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The first time Andrew fell asleep at Wymack’s apartment, it was an accident. That distinction mattered.
Andrew did not sleep in unfamiliar places. He certainly did not sleep around people he didn't trust (which was nearly everyone) and he especially avoided sleeping anywhere he couldn't lock a solid door between himself and the rest of the world. To Andrew, sleep was not rest; It was surrender. It meant hours of blind, terrifying vulnerability during which the world was permitted to do whatever it wanted with him. He had learned the cost of a closed eye early enough in life that he no longer remembered the actual learning of it. He simply knew it in his bones.
So, when Wymack looked over from his kitchen to find Andrew unconscious on the couch, Andrew would have considered it an unforgivable lapse in judgment if he'd been awake enough to have an opinion.
He hadn't meant to stay. He’d only driven Kevin to Wymack's because the striker had developed an urgent need to argue over game footage that apparently couldn't wait until morning. But when Kevin eventually left with Abby, Andrew found himself anchored to the cushions.
There was no real reason for it, and Wymack hadn't asked why. That was probably why Andrew stayed. Wymack complained about a referee; Andrew informed him that yelling at a television was a sign of cognitive decline. Wymack told him to rot, and Andrew considered the conversation complete.
But it was quiet, and quiet was a problem. Quiet left too much room for his own brain to fill in the gaps.
Andrew had managed maybe six hours of sleep total over the previous three nights. The first nightmare had been vivid and visceral enough to keep him awake until sunrise. The second night, he'd made it forty minutes before waking with his own hand clamped desperately around his throat, fighting off the phantom, suffocating weight of someone else's body pinning his legs to the mattress. Last night, he hadn't even bothered trying. He’d opted instead to sit on the floor with his back pressed flush against the wall, his knives cold, solid, and reassuring in his hands.
He was fine. He had survived on less. But as the television blurred and the players lost their sharp edges, his body betrayed him.
"Go home," Wymack said from his recliner.
"No."
"You look like shit."
"Your powers of observation remain unparalleled," Andrew shot back, though the words lacked their usual sharp bite. They felt heavy on his tongue.
Wymack studied him, his mouth drawn into a deep scowl that disguised something far too gentle for Andrew to stomach.
Andrew closed his eyes for one second so he didn't have to see the expression. That was all it was supposed to be. One second to let the burning behind his eyelids fade.
When he opened them again, the room was dark.
For a fraction of a second, he didn't know where he was, and that was all it took. Panic hit him like a physical blow. His heart slammed violently against his ribs. Every muscle in his body locked at once. His hand moved before conscious thought caught up with it, searching for a weapon that wasn't where it was supposed to be because these weren't his sheets, this wasn't his mattress, this wasn't his room.
Something covered his legs.
Andrew kicked it away violently, sending the blanket spilling onto the floor as memory returned in jagged, disjointed pieces: the couch, the television, Wymack's apartment.
He sat upright so quickly the room spun around him. The television was off, leaving only a single lamp turned low enough to cast the apartment in deep, concealing shadows. The digital clock above the stove glowed a harsh green: 2:17. He had been asleep for hours.
Hours.
His stomach turned violently, bile rising in the back of his throat. He looked down at himself, his breathing shallow and dangerously fast. He initiated a frantic, clinical checklist. His jeans were buttoned. He ran a hand over his waist, and his belt was still buckled exactly at the notch he always used. His shirt wasn't twisted or wrinkled in the wrong places. His shoes were still on. He patted his armbands, confirming his knives were perfectly accounted for.
Yet his skin crawled. He couldn't remember falling asleep, couldn't remember the blanket. Someone could have touched him. Someone had touched him; blankets did not appear out of thin air.
A cupboard closed softly in the kitchen. Andrew's head snapped up, his jaw tight enough to crack his teeth.
Wymack stood with his back to him in the dim light of the stove hood. He was moving strangely, and it took Andrew a few breathless seconds to understand why. Wymack was moving quietly. He had made coffee without turning on the noisy machine, operating entirely in the shadows so he wouldn't wake him.
Glancing over, Wymack saw that Andrew was awake, then deliberately looked away. There was no sudden approach, no barrage of questions.
"Coffee's fresh," he said simply.
Andrew stared at him, forcing the tremor out of his voice. His pulse was still too fast. "What time is it?"
"Two eighteen."
"You let me sleep."
Wymack paused, setting his mug down. "Seemed like you needed it."
Andrew's fingers dug painfully into his own thighs. "You touched me."
Wymack went very still. There, Andrew thought, bracing for the lie. People always told on themselves eventually.
"I put a blanket over you," Wymack said softly.
"That's touching me."
"No." Wymack's voice was remarkably careful, devoid of anger or defensiveness. "It's touching a blanket."
Andrew said nothing, and Wymack finally turned to look at him.
"I didn't touch you, Andrew."
The use of his first name scraped against something raw and buried in Andrew's chest. He hated that Wymack understood the absolute terror beneath the accusation, and he hated even more that Wymack answered it without making him ask the humiliating questions aloud.
"I put the blanket over your legs," Wymack continued slowly, holding his gaze. "Didn't move you. Didn't take your shoes off. Didn't take your knives. Didn't even turn the damn TV off until I was sure the noise wouldn't wake you."
Andrew’s gaze flicked toward the black, silent television screen. His brain desperately searched for a reason not to believe it. "You could be lying."
"Yep." Wymack picked his coffee back up.
There was no wounded outrage, or demand that Andrew believe him. Only a calm acknowledgment of the possibility. Andrew looked around the apartment, his mind racing to find the trap.
Nothing was wrong. That meant nothing.
His body felt intact. That meant something.
There was no unexplained soreness, no shifted clothes, no missing pieces of time beyond the sleep itself.
Wymack had had hours. Hours. Andrew had been unconscious on his couch, helpless in a way he had spent most of his life making certain he never was. Wymack could have done anything. He had done nothing.
Andrew stood abruptly. Wymack glanced over but stayed exactly where he was, anchored to his spot, as Andrew picked the ugly, soft gray blanket up from the floor. He folded it into an uneven square, his hands slightly unsteady, and dropped it on the couch.
"You fold blankets like a psychopath," Wymack noted.
Andrew found his keys and walked to the door.
"Minyard," Wymack called out softly. Andrew's hand tightened on the brass knob. "If you're too tired to drive, the couch isn't going anywhere."
Andrew looked back. Wymack was staring into his coffee, not watching for a reaction, just offering a lifeline. Andrew pulled the door open, offering nothing but a dark, lingering stare before stepping out into the hall.
"Drive safe," Wymack told his retreating back.
Andrew thought about it the entire drive home.
He thought about the blanket, his shoes, and the knives Wymack could have easily removed. He thought about the kitchen light instead of the overhead one. Mostly, he thought about the hours. There had been a time when adults had needed considerably less than hours to teach Andrew what helplessness cost. All Wymack had done with his time was turn down the lights. Andrew hated him for it.
Three weeks later, Andrew stopped sleeping again.
There wasn't a reason. (There was always a reason.) There was no reason worth discussing.
By the fourth day, Neil noticed.
"Nightmare?" Neil asked quietly. He was sitting on the opposite end of the dorm couch, staring blindly at a textbook. He hadn't turned a page in twenty minutes.
Andrew looked at him. His eyes burned like dry sand. "No."
Neil accepted the flat lie because Andrew hadn't given him permission to dig any deeper.
"Okay," Neil said, dropping his gaze obediently back to the page.
Andrew hated him a little for that. The quiet grated against his exhausted nerves. He wanted the friction. He wanted an excuse to start a fight, something sharp and physical to ground him back into his own body, but Neil denied him the opening.
By the fifth day, the edges of the world had started losing their definition.
Practice was unbearable. The scrape of a shoe on the court felt like a physical blow and the court lights were too bright. Kevin shouted too much. Nicky laughed too loud.
In the gym afterward, Matt accidentally dropped a heavy free weight onto the rubber mats. The metallic crash echoed like a gunshot.
Andrew nearly put a blade through the back of Matt's hand before his exhausted brain could process the sound. He froze, his fingers hovering millimeters from his armband, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Neil saw the flinch. Andrew saw Neil see it. Neither of them said a word.
That evening, Andrew drove. He didn't consciously decide where he was going, and there were dozens of places he could have ended up. Eden's. Columbia. Some twenty-four-hour diner where a waitress wouldn't question him occupying a corner booth until sunrise. He could have just driven in circles and gone back to Fox Tower.
Instead, twenty minutes later, the Maserati was idling in the parking lot outside Wymack's apartment building.
He shifted the car into reverse. He stopped. He shoved the gearshift violently back into park. This was completely ridiculous. He had survived years of his life without safe sleep. He did not require David Wymack's fucking couch.
Andrew killed the engine. He sat in the dark interior of the car for another seven minutes.
Then, he turned off the engine and went upstairs.
Wymack opened the door. Neither spoke as Wymack's eyes traveled over Andrew’s exhausted face, practically reading the agonizing lack of sleep etched into his skin.
"Kevin isn't here," Wymack said gently.
"I know."
"Neil?"
"No."
Wymack waited. Andrew actively resented the man.
"Are you going to stand there all night?" Andrew demanded, his voice sharp and brittle.
"It's my doorway," Wymack pointed out, though he stepped aside.
Entering felt like stepping off a cliff. Coming here once was an accident; coming here deliberately was a confession. Wymack knew. Of course he knew. Andrew almost turned back toward the door when Wymack spoke,
"There's leftover pizza," Wymack offered to the empty air.
Andrew froze. Wymack was already walking toward the kitchen, giving Andrew his back.
"Didn't ask."
"Didn't say you did."
Andrew sat on the couch. Wymack put on a mindless baseball game, leaving the volume low. For the first two hours, Andrew remained rigidly upright, his instincts refusing to let him lower his guard. This was stupid, he couldn't do this on purpose. Choices had consequences.
Wymack was watching the pitcher on the screen, entirely unbothered. He wasn't looking at Andrew.
His eyes drifted closed, and he forced them open again. They burned.
"Coach," Andrew said, the word cracking in the quiet room.
Wymack didn't move. "Yeah?"
The words lodged painfully in Andrew's throat. He didn't know what he wanted to say. Maybe nothing. Maybe don't touch me. Maybe don't let anyone in. Maybe if I fall asleep, leave me alone. Maybe something worse. Something humiliating.
Something that sounded too much like begging.
"Nothing," Andrew finally murmured, swallowing hard.
"Okay," Wymack nodded once.
Andrew closed his eyes again. He tracked the sensory inputs of the room, using them to anchor himself against the panic. The muted television announcer. The low hum of the refrigerator compressor. A car tire passing on the asphalt outside. Wymack shifting his heavy weight against the leather recliner.
He counted the sounds to keep from drowning in them. Television. Refrigerator. Traffic. Wymack. Television. Refrigerator. Traffic. Wymack.
The folded gray blanket rested on the opposite arm of the couch. Andrew stared at the fabric. Wymack had placed it there. Not draped over his body. There. Available for use, but entirely Andrew's choice to reach for.
Andrew looked at the recliner. Wymack was very carefully analyzing the baseball game.
Something inside Andrew gave way. It was a terrifying, fragile collapse. He reached out, his fingers wrapping around the worn fabric, and pulled it over himself. Wymack kept his eyes glued to the baseball game.
Carefully, his ears ringing, Andrew turned onto his side and exposed his back to the room. It was a terrifying position, one he never allowed himself. He almost rolled back over, but stopped. The man behind him wasn't Drake, wasn't a nameless foster father. It was Wymack, who had been given hours and done nothing but let him rest.
As Andrew drifted off, the last thing he heard was Wymack lowering the television volume even further.
Wymack knew better than to move.
That was the part Andrew would never know. Wymack also knew better than to look for too long. Andrew had shown up with his pupils slightly unfocused from pure exhaustion, radiating murder in every defensive line of his body. He had perched on the beige cushions like a feral animal waiting for someone to tell him he had made a mistake.
Wymack wasn't stupid. He understood.
Maybe not all of it. He doubted anyone walking this earth would ever understand the full scope of Andrew Minyard. But he understood enough.
Three weeks ago, the kid had woken up terrified. Not startled. Not groggy or embarrassed. Terrified.
He’d watched Andrew wake up with the kind of animal terror of someone trying to determine what violation had been committed against him while he was powerless to stop it.
But he had come back. He had come back because this couch was one of the only places in the world where he had lost consciousness and woken up untouched.
Wymack stared at the screen until his vision blurred. "Jesus Christ," he whispered into the quiet room. He didn't move from his chair. He stayed awake, standing guard, until morning.
When Andrew woke at 6:41, a sharp second of panic seized him before his eyes found the gray blanket and the morning light. Everything inside his chest powered down and settled before he could stop it. That sudden, involuntary feeling of safety terrified him significantly more than the adrenaline had.
Wymack was asleep in the recliner, his neck bent at an uncomfortable angle that would likely make him completely insufferable for the remainder of the day. Wymack had given up his bed to stay in the chair all night. Andrew didn't want to know why that mattered, but it made his throat ache. In the kitchen, Andrew noticed a clean mug sat waiting beside Wymack's empty one from the night before.
He stood and folded the gray blanket, staring at the overlapping, sloppy edges.
Wymack's rough, sleep-heavy voice broke the silence from behind him. "Still fold blankets like a psychopath."
Andrew didn't turn around, preparing for the collection. "Thought you were asleep."
That was the fundamental flaw in human interaction: eventually, everyone collected their debts. He expected a probing question. A smug, pitying look. A heavy-handed, suffocating promise that you can come here whenever you need. He waited for Wymack to say something designed to transform last night's desperate, terrifying silence into a cheap emotional transaction.
Wymack simply scrubbed a heavy hand over his stubbled jaw, his joints popping as he stretched, and grimaced at the wall clock.
"Was. Unfortunately, it's temporary."
Andrew stared at him. Wymack stared back, completely unfazed. Nothing in his exhausted expression demanded an explanation for why Andrew had appeared at his door in the middle of the night. Nothing asked Andrew to name the specific trauma he was outrunning. Nothing demanded gratitude.
Neither of them mentioned the fact that Andrew stayed through breakfast. Neither of them mentioned it when Andrew appeared at the apartment again two months later, silent and hollowed out by another bad week. Or the time after that.
There was never a conversation about it. There was simply a gray blanket that eventually stopped living in Wymack's bedroom closet, taking up permanent residence on the arm of the couch instead.
Wymack never put it over Andrew again; he just left it where Andrew could reach it.
And Andrew never asked for a reason why. He simply kept coming back.