High Anxiety - Dear Evan Hansen

Closer Aquaintances - Paranormal AU

    Alana wasn't crazy. She knew what she'd seen. For years now, she'd seen weird things happening with her acquaintances. It took her so long to put the pieces together and no one believed her. It made her... no, not mad. Disgruntled? Flustered? Not upset enough. Unhinged. That was it. And not in the head. She was not going crazy. Not more than usual, anyway. She had to prove she was right. To anyone.
    So she approached Evan in the hallway, casual as anything. Not that she was ever casual. Or ever really talked to him unless she had to. He wasn't the best conversationalist. He hunched in a dark corner against the lockers, arms wrapped around himself and eyes darting around, mostly finding their way to the floor.
    "Hello," she said brightly. He jumped at her voice and shrunk further into the shadows. "You're Evan Hansen, right? I'm Alana Beck. I'm sure we've had classes together." She held out her hand for him to shake. He stared at it in horror, mumbling a greeting as he turned his head down. "Don't you have any friends? I don't either. I'm much too busy with my studies. Have you noticed the weird things happening around here?"
    "W-weird?" Evan barely opened his mouth when he talked.
    "Like the way Connor Murphy wears that mysterious black trench coat everywhere. What's he hiding under there? Or Jared Kleinman. He's a puzzle all his own." Alana continued listing odd occurrences, mostly to herself, falling into thoughts of these odd occurrences.
    As Alana rushed to class, she caught a snippet of conversation between Jared Kleinman, the loudmouth who she couldn't manage to shake off in class scheduling, and the infamously ostracised Connor Murphy.
    "Dude, you have wings. I thought you were just really into trench coats."
"Fuck off, Kleinman."
"Jared didn't mean anything, Connor." The last voice was different. Shaky. It was probably Evan. He didn't talk to much of anyone, but he spent some time around the two obnoxious bickering boys.
    Evan always wore long sleeves, usually a sweatshirt over his blue striped polo. His eyes were often hidden behind dark glasses. She'd heard him mumbling to himself about sunscreen on a cloudy day once. He never really smiled. When he did, it was small and closed. His thermos water bottle leaked one day, staining his books with rust.
    Jared was just Jared. Alana had a few classes with him and he was always a pill. He made insensitive jokes about his "time of the month." He growled sometimes for what she supposed was intended to be comedic effect. Sometimes, she could swear his eyes flashed yellow or his teeth sharpened.
    Zoe Murphy, who was a year below Alana so the two had never spoken, had this odd collection of white feathers in a large ziploc bag in her backpack. No one knew why. Word was, she claimed she was "collecting" them, but where from? Was it possibly those wings of her brother's that Jared had mentioned?
    "I-I d-don't know what you're talking about A-Alana, s-sorry." She blinked. She'd forgotten Evan was there. He was still curled together like a turtle, but his voice had power behind it she wouldn't have ever expected.
    "Of course you do."
    "N-no I-I really d-don't, sorry."
    "Well, well, well. What's going on over here?" Jared strode over to them. Alana squared her shoulders to him.
    "I was asking Evan about the strange tendencies of your general social group. You two and Connor and Zoe Murphy--"
    "Woah, now. If you think I'd ever associate with the Murphys--"
    "My point, Jared, is that you are strange. All of you. I was wondering if Evan would tell me what's going on. It would save me a lot of trouble researching to have a primary source, but I guess I'll have to figure it out on my own." She turned on her heel and pushed past Jared. She'd wasted so much time already. She had three essays to get ahead on and now a research project. "I'll have you know I don't give up easily," Alana called over her shoulder as she swept into the current of the hallways.

    By some stroke of luck, there was an open spot in the library during Alana's one free block. She sat amidst the crowd of rowdy underclassmen and a few scattered Juniors. She pulled up a web browser on her laptop and began typing furiously.
    "Avian humans?" A voice next to her said. Alana turned to face Zoe Murphy. She was glaring at the computer screen, a strange mix of curiosity and disgust in her eyes.
    "It's for a research project," Alana explained hurriedly. Evan and Jared were very defensive. Zoe probably wouldn't respond any better.
    "What are you researching?" Zoe's expression hadn't changed. Her eyes darted back and forth across the page, narrowed.
    "I--" Alana swallowed and took a deep breath. Maybe Zoe could be a reference, but she couldn't give it away. "Modern paranormal mythology. More accurately, where the stories may have originated from and how they persist. I'm starting with winged humanoids"
    "Oh, that's easy," Zoe said, leaning back in her chair and smirking at the ceiling.
    "Well of course there are all these roots in classical mythology. The Greeks told of harpies and the Egyptian gods were thought to appear as human-animal hybrids. Artwork based on Abrahamic religions portray their angels as winged--"
    "Not what I meant. That website's super wrong, by the way." Alana looked at her over her glasses.
    "And what makes you say that?" Zoe sat back up and turned to the computer.
    "Human-like creatures with wings have been recently reported to ravage and scavenge in secluded areas. Reports make them out to be more similar to human-sized birds than the angelic figures many would visualize. They have been blamed for a variety of disappearances and attacks." Zoe read aloud, snickering the whole time. "Look, if you think we're anything near that bad--"
    "We?" Alana asked, fighting her excitement down in her throat. Zoe bit her lip, her eyes widening.
    "No."
    "You wouldn't happen to have... met one of these avian humans, would you?" Zoe stared at her, silent. "Or... I've heard all about that bag of feathers you carry around, might I be able to see it?" Zoe withered with a sigh, reaching down for her backpack. She pulled out a large plastic bag stuffed with snowy white feathers and practically threw it onto the table in front of Alana.
    "You know what? Fine. My parents have been threatening me my whole life to keep this a secret, but I'm sick of that. They can be overbearing about something else now. What do you want to know?" Alana looked up from the feathers, one of which she'd pulled out of the bag and was examining. It was long and thin and soft. Nothing about it felt plastic, at least.
    "Where did you get these?" Zoe snorted.
    "You weren't really listening, were you? I molt, okay? So does my brother. Of course I'm the one to hold on to his mess. Isn't the older brother supposed to be the responsible one? Connor can't even keep himself sober for a day."
    "Are you saying that you..."
    "That I'm a vicious avian? No. I just happen to have these feather dusters on my back. Thanks mom and dad."
    "Can I see?" Zoe laughed nervously and shifted in her seat.
    "Um, no. They're kinda under my clothes?"
    "Oh! Oh, right, of course. I didn't mean to intrude."
    "You're fine." Zoe was looking the other way. "Anything else you want to know? I was planning on working on my Spanish project."