One Direction Sickfics

Liam's kid faking sick- for TaylorDeniseGarza

"Dylan, you've got twenty minutes!" 

My hand slipped out from under my chin and I dropped forward, smacking my chin hard on my desk as I jolted awake. 

"Fuck," I murmured, wiping the sleep from my eyes. I glanced around at the stacks of paper that completely covered my desk and my heart fell. I hadn't gotten through all of it, the pile of papers that I still had to go was still bigger than the pile that I had managed to look at.

I was absolutely screwed.

My chemistry test was today, the one that would decide whether or not I had to get a tutor and I had only studied half the syllabus. The couple of tutors Mum and Dad had spoken to had both said that if I was really struggling I'd have to quit basketball so that I could really focus on catching up with the rest of my year.

Basketball was kind of my life, as sad as that sounded. I really wasn't prepared to let it go over some measly chemistry grade. 

Fuck.

How was I supposed to do this? Chemistry was so boring and I tended to lose focus easily in class so I literally had no idea what I'm doing, plus the last time I remember checking the time it was 4:20 in the morning so I'd had a grand total of three hours of sleep. 

I closed my eyes, already seeing the big fat F on the top of my paper and the tutor, standing there with a tortuous grin ready to destroy my whole life. 

All I needed was one more day to go through the other half of my notes and get some sleep, one more day and I might actually have a chance to pass this stupid test.

I couldn't just ask because Dad would ask why and I' have to tell him I wasn't ready for the test which would just disappoint him because I'd promised him that I could do this, that there wasn't going to be a tutor in my future.

I had one thing going for me, and that was that Mum and Dad didn't know the test was today.

My mind was made up, I wasn't going to school, there was just the question of how to do it.

I could catch the bus into town and then just hang around there all day but then the school would call my parents, so that was out. Tora might've faked a call into the school to say I was sick if I hadn't eaten the last slice of pizza last night. She didn'teven talk to me for the rest of the night so I doubted she would do me a favor.

The only other option was a sick day. I wasn't particularly good at acting but as I sat there at my desk nothing else came to mind and I realised that I was just going to have to give it my best shot.

I was beginning to wish I'd listened closer when Brandon was telling me about all of his successful fake sick days. He treated it like it was a sport.

"What are you doing, Dyl?" 

I jumped in fright, spinning around on my chair to see Mum standing in the doorway, one eyebrow raised. Shit, how was I gonna play this? 

"Uh, nothing," I replied awkwardly, my voice still rough from waking up. Maybe it would help with my act.

She ran a hand through her straight hair and gave me a pointed look, "well you better get a move on, your ride's leaving in quarter of an hour." 

I coughed dryly and winced. It couldn't of sounded more fake if I'd tried. This was never going to work.

A though struck me as mum turned and left. I couldn't fake it why not make it real? 

Brandon's words rang through my head, black pepper does the job exceptionally. . .

Black pepper. Worth a shot.