Archive of Our Own

THE MANY DEATHS OF NEIL JOSTEN

There have been times you can be sure Mrs Death is coming, you say goodbye cruel world and close your eyes and you cry, then you open your eyes, and you didn’t die but you have a banging headache and everything is where you left it. You feel your heart thumping so hard, a booming drum in your chest, and next to you there is a smashed piano on the pavement where it missed you by an inch. Your shark-chewed surfboard is smashed to pieces beside you as you lie coughing up sea water on the sand. The convertible car takes a sharp corner and you let go of your diaphanous long flowing scarf, it gets loose and flies up and away like a butterfly. The big brown bear didn’t attack you but ran back into the forest. An empty bottle of pills. Just a couple scratches and bruises. Stick a plaster on it. Patch yourself up. Sour mourning breath. A hangover. Brush your teeth, spit blood, and now you worry about the blood, and cancer, then start worrying if it is enough, if you are enough? Are you enough? You start worrying, all over again, worry worry worry, about the way you are living your life, all over again and again. — Salena Godden, Mrs Death Misses Death

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Death was unpleasant, but it was a familiar and tolerable ache in his chest. — Nora Sakavic, The Raven King

— DEATH, AGED 8 —

You were eight years old when your father first killed you. An ‘incident’, your father and his men called it. Later, you wanted to know the details, with a queer sort of curiosity, as if you were as disassociated with your own death as you were your own life. Who could have blamed you for your curiosity, though? You were but a child. Death shouldn’t have come to one so young. You didn’t know what the other small figure in the room meant. No one else could see—a friend, you thought. Your old friend, Death. It seems almost fitting. Death didn’t talk back, not even to the son of the Butcher, not even when you told every secret you swore never to tell. Later, you think you should have known to keep quiet, especially when your father was in the room next door. You didn’t notice when he switched the radio off and paused. And listened. And heard the things you were whispering in the dark to your new friend. Secrets are meant to be kept, but you were too young to know better. Someone should have stopped you. Why didn’t anyone stop you? Please, can someone—

— DEATH, AGED 21 —

Your first sight of Castle Evermore had your blood humming in anticipation. You didn’t know what would become of your day, what would become of your life. You had watched your mother pack your bag of tiny Exy gear, not even realising that you would soon be learning from the best, playing with the best, becoming the best. You’d grown up a frightened nothing and no-one, but your legacy would outlive you more than you could have ever dreamed possible. People all over the country would know and remember your name. Fans had your number tattooed on their skin, yours and your partner’s. Your death would make the news, make the front page on Exy’s finest literature. People would grieve. You would haunt them for years to come. It would be beautiful.

Your death would haunt one person more than anyone else. It would be your only regret. But it was play then, or not play at all. You didn’t listen to the doctors. You didn’t even listen to Jean. You just heard the threat in Riko’s voice if you didn’t step onto the starting line that game. It turned out, a player with such severe injuries wouldn’t play again. That news broke you more than your father ever could. You knew what it meant. Riko knew it too.

You were twenty-one years old when you died. The way you were supposed to. The Master had taught you well—you were the best defender on the court. Perfect Court. You made your team proud—your family. Jean understood why you stepped through the plexiglass, even if he disagreed with it. He would have done the same for you, without hesitation. Why didn’t you realise that you were the only thing keeping him alive? Without you, there was no one on his side. When you died, he had nothing and no one. Kevin tried, of course, but Kevin was no substitute for you. You were his partner. His equal. And you left him. You let yourself get injured. You should have hidden it better. You should have played better. If you had done what you were told, if you had been better, you would have lived and Jean would have lived.

But you were only ten years old when you first saw Castle Evermore. You didn’t know that your future held glory, and perfection, and death. Maybe if you knew, you could have done things differently, but you were robbed of the chance. You were cheated from the future you deserved. You did so well on your first day. Your father had been almost proud. You had made friends, real friends who were not Death, for the first time in your life. The transaction could have been finalised, but your mother made sure that you were not around long enough to convince the Master that you were a sure bet. She didn’t let you have the chance to prove yourself. She dragged you away from that golden future, from your perfect team, from Jean, and forced you into a life on the run. You could have been a martyr for the sport you were willing to die for, and instead you became a shell of a person, a nothing and a no one, forever hiding from destiny.

— DEATH, AGED 15 —

You had only seen your previous Death for a day, but at least that Death was older than me. Fifteen, you later found out. You would have only made it to fifteen. Five short, terrible years on the run with your mother. It had been terrible. You had watched your mother turn into a monster. She’d never hit you before, but by the time of your death you had bruises and scars to prove her love. To protect you, you wanted to argue. To protect what? It would all be for nothing, in the end.

At least we agreed on that. We spent five years together. You would have preferred to spend that time with your previous Death—at least that version could have talked about Exy. You hated that I never did. It was one of many ways in which you found me disappointing. I can’t ever forget the expression on your face when you saw me, when you realised that the Death that joined you in the backseat of your mother’s car was no longer sitting next to you and I was sitting there instead. Six years younger, dyed brown hair, and a haunted expression. I would have argued that at least I was less arrogant, but that argument would have been a one-way conversation. Your mother had said that you were not going home—you were never going home again. You’d joined the dots. You were running away, and running away would lead to death. Would lead to me.

I’m sorry.

I was but a child, too. A life not lived. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough for you.

Those five years were hard. I had no one else to talk to, but I knew what I meant to you. What I represented. I’d tried to tell you what would happen—how you could avoid it, but you just— you just wouldn’t listen! Why didn’t you listen! She said stay and hide and I said run and you stayed and you hid and then the car came and your mother said shit and then you ran finally you ran but it was too late the car was coming and your mother had started driving before your door was closed and put your seatbelt on, Nathaniel I will not let you die from a fucking car crash you are meant to be shot and now Lola is drawing her gun and oh god, her laugh I can hear it echo in this fucking car what an awful car I can’t believe you’re going to die in this car it should be burned Lola should be burned she should die not you why do you have to die why does it have to be you what if you lived fuck what if you could live what if you could keep going what if she missed what if it was just a scrape what if it didn’t get your lung what if you could just get stitched up what if this made you more careful maybe you could wear a Kevlar vest and be careful what if this didn’t kill you what if Mary turned the car just a little what if the angle changed what if the steering wheel jammed what if what if what if—

—

—

—

Oh god.

What have I done?

Is this even possible?

—

—

—

Nathaniel?

— DEATH, AGED 30 —

You were fifteen when I changed into this face, but I didn’t let you see me for a long time. I waited until your mother had pulled the bullet from your shoulder and stitched up that awful hole in your flesh. I waited until you wore that Kevlar vest all day and all night, until your mother had finally made you take it off long enough to shower. I waited until that bullet wound healed enough to scar. One scar of many, but the only one I felt responsible for. Your death should have been quick. You would have been saved from so much endless agony. And instead you ended up with me.

I couldn’t face you yet. After you were shot—incorrectly shot—your previous Death had vanished from the backseat of the car and I appeared moments later on the side of the road. I watched the car drive away but I didn’t chase after it. What would be the point? You were going to die anyway.

I didn’t tell you this, not until later, but I spent my first week of existence watching cars drive past that spot on the road. I thought someone would have noticed that there was something terribly wrong with it, but they didn’t. People don’t notice anything. Not even a blip in reality, where someone should have died but didn’t. They just kept driving. Kept passing. No one saw me, either. You were the only one capable of seeing me but I didn’t want you to. Not yet.

Instead, you spent months without a Death. I don’t know what you thought about this; I never asked. I never asked you anything.

When I found you in the motel, you noticed me straight away. Your mother had trained you well. You didn’t recognise me, though. Not at first. After all, it had been months since you had seen your Death. You thought it was all over now. You had tried so hard to ignore your previous Death, to will them out of existence, and then it came true.

The side effect was me.

You’d never seen yourself so old, but there weren’t that many years between us. You weren’t sure about the beard, but you weren’t yet able to grow one so you took it as a win. I hated you for that. What was a win about this? You asked so many questions, and you didn’t care that you didn’t get any answers. You asked anyway. You were drunk—the first and last time you were ever drunk—as you clutched at the porcelain sink with one hand, the other picking at the bandage on your side when you knew you should leave it alone. It wasn’t this injury that would kill you, you knew. You’d stitched it up too well. It hurt—it hurt a lot, but your mother wouldn’t let you drink this much again. You could smell the coffee from the other room, the coffee that was supposed to sober you up, you stupid boy. You weren’t allowed to be this drunk. It was dangerous. You should have known better. You had forgotten that you were sixteen, and that sixteen year old boys were known to be stupid.

You found comfort in my face. Your father had never had a beard, I told you. It was the only thing I ever said to you. You had seen your father more recently, as you weren’t yet as good at hiding as I was, so the thought gave you comfort. It was not just because the use of the past tense meant that you would outlive your father (I did not tell you that you died a week after your father did), but because your death proved that it was all worth it. You couldn’t be corrected. You wouldn’t see that thirty was not that old. You saw thirty as endless. But as the years would go on, you would start to realise that it was one thing for your mother to love you, and an entirely different thing for you to feel loved. That loneliness would become an ache as familiar as I was. That ache and I would linger in every memory, haunt every dream. Your life would take you many places, many of them very dark. Your life would take you without your volition, from one horror to another. Your death was not like this. You were thirty, your mother had been dead for years, your father had just been killed. It was everything you had ever wanted, and now that you had it, you had nothing left. What was left to fight for? You had been so ready for it to be over. One last car ride, one last stop. No more names. You were nothing, and you had no one.

Just me.

You didn’t look when I finally came for you.

— DEATH, AGED 18 —

You didn’t believe I was real. You thought your soul was too stubborn to die. You thought your soul was the same as consciousness—everyone thinks that—but this assumption would be quickly corrected when you died. Your soul was as flimsy as the rest of them.

You screamed at me when you first saw me, but that was fine. You couldn’t be heard over the roar of the Californian ocean, and it was the only time you would ever speak to me.

You’d had years, you’d thought. You were wrong. You didn’t ask, so I didn’t tell you that you were going to die when you were eighteen. You would have just left Millport after a disappointing final season of Exy. You would have died before the season started again at your next school. Your father would catch up with you over a mistake your mother would have smacked you for, but she wasn’t around to teach you. That was the point, wasn’t it?

You’d had two losses that day: your mother, and the future you had been aspiring to since you left Baltimore.

You lit the match, you watched the flames. The smell was as bad for me as it was for you, but you didn’t look at me.

You buried your mother’s bones in the sand. I watched, but you didn’t look at me.

You made it to San Francisco, and you stayed for one day. You still didn’t look at me but I kept guard over your single bed motel room while you showered off the blood.

You set off for Millport, Arizona. I sat next to you on the bus, but you ignored me the whole ride. I could have told you that Millport was the last place you would ever settle, and that your new name—Neil Josten—was the last name anyone would ever call you.

But you wouldn’t have listened.

I was as invisible to you as you wanted to be to everyone else. I didn’t mind. I was invisible to everyone else, but at least with you it felt intentional. Like I mattered enough to be ignored.

I let you ignore me while you signed registrar forms at Millport High School. I saw you sign up for Math and French, and booed loudly when you added History to the mix. You hated History. Why waste your final year of life stuck learning about dead kings? You made a good show of pretending you couldn’t hear me, but you were a better actor then than when you pretended you hadn’t seen the Exy try outs poster plastered on the locker next to yours. If you would have listened, I would have begged you to try out. I would have told you that if you only had one year left to live, you might as well enjoy it. You were set on this rundown town, you were insistent on taking classes that made the smallest impression, you refused to make friends. But what about Exy? Why couldn’t Exy be the exception?

So I was quiet while you checked out a How To guide from the library. I didn’t follow you onto the court with every other Kevin Day wannabe. It was my gift to you. If you played Exy, if you let yourself love that damn sport again, I would let you believe that you weren’t going to die. I would let you pretend that your death wasn’t inevitable, that your life was bursting with possibilities.

I spent a lot of time hanging around the library that year. I couldn’t check out books or even turn pages—I’d already learned my lesson about interfering with reality and no amount of boredom would let me manifest physicality again—but I could read over other students’ shoulders or watch from the window as you ran yourself ragged outside on the soccer-field-turned-Exy-court. I felt your time running short, everything coming to a close. I wanted more for you—of course I did—but your death was waiting for you just like the Astroturf in the school basement.

The Dingos lost, as everyone expected, but I was a little disappointed. I wanted this to end on a high note. I wanted you to think that at least this last year made it all worth it, or at least for it to have come close. You should have had at least a few more games, a few more goals. Millport’s loss was predictable, but I wanted a surprise. I wanted a happy ending for you, as close to one as possible.

“There’s someone here to see you.”

You wanted to run, because of course you wanted to run, but even though I stayed on the bleachers, my thoughts were racing a thousand miles per hour.

What if this was different?

What if this changed things?

You would refuse, of course you would refuse to sign. You would throw away the contract, rebuff every offer, but what if you said yes? What if you agreed?

“Works out perfectly, doesn’t it? I need a striker sub, and you need a team. All you have to do is sign the dotted line and you’re mine for five years.”

Oh, but what if that could be true? Five years. It felt impossible. You were supposed to stay in Millport another five weeks and then head north. You wouldn’t make it past Idaho.

You looked at the file tossed onto the bleacher, your name scrawled across the front in black marker. Your last name out of twenty-two. You would die with this name.

But what if you said yes?

What if this changed things? It had happened before. You were supposed to die when you were eight, twenty-one, fifteen, thirty, and now eighteen. What if this could be different? Maybe you’d die sooner, maybe I would leave you and another Death would take your place. Your father’s men were meant to come for you, to find you. What if this could spare you of that? What if stepping into the spotlight and standing still meant you had a chance of a future I could never offer you?

You wanted it so badly it ached. Exy was the only thing you had left that was real. You had a taste of it again. What if you didn’t walk away?

“Please go away.”

Oh, Neil. I would love to. All you have to do is say yes.

I watched you argue. I watched you argue with so much ferocity that I knew this coach could not persuade you. I could see it on your face; you were so tired of running, but it was all you knew. You were so tired of me, but you didn’t see that this was your way out. I wanted you to be rid of me so much. I was so close to coming for you, I could feel it. I didn’t want it to happen. I wanted you to have so much more than this.

You ran, and I didn’t follow. I couldn’t delay the inevitable, but I couldn’t watch you say no. I watched you run into the locker room, and I waited. I would always wait for you. It is in my DNA, my engineering. I can do nothing but wait.

The court would be dismantled soon. Astroturf would be rolled over and it would be like Exy had never been played there. Like you had never been there. They would erase every trace of you, just like you’d intended. I ached just thinking about it, a strange sensation in every fibre of my being.

You would tear that contract into a thousand pieces and leave. Leaving meant dying, but you wanted new names and new places and never looking back, not realising that this was your last name and your last place and you would have nothing to look back on. Wymack’s contract could be a chance to keep living a little while longer. He’d said it was five years, but what if it was more than that?

I followed you into the locker room without taking a single step. That was new. Why did I still ache? Why did it hurt?

“It’s not a good idea.”

“Your opinion has been duly noted and dismissed. Anything else, or are you going to start signing stuff?”

And then you looked at me, you finally looked at me for the first time since that awful beach in California, and I wouldn’t follow you again.

— DEATH, AGED 20 —

What? Did you think that that would change anything? You stupid ignorant child. You thought that putting yourself centre stage on national television would protect you? You stupid, arrogant fool. You painted that target on your back and handed your father the gun. Nothing can help you now. Don’t come crying to me because you thought a bunch of junkies and social rejects might have saved you.

— DEATH, AGED 19 —

Oh.

Well that was interesting.

I mean, narratively speaking, ending up in Baltimore is perfect. Talk about a tragedy. I tried to tell you this, but you punched me in the face. Was it necessary? I didn’t think so. I didn’t realise it was a crime to have an opinion.

Besides, this was all because you decided to pick a fight with Riko Moriyama. Not the best decision if you’re meant to be in hiding, but don’t ask for my opinion. I don’t know the prolonged side effects of assaulting your own Death. As far as I know, it’s not happened before.

I did give you a fright when you first saw me, though, I’ll give you that. You hadn’t seen your natural colouring in years, and I suppose these blue eyes are a bit of a jump scare. You could have hidden your reaction a little better though, if you ask me. You were only a few metres away from one of Kathy’s main cameras and you were still mic'd up. If you’d not let Kevin boss you around and drag you up on stage, I would have stayed the same bitter and pissed off Death that I replaced. I thought you were starting to get on!

Alas, the narrative. You picked a fight, you learned that yes that Riko is the second son of a yakuza giant, and hoped for the best?

You ignored me for the ride home, which was fine because I was more interested in sitting behind Dan and Matt, who were much better company. Personally, I wanted Allison and Seth there to talk shit, preferably without Renee to mediate, but that’s just me. I accept the mere crumbs I am given, and I am grateful for them.

You, on the other hand, were not grateful. My god, the demands. It was all How do I die? and What can I do to stop it? and Answer me! Sigh. You never did ask me how my day was going, you know? It’s rude.

I almost forgave you when I saw you stockpiling hair dye and contacts, like you thought keeping your hair that same bland shade of brown was going to stop the inevitable. It was almost sweet.

Almost.

It kind of sucked though when Lola came to campus and dragged you away by that bland brown hair. I bet it felt dry as fuck.

— DEATH, AGED 19 —

You noticed that I had changed before I did, which was unusual. I hadn’t realised, and I’m still not sure why I changed. You still die in Baltimore at the hands of your father, which was something I did not want to tell you and something you did not want to hear. You were still nineteen, though the date of your death had adjusted a little.

But you had already drawn Riko’s attention to yourself. Your father’s men would soon see you on television, on the same airing of your game against the Ravens. What was different this time?

I came with you on your evening jog, even though you had only just come back from Evermore and couldn’t run all that well. Your face said every step sent pain jolting up your legs but you didn’t consider stopping.

I ran alongside you, though you found it a little jarring that I didn’t change clothes. You used to run in jeans before, so your surprise seemed a little hypocritical. You hadn’t owned more than three pairs of trousers until a few months ago. Your judgement didn’t last long. I told you that I was wearing the clothes that you would die in, and that I didn’t know if I was capable of changing outfits. I regretted saying that, when I saw the look on your face. I suppose it was a more painful reminder than most, or at least it made the inevitability of your death a little more tangible.

We ran in silence—you said running helped to clear your head, but it didn’t have the same effect on me. I still couldn’t figure out what changed.

Your death would occur March 9th, the day of your game against Binghamton University. You won the game, and the Foxes would have won the on-court brawl if the coaches had let them at it long enough. They didn’t though, which was the better alternative—Andrew was prone to letting violence escalate to unforgivable levels and the Bearcats had thrown the first punch at Kevin, so there would have been no dissuading him from getting involved. Romero had found you after you’d showered and changed into fresh clothes—these clothes—and you knew the rest of the story. Your previous Death hadn’t spared many details.

You couldn’t work out the difference, either. You were curious, jaded, grateful. Your last six months had been the best six months of your life. You would do it all again—die again, if it meant keeping these months. You wouldn’t have traded them for the world.

I followed you up to the girls’ room so Allison could put makeup on your face to hide the bruises. She had a suitcase of makeup that you could have fit all your belongings inside with room to spare.

I followed you to the dorms where you watched back-to-back Exy games with Kevin until Andrew kicked you out.

I followed you to the library, where you tried to study alongside Nicky but spent most of the hour doodling game plays and fox paws in the margins of your paper.

I followed you to Columbia for the weekend, and stood aside as you squeezed into a small and sticky table at Eden’s Twilight with your friends.

I followed you to the Court, and stood beside you as you watched your team play without you. They needed your support just as much as you needed theirs.

I followed you back to the Court when your night practices began, but I didn’t join in. Instead I sat next to the strange man who’d caught your attention. I didn’t quite see what you saw in him yet—he couldn’t protect you the way he said he could.

I followed you down to the parking lot when the Ravens fans trashed your team’s cars. I didn’t look at the fox. Aaron’s expression provided enough details.

When the police had left, I followed you up onto the roof of Fox Tower. You made your way to the edge and helped yourself to a spot just out of Andrew’s reach. You wondered if there was a version of me that had fallen off the roof of a building.

“Give me one good reason to not push you off the side.”

Maybe not fallen, then. Maybe there was a version of your Death that had been pushed.

“I’d drag you down with me. It’s a long way down.”

It was curious, how disassociated you were with your own death. You had always been this way.

“Ninety percent of the time the very sight of you makes me want to commit murder. I think about carving the skin from your body and hanging it out as a warning to every other fool who thinks he can stand in my way.”

You watched Andrew, not realising that I was watching him too. He sounded so utterly bored by the concept of hating you that it was hard to believe it, but you knew that he was not a liar. I wondered if there was a version of your life where you had died by the hands of Andrew Minyard, and whether there was any version of your Death that could have convinced you not to tug on a sleeping dragon’s tail.

You wondered about your death all the way through until March. You wondered why I had changed, and when. It didn’t slot into place until you accepted the phone call from Lola Malcolm.

“So you do remember me. Now you see, that’s bad, because if you remember me, you remember who you are and where your place is.”

“I made my own place.”

And god, you had. You had friends, a team, a place you called home. You had a routine that relied on other people, favourite haunts where you were rarely alone. In your last death you had been pulled away from campus without anyone noticing you were missing, but this time, this time, you had anchors to keep you in place.

“You don’t honestly think you can take me away from here. My team will know I’m missing and they won’t get back on the road without me.”

You thought the only way to save your team was to do the last thing your father’s people expected of you. You had run and lied and hid all your life. Telling the truth to save yourself, to save your team, was completely out of character.

This was what had changed.

Lola hung up on you, and you clutched your phone desperately in your hand.

“Is this how it ends?” you asked.

“Yes,” I said.

Your team was only down the hallway, but you felt a thousand miles away. You’d come so close to finishing this year. The first year of five promised to you. You were sorry to leave them with all your lies, but so grateful to have known them even for the snapshot that was your life.

“Will you stay with me?” you asked.

“If you want me to,” I said.

You were still looking down the hallway, but eventually you ripped your gaze away and looked at me. You were wearing my clothes, you realised. You hadn’t paid attention when you chucked them into your duffel bag—you didn’t care about blending in as much.

“Can you tell Andrew I said thank you?” you asked. I didn’t know if I could, but I nodded. “And tell him, ‘You were amazing’. Hopefully he will figure it out eventually.”

“Neil.”

“Don’t go yet. Wait until I’m far enough that they can’t follow.”

“Neil, I’m sorry.”

You shook your head. “Don’t.”

You willed me to silence.

“Will it be quick?” you asked.

“No.”

And it wasn’t quick. I stayed with you as long as I could, but I left when your death was only moments away.

You didn’t think Andrew would be able to see me, but you had hoped for it anyway. And because you had hoped for so few things in your life, I wanted to try. Andrew had been pacing up and down the length of the bus after nearly choking the life out of Kevin, and I waited at one end of his path until he neared me again.

“Thank you,” I said. “You were amazing.”

You would never know it, but for a moment it almost seemed like Andrew had heard.

— DEATH, AGED 19 —

Your previous Death had left you in Baltimore to say thank you and goodbye to Andrew. It was poor timing—if they had stayed with you a little while longer they would have been able to see that they were wrong. You did not die March 9th, bleeding out in your father’s basement.

You said goodbye to your Death in Baltimore and found me tailing you from that house to the hospital. You were barely conscious at this point, so you don’t remember any of this. You only remember waking up in the hospital and seeing me sitting on the windowsill across the room since the pig had taken the chair already.

The first thing you noticed was that I was wearing your Exy kit—away colours. You figured that at least you died doing something you loved, instead of being carved up on the floor of your father’s basement. You hadn’t yet noticed the gaping wound in the side of my head, but I’d turned my head away slightly so the worst of it wasn’t visible, and surprisingly little blood had gotten onto your kit. I wasn’t entirely sure how that could have been the case, since there was a lot of blood. Some of it was Riko’s, too, when Andrew smacked his racquet into his arm just a split second too late to save your life. Maybe he picked you up after dealing that blow on Riko—the last time he’d ever swing a racquet, I think—or maybe one of the other Foxes got to you first while Andrew beat Riko into a bloody pulp. You’d never find out, and I’d fade from existence before seeing the fall out. You can guess, though you might not bother. You could figure that you don’t need to wonder what would happen in the future; you got what you wanted. The Foxes won the championship, Riko would get killed by his brother, and your name would be remembered. Your team would miss you, but they’d be okay. They would move on, and think of you with a smile. This was everything you wanted, everything you needed, and you could finally let go.

— DEATH, AGED 78 —

If you could fold time, you would hold your Death with it in the warmest embrace you could muster. You didn’t think it would be very warm: the years of youth had been stripped from you, and you had started to turn the heating on in June. It was a luxury you delighted in.

You didn’t ever ask or wonder what killed you this time. You didn’t want to know. That was okay. You couldn’t have prevented it—not even a healthy diet and regular exercise could have stopped a genetic heart issue. It wouldn’t start to affect you for many, many years to come, and even then it was nothing compared to the other hardships you’d gone through. You’d already retired from Exy, retired from your career as a sports commentator. You never thought you’d say it, but you were actually getting quite bored of Exy. It wasn’t the same when you couldn’t play, and the endless seasons were starting to get repetitive. No one played like the Foxes did. Especially when most of the Foxes had started to sit out of the games Dan hosted in her backyard every summer reunion and let the kids take over.

It hadn’t always been me that followed you and waited. Ever since Ichirou let you live you had been tailed by the odd car crash or health scare or the one-time assassination after getting ‘cancelled’ online and losing profitability. It was fine, in the end. The internet moves a lot faster than your knees do now.

You greet me like an old friend, these days. When you haven’t seen me for a while, and some other Death had tried to make room in your life, you simply ignored them until I came back. You offer me a cup of coffee and we sit on the porch to watch the world go by. Andrew will join us sometimes, and he steals my coffee as soon as he’s finished his. I let him, since I’ve met his Death and I know that it’s not affected by caffeine. One day we will come for you both, and it will be peaceful and it will be kind. It will be exactly what you deserve.