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“You’re doing sixteen hours.” Neil breathed.
The realisation sent a shiver down Neil’s spine, remembering just how harrowing it was to split your days the way that the Ravens did, getting very little sleep while also making every week feel so much longer.
“Get on the court Josten.”
The other foxes were milling around as they prepared for practice, glancing at each other as if to decide if they wanted to stay and watch how this went down or run for the hills while they still had a chance.
Neil ignored them completely, focusing solely on Kevin.
“No, it’s worse than that, isn’t it?” Neil said. “You’re not sleeping at all. Every time you close your eyes, you see his face, don’t you?”
Kevin breathed hard, his eyes flaring.
Neil was right and he knew it. Kevin was paler than usual, every single movement he made was sluggish and during their run for warm up, while Neil was always well ahead of the others during jogs, he had stuck close by Kevin instead and the striker had barely been able to keep with the group at all.
“Get out.” Kevin said.
“What happened to get on the court Josten?”
“Get the fuck out.” Kevin snapped.
“No.” Neil said. “You’re off your game, Day, and that means we’re all off.”
Kevin surged towards him, but the moment Neil raised a single hand Kevin flinched back so hard his knees buckled and he fell to the ground. Kevin didn’t rise again, curling into a shaking ball, his whole body shaking.
“Kevin, I…”
Neil couldn’t say that he hadn’t meant to do it, he knew exactly how Kevin would react to even the barest hint of violence when he was this on edge, even if Neil would never hurt him. Give him shit, sure, maybe tackle him once or twice when he was being truely obnoxious, but Neil would never actually harm him the way that Riko had.
Coach Wymack was watching them from across the court but made no effort to intercede. He simply nodded to Neil, trusting Neil to handle it.
The others weren’t so sure, their supposed entertainment quickly having become fucking depressing instead. They kept glancing at Kevin and Neil as they were forced to take the long way around to get onto the court as if trying to decide if they needed to help as if there was anything any one of them could even do to fix this.
When Nicky went to stop, Matt nudged him onwards, and Neil made a mental note to thank him later.
With Andrew at therapy, the only person that would be able to get through to Kevin was Neil, though he wasn’t quite sure when he became the go to person for this kind of thing. Then again, Neil was really the only who could even come close to understanding everything that Kevin has been through.
The scar on Neil’s face burned, even though he knew full well that the tattoo was gone, and he could almost feel the arms holding him down all over again as the needles pierced his flesh.
Neil sat on the ground across from Kevin, making sure to keep his distance while being close enough that Kevin could register that he was even there.
“Kev,” Neil said. “He’s dead.”
Neil understood that knowing someone was dead didn’t stop their faces from haunting your every waking moment, god knows he saw the Butchers face often enough.
“Riko can’t hurt you anymore, none of them can. You’re a Fox now. You always will be.”
Kevin whined, unable to breathe. He rocked forward, head ducked as low as it could go. While all of him was shaking, there was none more so than his left hand.
“You can’t do this to yourself,” Neil said. “You need sleep. I know you know you need it.”
He thought back, trying to remember the last time he saw Kevin so much as nap let alone actually sleep. Kevin had been frequenting the library recently but even when he’s been at the dorms, he was always either watching games on his laptop or he was doing anything but just letting himself close his eyes.
Kevin hadn’t slept in days, at the very least, maybe even nearly a week. Neil’s own record was six and a half days before having a complete breakdown but by that point he was well and truly miserable and it was obvious that Kevin had reached his own breaking point, they were only lucky that today was practice and not an actual game.
It had been months since things settled down to something as normal as life with the Foxes could ever be. Why Kevin was suddenly not sleeping again when his brother was long since dead, Neil didn’t know. Then again, maybe it was exactly that things have calmed down that Kevin’s mind had decided to actually process all of the shit that he has been through, if such a thing was even possible.
“Kevin,” Neil said.
“Fuck off…” Kevin moaned.
“Hell no,” Neil said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Kevin shuddered, curling tighter into his little ball.
Neil sighed, inching backwards until his back was leaned up against the Exy courts walls.
“It wasn’t just Riko for me.” Neil said. “I mean, it was his fault. Everything was by his order because he was an insecure little fuck who thought it made him a man and all that shit. But… It was the others too.”
He tilted his head back, not even needing to close his eyes to remember the faces of the other Ravens.
“I hated them.” Neil said. “I know it wasn’t their fault, not completely at least, but I still hated them. Every single day I would imagine what it would be like to just cut them all to pieces. If anything, those thoughts are what fucked with me the most. I was becoming just like my Father, all because some asshat decided to mess with me.”
While Kevin was still shaking, Neil could tell that he was listening. Kevin flexed his left hand uncomfortably, the tension no doubt making his chronic pain flare up.
“I was going to hurt them.” Neil said, the words hollow. “Kill them, even, if it got worse. I was only there for two weeks but it only took me two weeks to become just like him. Just like the Butcher. And you spent most of your childhood there.”
Kevin stilled.
When he spoke, his voice was raw.
“It’s not that he hurt me.”
Neil stayed quiet, letting Kevin work out what it was he needed to get off his chest.
“Riko made my life a living hell.” Kevin finally said. “My every waking moment was dictated by being his number two. I nearly lost Exy because of what Riko did to me, the only thing in this damn life that matters to me.”
There were tears streaming down Kevin’s face, the tattoo of the Queen chess piece weirdly bold amongst them.
“So why do I miss him?”
Neil felt like he had been punched in the chest. He swallowed roughly, suddenly back there on that beach with his mothers body burning. She had hurt him, punished him whenever he made a mistake like getting to know a girl or asking if he was ever going to see his Dad again.
Mary Hatford had not been the best mother and yet she had been his mother and he missed her every single day.
The realisation that Riko was the same to Kevin made sense but it was still hard to connect Riko with anything but the horrific abuse he did to Kevin, to Jean, to Neil himself, to every single person that passed through those doors.
“I guess,” Neil said. “He was all you knew.”
Kevin gave off a loud laugh that had not a single hint of humour in it.
“Did you know he liked to watch bad movies?” Kevin asked. “He would watch them and throw popcorn at the screen whenever someone did something dumb. Then when the credits would roll, and he’d get them to rape Jean, at least until Jean stopped reacting to it. Riko was a fucking monster and I miss him because I’m a monster too.”
“No, Kev, no.” Neil said. “You’re not a monster.”
“I hurt people.” Kevin said.
“Because of him.” Neil insisted. “None of that was ever on you. Riko was the monster, you were just his…”
“Pet?” Kevin finished. “Yeah. I was his pet. Cute little Kevin Day, with the perfect little ass and the perfect number two on his face. But I was a pet with teeth, Neil, and I used them. I broke a girl’s arm because she insulted Riko. No hesitation.”
“And let me guess,” Neil said. “You then threw up in the bathroom because of the sound it made?”
Kevin ducked his head low.
“You’re not a monster, Kevin,” Neil said. “You just did what you had to do to survive. I… I’ve done things that I am not proud of but at the end of the day, I can’t take any of that shit back so I’m not going to waste my life trying to make up for them and you shouldn’t have to either.”
Neil shuffled forward again, taking each movement slowly as to give Kevin the opportunity to keep the distance between them. Kevin stayed exactly where he was, his wide eyed gaze never leaving Neil.
“Don’t.” Kevin whispered.
“Is that why you’re not sleeping?” Neil asked.
“Don’t.” Kevin said again.
“Because you’re trying to punish yourself? Because you think you deserve it?”
Kevin’s lip wobbled.
There was only three feet between them now.
“You’re not a monster.” Neil said. “You never were and you never will be. You’re a Fox, Kevin. You’re one of us.”
Kevin flinched when Neil fully closed the gap, wrapping an arm around Kevin’s shoulder. Neil stiffened, ready to move fully away again, realising that this was a mistake, but then Kevin latched onto him and Neil knew that this had not been a mistake at all.
Kevin Day gave off a shuddering breath, burying his head into Neil’s chest, nails digging into Neil’s skin. Neil readjusted, wrapping both arms around Kevin and holding him tightly as Kevin started crying again.
Neil rested his chin atop Kevin’s head, the tension in his muscles draining away as his own tears started to fall.
For a long time, they just stayed there like that, Kevin finally letting himself breakdown completely while Neil thought about all the things that they had both not only survived but the things that they had achieved despite what they had survived.
The Foxes had barely lost a match all season and the new players were integrating well. Kevin earned high distinction in one of his credits last semester and Neil was finding that he actually really enjoyed going to classes not just because it was a way to keep doing Exy but because the subjects he had chosen this time around were actually interesting to him.
They were moving passed the things they had gone through, they were living their lives for themselves for the first time and that was as goddamned terrifying just as it was goddamned beautiful.
Neil hadn’t really noticed when Kevin’s sobs tapered off, though he did feel Kevin’s weight lean more heavily onto him as his breathing evened out. Neil kept Kevin up against his chest, readjusting only enough so that he was comfortable but not once forcing Kevin off of him.
Coach Wymack had long since started ordering the others through different drills but Neil was certain that he was now speaking more quietly, somehow knowing that his son in not just blood but in soul was sleeping for the first time in days.
Neil knew that Kevin was going to be pissed about missing out on practice, but it wasn’t so bad to just sit here like this for a little while, and it would be well worth it in the long run if this meant that he was felling well enough for the upcoming game in a few days.
Readjusting again, getting a little uncomfortable without anything to lean against, Neil heard Kevin hum in his sleep.
Kevin nestled up closer against Neil’s chest, resettling quickly, and Neil wondered how the fuck he had ever thought he didn’t swing for a team because it just felt so right to have Kevin Day here in his arms and because that little sound Kevin had made was the cutest fucking thing Neil had ever heard in his life.