drowning in violet - skephalo

11:43 AM, Friday

After about three and half hours on the bus, Darryl found himself growing tired of the sound of rubber screeching against tar and overly-joyful people laughing around him.

They sure were giddy for art students.

He suddenly felt a hand tug onto his, grabbing his faltering attention immediately. He swivelled around slowly to find Zak staring back at him, a friendly glint in his eyes.

"You can sit next to me if you want." He suggested shyly, flicking a black strand of hair out of his eyes.

"Oh," Darryl responded, mildly surprised, "sure." He gave him a little half-smile, although the girl beside Zak still worried him. After a bit of eavesdropping, he found out her name was Alyssa. She had seen exactly what Zak was doing, and was practically stabbing Darryl with the harshness of her blue eyes.

"Come on." He budged up, letting Darryl position himself comfortably on one of the cushioned makeshift seats.

"Thanks." He laughed shakily, suddenly realizing that it was doubtlessly only a polite gesture as Zak was probably aware of the risk Darryl was at of sitting alone. Whatever it was, it was kind of him.

The speed of the bus along the main road caused the lights outside to shoot past the window, merging each individual building of the city into a blur of colors in front of his eyes. He considered music, as his iPod was as close as his front jean pocket, but he feared shoving headphones in his ears in a space full of conversation and sociability would create a horribly unapproachable image upon himself, and that wasn't the impression he was ready to give across to everyone else. He was left with a choice of either continuing to stare vacantly out the window, or try to nudge a few words in between Zak and Alyssa's redundant conversation.

He decided to continue to stare at the colors flying past his window, shades of red and yellow blending to make orange and tones of blue and green melding to create cyan. He had been too consumed in the integrading colors to notice that Alyssa had actually left Zak's side, trailing off to see something 'totally shocking' on one of her friends' Snapchat's, leaving only Darryl and Zak together.

"So... you like the stars?" Zak commented suddenly, surprising Darryl so much that he nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Oh, yeah, I do," Darryl replied weakly, giving him a tentative glance, "Do you? You seemed to know what you were looking for earlier."

Zak smiled, combing his fingers through his smooth black hair as he recounted the events of that morning: "Mhm, they've always been something that I've loved. I don't meet many other people who will stop in the middle of the road just to look up at the stars."

Darryl nodded, shooting a gentle smile to the other boy. There was a slight gap in the conversation, but it wasn't unnerving or uncomfortable - it was contemplative. Zak positioned himself to peer out the window, watching the flying colors paint a portrait of their own outside the moving vehicle.

"Do you ever get tired of living in Florida?" Darryl asked in a quiet tone, copying Zak's stature. It wasn't necessarily the question he was dying to know the answer to, but it was something other than the question he really wanted to ask.

It was too soon for that.

"God, yes," Zak responded, "L.A. has always been the dream for me."

Darryl nodded. "Florida is supposed to be the state of fun and hot surfer boys asking for your number every which way," he smirked, "I hope this doesn't come out the wrong way, but you're the closest I've gotten to that."

"Right back at you." Zak laughed. He turned his head to glance at the group of girls behind him, and then leaned into Darryl to nudge his shoulder: "All of these girls don't know I'm... y'know." he whispered. It's not like it was a surprise, though: questioning Zak's sexuality was like questioning the pope's religion.

"Oh. My. Goodness." Both boys bursted out into laughter, a few of the girls shooting them a confused look before adding back to the jumbled mess of voices among them.

Darryl gave Zak another crooked grin, exposing the dimple in his cheek, before quickly averting his eyes to a well-known blonde girl sitting a few feet away from them, the glint in her eye glittering wildly as she gave a catty little giggle in response to a remark from one of her friends, baring her white teeth at Darryl as if they were as powerful as vampire fangs.

Darryl had never seen anyone more tense than Zak in that moment. Zak decided to ignore her, instead yelling the cliché line, "Are we there yet?" to the dean seated at the head of the bus. He rolled his eyes and stated 'no' in the most serious voice possible, trying not to enlighten anyone any more than they already were.

"D'you... have a girlfriend or boyfriend, or anyone, then?" Zak suddenly broke a silence that formed in the gap of their conversation. Darryl picked up on his voice change, his tone transforming into something he could only identify as shy, or possibly tentative.

Darryl scoffed. "Hilarious."

Zak's previous expression faltered into something more genuine, his eyebrows furrowing together into a straight line: "What do you mean?"

"You know, I just... I thought it was obvious."

"I actually have no idea what you're trying to say, Darryl."

"That I'm weird," he blurted out, his eyes meeting Zak's, "That I'm different. That I'm me."

"Well, I don't see anything wrong with that." Zak said, affection evident in his voice.

"The four AM grocery store incident probably wasn't too savory."

Zak gave a shaky chuckle, his deep brown eyes consuming Darryl's. He looked down to see the bruises that previously coated Zak's hands were now almost non-existent, just faded memories of black and blue hidden by skin that could now only be described as indigo.