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The dorm is quiet, the hour late enough that even the most determined night owls have gone to bed, the running soundtrack of Fox Tower paused. No showers thrumming in the distance, no muffled droning of a TV through the walls, no disembodied footsteps thudding down the hallway. It's just Neil and the quiet scratch of his pen across paper, though even that has died down from the steady pace of the essay he was outlining to purposeless doodles of tiny stick figures wielding Exy racquets and knives in the margins.
His vision blurs in the dim light of his desk lamp, his eyes scratchy and heavy. Despite this, his leg bounces under his desk and there's a restlessness in his veins that refuses to acknowledge the three-digit time glaring disapprovingly at him from the clock on Kevin's desk in the corner.
Any other time, Neil would slip on his sneakers and make a few dozen loping laps around Perimeter Road to tire himself out, but after an incident involving his body and a moving vehicle last semester — really it was just an accident, barely a graze; he didn't even leave blood on the car — there are now stipulations to late-night runs that he doesn't feel like going through the hassle of tonight. The keys in his pocket are easy enough, and he's been good about keeping his phone charged more now, but digging through the closet for the high-vis vest he definitely unintentionally buried out of sight as soon as Andrew shoved it into his gut is more trouble than it's worth, in his opinion.
Besides, the heavy hand of spring has swept the cool breeze of winter away like clearing up wisps of cobwebs, instead layering near-summer heat on top of on-and-off rain for a thick lingering atmosphere that makes running unpleasant any time of day or night, even for a junkie like Neil. He prefers his runs to not leave him feeling like he's been dunked in a lukewarm bath not even a mile in. He's dealt with worse, sure, and maybe a couple years of routine and stasis have made him soft, giving him the space to develop things like preferences and opportunities to find other options. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that's something he should probably think about.
He sighs, closes his laptop, and puts his notes and textbooks back in his bag. There's a quiet crunch, a soft susurrus of beads behind him as he zips the bag closed.
"Are you finished now?"
Neil looks over his shoulder to the beanbag closest to him, just at the edge of the pool of light cast by the lamp, the figure in it swathed in its soft yellow glow. Andrew's eyes are closed, his arms crossed loosely over his chest, armband-clad forearms rising and falling slowly with his even breaths. The book he had begun the night with lies face down on the carpet beside him, pages fanned out.
Neil knows he hasn't been sleeping. Every time he looked over, which was often, one of Andrew's fingers, spread out over a bicep, has been tapping out a slow rhythm, as it still is now. But this is as relaxed as he gets when awake: chin tucked to his chest, legs splayed. Neil studies his smoothed-out expression, sees a golden eyebrow twitch. "Problem, junkie?"
Neil's mouth quirks as he gets up, stretching out the kinks in his back with a few quiet pops and grunts. "I'm done," Neil says, dropping his arms, absentmindedly scratching at his calf with his other foot. "Well, for the night at least. I'll finish it up tomorrow."
There's an answering hum, vague. Could be disapproval or doubt or something else entirely. Andrew's eyes are still closed.
Neil's smile widens. "Bed?"
Another hum, low and sleepy. Then Andrew heaves himself up out of the beanbag chair, limbs heavy and eyes slitted. He stands and teeters sideways, into Neil's space, stepping on his toes and clenching a hand into his sweatshirt, angling his face up, eyelashes shadowing his cheeks. Neil leans in, his heart swelling to twice it's normal size in his chest. They kiss softly once, twice, then Andrew gently shoves him and steps back before making his way down the hall, socked feet dragging against the carpet, exposing skin above the waistband of his sweats when he lifts his arms in a stretch that has Neil's heart doing anything but settling down.
"You didn't have to stay out here," Neil says.
Andrew's eyes are slivers of a narrowed glare shot over his shoulder before he throws open the bathroom door and slams it shut, hard enough to wake the entire floor, if not Kevin. Neil huffs in amusement.
He reaches for the lamp on his desk, but there's still a thrum of something under his skin not quieted by the fond feeling in his chest or the lingering memory of Andrew's lips. He can feel exhaustion creeping up the nape of his neck, a yawn tucked away in the back of his jaw. Despite that, he finds himself fussing: straightening stacks of paper, aligning his graphing calculator with the edge of a notebook and the notebook with the edge of the desk, fiddling with the pens in his orange paw print mug. When that runs out, he picks Andrew's book off the floor and sets it on Andrew's desk, careful to mark the page with a random folded-up receipt even though it is undoubtedly unforgotten anyway. He halfheartedly folds a crumpled blanket and tosses it on to one of the beanbag chairs, and tweaks and fluffs and straightens until the living room is as neat as it ever is and there's nothing left to mess with.
So he goes to the kitchen where he rinses abandoned coffee mugs in the sink and leaves the plates with their stuck-on cheese and bowls with crusted pasta sauce to soak in soapy water. He picks through the cabinets and the fridge — always on the verge of bare, perpetually depleting in a room full of college athletes with no desire to ever go shopping — and starts making a mental list of what needs restocking.
Andrew's Double Stuf Oreos. Kevin's Larabars. Milk, bread, and another jar of creamy peanut butter (the one they have now is only half-empty but designated as NEIL'S ONLY by Kevin's sharp, punishing handwriting on the lid which may or may not be because Kevin caught Neil eating it out of the jar, double-dipping the spoon.) Plus there's the gluten-free English muffins Kevin likes, and Andrew's dangerously low ice cream supply...
As the mental list expands, Neil heads back to his desk for a piece of paper to mark down the slowly increasing amount of items on the back of an old Spanish assignment, plus a few more things he can think off the top of his head. Toilet paper. Laundry detergent. The stick of deodorant he and Andrew share is almost down to a nub. And he's been putting off buying that scar cream Abby recommended several months ago when he mentioned offhandedly how his sometimes get tight and itchy, but hasn't been able to justify the money for it. Something he doesn't need -- only might make his life easier. Options and preferences.
Huh.
He adds it to the list, at the very bottom, separate from everything else like an afterthought. If he remembers.
A rap of knuckles on the kitchen doorway makes him look up. Andrew is standing there, rumpled, carrying the faint scent of toothpaste and grapefruit face wash. He's squinting in the already dim light of the kitchen, one side of his face flush, his hair a gentle riot from when he must've been laying on the bed, waiting. His expression is an accusation.
Neil waves his former conjugation practice sheet. "Grocery list."
Andrew's eyes slide past him to the clock on the microwave. "It's 3:04 AM."
"We're almost out of milk," Neil defends.
"And this is a very pressing matter to you."
Neil shrugs, tapping his fingers on the counter. "I'm not tired. We do need the stuff. Why not?"
Andrew's eyes flick down to his restless hands. He sighs heavily, then turns and walks away.
Neil waits for the click of the bedroom door before returning to his list for a final check. Satisfied, he turns out the kitchen light and goes to the living room on a hunt for his wallet, in the top drawer of his desk. His keys, still in his pocket. His phone — in the bedroom charging.
He makes his footsteps light as he walks to the bedroom. Before he even reaches the door, it swings open and Andrew steps out, glowing a soft orange in a JOSTEN 10 Palmetto State Foxes hoodie, his own keys in one hand and Neil's phone in the other, which he shoves into Neil's chest as he goes by. Neil cups the slightly warm plastic in his palms, glancing down at the green light that says it's fully charged. He pockets it and follows Andrew to the front door.
Andrew has one hand braced against the wall while he shoves his feet into the athletic slides he relentlessly makes fun of Kevin for having while also stealing them constantly even though they're at least three sizes too big and must take effort to keep from launching off with every step, negating any ease that comes with not having to lace up regular shoes. It reminds Neil of when Matt would squeeze into a pair of Dan's metallic pink flipflops to go and greet the pizza man in the lobby on movie nights, except far more contrary, and he has to breathe past the swelling in his chest again, enough to say, "You don't have to go."
Andrew doesn't even bother to glare at him this time. Just opens the door and steps out in the dorm hall, slamming it shut behind him again with the force of a hurricane wind.
Neil bites down on his twitching lips, toes on his own ratty pair of sneakers, and silently slips out after him.
He catches up in the parking lot, the air not as thick with humidity as it has been, but still a little soupy. Andrew, already rounding the hood to the driver's side, only pauses long enough to throw an elbow into Neil's gut when he says, "You know, I can drive—"
Neil's oof turns into a quiet chuckle as he climbs into the passenger seat. He turns his body sideways, hands tucked under his chin, ignoring the seatbelt cutting into his neck so he can watch the way the dashboard lights and the streetlamps roll shadows over Andrew's face as he drives, like clouds passing over a landscape in fast-forward as he speeds down the nearly-deserted roads of campus, highlighting and shadowing the valleys and planes of Andrew's face in stark relief. He looks tired and bored, and — if Neil didn't know any better — like he wants nothing else but to be in bed right now.
Except Neil does know better. He knows all of the glares and slams have been Andrew's own way of saying: I don't do anything I don't want to do.
Still, Neil wants to give him options. Options and preferences. Because that's where they both are now; at a spot where that's possible and it's not just about survival anymore. It's about doing what they want, and yeah, Neil should probably definitely think about this more.
Andrew reaches out and uses two fingers to close Neil's eyes, fingertips trailing down over his scarred cheeks, catching on his crooked smile and releasing his bottom lip with a quiet pop before dropping away.
"You know," Neil starts, his eyes still closed.
"Don't."
Neil tucks his grin into his hands and the car engine rumbles through his chest as they drive on.
There's only one twenty-four hour supermarket in this sleepy college town and when they pull up, there's only one other car in the lot: a van double-parked in a spot farthest from the store, tires flat and windshield shining with a crinkled sun protector. Andrew parks the Maserati in a similar fashion across the lot, close to the Home and Garden section, under the brightest light which buzzes above them with electricity and fat bumbling bugs as they exit the car.
The store doors open with a blast of lukewarm air as they walk in. Andrew yanks a cart from the return line, gives the handle a cursory wipedown with the potent-smelling complimentary disinfectant wipes, and leans both of his arms on it heavily as he leads them into the fluorescent maze ahead.
Neil has a list crumpled in his pocket, but he doesn't reach for it. He lets Andrew chart their path through the aisles in a slow, meandering pace. Andrew's feet scuff along the floor with his too-big slides and the front left wheel of the cart squeaks halfheartedly every couple of feet. Neil follows behind, watching Andrew's shoulders slumped over the handle, blonde tufts of hair catching in the lights — and he thinks about it.
There's no one else around except the occasional overnight stocker, headphones murmuring quietly, heads ducked to their work. The store is quiet and Andrew is there, solid and moving through everything without a second thought. So he thinks about it as they wander through the personal hygiene section, right next to the deodorants. Andrew doesn't pause but Neil does, coming to a stop in the middle of the aisle, seeing the rows of blue and red and black and green with new eyes; as options instead of just a backdrop on the path to the one he always reaches for without thinking, even now.
He holds the stick of deodorant in his hand after absentmindedly grabbing it from the shelf. He likes this brand. Right? He likes the way it smells, though that maybe has more to do with the fact that Andrew also uses it, so it smells like Andrew, and anything that reminds Neil of Andrew gets immediately filed into a section of his brain simply titled YES — but that still counts, doesn't it? He's never had a problem with it, has never thought about it, because it's just deodorant for fuck's sake and here he is having a crisis about it like it's freshman year all over again and Nicky's handing him the brand-new phone, his first-ever gift. He should have just gone to bed, restless or not.
He grips the plastic hard enough to creak as he walks down the aisle, turning down the next, looking for a flash of orange and blonde hair.
A few rows later finds him a bit calmer in the medicine aisle, but with no Andrew in sight. He almost moves on, but there's that thing rattling around inside his head, an afterthought at the bottom of a list as he sees the wound care section farther down. He walks to it, looking over his shoulder as if what he's doing is wrong, like his mother is going to come around the corner and clench her hands into his hair, hiss in his ear that they can't afford to spend time and money on trivial things just because he's uncomfortable.
He doesn't know if time has made Mary's memory harsher, flushing out any small moments of kindness and care and only leaving the ragged wounds behind, or if it's exposure to actual softness that did it — like the hand Abby had put on his shoulder as she told him his comfort matters, or Andrew pulling him into this world of yeses and nos and thinking about what makes him feel good and what makes him feel bad and stopping if he wants to — uncovering all of the jagged edges of never having a choice before, of always going, going, never slowing down, never looking back, and never trusting anyone, no matter if he really wanted that life.
Maybe it's a little bit of both. Maybe he's a little tired, if not physically, then mentally. Exhausted right down to the bone.
He lowers his shoulders from where they curled up around his ears, grabs the scar cream, and turns away just as a telltale squeak sounds behind him. Andrew looks even more slumped now, body draped against the cart, eyes hooded low, but he doesn't blink when Neil tosses in his items. He does look down at the cream briefly, his neutral expression not shifting but softening just the tiniest amount around his eyes and mouth.
Neil looks down into the cart as well and sees that Andrew has added his own items in the time they were separated: a bottle of shimmery dark blue nail polish and two colorful, crunchy looking balls wrapped in plastic.
Neil plucks one of the spheres up. "What is this?"
"Bath bomb."
Neil raises an eyebrow. "What does it do?"
Andrew's voice is a little slurred from the way his cheek is resting on his arm and the late hour still slowly creeping by. "It fizzes and turns the water pink."
Neil holds it to his nose. "Smells good."
Andrew stifles a yawn in the crook of his elbow. "We can try it this weekend."
A little zing runs up and down Neil's spine at that, at the we, and the promise of the weekend. Andrew's eyes are a dark gold, the green flecks that ring his pupil hidden in the shadow of his lashes, but Neil knows they're there.
"Yes," he says. "I want that."
They continue through the store, sometimes actually shopping for the things they need but mostly just moving along, following whatever path Andrew has mapped out in his head. Neil forgets about the list. He remembers most of it, but he also keeps trying to think as they wander up and down each aisle, about his options — options and preferences. It's slow, and Andrew's eyelids are steadily dipping lower and lower, but he shuffles along anyway. Neil occasionally tosses things into the cart, next to the growing pile of real groceries and things Andrew swipes off the shelves, a seemingly random collection of snacks and fuzzy socks and little pill-shaped toys that apparently dissolve in water and leave behind dinosaur-shaped sponges.
Things Andrew wants, Neil realizes as they make it out of the candy aisle with about half of the store's selection in the basket, that tight feeling in his chest returning, making it at once easier and harder to breathe.
In the end, they're in the frozen section replenishing the dire ice cream shortage and Andrew looks asleep on his feet, eyes now fully closed, pale skin and orange sweatshirt vivid in the soft light of the freezers and Neil's hands are going numb from holding onto the pints in his hands for too long. He puts the ice cream in the basket and taps gently against the side of the cart, calling out in a soft voice.
"Hey. Andrew."
That gets a low hum in response. Neil can't help but reach out and run his cold and slightly damp hand through Andrew's hair. He frowns a little, but leans into the touch, murmuring something that sounds like insufferable.
Neil's lips quirk as he steps a little closer into the space where Andrew's body is radiating a sleepy warmth. He ducks down, pressing his lips to the crown of Andrew's head. "Let's go home," he says into Andrew's hair. "Let's go to bed."
Andrew sighs like he's content, like finally, and with one last lean into Neil, pulls himself together enough to head for the lone open cash register. Neil follows behind him.
Back at the car, there's no fight for who's going to drive. Andrew shuffles to the passenger seat without a word, slitted eyes closing as soon as they're both settled — Neil behind the wheel and Andrew curled up with his back to the door in the same position Neil had earlier, his face slack and hands curled under his chin. Neil keeps the radio off, takes turns at a snail's pace and avoids any dips in the road. He thinks Andrew is sleeping until they pull into the parking lot at Fox Tower and before Neil can worry about waking him up, Andrew sits up and reaches out a hand, eyes still closed.
Neil falls into him, they fall together, and meet in the middle in a slow, deep kiss that smooths over each of Neil's restless nerves. It settles over him like a thick blanket, a sense of protection and safety that only Andrew can give him. That's what they are to each other, because they can be that — because they want to.