Jealous? (Dan Howell/Phil Lester x reader)

12: Lunch is for Losers

Dan's POV

"Lunch, Phil??"

"I thought you wanted to be supportive!"

"I do. I actually think it's not a bad idea that we'd all hang out together, but lunch? "

"What's wrong with lunch??"

I stopped pacing between the TV and the coffee table and pinched the bridge of my nose, frowning. What's wrong with lunch, he asked. Phil Lester, everybody: actually the most socially oblivious person on the planet. I might be an anxious mess failing to pronounce full sentences with accurate grammatical structure and unable to control the motions of my limbs while publicly interacting with humans, but at least I knew the theory. I took a deep breath and turned to face Phil, who was uncomprehendingly gaping at me from the sofa.

"Phil, listen. Listen carefully okay? I am going to explain to you everything wrong with this scenario. What you want is a casual get-together that says something along the lines of 'we are in a low-pressure environment with minimal requirements for etiquette, that will allow for casual conversations and jokes while providing maximum opportunity to mask awkward silences so they don't stand out'. That is not lunch, PHIL. Lunch is a social trap, okay?"

Phil's POV

Uh-oh. Now I'd done it, apparently. Dan was off on a rant. He was loud and making wild gestures with his hands. 

"Lunch is a social trap, okay?"

"How is it a trap??" I asked throwing my hands up.

"Look, Phil, there are three good reasons for lunch: you've been dating for a while and you're too short on time for a proper date for a while but still want to make the effort, you're going on a first date to humor the other person but you're really already expecting it to flop so you pick something that doesn't last long and will probably create awkward moments if you have nothing to really talk about, or you're good friends and don't like eating alone. For anything else lunch is a social death trap. There's utensils, Phil. Utensils. This is literally just setting yourself up for failure. Do you want to be the clumsy idiot who stabs himself in the eye with cutlery within the first five minutes? There's food. You and I both know that at least one of us is going to choke on a potato or snort food through our nose while laughing too hard at our own unfunny joke. Imagine this girl trying to perform a Heimlich maneuver on you, Phil. She probably can't even properly reach up to your waist because you're such a fucking giant. No, no, no no. Lunch is a v bad idea."

Oh gosh, Dan was right! I could see all kinds of horrible scenarios play out in my mind, all of which now ended with Y/N rolling her eyes walking out on us like the losers we were while Dan was desperately thumping my chest, trying to get me to stop dying horribly from a rogue bite of potato.

"Well.. what do you suggest?" I asked a little panicked.

"Drinks, in the evening, at a low key cool bar. Not so cool to be too fancy and intimidating, but cool enough not to lack decent music and be full of old creeps. A bit of alcohol to make conversation smoother, if it turns out to be no fun you can use the 'it's late already' excuse, if the conversation happens to drop dead you can always make it less awkward by pretending to just be enjoying the music instead of not knowing what to say or even use it as a conversation topic. Trust me, Phil."

"I think you're right but we kind of already agreed to lunch..."

"Oh for fuck's sake Phil, just tell her you had an appointment you forgot about but that we're free for drinks in the evening, Jesus."

I grabbed my phone to text Y/N.

-"Hey, sorry, I forgot I'm not free at lunch, but we're free in the evening! Wanna go for a drink instead?"

I heard the bleep of a reply almost immediately.

-"Sure! I know a nice place around here if you'd like to avoid the exposure of central London ;-)"

I showed the text to Dan. "Should we let her pick?"

"Ugh, sure.. But if it's not low key cool, I'm leaving!"