Chapter Text
The Way Forward
1
A Visit
It had definitely been… a week.
It had only been Tuesday when Hero had arrived home from University to spend his summer break with family as he had the year previously. He was fully prepared for and expected his mother’s fussing, his father’s swelling pride, Kel’s boisterous enthusiasm to have him home again. Nothing like… this.
He couldn’t remember when he had last felt this mentally wrung out, so absolutely bone-tired… No. Scratch that. He did, actually. He did very clearly remember. And for the past three years he had buried himself in his classes, extracurricular, literally anything else to push that day to the foggy depths of his mind.
Hero sighed, scrubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes and with some hesitation pried them away to sweep his gaze around his dimly lit surroundings. Beside him the digital alarm clock glowed an ominous 3:45 AM. Across their shared bedroom he could just make out Kel sprawled out on his own bed, his brother’s head facing the end of the bed as he snored loudly. Not for the first time Hero envied his little brother’s ability to drop off so easily, especially now.
Above and around him all his awards were displayed proudly in his corner of the room: physical testimonies of every distraction he had thrown himself headfirst into gleaming on his wall. All those efforts were soundly put to rest that Thursday morning as he and everyone else encircled Basil’s bedside as a pale, bandaged Sunny stumbled his way in.
His stomach churned as he replayed that particular memory in his head. Warm relief becoming a patient curiosity becoming cold dread becoming… some kaleidoscope of thoughts, feelings, emotions that he had no name to and probably never would. He remembered Aubrey’s howl of anguish, Kel’s jumbled half formed questions then silence, Basil’s tearful gaze fixed at the foot of his hospital bed giving them all a wordless confirmation, the feeling of his own heart in his mouth—Hero dry heaved as the sensation made a violent return, yanking his comforter off and stumbling as quietly as he could down the hallway and into the bathroom. Turning on the light hardly mattered, his knees made contact with the cold tile as the heaves continued to wrack his body. He hadn’t eaten much earlier that evening but the sour taste of bile hit the back of his throat anyway.
Hero couldn’t stand to be in the house, not right now; he spat the remaining taste out of his mouth in the sink and followed it up with a splash of cold water to his face. The walls felt like they were closing in on him and every part of him burned to be out.
He wasn’t quite sure how he did it but somehow he had snuck his way out of his parent’s house, into his car, and pulled out of the driveway without his mom noticing. He’d never felt brave (or stupid) enough to make an attempt to sneak out. If he and Kel so much as set a foot out into the landing in the dead of night to sneak a late night snack they swore their mom could feel the mere vibration. Either way he mechanically drove to his destination in a fog of disconnected thoughts and it didn’t take long for him to lurch his way to a stop in front of the churchyard. Only now did he pause, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel in an irregular rhythm; with the exception of Wednesday he had avoided even walking down this street like a plague. Every time he had worked the slightest amount of courage to make a visit the nerve was all but drained the moment he caught a glimpse of the steeple.
But now… knowing the truth…
He all but threw himself out of the driver’s seat and made his way to the front doors, in the back of his mind Hero was slightly embarrassed by the state he was in: he hadn’t bothered to change out of his pajamas, his bare feet jammed so hastily into his shoes the collars folded under his heels and his hair was more unkempt than usual but those worries quickly evaporated the moment he stood before the double doors.
Faraway happened to be a small, very well to do town. Everyone in the community knew one another, crime was nearly unheard of and the church doors were always unlocked for anyone in need. Regardless, Hero paused, his fingers white-knuckled on the door handle. Wednesday he had stepped through the threshold for his brother and the childhood friends he without question considered family. Tonight however… he sucked in a shaky breath between gritted teeth and stepped into the dimly lit church. The pews were cold and empty, gleaming slightly in the light casted from the altar, the smell of smoke and candle wax hung in the still air and his mind reeled backwards to that day four very long years ago.
He remembered with painful accuracy the same heavy smell of warm candle wax intermingled with the sickly sweet perfume of dozens of white roses, lilies, carnations, other species he was confident that Basil could give name to. He remembered the uncomfortable wooden pew at his back. The crisp material of the suit his mother had laid out for him that morning (Grey, the shirt and tie a soft lavender and violet respectively. He remembered numbly choosing the colors himself.) He remembered the trembling weight of Kel crying into his shoulder. He had looked across the aisle and found Aubrey almost immediately, dressed in pink and eyes streaming as she openly sobbed. His eyes had roved again and found Basil, head bowed and eyes fixed on the pew ahead of him. Several rows in ahead of himself was Sunny and his parents at the front. Hero keenly recalled the twelve year old’s stiff posture, the tension in his shoulders. Sunny, Hero had thought, had always been a quiet kid reserved with his emotions. He hardly needed to see the kid’s face to know his grief even as he stared transfixed and frozen.
Hero was hardly a stranger to death and funerals; having a large family prepared you for that reality. For as long as he could remember his and Kel’s room was guarded by the family ofrenda, by faces he was too young to recall and simply not around to remember. But this… was far different. The week leading up to the funeral itself was spent in an uncertain and confused haze of disbelief. Mari couldn’t possibly have gone; had he not just talked with her, laughed with her? She was brimming with excitement for her and Sunny’s first recital together, practically glowing with pride in her brother’s progress on their duet. If there was something, anything, wrong Mari would’ve told him, he would have at least noticed something was amiss— they were friends after all, he had—
He remembered a soft weight on his unoccupied shoulder.
“— Hero? It’s almost our turn. Would you like to say goodbye?”
“Huh?”
His thoughts were interrupted by his dad’s voice and hand on his shoulder. The priest’s droning sermon had ceased while he was distracted and a slow shuffle of mourners echoed in the cavernous church as the occupants of first few rows of pews began to congregate up the nave and into the crossing.
“Henry..” his dad rarely called him by his given name, “you don’t have to do this.”
“No… it’s ok. I’ll be ok.”
He remembered his dad’s mouth pull into a tight, concerned not-smile before giving his shoulder a supportive squeeze and pat. He wasn’t sure his exact reasoning for it. Being strong for his brother? Their friends? Self closure? Whatever it was it wasn’t ok. At the last pew his body froze. A sliver of pale skin, dark hair pooled on a hint of shoulder—
He was back in the dark church, here and now at the same pew staring into a fixed point in space. He took another deep shuddering breath, collecting himself, steeling his nerve before pressing on past the transept and crossing and through the door leading to the cemetery.
The word “necropolis” slowly lifted to his thoughts as he approached the moon-bleached cemetery: rows and rows of miniature towers but he had only eyes for one. Hero wound his way through the headstones, feeling the beginnings of anxiety tightening his chest the closer he got to destination and all too soon he stood before her.
“Hey… Mari.” He took a shuddering breath, struggling past the knots that twisted themselves in his throat and chest.
“I’m — I’m sorry I didn’t visit you sooner. I’m… sorry about a lot of things.”
Another deep breath. His eyes were beginning to sting.
“I — I let everyone down. The others… they always looked to you and me to keep things together and… and… I wasn’t there? I was selfish. I only thought about my own pain. What I could’ve possibly did or didn’t do to stop what happened and —“
Hero collapsed to his knees into the grass, now shaking with barely suppressed sobs.
“It didn’t even matter!”
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t. For a year he lived trapped in a mindless fog. Three more on his feet presenting himself with every distraction he could, everything to convince everyone around him he was getting better. To convince himself he was getting better. Just when that aching, hollow pain became a distant memory, the heavy weight in his limbs and head lifted; here it was again, as fresh as the day it had happened. The pure despair that had sent his life into free fall began again with a simple string of words: “I have to tell you something.” The pain had returned simultaneously familiar and new.
“Sunny and Basil… what they did… how? Why? I don’t understand… I want to hate them. But I cant... Kel loved you. Aubrey loved you. I love you.”
He paused, breath coming in painful gasps that ripped at his throat, his lungs. Hero was at the hospital again, clutching the safety railing of Basil’s bed like a man drowning out at sea, mind in free fall, he only vaguely felt his knees going weak. Aubrey after having cursing herself hoarse was now doubled over in the room’s lone visitor’s chair, face buried in her hands, a curtain of bubblegum pink hair trembling with the force of her muffled sobs. Kel continued his own silence, broken by the occasional stutter, face twisted in confusion and the beginnings of tears swimming in his eyes.
But also Sunny, his thin figure framed by the door. Quiet, reserved, soft spoken Sunny who never in the years he had known him had ever once had a single outburst, was trembling. His shoulders that he had noticed were thin and sharp with malnutrition hitched with quiet gasps, his remaining dark eye bloodshot, pale face shining with tears. Beside him Basil hiccuped into his bedsheets the bed nearly quivering with the force of his shaking.
“Basil loved you. Sunny adores you... And they’ve had to live with what they did… it’s punishment… no… it’s torture enough. And I’m going to do what I should’ve done in the first place… I’ll be there for them this time. All of them.”
He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the top of the headstone, forehead pressed against the cool marble. The image of dark hair against pale skin floating behind his closed eyes. The sight that had stopped him in his tracks all those years ago, turn tail, and sent his life into a standstill.
“I’m sorry for being such a coward… for then… for now…”
A soft blue was beginning to creep its way into the sky past the trees ringing the cemetery and Hero took this a his queue to leave, at least for now. He had no flowers with him to leave this time so instead he pressed a soft kiss against the stone’s surface.
“I’ll be back. I promise.”