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Neil drops into the creaky plastic chair next to Andrew after checking in at the front desk. He rifles through the paperwork in his hands, then glares back at the middle-aged receptionist as if she were personally responsible for his life’s misfortune.
“This is going to be so expensive,” Neil says, loud enough to be heard across the room. For someone who spent the majority of life avoiding attention, his fits of rudeness really do just come naturally. Renee, on Andrew’s other side, responds only with a compassionate grin-grimace — a close-lipped contrast to the close-ups of toothy smiles hung up around the room. Renee strives to be a better version of herself, so she won’t point out that even without insurance, Neil absolutely has enough money to get every single one of his teeth pulled. Then, he could come home with new veneers and pay off their housemates’ collective college tuition. He could buy the entire six-bedroom house while he’s at it, though that’s less impressive, because the Foxhole is a dump.
“Drop in the bucket,”Andrew says.
Neil’s stormy expression upgrades to Cat 5, inspiring a quickly-squashed rebellion at the corners of Andrew’s mouth.
“Your agitation is pointless,” Andrew says. “Your mouth is in pain. In ten minutes, they’ll numb it and yank the teeth. When the drugs wear off, the pain will be worse, but then it’ll go away. Net good; no reason to fight it. Unless someone takes a video of you while you’re high and you go viral on YouTube.”
The last sentence had been a hypothesis of sorts on Andrew’s part, and he is rewarded when Neil flinches.
“It can be hard to go into a situation where you know you’ll lose control,” Renee says, catching on. “Say you do the most regrettable thing after this procedure. Would the consequences outweigh the discomfort your wisdom teeth have been causing you? Clearly it’s not life or death, since you agreed to make the appointment in the first place.”
Neil takes a moment to ponder this. “The FBI might not be too happy with me.”
Mentions of the FBI are one of the major themes of Neil’s spotty lore. Andrew can only throw “FBI involvement” like spaghetti at the wall of all the other details he’s collected about Neil’s history: a monster for a father, a ghost for a mother, an uncomfortable inheritance, a life on the run, and a rich uncle who appeared last fall only long enough to tour the house and pull Neil outside for a short, tense conversation. (Based on vibes alone, Andrew is certain that Uncle Stuart is either gay or heavily involved in crime.)
When Neil moved in, he was closed-off and cagey. Andrew had formed an immediate dislike, which intensified when Neil failed to react to Andrew’s attempted bullying and intimidation. Unfortunately, this led to Andrew being as interested in what makes Neil tick as equally as he’d already been in Neil’s lean body, eerily blue eyes, and jagged scars.
Neil’s propensity for sharing hasn’t increased much in the past year, but he has cut down on the lies. Regardless, the pieces to the puzzle of Neil’s past no longer seem like they’ll paint the clearest picture of who Neil is now — not when Andrew and the rest have spent so much time watching him try to make a home for himself with the clumsiness of a baby deer learning to walk. Or a stray dog learning the comforts of a real home. Eventually, the residents of the Foxhole had insisted that their rescue get his shots. Neil had been unwilling to submit himself to yearly check-up, so Matt suggested he start small. The optometrist appointment came and went without spectacle, but his dental cleaning led to tragedy: Neil’s wisdom teeth have got to go.
“Fuck the FBI,” Andrew says, waving a hand. “Still a net good. Stop trying to blow up the building with your mind.”
Neil’s arms are crossed, but he’s less tense as he rolls his eyes. He bumps his knee lightly against Andrew’s, then hums in quiet satisfaction when Andrew presses their thighs together.
“What are the chances I can sneak into the Foxhole afterward without interacting with anyone?” Neil asks.
Renee huffs a quiet laugh, and Andrew shakes his head solemnly.
“You never smoke with them,” Andrew says. There’s an ever-present skunky scent that permeates the Foxhole, discouraging renters with an aversion to weed. Neil has never shown active disdain for his housemates’ shared habit, but he refuses to partake. “They are desperate to see you stoned — even if it’s just anesthesia.”
“We won’t let anyone post anything online about you until they get your sober permission,” Renee promises. If she were the best version of herself, she’d use her influence over the house to ban filming Neil in general — but as she often says, perfection is the enemy of good.
“They’ll be waiting for a no,” Neil says, but a hygienist calls his name before he can argue any further. He re-steels himself as he stands, glancing back at Andrew and Renee. Andrew gives him a two-fingered salute, and then Neil follows the hygienist to his doom.
Andrew and Renee spend the length of the appointment building increasingly outlandish Lego structures in the kids corner of the waiting room. They take turns hitting Renee’s vape pen in the single-stall bathroom. The receptionist definitely knows what they’re doing, but she’s chosen not to comment so far. Maybe it’s the dead look in Andrew’s eyes — a vacant coldness that Andrew has perfected over time. Maybe it’s the kindness in Renee’s. Eventually, the same hygienist — looking far more harrowed and exhausted than before — invites them to gather their charge.
“Oh, it’s you,” Neil says around the gauze in his mouth when Andrew and Renee enter the exam room. His swollen face softens in a way that makes Andrew embarrassed to be around him. When Andrew is close enough to the chair, Neil reaches vaguely in his direction before jerkily aborting the movement. Andrew sighs, then slips his fingers into the messy curls at the base of Neil’s neck, tugging in a way that has Neil’s eyes fluttering closed.
“Nope,” Andrew says, tugging harder. “Leaving.”
It takes a minute to get Neil standing. Andrew expects him to startle when he places a steadying hand at the base of Neil’s back, but Neil only sways into him.
“We should’ve had you back here the whole time,” the hygienist says as she leads them out.
“Was fine,” Neil mumbles, and the hygienist raises her brows at Andrew and Renee as she makes an agreeable sound.
In the elevator, Neil leans against the wall and dozes off before the doors even close. He doesn’t react when Renee’s phone camera sounds off, capturing a photo of Andrew holding up bunny ears behind Neil’s head. Neil’s eyes snap open when the elevator doors open with a ding.
“We made it,” he says, voice thick with relief, as he lurches toward the exit. Renee hides a laugh behind one hand as she grabs at Neil’s elbow with the other.
The dramatics subside without further explanation on their way out to the parking lot. Andrew unlocks his car, watching as Aaron jumps from where he was napping in the back seat. He’d come along to provide medical attention if needed, since the house had agreed there was a good chance Neil would go feral and tear all the dressings out of his wounded mouth. The pre-med student had elected to bake in the late afternoon sun instead of coming inside; he’d denied Neil’s accusations of a fear of the dentist with a little too much insistence.
“I survived,” Neil tells Aaron with slurred words as Andrew half-shoves him into the back seat. Neil has defied expectations with his docile behavior so far, making the antagonism somewhat of a comforting sign of life.
Aaron glares at him, but Neil props his head against the window as soon as Andrew closes the door. In the driver’s seat, Andrew adjusts his rearview so that he can keep an eye on Neil.
“I’m going to be so annoyed if he just sleeps the whole time,” Aaron says as Andrew backs out of his parking spot.
“Won’t,” Neil says without lifting his head.
“It tracks, I guess,” Aaron says. “The most irritating thing he could do right now is be boring when we thought he would be even more deranged than usual.”
“I don’t think it’s boring,” Renee says. “It’s kind of cute.”
“No,” is Neil’s contribution, followed by a whistling snore.
Aaron and Renee spend the rest of the short drive discussing the closet organizer they’ve been slowly assembling for their room over the last few days. Andrew has avoided inserting himself into the saga over Nicky’s new guinea pig, but he’d been unable to ignore when Aaron convinced Allison — who was enamored by the rodent — to swap rooms and roommates with him last week. Despite the unlikely pair, Renee and Aaron seem to have bonded over maximizing the efficiency and tidy aesthetic of their bedroom.
Andrew parks his car behind Matt’s truck. Neil struggles with his buckle until Aaron takes pity and clicks the button for him, but he gets out of the car fine enough. He stops halfway to the front door, opening up his mouth and leaning over until the gauze falls out of his mouth before continuing inside. Andrew glances at Aaron, who shrugs.
“He would’ve had to take it out soon anyway. Just make sure he keeps his fingers out of his mouth.”
Most of the Foxhole’s residents have already congregated around a bong in the living room. The living room takes up a good chunk of the first floor, but the four wilting sofas squeezed into the space makes the large size insignificant. A TV mounted to the wall above the shittiest couch plays a hockey game on mute. Seth is sprawled on the couch below the screen, clearly just awoken from a nap. Nicky sits cross-legged in the center of the adjacent sofa with a Nintendo Switch in his lap. Across from him sit Allison and Dan, the latter of which is tapping freshly ground flower into the bong’s bowl.
Neil has stopped in the middle of the room, ignoring greetings to predictably fixate on the hockey game. Andrew pushes him onto the fourth couch next to a visibly stoned Kevin — who stiffens and looks at Neil as if he were somehow contagious — then settles on Neil’s other side. Renee and Aaron take their usual spots around the living room as they give the brief report on the technicals of Neil’s procedure.
“I’m glad it went well,” Dan says as she finishes packing the bowl. She slides it across the coffee table toward Andrew to offer the first hit.
“Other than getting stuck in the elevator,” Neil says as Andrew lights the bowl and takes a long hit.
“Spooky!” Nicky says. “When did that happen?”
Andrew exhales toward the ceiling. “It did not.”
Neil flops his head toward Andrew, brow furrowed. “Yes?” he says, but his confidence seems to waver.
“The most exciting thing that happened in the elevator is that Neil fell asleep standing up,” Renee says, biting down on a teasing smile as she holds her phone up to show the photo she took. Neil blinks at it a few times before shaking his head with a distant “I could’ve sworn…” that makes Allison cackle.
“Sounds like a nightmare, bro,” Seth says, but the confusion only slides off Neil’s face as fast as it had taken hold.
“Bro,” Neil echoes, then rests his head against the back of the couch and turns unfocused eyes to the hockey game again. Nicky claps both hands over his mouth to muffle a shriek of delight, and Dan can’t hold back a fond, “Oh my god.”
Matt is the last to gather in the living room, and he comes bearing a Sweetie’s takeout cup. “Welcome back, Neil!” he booms, bringing Neil’s attention back to the room. “I picked this up for you this morning: Chocolate strawberry milkshake. Nice and soft and cold.”
“He can’t use a straw,” Aaron says, his tone bored despite the fact that he intervened at all. “Could cause dry socket.”
“Spoon it is,” Matt says, ducking back into the kitchen to grab one before depositing the cup in Neil’s hands.
Despite the group’s attempts to goad him into something YouTube worthy, Neil’s contribution to the conversation is limited to hazy one-word answers as he diligently eats his milkshake.
“Has he done anything funny?” Nicky asks, pouting.
“Mostly he’s been sleeping,” Renee says.
“Haven’t,” Neil counters, fighting to keep his eyes open as his grip on his spoon wobbles.
Kevin, glassy-eyed and non-verbal until this point, lets out an aggressive “Yes!”, drawing Neil and Dan’s attention to the goal replay on the screen. Andrew takes the milkshake when Neil’s focus neglects the cup so much that he nearly drops it. Neil swipes absently at the chocolate syrup smudged at the corner of his mouth. He looks down at the chocolate on his hand then up at Andrew.
“Blood,” he says, an approximation of concern on his face. Andrew shakes his head, and Neil accepts his word immediately as he settles back to watch the hockey game. Andrew watches him as he drifts in and out to the ambient soundtrack of his housemates voices and the occasional bubbling as the bong is passed around.
It’s not long before Neil is asleep again. Aaron snorts derisively when he notices, making eye contact with Andrew and saying, “I told you. Boring.”
Andrew doesn’t dignify that with a response.
“Should we take him to his room?” Dan asks.
“Which one?” Allison asks.
Technically, Neil pays rent toward the top bunk in Seth’s room. Seth’s face looks torn between obligation to the roommate he’s accepted is chill and the fact that he’s gotten used to having the room to himself lately.
Andrew ignores the debate that follows, poking Neil’s shoulder until he blinks his eyes open enough to recognize Andrew’s hands hauling him to his feet. There’s more dragging than walking as they go up the stairs to scattered well wishes and goodnights. Andrew puts Neil in the bathroom with strict instructions to not touch his mouth or fall asleep, then waits in the hall for the sparse minutes it takes Neil to stumble back out to him. Andrew’s room is next door, and Neil manages to take those steps unassisted.
Technically, Andrew’s room was designed to be the walk-in closet of the master bedroom, currently occupied by Kevin. Years before the house became the Foxhole, their scumbag landlord had added a second door out of the closet into the hall, installed a dinky hopper window, and called it a bedroom. Andrew has made stubbornly clever use of the narrow space. A dresser blocks the door to Kevin’s room, and also prevents his own door from opening all the way. His full-sized bed touches three walls, lofted above a small desk so that Andrew’s head is beneath the window when he lies down. This gives him the ability to smoke without his room being a perpetual hotbox, but also guarantees that he and Neil frequently bang their heads against the window frame when it’s open. Aside from the waning light of the sunset outside, the main source of light comes from the pink and orange string lights zig-zagging across the room and the small lamp on Andrew’s desk.
Neil makes it up the bed’s ladder with some semblance of his usual agility. Andrew waits until Neil settles before risking leaving him alone. It’s still early, but Andrew brushes his teeth before grabbing some supplies and climbing up to the bed himself. Neil has swaddled himself in the blankets but he’s still awake. Andrew holds out his hand palm up, and Neil stares at it in confusion before wiggling an arm free from the sheets to mirror him. His face only sours slightly when Andrew shakes some Tylenol into his palm. Neil swallows the medicine along with half a bottle of water, then lets Andrew rest a bag of frozen peas on his cheek as he settles back into the pillows.
“Any blood?” Andrew asks. Neil shakes his head, and the hooded stare he fixes on Andrew’s face is more lucid than it has been all afternoon. He lifts up the blankets, inviting Andrew to wriggle in closer before throwing the covers over them both.
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Neil says, voice so quiet that it sounds like a confession. “Thank you.”
Andrew closes his eyes and puts a hand on Neil’s hip, his touch firm despite his internal hesitation. While the others thought Neil would go full gremlin, Andrew predicted his tattered sense of self-control would cause Neil to withdraw into himself. It turns out Andrew was wrong, too. Neil tips his head forward until his nose rests against Andrew’s forehead, and Andrew counts the even puffs of Neil’s breath on his skin.
Andrew is never quite sure what to do with the way Neil welcomes his touch and proximity. The mess of his unprocessed emotions swells larger in his chest than normal after the day’s events. Sometimes it’s hard to understand it as anything but the kind of truth that Andrew spent years training himself to reject as fantasy: Neil trusts Andrew. Neil wants him close. Neil feels comfortable enough with Andrew to share some of the heavy weight he carries, even if he hasn’t seemed to find the words to talk about the more sinister things hulking in his memory. It’s no surprise that Neil would be as well-practiced as Andrew at looking away from things that seem too good to be true.
Say Andrew let himself embrace these most dangerous of fantasies. Would the consequences outweigh the discomfort of this constant game of stamping out the sparks in their minds? Clearly it’s not life or death, since Neil spends most nights in Andrew’s bed. The lone duffel he’d arrived with still sits in the top drawer of Seth’s dresser alongside his mysterious fireproof safe, but most of his daily belongings have migrated to the small laundry basket that’s been taking up valuable leg room under Andrew’s desk for months.
Neil stirs, then pulls his head back to look at Andrew’s face. He tosses the now-melted bag of peas off the edge of the bed, where they’ll no doubt produce a small puddle on the various socks and hoodies serving as a makeshift carpet. Neil’s eyes drop to Andrew’s lips.
“We’re not fooling around tonight,” Andrew says, exasperated enough to raise a brow.
Neil’s usually sharp features are softened by the swelling and a small smile. “No,” he says, then taps his fingers against Andrew’s lips. “Just this.”
Just this. Said so easily — like a white lie, or a fundamental truth.
What’s the worst that could happen? Andrew weighs the potential consequences, then leans in.