Chapter Text
Dan p.o.v
I walked through the unsurprisingly chaotic hallways of my highschool, carefully trying to avoid flying projectiles and kids acting as flying projectiles. I walked fast, trying not to drop my phone, which was blasting my favorite song by fall out boy, The Pros and Cons of Breathing.
I kept my head tucked low, my stupidly still-brown fringe falling into my face. It literally only had one streak of color, a single black chunk near the outside of my bangs. I had snakebite piercings on my lips, two piercings on each of my ears, I wore eyeliner and sometimes even black lipstick. But oh no, no black hair for me, says mum.
I loved my piercings and makeup but often got made fun of for it, especially the days I pair it with a simple black dress. I'm not transgender, I mean I support trangenderism, but I'm just a cisgender guy who likes to wear dresses and I don't understand what's wrong with it. Although I mostly wear ripped jeans and band shirts, the occasional skirt can't hurt.
Today, however, was a dress day. More and more often I get the feeling for wearing dresses these days. Ah, well. It was a nice dress, small and black with t-shirt sleeves and frayed hems. I had on no lipstick but quiet a bit of eyeliner. Aces.
Apparently no one else thought it was aces because as I was lost in thought on the ethics of cismale dress wearers, I felt a hard shove and the feel of cold metal slamming into my back and shoulders .004 seconds later. "Buy a new dress, Howell?" he spat the word dress like it was lava, and didn't want to get burned by it. I looked up to see it was Tom Evans. I'd like to say he was a big buff jock and I would get beat to a pulp if I fought him but sadly this is not the case.
He was about as tall as Michael Jordan or whoever, I'll give him that, but he weighed less than I did and had the muscle mass of a newborn baby squirrel. Yet he was intimidating, mostly because he had six clones of him who followed his every lead. Namely Joey, Josh, Kellin, and two other kids who never got acknowledged but for some reason still followed Evan and the others around.
I said nothing, like I usually did, but stared at the floor, holding back a smirk. He thought he was so powerful, but he never did anything. Whatever. Let him think he has me scared.
I noticed my phone had dropped on the floor. I pulled away from him, something I never usually did, but my phone never usually ended up on the floor either. I usually take very good care of it, careful not to drop it.
I stopped to pick it up. "What are you doing?" Evans asked perplexedly. I turned around awkwardly.
"Ah, picking up my phone?" I answered with a question. He snapped a quick why like it wasn't obvious. "Because my phone was on the floor? And I don't want it on the floor?" I answered with more questions.
He seethed. Jeez, what's your problem? I thought. I turned to walk away. He let me go with a warning:
"You're my problem, Dan Howell. And you better watch your back." It turned out it had not just been a thought. Creepy.
I walked into my first hour, hurrying to my seat before the bell rang. I was surprised to see that instead of an empty seat, mine was taken by a sleeping boy with hot pink hair. Or girl. Whatever, how should I know how they identify?
The bell rang, shrill and high, but still he laid there, breathing deep. He twitched often, like he was dreaming. I didn't realize I was staring until my teacher barked, "Mrs. Dan? He's new, you could sit next to him, instead of gawking at him." I sat in the empty seat, quietly flipping my middle finger at her back. She knew damn good and well I was cismale.
"Are you transgender or something?" I jumped, looking to my side. The kid had woke up, his pink hair mussed and eyes obviously tired. I groaned. "I'll take that as a no," he said, "I'm Phil, Phil Lester. Your name, Mister Dan?" I raised an eyebrow. He chuckled. "Last name." he corrected.
"Howell," I replied. He looked me up and down, but it wasn't mean, just curious. I did the same for him but more subtle. I saw his hair was dark at the roots, like it was naturally black, and he had cyber bites, one piercing on the middle top lip and the other on the middle bottom. He wore blue skinny jeans, a black tank top, leather jacket, and fingerless gloves. He wore mostly black, but for his jeans and hair. He wore slight black eyeliner. Gages, small ones, black and shaped like hearts.
He was a total mixed signal. But he was hot, and so far nice. He smiled at me, said he needed to sleep, but to meet him after class. He put his head down and I tried to pay attention to algebra. It was hard.
Especially since instead of really sleeping, he sneakily tried to stare at me. It was very creepy in a very cute way.
Aces.