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“My head was warm, My skin was soaked, I called your name 'til the fever broke”
Harsh gasps filled the room, Neil’s breaths barely dragging air into the cavity that was his chest. His skin felt hot to the touch, memories of a car burner bringing chills to his body. He couldn’t remember where he was, but he did remember that somebody was supposed to be at his side, someone important to him- as likely as that was. It wasn’t his mother, he knew that much, car burners flitting away in the heat of a fire much hotter than the burners. Fire. His mother. Their car. Bones. He knew his mother was no longer with him, like she had been for so long, so who… Who was important to him, could keep him safe, could drag him out of the memories that pounded through his head like the death drums tolling his demise?
“Andrew,” Neil’s voice croaked, and he still couldn’t open his eyes, still couldn’t see anything even if he had. He was fading in and out of consciousness, barely able to keep his thoughts coherent. Who had he called for, again? Why was it so important for him to look for protection when death was calling for him? The glare of a cleaver cut through him, making it harder to breathe, a harsh cough startling the crater of his chest into movement. It was difficult to breathe, but wasn’t that normal for him?
“Andrew,” His voice was quiet, now, and he managed to pry his eyes open. Everything was fuzzy at the edges, and he couldn’t focus on anything as he blinked back whatever seemed to block his vision. A glimpse of blond hair and piercing eyes stayed within his reach, but his arms failed him now, he couldn’t reach for it no matter how hard he tried.
“Andrew,” The name was simply a sigh that tumbled from his lips, and Neil knew that this person was important, he couldn’t remember why he was, had his mother told him to find him? To find Andrew? Was Andrew supposed to protect him? From what?
“‘Drew,” His eyes slipped shut and he shuddered through the cold- was he in a snowstorm again? Or was it the rain? His clothes felt soaked, but he was warm. That was a sign of hypothermia.
Andrew….
“When I awoke, The moon still hung, The night so black that the darkness hummed”
Nathaniel saw the forest before his eyes were open. He laid on his back, staring at the treetops high above him, the canopy nearly blocking the full moon. He couldn’t move his limbs- had his father cut him to pieces? Was he dead? No, he could still breathe, his eyes moving to examine his surroundings.
It was difficult, at first, to move his arms to the point where he could sit up, dragging himself over to the trunk of a tree, using it to lean against. Nothing could attack him from behind, now, and he could afford to take a breather.
It wasn’t dark, not with the moonlight giving him enough light to see the clearing ahead of him. It was strange, he thought, not recognizing where he was. Nathaniel couldn’t remember how he got to where he was, examining himself for injuries.
There weren’t any, but that didn’t explain the spikes of pain he would occasionally feel in his chest, and it certainly didn’t explain how he could barely find any strength to stand.
“I raised myself, My legs were weak, I prayed my mind be good to me”
After a few minutes of waiting, he used the trunk of the musty-smelling tree to haul himself into a standing position. It was difficult, and his legs shook with his attempt, but Nathaniel eventually could stand without support. He needed to find out where he was, if his father was following him, where he could hide or run. He couldn’t stand his ground, he knew that with every fiber of his being, and yet, his mind begged him to stay, to at least try to be stronger than a rabbit.
He shook those thoughts away with a grimace. Nathaniel couldn’t afford those kinds of stupid ideas, those were for someone who had a death wish. He didn’t know how someone could die like that, and he wouldn’t start figuring out that when he was in the middle of an unfamiliar forest that could get him killed.
“An awful noise, Filled the air, I heard a scream in the woods somewhere”
He took a step forward, only to startle out of his skin when he heard a howl that shifted into a piercing scream, loud and far away. His heart hammered out of his chest, and he looked around, not knowing where the scream was coming from or what had made it. Nathaniel wasn’t the kind of person who could be curious, his life worth more to him than whatever could have been making that noise.
And yet, it happened again, a scream that melted into such a familiar noise that Nathaniel couldn’t ignore, his pulse racing under the fabric of his pitch dark shirt. The moon filtered through the forest, lighting the clearing ahead of him and the paths that led out of the clearing. Nathaniel couldn’t ignore the scream, and so his feet dragged him towards the noise, out of the clearing.
“A woman's voice!, I quickly ran, Into the trees with empty hands”
“Chris! What are you doing?!” Nathaniel jumped at the sound of his mother’s scolding tone, turning to see Mary glaring at him with enough strength that he felt the heat over his entire body. No, that wasn’t right. The heat wasn’t coming from her, it was coming from the car that had flames flickering out of the doors, the vinyl seats crackling in the fire.
“I thought I taught you better than this, Stefan.” His mother’s voice was fire, growing more and more distorted the longer she spoke. Nathaniel was terrified, not knowing what to do- but of course, he did. It was what he always did, and when his mother’s face began to melt into the flames, he turned and ran, jumping over logs and dodging the branches that began to appear through his path, never becoming out of breath.
His vision blurred at the edges, but he couldn’t stop, his fingers trembling as he kept them close to his chest, trying to run away, always feeling the heat of the fire as if it were inside of him.
“Neil.” He froze, knowing that voice, knowing he was safe near it, knowing that he would always be protected- and yet.
“A fox it was, He shook, afraid, I spoke no words, no sound he made”
It was Andrew who had gotten him to stop running, the voice that showed none of his emotions, and yet something was so wrong about it that Nathaniel couldn’t stop his heart’s rapid beats. His eyes found the hazel spotlights that seemed lit even in the darkness of the night, but as Nathaniel’s eyes looked further, he saw the injuries that littered his face, his arms, the blood dripping from his temple.
Andrew didn’t speak, his eyes staring a hole through Nathaniel’s chest, his gaze empty and mocking. Nathaniel fell to his knees, a sob wrenching through the hole in his chest, almost crawling over to the broken mess that was his protector, knowing that every injury, seen or not, was his own fault.
“His bone exposed, His hind was lame, I raised a stone to end his pain”
Nathaniel’s gaze eventually fell to the bones at Andrew’s neck, seeing how they stuck out unnaturally, choking Andrew’s throat with the mass amount of blood that was pooling there. Andrew couldn’t speak, only harsh, wet, drags of air that never seemed to help. He was in pain, and there was a knife in Nathaniel’s hand, never falling no matter how many times he tried to drop it.
Andrew nodded to him, giving him permission, his gaze never leaving Nathaniel’s eyes, even as he cut the pain away, ending his life in the painless way he knew. Sobs wracked Nathaniel’s chest as he watched the body of the man he loved most slump to the ground, into his arms. Andrew’s legs were shattered like glass, bones sticking out of them as if it were a child’s failed attempt at pottery.
“What caused the wound?”
Nathaniel couldn’t think straight- he knew he needed to run, to escape whatever had caused this. If it had killed Andrew, what could it do to Nathaniel? Nothing should have killed Andrew, he was… he was invincible, wasn’t he? He had to be, there was nothing that could kill him and yet there he laid, cradled in his arms as if he was just asleep.
Nathaniel wished he was just asleep, but he knew better than to wish for something he’d never have. Andrew had always been there for him, and yet every time he needed Nathaniel, he was gone. When Drake had attacked, when Proust had taken advantage of Andrew, when Riko would spit venomous words- Nathaniel was never there to protect him. He had failed, at the very moments that Andrew had needed him the most. He was nothing.
“How large the teeth?”
Cuts littered Andrew’s features, and he knew that the blades that had done this much damage were large, and not Andrew’s own. Andrew wasn’t carrying his blades with him, his armbands missing from his usual appearance. Nathaniel almost considered looking for them, but he realized that he should be searching for an escape. He stood, leaving Andrew’s mangled body where it lay. Tears ran down his cheeks, his hands shaking with the adrenaline that raced through them, blood- Andrew’s blood - still covering them and making them slick to touch.
“I saw new eyes were watching me”
The hairs on the back of Nathaniel’s neck stood with acute senses- he felt the stare of the threat burn through him, hotter than the fire that had burnt his mother to bones. He knew the hateful stare as if it were his own- and in some ways, it was. His father’s traits were passed down to him with ease, and that was the only reason he was able to return the glare with his own of equal strength.
“I would say I’m surprised, Junior, but you’re just as blood-thirsty as I am.” Nathan’s laugh boomed through the woods as if it were a cannon, and Nathaniel could only do so much to hide his flinch. His father’s eyes flickered to the corpse of his lover, and it lit with pride and envy.
“You got my kill, Junior, aren’t you going to apologize? I was looking forward to delivering the finishing blow.” His father’s words were mocking, and Nathaniel felt a hole where his heart used to be. This was his father’s fault. Andrew was dead because-... no, Nathaniel had dealt the finishing blow. Nathan was right, on that aspect at least. Nathan had only tortured Andrew to the point where Nathaniel had to put him out of his misery, to save him from all the pain he felt.
“You sick fuck.” Nathaniel grit out, glaring at his own father, seeing the cleaver at his side. Nathan only laughed, the sound like lightning now- or maybe it was, considering the sheets of rain that seemed to be pouring through the canopy of trees.
“The creature lunged, I turned and ran, To save a life I didn't have”
And then his father attacked, racing towards him with uncanny speed. Nathaniel didn’t know what to do, he didn’t want to leave Andrew’s body there, broken on the forest floor, and yet he couldn’t die alongside him. He turned with a muffled sob, running as fast as he could through the trees. He couldn’t die. Not before he was able to put Andrew to rest, to give him a grave that he deserved.
It may have been Nathaniel who killed him, but he still loved him. He couldn’t die before the others knew about what had happened.
“Deer in the chase, There as I flew, Forgot all prayers of joining you”
His feet squelched in the mud, the rain and the trees and the wet ground slowing him down- it showed no sign of slowing Nathan, who stayed on his tail. Nathaniel was more than scared- he was trembling, adrenaline making him run even faster to escape the death that was on his heels. He continued to run, never stopping, never taking a break, running as far as he was able to. The forest showed no sign of stopping, the rain showed no mercy, and his father never stopped running after him, murder in his eyes. In his blood. In the grin of his mouth, the same one that seemed to fill Nathaniel’s own.
Nathaniel knew he would never escape. Not now, and not ever. He didn’t believe in a god, and yet he sent a prayer- an apology, to Andrew, to the Foxes, to those who had kept him safe before. He would not be escaping the forest with his life still intact.
“I’m sorry, Andrew. I love you.”
“I clutched my life, And wished it kept”
He fell to the ground as a root tripped him, sobs escaping his chest one by one by one. He tried to crawl away, begging for his life from a man that showed no mercy. This was it, Nathaniel thought, his eyes shutting as he felt the familiar burn of the cleaver leaving cuts over his already scarred body. This was how everything ran, and for everything he wished, his own life was not one of them. He wished that Andrew would still be alive, that he would be safe and with the Foxes. He wished that Andrew would have been able to move on from his death, or that they would be reunited in the afterlife together, whatever that was.
He wished, and he wished, and maybe that was what caused his eyes to open after death.
“My dearest love, I'm not done yet”
He sat up, lungs heaving as he drew breath after breath into the emptiness of his chest, his eyes frantic as he took in the room around him. It wasn’t the forest, it wasn’t raining, and his father was nowhere to be found. A flash of hazel punched the breath out of him, and Neil couldn’t stop shaking, not even when he recognized the familiar weight on his neck.
“Andrew-” Sobs were muffled as he pulled himself into the body that seemed so warm for a dead person, that felt alive against his own. Neil couldn’t look at Andrew’s corpse again, he wouldn’t be able to take it, but something was different, his mind tried to reason with him. This wasn’t Andrew’s corpse, not if it was drawing in breaths next to him, not when it was murmuring soft assurances and repeating where Neil was, who he was.
This wasn’t Andrew’s corpse, because Andrew was holding him, fully alive, not injured in the slightest. It took seconds that turned into minutes that felt like hours for Neil to calm down to the point where he wrenched himself away to stare at Andrew through the blurred focus of tears, not knowing if this was real or if it was some kind of limbo.
“You’re alive,” Neil’s voice cracked halfway through the words, his gaze falling to Andrew’s unmarked neck, hand moving to touch where he had cut it. Nothing. There was nothing there, not blood, not bones, nothing that signaled that Andrew had ever been hurt in the first place.
“It was a nightmare,” Andrew spoke, hesitating until Neil gave a shallow nod as permission, and lifted Neil’s chin up so that they could see eye-to-eye. It was a gentle assurance now, one that broke through Neil’s hysterics. They were okay. They would always be okay. Nathan was dead, Riko was dead, and Andrew was still at his side.
“How many years, I know I'll bear, I found something in the woods somewhere”
“Thank you.” Neil spoke, voice soft as he curled against Andrew’s warmth, holding his hand to remind himself that he was truly alive. His gaze flickered around the room, seeing the tissues and fever medicines that laid scattered on the nightstand, the damp-looking clothes that sat in the corner of the room, the computer that took up space on the other side of the bed that played soft music and showed what to do for a high fever, besides going to the hospital.
Andrew was alive, and he was taking care of Neil in the only ways he knew how. Neil stayed by his side, dragging in breath after breath as he stared at him, taking in the features of an unharmed Andrew, replacing the morbid thoughts in his head with Andrew’s soft voice of concern.
“Shut up, rabbit.”