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The vines of the strawberry bush snake out from the ground, and the flowers have started to die away as fruit takes their place.
It's an odd thought to have on your deathbed, but Bill can’t help but find comfort in the fact that the strawberry bush will outlive them both. It had grown large and plentiful in the years since Frank planted it.
If Bill were to sit up and look out their window, he would be able to see their garden from here, see the large sprawling patch of green and red. Bill finds that he doesn't want to see their garden again. Not without Frank. For the many years the garden grew, the strawberry bushes added a splash of color to their lives.
They ate them fresh from the vine, nostalgic for those first precious berries. They canned and cooked them. Adding them to the meals they shared; baking them into breads and other treats. And when Joel and Tess would come by, because yes, they were friends despite what Bill might say, they would give them fresh strawberries for the road home.
Bill didn't know something as simple as strawberries could add so much to his life. He never cared much about strawberries before the world went to shit. They were just one of a dozen fruits you could find at any grocery store selling fresh produce, a simple commodity that meant very little to him. Bill supposes the strawberries were not really the point. It wasn't the fact that he had strawberries but the fact that Frank brought them into his life.
He lies next to his husband on their bed. The word ‘husband’ sits in his chest, leaving him giddy and breathless at the thought. They had been together for decades, partners in every sense of the word. But being able to call him his husband is a new and novel joy. He wonders why he waited until now to marry him.
He gazes at the ceiling, feels Frank's arms around him, and does his best not to focus on the sound of Frank's breath.
He doesn't want to be aware of the moment when it stops. He almost wishes he would go first, so as to not have to live a single second without him, but Bill would rather he suffer through those seconds than frank.
He spares a thought for Joel and Tess, hopes they read his note before barging in. It won't be a pretty sight. Hopes they get to live as long, and end as satisfied as him and Frank did. He knows their relationship isn't the same, but it is special in its own way. Frank smiles, thinking of his traps and his fence. Thanks to Joel, they would work long after his death, protecting their home in his absence.
They are probably some of the only people left who will have a happy ending.
This room will be their tomb and final resting place, and he finds that thought less scary than he did this morning. Earlier, it had been a countdown and an ending point. Now it's a comfort and a conclusion. Even after death, his body, an echo of who he was in life, will never be separated from Frank.
Bill’s glad the world went to shit. It was a shitty world in the first place. If the world had never gone to shit he would have never met Frank. Never dared to love him like he did. If it took an apocalypse for him to love Frank, he would gladly go through another, if only for more time. But even then, he's satisfied with the time he had. Every day, the good and the bad, they made it a long time, and Bill considers his life complete.
Anything extra would be redundant; he's dying a happy man.
He wonders if he would have made it this far without Frank. He doubts it.
There's a difference between living and surviving. He knows that now. Frank taught him. So maybe he would have survived this long, but he wouldn't have been living. Living meant a fresh coat of paint on a house and a patch of strawberries in a garden. It meant terrible singing to amazing songs. Living meant finding joy in existing; Living meant Frank, and Bill cannot live without frank. He didn't want to.
Despite his best effort not to, he feels Frank's last breath leave him. Feels the arms around him shift ever so slightly. A stab of pain pulses in his chest. He grieves the short moments he has to live without him.
Bill closes his eyes, and for a moment he swears he can feel warm lips against his and faintly taste strawberries.
The world is fading now; one by one, his senses leave him.
First is his sight; he has nothing he wants to see without Frank.
Next is his hearing, but there's no point in hearing without Frank's voice.
Then his smell. He doesn't need his nose to remember what his husband smells like.
Feeling fades from his mind, but he knows he's still in his husband's arms.
All that's left is his sense of taste. The sweet of strawberries on his tongue and the taste of his husband's lips against his.
He holds on to that last shred of awareness for a moment more, then fades off as easily as falling asleep. His final breath leaves him, and his body joins his husband’s; empty and cold on the bed, and maybe somewhere kinder than here, his soul joins Frank’s.
Maybe somewhere warm, with strawberries.