Work Text:
Phil is so not in the mood right now. He isn’t quite sure why, but the idea of actually having to interact with the world and other people just fucking irritated him so much. He almost called in for a sick day, just so he wouldn’t have to deal with chatty coworkers and asshole clients and pissed-off managers, but his ma raised him right, and that means being honest. Phil’s stood in the elevator, cursing his goody-two-shoes nature and checking his watch expectantly every few seconds. He’s due in a conference meeting on the fiftieth floor in fifteen minutes, and he needs to stop by the break room and get a coffee if he’s going to make it through the day without going on a murder spree.
Some part of Phil is fully aware of the fact that he’s probably being a total asshole, jamming the ‘close door’ button on the one working elevator the building has as a young guy runs towards it. The doors begin to close and Phil thanks whatever god is looking down at him at that moment because he cannot stomach the idea of spending a few torturous minutes in the elevator with someone else.
The guy yells to hold the door and Phil pretends to not hear it, fiddling with his phone for good measure.
But the universe seems to have it out for Phil today, because the guy just barely manages to squeeze into the lift as the door slams shut. Phil groans quietly, closing his eyes and letting his head fall against the wall with a heavy ‘thunk’.
The guy is flushed and panting, out of breath from sprinting to catch the lift. He narrows his eyes at Phil, who pointedly ignores him.
Then Phil decides the gods have abandoned him as the guy reaches out and deliberately presses every single button.
Great. Just great. Phil wonders if it’s possible to commit suicide with nothing but the contents of his briefcase. The doors slide open with a bing on the second floor, and Phil bangs his head against the cool metal wall repeatedly.
The other guy slouches down against the wall opposite Phil, his downcast expression a mix of triumph and regret. The lift doors slide closed.
The guy is cute, Phil will give him that. Straight brown hair is fixed into a messy fringe, highlighting tanned skin and chocolate eyes. His slender body curls in on itself, lean forearms exposed by the rolled-up white shirtsleeves. He seems young, probably and intern going by his youth.
“What the fuck,” Phil says plainly, his first actual words uttered that day. Unless you count moans of frustration, which Phil did not.
The guy shrugs as the doors opened to the third floor, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on his shiny-toed shoes. His mouth opens and closes a few times, probably searching for an appropriate response.
“You started it,” he argues weakly. Phil rolls his eyes.
“Yeah. Because I didn’t want to be late. You ran for the lift because you didn’t want to be late. And now we’re both even later. Thanks to you.” Phil ignores the secretary who gives him a weird look as the doors slide shut again.
The guy’s shoulders sag and Phil feels the tiniest bit bad for him; it’s not his fault Phil’s having a shitty day. Well, mostly not his fault.
“M’sorry,” the guy mumbles as the doors open to the fourth floor. Christ this is going to take awhile.
“S’okay,” Phil says eventually. “Just not really up for being a functioning human in society today, not your fault.”
“Oh.” The guy frowns. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” Phil shrugs. “Everything’s just being irritating.”
“Just one of those days, huh?”
“Yeah.” They make the briefest flicker of eye contact, each averting his eyes as soon as it happens.
“My names’ Dan. Howell. Dan Howell,” the guy says randomly as the door closes on the eighth floor. Phil slides down the wall to sit on the floor, looking up at Dan. “Intern?”
Dan nods. “Yeah. Still in school.”
Phil makes a face at the memory of his university days. They were not the most flattering times, to say the least. He glances down to his watch. Ten minutes before his meeting. No way was the elevator going to be there in time, and no way was Phil going to take the stairs. He was quite attached to his lungs, and didn’t want to abuse them more than necessary. He sighs and fishes a paperclip out of his pocket, twisting it into odd shapes out of boredom. “Oh right, and I’m Phil, though you'd probably know me as Mr. Lester.”
Dan nods, tapping his feet and fingers anxiously. Phil throws him a judgmental eyebrow. Dan huffs.
“Matt Bellamy wouldn’t treat me like this,” he mutters, turning around to fix his fringe in the lift’s reflective walls.
“Paradise comes at a price,” Phil says, smirking. “And you’re right, he wouldn’t. I’ve met the guy, he’s the nicest man on the planet.”
Dan’s mouth drops open. Phil quirks an eyebrow. “What? I may be a high-level corporate drone, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have interests outside of spreadsheets and tax returns. You should see my bedroom, I mean wow. Nerd to the nth degree.”
“Why Mr. Lester!” Dan fans himself as if scandalized, miming clutching his pearls. “What are you insinuating, bringing me back to your bedroom?”
Phil giggles. “Nothing sexy about Totoro and Charzard plushies, I promise.”
“Are you kidding? There’s everything sexy about Totoro and Charzard plushies – wait, I mean –“ Dan cuts himself off, blood rushing into his cheeks. Phil laughs, throwing his head back and ignoring the weird looks he got from people on the eleventh floor. Dan bites his lip and looks down in embarrassment.
He doesn’t speak again until they hit the twenty-eighth floor.
“How long is this going to take, remind me,” Dan asks, slouching against the wall and pointedly avoiding Phil’s eyes. Phil rolls his shoulders and sighs, shrugging.
“Don’t know. Never really gone up to the top by way of every single floor before, so I really have no point of reference.”
Dan pulls a face, eventually relenting and sitting down as well. Phil cracks his neck.
Between the thirty-first and thirty-second floor, something goes horribly wrong. The elevator lurches once, groans loudly and squeals to a halt. Dan meets Phil’s eyes, his own blown wide with panic. He can feel his heart beating loud in his chest. Dan’s breathing comes quicker as hysteria and claustrophobia set in.
“Hey, shh, it’s okay,” Phil says, scooting closer to Dan and laying a hand on his knee. “It’s just you and me, and we’re here, together, yeah? Someone should get us out of here in a matter of minutes, and it’ll be okay.” Dan pulls a shaky breath and nods, scrunching his eyes shut and flexing his hands. Someone’s voice comes in over the intercom.
“Hello. Can you please tell me your name or names?”
Phil stands and hits the button on the elevator panel. “Yes, hello. I am Phil Lester, and I am in here with Daniel –“ “Howell.” “Howell.”
“All right,” the person over the intercom says. “Mr. Lester and Mr. Howell, we are doing our best to fix this situation. We should have you out of there in less than an hour.”
“Okay, thank you,” Phil says into the speaker. Dan starts pacing.
“Hey, come on,” Phil says, inserting himself in front of Dan. Dan shakes his head, trying to shoulder past Phil without much avail. Phil might not look it, but he’s actually fairly strong. He sets a hand on Dan’s shoulder and pulls his to sit back down against the wall. “What’s up?”
“Claustrophobic,” Dan mumbles. He shudders as memories he tried so hard to repress break the surface into his consciousness.
“Anything I can do?”
“Distract me?”
“Okay,” Phil nods slowly. “I can do that. How do you…?” he trails off, vaguely gesturing and hoping Dan gets what he means.
“Talk to me. About anything. Who are you? What do you like to do? Do you have any pets? Where do you live?”
“Well,” Phil started, pursing his lips and tapping a finger against his chin.
“My name is Philip Michael Lester, called Phil by everyone except my grandmother. I’m twenty-eight, hate this job, and grew up in Lancashire.
I like to play stupid video games, lurk on the internet and travel. I have a brother who I love to hang out with and a few friends who are popular on the internet. I’ve always wanted a pet but I’m allergic to just about every animal under the sun, plus a few nocturnal ones.” Dan smiled, his posture relaxing as his breathing evened out. Phil snapped his fingers suddenly.
“Oh! I know the prefect thing!” He stands quickly, untucking his dark blue button up shirt from his pants. Dan raises an eyebrow as Phil starts working on the buttons, about to make some snarky comment about how sex wasn’t really the distraction he had in mind, until all words leave his mouth as he sees Phil’s ink-covered chest.
Phil grins at Dan’s stare, shrugging off the shirt and dropping it on top of his briefcase. He shakes his head a few times, brushing his hair out of the semi-professional quiff he adopted for workdays, letting it fall into his usual fringe. He pulls a handful of small metal beads and loops out of his pocket, screwing them through the holes he had in his mouth, nose and ears.
Phil spreads his arms and grins as his transformation is completed, spinning around once to show himself off for his audience. Dan’s mouth hangs open.
“You’re like fucking Batman,” he says without thinking, color rising into his cheeks again as Phil laughs.
“I’ve never been told that before, thank you,” he says through giggles, sitting back down next to Dan. Dan’s fingers twitch, his hands moving out on their own accord, freezing awkwardly in midair as he realizes that it may not be appropriate to feel up his boss, despite how awesome Phil is.
“You can touch,” Phil says quietly. If his voice is too eager or too breathy, well, Dan is too engrossed in the art swirling across his body to notice anyways.
As soon as the words leave Phil’s mouth Dan fingers splay across his chest, light and hot. Phil sucks in a breath and his eyes flutter closed, hypnotized by the feather-light feeling of Dan’s long artist fingers tracing over the lines and colors inked into his skin.
“Tell me about them,” Dan says in a whisper, as if anything too loud might shatter the bubble surrounding the two of them.
“Which one? Phil asks. Dan taps his finger on the chemical compound over Phil’s heart.
“It’s the chemical symbol of dopamine, which translates to love,” Phil says, shifting his shoulders and making the ink shift and bend. “My brother has 6-hydrodxy triptamine, which is happiness, and my mother has acetylcholine, which is really complicated but comes down to intuition and memory.”
“And your dad?”
“Never knew him.”
Dan blinks, startled out of his trance. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Phil smiles.
“What’s this one?” Dan asks, running his fingertips over the lion on Phil’s shoulder.
“It’s what my nickname was as a kid. Lion. I kind of have a thing for them now. Sentimentality, I guess.”
“Mine’s bear,” Dan says. “My childhood nickname I mean. It was bear.”
“Bear.” Phil smiles slightly, testing how the name rolls off his tongue. “Nah, you’re too cute for bear.”
Dan’s lips pull up into a sideways smile. He glances up at Phil, biting his lip shyly. Phil’s eyes shine softly back and Dan ducks his head again.
“You massive, massive nerd,” Dan says, his gaze fixed on Phil’s hips. Which were very nice hips, mind you, curvy and wide. Dan resolutely did not think about that though, concentrating solely on the image that decorated them.
“Ninetails and Jolteon battling, really?”
Phil giggles.
“And you’ve pierced them too, how the hell do you even do that?” Dan asks, flicking each of the small metal balls that protruded through Phil’s skin in turn. Three slope down Phil’s hips on either side, bigger at the top, up at the high part of Phil’s pelvis and each progressively smaller.
“They basically sew the bead into your flesh,” Phil says, shrugging at the alarmed glance Dan threw his way. “What? I like them.”
“So do I, but still. Sewing something into your skin, that’s a bit weird.”
“Your face is a bit weird.”
“You are actually ten years old, aren’t you?”
“Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional,” Phil says, looking pleased with himself.
Dan rolls his eyes. “You got that from Tumblr, don’t even pretend.”
Phil flushes red.
“Oh, wait.” He turns around, showing Dan his back. “Look at this one,” he says, pointing to the design across his shoulders.
Dan gasps.
“The brightest stars are those who shine for the benefit of others,” Dan reads aloud, the loopy script standing dark against Phil’s pale neck and shoulders.
His back looks as if it has been cut open by enormous claws, the skin slashed away to reveal stars. A nebula spreads across Phil’s back, the stars and planets spreading all the way down to the waistband of his pants, showing through the scratches.
They sit in content silence for at least fifteen minutes, Dan’s hands gliding over the night sky etched into Phil’s skin. The intercom buzzes obnoxiously, the same woman from before speaking into it.
“Mr. Lester and Mr. Howell, the lift is back up and running. We are so sorry for that, and I hope it doesn’t happen again. Again, we are terribly sorry. We’re bringing you back down to the lobby now.”
Phil scrambles to his feet as the lift shudders upwards, taking out his facial piercings as fast as he can without hurting himself. Dan grabs Phil’s shirt and pushes Phil’s arms through it, sliding the buttons into their respective holes as Phil continues working on his piercings. Phil shoves the metal pieces into his pocket, tucking his shirt in as Dan fixes his hair for him.
Phil smiles gratefully as he fastens his belt, looking up and freezing as he finds his face only inches from Dan’s. Phil stares into Dan’s eyes, visibly swaying as he subconsciously leans forward before he realizes what he’s doing and pulls back.
“Fuck it,” Dan mutters, leaning in quickly. His lips brush Phil’s, eliciting a satisfied noise from both of the men. Phil pulls back after just a few moments, staring at Dan.
“Dan,” Phil says slowly. “Phil,” Dan replies in the exact same tone.
“We – I – you – we can’t, Dan,” Phil says. “I’m your boss, I’m in a position of authority, I’d be wring of me to – I’m so much older than you, I just – I can’t.”
“I’m twenty-one, Phil,” Dan says. “And you were the one who started it! Taking off your shirt, putting in those fucking piercings. Why if not for that, huh?”
“Dan –“
“You could,” Dan insists. Some insistent feeling is spurring him on, telling him that he just has to push Phil a little bit farther before his cracks.
“Dan, please. Don’t do this to me.” Phil’s eyes look pleading. “I can’t.”
“We could,” Dan says softly, reaching out and cupping Phil’s cheek in his hand. Phil looks back at Dan, hopelessly torn, before shutting his eyes and slamming Dan into the wall, sliding his tongue into his mouth and kissing him breathless.
Dan is on fire, heat zinging thourhg every inch of his body and it’s so, so good.
Phil pulls back as they reach the eighth floor, eyes dilated and lips red and spit-slicked.
“We are going for lunch,” Phil says, nosing around Dan’s collar. Dan’s eyes roll back in his skull and he leans his head back, arching his back and sighing.
“But my job –“ “I’m the boss,” Phil reminds him, smirking. They pass the fifth floor and Phil steps back, straightening his shirt and looking Dan up and down.
“Fix your hair and wipe your mouth,” Phil says, stepping in for one last kiss before leaning against the opposite wall. Dan does, and the doors slide open with a chime.
Phil leads Dan out of the lift, handing his briefcase to a secretary behind the front desk with instructions to leave it in his office on his desk. He fires off a quick email to the people he was supposed to be meeting with, and another off to Dan’s supervisor:
Hello Charles. I am reassigning intern Daniel Howell. He is no longer your responsibility. Have a nice day.
He slides his phone back into his pocket, hailing a cab and ushering Dan in.
Phil leans forward and tells the cabbie something Dan doesn’t hear and then sits back, sliding a hand up to rest high on Dan’s inner thigh.
Phil’s hand starts moving in small circles and Dan’s stomach turns in excitement and anticipation. And maybe the smallest bit fear.
But then Phil leans over and noses around Dan’s hair, and Dan knows he and Phil are going to make everything okay.
At least, he’s sure as hell going to try.