#No but Neil realizing this and randomly telling drew | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ravenvsfox · 5 years

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‘somehow escape the burning wait’ + andreil (yes i read your tags)

(I kinda stitched these two together, hope that’s okay! This became a bonnie and clyde extravaganza and I don’t know why)

They make it all the way to the border before Nathan catches up with them.

For months they’ve been tripping through grocery stores and motels with blue, blue swimming pools, and when the mood strikes them, careening into parking lots to steal prettier cars.

Neil told Andrew who he is--he can’t remember. A long time ago. Months. Years.

That first time Nathan tried to take him, Andrew wrenched the knife out of his hand so hard that his butcher’s hand had snapped.

In the aftermath of their escape, Andrew had sponged the blood out of Neil’s hair, and Neil had cried his way through a panic attack. It was the first time he’d said the name Wesninski out loud in over a year.

He came for them again after that, but they kept stumbling out of reach, pulling each other across state-lines and into unfindable burrows.

Together, they’ve done the messy, elbow-deep work of heaving Neil out of his father’s shadow. They’ve been trying to run fast enough that maybe the killer’s blood inside him will purify and evaporate off of his skin.

Andrew tells him every day that they can stop. That he will take care of it, when Nathan comes calling. But Neil refuses to watch that showdown, between his past and his future.

They keep moving. Neil teaches Andrew how to do it undetected for a while, the passports and disguises, but then, inexplicably, they start to enjoy themselves.

The hateful, scrounging existence of his life attached to his mother becomes thrilling with Andrew. He jogs backwards in front of him, so it almost feels like he’s running towards something.

The first time they rob a store, it’s so slick that no one notices. Andrew peels a chunk of inventory from the back shelf while Neil asks the cashier for directions, easy. Always easier, with two people. No--always easy with Andrew.

They always aim low, and corporate. They stay anonymous, and alive. Then they start to take a little extra.

They wander through a clothing store and Andrew grabs expensive shirts in Neil’s size, barely looking at them. Andrew always liked his maserati, so they steal one. Adrenaline makes people so stupid, but so awake.

They have matching duffle bags now, and they live in each other’s clothes. Neil dyes Andrew’s hair a rich brown that matches his eyes.

They get a police scanner, and listen for any sign of themselves. They read Baltimore obituaries, hoping.

Andrew calls Aaron from payphones, when he can. He gets even quieter, afterwards, and Neil can tell he’s furious at himself for leaving. He won’t go back though, even when Neil begs him to.

One night, when they’re robbing a closed liquor store, the cops show up.

Neil flattens himself to the floor, and Andrew drops down after him just as a flashlight beam ghosts through the blinds.

“Look at me,” Andrew whispers, crouched across the aisle from him.

“There’s no back door in here,” Neil tells him. “We’re done.”

“Not yet,” he says. They usually keep gloves and masks on them just in case, and Andrew slides his up over his nose, black and surgical. “Wait here.”

“Yeah right,” Neil says, and stands up with him. “Together or not at all, remember?”

“Anyone in there who’s not s’posed to be?” the officer calls, tapping on the glass front door with his baton. They move wordlessly closer, and Andrew puts his palm gently on the door, holding it closed. The door nudges forward beneath his hand, and they share a whiplash glance before Andrew kicks the door, and it smacks open into the officer’s face.

He staggers backwards, and Neil hefts the bag full of money and booze into his gut before he can recover. He doubles over, and Andrew grabs his arms behind his back, but there’s another one, standing just outside the squad car, looking gobsmacked.

“Drew,” Neil warns.

A fumble, a breath, and then there’s a gun levelled towards them.

“Let him go right now,” the second cop demands. “And put your hands in the air.”

“Don’t die,” Andrew tells him through his teeth, wrestling the first cop into a headlock.

“Thanks,” Neil huffs. He walks forward two steps. The officer shakes the gun at him.

“Not another step, I mean it.”

“Okay,” Neil says. “Okay. Calm down.” He hears the sputtering behind him disintegrate as the first cop blacks out. “I’m just gonna put the bag down.”

“Bag down, then hands up,” he says.

“Exactly,” Neil says coolly. He puts the bag down, wrapping a hand around the neck of a bottle poking out of the top as he does.

In one fluid motion, he stands, flinging the bottle underhanded towards the officer’s head. He flinches, lifting one arm to protect his face. It gives Andrew enough time to palm the gun off of his unconscious charge, and blast the cop in the kneecap.

He goes howling to the ground as the bottle shatters behind him, dropping his gun to grab his knee. Neil’s just close enough to swipe it.

The smell of blood and vodka is pungent, even through his mask.

Neil rips the mobile radio off of his belt while he’s down there, then says, “you’re going to want to tourniquet that. Use your belt.”

The officer sobs, and fumes, and doesn’t answer.

“Let’s go,” Andrew calls.

Neil scoops up the abandoned bag and jogs to join him. “Someone’s gonna report that gunshot,” he says.

“That’s why I’m telling you to move,” Andrew says, pulling him by the wrist, then the waist. Neil moves to duck into their getaway car, a nondescript little honda this time, but Andrew goes for the police cruiser instead. He falls into the still open driver’s seat, and Neil fills the backseat with their stolen goods.

“You didn’t kill him,” Neil says, climbing inside. “Higgins would appreciate that.”

“I didn’t spare him out of respect for the police force,” Andrew says wryly, turning the ignition and reversing haphazardly out into the street. “There’s less mess with an alive cop than a dead one. Less time looking for us.”

He’s driving like he usually does, switching lanes fast and running red lights, but it looks natural on a police car. They race out of town, galloping well over the speed limit, their flashing lights parting the sparse midnight traffic.

Neil tells him they need to switch cars, and between one moment and the next, Andrew has pulled someone over. Sirens blazing, he announces over the in-car megaphone that they need to step out of their vehicle.

They get out of the squad car in tandem. Andrew takes the stolen gun and walks evenly towards the other car, and while the driver squints into the glare from their headlights, Neil slips around the other side, all the way into their passenger seat.

He clambers over the console to the driver’s side and locks the door, heart pounding. He can see Andrew pointing a gun at the person now, holding them at bay while he rounds the car to the passenger side.

They leave the driver stranded on the side of the road.

“That was so stupid,” Neil tells him, breathless. “He’s going to report his car as stolen, and he has rough descriptions of us to match the cops’.”

“We’ll leave it at the next rest stop,” Andrew says flippantly. “We couldn’t hold onto that cruiser.”

“We shouldn’t have had it in the first place,” Neil says. “We had a car already, you took the cop car because you thought it would be fun.”

“And it was,” Andrew says, shrugging. It’s times like this that Neil could swear he’s about to smile.

Neil leans in a little, caught up in the anticipation of that smile, running on adrenaline fumes. He catches himself before he can make contact, but Andrew takes his hand off the gearshift and pulls him in the rest of the way.

He kisses him, lush, as they drift onto the shoulder of the road, one hand flexing on the wheel, the other clenched in Neil’s collar.

“We’re going to get caught,” Neil says against his mouth. “And then what are you going to do?”

Andrew shrugs again. “Go for the kneecaps.”

______

They do get caught, five days later, as they’re trying to cross from Washington up into British Columbia. Their passports are very good fakes, and they’re in a second-hand car that they paid for with stolen cash.

Nathan must have paid off border agents at every port, because they hold them at the side of the road for four hours, long enough for Lola to appear, grinning, at the window.

To their credit, they put up an excellent fight.

They dodge behind cars, picking their way towards safety, two steps forward one step back, over and over. Andrew fires their stolen gun randomly behind them, and he grazes at least two of their pursuers. Neil spots security cameras with dawning dread, and when he looks at the determined line of Andrew’s sharp jaw, he realizes that they’re mask-less.

Real border agents are sidelined and killed by whoever Lola’s hired to help her, and the fight drags pointlessly on.

Eventually, there’s a high, familiar yelp on the air, and Neil looks at Andrew, wide-eyed.

“Did you get her?” He whispers.

Andrew shakes his head. “Crossfire,” he says. “From their side.”

A laugh bubbles up past his lips. He holds a hand over his mouth. “They won’t last without her. She’s the only one with any stock in this.”

He pokes his head above the toll booth they’re using for cover, and a bullet clips the wood just below his neck. He ducks back down, and Andrew holds him by the back of the neck.

“Look at me,” he says. Neil does. “There is a car parked beyond the main building. We get behind the wall, and we have enough time to start moving before they shoot up the wheels. But we have to run.”

Neil nods jerkily, and offers him a crooked smile. “I can do that.”

Andrew’s hand gets heavier on his neck. “Yes or no?” he asks.

Neil shakes his head. “Kiss me when we’re safe.”

The pressure on his neck eases up. Andrew puts the emptied gun carefully on the gravel at their knees. “Three,” he says.

“Two,” Neil replies.

“One.”

They burst out from behind the toll booth.

For a shimmering moment there’s no gunfire at all. He’s across half the gulf they need to cover in a second, faster than he’s ever been, off the blocks at the races while his challengers fumble their takeoff.

And then there’s that telltale whistle in the air. He stumbles.

Andrew whips his head around to find the source, and Neil sees his dark eyes for a moment, the gnarl of exertion in his brow.

“Come on,” he’s saying.

A moment later, Neil understands that he’s been shot. He’s still running, but it’s the running you do in a nightmare, when the ground is an endless treadmill.

The bullet clipped him in the back, and it hasn’t come through to the front. He can tell that Andrew doesn’t know it’s happened. Neil barely knows it’s happened.

The pain is there, but it’s underwater, and he is pressed against the ceiling to avoid it.

They round the corner, gasping, and the spill of gunfire stops again. Heavy footfalls follow, but they don’t stick around to see how fast they might be. Andrew wheels into the car, and Neil drags his way up after him. The adrenaline is all over him like armour, and he’s petrified that it will begin to jangle apart, soon. It might not matter what they do now, if he doesn’t go to a hospital.

They drive, off road, alongside the whipping branches of the tree line. They’re chased for a while, by whoever was quick enough to get to their own car, but they give up when Andrew starts taking them in quick, dizzying turns down side roads.

They are in Canada, against all odds, and Neil is bleeding to death in the passenger’s seat.

“Andrew,” Neil says, and Andrew leans over and kisses him, as close to giddy as he ever gets.

“Safe,” Andrew tells him. The road in front of them is newly paved, and the pines on either side are -- unimaginably beautiful.

“Maybe,” Neil says. Andrew rolls his eyes.

“We ditch this car as soon as we can, and we find an outlet mall to change clothes.”

“We emerge, Canadians,” Neil jokes. He reaches discretely for his wound, and his hand comes away soaked with blood. He swallows.

“You convinced yourself you were going to die,” Andrew says. “But that was almost easy.”

“Easy,” Neil echoes. He’s losing his tender grip on consciousness. “Andrew,” he says. “I’m sorry I’m going to do this to you.”

Andrew looks over at him, and Neil can feel his gaze trickling down to Neil’s bloody fingers.

“Neil?” He says, alarmed.

“Almost,” he says, frustrated tears slipping back into his hair. “We almost did it.”

“Fuck,” Andrew’s saying. “Don’t. Don’t you fucking dare.”

They can’t pull over, and Andrew knows this. They don’t have enough distance yet, and they’re driving a conspicuous car. It’s only a matter of time before Lola or her recruits get in contact with Nathan. Nathan will check the hotels first, then maybe the hospitals. He’ll be thorough, as always.

“Hospital?” Andrew asks.

Neil coughs. “You know we can’t.”

“I am not going to drive us through the countryside like we’re on a road trip while you die next to me.”

“It’s a good way to die,” Neil murmurs. He never expected such a kind death.

“There is no good way to die,” Andrew snaps. “You are not doing it.”

Neil is suddenly, fiercely proud to hear him denounce death like that. He smiles, and a little bubble bursts at the corner of his mouth. He knows there’s blood in his teeth.

A burning pain lances through him, and he traps a sob in his clenched jaw.

“Don’t,” Andrew says, “do this to me.”

“Don’t take me somewhere you like,” Neil says, “to bury me.”

“Stop.”

“It--it made me hate the beach,” he slurs. “I shouldn’t’ve--”

“I’ll kill you,” Andrew says, voice mulched with emotion. “I’ll kill you.”

“Sorry,” Neil says again, swallowing blood, and then he droops, cold, and passes out.

______

“Fuck you,” Andrew says, when he wakes up.

He’s groggy, but he knows immediately that he’s been taken to a hospital, despite everything, and that they probably won’t ever leave it.

“I’m sorry,” Neil says, trying to sit up, wincing through it.

“So you have said,” Andrew says.

“How long has it been?”

His eyes flicker to the bedside clock. “Six hours, thirteen minutes.”

Neil’s stomach turns.

“He... he knows how close they got. He’s going to check hospitals. He’ll come to finish the job, and I’ll die anyway. We both will.”

“Then the last thing I will have done is save your life,” Andrew says.

“That’s--” Neil starts, so moved that he’s almost embarrassed.

“I don’t care. It wasn’t an option for me. Let’s stop discussing it.”

Neil relaxes, fond, and hopeless, and sad. He looks up at the pallid ceiling, feeling transparent, like he was caught in the portal between life and death and now he’s cut in two.

“Come here,” Neil says, shifting in his cot. “Wait with me.”

Andrew doesn’t complain, or pretend he doesn’t want to. He crawls into bed with him, and Neil wants to droop onto his shoulder, but he has to look at his face.

It’s easy to forget their deadline when Andrew is so warm against him. They haven’t relaxed so completely in years. The race is over.

“Thank you,” Neil tells him. “For the company. I really think--we were amazing.”

Andrew kisses him so sweetly on the cheek, and threads a warm hand into his hair. Neil puts his hand over Andrew’s heart.

The door opens.

#i'm sorry if this is very short for how much I tried to say in it lmao #aftg #the foxhole court #andreil #tfc fanfic #prompt #mine #au #violence tw #Anonymous #ask

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