Exploring Evan Winters

[Freefall]

In which I post various stories about Evan and his past and present.

[Freefall]

Evan had run away from his foster parents, again. There was some radical group of powered extremists that let him hang with them, and gave him cigarettes. He could feel the smoke fill his lungs and sighed out kicking his legs back and forth on top of a crate.

“So...kid,” one of the higher ups said looking at Evan from below, twirling a plasma gun in his fingers. “Are you just going to free load off us until your 18?” He asked, teasingly.

“Free load your cigarettes.” Evan said taking another puff and smirking.

The guy laughed heartily.

“We can’t keep you forever, you’re a good kid Evan, you just haven’t been dealt a good hand.”

-

“You filthy gene Hazard!” She screamed. His foster mother slapped him hard across the face, Evan being forced to look down at the hideous lime green carpet. Everything here was bright too bright, and they pretended to be oh so happy.

“We take you in out of the kindness of our own hearts and you do this over and over again. Bring cigarettes into this house, don’t carry your own weight...” she carried on and carried on, but Evan turned to face her glaring this time.

“You took me in because you were paid a huge sum of money to do it.” He interrupted. “Now hit me again, I dare you, you old hag.”

She, furious, did but this time got pushed away by a hard vector shield. Evan had been working on it down at the warehouse where the powered group hung out.

It took maybe an hour before he was sat in front of his therapist, a police officer behind him. She frowned at Evan, who stood there looking like he had as little remorse for what he’d done as possible. When the officer left her expression softened.

“Evan...we can’t keep doing this.” She said slowly. “Called out in the middle of the night because you finally showed up?”

Evan didn’t say anything, the mark on his face where he’d been slapped starting to sting. It wasn’t the first time that particular woman had hit him, nor was it the first time he’d been beaten by a foster parent or sibling. He was a gene hazard. No one wanted a gene hazard.

“I can survive on my own.” Evan said finally.

“You’ll be 18 in three months, can you please...please just try and stay with this last family for that long?”

“I can’t promise anything.”

“Evan-”

“No! You put me in home after home of people who don’t want me. They’ve been bribed to pretend like they do and they’re all shit at it!” He stood up. “I am not Zachary and not one person will even try to pretend that’s not exactly who they see when they look at me.”

The therapist looked like she pitied him, which was worse than hating him if he was honest.

“Three more months...and then we can help you get a place of your own. Turn to the streets now and there’s nothing I can do.” She said calmly instead.

Evan didn’t say anything for a while but then slowly sat back down, putting his head in his hands and running through everything over and over again.

“Well who’s dumb enough to want me this time?”

[Freefall]

“Evan, it’s ok...” the voice said. Warm and calming. He felt a hand on his head and leant into it. “It’ll be ok.”
The warmth spread down his neck and around him like a blanket, but it slowly began to get too hot, the crackling of fire echoed in his ears and as he opened his eyes his brother stood there, hair ragged and face completely devoid of emotion. He didn’t reach towards him, and Evan didn’t reach back.

“Where are you going Zach?” Evan asked, feeling his voice choke. “What are you doing? Are you leaving me?”

Zach shook his head and smirked and screaming, unbelievable screaming filled Evan’s ears and all he could do was scream back and thrash out trying to move but he couldn’t. It was like his arms were stuck. He screamed harder feeling his voice go hoarse and tried with all his might to move and that is when he started to fall...

Evan hit the floor with a thump and realised he wasn’t trapped in a fire, Zach wasn’t there. He was in his room in the mansion. The only person screaming was him. He rubbed his sore throat and sat up staring down at the wood flooring. He stayed silent for a few minutes wondering if anyone had heard him, running over that dream again and again in his head. It was just a dream...Evan hadn’t actually seen what had happened. But...it had been all over the news.

Zachary Winters also known as Dragon was found guilty today after a week long trial-

Evan cut his own memories off feeling the breath catch in his throat. Here was neither the time nor the place. He stood up on shaky legs and tried not to fall back down again and glanced to the other side of his room, staring down at the floorboards where he knew the loose one was. One single slip of paper was hidden under there that Evan dared not look at since he arrived.

-found guilty of murder-

Slugger.

-found guilty for the murder of thousands-

The knock on the door snapped Evan out of it. He hadn’t even realised he’d crossed the room, standing above the floor boards. The knock came again and he cursed getting himself together enough to open the door.

It was dark in the corridor but Evan could still make out the line of Dax’s face from the moonlight in the hall.

“Evan...?” Dax began squinting up at his face. “Is everything ok?”

Evan pasted on a smile. “Peachy.” He said simply, feeling his voice croak. “I just...fell out of bed that’s all.”

“That seemed like a lot of screaming for someone who just fell out of bed?”

Slugger.

“It’s nothing, Dax...I’m fine.” Evan tried to make his voice sound a lot clearer.

Dax didn’t look overly convinced but just said a quiet goodnight and left. Evan closed the door and cursed himself. That was smooth, but really he could only deal with one thing at a time and at the moment every time he closed his eyes all he saw was fire.

His team mate interrupting him managed to snap him out of it mostly but he supposed he was never going to stop it haunting him. Not when every time he looked in the mirror he saw Zach instead of himself.

Evan looked back to the floor board and then back to his bed, but ultimately decided he’d had enough sleep for tonight.

[Freefall]

He wasn’t sure why he’d started doing this...meaningless sex with any man who found him attractive enough to let him go home with them. This one let him light up in the bedroom after too, looking so peaceful and innocent sleeping next to him.

Evan didn’t think he even knew who he was. He liked it that way though.

He left when his cigarette finished, leaving a small card with a thanks on it. He then climbed out of the window and let himself drop down, using a small vector push to break his fall.

He arrived back at the mansion by the time the sun started rising but instead of going back inside he went for a walk around the gardens. He hadn’t slept since that night Dax had heard him screaming in his sleep. Others might have done but no one else said anything.

“Sugar you need to settle down...” MeChip Whitney suddenly said looking sad as she appeared. “You’re not gettin’ nothin’ from these sexy nights out.”

“It’s easier when it doesn’t mean anything.” Evan said finding a bench to sit on and lighting up another cigarette. He’d been smoking a lot more since the other night.

“But you were checking out Griffin earlier honey bun.” Whitney pointed out cheekily. “Give him a call, baby cakes.”
“I have to work with Dax...I can’t let myself do that no matter how...cute he is...or how nice his butt is...” he shook his head. “Whitney, go away. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Alright sugar, suit yourself.” And she disappeared.

He breathed out watch the smoke carry off into the air. He closed his eyes and let it overtake him. Better. This was better.

“Morning, Evan.”

Evan’s head picked up and he opened his eyes to see Dax waving, walking around the gardens. He didn’t come over to say hello, just nodding when Evan raised his hand in greeting. Evan may have watched him for a second too long as he left his line of sight.

“Evan sugar plum-”

“Say nothing Whitney.”

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