Dream a Little Dream // Daniel Howell x Reader

Chapter 16

You were reclined against your grey futon, a laptop in your hands as you skimmed through the anomaly known as 'Twitter', a site consisting of an allowed number of characters. The little blue bird rested in the top left corner of your screen, beckoning you to click it for some more random moments on the website's homepage. You weren't really interested in it right now as you continued your voyage downwards.

In order to see what the website was about, you were forced to create an account if you wanted to venture past the login screen. This annoyed you slightly, causing you to spend countless minutes trying to figure out what your username should be. Everything seemed to be taken, their recommendations no better than the actual one you wanted. You huffed angrily with each new attempt, hoping you would eventually find an available label.

After several painstaking minutes, you finally secured your name, claiming it as your own as you created your account. The layout of Twitter was odd, confusing to someone like yourself. You scrunched your face in annoyance, the unfamiliar site a jumble of new information that made your head hurt. You sighed, so much effort for one page you needed to follow.

Your University; it had a Twitter page.

The page was student run, each day brought new news about the campus, their courses, events and more. It was recommended that you follow the site to keep up to date with all things centered around your school. Unfortunately, you weren't exactly the most tech savvy person around. You would've much preferred a simple email or perhaps a physical newsletter.

You let out a breathy gust of air, feeling a little drained with all this new information. You decided to stop scrolling through the University's page and bend to the little bird's will, clicking the icon that transported you to the home page. God, this was even worse.

All these articles of 'so-called-news' filled your laptop's screen, a jumble of pound signs littering the site as they attached themselves to words of importance. Oh wait, they were called Hashtags now. That's a little different from when I was a kid

It seemed like this was Twitter's staple of success; the hashtag symbol. It was used to tag words, presumably to categorize them into sections, thus making them easily accessible to someone looking for that exact thing. Handy, but a little odd in your mind.

You explored the tags but only the ones that looked remotely interesting; #cutecats was something you couldn't help but click. Thankfully it held true to it's words as a barrage of adorable kittens was thrown onto your screen, the little fluff balls warming your previously weary heart. Next came #cutepuppers. Again, you were not disappointed.

You were caught in Twitter's trap, quickly learning how to favourite things, follow and even leave a little comment. Your eyes were essentially glued to the website, your mind beginning to open to new discoveries across the internet's blue bird platform. You also learned was a Tweet was; quite a fitting name for Twitter.

Throughout your digital travels, a familiar face appeared in your suggestions. No way... There in the corner was Dan's face, a rather blank stare enclosed in his Twitter profile picture. Coincidentally, just above him was Phil's face, a slightly more energetic atmosphere surrounded his image; he was sporting a quiff as well. They have a Twitter page? There was no hesitation as you clicked on both, opening separate tabs for the two of them.

First off was Phil's page

Immediately you saw that he had retweeted countless videos and images of corgis. There were also some pictures he had taken himself, sometimes with captions or just without an explanation. His tweets were also quite Phil aesthetic, happy, positive and generally silly. More often than not an occasional piece of artwork was retweeted by him; art by his devoted fans.