Misfit (Phan AU)

Chapter Four

*Dan's POV*

To be perfectly honest, after meeting Phil I was counting down the days until he'd be moving in with me. Mostly for the purpose of taking advantage of every single second I had remaining until I gave up my privacy for good, but also because it was nice having something to actually mark on my calendar for a change. It just looked stupid having it hang on the wall with absolutely nothing marked on any of the dates, not from lack of use, but from lack of possibility to use in the first place. I didn't exactly get out much.

The day I woke up and both the paper and my phone screen alerted me I had a matter of hours before he'd be showing up, I came to the sudden realization that I hadn't prepared at all. I'd been watching the hours tick by before it came to this so intently I hadn't even thought about what I still had to get done before it happened. So that's how I spent my Saturday morning, rushing around the apartment with my hair sticking up in all directions and a serious lack of clothing.

It wasn't just a matter of tidying things up on the surface like you would for guests either, Phil was going to be living here. He'd see anything I stuffed under the couch or shoved into the closet to deal with later. So I was forced to put things away and clean up after myself for the last year of living alone. 

Of course there'd been failed roommate attempts between now and then, but I hadn't really cared enough about any of them to go through this. I knew even when I agreed to live with them that it wouldn't last, that it'd be pointless to try and make it. Most times I was lucky to get even a month of split rent out of them. The difference with Phil was that I didn't have a choice anymore. My income was at an all-time low and if I didn't have someone to split the rent with, I certainly wouldn't be able to pay it myself.

Actually, when I really put thought into it, that's probably not the only thing different about Phil. It's not really something you can easily describe, he's just different than all the others. They walked into the living together situation about as hopeful as I was for it to work out. Phil, on the other hand, he really seems to have high hopes for us becoming best friends for life or something. I hope he isn't too disappointed when I inevitably ignore all his calls and reject his offers to braid my hair and cook for me.

I don't even understand why he's so persistent about this whole friendship thing. There's a million better people he could meet and just invite them over, he doesn't have to befriend me just because we're living together. I'm nothing like him, we have nothing in common, and I don't even have an interest in befriending him in the first place.

He doesn't seem to want to take no for an answer though, my phone swarmed with failed conversation attempts over the course of the last few days. He's definitely determined, I'll give him that. He's done everything from try and start getting-to-know-each-other games like twenty-one questions to inviting me to a dinner of my choice and offering to pay for everything. Of course I haven't replied to a single one of his offers, not wanting to encourage him, but the texts just keep piling up.

It confused me the first time I got one of them, the day after we'd met. I didn't recognize the number and I was tempted to block it, before actually taking the time to read the message. Apparently he'd had some horrible mishap with his phone, though he'd managed to get it replaced in just over twenty-four hours. It took little math skills to realize that meant his phone got destroyed just before he met up with me, making me a strange twinge of guilt when I thought about how short I'd been with him for being late. I guess it is possible he had reasoning behind it. I should have been more considerate. Then again, if the roles were reversed, he wouldn't be considerate of me, would he?

Yes, he would. Sure, I might have been able to say that for everyone else I've interviewed, but not Phil. Phil would have cared what happened, probably even sit there and listen to my rant and complain about every little mishap. That's one of the reasons why he's different from him. It's hard to say how he's different from them, because he's absolutely nothing like those careless deadbeats. He's... good. Way too good to live in a world like this, much less with people like me.