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Neil Josten is an observant person. He knows it comes from years of looking over his shoulder and trying to find the perfect hiding place and figuring out every weak point on someone in seconds. He knows that it would be paranoia if he was anyone else, but it’s not. He wishes he didn’t see everything he does, like when Aaron and Andrew switched that day at the aeroport or when Kevin’s having a bad grieving day, but he does and there’s nothing he can do about it. The point is, Neil notices everything.
Especially when no one else bothers to try.
1.
You’d think Nicky, the twins’ cousin and perhaps the most sociable of the Foxes (behind Matt), would know what makes his family tick after sharing a room with them for so long. He adopted the twins, stuck with them through hardships and (literal) trials, defends them to the upperclassmen, and yet he still doesn’t understand his own blood.
It goes like this.
Eden’s Twilight is buzzing with the voices of hundreds of patrons trying to make themselves heard over the too-loud music. Kevin is already drunk out of his mind, babbling on about Exy and whatever else it is that Kevin thinks about, and leaning on a visibly annoyed Aaron. Neil can’t see Nicky or Andrew, but he figures they’re off doing their usual Eden’s activities: drinking, dancing (not Andrew, though the image does make Neil snort), and smoking.
He tries to tune out the ridiculously loud bass and lets his eyes sweep over the crowd, finding exits but focusing on the smiles he sees on dancing faces instead. His soda sweats in his hand. Aaron grumbles something to Kevin, who honest-to-god whines and flops over, trapping the poor, poor twin in his shitty leather booth. Neil turns his smirk away.
He spots Nicky in the sea of heads, finally, but something is wrong. Even from the other side of the room, Neil can see the wide set of his eyes and the stiffness of his movements. No one seems to notice as he walks through the crowd with a smile plastered to his face. But it’s too forced, too fake, and Nicky keeps looking behind him. Neil is suddenly on edge—those exits are making themselves known with their red neons and their big bodies hiding guns.
“Remind me to never get Andrew mad again,” Nicky says when he’s close enough to the table to shout. Neil’s spiralling grinds to a halt when he realises Andrew’s the reason Nicky looks so spooked. It’s not an uncommon look people get after interacting with him, but it’s not one Neil understands.
“What happened?” Neil asks, if only to know why Andrew’s name is being spoken with such fear again. Nicky laughs nervously and throws another glance over his shoulder.
“Oh, y’know,” he starts, stealing Kevin’s untouched shot. Neil is getting impatient. He raises an eyebrow. “Some guy was harassing this girl and she kept pushing him away, but he wouldn’t let go. I told him to stop, he didn’t listen, and then Andrew came out of nowhere and put a knife to the guy’s throat. It was terrifying, Neil, like he was waiting for the occasion. I nearly pissed myself.”
Neil frowns. Nicky is clearly looking for some kind of backup, some kind of support in thinking that his cousin, his family, is just some kind of psycho waiting to find an excuse for violence. Kevin goes on some quiet rant about Andrew not being allowed to ruin their season with another prison-stay, and Aaron doesn’t come to his brother’s defense, but Neil was expecting that. He just wasn’t expecting Nicky to have such low opinions of Andrew.
“So you’re telling me,” he says, chewing on his words before someone gets hurt, “that Andrew, who just finished reliving his worst trauma—assault—to help prove his brother’s innocence in front of a room of strangers, saw an assault in progress and only jumped the guy because he was itching for violence?”
Nicky freezes with his shot glass halfway to his lips and Neil watches realisation dawn in his eyes. He doesn’t stop.
“It didn’t occur to you that Andrew might want to stop what happened to him from happening to someone else? Did you even see his knife touch skin?” Andrew has this habit of standing close enough that the blade looks like it’s seconds away from drawing blood, but there’s actually a few millimetres between knife and target. It’s a scare tactic Neil has gotten over months ago.
Aaron looks mildly regretful of his silence. Nicky’s looking at the floor with a shame Neil can’t be bothered to feel sympathetic about. Kevin is… well, Kevin’s now drinking Neil’s soda and not exactly of sound enough mind for Neil to be angry at him.
Andrew is the one person who’s done everything he possibly could to keep them safe and together, and they haven’t even tried to look past the drugged smile or the apathetic stare. Neil can’t believe them. Neil doesn’t want to be around them anymore.
He finds Andrew leaning against the Maserati, cigarette in one hand, thin knife in the other. He looks just as uninterested as always, but Neil sees the abyssal rage simmering in those hazel eyes. He sees it in the tremor that almost sends the blade tumbling to the ground. But Neil isn’t scared by a glare and the shine of metal under the street lamp. He leans beside Andrew and steals his cigarette. Andrew watches him bring it close to his face but never to his lips.
“I wanted to get away from Kevin and his drunken ramblings,” Neil explains, even if Andrew hasn’t asked a question. He knows it’s the wrong answer before it comes out in its entirety.
“Liar,” Andrew retorts. Neil huffs a laugh.
“Yeah,” he says simply, because it’s true, and Andrew hates liars. His eyes land on the pale hand hanging by his side and suddenly he’s filled with the need to touch. “Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
Neil wastes no time intertwining their fingers, satisfied when the antsy feeling under his skin dies down. “They don’t know you. It pisses me off.”
“One hundred and sixteen,” comes Andrew’s answer after a minute of silence, and the knot inside Neil’s chest loosens enough for him to laugh.
2.
Neil, if he absolutely had to choose, would accept Matt as his best friend. Despite his honestly ridiculous height and sometimes intimidating face, he’s one of the kindest people Neil’s ever met. He’s welcoming and understanding and way too gentle for his own good. He was one of the—if not the—first to make Neil feel somewhat safe with the Foxes. So he just can’t figure out why Matt is so okay with him, but so wary of Andrew, considering their similarities.
It goes like this.
The Foxes like to throw parties, despite complaints from the combined forces that are Kevin, Dan, Wymack, and Abby. It’s the only way they can invite the Vixens anywhere and feel slightly less pathetic about downing bottle upon bottle of bad alcohol. Allison throws one anyway.
Neil doesn’t particularly like parties, but he goes because Andrew goes, and Andrew goes because he doesn’t like leaving Aaron, Kevin, and Nicky alone somewhere he can’t see for too long. Aaron just wants to see Katelyn. Kevin doesn’t have a lift to the court. Nicky likes partying.
Neil spends the first hour glued to Andrew’s side, alternating between some bad cocktail Nicky probably made and a water bottle. He feels eyes on him, but the prickling in his neck is familiar at this point—that’s what happens when your face looks like you’ve gone ten rounds with a bear and lost every single one.
Matt comes to talk to him a few times, each time more drunk than the other, and Neil pretends not to notice how he deliberately stands out of reach of Andrew. It doesn’t bother Andrew. It never does.
When Andrew leaves to smoke, he tugs on Neil’s sleeve in question. Neil debates it, but ultimately refuses, choosing to stay and socialise, whatever that means. Andrew gives him a small nod and disappears behind the stairwell door.
Immediately the prickling feeling on his neck gets stronger.
He barely has to wait five minutes before a girl comes up to him and taps him on the shoulder (he tries desperately not to flinch). She’s pretty, blonde hair and blue eyes, just a little bit shorter than him. He recognises her from the Vixens, but he can’t remember her name. Julia? Jessica? Jenny? She smiles and steps a little closer, clearly unbothered by the scars that mar Neil’s face.
Matt’s eyes meet his from across the room and he hopes that the older boy will see just how uncomfortable he is. But Matt, because he is the way he is, mistakes Neil’s unease for nervousness and gives him a thumbs up with a wink. Neil sighs.
“It’s Neil, right?” the girl—Jennifer?—asks, batting her eyelashes up at him. He stares at her blankly.
“Yeah,” he says, then turns around to get himself another water bottle. She doesn’t seem to understand that Neil does not want to talk to her, but no one ever does (except Andrew—where is he?). He wants to leave and find the blonde man. The girl just keeps talking to him.
She talks and talks and talks while Neil gives her absolutely nothing to work with. Somehow, for some reason, she just keeps going.
“You think we could go out for coffee someday?” she asks, unrelenting, and Neil is hit with the sudden urge to run. He’s been trying to shake her off for five minutes with no luck and that feeling of suffocation is starting to creep in at the edges. It should be easy to just walk away, but he feels rooted to the spot under her hopeful glare. No matter what he says, she won’t back off. He really doesn't want to be mean, but he'll have to be if she doesn't back off.
Matt’s never really understood the whole Andrew and Neil thing—Neil is all too aware. But he knows about it and shouldn’t that be enough for him to understand that whoever this girl is has no right to keep pushing at the door Neil’s closed in her face?
“I’m already talking to someone,” he tells her in a last-ditch effort to get her to stop, but she barely blinks. It’s like she’s been programmed to refuse rejection. Matt is watching the interaction like a proud brother and Neil needs to get out of there.
He feels the glare before he sees it. And suddenly Neil can breathe because the girl—Jordan, he reluctantly learned—falters the second she notices Andrew walk in the room. Neil can guess what expression is on his face without even turning around and it makes the corners of his mouth twitch. It’s the one that makes crowds part, that makes people stop in the middle of their sentences (case in point when Jordan’s flirtation wobbles out of her mouth pathetically). Other than the one Andrew gives him when they’re alone in their room or on the roof, it’s Neil’s favourite look.
Finally, finally, Jordan scampers off to her friends, who are all glaring at Andrew like he’s the one who didn’t stop when asked to. Neil has three seconds to feel relieved before Matt makes his presence known, an annoyed frown resting on his face. Neil deliberately does not roll his eyes.
“What the hell, man?” Matt says, his upset directed at Andrew’s blank face. It hits a wall and bounces right back to Neil, who huffs and crosses his arm. “Do you even try not to scare anyone who’s not Neil away? Why’d you do that for?”
Andrew just stares at him. Neil can see behind it, the disappointment that Matt, of all people, wasn’t able to recognise when his best friend needed him. He tries not to smile.
“Matt, I’ve been trying to tell you for the past ten minutes that I’m not comfortable,” Neil says, trying not to take too much pleasure in the way Matt’s face falls. He watches him struggle with his words for a little bit before taking some pity in him. “I’ve told you multiple times that I don’t want people hitting on me at parties. Especially when they don’t listen to me. You’re supposed to help.”
Matt is speechless. He clearly didn’t expect Neil to come flying to Andrew’s defense so quickly, but then, what else had he been expecting? Andrew keeps watching the both of them apathetically.
“You’re quick to blame Andrew for what you think is wrong. Do you ever stop to think that maybe I want him to chase away the girl who’s been bothering me for a while? That I want him to be there to watch my back like he promised to?”
He leaves Matt there, mouth gaping like an idiot, guilt all over his face, and storms off to the staircase. It takes him no time to get to the roof and he takes a deep breath when fresh air greets him. He sits on the ledge like he always does, eyes on the night sky. The smell of cigarette smoke joins him not long after and something jittery in his chest calms down when Andrew finally lowers himself on the concrete.
“You talk too much,” he says in that even, low voice that still makes Neil’s stomach flip sometimes.
“Thank you,” Neil says in return, watching the cherry of the cigarette illuminate Andrew’s face with a soft, intimate glow. It makes his eyes look like molten lava and his hair like spun gold. Neil’s not the type to start waxing poetic, but he finds it’s not so bad if it’s about Andrew.
Andrew just waves him off. “Shut up,” he mumbles, and Neil is certain his ears are pink.
3.
Dan worries about Neil in a way he’s never been worried about before. She checks in on him during roadtrips, she gives him snacks and drinks when she knows he’s forgotten to eat, she’s always there after games to make sure he’s okay. It’s unusual, but he can’t say he dislikes it. But Neil has nightmares that she doesn’t know how to deal with. She tries anyway, with soft words and gentler hands, but she never manages to understand that that doesn’t always work for him.
Dan doesn’t like Andrew. That much is very clear (Neil does get it, considering the whole incident with Matt), but it also means she doesn’t like when Andrew is with Neil. It’s like she’s scared he’ll do something wrong. Neil doesn’t know how she hasn’t figured out that Andrew is exactly what he needs.
It goes like this.
Neil dreams of his father again. Baltimore was almost a year ago, but scars don’t fade that fast—if at all—so the sleepless nights are still an ever-present aspect in his life. They always start out the same: that game against the Bearcats, turning in the locker room to see Romero standing there, and a terrible, hopeless feeling when Andrew tilts his head in a question. Every single time, Neil wants to throw up. Every single time, he goes through the motions of being kidnapped, of leaving Andrew and the Foxes behind, of running away when really, he means to stay—then his father is chasing him through a narrow basement that shouldn’t be so confusing, with all its turns and doors and hallways and are the walls getting closer? Lola is there somewhere, laughing that goddamn laugh that still makes Neil’s ears ring, makes his old wounds ache. There’s a flash of metal in the corner of his eye (the axe?), a body on the ground he suspects might be him if he never escaped, that awful smell of burning flesh coming from his cheek (no, from his mother in a car engulfed in flames just out of his view), his father’s face staring right back at him. He hears his name, a low, smirking “Nathaniel” that makes his heart skip a beat and suddenly he can’t breathe, can’t think, oh, get him out of there—
“—eil! Neil, wake up!” he hears before he sits up straight with a gasp, his head pounding, his vision swimming. Someone is standing before him and he knows it’s a woman, knows it can’t be Lola because she’s dead, he saw her die, so why is she sneering down at him, calling him Neil instead of Nathaniel, where is he whereishewhereishe—
A big, warm hand clamps down on his neck, preventing him from jerking away. The touch is familiar, but he can’t see anything that isn’t blood. He hears something he thinks might be “stop”, though the words don’t register until that hand digs its nails into the skin at his nape, earning a hiss and a half-hearted swat.
“Stop,” the voice says again, even and unbothered, so, so familiar. Nathaniel—Neil?—can see again, shocked awake by the pain in his neck and the feeling of trust that voice evokes. “Breathe.”
He tries, feels his chest stutter, tries again with marginal success. The spots dancing in his vision start fading and he sees a head of blonde hair where Nathan’s horrid grin was. His stomach turns once when he thinks it might be Lola, but the hair is too short and messy.
“You are Neil Josten,” the voice says, pausing like it’s expecting Nathaniel—it’s Neil, isn’t it—to repeat. “Come on. You are Neil Josten.”
“I–I am Neil Josten,” Neil repeats, trying desperately to convince himself. “I am Neil Josten.” He feels something warm trickle down his neck, where the nails still dig in. He doesn’t feel the pain.
“Nathaniel died in Baltimore, Neil stayed. You are a Fox. You are safe,” it says again, and Neil finally knows who it belongs to.
“Nathaniel died in Bal–” he starts and falters, visions of bloody axes and bullets flying threatening to take him under again. The hand tightens its grip. “Nathaniel died in Baltimore, but you told Neil to stay. I am a Fox.”
“You are safe,” Andrew repeats more forcefully. Neil lets himself smile.
“I am safe.” He feels the sting Andrew’s nails left behind, sees the blood staining his fingers. He hates how far Andrew has to go to pull him out of the nightmare, but he’s so grateful that the blonde man doesn’t hesitate.
Dan, on the other hand, looks horrified. Neil doesn’t understand why and, for a second, he’s worried he hurt someone in all his thrashing. He finally takes the time to look around him and sees that they’re in the bus, going home after a 7-3 win against the Bearcats (so that’s why it came back so strong). Neil’s in the back as usual, but Dan is in the aisle, so he figures she heard him struggle and came back to investigate. Andrew was sitting behind him. Neil’s glad that isn’t the case anymore.
“Did you have to hurt him like that, Minyard?” Dan asks, sounding absolutely affronted. Neil is confused before he remembers the half-crescents now probably dotting his neck. “He was already suffering enough without you digging your nails into his skin.”
Andrew doesn’t look at her. He keeps one hand on Neil’s nape, eyes watching dutifully for any signs of panic. Neil just frowns at her words and watches Andrew realise exactly what is going to happen. He practically hears the sigh before it even happens.
“Neil, are you okay?” she continues, even if she knows the answer. He’s pretty sure his fist ended up in Andrew’s stomach along with a few other stray limbs, but she doesn’t ask if Andrew’s okay. It really shouldn’t bother him as much as it does. “Do you need water or anything?”
“I’m fine, Dan,” Neil says, pushing away the bottle she tries to hand over. He fusses over Andrew to make sure he didn’t hit too hard or too much. Dan looks at him with a frown. He tries very hard to keep the wave of words down.
One two three four five, eins zwei drei vier fünf, un deux trois quatre cinq, and all that jazz. He doesn’t make it much further, skin crawling under Dan’s disapproving glare.
“Dan, I appreciate your concern,” Neil says, a little snappier than he intended. He meets her eyes, trying not to smile at the exasperation in Andrew’s. “I really do. I would also really appreciate if you could stop looking at him like he’s the reason I have nightmares at all.”
She frowns deeper at his tone, then seems to debate whether to cross her arms. She doesn’t. “He hurt you, Neil.”
“He pulled me out.” Her upset turns into confusion, clear as day. “You help, okay? But sometimes nice words and comfort just isn’t enough. Whatever pretty thing you wanted to say to help me out of this one would’ve failed.” Andrew lets Neil go once he’s sure he’ll be okay alone and goes back to his seat. “I saw Lola instead of you, Dan. It was her voice coming out of your mouth.”
Dan balks at that, colour draining from her face in an instant. “But he didn’t have to—”
“Yes, he did,” Neil interrupts, reaching a hand to his neck to feel the blood already drying. It barely even hurts anymore. “Pain is the only thing I can register when I’m that far gone and even then, it takes a while. Just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean you can keep pretending like he does things for no reason. He never has.”
It takes a sheepish apology met with silence for Dan to go back to her seat and another few minutes for Neil to stop feeling watched by everybody on the bus.
He lifts himself over the edge of his seat when they roll onto the interstate, their last stretch of road before finally coming home. Andrew’s looking out the window, fingers twitching in anticipation for his next smoke. Neil watches the evening sun paint stripes of gold over his face, entranced and safe.
For once, Andrew doesn’t tell him to stop.
4.
Allison is strange, if you ask Neil. She should hate him, for the way he acted towards her at the beginning, for Seth, for reasons he can’t list right now but is certain are reasonable. Instead, she lets him in her dorm to chat and gossip and make him her guinea pig for new makeup products. She says it’s because Neil looks pretty with eyeliner, but he knows she likes proving just how good she is with a brush.
This friendship, to Neil, is weird. He treasures it with everything he has, of course. And Allison is surprisingly more okay with Andrew than Neil thought she would be, but she forgets just what he means to Neil when she inevitably drags him to her room for their weekly face paint/rant session.
It goes like this.
Neil’s been trying to see what Allison has done to his face for the last ten minutes, dodging her hands to reach a mirror. He’s unsuccessful, if her triumphant grin is anything to go by. All he knows is there’s something lining his eyes and she put some kind of strawberry-smelling thing on his lips. She’s giving him that look that’s both proud and interested, and he tries not to scowl. Another failure.
She relents after a while (read: after Neil sat on the ground, pouting like a child while she tried to continue her tests) and hands him a hand-held mirror. He glances at his reflection, ready for some horrid jumble of colours, and freezes. It’s… kind of nice, actually.
His eyes, glacier-blue, too reminiscent of his father’s, are neatly lined in black. The corners smudge into the faintest wing—it almost gives him a feminine edge, soft but eye-catching. There’s glitter too, subtle except for when the light catches. Allison has, evidently through use of black magic, managed to hide the smaller scars on his cheeks. His lips shine with a slight pink sheen and they look plump, not at all chapped like they always are. He doesn’t know how she did it, but he looks more like a boy than he has in a long time. The mirror doesn’t show Nathan Wesninski’s face in that moment; it’s so clearly Neil Josten staring back at him that something in his chest constricts with hope.
Allison is proud of herself. Neil can’t fault her for it.
“You look good, Josten,” she says, arms crossed behind him. For once since they started these, he just has to agree. He’s already trying not to think too hard about what Andrew would say if he walked in.
He doesn’t have to do any thinking as it turns out, because the door slams open to reveal a short blonde man, eyes roaming the room in search for something. They land on Neil, who still has a pink clip in his hair (to keep it out of the way), and pause. Allison is practically radiating with smugness.
Neil watches Andrew’s ears go from nearly white to beet red in three seconds flat. Those hazel eyes widen by just a fraction and still Neil knows just how much this new look is affecting him. He barely has time to smile before Andrew is turning on his heel and storming out without a word. The snort that escapes him is both because of the very flustered goalie and Allison’s indignant spluttering.
“What the hell?” she exclaims, poking her head into the hallway in hopes of catching Andrew mid-flight. “He comes in here, sees his… whatever the hell you are, all done up and doesn’t even compliment you? Is he stupid?”
Neil laughs, then laughs again when she whips her head towards him. “Neil, this is no laughing matter. You look hot as fuck and he doesn’t even bother saying a thing. That’s not okay.”
“Oh, he didn’t have to say anything,” Neil says, extremely satisfied with himself. She frowns in confusion.
“What does that even mean.”
“Did you not see how red he was?” Allison shakes her head and Neil has to remember how unfortunately blind his friends are. “Come on, Reynolds, his ears were bright pink and his eyes widened a bit.”
She stares at him, disbelief clear in the way she narrows her eyes when she realises he’s not messing with her.
“Right, sorry, my bad for not noticing the inch of skin usually covered by his hair,” she deadpans, so clearly over the whole Andrew/Neil secret conversation thing. “And his eyes stayed the exact same size. Don’t even lie to me.”
“They got a tiny bit bigger for like a second,” Neil replies, biting down the smirk threatening to break out. His lips taste like strawberry candy (he wonders if Andrew would like that).
“How do you even notice that? No, don’t answer, I know. You’re just obsessed with him.”
Neil raises an eyebrow at that. “Are you just now catching on?”
He leaves her room a few hours later, still wearing the makeup she so carefully applied. She usually takes it off with her remover after taking a picture of him and before he goes back to his own dorm, but this time he asked her if he could keep it on. She agreed vehemently and even placed the strawberry lip gloss in his palm with a sly grin on her face.
He’s not entirely sure he wants anyone else to see him like this. He doesn’t want to deal with the questions and the stares—all he wants is to find Andrew.
The roof isn’t empty when he pushes the door open. The sun is setting over the university, dousing everything in rich yellow light. Andrew is smoking and he barely reacts when Neil joins him. It only takes one glance for his ears to flush again; Neil smiles and looks out on the horizon.
“I look more like me with this,” he admits once Andrew’s cigarette is finished. He watches its trip down to the parking lot.
“You always look like you,” Andrew says, like its a fact. And maybe it is, but the mirror is cruel sometimes. Neil resists the urge to lean against his shoulder.
“But you like this.” Of course he does. He can’t even meet Neil’s eyes.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
5.
Aaron has been very slowly warming up to the idea of Neil becoming a permanent thing in his brother’s life. Emphasis on slowly. Neil doesn’t feel his glares quite as often as he used to and Kevin no longer has to be a messenger for anything that doesn’t happen on the court. Although Neil does miss Kevin’s exasperated, extremely reluctant message-passing, he does appreciate that Aaron might not hate him so much anymore. The sessions with Betsy probably help.
It’s this distance that has Neil very confused when Aaron rushes over to him after an appointment with anger and annoyed concern in his eyes, stopping only to catch his breath before word-vomiting about something Andrew said in the past hour.
It goes like this.
Neil and Kevin are sitting on the couch in their dorm, watching a replay of an old Trojan game—it’s mostly for Kevin, Neil’s there because his “strategy needs work”—when Aaron comes busting in like hell’s at his heels. He’s out of breath, but he straightens up when he sees Neil.
“I don’t like you, Josten,” he says, all righteously. Neil thinks it’s completely unnecessary to reiterate something so evident, but Aaron goes on nonetheless. “I hate that you’re dating my brother. I think you talk too much and too often, and I hate that your face is one of the first I see in the morning.”
“Thank you for the reminder,” Neil shoots back, barely looking away from the TV. Suddenly, Jeremy Knox’s rookie year is the most interesting thing he’s ever laid eyes on.
“Shut up,” Aaron snaps in a way that has Neil listening a bit more carefully. “Andrew made a deal with me before you ever showed up: he would be there as long as I don’t date. Then he went and broke his own promise, or so I thought, by messing around with you.” There’s the concern again, which is strange because Neil swears it’s directed at him. “I told Betsy about the broken deal. How is it fair that he gets you, but I can’t get Katelyn? And you know what he said to me?”
It doesn’t take long for Neil’s brain to catch up. He knows where this is going now, and he can’t stop the stupid grin that grows across his lips. It catches Aaron off guard, but doesn’t deter him.
“I can’t believe I’m coming to your defense right now,” he mumbles to himself, sounding almost disappointed. Neil’s grin widens. “He said, and I quote, ‘Neil and I are nothing’. Then he didn’t say a single word for the rest of the session. I mean, I know you’re weird about each other, but this is just too—why the hell are you smiling like that?”
“‘Cause I’m flattered you care so dearly about me, obviously,” Neil says, enjoying the confusion on Aaron’s face maybe a little too much. Maybe he enjoys the offense that momentarily flashes in his eyes over the mere suggestion that he might care for Neil’s mental well-being.
“Why are you okay with that?” Aaron asks, genuinely lost. “I thought you two were like bonded puppies or some shit.”
“I know what he actually means and it’s not as terrible as you’re making it seem.” Well, it does sound quite bad from the outside. But Neil and Andrew aren’t typical—they’re too fucked up to be. So they find other ways to be vulnerable that don’t make opening up feel like a death sentence. “Don’t worry about what we call our… thing. It’s somewhat complicated.”
Aaron seems fine with that answer. Or maybe he just wants to stop talking about Neil’s love life, which is totally fair because Neil wants to stop talking to Aaron about his love life. Kevin has also been glaring at them the entire time and it’s starting to get annoying.
“Oh and you’re allowed to be with Katelyn now, dumbass,” Neil calls when Aaron is halfway through the doorway to his room. “You can kiss her all you want or whatever it is you people do.”
“Fuck you, Josten.”
He doesn’t bother biting down his laugh.
+1.
The Foxes have seen Andrew Minyard through all sorts of stages: medicated, going through withdrawal, high on cracker dust and also drunk at the same time. The sober apathy is a new addition to the list. Most of them expected him to come back from Easthaven either more violent or simply less smiley.
He came back blank and uncaring, which is somehow worse than when he was taking those pills. None of them understand how Neil saw this guy and decided he would be a good, healthy choice for a not-partner. They think he’s too kind for the brick wall that is Andrew. That he’ll hurt himself trying to pretend like there’s something under that even stare.
They think Neil deserves someone softer than Andrew after everything he’s been through. They don’t realise just how gentle Andrew can be.
It goes like this.
After a long and difficult—but successful—game against the Jackals, the Foxes gather in the basement of the Tower for a winner’s celebration. The Vixens are there, the alcohol is flowing, the music is breaking about every noise rule in the region. Matt’s been half-heartedly looking for Neil for some time. He knows he’s probably with Andrew somewhere, but he just really wants to congratulate him on the four goals he scored.
He asks Nicky, then Kevin, followed by Aaron, and tries one more time with Allison. None of them know where either redhead or blond is. Nicky, already way too drunk, offers to go search the dorms. Matt is too tired to tell him it’s not necessary, that he’ll talk to Neil in the morning. Nicky’s gone in a flash, crashing less than gracefully into about every wall he can.
Matt watches, amused, until Nicky’s out of sight and Dan comes back from her adventure to the drink table with a red solo cup. She offers him a sip, which he accepts, before plopping herself down next to him.
—
Nicky tries really hard not to be too loud when he opens the door to his dorm. His limbs feel like he’s swimming in molasses and he’s pretty sure the wall isn’t supposed to be moving like that, but he manages to turn the handle as slowly as possible and push just gently enough for the door to open. He’s pretty sure the hinges don’t squeak.
He doesn’t know what to expect when he peers into the living room. Nothing, probably, maybe Andrew perched on one of the couch’s arms with a pint of ice cream in hand. Maybe Neil walking out of the bathroom after a shower.
Whatever he expects, it isn’t this: Neil’s head in Andrew’s lap, his cousin’s hand carding through those red locks of hair while the TV quietly plays some nature documentary about frogs. Neil is sleeping, looking more peaceful than Nicky has ever seen him, and Andrew almost seems content to let him be so close. He doesn’t even seem to realise just how strange this is to anyone who knows him.
Andrew is letting someone touch him, letting someone be this close to him without anybody else around. Nicky doesn’t feel nearly as drunk anymore. The pride that rushes through him isn’t surprising, but it’s so forceful he nearly stumbles.
And just like that, he understands his cousin a little more. He gets why Neil was so defensive that one time at Eden’s. He too would tear the world apart to make sure nobody ever had to deal with what Andrew dealt with. He too would threaten jocks harassing girls in alleyways at knife point just so they didn’t have to fall into the spiral of Andrew’s life.
Andrew isn’t so scary when he realises this. He’s a boy who went through hell and who’ll do anything to keep others out of it.
Nicky watches the two of them on the couch, watches the way Andrew touches Neil so gently, watches how Neil curls further into him. He’s grateful they have each other—they seem to fit like puzzle pieces.
He means to leave them be like that, breathing in tandem and safely with each other, but he’s met with a wall of muscles that belong to Matt when he turns around. Who is accompanied by every other Fox. Nicky really hopes this won’t disturb the two on the couch.
—
Matt waited for Nicky to come back down for ten minutes before deciding to investigate on his own. He told Dan, who volunteered to come with him and then told Allison, who told Kevin for whatever reason, and now the investigation has turned into a full-blown field trip. He just hopes they won’t walk into something compromising.
Instead, they get to the third floor to find Nicky with one foot in the door. He looks almost transfixed by whatever’s beyond the threshold. Matt gets close enough that Nicky runs face first into him when he makes to leave.
“Oh! Matt!” Nicky says, voice barely a whisper despite his surprise. Like he’s trying really hard to not disturb the silence of the empty dorms. He looks over Matt’s shoulder and basically cringes at the whole team behind him. Matt understands the sentiment. This was supposed to be a solo mission.
“Guys, I really think we should get back to the party,” Nicky continues, glancing back at the open door.
“Why? Are they making out?” Allison asks with a smirk, clearly too loud for Nicky’s taste from the way he flinches. He brings a finger to his lips and she seems to understand something, given the way her smile softens.
Matt, despite his deep understanding of wanting to be left alone with your partner, is drunk and curious, so he sidesteps Nicky and looks into the dorm. The sight stops him short.
He never really did get the idea of Neil and Andrew together. It’s why he doesn’t know if he should stop others from hitting on Neil (well, now he does, after he got that talking to a few months back), why he doesn’t know what to do with the jealous that radiates from Andrew sometimes. He thinks Neil deserves someone who will treat him right. He doesn’t—didn’t—think Andrew is that person.
But the truth is so clear in front of him. He’s seen Neil interact with just about everybody he knows and not once has that face ever looked so serene as it does now, in Andrew’s arms. Matt’s shared a dorm with Neil, he knows the way the boy sleeps—laboured breathing, tight lips, a permanent frown. He’s woken up from Matt turning his lamp off, from Renee’s light footsteps down the hall. Neil Josten does not sleep peacefully.
Yet here he is, nestled into Andrew, not single crease on his face, his chest rising and falling gently. Matt watches Andrew lean over him to grab his beer and Neil doesn’t so much as stir. They look so comfortable with each other’s presence.
Matt understands why Neil doesn’t bother giving anybody else the time of day. Nobody could offer him the sense of security Andrew does. Nobody would allow him to sleep so unguarded like Andrew does.
Matt vows to be the first person to jump in the next time anyone so much as looks in Neil’s direction.
—
Dan isn’t far behind Matt, so when he turns with the sappiest expression on his face, she sees exactly what put it there. And she can feel her own smile tug at her lips.
She has been taking the time to find out exactly what it is that can help Neil when he falls into one of his really bad nightmares. Her gentle words are effective when it’s not too bad, but there are times when she needs to get physical to snap him out of it. Like Andrew did on the bus.
He also told her that there are people and places he struggles with more. Cars, for example, because they remind him too much of that time. Anywhere he’s never been before, because he doesn’t know what could be hiding in the shadows. He even struggles with his old dorm, he said quietly once when she suggested a sleepover in Matt’s room with the others, because of Seth and every terrible thing that happened to him while his duffel bag was parked next to that bunk bed.
Dan has since then helped Neil with a few nightmares, though none of them have been quite as bad as the one he had on the way home from the Bearcats game. Which means she’s gotten familiar with his sleeping habits.
This one is not one she’s seen before. Neil’s practically snoring in Andrew’s lap, completely unbothered by the muffled narrator coming from the TV. He looks like he’s exactly where he wants to be, which isn’t something she sees often when Neil isn’t awake.
She doesn’t know how long she stands there, awestruck. Allison sidles up to her eventually, and one glance at her face reveals that she already knows this side to them.
Then Neil shifts and mumbles something, and Dan is ready to swoop in to quell the nightmare. She barely lifts a finger when Andrew jumps into action—his hands are cupping Neil’s face (gently, so gently) and he’s whispering words Dan can’t hear from so far away. Whatever he says works like magic, though. Neil opens his eyes, smiles softly, and goes right back to sleep.
She watches the interaction like it holds the secrets to the universe. In a way it does, because she now knows just a little bit more about the phenomenon that is Andrew and Neil’s relationship. The way Andrew lets Neil be so close to him without a hint of tension, the way Neil is so much more relaxed, even unconscious, when Andrew’s around, the way they move like binary stars. It’s a relationship built on the deepest trust a person can give. It’s a relationship Dan knows she’ll never have with Neil, but the thought isn’t upsetting.
She knows that what they have comes from years of isolation and survival and pain finally laid bare and understood so completely. She can only be glad they have each other.
Maybe next time Neil has a really bad nightmare, she’ll go get Andrew.
—
Allison already knows how Neil and Andrew work. Sort of. She still refuses to believe that Neil can pick up on the tiniest details in the world, like a twitch in Andrew’s eyebrow or a shoe placed too much to the right. He has to be messing with her, because that is ridiculous and impossible.
But she has to admit that they know each other extremely well. Even if she does not think Andrew can know Neil is upset because of a wrinkle in his shirt (they have to be conspiring against her on this because the “signs” have been getting egregious). The way Andrew dispels Neil’s night terror so quickly, so naturally, goes to show just how deep of an understanding they have of one another.
Allison will never be privy of that understanding, but she figures Neil’s recounting of their talks on the roof are more entertaining anyway.
It took her some time to get past the idea of Andrew as just the “Monster” and nothing else. Her gossiping with Neil—which is mostly just one-sided rambling on her part with Neil’s few comments here and there—has helped her see through the blank facade of the blond. She even occasionally regards him with fondness now.
Which is why she takes out her phone and snaps a quick picture of them on the couch, lit by the soft light of the TV screen. She debates sending it to the group chat, but decides to only send it to Andrew.
(She swears it’s his phone’s wallpaper the next day.)
—
Aaron did not follow the horde of people on the hunt for his brother and his sort of boyfriend. Allison came over to tell him what it was they were doing, but she gave up on recruiting him when he stared her down until Katelyn showed up with their drinks. The basement emptied considerably after Allison left.
Everybody walks back in fifteen minutes later, speaking to each other in hushed tones and more importantly, without Andrew or Neil. Not that Aaron cares what they’re doing. He is just a little bit curious as to what Andrew could’ve said or done that made everybody leave them alone. That’s all.
It’s curiosity that pushes him to sneak away from Katelyn and Nicky half an hour later and take a trip to his dorm. He’s also wanted a change of clothes since somebody spilled a shot of vodka all over his shirt. Sue him.
He manages to make it past his girlfriend and his cousin without raising any alarm bells, so he takes his chance and sprints up the stairs to the third floor.
The door to 317 is slightly ajar when he comes to a stop in front of it. There’s something playing softly through the crack and if he listens really closely, he can make out his brother’s voice. He’s never heard it so quiet, so gentle. A small laugh follows, one he knows belongs to Neil. Aaron’s hand stills over the handle.
It’s not like he’s really careful about not intruding on Andrew and Neil, but there’s a quality to whatever moment they’re having that begs not to be disturbed. Aaron pushes the door open anyway.
Since that session with Betsy, Aaron’s been trying to figure out what Andrew meant when he said he and Neil were nothing. Neil doesn’t help, because every time Aaron asks him about it, all he does is laugh and wave him away. Andrew just glares at his question. But he doesn’t understand how they can be nothing when Neil is the first person Andrew lets touch him in years and Andrew was the first person Neil agreed to divulge his secrets to. It’s so clearly something.
So either they’re both incredibly deep in denial, or the word nothing has a meaning Aaron was not previously aware of. He’s starting to think it’s the latter.
The sight of the two of them sprawled over each other on the couch, staring with heart eyes proves this theory just a little more. Aaron would be lying if he said either of them are his favourite people on the planet, but he can’t deny the contentment that washes over him at the idea of his brother finally allowed to be soft around someone.
He does wish that someone was not Neil Josten—though he just has to remind himself that he’s not the one who has to kiss the guy. Andrew can do whatever the hell he wants.
Aaron leans a touch too much on the door and it creaks, the sound obnoxiously loud in the quiet room. It has both boys on the couch immediately snap their eyes up to him. He only feels a little scrutinised. That blank look falls over Andrew’s face when he realises who’s there and Neil puts on that mildly annoyed glare Aaron knows so well.
“Do you know about this thing called knocking?” he asks, all sarcasm and bite. Aaron swears he sees Andrew bite down a smirk. “It’s really useful to announce your presence instead of sneaking around like a creep.”
“I did knock,” Aaron lies, already sneering, “you were just too busy making goo-goo eyes at each other to hear me.”
Neil wrinkles his nose at him and Aaron rolls his eyes as he walks by them to go actually change. Andrew doesn’t say a thing.
It’s honestly impressive how quick Neil can make Aaron forget every positive thing about him. Seconds before, he’d been so close to admitting that maybe, maybe, Neil is exactly what his brother needs. Exactly what his brother deserves. He takes that back while rifling through his wardrobe for a clean shirt—Andrew has terrible taste in men and Aaron will die on the Neil-Josten-Hater hill.
(He doesn’t glare at them quite so much in the months that follow when they get closer than he’d like them to be.)