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fallinginvictus · 1 year ago

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WIP Wednesday Andrew & Aaron Time Loop AU [part 1/4]

8ish years post-canon (aaron at the end of his first year of residency)

time loop fic where aaron dies of an overdose and andrew keeps waking up on the morning of his death and tries his best to save him

tw for this specific chapter: character death, mention of drug addiction, mention of relapse, mention of drug overdose, dead body

Part 2

CHAPTER ONE

It's Tuesday, 8 May at 15:19 in the afternoon when Andrew's phone rings, the soft voice of a doctor on the other side, the words coming out of her mouth venomous and wrong, lies that Andrew can't comprehend, can't accept.

Stop lying, he wants to tell the counterfeit doctor.

Neil is at an away match on the other side of America. Nicky is an ocean away. Andrew is alone, standing in the middle of his living room with a dislocated shoulder, the now silent phone still clutched in his aching hand, spiders crawling under his skin, making their way into his throat, into his lungs, stopping the air from entering his body, his mind going numb, his brain unable to make sense of the three words circling in his head, bouncing around his skull: Aaron is dead.

“Aaron is not dead,” he says to the empty room, to a God he doesn't believe in, to the orange cat sunbathing on the windowsill.

Andrew was never one for denial, he found the whole concept silly and immature. If something happened, what's the point in lying to yourself and denying the cold hard truth? What's the point in delaying the inevitable?

And yet there he stands, the truth sounding like a lie, reality looking like a cruel and humourless joke, denial grabbing him by the throat and choking him out.

He walks to his room in a trance, throwing clothes and underwear into a black duffle bag without even checking if the clothes are clean, if they are his, he just takes anything that he can get his hands on and throws it in the bag until it's full and then he closes it.

Look after the cats, he texts Jake-the-neighbour as heads to his car.

Andrew had never much cared for the guy but Neil liked him and that was enough for Andrew.

The drive from New York to Boston is only 4 hours, Andrew had driven much longer just to meet Neil when they were in different teams, in different states, and yet none of those drives had ever felt as long as the one that is going to bring him to his brother's cold and lifeless corpse.

Every other car on the interstate seems to be moving in slow motion and Andrew wants to scream at every single one of them. He tightens his hands on the wheel, wondering why he needs to go faster, why he needs to speed. Aaron is already gone, his body already cold. It won't matter at all how long he takes to get there. It won't matter if he gets there in five minutes or five days, the outcome will be the exact same.

As he passes through towns and fields, Andrew wonders when Aaron had relapsed. How long had Aaron been lost to drugs before his death? How many times had he relapsed throughout the years without ever telling Andrew? How many times had he picked himself up on his own, alone in Boston?

“You are the one who wanted freedom,” he mutters, stuck in the 6 pm traffic as he lays his head on the steering wheel. “You are the one who wanted this.”

They hadn't talked much in the past nine years. Aaron hadn't talked with anyone much. He had left Palmetto State and the rest of them with it without ever looking back.

Nicky would always cry about it, about Aaron's lack of contact, about his distance, about his unwillingness to get mixed up with the Foxes after graduation.

“Oh, Mr. Harvard is too good for us now? Can't even show his face for one dinner?” Allison had said once while they were having dinner at Wymack and Abby's housewarming party.

“He's probably just busy,” Nicky had defended him, his eyes tired from the 10-hour flight from Germany that he had taken just to be there for their little reunion, knowing how hard it was for all the Foxes to be free on the same day.

“Yeah well, we are all busy.”

Once, Nicky had called Andrew while he was still crying after he had gotten in a huge fightwith Aaron about his indifference, about his distance.

“He never even texts,” Nicky had said. “Did you know that he and Kate broke up two years ago? Two fucking years Drew. Of course you didn't know either because he never tells us anything at all. It's like we don't exist anymore to him.”

That bastard had done his best to distance himself from them just so that he could have his perfect and normal life just to then go and overdose on some stolen morphine.

What a humiliating way to go.

So much for a perfectly normal life.

The traffic in Boston is a nightmare, red lights that won't turn green, green lights that always turn red, endless cars imperfectly lined one after the other waiting for their turn to finally move past a traffic light just be immediately stopped by another, lawless intersections that Andrew thinks will be the death of him.

Andrew has always hated driving in the city and Aaron knew that. He could've at least overdosed in a farm out of town and spared Andrew the headache. What an asshole.

He stands outside the hospital for a few or a hundred minutes, listening to the ambulances’ sirens as they race behind him, looking at the people who are walking in and out of that imposing white building, the first rays of sun already starting to sink into the horizon, the sky turning dark.

When he finally walks inside, a nurse in yellow scrubs gasps loudly as soon as she sees him, the tablet in her hands slipping to the ground while she looks at him pale-faced and wide-eyed.

“I'm so sorry,” one of her colleagues says while running to her side and pushing the stunned nurse away. “You look just like Dr. Minyard.”

“As twins often do,” he replies without blinking, the nurse's reaction shaking him more than he thought it could.

“Of course. You must be Andrew. I'm Nurse Mary.”

He just stares at her in silence as she stares back at him as if she were looking at a ghost.

Andrew wondered how he will ever be able to look at himself in the mirror again.

“Are you going to bring me to my brother or are you going to stare at me all day?”

“Yes. Of course. I'm so sorry. Here, follow me,” she says as if coming out of a trance before turning towards the other nurse. “Tell Dr. Allen that Dr. Minyard's brother arrived.”

Andrew had been expecting white hallways, white tile floors and white walls illuminated by bright white lights, instead he's met by green and yellow hallway walls, little animals like rabbits and deer and butterflies painted all around, flowers made of paint blooming in every corner.

“This is a children's hospital,” Nurse Mary says as if Andrew had asked.

“I know,” he replies because he might've lost contact with his brother but at least he knows that much.

They walk in silence for the rest of the way, Andrew unwilling to entertain any form of conversation, unable to let words come out of his mouth, incapable of interacting with the world outside of his mind.

He wonders if Aaron had even thought about the consequence of his relapse. If he had thought of his career, of the future that he had worked so restlessly to achieve.

If Aaron was going to throw it all away anyway, he could've at least avoided making Nicky cry.

“He's here,” Mary says while stopping in front of a white door. “We haven't brought him down to the morgue yet. We were waiting for you.”

Andrew just nods.

“We all knew he was-”

“I didn't ask,” he replies. “You can leave”

“Of course. I'm sorry,” Andrew can tell that there is still something stuck on the tip of her tongue that she so badly wants to say, but he doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want to hear how everyone knew about it, how Aaron hadn't managed to escape from his past, how he hadn't been able to achieve that normal life that he had always yearned for.

He waits until the nurse is gone and then another few more minutes before he finally pushes the door open and walks inside the dim room.

There is a bed on the right, it's empty and white and perfectly made.

There is a bed on the left, white lines pulled over a body, gloomy and silent and perfectly still.

Andrew walks quietly towards the occupied bed and then stops for a second, his cement-stuffed shoes anchoring him to the ground, his metal-filled bones weighing him down. He feels like he's trying to run in a dream, trying to walk on quicksand, Aaron's silhouette so close to him and yet so impossibly distant.

The quiet of the room is deafening, the grains of dust falling and dancing in the air in slow motion suddenly starting to look beautiful and interesting and making his eyes stray from his brother's dead body.

He doesn't want to look at it. To look at him.

He wants to run.

He wants to open that door and never have to look at his traitor of a brother again. He wants to spit in his face and curse his name, curse his short existence and meaningless departure.

He removes the sheet from Aaron's face and gently caresses his cold and icy cheek, his fingers grazing over his once-soft skin, over his long hair.

“You are so stupid,” he says. “I hate you so much.”

He stares at Aaron's motionless face, trying to remember the last time he had seen it flushed red, the last time life had still been cursing through his body, beating in his chest, shining in his eyes.

It had been so long. Too long.

He can't remember the last words he had said to Aaron, can't remember the last conversation they had. He can't remember what Aaron had said or if he had smiled. (Aaron never really smiled.)

It had been spring back then too, Andrew and Neil were in Boston for a match. They had met at a coffee shop. Andrew can't remember what Aaron had ordered. They hadn't talked much, feeling like strangers who had once lived in each other's pockets, two people who knew so much and yet so little about each other.

Aaron had left in a hurry with an I'm sorry, I'll text you.

Andrew had said nothing in reply.

“We didn't even say goodbye,” he whispers as that knowledge slams into him like a fast-moving train. “I hate you.”

His phone vibrates in his pocket but he doesn't even notice, his left hand resting on Aaron's blond hair as his right moves on top of his chest, searching for a beat that he knows he won't find.

“After all we did for you, how can you throw it all away just because you wanted to get high? How could you do this to us? What am I supposed to tell Nicky now? You know how much he loves you,” a moment passes, words that he had never said to Aaron trying to crawl their way up his throat, their sharp claws scratching it raw and leaving a trail of blood behind. “I love you.”

His breath hitches and his hands shake as he tries to take a hold of himself, as he tries to swallow those words back down, the taste of metal invading his mouth.

“I said I love you. So come back now,” he begs the silence and only the silence replies.

Aaron doesn’t move, his eyes remain closed, his chest unmoving.

“What do I tell Nicky?” he whispers to himself as he sits on the wooden chair next to the bed, his left hand softly holding Aaron's ice-covered hand while taking his phone out of his pocket with his right.

From: neighbour

not a problem at all!!!

I hope everything is alright :)

u don't have to worry i am GREAT with kitties

From: 0Neil

where are you? why did you ask jake to look after king and sir?

He wants to call Neil, to ask him to drop everything and meet him in Boston, but he knows it wouldn't be fair to tell anyone before telling Nicky.

If there was someone in the world who had gently and unconditionally loved Aaron, it was him.

If there was someone in the world who would fall apart at the news of Aaron's death, it would be him.

Andrew wishes there was another way to do it. Wishes Nicky didn't have to hear of Aaron's death the same way that Andrew had: from a voice through the phone.

“Andrew, is everything alright?” Nicky answers after letting the phone ring five times.

“Are you home?”

“It's 1 am of course I'm home and also sleeping,” he says on the phone before adding quietly. “It's Andrew.”

“Erik is next to you?” Andrew asks because he needs someone to be there with Nicky. He wouldn't survive the news if he were alone.

“Yeah. What's going on?”

“Turn on the lights and sit on the bed with Erik next to you.”

“Andrew, it's so late and Erik has to get up from work in like, five hours. Can't this wait?”

“Just do as I say, Nicky,” he gritts out as he holds Aaron's hand. “And tell me when you are done.”

He can hear a little commotion on the other side, the rustling of covers as they are being moved, german words he can't understand, someone sighing in annoyance.

“Okay, we are now sitting on our bed with the lights on like two idiots.”

“Hold his hand.”

“Andrew-”

“Just do as I say.”

“You are scaring me.”

“Are you holding his hand?”

“Yessir.”

“Nicky,” is all that comes out of his mouth, the rest of the sentence drowning in his chest before he can get it out.

“Is something wrong with Neil?” Nicky asks and Andrew can hear the worry in his voice, the gentleness in his tone.

“It's Aaron,” he spits, the acid-filled words burning his flesh on their way out.

“Aaron? Is he sick? What's wrong?”

“He's dead,” he says as if those words aren't about to make Nicky's whole world crumble to the ground.

“He's not dead,” Nicky says with a chuckle. “I texted him two months ago and he was fine.”

“Nicky,” Andrew breathes out. “He's dead.”

“He was fine so how can he be dead now? That doesn't make any sense Andrew. Don't be silly.”

“He relapsed. He overdosed early this afternoon.”

“He went to Harvard. He's a doctor in one of the best children's hospitals in the country. He's a doctor, Andrew. He's happy. Why would he relapse?”

“Because he's a drug addict, Nicky. That's what they do.”

“Shut up. Not Aaron. He's clean. He can't be dead. Please. We didn't- I didn't even-” and then all he can hear through the phone are a series of sobs being pulled out of Nicky's chest as he falls apart on the other side of the phone, on the other side of the world.

“I'll take care of him and book the first flight for Boston,” Erik says as Andrew listens to Nicky falling to pieces before the call ends.

He stares at Aaron for a few seconds, his hand still softly holding Aaron's, “You see what you did? You made Nicky cry again. How is he supposed to move on from this now?”

His phone vibrates again as it rests on his legs.

From: 0Neil

reply?

I just need to know that everything is okay

To: 0Neil

I'm in boston

come as soon as you can

aaron's dead

From: 0Neil

I'm coming right now

Andrew looks at Aaron's face one last time, his fingers hovering over his icy cheek for a few seconds before placing a kiss on his forehead, something that he had never dreamt of doing when Aaron's forehead was still warm, and then he covers him with the white hospital sheet.

“Where are his things?” he asks Nurse Mary once he reaches the nurses’ station.

“My God,” another nurse whispers in the background. “They look so similar. He looks like a better and healthier version of Dr Minyard.”

A better version of Aaron.

Andrew snarls at those words.

That's not how their lives were supposed to turn out. Aaron was supposed to be the better twin, the one with his life together, the happy and normal one. How had things turned out like this? Why was Andrew the one with a normal life and Aaron's lifeless body was lying in a hospital bed under a white sheet?

“Here, I'll take you to his locker.”

The staff changing room is closer to the nurses’ station than Aaron's body is and to Andrew's relief, is also empty.

“You can put his things in this bag,” the nurse says as she hands him a plastic bag. “Number 13. It's already opened for you,” she stands there awkwardly for a second. “Goodbye then.”

“Who do I have to invite to the funeral?” he asks her before she can walk out.

“I'm sorry?”

“His close friends. Who was he the closest to? Who must I invite to the funeral?”

“Oh,” Nurse Mary says awkwardly as she fiddles with her hands. “Dr Minyard wasn't really- he didn't really have any friends here. Or anywhere. I'm sorry I don't- He just didn't really talk with anyone and always kept to himself. Dr Allen always says that he's his favourite prodigee, that he will become a great doctor but that he's not really a fun person to be around. He's great with patients just not-” She stops talking, realising how rude her words may sound to a grieving family member. “I'm sorry.”

“So nobody?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Whatever.”

Something breaks in Andrew at those words, a pain that he can't place, that he can't understand.

He had always imagined Aaron living a happy and normal life, laughing with his colleagues while eating lunch at the hospital cafeteria, having a drink after work at a bar near the hospital, spending the holidays around a table full of people while laughing about something that had happened at work the night before.

He always thought Aaron had left them behind because he had built a new life for himself, that he'd left them behind so that he could build himself a perfect life surrounded by normal people.

He doesn't know what to do with the image of an Aaron who had no one in his life, who spent all of his time either at work or at home alone, who never laughed and never smiled. Andrew wonders if he had ever even known his brother at all.

Was it the absence of people in his life that made him relapse, he wonders, or was the fear of relapsing that kept him away from people?

There isn’t much in Aaron's locker, just a yellow stethoscope, a white coat with a yellow sunflower-shaped pin, his house keys, a box of assorted teas, a pair of spare scrubs and a set of cutlery. He picks everything up and throws it in the red plastic bag, a piece of paper falling to the ground as he does so.

He kneels on the ground to pick it up but his hand stops in mid-air as soon as he realised what it is: a picture of the Foxes during Aaron's third year of college, their orange uniforms bright under the sun, smiles painted on almost all of their faces, Wymack and Abby standing by their side.

“What the fuck Aaron,” he asks closing his eyes for a second before picking up the worn-out picture and staring at it for a few seconds, a confused expression on his face, his heart beating loudly in his ears.

He can't stop thinking about that picture the whole drive towards Aaron's apartment, questions swirling inside his brain as he almost blows through a red light.

Aaron's new life, now that Andrew got a glimpse of it, looks a lot different than what he had imagined and he just can't understand it. Nothing makes any sense and there is no one left who can shed light on it because the only person who could make sense of it is now dead.

Aaron is dead.

Andrew wonders how he's supposed to move on with his life with those words always swirling in his brain.

Aaron's house is fifteen minutes away from the hospital, the building modest but well maintained, Aaron's apartment on the sixth floor.

He stands in front of the door for a few minutes delaying the inevitable as if it would change the outcome. He has been doing a lot of that the past few hours.

He used to always dive face-first into any situation, no matter the cost, no matter the consequences.

Aaron's death is something he's unable to face. Doesn't want to face.

Aaron's bed is still unmade when Andrew opens the door to his bedroom, dirty clothes scattered around the room, empty boxes of ramen piled near the full trash can, sheets of paper covering the floor, open books piled on top of more open books on his desk.

Andrew wonders when was the last time Aaron had cleaned up the room as he opens the window.

When they lived together, Aaron was clean and neat, he used to hate when Andrew left clothes lying around and when he didn't wash his dishes. He would clean his room once every other day without ever leaving even a pen out of place. Even when he was so high he could barely remember his own name or understand where he was, he would always take the time to fold his clothes and put his shoes in their right place before going to bed.

Andrew wonders what had changed.

He sits on the bed, on Aaron's bed, his body heavy, his tiredness bone-deep, and closes his eyes for a second, Aaron's freshly washed hoodie next to his head, the scent of honey and lilies invading his senses, Aaron's pale face right behind his eyelid.

------------- ------------ ---------

It's the sound of his own alarm that wakes him up again, a cat jumping on the bed and resting on his chest as the annoying and incessant sound of his alarm clock keeps ringing in his ears.

Andrew's eyes snap open.

He's lying under his light green covers, in his own bed, in his own house, King purring on his chest, waiting for Andrew to pet him like he does every morning, Aaron’s pale face still dancing behind Andrew's eyelids, his lifeless hands and unmoving chest tattooed on Andrew's brain.

He grabs his phone from where it's charging on the nightstand to look at the time but what catches his attention is the date written in big white letters on his phone screen: 7:09 am, Tue, 8 May.

Had it been just a dream? Just a cruel creation of his own imagination? But it had felt too real to be nothing more than a nightmare. Andrew can still recall every second of yesterday, of today, every step he took, every move he made, the way Aaron's cold skin had felt, the way his moonstone-white face had looked. How could it have been nothing more than a figment of his own fucked up imagination? How could it all have been fake when he could still feel the ache in his heart, so real and tangible?

He dials Aaron's number five times before his brother finally answers, his voice like a stab to Andrew's heart.

“What? Is something wrong?” Aaron asks as soon as he picks up the phone, worry clear in his tired voice.

Andrew wants to scream at him, to never speak to him again.

“Are you still clean?”

“What?” Andrew can hear the disdain in Aaron's voice but pointedly ignores it.

“Just answer. Are you still clean?”

“Yes, I am. Almost 10 years.”

“Do you feel like using again?”

“No?”

“Good. Don't,” Andrew says before hanging up the phone, Aaron's voice too painful to hear, the memory of his death too fresh in Andrew's mind even if it had been nothing more than a cruel dream conjured up by his treacherous mind.

Andrew finally feels like he can breathe again.

Eight hours and ten minutes later, Andrew's phone rings again, the soft voice of a doctor on the other side, the words coming out of her mouth venomous and wrong, lies that Andrew can't comprehend, can't accept.

Not again, he wants to tell the counterfeit doctor.

Neil is at an away match on the other side of America. Nicky is an ocean away. Andrew is alone, standing in the middle of his living room with a dislocated shoulder, the now silent phone still clutched in his aching hand, spiders crawling under his skin, making their way into his throat, into his lungs, stopping the air from entering his body, his mind going numb, his brain unable to make sense of the three words circling inside his head, bouncing around his skull: Aaron is dead.

“This can't be happening again,” he says to an empty room, to a God he doesn't believe in, to the orange cat sunbathing on the windowsill.

Andrew was never one for denial, he found the whole concept silly and immature, but how he can he be relieving the worst moment of his life for a second time? Is he lying in Aaron's bed trapped in a nightmare? Has he died and gone to Hell, forced to relive the worst day of his life for the rest of eternity?

Andrew was never one for denial and yet there he stands, the truth sounding like a lie, reality looking like a cruel and humourless joke, denial grabbing him by the throat and choking him out.

Look after the cats, he texts Jake-the-neighbour as heads to his car in a trance, his mind lost in a fog he can't disperse.

The drive from New York to Boston is only 4 hours, Andrew had taken the same exact path yesterday, he had cursed at the same exact people he is currently speeding past.

Andrew can feel his hands tightening on the wheel and he wonders why speeding. He has already seen Aaron's lifeless body lying in that dim hospital room. He has already stood by his bedside and held his cold hand, has already felt Aaron's icy skin under his warm lips. It won't matter if he gets there in five minutes or five days, the outcome would be the exact same.

The traffic in Boston is a nightmare, red lights that won't turn green, green lights that always turn red, endless cars imperfectly lined one after the other just waiting for their turn to finally move past a traffic light just be immediately stopped by another, lawless intersections that Andrew thinks are going to be the death of him.

Andrew has always hated driving in the city and Aaron knew that. How dare he make him drive through it for a second time? What an asshole.

He walks inside the hospital as soon as his car is parked, the sound of the sirens as they race behind him loud as he bumps into the people who are walking in and out of that imposing white building, the first rays of sun already starting to sink into the horizon, the sky turning dark.

When he walks inside, the nurse in yellow scrubs gasps loudly as soon as she sees him like she had the day before, the tablet in her hands slipping to the ground as she looks at him pale-faced and wide-eyed.

“I'm so sorry,” nurse Mary says while running to her side and pushing the stunned nurse away. “You look just-”

“I know,” he says, walking past her and heading towards the room where Aaron is resting.

“Oh- wait,” the nurse says running after him. “I can take-”

“I know where he is.”

“That's okay,” she says, trying to catch up with him but remaining silent as they walk in the right direction.

“You can go,” he says as soon as they reach the white door.

“Well, alright,” Mary says a little flustered. “My condolences.”

Andrew doesn't wait for her to leave before walking inside the dim room and closing the door behind himself.

He ignores the bed on the right, immediately heading towards the one occupied by his brother's body. The quiet inside the room deafening as he removes the sheet from Aaron's face and gently caresses his cold and icy cheek, his fingers grazing over his once-soft skin, over his long hair.

“How can you do this to me twice?” he asks the silent corpse. “That's cruel Aaron. That's just too fucking cruel.”

He looks at his brother for a few more seconds before shaking his head. “Is this some kind of divine punishment?” he asks towards the sky. “This is not fair. It's not fair.”

He covers Aaron's unloving face and walks out of the room and towards the doctors’ changing room as quickly as he can.

He wishes he could bleach his brain and remove the image of Aaron's lifeless body from his memory but he knows it will haunt all of his dreams, all of his waking moments.

“Wow. He looks like a better version of Dr Minyard.”

“Mr Minayrd-” Marys says.

“I know. Locker thirteen,” he interrupts her before entering the changing room and taking only Aaron's house keys and the Foxe’s picture out of the locker before bolting out of the hospital and speeding towards Aaron's apartment.

He doesn't know what he's doing, what he's looking for, what he's hoping to achieve, he just keeps looking all over Aaron's house as if he could find a solution there, an explanation.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asks the empty house and receives no reply, a picture of him, Aaron and Nicky during their graduation staring at him from its silver frame.

He lies on Aaron's carpet, the picture in his arms, staring at the bright light on the ceiling until his vision becomes blurry and there are black spots in his eyes.

It's the sound of his own alarm that wakes him up again, a cat jumping on the bed and resting on his chest as the annoying and incessant sound of his alarm clock keeps ringing in his ears.

Andrew's eyes snap open

#aaron minyard #andrew minyard #twinyards #all for the game #the foxhole court #fanfic #fanfiction #ff #aftg #aftg fanfic #wip wednesday #all for the game fanfic #twinyards time loop au

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