#thelonlierversionofyou | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nakasomethingkun · 4 years

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Hi, I don't know if you're doing prompts or not, but if you are, could you consider maybe: Andrew and Neil being on separate teams, Andrew getting very sick and Neil flies over to take care of him, but Andrew thinks he's dreaming. When he wakes up the next morning he sees Neil in his house and says something like "I thought you were a fever dream" and Neil says cheekily "I'm not a hallucination" and Andrew smiles and says "you're a pipe dream" like that but really soft? thanks xxx

Living alone has been a steep learning curve.

Andrew has never had his own place, and he has never lived alone. Being shunted from one foster home to another, being thrown into a juvenile center, being delivered to his birth mother’s apartment door like he was a lost package, being taken under Nicky’s wing, being stuffed into a dorm room for five years – he has never had the experience of living in his own space, of having his own name on the lease.

Living alone meant he had to learn a lot of things.

He had to learn how to activate the electric services, how to set up recurring payments for his internet and phone bills, and how to best pay his rent without having to interact with his landlord any more than he needs to. He also had to learn how to unclog the toilet and to stock up on insecticide lest he wants to have a spider for a roommate. Next year, he probably has to learn how to do his taxes.

Having Nicky be in charge of all the tedious business and living on campus on a scholarship stipend in college meant he had never needed to spare a thought about any of this.

Andrew is jaded, world-weary; he has gone through a whole spectrum of dark, brutal experiences and is hardly fazed by anything.

But graduating college, living in the outside world, leaving the structure that he had built for himself - it has questioned this sense of equanimity.

Bearing all those vapid responsibilities is one thing, but bearing the silence is another. It perturbs him, how sleeping alone in his apartment at night can be stifling and restrictive, like a bag tied over his head.

He has always imagined that living alone would be freeing, that it would mean safety and peace, because he would be sequestered away in a place where no one else could enter without his permission. But he finds that it isn’t quite so.

He finds that he misses the inane chattering during meals, the obnoxious bickering in the car, the slurred speeches under the pulsing lights at Eden’s Twilight. He even misses the messy bathroom counters and the sock-strewn floors and the overstuffed cupboards and fridge.

He is not accustomed to not having someone to annoy by throwing limp vegetables onto the floor, or to not having someone to relegate the dishwashing and toilet-scrubbing to.

He is not accustomed to not having his family within his immediate vicinity.

He has grown complacent over the years, deriving a sense of security from having them close and putting them under his constant watch. But then Kevin graduated and signed with a team in Texas, and not long after that, he, Aaron, and Nicky graduated and went their separate ways to pursue their respective dreams.

And then he was forced to leave Neil behind.

Andrew doesn’t have a dream or a goal to pursue. He would have been fine spending the rest of his life chasing shots and smoking cigarettes and driving aimlessly. He doesn’t know how that all changed. He knows when it changed, though. That, at least, he knows.

Somehow, he has a job that pays him a handsome fee for simply swinging a racquet around. Somehow, his brother is still talking to him, even though he had predicted that any ties between them would have been severed like scissors to a thread after graduation. Somehow, he has not self-destructed and driven himself to the ground.

So now he has to learn how to live alone, under the roof of his one-bedroom apartment, in a metropolitan city that accumulates 40 inches of snow in winter, miles and miles away from everyone he knows.

Living alone has been lonely.

Andrew has never thought that he would experience loneliness, that he would come to know the meaning of the word so intimately. The separation from his family is difficult; a dull, throbbing pain at the back of his head, but the separation from Neil is sharper; a gashing stab wound in his chest, and he is bleeding and bleeding and bleeding.

This might be what loneliness feels like, he thinks blankly, staring up at the ceiling on the nights he can’t sleep.

He is not accustomed to not having Neil’s weight on the mattress beside him, to not waking up with his hand over Neil’s hipbone and Neil’s nose nearly brushing against his. He is not accustomed to grasping nothing instead of the soft, worn fabric of Neil’s sweater when he reaches out in the middle of the night, his other arm curled underneath Neil’s pillow.

Text messages and phone calls can only do so much. They do not soothe the ache that has taken root within his heart, penetrating deep into his cells like an organism of its own.

The worst part is knowing that this is going to be an immutable situation for a couple of years to come. They are apart now because Neil has to finish his last year of college, but it is very unlikely that he will play for Andrew’s team after he graduates. He will be scouted by multiple teams that will be scattered from around the country, and he will sign a contract with one of them, and then it will be a continuation of this: the distance, the loneliness, the long, long nights spent wishing that it would all stop.

When has he become so pitiful and weak?

This is the question that plays on loop in his cottony head as he shivers through the symptoms of a fever.

He hasn’t had one in a while. In the past, he powered through his sickness because he didn’t want to trouble his caretakers. And then he learned that powering through his sickness is the safest alternative, because being bound to the bed when his defenses were lowered was much, much worse than wandering outside with a pounding head and a running nose.

When he was sick from withdrawal, he held off the nausea for as long as he could through sheer willpower. But by the time he retched and spewed his guts out, his nerves and bones - screaming at him - would win out and he would swallow more pills down his raw and arid throat. He would be manic, but at least wouldn’t be weak.

When he lived with Nicky and Aaron, he could afford to stay cocooned in bed when he got sick, but he found out that it didn’t feel that safe either. His mind, fractured by a high fever, would run askew and leave him panting and frazzled.

A creak in the floorboards was like the deafening crack of lightning and the screech of car tires was like a distant echo from a deep, deep well. His body would be wracked with shivers, like ice cubes slithering over his skin, but the layers of blankets only made him colder. His joints would be twinging with bursts of pain, aching and heaving like his lungs. He would screw his eyes shut but he would still see images flashing before him, fever dreams manifested into fractals of vibrant colors and distorted shapes.

It is how he is now, quivering beneath the covers, curled up on his queen-sized bed, under the roof of his one-bedroom apartment, miles and miles away from everyone he knows.

His head is heavy, swirling and splintering. He cracks an eye open, feels the crustiness weighing on his eyelid. The slit between the curtains tells him it is daytime, and that it is snowing.

He can’t believe it’s still snowing. It already snowed yesterday. He thinks it was yesterday. It might have been this morning, but he isn’t sure how long he’s been in bed, drifting in and out of a fitful, uneasy sleep.

His breath wheezes out of his lungs as he snakes an aching arm out towards the bedside table. He slaps around for his phone, but his palm only hits air. His arm starts to feel cold, so he slips it back under the covers, tucking it against his chest. The movements have left him exhausted - more exhausted than he already was. The honking of cars on the streets below scratches against his ears, almost as loud as the dripping faucet from the bathroom sink.

It is the sound that accompanies him as he plunges back into restless slumber.

He dreams.

They’re mostly memories, disjointed moments rolled into an illogical sequence, faraway voices and blurred faces floating in and out of his mind.

Aaron grumbling about something as he eats his cereal. Nicky singing off-key to a pop song as he cooks dinner. Kevin tapping his racquet against Dan’s as they head out to the court. Wymack grousing about a migraine after a disastrous post-game interview. Bee smiling when she unwraps the Christmas present Andrew got her last year. Renee helping him get to his feet after she knocked him onto the training mat. Neil holding his hand and saying only you.

Neil fluttering his eyes open in the morning and nuzzling closer, sighing against Andrew’s collarbones. Neil pressing his ankle against Andrew’s under the table at Sweetie’s, his smile curled around a spoonful of ice cream. Neil cupping Andrew’s face, thumbs stroking across the skin underneath his eyes, whispering I’ll miss you, the words soft and muffled as if he is hearing them through water.

They’re good dreams, a part of him acknowledges. Much more preferable than all the nightmares and strange hallucinations he has ever had.

There’s a cacophony of noises, blooming at sporadic intervals like firecrackers, but the pleasant dreams continue. Neil gazing at him in that peculiar way of his, as if he can see right through Andrew’s armor, as if Andrew hung the stars and rocked the oceans, as if Andrew is the most important thing in the world.

Andrew thinks that might be how he looks at Neil. He thinks about it, in the lonely moments and strung out days, about Neil being the first thing he thinks of in the morning and the last thing he thinks of before he falls asleep. He thinks about being the moon, orbiting around Neil until the end of time, and then for longer. He thinks about burrowing between the bones of Neil’s ribcage so he could stay with him until his heart stops beating.

When has he become so pitiful and weak? When has he come to want so much?

He wants to listen to Nicky nattering away from the screen of his laptop, he wants to read Aaron’s existential texts regarding his choice to enroll in medical school, he wants to ignore Kevin’s rants about his poor form, he wants to send Bee animal figurines every year for her birthday, he wants to throw darts with Renee when they go to a bar, he wants to visit Wymack and Abby for Thanksgiving, and he wants Neil to be with him because he has never felt lonely when he’s with Neil.

Something cool and damp lands on his forehead, and it instantly makes him feel better. The images playing across his mind like a hiccuping film reel continues, flares of starlight and kaleidoscopic colors. In the midst of it all - Neil. Neil, with his unnerving blue eyes and careful touches, swerving in and out of Andrew’s vision like he is engulfed by ocean tides.

Stay, Andrew remembers telling him.

I’m not going anywhere, Andrew hears Neil saying.

Neil kept his promise. It is Andrew who went somewhere, who left him behind and went to a faraway place.

Neil would say it’s okay. He would say it’s fine, because that’s what he always says. He would say it even if he misses Andrew, even if Andrew misses him.

And he does.

He misses Neil, and he feels lonely without Neil. The loneliness hurts like a knife through his chest, and all he can do to stop the bleeding is dream of the times when he wasn’t alone, when he was with his family, when he was with Neil.

Something gentle cards through his sweaty hair, the motion repetitive and mindless like the assurances murmured to a sobbing child. It instantly makes him feel better.

When he reaches out in the middle of his fragmented sleep, he grasps something soft and worn.

The next time he cracks an eye open, it has stopped snowing. It is still daytime, but Andrew isn’t sure how much time has actually passed between now and when he became bed-ridden. His breath still wheezes out of him like a compressed rubber doll, but at least he can breathe through his nose, albeit with a little difficulty. His body doesn’t feel like it’s been shoved in a freezer, and his head doesn’t feel like it’s been run over by a steamroller.

With great effort, he levers himself into a sitting position. His neck and shoulders hurt, but it might have been because of how he was laying down. His fever seems to have subsided.

He spends a few minutes sitting and staring at the sheets, trying to marshall his strength and wits.

His phone is on the bedside table. There is some cough medicine and a bottle of water next to the phone, along with some painkillers. He doesn’t remember putting them there.

A clang reverberates through the apartment. Pulling on his armbands, Andrew forces himself out of bed, padding quietly towards the door.

As he treads down the hall, he hears a slew of frustrated muttering. His breath catches in his throat; he knows that voice, knows it better than he knows his own.

He turns the corner and sees Neil standing over his stove, cleaning up a spill.

“Neil,” he rasps out, voice hoarse and thin.

But it’s enough to get Neil’s attention. He whips around towards him, rag in hand.

“Andrew,” he breathes out, expression breaking out in a small smile. He moves closer, standing right in front of Andrew.

Andrew swallows. He doesn’t quite know how to react, so he stares and remains silent.

Neil raises his hand, reaching towards Andrew’s face. He stops short of touching Andrew, quickly dropping his hand.

“Sorry,” he says, “my hands are dirty.” He leans forward, lightly bumping his forehead against Andrew’s.

Andrew feels like a stone has lodged itself in his airway.

“Your fever’s gone,” Neil says quietly, staring into Andrew’s eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“What are you doing here,” Andrew says instead of answering.

“I’m here to see you,” Neil says easily, like the answer was obvious. Andrew can feel the flutter of Neil’s eyelashes, tickling his face like dandelion seeds. “It’s winter break. I bumped up my flight a couple of days earlier, and I’m glad I did, since I came in to find you running a 39.5-degree fever.”

Andrew feels a tiny frown knitting itself between his eyebrows.

“That’s 103 degrees in Farenheit,” Neil supplies, as if that matters at all.

Drawing himself back a little, Andrew studies Neil - his hair, his eyes, his mouth, his PSU sweater, his socked feet. He pulls his gaze back up to Neil’s face, watches the way he tilts his head to the side, the way the crinkle of his brow gives away his concern.

“Andrew?”

Andrew’s fingers twitch; he clenches them into a fist, then unclenches them. He brings a hand up to Neil’s face, fingertips gingerly brushing against the burn scar under Neil’s eye, palm cradling his cheek.

“I thought I dreamt you,” Andrew murmurs.

Neil turns towards his palm, pressing a kiss to his wrist.

There is a shade of warmth in Neil’s eyes, a hint of mirth in his voice when he says, “I’m not a hallucination.”

Andrew grabs the collar of Neil’s sweater with his free hand, fingers knotted around the soft, worn fabric. Loneliness eludes him.

Quietly, like a confession, he says, “You are a pipe dream.”

****

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#andreil #aftg #tfc #all for the game #the foxhole court #eza writes #thelonlierversionofyou #this was barely proof-read so im sorry if it's messy #andrew minyard #he's quite maudlin in this one lmao #then again i always write him like that #neil josten

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