Work Text:
The ceiling of Starcourt mall has fallen through, and as the smoke of the fireworks dissipates, you can see the stars. They glow brighter than you remember like they seemed to do all those years ago on the beach in California.
Everything hurts.
Beside you, someone is crying. Her warm hands are on your body, and you long to curl into the gentleness because you’ve missed it. The ground is cold beneath you, sticky with your blood, and you breathe.
Slowly.
You pretend that you’re on the beach that the girl showed you. You can hear your mama’s laughter in the wind as she teaches you to surf. Then the sun sets, and she shows you how to build a fire pit to roast marshmallows and make s’mores until your hands are sticky with chocolate. And above you, the stars glitter like watchful jewels, and you wonder if they saw this coming.
They look at you now, and you want to ask them if this is how it ends for you. On the floor of a cracked mall, in a place you hate, surrounded by people watching you die like they’ve been waiting for it.
She gently lifts your head, curls sticking to the floor thick with your blood. She cradles you in her lap, sobbing into your bloody hair. Look, you want to say, we’re both red-heads now. But you don’t. Your throat hurts. Maybe from those chemicals, you drank, maybe from all the screaming, maybe you’re tired of talking.
Slowly, you lift your hand, cup her cheeks and try to tell her you’re sorry. She says something, blue eyes blown wide with fear, gesturing outside your darkening vision. Tired, your arm drops with a thump, but the pain doesn’t register; it just melts with the burning agony in your side.
Is it dead?
Did I kill the monster? Max? Did I do something right?
Something is placed on your ears. Headphones, attached to a Walkman. There’s a muffled scratch, but you blink as music starts to play. It drowns everything out. It’s just you and the stars now.
Well, I'm sitting on a stone
Sitting all alone
Daisies are rolling down the mountain
You might be humming along. Everything seems soft and warm like you’re floating on a cloud. You love this song.
Well see the lonesome tramp
Who's living in the damp
Nobody's in the valley
Behind you, the monster is dead. Its monstrous form dying just like you are. Two in one. That had terrified you, the monster. It hadn’t been the first one you met, but it had been the only one to take complete command of you, your body, your mind.
It had been the only one to kill you.
Shine on, Shine on sun
Oh it's so cold right here
Shine on, Shine on sun
Shine on all night long
All night long
The stars seem to move as the song continues. Swirling and twirling as if performing a dance, a slow waltz to your dying song. You blink, and your eyelashes clump together with tears, slipping down your face.
Someone is stroking your hair.
Baby doll, I'm sad and blue
Glossy wings will carry you
Well, midnight sun will never shine
Just ravings of a fool
You're think and lough about him all the time
You wonder if your dad will miss you. He’s wanted you gone for a long, long time, but he also never wanted you to leave. Maybe, as you’ve often thought, this is the only way.
He took you camping sometimes, back when he still liked you. Taught you how to fish and pitch a tent, and he laughed when you dropped the fish back in the lake, even ruffled your hair and said he was proud of you. Both of you looked at the stars, and he even taught you some of the constellations.
Shine on, Shine on sun
Oh it's so cold right here
Shine on, Shine on sun
Shine on all night long, all night long
All night long, yeah
Everything is burning. Like hot knives digging deep into your side, you want someone to pull it out. You want someone to make it stop.
Bodies move around you, flickering shadows on the edge of your vision, just out of reach. They’re all leaving now. Leaving you.
One day baby told you sun just fades away
Forgot your life is fading, now he's in the grave
Some days like drifting haze
Some days like glowing blaze
Some days like tides of light
Some days like tides of night
Max is going away. You want to tell her you’re sorry again but feel like you’re drowning. Choking. Everything’s muffled, quiet. You can barely hear the song anymore.
You hum it anyway.
One day baby told you sun just fades away
Forgot your life is fading, now he's in the grave
Some days like drifting haze
Some days like glowing blaze
Some days like tides of light
Some days like tides of night
The stars seem closer now like they’re beckoning you to them. You feel yourself float. At first, you fear that you're trapped again, that the monster has taken over, but it’s still dead. And so are you.
You stand outside your body, crumpled and so, so small and laugh. Because it’s finally over.
You don’t need to be scared anymore.
Travelling along a tropic highway
Crazy as the world goes round and round
Hallowed heaven, night or day
Burning thing has putting the sun away
They carry your body away, but you can still hear the fading music. You stand in the ruined mall with the monster that was you, and you helped kill and decide to let go.
Shine on, Shine on sun
Let it shine on all night long
Shine on, Shine on sun
Let it shine on all night long
The stars are really lovely after a hurricane.