Work Text:
Neil Josten slowly rose to consciousness. He could tell through his closed eyes that the room he was in was entirely too bright, so he screwed them shut tighter. Everything smelled uncomfortably sterile and unfamiliar, nothing like his sheets at home. A dull pain throbbed from his lower abdomen.
Right, he was in the hospital.
Neil’s hand trailed down to the source of his pain. He felt the outline of a bandage through his gown, and beneath that, a puckered line of stitches. He hissed in pain. Memories started to flood back in fragmented segments. Right, the game and his stupid appendix.
Neil had been feeling a touch peaked for about a day or so, but he did what he does best and ignored it. He and Andrew had a game that Friday that he absolutely refused to miss. And yet, when the time came, he was barely able to pull himself together long enough to get through the match’s first half. He felt random spatterings of pain across his lower back and side, and he felt oddly cold despite his time on the court.
The team shuffled into the locker room together, and Neil grit his teeth as his gut smarted with the movement of sitting down. He felt so out of it he almost didn’t notice the jostle of the bench as Andrew claimed the seat beside him. Neil swallowed thickly against the sour taste in his mouth.
“You’re pale,” Andrew whispered, ignoring their coach’s discussion about plays for the next half.
“I feel fine.”
Andrew reached up to wrap a hand around the back of Neil’s neck, fixing him with an intense look.
“You feel feverish.”
“I just got off the court, it’s no big deal.”
“I thought you were done with the lying.”
“I’m not lying. My stomach is kinda upset, but I can finish out this game.”
However, as though it were waiting for him to say those exact words, his stomach swooped violently. His lower abdomen screamed in pain. Neil leapt to his feet and raced to the closest bathroom stall. He could barely hear the pandemonium he left in his wake over the sound of him emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet. Neil curled in on himself, a sweat breaking out across his forehead. Moments later, his hair was swept away from his face. Andrew appeared blurrily in Neil’s vision, a small wrinkle between his eyebrows.
“You’ve got a fever,” he stated, his voice quiet.
Neil groaned, hand fisted in his jersey where his abdomen was still erupting in pain.
“It feels like someone is stabbing me from the inside.”
Andrew nodded. “Stay put.”
Neil laid his head against the cool seat of the toilet. He distantly heard the sound of voices in the other room, steadily growing in volume. He picked out Andrew’s voice saying something about the hospital, and their coach saying something back in a less than friendly tone. The word “appendix” was thrown around before Andrew reappeared.
“Do you feel like you’re going to throw up more?”
Neil shook his head no.
Andrew knelt down as much as he could in the small stall to help pull Neil to his feet. “We’re going to the hospital.”
The next part was a blur. Neil barely remembered being wrestled into Andrew’s car, the lights flashing past as they raced down the street, the brightness of the emergency room lobby. The thing he did remember well was the flash of anger across Andrew’s face when he was told by the nurses that no, he could not come back with Neil.
Just as the memory resurfaced, the door to the hospital room opened, slamming Neil into the present. Neil forced his eyes open as a nurse walked in, clipboard in hand. Her name tag read Joyce.
“Good morning Mr. Josten. Glad to see you awake.”
Neil hummed in response, taking his time absorbing his surroundings. The walls were painted an offensively bright pastel yellow, and the curtains hanging near his bed were patterned with a gray geometric pattern. The nurse grabbed the edge of the hanging fabric and pulled it, shielding his view of the door.
“I’m going to take your vitals and check on your stitches, but before we start, how would you rate your pain?” she said. Neil barely heard her as he looked over the side of his bed, noticing for the first time a distinct lack of chair there.
Where the hell was Andrew?
“Mr. Josten?” Neil whipped back around to look at Joyce.
“Um, a 6? Where’s Andrew?” he asked, gesturing to the side of his bed. Joyce blinked owlishly before a look of recognition crossed her face.
“Oh, you mean the young man who brought you in. Blond, about this tall?” She held up her hand to demonstrate. Neil fought the urge to roll his eyes and nodded. “He’s been in the lobby all night. He’s a bit feisty, that one.” Joyce tapped his arm, and he lifted it to allow her to wrap a blood pressure cuff around his bicep.
“Why isn’t he, y’know, in here?”
“Visiting hours don’t start for another hour. Only parents or guardians or next of kin are allowed in besides that.” Joyce said it like it was common knowledge, moving Neil’s hospital gown aside to inspect his incision. He didn’t miss the slight widening of her eyes as she took in the sight of his other scars already present there. Neil knows that Andrew would have rolled his eyes if he’d been there to see it. His chest suddenly feels tight.
This whole thing is stupid , he thought, staring a hole through the textured ceiling above.
-
Sure enough, Andrew did come to Neil’s room during visiting hours. He handed Neil’s phone over to him, which was full of messages from a few members of their current team, as well as many more from all of the Foxes. Matt and Dan had both called a few times each, and most of the others had called at least once. Neil opened his message app and tapped on the first text. It was from Allison. It contained a photo taken of her computer screen displaying a confirmation of a plane ticket to Denver with the caption “hope you + the monster have a spare room :)”. Neil couldn’t help the small smile that crept onto his face as he turned his phone to show Andrew.
Andrew merely huffed a quick exhale out of his nose in what might have been a laugh. “She can sleep in Sir’s cat bed, final offer.”
Neil smirked before confirming to Allison that yes, they did have a spare room for her to use. He looked up from his phone to look at Andrew, who noisily cracked his neck with a slight grimace. The skin under his eyes had turned a faint shade of lavender, stark against the pale skin of his face. A sign of poor sleep.
“Did you sleep in the lobby all night?”
Andrew met Neil’s eyes with neutral eyes and a quirked eyebrow.
“They wouldn’t let me back until visiting hours.”
Neil rolled his eyes. “I know that. You could have gone home and actually gotten some sleep.”
Andrew’s face hardened slightly as if Neil had just said the stupidest thing he’d ever heard.
“I wasn’t just going to leave you here alone, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Andrew’s gaze bore a hole in the floor. To anyone else it might have looked indifferent, but Neil felt a slight stab of guilt. He’d made Andrew worried about him. Carefully, as not to spook him, Neil inched his hand over to where Andrew’s rested against the edge of the bed and gently laced their fingers together. Andrew didn’t look up, but he gave Neil’s fingers a quick squeeze before scooting their linked hands more onto the bed.
“That whole rule about visiting hours is stupid. What the fuck is a next of… whatever, anyway?” Neil asked.
“Next of kin. Closest living relative through blood or legal means such as adoption or… marriage.” Andrew’s voice sounded a touch strained on that last word. Something panged oddly against Neil’s chest.
Marriage.
Neil swallowed down the weird feeling in his chest, humming in response to Andrew’s definition. Neil rubbed his thumb against the ridges of Andrew’s knuckles, staring at how the fluorescent light turned his hair nearly white, at the gentle slope of his nose, at the wrinkle between his eyebrows. If he weren’t connected to so many wires, Neil would have reached over and smoothed it out with the pad of his thumb. He couldn’t help the feeling of fondness that bloomed from his chest, making him feel warm all over.
They sat like that for a few hours, mostly in comfortable silence. Eventually, the same nurse from before came and let Neil know that they would be able to release him that evening. She turned a bit more nervously to Andrew and let him know that he would have to leave the room so they could run a few final tests, and that he could pick up Neil’s aftercare packet and prescriptions from the circulation desk. Neil half expected Andrew to push back in some way, but instead merely gave a curt nod and leaned over to press a rare kiss to Neil’s temple before getting up. He did close the door a bit harder than strictly necessary, however.
-
Getting home was a woozier affair than Neil was expecting. They had him on some pretty strong pain medication, so the second he started to try and walk it was like the bottom had fallen out of his stomach. Luckily, they promptly set him into a wheelchair and pushed him out to the Maserati, Andrew leaning against the driver’s side, waiting. The drive home was a bit of a blur, fatigue starting to pull at Neil’s eyelids. By the time they walked through the door of their shared apartment, Neil was dead on his feet. Soreness radiated across his entire body as he maneuvered around Sir and King, who meowed and wound around his legs.
Andrew set the packet and pill bottles on the kitchen counter. The stapled corner of the packet was bent; Andrew had likely committed the whole thing to memory while he waited for Neil. He picked up the pill bottles and began shaking the proper dosage into the palm of his hand. Neil hobbled over and pressed himself to Andrew’s side, resting his chin on Andrew’s shoulder. He breathed in the smell of their laundry detergent and Andrew’s shampoo, trying to get the sterile smell of the hospital out of his nose.
“You reek by the way,” Andrew said plainly. He tugged Neil’s hand closer, depositing the small handful of medicine into his palm. Andrew filled up a glass with water from the sink and slid that over as well. Neil dutifully swallowed both.
“I never got to shower after the game.” Now that Andrew had pointed it out, Neil did feel gross. He could feel the lingering evidence of dried sweat on his skin, the cloying scent of Exy gear and hospital sheets.
Andrew slides his hand into Neil’s and gently tugs, pulling him along to their bedroom. Andrew mauvered Neil to sit on the edge of the bed, before disappearing into the bathroom. There was the sound of the shower turning on, followed by the soft sound of rummaging. Andrew reappeared, crossing the room back to Neil. Neil moved to start pulling his shirt off, but Andrew smacked his hands away and replaced them with his own. Neil let him. Although he would never say it aloud, Andrew could have moments of fierce protectiveness. And while Neil generally didn’t care for people fussing over him, something about the gentle way Andrew helped him out of his shirt and peeled the gauze away from his incision made him feel peculiarly warm. Neil focused on the feeling of Andrew’s fingers anchored on his hip as his stitches smarted with exposure to the open air. Andrew hummed with approval at the healing and placed a lingering kiss to Neil’s stomach. He then pulled Neil to his feet and helped him shimmy out of his pants and underwear. Neil couldn’t help but be reminded of the last time something like this had happened, how Andrew had carefully wrapped plastic bags around Neil’s flayed and burnt arms after Baltimore.
Like that first time, Andrew followed Neil under the shower’s warm spray, although this time he paused to quickly strip off his clothes as well. Neil leaned his head back into the water, and sighed when Andrew began gently scrubbing soap into his hair. Andrew’s fingers against his scalp was the most soothing thing he’d felt in days. He tilted his head back to wash the suds away before leaning forward to capture Andrew’s lips in a kiss, giving him enough room to move away if he wanted to. He didn’t, however, and wrapped his arms around Neil’s shoulders to pull him closer. They shifted to avoid Neil’s incision, and Neil gently tapped Andrew’s waist, awaiting his nod before fully resting his palms on the smooth plane of skin. The kiss was unhurried, more a confirmation of safety, of home, speaking things unspoken. Andrew moved his hand to the side of Neil’s neck and ran a thumb along the line of his cheekbone, and Neil moved his hands up to press against the curves of Andrew’s shoulder blades. The warmth of shower and Andrew’s touch brought the fatigue of earlier back, and Neil’s eyes began to grow heavy.
“I think the pain meds are starting to kick in,” Neil said, pulling away.
“Getting tired?”
Neil nodded the affirmative and stifled a yawn. Andrew pressed one last lingering peck to his lips before quickly finishing the shower. He toweled both of them off and told Neil to sit on the edge of the bed. Neil did as he was told and watched as Andrew pulled on a soft shirt and sweats, and pulled out a pair of boxers and another shirt, which he tossed on the bed. He had Neil lie back on the bed to reapply gauze over his stitches, and helped Neil put on the clothes he’d pulled out. After a couple minutes of rearranging pillows, Neil was laid on his back under the covers, sleep quickly beginning to take over.
“I’m gonna call coach and give her an update, I’ll be right back,” Andrew said, grabbing his phone and moving toward the door. Neil nodded, and let sleep take him.
-
The first time Neil woke up, it was to Andrew gently rousing him. The windows were dark; it had gotten late. He had some more medicine in his hand, and he helped Neil sit up to take it.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, handing over the pills and a glass of water. Neil downed them both greedily; the soreness was beginning to return and he was parched from sleeping. Andrew sat on the edge of the bed.
“Fine. What is it about stuff like this that makes you feel so tired?”
“You’re healing. They removed an organ, in case you forgot.” Neil hummed, and leaned forward to press his forehead against Andrew’s shoulder. Something about the pain meds in his system had left Neil feeling soft and malleable, like a cat laying in a sunbeam. He thought to himself that perhaps the man in front of him was his sunbeam, and nuzzled his nose into the crook of Andrew’s neck. Andrew huffed out something like a laugh and slung a gentle arm around Neil’s shoulders.
“Junkie,” he whispered into Neil’s hair, amused. He helped Neil lay back down again before crawling under the covers himself, and they both drifted back to sleep.
The second time Neil woke, the suggestion of sunrise was shining through the window, turning the room a silvery blue. Neil was on his back, but when he turned his head he could see Andrew curled up beside him, the knuckles of one hand barely brushing against Neil’s ribs. His breath came out in little puffs, and his blond hair was stark against the dark gray of the sheets. Neil felt so suddenly fond he worried he would burst into flames right then and there in their bed. The level of trust that Andrew had placed in Neil sometimes overwhelmed him, but in moments like this the only thing he felt was honored and thankful. He realized too that he himself had placed a lot of trust in Andrew, allowing himself to be vulnerable while he healed, and allowing Andrew close enough to his soft underbelly to be able to help him. He thought of Andrew balled up in a corner chair in the hospital lobby, fitfully grabbing snatches of sleep because he refused to leave Neil alone.
The phrase next of kin wound its way around the folds of Neil’s brain. He remembered the way Andrew’s voice had stuttered around the word “marriage” in the hospital room. Neil had never really thought about marriage before; he had seen how well it worked out for his parents, and he honestly never thought he’d live long enough for it to be a real possibility. And yet, as he stared down at the man next to him, it was the only thing he could think of. He thought about what it would look like for them to wear matching bands around their fingers, and nearly frightened himself with how warm the idea made him. Neil shook his head, made himself comfortable, and closed his eyes. It was a while before sleep found him again.
The final time Neil woke up, it was to an alarm going off on Andrew’s phone. There’s a rustle, and Andrew turns it off with a groan. Neil forces his eyes open and looks over, and is met with Andrew’s hazel eyes looking back at him.
“Like what you see?” he asked cheekily, and Andrew pushed his face away.
“Breakfast?” he asked, getting out of bed and holding out a hand to Neil. Neil nodded and took it, following to the kitchen and sitting on a barstool. Neil was handed his next round of meds before Andrew began pulling out the ingredients for breakfast out of the fridge and cabinets; eggs and toast for Neil, cereal for himself. Neil watched with rapt attention. This was an activity they had done together at least a thousand times before, yet somehow today it struck him a little differently. He ate quickly before getting up to put the plate in the sink, and turned to grab a coffee mug from the cabinet. However, he thought better of it and diverted his path to lean his back against the counter next to Andrew. He grabbed the hand Andrew wasn’t using to scoop cereal into his mouth with both of his own, rubbing the back with both thumbs.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” Neil said, voice only loud enough for Andrew to hear. Andrew whipped around to look at him, looking slightly confused. He had a stray bit of cereal stuck to the corner of his mouth. Neil’s heart swelled.
“Those meds are doing something to your head, you know you don’t have to say thank you for something like this.”
“I know, but I still felt like I had to say it.”
Andrew dropped his spoon in the bowl below and used his now-free hand to gently grip Neil’s chin, giving him a once over.
“Are you okay? You’ve been acting weird and mushy since the hospital. Did one of the others say something?” He pulls Neil’s face slightly closer. “Did Nicky put you up to something?”
Neil pulls his face away with a laugh. “No, no, nothing like that.” He releases Andrew’s hand and reaches up to nervously rub the back of his own neck. “I just… have you ever thought about marriage?”
Andrew doesn’t say anything at first, but Neil notices his hands gripping the edge of the counter.
“Not really.”
“Yeah, me neither. I honestly never thought I’d live long enough to have to worry about it.”
Andrew finally turned to look at Neil, unplaceable emotion in his eyes.
“But you’re worrying about it now.”
Neil suddenly felt self conscious. “I mean, not that I think what we have now is bad, or that anything needs to change. I still definitely think that we don’t need a piece of paper to know that we’re in it for the long haul or that we love each other. But…” Neil faltered, trying to find the words. Andrew quirked an eyebrow.
“But?”
Neil swallowed nervously.
“I don’t want you to have to sleep in hospital lobbies ever again, and we both know there’s a very real possibility that either of us could end up back in the hospital. I like the idea of the stupid rings so theres no doubt in anyone’s mind that we’re a package deal. Signing the paper means that people are legally required to respect our bond. Also- tax benefits?”
It’s quiet for a few moments, but to Neil it could have been hours. Andrew shifted to lean on the counter next to Neil, their shoulders pressed together. Neil closed his eyes and sighed, forcing himself to exhale.
“Tax benefits?”
Neil, taken aback, opened his eyes again.
“Y-yeah?”
“You’re really going to propose to me by talking about tax benefits?”
Neil whipped around to look at Andrew, who looked back with an expectant sort of expression. To anyone else it might have looked neutral, but Neil could recognize the undertones of amusement and fondness in his eyes.
“Yeah… Yeah! Yes, I am.”
Andrew scrubbed his hands over his face, letting out a small groan before dropping his hands back to his sides.
“Alright,” he finally said.
“Alright?”
“Alright, I guess I’ll marry you.” Andrew said. He crossed his arms across his chest, but leaned over and pressed a lingering kiss to Neil’s cheekbone. “But I’m only doing it because I know it’ll piss Aaron off.”
Neil barked out a laugh, and leaned his head against Andrew’s shoulder.
-
Just as she promised, Allison arrived that Monday. After getting all of her luggage moved into the spare room, she sat curled up on the other end of the couch from Neil, watching a movie and petting a purring King. Neil was scrolling on his laptop, researching the specific requirements to obtain a marriage license in Colorado. Allison reached over and nudged him with her foot.
“I come all this way to see you when you’re sick and you’re just on your laptop.”
“I’m doing important research.”
“Yeah, important research.” She reached over and snatched the laptop out of Neil’s lap, ignoring his sound of protest. Allison scrolled for a moment before making eye contact with Neil over the monitor.
“Um, care to explain why you’re looking up marriage licenses?”
Neil blinked at her, before shrugging and taking the computer back. Allison squawked indignantly before grabbing Neil’s left hand, looking for a ring.
“Alli stop, I’m injured,” he protested, trying to school his face into neutrality. Andrew chose that exact moment to emerge from their bedroom, hair damp from his shower.
“You!” Allison said, pointing a finger at Andrew. Andrew pointed at himself, and then looked behind him as if there was someone else in the apartment she could be yelling at. “Am I losing my mind, or are you and Neil getting married? I thought you were both super against the idea.”
Andrew just shrugged, and Neil fought back the urge to laugh. Allison turned to look back at him.
“What changed your mind?”
“Tax benefits,” Andrew responded, walking past them on his way to the kitchen. Neil did actually let out a snort at that. Allison crossed her arms and flopped back against the arm of the couch.
“Oh, I see. This is some kind of bad joke.” She fixes Neil with an intense stare. “It has to be, because I know if it were real you would have already asked me to help you plan the thing because you’re useless and would probably make your color scheme like, orange or something.”
“Dan and Matt’s wedding was orange and white, and that was very classy,” Neil responded, going back to his laptop.
“That’s Dan and Matt. I shudder to think about what the two of you could come up with on your own.”
Neil leaned his head back to look upside at Andrew through the kitchen entrance. They made eye contact, and Neil gave him a quick grin. Andrew stuck his tongue out in response, then went back to whatever he was doing.
For the rest of the days Allison stayed with them, she tried and failed to be subtle about the wedding. At first, she insisted that she just really, really wanted to watch old reruns of Four Weddings and shows of the like. She pointed out exactly what she thought was done well and what was tacky, nudging Neil to get his attention. Then she started going to the store and returning with wedding magazines, flipping through them loudly on the other end of the couch and leaving them around with sticky notes poking out of the slick pages. Neil started to get slightly annoyed by the time she started sending him Pinterest links with captions such as “this looks nice!” and “this is what i mean by classy.” The absolute final straw came in the form of a phone call from Matt.
“Hey man, what’s up?” Neil asked, heating up water to make tea.
“Not much, just checking in.”
“I’m fine, just healing. Andrew’s been taking care of me.”
Matt hummed.
“I did actually call because I had a question,” he said. Neil was immediately suspicious.
“Yeah, shoot.”
“Um, when were you going to tell me that you’re getting married?”
Neil coughed on his tea, and looked over at where Allison sat on the couch on her phone, leveling a glare at her that she ignored.
“You’ve been talking to Allison, let me guess?”
Matt ignored the question. “I thought you and Andrew weren’t down for the whole marriage thing.”
Neil wiped his hand down his face in silent frustration. The small lie wound its way into his words before he could stop himself. “Technically, nothing has been confirmed. We just talked about it after I got back from the hospital. Allison just got a bit ahead of herself.”
All of Matt’s questions and a few texts from Dan that followed left a sour taste in Neil’s mouth. A small part of him regretted even bringing up the marriage thing to Andrew at all. The feeling didn’t leave him even after they’d taken Allison back to the airport and were laying together in bed later that night. A movie played quietly on their TV that neither Neil nor Andrew really paid attention to. Andrew was reading a paperback with his reading glasses (although he often denied he needed them) perched on his nose, and Neil was laid on his back staring moodily at the ceiling.
“What’s wrong with you,” Andrew asked without looking up from his book. Neil groaned and rolled over to look at him.
“You don’t think we’re making a mistake with this marriage thing, do you?”
Andrew blinked, dog-earing his page and setting the book aside. He leveled a piercing gaze at Neil. “Do you think that we’re making a mistake?”
Neil could tell the conversation was already becoming derailed.
“I don’t know, after talking to Allison, weddings seem like a lot more work than I thought. I kind of thought we’d just, y’know, get married and that would be the end of it.”
Andrew was quiet for a while.
“Y’know, we don’t have to get married. You’re the one who brought it up.” Neil hated the slight tinge of hurt that lurked in his voice. Neil reached across Andrew’s waist and tugged slightly, silently asking him to lay closer. Despite Andrew’s irritation, he conceded, laying down next to Neil rolling to face him. His hazel eyes were dark in the low light.
“I meant the whole ceremony part. I still want us to get married, but there’s so much that goes into it that I didn’t even think about. I love the Foxes, but they’ve already made it way more complicated than I wanted.” Neil rested his hand on Andrew’s hip, rubbing the bit of exposed skin above his waistband with slow strokes of his thumb. “I don’t have any doubts about us, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Andrew did seem to relax slightly. They laid silently for a while, breathing together and taking in each other's warmth. Neil’s eyes slipped closed, when Andrew suddenly piped up again.
“It doesn’t have to be complicated.”
“Hmm?” Neil opened his eyes again.
“The wedding. It doesn’t have to be big and complicated if you don’t want it to be.” Neil blinked, and waited for Andrew to elaborate. “We can just get some rings and go to the courthouse and have it done on a random Tuesday, if that’s what you want.”
Neil thought about it. That did sound a lot better than the alternative, and while he loved the Foxes, he really liked the idea of having just him and Andrew there.
“Well, what do you want?” Neil asked. Andrew shuffled a bit closer, and his words were barely above a whisper, almost as if he was scared of them.
“Honestly, I just want it to happen. If you want a big fat wedding with every person you’ve ever met there, I’ll do it for you. If you want to go to the courthouse in pajamas and sign the papers like it’s no big deal, that’s fine too.” Neil smiled, and let out the breath he’d been holding.
“Honestly, as much as I love our friends, I want this to just be something between the two of us. We don’t have to prove anything to other people.”
Andrew leveled a rare, genuine smile at Neil. “Okay, we can do that.”
Neil smiled back, and pulled Andrew close to his chest. He pressed his face to Andrew’s hair, smelling like their shared minty shampoo, and whispered the phrase they rarely said to each other but felt all the same.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
-
Over the course of the next two days, Neil and Andrew laid out some of the final details. They went to a small jewelry shop in town and found rings they both liked. They decided to hyphenate their last names into Josten- Minyard (the discussion started as an argument where both wanted to take the other’s last name, which quickly devolved into an exchange of heated kisses and searching hands). It seemed to fall into place rather easily, in fact.
They called their local courthouse, made an appointment, and that was that.
The morning of the day they were to be married, Neil woke up to his alarm feeling surprisingly well rested. It was a Wednesday in late fall, but the sky remained a lovely pale blue. He stretched slightly, and felt Andrew’s arm tighten around his waist. Andrew pressed a kiss to the top of Neil’s spine, before rolling away and sitting up on the edge of the bed. Neil follows shortly, going to the kitchen and pouring them both coffee like it was any other morning. Andrew kissed Neil in thanks, but the kiss rapidly grew in heat as Andrew ran his teeth across Neil’s lower lip. Neil leaned back against the edge of the countertop and opened his mouth to Andrew’s ministrations. He pushed his hands under Andrew’s shirt, running fingers over the planes of his shoulders and spine. Andrew made a pleased noise at the touch, fisting a hand in Neil’s hair and resting the other on the side of his neck. Just as Neil was beginning to lose himself, however, Andrew reached behind him to grab his coffee, pulling away.
“Remember, we have an appointment to make,” he said, schooling his face into neutrality. Neil rolled his eyes before grabbing his own coffee and following Andrew back into the bedroom. They got ready for their day, brushing teeth and shaving and fixing hair. Andrew wore a black turtleneck and a pair of well fitting black pants. Neil wore a black button up with the sleeves pushed to his elbows, no tie, and a pair of gray slacks he knew Andrew liked on him. As Neil looked in the mirror at his and Andrew’s reflections, he couldn’t help but feel a bit smug that despite the confusion their relationship has garnered for years, they really were a good looking couple.
The drive to the courthouse was a quiet one, but not uncomfortably so. Andrew kept his hand on Neil’s knee as he drove, rubbing slow circles with his thumb. He seemed entirely normal, but the slight tension in his jaw betrayed what Neil felt himself; they were both a bit nervous.
Colorado does not require witnesses for weddings, so nobody was in the room with Neil and Andrew besides themselves and the justice of the peace. It was a quiet affair, and surprisingly fast. They didn’t write any special vows; they were both people who spoke best through action. They exchanged rings, both simple black bands of tungsten. The lady at the jewelry store had told them that tungsten was one of the hardest metals on earth, and Neil personally found that very fitting. An indestructible ring for an indestructible relationship. Neil barely paid attention to the actual words said in the ceremony, focusing on the feeling of Andrew’s callused hand and its warm weight in his own.
“By the power vested in me by the state of Colorado, I now pronounce you husband and husband!” the justice finally announced, and Neil was pulled into a kiss, Andrew’s hand resting at the back of his neck.
All in all, not too bad.
As they were walking across the parking lot back to the car, Neil felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw a few messages in the Foxes group message, and an idea sprang up in his mind.
“Hey, let's take a picture real quick,” Neil said, holding Andrew back with a hand on his shoulder. The look Andrew leveled at Neil clearly conveyed a tone of are you serious right now? Neil lifted his phone. “I figured we should tell the Foxes.”
Neil’s plan seemed to finally click in Andrew’s mind, and he smirked a little before moving to stand by Neil. They both lifted their left hands, new rings glinting in the sun. Neil grinned slyly, and Andrew kept a deadpan expression as the camera clicked.
Neil smiled secretly at the photo, before sending it to the Fox chat with no context whatsoever.
Both his and Andrew’s phone started pinging immediately with texts and calls, but they all went ignored. The only thing Neil could think of was the warmth in his belly as Andrew closed the door to their apartment and pulled him in close by the collar of his shirt.
They’d deal with the others later.