violets and virtue // pastelpunk!phan

chapter one

a/n: hey! this is my first phanfic so please excuse any errors.

t/w: not much, mild mentions of bullying and maybe some swears??

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Daniel James Howell was a name known all through Bruntsmuir Highschool.
He was practically a celebrity; he could eat a sandwich and it would be all over the school within half an hour. Of course, he didn't know this firsthand. He had a select group of 'friends' who he hung out with at lunch, and they would tell him the gossip. Heck, he practically owned the place.
Daniel James Howell was a bully.
Now, now, don't go making assumptions. Dan didn't know his own strength. He would see someone being bullied, but instead of protecting them he would attack the person hurting them. This led to people thinking he was only in it to attack random people; that wasn't it at all. He just didn't know how to deal with seeing someone in pain.

He only really had one friend, from his primary school. However, Connor had moved to Vermont a while back, and as much as Dan hated it he could feel them drifting apart. Very soon he would be all alone again.

It was an especially boring Monday period three in art when the headmaster burst into the classroom.
"HELLO CLASS TODAY YOU HAVE A NEW STUDENT NOW I MUST GO GOODBYE." he exclaimed as though it were one word and exited as suddenly as he had came.

Dan could see a head peeking around the door. Was this guy the new student?
He heard giggles around him when the boy stepped into view. Dan sighed. He honestly looked like a nice person.

"Well then, will you introduce yourself to the class?" sighed the teacher, sounding like he was half asleep. He probably was.

"HIMYNAMEISPHILUM." he blurted before blushing so red you could see it from space.

The teacher gave him a wary look before waving towards the desks.
"Pick an empty seat, we're learning to create atmosphere with watercolours.." he droned loudly, and Phil looked around urgently before spotting Dan. He picked up his things (a handbag of some description and a strange space-suit-ish coat) before manoeuvring his way through the maze of desks and chairs over to Dan.

Dan smirked. Maybe he wouldn't be as alone as he thought.
"H-hi. Um, I'm Phil." If embarrassment was a sound, it would be his voice. Dan cringed a little before plastering a fake smile across his face.
"I'm Dan." he held out his hand for a high five only for Phil to shake it awkwardly. Well, whatever worked for him. "You don't sound like you're from London."
Phil grinned nervously. "Ah, no, I'm actually from up North. Is it really that noticeable?"
Dan hadn't been listening. Now that Phil was closer, he could admire his beauty. His pale lips, the adorable little wisps of his ebony hair, and his eyes -- oh, his eyes. They looked blue at a first glance, but look closer and there were intricate swirls of purple and green. He had galaxies in his eyes, and everything together looked like a watercolour painting.
To top it all off he was wearing a beautiful lavender flower crown with sprigs of baby's breath and holly worked into it, paired with a lilac sweatshirt, blue skinny jeans and pastel yellow converses.
Phil was absolutely beautiful. Too good to be true.
"S-sorry, could you repeat that?"

************

When the day was finally over, Dan didn't want it to be. He was fast becoming best friends with Phil Lester, the most beautiful boy on the planet. Not only was he aesthetically pleasing, he was extremely intelligent and a complete delight to hold a conversation with.
Dan didn't understand why an amazing person like Phil came to sit with him in the first place, but he was extremely glad he did.
The bell rang, and just as Dan was gathering his books from his locker he felt a hand tug at the back of his shirt.
"D-do you want to walk home together?" he heard a soft voice mumble.
He turned around in surprise, only to see Phil, the flower boy who had brought him unspeakable amounts of happiness in only one day.
"Of-flipping-course! Let me pack my stuff and we can head. Whereabouts do you live?"
Phil's smile grew from ear to ear. "Thanks so much! Oh, and I've just moved into Eveningwest. My garden's tiny, but we can get a cat!!" you could hear the extra exclamation marks as Phil did a 'getting a cat' dance. Dan smiled and closed his locker gently.
"Let's get going?" he asked.
Phil grinned widely at him and put his hands on top of his head to indicate cat ears. He quickly followed Dan.
"Hey. Wait a minute. Where do you live?" Phil asked suspiciously.
"Oh, I live in Eveningwest too! I got... distracted earlier."
They walked in silence for a while, but it wasn't an awkward kind of silence. It was a content kind of silence, where you're just happy in eachothers' company, before Phil asked a question.
"Do you know muse?"
Dan's eyes lit up. "Know them? I might as well be married to them! What's your favourite song by them?"
Phil's grin tripled in size before he answered. "Undisclosed Desires is a-ma-zing! Also Starlight, but still."
"Starlight is great, I am very close to shoving breadsticks into my purse and leaving. Also Psycho is pretty good!"
They play-fighted for a while about which song was the greatest and had a miniature hunger games before Phil stopped suddenly.
"This is my house." he fake cried.
"Seriously? That's mine, right over there!" Dan pointed to a house directly across the road.
"Really? Guess we're neighbours then. Get ready for me breaking in every morning at six am and blasting Undisclosed Desires because it is the greatest!"
Dan stuck his tongue out playfully before remembering.
"Oh yeah, Phil, my number!" he exclaimed. Phil picked up his phone and typed the verse of digits in, labeling the contact "burning?? he's on fire tho" before Dan snatched it playfully and retyped it as "not on fire". He skipped across the street and Phil blew a kiss jokingly.
As soon as he got inside Dan slid down a wall grinning like an idiot.
He was so in love it was physically sickening.