The 5 times Phil Lester dated the wrong girl, and the one time he didn’t date a girl at all
Warnings: Mild homophobia
Genre: Light angst and fluff
Summary: In which Dan silently pines and Phil doesn't notice what's been right in front of him the whole time.
i. When the girl was too mean
Phil Lester met his first girlfriend in primary school, and after 32 great minutes, he broke up with his first girlfriend in primary school.
Phil decided that primary school was the best thing since sliced bread within the first hour of being there. The second he walked through the door he and his mum were greeted by a young woman with brown hair that bounced on her shoulders as she scurried excitedly towards them.
“Hello! I’m Miss Hopkins, lovely to meet you!” Her voice was bright and enthusiastic. “This is little Phil Lester, isn’t it?” She reached her hand down to shake Phil’s tiny one.
Phil flashed a toothy smile- albeit slightly less toothy as it would normally be, he had lost his first tooth just the day before- at his teacher, before responding. “Yes! Hello Miss Hopkins! What are we gonna do today?” For the next few minutes the bubbly brunette filled Phil and his mother in on the plans for the day, which sounded amazing to Phil. They were going to read ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, Phil’s favourite book of all time, play in the playground for 60 whole minutes, and colour in any picture from the colouring book that they wanted to.
Phil was gently shading in a drawing of a lion when he was interrupted by a voice.
“Your colouring is really good.” The little girl with red pigtails who had been sitting next to him for the whole day was smiling at him expectantly.
Phil looked at his drawing for a second, the orange was way out of the lines and he had only coloured in half of the lion’s foot. He didn’t think it was anything particularly astounding. Being the polite boy he was, however, he graciously accepted the compliment with a smile.
“Thank you.” He smiled at her but went back to colouring in straight after, determined to finish the shading before lunch break.
“So do you like lions?” the girl seemed eager to continue to talk to Phil. She had definitely picked the correct conversation starter to do so.
Phil perked up immediately. “Yes!! I love lions so much, they’re so brave but so cute... And their sharp teeth are SO cool!”
Phil and the girl ended up talking until the bell rang. In this time he learned that her name was Andy, her favourite colour was red, and she would listen to Phil rant about lions for a VERY long time.
He and Andy had just sat down in the playground, Phil about to take a large bite of his peanut butter sandwich when,
“Do you want to be my boyfriend?” Andy looked very hopeful and not nervous at all, surprisingly.
Phil had never had a girlfriend before, he wasn’t even exactly sure what it meant to be boyfriend and girlfriend. He did know, however that generally having a girlfriend led to marrying said girlfriend and therefore obtaining a wife, which Phil supposed was one of his end goals. Might as well start early. And Andy was pretty enough, nice enough and she did seem to enjoy each and every one of the facts Phil spurted out about lions.
“Yeah, okay! That could be fun.” Phil grinned and linked his hand with Andy’s. For the next 30 minutes Phil and Andy chatted happily, played on the monkey bars and took turns pushing each other on the swings. It was when Phil was pushing Andy on the swing that he spotted a small brown-haired boy sitting in the corner of the playground, alone. Phil felt something tug in his chest. No one should be alone in the playground, they should be having fun! Before he really thought about it properly, he was calling the small boy over. “Hello!” The boy’s head turned to Phil’s direction upon hearing the sudden noise. Good. Phil had caught his attention. “Yes, you! Come over here please, I want you to play with us!”
The timid boy looked like he would rather choke to death on his sandwich then come over to where Phil and Andy were, but out of fear, or politeness, or something he slowly walked over to the swings. “Hi! My name’s Phil and you just looked bored over there so I thought maybe you’d think the swings would be fun, yes? I’ll push you and everything. What’s your name?”
The boy seemed to let go of his initial suspicion a bit, and showed Phil a small smile. “Hi, so, um, my name is Dan.” he said as he sat down on the swing next to Andy’s.
He says things weirdly. Phil thought. But I like it.
Phil stopped pushing Andy on the swing in favour of pushing his new friend, Dan. Dan began to giggle a little as he went higher and higher into the air, until he was VERY rudely interrupted. “PHIL!!! WHY’D YOU STOP PUSHING ME?” Andy screeched. This was a new side of Andy Phil was seeing, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.
“Oh, sorry Andy. I thought I had pushed you for heaps already and Dan needs to be pushed now.” Evidently, this was not the right answer as upon hearing this, Andy huffed and roughly pushed Dan out of his swing. The thud that followed was worrying.
Phil didn’t enjoy the hot, red, bubbling feeling he was experiencing after seeing Dan be pushed out of the swing. He didn’t know what the feeling was called, he just knew he only really felt it when his brother called him names or when someone said that lions weren’t cool. “ANDY! That was really mean! I’m telling Miss Hopkins!” Phil stomped his foot on the tanbark, sending pieces of tanbark flying in several directions. Andy simply sniggered.
Phil lent down and reached his hand out for Dan to grab, helping him get up. He immediately brushed as much tanbark off Dan as he could, not noticing the blush that had taken residence on Dan’s face when Phil touched his hand. Phil felt so bad for the poor boy, Dan’s eyes had welled up with tears, his knees were grazed and he had a scratch on his cheek. “I’m so sorry Dan! I never wanted you to get hurt!” Phil began walking Dan to Miss Hopkins, who was on the other side of the playground, making sure kids weren’t peeing on the slide.
Phil could tell that Dan was trying to hold back tears. He wanted to comfort him as best as he could, this was Phil’s own fault!
“Andy is just a big meanie, you know.” Phil said intentionally loud enough for Andy to hear, and blew a raspberry in her direction. “And she’s not my girlfriend anymore.” Andy’s face had turned cherry red in anger and embarrassment, before she burst into tears. Dan laughed, his whole facing lighting up and that was when Phil made it his mission to be the cause of that sound as often as possible.
“Hey you wanna hear something cool about lions?” Dan nodded eagerly.
“I like them almost as much as I like you!” Phil beamed at Dan, not noticing the other boy’s blush.
Young Phil Lester would swear that he did truly love Andy for the 32 minutes of lunch time they were together. But for some reason, he enjoyed the last 28 minutes of lunch time a whole lot more.
ii. When Phil wasn’t the only one dating her
Phil didn’t have his next girlfriend until junior high. It wasn’t that he couldn’t get one, it just took him a while to realise that not all girls were evil after his first girlfriend. So here he found himself now, sorting through his entire wardrobe in search of the perfect shirt.
Phil threw the red plaid shirt behind him, onto his bedroom floor.
“This red is not the same red as the red on my converse…” Phil muttered bitterly.
“Phil, that’s literally the 17th shirt you’ve rejected today. I don’t think Casey will care that the red of your shirt doesn’t perfectly match with your converse.”
While most of the time Phil enjoyed his best friend’s snarky and sarcastic attitude that was saved just for him, now was not the time.
“Dan, this is my one month anniversary with Casey! Do you not realise how big of a deal that is?!”
Dan rolled over onto his side, getting comfortable on Phil’s bed and rolled his eyes. “Phil, you’re literally 12, a twelvie. We’re at the memeist age possible, don’t take yourself so seriously. You’re going to go to her house, walk to the cinema together, have a pleasant but average time and then go home. Not a big deal.”
Phil was quite used to the sarcastic and blunt nature of his best friend, but what he didn’t understand was why he always became so snappy whenever Phil so much as mentioned Casey. Casey was a nice girl, and actually nice, not Andy nice. She always made effort to talk to Dan as well as Phil whenever the three of them were together, and hadn’t pushed Dan off any playground objects, as far as Phil knew. The only logical conclusion Phil could come to was that Dan was jealous of the fact Phil had a girlfriend, and he didn’t. I think I would feel pretty crappy if Dan had a girlfriend and I didn’t, Phil mused.
Phil chose to ignore the rude words Dan had thrown at him and instead said,
“Dan, you’re jealous aren’t you?”
The brown haired boy whipped his head up so fast Phil thought he would get whiplash.
“N-No!” He exclaimed after a moment’s hesitation, not meeting Phil’s eyes. “That’s ridiculous Phil!”
Phil cooed at the blush that had spread over Dan’s cheeks. “No need to be so embarrassed, I’d be jealous too if you had a girlfriend and I didn’t. Being in a relationship is overrated anyway. You don’t need to be dating anyone right now, we are just ‘twelvies’ as you so beautifully put it.”
Dan seemed to contemplate something for a moment before replying.“O-Oh. Yeah, that’s what it was. I just really wish I had a girlfriend, I’m so lonely.” Dan nodded sadly at his friend.
“Dan, that’s okay! You’ll find some great girl soon, and she’s gonna be the luckiest girl in the world.” Phil ruffled Dan’s brown hair and ooh- when did it get so soft?- before picking his plaid shirt off the floor.
“You know, on second thought, this shirt DOES match my converse.”
Several hours later Dan was lying on his bed, My Chemical Romance blasting throughout his room. He felt the need to listen to hardcore emo music when he got home from Phil’s, and it had nothing to do with the fact that Phil was on a date with Casey. For the 13th time this month. Not that Dan was counting or anything.
Gerard Way’s belt of “We’ll carry ON!” had to be paused, for Dan heard a knock at the door. He checked the time. It was 9pm. Who would come visit him at this hour besides Phil- and he was on a date right now! Dan begrudgingly hopped out of bed and padded down the stairs. Whoever was at the door better have a good reason for turning up uninvited. What Dan didn’t expect to see when he opened the door was his best friend, eyes red and face crumpled, hunched over on his doorstep.
“Phil? What happened? Why aren’t you with Casey?”
This seemed to trigger something in Phil as tears began to well up in his blue eyes, and his chest began heaving. “Casey, she- she broke up with me.”
Dan had to mentally slap himself for feeling just a bit happy at hearing that. He closed the door behind Phil, pulling him into a hug. Dan was at a loss for words, so he just let Phil cry on his shoulder for a good few minutes. When Phil finally calmed down enough to talk properly, Dan prompted him for more details.
“She said that I was just her backup-backup boyfriend, and that she didn’t need to date me anymore since the guy she actually wanted to date finally asked her out. So not even her backup boyfriend, who was Jacob. He’s getting dumped tomorrow.” Phil’s voice held a sneer the entire time he was talking.
Dan was shocked. “What kind of a twat was she? I can’t believe she would betray you like that, I mean you’re literally the most perfect, cutest, kindest, funniest- um, yeah I mean how could she do that?”
Phil sadly shook his head. “I don’t know, Dan.”
“Well she’s a right twat, you know. And anyway, she never even liked Mario Kart. Speaking of, wanna play?”
Phil smiled for the first time since he had arrived at Dan’s house.
“Only if you’re okay with being beaten for the gazillionth time.”
iii. When the girl was homophobic, and just a little bit racist
Phil stopped sipping his strawberry milkshake and looked up at his best friend.
Dan flailed his arms around in a very over the top fashion, similar to how he would whenever they played Mario Kart.
“Oh great, Phil! Yep, after months of building up the courage to finally tell you this, exactly what I needed was a fucking two word response!”
Phil raised an eyebrow at his friend.
“Dan, don’t take this the wrong way, but I thought we both mutually knew that I knew you were gay when I found and read the page of your diary in freshman year that had the phrase “I’m gay and I don’t know what to do” written on it 50 times.”
Dan looked genuinely surprised. “But I told you that I wrote it to troll you, that it was a prank to see your reaction to me being gay and that it wasn’t real?”
Phil laughed, his head thrown back and his tongue poking out of his teeth. Adorable . Dan thought. “Did you honestly think I believed that? I thought you telling me it was a prank was one of those lies people tell to make things less awkward, even when both parties know it’s a lie. Like, like when your mum catches you wanking and you say you’re ‘just itching’.”
The poor boy opposite him was flabbergasted, his mouth hanging open.
“But, Dan, I’m proud of you for coming out to me. And you know this doesn’t change anything between us, right? You’re still my best friend. In fact, may I call you my hoBRO?”
Dan spurted into a fit of loud, outrageous laughter, something Phil had prided himself in causing for pretty much the entirety of their friendship. He was wiping away tears of laughter from his eyes as he said, “Fine. But I get to call you heteBRO.”
Dan never doubted that Phil would have accepted him, but it still felt amazing to finally come out to someone. He felt free, and for the first time in his life, like he was being true to himself. There was only one thing in that moment that he would have rather been than Phil’s friend, but he wasn’t ready to admit it to himself let alone Phil yet.
As usual, Phil got carried away talking to Dan, which was the reason he was frantically running through the shopping centre to the bowling alley, which was on the opposite side to the milkshake place he was at with Dan. Phil was panting and heaving, man, he really needed to start exercising again. By the time he got to the bowling alley, it was 6:30, half an hour later than when he was supposed to arrive. He had already made a bad impression on his blind date, he was sure of it.
He hesitantly walked up to the girl sitting alone outside the alley, looking quite dejected. Oh dear.
“Hello? Are you Katie?” he said softly.
The girl’s face lit up immediately. “Yes I am! Are you Phil?”
“Yes, and I’m so sorry about being late, I lost track of time.”
“That’s okay, I’m just glad you’re here. And it helps that you’re as cute as Cat said you were.” Katie let out a small giggle, linking her arm with Phil’s.
The rest of the night went smoothly, surprisingly so. Phil never expected this blind date to turn out so well, but here he was. They were in the middle of picking a bowling bowl for the next game, smiles on both their faces when the familiar music from Phil’s favourite kids movie started playing. Phil’s eyes lit up and he put the bowling ball down.
“This is one of my favourite films! Please tell me you’ll sing ‘Let it go’ with me, Katie.”
“Oh my gosh, I love this movie too! Yes!” Katie practically squealed.
“They had so many talented actors in it, Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff-”
“Oh, him.” The excited tone in her voice was gone, replaced with a mildly disgusted one.
“What’s wrong with Jonathan?” Phil pouted a little. Jonathan was probably Phil’s favourite actor from the entire movie.
“Oh it’s just, nothing personal about him, it’s just I didn’t think it was appropriate of Disney to cast a gay man in a kids film. We wouldn’t want kids to be influenced by him, would we?”
Phil could not believe his ears. Surely she was kidding.
“I’m sorry, you’re kidding right? You’re seriously homophobic in this day and age?”
“No! I’m not homophobic at all, silly. It’s just being gay isn’t natural, it’s not good for, like the world. In general, they’re just not really the best people. Gays make their choice to be gay, but they don’t need to inflict it upon others, you know? There’s a name for it, the gay agenda.”
Phil thought he was going to faint.
“But I’m totally not homophobic, I even have a gay friend, and she’s actually super nice and really pretty, especially for an Asian.”
If Phil was angry before then he was furious now. How could Cat set him up with a homophobe and a racist? Clearly Katie and him were not as compatible as he had once thought. Phil grabbed his bag before practically running to the exit.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“Home. I just don’t really appreciate being around someone who thinks my friends are ‘unnatural’ and who believes the gay agenda is an actual thing, whatever that even means.”
Phil cried himself to sleep that night. How could someone think so lowly of gays, of his best friend? Dan was kind, and funny, and smart and the best person Phil knew. It had taken him so much courage to come out to Phil today. Phil was not, and never would be okay with dating someone who thought his best friend was wrong just for who he happened to love. Dan was not wrong, she was.
iv. When the girl was too bland
Phil had come back from his fourth date with a girl from his biology class, feeling dissatisfied. There was nothing explicitly wrong with her, as had been the case with the past few girls he dated, it was just that she was so- bland, for lack of a better word. It didn’t help that she was blonde, when Phil realised he preferred brunettes, for, whatever reason. And her eyes were green, when Phil just thought brown eyes were so much softer and nicer. When he explained this to Dan (conveniently leaving out the part about the brown eyes and brown hair), he was met with that beautiful laugh he loved so much.
“So you’re not going to see this girl anymore, because she’s- ‘bland’?” Dan asked, obviously attempting to seem unfazed, but Phil couldn’t help but notice the little look of relief Dan had on his face.
“Well, yeah. She’s very hard to hold a conversation with! It doesn’t flow naturally, the conversation should flow naturally with your girlfriend, and when there’s silences, it’s not awkward, you know, like how it is with you and me.”
Dan blushed heavily, which he must have realised as he tried to hide his face from Phil when he spoke again, “Yeah, well, um, if she’s bland, that’s just not on.”
Despite Dan’s efforts, Phil noticed the obvious blush that had spread across his friend’s cheeks. Recently, Phil had been noticing how Dan would become very flustered and embarrassed around Phil quite often, especially when Phil complimented him, mentioned anything to do with Dan’s self-declared non-existent love life, or even so much as brushed fingers with him accidentally.
There was also the fact that Dan always tried to change the topic, or became even snarkier than usual whenever Phil would mention a date he had been on, or a girl he thought he liked. All these signs would lead Phil to the conclusion that yes, Daniel Howell, his best friend of twelve years, liked him. But he couldn’t let himself assume anything, and make his friendship weird for no reason.
The possibility that Dan liked him niggled in his mind for the next hour as he played Mario Kart with Dan. When Dan blushed for what Phil counted to be the seventh time that night, when Phil shoved Dan lightly when Dan used a blue shell on him, Phil decided he couldn’t wait any longer. He paused the game.
“Hey! Why’d you pause?” Dan pouted at him, his bottom lip sticking out cutely. Not that Phil noticed.
“This is really awkward to say, Dan, but lately I’ve been noticing that you act really flustered around me, and you get weirdly salty whenever I mention any girls I’m dating or that I like… so I guess what I’m asking is, do you maybe, have a crush on me? I won’t be mad, I promise!”
There was silence for what felt like a very long time before Dan answered.
“Um, yeah, I kinda do. I’ve liked you since primary school when we met, and you invited me to play with you, and stood up for me when that girl pushed me off the swing. After that, I thought my little crush would go away but it kinda, um just got worse and here we are today, with me pathetically pining over my heterosexual best friend!” Dan rushed out his words very awkwardly, letting out a very forced laugh at the end of it. The boy looked terrified, but it was clear he was trying to hide it.
What. The. Fuck. Phil was expecting, at most, a small admission of a small crush Dan had had on Phil for maybe, a month, tops! Not a confession that his best friend of twelve years had practically been in love with him since they first met in the playground! Phil was freaking out. What did this mean for his and Dan’s friendship? Why did he kind of feel… warm inside when he was listening to Dan’s admission? Phil didn’t like this turbulent cocktail of emotions he was experiencing all at the same time, so he said the first thing his stupid brain told him to,
“Oh, I’m sorry Dan, I’m- I’m straight.”
Dan’s face didn’t fall like Phil expected it to, it kind of just washed over with a look of understanding and unsurprise.
“Y-yeah, I know, that’s okay. Thanks for not hating me.” Dan gave him an obviously fake smile and unpaused the game, not noticing that Phil’s eyes, as well as his own were welled with tears.
Phil wasn’t upset about Dan liking him, no. He was upset at how his heart swelled in his chest at the thought. But he did what Phil Lester does best, and pushed it to the back of his mind, hoping it would be forgotten.
v. When there was nothing wrong with the girl
The small girl in front of him pushed the plate of lemon meringue pie across the bench towards him. “Eat!” she commanded, beaming at Phil. Phil smiled back, digging his fork into the dessert.
Phil had been dating Rachel for two months now, She was not mean, not dating other boys, not a homophobe or racist in the slightest and was definitely not bland. She was the most bubbly person Phil had ever met, which was admittedly a bit hard to deal with at times due to his introverted nature, but he couldn’t deny she was a lovely person.
Phil polished the piece of meringue pie off in two minutes flat, amusing Rachel greatly. When she gave him a faux-judgemental look he simply said,
“Well you know what they say, when life gives you lemons, bake them into a pie and get your boyfriend to eat it as fast as possible, lest it go to waste.” Rachel let out a tinkling laugh, but it lacked the richness and dimpliness of Phil’s favourite laugh. Okay nope. Why did he always think of Dan when he was with Rachel? He always found himself comparing everything they did and said, from how they would laugh at Phil’s jokes, to how many sarcastic quips they would make in a day. And in every case, Rachel was the one coming up short. This wasn’t a big deal though, was it? It was normal to think of Dan so much when he was with Rachel, he was Phil’s best friend of twelve years, after all.
Ever since that night, things had become kind of, cold and awkward between him and Dan. They didn’t text as much, only hung out once a week when it used to be every day, and although Phil didn’t want to admit it, only tagged each other in a FEW memes per day. Phil’s heart hurt.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” Rachel’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
“It’s um, it’s Dan. I’m worried about our friendship.”
“Phil, baby, I can’t count how many times you’ve mentioned Dan throughout this past week, let alone the two months we’ve been dating. You said you two were best friends and now aren’t as close anymore, but I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me. So, what really happened with you and Dan”
Shit. Rachel was good. Phil guessed it could only help to tell her everything that happened. “Okay, well this will take a while. Grab some pie.”
“-and I guess that brings us to now, where whenever we hang out it’s kind of awkward, when it used to be so easy and so fun and so perfect, and I could just make him laugh with whatever I said. Did I tell you about how his eyes crinkle and his dimple pops out when he laughs? Anyway, now I just don’t know what to do.”
Rachel brought her tea to her lips and took a big sip, eyeing Phil like she knew something he didn’t.
“Um, Rach? I kinda just explained my entire history with Dan to you, I would appreciate some advice and- why are you looking at me like that?”
“Simple. You’re in love with Dan.”
“You heard me.” Rachel raised her eyebrows.
“Okay, that’s impossible. First of all, I’m not gay, and second of all, I’m dating you! That’s crazy!”
Phil had never heard such an absurd concept in his life. His entire life he had liked girls, and he didn’t believe that had changed.
“Ever heard of a little thing called… bisexuality?” Phil’s eyes widened. “Yep. I think that’s you. And to the part about me, honestly Phil, these two months have been great, and as disappointed as I was, at first that you don’t like me, I’ve kind of known all along. We rarely kiss, and when we do you look repulsed, you call me ‘bro’ and ‘homie’, and 90% of what you talk about is Dan, or Dan’s dimple or Dan’s smile. Plus you just spent 30 minutes telling me a story you could have told in 2, if you hadn’t interrupted yourself with a story or a musing about something cute that Dan does.”
Rachel’s words hit him like a ton of bricks. Everything she said was true! Rachel was in theory the ‘right’ girl for him, but maybe the right one was… was never a girl. It wasn’t platonic at all the way he thought about Dan, if only he had realised earlier, before things were weird between him and Dan. Phil opened his mouth to speak, but Rachel cut him off.
“Yes, let’s break up. And it’s okay, I’m not mad. And please go talk to Dan. I know, I’m the coolest ex-girlfriend ever.”
Phil pulled her in for a warm hug.
He grabbed his coat and made his way out the door. He had important business to attend to.
i. When Phil finally did something right
Phil knocked furiously on the Howells’ front door. Phil’s heart began beating even faster than it already was. It dropped when he saw how completely broken Dan looked when he opened the door.
“Phil? What are you doing here? Weren’t you on a date with Rachel tonight?” The boy sounded pained.
“What? Why? Things were going so well.”
“Well, Dan. I’ve dated five girls in my life, and sure, they all had their own individual flaws and quirks. But the common one they all shared? They weren’t you.”
Dan’s eyes looked like they were going to bug out of his head, before anger flashed across his face.
“Phil I know we don’t hang out as much anymore but it’s pretty fucking disrespectful to make fun of me like that, you know how I feel about-”
“I swear on my lion plushie, and all seven of the versions of Mario Kart that I own, that I am not messing with you. But I’m definitely not straight, and I’m definitely in love with you too. I wish I realised earlier. Everything’s just better with you. You're pretty ace.”
Dan blushed for the billionth time Phil had witnessed, but this time, he did not follow it up with a mumbled sentence, or him hiding his face, but with a kiss on Phil’s lips.
And that was the time that Phil finally, finally dated the person who was not wrong (or a girl).
