Work Text:
It was supposed to be a temporary job. Just a few shifts a week around his classes to pay for trains back home, some gifts for his friends, and maybe a fun night out once in a while. It turned out, Phil enjoyed this job much more than he thought he would.
Sounded like most things in his life, so far. Go figure.
He kept the job over the next summer and by the time classes rolled around again, he had happily fit himself into a routine. Why leave? His school friends kept asking why he couldn’t just take one of the positions at the uni library. They were there studying anyway, might as well hang around his mates and get paid at the same time, right? Phil made excuses—this library paid better, they gave him more hours, he didn’t want to think about school while at work—which may have all been somewhat true, but he couldn’t fully explain the real reason he’d much rather be at this one over the campus one. Something about the lighting, and how the windows actually filtered the sunlight so perfectly that, in the mornings, the whole place filled with gentle calm. Or, maybe it was the little kids, tugging their parents along after daycare, eager to be the first one to sit down for afternoon storytime. Phil liked storytime. He could do all the voices and weird faces and the kids would giggle and the parents wouldn’t think he was strange for doing so.
Or, maybe, it was the older kids, shrugging their backpacks off their shoulders and settling at a free table to finish their essay. Maybe, one particular college kid who came in alone most afternoons, tossing his school blazer on the back of his chair at a computer and chewing on a snack and doing everything but his homework.
“Interested in film?” Phil says on a Tuesday in September. He’s scanning the books Dan (of course he knows his name, he’s seen his library card enough times, not weird. Not weird at all) piled on the counter.
“Oh, I—er,” Dan mutters. He looks over the covers of the books—basics on sound, lighting, and editing. A couple film theory books as well. “Yeah, I am.”
“Nice! I’m in school for film actually,” Phil says. He pauses. “Well, kind of. The uni degree is technically more in theory than in practice, but I’m hoping to get a masters—”
Phil stops. He’s doing the think where he rambles about stuff nobody else cares about. Dan doesn’t look put-off, though. More nervous than anything. “You’re in uni?”
“I am!” Phil says. “Do you make videos?”
Dan blinks then looks away. “No. I just watch stuff, online, you know? I’d never—”
“You should,” Phil says. “It’s hard at first, all the technical stuff, but I’m sure you’d be great at it!”
Dan shakes his head, dumping the books into his bag. “You don’t know me,” he says, and heads out the door.
Phil doesn’t try to talk to Dan again for the next week, though Dan is there every day. Always alone. Always on the computer. Sometimes, he scribbles something down on a notebook he keeps beside his keyboard, eyebrows pinched, eyes darting to and from the screen. Other times, Dan stares into space, screensaver blinking just outside his line of vision.
On Thursday, Phil finds Dan asleep, hand still on the mouse, webpage open to a search: lgbt resources reading uk. Phil puts a hand on Dan’s shoulder.
“Hey,” he says, as gently as he can. “Dan? We’re closing in five minutes.”
“Huh?” Dan says, rubbing his eye. “Oh! Oh, shit. What time is it?”
“Almost eight,” Phil says.
“Fuck, shit,” Dan says, grabbing his bag. “My dad’s going to kill me, I’m—” He freezes, glancing at the computer. Phil’s heart sinks. He wants to pretend he didn’t see it, but the look must be clear on his face.
Phil opens his mouth. “If you—”
Dan closes out of the screen and shoulders his way past Phil on his way to the door and Phil finds himself suddenly alone. Alone, Phil turns off the lights and shuts down the computers. It’s dark and quiet when he locks the door behind him.
Phil doesn’t mean to be worried. He doesn’t know this kid, can’t guess at lives he doesn’t live. Seems hypocritical for him to, he supposes, after getting mad at his own friends for knowing things about him before he was ready to tell them himself. But a part of him thinks, what if there was someone who could help him, back then? Tell him he wasn't as different as he thought he was. Would it have made a difference?
And even if he doesn’t mean to be worried, the feeling sticks to his ribs each time the door opens and it isn’t the familiar blue blazer and brown hair. His shift starts and ends and no Dan. That computer in the corner sits unused.
Dan shows up again three days later, slumping back down into that chair like nothing happened at all. He doesn’t look back at the circulation desk. In fact, it looks like Dan pulls out a binder and pens as if he’s actually doing school work for once.
Phil frowns.
After an hour or two, when the crowd thinned and only a few women were browsing the shelves for their next bookclub choice, Phil makes his way over to Dan’s corner. (Because that’s exactly what he has started to think of it.)
“Hey,” he says with a wave. Dan turns and stares. Awkward, Phil, well done. But now, he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He shoves them in his pockets. “I—er—wanted to let you know that if you’re looking for resources for yourself, I can help—”
“I don’t know what you think you saw,” Dan says quickly, “but I’m not whatever you—not a—a ponce.”
Whatever Phil was going to say dies on his tongue. He tries to find the lost thread of thought again, distracted by the rage slowly building on Dan’s face. “I never said you were,” Phil says. “If a friend, then, needed help. Or somewhere safe to go—” Dan flinches. “I know some people to reach out to.”
“Didn’t ask you for help,” Dan mumbles.
“I know,” Phil says. “But it’s my job! I’m a helper. Find a book, read a story, make sure granny doesn’t reply to that email to send all her money to a foreign prince.”
“Good for you,” Dan says.
Phil settles into the uneasy quiet between them, letting it linger. He doesn’t know if what he’s doing is the right thing, but he can’t just sit hope over on the other side of the library anymore.
“You’re here every day,” Phil says after some time. “Why?”
Dan looks at first like he’s not going to answer, but then he licks his lips and says with a half shrug, “Parents don’t let me have my own computer. And it… gets loud there, sometimes. With my dad and all—I’d just rather be anywhere else.”
Phil nods. Though the specifics are different, he’s never felt his parents were anything but loving to him and each other, he knows the feeling of wanting to escape.
“You’re not—nobody’s alone, Dan. I’ve felt like I was before, but,” Phil shrugs. “Gotta let people be helpers, I guess. I don’t know, I don’t have all the answers either.”
Dan looks at him, really looks at him. Does a full gaze that would have felt sexual in any other context, but here, it just feels like some sort of veil had lifted and Dan was seeing him for the first time.
The spell breaks quickly.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says and turns back to his work. A dismissal, but at least this time, he doesn’t leave.
Phil wanders back to the circulation desk.
After that, Dan starts seeking Phil out on his own. Cautiously, at first. Phil tries his best to be upbeat, happy, and totally not weird at all (keep it together, Phil) but Dan sees through that pretty quickly. He asks Phil about the games he plays and the books he recommends, testing the waters, then very quickly making his own opinions known. He's passionate, Phil finds, which makes him always interesting to talk to, and he laughs at Phil's odd stories more than anyone else ever has.
It starts getting easy. Every day, Dan dumps his bag and blazer in the corner, as always, but then slinks off to the circulation desk and chats to Phil about everything and nothing in particular. Every time the front door swings open now, Phil his head up, more excited than scared to see Dan coming through.
Months pass and Phil learns that Dan is smart, incredibly so, but just on the other side of studious. “More interesting things to think about than maths,” is what he says, showing Phil the new game he started to play online. He’s kind as well, more than likes to show he is, other things keep getting in the way of him showing it properly. His smile is bright and his dimple deep and his laugh reminds Phil of summer evenings as a kid, running through fields without responsibility.
They don’t talk about Phil’s uni classes, except to gush about the latest film they both saw. They also don’t talk about Dan’s sexuality, at least not directly. Dan says things like how much he is looking forward to leaving his toxic home behind, leaving this whole city behind, so he can be who he wants to be. He mentions boys at school but doesn’t say more than they’re assholes and moves on. Once in a while, and only if Phil is paying attention, Dan looks at him with a sort of affection Phil is embarrassed to recognize for what it may be.
Phil doesn’t want to push it.
Dan doesn’t come in alone one day. He’s trailing a group of three guys, all bants and shoves and loud laughter. Dan laughs along, but Phil knows by now what it looks like when his heart is in it, and it very much is not.
“Hey, Dan,” Phil says as the group strolls past him. Dan looks up but doesn’t return the greeting.
“Hey, Dan,” one of the guys mimics. “Howell, mate. Who's the dickhead?”
Suddenly, many more of Dan’s stories made sense.
“I’m Phil,” he says. “Do you need help with anything?”
The thick-necked kid in the back sniggers, looking Phil over. “This who you’ve been hanging with, Howell?” he says. “Seems your type.”
“Shut up, Clark,” Dan says.
They pick their way through the shelves, making remarks about the titles or covers that sound like jokes but don’t make much sense at all to Phil. He tries to ignore them, sorting the newly returned books onto carts, but the voices keep getting louder and the other people in the library start staring.
Phil gets up and looks for the group, finding them in the kids section, making faces to match the cartoon posters on the walls. “Excuse me,” Phil says, heart beating faster than he would have liked. He takes a breath and continues, willing his voice steady. “I need you to quiet down, or I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
The group stares at him. “What you gunna do about it, mate?”
“Howell, get your boyfriend to fuck off,” another one says, shoving Dan squarely between the shoulders. The nervous energy was replaced by bubbling anger.
“I think it’s time for you to go,” Phil says.
They do, but knock over a display on the way out. Dan is the last one out, the three others holding the door open and cackling as he glances behind him.
“Dan, if you want—” Phil starts, but the taunting cuts him off.
“Howell, what’s taking so long?” One of the boys puckers his lips, exaggerating a kiss toward the two of them. Dan’s face reddens.
“Fuck off, fag,” Dan says, real bitterness in his voice. He doesn’t meet Phil’s gaze. A pain rushes through Phil’s gut and he lets Dan go, disappearing into the circle of blue blazers.
Phil wishes there was a way he could reach Dan. They hadn’t exchanged phone numbers, email addresses, anything at all. They always had the library, after all. It felt like enough. More than enough, really—a strange fantasy land that was away from the outside world. A place to be a little strange and get lost in stories. A place to make voices and explore digital wonderlands. There was no talk of Phil’s uni or Dan’s home there, only the two of them laughing at something that Phil found on twitter that morning.
Twitter. Phil tries to remember Dan’s username, types in a dozen different iterations, and finally finds the right one. It hasn’t had a post in several weeks, though. He still has to try. Phil types out a message and leaves hopes that Dan will see it.
It's not your fault.
It takes three days for Dan to come back this time and the first thing Phil notices are the bags under his eyes and the creases in his shirt. Phil drops what he’s doing to head to his side.
“Don’t,” Dan says as Phil approaches.
“Are you—”
“I said, don’t,” he says. “There’s no reason for you to be nice to me. I’m an asshole kid and you’re—well, you’re you and you should have told me piss off a long time ago.”
“I’m not going to tell you to piss off,” Phil says.
“Because you’re too nice,” Dan says. He picks at the corner of his nail.
“I’m not. Not all the time,” Phil says. “You should see me when I’m not at work. My mum yells at me to do the laundry and my flatmates swear I’m the messiest person alive. No consideration for my fellow man.”
Dan doesn’t laugh. “So you’re only nice to me because it’s your job?”
Shit. Phil doesn’t want it to sound like that. “No! No, not at all you’re—Dan, you have to know, you’re my friend. Right?” Phil says. “Right?”
Dan doesn’t say yes, but his shoulders relax a fraction. “I don’t want to be your project either,” he says after a thought. “Sad queer kid, fix him up and send him on his way.”
“Dan—”
Dan shakes his head. “It’s not something you can tell me and I’d believe,” he says. “Not right now. Can we just, I don’t know, watching something on YouTube?”
“Sure,” Phil says.
They do.
The next week Dan asks Phil for the resources he brushed off before. Asks about the shelters that took gay kids and the mental health facilities that dealt with people like him. “Don’t look at me like that,” Dan says. “I’m not saying I need it now. Just… in case.”
“In case,” Phil says.
He gets him the resources.
They fall back into a routine. They talk while Phil works. Dan asks for advice on uni applications. Once, Phil lets Dan in before he locks up so they can set up a screen and watch his favorite movies together between the dark. Dan stops hiding the look he gives Phil when it's just the two of them alone together and Phil starts to recognize it as trust.
It’s nice. And Phil knows it has to end soon.
“You’re graduating soon,” Dan says with a slight shake to his head. As if he is saying, no. No, you can’t leave me. Maybe that’s just what Phil wants to see.
“I am,” Phil says.
“Going back up north?”
“For now,” he says. “That doesn’t mean we can’t keep doing this. Hanging out, talking, all that.”
Dan rolls his eyes. He’s been lied to enough and it breaks Phil’s heart.
“I’m serious. Online. It’s where you spend most of your time anyway.”
“Fuck off.”
Dan smiles and Phil returns it, cautiously. Carefully. Afraid that it would disappear at any moment. He nudges Dan to the side so he can reach around and take the mouse back to the right side of the keyboard, typing in a few things, and hitting accept. He does it again for another website, then another. Little threads of the internet, weaving together so he’ll hopefully never have to be afraid that he won’t find Dan ever again.
Dan’s email fills with unread messages, all variations of the same.
You’re now friends with AmazingPhil.