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Andy is a leash when it rolls off Ashley’s tongue, always teasing, always thoughtless, and Andrew’s the dog whose neck it pulls on. Never a gentle tug, though, always a hard pull, jerking him off his feet and to hers. Andy makes him angry, makes him want to bite back, makes him sink into little-kid terror--terror about losing her, about them being separated, because he’d never be able to sleep again without her. Andy is the power she’s always had over him. He’d come when called if she used his actual name, she doesn’t have to pull so hard like she does, but he knows she’ll never stop, no matter how many wide-eyed bullshit apologies she makes.
Andy isn’t Andrew, because Andrew isn’t fucking scared of her anymore. Still her attack dog. Still not willing to let them be separated. The proactively killing for her thing is new, but that just makes him a better dog, doesn’t it? He can feel the good boy in her proud little smirks, her lit-up eyes, the way she winds her hand through his hair and rests her forehead on his. Good boy, Andrew . He’ll do anything for her. He’s a good dog.
*
Leyley is a stupid nickname for a stupid little girl. Ashley only ever liked it when Andy said it. Adults always said it so high-pitched at first, hands on their knees like they were talking to a pet. Little Leyley! But if they were gonna treat her like a pet, she was sure as hell gonna bite like one, so no one ever made the same mistake twice.
Truth is, Ashley doesn’t know what the fuck she is inside aside from a swirling painful venomous pit of need, a black hole full of teeth, a screaming fucking void. Leyley knew how to fill that void, she knew how to make Andy all hers and no one else’s. She always knows who she is when Andy looks at her--she’s his. Andrew, she doesn’t know about, but not knowing is exciting, and exciting is distracting, so she baits him out and waits until he does something unpredictable