Chapter Text
Four years post-graduation, and Neil barely recognized the person he'd been a year ago, let alone four. Violent and terrified, that much hadn't changed. But the skinny frame had filled out with lean muscle, a warm amber tan was starting across his shoulders and cheeks and nose, and his hair was cut neat, his curls shiny and healthy. What was left of the Perfect Court had dominated the pro leagues on separate franchises. This was the first time they'd played under one banner, the best of the NCAA united in red, white and blue, an ocean of American athletes on their way to win Paris 2024.
Neil played on a carbon-fiber transtibial prosthetic. Four years of pro-level training had refined his stride, but long-haul travel still did what it always did: pressure changes, hours of sitting, hours of walking after. Blisters, back pain, swelling, scar tissue pulled tight. A muscle in his temple feathered from how hard he was clenching his jaw as they ground through the ninth hour of a ten-hour flight. Twenty-four hours of travel total, from Washington to Paris.
The sports media had already written the US roster off as a ticking time bomb of feuding personalities. Josten versus Minyard, Josten versus Day, Minyard versus Moreau, Knox as the lone Trojan in a pack of former Foxes. In reality the five of them (Neil, Andrew, Kevin, Jean and Jeremy) moved with a synchronization that frightened coaches, built on years of a shared language of need and the family they'd pieced together from what was left of their old lives.
In the time since graduation they'd been on separate teams, traded and swapped around. Kevin had been offered the biggest contract in Exy history. A chunk of it went straight back to Palmetto State, and another chunk paid off a house for his father, David Wymack, and Wymack's new wife, Abby. Neil had flatly refused to help set up a "parathlete" version of the sport. He'd said they could find someone else to champion that fight, because as far as he was concerned, if he could still run, he wasn't disabled. He wanted to play in the league next to everyone else, and he did.
When the Olympic roster came together, Kevin turned down the captaincy. He claimed to hate the media fluff, the soft words, the paperwork. Instead he leaned on the board until they made Jeremy captain and Neil vice-captain. It made perfect sense to Kevin. To everyone else, he couldn't have picked two more opposite people if he'd tried.
Neil had the aisle seat so he could manage his leg. His prosthetic sock was pushed down to let the skin breathe and the descent was doing awful things to his stump, a deep throbbing that had settled in behind the socket. He was used to it. But that had never made it easier.
Andrew sat beside him, pretending to be asleep. He'd gripped Neil's hand hard enough at takeoff to pop a knuckle, he still hated flying with his whole chest, the long ones most of all. Even so, with his eyes shut and his breathing slow and careful, he'd angled his leg to the side to give Neil room to stretch out his bad one. That meant his knee was jammed into Kevin's instead, which was the point. Kevin could deal with it. He wouldn't wake Andrew to complain, not that Andrew woke violently as often these days.
The cabin pressure shifted as they dropped, a slow heavy slide toward the runway that made the seat frames creak. Andrew didn't move. His profile was sharp and still against the dim overhead light, and his breathing had the measured, trained rhythm of a man who felt every vibration in the fuselage. His leg stayed wedged exactly where it was, giving Neil's residual limb the angle it needed to keep the socket from biting into inflamed scar tissue. Somewhere in the cramped space against the bulkhead, Kevin's knee went tense, then gave up.
Kevin didn't push back. He had his laptop open on the tray table, blue light catching the rims of his glasses and carving shadows into his face. His left hand, the one that had been rebuilt and retrained and had signed the biggest contract in the history of the sport, hovered over a digital playbook. He'd been staring at the same loop of the French defensive line for twenty minutes. His eyes hadn't moved once.
From the seat beside Jean, Jeremy shifted and let out a soft laugh that cut through the thick air in the cabin. He looked wrecked. There were dark circles under his eyes from weeks of the Olympic committee's PR team, with Jeremy standing between them and everyone else, absorbing press releases and interview requests so the rest of them didn't have to. But when he turned and glanced through the gap between the seats, his smile was warm and steady, like he wasn't as worn down as the rest of them.
His hand settled on Jean's forearm, a small steadying weight, and Jean's shoulders came down a notch. Jeremy's golden-brown eyes swept over the group and took in all of it. Andrew holding his position. Kevin's silence. Neil, quietly there.
"Forty-five minutes till we land," Jeremy said, soft, a calm voice against the low roar. His thumb brushed Jean's wrist before he looked back at Neil, fond and completely unbothered by the media storm waiting on the ground. "The transport's private. No cameras until the press conference tomorrow morning. You don't have to put the boot back on till we hit the terminal, Neil."
Andrew didn't open his eyes, but his fingers flexed against his dark jeans. "Quiet, Knox," he drawled, flat, with no trace of sleep in it. He'd been awake the entire flight. "Your joy is giving me a migraine."
Jeremy just smiled and turned around, not offended in the slightest, and laced his fingers through Jean's where they rested between the seats. Andrew adjusted slightly, his hip pressing a fraction harder into Neil's side. A reminder, wordless, that he was right there, as the plane banked into its final turn.
Neil slid his hand out of his sweater sleeve and between the seats. He pried Andrew's iron grip off the armrest and swapped it for his own warm hand, then sank down in his seat and closed his eyes. He didn't love flying, but he didn't hate it the way Andrew did, so the least he could do was make his body look calm. He exaggerated his breathing on purpose, slow and deep, for the small animal that lived in both of them and screamed and clawed at the smallest twitch of fear.
The plane rattled and tilted in the winds over Paris, but they landed without trouble. The only damage was a row of half-moon dents from Andrew's nails across the back of Neil's hand.
The tires screamed on wet asphalt at Charles de Gaulle, the reverse thrusters roared, and the plane shuddered to a stop. Andrew's grip didn't loosen. The engines dropped to a high whine, the cabin lights flickered fully on, and still his fingers stayed locked around Neil's, nails pressing white crescents into his knuckles. His eyes opened slowly, dark and unblinking, tracking the overhead compartments popping open down the aisle as other athletes unbuckled and stood. Only when the cabin door hissed open and the first cold, damp draft of European air cut through the stale warmth did his hand let go. He slid his fingers free without a word.
Kevin was already up, hunched under the low ceiling of the first-class cabin. He pulled their black team duffels down with brisk, practiced efficiency, his broad back blocking the aisle from the stream of track-and-field athletes shuffling past. He handed Andrew his jacket. His eyes flicked down to Neil's carry-on, to the document sleeve peeking out of the side pocket, where the corner of a dark blue passport showed.
His mouth thinned into a hard line.
He'd caught a glimpse of it back in New York, when he'd been cross-referencing their boarding passes and seen the line printed under Neil's name. Minyard-Josten, Neil. He hadn't said a word about it for nine hours. It had hung over them like static the whole flight, and Neil had felt it but left it alone. Kevin had spent years running contract negotiations, media defense and legal shielding for all of them. Meanwhile Andrew and Neil had quietly walked into a courthouse with a federal handler and a piece of state paper back when Neil was still recovering from his amputation.
Kevin slung his bag over his shoulder, his left hand flexing against the strap, knuckles pale. He looked at Andrew, then down at Neil, jaw working like he was chewing through a dozen furious lectures about legal liability and team publicity and protocol. In the end he let out one tight breath and said nothing.
"Van's at Gate B," he said instead. His voice was flat, stripped of the fire he usually saved for Exy. He turned toward the front of the plane, not looking at either of them. "Jeremy's already down there handling the baggage tags."
Ahead of them, Jeremy was standing near the door, keeping a polite distance between their group and a bunch of rowdy USA swimmers. He glanced back over his shoulder and caught the tension coming off Kevin's shoulders and the blank mask Andrew had slid back into place. He didn't ask. He never pressed when the former Foxes closed ranks. But as Jean stepped up beside him, tall and quiet, Jeremy put a hand on the small of his back and kept it there as the crowd began to move.
Jean's eyes went to Neil's leg. He watched the slight hitch in Neil's posture as Neil tested his weight on the prosthetic, and a faint crease appeared between his brows. "It is damp outside," he said quietly, in French, under the noise of chatter and rustling coats. "The cold will go straight through to the joint if you do not wrap it before the tarmac."
Andrew stood and stepped smoothly into Neil's space, blocking the view of the aisle while Neil fixed his trousers over the boot. He didn't look at Kevin and he didn't acknowledge Jean. He just caught the collar of Neil's oversized hoodie and tugged it straight with a short, rough pull that put Neil's weight back over his good leg.
"Move, Pegleg," he muttered, low and clipped, still standing like a wall between Neil and the flood of red, white and blue jackets heading for the jet bridge. "I want off this fucking plane."
The shuffle off the plane and down the tunnel into the terminal was slow and loud with the chatter of a hundred jet-lagged American athletes. As Olympians they got to skip the usual customs and baggage mess, though that didn't mean their identities weren't checked and double-checked for the fourth time on the long trip from home.
Volunteers and staff herded everyone toward the accreditation and welcome hub inside the terminal. It was plastered in Olympic logos and mascots and was a bit of an eyesore, but Jeremy was eating it up, accepting every trinket handed to him as they inched through the snaking lanes. It took the better part of an hour to reach an actual desk. There, their entry records from the New York layover were matched against the official lists, and their Olympic Identity and Accreditation Cards were issued. Neil's read Neil Abram Minyard-Josten, to match his passport.
Four years ago, Neil had been in a wheelchair, and the FBI had been dangling extradition over him because they couldn't find a shred of proof that he was American by birth or any other route. Andrew had suggested a green card marriage almost offhandedly, and within the week he'd wheeled his cast-bound, bandaged partner into a courthouse to sign the paperwork. A few months later Neil was a citizen, and nobody asked questions after that. Who checked passports inside the US anyways?
There were no rings and no ceremony. Andrew had insisted on a prenup so that when he inevitably killed Neil for being annoying, he'd get ninety percent of Neil's money, threatening to spend it all on convincing kids exy sucked. The only people who knew were the court officials, the FBI agents on Neil's case, and now, as of a boarding pass in New York, Kevin.
The four years of luck had run out. The second they were out of earshot of the staff, Kevin plucked the passport out of Neil's hand without asking. He went pale. Neil couldn't tell if it was jealousy or FOMO or disapproval of a double-barrelled name, and figured it was probably all three. His and Andrew's blank looks weren't helping. The Queen of Exy stared at the name on the page and tried to work out when and why this had happened at all.
"Married," Kevin said, stiff down to his spine, as they walked down a dim tunnel toward the shuttles.
"Four years ago, yeah. I wasn't a citizen," Neil said, as if it were nothing. It was about time anyway. "You didn't miss anything. Andrew didn't wear a white dress." He added it rather unhelpfully, as was his nature.
Kevin stopped dead in the concrete corridor, the hum of the terminal muffled behind the fire doors. He stared at the blue booklet like it had turned into a biohazard, his thumb pressed hard against the gold seal.
"A white dress," he repeated, dangerously low, a strained rasp with years of unvented frustration in it. The fluorescent light caught the angle of his jaw as his gaze dragged slowly from the ink to Andrew, who was walking along the wall with his hands deep in his coat pockets and looked deeply unimpressed by the whole display. "You married him." Kevin stepped closer, looming over Neil, holding up the passport like evidence. "You took a federal document to a courthouse, signed a contract with the United States government in the middle of an FBI investigation, and you didn't think to tell your manager? Your team?" Under the words sat the other question, the wounded one that didn't need saying out loud. You didn't think to tell me?
"You are not his legal guardian, Kevin. Leave it alone," Jean said flatly from two paces ahead. He didn't turn around, but he slowed down, dark eyes sliding sideways to watch. Something in his shoulders eased, and in its place came the long-suffering exhaustion he reserved for what he considered ‘Day-based romantic drama’.
"It's a federal record!" Kevin hissed, rounding on Jean before swinging back to Neil. "Do you know what the press will do with this if it leaks? The Committee cross-references accreditation with international registries. If a French tabloid gets hold of a dual-name filing from four years ago, they'll spin it into a green-card fraud scandal before the opening ceremony!"
Jeremy stepped into the middle of the walkway, putting himself between Kevin's rising volume and the metal doors at the end of the tunnel where the shuttle drivers waited, hands up in a mild, pacifying gesture. "Kevin," the bleach-blond Californian said softly, warm and steady, with the practiced authority that had made him the only logical captain for a cacophony of jet-lagged prodigies. "The desk just cleared him. The USOC processed that file three months ago at roster lock. If there'd been a conflict, I'd have been dragged into an emergency board meeting before we left New York, never mind boarded a plane. It's okay."
Kevin's chest rose and fell in one tight, agitated breath. Jeremy had a way of calming them like a lion tamer in a room of annoyed big cats, and it worked better than Kevin would ever admit. He looked at the passport again, brushed his thumb over the hyphenated name one more time, and shoved it back into Neil's chest. There was a knot in his stomach he'd rather never have to think about again.
"Four years," he muttered, dropping into a low, offended growl as he turned on his heel and marched toward the shuttles, shoes clicking on the concrete. "Four years, and neither of you said a word. You're both unbelievable."
Jeremy gave Neil and Andrew an easy, sympathetic smile as the tall striker stormed ahead and took the push doors out onto the tarmac. "I'll handle his blood pressure once we're on the bus," he murmured to Neil, squeezing his shoulder briefly before hurrying after Kevin. Within a few steps he'd launched into a quiet, unbothered chat about the evening's tape review and whether they'd have the energy to go out for food or should just check out the dining hall.
Neil stuffed the passport back into his bag and zipped it shut without making a fuss. Under his Team USA jacket and the faded orange hoodie that clashed horribly with the color scheme, he felt a twinge of guilt. He still forgot, sometimes, that the people around him wanted to know things about him. What he did, who he spent time with, whether he'd secretly married someone to get the FBI off his back while they used his missing citizenship as leverage after his kidnapping and his father's death. Kevin Day went to the same team as him, ran with him every morning, trained with him, showered with him, and often shared a bed with him. He felt dumb now, not realizing Kevin might want to know about his personal life. Might even want to be part of it.
Jean didn't say another word on the issue. He let Neil stew in his thoughts as they followed the crowd. He just dropped back a pace so that his big frame cut the wind off Neil's left side and, without looking down, took the top handle of Neil's carry-on in one hand. Neil didn't fight him. He let go. He knew the extra ten pounds on his shoulder would only make his back worse on a socket that already fit wrong, because he'd lost close to a pound in the training build-up to the Olympics. His everyday walking leg wasn't as adjustable as his Exy one, so even a small change in muscle or weight made the fit awkward.
The shuttle was waiting at the curb, sleek and tinted, with the US delegation logo in silver along the side. Jeremy was already at the front, chatting with the French driver in rough, broad Marseille French. A couple of heads turned in confusion at the textbook surfer-bro Californian speaking with such a specific accent. Jeremy didn't notice. He took the team's route map with a bright, disarming smile that visibly relaxed the stressed transit coordinator, and lead the small group to the back.
Neil took the bus steps slowly, making sure his prosthetic foot landed flat on the rubber treads so his knee wouldn't buckle and send him face first into the edge. Inside it was warm and quiet, blissfully cut off from the chaos of the airport. Kevin had already claimed a row near the back, pulled out his tablet and started loading footage of the German national team. Jeremy slid in beside him with a notebook and no hesitation and redirected Kevin's irritated energy into line rotations before he could start pacing the aisle and annoying the other fifty athletes filing on.
Jean steered Neil to a window seat at the very back. Before Neil could reach into his own jacket, Jean leaned over, pulled Kevin's phone from his pocket to check the time zone sync, and tossed it on the empty seat next to Jeremy. Kevin didn't even pause his tirade about the German defense. He reached out blind, grabbed the phone, and tucked it back in his pocket, used to sharing practically everything with them despite having the collective money to buy an entire apartment building and then some.
Neil sank into the plush high-backed seat and let out a slow breath. The socket was biting deep now, swollen against the rigid carbon edge. "Twenty minutes to the Village," Jean said quietly in crisp, unhurried French, pulling a thick paperback from his bag and settling in beside him, shoulders broad enough to hide Neil's slouch from the rest of the bus. Then, a single order: "Rest."
Across the aisle, Andrew dropped into his own seat with his usual heavy grace and leaned his head against the window, watching the grey, rain-slicked highways of Saint-Denis slide by as the bus pulled out. He looked entirely indifferent to the world. His right boot stayed planted in the aisle, blocking anyone from coming down toward their row, or toward the bathroom between them.
The bus merged onto the autoroute, the steady hum of tires on wet road vibrating up through the floor. The pounding in Neil's leg settled into a manageable, familiar tightness. A bone-deep jet lag began to drag at his eyelids as the streetlights flicked past. Without a word he let his head tip sideways and land on Jean's bicep. He couldn't reach his shoulder sitting on even ground, so he settled for the next best pillow.
Jean didn't flinch or pull away. He shifted his arm slightly to give Neil a better angle and rested his chin near the crown of Neil's head, turning a page of his book with the other hand. In the reflection of the tinted glass, Andrew's eyes moved, watching them for one long second. Then he closed them, either fine with the arrangement or too tired to care about anything but a bed.
After half an hour of winding French roads, the bus ground to a halt at the security perimeter of the Olympic Village. High fences, armed gendarmerie, metal detector gantries, and a swirling crowd of athletes in tracksuits of every color. "All off," Jeremy announced gently, standing and stretching his arms over his head with a quiet pop of his spine. "Credential check at the main gate, then we can all pass out."
The line moved sluggishly. When Neil stepped up to the detector, the frame let out a high, loud shriek and a wave of tension rippled through the guards. Two officers stepped forward and looked over his lean frame, the bulk under his right trouser leg. "Monsieur," the lead officer began, reaching for a handheld wand. "Veuillez vous écarter..." (Sir, please step aside.)
Before he could finish or touch him, Jean was at Neil's side, tall enough to pull the guard's attention off Neil's face. "Prothèse transtibiale en fibre de carbone," he said smoothly, in flawless native French, flat and bureaucratic. "Il a les documents médicaux du Comité Olympique. Laissez-le passer au contrôle privé." (Carbon-fiber transtibial prosthesis. He has the medical documentation from the Olympic Committee. Let him through to private screening.)
The guard blinked, looking between Jean's cold, almost aristocratic delivery and the badge around Neil's neck, with a photo that somehow looked like a mugshot. Andrew stood three feet away with his arms crossed, his posture relaxed, his unblinking hazel eyes fixed on the guard. He said nothing. He didn't have to. His presence alone could put a guilty chill down the spine of the most innocent person alive.
The guard cleared his throat, nodded quickly, and waved them toward a curtained booth for medical screening. Neil went in, pulled up his pant leg far enough to show the USOC stamp on the carbon socket, and walked back out two minutes later without saying a word or explaining a single scar.
Their apartment in the USA block was basic and practical and had no luxury to speak of. Cardboard bed frames topped with firm athletic mattresses, a narrow balcony over the crowded Village Plaza below. The deadbolt clicked behind them, shutting the five of them off from the rest of the world, and the thread holding Neil together snapped. He didn't look for a chair. He walked straight to the nearest bed, sat down hard, and undid the quick-release on his socket. The carbon-fiber blade came off and hit the floor, and he didn't care about the neighbors downstairs or about the prosthetic itself, which he put through hell anyway.
His leg was red and angry, deeply indented from the flight, the scar tissue tight and swollen. Without a word, Jean dropped his own bag by the door, crossed to the luggage, unzipped the front pocket, and pulled out Neil's gel ice pack and silicone compression sleeves. He dropped them in Neil's lap and went to claim the bed farthest from the window.
"I want forty minutes on the court tomorrow morning," Kevin announced, setting his gear bag hard on the dining table and sweeping a pile of welcome pamphlets aside to make room for his tablet. "The floor panelling is firmer than the stadium in Atlanta. If we don't get used to it by Tuesday-"
"Kevin, quiet," Jeremy said with an easy laugh, coming in from the kitchenette with a crate of bottled water and delegation protein bars. He set it on the floor and tossed a bottle at Kevin's chest, which Kevin caught purely on reflex. "At least let Neil take his leg all the way off before you start planning."
Jean sat on the edge of the bed next to Neil's and pulled out his translation packet for the French press briefings. Neil unrolled a compression sleeve and worked it carefully over his residual limb. Then he lifted the bad leg and rested the weight of it across Jean's knee, casually. Jean didn't look up from his papers. He just adjusted his leg to take the weight and kept reading, like he was nothing more than furniture.
By the balcony doors, the curtains fluttered as the cool Paris breeze drifted in. Andrew leaned against the frame, a dark outline against the fading afternoon light, an unlit cigarette dangling between two fingers. It broke the Village's no-smoking rule in spirit if not in practice. He hadn't smoked in four years, but he still carried them around like a threat for the days Kevin got on his nerves.
Neil turned his head and found him across the cluttered room. Andrew didn't smile or move. He held Neil's gaze for a long, quiet moment, thumbs hooked in his pockets, never quite relaxed, but not tense either. He was just feeling out how much he could settle, with the door locked and everyone he cared about on this continent in one room.
Neil let out a slow breath and rested his head against the wall. Jean turned another page beside him, Jeremy draped himself across the bed behind the Frenchman, and Kevin's muttering about line rotations melted into the background.