Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Place and time: Coach Wymack’s apartment. Neil has just hitchhiked and walked his way back from Columbia. Neil and Andrew have started talking in German and frustrated Coach has gone away to do some paperwork because he can’t understand a word either way.

“But if you remember, rabbit”, Andrew sang. “You never did as Nicky so nicely asked of you: you still have the contact lenses on. Seems pretty suspicious to me.”

Neil hesitated and glanced at the office’s door. Coach had left it open so he could hear if the boys started physically fighting but he wouldn’t be able to see them without moving his chair straight into the doorway. Neil would see if he did that and he had a feeling that Andrew wouldn’t let the mystery of his lenses go again. He would have to reveal his eyes if he wanted to keep playing on exy. And.. maybe this could distract Andrew from the real problems. Oh-no-a-mafia-is-literally-chasing-me -kind of problems.

Neil removed his contacts with shaking hands and brought his chin up. Here goes for nothing. He met Andrew’s hazel eyes.

Andrew gasped softly.

Neil knew the exact cause and could follow Andrew's thought chain: Neil Josten was a scrawny kid from the middle of nowhere. He was unnoticeable with his brown eyes, black hair and grey clothing - he was like the dust of the Sonoran desert back in Arizona. Neil Josten was a silent, abused and broken boy who had gotten a chance of lifetime when a college coach had come to recruit him. There was nothing noteworthy about him - He didn’t even argue or drink like the other broken children of his ragtag team did. He was nothing.

The boy, who now stood in front of Andrew, wasn't the same person. Yes, he still tried to seem as small and harmless as possible but he couldn’t blend in with wallpaper anymore. The ice blue eyes made sure of that.

Andrew lifted Neil’s chin with a finger so that he could see the nomad’s eyes in a better lighting. A small smile tugged the corner of his mouth with the power of the pills.

“Oooh! This was unexpected!” Andrew ogled the inhuman eyes. Neil forced himself to stop from moving away and talked in a strained voice:

“I use contacts because I don’t want people to see my real eyes. No matter what they say, nomads are still treated worse than humans.”

“Nomads?”

Neil grimaced - he couldn’t help it.

“‘Wolf-people’”, he quoted unquoted. “We are still thought of in really medieval ways although we have existed as long as humans have. Discrimination hasn’t vanished and the school administration would probably make up some excuse to expel me if this”, he waved at his eyes, “came out.”

It spoke volumes about Andrew’s thoughts that he didn’t object. His expression had gone as blank as possible considering the effects of the meds - meaning he was still smiling from ear to ear. His eyes were more deadpan.

“The world is cruel”, he granted.

“It’s not the world that’s cruel. It’s the people in it”, Neil corrected and glanced away. “The world itself is just a big soup of coincidences.”

“I have never tasted anything more bitter.”

Neil didn’t bother with answering. He stepped away from Andrew and his curious eyes and made his way to the kitchen sink. The cheap lenses had gotten dirty in his hands - which were sweaty and dusty from his earlier adventure - so he dropped the lenses into an empty carton of yogurt and stuffed the carton deep into a trash bin. After washing his hands in the sink he took out his backup lenses and put them on.

Andrew kept silent during this operation. Only once Neil turned towards him again, he said: “None of this answers the question why you have oh so carefully made a collage of Kevin’s faces and have a binder full of money.”

“My mom and dad were involved in some really shady businesses. I think their bosses had some dealings with Moriyamas as I have met both Riko and Kevin once before. We were still just kids back then. My parents, however, messed up and we had to make a run from it. They got dad first, then mom a year ago. I’m left.”

“And you still collect Kevin’s pictures?”

Neil shrugged.

“He’s good at exy.”

Andrew thought for a minute and turned to leave without another word. Neil was already ready to exhale from relief when Andrew stopped by the front door.

“By the way, what are you?”

Neil took that as a follow-up for the nomad-conversation.

“An omega. But it probably doesn’t mean the same thing you are thinking about.”

Neil saluted. Andrew rolled his eyes and left, banging the door.

Chapter Text

Nothing was outright wrong that morning. No, there were just a bunch of small details which were a tad strange but even their sum didn’t scream “HEY! Neil is going into heat!” but “OH! Neil has gone mad!” at most.

Neil had woken up before five o’clock as usual for his morning run. The air had smelled a bit stuffy and not particularly good but it wasn’t that alarming; the bedroom was shared by three people, after all, and no one of them was in the habit of ventilating in the middle of night.

Anyhow, Neil woke up before five and stretched, thinking that the air didn’t smell quite right. He climbed down from his top bunk without awaking Matt or Seth, took a fresh pair of contact lenses from his safe and left the room. Outside, the air was a little fresher and Neil wondered how the air had gotten so bad. Maybe they should leave a window open for the duration of classes? It wasn’t even cold outside as the fall semester was just starting and it was still warm.

Neil put the contacts on without looking at his blue eyes, changed clothes and got out. He kept shaking his arms and legs as he walked down the stairs and once on the pavement, he started into a light jog.

Normally Neil’s morning run took him all around the campus and ended up by the gym where he would meet the other Foxes for morning exercise. Today, however, he was feeling a tad strange. An argument with Kevin had ended their night practice long before they usually left the stadium last night, so it couldn’t be sleep deprivation. Neil touched his own forehead. He was already sweaty so it was hard to tell but he didn’t exactly feel feverish, either. Strange.

Neil kept soldering on but step by step he began to feel more and more done with his run. He tried to ignore the tiredness or fever or whatever it was and was distracted. His feet strayed from his usual path until he noticed he was cutting straight through the campus to get back to the Tower as fast as possible. Well, he didn’t have afternoon classes. He would go for a longer run then.

The apartment was - if possible - even more stuffy than before. Ah, he had forgotten to close the bedroom door when he left, but that didn’t explain everything. He walked around the living room and turned his nose up at the smell. What, had a rat died inside the walls or something? The smell was just downright awful.

Matt had brought a fancy coffee machine from home and Neil went to click it on. While waiting for the coffee to brev, he looked at the cups in the cupboard. Under no circumstances did Neil have an eye for art or interior design and normally he ignored anything to do with either thing, but something was bothering him about the cups. Maybe it was their order? Yeah.. yeah, who the hell had put them in that order?

Annoyed, Neil dragged a barstool in front of the cabinet, climbed on it and began to sort things for his liking. There was a particular cup that looked awful everywhere but Neil felt like he shouldn’t be throwing away Matt’s things, were they hideous or not. He settled for poking it behind the others so that he couldn’t see it once he put the stool back. Well, that was a bit better.

Once the cupboard was sorted out, Neil turned around to get off the chair when he happened to lay his eyes on the apartment. He froze and stared.

“Oh, good morning, Neil. You didn’t go running tod-?” Matt yawned and blinked his eyes in the brighter room. “Umm, what are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

Matt watched as Neil dragged in a basket full of freshly washed and drum dried laundry. It seemed like Neil had washed all the blankets, sofa cushion covers and items of clothing left on the sofa. Matt lifted a pair of SpongeBob SquarePants socks.

“Seth’s been looking for these. Where did you find them?”

Neil grabbed the socks back. “Inside a sofa cushion. Literally. Why has anyone put them there? By the way, you and Seth must also do your laundry today. It smells really awful here and I’m not sure if the source is mold, dead animals or unhygienic lifestyle.”

Matt sniffed the air. He didn’t notice anything strange but decided to trust Neil’s nose. “If you say so. Have you made coffee?”

“In the kitchen”, Neil answered absently.

Matt got himself a cup and leaned against the kitchen island to see what Neil was doing. He couldn’t help but guess how early Neil must have woken up to have achieved all the changes in the apartment because Neil’s unjosten cleaning frenzy hadn’t stopped at organizing the kitchen cabinets. No, all the ventilation windows of the living room were open and they brought in cool morning air. Empty plates and chip bags had disappeared from the coffee table and the tabletop had been swept clean. Items standing on the desks had been organized, and Matt had never seen Seth or his desks as neat. Rugs were rolled and taken out of the way.

Neil - who had left the laundry basket by the front door - was just coming back from the wc with a mop and a bucket when Seth joined the party. Just like Matt, he squinted his eyes at the bright, unusually-clean room and asked: “What the fuck?”

“Open the window in the bedroom”, Neil greeted back and completely ignored the glare Seth sent his way. He was too busy fighting with the collapsible mop whose shaft had way too many moving parts. “And don’t close it till nightfall. That goes for the both of you.”

“What the fuck?” Seth repeated, more awake now. “Do you know how hot it will be here if we leave all the windows open during the day? Besides, our apartment faces the south, idiot.”

“It smells here.”

“Of course it smells. How much cleaning solution have you poured in that bucket?

Neil had figured out the mechanics of the shaft and he clicked everything into place with one, confident movement. He glowered at Seth.

“Window.”

Seth snarled but it was still too early in the day to start a fight over something that simple, and he returned into the bedroom to follow Neil’s order.

The last fifteen minutes before they had to leave for the gym went by as still sleepy Matt and Seth, who was hurriedly doing his homework for the day, followed Neil’s actions as he started to mop the floor. At first he settled for kicking the rolled up rugs out of his way but ultimately he lost his temper and outright dragged them into the hallway and - deduced by the noise - all the way to the roof. When he came back, he mopped until the whole apartment smelled of lemon.

The women of the team usually drove with Matt and Seth to the gym, and Dan had come to see what was holding them back when they didn’t ever appear in the parking lot. She had opened their door, ready to scold them for sleeping late but had stopped. Neil had been standing in the middle of the room, threatening Seth with the wet mob (“I won’t start beating rugs now, shortie!” “I didn’t ask!” “Seth, I think we are better off obeying him.”) and one glance had been enough for Dan to make up his mind and call out that the women would be going in Allison's car. Both Matt and Seth had looked at her betrayed.

In the end, Matt, Seth and Neil missed almost all of the morning gym session. When they finally arrived, everybody were already sitting on the floor and following Abby’s stretches. Normally the rare democratic majority would have been annoyed at them for missing the gym while the rest of them had to participate, but today Dan had told everyone how Matt and Seth had become victims of Neil’s cleaning frenzy. Most faces were amused, and Allison and Nicky outright laughed at Seth’s sour expression. Even Coach wasn’t particularly mad although he had tried to call after the mission trio four times without an answer.

“Well, did you get everything cleaned?” Renee asked, smiling. Both the defenceman and stricker were wet with sweat and cleaning solution, and Matt sat down on the bench of bench press.

“Did we?” he wiped sweat from his eyebrow. “Coach, your threat of a marathon is empty and outdated. Just threaten me with cleaning with Neil and I will beg for mercy.”

Coach rolled his eyes but was already smiling, too. “I assume that you had your own workout?”

Seth, who had been sipping a sports drink, spat it out. Matt moaned and lied down.

Neil’s strange feeling hadn’t eased since morning. Almost on the contrary. All the classrooms were smelling as stale as the apartment before cleaning. After some studying, Neil realized the smell was coming from other humans. Yuck. There must be something wrong with the water on campus. At that point, shower water was the only plausible explanation.

The awful smell had given Neil a headache and it only kept becoming worse until Neil was forced to leave midst his final lecture of the day. The outside air was clearer once again but every place on campus had been stamped with the smell of other people. Neil grimaced and ran faster. He was making a beeline for the Tower when he remembered that despite his best attempts, the foul smell hadn’t completely left the apartment by the time Neil had left for classes. He made a detour for air fresheners and fabric disinfectant and - the final item was a complete impulse purchase - an enormous blanket. The total sum was large enough to make his mother roll in her sandy grave, but at that moment Neil was feeling too foggy to really care. He owned only eight damn outfits, he could afford these.

The windows of the third floor flat had been open for hours at that point, and everything was even better than Neil had hoped for. He walked through the rooms sniffing and feeling more and more satisfied. The main smell was lemon, which wasn’t most ideal, but hundred times better than the alternative and it covered other smells. The new air fresheners helped some more, too. But it wasn’t perfect.

Neil hesitated a bit at first but ended up rubbing his cheek against the doorframe to the bedroom. He pressed his nose against the scent mark afterwards and let out a deep exhale. Better. Much better. Excited with his new invention, he made another round of the room. A sweep of hand was enough for most surfaces but he leaped on the sofa and rubbed his scent into the fabric that he had disinfected just moments before. All the rugs, beds and fresh sheets got the same treatment and by the time Neil was ready, his headache had lessened and everything smelled good. Familiar.

The early wake-up, cleaning and hours-long headache had made Neil tired, and he was ready to nap. He rolled for the last time in the new sheets of the bottom bunk, stretched deeply like a satisfied cat, and got up. He closed the windows. From the living room, he fetched the clean blankets and sofa cushions and stuffed them all into his bunk bed. Then he stole the duvets from the other beds and added them into his pile.

Oh, how wonderful everything was. A clean environment with no trace of the awful smell of other people and a mountain made of wonderful, soft blankets that all were his . Neil climbed up into his bed, wrapped himself in his new store-bought blanket - so wonderful and warm - and settled inside the blanket nest. He fell asleep in seconds and soft purring started.

“I hope that Josten is running himself ragged somewhere. I will kill him if he tells me to wash one more pair of socks”, Seth threatened. Matt parked the car and massaged his eyelids. Neil’s lessons had been over for hours at that point, but Seth and Matt’s own had continued late into afternoon. The exy practice would start in half-an-hour.

“I can’t imagine one thing left uncleaned in the flat”, Matt sighed. He liked Neil, really. Neil was a pretty nice guy and it didn’t bother Matt that he tended to be on the quiet side. Matt could respect that and give him space. That said, he wouldn’t have believed someone like Neil would be as stubborn as he was that morning. Even Seth had submitted under Neil’s orders just so that they could finish quicker.

“At least the flat is cleaner than ever before”, Seth said with rare optimism.

The duo called the lift down and stepped out after a short ride. Seth had been walking ahead and he froze after taking just a couple of steps out of the lift. He inhaled deeply.

“Hey, do you smell that?”

Matt followed Seth’s suit and inhaled. There was a faint scent in the air. Nothing overpowering but certainly new. Pretty nice, in fact. “Yeah. Didn’t Neil say something about the air smelling strange?”

“He called it stale. Not whatever this is.”

They walked to their door. Seth opened it, poke his head through and glanced around like a cartoon spy. “Yay, no Josten in sight.” He walked in and threw himself on the sofa. He sneezed. “What the hell?”

Matt shut the front door and smelled the same thing Seth had gotten a nose-full from the fabric of the sofa. “The smell comes from here”, he said and sniffed some more. The smell was more potent here than in the hallway but not eye-watering.

“What washing agent did Josten use?”

The door to the bedroom opened with a bang. Matt jumped a bit from surprise, turned around, and saw Neil whose hair and face were still softened by sleep.

“Hey!” Matt greeted him and set his backpack down as neatly as possible. There was no need to set off Neil’s cleaning frenzy again. One spring-cleaning in a year was enough, was it spring or not. “Sorry, if we woke you up. The practice starts soon but we can try to be quieter if you think you can sleep until then.”

“Out.”

At first, Matt didn’t even realize Neil was speaking. He was turned towards his desk and only Seth’s snort made him realize Neil had actually spoken. His voice was a little gruff from sleep.

“Don’t you dare to start again. I won’t tidy up anything more, no matter what you think you are going to say”, Seth said and glared at Neil.

Neil acted like he hadn’t heard him.

“Out”, he repeated and took a step closer. Matt stepped closer too and lifted his hands in an attempt to calm everyone down. Neil looked strange. “Hey, hey! Let’s relax. If there is still something left to do from the morning, we can take care of it later. After the practice. Kevin will skin us alive if we-”

“Out!” Neil outright screamed. Seth sat up. He was pissed.

“Like the fuck we are leaving! Look at my hands. I am playing exy in university for the fifth year now and never have I ever gotten blisters in my hands for it. No, I got these when you forced me to beat dust out of some fucking rugs. And on top of these, our flat smells like some fucking fruit market thanks to you. Go fuck yourself, Josten!”

Neil didn’t back down. He walked straight towards Seth who stumbled onto his feet. Neil’s eyes were aflame with lighting and his body was tense with coiled energy. Inhuman snarl escaped from his throat, and both Matt and Seth jumped in surprise.

“What the hell?” Matt asked. “Neil-” But Seth had already sneered back at Neil which - it seemed like - was the final drop. Neil ran at Seth and his momentum knocked the both of them down onto the sofa. Neil landed on top of Seth and he brought his nails down onto Seth’s face. Seth shouted in pain and tried to buck him off. Matt hurried onto their side, grabbed Neil and tried to wrench him away from Seth, but Neil was stupidly strong in his unexplained fit of rage and Matt had to work in earnest before he succeeded.

Neil’s legs kicked thin air as Matt - who was squeezing him against his own chest - tore him away and hauled him to the other side of the room. Seth’s fingers had left painful marks on Neil's wrist when he had tried to keep the hands away from himself, but one look back at Seth told Matt that the other man had been hurted worse. Seth was still laying on the sofa, gasping for air and patting his own face in shock. The fingers came back bloody. Neil’s nails had left long lines down his face and towards the eyes.

The almost blinding wounds somehow made Matt forget he was still holding Neil. He was quickly reminded, however, when Neil sunk both his teeth and nails into one of the hands holding him back. Matt instinctively let go and Neil didn’t waste a second before running at Seth for the second time. This time around Seth didn’t get any chance to defend himself and Neil quickly got him into a headlock. In that position, Neil forced Seth off the sofa, onto his feet and towards the front door. Once Seth was thrown out, Neil turned towards Matt who took hasty steps backwards and raised his arms in defense. Matt didn’t know what was going on but when Neil snarled at him with all of his teeth bared, he knew he had seen enough. Thinking about dogs, he looked down in a sign of submission and quickly circled Neil to get to the door. Neil slammed it shut after him. The lock clicked.

In the corridor, Matt saw that their ruckus hadn’t gone unnoticed by the others. Allison was already on the ground kneeling next to Seth and examining his face. Both Dan and serious looking Renee were right in front of Matt like they had just been about to barge in.

“What the hell? Who is here? Where is Neil, he isn’t with you? What happened?” Dan shot out a question after question and patted him through, looking for wounds. Matt shoved her his bloody wrist. The bite wound was clear but thankfully it and the scratches were his only wounds.

“Neil threw us out”, he told. Dan stared at him.

“What?”

“I have had enough of him!” Seth shouted from the floor. “He is a little shit who shit-talks and makes me clean and then tries to pry the eyes out of my head! I have had enough! I’m leaving!” Seth shook Allison’s hands from him, got onto his feet and started towards the lift. Allison looked over her shoulder back at Matt to assure herself that he wasn’t dying, and then followed her boyfriend.

The doors of the lift opened just as Seth and Allison reached them. Andrew was the first one to step out and he immediately grinned at Seth’s angry face.

“Oh, where is the hurricane? Ding, dong, I think I have found its lost eye!” he giggled. Seth touched his nearly-wounded eye once again almost unwillingly before letting the hand drop. He snarled but Andrew just laughed. “Fly, fly away, thunderstorm.”

Andrew stepped aside and let his group step out of the lift. Seth and Allison stepped inside and the doors closed behind Andrew’s pack. The blond midget turned towards Matt, Dan and Renee who had stayed on their steads.

“Oi, Renee, what is going on?” he asked.

“Dan and I are trying to find out”, she answered like a saint.

Dan gave the Monsters a warning look and turned back towards her boyfriend.

“Neil did this?” she incredulously asked and gestured towards Matt’s hand. Andrew came closer and looked past Dan’s shoulder to see what was the problem. The smell of the apartment had stuck to Matt when he had held struggling Neil and now Andrew got his own noseful of it.

“We were barely inside when he began to herd us out”, Matt said and yelped when he notcied the goalkeeper right next to his elbow. Dan pushed away Andrew’s face and he backed down a bit. His involuntary smile hadn’t gone anywhere but he managed to speak:

“Call Abby.”

Nicky came closer, too. He was the only tall enough to look over Matt’s shoulder at his wounded hand. “Is it that bad?”

“Not for him”, Andrew corrected him merrily. “Seth and you got what you deserved when you tried to force yourself into omega’s nest.”

“So you’re back on the land of living.” It was late at night and Andrew’s remark was as dry as the sobriety of night allowed. He was sitting on the edge of the roof with a lighted cigarette in hand.

Neil fidgeted. A day had already passed since he had started “waking up” but this was his first excursion out of the apartment since all this had started. Abby had visited him earlier in the evening but other than that, Andrew was the first person Neil saw afterwards.

“Hardly”, he answered. He didn’t feel ill, exactly, and Abby hadn’t found anything amiss although she only completed a simple check up. However, it was gut wrenching to know that all of the Foxes now knew about one of his biggest secrets. He also felt bad for what he had done to Matt and Seth. Abby hadn’t gone into details but she had been forced to say something when Neil asked why there was dried blood under his nails and nothing beyond a few bruises on his own skin.

Andrew offered the cigarette and Neil let its call lure him to the brink. The night air was shockingly cold after days spent under a mountain of blankets, and Neil welcomed its breath onto his hot skin. He had only meant to smell the smoke like usual but changed his mind and brought the stick to his lips.

Andrew took it back after being offered. Neil cleared his throat with a cough that had nothing to do with the smoke. “So. I heard the last game went completely wrong.”

Abby had mentioned it. The Foxes were the smallest team of the league on a good day and this additional event had taken down two of their players: Neil, who had tried to pry the head of anyone who came too close, and Matt whose hand had still hurted too much to play. Abby hadn’t been pleased when Neil told her he had no idea if he had vaccinations for the long list of illnesses that he might have passed onto Matt by the bite. She had already booked appointments for both of the boys to make sure neither would fall sick. Neil wasn’t particularly excited about meeting nurse Mäkiranta but, oh well, it probably was worth the trouble. It would be a work of irony if Neil survived his father for years but succumbed to a perfectly preventable illness.

Andrew breathed smoke at his face.

“Don’t talk about exy to me”, he said. Neil had already checked the result of the game and he was pretty sure Andrew was the only reason they hadn’t lost the game, but he shut his mouth.

They smoked some more in silence, trading the cigarette back and forth between them. Neil was playing with Andrew’s lighter when Andrew spoke:

“I did some research on omegas and their heats. Not one source said anything about them murdering everyone in a 100 feet radius.” It wasn’t exactly a question but Neil indulged him.

“I don’t exactly have normal heats”, he told without a drop of shame in his voice as he spoke about something as intimate as a heat. “Abby couldn’t say anything for sure without further research, but her guess is that my asexual ass wants nothing to do with sex but doesn’t have anything against nesting and therefore completely flips out when someone tries to step in.” Step in his rooms.

...

Yeah, he still got some things to work through. He had never reacted this strongly before but - on the other hand - his mother had never allowed him to nest and his memories of the heat in Millport were hazy at the best. He had spent it completely alone, locked inside the house he squatted in, and there had been no one to see and later report his reactions back to him.

Andrew nodded. “I guess it makes sense. That you wouldn’t completely forget your sexual preferences even while in heat.”

Neil nodded in turn. “Abby said something about the media overemphasizing the “mating” part and completely ignoring the preference factor. I guess that means that if I was gay, I would only let men inside my nest.”

Andrew huffed and took the lighter back to lighten up another smoke.

“And the cleaning?”

“The nest is mine. I want everything the way I like it, and I don’t want others near it, be it their bodies or mere scent.”

Neil wondered if Andrew thought that his sniff of his own shirt went unnoticed by Neil. He also wondered what it would be like to live with a weaker sense of smell.

“You smell just fine after heat”, he reassured the blond. Andrew was a bit red on the cheeks. Was he cold? Neil pulled his sweater tighter around himself. He was already missing his nest but he didn’t know if he dared to set it up again.