A List of Available Smiles
Title: A List of Available Smiles
Pairing: Phan
Rating: PG-13 (although possibly triggery)
Warnings: Depression (NO self-harm, NO suicide, NO eating disorders)
Wordcount: 13,829
Disclaimer: Most emphatically, I do not believe this to be true.
Summary: This is the truth of depression: it doesn't stop you laughing. It just stops you feeling happy. And it tugs at you, nags you: this laughter doesn't last, it tells you. Laughter never lasts.
Author’s note: If you have enjoyed anything I’ve written, please read this. This is the most important story I have ever written. Thank you tofavoriteword for convincing me that I could write it, and for sharing this story with me. I couldn’t have done it without you.
New note: I've just heard that this fic has been recced on the fuckyeahyoutubeslash tumblr. If you like this and want to read more of my stories, the vast majority of them are posted in the youtube_slash comm. Hello, tumblr users, and I hope you enjoy.
He’s been talking to Phil for months. He’s been talking with him for weeks, YouTube comments and tweets and myspace and DailyBooth all merging together in his head into a larger entity. He still sort of hates his username - his thirteen year old self really wasn’t funny - but he’s glad of it now, because it helped Phil notice him. The odd comment replied-to has turned into full blown conversations between them; Phil has added him on Facebook and given him his personal email address; they’ve added each other on msn. They’ve even Skyped a couple of times. Dan can dare to call Phil his friend now, and he thinks he’s never achieved anything of which he can be prouder.
And still, he never expected this email.
From: YouTube Service
Subject: AmazingPhil sent you a video: “Hello Dan!”
AmazingPhil has shared a video with you on YouTube: “Hello Dan!”
Dan stares for a full minute. Who sends private videos? He’s never heard of them being used like this before. He knows that Phil has privated videos on his channel because they’re old and downright bad; he’s even seen one or two, part of Phil’s campaign to get Dan to start making videos. But he never thought that people used private videos to actually communicate.
Then again, what does he know? He’s just a fanboy.
He clicks on the link.
“Hey Dan! I just wanted to send you a video because... well, it just occurred to me that I could. Anyway, I was just wondering if you wanted to meet up. I don’t mind where. Maybe you’d feel more comfortable at yours? Or we could go somewhere else altogether, have a daytrip to London or something? I just want to actually meet you. It’s weird, but I really want to know how tall you are. I can’t tell that via Skype! I mean, even if I knew you were six foot one or whatever, I still wouldn’t really know how tall you were. You know, like you can be told there are a thousand people in a room, but you can’t imagine it until you see it. Although it would be sort of hard to get a thousand people in a room. A normal room, anyway. Maybe it’s a theatre or something. What was I saying? Oh yeah, I want to know how tall you are. And other stuff too. Does that sound creepy? I don’t mean to sound creepy. I bet you’re laughing at me now.”
Dan blinks, because he is.
“But yeah, I want to see you, Dan. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that we’re becoming pretty good friends. So... email me or call me or something and we’ll work something out. So yeah. See you soon!”
The video ends there, and Dan is smiling. He’s sort of glad that Phil’s asked him like this - it seems oddly formal, maybe because he’s put effort into it. He hasn’t edited it or anything, but he has taken the time to record it, import it, upload it, title it... It’s more effort than he would put in for a Skype call.
His laptop light blinks - he’s running out of battery. He hurries to type out a comment.
danisnotonfire
of course i’ll meet up with you. expect a skype call about eight tonight. <3
Thus begins their habit of sending each other videos when there’s something important to say.
***
Dan’s first private video sent to Phil isn’t really supposed to be anything important. It’s taken weeks but Phil has finally convinced him to start up his own vlog, and this video he’s uploading is purely to check that his internet works and he can use the YouTube interface and whatever. But somehow, when he’s talking into the camera, it becomes something else.
“I’m a bit nervous about uploading anything, if I’m honest,” he finds himself admitting to the camera, to Phil. “Cos everyone’s already established. Like, everyone who’s anyone has been doing this for ages. I’m sort of scared I’ll get stuck with no subscribers, like all the other thousands of losers on the internet.”
He stops. He didn’t mean to say any of that. He bites the inside of his lip before continuing.
“I mean, I don’t want millions of subscribers, or I do, but that’s not the point. I just want some sort of an audience, just because it means I’m not rubbish, or wasting my time, you know? It all feels sort of futile.” He shrugs. “Anyway, let’s see if my internet works. See you soon.”
He stops the recording with a strangely heavy feeling in his chest. He feels sort of exposed, admitting all this to Phil - before now he’s tried to keep his insecurities safely hidden away - but also really quite alone. He might have proven to himself that he can talk freely to Phil, but he’s only proven that he can do it via video, without a response, and even if he could say all this in person, he doesn’t see Phil all that often.
He uploads the video feeling shut off from the world, like he exists only in his bedroom via his computer. Even looking out the window doesn’t help - the sky is a typical English grey, the clouds forming a suffocating layer, threatening rain, and he reaches up to drag his curtains closed, shutting out the dreary half-light. This feeling scares him a little, because he knows it well. He’s struggled with feelings of loneliness and inadequacy for years, and it’s got to the point where he can feel his fears building up, like an advance warning for a few hours or days of darkness. Advance warnings are fairly useless unless you can act on them, though, and so far Dan hasn’t managed to find a way to fight through this.
Even Phil’s answering comment doesn’t really help.
AmazingPhil
Don’t worry about it! You’re funny and clever so you will get views. It might take a while, but it’ll happen. See you soon. :)
Will they? He’d said it first, but now he glances at his calendar; it’s October - term time for both of them.
He slams his laptop shut and resists the urge to hug his pillow.
***
For a long while after that, they don’t send any private videos. It’s just a bit of a faff, and most of the time they just call each other or email, msn, Skype - whatever it is that’s in fashion at the time. But occasionally something happens that they just have to share, from the downright ridiculous - Phil films a zombie movie for his course and just has to show Dan the make-up as it looks the day after he first tried to get it off - to the almost serious, when Dan spends a day in the snow and absolutely has to share his feeling of complete and utter stillness, complete solitude.
“It’s invigorating, but at the same time it’s terrifying, you know? Like, everything’s so bright that you feel disconnected from it, like the light isn’t actually going into your eyes,” he says to the camera that evening. “For a moment, you just feel like you’re the only real thing in the world. Like, what’s that word, solipsism? Even now, I’m talking to you, but I’m not, I’m talking to a camera. I could have dreamed you. I could so have dreamed you. Imagine, being the only person ever, completely alone, surrounded by figments of your imagination...”
Phil, it turns out, has never considered any of this, and declares Dan a little bit creepy because of it. But that’s always been Dan’s problem - he thinks about things too much. With Phil, he can live in the moment, but he wants to share things like this with him too, the crazy workings of his mind. The videos are good for that, he supposes, but they don’t necessarily help Phil to understand.
But most of the time the videos aren’t about that. They’re just moments that they need to share. Come August, Dan goes to the festival at Reading and Phil to the one at Leeds, and without ever discussing it, they both make a video for each other, just a quick thirty second video each, taking in the atmosphere of the festival and ending with the words “wish you were here!” The videos arrive within minutes of each other when they get home, and they each post a comment saying “I just sent basically the same thing to you!” and it’s just the weirdest feeling, being so completely in sync. It’s absolutely glorious, and Dan loves it. Those moments buoy him up, keep him going. He can’t wait until he’s at uni in Manchester, where he can be near Phil more, share more of these moments with him.
***
Even when they’re living in the same city, they don’t quite give up the habit of sending each other videos. One day Phil expresses curiosity about doing a law degree versus a media degree, so Dan makes an impromptu ‘day in the life video’, full of such scintillating clips as “This is my lecture hall. And now I’m going to turn off the camera because you do not want to listen to two hours of property law.” In return, Phil makes a jokey video, showing himself on the computer with a series of captions: ten am, noon, two pm, four pm...
danisnotonfire
much more interesting than my day!
But they spend so much time together at Phil’s flat that the videos become largely redundant. Slowly, Dan finds himself becoming able to talk with Phil about the serious things, about the nagging thoughts that keep him down.
And yet... It’s not enough. He feels an ache, sometimes so strong it seems physical, an ache to have Phil understand, to have him know Dan completely and utterly. It’s not something that’s limited to Phil - he’s experienced the same sort of feeling with other friends, girlfriends, even his parents when he was young enough. He’s convinced himself that it’s impossible to ever truly know another human being, but still he longs for someone to know him.
And as if these constant existential worries weren’t enough, he’s starting to have serious doubts about his law degree. The truth is that it’s hard, really hard, which wouldn’t be that much of a problem if Dan cared enough about it to study proportionately, but that’s the thing: he really doesn’t care about law. When he was talked into this degree, he had imagined standing in the middle of a court, dealing out justice with dramatic turns of phrase, but the truth of his degree is that he’s just memorising reams of legal information, and even that’s not interesting, not about interesting ethical questions. Apparently they save that for when everyone’s dropped out. No, it’s all ultra boring stuff about business and property and all that crap and Dan hates it.
He’s so tempted to drop out and rely on YouTube, but a massive part of him is screaming that it’s the stupidest thing he could possibly do. He’s under no illusions - most of his audience is young, female and American, watching him because he’s young, male and British. He becomes quite vain in a way, paranoid that his job depends on his looks, aware that his face is a ticking time bomb. If he doesn’t have a degree to fall back on, what on earth will he do when his views dry up?
He imagines some ex-danosaur finding him working shifts in a supermarket in thirty years time and shudders.
“Can’t you switch course?” Phil asks one day. “Do something media-based, like I did?”
Dan shakes his head. “I’m too late now.”
What he doesn’t tell Phil is that he’s not convinced a media course would be of any actual use. There’s no YouTube-specific degree he could do, and by the time he has to leave YouTube and find a job elsewhere, anything he learns at university will be hopelessly outdated.
So he keeps struggling through, or perhaps just keeps struggling, trying desperately to keep afloat on a dark, stormy sea. How long, he muses morbidly, before he can’t stay above water any more?
***
On Christmas Day, Dan wakes up far too early to his first really heartfelt video from Phil.
“You really let yourself go in these,” Phil says. “I really admire that. I just end up feeling a bit stupid because I’m pouring my heart out to a camera. I’ll try through.”
Dan pauses the video and grabs his headphones. He’s suddenly very aware of his family just outside his bedroom door - it’s so weird being back home after the first time living away, like he doesn’t quite fit the rhythms of his family any more - and he feels... What is it? Nervousness? Anticipation? He desperately wants to know what it is that Phil might have to say to him.
Some of the intensity fades when he sees the derp face he’s unintentionally given Phil in the freeze frame, and he takes a second to screenshot it as potential blackmail material, but he still feels slightly odd as he clicks play.
Phil takes a deep breath - the reason for the derp face - before speaking.
“Okay, so the first thing I wanted to say was - well, my lease ends in summer and I know you aren’t living in halls next year, so I was just wondering if you might want to get a flat. With me.”
Dan’s breath catches in his throat, but Phil rushes on.
“I mean, if you want to go in with other students, like, just for term time so you can go home for holidays and stuff, that’s cool. And it would be cheaper, I guess. But... Anyway, I know you have to start thinking about that soon, so I guess I’m throwing in my offer before you’re snapped up by all your uni friends.
“I really would love to live with you,” Phil continues, as if anticipating Dan’s insecurities. “I’ve never got on so well with anyone as I have with you.” He looks down, and Dan thinks that he might be blushing. It’s hard to tell on a screen. “That’s the other thing I wanted to say, I guess. Just... Thank you for being you. For being my friend.” He’s definitely blushing now. He laughs self-consciously. “Told you I’m rubbish at this. Merry Christmas, Dan.”
The video ends. For a couple of seconds, Dan does nothing, and then he’s opening a new tab and signing into AdSense to check how much he’s making from YouTube. He tries to mentally add on his maintenance loan, then gives up and brings up the calculator on his screen.
Last month’s AdSense money, times twelve, plus one year’s maintenance loan, divided by twelve, equals monthly budget, minus his monthly food budget plus some money for fun stuff...
Rightmove.co.uk. Find property in: Manchester; to: rent; property type: flats/apartments; number of bedrooms: two; price range (£)...
He stares at the screen. He can afford that. He scrolls down. He can afford a lot of these flats if he goes halves with Phil. Thank fuck for YouTube.
He clicks back over to Phil’s video, types two characters into the comment box and clicks send.
danisnotonfire
<3
Dan’s a big believer in emoticons. He likes how they’re a universal language across the internet, how they can clarify sarcasm, how they can serve as a message in their own right. The less than three does all of that and more, because it does something the English language can’t handle, which is saying ‘I love you’ without any of the drama. Writing ‘I love you’ requires that you’re practically engaged. ‘<3’ just needs friendship.
Another comment appears almost immediately.
AmazingPhil
What are you doing up so early? And is that a yes?
Dan grins.
danisnotonfire
what are *you* doing up so early? and that is definitely a yes.
AmazingPhil
It’s CHRIIIISTMAAAAS! And best present ever :D
danisnotonfire
yes it is
He wishes briefly, madly, that he could screenshot this feeling, and paste it over himself when he needs it.
AmazingPhil
gtg! Speak soon, soon-to-be-flatmate! <333
And then suddenly Dan’s unsure again. Because less than threes are about as drama-free as it gets, but less than three hundred and thirty threes are a whole other kettle of fish.
***
It’s not that Dan is worried about Phil liking him, exactly. In another world, he can imagine them having a really great relationship. They’re both bisexual, they’re not unattractive, they both love spending time together... It’s just that Dan’s not really sure he can manage a relationship. He’s not in a place where he would make anyone a good boyfriend. He doesn’t want to have to think about that, to worry about whether Phil’s his best friend or his crush, to start measuring his words and his comments and his bloody less than threes. No, he is not in the right position to be a good boyfriend to anyone.
He’s sort of proven right a few weeks later.
He’s round at Phil’s (surprise surprise) and they’re watching the news - they didn’t sit down to watch it, of course, it’s just that it happened to come on whilst they were eating dinner, and now they’re just sitting there, letting it play until one of them can be bothered to do the washing up. They’re only half paying attention until the newscaster announces that some celebrity or other has died.
“We will now cut to a two minute montage of all the crappy ancient footage we could find in the archives while the nation pretends to give a shit,” Dan says sarcastically.
The black and white montage kicks in, and the brightness of the room dims. Phil glances at him. “Cynical, much?”
“Oh, come on,” says Dan. “The best anyone’ll do is go ‘oh, I liked that thing she did once’ and move on. No one actually cares - they just pretend to give a fuck because it’s nice, or because there’s someone else in the room.”
He should stop. He should stop right there, but he can’t. He carries on:
“Everyone’s got their own little problems and their own little lives and no one’s got enough room left to really give a shit about anyone else. I mean, who the fuck even cares that she’s dead? Everyone’s too obsessed by their own petty, meaningless lives.”
Silence.
Dan knows full well that he shouldn’t have said that, any of it. He knows that he’s just insulted Phil - and the whole world, but right now he just cares about Phil - in a big way, and the worst thing is that he doesn’t think he’s wrong. He just shouldn’t have said it aloud. Everyone on Earth is playing a game, he thinks, a game of appearing respectable and following society’s unwritten diktats and never acknowledging the utter absurdity of it all, and Dan just broke the rules.
Phil could say anything right now. We’re outside the game, Dan thinks. Time out. He can do nothing but wait for his verdict. He looks down, unable to meet Phil’s eye.
But when Phil eventually speaks, all he says is, “I’ll get back to you on that one. Want me to do the washing up?”
Dan shakes his head, and then, because he can’t stand it, says, “Sorry.”
Phil just changes the channel, but he does move his hand just a little bit closer to Dan, so his pinky is brushing the material of Dan’s black skinny jeans, his stupidly pale skin striking against the dark material, just one point of contact, one warm anchor in the wave of cold indifference that Dan’s words have let loose.
He does the washing up, and soon after that goes back to his prison cell of a room, walking slowly through the city, feeling the darkness and the chill welcoming him in. Hello, they seem to say. Why not rest with us a while? It’s like the process of dying of cold - it’s so tempting to just sink into it.
Back in this room, he doesn’t bother to turn the light on. Instead, he opens his laptop and lets its harsh white glare suffice.
New email.
From: YouTube Service
Subject: AmazingPhil sent you a video: “caring”
He only left an hour ago. He clicks play.
For seven seconds, there is nothing but silence. Phil stares at the camera, perhaps weighing his words or psyching himself up, but it looks like he’s staring at Dan, considering him, judging him. And then he announces:
“I don’t think about the world like you do. I don’t look for the reasons behind things, or try to see the bigger picture. So it’s been sort of weird trying to think about what you said earlier. Basically, I can’t say what everyone in the whole world feels. But I can tell you about me.
“You’re right, I don’t care about what’s-her-name on the telly. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people I care about, like my friends and family. And maybe that means I am just focusing on my own life and my own problems. But I don’t think that takes away from the fact that I care. And I think the same is true of you. Like, maybe you only care about the people you know, but that doesn’t mean you’re a selfish person. If you cried every time anyone ever died, you’d be really really dehydrated.”
Trust Phil to make it into a joke. On another day, Dan might have smiled.
“I just want to say that... I care about you. And I’m worried about you. You’re... I want to say you’ve got depression, but what do I know?”
The rest of the video plays out without Dan really noticing. Depression. He hears it in his head with a capital D, like The Depression, like “What was the most important cause of the Second World War?” capital letter. He thinks of antidepressants and addiction and trauma and suicide and self-harm and knows that’s not him. It can’t be him. He’s functioning, isn’t he? He just gets into funks, that’s all. He thinks too much. He’s not ill. God, he doesn’t even cry, he can’t be capital-D Depressed.
He doesn’t leave a comment on the video, but the next day he turns up at Phil’s with a copy of the first Spyro game and half a dozen Kinder Eggs. Phil responds with disproportionate glee and the topic of Dan’s mental health is dropped. For now.
Part two