Chapter Text
The sun hung heavy in the sky and the rays fell through the branches around them like a cascade of golden light. There was a gilded edge to the leaves where the light caught them, highlighted veins, a bright summer green, stirring in the warm breeze. Andrew didn’t understand how the world could be so bright, radiant even, when night would call in an hour.
A raised hand in the corner of his vision caught Andrew’s attention like cotton snagged on a bush. Golden as the light with thin, nimble fingers and pale scars crisscrossing knuckles and circling a thin wrist. Neil held his hand above him, touching the streams of gold with his fingers, turning it this way and that. He wasn’t trying to block out the sun but he did just that, throwing long shadows across his face. He let his hand drop back across his stomach and Andrew was left staring at the dust motes and pollen swirling in the air like stars in a galaxy.
It was nearing the last days of summer vacation, and in a couple weeks, Andrew would be moving two hours away from Columbia to live in a college dorm. He was accepted into Palmetto State University on a scholarship, which was a surprise to some but not to the people who had ever seen him guard a goal. Andrew didn’t particularly care about Exy or college - his major seemed somewhat interesting at least, but he was unsure of what he could do with a degree in Criminology - but what really made Andrew stop and think, Am I really doing this? was Neil.
Neil still had his last year of high school to finish, and no matter how he denied it, a part of Andrew twinged at the thought of leaving his best friend behind. Attached at the hip, Nicky had said about them once, and while Neil was the easiest person in the world to be around, someone Andrew could rely on and trust, someone he could actually talk to, it wasn’t exactly right. They weren’t attached at the hip, there was no tether keeping them together. They just were.
But what if Andrew left and all of that changed?
Andrew didn’t like change. His childhood was full of change, going from foster home to foster home, passed around like a particularly unpleasant stray. He’s lived in Columbia for three years and has been friends with Neil for two, and to most that wasn’t a lot of time - but to him it was. He’d never had something so permanent before, and soon enough it was all going to change again.
Breathing out a sigh, Andrew reached for the bottle curled loosely in Neil’s fingers and brought to his lips. He tipped his head up so he wouldn’t slosh it all over himself and took two long sips of the wine, letting the sweetness settle low in his stomach, making the tips of his fingers feel tingly and numb. He handed the bottle back to Neil and watched as Neil drank from it, cheeks flushed, throat bobbing as he swallowed, lips already stained red. Andrew wondered if his lips looked the same.
They’d stolen the bottle from Neil’s uncle. It was expensive, but Andrew thought it tasted the same as the cheap stuff from the grocery store. Still, they were well on their way to drunk and the bottle was only about half empty. Neil had drank more than Andrew had, and he was already tipsy. Andrew could tell from the light dancing in his eyes as he lay on his back with his head pillowed on his arm, head tilted back to watch the dapples of light play out across the leaves above them.
Andrew wanted to kiss him, right there, while the light still lit his face and painted him in gold, while the curve of his lips held that soft, content smile of his. He thought about kissing those lips, tasting the wine they’d drunk and feeling the buzz in his veins of a high despite the alcohol in his blood. Andrew stopped that thought right there. He wouldn’t kiss Neil, not without an explicit yes untainted by alcohol. He wouldn’t kiss Neil now, maybe not ever because Neil didn’t like people that way. But, god did he ache with want.
Tearing his gaze away, Andrew rubbed his palms into his eyes until he saw lights bursting like fireworks, different from the sunshine around him. He willed his thoughts to stop, urged himself to stop thinking about Neil and kissing, but it was a gargantuan effort. He knew it was so hard because of the wine in his system, that he was perhaps a bit more drunk than he’d thought. Despite this, Andrew reached for the bottle and took another swig, trying and failing not to think about how Neil’s lips had touched the rim when he drank from it.
Andrew allowed a tiny lapse of self control and looked back at Neil. His eyes were closed, and the fringe of his auburn hair, bright and burnished in the sun, had fallen over his forehead. He still had that easy smile, and Andrew was looking at Neil’s lips again. Fuck.
He sat up, wobbling slightly as the blood and alcohol rushed to his head. Neil’s eyes drew up and he turned his head to look at Andrew. When he spoke, his words were slow but not quite slurred. “Are you leaving?”
Andrew had a sharp retort waiting on his tongue like he always did, but as soon as he looked down at Neil he forgot it. Whether it was from the alcohol or just Neil, stretched out in front of him, languid like a cat, Andrew couldn’t remember. There was a new softness to his expression, a look in his eyes, the way his features relaxed. Andrew had seen that look on Neil’s face only a couple times, more often recently, and it still made his stomach swallow itself whole.
He wasn’t thinking right, his thoughts dulled by the wine, and he was drunk, but Andrew dropped back down into the grass and leaves and faced Neil. Neil turned on his side, curling up on himself as he tended to do, and a honey-slow smile spread across his face as he met Andrew’s eyes.
“Why do you look at me like that?” The words were past Andrew’s wine-tinted lips before he could stop himself.
Neil tilted his head to the side. “Like what?”
“Like,” Andrew waggled his hand in front of Neil’s face “that.”
Neil sucked his bottom lip into his mouth as he thought and Andrew was proud of himself for keeping his eyes firmly on Neil’s. Although that wasn’t much better - the blue in Neil’s eyes swirled and swirled until Andrew thought he was going to drown in them. Unintentionally throwing Andrew a life raft, Neil said, “Tell me.”
For a second, Andrew thought Neil was toying with him, that he’d caught onto Andrew’s attraction to him and thought it as some sort of big joke. But Neil’s expression was open, and all the softness there was genuine and Andrew knew Neil would not do that to him.
Andrew lifted his hand and tapped a finger next to Neil’s eye before he could talk himself out of it. “There’s this light in your eyes here, and the corners crinkle like this when you’re happy,” he said. Andrew wouldn’t even have noticed the way Neil’s eyes and nose scrunched the tiniest bit if he weren’t already looking so closely. Following the line of Neil’s cheekbone, across the long scars he felt under his fingertips, Andrew rested his thumb by the corner of Neil’s lips. “Your lip quirks up like this and you have this soft smile, like you can’t stop yourself from looking at me like that.” Andrew traced his thumb across Neil’s lips. They were soft and pliant and Neil didn’t pull away. Andrew’s throat was dry but he didn’t want to reach for the wine again. “No one’s ever looked at me the way you do,” he said and let his hand drop away.
Neil’s eyes were so wide and so, so blue, but Andrew couldn’t look away. They were close enough that Andrew could see the freckles dusted across Neil’s face, he could count them, really.
“I must like you an awful lot, then,” Neil said, his eyelashes fluttering as his gaze dipped down, “if that’s how I look at you.”
Andrew’s breath hitched and his heart rate picked up. “Do you?” he whispered.
“I’ve never liked anyone the way I like you. I just thought.” Neil paused, eyes squeezing shut, shaking his head. “I don’t know what I thought.”
He opened his eyes and he was staring again. Something in Andrew trembled, like leaves rustling in the wind. Neil was drunk, he didn’t know what he was saying, he would regret it when he sobered up, Andrew should never have asked. Neil’s tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip and Andrew couldn’t take it anymore.
Sitting up, turning away from Neil and drawing his knees up and curling his arms around them, Andrew said, “I more than like you, Neil.”
He didn’t dare look at Neil and see the surprise spilling across his face, the regret pooling his eyes as he took back what he said. Andrew’s fingers tightened and it took everything he had to relax before they curled into fists and he collapsed in on himself. A small tug on his sleeve nearly made Andrew startle, but this was Neil and he made himself release the remaining tension in his body.
A brush of fingers along Andrew’s shoulder, never touching skin, always so careful. Neil leaned forward until he was in Andrew’s line of sight, his other hand braced in front of him so he wouldn’t topple over. There was a bit of leaf in his hair but he didn’t brush it away. “You should do something about it, then,” he said, because of course he would.
Andrew grit his teeth. “You’re drunk.”
“That doesn’t change how I feel,” Neil countered.
“You’ll regret it.”
“I don’t think I will.”
Andrew shot him a look. Neil smiled and twisted his body until he was sitting facing Andrew. “Kiss me?” he asked and the air in Andrew’s lungs got lost somewhere along the way. “Yes or no?”
“Not until we’re sober,” Andrew said. “Ask me again then.”
“Okay,” Neil said easily. He stood up, stumbling before he caught himself on the the tree. He laughed at his own clumsiness and leaned against the trunk.
“Your uncle’s going to be mad at you for stealing his wine,” Andrew said, grabbing the bottle.
Neil shrugged, unconcerned, and held out his hand to help Andrew up. “He’ll get over it.”
They walked home together, the sun setting behind their backs, and their fingers brushing the whole way.