Work Text:
The first day Andrew met Neil Josten, he still went by Nathaniel and he was one of the most mysterious people Andrew had ever met.
They were in the same first grade class. People came and went to the school all the time, and if you didn’t join in the middle of the school year you were fortunate enough to not have your presence announced to everyone. Nathaniel hadn’t been in either Andrew or Aaron’s kindergarten class and seemed to just show up one day, for some reason grouped up with people like Kevin and Jean and Riko, which meant that he had to be mean. At least, that’s what Aaron said.
“Who would wanna be friends with them?” Aaron had complained to Nicky one night.
“Be nice,” Nicky had told them both. “It’s always a good idea to give people a chance. Maybe he’s friendly.”
“Doubt it,” Aaron had huffed.
And to be honest? Aaron had been right.
Andrew didn’t bother talking to him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Nathaniel, either. He was the first person Andrew had seen with red hair in his life, which he hated to admit to himself was cool in any way. Between them both it had been Aaron that was the first to try to talk, but he had quickly run to his friends and even Andrew to complain that Nathaniel was indeed the meanest kid he’d ever met. Nicky said that people are mean for a reason, and that you just had to figure out why and help them see what was wrong. Become their friend, basically.
But Nathaniel hung out with Riko’s friends, which meant that he was a lost cause.
That didn’t stop Andrew from looking at him. He knew he wasn’t being subtle, because he didn’t bother turning away when Nathaniel caught his gaze, but Andrew didn’t care what Nathaniel thought of him. He wasn’t looking for a friend, it was just that the kid was interesting.
Once, Nathaniel had passed him a note during their reading hour. Andrew had sat in one of the big bean-bag chairs and Nathaniel had been on the floor next to him, eyes on their teacher the entire time he passed the small piece of paper over. Andrew thought about not taking it for only a few seconds, but read the words in handwriting much neater than his own. It read: Get out of my school.
Andrew thought that was funny, because if anything it was his school first, so he didn’t bother replying then and there. He kept the note and didn’t show Nicky, because then they’d have to do a messy apology with parents involved, and it really wasn’t that big of a deal. He just dragged Kevin away from Riko’s circle while they transitioned from afternoon recess to math, deciding he needed to give Nathaniel something back.
“What’s Nathaniel’s favorite animal?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Kevin said, with that nervous tone he always had.
“Ask him for me,” Andrew basically ordered, going to his table.
Kevin may be timid but he wasn’t useless, since he actually managed to get an answer out of Nathaniel. Apparently his favorite animal was a fox, specifically orange ones. So the next time it rained, forcing everyone in the school to have indoor recess, Andrew had found a piece of paper and messily drew him a fox using the brightest orange crayon, writing in the neatest way he could, This was my school first. He then delivered it to Nathaniel himself, not bothering to stick around to see what he’d think afterwards.
But the next day there was no rain, so when they were outside on the playground Nathaniel had approached Andrew. He was sitting on one of the triceratops statues near the swings that other kids in his class usually used to pretend they were horseback riding, but this one was an ugly green so not many kids used it. Right behind Nathaniel was Riko’s group, and they were all talking loudly enough that Andrew could barely ignore them.
Nathaniel pulled himself up on the back of the triceratops and said loudly, “I’m not your friend anymore, Riko. Andrew’s my friend now.”
Riko didn’t look happy. Andrew was mostly confused, because the notes he and Nathaniel had shared weren’t exactly friendly, but he wasn’t going to push a kid off his triceratops. And if it made Riko mad, then Andrew was entertained. Barely a minute passed before they were left alone, Riko announcing loudly that he’d never be Nathaniel’s friend again.
“Good,” Nathaniel said, low enough that it was probably to himself, but Andrew had heard it anyway.
“I thought you wanted me to get out of your school,” Andrew said.
“Who cares?” Nathaniel asked, holding his chin in his hands as he slumped over. “I only hung out with Riko ‘cause our parents know each other. They expect us to be friends, or somethin’.”
“I don’t have any friends,” Andrew replied.
“What about Aaron?”
“He’s my brother, he doesn’t count.” Andrew glanced at where Riko was still fuming, almost smiling at the sight. “I don’t have friends ‘cause I don’t want any.”
“Well, I told Riko that you’re my friend,” Nathaniel huffed, turning on the triceratops’s back to face Andrew, who got a good view of his glare that looked much more like a pout. “So. Friends?”
Andrew hesitated. “What do friends do?”
“I don’t know,” Nathaniel said with a shrug. “We’ll figure it out together. Yes or no?”
“Okay,” Andrew said, shaking on it when Nathaniel asked.
They’d been as close to best friends as they could be, after that. Andrew was around every time Nathaniel had dyed his hair a different color and eventually tried going by different names, asking Andrew how he felt about the ones he was considering. He always said it was because he didn’t want to be ‘Nathaniel’ anymore, especially after his father got put away for good and his uncle took him in after his mother checked herself into some kind of mental institute. Andrew was always glad that Nicky had been around to take him and Aaron in, especially after seeing what his friend had gone through.
Their freshman year of high school, Nathaniel had officially gotten his name changed to ‘Neil Josten’ and he went back to the red hair, which Andrew was surprised to find he had missed. Neil joined the high school exy team and somehow managed to convince Andrew to try out as well. The only reason Andrew had agreed was because Neil was over at the time and said it in front of Nicky, who had been trying to encourage both of the twins to try more activities and meet more people. So, when Nicky wouldn’t stop asking, Andrew joined the team just to shut him up.
Apparently, he was really good at playing goalie. Renee Walker, the Fox’s current goalie, was more than willing to teach him everything she knew about the sport, and how to throw knives, so she was cool in Andrew’s book. The rest of the team was on thin fucking ice.
Their first two years were shaky, mostly because Riko was also playing and kept trying to act like the captain despite the fact that he wasn’t. But eventually there was some kind of clicking point when Kevin and Jean broke away from him, suddenly hanging around Neil’s group. Which included Andrew. And once Riko didn’t have anyone ‘willingly’ hanging around him anymore, he became so much easier to ignore.
Neil claims that’s why they were able to get to state in their junior year. They still had a long way to go, but that didn’t stop the school from celebrating, and the entire team as well. Neil invited them over to his uncle’s huge house for a party that Andrew suspected was actually Allison’s party, but miraculously the only ones to show up were the team(except for Riko, who hadn't been invited for obvious reasons). They gathered in the giant living room and took turns passing the remote around to play stupid videos on the giant TV, trying to talk, eat and drink the wine they stole from Stuart's cabinet all at the same time.
It was chaos, and Andrew was sure he would’ve left by now if he hadn’t had two glasses of the Sweet Riesling Kevin had found and told him he’d like. “‘Cause it’s sweet,” Kevin had said.
“I can guess,” Andrew had responded. He tried it and found it didn’t taste that bad. It wasn’t his first time drinking, but Nicky only kept one bottle of wine around for when his boyfriend, Erik, came over, and it was a bitter red wine. This was much better.
While they were tispy and and eating too much, some of the teammates ended up talking about relationships of all things. Andrew had half-heartedly paid attention to Allison wax poetry about Renee’s hair, Matt and Dan flirt as though they weren’t already in a relationship and his brother going on a rant about his girlfriend that nobody listened to. Andrew held his head up with one hand, eyes closed and leaning against the armrest of the huge couch because he was starting to feel sleepy and Neil’s body was warm against his side.
“What about you, Neil?” someone asked. Andrew was pretty sure it was Matt, but he didn’t want to open his eyes to confirm it.
“What about me?” Neil definitely sounded the most sober, probably because he hadn’t had anything to drink as far as Andrew knew.
“Who do you like?”
Neil snored. “Really? We’re doing a sleepover-style ‘who’s your crush?’ thing?”
“Yes,” Allison confirmed, sounding almost offended. It made Andrew crack his eyes open, glancing from her pout to Neil’s amused look. “So spill! Who’s your crush?”
“Nobody,” Neil replied.
“Nobody?” Allison gasped. Andrew looked around the room to ignore any pang he felt in his chest, suddenly noticing that everyone was paying attention to the conversation. “Seriously?”
“Nobody,” Neil repeated, bouncing one leg where it was crossed over the other.
“Wow,” she breathed.
“‘m jealous,” Kevin whined on Neil’s other side. “You don’t have to worry about impressing anyone. Ever.”
“I never do in the first place, Kev,” Neil teased. He grabbed Kevin’s glass when he nearly dropped it, putting it down on the coffee table. “Why is this big news to you guys?”
“I’ve just never met anyone who didn’t have a crush at the very least,” Allison mumbled.
“Same,” Dan put in.
Matt leaned forward to pat Neil’s shoulder. “Which isn’t anything bad, buddy!” He let out a loud laugh as though he was trying to get rid of some awkward air that wasn’t in the room, but that he created as a result. “But seriously. You’ve never thought about kissing anyone?”
“Well, now I am, ‘cause you guys are ganging up on me,” Neil complained, pushing Matt’s hand away.
“Who would you do it with, then?” Matt asked.
Neil glanced at Andrew, who could see the call for help in his eyes. Andrew reached for one of the knives that Renee totally didn’t give him for his sixteenth birthday. “You’re all so loud,” he groaned. “Next person that says anything is getting stabbed.”
His knives were taken away by either Neil or Renee, because he didn’t fight back and ended up falling asleep a few minutes later. The next morning he was still at Neil’s house, had a headache and dry throat, but nothing more than that. Nobody had moved him from the couch, but Andrew figured that was because everyone had fallen asleep somewhere in the living room. The only one that was missing was Neil, who ended up being in the kitchen trying to cook some food. Or succeeding, but Andrew wasn’t sure making toast counted as cooking.
“Morning, Sunshine,” Neil teased. He passed Andrew a glass of water he must’ve had ready for whenever someone woke up. Andrew took it and drank the whole thing. “You look amazing.”
Andrew gave him the middle finger and dropped the glass on the kitchen counter with a satisfying click. “Pacing is a thing,” Andrew said quietly, closing his eyes and massaging his temples.
“Well, duh,” Neil replied. He grabbed the now empty glass and refilled it, sliding it back towards Andrew. “You’d know that if you didn’t take drinking advice from Kevin of all people.”
“Fuck you,” Andrew groaned. “I didn’t take his advice. I just drank what he suggested.”
“Which is also a mistake.”
“Hrm.” Andrew straightened up and grabbed one of the slices of toast that had peanut butter on it, ripping it into pieces to eat. The peanut butter kept getting on his fingers so he kept licking it off, and it wasn’t until half the toast was gone that he realized Neil was leaning against the counter and just staring at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” Neil said quickly. Too quickly. “You have peanut butter on your nose,” he said, turning around and leaving the kitchen altogether.
Andrew frowned and reached up to wipe it off with his thumb. There wasn’t any there.
~*~
Andrew knew he liked boys because one day, after Kevin had left Riko’s group and started hanging out with everyone else, he’d realized that Kevin had gone through a growth spurt and - apparently - puberty. He hadn’t had too big of a freak out because by that point Nicky and Erik had been together for nearly two years, and Nicky had already given both twins the whole ‘I’ll love you no matter what you identify as’ speech, which had been nice but unnecessary. So, Andrew had someone he could go to for advice if he needed it.
He wondered now if the reason Nicky had given that speech in the first place was because he'd known Andrew was gay before Andrew had realized it. The moment he’d mentioned something about Neil that was just a little bit more than friendly, Nicky had been all over it, and Andrew was almost positive that his cousin-turned-guardian was planning their wedding already.
He was pretty sure the comment he made was when Neil had actually cleaned up for the homecoming dance their freshman year, and he was sure he'd said something like: “Well, who knew you could actually dress yourself?” And Andrew hadn’t been wrong , because Neil usually wore faded jeans and ripped sweaters with old stains. And more than once he'd added a pair of neon orange crocs he called his lucky pair, or something stupid. Andrew would've destroyed them by now if he knew it wouldn't make Neil upset. But the moment that comment had left his mouth, Nicky had asked to take a picture of everyone, snapping a few of Aaron and Katelyn because they were actually going together and then of Andrew and Neil, which Andrew knew was weird at the time.
But he was pretty sure he didn’t know he had any sort of crush at that point. When he looked back now, a full year after coming out and having Nicky and Erik’s ungodly amount of support, he could point out all the periods of time he thought Neil was attractive, all the way back to when he was staring in the first grade. It should’ve stuck out to him that he never wanted to hold a girl’s hand, like Aaron did, but that he wanted to reach out and hold someone like Neil’s instead.
Why couldn’t Neil have been my gay awakening? Andrew often asked himself. Kevin can never know.
He didn’t know what Kevin would do with that information, but it would be something.
Things had been a bit tense between Andrew and Neil for about a week now, which was bad because Neil was the only one that Andrew considered to be his friend, and it made practices so much more annoying. Neil wasn’t exactly avoiding him, but he wasn’t going out of his way to start conversations or simply hang around like usual. Andrew didn’t know what happened within a week for them to suddenly be like this, but he wanted things back to the way they were before. He figured the best way to do that would be to talk to Neil.
Andrew approached him after school on a Friday. They had no practice that night and a math test was coming up. Neil is good at math. “My place,” Andrew told him, pretty sure the glare he’d had since that morning wasn’t gone. “We’re studying for math.”
Neil had blinked once, then said, “Okay.”
They walked in tense silence to Andrew’s, because Nicky had bought a house only two blocks from the high school when they originally moved to town and there was no point to drive. Aaron would be out with Katelyn for the night and Nicky had a date with Erik, on which Erik planned to propose, so they’d most likely be alone until the next morning, giving Andrew and Neil plenty of time to talk.
They didn’t when they went inside, completely silent until they made it to Andrew’s room. Neil sat down on the floor near his bed, and Andrew at his desk, finding all the old homework he had for the math class just so that he wouldn’t have to look at Neil’s stupid face.
“Why are we studying?” Neil asked, barely a full minute since they sat down.
“Because there’s a math test,” Andrew replied.
“Don’t lie,” Neil said firmly. Andrew finally looked at him. “Neither of us need to study, Andrew.”
And it was true, but Andrew wasn’t going to back down. “What if I said I was having trouble with probability?”
“I’d say you’re lying.” Neil got to his feet and walked to where Andrew was sitting in his chair. “What’s wrong?”
“You’ve been ignoring me,” Andrew mumbled, staring at his old math homework. “Ever since the party.” He frowned, thinking to himself. “Did I say something?”
“No, you fell asleep on my shoulder and snored,” Neil said with a smirk. It dropped after a moment. “Sorry, it’s just me.”
“Just you?” Andrew asked.
“Yeah.” Neil paused, grabbing a spare pen and clicking it until Andrew couldn’t take the sound anymore and threw it on his bed. Neil finally sighed. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
Andrew thought that Neil could kill someone and he’d still want to be friends with him. Probably still want to kiss him, too. “You can’t,” he said.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“Just tell me.”
Neil sighed again, probably for the dramatics. “When Matt asked me who I’d want to kiss, I could only think of you.”
Andrew stopped breathing. Suddenly, when the opportunity was there in front of him, he didn’t know what to do. “Just kiss?” he managed to ask, somehow keeping his voice from cracking.
“I don’t think so, anymore,” Neil said quietly, staring at his fingers. “At first, I did. And I thought, ‘hey, if it’s just a kiss, that’s fine’. But I couldn’t stop thinking this whole week, and I kept realizing that I don’t just want to kiss you, Andrew.” Neil finally looked up, right into Andrew’s eyes. “I want to hold your hand and go see movies and eat food and whatever else it is that we can do. And I’ve never, ever, felt that way before.”
“So you backed off,” Andrew guessed.
“Yeah. I’m sorry I did that.”
Andrew leaned forward in his chair. “Neil, I want to do that too.”
Neil blinked. “Wait, really?”
“Yes, you stupid idiot.” Andrew got to his feet, eyes on Neil’s hands. He wanted to hold one, but that had to be weird right after confessing your feelings and having them returned. Shouldn’t they kiss? Andrew really wanted a kiss.
“So…” Neil trailed off, and Andrew finally looked up at his eyes again. “If I asked you to see a movie and eat ice cream with me, what would your answer be?”
“Yes,” Andrew replied quickly. Probably too quickly, if the way Neil bit his lip to try to hide a smile was anything to go on. “We have all that here.”
“What a coincidence,” Neil said, the smile breaking free.
Andrew wasn’t sure how he managed to keep his own off his face. His body felt light, but in a good way. “And if I asked you to kiss me,” Andrew said quietly, glancing at Neil’s smile, “what would your answer be?”
“Yes,” Neil breathed. “A definite yes. Can I do it now?”
“I don’t know,” Andrew said, taking a step back. “You ignored me the whole week.”
“Andrew,” Neil whined, taking a step forward so that they were in each other’s spaces again. “Yes or no?”
And the only reason Andrew hesitated again was because he wanted to leave Neil in suspense. “My answer is yes,” he finally said, reaching for Neil’s hands and moving them to his shoulders. “Kiss me.”
Neil did. Andrew had never kissed anyone before, so he was pretty sure they both were pursing their lips too much and standing too stiffly, but it wasn’t bad. Andrew kept his grip on Neil’s wrists and after a few seconds they found a better rhythm, breaking apart with a noise that made Andrew shiver. Neil’s eyes were barely open and he was still smiling like an idiot.
“You look so stupid,” Andrew teased, letting go of Neil’s wrists to grip his waist instead.
“Hmm,” Neil hummed, pressing their foreheads together. “You look stupid-er.”
“Says the guy who used the word ‘stupid-er’.”
“Shouldn’t have kissed me, ‘cause now I’m gonna want to do it all the time.”
Andrew agreed. He wanted to go up on his tip-toes to kiss Neil’s mouth again because Neil leaned his head back and Andrew couldn’t get to him any other way. He huffed and squeezed Neil’s sides. “Come back,” he complained.
Neil laughed. “I didn’t go anywhere,” he replied, but leaned back down anyways.
“I hate you,” Andrew whispered before they kissed again.
Like Andrew had said, they had movies and lots of ice cream at the house, so they forgot about math and spent the rest of the day on the couch. Andrew had a pint of Ben & Jerry’s that he refused to share with Neil no matter how many attempts to steal a spoonful were made. He was pretty sure the only reason Neil kept doing it was because it gave him an excuse to be in Andrew’s space again.
When the sun had set and the ice cream was gone, Andrew found the thick quilt Nicky had made and threw it over his legs, holding one end open. “Here,” he invited.
Neil took the invitation, crawling close. “Is it okay to cuddle?” he asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to get you to do,” Andrew explained. Neil let him move them both how he wanted, until Neil’s head was on Andrew’s chest and their arms were wrapped around each other.
“What if Nicky comes in and sees this?” Neil asked.
“Then he’ll die of happiness,” Andrew mumbled. “Erik’s proposing to him, tonight.”
“Oh, it’s about time.” Neil shifted until his face was closer to Andrew’s shoulder.
“If I’m asleep, don’t let him take a picture,” Andrew requested, holding a bit more tightly to Neil. “I think he knew I had a crush on you before I did.”
“You had a crush on me?” Neil asked, raising his head so that Andrew could see his smirk. “Wow, that’s embarrassing.”
“You kissed me,” Andrew pointed out.
“You still liked me first.”
“Your face makes up for your personality,” Andrew decided, closing his eyes.
“The one thing I have going for me,” Neil said with a snort. “Goodnight, sleepy-head.”
Nicky didn’t end up getting a picture. By the time he got back on Saturday morning, excitedly showing off his ring, Neil and Andrew had been awake for hours, lips red from kissing but nothing else out of place. Andrew tried to pay attention to Nicky’s rambles but couldn’t stop glancing at Neil, who wouldn’t stop glancing back.
Sneaking around was going to be far too entertaining.