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Neil Josten used to love winter. As a child, in the heat of the summer months he would long for the time when he could cover his increasingly marred skin in layers and layers of nondescript clothing. When he could shield his mangled body from the prying eyes of the public and from the people who followed him from city to city.
Now? Neil hated the winter. He woke early in the morning, feeling the cold pull tight against his thick scars. His whole body, stiff with invisible pain. Flexing his fingers and toes sent agony ricocheting up his too skinny arms and legs.
He always stayed silent for as long as possible on these mornings. If there was one thing Neil hated it was making the others worry about him. He would hold in the winces that would inevitably shake the bed and alert Andrew that something was wrong. He would bite down on his pillow when a particular stretch had him gasping from the electric pain crackling up a limb. Anything to keep the pain a secret.
Sometimes, Andrew would notice that his body was moving slower than normal. On mornings where Neil had to move with purpose to climb down the ladder from the top bunk, Andrew was there with a heating pad to lay over the worst of the scarring on his forearms, or with a cup of warm, black coffee to heat him from within. His face was always blank, and seemingly uncaring, but Neil could never ignore the warm and fuzzy feeling that tucked into his chest when Andrew demonstrated that he truly did care for him.
Those little moments were sometimes all that kept Neil going. On days when he woke already making his way down the ladder, the cold making him feel like Lola was tracing her way up his arms with the lighter, or like Riko was carving into the soft skin of his inner thighs while Jean grabbed his ankles and avoided eye contact. When someone would yell his name on the court and he was back in the Raven’s locker room. On the streets and someone looked at his marred face and crossed to the other side of the road. Andrew was there. Holding out a hand, but never touching without permission. Reaching out, offering help, while never making Neil feel like he was weak for accepting it.
Sometimes, Neil would beat himself down for accepting Andrew’s help and touch. His demons that sounded an awful lot like his father and Riko would put the thoughts in his head that Andrew would be better off without him. That he would be better with someone who could sleep through the night and who was able to enjoy cold nights on the roof of the Fox Tower. Someone who didn’t forget who and where they were on bad days, and didn’t confuse Andrew with their dead tormentors when the lights were off. There were nights when Andrew would find Neil tucked in between the toilet and the shower, staring unseeing at the wall in front of him. Nights where Neil had a nightmare or memory so awful that he was rendered unresponsive for hours on end.
And yet through it all, Andrew would stay. When Neil didn’t know who or where he was, Andrew would repeat his mantra from Betsy over and over again until it stuck.
“Your name is Neil Abram Josten. You're at Palmetto State University. You’re a starting striker…”
The worst nights, when Neil was completely unresponsive and immobile, Andrew would sit with him and recite books from memory until Neil was back from his mind.
Deep down, Neil knew he didn’t deserve this. This soft and caring treatment was so much more than anything he had experienced in his life. The rest of his teammates as well were so gentle and patient with him. They each had their own ways of showing Neil that they cared.
On days where Neil couldn’t be alone with his thoughts, Nicky would sit close and talk about any and everything to distract Neil. When he needed to be grounded, Matt would let him sit tucked under his much larger wingspan and protect him from the world around them. Dan would join him on runs, Renee taught him how to properly defend himself, Kevin would run himself ragged on the court every night if it meant that Neil could get a proper night's sleep. Allison would sit and distract him during meals on days where his mother’s advice to always stay small was all that he could focus on. Wymack was always there for a soft couch to crash on when he didn’t trust himself to be around other people, and Abby was forever willing to patch him up. Even Aaron would play a video game with him on days where all he needed was mindless activity to keep him distracted.
Neil had never felt so settled and yet so burdened. The people who he had surrounded himself with cared for him so deeply, but he could not be open about what he felt. On dark winter nights when his scars felt so fresh he could taste the phantom blood he knew was on his face, Neil ached for the release that only death could bring him. He was gripped by the unfairness of it all. How come the monsters that turned him into a mangled man made of scar tissue and pain, rest in peace. They got to forget about the suffering that was their lives. They did not have to wake up every day and wade through memories that sought to paralyze him and invisible injuries that felt as though they were tearing them open from the inside. He was bitter. Why could they know peace that he would never be able to fully achieve without death.
On good days when both him and Andrew were able to withstand touch and the sight of his own skin didn’t make him feel like a caricature of Frankenstein's monster, the two of them would lay shirtless in their twin sized bed, and hold each other gently. No gripping hands or ulterior motives. Just to lay together in peace and content. That is what Neil imagines death to feel like. The complete and utter content he feels when bracketed in by Andrew’s thick arms must be what it would feel like to be dead.
So many nights he was jolted into awareness, scared awake by the blood curdling screams leaving his own mouth. He could feel Andrew flying into the wall, hear the thump of his body crashing out of bed because he thought that Neil’s scream was someone coming to attack him in his sleep. Neil hated himself especially on those nights. When he was the cause for Andrew having to relive every awful thing that happened to him just because Neil couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Those were the nights where Neil would replay the image of a bullet going through Riko’s skull and wished fervently that he had been in the so-called King’s place.
Selfishly, he would still reach for Andrew on those nights. He craved the gentle comfort that was brought to him by sitting next to Andrew on the roof, staring out at the night sky. But, it was getting cold now. There would be no more sleepily stumbling up the stairs in his threadbare pajama shirt that used to belong to Matt. Now, he required layers, and protection from the elements.
Sometimes the other foxes would tease him for his aversion to the cold. Matt would tell him how much he would hate New York if the South Carolina winters bothered him so much. Neil never had the heart to tell them that the cold brought back all the awful memories from his childhood. He couldn’t tell them that the cold reminds him of the time of year when he was taken to the Nest as a child to try out for Tetsuji, or how it reminds him of his most recent journey into the Raven’s winter training and the injuries he sustained under Riko’s too heavy gaze. He can’t tell them about how cold it would get in Baltimore on his birthday and how his father would chain him to their back porch naked all night long. He would never say that the way his scars pulled at his skin was all too reminiscent of the way his mom would harshly grab him and shake him while she screamed at him to do better next time.
Instead he laughs and shakes his head, silently accepting the teasing from his teammates. Neil knows that they don’t want to hear the things that have happened to him. He can remember the tears on their faces as he gave them the PG version of his life story. None of them other than Andrew and Kevin have seen his scars, and they probably never will.
So, he sucks it up and keeps it inside. He goes through his morning routine of biting down on his pillow as he stretches his limbs out one by one. Working out the stiffness that the cold has brought into his too many broken bones and his skin that has been torn to shreds countless times. He keeps himself silent through the pain, uses it to ground him and prepare him for the day and months ahead.
As he finishes stretching out his last limb, Kevin’s too loud alarm begins to blare and Neil feels Andrew jolt awake in the bed below. He sighs, dropping the pillow from his mouth as he sits upright for the first time that morning. He sees the condensation gathering on the window and knows that today is a day for his warmest jacket. He looks out over the room, and meets Andrew’s raised eyebrow. He nods, once, and looks down at his scarred hands in his lap. At least he gets to wear gloves today.
Neil used to love winter. He loved the anonymity of being dressed in dark layers like everyone else around him. Used to love how it hid him in plain sight. No one had eyes for a short, skinny boy with dark hair and eyes to match in a coat just a little too big. Now, he hates the winter. Hates the pain that radiates through his limbs with every step across his campus. But, as the sun breaks through the gloomy, gray clouds, he knows that summer will come again.