Chapter Text
Neil wakes up three times in the middle of the night, and Kevin and Andrew had switched positions during all three of them. It would be funny if they weren't— Well, adorable. If only in their sleep, when neither could see Neil stare.
He knew Kevin was a fitful sleeper from overheard conversations, but Andrew surprised him by matching Kevin's disquiet, the two of them moving around as if they couldn't get close enough to each other. The first time Neil woke up, they had gone from Andrew gently cradled to Kevin's chest to Kevin manhandled into resting his head on Andrew's shoulder, an arm thrown over Andrew's stomach while his leg tangled around Andrew's thighs.
The second time, Andrew had shifted to lay on his stomach as to throw an arm around Kevin's neck, his face locked between Andrew's forearm and bicep in an equally protective and odd sleeping position. This one Neil believes is way too funny to forget.
The third and last time, Andrew was spooned up against Kevin's back, a heavy arm thrown over his middle as if a reminder — even in his sleep — that they belonged together, the two so tightly knit Neil thought they both must be burning up like furnaces at the shared body heat. The size difference made the position a bit hard, but Neil could tell they've done this a thousand times before, so much so Andrew's face tucked on the side of Kevin's neck looked more familiar than breathing itself.
When Neil truly wakes up, unable to rest when morning light filters through the window and he hears movement from the kitchen, Andrew is no longer there. Kevin is facing Neil, still, though this time he is curled up on himself like a tiny ball of stress, tucked in carefully under one more blanket than he had the last time Neil woke up. Neil turns around to check, and surely enough, Aaron and Nicky are still dozed off, the last with a pillow tugged to his chest and drooling on top of it. The sight makes him smile.
Neil carefully sits up from his mockup bed, wary of Kevin's sleep, and perks up over the counter to find Andrew up already, brewing coffee with a sleepy scowl. He is so soft like this, messy and unpolished and unaware that Neil is watching, so human in the way he burns the tip of his finger against the coffee pot and immediately brings it to his mouth with a quiet hiss. This is an Andrew Neil hadn't seen before, but he thought he liked him all the same.
If Andrew notices his awakening, he doesn't say anything. Neil believes it's for the best, because he is a bit mesmerized by Andrew's soft sleeping shirt, white but old enough to have become grey by its looks. It fits him nicely around the shoulders, but practically drapes around Andrew otherwise, and it makes Neil want to wonder if the shirt is Kevin's, the only person he can imagine Andrew sharing clothes with.
Kevin's face isn't soft in his sleep, but rather worried, contracted; Neil can't tell if he's having a nightmare or is simply anxious at all times, even in his slumber. Maybe it's neither, and the visible discomfort on his face is due to the lack of Andrew by his side.
"He doesn't like to sleep alone," Andrew rasps out from the kitchen, a coffee mustache on top of his lip. He is unbearable, and so lovely. "Night terrors."
"Oh," Neil replies, voice scratchy and deep from sleep. It makes him sound like his father, and the thought has Neil flinching. "Good morning. Did you sleep well?"
Andrew brings his mug of coffee to his lips before answering. "So polite at sudden," he muses, if only to have anything to poke fun at Neil for. It's how he is. "Did you?"
"No," he says. "I woke up a lot in the middle of the night."
Andrew hums in response, motioning towards the seat across from his kitchen counter. "Be my guest," he invites, though not bothering to look at Neil any further as he turns around to finish whatever he'd been doing.
Neil pushes himself up to his feet with all the care he could muster, gingerly moving around Kevin and making an effort to not — God forbid — step on a long, stray chunk of hair right above his head. When he finally manages to get to the kitchen, Andrew is no longer busying himself with cooking but stacking pancakes on a plate, strong back still turned to the living room. He feels so reliable like this; as if Neil could ask of him the world and Andrew would find a way to give it to him. If only it were true.
He averts his eyes from Andrew's food out of self-consciousness, trying not to make it seem as if he's hungry or even wants a bite, and a long-lasting fear swells within him. Neil had once been so used to keeping himself from staring at others' food at his hungriest, it's become hardly anything less than second nature now.
Which is why when Andrew shoves the stack of pancakes towards him, Neil is a bit surprised.
"What?" Andrew asks, looking up at Neil's undoubtedly soured expression. "Don't like pancakes?"
He blinks at Andrew. "I do. I just—" Neil swallows. "I didn't realize they were for me, I suppose."
"That hardly warrants a reaction like that."
Embarrassed, Neil rubs at his elbow to hide the faint tremor of his hand. "It's been… Years since I've had pancakes," he bullshits, unsure of what would make Andrew back off his case but certain that a half-truth is better than a lie.
"Hm," Andrew replies, then moves past Neil to get to the other side of the kitchen. "Ought to make it good, then," he says, pulling out an indulgent amount of fruit — and whipped cream — from his refrigerator.
Neil is sure he must look scandalized. Aware of the three sleeping bodies just a few steps away, he hisses through his teeth, " What are you doing?"
Andrew doesn't bother looking up as he fancies Neil's pancakes with sliced bananas and a ridiculously large carton of blueberries. "What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Andrew, that's— That's too much food—"
At the blink of an eye, Neil's response is cut off by Andrew forcefully slamming down the knife he'd been using to slice bananas against the counter. "This is my kitchen, and you will not restrict your hunger in it." The poor banana under his knife's edge is shredded to pieces. "You will not call a normal meal ' too much food.' I won't allow it."
Neil blinks in surprise at the finality of Andrew's tone, forcing his face to gentle. "What I mean," he softly bargains, "is that I'm not used to eating normal meals, is all."
"As long as you are under my roof, you will," Andrew replies, set in stone. He finishes off his masterwork with an overwhelming amount of whipped cream, more than Neil ever remembers being allowed to eat or capable of affording, and pushes it towards him. "Now run along."
"Andrew."
"I said to run along."
He clutches the plate delicately. "Thank you," Neil says, at last. He would not be caught dead thanking Andrew while the others are awake, but the morning had softened him.
Andrew doesn't reply, so Neil studies his back profile as he cooks, slowly chewing through the pancakes. They're sweet, almost too sweet, but Neil would've eaten even if they were burnt to a coal, so perhaps his opinion doesn't matter. What he knows is that they're warm, fulfilling, and that he is grateful for Andrew, however unpopular his methods are.
Morning drizzle pitter pats against Andrew's window like pulsing heartbeats, fresh and alive. Neil would write songs about this morning if only he could: to frame Andrew's back, the slope of his nape, the blonde curls tapering into shaved hair, would be to keep the world locked away for a bit longer; to keep this memory as desperately as he wanted to keep the man in front of him. When has life come to this, Neil wonders — who hides behind such thoughts?
Or, better, who is Neil beyond bills to pay and meals unfinished, and when has he become such a smitten, fair maiden?
He watches Andrew go through meals with practiced ease, his own stack of pancakes slowly disappearing as he works on a sandwich Neil believes must be for one of the sleeping Monsters. Kevin, he thought to himself. Of course .
His guess is further confirmed by the mug of tea Andrew sits beside the sandwich — a grilled cheese, surprisingly, since Neil never imagined someone as pompous as Kevin would have a meal so simplistic and traditional —, for what he imagines must be the medicine for Kevin's throat, no wonder destroyed after a night of singing when he hasn't done it in years. That Andrew takes care of this without Kevin even being awake to ask him to is like a punch in the gut.
Once he is done with his breakfast and Kevin's alike, Andrew leans over the counter to peek at Neil's plate, squeaky clean now that he'd obediently eaten it all. Andrew doesn't react much aside from a curt, pleased nod, even if the gesture feels worlds of progress if compared to their past interactions. Andrew's approval isn't needed, per se, but Neil wanted it still.
He spins around on his stool to watch as Andrew moves towards the living room, kneeling beside Kevin's asleep body and ever so gently shaking his shoulder. It is perhaps too early to wake him up, Neil thinks, but Andrew hasn't asked for his opinion, so he settles for watching.
Kevin's uncomfortably tight curl becomes even more coiled as Andrew's hand makes contact with his shoulder, a delicate frown to his features. Only after a bit more of insistence from Andrew's part do his eyes flutter open, face bloated from sleep and the alcohol from last night, though he doesn't look as grumpy as Neil imagined he would.
"Andrew—?" Kevin calls out, testing his voice, but it is wrecked, cutting off into a broken gasp by the end.
Andrew presses his thumb to Kevin's forehead and moves it in soothing circles, trying to ease what must be a massive hangover-induced headache. Though Neil has made it a habit of harboring jealousy towards Kevin, this morning he does not envy him at all: the poor man looks miserable even with Andrew's immediate cares, curling away from daylight as if it burned him.
No one says anything for a while; either for fear of worsening Kevin's condition or, in Kevin's case, the inability to get words out at all. Andrew rubs careful circles against Kevin's forehead, a loving placebo, and murmurs something so quiet even Neil misses it.
Kevin opens his mouth to reply only to have it forcibly closed by a hand on his chin, warning enough that talking would only make his throat worse. Neil, who never thought of Andrew as nurturing, finds himself thinking that he might've been too quick to judge his character.
At last, twenty seconds or twenty years later, Andrew manages to get Kevin out of bed and onto a stool near the kitchen counter, their long nightshirts practically identical though Kevin's was covered by a thick hoodie. Kevin's hair from behind is a bird's nest, knotty to its roots from grinding against the pillow all night long, and Neil wonders if he even remembers their last conversation. If he does, he's unable to talk about it, so Neil's worries shift from his impending rejection to Kevin's hair.
"Do you want me to brush it?" Neil asks, motioning towards the knots. "I grew up with horses."
It's half tease and half suggestion, though Kevin looks as if he doesn't mind either right now. Wordlessly, he offers Neil a thumbs up, then a carefully placed middle finger.
Neil laughs. "Where can I find a hairbrush?"
Of all men the most prone to discourses, Kevin frowns, looking the part of an unhappy brat that had been banned from speaking his thoughts. He thinks for a bit before pointing Neil towards the halfway, then the bathroom.
"Any cabinets I should be aware of?" Neil asks with a half-smile, knowing Kevin would give anything to talk right now.
He supposes he deserves the dirty look he gets from Andrew and Kevin both.
Hopping off his stool, Neil is back with a hairbrush in hand just in time to find Kevin broodily munching on his grilled cheese, back hunched and cheeks full. He's in the middle of offering it to Andrew when Neil approaches, and Andrew bends at the neck to take a bite of it before returning to doing the dishes, happy to leave Kevin under Neil's care for now.
"Uh," he stammers for a second, brush in hand. "Tap my arm twice if it hurts?"
At Kevin's thumbs up, Neil begins to brush out knots in his hair, careful not to pull too hard and worsen his headache. Though he had put it out as a joke, Neil did grow up with horses, and he does find tending to hair — of any kind — soothing. Back in his parents' home, their tight-knit community cared for its animals unconditionally, even when it came to their inevitable slaughter. Though it had never been applied to him where it mattered most, Neil can't help but revere Jewish kindness.
He misses it, which, of course, makes it all the worse to remember it.
Kevin's hair is so long — Neil has no idea which pool of genes predicted it, but he'd guess it had been Wymack's. The strands are long and floppy, entirely straight aside from a few, struggling waves, and Neil brushes through them with care, finding knot after knot under the layers. Kevin acts the part of sitting still, hunched so Neil could reach him, and it makes him wonder if the hair growth had been a way to rebel at his past label, or if Kevin just simply enjoys the androgynous haircut.
The thought is weird, because Neil himself was not allowed to grow his hair out as a child. Even after taking his leave from his parents' home, keeping it short had been more practical, cheaper — Neil can't imagine what he'd look like if he had hair as long as Kevin's. He also can't imagine how Andrew sleeps spooned up to Kevin's back without waking up with tufts of hair in his mouth.
As he finishes a particularly hard knot, Neil gathers the entirety of Kevin's hair to the side of his neck, leaving the other uncovered. The action was simple — unintentional, even —, yet it made a shiver run up Kevin's neck.
"Sorry, are my hands cold?" Neil asks, momentarily forgetting Kevin couldn't answer him. When he is met with no response, he tries his luck: "Is it okay if I braid it?"
Kevin offers him another thumbs up before pointing to Andrew. "What is it?" Neil questions.
Frustrated, Kevin points to his own wrist, encircling it with his pointer finger and his thumb. "Oh, does Andrew have your hair tie?"
Kevin nods. Neil bites down a smile. "Andrew," he calls, making the bassist turn around, "Kevin's hair tie."
Surely enough, once Andrew looks down at his wrists there is a hair band on one of them, and he offers his arm towards Neil. His fingers brush Andrew's skin as he takes the tie off, and they leave behind a small goosebump. His hands can't be that cold, surely.
Neil works Kevin's stray hairs into a braid effectively, adjusting his strength every now and then to avoid pulling too hard or too close to Kevin's scalp. Still, he must be doing something right, because Kevin no longer whimpers about his headache after a few minutes of Neil's hands on his hair, and he hopes it means they're soothing enough to ease his sickness. Andrew doesn't address either of them as he continues to wash dishes, but it's not a problem — Kevin seems happy to watch Andrew's back muscles work, and Neil is not all that opposed, either.
Kevin's hair is soft; smells nice; shows that he is the kind of person who never wonders when his next shower will be, or if he'll still be able to afford having hair this long in the near future. Under the soft gray light of a morning shower, Kevin's hair looks like Kayleigh's, dark and shiny and impossibly straight as it flops down his shoulders and back. His nape is hidden under it, though it makes an appearance once Neil puts his braid to the side, and he has to resist the urge to just… Lean in.
He wants to know what Kevin's skin smells like when he is this close and sleep-warm still, slowly munching on a grilled cheese like he has all the time in the world to change it. Kevin is not a boy accustomed to peace, Neil thinks, so he is happy to exist in this quiet for a little while, hands on his hair and Andrew just a few steps ahead, ever-recurring reminder of safety that he is. That Neil is part of this fantasy is what gets him, in the end.
His hands fall from Kevin's hair after tying the end of his braid, leaving his face and shoulders free from it alike. Neil is about to retreat when Kevin makes a sound of annoyance.
"It's done," he says, biting back a smile where Kevin couldn't see it. "There's nothing else to do."
Neil doesn't expect Kevin to attempt at speaking once again — especially not with Andrew's watching eyes in the room — , but he should've. "Your hands are warm," Kevin croaks out, deep and scratchy. It sounds agonizing to the ears. "Stay."
Powerless as he is, Neil does. "If you keep speaking you will only get worse," Andrew peeps without turning around.
"Sorry," Kevin croaks out again, counter-intuitive.
"Shhh," Neil murmurs, reaching for his hair to keep Kevin quiet. "Do you want another braid? Thumbs up for yes, down for no."
He waits for a while, and Kevin doesn't do either. Instead, he tries his hand at speaking again to ask, "Can you— hug me?"
This time Andrew doesn't berate him for speaking, and Neil suspects it's because he hears the way Neil's breath hitches, infinite and earth-shattering.
Though it isn't because of Kevin, for once. Neil has not hugged or been hugged by anyone in so long he cannot picture the memory in his head, however treasured it might be. Hugging Mary Hatford was nothing like hugging a mom should feel like, for even in her arms Neil knew he was unsafe, but it made it all that much gratifying: Mary's hands were rough, her nails sharp, and once she would have destroyed the world brick by brick for Neil's happiness, uncaring for whatever it took.
Neil doesn't know where it all went wrong. He doesn't know when she fell out of love with her own child, or if she was even in it at all — all he knows is that her memory lingers still, before missed phone calls and hands roughly holding him down, before Mother Mary wasn't just a saint.
' Can you hug me, mama? ' he'd asked. Neil could've been any age under ten, scrawny and short-legged in his pajamas. He doesn't remember her answer; only that she did hug him, perhaps out of what he can now identify as pity on her part. She ought to have known, Neil thinks, that everything would have gone downhill from there on. A criminal never forgets their modus-operandi, after all.
But — Kevin isn't Mary. Kevin is tall, for one, having miles and miles of lean muscle, and he has yet to show any sign of violence towards Neil, or truly anyone. Though Kevin is mean, though Kevin is insensitive, though Kevin is blunt, this stands true: he has yet to raise a fist. Neil doesn't think he ever will, or, better, that he will never have to so long Andrew is by his side.
This, Neil has not heard of before. Andrew's brand of violence comes with its own problematic implications, but it never shows itself cruel, or unwarranted — mostly, it serves as a negative space to the undeniable truth that he loves his Monsters, which by extension starts to mean that he hates everything else. Neil can't imagine a type of raised fist that isn't born out of cruelty, but he doesn't have to when Andrew is so very present all of the time, like the moon seen from a car window.
So he does as asked; maybe because it's been years since Neil's last hugged someone, or because of yesterday, or because of everything that's ever happened in human history up until now. Neil is lonely and inconsolable, as is everyone else, as has been every historical figure and every great leader, as will be every unborn child. Humans, still, stay right where creation has left them: naked and scared, unsure, looking around and wondering if everyone else is this lonely too.
Carefully, gently, Neil replies, "Yeah, sure," and leans over to try and envelop Kevin's back the way he's seen Andrew do earlier, leaving no spot vulnerable.
Up until now Kevin's response to being touched by Neil had been equal parts surprise and wariness, being one of the most reserved Monsters, but this morning seems to be an outlier, for Kevin's answering gesture is a tiny sigh and the complete relaxing of his body, leaning back against Neil. He is so warm from sleep, heavy and alive inside the circle of his arms, that Neil felt as if he were holding a man four times his size, infinite in a way only everything beautiful is.
Spurred on by Kevin's reaction, Neil buries his nose in the curve where neck meets shoulder, brushing ever so slightly against bare skin and feeling the ghost of a goosebump rise over Kevin. His skin is soft, dark, full of beauty marks and tiny, meaningless scars — it makes Neil want to drag his nose down the length of Kevin's neck, to bury in his skin and learn what he smells like under his products, but it isn't his place to do so yet.
Kevin sighs again, his head pending to the side sleepily and giving Neil more space to do as he pleases. Truly, no one has allowed Neil this much vulnerability before, and he cannot say he hasn't fallen prey to it — with one tilt of Kevin's neck, Neil is his, probably forever if Kevin wants him. Maybe even if he doesn't.
Andrew does not comment on their hug, nor does he look like the closeness bothers him — mostly, what he does is hold Neil's gaze with a kind of amusement to it, as if reminiscing all the times Neil had repeated Kevin wasn't his to want. His eyes aren't less than warm, and Neil almost thinks Andrew will reach out and touch them, but he ultimately returns to his task, leaving him to wonder what Andrew would have done were the three of them alone.
Neil lets his hands go limp, arms tightly wrapped around Kevin's middle, and feels himself getting sleepier by the moment. Last night's sweetness had been a product of the alcohol in his system, but this morning Kevin seems to be even more keen on it — he cuddles closer to Neil as if chasing for warmth, pushing back against his chest until Neil relents and tightens his hold. This isn't yesterday's pliance, but neither is it Kevin's usual prideful demeanor: mostly, it seems that what he wants is warmth and comfort. This Neil will give him a thousand times over if need be.
"Is this okay?" Neil ends up rasping out, buried in Kevin's neck. He is so deliciously warm — alive, really — in the November cold, packaged under a soft hoodie with a full belly, that Neil has half the mind to keep himself from burrowing impossibly closer, at once hypnotized by how easy it is to coach Kevin into affection.
Kevin's reply is an affirming hum, looking quite satisfied himself, and Neil's face grows a few shades warmer at the thought that the closeness is not only mutual but wanted; desired. He allows himself to cling to Kevin a bit more than he already has in the past, and feels more than sees Andrew's form approaching them, a fair distance kept due to the counter between him and Kevin.
"Enjoying yourself, Pinocchio?" He deadpans, though it does not come off as venomous the way Neil knows Andrew can be. It is not unkind.
Neil grunts his answer, hearing Kevin's corresponding humorous huff. A few beats pass before Andrew says something unintelligible under his breath, taking a walk around the corner to reach them and ever so abruptly touch Kevin's braid, fingers running through it and coming dangerously close to Neil's shoulder. Andrew hesitates slightly before actually grazing at it, fingertips delicately cascading down the fabric of Neil's shirt, and he's alive. For many a millenia Neil hasn't, but now he is. He is so very present .
Andrew's other hand sneaks up to cradle Kevin's cheek, the minutely shifting of his thumb against Neil's shoulder almost a caress, yet not quite. Even for something so brief, Neil is overwhelmed — they are both so close, so centered, and Andrew's face is nearing Kevin's like they might kiss right here, right now, and Neil is going to die. He's going to combust.
Because — for everyone who doesn't, Neil likes to think he knows Andrew. That he came close, that he is nearing Kevin's mouth like a hound, that his thumb is grazing Neil's shoulder this softly, is his way of telling Neil that he isn't opposed to this. That Neil is welcome there, a part of this even when he isn’t, and that Andrew wants him where he is now. Neil is unsure of what that might mean in the long run, but he can see the reassurance: stay. Please, stay. Not in so many words.
And it might be the cruelest thing of them all that Neil wants to so badly he might choke on it. He knows only Andrew's approval isn't enough, that while they are keeping a secret from Kevin they will never be anything, that Neil needs a yes from both of them, but it's — it's already so much more than what he ever had. Neil is dizzy with it.
Andrew stands on his tiptoes to steal a kiss from Kevin's mouth, like a souvenir. Neil hadn't seen them kiss before, hadn't even thought of it, but the sight makes his knees shake, his abdomen contract: they look so good together. Kevin leans heavily against Andrew's hand on his cheek, closing his eyes with a small, overwhelmed sigh once Andrew parts.
This is the very end of their leash, Neil knows — it's everything Andrew can and is willing to give, but he wonders just how much Kevin wants.
“Too much,” Kevin softly croaks out to no one in particular, sandwiched between Andrew and Neil in a way he belatedly realizes cannot be comfortable. Even Neil, touch-starved and smitten as he may be, would not have enjoyed being in Kevin’s position — it’s too much attention at once, even more so for a man as selfish with his personal space as Kevin is.
Andrew shushes him by pushing Kevin’s bangs away from his eyes, stepping back to give him space so Neil doesn’t have to. It’s such a swift demonstration of consent: all that Kevin needed to do to ask for space was ask, and it was granted to him on no debt from Andrew’s part. Neil hadn’t grown up around enough healthy couples to recognize it in his past, but now he cannot help but amaze at them — it’d been so simple. A soft request was enough.
Neil finds himself thinking that Andrew may truly be the prince charming he looks like on the outside, even if a bit crooked to the left.
Kevin tilts his head towards Neil, not doing much aside from staring. It makes Neil wonder if Kevin also needs him to move, in which case he would without a fuss, but it’s not what he means: what Kevin ends up doing is twisting himself around enough to plant his lips against Neil’s forehead, as if noticing how moved he’d been just by Andrew’s respectful ways. Neil is sure he hadn’t been so obvious in his thoughts, but maybe Kevin just knew.
Either way, the kiss has him blinking and stumbling over himself, a rush of adrenaline coursing through him. “W—” he starts, but clams his mouth shut before it can fully come out.
Kevin turns back around as if nothing had happened, leaving Neil bright red and manic behind him. He knows Kevin must feel how quick the pitter patter of his heartbeat is against his back, but he doesn’t say anything. Kevin never says anything.
Later, when he is sitting around a full breakfast table with Nicky and Aaron, Neil cannot stop himself from repeating the moment in his head. Andrew’s departure, Kevin’s kiss, Andrew’s hand on his shoulder, Kevin’s neck under his mouth — feelings Neil hadn’t felt before, a certain kind of tickle at the back of his stomach he can’t put down. He hadn’t wanted anyone before them, at that moment: everyone Neil had thought pretty or attractive before paled in comparison. This is want, and it’s the first time Neil can see it clearly.
He doesn’t know what makes them different from the ones before. Kevin breaks his heart in all of the worst ways: with all that's been done to him, Neil knows there is no piece of him left to shatter. And yet, the hope — withstanding even in the face of unimaginable pain. Kevin had let go of his past with a grace hard to conceive, choosing to pull himself together by his softest bits, and such a revival hadn't come at the expense of the world. Through and through, Kevin has chosen to keep busy with survival, and he's done marvelously at it.
Neil cannot say he has ever let go of anything; not the way Kevin has. Everything, the good and the bad, he carries along — even when the weight is too heavy to bear and the roads too sinuous to fit. His past has created warfare with everyone he's ever met, but Kevin's is a badge of honor even when it is hidden. Though Neil might have believed it arrogance at first, now he knows what Kevin has is an otherworldly sense of self-worth, bigger than his head in all of the ways that make a man remember he is not the problem. It was admirable; it was beyond understanding. Kevin breathed fire in more ways than one.
What it is about Andrew, Neil might know. It wasn’t his callous words, or his end-all-be-all attitude — mostly, what Neil wants from him is this: the fact Andrew has him on his worst behavior, always. What he awakens in Neil is a passion years in the making, burnt twice but never erased, and it translates to want. Kevin may have made Neil soft, but the mere sight of Andrew is enough to make him wish for war, brazen and genuine. The contrast has him in pieces.
Neil hates them both so strongly it is love. They didn't just bring a torch to the dark corners of Neil's apathy — they lit the room.
“Aw,” Nicky says, elbowing Neil on his side and out of his head. “Don’t look so sad that Kevin and Andrew left you with us. I’m sure they’re coming back.”
They are, indeed, since all they’ve gone out to do was buy what Andrew needed for their Thanksgiving dinner, two days from now. Neil hasn’t necessarily been invited, but he hardly doubts they would — his presence is already assumed by now, no matter how much Neil had protested in the past that he has food at home. They know well enough Neil has no one else to spend Thanksgiving with, and no interest at all in celebrating the holidays.
“He’s not their dog,” Aaron informs from over his bowl of cereal, eyes bloodshot and half-closed. It’s mid-afternoon, the sun nearing its inevitable dawning, but he doesn’t seem to mind as he shoves too sugary cereal onto his mouth for his first meal of the day.
“I didn’t say that,” Nicky argues back, chewing on his own version of brunch: a tangerine and half a bar of chocolate. “He just looks like a kicked puppy when they leave.”
Neil frowns. “I do not.”
“No, you kind of do,” Aaron hums, switching teams all too easily, “though it’s not just you. I’m pretty sure I saw Kevin make moon eyes at your back last night.”
“Trick of the light,” Neil replies, unwilling to say anything else. Perhaps the news that Aaron and Kevin got along so well made him a bit self-conscious and a lot more possessive, but Neil cannot help himself: he’d never been granted any privacy in his life. At the very least, he’d like to keep what he feels for Kevin and Andrew to himself.
Aaron shrugs like he doesn’t care. Neil finds it unlikely that he doesn’t. He's about to let it drop altogether when they hear shuffling from the hallway separating Nicky's apartment from Andrew's, the tell-tale sign of Kevin's voice muffled under the sound of crinkling grocery bags.
"Back they are," Aaron says, half-mast eyes watching Neil with amusement. "How long until you go running after them?"
Nicky frowns. "Aaron, that's not funny."
Aaron is just as infuriating as Andrew, and Neil can see how their personalities merge and overlap in how they act — or have acted — towards him. It's mistrust, first and foremost: Neil is not näive enough to believe Aaron's sudden distaste for him is gratuitous. He has something — someone — Aaron loves in his palms, and Aaron will snap his neck before Neil ever thinks of dropping it.
It's another trial he must endure. Neil could not care for his approval if he tried, but he will need it, eventually.
Knuckles rasp on the door timely, and Andrew's voice calls from the hallway, "Come help with the groceries."
Neil moves towards the sound with calculated nonchalance, folding the sleeves of his sweater for the sake of doing as he was told. He finds them in the hallway with one too many bags in clutch, Kevin stubbornly carrying what seemed to be the entire grocery store in his arms.
"I don't need help," he mutters, sending Andrew a pointed look. His hair is still in the braid Neil made earlier, but there's a tiny make-shift bow at the end of it he doesn't remember having added. Perhaps Andrew had felt the need to contribute somehow.
The mental image of Andrew, bored in a grocery line, wrapping a bow to Kevin's braid with an improvised tie burns through Neil in a passion different to what he is used to: this time, he is fonder than ever. Not a brazen amber, but rather a warm reminder.
As it is, Andrew takes a few bags from Kevin and passes them to Neil without bothering to reply, the others already being carried to the kitchen by Aaron and Nicky's lended hands. Neil slows down to catch up with Kevin's steps, the long braid swinging left to right as he walks, and for a brave moment Neil could even dare to call this a companionable silence.
"You look sour," Kevin points out, voice deep and contained. This, Neil must say is unlike him — Kevin rarely ever seems to give much thought to his words.
"Aaron decided to try his hand at being Andrew today," Neil replies, nonchalant even if he felt anything but as their shoulders brushed together and the memory of Kevin's skin came swinging towards him.
Kevin hums in affirmative, then hesitates a step. "I thought…" he starts, "I thought it'd been what I asked you earlier. The hug." He falls off-track, standing tall and awkward in the middle of the hallway. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize it could be a breach of your boundaries."
"It wasn't," Neil answers, taken aback by such a seemingly unusual conclusion. "Why would you think that?"
Kevin shifts his weight. "You barely know me."
He blinks, surprised. "I know you."
"I mean, yes, but…" Kevin trails off like a man who holds a secret bigger than his body. He doesn't know that Neil knows — and that is the saddest thing of them all. "I guess I just didn't want to push myself onto you. Or your personal space."
" Push yourself onto me?" Neil repeats, baffled at Kevin's assumptions and poor at hiding it. He takes two large steps and fits himself right in front of Kevin, boxing him in even as he stands a full head smaller than he is. "Is that what you think that was?"
Kevin takes a step back, voice softening. "Maybe."
He has every reason to hesitate when Neil comes even closer — but he doesn't. The implied trust of it makes Neil want to double over.
"You're plain stupid if you believe it's the case," he puts down. Neil has never been one for pretty words, even if he knows Kevin, ever the poet, would like to hear them. Perhaps he'll save the romance for another time: now, he needs only to get his point across. "Touching you could never be…" Neil struggles for words. "Unwanted. Especially when I always want to."
Kevin blinks quietly, but doesn't look all that surprised. Good; Neil hadn't meant to make it a secret.
"You can," he murmurs at last. "I'm here now. You can touch. Will you?"
No, Neil wants to say, but that, too, would be a lie. His honesty is already fraught as it is, thread-bare, and the sliver of it he can give Kevin is perhaps the one thing that has kept them above water all this time.
So he touches him. It's brief, but firm; an oppressive type of attention Neil has picked up from Andrew unintentionally. He reaches up to hold Kevin's chin between his fingertips and thumbs at his cheek with his free hand, as if to leave a mark. Neil has never touched anyone like this — with such purpose and intent, that is, and in an area so vulnerable. Not for the first time, he doesn't have a clue of what he's doing.
Neil hasn't kissed anyone before; hasn't even thought of it outside of mindless wanders and the ever so natural curiosity as to what it might feel like. Truthfully, the few people he found himself wanting to kiss were hand-picked to meet expectations, and Neil's attraction to them had to be talked — or logically argued — into him.
This feels nothing like it. Kevin's mouth is soft and open and Neil's own lips tingle with need, a phantom weight pressed firmly against them as if to try and emulate what Kevin would feel like. It wasn't so much the act of doing it, but the reaction it would grant him: the way Kevin would look, embarrassed and clumsy, as Neil leant in and seized him by the mouth, like a fish caught by a hook.
"Too close," Kevin murmurs, a parallel to his plea for space earlier this morning, only now it is directed at Neil.
He swiftly takes a step back, leaving enough leg room for Kevin to dislodge his hand from his cheek if it came to it. Neil doesn't apologize, but Kevin doesn't look as if he was expecting him to.
There is a split moment in which Neil thinks Kevin will kiss — or punch — him. Neither happens; the weirdest thing is that Kevin smiles, all bright teeth, and it feels like a promise of next time.