Work Text:
Their story started with a message.
Neil almost twitched at the sound of the incoming notification. He took a suspicious look at his own phone across the room. For the last few years, the cell phone has been silent and in this state it should have remained for the rest of eternity. However, the plans did not come true: the short ringtone broke them.
Probably, somewhere along the way he should have realized that it smelled a trouble, and stopped, but Neil had persistent problems with his sense of smell and overall perception of the atmosphere. So he took the phone off the charger and opened the messenger.
Allison: How much do you love me on a scale from one to ten?
He typed a brief message and without looking hid the phone in the pocket of his house pants to get back to the fridge, потому что вот от него подстав точно ждать не стоило, а ничего, кроме подстав, на такие вопросы ожидать не получалось. After a few steps, he received another notification.
He didn’t need it. No, really, he didn’t need it at all. He loved Allison for all eleven points, but every time she texted him on the weekends without waiting to see her in person, something out of the ordinary happened.
At first, Neil genuinely thought it was just a coincidence, but last month, their Sunday meeting ended at a fucking police station, so, no, it wasn’t just paranoia. He was willing to bet a kidney on Allison being a great con artist in her past life, and a kidney on her becoming a great con artist in this one.
He was enough for fifteen minutes this time, and as he drank a can of soda into the commercial in the sitcom, he gave up and transferred his attention from the laptop screen to the phone screen.
Allison was a cunning fox, and she did not throw messages at him, knowing that Neil Josten was incapable of ignoring her. It wasn’t because she had pictures of him as a kid compromising him, and it wasn’t even because he was gonna die of boredom at university if they suddenly stopped talking. They’ve known each...
Seriously, how long have they known each other? Their whole life? Neil sincerely denied the fact that they had first met in the first days after his admission, because it seemed to him that they had sat on the neighboring pots in a previous life. Right in between those very great scams of young Mistress Reynolds.
Neil: Can I give you a minus value?
Allison: I knew you’d agree.
Neil didn’t actually agree, but Allison Reynolds never had any rejection in her world. She’s used to everyone playing by her rules, and Neil was the kind of person who couldn’t say no to people he cared about, whose list started and ended up on Allison who sometimes wanted to block (spoiler: he can’t do it).
There was enough self-control not to do it now, so with the realization of an imminent catastrophe, he wrote back and immediately turned off the laptop, which this weekend is unlikely to have time to devote to.
Neil: This is the last time.
Neil didn’t want to search the correspondence, but he had a good memory. It seems that this was the eighth mention of this wording, except for fifty “never again”, “no way” and “I don’t know you”.
***
Within half an hour, Neil was on his way to the library. He couldn’t stand libraries, because who needed them at all in the Internet age, so not even the first time paid attention to the location. He wasn’t surprised anymore.
The police station? Okay, Neil’s bringing a skeleton key. Maternity hospital? Okay, he’s ready to be godfather if you need him. Library? Well, he needs a manual on how to fight the manipulation of his own friends.
Allison forced him to send a photo report with her own clothes and critically ruled out several options. Neil liked a sports hoodie, and the weather was perfect for this, but Allison was in aesthetic shock and told him to wear his leather jacket.
He didn’t ask any more questions because the more questions, the greater the risk that Allison would decide to control his clothes on a daily basis. Neil wanted to reserve the right to dress up periodically as he felt.
“You have a peculiar sense of taste,” Allison said ironically in response to his explanation why he believes that the old sweater with puffs is better than the brand sweatshirt given to him on his birthday. Arguing in this situation was useless, and they both agreed.
Now Neil was in a cab in the back seat, dressed in black, as if he was going to a funeral, not a library. His eyes concealed his sunglasses. To be honest, the last one was his whim, because he spent the whole night staring at the screen, wasting his time on stupid things, and now the sunlight is making his eyes hurt. It was his fault, but show him one person who will sleep at night when the next day you don’t have to go to work or school.
Under the watchful eye of the women behind the wheel (he was flattered, but the women by default were not his type), Neil pulled out his phone to reread the instructions from his friend.
Allison: Your name is Alex Stanley, and we’ve been seeing you for a month. And you’re totally in love with me, remember?
Neil let out a disgruntled sigh.
Neil: Why am I Alex?
Allison: Cause that name came to me first. And it pisses Seth off.
Neil: I don’t even want to know what Seth has to do with this.
Seth Gordon broke out of the usual Allison type, who had previously dated exclusively wealthy boys. At least because she thought that if she had money, her partner should have it. Neil had never met Seth, but he knew by hearsay that he didn’t have any money, but he did have trouble controlling aggression, drugs, and accepting boundaries.
You do understand, don't you? This is absolutely not the type that Neil Josten would want to deal with.
He was genuinely pleased when Allison told him they broke up. At least he could now be sure that his best friend wouldn’t end up in an alley. Heroin addiction wouldn’t have suited her.
Allison: Didn’t I tell you? He’ll be there too.
Neil narrowly restrained himself from asking to turn the car around. The fact that the female driver was obviously more interested in him than the road helped to keep him in control, so distracting her was dangerous.
With his head bent back to the seat, he glanced at the low ceiling of the car through the dark glass of his glasses, and thought that he would never again give his cell phone in the graceful hands of Allison Reynolds, who gracefully enabled the sound so she could use his help at the right time.
***
It wasn’t his first time pretending to be his bestfriend’s boyfriend, so Neil could confidently claim to have had experience with the case. Such experience adequate people after psychotherapy called traumatic usually, but Neil Josten was the only child in a loving white family which had more than average wealth, and he must have had at least something traumatic in his life.
One day, at a request spiked with a small dose of blackmail, he had to play the part of a diligent loving boy in front of Allison’s parents, on another occasion, he had to cover for her in front of an unknown stalker, whom they later successfully turned over to the police, and now he was walking into a small, bright library room and he was watching Allison walk towards him, clapping her heels, and kissing him on the cheek.
It had to look gentle from the outside, but the sharp claws snuck into his side.
“I missed you,” she smiled. Oh, he was willing to bet that that smile fell on everyone here, but Neil knew Allison too well.
“I thought I was drawn to knowledge, but it turned out I was attracted to you,” Neil said mirrored her. Allison caught the irony and gave him an expressive look as she stood with her back to the reading room. “You owe me a ticket to the next match,” he said quietly so that only Allison could hear him.
“I’ll pay for the VIP zone, if you play well.” The scarlet lips bent in a cunning smile. Neil secretly hoped that the lipstick wasn't sturdy and he wouldn’t sit around all night with a lip print like a clown.
Neil was a bad actor, but he pulled off his glasses and put them on his fake girlfriend’s head instead of a headband, and then tucked a light curl behind her ear. He was a nonreactive man, but Allison was not like that, so he got used to her clinging to his elbow every time they were close.
Allison winked with approval and pulled his hand past the librarian’s counter into the center of the hall, where the chairs were arranged in straight rows. There were not too many people, fifteen, no more. They sat in small groups and talked softly. These companies clearly separated the empty spaces between them, and Neil almost had time to make a mental assumption that it was logical, because alone, there’s hardly anyone coming here, but suddenly he felt someone staring at him from a dark corner. There was only one chair in which…
“Look at me,” Allison said, before he could pay more attention to the stranger, and turned his head around his chin. The wet napkin went down his cheek, and Neil realized there was a lipstick mark on him, and then he thought the ticket to the VIP zone wasn’t enough to pay for all that suffering.
“I’m starting to think I don’t love you that much,” he turned to her ear, and then pulled away to say in a normal voice, “So what’s going on?”
“It’s a literary evening,” Allison said, as they walked to the front row, which was empty.
“It’s two o'clock in the afternoon. Do they read «Cosmopolitan»?” She didn’t answer and gave him an expressive eyelash instead. Actually, she was incredibly smart and her university results were just another piece of evidence, but Allison was beautiful, and Neil just loved stereotypical thinking. It’s not so bad, guys, the main thing is to remind yourself in time that these are just prejudices, and a beautiful girl with scientific literature in her hands can successfully use the same book to hit you if you focus on it too much.
Neil didn’t see any fashion magazines around, but he didn’t see anything in the hands of the people here that could be read. If he was right, they should read at literary events, no? The look returned to the chair in the corner, from which he still felt someone’s attentive look on him and...
"Who is this loser, Al?"
Neil didn’t think he was a loser, but he still turned to a sharp voice to look at this suicide bomber who dared to shorten the name of Reynolds. In case you haven’t figured out the real situation yet: one day the teacher called her Alice, announcing that it was a full-fledged form of her name, and a week later he was looking for a new job.
For "Al" should at least have torn out the tongue.
Before he could turn around, Neil knew whose face he was about to see. He didn’t need to be personally acquainted with Seth to know it was him, even though it was harder to introduce him in the library than Allison. In his own eyes reflected just as much contempt as it was necessary to not notice it obtuse semi-professional athlete, cause you’ve seen these fists? Neil wasn't a coward, Neil was a smart amateur athlete with a developed instinct for self-preservation.
“Don’t worry, it’s just a mirror.”
Okay. With an underdeveloped instinct for self-preservation.
Seth… didn’t look right in the library. Allison looked great anywhere, Neil looked shady, but even here he's sure he would have found some sports books, but Seth looked as if he’d been sent a location and promised free beer, and there was disappointment waiting for him.
Disappointment-Neil-Josten held a neutral expression, guessing that Allison’s ex had missed the irony, and held out his hand to shake. Seth gave him a judgmental glance from head to toe and shook his hand.
Jesus. Was that a crunch in his fingers?
“Seth Gordon.”
“Alex Stanley,” Neil nodded. An alien name scratched his tongue. — Allison's boyfriend.
Seth’s eyes flashed menacingly, but no, there seemed to be some sort of decency in him after all, because he didn’t rush to hit him. Will he wait until after the reading session? Neil took a quick look at Seth, trying to figure out what Allison liked about him, but eventually came to the conclusion that she was just drawn to the exotic. She wanted to find the highlight and went overboard.
“Is he the same Alex?”— The question seemed to be addressed to Allison, but she was already sitting in the front row, visibly bored looking at her perfect manicure. It was a mask: she was probably already incredibly pleased with herself.
“Is he the same Gordon?” Neil said, deliberately focusing on surnames, as if the subject of the discussion were only worthy of such treatment, and looked at Allison. She looked at him and smiled. Josten’s eyes returned to Seth. “Not what I was expecting.”
For a moment, he had no idea what he was talking about, it was just a blind shot. Allison was telling without details some neutral stories about how Seth was fighting with her, after these cases she quickly broke off this relationship, “not wanting to waste emotional resources on him” (verbatim quote), and showed me some pictures of him. In these pictures, they looked really good, by the way: a large Gordon with a hard look and self-confident Allison, who beside him seemed miniature, despite not the smallest growth (for Neil, all person werent the miniature, but let’s not add insult to injury).
All in all, aside from the murderous look of a hit man, Seth seemed… normal? As sane as a disgruntled ex-boyfriend could be, seeing his recent girlfriend with a fresh boyfriend.
“Listen, you fucking little…”
His own normality didn’t stop Seth from fixing Neil's face.
Neil didn’t have time to figure out who the little was (but has a hunch), because Renee Walker was caught between them. She wore a pale blue suit, pastel colours on her hair acted as a sedative, and a thin hand softly sank on Seth’s shoulder.
Neil knew Renee about as much as he knew Allison, but only crossed paths with her a couple times. He knew she had graduated early because she was some kind of wunderkind who’d done some exterior courses. Neil was wise to avoid such people, but in general had nothing against Renee. It’s just that he felt at some point that underneath her cute cover, there was a sort of high math reading.
“Sit back where you are,” she asked calmly, putting an end to all arguments. “Seth, will you help me pull up the curtains on the windows and turn on the projector?”
Neil bewildered how this drug-addicted aggressor swallows swearing and resigns himself to Renee’s request, as if all the rumors about him were just rumors and a mountain of muscle under a T-shirt were some sort of intimidating decor.
Before he sat down, Neil noticed Allison’s faint grin.
***
“The name Alex doesn’t suit you.”
A soft voice would envelop him in the twilight, as Renee told of some sort of post-apocalypse and zombie rebellion with such enthusiasm as if she had written it herself. She cast a shadow over the wall in the light of the projector and looked as if she were a fantasy character who was accidentally inserted into the broken backgrounds of the heroes with shotguns. Neil had a lot of respect for Renee, so he listened to the presentation of her favorite new book author, but he would have loved to see a couple more episodes of the next series in the dorm, and better yet, to sleep.
In a room where the only light source was the projector, after a sleepless night he wanted to sleep incredibly badly.
“And sometimes they call me a little loser,” — Neil made a sleepy response, and it was only after that that he took a look at the sitting next to him at the vacant spot. He sat half-sided with his foot casually on his leg. Josten noticed heavy shoes with tight laces and drab dark jeans. Was it another person who happened to be in the library by mistake today?
…Perhaps sleep should be delayed for a while.
“Me too.” The irony in this muffled voice is so deliciously soft, that it doesn’t really go with the way that Neil is seeing right now. He sincerely tried not to stare too much and it worked out perfectly, because he wanted to look at stranger's face no less. Show him the man who came up with the idea, that you should look into the eyes of your interlocutor when talking, he’s gonna sign his will over to him right now.
Neil suddenly realized that libraries are not so bad. Readers' evening? His favorite pastime, just risk a bet.
“Alex doesn’t suit you either.”
“What a coincidence,” said the stranger, bowing his head a little. That’s who wasn’t hiding his interest: Neil thought that the look was getting under his skin, because he had a cold chill on his back, and it was hot in the leather jacket that had been opened before the presentation. He even wanted to take off , but suddenly realized that the stranger’s eyes were pointed at his T-shirt, which Allison’s stern censor gaze had not reached in time.
The shirt had the stupidly dull mascot print of his favorite team, and Neil would have been embarrassed if it wasn’t actually part of his true look.
“Do you like it?” He bent the edge of his jacket slightly, displaying a logo that clearly caught the attention of a stranger. He leaned his elbow against the back of his chair and, again touching the fingertips of Neil’s collar, smiled barely noticeably at his eyes.
“I like it.”
Do you remember Neil saying he hated libraries? He loved them.
He did not immediately notice that the room was quieter because Renee’s voice was missing and there was only muffled background music. Neil took his eyes off stranger's eyes,
in which was a reflection of the presentation, and looked reluctantly at Rene. She was looking at Andrew with this affectionate reproach that good teachers in junior high tend to use to look at our disciples who are not less loved.
“Can I go on, Andrew?”
Neil didn’t remember what faculty Renee had, but he was pretty sure it was a pedagogical.
“Sorry. Alex and I aren’t gonna do this anymore.”
“Alex and I”. It seemed to be getting less air.
If Renee didn’t believe Andrew, she couldn’t see it in her face, so she kept talking from exactly where she was. Neil really tried not to act like a bad student. He looked at Allison sideways, trying to see how opposed she was to the fact that he was blatantly screwing up his fabulous heterosexual crush on her, but Reynolds only winked at him, noticing the peeping.
She wasn’t against it. Wasn’t against it, but he can’t get tickets to the VIP zone because Allison loved Neil for eleven points, too, but she could keep her word.
They honestly kept their mouths shut the whole presentation, but Josten continued to feel the eyes of Andrew. He deliberately didn’t catch Andrew (that name was damn good on him) peeking, but with peripheral vision, could see the head pointing in his direction. His hair was even lighter than Allison’s, and Neil was sure that unlike her, he didn’t have to bother with regular root coloring.
Andrew definitely knew what was going on, more than Neil did. He occasionally posted comments on the interactives and at one point even got into a discussion with the company from the back. Neil seized the opportunity and, while everyone was looking at the speaker, turned his head too. He spoke confidently, calmly, calmly, and seemingly lazy.
“The storyline with Carl and Elliot was not envisaged by the author, he wrote about it on his blog several times. I understand that fans,” Andrew took a condescending look at the unhappy puffing girl who was arguing with him, “want to believe that two people who have never met in reality and have been on different continents during the war are canon bromans, but leave this for fanfiching.
Neil didn’t understand half the words, but he didn’t care. Andrew can talk about space engineering and robotics, details are irrelevant as long as he keeps doing it.
“Don’t pretend to understand the author better than others,” a fan of post-apocalyptic creativity said. Neil glanced at the large booth with the author’s name on it, and yet remained on Andrew’s side. Yet the author, by the name, was a man; logically, they understood each other better (and no, it’s not about the sympathy that Josten felt at first sight). Although his new acquaintance separated himself from fans, he was well aware of the story.
“Of course.” Andrew rolled his eyes and sat down, casually putting his hand on the back of Neil’s chair, without touching him.
Neil was finally conquered.
“Thank you, Katelyn,” Renee thanked with her angelic smile. “And to you, Andrew” — Neil leaned forward a little, because it’s been a little over an hour since he got here, and it’s likely the evening was over... “Now let’s continue reading. We stopped last time on chapter seven,” …and leaned back. “Janey, turn the lights on, please.”
Renee’s assistant hurried to comply, and the light flashed in the room. The windows remained behind the thick curtains, apparently, so that those present could not track the time by the sun.
“Is that why call it an "evening"?” Neil said, without actually talking to anyone. “Because they won’t let us out of here before dark?”
Andrew had a laugh.
“Renee has plans to read the second volume today,” he spoke softly. Neil thought his voice was making him so good because he heard it in the dark, but no, the light was no worse.
“How many chapters are there in the volume?" Neil said cautiously.
“Sixteen,” said Andrew, and laughed softly as Neil sighed. He had an amazing laugh, too, but Josten would rather listen to him than read a book he didn’t know. — We have to endure, accept it.
“Endure? I thought you were a fan.”
Andrew smiled again. It looked almost mysterious.
“The right thing to say is that I’m the head hater. I would suggest you run off and do something more exciting, but…”, “do something more exciting”, Jesus, Neil was half a step away from founding a new religion, “…your girlfriend might be against it.”
Those words dropped Neil Josten from heaven to earth. Damn.
Damn it!
He completely forgot about their little game with Allison that Andrew didn’t know about. Andrew was good, there will not argue, but Neil couldn’t have framed his girlfriend by running off with a perfect guy in front of her ex-boyfriend, who was the one that got the whole act started.
Neil barely contained the swearing and glanced at Allison. She didn’t notice her friend’s indignation and she was texting someone on her phone. Neil always wondered how she managed to do it with such long nails, but now he was more amazed at how she managed to become his best friend with her superpower, which repeatedly broke his happy weekend.
Neil wanted to say that Allison wasn’t going to be a problem, but he didn’t want to seem like a light-minded cheater who dumped his girlfriend for the first cute blond.
The blondes were absolutely not in Neil’s type, but Andrew was a living exception to the rule, listening serenely to Rene’s reading. Under her soft gentle voice, the description of the decaying flesh of the secondary hero looked particularly impressive, but everyone seems to have gotten used to it.
Neil was ready to get used to it, too. He was ready to come to the next literary evening and even read the first volume and seven chapters of the second to discuss what he had read. Of course, not with Renee, not with Allison, not even with Seth, still here for some reason.
He turned his head towards Andrew, who was contemplatively looking somewhere through Allison, apparently listening to the text. Neil wanted to ask for the number, because it was okay to ask Hater for the number of the book to talk to him about her story, but he didn’t dare distract him. Andrew seemed so focused that Neil didn’t want to worry him.
It’s all right. He’ll ask for his number when everyone’s going home.
Andrew left the library before the epilogue.
***
Six days later, Palmetto University.
An incoming message from an unidentified number made us look at the phone. Neil hasn’t put him back on vibrate since last week to make sure he doesn’t miss an incoming notice, but over the past six days, he’s got nothing but spam, congratulations from Aunt Lola, and a message from Allison that she’s back with Seth. He ignored her for three days after that, and that was their record, because actually it was because of pretending to Seth that he missed the chance to get to know Andrew Minyard.
All anyone knew about him was that he knew Renee and had one last surname with the author of a book that Neil swallowed unexpectedly in a day.
He only forgave Allison after she got him a ticket to the VIP zone for the upcoming match. Neil cared about the match, but he would have gladly traded that ticket for Andrew's number. It didn’t work, but he managed to call Renee and tell her to give Andrew his contacts.
Even on the phone, she could be heard holding her laughter, agreeing to this request.
Neil opened the notice, expecting to see only another spam, and immediately hid an involuntary smile behind a can of soda. Of course, it didn’t hide how he glowed from the back row of the audience, but Josten didn’t even notice how Allison had secretly photographed him to blackmail him into the future with this happy look.
Neil endured an endless moment so that his answer did not seem too hasty. There was not enough of him for more.
Andrew: Renee’s reading tonight. Will you come, Alex?
Their story started with a message.
***
Last Saturday, the library, forty minutes before Neil Josten showed up.
“Asshole,” Allison looked at Seth as he walked into the hall. Andrew turned his head there, too, but he did it with such laziness that it seemed as though he had just slept on the very chair in which he had now fallen apart lazily. The chair was under the shadow of large spreading plant with large leaves, and it was the only place where you could take a nap without attracting attention.
He knew Renee didn’t resent it cause it just meant he was comfortable here. Andrew was comfortable wherever Renee was, and they both knew it was mutual.
“He was at every autograph session of this author, so your coming here is no less a surprise to him,” she smiled softly at Renee, who knew that it was in her library that this colorful couple met. She was good to Seth; He was a little harsh and impulsive, but her library became his personal therapy, and this guy was really trying to change.
Allison Reynolds was Seth’s personal stress test.
“He wanted to meet today,” Allison defiantly turned her back on Gordon looking at her. “And I said I had a date with Alex Stanley tonight.”
“Who is Alex Stanley?”
“I don’t know,” said Allison. Andrew grinned because it was the only circus that kept him awake until the presentation start. He wasn’t really interested in the presentation because he made it himself. He could not refuse a friend’s request, given that the author of the book merged from the reader’s evening at the last moment, having decided to continue not to show his readers face. Aaron has never been the most forthcoming. “I said the first name I could think of. When we were making up a name for the baby, he said anything but Alex.”
“Are you pregnant?” Renee was a model of calm. Andrew felt that if her friend had said yes, Renee would have just taken out of the bag the cap herself tied for the baby as a gift.
“Don’t say such disgusting things,” Allison was horrified. “Dan had a baby, and we were thinking that we would definitely come up with a better name... No matter,” she pulled nervously with her shoulder. “Where do I get Alex Stanley?”
“Andrew, maybe?” Renee suggested in a mocking way. Minyard gave her a gloomy look. He planned to leave the evening early to take Aaron to the publisher to sign the gift copies, but that was not the reason for the refusal. Tell him, does he look like a clown? — Okay, bad way. What if you asked Neil?
Allison’s eyes got more interested.
“He’s gay,” she stretched a little doubt, though her lips were beginning to smile. “It’s better that way. And he helped me last time with that stalker.”
Andrew raised his head with interest.
“Is he handsome?”
“Indecently creepy.”
“I’m not talking about the stalker.”
“Indecently handsome,” said Allison quickly, getting her phone out. “Do you like redheads?”
“Andrew, the library is not a dating club,” Renee smiled too, so her threat wasn’t taken seriously.
“Tell her that,” he nodded at her friend, and said in the most honest way. “I wasn’t going to, I don’t like redheads. I mean, who meets anyone in libraries these days?”
Renee and Allison looked at each other significantly.
Andrew pretended not to notice.