Bad Boys Don't Smile / phan

chapter ten

[ dan ]

Dan doesn't know what to do.

Every time he talks to Phil, he gets a weird knot in his stomach, he feels himself wanting to simply be closer to Phil - both physically and emotionally. He can't explain it, but he just simply feels at home with Phil. He feels more like a genuine human being rather than a feared, broken mess.

Dan sighs, rolling over in his bed, ignoring his alarm beeping on the table beside him. It's Friday, and Phil is going to be staying the night at Dan's house. Dan is worried - so many things could go wrong. Phil already knows that Dan isn't as scary as he is made out to be, but if he saw the whole truth about Dan...

The truth is so saddening and pride damaging that Dan himself doesn't even want to face it. Pretending is a lot better. See, when people don't know you, they assume - especially with Dan - and when they assume, Dan could be anything, be anyone, do anything.

"Dan, come on, you need to get up for school," Shawn says, sticking his head inside Dan's door, seeing his brother huddled under the sheets, resembling their mother.

Shawn walks over to Dan, stopping the alarm and peeling back the covers, putting his face in front of Dan's own, but Dan's eyes are as far away as his thoughts. Shawn panics for a second, thinking that his brother has turned like their mother.

"Dan! Please, talk to me," Shawn says desperately, shaking Dan while tears gather in his eyes.

Dan is pulled out of his trance, seeing his crying brother and pulling him into a hug, squeezing him tightly.

"What's wrong Shawn?" Dan asks, pushing his brother back gently and looking him in the eyes.

"I-I thought you'd left me, you'd gone, like mum," Shawn stammers.

"I'd never do that to you," Dan says, pulling him back into a hug, "I promise Shawn, you will never loose me too."

Dan thinks of that all morning and all the way to school. What would happen to Shawn if something did happen to Dan? Dan does do a lot of stupid things, he'll admit to that, but nothing has ever happened to him. But what if something did? Where would Shawn go when they found out about their mother's inability to care for them? How would he feel?

Dan ignores the whispering that starts up when he arrives at school. He knows what he looks like - his skin is pale from lack of sleep last night, there are dark bags under his eyes, his fringe is messy, hair dishevelled and his clothes crinkled, his jeans with the knees fraying from overuse.

Dan looks down at the ground, walking and sitting behind the English block, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. He sits down, inhaling while leaning against the brick wall and closing his eyes. When he sighs deeply, smoke falls from his lips and he watches as it disappears into the air.

By the time he finally pulls his head out of his daydream, class is already fifteen minutes in. Dan abandons the long burnt out remains of his cigarette in the nearest bin and slowly walks towards his class, which is French.

"Dan-yel!" his French accented teacher says as Dan walks into the class, making all heads turn his way.

He truly despises French, and despises how the stupid teacher pronounced his name. Luckily, everyone was too scared to tease Dan about it in fear he'd punch them in the face. Dan ignores the teacher and sits in a spare seat by the back, next to Phil's annoying, judgy friend Caspar.

The teacher knows better than to question Dan, so he just goes back to his lesson, turning a blind eye as Dan pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through his tumblr feed. A few minutes later, Dan feels a light tap on his arm, and he turns to face a slightly terrified Caspar.