#specifically people saying deh is 'creepy'

[mushroom-through-the-stargate]

me when I realise I've gone on a tirade about someone coming up with bad faith interpretations about something I may or may not have staked my identity on : you are inventing things to be mad at. I am defending things I project onto bc if you think so negatively about things I like/relate to I internalize it to mean you think negatively about me and therefore this average incorrect opinion feels like a personal attack on me and others like me (that I'm projecting onto). we are not the same.

[allsassnoclass]

oh okay WELL! back in 2016 when the only musical i really knew was hamilton, i was strongly in favour of hamilton sweeping. but now with (1) a more diverse taste and (2) more appreciation for the other shows in that season as well as (3) a general loathing for the american theatre wing, i'm a little more reticent about the whole sweeping thing. just in general tbh. i feel like hamilton's sweeping win kind of kickstarted a thing with the ATW where they would just pick One Show that would win everything each season (deh the next season, and then band's visit) and i did not particularly care for that. not to say they didn't NECESSARILY deserve these wins but i certainly think they didn't deserve all of them (also i still harbor a grudge for the fact that falsettos won NOTHING. NOTHING. but that's a separate thing). so that's where i'm at lol

oh god favourite words... i have quite a lot (i keep a list sort of) but uhh here's a few: i like saying crisp. i like defensible. likewise. indefatigable. trounce. decimate. snazzy. intricate. vibrant. darling and sweetheart are also both good. i have weird Things about words if you can't tell

preferred writing utensil is a mechanical pencil!!! pens tend to smudge because i'm left handed and i like that you don't have to sharpen a mechanical pencil cos who the fuck has the time these days. in this economy? no

oh boy uhhhh okay i'm gonna say for me, maybe telepathy? slash mindreading? bc i think i'm good at communication as well as reading or getting a feel for people's emotions. so i think if that translated into a superpower it'd be that. not sure what my name would be! Ms. Communication maybe that'd be funny lmao but it's a little gimmicky and... third-grade-youtube-video-esque. must reflect further on this. i am open to suggestions. i feel like it's weird to choose your own superhero name anyway

also while i'm here i'd like to say that i understand all grievances with waitress, i have some problems with it as well (ogie... nope. not the vibe) but i did see waitress when it was on broadway (betsy wolfe!!! loml) and i really loved it overall. also i cried at the take it from an old man scene. a whole lot. some of the music is really nice. but i respect your opinion!! xoxo bella

yeah I have A Lot that could be said about why the atw is not good. I also have beef with sweeping like while a show may be good there are always Multiple good shows out there and the overall best musical might not have the best lighting or costumes or featured actor and it’s infuriating that lately one show has been getting all of the credit and recognition when so many others also deserve it.  when the band’s visit swept I believe mean girls and spongebob had 24 nominations between them and only one win, which is ridiculous. don’t get me wrong: I love band’s visit a lot and if one of the shows had to sweep I'm glad it was that one, but it shouldn’t have. this also could start a whole different conversation about commercialized musicals and the shift in the state of theatre and how the atw has reacted to that but I am attempting to be concise

those are pretty good words heck yeah! and mechanical pencils are really valid especially since you’re left handed like my mama. I used to hate writing with pens but tbh I was converted by a boy I liked :/ however I really only like these specific pens, otherwise I would take a mechanical pencil over other pens.

I think telepathy works for you. I almost feel like your name needs to have nothing to do with your power because tbh there’s not many good names that connect to telepathy that aren’t already taken in comics. however I have no suggestions for you lol

spoilers for waitress below! I'm going to talk in more detail about why I didn’t like it (which you don’t have to read if you don’t want)

okay so first off I just really struggle with infidelity plots and there was a lot of infidelity in this show. Jenna I could understand but the doctor? Becky? like there was just a lot and I have a hard time feeling sympathetic towards cheating characters, especially when there isn’t really any karma for them in the show. there were no consequences for those actions

everything with Ogie. yeah. no. big no. nope nope nope. he literally stalked Dawn and her friends were like “yeah he’s the guy for you :)” and this is written off as completely normal and fine! very creepy. 0/10.

bad idea (reprise) was very uncomfortable for me to watch. I actually just now looked up a bootleg to see if it was the same staging and it looks like it is but yeah I just really couldn’t do that scene and even my significantly more sex positive classmates were uncomfortable at the kind of sudden turn to "a sex romp.”  it really put me on edge for the rest of the show.

perhaps my opinion would’ve been changed if I had listened to the cast recording beforehand, but none of the songs really stuck with me except she used to be mine, which I had heard before. the issue it that you don’t get that song until near the end, so musically the show didn’t grip me for the majority of it. if I re-listened and re-familiarized myself with it I could probably find more songs I liked (it’s been a year since I saw it and I haven’t listened to any of the songs since), but in general I nothing really stood out to me or left a big impression

also this is a really picky thing but the set design had the horizontal line of death all the way across it which is has been drilled into me as being Bad and is generally uninteresting 

I will say that Joe was my favorite part of the show, hands down. I think I teared up too but I do that very easily so!

[enthusiasticmusicalquotes]

QUESTION OF THE DAY #6: Send me your most unpopular theatre opinion. Something that might make someone want to fight you. Please don’t be offensive (racist, misogynistic, etc.), but other than that…go as hard as you want. Spill all the tea.

MY ANSWERS: 1) The Pretty Woman score fucking slaps idek, 2) Come From Away (or even Bandstand...) should’ve won the 2017 Best Musical Tony, 3) I prefer the West End Heathers cast album to Off Broadway, 4) Shows shouldn’t sweep the Tonys just because they’re Best Musical worthy...shows that aren’t too critically acclaimed but have really impressive elements should get recognition too.

SUMMARY: Out of 37 responses: 5 were about Dear Evan Hansen, 3 were about Hamilton specifically, 2 were about: Rent, ALW, Wicked, In The Heights, Be More Chill, etc. etc....if your favorite musical is one of these and you get easily offended i wouldn’t read these.

NOTE: I agree with some of these, I highly disagree with others. I do not endorse any of the things that were said, I am simply sharing them with you all. These were what was sent to me. I’m going to number them so if you want to complain about or agree with one you can send me an ask with the number you’re referring to. 

1. howmuchchildrens said: unpopular opinion: i really liked the 2012 version of les mis. i liked russel crowe as javert.

2. Anonymous said: Unpopular opinion: Bootlegs harm to local theatre communities, though I do not believe anyone intends for that to be the case. While it's possible to bootleg responsibly (and I might even say it's beneficial to do so), those who may not know the intricacies of theatrical copyright law or who haven't heard the horror stories from a theatre that's been hit with legal action DUE to a bootleg may record or watch a show irresponsibly, which can greatly harm other routes of theatre accessibility.

3. Anonymous said: Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals are mostly terrible. He only got and stayed popular because a lot of other musical creators and taste makers died in the AIDS epidemic

4. Anonymous said: Almost all musicals using the songs of one artist are cash grabs with no plot or point.

5. Anonymous said: If your musical only has 1 woman OR the women only get sad/romantic songs you need to do something else with your life.

6. nerdshrimp said: Unpopular opinion: Next To Normal does a better job of portraying the effects of mental illness than Dear Evan Hansen does. N2N also doesn't romanticise mental illness & excuse shitty behavior like DEH tries to

7. Anonymous said: Hadestown is a lesser show on Broadway. I fell in love with the live album, and I was so excited for it to come to Broadway. I was so disappointed to see the changes they made. Orpheus and Eurydice's relationship is less interesting and more generic. The changed lyrics are often sloppy and not as good as the original. They fucking wrecked Epic III. Also, no hate to R/ee/ve, but he's just not a good enough singer to convince me that he could soften the heart of Hades. His high notes are awful.

8. Anonymous said: opinion: we are the tigers deserves a broadway run or at least a proshot

9. bimystique said: e/c is NOT A GOOD FUCKING SHIP. the ENTIRE PLOT OF PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is christine trying to escape erik's abuse. WHAT FUCKING PART OF THAT IS ROMANTIC TO YOU PEOPLE.

10. Anonymous said: unpopular theatre opinion(s): Dear Evan Hansen is Very Bad for its handling of mental illness, Hamilton is overrated and praised too much, and high school/college musical theatre programs can be just as good as Broadway. (also, musical movies would be better if they hired broadway actors, but that's not an unpopular opinion)

11. Anonymous said: I don’t like Lin Manuel Miranda and Hamilton is overrated

12. Anonymous said: I don’t like dear Evan Hansen..... at all. I think it’s kind of boring and really overhyped.

13. Anonymous said: unpopular opinion: in the heights is far better than Hamilton. both are good but ith hits different yknow

14. Anonymous said: The bring it on and legally blonde musicals are BAD! The movies are 100 times better

15. Anonymous said: unpopular opinion? wicked is the epitome of white feminism. it's preached as super great for representation but we literally got the first black glinda in 2019?!?!?!? and before that woc could only play elphaba who's villainized and deemed evil by the whole city

16. Anonymous said: Not so much an opinion as a reaction, but of all Lin's works (ITH, Bring it On, 21 Chump Street, Hamilton), 21 Chump Street gets the biggest emotional reaction of all the cast recordings. The second Justin is like "I don't want your money" (And then later on with the "...what the heck did you.... dooooo", I am a complete goner. Worse than Abuela Claudia and Philip Hamilton's deaths combined

17. Anonymous said: Whenever Je.ssie Mu.eller hits certain notes, she sounds like Tommy Pickles from Rugrats.

18. Anonymous said: aotd6: not everyone knows what im talking about, but the cats 2016 broadway revival choreography was WAYYYY better than the original. the original had a lot of creepy uncomfortable moments and the new one looks way cleaner and up to date

19. Anonymous said: raoul is better than the phantom in every conceivable way

20. Anonymous said: I hate Anastasia so much. it's such a boring show and the music is uninteresting. I wanted to like it so bad but GOD is it boring.

21. Anonymous said: In the Heights.... Overrated.

22. Anonymous said: I do not know if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but here is my opinion: Musicals that are entirely or nearly entirely songs (Hamilton, Hadestown, In The Heights, etc) are the most valid bc I can understand the plot without using wikipedia (I'm looking at you, Jagged Little Pill, I love you but what is your plot????)

23. Anonymous said: I'd rather have a bad film adaptation than no film adaptation

24. Anonymous said: Rent sucks and while it was a stepping stone for more ""controversial"" topics to appear on Broadway it's actually biphobic and features several generally terrible people doing generally terrible things and doesn't actually address the real crisis at all; it's all performative wokeness. The only real good it did was cast a bunch of "nobodies" for the time and make theater somewhat more accessible.

25. stardust-and-seas said: Dear Evan Hansen doesn't properly address mental health despite being about mental health and resolves nobodies character arcs satisfactorily. It's another show that reaches its hands around the throats of marginalized teenagers saying "look I'm relatable!!" The songs taken out of context are significantly more powerful than when placed in the context of the show, which gives us exactly zero evidence of Evan's work to improve and also never resolves Evan's u healthy goals in the first place.

26. stardust-and-seas said: Be More Chill is a raging dumpster fire and the only decent song from it, Michael in the Bathroom, reads as a whiny rich white boy whose potential social anxiety and depression is left ambiguous, which is exactly what it is. When taken out of context it better exemplifies the othering that happens to marginalized groups but lets be real here: bullying/cliques don't happen to "just anyone"; it's the marginalized groups that are othered and abandoned for not being "normal"

27. stardust-and-seas said: There's a difference between shows that don't take themselves seriously because they're meant to be fun and light and shows that pretend not to take themselves too seriously but want to be taken seriously by the audience and the latter always ends up mediocre at best

28. redueka said: i think that dear evan hansen handles every issue it presents badly. i also think that beetlejuice was badly directed

29. Anonymous said: Well I don’t EVER condone cheating, I’m team Jamie in the last five years. He tried so hard to make their relationship and life good, and Cathy gave him nothing in return

30. youcanlolyoucansayohwell said: The answer of the day- I don't get the BMC hype. I'm out of the age bracket it's meant for that might it be. I enjoy it but I don't think it's the greatest thing in the world like some theatre fans do.

31. Anonymous said: i like the rent 2005 recording better than the obcr

32. Anonymous said: unpopular opinion ? : the music of wicked just like isn’t that good. like it’s good but it’s not like, Good, yknow. it’s pretty standard it doesn’t stand out to me. kinda boring

33. Anonymous said: mari.ah r.ose fa.ith is not a good regina george. everything she says sounds monotonous and while i understand she's trying to play off the ""whatever"" teenager (she does this a lot with her teenage characters), 90% of the time she sounds and looks like she doesn't want to be there; her voice is great but most songs feel unnatural and forced and she changes them too much. she's just not selling regina to me as a believable character (this is all from a technical point of view)

34. Anonymous said: Unpopular Opinion: as much as i like musicals based on movies (like waitress), i think not every movie needs to be a musical.

35. Anonymous said: Unpopular opinion (?) the emojiland musical Kinda Slaps

36. Anonymous said: as one of my high school tech theatre teachers once said: "Andrew Lloyd Webber is overrated"

37. Anonymous said: sorry to whoever likes it but Seussical is an absolutely nonsense crackpot plot disguised with okay-to-good music, like I don't even know where to start. I was in the show and didn't even know there was an entire secondary plot line featuring sending children to war until we were halfway through rehearsals

[arianne-daniels]

Some Dear Evan Hansen Thoughts

Hi guys. So I figured I might as well talk about this show and the movie, since the movie is such a hot topic right now. This is definitely going to have some constructive criticism about the show, but my goal isn’t to just bash the show or anything. They’re just my thoughts. This is going to be kind of a long post. Honestly, I just wanted to enumerate my thoughts somewhere.

TL;DR: The musical is mildly problematic and the movie is going to drudge up some interesting issues.

So I completely missed the first craze of the show because it came out in the 2017 season, and the only show I cared about at the time was Anastasia. After I watched the Tony’s that year, I looked up Dear Evan Hansen, and found the plot synopsis to be pretty uninteresting and never bothered trying to watch it. At some point, I watched the performance of You Will Be Found on the Thanksgiving Day Parade, and thought the song was the finale of the show.

I finally got around to watching it because I found a bootleg of Jordan FIsher as Evan, and I love Jordan Fisher. So I watched it. For one thing, it took three sittings for me to watch because I kept turning it off when I felt like it was awkward.

I definitely see why it got as popular as it did, especially amongst the demographic it did (which seems to be mostly teens and twenty-somethings). All of the teen characters kind of...lack personality, and therefore it’s really easy to project yourself on to them. The music is catchy—Pasek and Paul have written a lot of super catchy, borderline pop music (see La La Land and The Greatest Showman)—which makes it easy to listen to the cast album. Dear Evan Hansen also seems to have a pretty big social media presence, which makes it seem more accessible than a lot of shows.

But the biggest issue I have with the show is that all of the characters are shitty people. At one point in the show, Jared tells even that Connor dying was the best thing that could’ve happened to Evan, and really that’s...so true?? But the way the show frames it is that Jared saying that is so off the mark. Evan lies constantly and compulsively, tells his mom that she’s not good enough despite the fact she really seems to be trying her hardest, and basically joins this grieving family by manipulating them. It’s kind of fucked up.

And, like I said, the teenaged characters are all kind of blank slates. Even Evan, the main character, doesn’t seem to have many traits besides having anxiety and depression, liking trees (and nature, I guess, by extension), and having a crush on Zoe Murphy. That’s...not a lot to go off of? Like I’m sorry, but if any character should be fleshed out, it should be the main character. What do we really know about Evan, from the show?

Then there are Alana and Jared, who are both basically stereotypes. Alana is the overly ambitious, involved in everything type that shows up in all media about high school. Jared is an asshole nerd. They’re both wildly insecure, but in a very shallow way. They also just completely disappear after Good For You and get absolutely no resolve in the show, which is kind of ridiculous. Like, they’ve been in a lot of the show. I get that the show is about Evan, but he fucked them both over and they should have shown up at least one more time.

Most of what we hear about Zoe Murphy is from I Should Tell Her (which is SO creepy, by the way), but they’re basically just about how she’s a teenage girl. We know she play guitar in jazz band and was abused by her brother. I guess you get a decent look into her mind in Requiem and Only Us, and really I would argue that you know the most about her of all the teen characters.

Connor has the least characterization, which makes sense because he dies like fifteen minutes into the show. His entire character breaks down to “problematic asshole stoner”. And then he shows up as a hallucination of Evan’s for a couple of scenes. Connor is basically just a plot device.

Cynthia and Larry don’t fare all that much better than the teenagers, because Cynthia is basically just a Rich, White Housewife, and Larry is an emotionally distant father. I mean, it works, I guess. And it’s immediately easy to see why they buy into Evan’s stories so quickly, so they’re used effectively, at least.

Heidi Hansen is the character I would say is the most fleshed out, and the only one I found myself empathizing with, even a little bit. Lady is clearly just trying her hardest. Evan kind of treats her like shit, and he says some pretty fucked up stuff to her.

The DEH fandom seems to have projected specific character traits on to a lot of the characters. Which, like, is fair. it happens in all fandoms, fanon ideas becoming so well-known people often begin treating them as canon. I’ve seen it so much in Harry Potter and Percy Jackson I don’t really think it’s weird anymore. But with DEH, like I said, the characters are all pretty blank.

I think it’s going to make the movie really...interesting. I’m very curious to see if any of these fanon things are going to make their way into the movie, given I don’t think the creators live in a bubble. They’re writing new songs (at least the one), which normally I would be skeptical of but there’s a very minimal amount of music in the show.

I also think that this movie actually mainstream is going to cause a lot of internet screaming, in the vein of what happened when 13 Reasons Why was at the height of its popularity. 13RW had a lot of debate about the portrayal of suicide. There’s been some minor discussion about how the aftermath of Connor’s suicide mildly glorifies suicide, but it doesn’t haunt Dear Evan Hansen  in the same way it follows 13RW. I really think that the movie is going to spark that same discussion once again, but on a bigger scale.

I want to end this out by saying it’s a mistake to cast adults as teenagers (which I know is not a hot take), especially with this story. After I watched the Jordan Fisher bootleg, I went and skimmed through one of the OBC (because I do always like to see the original cast) and a boot of Andrew Barth Feldman (because I’m a fan of Mallory Bechtel, I realize that’s a weird reason), and the show really, really benefits from having an actual teenager as Evan Hansen. Watching a genuine teenager fuck with people’s lives by being a moron is a lot easier to stomach than watching Ben Platt do it, because Ben Platt looks like he’s thirty, and it feels so much more deliberate when it’s someone that old. Teenagers make mistakes, and while I know the story is telling us that Evan is 17, looking at a grown ass man completely breaks that illusion.

If you stayed this long, thanks for listening to my incoherent ramblings.

[ananas-pineapple-thing]

in defense of the ending to deh: with evan being the sole protagonist, it really only makes sense for it primarily to be from his point of view. in a limited runtime a piece of fiction has to get the most coherent narrative across. i’ve always seen the ending as closure for her (and others) as well—i don’t believe it excuses evans wrongdoings, more just shows them both moving past the happenings in the show. zoe says they have picnics at the orchard, they’re doing alright. THAT is their closure

to tack onto that, completely understand where you’re coming from and also come away from the show with a need for More but sometimes it’s best to realize that’s not a failing in the storytelling but rather a strength. you get to come up with your own conclusions for majority of the characters, while the show maintains its artistic integrity with a clean ending. THATS whats supposed to happen!!! make art, write fanfic, fill in the gaps yourself (the deh novel is a good example of tmi being Bad)

thanks for this ask! i feel a bit more at peace with the ending after reading this- i totally didn’t consider the time constraints.  

the ending of the show is absolutely gorgeous, and the perfect ending for Evan as a character. hopeful and bittersweet with that Letter Parallel!!! seeing that live for the first time made me cry!!! the thing is, it’s Evan's perfect ending and Evan's only. which of course as you said makes the most sense: he is the main character, there is limited time, and we gotta wrap up his story in the cleanest way. except that his journey throughout the show was so closely intertwined with the Murphys and what they were feeling and how they treated them, that i feel like nothing really justifies where the ending left them.

like. Words Fail and the scene before is the Murphys’ lowest point in the show. they're being harassed online (which is really creepy! people are saying they wanna make them feel what Connor felt! they're basically saying they want the rest of the Murphys to feel suicidal which is awful), what they believe are their son/brother’s last words are on the internet for the world to see and judge them for, and before Evan confesses Larry and Cynthia are having that fight about whether or not they failed Connor, and when he does confess, their ‘version’ of Connor is ripped away and they lose him all. over. again. (and Larry and Cynthia lose their new ‘son’ and Zoe loses her boyfriend). we see them run out and that’s it. 

Evan did wrong, but in the show you see how he just wants to help people and to make them happy, that seeing Cynthia cry over Connor hurt him so much. i definitely think he needs to move past what happened, to forgive and love himself despite his flaws and mistakes. however he screwed the Murphys over so badly. what he started as help for them just turned to guilt by the end of the show, and of course it did! In the case of Cynthia, telling her that Connor wanted and tried so hard to get better in the way that Evan framed it is obviously going to make her think that she didn’t try enough even if she did. (maybe she didn’t, we don’t really know, but i think she did try as much as she knew how)

i don’t think they should have to really move pass what happened, at least not after just one year. they have to like, reassess their feelings towards Connor, processes all the guilt and whatever peace or forgiveness they found. i honestly don’t understand how this saved Larry and Cynthia (according to Zoe in the epilogue). i hope they got like. family therapy or something and THAT saved them, and then they moved onto visiting the orchard. without recognizing this it sounds kind of like they’re still living in that lie, in a way.

i like that theyre having picnics and Are Okay! it’s just like- really?? they are?? the fact that Zoe verbalized that the Connor Project did good and helped people sits wrong with me. it did do good! it did SO MUCH good! but it straight up ruined the Murphys life after it went downhill and specifically in the case of Zoe and Evan, Evan took her victimhood and her understandable anger and turned it around on her until she forgave Connor, and now it turned out to be fake and that sits so wrong with me. Connor is a fascinating, tragic character, but Zoe was scared of him for a reason and was willing to fight her mother on her right to her anger, and Evan took that from her. I feel like the audience should understand how complicated the Connor Project and its affects were by themselves. Zoe shouldn’t have had to say that. It felt like it was for Evan’s benefit only. it felt unfair.

i have no idea exactly how i would change it, because this show is so well written and it really is just this One Thing that i’m not a fan of. maybe if like, during So Big So Small, at the ending few lines, a light could shine on the Murphys on the other side of the stage? just them hugging each other and silently crying. because they feel so small too! but at least, this time, you know theyre gonna grieve together, unlike in Requiem when they were so divided. have them be comforted the way Evan is. and have that light go off before Heidi says her spoken line to Evan.

and then at the orchard, give Evan’s line about Connor’s favorite books to Zoe! i was talking about this with my older sister today, and, for a lack of a better phrase, Evan really just stomped all over Connor’s grave during the show, and this just feels like its not his place. of course he wants to know the real Connor! but i just feel like he needs to put this behind him. stop focusing on the dead kid you never knew. you’re not gonna know him ever and that’s okay. just please, please move on Evan so you can forgive yourself.

on the other hand, Zoe is left without any of the positive connections Connor that she so eagerly wanted, and yet she’s lost most of her anger, too. she wanted to know him so badly, she wanted to have some proof that he was a human and not a monster. the books are perfect for this! she can read them with her family. that’s the real Connor none of them truly knew, and it’ll bring them peace. they can mourn him. she’ll have a connection to him that isn’t anger and hurt. like?? she can think of him and think of him loving The Little Prince that would mean a lot to Zoe. i don’t think the Murphys would be able to move on, but it would be nice to know that in the end they got something real about Connor. That would be a good closure. and i think Evan would find peace in knowing that they have a piece of Real Connor with them, too.

i do really like your take on the ending, though. i totally see the point you’ve made. (also LOL @ the novel, i went from “yay Connor POV” to “Oh No” in like ten minutes). maybe it is better to fill in the gaps yourself!! healing is a hard thing to depict and it would be hard to show Evan and the Murphys in a way that felt Real and Not Rushed. so in that case this ending would 100% be a strength. just. i love this show SO MUCH, and i really wish they couldve taken an extra minute to give us just a little bit more.

i’m sorry for rambling so much about this!! i just couldn’t figure out how to properly articulate this let alone concisely lol 

if you have anything to say about this or anything else feel free to shoot me another ask!

[messrprcngs]

* THEATRE NERD!PETER PARKER HEADCANONS .

SUMMARY : just some really cute theatre nerd!peter headcanons because i feel like if peter knew anything about musical theatre he’d be really into it PAIRING : theatre nerd!peter parker x reader WARNINGS : none, i think A/N : so this hasn’t really been edited and i may or may not switch from present-tense to past-tense like halfway through it so i’m really sorry but i hope you guys like it anyway ! and if you could send me a message if you like it ? i can be on or off anon, i just really need some encouragement right now because i have a lot of schoolwork to do and actually hearing that people like what i write takes a bit of stress away from me

- okay so i just imagine peter being like super into theatre and honestly it's just the cutest shit ever and i love and stan this concept but anyway - - you're new to midtown high, and you and michelle are, like, best friends. the two have been inseparable since birth, and have gone to the same school since preschool. so imagine your disappointment when you find out that she got accepted to midtown high, this school for geniuses that you didn't get accepted to - fast forward to the end of your freshman year, and you've finally convinced your parents to let you apply to midtown again you also may have accidentally gotten yourself into enjoying musicals, dear evan hansen specifically ( damn tumblr for introducing you to mike faist and his wonderfully amazing hair ). you were hoping for the best, but unfortunately, you were sure that the 'best' you were going to get was a letter from midtown saying something along the lines of "sorry, you didn't make it in. try again next year !" - so imagine your surprise when you get the letter from midtown in the middle of july saying that you did it. you got in - you're so excited for school to start, because even though you've only gone one school year without your michelle by your side, and even though you two saw each other practically every weekend, you missed your best friend - so now it's the very beginning of your sophomore year, and michelle's showing you around the school about half an hour before the first bell rings because a, she's your best friend, and b, she gets extra credit for doing it. even though she doesn't need the extra credit, she likes to have it anyway, for those days when she just really needs to skip school to go attend a feminist rally or a pride parade ( i see her as being like 100 % demisexual okay you can fight me on this i'll win ) - she's shown you everything except your locker so far; your classes, the cafeteria, the courtyard, the auditorium. she even shows you the fucking basement. and now your tugging her away from the chemistry lab because you only have ten minutes til class and you need to put all the extra shit you carry around in your backpack into your locker because if you don't you're sure that your back will snap in half - there are way more people in the halls now than when the two of you first got into the school. mj drags you by the sleeve of your oversized sweatshirt, towards what she says is most definitely your locker, when you suddenly stop in your tracks - there, just feet from you, is the most attractive boy you have ever seen - his hair was brown and an unruly tangle of soft curls and yeah, he was probably a little shorter than most boys your age, but did you give a shit ? the answer was no, you did fucking not - and now mj's looking at you with her eyebrow raised, before her intelligent gaze is following yours and her eyes land on peter and she knows. she fucking knows and then she's smirking so wide and she wants to laugh and you can see it out of the corner of your eye but you're too busy staring at the adorable little bean in front of you and - - and then mj's whispering in your ear, "jeez, y/n/n, drool much ?" and you nearly jump out of your skin. you want to be mad, but then she's laughing and you can't be mad at her because she's your best friend and you love her so much so instead you opt for hitting her on the arm and sending her a playful glare - "shut up !" you exclaim in a whisper, not wanting to draw the attention of mr. too cute for school. "he'll hear you !" - mj let out a breathy chuckle, before crossing her arms to stare right into your soul eyes. "so, how are you going to get past him, y/n/n ? we both know how terribly nervous you get when you have to pass people you think are exceptionally hot." - she was right. you couldn't pass by cute individuals without doing something totally embarrassing to save your own damn life. last time you had tried, you ended up in the hospital with four stitches in your lower lip and three in your chin - "i'll do what i usually do nowadays whenever i'm nervous : i'll just start singing a song from deh. i mean, it's not like he would know anything about the musical, right ? so it won't attract his attention." you nod to yourself, patting yourself on the back for coming up with such a good plan - mj opens her mouth to say something, before closing it and letting that smirk settle onto her lips again. god, did you hate that smirk - you held her gaze for a moment, looking at her warily, before turning around and marching straight forward as you began to sing a song from the dear evan hansen soundtrack; unfortunately for you, it was a song that would definitely attract attention. and you were singing it very loudly - "DEAR EVAN HANSEN, LIFE IN REHAB IS ALRIGHT," you sang. you can hear mj failing to stifle her giggles as she trails after you. "I LIKE THE YOGA, AND THE SHARING CIRCLES EVERY NIGHT" - you were passing him now, the terribly handsome boy who was still at his locker. was it just you, or did you see him turn his head in your direction from out of the corner of your eye ? - "BUT DUDE, THESE STORIES -" and that was when you heard another voice join in with yours. you look back at mj, eyebrow raised in a silent question as you continue to sing. she shook her head and points to the right of you, smirking that irritating smirk - it was him; he was the person singing along with you. your jaw drops open for half a second, before you got back to the song - "SO MANY PEOPLE END UP SUCKING DICK FOR METH !" - and your jaw stops functioning completely once jared's creepy ass laugh starts up in your head. you can't believe that he knew the song; but honestly, that just makes you like him even more - he smiles sweetly at you. "sorry if i startled you. but i just heard you singing the reprise and - well, i guess i just couldn't help myself," he apologizes, giving you a sheepish shrug. god you want to marry this adorable dork - wait, what ? - so first off, just to clarify : yes, peter is still spiderman. he is still the ultimate nerd of midtown high, and is still a chemistry whiz. he just also happens to be really into musicals and shakespeare and stuff and is really gay for michael mell and really straight for veronica sawyer. just imagine that the drama club has replaced the academic decathlon team in this au. okay, now back to the headcanons !! - "i'm peter !" he quickly adds, in response to your gaping mouth. and he sticks his hand out and waits for you to shake it, and it takes you a few seconds to process that yes, he is actually introducing himself to you, and you somehow find the strength to close your mouth. both of your hands shoot up to grasp the one he's holding out, and you manage to stammer out a "i - i'm y/n." - he gives you a smile, and it's a tad less sheepish this time. "so, you like dear evan hansen ?" - and this is when you start in on your long-ass rant about how much the musical means to you and how great it is and how you just love connor murphy and jared kleinman and alana beck with all of your nerdy little heart. and you practically completely forget that mj is even there, even though she's standing about a foot behind you two the entire time. and then the bell's ringing, and peter's asking you what your first class is, and you tell him as quickly as you can because you're hoping, just really, really hoping that you have the next class with him so that you have more time to talk about musicals during passing period. and he grins so wide when you tell him that you have ap world history for first period - the two of you head to ap world history together, and by now you've completely forgotten about mj, who watches the two of you leave with a smirk on her face. she only heads toward her own first class when the final bell rings - by the time lunch rolls around, you already know so much about peter. his favorite subject is chemistry, he has a genius level iq, he has an internship at stark industries. and he's in the drama club. he tells you that ned, the nice boy that the two of you are sitting with, is also in the drama club. ned nods along excitedly, and quickly suggests that you join the club, too - before you can say anything in response, however : "would you losers please stop trying to bring my best friend over to the dark side of the nerd moon ?" - if your guess was 'who is mj ?' then you would be correct, my friend. she's trying to look pissed but she's very clearly smirking and you think that this is the first time that you've ever seen mj fail at looking pissed when it's not solely at you - ned looks so startled and it's really funny and sad at the same time. "you have friends ??" - and now mj's actually glaring at him, and you swear that if looks could kill, ned would have dropped dead a second ago. peter looks concerned, and you don't know if it's because mj is glaring daggers at his best friend or because he knows thinks ned's hurt mj's feelings or something - "yes, i have friends, thank you very much," mj finally says, looking away from ned and rolling her eyes. "y/n/n, you aren't going to make me sit with these losers, are you ?" - you just give her an apologetic smile. she grumbles to herself for a moment, before plopping down next to you, across from ned and peter - lunch that day is spent making some pretty bad star wars puns and rapping hamilton songs, and, of course, listening to mj complain about how all of you are losers ( but you caught her smiling once or twice, and you know she enjoyed it ) - it doesn't take you very long to figure out how things work here at midtown; that meaning, you had somehow managed to befriend the two most loserest losers in the entire school ( those two losers being peter and ned, of course ). you've also found out, much to your dismay, that peter has a thing for liz allan, who not only was head of the drama club, but was also the prettiest girl at school. so much for marrying peter getting peter to like you - despite the fact that your crush's crush was head of the club, you still wanted to join; you had heard that they did a musical at the end of every year, and you really wanted to be a part of that - and so you go to beginning-or-year auditions and drag mj along with you, and you audition together, and you both get in. and you're happy, because you, ned, peter, and mj are friends now ( though you're closer with the boys than mj is. she's still pretending she doesn't like them ) and you really don't want anything else in life at the moment ( except for peter to like you instead of liz ) because you're perfectly happy the way things are - but then about a week later, peter starts acting weirder than normal, and then he's quitting the club - and then ned's starts to act odd, too. one day, and you can't help but think that it's something you did, that maybe they don't like you anymore, and despite mj trying to convince you otherwise during your lunch period, you start to really believe it - and then during gym class later that day, you hear ned saying that peter knows spiderman, queens' resident spider-themed superhero, and that gets you thinking that they didn't just start ditching you and mj because they don't like you, it's because they found someone cooler, someone who made them realize that they didn't like you. and that someone was spiderman - you and mj go to liz's party that night. she tells you that it'll be good for you, getting out of the house. says it'll keep your mind from obsessing over your 'unrequited love' for peter and your new-found hatred of spiderman - but it doesn't. it doesn't, because you see peter there, and you can tell that liz likes him, and it just makes you feel worse. and so you run out of liz's house and end up in a little corner of the front yard crying your eyes out, wishing that peter would see in you what he saw in liz - and that's how mj finds you a few hours later, except you're not crying anymore; you're passed out, snoring softly and mumbling peter's name over and over again in your sleep - fast forward a couple more weeks, and peter's joining the drama club again, just in time to for the theatre competition the club's been invited to in washington d.c. - so you hate spidey, right ? i think it'd be really great if you, like, told peter that when the drama club is at the hotel ? like maybe before liz asks peter if he wants to go down to the pool. like you knock on his and ned's door while they're still working on the suit and they have to shove everything under the bed so that you don't see it before letting you in - alternatively, they just don't let you in at all and peter opens the door and quickly steps out side and closes the door before you can see anything inside the room - and you're a little curious about it at first, but you decide to let it go, and you ask him if him and ned are alright ( "yeah, y/n/n, we're fine. you don't have to worry about us." ) and you just kind of stare into his eyes for at least thirty seconds and peter feels like you're staring down into his soul and he feels a little twinge of something but he dismisses it because the only time he's ever felt something like it is when he's with liz and no, he does not like you - and then you ask him something you've been wanting to know the answer to since you heard ned in the gym : "do you really know spiderman ?" - peter's startled, but he gives a hesitant nod, and he doesn't know why because it's not like he wants to impress you or anything, because the two of you are just friends - and then you let out a quite "oh" and his face falls because you sound disappointed and now he's disappointed anD - - "is - is that bad ?" - and you shake your head and shrug and stand there for a second before managing to get out a soft, "i don't really like spiderman. at all." - and now it's peter's turn for his face to fall because that was the last thing he had expected you to say and he wishes you hadn't said it because it makes him feel like you don't like him, and he knows it isn't like that but it is like that at the same time because him and spiderman are the same person. the only thing is that you don't know that - and he suddenly realizes that he really does like you, and he really wants to change your view of his superhero alter-ego because he can't take you disliking him, even if you didn't know it was him - and then spiderman saves you and the rest of the drama club from that elevator, and you can't decide whether you hate him more or less because on the one hand, he did save your lives, but on the other hand, he's probably so full of himself and thinks that he's just so great and you just want to punch him - so then you get back to new york ( you won the theatre competition ) and everything is kind of okay but you can't stop thinking about the conversation that you and peter had that night at the hotel, and how he looked kind of disappointed that you didn't like spiderman. you put it down to the fact that he's disappointed that one of his friends doesn't like the other ( though were the two of you really even still friends ? ) - and then a few nights after you get back, you're heading back towards your apartment complex after just stopping at the store on the way home from michelle's. and it's late but you don't mind because you've been out late in queens before and you actually really like it - and you hear a noise behind you and suddenly you're paranoid and start thinking about how you left your pepper spray at home and you wish you had it now and - - and then something human-shaped, red, and blue drops down from the lamppost above you before your eyes and you drop your groceries and let out a shriek, before the thing in front of you clamps a hand over your mouth. and that's when you realize that the thing in front of you isn't a thing, it's spiderman, and you're suddenly overcome by the urge to kick something ( preferably his head ) - after a few minutes, you hear a soft "are you going to scream ?" come from behind the mask, and you shake your head. spiderman takes his hand off your mouth, and he just stares at you for a minutes, hanging above the ground attached to his web like some kind of actual spider and it's starting to freak you out - "my friend peter parker told me you don't like me," the spider-themed hero said eventually. you can feel the heat rush to your cheeks and you suddenly wanted the ground to swallow you. sure, you didn't like him, but he was a superhero, and he could kill you in a second if he really wanted to. you just gave him a small shrug and looked away - he let out a chuckle. "i bet i can change your mind." - this, of course, piqued your interest, and you looked back up, eyebrows raised. "are you really so full of yourself that you think you can -" - it all happened too fast for you to really register but when you reached the phrase 'full of yourself,' spiderman reached up for his mask, bringing it down over his mouth, and then his nose, and his eyes, until suddenly it was peter parker hanging before you and he swung forward a little bit and then suddenly his lips are on yours and you're kissing and your eyes are wide before you melt into the kiss and reach up to cup his cheeks with your hands - don't you guys just love the wonderful spiderman upside down kisses like reall y my dudE S

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Grocery Shopping - Ch. 1

Read it on AO3!

Chapter Summary: Evan Hansen can't sleep, and somehow this is cause for many, many problems.

Notes: hi im writing thos boys. first time ever posting a deh fic here we go!!! its sincerely three (eventually).  this chapter is Very kleinsen but i promise sincerely three is coming. (tw for arguments and aggression and panic attacks and stuff. prolly mentions of suicide/self harm in the future, but not in this chapter)

It always felt weird for Evan sit in the grocery store break room and wait for Jared. No one was in the store at 12 A.M. No one worked the night shift but Jared, and Evan knew that, so he'd sneak into the staff break room with the key Jared (very illegally) provided him with in case of emergencies. Emergencies, Evan had decided, could be considered anything causing Evan so much distress that he needed face-to-face consolation.

At 10 P.M., Evan was having trouble falling asleep. At 11 P.M., Evan decided he wasn't going to sleep that night. Within the next half hour, he was pulling a jacket over his pajamas and trudging out to his mom's pathetic excuse for a minivan. If he wasn't going to sleep, he could at least spend the next few hours with his best friend.

The break room felt so eerie with no one but Evan occupying it. Circular, grey tables stood accompanied by their matching chairs, vacant of anyone to fill the seats. Evan watched them carefully, convinced they’d move if he gave them too much leeway. When he was all alone in the break room, Evan felt like he was in a different dimension; one slightly altered, where there was the chance that chairs might move if not kept under surveillance. Maybe he was just sleep-deprived.

“Evan?”

Suddenly, the spell was broken and he was looking up at Jared with saucer-sized eyes. Jared was leaning against the door frame, looking at Evan skeptically. Jared took Evan’s silence as an invitation to keep talking as he strode into the room with a tactfully nonchalant hand in his back pocket. Always casual, disinterested Jared. Never too attached until Evan looked up at him with sleepy puppy-dog eyes. Jared gave him a small, wry smile, but the concern sat heavy between his eyebrows. “Everything okay?”

Evan nodded clumsily, chewing on his bottom lip for a moment before forcing himself to speak. “Couldn’t sleep.” Jared placed a hand on Evan’s shoulder and the tension staking his spine dissolved. He leaned into the comforting weight of Jared’s hand, which was now giving Evan’s shoulder gentle squeezes. “Sorry, I guess it wasn’t really an emergency--”

“Nah, you’re cool,” Jared reassured him with such little thought that Evan thought his heart might burst. It was so easy to be friends with Jared. It was so easy to let his shoulders slump and put his anxiety on pause for a few hours.

Evan’s smile was stiff only due to lack of practice. The motion was genuine, though, and he reluctantly drew away from Jared’s touch so he could stand up. “Cool.”

“C’mon, store’s pretty much deserted. My shift’s over in, like, half an hour anyway."

Evan knew that, but didn’t say anything. It might have been creepy that he knew Jared’s work schedule so well, but he’d rather be a little creepy to himself than a lot creepy to whatever poor soul caught him sitting in the break room for an hour before realizing Jared wasn’t working that night.

His hands twitched. Bad thoughts. Those weren’t allowed in the grocery store. It was a rule Evan set up for himself. No crazy hypotheticals, no panic attacks, no self-deprecation (except in the form of jokes that made Jared’s lips press together to suppress a snort). The stillness of the empty grocery store was the one place Evan allowed himself total peace of mind. No one really came around in the early hours of the morning, despite the store being open 24/7. Not that Evan was complaining. Having the store entirely at Evan and Jared's disposal was strangely exhilarating.

“Don’t you have a job to do?” Evan demanded, quirking an amused eyebrow at how Jared was guiding Evan through the store with seemingly no destination.

Jared cracked his first grin of the night. “Evan Hansen,” he gasped in mock offense. “Do I look like the kind of man who gives in to the clutches of capitalism?”

“No,” Evan admitted. “You look like a twink who works at an Easy Mart and is about to get his ass fired.”

Now Jared was laughing, elbowing Evan in the ribs as affectionately as he could. “Shut up, asshole.” As they rounded the turn from one row of shelves to the next, the pair was met with an abandoned shopping cart, idling at the beginning of an aisle.

“Are you gonna put that awa-- Jared!”

Jared was climbing into the cart. It wobbled dangerously as he struggled to sling his short legs over the side, but once he was in, Jared turned back to Evan with an expectant expression.

There was no way Evan was going to push Jared down the aisle. It was too dangerous! Jared could get hurt, they could knock a whole shelf over! “Absolutely not,” Evan said firmly. Jared’s bottom lip dipped into a pout and he fluttered his eyelashes. Evan crossed his arms like a self-defense mechanism, but he could feel himself already wavering. “N-No way! It’s a terrible idea--”

“Please?” Jared purred, and Evan was done for.

With a huff, Evan uncrossed his arms and placed his hands firmly on the shopping cart’s handle bar. “Fine,” he conceded shortly. “But when you fall out and break your arm, I am so not signing your cast.”

“That’s such a low bl-- OH MY GOD!” In the middle of his sentence, Evan shoved the cart as hard as he could and sent Jared barreling down the aisle. Jared’s instinctive screaming soon dissolved into laughter and for a moment, Evan thought it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

That was until Jared crashed into a self checkout machine and the cart toppled over.

Evan’s mouth filled with apologies as he scrambled over to Jared, who was still grinning. “Oh my God, Jarebear, I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect it to-- I just thought-- Are you okay?”

Jared’s hand found Evan’s bicep, seemingly to steady himself until he gave it a squeeze. “Dude, you’re ripped.”

Unable to tell if it was a compliment or flirting, Evan opted to hide his face against Jared’s shoulder in response to that comment. Jared moved his hand from Evan’s bicep to the back of his neck, fiddling idly with the soft hair there. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Might’ve broke the checkout thing, though.”

Evan giggled into the fabric of Jared’s uniform and, rather than pulling away, nestled closer. He was starting to get sleepy and Jared rhythmically combing his fingers through his hair wasn’t helping. It was only after Jared’s hand stilled did Evan realize someone was in the store with them. Immediately, he sat up, face flushing at the intimate state he and Jared had been caught in.

In the most unfortunate turn of events, the people who caught Jared and Evan’s cuddle session were none other than the Murphy siblings.

“What the fuck are you two doing?” demanded the eldest of the pair, Connor. Evan couldn’t give a specific reason for  why  he hated Connor Murphy so much. He just really, really hated Connor Murphy. He was so stuck up, so rich, so  ungrateful  for everything his parents did for him. He thought he was better than everyone else and still had the nerve to be self-deprecating. It was infuriating.

Unfazed, Jared scooted away from Evan and stood up. “Hello, welcome to Easy Mart. How can I help you?” he deadpanned, clearly not interested in helping either Murphy sibling one bit. Evan followed suit, standing and hauling the shopping cart upright with him.

“I didn’t know you worked here,” Zoe commented lightly, her cheeks flushed a soft pink, as if she’d just caught Evan and Jared having sex.

Jared gestured to his own chest, which bore an Easy Mart vest and matching ‘Hi, my name is: JARED’ pin. “Whatever would give you that idea?”

Evan shifted uncomfortably at Jared's side. "Wh-Why are you guys here?"

Apparently displeased that Evan had opened his mouth, Connor sneered. "What? Are we not allowed to shop here now that you and the missus have decided this is your property?"

"Connor found a cat!" Zoe interjected abruptly. Connor shot her a death glare, but she didn't falter. "A little stray kitten walked up to him while he was outside and we came here to buy it food."

As adorable as it sounded, Evan couldn't allow himself to think about Connor Murphy petting a kitten. "Oh. That's--"

“But, of course, you two have to be here,” Connor interrupted, clearly flustered. “Easy Mart is apparently the only place that lets its employees make out with their boyfriends on the job.” The thought of Jared being his boyfriend sent heat to Evan’s cheeks and a shiver up his spine.

Noticing his discomfort, Zoe surprisingly came to Evan’s rescue. “Shut up, Connor, you work at 7/11.”

Connor scoffed, affronted that his sister would compare him to the likes of Jared Kleinman. “I’m just saving up money so I can get out of our fucking hell house as soon as I graduate.” Zoe made a similarly offended noise and the siblings’ words dissolved into overlapping arguments.

It was uncomfortable to watch. Evan pressed closer to Jared as a means of comfort, who placed a hand on Evan’s bicep again. However, it was a gentler gesture -- one to keep him tethered in place instead of drifting into a more panicked mindset. “Could you guys not air out your dysfunctional family laundry right in front of us, maybe?” Evan whispered to Jared, who rewarded him with a snort.

Evan wondered if the small noise of approval was worth it when Connor’s eyes were suddenly trained on him. The siblings’ argument was forgotten as Connor stalked up to Evan. Though he was only an inch or two taller, Connor seemed to loom menacingly over Evan. “What was that, Hansen?”

All pride abandoned, Evan immediately shrunk into himself. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t-- I was-- You were just--”

“Oh, I was ‘just’? Just what, huh? Was I bothering you? Well, maybe it bothers me when I walk into a grocery store to find you and Kleinman making out on the fucking floor!”

“We weren’t making out!” Evan suddenly exclaimed, the near-screaming height of his voice shutting even Connor up. Unfortunately, Evan didn’t know when to shut up until it was too late. “Friends can be affectionate with each other! Not that you’d know, since you’ve got no friends and you wouldn’t know mutual affection if it hit you over the fucking head!”

Evan clasped a hand over his own mouth, as if he could somehow put the words back inside. Connor was stunned only for a moment before he shoved Evan, sending the latter stumbling backwards. “You don’t know shit about me, Hansen! You think you’re so fucking smart with your little comments, don’t you?”

“Stop--”

“Don’t you?”

“N-No--!”

“Fuck you!”

“Connor, that’s enough,” Jared suddenly intruded, pushing Connor back enough so he could wedge himself between he and Evan. “Get out.”

Connor wavered, debating whether he should keep arguing. He seemed to decide that it wasn’t worth it. “Fuck you guys,” he muttered once more before storming out of the store.

Zoe looked utterly exhausted. “I’m so sorry about--”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Jared assured her quickly. “D’you need me to drive you home?”

Zoe Murphy was the exact opposite of her brother. She had the prettiest smile Evan had ever seen. Her hair was soft and her cheeks were rosy. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and shook her head. “No, no. I should go calm him down… Thanks, though. Really.” She meant it. Evan could tell. “I’ll, um--” she mustered a crooked smile. “I’ll see you guys around.” She turned to leave, but hesitated, sending the boys another glance. "He's trying," she added, almost vacantly. So tired. "He's trying to get better. I'm really sorry about him."

Then she was gone.

Once Zoe left, Evan broke down. So much for his “no panic attacks” rule. Jared’s arms were sturdy around him, and clutching the back of his Easy Mart vest kept Evan from drowning in his own hysteria. Jared shushed Evan whenever he tried to babble out some incoherent apology. A hand was back in Evan’s hair and it made Evan double over into another fit of sobs from the genuineness of the gesture. “I got you,” Jared promised. “I’m right here.”

Evan was so lucky.

Once he was run dry of tears and utterly exhausted, Evan mumbled that he’d like to go home now, please. “Where’s your car?” he asked once they’d shuffled out into the parking lot.

Jared shrugged. “I was gonna take an Uber. C’mon, I’ll drive you home.” So, so lucky. Evan furled his hand into the fabric of Jared’s jacket, which had taken the place of the Easy Mart vest. “Tired?” Jared asked in response to Evan yawning into his hand. His eyebrow was quirked and his smirk was crooked, but it was overwhelmingly comforting.

Evan nodded, jerky and deliberate, much like a toddler. He climbed into the passenger seat while Jared took the wheel. As soon as he was in the comfort of his mother’s minivan, Evan slumped against the door and rested his head against the window. It was so dark outside. Evan peered over at Jared, who was illuminated by the sickly yellow car light.

“What’re you staring at?” Jared’s voice was so sweet. Evan could hardly breathe.

“Nothing.”

Jared shook his head and reached over for Evan’s hand. Evan gave it to him. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where he wouldn’t give Jared his hand.

“You’re such a weirdo.” There was no venom in the statement. It didn’t sting. Jared squeezed Evan’s hand. It was suddenly a lot less dark outside. “Let’s get you home, Ev."