gemini book one of two // phandom big bang 2016

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Author: @skyboidjh​

Beta: @icomparemyselftoyou​

Artist: @nataliadeluckah​ (her wonderful art!)

Rating: PG-13

Summary:

colors whirling, thoughts flashing-it felt as if the butterflies in his stomach had lit themselves on fire.

“you weren’t supposed to find out…”

or, the one where Dan and Phil end up with superpowers, including the ability to feel each other’s emotions and hear each other’s thoughts, are declared threats and taken into custody by the government, Dan’s confused, and Phil has a secret.

Warnings: nondescriptive violence, acephobia, mild ableism

Word Count: 3111 for this chapter! (So Many in total)

  The world was ending.

  Perhaps it was a bit melodramatic, but that’s what it felt like to Dan. His head pounded as he shakily sat up, the sound of fire engines’ sirens on his street muted, as if the world had been muffled by cotton, or a thick blanket of fog. A sudden shock of anxiety raced through his heart, the worry and fear so intense it almost seemed to be a physical pain. He tried to breathe deeply, but it was as if he couldn’t get enough oxygen into his lungs, causing him to wheeze in short, shallow gasps.

  What had just happened? Where was Phil?

  Dan stumbled to his feet, grabbing onto the side of his couch to pull himself up.

  “Phil?” His voice came out hoarse, croaky. He coughed roughly before trying his voice again. “Phil? Where are you?” He tried to remember what had been happening before this- he must’ve passed out, the last thing he could remember was getting up to get a drink. But why? Why couldn’t he breathe? Where was Phil?

  Dan looked around frantically for his phone, the world seeming to blur around him. It was nowhere in sight.

  The apartment seemed hazy, filled with a kind of shimmer in the air, like one that might hang above a distant stretch of highway on a hot day, yet the air was cool around him. Had he hit his head? Was that what had knocked him out?

  Dan tried taking yet another deep breath to steady himself, choking a bit as he inhaled, quickly finding it harder and harder to breathe. He sunk to the floor once more, wheezing and coughing.

  He must’ve passed out again, because when he next opened his eyes, Phil was kneeling next to him, shaking him awake and tugging him weakly towards the door. Dan’s ears were ringing now, a dull hum vibrating at the back of his skull. His heart pounded with it. Something about that struck him as wrong, but he didn’t know why.

  Phil said something that Dan couldn’t hear, and the humming grew louder. Phil tugged on his arm again, motioning for him to stay down. They slowly crawled to the door, keeping their heads down low to avoid the gas as much as possible.

  They made it to their front door after a treacherous climb down the stairs, tiredly fumbling with the handle until it opened and seeing that there were paramedics just outside, leading the other occupants of the building out to ambulances in small clusters, strapping oxygen masks over their faces.

  One of the nurses almost immediately came over to Dan and Phil, motioning for one of his colleagues to stay with the teenaged girl that he had previously been attending to. He talked to both of them with a calm, unshaken voice as he instructed them on what to do, and they were led out to the nearest ambulance.

  Red lights flashed across his vision and sirens screamed along to the hum in his head. It was all very disorientating, forcing Dan to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment in an attempt to alleviate his pounding headache. They were instructed to sit down while one of the paramedics gave them a brief check-over. He was kind, asking the two of them questions about their medical history, allergies, and current medications that their foggy brains did their best to answer.

  Ten minutes later, one of the paramedics told them that they ought to come to the hospital for further checks, to give an official account of what had happened to the police, and that they should start thinking about booking a hotel room for the night while the building was looked over.

  Dan was about to ask further questions about the hospital visit when he spotted a news van pulling up to the building and starting to unload camera equipment. Images of a Twitter meltdown over a news clip that made everything seem worse than it actually was flashed through his head, and he glanced over to Phil, who seemed to be thinking the same thing. Yes, they were fine, but would their subscribers know that, if all they saw was the two of them sitting in the back of an ambulance?

  “Uh- yeah, should we just ride over to the hospital with the ambulances, or-” Dan asked quickly.

  “Yes, we’re going to be leaving in just a few minutes. There’s a bench in the back, you two can ride in there. I’ll just be around the corner rounding up the rest of your neighbors to come with us, alright?” the nurse said tiredly, before hopping out and beginning to make her way around the parking lot.

  Dan leaned over to Phil. “If that news camera sees us-”

  “Yeah. Should we tweet something?”

  “Maybe we should wait a bit, I don’t want to worry them too much.”

  Phil nodded, leaning back against the bench. “I dunno about you, but I’ve got a huge headache.”

  Dan made a noise of agreement, slumping down next to him while keeping an eye on the news van. “What the hell even was that, though? Do you think there was a fire?”

  “It couldn’t have been, there’s no smoke,” Phil answered, gesturing to the clear sky above the building. “It wasn’t really hot inside, either.”

  “Then what could it have been?”

  Their conversation was cut short as a sniffling teenaged girl and an older couple who appeared to be her parents were led up to the ambulance.

  “What about Alex?” the girl was asking. “Is Alex okay? He’s the little one in the wheelchair, my little brother, he’s only seven, please look after him first-” The paramedics shushed her with calming words, guiding her to sit down on the bench opposite Dan and Phil.

  “Alex is going to be coming to the hospital with everyone else, it’ll be alright, love. You’ll get to see him in just a few minutes when we all arrive, alright? What’s your name, sweetheart? I’ll make sure that you get to see him as soon as possible.”

  “P-Paige. Paige Oliveira.”

  “It’ll be alright, Paige. Just wait here, we’ll be leaving in a moment.” With that, the ambulance doors shut and the tiny cabin was illuminated by bright strips of fluorescent lights in the ceiling. Paige started to sniffle again. Her fear seemed to hang in the air, pressing down on everyone in the cabin.

  Dan glanced over at Phil. “We’ll be alright,” he said, but it was admittedly more for his own comfort than anyone else’s.

-=II=-

  The ambulance finally arrived in a whir of sirens and flashing lights. It seemed that the other vehicles were getting unloaded first, as the doors to their little cabin remained shut for a while after they had stopped. Paige had jumped up from her seat, pacing back and forth in the small space. Her mother made a few attempts to calm the anxious girl, muttering a few words to her in a language that sounded like French, if a little different, and pulling her daughter to sit back down again, stroking her thick black hair. Her father was leaned back across the bench, staring blankly into the wall beside Phil’s shoulder.

  “Hey, it’ll be alright guys,” Dan said cautiously, trying to reassure the nervous duo across from him. They either didn’t hear him or didn’t care.  

  Soon enough though, the doors swung open and they were greeted by a team of nurses swarming around the ambulance, leading them all out.

  Paige immediately started shouting at the top of her lungs. “I’m fine, I just need to find my brother, please, don’t worry about me, I need to find Alex Ramirez, can anyone please tell me where he is?” Her father soon joined in the ruckus, and they were both escorted away by a nurse.  

  Dan and Phil were lead into the hospital by a male nurse, who informed them that they were going to do a few simple tests to determine what had happened to the air in their building, what its effects might be, and how best to move forward. They were reassured that it shouldn’t take more than two hours.

  “What about all of our things?” Dan said suddenly as they walked, “The building’s going to be closed for the police, we don’t have extra clothes or anything, and-”

  For a moment, Dan’s head throbbed, and a wave of pity crashed over him. He shook his head and it was gone, leaving him confused. Who had he even been pitying? Himself?

  “I heard that it’ll be about a week before they open the building back up,” the nurse replied, “If you guys need anything, financial aid to cover the hotel or places where you can get cheap temporary clothes, I can ask around-”

  “Thanks, but we’ll figure something out,” Dan said a bit more sharply than he had intended.

  The nurse led them to a small room with a traditional-looking hospital bed, cabinets of medical equipment, and several ugly patterned chairs, instructing them to wait for another nurse, who would be administering the actual check-up, before stepping out.

  Phil buried his head in his hands as soon as he had collapsed into one of the chairs lining the edges of the room, sighing. “This is a mess.”

  Dan laughed humorlessly. “You could say that.”

  “What the hell are we going to do about Summer in the City in two days? We won’t have different clothes, all of our passes and things are back at the house…”

  “We’ll figure something out, yeah? Call the people who run it and explain what’s happened, surely they’ll be able to do something? We can stop by a store somewhere and pick up some more clothes before then.”

  “And how long could we be stuck without our apartment for? All our filming equipment and our laptops are there- wait, did you get your phone on your way out?”

  Dan’s eyes widened. “Shit. No. But-” He scrambled for some positive way to spin this, some reassurance. “We’ll be fine, alright? We can figure it out.” He reached out and placed a hand on Phil’s shoulder. He meant it as a comforting gesture, but it was one that turned sour as a strong wave of dizziness crashed over him. Suddenly, he was enveloped in a bright flash of colors- blue, red, purple, orange, forming fleeting images that disappeared before he could grasp what they actually were.  A heavy weight, a dense cloud seemed to condense around his head, pelting him with raindrops of worries he wasn’t sure were entirely his, thoughts and confusion and anxiety bouncing around his brain like a rubber ball dropped from a tall building. Most oddly, these thoughts seemed to be in a voice not his own, but one resembling Phil’s. He jerked away, wide-eyed, his expression mirrored in the face of his friend. Did Phil feel that too? Was Dan going crazy?

  “What the-” Dan was cut off by a tap on the door followed by it slowly creaking open, startling them. A new nurse walked in, hair pulled back into a high blonde ponytail and a soft smile on her face as she pushed a small cart of equipment into the room. She introduced herself as Amy, explaining the sorts of things she would be checking for- a breath analysis, blood analysis, and their vitals.

  “Shall we start with you, then?” She gestured to Phil, who happened to be closer to the door.

  Phil agreed after a moment’s hesitation, confusion from the previous events still evident on his face, leading the nurse to ask if he had any questions. (Both Dan and Phil certainly did, though almost absolutely not any she would be able to answer.) Those thoughts Dan had heard, they definitely weren’t his own. Phil winced as Amy took a blood sample, determinedly looking away from the needle and towards the wall. She had him take a deep breath and blow into a tube, then taking his blood pressure and asking a few questions about possible symptoms he had been feeling in the past hour or so.

  Amy repeated the process with Dan, who was avoiding eye contact with Phil, still reeling in shock.

  She finished her work deftly, straightening up after she took down a final bit of information on her laptop.“Well, I’m going to send this off, I have a few forms I need you guys to fill out with contact information for when your results come in and in case the police have any questions for you,” She smiled, pulling two clipboards from her cart and handing them over.

  They took the boards blankly, picking up the pens attached and beginning to write. “You guys can leave whenever you’re done, just drop those off at the front desk when you do!” Amy said before wheeling her cart back out of the room, presumably moving on to the next one.

  For the next ten minutes, the two filled out their information in silence.

-=II=-

  Dan and Phil arrived at their nearest hotel at about nine. It was sort of a 3-star place, but would suffice for a few nights. They didn’t exactly have any baggage, so they settled down on the two queen beds instead of unpacking. They hadn’t spoken about what had happened in the hospital yet, less because of shame and fear and more due to a lack of knowing what to say at all. Dan flipped the TV on to some shitty reality show and they watched it absent-mindedly for a while, before Phil cautiously spoke.

  “What was that, back there?”

  Dan rolled over onto his side to face his friend. “It wasn’t just me, then.”

  “Like… the flashing pictures and crazy colors and emotions thing? Yeah.”

  “Yeah.” A short pause ensued.

  “D’you reckon we’re getting superpowers now?” Phil mused, only partly joking.

  Dan snorted, burying his face in a pillow.

  “No, really though! If you can come up with a better explanation, I’d honestly love to hear it.”

  Dan didn’t respond for a while. “I-” He paused again. “This is ridiculous.”

  “We’re literally becoming superheroes because of a mysterious gas in our apartment. Ridiculous is an understatement.”

  “Substitute radiation for ‘weird gas’, and we’re like Spider-man!”

  “Or the Hulk,” Dan muttered darkly.

  Silence fell once again at that, the negative implications of this beginning to sink in as their disbelief faded.

  “What if it was just a one-time thing? A freak accident, or we’re on drugs and none of this is real, something like that?” Dan asked.

  “Dunno. We could try to do it again, what made it happen the first time?”

  “Well, I was reaching over to you, trying to get you to quit freaking out?”

  Dan sat up on the bed, feeling a sort of warm pressure on the backs of his shoulders. It was like a tiny push, an intense curiosity he couldn’t make sense of, for some reason. He reached out to Phil and gently placed a hand on his arm-

  Immediately, the edges of his vision were flooded with the same colors and images as before, still to vague and quickly flashing to fully make out, (He was standing on the ledge of Phil’s back garden wall, toes hanging over the edge.) and his brain echoing with thought. (Phil stood behind him, holding up the camcorder with a shy smile. “Come on, just this last clip for the presents part, then we can go in and warm up for a bit.”) More of that curious warm sensation he had felt was moving from his shoulders to gather around his jaw and throat. (The curious, anxious feeling curled around his throat like a scarf as his toes dangled off the wall and Phil recited the lines he’d come up with.) The colors faded after a short while and Dan began to feel dizzy, but he kept a firm hand on Phil and stared straight into his friend’s eyes. He could make out parts of individual thoughts now.

  ‘Feels like… afraid…’

  ‘Spider-man…’

  ‘Dan… tight grip’

  (Dan fell face first into the snow.)

  Dan realized how tightly he was grabbing at Phil’s upper arm and dropped it like he had been burned. A wave of vertigo rushed over him, and he sat back on the edge of his bed to wait for it to go away. Phil sighed heavily beside him.

  “That was-” Dan started, before realizing he didn’t know how that sentence might end. Of all the words in the English language, he couldn’t find one to describe what had just happened.

  “Yeah.”

  The two sat quietly, TV droning softly on in the background, in the way only friends as close as they were could. The quiet wasn’t awkward or tense, merely an understanding that neither knew quite what to say yet, and that for now, lack of communication was okay.

  “So it wasn’t a one-time thing, then.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “What does it feel like to you?” Phil asked, cocking his head slightly to one side. Curiosity tugged at Dan’s shoulder blades again.

  “Like… a rush of colors, at first. Then I get really dizzy, like I’m about to fall over. But then it clears- no, lightens up a bit. I feel all sorts of emotions, but in a way that’s almost physical? Then I was able to hear parts of your actual thoughts, you thought I was holding onto your arm too tight or something, so that’s why I jumped away so suddenly.”

  Phil’s eyebrows knit together. “I get a lot of that too, the dizziness and colors. The physical emotions thing as well, the first time it felt like it was sort of covering me up, like a blanket or something. Just now, it was more like it was pushing me.”

  “I got that last one too. The first one was more like… I dunno really how to describe it, like a sort of weight pushing down around my head? I think that one was worry, you were thinking about our house being filmed and stuff. And the one from just now, curiosity or something? It sort of feels like I can still feel it now, even though we’re not touching.”

  “Both of those sound about right, but I definitely can’t feel anything now. What about the other times? Can you just do it with anyone around?” Phil paused, then dropped his head to his hands. “This is so weird.”

  “I dunno. This whole thing just feels like a dream.”

  “I am a bit tired.”

  “Maybe if we go to sleep, everything will be normal again?”

  “Maybe.”

[next chapter]