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Nothing could hurt Andrew anymore.
He was a bullet, a solid lump of metal flying through the air until he caused damage. If nobody could get near him, nobody could hurt him. Nobody would be able to break him apart if he was already broken. They could take what they wanted; Andrew no longer felt it.
People always wanted something from him. They were vampires: benevolent in the day, but monsters under the guise of darkness. They took and took and took his blood until Andrew was sucked dry and he was left gasping for oxygen. He was nothing but a spec in the universe. There was no point crying for help, no greater purpose for his existence.
His role in the world was as insignificant as his ‘no’ or his ‘please.’ In the end, all his fighting had been for nothing. He had never been worth more than his flesh and bones, the blood pumping to keep his cold heart alive.
So when Drake came into his room that night, Andrew didn’t feel. He forced himself to be numb and buried the fight deep inside himself until there was nothing but apathy. If he didn’t feel, he couldn’t hurt. And if he didn’t remember, maybe he could pretend it had never happened at all.
As if it had ever been that easy.
Andrew Doe was a rat in a cage, unable to escape, experimented on day after day. No cries would free him; he’d learned that the hard way. He was destined to be damned, filled with an anger that had no outlet.
That was until Aaron’s name slipped from Drake’s lips.
Something had surged in Andrew then. A vulnerability, perhaps. An idea that maybe he could do some good. He’d picked up his broken pieces, stuck them back together with blood, and got himself arrested.
A few months in Juvie was nothing.
Andrew didn’t care. He didn’t care about Aaron, or Nicky, or Cass. He didn’t care about himself.
That was how he found himself in the passenger seat of a speeding car with brakes that didn’t work, watching his ‘mother’ fly through the windshield headfirst. He could remember blood running down his face, spilling onto his lips. He could remember the sound of glass shattering and bones snapping.
He could remember waking up in the hospital and wondering why the fuck he was still alive.
Andrew Minyard was a bullet, or at least, he tried to be. It was all he had left. He made deals. He made promises. He gave shards of himself away piece by piece until there was nothing left to protect himself. It was the only way.
Something was wrong with Andrew.
Something inherently broken in his psyche, an endless sense of apathy that filled his veins, a frustration at life, and nothing but numbness. A way to fuck up everything he had ever had in one moment.
It was self-destructive. It was dumb. It was inevitable.
No matter what he did, Andrew was never enough. He was never enough to make them stay, never enough to convince them that he was worth something more than that little boy in a dark bedroom. He’d built up his connections with promises, giving away a piece of himself to every person he yearned for, every person he couldn’t bear to lose.
In his mind, it was the only way to make them stay. It was the only way he could mend connections with his brother, or even find something that made life worth living again. It was the only thing that kept him balanced on the precarious, thin threads of sanity he had left.
Then Neil had happened.
Neil with his stupid blue eyes and auburn curls. Neil with his mouth that spat fire, and that smile that made every nerve ending on Andrew’s skin cry for attention. Neil who understood without a word when Andrew had gone too far, or when he needed space.
Neil, who left their apartment without looking back, closed the door behind him so hard that their framed photo of the foxes fell and shattered into a thousand pieces.
Neil that hadn’t come back.
All because of Andrew.
Andrew had been so enraged, a sharp bullet ready to pierce through the skin of whoever came near and leave behind a gaping wound. Now, all he felt was pain as if the bullet had hit him instead, right in the chest. It was a pain Andrew had only felt once before, a burning sensation that made him grasp at his shirt. His heart thumped faster than he could breathe, his body trembling in a pathetic state of panic.
If Neil hated him, Andrew didn’t know what he would do.
Maybe he was meant to be alone. Perhaps he was nothing but a bullet, all hard edges, destined to miss every target and fly by butterflies as nothing but a harmless inconvenience. Perhaps, he was nothing more than broken pieces, and Neil had finally gotten tired of putting him back together.
If Neil was to leave for good, Andrew couldn’t–wouldn’t–blame him.
After all, when he’d been violated so many times, by others and himself, what could be left to love? He’d ruined his skin, gained a reputation as a monster, and locked himself away so tightly that he didn’t have to key anymore to free himself. When he finally died, nobody would remember–truly remember him. He would melt into the dirt, nothing but ashes, his lingering emotions dying alongside his soul.
If Neil never came back, Andrew didn’t think he would ever be able to open up again.
Andrew had ‘woken up’ from a sleepless night to an empty bed. He knew, realistically, that Neil always ran in the morning, normally getting home and showering before bringing Andrew a coffee and a kiss on the forehead. But for some reason, waking up to find the left side of the bed cold had made Andrew’s teeth grind together.
He had been angry, so angry, a feeling that was more familiar than joy, but still unsettling. Maybe that was why he had said it. Maybe that was why he lashed out against the one person whom he trusted the most in the whole world. Perhaps that was why he growled until Neil backed away like a kicked puppy.
“You. You’re the danger, Neil,” Andrew spat. “Every second I spend around you is dangerous.”
Dangerous to my heart. Dangerous to my apathy. Dangerous to the walls I have put up to try and protect myself.
“You being here puts my life at risk,” Andrew continued, pretending not to see how his words cut into Neil like a butcher’s knife.
Andrew hadn’t meant it. At least, not in the way Neil had interpreted it. Neil was dangerous, but not because of the Moriyama’s. Neil was dangerous because he had made Andrew feel when he thought he no longer could. He was a butterfly that managed to survive every bullet Andrew shot in his direction, interpreting every harsh word into the truth.
“I’ll leave then,” Neil snapped back.
He was fire. He was rage. He was everything Andrew wished he could be. Something about Neil was more than Andrew deserved. He had nothing to give Neil but the broken pieces of himself, and that was not enough.
It was better if he walked away. Andrew would only hurt Neil more than he had already. It was selfish to hope that maybe Neil could fix him, fix the hole that had been dug so deep it was unfillable. Andrew was irredeemable. Not even death could save him.
He couldn’t find the words as Neil picked up his keys and left without looking back. He couldn’t even breathe. Maybe Neil wasn’t a butterfly after all.
Maybe he was a bullet too.
***
When Andrew opened the door to head to the roof at 2 am, he couldn’t suppress a flinch.
Neil was leaning against the wall, knees tucked tightly to his chest, arms wrapped around himself as if it would keep him together. His blue eyes were heavy with exhaustion, dark circles making his pretty face seem hollow. Andrew’s heart ached with the need to reach out.
“What are you doing?” he asked instead, looking down on Neil from above.
“Sleeping,” Neil muttered, resting his head on his knees.
His hair was so messy that Andrew had to physically restrain himself from reaching out. He’d been pulling at it again, without Andrew there to reoccupy his hands. Neil had been hurting himself without Andrew, because of Andrew.
“You have a perfectly good bed,” Andrew replied.
“You told me to leave.”
The response hit Andrew harder than a punch. He physically felt the impact like a bullet to the chest, embedding itself deep, ricocheting inside and destroying all his organs. It was stupid, so stupid. Neil was so stupid.
“This is your home too, Neil,” Andrew snapped, the pain escaping the only way he knew how.
“You made your boundaries pretty clear. I won’t break them, Andrew.”
He respected Andrew’s boundaries so much that he refused to return to his bed, his home, his safe space. Andrew’s no had been clear and Neil had followed it to a tee. It made something in his chest yearn, want, to hold Neil close and never let him go again, even if he didn’t deserve it.
“Come here.” Andrew opened his arms, wanting, needing Neil in them.
Ever the martyr, Neil looked up with doe eyes so bright that Andrew couldn’t look away. He couldn’t tell which one of them was the deer in the headlines, enraptured by the other. They were two parts of a whole. Andrew was nothing but a lowly planet orbiting the Auburn sun.
“Yes, Neil,” Andrew muttered. “Is it yes for you too?”
As soon as the words left his lips, Neil was off the floor and falling into Andrew’s arms. He still smelled like chocolate cookies from using Andrew’s shampoo, a hint of second-hand smoke clinging to his clothes. He was so cold that Andrew felt an innate need to bundle him up like a sushi roll.
“You’re an idiot,” Andrew whispered into auburn locks.
Neil placed his face into Andrew’s neck, seeking warmth. “So I’ve been told.”
Andrew swallowed the lump in his throat. Even if he didn’t deserve Neil, Andrew didn’t think he could live without him. There was nothing that made him feel more human than having Neil in his grasp, real beneath his rough fingertips.
Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Neil wasn’t breakable. He smoothed Andrew’s rough edges with fire and warmth. He had rough edges too, puzzle pieces that slotted directly into Andrew’s own. They were only complete together.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Andrew confessed. “You scare me.”
Neil stepped backwards as if Andrew had shoved him away.
He was saying the wrong things again, getting it all jumbled inside his fucked-up head. He was hurting Neil.
“Fuck. Not like that, Neil.” Andrew pulled Neil back into his embrace, refusing to let him go.
“What I meant is that–” Andrew tightened his grip around Neil, needing the support. “You make me…feel things.”
Being vulnerable was hard. Putting the truth out was asking to be hurt, laying his skin bare for all to take advantage of. People always wanted a part of him, a piece they could use and discard. They never wanted Andrew, the broken little boy who had never known life without suffering.
Not Neil.
Neil was different. He would never hurt Andrew, not intentionally. He loved every part, even the sharpest, cruellest edges. All his pent-up rage and fire wouldn’t ever burn Andrew, and that meant everything.
“That is what scares me,” Andrew choked out, throat hoarse.
Andrew was a bullet, but maybe Neil was too. They were two bullets, soaring through the world together, making no difference to its outcome. Perhaps it didn’t even matter how much they managed to change.
If the world was a butterfly who lived despite everything thrown its way, maybe Andrew could be too. Not feeling wasn’t living, it was surviving. Because despite what that little boy had believed, there really was something in the world out there for him. The world hadn’t ended at thirteen; it had only just truly begun.
“Come to bed?” he asked. Neil didn’t even hesitate to answer.
They barely separated as they entered the apartment, only stopping to take off their shoes between brief, light kisses. With hands intertwined, they stumbled towards the bedroom. It only took minutes before they were bundled under the covers, wrapped around each other like two penguins huddling for warmth.
“Stay,” Andrew whispered into the darkness.
He was a bullet, a solid lump of metal flying through the air until he caused damage. But for Neil alone, he was a butterfly. Neil couldn’t hurt him; he wouldn’t. Neil could take what he wanted, every little ounce Andrew had left, because Andrew would give him the world without question.
“Yes,” Neil replied. “It’s always yes with you.”