Not on Fire (Phan AU)

promises

Louise is standing outside of the door, off to the side, when Dan's mom pulls up and drops him off. She's wearing her blonde hair up in a ponytail with a look of disappointment on her face. For the most part, she always keeps her hair down, and she only puts it up when she's mad. Dan's not sure why she does this, but he briefly remembers it having to do with her mom. He wants to say it's because her mom always did it to annoy her grandma as Louise's grandma always believed that girls should wear their hair down, but maybe that was a different thing that he's confusing it for.

The closer he gets, the more obvious it is that she's clearing mad. Well, she's as mad as she can get. Louise reserves being full-blown mad for little things, namely her parents, but with Dan, she's more likely to be highly disappointed than mad.

"You told me you were going to give him a chance," she says. Disappointment rings in her voice, but Dan takes a second to realize it. He's gotten too used to it to point it out immediately as he pretty much hears it at least once a day.

"I did," Dan says, shrugging indifferently. "It just didn't take very long for him to bother me."

"That's what you always say."

"Because that's how I always feel."

"How can you be sure what you feel when you literally didn't even give him two seconds of your time?"

"Two seconds can say a lot about a person."

Louise gives him her signature look. It's a cross between annoyed and disappointed and it always makes him feel guilty. He huffs in defeat, something he typically does, which is a sign that he's close to giving in.

"Please, I know it doesn't bother you, but I know it makes your parents sad that you don't do anything besides go to school and laze around on your computer all day. So, please, for the love of God, give him a chance. He's actually really nice," Louise says. The parent card is what makes Dan feel the worst about how he acts. Louise's parents don't care what she does with her life like Dan's do, and for a while, he had thought that was the best think, but now, it just doesn't seem as appealing as it once did.

He sighs again, drawing it out. "What's giving him a chance going to do?"

It's obvious his resolve is wearing thin and has been since she gave the look. His shoulders are slumped and his posture has relaxed, no longer stiff like it had been when he was still annoyed.

"It might make you feel better about yourself," Louise says, a large smile on her face. She clearly knows she's won this time—like always—so there's no point in arguing any longer. It would just be a waste of time.

"Fine," Dan says, "but I want you to know that I won't enjoy this and I'm only doing it to make you happy."

"That's what you think now, but eventually, you'll be glad I had you do this because you'll really start to like him."

"I doubt it."

The ten minute bell rings loud and clear, despite the fact that Dan's not inside the building, but it's just the excuse that Dan needs to leave Louise. They have the same first block, but their lockers are in two separate directions.

Dan's locker is the main hall, which sucks for a number of reasons, but the main reason is that it's always crowded and he has to push his way through to get to his locker which doesn't help with his plan to stay invisible. Sure, it's not out of his way as he passes by it between almost all of his classes, but the main hallway is where everything happens because it's the largest hallway, and—just like Dan—most people pass it on their way to their next class.

Once Dan's done pushing his way through a large crowd of people that have gathered around in large groups to take to their friends, Dan quickly does his combination and opens up his locker. His books have fallen down, which is something that would usually annoy Dan, but this time, he just lets it slides and grabs the one he needs as his promise to Louise weighs heavy on his mind.

His lighter is in his pocket, and it's just light enough that it feels more like a phantom weight than anything else, but it's what the second half of his attention is focused on, and he's torn between preparing himself for Phil and wanting to skip school to go set something on fire, but it's risky lighting fires in broad daylight anyway, so he has just enough strength to ignore his urge.

The crowd is still just as big and annoying as it was when he first walked in when he is done getting what he needs from his locker. Noise is everywhere, having only gotten worse, and the rage he feels at everyone in this damned hallway increases, putting a new image in his mind—something he knows he would never go through with, but would love to see happen anyway—that's as vivid as his memory of what happened just two seconds ago, and he sees the school building burning down as he stands watch.

He shakes his head to clear these thoughts from his brain. He probably looks insane, but people already think he's weird enough anyway. He wears black the majority of the time and never talks to anybody, except for Louise and now apparently Phil, and is easily annoyed when someone does try to communicate with him, so at this point, Dan doesn't think it's worth fretting over his reputation.

Louise is already in the classroom when he gets to his first block, and so is Phil. Dan makes eye contact with Louise just long enough to see her subtly motioning towards Phil, as if telling Dan to go and talk to him.

Dan takes his seat next to Phil but keeps quiet, waiting for Phil to say something first. If Phil doesn't make the first move, then as far as Dan's concerned, he clearly doesn't want to be his friend and therefore, it makes no sense for Dan to try and befriend him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dan sees Phil turn to face him, opening his mouth as if preparing to speak, but the ringing of the bell silences him, and Mrs. Kintigh clears her throat at the front of the room.

"Today will be all partner work, so as soon as I take attendance, I want you to find a partner."

Usually, Dan partners up with Louise, but when he turns to catch her eye, she's facing away from her, talking to the girl who sits next to her, and Phil's asking him if he wants to work with him.

Fuck you, Louise, Dan thinks bitterly without any conviction. He wants to be mad—and feels like he has every right to be—but he made a promise to her, so it's partly his fault. This is just the thing that Louise would do, so he's not even surprised.

"Sure," Dan says, not even trying to hide his irritation. He may have promised Louise that he would try, but he had figured that he would have at least until lunch to do so.

When Mrs. Kintigh finishes taking attendance, Dan has Phil move his desk next to Dan's, so it will be easier to work together. The first thing they have to do is edit a paper, probably because they're going to start another essay soon, and then they have a worksheet to do which is supposed to take them the majority of the class time to do as they have to look up various things to do it.

"I've always hated editing other people's papers," Phil says randomly before they've had the chance to actually start it. "I feel like I put way too much effort into it and nobody does the same for me."

Dan nods. He actually has a lot he could say about this subject. He used to edit Louise's papers in-depth, but when he started to realize that her corrections were never as thorough as his, he started to provide fewer edits and fewer suggestions. "Yeah, Louise used to edit mine all the time, but she would correct really tiny mistakes and then put, 'This was really good!' at the end, while I would be spending like an hour reading and rereading hers just to make sure I got everything."

"Right! And having us edit these sample papers does nothing. I don't learn anything from them, and if I have to edit them, I'm not going to want to use them as a guide for mine, and if they're really good, then I'm going to have a hard time not wanting to copy them, you know? Like I'd rather spend time doing self-editing than editing papers of people who have already been graded."

"Exactly!" Dan says.

So, maybe he had judged Phil too quickly. He still doesn't want to be friends with him, because friends can be mentally and physically draining in a way that Dan just doesn't want to deal with, but he's definitely not someone he's going to hate. Phil's definitely too perky for him, too upbeat at first glance, but he's raw beneath the surface, opinionated and rude in a probably unintentional way. Still, whenever Dan thinks of Phil's overall perkiness he wants to barf, it's so horrible. It would just be so much easier if Phil could be a side: opinionated and well-rounded or upbeat and flat.

"We should probably get working on this," Phil says, looking down at the sample paper that's half on his desk and half on Dan's.

"She probably won't even grade it," Dan says and looks at it with disgust. "She always does this before we have a paper coming up, but she never even collects them. They're just a thing for us to do to prepare ourselves for the essay, but then again, she's never had us work on them as a pair before."

"Well, you know what they say, two brains are better than one."

"That's only the case if they're both alive and functioning; if one of the people is braindead than they're useless."

They're only halfway through the paper when Phil's constant talking switches from judgmental to overly upbeat once again and now Dan feels like going braindead just so he doesn't have to put up with this anymore. Life would be so much easier if Dan could just pick a side, too: rude and bitter or friendly and opened-up.

Humans are complex, but Dan's always felt like the most complex out there, like he can never quite define who he is personality and character wise. One second, he's mad at his parents and the next second, he's whispering I love you under his breath just because he wants his parents to know, but can't bring himself to say it without crushing his pride.

Phil tries to catch Dan's attention again, but Dan slowly transitions over to one word replies. Unsurprisingly, Phil doesn't shut up. He talks about his favorite books and his favorite movies and what he likes to write about and points out how he hates writing romance with every fiber of his being. Hell, Dan probably knows just as much about Phil as he does himself at this point.

Luckily, once they do get to the worksheet, which takes them forever by the way, Phil shuts up more often as they both have to work harder to complete this than they did on the sample essay. And from then on, the time passes by quicker and before Dan knows it, the teacher is clearing her throat again and standing at the front of the classroom.

"As there are only five minutes left of the class, I would like you to start cleaning up now," she says. "Create two stacks of paper on the table and make sure you have both of your names on your work before you hand it in!"

"I'll turn it in," Phil says, grabbing the papers in his hand. He stands up and pushes his chair back to its original spot carelessly and heads up towards the front of the room.

Dan catches Louise's eye once again as she passes by, and he swears she's telling him to invite Phil to their lunch table.

At this point, it almost seems stupid to ask considering Phil always sits there, but maybe she wants him to do it because it's a way of him subtly saying that he wants Phil around, which he's rather indifferent about actually, but he doesn't say that.

When Phil gets back, Dan says, without thinking too much about it, "Do you want to sit with Louise and me at lunch?"

A smile breaks out on Phil's face. "Sure."

The fact that he invited Phil to lunch means that he can't sneak off to light a cigarette and watch the smoke curl in the air, but he sucks it up and puts on a fake smile, hoping that it doesn't make him look pained.

Dan's just a guy who wants to watch the world burn, but because of Louise, that's going to have to wait.