Archive of Our Own

It wasn’t true, what they said. 

Time didn’t cease when facing tragedy, nor did a myriad of memories flash before one’s eyes when encountering death. Or maybe it was true and Aaron was simply too high to experience anything deemed ‘normal’ at the moment. 

The last thirty minutes had bled into a heady distortion of reality. The edges of his vision were obscured and muddled, and all sounds were laced with a faraway quality, turning them into otherworldly sensations that rippled through him — even the contact of clothes against his clammy skin had Aaron wishing to crawl out of his body. 

He had a distant memory of a man’s voice trickling out of the landline phone’s speaker, meaningless words falling into a heap of nothingness at Aaron’s feet. Then, the line had beeped and subsequently gone dead, and Aaron had slowly lowered himself to his knees as if to pick up the remnants of a long lost sanity. 

He was still there, crouched and twisted into himself by the phone as if he could get it to ring again out of sheer force of will, as if he could make time rewind by being very, very still. 

“I call on the behalf of Tilda and Andrew Minyard,” the man had begun. “May I speak to someone next of kin?”

Aaron had spoken, he knew he had. He must have. 

“Mr. Minyard, I’m sorry to inform you, both of them have been caught in a car accident. Tilda perished on impact. Andrew is in critical condition and has been put into a medically induced coma.”

 A ringing had taken over after that.

He was too high to deal with this, too young to know how to cope with it, too alone to lose what little he had. 

“Mr. Minyard? Mr. Minyard, are you there, can you hear me? Aaron?”

***

Andrew, from the very first moment Aaron had laid eyes on him, had been an unbreakable depiction of safety. Andrew, even as Aaron still bore a palette of blues and yellows adorning his skin courtesy of his mother, had felt like refuge, a trusty enough place to seek comfort in. 

He'd been a mirror image of Aaron, a version of himself that had been honed by the elements into something of a sharp weapon always at the ready, drawing blood with a glance and unacquainted with fear. 

Yet, that pillar of strength that had once felt indestructible now laid on a bed, all weakness and fragility in a way that just felt wrong . He was too exposed, too unaware of those coming and going. Aaron knew Andrew hated physical contact as well as people invading his space — this situation fell into both categories. 

Aaron, slowly so as to not lose his balance due to the lingering effects of two extra pills he’d swallowed in an attempt at mustering an inkling of courage, walked into Andrew’s room. 

He immediately caught sight of the chair set just beside the bed where Andrew rested, looking paler than his complexion should have allowed and exhausted even in sleep. 

Aaron plopped down on the chair, noisily dragging it closer to the bed and propping his forearms on the mattress to then lay his chin atop his intertwined fingers. 

His eyes were droopy, his blood sludgy with expendable chemicals he’d grown dependent on to the point where the thought of getting through a school day without the pills was its own kind of agony. 

Andrew’s chest, though minutely and silently, rose and fell in a compassed rhythm. Machinery annoyingly beeped around them. 

Aaron ached to take Andrew’s hand in his and feel for a pulse even as countless monitors told him there was still a beating heart somewhere in there. He wanted to check for himself. He thought perhaps he could keep Andrew anchored to life just by being close enough and letting his brother siphon away however much of Aaron’s soul he would need in order to awaken.

But Aaron knew that, had Andrew been conscious, any sort of contact would have been a line they were still too far from crossing, so he kept his hands beneath his chin, and closed his eyes. 

It was odd how Aaron’s very existence seemed to be linked to Andrew’s in a primal yet complex way when they had only just met in the grand scheme of things. They were strangers. A handful of months and shared DNA didn’t guarantee an understanding, much less a bond. 

It was odd, now that their lives had collisioned and their stories entangled, how Aaron felt like a pivotal piece of himself that for years had been dormant was now at risk. Odd how Aaron knew, even without concrete facts, that if Andrew were to die so would a part of him he had recently come to cherish. 

Perhaps it was a twin thing. Endless documentaries and scientists claimed twins shared more than chromatin and genetic codes, that their essences were wired and tied to one another in aspects that transcended the physical plane. And perhaps they were right. 

Only now was Aaron beginning to ponder that possibility — that two completely separate consciences could somehow be knitted together in a manner that escaped human comprehension. Only now that he could feel something within him fraying and coming apart at the seams. 

It wasn’t grief. He knew how mourning felt. He knew because he was experiencing it right now, grieving for a mother to never show mercy until after the damage had been done, and this didn’t feel like that. This went deeper, into his very core. 

He’d lost a mother, family. He couldn’t lose Andrew. He’d just gotten him back, it wouldn’t be fair. With time, he knew he'd recover from Tilda’s premature death, but not Andrew’s. Thinking of losing him resembled a fatal wound too closely. 

Aaron couldn't lose Andrew. He wouldn’t survive it. 

***

A night passed and, with it, four nurses and one doctor. A night passed and, with it, Aaron's high.

Ten hours had rendered him uncomfortably numb yet itching for his next fix. He thought maybe he could take the bus, go home, grab the pills, and be back before lunch, but something about leaving Andrew alone when people were free to waltz into the room didn’t sit right with him. 

He could wait some more. A couple more hours… Maybe even three. 

It was times like these that Aaron wished for family — a real family. One that would have driven to the hospital immediately after the call. Yet Luther and Maria were nowhere to be seen and the only person Aaron felt like would somewhat help soothe the burning in his chest was one continent too far, laughing and smiling in Germany. 

More selfishly, though, he wished for someone else to make an appearance so he could go home and get the pills without a suffocating lump coiling in his throat. 

But there was no one else. He was alone. 

***

He had pestered every single person to walk into the room, all but begging for them to dumb down the document hanging for the feet of Andrew’s bed. To him it was all hieroglyphics with no real meaning to them and a lot of numbers thrown into the mix without sense or reason. 

Only one of the nurses had stopped long enough to walk him through half of the first page, after that, it had been a matter of googling every chemical and dosage. 

The closest he’d ever gotten to being remotely interested in anything chemistry or biology related prior to that moment had been when he’d almost overdosed by accident about two years back, but he was now realizing he didn’t quite mind the subjects. 

Still, he found himself unable to continue his scrutiny when his fingers began shaking and every cell in his body seemed to beg for him to leave and get the pills, everything inside him beseeching for a fix he didn’t have access to. 

He could leave. It would take somewhere around 80 to 95 minutes to go back to the house now lacking two members and forever a reminder of their vacancy, and come back with an incriminating bottle stuffed into his back pocket. 

But… What if Andrew were to wake up during his absence? Would he assume no one had so much as bothered to come by? Would he even care?

Aaron didn’t think Andrew felt much of anything other than sudden bursts of scorching anger, but he still didn’t want to be the source of any more pain, so he shakily got to his feet and walked over to the bed, hovering beside it like an indecisive child looking for approval. 

“Hey, Andrew,” Aaron started and paused to clear his throat. It was strange. Not the fact that he was talking to an unconscious person, but talking to an unconscious Andrew specifically. 

Andrew had a way of either making someone feel like the most important person in the room, or disregarding their very existence to the point where you had to stop and consider if they were even present to begin with. 

Rarely had Aaron experience the latter. With Andrew it was always intense, fundamental, and significant; as if Andrew clinged to every word that spilled from Aaron’s lips no matter what they were. His eyes would always find Aaron’s and even though his disinterested front would never so much as falter, there was something about the way he imperceptibly tilted his head to the side that meant more than a smile from his mother ever had.

Aaron could always tell when Andrew was listening — not just hearing him talk, but truly listening — and now, looking down at where he rested, all ashy skin and worried brows, Aaron felt the difference like a punch to the gut. 

There was no heavy gaze, no set of his jaw, no purse of lips. There was nothing, a real, yawning nothingness that made the contrast between Andrew’s apathetic blankness and actual emptiness all the more stark. 

“I need to go,” Aaron resumed. “It’ll be like an hour and a half… maybe more. You can never know with public transportation. I’m coming back though, I promise.” Aaron faltered for a moment before lowering his chin and confessing out loud something he had never dared to before. “I wish… I wish I didn't have to. I wish I was strong enough to go a day without them and grieve like a normal person… think of mom instead of the pills…”

A sigh escaped past the tight seam of his lips. “You’re not alone, okay? I’m here. I just need to leave for a moment, so if you’re planning on waking up today just— just wait a bit, yeah? I’ll be here.”

***

It had taken him almost three hours. 

He’d taken a pill back at the house, then another when the first one didn’t kick in fast enough, and then one more when he felt like reality was still too heavy on his shoulders. 

And then he'd gotten lost. Mistaking bus 23 for bus 53, which also stopped near his street but then changed routes completely, taking him further and further away from the hospital with every minute he failed to acknowledge his mistake. 

When he finally did, it was due to a call making his phone buzz in his pocket. He hadn’t checked who it was before pressing the button and bringing the device to his ear. 

“ Aaron? Aaron, oh, thank god. I tried calling yesterday but my phone was dead and then I couldn’t find a charger so I just went with it, and then I couldn’t plug it in the plane because the lady beside me was charging her computer and her phone like a fucking hypocrite.”

Nicky. 

Nicky had been calling. Not only had Nicky been calling but he was here . America. Home. 

And then Aaron realized that what had seemed like twenty minutes to him had been about forty inside a bus headed toward the other side of the city. 

He told Nicky about it and his cousin did not hesitate for a second before telling him to step out of the bus and wait for him somewhere recognizable. At that, Aaron did as instructed and walked until a Walmart came into view and all but threw himself at the floor. 

The ground beneath his feet was unsteady and unreliable, the concrete felt soft and the searing heat was little more than an afterthought. 

Time, once more, had been out of his grasp, so there was no way to determine how long it had been since he’d lied down until he heard Nicky rolling up in a rental car. 

“Oh my god,” were the first words to greet Aaron when Nicky unlocked the door and stepped out of the car. “Holy shit, Aaron. What’s going on, are you okay?”

Nicky was beside him in a heartbeat, helping him up and all but carrying his full weight back to the vehicle. 

Once again on the road, Nicky broke the silence, one nowhere near the comfortable atmosphere in which the both of them usually sat when words ran out. This was tense, compromising, accusatory . 

“Aaron?”

The call was detached, removed, and lacking substance. Aaron hummed in response, not trusting his words to obey his will. 

Nicky looked pained, the kind that toed the line of full fledged anger. “Aaron,” he echoed again, “are you high ?”

Realistically speaking, Aaron was not high , he was fucking soaring the skies and watching it all go down from above. “No.”

The car came to a halting stop, the tiers screeching as Nicky boldly turned the steering wheel and hastily parked on the side of the road. “What the fuck.”

Now Aaron’s eyes were wide. Anger was not common in Nicky, something that would never cease to surprise him — his cousin had so many reasons to be angry; at his parents, at the twins, at himself… but he wasn’t. He was saddened. Deeply, deeply saddened by the world’s nature. He had simply mastered the craft of hiding it away from view. 

Yet this was a novelty. This sort of ire Aaron had never experienced from him, one accompanied by Nicky’s signature melancholy when regarding the twins, but rage nonetheless. 

“What. The. Fuck ,” Nicky repeated, head in his hands. “Your mother just passed away, Aaron! Your brother is in a coma!”

A chuckle ricocheted against the car’s interior. It was a few seconds until Aaron realized it had come from him. “You think I don’t fucking know that?”

Nicky’s expression was one of appall. “Then why ? Andrew needs his brother, not someone who can’t even walk on his own.”

“Andrew,” Aaron started and the name left a bitter residue on his tongue, “is halfway to death’s fucking doorstep. Andrew is asleep. Andrew will most likely never wake up again. He doesn’t need shit.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why?” Aaron rolled his eyes, aware of the way his words blended together and every vocal slurred its way out. “Does truth hurt?”

Nicky shook his head, features contorting into one that could have been mistaken for distaste hadn’t Aaron known him so well. The sadness was back, gaining terrain on the previous anger until fully conquered. “It’s not the truth.”

“It is,” Aaron nodded, a bubble of sour amusement manifesting as a twisted grin on his face. “Do you know how much morphine they have him on? A lot. A fucking lot.”

“What does—”

“They’re not hoping for him to wake up, Nicky,” Aaron cut him off. “They’re waiting for him to die. They’re just trying to make it painless.”

There. 

It was out. 

He’d come to that conclusion earlier in the day but it had seemed so out of character for Andrew to die that Aaron hadn’t been able to fully process it until now. But this was it, and such was the truth and the world’s unfairness. 

Nicky’s face was doing something complicated. There was no trace of the anger that had been staining his usual cheer not even minutes prior, the banished emotions giving way to a messy tangle of thoughts. He seemed to settle on pity, or something close to it, his voice lowering into a silky, almost reassuring whisper. “Aaron…”

In that moment no amount of drugs would have been enough to guard the desperation crashing through the front gates of Aaron’s mind. He barely felt the tears come, but when they did, Nicky’s arms were around him in an instant. 

“God…” Nicky was muttering against Aaron’s unkempt head of bright hair. “I– I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Aaron.”

Aaron couldn’t be sure what exactly it was that Nicky was apologizing for. It’s not as if he wasn’t right to chastise him about the drugs. He had flown all the way here, lost an aunt, about to lose a cousin, and was away from the man he loved as well as in the same city as his parents. This was no easier for him than it was for Aaron. 

Yet Nicky disregarded his own dismay and held onto Aaron as if letting go would kill them both. Aaron could not recall the last time he had been hugged or held in a way that resembled anything close to affectionate. Tears fell harder. 

The pills had him feeling floaty. All this was more of an out-of-body experience than it was real life — like watching a movie he knew would change his view on society and his very existence. He still raised a hand to cling onto Nicky’s shirt and buried his face deeper into his chest, naively hoping that Nicky would shield him from everything that hurt or wake him from this nightmare. 

But, in the end, neither was a possibility and pain was the ultimate truth impossible to outrun no matter how ardent the effort. 

***

Nicky was still arguing with the doctors outside Andrew’s door, frantically waving the medical form around as if to make a point, tapping the papers with disdain and gesturing at the bed one time after the other while repeating words Aaron could barely make sense of along the lines of: “he’s just a kid!”, “why aren’t you even trying ?!”, “he’s already lost a mother, don’t you dare look me in the eye and tell me he’s losing a twin too.”

Because this was how it worked. One could be terrified of death, daunted by its certainty, but it was all over once its claws sunk into your soul and stole it away. Aaron had never feared his death, but he’d been terrified of something like this ever taking place. 

It was the living who suffered the loss. It was the living who were left behind to deal with the aftermath of a casualty in the cruel game they all played a part in. 

Aaron tuned out the argument and instead focused what little attention he could muster on Andrew. There was a very real possibility that Aaron would never hear his own voice directed at him again, emotionless yet lethal in its brutality, never look at another person and see an objectively better version of himself, never again talk and be heard in the way Andrew made him feel understood. 

Aaron reached over and took Andrew’s hand. He was cold, not worryingly so, but the chilliness of the flesh was still off-putting. 

Aaron could have sobbed right there and then. He wasn’t sure he hadn’t, in retrospect, he probably had. The chattering outside the room had ceased and the atmosphere tensed in that characteristic way it did when one was being watched, but Aaron paid no mind; he was more worried about the way his breathing was becoming more and more uneven by the second and how cold his brother was underneath his warmer touch. 

Andrew’s arms were bandaged almost to their entirety and small cuts and blooming bruises littered his body everywhere that the bedding or clothes didn’t cover. None of it felt right.  

His forehead somehow ended up pressed against their linked fingers, his free hand moving to clutch his jacket over where a beating heart was supposedly located. 

He was speaking, he thought. Everything was fuzzy around the edges but words like, “don’t do this to me, Andrew, don’t do this. You promised” and “come back, please, come back” were some of the ones he would later remember gasping in desperation. 

But malice was the currency in which the world traded and Andrew’s hand remained still and unmoving even as Aaron quietly breathed supplications into the empty room. 

***

Two more days passed and Andrew’s state not only had it not improved, but it had worsened to the point where doctors were advising Nicky to think about the possibility of giving up early — the bill was going to be huge as it was and wasting more money on a lost cause was, as they had put it, useless and moronic. 

Nicky had denied, and when a young, gentle nurse brought it up again, Nicky had led her out of the room and slammed the door behind her. 

Three more days passed. Then another, and then Aaron had to go back to the house for another bottle, his purpose disguised under the pretense of a scalding shower. 

Two days earlier, Tilda’s body had been returned to them in the form of a small urn with her name engraved into it. It was now sitting at home beside an unfinished bottle of gin and a rumpled pack of cigarettes. They would choose what to do with the ashes when Andrew either woke up or joined their mother in a matching vase, but until then, Aaron refused to acknowledge its presence.

It was easier to pretend she was out, getting groceries or stuck in traffic. His life had been so surrealistic as of late that convincing himself of a lie of such magnitude proved to be surprisingly easy. 

And then, on day eleven, a high-pitched beeping had awoken him at late hours of the night. His back was killing him, though that was his own fault for choosing to sleep with his arms and head propped atop the mattress and his legs curled into the stiff, unforgiving hospital chair. His hand, like it usually was these days, had been holding onto Andrew’s, his fingers tightly pressed against a pulse point. 

The machine beeped obnoxiously yet again, successfully erasing any sign of sleep away from Aaron’s eyes the moment he realized what was happening. 

Someone gasped. Aaron looked at Nicky but his cousin had gone visit his parents last night and had yet to return. Another gasp, followed by a sickly cough that sounded painful.

And then Andrew’s hand tightened its grip on Aaron’s and by the time the pieces clicked into place everything else became inconsequential. Doctor and nurses flooded into the room and all but pried Aaron away from his brother. 

He’d researched the matter. 

He knew seizures were not unheard of when regarding patients in a coma. He also knew most patients woke in gasps and coughing fits. He also knew this could be either very bad or very good. 

This right here was a critical moment that would decide Andrew’s fate. There were many survivors who, when recalling their own encounters with their body’s lethargic state, claimed that even though they could barely remember anything from that time period, the seconds right before waking were starkly clear and ingrained into their brains to never forget. They also claimed to never have felt closer to death. 

Andrew had to come back. Andrew needed to come back. This couldn’t be his last show of vitality before completely shutting down. 

“Hold him!” Someone was crying. “Call Robert,” another one kept saying one time after the other until a nurse finally ran out, crocs squeaking against polished floors. 

And then, silence. 

For a moment, Aaron wasn’t sure anyone was even breathing. 

And then, coughing. Dry, desperate coughing. 

And then, finally , Aaron saw it — movement. Andrew sitting up, trembling with exertion and heaving futilely. 

All sounds had been bottled up and moved away from Aaron’s greedy reach. He heard none of the complaints as he pushed through the crowd of lab coats and colorful scrubs to reach the bed where Andrew was now wide-eyed and seemingly frozen in place under the two sets of hands belonging to doctors, confused and paralyzed. 

Aaron risked a lawsuit and batted the hands away from his brother’s shuddering frame. If they were annoyed by it, Aaron didn’t hear, nor did he care. 

They locked eyes then, Andrew’s watery and lined with silver from violent coughs, and Aaron’s teary from relief. 

The people around them stilled when Andrew raised a hesitant hand toward Aaron and settled it at the nape of his neck, fingers frantically searching for what Aaron knew was a pulse, and when he found it, Andrew’s eyes fell close in exhaustion, grip tensing and shoulders relaxing. Aaron reached and placed a hand over where Andrew’s was cupping his neck. 

“Andrew?” He asked softly, afraid to break the spell.

But Andrew didn’t dissolve into smoke nor did he crumble into ash at the sound of Aaron’s voice. His brother only breathed, finding a comfortable rhythm, and then spoke.

 “Tell them to leave.”

***

They hadn’t. 

The doctors and nurses had only cleared the room once they had deemed Andrew healthy enough to not be rushed into an operation room. His torso seemed to have endured the worst of the crash and, thankfully, he hadn’t suffered a concussion nor did he show any signs of memory loss. 

They had him try to get up, and once it was obvious that nothing was paralyzed and all he needed was time for his muscles to regain their strength, they had him cover one eye at a time and read a board with letters and numbers scattered over it in different sizes and fonts. 

Now, an hour and a weeping Nicky later, they were alone. 

Aaron could tell Andrew was tired, his eyes kept traitorously falling shut every few minutes and no matter how much he wanted to stay there with him if only to exchange silences, he knew he needed to leave. 

Aaron cleared his throat and got to his feet, swaying a little as he did. 

“What are you doing,” Andrew said, more a demand to answer and less a question. His voice was raspy with disuse, austere in its nature. 

“I’m…” Aaron stopped, swallowed, and tried again. Maybe he’d overdone the pills again. “Letting you rest.”

Andrew nodded in acknowledgement. “Right.”

“Right.”

“Where are you going,” Andrew echoed once again.

Aaron shrugged, not sure. “To the cafeteria, maybe. Or… I don’t know, the car?”

Andrew only blinked at him for a handful of moments that passed Aaron like a lifetime before he opened his mouth and spoke again. “Stay. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

He hadn’t. 

“I don’t want to bother.”

“Too late for that,” Andrew deadpanned but showed no signs of relenting any time soon. “Sleep on the couch, it’s fine.”

But Aaron wasn’t so sure it was. 

Andrew had rarely allowed himself to fall asleep in a room with anybody else present. Even an open door was enough to drain any sleepiness away from his features, alert and tension taking over. 

Now he wanted Aaron to sleep mere feet away when he had never been in a weaker state. Aaron didn’t understand but decided that it would do no good to refuse, so he walked over to the couch pushed against the farthest wall and slowly sat down. It smelled like Nicky’s cologne. 

Silence reigned for the next few minutes before Aaron severed its calm with a question he knew he should have waited to ask. This was not the time nor place for the potential altercation it could lead to. He spoke anyway. 

“Andrew… what were you doing in the car with mom?”

But by the time an answer came through, the blanket of sleep had almost pulled him under and the words didn’t process until the morning.

“ Keeping a promise.”  

***

 It was only after Tilda Minyard’s ashes had been carefully left at their final resting place — inside a small slot carved into a grimly large wall of names and flowers at the local cemetery — that Aaron brought it up again. 

Everyone had already left, and by everyone, Aaron meant Luther, Maria, and Nicky, allowing the twins a mercifully solitary moment of grief. 

Andrew was mostly healthy by then; the wounds had healed and the bruises were fading, but it was the new barrier guarding his eyes that Aaron knew needed treating. 

Instead, he delivered the same question he had two weeks ago. “Why were you in the car with mom, Andrew?”

He knew the answer. He knew it like he knew how many pills it would take to tip the flimsy balance his life depended on. He knew .

Still, he needed to hear it.

“You know why,” Andrew said instead, and that was simply not good enough. 

“Andrew,” Aaron sighed, eyes closing firmly for a moment, bracing himself for how drastically the perception of his brother was about to forever change. Reality had been a permanently distant entity he hadn't bothered to address for so long he’d almost forgotten the shape of it — it’s sharp, cutting edges, how bitingly cold it was to the touch, it’s way of shattering expectations and decimating relationships. “ Andrew… ”

But Andrew didn’t speak for the longest time. He only stood there, black clothes clinging to his body and almost white hair glimmering under an unforgiving sun. “Ask me.”

Aaron didn’t want to. 

“Ask me, Aaron,” Andrew insisted, gravel shifting beneath his feet as he moved to stand directly before him. 

Aaron lowered his eyes, not daring to look at a mirror of his own corruption when his reflection was bound to confess to damning iniquity. “Don’t do this.”

Without a kernel of mockery or smugness, Andrew replied, “it’s already done.”

Reality was rapidly approaching and Aaron was doomed to crash into it full force and die on impact. There would remain nothing worth salvaging. 

But what was worse was the truth staring into him, hoping to intimidate and succeeding, hoping to break the last shreds of sanity Aaron hung from and triumphing — His brother had thought death preferable, had opted for risking his life instead of standing beside Aaron to face a common evil. 

Once again, Aaron was struck with the realization that he already knew the answer to his next question. “Did you kill mom, Andrew?”

Andrew had yet to answer, Aaron still had time to take it back and walk away from this yawning rift that was opening up between them. 

And then the opportunity window shut and Andrew impassively offered a curt, “yes.”

Aaron had expected sadness to overcome him, for grief to pull him under, but all that surfaced was anger, and from there, rage, an emotion amplified by the chemicals populating his system. 

Andrew blinked and that was all the opening Aaron needed. He lunged forward and caught his brother by the collar. Andrew didn’t fight back nor did he appear remotely surprised by the outburst. “Why? Why the fuck would you go and… why?”

But Aaron’s head was buzzing and didn’t catch the response. He found he didn’t care all that much. That wasn’t the question eating at his insides at the moment. 

Andrew, as always, seemed to catch the war being fought inside Aaron’s mind and, calmly as always, spoke, “I warned her. She didn’t listen, and I’d much rather bury her than you.”

Tears threatened to fall, a product of both mourning, scolding anger, and confusion. “Then why , Andrew?”

A small crease formed in between Andrew’s brows. “Why what.”

The breath was knocked out of Aaron’s lungs, the strength leaving his limbs gradually until he was nothing but an empty vessel. His next words were conditioned by the drugs, for he never would have exposed his greatest weakness without something dulling the blade of that particular knife. “Am I that much of a burden?”

He felt hands on his wrists, his forearms, and when they squeezed to bring his attention back to them, Aaron opened his eyes not really recalling when he’d closed them. “What do you mean?”

The question had come out strangled and clipped. 

“Oh, please ,” Aaron theatrically rolled his eyes and failed to catch the full-body flinch from his brother. “Mom had to drug me just to stand being in the same room as me. And then she still beat me until I could barely think. You don’t do that if you… if you don’t hate your kid.” Aaron janked his arms away from Andrew’s grip and turned to pace. 

Confusion was not a good look on Andrew, he deemed. His brother was the sort of man to know it all, not a thing capable of surprising him, and if there was something to escape his comprehension, he never looked it. 

A bitter chuckle escaped Aaron. “You almost fucking died, Andrew,” he exhaled and lazily pointed at Andrew’s chest. “You. Almost. Fucking. Died. You kill mom, then almost fucking kill yourself, and I’m supposed to think you did it for me ? You’re a selfish asshole, that’s what you are. If you felt like murdering your own fucking mother then go ahead but don’t you dare claim you did it in my name because that’s a fucking lie. You wanted her dead, and you killed her, simple as that.”

All that Andrew said in retaliation was a “no” that cut deeper into Aaron than any scream ever would have. 

Rage was slowly morphing into sour amusement. “No?” He parroted. “ No? ”

Andrew didn’t dignify Aaron’s outrage with another answer. 

Laughter bubbled in his chest as he turned around, hands in his hair. He breathed in deeply before turning back to his brother. “You say ‘no’ like you didn’t try to fucking kill yourself instead of staying with me? You say ‘no’ like you didn’t know that she was a fucking alcoholic? Do you know how many ways I just came up with off the top of my head on how to kill a addict without putting myself on the fucking line? Four. Right now, I just thought of four .

 “But you,” Aaron poked Andrew’s chest with his index finger, “went for the one that would take you out too. So tell me, brother , what the fuck am I supposed to think ?! That you did it for me ? No, you did it for yourself. You wanted out and your petty fucking ass thought ‘ might as well take the bitch who gave me up with me while we’re at it ’. Don’t try to make me believe that you care for me, Andrew. Don’t do that.”

“That’s not—”

“You said ‘together’,” Aaron hissed. “You promised to face whatever came our way together . You made me think I had a b—” He sighed and dropped his head, his chin grazing his chest. He needed another pill. “You killed mom.”

Andrew didn’t correct him or bitterly say ‘ your mom, she was never mine ’. Andrew only stood there, frozen into place and staring at Aaron like one would a hail storm — with curiosity yet wariness. 

Aaron was tired. He was exhausted and high and ready to curl up somewhere and waste away. 

His next words, Aaron wouldn’t remember in the years to come. “You killed mom. I’ll grieve and move past it. I think I might even understand why you did it… But you tried to kill yourself, too, and that ? That I can’t forgive.”

The adrenaline high that had chased his wrath was now extinguished and all that remained of that fire were pitiful, harmless embers slowly cooling off. The aftermath was always abysmally worse than the fact, and now, trembling and in need of a fix to take the ache away, Aaron was feeling the effects of the last three weeks finally catching up with him.

Aaron fell to his knees, giving up. 

Andrew silently walked over to him with all the grace of a predator that knows his prey is on death’s doorstep, crouched, and wrapped an arm around his middle to help him up. Aaron vaguely remembered making a sound in annoyance, but Andrew didn’t relent. “Just getting you to the car.”

“Second time’s a charm?”

No reaction. None that Aaron caught, anyway. 

The walk couldn’t have been much longer than a few yards, but to Aaron each second stretched infinitely, the feel of Andrew’s arm around him was a weight that he desperately wanted to hate and be repulsed by and yet found shamefully grounding.

When they made it to the car, Nicky was leaning against it, his thumbs rapidly flying over the keyboard of his phone. Had it been any other day, this sight wouldn’t have stirred a thing inside Aaron, but Nicky’s mouth was pursed and tension lines pulled at his lips in worry. 

Nicky was likely to be texting Erik, so an expression like that was out of character. Aaron knew the warm, lovey smile that came over his cousin’s face whenever Erik’s name was so much as mentioned. 

But now the world had been tilted on its axis and the twins were orphans, Nicky was an ocean away from home, bound to become a guardian, and Aaron’s addiction had been exposed.

Andrew helped him into the car and promptly shut the door behind him, leaving Aaron alone inside the vehicle and watching through blurry eyes as Nicky and Andrew talked outside. 

Andrew’s hair shone like a beacon under the summer sun. Ironic, Aaron thought, how he seemed to embody light itself when all that brewed inside him was darkness. 

What happened next would forever remain a mystery. His body gave up on him, weariness clung to his limbs, and before he could stop it, sleep conquered his conscious mind where only pain reigned at the time. 

When Aaron finally awoke hours later, mouth parched, and fingers shaking with the need to reach for the pill bottle, he was inside a bathroom. 

***

It was hell. 

His skin was sandpaper against the muscles shifting and shuddering beneath it, his heart had migrated and made residence inside his head, thumping painfully against his brain, his eyes felt hot, and his throat raw. Raw from screaming, pleading, and all but beseeching for a mercy he knew would not be granted.

He could not see nor hear him, but he knew Andrew was outside the door. Just like he had been for the past 24 hours. And the seven before that. He could feel him, his uncharitable aura and unavoidable silences. 

He could feel him and, in that moment — a moment Aaron was sure would last forever — he hated him. Oh , how he loathed his brother. At that moment Aaron wanted him gone, dead, butchered, and buried. He wanted to be the one to do it. He wanted to tear the door down and make the headlines with the most macabre title to date.

And when the tears came, deplorable, poignant tears, he wanted nothing more than forgiveness. He wanted to cry out and beg for the only family he had left to just forgive him . He pressed his sweat-covered forehead against the door, muttering words that were likely to make no sense to anyone other than himself. 

It was hell. 

His body turned against him, cramping and convulsing and allowing not a moment of reprieve. 

Food would be sneaked into the bathroom when he slept but anything he managed to get down would come right back up minutes, if not seconds, later.

And then the anger would flare again, followed by the tears and senseless mumbling, chased down by another violent episode in which he would throw himself against the door and bloody his knuckles attempting to punch his way out of the makeshift prison.

At some point his act got realistic enough that Andrew felt the need to peek into the bathroom and make sure he wasn’t dying. He only made that mistake once, no matter how many more times Aaron would pretend to be choking on air or feign hitting his head against a thoroughly padded corner. 

Andrew had thought this through. That much was obvious. 

Anything remotely pointy or hazardous had been removed and the toothpastes and mouthwashes were nowhere to be seen. Every corner had been padded with stuffing and duct tape, and drowning wasn’t an option when there wasn’t a thing he could block the drain with. 

To put it simply, Aaron Minyard was at war. His mind screeched and thundered for him to do something, anything, that would make Andrew regret the moment he decided to incarcerate him — maybe hit his head hard enough against the floor or swear to walk away from Andrew the moment he was let out. Though, on second thought, that last threat was likely to be dismissed. After all, Andrew had been the first to ponder a world where there was only one of them. 

***

The fight had left him soon enough. 

He couldn’t say how long he’d been cooped up in there or how many days it had been. There was nothing outside that tiny bathroom. Just him and the cold, merciless tiles, a porcelain bathtub that had performed as a bed one too many times, and the constant, maddening drip of the faucet he hadn’t bothered to close all the way. 

And, along with the fight, the bottomless anger, the debilitating shivers, and the excruciating aches had abandoned him too. 

Aaron’s strength and vitality were nothing if not depleted by then.

And after what felt like eons, the click of a lock echoed throughout the room, but no tray was pushed in and no plastic cup was settled atop the counter. The door slowly swung open, and there, looking impassive as ever, Andrew. 

He remembered Andrew had offered a clean change of clothes what he assumed had been once a day, but Aaron hadn’t had it in himself to go through the motions. He was a mess. He wanted to curl into himself and hide from the world. He didn’t want Andrew, all cool apathy and composure, to see him like this — sweaty, waxy skin and a woeful spirit.

But Andrew didn’t seem to mind his state, nor the clothes Aaron had worn for days and days and days . Andrew didn’t mind the small patch of dried up blood on the floor from the one time Aaron had managed to bust his lip against the side of the tub. 

Andrew’s eyes were on him. Just him. He walked over to Aaron, crouched beside the bathtub, and with something that almost, almost , resembled pride, he stretched out a hand and said, “You did it.”

***

The whole time Aaron had been locked inside his own personal hell, Nicky and Erik, who had flown over to help and support his now fiancé, had been busy moving the furniture and memories into a house in Columbia. 

Aaron would never tell, even if he was sure Andrew already knew, but he was grateful. Thankful beyond belief for his brother being always six steps ahead and having the foresight necessary to understand that Aaron would never be able to step inside that bathroom again without his gut churning and skin prickling. 

The very day he was let out, both he and Andrew moved into a house that felt like a home from the second they stepped inside. Erik and Nicky were laughing in the kitchen, jokingly arguing in lightning-fast German Aaron didn’t catch a word of, the living room was bare for the most part — Ikea boxes littered the whole stance, forecasting a weekend of sore backs and groans in frustration as they hunched over unclear instructions. 

Aaron wasn’t given the choice to say goodbye to Tilda’s house. He never got to bid farewell to the room where the pills had become his only source of companionship. He wasn’t allowed to take one last look around. The swap had been quick, clean, and painless. 

No last memories of every corner he’d been backed into by a mother’s heavy hand, no flashes of empty bottles and pantries. 

Andrew left Aaron’s pain and desperation in a house already brimming with it, and welcomed him into a new life with the promise of a clean slate. 

He wanted to tell him. He wanted to voice his thoughts and express how he felt — how conflicted, how filled with gratitude he was, how much he loved Andrew, and how much Aaron longed to never see his face again. 

But he didn’t. His mouth remained firmly shut. Perfectly sealed. 

He shouldn’t be thankful for being thrown into a tiny space for what he now knew had been a week and 13 hours. Andrew hadn’t done it for him, he’d done it out of guilt . He’d planned to die, he hadn’t, and now he felt like he needed to compensate for trying to leave Aaron behind in a world that had almost eaten him alive one too many times. 

The actions, no matter how beneficial, had been backed by guilt and nothing more.  

Aaron shouldn’t be grateful. Andrew had murdered his mother. Andrew had planned to die. 

He hated that he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if Andrew were to leave him. That even after spending well over a decade by himself, he now found himself incapable of performing the feat that was solitude. 

He hated Andrew. Hated his mother for birthing two of them. Hated himself for growing dependent on yet another substance with the potential to terminate his time on earth — his brother’s validation. 

***

Months passed and Aaron had expected bitterness to grow exponentially and bloom into something greater. 

It didn’t. 

He grieved, for he had lost a mother, no matter how tough her love had been or how many of his problems she’d been the cause of. He grieved. 

He’d expected to be brimming with scorn directed at Andrew. He’d expected a flurry of sour and bitter emotions toward himself and others, but all of it seemed to be running late. 

So, Aaron was, once again, lying. 

He lied every time he rolled his eyes at his brother, lied every time he walked away from the kitchen to escape Andrew’s all-knowing gaze, and lied every time he attempted to convince himself that he was doing fine. 

An act. All of it. But he kept it up because logic told him that he should feel worse than he did. That the coherent reaction to your twin murdering your mother wasn’t to mourn for a month and then feel… empty. 

There should be anger. Scorching, blindingly hot anger. 

So, when faced with the crude reality of it all, Aaron opted for faking it. Guilt. That’s all it was. 

Guilt for feeling bad that Andrew had dirtied his hands with a death that had Aaron’s name on it, but not that his mother was gone. Guilt for living under the same roof as a man who locked him up and murdered without a second thought and feel bitter instead of terrified . 

Something was wrong with him. But the world didn’t need to know that. No one did. Just him. 

So Aaron went to school, studied, went to Exy practice in the hopes of acquiring a scholarship, and went back home to ignore Andrew’s existence and barely acknowledge Nicky’s. As time went by, it became easier to do both. As time passed, it became a habit — Nicky didn’t prod as much anymore and accepted the normality that was Aaron’s newly found acrimony, and Andrew never seemed to care in the first place. 

Both the twins and Nicky managed to land a job at Edens, a night club only minutes away that smelt like sweat and cheap vodka. The twins were minors, so Nicky faced the public while he and Andrew remained safely secluded behind the protection of the kitchen walls. 

Time passed by. 

And then he almost lost his cousin.

And then his brother, though physically present, grew absent, lost to the same evil to almost pull Aaron under. Except this time around, the torture had been court mandated. 

There was an irony to it, and Aaron loathed every second of it. 

Fate was mocking him. Cackling and pointing, having the last laugh at the expense of his family. 

Laughter filled every inch of the house after that. Cold, numb, chillingly eerie laughter crafted from fury and despondence. Aaron hated it, and from the way Nicky flinched every time it happened, he wasn’t the only one. 

Andrew was still Andrew in the same way the sun wouldn’t cease to exist when shielded by a storm, but the clouds were thick and heavy and with every day that the tempest didn’t lay off, the more Aaron felt his resolve fraying away. His brother had been bested. 

It had once felt like an impossible feat — to best Andrew Minyard, to take everything he was and warp it until it was a heinous, irreverent thing not even Nicky could look in the eye for longer than a rabbitty heartbeat. 

Again, hell. A different sort, but hell nonetheless. 

Then high school was coming to an end — something Aaron had never thought he’d witness — and colleges did nothing but turn them down one time after the other. That was, at least, until Kevin Day and Riko Moriyama materialized out of seemingly nowhere after their Exy practice, singing praises to Andrew’s skills. 

Pointless. 

Andrew turned them down with a wide, venomous grin more dangerous than any bullet, and left the dumbfounded pair standing along the bleachers. 

But then their saving grace made itself known in the form of a man by the name of David Wymack, who offered not only Andrew, but the three of them, a full-ride scholarship as long as they played for the Palmetto State Foxes for the next five years. 

PSU was nowhere near a top-notch university, but it was also far from being a laughing stock. In fact, the worst thing about it was probably its Exy team. 

After accepting the offer, there always seemed to be something in the back of Aaron’s throat, something that told him he was being a nuisance. Nicky couldn’t care less for college, he had his life all planned out and it didn’t involve a diploma. Andrew didn’t care much for anything and as long as he made enough money to keep a roof over their head, a higher education, or half a decade of Exy, wasn’t something he was eager about. 

It was all for Aaron. 

Aaron who had sworn, months and months ago, to never leave his family’s fate up to a stranger ever again. Aaron, who wanted to pick up the file at the feet of his brother’s hospital bed and understand what was wrong. Aaron, who didn’t want to feel powerless ever again. 

All for him. 

Yet, he never found it in himself to feel guilty about this . 

***

Whatever Aaron had expected college to be, PSU shattered every preconception. 

The Foxes were a rowdy bunch of misfits who didn’t so much as try to blend in with the more civilized rest of the world. 

Aaron soon came to realize he didn’t like being referred to as a ‘Fox’ . It irked him. It got under his skin and ate at his thoughts for days. 

He hadn’t made it this far, hadn’t gone through all that pain and effort just to be surrounded by people who couldn’t even attempt to be better. They hid under the mantle that being a PSU Fox offered them and used it as an excuse to be shitty people. 

Aaron didn’t feel like a Fox because if being one meant openly blaming his crappy attitude and lacking social skills on past trauma, then he didn’t want anything to do with his teammates outside of practice hours. 

He was more than his past. He was more than what Tilda Minyard had crafted him to be. 

He knew that everyone needed their own time and coping mechanisms. He knew that trauma presented itself differently in each person, and he knew that not everyone was capable of healing — god knew he still hadn't — but they could at least… try . 

Other than Dan, Matt, and Renee, the team was nothing but a handful of whiny, pitiful assholes hiding behind false bravados. Aaron wasn’t asking for them to be vulnerable and openly showcase their tragic pasts, but he also didn’t want to be dragged back down because some idiot decided to take their unresolved issues on him. 

And then, and then, and then .

Matt at Edens. 

Katelyn.

Kevin Day. 

Riko Moriyama. 

Neil Josten. 

Neil fucking Josten. 

Aaron had wanted peace. He’d wanted an uneventful college experience. He’d wanted, he’d hoped … he’d been naive, so maybe it was on him. Maybe he would have seen what life had in store for them if he’d bothered to look at the horizon. 

He never would have guessed that days after his twentieth birthday his hands and record would forever be stained with murder. 

He never would have guessed that after years of grudge holding and poorly contained bitterness, all that it’d take would be a pivotal moment and a stranger’s racquet to understand that he would’ve given his life — his everything — to never again see his brother hurt. All it would take: one second, one heartbeat, one kill. And then Aaron understood. 

Andrew had never planned on abandoning him. 

Andrew had simply deemed Aaron’s life more important than his own. Andrew had simply chosen to bargain away his remaining years in exchange for Aaron to know a life without suffering. 

He understood because in that moment there was not a bad enough fate that would’ve deterred him from ramming that racquet deep into bone, nothing that would have stopped him from bloodying his hands. 

Not the prospect of losing Katelyn, of jail, of death-row. 

He would do it again, and again, and again . 

He now understood that Andrew had never wanted to leave his side, that he’d simply made the choice of risking it all if it meant Aaron would have everything for the both of them. 

It was so obvious now. 

Now that they had both killed for the other. Now that Aaron had felt the urge to protect where there had only ever been the need to be protected before. 

He didn’t fear his hearing for one second. He was ready to face whatever prospect because never before had Aaron been more sure of anything. 

He didn’t regret it then, and he never would. Drake Spears had died by his hand, and, through the shock and agony, Aaron Minyard was happy to drag the tag of ‘murderer’ around until the end of times. 

He wished it hadn’t been necessary, but wishes had never helped anyone. Yet now, as he took the stand and peered over the crowd, he wished for another racquet. 

Cass Spears was openly sobbing and mourning a monster’s death. Cass Spears was looking at him like he was the vermin of the world, the worst thing to have ever escaped the gates of hell. 

That look on a woman who had raised something like Drake was sickening. She couldn’t even look Andrew in the eye. 

But all that was crossing Aaron’s mind was: how dare she .

How dare she stand there and try to get ‘justice’ for her son when all justice had already been dealt the moment her son had stopped breathing? How dare she look offended and angry and desperate when her own son had almost broken Andrew Minyard, a pillar of strength. 

How. Dare. She. 

Aaron remembered his mouth moving, his tongue spitting out the words he’d rehearsed for hours on end with a suited attorney. Aaron spoke, but his eyes were set on her. The whole time, he wanted nothing more than to walk over, grab her by the collar of her ridiculous mournful dress, and tell her he would do it again and enjoy it every time. 

He didn’t move. But his glare must have conveyed the same message because the woman refused to meet either pair of hazel eyes for what remained of the hearing, and when the verdict was reached and the jury announced it with finality, her wailing sobs and complaints coaxed an almost smile out of him. 

For the first time in years, Aaron and Andrew walked out as a united front. 

Months went by and tragedy ensued like it always did when it came to his team, except that this time, the Foxes seemed to have one over on destiny. 

The twins chose to give themselves another try, a second chance at learning how to be brothers. Andrew, within his capabilities, seemed almost… content. The upperclassmen and the Monsters were united by shared experiences that ran deeper than any of them could truly make sense of. And Neil Josten… Aaron still had a long way to go before warming up to him, but there was no doubt in his heart that he’d found a person as devoted to Andrew as he was. For now, that was enough. 

In the end, they all stood victorious over the corpses of their respective demons. 

In the end, Aaron Minyard was a Fox, and maybe, just maybe , that wasn’t so bad.