"Hello Internet!"
"Hey guys!"
"And welcome to our new video, Phil is not on fire 8!"
I look at Phil, a smile creeping to my lips.
"So, we haven't done this in a... while," Phil says, eyes trained on the camera.
"Phil, we haven't made a video in weeks because of the touring," I laugh, rolling my eyes.
"Yeah, and we thought," Phil glances at me and then back at the camera. "Since we've been putting this off for a while..."
"PINOF 8!" I screech enthusiastically. Phil bursts out laughing and leans forward.
"Where's the marker Dan?" He says, leaning back into his bed.
"The magical marker is..." I search around the room, trying to find where I put it. "Phil, where'd it go?"
Phil shrugs awkwardly from his position.
"And you're just not going to get up-- fine, fine," I lean into the camera. "I'll get it."
"Thanks, Danny-boy."
"Don't call me that again."
"Okay, Danny-boy."
"You'd better to edit this out," I say back to him.
I make my way over to his desk, right under his new mirror. I check my hair before looking for the marker. I scan over the top few things before moving things around. I look under useless papers, stuffed animals, and that infamous lion he got when he first started YouTube.
Phil is always misplacing things, but as I look on the desk, the marker seems to have vanished. "Where the heck is that marker?" I call to him again. I push aside the little collectables we brought back from America.
"I dunno," he says stupidly. I turn to glare at him. "What?" He pulls his little smirk, sitting up. The green and blue bedsheets move with him.
"I can't find it--" I stop, my hand catching something in the drawer I was banging around in.
I pull my hand away sharply and shut the drawer harder than I intended. Phil hasn't found IT not yet.
Good. I'm not ready to leave yet.
"You okay over there Dan?" Phil says, sitting up and breaking his gaze from the camera and looking at me. I realize he was talking to fill the time.
"Yeah," I murmur immediately.
"How long does it take to find a marker?"
"It's not just any marker, it has to be the magical marker."
I can almost hear Phil nod his head sarcastically.
"Okay."
Phil talks some more, but I'm more concentrated on my beating heart. I try to slow it, to act normal. Phil is, hopefully, not going to find IT for a while, but one could only hope.
I swallowed hard, and suddenly I feel breath on the back of my neck.
"Phil--" I whirl around, my face so close to his, our noses almost touch.
I can feel my cheeks growing red, and I look away, my heart skipping two, three, four beats. He continues to stare, and his blue-green eyes seem more vibrant than ever.
"Phil, we have to... video," I choke out, stepping out of his way. A smirk settles on his face and he pulls a marker out from behind him.
"I believe this is what you're looking for, my good sir," he says, his smirk growing deeper.
I turn away and cough, awkward as heck. Then I bounce back on his bed, staring at the camera. "Phil has found the magical marker."
He hums the Tamagotchi music, the repetitive, annoyingly catchy tune that plays every time the game is turned on. Then he bounces back onto the bed, sitting right next to me. I smile nonchalantly. He opens the marker with a sharp pop, the pungent smell starting to waft throughout the room.
"Wait," Phil says suddenly, looking back at the camera. "Cue the music," he says, his voice lowered considerably.
"That'll just take more editing, you idiot," I say, and grab the marker.
I slowly draw a circle on his nose, and then move to the whiskers. He does the same to me, and then we look back to the camera.
"The whiskers are back," Phil says, squinting his eyes at the camera.
"Okay Phil, what's the first question? Jesus, we're going to regret this."
He laughs again, and I feel much happier. "Yeah, okay, here's the first one: 'What is your middle name'?"
"That's a lame question," I say. "Anyone who's a fan knows that. Way to start off the video."
"Dan! Don't make fun of owlloverz221b! She has a Sherlock username."
I look into the camera. "I'm sorry, but seriously, middle names? You can find it on wikipedia."
"Yeah, instead of us telling you... go to our wiki page!" Phil exclaims, throwing his arms wide. "It's been on there for a couple of weeks, but now you can check out the yummy goodness of Dan and Phil!"
"Yummy? Phil..." I sigh, putting my hand to my forehead. "I am so sorry." The camera stares back at me, and I drop my gaze. I hate looking into that thing.
"What?" He smiles his oblivious smile, and I love him more and more for it.
"Next question!" I say, thinking about how much editing this video is going to take.
"Dan, be a seductive walrus while Phil is trying to be a cat taking a nap."
I smile. "That's more like our Twitter fans."
"Recreate some questions from pinof 1."
"What was your favorite part of the book?"
"Last time someone asked you out?"
"History of your YouTube names."
Questions are flying past us, and we answer, or in some cases obey, every one. After thirty minutes, Phil, still laughing after we told them about our longest Skype conversation, begins to speak again.
"Okay, so if you want more of us," he smiled widely.
"Like, comment, and, as always subscribe! Also, click on my face to subscribe to my channel, and click on Phil's to see the other 7 pinofs." I move my hands as I talk, a habit I've developed on camera.
"Okay, have fun, and bye!" Phil laughs again, and turned off the camera.
"I can't believe we did that," I say, laughter starting to bubble in my abdomen.
"Yeah, well, we did," he says, somewhat saltily. My laughter dies with a sharp snap.
I look into his blue-green eyes. "What?"
"Nothing," he mutters, starting to collapse the tripod.
I don't believe him. But I also knew not to press him when he does get this way. Phil tends not to get mad or upset easily, but when he does, I know it's best to leave him alone.
He grabs the camera to leave, and slams the door behind him. I almost sigh in relief, but I start to hope to God that it wasn't me.
---
"Dan?"
I open my eyes, even though I wasn't really sleeping. I have just woken up from a nightmare. One where Phil hated me, ignoring me, arguing in some kind of long, hard struggle before he finally moved out.
And I was left alone.
"Dan? Are you awake?" The voice is gentler this time. Yes, I think. Wide awake.
I sit up, looking to the doorway. A black outline of a tall, skinny figure is in the doorway, leaning on the frame. The figure starts to turn around and walk back down the hall.
"Yeah."
He stops, and I flick the light on my bedstand on. Phil must've slept in his clothes, because his shirt, the same blue one he is wearing that afternoon, is wrinkled, and he was wearing his black jeans. His hair is ruffled, but not in a quiff like it usually is in the morning, suggesting that he's slept very little.
"Dan," he starts, but then turns away.
"What? What is it Phil?" I push the covers back, and I swing my legs over the side of my bed.
"I can't... sleep," he hesitates the word long enough for me to know that he is lying.
"Phil..."
"How long are we going to lie to them?" he says suddenly. "They love us, Dan. And all we do is lie!"
I gape at him. "Do you just want to spill your whole life on the internet?" I snap, but I regret it immediately. Phil turns away again, as if he's been slapped.
"No, but... Look at Tyler and Connor and so many other people who've come out! It's not like they're..." he trails off, before collapsing in the chair by my door. He puts his head in his hands and sits like that for minutes.
I want to go comfort him. To go wrap my arm around him and tell him that we will come out when we're ready. I want him to feel me, and I want him to feel better.
Instead, I shift uncomfortably in my place.
Phil sighs deeply where he sits, his shoulders rising and falling. "I saw something, Dan," he says suddenly. He looks up, and he looks twenty years older. Tired. Ragged. Torn.
My heart skips three beats, then starts up again at 175 kilos per hour. IT? I think. He found IT?
"What did you see?" I said in a casual tone. I've become used to faking my expression. It scares me how easily I can lie about myself, especially to someone like Phil.
"I--" he pauses. "God, it's so stupid." He tries to laugh, but it sounds more like a cough.
I look at him intently. I was suddenly unsure if he'd really found IT. "Phil..."
"I was reading something... it was a fanfiction," he says. "But it wasn't like the Hat Fic, or other ones like that. But..." he swallowed hard. "At the end you... killed yourself."
My breath caught in my throat, but I managed to look at him quizzically. "What does that have to do with anything?" I say, my voice cracking. Phil looks up sharply.
"I'm... it made me... it made me realize that..." he pauses again, and I can tell he's holding back tears.
"Realize what, Phil?" I swallow hard.
He puts his head back in his hands. "You're going to kill yourself."
I gape at him, screwing my lips together. "Phil... I won't. Okay? I won't," I find the words in the back of my brain. The false, lying voice that tells me "everything will get better" suddenly spewes out of my mouth. "Whatever you think I've been through, I'll get over it. Stop worrying about me, I'm fine. Perfectly fine."
He looks a little relieved, but I know he'll always worry. Worrying is his specialty. At least now I know he won't think the worst, and think about it every day.
At least now I know he still doesn't know.
---
I haven't slept since Phil came into my room. Eventually he walked away, but I stay awake for hours. I stare at my ceiling, thinking about what Phil said.
"It made me realize..."
"Realize what, Phil?"
"You're going to kill yourself."
I groan and roll over. Hearing someone say it out loud makes it more raw, more real.
But was I really?
My thoughts go to IT. That isn't about suicide. Just leaving. Leaving the life I have.
Leaving Phil.
I sigh deeply, the sorrows of the day starting to swirl in my stomach. I close my eyes, gently touching my clammy hand to my forehead. I reach over with my other hand and grab my phone. I punch in the digits, 7445. I spend hours browsing through Tumblr before I move onto Twitter. I move through social media apps, one after the other, until my room starts to lighten up and the sun is peeking out of the clouds.
I turn off my phone and push the quilt of myself. My clock says it's 10:04, so I know Phil can't be up yet.
"You're going to kill yourself."
I pull on jeans and a black t-shirt. I put on deodorant, and walk out of my room. The door shuts loudly behind me, and I can hear Phil stir in the other room.
On my right, the door nearest to our rooms, is the kitchen. It has some kind of tacky glass door that I walk into constantly when I'm not paying attention. Two more doors are seen, the lounge, and the one closest to the stairs is the office. I shuffle past the kitchen and into the lounge. I almost walk into our table, which is placed five feet in front of the door. On my left, a black couch stands, and my laptop is sitting on the table next to it. I settle into the couch, looking at the black, reflective television. I turn it on and Anime begins to stream. I turn down the volume, the noise relaxing, and grab my laptop.
"You're going to kill yourself."
I turn on Twitter and send out a tweet. "So lonely... 10:00 AM and Phil's still asleep :(".
I started getting tweets back immediately, but I ignored them. I wasn't in the mood to look at a comment saying "Yeah, you want Phil's company don't you" and attach millions of unnecessary winky faces. Or ones correcting any grammar or spelling mistakes I happened to make.
I turn off Twitter, my notification ring going off three millions times a second. I mute my computer and look for something else to do.
I play internet games, and some Mortal Kombat, which I downloaded onto my Mac, and rewatch episodes of Buffy the Vampire Killer.
"Dan?"
I groggily turn my head in the direction of the noise. Phil's head is peeking out of the doorway.
"Hmm?" I mutter, blinking.
"You said you were lonely," he smiles, pulling himself through the opening.
"I didn't realize you were awake," I yawn, stretching my arm out to my sides. Phil steps into the lounge and stares at the telly. "Why are you watching this again?"
I shrugged. "It's a good episode."
Phil squints at me before turning around and heading back down the hallway. "What's in the kitchen?" I call after him, leaning over the arm of the sofa.
"Erm..." he bangs around in the cabinets. "Half a box of Lucky Charms," he says finally. "Or we could run to McDonald's or something."
I think it over. "Let's get out of the house," I say finally. "We can grab something to eat and then go grocery shopping."
I can hear Phil hesitate from the kitchen. "Yeah, yeah, okay." He shuts the cabinet and walks back into his room.
After a couple of seconds, I get up as well, and slip on socks. They aren't matching, but I pull them on anyway. I slip on my leather shoes, that are oddly comfortable, and stand in the hallway, leaning against the wall.
Phil emerges from his room, wearing a Sonic t-shirt and a pair of grey skinny jeans. He slips on his green sneakers and ruffles his hair.
"Hold on," he says, and runs back into his room. He bangs a bit around his desk, and cold fingers grab my heart. IT. IT is in there. He can't find IT. Not now, not--
Phil runs back out, his phone in his hand. I must've visibly relaxed, because he looks at me, his left eyebrow raised in questioning.
I shrug it off and turn to walk down the stairs. The bland, grey carpet shifts under my feet. I reach the second landing, my "existential crisis" hallway, in no time, skipping a step as I go down.
"Dan, slow down," Phil calls out. "You're going to trip or something."
A smile creeps to my lips, but I keep bounding down the stairs. I reach the final landing and wait for Phil.
Phil slowly makes his descent, the pale, eggshell walls matching his skin tone. He would laugh if he heard me say that, but I keep my mouth shut. Instead, I open the door and walk into the blinding light of the outside world.