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Death. Death was the only answer. Except for the very obvious fact that he couldn’t die, and despite all his best efforts coming up fruitless, here he was: back on the floor of Stevens house, going cross eyed from the small letters, eyesight strained and blurring. He tried every spell in the book. Carved enchants into his skin until he was raw and bleeding out on Steve’s good carpets. He could hear him. If he tried he could hear his steps. The floorboards creaked again and Herobrines head shot up. He gripped the book in his hands, fire burning through him.
“I’m going crazy.” His voice cracked from disuse. Steve’s laugh was in the walls. His voice in the air, fingerprints on the furniture that hadn’t been cleaned in years. Steve’s footprints and shuffled steps were memorized in the floorboards. This house lived and breathed with his spirit. And Herobrine was about to implode. Dust twirled in the air because cleaning anything meant getting rid of Steve’s touch. His soft fingerprints on every item in the house. Herobrine couldn’t erase him like that. The enchants he was focusing on were too familiar. He’d tried this one before. The instructions were too clear cut. Too similar to the one he’d tried last December. He ripped the pages out in a flash of anger so deep he was sure he’d never felt it before. He flung the book at the wall with a scream and collapsed in on himself. Silence. Deafening silence. Silence where Steve would have spoken. Told him it would be fine. But all there was was silence. His mind couldn’t even think. Herobrine felt as if he was back in the Nether, back in that fiery wasteland. Devoid of anything except mindless fury but now his rage —his quick temper, that venomous tongue — was silent. It too was too tired to put up a fight against something he couldn’t beat the ever living shit out of. Because how was an immortal supposed to lose to death? To something he had laughed in the face of for millennia and only now was ready to bow down to. It was impossible to put his head on the cinder block and allow someone to believe his death would alleviate their fear and attone for all of his sins, because as much as he would love to give the Overworld the satisfaction of burning his corpse, it was an impossible wish. The blessing was said and done and not even Notch himself could undo it. And even if he could, his brother would never grant him such a kind act as allowing him to die and succumb to the voids incessant call. Herobrine curled in on himself, feeling too much and yet too little all at once— it was suffocating. His chest felt as though it could burst open at the slightest touch, as if his hands would crumble without anywhere to place them. As though his skin and muscles would just… slide off of him. How he wished he could dissolve in a puddle on the floorboards and join his lover. Soft shoes grazed against the grass and — he knew they weren’t his but — if he turned his senses off and tricked himself, he could almost feel Steve’s presence coming up the hill. But they weren’t his shoes and those weren’t his footfalls because Herobrine could recognize Steve’s steps as if they were his own. He could recognize every part of Steve through death itself if he could know that comfort. Alex knocked and didn’t even wait for a response as she opened the door and coughed at the smell in the small house.
“Godsdamn. Hero, open a window.” She began to carefully step around the various books, potions, and scraps of paper with half finished sketches of Steve. If Herobrine forgot what he looked like he would never forgive himself. The longer he sat trying to remember him, the smokier his features got. Alex picked one up and pursed her lips together.
“You have to stop. This can’t be healthy.”
“I can’t forget him.” The pitiful display he made scared her more than when he lost control. His face was slack and empty, eyes dim and gray. Alex had never seen him like this and she never wanted to again.
“You need to stop.” Her voice fell on deaf ears.
“I don’t know…” His voice was softer than the small breeze outside and Alex had to strain her hearing to be able to understand him. “I don’t know what to do with myself. I should’ve… If I had-” His face twitched, voice wavering on the edge of insanity. He turned from her then, flipping on his other side as tremors racked his body, breath hitching. She almost couldn’t believe it. In the five years she had unfortunately known him, she had never seen the demon cry. She didn't even know if he was able to. And now, standing in Steve’s old house, two years after his death, two more years of bonding with the demon laying before her, and she was still un-equipped to help him. And yet, Alex tried. Again. For the umpteenth time, to help her friend out of this slump
“Herobrine. I know what you’re going through but you need to try to… pick yourself out of it.” Silence. Heavy, awkward silence. Moments passed with no response. “Look. I’m bad at this whole comfort thing. We both know Steve was the one more in touch with emotions. So could you maybe try to work with me here.” At the mere mention of the man’s name, a strangled sob escaped the demon's lips. “It’s been two years-“
“And I will never heal.”
“That’s cynical.” This was exhausting. Alex will never understand how Steve had done this so flawlessly. After receiving no response she sighed, rearranging the books on the shelves. Moments passed and her thoughts turned to mush as the early summer heat permeated the walls.
Herobrine felt himself falling apart. “I tried necromancy.”
Alex felt as if she got whiplash. “You WHAT.”
“I tried to raise him from the dead.” He picked himself back up, tear tracks marking his face.
“Hero let the poor man rest.” Alex didn’t know what she would have done had it worked. What if it had backfired and there was some kind of zombie Steve she would then have to rekill? Mute anger shot up her spine. “Herobrine this is serious, you can’t just-“
“I tried killing myself Alex.”
Alex felt like she was talking to a wall, still trying to get the necromancy thing through. “Hero you can’t-“
“I know. But I just keep trying anyway.” Herobrine's voice cracked again. His words dissolved into sobs and wet coughs. “I prayed to him that he’d send me to the void. I prayed for death. I prayed for Steve to come back to us.” Alex’s heart stung, growing as heavy as iron. She sunk to the floor as tears stung her eyes.
“Brine…”
“I don’t know what else to try.” He picked up a torn page. “This did nothing.” He stood up pacing, bending to pick up a red book. Herobrine flung it into the wall, Alex flinching at the sharp sound. “This damn book told me it was impossible.” He stood there, gripping his hair in his hands. “I can’t. Alex I can’t. Because you’ll leave me too and I-“ He collapsed to the floor, sobs ripping through him. Alex inched closer to him, ignoring the heat wafting off his body. She placed a hand on his shoulder gingerly and at that small movement, Herobrine turned around and wrapped himself around her, sobbing into her shoulder. Alex honestly didn’t know what to do. She hadn't expected to find him so undone on a random Monday, let alone for Herobrine — Prince of the Nether, Destroyer of the Overworld, the demon — to be crying on her shoulder, reduced to a sight so pitifully human and similar to her own grief… she didn’t know how he would manage when eventually she succumbed to the void and joined Steve. Herobrine felt no shame. He didn’t have room to feel anything else other than the debilitating pain and heartache encompassing his every breath, every move, his every fucking thought. He had never before envied Alex or any other mortal in such a way. Her fingers combed through his hair, hand rubbing circles in his back, and he barely registered her own tears soaking his shirt as they gripped onto each other. Looking for comfort the other didn’t know how to offer. Once his body stopped shaking and Alex’s throat stopped aching, she swallowed the lump in her throat, drying her eyes.
“Herobrine. Hero, look at me.” Alex detached him from her, cupping his face in her hands. His eyes were a dark gray, no light shining out. Not even a flicker. The heat had died down, no longer as oppressive, no longer as pronounced. “You can’t keep tearing yourself up over his death.”
“But if I had been faster I could’ve-“ he pressed his fists into his eyes, holding his breath.
“There are a thousand what-ifs we could circle around for years. What if he hadn’t been there? What if he’d gone mining the day before or the day after? What if I had talked to him for a minute longer that day? Maybe he’d have gone down later. Maybe I could have joined him too and then the both of us could’ve-“ Alex's throat closed up. Their last conversation had been pleasant but they’d left off with unresolved tension. Tension they were going to talk about that Friday. Over drinks he would never get to taste, and say words he would never get to hear.
“I was with him. And that should have been enough. I should have been faster.” Herobrines eyes met hers. “Had you been down there, that land slide would have gotten you too.” Silence gathered around them. They sat there on the floor in complete, deafening silence until the sun cast uneven shadows across the oak floors. The silence became unbearable: it’s heaviness tickling the back of Alex’s mind.
She had to say something. To at least try to help him through today. They had both lost someone important to them. Alex had to at least try. “Hero-“
“You can’t leave me.” The raw, unfiltered emotion his face held when he looked up at her, left her nose stinging, eyes filling again.
“Hero. I’m mortal. Just as Steve was.” Was . It should have been ‘is’. “He shouldn’t have died. And yet he did. And sooner or later, I’ll join him.” She fought against herself to keep her voice steady. “And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
Herobrine's face remained lax and still, as tears spilled out, his breath hitching. “Notch could. If we were on better terms with each other maybe I could’ve-“ He curled in on himself again. Alex remained silent, trying to read the situation, trying to be Steve. Trying to help her friend, no matter how ill prepared she was. But her patience was fraying and she was still hung up about the necromancy comment from before.
“Hero, I don’t know what to tell you. But what I do know is that you can’t try necromancy anymore. Let him be. I mean it.” She tried to be harsh, but the look in his eyes, the quiver of his lip, the tears on his face… it made it hard to steel her voice against him.
“I’m sorry.” Herobrine's voice was weak, sniffing as he wiped his nose. “I shouldn’t have tried. It didn’t work because I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill him again if it went wrong.” His voice wavered but never broke. Silence enveloped them again. Alex was at a loss. As she had been during this whole conversation. Her pain was sharp and she too found herself scowling at the sun as it rose and the moon as it set because how dare the world move on when hers had stopped two years ago with the death of her best friend.
Herobrine coughed, bringing the both of them back to reality. “That day.” Herobrine wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “I was talking to him. And he was walking backwards. Laughing. And we were distracted. Neither of us noticed the unstable ground we were walking on and despite my years of life I didn’t notice. I forgot the one rule miners hammer into you. Pay attention.” His voice shook. “I- We weren’t paying attention and I placed a torch down because he said he couldn’t see and-“ And then the landslide took him. Alex knew what had happened that day. Had blown up at Herobrine, said things she couldn’t take back when she was in the throes of grief and anger. How could you have let him die?! You should have been there! You killed him! You killed my best friend! Her own voice had cracked and she had screamed and he had stood there and taken it. Had withstanded a month of silence on her end, endless days of avoidance and curses, threats and insults meant to strike where it hurt. She had apologized since then, more times than she could count. “If this is about what I said that day-“
“i'm sorry.”
“What?” Alex shook her head. “No this isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have saved him, and I should have never blamed you for it.”
“But I could have!” He screeched. “I respawned.” Anger leaked out into his voice, eyes sparking. “I died and lost time waiting to come back, just floating in the void. I felt him. Right next to me. I felt him. And when I came back I knew he was dead because I couldn’t sense him anymore. I dug through it and-“ He cut himself off again, pressing a hand to his mouth to stop further cries from escaping. I felt him.
“You… felt him?” He nodded.
“Why do you think I keep killing myself Alex?”
“To be with him.” She whispered.
“And hoping that I have a respawn limit. That maybe… one of those times I’ll stay dead.”
She felt defeated. Deflated. She didn’t know how to comfort him when his own words unknowingly comforted her. He felt him. Herobrine felt Steven in the void. The afterlife would happen for her after all and she would see him again. Her fears were nullified, her anxieties alleviated but seeing Herobrine like this… small and ruined was soiling her newfound peace with Steve’s death. She didn’t know what to say to him, because unlike her and everyone else, he would never die. Herobrine would never have to face his own mortality, but would be doomed to forever face everyone else’s: just as he’d faced Steve’s.
“I don’t know what to say…” She reached out to touch him, he flinched away from her touch but she kept moving forward, trying to offer physical comfort over the spoken kind. “But I know that killing yourself over and over-“
He swatted her hand away. “You wouldn’t know.” His voice was strained, throat choked up. “The pain I feel Alex… I would go through the torture I was submitted to in the Nether a thousand times rather than face this emptiness .” His form glitched, voices overlapping. Tears spilled out of his eyes and he huffed angrily. “I should’ve turned you immortal sooner.”
“You… you could've done that?” Alex’s voice was wavering now.
“I don’t know. Alex I don’t know. But I can’t do that to you. Not anymore. I can’t knowingly leave him without-“ He covered his face with his hands and she wrapped her arms around him. He screamed and sobbed and shook against her. Alex sobbed against his shoulder and the summer wind blew through the house, holding them and Alex’s chest filled with emotion as she remembered what Steve had told her when they were young and new to the world of horrors that awaited them.
When I die, I’ll come back as the wind. And she had responded, Well then when I die I’ll come back as a bird so we’ll always be together!
“Hero.” Her voice was pathetic and nasally. “Herobrine.” He hiccuped. He looked up at her, still sobbing, wiping at his eyes and nose. “Steve had said — said he’d come back as the wind if he’d died.” She hiccuped and more tears fell on the floor. Herobrine sat there, wind caressing his cheeks and ruffling his hair. Silence, and then a scream. He bent over, grasping at his shirt, bundling it up in his long fingers, mouth hanging open, and he screeched into the summer air. Alex kept sobbing trying to stop crying. It was sudden and ugly, hands fisting together as they hit the wood, hitting himself, grasping at his hair, his chest, clawing at any part of himself he could reach. Screaming out his sadness. His pure unfiltered rage at himself, disgust that he wasn’t good enough to save the one person who had loved him. Whose past had never scared him, whose laugh could render him useless of thought, whose eyes were the most beautiful thing in all the realms: rivaling even the Aether. Whose death would destroy him. Had, in fact, destroyed him. His voice cracked and dissolved into strangled sobs. His attempts at words at apologies at anything , were hindered by his sheer inability to stop crying. Herobrine cried until he had nothing else left to give, nothing else left to offer to the floor which absorbed his tears. Liquid grief fell from his dull eyes until the headache pounding behind his eyes throbbed throughout his skull, called attention to nothing but the pain ricocheting against his mind. Pushing the sadness, the ache underneath his skin to the forefront: itching in a spot he couldn’t scratch, festering like a blister that would never heal.
Alex felt as though her voice was under control, and trusted herself to speak. “Hero. Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” And Herobrines head shot up.
“You would…” His words trailed off, tears filled his tired eyes again, as though unbelieving that Alex would do such a thing. She nodded. He sat there in silence, nails digging into his palms. “I’m sorry.” Shame was already coiling in his gut. Already growing in his lungs, close to constricting his breathing. “You can stay. Just tonight. For you of course.” He whispered, voice like gravel.
“I’ll stay until you get sick of me.” She had hoped he would let her stay because at least then she wouldn’t have to spend the night alone. But her pride would never have let her ask to stay for herself. She waited a few seconds to get her breathing under control and she pushed herself up, steadying herself on tired feet.
She held out a hand with a small, “Come on. Up you go.” And pulled him up, steadying the demon as he stumbled a little. She led him to the bedroom and she shoved down the sadness she felt walking through Steve’s old house. The wind blew against the windows, slipping through the curtains, blowing over both of them. She left him sitting on the bed sniffing and trying to get his breathing under control. She closed the windows as the first of the stars shone in the sky, making themselves known. Herobrine played with the ring on his finger, one Steve had made long ago with leftover scraps of silver — the demon refused to wear gold at all saying it had reminded him of the Nether — and as far as Alex knew, he had never taken it off.
They awkwardly maneuvered themselves in the bed, Herobrine using the pillows he was still trying to convince himself smelled like Steve, and Alex crawling into the other side. Soft rain pelted the roof and all was silent except for their uneven breaths. Her eyes were puffy and tired, each blink becoming longer and longer, but both her breath and Herobrines remained even: wanting to fall asleep after the other to make sure they would sleep alright.
And finally….
“Alex.”
“Hmm.”
“…”
Alex stayed silent. Waiting for Herobrine to speak
first.
“Thank you.”
“What are friends for?”
And outside somewhere, the wind howled, blowing softly in through the open window, blanketing the both of them.
——
And somewhere, decades later, the wind and a lone, fiery red bird fly together. Because nothing could ever take them apart. And a lone adventurer lays in the husk of this decrepit home, trying, and failing to keep it together. His mind has shattered itself in attempts to die, and to stay within the voids embrace. And again he lies in a pool of his own crimson blood, godly veins pulsing out the last remnants of life still holding on to his body. The ring still on his finger, pristine despite all the events that should have rusted it, and now, pierced through the soft skin of his ears, two golden earrings. Ones Alex had never taken off, and now ones that Herobrine would rather subject himself to years of torture before taking off. His breath stops, heart ceasing once again, and he floats in the void. Almost immediately as though knowing it were him and knowing he was coming, Steve’s presence envelopes him. Wind blows all around him despite the impossibility of that, and soft hands stroke his face, play with his hair, words whispering in his ear. And just as always, another presence, this one fiery and loud, the colors of fall, and a punch on his shoulder. Laughs and joy fill his ears and he wakes up once again, all too soon.