Not On Fire (Phan AU)

06 | 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."