Survival Of The Fittest

What if he knew?

What if instead of fading slow here and now, Hel and Abe had botched it and he was dying back where Lorenzo left him? What if he'd been awake, aware, the same old guy in the same old fights squaring up in his last loss? What if he remembered covering Andy up? What if he could recall the bullet wound in their side? What if he knew as vividly as he had yesterday what kind world he was sending them to wake up in? What if he knew they almost abandoned him, that if things had gone different he would have had to track them down and be the one cradling their body without the closure of a final conversation?

What if he knew? Would his last words have changed?

No. Hel didn't think they would. The shape around them maybe, but Axel was a one thought at a time sorta guy. Long as they were right there beside him they knew where that last thought was headed. With how he chose to get there they had to think that somewhere in the haze he understood. He wanted them to know. Prom. Axel was way back before prom and he was taking them with him, back to a shitty night he half caused and half solved. Felt kinda right in a cosmic way. The mirror of his voice and his hands bringing them back to their body. A conversation that could be the last time they spoke to each other. Blood all over the fucking place. An overwhelming sense that their words, or their thoughts if they were too much of a coward to expose themself, could blame him three times to truth and it would still be all their fault. One difference though, something that couldn't be so easily mimicked.

It'd been morning or close enough to call it even. Axe figured he should sneak out before their dad noticed his truck. They knew it was already late for that but hey, sweating one less person who might want to kill him might help his drive home so they kept their mouth shut. Not that he helped his case when he let out a curse halfway through the window; some mumbled stream about the whole reason he came over in the first place. If they'd been more awake they probably would have taken distracting him all night as a compliment. They weren't thinking much of anything until metal met their bare skin, though, they hadn't noticed him take the necklace out. A simple silver chain, no ornaments or anything like that. It looked kinda like his ink. Got him a smile, at least as much of one as they could manage this early. A kiss too. That woke them up enough he might have got more, but he was out before they cleared the fog.

Good night. Tempting to call it the best of their life. Way they were any night he was still part of could take that crown.

The chain had stayed around their neck more or less all the time since then. They’d gotten used to its weight fast, they hardly noticed it was there. He took them back to prom, though, and it felt like it might drag them down on top of them. They couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. When his eyes closed they couldn’t pull their gaze from his face, or their hand from his chest. Noise crackled to life around them but it didn’t cut through, the only thing in their ears was the sound of his heartbeat thudding under their palm. It slowed but that only seemed to make it louder until between beats there was nothing at all left in the universe but the anticipation that it might start again.

Hel prayed it wouldn’t.

They were answered, and there was a world around them again. Abe asked them a question he couldn’t finish and they looked up glassy eyed. “Yeah.”

What else was there to say?

“...Alright,” Abe said numbly, because what the fuck else was there to say? That was that. Axel was dead, for real, forever.

He couldn’t even cry. It’s not that he didn’t want to - who the fuck would judge him? He wasn’t so fucking attatched to detachment that he was determined to never show a single speck of emotion, but he just couldn’t. He’d choked down his tears, for Axel, all for Axel, and now the moment was gone and he couldn’t even cry for him. Instead of the suitably explosive display of despair that Axel’s memory deserved, all he could muster up was a runny nose and a sickness in his heart.

But, well, maybe that was fine. Abe had spent enough time pretending he was a real human boy that cared about other people and had like, feelings and shit. He’d had a whole week to savor that luxury, time was up if he wanted to get out of there alive, and seeing Axel lying still, so terribly still, well, that lit a fire under his survival instinct.

Cockroaches weren’t social animals, were they? Like, sure when you saw one roach there was usually a whole swarm, but that’s ‘cause they were self-motivated assholes who all just happened to find the good garbage to harvest, right? Abe’d been going against his pathetic nature for too long, spent too many days in the company of others. Time for him to scuttle away again. Been so many days since the first time he cut and ran, he was starting to get out of practice.

He broke the silence. “I can’t stick around anymore. Sorry.”

For once, he meant it. He couldn't even offer them a fucking hug, because that'd mean getting closer to the meat that used to be his friend. He gathered his bag, Andy’s bag (Hel could have Axel’s) and his gun, but didn’t leave yet. He was going away, but he wasn’t fleeing this time. If Hel had anything to say to him, even if it was just a middle finger for abandoning them at the most callous moment, well, they deserved a moment.

"Yeah," they repeated. Hel didn't expect him to, they weren't close like that. After this maybe they should be, maybe they would be if they lived long enough to see each other again. Not now. Hel couldn't ask him to stay. "Thanks for staying. I..." They hung up. I almost didn't come back, they wanted to say. The first night. The second. The third might have not been that different if Axel'd been okay. So thanks for staying, yeah? Thanks for being here in case they didn't make it? Being insurance that Axel wouldn't be alone if the worst of it caught up to them? Fucked up things to say, but they wanted to let them out. No one knew. No one would ever know what they almost did until it was too late to be angry at them for it, if their messages even found their way to their family they'd be long gone before they aired. So there was this impulse in them to let it out. Somebody had to have the chance to understand how shitty they were while there were still consequences. They couldn't just keep getting away with it.

Abe didn't deserve to have all that put on him though. Deep down they weren't sure anybody left did. Axel, Andy, they kinda knew what was up. There was an open Deadbeats policy that when you were going through something fucked you could share and they'd all either hug or fight it out as necessary. Gods did they all ignore it more often and not, but they were there for each other. Taking on everybody else's baggage was part of the deal. Abe wasn't part of that. He'd never signed on for their bullshit and he had more than enough on his plate from the looks of things. Kinda funny though, out of all the names they were still dreading hearing the first one who might be on board enough to give them the ass kicking they deserved was "Forrest."

The name jumped from thought to voice as they started to get up. There was something they could do for him. "She's still out there. I might. Y'know. Before you. Is there anything you'd want her to hear?"

Fuck.

Abe was glad that Hel didn’t seem to blame him for ditching, ‘cause if they’d begged him to stay he might have wavered, because his willpower wasn’t exactly legendary, but. There Abe had gone, trying to be all heartless and pragmatic and king rat and shit, but they just had to remind him that there was still one (1) person he gave a shit about out there.

“If you see her, tell her I said… hello,” Abe said, like an idiot. Maybe it could’ve been funny, maybe on day one, maybe when Axel’s corpse wasn’t feet away from him, but c’mon, it wasn’t the time for a fucking Futurama reference. Dipshit.

“And also, that I…” he’d never told Forrest that he loved her. Maybe thought it, once or twice, in a moment of extreme sentimentality, but they’d only been together a few months, y’know? Abe’d never told anyone that he loved them, except his family. It never seemed right, and it didn’t seem right to have someone else say it for him, y’know? It made sense, but maybe he was just being a coward, like usual.

Axel’s corpse was feet away from him. Why the fuck was he thinking about anything else? This was high school shit. He didn’t have the right to worry about relationship drama anymore.

“Tell her that I’m doing alright. And that I’d like to see her again. Thanks.” Even with that in mind, he couldn’t lie, couldn’t pass up this opportunity to maybe ease Forrest’s mind a bit. He wondered if she’d been thinking about him.

He would’ve offered to return the favor for Hel, but, well, he was pretty sure he’d seen the dead bodies of anyone they would’ve cared to pass a message to.

“Well. See you in about sixty years, buddy,” and with a too-casual wave he was off.

((He meant it for both of them. Maybe Axel was listening, somewhere, but Abe really hoped he had better things to be doing with his time, haha.))

It was quiet after Abe left.
































They remained at his side.































For a long, long time.































Their hand on his heart.
































In case it began to beat again.































So they might silence it.































And let him rest.































((Helena Fury Continued In @shdwmstr recordings and transcripts june 16th))