Chapter Text
The door of the storage room creaks open as Phil peers outside. He flinches at the sound, hearing it louder than it actually is. It is 1 a.m. The office is only half packed. There’s a chilling, quiet atmosphere coating the room. Tension. Fatigue. As Phil steps out of the storage room, it feels as though he’s stepping into gelatin.
He didn’t mean to stay up this late. He’s not really the biggest fan of doing overtime. However, a certain case kept his attention, magnetic in its details. He stayed in the storage room cross examining letters and sentences. He did it for so long that his contact lenses dried out. He adjusts his glasses.
Thankfully, no one really notices him. Or his new look. He takes another step into the bullpen. Not even a cursory glance.
It’s silly. The town they’re in is so small, he greets most of these people good morning everyday. But, in the office, people always seem so prickly.
(Could be because they’re police, doing the relaxing activity of looking at crimes all day.)
As Phil crosses from the storage room to the elevator, which is on the other side of the room, he notices a smell. Tomato sauce. Bread. He notices paper plates on desks, almost every desk, except his. He notices a big, empty pizza box haphazardly shoved into a bin.
Oh. Okay.
He tries not to get mad. It’s not as if he’s hated or unpopular. It’s hard to do in a small town like this. It’s not as if the officers were in some sort of high school clique. They probably just didn’t notice that he was cooped up in the storage room. He stayed in it for so long he became a background piece.
But, god, was he hungry.
He heads to the lift as it dings open.
Some context for the station elevator: It is probably the oldest utility in the building. The station doesn’t really get enough funding for it to be a renovation priority, despite its malfunctions. Its doors slide as if it was rolling on sand. It goes up and down at a snail’s pace, only comedic the first time and incredibly infuriating when you’re already 10 minutes late.
The doors start to crawl to a close after a moment, creaking like rotting wood. Phil presses the ground floor button.
He hears a very panicked shout, “Wait!”
It’s not a voice he’s used to. It’s a loud, dramatic tone, either unaware or not caring about the exhausted tension in the office. On instinct, Phil immediately pushes the elevator door open with his hand, hears it creak beneath his grip. Now with a wider view, he sees the owner of the voice speed walking from the hallway.
Phil doesn’t recognize him. He has brown, curly hair. He wore a dark suit too buttoned up than the rest of them. He had a sort of rigidness to him as he walked.
(And he was handsome, but it’s 1 a.m. so Phil tries not to think about that.)
As the man approaches the elevator, he gives a small smile for gratitude.
“Sorry to make you wait. Let me grab my coat.” He gestures to the coat hanger near the doors.
Phil nods. “Yeah, go ahead.”
The man’s coat was underneath other people’s. He’s been here for quite some time. Phil wonders if he was a tourist or a suspect brought in for questioning.
He seems to be having trouble getting his coat from the pile. At first, he tries to scoop it from underneath. It doesn’t work. He tries to carry all the other coats on his shoulder.
Phil, earnest, “Do you need help?”
The reply was curt. “No, thank you.”
The man, then, gets to the bottom layer of his coat. A black, expensive Burberry coat. As he pulls it off the hanger, a thread gets caught by the splintering wood.
The hanger falls.
Loud, dramatic bang! It echoes around the station.
The whole office snaps to look at him, staring in shock at the loud sound. If the man was unaware of the tension, then he’s definitely aware now. He visibly gulps, paling at the sudden attention.
Phil starts to laugh.
He can’t help it. He’s tired and sleep deprived. This clumsy incident is something that would happen to him . Sadly, his misfortune has rubbed off on this unsuspecting man.
Before he could feel bad for laughing, a second shock came.
The man starts to laugh with him.
It’s a hearty laugh. It rivals the volume of the coat hanger impact. It sounds like a running river. In a way, it mirrored Phil’s. It has the same tired undercurrent, giggling at the absurdness of something that wouldn’t be funny past midnight.
Nose scrunched in embarrassment, the man slowly fixes the coat hanger. Almost as a performance to those watching, he tiptoes towards the elevator.
Phil lets the doors close. The quiet stares disappear behind it.
Now, the two of them are stuck together for at least 5 minutes. Their laughs seem to bounce around the four walls of the lift, slowly petering out into nothing. In this small space, they stand almost shoulder to shoulder.
The man wipes the tears forming at the corner of his eyes. He coughs away the last of his giggle fit. He goes back to a sort of reserved manner—quickly builds himself a wall.
Phil, not wanting to dwell in more silence, offers his hand. “I’m Phil.”
“Dan.” He takes it. Polite smile. He has dimples.
“I’m guessing you’re not from here, Dan.”
“Ah, what gave it away?”
Phil clocks the accent, southern. Not posh but a bit gentle. “Just a guess.”
Dan nods sagely. “Good guess.”
The elevator creaks.
“Are you a suspect?” Phil says.
A beat.
“What?” There is a trace of a smile on Dan’s lips, as if the laugh is also still there in his chest.
Phil bursts out laughing. He covers half of his face out of embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. It’s been a long day.”
“I can tell.” He says, not unkindly. “It’s okay. I’m a defense lawyer. I just came here to see my client.”
“Ah.”
Another beat.
Phil’s stomach gurgles. “Have you eaten yet?”
Dan purses his lips as if thinking. “No, I have not. The pizzas looked really good, though.”
“Couldn’t try them. There’s a Dominos across the street. If you’d like.”
It’s a bit forward, Phil realizes only after the words leave his mouth.
His tone is light, though a bit bewildered. “Are you asking me out to dinner, Phil?”
“It’s more of a midnight snack than dinner.” Phil replies, backpedaling slightly. However, the claws of fatigue still grip his social filter. He continues despite himself, “If I were to take you out to dinner, it’d be somewhere way nicer than that.”
Dan glances at him. Staring, taking the sentence in. Phil holds his breath, heart picking up, afraid that he’d completely misread the situation. Maybe Dan is incredibly straight. Maybe Phil is just an idiot. The moment seems to last forever before—
“Dominos it is.” Dan says, looking back at the elevator doors, levity in his voice.
Phil smiles.
Strange how this small elevator feels less cramped than an entire office.
#
“Forgot to ask, why were you at the station?” Dan asks before biting into his pizza slice.
Their trays are pressed against each other on a table barely meant for two. Both of them are giants, so it was proportionally smaller for them than most people. In an attempt to still have personal space, they lean back against their chairs. Unbeknownst to them, their legs rest near each other, in between, almost touching.
“What do you think I was there for?”
“You don’t look like a lawyer…” Dan taps his chin, forehead creasing in thought. Cute.
“You think I work there?”
“I would know if you were a lawyer. We all have a dead look in our eyes.”
Phil bites the inside of his cheek so as not to reply with something incredibly cheesy. He adjusts his posture. “Okay.”
“Not a field officer, though.”
“Why not?”
“Doesn’t fit your vibe.” Fair enough. “Forensics, maybe?”
Phil sips his hot chocolate. “Getting warmer. Which department?”
Dan hums, the cogs in his brain turning. “Photography.”
Phil clicks his tongue. “So close! Linguistics.”
“Linguistics.” He says it like it’s brand new. “That is intriguing.”
Phil blinks, not sure about the tone. “Is it really?”
Dan nods, enthusiastic. “Yeah! Study of the language. You look at the speech and voices, handwritten letters and stuff, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you tell where I’m from? From my accent? And don’t just say south because that’s already obvious.”
Phil fakes offense. “I didn’t think I’d be getting quizzed today. Okay.” He squints his eyes as he goes over his observations, tapping his lips deep in thought. He goes with his gut feeling, which is mostly just a general guess.
“Wokingham?”
Dan’s jaw drops. “Holy shit.”
Phil’s eyebrows shoot up in shock. “Did I get it right?”
“Yes, you did! What the fuck?” Dan laughs. It’s more muted than before, but still genuine. “Are you psychic or something?”
“You know, my aunt actually is.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She has these tarot cards—”
And before they know it, it’s been two whole hours.
They open the restaurant door to the chilling October air. The leaves are only halfway dying, giving a middling yellow-green. It crunches underneath their feet as they make their way across the cobblestone road. The lights are faint, almost atmospheric. The streets are quiet except for the animals. The silence is turning into comfort, but neither of them realize this.
In the strange, magnetic pull of the night, Phil gets mesmerized by the shops for some reason. He rarely stays out this late to see them closed like this, as if they’ve been abandoned. In fact, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen the town this quiet. It makes him feel melancholic, as if missing something he still has.
“You know, up a hill, there’s this big, alien satellite thing that lights up at night.” He muses, thinking back to when he was a teenager who’d stay up there with his friends.
“Satellite?”
“Yeah. It’s actually quite magical to see up close. Can you imagine communicating with aliens?”
“Oh, you’d love that Mr. Linguist, wouldn’t you? Living out your Doctor Who fantasy?”
Phil laughs.
“Is this the part where you ask me to be your companion?”
“Maybe in a parallel world. Or after a proper date.”
“Of course, of course.” Dan says playfully. “Dinner in the cosmos? Or lunch in Ancient Rome?”
“What about the future?”
A beat.
Phil notices the silence this time. He realizes he’s taken a few steps ahead. He turns back, sees Dan standing still at a street corner. Dan points to a newer building, with newly painted walls and windows. It is the only one left still open.
Right. Hotel.
“This is my stop.” He says, apologetic. “Sorry. My train’s early in the morning.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m sorry for running my mouth off.”
Dan shakes his head, smiles. “This has been fun.”
Phil walks back over to him, trying to stay casual. He stops just a few steps forward. “It has.”
Neither of them want to say goodbye.
Phil says, “We do texts too.”
Dan furrows his eyebrows.
“Linguists. Forensic linguists. We study text messages too.”
“Okay…”
“So…” Where am I going with this? “If you were to give me your phone, for example.”
A switch flicks open in Dan’s head. His eyebrows shoot up. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, unlocks it with a tap and offers it in the space between them.
Phil reaches out. He takes it. Their fingers almost brush.
He puts his number in and types up a short message.
[From Dan:] Hello! This is Dan.
He gives the phone back.
Phil says, “So, if I cross reference that with your other texts, then I could easily find out that you didn’t write that message.”
Dan scans the text. His eyes twinkle, crinkling at the corner while he chuckles. “And how exactly will you get my other texts?” It’s cheeky, flirtatious.
Phil gives him an exaggerated shrug.
Dan nods. He looks at Phil, then at the message, then back at him. He smiles even wider. “Thank you, Phil.” His voice is soft, so soft. It almost disappears into the wind.
#
[From Phil:] Hey Dan :D! It’s Phil from Rawtenstall!