaker and presses the phone to his ear.

"I don't know how to… ugh. This is so stupid honestly."

"What happened?"

Phil doesn't know where to start, the words spin away from him. How does he explain the horrible sinking feeling he'd felt when Cat and Tyler said what they said, the drag of fear when Dan had turned up at his door. How does he describe the suspended hope of something. Something. It's carved out of the solid weight of his uncertainty. He wants to believe, can feel where the belief would fit in his chest, but it hurts. It lays heavy, thick, weighted and uncomfortable. He doesn't know how to carry hope, it's nothing like he's used to.

He can't even find the words to confess that he's been hiding for a week.

"I haven't been in touch lately," PJ says, his voice is kind of muffled as if from behind his fingers and Phil can imagine the guilty expression on his face, like him texting could have at all prevented whatever the hell it is Phil is going through.

"I… it wouldn't have… mattered. If you had. I'm--"

He stops, because he's so lost in it all he couldn't even define what he was. What word exists for this? Sad? Confused? Hopeless? Nothing feels right, maybe it's all of that, or none of it. Explaining it has always been the hard part. Feeling it… feeling this way has never been difficult. He manages that with ease.

"Coffee," PJ decides for him, not waiting anywhere near long enough for Phil to come up with right words. "I can come there."

"I need to go outside," Phil says, staring forlornly at the tied up bag of glass, hazard now contained but not yet disposed of.

He doesn't want to go outside. He wants to stay where it's safe and familiar but, coping mechanisms aren't always productive.

"We can do that, Starbucks?"

Phil thinks of Dan pressed up close to him on a couch, thigh pressed to thigh in a steam cloud of caramel-flavoured caffeine. "No, um, the other place? The one with the crappy sandwiches?"

"I know which one you mean," PJ says, "I can be there in an hour?"

"Yes. Please."

Something on his voice must sound desperate because PJ is quick to follow it up with a, "Everything will be okay. I'll be there soon."

Phil is the one to hang up once they've said goodbye, like PJ is afraid to terminate the call if Phil still needs him. Phil suspects PJ would stay on the phone with him the full hour it takes them to get ready to meet in person if needs be. He's a good friend like that.

-

He doesn't get his usual order when he gets there. He picks a plain coffee and adds a little milk and sugar and huddles in a corner seat until PJ gets there. He's flushed a little red when he does get here, like he's run all the way and Phil is mildly guilty that he's messed up his day already.

"Hey," PJ says, coming straight to the table before ordering his drink.

"Hey."

PJ is hovering. He's doing that thing where he really wants to ask if Phil is okay but he knows that might be the worst question in the world to ask right now. Phil knows it isn't fair, he hates doing this to people because he can't expect them to act in all the right ways. But PJ has always tried so hard, and everything he does is with the best intentions but all the expression on his face is doing is making Phil's stomach twist up more and more with the overwhelming shame of having to go through this time and time again.

"I'm okay," Phil says, answering before PJ asks because he can at least offer him that, "Go get coffee."

PJ looks a little uncertain for a second but he does drop his bag, turn around and go to get coffee.

Phil busies himself with his phone but he can feel PJ staring him out of the corner of his eye, tracking him even as he waits for his coffee to be made.

Once he's back in the seat opposite him, Phil has to put down his phone and look at him directly.

"What happened this morning?" PJ asks.

"Not this morning," Phil says, clearing his throat. "It was… ah… a few days ago."

PJ nods curtly but his eyes narrow. "You didn't call a few days ago."

"No."

"Have you spoken to anyone since then?"

Phil shakes his head.

PJ sighs, like he wants to say something more. Admonish Phil maybe, insist that he should have called? He knows it isn't that easy.

"So what happened a few days ago?"

"Um…"

Phil takes a sip of his coffee and is surprised to find his hands are shaking slightly.

"It's okay," PJ says, "Take your time."

Take his time. Phil is always taking his time and stumbling over everything and he really needs to get out of the habit of running away all the time. He'd called PJ, hadn't he? He'd been the one to ask for this meeting, because he knows he needs help sometimes. He needs to learn how to ask for it better, and how to accept it when it's being offered.

"I went to a party with Dan."

"What did he do?"

PJ looks mad. He's put his mug back down on the table and he's sat straight up, poised for action, as though he would spring right over to Dan's flat and give him hell if Phil so much as implied he'd done anything wrong.

"He didn't… well, I'm not sure if he… it might all be in my head. Or it might not. It might all be completely true."

"Okay… what might?"

Phil shuffles down in his seat, his shoulders shrugged almost up to his ears, trying to make himself smaller. He wants to block all of this out but it isn't helping, hasn't helped so far, so he might as well give this a try.

"Some people at the party implied that Dan… that he was only... f-friends with me to boost his YouTube career."

"Friends?"

Phil looks down into his coffee and watches the light glint off the still top of it. It ripples as PJ leans forward in his seat and bangs the table.

"Phil… did you… are you and Dan…"

Phil nods his head, still not looking at him. "We… after the Google thing. I... "

PJ doesn't say anything. Maybe he has no words for how stupid Phil has been, or maybe he's just letting Phil find his own way around all of this. Either way, Phil has to look up at him finally to try and navigate the conversation.

"It was… Peej it wasn't like, well it wasn't like anything else. I know, I know, I don't want to go into detail, I know you don't want to hear it but… it had me believing it. It was different. It was… good."

It was good. The rarity of it, how special it had felt, like it wasn't something thrown away, not just a singular moment in time they'd both forget afterwards. It was something else. But then it wasn't.

"But then afterwards?"

"Then there was the party and people saying things and… I just don't know what to believe. How can I trust anything he says?"

"You just have to look at everything, Phil. You can't judge it based on this one tiny incident… I know I was cautious too. I didn't want to see you get hurt."

Phil remembers. He remembers how unsure PJ had been when they'd played games at his house, how he'd looked scared and unsure on Phil's behalf when they'd left Google.

"But it wasn't because I thought Dan wasn't serious." he continues, "It was only because I thought… well, I didn't know if you'd want to be in another… situation with a YouTuber."

Phil bites down on his bottom lip hard, leaving teeth prints in it.

"I thought so too… I mean, I don't want to be. I don't." Phil shakes his head, "at least I don't think so."

"Phil."

"Yeah?"

"Do you… honestly now… do you really think Dan is faking all of that? Could he have? After everything you've told me…And well, after everything he's been out there doing… doesn't that prove something to you?"

Phil doesn't know. Nothing makes sense any more. He wants PJ to tell him want to do, to give him the answer to every question that he has but he knows that's not how it works.

"He came to my house yesterday."

PJ nods, "He did? What did he want?"

"Mostly to tell me off, maybe. But I also accused him of everything. He denied it of course. He said the reason he tweets and stuff so much is because… well, not for the reason I thought."

"You were mad at him about the tweeting?"

Phil nods, "Yeah. I think… well it's one of the main reasons why I'm inclined to believe he's full of shit."

PJ frowns. He looks so confused, lines appears on his forehead, but Phil really doesn't understand why.

"You know," he clarifies, "He tweets whenever we do anything and he's always replying to people and… did you know there's a ship name now? It's ridiculous. It's just Phan. It doesn't even work out loud, like you have to write it down."

"But…"

"No, I know." Phil says, "That doesn't prove anything. But I guess I just thought that he was showing off, using my name for views."

"For views?" PJ says, that perplexed look still on his face, skin between his brows all bunched up. "But… Phil, what he's been doing on Twitter isn't helping him any. If anything, there are some people who think responding to all of Charlie's drama actually makes him look really petty."

Phil's coffee sloshes over the side of his cup as he sits up quickly, shuffling to the edge of his seat and bumping the table in the process. There is a small creeping puddle of coffee on the wooden table top, seeping towards the edge of it, threatening to drip onto his jeans.

"What Charlie drama?"

PJ brushes his hair out of his face. It's a little wild this morning, a huge mass of waves sitting fluffy and huge around his face. It's always a little crazy but he's been in a rush this morning, Phil knows, so it is quite untamed.

"You… oh God."

"What?"

"You really don't know."

"Peej… what the hell are you talking about?"

The coffee puddle has spread and Phil has to lean over, pluck the haphazard pile of napkins from this coffee tray and swipe the edge of the table. All the while, PJ is sat with his mouth parted, tongue rolled forward to his front teeth as if trying to find the words to say.

"Jesus Phil, I mean I don't know if I should be the one to… if you don't know."

"Tell me!" Phil says, his voice a little louder than he intends so that the people at the next table look up at him. He shoots them an apologetic look and lowers his voice, "please. Look… just tell me what's going on. I'm so confused. I need to make sense of it all and if you know something--"

"Ok, ok." PJ rubs the back of his neck with one hand, "Let me just… I need to figure out where to start."

"Okay."

Phil sits back in his chair, takes his mug with him so that it is cradled between his hands.

"Do you have Charlie blocked on Twitter?"

That comes out of nowhere. Phil hasn't thought about that in a while but he remembers sitting on his hospital bed, bag packed and finally back in his own clothes. He remembers staring at his phone as he waited for his parents to get there and deciding to finally put an end to it, resolving to start over.

"Yes."

"Okay. Good. I mean… That'll be why you haven't…" he sighs, "I guess I just thought Dan might have mentioned it."

Phil feels his palms go sweaty around the cup. He isn't sure if it's the heat of the ceramic or the mention of Charlie's name and the inference that he's back in his life, causing trouble.

"Mentioned what?"

He feels sick. The bottom of his stomach drops out and it's like he's dangling over a precipice, seconds away from disaster.

"Right." PJ picks up his cup, blows out over the top of it to cool it slightly, but he doesn't take a sip. "Charlie has been on Twitter. I guess he saw interactions between you and Dan and… well, he's been…"

PJ trails off and instead digs his phone out of this pocket. He taps around on it for a while before passing it over to Phil. Phil puts down his cup, wraps his fingers around PJ's phone and brings it close to his face.

He can barely look at first. Just a glimpse of that familiar username and a slightly updated profile picture is enough to make his chest feel tight and his breathing snag in his chest. He has to do this, he needs to see.

danisnotonfire: OMG senpai noticed me?!?!

Charlieskies: @danisnotonfire don't waste your time

Right from the beginning. It's all the way back to the beginning, to the point where Phil first engaged with Dan on Twitter.

He can't breathe, it's too much. But he can't stop, his thumb moves up the screen, scrolling down to see more and more, every time they've interacted, every time they mentioned each other, he's there.

danisnotonfire: #phanimalfacts is trending @AmazingPhil what have we done?

Charlieskies: @danisnotonfire good luck, we all know he likes to hide everything, don't be surprised if it doesn't last long

Charlie is still up to his old lies, still touting that old story out. How long has this been going on? Is it just Dan, or does he still drag it all out at regular intervals? Phil can't escape it. He's tried.

He wanted to start over, to put all of this behind him, to stop it all in its tracks. That's why he'd blocked Charlie in the first place.

But it hasn't had any effect at all. Charlie is still out there, never letting it die, never letting him be free of it.

danisnotonfire: your fave nerdy british boys met irl finally are you hyped? @AmazingPhil

Charlieskies: @danisnotonfire seriously, get out while you still can, he's not a nice person

He'd warned him off. Phil closes his eyes for a second before reading onwards, he can't do this. He doesn't want to see it.

But his thumb moves up anyway, and soon, it isn't just Charlie tweeting at Dan.

danisnotonfire: @AmazingPhil tweeting is not resting dont make me confiscate your phone

Charlieskies: @danisnotonfire did he tell you how I used to take care of him when he was ill?

danisnotonfire: what is it you are getting out of this exactly?

He hadn't sent it while he was with Phil. It was afterwards, when he went home.

Charlieskies: just looking out for you mate, you should learn from my experience. I know what he's like

danisnotonfire: jealousy doesn't become you

danisnotonfire: and I'm not your mate

Charlieskies: no need to be hostile

danisnotonfire: you haven't seen hostility yet i care about him so if you carry on i'll show you hostile

Phil lets the phone fall to the table. It clatters on the wood and he drops his forehead into his palms. They are warm, slightly clammy, he sucks in a breath and tries to steady himself.

There's more, Dan fighting his corner, telling Charlie to stop. Phil can't look at any more

"He's been…"

"Yeah."

"And Dan…"

"Hm."

"Shit."

If PJ is surprised by the language he doesn't let on. Phil drags his fingers down his face and looks up.

"Why?"

PJ shrugs. "I don't know. But… Well, he wouldn't be doing all of this if… if any of what you're so scared of was true."

Phil looks at it from that angle. It's true. Dan going off on Twitter isn't doing him any favours so why is he doing it? What would be the point? Unless…

"You think he's being genuine."

"I've only met the guy a few times, so I'm not going to sit here and tell you that he definitely is. But Phil… the way he looks at you. The way you are with each other. That's not fake."

Phil looks down at the phone again, screen faded to black. He slides it back over the table. He's seen enough.

"And he knows about... " he swallows. "Charlie."

PJ cocks his head. "He's been there since the beginning Phil. He's watched your channel and commented on everything you've ever done. Did you think he missed it?"

"No… just… he's never said anything. About… well like everyone had an opinion on it didn't they? Whether they believed him. Dan has never said…"

"Do you think he would? If you didn't bring it up?"

"I don't know."

He thinks about them sharing secrets. He think about Dan coming out and Phil telling him about his anxiety. He hasn't shared everything. Not even close. But Dan has never pushed him to, not once.

PJ picks up the phone and slides it back in to his pocket. "I think he cares about you Phil. I think he saw it all and he cares about you anyway. But maybe you owe him the bigger story… the bits everyone didn't see."

Phil shakes his head automatically because part of his whole starting over routine was vowing never to talk about it. He's made that final pact with himself to stay closed off from it all, to shove it all down and try and pretend it didn't happen. It was the only way he could move on.

But that isn't working any more. Still, the idea of telling Dan everything… it's scary.

"I need to talk to him, huh?"

"Yeah… I think you do."