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When Andrew arrived, after his session with Bee, the dorm he shared with Neil and Kevin was still empty. He looked at his phone clock and sighed. The junkies were still at it, probably.
This year, his sessions with Bee were at a different time, making him miss the last hour of their evening Wednesday training. It was worth it, especially to evade Dan’s encouraging speeches, Kevin’s annoying ones and Neil’s optimistic looks when it was a specially good training (okay, maybe that last one was a lie, but still, there was something in a hopeful Neil that always did strange things to his insides).
Andrew wondered if he should go and rescue Neil, before he broke something…
There was a hitch on his fingers that wanted to touch skin that was not his own, that was covered in scars and freckles… especially after last night, when he had, not for the first time, a nightmare about Neil dying. As soon as Andrew entered her office, Bee had immediately realize that something was amiss with him, and with a detached voice, Andrew described the way Neil ended up injured in a car crash and how Andrew, useless and frozen, from the driver seat, saw the light disappear from his icy blue eyes. It was not the first nightmare of Neil dying, but it was the first one where there was no Moriyama or Butcher to blame. They had spoken about Andrew’s fear of solitude and abandonment, something that, after Baltimore, Andrew never thought about again in concern to Neil. It was worrying in a way, the way Neil Josten was rooted like a certainty in his mind and with each passing day in his body as well, how Andrew was letting Neil touch him more and more, recreating his limits, redrawing them…
(Neil actually did that, during the summer, while they were alone in Columbia, with an orange marker. Not only drawing lines, but coloring fox paws and band-aids all over Andrew’s arms. If, when they came back, anyone asked why Neil grinned every time he looked at Andrew’s covered arms, he would only shrug his shoulders and keep going his merry way.)
Bee had advised that when Andrew met with Neil again, after the session, they should talk about his fears, not letting them fester inside his brain. And he was ready to do just that, in the roof, with some cigarettes, a can of beer for him and some apple cider for Neil. The only thing missing was exactly the reason of his concern.
Andrew decided to make sure Neil was still in the court, by knocking on his cousin’s and brother’s dorm, just in case Matt Boyd decided to kidnap his so called best friend for one of his mindless games. When the only answer was silence, Andrew turned to Renee’s dorm and knocked, receiving the same response. He ignored the freshmen’s dorms, there was no way Neil would be caught alive in there. Taking his phone out of his pocket, Andrew decided to call Neil, even if he was almost sure that if they were still training he wouldn’t answer. But maybe they were finishing already or Kevin was giving one of his ass long boring speeches and Neil was dying of boredom.
The phone rang a few times and Andrew was getting ready to give up when, on the other side, a voice spoke.
Red flags appeared immediately in his mind.
It was Neil’s phone, Andrew checked again, but it was not Neil’s voice. It was Nicky’s. Now, since Baltimore, Neil never let his phone out of his reach except during games and training, he never lets anyone else answer it, and Nicky’s voice, instead of playful as it would be if he had stolen Neil’s phone while he was on the shower, was nervous and trembling. Andrew could hear a buzz of voices on the background.
“What the fuck happened to Neil?” Andrew asked, already fishing his car keys from his back pocket and running towards the exit.
“Shut up, Nicky!” Kevin’s voice was loud and clear on the other side and Andrew felt a different kind of hitch on his fingers. They could still remember how it felt to squeeze Kevin’s neck and Andrew wondered if a repeat of it would happen before the end of the day.
“We are at the hospital…” Nicky said, clearly ignoring Kevin and the other voices trying to order him around. “Neil is fi… I mean, okay… I think… We haven’t seen him, but he woke up when they took him out of the ambulance… that’s what the nurse said…”
With every word, Nicky’s voice became more nervous and Andrew’s driving more erratic. It was too similar to what happened last year. The distance, the unawareness, the emptiness inside his chest, the fear fear fear, beating in his heart. It was clear Nicky was trying to minimize the situation, but his cousin was never a good liar… And Andrew knew whatever happened, there was no Riko, no Nathan, no Lola, but there could be a car… Maybe Matt’s truck got in an accident or Nicky’s new car found its untimely defeat or Allison’s pink Porsche… Andrew had no idea which car Neil was in, or if there was a car involved, the only thing he knew was that, once again, he was away, unable of protecting Neil from whatever brought him pain.
“Was there a car accident?” Andrew asked, his voice cold and menacing and he heard Nicky squeal in fright.
“No, it was during training…”
“Don’t say anything else!”
Kevin once again warned Nicky and Andrew was sure that he was the guilty party behind the accident. His fingers turned white, squeezing the wheel with the wish to destroy something else.
“Tell Kevin to stay put.” Andrew said simply, before hanging up on Nicky.
The Maserati roared to life under Andrew’s foot on the accelerator and in half the time that it should have taken him, he was parking haphazardly in front of the hospital.
When Andrew crossed the emergency doors, Nicky and Aaron immediately jumped to their feet, with Kevin behind, Aaron acting like a buffer, while Nicky ran his mouth a mile a minute, explaining what happened.
“So, we were ready to end the practice, right? Because we were all tired and Jack was being his fucking asshole self and Neil was ready to punch him for the second time, the next time I have to make sure to record it… Anyway, but Kevin didn’t want to end the practice, he was all grumpy ass on us, but, and this is a mystery to everyone, Neil was having none of that, he wanted to leave as fast as me, and that is weird as hell…”
“It was his only fault! If he listened to…” but before Kevin could say anything else, and before Nicky or Aaron could move, Andrew was on his face, grabbing his shirt, and cutting his supply of oxygen. Kevin tried to pry him away, and Andrew felt the rest of his family surrounding him. However, only when Renee approached him and whispered on his ear a single four-letters name, did he drop Kevin against the wall. Behind the striker, Matt was on his feet, ready to intervene, while Dan had an exasperated expression and Allison an amused one.
Andrew let the decision of what to do with Kevin for a later time, when he knew everything about Neil’s condition, and rounded on Nicky again.
“So…” Nicky started, awkwardly, when his cousin glared at him. “Neil cursed at Kevin, took out his helmet, but at the same time, Kevin sent him the ball, probably to hit him on the helmet, I don't think Kevin really wanted to hit Neil's unprotected head. (Of course I didn't! Kevin bellowed.) But, Neil moved away, the ball rebounded on the wall and hit him on the temple. And he fell like a ton of bricks… But he totally woke up… the nurse said he asked about someone called Andrew…” and Nicky swooned and batted his eyelashes at his cousin.
Andrew ignored Nicky, decided to fulminate Kevin at a later time, scoffed at Aaron, and sat beside Renee in one of the plastic chairs.
“Where is Wymack?” he growled, and Renee sighed.
“He and Abby were talking to the doctor… he wanted to call the police when he saw Neil’s scars…” Renee’s dark look made it obvious the doctor didn’t mean only the ones in his face.
Andrew nodded and taking his lighter out started maneuvering it between his fingers. His mouth hitched for a smoke, but he didn’t want to leave the waiting room, in case some news about Neil came while he was away.
When Wymack finally appeared, with a tired Abby in tow, Andrew jumped to his feet and closed the distance between them with a lightning speed. He could hear Allison snickering on the background and Nicky making cooing noises, but if he wanted to know about Neil and not end the night in prison, he had to ignore those two and focus on his coach.
“He has a mild concussion, but he is alright.” Wymack, talking directly to Andrew, informed, and everyone sighed. Kevin’s pale face gained some color again. “You can go and see him, he is on room 405, but he will be discarded in a short time. They just wanted to take some exams to be sure everything was as it should be.” Andrew nodded at him, and walked towards the stair that would lead him to Neil’s room.
When he opened the door, Neil was already talking.
“Go away, I’m fine! I don’t need any pain… Oh! Andrew!” and Neil smiled fondly at Andrew, that rolled his eyes at his display of affection. “So, did you kill Kevin? Should I get a lawyer?” and Neil actually laughed at his stupid joke, while a huge bump could be seen on his head, purple all around it. Andrew gritted his teeth and sat next to him, on the bed.
“Is this going to become a normal thing?” he asked and Neil looked, confused, at him. “You, a hospital, me, trying to kill Kevin Day…” and this time it was Neil rolling his eyes, a painful gesture that made him grunt and hold his head.
“Do you want to lay down?” Neil asked, when the pain subsided and Andrew stopped glaring at him. “They are going to discard me in a little bit, they just want to make sure I don’t have amnesia or puke my guts out, but, I should warn you, that could happen when I get up, so maybe I should get a ride on someone else’s less precious car…” Andrew wanted to punch Neil, but choose to only squeeze his hospital clothes, after letting his body rest, next to Neil’s, on the bed. Over his dead body, would Neil Josten rid anyone else's car when Andrew was right there.
Neil let the silence overlap him and closed his eyes, his head resting against Andrew’s shoulder, after a quick confirmation of the gesture being accepted.
“Why did you want to leave practice so fast?” Andrew suddenly asked and Neil opened his eyes abruptly, blinking owlishly. It looked like his concussion was still roaring its ugly head.
“Hum…” Neil opened his mouth and closed it again. He sighed and then started talking. “I wanted to see you… I knew you had a nightmare, but I could see you didn’t want to talk about it before you saw Betsy… I knew you were supposed to get to the dorm shortly, so I wanted to be there… for you…” Neil confessed, playing with Andrew’s fingers while talking.
Andrew scoffed at his words and Neil looked up, to face him.
“Idiot…” Andrew whispered against Neil’s hair, and Neil smiled when he felt Andrew’s fingers envelop his own and squeeze, before his lips lingered next to his bump with a butterfly touch.