High Anxiety - Dear Evan Hansen

Made of Stone

Have some sci-fi angst with some kind of unconventional ships (Jared/Alana and Alana/Connor, both one-sided). TW: death, mentions of suicidal thoughts, really tiny bit of gore. Get ready. It's a long one compared to my other stuff.

 "You must think you're pretty cool, don't you?" Jared glared up at Connor over his glasses. Glasses he didn't technically need, granted, but they gave them to him anyway.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Connor didn't look up from his book. Jared had no clue where he got it. Who read books anymore? It smelled like age. Like death. The pages made a shivery breath of sound when they were turned, shushing slightly at the skin. It didn't matter either way. Just another thing to add to his growing mental checklist of reasons to hate his tall, lanky peer.

"The hardened bad boy thing? The stupid rebel look? You're so emo, which, by the way, is a word that doesn't even exist anymore. I had to look in up in the dictionary archives from centuries ago." Connor's hair was too long, half-hiding his eyes. His clothes were too dark and too constricting, with more layers than made any practical sense. He was leaning against a pad of cast iron lockers. The walls of the satellite hummed hot around them. Neon work lights cast orange shadows on the sharp angles of Connor's jaw and cheekbones. They glared on Jared's retinas. A vent puffed steam a few inches from Jared's face, smarting against his grafted skin and fogging his glasses.

"So?" Still staring at the book.

"So what makes you so fucking special?" Connor scoffed and turned the page.

"I'm not."

"Yeah? Tell that to Alana." Alana. The reason at the top of the list. Alana, who had always been there to talk to. Alana, who could actually keep up with his train of thought. Alana, who had bothered to tell him how much of a dick he could be without judging him for it and without walking away because of it. Alana, who could actually make him think, but could just as easily turn his brain to a mess of senseless sparks and send a current through his joints that was probably not supposed to happen. Alana—

"What does she have to do with this?" Connor finally glanced up from the antique in his hands. It didn't last long. His eyes darted back to the page covered in black dashes of faded ink.

"You don't know? I'm not sure if I should be relieved of disgusted." Connor hummed a vague acknowledgement. He was lost in the book again. "What are you even reading?"

"None of your business."

"You bet your ass it is. I'm trying to talk you you about something important."

"Get on with it then." Jared shook his head, scoffing with a creak.

"What's with you?" The words had a spearhead attached, and Connor noticed. He tensed, turning to face Jared. His novel was suddenly even less to him than it was to anyone else as he snapped it closed in his fist. Jared fought the urge to shrink away. Whoever said instincts were a thing of the past had never been stared down by Connor Murphy, who had fire and ice in his eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he growled.

"Woah, chill out freakshow." Jared's words escaped with a snicker, higher than usual, pulled out by the intensity of Connor's gaze. Something hot and clammy was seeping around his shirt collar, like leaking oil. If he could blush, he probably would. If he could cry, he might be doing that too.

"What did you just call me?" He was towering over him now, some kind of old-world myth of a faceless boogeyman, all limbs of shadowed anger. Jared went numb.

"A freak? Seriously, fuck off. Cool it."

"You fuck off, asshole. You have no clue who I am." Before Jared could call out, before he could even think to want to, Connor was slamming the book into his locker with a thrumming clang and pushing past him, storming into the heart of the ship, strides ringing on the iron grating. He left a defeated android behind. A defeated android who really needed a reboot after that.