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It hadn’t been going great. Nothing had.
It was too much. Everything.
The scouts, fighting for Andrew’s attention. Fighting to have him play for them for the next few years, their offers coming in again and again and again even after being told repeatedly to fuck off because Andrew was just that good.
Of course they’d fight for him.
Then there was Nicky’s move to Germany, and Aaron’s transition to med school and they were thinking about selling the Columbia house and Neil didn’t actually know if they had, in the end.
He shouldn’t have asked.
Maybe, maybe, if he hadn’t asked…
He’d pushed it back to the very last second. Aaron had already left. Nicky’s flight was in the morning. The Maserati stood parked and packed in the lot beneath their feet, their dorm room strangely empty without any of the others’ stuff.
Neil still didn’t own enough to fill a space all on his own.
In a few hours, Andrew would drive Nicky to the airport. And then he’d continue north, cross state line after state line and get further and further away. From Palmetto.
From Neil.
He shouldn’t have asked.
It was their first calm moment in days. Weeks, maybe. Just Andrew and Neil and the roof and cigarette smoke and silence.
But it was also their last.
Neil thought of the apartment Andrew had bought in Boston with the careless disregard of someone who’d soon be making enough money to afford both any necessary renovations and lawyers. The apartment was good. Lots of space.
Boston was good, too. Their team would be unbeatable with Andrew holding the line.
Boston was also nearly a thousand miles away.
“Where does this go? When you’re gone?” Neil asked, the words that had been building up for three years and spare tumbling out of his mouth. He didn’t make his voice sound any particular way. Didn’t curl in and hug his legs to his chest. Just continued staring at where the sun was setting right in front of him.
He didn’t turn to look at Andrew, to where he knew the late sun made his skin glow and his hair light up and his eyes impossibly and almost painfully beautiful, because if he had, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to look away again.
Andrew’s arm froze where he’d been raising it to take another drag. Neil watched out of the corner of his eyes but did. Not. Turn.
The silence was deafening. Heavy, but not like their silences usually were.
Not safe. Not something comfortable to wrap up in.
This silence was the silence of a cleaver before it fell.
“There is no this. This is nothing,” Andrew finally said, and the words were familiar but their tone wasn’t. “Don’t wait for me,” Andrew continued, and dug his nails in and tore Neil open and open and open. “I won’t wait for you.”
It hurt. Everything.
Breathing.
The sun in his eyes, all of a sudden.
His throat was too tight.
The surface of the roof too rough.
He was open and torn and bleeding bleeding bleeding out on the concrete, everything that had been good a second ago thrown off balance, made twisted and painful and horrible.
Neil breathed through his nose, slow. Steady. Until he felt like he could speak without choking on the words.
Until he felt like he’d be able to handle this like Andrew deserved.
“Okay,” he said, and it wasn’t. But it had to be.
It needed to be.
Acceptance. What else was there to do? Cling and beg like whatever was wrecking havoc inside his ribcage was demanding?
No.
Andrew deserved better. Andrew deserved Neil to accept the decisions he made, even if it killed one of them.
Neil could feel Andrew’s eyes on the side of his face. He didn’t turn. If he looked now…
He pushed to his feet. He knew his face showed nothing, knew that there was nothing physically wrong with him, but the world seemed to tilt sideways for a second.
He was still bleeding, had to be.
The pain had to come from somewhere.
He didn’t stumble.
He turned.
And he left.
And as soon as he was out of sight, he ran.
He ran until he couldn’t feel his legs, and then he ran some more. He crashed at the court, not sleeping but curled up in a corner of the couch in the lounge in the dark.
Trying to hold together the pieces of Neil Josten that threatened to fall apart for the first time since he’d signed his name on the dotted line in that FBI interrogation room.
When he came back to Fox Tower the next morning, he was alone.
He stayed alone.
It was better this way, his mother’s voice told him (also something that hadn’t happened for years). Safer. To be alone.
He pretended it wasn’t horrible.
That it wasn’t killing him inside every time he turned and the space next to him was… empty.
The nightmares returned.
Maybe they’d never left.
Maybe the safety of hazel eyes had just kept them at bay, for a while.
And now Neil needed to grow up and deal with his problems on his own.
Now he needed to deal with everything on his own.
He wasn’t actually on his own, he knew that. Wymack was there, and Abby. The rest of his Foxes, every single but the most important one just a phone call away.
They tried, too.
Texted. Called.
Neil watched their names flash across his screen. Some of them in the middle of the night, but that was okay.
Not like he was sleeping anyways.
He listened to their calls ringing out for nearly a week before his battery ran out and his phone fell finally, blissfully, silent. Then he put it in a sock and hid it at the bottom of his duffle bag.
And didn't look at it again.
Wymack sat him down a week before the first of the baby Foxes were set to arrive for summer practice. Put a glass of something amber in front of him that Neil pushed right back across the table.
There was a time when he would’ve drunk. When he would've felt safe enough to because there was a shadow at his shoulder, watching over him.
That time wasn’t now.
Wymack’s stare was searching, his expression tired. “Tell me this is not another mafia situation.”
“This is not another mafia situation,” Neil echoed dutifully. Truthfully. He kept his eyes firmly on a point somewhere over Wymack’s right shoulder. “It’s not a situation at all. There is no situation.”
“There is, clearly,” Wymack waved at him, which had Neil narrow his eyes. Because there wasn’t. No situations.
No problems.
“Josten. What’s going on?”
Nothing.
Nothing and nothing and nothing.
Because there was no this. And this was-
“I’m fine,” Neil said, his wooden tone and the words themselves falling back into patterns he hadn’t used in years. “I won’t let it affect the team.”
He wouldn’t.
He would get the team to championships because everything was fine.
Wymack looked weary. And incredulous. “You can’t be fucking-”
Neil pushed off the table. He was fine, but he needed to get out.
He was fine, but his throat was squeezing tight and tight and tighter
He was fine, but he also wanted to run until he fell over.
He was fine, but he also maybe wouldn't get up again after falling over.
“Josten!” Wymack shouted after him, but he was already out the door and down the stairs and out the building and down the street and the next and the next and-
The intervention told him one thing: he was being dramatic enough about this (about nothing) to attract attention. Which is exactly what he didn’t want.
The world didn’t end. Hadn't. Wouldn’t. It felt like it, sure, but Neil had felt like his world would end before. And he’d always made it out on the other side.
Mangled and broken and bleeding, yes. But alive.
This time would be the same.
He dug his phone out of his duffle bag and the sock. He unpacked the duffle bag and pushed it once again to the very back of his closet.
Because no.
He charged his phone, watched it turn on and a few hundred messages flood in, most of which he deleted unread.
He replied to the last one and picked up when Nicky called ten seconds later.
Said Sorry. And I’ve been busy. And How’s Germany?
His voice didn’t sound like his own. He listened. Hummed.
Did the bare minimum.
They bought it.
Maybe they didn’t.
But it got them off his back.
He stopped. Most things.
Thinking, mostly.
Dwelling, also.
He pushed all thoughts of Andrew and What if and kisses and comfort and Why and Why and Why off his mind. He still had a team to captain.
He stopped smiling (maybe he never had, only for one of them).
He stopped caring (had he… he must have, at some point).
He planned practice, designed drills. Whipped the new foxes and all their ouches and problems into shape until they fell in line with the rest of the fucked-up crew.
He did the bare minimum with and for the team. Didn’t socialize outside of that. None of them were real.
(Was he?)
He signed up for his courses, and then visited those courses when the semester started up again.
He did his coursework.
He won games. Shot goals. Ignored the press.
He had nothing to say to them.
He avoided Wymack and Abby and his duffle bag and the few baby Foxes that had been around for years and had enough balls to talk to him.
It was easy.
When he wasn’t at practice or in class, he ran.
And ran.
And ran.
Afterwards, he lay on the roof – their roof once, his now – and stared up at the sky until it turned from blue to grey to black to sometimes grey again. His mind was empty.
What was there to fill it with?
Exy, once.
He’d stayed, for Exy. Had put his life on the line for the game. Once.
It hadn’t been about the rush of seeing a goal light up red in a very long time.
Nathaniel Wesninski would’ve died for Exy, and died with a smile.
Neil Josten, though… Neil Josten had been willing to die for different things. Had been willing to risk it all, but not for Exy.
It wasn’t Exy that had made him real, in the end.
And now…
What now?
He had a routine. He watched the sky change colors.
He was still breathing.
He hadn’t felt less alive since a racket hit him in the stomach in a locker room in Millport.
Neil Josten had built his entire being around one fundamental truth. With that truth gone… what was left?
Nothing.
And it had been everything.
Aaron showed up. Out of nowhere.
Neil didn’t even know which month it was, at that point.
He just saw a familiar figure talking to Abby in the lounge after practice one day, saw blonde hair and his height, and the sudden rush of adrenaline that hit him made it hard to breathe for the fraction of a second before his brain caught up with who his eyes were actually seeing.
And then his heart dropped. His stomach followed.
Nausea was suddenly just… there. Overpowering.
Aaron’s eyes found him when he lead the team inside from court, and narrowed at whatever he saw. Neil busied himself with his gloves, pretended he couldn’t feel his hands shaking.
He was okay.
(He was nothing.)
He was fine. He was always fine.
“Josten.” Aaron stepped into his way and Neil paused out of necessity while the baby Foxes pushed around him and towards the showers.
He pulled one glove off. The other. Then the thinner ones below. It took all of his attention, this action he’d performed at least a few times every day for the last four years. He couldn’t look up.
He couldn’t.
Aaron’s face… no.
“What are you doing here?” His voice sounded detached, attention obviously split. Because of the gloves. In his hands.
“We need to talk.”
“I need to shower,” Neil told him, and looked at the door to the changing rooms. At the door. Not at Aaron. “Since when do we talk?”
It wasn’t fair. Probably. Maybe. They hadn’t hated each other in a long time. They’d started pretending to, in the summer between Neil’s second and third year, but it had lacked the heat of their earliest encounters.
They’d been fighting for fun for a while now.
Aaron had been among those who’d reached out when Neil hadn’t picked up the phone for three weeks.
So maybe it wasn’t fair.
Neil didn’t exactly care.
Aaron didn’t seem to care for his tone very much, because he scoffed and grabbed his elbow to lead him out of the lounge and into a hallway, away from prying eyes and curious ears.
That single point of contact… it nearly did him in.
It was firm. Not like contact during matches, which was the only time he’d been touched in weeks (months?).
Gentle. Familiar.
But wrong.
Right, but not.
Neil wanted to scream. He wanted to rip his arm away. He wanted to lean into it.
He wanted to take a knife and to cut his chest open and tear out whatever was hurting inside.
He followed Aaron silently. Fixed his eyes on a spot by his shoulder when they stopped walking.
“Have you been eating? You look like shit.”
“You too,” Neil said, but the words came out flat, more reflex than anything else. It probably wasn’t even true. He hadn’t actually taken a look at his face yet.
Aaron noticed. Aaron crossed his arms and assumed a posture that Neil knew from experience meant if he didn’t act now, he’d have to listen to a lecture on self-care and wellbeing that would go on until he promised to cut the crap.
He did not have the strength for it, not right now.
“Why are you here? Did you need anything? You could’ve called.”
“Because you’re so good with a phone?” Aaron mocked, but his shoulders slumped out of his self-righteous posture. So. Crisis averted. “I’m here because of Andrew. Something’s wrong.”
Whatever else he might have felt at hearing Andrew’s name was drowned out in a shockwave of worry. His head shot up, eyes finding hazel ones (right but not, the same but so very different) and Aaron looked taken aback at his reaction.
“Why?” he demanded. “What’s going on? Is he okay?”
It was pathetic, maybe. Not his worry. His worry was reasonable.
Pathetic that after months of trying to get over it, his efforts had achieved less than nothing.
“He’s okay, as far as I know,” Aaron said slowly, his eyes searching Neil’s face. There was a small furrow between his brows that hadn’t been there before. “I just think he’s been texting less. Getting colder.” A short pause followed as he considered whether to say the next part or not. “I’m afraid he’s shutting me out again. Did he not… say anything?”
Neil opened his mouth. Closed it.
Relief, yes. Andrew was physically okay. Was not doing anything drastic, had not fallen into some dark place where nobody could reach him, because Aaron knew what to look for and would’ve been more alarmed otherwise.
Mortification, also.
Because what was he supposed to say to that?
No. He hasn’t.
He stopped talking to me.
He said he won’t wait.
He left, because there was nothing that held him.
He must’ve taken too long. Aaron sucked in a sharp breath, reached for him again. His grip was decidedly less genle-firm this time, and more angry. “You broke up?” he hissed. “What did you do?”
It was good. That Aaron reacted like this. That he was on Andrew’s side, immediately and without hesitation.
Andrew deserved that.
But Neil…
Neil had to bite down on his bottom lip to keep whatever sound wanted to break out of him trapped inside. There it was again. His throat, tight and tight and tighter. Not enough oxygen. His nails, digging into his palms.
Blood in his mouth, because he’d bitten too tight.
“Oh no…” Aaron’s grip loosened. The anger that had been there moments before dissipated like smoke. “No… What did he do?”
And that…
Neil had been staring at Aaron’s shoes. Sneakers, in a color Andrew wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. He’d been staring hard enough that his vision became blurry.
But that was enough to make him look up.
To face Aaron head-on, for the first time of this entire unnecessary interaction.
“Nothing that wasn’t well within his rights to,” Neil said, cooly. “He always said it was-” He cut himself off with a shake of his head. Aaron didn’t need to know that. He didn’t want to lay bare what they’d had like that, wanted to gather all the pieces and keep them close to his chest instead of showing where it hurt. “I’m being dramatic. Sorry.” He shook Aaron’s hand off his shoulder. When had it gotten there? “I can’t help you with him anymore.”
And then he turned and walked straight out of the stadium, still wearing most of his gear.
He hadn’t yet reached the parking lot when he started running.
Neil blinked, and months had passed.
He remembered nothing. A blur of grey. Brushing off questions and concern and invitations to fly out and spend holidays with Matt, Dan, Allison, Renee, Nicky.
Christmas happened. New Year’s. Spring break. Where had he spent spring break?
Was it important?
He blinked, and the Foxes were in the death matches. More than half a year, now. Nine months.
Nine months of nothing.
Aaron had kept his mouth shut. Neil knew because none of the other Foxes texted him about it.
It. Ha.
The breakup.
If he could even call it that.
Was it a breakup if there hadn’t been anything to break?
He’d promised himself to stop thinking about it. He’d failed at that, too.
He shouldn’t have fucking asked.
Where is this going? his own voice mocked, again and again and again. What a stupid question. What an idiotic hope.
His Foxes didn’t call or text about it, which was maybe the first thing he was grateful to Aaron for. He didn’t know what he would’ve done had anyone known. And asked.
Screamed, maybe.
Much worse, more likely.
They won the championship. The second one since he was captain.
They beat the Trojans by two points in the finale, the team no longer the same with Jeremy and now Jean gone pro. He made the final point himself, an impossible shot that risked more than it was worth.
He scored. He won.
He did not care.
His team cheered around him. There was deafening noise and orange, red and gold everywhere. There were arms around his shoulders, excited yells in his ear.
He forced a smile on his face when someone dragged him in front of a camera, and he wanted to poke at it, tried to catch a glimpse in one of the camera lenses pointed at him.
Was it as brittle as it felt?
Wymack clapped Neil’s shoulder on his way past. A long line of Trojans shook his hand, all smiling, all congratulating him on the win. His teammates told him about at least five different parties that would be held in celebration.
The audience was still roaring, loud enough he couldn’t hear his own thought.
Why, he wondered. All of this… why?
Why celebrate, when nothing actually mattered.
The offers started pouring in after, in the few weeks between their championship win and finals. Because that was something he also still had to do. Finals. Course work. Essays and end-of-semester presentations.
Before that, though, the offers.
There were lots of them, and the first one pulled the floor out from beneath his feet.
The price was right. The offer was good. Not too far away from everyone. Not too close to Baltimore.
Good authority, their mail read, and joining us might be a high priority for you. The tone was friendly. They wanted him. They didn’t need him, but they wanted him.
Charlie Richmond, it was signed. Head coach of the Boston Bearcats.
He stared at that mail for three days, trying to decipher the meaning. Trying to figure out more than what the three hundred and twenty words were willing to tell him.
Good authority.
Good. Authority.
There was only one person whose authority Richmond could be citing, and he had told Neil that he wouldn’t wait for him.
And now this.
And now this?
The thing that had been eating itself inside his chest for months loosened for a few short minutes, and he hated himself when he realized. And squashed all hope.
Andrew did not make mistakes.
Andrew did not lie.
And most importantly, Andrew wasn’t cruel.
They did not have anything on good authority, couldn’t have. Not Andrew’s. Andrew wouldn’t…
He wouldn’t.
It was a good offer. Them reaching out meant they’d probably at least talked to Andrew, which meant he hadn’t been opposed to Neil joining the Bearcats.
But then why would he? It had been nothing. And Neil was nothing, just another striker that’d be joining the roster.
And he imagined it, for another moment that was both pain and not: going to Boston. Seeing Andrew every day. Knowing that he stood at Neil’s back.
It would work. They could be friends, maybe, nothing more. Andrew’s friendship was invaluable, more important than anything else.
And maybe this was Andrew’s way of reaching out, of saying Neil could have it. Friendship. If he wanted.
The problem was, he wanted so much more. And he knew that seeing Andrew every day would destroy him.
He deleted the mail.
Others came.
Seattle. Phoenix. New York.
Chicago, at last, and he hadn’t yet finished reading the mail when his phone started ringing.
“Kevin,” was the first and only thing he said after picking up, eyes still scanning the last few lines of Chicago’s offer. It was less money than the others had offered. They probably couldn’t afford more, having to pay for the Son of Exy too.
Kevin didn’t need further prompting. “You got the mail, I assume. I know it’s most likely a waste of time and effort and you’ve already signed with Boston, but I need one competent striker here with me. Figured I’d try my luck.”
Neil’s eyes were stuck on the very last line.
Chicago Hawks.
Chicago.
Kevin.
“Hello?” Kevin drawled when he hadn’t said anything for too long. “Did you- Did he hang up on me? Little-”
“I haven’t signed with Boston,” Neil said hurriedly, the words rushing out all or once, and Kevin fell silent on the other side. “I won’t.”
It was silent for long enough that Neil wondered if Kevin had hung up on him now. But the call was still running when he checked.
“Are you- Is everything okay?” Kevin finally asked, the words stilted. Awkward.
Worried.
“Yes,” Neil said, because he didn’t need worry. He needed a team. And he needed- “Are you sure?” His nails were digging into his thigh. “That you want me there?”
More silence. Heavy silence. “Yes,” Kevin said. Decidedly. And more gentle than Neil had ever heard him. “Yes, Neil. I want you here.”
He had to swallow twice before his throat no longer felt as if he’d swallowed glass. “Okay.” It came out rough, still. “I’m coming to Chicago.”
He graduated. Had to wear a stupid hat, got handed a diploma he’d been working on for five years, had to shake the hands of some people he’d never seen before and would never see again.
After, everyone threw their stupid hats in the air. He dropped his to the ground, already searching for a way out of this farce.
Nobody stopped him when he simply pushed through the other students, past the ones celebrating and shouting and hugging and crying.
But at the edge of the crowd…
He got caught.
Matt came out of nowhere, crashed into him and lifted him up and spun him around, laughing in his ear. Dan and Renee and Allison were not far behind, wearing bright smiles and broad grins.
“You did it man! I’m so proud of you!” Matt shouted excitedly as soon as he’d put Neil back on his feet, and a tiny tiny part of the mess inside his chest warmed and thawed and loosened. Because this was Matt. His first friend. His best friend.
Neil had missed him.
The girls crowed around him, offering their own gratulations (Renee and Dan) and complaints about the state of his hair (Allison). He let them fuss.
He’d missed them, too.
They had a dinner reservation. Had been planning this for months, apparently.
Neil ended up in the backseat of Matt’s truck, bookended between Allison, who hadn’t stopped fussing with his hair, and Matt, who’d made Dan drive because he refused to let go of Neil.
There had been some narrowed eyes, glances between the four of them that meant an interrogation was surely coming, but for now, it was easy to distract them, get them to talk about their lives and their teams and apartments and friends and new cities. He was hungry for every little detail.
Thinking about someone else’s life meant he didn’t have to think abut his own.
The restaurant was fancier than the threadbare jeans he’d worn under the robe-gown thing warranted. His outfit got him a disapproving click of Allison’s tongue as soon as they were out of the car. “I thought we were over you running around like that.” She picked at the shoulder of his shirt. “What does Minyard have to say about this?”
The question came out of nowhere, even though he’d known that something along those lines would come since the moment he’d seen them.
Still. Just because you saw a punch coming didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
He twisted out of Allison’s hold, pretended he couldn’t see the alarmed looks she and Dan were exchanging over his head. Hooked his arm through Matt’s because Matt didn’t care and wouldn’t ask and-
“Yo. Buddy…” Matt started against Neil’s hopes, dragging his feet instead of allowing Neil to pull him into the restaurant. “Is everything-”
“Everything’s fine,” he told Matt and Allison and Dan and Renee and the restaurant and himself. “I’m fine.”
He thought he heard Dan mutter Oh shit behind them. He ignored it. Because he was fine. Everything was fine.
Everything was not fine. There were two empty seats at their table. A reservation for seven, and the others had left out the seat right next to Neil’s despite their earlier clinginess.
“They’re late,” Dan explained with a glance at her phone. “They’ll be here soon though.”
They.
They could be any combination of Kevin, Nicky, and Aaron. Maybe Nicky had flown in. He was sentimental like that. And maybe Aaron had come. Maybe Aaron thought they were friends now, considering whatever that visit a few months ago had been.
They could be virtual strangers. Or people the others thought were his friends that Neil had somehow forgotten about.
They could be Wymack and Abby.
They were not that, and Neil had known from the very start.
He knew, when they walked in. Didn’t even have to look. He could just feel it.
A shift in the air. A turn of gravity.
Every single cell in his body realigned itself to look in the right direction, the way it had been from the start.
His surroundings seemed to become quiet for a few seconds, and then everything was suddenly too loud. Too much.
Kevin clapped his shoulder, ruffled his hair, said words that Neil didn’t hear, fell into the free seat next to Renee, looking- Neil couldn’t actually say what he looked like. He was looking right at him, but he wasn’t seeing him.
Silent steps, then. The smell of smoke and something else, something that was Yes and safe and familiar like a knife between his ribs.
Andrew dragged the last chair back, fell into the seat. Neil wasn’t looking. There was a foot of empty air between them, maybe less. Andrew was a chasm of black in his periphery, broken only by a flash of-
Flowers.
He’d brought flowers.
A bouquet of roses that he placed on the table between them. Five inches between his elbow and Neil’s arm.
Maybe less.
But Neil wasn’t looking. He was staring at the flowers in front of him, the sight unexpected and out if place enough he had trouble processing it.
Was it… What was this? What was he-
Andrew wasn’t cruel.
Wasn’t cruel.
Dan had turned to Kevin. Her mouth was moving. They were laughing.
He couldn’t hear a word over the sound of his own heartbeat. Fast. Too fast. And too loud.
The restaurant around him was a thousand miles away.
Allison was looking at him when he dragged his stare away from Dan, her eyes narrowed. She glanced at his side, at-
“Neil.”
That, he heard.
His name was a demand for attention, the voice raspy from smoke and disuse. Deep. Better than he remembered, because all he remembered was-
There is not this.
His chair clattered to the floor when he pushed away from the table.
Silence.
They turned to stare, smiles slowly slipping off faces at whatever they found. He was struggling to breathe. Why. Why was he-
I won’t wait for you.
Allison’s eyes had widened in realization. She was the only one he could look at.
The rose petals were soft when his hands brushed against them, and he pulled back as if burned. He thought he might start laughing if he looked down at them. Hysterically.
A bouquet of roses.
Who did that?
Andrew wasn’t cruel, he reminded himself. Andrew wouldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he told Allison, and had to pause at his own voice. It had never been like this. Not… reedy. Desperate. He’d been tortured, but not-
He dropped his gaze, found the flowers after all. A sound did escape him then, something raw and painful.
“Sorry,” he repeated, and desperately, desperately clung to whatever composure had carried him through the last eleven months. “I can’t- No. Sorry.”
They’d come for him.
Andrew had come too, and Andrew wasn’t cruel, but whatever he thought he was doing here, Neil couldn’t handle it.
He did what he had to. What he always did.
He stepped over his fallen chair.
And he ran.
He ran until his lungs couldn’t keep up anymore, until his desperate attempts at drawing breath proved insufficient and his vision turned blurry from lack of oxygen.
He had no idea where he was, couldn’t recognize anything around him as he stumbled off the main road and into a side street to brace himself against a wall, heaving for air. The wall wasn’t enough to hold him up. He needed-
He put his back against the brick and allowed his knees to give out, to slide down until he was slumped on the dirty ground. Put his arms on his knees and noticed they were shaking. His arms. His legs. Neil, all of him.
His breathing wasn’t…
Something wasn’t right. There was a weird hitching sound every time he tried to force oxygen down his throat, a tick in his chest.
He was hot, his skin covered in sweat. His face was wet. He was shivering.
It was pathetic, some distant part of his brain realized. He’d been tortured. Shot. Burned. Cut. Hit, and starved, and held under water until his brain was convinced he was dying.
And yet this was what would finally do him in.
He choked around what might have been a laugh and might have been something else entirely.
He needed to get it together. He needed to hold the pieces, because there was nobody else who-
“Neil,” he heard again, and at first thought he’d hallucinated it. It took a few seconds to realize it was different, this time.
Desperate.
He lifted his head, and there he was.
Andrew. Flushed, panting. Real.
Ten steps away. Maybe less. And coming closer.
And his expression…
Neil was on his feet before he’d fully processed what was going on, took a step away from him.
And Andrew froze.
They stared at each other, both panting. Andrew’s eyes were moving, taking him in, but Neil’s stayed on his face.
He’d never seen him like this. Andrew looked flayed open.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” Neil muttered into the space between them, and could see the words land like blows. Good. Andrew wasn’t cruel, but… “Did you think I ran because I wanted you to chase me?” He rubbed the hand that wasn’t holding him up over his face, got rid of whatever was showing there. “Fucking… grow up,” he snapped, at Andrew or himself, he couldn’t tell.
He turned to walk away. He’d find his way back to the dorms, somehow. Would pack his things. Apologize to the others for cutting their surprise short. Go to Chicago. Stay in Chicago.
“Neil.” Andrew was at his side, all of a sudden, not cutting his way off but also not not cutting his way off. Three feet. Maybe less. “I’m sorry.”
Neil didn’t know what his face was doing anymore, but it couldn’t have been pretty. “You’re sorry? For what, showing up here? Yeah. Great fucking surprise. Thanks. I’m leaving.”
Don’t wait for me, he thought, and wanted to throw up and sink back to his knees and also laugh because what was this? What were they doing?
It was over. Why…
“No. I’m sorry for what I said last time.”
This is nothing. Don’t wait for me. I won’t wait for you.
Neil did start laughing then, and it was an ugly sound and an ugly feeling and it threatened to pull him apart at the seams. “Tell that to someone who believes it.”
Andrew looked taken aback.
“Yeah,” Neil scoffed. “I know you, asshole. You don’t lie. You don’t make mistakes. You’re not cruel. What the fuck would you be sorry for, hm?” He took from Andrew’s expression what he wanted. “Didn’t expect I’d take it this hard, huh? Don’t worry. I’ll get over it. Not anytime soon, God no,” he barked out another laugh, “but maybe give me a decade or so and we could do whatever that,” he waved at where they’d come from, at the restaurant and the Foxes and the smiles, “was supposed to be. Sorry. But don’t be sorry for the…” He waved some more. It wasn’t a breakup when there hadn’t been a relationship. “I’m handling it. I’m fine.”
And he was. He was hurt, and in pieces, and alone, and a wall wasn’t enough to hold him up. But he was alive, and breathing, and he’d been through worse, even if it didn’t feel like it.
He tried to leave again, but Andrew was in his way. Andrew was in his way and he was a foot away and his hands were on either side of Neil’s face but not touching and they were shaking and Neil was crying, that’s what it was. What it had been, this entire time.
“Neil,” Andrew said for the first and millionth time, and his voice was less than it had ever been. “Can I touch you?”
“You’re not cruel,” Neil whispered, gasped, reminded into the space between them, and it wasn’t a No because he wanted, God how he wanted, but it wasn’t a Yes because he wasn’t self-destructive enough to not know that it would destroy him. It would kill him, if Andrew touched him now and then left again and told him Don’t wait, and This is nothing.
“Yes,” Andrew said, and caught the sides of Neil’s face to pull him down, push their foreheads together. “Yes I am. I was. And I lied. And I made a mistake.”
Neil choked on the sound that forced its way out of his throat. His eyes fell shut. He could feel Andrew’s breath on his face. This was happening. He should push Andrew away, should walk.
He stayed right where he was. This was happening.
“Don’t say that.” He tried to shake his head but Andrew’s hold was too tight. He must’ve felt the attempt, but his grip only tightened. “Don’t say that and take it away again.”
“I won’t. I’m sorry.” Andrew brushed his thumbs over the sticky skin below Neil’s eyes. “I won’t.”
Neil allowed himself to enjoy the touch for a few seconds before he pulled back, enough to see Andrew’s face. “What do you want, Andrew?” He sounded only defeated.
“You. Back.”
“You had me,” Neil reminded him.
“I had the most precious thing,” Andrew said, “And I got scared and ruined it.”
“You said it was nothing.” Neil’s breath caught on the last word. “Andrew, I can’t- It was never nothing for me. I- If you tell me again, I don’t know if I can-”
Andrew shushed him. Brushed enough tears away that Neil could see him clear again, could see his expression. Not empty. Serious. Grave. “I lied,” he admitted a second time, but only now did Neil catch the meaning. “It was everything. And I’ll spend however long it takes to fix it, if you’ll have me.”
That was maybe when Neil should’ve pulled himself together and said either yes or no and either fall back into Andrew or walk away forever.
Not what happened.
What happened was that Neil pushed Andrew’s hands away because his legs were shaking again and he needed to sit down.
What happened was that he had another panic attack and spent the next ten minutes trying to remember how to breathe while Andrew sat on the dirty ground next to him, pushing his head between his knees and counting his breaths.
What happened was that Neil told him “Shut up” and “You hurt me” and “I hate you” and “You can’t fucking do that, don’t ever do that again", and Andrew replied with “I know” and “I hate you too” and “I won’t.”
And, well. Neil had always been stupid.
In some dirty alley, in the middle of a panic attack after the worst nine months of his life, he decided to believe him.
Any alternative, of that he was sure, could only be worse.