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incorrect-the-foxhole-court · 4 years

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Northern Road Trip

This is my piece for the AFTG Gift exchange! I went for Andriel coz im a complete Andriel junkie, but i couldnt resist a little Renison on the side XD

This is for @andthenthefirenationattacked - I hope you like it! I’m sorry it’s not very good but I tried! (And if you wanna talk or fangirl about aftg at any point, i’m definitely around for that!)

Neil couldn’t remember a time he had felt this safe. Which, he had to admit, made no sense considering his current situation. Despite having family in England, an uncle who had once saved his life, the UK had never been a place that had screamed safety. And yet, here he was, standing in the middle of an endless stretch of rolling green hills that looked like they had been taken from one of Matt’s fantasy novels, and he felt…safe. It was as much a disquieting feeling as hope had once been.

The sky was a bright, forget-me-not blue that, after only five days in the country, he already knew was a rare blessing. Fluffy white clouds scudded across the sky, and the relief that they weren’t even a little grey had been unexpectedly strong when they had woken up this morning. Two cars idled behind him, the engines rumbling softly, and those inside were already betting on the upcoming games outcome and snacking on junk food that Kevin had already tried to throw out four times over.

Neil sucked in a deep breath, feeling the cold air settle in his lungs like shards of ice. Beautiful, this country, but cold. And wet. This was the first day they had been there that it hadn’t rained.

He could hear his old team behind him, laughing and joking, teasing Andrew for their stopping. It hadn’t been Andrew that had wanted to stop, but the goalie knew Neil too well now – had feigned car sickness to cover Neil’s need to see something. To see something other than exy courts and press rooms from the place his mother had come from. The woman had been cold and cruel and protective and beautiful, and standing there now, in the place she had always talked about, in Rivington, he could understand. The people he had met from around here felt like they had been born from the place itself. He could almost feel his mother in the wind’s cold fingers as it raked through his hair and cut straight through his winter coat to chill the blood in his veins.

“Neil! Come on! Andrew says he’s okay to keep going now,” Matt shouted, a grin on his face that was far too smug and pleased to merely be teasing.

Dan smacked him in the ribs as she disappeared around the other side of their hire car and slid into the driver’s seat. And then smacked the wheel in frustration, got out and went round to the passenger side door, grumbling about stupid English cars. Neil tuned out Matt and Allison’s teasing, both of them needling Dan about still not being used to which side of the car to get in, and turned to the other car. Renee smiled at Andrew before going to join the others.

Neil slid into the backseat next to Andrew, Aaron on the goalie’s other side, Kevin up front and Nicky driving. Within thirty minutes of driving, Andrew was asleep, head tipped back against the back of the seat – Neil wasn’t surprised, Andrew had barely slept since the flight, as though he was more scared than Neil that some relative would show up at their hotel. It wasn’t a secret they were in the UK; the whole world had known this is where they would be. The press had been covering the US exy team’s trip to the UK in excruciating detail for weeks. They had already had their games in Glasgow and London, and tomorrow, the last game of Us vs. UK, would take place in Manchester. London had been an easy win for the US Court, Andrew had barely bothered to try. Glasgow had been significantly more difficult. It had taken bribing Andrew to lock down the goal for them to come close to winning – even then it hadn’t been enough; they’d lost by two points.

Tomorrow’s game would decide who would face the Chinese team. And the old team from Palmetto State had come out to show their support as Kevin, Andrew and Neil, played their last UK game of the season, fighting to advance closer to the title of ‘Exy International Champions’. Kevin had been training and planning nonstop. It had taken Andrew’s knives to convince him to have this day off.

“Erm…Neil…?” Nicky asked, voice tight. Neil dragged his eyes away from staring out the window as the North sped by, and met Nicky’s worried eyes in the rear-view mirror. “Satnav is freaking out.”

“Get Andrew to fix it,” Aaron grunted, “he’s the tech wonder boy.”

“Waking Andrew up in a car has never been a good idea,” Nicky warned, no doubt thinking of that time all those years ago.

Neil could feel Aaron’s smirk as the man reached over and tapped his twin on the shoulder closest to Neil. From habit, Neil’s hand was out waiting as Andrew jolted from sleep, one hand instinctively reaching out. Their fingers twined together and held on tight. No elbow in the stomach, no fists flying, not anymore – they had been sleeping in the same bed now for nearly two years; Andrew was too used to being woken by Neil’s nightmares to react violently. Now it was a grasping hand and white knuckled grip, each proving to the other that they are here – that they are safe. On Andrew’s other side, Aaron huffed in frustration and turned his attention back to the steady stream of messages between him and Katelyn.

“Satnav isn’t working properly,” Neil explained quietly, and Andrew shook off his grip, leaning forward to take it from Kevin.

“Going old school,” Nicky muttered to himself. “Gonna have to use these damn stupid road signs.”

Neil didn’t bother to watch what Andrew was doing to fix the machine – he had learnt a long time ago that when Andrew couldn’t sleep, he and one of the cats curled up on the sofa with an instruction manual of some sort. Andrew couldn’t sleep most nights. By this point, Andrew’s eidetic memory had given him the ability to fix almost anything technological.

It took them another hour and a half to reach the Lake District. They were aiming for a shop that the Northern players on the UK team hadn’t stopped raving about since the team meets had started. By the time they finally arrived, it was raining again.

They parked in a garden centre opposite a tiny little place called ‘The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop’ and stared out through rain-streaked windows. Nicky’s phone started ringing. He took the sat nav out of its holder, tossed it onto Kevin’s lap before balancing his phone in the slot instead. Allison’s face appeared on the screen, and then the rest of the others.

“So, how do we decide who goes out into the rain to get the damn gingerbread we drove for two hours to come and try?” Allison asked and Renee, in the driver’s seat beside her, tucked a few stray blonde curls behind her ear, dragging a smile from the otherwise annoyed face.

“Flip for it?” Nicky suggested.

Matt lost to Renee. Dan lost to Matt. Allison rolled her eyes and picked at a perfectly manicured nail, but called heads when she went up against Dan, only to lose. Storm clouds gathered on her face as she waited for the other car to decide who would flip against her.

Aaron called heads, Allison, tails. Aaron won.

Neil hadn’t heard swearing like that for a long time. He couldn’t help but smile. He had missed them all. He loved being on Court and he loved his team and exy, and playing with Andrew and Kevin, but he had missed being a fox.

Renee went with Allison, smiling as the blonde tried and failed to hide under the trees from the rain. Neil could hear through the cracked window Andrew was smoking through as Allison cursed everyone and everything for her having forgotten an umbrella. Renee just laughed and tugged her in for a kiss. Neil smiled again; it had taken them a long time to realise just how meant for each other they were – but now? Together? They were a sight for sore eyes.

Andrew blew another cloud of smoke past Neil’s face. He couldn’t help the deep inhale as the smoke curled past his nose. Andrew watched, utterly unimpressed – but Neil could read the affection in the stare. Smoke was no longer the reminder of his mother, of the fire, of how it had smelled when her body had burned. Now it was Andrew, it was nights on the roof, the bite of his key in his palm, the feel of a thundering heartbeat beneath his fingertips. Andrew’s knee nudged his, and Neil smiled again.

Allison and Renee got back in the car behind and they drove to Windemere, where they had booked out all the rooms in a little bed and breakfast. The man at the desk was the most English person Neil had ever met. He was the embodiment of every single English stereotype, and Neil couldn’t get away fast enough.

Their rooms were all on the second floor, Dan and Matt disappeared into one room, Allison and Renee into another, Aaron claimed his own room, as did Kevin and Nicky. Nicky was already face timing with Eric before his bedroom door closed. And despite Allison’s usual warning of ‘keep it down’, there were delighted giggles and moans coming from her and Renee’s room.

Neil shook his head, smiling, and followed after Andrew into their room. Andrew was already lighting up next to the window, so Neil dropped the bag by the bottom of the bed and slumped onto the mattress, stripping off his black armbands and dumping them over the edge. He heard Andrew shut the window and the bed dip as he settled nearby. Neil reached a hand up, and Andrew’s fingertips trailed over his bare arms, dipping over every scar and mark.

Neil closed his eyes, even now, years later, most touches on those scars brought back the car lighter, the knife, his father’s axe…

But then Andrew’s lips began tracing every raised bump, slowly washing away the memories one by one, until there was nothing left but the two of them, Andrew’s hands under Neil’s shirt, Andrew’s lips pressed hard to Neil’s, and Neil’s fingers tight in Andrew’s hair.

He didn’t realise how much he needed it until Andrew tugged his t-shirt over his head and slowly but steadily began taking him apart. Neil couldn’t stop the moan that Andrew dragged from deep in his throat as Andrew pushed him harder and faster until Neil’s breathing became ragged and Andrew leaned up to press their lips together as though he could swallow Neil’s hard groans when he fell over the edge. He lay limp and sweating, breathing hard, with Andrew beside him, the man’s expression open and soft in a way he had only seen four times so far.

Neil reached out, “Yes or no?”

Andrew didn’t reply, just pressed his cheek into Neil’s palm and closed his eyes as Neil’s fingers played with the tiny hairs at the nape of Andrew’s neck. He wanted to say something, anything to remind Andrew just how amazing he was – how he always knew what Neil needed, usually before Neil knew himself, how even though Neil had long since learned to stand alone, it felt safe knowing that Andrew was there for him if he needed to lean on someone. But he didn’t have the words.

And he didn’t find them fast enough before Nicky pounded on the bedroom door.

“Come on, lovebirds, Allison ruined her hair to get this gingerbread, and Aaron and I went out for alcohol, come and have a drink and a snack like the old days. But put clothes on first!”

Andrew growled under his breath, but Neil smiled.

“When will he leave me alone?” Andrew said, shaking out his hand and pushing up to sit on the edge of the bed.

“He’s been in Germany with Eric for ten months. He can’t leave you any more alone.”

Andrew just stood and stared down at him a moment. “Come on junkie. Let’s go.”

Neil stood and went to the bathroom, cleaning himself up, before he joined Andrew at the now open door to the bedroom, stood in front of a very irate Kevin.

“We have a game tomorrow. Tomorrow. And they want us to drink and eat and party. Why did they come at all, they’re not playing,” Kevin said, face set; cold and hard.

“Tomorrow will be fine. We’ll win or we’ll lose, but it’ll be fine. Let’s go, it could be fun,” Neil said, shrugging. He’d never felt as safe as he was in that moment and he’d never seen Andrew as relaxed – that was all he needed. All he wanted.

They should take road trips more often.

“Three hundred and seventy-four percent,” Andrew murmured.

Neil didn’t bother to stop the smirk on his face.

----

That’s it! Again, I hope you liked it and I hope it was a good enough gift for you in the exchange! Have a wonderful day!

#aftg #aftg gift exchange #andrew #neil #andriel #the foxes #little sprinkles of renison #coz they too cute #road trip in the uk #in the north of course #in my two favourite places #hell i hope you liked this #i tried to write them #they were REAL hard to write #heres hoping i did the wonderful foxes justice #damn i wish they were real #and that i was a fox #XD

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youknow-igetit · 4 years

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A playlist for our favorite mafia sports gays. songs and the meanings below the cut

1. sex - EDEN

‘Cause you said it meant nothing And I should’ve kept my silence But I guess I’m too attached to my own pride to let you know That all these words meant nothing And I’ve always been this heartless And we’re just having sex, no, I would never call it love But love Oh no, I think I’m catching feelings And I don’t know if this is empathy I feel

“This,” Neil flicked his finger to indicate the two of them, “isn’t worthless.” “There is no ‘this’. This is nothing.” “And I am nothing,” Neil prompted. When Andrew gestured confirmation, Neil said, “And as you’ve always said, you want nothing.” Andrew stared stone-faced back at him.

2. Be Kind (with Halsey) - Marshmello, Halsey

I know you need, I know you need The upper hand even when we aren’t fighting ‘Cause in the past, you had to prepare every time, yeah Don’t wanna leave, don’t wanna leave But if you’re gonna fight then do it for me I know you’re built to love, but broken now, so just try I know you’re chokin’ on your fears Already told you, I’m right here I will stay by your side every night I don’t know why you hide from the one And close your eyes to the one Mess up and lie to the one that you love When you know you can cry to the one Always confide in the one You can be kind to the one that you love

“No one’s said a word to them since they said we couldn’t see you.“ Nathaniel’s heart skipped a beat. The heat that gnawed at his chest was an ugly mix of gratitude and shame. He tried to speak but had to clear his throat before trying again. “But why? I’ve done nothing but lie to them. I willingly put them all in danger so I could play a little longer. They got hurt last night because of me. Why would they protect me now?” “You are a Fox,” Andrew said, like it was that simple, and maybe it was. Nathaniel dropped his eyes and worked his jaw, fighting for a center he was quickly losing hold of.

3. I Think I’m OKAY (with YUNGBLUD & Travis Barker) - Machine Gun Kelly

I guess it’s just my life and I can take it if I wanna But I cannot hide in hills of California Because these hills have eyes, and I got paranoia I hurt myself sometimes, is that too scary for you? Watch me, take a good thing and fuck it all up in one night Catch me, I’m the one on the run away from the headlights No sleep, up all week wasting time with people I don’t like I think that something’s fucking wrong with me

“Trust you.” Andrew enunciated each word like he’d never heard them before. He laughed curled his fingers tight around Neil’s chin. “You lie, and lie, and lie, and you think I’ll trust you with his life?” “Then don’t trust ‘Neil’,” Neil said. “Trust me.” “Oh, but who are you? Do you have a name?” “If you need one, call me Abram.” “Should I believe that?” “I’m named after my father,” Neil said. “Abram is my middle name; it’s the name my mother used when she was trying to protect me from his work.” It was the name he went by at his little league practices so the coach would actually let him play. It was strange hearing it aloud when no one had called Neil “Abram” in eight years. “Ask Kevin if you don’t believe me. He would know.” “Maybe I will.” Neil waited, but Andrew didn’t let go. With so many people watching them Neil couldn’t lift his shirt. He did the next best thing and dragged one of Andrew’s hands under the hem. He pressed Andrew’s palm to the ugly scarring across his abdomen. Andrew’s eyes dropped to Neil’s shirt like he could see Neil’s marred skin through the dark cotton. “Do you understand?” Neil asked. “Nothing Riko does will make me leave him. We will both be here when you get back.” Andrew’s fingers twitched against Neil’s skin. “Someone lied to me. These ouches feel a little rough for a child on the run.”

4. Lover of Mine - 5 Seconds of Summer

Lead to where your secrets are Where we’ve been a thousand times Swallow every single lie Take all of me

When I take a look at my life And all of my crimes You’re the only thing that I think I got I right I’ll never give you away

“It’s always been ‘go’,” Neil said. He turned his hand palm-up and traced a key into his skin with his fingertip. He’d toyed with Andrew’s house key so many times he knew every dip and ridge by heart. “It’s always been ‘lie’ and ‘hide’ and ‘disappear’. I’ve never belonged anywhere or had the right to call anything my own. But Coach gave me keys to the court, and you told me to stay. You gave me a key and called it home.” Neil clenched his hand, imagining the bite of metal against his palm, and lifted his gaze to Andrew’s face. “I haven’t had a home since my parents died.”

5. Vowels (and the Importance of Being Me) - HUNNY

I was a queen last night I said “Take to the water” And let you drink my lies Like, “Okay, you’re right” You can’t spell pain or kiss Or run away or little mistake Without me, or A, E, I, O, U

“I’ll always have and be nothing.“ Andrew reached up and forcibly uncurled Neil’s fingers from his mouth. He pushed Neil’s hand out of the way and stared Neil down with nothing between them. Neil didn’t understand the look on his face. There was no censure over Neil’s crooked parents or pity for their deaths, no triumph over having backed Neil into admitting so much, and no obvious skepticism for such an outlandish story. Whatever this look was, it was dark and intense enough to swallow Neil whole.

6. BLUE - Troye Sivan

I can’t say no Though the lights are on There’s nobody home Swore I’d never lose control Then I fell in love with a heart that beats so slow I want you I’ll color me blue Anything it takes to make you stay Only seeing myself When I’m looking up at you

Nathaniel watched until the hotel disappeared out the window, then looked to Andrew and asked in German, “Can I really be Neil again?” “I told Neil to stay,” Andrew said. “Leave Nathaniel buried in Baltimore with his father.” Nathaniel looked out the window again and wondered if that was possible. He knew in a sense he could never really leave Nathaniel behind. Even if Stuart could talk the Moriyamas down, they’d all know Nathan’s child was alive and kicking. Nathaniel would always be a security risk to them. But the thought was thrilling and chilling in turns, and Nathaniel turned his hand over to consider his palm. He traced Andrew’s key into his skin with a bandaged finger. “Neil Abram Josten,” Neil murmured, and it felt like waking up from a bad dream.

7. Some Kind of Disaster - All Time Low

I wore the crown, I sold the lie I lived the life and paid for every crime, yeah It’s all downhill 'til it’s a climb Through blood and tears, but I don’t mind I’ll just keep singing on and on and on And it’s all my fault that I’m still the one you want 'Cause I’m a liar, I’m a cynic I’m a sinner, I’m a saint I’m a loser, I’m a critic I’m the ghost of my mistakes And it’s all my fault that I’m still the one you want So what are you after? Some kind of disaster

Andrew pressed two fingers to the underside of Nathaniel’s chin to turn his head. Nathaniel let himself be guided and said nothing while Andrew looked his fill. When Andrew dropped his hand and clenched it in Nathaniel’s hoodie, Nathaniel risked looking back at him. There was violence in Andrew’s eyes, but at least he hadn’t shoved Nathaniel away yet. That had to count for something. "I’m sorry,” Nathaniel said. Andrew’s fist went back, but he didn’t take the swing. Nathaniel knew it wasn’t because that was the hand cuffed to Wymack; Andrew’s arm actually shook with the effort it took to not knock Nathaniel’s head off his neck. Nathaniel said nothing to tip the balance either way. At length Andrew uncurled his fingers and let his hand hang limp from the cuff. “Say it again and I will kill you,” he said.

8. The Space Between A Rock and a Hard Place - 5 Seconds of Summer

Faded, I’m wrapped in your arms While you’re waiting to tear me apart With a last kiss, you leave me wanting more You, you’re a catch 22 Win or lose, I’m screwed I’m trapped under your spell It saves me, breaks me 'til I fall back to you You’re a catch 22

“You are a Fox. You are always going to be nothing.” Andrew stubbed his cigarette out. “I hate you.” “Nine percent of the time you don’t.” “Nine percent of the time I don’t want to kill you. I always hate you.” “Every time you say that I believe you a little less.” “No one asked you.” With that, Andrew caught Neil’s face in his hands and leaned in. Nicky’s drugged assault aside, Neil hadn’t kissed anyone in four years. The last girl was a scrawny French-Canadian who’d held him with just her fingertips and kissed like she was afraid of smudging her tacky-bright lipstick. Neil couldn’t remember her name or face anymore. He remembered only how unsatisfying the illicit encounter had been and how furious his mother was when she found them. That awkward peck wasn’t worth the punishment that had followed. This was nothing like that. Andrew kissed him like this was a fight with their lives on the line, like his world stopped and started with Neil’s mouth. Neil’s heart stuttered to a stop at the first hard press of lips against his and he reached up without thinking. His hand made it as far as Andrew’s jaw before he remembered Andrew didn’t like to be touched. Neil caught hold of Andrew’s coat sleeve instead and knotted his fingers in the heavy wool. The touch was a trigger. Andrew leaned back just enough to say, “Tell me no.” Neil’s lips were sore; his skin was buzzing. He felt winded, like he’d survived a half-marathon. He felt strong, like he could run another five more. Panic threatened to tear his stomach to shreds. Common sense said to refuse this and retreat before they both did something they’d regret. But Renee said Andrew regretted nothing, and Neil wouldn’t live long enough for it to matter. He hadn’t figured out which way to lean before Andrew pried Neil’s hand off his coat.

9. Medication - YUNGBLUD

You cannot pretend there’s no dirt on your shirt 'Cause that’s not how it works, that’s not how it works You try to perceive that you’re so squeaky clean But that’s not how it works, that’s not that’s not how it works

“I’m not going to apologize for thinking you’re being idiotic.” “Is your spine the spine of the righteous?” Andrew wondered. “Are you trying your best to step on my toes because you’re feeling the tragic weight of the holier than thou?”

10. Take Yourself Home - Troye Sivan

Talk to me There’s nothing that can’t be fixed with some honesty And how it got this dark is just beyond to me If anyone can hear me switch the lights I’m tired of the city Scream if you’re with me If I’m gonna die, let’s die somewhere pretty

“Don’t dismiss me for lying to you then ignore me when I tell the truth.” “This is not truth,” Andrew said. “Truth is irrefutable and untainted by bias. Sunrise, Abram, death: these are truths. You cannot judge a problem with your obsession goggles on and call it truth. You aren’t fooling either of us.”

11. Trouble Is - All Time Low

All that I know is I just can’t say no to you Funny how things never change All that I wanted was just to get over you Trouble is I can’t find a way You’re part of me

Andrew bit the question into the corner of Neil’s jaw. “Yes or no?” “It’s always yes with you,” Neil said. “Except when it’s no,” Andrew said. Neil put a plastic-wrapped finger to Andrew’s chin, guiding his head up for another kiss. “If you have to keep asking because—I’ll answer it as many times as you ask. But this is always going to be yes.” “Don’t ‘always’ me.” “Don’t ask for the truth if you’re just going to dilute it.”

12. Safety Pin - 5 Seconds of Summer

No more waiting, we can save us from falling This time, maybe this time We’ll safety-pin the pieces of our broken hearts back together Patching up all the holes until we both feel much better Deleted things, I really meant So now I’ll say the things I never sent

Neil remembered too well what it was like to say goodbye. He remembered what it was like saying hello again. A hint of Friday’s panic and outrage flickered in his chest, hot enough to burn the air from his lungs. He didn’t know what this thing between them was anymore. He didn’t know what he wanted or needed it to be. He just knew he had to hold on for as long as he could. “You are a mess,” Andrew said against Neil’s lips. “What else is new?”

13. My My My! - Troye Sivan

Spark up, buzz cut I’ve got my tongue between your teeth Go slow, no, no, go fast You like it just as much as me Now, let’s stop running from love Running from love Let’s stop, my baby Let’s stop running from us Running from us Let’s stop, my baby Oh my, my, my! I die every night with you Oh my, my, my! Living for your every move

Time was nothing. Seconds were days, were years, were the breaths that caught between their mouths and the bite of Neil’s fingernails against his palms, the scrape of teeth against his lower lip and the warm slide of a tongue against his. He could feel Andrew’s heartbeat thrumming against his wrists, a staccato rhythm that echoed in Neil’s veins. How a man who viewed the world with such studied disconnect could kiss like this, Neil didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to complain. Neil had forgotten what it was like to be touched without malicious intent. He’d forgotten what body heat felt like. Everything about Andrew was hot, from the hands holding him down to the mouth steadily taking Neil apart. Neil finally understood why his mother thought this was so dangerous. This was distraction and indiscretion, avoidance and denial. It was letting his guard down, letting someone in, and taking comfort in something he shouldn’t have and couldn’t keep. Right now, Neil needed it too much to care.

#andreil #andriel #andrew minyard #neil josten #aftg #aftg playlist #andreil playlist #ship playlist #all for the game #aftg quotes #all for the game quotes #the foxhole court quotes #the raven king quotes #the king's men quotes #'for baltimore' by all time low was a contender but uhh... the name seemed insensitive #other songs that i was gonna do but didn't was 'i love you' by billie eilish and 'anarchist' by yungblud #and i nixed anarchist because its a lot more about the characters singularly and not about them like as a relationship #I have been working on this playlist for weeks

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nekojitachan · 4 years

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How to Steal a Million (part 4?)

I think it’s part 4. We’re going with part 4

Find previous part here

This is really along the ratings of ‘T’. Mentions of forgery, stealing, threats of bodily harm (it IS Neil and Andrew, after all) but nothing serious. Lots of snark.

*******

Neil pressed against one of the doorways which led into the main gallery of the Kleber-Lafayette Museum, where the Cellini Venus was currently on display; he’d heard so much talk about it at the party he’d attended with Allison that he couldn’t resist coming to see the exhibit. After a minute of surveilling the room (checking the exits, any signs of cameras, the position of the guards, etc.) he stepped away the room… only to bump into someone a moment later due to the crowd of people.

Only to bump into L.A.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Neil hissed as he recoiled in surprise (and forced himself not to pull a knife).

“Huh, funny how we only meet under the most ‘artistic’ of circumstances’,” L.A. remarked as he gestured to the artworks hung on the walls around them, his deep voice sarcastic yet expression impassive; he was dressed in black pants and a black dress shirt which actually looked expensive and showed off his muscular build.

“Funny how I always feel the urge to stab you when we meet,” Neil muttered as he smoothed down the front of his dark blue jumper; Allison had dressed him before he’d left her house that day, so at least he appeared presentable.

Why did he suddenly care if he appeared presentable?

There was the tiniest twitch to the left corner of L.A’s mouth before he stepped forward. “You might want to look into that.” While Neil glared at the asshole’s back, the American nodded toward the crowd. “Lot of people here to see your statue, seems it’s famous.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Neil accused the man as he reconsidered the whole ‘no stabbing’ thing.

L.A. held up his hands and shook his head. “I’m off duty at the moment. What about you?”

Before Neil could question why the asshole had asked that, someone called out his name; he turned with a fake smile and nodded to Aldritch, who held out his hand to be shook.

“I’m fine, how are you?” he asked in return, then motioned to L.A. “Uhm, Monsieur Aldritch, the director of the museum and….” Well, he couldn’t exactly say ‘Larcenous Asshole, semi-decent thief’, could he?

“Minyard,” L.A. said without missing a beat as he gave Aldritch’s extended hand a very brief shake. “Josten and I are old friends, we used to spar together.” He leaned in as if to share a secret. “I usually won,” he said in a mock whisper.

While Neil glared at the asshole and Aldritch chuckled, L.A. continued. “Beautiful exhibit you have here, lots of valuable things.”

“Oh yes,” Aldritch agreed as he turned to Neil. “Please notice all of the security precautions we’ve taken with your family’s statue.” Then he turned back to L.A., who somehow managed a semi-interested expression on his usually impassive face. “Are you interested in art, Mr. Minyard?” When L.A. nodded, Aldritch smiled. “And are you interested in security?” the middle-aged man asked.

“Oh yes, very much so,” Minyard assured him while Neil wondered if there was a suitable place to hide the asshole’s body (after it was perforated to his heart’s content).

“Wonderful, let me show the two of you around.” Aldritch didn’t wait for their agreement before he walked away; since L.A. followed, Neil gritted his teeth together and did the same.

Aldritch headed straight for the Cellini Venus; L.A. made a mocking bow then held out his left arm in a clear sign for Neil to take it. At first he was about to ignore it, then Neil ‘smiled’ and accepted it, just so he could ram his elbow into the bastard’s ribs.

L.A. stumbled but otherwise remained on his feet and didn’t make a sound, but gave Neil a narrow look as they reached the pedestal which housed the Cellini Venus. Aldritch, oblivious to what had just happened, smiled at them and motioned to the blue lights which circled the base of the pedestal. “These are infrared beams which surround the Venus.” When L.A., acting like a proper idiot, went to touch the Venus, Aldritch gasped and swatted at his hand. “No, don’t touch it! That will trigger an alarm if the beams are broken, it’s an E.E.D.A. system.”

“That’s so impressive.” L.A. somehow managed to put a little emotion in his voice while Neil fought not to roll his eyes over what was really a common security protocol. “What happens if a thief somehow manages to turn off the system?”

“No, not possible,” Aldritch insisted with a slight frown. “There’s guards here all the time, and only myself and two other people can disable the system. We have back-up generators in case there’s a power outage, and it’s offline to prevent anyone from hacking into it.”

“Amazing,” L.A. drawled. “You’ve truly thought of everything.”

“Yes, I feel that my family’s statue is in perfectly safe hands,” Neil said with a slight inclination of his head. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve an appointment I can’t be late for.”

“Oh, of course! I’m pleased you were able to stop by.” Aldritch wished him well, and somehow Neil wasn’t surprised when L.A. followed him out of the museum.

“Look, stay the hell away from this place or I’ll report you to the cops, whoever you are,” he insisted as he went over to where he’d parked the MG. “Go find something else to ‘liberate’.”

“Minyard, Andrew Minyard,” L.A. said with an offending sniff. “It’s like you don’t trust me or something.”

“Might have something to do with you breaking into my house,” Neil muttered as he climbed into the MG.

“That was us meeting cute.”

Neil stared at the insane American for a couple seconds before he shook his head. “Do me a favor?”

“Hmm?” Despite Andrew’s (was that his real name?) curious tone, there was a hint of wariness in his hazel eyes.

“Stand in front of my car,” Neil asked as he motioned at the hood of the MG.

“Why?” Now there definitely was a gleam of wariness in Andrew’s eyes.

“So I can run you over and not have to worry about you bothering me anymore.”

The American radiated disapproval as he crossed his muscular arms over his chest. “As much as I find this flirting routine somewhat amusing, I need to talk to you about-“

Once Neil heard the ‘f’ word, he started the car’s engine then took off, unfortunately without hitting the asshole.

*******

Andrew collapsed on the bed in Kevin’s hotel room and sighed.

“If you’re about to rant about the coffee again, I don’t want to hear it,” Kevin said as he henpecked at the keyboard, his attention focused on the monitor.

“As if you’re bundle of joy until you get a few shots of espresso in you,” Andrew muttered while he scrubbed at his face with the palms of his hands.

“I don’t need ten spoonfuls of sugar and a pint of milk to go along with them,” Kevin argued before he turned to look at Andrew. “Now tell me you did something today other than haunt several bakeries.”

“Fuck you.” Andrew gave his partner the finger as he sat up. “Only two bakeries today, and yes, I did.” When Kevin gave him an expectant look, he rolled his eyes. “I talked to one Bernard Grammont, who is certain that Stuart Josten is a forger though he lacks any concrete proof. Also, I ran into Neil Josten again, who was checking out the display at the Kleber-Lafayette Museum.” He did his best not to wince as he felt a twinge in his ribs from where the sneaky bastard had hit him. “Didn’t seem to want to run into anyone there, which was rather odd.”

“Hmm, it does seem suspicious, but remember we’re not being paid to prove anything with Josten, at least not yet.”

Grammont would have hired Andrew to investigate Josten… but for some reason he didn’t want to work for the man. Maybe there was something to Renee warning him about the family… or maybe the game he’d started with Neil Josten would be ruined if money was involved.

Whatever the reason, for once Andrew found himself interested in something other than cracking a case or catching a bad guy. The more he interacted with Neil Josten, the more he couldn’t stop thinking about the enigmatic young man with the pale blue eyes and sharp tongue.

He’d most likely be disappointed once he got to the bottom of the mystery, but until then… until then he’d let things play out as a rare break from boredom. What could it cost him? Other than some bruises and a bit of blood loss, that was.

He might want to stop by the nearest pharmacy the next time he was out.

*******

Neil took a sip of the red wine he’d barely drank all night and managed one of his ‘fake’ smiles everyone except those who knew him (a rare few) fell for. “It’s a very nice wine.”

Riko grinned and tapped a finger against the base of his own wine glass. “My family owns the vineyard.”

“Oh really?” Neil managed to look impressed by that declaration, even though he knew very well what all the Moriyamas owned (and that the Hatfords owned a vineyard or two as well). “But it doesn’t have the Moriyama name on it.”

“It’s under one of our subsidiary holdings,” Riko explained, as if he held any real power when it came to the Stone Mountain corporation.

“It’s always good to diversify.” Or so Neil had been told – that’s why Stuart did his art forgery thing, Uncle Will and Henry oversaw the main business, Jamie was expanding into online money laundering and had offered for Neil to help (something he was considering, if he could extract Stuart out of this most recent mess), and Ally… eh, Ally was Ally.

Riko beamed at Neil as if he was a pet which had done a particularly clever trick. “See, you’re different from the others, I can be myself with you and not have to talk about silly stuff.”

No, not really; Riko hadn’t started screaming and throwing a temper tantrum yet, which was his ‘real self’ by all accounts, but Neil merely ‘smiled’ and had another minute sip of the wine (which was so-so) while Riko rambled on (more like bragged) about how rich and powerful his family was. All the while, Neil glanced around to make sure that Matt and Dan were seated on the other side of the room, his ‘back-up’ for the night.

As soon as Riko paused for breath, Neil ‘smiled’ and poured him more wine. “I’ve a feeling that there’s something you’re holding back.” When Riko stared at him in interest, he tilted his head to the side. “Something… something to do with my uncle, perhaps?”

He knew that Riko had bought a painting from Stuart a few years ago, and was renowned for his own collection; the Moriyamas were famous patrons of the arts, and Riko had believed himself to be something of an artist while growing up – him and his foster brother, Kevin Day. From what Stuart had told Neil, Kevin was the one with the real talent, but there had been some sort of accident which had left the young man unable to paint anymore, and Riko had eventually gone to work for his uncle, Tetsuji.

Yet Riko had said nothing to Neil when they’d met at the party the other night, had done his best to flirt with Neil until he’d agreed to a date. That behavior had made Neil suspicious as hell, made him want to figure out what was going on with a scumbag like Riko Moriyama.

Well, and it was always nice to get on Renee’s good side, which would happen if he and Allison could figure out some way to get Riko in trouble while helping out the man’s assistant, Jean Moreau, whom Renee had somehow befriended….

Riko appeared startled for a moment, and then tried some sort of shy act which Neil could see through with ease. “Well… to be honest… yes, there is something I wanted to talk to you about in regard to your uncle – your uncle and his collection.”

Neil managed to retain the mild smile while he braced himself for what might come next, if it had anything to do with Stuart’s ‘little hobby’ or not (had Riko figured out that the Monet he’d bought was a fake?).

“That is, I-“

One of the servers approached the table and gave a short bow. “My apologies, Mr. Moriyama, but there’s an urgent call for you.”

Riko frowned as he patted his right thigh as if to check his phone, which hadn’t rung or vibrated during their meal. “That’s odd, I shouldn’t be interrupted tonight.” He then gave an apologetic smile to Neil. “I’m sorry, but it has to be important if they tracked me down here.”

“That’s okay.” Neil watched him leave before he slumped back into the velvet-covered booth… only to jerk upright when Andrew slid into it a few seconds later. “Oh for fuck’s sake, really?”

The slightest of frowns tugged at the corners of Andrew’s full lips. “Is that any way to greet me after the trouble I went through to arrange a few minutes alone with you?”

Neil’s smile took on a sharp edge. “Well, I can do the usual way when you startle me.” His hand crept toward the butter knife on the table while he spoke.

“I thought you French people weren’t supposed to be so violent,” Andrew said as he leaned away a little.

“You’re certainly living up to Americans being rude cliché, now go away.” Neil made a shooing motion with his napkin. “My, uhm, dinner partner isn’t known for his even temper.”

“Your ‘dinner partner’ is a known psycho. Nice taste in dates there,” Andrew said with blatant disapproval.

“He’s not my date and I’m not interested in the opinion of a barely competent thief, now go away before you need more than a simple bandage,” Neil hissed out.

For some reason, Andrew’s left eyebrow raised the slightest amount. “I’ve something important to tell you, if you’ll stop trying to kill me for five minutes.”

“Where’s the fun in that, and leave before he returns!” As annoying as the American could be, Neil didn’t want to deal with the mess Riko could leave if he returned and found someone sitting at his table with the person he’d asked out for the night.

“I will, if you agree to meet me tomorrow afternoon. Suite 136, the Ritz.”

Andrew showed no sign of leaving, while Neil could see Riko across the room; luckily, Matt had gotten up and currently was running interference. “Fine,” he gritted out, conceding that Andrew had won for the moment with ill grace. “Now go before you really do get stabbed.”

“Tomorrow,” Andrew said before he grabbed Neil’s wineglass, managed to gulp down its contents in a couple seconds then slipped away.

Neil really should stab the bastard, he thought as he fought not to grin.

His amusement vanished when a scowling Riko sat down beside him. “I think it was a prank call, there was nothing but gibberish on the line,” Riko muttered as he pulled out his phone and typed something on it. “I’m going to have someone look into it.”

Neil hoped that Andrew had done a good job of covering his tracks and mumbled something soothing until Riko was finished. “Now where were we… ah yes, your uncle’s collection.” Riko summoned what he probably thought was a friendly smile but was ‘off’ enough to make Neil want to shiver. “I have to admit, I’ve always admired it, especially one piece in particular.”

“And that is?” Neil asked, no longer certain that Riko had realized that he’d bought a fake.

“The Cellini Venus.” Riko’s gaze grew unfocused as he discussed the statue. “There’s something about it, something that haunts me. I admit, I was happy to meet you since I’d hoped you might be able to intervene with your uncle on my behalf since he’s refused all offers to buy the statue before now, but I’m enjoying our time together.”

Ah, that’s what it was – another person enraptured with the Venus. Neil gave him a sympathetic smile and dared a slight pat on the hand. “I understand, it is a true masterpiece and I wish I could offer it to you, but my uncle is adamant about it remaining in the family. If that ever changes, I’ll reach out to you first.” Not that it ever would.

“It was worth a try, wasn’t it? And at least I’ve you as a consolation prize.” Riko grinned as he twisted his hand around to capture Neil’s.

Not quite, but Neil was still for a couple of seconds since he noticed the server returning to the table and used the young man asking if there was anything they needed as an excuse to tug his hand free and order a cup of tea rather than jab the assuming asshole with a fork. That was the signal for Dan to call him soon after the drink arrived so he’d have an excuse to end ‘the date’.

Unfortunately, he had to agree to see Riko again, but he was free of the man’s presence for the night. After thanking Dan and Matt via text and assuring Allison that he was safely on his way home, he ensured that he wasn’t followed to the small mansion he shared with Stuart and Davis, where he gladly collapsed into his own bed.

He wasn’t in the mood to leave his home the next day, but he’d promised Andrew to meet up with him, as well as brunch with Matt and tea with Renee. After lounging around for part of the morning, he finally got up and dressed in a comfortable pair of jeans and an old sweatshirt of Matt’s then went downstairs. Davis shook his head at his appearance and handed him a cup of tea before Neil went into Stuart’s study.

“There you are, interested in some breakfast?” Stuart asked as he motioned to the plates of food set out on the small table.

“I don’t have much time, I’ll eat something at Matt’s,” Neil said as he grabbed a small croissant to hold him over until then. “You’ll be happy to know that you can keep selling your artwork to Riko Moriyama since he has no clue about them being fakes. He asked me out because he was hoping I could get you to sell him the Cellini Venus.”

A predatory grin spread across Stuart’s face. “That’s a relief, he’s terrible at bargaining.”

“He’s terrible at a lot of things,” Neil muttered; during their conversation, the doorbell rang and Davis admitted the guest.

Stuart put aside his own cup of tea to go see who it was and Neil followed; there was an older gentleman dressed in a suit who nodded when Stuart greeted him, then pulled out a notepad to ask him about being the owner of one ‘twenty-nine inch marble statue named Venus by the artist Benevento Cellini’.

“Yes, that’s my statue, on loan to the museum,” Stuart agreed with a hint of suspicion. “What is this about?”

“It’s in regard to the insurance loan,” the man responded as he tapped the thick folder held beneath his left arm.

“What loan? I’ve never insured it since it’s priceless,” Stuart insisted while dread grew inside of Neil, thick and cold and slimy.

“It’s a precaution that the museum has taken for all the pieces in the exhibit,” the man explained, “except somehow your signature was overlooked on the Venus’ document.” He glanced around went over to the nearest table (18th century French) so he could pull it out, the intent clear for Stuart to sign it. “There’s no cost to you, it means that the work of art is covered until it’s returned to your possession in good order.”

Stuart approached the man with his hands clasped behind his back; Neil could tell that his uncle did his best to appear unruffled by this sudden complication. “That’s it? I just have to sign the paper?”

“Yes, and the statue will be fully insured for one million. It’s required of all the items for them to be in the exhibit and really should have been done weeks ago.” The man held out a pen for Stuart to use to sign the document.

It would look odd if Stuart refused and suddenly pulled out the Venus, especially when the exhibit already started. Still, Neil felt that sensation of dread grow as his uncle signed the paper. “Is there anything else? Any other requirements?” he asked as he approached his uncle.

The man nodded as he folded up the signed document. “As part of the insurance verification, the statue will be examined to ensure its authenticity. The company will send someone to do that on Friday, if you’d like to be there when it happens. This should have been explained already.”

Neil could barely nod, the same for Stuart, as the man promised to send them details before he left and apologized for the confusion. As soon as the door closed behind him, Stuart started to curse up a storm while Neil slumped against the wall.

“I can’t believe this, they told me nothing about authenticating it! How dare they not trust me!” Stuart ranted once he stopped cursing.

It was on the tip of Neil’s tongue to say ‘I told you so’, but how would that help the situation? Instead, he went back for his unfinished cup of tea then put on his shoes so he could leave.

“Where are you going at a time like this? We need to figure something out, to come up with a plan!” Stuart called out from the salon, where he was busy pouring himself a glass of whiskey.

“I have,” Neil said as he stood up. “I’m going to steal the damn thing back.”

*******

#nekojitachanfics #mumbling into the void #how to steal a million fic #aftg #andrew minyard #neil josten #stuart hatford #andreil #aftg au #matt boyd #dan wilds #renee walker #allison reynolds #riko moriyama #more snark #kevin day

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jeni182 · 5 years

Note

Lol this sounds like sm fun, how bout fox reunion 45?

LOL I hope I do it justice!

The Foxes had a tradition. Well, Neil’s Foxes had a tradition. He had very little patience or care for the ones that came after them. Children, the lot of them. In a way he and most of the others had never been allowed to be children.

Either way, the Foxes had a tradition. They would get together at least once a year. Everyone. No matter what was going on in their lives. Children and careers and travel. It was ten years after Neil had graduated, and they still did this. It meant something to all of them.

This year they were in Miami. Neil didn’t know who had chosen Miami, but he supposed it was better than the time they’d gone to Seattle thinking there would be good museums and culture and instead were treated to rain the entire time.

They were by the pool of the very nice hotel they were staying in. Having three professional exy players in the group meant most of the time, the accommodations were exceedingly nice and usually comped.

‘Tell your friends, Mr. Josten! Thank you for staying with us!’

Years of being reprimanded for being an asshole to the press was the only thing keeping him from rolling his eyes. Now his eyes sought out his partner, who had surprisingly agreed to come down to the pool with the rest of them. It was bright outside, and hot. Two things Andrew was not a fan of. He was like a vampire that fed off of sarcasm and disdain instead of blood.

The object of his interest was lounging on a chair under an umbrella. He had his shirt off, black armbands still in place. One hand was on his stomach and his eyes were covered with a pair of black ray bans. Neil couldn’t tell if he was asleep or not. He made his way over and sat on the chair next to Andrew’s.

“Not going to swim?”

Andrew scoffed. Not asleep then. Neil took a moment to appreciate the fact that even in his thirties, Andrew was still in peak physical condition. More so, really, now that he’d shed whatever was left of the teenage body that still lingered when they first met.

“I guess not,” Neil said, smiling to himself.

“Neil!” Neil looked up to see Matt looking ridiculous on Dan’s shoulders, waving both hands in the air. “Get your ass in the pool! We’re gonna play chicken!”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” Neil called back. “Hold your breath until I get there!”

Matt flipped him the bird just before he was tackled from behind by Nicky who was on Renee’s shoulders.

“You should go,” Andrew said, turning his head to look at Neil through the dark lenses of his glasses. “You fan club awaits, Josten.”

Neil hummed and turned to look at Andrew. “I like the view from here better.”

Andrew just stared at him for a moment before reaching out and running a hand through his hair briefly. Neil leaned into it.

Nicky joined them later, sitting on the end of Neil’s chair and dripping water everywhere.

“I came all the way here from Germany and you two are going to just sit over here and make goo goo eyes at each other? I’m appalled.”

“I’m not making goo goo eyes at Andrew,” Neil said. “I’m making them at you, Nicky. Germany has turned your skin to a nice pasty color, I must say. How ever did you manage it?”

Nicky scowled. He looked over at Matt and Dan who were sitting down with drinks in hand, laying on the same pool side chair, Dan leaning back against Matt’s chest. Neil guessed the break from the kids was much needed.

“Look at them, their perfect tans and cold margaritas…assholes.”

Neil furrowed his brows. “Perfect...what? Nicky, they’re black.”

“I know, okay? Can’t I be jealous of their melanin? Germany has a distinct lack of Mexican food and Mexican heat and my Mexican genes are suffering.” Nicky crossed his arms over his chest and affected a pout.

“Nicky, go complain elsewhere. I’m trying to work on not letting the sun touch any part of my skin.” Andrew put a hand over his already shaded eyes, as if looking at Nicky was painful to him.

Nicky stood and clapped his hands. “Never have I ever!” he called to the group at large. “Right here, right now. Someone order a bottle of tequila. Vamanos, bitches!”

Neil laughed. It was a tradition in the group, and only in the last couple of years had Neil convinced Andrew to play. He grabbed his hand now and pulled. “Come on, you.”

Andrew sighed heavily. “Why do you insist on-”

“Because I do and you love me so you’ll come. Up!”

Andrew stood slowly, keeping hold of Neil’s hand. He placed a kiss on his neck when he was close enough and Neil smiled.

“You’re lucky I don’t throw you in that pool,” he said against Neil’s neck.

Neil smiled and pushed Andrew back. “Yeah, yeah. Aaron or Kevin this time? Who pukes first?”

“Nicky. He’s out of practice.”

Andrew never lost this game, so Neil nodded amiably. He looked at the gathered group. His family. And marveled like he always did at the ridiculousness that he of all people was somehow so fucking lucky.

#aftg #Drabble challenge #Andreil #tfc #andrew minyard #neil josten

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fors-nat · 5 years

Text

Neil’s kidnapping from Andrew’s perspective

I know you all talked about it a lot. But I am obsessed with Baltimore reunion scene, and what was going on through Andrew’s mind, and I need to get it out of my system. So it means long post Sorry

• So let’s start with their ride to the game. With that ride where Neil asked Andrew to break his promise, to let him fight for himself • That fucker knew that shit was coming; he knew it was day 0 on that sms countdown. He did not know exactly what it was, but still he knew exactly what he was doing • He expected trouble and he did not want Andrew to be hurt in the middle of it • But Andrew doesn’t like breaking promises. Even if people do not want those promises anymore (*COUGH* Aaron *COUGH*) • But, let’s face it, he doesn’t know how to say “no” to Neil • Then Neil asks him to actually try this time at the game and promises that Andrew can have whatever he wants in return • Now, who can say “no” to THAT? • Andrew would never ask anything Neil is not comfortable giving, but still, imagine the possibilities! • So this is what he’s doing (imagining the possibilities) after they win the game and everybody is ecstatic, and then Neil comes in from the shower, pale as a wall • Andrew is the only one who notices that there is something wrong with him • He looks for answers in his face, and there is some sort of complicated emotion, fear, hesitation • And there is also something about his “Thank you, you were amazing” that makes his heart clench painfully • But the “security guards” are rushing them out, and anyway, they will have time to talk on the bus, or on the roof when they’re back • And then there is a riot • Andrew loses sight of Neil for just a second and then he’s – gone

• He tries to catch glimpses of him through the crowd, but he’s short and he can’t see between the bodies • He has to make sure Kevin, Aaron, and Nicky are fine, too • His eyes keep searching for Neil, and as the crowd disperses, he grows more and more anxious • There are police and ambulance, and somebody is telling him to come and get his bruises looked at • He shoves them off, moving through the parking lot, looking into the ambulance cars, and police cars, scanning the crowd • Neil isn’t there • He calls his phone, but he does not pick up • A thought flashes through his mind that breaking their promise meant not only that Andrew doesn’t have to protect Neil anymore, but it also means that Neil doesn’t have to stay. • He is free to run. • He keeps calling and soon hears the familiar ringtone. • There is a short relief • Then terror • Because knowing Neil Josten, finding his bag abandoned in a middle of a parking lot is actually scarier than finding his dead body • Andrew picks up Neil’s phone, flips through his history and sees an incoming call right after the game. He calls the number, but the line is dead • He then flips through his messages and finds the one that says “0” • It takes him a moment to connect the dots – and all his world fills with uncontrollable rage

• The bag and the phone were both messages for Andrew • The abandoned bag meant that he did not go willingly • The abandoned phone meant that he was not calling for help • And “Thank you, you were amazing” meant a goodbye

• Nope • Andrew takes none of that • Fuck the promises or promises to break the promises • He hates him so much • For all his secrets, and all his lies, and for coming every day to the roof and not telling him about the threats, for making him feel again - for everything • He searches the whole parking lot, the entire stadium, over and over, looking for SOMETHING, begging his eidetic memory to be useful for once, to show him something that will tell him which way to follow • Somebody comes looking for him • They haven’t seen Neil too • They see the bag and the racket, they start asking questions • He’s ready to kill whoever’s the closest, blinded by rage and panic • Waymack is the one who drags him to his senses and gets some answers from him • Then there is police, hospital (he still never lets anyone touch him) • Renee takes away the knives when she hears the story • Andrew calls every hospital in the city over and over again in case Neil was delivered somewhere passed out – but there is no news • Kevin is maniacally restringing Neil’s racket, he is all shaking • Andrew thinks that Kevin is thinking of Riko • Was it Riko? • He binge smokes and tries to piece together everything that happened, replaying in his mind everything Neil ever said. • Andrew is afraid, he is so afraid that he doesn’t know how to deal with it, it’s worse than the roof, than the flights, then the falling. It’s way, WAY worse than being afraid for himself. • He decides that next time he sees Neil, he’ll nail him to the wall with his knives and leave him hanging up there until he spills every last one of his secrets • A thought creeps into his mind: “What if there is no next time?” • He chases it away and concentrates on trying to breathe. • Then the Coach gets a call. He takes it in the next room and when he comes back he rushes them on the bus • “Neil?” Andrew asks. “We are coming to get him,” says Coach • When the Foxes start to bombard him with questions, he just threatens to leave them behind and walks away • Andrew is the first one on the bus (clenching Neil’s bag because nobody could take it from him) • For a moment he feels like he can regain his self-control, because no matter what, they are coming to get Neil • However, when Wymack starts the engine, the Foxes all gather around him and start asking • Waymack does not know much except that Neil is in Baltimore for some reason, and the FBI want to see them for questioning • Kevin can’t hide his surprise when he hears that Neil is alive • Andrew glances at his face and it’s suddenly very obvious • “Hey, Kevin,” he says calmly, and Kevin flinches from his voice. “What do you know?” • Kevin tries denying knowing anything, but what he does not understand is that he is of no use to Andrew unless he starts talking NOW • The next thing he knows is Kevin coughing and cowering on the floor between the seats. Lots of hands are dragging Andrew away from him, while Kevin rubs his neck • (Let’s all take this moment to thank Renee for taking Andrew’s knives earlier) • Kevin starts talking in a hoarse voice • And what he says is making Andrew even angrier • Because he knew, he knew, he knew the entire time • Everybody Andrew ever promised to protect betrayed him. Aaron with his girlfriend, Neil with his lies, Kevin with his silence • Waymack has to stop the bus until the Foxes manage to subdue Andrew • Renee pushes him in a seat by the window and sits next to him • She starts talking about random things, trying to distract him, but he’s not listening • He is watching the road ahead and fights with the urge to push the Coach out of the way and get behind the wheel • He wishes to be in his car and floor the gas pedal • He needs to get to Neil faster • Because he hates him SO much • He vows to fucking kill him if he’s still alive by the time he gets to him • He is also willing to sell his soul to Renee’s God or any other entity if they promise to keep Neil alive until he gets to him • It feels like forever to get to Baltimore, and they go straight to the FBI • FBI try to ask their questions, but they are drowned in the ones the Foxes have • Which are all basically “Where is Neil?” • Andrew low key appreciates every single one of the Foxes at this moment, seeing how they are all ready to fight for one of their own • They all fold their arms, declare that they won’t say a word until they can see Neil, and then just glare • Even Aaron says that he can’t remember anyone named Neil Josten, but maybe he’ll remember when he sees one in person • Andrew is not patient though. He wants answers NOW • They tell him he won’t be able to see Neil, that it’s impossible. That it’ll never be possible, that the person named Neil Josten doesn’t even exist • For a split moment Andrew remembers the time when he kind of hoped that it was true, that Neil was just a hallucination, a side effect of the drugs • But now – he can’t stand to hear it • So yeah… that’s where he snaps again • There is yelling and guns clicking, and the only thing stopping Andrew is Waymack’s back suddenly appearing in front of him, between Andrew and the gun, and some other hands are clawing at him, trying to keep him in place, and the touch infuriates him even further • He tears himself free with a violent jerk as he hears Waymack saying that none of them will go anywhere until they see Neil, and none of them will talk until they see Neil • They try to keep reasoning with him and threatening him, but Waymack just shoos the Foxes out and they go back to the bus • Except Andrew wouldn’t go • These are the people who have Neil. Leaving them and “waiting somewhere else” feels counter-productive, so he stays. Obviously. • In the end Abby takes the bus and gets the Foxes to a hotel • Waymack stays with Andrew • They stay there for hours, refusing to answer any questions and insisting to see Neil like wind-up toys that only know one sentence • Finally they get what they want • FBI will bring Neil to a hotel, and the team will have a limited amount of time for their “meet and greet” • They go back to the Foxes and Waymack repeats the story to the rest of the team with all the rules they mentioned • Then they just wait • Soon the FBI come again. The agent says that they will be allowed to see Neil one person at a time • Except Andrew • Who will not be allowed to see him at all because he is way too dangerous to be allowed near such a valuable witness. • Now, I am pretty convinced the ensuing rage outburst is how Andrew actually got his bloody eye and ended up handcuffed to the Coach. • And then they tell the Coach to go move the bus because it attracts attention blah-blah-blah. • And Andrew despite his objections is forced to go with him. • And – what do you know! – what a coincidence! – that’s the exact time Neil arrives. • Andrew realizes it when they go back and he notices all the extra security around the hotel. • So he starts running. • Waymack – bless him – runs too. • They are stopped before the door, and the FBI try to lecture them again or remind the rules, or mention that they are already breaking the “one at a time” rule or whatever • So Andrew slams him into the door • And Waymack who is also fed up helps him push by into the room

• And there he is. • Neil is there.

• And what’s the first thing Andrew sees him do? • That’s right: fighting an FBI agent who’s pulling a loaded gun. • It takes Andrew a moment to fight his way to Neil who is hunched over his bandaged hands in pain. • And the moment Andrew puts his hand on the back of Neil’s neck a wave of relief washes over him – so intense he feels his face twisting in a weird way • Neil is trying to straighten up, so he pushes him down unless he sees it. • He then takes a couple of steadying breaths, blinks a couple of times and kneels beside him. • Andrew is feeling so many things, as he is tugging Neil’s hood off • And for someone who’s used to feeling nothing this is too overwhelming. • Neil is looking at him, his expression is hard to read because of all the bandages, but his eyes are sharp and his stupid mouth is commenting on his bruises, like they are worth any attention at all while Neil himself looks barely recognizable. • Andrew starts peeling the bandages off Neil’s face the same way he’s been peeling lies and secrets from him for the last year. • Seeing his wounds is like a punch in the gut • It takes him some time to process what he sees • He thinks that he will kill whoever did that • He thinks that this was the very thing Neil was running from. • He thinks that he took too much upon himself when he promised to protect him. • He thinks that he was not realizing what he was asking him to do when he told him not to run. • He thinks that Neil almost got killed because Andrew did not want him to disappear from his life. • He feels furious and helpless and very-very small. • Neil startles him off this train wreck of thoughts and memories with “I’m sorry”, and Andrew barely catches himself before he hits him. • He needs some outlet for his anger; he wants to hurt someone, to destroy something. • So when the FBI chooses this moment to lecture him on his behavior, Andrew thinks: “Perfect,” and starts to get up to turn this room into a bloody massacre. • Neil’s bandaged hands shoot up to his face, and the fact that he’s not touching him - not really trying to stop him, but ASKING him to stop - is what makes Andrew comply. • He can never say “no” when Neil asks for something. • Nobody ever really asked him. They tried to guilt him into doing something, bribe him, bully him, manipulate… • Nobody ever just asked the way Neil did, and Andrew doesn’t know what to do with it • So he sits down and watches Neil shoot a cold look at the grown men with weapons and the power, he listens to him calling them out on their bullshit and making them do what they are told. • And he thinks that Neil should have been the one to make deals with people and promise them protection • Like the way he fought for Kevin on national TV. • Like he spent two weeks being beaten into a pulp in Evermore to protect Andrew. • Like he chose to get killed instead of putting Foxes in danger. • Like he fought a person with a gun a minute ago. • And he suddenly realizes that nothing matters: the lies, the secrets – any of it. • Different names, ragged clothes, contact lenses, lies about his past – nothing could change who he was as a person. • Andrew suddenly realizes that there is no going back. That he is hopelessly lost to this weird lying exy obsessed junkie with a martyr complex. • It’s scary, but somehow okay. • “The attitude problem was not an act”, he says as the handcuff drops from his hand. • “Am I at ninety four yet?” Neil asks stupidly, as if Andrew’s mind has place for anything else in the entire world. • And then he tells him about Lola, about the dashboard lighter, about his father, and Andrew almost can’t bear to hear it. He can’t bear to hear about people touching him, hurting him. • When Abby tries to intervene he knows that she means well, that she means to help and to heal, but it’s not like he can control himself just yet. • “Get away from us” is not a threat, it’s a warning. He can’t bear to think of anyone else touching Neil right now, and he cannot help it. • But Neil is tugging at his hair demanding his attention, and he draws his gaze back to him when Abby (and the Foxes – just in case) takes a few steps back. • Then Neil’s disfigured face twists in fear and pain and Andrew can hardly make out his voice when he tells him about the witness protection. • “If you tell me to go, I’ll go” he says, probably not knowing how painfully Andrew’s fingers are fisted in his hoodie, not knowing that the only way Andrew will let this happen is over his own and a couple more people’s dead bodies. • “You are not going anywhere” he says, inviting the Foxes to a fight. • And then he just has to watch it unravel…

• Neil invites him to go with him to the FBI like there was something that could have kept Andrew from doing so • He does not think that he can let Neil out of his sight ever again, but that problem will have to be considered later • For now he is just happy to see him exhale when Wymack jokes about the jersey, and Dan tells him to hurry back, and Nicky calls him family, - and that horrible expression leaves Neil’s face as they get into the car and he murmurs his name under his breath

• Andrew makes sure to keep within arm’s reach of Neil at all times as if afraid that he would be snatched away again if he isn’t careful. • When they put them to sleep on cots, Andrew pushes Neil next to the wall and takes a place between him and the door. • He doesn’t sleep though • He is afraid to wake up and find himself alone • Which is a first • He listens quietly to Neil’s testimony, and admires how Neil is good at carefully choosing his words, twisting his way out of tricky questions. • He only interferes when they bring up witness protection again. He makes sure they know the Foxes will give them hell if they try to take Neil away.

• He tries to sleep on the bus, after they’re done with FBI, but keeps waking up to stare at the top of Neil’s head pressed against the window a few seats ahead • He is finally feeling like he regains control, like his world didn’t just shatter to pieces a mere day ago. • But he still feels like he has to look at Neil, just to see that he’s there, or the feeling of reality slips away from his grasp. • They leave each other’s line of vision when they’re back in Fox Tower.

• Andrews room feels like he hasn’t been there in years. His bed is unmade, a book lies open on the pillow with headphones cord in it as a bookmark.

• He wants nothing more but to climb under the blanket, when a sudden need to see Neil again stings him. • He is standing there staring at his bed, trying to be rational and talk himself through it. • Neil is fine. He needs rest. He will see him in the morning. • When Aaron stomps towards him. • He is pissed and he wants answers. • Andrew is not ready to give them yet. He’s tired and he does not know what will happen if he opens his mouth right now. • Also he won’t be able to sleep like this. • He has to see Neil or he’ll literally die. • So Andrew looks Aaron in the eye, grabs his pillow and walks out. • Aaron calls after him, but Andrew slams the door on his way out. • Kevin sighs, scoops his own pillow and follows him. • “I guess it’s a sleepover” Nicky says, as he gets some blankets and his own pillow to follow the rest. • Aaron swears, but follows too • Renee sees them as they all trail into Neil and Matt’s room, and soon the girls join them. • Andrew watches Neil gaze at the Foxes with a tender smile as they pile up on the floor - and he can finally breathe again. • He twists a hem of Neil’s t-shirt around his finger in a way that would let him feel if he moves and closes his eyes • He doesn’t have a wall at his back, but there is Neil at his side, Aaron at the other, Nicky and Kevin somewhere at his feet and even though he knows that Neil is staring at him, he doesn’t waste his breath telling him to stop – as he finally falls asleep.

#aftg #tfc #neil josten #Andrew MinyarD #andreil #the foxes #the foxhole court #all for the game #all for the gay #this has been sitting in my drafts for over 6 months #baltimore reunion scene

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polzkadotz · 4 years

Text

Asas reread their fics - ftayc - part 4

And we’re back to rereading this fic!!!! last chapter i reread was the 7k monster of chapter 3, and this one... oh. Oh, this is also 7k?

wowie

if you want a spoiler to interest you, here we go lmao

we begin with this author’s note bc I don’t think I ever really talked about it here on my tumblr???

It was sort of my first time being recommended, really. I had noticed that my hit count had gone up substantially and I couldn’t understand it, but it was nice??? and then i found the post on the library and I was like Oh. I See.

Whoever it was that recommended me, thank you. Seriously.

But enough mushy-wushy, let’s tackle this giant.

We begin with this exchange, which...

I was trying to be funny and this still makes me smile so at least I amuse myself lmao

Neil needs to free himself of the plot device I pulled out of nowhere and he taps into his reserves of power that he has hid away for, basically, forever. One thing that I wish I had made more clear, which was basically the vitriol going through my mind as I wrote this fic, was that Neil had been cutting himself of his powers and how powerful he was for a fucking long time because

1) he bought into his mom’s reasoning that his father was simply Not Someone They Could Face and Win

2) he had made himself fit into a mold that would “make him survive” but, by doing so, he basically chained himself to a fraction of the three-dimensional person he used to be, which made meeting Jean and finding out that he had become a pet god for a human even worse because Neil could see all the ways they were similar but Neil had been doing that shit to himself voluntarily.

Originally, when I thought about making Neil a god in this fic, I did think about modeling him out of an existing god but also, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to make him be someone who was struggling with letting himself be what he was with his full-potential. Someone who had been cutting himself back for so long he had basically lost whatever sense of personhood he used to have. Someone who had started to get tired of cutting parts of himself and forgetting what he used to be so he would survive for--

What? Survive for what? Neil eventually realized he hadn’t been a person for too long and as long as his father was alive, he would never feel safe to be.

Now that I think about it, Neil was very much me working through my own shit about trying to live as myself at the same time that I had different versions of past me struggling with the person I was becoming. The person I wanted to be.

Anyway, back to the story.

There’s a throwaway paragraph where I sort of tease that Andrew’s dragon is becoming "hungry” and it was basically me trying very hard to foreshadow that the priest thing was going to happen lmao

After battling for two paragraphs against the thought of creating a new priest, Neil gets them back on track to go as far away as its possible for both dragons flying.

Nicky tries to get Neil to talk about the god thing, and I like how I made it clear that even being reminded that he had been a god was something conflicting to Neil.

And then we get to the part where Neil suddenly remembers that he has a lot more money than what he had previously said in the first few chapters, but who cares about plot consistency, am I right? Does it show that this fic was edited hastily? Because I can guarantee that it was :3

They stop in Mumbai, I think (the place is not important for past Asas and honestly... can’t say that’s changed lol). Nicky tries to get Neil to talk more about being immortal and stuff. Neil gives a bit of backstory, as a treat, and Kevin reveals what he knows, as a threat I guess lmao

I kind of imply that Neil only had one priest, which... I remember is not what I put in the sequel.............. so I do recommend you reread your fics before writing a new piece, wink-wink

OH MY GOD I MADE NICKY ASK WHY NEIL’S ENGLISH “WASN’T WEIRD” AND THEN I REPLIED WITH A SENTENCE THAT WAS BASICALLY STRUCTURED WITH PORTUGUESE GRAMMAR AND SOUNDS VERY WRONG IN ENGLISH

Asas... my god, Asas.

Anyway, after a lot of questioning, they eventually go to sleep and, when Neil wakes up from a nightmare, he has his daily fairy tale dose from Andrew, who’s also awake. I gotta be honest, I don’t even remember that fairy tale but it explains the Aaron, Andrew and Tilda.

After everybody wakes up from their naps, they go to their last destination: Tokyo.

Wait lemme check:

when did they leave Mumbai in my story?

when did they reach Tokyo?

yeah, that math totally checks out.

Whatever. As they arrive in Tokyo, Neil splurges even more money on a hotel for the whole crew, even though they had been pretty not nice to him as a whole lmao. But! The boy believed he was going to die, so what was he going to do with all that money?

Nothing, so he programmed an email to be sent to Andrew with the info for some of his bank accounts and fucked off to try and find what his mother had stolen.

Neil gets on a ferry that will take six hours to reach the island where is the volcano that his mother had made him hide his father’s immortality. Neil got nekkid because he wanted to have clothes when he got out of the volcano, you know?

(Also, yes, I’m gonna ignore the other time inconsistency from his travel inside Japan, I was very much pressured by the whole “got recommended on the library” okay, you can judge me through those lenses)

Unfortunately, for him, he wasn’t alone when he finally climbed out of the volcano.

Fortunately for him, this Ichirou Moriyama doesn’t want his father, who is very much interested in becoming immortal, to actually become immortal. Neil explains the whole immortality thingy (I found some typos and honestly? I shan’t fix them. It adds character) and Ichirou subtly kicks Neil’s clothes closer to him, which... I get it, my guy. It’s kind of difficult to have an intimidating conversation when someone’s bits are out and about.

As they are trying to hash out their problem -- as in, Neil’s father told them that Neil’s immortality would be viable to cure Kengo --, Andrew appears blowing his ball of flames onto both of them, and Neil uses his powers to create a pocket that repels the fire, so it doesn’t touch him or Ichirou.

(Why didn’t he use those powers on his clothes, as well? Dunno, don’t poke at my plot too much or it will definitely crumble right into your face, you’re gonna inhale too much dust and die from fandom toxicity, AND THAT’S NO WAY TO REACH A GOOD DEATH)

btw:

Neil, my dude. The dragon thought you were in danger? Chill out???

Neil rages for a few seconds but quickly turns that into a situation to ask Moriyama for his protection against his father, since Neil just technically saved his life.

Oh, and if you think “Uhhh, why would Neil even believe that Ichirou would keep his word?”

Don’t worry, I gotchu:

Ichirou agrees with the deal, for plot reasons. Since he got a deal out of it kind of easily, Neil thinks, “Wait a minute. If I give my father’s immortality to this Moriyama, literally passing the hot potato around, then the Moriyamas won’t be after me for an immortality, my father probably won’t be immortal and come after me as the death machine he used to be and I might be able to use it to free a certain god????”

So Neil uses his father’s immortality to bargain for Jean’s freedom, and he doesn’t wait for Moriyama’s response for that one. He simply hops onto dragon!Andrew’s back and they fly away into the... sunset? Sunrise? Don’t ask me, I clearly can’t keep track of the time passage in my fics.

And this is the end of the chapter!

Let me say something that I hope will be quick: this chapter felt much better written to me then the other three. It’s shaky in places, definitely, and it could’ve gone through a more severe round of editing, but I can certainly feel the positive outcomes of the pressure I felt after my work got a shout-out. This fic had been pretty much geared towards myself, so writing about the world-building wasn’t my focus at all in the other three chapters. In this one, I try to at least explain some concepts I came up with which???? Go me??????

I still wish I had taken the time to work on this entire fic to make it as close to what I had in my head, but in a comprehensive form for the attention that it got, you know? I mean, from the ashes you crawl is still my most everything -- most kudos, hits, comments, bookmarks... It deserved so much better but also... I like that it feels rough? I like that it can clearly help to contrast the growth of my style or whatever?

It was written after a long, long writer’s block, and it only got edited and posted because I decided to participate in an event for a different fandom and it got me excited about writing again.

Anyway, I’ve talked too much. Here’s to hoping I can contain myself in the next posts lmao

#rereading #fic: from the ashes you crawl #fic: ftayc #dragon!andrew #dragon!andrew minyard #god!neil #asas reread their fics #god!neil josten #all for the game #all for the game fic #aftg fics #andrew minyard #neil josten #my fics #tfc fics #my writing

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kar3npage · 5 years

Text

Edens Twilight

New chapter of Sewing Scissors and Throwing Knives is up! Read the rest of the fic here on ao3 Last chapter: Neil gets measured a meets Abby, he shocks everyone by convincing Andrew to do his job.

Friday comes faster than Neil was ready for.

After the initial outrage (from Kevin) and shock (from everyone else) when they found out that Neil had somehow managed to talk Andrew into cooperating with the team, they had showered Neil with warnings and tips to avoid the Friday outing.

Dan had alluded to something bad happening when Matt went with Andrew and his crew to Edens, and Jeremy’s smile had dimmed somewhat when he heard about the trip. No matter how hard everyone tried to fight against Neil going, he knew that he would never back out. He was curious about where the concern came from and vowed to one day hear the stories, but for now he had made a deal. Neil wasn’t one to just back out of deals.

By the time 9pm rolled around (the time that Andrew had made him promise that he would be ready), he had completely forgotten about the entire trip.

Preparing for a fashion show was a great deal more complicated than Neil had realized. Sure, he knew about the complications that could arise and the amount of work that was required to prep for such a large show, but he had never seen the work that went on up in the designers chair. So far he had been dealing with the venue for Kevin, had chats with various staff (Seth) who didn’t want to have their toils ready for fittings, and all sorts of other strange tasks that he never would have thought to worry about.

Sometimes Neil was so busy and focused on his work that he forgot that he was being hunted.

The knock on his hotel room door had Neil moving fast, reaching for a gun that he no longer had with him. It took a breathless moment for him to remember that he was going out for the night.

However, the paranoia was difficult to get rid of, so Neil opened the door carefully and slowly. Nicky stood there was a huge grin and a bag. He only waited for the door to open a smidge before shoving the bag into Neils hands.

“Get changed and then we can get going,” Nicky says cheerfully.

“Why do I have to change?” Nicky looks him up and down and makes a face. “Neil, your gorgeous and all that, but there’s only so much that a pretty face a good body can do. You need better clothes.”

Neil considers arguing, then decides that it would be easier just to change. To spite Nicky, he makes him wait in the hotel hallway. Neil is pretty sure that Kevin forgot to find him an apartment, since he hasn’t mentioned Neil leaving the hotel yet.

It’s a usual sight to see the maserati parked comfortably in front of the hotel at night. What isn’t so usual is the appearance of not only Nicky, but a second Andrew. Neil knew about Aaron Minyard, he had read the newspaper articles about the attack that let Andrew off of his meds during fashion school, but he never actually expected to meet him. He had lost interest in Aaron when he started studying medicine.

It’s jarring to see someone with Andrews face who emotes so much. Or maybe he doesn’t, but it just looks extreme compared to Andrews blank mask. Neil thinks that he prefers the lack of emotion to the sneer of distaste that he’s getting as he gets shoved in between Nicky and Aaron in the back seat of the car.

The music is loud enough that no one can really speak, though Nicky and Kevin do try. They’re arguing about something, but Neil has a sneaking suspicion that they’re arguing about two completely separate topics. If anyone else notices, they don’t say anything.

The diner that they stop at before Eden’s is unexpected to Neil. Enough so that he immediately looks around in suspicion, waiting for someone to pop out from a dark corner. He doesn’t notice Andrew watching his vaguely panicked reaction until they’re almost inside. Andrew raises one eyebrow when Neil makes eye contact with him; Neil avoids his eyes for as long as he can after that.

It’s tough work not looking at Andrew when Neil is so used to tracking his every move, but it does make it easier for him to notice the cracker packets. Drugs.

Neil has heard about the crazy lives that successful designers and models live, of course. He never thought that he would run into it, not with Kevin and his health craze and work ethic. He has a brief taste of disappointment in Kevin.

After the uncomfortable silence of Sweeties that was only broken by Nickys increasingly desperate attempts for conversation, it’s actually a comfort to get to Edens.

Edens Twilight is the sort of club that Neil has been in before but never had wanted to go to again. It was loud, bright, and filled with people wearing various sorts of corsets and leather and straps. It was too much, yet Andrew and the rest seemed at home here among the insanity.

They get in without any trouble--in fact the bouncers nod at them and give Nicky some sort of complicated handshake as they walk in.

Most of the group splits off to find an empty table, but Andrew snags Neils sleeve and pulls him toward the bar.

There’s barely any space and people keep bumping into Neil until he’s much closer to Andrew than he’s ever been to anyone in his life, other than maybe his mother. He does his best to keep an inch of space between the two of them, but the club is filled to the brim.

He’s already hot and sweaty and he’s only been here for a few moments.

“Andrew, we’ve been missing you! Well, I have at least,” a tall, muscular bartender winks at Neil as he sidles up to them. He’s already working on drinks, though Andrew hasn’t ordered anything yet.

“And who's this?” He says to Andrew. The blond fits him with a bored stare that’s getting close to hostile. The bartender gets back to work but is otherwise unbothered by Andrew.

“Just the normal, Roland.”

“And for your new member?”

Andrew turns to look at Neil.

“I don’t drink,” Neil shouts over the music. Roland and Andrew have some sort of silent conversation and Roland shrugs and pours a soda into a glass for Neil, then shoves the overfilled tray towards them.

Andrew lifts the tray with precision and comfort, and he has no trouble getting through the crowd without spilling. That would probably explain their easy access to the club, Neil decides.

The other three men attack the tray the minute it hits the table with the desperation of those suffering from dehydration. Aaron somehow manages to continue glaring at Neil throughout it. Neil pretends that he didn’t notice the three of them pour packets of powder into their drinks before they downed them.

“We’re going to go dance, coming with?” Nicky leans over to shout in Neils ear. He can feel the music pumping through his body. Or maybe that’s his anxiety, it’s tough to tell. He doesn’t respond to Nicky, just shakes his head. Nicky drags a still glaring Aaron and already spaced out Kevin to the dance floor behind him.

Neil is ready to book it by the time Andrew finally speaks up.

“What are you running from?” he says calmly, still working on his scotch.

The muscles in Neils body freezes. He swings around to face Andrew, looks him in the eye for the first time since Sweeties, and gets ready to leave. Italy would be a nice change.

He has to take a breathe before answering, deciding to play it safe.

“What are you talking about? I’m not running from anything.”

Andrew snorts and gives Neil a dirty look. “You are the first person to ever take more than five minutes to consider working with Kevin, you nearly had a panic attack when you realized that we were on the top floor of the building and you couldn’t escape easily, your find the exits in every room before you look at anything else, do you need me to continue?”

When Neil doesn’t answer right away Andrew leans forward until their noses are nearly touching.

“The thing is, this is the easy way. I have other methods of finding out the truth from you, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use them.”

“Why?” Neil’s heart beating so hard that it hurts his ribs.

“Because Kevin and I have a deal. And if you’re running from who I think you’re running from, you could be making me break that deal.” Andrew blinks slowly. Neil can see flecks of gold in his eyes, they’re so close. “I never break deals.”

“Who do you think I’m running from?”

“The Moriyama’s.”

Neil knew he was going to say this. He knew exactly what was going to happen here, but the world still stops for a jarring second.

There are a few ways that Neil could deal with this. Option one: admit that he’s running from the Moriyamas and let Andrew kick him out. He would be safer far away from here anyway. Option two: play stupid and make up a new sob story to explain his fidgety tendencies, and hope that Andrew doesn’t see through the lie. Or, he could use a bit of both. Use just enough of the truth to make Andrew believe him, just enough of a lie to keep him here at Alli Rey.

Neil needs to decide. He can’t decide.

“What makes you think you have any power over me?” he says instead.

“Kevin listens to everything I say, whether he wants to or not. I can make him fire you.”

“Why do you think that I would tell you the truth to avoid that?”

A muscle in Andrews jaw twitches. “You look at the office like it’s the most magical thing you’ve ever seen. You’re as much of a junkie as Kevin is, and that’s saying something.”

Neil really, really wants to stay.

“What do I get in return for telling you the truth?” he relents.

“You get to stay.”

Neil is almost getting cross eyed looking at Andrew from so close. It’s like a game of chicken, and so far neither of them have moved away. When Neil fails to look impressed with that offer, Andrew sighs.

“We’ll play a game. Truth for a truth. I start. Who are you running from?”

Neil chickens out and moves back. “My father,” he chokes a bit on the word. He hopes it adds to the realism of the story. “My father worked for the Moriyamas. He was low on the ladder, no one cared much about him. Until he stole money from them and ran. They found my parents and… and killed them. I have what’s left of the money, and I’ve been on the move ever since.”

He sneaks a glance up at Andrew then turns to stare at his untouched glass of soda.

“I’ll make a deal with you.”

That is the last thing that Neil expected to hear. He forces himself not to react, to wait for Andrew to explain himself.

“I watch your back, and you make sure that Kevin doesn’t go running back.”

“Kevin would go back?” Neil can feel his nose wrinkle up in disgust. He only spent a few weeks with Riko all those years ago, and there is nothing in the world that would make him go back.

“Yes. Do we have a deal?”

Andrew offers a hand to Neil, who stares at it until he realizes what it’s there for. He nods and gives Andrew a firm handshake.

He tries his best to sit still and act like their conversation didn’t shake him to the core, but Neil has an urge deep in his bones to move. He excuses himself to the bathroom to Andrew and starts to fight his way through the crowd.

“Neil!” he hears someone shout. “Neil, hey!”

He stiffens and turns, ready to fight. Nicky stumbles over his feet as he makes him way over to Neil. He throws his arms around him and Neils entire frame tenses. He can’t help himself but throw up his arms to shove Nicky away.

Nicky clings to his shoulders and kisses him.

The shock almost makes Neil not notice the overly sweet taste to the kiss, and as Nicky lets himself be pushed away, the salty aftertaste.

It’s too much.

Neil was already shaky and spent from talking to Andrew, and now his body is already failing to follow his instructions.

“No,” he mumbles or shouts.

Was green the colour for exit? Or was that red? Was this the way to the bathrooms? Neils feet are doing their best to walk somewhere, but with all of the jostling and people they aren’t managing their job.

That’s about the time that Neil’s memory starts to get patchy.

#andreil #aftg #all for the game #aftg fanfic #the foxhole court #tfc #andrew minyard #aaron minyard #kevin day #nicky hemmick #neil josten #fashion designer au #my writing #new chapter #ao3 #fashion designer neil josten #embroiderer andrew minyard #fan fiction #fashion

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ravenvsfox · 5 years

Note

Hi I love your band au fic! I was wondering if or when you were gonna write the next chapter :3

(thank you so much honey, here’s chapter four!!)

Their first show goes badly.

They don’t practice for long enough, just two weeks of lyric reworking and transposition, Neil trying to bring his technique back from the dead, Kevin spitting and tearing his hair out.

They find themselves onstage like a machine with five separate motors and all the bolts loose. Andrew watches the way Neil’s shoulders turn into water when the stage lights hit him, the seam of dark hair that splits his scalp becoming a winding red river.

It's the stupidest thing, how he looks copy and pasted out of history, a magazine rocker back from when that meant something dangerous.

Kevin plays over top of Neil’s vocals. Bouncy bass lines that spit like oil in a pan, so out of place that Aaron stops playing, confused. Neil sings louder and his voice strains and pulls apart so you can see the tendons in it.

The audience screams and whispers, they're not sure if Neil is here to stay, they don't know what it would mean if he did. Do I stop buying their albums? They murmur. Is this them selling out? Mainstream, pretty vocalist on top of their band like a wedding cake topper?

And then closer to the stage, tuned in, pupils swollen, Neil’s voice speaks to some of them like an open fire, turns their faces red, opens them up.

Andrew watches them with a kind of gratification, though he's not sure if he’s thinking of the band’s success or the way he feels the same draw as them, warming his hands on something as nuclear as Neil.

They slice the end off of their set. They can’t get their sound all the way together, even when the 50 fans they'd really reached shout for an encore. The rest of the venue leaves in ecstasies of conversation: who is he? Who is he? Who is he?

Or maybe that's the sound of Andrew’s furious thoughts, drowning it all out.

Or maybe it’s the mushrooms he took before the show. It’s the kind of high that pries everything apart and make him feel like he wouldn’t be able to hide even if all the lights were off, even if he had a hand clapped over his mouth.

Neil spins and starts to gather his microphone cord, preoccupied. Kevin puts his bass down carefully in its stand and shoots whiskey out of the bottle. He always makes the same face after, like it only hurts narrowly less than it helps.

“What the fuck was that?” he asks.

“Yeah, what was it?” Neil returns, like he was waiting for it. The house lights are on now, and all the sweat that made him look waxy and feverish as if by candlelight is now dark on his t-shirt and slick as grease in his hair. “You forget what dynamics are supposed to sound like?”

“I was trying to compensate for your horrifying lack of skill and professionalism,” Kevin says.

“Oh yeah? So you thought you’d play badly enough to drown me out? Interesting tactic.”

Kevin steps closer and Nicky stands in between them, guitar jutting out like a gate. “Kev,” he says lowly. “We're still getting it together. No one thought our first show was going to be groundbreaking.”

“Then why did we bother having it?” he snaps.

“Practice,” Andrew says. “Like everything else.”

“Yeah, hey, I’ve heard it makes perfect,” Nicky jokes nervously.

“That’s not fair to the audience,” Kevin says. “We can’t be figuring our shit out on the stage they paid money to—“

“Oh, but it was your fault, wasn't it Kevin. Let's be honest,” Andrew says. “You decided Neil was going to fail before we stepped foot on stage, and then you made sure of it.”

Kevin looks gobsmacked, and Andrew hears Aaron muffle a laugh. Neil looks back and forth between them, strung between surprise and suspicion.

“I didn’t—“ Kevin stops, puts a steadying hand on his stool. “I wouldn’t sabotage our set to—what—prove a point?”

“Because you’re above that kind of thing,” Neil says sarcastically. “Except that your playing is always going to come before other people though, right?” He seems to realize halfway through speaking that he respects this quality in Kevin, and his voice softens.

Kevin doesn’t answer, but his eyes are needly. “So you’ve all decided to pin this on me?” He’s looking at Andrew.

“Sure have,” he replies cheerily. “Don’t do it again, hm?”

Kevin swallows and thumbs the tuning pegs on his bass, upset. “I fucking hate you when you’re high.”

“Are we supposed to believe he's the love of your life when he’s sober?” Aaron asks flatly. Kevin’s opens his mouth, teeth bared like he’s going to reply, but instead he shoves a sheaf of notes and music off of his stand and storms offstage. Andrew watches the paper flutter to the floor.

“I didn’t need your protection,” Neil says.

“So you keep saying,” Andrew says, and then he follows Kevin to the bar.

______

Neil comes up when you google him, now.

Wymack released a clipped statement on behalf of Palmetto that Neil is the fifth member of Ausreißer and that yes, they know it's unorthodox to change the line up halfway through a tour, but they’re excited to be working closely together on new music. He runs it by the band before turning it over to the press, and Neil frowns all the way through it.

They do a handful more shows on the east coast where Neil and Kevin don’t look at each other. The audience swells, curious or infatuated with the singer whose voice lays on top of the instrumentation like oil on water.

Neil has a wicked panic attack in the motel bathroom when Nicky shows him his wikipedia page, no picture or credits, just a line of text that links him undeniably to the rest of the monsters. He starts wheezing, then falling, and Andrew squeezes the back of his neck and tells him over and over again to come back to himself and cut it out.

Nicky stands with his hand over his mouth and tears in his eyes until Neil gasps and breathes deeply.

At a show in New York, Neil starts experimenting, playing with the audience, his presence taking up so much of the stage that the air starts to feel thin and hard to come by. He’s still a little high from the afternoon edibles they took, and his voice is throaty and loose.

He makes a bad joke about Kevin's tattoo, something about his solos being like labyrinths, and Kevin grins, does an open slide down the fretboard that might as well be a thank you. When music is their primary language, they never fight.

Neil’s all over the stage, twitching with music, eyes closed. Nicky takes his hands off his guitar to spin Neil into his body and then out again, and the momentum sends him over to the drum kit.

He sings into Andrew's microphone, silver tongue, yellow hair long enough to stick to his cheekbones. For a moment, he wants him so completely that it makes his drumsticks tangle, a few beats bunching together like a clot in the rhythm. Neil’s eyes open, right next to him, car crash blue.

Andrew doesn’t look away, and in his head, pieces of lyrics start to hatch, bloody. Inspiration never used to come as easily or painfully as this, like Neil took a screwdriver directly to his brain and pried the words out.

Neil drifts away again, singing about not wanting to be seen, singing about the way staying alive is different from being alive. He always speaks Andrew’s lyrics like they’re just now occurring to him, and it makes him almost jealous.

He spends more time on stage than off. His talent loosens and rolls out like well-worked dough, voice going so relaxed and syrupy that it seems almost involuntary.

Halfway through one of their sets he sits in the middle of the stage, in a snake pit of wires, and sings clunky hard rock like a ballad. The rest of the band and the audience all crane towards him, listening for him like a pulse.

In private, they eat burger king in the van, Aaron dips fries in the zesty sauce that's meant for onion rings, Kevin plucks at a guitar to hone his skill on a broader fretboard, and Nicky squats outside the open driver's side door and tries to beckon a street cat into his lap.

Andrew lights a cigarette and wonders if Neil is aware of how he arches into the smoke like it’s fresh air.

"What are you doing?” Neil asks, leaning over the seat between them to look at Andrew’s open notebook, the cigarette between his fingers instead of a pen.

“Writing.”

Neil looks sceptical. “Lyrics?”

“The great American novel,” Andrew says sarcastically.

“Read it to me,” Neil challenges.

“You are bored,” he says. A side effect of his increasing comfort on stage is a dullness everywhere else.

“I’m trapped constantly in a van with shitty company.”

“Great, this can be your stop, then," Aaron says, waving a fry in Neil’s direction. There's almost no heat though. They all know that it’s too late to cut Neil out without surgical intervention.

“I’m great company,” Nicky says in-between kissy noises. The cat has wandered almost close enough to touch. “And I’m squandered on you.”

“When we get back to Columbia, I’m getting a hotel room,” Neil says.

“With what money?” Aaron mutters under his breath.

“The secret rolls of cash in his socks, probably,” Andrew says. Neil glares.

“Well anyway, you can’t,” Nicky says. “We’re supposed to play nice with the illustrious Foxes while we’re home, and we need to keep tabs on you.”

Neil looks surprised for a fraction of a second, but his expression settles quickly back into annoyance. “Hotels have phones.”

“The house is close to the studio,” Kevin points out. “I don’t give a fuck about what you do with your spare time, but we still have work to do.”

“And dinner. At Abby’s. The whole Palmetto family,” Nicky interjects.

“Is that—“ Neil wrestles with words for a second, coming up with dirty hands and not much else. “Normal?”

“Not really,” Nicky shrugs. “But this isn’t an average label. Wymack basically hand picked all of us. We’re kind of—“

“Don’t say misfits,” Aaron interrupts.

“Misfits,” Nicky finishes, with relish. “But he had the good sense to separate the pop from the rock and roll. We don’t exactly lead compatible lifestyles. I still think we should’ve gotten Renee, though.”

“We don't need two drummers,” Kevin says sourly.

“She plays violin too,” Andrew says. “We could have swapped out a guitar.”

“You’d sell out your own family?” Nicky says, faux hurt. Andrew gives him a blank look.

“We don’t have the right sound for violin,” Neil says. “We’d eat her alive.”

Nicky’s gotten ahold of the cat now, a smudgy grey thing, and it’s grappling up his shoulder with its claws. Andrew watches the way Nicky lets it slice him to pieces just for the feeling of something in his arms. “Yeah right,” he says. “You haven't met her.”

______

He meets her—and everyone else—a week later. Andrew starts drinking at noon just to prepare himself for the spectacle of it, the way Abby’s house will inevitably suck Neil in just like the stage did.

They’re all dishevelled when they stagger up the path to her front door, and the blinds are pulled but Andrew can see the yellow living room light and hear the roll of laughter from inside. His stomach sinks.

Neil picks his way across the grass behind him, hands shoved deep into his pockets. His shoulders are up by his ears and his feet drag. Nicky passes a flask down the line and they each take a generous swig. Kevin raps at the door, and it swings inward almost immediately.

It’s Wymack, an over-full tumbler in his hand and sweat peppering his hairline. Andrew’s willing to bet that he was watching for them, on the outskirts of socializing, trying to keep an equilibrium between his Foxes and his Monsters.

“About time,” Wymack says. His gaze finds the flask that ended up with Neil at the back of the line. He rolls his eyes. “You all planning on being civil tonight?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Andrew asks, pushing past both Wymack and Kevin to get to the warmth of the foyer.

“Shoes off,” Abby calls from somewhere in the bustle spilling out of the kitchen.

“The liquor cabinet’s locked,” Wymack leans over to tell him surreptitiously.

“Like that’s ever stopped him,” Aaron scoffs.

“It better,” he warns. He looks at Neil again. “How you doin’, kid?” Neil nods noncommittally. “They pushing you around?”

“Trying,” Nicky says, smiling. “He won’t budge.”

“Good.” He reaches out as if to cuff his shoulder but Neil flinches away.

Andrew feels something in his chest, a sliver of rib or a ventricle wriggle away and dissolve. He pulls Neil away without thinking, just a brisk tug and a release. Wymack’s already looking away, but Nicky’s watching Andrew, mouth quirked.

“Hey,” someone calls. Matt, it turns out, tall and irritatingly affable as always, hair slicked almost vertical. He nods at the group, but beams and holds his hand out to Neil, who separates from Andrew to shake it. “Matt Boyd, guitarist for Foxes. You’re Neil, right?”

“Yeah,” Neil says. “Vocalist.”

“Man, finally,” Matt says. “I really thought they’d never find a guy. But anyone who’s survived the monsters this long has already impressed me.”

Neil shrugs keeping his eyes carefully forward. “They’re interesting.”

“Oof,” Matt says. “That’s one way to put it. No offence Nicky.”

Nicky shrugs. “Nah, I know what we are.”

“You gotta meet the girls,” Matt says, guiding Neil towards the kitchen. “Dan keeps trying to mother you and she hasn’t even met you.”

Neil looks uncomfortable, glancing back towards the band, but they’re all scattering, preoccupied with food and dishes, or talking shop with a reluctant Wymack, in Kevin’s case. Andrew moves silently with Neil, fingers numb from the booze.

The kitchen is loud, buzzing with fluorescents and conversation. Dan’s sitting on the counter, and it’s almost funny, the way her mouth hitches wickedly when she spots Neil, then deflates when she sees Andrew. Matt slips an arm around her waist, and she seems to find an emotional middle ground.

“Neil Josten,” Dan greets. “We’ve been talking about you all month.”

“Is that supposed to flatter me?”

“Your choice,” she says, grinning. “I didn’t tell you what we were saying.”

“Hello Neil. Hi Andrew,” Renee says sweetly, waving.

“Renee,” he says. It’s a relief to see her. Her face is even as snow.

“By the way, I’m Dan. Wilds. I dunno if you’ve heard our stuff? I never wanna assume.”

Neil nods. “A little. You’re the lead singer?”

“Also on keys, on a good day. This is Renee Walker—she fuckin’ ruins on drums. Allison Reynolds, our badass bassist. And you met our guitarist,” she says, leaning up to press her smile into Matt’s jaw.

“‘From the Top’ is a good track,” Neil compliments stiffly. Andrew can tell from his awkward, twisting hands that it’s the only title he remembers.

They all cluck and groan, and Renee laughs, “it’s always that song. Really not our best.”

“It blows,” Dan agrees. “They play it at last call when they want to clear the place out.”

“Oh, they’re self aware,” Andrew says, quietly enough that only Neil seems to hear. His mouth twists a little meanly.

“So you sing,” Allison interjects, stepping close enough to toy with Neil’s collar, but he seems unfazed.

“Apparently.”

“In the middle of all that noise?” she asks, looking meaningfully at Andrew.

“I manage,” Neil says wryly.

“She’s just used to being the most grating thing in a room,” Andrew drawls.

Allison looks at him sharply. “So are you sober or what, monster? We going to have to lock up the knives?”

“Only if you’re stupid enough to think that I’m not carrying any.”

“Not stupid,” Dan says tiredly, “hopeful.”

“Naive,” he corrects. He’s feeling a little separate from his body. If Neil weren’t so caught up in this orbit, he’s pretty sure he could rope him into hotboxing the bathroom.

“Seriously Neil, are you juggling all of this okay?” Matt says, forehead creased like some sort of caricature of concern. Andrew was right, of course. They’ve only just met Neil and already they’re preoccupied, worried, slicing off parts of their lives to offer him. “It’s a hell of a thing to jump into all at once.”

“I’m fine,” Neil says. “I’ve jumped into much worse.”

Matt scoffs. “I guess that’s fair enough. Let us know if you need a little stability, okay?”

“I can handle myself,” Neil says, eyes flinty, and Andrew almost believes him. He keeps insisting that he’s on top of things, even when that mask of his is oozing blood and history. “But to be perfectly clear, I wanted to be a part of Ausreißer the second I heard them play, and that hasn’t changed. At all.”

Andrew chews and swallows this. His heart lifts, involuntary, and he has to go through the whole production of catching and strangling it like a bird.

“He’s one of them,” Allison says dramatically. “It’s too late.”

Dan rolls her eyes, but smiles at Neil. “That’s great, Neil. They’re a hell of a band, I won’t fight you on that.”

“For real,” Matt agrees. “If Kevin wasn’t such a raging asshole I would pretty much pay to jam with him. Don’t tell him I said that.”

“Doubt he would hear me from inside his own ass,” Neil says.

Matt’s smile brightens. “Love that attitude. Can we borrow him?”

“Good luck keeping hold of him,” Nicky says from behind them. “He’s slippery. Right babe?” He squeezes Neil’s cheeks and gets his hand slapped away.

“But you like ‘em slippery, right Nick?” Allison says.

“Guilty. And I’m not the only one,” he says, and Andrew sends Nicky a warning look just as he glances meaningfully in his direction. Renee looks between them curiously.

“Well,” Matt says. “I’m fucking hungry. Anyone else feel like they haven’t had a home-cooked meal in a hundred years?”

“God, yes,” Dan says. “All they ever give me to eat are salads with half a teaspoon of oil or lemon juice or whatever.”

“Vinaigrette,” Allison corrects.

“Vinai-shit. I need something so greasy that it makes me sweat.”

“Matt’s right there,” Allison says, and Matt flicks her in the neck.

They bicker amongst themselves until Abby ducks her head in to tell them it’s time to eat. “Go ahead and serve yourselves, okay? And there’s, uh, cider in the fridge. No hard stuff until you’ve all eaten.”

“Thanks mom,” Dan jokes.

“Oh, please, I might as well be,” she replies, waving her off.

“Does that make Wymack our dad?” Matt asks slyly, obviously fishing. Abby gives him an unimpressed look and bobs back out of the room without answering.

“Come on monsters, new and old. Lets pretend we can stand each other sober,” Allison says, pushing off the counter.

They filter out, and Andrew hears Nicky say, disbelieving, “you guys are sober?”

Neil lingers in the kitchen, so Andrew leans up against the doorframe and waits.

“You can go,” he says.

“Yes,” Andrew agrees.

Neil’s shoulders sag, and he covers his face with one hand. “I can’t remember the last time I—socialized.” It’s an unexpected piece of honesty, and Andrew purses his lips.

“It shows.”

Neil looks up, disbelieving. “What, do you think you’re the paragon of small talk?” He tilts his head, scrutinizing, and answers himself— “No. Too much like lying, right?”

“Ding ding ding,” Andrew says. “He misses nothing.”

“I can’t usually afford to.”

Andrew stares. Neil looks back, looking a little clammy, a little hyper-focused. “Or what? Something gives you one of those scars?”

“Did something give you scars?” Neil counters, nodding at his arms.

“Mm, no, still not a good enough trade.”

“Then I’m still waiting,” Neil says lowly, “for you to tell me what is.”

Andrew stares at a crack in the ceramic backsplash, feeling Neil’s gaze rove over his face.

He suffers through it for an entire ten-count, then turns wordlessly into the dining room. Neil follows immediately, before Andrew can catch his breath.

The room is full, the usual healthy dose of tension curdling in the joy that people like Nicky and Renee and Abby can’t seem to help spilling everywhere. Andrew sits at the head of the table, and Kevin settles at his right hand. He nudges out the seat to his left with his foot, and Neil sits in it wordlessly.

Renee bows her head in prayer. Nicky reaches for a ladle full of potatoes and Andrew yanks his hand back until Renee smiles and waves them ahead.

“So Neil,” Abby starts.

“Don’t put him on the spot too badly,” Dan says, licking sauce off of her thumb and reaching for the iced tea. “We’ve done enough of that already.”

Abby raises her hands innocently. “I was just going to ask how long he’s been singing.”

Neil appears pristinely composed, accepting everything that’s passed to him. Every expression moves across his face like it’s designed to look like a certain emotion, one mask in a series. “As long as I can remember,” he says thinly. “When I had the chance.”

“Any professional training?” Her face is mild and pleasant, and it sets Andrew’s teeth on edge.

“He’s an amateur,” Kevin answers for him.

“More of a natural talent,” Nicky says warmly, winking at Neil.

“I see,” Abby says slowly. “How did you… I mean, how did the boys find you, exactly?”

“He was trying to steal from us,” Andrew says. Neil looks at him narrowly.

Matt guffaws. “What could they possibly have had that you wanted?”

Neil shrugs with one shoulder. “Whiskey.”

Matt laughs again. Wymack rolls his eyes. “They conveniently left that part out when they were pitching him to me.”

“Would it have made a difference?” Andrew asks.

“No,” Wymack replies easily. “But I would’ve double checked my locks.”

“I’ve never stolen unless it was absolutely necessary,” Neil says woodenly.

“Right, so with the whiskey you were what? Dehydrated?” Allison says.

“Ease off, Allison,” Dan warns.

“Broke. Homeless,” Neil replies, sipping water, pretending not to notice that he’s the stone causing all the ripples of stress in the room. “But it wasn’t really worth the guitar to the stomach, in the end.”

A wince shudders around the table, and Wymack squints in Andrew’s direction.

“Wasn’t it?” Andrew asks, thinking of the way Neil’s head had eased back when he pinned him to the ground, bright interest in his slitted eyes. “We gave you your stage. You’re halfway to a household name by now.”

He says it because he knows, he can tell, what that visibility is doing to Neil. There’s always a second, before he loses himself onstage, that he scans the crowd for something, and his face is unrecognizable with fear.

Those eyes find him again. “So you want me to thank you for the smashed ribs? Should I be thanking Kevin for the bruised windpipe too?”

“Would you?” Andrew says, faux sweet.

“Jesus, Andrew,” Matt says.

“Thank you,” Neil tells him, eyes dark, almost hollow. “Really. It’s almost like being at home again.”

He stares. There are people in Baltimore who want me dead. That’s what Neil had told him about his home. He’d torn out of the van like it was filling up with water when he woke up in Annapolis.

The look on his face was unforgettable. His panic was like a corpse thrashing with electricity, like someone had tried to animate a dead thing.

He can remember staring at the little brass Spears written in cursive over the mailbox, facing the slate grey front door, never knowing whether he would open it to find a home or a nightmare. He’s since realized that they can be precisely the same thing at precisely the same time, tempting as a hearth until someone holds your hands in the fire.

“Andrew,” Renee says, coaxing his gaze away from Neil, away from the whole smouldering pile of memory and obsession. She’s smiling gently. “Do you want some gravy?”

He nods slowly. Neil’s focus is on his food now, and Dan’s talking earnestly to Wymack. Dinner trundles on.

They bring out dessert before all of the main course is cleared away, and he eats the maraschino cherries first, licking syrup off of his fingers, then dissecting graham crumbs and whipped cream from the filling. He stares down at the creased, recently frozen base, the middle breaking apart without a foundation, the off-white cream.

He splits the crust in half and reassembles the cake as a sandwich. Dan wrinkles her nose at the mess. Neil folds his cherry into his napkin distastefully. Andrew suddenly craves a cigarette more than sugar, and even more than that he needs a way to get his thoughts out.

He stands, and ignores the way everyone lets their conversations go to look up expectantly. He brushes past the table, through the living room, and out the front door.

The screen clatters behind him, and he lights up immediately, flicking ash at the porch when it withers in the wind. He thinks of Neil guessing, without trying, that small talk is a lie Andrew refuses to take part in. He hates him so viciously that he can feel it showing on his face.

He digs in his back pocket for a notepad and stubby pencil, breathing sour, woody nicotine.

pipe dream, he writes. pipe dream, pipe dream. He rips the sheet out and tears it to soggy pieces with his teeth. Then he writes:

I can always taste

salt and copper when I’m dreaming

took a pipe to my head,

but you’re the one who’s bleeding

breaking crime scene tape

to open the front door

invisible monsters

no one fights anymore

lying like a mouth on fire

we’ll go up in smoke if we get any higher

Salt and copper cocktails

rim the glasses red

better off dying than already dead

drink yourself home, the sting might kill you

pare back your skin, make it grow back new

just because you set my bones, doesn’t mean you own them

it’s never flower bouquets, always fists full of stems

you’ll have to kill me

if you cut me from this ground.

He puts the notepad upside down on the top step and grinds his boot into its spine. Then he paces down the front path and crouches in the grass, and when he puts his cigarette out in the frost, the fresh, cold air makes his chest seize.

He looks down at the ‘no’ tattooed on his hand, and he lets the word blur into a mantra in his head.

“What’s this?”

He wheels around, and finds Nicky leaning over the top step with his squashed book in his hands.

“Put it down,” Andrew says, moving quickly back up the path, watching Nicky’s eyes dart over the page and feeling his legs go rod-straight with anxiety.

“Oh, Andrew—“

“Put it down,” he repeats, “or I put you in the hospital.”

Nicky’s grip sags, and he struggles to stand upright. “You can’t just—are you honestly going to pretend this isn’t about him?”

He doesn’t reply, but he swipes for the book hard enough that he raises a pale line on the back of Nicky’s hand. He throws it to the side, out towards his parked car, and takes Nicky to the front door with a forearm braced at his throat.

“Fuck, Andrew, you can’t be serious,” he struggles to say.

Andrew starts to shake, rage and fear rising in him at once, twin tides.

“You’re writing songs about him?”

“I wrote lyrics for our new vocalist,” Andrew snaps, “because you requested it.”

“Not for him. About him,” Nicky says, a veil of sadness over his whole face. Andrew shakes him. “But Andrew, I don’t think he’s—“

“I don’t care,” he grits.

Nicky looks uneasy. “I think you do.”

“I didn’t ask for an opinion.” He hammers the flat of his wrist into Nicky’s neck, somewhere between a shove and a blow, then lets him go all at once. He sags into the doorframe, apparently more stunned than hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Nicky wheezes, and Andrew knows he’s not talking about the unsolicited advice or invaded privacy.

Neil’s face appears at the hall window, reacting to the noise of a scuffle before anyone else. His expression is difficult to parse, poised like a pen and furrowed like paper.

Andrew climbs down from the porch, gets into his car, and drives away.

#has anyone ever been as absolutely fucked as andrew lmao #the foxhole court #tfc fanfic #andreil #aftg #rockband au #mine #abuse mention #drugs tw #alcohol tw #Anonymous #ask

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jsteneil · 6 years

Text

call it new

Kevin and Thea patch things up, even when the fabric is threadbare.

3.1k

read on ao3

Thea is still at the hotel when the bus pulls in the parking lot.

Kevin knows because she’s waiting for them on the porch, fiddling with her pendant, arms crossed on her chest. Thea is built like the ferocious backliner that she is: standing there in the dim light, with a solid stance and her legs open shoulder-width, she looks as immovable as she is. Kevin’s heart does a little complicated thing. He gets it, Neil’s trust in Andrew; he’s always understood it, known it, maybe because he’s lived with the promise of the same thing for years, before it was ripped off him with his hand.

The Foxes cheer sleepily when Wymack cuts off the engine. It’s almost three am and they’ve been functionned off remnants of adrenaline until Neil got back from his questioning. They’re all more or less fused with their seats from exhaustion; if Kevin were to turn over, he’s pretty sure he’d see Neil slouching on Andrew.

Nicky is the first one out of the bus, possibly because Erik just crossed the glass door of the hotel, looking even more tired than they are. Allison’s heels are heard next on the noisy steps, half-carried by Renee who looks more rested than any of them, possibly because she’s not entirely human.

Kevin watches them all file out of the bus, barely registering it, before something pokes him hard in the head.

“Are you going to get up sometimes this century?” Neil asks.

His eyes are bright and he’s standing close, close to Andrew. His good mood instantly worsens Kevin’s. They won, and Kevin is glad of it, wanted nothing else. But he’s been feeling on edge ever since the buzzer rang the last second of the match, waiting for the other shoe to drop and drag him down with him.

“You won,” Andrew says when Kevin doesn’t move. “Isn’t that everything you wanted in your pathetically obsessed life?”

“We won,” Neil says, and then they wait.

Kevin glances on his right. Thea is still standing there, talking with Matt and Dan as the others crowd the brightly lit hall.

“Ah,” Neil says. “Well, you can’t sleep here.”

“As if you’ve ever confronted your problems head on,” Kevin mutters, which is ridiculous. Neil’s ruined skin and bruised psyche are proof that he does.

Neil kicks him in the shin but waits for him nonetheless, and Kevin doesn’t have a choice. He shoulders his bag and slowly makes his way out of the bus.

Andrew follows them; he’s the last one on the bus but the first one in the hotel, considering he shoulders past Kevin without looking back and doesn’t stop until he reaches Abby, who gives him one of the keys she’s just gathered from the front desk.

“You have a visitor,” Wymack says as Kevin stops in front of him. He’s smoking at the bottom of the stairs, watching everyone pair off and disappear inside the hotel through the large glass doors.

It’s been hours: the celebratory mood lasted a few minutes but was beaten down by the hours of questioning which followed the game, but still he looks proud as he gazes at Kevin. They’re the same height, which Kevin never realized before, though he should have. Exhaustion falls onto him like a heavy coat: he’s tired of pushing back his moment of rest, of the awkwardness he always waddles through.

Wymack is still looking at him steadily, waiting for something Kevin isn’t sure he can give him.

“You should stop smoking,” he blurts out.

“You should stop drinking,” Wymack retorts.

Kevin doesn’t have anything to say to that. He should, he knows he should: it’s unhealthy and addictive, two things his game doesn’t need. He didn’t drink in the Nest—hat’s a Foxes novelty.

“I can see you stalling,” Wymack says a heartbeat later, “go.”

“You don’t—”

“Kevin, I’m the one who’s gonna have to drag your ass out of bed in the morning. We’re leaving at ten.”

A glance at his watch tells him it’s past three thirty. Kevin groans. At least they’re taking the bus: he’ll only have to be awake long enough to cross the parking lot.

He drags his feet to the entrance of the hotel and rocks to a stop in front of Thea., who doesn’t say anything for a long time but lifts her hand in the air, halfway to his face. Her pendant falls back against her shirt, shiny and possibly skin warm.

“Good game,” she says after a while.

“We were desperate.”

“Yes. And you won.”

They did. Kevin is still reeling. His entire world is realigning like stars in the sky: he can’t help the pride he feels at being the better team. Worry and doubt are always waiting behind the door; they freeze his limbs the time of a breath, leaving panic strong enough to paralyze in their way.

He wants to go to bed and sleep his worries out. He wants a drink, he wants to go back onto the court at Palmetto and lose himself in the repetitive movement of throwing balls at a plexiglass wall, being his own judge and jury.

“You did well,” Thea says again. Then: “We need to talk.”

Kevin guesses they do, but he also has to rock on his feet a little to stay upright. Thea grips him by the shoulder and he sags so entirely in her grip that it surprises them both.

“Can we… later?”

“I have to go back tomorrow.”

Kevin glances around. He makes eye contact with Abby through the glass, holding a spare key card. Thea follows him when he steps inside and takes his bag when he slouches against the elevator wall.

His room is on the fourth floor. Through the cracked open doors he can hear his teammates talking and getting ready for bed, still high with victory and team spirit. A door opens as they cross the hallways, and Kevin tenses instinctively, but it’s only Renee, crossing from one room to another, a charger in hand. She smiles and waves but doesn’t say anything. Kevin can almost understand how she can be Andrew’s friend.

It’s not until the door opens to a single double bed in the middle of the dark room that he realizes that he expected to room with Andrew and Neil.

He flops down on the bed, Thea closes the door, and they’re suddenly alone. Kevin’s mind brings out memories, unprompted, of what it meant to be alone with Thea: the sex, the conversations, the notes they passed in secret, holding out whatever they could of a relationship, until both of them were free to do it for real. There had always been the weight of this waiting on the horizon, but Kevin didn’t realize how fake it was until he left the Ravens behind.

Now begins the real freedom, the real experiment.

Thea sits down next to him, but she doesn’t lie down like him, choosing instead to shove him almost off the bed.

“What the fuck,” he splutters as he catches himself in-extremis.

“If you lie down now you’ll fall asleep.”

Would that really be that bad? Kevin’s mind supplies, but he doesn’t voice the question. There is no avoiding this conversation if they want the fragile thread stretched thin between them to grow back into something real.

“We need to talk about what it means,” she says.

“What what means?”

“What it means to be us.” A pause, then: “If you’re not going to take this seriously, I’m leaving.”

She means it: she gets up before Kevin can count to three. His hand shots up instinctively, catching her wrist.

“Wait,” he says, tugging lightly until she’s facing him back. “I’m taking this seriously. I—I want to talk.” She’s still waiting, so he grits the words out: “You told me we’d have a shot at something after I graduate. It’s still two years away and—I don’t want to wait.”

The silence is frightening. Kevin can feel his palms get damp and his heartbeat kicking, his mind reeling: it’s the same kind of anxious urgency he’s always felt whenever he thought of Wymack as more than a coach, that dries up his throat until he can’t force words out. Alcohol, he’s discovered, is the only thing fluid enough to pass through, but he knows that’s not an option.

“What do you want?” Thea asks, stepping closer. She turns her hand in his until she’s loosely circling his wrist back. Her fingers are hot against his skin, as she always is.

“I want—” It’s not an easy thing to formulate.

“Do you want a relationship?”

Now she sounds as hesitant as he is. Neither of them is good at this; they were Ravens, after all.

“I want to able to talk to you,” Kevin says.

It’s not the right thing to say.

“You have my number. You could have talked to me at any time during the past year and a half.”

Thea has his number too, now: he disconnected his old line when he left Evermore but she stole his phone and called herself with it the last time she came to Palmetto. It was a few weeks ago. They haven’t talked since, except for last night, when Thea told him she’d come to the game.

“I don’t know what being in a relationship means,” Kevin says after a while. “And I don’t think you know either, but I’m tired of being scared all the time.”

“Yes,” she says, “I thought so.”

Thea presses her thumb against his tattoo at that. The little jolt of pain the pressure sends is a welcome reminder of the step he took and the things he’s finally left behind. He has to ask:

“Is that what made you want to try again?”

“Yes.”

Her callused palm is fully cupping his jaw, now, and Kevin rests his head against it, closing his burning eyes. He wants to go to sleep, he wants to stay up talking to her all night, hearing her break down the game in her smooth accent, he wants—

He wants.

“You need to sleep,” Thea says. “Are you still a morning person?”

Kevin grunts, listening to her puff of laughter. He never was: everyone knows that.

“We’ll talk tomorrow.” She disentangles herself from him, leaving cold air on his skin where she was touching him. Kevin’s eyes shot open.

“We leave at ten.”

“I’ll call you.”

“In the evening,” he says, and she smiles.

“You’ll be on the Court by the evening.”

He will. Then again, if she doesn’t call too late, maybe he’ll wait. He thinks he can do that.

Neil tells them on the bus, just before stepping off. He looks at Kevin when he says the words, without malice but with the lack of pity that characterizes him.

It’s fine. Or, it’s not, but Kevin has never wanted pity in the first place.

He leaves with Abby and has a panic attack in her car, then almost drinks himself in a stupor at her house before Wymack comes in and takes the bottle away.

“He’s dead,” Kevin tells him; he feels like it’s the only thing he’s said all day. “He’s dead.”

There’s a clatter in the bedroom where Abby disappeared ten minutes earlier with her medical pack. Jean, Kevin thinks, but even in his alcohol-addled state he can’t imagine a way they can comfort each other.

“Alright,” Wymack says, “come with me. I need a drink.”

“You took the vodka,” Kevin mumbles as he lets Wymack frog-march him to the car.

“I meant coffee.”

No one ever means coffee when they say they need a drink, but Kevin stays silent for the rest of the trip. It’s not on the news yet: according to Neil, Riko was stone cold by the time Kevin went to sleep that morning, so what do a few hours matter anyway?

Wymack brings him to a diner a few miles away from campus, possibly so Kevin doesn’t have access to his alcohol stash. They have bitter coffee and greasy burgers that Kevin vomits right up ten minutes later during a panic attack that leaves him hunched over the toilet seat on the diner’s dirty bathroom floor.

“You okay in there?” someone asks, but the steps move away when they get no answer.

Kevin doesn’t do much more of the rest of his Saturday, pestering Wymack until he drives him to the court. He always meant to go there anyway; the smell of the floor polish and the leather of his gear usually helps him focus his stray thoughts, but this time the effort to gear up and fetch balls and a racquet is too much. He crouches down on the giant paw in the middle of the floor in his jeans and sneakers and tries to remember how to breathe.

The buzz of his phone against his hip startles him so much he falls on his ass, one hand flying behind him to steady himself.

It’s Thea, calling him like she said she would.

Kevin almost doesn’t pick up.

“Kevin,” she says when he finally does.

“He’s dead,” is the only thing he can articulate. He thinks Thea might get it. She’s not like Neil, incensed and intent on vengeance. She’s like him, angry and wounded and still a little bit scarred.

“I hate him for what he did to you,” she says.

“You think he got what he deserved.”

It’s not even a question. The answer is simple: yes or no. Kevin is incapable of answering it himself.

“I think he’s dead, and now it doesn’t matter anymore.”

He realizes that her lack of surprise means that the news has spread. It’s unfathomable, the world being privy to the ugly reality of Riko’s death. They’ll all say it was a suicide, and that front covering the truth is familiar, but they’ll be waiting for a reaction Kevin can’t hide.

“Kevin. Breathe.”

“Count them for me,” he gasps, so she does, in her unshakable voice: “One,” and she inhales, “two,” and they let go.

“Will you come to the funeral?”

“Will you?”

He will; how can he not? For a moment he surprises himself daydreaming about not going, staying in bed with the covers drawn over his head. But no, that can’t happen: not after they beat the Ravens, not now that the cameras are focused, more than ever, on their little ragtag team. Not after he made such accusations live on TV weeks ago. They will whispers and point fingers, his reputation will be in shatters.

Kevin says this to Thea in between big gulps of air. She stays silent, thinking, judging. Thea is good at compartmentalizing and seeing the bigger picture; she makes sacrifices and sees them through. She understands.

“Alright,” she says after they’ve rehashed it three times. “Sit up straight, you’ll hurt your back.”

The floor is cool under Kevin’s forehead but he’s still covered in cold sweat and it sticks when he unfolds from his curled position.

“How did you know?”

“You always curl up as tight as possible.”

He didn’t know that she’d noticed. He didn’t know that she’d cared to before: his attacks in the Nest were always either supervised by Riko or private. Much of his privacy was fake: he shared it with Riko, with Jean. With Thea.

It’s normal that they know these things about each other. That’s what couples do, after all.

“Talk to me,” he says as he gets up on shaky legs. He almost falls down when the blood rushes back into his feet, but he manages to stay upright and starts down the court, following the path they take when they run warm-ups around the court.

“About what?”

“Anything. About you, anything.”

It’s them, so Thea talks about Exy. She hashes down her team’s season, the internal struggles and petty in-fighting that cost them a game.

“I know the feeling,” Kevin says, almost joking.

There is a moment of silence where laughter should be, then Thea is off again, explaining her latest game. Kevin saw it live, on his laptop. The livestream broke once and he almost cried out loud, but he only missed Thea’s team scoring. He doesn’t tell her but listens carefully as she talks to him about game strategy he could only guess at as a spectator. She’s ruthless on the court, never backing down. Listening to her determination is almost as good as seeing it or experiencing first hand. He craves it, sometimes: the memory of their year of playing together, Kevin choosing her as his mark in scrimmage because he was obsessed with measuring his strategic play with her strength. It worked well. He thinks it might work even better on the same side of the court, but that’s a thought for the future.

When Thea’s done with the game, she goes on another one, less interesting, that she played against the Boston Rebels.

“We stayed in town the next day,” she says. “Saw all the historical landmarks.”

It’s more than an olive branch, it’s a rope thrown to a drowning man. Kevin takes it and relearns how to swim.

“Tell me.”

She tells him; about the churches, the houses, the Liberty tour and the narrow streets of the northern part of town. Kevin has travelled a lot, but never to Boston. Maybe they should go one day, when they have time and a more solid start to their relationship.

The beeping sound of his phone battery startles him out of the conversation.

“I should go,” he tells her, hand on the court’s doors. “My phone is going to die.”

“Alright.” She’s not one for goodbyes. “Don’t stay alone,” she warns.

She knows as well as he does how well Ravens do alone. Kevin thinks for Jean, still in bed in Abby’s guest room. He wishes he could visit him, bring him some of the comfort they used to share in whispered French. But his relationship with Jean is a closed door he doesn’t have the key to unlock.

Noise alerts him when he steps out of the foyer. The scrapping of a chair against the floor, the click of a light being turned off. Wymack steps out of his office a second later, leaning on the doorjamb.

“I’m not,” he assures Thea.

Riko is dead, and Kevin’s shadow with him, the spiral inside him threatening to swallow him whole. But he has the Foxes, and Thea, and Wymack—his father. This is enough, for now, for Kevin to be able to see a sliver of blue sky past the storm.

#all for the game #aftg #tfc #the foxhole court #kevin day #thea muldani #muldayni #is that their ship name?#it should be #my writing

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philosophiums · 6 years

Text

so in case y’all didn’t know, @requiemofkings is a goddamn saint for putting up with my annoying ass while i struggle through writing this au

anyway i finally got part three done. and in case you missed them, here’s part 1 & part 2

Andrew stares down at Neil’s body on the hospital bed and wonders how his life got to this point – how he ended up in a place, in a position so fucked up. Not that his life hadn’t been fucked up before, between the traumas of his childhood, juvie, and a barely-assembled life with Nicky and Aaron before he got on Wymack’s radar. But this is fucked in a different way, a worse way. Andrew is fucked in a different way. He’s so closely bound to another person that he doesn’t know how to begin living without them.

Thankfully, Andrew thinks, he doesn’t have to.

Neil’s eyes flutter open in the way the nurse said they would, disorientation following the butterfly struggle like a puppy seeing the world for the first time. Neil looks around the room in rapid sweeps, taking it in floor to ceiling, probably assessing his body condition all the while. Andrew stays where he is, standing despite the pain, his hands in his pockets and his eyes never leaving Neil.

Finally, Neil’s gaze comes to rest on Andrew, and it doesn’t skip away. He gives an incoherent moan and a soft, “Drew?” and then winces like talking isn’t one of his more brilliant ideas.

“You died,” Andrew says, flat and simple despite the hurricane in his chest, the scratch in his brain that keeps skipping over those two fucking words and how close Andrew came to losing Neil for good.

“Not… that easy to get… rid of me.”

That bottomless pit of anger inside of Andrew wants to yell in the face of Neil’s humor, to make him understand the turmoil that Andrew’s been through. He wants to shout at Neil until he understands that he was dead for five minutes, that it was only a miracle and Andrew’s fists that brought him back, that Andrew nearly shot a fucking civilian because he was so desperate to get Neil into the operating room and get that bullet out of him. He wants to shake Neil’s shoulders and tell him that Andrew can’t put the fucking mission first anymore, can’t even put himself first anymore, because he cares about Neil so goddamn much that it’s a wound in his chest cavity, gaping and infected.

But dwelling on that, on what happened and could have happened, isn’t going to do them any good. It’s not going to get them out of this situation. So he lets that anger and fear out in a rush of breath and limps over to the bed, taking it easy on his shot-up thigh, and eases himself down to sit on the edge of the bed. “Good, because as soon as you can move, we’re leaving. Someone’s gunning for our asses, and I’d rather not try and take them down with your ass hanging out of a hospital gown.”

Neil coughs out a laugh and pushes to sit up more on the inclined bed, but his laughter severs off and his body freezes on a breath. Andrew guesses that Neil’s still in too much pain to go anywhere just yet.

“I said when you can move, not right this minute,” Andrew says. He digs in his pocket and pulls out a tangled ball of silver, which he then presses into Neil’s hand.

“I’m fine,” Neil says, because it’s impossible to really bury habits as engrained as that. Fist gripped around his engagement ring, Neil pushes himself up the rest of the way into a sitting position and then collapses against the pillows, face pinched and ringed with sweat for his efforts. But his eyes are open, and he’s not bleeding through his gown yet. “You got hit,” he says after a few deep breaths, glancing down at Andrew’s thigh in an evident show of awaiting the prognosis. A minor tremor in Neil’s hands as he drops the necklace over his head is the only remaining sign of the amount of pain Neil’s in right now.

Andrew nods. He knew that Neil would never overlook something as important as a limp, a flaw in Andrew’s demeanor, so he hadn’t tried to hide it. “A doctor pulled it out while you were in surgery.” He sent the bullet home with Aaron, hoping to get some sort of answer out of ballistics, but not holding onto a lot of faith. “Gave me some stitches and a nice prescription of morphine.” Too bad he can’t take it. He’ll just give it to Neil or keep them on stash for emergencies.

Neil gives a quiet hum and reaches out with shaking fingers to brush Andrew’s cheek and the slice left behind by a paper-sharp blade. “I missed this one. You weren’t the only one with a knife, huh?”

“Well you were busy bleeding to death, so I’ll let it slide this time.” Andrew presses his hand against Neil’s and draws it away from his face. The tremble in Neil’s hand is so small that Andrew can mask it with a squeeze of his own fingers, like the time Neil forgot to eat for two days and his blood sugar dropped. Andrew hesitates a moment before holding Neil’s hand to his chest. The edge of his ring presses into his sternum, hissing out a touch of pain from a bruise there, but that only succeeds in making this more real, in solidifying in Andrew’s mind that Neil is really alive.

Neil smiles, and he finally looks as doped-up as he should. There’s a fuzzy edge to his eyes, his mouth set tenderly on a slack face. It’s a shame that Neil only ever looks this soft when he’s sleeping or on painkillers. Andrew wonders how old Neil was when he started growing his edges. Was it at three years old, after the first time his mother slapped him to make him quiet? Or at five, when his arm snapped in two places after being pushed down the stairs by his father? Six, after his first training session with Lola? Maybe when he was fourteen, after his mother shot him in the shoulder to gain them a safe place to sleep?

“Where else, besides the bullet?” Neil asks, getting in the way of Andrew’s self-destructive thoughts before they can form.

Andrew squeezes Neil’s hand and then rests it on his thigh. He brushes the curtain of Neil’s bangs away from his eyes, wanting to see more than just shards of iceberg blue. “Someone made a mess of your arm hacking at it with a knife. Five cuts that all needed stitches.” Andrew moves his eyes from the tight white bandages around Neil’s arm to his shallowly-rising chest. “I broke three of your ribs giving you CPR, so the fourth must have broken after the explosion.” He doesn’t bother mentioning the minor nicks and bruises, the injuries that will heal in just a few days.

“If I don’t move, I can’t feel any of it,” Neil claims, though Andrew knows that his tolerance for painkillers is too high for that to be true.

But Andrew doesn’t challenge him. “Hopefully we can keep you drugged-up enough over the next few days that you won’t feel it even when you are moving.”

Andrew pats Neil’s thigh hard enough to send reverberations into his torso, and he watches closely for signs of pain. Neil winces and glares, but other than a bland, “Was that really necessary?” he doesn’t bitch about the pain.

“Let’s go now,” Andrew says, easing off of the bed, “before it’s time for your next dose. You’re no use to me if you’re unconscious, so I’d like to save that for the road.” He’s also starting to get anxious, sitting around in a hospital like meat ready for slaughter. It’s been really fucking quiet, considering that this is the closest hospital to the Langham and there was certainly enough effort put in to taking them down at the hotel.

“Gotta have someone to watch your six,” Neil says while Andrew helps him move to the edge of the bed, steadying him for a moment before going for the bag Dan had dropped off for them. “Speaking of, are the others home already, then?” Neil asks, working at the ties on his gown despite how much that must hurt.

Andrew drops the bag beside Neil on the bed and tugs open the zipper. The orange bottle of morphine is sitting right there on the top. His leg and shoulder and everything fucking hurt, and the pills are so goddamn tempting. Andrew’s jaw clenches, and he shoves the bottle to the bottom of the bag rougher than needed.

Neil’s hand flutters like a panic attack over Andrew’s arm. “We can get you something else for the pain. Tylenol even. Better than nothing.”

“Not a high priority right now,” Andrew says, but his body relaxes at Neil’s touch, at his concern. He leans over and presses a lingering kiss to Neil’s forehead, and then another to his lips. He drops the conversation. “They should have landed by now, yes. Why, upset that Kevin hasn’t called yet with concern over his favorite agent?”

Neil smacks Andrew’s arm. “Asshole.”

A careful game of tug-of-war is involved in getting Neil out of his gown and into street clothes, but eventually he’s sitting in sweatpants and one of Andrew’s long-sleeved v-necks with his shoes shoved into sneakers and his hair looking bed-mussed. He looks so… normal that it throws Andrew off for a moment, seeing him in a hospital setting.

“What?” Neil asks, because of course he notices every small fluctuation in Andrew’s expression.

Andrew’s mouth tips down, just a fraction. Even now, after knowing Neil for years, it’s unsettling how well Neil understands him, reads him. He narrows his gaze and lets his eyes dance along Neil’s collarbone. “I like the way you look in my clothes. I would like it even better if you weren’t shot to hell or pretending you weren’t.”

Neil makes a face that garners none of Andrew’s sympathy. “I’m not pretending. I just didn’t think you would appreciate my non-stop bitching about how much pain I’m in. I haven’t seen you say a single thing about your injuries, and you aren’t even on painkillers.” Fuck but Neil could go from zero to a hundred in less than a second, especially if he’s low on offense and sees his cutting tongue as his only defense.

Silence takes the room for a moment while Andrew gives Neil a chance to draw a few breaths. They don’t need to be fighting with each other, not here, not now when there are unknown people after them for unknown reasons, when both of them are injured. Although it’s not like that situation is going to change for the better any time soon. Eventually, Andrew walks over to the other side of the room and grabs the waiting wheelchair and the crutches.

“Where are we going?” Neil asks through gritted teeth as Andrew helps transfer him into the wheelchair.

Andrew stays quiet while he tries to figure out just how in the hell he’s meant to walk with crutches and push Neil at the same time. He finally just discards one of the crutches across Neil’s lap and opts to use the other like a cane. “Dan left a car parked outside,” he says. “St. Louis is a bet of a trek, but you’re not cleared for flying yet and I’ll be damned if I’m getting on a plane right now. There’s a safe house waiting for us.”

He pushes his fingers through Neil’s curls and gives a tug. “Stay alert until we get to the car. You can sleep all the way to St. Louis if you want.” He wishes that they had weapons, but Dan couldn’t manage to sneak any into the hospital. Andrew has his knives, still tucked away into his armbands, but he’s slow now with a thigh injury and knives aren’t much good when dealing with semi-automatic assault weapons.

Neil snorts, leaning into Andrew’s touch while it’s there. “You just don’t want to deal with the staff on your own.”

Andrew doesn’t deny it. They’re not married yet, so he has no control over signing Neil out of the hospital. The idiot is just going to have to do that himself. He wheels them out of the room without checking the hallway first, and Neil nearly has a seizure over it.

“What the fuck?” he hisses in German, whipping his head around to glare at Andrew.

“Calm down.” Andrew gives a flat look to a nurse staring at them with wide eyes and a slack expression. “We would know if they were in here. Dan tried to bring us guns and couldn’t get past the front door.”

Neil turns slowly back around, probably hurting now more than before. “A metal detector isn’t going to stop a bunch of determined agents.”

“Stopped us,” Andrew says. “Besides, if they wanted to push forward anyway, there would be a lot of shooting right now, and the hospital would be on lockdown.”

Andrew wheels them to a stop in front of the elevators, resting his hand on Neil’s shoulder, reassured by the warmth of his skin, the lack of death in the face of how fucking alive he is. Seeing Neil dead, holding him and trying to force his heart to start beating again… Andrew has never been more terrified.

The wide elevator door creaks open in the achingly slow way all hospital elevators do. Three people trickle out – one nurse and two civilians probably here to see a patient. Andrew pushes Neil inside, and he closes the door immediately so that they’re alone on their way to the ground floor.

“I don’t think they were amateurs,” Neil says, continuing in German despite them being alone. “An M4 isn’t a professional choice, but the shooter obviously knew what they were doing. The men on the ground knew exactly what they were doing.”

“No,” Andrew agrees. “They were professionals. Just not of our caliber.” It’s not cockiness, it’s honesty. If they had been as good as Neil and him, then the job would have ended very differently.

“A hit job?” Neil muses.

“Doubtful,” Andrew says. “Anyone confident enough to use an M4 instead of a .50 cal. isn’t going to be stupid enough to aim at a non-vital area, even through glass.”

“I did die, though.”

Andrew’s jaw clenches at the unwelcome reminder, the ease with which Neil says it. “I don’t think that was the intent,” he says once his grip relaxes on the wheelchair. “A headshot would have been quicker.”

Neil makes a noise of acquiescence and then tips his head in a way that signals him lost in thought. Andrew taps the top of his head with a knuckle. “Don’t think too hard. I’m sure you lost some brain cells in your time of death.”

“Oh, fuck off.” But Andrew can hear the smile in his voice. Dumbass.

“You’re getting predictable,” Andrew says, scowling afterwards because he hadn’t meant to say it.

“Hm?” Neil glances over his shoulder to look at Andrew. After a few seconds of Andrew not meeting his eyes, he turns back around. “Good thing you’re not trying to kill me, then.”

The elevator eases to a stop and dings that they’ve made it to the first floor. “Not yet,” Andrew says, readjusting his crutch and pushing Neil out of the way of a young woman waiting to get on.

There’s a line of one at the nurse’s station, and Andrew wheels Neil into place behind the older man who’s five seconds away from getting into an argument with the exhausted nurse. Fucking baby boomers.

Now that they’re in the lobby, Andrew becomes more alert, spine straightening, feet planted squarely. He pushes aside the scream of pain down his leg and just leans a little harder on the crutch. They’re out in the open now. It would be impossible to shoot at them from a point of elevation across the street, but so easy to take a step inside the front door, double tap a trigger, and walk away. Or, more likely, poor in like ants and surround them, taking them down without a fight given Neil’s and his conditions. Fuck. He hates feeling hunted. It’s not a sensation that he’s used to.

“Hey,” Neil says, pressing his hand into Andrew’s. Neil’s tense, too, but his eyes are soft and earnest. “Deep breath. The nurse is waiting for us.” Andrew looks up and, sure as shit, the old man is fifteen feet off to the side talking to someone else, and the nurse is giving them a tired smile.

“Going home?” she asks when Andrew wheels them up the rest of the way.

“Yeah. Neil Josten. Birthday: January nineteenth of ninety-one.”

The nurse smiles a thanks and types into her computer. A moment passes, and the smile slips, and she types something else. Andrew watches the confidence leech out of her eyes as she realizes exactly what’s going on. “But…” She looks at Neil, then up at Andrew and back down to Neil. “You’ve only been here for a day. You were shot.”

Neil nods, being very reasonable as far as Andrew is concerned. “Yes. And I’m going home. I just need to sign myself out and I won’t be your problem anymore.”

The nurse blinks, opens her mouth and shuts it like a talking doll whose batteries have died. “But you need treatment.”

“Believe me, this is nothing new. My fiancé seems to have signed himself out already with no problems. Please, I just want to go home.”

Andrew bites hard on his tongue as that word rolls off of Neil’s. It’s been a long time since “please” has been anything more than casually annoying, but it’s a gut reaction to hurt when he hears it.

Seconds pass and Andrew gets more irate as they go. He and Neil need to get out of here, not sit around arguing with nurses about whether or not it’s smart to go home. Generally, no, it wouldn’t be, but right now, under these circumstances, it would be stupid as fuck to stick around. Finally, the nurse sighs and prints off the paper for Neil to sign, and they’re free.

“Putting this on the record,” Neil says right before they push outside, “it would be faster if I was walking.”

“Sure,” Andrew says. “And then I would have to deal with an unconscious bleeding idiot instead of a healing one.”

“Oh, you’re in a great mood aren’t you?”

“I’ll be all better once I don’t have to deal with your smart mouth for five hours.”

Neil laughs and then stutters off into pained wheezes. Andrew doesn’t take the time to stop and smack the idiot’s head, but his palm itches for it.

They’re not even exposed for all that long – they just have to cross the street; Dan snagged one of five spots adjacent to a long stretch of grass – but Andrew feels naked for all the lack of protection they have. And when they do reach the car, it’s a struggle for Andrew to keep his motions controlled and even, to not just stuff Neil into the passenger seat and drive like hell.

He takes a breath instead and pops the trunk, taking out a Walther for Neil and a Beretta for himself. He sets both weapons on Neil’s lap and shoves a rifle into the backseat along with the bag from the hospital room. He helps Neil inside as carefully as possible, half-lifting him into the passenger seat and wiping the ring of sweat from his forehead once his seatbelt is on. He wants to say fuck the wheelchair, but he folds that up and shoves it into the trunk, and then he’s in the driver’s seat and the engine is roaring at a slight twist of his fingers.

“Here,” Andrew says, reaching into the back for the bag. He takes out the container of morphine and a bottle of water. Two pills are dumped into Neil’s waiting palm, and, after Andrew takes a drink of water, that gets passed over as well.

Neil drains half of the water before giving it back to Andrew, who twists the cap back on and drops it into the cup holder. “Stop at a gas station for some Tylenol,” Neil says, folding his arms around his waist and settling into the seat as Andrew pulls out.

“As soon as we’re out of the city,” Andrew promises. As soon as they’re safe.

“Good.” Neil falls silent after that, and Andrew focuses on weaving them through the traffic, following the route he had memorized while Neil was in surgery. Andrew isn’t sure when exactly the morphine kicked in, but by the time Andrew merges onto the interstate and has a chance to look over, Neil is fast asleep and temporarily pain-free.

#the foxhole court #tfc #espionage au #mine #my fics

387 notes · View notes

jostenminyard · 6 years

Text

Signing on the Line - Ch. 3 & 4

Summary: When Neil Josten is offered a position as a starting striker for a professional Exy team, he feels like all of his dreams are coming true. He signs the contract, not caring about the strict morality clause that controls who he can and can't date in the public eye.

Then he meets Andrew Minyard, the top-ranked goalie of a rival team, and then Neil thinks he might just have to care after all.

A/N: Feautured in these chapters: photoshoots, flirting, and meeting up in fancy hotels - ooh, la, la.

Chapter 3 on AO3 | Chapter 4 on AO3 | Previous chapters here

It feels like Neil’s lit a torch, and now he has to run as fast as he can to make it to the Olympic cauldron before the flame burns out. Except he’s never fast enough, no matter how hard he tries.

He has to burn, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

He signed a contract and put his fire in the control of somebody else’s hands.

He’s just not sure if he hates it, when his fire is up against Andrew Minyard’s ice. He thinks he might like it, actually, because it’s not a lie. Right down in his core, where he keeps his love for Exy safe and untouched, he feels the twist and burn of determination to prove Andrew wrong.

Besides the media’s exaggerations and rumours, their rivalry is real.

Which is why Neil doesn’t hate it.

Which is why he doesn’t deny his manager when they book him a deal with the official NEL monthly magazine. The magazine plans to dedicate their seasonal starter issue to the Seakings and the Nighthawks.

They want Andrew and Neil on the cover.

He tells himself he says yes for two reasons: he likes the idea of Riko fuming over losing his cover model status for the first time in two years.

The other reason is split into two halves; he might’ve said yes simply for the opportunity to provoke and spite Andrew. He might’ve also said yes simply for the opportunity to see Andrew.

He tries not to think about that last half.

There’s a new reason for the buzz in the air, a month before the season starts. An undying energy that already has the fans flocking the streets in their aqua-silver jerseys.

All the games played in the NEL from October first to November sixteenth mean almost nothing to the Exy world. What matters is November seventeenth, when San Francisco plays against New York in the most anticipated of all rematches.

It’s all anyone can talk about, all anyone cares about, and with every pair of eyes in the Exy world on him, Neil takes the pressure they give to him and turns it into motivation.

He started this feud, he asked for the world to look at him, and he doesn’t regret it. Neil was the NCAA failure who couldn’t get a team to sign him, and when he did sign with a team, his failure status changed to Kevin Day’s sidekick.

Now Neil is simply Neil; the rookie who challenged the NEL’s top-ranked goalie.

And, in a way, that’s exactly who he is.

He practices with more grit than he did throughout his five years of college. He practices with Kevin, with his team, and sometimes by himself, at near four in the morning. Sleep is impossible when no matter what he does, the image of Andrew in the goal sticks in his head.

So he stands alone in the stadium and throws shot after shot until he can’t feel or think about anything but his pounding heart.

It churns out the oddest song, that continues to ring throughout Neil’s mind when he eventually does try to sleep.

Kevin gives him as much advice as he can, but whenever he says Andrew’s name a look of scorn is never far behind. Neil can hear the betrayal in his voice like it’s still fresh.

“Andrew only ever plays his best game when he has incentive,” Kevin tells him after night practice, the two of them in the lounge, watching clips of the Nighthawk’s latest open practice.

Neil frowns, twisting his hands up together. “. . . am I the incentive?”

Kevin answers that with a sharp look and a sharper shrug. “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen him play like this before.”

It settles heavy in Neil’s stomach, and adds a few more raucous beats to that neverending song in his head.

It’s nearly 6:00PM when his phone goes off, an unknown number flashing across the screen. Besides the constant phone calls from his manager and the occasional call from his coaches, his phone remains mostly silent nowadays. It strikes enough curiosity in him to answer.

“Hello?” Neil says cautiously, not wanting to give too much away to whoever’s on the other side.

“Your blood was already all over Riko’s hands. Now it’s a mess.”

“Andrew?”

It’s terrifying to hear that voice, deep and rumbling and somehow still smooth, right in his ear. It’s even more terrifying that he has no idea how Andrew could possibly be calling him right now.

“How’d you get my number?” Neil asks when Andrew says nothing to confirm it’s him.

“If that were important I’d care enough to remember,” Andrew says simply. “Moving on - Riko’s not happy about this upcoming magazine spread. Or really, he’s not happy about you. He says I need to put an end to this.”

“So Riko’s making you call?” His smile comes instantly, evident in his voice as he says, “Are you sure he doesn’t own you?”

“Riko says I have to end it. I don’t think I want to.”

“And why’s that? Are you having fun?”

Andrew says without pausing, “I like making you look incompetent.”

“But you see me as a challenge,” Neil says slowly, remembering Kevin’s words - Andrew sees Neil as incentive.

“I never said you are incompetent.”

Neil’s smile twitches into wider, bigger, brighter. Not sure what to say to that, he chews at his lip to try and tramp down his grin. “Thank you.”

“You still don’t stand a chance.”

“You wouldn’t be calling me if you thought that.”

Against his best efforts, Neil’s smile refuses to budge, even as the line falls quiet. In the background of the call on Andrew’s side, a car honks, sirens go off, a soft murmur of voices can be heard from down below. The sounds of a New York City night.

Andrew must be outside, somewhere secluded if he’s talking to Neil.

Neil thinks about finding Andrew outside in the loading docks that night of the banquet. The only other soul in that huge, huge room that needed to breathe, needed to escape the role they’ve been cast in.

It’s only fitting that their roles have woven together.

“I need to know,” Andrew says, after a comfortable moment of silence. “Are you Kevin’s clone? Or is there something else you live for outside of your contract?”

For a second, Neil’s mind splinters off into various directions, trying to figure out the path that Andrew means. He knows he can’t ask directly, or else Andrew won’t believe what he answers with, so he says what he thinks he should say.

“I don’t really know what else to live for,” Neil answers, a bit wistfully. “This is my life.”

“How sad. Let me know if that changes.”

There’s not even a chance for Neil to get a breath in; the line goes dead as soon as Andrew’s last word is said.

Neil holds his phone to his ear, then slowly lowers it, swimming in confusion. Even more confusing is the ache in his chest that he’s never felt before. It feels like the burn of a breath you take after being held down under water.

He ignores that feeling and looks at the unknown number with the New York area code. He saves it as a new contact, naming Andrew ‘03’.

He doesn’t touch his phone for the rest of the night.

He arrives at LAX just as the sun is rising, and he’s in a chair getting makeup put on an hour before morning practice would usually start.

The studio isn’t quiet by any means; the set decoration team is running around placing props and fixing backgrounds, the photographer is talking to the lighting department, the stylist is rolling a clothing rack back and forth across set.

It’s quiet to him though. There’s something even louder in his brain, a screaming chaos, shouting nerves that refuse to stop attacking his spine every time he looks over and sees Andrew.

Andrew is leaning back in a makeup chair, eyes closed and feet propped off the vanity in front of him. He hasn’t so much as glanced over at Neil since he arrived. Neil tells himself he doesn’t care.

It’s just them today, to shoot for the cover. Tomorrow the starters for the Seakings will fly in for the remainder of the photoshoot, then immediately fly back to prepare for their first preseason game, while the Nighthawks will be photographed in New York.

So that leaves Andrew and Neil. No Riko, no Kevin, no coaches. Just them.

There is no possibility for anything, because what could Neil want from Andrew? What could Andrew give him? Nothing. There’s nothing Andrew could even offer him, so there’s nothing for Neil to choose.

Still, Neil has to reach for his water bottle and take a long sip, forcing his gaze away from Andrew, pushing those thoughts away.

It’s then that he notices the camera being set up in front of a large, white NEL backdrop further back in the studio. Two chairs have been placed next to each other on the right, directly facing another chair placed to the left.

It looks like a setup for an interview, this Neil knows. What he doesn’t know is why.

Frowning over at the scene, Neil looks to his manager and asks, “What’s that for?”

Though he already has an idea.

His manager says, while staring at his phone, as if this isn’t of any importance and that Neil should have already been in the know, “For your behind-the-scenes interview with Andrew.”

And that was exactly what Neil was guessing, but all the same, his heart stops in his chest and all words fall from his mouth.

“O-oh.” He glances at his reflection then, hoping something in it will ground him. It’s to no avail; his heart decides then to start pounding. “Like - together?”

“Like together,” his manager says, one eyebrow quirking while his eyes remain on his phone. “Any problem with that?”

Neil takes a deep breath and chances a glance over at Andrew. No, there is no problem, because to have a problem would mean he has an issue with being near Andrew, and . . .

And Neil sort of wants that, for whatever reason, so -

“No, no problem.”

After a makeup artist attacks Neil’s face with a variety of brushes and sponges, and after he’s dressed in the first outfit for the day, he’s led to the interview setup, where Andrew is already sitting. He looks as relaxed as he had earlier, his legs crossed at the ankle, hands folded over his stomach and his eyes closed. He doesn’t open them when Neil settles down beside him.

A fact that Neil is thankful for, because even just sitting next to Andrew has Neil’s skin feeling hot and his lungs feeling tight. He wrings his water bottle until the sound of the plastic crackling is louder than his pulse.

But why, is what he wonders, why does he feel this way? He’s done a thousand interviews, done them with various teammates in this exact situation before, in fact. He’s even been nervous for a few of them.

Never like this. Not to the point where he can’t sit still, feeling so helpless, as if his veins are vibrating under his skin.

“Stop.”

The one word, uttered so simply, is like slamming on the brakes. Immediately, Neil stops. His hands go slack around the bottle, his shoulders slump, and he finally looks to his left.

“Stop what?” he asks, ignoring how out of breath he sounds.

Andrew opens his eyes then, and finds enough energy to turn slightly to look right at Neil. He says nothing, but he doesn’t have to.

Neil uncurls his hands completely, muscles surging with relief as he does so, and lets out a deep breath.

“Sorry.”

But now that his hands aren’t busy, the franticness is building inside of him again, so Neil allows his gaze to settle fully on Andrew. Calculating everything; his eyes, his posture, his easy and calm breathing - as if he really isn’t breathing at all.

“. . . what kind of questions do you think they’ll ask us?” Neil tries, looking for any sign that Andrew is as affected as he is.

That gets a slight frown in his direction, but ultimately Andrew lets out a sigh and closes his eyes again. “All that matters is the answers you decide to give.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“Mhm.”

Just as Neil’s about to start in on choking the life out of his water bottle once more, with his every bone feeling full of electricity, Andrew speaks up and says, “You don’t have to answer any question that you don’t want to, or even how they want you to.”

Neil lets out a laugh bordering on skeptical. “Oh really? Do you have some sort of secret that I should know about?”

“It’s not a secret. It’s called ‘standing your ground’.”

For whatever reason, that feels like an insult, and it sinks heavy in Neil’s stomach. He looks around the studio at the various crew members, the lighting setup and the props and everything that’s designed to make fake things look real, and sighs.

“As if I ever had any ground in the first place.”

“Mhm,” Andrew says again, and nothing else.

Neil is spared having to think of a response by the interviewer approaching them. She introduces herself and reaches out to shake Neil’s hand, but is quick to pull back when Andrew simply stares at the offering.

“Nice to meet you both,” she says, smile never flinching, and takes the seat opposite them. “Shall we begin?”

The interview is made of simple questions at first; how long have they been reading the magazine, what their favourite issue is, what team did they root for the most while in college, easy things that Neil already knows how to answer.

But easy is never how anything stays.

“Neil, now that Andrew, a top-ranked player, is sitting here beside you, how do you feel about him? Are you still optimistic about your chances?”

Neil’s instinct is to laugh a bit, and turn to face Andrew. When Neil smiles, it’s for him, and not the camera. “I feel good. I mean, yeah, you might be top-ranked, but statistics are just that - statistics. Right, Andrew?”

Slower than snow melting, Andrew turns his head to look at Neil, without an ounce of feeling in his expression. “I hate you.”

Neil’s smile crashes a few levels, but he’s quick to hide it and face the camera again. “. . . it’s going to be fun proving him wrong.”

The interviewer smiles, and looks to Andrew. “And what about you, Andrew? Hate is a pretty strong word regarding Neil, don’t you think?”

Still sounding as void as his three previous words had, Andrew shrugs and says, “Hate could mean many things.”

“So is Neil as ferocious in person as he is on the court?”

Andrew’s eyes are fire on Neil’s face. “Not at all.”

That fire burns and boils the spite in Neil’s chest, and Neil is quick to face him again and snap, “As if you’re anything special off of it.”

“Never said I was.”

“Which is a shame,” Neil says airily, dramatically shrugging his shoulders. “I sort of hoped that there was a soul in there somewhere, considering how much you bring to each game.”

“Oh, Neil,” and it’s a wonder how any person could sound so empty and yet still be condescending, “There wasn’t - until you came along.”

It’s said so viciously that it must be an insult, but it pricks and pokes up Neil’s spine until it reaches his head, and then Neil feels hot all over again.

He’s saved - or maybe, interrupted - by the interviewer when she suddenly makes a cooing noise, her eyes wide as she says, “Ooh, that sounds promising. So is it true then, Andrew, that you’ve been playing with more precision during your practices because of Neil?”

“Because of how foolish he is, perhaps.”

“And you, Neil? What’s been your incentive?”

Neil can’t look anywhere else but at Andrew’s face and those burning eyes. “Andrew.”

And he’s looking at Andrew, and Andrew is looking right back at him.

So when the next question is asked, it doesn’t surprise Neil as hard as it should, not at first.

“Now Neil, let’s chat about your past. You were unable to find recruitment with any other NEL teams because of the incident involving the news of your father. Does he have any impact on you now that you’ve made it?”

Then it sinks in, and Neil’s hot blood turns cool, as quick as it takes for his head to spin around. He faces the camera with a paled face and shocked eyes and stammers, “Uh, what? I don’t . . . I can’t answer that.”

It’s been months since he last uttered anything regarding his family and his father. He’s spent every day since then storing it away, pushing it back, leaving it in his past. Having it spoken about so blatantly feels as if his entire mind has been raked over and pulled apart.

“Surely you must feel something like pride or victory. What would you say to your father if given the chance?”

Neil’s hands curl in on themselves once again, nails biting into skin. The room is spinning and he has no clue what’s where or why. He’s back in that moment, with the reporters and the questions and the anger and the fear and being so clueless as to who he is.

“I haven’t thought - uh, are there any other questions?”

“Whatever’s the first thing to come to mind.”

“I - I guess -”

“And what about your mo-”

The interviewer’s too-enthusiastic voice is cut off abruptly by Andrew saying, “He said no.”

In a tone so solid it makes the screaming room go silent.

Neil doesn’t breathe.

“Oh, I was asking Neil, but if you have something to say on the issue . . .”

Andrew’s expression is darker than it was minutes ago. He doesn’t frown or sneer; all it takes is one look and it dims the entire world. “And Neil said no, so unless you have any other questions pertaining to what you’re really here for, I think we’re finished.”

The interviewer’s mouth hangs open but nothing comes out. Her eyes flick from Neil to Andrew to someone behind the camera, as Andrew slips out from the chair, not deigning anyone with a glance as he leaves the studio.

Neil remains seated, every limb feeling heavy, his eyes unable to look away from the doors that Andrew just pushed through. His manager comes up to him, on the phone with someone, speaking angrily and looking focused for once. Neil catches his own name somewhere in the conversation - along with his father’s.

Neil tunes it all out, however, every voice and word said to him. His lungs ache, and he doesn’t notice anything until they suddenly don’t.

Because the moment he’s finally able to breathe again is the moment that Andrew walks back in through the doors and returns to set.

It’s a half hour before Neil is called to set. His nerves are still in disarray, but just like he does on the court, he pushes them away to focus on the task at hand. He does what he’s told, playing the role set out for him. He’s never done such a high scale photoshoot before, so he doesn’t hesitate in tilting his chin this way and that way when instructed, smiling when they ask him, conveying every emotion that they want him to convey. It’s clear what story they’re trying to tell.

Is it a story he actually believes in, though? Does he really hate Andrew the way the world is saying he does? Neil doesn’t think so, not even when he catches Andrew’s gaze between touch-ups and smiles, and all Andrew does is blink.

There’s just nothing to hate. Neil’s thought a lot about Andrew since first meeting him, and he can’t come up with a single reason. Rivalry doesn’t equate to hate.

Before Neil can go back to set after touch-ups, a hair stylist ties an aqua-coloured bandana around Neil’s head in a band, pushing his bangs back from his face. She says, sounding satisfied, “Now that’s more like it, hey, rookie?”

Neil itches to reach up and take it off.

When Andrew is called to set, that’s when the entire train derails. A story can’t be told when the character refuses to say their lines. Demands and requests are called out, but Andrew reacts as if they were never even said. Either on purpose, or simply because he just doesn’t care.

“Andrew, can we at least get a smile?” the photographer asks, lowering the camera from her face. “Make it grim, vicious, guarded. Anything.”

Andrew’s face stays the way it’s been all day; cold and plain, not a single emotion shuttering across it.

Neil watches without breathing, hands curled into fists and nails biting his palms. If he ever refused like that, if he ever denied what they wanted him to be . . . he wouldn’t exist.

Yet Andrew stands there, hands shoved in the pockets of his tailored pants, looking the way he always is and not what they want him to be. And he doesn’t disappear.

Neil is smiling by the end of it. If he can’t deny the rules, can’t break them, then he’ll happily watch Andrew do it.

Eventually the director yells out in frustration, turning to Andrew’s manager and demanding compliance, but Andrew’s manager simply shakes her head. The director calls for lunch, spewing obscenities as he walks away from set, talking loudly with the production team as they all voice their annoyance over Andrew.

Neil can’t stop smiling, and he finds that he doesn’t even want to.

It’s a surprise, though, when Neil turns from set and finds Andrew waiting for him. He’s staring at nothing, but once he’s sure Neil is there beside him, he heads for the door.

Neil follows without question as Andrew stops in front of his manager, holding out his hand silently until his manager produces a package of cigarettes and a lighter. Then he turns for the exit, turns down a hallway, down a staircase, and out a backdoor that leads into an alley.

Neil still asks no questions as Andrew leans against the wall of the building, designer suit be damned, and lights up. He asks no questions as Andrew takes a deep drag, then passes the cigarette off to Neil.

“That’s not a good look for you,” Andrew finally says, words slow and raspy. He points with his now-free fingers up at the bandana still fixed around Neil’s head.

“Thanks,” Neil says, mocking intent clear in is voice. “I’m choosing to wear it.”

“You are,” Andrew says in agreement, reaching back for the cigarette.

Neil frowns, eyebrows and mouth twisting up. “That was called sarcasm. Have you heard of it?”

“The definition must have changed then.”

“What do you mean?”

Andrew takes his time with answering, instead choosing to lean his head against the brick, closing his eyes, breathing up a cloud of smoke to the sky. “You have a choice. If you don’t like it, take it off.”

“After you just pissed them off like that by refusing to smile? Do you know how to, or have you never felt joy before?”

That gets one eye open. Andrew’s half glare is icy enough to freeze fire. “There’s nothing to smile about here,” he says, simply. “Though that must be news to you. If they say smile, you smile. If they say run, you’d ask where to? It’s sad.”

Neil lifts a hand to his head, feeling the soft curls of his hair tousled around the bandana, shaping a face that should be his but somebody else has made. They tied his hair back and removed the past five years of his life, turned him back into the freshman rookie at Arizona.

His hands move, as if to take the bandana off, but he can’t.

“It’s not up to me,” he says, quietly.

Andrew has both eyes open now, staring straight ahead at the opposite wall. “Sad. You are far too concerned with pleasing people who only want one thing from you. It’s your face that’s going to be on the magazine. Your name being played with.”

Andrew takes another two or three drags of his smoke, time passing as slowly as he breathes. Then he turns to Neil, holding the cigarette out of the way, and says clearly, “Come here.”

As stunned as Neil is by such a sudden command, he takes the few steps separating them until he’s right in front of Andrew.

Andrew’s hand motions towards the bandana. “Do you want to be this person?”

Neil’s response is automatic; “No.”

Without hesitating, Andrew snags his fingers into the material and pulls it free from Neil’s head, tossing it over his shoulder just as quickly.

“Then don’t be this person.”

He places the mostly-gone cigarette between Neil’s fingers, then pulls open the door that leads inside, leaving Neil alone in the alley.

He finishes breathing in the rest of the cigarette, eyes never leaving the aqua-coloured material that sits on the dirty ground of a Los Angeles alleyway. Neil doesn’t pick it up.

Once inside, he goes back to his makeup chair, allowing the artist to touch up his face. It’s difficult to stay still when Andrew is only a few feet away, when Neil can’t stop thinking about him, when Neil replays the brush of Andrew’s fingers through his hair over, and over, and over.

He allows himself to spare a glance in his direction, watching as an obviously-anxious makeup artist brushes powder over Andrew’s cheeks, Andrew reclined in his chair with his feet up on the vanity again.

There’s no reason to get up and walk over, but there’s no reason not to, either, so Neil chooses what he wants to do. It’s the strangest sensation, allowing his feet to go where they want to go.

Stranger that it’s towards Andrew.

“Hey.”

The makeup artist ignores Neil’s interruption, but Andrew immediately opens his eyes.

“I wanted to say thank you, for, uh, for earlier.” His hand comes up to rest on the back of Andrew’s chair, fingers squeezing tight to stop himself from altering something he isn’t allowed to change, touching something he can’t touch. “You know . . . the only time I get to say anything that I actually think, it’s about you.”

Maybe he is being played like a puppet, but his rivalry with Andrew is real. Everything he’s said about Andrew has been the truth, regardless if the world hears it as hate.

It’s not.

The universe pauses and sits in sharp silence. Andrew sends a fierce look at the makeup artist, ushering her away, then looks back at the mirror as the universe presses play.

“So there is something outside of your contract?”

There’s intention in Andrew’s voice, intention that Neil wants to respond to. He immediately understands what Andrew was asking with that phone call, and it sinks his chest in. He can't.

“It’s not something I’m allowed to have.”

There’s somberness in Neil’s voice, sombreness that Andrew doesn’t respond to. He sits still and uncaring. “But do you want it?”

He’s never been asked that before.

Because of that fact, he can’t look up again, can’t bring himself to meet Andrew’s eyes in the reflection.

“I’ve never wanted it,” he says finally, and it’s not a yes, but it’s not a no.

“Doesn’t answer my question,” Andrew says, like he expected Neil to say that. He doesn’t give Neil the chance to try though, and instead slides from his seat to stand by his manager.

It’s fifteen minutes before they’re both called back to set. The director takes one look at Neil’s restyled hair, and widens his eyes to match the rage he had yelled out at Andrew.

“What happened to your hair?” he asks, and looks around for the hair stylist. “We have a cover to shoot for, you need to be ready.”

“I’m not wearing it,” Neil says back flatly, and something real bursts and bleeds in his chest, but it doesn’t hurt.

“Don’t be difficult. It’s not for you - it’s for the picture.”

“I’m not wearing it.”

“Do you want us to continue with this photoshoot or not?” he snaps, and waves over for the hair stylist. “It’s very simple; keep the stupid thing on your head and smile when you’re told. Got it?”

Fight fills Neil’s mouth, words and curses that can only be stopped by biting down on his tongue. It wouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Not here.

His ‘no’ is nonexistent here, just like it’s always been and always will be.

So Neil sighs and bows his head, and when the stylist pulls yet another bandana through his curls and ties it tight, he doesn’t take it off.

The photoshoot leads back underway, but this time Neil doesn’t smile, because it’s not asked of him.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with the man who’s meant to be his enemy, a man he’s meant to hate when he really doesn’t, though, feels like another lie.

The world won’t know, when the magazine comes out, that they really don’t hate each other, not that way. The cover shot will most likely be the two of them staring each other down, an inch of space between their faces. The world will never know the ideas being thought in that space.

Andrew is offering something.

A decision, a choice.

Something he can say no to - something he wants to say yes to.

Something Neil hasn’t ever had before. It’s always been what he has to do, no other options.

It’s not something anyone else can decide for him. It’s not even something he can decide to feel for himself, because you can tell yourself you can't, but it doesn’t stop you from wanting to reach out and touch, be touched. He’s never wanted that before, either.

How could he say no?

It’s the first time his body and his mind have been a cohesive yes. Funny, that it goes against everything his contract states, that it’s everything he should say no to.

“Andrew.” He says it in the last second they have together, before they’re broken apart by the stylists and makeup artists. “I want it.”

Andrew considers Neil for a moment, expression unreadable, but Neil knows he isn’t truly as bored as he looks. He leaves without saying anything, and Neil knows that’s not the end of it.

He’s proven right an hour later, when his phone goes off with a text message from ‘03’. It’s a bunch of numbers that at first glance mean nothing. It doesn’t take Neil long to realize the numbers are coordinates, a time, and a room number.

34.066042, -118.410602

753

Chapter 4

His hood is pulled up over his head, a baseball cap is lowered over his face.

It’s a precaution, though he’s pretty sure the only people who might recognize him right now are the people who’ve had their TV’s turned to a sports station over the past month.

Stepping out of the cab, he leaves behind his last checkpoint of safety, and enters an entirely different world. Fancy doesn’t begin to describe this hotel, with its palm trees and marble fountain. The doormen wear sharp, fitted suits, and greet him with a small bow.

The inside is even worse; a crystal chandelier hangs above Neil’s head as soon as he steps through the revolving doors. In his baggy hoodie and hat, he suddenly feels a bit out of place. Very, very out of place.

It takes a minute to find the right elevator, an even longer minute to work up the courage to press the button, and another sixty precise seconds to step onto it when the doors open. Then there’s no going back, the only direction is up, up, up to the seventh floor.

What’s on the seventh floor is everything he cannot have. It’s everything he signed away. It’s also what he doesn’t understand.

Neil isn’t stupid. He knows the risks and the dangers. What he doesn’t know is what he feels, he just knows that he feels it, because he hasn’t ever before.

Not like this. It’s never itched up inside of him. He’s never felt the scratching of sharp curiosity, clawing at his insides in an attempt to get out.

He’s been fine without it. You can’t want something you just don’t feel. He knows, realistically, he could be fine without this, too, but the thought of never knowing, never finding out, never trying, is enough reason to get him out of the elevator.

He has to know why he feels this, what this is, where it’s coming from and how. All he knows is that it’s because of Andrew.

What is it about Andrew?

The fact that it could ruin everything, if anyone else ever found out, doesn’t scare him. If anything, it comforts him, because he signed a contract saying he wouldn’t let people see this, wouldn’t let them know.

Andrew did, too.

So who out of the two of them is going to tell?

So what could it hurt to just find out? To feed an answer to his tightening heart, and finish the rhythm that’s been stuck in his head since he first shook Andrew’s hand.

The door with the gold 753 comes into view much too quickly, but having made his decision a long time ago, Neil doesn’t hesitate this time, and raises a hand to give a steady knock on the wood. It takes a minute, but soon there’s the sound of footsteps, and then the door is swinging back open.

Andrew stands there, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. He looks at Neil, then fishes his phone out of his pocket, clicks a button, and holds the screen up for Neil to see. “Eager?” he asks around the cigarette.

The time is flashing on the screen. Four minutes before ten. “Traffic wasn’t terrible,” Neil explains, and steps around Andrew to get inside.

The door closes, sealing them in, feeling almost as final as it had when they were locked in the court.

Andrew makes his way to the minibar and asks, “Did anyone see you come in?”

“I don’t think so. Hey - why’d you make this place so hard to find?”

Andrew says without looking at him, “To be sure you wanted to find it.”

He turns around and hands a bottle of something to Neil, then takes one for himself and makes his way over to the windowsill, turning the crank on the window and pushing it out as far as it will go. He lights up, completely ignorant to the placard on the wall that declares this suite as a non-smoking room.

“Not a fan of following the rules, I see,” Neil says conversationally, eyes glancing up at the placard.

“Five-hundred bucks a night. It’s a smoking room.”

Managing a grim sort of smile, Neil finds a place on the bed, facing Andrew where he sits at the window.

Settling into silence, Neil suddenly feels - awkward. Too aware of himself, from his clothes, to his thoughts, to this aching unknowing that he hates - because Andrew must know.

Neil’s been painted to look inexperienced by the media. He hates that sitting in front of Andrew, he is that painting, has no clue what to do or how. It makes him want to tear off his skin and try again, to be another picture, to know better.

Oblivious to Neil’s internal panic, or maybe because he’s all too aware of it, Andrew leans over and passes Neil his pack of smokes and a lighter. They smoke and breathe and drink in silence, and the longer each second stays quiet, the more Neil’s heart starts to settle.

He had expected go go go and now now now and desperate and quick just to get it over with. But Andrew sits there with his head tilted back, looking as if this is the only reason he invited Neil over tonight, like there’s nothing else expected.

So Neil has to ask, his cigarette nearly burnt down to a stub, “How many times have you done this?”

Andrew takes that as an insult, it seems, judging by the scowl that darkens his face.

“I mean -” He doesn’t know what he means, he can’t say it. “You signed this all away,” he tries, waving his hand around. “You don’t seem that bothered by it. Like you’ve found a way around it.”

Andrew shrugs, confirming Neil’s suspicion, acting as if signing away everything you are inside means nothing. “You could say that,” he says. “But I’m not going to let some words on a paper decide who I fuck anyway.”

That sends a sudden bolt of heat down Neil’s chest, feeling more like a punch than anything else. He ducks his head quickly to hide the flash of red that colours his cheeks. It’s dizzying to hear this - whatever this is - put into words.

“What if you get caught?”

“I can’t get caught,” Andrew says. “I’m not hiding anything, I’m just not telling. There’s a difference.”

Neil nods, though he doesn’t understand.

Andrew sips at his drink, studying Neil intently over the mouth of his bottle. “There’s a reason I never signed your team’s contract.”

“And what is that?”

“Is this sport really that important to you that you’d forfeit every cell you are?”

It’s not difficult to hold Andrew’s gaze now. He means it when he says, “It is every cell I am.”

Andrew looks as if he wants to roll his eyes, but he refrains and takes one last drag of his smoke before stubbing the end out against the pristine windowsill. “That’s what I thought you’d say,” he says, turning his body to face Neil better, letting his legs part and his shoulders relax. “I don’t believe it.”

Then it’s back to not being able to look at him. Andrew’s eyes are like a searching spotlight, so bright, exposing everything. All Neil can think about is the small distance between him and Andrew’s open legs, Andrew’s steady gaze, reading him and cracking him open.

“Or else you wouldn’t be here right now.”

Neil uses his drink as an excuse to avoid eye contact, lifting his bottle up up up until he can drain it. Andrew seems to be giving him the time he needs to answer that, so Neil takes it, studying the label of his beer with serious intent once he's finished.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here because I’ve never -” Neil starts, then stops, and finally looks up. “How am I supposed to pass up something I’ve never felt before?”

That changes something in Andrew’s structure. He’s quick to straighten himself and tower his presence over Neil. He says like it’s law, “You don’t feel anything. If this is going to be anything, it will be only physical. Do you understand?”

Neil doesn’t understand, because he most definitely does feel something. He doesn’t know what it is, and the only reason he knows it’s there is because it’s never been there.

He wants to think it’s simply because Andrew’s tied up in Neil’s love for Exy now, but then again, so is Kevin. He wants to think maybe it’s because Andrew is a means of security now, because Andrew can't tell anyone.

But that doesn’t work; Neil only wants because it’s Andrew.

Looking at him, at Andrew’s guarded gaze and venomous stance, Neil can’t pinpoint what it is about him.

The last thing it could ever be, however, is his touch. The last time Neil’s fingertips have brushed Andrew’s skin was the night they met.

It has to be something else.

Neil doesn’t mind figuring it out, but he has to say, a smirk tugging at his lips, “How could it only be physical when all we’ve done so far is shake hands?”

Andrew’s vicious expression stays where it is for a long moment, increasing in darkness, until suddenly he snaps his head around to stare out the window. “You’re a lot more difficult than I thought you’d be.”

“I’m a challenge, remember?”

Andrew lets out a slightly more raspy breath, a skeleton of a laugh. Neil feeds on it. It puts him one step closer to solving this.

Though he isn’t quite sure what he’ll do when he figures it out.

“Then where do you want to start?” Andrew asks, after another suspension of silence, surprising Neil with his voice.

For a moment there, he was expecting to be sent away. He didn’t think he’d be given another decision to make. Letting out a small laugh, Neil shrugs and admits, “I was hoping you would tell me.”

To his confusion, Andrew doesn’t answer that, and instead hops off the windowsill to walk over to the desk by the mirror, picking up a large leatherbound menu.

“We should eat,” Andrew says, tossing the book at Neil. “Order whatever you want.”

He isn’t hungry at all, his stomach too twisted up to feel anything, but he thinks maybe that’s not what Andrew is asking.

“What are you having?”

Andrew sighs at that, but lifts one dismissive shoulder and says, “Ice cream, probably.”

“Then I’ll have that.”

Whatever he had expected from tonight, sitting on a bed with Andrew Minyard and eating ice cream out of expensive serving dishes was not part of that.

The TV plays in the background, drowning out most of Neil’s attempt at conversation. Yet somehow, it’s not awkward. It’s almost as if this is how it’s supposed to go.

Andrew doesn’t talk, but he listens, even if he doesn’t lift his eyes to meet Neil’s. He stirs and picks at his dessert as Neil rattles on about this and that, topics mostly covering Exy, as that’s all he’s accustomed to talking about.

He starts off by mentioning how many of Andrew’s games he had watched throughout college - he had watched many. He mentions his days in little league, and how it was his only escape from a strange home life he wouldn’t understand for years to come. He starts to mention being recruited by Kevin, the day his coach at UOA had approached him and said ‘There’s a recruiter for the Seakings here to see you play tonight’ before he realizes, he really doesn’t want to talk about Kevin.

Or Exy.

Or anything about the game.

But what else to say?

He wants to find the reason why he feels so high about Andrew and uncaring about everything else; his whole career sits right outside the locked hotel door and Neil doesn’t think once about it when he’s talking to Andrew.

After a few moments of silence, stirring at melted ice cream, Neil thinks off the top of his head and tells Andrew about the weird dream he had last night, something he wouldn’t think to tell anyone else, because who else would listen?

The abrupt change in topics seems to shock Andrew, because there’s a quirk to his eyebrow and a twitch at his lips.

“So what about you?” Neil asks, giving his spoon a lick. “What kind of messed up dreams have you had?”

Andrew graces him with a cold look. “I’m living one,” he says, but after a minute, he surprises Neil by elaborating. “It’s pointless to wonder about them. They’re always going to be unrealistic, and I don’t approve of false hope.”

“I get that,” Neil says, nodding, though he isn’t sure he does get that. “Whenever I dream about flying, I wake up disappointed that I can’t. It always feels so real.”

“It never is.”

“Thanks, I’ll try to remember that next time I’m unconscious.”

Andrew looks at him again, and this time, he doesn’t look away.

Once they’re done their ice cream, they set the bowls down on the ground, as if they aren’t worth the rent of a house. Not having anything to keep his mouth and hands busy now, Neil glances at Andrew’s lips, and wonders too much about them.

“How am I doing?” He has to ask, half joke, half panic.

“Terrible,” Andrew answers, but it sounds half mocking, half bite. “But I’m not grading you, and I don’t plan on telling anyone else.”

“I know.” Neil shrugs a bit. “That’s what convinced me to come.”

Knowing Andrew would keep it a secret isn’t the reason he’s here, but it is the reassuring force that had him take those last few steps towards the door.

He’s here because -

And then he thinks he gets it.

Andrew’s been giving him chance after chance all night to turn around and walk away. The click of the lock wasn’t as final as the lock on the court had been; that had been somebody else’s decision, that neither could escape from. Being in here with Andrew, all Neil has to do to leave is leave.

Andrew is the opposite of Neil’s contract - he’s freedom.

Neil’s never had freedom. He’s never had freedom want him in return.

So uncaring about the rights or the wrongs because neither affect him, Andrew does things because and only if he wants to, despite all the rules and regulations.

For Neil, a man whose entire life has been rules and regulations, self-imposed and forced, it’s invigorating.

It’s freeing. It’s having the option of leaving if he wants to, staying if he wants that more. It’s whatever Neil wants to do, as long as he really wants to do it. No forcing, no pushing, no pressure.

Just a question, with so many answers.

That’s the reason he’s here. That’s the reason he wants Andrew.

Focusing on the TV after coming to that realization is difficult, and it shows in Neil’s bouncing legs, anxious fingers, in his eyes that keep averting from the screen to look at Andrew, waiting for Andrew, wanting Andrew to look at him.

The program cuts to commercial, and Andrew remains still as stone, a safe distance away from Neil’s jittering body.

And -

He’s slower than Andrew, clearly, because it seems Andrew had already come to Neil’s realization long ago. Andrew sits still and away from Neil because he’s waiting for Neil, not the other way around.

And here it is again, the reason he wants this; having a decision. Andrew’s given him space to draw out his lines, figure out his boundaries, and now Neil has to decide if he wants Andrew across them.

His name is attached to a contract that binds up his entire life, lining his body, keeping him contained. Now that he’s outside of it, playing within his own lines, he doesn’t know where to start.

But he does want to start, and that’s a first.

So he tries to make that first move, of his own volition, sitting up on the bed to face Andrew, who keeps his attention pinned to the TV. His apparent disinterest doesn’t deter Neil, not when Andrew is straightening out his legs on either side of Neil and slowly uncrossing his arms.

Then they’re face to face, nearly skin to skin, but not quite eye to eye; Neil is looking entirely at Andrew’s lips.

“Can I?” Neil asks, still staring at Andrew’s mouth, and his heart thrums up alive at how much he wants an answer.

Andrew lifts an eyebrow, and asks back, “Can you?”

It can’t be all that difficult, Neil thinks, and leans forward to reach for Andrew. His hands instinctively come up to cup Andrew’s jaw, because that’s what feels right.

Wrong.

His hands are stopped abruptly just inches from Andrew’s face. Andrew wraps his fingers tight around Neil’s wrists and holds him there, not pushing him away but not allowing him closer.

Once he’s sure Neil is contained in his hands, Andrew closes the distance between their lips and kisses him.

Neil didn't know it could feel like that.

It’s - odd. He never understood the point of it, and he doesn’t understand it now, but it’s just that with Andrew’s lips against his, he almost never wants to breathe again if it means he can keep kissing him.

The drag of curiosity, of knowing I want this, whatever this is, pulls him forward for more. He gives in completely to Andrew’s hands around his wrists, sagging his body forward and letting Andrew hold him up.

Being touched by Andrew feels like being told a million words at once. Like secrets being shared, no one else around to hear, only them and this and whatever comes next.

The kissing lasts for another minute, maybe two, maybe a hundred. Neil’s sense of time gets warped when he feels Andrew’s tongue against his, so really it could be the next day and he would be none the wiser.

Until Andrew flexes his grip around Neil, slowly ushering him back but not letting go. He says, firm and certain, “There are rules. Can you follow them?”

But how could Neil answer that when he can’t even remember his name, the English language so vague to him now? He blinks away the fog from his eyes, pushes through the daze, and only comes through to the other side when Andrew gives his wrists a squeeze.

Ever since Neil met him, and likely long before that, Andrew hasn’t followed a single rule that’s been put in his path. Laws and guidelines never mean anything to him. He’s his own person, player, game.

If Andrew comes with rules, then they must mean something. Neil nods his confirmation, then realizes a second later when Andrew doesn’t let go that it needs to be a vocal one. “Yes.”

He hardly recognizes his voice.

Andrew drops his wrists and puts a foot of space between them, but keeps one finger jabbed under Neil’s chin.

“I need to know that you really want it. If you need to stop, you say stop. If you need time, tell me you need time. Yes is yes and no is no.”

Neil looks at Andrew and meets the challenge in his eyes straight on. It settles weird in his stomach, twisting it up, because that challenge isn’t vicious or harmful. It’s as if Andrew’s waiting for Neil to say no, but even more than that, it’s as if he’s afraid he’ll say yes.

“I understand,” Neil says, holding himself very still as Andrew takes his hand away, in case such a simple word invokes a serious reaction. It’s risky to look away from Andrew’s eyes, but he needs to see where his hands are now; clenched up tight in the blanket, far away from Neil. “Where can I touch you?”

He asks without thinking it through, because he has to, confused by all these lines being drawn. So far it seems as if none of them lead to Andrew, but rather create a barrier around him.

“That’s the second rule,” Andrew says calmly, keeping his eyes on Neil’s face. “You can’t.”

Somewhere in the distance of Neil’s mind, there’s the sound of tires coming to a screeching halt. He snaps his head up quickly, unable to mask his continued confusion, but it quickly dies where it’s spread out across his face once he looks at Andrew’s.

It wouldn’t be a rule if Andrew didn’t need it. So instead of asking why, Neil says, “Okay.”

For whatever reason, that knocks the ice off Andrew’s features and shows what’s hidden underneath - shock.

It makes Neil wonder if anyone’s ever wanted to follow Andrew’s rules before. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t follow anyone else’s.

Andrew blinks and the ice comes back, sharpening and freezing everything from his eyes to his lips. “Do you have any rules?”

Neil shrugs and shakes his head. “Not yet. I’ve never done this before.”

Andrew’s response is silence, but he seems to hear whatever it is he needs to hear, because he doesn’t push it.

And oddly enough, it doesn’t fall back into more kissing, though Andrew does look between Neil and the windowsill for a considerable amount of time. He makes whatever decision he needs to and indicates with a jerk of his head to follow. Then they sit at the windowsill together, legs bent up and toes nearly touching, exchanging a lighter between them to light two separate cigarettes.

Andrew looks contemplative, remnants of challenge still in his eyes, looking almost angry with something. With himself.

Neil has to ask, “Is it usually like this?”

Whatever this is or is supposed to be or can be - Neil has a suspicion this isn't how it usually goes.

Andrew looks out at their view, breathing out a cloud of smoke into the gap of the open window, and shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s rare for someone to get past the second rule.”

Neil’s mouth wants to drop open to form another question, but he keeps it closed and fills in the blanks for himself. It’s clear now why Andrew looks that way; he doesn’t know what to do.

Has anyone ever said yes to him?

No, that’s not it, Neil thinks.

Has anyone ever asked him for a yes?

Content to wait it out, even if it never happens, Neil moves from the windowsill to sit on the bed, only to be stopped by a hand on his wrist.

Neil pauses immediately, and looks over his shoulder to where Andrew is, still sitting, taking one last drag of his cigarette. He never lets go of Neil’s wrist.

As soon as it’s stubbed out, grey ashes smearing into white wood, Neil is being hauled closer and downwards, just enough for Andrew to grab the back of his neck and pull him in for a kiss.

A hand on his neck and a hand around his wrist, Neil feels contained in a way that makes him feel free. He’s safe here. His no means no here.

He says yes here.

Somehow, someway, through quick pecks and violent nips of teeth against lips, they end up on the bed. The pillow feels like concrete when Neil’s head hits it, or maybe that shock of impact is from having Andrew’s entire body weight over top of him.

His hands instinctively come up to touch. Andrew is a hot, heavy, real thing above him and Neil wants to know every inch, so it doesn’t seem so foreign, but he can’t. Like a flashing red warning, blaring loud through his ears, he reminds himself to kill the need to solve things.

Andrew will show him whatever he wants him to know.

Andrew keeps his body raised in certain places, carefully arranging his knees and his arms to hold himself where he wants to be. Neil responds by pressing his own body further into the mattress, as if telling Andrew he gets it, he’ll give him his space.

All he can’t control, all he doesn’t want to, is the way that he’s breathing. One kiss and it’s heavy, two kisses and it’s desperate, three kisses and Neil thinks he’s suffocating, whining low in his throat and gasping in the half second that their lips aren’t touching.

He thinks maybe Andrew wants to smother him breathless, because his kisses quicken, raining down relentless.

A bite on his lower lip abruptly stops them, however, and Andrew asks right against Neil’s mouth, “Do you want this?”

And suddenly it all seems so very simple: this is not a contract. There are no false pretenses here, no mask he has to wear. It’s not you must do this or you won’t have anything. It’s do you want this? If you do, we can. If you don’t, we won’t.

“Yes,” Neil gasps out, and his voice is quickly swallowed up by Andrew’s lips and tongue and hands again.

Some people search for people. Some people wait. Neil was neither, not caring about being alone because he always had a game to play, a team to lead, a dream to make. But if he wasn’t searching and wasn’t waiting, then why is he reacting like this, like every touch of Andrew’s fingertips adds missing pieces to him?

His legs part without him thinking it, his throat twists out Andrew’s name, his heart beats somehow steady as Andrew’s hands skim lower and lower, as Andrew shoves Neil’s hoodie further up his chest and exposes all his skin.

“Tell me to stop,” Andrew says, between kisses planted to Neil’s neck and collarbone.

Neil throws his head back and grits out, “I don’t want you to stop.”

It was a question concealed as a statement, Neil realizes, and Andrew hears whatever he needed to hear in Neil’s answer. His kisses follow the path that his hands had made.

In the back of Neil’s mind, forced there because what Andrew’s lips and hands are doing right now takes priority, he thinks about the dangers. If anyone ever realized, saw, told, then Neil’s dream would be finished, his life would be over.

Then why does it feel like it’s just now beginning?

Andrew yanks Neil’s hoodie down from where it was bunched under his armpits, but it’s Neil who reaches out to rip it off.

That gets something - not a smile, not even a smirk - but a something in his direction. It also gives him a brief pause, enough to realize Andrew’s eyes are hazel, and not dark hateful things.

The world thinks he hates him, and Neil will live just fine with that, as long as they never know how willingly and easily he submits to Andrew’s hands. They push and pull and pinch and part and Neil says yes to it all, so desperate for Andrew to start.

Andrew kisses places that nobody else ever has, places that nobody else has ever touched, even with hands. Neil’s pulse races underneath Andrew’s lips, and his heart stops completely when Andrew’s cool breath blows over the mark of a wet kiss, and it scares Neil.

It scares Neil that he wasn’t searching but now he can’t imagine anyone else but Andrew.

He reminds himself of the reason; Andrew is safety that nobody else can give him, a set of rules just for them, a decision, an underlying trust that neither will give the other away because then they’ll both lose. The offer of yes or no.

That’s it.

There can’t be any other reason Neil is only thinking, and has only ever thought, Andrew.

As the kisses, bites, licks and marks continue, the need to grab something deepens and engraves itself like a scar across Neil. “Andrew,” he says, or tries to say but ends up gasping. He doesn’t want to ask for it, not wanting to force Andrew to give it, but he needs - he doesn’t know what he needs. “I -”

There’s a blur of blonde hair above Neil, a slick swell of heat from Andrew’s mouth around Neil’s neck. Andrew pulls back the very instant he hears his name, leaving Neil cold all over.

At Neil’s silence, his non-vocal no, Andrew looks like he’s about to sit up and forget about all of this, and Neil’s heart beats hard in sudden protest.

“No, never - nevermind,” he stammers, and closes his legs dangerously close around Andrew, but still not enough to touch. “Keep going.”

Andrew must be starving, and just as cold as Neil was, because he doesn’t waste a second and continues painting Neil’s neck with spit and kisses.

And Neil, watching how Andrew grips and grabs him, settles for clutching at the blanket underneath them. Leaving claw marks against the silken material is worlds safer than leaving claw marks down Andrew.

Neil’s about to tear holes through the blanket when, without looking or taking his mouth off Neil, Andrew reaches up with one hand and grabs hard at Neil’s wrist. Another anchor, another pinpoint of safety.

Unlike every other hold, this one doesn’t seem to be to keep Neil in place. This ones to give him something to feel.

Neil’s been throughout various variations of breathless, but never like this. The very proximity of Andrew is like a body check on the court, but it doesn’t hurt, it just leaves him gasping for air that can’t be breathed.

And suddenly, Neil wants more, in a way that he has never wanted more before.

But Andrew is pulling back.

Neil doesn’t mean to, truly, but he whines and whimpers the barest minimum of Andrew’s name.

As quiet as that one word is, it echoes and fades until silence consumes it.

“That’s enough,” Andrew says, the sound of his voice so strange now - so strange, but exactly what Neil needed to hear. He looks down at Neil, nothing about him heaving and shaking in the way that Neil is falling apart, and wipes at his mouth.

Andrew’s cheeks are red, his lips are redder, his eyes don’t look hazel anymore but rather something sparkling, so Neil lays there until he’s sure he’s not hallucinating any of it.

Sometime later, perhaps five seconds or five minutes, Andrew offers a hand and pulls Neil upright. His eyes and lips and cheeks are still surreal colours, which makes Neil think that Andrew just isn’t real - because Neil has never wanted anyone’s touch so much.

Then, as if he were reading Neil’s mind, Andrew reaches out and touches the pad of his thumb to Neil’s bottom lip, swiping across it in a way that could read as gentle if you weren’t Andrew, weren’t Neil.

It feels like he’s being asked a question; silent but as vital as air. Neil meets Andrew’s surreal eyes and nods, and it’s only then that Andrew removes his thumb to trace over his own lip, looking thoughtful and utterly at odds.

It must be common to be this breathless. Feeling weightless and drowsy, Neil can’t imagine having it, but the burn of wanting more more more scorches his insides. He says that to Andrew with his eyes.

It can’t be common, however, for Andrew to give one furious wipe to his mouth and push away from the bed to sit at the windowsill. Like more is wrong, like more can’t be done, like more is what he wants too much, like more really is something that Neil just doesn’t understand.

Neil watches him, and doesn’t ask why, because there are rules for a reason.

And, being honest, Neil doesn’t care about the more entirely - he cares about the Andrew of it all. So he keeps his mouth shut, because he knows Andrew wouldn’t want to hear it.

And, being honest, Neil isn’t going to tell him because right now, as he furiously puffs at a cigarette, Andrew looks the way Neil feels - like it’s more than just more for him, too.

Instead he tugs on his hoodie, and joins Andrew at the window. He hesitates before taking the offered cigarette, not wanting to burn away Andrew’s taste, but the scent of smoke always helps him reset his breathing.

But he really doesn’t mind never breathing again.

Even though the sky is dark, the lights of Los Angeles refuse to go down without a fight. Looking out at some strange version of night, the concept of time becomes even more confusing for Neil.

He doesn’t want it to become day.

And, as if he were reading Neil’s thoughts, counting down their seconds - as if he just wants Neil and nothing else - Andrew leans over and plucks the cigarette away from Neil and holds it out of the way, then grabs Neil with his free hand and pulls him to his lips.

This kiss is sour and ashy.

This kiss pauses time.

Neil figures this isn’t common at all, for either of them, or anybody.

But the last thing he could ever say is no.

#andreil #andrew minyard #neil josten #aftg #tfc #lp fic

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