Chapter Text
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Sunday
Andrew and Neil had been together for eight years, married for four, and playing with the Atlanta Nighthawks together for two. It was baffling to Neil sometimes, how this nothing of theirs had turned into everything , how it had grown and changed and lasted, lasted years and years longer than either of them had expected to even be alive. Neil had never really believed he would live to see himself turn 20, let alone 28, but he had. He’d survived, and he’d clawed his way into a future full of love and joy and Andrew.
That wasn’t to say that everything was perfect. They were Foxes, first and foremost and always, and perfect wasn’t a word in their vocabularies. Neil still had days where he couldn’t meet his own eyes in the mirror. Andrew had days where he couldn’t pull himself out of bed, when talking and touching were out of the question. They were still two men who were undeniably broken, but their jagged edges had been smoothed down with time and they were slowly learning how to put themselves back together. They were still hurt, would likely always be, but they were learning how to heal. Their bad days were still bad, were still awful and dark and hard, but their good days made it worth it. They had more good days than bad days lately.
Neil had grown to expect that life would always be that way, with the good far outweighing the bad and Andrew steady by his side. For the first time, he thought, luck was finally on their side.
Luck, it turned out, was a fickle bitch.
The game had been violent from first serve till the final buzzer, with Andrew standing resolute and unyielding in goal and Neil antagonizing the other team whenever he had the opportunity. It had been rough and bloody from the beginning, the energy of it pulsing through Neil’s veins as he scored again and again, making him feel alive in a way that very few other things could.
They were halfway through the third quarter when it all went to shit.
Tensions had been rising steadily as Neil and the other strikers kept scoring and Andrew kept their goal on lockdown, and every time the point gap got larger, the strikers on the other team grew more desperate.
There was an unspoken rule in exy, one you followed if you didn’t want to face serious backlash from the public: you never fouled the goalies. The goalies played a wildly different game from the rest of them, so it was common agreement that they were untouchable.
Even if you fouled a goalie, nobody ever fouled Andrew Minyard-Josten. He’d been infamous in the exy world since before he’d gone pro, well-known not only for his unmatched talent but for his fierce protective streak and proclivity for violence. It was common knowledge that if you dared to foul Andrew Minyard-Josten, you took your life into your own hands.
That’s why Neil didn’t expect what came next; nobody was brave or stupid enough to go after Andrew.
In a burst of desperate energy, one of the opposing team’s strikers got ahold of the ball and rushed the Nighthawks' goal, managing to make it past the backliners and shooting on Andrew. Of course, Andrew swatted the ball away without much difficulty, but he was still off-balance from the swing when the striker barreled into him, racket still raised and aimed right for Andrew’s head.
The racket got caught in the grill of Andrew’s helmet, pushing his head back as the striker collided with him, knocking him back into the wall behind him.
Andrew went down with a heavy thunk, and the court went silent.
Andrew had realized what was happening a split second before it did, recognized the anger on the striker’s face and knew with complete certainty that he wasn’t going to stop.
He wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way before the striker collided with him, and he’d barely thought Neil before his head hit the wall behind him with a sharp crack .
Suddenly, the world was very, very quiet.
Gameplay had frozen the second Andrew fell, both teams frozen in shock at what had happened. The stadium was in an uproar outside the plexiglass, but Neil could barely hear it.
Andrew wasn’t moving.
In between one blink and the next, Neil was crouched on the court floor next to him. Not touching, not yet, but he was shaking from head to toe and Andrew was still as a stone.
“ Drew,” he choked out, trembling hands hovering over his husband’s helmet. “Andrew, come on, get up.”
“ Oh my god,” he heard someone say behind him, and a ref was blowing her whistle to stop gameplay and the court doors were slamming open somewhere beyond him, but none of it mattered when Andrew still wouldn’t move.
“Andrew, Drew, come on. Get up, you need—get up ,” he could hear himself pleading, his hands now buried in the goalie’s jersey as something wet slid down one cheek.
Arms were around him, and he was being pulled away. He fought, kicking and screaming as he watched medics surround Andrew, but he couldn’t get free.
“Neil, breathe, ” someone said in his ear, and he realized that it was Kevin. Kevin, his teammate. Kevin, his brother. Kevin, who cared about Andrew almost as much as Neil did. “I’ve got you, Neil. You need to let them help.”
Neil went limp then, letting Kevin hold him up as he watched the medics buzz frantically around his husband.
“ I don’t think he was breathing, ” Neil said, more whisper than anything else, and he felt Kevin’s arms tighten a little around him as Neil choked on a sob.
The court, and the ambulance after it, was alive with fear and frantic energy. Still, Andrew didn’t move.