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i. hoodie
It all started when Andrew showed up one day wearing, surprise surprise, one of his multitudes of black hoodies.
In retrospect, he'd done this plenty of times before, and Neil had been abso-fucking-lutely chill about it, thank you very much, so why did he only now have the unshakeable urge to ask Andrew for his hoodie? Neil had plenty of hoodies. He didn't necessarily need another. And it wasn't that cold, either. But Andrew was absolutely drowning in the material, and it looked really warm and soft and so Andrew-esque that Neil was tempted to just wait until he took it off and then snatch it up and run away.
--Oh, dear. This wasn't going to be a problem, was it?
(It was.)
The hoodie became somewhat of a distraction throughout the day. When Neil walked into the common area: there was Andrew, laid out on the sofa, book in hand, curled up in the hoodie. When he went with the others for dinner, Andrew came along (because he always did), still wearing the hoodie. When Neil made his way up to the roof after everyone was asleep, Andrew was already there, just like always.
And, oh yeah-- he was still in that goddamned hoodie.
Neil gingerly took a seat next to Andrew on the cold concrete, ever-so-carefully avoiding the black fabric that pooled temptingly next to him. Andrew looked up, but said nothing, waiting for Neil to start talking or to do nothing at all.
There were a few minutes of dead silence.
Andrew rummaged in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie and came up with a pack of cigarettes. He removed one, found his lighter, and brought the flame to the end, watching the paper glow red in the darkness.
Neil, blind to everything else, just stared at the hoodie.
He only noticed how much time had passed when Andrew got up to leave.
That night, he lay awake for a bit. Usually, his mind would spin with hundreds of different things, but it was fixated on the goddamn hoodie. As Neil sank into sleep, he made up his mind that, if only to stop the chaos of his thoughts, he would ask Andrew if he could borrow his sweater.
...Someday.
ii. turtleneck
A couple of weeks afterwards, Neil was priding himself on not slipping back into whatever the fuck had been happening to his mind with Andrew's hoodie. The cool fall days had quickly turned into unseasonably warm ones, so no sweaters had been worn for quite some time.
...That was, until Neil stepped out of bed one morning onto a floor that was so cold he nearly turned around and got right back under the covers.
As expected, when he found the others, Andrew was clad in a sweater again.
(So this was going to be a recurring thing, was it?)
This time, it was a turtleneck. Or, to be specific, a black ribbed turtleneck (supporting the running bet that Andrew was not-so-secretly emo, Neil noted) that looked concerningly comfortable. It was fuzzy and warm and Andrew was looking as pleased as a cat stretched out in the sun under a window. Neil, all of a sudden, wondered what it would be like to wear a sweater that made him that happy.
He then moved on to wondering what it would be like to wear Andrew's sweater.
And again, like a car speeding towards a squirrel on a deserted back road, it struck him.
He wanted to steal Andrew's sweater (again).
He tried to rationalise it. It was cold out, he reasoned, and he wasn't wearing his warmest of clothes, and it was a nice, expensive-looking sweater with really nice material. Was it knitted? He wasn't sure, but he wanted to steal it even more now.
Goddamnit.
Neil spent the rest of the day distancing himself, because otherwise, gods help him, he was going to jump Andrew and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him short of dousing the sweater in gasoline and lighter fluid and throwing lit matches at it-- and even then, he wasn't sure that he wouldn't go and save it anyway. That was just what sort of day it was, he realised, the kind where he would have to think twice about letting a sweater that wasn't even his burn down to ashes if it came to that.
He decided those kinds of days were more trouble than they were worth.
Neil couldn't sleep again that night, but he didn't go up to the roof. He didn't trust himself.
Someday, he thought as he lay awake in bed, is going to have to be pretty damn soon.
iii. woolly sweater
Neil was just about done with everything ever. The universe had decided to be an absolute bitch, as always, and Andrew had taken to wearing a very specific woolly sweater over and over again for the last week. It was oversized and white and knitted out of the chunkiest, fluffiest yarn ever, and Neil was finding it very difficult not to just snatch it the very moment Andrew took it off. His main complaints were that a) Andrew couldn't just expect Neil not to want to steal his sweater, not if he was going to walk around positively drowning in the fabric with the sleeves down to his fingertips, b) that it influenced his brain in a way that he was not entirely okay with (*cough* he wanted cuddles *cough*), and c) that it made Andrew look infuriatingly pretty, and he was not prepared to deal with that, thank you very much.
This time, though, he wasn't about to distance himself. Not again. No, today his plan was to be as clingy and annoying as Andrew would let him. You know, just to see how far he could go compared to what Andrew tolerated from everyone else, because sometimes it's cool to know that sort of thing.
So, when Andrew sat down on the couch in the late afternoon sunlight and pulled out his book from lord-knows-where, Neil took it as a signal to flop down with his head in Andrew's lap.
To his credit, Andrew didn't even flinch.
Neil decided that Andrew made a very comfortable pillow. Plus, the sweater was really, really soft against his cheek, and it smelled like laundry detergent, which shouldn't have been that nice, but somehow it was. He didn't want to get up ever again. And so he didn't. Andrew made no move to leave, only changing position when he went to turn a page, and Neil began to drift off, the soft paper sounds and rhythm of Andrew's breathing convincing his brain this was a safe place. Eventually, his eyelids slipped shut. He promised himself it was only for a few minutes. He wasn't about to fall asleep...
He woke up some time later, still in Andrew's lap.
The room was dark, and Andrew wasn't reading anymore, just staring off through the window into the evening. Neil shifted slightly, stifling a yawn, and Andrew looked down with mild curiosity.
"Sorry for falling asleep on you," Neil said after a beat. "Your sweater is really comfortable."
Andrew looked away again. "Don't apologise. You gave me an excuse to finish my book."
Neither of them said anything else, but then again, neither of them made any move to get up until much later, when Neil was sure he would fall asleep again.
He managed to fall asleep without a single intrusive thought, and dreamed of someday all night long.
iv. cardigan
Andrew had taken to wearing flannels.
Neil was very much interested in this fact.
Renee called them cardigans, but weren't they just button-ups that weren't buttoned? At any rate, Andrew looked too good in them, as always. Sometimes, when he was sleep-deprived, Neil wondered if Andrew was the king of sweaters. He probably was. He should be, anyway.
...If it wasn't clear, Neil was vaguely sick. He'd had a fever when he'd woken up, and was now sufficiently high on Advil, chicken soup, and electrolytes, all courtesy of Abby. And when Neil was sick (and high on Advil), he tended to be a little impulsive.
This led to Andrew wearing a flannel (cardigan?) and Neil prancing around the living room, complimenting him and being vaguely lucid overall. Andrew, to his credit, was just sitting there and taking it, albeit with a slightly bored look on his face.
Neil managed to slur out a "you're the king of sweaters, Andrew!! Isn't that cool? That's why they always look so good on you!!"
Andrew's look changed from totally bored to something unidentifiable and then to confusion in about three seconds flat. It was kind of comedic, actually. "Am I, now?"
"Mhm!!" Neil seemed to be very pleased with himself. "See? You're always wearing one, so you must be the king of sweaters. It just makes sense!!!"
"I think you need to sleep this off," Andrew remarked.
"Sleep? Me? Nooooooo," Neil chided. "I haven't told you about all your sweaters yet!!"
Andrew got up and made for the door. Neil immediately chased after him, somewhat like a puppy, still mumbling about sweaters and cuteness and fuzzy yarn.
Andrew managed to lead Neil upstairs to his room, but getting him into bed was a different struggle. "It's like herding cats," he said under his breath as Neil flopped down on the floor for the fifth time.
"But Andrewwwwww," Neil protested, "I'm not sleepy!!"
"You're sick," Andrew pointed out, "and we need you to be healthy enough that you can play our next game. Now, are you going to sleep or not?"
This seemed to sober Neil somewhat. "Okay, okay," he mumbled, getting up with a bit of a struggle and faceplanting into bed.
Andrew was satisfied with this, and turned to leave, almost missing Neil's parting remark.
"Someday, o great king of sweaters. Someday."
He blamed it on the Advil.
v. zip-up
During practice in the colder months, Andrew often brought a zip-up hoodie with him in case he got cold. Neil, understandably, took this as a moment to internally simp over Andrew in a sweater.
Yeah, he'd accepted it at that point.
After Andrew had recounted what had happened when he'd been sick, Neil gave up completely on trying to be a sentient being around cosy-sweater-Andrew. He took to literally jumping him, no matter where or when-- even now, as they left practice, Neil was glomped onto Andrew and his rather emo black zip-up hoodie.
"I think you're emo, Andrew," Neil remarked.
"What makes you say that?" Andrew deadpanned.
"You're always wearing black," Neil started, then tapered off. "Uh, you.. listen to... My Chemical Romance?"
"Nobody will ever believe you," Andrew stated, knowing full well that Neil had been stalking his Spotify, and that nobody else actually gave a shit whether he was emo or not. Well, maybe Nicky did, but that didn't really count. Nicky was Nicky.
Neil swore. "You're right." He hummed noncommittally into Andrew's shoulder, watching his breath condense into mist in the cold winter air. "Hey, it's kinda cold. Are you sure you're good in just that?"
He had a point. The sweater was rather thin. No, this wasn't just a plot to get Andrew to switch it out so that Neil could steal this one, what on Earth are you talking about?
"I'm fine," Andrew replied, essentially crushing all of Neil's hopes and dreams like a house of cards that had been hit with an Exy racquet.
"I'm crushed," Neil shot back. "I was going to offer you my jacket, you know, like a gentleman, but you've foiled my plot. How sad."
Andrew laughed, sharp and quick, making a cloud in the December air. "I don't need it. But thanks."
"Alright, alright," Neil answered. "It was worth a try. You'd look great either way."
There was a beat.
Was Andrew... flustered?
Was today someday?
A metric ton of questions rushed through Neil's brain, only to be interrupted by a wrecking ball of rabid squirrels, which actually turned out to be in the form of Nicky. A conversation started, and the topic changed, coats and compliments forgotten.
Maybe today just wasn't his day yet.
vi. take my coat
Neil didn't wake up with the intention of stealing Andrew's sweaters. In fact, he only really woke up with the intention to go and eat breakfast, because he was really fucking hungry.
It was just that he went downstairs in shorts and a t-shirt, because nobody else was supposed to be in the building, and so when he saw Andrew sitting at the kitchen table wrapped up in a flannel AND a zip-up over it, he figured it was time to shoot his shot.
He made tea, to start. Things had to seem normal enough. While the kettle boiled, he sat down across from Andrew and shivered comically. "It's cold, isn't it?"
Andrew sipped his coffee and stared out the window. "It is."
Oh-kay. So he wasn't going to take the hint. That was fine. Neil got up to deal with the kettle, which was currently screaming at a pitch formerly only reached by Mort from Madagascar. When he got back, toting his tea in a lurid orange mug, Andrew wrinkled his nose. "How can you stand that colour?"
Neil shrugged. "I got used to it." He gulped his tea down fast so that he had a reason to be cold again. When it was gone, he tried another shiver, but just ended up looking like he had a bug in his pants or something.
Andrew cracked a small smile. He got up to take his coffee cup to the sink, then ran some water into it and turned to leave.
Neil panicked.
Then Andrew turned back. He shrugged off the zip-up, then the flannel, and handed the latter one to Neil. "Don't freeze to death," he said as he left, tossing the smallest and sharpest of smiles over his shoulder.
Once he was sure Andrew was gone, Neil put on the sweater.
It was so fucking comfy. Andrew had to have used fabric softener or something, because the shirt was so damn soft that Neil was going to lose his mind. He'd even cut the tags out of the back, which was something Neil thought only he did. And best of all, it was still warm.
Neil spent the rest of the day in Andrew's sweater, simping so hard he wasn't sure how he was still functioning.
And if Andrew whispered something about Neil looking cute in his sweater as the two passed each other on the way to bed, well, Neil had a reason to be up all night this time.
He'd have to come up with something else to do on the next someday.