Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Andrew doesn’t want to be here.

He’s not quite sure if he means here, in this house, or here, in this life, but both are accurate. Probably.

In this house is far more urgent, though, considering he’s all but trapped shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the most annoying people of Palmetto High to ever disgrace his presence while shitty Top 40s play on a never ending loop at a volume loud enough he’s sure the aliens stalking the planet can hear too. He’s nowhere near drunk enough to deal with this and what makes it worse, is that’s dealing with it on his own.

Neil had vanished not long after they arrived. Andrew’s sure he’d given an appropriate excuse as to why he abandoned his best friend to the sweaty pits of Allison Reynold’s living room, but, well, Andrew couldn’t hear him through the shitty pop tunes.

He wished, just for a second before he watched Neil’s pretty face get swallowed by the crowd, that Neil would invade his personal space, put his lips to Andrew’s ear.

And now he’s alone, a warm beer in his hands as stands at the wall nearest the door to the back porch. He won’t go outside—he’d made a promise to Bee he’d try and curb his nicotine usage, and caving twenty minutes after he arrived is not trying to curb anything.

Actually, fuck it. He’ll make up for it tomorrow, an extra penalty payment for the smoke jar.

The air is hot and thick when he steps outside but it’s better than smelling a hundred different flavors of teenage sweat and Bath & Body Works perfume. He leaves his beer on one of the side tables between the porch chairs while he lights up and sits on the chair furthest from the door.

Andrew’s not completely sure of why he agreed to attend Kevin’s football game and the house party after but he has a feeling Neil had something to do with it. All he has to do is pout a little bit and look Andrew right in the eye and Andrew folds like a fucking fool every time.

He knows Neil is aware of his power but thankfully Neil isn’t the evil little cretin that some people call him and uses it responsibly.

For a moment, he entertains revoking it. Neil did abandon him. He would be justified.

But he never could. He’d made a promise to himself at twelve years old that he would do his best to give Neil everything he could ever possibly want and he hasn’t gone back on that yet. Idiotic drunk teenagers won’t be the thing that changes it.

Andrew doesn’t know how long he’s outside before Neil joins him, just that he has a sizable pile of ashes at his feet and several cigarette butts drowned in his beer. He’s a bit cold now, all the false warmth from his buzz has faded, but he doesn’t want to move. He pulls his leather jacket tighter around him and is lighting yet another cigarette when the back door slides open and Neil steps through.

He looks as gorgeous as ever, it’s so unfair. His hair is artfully tousled, like someone’s been running their hands through it all night, and his cheeks are flushed. The shirt Allison forced him in before the game is unbuttoned even further, exposing the traces of the burn scar across one shoulder and far too much of his chest to be chaste. Andrew wants to both strip him naked and shove him in a thick winter coat so no one else can see him at the same time.

Neil’s been drinking, Andrew can tell, if not by the dopey expression on his face then by the way he shuffles carefully to the other deck chair like he’s afraid of toppling over. His legs sprawl out in front of him when he drops on to the cushion and Andrew has pull his eyes away from the tasteful rips in his jeans.

“Finally had enough of the idiots?” Andrew asks. He swaps the hand he’s holding his cigarette in so Neil can smell it better.

The smile Neil turns on him is ridiculous, wide and soft and a little bit stupid. Andrew’s never seen him smile like that around the rest of his friends or anybody, really. It feels good to have this little secret for the two of them.

“Drew,” Neil coos, dropping his head against the back of the chair. He takes a sip from his drink, a strawberry kiwi hard lemonade. He keeps quiet even though Andrew senses that he intended to say something else, content instead to stare at Andrew.

He does that, sometimes, watch Andrew like he’s the most interesting thing in the world. Andrew doesn’t understand but it means that he can watch Neil back just as much and not have it be weird.

Even now, with his mind going a hundred staggering miles a minute like it always does when he’s drunk, Neil is staring at Andrew. His face is so open and soft, Andrew can’t stand it.

“Yes, Neil?” When Andrew reaches for the can, Neil lets him steal it. He takes a sip just to try it—sweet enough to mask the boozy aftertaste and therefore acceptable—then downs the rest.

He does this, too, sometimes, getting distracted so thoroughly he completely loses his train of thought and needs prompting. It doesn’t happen often since Neil can never keep his mouth shut for long, but really, Andrew has a feeling it doesn’t happen around any of their other friends. They’ve always been different from the rest, and Andrew is secretly pleased as punch to be Neil’s safe haven, a place where he feels comfortable enough to slow down.

“I was just thinking about this year. We’re seniors. It’s our last chance to do something stupid before we’re actual adults and have actual responsibilities.” Neil trails off again when Andrew brings his cigarette to his mouth, seemingly more enthralled watching Andrew smoke than talking. It sends a thrill down Andrew’s spine but he ignores it because Neil isn’t into him like that.

Andrew keeps smoking what will be his final cigarette of the night while Neil keeps staring. He knows what comes next—Neil dragging Andrew back to the party so he doesn’t feel like he’s abandoning Andrew, even if Andrew doesn’t really want to be here. Allison, or maybe Dan, pulling their little group into a game of truth or dare, or never have I ever, or something else just as stupid. Kevin drinking one shot too many to be healthy and asking, words slurred near incomprehensibly, for Andrew to take him home before he pukes in the bushes again. Andrew and Neil shoving Kevin in the backseat of Neil’s ridiculously expensive car, Neil handing over the keys so Andrew can drive because he likes being behind the wheel of his fancy rich boy car, and Neil spending the night after they leave Kevin crumpled on his front porch.

But Andrew is a little selfish. He’ll revel in whatever alone time he gets with Neil tonight, try to draw it out for as long as he can.

Like he could read Andrew’s mind, Neil stands suddenly and stumbles over to Andrew so he can drop into his lap. If anyone else did this, they’d be on their ass within seconds but Neil has always been exempt to Andrew’s rules.

Andrew wraps his arms around Neil’s waist to keep him steady, the can falling forgotten from his hands. His body is almost too-hot, flushed all the way down, but Andrew doesn’t let himself think about that.

Neil gets like this sometimes when he’s drunk, all touchy and clingy. He’s always embarrassed about it the next day but Andrew revels in the attention Neil shines on him. Its the closest Andrew allows himself to imagining what it’d be like to date Neil and have this all the time.

“This year?” Andrew prompts.

“Right, right, right.” Neil lets his hands slide into Andrew’s hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. Andrew thinks that if he could purr, he would be right now. “It’s our last year before we graduate. And then in a few months, we’ll be away at college and separated. Kevin was talking about applying to a bunch of schools in California and I realized he won’t be around and then I realized I won’t have you right next to me all the time either. How fucked up is that?”

Andrew hums. He finally gets why Neil allowed himself to get this drunk when he normally sticks exclusively to one drink—unless he asks Andrew specifically to keep watch for him.

Neil doesn’t like being left alone with his thoughts but on the rare chance he can’t work them out with Andrew (or one of their other, less mindful of his panic disorder, friends) he’ll only face them with something in his system. He’d confessed a couple of months ago that he prefers if his anxiety spirals happen while he isn’t sober because it takes the bite out, dulls the teeth. Andrew told him to talk to a psychiatrist.

“Massively fucked up,” Andrew acknowledges. He feels Neil’s return hum more than he hears it. “But you know I’m not going anywhere, right? We’re both applying to PSU. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Yeah.”

Andrew’s not sure Neil fully agrees, but he doesn’t push, not when Neil falls quiet again, his head resting on Andrew’s shoulder. His weight is familiar in Andrew’s lap and honestly, Andrew wouldn’t have it any other way.

The early days of their friendship was marked by carefully drawn lines and even reciprocity, the two of them too distrustful of strangers to let their guards down. It really only took them about a year to work their way past each other’s walls, and one more to get as close as they are now.

As much as Andrew sometimes wished he could tell Neil about his feelings, he wouldn’t have Neil in any other way. He likes what they have, would probably kill to protect it, even.

Neil is—everything to him. He thinks it’s the same for Neil, too.

They sit, cuddle really, like that for long enough that Neil’s body heat can no longer hold the brisk weather back but Andrew doesn’t feel like moving. He’s too comfortable, even when Neil shifts and pulls his head back so he can look at Andrew again.

The porch lighting is terrible but Neil is still too beautiful. Andrew’s heart goes out to all the broken hearts Neil has left in his wake over the years.

He drops his gaze to Neil’s mouth. His lips are right there—perfectly pouty, a little red from where Neil keeps chewing on the bottom one, and a little chapped because Neil loses every thing of chapstick Andrew buys him.

All Andrew has to do is lean in a little, he’s so close. Just a nudge forward, close a couple inches of space, and he would be kissing Neil. He’d be finally acting on his years-old crush.

He tightens the hold he has on Neil’s waist and flicks his gaze up to Neil’s eyes before he—

What the fuck is he doing?

Andrew jerks back, his blood ice in his veins.

“I—” Andrew can’t get the words, his excuse, out fast enough. His throat is closing up, his heart racing. He thinks his hands might even be shaking.

Neil, thankfully, jumps out of his lap and shuffles several feet back. His eyes are wide, eyebrows drawn close, and he’s frowning.

Deliriously, Andrew has a feeling Neil knows exactly what Andrew was thinking and can’t stand to be anywhere near him. He looks away so he doesn’t see the revulsion sure to be making its way to Neil’s face.

“I need to leave,” is what he finally manages to force out as he gets to his feet. Neil takes a step toward him but Andrew darts to the side, keeping their distance, and Neil freezes. He’s always good at accepting Andrew’s boundaries.

“Andrew—” Neil starts, but Andrew cuts him off.

“I’ll see you on Monday.”

And then he’s gone.

He manages to needle a ride out of Kevin’s friend Jeremy, who, surprisingly, lives a couple houses down from Andrew.

The drive is awkward and quiet and Andrew can tell Jeremy wants to ask him why he isn’t with Neil when everyone knows the two of them are inseparable. He vows to pay for Jeremy’s food the next time they all go out in return for keeping his mouth shut.

He thinks he might just drown in his own shame. Neil doesn’t swing. He made that abundantly clear their freshman year when he kept getting pestered by the girls in their grade for dates to football games, and then the handful of gay and bisexual guys when Neil’s lack of interest in girls became known school-wide. Andrew is no better than any of them.

Neil is his friend. He felt safe getting close to Andrew, to letting him see a side no one else ever saw, because Andrew didn’t want anything more than what Neil would give him but that is obviously a lie now.

Of course Andrew wants Neil—he’s beautiful and infuriating and, even though Andrew refuses to acknowledge it, actually funny. Neil cares about Andrew, makes him feel seen in a way no one else has ever made him feel before. Neil likes being around Andrew, says it every chance he gets.

There is no world in which Andrew Minyard is not head over heels in love with Neil Josten.

And as much as he knows Neil cares for him, Andrew’s pretty sure there’s no world in which his feelings are reciprocated, either.

Bee is already in bed by the time Andrew gets home. She left the lights in the kitchen on so he didn’t arrive to a completely dark house. Andrew doesn’t deserve the consideration but he refuses to let himself linger on it, lest he bring on one of his more destructive depressive episodes, and hurries up to his room before he wakes Bee up and he gets questioned on why Neil isn’t with him.

He changes quickly, wets his hands in the sink so he can get rid of as much product in his hair as he can without showering, and then throws himself into bed. The stuffed fox plush Neil won him at the county fair two years ago stares at him judgmentally from its home on his spare pillow until he chucks it across the room.

Andrew sends Neil a short text—got my own ride dont worry about it—before he shuts his phone off for the night and drags his blanket over his head.

Chapter Text

The rest of the weekend was weird, to say the least.

Andrew spent most of it in bed, wrapped tight in his comforter while he waited for something—anything—from Neil.

They didn’t spend every weekend together but it was a near thing. Neil’s uncle was rarely around anymore, trusting Neil to be able to take care of himself without adult supervision, so he staved off the loneliness by turning Andrew’s house into his second, more favored residence. He spent more nights in Andrew’s bed than he did his own.

Andrew had gotten used to Neil being around all the time, existing in his space, but there’s an obvious, gaping hole now where his presence typically lives.

It eats at Andrew for most of Saturday and all of Sunday, his room unpleasantly empty and his phone stubbornly silent.

He’d turned it back on Saturday afternoon, in hopes that Neil had responded at any point to his text but he hadn’t. He hadn’t even read it—which Andrew knows because Neil never bothered to turn his read receipts off.

It sat marked delivered until Monday morning when Neil had texted he was on his way to pick him and Aaron up fifteen minutes after Andrew’s alarm forced him awake. He scrambled to get ready since he’d been wallowing in self-pity over possibly having to take the bus for those fifteen minutes and then he’d had to kick Aaron out of bed so he wouldn’t make them late either.

Neil didn’t text back when Andrew asked what happened over the weekend and he barely acknowledged when the twins climbed in.

Which means Andrew is now in a very awkward and silent car on the way to school. Aaron is in the backseat, completely oblivious to the weird tension at the front, content to text his little cheerleader crush instead.

Sometimes, Andrew wishes he could be like his brother and have relationships come as easy to him as they seem to for Aaron. It was bad enough becoming friends with Neil, he doesn’t think he could do it all over again with someone he intended to date.

Never mind that the only person he actually wants to date is Neil.

Andrew’s had his fair share of hookups and boys to make out with during parties but he’s never had a real relationship. He doesn’t know if it's because he’s just not built for them or if it’s because he compares every guy he’s ever met to Neil and they all pale in comparison.

Either way, Andrew has been single since the beginning of time. Most days, he’s content with that. He has Bee, his brother, and Neil, and the people he’s forced to associate with because of Neil. It’s all he needs, really, but sometimes he watches couples during lunch and imagines him doing the same thing with Neil and his heart hurts with how much he wants it.

The ache in his chest watching Neil park and exit the car without a goodbye or a single glance in his direction isn’t all that different.

The rest of the day goes by at a crawl.

Andrew hadn’t realized just how much his routines revolved around Neil until Neil started avoiding him. His walks between classes are lonely and his locker is missing it’s most precious accessory and they don’t joke around when their physics teach turns his back and worst of all, Aaron takes his side during lunch when Neil sits at the opposite end of the table instead and doesn’t let Andrew swap his fruit cup for Aaron’s packet of mini cookies.

It’s hell on earth, basically.

Neil turns off the car and pulls his key out of the ignition when he parks outside of Andrew’s house, which, up until now, Andrew hadn’t been entirely sure would happen, even if Neil had waited for him after school.

He doesn’t immediately get out, though. He traces the teeth of every single one of his keys first, then returns to the spare he has to Andrew’s house he got the first time Stuart had a week long “business trip”. It’s worn, the nickel plating rubbed off in patches to expose the darkened brass beneath. Neil used to touch his keys all the time when they first met, a tick he’d confessed was to make sure that they were still there and real, but he only does it when he’s anxious now.

“We’re—” He starts but cuts himself off. Andrew has no idea what’s going through Neil’s head and it’s more distressing than he’s comfortable with. Neil runs his thumb over the key one last time before he shoves them in his pocket. “We’re still on for studying, yeah?”

Andrew doesn’t believe for a second that’s everything he wants to ask about but Andrew lets him get away with it. God forbid all the things he wants to keep quiet are brought up, too.

“We are,” Andrew confirms. His phone buzzes in his pocket, likely an update from Aaron on when he plans on coming home since he’s busy with his cheerleader. “Unless—if it’s okay with you?”

Neil frowns a little, clearly holding back the full force of his confusion. Andrew feels a little sick to his stomach that he made Neil so uncomfortable that he thinks he can’t be himself in front of Andrew anymore. “I mean, yeah?”

Andrew nods and Neil mimics him. Andrew opens his door and Neil does too, but where Andrew keeps his bag at his feet, Neil has to get his from the backseat.

They enter the house almost side-by-side and go directly to Andrew’s room. They don’t need to hide away when the rest of the house is empty but they’ve been doing homework in Andrew’s bed every Monday for the entire length of their friendship and unless Neil says so, Andrew has no intention of changing anything.

What they settle into once they get upstairs isn’t quite what Andrew was hoping for but it’s not bad.

They slip into their routine with ease. Neil climbs on to the bed right after Andrew, both of them propped up against the headboard with their assignments in their laps, Neil with his English reading and Andrew with his AB calc.

It’s what their Monday study sessions are for—Neil is god awful with essays because English isn’t his first language and he’d do anything to rail against it as a concept, and Andrew would rather stab himself with a dull kitchen knife than ever put effort into doing math, so they help each other out. Andrew will proofread whatever incomprehensible string of sentences Neil churns out and Neil will patiently re-explain the concepts Andrew should’ve been paying attention to in class.

It works, their system.

And today is no worse than usual, if Andrew ignores the heavy silence between them. On the days where words fail them, Andrew will usually put on one of his several Neil-themed playlists but he can’t bring himself to move. Everything feels so fragile that even just erasing a number too quickly will ruin it all.

They manage the tenuous peace—for about fifteen minutes.

“Hey, Drew?”

Neil’s voice shatters the minuscule amount of focus Andrew had been able to muster but Andrew gladly accepts the distraction from whatever limits he’s supposed to be calculating.

Andrew hums, unwilling and unable to look away from his graph paper even if he thinks the face Neil makes when he’s concentrating is the cutest thing in the world. If he looks now he’s not getting anything done for the rest of the evening.

“Do you know what this word means?”

Well. Andrew would do anything for Neil. Calculus is stupid anyway.

He turns to see what Neil is pointing out and—Neil is so close, it makes his head spin.

He can smell the faint clean scent of Neil’s deodorant and the woodsy undertones of his daily-wear cologne, the one Stuart got him for his sixteenth birthday along with his car since he “was now a man” or whatever.

(Andrew stopped trying to understand Stuart’s eccentricities a long time ago, especially after Neil let it spill that he’s actually a very savvy British gangster. Coincidentally, Andrew also stopped his incredibly fun game of verbally harassing Stuart whenever came over around the same time.

He doesn’t think Stuart would put a hit out on him for calling him old and bald but, well. Best not to risk it.)

It’s intoxicating and Andrew knows Neil has no idea what kind of power he wields with just that.

Neil shifts so he can look at Andrew too and he freezes. He’s so fucking close, Andrew can hear his breath hitch. The pen Neil was holding falls out of his hand and rolls off the bed but neither of them move to grab it.

Andrew feels suspended in time, like the whole world paused just so the two of them could have this moment together.

Then, he swears to all that is fucking holy, Neil’s gaze drops to his lips and his tongue darts out to wet his own. Andrew takes a deep breath so he can finally just ask if he can kiss Neil—

And his door slams open.

“Hey, Josten,” Andrew’s irritating, waste-of-space brother says. “Get the fuck out.”

Neil whips himself away from Andrew and immediately starts packing up his things despite their study session being far from over. He works quickly, barely paying attention to the notebooks and worksheets he shoves into his bag. Andrew’s pretty sure the copy of their assigned reading he picks up is actually his own but the longer Neil keeps his eyes averted, the less and less Andrew thinks it’s intentional and more him grabbing whatever he can get his hands on so he can leave as soon as possible.

All the while, Andrew feels paralyzed. The place Neil had been is cold and the new space between them is cavernous. He wants to reach out, drag Neil back to his side and make his brother leave but—he can’t move.

Neil pulled away so fast. He has always been fast but that seemed too quick to be anything but panic.

Was that—did Andrew read it wrong, then? Did Neil not actually want to kiss him?

He’s definitely reading too far into things again. Neil isn’t interested in anyone and Andrew isn’t the exception to that just because they’re best friends. He didn’t learn a single goddamn thing from Neil’s silent treatment this weekend, did he.

Neil doesn’t look back at him when he leaves.

Aaron flops face-first onto the bed once the door closes and lets out a frankly ridiculous whine. If only his cheerleader could see him now. It’d snip any budding desires between the two of them like a hot knife through butter.

Andrew is tempted to bodily kick him off the bed but he’d promised Bee he’d be nice to his brother when they got adopted, so he refrains. Doesn’t stop him from fantasizing, though.

Aaron whines again, making Andrew’s resolve crack just that much more. If he does it again, Andrew cannot be held responsible for his actions. He would know seeing as he wants to go to law school.

“Spit it out.”

Aaron whines yet again and it's no less pathetic the third time. “Katelyn asked me out.”

The words are muffled by a pillow but Andrew hears him clearly enough to be pissed. He cannot fucking believe that he got interrupted by his jackass of a brother because a girl he likes asked him out and he’s having a crisis over it. Whatever hold he had on his control snaps.

Andrew grabs one of his pillows and smacks Aaron with it.

“What the fuck—” Aaron throws himself upright, shooting a glare at Andrew.

Unfortunately for him, Andrew’s had most of his life to become immune to his nasty looks so he smacks Aaron again, this time across the face. Aaron seems truly baffled at getting a pillow to the face.

“Are you kidding me?” Smack. “You had to kick Neil out of my room because your fucking crush asked you out?” Smack. “Are you so stupid that you can’t figure out how to spell the word yes?”

He goes in for one more hit but Aaron yanks the pillow out of his hands, throwing it and the other pillows across the room so Andrew can’t reach them without extreme difficulty. “Can you fucking not? I’m having a moment here.”

“So was I!”

It’s not what Andrew means to say but he doesn’t take it back once the confession leaves his mouth. He drops back against his headboard again and runs his fingers through his hair.

He is just so fucking frustrated. He wants to hit something, to break something into a million little pieces. He wants to yell at his brother or Neil or at himself in the bathroom mirror. Whatever it takes to stop from feeling like he’s constantly missing a step when going down the stairs every time he’s around Neil now.

Because, simply, it sucks. He misses his best friend. It’s barely been three days but it feels like a lifetime without Neil stuck to his side, holding his hand or whispering scathing commentary about whatever the idiots they eat lunch with decide is worth their time to argue over or even just looking at him. Andrew hadn’t realized just how much Neil stared—and Andrew already thought it was a lot—until Neil stopped entirely.

He tries to ignore the way Aaron’s face lights up in the way it does just before he starts teasing Andrew. “Were you about to kiss Neil Josten? Your best friend, Neil Josten? Neil Josten, who you’ve had a crush on since you were twelve years old? That Neil Josten? You were going to kiss him?”

“Shut up.” Andrew grits his teeth and wishes with his entire being that he still had his attack pillow. He viciously regrets ever letting Aaron in on that little secret. “I have no idea seeing as someone walked in before anything could happen.”

Aaron snorts. It is so very unattractive and so very unfair he’s allowed to do that with Andrew’s face. “Dude. Are you serious?”

Oh, his brother is toeing such a dangerous line. He really should’ve let Andrew keep his pillow. “If you don’t leave me to wallow alone in peace, I will strategically cut a hole in every single one of your socks so at least one of your toes sticks out at all times.”

Andrew must’ve trained him good as a kid because Aaron immediately flies out of his room with a half-hearted fuck you and even closes the door, which he almost never does.

The silence that overtakes the room is thick enough to drown in. If Andrew weren’t such an idiot, he could have Neil here to cutely harass him into taking a break from their homework and turning on a shitty action movie they’ll both hate by the time the credits start.

But he doesn’t.

Because he is, in fact, an idiot.

Chapter Text

The rest of the week goes about the same as Monday did, only Andrew gets to see Neil a little bit more. He stopped avoiding Andrew during the school day completely but there’s a strange tension between them whenever they’re alone that Andrew doesn’t know what to do with.

Usually, he’d cut the bullshit and just fucking make Neil tell him what was wrong but he knows that if he does that this time, the question will inevitably get turned back on him, about why he behaved so strangely at Allison’s party. And as much as he likes to think that Neil would stick by him even if he didn’t return Andrew’s feelings, he can’t help the little thread of doubt worming its way through his brain.

Sue him, he’s rarely been allowed to keep good things in his life. He doesn’t see why Neil Josten would be any different than the scraggly stray cat he used to feed at his third foster home that got ran over the day before he moved homes yet again.

So, he keeps quiet. Lets Neil stew in his thoughts while he tries to get his own in order. Waits out the inevitable rejection he’s seen coming since the day he realized simultaneously that he had a crush on Neil and that it would never be reciprocated. Pretends like his heart doesn’t crack that much more every time Neil drops eye contact or makes sure to leave a handful of inches between them when they sit together during their sneaky afternoon cigarette break.

Andrew thinks he’s doing a pretty good job at acting like everything is fine.

Every other Saturday, Matthew Boyd hosts Movie Night.

They treat it like something sacred but in reality, it’s just an excuse to get their entire friend group to get together and drink without any outsiders clinging to their edges. Andrew, for the most part, tolerates these Saturdays, in no small part because of Neil.

He makes these nights bearable with all the snarky little comments he whispers in their shared stilted German, leaning close into Andrew’s space despite having the majority of an entire couch to sprawl across and sharing their own bowl of popcorn.

If Andrew ignores the rest of the people in the room, he can almost pretend they’re on a date—which he does more often than he’d ever admit.

Tonight, though, he fully expects Neil to join Matt and Kevin on their couch, keeping as much space as possible between himself and Andrew like he’s been doing all week, but he doesn’t. Neil drops down right next to him, even though the large chair Andrew decided to occupy this time isn’t big enough for two people unless they’re basically on top of each other.

Neil keeps as much space as possible between them, but Andrew doesn’t like the way he tries to make himself smaller. He did that too much when they were younger, a lingering impulse from when he lived with his father, that Andrew had tried to curb as much as possible.

Instead of saying anything, though, Andrew just grabs Neil’s legs and drapes them over his own. It’s nothing they haven’t done before, but after a week of distance, the touch is borderline intoxicating.

He catches the looks the others give them but he pays them no mind.

Both his brother and Kevin have asked him what happened between the two of them since the change in behavior is so stark from their normal. Andrew hadn’t answered but he wondered if everyone else had noticed—and tonight, the answer is a clear yes.

Matt hands them their personal bowl of popcorn and tries (and fails) to catch Neil’s eye. Next to Andrew, Matt is Neil’s closest friend and the fact that even he is confused doesn’t make Andrew feel any better.

The chosen movie is boring, but Andrew expects that when it comes to Kevin’s turn. He likes the sprawling historical dramas that care more about accuracy than story or entertainment and Andrew much prefers movies that have explosions every ten minutes or so.

But Neil’s commentary is stellar as always. Andrew had known he’d been in Neil Withdrawal, his body aching for his best friend’s attention and proximity, and the sudden dose is close to what Andrew assumes crack is like.

He joins in when he can. It’s easy to pretend that nothing is wrong like this, easy to ignore the dread making a home deep in his chest.

Neil turns to him, halfway through the movie, lips quirked around a likely scathing joke. Andrew turns to him at the same time, eager to drink in the mischievous glint in Neil’s eyes that’s been missing for the last week.

“And the…” Neil starts but trails off, visibly losing his train of thought in the way he does when he’s drunk sometimes.

It’s weird and sets off a hundred different alarms in Andrew’s head. He doesn’t think Neil has been drinking—he’s not particularly subtle under the effects of alcohol—but Neil is a seasoned liar. He could just be acting sober.

But then Neil’s gaze flickers down, away from Andrew’s eyes, almost like he’s looking at—

It can’t be Andrew’s lips, right? But what the fuck else would Neil be looking at on Andrew’s face?

Andrew takes a breath, mostly steeling himself for the possibility that he’s so far off base it pisses Neil off, but before he can say anything, Neil stiffens. He quickly averts his eyes, flitters over the rest of the room, and then stands. He doesn’t even bother to give an excuse before he’s gone.

It’s been a long time since Neil’s rabbit instincts have shown themselves, it’s almost nostalgic to see. If only it weren’t Andrew’s fault.

He ignores the weird and expectant looks he gets from the rest of his friends when they all hear the front door open and shut, and tries to let the movie drown out the rushing in his ears.

When he gets home, thanks to Renee negotiating a ride for him and Aaron with Allison, he doesn’t bother to wait for his mom to come out of her room before he’s locking himself in his own.

He strips down to his boxers and then decides to double back to his closet for a hoodie. The one he grabs is an old Palmetto High track and field team sweatshirt from his freshman year. Neil had left it not long after he first got it and Andrew hadn’t ever given it back.

That was when Andrew thought his crush was at its worse. Before completely swearing off relationships and dating, Neil had allowed one girl to kiss him. It’d been after school, at his and Andrew’s smoke spot and, according to details Andrew hadn’t asked for, lasted all of two seconds.

Andrew didn’t know he could be so jealous—but he couldn’t deny the feeling searing through him when Neil told him. The fact that he didn’t like it barely soothed him and he didn’t speak to Neil for two days after.

That was when Neil had forgotten the hoodie and Andrew had stolen it. He slept in the damn thing both nights before he caved and when crawling back to Neil’s side.

He’d needed his best friend.

Not so different from how Andrew needs him now.

He crawls into bed and checks his phone. He has a good night text from Bee, one from Renee asking if Andrew needs to go to the gym on Sunday, and several from Aaron asking what’s wrong with him and if he needs to beat Neil up—but nothing from Neil.

Their thread has remained dry and stagnant since that party Andrew bolted from. Even if neither of them are good texters, they at least try, but that effort has been lacking lately.

Not that Andrew can blame Neil.

If he were in a similar position—as someone who didn’t swing being friends with someone who’d harbored an all-consuming crush on him for years despite knowing he didn’t swing and kept almost kissing him—he’d be uncomfortable, too.

He just hopes it’s something Neil can forgive him for.

Chapter Text

Neil looks like shit that next Monday.

It's obvious he hasn’t slept much in the last week or so, but somehow today, it's worse. Andrew’s tried his best in the past to get Neil to feel comfortable enough to fall asleep but he can’t do what he normally does if Neil’s avoiding him.

He lets it go.

He’s been letting a lot of things go with Neil lately but he doesn’t know what he would do if he pushed one more time and Neil just—stopped pushing back. If he decided Andrew wasn’t worth all the trouble he brings anymore.

It’s a grueling two days before Andrew decides to do anything. Two days of watching Neil get worse and worse while Andrew sits back. Two days of near silence. Two days of not having the person he loves most in the world by his side and feeling like shit for it.

But it gets to a point. Andrew’s willing to let Neil handle himself however he sees fit—he’d been doing it for years before they’d ever met—but Andrew doesn’t always trust Neil with his own well-being. He’s caught Neil going several days on just a couple hours of sleep at most, choking down stale saltines because he couldn’t stomach anything else, and running himself ragged alongside his track practices all while insisting he was perfectly fine.

Andrew refuses to watch his best friend self-destruct, even if it might be his fault.

On Thursday, when Neil parks in the back of the parking lot like always and goes to turn off his car, Andrew stops him. He doesn’t touch, just holds his hand out over where Neil is white-knuckling the steering wheel.

“We’re going for a drive,” Andrew says once Aaron vacates the backseat. Neil tries protesting, but it’s weak and his heart isn’t in it all the way. “Shut up. You need to sleep and neither of us give a shit about cloud formations enough to fight for attending APES.”

Neil visibly deflates, his hands slipping off the steering wheel. He, somehow, looks even more exhausted now that he’s letting himself feel it.

In the back of Andrew’s mind, he imagines he feels guilty for putting Neil in this position but he’s mostly just relieved that Neil didn’t fight him. It’s alarming, sure, but it also means that Neil hasn’t completely written Andrew off so he ignores all the sirens blaring in his head as they swap seats.

Neil passes out five minutes in. He’s curled up as much as he can in a car seat, using a spare hoodie from the trunk as a blanket and facing the driver’s side where Andrew is. He looks exactly like his young age, his face relaxed and almost carefree.

It’s exactly how Andrew wants to see him all of the time, even if it still surprises him how quickly Neil lets his guard down around him.

Of course, it’d taken a full year before Neil was anything but passively wary of him and a few months beyond that before Neil willingly slept in his presence. But knowing what Andrew knows, he’d expect Neil to never trust someone enough to let any of that happen.

Andrew drives around their town aimlessly, taking to the suburbs at a speed he’d likely get pulled over for if there were ever any cops around. He avoids the streets with speed bumps where he can and goes at a snail's pace over the ones he can’t.

Neil sleeps for another two hours, stirring only once when Andrew stops to get gas even though he falls right back under, but he wakes up fully when Andrew pulls into the drive through of a smoothie chain.

Andrew doesn’t ask what he wants since he already knows. It isn’t their first time doing this, nor will it be the last, probably. He orders—a tropical fruit blend for Neil and a chocolate banana from himself—pays and collects their smoothies and then pulls around into the parking lot instead of getting back on the highway, only stopping once he’s in the middle of four different spots.

When he gets out to sit on the hood, Neil follows without complaint. Normally the easy compliance would unsettle Andrew, as Neil has never once been described as agreeable, but Andrew will take what he can get. It means that Neil doesn’t hate him so much as to run from his presence as soon as he gets the chance, at least.

They sit in silence for a while, watching as people come and go through the strip mall parking lot. It’s as comfortable as it can be, Andrew thinks, for the first time they’ve spent any significant amount of time with each other since Allison’s party.

Andrew can’t stand it for long, though.

“So,” he starts once his smoothie is nearly halfway gone. He lets it sit in yawning space between them, secretly hoping Neil will pick up the other end but he never does.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” It’s blunt, Andrew knows, but he rarely pretends he’s something that he’s not.

To his credit, Neil nods. “I know.”

Neil chews the end of his straw. It’s a nervous habit Andrew hasn’t seen for a while. He stopped needing gum or the end of his pen or, on one bloody occurrence, the skin around his thumbnail because he always just reaches out for Andrew nowadays.

“Was it something I did?” Andrew isn’t the type to apologize—he stands behind every decision he makes and takes the consequences of them without question—but he would, for Neil.

But Neil shakes his head. “No, you’re…” He hesitates, pulls the straw all the way into his mouth and takes a sip of smoothie. When he speaks again, he’s almost inaudible. “You’re perfect.”

Andrew’s heart stutters in his chest. He doesn’t know what he ever did to deserve Neil Josten in his life.

But Neil sounds so sad. It’s so unlike him, so unlike every single emotion Andrew’s ever heard from him. He’s been angry, so furious he sounded seconds away putting his fist through a wall, and scared, terrified of the monsters haunting his dreams, and happy, apathetic, disbelieving—but Andrew has never heard him sad, so close to tears.

Andrew hates it immediately. He has to be the reason behind it, even if Neil denies it until he’s blue in the face because he doesn’t know what else has happened in the past couple of weeks to evoke this response.

Is he sad because he’s disappointed that Andrew isn’t any different from everyone else? He should be angry, betrayed—not like he’s grieving something. He didn’t even cry when he told Andrew about what happened to his mother, and as much as Andrew hates that woman, he knows Neil loved her—still loves her, really—so why does Andrew deserve that privilege?

All it does is make Andrew confused.

The sudden craving for a cigarette claws at him deep, so he sucks down as much of his smoothie as he can get in one go.

He wants to push, wants to drag Neil’s feelings out into the open so they can pick through them together—but he holds back. There’s that thought in the back of his head telling him that Neil is close to vanishing on him now, back to behaving the same as he did when they first met. A veritable rabbit, a skittish little thing looking for the nearest escape route from the big bad predator in its midst. Andrew was that at one point, as much as an eleven year old can be, but now he’d rather feed his own hand into a blender than raise it against Neil.

But Neil—he continues on like nothing happened, like he hadn’t just let Andrew in on the . “There’s just something I have to wrap my head around. It’s more difficult than I thought it would be. I’ll be fine, soon, just…I need some time.”

Andrew’s about to ask what Neil could possibly be talking about when Neil’s phone chimes, that obnoxious sound that means his uncle is doing the rare action of texting him.

Neil pulls his phone, frowns at what he reads and sighs. He turns the screen so Andrew can read it.

old british man: Want to tell me why I got a call from your school that you didn’t show up for your morning classes?

While he replies, likely something a little bit snarky in the way only he can get away with when it comes to Stuart, Andrew checks his own phone. He keeps it on silent most of the day so he constantly misses notifications.

Sure enough, Bee texted and asked if he was sick or skipping and to let her know either way. Sometimes, Andrew thinks he doesn’t deserve her as his mom but then he remembers the several years he was in foster care, and is infinitely grateful she is either way.

“We should probably get back,” Neil says, shoving his phone in his pocket again.

As much as Andrew disagrees, he knows the little moment they were having is over. Neil is closing up again, pushing Andrew out.

It stings, but he’ll get to the bottom of this sooner or later. For now, he’ll grant Neil the leeway to try and work it out on his own, but he won’t let it go on for much longer. Even if it actually is his fault, he’ll apologize and repent just so he never hears Neil sound like that ever again.

When he gets home from school that day, Bee is waiting for him at the kitchen island, a cup of something steaming, likely tea since it’s that nebulous time between the afternoon and evening, in her hands.

She smiles when she sees him and gestures for him to join her. He drops his bags by the door, toes his boots off and leaves them wherever they land, and does as she asks. He’d do a lot for her, really.

“I’m guessing you were with Neil this morning,” is how she greets him, sliding off her own stool to gather another mug and the instant hot chocolate powder. “How is he? I haven’t seen him around for the past couple of weeks.”

He hears the implicit question, the does he need intervention? that Bee won’t voice out loud. She’s never been a fan of how Stuart chooses to parent his nephew, and has quietly complained to Andrew on several occasions with the urgent following request when she does to tell Neil that he’s always welcome to stay with the Minyard-Dobsons whenever he wants. Her fervent support is what led Andrew to handing over the spare key to their house in the first place.

Andrew holds off on answering until he’s had a long sip of his hot chocolate, made with water instead of milk because today isn’t really a bad day but he still needs the comfort.

“He said he’s processing something,” Andrew shrugs. They hadn’t talked the rest of the school day and the smile Neil flashed at him as he climbed out of the car when Neil dropped him off looked pained, more like a grimace than anything else. Andrew sighs at the reminder. “I think I fucked something up.”

Bee pulls her stool closer and places a hand on his upper back. Once upon a time, he’d tense at the touch but he knows his mom would never hurt him, and really, she’s used it as a way to comfort him so many times now, his body automatically relaxes.

Andrew tells her pretty much everything, and what he doesn’t is the stuff she already knows. She listens patiently, only interrupting when she has a clarifying question but she lets Andrew stumble over his explanation and his stilted description of his feelings.

At one point, she turns away and shoves her face in her elbow to snort, or at least do something suspiciously close to it, but Andrew doesn’t call her out. She could just be sneezing for all he knows.

“Well, honey,” Bee says once he finishes, but she doesn’t sound reproachful like Andrew thought she would. She almost sounds—amused? Andrew frowns. She shouldn’t sound amused, she should be sternly telling Andrew off for upsetting his friend in such a grievous manner. “I think you and Neil need to have a very honest conversation about all of this. I know it seems scary but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised about Neil’s perspective on things.”

Andrew downs the rest of his hot chocolate. He doesn’t know why he spilled all of this to Bee—well, no. That’s a lie. She’s usually so full of wise advice and helpful suggestions and Andrew is usually willing to hear her out but today, Andrew doesn’t see how he can come out of this feeling pleasant about any of it.

He almost kissed Neil and Neil has been avoiding him ever since. There’s a direct correlation between the two points, and he doesn’t see any other way to interpret it. He made Neil uncomfortable, and now Neil has to rearrange how he sees Andrew, and Andrew will just have to deal with his best friend wanting less and less to do with him.

“Thanks for the talk, mom,” he says, abandoning his mug and stool. He hears Bee call his name, but he doesn’t stop until he’s locked away in his bedroom.

Chapter Text

When Neil picks them up on Friday morning, he at least looks like he got a full night of sleep. He seems nervous, twitchy, but that’s not atypical after a bad bout of insomnia. It’s like his body stores up all the anxiety that should’ve plagued him overnight and floods his system once he’s conscious again.

The smile Neil gives him when he gets in the car is small and hesitant but it’s there. Andrew feels it like a jolt of electricity through his whole body. He hadn’t even realized how long it’d been since Neil smiled at him. There have been expressions that could pass for one if Andrew didn’t know his best friend so well but not a real, actual smile.

Andrew tries his best to return it, but he’s never been big on smiling, especially not where other people (Aaron) can see him. It seems to do the trick though, because Neil’s shoulders drop a little and he grips the steering wheel with much less intensity than he did yesterday.

The drive is still tensely quiet and Andrew is still stewing in his own guilt about being the cause of it but the feelings are finally less important, less urgent.

Homecoming is everywhere—posters, streamers, cheerleaders and football players in uniform. It’s worse than when prom comes around in the spring, orange and white to match the colors of the local university are everywhere, searing Andrew’s eyes.

He valiantly ignores all of it and checks out every single time someone brings up tonight’s game or dance. In all of his years of high school, Andrew has not once gone to a school dance and homecoming his senior year won’t change that.

What he does care about are his long-standing plans with Neil. They started their annual homecoming night sleepover freshman year, when they cared even less than they do now about their peers, and it stuck just like everything else they do together. Not that they ever needed an excuse to order pizza, watch as many action movies as they possibly can before passing out, and curl up together in Andrew’s bed, but it felt nice to make it a thing.

This year is their last go at it, since it’s their senior year, yet Andrew is unsure if they’ll actually manage it.

He’ll be fine if Neil decides to skip it this year, he’s sure, but he won’t feel good. He’s already been toeing the edge of losing Neil completely with his inability to keep his feelings to himself and he has no idea what skipping this one day might do to his crumbling psyche.

Maybe buy out the fancy Target’s entire display of ice cream and make himself sick on it most likely.

Andrew shuts down that line of thinking quickly. He doesn’t need to work himself up if there’s nothing he needs to be worked up about.

By the time lunch rolls around, Andrew is ready to call it quits. The homecoming shit is relentless and Kevin, who Andrew is unfortunately saddled with through most of the morning, has taken it upon himself to use Andrew as his anxiety sounding board even though Andrew has told him several times over that high school football is stupid and not worth the amount of energy the man puts into it.

Basically he wants to throw the whole day away, start again fresh tomorrow, maybe the day after that. He wants to be at home already, in the comfiest pair of pajama pants he owns with Neil at his side and popcorn in his lap and one of the Fast and Furious movies playing at an obnoxious level because it’ll just be the two of them at home, since Bee likes to make herself scarce when they have planned sleepovers and Aaron has a girlfriend who likes school functions.

But he can’t do any of that on the account of it barely being noon.

Kevin ambushes Andrew outside of his classroom, since his own is right next door and makes himself Andrew’s walking buddy on the way to the cafeteria. Andrew tunes him out the second he mentions the game and then nearly walks into his back when Kevin suddenly stops short.

He sends the man a withering look but it fails its intended purpose. Kevin is staring at their lunch table, where everyone but the two of them are already sitting and eating. That, of course, includes Neil, who is picking at the homemade burrito bowl in front of him and barely engaging with anyone else. He’s still between Dan and Matt, vacating his usual spot at Andrew’s side. The sight continues to hurt whenever Andrew gives it any thought, so he refocuses on Kevin.

“What?”

It comes out just as harsh as Andrew intends it to, but Kevin is somehow immune to his caustic behavior now. He frowns and then pushes Andrew back out of the cafeteria, leading him further down the hall and away from most other students.

“What is going on between you and Neil?” Kevin asks once they’re far enough, as if it’s any of his business. Andrew stares him down but Kevin doesn’t take it for the warning that it is, reaffirming Andrew’s belief that Kevin really is stupid under all that arrogance. “If you think none of us have noticed how he’s been avoiding you for the last couple of weeks, you’re an idiot. What did you do?”

Andrew rolls his eyes. He is not talking about his years-long crush on his best friend and how it’s literally ruining his life now with Kevin Day of all people. “This is not happening.”

Kevin makes an affronted noise and steps in Andrew’s way when he goes to leave. “Yes, it is. Neil looks miserable, so whatever happened, you need to fix it. He’s your best friend.”

He hates how much Kevin’s simple declaration makes his body sing and how much his shitty behavior toward Neil weighs on his heart. But he won’t let Kevin see any of that, so Andrew flips him off and walks back to the cafeteria.

Neil’s nerves are palpable from the second Andrew gets in his car after school and it does nothing to settle Andrew’s anxieties from earlier. There is a very high chance Neil will just be dropping Andrew off at home and returning to his big, empty house to spend what should be their night all alone.

Andrew sits in that feeling for the entire drive, dreading with each turn bringing him closer that this is it, and he really has forever fucked their relationship up.

But when Neil pulls in front of Andrew’s house, he turns his car off. The nervousness hasn’t gone away by any means, but Andrew won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. He pretends like this doesn’t bring him the immense amount of relief that it does and leads Neil inside.

From there, they make quick work of their sleepover snacks—Neil makes several bags of popcorn while Andrew calls in their pizza order and sneaks two of his mom’s beers from the back of the fridge.

Andrew puts on Fast Five, because that’s where they left off at their last proper sleepover, just before the start of the school year, and drops on to the couch next to Neil, barely a couple inches separating them.

However, Neil never gets closer. Usually, he’s eager to drape himself all over Andrew, take up all of the space Andrew gives him, and sit on him or hold him or just sit shoulder-to-shoulder with him. But tonight, Neil adheres to those few inches like they’re stone. Andrew doesn’t know how to name what’s feeling when he realizes but he doesn’t like it.

The feeling festers throughout the next two movies. He can’t tell if it’s Neil enforcing a boundary or if it’s Neil misreading Andrew’s cues but Andrew doesn’t push, either. If he weren’t so out of his depth with Neil lately, he’d throw an arm around his best friend’s shoulders and drag him over without a second thought but—well. Andrew’s pushed enough of Neil’s boundaries lately, hasn’t he?

When Furious 7 ends, Andrew silently jealous of all their fast cars, it’s already midnight. The first time they’d been allowed a fully unsupervised sleepover, Bee had made Andrew agree to a 12:30 bedtime, even though he was fourteen and bedtimes were stupid. They’ve never gone back to renegotiate the deal, so Andrew calls it quits.

The clean up is quick. Andrew can tell Neil is tired, still dragging from the recent bit of insomnia so he sends Neil up to shower and get dressed for bed while he finishes up. Neil gives him a weird look but he’s gone before Andrew can call him out on it.

Neil is standing in the middle of Andrew’s room when he finally gets up there. He’s wearing one of Andrew’s shirts, a concert tee from a band Andrew had been obsessed with in middle school but barely listened to nowadays, and a pair of his own flannel sleep shorts stashed in one of Andrew’s dresser drawers. He looks—awkward.

He keeps looking out of place while Andrew changes into his own pajamas, just a pair of too-long black and white striped cotton pants. Andrew feels Neil’s eyes on him the entire time but when he turns around to crawl into bed, Neil is looking anywhere but.

Neil hesitates before he climbs in, too. He fidgets with the hem of his shirt before he gestures at the bed and asks, “Can I?”

All Andrew does is flip over a corner of the comforter as his answer, which Neil thankfully understands.

His weight in Andrew’s bed is a known thing, now. It’s more comfortable than Andrew ever thought himself capable of feeling, and sometimes he even yearns for it, wants—needs—Neil by his side as he attempts to sleep. It’s a stupid urge, one only made worse by his feelings for Neil, but it’s there nonetheless.

Andrew tenses, prepared for the full weight of Neil’s body to flop over onto his, but it never comes. Neil never turns away from where he’s curled at the very edge of the mattress, looking tight and uncomfortable.

Something inside Andrew aches at the sight. He spent so long trying to get Neil to take up the space he deserves, and to realize that what he deserves is so much more than what he thinks it is. To see him revert back to trying to become as small as possible and know it’s because he fucked up, burns. The guilt will eat Andrew alive if he lets it.

But because he knows Neil would hate it more if Andrew lashed himself, he locks that feeling up and buries it deep, deep, deep inside himself. Andrew’s self-hate does neither of them any good, even if it feels like the only option.

Instead, because he knows how tactile Neil is, he asks, “Do you want me to hold you?”

Neil’s body instantly relaxes, even before Neil tells him yes. Andrew rolls on to his side so he can plaster himself to Neil’s back, throwing one arm over his waist to hold him close.

This feels correct. It’s like every single planet and star aligns together in that moment, so that Andrew could hold the boy of his dreams close for one night. Even if things change, even if Neil decides that Andrew’s feelings are too much and he really can’t be Andrew’s friend, at least Andrew can look back on this and remember how good it feels to hold Neil.

The longer they stay like that, the more Neil relaxes. Andrew thinks he might even be able to fall asleep like this despite not really being tired.

“Feel better?” Andrew whispers.

Neil shivers in his arms but before Andrew offers to get him another blanket, he takes Andrew’s hand from where it's resting on the mattress and pulls it up to his chest, cradling it like a soft toy. “Better.”

Andrew lets himself relax, too. It’s such a simple thing to hold Neil, but it feels so big. He would be content with just this for the rest of his life. He doesn’t need Neil to love him back like how Andrew loves him because just knowing that Andrew is important in his life is enough.

He digs his nose into the soft curls at the back of Neil’s neck. He smells like Andrew’s shampoo and body wash and something so inherently Neil it can’t be confused for anything else.

Not for the first time, Andrew thinks about how easy it would be to press a kiss into Neil’s hair. He won’t, not when their relationship is so strained, but holding himself back feels like the hardest thing he can do right now.

He doesn’t realize how tense his body is until Neil tenses up, too. Andrew tightens his hold in an attempt to recapture the ease they had but it doesn’t work, especially not when Neil releases Andrew’s hand.

“I’m good now,” Neil says. He rushes them out in a way that confuses Andrew but he takes his arms back and rolls over to his side again. He feels the loss of Neil’s body against his keenly.

He should probably say something. He doesn’t know if Neil took him tensing as a rejection or him being uncomfortable with his closeness but either way, Neil is tense now, too, and it’s all Andrew’s fault.

He opens his mouth even if the words aren’t there yet, but Neil beats him to the punch. He whispers, “Goodnight, Andrew,” and, well. That’s that.

Andrew pulls his comforter up to his chin, pretends that his heart isn’t thumping wildly in his chest, and whispers, “Goodnight, Neil.”

Chapter Text

Andrew can’t sleep.

Neil’s weight in his bed after the past couple of weeks is unsettling, to say the least. Having Neil close is the only thing his body has been aching for but even though he has it, Neil remains just out of reach.

He wants to sit up and make Neil spill his guts, maybe force another long awaited round of the truth game they abandoned back in eighth grade, if that’s what it takes for Neil to stop staying silent. There’s something festering between them, and Andrew wants to find it and dig it out so they can go back to how they used to be.

All Andrew can think of is Neil’s behavior all night—the past two weeks, really.

Neil’s been strange. He wants to be close but he maintains his distance. He won’t avoid Andrew completely but he won’t let Andrew in, where he used to be the only one allowed.

The rest of it—Andrew doesn’t know how to describe it. If he had to put a name on it, he’d say Neil is longing, but it sounds stupid the second Andrew thinks it. Neil isn’t longing, least of all for Andrew. Maybe for their friendship, which Andrew has probably ruined at this point, but longing feels like too profound a word for it. They’re best friends, sure, but longing is an emotion reserved for lovers.

Andrew is not Neil’s lover, no matter how much he wishes he were.

Neil isn’t sleeping either. Andrew is well-read in all things Neil and he knows what Neil sounds like when he’s asleep and it isn’t this. He hasn’t moved since he told Andrew he was fine and he hasn’t relaxed an inch, either.

He needs to do something.

After Neil’s last stretch of sleepless nights, Andrew is hesitant to contribute to it but it doesn’t seem like Neil will be sleeping either way. He pulls the comforter back, catching Neil’s attention. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at Andrew, but it’s enough.

“We’re going for a drive,” Andrew says.

He doesn’t wait for Neil to respond and climbs out of bed. He grabs the hoodie on the back of his desk chair and one from the top of his dresser drawers before he leaves. Neil follows him out shortly after, grabbing one of the hoodies for himself.

The drive isn’t nearly as peaceful as Andrew wants it to be, the tension between them thick and pervasive. Andrew can only think of one thing that could help.

He spots the Walmart and decides to pull into the mostly empty parking lot.

Andrew’s going to apologize. He knows that Neil believes Andrew didn’t do anything wrong but it is so obvious to Andrew that he’s made Neil uncomfortable with his feelings, that by reading into signals that aren’t there, he’s destroyed Neil’s sense of safety and betrayed his trust.

The only thing he can do is apologize and then let Neil decide what he wants to do with it. He can only hope Neil still wants to be his friend after they stop pretending that Andrew isn’t in love with him.

Neil follows him out of the car and onto the hood quicker than Andrew expects. Determination settles in his features in a way that Andrew has always adored, but he brushes that thought aside as soon as it arrives. Now is not the time to be admiring Neil.

He takes to studying Neil’s face, instead.

Neil looks tired, exhausted beyond his paltry seventeen years and the terrible lighting of the parking lot washes him out, making him seem sickly. Unfortunately, Andrew still thinks he looks beautiful.

That’s completely unhelpful. Andrew should be considering his words, how he wants to explain himself to Neil in a way that won’t immediately cause him to force Andrew out of his life completely, but nothing comes to mind. He’s stuck looking at Neil’s pretty face and the way the light catches on his eyelashes and how his mouth purses as he thinks.

Fuck it. He can figure it out as he’s talking. Neil has always been notoriously patient with Andrew, this should be no different.

Just as Andrew gathers up enough courage to open his mouth, Neil beats him to it.

“I’m sorry.”

Andrew’s entire being freezes. It’s not at all what he expected to happen tonight. It is, in fact, the exact opposite. As far as Andrew is aware, Neil has nothing to apologize for.

“I know you’re probably going to tell me to shut up but I just—I need to say it. I can’t help how I feel about you but I’ve been making you really uncomfortable so I’m sorry. I’ll back off and leave you alone until I can get it under control.” Neil looks so upset that Andrew wants to reach out but he is so tightly wound that any movement, sudden or not, might just send him running. He settles for continuing to stare at Neil’s face, pained as it is. “I thought I could do it and still be around you but I don’t think I can and it’s unfair of me to try and hold on to you when you obviously want your distance so—I’ll go. You won’t have to see me much after tonight, I promise.”

Neil shoves his hands between his thighs when he stops talking and keeps his gaze trained on the asphalt in front of them.

Andrew thinks he knows what Neil is referencing but—that can’t be it. Neil is his best friend. If he had even the slightest amount of interest in anything sexual or romantic, Andrew would know about it.

Wouldn’t he?

Maybe Andrew doesn’t know Neil as well as he thought he did. His stomach sinks at the possibility. But there’s only one way to know for sure.

“What are you talking about?”

Neil’s face scrunches up in confusion, the most amount of emotion he’s allowed Andrew to see in the last two weeks. It sets Andrew’s nerves alight, buzzing under his skin.

“You found out that I’ve been in love with you for years,” Neil whispers, so quietly Andrew almost doesn’t hear it over the car starting across the parking lot. “I almost kissed you at Allison’s party, which is how you found out. I obviously crossed a line and that’s why you left early.”

Everything halts for a second. Never in Andrew’s wildest dreams did he ever think that Neil would reciprocate his feelings. Even when he thought Neil was flirting with him or staring at his mouth, he always wrote it off as him reading too much into it. Neil only wanted to be his friend, strictly platonic.

But—he was wrong, wasn’t he? Andrew thinks he’s gotten good at recognizing what people what from him with a single look but that can't be true when he misread Neil this badly.

The weight he’s been carrying since Allison’s party falls away. He feels lighter than ever before, even better than he did last night with Neil in his arms. If he thinks about it, he could call this happiness.

“We’ve been—weird ever since,” Neil continues, ignorant of what he’s doing to Andrew. “And I know it’s because of me. I would never make you do anything you didn’t want to do but it’s hard to accept that you don’t want me like that.”

Oh, how wrong he is. He has never once been so happy to be proven wrong. Andrew wants to reach out, wants to drag Neil into a kiss or a hug or anything to interrupt this train of thought, but he stops himself just before he does.

“Neil.”

Andrew hates how soft his voice is, how much all the love and affection he feels toward the idiot that is his best friend bleeds through unrepentant.

But Neil doesn’t seem to notice any of it. “I’m sorry, Andrew. I just hope we can still be friends after this but I get it if you don’t want anything to do with me—”

“Neil.” Andrew throws caution to the wind and grabs Neil’s chin, forcing Neil to look at him. There’s so much guilt and sorrow in his beautiful blue eyes but all Andrew wants to do is smile. He can’t fucking believe they’re both so stupid. “Yes or no?”

“Andrew—“

“There’s only two answers, Abram, and my name is not one of them,” Andrew says, punctuating his words with a small shake of Neil’s head. “You know how much I hate repeating myself, so I’m only asking one more time. Yes or no?”

Neil frowns and Andrew can’t help the little flicker of his attention toward his lips. The small gesture must click in Neil’s head because all the anguish and confusion drops from his face in an instant, his lips parting around a soft exhale.

“Yes, Andrew.”

Andrew moves in to kiss him before he even finishes speaking. He’s wasted so much time feeling sorry for himself and ignoring every signal Neil’s sent him for years, he refuses to take any longer.

The first thing he thinks is that Neil’s lips are soft.

The second, is that he wants to do this all the time.

Andrew slides his hand to the back of Neil’s head, his fingers tangling in the soft curls. He uses his grip to angle Neil into deepening the kiss, which Neil takes to with a hunger that shouldn’t surprise Andrew, but does.

Kissing Neil is far too easy for the amount of time Andrew’s been denying himself but he won’t look at it any closer. He deserves something good for the amount of time he’s been quietly angsting over being in love with his best friend.

And this is the simple part, giving in to his desires. He can tell, with the fervor—the eagerness, the hunger—behind Neil’s movements, it's the same for him too.

Eventually, Andrew has to pull away so he can breathe, but not without leaving brief kisses at the corner of Neil’s mouth.

And Neil—he looks ruined already. His eyes are glazed over and his cheeks flushed and his hair a mess. It makes Andrew wonder what he’d look like naked in the middle of Andrew’s sheets. He comes away thinking Neil would look far too good to linger on and stops for his own sanity.

“Does this mean we’re still friends?” Neil asks. He touches his lips absentmindedly, a wondrous expression on his face.

Andrew can’t believe Neil is still so stupid—but he really shouldn’t expect any different. He grabs Neil’s other hand and entwines their fingers.

“We can be,” he says. Neil pouts. Andrew doesn’t think Neil even knows what kind of face he’s making, which makes how cute he is all the more annoying. “But we can also be boyfriends, if that’s what you’d prefer.”

The way Neil lights up is sickening, but Andrew won’t lie and say he doesn’t like it. Being able to affect Neil, being able to make him happy and make him smile is all he ever wants. Everything else is just a bonus.

“Yeah,” Neil breathes. He cups Andrew’s face and pulls him in for another kiss, this time slow, like he’s savoring the feeling of Andrew’s lips on his. When he pulls away again, he’s smiling. It’s small but precious. “Boyfriends.”