Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He leaves in the night. 

Andrew wonders, watching him slip out of bed, if he’s stupid or just desperate, to think that Andrew wouldn’t wake to his leaving, wouldn’t have been lying awake to begin with. 

He is silent as a ghost. Andrew will give him that. His feet step so lightly and he holds his duffel close to his body so it does not swing and accidentally bump something. Andrew watches through lashes as Neil slowly turns the knob and opens the door just enough to slip through, and then releases the knob on the other side, carefully so as not to make a sound. 

And then Andrew kicks the blanket off his mattress and stands. And he waits ten seconds by the door. And he follows. 

Neil moves quickly, and is already out the front door by the time Andrew has made it down the stairs. Andrew does not bother slipping on shoes. His feet step bare and cold on the driveway. He keeps following. 

Neil stops a block down the sidewalk. He is cast only in the streetlamp light, dim orange shone over a dark silhouette, shadow long and warped against the pavement. His back is to Andrew. His shoulders are slumped in something like defeat. 

“I thought you were asleep,” he says, not yet turning so his voice sounds still far away. 

“You should have checked my breathing first,” Andrew says. 

Neil turns to him. His hair has gotten so long. It falls into his eyes so Andrew cannot see the look in them. He wonders if he bothered to put in his contacts before leaving, but from this distance cannot tell. 

“You check breathing for dying people, Andrew,” Neil says, seemingly offended by the suggestion. “Why are you following me?” 

“Because you want to be chased.” 

“Don’t be an asshole,” Neil says. 

“Don’t leave then.” 

“Are you asking me to stay?” Neil says, as though Andrew’s answer to such a question might make any difference. He doesn’t know what he hears in Neil’s voice – it was not hope, not yearning, perhaps curiosity, or something of a cousin to it. 

“I was warned about you,” Andrew says rather than giving Neil an answer to his question. “Before I knew what it meant. He told me that if you ran not to let you.” 

“And do you trust yourself?” Neil says, guessing the nature of the person who had warned him, because it could be no one else, and because Neil always surprised him with his perceptiveness. 

“I only trust myself.” 

“You don’t trust me,” Neil says. It was not an accusation. He says it more as an observation, with little feeling. Andrew does not bother to correct him. He does not have the energy to. And it was safer to pretend this was the truth, less like lying and more like omission for self preservation. 

“You don’t bother to tell me you are leaving,” Andrew points out, taking a step closer to Neil, who inches towards him in response. “Or why. So how could I?” 

“I’m hard of hearing, Andrew. Not stupid. I know what Aaron thinks of me. Nicky has a hard enough time paying the bills without me around. And you–” 

“What?” 

“You’re not safe around me..” 

Andrew almost laughs. The notion, though not strictly untrue, was irrelevant, a baseless argument for Neil’s selfish decision. He might say as much, but it took too many words and he was afraid he would instead say something he did not yet mean to. 

“Don’t pretend that’s why you’re running away.” 

“You don’t know anything.” 

“I know you’re lying,” Andrew says, with more heat than intended. “You don’t give a shit what Aaron thinks because he’s an asshole. Nicky loves you, for reasons he articulates to me almost constantly. Even so don’t pretend you haven’t slipped hundred dollar bills into his wallet when he’s not looking. And you stand here and pretend you’re leaving for my safety and not because you’re afraid. Your martyrdom is misplaced. I don’t care about your past or that it will catch up to you. And I don’t need you to tell me what’s not safe for me like I’m some moron you need to protect.” 

“It’s not martyrdom,” Neil says. “And what’s so terrible about caring that you stay alive? You’re always pretending that you don’t care about anything, but the only thing you don’t care about is yourself. So why can’t I make up for it?” 

“By leaving?” 

“You don’t get it. They’ll kill you but not before they make you beg for it. And it will be my fault. You have to let me go.” 

“No.” 

“What does it matter to you?” Neil says, and his voice breaks and Andrew all at once wants to punch him for that question and tug him close to hold him in answer. 

“How many different universes have you been to and you still have no idea?” 

“I don’t do that anymore.” 

“Then where are you going?” 

“Just let me go,” Neil says rather than answering, but this time it sounds less like a demand and more like a plea, more like he wants for Andrew to stop him but also could not stand for him to. His hands are clenched in fists. Andrew knows then what he will do. He wraps both hands around both Neil’s wrists. 

He feels that something is wrong immediately. His body is pulled in too many directions, as though it could not choose into which it wanted to go, and though it had always been painful this pain is debilitating. 

When he opens his eyes it is still night and they are still on the sidewalk in their neighborhood a block down from the house. They are both on their knees. Andrew releases his grip on Neil’s hands and resists the urge to tear his fingers off for having put them their without asking. But Neil reaches for him as he pulls away and hovers his hands over like a question and Andrew holds them again. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” he says. “You?” 

“Yeah,” Neil says, looking around distractedly. “We’re too far.” 

Andrew felt the pulling in his stomach that meant they should leave. Behind his eyes he ached, something pressing from inside into his skull, trying to escape. Worse his arms stung beneath his sleeves. He had not put his bands on before following Neil. 

“Then let’s leave,” he says. 

“We should find out what’s here first,” Neil says. This surprises him. Nel would not willfully walk into something unknown, something that could be dangerous. Maybe his curiosity outweighed his survival streak. Or maybe he knew something Andrew didn’t.

“Fine,” he says. Neil pays little mind to the seeming apathy in his response. Perhaps because he knew better. 

He tugs Neil up from the ground and they walk down the block, up the driveway, and back into the house. 

It is too empty. Nicky’s pictures are gone from the walls, which are instead bare and painted a white that looked more like yellow. The curtains were yellow instead of blue. Nicky’s plants were dead and had been dead for a long time. Andrew skips the creaky stair only for the next to squeak instead. 

“What are we doing here?” 

“Just looking around,” Neil says. 

Right. Looking around. Andrew snorts and then almost falls down the stairs when Neil falls on top of him. 

He catches him easily despite the surprise. They fall anyway but with more control. Neil is on his knees and groans in pain, holding his face as though it has been hit. Andrew blocks the next blow with his forearms, grabs the weapon, which is apparently a book, and uses it to slam the attacker backwards. 

The attacker yells something profane but goes easily. He lifts his arms to protect himself but Andrew does not throw another blow. Because it is Aaron. Skinnier, paler, somehow more miserable, Aaron. 

“Andrew,” he says, and his voice breaks in such an odd way Andrew might suspect him an imposter. Except he knows that wide-eyed vulnerability. The darkness of his blown pupils, the color purple in the in-between of his elbows. 

“Aaron.” 

Aaron shakes his head, eyes wide, and presses both hands to the side of his face. “What the fuck did I take?” 

“You’re high,” Andrew says. He has not seen Aaron this way since high school. 

“God, you sound just like him,” Aaron says, looking up with fear in his face. “This can’t be happening.” 

“Andrew,” Neil says from where he is still on the floor. 

“Wait,” Andrew says to Neil, and then addresses Aaron. 

“It’s only me,” he says. “I won’t hurt you.” 

“You’re lying,” Aaron says. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“You’re dead,” he says, and then repeats it, over and over again while Andrew can only stand there and listen. The words are for himself, a reassurance, an insistence that what he is seeing cannot be real and that he is only imagining it. This could not be real. 

“I messed up,” Neil says, looking from Andrew and back to Aaron desperately. “We need to go. I shouldn’t have brought us here.” 

His arms ache. The bone-deep kind of ache. His flesh is splitting from the inside out. He is afraid to look down so he looks at Aaron even though his arms are warm and wet and the carpet must be staining with red. 

“You’re dead,” Aaron says for the last time, looking up at Andrew, his face wet and his eyes afraid. “You killed yourself.” 

“I made a promise to you,” Andrew says. 

“You broke it!” Aaron sobs. 

“Then you misunderstood,” Andrew says, but he does not know if that is true anymore. 

“Go away,” Aaron says. “Please go away.” 

But if this were true than everything Andrew thought of himself was a lie. He made promises to break them. He had broken the most important one. 

“Andrew,” Neil says. “We need to go.” 

“He’s high,” Andrew says, looking down at his brother’s huddled form, his shoulders wracking and his body shaking. “We can’t leave him.” 

“There’s nothing we can do for him. He’s safest here at home.” 

He knew Neil was right. When Aaron finally came down he would think Andrew a drug-induced hallucination, something manifested from guilt, from grief. Aaron was grieving. This surprises Andrew. More surprising is how it feels to see him this way. 

“Okay,” Andrew says, because the tugging inside him is stronger than anything, stronger than his promises, stronger than how badly he wants to stay here, to prove Aaron wrong, to take care of him. 

He does not think about how leaving now was breaking his promise one last time after death. 

“Andrew,” Neil says first. 

“Don’t,” Andrew says. Back in the bedroom, in their own universe, he has made his way to the bathroom and is rinsing his arms in the sink. The whole thing reminds him of that morning weeks ago, how the porcelain stained, how his arms hurt, how nothing made sense. Except this time Neil is here, and for some reason Andrew could not stand him to be away even as the blood rinsed away to leave his arms exposed and his scars unmistakable. 

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Neil says. He passes Andrew a towel, which he takes to dry his arms off.  

“You’re lying, Neil. That’s what you do.” 

The look of hurt on his face passes fleetingly. “I’ve never lied to you,” he says. 

Andrew was tempted to call that a lie, too, but Neil was an open book and Andrew had memorized every word. Maybe in another universe the accusation rang true, and maybe that was why Andrew felt the need to say it to begin with, but not here. 

He turns away from Neil and heads to the window, pulling it open and perching on the sill. The flame of his lighter flickers along with the trembling of his fingers. Though there is little space to be spared Neil sits across from him and Andrew does not stop him. 

“I’m sorry,” Neil says eventually. 

“Don’t be,” Andrew says. He would like to say that it was not his fault, that instead it was his own. But he was not selfless enough for that. Neil was easy to blame and that made it worse that Andrew was even tempted to. Andrew passes him his cigarette. He takes it, just as he always does. His fingertips graze Andrew’s own. 

Neil was perhaps the most unchanging thing in his life. Andrew could recognize the irony. He was one huge secret, bundled up in a mess of scars and disguises and accents and odd habits that left him wary everywhere he went. But in every universe he was still the most steady thing about Andrew. 

“Did you know?” 

“Know?” 

“My arms bled when we first met,” Andrew says. “Did you know?” 

Neil takes a drag and holds it in his lungs too long. When he exhales he coughs. He looks at Andrew. It is not pity in his eyes. Not sadness or grief or disgust. It is understanding. 

“No,” he says. “I didn’t know.” 

He thinks about the scars on Neil’s body. There are so many more he has not seen. Many more he has not even gotten yet. They are none of them self inflicted but somehow Neil still understands. Andrew thinks about his hearing aids. His face that is scarred in other worlds but the only part of him here that remains unmarked by violence. His hands, how quickly and fluidly they move when he signs something, how they slow when he notices Andrew struggling to keep up.  

“I was dead,” he remembers. Not only dead. He had killed himself. It seemed an impossible thing but when he was a child he would sometimes entertain it, tossing it around like a cheap bouncy ball, thinking of the idea often but only ever in a vague and hypothetical sense, as he thought most people did when looking over the railing of a tall building or when walking over a bridge. And maybe in another world it had been less hypothetical and had followed him along even after the worst of his hurt had passed, something omnipresent, something taunting. He could not stand the thought. But he understood it. 

Neil nods and then gestures to Andrew’s arms. “Do they hurt?”

“Sometimes.” 

“They shouldn’t,” Neil says, passing the cigarette back. “My mom always said that if you couldn’t find the source of your pain than it wasn’t actually yours at all.” 

“Why did you lose your hearing?” Andrew asks. Perhaps it sounded like a non sequitur, but Neil does not act as though it does, only hums as though he saw the question coming and had already thought of his answer. 

“I don’t know.” 

“Have you ever thought about finding out?” 

“I don’t think it’s a good story.” 

Andrew could not disagree. He leans over and stubs the cigarette out on a roof tile. They sit in silence for a long time before Neil speaks again. 

“I’ll teach you how,” he says. 

Andrew is surprised by his lack of satisfaction. “Why now?” 

“Because it would do more harm now not to.” 

“So you’re staying.” 

“I’m staying.” 

“What changed your mind?” 

“You.” 

“To keep me safe,” Andrew says. Neil must hear the scorn in his voice.  

“What’s so wrong about that?” 

Figures. One minute Neil believed adamantly it was safer for Andrew if he left, and the next safer for him if he stayed. He hated the very idea of being protected but if it kept Neil with him maybe he could stand to accept it a little.

“Anyway,” Neil says. “Lately something hasn’t been right. The fact that you have those scars and they’re hurting you. And you keep waking up somewhere other than where you fell asleep. And my headaches. So I’m staying.” 

“Headaches?” 

“It’s fine,” Neil says dismissively. “It’s just altogether a bit odd.” 

“Cryptic,” Andrew says. Neil smiles, shoos Andrew’s fingers out of the way, and closes the window. 

“Why must we drive into the middle of nowhere for this?” 

“Because if someone sees you disappear out of thin air they might ask questions about it.” 

“Fair enough,” Andrew says and then swats at Neil. “Get your feet off the dashboard.” 

Neil lowers his feet and then proceeds to sit cross legged on his seat instead. Andrew could not understand how it was comfortable but Neil looked content. Neil grabs his drink from the cupholder and takes a sip. 

“This tastes awful,” he says with a grimace, and then takes another sip. 

“You have terrible taste.” 

Neil laughs and then spills some of it onto his chest. He tries to rub it off with his fingers but instead only manages to spread it around and make it worse. Andrew hands him a napkin. 

“Do you have to drive like a maniac?” 

“This is how I normally drive.” 

Neil accepts that in silence. 

When they arrive Neil is first out of the car. He has driven them to a cemetery. A morbid place, but he supposed it was less frequented than elsewhere, particularly at one o’ clock in the morning. 

They walk down a pathway, past the gravestones and into a canopy of trees surrounding the area. Neil stops and turns to Andrew. 

“We can only have this lesson once,” he says. “And you can only use the ability if you absolutely must. Going to other universes too often will confuse your mind and your body.” 

“Okay,” Andrew agrees. 

“Okay,” Neil says, and then takes a heavy breath and sits down in the dirt. Andrew seats himself in front of him. 

“There are infinite universes,” Neil begins. “And infinite versions of you. My mother described each as a consequence of a decision you’ve made that was different from what you could have done. She said, in order to control it, think of a recent choice you made, and what you would have done otherwise.

It’s easiest to jump to a universe that was created by a choice closest to what this version of you would have done. But if you think too hard about what is possible but what scares you, you will go there instead. That’s why it’s dangerous. Are you okay to try?” 

“Yes,” Andrew said. 

“Okay. What’s something you could have done differently? You’re going to feel something pulling at your body. You should let it.” 

He closes his eyes. He lets it pull him. He thinks about what he could have done differently. The choices seemed endless, which only served to make it harder. He opens his eyes. 

This was not where he meant to be. There is Neil. He is younger. A child no older than ten. His eyes are the correct color but his hair is blond and mussed from sleep. He looks from Andrew to someone sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag and then back again. And then he pulls a gun out from underneath his pillow and points it at him. 

Andrew closes his eyes. He thinks of his version of Neil. He opens his eyes. 

“How was it?” 

“Fuck you,” Andrew says. He doesn’t mean it. “Why do I keep meeting versions of you as much as myself?” 

Neil looks away, as though he knew the answer but did not want to say it. 

“Neil,” Andrew prompts. 

“It’s not unusual for people with the same ability to meet each other again and again.” 

“So we’re linked,” Andrew says, which sounded stupid in his head and sounded stupider out loud. 

“Not necessarily,” Neil says. “But it’s not unlikely. We most likely meet in almost every universe that exists.” 

“And why does it hurt so much going but less coming back?” 

“Because you’re not supposed to be there in the first place.” 

Andrew gathers dirt in his hands and then drops it over Neil’s lap. Neil brushes it away. 

“Why do you wear those?” He says, pointing at his eyes as he looks at Andrew. “They are obviously fake.” 

Neil frowns. “I should point out you’re the only person who’s ever noticed them.” 

“They’re awful.” 

“I didn’t think you cared.” 

“I don’t.”

“You’re acting like you do.” 

“Fine. I do. They’re a lie.” 

“They’re necessary.” 

“Not here.” 

“I can’t take that chance.” 

“Then when you’re home.” 

“Okay,” Neil says, easily, as though he were waiting for the request just so he could agree to it. 

“Okay.” 

“Okay,” Neil says. “I’ll take them off when I’m home.” 

Home, he says. A word with so little meaning except to them perhaps it meant more than it did to anyone else. If he thought about it for just a moment he could understand why so many people were obsessed with the notion. Why people wrote stories about searching for it. 

Home. It was Neil in his bed, sleeping with his mouth open and the sheets kicked out from under him. It was Neil in the morning after his run, sweaty and content. Home was grocery shopping, Neil asking him to buy him alcohol for the purpose of disinfecting wounds as though that were a perfectly acceptable thing to say. 

Home was Neil. Who always had the seat warmer on, vying for warmth as though if were a luxury he had been afforded and could not allow to go to waste. When Andrew had to unexpectedly hit the brakes his arm would go out in front of Neil and Neil would look at him with something in his expression he could not yet recognize. 

He always took the long way home, windows down, sky darkening, the smell of summer billowing around them and Neil’s hair knotting in the wind but he sticks his head out anyway. Andrew will remind him he won’t pick his splattered body up off the pavement if he goes out the window. But he only ever laughs and the sound gets caught in the wind and in his heart and in his stomach. 

Home. 

“Let’s go home, then,” Andrew says. Because though this lesson is over and won’t ever be taught again, he doesn’t need it. He is just fine here. Despite everything else. 

Neil smiles, a little sad and a little happy. “Let’s go home.” 

He arrives at his shift sleep deprived and annoyed the next evening. Roland shoots him a smile that means to be charming. Andrew ignores him to get started on the dishes in back. 

“Hey,” Roland says, appearing out of nowhere at the end of Andrew’s shift. 

“What do you want?” 

“What makes you think I want something?”

“You would not be talking to me otherwise.” 

Roland is too smart to take that as an offense and too smart to deny it. “You think too lowly of me,” he says with a smile. “I just wanted to see how that boy of yours was doing.”

“Boy?” Andrew says, swinging a dishrag over his shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Roland says. “He seemed sweet.”

“He’s fine,” Andrew says, moving to collect his things to leave. Roland follows him. 

“What’s his name?” 

“Why are you asking?” 

“Dunno,” Roland says with a nonchalant shrug. “He just seemed sort of special to you.” 

Andrew turns to look at him, keys in hand and sweater slung over his arm. 

“Tread lightly.” 

“Okay, okay,” Roland says. “I just haven’t seen you in a while, and I meant to say after that night that I was happy for you, but it seemed insensitive after what happened, so I waited and instead I’m saying it now. And also, like, I wanted to make sure our arrangement was ended, just to keep things, you know, clear.” 

“It’s ended,” Andrew says. “And Neil is not what you’re thinking.” 

“Sure,” Roland says. 

“I’m serious. Don’t ask about him again.” 

“Okay,” Roland says. 

Andrew moves to leave. He is just about to walk out the door when Roland calls out after him once more. 

“Thanks for a good time,” Roland says. “I’d blow you a kiss but I know you’d decapitate me.” 

He wouldn’t resort to such drasticity. It takes Andrew a moment to decide what instead to respond with. He chooses to give Roland a simple nod. 

“See you tomorrow.” 

When he arrives home it is late and his family is asleep. Except for Neil. He hears a clatter in the bathroom and a low mumbled curse. The door is open when he goes to investigate. 

“What are you doing?”

Rather than give Andrew a proper response, Neil puts down the brush in his hand and says rather pleadingly, “can you help me?”

Andrew takes a moment to assess and contemplate, watching Neil watch him in his reflection, one small tuft of hair sopping wet with dye and falling dramatically into his face to stain his forehead brown. 

“Okay,” he says finally, and Neil gives him a small and grateful smile. Andrew very suddenly wants to wipe that smile away, preferably with his own mouth, and it seemed more and more lately they’d been inching towards something of that sort, so he could imagine it easily. But he won’t make the first move and he doesn’t know why. Something keeps him from it, some hand at his elbow, a gentle but firm grip holding him back. 

“These instructions make no sense,” he says after reading the back of the packaging. 

“Hence why I need help.” 

“All those years disguising yourself and you still can’t dye your own hair?” 

Neil takes too long to respond. Andrew braces himself automatically. “My mother usually did it for me.” 

“Oh,” Andrew says. He does not ask for elaboration but Neil offers it willingly. 

“I didn’t even notice,” he says. “By the time I did it was too late and she wouldn’t let me take her to a hospital. She died by the ocean.” 

“Do you miss her?” 

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Neil says and then lets out a huff of exasperated breath. Andrew gets to work with his hair, pinning back everything with Neil’s black plastic clips except one small and manageable lock and then painting it with brown dye. 

“She kept me safe for years,” Neil says after a moment. “Sometimes I made it harder for her and there would be consequences.” 

“Neil. You don’t have to talk about this,” Andrew says. 

“I want to,” Neil says, and Andrew knew every inflection of his voice so well now, he knew this was honesty. This was not reassurance for Andrew’s sake. It was not forced truth. 

“If my accent slipped she would scold me and then make sure it never happened again,” Neil goes on. “But there was never a mark where someone could see. It would draw too much attention. I kissed a girl once. I don’t know how she found out. It wasn’t worth it.” 

“She beat you,” Andrew says, not shocked by the revelation but feeling something like heat in his stomach. 

“Always for good reason.” 

“Do not justify her actions, Neil. There is never a good reason to hit a child. You did not deserve it. You will never deserve it.” 

Neil closes his eyes like he is in pain to hear it. Andrew finishes dying the rest of his hair in silence. When he is done he runs his fingers through the dye-soaked hair. Neil hums. Andrew pulls his hands away and they fall to his sides, stained with brown like mud. 

“Thank you,” Neil says. 

“What for?” 

“Dunno. For everything.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Andrew says. Neil only smiles that knowing smile, and tilts his head to the side, looking at Andrew in his reflection. His eyes crinkle with his smile, a single dimple on one cheek, his hair looking like mud. He is ridiculous and gorgeous and Andrew wants to pick him up and put him on the counter and himself between his spread legs and kiss him. He knew Neil would let him. But still he cannot ask. 

“Isn't that my trademark?” Neil says. 

“Your trademark is stupidity.” 

Neil laughs. “That’s fair.” 

He leaves Neil to wash his hair out. 

On Friday he announces to his family they will be going out. 

He decides this rather spontaneously. Something about his conversation with Roland spurs him to, although if he were asked to explain the rationale, which in itself was lacking, he could not. And besides, Nicky needed something to distract him from being away from Erik on his birthday, Aaron was in dire need of something to remove the stick that was perpetually up his ass, and Andrew craved a drink that would cost him at least an hour’s minimum wage. 

While Neil and Aaron are upstairs getting ready, Andrew waits in the kitchen with Nicky, who is using a small compact mirror to check his face and which he has not put down in five minutes. Finally, he snaps it shut rather dramatically and turns to Andrew in his seat. 

“I had the weirdest dream last night,” he says, unprompted as typically occurs when he addresses Andrew. “Actually it was more like a nightmare. I was still living with my parents. Except they were nice. Were our curtains always yellow?” 

Andrew turns to where he is indicating. 

“Did you not buy new ones?” 

“Did I?” Nicky says, and then shrugs the question away. “Anyway, what’s up with you and Neil?” 

“Nothing.” 

Nicky smiles his knowing smile. It is softer than usual though. Andrew looks away like that will stop Nicky from continuing to speak. As per usual, it does not work. 

“Sure,” he says. “I totally believe you.” 

“Don’t test me, Nicky.” 

“Okay, fine,” he says, his hands up as though to fend off a wild animal. And for the first time since Nicky adopted them Andrew contemplates what he must think of him, if he thought him violent, if he thought him unfeeling, and if so why he bothered to take them in like he had. 

“Hey,” Nicky says before Andrew can get up and leave, his voice soft and like an apology. “Aaron told me not to tell you but I found some cracker dust wrappers in his room while I was cleaning out the other day. Like, a lot of it. And I asked him about it but he said it was old.” 

“What makes you think I care what Aaron is doing?” 

Nicky looks unaffected by the question. Perhaps he had grown used to Andrew’s seeming apathy. Or maybe he saw right through it all along. He says nothing of it, only grabs the car keys from the counter in front of Andrew and makes his way out the door. 

“I’ll start the car,” he says. 

Andrew lets him leave. 

Nicky and Aaron leave after the first round. Andrew leaves them to their own devices for now, having warned both Nicky and Neil to let him know if they saw Aaron sneaking off somewhere they did not know. Neil stands with him as he orders a second round for them, and when he offers him a shot, he takes it this time. Andrew raises his brows. Neil simply shrugs. 

“Are you going to dance?” He signs, because to sign was easier than shouting over the noise. 

“If you come with me,” Neil signs. 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“I’m comfortable here.” 

“Neil!” Nicky shouts, appearing from the crowd and practically falling onto Neil in his excitement. “Come dance with me.” 

“Uh,” Neil starts. 

“C’mon,” Nicky whines. “Neither of the party pooper twins ever dance with me, and I’m tired of dancing with strangers. Come dance with me.” 

Something in Neil’s face softens. Maybe he’s a lightweight and it’s the shot. Or maybe it’s Nicky’s child-like expression, his hands gripping tightly to Neil’s. Andrew has to look away. 

“Okay,” Neil says. He lets Nicky drag him onto the floor with him, turning to give Andrew a wave before he disappears into the crowd. 

Andrew takes another shot. 

It does not take him long to grow bored with watching the mess of sweaty people. He thinks about finding Roland but axes the thought quickly. He thinks about ordering another two shots but he does not trust Aaron enough given what Nicky had told him. After half an hour he walks around the exterior of the dancefloor in search of Neil to steal away for company. 

Neil sees him first, at the edge of the crowd, waving to him like he has been doing so for a while. He is too far to hear so Andrew signs to him instead. Neil ignores him to say something else. 

“Saw Aaron leave with someone,” he signs. “Towards bathroom.” 

Andrew signs that he has understood the message and makes his way to the bathroom. 

He is not quiet in his entrance but Aaron does not immediately notice him. He is bent over the sink, one finger pressed to his right nostril and a line at the edge of the sink in front of him. Andrew shoves him and blows hard to get rid of it. It looks like powdered sugar in the air. 

“What the fuck ?” Aaron says. And then he tackles Andrew. 

Or he tries to. Andrew grips him by his back and attempts to pry him off, but in his seeming fury he has something of a herculean strength as compared to his usual self. It takes Andrew some effort and a little bit of hair pulling to finally get him off, and only after Aaron has bit him in the hip. Andrew punches him in the face. 

“Shit,” Aaron hisses, stepping back and cupping one hand over his eye, all the fury dissipating from him in a second. “That really hurt. What’s your fucking deal?” 

“What is yours?” Andrew says. He rubs a hand over the spot where Aaron bit him. A ridiculous and outrageously unfair move on his part. 

“It’s none of your business,” Aaron says, moving to leave. Andrew puts a hand on his shoulder and shoves him backwards. He stumbles badly. Andrew cannot tell if he’s also high or only drunk. 

“It is when we made a deal.” 

“Like you care about keeping your word.” 

“You’re an idiot for thinking I don’t. Don’t lie to me. The floor is covered in your fucking coke.” 

“Fine,” Aaron says. “What do you want me to say? That I haven’t wanted to use this badly since I was sixteen? That I thought this was a better option than the alternative? That I spent my entire last paycheck on what you just fucking wasted?” 

“I told you to tell me if this was happening again.” 

“When do you ever tell me anything?” Aaron says, as though he cared and was not simply using the accusation as ammunition, as though it were the same thing. “A deal goes two ways, Andrew. I stick with you, you stick with me, we tell each other when something is wrong. So when are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on? Nicky keeps waking up crying, your boyfriend, who definitely is against the fucking rules if I might add, has like, four different fucking accents, suddently I’m an addict again.” 

“Then let me help you,” Andrew says, because it is the only part of everything Aaron has just said that he knows what to do anything about, and because he would rather pretend he had not heard anything else at all. 

“You can’t,” Aaron says, and his voice breaks and Andrew is brought back to a place he never wanted to be again. “Why do you even want yo?” 

“I don’t,” he lies. “I’m keeping my promise.” 

Aaron shakes his head. “I thought you didn’t care for years. But you were pretending, weren’t you? And ever since that tiny mophead showed up it’s been like you actually have a soul.” 

“Nice,” Andrew says. 

“Whatever,” Aaron says, and then sways. The skin around his eye is red and will blacken, Andrew knows, because it is not the first time he has punched Aaron in the face there. 

“How drunk are you?” 

“I’m not drunk,” Aaron says. 

“Don’t throw up.” 

“If I did it would be on you.” 

“Then really don’t throw up.” 

Aaron smiles bitterly. And then he throws up. 

He takes his family home. 

Nicky tries to make conversation in the car but the only one of them who indulges him is Neil, and only barely. He gives up eventually. Andrew rolls down all the windows so the wind will drown out the silence. 

Aaron goes immediately to his room. Nicky says goodnight, takes off his pants, and promptly falls asleep on the couch. Andrew drinks a glass of water, refills it, and places it in front of Aaron’s door on the way to his room, Neil following behind him. 

“Is he okay?” Neil asks once he is showered and in bed. His newly dyed hair had stained the pillow case the night before and so he had laid out a towel to put his head on instead. Right now though he is seated on Andrew’s mattress on the floor, teaching him all the best parts of a man to go for so they died the most quickly. A kitchen knife serves as his prop. 

“He’ll be fine,” Andrew says, because he would make certain of it. He takes the knife from Neil to demonstrate what he has learned. Neil nods, satisfied with the location he has chosen, and then takes the knife from Andrew and sets it on the bedside table, leaning over Andrew to reach it before settling back down again. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m okay,” Andrew says, softer than he means to. Neil watches him, searching for honesty. He seems to find it, because he smiles a small thing and tilts his head to the side and looks at Andrew that way for so long a moment Andrew almost leans forward to close the space between them. The distance was little. It would be so easy. Neil blinks and Andrew’s brain stutters and restarts. 

“Are you crying?” Andrew says, because Neil’s lashes are wet and his eyes are glassy. Neil looks surprised, and wipes at his eyes with the palm of his eyes. He laughs softly. 

“This reminds me of something my mom told me when I was little. It was before I even knew what it really meant.” 

Andrew hums for him to go on. He sniffles, a side effect of crying eyes, and laughs again. 

“She said that if you started crying but you weren’t sad and there was not an eyelash in your eye than somewhere in another universe you were crying. And if you heard someone call your name but you were alone than someone had called to you in another universe. And if you were hurting and you didn’t know why it was because another version of you was in pain. And he was sharing it with you because he couldn’t bear it by himself.” 

“Sounds like an excuse to ignore what you’re feeling.” 

“Maybe,” Neil says, his face a little splotchy from crying but his smile its complete opposite. “But imagine everything that has ever happened to you, everything you’ve ever felt, happening an infinite amount of ways but all fundamentally similar. No wonder people spontaneously combust.” 

“There’s a scientific explanation for spontaneous human combustion.” 

“Of course you would know that,” Neil says, but he doesn’t sound annoyed but instead fond. “You know when I first saw you after you ran me over the first thing I thought was that you were an uncaring asshole.” 

“Ditto.” 

“I am an asshole,” Neil says. “There’s a difference between actually being an asshole and just pretending to be.” 

“I have no idea what you’re getting at here.” 

“I mean,” Neil says, and though he usually has no qualms about looking Andrew in the face he does not look at him now. “That I like when someone is going the speed limit and you get all grumpy about it. And when you pout because they forgot the extra pump of syrup in your drink. And when Nicky puts the AC on and you get all cold and bitter even though it’s the middle of summer.” 

“You like when I’m angry,” Andrew says. 

“No,” Neil says, looking up now. He has taken out his contacts. His eyes are like pools, his lashes wet from tears that were not his own but belonged instead to another version of him, his cheeks pink but surely not from a hot shower after this long.. “I like it when you show you feel something. I know they don’t think you do. But I know better.”

“Don’t be stupid.” 

“It’s not stupid. You do care,” Neil says. “I can tell. I know you.” 

“You don’t know shit.” 

“I know you, Andrew.” 

“Shut up,” Andrew says. 

“No,” Neil says, and now he is smiling and Andrew is thinking of nothing except putting his mouth to him. And he is thinking how odd that they have seemed to close the space between them without even noticing, and how the summer sun has freckled Neil’s nose, and how Neil can’t look away from his lips, and how the whole thing seemed like a long time coming. 

“Neil.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yes or no?” 

“Yes,” Neil breathes, and the word is caught between their mouths when Andrew kisses him. 

His fingers are in Neil’s hair and his palm against the side of his neck, a spot Neil told him only ten minutes ago a man would bleed out from in less than five minutes. He thinks of what it meant that Neil was here. 

He trusted Neil. He had trusted him in every universe and so though it was a hard thing to do it was the easiest choice he had made in a long time. And in every universe he had been hunted and hurt and still Neil trusted him back, with his mouth open and his lips soft, his body warm in Andrew’s hoodie, staying when time and time again he had wanted to run. 

Andrew breaks the kiss and Neil follows him, his eyes closed, stopping just a breath away from Andrew. He opens his eyes, a question in them. 

“Tell me to stop,” Andrew says. 

“If I need to I will,” Neil says. Because he knew what it meant even without Andrew telling him. 

He lowers Neil onto his back and follows him down, presses him into the mattress with his own weight and feels Neil arch into him. His hands rest beside him, fingers clenching the sheets.. Andrew takes them both and threads his fingers through and holds them above their heads. His arms are useless to hold him up that way but he didn’t need them to. 

He leans down, teases Neil with a feather light touch of his lips, finds himself smiling when Neil feigns annoyance but does not close the gap himself. “Andrew,” he says, breathless, his hair splayed behind him, his cheeks rosied. He liked Neil this way, clingy, wanting, enough that he almost kisses him but not quite yet. 

“Yeah?” 

“C’mon,” Neil says. 

“C’mon what?” 

“Kiss me.” 

“So demanding.” 

Neil smiles. He means it to be sly but it comes out sweeter. Andrew has not seen that look in his eyes before and he almost has to look away from it. “You love it,” Neil says. 

Andrew says nothing. He coaxes Neil’s mouth open with his own, so softly, and Neil hums and Andrew kisses him harder. One hand moves to touch the skin underneath the hem of his sweater. Neil makes a lovely sound. Andrew breaks away once more to look at him, his eyes half-lidded, and Neil kisses his neck in response and his spine tingles and if he knew it was going to be like this maybe he would have prepared himself better but he hadn’t, and he didn’t, and he couldn't have imagined it anyway. 

Afterwards they lay facing each other, sleepy and sore-mouthed, speaking softly and every now and again bridging the small space between them for a wayward kiss. 

“Your lashes are a different color from your hair,” Andrew says. They are long and auburn, and when Neil closes his eyes this close they tickle the skin on Andrew’s cheek. 

“You can’t tell from afar.” 

“I can tell.” 

“Should I dye them then?” 

“That would be ridiculous,” Andrew says, and presses a kiss to his cheekbone. 

“Would you do it for me?” Neil goes on. “You did such a good job the first time.” 

Andrew pulls the drawstrings to Neil’s hoodie so the whole hood pinches around his face. Neil makes an affronted sound. Andrew kisses the only part of his face that still shows. “I will not.” 

Neil laughs. He could not see anything with the fabric in his eyes so his hands search carefully before settling on both sides of Andrew’s face, fingertips in his hair. 

“No one will ever be close enough to tell except you,” he says, like that was a perfectly normal thing to say, like it didn’t make Andrew’s stomach twist inside of him. Andrew pulls the hoodie off his head. 

He could think of nothing to say. Neil does not look as though he is expecting an answer. Andrew traces the hard plastic of his hearing aids wrapped around his ear until Neil kisses his palm, switches them off, and takes them out. He sets them on the bedside table, beside the knife they had been using for Neil’s lesson, and Andrew think distantly of what sort of violence had taken his hearing, what kind of people they must be to have hurt him so that he ran and kept running until he had stopped, here, with Andrew. 

“How long will you stay?” He signs. 

“As long as I can,” Neil signs back. 

He falls asleep thinking of it.

If he did not pay careful attention, it was easiest to assume most everything after that night remained largely unchanged. But he paid attention. And though the differences were subtle they were there still. 

Neil more and more often sleeps without his hearing aids in and on Andrew’s mattress more often than his own, although at some point Andrew might suggest they simply both move back to the bed. He offers to water Nicky’s plants and Nicky in his excitation creates a color-coded schedule, assigning to their dismay both Andrew and Aaron to watering duties on Wednesdays and Fridays. Andrew searches Aaron’s room every other day for evidence he might be using and never finds anything. He checks his elbows, too. Aaron throws a box of chinese takeout across the living room and chow mein hangs from the television for a full day afterwards. 

Andrew goes to work. Nicky goes to work. Aaron goes to work. Neil goes to run. Nicky calls Erik as often as he always does. He is still outrageously happy. Every time he goes grocery shopping now he arrives home with a new brand of protein bar for Neil to try. Aaron punches Andrew in the face when his secret stash of Reece’s peanut butter cups goes missing from his room. He also tries to get Neil to go to the hospital for a checkup. Andrew called it a lost cause as soon as the suggestion came out of his mouth. 

“I know your talking about me,” Aaron says one morning when Neil and Andrew sign a conversation in front of him. Neil ignores him to sign something else, which is infuriating to Aaron. 

“You’re more obvious than you think.” 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Andrew says. “Not everything is about you.” 

“I’m not talking about that,” Aaron says. “I’m talking about the fact that you two have obviously been screwing and keeping it a secret. You suck at it, by the way. Even Nicky has it figured out and he’s had the hots for Neil since day one.” 

“Hots?” Neil says. 

“I don’t have anything to hide from you,” Andrew says to Aaron. Neil takes a sip from his coffee. 

“You’re such a hypocrite,” Aaron says, and before Andrew can respond, he leaves. 

Neil says nothing of it. Andrew decides not to think too hard about it. 

The summer draws on. It begins to thunder. He loses track of kisses shared and nights spent in soft conversation. Neil does not mention his headaches again and Andrew’s arms do not bleed again but sometimes at night Andrew looks in the mirror and sees a version of himself he does not recognize, and sometimes Neil sounds English for one minute, and sometimes Nicky ups and leaves in the middle of a conversation. The lights flicker. He forgets a turn on the drive home and it takes him an extra ten minutes to get there. 

If there was something to be done Neil would have told him. But it has not come up, and he had lost interest in anything related to leaving this version of the universe, and so he did not pry and Neil said nothing and they went on. 

The end of summer begins. Andrew wakes to an empty dent beside him where Neil had slept. His running shoes are gone from the front door when he goes downstairs for coffee. He makes enough for two. 

Aaron arrives soon after. And Nicky after that. They exchange their usual morning greetings, which includes silence from Aaron and a cheerful smile and high volume ‘good morning, my darling cousin’ from Nicky. Andrew raises his mug in reply. 

“You have any plans today?” Nicky asks over three fried eggs. 

“Nicky, clean the fucking pan after using it,” Aaron says by the stove. 

“I have the day off,” Andrew offers to Nicky in response. 

“Do you want to go out?” 

“It’s a Wednesday.” 

“I don’t mean clubbing,” Nicky says, and his voice implies he knows the very suggestion was ludicrous but would plow ahead anyway. “I thought we could go out to dinner or something. As a family. Without the alcohol as an excuse to spend time together.” 

“That sounds like an awful idea,” Aaron says, and then curses when he tries to flip his egg over with a cake knife and it does not work. 

“Okay,” Andrew says. 

“What?” Nicky says. He looks as though he does not believe what he has heard. 

“I said okay,” Andrew says. “Your egg is going to burn if you don’t stop staring.” 

Aaron scowls. “Since when do you want to do anything with us?”

“Since now.” 

“I think Neil has changed him,” Nicky says, and he is glowing and Andrew wants to put a blanket over him because it hurts his eyes to look at. 

“Speak of the devil,” Aarons says, not kindly, when Neil steps into the room, sweaty and pink. 

“Andrew,” Neil says, and something in his stomach lurches at the sound of his voice. “I need to talk to you.” 

“Bye bye, lovebirds,” Nicky singsongs when Andrew gets up from his seat to go with Neil. 

In his room Neil sits on the bed and looks at his feet. 

“What’s going on?” Andrew says. 

“My head is splitting,” Neil says. “Something is wrong, Andrew. Right now. I have no idea what to do.”

Andrew sits beside him. “Tell me how to help you.” 

“I can’t…” Neil says. He sounds like a child, young and afraid. He keels over, his hands to his head, a small whine escaping his mouth. Andrew has never seen him this way before. His own body aches. He catches Neil before he can fall over onto his face and lowers himself to the ground with him. Their bodies flicker like a flame alongside each other. His hands look transparent. Neil presses the crown of his head to Andrew’s shoulders, his hands gripped tightly in the sleeves of Andrew’s sweater. 

“Neil,” Andrew says. He wants Neil to tell him how to help him. But he could scarcely keep himself from crying out in pain at the sting in his arms and the twisting in his stomach and the needles in his eyes. 

And then his body is stretched and he feels his body float. And Neil is breathing normally again and has lifted his head and released his grip. He looks at Andrew differently. His eyes are wavering, glossy, his body like a ghost Andrew could put his hand right through. 

Someone presses the barrel of a gun to the back of his head. 

“Move and I will shoot you.” 

It is a woman’s voice. Andrew knows she is not lying. He does not move. 

“Mom,” Neil says. “Don’t hurt him.” 

Mom. Neil’s mother was dead. Neil’s mother was English. Neil’s mother lowers the gun away. 

“Nathaniel?” 

Neil stands and Andrew follows, and when he turns, she is standing right there, and they are inside a motel room that smells of disinfectant. She looks younger than Andrew had expected, thin and bony, but her arms defined. The gun hangs at her side. She does not looked shocked to see them but wary. 

“You look older,” she says. 

“You look younger.” 

“You should not be here. I expected better of myself. Have I not warned you what is happening?” 

“No.” Neil says. “You’re dead.” 

“Dead.” 

“He caught up to us in Seattle.” 

“Oh,” she says, frowning. She seats herself on the bed and gestures vaguely at Andrew. “And who is this?” 

“This is Andrew.” 

“I warned you about fraternizing at least.” 

“That was before,” Neil says. His mother looks unhappy at his defiance. Perhaps she was unused to it. 

“You are stupid to think anything has changed, Abram. It is worse now than ever. They are tearing worlds apart in this search. Do not tell me you have not noticed the merging.” 

“I thought it was just a side effect,” Neil says. 

“They should not be so severe.” 

Neil looks from Andrew and back to his mother. “How did I die?” 

His mother looks away from him. She is a careful woman, her every expression calculated. Andrew knew because he had learned to do the same himself. Which is how he knows that this memory is a painful one for her. 

“You’re hearing has been affected,” she observes, gesturing towards Neil’s head in indication. She is looking for confirmation. 

“Yes.” 

“Would you like to know why?” 

Neil says nothing. His mother continues. Andrew listens carefully, watches Neil even more so. 

“I had planned for us to run that night. Someone must have tipped him off. We had only just left the city before he found us. He had bought out the police department and they had officers shutting down every road out of the city. He must have told them to shoot only to wound. You know he likes to finish his business himself.” 

She pauses, and then lifts the hem of her shirt up, revealing two old bullet wounds, one on her ribcage, one lower down, on her stomach. 

“They shot me first. I screamed at you not to stop but you did not listen. You never listened,” she says, and laughs, a bitter and sad thing. “You were distracted and I could do nothing because I could not move. They shot again. 

“You fell and lay on top of me. I thought you were using your body to shield me. I screamed at you to run, but you would not move, and so I lifted you off me and held you up and they had shot you right here.” 

She presses her hand to the side of Neil’s face, over his left ear, and closes her eyes. Andrew sits down. 

“Your ear had been torn off. The gunpowder had burned half of your face. You were still alive. In shock, I think, because you were so quiet and your hands did not shake when I held them. I said to you that I was sorry. I could not keep you safe. And you could heal. I knew you could heal. How lucky that shot was, only an inch away from killing you. But I could not move. Your father was just there. I knew what he would do to you if I let him take you. I had only one bullet left.” 

Andrew feels like he might throw up. Neil pulls his mother’s hand away from his face and places it back in her lap. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough.” 

“You were a child,” his mother says. “I did not teach you well enough.” 

“Andrew,” Neil says. Andrew stands to be beside him. His mother looks at him. He does not recognize what he sees in her expression. He didn’t care to. 

“If he finds out you are here he will follow you and kill you in your world, too. You have your own father to worry about,” she says. “You must leave.” 

“Too late,” a woman speaks. 

She stands in the doorway, playing with the safety of her gun. Her lips are painted red. She looks violent and confident. She flickers like static, worse than Andrew has ever seen, as though her body was glitching, appearing and disappearing over and over again. 

Neil shifts in front of Andrew. Andrew resists the urge to pinch him. 

“Lola,” Neil’s mother says. 

“Mary,” Lola says. “You’re looking spritzy. Your skin is absolutely glowing.” 

“What do you want?” 

“Gosh, I can’t seem to keep up! Is it different here? Are you guys one big happy family?” 

“You are ruining yourself,” Neil’s mother says. “Can you not see that?” 

“Thanks for the concern, darling. But I’ve only got one job here and that’s to take little Nathaniel here back to where he came from.” 

His mother says nothing. Andrew recognizes the shift in her stance. He pinches the fabric of Neil’s sleeve, tugs him closer, braces himself. 

Lola moves first. She raises her gun and fires. Neil’s mother sees it coming before it happens. She leaps towards Neil, shoving him to the ground, Andrew with him. 

“Run,” she says, and then rises.

He watches then as she closes the distance between her and Lola and manages to get the gun out of her hand, tossing it across the room so it clatters against the wall and falls where none of them can reach it. Lola makes a move to retrieve it but Neil’s mother stops her. She cries out, angry and animal, as she is tossed against the wall. Her nails run bloody lines down Neil’s mother’s arms. 

Neil cannot seem to move. Andrew touches his face and he focuses on him. 

“Neil,” Andrew says. “We need to go.” 

Neil nods. “The balcony,” he says, gesturing towards the back of the room where there is a sliding door and an outdoor balcony. They crawl on all fours in that direction, quickly, and Andrew unlocks it and slides it open and they are suddenly outside. 

The sky is storming. He looks down through the railing and there are people gathered and screaming around the base of the hotel building. He wonders if Neil knows about his fear of heights. His hands shake. 

Neil climbs over the railing and begins moving towards the balcony of the room next door. This requires scaling the wall for a brief distance before reaching it. Andrew follows suit, ignoring the groundless air underneath him, taking Neil’s hand on the other side and pulling himself over the railing to safety. 

The sliding door is unlocked. They ignore the loud confusion of the room’s guests to move into the hallway. There are people running past them, yelling of guns and blood and calling 911. Neil maneuvers the chaos easily with Andrew beside him. 

They fly down the stairs, and with each step he feels like something the building is collapsing above them. When they finally make it outside the building Andrew knows something has gone terribly wrong here, too. Around them people still scream. Two bodies lay on the ground. They do not have faces. 

From somewhere behind them a gunshot rings out. Andrew takes Neil by the wrist and runs. But there is Lola again, appearing in front of them, the crowd forking around here like a stampede avoiding an obstacle. She flickers, grins, wipes blood from her mouth. 

“Your mom is an awful pain,” she says. She takes a step towards them. Neil jumps and pulls Andrew with him. 

He stumbles, looks down and his hands have too many fingers and and his head might explode. Neil doubles over beside him and vomits. Andrew places a hand on his back. 

“I think I’m dying here.” 

“Careful,” Andrew says, holds him so he will not fall so hard, wipes the hair from his eyes. He is with his legs outstretched, two hands to his stomach, head lolling. A perfect match to this other Neil, Andrew sees, who is leaning against the wall in front of him, his legs outstretched, two hands to his stomach, head lolling. 

But this Neil was sitting in a pool of his own blood. It was smeared on his face like he had tried to wipe it away. He was trying to stay awake. Neil turns to where he is looking. 

“Oh,” he says softly. Andrew helps him stand. They go to him. He watches them come. His eyes look brighter against all the red. He is unafraid but broken. Neil sits on one side of this dying Neil. Andrew sits on the other. 

“He could come back,” this Neil warns. 

“We can take you with us,” Neil says. 

The other Neil smiles. There is blood on his teeth. “Can’t. He cut my achilles.” 

“Then I’ll carry you,” Andrew says. 

“No,” the other Neil says. “Listen. It's too late for me. But you still have a chance.” 

“Just let me help you,” Neil says. 

“Help yourself,” the other Neil says. He closes his eyes and breathes a stuttered breath. And then there is a gunshot and his body jerks and he goes perfectly still. 

“Well,” Lola says, the gun still raised and smoking. “Looks like little Nathaniel here ran out of luck.” 

Neil stands. “You’ve gone mad, Lola,” he says. “Don’t you see what you’re doing? Your body is falling apart.” 

“You sound just like your mother,” Lola says. “Too bad. It’s a real turnoff. Now don’t go calling for help. Your daddy owns half the cops in this city. No one is coming to find you. Now sit down. Both of you.” 

They sit, the concrete beneath them cold and Neil’s blood running on the floor. 

“Who’s your friend?” 

“No one,” Neil says. 

“He’s flickering just like you,” Lola says, poking at Andrew with her gun. “Share the family trade, do you?” 

“He doesn’t know anything.” 

Andrew almost turns to glare at him. Lola laughs and leans down in front of them. She traces a finger over Neil’s ear. 

“Then you won’t mind if I have a little fun with him," she says. 

“Don’t.” 

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t touch him.” 

“Only if you say please,” Lola says. 

Neil does not respond. Andrew understands his silence perfectly. Nothing meant anything to this woman. To beg was to entertain her. Neil would not allow her the satisfaction. Andrew would not allow it if Neil asked. 

Lola turns to Andrew and smiles. This close he can smell her breath and it is of smoke and bubblegum. She clicks her tongue. “You’re a pretty one.” 

Neil moves beside him. Andrew does not allow him to take the first hit. He throws his head back and then forward and smashes into Lola’s face so hard she has to use her hands to keep from falling backwards. She recovers quickly, slaps him in the face and then holds his chin in her hands, long nails digging into his skin. 

“You’ll regret that, sweetheart.” 

Andrew spits in her face. She laughs, wipes it with her other hand, and licks it off. Andrew wants to throw up. 

“Please,” Neil says, and Andrew thinks he almost will throw up. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“I like to hear it,” Lola says. There is lipstick on her teeth. “But darling I think it's a little too late for that now.” 

Lola stands and pulls a small serrated knife from somewhere behind her. She twists it in her hand, testing its weight, and then leans down again and glides it over Andrew’s face, down his neck and to his chest. 

“Move and I will slit his throat faster than you can blink,” she says to Neil, and then digs the knife into his chest. 

She makes easy work of it, and Andrew does not make a sound for fear if he does he will not stop for the rest of his life. Neil is saying something beside him but he cannot hear it over the rush in his head. When she pulls the knife away to wipe it on his pants Andrew manages to twist her arm up and she cries out but then she is digging the knife into his arm and he releases her and she is beating him and Neil is saying something in a voice he has not heard before and he is on the floor and cannot lift his head from the ground. It throbs, his brain swelling inside him, his eyes like they have been gouged out, ribs cracked, himself broken. 

And then Neil quiets and for a moment Andrew thinks perhaps they have killed him already and he was useless to stop it and now they would kill him, too. But when his vision is clear enough to see again there is a new man there, coming down the steps, and he has the same color hair as Neil’s lashes and the same color eyes, too. And Andrew knows who he is. 

He nudges at the dead Neil on the ground with one foot and hums at the lack of response. Then he stands in front of them. 

“Stand up,” he says, and Neil stands. Andrew watches from the ground, unable to move, a foot on his chest keeping him there. 

Neil starts to say something but his father takes him by the throat and lifts him so his feet only skate the ground. “You know better than to speak before I tell you to. Tell me you understand.” 

Neil, even as he is being strangled, manages to speak an affirmation. 

“Now you know I am not one to draw things out. But all this running has gotten me quite worked up. So we will start slow and work our way up, make a whole night of it. Maybe we’ll take your toes first. Lola, take care of his friend.” 

Lola smiles and presses more of her weight into Andrew’s chest. He feels something break and gasps for air. And then Neil claws at his father’s hand, digging in hard enough for him to release him from his grip. He falls, tackles Lola so her weight leaves Andrew’s chest. Neil scuffles with Lola, her wrist in his hand, and she drops her knife and it goes clattering on the ground. Andrew, on the ground himself, picks it up and slashes at Lola. She cries out and falls. Neil’s father kicks Andrew in the stomach. Lola screams and throws Neil off her, and he goes skidding on the floor. 

His father picks him up with one hand and shoves him against the wall.  

“That will cost you,” he says. Lola smiles then as he carves a line down his face with a knife in one hand, carefully, slowly, smiling himself like he enjoyed it. Neil tries to scream but the hand around his throat makes it sound less human and more animal. His father smiles. 

Their mistake, he thinks, watching with stinging eyes, was to think Andrew was done with. Though something must be broken in his chest and when he breathed he sounded wheezing, he could still stand. He could still wrap his hand around the handle of a knife they had so mistakenly left laying on the floor, the same one he had used to slice at Lola. There mistake, he thinks, is to be so engrossed in Neil and his pain they forget him. 

The best place to kill a man so they bled out in less than five minutes was the side of the neck, Neil had taught him. He presses the knife there and Lola makes only a sound like a sputtering faucet. Neil’s father turns to him, surprised, sinks the knife into Andrew's chest just as Andrew slits his throat. 

Neil is covered in blood. He looks at Andrew, wraps his arms around him, lowers him to the ground. 

His father is a corpse at their feet. Lola sputters something and then goes quiet. Neil presses his hand to Andrew’s heart. Andrew coughs and it sounds wet. Neil makes a sound like a sob. He holds him to his chest, shaking, and then shifts him so he is laying on his back.

Andrew knew death, a looming and constant presence, but never so well his own. It was an odd thing, foreign and familiar at the same time. He did not like it. He liked less how Neil was looking at him. 

“Don’t look at me like that.” 

“I’m not,” Neil says, but he just keeps doing it anyway and Andrew so badly wants to close his eyes, because his face is all bloody and he looks like he’s crying and Andrew hated it. It hurt more than the bleeding in his heart. It hurt more than his beaten body. 

“Don’t,” Neil says. “Andrew. Don’t go to sleep. C’mon. Stay awake. I’m right here.” 

He thinks it is fitting that he should die before Neil does. He is sure if it were another way he would not last long enough to grieve. If this story needed death, better it was his own than anyone else’s. He could not stand being afraid. It was a useless emotion. More so when there was nothing he could do about it. He felt like a child, small and helpless and tired. 

“Andrew,” Neil says. “Keep your eyes open. Look at me.” 

His hands press to his chest and it hurts but he does not have the energy to say so. Maybe blood has gotten in his eyes because he cannot Neil’s face well but he can feel him shaking. And maybe he is already dead because his own face is now beside Neil looking down at him. A ghost of himself. 

“How did you get here?” Neil is saying, and Andrew almost opens his mouth to answer the question but he realizes Neil is not talking to him but to this ghost Andrew. He must have missed the introduction. 

“I jumped. You know how hard it is to get through a police barricade? I was too late, anyway.” 

“He’s bleeding out too fast,” Neil says. This ghost Andrew assesses Andrew with something clinical in his eyes. But Andrew knows himself better than that, and he knows defeat, surrender, suicide, when it is written all over his own face. He sees it now. 

“I can save him,” he says. 

“What?” Neil says. “No.” 

This ghost Andrew looks at Neil like it hurts him to and then touches his face with just his fingertips, grieving something that was right in front of him, Andrew knew, because his Neil sat a corpse just a little away from them, still warm. He had been too late. 

“My family is dead and I couldn't save you either. And now I have nothing left,” he says. “So let me do this. You trust me, don’t you?” 

Neil swallows, looks down at Andrew in front of him, his hands soaked in blood, and nods. 

“Then trust me now. I want to do this. I’ll still be in him.” 

Neil closes his eyes, squeezes them tightly, takes his hands away from Andrew’s chest. 

“Okay,” Andrew says, looking down at his counterpart. He shifts, presses his forehead to Andrew’s forehead, breathes the same air. 

"It will be better for you," he says. Remember that.” 

Andrew closes his eyes.