AN: I don't think I've written something this angsty since when I was still writing Harry Potter fics way back in 2000! That's like, 7 years people! Anyway, I wrote this really late at night when I was having an off day, and I'd watched V for Vendetta for maybe the hundredth time. Still, I really like the end result. I listened to a really sad piece of music from V for Vendetta called "Valerie", just FYI. Enjoy, and leave me some love.
The Night the Stars Went Out
We are going to die here.
They know it, and I know it. I've known it from the start. Some wars, no matter how right and great they are, can't be won. Sometimes even the good guys loose the battle, and they go down in history as the bad guys. The right things become wrong, the wrong things become common. Different becomes scary. I know how history works.
I never wanted them to find out. They were so innocent when all this began. Even Blake, who'd lost so much already. Tori, Dustin, Shane… they were never meant to see times like these. I wish I could have protected them.
Hunter, though, Hunter was different. He'd known how it worked, but he'd refused to accept it. Now, he might be the one falling hardest of all.
Sitting here in the semi-darkness, facing their deaths only hours away, I can only wonder what's going through each of their heads.
Tori is hurt badly, but she doesn't want us to know. She's been resting her head on Blake's lap for the better part of an hour, but rest is far from near. Blake isn't here. The look on his face says he's somewhere far away, and who could blame him. Maybe he's wondering what his life should have been like.
Shane stands guard at the entrance like a looming guardian angel, fully aware of what is to come. Probably trying to figure out a way he could have stopped all this. But none of that matters now.
Dustin might be the only one of us really asleep. It isn't because he doesn't care, or because he doesn't understand; he understands perfectly. Maybe that's why he sleeps. What better way to spend your last few hours on earth that in a dream of a better world?
Why is the world so unfair? I can't help but wonder as I look out over my friends, my teammates, my comrades. What great things might they have done? What would their children have been like? I never thought I'd care so much about a group of people in my life. I never dreamed I would get so attached. It seems only fitting now that when I'd finally realize it, it would be too late.
I guess that's the way things go. We don't get to decide the important things. We make little choices, like what to eat for breakfast, or what clothes to wear, or what kind of car to drive. We choose where to go to school and what to study and what kind of music to listen to. The important things, though… those things just happen. You don't choose who to trust, or who becomes your friend. You don't get to choose who you fall in love with. Those things just happen.
Hunter is sitting beside me now, his head leaned back up against the wreckage of my chair. I wish I could guess what he's thinking. I've never been able to, though, so it wouldn't be proper to start now.
"We're never going to see the stars again," Hunter whispers to me wistfully.
I want to snort or laugh, but I can't bring myself to do it. "That's what you're thinking about?"
Hunter grins sheepishly, as only Hunter can. It's a look he reserves especially for me, and I've never noticed that until this moment. "Well. There are some other things on my mind." He admits. "None of them are worth mentioning, though."
I have some things worth mentioning. There is so much I want to say, and so little time left to say it. There are things I should have said long ago, to everyone; things they needed to hear, things I wanted to tell them, things I wish I'd said.
I don't want to wish I'd said things to Hunter and never say them. He deserves more than that. Hunter, who has put up with me through all things. He's earned my trust, but it's more than that. He's earned my heart, and even though I've never said it I know he knows.
But we're going to die here. And before we die I want him to hear it. I don't care who else hears; I'd shout it from the rooftops if I could. Only I can't. So this will have to be good enough.
"I love you," I mention casually, and Hunter grins over at me.
"Now who's getting sentimental?" He wants to know. It's a warning. He's telling me not to start, because he's so close to the brink that I might -and most likely will- push him over the edge and he doesn't want that.
But it's not like I can stop now. "I love everything about you. Your hair, your eyes… they way you kiss my neck, and the way you hold my hand. I even love the annoying way you rearrange my things, and the way you never close your mouth when you chew."
It's stupid, I know. Now I'm seeing all the mundane things that make Hunter who he is, and I can't help but love him. The things that would have annoyed me yesterday seem comforting now.
Hunter kisses me then, probably to shut me up, but it's one of the most beautiful kisses we've ever shared. It's sad, and regretful, and filled with all of this passion and bittersweet love for the life we'll never get to have. There are so many things I would have shared with him, so many things I wanted to be with him for. Now, it seems like all of that has been ripped away from us too soon, and this is the very last thing we'll get to share. This kiss, sweet and inviting and filled with memories and hopes and dreams that will never be fulfilled.
I knew the very first time I kissed Hunter that his lips were the last ones I ever wanted to kiss again.
It was on the beach. The sun was setting, and it seems more romantic looking back than it did at the time. We were alone, lying in the sun at the end of a tiring day. I could feel him looking at me, even through my closed eyelids.
I felt myself blushing, and then he blocked the sun over my face and I opened my eyes. I didn't know at the time how familiar the site of Hunter staring down at me would become.
"You're blushing, Cameron." Hunter used my full name like an affectionate reprimand.
"You're blocking my sun, Hunter." I didn't move as he stared me down, probably judging my reaction.
"Yeah." He agreed a while later. "Too bad about that."
And he kissed me, like it was the most natural thing in the world. I'd known in that very moment, though I'd never wanted to admit it, that I was going to spend the rest of my life putting up with Hunter Bradley.
And I have. It's been the most wonderful year of my life. I wouldn't have traded it for anything.
It seems strange now, as Hunter pulls away from me to look at me sadly, that I might never kiss him again. I've never been happier than when I am with him. I'm glad I'm with him at the end.
"Do you wish you'd done things differently?" Hunter asks me quietly.
"If I had, I might never have met you." I answer ruefully as Hunter's hand tangles in my own. "But I wish I'd met you sooner. I wish I'd told you more things."
Hunter lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles. "I know everything I need to know, Cam. I know you love me, and that's enough. I know I love you, and that's all that matters." I can feel the tear he presses into my skin as he holds my hand close to his face. "But it isn't fair.
"It isn't fair that our lives should be over before they've even begun. It isn't fair that I found you, only to loose you so soon. It isn't fair that for the first time in my life I have a reason to live… and I'm about to die." Hunter sobs softly into my hand.
I reach over to him and pull him to me, but it doesn't make either of us feel any better. Because it isn't fair.
I can hear rustling on the other side of the room, and I remember that our confessions have not been private. It doesn't matter anymore. All I want to do it hold Hunter next to me until the end.
It's seems so strange to be facing my own death and the deaths of my friends in complete calm. I never thought it would end like this.
Even I can't see everything in the future. All I know, is that for one year out of my twenty four, I was happy. For one year, I had hopes; I had dreams. I have known more love in one year than most people know in a lifetime, and if I must die now, at least I die with the people I love. With the people who love me.
"It's time." Shane's rough voice echoes in the quiet calm before the storm. "I'm really going to miss you all."
"We did the best that we could, dude. It was all anybody could have asked." Dustin is awake and standing, his face sullen.
As the rest of us stand, Tori's smile floods the room with light. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be, that right here. With all of you."
Her words bring a tear to my eyes, and I can see Shane struggling not to cry at the front.
This is the end. This is the close. Where we go now, we will never return. I know that. Evil has taken everything from us, and it is about to take our lives.
But there is one thing it can not take, one thing that will remain ours even in death. It is small and it is fragile but it is immortal, and we will never let it go. In the end, it will remain.
Our love will never die. Our love for one another, for our world, for which we are about to die, will remain. And knowing that, I can go to my end.
I don't think I can possibly make you understand that, but I hope you try to understand when I tell you that love is the most powerful thing any of us possess'. You must never let them take it from you, and you must never let it die. I hope you understand when I tell you that I love you, with all my heart. It is the only thing I can give you, and the only thing you will remember when this moment is past.
Hunters hand grips mine, and I look at him for the very last time. "I love you. I think I always loved you."
He grins for me. "I'd have loved you even if I never met you." He whispers. "I'll see you soon."
We are fragile creatures, human beings. We are capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. In the end, and only in the end, do we understand how small we really are.
My only regret is that we never saw the stars again.