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Andrew lifts the cigarette to his lips and inhales, long and slow. Neil is sitting at the desk pushed up against the window, hair sticking up in frustrated tufts and curls with an array of marked through papers surrounding him. He looks every bit of the stressed college student as he angrily scratches through another wrong equation and purposefully shoves the sheet of paper to the ground. The childish action makes Andrew want to scoff out loud at how expressive Neil is when it comes to homework - either he’s pleasantly destroying problems or he’s stuck on one for hours on end and in turn complains to Andrew the entire time.
He’s the epitome of a nuisance. Always wanting to be around Andrew, whether that be on the court, at Eden’s, the dorm, the bed. He was sidling up to Andrew with his blue eyes and worming his way into every nook and crevice his little junky heart could fit into. It pissed Andrew off to no end.
And then Neil looks up from his homework, scarred hands still buried in his hair where he was tugging at it, and suddenly all of the tension relaxes, like seeing Andrew puts him at ease. His lips quirk up and Andrew wants to wrap his hands around Neil’s neck and throttle him.
Who gave him the right to look at Andrew like that?
Andrew purposefully turns to the window, away from Neil, and ignores the swoop of his stomach at the height. He centers himself around that drop - the distance, the fear, and forces himself to look down to where the ground lays below. It’s obviously not as high up as the roof, but it’s high enough.
He makes it through two more cigarettes before Neil slams his textbook close, reopens it, slams it again, and then shoves it off his desk for good measure. He looks entirely too pleased with himself as it thuds against the floor.
“I’m done with my homework,” Neil says out loud, like Andrew should care at all, and stands up to pop his back. His shirt rides up to reveal a strip of his abdomen, scarred and muscled. Andrew grounds the butt of his cigarette hard into the ashtray.
Neil pads over to where his phone lay charging on the bed, sprawling out wide as he fucks around playing some game or texting. Ever since he got his new phone he’s been practically glued to it which should be a relief, considering his talent for getting into dangerous situations with no way of contacting anyone, but instead it’s just obnoxious and annoying. He suddenly looks entirely boyish, not at all like the product of a mobster’s breeding as he rolls onto his stomach and taps away at the screen, lips twitching as he reads over something. The glow illuminates his scars and they’re ugly things that are raised far off his face and mar his jaw to where it slants strangely to one side from a knife cutting deep.
“They’re disgusting,” Neil had said one night in the darkness of their room with his head buried into his pillow. Andrew knew he didn’t really care for his looks, but more of what the scars meant to him. A constant reminder that the man he had been running from his entire life had caught him.
“If you were ugly, I wouldn’t be here with you right now,” Andrew had replied, because it was the truth and Neil had peeked at him. He had grinned sheepishly, ear to ear, and Andrew had shoved him out of the bed and didn’t allow him back in.
Neil shifts to his back, phone held above his face. Andrew wants to rip that phone out of his hand and cover his mouth with his own. He wants to run his fingers through that tangled mess of curls until it’s somewhat decent. Mostly, he just wants to push Neil over the nearest ledge and be done with him.
“What are you thinking about?” Neil asks softly. He’s still focused on his phone, but he’s got a sixth sense when it comes to Andrew. It’s really fucking infuriating.
“Pushing you off the nearest roof so you would leave me the fuck alone,” Andrew answers. Other people would have recoiled, rolled their eyes, snapped at Andrew to stop joking around, but Neil only beams over at him.
“I happen to know a place,” Neil replies and there’s something under his joking tone that makes Andrew stand up and cross over to the bed to lay next to him.
“Just need to think of where to hide your body.” Andrew plucks the phone out from Neil’s grasp and presses his mouth against his.
Kissing Neil should not make his stomach plummet like when he’s standing on a ledge, but it does. No matter how many times he tries to still it, to not react, it still tumbles low when their lips meet. A traitorous reaction that Andrew pushes to the farthest corners of his mind. Right now there’s just Neil dragging his mouth against Andrew’s and his hands sliding out to touch Andrew’s shoulders, stalling, and then retreating to where they are safely tucked away.
It shouldn’t make Andrew angry but it does. Everything about Neil Josten makes Andrew angry.
“Yes,” Andrew growls roughly as he presses open mouth kisses along the underside of Neil’s chin. Hands press softly to the junction of his neck and shoulder, fingertips skirting just above the collar of his shirt.
“This shirt looks nice on you,” Neil whispers, reverently, like Andrew is holy and he’s a man of God. Something white-hot laces through Andrew’s chest and he wants desperately for it to be anger, but it isn’t.
“Shut your mouth,” Andrew snarls, biting fiercely at Neil’s pulse point. He shudders and his fingers tighten before smoothing back out.
Neil does because Andrew kisses him as hard as he can and doesn’t even wince when their teeth clank together. They kiss like that for a long moment, mouths opening and searching and Andrew knows that, in a way, this is Neil’s communion in every sense of the word.
Finally they separate and catch their breath. Neil’s rough palm slides up Andrew’s neck and to the side of his head. He scratches at his temple, blunt nails dragging in slow circular motions that make Andrew’s anger dissipate with each rotation.
He hates this. He hates how this skittish boy could unwind him so easily, look at him like he was his drink of water after wandering in the desert. Like his life had been one giant question and Andrew was his answer.
Andrew presses his hand over Neil’s eyes and Neil lets him. Doesn’t he know the danger of not being able to see? Andrew could stick a knife deep in his gut and he wouldn’t even know until it nudged between his ribs. He could wrap his hands around his throat and choke the life out of him.
But instead Neil just nestles closer, hand curling in his hair like a cat kneading. Andrew’s ear is warm from there his pinky rests against it.
“Are you tired?” Neil mumbles.
“No,” Andrew replies.
Neil shuffles until there’s barely a breath between their bodies, but he maintains the distance, because he knows Andrew. He won’t touch without permission. Even when he’s blinded and at a disadvantage he still follows the rules.
Andrew approves by removing his hand and curling it around the back of Neil’s neck and tugging him forward. Their chests press together, knees awkwardly bumping, and Neil is no doubt uncomfortable with their position from where his arm is bent under his head and his long legs trying to fold in on themselves to be compact. But he just lets out a loud, content sight and slips his eyes close.
His eyelashes are long and dark and if Andrew leans close enough, dark red at the roots. There’s a freckle between his left eye and dark eyebrow, and Andrew resists the urge to kiss it. Instead he lets Neil cuddle even closer and listens as his breathing slows.
There was a name for the emotion that burns in the base of Andrew’s chest, but he makes his mind a blank slate as he syncs his breathing with Neil’s. The dorm is too bright for Andrew to sleep, but Neil’s warmth makes him tired in a different way.
“I’m going to take a nap,” Neil breathes out and he slowly curls his fingers around the back of Andrew’s ear and rubs there. Andrew’s stomach is a little too full of some emotion, pressing up against his diaphragm and into his throat. He clenches his jaw, hard, but Neil soothes away the tension.
“Then sleep, dumbass,” Andrew says.