Here at the End of All Things (TROS fic) Chapter 8- The Death Star
Here at the End of All Things - Chapter 8, The Death Star (Read on Ao3)
⚠️ THIS CHAPTER IS ALSO THOUGHT AS A ONE SHOT!! SO YOU CAN READ IT WITHOUT READING THE REST. ⚠️
Quote
The young woman was on the verge of breaking down. No, no, she couldn’t. Not in front of him. Not in front of this man. “I-I thought that you’d always known. I thought that’s why you tried to turn me. To join you on the Darkside, because of what I am,” she paused, composing herself but refusing to meet his inquisitive eye. “People keep telling me they know me. No one does.”
“But I do.”
Rey stared at him, and the knot in her throat tightened, because she knew, deep down, that he was speaking the truth. It felt like a vow. A vow for the future.
(Read on Ao3)
I want to give a million thanks to my friend and beta @greyforceuser for being the bloody best beta in the Galaxy! ❤️
Yes lemme get sum uhhhhhh Angsty byeler. Prompt: will goes to hang with Mike, it starts lashing rain. Will gets to Mike's only to find out he has blown him off for El. Will is sad. Is soaked. Go's back home to think about Mike and stare at old pics. All this jazz from the trailer
Okay so since it’s been weeks (I’M SO SORRY) and I want y’all to know that I haven’t forgotten these prompts, I’m gonna give you my writing notes (basically the skeleton version of the fic) for this. Call it a bullet-fic if you’d like. I promise I will turn it into an actual fic soon, and answer the other prompts too, life just got uuuuuber busy rn. But anyway, hope you enjoy!
(Note: so I’m not convinced that the Byers are moving away yet, so I’m going to ignore that possibility because I can, so there (pouts))
-Will goes to hang out with Mike - it’s been threatening to rain all day but it’s starting to pour by the time he gets to the Wheeler house
-Karen is surprised when she opens the door - she says, oh, Will, Mike and Elle (that’s how Karen says El - somehow she manages to say it like it’s just short of being Elizabeth or Ellinor) just left - want to wait here?
-And Will says, no, thank you, and goes on his way
-Angst about Mike blowing him off - it’s unfair, Will knows, but he feels like he’s losing his best friend. And worse, he feels like he’s losing his best friend to a girl. A pretty, curly-haired, pink-lipped girl who giggles and likes to put on makeup and watch soap operas. All the things Will isn’t.
-Will is soaked by the time he gets home, but somehow he doesn’t want to go inside - not yet. Some childish, petulant part of him wants to sulk. So he instead goes to Castle Byers.
-Will standing in the rain with his expression dark, hair soaked and bangs dripping strings against his forehead - he’s wearing the same yellow and red striped shirt as when they were in the mall, earlier that day
-Will in Castle Byers, hair wet, while it’s raining, picking up the picture of the Party in their ghostbusters costumes from last Halloween - Will standing next to Mike
-The picture is next to the same picture from Mike’s bedroom, from the Science Fair, where Mike’s body is half-curled around Will’s to hold the trophy, their faces all alight with happiness. That was before, before everything. The two pictures are in a jumble of odds and ends, one tube of paint glossy with a raindrop - Will reaches for the photo on the right, plucks it from the hodgepodge, holds it with both hands.
-Will’s dilemma:
-One: the Party is moving on from what happened - from their childhood
-Instead of playing D&D they went to the mall earlier today
-That new mall where Steve works - the one that’s all chrome and neon, dazzling in a way that made El’s eyes go wide and Will’s squint shut. Everyone else acted like that mall was the greatest thing since Ghostbusters - they went bounding off into the air-conditioned shiny otherworld like rabbits into a warren, all smiles and excited chatter. El in her scrunchie, and Mike attached to her hip - or, more accurately, her hand. And Lucas and Max right behind them, and then Dustin next to Will cracking jokes about how they’re the bachelors of the group. As if they’re already about to part ways for college, as if it wasn’t just last fall that they wore these costumes
-Everyone else seems so eager to move forward with their lives. To be teenagers-almost-adults - to shun the “kid stuff” that they used to like. And Will doesn’t know how they can ignore it so easily when all he wants is for things to go back to how they were before. Before the Mind Flayer, before the Demogorgon, before the constant hospital visits and the too-careful hush in his friend’s voices and the ever-present gleam of worry in his mother’s eyes. Before everything. Why is it so bad to want to play D&D and go to the arcade like they used to, anyway? When did that get boring? Since when is it more fun to go to some loud, flashy mall and pool parties and… and…
- “We’re not kid anymore. I mean, what did you think? We’re just gonna sit in my basement all day? Play games for the rest of our lives?” That’s what Mike said, half exasperated and half confused
-(Will feels like his childhood was cut short and he’s still trying to figure out how to move on and figure out who he is, and it seems like everyone else is so eager to leave him in the dust)
-Three: Will is, at this point (about 8.5 months after the Mind Flayer) coming to terms with the fact that he loves Mike
-He wasn’t sure before. He told himself that’s not what it was, that Mike was just his best friend, that maybe he was confused. He made excuses. But it got harder and harder to explain away, over that year after the Demogorgon, and then… and then the shed.
-It was when Mike said “It was the best thing I’ve ever done” that Will finally, completely admitted to himself - yes, he loved this boy. And in that shadowy half-conscious state, he made a promise to himself: if he survived, he would do something about it. Probably. Maybe. No, definitely - he couldn’t live his whole life without doing something, especially when it was so very clear that he could die on any given day. But then he woke up in the hospital, planning, determined - and Mike burst into the room, just like last time, all smiles, and Will’s heart leapt, and Mike embraced him so tightly his chest hurt - and then Mike pulled back and started talking about El. His girlfriend. And that shimmering, tentative happiness in Will’s chest popped like a soap bubble. And that’s how it was for the next nine months - for the Snow Ball, for Christmas, for Spring Break, everything. MikeandEl, ElandMike.
-And now it’s so much worse than before. Because at least before he could deny it to himself - his hand could twitch with the urge to reach out and take Mike’s and he could think, I’m just cold. It’s just human contact. I was so lonely in the Upside Down, it crossed all my wires. Messed me up. That’s why I keep wanting to scoot my sleeping bag right next to his. That’s why I want to be around him. That’s why my breath caught when he leaned over to bite off a piece of the twizzler that was sticking out of my mouth that one time. It’s just human contact. That’s it.
-But now he knows better. Now that he’s admitted that truth to himself, he can’t stuff it back into the corner of his mind. Now he knows he loves Mike Wheeler - and it doesn’t matter. Because Mike completely, unequivocally loves El.
-And Will - Will loves El too. Of course he does. Just because he wants to strangle her sometimes doesn’t mean he really wants to strangle her. She deserves Mike. She deserves that.
-Will and El formed a quick bond once they were able to actually see each other in person - they bonded over shared trauma, and plus, El is a genuinely good person - if immature at times. She can throw a bit of a fit if things aren’t going her way, but she’s also brave, and kind, and empathetic. And she clearly loves Mike. But it’s hard. And it’s not fair - it’s not fair.
-And it’s around here, when Will is staring at - staring through the rain-splattered photograph in his hands, that he hears someone approaching. He whirls, old bone-deep panic lancing through him for a second, but it’s… it’s Mike. Ducking through the blanket-flap entrance, a curl of his dark hair plastered to his forehead with rainwater.
(To be continued once I actually write this, dun-dun-dun, etc.)
