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Sometimes there is a dead man wearing Neil Josten's skin.
Andrew could word that a little less distressingly, but where was the fun in that? It was the truth, an increasingly common occurrence that threatened their hard earned peace after Baltimore and the Championships.
He didn't always catch it, and the damn rabbit certainly didn't make it easy, but Andrew knew the signs. Sometimes Neil Josten was Nathaniel Wesninski, despite Andrew explicitly instructing him to leave that shit buried in Maryland.
The thousand yard stare was obvious enough, and it was hard to miss when the junkie’s constant fidgeting suddenly ceased. He'd tense his whole body at every unexpected noise. Neil had a way of making his discomfort obvious to those he cared about, and invisible to others, but only when he was seeking comfort.
Almost a decade on the run gave Neil certain habits that were unnoticeable by design. He shaved twice daily when he didn't want to be looked at, eliminating stubble as soon as it grew in. He'd throw a baggy hoodie over whatever nondescript clothes were easiest to move in, and double knot his shoelaces, tucking in the excess.
The resource guarding was new, at least to Andrew. Calling it guarding was almost a lie, the behavior was less aggressive than that. He was more so just aware of anyone near his food at all times. Neil was possessive of his things like he was a maladjusted foster kid, but that didn't normally carry over to food.
When he was like that, he also ate whatever was put in front of him as soon as possible, even if he didn't like it. Kevin locked onto that weakness and exploited it to feed Neil things that made his face scrunch up in disgust, but he never pushed his plate away.
Andrew didn't know whether to be impressed at how far he was willing to go for nutrition, or concerned that Kevin couldn't sense the deadly intent radiating off of Andrew every time he so much as breathed the name of a vegetable in Neil’s direction when he was like that.
Those moments when a corpse was walking around in Neil's shoes were also the moments when Andrew refused to ask. He let Neil come to him and press that yes or no into his open palm, because he couldn't trust the answer the other way around.
Sometimes that dead stare was too much, and Andrew's no was felt through his entire body, ice cold and dripping down his spine. Even when Neil wasn't all there in his head, he easily accepted the answer in a way that made Andrew clench his jaw and wonder what the fuck was wrong with everyone who had ever acted like no was a personal insult.
Sometimes, it was like Andrew's touch was the only thing keeping Neil from throwing himself out a window and hitting the ground running. Which of course created a whole separate issue that should probably be brought up in therapy, but that was neither here nor there.
He could recall very clearly the first time Neil spent practice in a haze after Baltimore, and how he had entered the court long after everyone else left just to see his junkie sitting on the bench, staring. Always staring, but he wasn't seeing much of anything.
Wymack was the one who told Andrew to go collect him, meaning he had probably brushed both the coach and nosy Abby off. For his efforts, Andrew gave him a brisk mind your paygrade. As thanks, he'd be a little less difficult at practice in the morning. Nothing too drastic.
Andrew had called to him, an unpleasant spike of some unwanted emotion tearing through his gut when Neil hadn't so much as twitched. His eyes slid over to Andrew, but that was it.
His helmet was in his lap, gloved fingers twisted in the cage. There was a slight sheen of sweat still clinging to his face, but the flush of exercise had dissipated. He wasn't quite present, but he could go through the motions. Neil knew how to keep moving more than anything.
At first he thought he made it worse. When Andrew cupped his hand over the nape of Neil's neck and gave a firm squeeze, his whole body went tense. Like a shock coil, wound and wound until he was holding enough tension to stop his heart. His fingers tightened in the wire cage until the helmet creaked in protest.
Before Andrew could rip his hand away and put distance between them, all that tension just released. Like a valve at the base of Neil's spine had been opened to allow the pressure to escape. He melted into the touch so noticeably that Andrew unthinkingly stepped closer to keep him upright.
Neil blinked up at him, more present than he had been in hours, and the absolute trust in his gaze was too much to bear. It burned, acid beneath Andrew's skin that ate away at him and threatened to soften something integral to his defenses.
“Look away.” He had snapped, angrier than he had any right to be, and Neil did so.
They stayed like that for as long as Andrew could stomach the heavy weight of Neil leaning against his side, and as soon as his muscles tensed a bit too much, Neil backed off.
Always so mindful of Andrew's comfort. It sickened him. He hoped he'd be nauseated forever.
That time in the inner court wasn't a one off incident, but it also didn't happen every time. Andrew wasn't Neil's answer, and he couldn't solve every problem. When he touched Neil and the tension didn't release, he knew it was going to be a bad day.
Those were the days when Neil was a dead man walking.
He'd go through the daily motions, but there was no life in his eyes, no restless twitch in his legs, his face clean shaven no matter what. He'd eat only what was given and he'd wear something he could slip out of if he got grabbed. He didn't speak unless spoken to, one word answers that grated on Andrew's patience.
Practice didn't help, running didn't help, Andrew didn't help. And the only feeling worse than holding all of Neil's trust was the complete uselessness that swept over Andrew when Neil tucked himself out of reach.
Everyone noticed. Of course they did, the foxes gravitated towards Neil like a dying star, they adored him. Except for Aaron, whose opinion of Neil didn't matter. But they'd look at Andrew as though to say fix this, and he didn't know how.
He knew Neil Josten, the fox. Nathaniel Wesninski the corpse was a stranger to him, and he wasn't going to tear himself apart because he wasn't the perfect solution. Andrew had done an obscene amount of work in therapy to try to reconcile with that fact, but at the end of the day, he hated being helpless to stop it.
There was an unspoken hope among the foxes that once Championships were over, that Neil would get better. And he did for a while. Riko’s death was a balm to his soul that everyone could witness and understand. He was more present than he had been in weeks.
Then summer break came, and it was just Andrew, Neil, and Kevin alone at Palmetto. And all that progress slowly slipped down the drain.
Day by day, hour by hour, until Andrew woke up at the ass crack of dawn for the third day in a row to see Neil standing by the dresser in the room they shared at Abby's, staring at his duffle bag. He had his running clothes on, but he wasn't sweaty. He stood uncannily still.
Instead of finally leaving for his run like he had the past two days, Neil very carefully removed each piece of clothing, and put his regular clothes on. He tucked his running clothes into the duffle bag, put the shoes next to the dresser where they always sat, then left the room without a backward glance.
The significance of his actions were not lost on Andrew, though they turned his stomach. Neil did not go for his morning run even though he got twitchy whenever he skipped it, because he did not know if he would come back.
Logically Andrew knew that making the conscious choice to stay was important, yet he still couldn't swallow the brief but intense betrayal that flashed through him when he realized Neil wanted to run. Once a rabbit, always a rabbit, right?
The rest of the day was not better. There was a dead man in Neil Josten's body, one Andrew did not know and could not reach. He nearly lost his shit when Neil flinched away from his touch for the first time at breakfast, but he wasn't angry at his junkie.
No, he was angry at himself. For his uselessness, for not knowing how to help and making shit worse. For not being worth staying for.
By the afternoon, Andrew had smoked half a pack of cigarettes. Between the pair, he and Neil had uttered maybe four words all day. Kevin got the brunt of his irritation, dodging balls and Andrew's apathy with near expert precision. Then he made the mistake of stopping to stare at Neil, who had spent the last two hours doing the same precision drill over and over. Perfect each time.
Andrew slammed his racquet against the wall, his whole body aching from how much rage he was trying to hold in. Across the court, Neil went as still as a statue, his ball bouncing and rolling to a stop at his feet.
“Andrew, don't-”
“Quiet.” He shouldered past Kevin and grabbed Neil by the cage of his helmet, dragging him towards the locker room. To his credit, Neil followed immediately and without a word. If he let go, there was no doubt in his mind that Neil would continue to walk behind him. Andrew just wanted to pretend for a few seconds more that Neil cared enough to put up a fight.
“Get changed. We're going to Columbia, I want to be on the road in twenty.” He left no room for argument in his tone, but of course Neil didn't push back. He just looked at Andrew with those dead man's eyes, then headed to the showers.
Between changing out of their gear and the drive back to Abby's with a furious Kevin, that left very little time for them to pack. So little in fact, that he was snapping at Neil to just get in the car instead of standing aimlessly in the foyer with his bag.
Ignoring Abby's prying questions of where they were going was easy. Kevin could answer those. Ignoring Wymack’s gruff “call by noon tomorrow or you're both running marathons,” less so. Contrary to popular belief, he didn't exist to make his coach's life harder.
Andrew did a cursory sweep of their room to make sure he had what he needed, and his eyes landed on Neil's running shoes by the dresser. Neil always brought his shoes. To leave them meant he was closer to rabbiting than Andrew previously thought.
He tasted iron on his tongue as he ground his teeth together, slamming the driver’s side door much harder than necessary. Neil gave him a quick glance, then settled in his seat so he could spend the rest of the drive watching Andrew.
Infuriatingly, the weight of his gaze soothed Andrew's prickling nerves. The sun still rose, the earth still turned, and Neil still stared at Andrew like it was a privilege just to look.
It was a silent drive, and that silence only compounded when they got to the house just for Andrew to point at the couch. They sat there a single cushion apart, neither willing to be the one to speak first.
Andrew was fine waiting him out. In fact, the longer they put off the inevitable conversation, the better. He didn't want to know the reasons for his repeated failure to break through Neil's slumps. A thought that sounded eerily like Bee reminded him not to take it so personally.
He tapped his fingers in irritation, trying not to notice how Neil hadn't so much as twitched in an hour. Neil's stillness wasn't to be mistaken for serenity or calm. He was poised to get up at the drop of a pin, feet positioned towards the door.
That, more than anything else, really irked Andrew, because he was normally the direction Neil pointed to. Like a compass following a magnet. Not that he wanted Neil to constantly be fixated on him, he just stupidly got used to the attention.
Their stalemate lasted long enough for the sun to move and shift the shadows in the living room. Andrew would be impressed with his stubbornness, if he wasn't so bothered by it.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. He missed the days when nothing got past the thick veneer of apathy that he so carefully crafted to avoid situations like the current one.
Then Neil made the mistake of shifting his foot, and Andrew's gaze snapped to him hungrily. Those cold blue eyes weren't yet alive, but they weren't 100% dead either.
Neil Josten was the one staring him down, and he hoped to all the higher powers he'd never see Nathaniel's pathetic face again. A pointless wish, but he wanted it nonetheless.
He shook a cigarette out of his pack, just one, and lit it without any concern for stinking up the house with the smoke. Neil's eyes followed the lit cherry all the way to his mouth, and watched as he took a long drag. When he offered it, Neil took it without touching his skin. Always so fucking mindful of Andrew's comfort, but he couldn't be bothered to mind his own.
Neil spoke first, voice raspy from disuse. He hadn't used more than a handful of words in three days. “I don't want to talk about-”
“Are you going to run, Abram?”
As badly as it stung to ask, seeing the way Neil froze was somehow more painful. At least when the question was still unspoken, Andrew could pretend that it was all in his head. That he was blowing shit out of proportion like normal.
But if the question didn't need to be asked, then why did Neil look so panicked? He thought about a pair of running shoes, soles already worn down despite only being a few months old. Andrew dug his fingers into his thigh and bit back the defensive vitriol that threatened to spill from his lips.
“I want to stay.” Neil said, voice hitching at the very end. He held the cigarette too close to his chest, the lit end by his chin.
Andrew knew that if he burned himself any attempt to continue the conversation would be futile. He held out his hand for it, and chewed the filter as he thought about the answer.
In the end, no matter how sincere it sounded, “That's not what I asked.”
A flash of panic crossed Neil's face as he turned his body towards Andrew, feet no longer pointed to the front door. That did very little to alleviate the tight ball of emotion in his chest. “You told me to stay.”
“Not. What I asked.”
He heard the slightest catch in Neil's breath before the room went silent. Andrew marvelled at how easily he managed to quiet his little meltdown, before remembering that wasn't something Neil needed to do anymore. It was a Nathaniel trick through and through.
“Stop that.” He said roughly, snapping his fingers next to Neil's face.
Neil grimaced and pushed his hand away, making sure he only touched the armband. Again and again, he proved to be the most infuriating, interesting man Andrew ever had the misfortune of meeting.
“I told you to stay, but I also told you to leave him in Baltimore.” Andrew decided to have mercy just this once, but only so he could poke at a different sore spot.
“I did.”
“That's funny, it seems like I'm seeing a lot more of Nathaniel than you these days.” He didn't feel good about the way Neil flinched at the name, because if he had truly left that bastard buried somewhere in a basement, then hearing it shouldn't have bothered him.
Triggers won't disappear overnight. Gee, thanks Bee. Andrew knew that, he just didn't know how to handle caring so much about someone else's mess.
“I'm Neil Josten now.” Neil snapped, irritation finally coloring his words red. For a minute there Andrew worried he had left that hairpin temper somewhere next to Riko’s body.
Taking a quick drag of his cigarette, Andrew eyed the tower of ash warily as he got up to open the door. He flicked it onto the welcome mat and leaned against the doorway, squinting out at the mid-afternoon sun. Disgusting.
He was so busy cursing the nice weather than he almost didn't catch Neil's quiet “I'm not going to run.”
If he didn't care about Neil this would be easier. Even if he just cared a little less, he could shut him out and be done with the whole situation, chalk it all up to bad life choices and a bleeding heart.
The tobacco tasted bitter on his tongue as Andrew ran it across the back of his teeth. It was so much effort to constantly try not to be the world's biggest cunt, not to mention a thankless job. How did normal people do it?
He didn't bring Neil to Columbia to break the trust that made him get in the car without question, so Andrew took a deep breath and pushed his reactive anger aside.
When he spoke, he kept that steel edged tone to a minimum, and tried for something closer to understanding. “But you want to.”
The way Neil blanched made Andrew wonder how he himself felt about that urge. Did it feel like as much of a betrayal as it did for Andrew?
He kept picking at the still healing scars on his knuckles, some of them already peeled raw. When Andrew knocked his boot against the door in warning, Neil jumped as if he'd been caught. Which he had, but it was still an extreme reaction. He was definitely more torn up about the urge to run than he was letting on.
“Andrew,” Neil said, guilt creeping into his voice. He sounded like he was begging. The thought turned Andrew's stomach. “I won't, I swear.”
He knew that nothing short of Nathan Wesninski rising from the dead would make Neil cut and run, but logic and emotions rarely played nice together. He just had to work through the messy shit to see the truth behind his anger.
Bee should get a raise, not that Andrew was the one paying her.
“I don't care if you're feeling flighty. That means you still want to live.”
What Andrew didn't say was you've been walking around like me on a bad day, and I'm passively suicidal on a good one, so what does that make you? That felt too exposing, like getting caught without his armbands or reading a pulpy crime novel in public.
And he didn't say I don't want to want a martyr, because he wanted nothing. But when push came to shove he had chosen Neil over his own brother, and being with- being idiots with Neil wasn't so terrible.
That's what they were, weren't they? Absolute fools, pretending like they were meant to have nice things. Maybe that's why Andrew's chest was tight at the very thought that Neil might not have anything to stay alive for anymore.
Living to survive was all well and good until you got through the survival, and ended up just alive with nothing to drive you forward.
Something on Andrew's face must've given him away, because Neil's guilt melted away to an intense sort of curiosity that he had admittedly grown fond of. “Question.”
“Answer.”
Neil flicked an exasperated glance at his eyes, then trailed right back down to stare at Andrew's hands. Specifically the cigarette he was letting smoke itself in his grasp. “Truth for a truth. Is this about me wanting to run or about how I've been acting?”
He loathed how Neil picked through his brain to connect his behavior to his words. Andrew wasn't supposed to be easy to read. “Yes.”
It was as much of a nonanswer he could give without breaking the rules of their game, which Andrew still very much liked to play. He half expected Neil to put up a fuss about it, but he nodded and leaned back against the cushions. “Your turn.”
Flicking the wasted cigarette out past the porch stairs, Andrew shut the screen door and took a seat on the coffee table in front of Neil. He studied the bruise-dark eyebags, and the chapped lips Neil had steadily chewed raw. His roots were coming in lighter than Andrew had expected, not quite ginger but not not ginger.
Andrew's gaze dipped along the slashing scars, and circled the whorl patterns left by a car lighter and a sadist. He saved Neil's eyes for last, because it was the likeliest part of his face to piss Andrew off.
Nobody had ever looked at him like that before, with enough softness gleaming in their eyes to knock him dead. He wished he could resent it.
“You look like shit.”
“Fuck you.”
He heard more than he saw the smile in Neil's response, but if he saw one he'd assume Neil was in distress. As it was, he probably wasn't too pleased about cutting practice short after skipping his morning run. Andrew could see the coiling of that metaphorical shock spring along Neil's spine.
He raised his hand up next to Neil's cheek, and tilted his head as he watched blue eyes track it the whole way, curious but not on guard. The rabbit seemed to be in much better spirits. Good, he preferred it that way.
“Yes or no?”
Neil leaned forward and pressed his face against Andrew's palm, sighing as he relaxed his whole body into the steady resistance of it. His skin was warm, and Andrew's thumb slid across the scars absentmindedly.
“143%, junkie.”
“That's a jump, I thought I was still in the 110's.” He murmured, icy blue peeking out from heavy lids. How unfair that he had the sort of face that men go to war for when his attitude was so shit.
“What can I say, you make me irrationally violent.” Whose voice was that? Not Andrew's, not with the way it lilted down into dangerously fond territory, matching Neil's volume automatically.
He tried to reorder his thoughts into a cohesive sentence, not exactly sure how to ask his question without revealing too much of himself. That was the problem about their little truth game, the question put a spotlight on both the giver and the receiver.
In the end, Andrew decided to just rip the bandage off. He tapped his index finger rapidly against Neil's cheekbone to make sure he was still fully present, silently cursing the weight of his stare. “What do I do when you get like that?”
He ended the question with a dismissive hand wave towards all of Neil, who raised a brow at his uncertainty. Somehow his expression became even more insufferable, too soft and emotional for the likes of them.
“You don't have to use your question for this, Drew. You could just ask normally.”
And oh, wasn't that a novel concept. A liar being trusted to tell the truth about something personal. Andrew hated that he believed him. He also hated the nickname, which was still new enough to make his breath catch in his throat. “Fine, then it's still my turn. Answer the question.”
Neil hummed thoughtfully, chewing his cheek. He put as much thought into answering as Andrew did in asking, and that amount of care did things to his stomach. Terrible, gastrointestinal things.
“You already help a lot just by following our usual routines and keeping me distracted. It's not- I don't know how to describe it. I go elsewhere.”
“In your head.”
“Yeah. Yeah, and I lose track of time like I did after Evermore.” Neil huffed and scratched the back of his neck, leaning out of Andrew's touch but raising his hand in a wordless question. Andrew nodded, and he tangled their fingers together to bring them down to his lap. “I don't mean to be difficult, I just… slip sometimes.”
“Cool, so that's called trauma.”
Neil rolled his eyes as he fidgeted with Andrew's fingers, but he didn't make a witty retort like Andrew expected. It was a testament to how badly those dead episodes were affecting him.
“Where do you go?”
Blue snapped to his face, and the way all that hard earned relaxation left in one fell swoop made Andrew curse everyone who ever looked at Neil wrong. Including himself.
“Is that your turn?” Neil asked, voice light but with a hard edge in his eye. He'd lay his past bare for Andrew to pick apart, but he couldn't easily give up whatever was causing a dead man to take his place at Andrew's side. “Not exactly a fair trade for your answer, is it?”
“Then tell me where you went today.” Andrew demanded, picturing a pair of shoes tucked by the dresser and textbook perfect precision drills against a court wall in the same spot for hours.
He could deal with not knowing the whole story, if only he could have a scrap of what caused Neil to be so rabbity that he couldn't even run. When Andrew pictured Neil, he was always in motion. He should never be still, should never stop moving, because for a man like Neil, being stationary meant death. If he couldn't run, then he was dead.
Neil looked at him then, and his stare pierced right through Andrew. The weight of his full attention was like a barbell across his chest, squeezing the breath from his lungs. Andrew's pulse beat rapidly in his throat, a fluttery th-thump th-thu-thump that stuttered too often for his liking.
“Today was the basement.” Neil said, dragging his pinky finger across Andrew's open palm. He traced the head and life lines without looking down. “This whole week, actually. It's the worst place I go.”
The offering of more information than what Andrew asked for was recognized, and he was grateful for it. Intensely so, because he knew how exposing it was to bare his soul of his own free accord. “Something causes it.”
Neil nodded, running his thumb along the edge of Andrew's armband. He stayed quiet for a while longer, knowing that Andrew would wait as long as he needed.
“The room at Abby's. The aircon smells musty, and it's cold and dark when I wake up. I can't-” His voice cracked, and Neil ducked his head in shame. He held Andrew's hand like it was the only thing keeping him in place, leg bouncing hard enough to rattle the coffee table. “I left him there like you asked, but sometimes he comes back.”
He was of course talking about his little shadow, the dead man who liked to walk in his shoes. When Neil spoke of Nathaniel, there were two warring emotions vying for control on his face; resentment and protectiveness.
A dangerous combination for people like them.
“I told you to leave him there because he was the one willing to die in Baltimore. Neil Josten's the one who wants to live, he's the one who stays.” When they got back, Andrew was going to take a bat to the air conditioner. Then he was going to buy a goddamn nightlight, so that maybe Neil wouldn't wake in his own personal hell.
Neil looked at him curiously, brows furrowed. His fingers were massaging Andrew's palm absently, thumbs digging into the muscles in a way that didn't feel terrible. “You do know I wasn't ready to just die, right? Why do you think I was so fucked up?”
Andrew remembered the injuries, every single goddamn one. He just assumed it was all from torture. “Explain.”
“I fought back. I mean, I would've killed Lola with my bare hands if he hadn't stepped in. But my father doesn't like it when his prey runs.” He grimaced, then shook his head. “Didn't like it. He's dead now.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” He could guess. Andrew didn't need Neil to spell out exactly what he meant when he referred to himself as prey, but the absolute hatred for Nathan Wesninski boiling Andrew's blood was also clouding his judgement.
“Means I'm lucky Stuart showed up when he did. A minute more, and Lola would've cut my tendons.” Neil laughed dryly, but one of his hands slipped from Andrew's to brush across his thigh. “That was his biggest fantasy, y'know. To incapacitate me and my mother so he could take his time. Runaways who can't run from him anymore.”
A loud, inescapable ringing began to fill Andrew's ears. He could taste blood, thick and cloying in his throat as he watched Neil’s lips move, no doubt trying to downplay the severity of what he just said. But Andrew didn't hear it.
All he could think about was Neil's desperate, almost pleading voice as he assured Andrew he wouldn't run.
“Shut up.” Andrew snapped, jumping to his feet. He ignored Neil's surprised stare as he went to the corner by the door where he threw their bags, rifling through them with increasing agitation. When he finally had his target items, he threw them onto Neil's lap. “Put this on.”
Holding up one of his running shoes and gazing down at the rest of his gear, Neil frowned his confusion. “I didn't pack these.”
“I know. I did.”
“Why?”
“Guess I'm just a fucking optimist. Hurry up.” He had hoped that whatever conversation they'd inevitably have in Columbia would end with Neil feeling more himself, and that things would return to routine.
Now, all Andrew cared about was giving Neil what his father wanted to take. When he pictured Neil, he couldn't do it in the future tense, because he always pictured him moving. Moving up, moving out, moving on.
Neil was not a static character in his mind, and he knew that his junkie was going places with or without Andrew in tow. He told Neil to stay, told him not to run, not realizing what exactly he was asking of him.
“I'll admit I'm a little confused, Andrew.”
He tightened the top of the water bottle he had been filling at the sink, and refused to meet Neil's eye when he brushed past to the front door. “Just come with me.”
Normally the maserati was a source of comfort and regularity, but Andrew felt none of that as he twisted his hands around the steering wheel. He ordered Neil to pay attention to where they were going, to remember which roads they took. And he did so without a word, glancing occasionally at Andrew's clenched fists.
The further from Columbia they got, the more anxious he became. Andrew reached the point where he was nauseous from how badly his nerves were churning in his stomach, and when he pulled over on the shoulder he briefly considered throwing up.
They sat there in the silence and the late afternoon sun, Neil's stare heavy against his skin. He reached into the back and grabbed the water bottle from the seat, throwing it in Neil's general direction. “Hope you were paying attention.”
“Andrew.”
He had heard his name said many different ways throughout his life, most of them negative. The way Neil's voice curled around his name made it sound like it was his favorite word in the whole world.
“I don't care if you want to run. I'm expecting it, actually. The sun rises, a tree falling in an empty forest makes a noise, and Neil Josten runs.” Andrew clutched the steering wheel like he could choke the life from it. “If it's already gonna happen, I won't waste my time fighting you.”
“Andrew, I told you I wouldn't.”
He ignored the raw hurt in Neil's words, staring ahead at the open road. Fifteen miles and some change in the opposite direction was their house, where Andrew had pressed a key into Neil's hand and told him to do something impossible. And Neil, ever enduring, said he would stay.
“Run, Josten. Run until your muscles scream and keep running, because you're running back home to me. I'll wait for you.” Andrew tried to keep the hiss of desperation out of his voice, but he failed miserably. Anyone listening would know that he was sick with worry, his mind running through the thousands of ways it could go wrong.
But it was just Neil, whose breath caught as he spoke and didn't release until Andrew went quiet. Neil, who skipped his run because he was afraid he wouldn't stop. Neil, who told Andrew he wouldn't run and meant it, even though the urge was scratching him raw inside.
“You want me to-”
“Four hours, junkie. Any longer than that and I'll personally come and kill you.”
Neil laughed, bright and sincere. “I won't need that long.”
“Fine. Two hours. Is that better?” He grit his teeth, itching for a cigarette something awful. “Show me your phone.”
Show him, because he trusted Neil to keep all the worst parts of him safe, but he didn't trust that bastard to not lie about charging his phone. But it was actually charged for once, and he gave Neil a suspicious squint as he slipped the phone back into the pocket of his mesh shorts.
Suddenly Neil leaned over the center console, crowding into Andrew's space like he belonged there. He looked at him with those horrid, endless blue eyes, and the corners of his lips twitched. “Yes or no?”
There was no way he was saying no when he felt so raw, begging for something, anything to come ground him before his mind spiraled out of control. They were breathing the same air, and he wanted to grab Neil and never let go. “Yes.”
Kissing Neil was a bit like doing drugs. Definitely unhealthy, highly addictive, and sure to ruin Andrew's hard earned control. That said, he settled into the kiss with the relief of someone coming home after too long away. The knot in his stomach lessened, giving up its grip with minimal complaints.
Andrew was content to let Neil pull away first, and as soon as he did, he shoved that stupid face as far away as possible before he started getting ideas. “Get the fuck out of my car.”
“Alright, alright, I'm going.” Neil laughed happily, wearing a rare sincere smile.
He stood there on the side of the road and watched with a hand shielding his eyes from the sun as Andrew pulled an illegal u turn. And he waved with his whole upper body, smirking at the petty middle finger Andrew gave in return.
Driving away was one of the hardest things he ever did.
How could he leave his whole heart on the side of the road, open to the elements? How could he expect, no, demand that someone as interesting as Neil fucking Josten come back to him?
It hurt, but not as much as the sheer certainty in his chest that he was going to see that rat's nest of red curls and sky blue stare in less than two hours’ time. Andrew truly believed that he'd come home, and he didn't know what to do with himself because of it.
He waited on the porch steps with a cigarette between his lips, glaring at the end of the street. His phone stayed clutched in his hand in case something happened, and there were cigarette butts littering the ground around his feet. Andrew was on his second pack of the day.
At a quarter past an hour, a figure turned the corner onto his street. He was running, shoes hitting the pavement far faster than they had any right to after running over fifteen miles.
Neil ran all the way to his front porch, but he didn't stop there. He put his arms above his head and panted, walking circles around the little square of sidewalk in front of the steps.
Taking a long drag then stomping the rest of the cigarette out beneath his boot, Andrew surveyed him with a facade of boredom. His eyes roamed hungrily over Neil's flushed, sweat damp skin, and the way his legs cut a harsh silhouette of lean muscle. His chest heaved with each breath, and his auburn curls were slicked back away from his face.
When Andrew's inspection ended at those infuriating eyes, he wasn't surprised to find Neil already staring back. They were clear and focused, the most present he'd been in days. And he was grinning.
That brief spike of panic Andrew felt seeing his expression was quashed by Neil's words, ragged but content. “I'm home, Drew.”
He scoffed but felt his face heat up, and he was sure it would only get worse with his low, sincere response. “Welcome home.”
Neil at least had the decency to wait until they were inside before he was crowding Andrew up against the door, hands not quite touching but hovering over his body in a way that made his skin buzz. He asked, and Andrew said yes, pulling his wrists up to guide those dumb hands into his hair.
Later, they were going to have a talk about Neil's inability to ask for inane accommodations, and why Andrew was going to owe Abby a new air conditioner, but he wasn't worried about that.
“Tell me when you get the urge again, rabbit.” Andrew spoke against his lips, trying to ignore the way he could feel Neil's smirk.
“When?”
“I'm expecting it.” And I'm okay with it. Run all you want, do it as Neil or Nathaniel, as long as you're running back to me.