Chapter Text
I have gone absolutely bat-shit insane. I thought this brand of crazy could only found in one Mr. Probably-A-School-Shooter Connor Murphy, but nope! I’ve literally never been this wrong in my entire life.
It all started, as most things do for me, as a joke.
I had stupidly decided to drag Evan to a small party a friend of a friend of an acquaintance of Alana’s was having. It would satisfy Heidi’s desire for Evan to go out more, and Evan would keep me sane until I found some booze.
It was a win-win for everyone, you know? Well. Except Evan. The poor dude gravitated to the first empty seat he could find as soon as we got there, and I don’t really think I saw him for most of the party, which was fine, I guess.
So I was sitting in this circle of idiots who have fun with party games, especially drinking games. Booze should be fun, and I always start the games, so I’m kind of the captain of these idiots, even if they don’t accept me as their amazing leader because they barely know who I am when they’re sober. Which is fine. Drunk party friends and regular sober friends shouldn’t ever mingle anyway.
We were playing truth or dare. If you were too coward to fess up or do your dare, you drank. If you did your dare or told your truth, your challenger drank. I was pretty smashed, so everything I said and did was pure stupidity. But then again, when is it not, right? It fell upon Zoe Murphy to challenge someone, and she naturally picks me, the awesome team leader who hadn’t been picked at all yet.
But Jared, you may be asking, how were you drunk if no one had picked you to challenge or anything? Well, I had made up my own side drinking game. Basically, whenever I felt too sober, I took a shot.
That did the trick pretty well.
So Zoe picks me and she puts up an offer that I couldn’t refuse, sober or drunk.
“I’ll give you a truth and a dare. If you can do both, I’ll drink and give you a twenty.” she said, her eyes sparkling with something I’d call devilish delight. I didn’t even think twice. Hell, I didn’t think once. I accepted gleefully, not even considering that maybe she had a plan or something.
“Truth or dare,” she prompted, and I very stupidly but very proudly said truth. She grinned at this, as if she anticipated my answer. The Murphys are fucking weird, I’m just saying, so maybe she did know what I’d pick first.
“Would you date Evan Hansen?” she asked. Now that I look back on it, she was pretty drunk too, and the circle had been conspiring for a while without me really giving it much thought. So this was a group effort. Not just a Zoe Murphy thing. Probably. A shitty group thing to do, really, since it’s got me re-evaluating my entire fucking life.
It was at this point I kind of gave Evan a glance. He was cowering in a corner, except he was on a sofa that was nowhere near the corner of the room. He was doing something on his shitty off-brand phone, probably playing SNAKE, knowing his social life.
Now. anyone with a brain could probably tell that hell yes, I would. Anyone with a brain could tell you I adored Evan. Maybe it was because of how I totally zone out while he’s talking about trees and try to draw constellations on his faces using only his freckles and my mind, and my face maybe looks a little dumb while I do it.
A smart person would be able to identify that I was super into Evan Hansen, what with my insisting on hanging out with him and asking him about trees just to get him going, or how I say stupid shit just to get him all red in the face…
Any smart person with even something akin to one brain cell would know I was super gay for Evan and that my gay ass just didn’t notice it. And, well, I think we all know by now, I am not the smartest in the bunch.
My drunken self, however, did not go on to reevaluate his entire existence until he was sober, which is right now. No,no, drunk me grinned. Drunk me beamed and slurred, “yeah, I guess, he’s pretty cute.”
Zoe Murphy grinned, and it was almost like watching Satan himself smile up at me. “Now, I dare you to go tell him that.”
And me, being the stupid broke ass I am, stumbled to get up, and waltzed over to Evan.
Now, this part of the night is a little tricky. It was shortly after this that shit gets blackout drunk kinds of foggy. But I remember asking Evan how he was, and he stuttered back a very uncomfortable lie about how he was good and what not. The only thing I remember clearly is his reaction. I don’t know how I worded it, or if I even said it, but all I remember is Evan turning bright red. His eyes wide and his mouth agape, ready to say something that he’d never say. Or maybe he did say.
And all I remember thinking before shit got foggy was how fucking adorable he looked all stunned and red-faced like that.
Now, a week ago, if you had told me I would be realizing how deep I was in this, this gay-for-Evan-Hansen-hole, I would’ve called you crazy. I would’ve said, “fuck you, man, I’m a gay asshole but not like that!” or something dumb. I mean, I’m gay as fuck. I own fourteen different kinds of pride flags, for fuck’s sake.
But I just got over a hangover and the first thing I fucking realized after that migraine went away and I could actually function again was something I’d never picture myself thinking or saying or even feeling.
I’m gay for Evan.