#dms002

[legends-of-direbear]

Dead Man’s Switch || JD/Veronica: Heathers: The Musical AU

Genre: Heathers: The Musical (AU from Shine A Light)

Summary:  When Veronica McNamara is driven to commit suicide, Veronica’s determination to save her drives JD to make a promise to keep Veronica safe.  Even from himself.  Apparently Sherman is making a change.

Part 2

Note: this is not intended to glamorize toxic relationships.  If you find yourself in a relationship where you are the only thing keeping someone from harming themselves or others, please get help, because that’s not healthy or right.  

Triggers: attempted suicide, murder, bullying

Three shoe stores and a trip to the food court later, Veronica and JD were sucking down slushies while Heather happily chatted up a random guy that had bought her a pretzel from the Orange Julius.

“That was really nice; what you said to Heather,” Veronica told him sincerely.

“Well; I promised,” JD reminded her.  “And…I promised.  I’m not saying I don’t still want to slit Heather Duke’s wrists with her copy of Moby Dick, but—I would never hurt you Veronica.  I would do anything for you.”

Veronica watched him steadily.  “Thank you.” It was a heavy thing, loving JD. He felt things so intensely, and things were so skewed in his mind.  Veronica felt like even if she didn’t care about him, she would still need to be his caretaker; like even though he knew he wasn’t quite right, he couldn’t cope with right and wrong on his own. Not that she wanted to leave him, but the responsibility was still a lot for her.  “Hey Heather,” she called over to the golden-bedecked girl just rejoining them with a sunny smile on her face.  “Why don’t we head back to my place?”

Which was how they ended up at the Sawyers, with Veronica and Heather playing croquet while JD read and occasionally commented from the patio.

“You sure you don’t want to play JD?” Veronica smirked as Heather called up to her boyfriend, apparently getting more acclimated to using his real name instead of the nicknames Heather Chandler had been dolling out before her death.

“Thanks, but uh, croquet’s not really my thing.”  JD lifted his book up with a crooked smile, as if to illustrate his point.  

“Aw come on JD—get your nose out of there and spend some time with us,” Veronica flirted lightly, flashing him a playful smile.  One that apparently the boy couldn’t resist, because he rolled his eyes and let the book fall shut between his hands as he moved to join them.

“Here,” Heather offered, handing him the orange mallet and matching ball.  “You’re up.”

“Uh, thanks Heather,” he replied, glancing over at his girlfriend uncertainly before lining his stick up with the ball.  He tapped it lightly, rolling along the grass in a shy way that seemed to Veronica very unlike him—JD always seemed to be very full-throttle, and yet the ball rolled almost delicately toward the wicket a few feet away.  

Veronica stepped up and took her shot, the blue ball clacking against JD’s pointedly.  The boy’s eyebrow quirked at her.  

“Are you going to take the two, or send him out Veronica?” Heather asked inquisitively.  Veronica paused a moment, before kicking her ball lightly in a better position to go through the hoop.

“Really?” JD questioned. “Come on; I can take it.”

“Not my style,” she replied easily.

“Just because I’m your boyfriend doesn’t mean you should go easy on me,” he told her challengingly. Veronica considered him again.  “I can take it,” he insisted, and she wondered if he meant more than just the game.  However, she did redirect her ball, lining blue up with orange and letting her mallet send his across the field toward the steps with Heather giggling in amusement.

It was cut off abruptly when a red Mary Jane stepped down from the stairs next to the balls with a smug look on her face.  

“So here you are,” Heather Duke observed, glancing at the trio critically, before focusing her gaze on Veronica and Heather McNamara. “I didn’t see you during last period.”

“We were avoiding you,” Veronica deadpanned, turning back to the blonde.  “It’s your turn Heather.”

“Sure Veronica,” the meek girl responded, turning her focus intently onto the ball at her feet.

“Whatever,” the new head bitch remarked, eyes narrowing into distaste.  “I don’t need to be here to watch you both spiral into freaks and geeks loserdom anyways.  I just need your signatures on this petition.”

“What petition?” Veronica asked suspiciously, watching as Heather Duke shoved the clipboard and pen into Heather McNamara’s hands.  The brunette also noted that JD’s knuckles were white as he gripped his mallet tightly beneath his fingers.  

“We want to dedicate the yearbook to Heather and Kurt and Ram,” she explained, lifting her nails to her eyesight for inspection.  “Change around the whole format, but Mr. Anderson says we don’t have the budget—that only have space for four pages of pictures and shit.”

“Pictures no doubt featuring you with the dead,” Veronica remarked snidely.

“Oh yeah,” Heather McNamara commented, her eyes apparently lighting in understanding, and then bowing back down as she mumbled “Sorry Heather” to Heather Duke’s reflexive “Shut up Heather!”

“So if I get the whole school to sign, they’ll have to change their mind,” the red-clad senior continued as though she had remained uninterrupted throughout.  Heather’s dark eyes pulled back up accusingly.  “I mean, you do want Heather and Duke and Ram to be properly memorialized, don’t you Veronica?  After all, they died because of people like you.”

A short laugh interrupted them, and all three heads turned to see JD covering his mouth, a massively amused grin radiating from behind it.  

“I’m not signing a petition to give you a chance to use their deaths to get your picture in the four extra pages of the yearbook, Heather,” Veronica uttered, pulling the other girl’s attention back to her as she took the clipboard and thrust it back into Heather’s hands.  “Go find someone else to dupe.”

“I don’t understand why you’re pulling my dick, Veronica,” Heather sneered, echoing Heather Chandler’s normal malice.   “I’m running this school now, and you’d better watch your step.”  A cruel smile played on her lips as she looked to the blonde across from her. “See you later Heather.”

Veronica watched Heather leave, eyes glaring daggers long after she’d gone.  Heather McNamara’s tiny cough pulled her attention back to the group.  “I should probably go too, Veronica,” she admitted, propping her mallet against the table.  “Thanks again.”

“Anytime Heather,” Veronica assured her.  “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”  It was obvious that tomorrow was still weighing heavily on the blonde girl’s mind.  But her lips curved upward very slightly as she brought her blue gaze back up to the two seniors watching her.  “See you later JD,” she added shyly to the stoic boy, who brought a semi-clenched hand up in response, before disappearing by the same path as the Heather before.

Veronica watched her go, then quickly turned back to her boyfriend.  He was tensed, eyes shut and gripping his mallet so tightly that Veronica was surprised he hadn’t splintered it.  “Careful,” she said gently as she approached him.  “You’ll break that thing if your grip gets any tighter.”

“Fucking Heather Duke,” he griped.  “She’s worse than Heather Chandler, you know that?  And that stupid petition?”