Chapter Text
The headset Dan is wearing beeps in his ear, signaling an incoming call. He braces himself, takes a deep breath, and hits ‘accept.’
“Hey, there, baby. What can I do for you tonight?” He uses his best phone sex voice, which he thinks is probably the furthest thing from sexy, but it seems to work.
The man on the other end of the line starts telling him all the things he’d want to do to Dan if he was there, and Dan can finish the call without doing much more than humming a few times and saying ‘oh yeah?’ in that voice that makes him cringe but seems to be doing it for the caller.
The call takes a total of twenty minutes, which is shorter than most of his calls, but that’s 60 more pounds than he had when he answered, so it’s really not the worst thing.
He stands once he’s logged off and stretches, hearing various joints pop and crack. Spending most of his night sitting isn’t the best thing for his body, but he supposes he could be digging ditches or pouring cement.
The break room is bleak; there’s a cracked coffee pot that needs cleaning out and the shitty fluorescent lights flicker so much it gives Dan a headache, but he digs his sandwich out of the fridge and sits at the table.
Tamara, a middle aged lady that works a few desks away from Dan, grunts her hello as she pulls out her own lunch.
“How’s it going?” he asks through a mouth full of peanut butter and jelly. Normally, he wouldn’t socialize, but she was the first person he’d met at work and he’d kind of grown a soft spot for her.
“It’s going,” she replies, slurping some soup off her spoon. “My last four callers have all been over 30 minutes, so that’s something right.”
“Nice. Mine’s twenty so far. I’d like something longer, but,” he shrugs and she sniggers a little.
“What?!?” he asks, and she just shakes her head, making her thick, black curls bounce around her face.
“I’m sure you would like something longer,” she says under her breath, and her infectious laugh fills the room when he gives her an incredulous look.
“Don’t leave!” she protests as Dan stands and stuffs the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth, throwing the cellophane in the garbage.
“I have to go find a new work friend who won’t insult me.” He gives her a light punch in the arm and smiles to let her know that he’s not actually upset. She just rolls her eyes a bit and goes back to her soup while Dan trudges back to his desk.
-
His shift ends just a little after five in the morning, and Dan has to try and resist not falling asleep on the tube on the way home. The walk isn’t too far, but it’s cold outside and Dan desperately wishes he didn’t live so far from the tube, or that he could afford to just take a cab. He might make three pounds a minute, but that certainly didn’t translate into his paycheck.
The building he lives in is nicer than the first one he’d moved into after he’d run off to London after dropping out of uni, but not by too much. He can only afford so much for rent without having to depend on a roommate, so some sacrifices have to be made.
He checks his mail at the little mail box room at the front and starts to climb the stairs to the third floor where he lives. The lift had only worked for two days when he’d first moved in, but he really shouldn’t complain; it’s the most exercise he gets most days.
There is a crash from behind him and he halts to check what it was.
A guy, probably around Dan’s age or a little older, is laying against the stairs where he obviously just tripped and dropped a few boxes.
“You okay?”
The guy looks up and blushes when he sees Dan and nods.
“Yeah, sorry. I’m clumsy in general, let alone when I’m trying to carry boxes up some stairs."
Dan waits for a beat before mentally sighing and moving back down the stairs. “Need some help?” he offers, holding out his hand.
The man stares at it for a second, before taking it gingerly and standing back up.
“Thanks,” he says quietly. His eyes are probably the prettiest blue Dan has ever seen, and it takes him a few seconds to realize he still has the guy’s hand clasped in his own and is staring, probably creeping the guy out.
“Shit, sorry,” he mumbles, pulling his hand away. “Do you need any help carrying stuff up?”
He’s not sure why he’s feeling so helpful. Maybe it’s just because he’s tired, or that he remembers having to haul boxes up too many flights of stairs. Maybe it’s just how pretty his new neighbor is.
“That would be great!” he says, picking up the box he’d dropped and handing it to Dan. It’s not really even that heavy, but it’s awkward, and he can understand how easy it would be to trip with it. He hopes he won’t do the same thing and embarrass himself more than he already has.
The stranger picks up another box and starts up the steps, Dan falling into step beside him.
“I’m Phil, by the way.” He tries to hold his hand out and almost drops his box, so he just gives Dan a sheepish grin.
“Dan,” he says in reply.
They fall into silence as they trek up the stairs, but he can tell that Phil wants to say more. He keeps opening and closing his mouth and it annoys Dan a little, but it somehow also makes him want to ask what he wants to say.
“Why are you moving so early in the morning?” he finally asks, and he thinks he might hear Phil sigh in relief.
“I’m a bit of a night owl. I was too anxious about moving, so I couldn’t sleep. Figured I might as well start the process.”
“Mmm,” Dan hums. “What part of the north are you from?”
“How did you know I’m from the north!?”
Dan raises his eyebrows and quirks a smile. “Mate, with that accent?”
Phil’s cheeks go pink again, and Dan has an errant thought about how pretty he is, before he’s trying to focus on what Phil is saying.
“I’m from around Manchester. I just finished my second Master’s degree at York and thought it was time to leave home.” He sounds sad about it, which seems a bit silly to Dan, who left home the minute he could.
“Second Master’s degree?” He can’t keep the disbelief out of his voice. Who gets two degrees? Dan couldn’t even finish one, he thinks bitterly.
“Yeah,” he says, voice still a bit sad. “I wasn’t ready to be an adult yet, so I figured I’d get another degree.”
They finally make it to the landing of the third floor, and Phil leads the way to the apartment that is apparently his, which Dan is surprised to find is only two doors down from his own. Phil has to set the box down and pat down all his pockets before he finds the key and unlocks it.
The room looks almost identical to Dan’s, except it’s empty, save for the small stack of boxes Phil’s managed to bring up by himself. Dan sets down his own load and looks around, feeling a bit awkward now that he doesn’t have something to distract himself from staring at Phil.
“Do you need any more help?” His mind is warring because part of Dan hopes he does so they can keep talking, but the larger part is absolutely knackered and is more than ready for bed.
“No, I can get them. They’re light.”
Dan nods and waits for a bit before giving him a little two finger salute and making his way out and to his own shoddy apartment.
-
The next night at work drags by, with only four calls coming through his line. He spends most of his shift scrolling through Twitter and tumblr, seeing the same ten posts twenty times before he gives up and just rests his head on his arms.
His headset beeps and he sits up, clearing his throat and accepts the call.
“Hey, there, baby. Tell me what I can do for you,” he purrs, cringing at the falseness of his own tone.
The voice that answers is timid and it takes Dan back for a second.
“I’m just -” the voice starts and then stops. “I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
“Just tell me what you want,” he says, letting some of his natural voice seep into his words. The person on the other end seems timid, and Dan knows how easy it is to scare someone like that away.
The man sighs and Dan can hear the puff of breath hit the speaker. “I guess I just wanted someone to talk to, but maybe this wasn’t the best option.”
His voice is vaguely familiar, but not one that he’s heard enough to be able to place. He pushes past it, though. “We can talk,” Dan says, completely dropping the tone. “We can talk about whatever you want.”
He waits with bated breath to see if they will hang up, but he can hear them moving around on the other end.
“I guess I’m just lonely,” he finally says. “I just moved to a new town and I don’t know anyone.”
Dan feels his chest tighten a bit, the words hitting a little too close to home. He flounders around to try and find something that he can say that will actually help without getting into trouble by giving out too much personal information.
“Why did you move?”
The man makes an ‘I don’t know’ sound, and Dan can imagine it was said with a shoulder shrug. “I finished uni and I didn’t have anything better to do. And I needed to get away from my parents. They were suffocating me.”
Dan chuckles a little and then clears his throat. “What did you go to uni for?”
“Boring stuff. Like English and Linguistics and some other stuff.”
“Sounds smart.” There’s only a small part of him that is jealous and bitter about how everyone else seems more successful than he is, but he swallows it. Now is not the time or place for him to wallow in his own failures.
“I guess,” the voice chuckles a little. “I mostly did it to keep from having to grow up.”
Something about that makes something register in Dan’s head as familiar, but he ignores it, sure that it’s probably just from one of the sitcoms he leaves playing in his apartment to keep the quiet from getting too loud.
“What do you like to do for fun?”
“Really, like, embarrassing stuff, like video games and watching old tv.”
“What video games?” He’s not supposed to reveal much about himself, because most people aren’t going to pay three pounds a minute to talk to some lanky nerd from Reading, but Dan figures that he can probably fudge the rules a little tonight.
“I don’t know, kinda everything. I’ve been replaying Final Fantasy V lately and that’s been cool.”
“I love that game,” Dan replies, surprised by how genuine his voice has become.
“Reminds me of my childhood.” There’s a chuckle on the other end of the line, and it makes something warm settle in Dan’s tummy.
He’s getting ready to ask a few more questions when the timer next to his elbow goes off. They’d somehow talked for almost an hour, and Dan hadn’t even realized it was almost time for him to leave.
“I have to end the call,” Dan says sadly. It’s the first time since he started his job that he doesn’t want to end a phone call.
“Oh, okay. Thanks for listening to me.”
“It was my pleasure.”
There’s a beat of silence before Dan clears his throat and says his goodbye, feeling oddly disappointed.
-
Dan is checking his mailbox when he hears footsteps coming down the stairs. He turns a little to see who it is and feels a weird sense of excitement that it’s Phil coming down the stairs.
“Oh, Dan. Hi.” Phil looks excited to see Dan, and it makes him flush a little.
“‘Lo, Phil.” Dan looks back to his mail, cheeks a little pink. “Still too excited to sleep?” he jokes as Phil takes his place next to Dan to pick up his own mail.
“No, I just stayed up all night-” He hesitates for a second before starting again, flushed a deep red. He clears his throat. “I was talking on the phone with a friend. I lost track of time.”
He feels a weird sense of deja vu listening to Phil talk, but he can’t for the life of himself figure out why.
“That’s nice.” Dan turns and starts to head up the steps to his apartment, Phil right on his heels.
“Were you at work?” Phil asks, riffling through the papers in his hands.
“Yeah,” he replies, not bothering to elaborate more. He’s not exactly keen on people knowing his profession.
“Oh, hey!” Phil says, pointing to the Final Fantasy key chain attached to Dan’s key ring. “I love Final Fantasy!”
Something slots together in his brain, and he’s suddenly sure he remembers where he’s heard the voice from his phone call at work. The reality that it could have been his new neighbor that called into a sex chat line and spoke with him for nearly an hour is too much for his brain to handle.
“I’m sorry, I have to go,” Dan says, hurrying up the last few steps and booking it to his door. He unlocks it and bolts inside, resting against the door and letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
Of all the apartment complexes in London, of course he ends up next to a client. A client with pretty blue eyes and good taste in video games and -
Fuck, Dan realizes. He might have a crush.