Work Text:
They’re running from the zombies, and Abed is telling Troy which ways to go--the Inspector and Reggie, like they always are. And they reach a dead end.
The gate won’t hold for long. Abed knows this, in his stomach, as he looks back and forth between it and the window. They won’t both be able to make it.
He looks at Troy. “Go!”
“I’m not going without you!” Troy yells, and Abed knows how this movie goes. He shakes his head. Of course Troy will go without him. There’s no other way.
“Troy, make me proud,” he says, voice quick and deliberate. They’re running out of time. “Be the first black man to make it to the end.” And Troy sets his jaw, and he starts climbing up, and Abed lifts him from below.
The zombies overcome the gate, and Abed yells “Go go go go go!” and Troy is in the window and he pauses.
“Abed!” he says. His breaths are quick, and he looks at him with an expression that Abed wants to burn into his brain forever.
And Troy says, “I love you.”
And Abed knows how this movie goes. He knows, he knows.
Abed will always sacrifice himself for Troy.
And Troy will always leave him behind.
“I know,” he says. Han Solo. Because Han Solo comes back. And if he survives this--he will, he will survive this, Troy will get to the thermostat, he will--he can say I love you too. But that won’t last, either. Because that’s not how the story goes. They were never meant to be together.
And the zombies take him.
He doesn’t remember this when he wakes up. But the story is still the same.
It always is.
-----
Abed has run the simulations.
He’s seen it, over and over again, alone in the Dreamatorium. It doesn’t end well for them.
Troy leaves, and Abed can’t stop him, no matter how hard he tries.
He knows he’s holding Troy back. He knows. And yet, he still keeps him. Holds him tight and doesn’t let go. Doesn’t want to. Because Troy is the best thing that ever happened to him. And he doesn’t want it to end.
So he pretends. He pretends it won’t, because he’s so good at pretending, and sometimes, when it’s late at night and he’s listening to Troy’s soft breathing in the bunk above him, it works. And they feel infinite.
It’s a false reality. But Abed pretty much lives in fantasy anyway. So he ignores the way he can feel their time running out, and he almost manages to convince himself.
He’s an anchor to Troy’s ship, and eventually, he will sail away. It’s only a matter of how soon Troy will realize, and cut himself loose.
There is something Troy doesn’t realize about why Abed is always the Inspector and Troy is always the companion. The companion never stays. Constable Reggie is a loyal friend, joining the Inspector for a time (and a space), before they are eventually separated. And the Inspector is alone again. Because that is who the Inspector is--a lonely man, floating through all of space and time, and even if he is joined by someone for a little while, eventually, they will leave him. The Inspector is the last of his kind. He is perpetually and horribly in love with this world, but he can never truly be part of it. He is like a star, only a sun if you’re close by, stuck in the void.
And Constable Reggie? He is in love. He is a planet in orbit, he is a wonderful human along for the ride. But he can’t stay forever.
They were never meant to be together.
And eventually, Troy will set sail.
But for now. For now, Abed is content to close his eyes and listen to Troy quiet breaths as he sleeps, and pretend that he is not alone in the universe.