Not on Fire (Phan AU)

faking it

Dan wakes up tired after two hours of sleep. He's quite the opposite of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He groans as soon as he opens his eyes and rolls over in bed, thankful that he had "forgotten" to set his alarm clock. And he's able to fall back asleep for all of two seconds before his mom comes in, telling him to get up.

"I don't feel good," Dan says, his voice muffled by the pillows.

Dan doesn't usually pretend to feel ill to get out of school simply because whenever he does, his mom watches him intently the whole day and makes sure that he doesn't do anything fun, namely Tumblr, so it's pretty pointless to do so. However, he has about a million unfulfilled promises to Louise that he would rather forget about for the day or the week.

"What's wrong?" his mother asks, the concern seeping into her tone. Because Dan does fake sick so little, she rarely questions him when he does. Instead, it's like she forgets everything that he's done, all the lies he's said and the horrible way he's treated her, and if he wasn't feeling guilty enough before, lying to her like this and watching as she whole-heartedly believes it is the final push over the edge.

"I just have a headache and I feel a little nauseous," Dan lies easily.

"Oh, honey," his mom says in that caring voice that usually serves to get on his nerves, but this time, he just feels bad, like there's a pit in his stomach.

Louise's frequent lecture about how he treats his parents comes into his mind. What would she think if she was witnessing this exchange? She would know that he was lying—she knows him enough to know when he's lying and not. Supposedly, his face gives it away, but he's never looked at himself lying to know whether or not this is the truth. He's really good at maintaining eye contact, so he doesn't think that's it, but maybe his face scrunches up marginally, just enough to convey that he's not telling the truth.

"I'll make you some soup for lunch," his mom says. "But for now, I just want you to rest up. I'll be in to check up on you soon."

The first time Dan had faked sick, near the end of his sophomore year, he had fallen for her words and believed that she would come in like clockwork every hour to check up on him. However, she really means that she'll never let him out of his sight long enough for him to do anything.

But the day is still far better than facing Louise, somehow. It's not that he doesn't like talking to Louise—and lord knows he's better for it—but sleeping is better than social interaction any day. And if faking sick and having his mom's watchful eye on him constantly is the price to pay, he's willing to take it every once and awhile. He stays and bed and sleeps, and his mom feeds him soup at noon and shortly before school ends, he says he's feeling loads better and she gives him some space.

***

The next day, there's no getting out of it. He already told his mom that he feels better, so he knows she's going to be skeptical if he randomly feels bad again, and considering he's been able to keep her from getting suspicious for this long, he doesn't want to risk anything. This means that he has to go to school.

"Where were you yesterday?" Louise asks as soon as Dan's in front of the school. "I was really worried about you."

"I didn't feel good."

"Did you fake sick just so you could miss a day of school?"

"Is it impossible for me to get sick or something?"

"Dan Howell doesn't get sick."

"There was that one time in 9th grade."

"Yes, but this isn't the 9th grade, and you were fine the day before."

"I just didn't feel like going to school, okay?"

Louise sighs, moving her backpack so it's situated higher up on her shoulder. She rolls her eyes, but turns around to enter the building anyway. There's no doubt that she knows Dan will follow her; he almost always does.

"You need to stop taking advantage of your mother like that. How many times have you promised me that you would stop?"

"I have promised you way too many things to remember them all."

"Do you remember the promise regarding Phil?"

"Yes."

"Good because he's going to be sitting with us at lunch again, and I'm expecting you to participate and give him a chance."

***

The lunch with Phil hangs on his mind the entire first half of the day. When he's in first block, all he can think about is having to talk to Phil, which seems easy enough. And social interactions in general don't make him anxious, so it would make since that this one wouldn't either, but he feels a weight on his shoulders and Louise's burning stare on his side. He wouldn't call it anxious, however, but it's working its way there the longer he thinks about it.

When he's in second block, with lunch only growing closer, the anxiety fades for a brief second and turns to anger at Louise for always acting like she has control over his life. She's always telling him to do something, and he follows blindly usually, and when he does something she doesn't like, she points it out, expecting him to change it. But then it hits him: he lets her have power over his life. Maybe subconsciously he's decided that he doesn't want to have control of his life because of how much power comes with it, but either way, he can't be mad at her when he rarely puts effort into fighting her. So the anger fades, but not into anxiety. Instead, he starts preparing himself to be annoyed with Phil and his peppy attitude.

When he's in third block, he starts formulating some conversation ideas, so he won't sit there like an i***t for ten minutes trying to think of something to say to make the awkward silence go away. But twenty minutes into class, he gives up because, ultimately, he knows that you can't start a real conversation like that. Instead, he focuses his attention towards calming himself, so he won't explode. He fails.

He doesn't go through the line today. Instead, he sits down without food and waits. Louise will definitely give him a lecture about skipping lunch ("You know it's not good for your body to go so long without eating,") but he allows himself to forget about that for just a second.

Louise and Phil sit down at the same time, one on each side of him, and Dan sighs, knowing that getting through this lunch is going to be a struggle and a half.

"Why aren't you eating?" Louise says almost immediately after sitting down.

"Not hungry," Dan says, shrugging, turning to look at Louise. She's carrying a book, so there's no question about it: she isn't going to participate in the conversation at all once she's done with Dan.

"Dan, you need to eat." He shuts her out after that and lets her go on talking for the next few minutes before she ultimately asks for him to promise her to eat lunch tomorrow, and naturally, he promises her without much fighting.

She starts reading her book as soon as he does, and he turns to Phil, who has sat silently throughout the whole exchange, simply eating his food.

The first thing Dan notices when he looks at Phil is his shirt. He recognizes the band as soon as he sees it: Muse.

"You listen to Muse?" Dan asks, shock obvious in his tone. Louise doesn't listen to them; she'll tell them they're good whenever he asks if it's okay for him to put one of their songs on, but he knows she does that to please him and not because she actually wants to listen to them.

Maybe if Dan was someone else, they might actually have a chance at being friends, but Dan is himself. He burns random things and old memories. He's constantly angry—his parents would say he's going through his "teenage angst" phase, but he digresses. He doesn't know how to form friends who don't lecture him.

"They're my favorite band," Phil replies, smiling. He's always smiling. In fact, Dan can't even think of a handle of times that he hasn't been smiling since they've met.

"Same! And they're so good live."

For Dan's fifteenth birthday party, his parents had gotten him tickets to go see them live. It was only his second concert, so he didn't have much to compare it to, but it was a million times better than the first one (and not just because he only marginally liked the first band he saw live). Matt Bellamy has such a good voice, and Dan's been trying to go to another concert ever since.

"You've seen them live?" Phil says, and Dan nods. "You're so lucky! I almost got the chance to see them live, but my friend's parents wouldn't let him and I had no one else to go with."

"I went with my parents, but it was worth it," Dan responds.

"My parents don't like their music."

"Mine don't either, but it was a birthday gift, so they went along anyway."

"Why didn't you have Louise go?"

"She doesn't like them."

"I don't get how someone could not like them."

"I know right."

After they're done talking about Muse, their conversation moves on to other bands they like (that Louise doesn't), but it only takes half of the lunch period for Dan to grow tired of Phil's perky attitude, so he dismisses himself from the lunch table, and right as he's leaving, he sees Louise look up from her book, giving him a look that tells him to stay put, that she knows what he's going to do, but he ignores her.

Sometimes I can be in control of my life, Dan thinks triumphantly.

He sneaks out through the sports entrance and goes to the smoker's den, an area behind the shed that is surrounded by trees and not visible from the track. This is where everybody goes to smoke during lunch. No one ever checks it, so there's little risk of getting in trouble, and it's also Dan's safe haven at school.

It's still cold outside and the ground is still frostbitten, but even though he has to pull his lightweight jacket further around him, it's still a million times better than talking to Phil right now.

There are two other people when he gets there. He ignores them and takes a spot in the corner where no one is and lights up a cigarette. He keeps a pack in his pocket just in case, and today is one of those just in case moments.

He's always thought there's something nice about watching the smoke go up and disappear. The smoke is so fragile, and with a simple wave of his hand, Dan could destroy it, but he doesn't. Instead, he watches it move through the air. Maybe that's why he likes it so much; it gives him power over something so small, power that he can handle without crumbling under the stress of it. And don't get him wrong. Dan likes power and being in control, but being in control over something else is so much different than being in control of his own life.

"Can I have a cigarette?" a girl asks, motioning towards the cigarette in his mouth.

"This is my last one," he replies without thinking. He's lying, but that's what he does. Dan Howell is a liar and a fake and a bad friend and an arsonist, and he doesn't care about other people (except Louise and his parents, but that's it).

The bell rings shortly after and he stomps on his cigarette, hearing the crunch of the frozen grass underneath give way. The burning end of the cigarette wasn't enough to calm him, and he still feels annoyance and anger and frustration and he'll have to do this again today, because setting another fire just isn't an option right now.

When did his life get so messy?