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The weather is suitably tragic, strong wind and hammering rain against the windows. The only other noise is Neil’s deep, ragged breathing, drowned out by the cry of the wind.
It’s sometime around four in the morning. Andrew is tired, but hovering maddeningly on the line between sleep and consciousness. His rest has come in short bursts, paranoia and some alien type of grief tugging him out of sleep before he can let himself slip too deep.
In five hours, they will have to get up, put on formal clothing and stand solemnly by a coffin. Wymack wasn’t religious, but they will probably recite some kind of bullshit about how his spirit will pass on to the heavens and how he will find peace in the afterlife. Andrew doesn’t believe it, but he can dimly understand why somebody as grief-stricken as Matt or Dan or Kevin might need some fictitious tale to clutch.
However, he doesn’t. Coach Wymack is dead. That is it.
The news had been delivered by Renee. Her eyes glistened and her voice was steady, soothing - Neil had stared at her for a long time, eyes searching her face for any sign of a lie. When he didn’t find one, he choked out a weak, “Okay,” and shut the door in her face.
He turned back to Andrew, who had been standing behind him.
Andrew had caught Neil as his legs simply wouldn’t hold him any more.
They had fallen to the floor, entangled with each other. Neil had struggled with his emotions for a second, before finally giving in and crying. Andrew let him. He stroked firm hands through Neil’s hair and held him tightly to his chest, never wanting to release him.
Neil doesn’t cry . Andrew has seen him cry a total of three times, and two of those were a reflex of his body, a result of something colliding with his nose. But this news seemed to throw all of his sense out of the window. He sobbed into Andrew’s chest for twenty full minutes. It was ugly crying, the type which stained Andrew’s shirt with snot and tears.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was Neil.
Once he couldn’t cry anymore, Neil had just remained clutched close to Andrew. Andrew had let him. He never wanted to let Neil leave this embrace. The world treats him far too cruelly. He’d be much better off with Andrew forever, safe within his arms, secure in their own little bubble far away from the world. Words were on the tip of Andrew’s tongue, but he bit them back. Speaking would only have made things worse. All he did was press a firm hand to the back of Neil’s neck, like he does whenever Neil is spiralling into panic. It helped. Neil was able to breathe properly, and then they just went to the roof, where they sat back to back, the stars their only witness.
Andrew leaned his head back and turned his neck to kiss Neil’s cheek. Neil had leaned his head to meet Andrew’s, but otherwise said nothing. He didn’t smile. The frown seemed to be etched permanently onto his face.
Andrew just waited.
Eventually, hours later, Neil mustered the bravery to ring Matt. The conversation was jagged and Neil kept forgetting to reply, and eventually, Andrew took the phone and said, “He’ll talk to you later.” Neil wasn’t - and still isn’t - in any fit state to talk to people.
Neil had said something about how Dan and Renee have words prepared, but his words had been sort of slurred thanks to the copious amounts of liquor. Neil had tried to drown his sadness Kevin-style until he’d passed out on the bed, snoring loudly and clutching an empty can of beer like it was a lifeline.
Now, two weeks later, the news doesn’t feel like a knife twisting between his ribs.
Neil is asleep, but restlessly, his back pressed against Andrew’s front. Over the years, they have gotten slowly used to each other’s presence whilst sleeping. It helps if Neil falls asleep first and wakes up second. Andrew always has his back to the wall, facing the room, and Neil has to either be facing him or pressed close. It has happened once or twice where Andrew, out of reflex, has kicked out or shoved Neil out of bed. Obviously, being such a fucking martyr, Neil had apologised, even though it wasn’t his fault.
Andrew can’t sleep tonight, anyway. His brain is wired for constant alert, just in case Neil wakes up panicking and he has to be there to calm him down. Although their deal is officially over, Andrew will never stop protecting Neil - whether that means from the Moriyamas or his own caustic thoughts.
Neil is holding his arm unconsciously, keeping Andrew close. The grip is light and not at all restricting. Andrew presses his nose into Neil’s hair and sighs, the steady thump of Neil’s heartbeat against his palm.
Neil isn’t okay - not now. He will be, perhaps in a few weeks. But Wymack has always been Neil’s anchor, the thing which got him into the Foxes, the thing which guided him through vice-captaincy. If it weren’t for Wymack and his band of dysfunctional Exy players, where would Neil be? On the run? Or would he be dead by now, captured by Nathan’s men?
The thought is far too awful. Andrew imagines life without Neil’s presence, and comes up blank. There would be no life for him. He wouldn’t have continued into professional Exy without Neil. He wouldn’t have gotten cats if it weren’t for Neil. He probably would have lived a boring, drab existence until life got too boring or he perished of old age.
And without Wymack, where would Andrew be?
Andrew breathes in Neil’s scent some more, holding him closer. He is real. He is here. He is alive and breathing and maybe he’s not okay right now, but soon he will heal. Wounds heal over time.
Although Neil has tied a tie on multiple occasions, his hands are shaking far too much to do it this morning. To his credit, he tries. But on the fourth failure, Andrew feels it would be cruel to let Neil continue struggling. Andrew takes the tie with gentle hands, a strange mix of pity and annoyance stewing in his stomach. He secures it under Neil’s collar, stealing an extra moment to look him in the eyes. Neil’s eyes are sad and misty.
Andrew tugs Neil’s tie and Neil bends, indulging him in a chaste kiss.
Andrew doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. He holds out his hand. Neil takes it with barely a second of thought, sliding his fingers through Andrew’s, intertwining them so tightly that Andrew is sure they will never part after this.
Neil sucks in a shaky breath. “I’m ready.”
They hold hands all the way. They don’t stop holding hands, not even at the funeral, and not even on the drive home. Andrew thinks that if he let go, Neil would crumble. He’s lived through hell since he was born, the son of Nathan Wesninski and a victim of the Moriyama’s, but Wymack had been there for Neil since he joined the Foxes. Neil has lost people before, but never like this.
Everybody hugs Neil. Abby first, her arms tight and yet so gentle. Then the others, who pile onto Neil and hold him so tightly that it looks painful. Some say hello to Andrew, others - like Allison - spare him a simple nod. Kevin is the only one who doesn’t hug anybody. He stands by Abby’s side, looking like an empty shell of a human being, eyes rimmed red with previous tears.
“Are you gonna come back to Abby’s?” Dan asks. “We’re all staying tonight. Just, you know … for comfort.”
Neil looks to Andrew with tired eyes, then back to Dan. “Not tonight. I .. can’t.”
“Soon, then?”
“Oh, yeah,” Neil promises, but his voice is thin and weak. "Definitely.”
That’s the most he says for the whole service. For the rest of it, he stands eerily silent, eerily still. Andrew runs his thumb over Neil’s knuckles a few times and Neil weakly squeezes back, reassuring Andrew that he’s still mentally present and not lost in the darkness of his thoughts.
“Are you going to be okay?” Renee asks Andrew at some point, her voice hushed, eyes kind.
“I’ll be taking care of Neil for a long time,” Andrew answers, which wasn’t Renee’s question. He knows that. She doesn’t push it, though.
“I’m sorry,” she says, shooting him a smile. “We should meet up for coffee soon. I haven’t spoken to you in quite a long time.”
Andrew just nods his affirmation and gets back to watching Neil.
Andrew and Neil drive Abby and Kevin back to Abby’s house. Neither of them are in a fit state to drive. Kevin is ten times worse than Neil, and doesn’t bother putting on his seatbelt, sprawling across the backseat with a choked off sob and a plea of, “Take me home.”
(Abby makes him put his seatbelt on eventually.)
Neil reaches for the alcohol the second they open the door to their house. Andrew sits by his side, steadily sipping at whiskey. Neil curls up on the couch with King on his lap, stroking behind his ears and mumbling stupid shit to him. Andrew watches. He lets his expression slip into something affectionate, but rights himself when Neil meets his eyes and smiles.
It fades when he says, “Is Kevin going to be okay?”
“No,” Andrew says honestly, because he’s never been one for dodging the truth. “Not for a while.”
But none of them are. Neil will be numb with an undercurrent of grief for a long time. Kevin will need babysitting so he doesn’t end up dying of alcohol poisoning. Abby will need company. Dan and Matt and Allison and Renee all need each other. Even Aaron will need Katelyn for a while. Wymack gave them all a home, a team, a family.
Now he is gone.
Neil yawns. “Can we go to bed?”
If it was any other night, Andrew would cringe at the use of we . He’d probably tell Neil to go to bed himself and then follow up half an hour or so later. But tonight, Neil is going to be haunted by nightmares. Grief does strange things to him. He’ll dream of his mother or his father or Riko or something horrible, and the only thing which can comfort him is Andrew’s solid presence pressed against his back.
“Yeah,” Andrew says quietly. “We can.”