Chapter Text
Phil barely took out his headphones in time to hear his English teacher call his name. “Are you Phillip Lester?” she said. Even though it was his first day as well, he could tell she was new to the school - his teacher was young, probably in her mid-20s, with a bright complexion and full cheeks. She was also still smiling, unlike many of the teachers he had already met that day.
“Yeah,” he nodded with a half smile. “It’s Phil, though.”
“Okay then Phil,” she said, still grinning. He couldn’t tell if he was creeped out or impressed. “You’re going to be right here in the front. And welcome to St. Stephen’s, by the way.” She pointed to a desk in the front of the classroom, the desk closest to the window in the front row. He brought his backpack over, swinging it around the front of the desk. It had a heart scratched into the corner with initials he couldn’t read. Wonderful. He put his earbuds back in and stared out the window at the giant trees outside the school’s new entrance - the bell hadn’t rung yet, so he assumed he didn’t have to listen.
The day had been exhausting - his new high school was better than he thought it would be, but it was still a high school. The principal had greeted him with unwavering, unnatural cheerfulness, telling him “he’d fit right in” as she handed him a schedule and motioned him into the arms of some girl who he was supposed to shadow. She obviously didn’t care about the school in the slightest, but was also funny about it, making the tour very bearable. All of his teachers had been grade-A average, and he had made small talk with the people sitting around him, all very respectable, all “potential friendships,” but nothing spectacular had happened. And he didn’t think anything would in last period English, either.
About a minute before the bell, the girl he had shadowed walked in, taking a seat right behind him and looking surprised. “So you’re the one who’s taking my old seat?” she asked as Phil tried to remember her name. “Whatever, I’m cool with it. How has your day been?”
“Alright,” he said, shrugging.
“Well that’s probably the best you’re going to get all year, just saying.”
Phil laughed. “You make it sound so bad, my old school was worse…”
“Okay, it’s fine, I guess. But it’s still school. At least all of the teachers are still pitying you today.”
“Yeah, I guess - Ellen,” Phil blurted out, finally remembering her name. Ellen looked at him funny, and he blushed before turning around in his seat, slinking down slightly. He heard Ellen call out to someone - but his music drowned out the name. A girl and a guy walked towards them, the guy wearing a red hoodie and black jeans, the girl a white American Eagle sweater and light denim skinny jeans. The boy had bright, wide eyes, a lanky figure, and surprisingly, dimples. The girl had black hair in curls, an apparent-but-pretty amount of blush on, and huge eyelashes. They walked over to their corner of the room, and Phil turned slightly towards them. The girl sat down next to Ellen, and the boy looked at Ellen, looking down at her jokingly, his hands on his hips. “Castle,” he said, “Why aren’t you sitting next to me anymore?”
“Are you blind?” Ellen snapped back lightly. “The new kid’s here. He’s cool - not as cool as me, but he’s alright.”
Phil was still registering the fact that apparently him and Ellen were on the ‘fake-insult’ friendship stage when the boy sat down next to him, smoothly sliding into the shaky desk. “I’m Dan,” he said.
“Phil.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah. And sorry, I hate to ask, but - Castle?” Phil was surprised with himself - he rarely started talking to people so easily.
“No, it’s cool. There used to be two girls called Ellen in this class. So we used last names to make it easier.”
“The other Ellen got mono.” The other girl had piped up, in a chirpy voice. “Also, hi Phil. I’m Annie.” Phil smiled at her and she smiled back, before jumping right back into the conversation. “I mean, it’s weird not having her around, and she was really nice, but wasn’t other Ellen a bit loud?”
“At least you didn’t have to sit next to her,” Ellen added.
“God, you guys are so harsh,” Dan added, laughing. Phil started laughing a little too.
Phil saw the teacher start to pass out some sort of worksheet, and knew he should probably be paying attention, considering it was his first day. But he stayed turned around towards Ellen and Annie, glancing towards Dan every once in a while, and started to wonder if making friends would really be as awful as it usually was.
When Dan was five minutes late to English class after spending too much time trying to toss his lunch into the trashcan at lunch, he took two steps in before stopping to a halt.
“We changed seats, Dan,” Ms. Elliot said, gesturing him over towards an empty desk in the middle of the room. “You’re over here, next to Megan.” Dan watched everyone stare at him as he moved through the mass of people, while silently thanking some god for making Ms. Elliot ignore that he was late. His desk was almost exactly in the middle of the room, and he fell into it.
Dan sighed slightly - Ellen was all the way in the back corner of the room, and Annie was sitting with her. At least they changed seats often, so Dan decided to make the best of whoever was around him. Megan, a quieter girl who only occasionally acknowledged his existence, was on the left of him, but Ms. Elliot had conveniently left out who was on his right side. He looked over, and saw Phil on the other side. He was still wearing his space coat, and was pouring over what looked like poetry. Phil noticed Dan, looked up, and gave a small wave. Dan smiled.
“Hey, what are the odds we’re next to each other twice?” Dan asked. He knew it was awkward, but he wanted to say something to Phil.
“Yeah,” Phil said, laughing slightly. “Like, that’s good, right?”
“Yeah, totally.” Dan felt his cheeks turning slightly red, but he could notice Phil’s turning a bright shade of pink. He tried to think of something quickly. “I can’t believe you’re still wearing that space coat to school. It’s almost April.”
Too harsh? Dan clenched his teeth. But Phil laughed as well. “It’s cool! You have to admit it’s cool.”
“You look like an astronaut.”
“Yeah, but like a really rad astronaut. A radstronaut.”
“Oh my god Phil.” Dan wanted to keep talking, but then Ms. Elliot started talking. He was half listening, but had to look like he was actually paying attention.
It had been two weeks since Phil had come to their school, and he seemed pretty cool, in Dan’s opinion. Sure, he was a little awkward, and didn’t know anything about the people in their grade yet (understandably so), but he seemed nice. He was always listening to music - Dan wondered what could possibly be that good. He made a mental note to ask Phil about his music taste before tuning back into class.
“…it’s seen as almost an earlier version of Romeo and Juliet, so it’ll be a good intro to this unit. It’s a shorter story, so I’ll pass out the text, and then we’ll have a discussion about it tomorrow. Any questions?”
Dan leaned over to Phil. “What are we reading? I zoned out.”
“Pyramus and Thisbe,” Phil barely mouthed. Dan nodded, before raising his hand.
“Yes, Dan?”
“Are we going to be acting for this one like we did for The Crucible?”
“Yes, we are, which should hopefully be fun.” Dan smiled back at his teacher, but was really slightly annoyed. He loved to act, and always had one of the bigger comic roles in the school productions, but that was exactly it - no one got into it when they had to act out plays, so Dan felt awkward being the only one actually in character. Because of that, he ended up standing in front of the class and reading with no emotion, and almost felt more awkward than he did reading in character. It was always some sort of disaster.
He looked over at Phil, who was staring up at Ms. Elliot, listening intently. Maybe this time would be different.