Prompt: "Dan isn't a youtuber, but Phil is, and one day he takes Dan with him to work at the radio. But Dan is a little shy about being in front of the camera and all Phil's fans for the first time. Phil thinks it's adorable."
I made this up^^ Here we go! (Phan oneshot)
A/N: This is my 1500 followers celebration yay fic! So thank you very much everyone eep 3 You make me happy ^^
Contains: AU, pure fluff, much cuteness.
Warnings: None.
Phan status: Together.
Words: 2611.
POV: Dan.
Radio Fails
Dan »
Usually, Sunday nights were the highlight of my week. While Phil did his radio show, I was allowed to sit in the corner of the studio—out of sight of the cameras and far away from the panels of endless buttons and knobs—and just listen. I loved watching him there, interacting with the listeners and dancing around for the cameras, completely in his element. My eyes would carefully follow Phil's every move, and every now and then he'd catch me looking, which would only cause him to grin back like an idiot and completely forget what he'd been saying. If not for the thousands of people listening and watching online, I would have thought it was adorable.
Tonight was a little different though. My foot bounced nervously up and down on the floor beneath me. I had to wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans, and as the minutes ticked by, my heart only beat faster. Finally, after much convincing, I'd agreed to come and be on the radio show with Phil. Sure, it was only going to be for the last ten minutes or so, but I was still freaking out. I just wasn't built for this kind of attention.
"Are you ready?"
I jumped at the sudden question. I'd been looking down at my lap, so I hadn't seen Phil approach me.
"Uhm…" I began nervously, forcing myself to smile up at him. "Yeah, it's fine." My mouth was a little dry, so talking could have been easier.
Of course, Phil noticed my reaction and how my fingers were nervously playing on my lap, as if I had a piano in front of me, like they always did whenever I felt nervous or uncomfortable. He knelt down in front of my chair so he could get a better look at me. "Hey. Nothing to be nervous about," he assured. Softly, he placed one hand on top of mine so I would stop moving while the other gently brushed my fringe away from my eyes. "It's going to be just fine. I'm sure you'll like it."
"I'm not so sure…" I sighed with a small smile. Of course that would always be my first response in these kinds of situations. Truthfully, I'd always wondered what it'd be like to be on the show, just for a short while, but now that it was actually going to happen I was just scared I was going to fuck up or fall over my words. Or even just fall. And what if I accidentally swore or looked stupid? The more I let the thoughts circle around in my brain, the less I felt like doing this.
"I'm going back on now," Phil said. "Then we'll play one more music video, and while that's going, you come over to me, okay?"
"Okay," I breathed out.
My gaze followed Phil as he walked back over in front of the camera. As soon as he got there, my fingers started moving again, almost involuntarily. He smiled as he put his headphones back on and I giggled quietly, not sure if anyone else could hear.
"And that was Fall Out Boy with 'My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark'." Phil sounded so professional, which only made me feel even more useless and awkward than I already was. The ease with which he managed all those confusing-looking buttons and switches amazed me. I was lucky if I could breathe and blink at the same time.
Once a new song had started playing, Phil glanced up at me and waved me over with a smile. He seemed so excited for me to be joining him that the fear of letting him down was almost greater than the fear of acting like an idiot on international radio.
"You just stand here," he whispered. "And I'll be standing here so I can control the buttons," he explained. "Don't touch anything."
"No, I won't. Jesus, Phil…" I grinned, looking down at the complicated controls in front of us.
"Good." He smiled. "It's gonna be just fine. Can I have a kiss before we start?"
I glanced around the room, feeling my cheeks heat up slightly. Phil's producers didn't really say anything—just smiled back at us. It wasn't like kissing in public was a problem, but more the fact that this particular kind of public happened to be at Phil's job and in front of his co-workers. Shyly, I shook my head, avoiding eye contact. Instead, Phil placed a quick, gentle kiss on the side of my forehead, and I couldn't help but smile anyway.
Looking at the clock—which was clicking down on the screen to show us that the song was almost over—I felt my heart begin to beat faster against my chest. Instinctively, I pulled the sleeves of my hoodie down over my hands and my hood up over my head. It just felt safe and calming that way, like nothing could hurt me. I was getting quite anxious, not that I ever would admit that to Phil.
Phil took my covered hand and held it tightly, pushing me out of my trance.
"And that was Avicii with 'Levels'! Thanks so much to Kayla and Erica for sending in that amazing music video," Phil said happily. "Alright, now, at the beginning of the show today I promised you all a special treat…" He glanced sideways at me, which only caused me to blush further. "Well, it's about time for that now, so hold onto your socks. This is something that a lot of you have been asking for actually. If you're watching on the website, you've probably guessed who it is already…" He looked straight ahead and pointed over at me. "It's Da… Oh. Wait. Forgot something."
As Phil placed a huge set of headphones over my ears while I gave the camera probably the most awkward smile in existence.
"Better? Okay, so my special guest today is my boyfriend, Dan!" Phil pushed a button on the console and a sound effect of celebratory music played. "You were a popular request, y'know…" Phil giggled and I felt his eyes landing on me. "Do you wanna introduce yourself?" he asked.
"I-I…" I stuttered out. Phil knew that talking in front of loads of people wasn't exactly my strength, so it didn't surprise him when I then shook my head back at him.
"Sorry, he's a little shy," Phil explained to the audience. "That's fine. Maybe he'll do it later," he continued on, as if nothing was wrong. "But anyway, his name's Dan, he's my boyfriend, and he's a concert pianist and he plays really well. And maybe he'll tell you more about it later." Phil smiled proudly. My cheeks were burning up. Why was I this nervous? This was nothing.
Phil went on, telling the listeners what segments were coming up next. Honestly, I didn't really listen to him; instead, I focused my energy on calming myself down. I could do this. Of course I could do this. And with that thought circling in my mind, I gave the camera a wide smile and quickly waved to it with my sleeve-covered hand, just like I had done in the rare times I'd appeared in Phil's live shows. I'd gotten more comfortable with live shows over time, but this was an entirely new experience.
Phil introduced the next song and it started playing in my ears. "Your fans have good taste. I like this song," I said in a small voice.
"You can take those off now, you know." Phil grinned behind me, grabbing a hold of the headphones and pulling them off my head.
"I'm not used to this radio thing," I mumbled.
"I see," he answered before turning his back to me, searching for something on the nearby table. He pulled out the whiteboard that he sometimes used for drawing games and scribbled something on it.
Before I got the chance to ask him what he was doing, he held the board right over my head and grinned at the camera, covering his mouth with his free hand, as he so often did when he was laughing. Even though I didn't know what he was on about, I couldn't help but laugh a bit too at his adorableness.
My gaze found the screen in front of us, making it possible for me to see the sign he was holding. He'd written "MY BOYFRIEND" in all caps, and then an arrow pointing down to me. I felt my face turning bright red again when I realised.
"What are you do… Phil!" I burst out with a silly grin before turning around to lightly hit his shoulder with the back of my hand.
"What?" He laughed and held up the board between us as a sort of shield so I couldn't touch him. "What's wrong? C'mon…" he complained as I tried to pull the board away from him.
"It's embarrassing."
"It's embarrassing you're my boyfriend?" he asked.
"Not like that… Ugh, give it to me," I continued. "You're an idiot." Finally I got the whiteboard away from him so he couldn't hide any longer.
"Oh, okay. But if that was embarrassing, then how about this?" Before I even got the chance to blink, he wrapped his arms around me from behind and held me tightly. "I can't keep something this pretty hidden all the time, y'know…" he whispered in my ear.
"You're still an idiot," I giggled back, but didn't move away from him. Instead I found the camera and shook my head resignedly at it.
"Yes." He carefully spun me around in his arms to get a better look at me. Even though I didn't feel a hundred percent confident being with Phil on the radio, I was still glad I'd done it because it was obviously making him really happy.
"You can put these on again." Phil let me go and placed the headphones over my ears once again before turning away from me to put on his own.
"And that was Radiohead," Phil said into his microphone. "So now I think it's time for some more twitter responses from our #ConcertFails. Let's see what we have here… Dan?"
Phil pointed at the screen in front of me, indicating that I should read it out loud. Still extremely scared of falling over my own words, I mustered up the courage to speak. "Uhm…" I started nervously. "Cakeforphil said: 'once at a Fall Out Boy concert I forgot to put the lid on my water bottle and spilled it all over the person in front of me'."
"I almost did that once too," Phil chimed in. "But ended up pouring it on myself instead."
"I was there," I added. "It was hilarious."
"Let's read another," Phil said. "Lessamazingnatalia says: 'at my first real concert, my friends tried to convince me that a mosh pit was a place to roast marshmallows'." He covered his mouth with his hand to hide his laughter. "Oh my god!"
"Aren't they?" I teased, feeling myself relaxing slightly.
"We should make them that. Petition to change mosh pits to marshmallow roasting zones!" He looked back down at the screen. "Okay… now we have…"
"I have one," I interrupted, somewhat regretting it as soon as the words left my lips.
"You have a concert fail?" Phil looked both happy and surprised at the same time. "Let's hear it!"
"Yeah," I breathed out when I realised I was about to tell a real story to about a million people. But Phil's face was so encouraging that I plodded on anyway. "Okay. So two days before this orchestra was supposed to play, the usual pianist slipped on the ice and broke his wrist, so they asked me to step in, which was awkward enough already because, I mean, imagine trying to get used to an entirely new orchestra in only like two rehearsals! Or wait… three rehearsals? Did we rehearse Saturday? Yeah. So, one… two …three…" I counted them off on my fingers, my eyes looking up at the ceiling as I tried to remember the details.
"We'll say three," Phil interjected with a cough. "So then what happened, Dan?"
"Well, my sheet music slid off the stand during the reprise and normally that would be perfectly fine because I would have things mostly memorised but because it was such short notice and I panicked and played a B flat when I was meant to play a C sharp and then the second violinist just gave me this look, you know?" I laughed out loud at the recollection. "It's always the secondviolinist who makes it awkward, isn't it? I've never had problems with the first violinists, but those second ones, I mean…"
I trailed off when I noticed the grin had faded from Phil's face. Everyone in the room went quiet for what seemed like days, although it was probably only a moment.
"Do you… do you know what I mean?" I asked nervously.
"Uhm…" Phil began, "not really, nope."
"Oh… well… that happened. At a concert. And it was a fail." I looked at my feet and tugged my sleeves down a bit more, even though my hands were already hidden. That was what I got for trying to interact with Phil's fans.
"I'm sure someone out there does!" he added hopefully. "And maybe I'll understand when I learn how to play."
"You play piano like a blind mole, Phil." I grinned shyly, still looking down after realising how unrelatable my story really was.
"Heey!" He hit his shoulder against mine, gently pushing me to the side. "But I do remember that time I was coming to watch you play, and I was a little late and I ran down the stairs to find my seat, but ended up falling on my butt instead." He laughed a bit. "I was trying not to cause a distraction and I made the biggest scene ever!"
"Alright, moving on then…" He pressed a button on the consol. "It's time for another one of your music videos…"
He continued talking about the video while I was just stood there, probably looking even more awkward than I felt. He was born to do this—he was so natural at talking to people, like he didn't have to think about what he said first. Everything came out right. But for me, I could fuck up even just trying to communicate.
It wasn't until Phil laid a hand on my shoulder that I remembered where I was.
"Let's take these off." He smiled calmly at me. I didn't move as he did. "Hey… you're doing great, okay?" he said gently, obviously noticing how I was hiding in my hoodie while my fingers were still tapping out well-known melodies on my thigh.
"Don't lie…" I mumbled back, not feeling like meeting his gaze. "We both know I'm ruining it."
"Are you crazy? Of course you're not ruining it!" Phil assured me, like we didn't witness the same fifteen minutes. "They all love you, Dan."
"Yeah, right," I said, sarcastically enough for Phil to catch it.
"You're cute, and funny, and charming, and lovely, and most importantly…" He placed his fingers underneath my chin to lift my head up so he could look me in the eyes. "—you're mine. You couldn't ruin the show if you tried."
He gave my forehead a soft kiss before pulling me into a hug, causing me to smile back like an idiot.
"I'll try harder next time then," I said quietly, grinning.
"I'll look forward to it," Phil laughed back.
thend