Symbiosis (Phan)

3: Phil Lester's Smile > The Actual Sun

Phil had a relatively normal life: everyday he woke up, instantly regretted ever doing so, fed his ferret, browsed the internet mindlessly for a while, got dressed, went to college, had a relatively mediocre time, came back home, fed his ferret, got undressed, and went to sleep.

And in that relatively normal life, he had most certainly not accounted for time he might spent thinking about a certain brown haired boy by the name of Dan, who he'd encountered only twice, but still felt almost painfully important: as if Dan was just going to slip past him if he didn't hold on tight, but Phil found himself stuck with no idea as to why and how he should be holding on.

Because he didn't have Dan's phone number, he didn't even know his last name - he simply knew that he was called Dan and he liked art and photography, and that he was unreasonably self-conscious about his naturally curly hair. He also knew what school Dan went to, but it really wasn't like he was going to stand outside the gate and ambush him or anything, because doing so would seriously run the risk of him looking like a pedophile.

Not that Phil could technically be a pedophile, being seventeen, after all, and not that a one year age difference between the two of them really counted for much. And not that they were even romantically interested in each other, because they weren't, or at least, that's what Phil felt insistent upon telling himself.

They were just friends, although Phil didn't quite know whether he could really count someone he'd met twice as his friend, but they really had just clicked, and Phil desperately wanted to get to know Dan better, regardless of how pathetic it made him feel.

It wasn't like Phil didn't already have friends, anyway - he had his college friends: Adam and Sophia, who he was in fact relatively close to and actually liked, and there was no logical reason for him to care so much about this random guy he'd met literally twice, but he did, and the reality of it all was something he struggled to stomach.

And something he struggled harder with was not thinking about Dan excessively, because he'd deemed that a little creepy and reckoned that Dan wouldn't exactly appreciate it if he found out - not that he would, likely, but still, Phil considered himself to be a good person, but it was evident that he was perhaps not as good at being a good person as he wanted to be.

Phil had this coursework to finish - coursework that was due in two days time, coursework that had been set two weeks prior, coursework he was struggling to start. And he knew just how much this was all his own fault, but still, he sat there on his bedroom floor with his unfinished coursework laid out messily in front of him and his laptop to his side: playing some Vampire Weekend, well it had been Vampire Weekend, but now Phil found himself sat there listening to an advert for Toyota.

By the time he'd reached the next ad break in his music listening experience, he found himself having written only three more words and indeed giving up entirely: putting down his apparent uselessness to a lack of inspiration, and with that gave himself an excuse to get up and do something else, putting off his media coursework until tomorrow - the day before it was due, and yes, Phil knew how much of a bad idea that was, and yes, current Phil knew how much future Phil would hate himself for it, but still, in his defense, you were supposed to have regular breaks when working, weren't you? Phil doubted that it counted when you hadn't actually done any work, though.

He shut his laptop lid and got up from the floor, well, attempted to, as in the process of attempting to do so, he discovered that one of his legs had died, along with his motivation, as he'd tried to do his coursework, and nearly fell over again, which was, to put it crudely, fucking wonderful.

He did manage to make it downstairs safely, however, which was something he did in fact find himself genuinely surprised by, which really wasn't a good thing, but neither was continuing to neglect your coursework, so in the schemes of things it hardly mattered at all.