Work Text:
“Hi, what can I get for you today?”
The barista smiles at Phil with a slightly dead look behind his eyes.
He looks bored, like he’d rather be any place other than here. Maybe even a bit hungover.
Phil can’t blame him, he spent six years working at a stationery store before he was able to break free. At least here there’s a constant bustle - surprisingly, pens and notebooks aren’t as hot a commodity as coffee.
“Hi! A large hazelnut latte, please.” He tries to be as friendly as possible, maybe bringing just a few seconds of relief to this poor guy’s day.
As he waits for his order, a voice comes from right behind him, making him jump.
“He seems to be having a rough go of today,” the voice chuckles slightly behind him.
Phil glances back at the barista, who, with a break between customers, is breathing deeply, with a hand to his head. A coworker pats him on the back with a smile. Definitely hungover.
He shifts his body slightly to make sure the voice was talking to him and is met with smiling eyes looking directly at him.
“I can’t decide if I feel sorry for him yet or not,” Phil turns around a bit more, taking in the stranger’s face.
It’s a good face. Gorgeous deep brown eyes, slightly freckled skin and a bright smile. It's complimented by soft, slight brown curls on his head. He's standing maybe an inch or two taller than Phil and a quick glance shows black skinny jeans and black hoodie.
Not that he's checking him out.
The stranger chuckles a bit. “Self-inflicted, but you feel his pain?”
“Exactly, I was him at one point in my life."
"Phil?" the other barista calls his name so he gives the cute stranger a quick smile and grabs his drink from the counter.
He's planning to spend the next few hours here, in the communal worker-bee atmosphere of the coffee shop to finish editing a client's promotional video. He had started it at home this morning, but as most days, was too distracted by every other object in his flat.
It's busy today, there's only a few spots left at a long table. He slides into the corner spot by the window.
"Promise I'm not following you," the cute stranger is pulling out the chair across from where Phil sat down. He looks apologetic, "There's not a whole lot of room left in here."
Phil's a little flustered, this guy is incredibly attractive and he has no reason to be talking to Phil. He could have just got his coffee and sat down without saying anything to him.
"Uh, ya. No, of course. Lots of room for you here," he smiles and tries to not be mortified by his own awkwardness. He can feel a blush on his face and turns to his bag to get out his laptop.
"Thanks," the stranger sits down and digs through his own backpack.
After an entire hour of editing, the video isn't coming together as quickly as he thought. His brain is split between the clips on his screen and his favourite distraction of the day - the cute stranger.
Phil's doing his best to not look. But he can see him in his peripheral vision and it's unbelievably distracting. The guy is very intensely working on something, he goes between typing for minutes on end and then staring out the window in seemingly deep thought. He can't help but wonder what it is that's causing him to tap his middle finger and thumb together and bite his lip while slightly swaying to whatever music he's listening to.
On his screen, he's not happy with the progress he's made and knows he needs to focus. This client is expecting a first cut by end of tomorrow and he's nowhere near done.
He lets out a giant breath and pushes his glasses on top of his head while he rubs his eyes. Maybe he should just go home where there's no cute strangers to look at. Sounds like an awful idea even as he thinks it.
A tapping on his arm makes him jump. He shoves the glasses back on his face and looks across the table. Those deep brown eyes are staring right back at him. Cute stranger has a small smirk on his face and points to his ear, signalling Phil to take his headphones off.
"Sorry, just wondering if you'd be able to watch my stuff while I run to the toilet and grab a tea?" That apologetic look is back on his face. Phil decides in that moment, he likes it.
He nods, "Of course, ya. I'm not going anywhere." Apparently his plans have changed.
"Thanks. Do you want me to grab you something on the way back?"
Well, he might as well stay now. He can't leave as soon as he gets back. That would just be rude. "Sure, medium hazelnut latte?" He goes to grab his wallet.
"My treat," stranger shakes his head puts his hand out as if to stop Phil from giving him money and then walks away quick enough that Phil can't argue.
He catches himself checking him out from behind as he walks away and forces himself to snap out of it. Just because the guy is buying him a drink, doesn't mean he deserves to be ogled at by Phil.
Deciding he may as well take a break while he waits for his drink - he takes his headphones off and stretches out his back.
When cute stranger returns with drinks in hand, Phil's looking out the window at the people passing on the busy street. It's a nice day in London.
"One medium hazelnut latte," his drink is placed down beside his laptop. It's in a mug, not a to-go cup. His plans to stay becoming more solidified.
Phil smiles back at him, "Thanks --"
He catches a smirk on the stranger's face before he drops his gaze and responds. "Dan."
"Thanks, Dan. I'm Phil, by the way."
"Least I can do for your protection of my shit, Phil," he chuckles and sits back down. Wow, his smile is intoxicating.
He places a bag in between their laptops and takes out two slices of loaf. "They had too many to choose from and I had to try two. One's a lemon poppy seed and one's cranberry if you want to help yourself - I won't eat both." He's again making direct eye contact with Phil. It feels intense and pointed.
"I'm never one to turn down food, thanks." Phil grabs a chunk from the corner of one piece.
"Good to know."
"Next time you'll have to try the mocha one, it's my favourite."
Phil takes a sip from his latte and watches Dan break off a piece of the loaf.
"Oh my god, if it's amazing as this one, I might have to try it now."
The groan of approval that comes out of Dan's mouth is enough to make Phil blush. The man must love his loaf...
"So you've never been here before? I'm here a lot and it's usually pretty full of regulars." He tries to distract himself from that groan by talking.
Dan shakes his head while he finishes chewing, "No, I just moved into the area. Trying to find a good spot to work. Must say, this one is my favourite so far."
"Ya, it's good."
There's a comfortable silence while they both enjoy another bite of loaf and their drinks.
"Do you work from home too?" Dan asks.
"Ya, I'm freelance. I usually love it, but I need to get out and see people sometimes."
Dan laughs softly at that, "That's exactly my problem working from home. I don't like people enough for a day job, but being by myself can also drive me crazy."
"Coffee shops are good for that." Phil smiles at him.
"They are."
Unless Phil is completely misreading the situation, Dan is flirting just as hard as Phil is. He's been known to misread a situation or two in his day, so he tries to keep his hopes low. Maybe the guy is just friendly.
"So, what do you do for work, then?" he's really not ready to get back to editing yet.
"I work for a theatre company - I help with script development." Dan shrugs, he almost seems embarrassed to admit it.
Phil's eyebrows almost jump off of his face with interest, "Wow! Really? That's so cool. I used to dream of being involved in the entertainment world somehow."
Dan's face relaxes at Phil's reaction. "Really? Most people are never too impressed with what I do - I went to school for law and somehow ended up here."
"Gross. Law sounds boring. Your job sounds awesome. I wanted to be a director or something when I was younger. Had this whole dream of living a lavish life in Los Angeles."
Dan breaths a laugh, "What happened to your dream?"
"I grew up, I guess." Phil shrugs. "Realized I needed a more realistic goal. I took video editing after I was done at university and that's what I'm doing freelance now. Hopefully work up to something bigger than this stuff one day," Phil motions to his laptop where his project sits untouched.
"What are you working on?" Dan leans onto the table with genuine curiosity.
"It's just a promotional video for a travel agency," he shrugs. "Nothing too exciting."
"Could I see?" Dan's expression is soft and Phil's thrown off by his interest.
Dan must take his pause as overstepping, "Sorry, sorry. Of course you don't have to show me. God, pretend I didn't say that."
"No! No! It's fine, really. I guess it's kind of like you, most people aren't very impressed with what I do. I can show you, but I'm warning you it's really short. I'm nowhere near done."
"I feel like an idiot, I'm sorry, you don't have to show me."
It's cute how embarrassed and flustered he is. "Bring your chair 'round here. I'll show you what I've done so far."
Dan looks at him for a second before getting up and moving his chair to the side of the table with Phil. It's a tight fit in the corner beside the window. But in this circumstance, he's choosing to think it's cozy.
Phil hands Dan his headphones and turns the laptop in his direction.
He puts the headphones on and without any help from Phil, Dan's able to start the video and switch to full screen mode. He must be familiar with the software if he was able to do that so quickly - maybe that's why he's so interested.
The current file is only 53 seconds long, and Phil can't take his eyes off of Dan the entire time. He watches his eyebrows raise and his tongue flick out over his lips.
His stomach is suddenly filled with knots - he wants Dan to be impressed with what he sees.
When the clip cuts abruptly, Dan moves his hand to keyboard and starts it from the beginning. Phil just stares out of curiosity. He can't understand what's going through Dan's head right now.
Dan slides the headphones off of his head and hands them back to Phil when it's finished the second time. He turns his whole body to face Phil, his knee knocking into Phil's leg for a second.
"Phil, that's amazing. You're really good."
His face must be bright red.
"Uh, thanks but it's not really that impressive."
Dan lightly slaps him across the shoulder.
"Shut up, I've done a bit of editing for work in the past and this is great Phil. It would have taken me a year to do this." he says with a laugh. "You know, modest is a cute look on you."
The last part is said slightly lower, slightly more skeptical. If Phil wasn't hanging onto his every word, he may have missed it.
"Oh yah?" the butterflies in his stomach are having a rave. He's never this bold.
Dan nods and leans towards him a bit more.
"I've been staring at your face for hours now, you can trust my opinion."
Phil bursts out a nervous laugh, has he really been looking at him this whole time?
"It's the truth, reckon I'm just better at hiding my stolen glances than you are,"
"Hey! That's not fair!" Phil's mortified. He can't believe Dan knew.
Dan laughs and comfortably drops his hand to Phil's knee. "It's getting pretty crowded here, you want to grab another drink and maybe head to mine instead?"
Oh. The thought jolts through Phil with electricity. His leg is burning where Dan's hand sits.
Dan's incredibly attractive and very much his type. And he's wanting to Phil to go back to his. It's not a drunken ask in a gay bar.
It's mid-day and the only buzz he has is from coffee - if he wants to do this, he should. He's going to kick himself for eternity if he says no.
"That sounds great," he can't help but beam back at Dan. His bold streak forces his hand on top of where Dan's still sits.
They gather up their belongings and get back inline for a drink - this time both getting tea to go. Phil doesn't need more caffeine buzzing through his system.
The walk back to his flat is filled with conversation about Dan's work and how he grew up wishing to be on stage. He eventually found a love for writing and is working on a few scripts of his own.
He's interesting and the conversation is easy. Phil can't help but want to know everything about him.
Not two steps after removing their shoes and dropping their bags is Dan pushing Phil up against the wall. He waits to let Phil kiss him, making sure their both on the same page.
It's the start of something more than this, Phil can tell. They're being too gentle, too caring for a one time hookup.
He can't help the smile that crosses his face at the thought.
--
Three hours later, Phil's still in Dan's flat.
They're on the sofa with laptops open, finishing the work that was interrupted.
Take-away has been ordered for dinner and they're sharing kisses between more stolen glances.
Phil's toes are tucked under Dan's leg.
He's staring at the side of Dan's head, distracted at the beauty of his soft curls and bitten lip, deep in thought.
"I can feel you staring, you know?"
His face goes red. He really needs to get his act together.
"Just appreciating the view," Phil tries to sound casual but knows that's not how it sounds.
It makes Dan giggle. God, he's handsome.
He tilts his head slightly and smiles.
"Is it weird that we just met this afternoon and now you're in my flat like this?"
"It probably should be. It doesn't feel like it is though, you know?"
Dan puts his hand onto his knee and squeezes lightly.
"Yah, I was thinking the same."