The Next Best Thing (Phan fiction)

Chapter 3

The two boys manage to avoid each other for the rest of the week and when Phil arrives at the headmaster’s office at exactly 3:20 on Friday afternoon, he’s pretty much fuming and ready to rip Dan’s head off. Not only is it Friday and therefore the start of the weekend, but Phil’s also feeling sort of … weird. Unbalanced.

He doesn’t like change very much and not fighting with Dan is a hell lot of change. Phil- he doesn’t exactly miss their fights (how retarded would he be if he did?) but he sort of misses how he has always been able to get his built-up anger out. Was it through fists or words.

Dan, however, is apparently so scared of getting suspended that he hasn’t even dared to speak as much as a few words with Phil – even after school was over.

Those are some quite odd circumstances, Phil thinks. Not exactly unpleasant, but still very odd.

Phil approaches the office but before he can knock on the door, it is thrown open and his body is colliding with someone else’s, making them both tumble to the floor.

“For God’s sake.” Phil groans, rubbing his head.

“Look where you’re going, dick face.” The other person mutters under their breath and as Phil looks up he sees no other than Dan Howell. Fucking great.

“Up, up, boys. You have a lot of work to do.” The headmaster’s voice sounds from the door and Phil quickly jumps to his feet, ignoring the glare he receives from Dan.

“Follow me, then.” Mr Adams speaks as Dan is on his feet again and he swiftly leads the two boys through the school until they’re in front of the library.

“Seeing as the term is nearing its end, we have to make sure all the books that have been borrowed are back where they’re supposed to be.” Mr Adams explains, opening the door for Phil and Dan to go in. “Therefore you two will help Mrs Mason, our librarian, to look through the books and make sure they’re all here, alright?”

He waits for the boys to nod and then continues. “Good, that should be enough work for you two. I told Mrs Mason that she can dismiss you in an hour. Be nice, boys.”

Giving them one last warning glare, Mr Adams turns around and is out of the door before Phil can do as much as nod.

“Have I ever told you that I hate you?” Dan groans, looking over at the hundreds and hundreds of books that are already waiting to be checked.

“You may have mentioned it at some point.” Phil mumbles, not too excited by the work that lies ahead of them either.

“Ah, boys.” A warm voice sounds from behind one of the many, many bookshelves and soon enough Mrs Mason is hurrying towards them. “I’ll explain what to do very quickly and we can get started, okay?”

Phil raises his eyebrow at how freaking excited the librarian sounds. What the hell is exciting about sorting through books?

-

Half an hour later, they both have somewhat got the hang of things and sorting through the books isn’t as hard as Phil thought it would be, though it isn’t much fun either. It's quite boring and tiring, actually.

It's okay though- well, it would have been. If it wasn’t for the fact that Mrs Mason is convinced that team work will get everything done faster. Therefore, the two boys have to suck up their ego and actually work together which turns out to be just as horrible as Phil imagined.

Phil reads out the titles of the books while Dan looks through the shelves, occasionally mumbling under his breath how pointless everything is. Phil agrees on that one. Don’t they have something like fucking computers and online registers for those stupid books?