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It’s been a week of recovery for Andrew, who has a broken collarbone and a 5-game suspension. His arms were stuck in a figure-eight sling for the past week after his surgery. Neil was trying his best to rest as well, but he was getting restless with staying in one place at the time. Neil had the TV on, watching an old Trojans game that Kevin had. Andrew's head was on top of Neil's thigh with his eyes closed.
Neil had noticed in the past days that Andrew's eyes were darker and his scuffing was growing from the lack of being able to shave his face. Neil always had a hard time focusing on a game when Andrew was near.
Andrew's breathing was relaxed, with his chest rising and falling over time, like he was on the verge of sleep. Neil kept looking down to check to see if he finally ever gave up and just fell asleep, but every time he looked, Andrew looked still on the verge, never actually getting any rest.
“Staring,” Andrew complained, eyes still shut. Neil stopped being slick about actually staring at Andrew a long time ago.
Neil smiled as he looked down at Andrew in his lap. “I can stop if you want.” Andrew's face was still apathetic, but his eyebrow twitched. Neil knows Andrew tells even if he thinks he hides them well.
Andrew laid his head back further onto Neil's lap. His blond hair and the light coming through the window gave him a halo effect surrounding Neil. With his eyes still shut, Andrew responds.
“I didn’t say that.” Andrew deadpanned with furrowed brows.
Neil, still smiling, pokes Andrew lightly in his furrowed brows in the middle of his face, soothing out the wrinkles. Andrew relaxes his face with that. Neil's attention was totally on Andrew, now forgetting about the game. His eyelashes looked longer when his eye was shut. His pale skin in comparison to the dark circles under his eyes.
With Andrew’s eye shut, his freckles also made an appearance. Neil uses his finger to lightly connect each one to another. It is difficult to notice all the freckles when Andrew is far away, but with Neil being this close, he is able to see them all. On the bridge of his nose, on his cheeks, on his chin, on his forehead, on the tips of his ears, and some on his neck as well. At this point in their relationship, casual touches are a yes until no, knowing that each day is different. Today was a good day for Andrew, so Neil was relaxed drawing lines into Andrew's skin.
Neil then noticed Andrew's hands on top of his stomach. The black paint on his nails was chipped to the point it looked like splodges of polka dots on his nails. Andrew paints them every other week. He usually hides the drug store nail polish in his dresser. He told Neil before that people just assumed his nails were black all the time, and that he was born that way. It's been a long time since Neil saw Andrew's bare nails. Neil's hand traces down to Andrew's hand to get a better look. This gets Andrew's attention, finally opening his eyes. He looks down at his and Neil's hands on top of one another.
“You haven’t painted them,” Neil explains why he is touching and looking at Andrew's hand. Andrew looks up at Neil, and Neil sees his pupil dilate with the specks of brown and green in his eyes.
“I can’t.” Andrew looks back down to see both his hands with Neil's. Neil knows that Andrew Nails was last on his list of priorities, but it was a different sight to see them without. Neil pursed his lips, realizing Andrew won’t be able to paint them for a few weeks as his fracture is healing.
At this, Neil takes Andrew’s hand in his, just tracing designs in his hand, looking at the scar across his knuckle, the freckle by his thumb, and the lines in his palm.
“You gonna read my fortune?” Andrew breaks the silence between them, deflecting what is actually going on in Neil’s brain. At this, Neil finally comes to his conclusion.
“Can I paint them for you?” Neil looks down at Andrew's face to see his eyes narrow onto his face. He took his time to consider the question and to agree or disagree. “Do you even know how?” Andrew responds.
Neil's scars pull from the smile on his face. “Allison taught me.” Andrew raises an eyebrow at this admission. Still taking his time to answer, he flexes his wrist to look at his nails. Andrew has done a lot for Neil, especially over the last year at Palmetto. Andrew was the one who gave him a key and told him to stop running from his past and stay. Neil wants to do the same thing Andrew did for him. If it's something as small as painting Andrew's nails, Neil is willing to do it all the time.
“Okay,” Andrew replies while Neil's smile widens, of course, Andrew notices. “Junkie. The nail polish is in the top drawer.” Andrew sits up on Neil's lap, sitting cross-legged on the couch. Neil gets up from his spot to search for the nail polish and a towel from the bathroom, just in case. Just as he was about to leave, he spotted his own jar of lotion, which Allison gave him to help soothe his scars and keep his skin from being too dry. Neil took the lotion as well.
The dorm was empty besides the two of them, so Neil wasn’t worried about Kevin’s complaints. Coming back from their bathroom, Neil finds Andrew sitting opposite the way he left, facing Neil on the couch. Neil has also noticed that Andrew had his arm bands on and what looks to be an old band t-shirt. Neil goes to the couch, picks up the remote to turn off the TV, and sits across.
As Neil sets up, Andrew notices the towel and the lotion Neil brought in. “I don’t need that.” Andrew points at the lotion. At this, Neil shrugs. “It feels nice,” Neil explained. “It can also help your hands from being too dry. But if you don’t want it, then that's okay.” Andrew scowled at Neil's response while picking at one of his threads in his arm band. “It helps when my scars get irritated and itch. It might help yours too.” Neil looks at Andrew's arm bands.
Andrew looks down at his arm bands as if he can see right through them, seeing the soft line of scars on his wrist. Neil has seen them, of course, but he knows how difficult it can be to bring down cover. Especially after he got his own armbands, he didn’t take them off for so long that Andrew started complaining about washing them or getting another pair.
After Neil is all set up, he points to Andrew's armbands. “Taking these off, yes or no?” Andrew looks at Neil's face after a minute or so, he comes to a decision. “Yes.” Andrew's response is like an exhale. While Andrew slips his armbands off, he places them in the crevice of the couch so they're still in view. Neil, with the towel on his lap, takes Andrew's right hand and gets started on painting his pinky.
The black nail polish shines like varnish on Andrew's nail bed. Neil has only done nails a handful of times, but spending time with Allison, Dan, and Renee has helped improve his skill. Neil would start painting his own nails if he didn’t pick at them all the time when they were painted. After all his anxious streaks, he found painting his nail, then tearing off the paint the same day, not worth the hassle.
As Neil got to work, concentrating on painting, he came up with a question, wandering around in his head. Of course, if the questions weren’t exy related, they were Andrew related. For the whole two years that Neil knew Andrew, he had always seen his nails painted, even when he blew his breath away by hitting him in the stomach with an exy racket. The black nails stuck out as he held on to the stick.
“When did you start painting them?” Neil asked quietly, still working on the task at hand. Andrew doesn’t talk much about his childhood for good reason, but especially after Aaron's trial, so Neil has not asked this question before. After finishing Andrew's right fingernails, moving onto his left hand, does Andrew speak?
“In Juvie, they gave me another thing to do,” Andrew responds, looking drowsy. Neil looks at his face with another question on the tip of his tongue. “Why black?”
“Didn’t actually use nail polish. There were markers; the only ones not dried out were black.” Andrew replies. “I used to steal them from the craft room.” Neil nods in response.
At this, Neil imagines Andrew at 17 in juvie coloring his nails with markers and wonders if he should buy more colors of nail polish. At this, he let out a snicker of a laugh. “What?” Andrew said in defense. “Nothing,” Neil finishes painting Andrew's last fingernail. “I think we should get you more colors.” Both of Andrew's hands are in Neil’s lap on top of a towel, having them air dry. “Nothing too bright, of course. Maybe grey or a dark red.” Neil took one of Andrew's hands and blew light air to dry the black polish.
After Andrew's nails dried, Neil picked up the lotion and placed a teaspoon in his hand. “Still a yes?” Holding his other hand out for Andrew's bare arm. Andrew put his arm out into Neil's space. “Yes,” Andrew responds. At the green light of Andrew's decision, Neil starts with his hands. Underneath his fingers, he feels Andrew's hand muscle tense. “Okay?” Neil removed his hands from Andrew to avoid pushing his boundaries.
“Yes, just cold,” Andrew responds, and his ears begin to turn red, which Neil notices but will never mention. Neil continues slowly massaging the tension out of Andrew's hand following the scar across his knuckles and focusing on the cuticle of his nails. Andrew's breathing slows as Neil continues getting used to the sensation of someone else's hands on his own.
Andrew has asked in the past where Neil gained each of his scars and injuries. Slowly tracing his body of scars, bullet wounds, burns, just mesmerizing them. And yet Neil has not done the same to Andrew. With this thought, Neil speaks up, “How did you get this, here?” Neil traces over the scar on Andrew’s knuckle
This had caught Andrew's attention as he looked down and into Neil's eyes as he responded. “The bar fight.” Neil continued smoothing lotion onto Andrew's skin and reached for his wrist in both hands. Gently massaging the lotion into the skin beneath his fingers, the tension from Andrew's body is long gone, and he has gone lax in Neil's hand.
Neil takes this new vulnerability in stride, considering who he is with. He knows how important this is for Andrew, and letting his guard down even if it is just in front of Neil. Neil starts to notice Andrew closing his eyes once in a while, then shooting them open once again. “You're tired,” Neil said, stating the obvious.
Andrew, barely keeping his eyes open, nods to Neil's statement. At this, Neil takes his hand to the back of Andrew's neck.
“Lay on my shoulder, yes or no?”
“Okay.” Andrew falls forward head-first, onto Neil's shoulder, and breathes a heavy sigh. Neil's heart was pounding so much that he had to remember to slow his breathing down. As he puts lotion on Andrew's other arm, he kisses his neck, feeling his pulse underneath where he kissed. Andrew's breathing slowed to a point where Neil knew he was sleeping. The warmth of Andrew’s body on top of Neil caused Neil himself to get drowsy.
Not wanting to wake Andrew after Neil finished soothing the lotion on Andrew's arms, he decides to let him rest. Gently placing Andrew on the couch instead of his shoulder was a careful task. Andrew and he were both light sleepers, so he tried to avoid waking him up. This did not go as planned, as he was searching for a blanket, Andrew pulled on his shirt. “You can go back to sleep.” Neil smiled while Andrew's eyebrows furrowed further, and the next thing Neil knew, he was back on the couch. At the whiplash, he whirled and saw Andrew with a little smirk. Neil fell asleep with Andrew on the couch that night.