one sick fic (phan)

chapter forty two

Phil's POV

I'm not sure how long I sleep for, but when I wake up it is just Dan by my bedside. I try to sit up, but my muscles fail me. Instead I settle for pressing the magic button on the side of the bed which raises me into a sitting position.

By the time I finish struggling to sit up, I look over to see Dan watching me. "What?" I ask him. I try to say it teasingly, but my voice is hoarse. I feel worse than I had earlier, but I'm not sure why.

"Oh nothing," he says back nonchalantly. He smirks at me anyway.

"Where did Chris and PJ go?" I ask with a bit more strength than earlier. The duo had been here earlier and I guess they left sometime after Dan had gotten back.

"They left a little bit ago," he tells me. "They are going home for a bit to work on editing or something and then I think they are coming back later tonight to check in and see if anything has changed," he says.

"Okay," I say. Good for them, continuing on with their life. I want Dan to get out too, but I also don't want to be left here alone. I know it is selfish of me, but being alone in hospitals with all the whirring machines scare me. "Oh, how was your brief time out of this place?" I ask him.

"It was alright," he tells me. "A couple of subscribers found me while I was out."

"Really?" I ask him. "How did that encounter go?" I know Dan doesn't really like to meet people on his own.

"It was actually sort of neat," he says. I raise my eyebrows in surprise at that.

"How so?" I ask him.

"Well, the first girl who came up to me came over screaming about how excited she was, but the second girl, she was deaf. It was really interesting because she likes watching both of our videos, but it can be hard because she has to read our lips and sometimes we speak really quickly," he tells me.

"That's awesome," I reply. I never thought about deaf people watching our videos before, I sort have just assumed that everyone could here what we were saying.

"Yeah," he replies. "Her sister interpreted for me and they requested that we put closed captions on our videos. I told her we would put them on all of our new videos and work on adding them to our older videos."

"That's a great idea," I say. "It'll make it easier for our viewers to figure out what we are saying. Maybe we can get Chris and PJ to caption their videos too!" I say with growing excitement. Dan smiles at me.

"That would be awesome," he agrees. "It definitely wasn't the worst fan encounter, that's for sure," he tells me.

There is a knock on the door and then a nurse enters. "Good news," she tells us. "We reviewed the x-rays of your foot, Phil, and have decided surgery is not needed! We are just going to recast it and give you some crutches to use for the next six weeks," she says.

"I guess that is good news," I reply. "Things definitely could have been a lot worse." Dan nods.

"Okay," the nurse says. "We are going to take you over to the casting room now to put on the new cast." With that another nurse comes in with a wheelchair. Dan helps me out of bed and into the chair and then I'm wheeled out of the room.

I get my first looks at my surroundings because last night I was hardly conscious. The walls are painted with a simple off white paint and the same blue chairs as inside my room are out in the halls. I am turned into a room on the left.

"Here we are," the second nurse tells me. Dan came with us and helps me get up onto the the table where they will take off the old cast and put on the new one.