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"Oh-" Jimmy says, pulling up short as a shoulder collides firmly into his. He takes a half step back, a polite apology already on his tongue, before it registers to him exactly who he's just had a run in with. "Oh! Wow!"
He hasn’t seen Phil Lester in the flesh in two years, almost. He can't even properly recall the last time - a youtube event, a premiere perhaps? He has the vague memory of small talk over cocktails.
It definitely wasn't a Tesco at half eleven at night, and Jimmy definitely hadn't had his arms full of crisps and soda bottles.
"You look like you're having a fun night," Phil says, grinning at the haul Jimmy's barely keeping hold of.
"Yeah, having a night with my mate Chels. You remember her?" Jimmy asks, desperately trying to clear the whiskey fog from his brain. "We ran out of supplies."
The look that passes over Phil's face tells Jimmy that Phil does indeed remember her. It's probably best that he politely ignores that question. "Supplies are. Um. Ah. Important," Phil says.
He looks slightly uncomfortable, and it takes a moment for Jimmy to understand why. Then his eyes drift down and he sees the bottle grasped in Phil's long fingers. Phil's trying to hide it away as much as he can, but Jimmy recognizes it because Jimmy's got the same bottle in his own bedside drawer.
Unfortunately his whiskey brain overrides all good sense and Jimmy says, "Some more than others, eh, mate?" because it's the first thing that comes to his mind and apparently he enjoys social suicide as a casual pastime.
There's a moment where Phil doesn't seem to know how to respond, then he actually just lets out a laugh and says, "Suppose so."
It's not as though Jimmy's made a long study of Phil's face, but he registers that Phil's eyes crinkle at the corners in a way Jimmy's sure they didn't used to. He looks then, more fully, and understands why it had taken him a moment to recognize Phil. The hair is different now, he's wearing glasses where Jimmy's sure he never used to, and there's a faint five o'clock shadow on his cheeks. His t-shirt and the jacket he's wearing over it are both black.
"You look good," Jimmy says. “Love the hair.”
He's not sure if the frank admiration in his voice is entirely appropriate, but by the way Phil's shoulders square up and he stands a little taller it doesn't feel like a misstep.
“Thanks,” Phil says. “It was time for a change. Yours too.”
Jimmy half shrugs. “Maybe you’ll go blonde next, eh?”
Phil laughs. “I’ll stick with my black, I think.”
Jimmy has a flash, a memory of the first time he saw Phil, startled on a uni campus. His hair hadn’t even been black yet then.
There’s a pause then, where they could smile their goodbye and politely step away, but something keeps Jimmy rooted to the spot. "You're doing good, yeah? You and Dan?"
He’s seen the pictures on twitter, on instagram. He’s felt the shift and recognized it intimately. He’s never had a fraction of the audience Phil does, nor a fraction of the attention on him - but he still stumbled his way through it all the same. Boundaries shifting, moving, disappearing.
It’s never more than a few spare seconds of his day, never more than a passing thought, but he’s lingered a few times over pictures of them on his feed and felt that swell of empathetic pride.
"Me and Dan," Phil repeats. "We're doing well, yeah. We've got a tour coming up."
"Oh, yeah! I saw the last one, you lot were fantastic on a stage!" Jimmy says.
"You should come this time, we'll have tickets sent around," Phil says. Jimmy has no idea if he means it or not. He has no idea if he'd even go or not. But he appreciates the gesture all the same. "How are you, how's the house? Your videos last year on it were fantastic."
"The house-" Jimmy's surprised. He tries to keep his cool and not seem too visibly thrilled that Phil watches his videos. "Oh, the one we fixed up? Yeah, it's fantastic. Can't stop bloody tinkering with things, I've got the bug now."
"I'm addicted to home renovation shows," Phil says. "It always makes me want to run out and buy a flat to fix up ourselves. Dan won't let me, though. Says I'd end up breaking every bone in my hand or driving a nail through someone's foot."
"It is a danger," Jimmy admits. "Managed to avoid any nails through feet, but it was a near thing a time or two. I actually got a couple scars-"
He lifts his leg as though he's going to show one off, then remembers his arms are full and sheepishly puts his leg back down.
Phil laughs at him, not truly trying to hide that he is. Jimmy doesn't feel offended, though.
"So you and Dan are looking for a place, then?" Jimmy hopes it doesn't seem like he's prying for gossip. He is, sort of, but it's not as though he'll run around telling everyone. Who would he even tell anyway? He's drifted off from the youtube life, except the people who are his proper real friends. He's just got no time for it anymore, with an actual real career and person to come home to every day.
"Once the tour is over," Phil says. "We've been renting for so long..."
"Ouch," Jimmy winces. "Rent's a fucking drainer on the bank account, isn't it? Did that for ages, happy not to now."
"It is." Phil looks like he might be going to say something else, but his phone buzzes in his hand. He looks at it and then his eyes go wide, and he slides it into his pocket quickly. "I've got to, ah. Dan's - um. Waiting on me."
Jimmy tries very, very hard not to laugh at Phil. He tries hard, and fails spectacularly, though he hopes at least it reads as a very camaraderie filled sort of laugh. "Oh, get on back home to him then," Jimmy says. "Sounds like he won't be kept waiting long."
"Good to see you, though," Phil says, smiling at him.
"Yeah - catch you on the twitters?" It's one of those things that sounds funny until he says it out loud.
"Yeah." Phil waves - with the hand holding the bottle of lube, which he quickly puts down. He looks around to make sure no one saw him, then gives Jimmy a sheepish much smaller half-wave before he heads toward the till.
Jimmy's still laughing at him as he walks away.