Chapter Text
Phil was so hungover. His head was pounding and his limbs ached as he forced himself to walk up the hill that separated his house from the main part of campus. He shouldn’t have done those last few shots last night, but it had been the first weekend of second semester and PJ had really wanted them to take a shot at every bar they went to. Their monthly bar hopping nights had been dragging on Phil as of late. As graduation approached, PJ was getting wilder and more determined to have the craziest second semester ever. Phil, on the other hand, felt like he was sinking, and he didn’t know how to confess this to PJ – that he was tired, that he feared failing, that he felt more and more frustrated with his friends every day.
This morning he felt like he was literally sinking, his knees buckling slightly as he trudged up the hill for his 10:30 AM class. It was his sociology class, which made it better, but it was about the role of media and art in society, which made it worse. Phil wasn’t sure how he was feeling about art these days.
When Phil finally reached the building his class was in, he stopped to smoke a cigarette. He’d started smoking as a freshman – another stupid decision he let himself be guided into making by his friends – and he’d been trying to quit for years. He’d recently weaned himself onto just Nicorette gum, and hadn’t bought a pack all year, but he caved and bought one just last week. It was a bleak and dreary January morning, which felt like an appropriate punishment. Winter days had always made him hate himself for being a smoker, and this one was no exception.
He stopped when his cigarette was only halfway gone, finding that he hated the taste more than he liked it this morning. He flicked the remains onto the ground, stepped on it to put it out, and then reached down to pick it up again. On his way into the building he threw the stub into the nearby trash can.
Emma was waiting for him on the bench by the classroom door, like always.
“You look beautiful,” she said, looking up at him through her baseball cap and dark sunglasses.
Phil popped his hip, modeling his gray sweatpants and long-sleeved top. “Thanks, I spent a lot of time on myself this morning.”
“More like spent time over the toilet,” Emma groaned, slouching back into herself.
“Are you also so hungover you want to cry?” he asked, sitting down next to her.
“Yes. But honestly, it was worth it. Last night was so rad.”
Phil forced a smile, fiddling with the sleeves of his shirt. They were a dark pink, which he loved, but he was waiting for PJ to give him shit for it. “Yeah.”
“PJ already posted some pictures on Facebook. Check it out.” Emma dug into the pocket of her striped pants and pulled out her phone. She spent a full minute fiddling with her hat and sunglasses to get them out of her eyes before pulling up Facebook and passing the phone to Phil.
Phil took it and studied the photo on the screen. It was of him, Emma, PJ, and the rest of PJ’s crew standing with their arms around each other, their faces glowing and eyes dim from alcohol, the flash causing the outlines of their bodies to stand out against the dark atmosphere of the bar behind them. Phil stared at himself. He was wearing high-waisted torn jeans, a plain white t-shirt with a plain long-sleeve shirt draped over his shoulders. His hair was shorn into a mop-top haircut, his straight black hair sticking out from his scalp and barely even reaching the side of his head. This was not an image of himself that he recognized, but he knew it was an accurate representation of what he looked like now. It was just a very different Phil than the one who had arrived in the U.S. at age 18, fresh-faced and excited about doing art in a country with so many opportunities. That Phil had believed an American liberal arts school was the key to his success. Today’s Phil was exhausted, hungover, and raccoon-eyed from sleep deprivation.
Emma tapped his shoulder, causing him to jump slightly. “Geez, you’re high-strung,” she snorted. “We should probably go to class. It starts in two minutes.”
“Oh, yeah,” Phil said, handing her phone back to her and following her around the corner. People had been passing them while they sat there, but he hadn’t even noticed.
This was definitely his favorite class. It was called Media and Mediation, and focused on the role of media and art in shaping societal norms and reinforcing or subverting power structures. Phil had fallen into sociology classes by accident, taking one when he was Freshman because PJ had. It was about feminism; PJ had hated it, but Phil was fascinated. It had given him several existential crises and caused his brain to expand, and he craved more.
Now, being a senior and a sociology major, he knew almost everyone in the department. This class contained many regulars that he’d had multiple classes with. He found that when different people raised their hands to speak, he could always immediately identify their names and a fact about them: Kenneth, who had worked orientation week this year; Lilly, who had gotten in trouble before for speaking without thinking; Mel, who also did studio art.
There was only one person in the class that Phil wasn’t personally familiar with, and as the professor continued to ask questions and prompt discussion on the readings he didn’t do Phil found himself obsessed with trying to place him. This person sat in the back right corner of the room, almost directly across the table from Phil. Phil remembered from their introductions at the first class that his name was Dan, and he used he/him pronouns. Sitting in his chair, Dan looked rumpled and small, even though Phil knew Dan was just as tall as he was. He was wearing a black sweatshirt with too-long sleeves and a oversized hood. He was also looking down at the table and not saying anything.
Phil tried to tune in to class discussion, but his hungover brain just wasn’t in for it today. He felt bad – this professor was nice and had once given him an extension on a paper. Today they were discussing the potential dangers of social media as platforms that encourage users to create content for free. It was an interesting topic, but kept making Phil think back to that photo of him from last night. He had barely recognized himself.
His eyes shifted back to Dan, and along the way he noticed that Emma was trying to get his attention. She was slouched down, her long red hair now tucked into a bun inside her baseball cap, giving Phil a smirk. She had noticed him staring at Dan. Phil could feel his face turning warm, but he ignored her baiting smile and instead allowed himself to study Dan again. He loved Emma, he really did, but she tended to turn everything into a joke. Phil wanted to be curious about Dan without it meaning something to her.
Class ended after an excruciatingly long ninety minutes. Emma immediately stood up and gestured to Phil, signaling that he should follow her out into the hall. But he ignored her again, and watched as Dan clumsily gathered his things, dropping his phone and folder onto the floor. Maybe it was the lingering hangover, or the bad smoke, or the way that Emma was smirking at him, but Phil felt an overwhelming urge to ditch his friends for lunch and eat with Dan instead. He didn’t even know him, or if he’d say yes, but he had to at least try. He waved goodbye to Emma, and instead walked over to where Dan was still fumbling with his backpack in the corner. Emma flipped him off as she left the room.
“Hey,” Phil said, and he almost startled himself with how gravely his voice sounded.
Dan’s head snapped up, and his eyes displayed a deer-in-headlights quality. “Hi.” Phil immediately felt himself relax when he heard Dan’s voice. He also had a British accent, which Phil had learned when he’d spoken in class for the first time. It had immediately made him like Dan, maybe just because he longed so much for something familiar.
“You’re Dan, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Phil.”
Dan swung his backpack over his shoulder and looked at Phil again. “Yeah, I remember.”
It made Phil’s stomach feel warm to think that Dan had remembered his name too. “How are you liking this class?”
Dan shrugged. “I…I like it. So far. I’m looking forward to the unit on rap.”
Phil nodded. Dan seemed nervous, and Phil knew he wasn’t the best at small talk. The classroom was completely empty now, so Phil took a deep breath and forced himself to speak boldly and calmly. “I know this is super random, but are you free right now? Would you want to get lunch and talk about the class?”
Dan hadn’t displayed much on his face, his eyes sticking to their half-glazed half-fearful look, but at that he smiled. “Uh, yeah. Sure. Want to get coffee?”
Phil smiled back. “Perfect.”
They walked out of the classroom in awkward silence. Phil started to race through multiple possible conversation starters in his head.
“So why’d you pick this class?” he asked, then instantly hated himself for choosing the most basic one. “Is it just because you like rap?”
“Well, partly. It’s more that I love music. But I also wanted to think about it in a different way, you know?”
“Totally. Are you a music major?”
Dan’s face became slack for a moment, and Phil wondered if he had hit a touchy subject. He was certainly no stranger to avoiding talk about majors.
“Uh, yeah,” Dan said eventually. “I’m a music major. But I’m, uh, thinking of switching to sociology actually.”
“Oh, cool! I’m a sociology major. It’s really fun, and you get to take courses on a wide variety of topics.”
Dan perked up at that. “That’s awesome to hear!”
Phil liked Dan’s smile, he decided. It was large and teeth-y and startlingly white against his all-black ensemble. He wanted to keep seeing it, so he decided that maybe the major conversation wasn’t so bad of a choice, even if he needed to carefully dodge some specific questions that Dan might ask him.
They left the building and walked across campus towards the café, separate from the main cafeteria. This building had lots of windows, allowing the inside to be full of light, which Phil liked, and a patio that was usually packed, but not during this time of year. Phil was about to ask Dan another question about his major dilemma when Dan grabbed Phil’s hand. It wasn’t a hand holding grab, as Dan didn’t weave his fingers through Phil’s, but still he could feel Dan’s entire palm as it curled around Phil’s hand. This alarmed him greatly, as Dan hadn’t stood that near to him as they were walking. Before Phil could say anything, Dan tugged him to the side and rerouted them towards an area covered with trees.
“Whoa, what are you doing?” Phil managed to say as Dan pulled him behind one of the tree trunks, letting go of his hand.
“You want to make out, right?”
Phil felt his face turning red again. “What?”
“You want to make out,” Dan repeated. His face remained alarmingly pale in comparison to Phil’s, although he was also huffing a little. “I noticed you looking at me today. You stared at me for basically all of class.”
That made Phil turn scarlet. “You noticed ?” he squeaked. Of course, he had been so stupid to think that Dan was really looking down the whole time, or that he couldn’t see Phil out of the corner of his eye.
Dan smiled. “Yeah. And I’m down if you are.” Dan started to move quickly, or it might have been that time sped up, and Phil struggled to register what was happening as he saw Dan’s face move closer to his. He was embarrassed, because here was a cute boy who wanted to hook up with him, and that’s not what he wanted, even though Phil knew that’s what he should want. Everything about him – his clothes, his friends, his major – said that should be what he wanted. And he had wanted that in the past, bulldozing through his friend group Freshman and Sophomore year until there was hardly a single person he hadn’t at least made out with. But he felt tired now, and so different.
“Wait,” Phil managed to gasp, just as Dan’s lips were about to touch his. He grabbed Dan’s shoulders and wrenched him backwards. “No, I…this wasn’t what I wanted. I wasn’t trying to get you to hook up with me. I was staring at you in class, I admit. And that’s super embarrassing that you noticed, but…. I just thought you looked nice. And also cute. But I mostly I was thinking that you looked just as tired as I feel. I wanted to get to know you.”
“Oh,” Dan said, and then it became painfully silent. “I’m sorry,” Dan muttered, and even though he matched Phil’s height he began to shrink again, sinking like Phil was this morning. “God, I’m such an idiot.”
“No,” Phil interjected. “It’s fine. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s all good. I’d still like to get lunch if you would–”
“I’m just not great at reading signals, you know?” Dan blurted out, cutting Phil off. His voice grew high, and his fidgeting increased to a pace that told Phil he was panicking slightly. “I’ve really been wanting to hook up with some guys, and it’s so goddamn hard to know who’s interested and who’s not. And when I saw you staring at me I thought, this must be it, and I just went for it, you know? Which I know is probably stupid, but you’re this popular senior and it’s so hard to come into the scene as a freshman and so I thought–”
“Wait,” Phil said, his heart rising to his throat. “You’re a freshman ?”
Dan stared at him for a moment, and then said, “Yes. I thought you knew that?”
“No, I–” Phil’s train of thought was interrupted by a noise that he heard to his left. He turned to see that a group of people had noticed them in the trees were staring and, to his great horror, giggling. They’d definitely heard his and Dan’s conversation. “Shit,” Phil said, turning to look at Dan again. He still looked like he was panicking, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes cast downwards. “I’m going to get so much shit for this.”
- - -
Phil ran home after that. He felt bad leaving Dan standing there, clearly embarrassed and ashamed, but Phil was embarrassed himself. A cute guy had wanted to hook up with him, and he was running away?
Dan’s age only made it worse, of course. Dan wasn’t lying when he’d said that Phil was a popular senior. Phil had made friends with PJ during orientation week freshman year, and PJ-the-extrovert immediately adopted Phil-the-introvert into the “cool” art crowd. Phil had loved art even before starting college. Back in Rossendale he’d done art for his GSCEs and thought he was rather good. He was creative , he knew that. But a lot of the art crowd here were talented in a way that Phil feared he wasn’t. He had made friends with watercolor painters and sketch artists – and PJ, who was an amazing doodler. And the truth was, Phil couldn’t draw for shit.
But Phil was considered artsy and cool, and he’d found a good amount of social capital in the queer art crowd, and then there was Dan, who was a freshman – “Shit!” Phil’s spiral of panicked thoughts was interrupted by a sudden stitch in his side. He had been running, sprinting away from the trees,towards his house, and even though running downhill was easier than walking up it he still found himself doubling over in pain. He was not fit. And the years of smoking hadn’t helped, either.
He half-fell, half-sat down into the grass, and cradled his head in his hands. There was little consensus on whether it was okay to hook up with freshman. Emma was a strong proponent of the mantra, “freshman are friends, not food.” PJ was okay with it, as long as you just wanted sex and nothing else. The hook up culture was dizzying here, especially inside their friend group, and though Phil had found great enjoyment in it early on, now he was 22, about to graduate. He didn’t recognize himself in photos anymore. He was tired. And maybe he had run away because he liked Dan, thought he seemed nice, just wanted a friend. Phil kept picturing Dan’s panicked face when Phil had pushed him backwards. His eyes, which Phil had previously only seen look either terrified or happy, looked sad, the corners drooping downwards. His hair, which was long and straightened like Phil’s, fell over his forehead, and he’d looked so lost. He didn’t want to watch PJ make fun of him like he did with everyone else.
When Phil got home, he immediately turned his phone off, not wanting to deal with anything his friends might want to say to him right now. Since that had been his only class of the day, he decided to skip all social events and instead lie in his bed and listen to an old Paramore album. It wasn’t the kind of music he’d break out in front of his friends, but sometimes he liked listening to it in his own time. It reminded him of exploring Manchester with his friends from sixth form, and going on long car rides with his brother. He thought about getting up, about going outside, about actually doing something – but where would he go? This school was far too small for him to avoid any mention of what had happened with Dan. And every spot on this campus was now marked with three and half years of memories that Phil didn’t know how to feel about. He could go to his art studio, but – no. He couldn’t even think about the disaster that was waiting for him there.