Chapter Text
Never in a million years did Neil expect to see Kevin again. They´ve known each other once, back when Kevin Day was still a round-faced, snotty kid with large, bright eyes and Neil had to hide the bandages around his stomach. Back then he, for some reason, liked Kevin. He liked that the kid was only a year older than him, that he was strong and cheerful and accepted Neil. In some way, Kevin has been Neil´s first, true friend.
And now he´s back, standing in front of his door in the middle of the night, behind and next to three strangers. The last time Neil has had visitors was two months ago when a young couple came to him for help. Back then he decided on black hair and brown eyes, a boring appearance to not raise interest in any way. His house is hard to find, nestled between large firs and delicate deciduous trees. Only people that know where to go are actually able to end up in front of the small cottage made of stone and wood.
Protected by spells and charms, there´s no way someone with ill-intent would be able to enter the close perimeter of Neil´s home without him knowing about it, but he hardly trusts his own skills enough to not disguise himself with short, black hair and brown eyes. His scars disappear, his cheeks fill ever so slightly and the bump at the bridge of his nose makes place for a pointy, straight one, the tips of his ears soften out into normal, human ones.
His heart is pounding when he opens the door an inch to peer outside. The person closest to him is a man, slightly shorter than him, with blond hair and dressed entirely in black. One of the two women stands next to him, tall and with a serious look on her face. Her skin is brown, her hair hidden beneath a silk scarf and dressed in tights and a large sweater. Behind her stands a second woman, smaller but with broad shoulders and a muscular build. Her hair is white, with streaks of pastel and around her neck hangs a small silver cross, sparkling in the light of the small lantern next to Neil´s front door.
And then there´s Kevin. He´s tall, muscular and with his hair kept short. Like the rest of them he looks like he just fell out of bed, dressed in sweatpants and a shirt. But unlike the others, his face is scrunched up in pain, his eyebrows pulled together and his eyes lowered to his hand, that´s wrapped up in a dark, shiny cloth.
“Are you Thobias?”, the tall woman asks.
“Who wants to know that?”
“We need your help,” the pastel-haired lady answers in return, one of her arms around Kevin´s waist, the other one cupping his wrapped-up hand.
“Who are you?”, Neil wants to know again. The blond grunts before pushing past Neil and inside his home.
“Hey! What the fuck- “
“His hand´s fucked, we heard you can help,” the intruder grunts, arms crossing in front of his chest. Even though he is more or less Neil´s height, his presence is much, much larger. The other three slowly enter the hallway.
“Andrew,” the tall woman warns,” he won´t help if you´re being an asshole.”
Well that´s for sure.
“Sorry about him, he´s a bit…well, anyways. I´m Dan, this is Renee and that´s Kevin. We need you to take a look at his hand, we´re not sure what´s wrong with it.”
On cue, Renee – the buff woman next to Kevin- comes forward and slowly lifts the heavy-looking cloth from Kevin´s hand. The skin beneath is coated in dried and fresh blood, ripped to pieces and swollen. A metallic scent travels up Neil´s nose, for a second taking him back to his own ouches.
“Well, I´m no doctor but that looks broken.”
“Yeah, but…”
Kevin´s pained sound interrupts Dan. He hunches over his hand, cradling it to his chest and smearing blood all over his hoodie.
“He broke it almost a year ago.”
“Excuse me?”, Neil stares up at Dan.
“He broke it a year ago but whenever it heals, it starts bleeding again.”
Cold panic washes over Neil. Taking a step back, his back collides with the counter, its edge painfully digging into hardly healed flesh. But Neil can´t feel it. He´s taken back to a couple of weeks ago when he woke up in the middle of the night, blood covering his entire body. The pain has kept him up for the next five days. The ruined bedsheets have been burnt in his bathtub, smoke and the smell of blood still sticks to every fibre of his being.
“No,” Neil shakes his head,” I can´t help you. Leave.”
Dan´s eyes widen and she takes a step forward, hands reaching out helplessly. Neil squeezes further back.
“No, no you have to. Please, we heard you can heal injuries like that, we tried everything we could but nobody can heal him.”
“I said no,” bites Neil,” fuck off, leave my house and don´t come back.”
“Dan...” Renee lightly tugs at Dan´s sweater but she shrugs her off in favour of further invading Neil´s bubble.
“You have to help him, you don´t understand. We can pay you, we´ve got enough money, just heal him.”
With a last desperate attempt to save himself, Neil steps to the left, getting more space between himself and Dan. But there´s Andrew, blocking the rest of the hallway with an intense, dark look in his eyes.
“I can´t help you, I can´t! Just leave me alone, go!”
Kevin still doesn´t say anything but his breathing quickens. His injured left-hand tenses, his fingers cramp and fresh blood seeps out of the cuts. With a pained wail, Kevin shivers and shakes and leans more of his weight against Renee.
Fuck. Fuck! With an entire dictionary of curses on his lips, Neil turns to Andrew, who won´t budge even as Neil comes closer.
“Move.”
“Why?”
“Andrew,” Renee softly calls. Andrew, a frown on his face, slowly steps aside. His eyes follow Neil while he hurries into his storage chamber, rummaging through flasks, bottles, bags and containers of every shape and size before he finds what he´s been looking for.
Neil drops the small, circular container into Dan´s hand on his way to open the door.
“Twice a day for two days,” he rushes through the instructions,” it´ll stop the bleeding. It´s all I can do so leave.”
While Dan still thanks him from the front-porch, Neil closes the door in her face and locks it again. Only once he´s in the back of the house, locked into his bedroom, he allows his knees to give in. The carpet only dampens his fall a bit but the pain doesn´t come. He´ll have bruises on his knees tomorrow but Neil hasn´t really noticed this kind of pain in a long time. Not when every month countless cuts all over his body start bleeding again.
Neil knows what it is about, he knows why his wounds won´t heal, but he doesn´t know – doesn´t want to know – how Kevin got a similar wound. He doesn´t want to think about the possibility that the same monster that gave Neil this kind of agony has gotten his hands on Kevin. It´s unthinkable, impossible, that his father would try to get Neil through Kevin. It can’t be possible. Neil has needed years to build himself a home after what happened in Baltimore, after he managed to run once more, this time for good. Or so he thought.
Apparently not. Nathan found him. Or at least he found Kevin which means it won't take long for him to find Neil and finish what he started.
It doesn’t take long for Neil to decide what to do. He’ll leave in the next couple of days after he prepared everything he needs and took care of anything that might come up. By the time the church bells of Palmetto - the village closest to Neil - ring for three in the morning, his bag is packed with the most important things and Neil is on his way to drink a cup of tea and hopefully get a few hours of sleep.
He doesn´t. Or at least it doesn´t feel like it. Because even though the tea is made of herbs and enchantments that will help him relax enough to sleep, his slumber is filled with enough wild nightmares for Neil to wake up every hour or so. So no, he doesn´t feel well-rested once he fights himself to get up at seven in the morning to go on his usual errands.
Even though Neil doesn´t trust anyone, especially not the people of Palmetto he has his customers nowhere else. Somehow word spread that a young man lived somewhere in the forest that could heal and aid all wounds and aches. Most of the people he sells his salves and enchantments to are old people with aching joints or forgetful minds, people plagued by headaches or nightmares, pregnant women wanting their child to be born healthy and strong or farmers with gruesome, bloody injuries. Nobody knows what Neil looks like – whenever he enters another home, he´s a different someone – and Neil intends to keep it that way.
He just has to buy a few things, get some food and deliver his usual things. Tomorrow he can leave. It´s a shame, really. He likes Palmetto. He likes the stone streets, the half-timbered houses, the flowers hanging beneath peoples windows, the market, the townspeople. He likes that they don´t ask, that they just nod and help and don´t look too closely when Neil loses focus and his eyes turn blue again for the blink of an eye. They just smile and joke and gloss over the fact that Neil is a stranger who´s known as Stephan or Chris or Alex or Jacob or Tobias.
The first door he knocks at belongs to an elderly woman. Her husband died last year and since then she´s been living alone with her five cats and vegetable garden. Neil likes her. She always pays him back in freshly grown vegetables and lets him pet her cats whenever they´re around.
“Alex! Oh how nice to see you, dear.”
“Good morning, Ms. Winters, how´re you doing?”
They talk for a long time before Neil hands her the herb-mixture she boils into tea. A big tabby jumps up on the table between them, almost knocking over the flask.
“Ursula,” scolds Ms. Winters. The cat just meows back before her green eyes lock onto Neil and she wanders over to rub her face against his cheek.
As a child Neil has never been allowed to have animals. Once he found a young bird in the park and brought it back home. His mother had explained that they couldn´t keep it, that its family was looking for the little feathered creature. Then, his father had stepped into the kitchen, glanced at the bird once before grabbing it and breaking its neck. The bird had no power against him. When little four-year-old Neil had cried, his father slapped him so hard that his jaw still hurt two days later. It´s not a memory Neil likes to remember. But then again, he doesn´t have any other memories besides the bad ones.
After saying his goodbyes to the cats and Ms. Winters, Neil continues his errand. By the time he steps onto the market place, his bag is empty and his hands shaking. It always takes a toll out of Neil, keeping his disguises up for that long. But not long before he´s back in his cabin and he can get some food and rest.
Not really wanting to talk anymore, Neil pulls the hood over his head and buys the necessary groceries before heading back home. There´s always the fear of somebody following so he takes an extra twenty minutes to make sure he´s alone on his way home. But once he steps up on the porch, something doesn´t feel right. The wind chimes aren´t making a sound, even though they´re softly swaying in the wind. Fear tastes bitter on his tongue when Neil slowly pushes open the door.
His father would never operate in the light of day. He´s a shadow, blending in with the darkness around him. Neil knows that. But it doesn´t make the panic go away. Fear is something illogical but who is Neil to concentrate on logic anyways?
There´s no sign of someone breaking in and now, from inside, Neil can clearly hear the wind chimes singing outside. What the actual fuck is going on?
“Ah, you´re home. Finally.”
There´s someone sitting on his couch in the living room. Andrew. He´s dressed again in black, blond hair a stark contrast to everything else around him. In his hand sparks something silver. Neil flinches back, knocks into the dresser and pushes its sharp edge into scar tissue.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”, he demands to know. Andrew only grins and raises to his feet with the elegance of a cat.
“Just a little chat,” he shrugs,” you´re not Tobias.”
Fucking shit.
“He´s not here today,” lies Neil. His head is spinning, he´s not entirely sure what he looks like but he´s pretty sure his eyes should be an inconspicuous shade of blue, his hair dark brown and his skin a sun-kissed shade of bronze.
“Then who are you?”, Andrew asks, slowly wandering over while letting the knife dance in his hand. It´s the only thing Neil can concentrate on, eyes jumping back down to it every second.
“Oliver.”
“Oliver,” repeats Andrew with a nod, grin wide and wild on his otherwise bored, emotionless face. It´s almost as unsettling as the knife in his hand and the uncertainty what he´s able to do with it.
“You know, Oliver, I don´t like liars.”
“It´s not a lie,” lies Neil. He doesn´t even feel bad about it. Andrew is a stranger; he has no business knowing about Neil´s abilities. Skinshifters are rare as it is and it´s even rarer that Neil is still alive after all this time. On top of that, he´ll be dead as soon as anyone finds out about who his parents are, that he´s not entirely human, that his ears are not perfectly round. So no, Oliver is not a liar, he´s a persona keeping Neil alive.
“See and that I don´t believe. But enough about you,” Andrew waves his hand like he wants to scare away a fly,” let´s talk about Kevin, hm?”
Neil should´ve guessed it. Sooner or later his father´s people find him, that´s a fact.
“What about him?” Act clueless, Neil, or let Oliver appear clueless.
“You lied,” sighs Andrew,” you know what´s up with Kevin and I want you to tell me.”
“And if I don´t?”
“Then I´ll make you.” Andrew sounds unbothered by his own threat but Neil knows that he means it. With or without abilities – whatever they may be – Andrew is dangerous. But when has danger ever stopped Neil?
“I´d like to see you try,” he snorts, pushes down his anger and panic and crosses his arms in front of his chest.
Then, Andrew´s eyes change. It´s not a subtle thing. One blink and they´re pitch black, no longer honey golden. Nerves start acting up inside Neil but it feels wrong, warped, twisted. This is Andrew´s doing. Like knives in his flesh, he can feel fingers scratching at the outside of his brain, trying to gain access. Andrew, cruel grin on his face, doesn´t even look like he´s trying.
“Stop,” bites Neil forcefully.
“Then tell me.”
“I can´t. ”
“Bull. Shit. You don´t want to.”
“Even if I wanted, I couldn´t,” argues Neil weakly. It´s hard trying to keep Andrew out of his head, hard enough that beads of sweat start forming on his forehead.
“Explain.”
“Get the fuck out of my head first.” Yes, Neil might be stupid but he knows what and what not to say. And thinking of a lie while Andrew is trying to break down the iron door locking his thoughts and memories aside is hard.
Another blink; Andrew´s eyes are no longer black and Neil slumps against the wall with an exhale.
“Now talk, Oliver.”
“There are much more important things than Kevin Day.”
“You do know I can just force you to tell me everything, right?”
“Ask him where he grew up,” sighs Neil. Andrew´s mind games are starting to annoy him and he´s exhausted – between keeping his disguise up and keeping Andrew away from his mind Neil isn´t entirely sure how he´s still standing.
“I know where he grew up,” answers Andrew unimpressed, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“He hasn´t told you everything - “
“Then tell me. You seem to know it all anyways.”
“I can´t for fucks sake!”, yells Neil,” Kevin´s not important in this scenario but he´ll think he is and when word goes around, they´ll find me here and – “
He´s said too much. Shit.
“And what?”
“Nothing, get the fuck out of my house!”
When Andrew doesn´t budge, Neil trails backwards until he´s in the hallway and can easily reach the weapon hidden between a closet and the clothes hanger. Even with a shotgun pointed at him, Andrew doesn´t move a muscle, only raises an eyebrow.
“Are you gonna shoot me?”, he taunts,” that´ll ruin the walls, you know?”
“I´m aware,” Neil bites,” which is why you should leave before I stop caring about the furniture.”
After another moment of silence Andrew shrugs and comes closer, pushing past Neil and opening the front door. Before leaving he once more turns, grins and says,” I´ll be back.”
When afternoon comes around, his plan on leaving tomorrow night is set in stone. Not tonight. He´s too exhausted, too on-edge, too out of it to concentrate on running and hiding and surviving. Mary would scream at him, would beat sense back into him because he´s grown soft and fond of this place. He had enough time to build up a life, to create a home he likes to be in, with everything he´s interested in and passionate about and leaving is more painful than it should be but when Neil steps out of the shower in the evening, his scars itch and burn. In the end, his father´s methods are more painful than leaving anything behind.
The last night in his home, Neil hardly sleeps. Whenever he falls asleep, visions of black eyes, cruel hands and cleavers wake him up again. So he lays awake until the sun annoys him out of bed. Today, he doesn´t go on any errands. Neil stays at home, sluggish and numb, and works through every ointment and salve, packing a few and destroying a lot more. It takes a longer time than he thought because when he wants to continue after dinner the night is already setting. It´s almost time. Just a few more hours. Close to midnight he´ll leave the village, probably the entire country.
At around eleven thirty – Neil has just tied his boots and is about to put on his coat – a sound at his front door makes him freeze. Someone´s trying to break in. Immediately, Neil´s brain turns on flight mode. In a frenzy he grabs his bag, hauls it over his shoulder and lets his feet carry him down the hallway towards the back entrance.
He opens the door and is met with something hard that immediately pushes the air from his lungs. Gasping, he goes down, arms wrapping around his hurting middle while bile raises up in Neil´s throat. A pair of black, familiar boots appear in Neil´s teary vision while a voice somewhere behind them calls out to the intruder.
“Andrew!”
“God damnit, Minyard – “
Eyes cold and his father´s shadow over his thoughts, Neil raises his head to see Andrew grinning down at him, a baseball bat propped up on one shoulder.
Behind him stand Renee and Kevin. It was a fucking trap to get Neil out of the house.
“Fuck,” curses Neil, raising to his feet painfully slow and feeling for anything broken. When he comes up empty besides a bruise that´s already making it hard to breathe deeply, glaring at the group of three seems like the only sensible response.
“Run and get hit,” shrugs Andrew bored, leaning back against the wall with the bat next to his feet and his arms crossed in front of a broad chest.
“You´re not Thobias,” mumbles Kevin stupidly. A quick glance shows Neil that his hand is wrapped in a thick, white bandage.
“Or Oliver.”
“Let me through,” presses Neil, feeling itchy to run and hide in the next hole deep in the darkest corners of the forest.
“Tell us what you know.”
Angrily Neil spins around to Andrew and gets all up in his personal space in a few big steps.
“Fuck off.”
Still grinning, Andrew raises an eyebrow. Something sharp presses against the side of Neil´s throat and a glance down shows him that Andrew is holding a small knife. Neil in return tightens the grip and pressure the knife in his hand further against Andrew´s ribs.
“One more fucking word and you´re dead,” he mutters. A dark blond brow twitches up in surprise for the fraction of a second before Andrew slowly raises his hands in mocking surrender.
“Can´t kill a skinshifter, can I? They´re almost extinct.”
“You´re a skinshifter?”, blurts Kevin behind them.
“No, fuck off.” Even though Neil pulls away from Andrew and takes step after step towards the forest, his eyes stay glued to the short blond. He doesn’t notice Renee stepping behind him until a cool hand on his shoulder makes him flinch.
“I´m sorry,” she smiles kindly,” we really do need your help, otherwise we wouldn´t be here.”
Neil trusts her even less than the man who just pressed a knife against his throat.
“I can´t help you, even if I wanted to.”
“Renee, go wait up front with Kevin,” orders Andrew and, with one last glance, Renee complies and takes a protesting Kevin with her.
The path is free now, Neil could run and merge with the shadows. He´s fast, he knows Andrew won´t be able to catch up. His feet take a small step back.
“Don´t even think about it, runaway.”
Andrew´s eyes are black and Neil once again feels something digging against his mind with sharp claws, not as vehemently as yesterday but nonetheless there.
“Get out.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“I´ll die.”
“How egocentric of you,” taunts Andrew.
“You´ll die as well.”
“Heard that before.”
“Kevin will be six feet under first, these people don´t give a shit.”
At that, Andrew pauses. His eyes are back to autumn leaves, green and brown and golden and Neil looks away.
“Who´s after you?”
Neil shakes his head,” I can´t tell you.”
“What´s your name?”
God fucking damnit. Neil wants to run, wants to become Benjamin or James or Erik or Andreas. He´s always been a runner, never one to stand up to his father and his people and why should he do anything other than run now?”
“We can protect you.”
Neil has always been a runner, he´s never had a home, a family, friends, hobbies he likes and objects he doesn´t ultimately have to leave behind. His mother has always warned him about getting attached and Neil had to swear that he won´t, that he´ll keep running, keep hiding, keep staying alive. But he loves his little house with it´s cold walls and fluffy carpets and books and creaky floors.
“Neil.”
So far nobody besides his mother has heard of this name, his name. And it´s not like she´d call him that anyways. For her he was either whatever fake identity they were going with or Abram. And since she died, nobody has called him Abram again.
“Neil,” Andrew repeats and for whatever reason, something settles inside of Neil. Hearing another person - not matter how much of an asshole they are - speak Neil´s name brings him a feeling of reality, of belonging and purpose that clashes entirely with his deep-settled urge to run.
“Who are you running from, skinshifter?”
At that, Neil freezes again. The fact that nobody significant has ever found out about his abilities and now there´s Andrew, some bastard who´s met him literally two nights ago, already seems to have figured out everything about Neil that there is to know sends him into a frenzy.
“Stop fucking calling me that, asshole.”
“Or what?”
“Or I´ll gauge your fucking eyes out.”
Andrew snorts and shakes his head, pushes away from the wall and steps up in front of Neil, way too close for Neil´s liking.
“And you think that´s going to change anything? My eyes are not part of my ability. Fuck around and find out, runaway.”
“I´ll take the risk,” shoots Neil back, grabbing the stap of his backpack and bolting towards the crooked steps leading down and away. But before his foot can even set food on the stairs, he freezes. His body is no longer his own to command, his legs no longer listen to him, his chest no longer moves with every breath. The feeling of someone - Andrew - digging in his mind is as all-consuming as it is deafening. No matter how hard Neil tries, he can´t even move his eyes anymore. All there´s left for him to do is stare out into the dark safety of the forest and count down the seconds before the air in his lungs runs out.
Slowly, Andrew steps around Neil, eyes black and a wicked grin on his face. A small trail of blood is running from his nose to his chin.
“You´re a fucking pain in the ass. Give me one good reason why I shouldn´t just kill you on the spot, elf.”
And fuck, if that´s not the voice of a person who despises elves more than everything else. Neil tries to open his mouth but his teeth clench until he tastes blood. He tries to clear his throat but it feels like an invisible hand is wrapping around it, squeezing tighter and tighter until all Neil can see is stars. The only thing keeping him upright is the external power corrupting every cell inside of him. Andrew grids his teeth, frowns and wipes the blood from his nose with the backside of his hand.
“God, you´re so fucking annoying,” he grunts before blinking his eyes back to normal. Caught completely off-guard, Neil falls to the ground, coughing and spitting up blood. Still catching his breath, he rasps a quiet fuck you . Andrew only laughs bitterly.
“Believe me, I´d be happy to end you once and for all. But unfortunately Kevin is a crybaby and keeps ruining the sheets with his freak hand so like it or not but you´re coming with us.”
“Over my dead fucking body,” hisses Neil, reaching once again for his backpack and forcing himself back on shaking, weak legs.
“We can arrange that. As soon as you´ve healed Kevin´s hand I´ll kill you, deal? You won´t have to run from whatever it is you´re running from and I´ll get to rid this place of one more of you fuckers. Sounds good, right? Perfect. Let´s go, then.”
Neil can only stop and stare at the bullshit Andrew appears to be taking 100% serious. Or at least that what he looks like but then again, Neil isn´t sure that someone like Andrew could ever joke around.
“You´re serious,” he mutters after another minute of silence, spitting out another gob of blood.
“I don´t joke around, ask literally anyone.”
“No, no I believe you. You´re less fun than my dead mother and she´s dead .”
Andrew tilts his head, stares at Neil for another second before shrugging. “I don´t give a shit about your family. Move your ass, I´m tired of standing out here.”
Pushing past Neil, Andrew takes the steps down into the damp grass and makes his way towards the front of the house, walking through the unkept jungle that is Neil´s garden. Not once does he turn around to make sure Neil is still following.
“Why are you so sure that I´ll follow you?”, calls Neil after him, still standing on the porch and eyes flickering back and forth between Andrew´s slowly disappearing figure and the forest just steps away from him.
Andrew´s voice comes through to Neil after Andrew has already rounded the corner. It´s a weird feeling, hearing Andrew´s voice in his head; Neil kind of wants to rip his ears off.
“Because I know the look of someone who wants to die.”