DEADROSES | PHAN

-ˏˋ fifteen ˎˊ-

☾ ☽

"what's got your head in the clouds?"

eliza ripped open another box with the safety scissors phil immensely regretted giving to her.

"what? nothing."

she looked up at him from under her bangs, her eyebrows raised.

"you're a shitty liar." she paused, as if considering it. "and person," she added nonchalantly. phil rolled his eyes.

"i haven't got my head in the clouds," he muttered. "and shut up."

usually, phil would have hit her with an insult much worse than 'shut up', but he was being cautious. she was just seeming to warm back up to him, and he didn't want to take a chance. christ could that girl hold a grudge. it was too bad phil couldn't stay mad to save his life.

she shrugged, her mousy hair falling over her shoulders.

"you haven't said a word, and you keep staring off." she grabbed another stack of books from the box she had just opened, setting them on the counter with a dull thunk. she slid them to phil.

he glanced at the first cover as he opened it to stamp the title page. beautiful freckled sleepy- wait, shit. that wasn't the title- phil shook his head, disoriented. a history of greek gods. not even close.

"phil! are you even listening to me-?"

phil blinked, looking up at eliza abruptly. she shook her head.

"thank you for proving my point." she grabbed the book phil was holding, smacking him lightly over the head with it. "you're distracted. is it dan?"

at the name phil practically jumped to attention.

"what? no." his voice shook unconvincingly. eliza rolled her eyes.

"there's no shame in thinking about him, phil. i mean, he's gorgeous." she scrunched her nose. "and weird."

"maybe you're thinking about him," phil shot back childishly, his voice nothing more than a low grumble. eliza actually laughed.

"you're kidding, right?" she stopped working to look at him incredulously. "first of all, we aren't ten. second of all, why would i be? he doesn't live with me, and i'm asexual, if you've forgotten, idiot, so do not try to flip that on me, dumbass."

through her stream of insults, phil realized he had said something incredibly stupid, and there was no way eliza was dropping this for at least a week.

he stamped three extra books so he had a comeback when she inevitably called him lazy.

he never took any of this to heart, of course- it was just the way eliza was. she didn't mean to be mean, just blunt. and phil was fine with it, it was the way he had grown up.

"okay, alright, i was thinking about dan," he blurted, interrupting her mid-sentence. "can we drop it?"

her defensive expression melted into a smug grin. "sure. if you admit you're stupid."