Chapter Text
When Neil tries to open his eyes it feels as if they have been glued shut. What little light is entering the room feels blinding. Paired with a headache wrapping fully around his skull Neil feels frozen to the spot.
He blinks heavily several times, trying to force his lids to stay open despite the burning pain. He manages to hold them open for a moment to review the storage closet he’s in, the floor in front of him is clear, the door open just a crack letting the light stream in offensively.
Neil feels a tingling in the back of his skull, wrong. His breathing picks up, the light getting too bright for his sensitive eyes, he is forced to slam them shut. Tears leaking out the corners of his eyes and wetting his cheeks.
“What are you doing in here.” The words are flat, uninterested, and entirely out of place. Neil forces his eyes to open again, lifting a fist to rub at the corners wiping away excess moisture.
When he can see again, he is staring at Andrew. Andrew is surrounded by the blinding light of the hall. He’s wearing his fox uniform. Face impassive as always, but something unsettling sitting at the corner of his mouth, pulling it up just slightly.
“Andrew?” Neil isn’t sure if he makes a sound when he speaks, he tries to reach forward, wanting to hold onto Andrew, pull him close. His body refuses to move, cemented to the ground, exhausted and heavy. Once again he’s forced to let his eyes fall closed against the onslaught of light.
“You look like hell.” The words are cutting, they reverberate around Neil’s skull filling in all the spaces his paranoia had cracked open in the last week.
“Good to see you too.” Neil tries for casual, but once again his words are nothing more than a whisper. He forces his eyes open to look at Andrew. Andrew, who has taken to leaning against the door frame, reaching one hand into black denim pockets and pulling out a pack of cigarettes.
When Andrew flicks his lighter to spark the end, the light flares through the room - the burn in Neil’s eyes unbearable. He blinks heavily, letting tears fall, fighting to keep them open. Keep them on Andrew.
“When did you get here?” He isn’t sure how Andrew is able to hear him, when it seems his own voice refuses to work.
But Andrew’s eyes flick to him in recognition. They linger, raking over his body slowly. “Coach said you were losing it.” He shrugs. The corner of his mouth pulling, and for a moment it looks like the manic smiles he used to wear.
“I’m fine.”
Andrew’s laugh fills the room. It’s not the quite snort that Neil had grown to love. No. It was the same one he wore when he hit Neil in the stomach with an Exy racquet. “Once a rabbit, always a rabbit.” He brings a hand up to wipe a fake tear. “You’ll run. You’ll have to run.”
Neil’s shaking his head, the words don’t make sense. His head hurts, his body hurts. He can’t see anything clearly. “No. No. I am not running.” His throat is raw, he wants to scream.
“You can’t handle a couple months alone. You’ve gone soft.”
The words don’t belong to Andrew, or, they do. Neil fists his hands in his hair, he pulls as hard as he can. The pain doesn’t register.
“Why are you here?” He begs this time, Andrew can’t have come all this way to mock him. Not now. His eyes have screwed shut, he’s hanging his head, knees curled up, making himself small.
Oh Junior, I never left.
Neil pulls his hair harder. A scream bubbling up his throat, refusing to surface.
A loud bang rings out and Neil slams his head up, eyes now wide, the bright light filling the room no longer cut by Andrew’s form. Now the other man is laying on the ground, face down in a puddle of his own blood.
Neil tries to scream, nothing comes out. He tries again, and again. He wails, he tries to move towards Andrew’s body and can’t. His eyes refuse to stay open long enough for him to evaluate the scene.
He doesn’t know how long he tries to scream, or how long the tears fall. He doesn’t know when the silent pleas stopped. At some point the blinding light was too bright, his eyes refused to open again, his body shut down.
His eyes opened, the room was dark. Bottles of bleach in front of the door, Andrew’s body was missing. They took him.
They’re sending you a message Abram. Are you really to stupid to see it?
Neil’s heart hammered in his chest, it felt hollow and solid all at once. They had killed him. It was right there in front of him. Neil knew what he had seen. What had happened.
They were sending a message.
They.
They.
The Moriyama’s. They had to be sending him a message. They had showed up with Andrew, shot him in the middle of the night. Cleaned up before anyone caught them. Neil’s mind ran a mile a minute as it worked to piece the puzzle together.
But one thought continued to surface, continued to punch the breath from his lungs and leave him dizzy. Andrew was dead.
You’re next. You think they’ll stop here Abram?
Neil shuddered. Body moving before his brain, shaky and uncoordinated. Neil tripped over almost every item he had left on the floor and had to cling to the door to keep upright while he opened it.
With his first step into the hall a new thought hit him like a truck. Jean.
If they had killed Andrew, the would for sure be going after Jean’s Jeremy.
Neil felt a sort of focus come over him, it was too late to save Andrew. But he could save Jeremy and Jean.
Neil moves quickly, a look down at himself confirms a state of undress. He stops at the dorms and throws on pants and a hoodie from the floor, he rummages under his bed, fingers hooking on the strap of his dufflebag and giving a quick pull.
Neil doesn’t know what clothes he packs, and he doesn’t care. Moving in a flurry he’s stuffing clothes in by the fist full before hastily leaving the dorm and making his way downstairs.
It was early morning, the sun still rising, and the streets almost empty. Neil doesn’t waste time looking back at the building he had learned to call home, doesn’t waste time crying over Andrew. He forces himself forwards, heading to the nearest bus station.
He only lets one though occupy his mind, Jean.