are you in love with a notion //phan

(9) 23rd March 2017

"Move out of my way, dickhead!" Dan yelled out. In response Phil deliberately drove in front of him a second time, causing him to swerve to the right to get back at him and instead slip on a banana peel and lose his measly tenth place status to an even more measly eleventh as another character raced ahead.

"Your road rage is still as intense as ever," Phil noted. "But geez, either the CPU's have become incredibly hard in this version to beat or you've become terrible at Mario Kart - I'm literally lapping you here."

Despite Dan's thoughts that his silly idea wouldn't actually end up happening, there sat his ex-boyfriend in the lounge of his apartment annihilating him at Mario Kart. It was a strange thing, a slight feeling of déjà vu mixed in with warm memories encircling round his head.

However, the fuzzy reminiscences were always cut short when he felt his hands begin to shake. (Which, might he add, was the reason he was essentially in last place at a game he could usually win with his eyes closed).

"It's the CPUs," Dan quickly responded. "I've had enough of video games, let's do something else."

Something that he could do without his hands fucking everything up.

"We could get coffee?" Phil suggested.

Shaking hands plus hot liquids didn't sound a good idea to him, not to mention how clumsy he was anyhow. "Not in the mood for going outside, too cold."

"Dan, we live in England - always cold here. But okay, let's think of something else," he said. "Hate-watch a crappy Netflix film?"

It didn't involve hands. "Yeah, okay. You pick something and I'll get popcorn?" Phil nodded as Dan left the kitchen.

Dan rolled his eyes when he heard the Sharknado theme song playing from the speakers of his television in the other room. "You've got to be kidding me," he muttered.

"Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, run away from the sharknado!" Phil began to scream in time with the lyrics loud enough that Dan was certain his neighbours would complain.

"You fucking love these films, you won't be hate-watching anything." Dan sat down next to Phil on the sofa.

"I love them because they're so terrible." Phil proceeded to grab the popcorn off Dan, which perhaps was a good thing considering the state of his hands. "They're brilliantly awful," he spoke with a mouth full of popcorn.

"Just plain awful to me but each to their own," Dan replied.

They sat in a silence that was somewhere between comfortable and verging-on-awkward. Dan sighed as Phil laughed at the horrific CGI'd sharks as they appeared on the screen. Dan was sat on his hands in an attempt to make the shaking less noticeable so no awkward questions would arise whilst watching the film. The plan worked in ways but completely and utterly failed in others: the shaking stopped, however, his hands were numb.

"I love that this franchise keeps getting money to make more of this crap," Phil said through another mouthful of popcorn.

"I don't understand how they're still getting money when you're the only person on the bloody planet who's regularly watching them."

"I like to think that I'm making a positive impact on the world by allowing them to spend more money on these films. Hold the popcorn for a sec, I'm hogging it and I feel bad." Dan removed his hands from under himself and held them out just before Phil placed the bowl into them.

With hands still numb it was reasonably okay. Okay as having numb hands could get, anyway. He could successfully hold the bowl upright with no complications and that was more than good enough for him.

But as the minutes passed and more horrifically edited sharks were slaughtered with chainsaws, his hands began to shake again until the bowl was moving around from side to side. The fact Phil had already eaten half of it was practically the only reason its contents hadn't spilt out.

"Dan?" Phil asked. All it took was that single word for Dan's left hand to jerk a tiny bit harder and drop the bowl onto the sofa.

"Yeah?" he replied, acting as if he wasn't doing something that could only be described as 'non-consensual jazz hands' and that the dozens of pieces of popcorn scattered around just weren't there.

"You feeling alright?" Phil looked concerned, pausing the film.

"I'm just great, play the film again - it was getting to a good part." Again, ignoring his theatric withdrawal symptoms and the popcorn.

"Dan, nothing even remotely good happens at any point in this film; it's about a tornado filled with sharks for heaven's sake!" Phil said.

"But it's your favourite hate-watch film," Dan protested. Secretly his favourite part was the end credits but he chose not to mention that.

"And it can wait. The person sat next to me is far more important than a purely fictional film."

Dan sighed for the umpteenth time and, again, questioned why he couldn't have a dickhead ex like everybody else.

"Dan, your car kept jerking when we were playing Mario Kart, you can't keep a bowl of popcorn in your hand for over five minutes without spilling it," Phil said. "Are you really okay? Is something up? Is it nerves? Are you feeling anxious? I have no idea what you're like now but I used to have to watch you like this all the time. Deep breath in for five, hold it for six, exhale for —"

"No, I'm fine. It's not nerves," Dan abruptly cut him off. "I'm not sure whether or not I want to talk about it."

It was shame more than anything that forced Dan to stay quiet about it all. On the surface he seemed to be fine, more than fine; financially stable, working in a career he enjoyed - so how could he have problems? It was almost selfish of him to let himself go to the point of having addictions, at least in Dan's mind that was true. He had everything going for him, after all.

"Don't force yourself to tell me anything you don't want to tell me, it's not fair to you. I'll respect your decision either way."

"Thank you. I mean, I sort of want to be honest but it's difficult for me to open up about things." especially to you of all people he added silently to himself.

"I understand. If you don't mind answering, can you tell me if it happens to link with what I had to talk to our fans about on my live show?" Phil asked.

Dan just nodded, not wanting to tell him anything else.

"And links with the reason you call me late at night every now and again?"

He nodded again. And perhaps that was all Phil needed to be able to correctly place the pieces together.

-
It's only been 7 weeks fuck me

random q: is mans not hot a viral meme yet bc it's a really big Brit one and I can't tell