"Hey, I'll catch up with you. I just need to get something from my locker," I promise, and hesitantly Dallon saunters away to fulfil it, occasionally slinging worried glances over his shoulder while he stretches down the hall.

Now this is the part of the low budget horror movie where that nameless side character gets murdered and the protagonist finds them dead once waiting a considerable amount of time before that in the expectancy that their friend would've re-appeared earlier, but I've been dead since 2005, so it really doesn't matter.

The hallways are vacant and echoing with the tiniest of steps around and around like a tunnel, and not even the casual bully lurks within its shadows. This is why the time beyond school hours are a blessing to the anxious, to the anxious with the justification of the high school mafia engulfing them in punches.

My locker is tucked into a measly spot near the math classroom, where the detention session unfolded with harrowing outcomes, only two sections to the left and on the top row. It's nothing I ever debate changing, the walls blank and glazed in silver metal that's like winter to the touch, therefore repelling anyone who tries to come close to it, and it preserves its own uniqueness from the fear that our controlling vice-principal will routinely check the contents of it. It's not like I'd store anything cryptic inside there, but I know he's never enjoyed the obnoxious memes of the millennials.

Buzzing through my combination in the paranoia that someone is breathing down my neck and reading every number, I swing the door to my locker open and reveal that bland old scenery backing the mountains of books and covert notes exchanged during class that never persuaded me to throw away.

The English manual I had forgotten scolds me for abandoning it with the rest of the nonsensical textbooks when I swore I would exhaust its abilities on teaching Dallon more about grammar in the occasion that Ms. Gunnulfsen would ever question us about our tutoring again, though after what happened yesterday, I'm positive she'll steer clear. Better safe than sorry, however.

On the contrary, if Dallon was able to extract four types of pronouns out of his memory to project to Ms. Gunnulfsen, I bet that he'll be able to extract something else, too, something that isn't as astute as subjective, objective, possessive, and reflexive cases. If he knows those items, he'll know things below it in intensity, but we must continue to progress.

Whacking the locker door on its hinges just for the humor, I pivot towards the end of the corridor and make my way towards the front lawn, where Dallon will be anticipating my arrival so that we can return home and study the wonders of English grammar. He'll be pleased, no doubt, but not pleased by the sight I'm witnessing once I round the corner.

Maybe I wasn't the nameless side character I had once predicted, as nothing happened to me besides the normal jolt of my locker being slammed closed. Instead, I observe Dallon unrolled across another set of metal lockers we kids all hate with a fiery passion for being so sharp on our fingers, but I'm certain Dallon is hating them more and more with each second he's imprisoned in Spencer Smith's grasp.

Visualizing the classroom in my mind, I do recall Spencer being there, just cowering in the back so I wouldn't notice him and fabricating a tactical approach of secrecy. I realize now that Dallon may have been the target instead of me, at least after what Mr. Armstrong confiscated and made a scene out of, and I conjecture that I know what they're bullying him about.

It's not the usual sting manifested out of the bully's own insecurities, nothing that really makes any sense beyond the generic punchlines. This one is personal, as if Spencer's held a long lasting feud with Dallon despite him only being here for less than a week, and the insults will drill to his core. This is no high school drama with only the regular words spat at the victim. This is traumatization.

Dallon is shivering in the restraints that fix him to the lockers, opposite from the man I knew, the man who has never feared the verdict of a bully but is nevertheless gasping for air within the clutch of one. I'm not bashing him for being hypocritical, because I'm too loyal to him to stay silent.

"Fucking psycho," Spencer snarls. "Do you cut yourself every night? Or are you too busy getting stoned?"

Dallon doesn't answer, doesn't feed the flame, to instead quiver inconsolably against the force of Spencer Smith without admitting to anything, because he is cognizant of how bullies operate, and he is cognizant that they need a steady flow of oxygen to survive, a steady flow of oxygen that he will never provide them with.

The punches vibrate upon Dallon's skin as I attempt inadequately to save him, my feet too lethargic in comparison to my ambition, but only one bruise diffuses upon him once I'm tearing my friend away from the bullies and guiding him back down the hall.

"Is your little boyfriend saving you?" Spencer wails, mimicking a crying baby, though that's not so difficult to achieve.

I ignore him. "You're okay," I reassure Dallon, more of a stock phrase than a truth, and Dallon nods to himself as he shudders from the acute trauma.

"I'm okay."

~~~~~

"Kara, may I use your concealer?" I yell upon entering the house, lugging a mangled Dallon along with me.

It had been quite the journey just to tug him up the stairs, but after two minutes of weary limbs and stumbling feet, we eventually accomplished our mission that shouldn't be as difficult as it was to complete, and now we begin our next task of locating the concealer that Kara most likely will never share.

Kara egresses from the living room and into the kitchen, a book in hand and a scowl in heart. "Why do you need my concealer? Did you finally get acne? Mom said you would. I never understood how she could think that, though. You wash your skin obsessively, and you're always stealing my washcloths. Stop doing that, yeah? It's really annoying."

I halt my sister's nattering by gesturing to the bloodied Dallon Weekes, who's smiling sheepishly as if he's done something for which to be condemned, but all he did was experiment psychology (unsafely, I might add, but that's not proving his point) and was punished for it by mindless bullies of all people, not even sentient beings with a functional brain.

Dallon may be some of those things he was labeled as, and he may not be any of them, and that's not really my place to judge, but he's shaken up nonetheless. Tears have colonized his face, on a Mayflower originating from his eyes and sailing down his cheeks, and even though he's endeavoring to hide his pain, it's still as clear as a morning on the seas.

Kara comprehends this, too, with only a quick gander at my friend, and her shoulders bridge into despondency. "I'll get my concealer." She dashes up the stairs two at a time, allowing Dallon to unlawfully object.

"I don't need concealer."

"Why not? You're bruised and bruising still."

"That's the point!" Dallon exclaims, catapulting his arms around me while twirling around. "Isn't the purple just lovely? Most things don't have backstories, Brendon, but this does."

I shake my head, disbelieving and lachrymose. "Why do you want to wear a bully's crest so prominently?"

Sighing warmly with his head tipped to the ceiling, Dallon confesses, "Because if suffering is just mankind's way of enthusing the happiness when it finally comes, then I want to show the world that I'm on my way."

"That's not how it works in high school. You're going to unwittingly flaunt the stares of people who hate you, and there will be more attacks flying towards your helpless body. This is not what you want."

"He's right, Dallon," Kara concurs before Dallon can once again protest, now descending the stairs with a tube of concealer inserted into her fingers. "Bullies aren't going to leave you alone if their work is acknowledged by the people at school."

"But they'll know that I covered it up and will think that I'm ashamed." Dallon's hands flutter by his side, like moths looming circles through the air to heal their anxiety.

Fretting the curve of my nose with my fingers, I exhale sluggishly and dare not accept my friend's terms. "Dallon, we're not arguing about this."

"We shouldn't have to. You should be confident that I know what's best for me."

"Dallon, I've been through this same battle before." A tremor suddenly dehydrates my voice, cracking my throat with nails. "This is how you play it."

And in the exact defiance I had warned him against, Dallon utters a simple word: "No."  

~~~~~

A/N: when the only straight you are is "straight up bitch"

Qweepteep: do you think dallon should've used concealer?

Aeepsweep: yes, because then no one would ask about it, but also no, because then the bullies would know that dallon is ashamed of having the bruise idk man

~Dacradle