Chapter Text
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“What is this?” Andrew’s nose crinkles as he eyes the lumpy package suspiciously. His eyes narrow as he holds up the bad wrap job, the dancing Santas sprinkled on the wrapping paper smiling like fools.
Neil gulps. He knows how difficult it is to shop for Andrew let alone how bad he is at gifts to begin with. He’s never had to do it until he came to Palmetto and any show of affection is still difficult for him, let alone presents.
“It’s just…a gift.”
“Are we doing these now?” Andrew queries, the question a brutally honest one that hits Neil to his very core. They hadn’t ever discussed it and Neil panics that it might signal a step forward that Andrew is not yet ready for.
“I dunno…I mean, you don’t have to. But I did.”
Andrew doesn’t reply, instead he lifts it up close to his face and shakes it gently, as if trying to ascertain the contents by sound. Neil gulps, the anticipation of his reaction involuntarily making his insides quake.
Slim fingers that Neil knows like his own slip under an edge of the paper and purposefully drag across it, lifting the tape. At the shabbily tucked end, Andrew flips back the pointed corner and peels it back. The actions are slow and meticulous and Neil feels each lingering moment is a torturous taunt, one step closer to Andrew’s unpredictable reaction. The pounding of his heart drowns out any further attempt at speech.
At long last, the paper is off and the tissue inside shrugged off like a coat and Andrew holds up the item.
It’s a shiny silver lighter with AM engraved on it.
Andrew’s face is completely indecipherable.
The words come out all rushed and joined together, Neil’s cheeks burning hotter with each breath. “If you hate it, you don’t have to keep it.”
The words that come next are in German. No one else is in the room but the foreign words somehow come out more intimate. A secret only they share.
“I’m keeping it,” he says, simply.
It is clipped and direct without a trace of emotion but Neil knows what it means and it’s enough.