Chapter Text
Leave me out of my mind, sedated
Bitter and blurry-eyed
The one touch that slowly fades
You're just out of my reach, oh, in the shadows
March 8th was getting closer, and every player of the Palmetto State Foxes could feel it.
Although most of the original foxes had already left, the rest of the team knew what it meant by now, even the newest additions to the lineup.
They had witnessed it twice already, their team staff and teammates being on edge during the entirety of March. It didn't help that it was during the championships.
They had been disqualified that year, of course, being down to 8 players. The first year after that, they had been at each other's throats too much to get anywhere. There had been too many feral new members mixed with the old ones missing a stupid runaway that couldn't bring the team together anymore.
Dan had tried, and she had gotten them as far as she could, but March broke free and she broke, too. They all did. It was written in their faces, in the way they moved, as if the weight of their body had doubled. It was the way they snapped at the only mention of Neil, in the way none of them could get enough sleep.
The year after that was better than the first, but not enough to get them to the finals. They were learning to play together without killing each other off on the court, but it was far from perfect.
The foxes still hadn't made it to the top, but Andrew wasn't sure they even wanted to anymore. Everything had fallen apart after that day. Even Wymack wasn't trying as much, the tiredness more pronounced in his slowed movements and the darkness under his eyes.
And here they were again this year. Nicky, Aaron and Andrew were the only ones left, bleeding into their last year at PSU. The upperclassmen and Kevin were gone, and Andrew thought it would finally be okay for once. That their auburn-haired ghost wouldn't haunt the team anymore.
He was wrong.
In the first days of March, Wymack started getting restless, more distant, words slightly sharper than usual, the bags under his eyes growing deeper.
Nicky was getting more silent, too, triggering whispers from their teammates until one of them finally remembered, which prompted them all to shut their mouths too.
Even Aaron was affected. He was the one to have snapped at Jack, a few days before the 8th, when he had spoken of the forbidden name. It was as if all three of them were holding the weight of the entire team's grief. Something they could never make up for. Something no one would ever understand.
The public had to believe in the crafted lie: that their number 10 had disappeared that night during the riots. They were told his body was never found through the mess outside the stadium. That no one really knew what had happened to their starting striker.
To the fans, Neil Josten had been presumed dead, a fantom of the past one could only speculate about. Even the new foxes didn't know, the rest of the team not trusting them enough to tell the truth. They had learned to avoid the subject if they wanted to survive their scholarship.
But Neil's foxes knew.
Or, they knew as much as Kevin's chocked answers and Baltimore's news headlines on Nathaniel Wesniski's death could tell them. The truth was somewhere in between those, something they had all had to wrap their mind about. Accepting they would never get more hadn't been easy for any of them.
Andrew, like for everything, had bottled it up and forcibly shoved it as deep into the ground as he could reach, only to never speak of it ever again. He would zone out at the simple mention of the striker, his subconscious taking over like a shield, unable to face the reality of the cold truth.
He couldn't even speak to Bee about it. Bee, who knew what had happened, yet understood early enough that he wouldn't be ready to say the words. That he might never be.
Andrew put Neil Josten into the back of his mind, and made a silent promise never to bring it back up. It was the only way he knew to survive. The only way for him to still keep his promises and protect his people. He couldn't afford to fall apart.
So he swallowed it down and went on.
He thought he would make it past this March, like he had done the two years prior.
He would have, if it hadn't been for Nicky.
-
The morning of the 8th, Nicky opened the door to their kitchen where Andrew was making hot chocolate. They locked eyes, and Andrew knew from the look on his face that his cousin had cried.
He said nothing. Neither did Nicky. It didn't stop him from staring at Andrew like he expected something from him, like everything would be better if he only spoke. Andrew didn't want to know what Nicky wanted him to say.
He had enough of his cousin's pleading eyes after a couple of minutes and faced away, walking to the beanbags.
This seemed to be Nicky's breaking point.
"Won't you- Won't you say his name? Just this once?"
Andrew said nothing.
Nicky waited. His cracking voice made it obvious he was crying again when he spoke next.
"Andrew, pl-" A twitch. "Just stop. You can't do this again."
"Do what", he made the mistake of answering.
"Pretending nothing ever happened! I can't- I can't take it anymore, Andrew. I know I promised Renee, I- I swear I tried. I tried to be a good cousin, to wait for you to be ready and let you grieve on your own- but I can't just watch you go on like nothing fucking happened!"
Something in Andrew tried to warn him, but he made the second mistake of ignoring it.
"Neil is dead, Andrew. He's gone. And I will not- I will not spend another day letting you erase his existence. I can't."
He was distantly aware he should've done something. That he should've come up with an excuse to make Nicky stop talking. He never had to do anything before. There was always someone else to do it for him. Andrew always tuned out. Always kept the memories at bay, too far to ever reach. It used to be enough.
Today, it wasn't. Because it was coming at him, and it wasn't backing off. And Andrew didn't know how long he could hold on.
"Say his name," Nicky whispered fiercely, voice trembling as his crying intensified. "Neil Josten. Number 10. Starting striker with an attitude problem. Son of a goddamn serial killer. Died three years ago today. He was our family. Say it." Nicky was fully sobbing now, his staggered breathing echoing in the living room and his body shaking in Andrew's peripheral vision.
Andrew couldn't look at anywhere but his mug and the way his hands carefully wrapped around it, menacing to break the object. Maybe it would hurt, the sharp cut edges sinking into his hands. Maybe if he bled, it would make Nicky talk about something else. Maybe then, Andrew could focus on this pain instead of the one banging against its coffin, threatening to make its way out.
"Do you really think he deserves that? After all that happened to him? Do you think he deserves to be written off this way? He-" Another outburst.
Andrew wished he had gone to the roof. Maybe he could've saved himself, if only he had gotten up five minutes earlier and skipped the comfort of a hot cocoa. The tearing feeling was crawling at him, getting dangerously close to his throat. The walls were starting to close in on him, the room suddenly too small to hold up his hidden murderous grief.
He needed to get out. Before-
"You're no better than them."
After that, Andrew lost all control.
He didn't hear what his cousin said next. He didn't know what the new shades of colors and flashes of light around him meant or why he was suddenly moving.
He was only distantly aware of how much control he was losing over himself, felt the urgency of his beating heart. He couldn't find the strength to care.
He only regained enough consciousness to understand what was happening as he made it to the highway. He was in his car. The wheel felt impossibly unstable under his shaky grip. He didn't know where he was heading to. He just knew he needed to leave. To get as far from this campus as possible.
He couldn't stay here, a place that had lost all rights to be called a home. Not when the water was rising, threatening to drown him.
He couldn't afford to sink. Not when he was so close to finally leaving Palmetto for good. When he was so close to forgetting the illusion that had been Neil Josten.
-
Andrew should've known that the sight of the cemetery would knock the air from his shattered lungs. Any other day, he would've. Today there were clouds in his mind and fog beneath his eyelids, threatening to turn into rain. Maybe a storm was coming. Maybe it had been building since the day he had met the striker, since he had taken a swing off his racket and stopped Neil from running.
He should've stepped away, that day. He should've let Neil run and disappear. Andrew would've been better off. He wouldn't have been standing here, blankly staring at the graveyard gates, ghost hands trying to claw at his heart, desperately aiming for it to stop. If he had let Neil run, maybe he would still be alive. Away from Andrew, who had failed him.
He didn't think about the reason why his body had driven hours to get him there, in the city where Andrew's world stopped turning. Why he had just brought himself back to the day they buried the man he swore to hate.
Maybe he needed to be here, to finally dig himself out of this internal void. To swim back up from the abyss he had been drowning in for three years now.
So here he had dragged himself unknowingly, to the one place he promised himself never to visit again.
Andrew had tried his best. He struggled, for three years, to block out the memories. To block out the grief. Because if he fell apart, he knew he wouldn't survive it. Not again.
But, today of all days, while his mind screamed and his heart ached, when the world burned, he needed to be here. He understood it now, staring at the gates. He needed to see Neil. He needed to face the truth, take the dead man out of his troubled mind and bury Neil once and for all.
When he got to the grave, however, his blurred vision started to itch, and the ache in his chest threatened to take him away.
He thought he had been ready. But the cold and inevitable truth was that he never would. Because there Neil was. Buried. So close to him, yet further away than he had ever been.
Six feet under, he'd promised Neil.
He never thought he would be right.
Andrew distantly recalled the last time he had been here. Everyone had showed up. All the foxes, Wymack, Abby. Even Bee had been here. Andrew always suspected it was more of a support for both her friends and Andrew, as Neil had never grown to like her, but she never said a word.
The foxes had been a mess, but the quiet had been more unsettling than the tears. No one dared to speak. That had been made easy as they had had to stay aside, not taking too much risk as they tried not to get recognized by anyone. After all, the world had to believe Neil Josten had died in the riot. There was no reason for them to be burying Nathaniel Wesninski, the tragic son of a cruel father.
So they had cried in silence. Matt had been the worst of them. Even Aaron had been taken by grief, in his own distant way. And Andrew had watched. He'd stared, unblinking, as they had taken his soul away from him and buried it six feet under. He watched, silent as a grave, as the coffin disappeared into the dirt, and he lost sight of Neil forever.
His only visible weakness had been his shaking hands turned into fists at his side. The cigarette he had smoked leaving the graveyard had helped, but it had been the last, the ashes matching the burnt feelings he swore to let go of.
Today, he faced the consequences of the mistake he had made years ago. He had tried doing what he'd always done. He'd tried forgetting Neil's existence until his chest healed around the hole that had been dug, but all it took was one look at the gravestone, at the lie staring back at him, for Andrew to break.
He dropped to his knees in a second, his muscles giving out to the weight of his resurging grief. The dirt was as cold as his heart felt, yet burning as much as the pain he couldn't wear off.
He couldn't feel his bones so much he was shaking, the violent strokes of his arms trying hard to get a grip on something, anything, so he wouldn't fall apart. Trying to save himself before it was too late.
But, like he had failed Neil three years before, now Andrew was failing himself.
The grave was a reminder of everything he had tried to forget. The dirt that dug under his nails was the blood on his hands he couldn't wash off. Because Neil was dead. And he wasn't ever coming back.
Andrew had tried to destroy the grief before it consumed him, but he realized now he never could. Because it had been tearing at him before Neil had even died. Because he had been the one to kill Neil.
Andrew had let him go. He had let Neil out of their deal, had let him out of his sight that night at the riot. If it wasn't for the broken deal, Andrew would never have left Neil's side. He would've protected him from his father's men and would've killed anyone who stood in their way. He would've kept him safe. He had promised it.
But he didn't. Because Neil had asked him to let him go, and Andrew had been too stupid to refuse.
And now here they were, both of them dead in their own way. While Andrew was still breathing, his heart had stopped beating. The promises he had made still dragged him far enough for him to stand, but his soul was shattered to the core, leaving a darkness that grew stronger with every passing day. It belonged to the abyss. To the soil that was keeping Neil away from him. To this place, that would never leave Andrew alone.
He didn't realize he was shaking until everything started to spin. He was losing consciousness again, but he couldn't stop the storm from coming. He had held it back for so long now. Once he left the door open there was no going back.
He was falling, breaking the one promise he thought he would always keep to himself. He was losing, and he didn't know what the blurry vision meant anymore. Was he drowning, unable to reach the surface? Was he blacking out, his body finally giving up from the torment? Was he simply starting to fade away like he had wished for so long?
He felt- He felt so much it was overwhelming, but out of it all, he was angry. At himself, for letting Neil put a leash on him. For buying into the lies and the promises. For believing he finally had something he could hold on to, something safe to lean on. He had been so naïve to believe that he would get to keep Neil. So stupid, for the simple act of falling for him, when Andrew had known from the start it could never end well. For not listening to himself, and letting Neil carve a hole into his heart.
His fingers hurt where they clawed at the dirt, and all he could see was the hazing puddle under him. His eyes hurt. He was tired. So tired.
He didn't know what the time was when he finally came back to himself. His head was too light, and the troubling color in the sky couldn't help him.
He risked a look at the gravestone, and bile rose to his mouth. He looked at the stone, at the lie staring back at him, and made a decision. He couldn't leave it as it was. He couldn't. Neil deserved better than that.
Andrew got a knife out of his armbands with shaky hands and fixed what should have never been. What he should've taken care of years ago. He didn't care about the law, nor the people in the cemetery. Because how could Neil be ever put to rest if he stayed a lie, forever stuck being someone he had never wanted to be? Andrew couldn't let that happen. Not anymore.
The only name he kept was "Abram", the only piece of truth he had wanted to keep. Andrew drew a careful line over Neil's birth name, the one that had killed him, and carved "Neil Josten" into the stone, where it belonged.
He didn't know he had dropped the knife until he felt his hands clench at his side. He was still kneeling in the dirt, but his body stood frozen, steady as a corpse.
He didn't know how much time passed. Andrew just stayed, staring into the cold letters and even colder truth.
Voices appeared out of a sudden, dangerously close to him. He ignored them, focusing on Neil. The striker was free now. He was free now.
But the voices turned into bodies and suddenly hands were reaching for him, and Andrew couldn't see through the fog in his mind. The only thing that mattered was Neil.
Hands tried to move him, to drag him away from the grave, but Andrew didn't let them. He wouldn't leave Neil's side. Not again. Not ever again. How could he? It had nearly killed him the first time. He couldn't do it again. He didn't know if he could survive it.
But the voices became louder as the hands grew numerous and suddenly Andrew couldn't breathe, because there were bodies, there were people trying to take him away, and he couldn't keep them off for long. His body had weakened too much.
He fought like his life was on the line, unable to recall what to do. He couldn't feel his fists as they hit skin, couldn't hear the bones crash under his unbudging strength.
However, he couldn't keep it up for long. He was losing again, and suddenly his hands were tied, and people tried to take him away. Anger roared into him, but he couldn't hear his own screaming threats from how loud his thoughts cried.
He felt out of his own body, wrestling with life in a fight he couldn't win.
He didn't register what was happening until he got locked in a car. Then a room. Then another, small and cold.
People were talking to him, kept clawing at him, trying to pry him open, but he shut every one of them out and fought any chance he could. His knives had disappeared, but it wouldn't stop him.
He couldn't feel his own thoughts anymore. He was only aware that he wasn't where he was supposed to be. Neil wasn't by his side anymore. He was gone.
Andrew hadn't had the time to say goodbye.