Warning: this chapter contains depictions of loss and grief which may be difficult for some readers to read. Please continue with care.
And don't worry, Fox won't stay like this forever.
~
Grief has its own way of leaving its mark. It rips open your heart and leaves you to bleed out alone, your core still continuing to beat despite the blood it keeps losing. It tears open long gaping lines down your back, impossible for you to reach and patch up on your own, left bare and exposed for all to see. It paints permanent tears on your face, even when it may be dry. It steals the light and color from your eyes, the laughter from your lungs, the strength in your legs. A piece of you is gone forever, and even when you manage to heal well enough to regain your light, your laughter, your strength, you are still not the same. Scar tissue is not only for flesh. It stays with you forever, until you breathe your last breath.
Grief can be monstrous. Grief can be soft. Grief can come to visit in fits of rage, fuel to an unending fire. Grief can step up behind you with hardly a sound and rest a gentle hand on your shoulder. Grief can hold you underwater and only let you gasp for air when you're on the brink of drowning. Grief can hug you tightly, for a long time, and whisper reassurances in your ear. Grief can continue to come back only to reopen your wounds. Grief can come as an echo of home. Grief can pass by briefly, as calm as a breeze, to remind you that it's been too long since you last remembered.
Grief is a unique agony. Those who have felt it understand its complexity, how deep and how tight its roots can grow and fill up space.
Fox knew grief too well. He would never not know grief.
Fox was seventeen when his mother became ill. It was a kind of sickness that had no cure, and it slowly ate away at her. She struggled to do daily tasks. She struggled to walk. Over the course of just a few months, her body deteriorated. Fox watched his mother grow weaker and weaker, until one night, she couldn't get up anymore. Fox had known, deep down inside, that he didn't have much longer with her.
Fox was seventeen as he sat next to his mother's bed. At the start of the night, she talked with him. Little by little, her words started to make less sense. She asked for something to write on. He gave her a pen and some paper. She wrote words that had no connection. Fox could only watch as she stared at what she wrote, unable to comprehend it herself. Eventually, she stopped responding to Fox, and she lay still in her bed.
"Mom?" he called, soft in the silent room. "I love you."
She didn't say it back. Fox's heart sank. He held her cold, unflinching hand.
She stopped looking around. It looked as though she was falling asleep, but her eyes remained half-lidded. Half present. Fox could see blood on her teeth. Not a lot, just a faint speckle on the edge of her gums; her mouth was slightly parted to help her breathe.
Her breaths grew shorter and shorter. Her lungs flexed weakly, trying to keep oxygen within her. Those breaths grew farther and farther apart.
Her lungs gasped once. A longer amount of time passed before her lungs gasped again.
"Mom?"
A long moment passed. She didn't take another breath.
Fox cried his heart out in a room that he was now alone in.
~~~
Fox had seen death many times in his life. He'd seen it happen in brutal and abrupt ways. He'd seen it drawn out in agony. He'd seen it happen peacefully, soft like a breeze. He'd seen them all in their aftermaths. Stiffened bodies, exposed flesh, silent hearts, empty eyes.
One would think he'd have gotten used to it by now. But each death he witnessed only added another gaping wound in his heart.
Losing Star was like being sucker-punched in the gut. It stole the air from his lungs and made him unbearably nauseous, on the cusp of vomiting. He could focus on nothing but that awful feeling.
Losing Star also made him numb. Every death did, in a way. He felt like his skin was buzzing, and the air around him seemed thick and heavy. His throat tightened, and he couldn't speak. Things that had once mattered didn't matter anymore.
Fox stood frozen and silent in front of Star. People moved around him. Ahren kept trying to talk to him. Fox didn't hear a single word.
Eventually, Ahren understood that Fox wasn't going to respond to anything. He took a gentle hold of him by his shoulders, and he guided Fox away.
Fox only walked because he couldn't focus on making his body not walk. Ahren led him out of the forest and to the Alphas' houses. He guided him to Leyra's front door.
It opened before the two of them even reached it. Sunshine stepped out and inquired about the situation. Ahren leaned close and whispered to her. Fox picked up on a single word through Ahren's explanation. "Murdered."
Pressure built up at the back of his throat. Sunshine pressed a hand to her mouth. She looked at Fox, eyes shocked and concerned. Fox didn't look back.
"I'll take him," Sunshine said. "You go do what needs to be done."
She tucked her arms around Fox and walked him inside the house. "Fox?" she nudged quietly. Fox only swallowed against the pressure in his throat. He couldn't stop picturing Star's ruined body. Murdered, murdered, murdered.
His body urged him to move. He stepped further inside and made his way upstairs. He found his bathroom and knelt down in front of the toilet. All he had to do was hunch over, and he vomited.
"Oh, honey," Sunshine whispered, kneeling down next to him. She rubbed his back as Fox threw up again. She stayed close as Fox rid his stomach of its contents. When he could puke no more, he shuddered and pressed his palms to his eyes. They were stinging with unshed tears.
"I'll get you some water, okay?" Sunshine said. Fox didn't respond. She stood and went downstairs to get a glass.
Fox curled up on the bathroom floor. Sunshine came back and rested a hand on his arm. "Here," she said, holding the glass of water out to him. Fox made no move to take it.
Sunshine waited a moment, then she set the glass on the bathroom counter. "It's here when you need it," she told him gently.
She sat down on the floor beside Fox and rubbed his back again. Her hand made slow, soothing circles around his shoulder blades, and Fox didn't know how to feel about it.
Fox was too used to dealing with his grief alone. In every death's aftermath, he had no comforting hands, no whispered words, no gestures of kindness. This was too strange to him.
"Stop... please," Fox croaked through his taut and stinging throat. Immediately, Sunshine took her hand away.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry, Fox."
Fox was unable to say anything else. He could only lie on the cold bathroom floor, while Sunshine sat next to him and quietly sniffled.
Some time passed. Fox couldn't muster enough energy to get up. Sunshine left his side when she heard the front door open. She closed the bathroom door to a partial crack, probably to give Fox a sense of privacy.
Two women's voices held a hushed discussion. Fox didn't care to listen in. A little while later, Leyra eased open the door to the bathroom.
Fox didn't want to interact with Leyra. He hadn't forgotten their conversation about how a loner's grief was viewed as a problem in this pack. He had an idea of what she was going to say.
Leyra crouched down next to him. The same pose as when she'd crouched down in the prison hole.
"I understand you and Star were close," she said. "I'm sorry you had to find her like that."
Leyra seemed to wait for Fox to respond. But he just kept staring at the wall behind the toilet.
"Listen. This... sucks, it really does. And I know you're upset about it. But I need your reassurance that you aren't going to let her death be an excuse to hurt anyone in my pack. I can't have you hurting anyone because you yourself are hurting," she stated.
There it was. Fox drew in a deep and heavy sigh. Offense and frustration boiled underneath the sorrow slowly taking him over. He still didn't say anything.
Leyra waited for a few moments. When it became apparent that Fox was going to remain silent, she stood and left without a word.
Fox wondered if Leyra was upset by his silence. Fox found that he didn't care.
He stayed in that bathroom for the rest of the day. Neither woman bothered him, although he did hear Sunshine pass by and pause a few times, peeking into the bathroom to see if he was alright.
Fox was not alright. He certainly wasn't alright when he felt the telltale hunger pangs in his stomach. He had barely eaten breakfast, and had been busy searching for Star during lunch, and for all he knew, he'd missed dinner, too. Vomiting certainly hadn't made things better in that department, either.
Fox always hated the mundanity of survival. He would have to find something to eat or everything would get worse. Bodily functioning didn't always care for the woes of the heart. Fox pushed himself up from the floor. He spotted the glass of tepid water and drank it down. Then he emerged from the bathroom.
The world always moved in a strange way after he witnessed a death. His head was too light, so he braced himself against the wall he walked along. The material under his fingertips didn't feel real. The bending of his knees as he descended the stairs were too dull for him to notice, and yet also too precise for him to not notice. Lights and furniture felt out of place, or too deliberately placed, and his body moved through the air that might as well have been water.
He didn't remember pulling open the back door. He remembered all too clearly the crisp cold air as it clung to his skin.
He found himself in the same spot he'd been in last night. Just last night, around this time, he was being allowed to have one of the most fun nights he'd had in years. Just last night, Star was laughing. Fox could still feel her warmth pressed to his side.
Fox stared, numb and dazed, at the trees Star had disappeared into last night. How could she have slipped away so easily, how could her life have been taken so quickly, so violently?
The whole time Star had been fighting for her life, Fox had been sleeping.
Tremendous guilt wrapped itself around Fox's aching heart and squeezed. It grew and sank so heavily he could feel it all through his chest, in his gut, in his limbs.
Had she called for him? Had she been ambushed and silenced before she could make a sound? Had she flailed her hands towards Fox while he stepped inside a warm, safe house?
Fox wanted to vomit again.
The sound of shifting grass tore him from his thoughts; he barely held back a jolt of surprise.
"Hey." It was Ahren. Fox made no move to acknowledge him.
Ahren waited a moment. "How are you?" he asked tentatively. What an absurd question. How was he? Take a guess, Alpha.
Fox's heavy guilt and sorrow still managed to muffle the effects of burning offense. He remained unspeaking.
Ahren seemed to gauge the mental and physical state of the lone wolf. He didn't ask the question again. "Are you hungry?" he asked instead.
Fox swallowed. His mouth and throat were dry, and his stomach was painfully empty. The notion of eating both suggested an end to the pain, and a worsening of it.
He still had no words. He just swallowed again. Ahren must have been watching him closely, because he stepped in front of Fox to distract from his frozen stare. "Come on, then," he said gently. His positioning served to herd Fox, because he only had to take a step, and Fox was stepping back. Ahren held a hand out to guide him, but he didn't touch him.
Fox let himself be herded towards Ahren's house. Ahren let him inside, and once stepping in, Fox was immediately thawed. He didn't realize how cold he'd gotten from standing outside. How long had he been standing outside?
Ahren already had dinner cooking. Fox glanced around for a clock, something to ground him, and he found that it was a little past 8pm. He felt a little better knowing what time it was.
"You can have a seat," Ahren told him. Fox took note of the dining table and the kitchen, the food cooking in a pot on the stove, a single overhead light on. He chose a seat at the end of the dining table, facing the backyard.
Fox kept his gaze on the table's dining mat. Ahren spent a few minutes finishing up the last bit of cooking. Fox found it odd that an Alpha had left his food to go speak to him. Surely the food and its integrity mattered more.
Ahren set down two bowls of steaming hot clam chowder soup. Fox inhaled the delicious scent as wafts of steam warmed his cheeks. He was mildly glad that his stomach decided it wanted the food.
Ahren placed a spoon beside his bowl, along with a glass of water. Fox waited until the Alpha seated himself at the other end of the table and began to eat.
Once Fox was certain the Alpha had begun eating, Fox picked up his spoon and tasted the soup. It was just the right amount of creamy and salty.
Fox managed to slip spoonful after spoonful into his mouth. He kept his head tilted down, close to the bowl, and his shoulders stayed drawn in. Although he was hungry, the heaviness of his emotions made it difficult to eat at anything faster than a snail's pace.
Naturally, Ahren finished before Fox did. Halfway through his bowl, Fox's stomach lost its appetite. He stayed hunched over the bowl and merely circled his spoon around it, stirring the soup again and again. He wanted to eat it. He didn't want to eat it.
Fox could feel Ahren's eyes on him, but he didn't meet them. He could tell the Alpha wanted to ask him more questions, or say something, anything, to fill the silence in the room. Fox couldn't help but wonder if Ahren had lost anyone in his life; if he knew the pain slowly eating Fox from the inside out, or if he was as entirely oblivious as the rest of this privileged pack.
"It's okay if you can't finish," he finally said. Despite the stillness in the room with only the humming of the house's heating in the background, Ahren's voice came out light and undisruptive. Fox set down his spoon and rested his hands in his lap.
Ahren took that as a cue to take what was left. He stood and picked up Fox's bowl. "I'll keep it in the fridge, and you can heat it up later when you feel hungry again," he told him. Fox only nodded a little. It only occurred to him a moment later that an Alpha had just given a lone wolf permission to go into his food storage.
Fox's eyebrows drew together, and he managed to lift his gaze up to Ahren. The Alpha rinsed his bowl out in the sink and put the dishes into a dishwasher. He covered Fox's bowl in saran wrap and set it in the fridge.
When he turned away from the fridge, he caught Fox's eyes. He smiled a little, and pulled out a chair close to Fox and sat down, facing him.
Before Ahren could start asking questions, Fox asked one of his own. "Am..." he started, his voice failing for a moment. "Am I going to have to sleep in her bunker?"
Ahren's expression turned conflicted, but mainly sympathetic. "No. I couldn't make you do that."
Fox exhaled a breath of relief. His shoulders sank and he dipped his head. "If you want, you can sleep here. I have a guest room upstairs, or if you prefer the couch... Either one is fine with me," Ahren added.
Fox lifted his head again and peered at the Alpha, confused by his kindness. Ahren just looked at him, expression pained, like looking at Fox was something he could barely stand.
Fox couldn't bear to sleep in a bed. It didn't feel right, sleeping in someplace so comfortable when Star was dead. He'd been sleeping in a bed when Star was being murdered. He felt it would be an insult to her memory to sleep in a bed again.
"Couch is... fine," he whispered. "Can I get my bag?"
"Of course," Ahren said. Fox slid out of his chair and went through the robotic task of walking outside, walking to Leyra's house, making his way up to her guest room, grabbing his bag, ensuring he had all his things, and making the trip back to Ahren's.
Fox didn't want to sleep in Leyra's house anymore. He didn't want to be around Leyra, who didn't care for his grief, nor around Sunshine, who might try to make him feel better in all the wrong ways. Leyra would probably feel better not having Fox sleep in her house, since she believed his loss made him more dangerous.
Ahren let him back inside. "You can use the throw blanket," he said. Fox glanced over at the faux fur blanket draped over the back of Ahren's couch. Fox trudged over and settled himself in one corner seat, hugging his backpack to his chest.
"If you need a distraction, you're welcome to turn on the tv, so long as you keep the volume down. There's a bathroom around the corner, if you remember," Ahren continued. Fox just nodded a little.
Ahren hesitated, hovering for a moment. Fox could still feel that Ahren wanted to ask him questions, but the Alpha continued to restrain himself. He locked the back door, turned off the kitchen light, and headed towards the stairs. He paused just before the first step.
"I'm sorry, Fox," he whispered. "I really am."
Fox never understood why people said sorry for this kind of thing. The word felt so empty. It failed to hold the weight of all his pain. It failed to make him feel any better.
Fox didn't say anything in return. Ahren accepted his silence and went upstairs. Fox was left alone in the dark.
He sat still for a long time, zoning out, thinking, not thinking, his emotions turning and turning inside him. Eventually he set his bag on the floor and curled up in the corner of the couch. He welcomed sleep.
Fox dreamt of lying on the net hammock with Star, gazing up at the night sky. In the dream, the stars were so much brighter, so much closer. He could still feel her warmth pressed to his side.
Fox awoke hours later. He blinked against the darkness. He heard nothing but the faint ticking of a clock. The silence, the stillness, pressed in around him. There was a terrible, awful ache in his heart. A true ache, a genuine physical pain that hurt. It pressed up on his ribs and in on his lungs.
Fox's eyes welled with tears. He sat up because he couldn't bear to stay lying down. He reached for a pillow and hugged it to his face, tight, suffocating. The sobs came before he could stop them. His lungs heaved with their intensity. He cried his heart out in raw lamenting wails, his entire body curling inward. He cried, and cried, and cried, because what else could he do?
~~~
Fox awoke the next day to find he'd overslept well into the afternoon. Judging by the lack of noise in the house, he assumed Ahren wasn't here.
Fox remained curled up in his little corner seat. It took a while for him to gain enough energy and willpower to sit up. Even longer to manage standing up.
The ache in his chest gradually made itself known again. This was one of the worst parts of losing someone he cared about; the literal heartache he had to endure for days after. Fox knew from long experience that crying was the only thing that made it go away for a time.
Fox didn't bother to hold back his tears as they streamed down his cheeks. There was no one around to walk in on his sorry state, and no one around to hear him sob. He cried as he found his way to the bathroom and rinsed his face with cold water. He continued to cry as he wandered into the kitchen in search of his leftovers. He briefly acknowledged the strange feeling of opening someone else's fridge. He searched through blurry vision for his unfinished soup. When he found it, he could only stare at it.
He was hungry. He couldn't stand the thought of eating. He wanted to eat to stave off the feeling of hunger. He didn't want to eat for fear of throwing it all up later. He felt ashamed about wanting to eat. He pictured Star's destroyed abdomen.
He couldn't eat. Fox shut the fridge and leaned heavily against it. His lungs heaved out long, painful sobs. He wiped at his face and trudged miserably back to the couch. He curled back up in the corner and pulled his backpack up onto the seat with him. He hugged it tight to his chest and buried his face into its worn and frayed fabric. He cried himself back into a miserable sleep.
Hours later, a sensation pulled him from his dark mindless slumber. A hand ruffled his hair, but not in a way he'd grown used to. The motion wasn't quick and lighthearted. Instead, fingertips wove through his hair and carefully caressed his scalp. Calming tingles rained down from his head.
Fox tiredly drew in a breath and turned his head to see who was touching him. Through sleep-squinted eyes, he saw Ahren looking down at him, solemn and pitying.
"Have you been here all day?" Ahren asked him. Fox noted the color of the world outside the windows. Not entirely bright, hazy with sunset.
Fox only sighed and buried his face back in his backpack. "I'm guessing you haven't eaten much, either," Ahren added. "Or at all. Hm?"
He hummed inquiringly, hoping for a concrete answer from Fox. To ensure Fox's attention still remained on him, Ahren brushed his fingers through his hair again. Fox curled deeper into himself, escaping Ahren's hand.
"No..." he murmured.
"I see," Ahren replied calmly. He left Fox alone to head into the kitchen. He turned on the overhead light again and began to cook dinner.
Fox listened from his spot on the couch. Eventually he grew tired of lying down and dragged himself up. He went to the bathroom and rinsed his face again.
When he emerged back out into the kitchen/living area, he found that Ahren had gone ahead and heated up his leftover soup and had placed it on the dining table. It sat, billowing steam, awaiting Fox. Ahren continued to cook a small, simple meal of rice and chicken.
Fox slid into a dining chair and gazed down at his bowl. He was conflicted between not wanting to eat and not wanting to offend the Alpha. He also wasn't sure if he was allowed to eat before Ahren. Fox was upset and mourning, but that didn't mean this wasn't still an Alpha's house.
Fox knew it would be better to wait until Ahren was done, but by that time his soup would've gone cold. Fox couldn't help but wonder if Ahren set his food out first for a reason.
"Can... Can I eat?" Fox asked. His voice was quiet and a little hoarse.
"Please do," Ahren answered with a glance Fox's way. Fox picked up his spoon and sipped at his leftovers. He managed to eat a decent amount during the time Ahren finished cooking. The Alpha sat down across the table from Fox and ate.
Fox managed to finish his bowl this time around. He finished just a little before Ahren did, and he sat patiently for a while, thinking, until he found his voice again.
"Who killed her?" he asked. Ahren paused mid-chew and looked at Fox. He swallowed his bite and sighed.
"It's hard to tell. She was killed on a pretty convenient night. There's so many scents and tracks it's hard to say who did it. Her body is still in autopsy. Hopefully we'll find some DNA evidence of who did it," Ahren told him.
Fox fell silent for a long moment. Ahren waited, then when he was sure Fox wouldn't continue the conversation, he went back to eating.
Autopsy. Fox wondered who had the stomach to pick up the mess around Star and carry her body to a morgue. He hoped they treated her nicely, even given that she was a lone wolf.
"She was important to you, wasn't she?" Ahren asked quietly.
"She was my friend," Fox whispered. "I... I thought we would've stayed friends for a while." Fox exhaled in a distressed manner and shook his head at himself.
"She isn't the only one you've lost..." Ahren noted. His tone suggested that he had already suspected as such even before Star had died. But naturally, he was curious about Fox.
Tears stung at Fox's eyes. They piled and hung at the edge of his eyelids, not quite full enough to fall. His heartache returned in its entirety, and he pinched at his thighs to distract himself from it.
"I should've known better. I never get to keep friends for very long," Fox whispered again, his throat growing tighter and tighter. "Death and abandonment always comes." He shrugged helplessly and sniffled. "Curse of the lone wolf, I guess."
His gaze was downcast, but he knew Ahren was staring at him. Fox wondered what it must be like, for a wolf who still had his family and his pack in one piece, to listen to a wolf speak about having lost everyone they ever met. Could he understand the sheer volume of loss that Fox carried with him everywhere?
"Excuse me," he whispered even quieter; his throat had almost fully closed. He slid from his chair and went to the bathroom, where he shut the door behind him. Fox crouched down onto the floor and leaned back against a wall. His hands grabbed at his hair and held two fistfuls tight. He fought to keep his sobs as silent as possible, ribs crushing his lungs, as those tears finally fell in endless rivers.
He would never understand why everyone dead in his life had to die the way they had. He would never understand why he was always losing someone, always ending up alone. Maybe that was some unspoken rule for wolves born as loners; they would stay loners their entire lives. Fox had no promise that he would ever have a pack of his own.