Chapter Text
Existence is weird, and sometimes “weird” translates to “fucking awful,” but today it just means weird. Connor doesn’t really understand it at all, and that’s not to say that anyone truly does, but most people have enough grasp on the concept to accept it and continue doing it. Connor is pretty sure has lost that grasp, assuming he ever had it in the first place.
Like, okay. Last week he was quietly eyeing his mother’s prescription sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet every time he brushed his teeth. He was checking the date and counting on his fingers every single night. He was using headphones more often, keeping quiet at the dinner table, practicing his absence. That exists. Today, he’s piled into his sister’s car with three other people, one of whom has superpowers, to purposefully and unironically go monster-hunting. That exists, too. It’s just such a… well, he doesn’t know what it is. That’s sort of the thing. He doesn’t know how he feels about it, either. Doesn’t he?
Jared Kleinman won’t shut his fucking mouth, so maybe he does.
“I’m Jared Kleinman and I saw a fucking deer down the street from Alana’s parents’ house so god knows we all have to start panicking, call a goddamn SWAT team while I whine like my dick is being chewed off,” says Jared. Technically he does not say that, but it sums up what he is saying pretty well. Zoe kind of looks very ready to crash this car and kill herself. Evan is in the backseat with Connor, staring miserably out the window, the side of his face planted on his hand like someone who is tired and covered in blood, which is not inaccurate. Connor keeps glancing over at him for seconds at a time, sorta like hey, Jared is so dumb, right? By the way if you could give me a sign that you aren’t literally brain-dead right now that would be fun but no pressure I guess.
This is a weird day. They are having a weird day.
“It was on Linden.”
“Yeah, I know, Jared.”
“You missed a turn already--”
“I know the way to my fucking girlfriend’s house.”
Evan gives the briefest sigh, a little huh-huh, in and out. It’s quiet for roughly one second.
“I know what I saw, okay, this isn’t, like--”
“Okay--”
“You guys don’t believe me or whatever, I’m not an idiot, but--”
“Jared,” Connor breaks in. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Yeah, okay, you can stay out of this,” Jared says, turning in his seat to glare at Connor. “Fuckin’-- you don’t even care what happens to Alana, you’re too obsessed with your new pet--”
“Hey, fuck you.”
Evan does another quick sigh thing. Like hyperventilating, but softer. Also, he’s not hyperventilating.
“Okay, we’re all stressed and I acknowledge that, but if I hear another word out of either of you I’m pulling this car over,” Zoe warns, tilting her head.
Jared barks out an ugly, deformed laugh. “Fuck me, not a single block away from where we’re headed?” he says, smartly, with charm and charisma. Connor, who is starting to agree with Evan, sighs and tilts his head against the window.
The car swerves elegantly as Zoe pulls into the first driveway she sees.
“Wait, what are you--”
She backs out and turns around, driving off in the other direction, despite Jared’s loud protests. Evan just stares and stares out his window, looking more miserable by the second. He still needs a tissue. Connor feels for him, deeply.
The car stops abruptly, down near the beginning of the street. Everyone lurches. An old dude looks on from his yard.
“Okay. Get out.” Zoe says, glaring ahead, making no move to do so herself. No one moves for maybe one minute or maybe one second, because they are interchangeable, and it doesn’t really make a difference in this instance. And then Jared unbuckles his seatbelt in this aggressive way like he’s trying to give it whiplash before he gets out of the car, slams the door, and begins to walk.
Zoe glances at Connor and Evan through the rearview mirror. “Evan, do you--”
“No,” Evan utters, not waiting around to hear the rest of the question. Without missing a beat, he heads out of the car, methodically, not glancing at either sibling on his way out, and he has the right idea. Connor follows.
They make it, like, a quarter of the way down the street before they hear another car door slam behind them.
Connor and Evan walk at a good pace, one that allows them to avoid both Jared and Zoe at equal distance. Linden is, like. They used to call it “in-between street” when they were kids, because it’s sort of in-between neighborhoods? You’ll have several streets of houses, and then Linden, and then more houses, but there aren’t any houses on Linden, not even a sidewalk. It’s bordered by this little patch of woods, with almost but not-quite a full canopy of leaves and branches overhead, and it’s a little glowy when the sun is right. Scenic stuff, kind of. There’s a lot of potholes. For a while it was magic, and then it was haunted, and then it was just a normal street. Now, apparently, it’s haunted again, according to Jared.
Connor feels like-- it’s an arm-crossing type of mood. He crosses his arms and keeps them like that. He feels slightly better, but not really. This is stupid.
They’re just standing there. Dying yellow light splinters in, making patterns out of shadows, making silhouettes out of branches. Zoe takes her time catching up, eyes on the pavement, one hand tugging on her necklace and the other around her middle. Her shoulders are tensed up. Her sneakers are dirty. No one is saying anything. It’s cold.
Connor turns back to Jared, who looks less sure, all of a sudden, looking at the ground with his arms crossed and his eyebrows furrowed. Connor doesn’t know whether to feel smug or annoyed. He’s already annoyed.
“Okay, go,” he utters, with pointed sincerity.
Jared’s head snaps up and he glares heatedly. “You know, you’re not being cute right now?”
“You dragged us all out here, I just want to know what for,” he presses. Jared breathes in like he’s gonna retort, except then he just breathes out and closes his mouth, which is among the most helpful things he could be doing, actually. Connor accepts it.
Zoe steps in, joining the circle. They are standing in the middle of the street, Connor observes. Someone should run them over. Zoe re-does her ponytail, and she’s looking at the trees, which are not benches, and they are also very purposefully not Connor or Evan or Jared. “Jared, what’s your plan?” she questions, but she doesn’t really say it like a question. She says it like you’re eating into my band practice time and I’m not wearing a coat and I want to go home so hurry the fuck up and tell us what we’re even doing here. Connor doesn’t sympathize, exactly, but he still appreciates it.
“My… plan,” says Jared, who does not have a plan. “Well, I figured we could just, like, look around, I mean...”
He looks like someone who feels like an idiot, so at least he’s self-aware. Nobody is surprised by his response, but Connor and Zoe sigh anyway. Evan... just stands there. Like a cardboard cutout of Evan, but more fidgety. Connor nudges him to make sure he’s still breathing. Evan looks at Connor, questioning, and he might not be breathing. He needs a tissue.
“It was in the trees, so we should probably split up and check--” Jared goes.
“‘Split up?’” Connor repeats, incredulous. “How far do you expect us to go?”
Jared squints. He’s ugly. “Next time I want your opinion, I’ll ask, thanks--”
“Definitely,” Zoe cuts in. “This argument is going somewhere. Yeah.”
“Zoe,” Connor tries to reason, which is another cool thing that he doesn’t usually, “you know he’s fucking crazy--”
“I know that we’re standing next to a kid with-- with superpowers right now, Connor.” She huffs and looks at the sky, like maybe she will find some answers up there, or like she would, ideally, but she doesn’t. “Yesterday, Jared threw my cellphone at Evan’s face and I thought he was crazy then, too. But here we are, and I just. Look, I’m not saying I think-- like, yeah, it was probably just an animal, but we have to entertain the possibility--”
She huffs again. “It won’t kill us to just-- ten minutes. Okay?” She looks between Connor and Jared. “We’ll look for ten minutes, and then go home?”
So, they. Y’know, they just sort of end up awkwardly wandering around this small patch of land, like idiots, doing the exact kind of thing that would be cute if they were five?
“Jared, what is it we’re looking for exactly?” Zoe asks, patiently, which Jared doesn’t really deserve at all in Connor’s opinion.
There is a lull. And then, “I don’t know? It was. Big, I don’t-- I mean, I only saw it for a second.”
Fuck. God. Connor severely wants to. To pick Evan up and throw him, or something. He raises his eyebrows, lifts his arms, and gives a high-pitched, “Well then what the fuck are we even--”
“Connor,” Zoe says, actually with less patience, “you agreed. Ten minutes.”
“He doesn’t even know what he saw, Zoe.”
And yet, in tandem with the “yeah whatever Connor Murphy is stupid anyway it’s not like he’s ever once been reasonable” attitude, nobody cares. Connor helplessly looks back at Evan, who probably gets it, but he only shrugs, and that doesn’t provide anything other than a shoulder movement. Connor sighs and kinda gives up.
Things are not loud, after that. Evan is ghostly quiet-- weirdly quiet, actually. Connor keeps checking back to make sure he’s even still there. He sticks relatively close to Connor, who allows him, obviously. His hands stay in his pockets, hood still up, and he keeps sniffling, eyes downcast. Clearly, he is not participating, which is fine. Jared is a man on a goddamn mission, unironically tramping around in his search for fucking bigfoot and simultaneously pissing Connor off in more degrees by the second. Zoe walks around and politely scans the treeline. In other words, she is kindly humoring Jared, kind of in the same way that a parent checks under their kid’s bed for monsters. Connor picks up a rock, checks the underside, and puts it back down. Repeats.
“Connor, I seriously doubt you’re gonna find the monster under a rock,” Zoe points out.
She’s right, he’s being fucking absurd. What was he even thinking, god. Connor, the ignorant buffoon, frowns and chucks the rock into the creek. It lands with a deep “sploshing” kind of noise. Evan looks on with mild interest. They keep walking.
With vigor and enthusiasm, nothing happens. For ten minutes. Which is exactly the amount of time it usually takes for nothing to happen.
Zoe sighs and checks her phone. “Have you guys noticed anything?”
“No,” says Connor, flatly.
“No, but--”
“It’s been ten minutes, Jared.” Zoe types something on her phone. Y’know, like she cares. “Maybe we should head home.”
“Hold on, but. Guys, I swear something was here--” Jared protests.
Zoe sighs and stuffs her phone back into her pocket. “We said ten minutes. And it’s getting dark out--”
“It’s been dark out.”
“Thanks, Connor. Look, we’re not gonna find anything with no daylight, and it’s not really safe to be hanging around near the place where someone went missing after dark anyway?”
This seems to make Jared shut up, because she’s right.
“Fine. Okay, whatever,” he. Well ‘agrees’ is not really the right word. ‘Passive aggressive’ needs a verb tense.
“Jared--” Zoe starts.
“Forget it, let’s leave.” Jared starts marching back towards the road. Connor is fed up with him, but the need to just. Go home and die, or maybe stare at the ceiling and eat potato chips in bed and actively not die, overpowers.
He doesn’t even make it a few steps, however, when he notices something glinting and silver on the ground, among a bunch of soggy leaves. He’d ignore it, but at second glance it looks. Kind of familiar? He squints and picks it up.
“Zoe, you dropped your necklace,” he calls.
“What?” There’s a hesitation. “No, I didn’t.”
“Okay.” Connor shrugs, and the necklace is dropped. He keeps walking.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Zoe bounds over. “Let me-- where-- oh my god, did you drop it?”
“Yes?” Connor sighs and turns around slowly. His patience levels are dropping like. Wow they are just dropping so fast that he’s not going to think of an analogy, actually. “You said it wasn’t yours.”
“Connor, where is it?” she-- well he wants to say ‘asks’ but maybe ‘pleads’ is the right word? Her lips are parted, eyebrows knitted. Connor is confused.
“Well, I didn’t throw it--”
“No, seriously, wait. Get Jared,” she demands, and then crouches down to scan the ground. This is such a stupid day. Connor sighs again.
“Jared,” he calls.
“What?”
“Zoe is freaking out,” he elaborates. There is a tiny pause.
“I… don’t care?”
“Oh,” Zoe utters. It’s more of a noise than a word. When Connor turns to her, she’s holding the necklace, looking at it like it’s. Literally Alana Beck, which.
“Wait, did you see something?” Jared calls, suddenly caring, and then he’s walking over towards them.
Connor doesn’t quite know how to answer him. “...Maybe? I… Zoe, what the fuck--”
“This is hers,” Zoe murmurs. She stands up and fumbles for her own necklace. “Look, they-- see, we have matching ones, and--”
“Oh,” Connor agrees quietly.
“What?” Jared announces.
“I found Alana’s necklace,” Zoe breathes.
Connor frowns and does not correct her to say that actually he was the one who found the necklace, and look who is taking the credit, because. This is a situation, sort of? He’s kind of unsure of what he’s supposed to do in this situation, so he looks at Evan, who is wide-eyed and quiet with blood still under his nose, standing out against his face, which is pale today. Or maybe all the time.
“What?” says Jared, again, with feeling.
“It’s broken,” Zoe whimpers, dangling the chain in front of her face with a manicured hand. And it’s-- it’s true, the chain implies that the necklace had been yanked off, actually, which speaks for itself.
Connor looks at Evan again, who makes a face like why do you keep looking at me dude? So Connor looks at Zoe, who is horrified, and then Jared, who seems shocked mostly? No one is talking. There is a lot of staring going on.
“We.” Connor clears his throat. “We should show the cops? I guess?”
The staring is directed at him, now. Nothing is happening.
“You’re right,” Zoe whispers. She nods and puts the necklace in her pocket. “We’ll take it to the police station.” She hasn’t stopped nodding. There’s a break. A small one. “Um. Jared, are you coming?”
“Oh, I mean. Yeah? Obviously?” Jared shifts uncomfortably.
“Okay,” says Zoe. She’s stopped nodding, by now. Her hand keeps moving in her pocket, around the necklace, making sure that it’s still there. “We have to-- yeah. Come on.”
They walk to the car, awkwardly. Connor and Evan fall back, side by side, and neither of them really know how to act. Ever, but mostly now. They are both grappling.
Connor bumps shoulders with Evan, who jumps, like he’s startled. Connor frowns.
“You good?” he asks.
“I’m okay,” says Evan.
“...You know my house is like a block away, we could just--”
“I’m okay,” Evan insists. His eyes stay trained on the pavement. Connor is not sure what to do, or how he feels.
“Okay,” Connor whispers.
Evan hesitates. “Unless you want to--”
“You know, I kind of do?” Connor makes a face. “But this is. I guess-- I don’t know. Let’s just-- I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Evan whispers. There’s silence after that, but it’s more mutually agreed to than awkward.
The road is charcoal gray but it looks deep blue, and Connor thinks that a lot of things are less ugly in the dark. He kicks a pebble and it scitters downhill a little. The old guy is not in his yard anymore. He was super old, and Connor wonders if maybe he died within the time it took for them to leave and come back. Probably not. That’s probably a-- a super fuckin’ weird thing to wonder about. He kicks another pebble, or the same one, maybe, because he wasn’t keeping track.
Minutes later, they are stopped at a red light next to a 7-11. Indie music drones quietly, more quietly than the sound of Zoe’s fingers worriedly tapping the wheel, overall quieter and less palpable than Zoe’s worry itself. Evan covers the lower half of his face and sniffles like he doesn’t want to make too much noise, and there are police sirens coming from somewhere further down the road. They are headed to the police station, to turn in Alana Beck’s dirty, broken necklace, which they found on the ground, in the same spot Jared where thought he’d seen a monster, after they found a teenager with superpowers in the woods, after Connor sat down on a park bench with a plan to commit suicide, after Alana Beck went missing. Things exist-- in fact, things are happening currently. It sucks.
Zoe stops tapping. The police sirens get louder. She sits up, and something must change in her face, because suddenly Jared turns to her and says, “What? What’s wrong?”
As Zoe ignores his question, Connor and Evan share an attentive glance.
“Zoe?” Jared presses.
“I have a bad feeling,” Zoe mutters, half-present. Something is wrong.
“You have a--? Hey, pull over,” Jared tells her. He’s leaning forward a little, eyes nervously scanning her face for signs of nausea, or I’m-gonna-pass-out-and-crash-the-car, or probably both. “I can drive, if you--”
“No,” she interrupts. The sirens get louder. “I have to--” Her fingers tense around the wheel. Something is increasingly wrong. “I have a feeling.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Jared asks.
“Trust me,” Zoe utters, and Connor immediately does not trust her, “I have to--”
“Zoe,” Connor pipes, “what the--”
An ambulance rushes by, sirens blaring, and Zoe slams the gas pedal.
“--Fuck? Zoe!”
Evan makes a startled noise. In fact, they all make a startled noise, in some form or another.
“Zoe!” Jared has grabbed hold of his little roof handle thing for dear life. Connor and Evan have not, and they are both fearless-- but more importantly, they are chasing after a fucking ambulance. Zoe has gone out of her mind. Connor thinks that this is finally his time to lie down and die. Jared is yelling like his lungs will soon be out of use. This day is peachy.
“Slow down, where are you going?” Jared cries. Zoe does not answer, because she has gone out of her mind.
Connor looks at Evan, who is terrified. This is an inconvenient coincidence for him. He could’ve been found by anyone else, he could’ve. He could’ve been found by some nice, normal siblings named-- named Dennis and Becca, who liked music and sports and mental stability and rational thinking, who were not the type to sit on benches or chase ambulances due to, like, a sudden burst of suicidal inspiration. Then, would Dennis and Becca have taken Evan straight to the police? Probably. His name would probably still be Eleven, too. Maybe an ideal situation doesn’t exist for Evan.
Oh, yeah, he still hasn’t told Zoe and Jared about th--
“What is wrong with you?” Jared bursts, eyes switching rapidly between the road ahead and Zoe’s face. “This is insane, you’re paranoid because of the necklace, that doesn’t mean--”
“Shut up,” Zoe snaps. “Just-- shut up, okay?”
“Sure! Yeah, I’ll ‘shut up,’ we’re speeding after a goddamn ambulance but I’ll just sit here quietly--”
“You’re not helping, Jared!”
“Helping what? Helping you break the law and crash the car? Because I think we have very different intentions, here, Zoe--"
It’s more of this. Connor and Evan glance at each other periodically. It’s sort of hard to make haha-look-at-these-crazy-kids jokes when you are fearing for your safety? Connor shrugs when they make eye-contact, but then he stays like that, so his shoulders are just all tensed up, now.
Eventually, they end up at the entrance to a state park across town. Zoe backs up until they are far enough away from the scene for her liking, and then she parks. She hastily gets out of the car and starts off, Jared following and calling after her.
Connor and Evan look at each other, slowly.
“Shit,” Connor utters.
“Shit,” Evan agrees quietly.
They both look away, equally as slow. Nothing is happening. Absolutely nothing at all.
Connor turns back to Evan. “Are you… okay?”
Evan looks down at himself in a kind of. Like a self check-up. There’s some air, and then Evan nods.
“I’m okay.”
Connor also nods. “Okay. Me too, I guess. Um. Should we--”
“I guess,” Evan whispers.
They share one last glance, equally stupid, and then climb out of the car. They are very in-sync, falling into step in the center of the road. There aren’t any street lights around, but red and blue flashes in patterns from down the road. Connor wonders how bad it would be if he and Evan just. Took the car and booked it, ditching Zoe and Jared, and he thinks it would be pretty bad, but then here’s the next question-- does he care?
“Zoe,” he calls, spotting his sister ducked down with Jared near the parking lot. She whirls around immediately, wide-eyed, gesticulating for him to shut the fuck up. He rolls his eyes, but complies.
He and Evan, surprisingly the only two sane people left in this situation, join Zoe and Jared in quietly watching police and paramedics meddle with equipment.
“How much longer do you want us to wait here?” Jared quietly demands. Zoe ignores him, squinting out towards the scene before them. This is starting to feel really fucking creepy. Connor checks behind him, periodically, because this is absolutely a time during which they would be snuck up upon. At night. In the woods. At a crime scene. Well, that last one might've been an assumption, but--
“Alana?” Zoe breathes. Connor starts.
“What?” He worriedly follows her gaze out towards the park entrance, where a stretcher is being carried, where paramedics are rushing over. His skin is crawling.
“It’s not her,” Jared utters, shaking his head. “But we-- this is enough, okay? Let’s--”
Zoe stands up. Jared tries to pull her back down, to no avail. Connor also stands up.
“We need to leave,” he murmurs, but he can’t stop staring. His view of the body is obscured by paramedics.
Zoe shakes Jared off. She walks forward, despite everyone’s protests.
“Zoe, it’s not-- it’s not her, we have to--”
Someone stops speaking. It doesn’t matter who. There’s a shift-- there are a lot of shifts, all in one moment, folding into the tip of a pin, but first there is the shift of a paramedic with bright hair, someone who could be anyone, as she moves to help with the ambulance doors. She disappears very suddenly as something else takes up her space in Connor’s line of vision, in the beat of his heart, something new. Braids, broken glasses, familiar eyes. Eyes made out of glass. Eyes that can't see anything.
After that shift, and all the other shifts, there is a lull. It feels like the space between the sky and the ground after you’ve closed your eyes and jumped from a platform without thinking.
Zoe screams.
“ALANA!”
No.
“Hey! You kids need to get back--”
This… no, hold on--
“Don’t fucking touch me-- Lana--”
Doesn’t make sense--
Zoe releases some strained, aching, guttural cry. “She’s-- no--”
“You guys can’t be here--”
“No, we’re leaving. We’re leaving,” says some voice.
There’s a stretcher, there’s a bag, there’s-- she’ll suffocate--
“Murphy, get your ass in the car, we’re going.”
Connor turns around. His sister is having a panic attack, and Jared is gripping her elbow. Evan is… somewhere, or maybe he isn’t, and honestly, Connor wouldn’t be surprised. Reality is disoriented and it’s probably his fault. Zoe is facing Jared, frantic white noise coming out of her.
And then, as abrupt as the swerve of a car or the rattle of sleeping pills pouring over one another as the bottle is tilted, Evan is there again, touching Connor’s arm so tentatively like he thinks he’s gonna-- like Connor is gonna-- he’s shaking his head, and he’s crying. He can’t stop crying.
“That’s wrong,” Evan gets out. Connor stares down at his face, at the knitted tilt of his eyebrows, the wide desperation in his eyes, the strain of crying on his lips, spilling and spilling. “That’s-- wrong.”
Connor agrees. But he doesn’t-- he can’t--
“Murphy, get in the fucking car.”
She’s so-- he turns back to Alana, who is limp, whose face he does not catch, whose clothes are covered in dirt. Her braids dangle, her hand dangles, there is silver dangling from her neck. She’s not here. She might not be anywhere, but--
“Connor, I swear to fucking god--”
“But this isn’t real,” he blurts, before Jared Kleinman yanks him by the arm and drags him back away from-- from a lot of things. A lot of things are happening. But they aren’t--
“Wait. What about--” Connor tears himself away from Jared, except he actually doesn’t, he just stops moving for a second. “Hold on-- Evan--”
“He’s not coming. He can’t come.” Jared keeps walking, but Connor doesn’t, so they are sort of stuck. Zoe is pliant. She is also having a panic attack. She probably isn’t here right now.
“What do you mean he--”
“He’s crazy,” Jared spits, or snarls. “There’s something seriously wrong with his head. He’s insane, he’s a goddamn liar--”
Jared lets go of Connor, and Zoe too, and one arm goes around his stomach and one over his mouth as he. He keels over a little like he might throw up, but he doesn’t throw up, and this whining noise comes out of his mouth instead, and Connor looks back at Evan, who is rooted where he stands, who has not moved, and he is still spilling, he’s tilted over and it’s all falling out--
“Evan, come on.”
Evan does not. He’s shaking his head, and Connor doesn’t know what that means, because Connor doesn’t really know what anything means, but he does know that Evan is getting in the car with them, even if-- well.
Connor grabs both Zoe and Jared by the arm. He drags them back to the car, opens the door to the backseat, and helps them in. Zoe immediately curls up and Jared sits bent over, with his face in his hands. He’s gonna get scoliosis. Alana might not be breathing anymore. Connor closes the door.
“Evan, come on.”
Evan just-- well. It doesn’t really matter what Evan is doing, because there are a couple of paramedics making their way over to him. Connor wishes he weren’t frozen. Or, he’s not really frozen, just weighted. There’s a difference. Weighted means that he can struggle. Weighted is those nightmares where you-- when you’re being chased, and you’re trying to run, but you-- everything is so fast around you--
“Evan,” Connor pleads. He can’t feel his hands. Or, he doesn’t, at least.
One of the paramedics puts a hand on Evan’s back and gestures towards the car. She says something, but Connor doesn’t catch it. Apparently, this is enough to terrify Evan into gear, as he starts towards Connor without a word to the paramedic.
“Okay. Here. Okay.” Connor takes Evan by the wrist. He doesn’t know how to feel, other than sick. “Come on. Here.”
He helps Evan into the passenger seat. Evan won’t look at him, or maybe can’t. Connor heads around to the driver’s side and gets in.
“He can’t come,” Jared utters, muffled, face still covered by his hands. Connor ignores him. Zoe is sobbing in the back.
They drive away, leaving behind an ambulance and some confused, tilted version of Alana Beck. Things rattle, despite being nonexistent and undetermined. Connor isn’t equipped to acknowledge this. He keeps driving.