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bylertruther · 11 months

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do you ever think about how will probably wishes he was braver?

that he could tell mike the truth about himself without having to speak in code. that he could stick to his guns when he's been wronged and stand up for himself rather than tucking tail and turning the other cheek. that he could be less shy, less sensitive, less cowardly, and maybe then his loved ones wouldn't forget about him as often as they do.

maybe then they would pick him first, rather than leaving him for last. maybe then they would want to hang out with him and hear what he has to say. maybe then they would treat him like they used to, like he can still take care of himself just like they can, instead of like a fragile little thing that they pick up only when they need him. maybe then they would care about him as much as he cares about them. maybe then he wouldn't doubt that it could all come crashing down once they know who he really is, and always has been, because the rest of him would've been enough.

like, maybe he wishes he didn't freeze or run away so much. maybe he wishes he wasn't so afraid all the time, of every little thing. that he could be brave like mike, el, or his mom. i mean, el's been through so much, too. why can't he be more like her? why does he have to hide behind her? he hides behind her when the monsters come crawling back, and he hides behind her when he can't bring himself to say what he really means—even after getting on her case about it.

he spent so much time on that painting. he didn't let anyone see it—it was that special to him. why couldn't he own up to that? there's no monster in the van with him; it's just him and mike and this painting of the party, nothing inherently incriminating or romantic, and still—he can't help himself. he retreats back into the shadow, shrinks into himself, and tells lie after lie to the person that he never lies to, that he knows doesn't fucking deserve that, just because he's too scared.

of course he'd feel like a mistake sometimes. of course he'd hate who he is (if That script is to be believed), when he can't even talk to the one person that would understand without lying straight to his face, over and over again, like a fucking hypocrite. of course he'd feel so lost without the person that tells him it's okay to be this way and shows him that there is indeed strength in it. of course he'd hate who he is when he's encouraging someone to be true and speaking about their courage, all while being incapable of taking his own advice, and giving the credit for all of his love and efforts and emotions to someone else.

so many people died to bring him back, so many people died just because he didn't stay dead when maybe he should have, and for what? so that he can continue to hide rather than live his life? so that he can turn into a "worse" version of himself? so that he can live in fear? so that he can continue to ache for a past that he can never return to, while everyone else moves forward and berates him for not doing the same? time stopped in the upside down when will went missing, and he's been stuck there ever since, too. too much has happened for him to move on from. too much has changed—he's changed. he's too different now, in every way, and the older he gets the more clear it becomes.

of course he'd feel like a mistake. of course he'd hate who he is. he's the common denominator here: in his loneliness and in this war. the boy who came back to life when others didn't. the boy that got possessed and couldn't fight it. the boy that turned into a liar and a coward and must learn to live with it, even if it's at his own expense. the boy that can't let go of the past and whom the past won't let go of either, because even after everything, he's still connected to this great evil that won't let him go. they got it out of him, and yet the tether remains, because of-fucking-course it would.

just—why? why him? why can't anything ever go right with him? why is he always the outlier? i think that overwhelming amount of fear, shame, grief, guilt, exhaustion, and loneliness would wear anyone down, let alone a teenager that never asked for any of it and has experiences so unfathomably unique that the only other people that could have possibly understood are literally dead.

#will byers #byler #mine #long post #will #anyway. this is how i always interpreted the i hate WHO i am line especially in conjunction with the word ''mistake'' + being different #within the context of EVERYTHING that's happened to will and continues to happen to him and how unique it is to him in this narrative #bc rly. if you were will.... wouldn't you feel like a mistake? even outside of that outside of the supernatural i'm speaking to my #friends that have ''Something Wrong'' with them. when something happens to you and you're not the same after and you're surrounded #by people who are able to move on and be normal—don't you ever have those moments where you feel like a mistake? when you're #growing up and still interested in your same old interests but your friends start moving on and then you see that they went back to #those interests in your absence—don't you feel like you were the problem then? when people are able to be brave and you can't #find it within yourself to overcome your fear—don't you hate that feeling? don't you feel that negativity towards yourself when you #know that you SHOULD do something but you can't bring yourself to and it works against yourself? like. everything that has happened #to will E V E R Y T H I N G !!!!!!!!!!!!! can easily make anyone no matter what part of him you relate to the most understand that #u kno wht i mean? anyway. i jus wanted to bring this up bc his life is a fucking tragedy even without the gay stuff n his current pov on th #and the way that That conversation always centers on fear and bravery it's like. obviously being gay is not easy in that era but i don't #think that line is ''i hate being gay'' with no factoring in of the great many things that have happened to him which alienate him further #as well as with how he does want mike to know and his alan turing poster and his talk with jonathan etc etc #his conflict has always centered around how other people treat him and his issue with that bc that's what makes him feel bad #that just because he's different that doesn't mean that he's Different and must be treated as such #he's different and has people that make him feel BETTER for it like look at s2 for example all of those talks abt using what he perceives #as a weakness abt himself as a strength that no one else can bring to the table. and in s3 when he still believed in being a nerd #and never getting girlfriends etc but when it came from mike thts when he called himself stupid n started down this path bc now #there's that sprinkle of doubt. n tht doubt is the scariest thing in the world—understandably so #also. he literally has an evil monster in his brain like bdkfjhsbkdjhfbskj IT'S JUST A LOT.#he is different for many reasons and has even more reasons to hate Who he is the kind of person that he is #jus my take 😁👍

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thetomorrowshow · 6 months

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hubris killed the god - ch 6

First Part

this is the final part! thanks for coming along on this one, i really enjoyed writing it :) it kind of makes me want to do more of this style in the future, so thanks for the lovely feedback <3

cw: implied/referenced death, much open discussion about death, blood & injury, non-graphic animal death

Within three days, Shelby is bedridden.

Or, tableridden, rather.

A mattress has been brought into the chapel (Scott’s suspicious that it’s Sausage’s own bed, dragged from the sideroom) in place of the pillows that had been cushioning Shelby’s resting place.

Shelby lies there, mostly unmoving, face pale. When she’s awake, her brow is furrowed in concentration, shaking hands weaving invisible purple webs with her wand (invisible to all but Scott). When she’s asleep, her temperature rises and she tosses and turns with illness, unable to protect herself; it’s often then that Sausage leans over her, muttering under his breath with his hands laid on her head.

At times they work at once, Sausage passing from her head to her cheek to her hand, spilling a drop of whatever is in his tiny cylindrical container at each point and continuing his muttered spells or blessings, while Shelby scrunches her eyes shut and weaves protection spells and health spells and resilience spells.

Scott can’t really tell if any of it is working. The red marks on Shelby’s cheek and hand don’t grow any smaller or larger, they don’t fade or darken. He watches the spells she casts enter her body, he sees the hexes that she weaves, but for all he knows, it’s doing nothing.

For all he knows, Shelby is still dying and he’s been right to not get his hopes up.

Sausage’s magic is less of the visible kind, for the most part, but he can see occasionally the way Sausage seems to wrap Shelby’s hand in golden strings, or the glow that passes from his hands into her hair.

Scott watches more than anyone else, he thinks—not that he’s there in the chapel more than anyone else, just that he watches. fWhip’s there whenever he can make it, sitting beside Shelby and laying his head on her shoulder or helping her eat; Gem reads to Shelby when she’s resting, hands shaking too much to carry out any more spells but feeling too ill to sleep; Katherine just sits beside her, sometimes gripping her hand when she needs it; even False steps in every once in a while, bringing fresh water for both Shelby and Sausage.

Scott doesn’t feel that he does too much to help. He mostly sits in the first pew, keeps an eye on the two of them, noting when Sausage’s prayers begin to stutter or Shelby’s hands list to the side. Then he quietly taps the shoulder of whoever is sitting beside Shelby (or slips out to the foyer where someone will be waiting) and lets them know that the two magic users’ strength is flagging, and they need to rest.

And Jimmy . . . Jimmy doesn’t come by at all.

Jimmy doesn’t even really come into the church anymore. He eats meals out by the fire alone, patrols the border by himself near-constantly, and otherwise avoids everyone.

It’s guilt, Scott thinks. If Shelby hadn’t been ill, he’d probably do the same, ashamed of his decisions and feeling horrible for the people he’s hurt.

And it may be guilt, but it’s also a terrible thing to do. Because Shelby is dying, and everyone is giving what they can to help her or be near her, and Jimmy isn’t even trying.

Every time he remembers how little Jimmy is doing, he does a little more himself. He helps Sausage to a pew for a nap. He offers to readjust Shelby’s pillows. He actually does something, which is more than Jimmy can say.

And when Scott isn’t in the chapel, he’s tracking the border’s changes, marking them with sticks and rocks. Because the border is changing every single day now, shrinking as Sausage focuses his efforts on Shelby.

And when Scott lies in bed at night, he stares at the ceiling and tries to think of ways to escape.

Oli’s dead, for sure. And there’s no way that Joey’s safe, now that they know the mites can swim. For all they know, they’ve already spread to the ocean, devouring every sea creature they come across and multiplying even further.

Pix is gone, whether by some sort of escape that only he could think of or death, Scott can’t know. Shelby’s here, but nobody knows for how long.

There’s nobody else. There’s nothing else. There’s nowhere to go.

They’re trapped in a dwindling Sanctuary, and even if Shelby does survive, they’ll all die not long after.

He considers the Nether—Shelby had managed to travel through it, after all, so it had presumably been relatively mite-free—but immediately dismisses it out of hand. Humans can’t survive long in the Nether—the temperature is just too high. Scott can barely manage the ten minute travel through the portals, there’s no way he could last more than a day before dying of heatstroke.

And then Scott loses track of his thoughts for a moment, tired as he is, and somehow ends up categorizing the various portals by how far they are from Chromia’s. It’s like counting sheep, he thinks idly. Tracking them in his mind as a way to fall asleep. Joel’s is the closest, of course, but there are a bunch of portals kind of all tangled up and he cannot for the life of him remember which color of carpet leads to which portal.

He tries to picture them in his head, holding back a yawn. Jimmy’s is brown, Gem’s is . . . orange? Was Pix grey, or a blue? And what about the fairgrounds, that Oli had built a portal for? Despite there having its own, much more mysterious portal, of course.

A portal, Jimmy had called the Rift. Then he’d said that it had been Lizzie’s plan to head in there.

Scott sits straight up in bed, exhaustion forgotten.

They can go through the Rift.

There’s silence around the campfire after Scott introduces his plan. fWhip and Gem exchange a look. Katherine glances back at the church. False leans back a bit, folds her arms.

Jimmy, however, nods. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about, too,” he says. “I’d say it’s worth a shot to send at least some of us in.”

“Some of us being who?” Gem asks, and there’s something pointed in her voice that Scott doesn’t quite understand.

Jimmy seems to, though, because he inclines his head toward her. “Myself, Katherine, fWhip, and you, I figured,” he says to her, before shrugging. “We could rearrange those if we need to. But Shelby can’t travel, and False ain’t keen on the Rift—” False snorts in acknowledgement— “and Scott can see the border, might protect Sanctuary for a bit longer. That’s my reasoning, least. All good?”

And Scott nods, if only because Jimmy’s the leader.

He wants to go through, but he can’t leave Shelby. Sure, he wants to survive—he’s gotten this far, after all, one of the few left during the apocalypse—but he isn’t going to throw away his friends just for the chance to live.

And again, it’s a chance. Just like how finding Pix had been a chance.

Scott’s not willing to put everything on the line for another chance.

The preparations start immediately.

Gem runs to and fro, reassuring Shelby in one second and sharpening her sword the next, packing food and first aid and everything she can carry.

fWhip trails along beside her, apparently already ready, offering suggestions and chewing so hard on his lip that it starts to bleed.

Katherine hasn’t collected much in her short time here, so she spends her spare moments sitting beside Shelby and Sausage, holding Shelby’s hand whenever it’s available. Scott watches her, sometimes, his eyes catching on their entwined hands, and thinks of all the things that Shelby’s confessed to him over lunch, and wonders.

And Jimmy, again, is the odd one out, wandering through Sanctuary and sitting alone by the campfire.

Scott’s content to leave him to it—he doesn’t know what Jimmy’s thinking and he’s not really interested in knowing—but when Jimmy grabs him by the shoulder early the next morning (the day before they’re set to head out, leaving Scott and False in charge), Scott reluctantly breaks away from his path to the church and follows. He’s a busy man, trying to take over the management of Sanctuary at such a tumultuous time—whatever Jimmy has to say had better be quick.

They walk in silence for a moment. The sun has just broken over the horizon, casting the orange leaves of Sanctuary’s trees into a dim, yellow light. It feels so very autumnal, even though Scott’s fairly certain it’s only just barely September. Maybe there’s some kind of magic involved, like with the rest of Sanctuary, that changes the seasons on a dime. He’s pretty sure that last week when he was out here, the trees had been mostly green.

Those are only idle thoughts, straws grasped at for something to think about so that he isn’t forced to make conversation. Unfortunately, it looks like it’ll be up to him, as Jimmy says nothing for several long minutes.

“Nice out,” Scott offers eventually. Jimmy starts, almost as if he’d forgotten Scott was here.

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugs. “Bit warm for this early, but I ain’t complaining.”

Scott nods slowly. Scuffs at the footpath that travels around the border that they’re following. Jimmy doesn’t say anything else.

Jimmy pauses at a point close to the border on the opposite side of the church, looking out over the plains in the distance, little patches of grass turned black.

“This is the most beautiful part of Sanctuary, I think,” Jimmy murmurs, and Scott tries to see it. He really does.

But there’s not much to it. It’s just a plain, with few of the trees that make Sanctuary so picturesque, stretching far until it slowly climbs into rolling hills.

He nods again, anyway. He’s not sure what Jimmy’s trying to do—connect with him, or apologize before leaving? Try not to part with bad blood?

Because while Scott’s certainly grown some sympathy for the man, he doesn’t have to like him. He doesn’t have to forgive him for ending the world.

Even if, in some strange turn, he wants Jimmy to forgive him for pushing them to look for Pix.

But Jimmy doesn’t ask forgiveness. He doesn’t try to explain his actions, or apologize. Instead, he takes in a deep breath, and says, turning to meet Scott’s eyes, “I want you to go through the Rift.”

Scott blinks. “Sorry, what?”

Jimmy sighs, sits down on a boulder in a familiar way that clearly tells Scott he’s spent quite some time here. “I’m not going. I want you to take my place.”

And that—whatever Scott had expected, it isn’t that.

“Wh-why?”

Jimmy doesn’t answer immediately. He just gazes out over the plains, something lost, something longing in his eyes.

Scott may not forgive Jimmy. He may not like him. But Jimmy’s a good leader, knows how to properly build a community in times of hardship, he knows how to direct. If the other side of the Rift is some new world, untouched by the death that plagues this one, someone will need to be there to help the group survive, rebuild from nothing.

Not Scott. Chromia had been full of llamas and not people for a reason, after all.

And he’s already been preparing to stay back, Jimmy had asked him to stay back and he’d agreed and he’s settled in that decision and that’s final—

“I can’t do that,” he says, and there’s a bit of panic rising in his throat, but he swallows it down as best he can. “I—you’re the leader, I can’t—I don’t—”

“Scott,” Jimmy says softly.

Scott stops.

“I’m not going,” he continues. “And they’ll follow you. Even False will follow you, if you can convince her. But I can’t go through the Rift.”

“Why not?”

Jimmy chews on the inside of his cheek. The fire that normally burns so brightly behind his eyes is dim, his body hunched over itself a little bit. He fiddles with his vest a little, then looks out again over the plains.

“It was in the catacombs,” Jimmy starts, his voice still lower than Scott’s ever heard before. “I was marking our path with chalk. And. . . .”

He shakes back the cuff of his right sleeve, and there, on his wrist, is a tiny pink splotch, raw scrapes from where it’s clearly been scratched at swelling it further.

Scott stares.

“I didn’t know what to say,” Jimmy says, a bit of a wry smile playing upon his lips. “Not when we couldn’t stop moving while we were down there. Not when Shelby needed comfort. Not when we need to focus everything on her.”

Oh.

Jimmy’s dying, too.

And Scott supposes he ought to feel something about that—sadness, at losing another friend; relief, that the killer who began this whole thing will meet his end; even despair at the loss of their leader.

He doesn’t feel any of that, though.

He mostly feels tired.

“We might be able to heal you,” he offers. The words come out halfhearted, as genuine as they are. “If it works with Shelby, we can do it with you, right? We can just put off the Rift thing until you’re both better.”

“And if Shelby doesn’t get better?”

Scott looks away.

“I want to stay,” Jimmy says. “I do. But I can’t. And maybe it’s selfish, Scott, but I don’t want them to know that . . . that I’ve been hiding this from them.”

“Like you hid the stuff about Joel from me.”

Jimmy grimaces. “Yeah. I’m not really good with confrontations like that. You saw what happened. But I couldn’t just leave without telling someone, you know?”

“So . . . you’re leaving,” Scott says. He glances out toward the plains, the little patches of darkness that mar them. “To—what, to become like Oli? Instead of staying here, where we can help you . . . go peacefully, I guess?”

Jimmy shakes his head. “I don’t care much for the idea of staying in bed, all still and sick ‘til it’s over. I figure I’ll just head out quietly, yeah? I already packed my bag. I just wanted to make sure someone could be in charge.”

“I’m not a leader,” Scott reminds him. “What about fWhip?”

“fWhip’s a follower,” Jimmy shoots back instantly. “He gets too stressed to actually lead.”

“Katherine?”

“I don’t think she’ll want to go through the Rift,” Jimmy says. He’s clearly given this a lot of thought. “She said she’d come, but I bet my bootstraps she’ll back out last minute. And not Gem, either,” Jimmy adds when Scott opens his mouth. “Scott, I chose you because you’re the one who fought back when you thought I’d made a wrong choice. You spoke up. And not just then—you suggest your own plans all the time. You’re a leader, even if you don’t know it.”

Scott wants to argue. He wants to tell Jimmy all the ways he wouldn’t be a good leader, all the times he’s screwed up, all the illegal things he’s done.

But there isn’t time.

There is time, however, to spend another moment with Jimmy, so Scott heaves himself onto the boulder beside him and leans, just a little bit, against him.

Jimmy tenses, then slowly, carefully, rests his head on Scott’s shoulder.

Scott can feel through his shirt that Jimmy’s forehead is a decent bit warmer than it ought to be.

They just sit there, as the sun rises, leaning against each other, staring out at the plains beyond the border. The world is silent, no wildlife left to wake up.

It’s strange, Scott thinks, because for all the various emotions he’s felt about Jimmy—the small crush he’d had for so long that had given way to anger and a little fear when he’d learned of Joel’s fate, the affection, the apprehension, the respect, the irritation—he feels absolutely nothing in this moment.

After maybe ten minutes, Jimmy’s muscles tense (as if he’s preparing to carry something heavy) and he pulls away, brushes off his wrinkled shirt, and stretches his arms out.

“I should probably head out before the town wakes up,” he says. “Get away before anyone can stop me.”

“Sure,” Scott says, quiet, then adds, “what do you want me to tell them?”

Jimmy pauses, looks in the direction of the church (obscured by the woods) and then back to the plains. “Not the truth,” he says eventually. “I don’t care what. Better to let ‘em believe I’m a deserter, probably. I don’t want them to try and find me.” He idly scratches at the spot on his wrist, before adding, voice quieter, “And I don’t want them to be sad. I don’t want them to have to grieve me. It’s better for them to be angry, I think.”

Which Scott thinks is unfair to Jimmy’s memory (not that he’s a memory yet), but. Dying men and their wishes and all that.

“Where are you planning on going?”

“Wander,” says Jimmy. “See if I can find a way to kill those buggers. Look for Pix, maybe. Then die peaceful-like in a ditch, probably.”

Scott doesn’t laugh at the poor attempt at a joke. Jimmy doesn’t either. Instead, the Sheriff gives him a sad smile, picks up his satchel that had been leaning against the boulder unnoticed, and steps across the border.

Scott sits there and watches until he’s just a speck in the distance, swallowed up by the hills.

“And what, he didn’t even give you a reason? He just left?” Gem demands, and Scott’s never seen her this angry.

He shrugs helplessly. “That’s all I know. I woke up, I came over to check on Shelby, he left me in charge, and then he left.”

If Scott’s omitting certain irrelevant parts of the story, nobody will ever know. Because despite the way it itches at him uncomfortably, it had been Jimmy’s dying wish to not tell them why he’d left.

“I can’t believe this,” Gem huffs. “I thought he actually cared. Forget him.”

fWhip’s sequestered himself awkwardly in the corner of the foyer, arms hugged tight around himself. His eyes are shining in the dim light, and Scott looks away quickly before he can confirm them to be tears.

Katherine’s angry as well, arms folded tightly over her chest, hair coming out of its braid. “Coward. Doesn’t want to face what we’d do to him if the Rift takes us someplace safe.”

Scott cringes internally. He doesn’t speak up.

“So, Jimmy ran for it,” Gem says, counting on her fingers. “Jimmy ran, Shelby’s down, Sausage is with her. Pix is gone, Oli’s gone, Joey’s probably gone. Lizzie left. Tomorrow, half of us are going through the Rift.” She sighs. “Soon there’ll be no one left.”

“Well, if the Rift works out, we can come back and send everyone through,” Scott points out. “Even though there’d be no one left, at least we’d be alive.”

Everyone across the room nods. fWhip sniffles quietly.

“So,” Scott says after a moment (they’d all been waiting for something to be said, and it was usually Jimmy’s job but now Scott has Jimmy’s job and he’s not ready for this responsibility—). “We’re leaving tomorrow. Can someone fill me in on the plan, please?”

Scott finds himself sitting on that boulder, overlooking the plains (which are still unimpressive compared to literally every other view of Sanctuary). He hadn’t even known this boulder existed, in more than a passing sense, until Jimmy showed it to him this morning.

He doesn’t have time to mourn, no time to mourn anything that’s happened over the past couple of months, but he does have a moment to sit by himself and mentally prepare for the plan that they've spent the past hour going over.

Or at least, he thinks he does, because he’s barely been there for ten minutes when someone clambers onto it beside him.

“Hey,” Katherine says.

“Hey.”

She sighs, looks out over the plains and the mites that inhabit them. “Terrible view,” she comments after a moment.

Scott snorts. “Exactly what I thought.”

Silence.

Scott hasn’t had much to do with Katherine—she helped him stitch a copy of his fedora, of course, but outside of that afternoon of sewing, they haven’t really hung out. Not like he has with Shelby, or Jimmy, or Joel.

All of his friends are dead or dying.

Except Sausage. Everyone always seems to overlook Sausage.

“He liked you, you know,” Katherine says out of the blue.

Scott chokes a little bit. “Sorry?”

“Jimmy,” she says, as if it’s obvious. “I know you had a thing for him. If you’d asked him out, he would’ve said yes.”

Right. Well, that’s a revelation that Scott doesn’t have time to process. And unfair of her to put on him. “Did you ever ask Shelby out?” he asks dryly.

Katherine inclines her head. “Touche.”

“I had a thing for Jimmy, he had a thing for Joey, Joey had a thing for you, you had a thing for Shelby—if anyone tried to pair off, it would’ve caused wars.”

“Or a big, happy polycule,” Katherine suggests. “Then maybe none of this would’ve happened. And Jimmy can still be the leader, which would keep his ego soothed."

Scott frowns. “Wait, why does Jimmy get to lead the polycule?”

Katherine gives him a look. “Oh, come on,” she says. “Literally all of you guys were down so bad for him. Gem and I used to bet on who would crack first and confess.”

And Scott had thought he’d been rather subtle about his affections for Jimmy. The Sheriff tended to eschew romance in general (he’d always looked out of his depth when Scott tried to talk about Katherine’s little love triangle), so Scott had been careful about not overwhelming him or crossing any boundaries. In fact, he’d become so used to dissociating romance from Jimmy, he must have not noticed several fellow rulers pining after the Sheriff.

Which is kind of disappointing. He must’ve missed out on months of gossip.

And it’s all in the past, now.

“So, about tomorrow. . . .” Katherine starts.

“You don’t want to come,” guesses Scott. She turns a shocked look on him.

“How—? Never mind. You’re just a natural leader, I guess.” She takes a deep breath. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it, and I want to stay with Shelby.”

Scott nods. “I figured,” he says. He didn’t. Jimmy figured, and Scott’s just passing along his assumptions.

Now, more than ever, Scott understands why everyone else valued Jimmy being a good leader despite his murderous tendencies.

“Right. Well, is that cool?” she asks.

He’d love to have Katherine with him when they come out on the other side of the Rift, knowing nothing about what might be waiting for them.

But on the other hand, he won’t pull her away from Shelby in what’s possibly Shelby’s final days.

“It’s not a problem,” he says. “I’ll see if False will join us instead. I’m not going to make you do anything. And I think Shelby needs you more than I do.”

Katherine shoots him a small smile. “Yeah. Thanks. But if everything works out, we’ll all be headed through soon, anyway.”

“Hopefully Sausage has another sheep.”

“Right.”

It’s not healthy to suppress emotions like this (Scott’s well aware of that, if nothing else), but he finds himself relieved that he doesn’t feel more than a distant sadness at Katherine’s decision to stay.

“You know,” Katherine says after a moment, “I knew Jimmy decently well. And if there’s one thing I know about him, it’s that he isn’t a coward.”

Scott doesn’t say anything. Just remembers that when he told them all what had happened, the first thing Katherine had done was call Jimmy a coward. Words of anger, perhaps? Or is her new admission a lie?

“It . . . it hurts to know that he just left us. I can’t decide if he had a reason, or if it really was just running away.” She sighs. “Everyone’s selfish when it comes down to it, I guess.”

Scott nods. “Yeah,” he finds himself agreeing. Just hours ago, he’d sat on this boulder with Jimmy leaning against him, feverish and likely hallucinating as he gathered the strength to strike off alone.

And just two months ago, Jimmy had killed a god out of quick-tempered anger and selfishness, dooming the world.

“Yeah,” Scott says again. “It’s what makes us human, I guess.”

Sausage, tired as he is, gives Scott a warm hug before they leave.

“Take care, Scott,” he whispers, beard tickling Scott’s ear. Scott nods, swallows back the lump in his throat.

“You too. Get Shelby better, yeah?”

Sausage doesn’t respond, just squeezes him and turns back to Shelby.

Shelby doesn’t acknowledge Scott when he bends over to give her a hug, her eyes squeezed shut and heat radiating off of her. He doesn’t say anything, just holds her tight for a solid ten seconds.

Katherine gives him a quick hug on the way out, and Gem and fWhip and False are waiting on the airship already (with the sheep just hanging out behind them, which is a ludicrous sight), so he hurries along and clambers up to join them, adjusting his backpack on his shoulders and his trusty shovel at his hip.

“Bye!” Katherine waves from the ground. Gem waves back right as the turbines start spinning and the airship slowly takes off.

Scott grips the railing, staring down over Sanctuary. From this height, he can tell that the protective magic around the town is beginning to fail. It’s patchy, almost open, from above, and it’s shrunk so much that the houses on the edge of town are beginning to fall outside of the line.

Some sort of emotion wells up in Scott, and he isn’t sure if it’s fear or grief or what, just knows that it’s making his stomach turn.

Whether or not the Rift thing works out, he probably won’t ever see Sanctuary again.

He may never see Sausage or Shelby again. He’ll never see Chromia, or the Evermoor, or Tumble Town, or any of this world ever again.

Scott heaves a sigh, then turns around, to find fWhip and Gem watching him.

“Sorry, what?” he blinks a few times. “Did you—did you say something?”

fWhip shrugs. “You’re the leader now,” he says awkwardly. “Just waiting for you to go over the plan.”

“I just learned the plan from you yesterday,” Scott points out. “Surely you know it better than me.”

“I guess, but . . . Jimmy always did it.”

“Right.” Scott forgot that he would actually have responsibilities. He’d never paid much attention to what Jimmy did, other than run himself into the ground patrolling and cause the apocalypse. “Um. False will drop the sheep on the other side of the river from the Rift, hopefully attracting the mites. We head through the Rift while they’re distracted. That’s . . . that’s it.”

Gem frowns. “I expected more.”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. More.”

Scott rolls his eyes. “Well, I don’t have anything else to say. Give me a couple of minutes, I’ll make something up.”

fWhip actually grins a little. Which is great, because Scott’s pretty sure he’s barely stopped crying since yesterday.

Then he turns back, and watches the miles pass below them until he can see the mountain that holds the pulsing Rift in the distance, the ground around it so overwhelmed by mites that the terrain is no longer familiar. Somewhere within the festival grounds that had never been properly used is a torn flag hanging from a bent flagpole, tatters flapping in the wind.

Finally, whatever it is in Scott’s stomach resolves itself into a properly identifiable feeling.

He feels fear.

Which, unsurprisingly, he doesn’t have time for.

“We all know the plan?” he finds himself yelling over the sound of the airship, as if they hadn’t just gone over it. Gem and fWhip nod, fWhip already leading the sheep to the edge.

Just as False passes over the river, by the bridge, fWhip shoves the bleating sheep overboard.

Even from as far up as they are, Scott hears it hit the ground with a crunch and cringes, wishing he’d thought to cover his ears.

But it works.

The mites that had been squirming around the Rift begin to crawl en masse in the direction of the sheep, where already a few lucky mites are devouring the thing. They’re going to have to move fast—this is in no way a permanent solution, especially considering the multiplication that’s going to take place.

Scott throws the rope ladder over the side when False halts the airship, looks around for—for no one, he’s the leader, he has to go first.

And he’s right—he’ll need to move faster than ever, what with the still sizable collection of mites below him.

Scott swallows, his mouth utterly dry. There’s a pretty good chance this is the last thing he’ll ever do. There’s no guarantee that there’s even anything more than a hellscape on the other side of the Rift.

But if this is his last act, at least he won’t have to be in charge any more.

Scott swings himself over the railing and finds his footing on the waving rope ladder, before hauling himself down as quickly as he can. The wind is blowing the ladder all over the place, and it’s all Scott can do to hold on and not die of fright, but his arms (somehow growing used to this) hold firm and his toes curl around the rope and he somehow, gloriously, makes it to the bottom.

He starts yelling at the top of his lungs before he even touches the ground, nonsense and folk tunes and wordless, whatever he can think of, just to frighten the darkness away a bit. He starts glaring as soon as he can look away from his own feet, clearing a nice space for fWhip and Gem to land.

Scott double-checks that his pant legs are tucked into his boots, then draws his shovel, holding it threateningly above his shoulder, ready to hit any mite that steps out of line.

There’s a lot of them. The grass is worn down around the Rift (so close Scott can hear it thrumming with power) by so many plaguelings stacked here, as if they know that a portal could lead to more places to corrupt but can’t figure out how to enter.

Scott’s voice cracks. He’s alone down here, surrounded by mites, the only way out is across that rickety bridge and even then it might—

Gem jumps the last couple of rungs, landing heavily on her feet beside Scott. fWhip scurries down the ladder right behind her, and then it’s just the three of them against the world.

“Ready to go?” Scott shouts. Gem nods, and her mouth’s moving but Scott can’t hear her over the sound of his own voice and the departing airship. She nods again, though, drawing her sword with one hand and holding onto fWhip with the other.

fWhip nods as well, his ears flapped over themselves to muffle the noise. Scott takes in a breath—they’re leaving it’s time to leave they’ll finally be out of here—and turns toward the Rift.

They have to cross the bridge, first. And as Scott takes his first step across it, the wood below his feet gives and his foot crashes through the bridge.

Scott loses track of his constant stream of noise, crying out in pain as the splintered wood scrapes up his leg like fire, all the way up to his knee, tearing through cloth and skin. There’s a mite just a few feet away from him, and surely more out of sight—he can’t stop here, he can’t catch his breath, he can’t wait for the pain to lull for a moment—it hurts and his stomach feels like it’s fallen out of his body but he can’t stop—so Scott grits his teeth and yanks his leg up, the wood scraping right back down the marks it just made until he’s properly standing again.

“Scott!” Gem grabs onto him, pulling him back a couple of steps—Scott hisses at the weight on his leg—

fWhip darts forward, testing the bridge on all fours, tail swinging out behind him for balance. It bends beneath him, but it doesn’t break like it had for Scott, and fWhip manages to cross entirely.

“One at a time,” he calls back. “And be careful—I think they’re swarming under it!”

Scott bites back a snarky response. He knows to be careful—it’s not like it was his fault the bridge broke under him. But he gingerly steps around the hole in the bridge and tiptoes across, his leg smarting, skin now bared to the wind.

Gem joins him on the other side. The Rift is within reach now, warm and pulsing purple, just a couple of meters away and they’re home free.

There are quite a few mites waiting between them and the Rift, however. That’s certainly an issue, but not unmanageable. He handled more in Stratos, probably.

Scott starts swinging with his shovel, yelling every curse he can think of, but he’s only cleared a few before fWhip grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him roughly to look to his right.

Returning from across the river, sheep entirely gone, is a veritable wave of death.

The mites are piled higher than Scott is tall, practically twice his height, an amorphous being that looms over them like Joel once had.

Scott’s mind goes utterly blank. All he can hear is the pounding of his heart in his ears. All he can feel is his limbs shaking.

It’s moving fast, the shadow of the plague passing over them as the pile begins to collapse, in a matter of seconds mites will be raining down and latching onto them and they’ll die under the assault of so much death and Scott can’t make himself move—

Then Gem shoves him, and instinct kicks in.

Scott grabs Gem by the hand, fWhip by the arm, and runs.

He runs, and fWhip trips and Scott doesn’t let go, just hoists him back up with a strength he’s never had before and keeps going, because they’re going to die if they stay here and Scott’s never been more afraid in his life—

Something hits his back and bounces off—then again and again. Scott just has a moment to spare a thought, a prayer to whoever is listening that it didn’t touch his skin, and then he has to focus every thought he has on getting out.

Gem screams something, fWhip yells “We’re gonna make it!” and Scott bites his cheek and closes his eyes and his shoe catches on a stone—

Scott tumbles headfirst into the Rift.

The first sound he hears is the chirping of birds.

#empires smp #empires smp s2 #empires smp fanfic #scott smajor #jimmy solidarity #katherine elizabeth #hubris au #mas writes #111423 #thank you all so much for coming along on this one #holy molyyyy #i do want to say that i'm absolutely obsessed with how scott perceives jimmy in this chapter #im just. im literally so proud of how scott ends his and katherine's conversation #about jimmy #the idea that like. there is potential for monstrous in the human #and it's /part/ of being human not an outlying factor #that jimmy's selfishness does not separate him from his love #and every aspect of a person can be good or bad depending on a situation #and the choices they make #it's ugly to see but those who hurt us are human. they do human things. and one of those human things is hurting people #man idk if im explaining this right but it means so much to me #also just scott's emotional repression when dealing with this #so that he still cares he's just so tired. so withdrawn from emotions as a whole #that was a common theme that i tried to insert: in emergency situations the drastic becomes considerable #bc in order to survive all emotions have had to be packaged away #anyways lmk what you think!#love you guys

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