Not on Fire (Phan AU)

smoke

Between smoking and burning things, Dan goes through lighters fairly quickly, and because he can't ask his parents to drive him to the store every time he needs a new one without it sounding suspicious, he has to walk to the store in the cold January weather.

He leaves without telling his mom or his dad where he's going and slips out the back door unnoticed with a flimsy leather jacket on.

It's a particularly windy day that's needle-sharp and pricks his skin with every blow. The frost-covered grass crunches under foot as Dan works his way from his backyard to the sidewalk in front of his house. He has to duck his head down to cover his face and he can already tell his cheeks are going to be a nice rosy pink color. He watches as the grass abruptly switches over to sidewalk and lifts his head so that he doesn't run in to anybody.

The store is a few minutes away on foot, luckily, but by the time he reaches it, he's shivering, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. His fingers feel almost numb even though they've been in his pockets the whole time.

It's brighter inside than it is outside, with harsh lights shining down over head, as it's nearing nighttime. Dan has to squint his eyes to adjust at first, and he pauses near the doors to give him some time to warm up.

He always buys more than just a lighter because he doesn't want to explain why he's in constant need of a new one, so he goes to a new cashier each time and hides the lighter under snack food in the hopes that no one thinks anything of it.

He walks the store without any specific path and comes across items that he wants to buy randomly, ending up with a basket full of various junk foods. Once he decides that he has enough in his basket to make the lighter seem insignificant, he ends back to the front.

The cigarettes catch his eye and he moves to turn away, but he can't even remember the last time he bought a pack as he's been living off of the same one for a while now, but he's running low. He doesn't smoke that much, maybe a pack every few months, and only when he's stressed and doesn't have something else to burn.

He heads for the cash register with the cigarettes instead and picks up a lighter when he gets in line. Now he has a solid excuse as to why he's buying the lighter (of course he would need it to light the cigarette) but he keeps everything in his basket anyway, deciding to splurge and treat himself.

The lighter is an essential part of burning something, but gasoline is also important in getting the fire to spread. However, Dan's dad keeps gas in the garage on a regular basis ("You'll never know when you're going to need it," he always says) and never notices when it goes missing, so long as Dan fills it up every so often.

"I'm going to need to see an ID," the man at the cash register—his name tag reads Matt—says when Dan asks for a pack.

"Here you go," Dan says, offering a fake smile as he pulls his fake ID out of his pocket and hands it to the guy.

Dan had gotten one shortly before his seventeenth birthday over the summer when he grew a foot. He uses it to buy cigarettes and nothing else, which he considers is pretty mild considering he could be using it to get a lot worse stuff, but he's not sure his parents would see it that way. They'd probably flip if they found out he smokes.

The guy gives him the ID back and allows him to go through with his purchase.

The sky has only gotten darker, the moon visible above the treetops, and with the dark sky, the temperature has dropped considerably. It's started snowing, too; it's a light snow and has barely covered the ground, but it's cold to touch. The wind has calmed down to a slight breeze, but the temperature and the wind are still a sharp combination.

Dan pulls the light jacket tighter around his frame and folds his arms across his chest. He speed walks to his house to get out of the freezing weather, but his fingers still manage to feel numb in the time it takes him to get home, and his hair gets snowflakes in it and the tip of his nose turns red like Rudolph's.

The living room light is on, along with the kitchen light, so there's no chance that he can get in without one of his parents noticing. The front door is closer, however, and he's two seconds away from freezing half to death, so he picks the front door.

His dad's sitting on the couch when he walks in and he toes off his shoes as his dad watches him closely.

"Where did you go?" he asks.

"To the store," Dan replies.

"Why didn't you tell someone?"

Dan shrugs his shoulders and brushes past his father, without even looking into the kitchen to see his mother, and walks to his bedroom. He drops the contents of the bag on his desk and skims through it to find his lighter.

For some strange reason, he's always stored his lighter in his closet, next to his bear, since before he even started burning the bear. This time isn't any different. He immediately opens his closet door and reaches around until he finds the stuffed animal in the back corner, placing the new lighter right next to it and grabbing the old one.

He always keeps his old one until he gets the new one. It's another strange thing that he does, but he doesn't feel comfortable without a lighter, even if it's practically useless.

The old one goes in the trash as soon as he's closed his closet and once he's done with that, he starts putting away all of his other stuff. The cigarettes go in the bottom drawer of his desk, way in the back, and the snack food goes in front of it so that the cigarettes are perfectly hidden.

He doesn't actually know if his parents search through his stuff or not, but he always hides the things they wouldn't approve of just in case.

"Dinner's ready!" his mom shouts right as he's putting the last box away.

Dan can smell the food all the way from his room, but the smell only gets stronger the closer he gets to the kitchen. They're having chicken and twice-baked potatoes. His mom's setting the table when he walks in and his dad's sitting in his normal spot, right next to where his mother sits and directly across from where he sits.

His parents eyes follow him as he sits down and he pretends to not notice at first, focusing his attention on the food in front of him, but he can feel their eyes burning into him and the feeling only grows stronger the longer it lasts. Finally, he cracks and looks up at them before he can even finish cutting a piece of chicken.

"What?" he says, his eyes darting back and forth between them.

"We're really worried about you, honey," his mom says in her motherly voice that's filled with worry but coated in candy. "You leave and don't tell us where you're going and somedays, you don't come back for hours and you only hang out with Louise, no one else."

"I only hang out with Louise," Dan says in an irritated voice, "because she's my only friend." He stabs at his chicken with his fork and moves it around on his plate, but he doesn't eat. "I don't tell you where I'm going because I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself and I don't need you guys to worry about me."

"Dan," his dad scolds, "as long as you live under our roof and are under the age of eighteen, you are our responsibility and we have every right to worry about you. We're your parents."

"Well you have nothing to worry about. Louise is my friend and she keeps me under control," Dan says. "I just like to go outside sometimes and walk around. Is that alright?"

"Yes, but please, just tell us next time," his mother says, not noticing the lie.

The rest of dinner is tense at best, with angry expressions and people refusing to talk, and Dan eats his food quickly to get out of there as fast as he can. He puts his plate away after he finishes eating and storms upstairs.

His phone is on his desk and once he sees it, he decides to invite Louise over.

Even though he only befriended her to make his parents happy, he can't deny that he likes hanging out with her. He could do with a little less of her sometimes, but mainly, he likes her and they hang out almost every day after school and over the weekend if he's not already busy with something else. Most of the time, hanging out just means being in the same room as each other while Dan browses Tumblr and Louise does whatever it is that she does. Sometimes she gets on Tumblr, but she switches it up sometimes. Occasionally, she watches Dan and Dan has to blacklist tags without her noticing.

Louise gets there in roughly ten minutes.

"Where did you go earlier?" she asks, walking in and closing the door behind her with her purse in hand. "You know your parents care about you, right?"

"I know," Dan says, sighing. Louise is the only person who can get him to open up, and she still can't do it all of the time. "But all I did was walk around—I promise. I care about them, too; I just don't appreciate it when they're overprotective."

"Dan," Louise says disapprovingly, sitting down right beside him. "You can't keep doing this to them. You're going to go off to college soon; it's time you start acting like an adult."

"That's what I'm doing," Dan groans, falling back on his bed, so his feet are hanging off and he's lying down. "Adults don't tell their parents where they're going."

"They do when they live with them."

"I didn't invite you over here so you could lecture me. I get enough of that from you at school and at your house."

"I wouldn't lecture you if you didn't give me so many things to lecture you about."

"I'm not trying to."

"Just, appreciate the fact that you have parents who care about you."

For as long as Dan's known her, her parents have always been a sore subject. Louise has never really gotten along with them because her mom got pregnant young and didn't know how to raise her for her childhood years. Her dad helped out as best as he could, but they worked a lot and missed a lot of her events. They're better by far now, but Louise has made it quite clear to Dan that she doesn't understand how he can just take his parents for granted.

"I do," Dan says. "It's just . . . I'm not very good with expressing my feelings."

Dan ends up on Tumblr for the rest of the time Louise is over and she watches over his shoulder, occasionally doing something on her phone, and they make light conversation every so often, mainly about the different posts on his dashboard.

When Louise leaves, she says, "Remember, your parents love you and they care about you. Those are good things, not bad ones."

Shortly after Louise leaves, his mom comes into his room and sits at the end of his bed. "Louise is a good friend, and I'm glad you have her. I don't care if you don't have any other friends, but I do care when you leave without telling me. It would break my heart if one day I woke up and you weren't here and we lost you forever."

Dan sighs and stares up at the ceiling. "You won't lose me; I promise. I never go out without my phone and I always stay close; I promise."

"I believe you, honey," his mom says, "but sometimes that isn't enough. I want you to open up more and tell us more stuff. I get that you're a teenager, but we're always going to be your parents and we're always going to care about you."

The bumps on the ceiling make shapes when you stare at them long and hard and he focuses on the different forms instead of his mother's words. This lecture feels exactly like the one Louise gave him not too long ago and the thought of going through it again makes him need a smoke or a fire.

His mother lets out a deep breath and gets up off his bed, heading towards the door to his room and opening it. "I love you."

When she closes the door, he mumbles out a quiet, "I love you, too," and means every word.