#usually all the fights against darth vader are in like dim lighting

[bberry005]

absolutely losing it at the polar opposite perspective we get on darth vader during rebels. kanan and ezra encounter him and there's a dramatic lead up to the cameo and they're like "who the FUCK is that???". they fight him and lose terribly. at least until they drop several tons of heavy machinery on him. but then he survives! and then they're like "if that won't kill him what can?!" "not us. let's go!". there's no drama, no extremely emotional dialogue, no agony over the man he used to be and the monster he became. just "hey what is that? a SITH LORD? that sounds like 1-800-NOT OUR PROBLEM!!!" and then they go back to doing whatever they normally do

[ace-din-djarin]

*peaks over counter* could I possibly have....some Luke whump with Din being protective? *Ducks back under counter*

@ameliajessicawilliamspond

Hi!! Sorry for the delay... I hope this fill meets your expectations!! It's so fun to write Luke whump, tbh. Poor bby. I went a little nuts with it, like always...

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When they finally found themselves cornered, Grogu cowering in Din’s arms and Din weaponless, ready to defend the child to the death-- it wasn’t much of a choice for Luke to step forward and surrender himself, and let them take him. They descended on him like the birds on Tatooine that would wait for a creature to be close to death, and then swoop down for the kill. The troopers dragged him forward, away from Din and Grogu, and the last thing he saw before they hit him with a stunner was the look on Grogu’s face. The last thing he felt was Din’s fury and fear, roaring from him through the force like wildfire, before it cut off abruptly along with the rest of Luke’s awareness.

He had no way of knowing whether what they were doing to him was what they would have done to Grogu, or if they were devising new and even more cruel methods just for him. He found it didn’t matter much. If what they had planned for Grogu was even a sliver of what they did to him, it was worth it. Even if they hadn’t been planning to hurt or experiment on the child at all— and he doubted that— but even if they hadn’t, just keeping Grogu from feeling alone and scared, the way he had way back when Moff Gideon had kidnapped him and held him on that huge star destroyer, it was worth it. It was all worth Luke’s sacrifice.

The cruel med droids, stripped of all personality and wielding scalpels and hypos full of unknown substances; the cold-eyed officers and scientists who wouldn’t come near unless Luke was trussed up, force suppression cuffs on his wrists and a double dose of suppressant drugs burning in his veins; the troopers who stood, silent and unmoving, at the door to his cell, two inside and two out, watching him, never giving him a moment alone, even when he screamed and retched and shook… All of it was worth keeping Grogu safe. Keeping Din safe. Their family, their small clan, it was what mattered. Nothing else.

In the dark of the night, when he lay on the cold durasteel bench of his cell under the eyes of two stormtroopers, blasters held across their chests in warning, Luke felt that perhaps this was penance as well as sacrifice. He stared at the troopers, the white of their armor gleaming dully in the dim lights overhead, and considered just how many of their brethren he had murdered. There were those who had been aboard the Death Star, of course — by far his worst, most heinous act — but there were also those who had fallen by his blade, or his blaster, or by Rebel plots he helped to fabricate. He reached out, in the small gaps of time when the suppressants started to wear off and circumnavigating the cuffs was bearable, and felt the troopers’ small threads of light brush against his mind, considering just how many other threads he had snipped. Surely enough to weave hundreds of miles of fabric, within the Force. So many beings— and in the Force, it did not matter their affiliation or creed, they lived just the same— whose lives he had cut short.

The officers who presided over the scientists’ experiments definitely knew who Luke was. They watched with stiff shoulders, with hands fisted in rage... but they hesitated, and they didn’t look him in the eye. Din had told Luke about Gideon, how he had tried to kill himself when he realized Luke was there on his star destroyer, and he supposed these officers viewed him in much the same way. A power both feared and respected, something strange and monstrous, a dark cloaked figure that flitted through Imperial nightmares. A truly fitting form for Darth Vader’s son.

Time passed in hazy, half-acknowledged spurts. The artificial light of the cruiser’s cell block never shut off, and the trooper’s schedules seemed to be random; he watched them with as much awareness as he could muster, but never seemed to be able to latch on to a system that would tell him how long each day was. Even their experiments and interrogation seemed to be done at random intervals. Sometimes he would go what felt like days with only the two troopers for company, and at others he was shaken awake in the middle of sleep and dragged off hours after their last session.

It was during one of these sessions-- woozy from drugs, from lack of sleep and food, from the constant blank nothingness the cuffs forced on him-- that something changed. Luke was strapped to a table, doing his best to ignore the scientist speaking into a voice recorder by his side, not thinking about what they were planning, when the room shook violently around them, his stomach rolling with the movement.

The officer standing at Luke’s head looked up, frowning. “What…?”

He was cut off by another shudder and a distant boom that reverberated down the cold steel hallways outside their room. The officer’s eyes, from what Luke could see, were wide-- he was worried.

“Keep going,” he snapped at the scientist, and stalked out of Luke’s view. He heard the door whoosh open and closed again, and they were alone.

Luke had long since stopped trying to fight the straps that held him down, but now he couldn’t help but thrash against them and hope that somehow they were looser today than usual, somehow he could pull himself free…

“Stop that!” the scientist snapped, even as the room shook yet again and a tool rolled off his tray of instruments and clattered to the ground. He lacked the fear that the officer had shown; he was brutally efficient, continuing to measure out a hypo full of an unknown substance, holding it up to the light with calm, unconcerned eyes. He grasped Luke’s arm and injected the hypo as the sounds of explosions outside got closer, and the sound of booted feet running on durasteel echoed louder and louder down the hallway. He turned and looked Luke in the eye, as he had never done before, just as whatever he had injected started to burn.

“You killed so many, Skywalker.” He said, still calm and collected, but now with eyes that shone with fury, “It’s only fair, don’t you think, that we get to strike back?”

Fire was in his veins, under his skin, burning him from the inside out.

Luke screamed.

______

The scream that echoed down the hall froze Din in his tracks.

He felt, rather than heard, Leia stumble to a stop behind him. He could hear only that scream-- unending, agonized, and horrifically familiar. It sent ice down his spine and through his heart, and he felt himself running again before he really realized it, sprinting flat out towards that voice, Leia on his heels.

He skidded a bit when the ship shook with another explosion-- Boba, Fennec, and Axe were having a bit too much fun with the explosives, but as long as Bo-Katan and Koska were still able to keep the ship flying, Din couldn’t find it in himself to care much. The door opened with a quick blaster shot to the keypad, and he and Leia ran in and stumbled to a stop as one. Horror welled up in his throat.

Luke was strapped down to a table, thick bands around his forehead, arms, and legs, and his hands were bound in front of him in what looked like force-suppression cuffs. He was screaming, thrashing against his bonds, eyes open and tracking some unseen terror. A man stood over him, arms crossed and an expression of sick satisfaction on his face as he watched Luke writhe. He turned to face Din and Leia with no sign of fear.

Leia raised her blaster and stepped forward, face twisted in a snarl. “What have you done to him?”

The man-- a scientist, judging by his clothing and the room, which held instruments and tools that turned Din’s stomach to contemplate-- looked at Leia with cool, calm eyes.

“Only what he deserved.” Behind him, Luke gasped something that may have been a “No!”

Din snarled and before Leia could react, lunged towards the man and punched him full in the face. He howled, hands flying to his nose, and Din hit him again, and again, until he sagged in his grip, unconscious, and Din dropped him to the floor. He stepped over him and reached out to cup Luke’s face in his hands, watching him breathe through clenched teeth, whines and moans of pain slipping through. He didn’t seem to see Din, but he seemed to register something; he turned his face towards where Din stood, even as his eyes rolled in their sockets.

“He shot him with something-- it’s probably causing him pain,” Leia said, holding up a spent hypo-syringe, face grim. “I’ll see if I can find what this was; maybe we can figure out how to help it.”

She turned towards a cabinet along the wall that held all sorts of horrible things, chemicals and liquids that seemed distinctly menacing. Din looked down at the cuffs around Luke’s wrists. It was so wrong, seeing him cuffed and bound like this, and he couldn’t stand it. He pulled the Darksaber from his belt and thumbed the activator.

Leia whirled at the sound of the blade extending, and barked “Wait!” just a second too late-- the Darksaber cut the connection between the cuffs, and a wave of energy exploded outward. Din dropped.

There was a presence all around him… slimy, oily, uncomfortable darkness, brushing up against him, making him shudder even as he walked calmly next to a hulk of a man in black armor…. Rage filled his thoughts as he struck out with his blade, struck the figure that taunted him, that threatened his sister…. His blade sliced through his father’s wrist, a mirror of his own maiming…. He tossed his saber aside, facing the Emperor, watching rage twist that horrible white mask of a face…. And then, pain, everywhere, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but writhe underneath it, couldn’t get away…. And his father looked on, watched as he died….

Din gasped as he was wrenched out of the vision, sitting up from where he had fallen onto the floor, staring up at Leia, who was slumped slightly over Luke, hands on his wrists. When Din pulled himself to standing, he saw that she had managed to get another pair of cuffs around them. She seemed to sense his disapproval, and shook her head, eyes never leaving Luke’s face.

“He’s too out of it to shield, right now, and he’s too powerful to have the cuffs off while he’s unaware. I’m guessing you saw what I saw?”

Din nodded slowly, and she sighed, reaching out to brush trembling fingers across Luke’s cheek, doing nothing to smooth out the agonized expression he still wore.

“He’s told you about our… our father? About the Emperor?”

“That--” Din’s voice cracked, and he tried again. “That was a memory.”

“I believe so. I wasn’t there-- I was leading the fight on Endor with Han and Chewie. But he told me afterwards. And I would know Palpatine’s face anywhere.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked back up, steel in the set of her jaw. “Let’s get him out of here.”

They made quick works of the straps, and it was worryingly easy to lift Luke into his arms. He still struggled against whatever he saw and whatever he felt, but Din held him fast to his chest as they hurried back down the shining steel hallway and towards where they had entered. He could hear the sounds of blaster fire as they got closer, and Leia moved to block the two of them, blaster in hand. Din shifted Luke in his arms, tucking him a little closer so that he could reach his vambrace, and primed his whistling birds. He sent a quick, silent prayer of thanks to the Manda that he had found the Armorer again as he felt them rise and click into place.

They hurtled around the corner, Leia already firing at a stormtrooper who was grappling with Boba, and he whirled around as the trooper dropped. Din’s whistling birds flew, and five other troopers around the room-- one about to slam Axe into the ground, another huddled around a corner taking shots at Fennec-- fell with howls of pain.

“Djarin! Princess! You found him?”

Boba seemed to notice Luke writhing in Din’s arms as he said it, and he cursed even as he ducked a shot from another trooper. “Get him to the ship! We’re nearly done here. I’ll comm Kryze, we’ll meet you there.”

He clapped Din on the shoulder as he passed, and Din nodded his thanks, hurrying after Leia.

The Falcon was waiting for them, and Din quickly laid Luke on one of the tiny bunks, stuffing a blanket along the edge of the wall so that Luke, if he thrashed too much, wouldn’t hurt himself.

Leia slid down the wall opposite, coming to rest with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

“I’m never letting him out of my sight again,” she groused, looking up at Din through her hands, flinching when Luke groaned again. Her eyes were so weary, it hurt Din to look at them. He looked down at Luke from where he sat at the edge of the bed, and brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes, watching him flinch and gasp.

“I… he told me about the Emperor, and what happened on the second Death Star. But I never guessed it was that bad... “ Leia trailed off. They sat together for a few long minutes, the only thing filling the silence of the ship the sound of Luke’s pain. He seemed to be tiring-- he hadn’t screamed for a while now, and his thrashing had quieted some. Din prayed that it was just the drugs wearing off, and not exhaustion forcing him under.

“I’m going to go get ready to take off as soon as the rest of them are back,” Leia said, rising to her feet and brushing soft fingers across Luke’s cheek once more. Din felt himself slumping a little as she left, closing the door behind her, and he reached up and released the seals on his helmet.

“You’ll be okay,” he whispered to Luke. He gathered Luke into his arms and kissed his forehead, ready to wait out the rest of this nightmare along with him.

————

Now with part two here!

[phthalology]

Star Wars Legends: Idiot’s Array

In honor of today’s movie, here’s the “Han Solo is Force sensitive” story I wrote ten years ago. I kept thinking of it because of the sabacc theme and because the end still works remarkably well with the new canon. So, with a few tweaks, this is the same post you might find on FFN! 2,600 words, gen.

Roulette wheels spin. Hands with dirt under the scales on their sides drop chance cubes and watch them bounce. Sabacc cards shush against one another. The players covet their hands, tallying up the numbers. But at any moment the values could shift, snatching victory from some, delivering it into the hands of others, becoming all possible numbers and suits for one immeasurable moment….

1. Chance

It started with wishes, as so many stories do. Surely every child wishes at some time in their life to be a Jedi, and tries to move something from across the room to their hand with only their mind. But young Han Solo, crewmate on the Trader's Luck, did not have the luxury of far-fetched dreams, of stillnesses in which to squint and test imaginary powers. His dreams were ferrocrete, not clouds: he longed for a successful business, for safety from older, nastier space pirates such as Captain Shrike, and often enough he got those things through his own abilities at dodging—or ending--trouble. He had an abiding faith in persistence.

2. Hazard

The Empire occasionally sent out warnings, lists of danger signs. Beware of men who speak cryptically, of children who float in their sleep, of even one-credit roadside fortune tellers, of laser swords. Ostensibly, these mandates were to protect the galaxy's citizens from Force-users, those dangerous individuals who had been granted more power than good human judgment (not to mention the unstable and primitive minds of aliens) could handle. Han paid little attention to them, involved as he was in his own matters of business. The Corellian tradition of Jedi were as far from his thoughts as the Coruscanti one was.

3. Legate

Many years later, after the dream of escaping the Luck had been realized and all more far-fetched ones had been forgotten, Han slouched in the dimness of the Mos Eisley Cantina and looked at Ben Kenobi. Part of him did not trust the man; he was a raggedy exile, maybe even a slave trader. One did not simply give people like that a ride, no matter what they were paying, and expect to have a peaceful journey.

But another part of him had a gut feeling that he was meant to do this. That he ought find out everything he could about the old man and the boy, because—he didn't know, maybe they had known him once or something. That's what it felt like—déjà vu.

He compromised by acting noncommittal and allowing them a ride.

4. The Star

When Han saw Luke Skywalker practice with the lightsaber in the Millennium Falcon's hold, he was skeptical of whether the Force was simply an invention of old Kenobi's mind or not. While it certainly sounded difficult to deflect something traveling at the speed of light with something else made of a sort of light, it was no more improbable than a human dodging blasterbolts, which he had done, inadvertently or purposefully, enough times.

5. Moderation

"I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all-powerful force that controls my destiny..."

Not control, no, but sense—Han could identify Kenobi's location as surely as if a tracking screen were in front of Han's eyes….as surely as he had, so many times, picked enemy spacecraft out of the sky with the forward lasers before the tracking screen had warmed up.

"…In my experience, there's no such thing as luck."

If there wasn't, what had Han lived on for so many years?

6. Demise

Kenobi never got to tell him directly, but when the old man died, Han distinctly heard his voice say, "Carry on."

7. The Wheel

The stars spun around him as the Falcon plummeted toward the Death Star. The battle flared between surprisingly few starships; the Empire had known it didn’t have to release the fleet to take out the handful of Rebel squadrons. But somehow, without lights cluttering his tac screen, this fight felt even more confusing than usual, even harder to keep straight in his head. Because he wasn't sure whether he was doing the right thing, whether following Luke into this suicide mission would be worth it or not (it was worth getting Chewie to stop looking mournful), whether his life was going to change for the better or not (or whether that mattered any more if the Rebels didn’t survive).

And it was not only inside his mind that chaos was building. He felt the tension of battle, and he had felt it before, but back then he was in the Imperial academy and other TIE pilots were shouting through the comm even if they weren't supposed to, jokes and orders and death-screams. This was silent except for in his head, like he was going mad, but he knew he wasn't. Because they said that madmen think they're sane, and he knew he wasn’t. He's wild with the Force, wild with uncertainty, but also driven by I have to rescue them (replace 'them' with Luke, Leia, the Rebels, or 'my future' ).

So he whooped like a madman and, pointed by the Force to the tiny trench on the side of the Death-Star-become-horizon, came to the rescue.

8. Balance

First, he had to decide whether he was going to tell anyone.

The days went by and he tried, tried to confront Chewbacca’s steady gaze, or Luke's innocent eyes or Leia's sharp ones (sharp as daggers, he can't look at her too long or his mind will feel like it's falling away from the world, but if he endures, then everything is all right, because what replaces his mind is happinesshurtwonderment). But he did not know how to begin.

Finally he decided: following, he supposed, his master's lead, he didn't tell anyone anything about the power he suspected he had.

He would not speak of it, would not pursue the power, because, also, then the line between himself and Luke would blur. They were two separate pillars of the Alliance, the noble and naïve, and the gritty and skeptical. Everyone expected the two to be foils to one another. They only needed one Jedi.

9. Endurance

"Deck officer! Deck officer. Has Commander Skywalker reported in yet?"

"Sorry sir, I don't think he's come back from patrol."

Luke's presence—the terminology had snuck in to Han's thoughts, although he'd tried to drown it in memorizing tactics and spacelanes, in thought of Leia, in the occasional drink because the Force was too complicated—glowed dimly in the back of his mind.

He could follow it like a beacon, and so he did, out into the cold, out into Luke is unconscious—I've got an excuse for why I don't just tell him now.

10. Queen Of Air And Darkness

The Force was not a willing tool of Han's will; in fact it seemed to have a capricious and cruel will of its own in terms of when it allowed Han certain powers or when it worked for him at all. When Leia kissed Luke, Han could not with certainty tell whether or not she was doing it just to make him jealous (even if she didn't know that was why she was doing it), but he was pretty sure.

But Han could not hate Luke. (Consider him naïve and young, yes, but never hate.) They were too together in the dangerous gaze of the eye of the Empire, too bound by shared death-defying experience. Luke seemed oblivious to Han's growing acceptance of whatever modicum of the Force was within him, but Vader, Han knew, especially as he became more and more integrated into the Rebellion, would not be, and even Leia's weight against his as they struggled in the passageway to escape from Hoth could not dissuade the feeling of being watched, even if it was by only one black-lensed eye.

11. The Evil One

No power helped him when, in Cloud City, Darth Vader finally stopped to take notice of Han. His chest was raked with claws of electricity as he screamed and waited for them to ask about the one they kept referring to dispassionately, harshly, as Skywalker.

But Vader's eyes had not been closed on Hoth; he had another target as well.

No questions were asked. Pain simply opened the door to Han's mind, and Vader swept in.

Minds are not as simple as datapads, but Han could tell that he was being read like files, like simple charts and graphs, and could stop being read no more than those objects could.

Vader found Han's power and read it like entrails.

The pain faded away slowly. Vader's booming laugh rose out of the haze the pain produced, like a monster out of the sea, before allowing Han's other senses to recover.

"The Force persists," Vader said, triumphantly as if he had known all along and was only now savoring the revelation. The laugh bit at the edges of his words as if all along he had been holding it in.

"Mopek," Han cursed. He raged at the Force, although his body was immobile. If it had dropped him into this nest of pain and abandonment, then by the Nine Gates of Corellian Hell, he'd abandon it—"I don't know anything about it."

"No," Vader rumbled, "you do not. It is latent in you." He turned away. Luke could have taught me, Han thought. I could undo my bonds right now—but he would not wish that that had happened. It was anathema to his nature, to his old, injurious, oh-so-safe desire to trust only himself.

Vader turned again and Han felt one more layer of pain spear into his arm; dimly he saw a syringe withdraw, filled with his blood.

"You are lucky, Solo," Vader breathed, "that the bounty hunter wants you alive, and that you are too weak in the Force to matter to my Master."

The torture continued, and deep in a quiet, locked space of Han's mind he saw that this was all so that Luke would do what Han had done on Hoth; track him through the Force and rescue him from being caught in a snow storm against which he could only create a temporary shelter.

When stormtroopers took Han back to the detainment cell, he could only collapse into Leia's arms. The desire for secrecy wrestled with the overflow of his thoughts. He compromised and did not lie. "They didn't even ask me any questions."

12. The Universe

That's enough of this Force mopek. I don't want it. It doesn't fit me, it's a burden, it complicates an already kriffing complicated life. People have been killed in this war, and it hasn't helped me save one of them. Han fought with his thoughts and threw them away, as he crouched under cover of tall, leafy plants on Endor. His squad arrayed around him triple-checked their blasters, oblivious to his frustrations.

But he could not stop himself from being concerned about others. (That thought immediately brought him to the thought of her, because Luke didn't need a rival, and Leia didn't need another man in her life who was likely to be killed in the service of an invisible master.) The thoughts and power that Han rejected picked up a stormtrooper crouching behind a nearby plant, trying to pick off the Rebel squad, and slammed him into the trunk of a rotten tree that shattered, like Han's expectations, into one thousand tiny pieces.

13. The Idiot

Leia said, laughing behind her words (like Vader had--), "He's my brother."

Han wanted the astounded, perfect kiss to last forever, to remain uncomplicated, but digging into his heart was his secret. It prevented her from nesting alone in his thoughts, as if the Force were a mistress. So quietly he said, unable to meet her eyes, "Leia. I think I'm Force-sensitive."

She touched his chin to turn his face toward her, but would not meet his eyes either; she looked weary and sad, as if she had aged the light-years Luke had between Bespin and Tatooine. "I have it too," she said. "The Force is strong in my family."

And so Han decided at that moment to learn, to explore this power, so that he might know Leia better.

14. The Satellite

The moon of Endor, which had no name except the one which the Ewoks gave it that simply meant 'forest/universe', rang with the sounds of celebration. Dancing shapes whirled past the firelight. But Luke was staring into the trees, cold to the communal warmth, and Han and Leia moved toward him to try to draw him back toward the heat.

But as they approached, they saw what he was looking at. Three figures glowing like clouds at sunset, the drop beyond the tree visible through their sky-blue-tinted bodies. A young man, with curly hair, a scarred face, and a lopsided smile. An alien, less than a meter tall. And Kenobi, smiling with the light of unfettered knowledge behind his eyes. Han did not recognize the young man by face.

But his Force presence was unmistakably familiar, even distilled and brightened as it was. That man was Vader, in his happier days.

The cards are fixed now, their values set. One player wins, and others lose. Their lives go on.

Sabacc rarely changes live, or saves or takes them. But the Force is no mere game of chance…

15. The Destroyed Starship

Even as Luke discovered more and more records of the old Jedi Order, he never found another Solo who could have been Han's ancestor and link to the Force. So there was no knowing what his powers would manifest as most often, although he was moderately good at all the usual things once he got used to them. (He never could enjoy lightsaber combat. Although he kept the black-wrapped hilt of the blue blade attached to his belt, he always used blasters when he could.) He spent time with his children in Luke's academy, learning as they did, until the Yuuzhan Vong war made his skills as a pilot more essential than those as a Jedi.

So there was no precedent for the vision that wracked him soon after the war was over, when everyone felt a glimmer of hope again.

No precedent for the terrifying certainty of what Jacen was going to become.

The galaxy wept in the back of his head, threw minor chords with the vehemence of a crazed conductor and an enslaved orchestra, pressed against him, insisted (he was finally going to save it), and in its throes he walked through the apartment like a sleepwalker (except he was awake, so clear and awake that time did not exist anymore and he could see everything, could see Mara Jade slaughtered, could see Jacen tempted and fallingfallingfalling) and walked into Jacen's room and primed his blaster and saw his son sleeping (adult and scarred but so deceptively innocent-looking now) and could almost taste the new name on the tip of his tongue—!

[prongs-mileven]

Next to Normal - Chapter 2

Mike Wheeler was the type of guy that enjoyed college. He enjoyed every aspect of it, even the actually attending class part. He had enjoyed moving into his tiny little dorm room with Lucas. He enjoyed having Dustin and Will down the hall from him, and he enjoyed eating nothing but noodles every day, as both Dustin and Will were the better cooks of the group. He had enjoyed going to purchase his text books and equipment required for his Biology and Chemistry classes. Lucas on the other hand, wasn't as fond of the college experience as Mike. He also enjoyed the classes, having always enjoyed Science, ever since Mr. Clarke had introduced him to a Bunsen burner back in sixth grade. However, he didn't enjoy having a diet less variable than that of a Squirrel. Nor did he enjoy how expensive all his textbooks were, especially if you were him, and had to buy them every couple weeks as they always found a way of disappearing without a trace. He did enjoy living with Mike though. He hadn't imagined enjoying it as much as he did, but the truth was, the two got on very well and understood each others boundaries when it came to sharing a bathroom.

The four boys had lasted the whole first month of college before being coaxed into going to a party. It wasn't that the boys were against parties, they just enjoyed Star Wars marathons and the occasional Dungeons and Dragons campaign more. They weren't, however, impartial to alcohol, and all four had managed to consume copious amounts impressively within two hours of arriving at said party. The party was being thrown by someone in Will's art class, who had invited Will two days prior.

"You should totally come Will. It'd be nice to see you in clothes that aren't covered in clay." The boy had smirked. Will blushed profusely, promising that he'd consider it. Truth be told, Will had wanted to go more than anything in the hopes he would see the boy, again and had begged his friends to join him at the party. They had all sighed in agreement, deciding that if Will was actually excited about going to a party, that the party must be worth going to. They had been correct.

The room stunk of alcohol of course, with music blasting and lights dimmed. The boys entered into a sea of bodies, unsure of where to stand or what to do. It turned out that not attending many parties in High School hadn't actually been a good idea in the longrun. Never the while, the four had drunk plenty of the punch on display, not caring what was in the bowl and shaking their heads in disgust as they chugged the liquid down.

"Look, all I'm saying is that maybe, JUST maybe, Darth Vader is actually a misunderstood guy." Dustin slurred, staring up at Mike who towered over him. Mike looked down at him with an eyebrow raised.

"God Dustin how much have you had?" He laughed.

"Enough to know that YOU, Michael Wheeler, aren't drunk enough!" He raised his glass and swallowed another gulp. Mike chuckled before joining his friend in another drink. Shortly after, Will grabbed both their hands and pulled them into a circle full of people with drinks in their hands and a bottle placed firmly on the floor. Mike rolled his eyes as he sat down, Dustin one side of him and Will the other. Will looked over at the boy from his art class, whose name he had learned was Ryan, and blushed when he caught his eye.

"I L O V E spin the bottle!" Dustin shouted to which the rest of the group cheered. Mike laughed again, deciding he definitely wasn't drunk enough and took another large gulp from his cup.

"Wait! Wait for us! Do not start without us!" Called a voice. He searched over to see two girls pushing through the bodies to join the circle. One had bright fiery hair, long and wavy down her back, with bright blue eyes, dressed casually in a yellow hoodie and jeans. The other was petite, with little brown curls wrapped around her face and big brown doe eyes. She was dressed cutely in a little dress and tights. The first girl seemed very excited whereas the second girl could not look more uncomfortable. She sat there quietly as the game began. Mike concentrated on the game, watched as people he didn't know leaned across the circle. The bottle got to Dustin's turn and he spun, with the bottle landing on a boy from their Biology 101 class, and the whole circle erupted with laughter. Mike gave Dustin a pat on the back as he leaned in and dutifully kissed the boy quickly on the lips before rushing back to his spot, embarrassed, cheeks filling with blush. Mike then spun the bottle himself, and it landed on the girl with short brown hair. She looked alarmed and Mike felt his cheeks burning. He made his way to the centre of the circle and watched as her friend shoved her forward.

"We, uh, don't have to, if you don't want to." He muttered when they came face to face. He found his heart pounding heavier than usual, and blamed it partially on the alcohol and partially on just how attractive this girl was up close. She smiled sweetly.

"No, it's okay. I'm playing aren't I?" He chuckled and lightly kissed her lips, as soft as he could manage. Everyone booed.

"At least give her a real kiss. We're not in kindergarten!" A girl across from Dustin yelled. This made the girls cheeks blush even further and her friend laugh. Mike shrugged before sitting back down. The rest of the game didn't last very long. Will didn't get his chance to kiss Ryan and a fight had broken out before the bottle had gotten round to the girl with the short hair. The fight had consisted of two boys, fighting over something Mike couldn't quite make out but didn't sound very serious. What was serious was the punch that was thrown. The boy had fallen backwards, into the circle they had formed. He wasn't down for long, grabbing the bottle they had been playing with before launching it back at his aggressor. Mike had quickly ducked out, pulling Will and Dustin with him. They found their way to Lucas, who had decided to cling to the redheaded girl from the game earlier. She was laughing at him, and looked unimpressed as he tried to talk to her.

"What you're saying is, you have been staring at me all night? Is that supposed to make me want to sleep with you?" Lucas giggled loudly, his head swaying.

"I mean I didn't say sleep with, but if that's what you want to do I am totally cool with it." The girl laughed.

"You don't even know my name." Lucas paused.

"Is it... Lucy?" She laughed again.

"For a stalker, you didn't really learn much about me did you? The names Max, and this is my friend El." She gestured to the girl stood next to her awkwardly. Lucas put his hand out to her. El stared at his hand, not sure what it was she was supposed to do. Max gave her an eye, before El's eyes widened quickly and she took his hand.

"Uh... Hi." She smiled awkwardly, before turning around, bumping straight in to Mike.

"Oh, it's you again." He smiled sheepishly. He found the girls sight intoxicating. She was several inches shorter than him and he had to crane his neck slightly in order to look directly into her eyes. Eyes that were brighter and sweeter than he could have hoped. She smiled up back at him, shyly. Mike quickly spoke again, hoping to defuse the awkward tension. "So have you picked your major yet?" She giggled.

"Its like our second week in... why have you?" She asked, alarmed. He smirked and shook his head.

"No, definitely not. I'd probably be in my dorm, already stressing about it if I had."

"If it were up to me, I'd probably be in my dorm, stressing about anything rather than at this party."

"Not much of a party animal?"

"No. Not really."

"Me neither. The drinks help though." She laughed again.

"I had been avoiding those actually. Is that your secret?"

"What? Get too drunk to care? Of course it is." The rest of the night had gone by in a blur, Mike and El spending it at each others sides, cups repeatedly refilled by both parties. Will managed to lock himself in the bathroom, and Max had been the one to break down the damn door in order to get him out, despite both Dustin and Lucas' efforts to open the door first.

"Really? We get our asses beat by a GIRL?" Dustin has exclaimed loudly, gaining an eye roll from Lucas and a punch in the arm from Max herself.

"You'll get your ass handed to you if you carry on." She had responded. The six of them had left the party a little around 3am, merrily singing as they strolled across the campus.

"Just come back to our place! Saves you trudging back halfway across town!" Dustin had suggested, and Max had agreed before El couldn't even get a word in. El walked back quietly with Will next to her, learning more about his past.

"I've always been into art I guess. My mom would always bring home new colouring pencils from the shop she works at back in Hawkins." El's stomach dropped. Will kept talking about his family, seemingly not noticing El's sudden tense body next to him. El bit her tongue. "You'd be surprised though, Hawkins is actually really nice in the spring. Lucas, Dustin, Mike and I would go to the quarry all the time after school." El's stomach dropped further. All four of the boys were from that place. The place she had resided in for the first fifteen years of her life. In all honesty, she found herself desperately trying to move on with her life, like Max had, but she couldn't help it when the lab and Papa and her hospital gown visited her every night as she slept. She didn't tell Max that she visited the void at least twice a week, hoping to find any trace of what had happened, where Kali might be, or if Papa had lived. The lab had burnt to the ground. That she had found out via the newspapers Max picked up on their travels. "El?" Her thoughts were interrupted by Mike's voice. She looked up at him, wide eyed and embarrassed. "Where would you like to sleep? Max seems to be bunking with Lucas." He laughed, much to Dustin's dismay who had ducked into his room. Lucas and Max had run ahead to Mike's dorm, hand in hand. El looked up at Mike.

"I reckon they may need a bit of privacy. Please tell me you don't share a bunk bed." Mike scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. Will poked his head back from inside his dorm room.

"Me and Dustin are making enchiladas and are gonna watch a movie! Would you guys like some?"

"Yes!" Exclaimed the pair simultaneously. They laughed as they entered the smaller boys room. El had to admit, the alcohol was starting to ware off and she was starting to feel more anxious about the fact she had found her way into an unknown apartment with three boys she hadn't met previously. Three boys who had grown up less than ten minutes away from her. Will and Dustin had started cooking the enchiladas already, something El had never tried before. However, Dustin, who had claimed to head to his room to look through his collection of DVD's had managed to pass out as soon as his head hit the pillow. This left Will to finish the cooking by himself as both El and Mike were hopeless, and had decided to sit on the couch and patiently wait. The last thing El remembered was listening to Mike explain the plot to one of his favourite films - Lord of the Rings.