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codename-adler · 3 years

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Death of Heroes

Because not even Neil can outrun the ephemerality of men.

Renee is the first one to go.

Nearing sixty but never reaching it, she is outlived by Abby and Wymack. At least Stephanie Walker is waiting for her at the gates of Heaven, but for the rest of her Foxes, the loss is heavy.

It’s cancer. Leukemia.

It started with the bruises from her sparring matches with Andrew not healing very well. Then not at all. After decades of maintaining these monthly meetings, of keeping her body healthy, Renee finally has to give it up. She knows something is wrong, and she knows that these sessions won’t be of any help, now.

Then the extreme fatigue starts. Still, Renee doesn’t do a thing about it. Or at least, she lets life go its own course. She looses weight, which she already doesn’t have much of. But then the nosebleeds begin, and it’s no use telling Allison to stop worrying. The diagnosis is unsurprising, yet still shattering. And it’s not a good prognosis either, but it’s still not bad enough for the doctor to give up the Five-Year survival plan.

Renee has to speak up. Ally, I don’t want to do this. She has to put her foot down. Allison, my love, it’ll be okay. I won’t get better, you and I both know that. But it can be okay. It can still be good.

Renee doesn’t get treatment. Renee doesn’t tell anybody, except Andrew. Because Andrew knows, somehow, that she made a terrible, irreversible choice. Because Andrew only deals in truths. Because Andrew is Andrew, and just as he needed her all those years ago, she needs him now.

A little more than six months pass, with less and less outings from Renee and more and more excuses from Allison, and Renee gets sick. Really sick. It starts like a regular cold. Then it looks more like the flu. And suddenly it’s pneumonia, and respiratory difficulties, and lung failure. She’s in that hospital bed, wearing that gown, breathing in that mask. Renee finally nods to Allison, giving her consent.

Ally makes the call.

Only Andrew and Dan make it in time.

Renee Walker goes out like a light.

The Foxes, who had once upon a time been used to murders, life-threatening schemes and acts of extreme violence, had never really known Death itself. The simple, yet inevitable fate of human lives. Of going quietly into the night. It’s all so quiet. So anticlimactic. It’s so quiet, too quiet, too heavy with silence. This time, there is no one to blame, no one to punish, no one to take responsibility.

It’s just life. It’s just death.

Wymack and Abby can’t believe that one of their Foxes, on of their kids, left before them. Renee’s Korean roots made her look barely a day over forty, which made it all so much worse. Renee’s death takes a toll on every single one of them. Because it’s Renee, the best of them. Because all her papers are in orders, her will to date, her wishes known; just as when she was alive, she leaves no chaos behind her.

There is nothing and no one to be mad at, except life.

In the cemetery where Stephanie Walker is buried, Andrew buys a large lot of land. (Large enough to one day welcome all the Foxes) The tomb is moved over there, and Renee’s name is added. A tree is planted above her scattered ashes. It’s very small, very fragile, but with the years, it grows strong.

For the first time, the Foxes realize that, despite going through Hell and back in their youth, they are not immortal. There is nothing to be done about that, but it hurts. It hurts to lose their angel this way, so soon, so suddenly. It hurts to lose, period. It feels like a failure, like giving up. They lost her. They lost.

But somehow, they gained something else they might never know about. Renee might have been the only religious one among them, but that didn’t stop her from becoming their Guardian Angel. Because somehow, from then on, the Foxes were spared.

Let me show you.

Just as Bee had a few years before Renee, Abby, then Wymack, simply die in their sleep, no fight, no agony. None of them have to see another Fox go before them. They don’t have to go through that indescribable ordeal ever again. They are spared the pain.

Then decades pass, enough for the remaining Foxes to grow very old, and live very long. Not infinitely, but long enough.

Matt is the next one to go.

Matt has worked hard all his life, both mentally and physically. It comes to no surprise, then, that arthritis chose to invade his body. For the first few years living with the diagnosis, natural medicine and osteopathy are enough to keep the pain at bay. It doesn’t stop Matt from doing anything. He babysits his 9 grandchildren with Dan every week; he goes on roadtrips with Dan every summer; he goes on a light jog with Dan every day.

It’s just that one day, it’s not enough anymore. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the pain becomes too much for Matt to do his day-to-day activities. And really, the pain, he could take; it was an old friend, a familiar feeling, almost like a sixth sense.

It was the mental toll of it all that he couldn’t take. To have to say no to seeing his grandchildren. No to driving around endlessly and aimlessly for hours. No to waking up in sync with Dan every morning, and no to their routine, and no, and no, and just- not living.

For the first time in a long time, Matt doesn’t want to do this anymore.

But he does, still. He smiles, and he lies, and he tries to will away the pain.

It all comes down to one afternoon, when he takes his painful walk of the day around the neighborhood. There are three little kids playing Exy in their driveway, when suddenly a ball escapes their racquets and rolls down in the street. The smallest kid runs after it, runs and runs and runs, without looking. Kind of like Neil, Matt thinks to himself before his body acts of his own. The kid doesn’t see the car, and the car doesn’t see the kid. Matt sees both.

The BMW is going way over the limit, its sleek black sides reflecting the sun too brightly. Despite his pain, despite his age, despite his now slow reflexes, Matt leaps. He screams at the kid to stop and turn around, to let the ball roll away, but to no avail.

Matt pushes the kid away in time for the car to hit him instead, and only him.

The rest becomes a blur, but the final verdict is as such: broken hip, shattered leg, probably won’t walk ever again, even with surgery. The doctors and surgeons warn Matt that with his age, his pre-existing condition, and his drug history, surgery might kill him. But Matt refuses to be bedridden for the rest of his already miserable life. Dan knows that. She knows that he has to try. Knows that he might not pull through. She also knows that Matt wants to go, has wanted to for a while now.

She calls Neil. She calls Allison. From there, all the Foxes are bound to get the news. Matt promises to wait until their arrival before going into surgery. In the meantime, the nurses start a morphine line, after warning the couple very strongly about the side effects and the risks. But Matt is in pain, terrible pain, and it’s a compromise to wait for his Foxes. It takes about a week for all of them to come to his bedside, with Nicky being last, coming all the way from Germany. Neil and Allison barely leave his room; Dan doesn’t at all. The others take turns, leaving as much space for Matt’s kids and grandkids as their hearts can allow.

The open spot for Matt’s surgery is on a Friday.

Matt Boyd does not make it to Friday.

The morphine is too heavy on his heart. It was a possible outcome, not as alarming as the upcoming surgery, but... Matt had secretely wished to go ever since and- maybe, up there in Heaven, someone heard him...

Dan and Matt had had a mutual understanding, that it was okay, but it doesn’t make it any more easy to let go.

Two months into Matt’s departure, Allison moves in with Dan. She walks her through every stage of grief. She grieves all over again herself, too. But they make it.

Same goes for Andrew with Neil. Neil doesn’t know loss like this. Death like this.

And yet. And yet. Deep, deep down, Neil is scared. That after all his years of running, and fighting, and lying, he won’t get that peaceful ending Matt was granted.

But Neil lives.

And Nicky leaves.

A few months after Matt, he and Erik simply stay in the States. They say it’s because they want to be close, because they don’t want to miss anything, because they don’t want to risk a Fox leaving without a chance at saying goodbye. Because Nicky misses his Aaron and his Andrew.

Which are all valid and true motives. It’s just not the whole truth.

Nicky has dementia. Alzheimer’s, to be precise. Diagnosed about a year ago. It’s not bad yet, but- It’s the endless back-and-forth between the house and “der Supermarkt” because Nicky forgot what he drove there for in the first place. It’s forgetting words in all the languages Nicky speaks. It’s freaking out at all the Germans speaking German, because Nicky sometimes believe he is still living in America. It’s not finding the Columbia house and panicking when Nicky can’t get a hold of Andrew or Aaron.

It’s hard, it’s heartbreaking, it’s terrifying, but it’s manageable.

Once Nicky and Erik settle back down in North Carolina, they both wonder how long it’ll take before the twins figure it out, because there is no way Nicky is telling them, but he also knows nothing can get past his twins.

And he’s right. Between Aaron’s acute knowledge of Medicine and Andrew’s reknown lie-detector skills, it takes about 14 days for them to take Nicky hostage and demand the truth.

As the year comes to an end, Nicky’s dementia doesn’t seem to progress that much. He seems to escape the worst. He doesn’t forget anyone. He doesn’t become aggressive, doesn’t go missing, doesn’t lose any function of his body. Without looking too closely, Nicky is simply getting old.

The twin girls he and Erik adopted get to move back in for a little while, having lived in the U.S. all their lives and seeing their parents fly to Germany after their retirement. They know, too, and try to make the most of it. They are lucky. They are so lucky. Nicky is a miracle patient.

In the end, though, it’s Nicky’s body rather than his mind that gives out. Once you reach a certain point in time living with the disease, but without the general complications of it, eventually the brain has trouble managing all the organs of the body. So instead of forgetting to eat, or forgetting names and faces, sometimes your brain doesn’t remember how to make your heart beat. Or how to make make your lungs breathe.

Nicky Hemmick stops breathing in the middle of the night, after having wished his twin daughters goodnight, texted his other set of twins goodnight, and kissed his husband goodnight. Nicky had thought, then, that it was indeed, a good night.

Just as he had remembered his Foxes until the end, he was remembered by them as the big-hearted lover that Heaven had just gained as its new angel.

Too soon after him, though, it’s Allison’s turn.

It’s not that she’d simply been waiting around for the day she could be reunited with Renee. She just didn’t understand why her Foxes kept leaving, and why she was still stuck here without her other half.

She didn’t just wait, though. She helps Dan out with the grandkids, and sometimes the grown-up kids too. She volunteers a lot. She gives back to the Columbia community, and all around the world. She travels to places she’s never been, places that remind her of Renee, but are void of painful memories. She empties their bucket list, and much more. The last thing Allison has yet to do, the only thing left to do, is mending her relationship with her parents. Or parent. Singular. In spite of everything, including the death of her husband, Francesca Reynolds was still standing strong at the head of the Reynolds empire. 100 years old was nothing when you lived in spite.

In a twisted way, Allison believed that maybe her mother was the last piece she needed to mend before she was allowed to go. That despite being gone for years, Renee was still there somewhere, looking out for her and making sure she didn’t have any regrets.

So Allison accomplished the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the impossible. For the first time in decades, she flew back to the Reynolds estate and spoke to her mother. In person.

It was not the emotional reunion Renee might have hoped for, but it was a reunion still. That was more than enough for Allison. They didn’t talk about the big things. The important things. But they talked. They talked. And they scheduled another talk.

Back home with Dan, Allison embraced her friend and let the tears fall. She was grateful for her friend, but both of them knew that these were not the arms Allison wished to be held in. She went to rest a bit before dinner, and she tried to imagine how it would feel like to have Renee hold her again.

For someone as loud, as present and as strong as she was, Allison Walker slipped quietly from time.

When Dan found her, she could only smile tearfully. She played with her hair one last time as she called her Foxes.

Allison left Dan in charge of her finances, and so she took over her charity duties and went above and beyond to honor her friend’s memory. Her sister.

Dan thought she would be next. She wished, she hoped, she prayed to be next.

She wasn’t.

Kevin was.

He might have been the biggest and hardest loss to weather. It wasn’t a feeling that could be explained. As painful as it had been to lose Renee, and Matt, and Nicky, and Allison, losing Kevin was... the great and terrible 10, as they’d say.

Kevin should have died way sooner. His liver should have given out because of all the alcohol it had endured in Kevin’s youth. His heart should have given out because of all the stress it had faced for most of Kevin’s life. All the bad things that could happen with old age should have happened to Kevin, but they didn’t. They didn’t.

Death came knocking one day, and politely asked him if he would please follow them, and Kevin simply took it as a sign that his time was up.

That day, Kevin had felt a numbing pain in his chest all morning long. Used to little injuries here and there, he hadn’t thought anything of it. And he certainly wasn’t about to worry his doctor of a husband...

However, as the sun reached it’s highest in the sky, Kevin couldn’t really hide his pain any longer. He had lain down on their couch for a bit, but he couldn’t seem to get back up. It was too exhausting. So he called for Aaron, as loud as he could in the state he was.

As Aaron stumbled into the living room, Kevin tried to use his softest voice to inform his husband of the situation. Aaron immediately called an ambulance, and when the vehicle took them both away, he reached for his phone again to make, once again, a terrible call to their Foxes. But through his oxygen mask, Kevin reached out to grap his wrist and whispered, with difficulty, just Neil... just Andrew...

Because here’s the thing: Kevin loved his Foxes, and his Foxes loved him back. Immensely.

He loved them so much he had married one, with another one of them as best man (Neil), another as his husband’s (Andrew), and yet another one as their celebrant (Renee).

They loved him so much that it was only short of worship by a hair or two. And Kevin knew that. He loved Dan like a sister. And by extension, he loved Erik like a brother, too. And he loved all the Foxes’ children and grandchildren like his own, despite never being a parent himself.

But Neil and Andrew... There were no words for what they were to him. He knew that he wouldn’t have to talk them through it. He knew they would be the only ones strong enough and close enough to hold Aaron up in case it all turned to shit the moment he passed the hospital doors.

And being the History nerd he had always been, Kevin had written letters, a long time ago. To his Foxes. Most of them had left before him, and so he could never give them their letters, but Dan, and Erik for Nicky, could still have those letters. Kevin poured everything into these letters. It had taken him years, ever since Renee’s departure. He wrote, and threw away, and started again, until he got it right. Nine letters, for his nine Foxes. Andrew knew about it. He’d give Nicky’s and the upperclassmen’s to Dan and Erik, and they’d understand. Kevin didn’t want them to be there, at the very end of it all. He just wanted Aaron. And Neil. And Andrew.

Those three had letters waiting for them, too. Andrew would hand them over a month later. But he would never open his.

Andrew and Neil arrived just before 1 PM. Kevin was hooked on all sorts of IVs and still had the oxygen mask on. His heart monitor was beeping very, very slowly, erratically. He was still Kevin Day in all his gloriousness, but he was much more Kevin, their beloved Kevin.

On one side of the hospital bed, Aaron never let go of Kevin’s hand. On the other side, Kevin removed the mask and weakly motioned for Neil to take the other hand. But Neil was stunned. Frozen. So Andrew came up behind him, and held Kevin’s hand.

It would be the first, and the last time.

Just as Neil finally sprung into action and went to put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder, feeling his wiry muscles and his fragile bones underneath the hospital gown, Kevin closed his eyes.

The heart monitor began flatlining.

Neil looked at the monitor, then to Kevin. He looked at Andrew, then back at Kevin, and then at Aaron. His eyes couldn’t stay focused on one thing. He was still hoping. He was still refusing.

Aaron lowered his head. Kissed Kevin’s hand.

Andrew held on tighter to Kevin’s other hand. Gripped the back of Neil’s neck.

Kevin took Death’s hand, which felt a lot like Aaron’s, and Andrew’s, and Renee’s, and walked away.

Aaron unplugged the monitor. And called it.

Time of death: 13:01.

It took exaclty one month, day for day, for Aaron to leave as well. They called it the Broken Heart Syndrome. On the surface, Aaron had held it together. But Andrew knew. He saw. That he was losing him as well.

Some could say that, by handing over Kevin’s letter, Andrew killed his brother. But those who would say that didn’t even begin to understand the complexity of the bond between twin brothers. Especially not the Minyards.

Because what Andrew really did, with that letter, was gifting Aaron with relief.

Peace. Quiet.

Love.

Aaron could exhale, now. He would see Kevin soon, now.

And so in the same room, in the same bed as his husband’s, Aaron Minyard forced Death’s hand and demanded to see Kevin again.

And then there were three.

Dan lived for so long that she started to fear outliving her children. She felt old, so old. In her head and in her heart. She did not believe in a God, but she often found herself praying to someone, anyone. She did not believe in angels and demons, but she often wondered how long they would keep her from Death.

So she waited. For the days to go and the nights to pass. She barely ate anymore. She barely moved. She was only feeling okay when she slept outside, in her chair in the backyard, the sun shinning on her beautiful face. She could sleep for hours there, surrounded by her lively garden. The wind swayed her skirts, the trees whispered in her ears. It was okay.

And at the same time, it wasn’t.

She was tired. She was lonely. Even Erik, a couple of years ago, had gone to rejoin his husband. Neil visited her at least once a week, but he still had Andrew. He couldn’t understand, nor could he stay away from him for too long. He would miss him too much.

Every year she celebrated another birthday, and every year she blew her candles wishing they were her last.

And at last, her wish came true.

Dan was expecting one of her kids to come by in the afternoon. The Carolina sun was shinning quite hard on her, so she had placed her chair in way that let the sunlight hit the back of her head, turned away completely from her house. Her daughter knew exactly where to find her when she arrived, and so she didn’t wait for a response to her presence before making her way down into the garden. She had called her mother multiple times, and had assumed she was sleeping when she hadn’t answered.

Dan was not sleeping.

Dan Wilds had left this world, the sunlight pouring down on her like the radiant goddess that she was.

Being one of the last Foxes, it took a day before Neil and Andrew got the news of her death. They don’t get involved in the funeral preparations, but they show up. And that’s enough.

People don’t really bother them anymore, so they can bid farewell to their Captain in relative peace. They come by Dan’s house aftwerwards, too, and help her kids out with everything. Yes, even Andrew.

Dan’s death makes them reflect the most.

About the Foxes. About each of their departures. How they all lived a good and long life. How they all died a good and quiet death.

They think about how they were always the ones nearing death, always fighting to stay alive. About how they died a million deaths before the age of 18.

They think about how they are the last ones standing, even after everything.

They survived. They lived.

(They loved)

Neil and Andrew should not have gotten this far. They should not have lived this long. They shouldn’t have. But somehow, somewhere above, someone has watched over them and made sure that they didn’t get the ending they should’ve had, but the ending they deserved.

Neil and Andrew don’t really want to die. They don’t really want to live on either. But they take every day that they are given, to be with each other, to mend their hearts still, to breathe.

They take every breath they can.

They wonder who will leave first. Who will have to say goodbye and stay behind, who will have to wait.

It’s a fear neither of them had ever thought they’d have. Not like that.

And it’s only a matter of time before they get their answer. They are, after all, getting very old. It is both a blessing and a curse.

After decades of partnership, Neil and Andrew still go to bed the same way they did when they were eighteen. Both facing each other, their hands joined in the middle, their nose a breath apart.

After decades of peace, Neil and Andrew still wake from sleep at the slightest abnormality.

Which is why the minute Neil Josten gives out his last breath, Andrew awakes.

Neil’s hand in his is still warm and his skin is still soft. His hair, although completely white for quite some years now, still have that bronze glow to them. They’re still curly, and soft to the touch. Andrew passes a hand through them before resting it on the back of Neil’s neck.

He looks at Neil like it’s the first time, tries to memorize every detail of his beautiful face. He rubs circle in his skin, and takes in everything that was, that is Neil. His husband. His junkie. His rabbit. His pipedream. His lover. His love.

Andrew doesn’t move from their bed.

When he has finally spoken everything that he feels to Neil, from the safety of his mind, Andrew moves closer to him so their foreheads touch and noses align. He takes Neil’s lifeless hand again, and kisses it. He sets their hands back down, between the two of them, and looks at Neil one last time.

And slowly, Andrew Minyard closes his eyes, forever.

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