Description-
"
"Phil?" He asks.
"Yeah?"
"This is gay."
"
Dan keeps confusing Phil out of his brain
Dan's trust Phil thought he did gain
But when they get stuck in a lift
Will they fix their rift?
PREVIOUSLY-
"Esmeé, you're a great friend and all that, but you know no one can talk sense into me." I scoff. She leans on the wall.
"Is he gay?" She asks.
"Why does that matter?" I feel myself blushing.
"Because I feel like there's some sort of chemistry between you two! Like a love hate relationship, just drop the hate already!" She rambles.
"LOVE HATE? Are you insane?" I stamp my foot. She laughs. "Plus, how could you tell that? You haven't even met him!" I say.
"University? All you talked about was him and your broke back mountain reenactment." She shrugs.
"Alright that's enough you're crazy." I sigh, going off into my room.
"Quand cessera-t-il de cacher ses sentiments?" I hear her mutter. When will he stop hiding his feelings?
Dan wont admit to his French roommate, Esmeé, or anyone else for that matter, his repressed feelings for Phil.
AND NOW-
Phil
"Hi, Phil." Dan says as I walk into work.
"Hiya, Dan." I smile at him. I don't want to jinx anything, but over the past few weeks Dan's been being a lot less mean than he used to be, he smiles at me sometimes, he hasn't called me 'nerd' in a long time and generally I think I'm seeing the true Dan for once, not this mean persona.
"Did you have a good weekend?" He asks me.
"It was ok, kinda boring though." I shrug.
"I thought time away from me would be fun." He says with a hint of a giggle in his voice.
"I wasn't expecting you to say that, I thought you thought highly of yourself." He speaks.
"Yeah, well, looks like you were wrong." He speaks. I raise an eyebrow. He looks almost shocked at himself. I'm shocked at him too.
"Is Daniel Howell... opening up to me? Well, I better mark this down as a day in history." I joke.
"I was joking. As if I'd open up to you." He spits.
I tut at him before tapping my finger on his nose and saying 'boop'. Doing that reminds me of that camping trip... the whole moment by the fire...
Dan's smiling and looking at me in a weird way.
"What?" I ask.
"Oh... nothing... hey, listen, I was wondering if you'd want to come over to mine tonight, my roommate's been out of town for a while and I'm bored on my own, I understand if you don't-"
"I'd like to." I interrupt. Something drove me to say yes, everything in my mind is screaming 'what the hell are you doing?' But still I said yes. I hope I don't regret this decision.
»
"Do you remember when we were kids and we were playing in my house and we went to the garage and saw a fucking mannequin?" Dan asks me when we're walking to his house.
"Oh my god! I forgot about Darcy the Dummy." I giggle.
"I remember we ran away screaming until my Dad brought it out and we dressed her up." Dan laughs.
"Well, you dressed her up, you wouldn't let me touch her." I mumble.
"Oh right... sorry." He says to me. I stop in my tracks. I've never heard Dan say sorry before.
"It's fine, I did get to put the make up on her that you stole from your mum's make up box." I laugh at the memory.
"Oh my goodness! I remember I spilt her lotion thing on the floor and the whole room smelt like-"
"Coconut." We say at the same time. He looks at me with gentle eyes. I look back at him, before I look behind him.
"A CANDLE SHOP!" I shout, shocking Dan.
"Wh-" Before he can react, I take his hand in mine and pull him behind me into the shop. It's literally a shop full of candles, I'm in heaven.
"How have I never been in this shop before‽" Dan exclaims.
"I love candles, I have so many of them." I speak.
"Me too! Look! A Christmas pudding scented candle!" He picks it up and smells it.
"Do you remember-"
"When you had Christmas pudding for the first time and threw up?" He finishes my sentence.
"It smelled good but tasted like ass!" I grimace.
"I'm buying it." He giggles.
"You know, I can't believe Christmas is in like a week. Time goes so fast, two days until our last day of work before the Christmas holidays!" I say.
"It's true." Dan speaks. My eyes land on a mince pie scented candle and I decide to buy that one, before remembering I also need a new lighter as I lost my other one.
"Look at that one!" Dan points to a black candle shaped like a heart. "If I received that I'd be happy. Not that I have anyone to receive anything from. He giggles.
"It's a black heart though." I point out.
"I like black. Black like my soul." He laughs.
"I don't think your soul is black, if souls are a thing that exist. I know there's a lot more to you than you put on show, Dan. You're more than you think you are." I tell him, before I buy my candle and put both mine and Dan's candles in my backpack I have.
»
"I like your apartment." I say as I walk into his apartment.
"Thanks." He answers briefly.
"Is this your roommate?" I ask as I look at a picture of Dan and a woman next to him.
"Yeah, she's called Esmeé." He says.
"Pretty name." I say.
"If you want food get food I'm not getting anything for you." He tells me.
"Nah, I'm not hungry." I tell him.
"You sure? You didn't have lunch today." He looks concerned. "Actually, don't answer that, I don't give a shit." He resorts. He really can't let himself be himself can he?
"What films do you have?" I ask. He points to a shelf filled with dvds. I get up and look through them. "Oooh! Let's watch IT!" I say excitedly.
"I- uh- sure." He seems hesitant but I put it on anyway. I love the 1990 IT, granted, the graphics aren't great but I used to watch it a lot when I was younger.
I like to get fully engrossed in horror movies so I turned off the lights. Dan's oddly quiet (for once). As Georgie is talking to pennywise I look over at Dan, who's clutching a pillow tightly.
"You alright, Dan?" I ask.
"Peachy." He answers. I shrug and continue to watch the movie. We get to the bit where the picture of Georgie starts to move and Dan jumps and suddenly his head is on my lap.
"Dan? Are you ok?" I ask.
"Yeah, but I think I'll be staying down here, I don't deal well with horror movies." He confesses.
"Should I turn it off?" I ask.
"If you keep it on, I'll just be cuddling you the whole time." He giggles. I pull him up off my lap and wrap my arms around him properly. He rests his head on my chest.
"Better?" I ask.
"Much better." He says into my chest.
Half way through the movie I feel Dan move over to sit on my lap. I subconsciously weave my hand into his curls and I hear him sigh.
"Phil?" He asks.
"Yeah?"
"This is gay." He laughs. I laugh too.
"Well it's a good thing we're both gay." I shrug, before going back to cuddling him.
»
"I had a great time, Phil." Dan tells me as I'm getting ready to leave.
"Me too." I smile widely. I put my backpack on. "I'll see you tomorrow, Dan." I put my hand on his shoulder.
"See you there." He smiles at me. I find myself leaning forward and placing a light kiss on his cheek. Why did I do that? I quickly turn around to avoid seeing his reaction.
"Well that's an upgrade from the nose booping." He giggles.
»
"Hiya, Phil." Otto, one of the guys working here, greets me as I walk into work.
"Hello, have you seen Dan?" I ask.
"No, I think he started work early." He shrugs.
"Oh, well thanks anyway." I smile at him.
"Hey, um Phil I was wondering if you'd like to go get coffee with me at lunch?" He asks timidly. I smile at him.
"In what way?" I question. He goes all red and I giggle. On the one hand, Dan exists, but on the other hand Otto is quite cute.
"I'll have to check my schedule." I decide, before going off to Bia's room.
"Hiya Bia." I smile as I walk in. Dan's already there, tying her shoes for her.
"Phil! Hiya!" She smiles back at me.
"Hello Dan." I say cheerfully.
"Hi nerd." He spits. I feel a pang of hurt run through me and scowl at him.
"Soooo what's the deal with you two now?" She questions.
"There's no deal, I'd never go out with him." Dan says. Well it seems like my schedule is all cleared up.
"I feel the same way about him, I've got plans with someone else anyways." I shrug, it's unprofessional and petty but deserved. He glares at me.
"I have to go, I hope that headache goes away, Bia." He says, before leaving.
"You have a headache?" I question.
"My great granddaughter was telling me about 'shipping' yesterday." She mentions. I give her a confused look. "I believe I can correctly say I ship you two." She says and I giggle.
"You must be the coolest great grandma." I laugh at her.
"You love him, don't you?" She asks.
"Dan? No... it's complicated." I mutter. I don't know what love is, I've never felt it before, then again I suppose you don't know until you find someone... but I can say with full certainty that I have feelings for him.
"It doesn't have to be. As I said before, life is too short."
»
I go into the lift to check on Axton, another elderly person in this home. After this it's my lunch break where I'm going out with Otto. I see Dan walking into the lift too.
"Hi." I say awkwardly. He doesn't even answer. The lift goes up until suddenly I hear the lift start to rumble and it comes to a halt.
"The fuck?" Dan speaks. He tries to open the doors of the lift.
"That's not going to help anything!" I exclaim.
"Well at least I'm trying to do something!" He answers.
"At least I'm not breaking the lift more than it's already broken." I shrug.
"Well at least I'm not living my worst nightmare, oh wait! Yes I am!" He shouts at me.
"Well it's not exactly a walk in the park for me either! I'm stuck in a stupid lift with the most annoying man I've ever met!" I say grumpily.
"Oh lord this could not get any worse." He speaks as he covers his face. As soon as he says it the lights in the lift go out.
"You have got to be kidding me." I grumble.
I turn my phone on Dan puts his torch light on.
"No service, obviously." I tut.
"My phone's going to die soon." Dan sighs.
"Mine's torch is broken." I tell him.
"How does one break the torch on his phone?" He questions, bewildered.
"You know how clumsy I am." I giggle a little.
"Remember when you tripped into a fucking bin?" He reminds me.
"And you called me a landphil for ages." I say in a bitter voice. I swear to god I see a little bit of guilt in his eyes before he goes and sits on the floor.
"I just remembered!" I exclaim excitedly.
"Remembered what?" Dan asks.
"I still have the candles we bought in my back pack, I forgot to give you yours." I dig in my back pack and get out both candles and the lighter.
"You were probably gonna keep mine." He accuses.
"If you keep treating me like that then maybe." I shrug.
"You're too sensitive." He mutters.
"You're too rude." I tell him. The dull light of the candles bounces off the walls of the lift and I sit down next to Dan. It's the kind of lighting you'd see in romantic movies.
"Sooo what do we do?" I ask.
"I dunno, we could do anything in here, the world is our oyster." I mention.
"I'm not sucking your dick if that's what you mean." He says bluntly. I snort a little.
"That's very far from what I meant." I laugh.
"It better be." He warns.
"Ooh, I know! Have you watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S?" I ask.
"Of course." He answers.
"We can do a little F.R.I.E.N.D.S quiz! I'll start. What were Phoebe's creepy paintings called?" I ask, not letting Dan refuse.
"Gladys and Glynnis." He answers.
"Correct, your turn!"
"I dunno... what is Joey's middle name?" He asks.
"Uhhh Francis?"
"Yup." He giggles.
"That was a hard one!"
»
"I forgot to ask you, do you know French?" He asks me after we run out of F.R.I.E.N.D.S questions.
"Je l'ai étudié parce que j'aime la langue." I answer. I said: I studied it because I like the language.
"J'ai étudié en France et mon colocataire est français." He tells me he studied in France and his roommate is French. We have a conversation in French before silence fills the small life again.
"So who asked you out?" Dan asks.
"None of your business." I answer.
"Phil I've known you most of your life I think you can tell me." He says in a monotone voice.
"Why do you want to know?" I ask.
"I'm curious." He shrugs.
"Fine. Otto asked me out." I tell him.
"Otto Avery?" He questions.
"Yeah."
"That son of a bitch." He mumbles.
"Why is he a son of a bitch?" I question.
"Because he's nice to you." He says.
"Oh, what? Am I that bad that no one can ever be nice to me?" I question.
"For once, I didn't mean that in a rude way." He tells me.
"Well I wouldn't know that, would I? You're so rude to me all the time! I thought you might just be generally rude but you treat people with respect, so why me? Why do I get called names and ignored?" I ramble.
"I'm rude to you because... because... well you just annoy the hell out of me!"
"Even when you cuddled up to me for, what? Like three hours during that movie?" I question.
"N-no..."
"Then why are you being rude to me today, after we had a nice day together yesterday, after I did nothing to you ever?"
"Because I'm scared!" He shouts.
"Scared? Scared of what?" I shout back. He hesitates for a while, a silence lingers in the air.
"I'm scared... just scared." He tells me, looking up at me. A curl falls in front of his face.
His eyes study mine and I feel my angry glare melt away as I look at him gently. I feel as if my brain isn't controlling my movements as I find my hand lifting up and sweeping that curl out of his face. He moves closer to me slowly. I find my hand running down the side of his face and resting on his jaw.
"This isn't some kind of movie where the people kiss in a cliche setting with romantic lighting." He says, his voice low.
"Then how come I want to kiss you so bad?" I question, my voice soft. He rests his forehead against mine and slowly tilts his head, pressing his lips to mine. Butterflies swarm in my tummy and I feel nervous, but oddly calm at the same time. His lips are warm and soft against mine and I feel the breath from his nose fanning across my cheek. He moves and wraps his arms around my waist, moving one hand up to my shoulder. I hold one of his soft cheeks in my hand and rest the other on his leg.
Just as we pull back slowly, I hear the lift start to rumble again and it comes back to life, moving up. I blow out the candles.
"Here." I say in a small voice as I give Dan his candle.
"Thank you." He whispers. It's kinda awkward now. The lift comes to a stop. I go to get out, but the doors close again. I turn around and see Dan pressed the 'down' button. I mean, I don't need to be upstairs anymore anyway.
"Dan-" I cut off by him pressing his lips against mine again. I barely have time to react before the lift stops and Dan gets out.
I always thought when I was like 18 that by the time I'm 25 I will have met the man I want to marry. Well where is he?
There he goes, he was there all along.