Hi, the beginning is a bit lame, I reckon, but I personally think, family relations are an essential part of a fanfiction. It just doesn't seem authentic when all the plot takes part at school.
I always try to create authentic characters and I absolutely hate it when Dan and/or Phil have mean parents without proper character traits in fanfictions. So, yeah. Enjoy!
Teach Me How To Love
Chapter One - A sweaty-handed, dorky new student
* beep-beep-beep *
* beep-beep-beep *
* beep-beep-b- *
"Nngh."
Groaning, Dan Howell reached out for his beeping alarm clock and switched it off with a professional hand gesture.
When he had made sure that it would stay silent, Dan turned around in his bed, snuggled up in his duvet and dozed off again.
The rainy weather and the dark sky that was covered with black cumulus clouds, which indicated a looming thunderstorm, mirrored Dan's mood perfectly.
Today was the first day of his last year at school, and this thought frightened him quite a bit.
Not because of the huge amount of exams he would have to take or the pressure of achieving excellent grades – in fact, Dan was an exceptionally good student and very diligent and ambitious as he wanted to study law after his graduation. That was partly because he was interested in this calling, and partly because he couldn't think of a profession more impressive and prestigious.
Also, he wanted to have an influence on people's lives; to have culprits pay for their crimes, to convict them, in order to revenge their victims. Dan had always have a strong sense for justice, which was probably a result of how he was treated in school. For once, he wanted to have the power to adopt a firm policy when being faced with blatant injustice or disobedience. For once, he wanted to be respected.
Well, Dan was by no means worried about his grades.
The notion of never seeing anyone from his class again after this year seemed tempting as well to him.
Dan had never bothered maintaining a proper friendship because he didn't want to grow fond of anybody. It's so easy to get hurt when you actually care about people. Moreover, every friendship ended someday. That was a given. So, most times, Dan acted like an indifferent phony in school.
Except for two or three times in the past (in retrospect, Dan always cringed at the memories), when Dan had felt particularly lonely at school and had tried to develop some platonic friendships by sitting next to his fellow students at lunch or attempting to have some kind of an interesting conversation with his classmates.
Despite his aspirations, however, nobody had ever appreciated or befriend him and Dan really didn't know why. (It was certainly not because of his smell, he smelled very nice of peppermint toothpaste and vanilla.)
After some time, he had accepted his fate. Friendships were just not his cup of tea. (And his mum had never been able to convince him otherwise either.)
Back on topic.
The real reason why he was scared was because his cozy childhood would soon be over.
Everyone would expect him to be mature and adult-y and independent, not accepting any more mood swings or impetuous decisions. Never again would he be allowed to ask his dad for advise or hug his mum when he felt down. Well, not officially, though; of course he could always consult his parents but technically, adults were supposed to cope with every situation on their own, weren't they? And Dan didn't want to look like a total wimp.
And sooner or later, his parents would want him to move out (needless to say, after his graduation, but still); they wouldn't confront him with this but Dan just knew what they had on their minds.
Furthermore, he would have to find a job to pay his college fees, as he didn't want to be a burden to his parents.
And taxes. Oh dear. He didn't even know how to pay taxes. Did he have to sign up somewhere? What if he ever forgot to pay them? He would go straight into prison.
After being condemned by a lawyer.
How ironic.
No, Dan wasn't afraid of his future, he just felt a bit uneasy about it and perhaps worried slightly too much.
"Honey, it's almost time for school! Didn't you hear your alarm going off? Hurry up, breakfast's ready!" Dan's mum shouted from beyond his door.
"Hmm, coming," Dan muttered and turned out of his bed, blanket wrapped around his shoulders because it was freezing cold in his room.
What a beautiful summer's day, Dan thought, glancing out of his window, right when a lightning emerged in the sky, followed by a rolling thunder.
Sighing, he shuffled to his wardrobe, pulled out some grey skinny jeans, a plain black t-shirt and a navy blue jumper.
To add a bit of a tint to his outfit he slipped into his red and green checkered Christmas socks. Not that anyone was going to see them anyway.
After having dressed and brushed his teeth, Dan made his way into the kitchen, were his mum and dad were sitting at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper.
"Morning," Dan mumbled and slumped on his chair. His dad just nodded towards his direction, busy scanning the stock index. He owned a huge car factory and claimed several shares, so he always had to be updated about what was going on at the stock exchange and stuff... This topic would forever be a mystery to Dan; I mean, you cannot do anything if there's a decrease besides dealing with the loss, can you? He didn't know what would happen if his dad's firm lost all the shares, would his family end up on the street? How much money did his dad invest in those shares?
A lot and it apparently wasn't going too well, Dan deduced from the frown that had formed on his father's forehead and the thin streaks of grey hair that were growing between his usual dark brown hair.
But they never talked about his dad's work.
His mum, however, looked up from the feuilleton page and smiled brightly at her son.
"Good morning, honey!"
She grabbed a slice of toast and began coating it with jam before handing it to Dan, who thanked her and tried to reciprocate her smile.
"Did you sleep well?" she asked as she fumbled with the lid of her strawberry yoghurt.
"Hm," was Dan's indistinct response. The truth was he hadn't slept all too well, but this wasn't an unusual occurrence lately, so he didn't bother worrying his mum. "Yeah, what about you?"
He took a bite of his toast.
Jam was his secret love.
"Um, sure...," she hesitantly answered, shooting a shy glance at her husband, who didn't seem to notice, though.
Huh? That was strange.
But before Dan could even open his mouth to ask if there was anything wrong, he heard the grandfather clock in the living room striking 8 times, whereupon his mum jumped up from her chair and hurried into the hallway.
"I didn't notice it was so late already!" she yelled while slipping into her heels. She quickly applied some perfume and lipstick, returned to the kitchen to plant a short kiss on her husband's lips and Dan's cheek.
"Have a nice day at school, honey! And you better work hard too, James," she winked at Dan's father, who rolled his eyes in amusement, and with clicking heels, she rushed out the door.
Dan finished his toast and tea and afterwards quickly cleared the table.
"Dad, I've got to get going now, too, see you tonight," he murmured, grabbed his backpack from beneath the table and put on his jacket.
"Goodbye, Daniel," his father answered, still not looking up.
When Dan stepped out of the house, it had stopped raining, yet the sky was still full of dark clouds.
Dan hoped it wouldn't start raining until he was at school, since he hadn't brought an umbrella with him.
He was not really an umbrella kind of boy.
Umbrellas didn't suit him.
And he always ended up hurting his fingertips when closing the umbrella. Who invented this sharp little metal thing you had to push into the handle in order to close the umbrella?!
He preferred his hoods.
Luckily, he had a rather short way to school. After five minutes of walking Dan reached the school grounds, right when it was just about to rain again. He scurried through the entrance door, accidentally bumped into two girls but made it look like he did it on purpose, so they would leave him alone. The girls began whispering at his sight but Dan only frowned and headed off.
That way, mum will probably never have any grandchildren, Dan thought with a bitter smirk as he made his way to his old classroom on the third floor.
When he entered it, there were already a bunch of people there, sitting on their chairs or chatting in small groups.
Fortunately, Dan's seat from last year was still unoccupied, so he quickly crossed the room to claim the window seat in the last row his own.
Oddly enough, some people followed his walk and stared at him. He ignored them. Annoying kids. The only thing he was kind of looking forward to today was his teacher. That sounded a bit wrong and quite unusual for a student of Dan's age but it was true: The only person who had ever genuinely cared about Dan in these halls was Mr Stevens, his English teacher. Even though he was like two hundred and something years old, he was the kindest and coolest teacher Dan had ever had. But maybe this was just because he taught English, which happened to be Dan's favourite subject. Most students didn't appreciate Mr Stevens because he didn't hesitate giving low grades when his students didn't work hard enough; also, he somehow smelled strongly like straw and students didn't like having him around for too long. Dan, however, didn't mind.
Besides, he secretly thought that he was Mr Stevens favourite student, even though he never contributed anything to his lessons. Dan didn't like being the centre of attention and having people staring at him. He would always stumble over his words and talk rubbish, which was embarrassing.
Dan was excited all of sudden, he even wondered what interesting topic Mr Stevens would start with this year.
He pulled a notepad out of this bag and doodled a bit until the bell announced the beginning of the lesson.
A teacher was nowhere to be seen.
This was unusual, Mr Stevens was never too late for his lessons.
After ten minutes, other students seemed to wonder as well where their teacher might be.
Their class representative, Chris Kendall, a small, quirky geek with a gelled quiff, already announced that he was going to consult the headmaster, when the door opened and said headmaster occurred in the frame, followed by a lanky, black-haired boy who shyly stopped next to the door and fidgeted with his hands.
Dan raised his eyebrows. A sweaty-handed, dorky new student for his old favourite teacher? Not the kind of deal Dan liked to agree to.
Especially because the new one seemed like the nerdy kind as he carried not a proper backpack but an old-fashioned, flat briefcase.
Headmaster Richards stood behind the teacher's desk and cleared his throat.
Not because it wasn't quite enough in the room but to draw the classes attention to himself rather than to the strange boy in the corner who was looking really uncomfortable by now.
"Good morning, students! Welcome to school again, I'm convinced that you had some nice vacations and that's why I'm not going to dwell on this topic any longer. Um. I'm afraid I've got some unfortunate news for you. Your former teacher, Mr Stevens, called me yesterday evening to tell me that he'll no longer teach at our school because he felt slightly too old. I know, this must be shocking news for you, I understand if some of you are sad now."
Dan looked around and could only see relieved, smiling faces. No one seemed to be sad. But Dan for sure was.
The only thing he liked in school was gone. Amazing.
"But no need for despair, folks, because I already hired a new teacher and I'm sure he will handle you as well as Mr Stevens did!"
Dan rolled his eyes. Who could possibly be any better than Mr Stevens?
A lot of students began shuffling in their seats when Mr Richards smiled at the strange boy next to the door.
Dan's heart skipped a beat and his mouth fell open ins disbelief when realisation struck him.
"Come on, Mr Lester, don't be shy and introduce yourself to your class," the headmaster beamed and stepped aside to make room behind the teacher's desk.
The new kid a.k.a. "Mr Lester", whose face was now even paler than before (Dan feared he might faint), stumbled to the desk, cleared his throat for like half a minute and then began to speak in a dry, trembling voice. "Uh, hello, guys! I am Ph- I mean, Mr Lester and I um... Well, I guess, I am your new teacher. Yeah. That's about it." He looked more than nervous and furtively wiped his sweaty hands on his pants.
"Maybe I could... Where is my... Ah, here." He had opened his briefcase and pulled out some white chalk.
"I just briefly write my name on the blackboard so you won't forget my... um... name."
When he set the chalk on the board, it broke into two pieces. One of the pieces fell to the ground and Mr Lester looked at the class at first, shocked by what had just happened, then bend down to recollect the chalk.
Unfortunately, he seemed to have forgotten to put on a belt this morning because the rim of his blue and yellow striped underwear made a brief cameo.
Some girls giggled but Mr Lester didn't seem to notice that his boxers were showing.
Dan glanced at Mr Richards whose smile had sort of stiffened during Mr Lester's speech and he looked as though as he was regretting employing this Mr Lester.
"Yeees, Mr Lester, I'm sure you can do the rest without my help. I need to do some... headmaster stuff. Signing papers, you know. See you at lunch," Mr Richards hastily added before leaving the room while Mr Lester was still busy writing the initial letter "L" of his surname on the board.
When the door was closed, Mr Lester's back stiffened and the chalk broke a second time.
Hallelujah.
Dan felt kinda sorry for him.
Dan had never thought he would meet someone more awkward than him