Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Are you sure you're alright with taking the bus, sweetheart?”

“Yes, mom, I'm sure.”

“Because I can always postpone my classes and talk with my boss, I-”

“Mom, no. I'm 17 years old for chrissakes. I can take the bus.”

*** 

Evan Hansen was not sure if he could take the bus.

The last time he'd had the misfortune of boarding the grotesque yellow monstrosity, he was 6 years old, and the transaction had resulted in chocolate milk dripping down his hair and face as he stumbled off, a footprint impressed on the side of his backpack.

His father, utterly appalled, had completely sworn off the mode of transport, saying he’d work from home a little longer so Heidi graciously did not have to drive the poor kid to school.

But now, his father was gone, as was the age aptly designated to be afraid of an inanimate vehicle full of obnoxious teenagers.

Nevertheless, Evan was more than a bit mortified as he stood, rendered utterly immobile, in the too-narrow aisle ambling with backpacks and dubious stains from potentially edible materials. Perhaps it was just the social paranoia that overcame him whenever even one stranger was within a twelve mile radius, but it felt as though every eye in the bus bore into him mercilessly, unrelentingly glaring right through him, as though he was made of translucent parchment.

He trudged through the lanky limbs of impertinent students, and god why was it so stuffed he was going to develop claustrophobia on top of agoraphobia, and tripped over an array of backpacks. Apologies spilled from his lips like blood after being shot, stumbled in brief gasps that earned him a multitude of odd stares, and Evan couldn't distinguish whether they were derived of concern or judgment (most probably the latter).

He watched in dismay as children shifted to conspicuously tug bags and instruments onto any vacant seats, or murmured tales of “saved spots”. After the first two or three attempts (although it felt like a thousand) of tentatively managing to string together meticulous words to form the sentence, “c-c-could I s-sit here?” and being met with blatant rejections, Evan was considerably disheartened, pondering audaciously whether hopping off and jumping in front of the bus was a viable option.

It wasn't until he reached the dismal back of the automobile prison, where all the crumbs of spilled food and despondently forgotten water bottles and jackets conglomerated, that one boy neglected to immediately resign any hope of offering Evan a place to sit. Of course, that could plausibly be due to his evident disregard of everything surrounding him, a curtain of brown hair draping over his face so that his eyes weren't even visible to the other students, his lanky, thin form plastered all the way to the window and his countenance positioned wistfully (conveniently) to look outside. On top of everything, he had headphones in. God, this was going to be swell.

Evan internally debated whether the ostentatious effort was worth the risk of a fourth? fifth? twentieth?? denial, but the orders barked from the irritable bus driver to “find a damn seat!” sent him into an impressive desperation, his voice not even squeaking when he spoke.

“E-e-e-excuse m-me, is someone s-s-sitting he-ere?”

No response.

He was dejected, although there remained the (admittedly probable) possibility that the way too fucking tall iteration of a teenage boy hadn't even heard him; he was blaring music, loudly enough that Evan could hear the aggressive tinnies wafting from his headphones, and Evan himself wasn’t exactly the most vocal of presences (according to Jared, he was “literally quieter than a mouse. honestly, hansen, vermin are more talkative and noticeable than you”).

He was sure his voice escalated a fucking octave when he repeated the query.

“Ex-c-c-cuse me?”

Nothing.

Some girl giggled a few rows ahead, and while logic suggested that the snicker was directed at some superfluous snap or quip from a friend, Evan’s mind intrusively screeched that she was finding humor in the futility of his endeavors.

Holding his breath, he tried again, hesitating as he shifted to shakily tap the kid’s shoulder.

As luck would have it, he turned his face at exactly that moment, and Evan ended up flicking his cheek .

Paralysis. Absolutely petrified, he couldn't even retract the offending finger, stood stiff, shoulders tensed, as he irreverently forgot how to breathe.

The other boy blinked in mild confusion, gazing at his assailant and eventually raising an eyebrow, going out of his way to remove one of his earbuds, pale lips pursed, and oh shit shit shit shit shit, Evan was going to die , God, he hadn't even written a fucking will yet, fuck!-

“Hello?”

He was wrenched out of his distinct, abhorrently panicked trance as the boy snapped at him with sharp, painted(?) fingernails, a scowl sported on slated featured. “Anyone in there?”

“Ah-h, he-hey, I umm, I-I…”

What was he doing again? Oh fuck, he didn't even remember.

The arched brow quirked further, and Evan was certain that if it elevated any more, it'd fly right off his face. Fortunately, smooth muscle movement had taken control of his body, his hand gesturing to the unoccupied spot he wished to fill, and the kid glanced about, realization softening his expression as he sighed.

“Gotcha. There are no other empty seats, are there?”

Evan found himself nodding. Yes. Good. This was how communication worked.

With another sigh, the seated figure gripped the black, tattered backpack that was slumped on the chair, shoving it harshly to the floor at his feet where it was instantly lodged between gangling legs that didn't even fit in the boy’s skinny jeans, and Evan couldn't decide whether the knapsack or its owner looked worse for wear.

He patted the seat beside him expectantly, hands bony and fingers long and slender (yup. his nails were definitely painted. black, too. fitting.) and Evan briskly sat down to avoid another irked demand from the driver, offering the taller boy an awkward smile of gratitude. He didn't even seem to notice, replacing the headphones and crumpling back.

“Sorry you got stuck sitting beside the certified freak. I promise I won't bite, in spite of what you mighta heard. If’ya want my advice, get to the stop earlier. You might actually find a seat.”

His voice was low and brittle, muted and wholly monotonous, though there sounded in it a potential for animation, rejuvenation.

Evan wasn't sure how to respond to what appeared to have been rather eloquent self-deprecation, so he just nodded again impassively.

The boy continued, stoical gaze fixed nonchalantly on his phone as he flitted through songs. If he had registered Evan’s lieu of a reply, he was unresponsive.

“My name’s Connor, in case that's something worth knowing for you.”

He looked as though he couldn't possibly be more bored. An immensely impressive feat, in Evan’s opinion, given the ceaseless bustle and noise hyping his own adrenaline uncomfortably. Then again, he was a complete fucking weirdo.

“I'm, uh-”

“Evan Hansen. We've gone to the same school since elementary. In first grade, you mumbled your way through the entire introductions. Took you like, ten minutes to get your own name out.”

Evan gawked, suddenly vaguely remembering the hushed gossip in second or third grade about a kid named Connor Murphy who’d managed to break his wrist trying to throw a printer. Apparently, however, he had recalled the exact duration of Evan’s first ever panic attack.

Connor must’ve noticed his erroneous staring as he clarified quickly, the inflection of his voice not altering even the slightest in pitch.

“M’not a stalker, I swear. Just a mental case.”

Evan couldn't determine whether or not that was a joke, and became suddenly conflicted; which was more likely to get him pummeled: snickering at something serious, or not so much as blinking at a jab at humor? Fortuitously, he wasn't given the time to mull it over, as Connor spoke again. “You have permission to laugh. If you're capable of it.”

He still didn't actually laugh , although a lopsided grin found his face, contorting his expression, and wow, he must've looked like an idiot. Connor’s eyes glanced effervescently in his direction (his irises were blue, Evan noted, but a pale blue. Almost transparent, like an overcast sky at the break of dawn) and he afforded the boy a guarded smile, one that would've completely passed him by if he hadn’t been paying attention.

Altogether, he was doing substantially better than he had expected to. He'd found a seat, retained all his limbs, and hadn't experienced any acute heart attacks. Yet. Still smiling as though a clothes hanger had been forcibly jammed into the orifice of his mouth, Evan managed to relax, if only just barely, as the bus started to move, accommodating gradually to the excessive sound. He began thinking that perhaps Connor had the right idea, drowning out the rest of the deliriously loud world with an ungodly volume of music. Then again, he enjoyed his ability to hear, and hoped to sustain the capacity if at all possible.

The two girls sat directly in front of them tittered and chatted the whole ride through, bits and pieces of fleeting conversation drifting past Evan’s ears (ah the joys of not being deaf), and providing a somehow pleasant background buffer to unwittingly focus on rather than being overwhelmed by the relentless talk and turmoil obfuscating the rest of the stingy atmosphere.

Pleasant, that was, until one of the girls turned abruptly, and Evan’s subconscious practically imploded in prevalent terror, blaring alarms of warning ricocheting assertively about his mind. Abort. Avert your eyes. Look at something else. Don’t look at her. Avoid looking at her. Whatever you do, don’t fucking look at-

“Wow, Connor. I see you’ve managed to catch some prey for once. What kept him from being scared off?”

Evan’s gaze almost comically shot up, and he could perturbingly feel someone’s glare branding into the back of his neck, scorching him, burning so invasively into his flesh, he was scared he’d get an infection.

The girl continued. “I mean, I doubt he’s just plain stupid enough to stick around voluntarily. Are you holding him hostage?”

From adjacent him, Evan heard a resigned, low grumble escape Connor Murphy’s lips, inaudible and incoherent, at least to him .

The intruding girl, however, seemed able to make sense of the inarticulate nonsense, pale pink mouth spreading into a subtle smirk that graced her elegant features. ( not unlike Connor’s, Evan thought)

“Oh yeah, you’re right! I do recognize him. Hey, you were in my biology class last year. Your name’s Evan, right?”

At the unexpected folly of being personally and deliberately addressed, Evan locked eyes with her once more, blinking. Hers were a dazzling, exuberant hazel, lines of her frayed smile gently crinkling their upturned edges. His own were wide, nervous, and jittery. He wasn’t accustomed to this extent of intentional recognition. There appeared to be an odd phenomenon occurring of strangers somehow knowing his name.

“U-uh-h, ye-yeah?”

He spluttered out ambivalently, having been given no opportunity to catch his breath before being abjected to this horribly excessive amount of attention.

The girl’s smile faltered promptly, and she raised a plucked, auburn eyebrow, making Evan suddenly and wholeheartedly certain that she was in some way related to Connor.

And all too soon, with absolutely no inkling or premonition of forewarning, she was touching his shoulder and fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, she was touching him, he did not condone this, fucking abort!, shooting him a vaguely deterred glance when he visibly squirmed.

“Is my brother harassing you?”

“Zoe, fuck, I didn’t do anything.”

“Sure you didn’t. I want to hear it from Evan.”

His heart fluttered abnormally, the palpitation surging inopportunely through hollow bones as he shuddered, an uninvited, intruding thought glaring in the back of his brain, buzzing vividly: his name sounded amazing on her tongue.

Petrified by his own subconscious, Evan briskly drowned out the invasive abhorrence by focusing (eavesdropping) on the ever-dilapidating argument that had spurred between the Murphy siblings. Their instigated bickering had caught the attention of the other girl in Zoe’s seat as well, and she turned, smooth brown lips pursing into a frown.

“You always assume the worst of me!”

“You act like that’s somehow unjustified. It’s not like I’m wrong; you are the worst person!”

“Damnit, I’m not a fucking monster, I-!”

“AHAHAHA THAT’S FUNNY. THAT’S REALLY FUCKING FUNNY, CONNOR. Tell that to mom next time she’s crying herself to sleep because of you !”

“It’s not like I’ve ever hurt anybody!”

“YOU’VE HURT EVERYBODY . LITERALLY EVERYONE!”

“THINK YOU COULD BE LOUDER, ZOE? I DON’T THINK THE MARS ROVER COULD HEAR YOU JUST THEN.”

“LOOK WHO’S FUCKING TALKING, YOU-!!”

With each imposing shout, Evan shrank further back into his seat, discernibly paling, as though he could somehow cease to exist if he gave it enough effort. The other girl peered at him with composed, caramelly brown eyes, apparently unnerved by the efflorescent screaming abounding less than an inch away from her face .

In fact, Evan deduced with a glance around, no one had so much as turned to gaze in their direction, seemingly complacent, not deterred in the slightest. He knew he often overreacted to social imprecisions and generally loud and boisterous situations, but the current quarreling was ridiculously clamorous, almost deafening what with the closer-than-comfortable proximities.

There was no way in hell that the entire block couldn’t hear the pervading shrieks.

As the venomous profanities spilled guiltlessly, with not even a trace of reluctance as aggressive torrents flew from both Murphy’s grim, infuriated expressions, Evan all but noticeably winced, prompting the girl beside Zoe to shake her head, her countenance bearing a hint of disappointment when she sighed.

“Sorry about this. It’s the same as always, really; they never fail to find something facetious to start their-”

“IF YOU’RE SO UNHAPPY, THEN WHY DON’T YOU FUCKING LEAVE!?”

Another flinch. Evan recoiled and the girl rolled her eyes, gesturing pertinently. “ That.”

Connor hissed back at her, and Evan was certain that if this continued perpetuating any longer, he would undergo a fucking stroke.

At his poorly obscured whimper when the boy adjacent him slammed his knuckles grotesquely against the metal bearing of the window, emitting a scrutinously gruesome snap , the other girl’s eyes widened, practically imperceptibly, and she hastily went on.

“My name is Alana Beck. You are-”

“Evan Hansen.”

He interrupted nigh instantaneously, trembling. If one more unfamiliar acquaintance introduced him of their own accord, he was going to lose it.

She nodded, smiling warmly, her voice as smooth as the chocolatey texture of her skin. “Right. It’s nice to meet you. Well, nicer under different conditions, but it’s better to take what you can get. Waste not, want not, right?”

She spoke quickly, rapidly enough that Evan hadn’t the opportunity to process everything she said before a jutting hand infiltrated his vicinity. He blinked at it dumbfoundedly before accepting the salutation in trepidation, shaking her soft, dainty hand uneasily and looking fleetingly at the beam that occupied her broad- oh god did Zoe just throw a fucking water bottle?

Connor dodged the affronting object uninhibitedly, letting the metal canteen bounce against the scratched and desecrated backseat, ricocheting gracelessly as the cap twisted with a preliminary pop and spilled frigid water all over Evan’s side.

Both siblings froze, and Alana retracted the greeting hand. Suddenly, all the eyes that should have been observing the heated altercation only moments prior swiveled, turning simultaneously to lock unwaveringly onto one utterly stupefied Evan Hansen.

The boy in question’s head went into unfeasible overdrive, pounding and throbbing incessantly. His eyes opened and shut repeatedly in pure, undiluted desperation, and he shook so vigorously, the movement was practically inscrutable.

But Connor, Connor could physically feel it.

More scared than he would’ve liked to admit, he fidgeted uncertainly, biting harshly at the inside of his cheek as he set a scraped hand gently on the other kid’s shivering shoulder.

Bad idea.

Like a blatantly inconvenient, involuntary reflex, Evan jerked back in panic, his hard, knobby elbow driving directly into Connor’s ribs. He yelped out, and Evan cowered, his lanky legs snapping up instinctively, knees burrowing into his torso as he wrapped swift arms around himself. He wanted out. He wanted to get the fuck out of this horrible, sinister excuse for a mode of transportation and run. He wanted to run, and not stop running until he was completely alone, secluded, composed, comfortable, safe; consolidated in an isolated, cozy milieu where no one could see him, where no one could stare and whisper and berate.

Evan emitted a painstaking, humiliatingly meek snivel.

Biting down on her rosy lips, Zoe extended slender arms, tactfully gripping at his wrists, moderately so she didn’t escalate his dismal hysteria, but tightly enough to keep him from flailing. Her deliberate, unconstrained, honest voice weaved it’s way through the blurry, hazily grating panic that discombobulated his mind, and Evan ceased groveling for a moment to glance up at her.

“Evan? What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

Her words were earnest, but lacked a concise urgency that would’ve derailed him right back into his despairing fit. Instead, a calm, distinctly lulling sensation bathed him, ingraining to his brain and evoking a slight relaxation in his strained shoulders. He blinked, exhaling shakily and unfurling only barely. Having lost interest in the diminishing dread of the situation, most of the other students had returned to their previous conversations, willingly dismissing the unconventional outburst. Evan wouldn’t have noticed, though; all his attention was fixated on Zoe.  

As she aided him in regaining his breath, hands shifting to squeeze his own, Evan also wouldn’t notice the cherry red embalmed on Connor Murphy’s expression and the despondence in his tired gaze as he reverted to staring out the window.

All he could see was the expressive, reverberating glory of Zoe's eyes as she pressed her delicate, unabrasive hands into his.

Chapter Text

If there was any hope, any emblem of a chance for this year not to be complete, indisputable shit, it lay exclusively in Zoe Murphy.

She’d excused Alana with such polite composition, her voice in and of itself soothed Evan’s unnerved, tense stature. He just about melted into her arm when she snaked it around his shoulders, helping him off the traumatizing vehicular nightmare. (Nevermind that he didn’t even register the fleeting grasp at his collar from behind him when he startlingly stumbled and nearly fell off the platform.) She fussed almost maternally about his damp shirt, apologizing profusely for both herself and her brother (who seemed to have vanished the moment the bus groggily crawled away) and their inherently immature quarrelling, which had been admittedly more hazardous than she had intended. After some struggled statements that he hadn’t the capacity to actually think through, skittish phrases spewing without any erroneous inkling of a filter, Evan managed to collect himself just enough to nod concretely in agreement that yes, absolutely, “Connor is just a piece of shit and sometimes I get overwhelmed, and I'm so sorry you had to sit with him.”

Sheepishly, he permitted her benevolent requests to help him dry off, doing his absolute best to suppress the invasive grin unorthodoxically contorting his features while she patted down his torso with cheap, ineffective paper towels swindled from the restroom. As it turned out, his best was totally insufficient in every way.

Gratuitously, Zoe either didn’t notice the beaming oddity malforming his face, or had the repose not to address it.

God, she was amazing.

 ***

As the day wore drearily on, Evan couldn’t bring himself to mind the crinkling, hardly dry fabric of his shirt adhering uncomfortably to his flesh, or the fact that the hair he’d spent no less than half an hour attempting to mold into something presentable had reverted back to its original state of so disheveled, even birds would refuse to nest in it.

He couldn’t reply to Jared’s taunts about said disaster resting unwelcomely atop his head (“woah. that’s a nice carcass you got there, evan!”) or acknowledge his recounts of what was evidently an elusively eventful summer. It wasn’t until he elbowed him snidely in the stomach that Evan really noticed his presence at all.

“Hey dude? You alive in there? I mean, I know you’re probably just fantasizing about doing it with a plant, but you’re acting more aloof than usual.”

Evan blinked, feeling his face flush and heat up at the repulsive accusation (you would  think he’d have gotten used to this by now) as he bluthered out the most clever, snarky, brilliant retort he could conjure.

“Fuck off, Jared.”

“Oooh. Ouch. I’m hurt.”

He rolled his eyes, scrutinizing the melodramatically flailing dumbass as he feigned being stabbed, clutching at his gut and hacking out vehemently, his countenance struggling discernibly to keep from breaking into a broad grin.

“I’m wounded. ”

“Jared-”

“You’ve hurt me, Evan.”

“Stop-”

“I am dying- umph ! ”

Straining his scrawny form a bit too much with his overzealous performance, Jared tripped, scrambling forward to regain his balance and consequently colliding with a wall.

Evan snorted. Served the asshole right.

Recomposing with remarkable recollection, Jared quickly readjusted his jacket and shifted ridiculous square frames to rest pointedly on the bridge of his nose. Piercing brown eyes that twinkled with a minutely intimidating, immeasurable wit found Evan’s, and the smirk that dutifully frequented his face returned to occupy its designated position.  

“Seriously. What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Evan fumbled with the hem of his shirt, disoriented fingers lacing through stray strings that had grown untangled succeeding hours upon hours of irreverent tampering.

“Mhm. Sure.”

Very adamantly unconvinced, Jared pursed his lips, waltzing up to Evan and huffing belligerently. He was no more than an inch or two shorter than the other, although his slight stature dwarfed him drastically in size, but every time Evan was under the meticulous deliberation of those sharp, deft eyes, he couldn’t help but feel smaller.

Jared crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest, raising an eyebrow.

“C'mon, man. It's me. ”

How earnest and considerate. He almost sounded sincere .

Evan wasn't so naive, though. He knew better than to believe for even a moment that his longest standing acquaintance had the capacity for sincerity.

Nonetheless, he had to admit, Jared had a point: it was him. The Jared Kleinman. The very same Jared Kleinman that had infiltrated his home at age five, bouncing off the walls and scouring blunt remarks about the quality of the furniture and the size of the house, encroaching for every and any criticism he could note. The same Jared Kleinman that had nearly made him cry because he spoke so fucking fast and Evan couldn’t keep up adequately with his racing words. The same Jared Kleinman whose riveting comments regarding every little thing, whose nitpicking and raucously rapid judgments had somehow managed to rope Evan into an inescapable, only slightly forced friendship that he still to this day had minor difficulty comprehending. The same Jared Kleinman who’d teased him so relentlessly when he was imposed by his first crush (Jane Edwards, 3rd grade), Evan often pondered flusteredly whether the “amicable, well-intended pestering” was really 100% good natured.

Where others would’ve failed to endure his borderline bullying, he succeeded almost effortlessly. Never having been all too easily provoked, and inherently non-confrontational, Evan survived the incriminable badgering that accompanied befriending Jared Kleinman without too much hassle, and he grew to be the outlet of every issue, every doubt, every fear he possessed.  

And Jared, in spite of his unfathomably insatiable, obnoxious qualities, Jared accumulated those issues and doubts and fears and drowned them in playful dousings of a precariously formulated swagger and sworn overconfidence. He tore each of Evan’s minuscule concerns and trivial frights into shriveled pieces by revealing just how stupid they were. He demolished his every insecurity with quips and jabs of his own indignant manner (“don’t be stupid, evan. you’re not a joke. to be a joke, you gotta be funny. ”). Though far from compassionate, Jared, in his idiosyncratic, demeaning way, mended the broken ambiguities that burrowed holes in Evan’s lungs, that inhibited his breathing, that shattered his chest.

Simply put, Jared Kleinman, the Jared Kleinman, self-proclaimed professional asshole and widely accepted bona fide twat , made Evan’s life a hell of a lot better.

The thought arose unwarrantedly, and Evan forcibly shoved it back into the depths of hell where it belonged, along with the bile that had risen repugnantly in his throat.

He’d had quite the sufficient quantity of unrequited feelings for one day, thank you very much, and he wasn’t all that thrilled about the prospect of adding wanting to be legitimate friends with Jared fucking Kleinman to his ever-escalating list.

“Well?”

Shit. He’d blanked out again.

“Hm? What-?”

Jared rolled his eyes, affording him the trademark glare that Evan had once joked he ought to have copyrighted.

“What the hell is going on with you, man? You’re being especially fucking weird today.”

Of course he couldn’t just let it go. Appeasement and acceptance were not understood terms in Jared’s internal vocabulary.

Sighing dejectedly, Evan found himself once again deposed in the harsh, cynically concocted reality that if he didn’t tell his “friend” his secrets of his own accord, he would inexorably uncover them via the aid of whatever underground notorieties he’d inclined to be covert sources and stalk the object of his curiosity until he knew exactly what was going on.

And that would be so much worse.  

“I just...why do you even care?”

Evan hadn’t meant to say it. He hadn’t. Corrupted clouds of overthinking had obfuscated his mind, and the words had unraveled before he could assess them. It had been an unintentional slip of tongue.

An unintentional slip of tongue that he couldn’t rescind.

Missing a concurrent beat in his step, Jared looked somewhat taken aback, caught off guard, unawares for only a brief moment.

Score Evan.

“Dude.” He deadpanned, eyes still locked indefinitely against his, still scorching into his mind, intruding without consent. “You’re ignoring me and staring into fucking space. Excuse me for wanting some attention.”

Attention. That was all he was good for. A proxy for receiving the divisive jokes and laughs and taunts that Jared couldn’t opportunely share with the people he genuinely wanted.

With a snort, Evan retaliated, feeling particularly bitter and desperate. “Can’t you get attention from your real friends?”

At that, Jared blinked, and his eyes widened tumultuously before narrowing defensively, in their incalculable misstep betraying something akin to shock.

“Real friends? What real friends? Are we not real friends?”

A pause. A silence. And then. “Do you...do you not consider me a real friend?”

It was Evan’s turn to appear wryly aghast, mouth gaping, gawking at the barely shorter boy in unbridled incredulity. He was rendered confoundedly still for a good few seconds before relishing and registering the insinuation that Jared “Family Friend” Kleinman actually gave a damn about whether or not he and the human iteration of social ineptitude were “real friends”.

The realization was neither overjoyed nor bleak.

Just surreal.

It had never occurred to Evan that this compulsory bond formed over their parents’ acquaintanceship would defer benefits for both participants. He had automatically assumed that he was the only one who gained anything from what was otherwise a burdening inconvenience, that Jared would avidly prefer spending time with people who weren’t embarrassingly intolerable.

He’d never been given any indication otherwise.

Until now.

“Evan, are you breaking up with me?”

The stress of humor was still present in his voice, as per usual, but it was muddled, accentuated with something Evan couldn’t quite place.

Whatever it was, he didn’t like it.

Almost frantically, he shook his head, blinking vigorously, and Jared backpedaled, not having expected the authentically decisive response.

“NO-it’s not-I don’t, I-I-I, I didn’t mean, I-”

He didn’t stutter when he spoke to Jared. He’d learned not to. This was wrong.

And like everything else, without even knowing the extent of the aid he was providing, Jared fixed it.

“Fuck, dude, holy shit, shut up, I was joking!”

Erring on the side of caution, Jared set his hand on Evan’s arm, gripping it derisively, but gently, not unlike how Zoe had held it earlier.

“Calm down. Jesus Christ, you’re so antsy today. Who the hell died, man?”

Evan said nothing, inhaling sharply and aspiring to regain steady breath, as was essential towards achieving the immense feat of staying the fuck alive.

For once, Jared didn't interrupt his gradual recovery with any snappy respiting, maintaining his firm gaze quietly, expectantly.

After some strenuous endeavors in which his tongue proved all too swollen for his increasingly dry mouth, Evan found the tentative ability to form words.

“I-uh-I, I took the bus…”

The explanation would've been rigidly inadequate for anyone else, but Jared simply blinked twice, and slowly let go of his arm, before a broad smile twisted his expression as he expelled a sharp, precise laugh.

Evan had always been somewhat unnerved by the sheer, shrill contagion of that damn cackle.

In between snorts and fits of giggles, he managed to speak. “Holy fucking fuck, who the hell thought letting you on a schoolbus was a good idea? Even normal kids hate taking the bus! And you- !”

The barked, volatile chuckling grew somehow louder, and Jared wheezed.

“Oh my god, I can't fucking breathe! ”

Join the club, Evan thought disingenuously. Sometimes, he really couldn't interpret the hilarity in the same things Jared did.

The latter was still laughing when the bell indicating the start of class rang, and Evan accepted the tedious responsibility of dragging him to his first period. At least now he wouldn't have to address the Zoe Predicament until later.

After assuring that his friend wouldn't actually sustain a heart attack or lung failure and laugh himself to death, Evan scurried to his own class, which his schedule confirmed as AP Literature. (Not that the AP aspect had any real effect; his mom couldn't afford to pay for the credits exams. At least the elevated level boosted his gpa.)

The desks in the low ceilinged, contemptibly stuffy room were arranged in a grid of three by four rows, each column containing two seats pushed so compactly together, there was barely any room to slither between the unpalatably attached chairs.

With an inaudible groan, Evan swung his backpack onto the floor beside one of the desks nearest the far right corner (the safest possible location to avoid being unwantedly called on) and maneuvered gracelessly into the snug confinement of the seating arrangement from hell.

The class was larger than he'd anticipated, and by the time the announced, drearily signaling pangs of the second bell rang out, officially severing the allotted amount of grace dedicated to passing period (more accurately known as “trying to piss and make it to your classroom on the opposite side of the gargantuan campus before the minimal margin offered was terminated”), just about every desk was occupied.

Every desk except the one adjacent Evan’s.

It wasn't a surprise, and, in all honesty, he was more relieved than disappointed.

The teacher began taking attendance the moment the diminished authority gesturing the start of class subsided, belting surnames and sounding uncannily like a drill sergeant, effectively conveying the predictable message that she couldn't give less of a shit about “getting to know her students” and would be more than happy to forget all of their wretched faces the minute they left her class.

After apprehensively asserting his own presence at the blunt shout of “Hansen!”, Evan listened with vague perception to her droning roll call, recognizing many of the names listed and partially familiarizing himself with the others.

It was right after something that sounded like “Laurence” or “Laurens” that the narrow, sinewy old woman brusquely snapped “Murphy!”

Evan perked up, wilting eyelids blinking open in visible surprise as he quickly scanned the room for Zoe.

His memorized image of the back of her head didn't catch his eye, and there was no yelped or yawned “here” to commend her presence.

The teacher tried again, yet more irritably.

“Murphy?”

Still no reply.

Grumbling something that sounded malevolently like “Absent on the first damn day of school” , the woman slammed the paper against the podium up front, her expression consistently mimicking that of someone who’d smelled something unbelievably foul.

Just as she began to scribble on the page with such aversion, it looked as though the pencil would snap under the unbridled pressure of her clasp, the door swung lazily open, and a circumspect, inherently nonchalant Connor Murphy skulked in, lips pressed into a taut, thin line and hoodie clinging loosely to his torso, his bag held haphazardly in one hand.

Oh.

As if on cue, the teacher’s head snapped up, wiry veins popping about her neck and face, wild greying hair dislodging from the hastily attempted braid that ran down her back. Her eyes glazed with a fire so sinister and jarring, Evan shrunk involuntarily back in his seat.

The recipient of the antagonizing glare, however, didn't so much as flinch, glancing about noncommittally to find a chair.

And Evan, with a horrified expression of desolate, wallowing terror, realized that the only free desk was the one next to his.

This couldn't be fucking happening.

And yet, as the woman marched up to the boy and shrieked viciously up at him, spitting saliva as incomprehensible scolds and admonishments flew from wrinkled lips, it seemed that it was, in fact, fucking happening.

The tables had turned, the day had begun, and Evan Hansen was stuck sitting beside the wrong Murphy.

Chapter Text

Everything was going terribly.

Evan’s world was crumbling, deteriorating and spiraling into an all-consuming void of panic and delirium, and there were still 40 fucking minutes left of class as the teacher barked threats and implications regarding the same damn syllabus they'd had for four consecutive years .

He knew the thing by heart, had memorized it the summer preceding his freshman year, out of the irrational, decremented fear that he'd be expelled or suspended for breaking some facetious rule about wearing mismatched socks or dawdling near the water fountain. For the entirety of his first semester, he had been utterly petrified by the thought of being chastised for doing something he hadn't even realized was wrong. He knew it was unrealistic to anticipate penalization for every potential minor error, but he couldn't help but worry.

Fortunately, the majority of his teachers had assured their students that the affirmation of the syllabi was nothing more than an inconvenient liability, a hassle that no one wanted, but everyone endured out of compulsory expectation. They'd helped considerably in easing his anxiety about being caught in the hallways without a pass, or forgetting to toss trays and napkins in the trash can after lunch.

This year, however, his professor held a different attitude.

She didn’t warn ambiguously or proliferate the extent of punishment absolved for condoning infinitesimal mistakes; she literally yelled at her allotted clusterfuck of almost-adults for things that were scarcely likely to happen. Vandalism, gang violence, firearms on school premises. Bypassing more opportune insubordinances, such as tardiness or unexcused absences, she jumped right into repercussions for the obscurest fucking scenarios, such as sacrificing a live animal on the property.

It was as though she was preemptively abhorring the class for anything and everything they could possibly do wrong.

She was so loud, and blunt, and incriminating, and Evan was certain that nothing, nothing in the world could embellish the hysterical misery that had settled in just the first half hour of his morning. Nothing in the world could possibly make this worse.

So of course, for the sole sake of proving him wrong , the boy beside him lasted a good ten minutes into her enraged spiel before rolling his eyes ludicrously and slamming his head on the desk.

Which wouldn't have harangued Evan too greatly, if not for the fact that the kid had more fucking hair than half the girls in the class.

It was 9 am, he was being chided for things he hadn't even done, and Connor Murphy’s hair was tickling his fucking arm.

Outrageously panicked whims surged through his mind, and Evan raced implausibly through abrasive scenarios and possibilities, each more crucially unachievable than the last. He was entering a state of irredeemable desperation, and all he could do was fidget and jostle, every nervous tic congealing to form some grotesque amalgamation of terror and the overwhelming desire to scream.

What the hell was he supposed to do? It wasn’t as though he could move. Surely, any motion or adjustment would alert the none-too-agreeable teenager at his side, and fucking christ, had he fallen asleep?! How could you sleep at a time like this!! Oh god, what if he’d fallen asleep on his arm? What if his classmate had legitimately passed out atop the appendage without realizing, and was actually fucking unconscious? Evan couldn’t risk waking him up. It’d be like pasting pounds of raw red meat to your bare flesh and waltzing uninhibitedly into the den of a lion who hadn’t eaten in a week. Only worse.

Oh great, he was hyperventilating.

As he tried valiantly (and fruitlessly) to remember how to perform the allegedly automatic function of breathing, Evan could swear he felt something shifting beside him, and it took every ounce of pertinent restraint he possessed to keep from outright flailing.

To his bewilderment, he managed to convey some semblance of composure (or at least, he refrained from screaming and flipping the fucking desk), until the undeterred shuffling at his side decided to speak.

“You know, I can feel you freaking out.”

An unstifled shriek that Evan would later refuse to admit he’d produced resonated, although fortunately, the distinguishable fear in the yelp diminished its shrill volume, and, in spite of his instantaneous panic that everyone had heard and was now glaring mercilessly at him, failed to attract the unwanted attention of his somnolence-ridden classmates.

Well. Failed to attract the unwanted attention of most of his somnolence-ridden classmates.

Connor, however, ever the insatiable exception, unhelpfully sat up, carding a hand gracelessly through a curtain of bangs which then proceeded to wilt over his left eye. Arms crossed over the desktop and eyes half-lidded in blatant exhaustion, he blinked drowsily at Evan, who was so insensibly flushed, he pondered momentarily whether he’d ruptured a blood vessel.

“Calm the fuck down, would ya?”

Evan stumbled over an incapacity to reply, trying to protest, to assert that it wasn’t that damn easy, but only succeeding in spluttering out and perspiring excessively, and Jesus Christ, he ought to win an award for being so dysfunctional.

He crossed his legs in a vain attempt to keep them from vibrating , and he tugged his arms towards his torso, evading the persistent eye contact the taller boy was still endeavoring to maintain. He could vaguely feel himself picking inadvertently at his sleeves, ripping anxiously at the fabric as every droning bark from the teacher, every tick of the clock, every absent, minuscule noise (be it from the tapping of a pencil or the shallow screech of adjusting chairs) assaulted him all at once.

It was too much, it was all too fucking much , and Evan couldn’t even remember why he’d begun panicking so overwroughtly in the first place. All he could register beyond the dreadful concoction derived of each obnoxious, unrelenting sound, was that it was too much, and god, why was it so loud?, and he couldn’t take it anymore . It was so goddamn loud, too fucking much, and he couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t take it-!

“Holy shit, okay, hey, HEY. Can you hear me? Fuck, dude, alright.”

His vision was faltering, blackening, countenance drained of any pigmentation it had held, his lips paled and pursed and wavering, his entire body jerking and spasming against his volition, and once again, Connor Murphy was right there next to him to witness it all.

Only this time, his unhinged exhibition came sans Zoe.

Fuck, this was worse than the bus.

Evan couldn't so much as bring himself to sustain a regular pattern of inhales and exhales, the contraction of his diaphragm unnaturally coerced and painful, and damnit, breathing was not supposed to be this difficult.

All of his concentration dissolved into a harrowed, determined resilience to prevent himself from hacking a fucking lung out, and amidst the systematic funneling of all his skill and effort towards what was intended to be an easy feat, he didn't realize that he'd stood up and was moving involuntarily, being half-pushed, half-coaxed out of that wretched classroom and down scantily tiled halls, unorthodoxically (and a little disturbingly) devoid of the usual bustle of restless students, unoccupied save for the minimal space reserved for a briskly traveling Evan and the mystery hands guiding him.

“C’mon, don’t pass out on me, Jesus fuck. ”

The figure ushering him along held an ambiguously blurry stance in Evan’s depraved field of vision, and hell, there must’ve been tears in his eyes, because no matter how vigorously he blinked, the wary smudge of color whose fingers were still intertwined with his didn’t grow any clearer. Fuck , he was 17 years old and crying because of a goddamn teacher. Real mature, Hansen. Intrusive deprecations somehow managed to sift their way through the collapsing barriers encasing Evan’s common sense (Oh sure. He could call himself names but couldn’t remember how fucking respiration worked. Terrific) and burrowed into the vulnerable and already distorted home of his (nearly nonexistent) self-respect. What the fuck kind of highschool senior couldn’t go one shitty hour of the morning without breaking down? What the hell was wrong with him?!

Everything , his mind supplied, unphased and disgruntlingly unabashed by the physically overwhelmed state of his outlandishly frail form. The cycling of oxygenated blood coursing derisively through his veins decided to help the situation concretely by ceasing diffusion to his legs, so that he literally fucking collapsed in the middle of the hallway.

Or he would’ve, had it not been for the bony, mangled mess of limbs that intercepted his fall. A somewhat pertinent, recognizable voice made its way to Evan’s bleary ears, ricocheting a reprehensible verdict of ‘shit’. Shit indeed, Evan agreed absentmindedly, the sensory overload having driven him remorselessly into utter malfunction and failure to maintain a human regularity. The capacity to function adequately seemed to seep from his every pore, escaping vivaciously against his will, and Evan whimpered his stagnant discontent into the bundle of cloth his face had been forcibly burrowed in. Lanky arms clung to him uncomfortably, hands clawing abjectly into his back in an equivocal attempt at support. He was suffocating, already unstable, inconsistent breath hitching in his throat. His heart reverberated eccentrically, palpitations wringing him physically incapable of so much as standing. God, he was a fucking mess.

He wasn’t quite sure when, but soon enough, the minimal consciousness Evan had struggled so despairingly to sustain drained from his body, and he went limp against the other boy’s arms.

The last thing he heard before his crumpling knees gave way and his eyes rolled consolidatingly back to view the pulsating mess of his disengaging brain was the idle, frightful squeak of his name, distant and disassembled, muddled by a soft, indescribable haze.   

Funny. It still felt like there was hair tickling his arm.

Chapter Text

It was during moments like these that Connor detested just about every infinitesimal, shitty second of his life.

Moments when practically everything in his vicinity came crashing down around him the second he so much as glanced in their direction. Moments when he afforded someone or something a single strand of strenuously perpetrated effort and all he got for it was blanched glances of bartered disbelief and tentative mistrust. And God fucking forbid he dare lay a single, sincere finger against anyone or anything, lest the world witness the poison advance from its curdling eagerness within his constrained veins, pervading exuberantly, venomously, ardent to destroy everything in its treacherous, godforsaken path.

(Who was he kidding? Destruction was the only thing he could do right.)

He'd already eviscerated his travesty of an excuse for a ‘family’: a fragile, tediously constructed kinship, placed in imbalanced, imperfect structures around ambivalent deposits of still-drying glue, built with sweat and blood and bone in indicted endeavors to compose the vain, consequential, limited world of love and support that arose with your average household.

Easily, unreluctantly, Connor had dismantled the facetiously manufactured pleasantries his parents had presented him with, and had turned adamantly to the inviting, cathartic subculture of drugs and pain and teenage angst. He had no right to wallow in this contemporary swamp of misguided self pity; he'd brought this upon himself.

He was the only one he could blame.

Nonetheless, it wasn't so simple living a life where he was always in the wrong. Where all he could do was hurt and break and mar and dent and wound and-

Destroy .

Even now. Now, when his only intention had been to help the poor kid that had all but disintegrated in his seat in that despicable bitch’s smothering classroom, he'd still managed to fuck it up. (Of course he’d fucked it up. That wasn’t really a surprise. Hadn’t he already established that? That all he could do was tarnish and spoil and destroy whatever good remained in the world? Whatever hope and happiness was deemed unfortunate enough to come in contact with his flagrant fucking gauntlet of superficial existence?)

All he'd wanted was the fleeting, tantalizing opportunity to prove that for once in the miserable span of his utterly ostentatious life, he could do something, one damn fucking thing for someone else that didn't result in brokenness and betrayal and disappointment. That didn't regurgitate the all too familiar reaction of despondence and dissatisfaction, of a snide, jeering hopelessness that seemed to be the only expression his mother ever directed at him. That didn't repercusse the grimace, the prevalently furrowed eyebrows and pressed scowl that occupied his dad’s face whenever he so much as entered a fucking room.

That didn't mirror the terror and irrevocable fear that welled in his sister’s eyes, that horrible, deplorable look of undiluted panic that no amount of weed or pills or razor blades could ever evict from his memory.

He had really, genuinely, truly wanted to help.

He ought to have learned by now that getting what you wanted was a fluke and a lie.

Resolving never to pursue anything with good intentions for the remainder of his disconsolate lifetime, Connor stood in trepidation, glaring irked daggers at the unconscious thing that had literally collapsed in his fucking arms. What was he thinking? He could hardly succeed in dismantling his own frenzied mind’s insolent, delirious whims, couldn't will away the unbridled assaults of contorted horror and desperation that ambushed him day in and day out. So what in the shit had wrought him to believe that he could provide fickle aid in the circumstance of a panic attack so dire, it's perpetrator literally passed out from the sheer stress?

If anything, his presence had just made the whole situation worse (as if that was a fucking surprise); he may have been turmoiling through an innate inability to breathe prior to undertaking this perilous turn of events, but at least Evan had been conscious before Connor offered to evoke the daunting task of ruining fucking everything (as per usual).

For a brief, habitually selfish moment, Connor pondered the haunting dilemma of what would occur if someone happened to encounter him in the halls, scattered and looking more insane than was customary, with the limp body of Evan Hansen clutched in his arms.

God, he really was a psychopath.

Successively, his vexed, decaying sanity hopped wickedly from where it wrested his (seemingly exponentially diminishing) capacity for coherent logic, embarging him with the mortifying thought of what if he's dead and you actually killed him, you fucking freak.

He froze, effectively immobilized, trembling irrevocably as he managed to gently drop the boy onto the scuffed, reflective floor. His brain chanted a buzzing mantra of murderer psychopath freakshow insane monstrosity murderer murderer murderer , while he disorientedly fumbled with misendeavored fingers to press tautly into the crook of the kid’s neck, probably pushing a bit too deliberately in his state of unassessed, irrational fear (he didn't make any semblance of an indication that he'd noticed the pressure against his throat-he was really out cold).

A shaky sigh of unstifled relief escaped with an exhale as Connor realized he'd been holding his breath, coughing out in attempts to repose; Evan’s pulse was still there. A bit more erratic than would've been ideal, but present regardless. He hadn't killed anyone just yet.

Grazing a hand through his hair, Connor tugged with a sense of borderline vindication at disheveled, ruefully tangled locks, wrapping his arms once more about the bony torso of the teen sprawled derisively against the series of grossly deteriorating lockers. One disgracefully gangly appendage looped underneath his armpits and the other slung loosely around his waist, Connor hoisted Evan up just barely, painstakingly aware of how fucking weird this must've looked.

Whoever checked the hall monitoring cameras was going to have one hell of a time trying to decipher what the fuck kind of grotesque accident had resulted in one student practically dragging another whilst skillfully flipping off the recording device poised explicitly in the cobweb-laden crevice of the ceiling.

Deciding that explaining the scarcely breathing body he was lugging to the school nurse would be a greater hassle than it was worth, Connor managed disparagingly to prop Evan against the abhorrently grimy, dingy communal sink at the entrance of a bathroom more contemptible and inhospitable than those found in prisons (god bless american public schools!), meticulously positioning the boy’s erroneously flopping form so it was more or less upright, or at the very least, wasn’t slumped over the nauseating restroom floor. He paused momentarily to scrutinize the fruit of his endeavors, tucking insubordinate bangs behind his ear and swearing under his breath, wondering how long he had before the certified professional bitch™ noticed his protracted absence.

It was really a bit surprising how easily he’d succeeded in escaping the woman’s scornful supervision of her new class, especially given the fact that Connor had already undertaken acquainting himself with her bad side (that is, if she even had a good side to begin with, which he keenly doubted). ‘Gotten off on the wrong foot’ was an understatement; he may as well have forgone feet in exchange for fins upon which he thrashed and floundered just for the hell of it, because some dreadfully masochistic part of him got a kick out of the teacher’s spittle assaulting his face after he arrived to class five minutes late on his very first fucking day.

(or at least, that’s what Larry claimed it was, seeing as it was a helluva lot easier to reprimand your little shit of a son for being intentionally irresponsible and rash than it was to admit that said shit’s immense lack of motivation to so much as wrangle himself from his bedsheets was an actual problem.)

Nevertheless, his excessive scratching at the already bruised, irritated flesh against his knuckles (he’d have to thank Zoe for that one) excused him from a barrage of haranguing interrogation, sparing him the trouble of having to conjure a good enough reason to leave in the middle of class, as the onslaught of blood drying under his nails and dripping down the back of his hand sufficiently spoke for itself. He was ordered lividly to “clean that mess up!”, although not permitted to leave again without a commended chaperone, “you nasty delinquent trash”, which was more an imminent victory for Connor than he’d ever let on as he swiftly shimmied through the door and out into the hall with a conspicuously disheveled Evan Hansen latched unawares onto his arm.

(It was fairly evident how stunningly impassive their teacher was when she failed to notice the inarguable emergency of one of her students almost passing out in her class.)

Now, the adrenaline-courted impulse that had led Connor to usher the disengaging boy away from the cacophony of amalgamating sounds and persistent fidgets residing in their classroom as fast as he physically could, driving him to the restroom in a deflated attempt to preclude the horrors of losing your shit in the middle of school (a circumstance with which Connor was adversely acquainted and wouldn't wish upon even his greatest nemesis) had dissolved, dissipating and leaving him at a loss for what the fuck he was supposed to do next.

He really hadn’t thought this through.

With a groan, he plopped despondently down onto the floor opposite Evan, detached and inanely defeated as he pressed his (still bloodied) knuckles abjectly into somewhat sunken cheeks. Lanky, awkward legs crossed over themselves, and he assumed the position of an oddly entangled pretzel, cursing his extinguished rationale for convincing him that this was in any remote sense a good idea. Submitting to the fatiguing will of his evidently permanent condition of sleep deprivation, Connor let his head fall against unorthodoxically bony knees, grumbling to himself and not bothering to reaccommodate the drapes of hair that invaded his vision. His eyelids drooped, and his brows knitted together, frustrated, vexed, clueless.

Sure, perhaps he could account a small victory towards his impressive achievement of not accidentally killing a guy, but it still consequented him one (1) ragdoll body carelessly teetering upon decaying walls, and for the (incompetent, useless, unwanted) life of him, Connor couldn’t determine what the hell to do with it.

Maybe his immune system was reacting inaptly to the foreign concept of being a decent human being for once.  

After a full minute of aggravatedly pressing his palms into his sockets, trying in valiant vain to ease the imminent headache settling in his skull, pounding and shrieking and never shutting up, Connor emitted a seceding sigh and opened his eyes slowly, still trying to figure out what he could possibly do that wouldn’t make this despicable adversity worse.

It took every ounce of deliberation remaining in his wilted form not to scream when he gazed right into two sharp, concise, and very much conscious cobalt irises.