Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first thing that Kyle Klim learns about Clover Field is that she is an unmitigated human disaster area. 

Seriously. 

She’s standing a few inches from where Kyle’s props table used to be, blinking at him with wide, innocent eyes.

“I didn’t do anything,” she insists. It might have been more convincing if there were anyone else within sight.

 K scowls at her. “Who the hell are you?”

 “I’m Clover?” she says, edging away from his crossed arms. His glare has probably lost some impact, with his head hidden in the shadows, but it seems to at least keep her away from anything else breakable. “I’m, uh, here for my mic?”

 “And when you failed to find a stagehand, you decided to attract my attention by demolishing the props table?”

 His eyes have adjusted to the dark enough to make out her blush. “It was an accident!”

 “Sure.” K flicks on his torch and starts pulling the props out from the wreckage. Clover drops down beside him without the slightest regard for personal space, her shoulder brushing awkwardly against his hip. He shiffles around until he is fully under the collapsed desk, trying to work out how to put it back upright.

 “I can hold the torch!” Clover exclaims, like she’s just won the lottery.

K laments that, with the only light aimed at the table leg, there’s no way that Clover can make out his expression. It’s almost definitely an impressive one. Clover yelps and ducks out of the way as K lifts the table up to a level surface, the torch beam swinging wildly afield. Startled, K sits up and cracks his head on the other leg.

 “Oh, I’m sorry!” Clover crawls forwards, trying to get a good look at his head. The torch glares in K’s eyes, making him shove at Clover, trying to turn away. She yelps as the table falls on them for a second time, sending her crashing into K’s chest under its weight.

Footsteps.

 “Oh, am I interrupting something?” asks Dio’s distinctive drawl.

 K lets his head fall heavily back against the floor and groans. “Fuck off, Dio,” he says.

First the tabletop, then the teenager, are lifted off of K, allowing him to draw in a breath. He sits up, rubbing his head and glaring at the two of them.

“You know she’s only fifteen, right?” Dio asks, smirking.

Clover looks up from brushing the dust off the netted layers of her skirt. “I was just helping!” she protests.

K narrows his eyes for reasons entirely unrelated to the low light. “You were not helping.”

“And where did the table fit in with all this?” Dio asks. He’s still smirking, damn him.

“Just help me put the legs back up.”

Despite his bad attitude, Dio does lift up the tabletop and holds it steady while K slots the metal table leg back into place. Clover manages to hold the torch steady for the required fifty seconds before dropping it, and K watches apathetically as it rolls into the crawlspace under the stage. 

“Um…”

“You’re the only one who can fit down there,” Dio points out. Does he ever stop smirking? Or was there some kind of superglue incident?

Clover crosses her arms petulantly. “I’m not getting under there! I’m in costume!” 

“So am I,” Dio insists. K narrows his eyes at Dio's flamboyant coat, even as they both turn towards him. 

“No.”

“We’re in costume,” Clover repeats.

“Yes, you look lovely.” K pushes himself to his feet and turns on the torch on his phone.

Clover, at least, has the grace to look slightly embarassed. “I can come back and get it after rehearsal?”

There’s a soft chatter coming up from the seats as the actors begin to trickle in.

K frowns. “Aren’t you supposed to be with your cast?”

“I was early,” Dio says, shrugging.

“I told you, I’m here for my mic.” Torch forgotten, Clover pulls out her own phone and starts rearranging the props on the table.

“Who are you?” K asks. All the mic packs are carefully labelled.

Dio stands aside, leaning against the wall. “She’s Juliet.”

“Really?” K demands.

Clover stands upright to scowl up at him. “Yes, really!”

Dio bursts out laughing. Clover whips around to face him, but stops when K’s hand lands on her shoulder.

“Please, let me attach this microphone to you so I can get you out of my backstage area.” K shoots Dio what he hopes is a quelling look, which seems to have no effect.

Clover, at least, holds still enough for K to clip the mic into her hair, and adjust it. He steps back so that she can slip the battery pack down her neckline.

Dio is leafing through his copy of the script by the light of his mobile. K sighs. “Hadn’t you better go and deal with your actors?”

“It’s a tech run,” he says without looking up. “They’re basically just here because we haven’t trained animals to sit still long enough.”

“Hey!” Clover turns her head, even as she rustles around with her shift. “I wouldn’t have auditioned if I’d known the director was such a jerk.”

K cocks an eyebrow. “You must be new.”

Dio coughs. “That’s a little unfair. I happen to be a fucking brilliant director, whether the cast like me or not.”

“I transferred this year,” Clover says, ignoring him. It’s not an unusual reaction. When K makes no reply, she steamrollers on, “Is he like this with you guys, or just the actors?”

“He’s always like this.”

Dio tries to interrupt, but is drowned out by Clover’s merry peal of laughter. K meets her eye, and finds a smile on his face despite himself.

“Excuse me? You ready to do my mic?”

K turns to see another member of the cast leaning around the stage door. K thinks he might have played Edgar last year. Or maybe Edmund. Probably.

“Yes,” he says. Turns to Dio and Clover. “Off you go.”

Clover thanks him and bounces for the exit, her shoulder colliding with a neglected spotlight on the way. K, almost expecting this after five minutes in the girl’s company, catches it before it can strike Dio on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry!” Clover yelps, backing out the door.

“Don’t walk backwards, for fuck's sake, you’re bad enough when you can see,” Dio chides, rushing after her.

K rights the lamp, and turns back to his mic packs.

Chapter Text

K sits down opposite Dio at the pre-show meal in the fervent hope that this will prevent anybody else from attempting to sit down near him. He can’t muster the energy to be surprised, let alone disappointed, when his hopes are bashed by a sudden flounce of pink hair right at his side.

“Hi, K!” Clover chirps.

Dio frowns a little, leaning over the table. “I don’t rate a hello?”

“Nope!” Clover takes a fierce bit out of her sandwich. K slides away from her a little, hoping me might be forgotten as the two of them get into it. “Mrs K- oh, hey, that’s kinda weird- but, Mrs K has the programmes. She got me to sign one!”

“What? I haven’t been asked to fucking sign anything!” Dio moves as if to leave the table and confront the drama teacher.

K leans forwards and grabbed him arm. “You’re not in the cast. Don’t leave me with her.”

“Hey!” Clover turns the full force of her petulant glare on K.

Dio pouts even more dramatically, but stays where he is. “The crew photos come before the cast in the roster, she should have gotten to me before you, for fuck’s sake.”

“I bet you did that,” Clover says.

Dio shrugs, smirking over the rim of his water bottle.

K, who knows for a fact that Dio had not only selected the order for the programmes, but also the photos for all involved, kept quiet. Clover’s, he recalls, is of her at the very end of the play, eyes rolled up in her head and the blood splattered up her neck.

Jesus, she’s still talking.

“Aren’t you worried about losing your voice?” K asks, despite himself.

Dio snorted around a mouthful of apple. “I’m more interested in where she finds room to breathe.”

“Rude,” she protests. “I could be sitting with my friends, you know!”

“Please do.”

“You have friends?”

K kicks Dio under the table. Too late.

“Oh, please, just because you’re a complete jerk, doesn’t mean you can project all over me!” Clover proclaims.

Dio shrugs, completely unaffected. “Keep going on like that, you’ll be the one projecting. Nobody ever tell you what happens when you annoy backstage?”

“That wasn’t half as witty as you think it was.”

“Fuck o-”

“ And you’re not backstage,” K intercedes.

Dio slinks a glare at him. “Traitor.”

“See, he’s on my side!” Clover beams.

K stabs his straw through the little foil ring on his juice, fully aware of how comical the tiny carton looks in his broad hands. “I’m not on either of your sides. You’re equally irritating.”

“You sat here,” Dio points out. He indicates Clover with a disinterested wave. “She just showed up.”

“I’m new , I hardly know anyone else-”

“Oh, I thought you had dozens of friends you could go sit with?”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t know them all that well yet, do I?”

“And you know us so much better?”

K glances up at the clock. He probably can’t excuse himself just yet. “Don’t encourage her, Dio.”

Dio huffed. “I’m encouraging her? You haven’t tried shutting her up once!”

“I’m more interested in the food,” K said without inflection. “Clover hasn’t had a chance to eat much of hers.”

Clover visibly brightened, to almost dazzling proportions. “Oh!”

K and Dio both watch, bemused, as she pushes her plate slightly to one side and rummages through her satchel. The tupperware she pulls out makes a faint thump as it hits the desk, mostly drowned by the gargling noise of K draining his juice box.

Clover beams at him. “I made brownies!”

“Do they have-”

“Teacher,” K interrupts, quickly. “Right over there, Dio. Right there.”

Dio pouts, clearly considering K to have ruined the unimaginable fun of talking about drugs for a microscopic amount of time.

“Of course they don’t!” Clover bats Dio’s hand away and pushes the brownies towards K, peeling back the lid. “Go on!”

“Hey, why don’t I get one?”

“Finish your sandwich first,” Clover says primly. “Come on, K, I want one too!”

That’s reassuring. He takes one and shoves the entire thing into his mouth.

“Oh, eew,” Clover complains, getting one for herself.

Dio chomps irritably on his cheese sandwich.

K finishes the brownie. “Okay,” he admits. “You may have at least one redeeming trait.”

Clover’s smile breaks through an already cheerful grin, like the sun shifting amongst summer leaves. K takes another brownie. Dio sulks.

“Man, just finish the damn sandwich ,” K says with his mouth full.

Clover nods.

“My sandwich,” Dio informs them primly, “Is fucking revolting.”

“Mine was pretty good. You, K?”

K nodded. “Mine was great.”

Clover’s shoulder brushes against his as they both regard Dio, reaching for another brownie in perfect unison. K can’t bring himself to find it annoying.

Dio slams his mangled sandwich down in disgust. “Give me a fucking brownie, or you’re performing opening night very loudly in your underwear.”

“Don’t threaten my mic packs,” K warns.

Clover preens. “I feed the techies. They won’t turn on me.”

“You techies are fucking fickle folks,” Dio grumbles.

Clover snorts. “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,” she mocks.

K’s lip twitched upwards.

Dio never eats the cheese sandwich, but Clover relents and gives him a brownie when it becomes apparent that Mrs K doesn’t plan to ask for his autograph, and the pouting becomes unbearable.