Archive of Our Own

Over the last three years at PSU, Andrew had gotten used to a fairly consistent routine.

Mornings started at five in the morning with coffee and cigarettes before he had the shitty task of waking up the other three men in his dorm, which took about ten to thirty minutes because Kevin, as obsessed as he was with his stupid stickball game, was everything but a morning person. Getting Nicky out of bed also took several attempts and a kick in the stomach. Andrew had to admit that Aaron was the least bothersome to wake in the unit. After a quick breakfast, they drove to the stadium and had morning practice until eight, followed by classes, mid-day lunch depending on the weekday, and finally afternoon practice where he had to listen to Kevin’s usual whining. They had the rest of the evening to themselves, which Andrew mostly used for smoking, reading, doing something for classes if he cared enough, or watching the clouds pass in the sky. Then there were night practices with Kevin, and more cigarettes until he went to sleep again.

It was a tolerable routine. According to Bee, it was also good for him, and for the part of him, that was still battling with the lack of drugs in his system since last spring.

This routine didn’t waver or break that often because even life as a goalkeeper in a class I exy team or life with the prince of sport Kevin Day got predictable someday. That was, however, until Andrew got out of the convenience store one evening, heading for his car, where he ultimately made a discovery that was definitely not part of his routine.

A person was lying in the backseat.

He had not noticed them until he opened the door and saw how the light fell was all wrong. Andrew always parked in the same spot, and the moon always sent the same rays of light across the seats, and that dark heap of mass in the back of his car was not normal. And voila, when he opened it, a person was lying there, unmoving.

As Andrew’s hands instinctively went to his armband and the reassuring weight of the knives underneath, he considered his options. He could call the cops and let them deal with it. Feds made his skin crawl, though, and the whole ordeal seemed both boring and tiresome. The last thing Andrew wanted right now was talking to the pigs. He could leave this person to stay there and let Nicky experience the surprise of his life when he got them breakfast the next morning, but the prospect of driving to the dorms with a stranger at his back didn’t appeal to him at all, so Andrew had no choice but the most logical one. Wake them up.

If they were even alive, that is.

Upon closer inspection, Andrew deduced that yes, the man, who didn’t look to be much older or older than himself, was still alive because he was breathing, albeit ruggedly. Most probably due to the countless, fresh wounds that were covering his entire body. The one that stood out was his cheek, though, looking like a bleeding, burning mess. The stranger’s elbow didn’t look quite right either.

The stranger didn’t look in the condition to speak, but he was also lying and bleeding on Andrew’s cushions, so he didn’t mind poking him with a knife to wake him. It took more than one jab to make him stir, and when he did, he let out a broken sound, his lids flittering open and closed several times.

“If you’re not dying,” Andrew said, “I want you out of my car.”

The stranger’s head moved upwards a little, the gesture both pathetic and laughable before he collapsed back on himself. Andrew waited a moment before slowly lowering his head, just close enough to see if he was disobeying his request.

He was, but from the looks of it not for long.

With a sigh, Andrew had no choice but to fiddle out his phone and call the third number in his contact list. Instead of a greeting, he got a “This better be some kind emergency, dingbat, or else I don’t know why you would be calling me in your free time where we could both be doing much better things than listening to each other speak.”

Andrew looked at the body in his car. “Is a half living corpse in front of me an emergency?”

“What did you do, Andrew?”

“Open my car.”

“And then what, drive over someone with it? Who is it? They still breathing?”

The lack of trust in him was amusing, considering he had done nothing but play by the rules for the last few months—the usual escapades didn’t count because it wasn’t disobeying when everybody expected you to. Andrew only said, “Tell Abby I’m coming” before he hung up and got into the car.

Abby was already waiting for him when he pulled up in front of her house. To no one’s surprises, so was Coach, cradling a mug of coffee in his hands and an unhappy scowl on his face. Andrew got out, nodded his head at the backseat, and opened the door, not waiting for the two adults to catch up.

For a moment, he expected to be greeted with a lifeless body and the stench of death. Andrew wouldn’t have been surprised if the universe decided to dump a dead man on him as some sort of pointless message. But the man was still alive, and as on cue, he made another pitful sound just in time for Abby and Wymack to stop by his side.

“Explanation,” Coach said, gaze fixed on the body.

Andrew hated repeating himself, and in his opinion, there was nothing to elaborate on anymore. He had opened the door and found this—end of story. But for the sake of himself and getting this over with, he made himself say, “I was about to drive home and found him in the backseat. I came here.”

As Abby leaned down to inspect some of the wounds on his body, Wymack raised a brow at Andrew. “And you don’t know him? How did he get in the car?”

Giving him an answer would be as pointless as asking the stranger this question, so Andrew said nothing, and Coach accepted it without asking anything else, instead helping Abby get the kid out of the car and carry him inside.

Once they were inside and brought the stranger into Abby’s guest room downstairs—also used as the emergency room in this house—Andrew made himself his own mug of coffee, poured in a generous amount of sugar, and sat down on the couch to wait.

On his drive here, he had called Nicky to inform them about the situation, and why he would probably not be able to drive Kevin to their usual late-night practice. His cousin took that as an immediate invitation to Abby’s, meanwhile, Kevin sounded appalled at the prospect of missing out on practice. Andrew had hung up before either of them could say anything else.

Sure enough, Nicky, Kevin, and Aaron filtered through the doorways, not even an hour later. Andrew had not expected to see Matt and Dann on their toes, though it made sense because someone had to drive them here without Andrew’s car.

Nicky looked both worried and concerned as he plumped down on the floor in front of him and started talking about the lack of security on campus. Kevin just looked disgruntled, sitting next to him, and Aaron annoyed, most likely because he had to drive in the same car with the upper-classmen.

Thankfully, Coach made his way downstairs just in time so that Andrew didn’t have to speak more than necessary to any of the people here. He looked just as happy about the number of people in the living room as Andrew felt on the inside.

“I don’t remember sending out invitations for you lot to come here and have a tea party.”

“We’re here for moral support,” Nicky said with a half-apologetic shrug.

Dan and Matt came out of the kitchen. “It’s a team thing, Coach,” Dan offered. “So, what’s the status?”

“Whatever,” Wymack huffed. “Abby says he’s going to be fine, but he does have a crap ton of wounds and injuries on him that will probably take a while to heal. He looks like he escaped the set of Saw.”

“And who exactly is he?” Kevin asked, speaking for the first time this evening.

“His ID says Neil Josten. Seem familiar to anyone?” Nobody spoke. “No?” Coach’s gaze cut to Andrew. “So share some of your thinking process with us, Minyard. Why exactly did you call us instead of the cops?”

Andrew shrugged. “I hate the cops. Besides, you like lost causes.”

Wymack rolled his eyes but didn’t deny it, which proved his point more than any words could. The others went on to ask more mostly redundant questions, but Andrew tuned them out and disappeared into his own world of thoughts. He wondered what kind of person Neil Josten had to be to end up like that. Broken, scarred, and in a stranger’s car no less. Unless there was a second set of keys Andrew didn’t know about, he had to have lock-picked his way in somehow. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to let Andrew’s brain draw some conclusions on Neil Josten’s Persona.

He decided that he didn’t mind that his routine had wandered off course today.

They busied themselves with TV and their phones for the next few hours. Kevin pulled out a book next to him, Nicky rambled about his infuriating but hot economy prof to Aaron, Dan and Matt disappeared somewhere outside, and Andrew got lost in theories and equations.

When Abby announced she would take a nap to get through the night later, Nicky convinced them to sneak up and look at the mysterious stranger sleeping in the guest room. Quietly, Andrew followed them up the stairs, into the room until they were all gathered around the bed, staring.

Now that there was proper light in the room, and Neil Josten wasn’t slumped down on himself anymore, Andrew had the opportunity to see his actual face. He had auburn red hair that was sticking in all directions and tanned skin. A white bandage was covering the place where the cheek wound was. The rest of his body was tucked under a blanket, but Andrew assumed there were more bandages.

Nicky inspected his face before stating, “He looks cute.”

“He looks like he’s working out,” Kevin said. “Maybe he can play exy.”

“He looks like a homeless person that got into a fight over a beer,” Aaron lastly added.

Andrew ignored all of them and let his own gaze wander over the stranger lying in bed. He looked like a lot of things: haunted, broken, like a wounded animal, but most importantly, he looked interesting.

Or, maybe interesting was too strong of a word for someone or something that had yet to prove themselves to be anything but a broken heap of a human. However, it was different, a rip in the monotony that had established itself in his life over the past few years. And Andrew was so bored, he was willing to accept this scrap; however small it was. Maybe it would turn out to be interesting, after all.

Neil hadn’t felt the comfort of a proper bed in so long that his first instinct was to go back to the place he had just been in after the edges of consciousness started diving on him. The cold, familiar darkness. However, that only lasted for a few seconds before his brain caught up with his memories — Lola grinning, Nathan raising a blowtorch, bullets and blood, pain and exhaustion — and he jolted awake with his heart hammering.

He regretted it immediately because the sudden movement sent dizzying shocks of pain across his body, invading every cell and muscle.

“You owe me new leather seats,” a voice spoke next to him, and even though it should have been nearly impossible, Neil tensed up even more. He felt like a piece of meat shredded apart by jigsaw, held together by a few stitches and plasters.

But at last, he managed to turn his head enough to identify who was speaking. The man —guy— sat sideways in an armchair, feet dangling off the arms, blonde hair unkempt and messy on his head. He also didn’t look very old, which was a comfort at first—he probably wasn’t any of Nathan’s men that had survived the gunfire—but then made him sweat all over again. He was an utter stranger, and slowly Neil realized, that he was in a just as much in a stranger’s bed as in a stranger’s house, and everything really hurt.

“Where am I?”

The guy’s eyes twitched, but otherwise, his face remained expressionless. Neil was too out of it to read what that small movement meant. Instead, he looked further around, already counting all the ways he could escape.

Just in time, the single door in the room opened, and a woman, along with a man, both in their mid-forties, walked in. So shortly after his father, the sight of an older man made Neil flinch inwardly, but if anyone had noticed, no one commented on it.

“You’re awake,” the woman said. “That’s good. How are you feeling?”

“Where am I?” Neil asked again, trying and failing to sit up. “And who are you?”

“Well, that’s what we’d like to know too,” the older man said before looking at the blonde guy. “Andrew, already had the honors?”

Andrew shook his head, his eyes never leaving Neil.

“First, I’m Wymack. You can call me Coach. I don’t give a rat’s ass. This is Abby. She’s a nurse and the woman who saved your life. That,” he pointed at the guy in the chair, “is Andrew. Pain in the ass, but somehow also the other person who you can thank for still breathing right now. He was the one who found you half-dead in his car. Care to explain what you did there?”

Neil frowned. His memories were all over the place, but everything that had happened after he managed to escape the house that used to be his home, was especially foggy. He just knew that everything had been bleeding, his skin, his brain, his thoughts, and somehow he had dragged himself far away enough from the scene. And apparently, he had ended up in a car.

“I — I don’t remember.” Even admitting that he was so far gone that he didn’t know anymore made Neil’s insides twist. But what else was he supposed to say? That he used to break into cars and sleep there when he couldn’t find a place to rest? That was basically telling them about his life on the run. No.

The coach, or Wymack, as he called himself, sighed and scrubbed a hand across his jaw. “Then let’s start with the other elephant in the room. What happened to you, kid?”

Neil swallowed. Again, the truth was out of the question, so he said, “I got into a fight.”

For a few moments, the room lapsed into silence, which felt… awkward? A soft scoff made him look at Andrew as he asked, “With whom? Freddy Krueger?”

Neil blinked, and before he could stop himself, his hand reached up to his cheek, finding a bandage there. He could only imagine what it looked like underneath. The fact that the people in this room probably had seen it made him physically sick, and he had to look away to get himself to breathe. But the thought was already born, and he started feeling his torso for other bandages. There were—many of them.

“You undressed me,” he said, voice half a whisper as he fought the bile rising in his throat.

Abby’s mouth parted, and she took a step toward him, hands outstretched a little as if he was some kind of stray animal. “I had to bandage your wounds, you were bleeding —“

“You had no right,” he started but eventually just focused on his breathing. There was no point in throwing around accusations now. She was probably right in what she had done. Maybe he would have bled out if not for the bandages. But it didn’t make him feel any better about a stranger’s eyes seeing the map of scars that was his torso and the bloody story they told. Then again, most of his body looked like that now. His fingers flexed, and it felt like they were on fire. His hands were wrapped in bandages as well.

The weight of the mattress dipped as Abby sat down on the edge of it, giving him a tentative look. “It was just me. I had to dress your wounds, Neil, or else you could have caught a serious infection.”

“Yeah,” Neil said, pointedly avoiding her gaze, though. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Can we call anyone for you? Family members? Friends?”

“No.” There’s no one. Just him. “That’s alright.”

“Are you sure? Recovering from a trauma that deep —“

“Abby,” the boy called Andrew cut in. “He doesn’t have anyone.”

For a moment, Neil met his gaze and stared back into the abyss that he ever so often saw in his own reflection. Then Andrew blinked, and his expression turned back to nothing. Neil looked away.

“It doesn’t matter. I have to go again.” With that, he swung his legs out of bed, but he massively miscalculated the effort it would take on his upper body and head, wheezing for air and clarity as his fingers gripped the sheets. It only made the pain thicken.

The voices in the room blurred together into one noise until someone’s hand landed on his shoulder, steadying him.

“You can’t move like that. Your body’s not ready yet,” the nurse said.

“I can’t stay.” He really couldn’t. Wherever he was, he assumed it wasn’t that far away from his father’s grips, and even though he saw him die, that didn’t mean anything yet. For all he knew, these were his father’s subject, playing nice so that it would only hurt more later on. Neil had to keep moving, keep going. It’s what his mother had told him before she took her last breath, and it’s what Neil was going to do until he took his.

“You got somewhere to be?” Andrew asked although the flat tone in his voice made it hard to figure out if it was a question or an accusation.

Neil shot him a glare before asking, “Where am I?” for the third time.

“South Carolina, kid. As we said, that’s Abby, the team nurse for the Exy team of PSU. You’re in her house.”

“And you took me here... because I was in,” he nudged his head towards Andrew, “his car?”

“Yup. Passed out and on the brink of death.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?” Not that he would have wanted that, no, but it was still a rather unusual choice of action. Then again, these people didn’t seem like ordinary people either. Obviously, they were leading a different life than Neil—having a house, and a team was proof of that—but he sensed that they were somewhat off, as well. The wheels in his mind turned.

Andrew was the one to answer, as casual as always, “Something told me you wouldn’t have wanted that anyway.” Then his hand fiddled in his pocket before getting out a card—Neil’s, completely fake, ID card to be precise. The careful and triumphant way Andrew was holding it had Neil’s heart going past its speed limit again. Andrew knew. He had to see that it was fake somehow. Either he had experience with this sort of stuff, or he had looked through his duffel, his binder, and found out the old fashioned way.

Neil scowled, but to his surprise, Andrew didn’t say anything more. His fingers played with the ID card, tossing it around back and forth like a toy. The coach looked between the two of them, probably sensing the tension that had been snagged like a cord, but all he did was huff and shake his head.

Abby broke the silence. “You should get some more rest; your body needs to recover. Then we can talk again.”

That was their cue to leave. Abby and Wymack did, Andrew not so much. When he didn’t move an inch after they waited for him at the threshold for a few seconds, Neil heard something like a sigh and the sound of the door falling shut.

Neil lunged forward (and regretted it immediately.) “Give that to me.”

“Your fake ID?” Andrew didn’t bother to protect it, Neal was clearly too weak and out of reach to get his hands on it. “Who are you really, Neil Josten?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Seeing as you took a nap in my car, I disagree.”

“That was an accident. I was delirious, I didn’t know where I was going.” That was, at least, the truth.

“But you were conscious enough to break into it.”

Neil shrugged. He didn’t remember doing it, but he certainly wouldn’t put it past himself. Learning to pick locks was a necessity for a life on the run, especially after his mother had died and left him all on his own. When he couldn’t find a place to sleep, it always resorted to breaking into abandoned, shabby-looking cars or buildings. It made sense he had broken into one when he had been half out his mind and bleeding out, although Neil admitted he probably should have gone for another car.

“Interesting,” Andrew said.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry for causing any inconvenience, but I’ll be out of here soon anyway. As soon as I can walk, I’ll leave.”

“I can’t figure it out,” Andrew said, standing up and talking like Neil hadn’t even spoken. “For someone so scared of getting attention, you’re glowing like a neon sign.”

“Then don’t figure it out. Leave it be.”

“How boring,” Andrew said and, to Neil’s surprise, left the room.

He only had a few moments to fume over that pretentious asshole who felt the need to stick his nose into matters it didn’t belong. Then his exhaustion took over, and he passed out.

Neil Josten quickly turned from a break in monotony to suspicious after Andrew had a look at his ID, and the man blatantly refused to talk about what happened to him. It wasn’t like Andrew hadn’t been careful with assumptions from the beginning—it was never trusting first with him, but Neil’s strange behavior didn’t help. And with every minute that Andrew spent looking at his sleeping form, the fact that Neil ended up in his car seemed awfully convenient.

Not that Andrew was special enough to attract unwanted guests, no, but Kevin was.

It had been a while since that idiot Riko had tried anything, seemingly pretty content with having publicly obliterated the foxes in their match last fall. But who knew what kind of games he was still up to? Maybe Neil was just a piece of his board.

So Andrew helped himself to his precious duffel bag, which didn’t confirm or deny his suspicions, only made it clear that Neil was a man on the run with a fake identity. Of course, that could be a cover, too.

After a few hours, Nicky, Aaron, and Kevin made their way up again, whether it was to check on Andrew or bother Neil. As it was, they caught Neil as he had one of his clear moments, and he blinked at them in sleep-ridden confusion.

“Oh, honey, you look terrible,” Nicky said with a sad smile.

Aaron shook his head next to him. “You could at least try to be less gay around strangers.”

Usually, Nicky didn’t let Aaron’s mildly homophobic comments affect him, but today Andrew saw him bristle, narrowing his eyes at his cousin. “How was that me being gay? I was just emotional. Are you uncomfortable showing your emotions, Aaron?”

Aaron didn’t answer. Neil, however, spoke, staring at Kevin. “Are you Kevin Day?”

Kevin’s hooded gaze lit up at that. “Yes. Do you like Exy?”

“Um, I guess?”

“Do you play?”

“Not anymore.”

“But you did at some point?”

“It was just high school Exy. Nothing that matters now.”

“They,” Kevin waved his hand over Andrew, Aaron, and Nicky, “only played in high school, too, and now they’re in a class I team.”

“And look how well we’re doing,” Aaron muttered, which Andrew couldn’t help but agree with quietly.

Neil’s eyes narrowed, and he blinked several times before saying, “Wait a minute. The coach said we’re in South Carolina. You’re the foxes?”

“At last, he catches on,” Andrew said.

Kevin seemed even more delighted. Apparently, Neil knowing the foxes meant something, when in reality their team was actually more well known for their scandals and fucked up mess of a team, and how badly they got thrown out of the championship each year than any form of glory the spineless bastard hoped to get. Let Kevin his glee, though. He started his usual tirade on Exy, and Neil listened to him with a mild frown and only confused glances as replies until Abby stepped in the room and stopped Kevin from pestering him into a coma.

“Out, “she said, making shooing motions with her hands, “out with all of you. Neil needs to rest. “

“I’m fine, “not Neil Josten protested though and started sitting up in bed. “Actually, I’m good to go—“

That earned him skeptical glances from everyone in the room except Andrew, who only gazed at him in unimpressed silence. It wasn’t news to him that this little rabbit wanted to run. The real question was, why and what from. He supposed they could just let him go, even if it meant that he’d probably wind up dead at the side of the road soon enough. But that wasn’t any of their responsibility, was it? Then again, Neil was a mystery that would keep on nagging at Andrew if he just went off again without any real answers. That would be annoying. Andrew wasn’t willing to tolerate any kind of emotion except the occasional spike of fear when he was standing on the roof of their dorms.

Abby folded her arms over her chest with an indignant glare. “Then go ahead and stand up. See for yourself how fine you are. “

Neil shot her a scowl before swinging his legs over the bed, rising to his full height — which wasn’t much, only a few inches more than Andrew or Aaron — and nearly crashing into the nightstand next to him. His knees seemed to buckle under him, trembling, so Neil bore his nails into the wood of the stand as he tried to stand again.

Wymack had appeared somewhere during this pathetic excuse of performance. “You have a death wish or something? “

“I’m fine, “Neil insisted again. “I can stand. I can go. “

Abby shook her head. “You’ll collapse five minutes after leaving this house. “

Neil turned to them, all of them and swung one arm around. “So? What do you care? All of you? I’m not your fucking concern. “

“We’re just trying not to let you die, “Abby said in that soft motherly tone she sometimes used on the team. Pathetic.

“And I’d like to sleep at night without the knowledge that I let a half-dead zombie kid walk away, knowing full well he was going to bite the dust in the streets, thank you very much, “Wymack said.

“I don’t care about your conscience, “Neil spat, stumbling to his duffel bag and quickly going through it before hoisting it upon his shoulder—which made his gait even wobblier, “and you shouldn’t care about me. “

This time no one said anything as he stalked past them and down the stairs. Andrew saw Abby share a concerned look with Wymack before he heard raised voices downstairs and then the slam of the door.

Andrew would have rolled his eyes at the theatre if he cared, but since that wasn’t the case, not really, he went downstairs and ignored Nicky’s annoying wailing, or Wild and Boyd’s hissy fits as they went on and on about how it wasn’t ethical to let the charity case leave like that.

But who were they to tell a person what to do and not do?

Besides, Andrew was sure this little rabbit wouldn’t come far. Although he seemed to have experience with unconventional situations, he was also dead weight on his feet and ninety percent injuries. A stubborn spirit could only do so much with a broken body.

After stealing two muffins from Abby’s secret candy stash and inhaling them and tuning out everyone’s annoying voices around him, Andrew took his keys and set off to the door.

Nicky’s eyes grew wide as he followed him. “Where are you going? Are you going after Neil? It started raining, grab a jacket and—“

Andrew showed him his cigarette pack, which finally shut him up and then went out of the door. It was pouring, but Abby’s porch provided some protection even if it took him several tries to light his cigarette. He let his gaze wander across the empty streets before it settled on the bus station in the distance. Flicking his cigarette on the wet lawn, he started walking towards it, his pace slow. His jacket was waterproof, so the rain didn’t bother him, aside from plastering some of his bangs to his forehead.

Sure enough, Andrew spotted a form huddled in the corner. The small roof of the bus station didn’t do much to shield him from the rain. Neil was soaked.

Andrew stopped far away from him to appear non-threatening and lit another cigarette. Even with his suspicious identity and lies all written over his face, Andrew saw that at this moment, Neil wasn’t dangerous. He was a stray animal at his lowest moment.

It took several silent minutes for Neil to speak. “What do you want? “

“Nothing. “

“Then why are you here? “His voice sounded like rocks on paper. “Here to laugh at me? Or did your charity team convince you to save me? “

Andrew flicked his cigarette on the ground and lit another. “You’re confusing me for someone who cares. “

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t care, would you? “

“Curiosity and caring aren’t the same, rabbit, even if they start with the same letter. “

There was something like a sigh, but the pouring rain managed to muffle the sound. Andrew wasn’t looking at Neil. “So you want to know about me. About what happened to me. “

Andrew had already told him that there was nothing to want in his life, so he didn’t bother to correct him again and continued smoking in silence until Neil broke.

“I can’t say anything. Really. Can’t. Not unless I wanted to pull you people into a mess that could cost you… a lot. “

Finally, Andrew turned to look at this little fool who thought that drug addictions and poor attitude were the biggest problems the foxes ever had to face. But he was still a stranger and a liar and Kevin’s business with the Moriyamas wasn’t his story to tell.

Apparently feeling talkative all of a sudden, Neil continued. “All I can say is that I didn’t know whose car I was breaking into, ‚s just something I had to do over the last couple of years of my life. “

Ah, and there it was—a small speck of truth.

“You wouldn’t have to do it again, if you simply went inside and let them treat you until you can, at least, properly walk again. “

Neil glanced up at him at that, wary question marks written all over his face. “Cars are safer than a bunch of strangers. “

“They’re safe, “was all Andrew said before throwing his cigarette in Neil’s direction and setting off to the house. When he reached the door and paused longer than necessary at the porch, he didn’t bother to comment as Neil’s expected form appeared next to him.

Rabbits only could run so far with eight foxes in its surroundings.

(Andrew had to stop fucking using so many animal references.)

Neil couldn’t decide whether returning to the house had been a wise choice or not, although, in retrospect, it had been his only choice if he hadn’t wanted to die of both infected wounds and pneumonia. He was glad that the woman, Abby, and the man, Wymack, didn’t ask any more questions but opted to quietly nurse him back to health. Maybe they were used to accepting the no-questions rule with their ragtag of a team. As for the rest of them, there were a few distrustful comments that he pointedly shrugged off. And there was Kevin Day, of all people, ranting about exy to him as Abby cleaned the bandages on his face and hands. And Andrew, who said nothing but still managed to ruffle Neil’s composure the most.

Thankfully, nearly everyone had to leave after a day at the house, something about practice and college. It made sense, of course. These people lead normal lives, unlike whatever the hell Neil did for the last nineteen years. Abby was the only one who remained seeing as it was her house. She offered him food and water but otherwise left him alone in the room he had woken up.

When Neil wasn’t sleeping, he spent his time checking the news for anything about the butcher of Baltimore, or, more precisely, his death. He didn’t find anything, probably because South Carolina and Baltimore had a couple hundred miles between them. So he finally mustered the strength to ask Abby for a laptop that she quickly provided for him, and he indeed found what he was looking for on the first try.

04.05.2018 Nathan Wesninski, infamous Butcher of Baltimore, found dead after a fatal shootout in his own home…

His whole body sagged with relief. Neil had been there, had seen it with his own two eyes, but this confirmation, this evident proof made it more real. It hadn’t been a dream or a nightmare. Nathan Wesninski was dead. After ten years of pain and fear, after another dozen on the road, never safe, never still, after killing countless people and his own wife… he was finally dead.

It left Neil breathless with freedom, but also with the question of what to do now. Going to the cops wasn’t really an option, not with all the felonies he had committed over the years, not when he’d be forced to give up contacts and information that could leave him on the run again, this time from someone else. And he didn’t have anything other than Neil Josten and the high school diploma he somehow managed to get. Was college even possible, though? His father was dead, most of his people, too, but not all of them. Some of them had escaped and were still alive, and thus still able to hurt him. So no, normal life wasn’t in the cards for Neil. Not really. It only left him with the usual option to run. Maybe this time, it’d be less stressful, not as hectic as with his mom. Somehow the prospect of another dozen years of life on the road made him feel hollow inside.

He was tired. So tired.

Neil cursed himself for thinking like that. It wouldn’t be a perfect life, but at least he’d be alive.

His plans eventually wore him out. He fell into a fitful sleep full of dreams about burning beaches, his father’s icy eyes staring back at him, and cigarettes in the rain.

Neil woke up again to someone standing above him, his hands immediately shooting under the pillow for a gun that wasn’t there. Then the fog in his head cleared, and he recognized the person as Abby, who first frowned at him before her expression emptied into a weak smile.

“I was going to check on your bandages,” she told him. “Is that okay with you?”

He didn’t really have any other choice, did he? So Neil gave her a nod and started lifting his sweatshirt —that didn’t even belong to him—which made his throat clog with tension. Abby had already seen his scars, but he had been unconscious then. Now…

“Neil—” Abby started once it was off.

“No.” He didn’t let her say anything else. “I’m not going to talk about it.”

There was a moment of silence, a flutter of defiance, and worry in her eyes until it smoothed into a blank expression as she got to work. When they were done, wounds cleaned up and freshly bandaged, Abby stepped away from him which he was grateful for. He needed breathing space.

“You should let them air for a bit. No one’s here except us.”

Neil nodded his okay.

Abby moved to leave but stopped at the door, and he prepared himself to hear stupid pleas again. “I know we already tried to talk about it, but,” her fingers tightened on the doorframe, “is there really no one we can call?”

He gazed at her for a while before shrugging lightly. “No.” It wasn’t worth lying about, and at this point, they must have already figured that Neil was alone. “I don’t have anyone.”

“So stay here,” she was quick to suggest. “At least, for a while. Until you recover completely.”

“I thought you guys were a drop-in center for fucked up exy players, not random nobodies?”

“Whether you can play exy or not doesn’t mean you’re worth any less, Neil.”

“Actually, I can.” Abby frowned. “Play Exy,” Neil clarified but already regretted giving up that information at the smile spreading on her lips.

“Well, that’s only better, isn’t it?”

“That was back in school. Nothing serious.”

“Just think about it, Neil. Of course, we won’t force you, and you’ll be free to go if that’s what you like, but if not… you have a place to stay for now.”

Abby left, and Neil sat there, wondering whether that blind trust that he wouldn’t cause any trouble was a sign of stupid naivete or simply… a good heart. And that made him wonder about the Foxes. Maybe their lives and stories made Abby the way she was now.

Back in Millport, when he had been alone, Neil had still kept up with what was going on in the glorious world of exy. He had followed the lives and careers of stars like Riko Moriyama, Kevin Day, and Jeremy Knox. He had read about the skiing incident and had frowned at Kevin’s odd choice of college when he transferred and a little about the foxes’ special recruiting policies and troubled teammates.

So if he actually considered staying, he could look them up some more. Neil opened the laptop again and googled Palmetto State Foxes and got their line up as a result. Overall there were thirteen of them. Four strikers: Day, Seth Gordon, Stella Halloway, Jack Matheson. Three offensive dealers: Dan Wilds, Allison Reynolds, Christian Davis. Four backliners: Matt Boyd, Nicky Hemmick, Aaron Minyard, Shena Huston. And two goalies: Renee Walker and Andrew Minyard.

And that led him to google Andrew Minyard.

Neil could say that he had heard about the goalie before in some kind of sense, although he never had a face to fit to all the headlines and rumors surrounding him. Apparently, Andrew wasn’t very fond of paparazzi shots. What he did hear was a mix of violent psychopath, best but careless goalkeeper in the east district, and something about his strange relationship with Kevin Day.

Now, scrolling through the numerous articles and social media posts, Neil only got more confirmation that Andrew could become trouble — if he wasn’t already. He found out that Andrew had been on mania inducing medication for three years before he got off them last summer. Court prescribed medication that he had been forced to take because of an incident where he nearly beat several men to death when they wanted to harass his cousin Nicky Hemmick. (Neil couldn’t really say he blamed him.) There was a little more info about his life before: foster kid, somehow reunited with his twin brother Aaron when they were sixteen, biological mother died in a car accident a year later. Then there was an interesting article about Andrew being the first exy player to ever decline an offer from the Edgar Allen’s team, and more about his connection to Day, rumored to be the very reason why Day transferred to the Foxes in the end.

The Prince and the Pauper, they called the duo. Neil thought the tall exy junkie and the irritating midget was more accurate.

His research wore him down eventually, so he closed the laptop and let his exhaustion overtake him. The next time he woke up, he heard voices downstairs. Not voice, singular, but plural. His stomach lurched both with the prospect of seeing any of the team members again and hunger. Since he still couldn’t properly walk, though — partly because of his little break out attempt that had made ninety percent of his wounds bleed again — Neil stayed in bed and hoped nobody would bother him. Except for Abby, who was welcome to bring something to eat.

He had no such luck. Not even five minutes later, the door opened, Abby coming in with a tray — yes — and Andrew in tow, face as blank as always — no.

“I’m sorry,” Abby said as she set down the tray on the nightstand on Neil’s side, “I couldn’t stop him from following.”

“Don’t be rude. Neil is happy to see me. Aren’t you, Josten?”

“‘would be happier to see my mortician,” Neil grumbled.

Abby fussed a little over the bandage on his face and hands before leaving the room with a pointed look in Andrew’s direction who ignored her as he made himself comfortable in the armchair in the corner of the room.

Andrew didn’t say anything, so Neil didn’t either. He dug into his food, omelet with toast, and drank his earl gray tea in peaceful silence. Well, as peaceful as it could get with that damn goalie in his room.

(This — Abby’s room. Not his.)

Apparently, twenty minutes were all it took for Andrew to grow tired of his cold shoulder. “Talk,” he ordered, and Neil almost scoffed. Who was he to tell him what to do?

“Still not going to do that.”

“You said you weren’t here to hurt any of us. What’s the deal if you talk then?”

“Because first, it’s none of your goddamn business and two, because talking could hurt you. I’m trying to prevent that.” Neil placed his cup of tea on the counter with a bang. “And three, none of your fucking business.”

Neil didn’t know what his father’s death meant. Technically, freedom, but he knew better than to think such foolish things. No one in the world was ever free. And if he had learned something over the years, it was that silence was always better than talking.

“See, you think your silence is protection, but it’s not. I protect my people, but to do that, I need to know what from. So you should consider talking, after all, little rabbit, unless,” Andrew fished out Neil’s fake ID from his pocket, “you want the police to find these answers for me.”

Neil narrowed his eyes at him for a long moment. “You don’t seem like the type to go running to the cops.” Andrew’s face remained as empty as a blank sheet of paper. “Not when they were the ones to put you on that medication, huh? You don’t trust cops, same as me. I can see that.”

“Someone did his research.”

Neil shrugged.

Andrew put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “Since you’re so well informed on my past, you’ll have no trouble believing this. Abby trusts me. She trusts me enough to bring you your next cup of tea, and when I do that, I will put something in it that will make you talk. I will get the truth out of you that way.” Neil felt himself going cold. “Or you can spare us the drama and the tears and talk.” Andrew spared him one flat look before getting up. “It’s your choice, rabbit.”

Ironically enough, it left him with only one answer. Neil swallowed and spoke when Andrew’s hand was wrapped around the doorknob. “Fine.”

A few moments of silence passed before Andrew said, “You’re mistaking me for someone with patience.”

“Okay,” Neil muttered, frowning as he struggled to sit up and come to terms with the fact that he was about to tell a man he didn’t know, didn’t trust the story of his life. The secrecy had been a safety blanket around his body, and Andrew expected him to shrug it off without any hesitation whatsoever. “Fine,” he said again, mostly to himself. “I will tell you what you want to know.”

Andrew turned around and leaned against the door, his hands disappearing in the pockets of his sweatpants.

“Ask what you want to know.”

It was giving over the reins to Andrew, but that way, Neil could spare him the specific details. Maybe he would be satisfied with the general gist as well.

“Who did all that to you?” was the first question.

Neil took a breath. “My father.”

“Why?”

“For running away.”

“What happened to him?”

“He’s... dead now.”

Surprisingly enough, Andrew asked, “How did you recognize Kevin?” next, instead of pressing about his father, but maybe those three answers were more than enough.

Neil scowled a little. “Everyone that has even touched an exy stick knows Kevin. It’s hard not to. He’s famous.”

Andrew tilted his head. “You’re a stickball fan and knew Kevin. That’s it?”

“Yes,” Neil bit out, suppressing the urge to criticize calling exy stickball, coming from an exy professional player of all people, though it wasn’t hard to see Andrew wasn’t in the team for the fun of it. Actually, Neil couldn’t come up with any reason why Andrew would bother to play, but... that’s not any of his concern.

Finally, Andrew nodded and turned to leave again.

Just a nod.

“Wait,” Neil called, making Andrew pause again. “That’s it? You don’t want to know more?”

“I was never interested in hearing your sob story. I know you’re only prey and not the predator. That’s enough.”

“So that’s it? You’ll leave me alone?”

Andrew let out a soft, barely audible huff of breath. “As far as I’m concerned, you can do whatever you want. Stay. Leave.” He opened the door. “I have enough strays to take care of already.”

Once the door fell shut and a peaceful silence fell over the room, Neil felt himself breathe out... with relief? Because he finally told someone the truth, even if it was only a minimalistic version of it, or because Andrew got off his back, he didn’t know. All he knew was that Abby offered him to stay here until he got better, and for the first time in forever, Neil actually considered the option.

It was a strange feeling to have a choice.

It was a strange feeling to have shared his ugly past with someone.

It was a strange feeling to lie in a comfortable bed, drink tea as it rained outside, and dream about what it would be like to stay and heal.

But Neil thought that perhaps he liked it.