Work Text:
"I just unfollowed Shane."
Phil looked up from his laptop and across the dining table, his eyebrows raised with cautious interest more than out of surprise. "Dawson?"
"Obviously. Now you do it."
Phil sighed and averted his eyes back to his screen. "Dan." They were supposed to be responding to work emails, not making a scene on Twitter.
"Phil." There was an edge in Dan's tone.
"Because of the psychic thing?"
"Were you listening when I was talking about this the first time? It wasn't just the psychic thing. We can call that the last straw, though."
Phil kept his eyes on his screen, trying to look busy and otherwise occupied. Dan stared at him.
"Uma Thurman."
Phil looked up.
"Like what the actual fuck, Phil?"
Phil reached under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Just DM him and ask him to stop."
"Ask him? Right. Well, while I'm at it, I'll ask everybody to stop being murderers, too. Because forgetting to just ask nicely is really where humanity's gone wrong all this time."
"Tell him, then."
"Yeah, and give him something to screenshot for the next video," Dan muttered as he sat back in his chair and folded his arms, his shoulders hunched.
"Okay. Do you want me to DM him?"
Dan leaned forward and spoke very slowly, enunciating each word carefully, "He. Will. Screenshot. It."
His expression looked about as done with the conversation as Phil felt. Phil took a short breath in and out; impatience on both sides would only make things worse. Maybe he could lighten the mood.
"Well, I'll tell him not to screenshot it, too."
Dan just stared, in no mood for jokes, still hunched into himself in an attempt to make his emotional discomfort physical. He jerked his head impatiently at Phil, wordlessly demanding a better answer.
"All right." Phil stood up and left the room. Before Dan could decide to follow or not, Phil was back with a box in his hand. He strolled up to Dan and shook the box in his face. "Eat a biscuit."
Dan ignored the box and looked up into Phil's eyes. "I don't want a biscuit."
Phil maintained eye contact as he fumbled the box open and pulled out two chocolate biscuits. He put the box on the dining table and held a biscuit in each hand. He held one out to Dan and leaned down so they were eye-to-eye.
"Eat. This. Biscuit."
Phil saw the corner of Dan's mouth twitch and couldn't help himself from smiling first. He brought his biscuit to his own mouth and took a bite. Dan leaned toward Phil's hand and took the other biscuit in his mouth. He uncrossed his arms and chewed lazily as he watched Phil take his spot across from him.
"You're not cute, y'know," Dan said with his mouth full.
"Yeah? Neither are you."
They smiled at each other in biscuit-chewing silence.
Dan's face returned to neutral. "Okay. Now unfollow Shane."
"Dan, I muted him a long time ago. That's enough. You're just giving him more attention by unfollowing and making it noticeable."
"Yeah. Negative attention. He deserves it."
"Well, I'm not gonna add to it. If you don't want to directly message him, or want me to, then that's it. I'm not gonna give him any reaction, for him or others to see, because he doesn't affect my life and I won't let him start. Reacting just reinforces anything he said, legitimising it. And him. He's not worth it, right?"
Dan thought for a moment, brushing crumbs from his mouth with the sleeve of his jumper, and then sighed. "You could've said all that before I unfollowed, y'know."
Phil raised his eyebrows over his glasses. "Sorry. I'll remember next time."
Dan grinned. "Good. You're always getting us into all this drama, Phil. We don't need it, honestly. Control yourself."
Phil shook his head and looked back at his screen, work emails awaiting. "'K. I'll try."