Chapter Text
It wasn’t often Neil found himself alone with Andrew, especially not since Andrew had graduated and left Neil to finish his last year at PSU. But they’d been so exhausted the night before that they’d fallen into bed the moment they dragged themselves up the cabin's wooden steps.
It was May. Neil had graduated two days before – walked across the stage at Palmetto State to collect his fake-diploma and finally, he wasn’t afraid to be seen. Finally, there wasn’t even a hint of the urge to run, not even under the scrutiny of hundreds of strangers eyes. Andrew had made the trip – his team having been booted out of the semi-finals. Matt’s team had lost their first death match weeks earlier so he and Dan had also driven down from Pittsburgh for the occasion. Kevin’s team had moved onto the finals so he’d been absent from the ceremony – but the older striker had been sure to call Neil and give him a congratulations speech that somehow rolled into a ‘don’t fuck this up, you are about to go pro so do not do anything stupid’ speech. Neil let him drone on for about ten minutes before he set the phone aside and let Kevin continue to harp on about whatever and eventually noticed he must have figured it out Neil was no longer listening since the call cut out at twelve minutes. It’s not like he wouldn’t be seeing Neil in just over a week anyways to berate him in person.
Somehow, it had all worked out so the original Foxes had planned a vacation to celebrate Neil’s graduation and acceptance to the Tidewater Egrets professional team. He had just over three weeks before he would leave for training. Which meant two of them would be spent vacationing with the Foxes and one blissful week would be spent alone with Andrew at his apartment in Atlanta before he had to drive to Virginia and get settled into his own place.
But he was pretty sure it wasn’t just his graduation they wanted to celebrate. Neil had been floundering the last few months of school, knowing the end of his life at PSU was approaching. He was happy to start his new life and to play exy with a new team – but there was something bittersweet about leaving the first place he’d ever known as home. The last couple months had been filled with dozens of skype calls and texts and he knew the Foxes could sense his anxiousness. This was their way of consoling him. They knew how much the Foxhole Court meant to Neil and knew leaving it would nearly kill him.
When the day finally came, Neil felt a sort of calm he was almost wary of. Andrew was there, along with Matt and Dan. Coach and Abby and even Bee were at his side. Abby even live-streamed the actual ceremony so the other Foxes could check-in. When he’d gone for his final run around campus that evening it eventually took Andrew showing up to drag him from the center of the court and back to their dorms so Neil could get a few hours of sleep before they left Fox Tower for the last time. But he’d gone to bed feeling at peace.
The next day had been split between visiting everyone at Abby's and packing up the rest of his belongings. That evening, he and Andrew had split everything between the Maserati and Neil’s new Audi – the most expensive thing he owned and something that nearly sent him into a panic attack when he thought about how much money he’d spent on it. He’d let Andrew pick it out over winter break since the goalkeeper had refused to ride in the Prius Neil had hinted he was buying. They pulled away from Perimeter road and headed northwest, towards the mountains, leaving the university in the rear-view.
Neil blinked awake the next day and immediately squinted at the light streaming through the floor to ceiling windows. In their haste to sleep the night before they had forgotten to draw the curtains. He could feel the heat of the sun streaming in and knew it was oppressively hot outside. He vaguely remembered something about a heat wave on the news.
Apparently, they also should have checked the thermostat when they’d arrived because the heat wasn’t much better in the house either. He noticed at some point in the night they’d kicked the sheets down to the foot of the bed and Andrew had discarded both his shirt and pajama pants and was now star-fishing across the bed, having relegated Neil to the outer most edge of the mattress. Neil smirked and watched him for a few moments before the weight of his stare must have woken the blond. Andrew’s lids fluttered open and he cut his eyes sideways at Neil, the blank expression he’d adopted during his sleep turning to a frown.
“Why is it a fucking furnace in here?”
“Maybe because you’re just so hot?” said Neil immediately, brain-to-mouth filter not quite awake yet. Not that it did him much good when it was.
Andrew’s head dropped to the side so he could fix Neil with his most unimpressed stare.
“Right,” said Neil, lip twitching even as he shook his head. “Forget I said that. Cold shower?”
They pulled themselves from the bed and Neil stripped the sheets since they were damp with sweat and tossed them in the corner. Once they had collected their things the pair navigated around each other in the large, attached bathroom. It would be hours before the others were due to arrive so they took their time.
After shaving, brushing their teeth, and taking turns relieving themselves – Andrew cut the shower on and made sure the water stayed a nice, cool temperature before stepping in. Suddenly the weather didn’t matter anymore, and Neil’s attention was narrowed down to the cool spray and pale expanse of Andrew’s bare skin, blue eyes tracking little rivers of water rolling down toned muscles. Andrew pulled Neil in behind him and pressed him against the wall until he was hot all over for an entirely different reason. Who needed the sun when you could make your own heat?