The New Boy: Phan High School AU

Chapter 1 - Dan's POV

By the time I get back to the bus stop, there's three more students waiting. Louise and Kai (both year 13 students like me) greet me, and we complain briefly about starting school again before they return to their conversation and I plug in my earbuds.
Kai's younger brother Joey looks slightly alarmed and doesn't speak, but I guess that's commons for year 9s like himself.
The bus pulls up, and we board. As soon as we get on I hear a few greetings directed towards me and a couple of "Hey Dan!"s or such along those lines, mostly from the theatre kids. The people at this school seem to like me for some reason. I'm not super popular,  but no one really hates me, (and I have no idea why because I hate about 70% of them) but I'm friends with most of the theatre and art kids. I opt to sit in in the way back, in an empty seat behind my two best friends PJ and Chris.

The bus is filled with early morning chatter and faint snores, same as every morning, except today, it's punctuated by louder remarks of greeting, shrieks of "OMIGAWD GURL IT IS SO GOOD TO SEE YOU" "Yo, dude, 'sup, man" and shit like that. Peasants.

I turn back to my friends only witness Chris trying desperately to chat up some girl. Ew.
As far as I'm concerned, crushes are stupid.  And yes, I understand that I sound like some little kid going all "ew boys are icky and have cooties" but...well....let's just say I don't have the best track record for crushes. A crush is the reason I changed schools 3 years ago and the reason I'm mostly back in the goddamn closet now.

I suppose I'm lucky, as far as things go. My parents gave about half a fuck when I came out (my mom just said "oh that's nice dear" then asked me what I wanted for dinner. My dad suggested sausages. Thanks, Dad.).

I found a group of kids who were either open and accepting, or just as queer as I am (as cliche as it is, the theatre kids have been some of my best friends over the last few years.) I came out to them, but not the rest of the school, which is just fine by me.

And I met Chris and Pj, who were both openly Not Straight. Chris lives up to every pansexual stereotype, happily hitting on anyone, while Pj is also pan, but does the opposite. In the last three years, as far as I know, he's only (briefly) Chris, whom he broke up with when Chris couldn't stop flirting with everyone.

Surprisingly, everyone was really nice. Not at all like my old classmates. I came out to my new friends last year, even though apparently Peej immediately knew, and told Chris his suspicions, so it wasn't much of a surprise to them.

The bus lurches to a stop.

Huh. That's odd. Usually my streets the last stop on the morning route. New student, maybe?
Nope, guess not. A boy I think is named Mark gets on and joins the jocks. He came to this school last year, but only started taking the bus this year, I suppose.

The doors shut and the bus eases forward and I hear a faint shout of "Wait! Wait! Stop the bus!" I look out the window to see a tall boy with black hair racing after us.

The bus halts jerkily, and the bus chasing boy climbs aboard. "Thanks", he pants at the driver, still gasping for air after his little sprinting session.

He turns, clutching his shoulder bag close as he scans the bus for an empty seat.

Oh. My. Fucking. God. This boy is maybe the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. He has a floppy fringe of hair kinda like mine, only black instead of brown. His eyes are a piercing sort of blue, but soft at the same time like a mountain spring that you could just drown yourself in and never look back.

He has soft, pale pink lips that look like they could break into a smile at any moment and I want I be the one to cause that smile.

My eyes travel further down and-OHMIGOD. Is that a Muse tee shirt. I love Muse. Could he get any more perfect? Apparently yes, as I notice his dark skinny jeans and black converse and- " 'Scuse me - could I - Do you mind if I sit here?"