Phil's alone at the bar, but that's okay. He doesn't really mind coming alone-sometimes it's nice to just sit and soak in the atmosphere.
He loves his friends. They always have a great time when they get together, and Phil can honestly say he never gets tired of seeing them, but sometimes he likes to go out and just meet new people.
The world is a fascinating place, full of sights he's never seen, places he's never been-things he's never done. It's a place full of people who have had experiences he's probably never dreamed of. So sometimes instead of going out with his friends he goes out alone, and just waits.
Because the world is also full of people looking for someone to listen. The want to share their thoughts, their experiences, their ideas-
Well, everyone wants to feel heard. And people like to talk about things that interest them. It's easy enough, if you're willing to listen, to meet new people. Sometimes, if you're lucky, that meeting turns into something new.
Phil's made plenty of friends just by listening to people talk.
Tonight, though-
Tonight he just wants to sit, drink his beer, and lose himself in the crowd. He doesn't want to talk, or listen, or think.
He's tired. It's been a long day on top of a long week on top of an already rough month. He's mentally drained and emotionally exhausted, and he just wants to sit at the bar with his beer and let the noise and lights and feeling of humanity wash over him until his exhausted mind calms and goes quiet.
An amused huff of air escapes him without conscious decision. He's willing to admit that most people don't go to a bar on a Friday night looking for peace and quiet.
A flash of blonde hair catches his eye and brings back the memory of a girl who is definitely not his type and definitely not looking for a relationship, even though she showed up in the parking lot of his apartment complex a few days ago looking specifically for him.
Not as a date, though, he reminds himself. And that's okay. She needed someone she could take to a work event, someone who wouldn't read too much into the invitation, and he was the only guy she could think of. That's fine. He's glad he could help.
He tries not to think about how well they fit together, his arm across her shoulders, her body against his as they made their way back to the car after dinner.
Somebody's talking, and it sounds like her, and Phil is pretty sure people aren't supposed to fall in love this easily.
They certainly aren't supposed to fall in love with people that have absolutely no interest in them-other than physical attraction. She could not have made it any clearer when she explicitly to him that she was not looking for a relationship. Not only that, but if she had been, he wouldn't be her type anyway-she said as much herself. Never mind that she's smart and funny and confident and drop-dead gorgeous and loves cheesy horror movies every bit as much as he does.
He'll get over it, eventually. He would prefer sooner rather than later, but right now it doesn't seem like things are going that way.
A guy sidles up beside him at the bar and nods toward the other end of the room. "Someone's getting lucky tonight."
Phil follows the man's gaze and for a moment is certain he's nodding toward Claire.
A blonde woman is leaning on the bar, clearly drunk. Phil can tell from here that she's had way too much to drink. What he can't quite figure out though, is why the guy beside her is ordering the woman another drink.
He frowns and watches her accept, stick a finger in his face, and shake her head before tossing back whatever the guy just bought her. It makes Phil uncomfortable to watch-her date should be taking that girl out for some fresh air, maybe getting some food or water in her, not encouraging her to drink more.
Her date leans forward, into the woman's personal space. A second later she shoves him away. When he doesn't get the hint she slaps him and turns to storm off.
The guy she's with doesn't take well to that. He grabs her arm, wheels around, says something to the bartender, and jerks her forward, pulling her off balance.
It pisses Phil off, because the guy is clearly stronger than she is-there's no way she could fend him off if she were sober, let alone now. Beer forgotten, he gets up from his seat and makes a beeline toward the two of them.
"Hey, guys-"
The guy looks him over and immediately tells him to get lost. The woman looks at him and smiles.
"Hey, Phil." It is Claire.
"Hey Claire," he says. He wasn't thinking about getting lost anyway, but somehow this being someone he actually knows makes it more personal. He's not sure what it says about him that he's less okay with someone taking advantage of someone he knows than someone he doesn't but pushes that thought aside for another time.
"You two know each other?" the guy asks, looking Phil over again, this time in a new light, and Phil's pretty sure there's only one thing he can do.
"Yeah," he says, smiling up at the man as if he doesn't currently want to knock his teeth in. "Do you?" he keeps it light, and innocent, all while inside he's starting to seethe with an anger that is only partially warranted because no matter how warmly Claire just smiled at him, she's already said she's not interested.
"Just met," the guy says. "She's been real...friendly."
Phil smiles again, even though he really doesn't want to. "Well, Claire's always enjoyed meeting new people, isn't that right, honey?" He puts and arm around her shoulder and hopes she goes along with it.
It's a desperate gamble, because as much as Phil wishes he could believe otherwise, he knows he can't take this guy in a fight. He also knows he's not leaving Claire alone with this creep.
Claire giggles. "He still likes me after I hit him with my car," she tells the other guy, leaning in and letting her own arm slide across his back. It's more than a little distracting, and Phil needs his wits about him.
The guy looks from Claire to Phil, then back to Claire. "You two are together?" he asks, not even trying to hide his amusement. "How drunk did you have to get her before she said yes?"
Phil doesn't hit the guy, but only because the goal is to get both Claire and himself out of this unscathed if at all possible. Claire laughs, though, like he's just said something hilarious.
"I know, right?" she says, shifting her weight, and suddenly Phil is doing most of the work involved in keeping her upright. "Totally not my type. Wouldn't have given him a second thought if I hadn't hit him." There's an agonizing moment of silence between the three of them that allows Phil to feel the full impact of her words before she adds, "Twice." She tilts her head back to look at Phil. "He's got a nice body, though."
Phil somehow manages to dredge up one last smile. "I think maybe we've had enough fun for one night," he says to Claire before addressing the jackass standing in front of him. "Thanks for keeping an eye on her-there are a lot of people out there who would have tried to take advantage of the situation."
He turns and heads for the door, not quite dragging Claire with him, and hopes the creep doesn't decide to follow.
They make it outside. Claire's practically hanging off him by this time, and when he stops to make sure she's alright she grabs his collar with her free hand and pulls him into passionate kiss that momentarily makes him lose his train of thought.
A second later he recovers his senses and pulls away. Claire is clearly drunk, clearly not thinking straight, and he is not going to take advantage of the situation, no matter how surprised she currently looks.
"I thought you liked me," she says, and Phil's stomach lurches as surprise turns to hurt.
"I did," he says, hating how dry his mouth suddenly feels. "I mean, I do."
"Then why won't you kiss me?" she demands, reaching for his shirt once more. Phil intercepts her hand, taking it in his own.
"Because you're very drunk," he says, "and I'd rather risk you thinking I'm an asshole tonight for turning you down than have you spend the rest of your life hating me for saying yes when right now you can't even stand up on your own."
She sticks her lips out, pouting. "But I want to kiss you," she says, sounding more than a little bit like a petulant three-year-old, and tries once more for his shirt.
"Tell you what," he says, because he has no idea where she lives or how to get in contact with someone who can come pick her up, and he can't keep doing this all night. "I'll make you a deal. You come back to my place, maybe take a shower, get some rest, and once you're sober you can do anything you want with me."
She stops pouting and, more importantly, stops trying to kiss him. "Anything?" she asks pointedly, her gaze lowering, and Phil can't help his reaction-or the shiver that suddenly races through his body.
Claire giggles. "You do like me," she says, refusing to look away. "Deal," she says.
His relief doesn't really do anything to lessen his embarrassment. It doesn't really help any other feelings he might have for her either. She does let him walk her to his car, though, and true to her word, she keeps her hands to herself during the ride back to his apartment.
Claire wakes up in someone else's bed, wearing someone else's clothes. Her head is pounding, and her eyes won't quite focus. Her mouth tastes disgusting.
Her stomach's churning, almost like she going to be sick-
Claire barely makes it to the bathroom-not her bathroom, a small, miserable part of her mind notes-before throwing up.
She's a little more awake by the time she's done, enough that she feels gross from head to toe. There's a shower right there, though, and a probably-clean-enough towel hanging on the back of the door, so she sheds the too large t-shirt and drawstring pants and leaves them on the floor.
Her brain is starting to slowly start noticing things as she grabs the towel and dries off, but last night was definitely one of her wilder nights, and there's a lot she can't remember.
The bathroom looks familiar though. Especially the shower curtain with its brightly colored fish.
She's rifling through the dresser in the bedroom for something to wear when realization dawns-this is Phil's apartment.
She remembers him showing up last night, right as some jerk grabbed her arm, but not much else. If she had to guess, she got a little too drunk, some guy got a little too handsy, and Phil just happened to be there and stepped in.
That doesn't explain how she got to his apartment, though. Or how she ended up in his clothes.
She throws on one of his t-shirts and a pair of jeans and grabs his belt off the dresser. It looks new-probably because she still has his old one. And one of his shirts. And a pair of his pants.
She leaves the bedroom, ready to confront him for taking advantage of her being drunk, because even if she had wanted to sleep with him again, the fact that she doesn't even remember getting in his car last night means she was nowhere near sober enough to be thinking clearly-or making rational decisions.
She finds him on the couch, sprawled on his back with one arm over his eyes, fast asleep, and stops to reconsider her position because as many times as she has gone home with someone from a bar, she has never woken up with her in the guy's bed and the guy on the couch.
He yawns and shifts, moving his arm away from his face. A moment later he opens his eyes, stretches, and looks around. When he catches sight of Claire he freezes.
"Hey," he says, voice tight, worry written clearly across his face.
"Hey," she says, suddenly feeling awkward. "So... what happened? I remember leaving the bar..."
"I didn't know where you lived," Phil says, rolling his shoulders as if to loosen them. "Or how to get in touch with your brother. I hope it's okay that I brought you here."
"And how did I end up in your bed, in your clothes?" Claire puts her hands on her hips, trying to look casual, and fails miserably. She looks like she's scolding him-or demanding an explanation for something he's done wrong.
"Uh," he blinks at her once, twice, three times, and she wonders if he's got something in his eye. "You said your clothes were uncomfortable and you were tired of wearing them. So I loaned you some of mine. I also told you I'd take the couch."
She looks at him for a long moment, crossing her arms over her chest without thinking about it. "And that's it? Nothing else happened? We didn't...do anything?"
The man turns scarlet, but to his credit does not look away.
"No," he says, and Claire's pretty sure that while he's telling the truth about that, there is something he's not telling her.
"Then why are you so embarrassed?" she wants to know. This time he does look away.
"I'm not-" he sighs. "Fine. You kept trying to kiss me, back at the bar. I told you once you were sober you could do whatever you wanted to me, but until then the answer was no. You seemed to think it was worth the wait."
"I seemed to think so?" she asks, and he somehow manages to blush even harder.
"Once we got back here you kept telling me all the things you were going to do to me once you were sober," he says, looking even more uncomfortable as the pants he slept in fail to hide the precise nature of said things.
Claire looks away. "You could have slept with me last night." She has no idea why she says it. "I would have let you."
"I know." his voice is soft and, Claire thinks, a little bit sad.
"Then why didn't you?"
He's quiet for long enough that Claire risks looking at him again. She regrets it almost immediately, because his expression is more than a little pained, and there's something in his eyes that suggests she hurt him last night more than she'll ever know.
"Because," he finally says, "you were drunk. You'd already said you weren't interested in a relationship, and while it might not have-while you might not have even remembered it, I couldn't-I can't separate the two. It wouldn't have been fair to either of us."
Claire doesn't know what to say. There's no making this better. "Sorry," she says.
He pulls a fragile smile from somewhere. "Don't be," he says. "I made the choice to get involved."
"Yeah," she looks at the wall so she won't have to look at him. "Thanks for that."
He takes her back to the bar to pick up her car. The ride over is subdued, tension hanging between the two of them. Claire wishes she could take back everything that's happened between them since they met in the KFC parking lot.
He doesn't say anything when he drops her off. To be fair, Claire can't think of anything to say either. She watches him drive off before getting in her own car and putting her keys in the ignition.
Instead of starting the car, she leans forward, resting her head on the steering wheel and hating herself letting things go this far. This is her fault, she knows it, just as surely as she knows that in spite of everything he's said, Phil is already far too emotionally involved.
She promises herself it won't happen again. She won't reach out, she won't put herself in questionable situations he can rescue her from, and if they run into each other on the street she'll say 'hi' and move on. No lingering. No chatting. No catching up.
It's over.
Exactly one week later she's staring at the results of a home pregnancy test, her heart hammering in her chest, tears pricking at her eyes. "Oh, god," she says.
Her brother Mitchell's voice comes wafting through the closed bathroom door. "That doesn't sound promising. Everything all right? Claire?"
Claire fights back the sob suddenly rising from her chest. "I'm pregnant."
Author's Note: Oh my god, I finished the show! And I cried so much. And now I'm kind of sad that it's over, and I wish Phil were my dad, and so many feelings...anyway. Um, here's another thing I made.
Disclaimer: Modern Family does not belong to me.