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phil feels dazed right now, as he and josh have just finished having sex. it wasn’t the best per se, but whatever. it’s still exhausting trying to just go through the motions. he’s sleepy, and he’s expecting josh to lie in bed next to him, at least for a little while. about half a year ago when everything was still fresh, josh would lie with him until phil woke up. nowadays, he leaves after phil’s fallen asleep.
but instead of josh being next to him, phil feels his weight on the bed lift up, and phil’s shocked enough that it pulls him out of his sleepy haze. he’s not good at dealing with change, especially not sudden changes like this.
“where are you going? i thought you’d be staying with me?” he asks, his voice timid and mildly panicked. he turns on the light and rubs his eyes at the sudden brightness.
josh scratches the nape of his neck and gives phil an embarrassed look. “i’ve got, uh, other things to do. sorry, mate.”
he picks up the clothes off of phil’s floor and dresses. it doesn’t take him long, almost as if he had planned not to put effort into his outfit like he normally does. phil doesn’t really want to look into it that much.
phil tries not to start crying, but a few tears fall down his cheeks. he quickly wipes them off and glances over to the other side of the room where the clock displays “22:42” in bright red.
he just sighs and doesn’t bother telling josh to stay. “alright. stay safe out there, the roads are pretty icy this time of year.”
despite josh being kind of a jerk, phil still cares about him and his safety. most people would say that phil definitely has a heart of gold, and cares about everyone he’s ever met.
josh doesn’t say anything back, and phil has a gut feeling that josh doesn’t really wanna see him anymore. he doesn’t even bother looking back at phil before closing the door behind him.
it doesn’t sting as much as it used to: the breakups happen all the time. for several years now, men have been breaking up with him and telling him it wasn’t serious at all. it’s usually an initial shock that lasts for a few days before he’s “fine” again, or so he tells himself.
phil just tells himself to quit worrying about it, that someone new will come around eventually.
josh was his longest “relationship,” but now he won’t even look phil in the eye and break up with him properly. phil feels pathetic that his longest relationship was only six months and that it’s going down like this.
work is going to be really fucking awkward tomorrow, considering that they work in the same place and phil’s gonna have to see him at some point.
phil turns the light off and tries to fall asleep, and eventually he does, only to be woken up half an hour later by his alarm.
-
phil’s sitting at his desk the next morning typing out an article about fire safety when he hears someone clear their throat. it’s josh. there’s a woman who’s pressed up against him as if they were in a bar or club and not a professional workplace.
phil exhales a shaky breath and tries not to say anything about how upset he is, or to let his emotions show.
“mr. clymer. what can i do for you?” phil asks.
“phil - ” josh starts.
phil holds up a finger before he can say anything else. “i can report you to hr for calling me by my first name. it’s not professional behaviour and i am technically one of your superiors since you are an intern. now, what can i do for you and your...companion?”
phil sneers at the both of them. he can’t believe josh would stoop so low as to bring her into work to shove it in his face, and for them to act highly inappropriate and unprofessional. he would report them to hr just for this, only he doesn’t want to put the time and effort into doing so.
“i...was just wondering when you’ll have that article done because amanda keeps asking me” josh stutters.
phil glares at him. “if amanda wants to know that badly, then she can email me herself. it’s also not due until the end of the week.”
josh huffs, glaring at phil, and the woman follows him away.
phil can overhear the woman talk about how uptight phil is and how he’s “practically got a stick up his ass,” but he just ignores her and continues working. when both of them have left the room, he pushes his keyboard away from him and drops his head in his hands.
phil sighs. as much as he tries to not let this affect him, he still can’t help but wonder if something is wrong with him. he’s getting old now. he’s twenty-nine and a whole lot of his friends are settling down already, and he feels ashamed that he hasn’t found “the one” yet. he doesn’t exactly have the time or the energy to be dealing with these quick relationships anymore. was he really that desperate for love that he would hook up with the intern? it’s humiliating to be dumped by josh, and even more humiliating to be dumped for a woman.
sure, people tell him not to stress out about finding “the one,” and that phil doesn’t need someone to make himself happy, but there’s still a stigma around those who are single at this age, especially men, and phil totally wants a man for him to be happy. it’s his life, after all, he can decide what does and doesn’t make him happy.
maybe he also wants to prove something to his bigoted aunts who tell him that being gay isn’t going to give him “the one,” or that he can still be happy and raise a family while still being gay.
but at this rate, maybe he should throw in the towel in regards to dating. would it be so bad? others do it just fine without complaints, and maybe he shouldn’t be so focused on trying to find the love of his life and just let them come to him.
-
“josh seems like a scumbag,” says chris, another coworker and one of phil’s best friends.
they’re on their way back to the newsroom after lunch, where phil’s just told him exactly what happened between him and his now ex-boyfriend.
phil scoffs. “tell me about it. i don’t know, i wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the way that woman was hanging on to him makes me think that this has been going on for a long time.”
he’s disgusted at the thought of the two of them being all over each other and his imagination isn’t doing him any favours right now.
chris just rolls his eyes. “he didn’t even have the guts to break up with you properly and you had sex like five minutes before he left! what kind of an asshole!”
“i don’t know but it’s not my prob - AH!” phil shrieks when he runs into someone, spilling their coffee over the both of them.
“watch where you’re going, you dick! i have an interview today!” they yell.
“i’m sorry! i have an extra jacket to cover - ”
despite phil’s attempts to remedy the situation, the person has made up their mind and is now taking their anger out on phil using an extreme amount of expletives. chris just ushers phil to ignore him and walk away before anything else happens.
“see, why do i even bother trying to be nice?” phil asks once they get to the building.
they’re in the bathroom now. phil’s changing his shirt in one of the stalls, while chris is just standing awkwardly near the sinks.
“people are just generally awful. i wish they weren’t, but oh well. look on the bright side! the day isn’t over yet, and good things can still happen,” chris points out.
phil sighs. “thanks, chris. i sure hope so.”
walking out of the bathroom, phil sees the person he bumped into earlier earlier standing next to his boss and heading into her office. he can hear them laughing with each other while phil is stood like a deer in headlights.
phil then puts the pieces together and realises that the person’s job interview will take place here. he loses himself in his train of thought, wondering what is going to happen after that. hopefully this person doesn’t get hired. surely his boss wouldn’t hire an asshole, right? wait, no, she hired josh. she also hired the last editor who berated everyone. he got fired eventually, but what if this person is just like -
phil, you’re overthinking again. calm down, it’s not all that bad, is it?
he feels a tug on his arm and it brings him back to reality.
“mate, our lunch break is almost over. wouldn’t wanna anger the big boss by lazing around, am i right?” chris nudges.
phil shakes his head and follows him back to the office. “yeah, no, of course.”
he sits back at his desk, working and trying to distract himself from his anxieties surrounding this guy’s interview.
-
phil finds out on his way home that the stranger’s name is daniel howell, and that yes, he’s working there now as the new editor. his boss sent out an email to the whole staff telling them about the new hire and asking them to make him feel welcome at work.
the boss never hires anyone on the spot after an interview, especially not for such an important position. she’s extremely picky with her hires, he’s noticed. this “daniel” is probably someone important and valuable to the business. someone close to her? like family or a friend? or maybe just a pretentious prick? yeah, pretentious prick, that sounds more accurate.
it’s just editing, though. what makes daniel more special than the rest of them? again, does he have some sort of connection to the boss? he figures he shouldn’t spend the rest of his day griping about it. he doesn’t even need to talk to daniel in person. email has always saved phil’s butt whenever he doesn’t want to actually talk to people.
it’ll be fine, phil’s had to deal with other assholes before. daniel isn’t any different from the others.
unfortunately, daniel is seated only one cubicle away from him.
phil finds out quickly that daniel, or dan as he prefers to be called, is quite insufferable. he’s apologised for the coffee incident; however he constantly nags phil about his grammar errors and where punctuation should go, and shoves it in his face by mentioning phil’s english degree. for someone who looks cute, he sure has a snippy attitude.
to be fair, he doesn’t even remember english and linguistics. it’s been more than ten years since he graduated from university.
dan wheels over to phil’s desk holding an ipad and showing him a highlighted sentence. “phil, you’re supposed to put an oxford comma here.”
“what? no, i don’t! my writing is fine without an oxford comma. oxford commas are stupid.” phil scoffs, offended.
phil never fully grasped the concept of an oxford comma, for reasons he doesn’t even know about.
“we’ve gone over this. you need an oxford comma, dammit! i studied english, i know when there needs to be an oxford comma!” dan calls out.
“can y’all stop saying oxford comma before i shove my fists up both your asses?!” chris whisper-shouts, leaning back in his chair to address the two of them.
dan rolls his eyes and slides back to his desk.
“need an oxford comma...studied english in what? middle school?” phil mocks.
another intern, louise, is coming by his desk, and phil ushers her over to look at the sentence where dan has marked.
“ they invited the twins, lucille and jenna, to- no, you don’t need an oxford comma here, unless lucille and jenna are not the twins.” louise says before walking off.
lucille and jenna were not, in fact, the twins.
phil doesn’t wanna make dan believe he’s right though. that would be admitting defeat, and phil doesn’t really wanna put up with dan’s gloating today.
is phil really going to change and rewrite the whole sentence’s structure just so he can avoid putting in that oxford comma there? why yes, yes he is.
phil sends him a quick email saying that he’s fixed it.
dan wheels over to him once he’s finished reading the edited version, and mocks him. “you do realise that since you still changed the sentence, i win? oh, i’m phil lester, i have an english linguistics degree and i don’t know how to use an oxford comma!”
“shut up, howell.” phil grimaces and gets back to work. howell just really likes to get on his nerves.
-
a few nights before christmas, there’s a party in the office. well, it’s more of a gathering than a party, as most of the people have gone home for the holidays. the only people left are phil’s boss, dan, chris, and a few other writers that phil doesn’t know by name.
everyone’s mingling around, except for dan and phil. chris went off to flirt with the cute receptionist, but it doesn’t seem to be going too well from the looks of it. phil wants to talk to dan, who’s across the room drinking coffee from a strange mug, which says “everything is awful,” but has a picture of a happy house around it. weirdly enough, it suits dan and his odd humor. maybe that’s why he’s drawn to dan, despite all of the comments he’s made towards him.
fuck it, phil can just go away if dan snaps at him. parties are supposed to be fun! besides, isn’t it easier to be the bigger person and to rise above? sure, phil, keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.
“hey,” phil says as he walks up to dan.
“hi yourself,” dan mumbles, and sips from his coffee mug again.
phil squints his eyes at him. “are you still mad at me for the coffee thing when we first met?”
dan laughs. “you think i’m still mad about that? didn’t i apologise?”
phil nervously fidgets with his hands. “yes? i thought that you didn’t mean it at all and that you were just trying to get on my good side, though. why else would you constantly gripe about all of my typos and grammar mistakes instead of silently fixing them?”
dan blinks twice, wondering if he’s hearing him correctly. “phil, i used to be an english professor, i gripe about these things all the time.” he points out.
now that phil thinks about it, that definitely explains a lot of the things that dan says to him. they’re not as insulting as phil makes it out to be: all of it is really just constructive criticism that phil has taken way too personally. his anxiety often blows things out of proportion, which isn’t a good thing at all.
maybe phil needs to stop overreacting, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon.
“hmm. alright, since we’ve established that all of this is a misunderstanding...truce?” phil holds his hand out.
dan sets his mug down on the counter and shakes phil’s hand. phil looks into dan’s eyes, noticing how beautiful they are.
calm down, you useless gay. don’t go falling in love with dan just because you’re suddenly friends now. he’s probably not even gay, you’re going to creep him out. stop it.
he looks away and starts talking again, changing the subject. “right, okay, now tell me the story behind that ironic mug.”
dan cackles. “so it all started on a tuesday morning when my friend dropped me off to uni...”
-
when the new year rolls around, dan and phil definitely start hanging out a lot more. they’ll take their lunches at the same time and eat together, and they’d also leave the office at the same time. one day, phil had to stay for overtime, and dan had left him only to come back with coffee and donuts.
turns out that dan is a huge softie once you get to know him and become friends with him. since becoming friends with dan, phil’s learned that they share a ton of similar interests, such as muse and final fantasy. phil also knows that dan is gay.
“hey, are you free? i wanna take my lunch now, and there’s this chinese restaurant i want you to try out,” dan says as he passes phil some papers.
phil looks up from his computer screen to see dan smiling widely, with crinkles around his eyes.
“yeah, definitely! let me save these files and we’ll be on our way.”
dan flashes him the ok symbol before walking back to his desk.
chris then wheels his chair over to phil’s desk.
“lunch with dan howell, eh? whatever happened to phil ‘i hate dan, he’s a rude jerk’ lester?” chris taunts.
phil scrunches his nose. “we hung out at the christmas party, he’s actually not that bad. it’s not like he’s being horrible.”
“suit yourself, mate.”
lunch with dan goes well. the waitress gives them only one check, and dan offers to pay for it in full. they wrestle with the bill for a little bit before phil inevitably gives up and lets dan pay.
it’s a sweet gesture that gives phil butterflies in his stomach. he can recognise that stupidly warm feeling in his chest whenever he gets a crush on someone, and it’s no different when it comes to dan.
he’s scared though. deeply scared.
the rational part of his brain is telling him that dan is different and that he wouldn’t dare hurt phil. in the time they’ve gotten to know each other, dan hasn’t tried to get phil to sleep with him at all, not even hints of it. however, the anxious part of his brain tells him that’s what he said about all of his other boyfriends before.
would dan even like him back? sure, they’re both gay and single, but that doesn’t automatically mean that they’re going to date each other. phil has other gay friends that he wouldn’t even think about dating. dan might not even be looking for someone right now: phil hasn’t asked because dan’s love life is none of his business at all.
does phil even have feelings or is he just going crazy because he hasn’t been able to find a boyfriend yet?
when he gets home from work, phil just crashes on his couch and takes a nap to try and forget about his feelings. it doesn’t get rid of his dilemma, but it helps him clear his head a little bit.
phil decides it’s better not to take any chances and to just let his infatuation simmer down.
-
there’s a post-it note sitting on phil’s computer screen when he comes into work one morning. phil takes a look at it, reading it to himself.
good morning, you look nice today. i haven’t seen you yet but i know you always look nice - dan
phil’s face brightens up, and he turns his head to go look at where dan is sitting. dan notices him and waves before going back to work.
“secret admirer, huh?” someone says from behind him, and phil yelps. it’s just chris.
“chris! you scared me,” phil says. “also, no. it’s just dan. he gave me a cute good morning note.”
chris snatches it out of his hands and phil tries to grab it back, but chris swats his hand away.
“mate...this doesn’t sound like just a ‘cute’ good morning note. i think dan likes you,” chris says.
phil shushes him. “no! no he doesn’t! it’s just a note! now give it back.”
“watch him ask you out for valentine’s day on saturday.” chris hands him back the note, and returns to his desk.
he wants to tell chris that it’s highly unlikely that dan would do that and that it would be wrong for phil to get his hopes up. it’s just a silly little compliment and it has nothing to do with valentine’s day as far as phil is aware. it’s probably just a coincidence that dan made this only a few days before valentine’s day.
phil finds a place to stick the note before turning on his computer for work, although he finds himself rather distracted throughout the whole day except when he talks to dan.
it happens again the next day. this time the note says i love it when you smile. it brightens up my day and makes work not seem so dull <3.
phil doesn’t confront dan about it that day and just accepts the compliment, because compliments from friends are always nice.
on friday, dan leaves another note, only this time it’s more of a proposition than a compliment.
will you go out with me on valentine’s day? dinner at uptown park?
okay, maybe phil isn’t too great at picking up clues. so what? he can’t be bothered to care about that when dan has literally asked him out for valentine’s day. at a very fancy restaurant as well, he might add.
uptown park is known to be one of the high-end restaurants around town. it’s not overly expensive, but it’s still quite fancy for a first date. (assuming that this is a first date. phil should probably calm down before he bursts a blood vessel).
he turns to look at dan, who’s looking at him intently. phil mouths a “yes,” and dan beams.
-
dan picks phil up from his apartment at 6:30 for their date. they’re both in formal attire, which isn’t too unlike their normal work clothes, but both of them look quite spiffy and handsome.
“i like your hair today,” phil says when he notices that dan didn’t straighten his hair. he knew dan didn’t naturally have straight hair, but he’d never seen what the curls looked like. it suits dan a lot more if he was being honest. it definitely made him look friendlier and softer.
dan seems to be caught off guard, and he blushes a bit. “thank you. wanted to try something new today.”
phil grins. “you should wear your hair like that more often.”
“maybe i will,” dan says. he holds his hand out, and phil takes it as dan leads them outside to his car.
the date doesn’t really feel like an actual date to phil, in a good way, because he’s so used to getting food with dan on a regular basis. finding things to talk about isn’t too hard either. phil offers to pay for the dinner because dan has paid for lunch these past few days, but dan stubbornly refuses to let him. phil feels like he’s dreaming and doesn’t want it to end. being around dan feels like magic. needless to say, their date goes well and they’ll certainly go on more dates with each other.
“dan, can i ask you something?” phil says on the drive back to his apartment.
“yeah, sure, go for it,” dan replies. he’s not taking his eyes off the road, but phil doesn’t care all that much because safety is important.
“i...i’m getting older, dan. i don’t really want to ‘mess around’ anymore. i’m not saying that we should get married this instant, but...do you want this to be a serious thing?” phil mumbles.
dan pulls over into the parking lot of phil’s complex. he puts the car in park and then turns to face phil and pulls him into a kiss.
“yes, absolutely. casual isn’t really my style either. phil, you’re the most wonderful person ever, you can tell me exactly how you want things to be,” dan says.
phil kisses dan.
“thank you. for being my friend and for giving me a shot.”
dan smiles softly. “of course.” he gives phil another peck on the cheek.
they part ways shortly after and phil sleeps well for the first time in ages.
no one is surprised when dan and phil show up to work together holding hands.