Chapter Text
“No,” Dan says. “No way, no, I’m totally fine, I can buy a Dictaphone.”
“Dan,” Dan’s mum says.
“It’s fine,” Dan insists, a little frantically. “I’m on Amazon right now, they’re not even expensive.”
“Don’t waste your money.”
“It’s not a waste if it means I don’t have to have some loser following me around all the time-”
“From what you’ve told me, it’s a worthwhile service. And they don’t follow you around all the time, it’s just in classes, you said so yourself.”
“Ok, sure,” Dan says, exasperatedly. “No, yeah, that’s totally fine, just sellotape me to some old crone in reading glasses, that'll make my life a million times better-“
“Dan.”
“Sorry,” Dan mutters. “I’m serious though, I’ll be ok. I can make my own notes.”
“You said yourself you were struggling,” She says.
Dan sighs and closes his eyes. Why do mums do that, he thinks. Why do they trick you into telling them things that are stressing you out, only to use them against you in the very near future? Do they learn this shit in mum school, or something?
“I’ll be ok,” Dan says, his eyes still closed. “I don’t need extra help, I don’t need someone to take notes for me, I’ll be fine.”
-
Dan’s still looking at Dictaphones on ebay when PJ trails through his open bedroom door twenty minutes later and throws himself face-down on the bed with a groan.
“Wrong room,” Dan says without looking up.
“Mmf,” PJ says into Dan’s pillow, then rolls over, bedsprings creaking. “Someone’s thrown up in the shower.”
“What?” Dan says, swivelling around in his chair. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus. Who was it? There's no way I'm cleaning that up.”
PJ shrugs, then winces, closing his eyes.
“I was gonna do so much drawing today,” He says without opening his eyes. “Like, I have this assignment for Monday and you can tell everyone in class expects me to be rubbish so I want to show up with all these drawings to prove them wrong? And then before I just sat down at my desk and…bleurgh.”
Dan smiles.
“I’m guessing it was a good party?”
“Tara was asking about you,” PJ says. He puts on a weird voice. “Where’s Dan, why didn’t you bring Dan, I was expecting Dan… She’s after you.”
Dan pulls a face.
“Glad I didn’t go, then,” He says.
PJ cracks one eye open.
“You’re gonna have to turn her down at some point.”
“Mm,” Dan says, vaguely. Instead of pursuing the subject like he usually does, PJ throws an arm over his eyes and sighs. “Hey, you can’t pass out on my bed, go in your own room.”
“Smells like sick in there,” PJ complains, turning over and burying his face in Dan’s pillow again.
“Oh my God,” Dan says. “Are you the one who threw up in the shower?”
PJ makes a noise.
“I’m very hungover and your voice is very piercing,” He says.
“PJ.”
“I might have thrown up in the shower.”
“Peej,” Dan says. “I wanted a shower later, you'd better clean it. Ugh.”
“Just give me, like, ten minutes,” PJ groans, his voice muffled. After a moment's silence, he turns his head and says, “Did you drink before uni?”
“Sometimes,” Dan says. “Why?”
“I – never did,” PJ says. He rolls over onto his back and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I thought it'd be easy, right, like getting on a horse? But it's not.”
“Getting on a horse isn't easy, Peej,” Dan says, fondly. He leans forwards and pats him on the ankle. “You don't have to get drunk at every party, y'know.”
“Felt stupid by myself,” PJ says, with his hands still over his eyes. “Drinking made me feel less stupid, I dunno.”
Dan can sympathise with that.
“So I'll come to the next one then,” He says. “And we can drink lemonade or something.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Dan says, patting PJ's ankle again. Then he curls his hand around it and yanks so that PJ yelps and flails. “Now go and clean the shower and get in your own bed.”
“I hate you,” PJ says through his fingers.
-
“It's not serious,” Dan says on Monday. He's in the academic help office with a pretty blonde woman who'd introduced herself as Louise and offered him a Loveheart sweet before he'd even sat down. “Like, my mum's just – she just worries, like, I'll probably be ok.”
“Well,” Louise says. “Judging by your assessment results, you've been entitled to a note taker since the first week of term.”
“But I don't need one,” Dan says. “It's just – my mum-”
“Dan,” Louise says. She's looking at him with big eyes, like he's suffered a bereavement. “There's no shame in getting help for stuff like this.”
“I'm not ashamed,” Dan insists, feeling his face flare with heat. “If I need help I'll accept the help, I just don't think I need it, that's all.”
“Dan,” Louise says, sighing. “Look, I can pair you up with someone really good. I mean, don't think of it as being stuck with a lecturer, think of them as...your personal academic advisor.”
Dread sinks deep into the pit of Dan's stomach at her words. He's stuck with this if he says yes. There's no backing out.
“Ok,” He says, thinking that if nothing else it'll get his mum off his back. “Fine.”
Louise beams at him.
“You're up for it?”
“I'll give it a go,” Dan says, grudgingly.
“Great,” Louise says. “Honestly, you won't regret it. None of us bite, you know.” She pauses. “Well, actually, I dunno about Chris, but...”
“Ok,” Dan says. “Ok. No, it's just.” He pauses, trying to think of how to explain it. “I – please don't take this the wrong way.”
“Ok,” Louise says, uncertainly, reaching for a sweet from the little bowl on her desk like she needs a sugar hit to get through whatever Dan's about to say.
“Is it,” Dan hesitates. “Am I gonna...like, is this gonna be noticeable? This whole thing? Like.” He pauses, and then because his social skills aren't so much skills as they are issues, he blurts out, “Am I gonna get paired with a really old person?”
Louise laughs.
“Oh, I see what you mean,” She says.
“Only – I don't – I'm not trying to be ageist, I just-”
“No, no, 'course not,” Louise says, in this wonderfully soothing sort of voice. “I get it, it's ok.”
“Right,” Dan says. His face is hot, but at least Louise isn't yelling at him and saying she's offended on behalf of her gran and banning him from her office, or anything. “It's just – it sounds stupid, I just don't want to attract any attention in classes, y'know? And I feel like if I walked in there with someone's granddad it might – I dunno, clue people in.”
“Mm,” Louise says. She's clicking about on her computer, but Dan's at the wrong angle to see what she's doing. After a moment she stops and looks at him, with this soft, kind smile on her face. “Don't worry. We had this whole thing a while ago where we did a survey and the results seemed to suggest that the best way to get students to connect with their advisors is to have them of a similar age. So most of our advisors are volunteers who're either just out of uni or doing, like, their masters or whatever. Not that older people can't do their masters, but we don't tend to get a lot of older volunteers.”
“They don't want to hang out with students all day,” Dan says, with a small smile.
“God, no,” Louise says, grinning at him. “It's ok, I've got someone in mind for you. I'm just sending him your details.”
“Ok,” Dan says. He shifts a little in his seat, already planning what he's gonna say to his mum when he rings her as soon as he leaves. “So, um.”
“Oh,” Louise says. “No, yeah, we're done, sorry! I'm not used to having an office, I keep expecting people to just walk off.”
“Right,” Dan says, getting to his feet and hitching his bag over his shoulder. “Thanks.”
-
That day in all his lectures Dan finds himself enjoying being alone.
It's not that he hasn't made friends at uni – he has. There's PJ – they've been friends since they helped each other unpack in the first week of term. Knowing PJ means he knows a few people studying Fine Art and other subjects like that – Tara and Katie, and that one guy in the art studio who always wears these weird space-age flip flops. There are a ton more people, but Dan's not all that great at putting names to faces.
The people on his own course are a different story. It's some weird competition in classes and lectures, everyone desperate to outdo everyone else, throwing out complex Latin terms and vague stuff from A Level Law while Dan struggles to write every incomprehensible thing down.
There's just this weird sense of elitism about everyone that sets Dan on edge. He knows some people by name, and there are people he chats to vaguely in seminars, but he doesn't fit, not really. He hears them discussing parties, sees the events floating around on Facebook and pretends it doesn't bother him.
It doesn't, not really. After all, he has PJ. He has his art friends. He doesn't mind sitting alone in lectures – in fact, he prefers it.
With a sigh that ruffles the papers spread out on the desk in front of him, Dan realises that this is the last day he'll have that luxury. He'll have some faceless person tagging along with him constantly, peering over his shoulder under the guise of helping him out.
At least he might get some decent notes out of it, he thinks, gloomily, casting an eye across his pages and pages of scratchy, barely decipherable handwriting.
-
The next morning, Dan can hardly believe the guy they’ve lumbered him with.
Despite Louise's reassurances, he'd been worried about getting some older guy who'd tut at him or roll his eyes at Dan's fashion choices or go on about what things were like back in the old days when mobile phones didn't exist.
The guy who he meets outside the student union is somehow not what he was expecting at all.
He's tall, but not as tall as Dan (which Dan notes smugly somewhere in the back of his head behind all the babbling and freaking out). He's also young. Dan knows Louise said that some of their volunteers are just out of uni but he wasn't banking on just out of the womb.
Alright, maybe he's exaggerating, the guy isn't that young. Even so, there's something about the guy's face, all pale skin and big eyes, that makes him look far younger than he probably is. Perhaps most importantly, he doesn't look old enough to be giving anyone academic help.
He has dark hair and one of those galaxy covered jackets Dan had seen in town back home months ago. He knows because he remembers there'd been a moment when he'd been thumbing through that particular rail just to see if they had his size out of curiosity, when he'd glanced up and caught sight of his reflection in a nearby mirror and the completely unimpressed look on his own face made him abandon the rail completely and lose himself in the comforting world of black on black at the other end of the shop.
“I'm Phil,” The guy had said. He'd wiped his palm on the leg of his dark jeans before he reached out to shake Dan’s hand and his skin had still been weird and clammy to the touch.
They’re walking to the lecture theatre and Dan’s trying to lag behind a little bit so that it doesn’t look like they’re together. Phil isn’t wearing a badge or a uniform or anything, but Dan’s never felt more self-conscious in his life. It doesn’t help that his phone keeps buzzing with texts from PJ asking what his new lackey looks like.
“I can’t believe you’re doing Law,” Phil says.
“Neither can I,” Dan says, distractedly. He knows they aren’t, but he feels like every person they pass is staring at the two of them. The last thing he wants is to draw more attention to himself than he already accidentally does.
“Are you enjoying it? Or is that the wrong question?” Phil wonders. Dan wishes he wouldn’t speak to him; it won’t be long before he notices how much Dan’s trying not to move his mouth when he replies. “Can you enjoy it? As, like, a subject?”
“Dunno.”
“I’ve seen TV shows about barristers,” Phil says. “By accident. I lost the remote and then all these people were in gowns and wigs and I ended up watching it for a bit. Is that your thing, the gowns and wigs thing?”
Dan doesn’t really want to enter into a conversation with this guy that lasts longer than five seconds, especially now they’re actually passing faces he recognises from class.
He adjusts his bag on his shoulder as they come to a halt before the lecture theatre door and he says, “Yeah.”
Maybe Phil can tell that Dan's embarrassed about this whole thing – his face is probably glowing like a distress beacon – because he stops speaking and doesn't say another word until after the lecture.
“You understood that, right?” Phil says. God, how can he be so chirpy after an hour and a half of that? Dan had spent the entire time drawing spirals on his notepad and zoning out, leaning away from Phil so nobody thinks they're actually together. “That was like...” He whistles and waves a hand over his head to indicate how little he understood, grinning.
“Right,” Dan says. “So, like, you email that to me, right? The notes? Is that how this works?”
Phil's smile fades a little.
“Right,” He says. “Yeah, I email them to you.”
“That's great. So I'll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Phil says. “I'll meet you outside the...”
But Dan doesn't stick around. He turns on his heel and escapes down the corridor, feeling like he might actually die of embarrassment.
-
When Dan arrives back at the flat, instead of going into his own room he traipses into PJ's instead. PJ's propped his bedroom door open with a pile of heavy art books, and Dan sails through the open door and sits down on PJ's bed without even saying hi.
PJ's room is weird, because it's the exact mirror of Dan's across the hall. All the rooms look the same, of course, except PJ's room is full of funny odds and ends, gauzy scarves and weird hats and cute little drawings all over the noticeboard. He's pushed his bed up against the wall so it's right under the window, and Dan settles there and watches someone walk by carrying a six pack of beer.
“Everything ok?” PJ says, without looking up from whatever he's working on at his desk.
Dan makes a noise and shuffles closer to the window so he can look outside properly.
“You've got a view,” He says. “Why don't I have a view?”
“Luck of the draw,” PJ says, swivelling around in his chair at last. “At least people can't see you if you decide to eat a sandwich in bed.”
“Which is my main concern in life,” Dan says. He sighs. “I had my first class with the note taking guy today.”
“Oh,” PJ says. “And?”
“And,” Dan says, feeling wretched. “Literally nobody spoke to me because I was with him, and, like – I dunno, he, like...ugh.” He flops backwards onto the bed.
“What's he like?”
“Young,” Dan says, automatically, staring up at the pockmarked ceiling. “Really young. Which I suppose is good, right, 'cause...he looked like a student, but like...God, I bet he thinks I'm so stupid. I couldn't even speak to him, I was freaking out so much that everyone was looking at us.”
“You know nobody pays that much attention to you, right,” PJ says, lightly. Dan lifts his head to give PJ a look. “I mean,” He explains, quickly. “I know it feels like everyone's looking at you all of the time, but they're really not. People are thinking about themselves and if everyone's looking at them.” He pauses. “You're not that pretty, Dan.”
Dan laughs and aims a kick in PJ's direction. PJ just dodges his foot, grinning.
“Thanks?” Dan says, still laughing. He falters and sighs. “You're right. How do you do that?”
PJ shrugs, watching Dan push himself up onto his elbows.
“I was rude to him,” Dan says, the realisation creeping over him, unpleasant and hot. “Oh God, poor guy, he showed up to help me, and like...oh God.”
“Don't worry,” PJ says. “You'll see him tomorrow, right? You can say sorry then.”
Dan groans and puts a hand over his face.
-
He means to be nicer to the note-taking guy. He really does. Except the next morning nothing at all goes to plan.
His alarm doesn't go off when it's meant to, so instead of having a cool three hours to get ready for class he has one.
All the plugs in the kitchen stop working for some reason, so Dan spends fifteen minutes waiting for the kettle to boil before he realises that it isn't going to because the plugs are out. Grouchy and tired, he carries the kettle out into the hallway (even though it's probably a violation of health and safety or whatever) and flicks it on there, then just because he's pissed off and tired he calls the maintenance people, who tell him that their kitchen plugs aren't a priority so long as they can still use their stove (“You know you can use pans to boil water, right?” The woman lets him know in this unnecessarily patronising sort of way).
By the time he's dressed and he's straightened his hair to a standard he's relatively ok with, he's completely forgotten about the kettle in the hall, which accounts for how he trips over the fucking thing, managing to get unpleasantly warm water all over the floor and on his jeans, and carpet burn on his hands where he'd tried to break his fall. Even though his jeans are dark there's no way he can leave the house in them without people thinking he's wet himself, so he stomps back into his room to change into this other pair that he hardly ever wears because they're a weird size and constantly fall down. It's only when he's halfway down the stairs and pulling them back up for the tenth time that he realises he should've worn a belt, by which time it's too late to even bother.
So sue him if he isn't in the mood to make nice with the starry jacket wearing note-taking guy.
The starry jacket wearing note-taking guy, who's holding a cup in one hand and nervously checking his watch with the other. He's also wearing enormous glasses that he definitely wasn't wearing yesterday, so for one terrifying moment Dan's worried he's approaching some random stranger by accident – which really would be the cherry on top of the completely shit morning he's having.
“Oh,” The guy says when Dan gets close. “Oh, hi, I was worried you were ill or something, I emailed you.”
Dan shakes his head like he's trying to shake off an irksome fly. He feels gross, all sweaty from walking up here, and hot with stupid anger at nothing, and he hasn't had anything to drink so the back of his throat's unpleasantly dry, and the last thing he wants to do in the world is sit through some dull as shit lecture on perverting the course of justice or what the fuck ever.
Maybe the note-taking guy's special power is mind-reading, because instead of trying to hurry Dan along or have a go at him for being late he says, “Is everything ok?”
“Yeah,” Dan says, automatically. Then, “It's just – ugh, do you ever just have a shit morning for no reason whatsoever? Like you woke up feeling shit and it just carried on?”
“Like you got up on the wrong side of the bed,” The note-taking guy says, but Dan's barely listening.
“I mean, my phone alarm didn't go off, which is bullshit – I'm gonna email Apple about it and fucking complain, I swear to God, and then the plugs in the kitchen didn't work and the maintenance people were so unhelpful, like, of course I know you can boil water in a pan, I'm not stupid, you know? And then,” Dan's gesturing wildly enough to attract worried glances from passers-by. “Then I put the kettle in the hall, right, because there's a plug there, but I forgot it was there and I tripped over it and fucking – carpet burned my hands.” He waves a hand in front of the guy's face. “And then there's this lecture, and I was looking at the summary online last night and it's just bullshit, seriously not worth getting up for.”
“I looked at that, too,” The guy says, when Dan's finished, breathing a little heavily. He pulls a face. Dan's not expecting it, so it shocks a laugh out of him before he can stop himself. “It seemed a bit, um. Heavy.”
“A bit,” Dan says. He pauses, suddenly feeling awkward. “Sorry I'm so late, we should get going.”
The guy looks thoughtful for a second and then hands him the takeaway cup he's holding. Dan takes it, frowning.
“I guess you didn't get to have a coffee this morning, right?” The guy says, with this understanding little smile. When Dan opens his mouth to protest, he talks over him, saying, “It's ok, it's my third, I should really cut back.”
“Oh,” Dan says.
“Don't worry about the lecture,” The guy continues, fishing his phone out of his jacket pocket. “I'll just – I can go and take notes and I'll tell them something came up for you. Is that ok? Family emergency or something?”
Dan blinks and opens his mouth, but no words come out.
“Maybe not a family emergency,” The guy says, click-clicking away on his phone. He gives Dan this considering little look, and even though yesterday Dan kind of felt like this guy was stupidly young, now he's making Dan feel stupidly young instead. Maybe it's the glasses, or the fact that he seems to know exactly what he's doing. “I don't want to curse anything, you know what I mean? I can just say you're feeling ill.”
“I,” Dan says. God, he feels like such a dick. “You don't have to do that.”
The guy smiles at him.
“It's ok,” He says, with a little shrug. “You think you'll be able to pay attention for a full hour and a half if you're thinking about, like, kettles and carpet burns?”
“But you have to go and, like...” Dan gestures in the general direction of the lecture theatre.
“I was going to anyway,” The guy says. He checks his watch. “In fact, I really should get on if I'm gonna get the notes. I'll just email them, ok?”
Dan nods, mutely.
“Thanks,” He says, but the guy's already walking away.
It's only when he's gone and Dan's left standing there, holding his coffee and feeling like the worst person in the world, that he remembers that he's called Phil.
-
Dan
just wanted to make sure you're ok and you're coming in today? It's ok if you're not, just remember to email your lecturer so they know and I'll send you the notes later on.
Thanks
Dan stares down at the email on his laptop later, sitting in bed wearing the biggest and ugliest hoodie he owns, all hunched over like he could disappear into it if he tried hard enough.
It's the email Phil must've sent when he thought Dan wasn't gonna show up for class. He has one of those pre-programmed email signatures and Dan just zones out looking at it for a while – Phil Lester, Academic Helpdesk Volunteer – like everything he emails is a magazine quote or a game review or something.
He spends so long just not paying attention, procrastinating on things like moving and getting a shower and going to speak to PJ, that when another email from Phil comes through his heart lurches horribly in his chest.
For one stupid moment he thinks maybe Phil somehow knew that he was looking at the email and this new email's telling him that he's creepy and he needs to find a new academic advisor.
Except of course, that's not what it says.
Dan
Here are the notes from today! Sorry I took so long to send them, our internet was down for a few hours at home. I guess there's something in the air today (I didn't trip over any kettles though so you still win)
I hope you're feeling better
See you tomorrow
And this time his signature says Phil Lester, Academic Helpdesk Volunteer and coffee-giving professional.
Dan hides his smile in the sleeve of his hoodie.