Archive of Our Own

if we’ll ever see tomorrow

What about stars?
Are you going to tell me
none of the stars are really there? Well some are there but some burned out
ten thousand years ago.
I don’t believe that.
How can you not believe it, it’s a known fact. But I see them. You see memories.
Have we had this conversation before?

[…]

Let someone touch a star and not get burned. He’ll
hold up his finger, Just a memory burn! he’ll say
then I’ll believe it.

– Anne Carson, ‘XXI. Memory Burn’, The Autobiography of Red

[take one]

“Let go. I am not doing this with you now.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re too stupid to tell me no.”

“And you don’t want me to tell you yes?”

“This isn’t yes. This is a nervous breakdown. I know the difference even if you don’t. I won’t be like them. I won’t let you let me be.”

Neil woke with a start, momentarily distracted by his surroundings before realising he was in his own bed in his own dorm room. When he noticed the morning sun shining through the bedroom window, he frowned. He’d set his alarm incorrectly and managed to sleep through dinner and all through the night.

Those extra hours of sleep had done nothing to settle Neil’s stomach. Regret was an old friend, and it had reared its head yesterday and hadn’t left him since. Neil had excused befriending the Foxes and playing exy. He’d even accepted the likelihood of his making stupid decisions when it came to taunting Riko at every opportunity presented to him, and acknowledged the inevitable fallout every time he did.

But kissing Andrew yesterday was unthinkable and went against everything he knew. Neil hadn’t meant to toe that line nor invite Andrew to cross it, but somehow he’d managed to do both and it was Neil that would suffer the consequences. Andrew wouldn’t care about Neil’s thoughts on the matter, since he vocally disliked him and had serious boundary issues, and would accept Neil’s rejection without issue, but Neil knew what guilt felt like and knew the heaviness that would pull on his stomach after the fact. He wanted to be the kind of man Andrew could blow off some steam with, but Neil would be dead in months and he couldn’t let himself get more distracted than he already was. He couldn’t have this, so there was no point in resenting it.

Neil switched his alarm off before rolling out of bed, figuring he could at least use the bathroom before Matt woke up. When he returned to the bedroom, surprised to find Matt still asleep despite the fact they had morning practice in half an hour, Neil grabbed his phone, wallet and keys. He tapped Matt on the shoulder to wake him – earning an automatic “Yeah, yeah, I’m up” that Neil knew from experience meant nothing – and slipped out the door. A part of Neil wanted to ride to the stadium in Matt’s rental and avoid seeing Andrew until he had chance to speak to him alone. The rest of him knew better; Andrew would immediately clock his cowardice and Neil didn’t want Andrew’s scathing opinion on the matter. Neil figured he had the walk down to prepare himself for an uncomfortable car ride and should consider it a luxury – he’d spent his life unprepared for things far worse than discomfort.

Except Andrew’s new car wasn’t parked in the spot he’d left it in yesterday, and the carpark was oddly empty for a Sunday morning. Even Allison’s car was gone.

Most students slept in during the weekend, prising back the hours of precious sleep after a night out before Monday morning rolled around again. This morning, however, it seemed like half the residents of Fox Tower had decided to go out for breakfast. Neil wondered if he’d missed a basketball game or something the night before – a school event to celebrate was the only reason he could come up with to explain a unified decision to get up early.

More pressing was the fact that Andrew had clearly rounded up his family and driven them to practice before Neil made it downstairs. Kevin had probably been delighted, but Neil was equally relieved as he was frustrated with the fact that Andrew was avoiding him. Neil pulled out his phone to see if he’d missed any texts – half expecting at least one from Kevin to ask where he was and why he wasn’t also heading to the stadium early, but his inbox was empty. He moved to put it back in his pocket, but then noticed the date in the top left corner of the screen.

January 19.

Neil smacked his phone against his palm to see if that would fix it somehow, since January 19 had been and gone two days ago, but that did nothing. It was a minor issue. He slipped it back into his pocket and figured he’d rather leave his birthday mocking him for the rest of his miserable life than return to the mall and waste money on a new phone. For all of Nicky’s complaints about the supposedly ‘ancient’ model, Neil’s phone would outlast him by several years at least. It barely needed charging and had survived each of Neil’s accidental (and non-accidental) drops. It was probably one of those drops that left the display stuck, but it wasn’t a function Neil needed to survive.

With Andrew’s car gone and Matt running late, Neil figured his best bet would be simply running to the stadium – he’d be late, but not by much. He could stick to the route Matt would usually drive down and catch a lift if Matt caught up, but this wouldn’t be the first time someone had slept through alarms for practice. The best he could hope for was avoiding Wymack’s ire in the shadow of someone else being far later than he was.

Matt didn’t catch up with him, but Neil arrived at the stadium only ten minutes late for practice. There was a slim chance the others were still changing into their gear, though Neil was realistic enough to know that if that were the case it was because the last time they’d all been in the locker room, Aaron had called Neil out for his endless lies and accused him of what Neil had been hiding for years. Revisiting those accusations was inevitable, but Neil half-hoped his missed ride this morning would actually serve him well.

The locker room still smelled of bleach and cleaning supplies from yesterday’s game and the awful gift Riko had left in his locker. It was also quiet, crushing Neil’s half-hope of sneaking in swiftly and succinctly. He practiced an apologetic expression to give to Wymack later as he made his way over to the locker, but when he pulled open the door he was met with an eerily familiar split-second of resistance. Neil’s stomach dropped before he heard the sharp pop of a blood bag breaking.

How had Riko managed to sneak into the locker room again? The stadium would have been heaving with fans Friday night at the Terrapins game, but Wymack had amped up security three-fold after that morning’s chaos. How many of those security guards were now in Riko’s pocket?

The smell of blood was somehow worse the second time, and Neil’s stomach threatened to empty itself on his shoes that were now splashed and soaking in a pool of blood. Wymack had ordered Neil a new uniform Friday evening, but paying extra for express delivery meant he’d paid to have it hanging back in Neil’s locker only to get stained with blood again. Neil grabbed at the new uniform and pulled it free, but he was once again too late to save it. The fabric squelched in his hands. Neil couldn’t ask Wymack to order a third set, not when Riko had made it clear that he could do this on a daily basis. He’d have to start bringing his uniform over from the dorms just so he had something to play in.

Neil heard the click of the locker room door before it swung open, and Neil turned to see Wymack, mouth open to berate Neil for his lateness. Except the words that started and stopped were:

“What the hell are you doing here?” That was immediately followed by: “Is that yours?”

“He’s done it again,” Neil said, staring into his locker as if hoping to find a clue this time around.

“Is that yours?” Wymack asked again, striding up to Neil faster than usual, faster than he should do considering his hip injury.

“No,” Neil said. “Blood bag again.”

“What do you mean ‘again’?”

Neil gestured to his locker. “I don’t have anything to play in, Coach. Can I borrow some gear again?”

The Foxes had cobbled together a make-shift set for Friday’s game, and Neil could only hope it had been cleaned in time. Wymack had the funding of a D1 school and paid for whatever equipment was necessary, but no one had thought to order three spares of everything in case Neil’s got ruined before practice.

But Wymack ignored the fact that Neil was currently missing practice and the fact that the Foxes were waiting on him. Instead he grit his teeth and said, “I need you to derail that one-track fucking mind of yours for two seconds and focus on the fact that you are covered in someone or something’s blood. Are you okay?”

He’d said the exact same thing on Friday, too, but Neil hadn’t learned his lesson.

“I’m fine. I can still play. I just need some gear.”

“Like hell you’re playing. I’m in the right mind to cancel tonight’s game.”

“I’m fine,” Neil insisted, his so-called one-track mind latched onto Wymack’s refusal about letting him practise. “I won’t let Riko get to me. You didn’t have to pull me last time, and you won’t today.” Neil grabbed his helmet from the top shelf, ignoring how his hand slipped on the smooth plastic and looped his fingers under the chin strap. He could wash it in the bathroom sink and it’d be good enough for practice – at least the Foxes had seen it all before, and wouldn’t find it as terrifying as the first time.

Neil strode past Wymack and opened the door to the court with his elbow to avoid leaving bloody handprints on the orange paint. He opened his mouth to ask if he could borrow anyone’s gear, but was shocked to find the court empty. The court was eerily silent, and lit only by the filter of sunlight through the stadium’s overhead windows. None of the fluorescent lights had been switched on.

Neil turned back to Wymack. “Is everyone at the gym?”

“Everyone is in their classes, like you should be.”

Neil frowned. “It’s Sunday.”

Wymack pulled out his phone, but replied to Neil as he thumbed in a number. “Sit down. I’m calling Abby. I don’t know what the hell just happened here but I know a concussion when I see one.”

Neil, for possibly the first time in his life, followed an instruction given to him. He sat. He watched as Wymack called Abby and told her to come to the stadium as soon as possible, not giving any explanation other than “Neil”. Perhaps that was explanation enough.

While they waited, Neil watched as Wymack pulled Neil’s uniform and gear out of his locker and dropped it to the floor with a wet and heavy splat. Neil stood up to help, but Wymack pointed a warning finger at him.

“Sit,” he said sternly, “before I’m permanently down a player.”

Neil counted on his fingers in case he’d managed to miscount the weekend and rode out his terrible sleeping habits until Monday. On Friday, he’d gone to his classes, met the first version of Riko’s birthday gift, and then played against the Belmonte Terrapins. He’d not slept Friday night, but on Saturday, Wymack had named him as the Foxes vice-captain and he’d gone with Andrew and Kevin to pick up Andrew’s new car. Andrew had kissed him. He’d fallen asleep trying to distract himself from the weight of Andrew’s lips on his by counting as high as he could in every language he knew. It was impossible that he’d slept all through Sunday as well – the Foxes were as noisy as they were nosy – but it was the only explanation that made sense.

“Did I miss practice yesterday, Coach? Why didn’t anyone get me?”

Wymack eyed him. “No. You were here.”

That made even less sense, but Abby’s arrival distracted them both from Neil’s confusion. She gasped when she saw the state of Neil and his locker.

“He says it’s not his,” Wymack said. “He says he’s fine.”

“I am fine,” Neil said.

“What day is it?” Wymack asked, and Neil knew better than to answer.

Abby checked him out for head injuries and shone her flashlight to judge his pupil response.

“Dizziness?” she asked, the third question in her long list of symptoms.

“No.”

“Headaches?”

“No.”

“What’s your name?”

“Neil Josten.”

“Where are you right now?”

“Locker room.” A pause. “South Carolina.”

“And what were the three words I asked you to remember?”

“Apple, car, house.”

Abby frowned slightly, but she was professional enough to try to hide it. “I can’t see any injury, and your tests have come back clear.”

“But he thinks it’s two days from now,” Wymack said, which is what they were all thinking.

“What do you remember about yesterday?” Abby asked Neil. Neil wasn’t sure if she meant Thursday or Saturday, and Abby picked up on his hesitation. “The last day you remember, Neil. What happened before you went to sleep?”

“I was on the roof with Andrew,” he said, and then continued on before either Abby or Wymack could start considering the likelihood of Andrew causing some head injury that resulted in Neil’s brain fog. “I’d gone with him and Kevin to pick up Andrew’s new car.” He then spared a glance at Wymack. “You asked me to be vice-captain.”

Wymack’s stare was heavy and disquieting. “I have not asked you that. I was going to tomorrow, after the game.”

Neil didn’t know what to say to that that would make all of them feel better, so he settled with an answer that might at least help Wymack and Abby: “Strange dream then.”

Wymack continued watching him for a long, painful moment, before turning to Abby. “What does he need?”

“Rest, mostly. You can take painkillers if you get any headaches, Neil. I’ll need someone to keep an eye on you – can I ask you to stay at mine?”

Neil guessed his resulting expression could be easily read as a hard and fast ‘no’. Wymack sighed. “The team can check on him between their classes. Matt’s got a free period this morning so he can pick him up.”

As Wymack pulled out his phone to call Matt, Neil looked at the helmet in his hands and the pool of blood dripping beneath it on the floor. Yesterday had not yet happened. Neither had Friday’s game.

This was not the second time Riko had left a message in Neil’s locker.

This was the first.

Neil stood up and strode over toward the bathroom before Wymack or Abby could stop him. On the far wall, ‘Happy 19th Birthday, Jr’ greeted him in blood. If this was the second attempt to scare Neil, the message would no longer make sense – it wouldn’t be his birthday anymore. Riko was much more likely to try for another threatening message than repeat an earlier attempt with a dwindling success rate.

“What the fuck is that?” Wymack asked, somewhere behind Neil.

“It doesn’t matter, Coach,” Neil said, his voice sounding distant to his own ears.

“The hell it doesn’t,” Wymack said. “I’m calling the police.”

Neil felt himself turning to grab Wymack’s elbow before remembering he’d done the same before. Again, he squeezed so hard he felt bones creak.

“Coach, you’re going to have to leave them out of this one. Okay? Let me just clean it up before the others get here. No one else has to know.”

“Give me one good reason not to cancel the game and pull security in here.”

Neil hadn’t had a good reason before, and he still didn’t have one now. But his last excuse had somehow worked so he tried it again, half-willing Wymack to call him out on using the same bullshit excuse he’d used two days ago: “I can’t give you that yet. I told you to wait until May.”

Wymack said nothing but studied Neil with a familiar intensity. Neil let him go and returned to his spot on the bench until Matt’s arrival ten minutes later. Matt’s gaze skipped over the wreck of Neil’s locker and instead focused on Neil’s hunched form. He set down a bag with one of Neil’s grey T-shirts sitting on top of what Neil assumed was more of his spare clothes. The thought of Matt going through his things still made his stomach twist, but he supposed it would be better than leaving the stadium covered in blood.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Neil said automatically.

“So ‘not really’ is probably the real answer, right?”

Matt’s easy quip was familiar enough to almost be comforting, but not too familiar to make him panic. He pinched himself again, but to no avail.

“Come on,” Matt said. “Coach told me what happened and I’ve told the others. They’ll leave you alone.”

“Until the game, right?” Neil asked, looking up to watch Matt’s expression. “The game tonight?”

“If you need to sit this one out, Dan can sub as a striker. We’ll manage.”

Matt’s answer was probably supposed to be reassuring, but his confirmation that the Terrapins game two days ago had not yet happened felt like lead in Neil’s stomach. Confusion buzzed in his veins and made his head spin, though Abby would say that was just the concussion talking. Neil didn’t know if that were true – he’d had concussions before countless times, but not one of them had made him feel like this. Yesterday and the day before just felt so… real.

Neil showered and hoped the hot water could wash off his confusion and give him some answers. It did neither. He scrubbed his skin raw as Wymack and Matt scrubbed at the bloody message on the tile, but he could still feel the remnants of blood under his fingernails, even if he couldn’t see it. He continued scrubbing – apparently he couldn’t trust his own senses today.

The quiet rumble of Matt’s truck was the only noise as Matt drove them back to the dorms. Neither of them spoke, not even as they pulled into car park, or made their way inside. Neil stared into space as they took the elevator up. Each ding for every floor passed felt empty and hollow.

When Neil pulled out his keys for their dorm, his fingers clasped against them and there was one noticeable absence. He’d fallen asleep last night with his fingers clasped around his keys, indents left in his thumb from pressing the teeth of Andrew’s new car key into his flesh. He’d worked it onto the ring beside Andrew’s old car key and watched them sway without really seeing them.

He saw them now. Saw the lack of them. Andrew’s old car key swung alone in his hand now. Andrew hadn’t picked up his new car because his appointment at the dealership wasn’t until tomorrow.

Andrew hadn’t kissed Neil. That hadn’t happened, because everything Neil remembered about the last forty-eight hours hadn’t really happened. It was all a side effect from his concussion.

“You alright?” Matt asked, watching Neil warily as they stood in front of the door to their suite.

“Yeah,” Neil said. “I’m fine.”

Matt unlocked and opened the door while Neil was still staring at his own keys, strangely empty in his hand.

“You should sleep,” Matt said. “Someone will swing by to wake you in an hour.”

Neil could only nod, and he made his way back into the bedroom. He barely bothered to take off his shoes before crawling under the covers and hoping for this strange nightmare to be over.

With the promise of the Foxes waking him up after each of their classes, Neil could only hope he’d feel fine enough to play later. Whatever this strange case of déjà vu was, it didn’t matter. The Foxes had a game to win, and Neil wouldn’t let Riko take this victory, either.

[take two]

Neil didn’t know which of the Foxes was supposed to be checking up on him first, but instead of waking him they’d decided to set his alarm instead. His head pounded with the ringing alarm clock on his nightstand, and he shut it off with a slap of his hand. Squinting at the midday sun, Neil blindly reached for the aspirin he’d left beside a glass of water, but his search came up empty. On his nightstand was his phone, an empty mug he’d forgotten to wash, his contacts case even though he’d not worn the brown coloured lenses since coming back from Evermore, and his alarm clock. No aspirin and no water glass. And his alarm clock displayed the current time as six o’clock.

Shit. He only had an hour before the game started. He started to scramble for his clothes before realising that the sunlight was coming from the wrong window. It wasn’t the late afternoon sun, it was the early morning.

Shit.

Neil checked his phone to see if he’d really managed to sleep through the rest of the day, but was confused when he saw ‘January 19’ flashing in the top left corner of the screen again. His initial reaction was relief – he’d not missed the game – but following that initial relief was reality crashing down on him. It was his birthday again. Even if he could wrap his head around that, worse still was the reminder that he had a gift waiting for him in his locker at the stadium. Aaron was going to confront him again, and the team would find out he was on the run. He’d lived through that nightmare once before, but the universe had decided to throw him to the wolves all over again.

Or maybe the team didn’t need to find out.

It took Neil all of two seconds to decide that he wasn’t going to attend his classes that morning. He’d repeated the same lectures before and had little interest in sitting still through the mindless droning of his tutor. It had been boring the first time; doing it again was simply a waste of time. He couldn’t practice exy, but he knew what awaited him in the locker rooms. The smell of blood clogged his throat and choked him the first time. He’d still recoiled the second time. He doubted it would be any better now.

This time, he figured he might as well try to stop it from happening in the first place. All he needed to do was get down to the stadium before anyone else.

He was halfway across campus when he bumped into Andrew. He was walking down the side of one of the humanities buildings that Neil had never set foot in, focused on lighting a cigarette between his lips and sheltering the cherry with cupped hands. Neil came to a stop before they bumped into each other but Andrew had always had the uncanny ability to know when to stop even when he wasn’t looking or paying attention.

Andrew stopped a couple feet away from Neil but ignored him in favour of getting his cigarette lit. He managed to do so after the third flick of his lighter, and took a slow and deep drag before looking up at Neil’s face.

“Don’t you have class?” he asked, sounding as curious about Neil’s answer as he would be for the second page of a phone directory.

“It’s a revision class,” Neil said, packaging a lie and a truth in the same gift box with a neat little bow.

Andrew just hummed, and continued to watch him. “Most would try to sleep in if they were going to skip an early morning class,” he said. “Makes me wonder what you’re doing with that time, since you can’t go practice.”

Neil ignored that. “Have they called you to say when you can pick up your car?”

“Tomorrow.”

If we’ll ever see tomorrow, Neil thought.

Neil remembered the last time he’d seen Andrew – up on the roof of Fox Tower, the gravel biting into the palms of his hands, the buzz humming under his skin after Andrew had curled a hand around Neil’s neck. He remembered breathing in Andrew’s exhale, as if he had any right to that.

The kiss had been harsh, and rough, and awful. Neil didn’t deserve it, and the reminder of what he’d always lack in his life had been a slap in the face.

But this Andrew didn’t remember the kiss. Didn’t kiss Neil in the first place. Neil didn’t know why the universe had given him another shot at this, but it had. He wouldn’t waste it this time. This time around, he could make sure he wouldn’t lead Andrew on, wouldn’t give him any reason to think kissing Neil was okay. Maybe, though Neil wasn’t stupid enough to hope for it, Neil could forget he’d ever known what kissing Andrew felt like. Maybe he wouldn’t still taste the ghost of lips on his.

The thought lingered as he left Andrew and made his way over to the stadium.

Once he got to the locker room, he was relieved to find it empty. Wymack would be around somewhere, or at least he would be in a couple hours when Neil had found him last time, but there would be at least some time to dismantle Riko’s prank before anyone found out about it. Neil just had to be careful.

He found everything he needed in the equipment cupboard. It wasn’t much – he just needed something thin enough to get through the tiniest opening of his locker door, long enough to reach the blood bag and strong enough to handle the weight once he disconnected it from the trap. Wymack also kept a few flashlights in the locker room in case of emergency (the Foxes had experienced a blackout mid-practice last year, apparently), so Neil grabbed one of those, too.

Wymack still hadn’t arrived to his office by the time Neil returned to the locker room. He stepped over to his locker, not wanting to waste any time, and set to work. He’d done this a couple times, mostly to avoid setting off security alarms rather than disabling any sort of prank, but the mechanics were the same. Neil twisted in his locker code, and opened the door by bare millimetres. Whatever was inside was at least silent from that, and the trap wasn’t set to the lock as much as it was from the door. Neil peered inside, but he needed the flashlight to see what he was working with. As predicted, a blood bag was taped to the roof of the locker, connected to a thin wire similarly taped to the locker door. It was already pulled taut, with little room for movement. Neil slipped the rod through the crack and fed it through to the tap on the locker door, sawing it back and forth through the tape in an attempt to disengage it. He held his breath the entire time, keeping his movements as slight as possible.

And he’d almost done it.

He’d successfully peeled off three corners of the tape, but the fourth and final corner stuck firm. The glue held, and Neil’s next attempt with the rod pulled too tight on the blood bag’s trap. The seal popped undone, and blood came gushing down. It soaked his uniform, his gear, his gloves. It was just as bad the third time around as it had the first and second. Worse, perhaps, when he’d seen it coming.

Neil was still cleaning the locker room when Allison arrived.

“What the…”

Neil whirled around at the sound of her voice, but it looked like Allison had barely even noticed Neil amid the blood stains. Neil didn’t know why she’d appeared so early when they had a game that evening, but that wasn’t the priority right now.

“Allison, it’s not—”

“—Are you injured?” she cut in. “Is it yours?”

“It’s not mine,” Neil said, the familiarity of the conversation settling in his stomach like a stone. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t give me that,” Allison snapped, unusually riled. “What is this? Why is there blood everywhere? Why is it coming from your locker?”

“It’s just a stupid prank,” Neil said, doubting his excuse would work but needing it to all the same.

Allison glared at him. “If you honestly think I would believe that, you might have to rethink your definition of ‘stupid’.”

“Can you believe it anyway?” Neil asked. Allison just continued to stare at him in silent annoyance in response, so Neil tried to change the conversation. “Why are you here so early? The game doesn’t start for hours.”

“I left my denim skirt in my locker,” Allison said, as if she didn’t have three denim skirts that all looked the same. “What’s your excuse? Trying to clean up the scene of the crime before the rest of us arrived?”

Her arched eyebrow challenged him to try to lie his way out of it, but they both knew she’d caught him red-handed.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Neil said instead. “I mean it.”

“Why? You obviously have to report this, Neil.”

“I don’t. I won’t.”

“You can’t?” Allison guessed. She glanced at the blood stained jersey in Neil’s locker and grimaced. “Well you can’t play in that, so people are going to find out anyway.”

Neil shook his head, first in denial and then in protest. “There’s enough spare gear I can borrow, and I can clean my jersey in time for the game.”

“Why are you letting them get away with this?” Allison asked. “Are you protecting them?”

“No,” Neil spat, before reining in his temper. His anger hadn’t surprised or upset Allison but it had definitely piqued her curiosity, which was much, much worse.

“Is it Riko?” Allison guessed, a bloodhound for gossip, with a talent for educated guesses.

“I don’t want to give him the reaction he so desperately wants. If I can prove that he can’t get to me, then he can’t win.”

“Neil, he broke into our locker room and destroyed your gear. He has got to you.”

“I won’t give him the satisfaction, Allison. I’m serious – don’t tell anyone.”

Allison didn’t tell anyone, in the end, but everyone found out anyway. Neil had put his jersey through two wash cycles before drying it with Allison’s hair dryer, but it still had a pink-ish tinge that looked painfully wrong on the court line-up. He’d managed to scrounge the spare gear before everyone else arrived for practice, but Wymack had spotted him heading back to the locker room with Renee’s old gear in hand.

Wymack didn’t remember any of yesterday’s conversation. He was suspicious of Neil needing extra gear, but there was no reason for him to assume it was because Neil’s own stuff had been soaked through with animal blood.

No matter what happened, everything would be erased within twenty-four hours.

“Can you play?”

“You’re really just going to let Riko get away with this?”

“They’ll never find proof that Riko was involved in this, but they might find you, right?”

“Your looks, your languages, your lies – you’re running from something or someone.”

Knowing that everyone else involved would forget again didn’t make it easier for Neil to experience, though. Neil ignored the concerned and confused looks from his teammates, pretended not to notice them trying to pick apart everything he’d ever told them and attempt to categorise it as fact or fiction. When he went to bed that night, he begged the universe for another reset. He needed to return to a world where the Foxes believed he was just street trash looking to make a name for himself. He couldn’t handle the weight of their pity and distrust when they realised they’d invited someone dangerous into their midst.

[take three]

This time, Neil didn’t set his phone back on his bedside table when he glanced at the date showed on the small screen. He instead held his phone to his chest in gratitude, and stayed in bed until Matt stirred.

“Neil? Shit, don’t you have class?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Neil said, waving off his concern. “I’m not going.”

Matt grinned sleepily. “Knew we’d make a normal teenager out of you someday.”

“I’m nineteen,” Neil said, for once not lying. “You left it until the last minute.”

“You were nineteen when we got you. If anything, you’re a newborn.”

Neil tried to remember the name of a baby fox. “A kit.”

Matt looked over at him. “Shit, was that a joke? I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Neil pulled a sock from his foot and lobbed it at Matt, startling a laugh out of them both.

Matt didn’t remember that Neil was on the run from his father. He didn’t remember that Neil had told the team that Riko knew his real identity. He didn’t remember what violence Neil had been born from. Neil wished he could keep it that way, but he could only bide his time. Delaying the inevitable was pointless, but he couldn’t help himself. Matt’s easy humour and good mood slipped over Neil like a soft blanket. He felt comfortable and safe, warm as the sand Neil had buried his head into.

After nineteen miserable years of life, Neil was used to making the most of a lousy situation. If this was the day he had to relive, again and again, his only day to live, he might as well try to enjoy himself. There was something to be said about his state of mind when he had the brief realisation that if he was trapped in a time loop, his father’s men where trapped outside of it. No matter what he did, they couldn’t get him. If they could find him, they had a limited amount of time to do anything about it, and Neil wasn’t even convinced that death could stop this loop. He could imagine the bang of gunfire and the burst of pain in his chest or his head or his stomach. He could bleed out in the middle of nowhere, the trunk of a car prepared to carry his body to a shallow grave, and then he could wake up in his bedroom with faint morning sunshine creeping in through the window by his and Matt’s desks.

Maybe this was purgatory. Maybe he was losing his mind.

Neil went with Matt down to the dining hall for breakfast, loading his plate up with fresh fruit and savouring every bite. It wasn’t his last meal – he’d have this exact same fruit tomorrow and the tomorrow after that, for every tomorrow to come, but there was a gentle sort of joy to be had in appreciating a meal with someone who didn’t know the darker parts of you, who’d uncovered the useless truths instead and treasured them like nuggets of gold. Neil desperately wanted to be the person Matt thought he was, and for a single day, he could. He could pretend that his father wasn’t chasing him, pretend that his biggest worry was beating Belmonte that night, that he spent most of his days thinking about his classes or his friends or his future. Any future.

Neil skipped all of his classes that day and spent every minute with the Foxes as they dipped in and out of free periods. The day felt practised, almost comfortingly familiar, and he wondered whether this was supposed to be a dream or a nightmare. Either way, he didn’t seem to be waking up.

He followed the Foxes down to the stadium and postponed opening his locker as long as possible.

“What’s gotten into you?” Kevin demanded. “Get a move on, we have a game to play.”

“We have a game to win,” Neil corrected.

“Not if you don’t get changed out in the next five minutes.”

“Sure,” Neil said, and wondered whether to take up Dan’s offer to play for him when she technically hadn’t offered it to him yet. Maybe he could skip this game and never open his locker again. He could go to bed with the knowledge that his team still accepted him, still liked him, and wake up to bask in their friendships all over again.

But doing that forever would mean never playing exy again, and Neil had already sacrificed everything for the sport. He wasn’t going to stop now.

Neil opened his locker door with the pop of a seal breaking, waited for the blood to splatter onto his shoes, and called out, “Can I borrow some gear?”

[take four]

The only good thing about being stuck in a time loop, Neil came to realise, was that if time looped on a day with an exy game, he could expect to play exy for the rest of existence. He didn’t need to worry about his father finding him, didn’t need to worry about Riko exposing his secrets to the world. He could just play against Belmonte forever.

For the fourth time he’d played this very same match, Neil remembered how parts of the game would go. He knew that if he crashed into his backliner marks with the same aggression as the last time he’d played, he’d get a yellow card before the halftime break. He knew that if he used the passing and shooting skills Kevin had taught him, slipped in some of the defensive footwork he’d learned from the Ravens, called out to Kevin in French, then he could sneak in a goal at the forty-first minute. To Neil, the game felt like following set-by-set instructions. To everyone else, it looked like his play had improved tenfold. Even Kevin had nothing to complain about.

“Doesn’t it get boring?” Andrew asked during half-time, passing Neil on his way to the bench. He’d spent the last five minutes warming up, ready to take over from Renee.

“What?”

“This game,” Andrew said. “Exy in general. We score, they score. Again and again until time runs out. Did you really risk so much just to play?”

“It’s the only thing I have left,” Neil said, the honesty thick and cloying in his mouth.

“And now you’ll have it forever,” Andrew said, just after the referee blew the whistle.

Neil stared at Andrew as the team lined up to head back onto the court, wondering what that was supposed to mean. Kevin gave him a strange look for his drifting attention, and snapped his fingers in front of Neil.

“Focus,” he said. Just as he had done last time.

“We’re gonna flag too early,” Neil said, staring at Kevin’s face and willing him to refute it. Tell me that you know, he thought. Tell me this is a dream. “They’re gonna sub out fresh backliners and we’ll be too tired to keep up with legal checks.”

Kevin just shook his head. “Focus. Stop thinking about what might happen and just watch the ball.”

[take five]

The number five possessed several noteworthy properties in math. It was a prime number; it was the fifth in the Fibonacci sequence; a number is divisible by five if and only if its last digit was either a zero or a five; it could be factored within the Gaussian integers, revealing connections between the number five and algebraic number theory.

The number five was not, however, mathematically important enough to break a time loop.

Neil rolled over and switched off his alarm and then his phone. He knew the text that would arrive later, the ominous ‘49’ that still meant nothing to him, but staying in bed and sleeping through the day wasn’t an option. All that would do was delay the inevitable and make Neil do it all over again. Everything was endless. Everything was infinite.

Everything was miserable.

The only bright part of the birthday he was probably going to repeat into eternity was the match against Belmonte, but there was no practice on game days. Still, Neil had keys to the court and he knew that as long as he avoided Wymack and Allison, he could be left to play on it undisturbed. He celebrated his own birthday the best way he knew how and ran to the court after skipping his morning class. Instead of candles, Neil blew out his arms firing endlessly against an empty goal. The evening’s game was miserable, both with the resulting loss and the fact Neil spent the entirety of it on the bench, but it didn’t matter anyway, did it? He could do something different tomorrow. He could do the exact same thing. Neither would make a difference.

Maybe it was safer to avoid the court until game time; his self control had been waning more and more every time the day reset. He felt agitation humming under his skin all evening, and sleep didn’t find Neil that night. He lay in bed counting the hours and watched the starlit sky turn into the soft blue of sunrise. When Matt’s alarm started buzzing at seven o’clock, Neil came to the realisation that the day only reset when he slept – unless, of course, this strange time loop he’d found himself in had suddenly ended. He doubted it. Yesterday didn’t feel significant enough for that to be the end of it, but he couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to do to make this all… end.

[take six]

By the sixth time Neil woke up on his nineteenth birthday, Neil had accepted his fate. He was stuck in an indefinite time loop with no hope of getting out of it.

He didn’t bother going to the locker room to clean up the mess, not when the Foxes wouldn’t remember it when they next woke up. Whether Aaron confronted him or not, they’d only know his misery for twenty-four hours before returning to ignorant bliss. It was only Neil who had to suffer the prolonged consequences. He wanted it to stop, but he didn’t know how.

Neil had watched parts of the film Groundhog Day five times in his life. It was always on TV, in America as well as Europe, so Neil had seen the start of the film twice, the middle once, and the end twice – he’d seen the ending before he’d seen the middle, but it was easy to get the gist of it. Neil figured he was currently experiencing the start of the story – understanding that he was stuck in some sort of loop, and he’d need to do something to change the trajectory of his life.

As if it were that simple.

Neil was living on borrowed time. All he knew was running, surviving, but he’d thought he’d rather live a few months of relative joy than follow the miserable path his mother had set out for him. The universe swiftly reminded him what a stupid decision that had been.

Packing his belongings into his duffel bag left a strange weight in his chest, dread pooling in his gut. Still, it didn’t stop him – he’d spent half his life ignoring his own misery, so there was no point in letting it get to him now.

He bought a bus ticket as soon as the kiosk opened. The window rattled against his forehead from South Carolina all the way to Atlanta, but he’d made the mistake of closing his eyes while the bus was stuck in traffic. They were only ten minutes away from the station, where his next bus journey awaited. Those precious seconds of darkness, that brief respite from the sun, was all it took for consciousness to slip away.

[take seven]

When Neil woke up in his dorm again, he wondered why the universe had decided to make him live this day forever, and not any other day he’d lived. There were certainly worse days to relive, but this wasn’t the best, either.

He supposed it didn’t matter. Life had well and truly given him lemons, but Neil had never liked sweet things. No amount of sugar could hide the sour misery that was Neil’s existence. All he could do was soldier on and accept the shit hand he’d been dealt with. Burying his head in the sand and pretending he could just repeat the same hours of blissful ignorance was stupid and pathetic and tempting, but running wasn’t going to fix it, either. Maybe the universe was sending him a message, maybe it was giving him a second chance to fix a mistake before it happened, or maybe Neil just had bad luck. It didn’t matter. He just had to change something.

Neil retraced steps that he’d not yet taken and skipped his classes to go to the stadium, avoiding Andrew in the process. Andrew was a can of worms that Neil wasn’t yet ready to deal with. Instead, he made it to the Foxhole Court without bumping into anyone he knew, collected everything he needed to dismantle the blood bag in his locker, and set to work. Again but also for the first time.

He went for the most difficult corner of tape first this time. It required a steady hand and more finesse than the other three corners had needed, but eventually, arms aching from holding them up for so long, Neil managed to see-saw the wire through the tape and flick it loose of its sticky bindings. After that, the other three corners were easy to unstick.

Neil forced himself to ignore the urge to roll his shoulders and ease the ache in his arms. With the wire disengaged from the locker door, he held his breath as he opened the door further. No pop, no blood. He exhaled. Now it was safely disengaged, Neil took a few moments to examine the blood bag. It was just a zip-lock bag, filled to the brim with (hopefully) animal blood. Any further tension or pressure would have popped the seal. It was deadly in its simplicity, and Neil had to reassess his assumptions of what he’d previously thought Riko was capable of. This didn’t have the public fanfare that he’d thought Riko desperately wanted. It was clean, a warning. But then again, Riko had waited until it was the night of a game. He’d wanted an audience.

Neil denied him one. He threw the blood bag into the trash cans outside, covering it with the other junk in there, and made his way back to campus for the rest of the day. It was only then that he allowed himself to hope that the rest of the day could continue as any other – that he could go to class, skip his last period to head to the stadium with the others, play exy. And, hopefully, wake up on January 20.

He allowed himself to hope, but he didn’t hold his breath. He knew delusion sung in his veins just as much as fear did. Over the next few hours, anticipation hummed underneath his skin. He half-expected someone to rush into his lectures and shout about the blood bag found by the stadium, dreaded someone would turn on the sports segment of the news and the room to slowly turn to Neil when they realised they were watching an interview with Riko Moriyama, discussing the birthday present he’d given Neil that day. None of that happened – it hadn’t happened any other January 19, after all – but still, he waited.

He tried his best to act normal when he followed the others into the locker room an hour before the game. He sidestepped into the shower block first to confirm that he had indeed washed off the birthday message Riko had left for him, and was greeted only by soap-stained streaks on the mirrored glass.

His locker almost seemed to taunt him as Neil made his way over. It had been one of the first things he could call his own when he came to Palmetto – sure, it was only for the duration he’d be a student, and it had belonged to someone else before him, but it had his number on it and he was the only one who knew its pass code. It had never betrayed him until the seemingly endless loop of his nineteenth birthday.

Neil unlocked the door and turned the handle. Nothing. He opened the door to see his exy gear and uniform. Clean and unharmed. Neil exhaled a sigh of relief.

“That’s strange,” Andrew said from behind him, peering over Neil’s shoulder.

“What is?” Neil asked, pulling out his gear.

“The lack of blood.”

Neil froze. His heart skipped a beat. A second later, his pulse thrummed in his veins and he whirled around to catch Andrew’s gaze. Andrew didn’t look like he was trying to torment Neil and showed no signs of having been the one to leave the trap in Neil’s locker. But Neil had been fooled before and Andrew was excellent at keeping secrets.

“What do you mean?” Neil asked quietly.

“It’s usually so messy,” Andrew said.

The world spun, caught on an axis Neil had no hope of orienting himself from. “Usually?” he echoed. His own voice sounded muffled, like he’d been dragged underwater with no hope of rescue. “What do you mean ‘usually’?”

Andrew just watched Neil with a bored expression. “If you haven’t figured that out by now, there’s no hope for you.”

Neil stared at his back as Andrew turned around and made his way over to his own locker. Their teammates buzzed around them, hyping themselves up for the game in various states of dress. Nicky tried to pull Neil into an unofficial team pep talk, trash talking Belmonte like he’d not played them since last year and wouldn’t play them again until the following season. Like he was not caught in a loop that rewound every time he went to sleep.

Neil just continued to watch Andrew, regardless of the strange looks he was earning for it.

Was it possible that Andrew was caught in this, too?

[take eight]

Disengaging Riko’s prank hadn’t been enough.

Neil hadn’t expected it to be, and didn’t allow himself to feel the luxury of disappointment. Still, he’d learned something from the last attempt at January 19 – not only that he needed to unstick the bottom left corner of tape before the others, but that Neil might, after all, not be so alone in this endless loop.

Neil turned off his alarm so it wouldn’t wake Matt, but he didn’t go to the stadium that morning. He still skipped his first class, but instead headed over to the humanities side of campus to find Andrew again. Andrew, like the last time Neil had seen him the morning of his birthday, was still trying to light a cigarette. If he had looped this day, too, he hadn’t used the time to practice with his lighter.

“Don’t you have class?” Andrew asked after a slow drag. Neil wondered how many loops he’d have to experience before he could time Andrew’s exhale to the millisecond.

“It’s a revision class,” Neil said again, trying to track the minute tells on Andrew’s face to find a hint of a sign that Andrew knew they’d had this conversation before.

Andrew just hummed, face unreadable as usual, and continued to watch Neil. “Most would try to sleep in if they were going to skip an early morning class,” he said. “Makes me wonder what you’re doing with that time, since you can’t go practice.”

Neil decided to deviate from the previous script. “I came to find you.”

If Andrew was surprised, he didn’t show it. “Oh? Why is that?”

The truth was, Neil came to find Andrew because despite the fact that no one else remembered Andrew’s comments in the locker room before the game, Neil did. Andrew had expected blood, like he knew what should have awaited him when Neil opened his locker door. Andrew was often saying strange things, mostly because he enjoyed frustrating people, but there was a serrated edge to his words that made the cutting jab feel even more ruthless. Neil didn’t know if Andrew was aware of how deep his words had buried underneath Neil’s skin, but Andrew didn’t usually waste his breath. If he had something to say, he’d go straight for the jugular.

“You said you expected my locker to be messy,” Neil said, still watching Andrew for a reaction.

Andrew blinked slowly at him and took another drag of his cigarette. He exhaled in Neil’s face.

“Did I? When?”

“Yesterday. Or today, maybe. I was hoping you would tell me, since you remember everything.”

Andrew just watched him for a few moments, before stubbing out his cigarette on the underside of his boot. He slipped it back into his carton of cigarettes before acknowledging Neil again.

“Yesterday and today are two different things. One might wonder if you hit your head at some point.”

“I haven’t. Maybe I will tomorrow.”

“Maybe,” Andrew agreed.

‘Will tomorrow come?’ Neil wanted to ask. He did not. His lips almost shaped around the question, ‘Are you stuck in this loop, too?’ but did not make a sound.

Instead he just said, “See you later, Andrew,” and left him with the only promise he could keep.

[take nine]

The longest recorded time a person had gone without sleep was approximately eleven days. Neil knew from personal experience that there were side effects from missing sleep from even the first handful of nights, but he knew now that it was the act of falling asleep that reset the day in this strange and impossible loop. If he skipped sleep on the evening of his birthday then he experienced the day after, but he’d not managed to stay awake for the second night in a row. It was worth trying – after all, if he failed and took a turn for the worse, it was likely that he’d wake up shiny and new anyway.

He disposed of the blood bag in his locker and acted like nothing was unusual for the rest of his birthday. Andrew, he noticed, had nothing strange to say this time around. Neil caught himself watching Andrew more than usual, but neither approached the other and Neil kept his suspicions to himself.

He stayed awake that night, doodling exy plays on his math textbook to keep himself occupied until the sun rose. When it was late enough in the morning to justify getting up, he went for a run around Perimeter Road. Avoiding the stadium was the only logical choice this time around. Neil had no interest in hearing Wymack offer him the role of vice-captain, not when Neil wasn’t even sure he’d ever reach the day his promotion would take effect, but Wymack got to him anyway. It was one of the few times Neil’s phone wasn’t switched off.

“Get to the stadium, will you?” Wymack asked.

“Sure,” Neil said, knowing better than to avoid the inevitable when it tried this hard to maintain continuity.

When Neil arrived, he found Wymack in his office. He was eating a bagel sandwich one-handed while flipping though folders of what Neil knew to be potential recruits. The Foxes needed six minimum following the ERC’s latest announcement, but Neil still wasn’t sure who he was supposed to recommend. He would have much preferred it if the universe decided to let him sleep before resetting the time loop – it would have been much more useful if he could use it to assess which recruits were actually good for the line-up, rather than trying to choose players based on pieces of paper and video recordings. If Neil had his way, he’d want to see them play with the Foxes, play in a game. He’d want Dan and Kevin’s opinions after seeing them in action.

But Neil never got what he wanted, and he wasn’t stupid enough to hope for it.

“Breakfast?” Wymack asked, offering Neil a brown paper bag.

Neil grabbed the second bagel sandwich inside and took the chair opposite Wymack.

“Potential recruits,” Wymack said, gesturing to the folders with his sandwich and miraculously not dripping sauce onto the papers. “We need six minimum.”

“I’m guessing the ERC didn’t like how we dealt with Andrew’s absence,” Neil said, knowing the answer but needing to pretend he’d figured it out himself rather than hearing it directly from Wymack himself.

Wymack nodded. “It was one of the conditions of letting us stay in the game. I promised it’d never happen again, so we need to train subs next year to replace for the girls when they graduate.”

Neil wondered what it took Wymack to maintain surety that Dan, Allison and Renee would graduate after Seth’s death. It should have been a fantasy, a delusion. Instead Wymack kept his faith regardless of everything the universe through at him. It only served to make Neil impossibly jealous.

Wymack split the folders with Neil and explained what he was looking for. When Wymack delivered the news that he was making Neil vice-captain next year, Neil couldn’t help but argue. He’d let fate toy with him for what felt like days, but each time he heard Wymack’s description of Neil, as if he could simply be reduced to his fake name and fake birthday, real height and stick size, it felt like Neil’s own life was crushing him. He couldn’t be what Wymack wanted him to be. It wasn’t possible.

But Wymack wouldn’t be swayed by reason or logic or inevitability. Time loops and fate and matters of the universe had nothing on an exy coach who’d never give up on his team.

“I can’t captain them,” Neil said. “I won’t.”

“This isn’t a democracy,” Wymack argued. “You don’t get to vote on what you do or don’t want to do. I make the rules and you get to deal. And you are going to deal with it. You need this as much as they need you. Give me one good reason why you’d try to turn this down.”

The first time Wymack had instructed him as such, Neil had wanted to say ‘I’m dying’. This time he wanted to say ‘I’ll never make it that far’. Neither were answers Wymack would accept.

“I have to go,” Neil eventually said, still unable to come up with a better excuse regardless of how many times he’d experienced this exact same conversation. Practice didn’t make perfect, no matter what Kevin led people to believe.

“See you Monday,” Wymack replied, as if Monday was a thing that could exist.

This time, Neil didn’t call Andrew from the curb of the sidewalk. He didn’t want to face the drive to the dealership, didn’t want to face Kevin either. Instead, Neil’s footsteps took him back to Fox Tower, up the elevator to the top floor and through the busted door to the roof. He sat as close to the edge as he could get, hoping the jolt of fear would distract him, but it wasn’t the miracle Neil needed. It wasn’t any easier to breathe there than it was on the ground, either. Still, he supposed, at least he could avoid an audience for a few hours.

Inevitability was a hard won battle, but it wasn’t Neil who came out victorious.

The first time Wymack had made Neil vice-captain, Neil’s thoughts had twisted in anxious circles. He’d thought he’d become rooted against his will, barricaded himself into this life with no means to escape. It wasn’t any better to hear this time around. Even if he did break out of this endless loop, championships would be over in three months, and with it, Neil’s life. By the time he was expected to take on a leadership role, Neil would be six feet under and the Foxes would have six new recruits to replace him. It would be the latest tragedy in PSU’s dark history, but he’d be nothing more than a fairytale after a year or two. Eventually the Foxes’ current lineup would graduate, Wymack and Abby would retire, and there would be no one left to remember him.

Still, he ached for the future his own life was snatching away from him. Even if he made it out this year alive, there was currently no way to reach it without waking up on January 19 again.

Neil curled his hands into fists and barely resisted the urge to punch something.

The hours slipped by slowly as Neil kept his gaze fixed on the sprawling campus below. Intermittent clouds passed and the day seemed endless, but all things eventually drew to a close. Night would soon fall and with it Neil’s consciousness, shoving both Neil and the universe back in time again. Neil wondered if the sun was sick of this, too.

It was nearly dusk when Andrew came up onto the roof. Neil heard the door open behind him but didn’t turn around, didn’t acknowledge his presence at all until Andrew dropped a car key into Neil’s lap.

“You’re still here,” Andrew said.

“I couldn’t run,” Neil replied, voice a little rough from disuse.

When Andrew sat down, he was quick to pull out two cigarettes, light then both and then offer one to Neil. The first intake of smoke settled the nerves in Neil’s stomach more than he cared to admit.

Neil picked up the key Andrew had dropped in his lap and held it up for further examination. It wasn’t anything special, but it was just as jarring to look at now than it had been the first time. Even knowing that Andrew liked him well enough to kiss, it was impossible to consider that Andrew wanted him to stay. A key disputed everything Neil thought he knew about their relationship – Andrew’s car was probably his most treasured possession and Neil was the reason his last one was trashed. Neil might have been the reason Andrew could afford the upgrade, but there was no explanation that made sense to justify why Andrew thought Neil should have the right to drive his new car.

“A man can only have so many issues,” Andrew said. “It’s just a key.”

The last time Andrew had said that, Neil had replied ‘You’re a foster child. You know it isn’t.’ That conversation had ended with a kiss neither of them could move away from, courtesy of the universe and the sick joke it was playing.

Neil didn’t want to play that script, not when he knew where it ended. This time, Neil asked, “Why am I allowed keys to your car and your house?”

Andrew barely acknowledged the question, deflecting like it was his favourite pastime. “Usually you tell me one of your secrets but this time you’re asking for one of mine? For shame, Neil.”

“What do you mean ‘usually’?” Neil asked, refusing to bow down to Andrew’s deflection.

“I’m sure you know the definition.”

“Andrew.”

Andrew just looked at him blankly.

“Andrew, do you know what’s happening?”

Andrew dug a finger in Neil’s cheek and forcibly turned his head away. “Don’t look at me like that. I am not—”

“—your answer, and you sure as fuck aren’t mine,” Neil finished, their words overlapping until Andrew cut himself off.

He didn’t look startled by the fact Neil knew what he was going to say, which was only adding fuel to Neil’s theory that Andrew was also stuck in this loop.

“I’m a Fox, I’m always going to be nothing, you hate me,” Neil said, trying to remember everything Andrew had said to him that night. “Are you seriously going to pretend that any of this is normal?”

Andrew just looked at him for another long moment, endless seconds that felt like hours. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit.”

Andrew just shrugged. He got up and made to leave, but Neil wouldn’t let him go that easy. He followed Andrew downstairs, hot on his tail, but it was only when they approached their dorms that Andrew acknowledged Neil’s presence again. He pushed Neil into his door with a palm to the chest before Neil could make to follow Andrew any further.

“Leave me alone,” Andrew said, pushing Neil further into his own door with an edge of finality.

As if he were still held in place, Neil remained where he was as Andrew finally stepped back and let Neil go. He headed further down the corridor to his dorm and Neil could only watch, gaze lingering on the closed door after Andrew had passed through it.

Neil went to bed confused and frustrated. He knew the day would reset again, that he’d wake up to his birthday once more, but he knew for a fact that Andrew wouldn’t reset with the rest of the world.

He just had to convince Andrew to admit to it.

[take ten]

Neil went through the motions – and it was strange to think that what had once been living for survival, grateful he was still alive and clawing for another day, was now ordinary and boring, like he was entitled to every breath – until he was on the roof again with Andrew. He’d gone to the dealership with Andrew and Kevin this time, but neither of them mentioned how he’d not bothered to join them the last time.

Andrew gave him his spare key, and Neil gave him a look in return. All that was met with, however, was Andrew turning Neil’s face away with two fingers to his cheek.

“If I said everything I did that first time, would you kiss me again?”

Andrew, for once, didn’t pretend that he didn’t know what Neil was talking about. “No.”

“Why not?”

But Andrew’s compliance was apparently a one-time-only offer.

“Because I’m too stupid to tell you no?” Neil guessed. Andrew just stared ahead at the horizon and refused to answer or even acknowledge Neil again.

“I’m sorry,” Neil said, because he knew he should apologise for his part in this mess. “I didn’t mean…” He trailed off, too many options of how he could finish that sentence: I didn’t mean for it to go this far, I didn’t mean to let you think I was an option, I didn’t mean to encourage you.

Andrew stood up to leave again, but this time Neil let him go. He remained on the roof until his eyelids grew heavy, and figured here was as good a place as any for the world to drag him back in time again.

[take eleven]

When Neil woke up on his birthday for the eleventh time in a row, he wondered what it was he’d done the first time that had been so wrong that the universe conspired to fix it. Was he supposed to have told the Foxes the truth about who he was? Was he supposed to let Belmonte’s backliners shove him around?

He tried to retrace his steps and follow through his day like the first time: he went to his classes, he let Riko’s blood bag pop and ruin his uniform and gear, and through gritted teeth he let Aaron reveal his secrets to the team. He stayed awake that first night and went to the car dealership with Andrew and Kevin the following afternoon. Neil caught Andrew looking at him more than usual, likely trying to figure out why Neil was letting the day happen to him without interference, but Neil couldn’t bring himself to explain. Besides, it should have been obvious – if they were stuck in a loop, Neil was decidedly of the opinion that they should be unstuck.

It was only when Neil followed Andrew up onto the roof of Fox Tower that Andrew finally acknowledged the time loop.

“You let them find out this time,” he said, lighting a cigarette between his lips.

“I haven’t figured out what needs to change yet,” Neil said. “Maybe I’m supposed to tell them the truth.”

“And would you stick around if that worked? Seems to me like you’d tuck tail and run as soon as you break free.”

Neil couldn’t deny that, so he held his tongue. Andrew took his answering silence as confirmation of Neil’s cowardice and simply tsked in the face of it.

Annoyed, wanting to be better but knowing he wasn’t capable of it, Neil turned to Andrew and snatched his cigarette from between his fingers. He took a drag, holding Andrew’s gaze in challenge.

“Maybe you weren’t supposed to kiss me,” Neil said. “Maybe this loop is actually about you.”

“It was an err in judgement,” Andrew said, bored as if the admission was an easy mistake to own up to when Neil knew it wasn’t. Andrew had avoided this conversation for days.

“I did everything else the same,” Neil said. “If I go to sleep now and wake up tomorrow, at least we’ll have our answer.”

Andrew, predictably, ignored him.

[take twelve]

When Neil woke up again, it turned out that not-kissing Andrew wasn’t the answer he’d been looking for.

[take… Neil had stopped keeping count]

Neil had his morning timed to the second now. He knew that if he didn’t switch his own alarm off within the next two minutes, it would wake Matt. A few loops ago, he’d laid in bed listening to the buzzing of his phone for a few minutes and had then had a bizarre start to the day where he and Matt got up at the same time, showered one after the other, ate breakfast together, and then left for their classes at the same time, Matt trying to squeeze through the doorframe the same moment Neil stepped through. It had been an uncomfortable experience that Neil was in no rush to repeat.

For the next dozen or so consecutive loops, Neil adjusted parts of his day to see if anything broke him free of the loops. He tried having toast for breakfast instead of cereal, and running from Palmetto again. He tried decking Aaron in the Foxes’ locker room when he brought up Neil’s secrets, and even calling the FBI to report everything his father had ever done.

It didn’t change anything other than make him feel like his life was even smaller than he’d thought before. Neil had never considered himself to be a particularly important person, barely scraping average in anything other than exy, but repeating the same forty-eight hours again and again and again made him feel a new level of useless, like nothing he ever did would amount to anything.

This time, the mysterious nth time upon waking up on his birthday, Neil simply climbed out of bed, grabbed his phone, and pulled out his binder from his safe. He made quick work of flicking through the pages but it took a few minutes to unpick his uncle’s phone number from the code of other random numbers.

Matt woke up at some point but Neil ignored his morning cheer in favour of punching in his uncle’s number and putting his phone to his ear. It rang out twice, Neil’s knee bouncing with nervous anticipation despite the odd sort of fearlessness this loop had instilled upon him, and Neil nearly dropped his phone when he heard his uncle’s voice through the plastic speakers.

“Who’s this?” Stuart asked after a beat.

“Hi, Uncle Stuart,” was Neil’s shaky reply.

A pause. “Nathaniel?”

Neil’s stomach plummeted to the synthetic carpet tiles of his dorm room, but it wasn’t a thing that could be helped.

“It’s ‘Neil’ now,” he said quietly.

“And Mary?”

Neil shook his head, even though Stuart couldn’t see him. “No.” He couldn’t say anything further, even if he wanted to. Words were already threatening to choke him.

Stuart was quiet for a long while, easily participating in the grief that Neil had struggled with for so long. It was both comforting and devastating to finally tell someone that his mother had died after years of spinning lies about absent but very much alive parents. His mother had been anything other than absent. She’d been his sole protector and his only company for most of his life, yet the people closest to him believed her to be more invested in some mediocre career than her own son. A part of Neil felt relieved that he could finally admit that she’d died trying to keep him safe and that he missed her dreadfully.

“Where are you?” Stuart asked.

“South Carolina.”

“Send me an address and I can be there this evening. Come home, Nath– Neil. Come home and let the family take care of you.”

Neil desperately wanted to say no. He wanted to stay at Palmetto and play exy with his teammates that evening, every evening, for the rest of his life. But the rest of his life was permanently on hold and this was the only thing he could think of that might break him out of the loop that he hadn’t tried yet.

“Okay.”

With the soundtrack of Matt making coffee next door, Neil texted his uncle the address of a café halfway between PSU and the airport. Unlike his last attempt at the loop, Neil accepted the offer when Matt ducked his head into the bedroom and asked Neil if he wanted a cup of coffee. Matt didn’t know that Neil had previously refused him, and simply nodded when Neil said yes. Neil just knew he needed all the caffeine he could get if he were to get to England without sleeping.

Neil went through the motions of the day, doodling exy plays in the margins of his homework so he didn’t fall asleep through the most boring class of his life. When the Foxes changed out for the game, Neil let the blood soak his uniform and this time, for the second time (though he didn’t remember how many loops ago he’d tried it for the first time), quietly accepted Wymack’s encouragement to sit out the game. He watched from the sidelines as Dan filled in as striker and Renee played as a backliner again. She’d smiled at him as they filed out onto the court, kindly promising that she’d gotten better in the meantime. Neil just nodded and told her to win, earning him a rare but genuine toothy grin.

He ducked out of the match before half-time, and called a cab to take him to the café. Stuart was already there, a takeaway coffee placed on the table in front of him. He’d already been scanning the carpark when Neil’s taxi pulled in, and Neil felt his heavy gaze as he stepped in through the main door.

The past nine years had taken a severe toll on Stuart Hatford. His hair was greyer than Neil remembered, his face more lined, though he carried himself in the same easy, confident way. He was short, as most of his mother’s side of the family was, but he still had a gravity about him, the kind that his mother said was dangerous, the kind that got people caught. Neil wondered if his mother had once had that kind of gravity, wondered when she’d had to shed it to keep Neil safe.

“It’s good to see you,” Stuart said after Neil slid into the seat opposite him. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“No. Can we go?”

If Stuart was surprised by Neil’s impatience, he didn’t show it. He simply picked up his coffee cup and stood up to leave. Neil followed him out.

The drive to the airport was long but Neil was grateful that Stuart didn’t fill the hours with endless small talk. He asked the expected questions – how his mother died, how long they’d been running, how and why Neil ended up in South Carolina. After that, Stuart left Neil to the silence he desperately needed. Checking-in was easy, considering that neither of them had any luggage larger than a carry-on, and they sat at the gate in mutual silence until they were called for boarding.

Neil just wanted to wake up on any day other than his birthday. He needed this to work.

The plane started to move and Neil’s bones started to rattle, not just from the force of the engine. The Foxes would have won by now, with five goals from Kevin and one from Dan. Though, perhaps upon realising that Neil was no longer on the subs bench, the team would have faltered. Maybe they’d lost, maybe they’d tried calling him, maybe they’d sent someone to go search his room. Andrew would have likely done both, just to see if Neil had forfeited his promise willingly or if he’d been taken by force. After all, Andrew remembered what Aaron had accused him of multiple times, even if the rest of the Foxes had never experienced the interrogation.

In the end, Neil should have accepted his uncle’s offer in the café. The caffeine from his coffee with Matt had worn off hours ago. He’d put a movie on the tiny television screen but only half-watched it, and found himself drifting by the third act. If he’d been doing anything else, he might have noticed that he was losing focus, but because the movie was so boring, and because Neil hated watching mindless television, he couldn’t tell the difference between zoning out during canned dialogue and losing a battle with his own consciousness.

He was asleep before the plane landed. Around him, the world began to vibrate at an unrecorded frequency, and then the horizon started to tilt. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Andrew Minyard took a drag from his cigarette and waited for Neil Josten’s birthday again.

[take n+1]

The alarm blared and Neil woke up in South Carolina again. He wondered if killing himself would even stop this endless loop.

[take n+2]

When Wymack asked Neil to be vice-captain again, Neil wondered if boredom and frustration and apathy had started to melt his brain a little. It was the only explanation he had for how the suggestion of responsibility that Wymack had forced upon him set a spark of joy in his gut. Fear was an amputation Neil had learned to live with, but hope was an incurable haemophilia: he bled and bled and bled.

“You’re the only one here who can succeed her,” Wymack said, after telling Neil why he chose Dan as the captain previously. “Didn’t you notice? They’re uniting around and behind you. That’s something special. You’re something special.”

Wymack was right, but not in the way he’d intended. Neil was special because he’d relived this same moment countless times before. Neil was special because it took countless rejected offers to finally let himself be happy to hear the same offer presented for him now.

“How can I captain them?” he asked. “I’m nobody.”

“You’re a Fox. You need this as much as they do, and everyone on this team will be better for it when you’re vice captain next year. And yes, that’s a when, not an if. I don’t run a democracy here – I make the rules and you get to deal.”

Neil let his chin dip in a nod he barely let himself believe. “Yes, Coach.”

Wymack nodded back in muted triumph. “Good. See you Monday.”

Neil still barely believed it as he left Wymack’s office, and it hadn’t yet sunk in until he reached the roof of Fox Tower. Regardless of the fact he’d never reach Monday, never reach vice captaincy, was he allowed to want this? Was he allowed to look forward to a future he’d never once believed possible? It was no more possible now than it had been when he signed with the Foxes, but at least now, in this infinite loop, could he let himself pretend he deserved this?

It made him wonder what else he could pretend to deserve, what else he could pretend he was allowed to want.

Andrew found him on the roof a few hours later. Again, he dropped the key to his new car in Neil’s lap.

“Is there much point in giving me this if I never end up driving it?” Neil asked, accepting the cigarette Andrew offered.

“You could go drive it now,” Andrew said.

Neil paused. “Can I?”

Andrew didn’t reply, but he stood up and dusted grit off his jeans. He didn’t wait for Neil but Neil hadn’t hesitated anyway – he immediately followed Andrew downstairs, and used his new key to unlock the driver’s door to Andrew’s Maserati.

It smelled like new car and blood money.

The last time Neil had sat behind the wheel of a car was driving Andrew’s rental back to campus after he’d bought a Maserati the first time ’round. The time before that, it had been Andrew’s old car from the Hemmicks’ home in Columbia. But before then, before Andrew and before the Foxes, Neil had only ever driven with his mother in the passenger seat. Since her death he’d hitchhiked, walked and taken public transport. Lately, he’d been catching rides with his teammates like any other college student on campus. Like he didn’t have a death sentence hanging over his head every second of the day.

The evening roads off campus were much emptier than the bumper-to-bumper traffic of Columbia had been. Neil felt the growl of the engine beneath his feet, the force of acceleration pushing his shoulders back into the seat. His fingers twitched against the smooth leather of the steering wheel.

“What name is your license under?” Andrew asked.

“Which one?” Neil asked, deciding to lean into that edge of fear, into the void of living without consequences.

Andrew glanced at him sideways. “Are you going to tell me all of your secrets now you think the Moriyamas won’t catch up with you?”

“Not all of them,” Neil said honestly. “But you can take a turn in our game.”

Andrew didn’t speak for a while, seemingly content to see where Neil took them. He didn’t ask where they were going or complain that Neil drove consistently just under the speed limit. He toyed with his lighter every so often, similar to his fidgeting on airplanes but Andrew couldn’t have been afraid when they were so solidly grounded.

Before they crossed the border into North Carolina, Andrew asked, “How many times has it been for you?”

“I don’t know,” Neil said honestly. “I stopped counting after the fifteenth loop. How many times has it been for you?”

“I didn’t count at all.”

Neil was sure that Andrew would be able to figure it out, based off his having an eidetic memory, but he didn’t push. Not when Andrew would remember it and not when Neil would, too.

“Have you tried to break it?” Neil asked.

“Yes.”

“What did you try?”

“It’s not your turn.”

Neil accepted that easily, and let the roar of the Maserati fill the silence between them. North Carolina stretched wide across the horizon, tarmac swallowed and churned out by the second.

“I tried running,” Neil said, which he knew wouldn’t surprise Andrew. “I took a Greyhound to Atlanta, and then another time I tried hitchhiking and then another time I tried leaving on foot. I once called my uncle to pick me up but I fell asleep on the plane.”

“You have an uncle?”

Neil nodded, testing how the secret felt in the air. It felt heavy, heady, but not entirely unpleasant. “On my mother’s side.”

Andrew didn’t reply for a while. “It figures that the first thing you’d do when presented with guaranteed safety from the Moriyamas is run anyway. Is that how you handle all your problems, or just the life threatening ones?”

Neil almost smiled. He felt his lips twitch at the corners of his mouth, the angle of it unfamiliar and dangerous. “I didn’t run when you kissed me.”

Andrew twisted his lighter in his hands, rolling it between his fingers, but didn’t respond. Neil would have wondered if Andrew was upset by the fact Neil defined the kiss as a problem, except he knew Andrew wouldn’t take Neil’s feelings into account either way.

“If I asked you to kiss me again, would you?”

Andrew just toyed with his lighter, sparking a flame with the flick of his thumb again, and again, and again. Neil saw it from the corner of his eye, wondering if that’s what his days felt like now. Click, January 19. Click, January 19. Click, January 19.

“No,” Andrew said eventually.

“Why?”

“Because you don’t want to kiss me.”

And Neil didn’t have an answer to that. How could he explain that he didn’t want to kiss Andrew because he didn’t know what wanting felt like? How could he put into words that he only thought of it because they were stuck in this loop with nothing else to do. If Neil wanted anything, it was to feel reckless, to do something stupid and not suffer the consequences. He hadn’t wanted to kiss Andrew on January 18 and he wouldn’t want to kiss Andrew on January 21, either. He’d just found himself in this pocket of forty-eight hours where everything was meaningless and what he wanted didn’t matter.

The smart choice was to pretend it had never happened in the first place and live out the rest of eternity in relative peace. But the smart choice had also been to reject Wymack’s offer to play for the Foxes and instead keep running. The smart choice would have involved leaving Palmetto the second Riko found out his real name. Neil had been ignoring those smart choices for months. What was one more stupid decision to add to the pile? At least this one was slightly less likely to kill him, depending on Andrew’s mood.

“If I did want to, would you?”

Andrew clicked his lighter again and the flame immediately followed. In however many loops Andrew had experienced, he’d at least perfected his technique now.

“If you take the next exit,” Andrew said instead, “it’ll take us back to Palmetto.”

Neil took the next exit and didn’t bring up the kiss again for the rest of the drive.

[take n+3]

After the game, Neil left his dorm as soon as Matt disappeared to the girls’ room. He didn’t go far – only up onto the roof – but when he saw a figure already sat at the edge of the roof, Neil didn’t turn around.

Andrew didn’t react to Neil sitting down next to him, leaving only a couple feet of space between them. He was playing with his lighter again, though he stopped fidgeting long enough to light another cigarette for Neil, his own already dangling between his lips.

Neil took a drag to keep the cherry alive, and exhaled the smoke into the night sky.

“Good game,” Neil said, knowing Andrew wouldn’t agree. “Do you think you’d be able to keep the same score if you played it blindfolded?”

“Should I be disappointed that that’s how you would spend eternity?” Andrew asked. “I’m not surprised, though, that you could be granted immortality and spend every second thinking of something so boring as exy.”

“Maybe,” Neil said with a slight shrug. “It’s more interesting than my classes today.”

“Exy and school and running. It’s a miracle you’ve managed to build a personality around that.”

“Yeah? What is my personality?”

Andrew stubbed his cigarette out on the rooftop. “Mouthy, for one.”

Neil smiled, self-satisfied, and took another drag of his own cigarette. He watched the smoke float into the air, watched it dissipate among the stars. The constellations overhead were complete mysteries to him, but they weren’t as interesting as the man beside him, not when the night sky looped endlessly and Andrew was the only thing that changed.

This, sitting on the roof of Fox Tower with Andrew, was the only part of this endless infinity that felt real, the only moment that mattered. Everything that happened before and everything that came after was just filling time, littering the day with useless repetitions. Andrew was the only bright thing in this neverending void. The seconds spent talking to him were the only moments where Neil truly felt alive.

Neil didn’t know how long he’d felt that way, but once it had taken root in his mind, he couldn’t unknow it.

Friendship and intimacy wasn’t something he’d ever been allowed to have before. He’d kept people at arm’s length for years because of his mother’s teachings and his own paranoia. One kiss from Andrew shouldn’t have been enough to break that coping mechanism, but it was. Neil now knew that even if he’d turned Andrew down flat, Andrew might have accepted it, never asked why and never brought it up again, but Neil couldn’t. He couldn’t act like nothing ever happened, and the constant loops of the universe proved as much. Day in, day out, Neil thought about the fact that Andrew had kissed him. Blood stained his jersey and dripped down bathroom mirrors, but the ghost of Andrew’s lips haunted Neil more than Riko’s gift ever could. The memory was pixelated and hazy at the edges, compressed smaller and smaller with each repetition, but Neil would never forget it. Time loops could push him further and further away from that night but it would feel as vivid in ten years as it would in ten days. Pretending like it never happened was out of the question.

Andrew got to his feet a moment later while Neil was still lost in his thoughts. The wind teased a strand of his blond hair.

“Are you going to bed?” Neil asked.

“It’s late.”

Neil hummed. “If I stay awake,” he started, “I get to see tomorrow.”

Andrew stared at him for a long moment without saying anything. The wind continued to toy with his hair like Andrew were simply the sky’s plaything, like they were building blocks for the universe to pick up and discard as they saw fit.

“It resets when I fall asleep,” Neil explained, because maybe Andrew thought it was random. “If I stay awake, time continues as normal.”

Andrew looked away, casting his gaze across the horizon instead. Neil couldn’t tell what Andrew was thinking based on his blank expression, but he figured Andrew was probably just processing that. If he’d already known, he would have made a comment about Neil taking twice as long to figure it out.

“I haven’t made it more than two nights yet,” Neil said. “Not with the game and not when I was already tired. Do you think Abby has anything that will keep me awake?”

Andrew flicked his gaze back to Neil. “I thought drugs were stupid, Neil.”

“If they catch me, I can just fall asleep, right?” Neil said, though he didn’t really mean it. His mother had beat her teachings into him too well for him to start slipping up now, even if the universe was stuck on a scratched-up record.

“Stay awake, fall asleep, you’ll have to reset the world eventually. What difference does it make?”

“Wymack offers me the role of vice captain tomorrow,” Neil said. “He tells me I’m worth something.”

“You’re a Fox,” Andrew predictably corrected. “Can’t be worth that much.”

Neil smiled again. “Maybe not,” he said. “But I’d still like to see the sunrise.”

Andrew just blinked at him, uncaring as usual. A few seconds later he was gone, having slipped downstairs to return to his dorm and sleep, and Neil was left on the rooftop alone. He watched the stars battle against light pollution, watched airplanes blink in and out of the night sky and, finally, he watched the deep blue pale as the sun crept up toward the horizon. Despite how it conspired against him, the universe was undoubtedly beautiful. Neil might have either endless mornings ahead of him, but he was still grateful for every new break of dawn, another count in his tally of days he’d survived his father.

Neil returned to his dorm only a few minutes before he knew Matt would wake up, and he choreographed his day to pass by as seamlessly as possible. When Wymack called him with the offer Neil had been waiting for, Neil was already on his way to the stadium. He ate his breakfast bagel and accepted Wymack’s offer like it was easy, like he thought he had a chance to make it that far, like the future was something attainable instead of some far off dream.

Maybe he could ride out this high and live in a vacuum of forever where Neil Josten belonged. If the time loop broke, Neil would be shoved back into a world with consequences, a world where his choices meant something, for better or worse. Now, in the meantime, he could do anything. He could be anything.

The concept chased his every thought, lingering in his mind like an echo that had yet to run out of breath. He couldn’t think of anything else until he stepped through the stadium doors and found Andrew’s rental car parked outside, Andrew behind the wheel and Kevin in the passenger seat. Seeing them scrubbed Neil’s mind clean. His thoughts floated away with the warm breeze.

“What are you doing here?” Neil asked.

“Someone needs to drive the rental back,” Andrew said, dropping the stub of a cigarette through the open window even though Abby had told him off for littering a dozen times. “Get in.”

Neil obediently opened the back door and climbed in. Kevin glanced back at him but said nothing, and Andrew got them moving before Neil even finished closing the door.

The drive was silent, and Neil stared out the window for the entire drive. Last night’s sleeplessness started to catch up with him, but he was startled to attention by Kevin poking him in the knee.

“Andrew said you can’t fall asleep,” he said.

Neil glanced at Andrew in the rear view mirror, but Andrew only held his gaze for a few seconds before focusing on the road once more.

“I’m awake,” Neil said.

The first time Neil had taken this route with Andrew and Kevin, Renee had called Andrew to see if he thought it was a good idea for the Foxes to throw Neil a surprise birthday party. This time, the Foxes never found out it was his birthday in the first place. They thought he was born in March and nothing had made them suspect otherwise.

They pulled into the car dealership and Kevin got out as soon as Andrew parked, as impatient now as he had been every other time. Neil had previously wondered if Kevin had helped Andrew pick a car, but a few loops ago, when he was experimenting with minor changes to his day, he’d joined them. Kevin had certainly had opinions on the cars on display, but he didn’t push Andrew on his opinions and simply pointed out the ones he liked and disliked. Neil figured that since it wasn’t anything to do with Exy, Kevin was content to let someone else hold the reins.

Neil didn’t bother joining them this time, as trailing the pair of them around a huge showroom had been beyond boring the first time. He’d much prefer waiting in the car and sitting with his thoughts. Andrew didn’t seem surprised by Neil’s decision to stay, and simply followed Kevin through the front doors in search of a sales rep.

A little while later, there was a metallic black beast parked alongside the rental car. Neil had already driven it, but only he and Andrew knew that. Neil didn’t ask to drive it now – he simply moved up to the driver’s seat of the rental car and followed Andrew and Kevin onto the interstate back to Palmetto.

Neil knew what awaited him when they got back to campus.

He knew that he’d head up to the roof of Fox Tower and that Andrew would follow him. If Andrew wasn’t stuck in this with him, if he simply followed the same repetitive motions as everyone else in this world, Andrew would light two cigarettes for them, give Neil a copy of his car key, tell Neil he hated him and then seal it with a kiss.

But Andrew was stuck in this with him, a free roaming agent of his own destiny. If the rest of the world had faded into a chaotic mess where actions didn’t have consequences, Neil and Andrew were living just off the edge of it. Neil could interact with that plane of existence, dip in and out of it at will, but he never belonged. He maintained his memories of each continuous loop. He suffered the consequences, haunted by his choices and the mess that followed them.

And so did Andrew. Somehow, they were linked in this, bound by fate or quantum fluke, and Neil didn’t think that was a coincidence.

Neil took one of the cigarettes from between Andrew’s fingers as they sat down at the edge of the roof. Time was written in stone, anyway.

“A man can only have so many issues,” Andrew said, when Neil accepted the new car key but kept his old one on the ring, too. “It’s just a key.”

“You’re a foster child. You know it isn’t.”

Andrew took a drag from his cigarette and stared down at his feet dangling over the edge. His stomach was probably twisted with fear, but Neil knew that was the feeling he was chasing after.

“You’re sticking to the script,” Andrew then said. “Any particular reason?”

“I wanted to retrace my steps. I wanted to see how far you’d let this go.”

“There is no ‘this’. We are stuck in a time loop that seems to revolve around you.”

“You as well,” Neil pointed out. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be stuck here with me.”

“I can fall asleep without resetting time.”

“So can everyone else. Key difference is you know what’s going on.”

Andrew glanced over at Neil. “And what, exactly, do you think is ‘going on’?”

“It’s a lesson, isn’t it? We did something wrong and the universe has given us a chance to fix it.”

“You’ve been watching too many movies,” Andrew muttered.

“I don’t like movies,” Neil said, giving Andrew a morsel of honesty since the first time they’d had this conversation he’d cut open his entire chest and let Andrew peer inside.

“I’m not going to ask you what you think needs fixing,” Andrew said. “Because I know you’re going to say something stupid.”

“You kissed me,” Neil said. “Was that stupid?”

“Unquestionably so.”

Neil hummed, and took another drag so he had time to sort his thoughts out. The inhale wasn’t long enough and Neil spoke among a breath of smoke. “I figured out what I want.” When Andrew just looked at him, obviously not following the train of Neil’s thoughts, he gestured vaguely. “Last time, you told me that you weren’t my answer and I wasn’t yours. I’d said I wasn’t looking for an answer, but I didn’t know what it was that I wanted, either. I figured it out.”

Andrew just looked at him, but Neil couldn’t figure out what hid behind his steady gaze. Expectancy, perhaps. Irritation, most definitely.

“I’m a Fox,” Neil said at length. “I want to keep being a Fox until you tell me to leave.”

Andrew was unmoved by Neil’s proclamation. “The only person stopping you from being a Fox is you and your annoying habit of leaving as soon things get messy.”

“Isn’t this messy already?” Neil said, something akin to a laugh on his tongue. “I haven’t left.”

“You already told me you tried running. Your uncle even came to pick you up.”

“I didn’t call him this time. I haven’t gone anywhere.”

“For now.”

“Andrew, I’m going to stay.”

“No one asked you to.”

“You did,” Neil pointed out. “You gave me a key and called it home.”

“I hate you.”

“Will you stick to the script this time?”

Andrew didn’t stick to the script, but Neil didn’t mind because Andrew had already caught Neil’s face in his hands and leaned in.

Andrew kissed him like Neil’s lips were the only thing keeping him alive. It was messy, angry and slightly desperate in a way that Neil knew this had been building somewhere for longer than this time loop, hidden from the universe and Neil alike. Time was nothing. Seconds were days, were years, were the the bite of the gravel underneath Neil’s palms and the slide of a tongue against his. The world could spin without resetting for a week, if the buzz under Neil’s skin meant anything. He felt alive and awake for the first time in years.

Neil remembered not to touch Andrew this time, and shoved his hands into his pockets before he unintentionally reached out. If Andrew noticed the difference, he didn’t show it. He angled Neil’s head where he wanted it, kissed him deeper and for longer until both of their lungs threatened to burst. Andrew’s breath fanned across Neil’s lips when he finally ripped himself away.

“Hey,” Neil whispered, voice rough in a way he wasn’t expecting. “Thank you.”

“Go away before I push you off the side of this building,” Andrew said, though the sharpness of the threat was dulled by kiss-swollen lips and ragged breathing.

“Do it. I’d drag you down with me.”

Andrew just stared at him silently, and Neil let seconds slowly pass them by like the moonlit clouds overhead. Eventually Andrew peeled himself out of Neil’s space, and got to his feet.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Neil asked. Tomorrow, today, yesterday – it was all the same.

“Maybe,” Andrew said, as if he had nothing better to do when they were stuck in infinity.

And Neil didn’t think he had much better to do with infinity, either. Safety was relative, but there was something surprisingly freeing about seeing endless tomorrows stretch out across the horizon. There was only so much he could fill those days with, but kissing Andrew wasn’t a bad way to start.

One kiss wasn’t enough to accept this, and neither was two, but Neil wasn’t willing to reject it, either. Time was something he had a lot of now, and it was going to take a lot more than these fragmented moments on rooftops to figure it out. He let Andrew go downstairs first, breathing in the cool night air for a few minutes by himself before heading back to his dorm. Once he was in bed, he pushed his thumb into the teeth of his new key and let himself drift off with the knowledge that this key would find him again soon.

[take one, again]

Neil’s phone chimed with its birthday alarm, discordant and muffled in the face of Neil’s exhaustion. He considered lying still until death pulled him under, but decided that at least he had another exy game to look forward to. Maybe he could take out Aaron somehow and offer to play as backliner in his stead – at least it would make the game interesting.

He switched off his alarm and kicked off his blankets as usual, didn’t bother making his bed again because no one would remember his laziness in forty-eight hours, and climbed down from his loft.

He hadn’t noticed that Matt wasn’t in his bed, not until he walked into the living room and saw Dan sat tucked against his side on the couch. Neil stared at them, blinked, and stared at them some more.

Dan scrambled for the remote to cut the TV off as soon as she spotted Neil in the doorway. “We wake you?” she asked, apologetic.

Neil could only stare at her.

“Sorry,” Dan added, sheepish and a little guilty. “I can make coffee to make it up to you.”

Neil considered pinching himself, but his hands were frozen at his side. His inability to move or talk seemed to do wonders to adding to the conversation, because Dan and Matt moved and chatted around him like they hadn’t noticed his presence could have easily been replaced by a propped-up exy racquet.

“We wanted to throw you a birthday party,” Matt said, buttering a slice of toast. “It doesn’t seem right having a birthday and doing nothing for it. Renee thought it was a bad idea, though, to the point that she called Andrew for backup. He took her side.”

Neil didn’t startle at the sound of Andrew’s name, but it was a near thing. It was the first thing that jump-started his brain and allowed him to move again, though, so Neil decided not to read too much into it.

“Birthday party?” he asked, voice groggy from sleep like he’d only been unconscious for the few hours between being up on the roof with Andrew and now, rather than the six hours of uninterrupted rest between January 18 and January 19.

“Should we not have mentioned it?” Matt asked, grimacing.

“What if we skipped the party and just bought presents?” Dan suggested, stepping closer as if approaching a wounded animal.

Neil was desperate to ask how they knew it was his birthday, but he dreaded to hope that he knew the answer.

“What day is it?” he asked instead.

Matt’s smile was knowing. “If you put your phone on charge every once in a while, you could find out.”

Neil ignored his joke and silently pleaded with them to take his request seriously. Dan only patted Neil’s shoulder with a wry grin. “Don’t worry, we didn’t let you sleep all the way through the weekend. It’s Sunday, so you’ve got one more day of freedom before Monday. Practice starts in an hour, though, so don’t get too comfortable.”

Neil felt the grin warp his face but he didn’t try to stop it, not this time. His father was a threat once more, and fear would once again take root in his gut, but, for now, Neil let himself hope. For a single moment he would bask in the knowledge that he had a future, and that the universe was finally letting him see it.

Outside the dorm windows, the sunrise stretched across the horizon.

“Okay,” Neil said. “I’ll see you there.”

– THE END –