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Abram sighs as he stares into the mirror.
It's not the face that belonged to Neil; Neil’s is smooth, and he has blue eyes and red hair and he has a sharp tongue.
Abram is scarred, and he has green eyes and blond hair and never really talks anymore.
Abram dreams of the foxes every day. He has gotten into social media so he can see their posts.
It’s been four years since Neil died in Baltimore.
Every day this year, many of the foxes post about him. Post their remembrance, a photo of his urn, whatever they can. Dan and Alison share photos of what are supposedly Neil's ashes. Nicky shows off the fox he got.
On every post from the foxes, there is a like from @abram_10. Andrew doesn’t see it; if he did, Abram would have been found by him.
Robin Cross shares an account with Andrew, his apparent new best friend. She makes posts for him and her.
He swipes through the post. His throat closes up when he sees a photo with no explanation; a coat and a phone. The coat he had matching with Andrew and the phone he left in his bag.
Abram likes the photo without blinking an eye, before turning off the computer and tugging on his shoes.
“Abram. Where are you heading?” Wolfe asked.
When Abram had been freshly placed into the witness protection program, he had almost escaped three times. This resulted in him being assigned a personal agent to make sure he isn’t escaping.
“library.”
Wolfe sighs. “You have twenty minutes.”
Abram has been stripped of all access to privacy. Even when he goes to the store, the employees are paid to tell Wolfe what he buys, what he says, what he does.
He is a prisoner.
Abram is stupid enough to still try.
The librarian waves to him. He doesn’t wave back. The young brunette is used to this, however, and doesn’t let Abram bother him.
He instead heads back into the bathrooms, and grabs out the burner phone he had hidden inside one of the toilet roll dispensers.
Abram’s escape plan has slowly gotten more and more complicated after every failed attempt. He doesn’t blink an eye whenever he fails, simply starts drawing up a new one.
The hardest part will be getting to south carolina from california. In theory, he has money to buy a car and drive it there. In reality? There are too many factors. Too many things that the FBI might pull.
But Abram will die trying to get back to his home if he must.
“Hello?” a voice says, confused. “Who is this?”
“Robin. Hello.” Abram sighs.
Finding Robin's phone number took a year of research, trial, and error. At moments he wanted to just use Wymack’s phone number, one he had memorized, but Abram needed someone who would hopefully tell Andrew something. Wymack would want an explanation. Abram didn’t have that time.
“My name is Abram. I promise, I’m not a stalker. I need you to write down this address, give it to Andrew, and tell him Abram gave you it.”
He could tell Robin was about to hang up, so out of desperation, he decided to beg. “I don’t have much time, Robin. I’ve been trying to leave this place for four years. I want to see my foxes again.”
Robin was silent for a moment. “Tell me the address.”
Abram rattles it off quickly and hangs up, before shoving the phone in his pocket. He checks out a book about exy and on the way back to his prison he tosses the burner into the trash, keeping the sim card in his shoe.
— — —
Andrew can’t breathe when Robin wakes him up.
“A man named Abram called me last night.”
His head shoots up towards her face. It's the first time he’s looked at a person in a month, including himself.
“He told me to give you this address. He seemed really, really weird. He said that he wanted to see his foxes again.”
Neil Josten is dead. But maybe Abram isn’t.
“—rew? Andrew?” Robin says, slightly panicked. “What? Is he like, a murder?”
Andrew shakes his head. “No. But I'll be one when he gets here.”
— — —
Abram leaves quickly and he leaves fast.
He runs through the streets to where a car will be waiting for him. Abram slips in and starts to drive.
Abram does not quite rest. He sleeps enough to focus on the road. He does not risk sleeping longer than that.
Two days seems a lot longer now that he's actually driving it.
It reminds him of being on the run. Except, he is on the run, only this time from the FBI instead of his fathers people.
He stops to buy hair dye and to get a phone. He slips the sim card into it. Abram calls Robin once more, even though his brain is screaming at him not to do it. It isn’t apart of the plan, but maybe—
“Abram.”
Abram doesn’t breathe.
He hasn’t heard Andrew’s voice in four years. Four years of only seeing Andrew in dreams and while out on the court during a game. But his voice is rough and it's in Abrams ear and Andrew Minyard is talking to him.
“Andrew,” he whispers as he starts to drive onehanded.
There's a deep inhale. “Fuck. fuck,” Andrew swears.
“Andrew, I didn’t die. The FBI put me into the witness protection program. I passed out from injuries and they took me before I could even wake up." The words spring out of Abram so fast he stumbles over them. “I’ve spent four years trying to escape. Every move was monitored. I’m around half a day away from South Carolina if they don’t track me down and take me back. That address is where the apartment they stuck me in was. If they get me, I don’t know if they’ll take me back there.” He pants once finished, and his throat feels raw. He hasn’t said these many words since the FBI first took him, and it's strange to talk again.
“I’ll be waiting,” is all Andrew says. Abram doesn’t hang up, and neither does Andrew.
— — —
Abby was having an okay day.
This time of year is always rough; the wound that Neil left was scabbed, by now, but it still hurts. She wonders if it will always hurt.
When a car pulls up into the driveway, she can’t help but feel alarmed. No one on the team owns a car like that, and the man sitting in the driver's seat does not look anything like a current team member.
She stares out the window, wondering, until the man finally gets out and bolts to the door. His hoodie covering his head, and his eyes are focused down.
The man knocks, and Abby grabs a heavy book from her coffee table just in case.
She opens the door and can’t breathe, because those eyes are Neil’s eyes.
Neil doesn’t wait, simply hugs Abby. She hesitates for a moment, before bringing her arms up to the man that should be dead.
“Abby,” he says, and it's him. Somehow, Neil Josten has his arms wrapped around her.
“Neil?” she pulls back. “Neil, is it you?”
He nods, almost smiling. “I’m here.” his face hardens. “Call Andrew."
— — —
It's during practice when Robin is suddenly grabbed by Andrew. Kevin yells after them, Wymack doing the same. Robin shrugs. She’s not going to fight Andrew, not after these past few days.
Andrew had taken her up to the roof and told her who ‘Abram’ was. Told her that Neil Josten was alive and back to arrive at Palmetto state university in around three days.
It was the most Andrew had said to her at once.
So Robin is smart and lets Andrew drag her away from a pointless practice, lets Andrew shove her into his car.
“Where are we going?”
“Abby’s.”
Robin nods, tapping at the leather seats of the back. No one gets to sit passenger in Andrew’s car.
They drive above the limit, and it has Robin praying to a god she does not believe in. but also, she understands why he’d act like that.
The consensus from everyone was that something had been going on between Andrew and Neil. Andrew never clarified anything, but after a while it was thought that they had been dating (or Andrew had feelings for Neil).
So Robin ignores the fact that Anna is ringing her phone and waits.
Andrew is practically jumping out of the car as they get there, and Robin stumbles after. Andrew has his fists clenched, his face a flurry of emotions that are too vague for Robin to tell what he's thinking.
She really hopes that Neil knows how to evade Andrew’s fists, because it looks like Andrew is about to beat him.
— — —
Andrew has not felt this much in years.
It feels odd, to finally have emotions fluttering. Of course it was Neil who brought them back.
Abram. Of course he gave Andrew that name. It feels painful, to remember, but that's all Andrew can do, so he does.
He stalks up to the house, aware of Robin scrambling after him and not caring much. Andrew doesn’t even understand why he took her with; perhaps she had gotten to him more than he’d realized.
Andrew rips the door open and walks inside. He hasn’t been to Abby's in a while, but he remembers the layout.
Neil is up and moving as soon as he spots Andrew, spreading his arms for a hug in a silent question.
Andrew falls into him, tears falling.
His breath is shaky as he squeezes Neil. He isn't a hallucination. He is here. He is real, and standing in Andrew’s arms.
“I hate you,” he mumbles into Neil’s neck.
Neil gives a faint chuckle. “Please don’t. I came back for you.”
“Don’t say things you don’t mean,” Andrew says after swallowing a lump in his throat.
“I came back for the foxes, but also for you. Mostly for you.”
Andrew cries harder. Rage fills him, of the fact that Neil was held away from him for so long, of the fact it took Neil so long to get back, of the fact that Neil Josten decided to exist around Andrew Minyard and then leave, as if it wouldn’t ruin him.
They stand there for what feels like forever, and when Andrew finally pulls away he keeps a hold on Neil’s hand. Neil lets him.
Both Andrew’s and Neil’s cheeks are wet. They don’t say anything.
“I’m sorry, Andrew.”
His arm comes up, ready to punch because fuck. Neil spent four years of his life trying to get back to Andrew, and he dare apologise for it?
Andrew knows he's apologizing for how long it took, for the fact he left Andrew, but it wasn’t Neil who did it.
“Don’t ever say that again.” Andrew lets his arm drop so he can wipe his eyes. “I hate you,” he croaks out. “I hate you so much.”
Neil smiles. “Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
Neil kisses him for the first time in four years, and it feels like Andrew has started breathing again.
— — —
The roof is silent as Andrew processes the truth that Neil finally told Andrew.
Neil lets his cigarette burn, staring at Andrew.
“I started crying after you left,” Andrew says quietly. “I have all of your stuff under my bunk. Took it once we got back. Aaron shares a room with Matt now. They all thought I was going to kill myself.
“I didn’t really think about doing it. Just hoped that Renee’s god would take mercy on me and move my death date closer. Robin decided to be my friend. I don’t know why. She has the bottom bunk of Kevin’s bed. Nicky has the top bunk on mine.”
Neil reaches out and takes Andrew’s hand carefully. Andrew doesn’t pull away.
“I had agents living with me. They switched shifts randomly. Would go through my things randomly. Everytime I went somewhere I had to tell them, give them receipts. They’d pay the people working there to give them the money to see the cameras. It took me forever to find Robin’s phone number and to finally get a phone. I had to bribe the janitor to slip one into the bathroom.
“I never got any privacy. The windows were locked with a key. My closet was approved by them.” Neil squeezes Andrew's hand. “I sometimes wished that I actually died in Baltimore. That way I wouldn’t see everyone mourning me while I was stuck prisoner in California.” his voice waivers. “They put me on the coast. Every night I felt like I could smell her burning.”
Andrew opens his arms, hesitantly, and Neil collapses into him. “Waist and up,” Andrew whispers.
Neil sits there in Andrew’s arms until pulling away with wide eyes. “Fuck, Coach doesn’t know I’m back.”