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fancifulpurposelesslovely · 1 year

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Andreil - Touch - The Foxhole Court

Notes

Some of the touches are separated or not based on editor’s discretion. If Andrew keeps his hands on Neil, it stays one. If he intentionally moves to be touching Neil more than he was, or if he pushes Neil away and gets into his space again, that’s two. In the car, the elbow and resting on Neil are separate because Andrew isn’t conscious for the elbow.

If you saw my original post on this, I definitely said 19 times. Don’t worry, I just can’t count. I caught a couple extra moments as I was going through and fleshing this out.

There are some incidental places where Neil theoretically touches Andrew, mostly when Andrew is hurting him or bothering him. I just don’t feel like counting those in the same way.

Andrew Touches Neil

Chapter One 1

He was halfway through the locker room when he realized he wasn't alone. There was someone waiting for him in the lounge between him and the front door. Light glinted off a bright yellow racquet as the stranger took a swing, and Neil was going too fast to stop. Wood slammed into his gut hard enough to crush his lungs into his spine. He didn't remember falling, but suddenly he was on his hands and knees, scrabbling ineffectually at the floor as he tried to breathe. He'd puke if he could only manage that first gasp, but his body refused to cooperate. The buzzing in his ears was Wymack's furious voice, but he sounded a thousand miles away. "God damn it, Minyard. This is why we can't have nice things." "Oh, Coach," someone said over Neil's head. "If he was nice, he wouldn't be any use to us, would he?" "He's no use to us if you break him." "You'd rather I let him go? Put a band-aid on him and he'll be good as new."

Chapter Two 2

“I don't need to be persuasive," Andrew said, putting a hand to Neil's chest as the elevator slowed to a stop. "You'll just learn to do what I say." The doors slid open behind Neil. As soon as they’d parted enough Andrew gave Neil a small push. Neil tripped backward into the lobby.

Andrew shoved past him, bumping him from shoulder to hip, and headed for the door.

Chapter Four

Andrew left the goal to meet him but stopped with one foot on Neil’s racquet. Neil tried to pull it out from under him, but he didn’t have the strength. He was even less successful in his attempt to push Andrew off, and that hurt so much his vision crackled black. “Get off my racquet.” “Make me?” Andrew said, spreading his arms in invitation. “Try, anyway.” “Don’t tempt me.” “Such fierce words from such a little creature,” Andrew said. “You’re not very bright. Typical of a jock.” “Hypocrite,” Neil said. Andrew gave him a thumbs-up and pushed past Neil. Neil tried to catch himself before he tipped over, but his hand wouldn’t hold his weight. He fell flat on his back and didn’t even try to get up.

Chapter Six 5

“You waited for us,” Andrew said with feigned surprise. “A liar who practices occasional honesty. Clever. Keeps people guessing. Very effective. I would know. I do it myself, you see. Come on, then. After you.” Neil climbed into the backseat. Andrew followed him in, sandwiching Neil between him and his brother. Nicky already had the engine going. As soon as Andrew yanked his door shut Nickey peeled out of ther like he wanted to take the asphalt with him. Neil automatically reached for his seatbelt, but one of the brothers was sitting on it. Andrew sprawled against his side. "After everything we've done for you, you have to start a fight with us. For shame, Neil."

Chapter Seven 6

Neil couldn't leave with Andrew in the way, so he stopped as close to Andrew as he dared and waited for Andrew to move. Andrew did, but only to reach out for Neil with one hand. Neil tensed as Andrew's fingers wrapped around the back of his neck, but Andrew only wanted to pull Neil's head down. Neil focused on Andrew's cheekbone so as not to go cross-eyed and let Andrew study his eyes.

“Wake Andrew up, will you? Preferably without touching him.” “What?” Aaron asked sleepily, rousing at Nicky’s voice. “I can’t remember which exit we decided was the shortcut. You?” Aaron answered by reaching around Neil and pushing Andrew's shoulder. Andrew's reaction was immediate and violent. Aaron got his hand out of the way in time, but there was nowhere for Neil to go. Andrew's elbow slammed into his diaphragm hard enough to double Neil up over his knees. Aaron, completely unsympathetic, snapped his fingers over Neil's head at Andrew.

Andrew braced himself on Neil's back and leveraged himself between the front seats. He watched until they passed a sign and said, “Not yet. It’s the exit that has Waffle House.” “This is South Carolina,” Nicky said. “Every exit leads to Waffle House. Still breathing, Neil?” “Yes,” Neil said hoarsely. “I think.” Andrew dropped back into his seat and let go of Neil.

His sodas had tasted sweet, but this shot was almost unbearably so, and the aftertaste on Neil’s tongue wasn’t sugar. Neil lurched to his feet, but Andrew grabbed him by his hair and slammed him back into his seat. A cruel twist pulled his head back at a dangerous angle, and Andrew slammed Neil's hand flat against the tabletop. Neil lifted his other hand to pry Andrew's fingers off, but Nicky caught his wrist.

Neil wrenched his hand out from under Andrew’s, but Andrew gave his head a warning yank. A bolt of heat went down Neil’s neck. Neil hissed in pain and went still. Andrew slid out of his chair and leaned against Neil, letting Neil take his weight while he checked Neil's eyes.

Chapter Eight 11

Andrew reached up and forcibly uncurled Neil's fingers from his mouth. He pushed Neil's hand out of the way and stared Neil down with nothing between them. Neil didn’t understand the look on his face. There was no censure over Neil’s crooked parents or pity for their deaths, no triumph over having backed Neil into admitting so much, and no obvious skepticism for such an outlandish story. Whatever this look was, it was dark and intense enough to swallow Neil whole.

Chapter Thirteen 12

It's fine, Coach," Andrew said, catching up to them. He touched Neil's back on his way by, fingers light enough to give Neil goose bumps, but didn't slow on his way to Kevin's side. He pressed a hand to Abby's arm in a silent demand for her to back off. "Kevin, we're going. Right now, okay?"

Neil was lightheaded with nausea. "Shut up." "What will you do when he finds out? Run?" "You know I will." "I know," Andrew agreed. "I can see it. You've got that look in your eye that says you know where every exit to this dormitory is." Neil turned away, but Andrew was faster. He rocked forward and grabbed Neil's collar, dragging him to a halt before he could leave. He left sticky blood on the back of Neil's neck from his messy fingers. Neil reached back and tried to pry him off, but Andrew refused to let go.

Chapter Fourteen 14

“Oh, he made it,” Andrew said. “That’s interesting.” He pressed two fingers to Neil’s throat, checking his pulse. When Neil tried to bat him away, Andrew caught his wrist with his free hand. His smile was small and fierce as he leaned forward into Neil’s space. “Remember this feeling. This is the moment you stop being the rabbit.” Neil was too startled to answer, but Andrew didn't wait. He slid past Neil, using the weight of his body and his grip on Neil's wrist to pull Neil with him out of the way of the door. He let go in the middle of the hallway and slipped his hands in his pockets to wait.

Andrew nudged Neil with his elbow and said in German, "Hey, Neil. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that touching? Look how they weep over you. Ah, such misplaced concern. Tell them you can take care of yourself."

Andrew turned to face him. Neil wasn't expecting it and almost ran into him. Andrew dug his fingertip into the hollow of Neil's throat in warning. This close Neil could smell the alcohol and cigarettes on him. It made him think of his mother burning to ashes on the beach. He reached out without thinking and took Andrew's cigarette away. For some reason Andrew let him keep it.

Neil said nothing. Andrew hooked his fingers in the collar of Neil's shirt and tugged just enough for Neil to feel it. "I know what I'm doing. I knew what I was agreeing to when I took Kevin's side. I knew what it could cost us and how far I'd have to go. Understand? You aren't going anywhere. You're staying here."

Andrew didn't let go until Neil nodded, and then he reached for Neil's hand. He took his cigarette back, put it between his lips, and pressed a warm key into Neil's empty palm.

Neil Touches Andrew

Chapter Fourteen 1

A group of people shouldered their way up to the bar counter at Neil's back, pushing him into Andrew. Andrew didn't budge beneath his weight. He was something solid to lean against, something violent and fierce and unmoving. Neil couldn't remember what it felt like to have someone hold him up. It was terrifying and liberating all at once. His life was out of his control now; he was giving it to Andrew and hoping Andrew would keep it safe.

#aftg #fox reads aftg #all for the game #the foxhole court #andrew minyard #neil josten #andreil #please enjoy- i'm sorry I can't count but this was still way too much fun #andrew minyard touches neil #aftg research project #i'll have some more upcoming about different themes #long post #I'm sorry for the formatting of this on desktop i'm not sure if there's a good way to fix it

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s4pphoiduser · 3 years

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no one else is in the dorm, just andrew and neil. they’re in the living room, sitting on the couch. there’s a little coffee table that neil’s doing his maths homework on and andrew has his feet in neil’s lap. he’s watching a sitcom that he doesn’t find funny--he’s just watching it so he can be with neil while doing Something. he’s also eating chips that kevin would freak out over if he knew about them. he’s watching neil more than the sitcom, really. neil’s oblivious, like, criminally so. he’s got his pencil between his teeth while his fingers tap at the problem he can’t solve. (this is kinda a date night-in situation, matt says. neil says that to andrew after matt goes away and andrew gives him a flat stare: shut up.) (andrew wishes for a second that neil would kiss him instead of doing his stupid math equations.)

#one hour later neil puts away his books and stretches and andrew's eyes go to the skin that shows where neil's shirt rose #neil gives andrew A Look and smirks. andrew: don't fucking look at me like that #neil: oh but you like it / andrew: shut up i'll kill you / neil: sure sure / andrew: one hundred and fifteen neil #neil on all fours above andrew: ohhh a whole one hundred and fifteen huh. and then he asks 'yes or no 'drew?'#(bc neil calls him drew sometimes and you can pry that from my cold dead hands)#andrew says 'yes' but they only kiss for a while with neil's hand against the armrest and andrew's hands under neil's shirt #before neil says his back hurts and andrew makes space between his body and the couch oh-so subtlely but of course #mr neil eyes-for-andrew-joseph-minyard notices and squeezes himself into that space. for a while he's stiff until andrew rolls his eyes and #takes his hand and puts it on his torso. neil obviously warms at that and swallows hard and doesn't talk for the rest of the night.#andrew watches him fall asleep and even tho he gets uncomfortable at some point around 8pm he doesnt get up.#he does get up however when kevin's keys jingle at the door and him coming in would wake neil up anyway.#i was going to study but then i had this thought i was like oh i have to share it #andrew minyard #neil josten #andreil #andreil just being incredibly soft with each other because both of them deserve some good gentle love in their lives #i think about soft andreil a lot like. an unhealthy amount (it might just be that i want someone to be soft with me)#aftg #all for the game headcannons #joey.com #mine #andreil being soft agenda

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codename-adler · 3 years

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Death of Heroes

Because not even Neil can outrun the ephemerality of men.

Renee is the first one to go.

Nearing sixty but never reaching it, she is outlived by Abby and Wymack. At least Stephanie Walker is waiting for her at the gates of Heaven, but for the rest of her Foxes, the loss is heavy.

It’s cancer. Leukemia.

It started with the bruises from her sparring matches with Andrew not healing very well. Then not at all. After decades of maintaining these monthly meetings, of keeping her body healthy, Renee finally has to give it up. She knows something is wrong, and she knows that these sessions won’t be of any help, now.

Then the extreme fatigue starts. Still, Renee doesn’t do a thing about it. Or at least, she lets life go its own course. She looses weight, which she already doesn’t have much of. But then the nosebleeds begin, and it’s no use telling Allison to stop worrying. The diagnosis is unsurprising, yet still shattering. And it’s not a good prognosis either, but it’s still not bad enough for the doctor to give up the Five-Year survival plan.

Renee has to speak up. Ally, I don’t want to do this. She has to put her foot down. Allison, my love, it’ll be okay. I won’t get better, you and I both know that. But it can be okay. It can still be good.

Renee doesn’t get treatment. Renee doesn’t tell anybody, except Andrew. Because Andrew knows, somehow, that she made a terrible, irreversible choice. Because Andrew only deals in truths. Because Andrew is Andrew, and just as he needed her all those years ago, she needs him now.

A little more than six months pass, with less and less outings from Renee and more and more excuses from Allison, and Renee gets sick. Really sick. It starts like a regular cold. Then it looks more like the flu. And suddenly it’s pneumonia, and respiratory difficulties, and lung failure. She’s in that hospital bed, wearing that gown, breathing in that mask. Renee finally nods to Allison, giving her consent.

Ally makes the call.

Only Andrew and Dan make it in time.

Renee Walker goes out like a light.

The Foxes, who had once upon a time been used to murders, life-threatening schemes and acts of extreme violence, had never really known Death itself. The simple, yet inevitable fate of human lives. Of going quietly into the night. It’s all so quiet. So anticlimactic. It’s so quiet, too quiet, too heavy with silence. This time, there is no one to blame, no one to punish, no one to take responsibility.

It’s just life. It’s just death.

Wymack and Abby can’t believe that one of their Foxes, on of their kids, left before them. Renee’s Korean roots made her look barely a day over forty, which made it all so much worse. Renee’s death takes a toll on every single one of them. Because it’s Renee, the best of them. Because all her papers are in orders, her will to date, her wishes known; just as when she was alive, she leaves no chaos behind her.

There is nothing and no one to be mad at, except life.

In the cemetery where Stephanie Walker is buried, Andrew buys a large lot of land. (Large enough to one day welcome all the Foxes) The tomb is moved over there, and Renee’s name is added. A tree is planted above her scattered ashes. It’s very small, very fragile, but with the years, it grows strong.

For the first time, the Foxes realize that, despite going through Hell and back in their youth, they are not immortal. There is nothing to be done about that, but it hurts. It hurts to lose their angel this way, so soon, so suddenly. It hurts to lose, period. It feels like a failure, like giving up. They lost her. They lost.

But somehow, they gained something else they might never know about. Renee might have been the only religious one among them, but that didn’t stop her from becoming their Guardian Angel. Because somehow, from then on, the Foxes were spared.

Let me show you.

Just as Bee had a few years before Renee, Abby, then Wymack, simply die in their sleep, no fight, no agony. None of them have to see another Fox go before them. They don’t have to go through that indescribable ordeal ever again. They are spared the pain.

Then decades pass, enough for the remaining Foxes to grow very old, and live very long. Not infinitely, but long enough.

Matt is the next one to go.

Matt has worked hard all his life, both mentally and physically. It comes to no surprise, then, that arthritis chose to invade his body. For the first few years living with the diagnosis, natural medicine and osteopathy are enough to keep the pain at bay. It doesn’t stop Matt from doing anything. He babysits his 9 grandchildren with Dan every week; he goes on roadtrips with Dan every summer; he goes on a light jog with Dan every day.

It’s just that one day, it’s not enough anymore. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the pain becomes too much for Matt to do his day-to-day activities. And really, the pain, he could take; it was an old friend, a familiar feeling, almost like a sixth sense.

It was the mental toll of it all that he couldn’t take. To have to say no to seeing his grandchildren. No to driving around endlessly and aimlessly for hours. No to waking up in sync with Dan every morning, and no to their routine, and no, and no, and just- not living.

For the first time in a long time, Matt doesn’t want to do this anymore.

But he does, still. He smiles, and he lies, and he tries to will away the pain.

It all comes down to one afternoon, when he takes his painful walk of the day around the neighborhood. There are three little kids playing Exy in their driveway, when suddenly a ball escapes their racquets and rolls down in the street. The smallest kid runs after it, runs and runs and runs, without looking. Kind of like Neil, Matt thinks to himself before his body acts of his own. The kid doesn’t see the car, and the car doesn’t see the kid. Matt sees both.

The BMW is going way over the limit, its sleek black sides reflecting the sun too brightly. Despite his pain, despite his age, despite his now slow reflexes, Matt leaps. He screams at the kid to stop and turn around, to let the ball roll away, but to no avail.

Matt pushes the kid away in time for the car to hit him instead, and only him.

The rest becomes a blur, but the final verdict is as such: broken hip, shattered leg, probably won’t walk ever again, even with surgery. The doctors and surgeons warn Matt that with his age, his pre-existing condition, and his drug history, surgery might kill him. But Matt refuses to be bedridden for the rest of his already miserable life. Dan knows that. She knows that he has to try. Knows that he might not pull through. She also knows that Matt wants to go, has wanted to for a while now.

She calls Neil. She calls Allison. From there, all the Foxes are bound to get the news. Matt promises to wait until their arrival before going into surgery. In the meantime, the nurses start a morphine line, after warning the couple very strongly about the side effects and the risks. But Matt is in pain, terrible pain, and it’s a compromise to wait for his Foxes. It takes about a week for all of them to come to his bedside, with Nicky being last, coming all the way from Germany. Neil and Allison barely leave his room; Dan doesn’t at all. The others take turns, leaving as much space for Matt’s kids and grandkids as their hearts can allow.

The open spot for Matt’s surgery is on a Friday.

Matt Boyd does not make it to Friday.

The morphine is too heavy on his heart. It was a possible outcome, not as alarming as the upcoming surgery, but... Matt had secretely wished to go ever since and- maybe, up there in Heaven, someone heard him...

Dan and Matt had had a mutual understanding, that it was okay, but it doesn’t make it any more easy to let go.

Two months into Matt’s departure, Allison moves in with Dan. She walks her through every stage of grief. She grieves all over again herself, too. But they make it.

Same goes for Andrew with Neil. Neil doesn’t know loss like this. Death like this.

And yet. And yet. Deep, deep down, Neil is scared. That after all his years of running, and fighting, and lying, he won’t get that peaceful ending Matt was granted.

But Neil lives.

And Nicky leaves.

A few months after Matt, he and Erik simply stay in the States. They say it’s because they want to be close, because they don’t want to miss anything, because they don’t want to risk a Fox leaving without a chance at saying goodbye. Because Nicky misses his Aaron and his Andrew.

Which are all valid and true motives. It’s just not the whole truth.

Nicky has dementia. Alzheimer’s, to be precise. Diagnosed about a year ago. It’s not bad yet, but- It’s the endless back-and-forth between the house and “der Supermarkt” because Nicky forgot what he drove there for in the first place. It’s forgetting words in all the languages Nicky speaks. It’s freaking out at all the Germans speaking German, because Nicky sometimes believe he is still living in America. It’s not finding the Columbia house and panicking when Nicky can’t get a hold of Andrew or Aaron.

It’s hard, it’s heartbreaking, it’s terrifying, but it’s manageable.

Once Nicky and Erik settle back down in North Carolina, they both wonder how long it’ll take before the twins figure it out, because there is no way Nicky is telling them, but he also knows nothing can get past his twins.

And he’s right. Between Aaron’s acute knowledge of Medicine and Andrew’s reknown lie-detector skills, it takes about 14 days for them to take Nicky hostage and demand the truth.

As the year comes to an end, Nicky’s dementia doesn’t seem to progress that much. He seems to escape the worst. He doesn’t forget anyone. He doesn’t become aggressive, doesn’t go missing, doesn’t lose any function of his body. Without looking too closely, Nicky is simply getting old.

The twin girls he and Erik adopted get to move back in for a little while, having lived in the U.S. all their lives and seeing their parents fly to Germany after their retirement. They know, too, and try to make the most of it. They are lucky. They are so lucky. Nicky is a miracle patient.

In the end, though, it’s Nicky’s body rather than his mind that gives out. Once you reach a certain point in time living with the disease, but without the general complications of it, eventually the brain has trouble managing all the organs of the body. So instead of forgetting to eat, or forgetting names and faces, sometimes your brain doesn’t remember how to make your heart beat. Or how to make make your lungs breathe.

Nicky Hemmick stops breathing in the middle of the night, after having wished his twin daughters goodnight, texted his other set of twins goodnight, and kissed his husband goodnight. Nicky had thought, then, that it was indeed, a good night.

Just as he had remembered his Foxes until the end, he was remembered by them as the big-hearted lover that Heaven had just gained as its new angel.

Too soon after him, though, it’s Allison’s turn.

It’s not that she’d simply been waiting around for the day she could be reunited with Renee. She just didn’t understand why her Foxes kept leaving, and why she was still stuck here without her other half.

She didn’t just wait, though. She helps Dan out with the grandkids, and sometimes the grown-up kids too. She volunteers a lot. She gives back to the Columbia community, and all around the world. She travels to places she’s never been, places that remind her of Renee, but are void of painful memories. She empties their bucket list, and much more. The last thing Allison has yet to do, the only thing left to do, is mending her relationship with her parents. Or parent. Singular. In spite of everything, including the death of her husband, Francesca Reynolds was still standing strong at the head of the Reynolds empire. 100 years old was nothing when you lived in spite.

In a twisted way, Allison believed that maybe her mother was the last piece she needed to mend before she was allowed to go. That despite being gone for years, Renee was still there somewhere, looking out for her and making sure she didn’t have any regrets.

So Allison accomplished the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the impossible. For the first time in decades, she flew back to the Reynolds estate and spoke to her mother. In person.

It was not the emotional reunion Renee might have hoped for, but it was a reunion still. That was more than enough for Allison. They didn’t talk about the big things. The important things. But they talked. They talked. And they scheduled another talk.

Back home with Dan, Allison embraced her friend and let the tears fall. She was grateful for her friend, but both of them knew that these were not the arms Allison wished to be held in. She went to rest a bit before dinner, and she tried to imagine how it would feel like to have Renee hold her again.

For someone as loud, as present and as strong as she was, Allison Walker slipped quietly from time.

When Dan found her, she could only smile tearfully. She played with her hair one last time as she called her Foxes.

Allison left Dan in charge of her finances, and so she took over her charity duties and went above and beyond to honor her friend’s memory. Her sister.

Dan thought she would be next. She wished, she hoped, she prayed to be next.

She wasn’t.

Kevin was.

He might have been the biggest and hardest loss to weather. It wasn’t a feeling that could be explained. As painful as it had been to lose Renee, and Matt, and Nicky, and Allison, losing Kevin was... the great and terrible 10, as they’d say.

Kevin should have died way sooner. His liver should have given out because of all the alcohol it had endured in Kevin’s youth. His heart should have given out because of all the stress it had faced for most of Kevin’s life. All the bad things that could happen with old age should have happened to Kevin, but they didn’t. They didn’t.

Death came knocking one day, and politely asked him if he would please follow them, and Kevin simply took it as a sign that his time was up.

That day, Kevin had felt a numbing pain in his chest all morning long. Used to little injuries here and there, he hadn’t thought anything of it. And he certainly wasn’t about to worry his doctor of a husband...

However, as the sun reached it’s highest in the sky, Kevin couldn’t really hide his pain any longer. He had lain down on their couch for a bit, but he couldn’t seem to get back up. It was too exhausting. So he called for Aaron, as loud as he could in the state he was.

As Aaron stumbled into the living room, Kevin tried to use his softest voice to inform his husband of the situation. Aaron immediately called an ambulance, and when the vehicle took them both away, he reached for his phone again to make, once again, a terrible call to their Foxes. But through his oxygen mask, Kevin reached out to grap his wrist and whispered, with difficulty, just Neil... just Andrew...

Because here’s the thing: Kevin loved his Foxes, and his Foxes loved him back. Immensely.

He loved them so much he had married one, with another one of them as best man (Neil), another as his husband’s (Andrew), and yet another one as their celebrant (Renee).

They loved him so much that it was only short of worship by a hair or two. And Kevin knew that. He loved Dan like a sister. And by extension, he loved Erik like a brother, too. And he loved all the Foxes’ children and grandchildren like his own, despite never being a parent himself.

But Neil and Andrew... There were no words for what they were to him. He knew that he wouldn’t have to talk them through it. He knew they would be the only ones strong enough and close enough to hold Aaron up in case it all turned to shit the moment he passed the hospital doors.

And being the History nerd he had always been, Kevin had written letters, a long time ago. To his Foxes. Most of them had left before him, and so he could never give them their letters, but Dan, and Erik for Nicky, could still have those letters. Kevin poured everything into these letters. It had taken him years, ever since Renee’s departure. He wrote, and threw away, and started again, until he got it right. Nine letters, for his nine Foxes. Andrew knew about it. He’d give Nicky’s and the upperclassmen’s to Dan and Erik, and they’d understand. Kevin didn’t want them to be there, at the very end of it all. He just wanted Aaron. And Neil. And Andrew.

Those three had letters waiting for them, too. Andrew would hand them over a month later. But he would never open his.

Andrew and Neil arrived just before 1 PM. Kevin was hooked on all sorts of IVs and still had the oxygen mask on. His heart monitor was beeping very, very slowly, erratically. He was still Kevin Day in all his gloriousness, but he was much more Kevin, their beloved Kevin.

On one side of the hospital bed, Aaron never let go of Kevin’s hand. On the other side, Kevin removed the mask and weakly motioned for Neil to take the other hand. But Neil was stunned. Frozen. So Andrew came up behind him, and held Kevin’s hand.

It would be the first, and the last time.

Just as Neil finally sprung into action and went to put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder, feeling his wiry muscles and his fragile bones underneath the hospital gown, Kevin closed his eyes.

The heart monitor began flatlining.

Neil looked at the monitor, then to Kevin. He looked at Andrew, then back at Kevin, and then at Aaron. His eyes couldn’t stay focused on one thing. He was still hoping. He was still refusing.

Aaron lowered his head. Kissed Kevin’s hand.

Andrew held on tighter to Kevin’s other hand. Gripped the back of Neil’s neck.

Kevin took Death’s hand, which felt a lot like Aaron’s, and Andrew’s, and Renee’s, and walked away.

Aaron unplugged the monitor. And called it.

Time of death: 13:01.

It took exaclty one month, day for day, for Aaron to leave as well. They called it the Broken Heart Syndrome. On the surface, Aaron had held it together. But Andrew knew. He saw. That he was losing him as well.

Some could say that, by handing over Kevin’s letter, Andrew killed his brother. But those who would say that didn’t even begin to understand the complexity of the bond between twin brothers. Especially not the Minyards.

Because what Andrew really did, with that letter, was gifting Aaron with relief.

Peace. Quiet.

Love.

Aaron could exhale, now. He would see Kevin soon, now.

And so in the same room, in the same bed as his husband’s, Aaron Minyard forced Death’s hand and demanded to see Kevin again.

And then there were three.

Dan lived for so long that she started to fear outliving her children. She felt old, so old. In her head and in her heart. She did not believe in a God, but she often found herself praying to someone, anyone. She did not believe in angels and demons, but she often wondered how long they would keep her from Death.

So she waited. For the days to go and the nights to pass. She barely ate anymore. She barely moved. She was only feeling okay when she slept outside, in her chair in the backyard, the sun shinning on her beautiful face. She could sleep for hours there, surrounded by her lively garden. The wind swayed her skirts, the trees whispered in her ears. It was okay.

And at the same time, it wasn’t.

She was tired. She was lonely. Even Erik, a couple of years ago, had gone to rejoin his husband. Neil visited her at least once a week, but he still had Andrew. He couldn’t understand, nor could he stay away from him for too long. He would miss him too much.

Every year she celebrated another birthday, and every year she blew her candles wishing they were her last.

And at last, her wish came true.

Dan was expecting one of her kids to come by in the afternoon. The Carolina sun was shinning quite hard on her, so she had placed her chair in way that let the sunlight hit the back of her head, turned away completely from her house. Her daughter knew exactly where to find her when she arrived, and so she didn’t wait for a response to her presence before making her way down into the garden. She had called her mother multiple times, and had assumed she was sleeping when she hadn’t answered.

Dan was not sleeping.

Dan Wilds had left this world, the sunlight pouring down on her like the radiant goddess that she was.

Being one of the last Foxes, it took a day before Neil and Andrew got the news of her death. They don’t get involved in the funeral preparations, but they show up. And that’s enough.

People don’t really bother them anymore, so they can bid farewell to their Captain in relative peace. They come by Dan’s house aftwerwards, too, and help her kids out with everything. Yes, even Andrew.

Dan’s death makes them reflect the most.

About the Foxes. About each of their departures. How they all lived a good and long life. How they all died a good and quiet death.

They think about how they were always the ones nearing death, always fighting to stay alive. About how they died a million deaths before the age of 18.

They think about how they are the last ones standing, even after everything.

They survived. They lived.

(They loved)

Neil and Andrew should not have gotten this far. They should not have lived this long. They shouldn’t have. But somehow, somewhere above, someone has watched over them and made sure that they didn’t get the ending they should’ve had, but the ending they deserved.

Neil and Andrew don’t really want to die. They don’t really want to live on either. But they take every day that they are given, to be with each other, to mend their hearts still, to breathe.

They take every breath they can.

They wonder who will leave first. Who will have to say goodbye and stay behind, who will have to wait.

It’s a fear neither of them had ever thought they’d have. Not like that.

And it’s only a matter of time before they get their answer. They are, after all, getting very old. It is both a blessing and a curse.

After decades of partnership, Neil and Andrew still go to bed the same way they did when they were eighteen. Both facing each other, their hands joined in the middle, their nose a breath apart.

After decades of peace, Neil and Andrew still wake from sleep at the slightest abnormality.

Which is why the minute Neil Josten gives out his last breath, Andrew awakes.

Neil’s hand in his is still warm and his skin is still soft. His hair, although completely white for quite some years now, still have that bronze glow to them. They’re still curly, and soft to the touch. Andrew passes a hand through them before resting it on the back of Neil’s neck.

He looks at Neil like it’s the first time, tries to memorize every detail of his beautiful face. He rubs circle in his skin, and takes in everything that was, that is Neil. His husband. His junkie. His rabbit. His pipedream. His lover. His love.

Andrew doesn’t move from their bed.

When he has finally spoken everything that he feels to Neil, from the safety of his mind, Andrew moves closer to him so their foreheads touch and noses align. He takes Neil’s lifeless hand again, and kisses it. He sets their hands back down, between the two of them, and looks at Neil one last time.

And slowly, Andrew Minyard closes his eyes, forever.

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the-stressmushroom · 3 years

Text

AFTG Headcanon #2

(I’m gonna be doing a few more of these for writing/idea practice)

TW: canon typical violence, blood

Neil, while being very attractive, does not have a perfect face. And I don’t mean the scars. Whenever I see fan art of Neil, he always has this super symmetrical and straight nose, and I just cannot believe that is the case.

Neil’s nose is crooked and has a large bump in the middle.

He first broke his nose when he was 8. He had been running around the kitchen, experiencing a rare moment of genuine childlike joy in the Baltimore house. His father was away for business and had taken Lola, Romero, and Patrick with him, leaving Neil alone with Mary and only Jackson guarding them. Neil didn’t pose much of a threat so Jackson stayed practically glued to Mary’s side. There was soft music playing throughout the house and Neil, Nathaniel then, was happily humming along as he did laps around the kitchen island. However, as one song bled into the next, he heard Mary shout followed by a big crash. As he whipped his head around to find the source of the noise, he lost his balance and fell headfirst into the marble counter top. His nose cracked, and he felt himself begin to cry. Mary had told him to stay out of trouble though, and he didn’t want to make her mad, so he went to the bathroom closest to his bedroom and locked himself inside. He tried desperately to keep the blood off of any light materials and sat prodding at his injured nose for about an hour before he squeezed it tightly, and tugged it straight. It hurt, but not nearly as much as his fathers hands or lolas knives. The bleeding stopped, so Neil did his best to clean up his mess and carry on with the rest of his day. His mom didn’t even question it when he came down for dinner that evening with swollen eyes and a purple nose; she couldn’t really talk with the bruises around her throat left by Plank.

The second time he broke his nose, it wasn’t his fault, and his name was Stefan. They were driving through the Swiss alps when a member of the Moriyama’s syndicate caught up with them. The roads were snowy and the 1972 Volvo they were stuck with did not make the best get away car. Despite Mary’s skill, the car spun out after hitting a patch of black ice on a particularly winding road. Neil couldn’t remember the car colliding with the tree, but he could remember the feeling of his mother’s freezing fingers snapping the cartilage back into place. He could remember the scream he tried and failed to bite back, and the slap he received for making too much noise. The slap jostled his nose and though it had been properly reset, that break never quite healed properly.

There was a third, fourth, and fifth time; all on the run as well, but the first time he broke his nose as a fox was different.

It was the second game of his Sophomore season. The Jackals had put up a hell of a fight, but the foxes had managed to pull out a win. When the final buzzer sounded, Neil pulled off his helmet and shook out his sweaty hair before looking to the score board; the 8-5 he saw there put a smile on his face. If he hadn’t been quite so distracted, he might have noticed the angry looking backliner for the jackals watching him. He might have noticed the ball being tossed in the air, and he might have noticed the racket swing that sent the ball hurdling towards his face. Andrew noticed. He noticed immediately but didn’t quite make it to Neil in time to push him out of the way. The court rang out with a deafening crack as the ball connected directly with the bridge of his nose. Andrew was over him as soon as he hit the ground, muttering a quick yes or no before pulling Neil’s head into his lap. The other foxes had thrown themselves at the Jackal player in question as soon as they saw Neil fall, but Andrew couldn’t be bothered. He gently touched Neil’s nose and dabbed at it slightly, trying to stop the blood from going into his mouth. Neil groaned and sat up, leaning back on his hands. The fight between the jackals and the foxes had ended with the offending jackal player being benched for the next two games thanks to a much deserved red card.

As his teammates began to circle him, checking in, asking him questions, Neil put a hand up to quiet them.

“Guys, I’m fine, I swear,” Neil said before reaching up and resetting his broken nose without so much as a flinch. “See, all good.” The foxes went deadly quiet.

“Neil,” Matt said softly, “that’s not all good. How do you know how to reset a broken nose?”

Neil blinked at Matt owlishly before responding, “cause I’ve done it a dozen times? To my mom and myself. Couldn’t go to hospitals while on the run and the nose is a very delicate part of the body.” This wasn’t the first time the foxes had heard something like this from Neil, but it didn’t make it any less heart breaking. Neil began to shift around in discomfort from all the eyes on him, and Andrew, as always, noticed right away.

“Come on junkie, you and I are doing press duty.” Neil nodded, his face blank, but he found himself able to breath easier thanks to the distraction. Andrew always knew exactly what Neil needed, always.

As the press conference came to an end, a lingering journalist asked for Neil’s opinion of the Jackals player who had, quite literally, taken a shot at him. Neil’s composure slipped slightly and he let out a laugh at the question before answering,

“If only they had aimed that well during the game, they might have won”

Andrew let out an exasperated sigh beside him and grabbed Neil’s wrist before pulling him out of the press room, leaving the wrap up to Wymack.

“207%”

“Okay, but was I wrong?”

“208%, thin ice junkie.” Andrew said, before turning and pressing a soft kiss to the tip of Neil’s very crooked and very swollen nose. “It’s time for you to go see Abby.”

Years down the line, Neil is having a particularly bad day and Andrew sits down next to him in their shared bathroom. He had found Neil on the bathroom floor with a hand mirror, a box of black hair dye and a fifth of whiskey, and decided enough was enough.

“Neil, you look nothing like your father.”

“Yes I do Andrew. Every time I look in the mirror, I see him. His eyes, his jaw, his hair-“

“Neil, I have an eidetic memory, I know what he looks like and I know what you look like. You do not look the same. The nose is all wrong.”

This puzzles Neil, he’d never really taken the time to look at his nose. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, your nose is completely different from his. It throws off the resemblance completely. You do not look like him, and you never will.”

Neil signs, letting his head drop between his knees before bringing his fingers up to dance carefully across the bridge of his nose. “It is a little crooked isn’t he?” He says with a slight chuckle.

“Yes,” Andrew responds before taking Neil’s chin in the palms of his hands and bringing his face up so their eyes meet. “It’s perfect.”

Neil smiles at that, a soft smile that is typically only reserved for Andrew.

“Yes or no, Neil?” the words are softly muttered into the mere inches of space separating their lips.

“Yes,” Neil murmurs in response, closing his eyes and leaning forward into Andrew’s space. He’s expecting a kiss on the lips, so is surprised when Andrew delicately kisses his nose instead. He smiles and Andrew’s lip twitches upward in response.

“511% junkie.”

#aftg headcanon #aftg #all for the game headcanon #all for the game #the foxhole court #the foxes #tfc headcanon #tfc #andrew minyard #neil josten #palmetto state university #psu #psu foxes

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winterxjxsmine · 3 years

Text

This is my birthday present for @allforthestickball. I wish I was a writer so I could write you something better or I wish I could give you something you wanted but this is the only thing I can offer right now so I hope you like it, I love you, happy birthday!

Before you read this keep in mind that English isn't my native language so there are definitely mistakes in this. This is the first time I'm attempting to write Andreil and it was scary af I don't know how you all are doing it,, I really tried,,

Trigger warnings: panic attacks, mention of Nathan torturing Neil in the past

Neil always knew how to read behind Andrew's words but sometimes even he was getting a little confused. Or that one time Neil couldn't see behind Andrew’s words and let his insecurities torture him.

Today was a good day. Neil woke up beside his partner a couple of minutes before his alarm like every day. Dorm beds were very small and definitely not made for two people, but Andrew and Neil soon found out that sleep comes easier when they’re sleeping together, so it didn’t matter.

Today was a good day. “starring” Andrew had said with a hoarse voice from sleep when he woke up and saw Neil looking at him like he was the most interesting thing in the world like every day. It was a part of their routine by now.

Today was a good day. Andrew and Neil after a small make-out session when Kevin finally left them alone got up, made and ate breakfast together, and like every other day, they got ready and left for early practice with the rest of the monsters. They held hands on the way to the court ignoring Nicky's exciting glaring from the back seat, they shared more private kisses in the locker room when everyone was already in the court who made Wymack later threaten them with marathons because they were late.

Today was a good day until it wasn't. Everything in practice ran smoothly. Kevin complained the whole time about the team’s performance, Nicky about how sleepy he is and why practice is so early, Matt made jokes to make Neil laugh, everything was good. When practice was over everyone went back to the locker rooms to get changed, Neil with Kevin stayed behind to talk about game strategies as always. When Kevin headed to the locker rooms too Neil saw Andrew and Renee not far away from him so he started heading towards them.

Neil didn’t mean to eardrop at Andrew’s and Renee’s conversation but what he heard made every word die in his mouth. “if you feel this way about him maybe you should tell him, he’s your boyfriend after all.” Renee spoke carefully as always. Both friends were oblivious to Neil’s presence. Andrew gave her one of his famous death glares. What Andrew wasn’t telling him? Neil frowned but tried not to jump to conclusions. “He’s not my boyfriend,” Andrew growled almost offended at the accusation. Renee sent him a knowing look and Andrew huffed. “I’ll get bored of him eventually.” they were his next words before he threw his unfinished cigarette in the concrete.

Neil's mouth suddenly went very dry and his stomach was knotted. Andrew's last two phrases echoed in his mind again and again. "Neil hi" Renee's voice brought him back to reality. He just looked at her for a few seconds not trusting his mouth to speak right now."Is everything okay?" He thought he heard her ask when she saw his pale face and his tense figure. That seemed to catch Andrew's attention who almost immediately turned around to look at him as well. "Uh yes yes, I just- I'm just gonna take a shower." He tried to keep his face blank and without waiting any longer he awkwardly turned and disappeared from their view.

"He's not my boyfriend, he's not my boyfriend, he's not my boyfriend." Neil couldn't stop thinking of Andrew's words. They started their 'this' two years ago. They never talked about what exactly they were but Neil was certain that after all of this Andrew had stopped denying that they had something. In his conversation with Renee, he didn't say that they weren't something, he just said that..they weren't boyfriends but if they're not boyfriends then what are they? It's something that they both have to spend their time on? No, for Neil Andrew was so much more than that. He was feeling emotions he never felt before and he was pretty sure he would never feel again for anyone else. For Neil, Andrew was his whole world. He believed from Andrew's actions that he felt the same for him but Andrew denying that there isn't something between them after all this time is ridiculous.

"I'll get bored of him eventually." He hadn't listened to Andrew saying this for so long and he's not even sure why it bothered him so much. The truth is that Neil sometimes feared that he wasn't enough for Andrew. Even though the other boy had his full attention to him that didn't mean that someday Andrew wouldn't get tired and bored of Neil. Who he was anyway? A broken soul beyond fixing with scars all over his body and face. The butcher's son doppelganger. Sometimes he couldn't even look at himself in the mirror, maybe Andrew would feel the same someday.

And what was that Andrew was hiding from him? What if he wanted to tell Neil he doesn't feel the same? What if he wanted to remind him that he's just spending his time with him and nothing more? A wave of fear almost paralyzes Neil. What..what if Andrew is already bored of Neil? What if he wants to break up with him already? But no, this doesn't make sense. Andrew wouldn't act this way if he wanted to leave him. His behavior simply didn't match this theory. Neil sighs forcing himself to relax. He's just being paranoid.

Neil let his insecurities drown him a little more and if he stayed in the shower longer than he used to well nobody had to know. With automatic movements, he started dressing without even noticing Andrew's presence in the room until he spoke. "Everything okay?" He asked looking straight to Neil's blue eyes trying to find in them the right answer. Neil tried to hide a flinch and put his shirt on faster. "Yeah, everything okay." He said pressing a small smile on his lips. He wasn't exactly lying after all. Everything was fine, nothing happened he just had to forget what he heard, this conversation wasn't for his ears anyway. Andrew always had a problem with words. His words never matched his actions so this was another reason to not take it seriously. He just had to puss every feeling in the back of his mind.

"Where are the others?" Neil asked while they were walking to the car and he couldn't see the rest of Andrew's lot. "They got bored waiting for you," Andrew answered with a bored tone and disappeared inside his car. Neil took a deep breath forcing himself to relax before he followed him. They were quiet on the way back as most of the times because they were always communicating better without words so Neil found the fact that he was so bothered by words ironic when Andrew showed him every day with actions. Andrew glanced at Neil curiously many times and at some point, he let his hand hover over Neil's thigh, a silent question. Neil nodded and put his hand over Andrew's offering a small smile at him.

When they arrived at the foxhole tower Neil almost opened the door to get out but Andrew's 'yes or no' stopped him. Neil looked at him and heard himself answer yes and without even realizing it he was already leaning closer until his lips met Andrew's. Without his permission, he felt his body tense and it seemed that Andrew felt it too because he got away from Neil immediately. "Talk," Andrew growled looking at Neil with his usual blank stare. "I don't know what you mean I have nothing to say," Neil answered, crossing his arms over his chest trying to avoid eye contact. Andrew huffed before he got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. Neil sighed, again. Andrew was his usual self, everything was perfectly fine so why couldn't he just forget about it? He was getting mad at himself. "Andrew I'm just tired." Neil started following him but Andrew didn't stop until he was in the building waiting for the elevator. Neil always preferred the stairs but he didn't trust his trembling legs right now and he didn't want to leave Andrew.

The two boys entered the elevator standing as far away as they could from each other. Neil couldn't stop glaring at Andrew while they were waiting in tense silence. Suddenly the lights started to tremble, the elevator stopped and the lights went completely off. "What..what happened?" Neil murmured frozen in his place. A sudden light flooded the room and Neil soon found out that it was Andrew's phone. He watched him approach the entrance with a carefully placed blank face that betrays nothing about his feelings. "We're stuck, probably power outage," Andrew answered eventually pushing repeatedly the 'emergency’ button without success. Neil's heart began to rise in his chest but he tried to ignore it. Being trapped here makes him immediately think about some of the old darkest moments of his life. His mind traveled to times when his father locked him in his wardrobe or any other small space in the dark to punish him. This was so familiar it made his skin crawl.

Soon enough the only thing he could see and hear was his younger self crying and begging for his father to show him mercy. At some point he realized he couldn't breathe, his hands felt numb and his legs were trembling even more than before. "Andrew." He almost choked, panic clear in his voice. Andrew was beside him with a hand in his neck pushing him to sit down in a second.

“Neil” Andrew called his name with a stern voice. “Andr- Andrew I can't-” Neil sobbed grabbing Andrew’s hand with his own trying desperately to ground himself. “You’re Neil Abram Josten, striker for the Palmetto state foxes.” Andrew began to say with a steady voice. “No- no- I can’t-'' Neil was feeling nauseous and dizzy, his throat was dry and his lungs were hurting because of the multiple desperate breaths he tried to take. “Repeat after me Neil'' Andrew demanded, grabbing harder at the back of his neck. “You’re Neil Abram Josten, striker for the Palmetto state foxes, you’re safe, your parents are dead, and I’m here.” Neil started to repeat his words with a trembling voice shutting his eyes while he tried to imagine moments of his foxes, and Andrew, and his life as Neil Josten. “Breath with me” Andrew whispered, grabbing with his other hand one of Neil’s and placing it in his chest to help him match his breathing.

A couple of minutes passed and Neil was finally back to himself, his breaths were steadier and his pounding heart was calmer. None of them dared to move. “I’m a mess” Neil murmured tiredly. Why would Andrew want to be with him?. Always a problem, always a responsibility. “What’s new” Andrew moved his hand from Neil’s neck to his hair. “What happened” his piercing look dared Neil to lie. “My father used to..lock me in small places and leave me in the dark for hours.” He explained avoiding Andrew’s eyes. “I’m sorry it’s stupid” he apologized a few seconds later. “Shut up or I’ll gut you” Andrew answered, flicking him in the forehead.

“Aren’t you bored from all of this yet?” Neil asked quietly, his hesitation clearly in his voice. “Aren’t you bored of me yet?” He added before Andrew could speak. Neil was sure that Andrew would reply with a sarcastic comment or something but Andrew seemed to understand how important this conversation was. “What is this?” he asked instead, forcing Neil to make eye contact with him. “Nothing, just..I’ll understand if you’re bored with this, or me” Neil answered, making Andrew frown.

“Don’t be stupid” he growled giving him a hard stare. “There’s no ‘this’ like you always said anyway'' Neil couldn’t stop himself at this point. No one said anything as Andrew gathered his thoughts. “Where did all this come from?” he avoided to answer and Neil felt disappointment in the pit of his stomach. “Am I lying?” Neil pressed and when Andrew didn’t answer he huffed shaking his head in disbelief. Neil moved away from Andrew’s touch. “I’m not your boyfriend and you’ll get bored of me eventually.” Neil continued and saw the moment that realization hit Andrew. “You eardrop my conversation with Renee.” He stated with a blank look.

“I didn’t mean to” Neil answered quietly. “I thought you were smarter than this Neil.” Andrew sighed moving closer to him. “I just...I just thought..it doesn’t matter, you were clear to me two years ago about this.” Neil dared to look at him in the eyes and almost choked when his eyes met Andrew’s. Angry hazel eyes looking at him.

“Listen to me clearly because I’m gonna say this only once.” Neil nodded and Andrew leaned closer. “Stop making assumptions about things. Just fucking ask me. You listened to two phrases I said and you think you understood everything. There’s a ‘this’ and we’re not just boyfriends.” Andrew said, his hazel eyes burning Neil hoping that his idiot will understand the things he can’t say. Realization hit Neil and his eyes went wide. “Oh,” he said suddenly feeling very stupid. “Yeah oh.” Andrew mocked him. The thing is that Andrew Minyard never was good with words so he always used his actions to show his family that he cared. Neil has no idea why his insecurities blinded him. Andrew showed Neil every day that there was a ‘this’ with his way. He and Andrew aren’t just boyfriends. They’re so much more than that and now Neil finally gets it. “You like me,” Neil stated with a smile forming on his lips. “Idiot,” Andrew murmured. “Oh you, really, really like me.” he teased and Andrew rolled his eyes. “I’ll kill you,” he threatens with no heat behind his words.

“It’s okay because I, really, really like you too.” Neil’s smile got wider, Andrew huffed again but Neil could tell that he wasn’t so unaffected as he wanted to show. “And what's the thing you are hiding from me?” Neil asked suddenly and Andrew took his eyes away from him. “What I already told you.” He answered through his teeth and Neil couldn’t hide his smile. “Yes or no?” he asked him and after Andrew’s consent, together they leaned closer to each other and Neil let Andrew show him how much he cared about him with long heated kisses until the power came back and their foxes came looking for them.

#this is so long help #all for the game #aftg #all for the gay #neil josten #andrew minyard #andreil #nora sakavic #palmetto state foxes #the foxhole court #the kings men #the raven king #aftg headcanon

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kevindayisafrog · 3 years

Text

Part 3 of the Kevneil thing (IB @knandersonart on IG)

TW - torture, detailed injury and physical abuse, verbal abuse, blood

“That was quite a show back there”, Riko’s lips curled cruelly as he took a step into the bathroom, letting the door slam shut behind him and his men, “making me seem inferior to show off to your little foxes”. Kevin swallowed a lump and stepped back to press himself against the bathroom wall, “I wasn’t showing off, I was just telling the truth. We’ll beat you and you know it”. Kevin’s heart was thumping loudly in his ears as Riko slowly closed the space between them. “Oh, do I? Do you really think that you’ve ever been in a position to say what I know? A pet like you?”, Riko laughed then scowled, his voice like gravel, “don’t make me laugh”. He raised his hand and in one quick movement full of practice, knocked Kevin to the floor. Kevin exhaled sharply as a shooting pain exploded across his jaw, rattling his teeth. “I’ve missed this”, Riko smiled and kicked Kevin in the ribs, breathing in a delirious gasp before kicking Kevin until his foot hurt. “Have you met my boys?”, Riko clicked his fingers and crouched down, stroking Kevin’s swollen jaw lightly as the two men stood over him, “it’s a shame, Kevin, we could’ve gotten along really well if you weren’t such a push over”. Kevin spat onto Riko’s cheek and winced at the sharp pain it caused across his mouth, “fuck you”, he groaned through clenched teeth. “I wish you could”, Riko wiped the spit off with his thumb and gouged it into Kevin’s eye, “right boys, it’s your turn”. Riko stood up and turned to leave the room, shouting for the men not to kill Kevin before leaving the room with a slam of the door. “You know that you’re just dogs to him, he’ll kill you too when you’re not useful anymore”, Kevin glared at the men and tried to keep his voice even despite the fear crawling up his throat. “Shut up and bite this”, the tallest man leaned down and shoved a ball of cloth into Kevin’s mouth, “we can’t risk people hearing your screams as we tear you apart”. Kevin whimpered and made to sit up and get away as the other man pulled a knife from his blazer pocket. He shook his head in a pleading no and screamed when the knife ripped down his side, blood spilling down to the front of his once pristine white shirt. The man with the knife inspected his handiwork with a small smile and kneeled out of the way as the taller one shoved Kevin onto his front. His heavy knee was pressed between Kevin’s shoulder blades while his hand pressed Kevin’s head forcibly down onto the cold tile floor. The knife was brought back to Kevin’s skin, leaving little lines across each dip of his spine. “What shall we carve?”, the man holding Kevin down asked with a smile in his voice, “how about your owner’s name?” Kevin screamed and attempted to thrash about as he felt Riko’s name being carved through his blazer into his skin. “Make sure he doesn’t bleed out”, one of the men grunted, shoving his free hand onto the torn skin in an attempt to stop the blood from spilling over onto the tiles. Kevin felt as bile tore up his throat, burning his mouth as it stay trapped behind the make shift gag. Kevin squeezed his eyes shut and screamed as his tears began to fall, causing the two men to laugh. “No wonder you’re the pet, you’re such a coward”, the man with the knife laughed before slamming his elbow into the side of Kevin’s head. He stood up and stared down at the blood covering the floor, sniffing before nodding in satisfaction, “let him go”. The man lifted his knee cautiously from Kevin’s back and stood up, stretching his legs before laughing at the mess of Kevin’s limp body. “Take the gag out and let’s go, we can’t let anyone see us”, the tall man nodded to the shorter one who walked over and pulled the gag out, grimacing at the damp bile lining the back of it. They both stared down at Kevin before leaving silently, this time not letting the door slam behind them. Kevin let out a shaky breath and pushed his head harder onto the floor, letting the pain in his head replace the burning in his back.

“Kevin? Shit”. Kevin opened his eyes groggily as he felt hands grip his shoulders. He sat up quickly and cowered away before remembering the pain and collapsing back onto the floor, accepting whatever beating he was about to get. Except the next touch he felt was a gentle brush of his hair and a thumb stroking his cheek as Nicky leaned down and whispered reassurances into his ear. “Don’t worry, Matt’s gone to get Coach, you’ll be okay”, Nicky’s voice wavered as he tried to swallow down his fear at the sight of all the blood. Kevin squeezed his eyes shut and attempted to sit up, grateful for Nicky’s gentle help. “Tell them not to worry, I’ll be okay. I’ve played with worse injuries”, Kevin grunted as he tried to roll his shoulder despite the blinding pain. “Can you not think about Exy for one fucking minute? You should be thankful that you can’t see what you look like”, Nicky had the back of his hand pressed against his mouth, quiet tears rolling down his cheeks. “Kevin!”, the bathroom door smacked open as Wymack barged in with Abby and Matt close behind, “fuck’s sake, what did I say? I said to come to me if he-fuck”. Wymack turned away and swore before turning back and dropping to his knees next to Kevin, “you kids are gonna be the death of me”. Kevin smiled sadly and dropped his head onto his father’s shoulder, fantasizing for a bleak moment that circumstances were different and Coach was supporting him out of love, not duty. “There’s too much blood, I don’t know where it’s coming from”, Abby kneeled on the other side of Kevin and began to pull off his blazer, “I’m sorry, I know it hurts, I know”. She peeled his blood soaked blazer and shirt off, whimpering at the sight of the deep cuts and dark bruises. “Matt, take Nicky out and get the others on the bus, don’t you fucking dare let anyone out of your sight”, Wymack rubbed a hand down his face and sighed tiredly. Matt nodded and pulled Nicky off the floor, dragging him out of the bathroom with an arm over his shoulder. “Did Riko do this?”, Wymack asked as Abby began working on the long tear down Kevin’s side. “Is Neil okay?”, Kevin whispered, closing his eyes and clenching his fists in his lap. “Neil? Who the fu-the Wesninski kid? Do I want to know why you need that information?”, Wymack placed a hand on the back of Kevin’s head and grabbed a fistful of hair, pulling on it protectively. “I just need to know he’s okay”, Kevin looked up at his dad and frowned, “please”. Wymack glared at Kevin before sighing and standing up, “I won’t be long, don’t you fucking dare move”. Kevin gestured to Abby who began stitching his side back up with a deadpan expression and watched as Wymack left the room. “I hate seeing you kids hurt, why would anyone want to do this to my foxes?”, Abby cut the last of the stitches off with small scissors and stared down at her handiwork. “I’m sorry”, Kevin whispered, unable to look her in the eye. Abby leaned over and placed a gentle kiss onto Kevin’s forehead before slowly turning him to check his back and, by her choked gasp, it was a mess. “Kevin”, she whispered, sorrow weighing her words down and making Kevin feel guilty for hurting her. “I’m sorry”, he whispered again, slowly pulling his legs to his chest with a wince and resting his head on his knees.

“The Wesninski kid is ‘fine’ apparently, but he wouldn’t let me go back to you without him coming along”, Wymack sighed as he pushed open the door and led Neil and Andrew into the room, “this blonde one threatened me with a fucking knife”. Neil took one look at Kevin and turned to leave the room only to be stopped as Wymack grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him away from the door, “we’re not having anymore injuries today, do you fucking hear me?” Neil snorted and tried to shake him off, “you’re not my Coach”. Wymack pushed Neil away and gave a warning look over his shoulder to Andrew, “congratulations, I don’t care”. Neil sighed in frustration and dropped down to Kevin, cupping his face in his hands, “I shouldn’t have fucking left you”. Kevin pushed his hands off weakly and dropped their foreheads together, placing a small kiss against Neil’s lips, “it’s not your fault so shut up and come back with me”. He didn’t open his eyes to see Neil’s reaction, but by the sound of Neil’s sigh he guessed that he finally won the argument. “Yay, we’re coming home with you, big guy”, Andrew kicked the back of Wymack’s foot and walked over to Kevin, “you look like shit”. Kevin huffed a tired laugh and pulled his head away from Neil’s. “I didn’t invite you two to come back with us”, Wymack grunted, but he called Matt to warn the others of the new arrivals anyway. “There you go”, Abby whispered as she finished stitching Kevin’s back, “that’s going to leave quite the scar, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it”. She helped Kevin back into his blazer, balling up the torn shirt in her hands and shoving it into the provided bin in the corner of the bathroom. She turned and watched as Andrew and Neil helped Kevin up with a small smile, “welcome to the team, boys”.

#aftg #aftg trilogy #nora sakavic #tfc #all for the game #kevin day #neil josten #kevneil #aftg textpost #kevaaron #aaron minyard #andrew minyard #matt boyd #the foxhole court #nicky hemmick

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paradoxolotl · 3 years

Note

Are there any quotes or moments from any of your fics that you've had to leave out of the final product? Like, deleted scenes. If so, do you feel like sharing?...(Particularly Inked Truths because I'm obsessed with it. I fell in love with BoM, read it multiple times. When I found out you were doing a prequel I was very excited and have not been disappointed since.) (I also love TftR but it makes sad.)...Absolutely no pressure. If you don't want to answer please just ignore this, I'll understand.

Truths for the Roof didn’t lose anything but Inked lost a bit. Really, it was just redone to flow better and fit the characterization better, or moved somewhere later on in the series. I’m more likely to add then take away. It’s pretty rare I scrap something completely, and usually find somewhere else to put it, even if it’s a different fic. But originally BOM was very different. Andrew was medicated and Aaron knew Neil Josten from class.

Here’s a scene that was reworked in Ink Blotted Memories ~

Aaron did his best to avoid Andrew after that. He made himself busy at work, hauling dishes back and forth and hanging out with the bouncers on his breaks. When they were home Andrew was usually shut up in his room or outside smoking which made avoiding him all the easier, giving Aaron space to dick around on the TV or be in his room. Nicky still tried to involve both of them in stupid bonding activities like family dinners and movie nights. When they did happen, it was tense and uncomfortable, mostly filled with Nicky’s inane chatter. Aaron purposely did not look at his brother on these nights. He was torn between wanting Andrew’s acknowledgment and wishing he had never found out about him.

He marked his days with video games and his nights with alcohol and cracker dust, counting the days until he could once again use school as a distraction.

And the entire original Brother of Mine, which I rewrote most of when I got partway through ~

Aaron could still remember lying in his bed in his mother’s house, body bruised and hurting, wishing to have someone who could help him. Someone to make things better. To stand with him and hold him up when he was so close to crumbling. Learning about a long-lost twin felt like something out of a movie. An answered prayer. Finally, Aaron would have someone, a brother, who he could talk to. He imagined late night talks and secrets shared between them. They would have a bond so strong that nothing could come between them.

Andrew’s response of ‘fuck off’ had felt like a back-hand across his face.

Still, he held out hope. He was told to try again in the Spring, and that was what he planned on doing. Even when Andrew was sent to juvie, Aaron held onto his hope of a brother who would care about him. They were twins after all, how hard could it be?

The first time he had met Andrew face to face, Uncle Luther beside him and a metal table separating them, Aaron’s idea of what their relationship would be went up in smoke. His face was looking back at him, but there was no expression, no emotion at all. A blankness that revealed nothing of what he was thinking. It was hard to make eye contact with Andrew, his eyes sharp enough to be cut on. Andrew didn’t speak to Aaron at all that first visit; he just stared at him with a flat glare the entire time.

And yet he still came to South Carolina to live with Aaron. Aaron desperately wanted for Andrew to open up to him when they lived together. He thought he had to, now that they shared a room. He also hoped that home would get better, now that Andrew was home. Maybe mom would get better, would stop being so stressed. So angry.

It only took one incident for Aaron to believe Andrew was untouchable. They were in the backyard so Andrew could smoke, both sipping from a bottle of vodka Andrew had acquired. He had only moved in a week ago, and so far, things had been quiet. Aaron had no new bruises, but Andrew’s blank stare made him warry. The slam of the front door had made Aaron flinch, Andrew’s cold eyes tracking the movement. Aaron could hear their mother calling for him, her words tight with anger. Remembering the pills he had swiped earlier in the day, he swallowed back the lump in his throat and went inside.

He remembers her screaming. He remembers the pain of a hand across his cheek. Then there was Andrew, her wrist gripped in his hand, twisted far enough to make her bend at an awkward angle. It was then that Aaron saw the first expression on his twin’s face, and it terrified him. His lips had curled back in a snarl, his eyes bright with an anger Aaron had never seen before.

It was that night that Andrew had offered Aaron a deal. They would stick together, just the two of them, and Andrew would protect him. Aaron believed this was the answer to what he had been asking for. Finally, he wouldn’t be alone. He made his promise to Andrew.

Months passed, and Aaron was still collecting bruises. It was almost worse now, to have a witness to his suffering. Someone who had promised him protection but couldn’t stop everything.

Then, the accident where Aaron was left with only Andrew. Just the two of them.

The funeral where Andrew’s arm was in a sling, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, and a strange gleam in his eye as the dirt was poured on their mother’s grave.

Nicky coming back from Germany, taking them in.

Moving into a new house and Andrew installing a lock on his door.

The agony of being locked in that bathroom, withdrawal clawing his body to shreds.

The slow isolation at school, Andrew refusing to let anyone close.

Nicky’s assault and the mandated therapy.

That awful laughter and empty smile.

And Aaron had to wonder if instead of his prayers being answered, he had been cursed.

~~~

Things began changing the spring of their freshman year of college.

When they first joined the Foxes, there was a clear divide between Aaron’s family and the others immediately. Any interactions ended in spitting insults at best and violence more than not. The others feared Andrew and his knives, circling their group like alley cats. Not that the three of them were much better. Nicky constantly antagonized the others, and the twins’ general lack of effort to get along definitely rubbed a few people the wrong way. The Columbia trips solidified their isolation from the others. Honestly, Aaron couldn’t care less about getting along with his teammates. He would leave them alone as long as they did the same. He was here for a degree, not friends.

Now, they had officially been knocked out of the championships. Not that Aaron could bring himself to care, but games days usually also meant Columbia, and Aaron desperately wanted to get off campus. Between the upperclassmen, Day’s bitching over the season and Nicky’s whining, Aaron was looking forward to drinks, crackers, and music loud enough to lose yourself in.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t go without Andrew. His twin was currently perched on his desk by the window, smoking and staring out at the campus, fingers rapidly tapping. Normally they would already be packed up and gone by now, but they hadn’t gone once in over a month. At first Aaron thought it was because of exy, but then Andrew would disappear from the dorms for hours at a time, much to Day’s frustration. The only reason Aaron even noticed this as odd was because his brother rarely left Day alone. He never told them why they stopped going, or where he disappeared to, and any complaints fell on deaf ears.

“Come on Andrew!” Nicky whined, “We never go to Columbia anymore!”

Andrew’s laughter made Aaron’s jaw tick. “Oh, poor Nicky, don’t you know that no means no?”

“But why not?” Nicky was still going.

Aaron didn’t know why Nicky thought he could reason with Andrew. Unless you were Renee the best result from interacting with him would be victim to a cutting insult or dismissal. Worst case you’d need stitches.

His phone buzzing in his hand distracted him from the conversation happening. Looking at the screen, he felt a wave of relief wash over him, soothing the tension in his shoulders.

Katelyn

You played great today! It’s too bad the season is over

Katelyn was an instant balm to Aaron’s anger. It was still new, this thing between them. They had met in their intro biology class and had spent many late hours at the library studying. She had been the first person at Palmetto who had bothered to get to know Aaron for him, not just as ‘Andrew’s twin’. At first, he was a sullen asshole, but her endless patience and positivity snuck past his defenses and made a place for her in Aaron’s very bones. The only issue was they had to sneak around; Aaron couldn’t risk Andrew finding out about her.

Glancing up to make sure Andrew was still distracted with Nicky, Aaron settled further into his beanbag.

Aaron

Whatever it’s just stickball

Katelyn

Still, I’ll miss watching you ;)

Aaron had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep the smile off his face.

Katelyn

How’s Columbia?

Aaron

Wouldn’t know we’re still in the Tower

Katelyn

Think you could sneak out for a bit?

We’re in that bar with the turtle

Nicky’s yelp brought Aaron’s attention back to the room in front of him. Andrew was still on the desk, but Aaron caught the glint of metal as a knife was put back in one of his armbands. His eyes followed Nicky as he retreated to the bedroom, face split in his usual grin. When the door closed behind Nicky, Andrew’s eyes snapped to Aaron, pinning him to his spot. Aaron glared back, daring Andrew to say something to him. To say anything.

Instead, Andrew flicked his cigarette out the window, slammed in shut, and left the dorm completely. Aaron wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not.

He sat there for a moment, fingers tapping on his phone. If this was going to be following his typical pattern over the past few weeks, Andrew would be gone for hours, and wouldn’t notice if Aaron left. He would just need to be back before Andrew. Really, it wasn’t that hard of a decision.

Aaron

Be there in twenty.

Katelyn

Grabbing his jacket, Aaron hurried out of the dorm, eager to get away. Even if it wasn’t Columbia, even if it was with the Vixens, any time with Katelyn was worth it.

Aaron didn’t look up as he left the Tower. If he did, he might have seen a heavy stare and two lit cigarettes.

~~~

Summer came, and somehow Betsy had convinced the courts to change Andrew’s medication. Something about an incorrect diagnosis or dosage. Aaron wasn’t sure how they thought an Andrew off the pills would be any better, but no one asked him for his opinion.

The upside was that Aaron had weeks free of his oppressive twin, and he could spend as much time with Katelyn as he wanted. It was the first time in years Aaron felt like there was no weight pulling him down, like he could finally breathe.

It was in those few perfect weeks that Aaron came to a decision.

He couldn’t lose this.

~~~

Andrew had come back from Easthaven reverted back to the emptiness of when Aaron had first met him. He had barely said a word to anyone since he came back, simply leveling that bored glare at them whenever someone tried to speak to him. Whenever Aaron saw him, he was fiddling on that damn flip phone, barely acknowledging his surroundings. Even the upperclassmen had noticed his attachment to the device.

It was during a meeting before the first game of the new season that someone finally snapped.

“Damn it, Andrew, what are you doing?” When Kevin got really angry, his face flushed. Right now, he was approaching tomato.

Andrew snapped his phone shut, “Nothing.”

“Bullshit, you need to focus. Our first game is tomorrow, and we are nowhere near ready.”

“Maybe,” Andrew drawled, “instead of worrying about me, you should focus on what you’ll do when you see Riko again.”

It was a low blow, but effective. Kevin immediately fell silent, his skin changing from red to white so quickly Aaron was surprised he didn’t faint. Edgar Allen had joined their district after Kevin announced that he would be joining the Fox line-up. Last year Kevin had showed up, hand bloody and broken, looking for sanctuary. Apparently, Riko had broken his hand in a fit of rage. Kevin had tried to sue, but with the connections and money behind the Moriyama name, it was ruled as an accident. The public backlash of that along with Kevin’s transfer to the Foxes had caused several headaches last year.

“Jesus, Andrew,” Nicky whispered.

Andrew opened his phone again. No one else tried to speak to him for the rest of the meeting.

~~~

It was a new bet among the Foxes: what Andrew was doing on his phone. Everyone agreed that it was pretty clear he was texting someone, but the question was who. Some believed it was a secret girlfriend, while others were still convinced Renee and Andrew were together. Others thought it had to be something illegal.

Aaron knew what he thought, and he silently watched and cataloged information away.

~~~

The season was going terribly. They were winning games by the skin of their teeth and they were more divided than ever. Seth and Kevin couldn’t stop fighting, their newest striker was a nervous wreck, and Andrew didn’t give a shit.

Their last game was against the Ravens, and they had been destroyed. Now, Wymack and Dan were looking for a win.

They were in the locker room getting ready for the game when Andrew’s phone began to ring. Aaron didn’t recognize the song Andrew used, but he knew he normally used the default setting for his ringtone. Andrew picked up before Aaron could think too much on it.

“What?”

At this point everyone was staring at him, not even trying to act like they weren’t eavesdropping.

Andrew scoffed, “Junkie,” he said before snapping his phone shut, tossing it into his locker, and slamming it door closed. A moment later he was stalking out of the locker room.

Silence was left behind in his wake until Nicky broke it, “So it isn’t a girlfriend?”

When the team was gathered again (...missing...)

~~~

(...missing...)Today though, Aaron needed to talk to him.

The chances of Andrew brushing off any attempt Aaron made to speak to him were high, so Aaron waited until Andrew would have to acknowledge him. On Wednesday, when Andrew walked into Reddin, Aaron was waiting for him.

~~~

“Fuck off,” Aaron growled.

Josten had that stupid smirk on his face, his finger tapping on his test score. It wasn’t even that Aaron did bad. It was that Josten did better. He always did better in this stupid class. Aaron hated statistics, but apparently Josten was a math major and took every opportunity to show him up.

From day one Aaron had disliked him. He had plopped down beside Aaron, ratty clothes and shaggy hair, and called him ‘the second Minyard’. Not only was he a complete ass, but he was completely unnerving. His eyes were a blue so pale they were almost glacial, and his face and arms were covered in slashes and burn scars.

Once, Aaron had overheard someone call him ‘Scarface’, and Josten had just asked, with a terrifying grin, if they were looking for some to match.

And Aaron was stuck in a room with him twice a week.

Josten tsked at him, still tapping at his score. “What? Still second?”

“Fuck off,” Aaron really wasn’t in the mood.

He just hummed, pulling his phone out, a god damn flip phone, and spent the next few minutes ignoring the review happening. Aaron could barely focus as Josten texted away; each click grating on Aaron’s already frayed nerves.

Aaron wasn’t even sure how Josten did so well; he spent most of the class doodling in his notebook.

#aftg #all for the game #the foxhole court #the raven king #the kings men #aftg fanfiction #para's fics #ask para

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kevinbirthday · 4 years

Text

5 times Andrew Minyard admitted he feels + 5 times he didn’t

It’s not in the way Neil looks at Andrew with his blue, blue, so extremely fucking blue eyes sporting pupils blown wide that makes Andrew’s stomach pang with something he couldn’t quite place.

It’s not the fact that Neil has these beautiful, slender piano player hands that thread through Andrew’s hair and tug just hard enough not to hurt but to still pull low groans from Andrew’s throat in a way that no one had ever done before that made Andrew wish he was better at articulating his feelings.

Andrew promised himself that watching Neil slink around the kitchen of the Colombia house in the morning after a rare night where they had the house to themselves in nothing but a foxes hoodie with his number plastered on the back Andrew knew wasn’t issued to the team and had to be bought from a merch stand had nothing to do with the tight curl of what could be called contentment pooling in his stomach.

In all the ways Andrew Minyard values honesty it seems he can’t be honest with himself. Bee tells him as much, a little more carefully worded and wound into something he could digest right in a very slow way, words he would have to let sit with him. Andrew couldn’t find the words to respond. He was getting better at speaking up about things he liked, better than he was months ago as Neil nipped at his throat and ran his warm hands over Andrew’s shoulders and Andrew had liked it so much he made Neil stop. Andrew also knew Bee was right in the way Andrew knew he loved Neil, never to be acknowledged.

The lying continued as he told himself he didn’t enjoy waking up next to Neil and realizing he slept peacefully after months of working up to sleeping in the same bed with Andrew’s arm stretched over Neil. Andrew told himself he hated the way the sunlight seemed to set the halo of hair spilled across Neil’s pillow on fire and cast shadows across his face due to the dark, thick eyelashes and sharp angles of Neil’s unreasonably pretty face.

In the way all things do, the lying stopped gradually. Bee had called each step towards admitting Neil was part of what kept his world in orbit with the way Neil checked up on how Andrew was feeling mentally, as well as physically in a way he was only ever asked by Wymack, Kevin, Abby or Bee. Kevin used only ask because he wanted to know if Andrew could play but like the way Andrew stopped lying about how he felt about Neil to himself, Kevin gradually started asking how Andrew was because he cared for more than exy or Andrew’s game. Neil wasn’t Andrew’s answer but he sure as hell made it easier to find one.

The first time Andrew admitted how he felt to Neil was when he told him that he liked the way Neil looked, liked the way he spoke, and liked the way he stopped when Andrew asked and Neil looked surprised, looked almost scared. It made Andrew wonder if Neil was unaware of how disgustingly beautiful he was. He has asked Andrew if he was okay, like he was worried was going to blow away into the wind or off the top of the fox tower. Andrew then realized that Neil might have taken the compliments as his own version of ‘you were amazing.’

The second time was after Neil had blown him in the shower of the Colombia house and as the water ran down Neil’s body and droplets dripped down off of his chin as he angled his face up into the spray and the words ‘Well, that wasn’t nothing,’ slipped from Neil’s mouth like how he might in the cramped combined bath and shower if he wasn’t careful and Andrew had in turn, responded with the fact that no, that wasn’t nothing. If his usual apathetic drawl was tinged with arousal and something neither could quite place no one mentioned it.

The third time was when Andrew realized he would rather be at the Colombia house with Neil instead of the Eden’s surrounded by thumping bass of the club music and had decidedly told Neil as much, Neil had tentatively asked if he could sit in Andrew’s lap as Andrew licked into Neil’s mouth and kissed the life out of him in the sticky table booth of their regular spot at Eden’s.

The fourth time is after a long, hard game against the Trojans that left both teams sore and exhausted. The foxes came away with a win and a serious need for ice baths and to roll out their muscles. Andrew watched as Neil giggled about Matt’s incredulous expression as he watched Andrew sink into the ice bath the whole team was having to be subjected to as sports medicine majors milled about making sure the team had water and whatever fancy donated sponsor roll out tools they needed. The truth was that the freezing, constantly circulating water stung like a bitch but later that night as both men curled into bed together Andrew whispered that he liked when Neil giggled into the space between them.

The fifth time was during the middle of the night after Andrew had a nightmare that upset his stomach and Neil had grabbed the keys to the Maserati and led Andrew out the door. Andrew thought about how Neil just knew what to do when it came to Andrew. It had made him feel seen in ways no one ever saw him before. They had drove around until the radio blinked 3am and Andrew felt exhaustion finally creep back into his bones as Neil drove back to the dorm. Slinking up the stairs back to the monsters dorm Andrew caught Neil’s wrist and said, ‘I can’t say it, so do make me. I do Neil. I do and you know what I’m talking about.’ The hardness in Andrew’s eyes softened when Neil responded with a soft, ‘I do too.’ And allowed Andrew to tug them back to the dorm without another word.

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sirrriusblack · 3 years

Note

“You’re the only one I wanna wake up next to.” Andriel obv

Hello, okay, thank you, so, the deal with this,, is that I’m now in love with writing Andreil but of course this is a Harry Potter blog so I made a new account (@yes-or-no) for aftg and will probably be writing some things there,, for now this will be posted here but yes, thank you very much and I hope you like it :))

(tw nightmares, torture and scar mention)

* * *

100. “You’re the only one I wanna wake up next to.”

Neil wasn’t unfamiliar with nightmares. It wasn’t an unusual occasion for him to wake up in a cold sweat, subconsciously reaching for the gun under his pillow before he realised it wasn’t there. Before he realised he didn’t need it anymore. He wasn’t sure whether to take comfort in that fact, though. All his life had consisted of running and now that Neil was allowed to stay still, he didn’t know how to act. Especially when he was still running in his dreams. Neil’s nightmares consisted mostly of flashbacks from his past; his father’s sly grin and pacing feet, his mother’s lifeless body stuck to the seat of the car, the burning in his lungs as he ran for his life, stretching out his arm to hold onto his mother’s hands and falling just an inch short as Lola caught him, held him as he watched his mother’s legs carry her farther and farther away from him. But often his nightmares were something new; Neil restrained while he watched Riko holding Kevin down, hurting him just the way he’d hurt Neil at the Nest. Matt and Nicky falling from the force of Riko’s exy racket, beaten to pulps in front of Neil because they were trying to defend him. Renee standing in front of the Foxes, chin up to Neil’s father while he just smiled at them, cleaver in hand. And then there was tonight’s. Tonight, Lola had carved each one of Neil’s scars into Andrew’s body, leaving him stained and marked just like Neil.

Neil stood from the couch. He’d come out here to try and fall back asleep, but he wasn’t having any luck. The house in Columbia was silent. There were no sounds of late-night college parties or drunk laughter floating through the slightly cracked window. There was only silence, the calm sound of the suburbs and the warm summer air drifting into the house. The silence was something Neil was still getting used to. Waking up and feeling secure was something Neil was still getting used to. He walked over to the kitchen and flicked the light on. The clock next to the fridge said it was somewhere past 3 am. Neil reached for the cord above the sink, pulling the blinds shut so that no one could see in. It was a small, useless act, but it calmed Neil’s nerves nonetheless. He flicked the kettle on and reached for a mug, placing a teabag in. A door clicked from across the room. Neil turned to look. Andrew was standing in the doorway, his face illuminated by the soft glow of the kitchen light. Neil knew that Andrew could be silent if he wanted to–the click of the door had been a warning that he was coming in. He nodded to Andrew and pulled out another mug.

“Did I wake you up?” Neil croaked out, his voice still coated with sleep. There wasn’t much of a point to the question–Andrew slept just about as well as Neil did–and Andrew didn’t answer. Instead, he padded over to Neil and reached for the jar of sugar, heaping some into his mug with a teaspoon. Neil felt a sense of warmth form in his chest at the familiarity of it. The kettle flicked off and Neil poured the boiling water into both mugs. Andrew was already at the fridge, and he held the milk out for Neil before reaching into the freezer for a tub of ice-cream. He scooped some into his mouth with the teaspoon he was still holding. Neil huffed a laugh and reached for a bigger spoon, holding it out to Andrew with the milk he’d finished with. Andrew took the spoon and put the milk in the fridge. Neil handed Andrew his hot chocolate once he’d positioned himself atop the kitchen counter. It was… a sight to behold, Neil thought. Andrew in just his boxers and a black t-shirt, sitting on the kitchen counter eating his ice-cream. A loose strand of his hair was resting above his eyebrow, and Neil wanted nothing more than to brush it backwards and have his hands in those curls. Andrew would likely pull his knife on Neil for thinking such stupid things.

“Staring.” Andrew’s voice cut through Neil’s thoughts, but it was a welcome interruption. Neil moved to stand across from Andrew, holding back the apology he knew Andrew would only make him take back. He watched Neil for a moment before he put the lid back on the ice cream. “My turn, right?” he asked. Neil had to think for a moment before he realised what Andrew was asking. He nodded. “Why did you leave to sleep on the couch?” Andrew’s question wasn’t what Neil had been expecting. It was...concerned. Maybe even hurt. Andrew thought it was about him, Neil realised.

“Oh, it didn’t—it wasn’t…” Neil trailed off and Andrew raised an eyebrow. Neil needed to think. He grabbed the ice cream container from the counter and took it to the fridge in silence. When he returned, he stood across from Andrew again, but this time he was within arm’s reach.

“I had a nightmare,” Neil finally choked out. Andrew didn’t have any observable reaction, just nodded for Neil to keep going if he wanted to. “Lola,” Neil said, like that explained it all. It did, in a way. Andrew gave him a look, something along the lines of stop talking if you don’t want to. It was a fine line that Andrew and Neil were treading on. Neil had never trusted easily—a result of living most of his life on the run—and yet he often felt obligated to give himself up. When there was a question asked, he would answer no matter how much it might pick at his sense of security. He trusted Andrew, because Andrew trusted him. Just like how Neil stopped when Andrew said no, Andrew didn’t pry if Neil didn’t want him to. Neil was just having a problem knowing whether he wanted to or not. This nightmare, it seemed, wasn’t something he wanted to talk about.

Andrew nodded in understanding and instead hooked his fingers in the collar of Neil’s shirt.

Neil shuffled forward at the small tug Andrew gave his shirt, but stopped just short of the counter, where Neil’s hips would sit between Andrew’s knees.

“Does it help to sleep out here?” Andrew asked, meaning does it help to sleep away from me? Neil considered it for a moment. Having another weight in his bed was certainly a slightly jarring situation at first, after being away from his mother for so long, but when he thought about it, Neil always slept well when Andrew’s warmth was next to him. He couldn’t say the same for the couch, for when he slept alone.

“No,” he said, and it was the truth. Something shifted slightly in Andrew’s eyes, but neither of them acknowledged it.

Neil looked up at Andrew, who was sitting a few inches taller than Neil on the kitchen counter, and glanced back down at the space between them. Andrew nodded a simple yes and Neil stepped forward, positioning the front of his body against the counter and leaving only a few inches of room between Andrew and Neil’s mouths.

“Yes or no?” Neil asked. This was a different question and a simple nod wouldn’t suffice. Andrew grabbed a hold of Neil’s hands, not at all fazed by the mural of cuts and burns on them, and placed them on each of his thighs, bare below the boxers that had ridden up Andrew’s legs.

“Yes,” Andrew drawled, and hooked his two fingers around Neil’s collar again, pulling him forward.

Neil would never cease to be amazed at the feel of Andrew’s hands on his skin, the warmth in his chest at their mingled breaths and soft touches. Kissing Andrew was another world, another dimension, and it was all his. Neil stepped back when he started to feel his hands itch toward Andrew’s waist. He shoved them in his pockets. The curl on Andrew’s forehead was still there, hanging so beautifully out of place. Neil moved his hand slowly, slow enough that Andrew could track it and stop it if he wanted to. Still, before Neil actually touched Andrew, he hesitated.

“Can I?” he asked. Andrew rolled his eyes, but nodded nonetheless and Neil reached forward to brush the curl from Andrew’s face. When Neil looked him in the eye, Andrew rolled his again and smacked Neil’s hand away. Neil stepped out of the way when Andrew slid down from the counter and picked up his mug of hot chocolate.

“Sleep back in the bed. Yes or no?” Andrew asked, always making sure Neil was comfortable. Neil remembered the glint of hurt in Andrew’s eyes, the fear that Neil didn’t want to be near him. Neil knew better than to make a comment on it, so instead he tipped his unfinished tea down the sink and smirked.

“You know you’re the only one I want to wake up next to,” he said, watching Andrew for a a reaction. Andrew only glared and took a sip of his hot chocolate.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. Neil smirked some more.

“I thought you liked my stupidity.” Andrew glared some more before he downed almost the whole mug of hot chocolate and dumped it in the sink. He grumbled something about stupid, mouthy rabbits before he grabbed a loose hold of Neil’s wrist and dragged him out of the kitchen and back to the bedroom. Neil flicked the kitchen light off on the way out.

#andreil #neil josten #andrew minyard #aftg #all for the game #andreil fanfiction #nightmare tw #scar tw #torture tw #my writing #thank youuu :)

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not-until-tuesday · 4 years

Text

AFTG Headcanon

Neil gets sleep paralysis

not often, like once every couple of months but more often when he's having a rough patch on his road to recovery

this time was no different though he had to sleep in his bed on the top bunk instead of with Andrew as Andrew had had a nightmare and couldn't even stand Neil on the other side of the bed

Neil lay on his side, back towards the wall and facing the edge of his bed and as soon as he opened his eyes he knew what was about to happen

he could feel his whole body sinking into the mattress as if a force was both pushing and pulling him into it. he couldn't move, and his small twitches from his fingers and toes as well as his choked swallows weren't enough to alert Andrew to his predicament as he was usually able to when they were together

slender fingers with long nails curled round the bars along the side of the bed and Lola's grinning face slowly rose into view

Neil knew, he knew that she was a hallucination and she was dead but it felt and looked so damn real

"don't worry" she whispered "I killed him"

though she didn't say it he knew she meant Andrew and all logical thoughts vanished

he began trying to thrash and get away from her though he was so angry and distraught he wanted to smash he head against the railing of the bed

and then a bullet hole appeared between her eyes as they roles back into her head and she fell back off the bed though he didn't hear the thump of her body

then he could move again

he cried out as he sat up, gasping for breath between ragged sobs, shuffling back as quickly as he could to the corner of the bed, not wanting to see if she was still there

he hardly saw the light come on but he felt the rock of the bed as Andrew jumped up the ladder and sat on the end of the bed, hesitant to come any closer

Andrew knew what had happened by Neil's state so he was nervous to approach

Neil reactions varied from how ok he was at the time and this time around he'd been having a good week and had even gone shopping with Allison and Nicky

but Andrew wasn't there when it happened (I wasn't there

Neil faintly heard the sound of the door closing as Kevin left but he was solely focused on Andrew

he should be dead but there he was, perched on the end of his bed, hand hesitantly held out between them

"yes or no, Neil" he said like he'd said it before but Neil hadn't heard

"yes" he choked out yet he didn't know of he meant it because Andrew was supposed to be dead

Andrew slowly reached further towards him until he lightly touched Neil's hand that was clutched to he chest

Neil pulled back like he'd been burnt but Andrew stayed in his position, hand hovering between them. he knew Neil wasn't in the right space and he could guess by now by the look Neil first gave him what kind of hallucination he had

Neil kept look at his chest, making sure there were no stab wounds or bullet holes but it was too dark and he couldn't properly see if there were any damp patches on Andrews dark shirt

he slowly reached out, needing reassurance but also knowing unconsciously that Andrew may not want to be touched

slowly, his hand met the fabric and he felt lightly for any dampness that may be hidden but found none. Andrew sat quietly and waited for Neil's final judgement

"she didn't hurt you?" he whispered finally looking Andrew properly in the eyes

"no" is all Andrew said because they both knew she was dead and it didn't need to be repeated

Neil nodded and took a deep breath looking around as if she might be hiding

Andrew tugged lightly on Neil's foot that sat between them as he began his decent back to his own bed

"are you sure?" Neil asked as he followed him down

Andrew grunted as if Neil was stupid "just keep your hands to yourself"

#aftg #all for the game #aftg headcanon #neil josten #andrew minyard #andreil #sleep paralysis

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side-effect-of-the-meds · 4 years

Note

‘Who told you that?’ ANDREIL THANK YOU

This was so soft and i loved it so much!!!!

“Who told you that?” Neil asked.

“A little Boyd might have told me,” Andrew said, folding his arms across his chest. Neil cursed quietly. Leave it to Matt to tattle on him. “Yes or no?”

“It’s always yes,” Neil replied immediately. A sour expression flicked across Andrew’s features before disappearing back behind his apathetic facade.

“Shirt off. Lay on your stomach,” Andrew ordered. Neil commenting on it won him a growl. A little bubble of laughter escaped him. Snatching up a pillow to cradle his chin in, Neil let himself relax into Andrew’s bed. Laying amongst Andrew’s sheets always made Neil feel like someone had scooped out everything in his head and replaced the contents with cotton.

Around him, the bed shifted with the weight of Andrew. Neil tensed when he felt the mattress dip as Andrew’s knees bracketed his hips.

“Still yes?” Andrew asked.

“Yes,” Neil replied, turning his head to the side so that he could look at Andrew. In the glow of the setting sun, he looked startlingly young, almost boyish. His hair, freshly washed and dried, had curled up into a thousand cowlicks. When the light hit it just right, it shone like a halo. A smile twitched at the corners of Neil’s lips.

Flowers bloomed in his lungs making it impossible to breathe but it didn’t matter. Andrew had been taking Neil’s breath away since the day they’d met, albeit by wildly different means. A four letter word bloomed alongside them. It wasn’t the first time Neil thought it but it was the closest he’d come to saying it out loud. He watched as Andrew seated himself atop the backs of Neil’s thighs.

“Staring,” Andrew grumbled.

“And?” Neil countered. Grabbing a second pillow conveniently close to him, Andrew smacked it over Neil’s face. A squawk of indignation escaped Neil then. Just as he tore it off, he heard the snap of a cap. It wasn’t the lube. It couldn’t be. Tearing the pillow off his face, Neil looked back in time to see Andrew squirting lotion into his hand. He warmed it between his hands before pressing his hands onto Neil’s lower back.

Slowly but surely he worked the cream into Neil’s back, working out the knots in his back. A quiet groan slipped past Neil’s lips.

“God,,,, fuck,,, Drew,” he moaned, letting his whole body go slack beneath the ministrations of his hands.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were having back problems?” Andrew asked. His voice was as devoid of all emotion the way it always was when he was trying to hide how much something hurt.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Neil confessed.

“You’re always a bother,” Andrew said. Neil sighed knowing that it meant his previous answer was inadequate. Andrew was giving him a chance to try again.

“You don’t have to take care of me,” Neil mumbled. Silence settled over them minus the occasional moan from Neil.

“I don’t,” Andrew finally agreed. “But I want to.” The four letter word bloomed in Neil’s chest once again. The heel of Andrew’s palm glided up his back and it broke the last of Neil’s will.

“I love you,” Neil whispered, burying his face in the pillow, almost hoping Andrew wouldn’t hear. Immediately, Andrew stopped moving. There was a moment of complete stillness that seemed to stretch on for hours.

The bed creaked as Andrew shifted his weight. Lips ghosted over the back of Neil’s neck. All the air rushed out of Neil’s lungs. He hadn’t even known he’d been holding his breath. Neil felt Andrew’s lips making their way down his back, pressing gently against each of his vertebrae. When they made it to the hem of his shorts they stopped.

“This isn’t nothing,” Andrew whispered. His voice sounded strained. Neil’s heart stopped. Sitting up he turned fully to face Andrew.

“Yes-”

“Yes,” Andrew said, closing the space between the two of them in the blink of an eye. Both of them were cursed with sharp wits and even sharper tongues. It made soft moments like this so hard but, if their lives were easy, they wouldn’t have been Foxes. Neil didn’t need easy. He needed Andrew and, if this kiss proved anything, it was that Andrew was his to have and to hold, for better, for worse, to love and to cherish and not even death would do them part.

#just a pipe dream #all for the game #the foxhole court #aftg #tfc #andrew minyard #andrew joseph minyard #all for the gay #neil josten #the foxes #reveal to me your deepest desires

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kar3npage · 4 years

Text

The Wonder of You

Neil is in complete denial that he is struggling with panic attacks. Andrew thinks that a support animal would be good. They figure it out together.

Read it on ao3 here

“-was a disgrace. What the hell were you thinking out there? Nicky, start focusing on the ball, not Aaron! Allison, too much aggression-”

Neil’s brain was working in overdrive, switching between here and a house in Baltimore, filled with haunted memories.

“-I don’t know what the hell that was-”

A flash of light reflecting off of a knife blade. Andrews obnoxiously orange jersey in the corner of his eye. His mom shouting, morphing into his dad, and then into Wymack.

He can’t get his eyes to focus properly. He’s trying desperately to focus on Wymacks half-time lecture, but his eyes keep focusing on the space between them.

“Neil-”

He doesn’t think, just acts. Tossing an arm up in front of himself, Neil shrinks into the couch and waits. The waiting is always the worst part, he thinks. The waiting is torture.

Neil’s brain catches up slowly, noticing the horrible silence that pervades the room and Wymacks sad exhaustion as he puts his hands in full view so that Neil can see that they aren’t there to hurt him.

There are always times when the foxes get that desolate look on their face when Neil does something that shows his trauma, but the pity is suffocating this time. For once in his life, he completely forgets about the game and runs out the door into the full but empty parking lot.

He can’t run. His mind is present enough to know that. Nothing could break Andrews trust faster than leaving, and he knows that if he takes one more step into the parking lot his instinct will take over. And Neil knows that once he decides to run, it’s hard to convince himself that it’s safe enough to stop.

He sits down in the center of the parking lot, body shaking and breath coming in quick gasps. He thinks of the appointments that he has begrudgingly been showing up to with Betsy, how she tells him to pay attention to what’s going on around him.

That would probably work, if he could feel the concrete underneath him or hear anything besides his horrible wheezing.

It takes him a moment to realize that someone is out there with him, speaking slowly. He startles at first, flinching backwards before recognizing the soothing voice.

“You are Neil Abram Josten, you are at the Foxhole Court playing a game of Exy, because you are a striker,” Andrew says calmly, slowly inching towards Neil. Neil closes his eyes and uses all of his energy to listen to Andrews voice.

After a while, Andrew is right beside but not quite touching Neil, and Neil nods quickly in the hopes that Andrew will touch him, ground him.

Andrew edges closer so that he is between Neils legs, and gently pushes Neils head to rest against his chest. He wishes that he could enjoy this more, but now that the pervading panic has left, he feels empty and cold. Andrew puts one hand protectively around his back and the other tangles itself in Neil's hair. At some point Neil recognizes that Andrew isn’t wearing his equipment anymore. He can’t bring himself to care about the game, it’s too exhausting to even think about standing right now.

They sit there until Neil can feel the pebbles from the concrete digging into his legs and the discomfort of his padding constricting his movement. He sighs and sits up, missing the warmth when Andrew lets his hands fall away. Andrew’s hair is damp from a shower and he’s dressed in his normal clothes. He can hear people starting to stream out of the building on the other side.

They look at each other for a moment before Andrew stands up and offers a hand to Neil. The idea of showering and changing seems daunting, especially since he knows the team will be in the locker room too. He can just imagine the comments that will be going around about him from the new foxes.

However, when they get into the locker room, it’s already empty.

It’s not until they’re standing under the spray in the shower than Andrew speaks up again.

“I did some research,” he says, watching Neil with a tiny furrow between his brows. Neil feels a bit guilty that he’s the one that put that there. He hums to let Andrew know that he is listening. “There are animals that can help with panic attacks. Like dogs.”

Andrew looks intently at Neil, who shakes his head dramatically. “Absolutely not. I don’t need some sort of...of… I don’t need a babysitter.”

Andrew frowns. “They aren’t babysitters, they just help with PTSD.”

Neil scrubs a hand through his hair aggressively. He hasn’t really been using that term. He knows that he has it, knows that there are things in his past that probably no one could go through without getting it, but he refuses to admit it. Betsy has been slowly working him up to it, giving him work books to use and a journal that he has stubbornly left empty on the bedside table.

“Well, I don’t need that either.” Neil can feel the anxiety build again, so he starts counting in French. Andrew can read his expression, and he lets the subject drop. Neil wishes that the subject hadn’t been introduced to begin with.

Unfortunately, now that it’s been mentioned, Neil just can’t get it out of his head. He is completely exhausted, and guilty for letting the team down by not being able to play the whole last half and for flinching from Wymack again. But Andrews words keep running through his head.

He isn’t sure exactly what it is that has offended him so much with the suggestion. He wonders if maybe Andrew is tired of holding him up all the time. He wonders what it would be like to have something that he was responsible for, like a child. The thought makes him want to vomit.

He doesn’t sleep that night.

Andrew hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Neil. That isn’t unusual, since Neil pops up in his head all the time. This time, he keeps thinking about his denial of his PTSD, and the way he reacted to the suggestion of a support animal.

He had gotten the idea from a movie, strangely enough. A character had an emotional support dog, and Andrew had immediately started researching the steps that it would take to get one for Neil.

He had made sure that they would be able to keep it in the dorms, checked all of the paperwork that would be necessary, and learned about the training that it would need to be able to help Neil with his panic attacks.

At no point during this process did he think that Neil would react so strongly. Sure, there was always the chance that he would argue against the need, but the poorly concealed panic in his eyes was a different story.

Andrew was still cursing himself for nearly sending Neil into another spiral after the horrible one during the game.

This morning had been quiet. Kevin was worried about Neil and showed it by snapping at Neil for letting the team down. Neil looked like he was going to throw up his breakfast, and his eyes were shadowed and far away. Yet he still insisted on going to practice, and then class after.

Bee’s office was as warm and welcoming as always. Sunlight glinted off of the glass figurines on her bookshelves, and the room smelt of hot chocolate and some sort of lavender cleaning product.

It was familiar, and Andrew breathed it in while Bee spoke about her day.

“Is there something that you wanted to speak about in particular today Andrew?” Bee smiled as she passed over the mug of hot chocolate.

“Neil.”

Bee nods and gets comfortable, waiting for Andrew to find the right words. He has always struggled with choosing his words, since he wants them to be exactly right.

“He had a panic attack yesterday during the game. Wymack scared him during halftime.”

Bee nods and tilts her head while Andrew tries to figure out what he wants to ask her. He doesn’t want to tell Bee more than Neil would be comfortable with, even though Neil had given him to go ahead to say whatever he wanted about him during appointments.

“I brought up the idea of getting a support animal,” Andrew finally says. “And he did not like that idea.”

“Okay. Did he say anything about why he doesn’t like that idea?”

Andrew shifts. He doesn’t usually have this difficult of a time speaking to Bee, but it’s harder when it’s about Neil. “I almost made him have another panic attack. He said he didn’t want to be babysat.”

Bee nods again. Andrew wonders if she ever has neck issues with all the nodding she does during the day. “Perhaps we could come up with a way to explain what a support animal does, and why you think it would be helpful for him to have one? It sounds like maybe Neil has a different idea of what a support animal would do than you do, so if we can find a way to communicate your idea differently, Neil might accept it.”

They spend the rest of the session coming up with a script for Andrew to broach the topic again. He isn’t entirely convinced that it will work.

Neils bad day passes a few days later. He isn’t sure what caused it, or why it lasted so long this time. He can��t help but feel a bit irritated with himself for wallowing for so long. He’s grouchy with Betsy at his next appointment, and she gives him another workbook for him to try. This one has less writing and more space for him to use. It even has spots where it encourages him to doodle. He feels like a child looking at it, and he can’t meet Andrew’s eyes when he meets him at the car after the appointment.

It’s days later before he cracks the workbook open again. He had apologized to Wymack before practice, and he couldn’t get the kind way that Wymack spoke to him out of his mind.

“I’m not mad, kid. I’m worried about you,” Wymack had said gruffly. He had then told him that if he needed anything, he was there for him. Both of them left the meeting red faced and uncomfortable. It felt like a miracle that Wymack didn’t try to do the half side hug thing that he did when Dan was sad sometimes.

He waits until the dorm is empty before he pulls out the workbook. His homework is sitting beside him so that he can pretend he was working on that instead if anyone comes in. He isn’t sure why it bothers him so much to think of anyone knowing that he was doing this, but his face burns every time he thinks about the book that had been hidden away under his clothes in the drawer.

He reads each paragraph closely, having to take breaks constantly to get his emotions under control. The parts where he can write and draw are easier, and he gets lost in it for a while.

Until Andrew walks in, that is. He doesn’t notice the figure leaning against the door jam at first, and he freezes once he does.

He gives Andrew a look that would be close to a deer in headlights, one hand reaching out to cover the page that he was currently drawing on. Andrew looks more relaxed than he has in ages, and a corner of his mouth twitches up when he sees Neils expression.

“Do you want me to go?” he says.

Neil blushes and looks down at the book before shaking his head slowly. Andrew grabs his book and climbs onto the bed beside him, getting comfortable before slowly reaching up to touch Neils back. Neil leans back into the touch, and Andrew starts rubbing his back slowly, making sure to keep his gaze completely on his book.

After a while, Neil turns his attention back to the page he was working on, and they sit in the room until Kevin gets back for practice.

A week later, Andrew still hasn’t used the script that him and Bee came up with. She asks him about it at every appointment, and just gives him a knowing look every time he admits that he hasn’t brought it up yet.

He is contemplating it again as he walks home from class. The thought derails when he sees Neil standing in the center of the living room when he gets into the dorm. He looks lost, but not the kind that comes after a thought spiral. Andrew is furious at himself when he visibly relaxes when Neil grins at him.

His smile is a bit self-conscious, and he bites his lip as Andrew gets closer. Andrew has the sudden urge to grab Neil and kiss him, but he demonstrates an incredible amount of restraint by just raising an eyebrow in question at Neil.

“Matt and Dan gave me a movie that they thought I should see,” Neil says sheepishly. His whole body is moving slightly, hands fidgeting and foot toeing at the ground. Andrew is constantly fascinated with how much energy Neil has all the time.

He raises his eyebrow again, since that doesn’t actually explain why he is standing in the center of the living room like he doesn’t belong there.

Neil scratches at the back of his neck, a blush rising in his cheeks. “I thought that maybe you would like it. And that you would maybe want to watch it. With me.”

He gapes at Neil for a moment before grabbing the back of his neck and kissing him.

Neils whole face lights up, making Andrews chest hurt.

“Okay,” he tries to say impassively as Neil tugs him down on the beanbag and hands him a blanket and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. He can’t take his eyes off of Neil, who is currently getting comfortable in the other beanbag chair. He’s dragged it over so its right beside Andrew’s, but not touching. Andrew tugs it closer, and Neil grins again.

He can feel Neils eyes on him through most of the movie, but he lets it go. And he has to admit, the movie is actually very good. He taps a finger along to the music to show Neil that he is enjoying it, and Neil wiggles closer in his chair.

Andrew texts Kevin to stay out of the room after the movie is done, and completely forgets to bring up the support animal thing again.

He can’t ignore it anymore. Two nights later, and he decides that he will absolutely bring up the topic tomorrow morning. Neil has been back to his normal self for a while now, and he would rather discuss this now rather than wait for another bad panic attack or nightmare to hit. He’s running the script through his head when Neil moves in his sleep. Again.

Neil doesn’t normally move in his sleep ever. Something about his mom, Neil had never said specifically, but it makes Andrew feel ridiculously protective every time he thinks about it.

Tonight, Neil has been moving every few minutes.

Without thinking, Andrew brings his hand up to Neils forehead, mumbling his name as he does so. Neil doesn’t wake up, and his forehead practically burns Andrew's hand.

“Neil,” he says again, a bit louder. Kevin groans in his sleep before turning around. Neil doesn’t respond.

Panic wars with concern, and Andrew grabs his phone to call Abby. He stares down at Neil while listening to Abby’s phone ring, hoping that he’ll wake up and be fine before Abby picks up. Also hoping that Abby will pick up and he won’t have to go wake up Aaron to help him.

“Andrew? Is everything okay?” Abby sounds groggy, probably because it’s almost 3 in the morning.

“Neil has a fever. He won’t wake up.”

“Okay, have you taken his temperature?” He can hear the concern in her voice, but it quickly becomes professional as she wakes up.

Andrew doesn’t bother responding, just goes and grabs the thermometer and mutters something to Neil as he gently gives him the thermometer. Neil accepts it in his sleep, but his eyes stay shut.

“103.”

Abby sounds wide awake now. “Okay, I’m going to come over, is that alright? If it was just below that I wouldn’t be too concerned, but I want to make sure that he doesn’t need a more serious treatment.”

Andrews stomach clenches and he nods, despite knowing that Abby can’t see him. He stays on the phone, and she does too. He can hear her car, the radio on quietly as she makes her way to the dorms.

Andrew hangs up when he hears a knock on the door, and he almost doesn’t want to leave Neil alone while he goes to get the door.

Abby looks tired but alert when she comes in. She’s wearing sweats and a shirt that he suspects may belong to Wymack, her medical bag in hand as she comes in.

Kevin is still sound asleep as they come into the room. Abby gets his temperature again and starts ordering Andrew around to fetch things. He doesn’t mind, it’s easier to have something to do instead of just standing around waiting for Abby to proclaim that Neil would not survive.

He knows that’s not what is going to happen, but Andrews mind can’t help but come up with scenarios.

They finally move Neil into the couch in the living room so that they can open the window to cool off the room and not listen to Kevin snore.

There is a cool cloth on his forehead, and he has opened his eyes a few times. Abby even got him to drink some water and take some medication.

Andrew is hovering like a nervous mother.

It’s nearly 4:30 in the morning and the sun is just starting to come up, softening the sky. Abby and Andrew are watching the news on the lowest volume while Neil sleeps on the couch. Andrew keeps turning around to watch, trying to play it off so that Abby doesn’t notice. Abby most definitely has noticed.

Neil makes a sound in the back of his throat and Andrew whips around. A pair of very blue eyes are looking at him through a haze of medication and fever.

Abby grabs the thermometer again and kneels down beside him, speaking in a soothing voice.

“Abby,” Neil says in a slightly slurred voice. He looks young and vulnerable, cocooned in a nest of blankets. Abby hums.

He closes his eyes and mumbles something incomprehensible. Abby is doing her best to encourage him to sit up so he can drink some juice. His eyes are focused on the glass like he’s never seen anything like it before.

“I can’t take care of something,” Neil tells her earnestly. Abby smiles.

“You don’t have to take care of anything, we’re going to take care of you.”

He frowns. “No, I can’t take care of anything. I can’t do that, what if I killed it? Or forgot to feed it?”

Abby turns to look at Andrew, confusion clear on her face. Andrew is starting to see where Neil is going with this.

She finally gets him vaguely upright, and he looks exhausted as he leans against the back of the couch. Andrew reaches forward to tuck the blanket around him and gives Abby a blank stare when she gives him a fond look.

“I don’t want Andrew to get tired of taking care of me,” Neil says, letting his eyes fall closed again. Abby looks bemused, and she rubs his shoulder to get him to drink some more juice.

“Baby, Andrew will never get tired of that,” she says while looking at Andrew. He can feel his ears burn, and he gives her his best glare. She ignores it completely.

“And I don’t like dogs,” Neil slurs.

“What do dogs have to do with this?” Abby finally asks.

“Why don’t you like dogs,” Andrew says to Neil, ignoring her.

Neil’s fever isn’t as bad now, but he looks weak and pitiful as he leans to the side, obviously wanting to lie down again. He shudders a bit and says something that Andrew doesn’t fully catch. He only hears the name ‘Lola’.

Andrew refuses to regret things, but there is a feeling in his chest that he does not like at all when he thinks of Neil with Lola.

Andrew sits down carefully on the couch, then tugs Neil down to lie his head on his lap. Abby smiles gently and brings the empty glass to the kitchen to give them some space.

Andrew speaks quietly. He’s not even sure that Neil will remember this later, but he feels the need to comfort him for some odd reason.

“I was thinking,” Andrew says slowly. “And cats are much more our style. They aren’t as high maintenance, so you wouldn’t have to worry about it as much. And they can be trained just as well as dogs can.”

Neil hums as Andrew starts to card his fingers through his hair. “Would they help with panic attacks?”

Andrew can’t avoid the massive feeling of pride over the fact that Neil actually used the term. He’s never used it like that before, never accepted that those times when he felt ‘kind of nervous’, as he used to explain them, could actually be something with medical terminology.

“Yes, they could help with panic attacks.”

Neil nods, his body relaxing back into sleep.

Betsy helps with the paperwork and all of the logistics. Neil has three panic attacks during the whole process. Once when he sees the document that confirms that he has been diagnosed with PTSD, once when they go to visit the cats for the first time, and once on their fifth visit when a cat climbs on his lap.

Neil can’t get over the idea that he could be dangerous to such a small creature, but when he ends up with scratches on his already ruined arms, he decides that they are pretty strong little creatures.

Andrew doesn’t get irritated a single time. He’s a calming presence, always there. It’s even become a bit of a team exercise, going to visit the cats and volunteering to clean kennels and play.

They eventually end up with a ragdoll cat that has been following Neil around since their first visit, one that Nicky names ‘Sir Fat Cat McCatterson’ on the third trip.

Sir fits in to the dorm seamlessly, and Neil has to admit that the purring and weight of a cat does help with the anxiety.

On his first bad day after bringing her home she crawls onto his chest and purrs until he has stopped hyperventilating. Andrew comes back from class 20 minutes later to the both of them having a nap on the floor in the sun, and he feels something like pride at Neil for how far he has come.

#all for the game #fanfic #the foxhole court #aftg #tfc #andrew minyard #neil josten #andrei mozalev #andrew minyard/neil josten #betsy dobson #abby winfield #david wymack #coach wymack #soft neil josten #soft andrew minyard #soft andreil #ao3

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ravenvsfox · 5 years

Text

do you rascals want chapter 8 or what??

Andrew waits for his palm to make contact, for Neil to misstep and make everything easy again, but his fingers hover an inch from Andrew’s skin. He can feel the heat coming off of him, the little shield blocking out the breeze.

His hand is a warm bed, and Andrew is so tired.

“What are you doing?”

“I don't know,” Neil whispers. He sucks in his bottom lip. He’s leaning out of the light, face cut in half by shadow, and Andrew can't tell if his eyes are clear or not. He peels the hand from the air beside his cheek and Neil lets him.

Their hands are heavy together for a moment, paperweights trying to keep each other down.

“I’m not interested in ‘I don’t know’,” he tells him. He’s not going to let Neil lay his confusion and curiosity over him until they both suffocate.

“But you’re interested in me,” Neil says, stupidly, like he still can't believe it.

“Sometimes,” Andrew admits. “Sometimes you are intolerable.”

Neil holds his own bare arms. “Sometimes is more than I would have expected.”

“I’m not dealing with your self-pity right now,” he says viciously. He’s preoccupied with his own.

He keeps thinking of the way Neil’s mouth had formed the words he’d written about him. Andrew had thought them with such hopeless anger, but Neil had sung them with such rapture.

“It’s not self pity, it’s—“ he cuts himself off. “Maybe I’m interested too.” He leans forward into the light, and the full force of what he’s just said hits Andrew like a fender bender, when you have to pull over and assess the damage.

He can’t help the way his face takes on colour, the curl of hope that immediately dilutes in the cool air. “You’ve been drinking all night,” he says. “You sat through Kevin’s entire sermon on atonal improv. Forgive me if I can’t trust your judgement.”

Neil’s mouth betrays his feelings, as always. His lips part, and he says, “I don’t feel drunk anymore.”

“You don’t know what you feel.”

“I do,” Neil says, then looks surprised at himself for saying it.

“I’m not doing this with you right now,” Andrew says.

Neil falls silent, but he still looks so keyed up, so flush with the edge of something that Andrew’s been dangling off of for months. He thinks, if he had pulled his hand closer instead of easing it away, would this cracked ice between them have melted? Would there be anything between them at all?

“I used to have a piano teacher,” Neil says, “who told me not to start playing until I was sure that I could get every note right.” He looks out into the darkness for just a moment, and then squarely at Andrew. “I would move my hands to the right places but I wouldn’t press down. Sometimes we would sit for twenty minutes like that.”

“So—what? You’re hoping I’ll give you sheet music?”

“I just—I don’t want to be afraid to play because some notes will be wrong, I just like the song. I just want—“ he cuts off again, taking a deep breath and adjusting his posture, almost like he’s preparing to sing. He gestures helplessly, and then his hand curls back up into a fist and his back bows. “I’m tired of wasting so much time.”

“You knew you were signing your time away when you joined Ausreißer.”

“Right,” Neil says ruefully. “So why does it feel like you’re trying to buy me time, and I’m not using it properly?”

Andrew’s insides turn over sympathetically. His body has understood something that he has not, yet.

“You’re delusional,” he says.

He puts his glass down on the porch slats at his feet, and the static in his head keeps turning up and up and up. He feels like he’s writing a song, and it’s all the way up to his mouth and it hurts, to keep it in.

“People have said the same thing about you,” Neil says.

Andrew nods. “The only delusion I’m entertaining is that your voice is worth the trouble it causes.”

“I’m not sure that I believe that, anymore,” Neil says softly.

“I didn’t ask,” Andrew says, and then he puts both hands on Neil’s jaw, and kisses him.

Finally, the deafening, deadening static turns into solid sound. The wind stops blowing, and Neil’s mouth hitches open beneath his, miraculous, like a door unsticking.

Neil has a history of standing in Andrew’s way, moving all of the furniture in his life an inch to the left. But somehow this is the simplest thing he’s ever done. It’s like he put down his drumsticks and went for the drums directly with his hands. He can feel the skin of them and hear their heartbeat and it’s beyond music and beyond pain.

Andrew can feel Neil moving, craning up into the hands on his face, and he holds onto him. He can’t think of anyone who’s moved him to such slowness before.

He usually likes kissing because it’s a fight where he has the upper hand, but this feels more like a truce. This is the refuge where an armistice happens. This is the kind of kiss that ends a war.

He slides a hand up into Neil’s hair. The ball of his tongue piercing clicks behind Andrew’s teeth, and he breathes, shuddering, into Neil’s mouth. His foot moves involuntarily, and he hears his whiskey knock over and splash across the deck. He feels a hand loop unsteadily into the sleeve of his sweater, and realization trickles down the back of his neck.

He forces himself to relax his hand at the base of Neil’s skull and pull away.

Neil bobs after him. Andrew looks closely at the brown hair blowing into his eyes, aware again of the dark, cresting sound of the air rushing through trees. His hand slips up and pushes Neil’s hair back from his face.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he says hoarsely.

“You said,” Neil starts, swallowing and closing his eyes briefly. “You said you wanted something you couldn’t have. But you can. I’m telling you you can have it.”

“I can’t have you. You’re too drunk to give me a real answer, and I’m not going to be that fucking person. I won’t be.”

Neil tilts his head, considering. “I would’ve said yes earlier, too.”

“That’s not how this works,” Andrew snaps.

“Then give me a few hours,” Neil says simply. “And we try this again.” Andrew doesn’t reply, and Neil leans close. Something about getting kissed has hooded his eyes and made him move slow, like he hasn’t quite acclimated to the air outside of Andrew’s mouth. “Last week you told me to choose trust. Can you do the same?”

“I don’t even trust you when you’re dead sober.”

He watches Neil tamp down a smile. “That stings a lot less now that you’ve kissed this mouth.”

“Doesn’t make it any less irritating.”

Neil snorts, standing up on wobbly legs and side-stepping the puddle from Andrew’s upended drink. He stops just before the door, his face soft. “Thanks,” he says, “for not being what people think of you. It’s been a long time since someone’s surprised me in a good way.”

Andrew’s stomach riots and swaps with his lungs. “Leave,” he says, urgently needing the space.

Neil does smile this time, a spasm of unchecked feeling, and then he taps gently on the doorway and slips through it.

Andrew slumps backwards in his seat, lips stinging. He can’t process the last five minutes all the way through without overheating and shutting down.

He’s used to all of his senses going dull for periods of time. He loses feeling like he used to lose time. The trees look browner and the alcohol burns softer. This time though, he’s feeling so much that it’s lurching ahead of the booze and the brewing storm on the air, and it’s all he can focus on.

Neil used to be easy, because he was impossible. He could do the equation ten different ways and still get the same wrong answer.

And now a whole variable has changed, and the answer is completely different.

Now the whole murky pool of his thoughts has been drained, and there’s a mosaic at the bottom, and it’s gleaming and solid under his feet.

He has to remind himself that the bottom of an empty pool is still a pit. The ladder is halfway up, and he’s stuck here.

He looks out into the whistling darkness, and rain starts to pitter on the overhanging porch roof, fighting down through the dense trees to the earth.

He’s been sitting in the storm for a long time when there’s a peel of laughter inside, and then a shriek as the power blinks and goes out.

He grips the arms of his chair tightly, and closes his eyes so he can hear better. The worst things always seem to come out of the dark. He’s tired of being taken by surprise tonight.

There’s a ruffle of footsteps inside, and then a smack when the door is opened too fast.

“Sorry,” Nicky hisses.

“What do you want?”

“Are you—can you—there’s a backup generator in the basement, and I’m—shut up Allison, I’m asking him—“

“Then go use it,” Andrew says.

“Could you?” Nicky asks. “Renee went to bed, Dan’s too drunk to read a manual, and the rest of us are spooked. You’re not afraid of anything, come on.”

He grits his teeth, suddenly resentful. He’s disoriented by the pounding rain and complete darkness, and so unsure of so many things that he’s almost shaking, but he stands up anyway.

“Yes!” Nicky cheers. “Yes, okay, thank god. I thought I was going to have to send Neil out here to convince you.”

Andrew pushes past him into the over-warm entryway.

He can hear a few Foxes nearby, moving shadows in the sparse moonlight. They go quiet around him, as usual. He can tell Neil isn’t with them because he would be rallying them out of their strangeness. He would be commandeering the situation for himself, pulling them all through whether they wanted to go or not.

“Why not send him down instead?”

“I dunno,” Nicky’s disembodied voice says. “I don’t know where he went. Plus I kind of get the feeling that he’s anti-basement. He can barely sit still downstairs at home.”

“He doesn’t trust a room with one exit,” Andrew says. “ He doesn’t like to be backed into a corner.”

“Well, like. Does anyone?”

Andrew pulls the heavy basement door open and pushes it towards Nicky.

“Hold this.”

Nicky drops his voice to say, “are you guys okay? Did he figure it out?”

Andrew doesn’t reply.

He steps down blindly onto the first step, and it creaks comfortingly beneath his foot. He feels his way to the bottom from there, hands on both bannisters, listening hard through the rain and wind for anything else disturbing the stillness.

There’s a little rectangular window across from the stairs, and the rain is tapping hard against it, trying to get in. A dollop of thunder smacks down on top of the cabin and drowns everything else out for a moment. Lightning follows, a white slash in the dark.

When he was a kid, he used to think of thunder as the incompetent villain giving himself away. Lightning was the hero, striking at the source of the noise with his flashing sword.

When he was a little older, he thought of lightning as the punishing blow when the thunder sobbed too loud.

A little older, and he didn’t think about it at all.

Another clumsy clap of thunder, and then the lights flood on around him.

Before his eyes can adjust, a voice says, “Andrew?”

He startles and turns in place, almost fishtailing in his haste to get to high ground.

It’s Neil though, of course, where none of them expected him, sitting on a couple of overturned crates next to the humming generator.

He squints at him in the light from the low-watt bulb swinging overhead. “Why are you down here?”

He looks sheepish. “I needed somewhere quiet to sober up.”

“You didn’t hear me coming down?”

“I didn’t know who you might be,” Neil says tightly. Andrew watches his face, a little ashen in the gloom. Being alone underground when the power was choked won’t have helped Neil’s anxiety any.

“You turned on the generator,” he says dumbly.

Neil shrugs. “I’ve lived in some dives, and I’ve seen a lot of shoddy electricity. Manual start-ups have kept me alive once or twice.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“Why are you so scared?”

“I was just thinking,” Neil says. He’s breathing erratically, and his hair looks tugged out of place, maybe still from where Andrew tucked it back from the wind. “You wrote… all those lyrics about me.”

“Some of them, not all.”

“Right,” Neil says flippantly. “When we were planning the album, do you know how long I had to sit with a thought before I got it down on paper? How long you have to want something to write down that you want it?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. The words don’t mean more because I scribbled them out to meet a deadline.”

“Stop lying,” Neil says.

“You can’t tell me to stop lying.”

“I like that you don’t lie,” Neil says. “I think, if I’d gotten to have another life, I would’ve hated lying too.”

“You must still be drunk.”

“I’m completely fucking sober,” Neil snaps. “And I think you are too. Am I wrong?”

“Usually.”

“Am I?” Neil asks again.

“I spilled half of my only drink on the porch, what do you think?”

He bites his lip nervously. “I think this is more dangerous than I realized.”

“Fine,” Andrew says, heart sinking. “We can bury it.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Neil says. “Tell me you’ll stop writing about me.” He’s oddly focused on this. He’s convinced himself that music and feelings are the same, and you can’t have one without the other. Like if Andrew burns his lyrics, he burns the meaning out of them. As if he wouldn’t have tried that already.

“This is irrelevant.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“I’ll stop,” he says, watching Neil’s shoulders relax.

“Okay,” Neil breathes. “Okay. Then I think—I still want this.”

Andrew steps closer, hair standing on end. Neil drifts up to meet him, and one of his crates clatters to the floor. “Yes or no?”

“I just said—“

“I don’t care what you said unless it was a yes or a no.”

Neil’s mouth quirks just slightly, dented from neutral into something else entirely. “Yes.”

Andrew takes him by the wrists.

He walks Neil backwards until he makes contact with the wall just below the window. Lightning splits his face. Andrew kisses him to seal him back together. He lifts both of Neil’s hands and holds them just over his head, hard.

“Don’t touch,” he says against his lips. He slides his hands down Neil’s chest to his hips and gathers him close. “Still yes?”

“Yes,” Neil says breathlessly. Andrew presses in again, hands full of him, fingertips sliding over the skin below the hem of Neil’s shirt. He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and Neil gasps for air like he does between measures of music.

There’s no drink to knock over this time, but he still feels like something’s upended.

A minute, and he can tell that Neil’s arms are sagging from the strain of holding them above his own head. When Andrew looks up to check, he’s gripping the windowsill with both hands. His fingers are slippery from the water seeping through, and Andrew can’t stop staring.

It’s uncanny, the sounds and the heat and the bunched muscles. It can’t be possible that the fantasy can disperse into reality and make things true. Nothing ever happens that way.

It’s almost terrible, to know that the longing was always a sliding door away from this: Neil relaxing under his hands, Neil ducking his head and dragging kisses down his neck.

His hands fly to his hair to yank him back a little, and Neil stares at him from under his lashes, swept away in it, head tilted back exactly where Andrew wants it.

“Andrew?” Nicky calls, from above. “D’you get lost down there?”

He loosens his grip and tries to swallow. “No,” he says, just loud enough to be heard. The last thing he needs is for Nicky to see them and decide he needs to play mediator.

He steps back, and Neil’s hands melt off the window and back down to his sides. He wipes the rainwater off on his shirt, dragging it back into place as he does so.

Andrew takes another step back, then another.

He makes himself turn and walk up the stairs away from this new agreement that they’ve made. He can’t get away from the memory of Neil’s face when the lights came on though, the hours he spent in the dark trying to convince himself that love songs don’t mean anything at all.

______

The morning is cool and green, but the torrential downpour of last night has broken like a fever. Andrew has the attic bedroom, in the crook of the roof where no one can be bothered to pull the ladder down and follow him up.

Last night he let Neil climb into his notebook, take out his ideas, and try them on. He’d tasted his whiskey mouth and then his ginger ale and peppermint one, he’d fisted his colour-damaged hair and watched him consciously hang his composure up like an overcoat to let himself be touched.

Andrew had skulked up to his room, trying first to be asleep and then to be awake, and finding that they were both non-starters. He’d relived Neil’s tongue piercing flat to his adam’s apple until he gave up, jerked off, and passed out just as the sun was coming up.

Now, he crawls out the window and onto the slope of the roof, feet poking out from sweatpants, hoodie zipped up over his bare chest. He lights a cigarette, half surprised when it manages to catch fire with all the moisture in the air.

His toes curl against the grey slats just above the eavestrough. It’s amazing how wired he feels, right on the cusp of falling. The only ways out are the acrobatic climb back to the window or the leap to the ground below. The wet pavement taunts that it’s closer than it is. Gravity, missing the ceaseless power of its rainstorm, tries to nudge him over and pour him down too.

It’s late morning when the door below him shudders open and Aaron’s blond bedhead appears beyond the crest of the roof. He wanders out towards the car, and Andrew flicks his cigarette so it bounces off the windshield.

Aaron barely startles. He sighs and turns around, shielding his eyes to look up at him.

“Where are you going?” Andrew asks.

“It’s none of your business.”

“It’s my car.”

Aaron crosses his arms. “Only technically,” he sniffs. Then, “I’m gonna go to the lake. It’s supposed to be why we’re here.”

“Supposed to be,” Andrew repeats, fishing for whatever’s just behind those words.

Aaron rocks back against the van, face level with the side mirror. “I know you’re only here because Neil asked you to be. I don’t understand why you keep listening to him.”

“I know you’re not going to the lake,” Andrew counters. “You’re going to find somewhere with reception to talk to your girlfriend.”

Aaron looks crestfallen. “You don’t have to talk about her like she’s a filthy bad habit.”

Andrew thinks maybe that’s the only way he understands romance.

“You don’t have to treat her like one,” Andrew says. “By sneaking out and stealing my keys.”

“Yeah right,” Aaron says loudly. “You didn’t give me much of a choice.”

“A choice is exactly what I gave you.”

“An ultimatum,” Aaron corrects. “Don’t make me return the favour.”

Andrew rolls his eyes.

“I’m serious,” Aaron says, gesturing, agitated. “We all heard those things you wrote.”

“And you think you understand them.”

“Of course I fucking do, Andrew, I’ve loved people too.”

He sits with that for a moment, trying to swallow around the implications of it and finding that his mouth is bone dry.

“I’m gonna go, and you’re gonna let me,” Aaron tells him. He manually unlocks the driver’s side door and pops it open. “And you’re going to be careful with Neil. He’s still the guy who provokes people to violence every time he opens his mouth, and you don’t need that.”

Andrew knows all this, so he still doesn’t reply. Eventually Aaron gets in the car and shuts the door behind him with a sound like bubblegum popping.

He hates talking to Aaron like this, when they circle each other and go through the motions of the same fight over and over. Jab. Jab. Dodge. Hair pull, exactly where it hurts. Right hook that never lands.

Yesterday was the first time that they’d spoken about something other than the Spears lawsuit, or Tilda, or the Katelyn-shaped knot in their relationship. It’s uncanny, the way Aaron talks about music like he used to talk about medical school. His passion completely relocated when he realized that he could save someone’s life without having to prove how smart he was.

Sometimes there are soft sounds at Andrew’s door at night, and he can tell that Aaron is sitting outside, keeping watch. He’s never caught him at it, but he knows the shape of his brother’s shadow.

Twenty minutes later, Dan and Matt come out of the cabin, talking cheerfully about their plans for a quick and dirty 1 pm breakfast before they hike to the nearest falls. He can tell from a distance that they’re hyper casual, Dan in Matt’s sweatshirt, her short hair in a tiny little ponytail. Matt’s wearing sandals, and the gel from last night is loose in his hair.

They wonder about nearby restaurants and what footwear is best for the rain-soaked forests. They find the van missing and they wonder about that too.

It’s so simple that he thinks for a second that he might like to hear what Neil wonders about, and then he thinks of what Aaron said before. I’ve loved people too. He feels very stupid all of the sudden. He’s realized something much, much too late.

“Oh, Andrew, jesus,” Dan says, clutching her chest. “I didn’t see you.”

“What the hell?” Matt says. “You look like a fucking bird of prey perched up there like that.”

“I’m smoking.”

“Crack?” Dan says. “I don’t know why else you’d be on the steepest, slipperiest roof I’ve ever seen in my life.”

He shrugs.

“Don’t stay up there all day, okay,” she says. “Kevin’s moaning about his hangover, and Neil’s being super weird.”

“Not my problem.”

“I guess,” Matt says, packing their bags into his car. “But they’re like, your pets. I don’t know how to get them to stop whining.”

“I think Renee made coffee,” Dan says innocently. “If you want any. It’s that expensive honey almond shit.”

Andrew doesn’t reply, and she rolls her eyes and climbs into the passenger’s seat.

“Also, we’re having a fire tonight, and you’re obligated by law to come sit through it,” Matt tells him, not giving him a chance to refuse before he follows her inside.

He watches their car back out, trying to fathom how Neil could act any weirder than he already does.

Spreading out onto his back, he thinks about detaching himself from every miniature drama playing out in the strangeness of the cabin, and pursuing this thing with Neil until it runs dry.

He rolls onto his knees, ignoring the pang of fear that it sets off, and pulls himself up to the windowsill.

Only when he gets one dewey foot down onto the bare wood does he realize that Neil’s there, again, sitting in his unmade bed.

“You’re starting to infringe on my space,” Andrew tells him, swinging his other leg over the sill.

“Sorry,” Neil says, obviously unrepentant. “I kind of don’t know what to do with myself.”

“We’re at a cabin. Go to the lake.”

“I’m not a fan of the water,” Neil says, but he’s starting to smile a little, as Andrew gets closer, this stupid, coy little thing.

Andrew lifts Neil’s face up by the jaw. “You don’t like water and you brought us to an 8000 acre lake in the middle of a thunderstorm?”

“I like seclusion,” he shrugs.

“You like being unfindable,” Andrew says. “You found the darkest corner in the basement of a cabin in the woods to sulk in.”

“You’re the one who was huddled out on the rooftop.”

“Some people,” he says, “were getting on my nerves.”

“I could get on them again,” Neil says cheekily, and his smile widens when Andrew��s face drifts down towards his.

“Still yes?”

“Uh-huh,” Neil says, eyes already closing. Andrew watches the waiting-to-be-kissed look on his face for a beat, savouring it.

He pecks his lips, watching his eyelids flutter through the contact. He kisses him again, for longer, and lowers them both into the mess of blankets. He feels like he has arms full of sunken treasure, like he’s easing to the ocean floor with it all, rich and doomed.

He fixes Neil’s hands above his head again, and they curl automatically in the pillows.

“I didn’t come up here expecting this,” Neil tries to say. Andrew can’t stop staring at the way he looks beneath him, hair feathered out on the dark green sheets, loose shirt, scarred clavicle, glinting piercings, slim waist.

Andrew clicks his tongue reprovingly. “Liar,” he says. He thumbs Neil’s chest, putting his hands all over the span of his ribcage.

Neil looks embarrassed and amused at once. “I’m just trying to take advantage of our free time.”

Andrew accepts this, suddenly conscious of how little time they might have on this weird, close-quarters vacation. This surreal space that they keep returning to, where Neil wants to be kissed by him, can’t possibly be sustainable.

He brushes his mouth over Neil’s ear, and his neck, and gets pulled down into his gravity, past his event horizon, feeling wretched intrigue and death close around him at the same time, feeling a joy so hot that it is also agony, and kissing him, through it all.

He sweeps his tongue over a laser-thin scar, and Neil takes in a fast, hitching breath. His hands stay fixed in the pillowcase, even when they’ve been making out for a long time, and Andrew pulls his legs up around his hips. He doesn’t try to touch him, but he latches on when Andrew drags his hands down and puts them in his hair.

When he remembers to open his eyes, his vision seems vague and secondary. He’s so caught up in the heat of Neil’s mouth, and the thumbs slipping down behind his ears.

It’s hard to believe that they’re in the same still, chilly room that he woke up in. It’s hard to believe that the wicked thief’s smile at the back of a concert venue all those months ago is something he’s tasted now.

“Neil?” someone calls from below them. Andrew pulls back, and the humming noise that Neil was making into his mouth sort of pops open. “Hey, Neil? Are you around?” It’s Renee’s voice, he can tell now, more tentative than usual. “Nicky’s trying to rope us into playing Rock Band. Do you want to come be on our team?”

“No,” Neil says quietly, to Andrew. Then, consideringly, “Rock Band?”

Andrew sits back on his heels, and Neil’s hands drop from his neck. “Video game.”

“Andrew?” Renee wonders through the floorboards. “Is he up there with you?”

Below him, Neil shakes his head.

“Yes.” He looks down at Neil’s perturbed expression. “He’ll play.”

“Great,” she chirps, “You’re welcome to join us too, if you want.” There’s a short pause as she waits for a response, and then her footsteps fade down the hallway.

Neil sits up so they’re face to face, and Andrew has to grip his shoulders to stay upright. “I don’t want to play. I’m in a rock band.”

“Consider it practice.” He climbs backwards off of his lap and out of bed, feeling too warm and worked up.

Neil recognizes that he’s being dismissed, and takes it in stride. He gets up off the bed and makes for the hatch down to the main floor. “Can I be the drummer?”

“If you want to lose.”

“I want to know what it feels like to set the pace.”

He scans Neil’s face, and determines that he doesn’t know how flirtatious he sounds, actually, at all.

“No one is stopping you.”

Neil smiles over his shoulder, a flash of teeth before he starts climbing down the stairs, and Andrew thinks maybe he’s underestimated him again.

______

He should be taking Neil to the lake. It’s where the others are gathered, somewhere along the sandbars that border miles upon miles of fresh water. The feedback loop of lake, rivers, and falls means that everything’s always moving, at least a little. Neil should be there.

Only he doesn't like water. He remembers an argument they had, what feels like a lifetime ago, when Neil had said that Andrew “didn’t know what drowning felt like”, and he wonders how literally he meant it.

It’s sinking into the ripest part of evening now, the showing up with wine part of the party before the stumbling out onto the grass with your shoes in your hand part. They’ll all be sharing drinks around the fire by now, playing tinny music without any bass, and rallying around the betting pool that they think he doesn’t know about.

Andrew and Neil don’t make it past the driveway before Andrew grabs Neil’s hand from the gearshift and urges him to park.

“We’re not going to their fire.”

“We’re not,” Neil says haltingly.

“No,” Andrew says. “We’re hungry.”

“We are,” Neil echoes, amused now.

“And they are overly invested in what we do.”

Neil’s hand slips through Andrew’s grasp so he can shift back into reverse. “There’s a we?”

“Only in the grammatical sense,” Andrew says, trying to flatten the colour out of his voice. He used to snap his fingers and turn hope into resentment. He used to have a dentist-grade numbing agent welling up in him always, but he’s starting to feel pins and needles in his lips.

Neil maneuvers deftly out of the winding driveway and onto the main drag. “So where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” Andrew says. He wants to laugh. “Forward.”

______

They drive aimlessly for a while. Neil tries tactlessly to question him about his and Aaron’s relationship, deflecting slightly more gracefully when Andrew tells him about Betsy and her occasional house-calls. It’s interesting, watching Neil do this waltz around things he wants Andrew to talk about and things he doesn’t want to say himself.

He watches his face streak with colour and thought from the buttery darkness of the passenger seat. Sometimes his eyes are on the road but sometimes they’re fully on Andrew, and his mouth is parted even when he’s not speaking. Andrew answers questions when he’s asked, then tries to remember the last time he did that.

They share a joint, rolling the windows partway down so the smoke is spirited away on the breeze. Neil gets so talkative when he’s buzzed. He tells Andrew innocuous stories from his life before, of thieving and pursuit, the tragedies that could almost be comedies, if you tell them right.

Eventually, they end up at this upscale Italian place, with a fully stocked bar and the option between high-walled booths or breakable looking tables and chairs. Andrew’s already stolen breadsticks from someone’s table before the maitre’d can greet them, and he doesn’t even try to hide it. He takes a bite of one, dusty with bread flour and hot from the oven, and Neil’s mouth twitches as he follows him.

The staff have started to take notice, and Neil walks backwards to address them, his face going elastic and non-threatening. “We’re just meeting friends. They should be back here somewhere,” he says. He winks at Andrew, and a second later, impossibly, he stumbles over a bar-stool and knocks over a full shaker that’s just been set on the counter. Ice and booze go sprawling.

“Oh, shit, I’m so sorry,” he says, leaning over and into the mess, grabbing napkins and getting grabbed by the bartender’s panicked hands.

Andrew slips in behind them like he’s overseeing the clean-up, and while he’s there he swipes the tequila that was just taken off the wall for the spilled cocktail. He puts it under his shirt while he’s still craned over, and Neil’s tilts his head at him from over the bartender’s head, his humiliated expression turning ironic.

“Sorry again, man,” Neil says, backing off, hands up.

“Whatever,” the bartender says, chucking ice into the sink so aggressively that some of it bounces back out again.

Neil ushers Andrew to keep moving through the restaurant. “We’ll leave you to it,” Neil calls, and then makes a beeline for the far end of the room. Andrew spots the bathroom sign and jogs after him, tequila bouncing under his shirt, cold and obvious if anyone could see him past the erratic figure Neil’s cutting.

“After you,” Neil says quietly, and Andrew slips past him. It’s an empty little two-stall with black faux-marble walls and a trough-style sink that Neil rolls his eyes at. He leans over and locks the door behind them. “You spill any?”

Andrew produces the tequila, intact. Neil watches the motion with interest. “Good.”

Andrew unscrews the bottle pourer from the top and drops it in the sink. “Couldn’t get to anything else. I didn’t know how long you could sustain such a bad ruse.”

Neil can’t seem to help smiling as he digs a salt shaker out of his front jeans pocket. “Not that bad, I guess.”

“What, no lime?”

“I can’t make it that easy for you.”

“Come here,” Andrew says. Neil does, instantly, looking flushed high on his cheekbones from their spur of the moment heist.

Andrew takes the shaker, licks the outside of his thumb, and pours a stripe of salt up to his wrist. He fights off a shiver as he watches Neil go through the same motions.

They hold the bottle between their chests, Neil’s hand slipping down to the base, their wet fingers catching together.

“How sober are you?” he demands.

“I’m fine,” Neil says. “It was half a joint.”

He checks his eyes, his steady hands. “Yes or no?”

Neil tilts his head. “Yes. Why?”

Andrew takes the first sip, salt then tequila, and Neil follows right after, trying to time it like a shot. As soon as he’s grimaced through a swallow, Andrew kisses him all the way into the mirror. They sway and overcorrect with the movement, clattering into a paper towel dispenser. Still, Andrew can feel his own brow furrowing with how good it is, better every time.

He presses him back over the sink, fingers laced up in his belt loops, then his shirt, then his hair. He wants him so badly that it’s getting in the way of having him. It’s debilitating, the thought that he might glut himself on this feeling and never taste a thing.

Neil’s still holding the bottle between them, and it reminds Andrew to pull back and take another swig, to lose himself in something else instead. Neil’s head thunks back against the mirror.

“Okay,” he breathes.

“Better chase than tap water,” Andrew says hoarsely.

“Uh-huh,” Neil says.

They share half a bottle like this, drinking deep then kissing deep, getting hands under each other’s collars, steaming up the mirror. A couple of times, the door handle rattles until whoever’s outside gives up and retreats.

Eventually, Neil breaks away, sort of shaky. “What are we doing?” he breathes. Their foreheads are pressed together, and his breath ghosts over Andrew’s cheek.

There’s a sharp knock on the door before either of them can say anything else.

“Um, sirs? Only paying customers are allowed to use the restroom.”

They look steadily at each other, strange and sober in the face of crisis, rumpled and spilled on and warm from each other’s bodies.

“I’m the only one in here,” Neil tries to say. “And I’m meeting a friend outside.”

“I… don’t think that’s true,” says the voice. They sound young, probably an underpaid server sent to collect them. “The host said she saw two of you come in here.”

Andrew gestures for the window at the far end of the room, and Neil smiles slowly.

“Alright, fine, we’ll get a table, if you insist,” Neil says, half laughing at himself, at the entire absurdity of the situation. Andrew crouches on one knee, arranging himself into a stepping stool.

“It’s uh. A little late for that.”

“Sure, of course,” Neil says, climbing up on Andrew’s thigh and reaching up to fiddle with the window latch. Andrew holds his ankles to steady him. The window stays stubbornly fixed. “Give us a moment.”

Another voice says, “Any longer and we’ll be forced to contact the authorities.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” Andrew says.

“Yeah, let’s not—“ Neil cracks up again, and his face falls to his forearm, briefly. Andrew’s never seen him like this, so relaxed and stupid. Andrew flicks him in the calf, and Neil redoubles his efforts, cranking the lock in either direction before it finally wiggles loose, and he can wind it all the way open.

“Okay, okay,” he mutters, hoisting himself up. Andrew stands as soon as he’s got a grip, and boosts him by the legs.

“We’re going to have to come in, boys,” the second voice says.

“You probably don’t want to do that,” Neil says, voice tight with the effort of squeezing outside. He reaches for Andrew’s hand and pulls. His feet scrabble against the slippery tiled wall. He decides that the tequila is dead weight and drops it on the floor. The bottle shatters and becomes a trap between them and the door just as a key scrapes in the lock.

Andrew manages to get his chest out onto the grass when the door opens and a swell of commotion is let inside. Neil drags him fiercely by both arms, and the rest of him pops through before they can get anywhere near him. Neil gets an arm around him, and they stumble upright as shouts start to echo out of the bathroom and into the chirping night.

“Run,” Neil hisses, and they let go of each other so that they can go running out into the parking lot. They’re both breathing hard, shoulder to shoulder, parting and converging around parked cars. They pass their own van and keep running, beyond the entire lot, out towards the woods that tuck in around all of the buildings and restaurants like the comforter beneath a child’s lego city.

Eventually, Neil’s speed outstrips Andrew’s, and he disappears between the branches. Andrew decides that there’s no imminent danger, and he slows to a jog.

“We didn’t even get to eat,” Neil’s voice pants. He’s somewhere ahead of him, just out of reach.

Andrew searches for him in the low light. “So we’ll go somewhere else.”

He finally makes out Neil’s silhouette, draped against a broad tree. He walks towards him, magnetized as always. “How do you know they haven’t put an APB out by now?”

“It wasn’t a very high stakes crime,” Andrew says slowly, like he’s bored. He isn’t.

“Mm. Maybe we should try harder.”

“Adrenaline junkie,” Andrew accuses. “How can you spend a life in hiding when you’re obsessed with being noticed?”

“I don’t think I was obsessed with being noticed before I met you,” Neil says. Andrew can’t really see him, but he’s speaking like the first warmth you feel in the cold water from the tap.

Andrew’s shoulders stiffen. “Don’t say that.”

“Okay,” Neil agrees easily. “I won’t.”

“I’m not your reason,” he says clearly. “You’re not mine.”

Neil eyes him, vague, through the trees. “Don’t worry. I know where we stand.”

Andrew wants to ask, really? He has no idea where they stand or why they’re standing together or how it’s possible that they’re standing at all when Andrew wants him like this, like a virus wants a host. He wants him even in the middle of a lie, wants to look up and see him draped out of a window, both hands outstretched.

“I wouldn’t have started this with you if I thought it would make things harder,” Neil says, ducking under a branch.

Good. That would be good, and straight-forward, if it were at all true, and if either of them felt it even a little bit.

He follows him through a sheet of budding leaves and into the kind of dry patch where fires start. “All you do is make things harder.”

There’s a silence, and then he says, “I used to hear that all the time, when I was younger.” His voice is so soft, almost transparent, in the dark.

Andrew’s stomach crumples up. “Yeah. Me too.” He leans against a neighbouring tree, and pulls out two cigarettes. “You can’t manipulate stone. And that frustrated them.” He puts them both in his mouth and lights them at once, then passes one to Neil. He doesn’t bother to explain himself.

Neil accepts it. “You weren’t always—stone, though, right?”

He shrugs. “I never did what people told me to without a good reason. You should understand that.”

Neil inhales deep, and shakes his head. He exhales, and Andrew can taste the tobacco even without taking a drag of his own. “I was plenty manipulated.”

“Your mother?” he wonders aloud.

Neil opens his mouth and closes it again. He takes another drag, and smoke comes pouring out when he finally says: “My father.”

“He’s the one you ran away from,” Andrew guesses. He’d said it with such dread that it’s not really much of a guess.

“He’s the one.” Neil’s eyes don’t seem to be looking at anything at all. “It’s terrible,” he starts, hushed, “but if he were here now, I know I’d do anything he asked.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Andrew says, smoking viciously. “I would kill him first.”

Neil smiles, generous and disbelieving. “He’s not an easy man to kill.”

“Someone managed it,” he says, shrugging.

Neil’s smile melts smaller and smaller, until it is memory only, the wet smear left behind from a snowflake. “I’m named after him.”

“Abram?”

“Nathan,” Neil says, and it’s as if he spoke it into a meat grinder, and it came out raw and crumbled. Even more quietly, he whispers, “Nathaniel.”

“Neil,” Andrew says, just to replace the sound of it in the air. “He might have had control over Nathaniel, but he can’t get his hands on Neil.”

“No,” he says, seeming strangely unconvinced. His eyes find Andrew’s properly. “I guess he can’t.”

They end up winding around the whole lot to get back to the car. The night is thick and navy now, and they wear it like a cape and mask, hiding from everyone including each other. Their last conversation sticks in his chest. He can’t shake the feeling of it.

They stay silent all the way to the van, but then Neil puts his feet up on the dashboard, slouching low in the seat, still holding the tiny butt of his cigarette. He blows smoke up into Andrew’s face, and Andrew tweaks it out of his hand.

“Do we go back, now?” Neil asks.

Andrew tries to look out the window, but the foggy interior light is making it so much easier to look at Neil, a low-res sepia dream. “Eventually,” he says.

“I’m still starving,” Neil tells him.

“Good.” Andrew revs the engine. “What do you want to steal next?”

#perhaps I had too much fun with them and should calm down #aftg #the foxhole court #andreil #rockband au #tfc fanfic #long post #mine #drugs tw #alcohol tw #this is the happiest they're gonna get lmao #also consent is painstakingly asked for but inebriation complicates things #so absolutely feel free to peace out if drunk/stoned smooches bother you

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shutupandshipit · 4 years

Text

Magic in the Blood - Ch.3

Summary: “You used magic on me,” Neil said, mildly accusing. He opened his eyes, staring into the glowing honey gold of Andrew’s eyes.

“Don’t I always?”

Instead of answering, Neil asked, “Yes or no?” because his hands were aching to run along Andrew’s skin, up his toned thighs, to tug him down over him. …..

Or where everything is the same, but magic exists. The school year is over, there’s no more practices until mid-summer and for the first time, Neil can spend his time the way he wants. Without suppressants muddling his system and Andrew sober, they’ve got magical and logistical issues to work through.

And then there’s the new Foxes when they show which is a whole other magical nightmare of itself.

Pairing: Andreil

Rating: T

Previous <- Chapter 2

Chapter 4 -> Next

Chapter 3: Taconic State Park, New York Part 1

Neil:

“Where are we going?” Andrew asked, reaching for the radio and adjusting the volume so Neil wouldn't have to shout over the music.

Neil and Andrew hadn't made any plans before they'd left Fox Tower that afternoon, leaving Kevin, Nicky and Aaron to their empty rooms waiting to be picked up by Abby. The Upperclassmen had been smart enough to book it out of the dorms as soon as they had the chance, and they'd followed their leads. They left without saying anything to the others, simply throwing their belongings into the Maserati and leaving. They didn't need to be back for another two weeks when Aaron's trial started, and Andrew's protection was no longer needed with Riko dead.

Even now, hours later, Neil's phone was still vibrating insistently with Nicky's texts. 'Where did you guys go?' 'Where are you going?' 'You can't ignore me forever'. 'Whatever. Have fun, nerds <3'. 'Don't do anything I wouldn't do :P'.

Reaching into the door side pocket, he finally turned off his phone. He'd talk to Nicky later. Maybe.

“We're going camping,” Neil said simply, rummaging through the glove compartment for the map of the East Coast and brochure he'd picked up. He'd made the decision when they'd stopped just after the house in Columbia, talking to the woman at the register and then Matt about places in New York. He turned the brochure towards Andrew.

Andrew glanced at the picture and quickly away, changing lanes before looking back. “Where is that and why there?”

“New York. Matt's mom wanted to meet us, so this is going to be two birds with one stone.” He shoved the map and brochure back in the glove compartment. “Don't make that face. Matt all but begged me. This will be a road trip. The place is called Taconic State Park. It looks cool, and there's not going to be a lot of people there so we'll be able to let our magic do what it needs to. Also, it says there's a waterfall. Matt pretty much made it a requirement for us to go.”

“And when did you start listening to what Matt says?” Andrew asked, schooling his face from the mild look of disgust back to his usual blankness. “You don't know how to lay low, do you? This is exactly how you got caught last time.”

“I got caught because some murderous psychopath outed me,” Neil corrected, rolling his eyes.

Andrew cut him a sidelong look. “No, you got caught because you decided to mouth off to a murderous psychopath and make him look incompetent multiple times who then decided to out you.”

“I would never,” he said, mock seriously.

“I have video evidence.”

“Lies.”

Banter with Andrew was easy, the easiest part about being with Andrew if he were to be honest. Unlike when they were intimate and they're magics intertwined as if fighting, they tangled and settled between them in a comfortable jumble instead. When they bantered, they didn't need to worry about how their magic was interacting, if their magical union would become toxic or burn out in their emotions or knock out a cell tower.

“I wouldn't lie to you.” There was a lilt of mirth to Andrew's voice, but underneath, there was also the tang of seriousness.

Sobering, Neil smiled over at him and held out his hand. “I know that.”

Glancing over, Andrew took Neil's hand without comment, threading their fingers together as lightning sparked between their palms.

Neil was unreasonably happy as he tried to school his expression. “We're going to have to stop for water and food.”

“Oh, so you weren't planning on hunting and scavenging for food? What's the point of camping then? Do you have any of this planned out at all?”

“Some of it that I've figured out since the gas station.” Neil shrugged. “Mostly, I'm hoping for us to get lost and dies out in the woods. It'd make what's left of my father's syndicate happy.”

“They'll have to try harder than that if they think I'll let you die by accident.”

Andrew:

Before knowing where they were going anywhere in particular, the first stop the pair had made had been at the house in Columbia. Perhaps due to some feral instinct, Neil had spent the time collecting blankets and other useful items for life on the run, shoving them into the trunk without much thought.

Andrew left him to his hording, disappearing into the how to collect the few pre-made sachets he had and jars of honey and animal blood he had in his closet. He'd shoved them into a small bag he had, packing sweaters and shirts around the fragile glass. They'd met back down at the car, climbing in without discussion.

They stopped again nearly eight hours later at a twenty-four hour all sale store and bought a small tent, sleeping bags, chairs and enough non-perishables and water to last them several days. When they climbed back into the car, Neil behind the wheel, it was nearly midnight.

They'd been up for more than eighteen hours, and they sat in exhausted silence for several long moments. The want to finally get to where they were going and the need for sleep hung unspoken between them.

“I'm tired,” Neil finally admitted, “And even if we get there, I don't think the registration office will be open.”

Andrew hummed, but didn't say anything, his eyes itchy with fatigue. While the silent need to finish the drive sat heavy in his chest, he also knew there was no need to continue on. They were on summer break. There was no reason to rush anywhere.

Of course, there were spells they could cast to combat exhaustion and caffeine just a drive-thru away, but neither of them had the energy or ingredients for a spell, and caffeine did strange things to their magic when they were so tired. Caffeine made their magic unreliable and uncooperative, made it more like to explode at inopportune times.

“Hotel,” Andrew decided.

“Thank god,” Neil whispered.

They found a cheap motel ten minutes up the road, and fell into the queen sized bed as soon as the door was locked and bolted behind them. Neil toed off his shoes while face down in a pillow, groaning all the while, before curling into the smallest ball possible against Andrew's back. He pressed his forehead to the space between Andrew's shoulder blades and fell asleep. Within a moment, his breath had evened out and his magic filtered through the air.

Andrew lay there for longer, listening to Neil's breathing. Rain began to patter softly against the roof. His magic reacted to Neil's sleep accordingly, snaking out gently from his body to wrap protectively around Neil and cocooning them in a bubble of protection. The sachet in his pocket warmed, adding strength to the walls he so easily built.

He slipped into sleep with the warmth of his own magic and the sounds of Neil and his rain surrounding him.

…..

Andrew woke in the early morning to Neil rolling away from him and pushing into the bathroom. He turned onto his back to stare at the ceiling and listen to Neil puke his guts out. The shower roared to life before Andrew followed him into the bathroom.

“You can come in,” Neil said as the door opened, “I didn't mean to wake you up.”

Closing and locking the door behind him, Andrew pulled off his clothes one piece at a time. He hesitated with his briefs before slipping them off. Normally, he wouldn't get naked even with Neil, but it was early in the morning and he could feel the lag in Neil's magic. He was craving skin to skin contact, and he had to wonder if Nicky was behind that. It wouldn't be the first time he'd cast on Andrew, on accident and just to see if it would work if he did, but it would be the first time Andrew hadn't felt the spell hit.

“Magic in the area?” he asked even though he knew that wasn't the answer, stepping under the spray where Neil stood with his head bowed.

Neil's breath came quickly, and he swallowed harshly. His voice was thick as if he were trying not to vomit again as he said, “Someone tried to cast on me. Tasted like tracking. God, I feel nauseous.”

Andrew's protection magic had at least done its job, but he thought they'd managed this part of someone casting on Neil. His spells must have been fading. “Yes or no?” he asked, sliding his fingers together to prep his magic.

“I don't want you to take this. It feels... wrong. Different than usual.”

Andrew stood a hair's breadth away, waiting as Neil leaned forward with a hand on the wall and wretched. “They're probably using someone stronger or a different spell.”

Bile splattered against the tub floor. Neil nearly whined as he said, “They're trying again. Where did they get so much of my hair?”

“Probably Fox Tower. Or the court. They might be using your blood.”

He heaved again. “Fuck 'em.”

“Neil-”

“Yes. It's a yes.”

Andrew pressed his parted lips to the back of Neil's bowed neck, licking at the knob at the top of his spin and biting down. Acrid smoke filled his mouth as he inhaled Neil's tainted magic, and exhaled clean magic back into him. Without the help of his conduits and herbs, the process took longer than normal, hurt more, tasted worse. While he worked, he drew invisible sigils across Neil's back, pressing them into his skin with just the warmth of his palm before moving on.

When he finally pulled back, a bruise was forming on the back of Neil's neck in the arc of his teeth and the vaguest impressions of his sigils lightened Neil's skin. “This is temporary. I need to refresh your spells.” His mouth tasted like ash, and he spit at the floor several times.

Neil turned to face him, looking tired and rung out. His magic barely flickered in the air around him, grey and dull. “I can take care of myself. You don't-”

“I'm going to anyway,” Andrew cut in before he could finish his sentence. The last time he'd fully revoked his protective spells on Neil, he'd gotten kidnapped almost immediately by his father's people and come back looking like someone had used him as an ashtray. He wasn't about to let that happen again.

“I'd kiss you if I hadn't just puked.”

“Brush your teeth while I get my bag, and we'll talk about it.” Andrew shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist and heading to get his bag.

Neil followed more slowly after him, towels wrapped tightly around his waist and shoulders, to rummage through his bag. He stood at the sink, scrubbing roughly at his teeth and tongue.

Andrew watched him closely from the bathroom as he sat on the edge of the bath and set out his supplies. He pulled out the small mortar and pestle that Nicky had jokingly gifted him after learning who his deities were, but he used it more than he liked to admit. He used it quite often actually.

Small, but heavy, the set was carved from black stone intermixed with glaringly white fossils. The inside was stained rust brown from constant use, and he only considered it for a moment before tapping in dried mint, rosemary, sunflower and salt. Over the herbs, he poured a small splatter of the blood that had been enchanted to remain fresh before grinding it all together into a fine paste.

He'd been told over and over throughout the years that he practiced his magic wrong, but the first thing he'd learned once Higgins had found him was that his magic was highly subject to his own thoughts and whims. For him, it helped to include as object that was close to him and something that reminded him of the subject of his magic.

When Higgins still mattered -because he had at one point no matter how Andrew felt about him now- he'd taught Andrew that magic was personal, that there was no right or wrong way to do it. Where Exy was structure and rigid, witchcraft was loose and up for interpretation. Due to his lack of control though, Higgins had suggest a deity to follow, Apollo to be exact.

Andrew had scoffed. What use would he have had for a god that wasn't there to help anyway? What use did he have for magic that didn't work anyway? The only person he could rely on was himself, and he wasn't going to put his time and energy towards an absent god.

Only once he was in Juvie and had met Aaron with all his bruises and down turned eyes that he considered the possibility. Deities, whether that be God from a magicless religion or a God(dess) from a pagan religion, were supposed to focus the worshiper's magic and make it easier to manipulate into the needed shape. A deity wasn't a requirement for practicing, but Andrew had needed to focus if he was going to help his brother.

Andrew studied under Apollo for months before realizing he was in dire need of feminine energy in his craft.

Sekhmet found him sitting on the curb outside a convenience store in the form of a black cat with piecing golden eyes and an emerald collar. The cat had rubbed her head along his arm and back before taking a seat next to him. She's dropped a piece of paper in his lap, looking please. The paper had been from a textbook, an image of Sekhmet staring up at him.

Mistress of Dread.

Lady of Slaughter.

He'd looked over at the cat, scratching behind her ear. “Thanks.”

With a blink, she'd gotten up and disappeared over the hood of a car.

“Andrew?”

Blinking back to himself, Andrew scooted over and said, “Sit. Back to me.”

Neil sat as he was instructed, dropping the top towel and shivering as the cool air pressed against his skin. Overhead, there was the weak patter of rain beginning again, softer than earlier that night.

“Sit still,” Andrew warned before dipping his fingers into the blood mixture. He retraced the sigils he'd already written. Track blocker. Hex dispeller. Barrier. The blood glowed gently after her pressed each sigil into Neil's skin.

Neil trembled. “You're warm.”

“Good. Turn. Now the front.” Andrew placed a general protection sigil in each of Neil's four corners to ask the elements for their protection, and over his heart, he drew his oldest sigil. The first sigil he'd written that worked.

When he pressed his hand over the blood, electricity jumped between their skin. Neil gasped quietly. “What was that one?”

“Just something extra.” He was still mildly skeptical about the gods, but he'd silently talked to Apollo and Sekhmet while he'd been drawing. The burst of energy between their bodies told Andrew that someone had heard.

Andrew ran his fingers down the bridge of Neil's nose, smirking as he scrunched it up. When he prompted Neil, he dipped his clean fingers in the blood mixture to do the same to Andrew.

Standing, Andrew said simply, “Shower.”

Neil climbed into the shower, and Andrew followed behind him, leaving his tools to clean up later. He dragged Neil into a kiss as the water burst back to life.

Neil:

The shower lasted longer than either of them probably meant it to, turning from washing the blood from their skin to moans and gasps, hands in hair and lips on necks. The water ran cold before they clambered back out, Neil feeling like himself again and Andrew's magic jumping from his skin in energetic spurts compared to the person. It was nearly eight when they check out of their room.

“Off to the campsite then?” Neil asked, sliding into the driver's seat and turning over the engine in one easy motion. He grabbed the map from the glove compartment as Andrew smoked outside the car door, but instead of opening it, he licked his thumb and pressed it to the front where his fingerprint remained and glowed. “At least we won't get lost now.”

“You'll find a way,” Andrew hummed, stubbing out his cigarette and sliding into the passenger seat. “Do you still feel the spell?”

Neil shook his head, twisting around in his seat to back out of the spot. “No. All I can feel is this sigil.” Turning forward, he pressed his fingers over his heart.

He didn't see Andrew look over at him, but he smiled when he growled, “Stop making that face.”

“I'm not making a face.”

“You are, and I hate it.”

Neil pursed his lips. “You know, every time you say you hate something about me, it makes me think that you actually like it.”

“Bold faced lie.”

“You said you wouldn't lie to me.”

Andrew shrugged. “I wasn't the one who said it.”

Neil hummed along with the frequency of his own magic. “Do you want coffee before we leave town?”

“I want a chocolate croissant and java chip frappuccino,” Andrew said.

“You had those yesterday.”

“And?”

Neil started laughing.

#all for the game #the foxhole court #aftg #andrew minyard #neil josten #Andreil #my writing #magic user au #witch au #my idiots holding each other up

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