Work Text:
But what's it going to cost to be gone?
Detlef Schrempf, Band of Horses
There is a quotation that Andrew once read. It was a quotation within another novel about memory. A novel, ironically, pertaining to the antithesis of his own tragic dysfunction: dementia, a presenile woman who couldn’t remember.
Really, it was about the advantages of forgetting; why it was good, why it was important, why it was crucial.
Andrew had read only a little bit of Nietzsche before. The Philosophy I class he’d taken in first year for a required credit hadn’t really touched on his writings. It was focused on the foundations of philosophy: translating Plato's allegory, pondering the ever-pondered ‘I think, therefore I am,’ students arguing with the posh, prickly professor about what made art, art. Nietzsche was grounds for Philosophy II, which Andrew did not feel any desire to take. Maybe if the philosophy department in his school attempted to teach anything but the writings of dead straight white men, but of course they didn’t. PSU is a South Carolina college, after all.
A quote about memory. This specific quotation. He hadn’t expected to read anything pertinent to his own suffering in a story about forgetting everything and everyone you love, but perhaps that was wishful thinking. Why had he picked up a book from the library about forgetting if he hadn’t wanted to LARP in his own fucked up and triggering way?
The quotation read as such:
… it is possible to live with almost no memories, even to live happily as the animal shows; but without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all. Or, to say it more simply yet: there is a degree of insomnia, of ruminations of historical sense which injures every living thing and finally destroys it, be it a man, a people or a culture.
Nietzsche
Andrew had to put the book down and go sit outside for a smoke he no longer had on his person. After his own insomniac ruminations, he walked back into the dorm and pulled out his computer to look up the quote.
Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all.
He then drove spunkily to the school library and stalked the low-light stacks of books on the thirteenth floor. When he located the book, he found two different English copies: On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life and On the Use and Abuse of History for Life. He glared at these and instead plucked out the original German copy: Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen. Zweites Stück: Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie für das Leben.
If “active forgetting” is so essential to a prosperous human life, then Andrew must be some sort of subhuman, some brute of flesh and might. He has never forgotten anything. And Nietzsche is right– it is a burden. Andrew is tired.
He is trapped in one of those hours-days-weeks where everything in the world is piercingly loud while his own senses are whittled thin and numbed. One of those hours-days-weeks where he has no other option but to isolate himself in a dissociative pit, down, gone, past the event horizon, catapulting towards singularity. Watching the world through a peephole. An hour-day-week where his perennial memories play in his head on a cosmic, illimitable whorl, Andrew zip-tied to an increasingly stiff chair, needles behind his retinas, and the ever-present gong of a migraine – triggered by a liquid nitroglycerin compound of CPTSD and physical trauma from repeated violations in his childhood – ringing in his ears.
He goes to practice, but he sits in the goal until the migraine pain is too much to bear and he drops his racket and lies flat on his back. Lies there until Abby skitters out onto the court with the sumatriptan intranasal spray to shoot up his right nostril like he’s his junkie brother. It doesn’t really make the pain go away or stop the migraines from happening, but at least after it narrows his blood vessels, he can stand.
He goes to class because he’s in his last year and he cannot miss thesis class hours without failing out. It doesn’t mean he participates. He wears blackout sunglasses and his hood over his pounding head and waits for the 3 hours to end, but really, the pain and dissociation would be there even if he spent the hour-day-week rotting in bed, so at least this way he looks like a functioning member of society while he suffers. At least, in class, he can’t slam his skull into any walls or door frames to knock his shitty brain into a different, possibly – but unlikely– less painful position. Well, he could, but that would invite even more stares than the month of Aaron’s public trial. He can already imagine the appraising stares: yup, we all knew he would lose it eventually, considering his… past.
Andrew isn’t aware of much when he’s in this state, and he hates how vulnerable that pain makes him. Neil knows this. He also knows that Andrew cannot be touched or talked to like this. Fingers feel like lances; words are glass in his ears. So Neil keeps people away. He stops the foxes from interacting with him. He tries to keep the lounge and locker room quieter than normal, and if he can’t, he waits with Andrew in his sweaty uniform until the locker room empties out so that Andrew can change in the dark and in silence. Then, he drives Andrew home.
They don’t speak all week; Neil makes himself scarce. He barely sees Neil other than at night to sleep, on the court running his ass into the ground, or on chauffeured, music-less drives to classes (because he can’t drive on his migraine medications). He couldn’t have known anything was going on with Neil. Like this, he doesn’t have the capacity to notice anything.
Andrew isn’t sure if he was completely and entirely checked out or if Neil has become better at hiding it. Probably both. Neil has a habit of martyring himself. He won’t bother Andrew when Andrew is this far gone. He won’t ask for help with checks; he won’t ask for reassurances– not that Andrew has the energy to help with any of that right now. He would have had to say no– because when two fucked up people date, sometimes that means you are both fucked up at the same time, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it– but he’s still annoyed that Neil made that choice for him and sacrificed his own feeling of safety in exchange for Andrew’s.
When the migraine fades, and Andrew comes back to himself – in pieces, but at least all accounted for– Neil doesn’t fall back into his orbit like he normally does, touch-starved and usually a little desperate for Andrew’s attention.
His first pain-free morning in eight days, he sits with Neil for breakfast. Neil says nothing except for a quiet “good morning.” The rest of their meal is silent beyond the gurgling of the fresh-brewing coffee.
Andrew drives, finally. He had missed his car.
His family– and fresh-meat-Robin – sit quietly in the back of the car, still treading lightly on the hot coals Andrew exudes when he’s in pain, even though this is the first time Andrew has played one of his CDs in over a week. Neil seems normal enough. At practice, Neil plays like he always does, like his life is on the line, running away, running towards, never slowing, not even as sweat soaks him through, or his arms tremble, even though it’s just a regular, no-stakes practice. It’s normal-adjacent, for him. It could mean anything from determination or full-blown mental fragmentation when it comes to Neil.
When Andrew drives him to his class, he sits in the back. Andrew can’t remember the last time Neil relinquished the front seat, and to Aaron of all people. Even despite being the first to be dropped off. When Andrew pulls up to Neil’s building, Neil jumps out with a quiet little salute and hops inside.
Andrew stares hard at his retreating back for a little too long, disjointed. Aaron clears his throat meaningfully. Andrew shakes his head and puts his car in first gear.
Andrew drives Aaron to classes now, when he has the time. Something something bonding time, something something becoming brothers who show up for one another, something something other sappy bullshit from the one and only Bee.
Aaron taps his thighs to the beat of the music for a few seconds before he breaks. They talk now, sometimes, which is the true testament to their three years of biweekly conjoined therapy. They also team up against Robin and Nicky in Mario Kart, play Scrabble online, and can eat a meal together without actively fighting or ignoring each other. When Aaron said he was thinking about proposing to Katelyn– not to marry her right away, but for a long engagement– Andrew did not gag. Instead, he nodded and said ok. He might have followed up that ‘ok’ with ‘with what money?’ but Aaron took that as the blessing that it was.
When Aaron speaks up, he doesn’t sound worried, per se – Andrew is not quite sure that their newfound amicability extends into the realm of loud-mouthed Neil Josten, as they only really tolerate each other now, and sometimes Neil will help Aaron with math, which is weird, and Neil sort of likes Katelyn, so that helps a little– but he sounds considering, bordering on thoughtful. Possibly curious?
“Is Neil on medication yet?” he asks over the quiet rock music now playing from the radio.
Andrew raises an eyebrow at the road, but he does, albeit slowly, formulate a response. He doesn’t leave his brother unanswered anymore, unless the question really annoys him – that was something they worked on in therapy quite early (“I’m not a fucking mindreader, Andrew! When you don’t respond to me I feel INSANE.”) – so he says, “No.” And then, after a few seconds, “Why?”
Aaron gazes out the window, feigning disinterest. Old habits die hard. “He’s just been weird this week.”
Interest piqued. A corroborating witness to his hunch this morning. This is very much in the realm of Andrew's passions and pursuits, a rare choice in conversation from Aaron. Andrew doesn’t respond; he waits for Aaron to continue.
“I know you were… sick,” he says awkwardly, “so you probably didn’t notice. But he has been unresponsive to people this past week, and then he snapped pretty viciously at Nicky out of nowhere, only to apologize after. Like, profusely. It was kinda awkward. He came to our door and begged Nicky to forgive him. Said he didn’t want Nicky to think he was dangerous.”
Weird. Very weird. Astute observation. 1 point, Aaron Minyard.
“He said that?” Andrew says, because really, it doesn’t sound like Neil.
“He said: ‘I’m not dangerous, I promise I’m not dangerous, you know I’m not dangerous, right?’ with the sketchiest eyes I’ve ever seen.” Aaron pulls a face and shakes his head. “Nicky forgave him, obviously– I mean, what Neil said was nothing compared to, like, a Kevin rant, but he was freaking out. I was watching from the couch, but Nicky said he was shaking. That’s pretty… OCD stuff, right?” Aaron asks, a little unsure. He knows about the diagnosis; the whole team of original foxes do. That first year, when it developed, was touch and go for a while. Neil was a frantic, chaotic, doubtful monster. He wasn’t sleeping enough and he refused most help. It was only when he started taking his benzos more regularly that he evened out and felt he needed to explain to the foxes why he’d been rabid for so many months. (Andrew had told Neil that he didn’t owe them anything. He responded, with a haunted look in his eyes, ‘I owe them my life.’ Andrew didn’t argue with that.)
Andrew sucks in his lips, pressing them into a hard line. He hates missing even the most obvious of Neil’s ‘tells’ when he’s mentally incapacitated. Aaron is right; he’s definitely backsliding.
“Yeah,” Andrew admits eventually.
“And he’s been doing a lot of those checks and stuff again, I think. I mean, not that I’m paying attention to him,” Aaron diverts airily, as un-smoothly as humanly possible. “I just think, you know, from a doctor’s perspective, he should be on medication if therapy alone isn’t doing anything.”
“Still pre-med for six more months,” Andrew counters, even though Aaron has been prematurely accepted into his med school of choice.
“Whatever,” Aaron scoffs.
They sit in silence for a minute as the song changes to something by Queens of the Stone Age. Andrew mulls over how much he’s willing to expose outside of therapy. He isn’t a fan of baring Neil’s or his own issues to anyone but Bee, a trusted professional with a contractual obligation not to judge, paired with a mutual understanding and many-year friendship. He supposes, though, that he and his brother have crossed the line into sharing territory, at least a little.
“I don’t think I can convince him,” he admits, turning onto the road of Aaron’s building, teeming with an anthill of milling busybodies.
“Hm,” Aaron hums and shrugs faux-nonchalantly. He grabs his headphones and zips up his bag at his feet. “I think it’s worth a shot. His whole thing…. It doesn’t seem easy,” he understates haltingly. He doesn’t look Andrew’s way with that rare empathetic gesture towards his supposed enemy. He shoves the passenger door open and heaves himself out of the car. “Thanks for the lift. See you at practice.” With that, he slams the door and stalks off.
-
Andrew pays close attention to Neil for the rest of the day. He wonders if Neil is just having a bad week, overlapping with his, without Andrew around to settle him. That happens now– instead of regular bad weeks (panic attacks, nightmares, midnight roof climbs), Neil also has OCD flare-ups where the checking and ruminations spin a little more out of control than normal. Bee says this is normal with stress. Andrew hates watching it. Hates seeing Neil grow increasingly frustrated with his lack of control.
It is a fact that Neil is in a difficult course this semester, something that actually takes effort to pass with their required grade minimum. It is also true that the team is currently unbalanced with the new lack of Kevin’s tall ass on the court– now graduated and on the New Orleans Gators professional team. It’s October; it’s midterm season. They lost their last game. It could just be a flare-up.
The rest of the week, Neil sticks around, but he doesn’t speak much at all. Andrew is normally ok with a little silence, but this is silence of rumination, of a mind spinning like a top, of a dark, interminable hole of unsolvable fears. Andrew can see his brain jumping from thing to thing, eyes hopping around the room, paranoia digging its heels in.
At some unholy hour on Thursday night, Andrew follows Neil up to the roof like a shadow. He stands quietly above Neil as Neil sits on the edge, flopping his legs over, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. He’s deep in a haze, lost in his thoughts, so anxious he can’t actually observe the world around him. When Andrew sits next to him, he jumps; he hadn’t realized he was followed.
Andrew swings his legs over the dark parking lot below him and thrills at the vertigo that swoops through him. The lot isn’t as dark as it once was. After the Raven’s fans destroyed everyone’s cars, the school had street lights installed (much to the chagrin of those on the first floor) so that the newly-minted cameras could pick up people's faces if anything like that were to happen again. Of course, the stupid lightbulbs are orange. Andrew only has a year left in this orange-washed world, and that is too long.
He looks over at Neil, the tips of his hair lit with a dull flame by those stupid lights, and takes it back immediately. Leaving PSU means leaving Neil here for another year. He can’t think about him being out of sight like that without getting indigestion.
When Neil doesn’t offer his upturned hand between them, Andrew does (he is not always opposed to throwing a dog– or fox– a bone). Instead of taking it, Neil scooches away a bit. Then, his face screws up in discomfort, and he slides away even more, until he is too far away to touch. Over an arm’s length away. Then, he shoves his hands under his thighs and bites the inside of his cheek, staring hard at the far away asphalt below.
Andrew doesn’t follow after him. That was a clear enough signal of stay away from me, and Andrew will always respect that. But he still stares at Neil with a question in his eyes. He isn’t expecting an explanation if Neil isn’t willing to share, but he still wants to know.
Neil doesn’t speak up for a very long time. All Andrew can hear is the breeze tickling the golden leaves across the road, crickets in the garden bushes, and the distant hum of the interstate. Night time is not cold out yet, but soon it will be, and they will need sweaters or jackets to huddle in. It should be peaceful, but the tension from Neil is so palpable that Andrew’s arm hairs bristle.
Finally, whatever war in Neil’s head resolves and he abruptly shoves himself to his feet. He backs even further away from Andrew with a short “It’s not safe up here,” and leaves through the door without looking back.
Andrew stays on the edge for another twenty minutes, staring at the ground below, letting the wind pass through him. He misses being empty, misses not caring. It is so painful for him to care this deeply when Neil is obviously Not Fine.
But who is he kidding? He’s never not cared. He is just a good liar.
-
Andrew becomes a spy in his own home, surreptitiously watching Neil and cataloguing his new tics.
It is a lot of door checking, mostly.
But also, now, he knocks on wood whenever he or someone else makes a dark joke or poorly worded prediction.
Example: Nicky bursts into Andrew, Neil and Robin’s dorm and dramatically throws himself over the back of the couch, claiming he will just die if someone doesn’t spend time with him right this second. Neil, sitting at his desk, knocked on it three times before getting up to entertain him. Neil has never been a superstitious type, and he’s as atheistic as they come, but he does it constantly (as the foxes make a lot of dark or violent jokes) now.
At night, Andrew caught Neil staring at the knife block on the counter for too long to be normal, and then spent an extraordinarily long time scrubbing his hands in the sink. Neil is not a germ freak; he never has been. This is… different. Andrew can’t understand the link between the knives and washing his hands, but it's there all the same.
And still, Neil avoids any and all sort of proximity with Andrew, let alone intimacy. Usually, after Andrew comes back to himself, Neil is as touchy as is permitted; his way of expressing the missing that he felt while Andrew was ‘gone.’ He wants to hold hands, lay his head on Andrew’s shoulder, sleep in the same bed, kiss until he’s light-headed. And yet, Andrew’s been ‘back’ for days, and Neil hasn’t so much as brushed their pinkies together or pressed his shoulder into Andrew’s while they make food in the kitchen or sit next to each other on the couch.
Andrew supposes that might not be a part of the OCD though; it could just be Neil patiently waiting for a new yes after it was no for a week. He shouldn’t try diagnosing anything (or panicking about strange behaviour) without communicating first with him first. On his drive to the stadium for a game, he plans to talk to Neil that night.
-
They get back at 11pm on Friday, exhausted from a very close – ‘too close, we basically lost,’ Kevin would say – game. They are run too ragged from a week of midterms and whatever that was to even consider packing the car and partying at Edens.
A quiet drive home. A quiet elevator ride up to the third floor. Aaron and Nicky slumping silently into their room to crash. Robin dead on her feet behind Andrew as he unlocks the door, and promptly passing out on the couch with her shoes on as soon as he opens it.
Andrew slips off his shoes and rubs his hand over his face, ready to crawl in bed and fall asleep himself. He turns to invite Neil onto the top bunk with him, and when he does, it's to Neil slipping on his orange running shoes.
Andrew is barely awake enough to stand, let alone go on a run after that game. He blinks at Neil, who doesn’t acknowledge him. Blinks again, trying to understand. Too tired to speak.
Finally, Neil looks up. “Going on a run,” he says, and pats his phone and keys in his shorts. Andrew blinks slowly, again, and Neil is gone.
Andrew stares at the closed door for a while as Robin starts to snore ruthlessly on the couch. Neil, there, and then gone. Gone. Goneeeeee. Out of sight. Out of mind? Why did he leave? Why must he always martyr himself and stay silent when he’s spiraling? How many times does he have to say ‘i hate you’ for Neil to get it?
Eventually, he does move from that spot. Washing his face, brushing his teeth, stalling, stalling, staring into the open fridge, staring at the ceiling, stalling, waiting for Neil to get back. When he starts seeing black spots in his vision from exhaustion, he hauls himself to his room and sits on Neil’s bunk with his phone. Curls up. He starts to lose consciousness when his phone finally buzzes.
Junkie: staying at wymacks
Nothing else. Andrew puts himself to bed.
-
He stays at Wymack’s for three days. The whole weekend, and Monday. He doesn’t go to Monday practice. Kevin would be apoplectic if he weren’t battling mosquitoes the size of exy balls and eating alligator meat skewers to “respect the culture” of Louisiana. Robin, as vice captain, has to take over.
On Tuesday, Andrew goes to fetch him, fed up with the avoidance– of Andrew, and of life– and finally rid of the petty pride that stopped him from going earlier. He grabs a sweater, a pair of his shorts, and a change of underwear and socks. Neil didn’t leave with anything but his phone and keys, so he probably hasn’t changed since that run. Andrew just hopes he showered. He doubts Wymack would be happy about a sweaty twenty-two-year-old stinking up his favourite (and only) couch. He grabs a phone charger on his way out.
Andrew knocks on the door for once. Wymack opens the door looking tired and annoyed, but he always looks like that, so Andrew can’t be sure if it's Neil-related.
“On the couch,” he says and moves to the side. Wymack retreats to his office as Andrew slides into the living room. He spots Neil and throws the ball of clothes at the back of his head. Neil turns and glares at him, eyes already blazing, primed for a fight.
“Get changed. I don’t want your three-day-old clothes staining my seats,” Andrew says nonchalantly, like Neil hasn’t been gone and radio silent.
“I’m not going,” Neil argues.
“Why.”
“Because,” Neil says, a non-answer. It boils Andrew alive.
“Don’t be obtuse, Neil. Change your damn underwear; we are going home,” he says with a little more authority, because this is ridiculous. If Neil is having an issue, they can figure it out together. Andrew hates repeating himself. He hates this deja-vu more.
Neil slides back into the far corner of the squishy couch, pulls up his feet and crosses his arms like Andrew would really go as far as dragging him out of here limb by limb. He glares steadily and spits, “No.”
Andrew glares back at him, eye twitching, but he doesn’t argue. He told Neil he wouldn’t question his no’s. He won’t go back on that just because he is a stubborn idiot. They have a staring contest like that, both with their arms crossed, a standoff. Neil hates losing, even when he feels guilty. He won’t tell Andrew to go away– he isn’t that childish– but Andrew knows he’ll glare and keep his ass planted on that couch until the sun goes down.
“Whatever,” Andrew scoffs. He spins with a tad too much drama, a tad too much Aaron, and stalks towards the front door. “Good luck,” he says with a raised voice in the direction of Wymack’s office. He slams out the front door to Wymack grumbling, “God damnit, Josten, really?”
-
He doesn’t come back to the dorms for anything. At least he starts to go to practice and, assumedly, classes again. Wymack probably gave him an ultimatum. Haunt my couch, but only if you keep your grades up and your foxes from murdering each other in practice. Go team!
Andrew watches him play. Relentless, aggressive, merciless. He bashes into Aaron at one point, hard enough to send them both tumbling to the ground, Aaron spitting curses and a not-so-gentle “What is wrong with you?” He scores on Robin a couple times, and then loses all grace and aim, and starts missing every shot. Each miss, he grows more tense. He doesn’t change out with the team. As soon as Wymack calls the end of practice, Neil pops out of existence like an apparition. Andrew assumes (hopes) he’s running thirty-five minutes back to Wymack’s and showering there. Andrew has no way to speak to him. He has a wall of ice around him.
It doesn’t last. By Thursday, Wymack calls in a fit of irritation.
“Wymack,” Andrew greets over the phone.
“Minyard, get him out of my sight,” Wymack says. “He’s driving me nuts.”
“Is he ok?” Andrew asks, grabbing his keys.
“He’s fine, physically. He just won’t stop checking the damn door, and moving my knives, and he keeps getting in my way with that black cloud hanging over his head– just come and get him. Maybe ship him to Betsy. I don’t know. I just want to take a shit without him overhearing it.”
“Keep your shirt on,” Andrew grumbles, starting his car with a roar. “I’ll be there in ten.”
“Roger.” Wymack hangs up.
No one else has been able to handle Neil’s flare-ups, but really, Andrew doesn’t mind the checks. It's the avoidance and unwillingness to communicate that grates on his nerves. He doesn’t care if Neil asks him for help if it gets him to sleep soundly or get through the day without a panic attack. He doesn’t mind countering his need for reassurance every half hour when it’s bad. He doesn’t mind being the stable one when Neil isn’t. He just doesn’t want to be cut off.
Andrew understands what it’s like to feel perpetually unsafe. No one else really does. No one understands Neil’s weird rituals and habits. But Andrew always will.
He drives to Wymack’s. This time he breaks in because he doesn’t feel like waiting, and it's so damn easy. You’d think, at some point, he’d install a chain. Andrew thinks the old man likes his visits, just a little bit.
When he opens the door, Neil is up from the couch and stanced to both run and fight at the sound of someone breaking and entering– rabbit eyes, chest heaving, on the balls of his feet– but he should know better. This is Andrew’s stomping ground as well as it is his.
“It’s just me,” Andrew says, unaffected (and he doesn’t feel regret, but he knew Neil was riled up, and maybe he should have taken that into account and knocked instead), but it still takes Neil a good minute to relax and accept that information. Then, his face screws up and he drops his arms. Shakes his hands out a little too aggressively.
“What do you want?” he asks, and Andrew wants to sneer, but he knows he has to be gentle, gentle, gentle with Neil flipping out this hard. Hands out, stray cat style.
“Wymack told me to take you home. He wants his apartment back.”
Neil frowns at that and looks at the mess of blankets and library books on the couch. The many stained mugs of coffee. His phone, dead on the table. Andrew had forgotten to give him the charger last time, and Wymack has a different phone.
He’s in a blend of clothes Andrew threw at him on Tuesday and the clothes he ran in. It’s a particularly homeless outfit, but Neil doesn’t care about that sort of thing. Andrew is vaguely glad Allison has graduated and is living in NYC because she would throw a fit if she saw how he repped the foxes in public this week. He wonders if Wymack took pity and gave him something different to sleep in, or if he's been wearing this all week. Either way, he probably stinks, even if he did shower.
Shockingly, Neil doesn’t fight. He doesn’t say a thing. He folds the blankets, and Andrew helps him bring the mugs to the sub-standard dishwasher. He gathers his very few items and walks silently out of the apartment with Andrew trailing behind him.
They walk to the car separately. Andrew shoves himself into the driver's seat and turns the car on with another growl– revving the engine once because he’s annoyed and he can– and then notices belatedly that Neil did not follow. He looks in his rear-view mirror. Neil stands just behind the car, pitifully clutching his pile, staring at the car with a haunted look in his eyes. He clenches and unclenches his hands around the items. He does this ten times. On the tenth, he yanks open the back passenger door and launches himself into the seat like it’s a cold plunge.
Andrew continues to stare at Neil in the rear-view mirror, now with an eyebrow raised. Neil settles, shuts the door, and very pointedly avoids his eyes.
“I am not a cab driver,” Andrew says with ire.
“I can’t sit up there,” Neil counters.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
Neil seals his lips and looks out the window. Avoidance, again, right in front of his face. He tries not to grow impatient. Deep breaths, deep breaths.
Andrew takes the bait. “Why can’t you sit up here?” He hates having to ask the implied question in his vague statements. It is too much like repeating himself, like not being heard. But he needs to know what is running through Neil’s head; he can’t help him if he doesn’t. If only he were a mind reader.
Neil visibly mulls around a few different answers, chewing a hole through his cheek. He isn’t scratching, this time, but his hands keep twitching towards his mouth. He wants to chew. He wants to feel pain.
Finally, he says, “I might yank the wheel.”
Andrew pauses and blinks in confusion at his admission. He had been expecting all sorts of fearful, unreasonable answers, but he wasn’t expecting something like that. He purses his lips and frowns, just a little. He’s not one to be shocked by anything graphic or lurid Neil says to him. But, well, he’s a little damn shocked. Out of Neil’s many tangible fears, they have never manifested in him being the one doing harm. Neil is not impulsive except on the court; he is too calculated. Plus, everyone in the mortal world would argue that Andrew is the violent and dangerous man between the two of them, not Neil, despite his much higher body count. Neil is gentle with the people in his family. He is endlessly respectful, especially about touch. He’s tempestuous, but he isn’t bloodthirsty.
Andrew looks away from the rear-view mirror so that he can twist and lay his elbow upon the centre console to face Neil directly. “I think that’s my move, not yours,” He says dryly, poking fun in a way that is foreign to him, but seemingly necessary to help Neil.
Neil doesn’t answer or look his way.
“Wouldn’t be my first accident,” Andrew tries to ply him out with another wry joke. This one seriously backfires, as Neil pins him with a cold glare.
“That is not funny, Andrew,” He says, refolding his arms.
Andrew wants to pull a Wymack and rub his brow, but he isn’t that old yet. He hopes. At what point in your twenties do you actually become an adult?
“Why do you think you’re going to yank the wheel.”
“I’m.. I just…” he starts, stuttering. Then, he changes the direction– and likely twists the truth– of his response. “I might. And I don’t want it to be a possibility.”
Andrew stares at him, and Neil stares back, lips sealed. He is an immoveable force.
Andrew gives up. He drives them back to the dorm in silence, roiling in his frustration and uselessness. There's no use in fighting Neil when he is this stressed out, but god, Andrew wants to fight him. He will rant it out with Bee when he sees her next. Healthy coping mechanisms are Andrew’s new specialty, apparently.
When they get to Fox Tower, Neil immediately hauls himself out of the back seat by gripping the roof of the car.
“Stay,” Andrew barks inadvertently, before Neil can close the door. He schools his tone and tries again. “When my class is done, we are talking.”
Neil shakes his head minutely, frustrated too, but says, “Yeah, whatever.” He shoves his hood over his head and his hands in his pockets to stalk inside.
Andrew tries to pay attention in class, he really does, but he cannot stop thinking about Neil and his turbulent attitude. Something has him riled. This is beyond a bad week. Bad weeks often result in him running away, but not him running away from Andrew. Did he do something wrong? Did he miss a no? Did he touch him without asking? Did he hurt him? Even Neil doing something by accident is enough to set Andrew off. Neil isn’t typically as sensitive in that regard, but how can Andrew tell, when he is so reticent and withdrawn? He can’t track the cause for this mood beyond regular, everyday Neil stressors. Andrew wonders if he should check Neil’s phone for any countdowns.
When he drives home, it’s too fast, too frantic, jerky enough to give Aaron car sickness. He hurls his car into a parking spot with squealing tires and stomps up the stairs to the third floor instead of taking the elevator because he cannot wait, and if he had to stand in a confined place with anyone, he might stab them.
Their dorm door is ajar. This used to be a normal occurrence, foxes travelling from room to room and not closing their doors properly. For the other foxes, it was still true. But since Neil’s onset, the door was always closed and locked. If they were allowed to install a chain, he’s sure that would be locked whenever they were inside as well. But now, their dorm room is ajar.
Andrew pushes open the door, searching for Neil. He doesn’t know what to expect: him gone, him taken, him bleeding out in the bathroom, him gutted on their shared bed. He isn’t in any of the common areas, and he isn’t in their bathroom or bedroom. Andrew circles back to the kitchen, wondering at what point he starts making panicked calls, before he spots Neil’s keys and phone on the coffee table. Maybe he is on the roof getting air?
He turns to leave when something catches his eye. The knife block in the kitchen, bought in pretty-good condition at the local Goodwill, is empty. Every knife has been removed and is nowhere in sight. Andrew derails his leave to check the rest of the kitchen. He checks each drawer, and every drawer is congruently missing knives, including the dullest of dull butter and soft-cheese knives. Bare. Empty.
What kind of freak fuck thief only steals knives? Is this a threat? It feels like something Riko might do to scare the living daylights out of Kevin, leaving him a vodka-soaked puddle in the corner of their dorm.
Andrew frowns at the knife block before an idea crosses his mind. He checks under the sink. Much like the knives, all of their cheap-shit cleaning supplies are gone.
He looks over at his desk where he left a Bic lighter last week. Gone.
And Neil, also nowhere to be found.
Andrew is still on his reverse scavenger hunt, searching for what is missing, when Neil opens the dorm door and walks in. He finds Andrew squatting at one of the kitchen cupboards and looks away guilefully.
It’s not hard to slot the pieces together. “Care to explain, cutlery thief?”
“They are outside,” Neil admits, not sounding at all sorry or bashful. He walks over to the desks and sits down like he’s going to study after robbing their own dorm.
“What do you mean they are outside?” Andrew asks, erroneously, he knows, but with Neil being so damn equivocal, he has no choice. He closes the cupboard and stands, crossing his arms.
“I mean, I put the box in Aaron and Nicky’s room,” Neil waves a hand like it's nothing, using the other to flip open a math textbook.
“And why are they in a box in the first place?” Andrew asks, walking until he’s above Neil.
Neil scuffs the ground with his foot. “I don’t want them near me right now. I’m too dangerous.”
Andrew just stares because, really, dangerous? Neil knows how to protect himself and others, but he isn’t dangerous. Not to Andrew.
“You are no danger to me,” He says, as gently as he can. So, not so gently.
“Not yet.”
“Never,” Andrew corrects.
“You know what I could do,” Neil says crossly, glaring at his textbook.
“I am plenty aware of what you are capable of,” Andrew agrees. “But you never would. Why do you think you would?”
“You just don’t get it,” Neil argues, as he always does when he’s run out of an argument about his irrationality. He is growing frustrated again. He stands and tries to walk away, towards the bedrooms. Andrew, of course, follows. He always will.
“What don’t I get?” Andrew asks, hand braced on the bedroom doorframe. “We talk, Neil. Humans talk. We cannot fix anything unless you talk it out.”
Neil grips his hair and paces the room. He opens his mouth, shuts it. Opens it again. He’s fighting with himself. Finally, he digs his scarred knuckles into his jaw muscles and massages the clench out of it. He freezes in place, another haunted look in his eyes, and then says to the floor, “I don’t want to say it out loud.”
Andrew just stares at him, waiting him out.
“If I say it out loud,” Neil says, his eyes darting up to Andrew and back down again. “If I say it out loud it could make it true.”
Andrew just stares and wonders about calling Betsy and wonders about sticking a benzo in his Kevin-gifted organic peach jelly and wonders about schizophrenic delusions and how they seem so similar to OCD intrusive thoughts.
He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know if talking really will fix this right now, and he certainly doesn’t want to make anything worse. He needs Neil to be functioning again before anyone notices or his grades drop. He needs to ask Betsy tomorrow about medications, and how to convince Neil to take them. The number of intrusive thoughts which currently derail him is too high. Even Aaron is noticing and concerned at his erratic behaviour. Whatever this whole ‘I am dangerous’ thing is, it’s making him do weird, weird things.
“Ok,” Andrew agrees, backing down. He drops his arms and steps out of the bedroom. Neil looks at him in shock. “Ok, fine. I will leave. But I want you in bed. I will bring you water and your textbook, but you need as long a sleep as your body will allow tonight.”
“Practice?”
“I will fill Wymack in, but he won’t be surprised considering you de-knived his apartment too. I’m sure Abby would prescribe the same. You need to screw your head back on.”
Neil slumps and sits heavily on his bunk. He stares at the wall, and then curls up on his side above the covers.
Andrew leaves. He grabs Neil’s textbook and papers. He slowly fills a cup of water. He then pulls out a cutting board and Neil's Benzodiazepines. He slides a thin knife from his sleeve and cuts the little pink pill down its centre. He blows away the residue. No one in this dorm room has or has had a drug addiction beyond cigarettes, so he doesn’t worry about any licked-sticky fingers dabbing up the leftovers. He brings the college-student-care-package to their bedroom and places them all on the bedside table.
“Take these if you need to, while I am gone.”
“I won’t,” Neil says apathetically, still staring at nothing.
Andrew rolls his eyes and leaves. He locks their door and texts Neil, “Locked.” He gathers his bag, his brother, cousin, and Robin (from class) and loses himself in another mindless practice.
-
“Nos vemos, children,” Nicky calls, flicking his fingers playfully at Andrew and Robin as he closes his dorm door. Robin calls back a quiet “hasta leugo,” with a giggle and follows Andrew to their dorm at the end of the hall.
Andrew pulls out his keys and hopes Neil is out like a light, sleeping away this bad week so that he can rest as well, and not worry about Neil taking off in the middle of the night. When he shoves open the door, though, it catches on– something. They don’t have a chain, the building wouldn’t let them install one, so it has to be some sort of furniture. Or a person.
“Robin,” Andrew says, shutting the door again. “Go hang out with Nicky.”
He doesn’t apologize because he doesn’t apologize for Neil or himself. It’s not his way, and his people– as much as he is loath to admit– know it. They know, now at least, that he only does things for a reason. No longer do they see him as an unfeeling, unpredictable monster. Sometimes, it’s nice to be known, when it's the parts he allows. When he is listened to without question, not out of fear, but out of respect and trust.
So, Robin nods and heads back the way she came, knocking on Nicky and Aaron’s door and quietly explaining that she wants to play video games. Only once she is inside and the hallway is empty does Andrew try the door again.
It hits whatever is in front of it again, leaving only a few inches of space for Andrew to speak through.
“Neil, let me in,” he says calmly, hand gripping the knob. He hears a sudden intake of breath and clues in to the erratic hyperventilation happening behind the door.
Through a stilted breath, Andrew hears, “Andrew?”
“It’s me,” Andrew says, gritting his teeth. The pressure he is putting on the door finally gives way. It swings open on Neil curled up on the floor a little ahead of the doorway, where Andrew assumes he crawled. Hunched over on his hands and knees, forehead to the rough, grey nylon carpeting, Neil pants with one hand clamped to the back of his neck and the other to the front of his shirt.
Andrew shuts and locks the door before squatting next to Neil. “Get up,” he says, because he doesn’t know what to do with Neil prone and panicking below him like this. He cannot be triggered and panic himself. He must stay calm.
“I can’t–” Neil is panicking about nothing so hard he chokes on it and starts to cough. When he slumps again, shaking, he continues, “I can’t breathe.”
“Yes, you can,” Andrew argues, trying to force some rationality into Neil’s scattered brain. He looks around the room for a culprit of the panic, knowing it was probably just the locked door, and finds everything normal– nothing catastrophic had happened in his three-hour absence– until his eyes catch on a jagged hole in the drywall above them. He leans over Neil and grabs his right hand from his t-shirt underneath him. It’s bloody and bruised and brushed with drywall dust.
“God damn it, Neil,” Andrew curses, hoping it’s not broken, because he can’t afford his dominant hand to be broken right now.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Neil heaves, lips pressed against the dirty carpet. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop it,” Andrew reprimands, starting to get worked up himself. “Stop, you are fine. Get up and look at me,” he orders, heart starting to pound, throat tight. He hates Neil apologizing like this; he hates Neil on the floor below him, in pain. He can’t touch Neil like this, not when he’s so out of it. He hates this.
“My heart– it hurts,” Neil whines, and he never whines. Andrew kneels next to his head and waits for him to uncurl.
“You are not having a heart attack, Neil. Think. You know this. You’ve had the tests three separate times now at the hospital. Abby checks every semester for you– you are not having a heart attack.”
“But it hurts,” Neil groans.
“You are having a panic attack,” Andrew says. This is what he always has to say, but Neil never remembers.
“But…”
“Neil, you are having a panic attack. You get heart palpitations when you have panic attacks.”
Neil takes a shuddering breath and starts coughing again. He squeezes the back of his neck harder and keens into the floor below. “I don’t want you to go,” he whispers, and it’s such a wild turn in their conversation that Andrew finds himself lost.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Andrew says automatically. Then, “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want you to go, Andrew,” he says again and sniffs, thick with snot. He turns his head and squints at Andrew through red eyes, still hyperventilating. “I don’t. I can’t– I mean, I don’t know how to be ok.”
He is talking nonsense. He needs his meds now. Andrew will hold him soon, but they need to get off the hard, scratchy floor and tend to Neil’s bloody hand.
“Neil, get up, now,” he says, getting to his feet and holding out a hand for Neil to take if he wants to. Neil rubs his face and pushes himself off the carpet. He takes Andrew’s hand and grips it tight, hauling himself to a somewhat upright position.
Andrew leads him to the couch and puts him in his corner. He curls up on himself as Andrew checks the bedroom. Water gone, benzo untouched. He needs more than half now, so he grabs Neil’s bottle and shakes out a whole pill, refills the glass, and, on his way out of the kitchen, he grabs a bag of frozen peas from the fridge that they keep more for this purpose than to eat. He brings them to Neil and sits next to him, not touching.
“Drink.”
Neil glowers weakly, but his bottom lip shakes. Finally, he takes both the glass and the pill and chugs it down. Then Andrew passes him the peas. Neil puts them over his knuckles and clearly fights the urge to cry. Andrew hates, most of all, that the onset of OCD has made it very hard for Neil not to cry when he is overwhelmed or panicking. Andrew doesn’t know what to do with tears.
Andrew reaches over to replace Neil’s hand on his neck with his own, but Neil flinches away and says “don’t.” Andrew reels back. Neil’s face crumples, devastated and then angry, likely with himself. He fights internally until he looks like he wants to punch the wall again.
“I want you to. I want you to,” Neil grips the hair at the base of his neck with his good hand. “I just. Fuck.” Andrew just watches as Neil starts smacking the palm of his hand into his head. “My head is so fucked up– I am so fucked up. There is something wrong with me, Andrew, I can’t get–” he chokes on another confession and slams his palm into his temple once more before Andrew can’t take it and grabs him by the sleeve to stop him. Neil stops and shoves his hand under his legs.
“Just say it,” Andrew says, because this not-knowing is killing him, too.
Neil mulls it around, still breathing heavily, and then hangs his head so as to not look at Andrew. “I can’t get it out of my head. I keep seeing me hurting you, and liking it– like he did. I am his son. It would be so easy. I know it would be. I have done it before, and it was so easy. It’s so easy to hurt people, and now I can’t get through a day without thinking of hurting you or the rest of them, and I know that makes me a fucked up person, because who fantasizes about killing their family? But I don’t know how to stop– it just follows me around all of the time. I can’t make it stop. I am beyond help. I shouldn’t be allowed to play exy. I shouldn’t be allowed to sleep in the same room as others. What if I do it in my sleep, because I think about it all day? I can’t – I can’t stand the thoughts of hurting you, and I can’t stand looking at you because that’s all I see. When you touch me, it’s all I see. I don’t…” Neil finally runs out of steam and starts clenching and unclenching his hurt hand, probably to feel the pain, to feel grounded. Andrew wants to make him stop, but he has to respect his no.
Andrew… doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know when Neil’s OCD had transformed into harm OCD. He should have guessed it by now, and he hates himself for not realizing. Since Neil’s first OCD meltdown, Andrew has done relentless research on the under-researched mental illness to try and understand and help Neil. He knows about the different kinds of OCD and how they show up. He knows all about the ego-dystonic nature of it all.
Neil is not a violent person, as much as he thinks he is.
“I understand if you want me to leave,” Neil whispers, and he clutches his good arm around himself. He is talking more calmly now, but it's put-on. “I am a danger to everyone. And I am afraid, when you leave, I will lose control and not be able to tell the difference between my thoughts and real life. I don’t know what to do without you here. I won’t be safe alone. I won’t be safe to others. I don’t see a solution other than leaving.”
Andrew can hear in his voice how much he believes this is true, how the only solution he sees is, once again, sacrificing himself for the good of everyone else.
What it really says is how scared he is for Andrew to graduate. And Andrew hadn’t thought of that being the reason at all. He still doesn’t know how to see himself as important like that.
“You are not going anywhere,” Andrew says, a little more vehemently than he should. With too much want in his voice. “I refuse to argue about this. I will not let you let this get the best of you. You are not dangerous. You have a mental illness that causes ego-dystonic intrusive thoughts. I know, right now, you just see that as an excuse, but it is the reality.”
Neil scoffs and shakes his head, leaning back into the couch corner.
“You are not a danger to the foxes or to our family. You would– and have– protected all of them with your life.” Andrew hates having to reassure him and repeat what Neil already knows, but he will do it until his dying breath to make Neil ok. “You would never hurt me on purpose. You said it yourself; you can’t stand the thought. It is irrational.”
“But by accident… If I accidentally follow through with one of my thoughts–”
“I can protect myself.” Andrew fights. “You think I can’t?”
Neil shakes his head and grabs his hair again. “I know you can…”
“Then stop. Stop all of this. You can’t stop the thoughts, but you don’t have to ruin your life because of them.”
“But it makes me a bad person.”
“It does not.”
“Normal people don’t imagine their partners dead.”
“And you have never been normal. Glad we have established this. Get up,” Andrew orders and walks to the bathroom. He turns on the shower and leaves it cold. Behind him, Neil walks over on shaky legs, clearly disbelieving Andrew’s pep talk but having no proof or ammo to continue their argument. He keeps as wide a berth as he can from Andrew once he enters the cramped bathroom.
“Shower, now. Bed after. I am staying here.”
Neil grimaces but nods and strips down to nothing. Andrew averts his eyes and sits on the floor against the door.
Neil gasps when he steps in the shower at the freezing water but doesn’t attempt to warm it up. He lets the temperature shock his system– they found, last time Neil lost control of his thoughts, that Cold-Water Immersion was one of the only ways to bring him back to himself, as much as it is uncomfortable. Bee had been the one to offer the tool, some kind of technique used in DBT to break the fight-or-flight response. She had told Neil, and then Andrew separately, knowing Neil wouldn’t believe her. Neil is always annoyed when Bee is right.
After ten minutes, the water cuts off. Andrew stands and holds a towel to Neil behind the curtain. Neil wraps himself up and steps out. His breath is in control again, and his eyes are focused. Andrew is sure, by now, the benzodiazepine is kicking in.
He leads him to their bedroom and hands him a shirt and sweatpants, and once Neil is changed, he makes him sit, asks, and rubs the tension out of his shoulders. They don’t speak. Now that the truth is out, they have nothing to say. There is no fixing Neil’s brain with words alone, just like there is no fixing Andrew’s. All Andrew can do is care for him until they collectively come up with a new solution.
He leaves Neil on the bottom bunk to grab a new ice pack for his hand– which was no longer bleeding, thankfully; the cuts were surface abrasions– and texts Robin not to come back for a few hours.
When he enters the bedroom again, Neil has his face in his hands. “I am afraid to sleep next to you,” he admits.
“Do you want to?”
“ … Yes.”
“Then get up there,” Andrew says, nodding at his top bunk. Neil shamefully climbs up and sits at the foot to wait for Andrew to turn out the lights and join him in his place, back to the wall. Finally, Neil gingerly slips down next to Andrew. It’s the closest they’ve been in weeks, and Andrew has the usual Neil-urge to hold him tight after so long. He is disgustedly resigned to the feeling. He has a feeling that it won’t go away.
In the dark, Andrew hands Neil the ice. He can feel how tense he is, lying so close. He looks for his eyes in the gloom and finds them terrified.
“Stop being scared.”
“I can’t.”
“Then, know I can take care of myself.”
Neil accepts this at least, and falls quiet. Eventually, he says, “I didn’t check the door.”
“I locked it.”
Neil turns his head to look at the bedroom door, but it’s not locked because Robin isn’t here. He sighs, bone-tired. Too sedated by his medication to move and do anything about his fear.
When he faces Andrew again, he looks troubled.
“Next time you see Bee, I want you to ask about medications,” Andrew says.
“I don’t want to,” Neil debates weakly.
“Neil,” Andrew says, trying to put emotion into his name, as much as he can as someone who struggles to show any emotion at all. Here, now, it’s important. Neil needs to know how important his well-being is to him. “You keep making yourself sick. If you don’t get help, you might hurt yourself like last time. If you cannot handle yourself– if you need me to handle you, to keep you sane– then you need medication. This is a moot point,” he says, and he doesn’t like talking this much; he doesn’t like exposing this much of himself, but it’s Neil. “I will come with you, if you want me to, we can find the best option. Something that won’t make you lose any awareness.”
Neil is quiet and contemplative. A little obstinate.
“Not all medications are like the ones they put me on,” he assures Neil. Neil still looks scared. “I would not lie to you.”
“I know you wouldn’t…” Neil sighs and swallows and it looks hard. Andrew wants to hold him. “Ok, fine. Come with me.”
Andrew nods and shuts his eyes. He’s so tired. He wants this day to be over, wants a new day where Neil isn’t terrified of being alive.
“Andrew,” Neil whispers after a while, testing to see if he is awake. He always is, if Neil still is.
“Hm.”
“If you leave, and you go far, what… what will happen. To us.”
“Nothing,” Andrew says, and it's the most sure he has been about anything all week long.
“Ok,” Neil sighs, and this time, it’s lighter. “Hold my hand?”
Andrew finds Neil’s uninjured hand on the bed between them without hesitation and squeezes it with purpose. He doesn’t open his eyes, but he brings Neil’s hand to his lips and presses a long kiss to his knuckles. These hands would not hurt him. Ever.
He doesn’t look at Neil, but he falls asleep holding his hand.