Not on Fire (Phan AU)

the first day

Dan wakes up to the shrieking sound of his alarm clock and rolls over in his bed to cover his head with a pillow. If there is one day that he hates just as much as the first day back to school after summer break, it's the first day back to school after Christmas break. In both cases, he gets used to staying up all night on Tumblr and sleeping all day long with the occasional fire sometime after dark. And he absolutely hates waking up earlier than ten o'clock when he usually waits until noon to roll out of bed.

His alarm clock is unfortunately placed on his desk which is too far away from his bed for him to lean over and hit snooze, so he listens to the ringing as the pillow is unsuccessful in blocking out the horrific noise.

Soon, the sound of loud knocking on his door mixes in with the ringing and he huffs in protest when he hears his mom say, "You need to get up or you'll be late for school."

Most of Dan's motivation to do well in school flew out the window the same day that he decided setting fires was a great pastime. Sure, he wants to go to a college far from here and to do so he needs good grades and other outstanding qualities. Well, the only one he's got covered is the good grades part. He doesn't do any after school activities—unless you count arson as one and something tells him most people don't—and he doesn't volunteer anywhere. He doesn't even have a good attendance record, for God's sake, and he definitely doesn't feel like starting one today.

"I don't care," he groans into his pillow, his voice muffled because of it. "I don't want to go to school."

His mom throws open his door, the knob hitting the wall loudly, and marches over to what he assumes is his alarm clock as seconds later, the sound of its insistent ringing is gone. He sighs, appreciating the silence of the room for a few seconds before his comforter is rudely ripped off of his body, the pillow following suit. He rolls over in his bed to look at his mom, who has an angry expression on her face and doesn't look impressed in the least bit.

"Dan, you have this semester left and then you can be done with school for all I care, but please, for the love of god, get out of bed and get ready. I don't want to be late to work," she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

He looks at her, blinking lazily, barely processing the words that she's saying. "You don't have to be late to work; I don't need you to take me to school."

One of the things that he hates about his parents is that they refuse to get him a car. For some reason that he totally doesn't understand, they don't think he's responsible enough to own one and they're not even willing to let him borrow one of their cars from time to time to drive himself to school. This means that even though he's a senior with a driver's license he's still stuck being driven to school by his mom. This also means that he has to walk to whatever place he wants to burn.

"Yes, you do. I don't trust you to get to school if I don't," she says angrily. "Hell, I don't even trust you to get to school when I bring you myself."

Another thing about his parents is that they don't trust him with anything. They used to be too trusting and he took advantage of that trust and he took advantage of the fact that they would do anything to connect with them, but once they caught on to what he was doing, it was game over. Their relationship hasn't been the same since. They still care too much about his social life and his school career, but they aren't willing to do anything to prove this to him. If they were, he'd probably have a car.

To be honest, they were considering buying him a car for his seventeenth birthday, but that was also around the time when they were catching onto how he was taking advantage of them, so he never did get the car.

"Fine," Dan says, huffing irritably. "Just get out so I can get changed."

"If I have to come up here a second time, I'm going to bring a bucket of cold water with me," his mom says.

Dan closes his eyes, shielding himself from the harsh brightness of his ceiling light, and waits until two minutes after the door shuts before he finally gets out of bed.

Despite it being winter, complete with cold weather and harsh winds, Dan's only in his boxers when he steps out of bed. He had felt cold while he was still in the bed, but the air hits him from all sides once the comfort of his bed is taken away from him.

He takes his sweet time getting ready, going through his morning routine at a slow pace. When he's straightening his hair, his mom comes up to check on him. He groans immediately once he sees her in the mirror because every single time she's seen him straightening his hair since he told her he was bisexual, she's said the same joke over and over again. Hearing the joke repeated so many times actually made him regret coming out to her, but he had done it because he doesn't think it's that big of a deal, so as soon as he came to terms with his sexuality, he had sat her down, along with his father, and told them like it was just any other news. Of course, they had cried and told him repeatedly that they were proud of him and when they hugged him, he sat motionless, his muscles tense, as he waited for it to be over. He's paid the price for that day a million times over since then.

"Has it worked yet?" his mother asked laughing, the angrier version of herself from only ten minutes ago gone.

"It's straightening my hair, isn't it?" he responds with annoyance present in his voice. "It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do."

He knows that this joke is her way of reiterating the fact that she's okay with him not being straight, but he doesn't care because he doesn't think that she needs to stress this over and over again. In fact, he didn't even want a response when he told them. He just wanted them to know so he wouldn't feel like he was making a big deal out of something that wouldn't be a big deal if people weren't so heteronormative.

"Fine," his mom says, her hands raised in mock surrender. "Just hurry up; you're already running late."

It takes him fifteen more minutes to get ready and by that time, school has already started.

The atmosphere in the car is tense. His mom is mad with him because he's going to be late to school and she might be late to work, and he's mad because he would rather be lying in bed right now than heading towards his own personal hell.

"I know you hate school," his mom says, turning the car off, "but please, make an effort this time around. You don't have much time left and you'll regret it if you don't go out and live your senior year."

"Yeah, whatever," Dan says, tacking on a quick I love you at the end to please his mother.

"I love you, too," she says as he shuts the door.

It's not that he doesn't love her because he does—he loves her and his father both—but he's in a perpetual state of annoyance at them both. This started shortly after he turned thirteen, when he was going through that staged where he felt that he was too cool for them. He was officially a teenager and his stereotypical idea of a teenager was that they blew off their parents and did what they wanted, so that's what he did. He's grown out of that stage, but the irritation never left because his parents have always found ways to annoy him since then.

He's on a first name basis with the secretary at the front desk as he's late a lot of the time, and so it's no surprise when he hears her voice as soon as he steps through the door.

"Late again, Dan?" Carol asks, staring at him pointedly over the top of her glasses. "I thought you said you were going to try harder this time around."

"I couldn't pass up seeing you again, Carol," Dan says charismatically, a silly smile playing on his lips.

Dan doesn't act this way with anyone else, but he knows that it gets on her nerves, so once in a blue moon, he pretends to act all flirtatiously just to get a rise out of her.

"Dan," she scolds, pushing her glasses back up her nose, "you know how I feel about you saying stuff like that."

"I'm sorry, but it's the truth," he says, laughing.

"Just get to class."

Dan's locker is in the main hall and typically, this sucks. The hall is always crowded in the morning before the bell rings and during passing times, but since he's late, the hallway is clear, save for one or two people who are heading towards their classes with their books in hand. Just like he did when getting ready, he takes his time at his locker, taking what he doesn't need out of his backpack and gathering the books that he does need.

Just as he goes to shut his locker, he feels a tap on his shoulder and he turns around, closing his locker as he does so.

Standing in front of him is a guy who he's never seen before. He'd even go so far as to say that the guy is an attractive stranger. He has black hair, styled in a fringe that goes the opposite direction of Dan's own fringe. His eyes are easily the prettiest shade of blue that Dan's seen, with mixes of yellow and green near the center, and he has a toothy, goofy smile on his face, even though Dan sees no reason as to why he would be smiling so big. His hands are placed awkwardly in his pants pocket, with some fingers in the pocket and others sticking out at a weird angle. He doesn't understand how it could possibly be comfortable, but it fits whoever this guy is.

"What do you want?" he asks with a hint of agitation. He's only slightly less annoyed than he normally would be because he doesn't feel like going to class and this guy is making it easy for him to prolong doing so.

"I was wondering if you could show me to my class. I have a map of the school, but I can't seem to figure it out."

Normally, Dan would say no, but maybe it's because it's the first day back or maybe it's because the guys hot or maybe—and this is the most likely answer—it's because Dan really doesn't want to go to school.

"Sure," Dan says. "What class is it?"

"I have English Mrs. Kintigh in room 253," the guy says, looking at a piece of paper in his hands that Dan assumes is his schedule.

Dan groans. It's just his luck that this guy would have the same class as him. So much for having an excuse to be late to class.

"Follow me," Dan says, motioning with his hand in the direction of the class. "It's just up those stairs and around the corner."

Mrs. Kintigh is in the middle of teaching when they walk in and she pauses in the middle of a sentence as Dan takes his seat in the back of the class. He hears a few mumbles from the front of the class room as the guy talks to her and shortly after, he sees her point to the seat right next to him and the guy—whatever his name is—walks over to him, taking a seat in the empty chair on the right side of him.

"My name's Phil, by the way," the guy says, a smaller smile on his face.

Class is a bore and goes by in a blur. Dan writes notes when he's supposed to and spaces off when the teacher goes off on another tangent.

He can't stop thinking about fires. The last time he set a fire was in the fall, closer to the start of the school year, but due to weather, he hasn't been able to set any substantial fires since then. He's burned the bear that's located in the back corner of his room, but he hasn't destroyed it yet and it hardly fulfils his desires. And it's consumed him for so long, but he won't be able to do anything about it tonight, probably won't be able to do anything about it until late February or early March and that's only if he's lucky. So he'll have to rely on burning old possessions to calm his nerves.

When classes is ever, Dan hurries to gather all of his things and leave, but right as he moves to head out of the classroom, Phil taps on his back.

"What's your name?" he asks.

"Dan," he answers shortly.

"I was wondering if you could show me to my next class," Phil says, "if that isn't too much of an inconvience."

Luckily, Louise is right behind Phil, so Dan pulls her aside and tells Phil, "I have to get to my next class, but Louise would love to show you."

Dan's an asshole and a horrible friend, but that's what Louise signed up for and he feels little remorse when she shoots him an annoyed glare before smiling at Phil and leading him out of the classroom.

The only reason he even hangs out with Louise is because it makes his parents happy and considering the majority of what he does angers them, he feels that it's only right to do one thing to please them. And Louise isn't so bad. She likes to hang out with him when he'd rather be off setting fires, but she's nice enough and she gives him someone to rant to, which is something that he does a lot. So he can't exactly complain, but if it wasn't for his parents, he's not sure that he would talk to her at all.

***

Dan would almost go so far as to say that this is his lucky day because he has lunch with Louise, but it also turns out that he has lunch with Phil.

"Hi," Phil says, standing behind a vacant chair at Dan's table. "Can I sit here?"

"Sure," Louise says with a large smile on her face, just as Dan's about to say no. She flashes Dan an annoyed look before turning back to face Phil and motions towards the seat. "The seats yours if you want it."

Phil places his tray on the table and takes a seat, the goofy smile from before present on his face. "Thanks."

"You're new here, right?" Louise asks.

Dan watches, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two as they converse.

"Yeah," Phil says. "I just moved here from Preston."

"Oh, I've been there," Louise says happily. "My grandparents live there."

A few times, Phil tries to include Dan in the conversation, but he answers question with short one word answers and keeps quiet the rest of the time. He takes back what he said earlier about him being cute; he's annoying.

He thinks that, if Phil sits there tomorrow, he'll respond, but the first days are always the worst days and it's hard for him to be considerate. Plus, he hasn't even had the chance to burn his bear all of Christmas break because his parents have been on his back, so he's extra irritable today. He'd still rather not talk to him, but he's already lectured enough by his parents and he knows that Louise will start lecturing him, too, if he doesn't try to be nice to Phil.

But his purpose isn't this; it isn't making friends. His purpose is setting fires and he needs to start remembering that if he's going to survive the second half of his senior year.

***

After school, he goes over to Louise's house because he doesn't want his parents to start to worry about him again like they did last year when he literally hung out with no one and they thought he was starting to get depressed.

"So what do you think of Phil?" Louise asks when they're sitting on her bed watching television.

It's four o'clock, school having ended an hour ago, and Dan's bored. His original plan had been to go home, burn the right paw of his Winnie the Pooh bear, and then spend the rest of his evening browsing the fire tag on Tumblr, but clearly, he isn't going to get that opportunity any time soon.

"He's annoying," Dan says simply, his eyes staring at the television screen even though he's not even watching the show.

"You think everyone's annoying," Louise says and groans, dragging her hands over her face. "What am I going to do with you? Didn't you promise your parents that you would try to make more friends?"

"That's because everyone is annoying and yes, I did promise them that, but I think all of us knew that I was lying when I did that."

Dan doesn't even understand why his parents try anymore. The last time he complied with his parents' wishes in the last two years was when he agreed to give Louise a chance; most of the time, he just blows them off, so Dan's not really sure what Louise is even the tiniest bit surprised that he's not doing what he said he would do.

"At least give Phil a chance. You don't even know him; he's a really good guy from what I can tell and you haven't known him long enough for you to really decide whether or not you like him."

Dan had called it: Louise is giving him yet another lecture. He swears, sometimes she's more like a third parent than a friend.

"I'll think about it," Dan says with no intentions of actually doing so because Dan's a bad person and he knows it.