Dead Girl Walking and the Demon Queen
is a Heathers: The Musical fanfic by RynWill
on Archive of Our Own.
Finding the lock on JD's window too difficult to overcome, Veronica decides to go back to Heather Chandler and apologize in the hopes of saving herself. Things proceed to go way off plan from there.
- Adaptational Context Change: Heather Duke acquiring the red schrunchie and becoming the new leader of the Heathers only happens in the film and musical after Heather Chandler dies, either due to egging on from JD (film) or of her own initiative (musical). Here, she snatches it after seeing she and McNamara walk in on Veronica and Chandler having sex, finally having what she needs to overthrown Chandler.
- Adaptational Sexuality: According to the tags, Veronica is promoted from straight to bisexual here, while Heather Chandler goes from straight to being a closeted lesbian.
- Adaptation Amalgamation: Elements of both the original film and the musical are included in this story.
- As is common in Heaters fanfics, Betty and Martha are both present as Veronica's friends, despite Betty being Adapted Out of the musical, with Martha becoming a Composite Character to her.
- While the event that causes Veronica to break with the Heathers is the homecoming party, as was the case with the musical, Heather Chander's meeting with Veronica in Chapters 3 and 4 implies that the former still went to the college party where she was extorted into giving oral sex.
- Adaptation Expansion:
- Virtually nothing is known about Heather Chandler's personal life in any adaptation of the story. Here, she has parents who are heavily neglectful, with it being heavily implied that she is an Alpha Bitch to hide how completely alone she feels inside.
- "Intermission I" is told from the point of view of Heather Duke, and gives insight into her views and why she is so aggressive toward Veronica - her bulimia is encouraged by her mom, with Heather Chandler only aggravating it, while her bullying of Veronica is because she's worried that Sawyer will take her place as Chandler's Beta Bitch.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: The biggest reason that Heather Chandler falls for Veronica is that the latter is genuinely nice to her as opposed to being a suck up, including expressing sincere interest in Chandler's wellbeing. Her intermission shows that Chandler is especially attracted to the fact that Veronica has more faith in her than Chandler does in herself.
- Cerebus Call-Back: Heather Chandler's line in "Candy Store" about liking to max out her dad's credit card is given a somber tinge when its revealed how neglectful he is to her - he regularly lets her max it out on her birthday because he can't be bothered to celebrate said birthday.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Heather Chandler is hilariously possessive of Veronica, to the point that when Veronica decides to fulfill a dare to kiss one of the Heathers by kissing McNamara, Chandler tears Veronica's lips off of McNamara and rams them onto her own.
- Closet Key: While Heather Chandler admits that she did once have sex with another girl, Veronica is the only person to ever get an emotional reaction out of sex with her.
- Dating Catwoman: Downplayed, as it isn't a traditional good/evil example, but the focus of the story is on Veronica Sawyer starting a romantic relationship with Alpha Bitch Heather Chandler.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Martha and Betty both realize that Veronica is dating someone and figure out it’s one of the Heathers after Veronica gets unnerved when they joke about this being the case. Fortunately for Veronica, they assume it's the nicest of the trio, McNamara.
- The "I Love You" Stigma: Heather Chandler panics when Veronica accidentally admits that she loves Chandler, with "Intermission II" revealing that Heather feels the same way but can't bring herself to admit it.
- Point of Divergence: Veronica isn't able to open the lock to JD's window after the party, so she decides to break into Heather Chandler's room to try and apologize for earlier. This ends with a drunk Veronica kissing Heather Chandler, who not only reciprocates but accelerates things to intercourse, setting off the rest of the story.
- Only Friend: Heather Chandler eventually admits to Veronica that Heather McNamara is her only real friend, with Veronica excluded because she means something more to Chandler than just a friend.
- Secret-Keeper: Heather McNamara reveals that she figured out that Veronica and Heather Chandler are an item after the latter forced Veronica into a kiss when she was dared to kiss a Heather for thirty seconds and tried to fulfill the dare with McNamara.
- Sex–Face Turn: Downplayed - Heather Chandler starts becoming nicer to Veronica after the latter has drunken sex with her in the first chapter, but only to Veronica at first, with much of the story focusing on Veronica trying to get Heather to be kinder. It's also justified in that, while all of her previous sexual encounters are implied to have been entirely about social clout, Veronica only shared Heather's bed because she wanted companionship, something Heather secretly desires.
- Single-Target Sexuality: "Intermission II" shows off Heather Chandler's POV and reveals that Veronica is the first person period that she's ever felt romantic attraction to.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: For all that Heather Chandler is a solid Teflon mythic bitch, she's secretly an incredibly lonely girl whose parents are so neglectful that they regularly skip out on celebrating her birthday and really wants to be loved.
