Chapter Text
The best part about working at the Foxhole is being paid in alcohol. Andrew gets off at three tonight, and he fully plans on passing out with a bottle of vodka shortly afterwards.
He doesn't miss the stupid court-ordered drugs, but the blankness they settled onto him doesn't come easy now. Alcohol dulls him too much, sharpens the knife sometimes.
He craves it—the luxury of not caring about anything, of not being phased, ever. Andrew thinks about that time as little as he can. He thinks about it all the time.
The worst part about working at the Foxhole is the owner's freakish obsession with exy. Accordingly, it's packed tonight. The city's team is playing a home game so . Usually, he manages to avoid shifts on exy nights. Bad enough it's the Raiders. A home game will stretch the limits of his patience to dangerous extremes.
God, Andrew fucking hates exy.
People swarm the bar, yelling orders. Overheard, tiny figures zoom across the TV mounted on the wall. "Wexley makes a pass to Berger, just manages before, oof, a nasty check from Yates!" A commentator exclaims, her voice reaching every corner of the cluttered space.
Andrew frowns. He slaps the cap onto the shaker and raises it, mixing vigorously. He pours the daiquiri into an empty glass, shoves it onto the bar roughly, and starts on the next drink.
It wobbles for a moment, threatening to tip over, but Andrew doesn't stabilize it. Part of him wants it to smash against the floor, sending slush and shards spraying across the slick surface. The rest of him doesn't care much either way.
He watches as the glass twirls out of a final revolution and settles onto its base.
Andrew sighs. Pity.
"...Berger attempts a shot on goal but it goes wide," the announcer says. "Berger checked by Thom, quite an unreasonable maneuver, ah yes, there we go, the Raiders lose possession, reset to first court." A loud chorus of boos.
With their beloved team's setback comes a fresh wave of drink requests.
When he resurfaces, Andrew tries very hard to absorb the noise of the drunk idiots around him instead of the commentary drifting from above. It's basically impossible, but he tries. He listens to one girl describe her latest fight with her boyfriend (it's apparently dreadfully awful and he's, like, emotionally abusive). He pops an extra maraschino cherry into her drink idly.
He's making yet another round of cocktails for the party of women who've had too much already (but won't admit it) when it happens.
"Berger passes to Josten!" The other commentator says, his voice rising with barely suppressed excitement.
Andrew freezes. It's a nasty jolt every time, to hear that name, even though it's no surprise. Still. His grip on the shaker gets a little tenuous, but he holds on, shaking it close to his ear, but nothing drowns out the commentator's next sentence, which he roars. It's impossible to miss.
"Josten squeezes past Langley, tricky shot there, bounces it off the wall and...and it's in! The ball flies right between Wade's legs before he can react and it's a goal for the Cardinals, who lead three to two in this heated match with forty seconds left on the clock."
The bar erupts in outrage.
The orders arrive in a deluge, faster than ever as people drown their disappointment in alcohol, but Andrew's stopped moving. His ears roar with the din of the bar. His mouth tastes inexplicably sour.
It would be his team tonight, it would be his goal, it would be Josten's goal.
—
"I've never belonged to anyone before, but it's you. It's us." Neil ducks his head shyly, missing the blankness on Andrew's face. "We're meant for each other."
(We're meant for each other, aren't we, baby boy, just the two of us, come here, you're mine, you're mine, you belong to me)
"I am not yours, Neil Josten, and you are not mine. I am not anyone's anything," Andrew says slowly. This is the beginning of the end. This is the moment his world ends.
Neil frowns, caught between impatience and exhilaration. It makes him loud. It makes him blind. "What? This isn't possession, Andrew, this is something more. Can't you see it?"
(we're more than just soulmates aren't we, we're special. you were made for me. you're my perfect match. no one else would even look at you anyway)
Andrew wants to fucking die. He wants to shred the bracers off his arms, strip the flesh beneath, grind the bones under that into dust. It's a familiar feeling, an old friend.
"This—-no. No." He scrabbles at his arms but can't find purchase. The smooth black of his wraps mock him, they stretch on endlessly.
He stumbles backward wildly, looking away, looking anywhere other than that tiny patch of skin on Neil's chest, which is currently a sickly yellow. Like pus. Like venom, something awful and poisonous. Something that should be purged.
"No," he says, "No," jamming his feet into his shoes, coat clutched in his hand.
"Please," Neil says too loudly, confused, "I don't—-"
"Fuck off," Andrew says blindly, to the tall, grinning spectre superimposed over Neil. "Fuck you and fuck off."
Neil grabs him by the shoulder as he slams the door open. His grip isn't heavy, just enough pressure that it's there, but Andrew stills utterly. It's Neil's hand on his shoulder, warm and steady, but it's also not his hand, and that other, chilled, skeletal hand crushes the bones beneath it, grinds them to dust.
Andrew makes some sort of noise, some awful wounded thing caught between a sob and a scream. Instinctively, he rakes his fingers forward, connecting with something. The world is dark around the edges; he can barely think. He hears a sick crunch, a pained gasp, then Neil's hand drops away as if scalded and Andrew is stumbling out of his apartment and down the stairs and away and Neil does not come after him.
Andrew runs anyway, his shoes coming off halfway down the street. He runs until he can't feel his feet, until he trips over nothing and falls, bloodying his knees and palms, gagging until he vomits right onto the asphalt.
There is blood on his knuckles.
The air is cold and still. Andrew is alone, but he isn't. He feels the phantom hand on the nape of his neck, feels it sliding downwards. He heaves again, scrabbling uselessly at the road.
—
Andrew knows enough about professional Exy, had picked up enough by working in the Foxhole to know that there is only one Josten in the league, on the D.C Cardinals. And if the Cardinals are playing the Raiders tonight, then. Then.
Then Neil Josten is within ten miles of Andrew for the first time in two years.
The Foxhole isn't far from the stadium. Everything else about it sucks, but its location is prime, supposedly. Wymack claims it makes up for the shitty floorplan and utilities and expensive rent. Andrew hasn't felt numb since the last time he took a pill, but something of that familiar blankness descends again. It's a welcome sensation.
"Hey!" A voice barks, breaking through the fog. "What the fuck are you doing? We're swamped! Make some goddamn drinks!"
Andrew looks up. Seth, the other bartender, is glaring over.
"Right," Andrew says peaceably. "Will do."
Seth frowns, maybe at his easy acquiescence. Andrew does not care enough to speculate. "Whatever, freak," he mutters, turns back to his half-made mojito without another word.
Andrew looks down again. He's been cleaning an already clean glass for who knows how long. The game is over. Angry locals are rising and swarming the counter.
It's a little like being a small boat on an enormous, raging ocean, but Andrew can't seem to summon any emotion. He is pleasantly insulated, a blessing he doesn't prod further than receiving it.
He makes drinks smiling, hands them off smiling, and people frown and peer dubiously into their cups. Eventually, his side of the bar gets less crowded. Seth's side is worse than before. Andrew watches serenely and makes no offer to help.
—
He's thought the scenario through thousands of times. Different parameters. He goes, Neil comes. He's worked through thousands of behavioral patterns in his head. He could apologize, or beg, or any number of things. Neil might yell or curse or just not say anything at all. Andrew has never actually decided on what he'd do. He'd been so confident that Neil would never hunt him down, not after the way they'd left things. He hadn't accounted for this.
A stupid accident. Dumb luck. A stroke of fate. A cursed moment. Andrew can't quite decide.
"I'll have a Hell's Fury," says a familiar voice, low but pitched to carry in the din of the bar. The phrase hell is empty and all the demons are here pops unbidden into his head. Out of sight, his arm tingles.
I should have worked at the Raven's Cry after all, Andrew thinks absently as he takes in the glorious sight that is a damp haired Neil Josten, flush with victory. His eyes, half-lidded, watch Andrew carefully. He's leaning against the bar, his entire body relaxed. Too relaxed by far. He looks dangerous.
He looks delicious.
All that stands between them is two feet of wood.
"You may as well," Andrew says blankly, an empty smile on his lips. He wonders if he sounds winded. Neil has that sort of effect on people even if they're not—-. Even if they're not Andrew, who can't quite catch his breath. He rubs his right arm briefly and reaches backward without looking, closing his fingers around the bottle of black absinthe tucked in the back corner of the lowest shelf. In the year and a half he's worked here, it's never been poured. The surface is thick with dust. Probably because it's disgusting, and no one in their right mind wants any.
Andrew says as much.
Neil just smiles.
It's sort of devastating, but Andrew rolls his eyes instead. "Your funeral," he says.
Neil's smile only widens.
Fine, Andrew thinks darkly as he assembles the drink, your fucking funeral. He decants rum, cinnamon whiskey, and fucking Everclear into a container together (Neil is insane, Andrew thinks blankly. Something happened since...everything and now he's crazy). He adds the absinthe last.
Andrew raises his hands to shake the mixture, and Neil finally exhibits something other than the cheerful happiness he's wearing like an ill-fitting suit.
Andrew senses Neil's surprise without even looking: his arms are uncovered, and the knotted mass of scar tissue on his right arm tingles under the scrutiny. He ignores it, just shakes and shakes the mixer because his mind is blank, and he can't picture what will happen when he slides the drink across the bar in a moment or two. What if Neil takes it and leaves?
What if he takes it and stays?
But he can't shake the drink forever, so he finally pours it and sets it down between them.
"Congratulations. On the game. Earlier," Andrew says, going for offhanded and landing just south of that. He watches Neil pick up the glass too closely to persuade anyone of his indifference.
Neil looks at the opaque liquid within the shot, like if he stares long enough, it'll tell him a secret. "Coward," he remarks casually, still examining the glass. It's said in the same tone one might say thank you, or oops, or okay.
Andrew raises an eyebrow. "A harsh judgment, considering you haven't even tried it yet."
Neil snorts. He sets the drink down carelessly, sloshing more than half of it onto the already sticky wood.
"That's a forty dollar shot," Andrew points out.
"Oops," Neil says, like he means good or oh well instead. His grin is back. It's well constructed, but something about it rings hollow.
Andrew considers Neil for a moment.
"So," he says eventually, as the inky liquid spreads slowly. "First time in Seattle?"
Neil laughs at that, tipping his head back and exposing the long curve of his throat. The sight ensnares Andrew so completely that it isn't until Neil tucks his chin and sets his eyes on him that Andrew finally admits that Neil is utterly, incandescently, furious.
They are starting to attract attention. The Boar's Den is raucous and busy, but Neil scored the winning goal tonight in front of thousands, and probably thousands more on screens. The relative anonymity of being sans gear does not prevent him from being recognized for long. Andrew remembers how good Neil is at going unnoticed when he wants to be, but it's not without limits. Especially when his eyes are practically ablaze, glinting in the dim light.
"Had I known," Neil snarls, each word torn from his throat with great reluctance, "that you'd gone to ground here, I'd have come here much sooner."
Andrew considers what that might have been like. If Neil had shown up in the first six months of his time here when his arms soaked their bandages every few hours and his mind thrashed within vicious coils of jagged cable. Someone would probably have died, and it might even have been himself. Even without Neil's presence, he nearly managed it anyway. (There is blood on his knuckles, and this time it is his.)
He will never like his brother very much, but Aaron's intervention (dragging him, half-dead, to Bee and paying for his initial sessions) means Andrew loves him, at least a little, even when he hates him.
Bee loosened the coils, even shrunk a few, but they're still there. On his best days, Andrew is functional, a little worse than a man, whatever that means, but upright and alive, so. Other days, the scar tissue on his arm pulses, the cables surge and tear into his psyche, and he is little better than a beast.
"Probably best that you didn't," he eventually says, gifting Neil with a razor sharp smile of his own.
"Or maybe I wouldn't have," Neil continues, ignoring him, "considering the fact that you were pretty clear about your opinion. On how horrified you were with me being—-" He looks around.
Within earshot, people are beginning to stare. It's not more than a handful of people, but it's enough.
Neil scowls, ferociously. He produces two crisp twenties out of his pocket, plasters them precisely onto the sticky stain, and leaves.
Andrew will never admit this, but he watches him go. Neil walks with quiet lethality, cutting through the hostile crowd with ease. This is how Neil is on court, he knows, maneuvering past the opposing strikers, whirling past the backliners, and scoring before the goalie can react.
Andrew watches until the darkness outside of the doors swallow Neil. Then he picks up the remainder of Neil's untouched shot and downs it.
It tastes like shit.
Later, when Andrew is gulping vodka, the unpleasant bite of licorice and cinnamon overpowers everything else.