Work Text:
“I need that book.”
Andrew gripped the last copy of Mrs. Dalloway he’d just pulled from the shelf a little tighter and turned, but his planned response of “Sucks for you,” died on his lips when he clocked who the voice belonged to.
The twin scars on each side of the startlingly pretty guy’s face did nothing to mar his rather sharp cheekbones or distract from his glacial blue eyes, one of which was obscured by an unruly tuft of very dark, thick auburn hair. The huff of air he blew upwards failed to move his fringe, but it did reveal an incredibly intriguing gap in between his front teeth.
Pretty-gap-toothed-guy crossed his arms and frowned at Andrew. “Take a fucking picture, it’ll last longer,” he said. Andrew caught the lilt of something vaguely British in his words this time.
Andrew pulled out his phone, swiped through his code, and took a fucking picture. “Better luck next time,” Andrew said, saluting his walking, talking wet dream with the phone before heading for the register.
Andrew knew the guy was following him before he made it to the car, but he didn’t turn around until he’d tossed the book onto the backseat. He closed the door and leaned on it, tapping out a cigarette and lighting it before he looked up, blowing smoke in the pretty boy’s face and raising one eyebrow. “Can I help you?”
“You took my picture,” blue eyes said, crossing his arms. He didn’t flinch at the smoke, and he wasn’t frowning anymore, but there was a little wrinkle of confusion between his brows.
“Well spotted,” Andrew said.
“Why?”
Andrew considered him. “What’s your name?”
“Uh. Neil?”
“Is that a question?”
Neil shook his head after a moment’s hesitation.
“You sure?”
“Fuck you,” Neil said.
Andrew took a last long drag and dropped his half finished cigarette to the ground before pushing off his car and crowding a little into Neil’s space. He looked down at Neil’s feet, encased in scuffed black Converse high tops that bucked up against faded jeans, let his eyes travel over strong thighs, let his imagination consider what was hidden under Neil’s oversized red plaid shirt, before stopping on that intriguing mouth - a little too wide, a little too perfect. He had freckles too, faint across his nose and cheeks, and the furrow of his brow deepened when Andrew finally looked him in the eyes. “Okay,” Andrew said, drawing out the word before letting his gaze drop to Neil’s lips again. He wanted to see if that gap would make an encore appearance.
“Um,” Neil said. “What?”
“Fuck you,” Andrew said conversationally. “If you want.”
“That’s not what I-” Neil stopped. Andrew thought he might blush, but he didn’t, just tilted his head a little and said, “Oh. That’s why you took my picture.”
“Ten points for Gryffindor,” Andrew said, turning to open the driver’s side door.
“Wait,” Neil said. “I really need that book. I took two buses to get here, and the campus bookstore is sold out too.”
“Order it from Amazon,” Andrew said. He slid into the creaky leather seat of Kevin’s vintage Mercedes.
Neil made a noise of frustration. “I can’t, I need to read it before tomorrow. There’s a midterm exam, and I’ll lose my scholarship if I fail.”
Andrew tilted his head and considered Neil. He must be in the other section of Professor Riven’s lit class, because if he’d been in Andrew’s, Andrew would have noticed him by now.
“Academic scholarship?”
“Athletic.”
Of course. “You’re an exy player.”
Neil’s eyebrows shot up into that messy fringe of his. “How do you know that?”
“Because it is my life long curse to be plagued by exy junkies. Download the book on Kindle,” Andrew said, pulling his door closed. Neil didn’t move, just tapped on the window and Andrew closed his eyes and held his breath before rolling the window down.
“I don’t have a Kindle,” Neil said.
“So your tactic here was to follow me to my car, armed only with your sparkling wit, and charm me into giving you the last copy of Mrs. Dalloway in Palmetto?”
“Is it working?” Neil asked, and there, there just at the corner of his mouth a little smirk peeked out and goddamn it, a man could only take so much.
Andrew heaved a long suffering sigh just for the catharsis of it. “I’m Andrew,” he said. “Get in.”
***
Andrew shoved Neil unceremoniously onto the couch and arranged himself next to him cross legged, propping the book on his knee between them. “Keep up or don’t,” he said. “I don’t read at stickball boy pace.”
Neil scoffed, but didn’t say a word, just pulled his knees into his chest and rested his chin on them.
It was chapter two when Neil started tapping fingertips against his calf in some obscure off rhythm beat, and chapter three when Andrew reached over and clamped a vise-like hand over those fingers to stop him before turning the next page. “Quit it,” Andrew said.
“Sorry,” Neil said.
It was chapter four when Neil unsuccessfully shoved his hair out of his face for the who-knows-what time and Andrew sighed, closed the book, and popped into Robin’s room. “Hold still,” he said, when he got back, and Neil held very still while Andrew used two pilfered bobby pins to secure Neil’s hair out of his face. “Get a haircut,” he grumbled.
It was chapter five when Neil stretched his neck for the third time, the angle of leaning in to read clearly getting to him, and chapter six when Andrew rolled his eyes and shifted closer, jamming his elbow into Neil’s ribs.
“Ow,” Neil said.
“Shut up,” Andrew said. He grabbed Neil’s ankle and yanked his leg straight, poked and pushed him until they were pressed against each other without Andrew feeling trapped. “Better?”
“Yeah,” Neil said quietly, and they were close enough that Andrew could smell his cheap shampoo. Suave probably. Or some dollar store three-in-one. Yet somehow, his hair had been soft between Andrew’s fingers when he’d pulled it up.
Well, fuck.
Andrew had re-read the first sentence of chapter seven three times - distracted from the light-saturated reverie of Clarissa Dolloway’s life by a very warm, finally still Neil at his side - when the front door opened and spilled all six foot two of Kevin Day into the living room.
“Nathaniel?” Kevin said, doing a spot on impression of a guppy as he gaped at both of them.
Neil sucked in a breath. “Wait, you’re Kevin’s Andrew?”
“I’m not Kevin’s anything,” Andrew said. “You said your name was Neil.”
“It’s something I’m trying out,” Neil said.
Andrew turned to look at him, their faces inches apart. “Nathaniel Hatford, I presume? Freshman striker, bane and joy of Kevin’s existence?”
The furrow from earlier reappeared between Neil’s brows. “And you’re Andrew Minyard. Kevin and Robin’s cryptid goth roommate.”
“I knew it,” Kevin said smugly.
“Shut up, Kevin,” Andrew said without looking at him.
“You two are perfect for each other.”
“Fuck off, Kevin,” Neil said, but he was still oh so close to Andrew’s face, and his words puffed against Andrew’s lips.
“Come on,” Andrew said. Neil obediently hopped up and followed Andrew into his room, and Andrew slammed the door in Kevin’s smirking face. “So you’re the Nathaniel that Kevin has been nagging me to take out on a date.”
“I prefer Neil, and uh. Yeah, I guess so.”
Andrew stepped a little closer, and Neil didn’t move; his back was already to the door. Kevin had barely waited a week after Andrew had broken up with Roland to start talking up his newest exy obsessed protégé: He’s mouthy, Kevin had said. He could score you on, if you ever deigned to grace the goal again, Kevin had said.
He’d also said Nathaniel had never dated - that he didn’t swing, to be exact - but for some reason Kevin was convinced he was the yin to Andrew’s stabby yang.
Neil, not Nathaniel.
“Kevin said you’ve never kissed anyone.”
“Kevin has a big mouth,” Neil said, but those blue eyes fluttered briefly to Andrew’s lips.
“Do you want to?”
Neil stared at him for long enough that Andrew almost stepped back, but then Neil nodded, a little jerkily, and moved towards him, and Andrew twisted his fingers in that red plaid shirt and pulled him steadily down into a kiss.
Which is what Andrew had wanted to do from the moment he’d seen Neil glaring at him in the bookshop.
When they broke apart Neil’s eyes were wide and his mouth open and that goddamned gap in his teeth was distracting… Andrew gave a stern talking to his dick before inclining his head at his single bed in the corner.
“Um,” Neil said, looking at the bed, then back at Andrew.
“Reading, Neil. I’m not going to ravish you.”
“Oh,” Neil said, giving that jerky nod again and crawling onto the bed to sit side by side against the wall. It took all of one chapter before he said, “I thought you wanted to ravish me.”
“I don’t put out on the first date,” Andrew said drily.
“So this is a date now?”
“Apparently,” Andrew said.
Neil was quiet, and then, “Oh god. We’re never going to hear the end of this.”
“He’s insufferable when he’s right.”
“So you do like me,” Neil said.
“Absolutely not,” Andrew said.
“You propositioned me in a parking lot.”
“Lies and calumny.”
“You kissed me,” Neil said.
“And I’ll do it again when we finish this stupid book.”
Neil grinned at him and leaned into his arm, and Andrew sighed and opened the stupid book.