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Abram survives.
It’s kind of his thing. He’s survived a childhood in the house of a mobster, ten years on the run, the brutal death of his mother, kidnapping and torture by aforementioned mobster father, the rival gang shootout that killed aforementioned mobster father, FBI questioning, witness protection, leaving witness protection, and a lifetime of endless, chest-constricting loneliness.
All of this is to say, Abram really didn’t think it’d be something as mundane as a car crash that took him out.
This is his last thought as he watches the pickup truck slide through a stop sign, too fast, toward his car. Then, the world goes black.
- - - -
Someone wakes up.
It’s warm — too warm — and he is trapped. He is trapped by a too warm arm, a furnace of a body pressed against his back.
He lurches out of the bed, feet twisting in the sheets. He ends up sprawled on a plush gray rug, looking up at a big fluffy white bed in a quiet, clean, neutral-toned bedroom.
A head appears over the edge of the bed, blond-haired and squinting. “Neil?” the man says, voice thick with sleep.
He (Neil?) flinches at the sound, and the man’s eyes widen. He swings out of the bed to kneel on the floor, placing a too-warm palm on the back of Neil(?)’s neck. Neil (okay, why not — it’s just a name) jerks away, scrambling back onto the blissfully cool hardwood floors.
The man doesn’t follow. He holds his hands up in front of him, palms out, to show that he won’t touch Neil again. His eyes scan Neil, concerned.
“What happened?” the man asks.
“I—“ Neil starts, but he doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. His eyes dart between his surroundings and the man, ensuring that he hasn’t moved. There’s a door that opens to a bathroom, a partially opened sliding door closet, and the closed door that must lead out to the rest of the place. The room has big windows, but they’re not on the first floor. There’s a thump on the other side of the room, and then a sleek black cat appears, coming to sit a few feet from Neil. It stares at him with wide, yellow eyes.
The man lowers his hands slowly to his own thighs. His face has smoothed into something blank, unreadable.
“You don’t know where you are,” the man says. “Do you know who I am?”
Neil shakes his head.
- - - -
Neil Josten is a professional athlete. He has PTSD from an incredibly violent childhood. He does not remember anything from the last decade, and he recalls only bits and pieces from his younger years. His most vivid memory is of getting shot. The blond man — whose name is Andrew Minyard — notices every time Neil rubs the resulting scar through his shirt.
He endures a CT scan and then an MRI. The results show that Neil’s brain is functioning perfectly normally, and that he fucking hates being in tight spaces.
Andrew tells the doctor that Neil has not suffered any head injuries, and that he has not encountered any major triggers. Andrew has this information because apparently, he is Neil’s husband.
“Could it have been caused by a dream?” Andrew asks. “He has nightmares sometimes.”
The tentative diagnosis is dissociative amnesia, an unusual phenomenon in which the brain responds to trauma by blocking off memories. But, as Andrew states, Neil is an unusual phenomenon himself.
The doctor is going to order some more tests and refer them to a specialist. He lets them go home, since there is nothing physically wrong with Neil, with the suggestion to get lots of rest and avoid anything that is overwhelming. The hypothesis is that his memories will come back on their own — could be today, could be weeks from now.
“Are you going to be difficult again?” Andrew asks as they walk through the hospital garage. It had taken most of the morning to get here, because Neil had been — justifiably — difficult.
Once Andrew realized that Neil wasn’t himself, he’d stood slowly, hands still up. He crossed the bedroom to pick up a cell phone.
“I’m going to call Aaron,” he said. Neil stared at him blankly. “My brother,” Andrew explained. “He’s a doctor.”
Neil knew one thing: He does not like doctors.
The moment Andrew looked down at the phone, Neil bolted.
He’s not sure how far he ran. The city streets were slick with ice and snow, and Neil’s bare feet were numb; the wind licked at him through his thin T-shirt and sweatpants.
A black car nearly hit him, and stopped Neil in his tracks. Andrew got out of the driver’s seat, leaving his car parked in the middle of an intersection to a chorus of honking.
Neil turned to run again, but Andrew’s voice stopped him for reasons he didn’t understand: “Abram.”
Andrew said other things, and once Neil heard them, he knew they were true: his mother’s name was Mary, and she was dead. He was born in Baltimore, and he hated it. He played little league Exy as a backliner, and that’s where he met Kevin Day.
“I once promised to protect you,” Andrew said, standing in front of Neil in the middle of the road. “In return, you promised to stay. I won’t trap you, but I can’t let you run off when you’re confused. Let me prove myself to you.”
Neil doesn’t really know why he got in the car. He doesn’t know why he let Andrew bring him to the hospital, why he sat silently and watched Andrew as he signed paperwork and spoke with the staff.
“Difficult how?” he asks Andrew now, standing at the passenger door of his car.
Andrew raises an eyebrow. “Difficult like running.”
“No,” Neil says. “I don’t know where I’d go.”
“I didn’t think you needed a destination other than away.”
“First I’d need to understand what I’m running away from.”
Neil’s eyes fall briefly to his own hand, a slim wedding band around his finger.
“Do I love you?” Neil asks.
Andrew blinks. “You’ve never used that word.”
“But I married you,” Neil argues.
Andrew shrugs.
“Marriage never meant that to us. We mostly did that so that if you ended up in the hospital again, I’d be able to advocate for you. Seems like we weren’t being paranoid.” Andrew’s voice pitches lower, less sharp. “But you promised to stay. And you always have.”
Neil swallows, trying to digest the words.
“Do you love me?” he asks.
Andrew’s gaze morphs to something darker — so intense that Neil nearly looks away. He steps forward and reaches for Neil’s face, waiting until Neil nods before he takes Neil’s chin in his hand.
“Yes.”
Neil’s body relaxes at the word. His eyes fall closed.
“I don’t remember,” Neil whispers. “But it feels true.”
It’s an understatement: Neil is confused, but this body knows things that he doesn’t. And it tells him that no one has ever cared about Neil the way that Andrew does. It tells him that Neil’s never trusted anyone the way he trusts Andrew.
“It is,” Andrew says. He lets go of Neil’s chin. “Let’s go home.”
- - - -
Andrew’s brother is his identical twin, but they look nothing alike.
Aaron is thinner, his face younger, his hair shorter. He doesn’t like Neil, and Neil doesn’t like him.
Regardless, he shows up that night with a carry-on suitcase and asks all the same questions that they were asked at the hospital. Andrew answers them again, impatient but compliant, until Aaron tells Neil that he can speak for himself.
“The real doctor said that I should avoid anything that upsets or irritates me,” Neil tells him flatly.
Aaron smiles then, and it’s another way he’s distinct from Andrew. “Good to know that despite everything, you’re still an asshole.”
They order food and eat it around the huge kitchen island. Neil takes a shower in the luxurious bathroom. Then Andrew puts Neil on the couch and throws blankets and pillows at him.
“Do you want to watch Exy?” he asks. He’s standing next to the coffee table with the remote, flipping through channels.
“Whatever,” Neil says. Andrew looks at him then, and there’s a flash of this morning’s concern on his face before it’s once again wiped clean.
Neil does want to watch Exy. It’s another one of those truths that’s obvious once he’s confronted with it. He keeps the volume low so that he can listen to Andrew and Aaron in the kitchen. They’re speaking too quietly for him to make out words, but the sound of their voices keeps Neil in the present. Neil’s head is pounding, his eyes dry and sore — a day’s worth of confusion and fear taking its heavy toll. At some point, Neil dozes off.
He wakes up too warm again. There’s something in his lap, but when he moves, it disappears. The TV is still on, volume muted, and the small black cat is looking over its shoulder at Neil with derision.
Andrew is at the other end of the couch, his phone in his hand but his eyes on Neil.
“Head still fucked?” he asks.
Neil kicks off the blanket, then curls his legs up on the couch. “I guess.”
Andrew’s eyes flit away for a moment. He tosses his phone onto the coffee table.
“I want you to talk to Bee,” Andrew says. “Do you remember her?”
Neil shakes his head.
“She was our therapist in college,” Andrew continues. “She can’t technically treat you out of state, but she said she’d talk to you if it might help.”
“Okay,” Neil says.
Andrew frowns. “You should know that you wouldn’t normally agree to this. I think you trust her because I trust her, but you’ve never liked talking to her. It was mandatory for you to see her twice a year to stay on the team.”
“Why are you telling me this if you want me to talk to her?”
“I’m not in the habit of making you do things that you don’t want to do,” Andrew says. “I used to try. You proved to me early on that it would never work.”
Neil huffs at that, looking down at his hands. When he looks back up, Andrew is still watching him.
“I’m sorry,” Neil says.
Andrew’s expression hardens. “Why?”
Neil shrugs. Some of the things he’s learned today feel like stories related to someone else's life: Neil switched to playing striker at a tiny high school in Arizona. Aaron lives in Chicago with his wife. Andrew’s cousin calls Neil every Tuesday, because Andrew is too stubborn to pick up the phone himself.
But other things are clear truths, even if they’re more abstract: Neil’s mother died. Andrew is safe. Neil was supposed to stay, but part of him is gone.
When Neil doesn’t answer, Andrew moves closer. He doesn’t touch Neil, but he does stab a finger in his direction.
“I’ll tell you if you do something worth apologizing over,” Andrew hisses. “Until then, keep your fucking guilt complex in check and focus on getting better.”
Neil swallows. “Okay.”
Andrew nods, shoulders relaxing. “It’s late. You should go to bed.”
Neil wants to argue that he just woke up, but he still feels exhausted. Andrew stands, turning off the TV and grabbing Neil’s half-full glass of water. Neil trails him into the kitchen, where Andrew dumps the cup, refills it from the pitcher in the fridge, and presses the cold glass into Neil’s hands.
“Aaron’s in the spare bedroom,” Andrew says. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“No, I will. It’s your bed.”
Andrew glares. “It’s your bed, too. And I’d prefer to be between you and the door.”
Neil frowns, but allows Andrew to shepherd him into the bedroom. Andrew unplugs his phone charger and grabs a pillow.
“Do you need anything else?” Andrew asks.
Neil shakes his head, so Andrew leaves, pulling the door shut behind him.
Neil brushes his teeth in the en suite with what he hopes is his toothbrush. Andrew took the pillow from the side of the bed Neil woke up on, so Neil gets in on the other. Maybe they don’t have usual sides, or maybe Neil was just on the wrong one this morning.
Neil is too tired to think about it. But still, sleep doesn’t come quickly. Staring out the window at the cloudy sky, Neil thinks that this might be another truth: He isn’t used to sleeping alone.
- - - -
Neil almost bolts again in the morning.
It’s still mostly dark, and he doesn’t recognize the bedroom. He must make some noise as he rolls out of bed and into the hall, because Andrew has the light on and is standing near the door by the time Neil gets there.
“Neil,” he says, voice low. A door opens somewhere behind Neil, and he jerks his head toward the sound.
“It’s just Aaron,” Andrew says in that same even tone. “Do you remember what happened yesterday?”
Neil takes a few ragged breaths as he recalls yesterday’s events, then hits a wall. He looks back at Andrew in an attempt to find some mental footing.
Andrew stands in front of Neil, eyes darting around his face.
“Neil,” he says, waiting for Neil’s eyes to focus on him. “Can I touch you?”
Neil nods once, and Andrew places his palm on the back of Neil’s neck. The pressure is as new as it is familiar and grounding.
“Breathe,” Andrew murmurs, and Neil wants to listen. He sucks at the air.
“Andrew,” he gasps.
Andrew’s blank mask wavers. He takes Neil’s wrist and rests it at the center of his chest, letting Neil feel the slow rise and fall of it.
“Breathe,” Andrew repeats, squeezing Neil’s neck.
It takes a few minutes, but eventually Neil paces his breath with Andrew’s. He hangs his head, and Andrew rubs his thumb into the base of Neil’s skull a few times before dropping both hands and stepping away.
“I’m making coffee,” comes Aaron’s voice from behind Neil. “Next time, can you wait to have a crisis until the sun fully rises?”
Neil huffs an exasperated laugh, turning around. “Fuck you,” he says.
Aaron throws a middle finger in his direction as he hits buttons on the fancy coffee maker.
- - - -
Aaron stays for two more days. He is useless as a medical professional; the most he does is suggest Neil take some Tylenol whenever his brain feels like it’s splitting open. The headaches come when Neil tries too hard to recall a memory. It pisses Andrew off every time.
“Don’t you want me to remember?” Neil asks once, fingers digging into his temple as if he can muffle the pain.
“Not like this,” Andrew had responded gruffly. Then Aaron suggested Tylenol again, so Andrew left the room to get it.
Neil suspects that Aaron is mostly here for Andrew, even though the twins seem to hold each other at arm’s length. They play video games while Neil watches, dozing on and off on the couch. They go out for lunch one day, but they have to box up their food when a pair of Exy fans ask for autographs and Neil’s muscles lock up. They walk around in a nearby park, silent except for when Andrew or Aaron points out a dog.
The morning before Aaron’s flight, he surprises Neil by suggesting they go for a run together.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you go this long without jogging,” Aaron says. “Andrew hates running. But I’m pretty sure you usually go every day.”
It’s cold outside, but they warm up soon enough. Neil is faster than Aaron, which saps Aaron’s temporary goodwill. They cool down in the park, Aaron pink and panting, Neil smug and more energized than he has been in days.
“You’re the worst,” Aaron says. He stops walking, and Neil turns to make sure he doesn’t hurl on his shoes. “But you’re also a tough motherfucker.”
Neil blinks, and Aaron levels him with a hard stare.
“Don’t be stubborn,” Aaron continues. “Do what you’re told, so that you can remember that this family is the best thing that ever happened in your miserable life.”
So, maybe, Aaron is here for Neil, too.
- - - -
That night, Andrew changes the channel from a cooking show to an Exy game, but he mutes the volume. Neil glances up briefly from the adult coloring book that Andrew ordered online after Neil's doctor suggested it.
“You could at least try to color inside the lines,” Andrew says.
Neil sits back to look at the peacock he’s been working on. It is sloppy, and the colors he chose are unnatural. But the process of putting pencil to paper is as soothing as the cover advertises.
“I’m taking creative liberties,” Neil says.
“They suck.”
“And you could do better?”
Andrew slides down onto the floor next to where Neil sits at the coffee table. The cat — King — jumps up to savor the warmth he leaves behind.
Andrew tears a page out of the coloring book; it’s an ocean scene, and Andrew carefully fills in the page from left to right, using various blues and greens. He has scars on his forearms. They don’t match Neil’s own, but they’re proof of another truth, another thread between them that Neil doesn’t fully understand but can feel is there.
He keeps scribbling away at his orange and purple peacock.
The Exy game is a crime scene. Andrew watches with more focus than usual, and flips the channel back to the cooking show during half-time. Neil looks at him, curious.
“That’s our team,” Andrew says.
Neil blows air from his lips. “Do we always suck that bad?”
Andrew’s eyes stay on his coloring page. He’s shading in a sea-star with a lilac pencil.
“We’re at the top of our division,” Andrew says.
“Huh,” Neil says, tapping his pencil against the table. “Obviously I can’t play. But I’m surprised they’re letting you stay home too, if this is the result.”
Andrew doesn’t answer. Neil puts down his pencil, and Andrew flicks his gaze over at him.
“I’m not leaving you here alone while I fly across the country to play a stupid game,” he says. “They can fine me all they want.”
Neil frowns. “Is your contract at risk?”
“Probably not.” Andrew shrugs. “I don’t care.”
Neil is silent. Andrew sighs.
“I have it all under control,” Andrew says.
“All?” Neil asks. “Is there other stuff too?”
“There’s lots of stuff,” Andrew says. “But don’t worry about it.”
Neil is worrying about it. He can feel the creep of a migraine forming behind his eyes.
“Hey,” Andrew says. He pokes Neil in the cheek with his colored pencil. Neil swats it away. “I said I’ve got it handled. Do you believe me?”
Andrew’s irises are ringed with green and conviction.
“Yes,” Neil says.
- - - -
Neil’s friends want to visit him.
There are a lot of people who care about his well-being, apparently. Andrew fields their calls, and Neil sits nearby as he gives them all the same monotone spiel about Neil’s status.
“I’ll ask him,” Andrew always says when they want to talk to Neil or fly up to see them. Neil always shakes his head. He doesn’t want to disappoint anyone.
“Are we close with them all?” Neil asks.
Andrew shrugs. “You are.”
He doesn’t elaborate.
Andrew’s longest conversations are with his cousin, Nicky. He calls every day. Neil can tell Nicky is an animated speaker, but Andrew doesn’t seem to get irritated with him. He asks questions about someone named Erik, about Nicky’s work. Nicky always reminds Andrew to pass his love along to Neil.
On the sixth day Nicky calls, Neil accepts the phone from Andrew.
“Hi,” he says. Nicky is quiet for a moment on the other end of the line.
“Hey, Neil,” he says, voice thick. “Am I still a stranger?”
“Yeah,” Neil says. “Sorry.”
“Not your fault,” Nicky says lightly. “I’ve been watching this show I think you’d like, but it’s got a bajillion episodes, so you’d never sit still long enough to watch it. I can tell you the short version, though, if you want?”
“Okay,” Neil says.
Nicky is a good storyteller. He’s right — Neil does find the plot interesting. They’re on the phone for an hour. At some point, Andrew sits down next to Neil, close enough that their thighs press together, so Neil puts the call on speakerphone. King comes to sit in Neil’s lap, purring and nuzzling his hand.
Neil doesn’t speak again except to say goodbye.
Andrew also talks to Kevin Day a lot. Kevin really wants to talk to Neil, but thinking about Kevin is guaranteed to send Neil’s head spinning. Andrew starts telling Kevin “no” without asking Neil, for which he is grateful.
Neil does talk therapy with a psychologist through a laptop webcam every day. Andrew always leaves the apartment for the hour to run errands. The therapy is sort of useless, but he remembers Aaron telling him not to be stubborn, so he does it with minimal complaint.
He also uses the laptop to talk to Betsy Dobson. Neil understands why he’s not supposed to like her — she seems to know him well enough to ask uncomfortably probing questions. But it’s also nice to talk to someone who knows him but doesn’t seem to be devastated by his situation.
Betsy draws some lines when they talk about Andrew — she says she understands that he is curious, but that it’s best to direct his questions to the man himself.
“Why doesn’t Andrew like our friends?” Neil asks on their third call, fully expecting her to redirect the conversation. It takes her a moment to respond.
“You understand, I think, that Andrew doesn’t trust easily,” Betsy says. “You both fought hard to earn the closeness you have now. I suspect that the version of him you are getting re-introduced to is not the version he allows many others to see.”
Neil swallows. He thinks about Andrew’s stiff phone conversations, about his hesitant distance from Aaron. He thinks about the rare moments in which Andrew seems to drop his apathetic mask, about his warm, calloused hands on Neil’s face and the back of his neck.
“I also suspect that it is difficult for Andrew to remain open with you right now,” Betsy says. “This isn’t your fault, of course. But you should be aware of it, should Andrew become frustrated in more vulnerable moments.”
Neil sighs, running a hand through his hair.
“Thank you,” he says softly.
He can hear the smile in Betsy’s voice. “Of course. You’ll pull through, Neil. You always do.”
- - - -
It’s been over a week, but Neil’s cell phone hasn’t moved from where it lies face down on the nightstand, still on the charger. Neil picks it up one afternoon. Andrew finds him there after some time, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the lock screen.
It’s a photo of Neil, Andrew, and some others — he assumes it’s their friends, the other Foxes that Andrew and Aaron have mentioned. He only recognizes the twins and the tall man Neil leans against.
Andrew sits down next to him.
“I remember Kevin, but not like this,” Neil says. He ghosts his finger over the arm slung around his shoulders and up to Kevin’s face, tapping the chess piece tattoo on his cheek. “They used to draw on their faces with markers. One and two.”
“I know,” Andrew says.
Neil shudders. “My father killed someone there. When I met them.”
“I know,” Andrew says again, voice softer. “Your father is dead now. And Kevin’s done settling for second.”
Neil stares at the phone, though the photo blurs in his vision. “Is Riko dead too?”
“Yes.”
Neil’s head hurts. He winces.
“There’s a lot more to that story, but I don’t think now is the time for it,” Andrew murmurs. He unwraps Neil’s fingers from the phone and slides it out of his hand, putting it back on the nightstand. Andrew places a warm palm on Neil’s cheek, pulling Neil’s focus to his face. “What do you need?”
“I don’t know,” Neil says. “What do I usually need?”
Andrew watches him for a moment, then moves up on the bed until his back is against the headboard. He tugs on Neil’s shirt-sleeve until Neil is sitting next to him, his fingers working though Neil’s hair.
Andrew digs his own phone out of his pocket and opens a mobile game, some kind of puzzle involving colorful blocks. He pushes Neil’s head down to rest on his shoulder, and Neil feels the tension bleed out of him as he watches Andrew’s thumb move on the screen, thoughtfully slow and precise.
- - - -
Andrew hangs up on their team manager in the middle of a conversation. Andrew said only one word the whole call: “No.”
He puts the phone down on the counter in front of him, then takes a deep breath.
“If you wanted to go to practice, at least…” Neil says.
Andrew’s eyes flick over to Neil where he sits across the kitchen island. His face is a warning. “Don’t start.”
“Okay,” Neil says.
Andrew is still for a moment, eyes closed, hands gripping the edge of the counter. Then he turns around and finishes loading the dishwasher, the task he’d abandoned when he’d gotten the call.
“Is there anything I can do to make this easier?” Neil asks.
Andrew looks over his shoulder at him, brow furrowed.
“This whole thing has been difficult for you,” Neil says. “I want to help, if I can.”
“Difficult for me,” Andrew scoffs. “Worry about your own head, not mine.”
“Well if I don’t, will you?”
Andrew slams the dishwasher closed and walks away. He also slams the door to the spare bedroom, where he’s been sleeping since Aaron went home.
Neil’s heart pounds in his throat, but he remembers what Betsy told him about trust and vulnerability and frustration. She’d said it’s not his fault, and maybe it’s true that he didn’t ask his brain to do this, but it’s undeniable that Neil is the problem.
When Andrew comes back fifteen minutes later, Neil has moved to sit with King on the couch. Andrew doesn’t look at him as he settles in the armchair.
Neil watches him for a moment.
“Why are you angry?” Neil asks.
Andrew’s eyes flick to him. “I’m not angry. Not with you. You’re right, this has been hard for both of us. I’m tired.”
“And I can’t help. Not anymore.”
Andrew sighs, sitting back in the chair.
“We’ve been together for a long time,” he says. “There are a million things you usually do that help me. But I won’t tell you what, because I won’t let you give me anything you’re not ready to give. That’s not who we are.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Neil says.
Andrew looks down to his hands and huffs a genuine laugh, the first Neil’s heard from him. Something aches in his chest. He wants to hear that sound again and again and again.
“Story of our lives,” Andrew says, lips curving up on one side. The ache multiplies — it’s a hollowness, really. A craving. Neil might not remember much, but his body has enough practice being lonely to supply a name to the feeling.
“I think I miss you,” Neil says.
Andrew looks up at him, exasperated. “I’m right here.”
“I think I miss things that I don’t really remember,” Neil says. “But whenever you touch me, it goes away.”
Andrew’s face hardens. “I will not have sex with you to fulfill your delusion of obligation.”
“That’s not what I mean. It’s more like—“ Neil stands, hesitating in front of Andrew’s arm chair. “Can I sit with you?”
Andrew’s face is blank again, but he shifts to the side. Neil slides in next to him, and there’s a mindless jumble of limbs as they fit themselves together in the tight space. It’s another thing that is new yet familiar — Neil’s arm around Andrew’s shoulders, Andrew’s legs across Neil’s lap. Andrew takes Neil’s free hand between his own, playing with his fingers and tracing over his scars.
“You remember that we do this?” Andrew asks quietly.
“I don’t know,” Neil admits. “Maybe it’s more muscle memory.”
Andrew weaves his fingers through Neil’s, then presses his face down against Neil’s collarbone and takes a deep breath. Neil tips his head so that his cheek rests against Andrew’s hair.
“It took us years to be able to do things like this,” Andrew murmurs. “I don’t let people touch me. Except for you.”
Neil doesn’t know what to say to that. He closes his eyes and pulls Andrew impossibly closer.
“I miss you,” Andrew whispers, and Neil’s chest constricts.
“I’m sorry.”
Andrew digs a fingernail into the back of Neil’s palm. “What did I tell you about apologies? Just shut up and get better.”
“I will,” Neil says, and the words are heavy with promise. “I’ll come back to you.”
Andrew takes a shaky breath, then nods. He’s a human furnace, and Neil finds himself curling around his warmth.
Neil isn’t sure who falls asleep first.
- - - -
Someone wakes up.
He’s cold.
The lights are too bright. Everything hurts, so he lets it all go dark.
- - - -
Someone wakes up again.
It's still too bright. And loud: there's a beeping sound that won't stop, and it’s fucking annoying.
“Andrew?” he murmurs. He blinks his eyes open, and the hospital room spins around him.
A nurse comes in, then gasps when she sees he’s awake. She ducks out for a moment, then reappears.
“Hey, man,” she says, crouching beside him. “How are you feeling?”
“Like shit,” he says.
The nurse laughs lightly. Her braids are all the colors of the rainbow, like a box of colored pencils.
“Fair enough,” she says. “The doctor is on his way, alright?”
“Where’s Andrew?” he asks.
The nurse’s eyebrows draw together.
“I haven’t seen any Andrews around here yet,” she says. “Is that someone I can call for you?”
He nods. Then he frowns. “I don’t know his number.”
The nurse squeezes his hand. “That’s okay. Mr. Browning should be back soon. Maybe he’ll have it.”
His head swims. “What?”
He doesn’t hear her response.
Instead, he blinks, and the light in the room has changed — the sun must have gone down.
“Abram.”
He looks toward the source of the voice, then wrinkles his nose in disgust.
“What the hell are you doing here,” Abram mumbles.
“You still have me as your emergency contact, jackass,” Agent Browning says. “I’ve been telling you to make friends for years. These are the consequences.”
“Where’s Andrew?” Abram asks him.
“The nurse said you were asking for him,” Browning says. “I have no clue who that is.”
“Andrew,” Abram repeats. “Andrew. He’s my…” The world spins again as the words come out of Abram’s mouth. Out of Neil’s mouth. Out of Abram’s mouth.
Andrew. Andrew is Neil Josten’s husband. Neil Josten is…
“Kid, it’s my job to keep track of the people you hang out with,” Browning says. “You haven’t crossed paths with any Andrews. At least not in any significant way.”
It felt so real.
- - - -
Abram goes back to sleep. He’s uninterested in waking up.
Maybe, if he sleeps enough, he’ll be Neil again.
The doctors seem to determine that this development has more to do with psychology than the car accident that put him here. They say he was unconscious for about two days. He has a concussion and some sprains, but he can go home soon. Abram doesn’t respond. He just sleeps.
They move him to a different part of the hospital. He sees a psychiatrist, and he sits in circles with other people who talk about the shit they’ve been through. He takes the medicine they give him, and it makes it harder to sleep, so he decides he wants to leave. The only way to do that is to “get better.”
Talking about his childhood in group therapy is almost fun. He likes the faces people make when he goes into specifics. Abram is pretty sure everyone regrets waking him up. They release him a few days later.
He throws away the medicine when he gets back to his apartment, but now that he’s awake again, it’s not as easy to sleep.
His coworkers at the coffee shop he works at are excited to have him back. He shows up and makes lattes.
He was training for a marathon before the wreck. He has to adapt the schedule he’d scrawled on the magnetic notepad on the fridge, but he catches up soon enough.
Agent Browning hired a lawyer, so he gets some money from the guy who caused the crash.
The world moves on. Abram survives. It’s kind of his thing.
He’s starting to wonder if survival is worth being alone.
- - - -
“Am I allowed to change my name again?”
Agent Browning’s been calling a lot to check in. (He’s still a bastard.)
“Didn’t I tell you to choose carefully?” Browning asks.
“I think I want to go by Neil,” he says. “Neil Josten.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to be Abram anymore. I’m done holding onto that part of my life.”
Browning doesn’t reply for a moment. He sighs. “I’ll think about it.”
- - - -
It’s months before he thinks to check the internet. His bruises are healed, and he has a new ID card in his wallet.
Neil has never been great with technology. But he had a dream last night — just a regular dream, over-saturated and blurry-edged, nothing like the vivid life he’d lived after the accident.
Still, it felt more real than his waking life. In the dream, he felt how much Andrew cared about him. He felt how much they could lean on each other. He woke up thinking he’d give anything to have that life again.
Google doesn’t produce any results for Andrew Minyard. He is not a famous Exy player.
Kevin Day is, but Neil already knew that. He’s always kept tabs on them — through Kevin’s injury and transfer to Palmetto, Riko’s suicide, Kevin’s redemption arc as he worked his way up from a shitty college team to the professional league and back to the US Court. Neil scrolls through pictures of him anyway, looking at old photos of his college years. He half expects to see himself in PSU team photos. He’s not. Neither is Andrew, neither is Aaron, and neither is a championship trophy.
His eye does catch on one woman with tight curls and a fearsome smile. He reads the caption — Danielle Wilds, captain — and his heart lurches. There’s another photo of her with Matthew Boyd. And another with Renee Walker and Allison Reynolds.
Had he seen these names before, in a previous Kevin research session? Had his subconscious offered their names for his fantasy of a family?
Pulse pounding, he googles: aaron minyard chicago doctor
The page loads.
Aaron doesn’t look like Andrew. His face is thinner, more youthful. He smiles for the camera. But they have the same eyes, the same pale hair, the same freckled cheeks and thin, pink lips. And Aaron Minyard is real.
Neil puts down his laptop and goes for a run.
He calls in sick to work.
He makes an omelet and doesn’t eat it.
He sits back down with his laptop, and starts clicking links.
Aaron’s hospital biography is boring. He is active on Twitter but he only uses it to argue with other medical professionals, because despite everything, he is still an asshole. His Facebook is barren, and his Instagram has one photo (of his wife, Katelyn) and one follower (also his wife). Neil clicks into her profile and finds a gold mine.
Katelyn posts pictures of everything. Including last weekend, when she got lunch with her husband and brother-in-law. Neil stops breathing.
Andrew’s face is mostly obscured by the middle finger he’s holding toward the camera, but it’s undeniably him. Neil recognizes the set of his broad shoulders, the chewed-down fingernails. There’s no ring on his finger and his whole arm is covered in ink — the tail of a snake loops around his wrist and up the back of his hand — but Neil can still see the hint of raised lines down his forearm.
Real, real, real.
Katelyn, Neil’s new favorite person, has even tagged his profile. It’s not his name, but rather a business account for Doe-Eyed Tattoo, a tattoo parlor in Chicago. Most of the pictures are of finished tattoos, but Neil finds the final bit of proof he’s looking for — a shaky video of Andrew, tattoo gun in his hand, inking a floral design on someone’s shoulder.
Neil got some money from the guy who caused the crash. He uses it to buy a plane ticket to Chicago.
- - - -
This was an incredibly stupid plan.
There was no plan, actually. Neil is standing on a narrow street, just off a busier strip of shops. Across the road is Doe-Eyed Tattoo, and Neil has no clue what he’s going to do next.
“You both fought hard to earn the closeness you have now,” Betsy Dobson told him. (She’s real, too. Still working at Palmetto State, according to Google). “I suspect that the version of him you are getting re-introduced to is not the version he allows many others to see.”
It took the other Neil years to earn that Andrew’s trust. Who is he to think he can do it again? Who is he to think he deserves to?
Neil’s about to give up and leave when the shop’s front door opens.
It’s him. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of a denim jacket, and leans against the side of the building before he looks up. His eyes catch on where Neil has frozen across the street, and his cigarette pauses halfway to his mouth.
Neil shifts his weight, and Andrew drops the unlit cigarette.
“Don’t run,” Andrew calls.
Neil blinks. “Who said I was going to?”
“Let’s call it intuition,” Andrew says. He shakes two more cigarettes out of the pack and lights them, holding one out in Neil’s direction. Neil crosses the street to take it, eyes roaming up from Andrew’s fingers to his eyes. It’s impossible to read his blank stare.
“I don’t smoke,” Neil says. He cups his hand around the cigarette anyway, keeping it lit despite the persistent, chilly wind. It’s been a while since he indulged in this particular habit. The smell brings back memories — salt, blood, fire, grief. Neil swallows them down.
Andrew is watching him carefully, his stare comfortingly heavy, a gravity that Neil has been missing for months.
“What are you doing here?” Andrew asks.
Neil shrugs.
Andrew throws his barely-smoked cigarette to the ground and stomps on it, then turns to go inside.
But you should be aware of it, should Andrew become frustrated in more vulnerable moments.
“Wait,” Neil says. He reaches out, but stops his hand before it makes contact. He has not earned that right. Andrew stops, looking at Neil’s hand, then back up to his face. Something flickers across his face, just for a moment, and Neil takes a shaky breath.
“Do you know me?” Neil asks.
Andrew’s nostrils flare. “That depends. What name are you going by these days?”
“Neil,” he says. Andrew’s jaw sets. “And you’re Andrew. I know you. I think. It's hard to explain.”
Andrew closes his eyes, then wraps his hand around Neil’s still raised wrist. He runs his thumb up over Neil’s scarred knuckles, then swallows.
“I looked for you,” Andrew says lowly. “When I woke up. I looked for Neil Josten and Nathaniel Wesninski. I wasn’t around long enough to learn any of your other names. I found Aaron and Nicky, but I couldn’t find you.”
“‘Neil’ is a new thing."
“Why did it take you so long to find me?”
“It’s only been a few months,” Neil argues. “I couldn’t tell if it was real.”
Andrew glares at him. “It’s been five years for me.”
“What?”
“I got in a bar fight when I was 21,” Andrew says. “Got knocked out. Woke up crammed in a tiny dorm room twin with another guy. You.”
“Palmetto State,” Neil whispers.
Andrew nods. “I couldn’t remember anything. You were the only one who noticed something was off. I spent two weeks there, and then I woke up back at a hospital in Oakland. I couldn’t let go of the dream. Aaron once said he thinks it was just a twin telepathy thing, so that I’d go look for him, and then the rest was just fantasy.”
“For a doctor, he’s a real idiot,” Neil says. “But that’s not where I met you. We were older, playing pro. Living together.”
Andrew looks up at the sky and takes a deep breath.
“I found the death record for Nathaniel,” Andrew says. “I thought maybe you weren’t as lucky in this life.”
Neil takes a tiny step closer.
“Nah, I’m a survivor,” he says. “I promised you I’d come back. And now I promise to stay, if you still want me to.”
Andrew tightens his grip on his wrist. “Don’t make promises you don’t know you can keep.”
Neil meets Andrew’s eyes. His irises are ringed with green and hope.
“Let me prove myself to you.”