Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“It’s so unfaaaair,” Neil whined, ripping a chunk of grass out of the ground. “Kevin gets to go.”

“Kevin is twelve,” Andrew said. “You’re not.”

“I’m way better than any of the other twelve-year-old’s on Kevin’s team.”

Andrew rolled his eyes. Kevin had been away at Exy summer camp for a day and a half, and Neil would not shut up about it. “You’re too short to play with the bigger kids.”

Neil scowled, ripping up some more grass and dumping it on Andrew’s legs. “I’m not that short. I’m almost as tall as you.”

“Are not.”

“Are so!”

“Are not.”

Neil flopped on his back, heaving a big sigh. “I hate summer.”

“You’re a loser.”

Neil chucked another handful of grass at him. The wind caught it and blew half of it into Andrew’s face. He spluttered, spitting grass out of his mouth while Neil laughed. His reddish-brown hair fell into his eyes and Andrew’s chest did a weird squeezy thing, his face going warm.  

Andrew kicked him in the leg. “I hate you.”

Neil grinned up at him. “Do you think Coach would let us borrow a couple racquets?”

“Why?”

“So we can go play at the park.”

“What if I don’t want to play Exy?”

“I’m bored.”

“That’s your problem.”

“You’re such a jerk,” Neil muttered, rolling onto his stomach. “Do you want to go swimming? We could go up to the lake. You could borrow Kevin’s bike.”

“You don’t even like swimming.”

“I don’t like swimming with my class. They always stare at me.”

“Why?”

Neil shredded grass between his fingers, shrugging. “Because I’m messed up.”

“You’re not messed up.”

Neil kept ripping up grass, not looking at Andrew. “My dad used to…hurt me. When I was bad, or too loud, or he was angry. It’s really ugly.”

The warmth in Andrew’s chest went out as if he’d plunged into icy water. He grabbed Neil’s chin, pulling his face up until he had to meet Andrew’s gaze. His blue eyes went wide, staring up at Andrew.

“Neil. Is he—” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Phantom hands tugged at his hair and a wave of fierce protectiveness washed over him. He’d never let anyone hurt Neil like that. Never. “We could tell Bee. You don’t have to stay here.”

“What?” Neil’s expression cleared. “Not Coach. No, Andrew, it’s okay. I’m adopted.”

“Oh,” Andrew said, sitting back on his heels. He dropped his hand a second later, the sudden fear blowing out of him like a candle in the breeze. 

A smile peeked out of Neil’s eyes as he leaned forward, poking Andrew in the stomach. “It’s okay. I forgot I didn’t tell you.”

Andrew hunched his shoulders, embarrassment creeping up the back of his neck. “You don’t even call him dad. I should have guessed.”

“It’s fine,” Neil said, rolling over and sprawling in the grass. 

The breeze washed the smell of budding flowers and freshly cut grass over them. The meadow behind Coach’s house was a riot of colours, a tiny creek burbling just out of sight. Andrew couldn’t think of anything to say to cover up his bungle. He should’ve known that Neil was like him. It was why they’d become friends in the first place.

“My dad was a really bad person,” Neil said, breaking the silence. “My mom took me away when I was seven. She and Kevin’s mom were friends, so she left me with Coach. She said she’d come back for me when it was safe.”

Andrew waited for a long second, but there was nothing more forthcoming. “She never came back.”

Neil stared upwards, eyes distant. “No.”

Andrew lay down beside Neil, staring up at the sky. Lines of clouds streaked the sky, like the knitted sweaters Bee was always making. Neil shifted until their arms were touching and Andrew found he didn’t mind.

“I’m adopted too,” he said. “I was in foster care before Bee found me.”

“Oh,” Neil said, rolling onto his side to study Andrew with his too-blue eyes. “What was foster care like?”

Andrew closed his eyes against the memories pressing against the inside of his skin. He took a deep breath, leaning into Neil’s warmth, grounding himself with the breeze, the tickle of grass against the back of his neck. “Bad,” he said.

Neil made a quiet, understanding sort of noise. Andrew sat up abruptly, grabbing Neil’s arm and hauling him to his feet.

“What are you doing?” Neil asked, scrambling to get his feet under him.

“Going to get some racquets,” Andrew said, pulling Neil towards the house. “The lake sucks, anyway.”

Neil’s face lit up and he ran ahead, pushing the sliding door open and skidding into the living room. “Coooooach!” he shouted, his voice echoing. 

Andrew stepped over the doorway into Neil’s living room. There were dozens of pictures up on the wall of Neil’s family. The biggest one hung over the fireplace, an image of Coach with Kevin and Neil on either side of him, wearing their little league uniforms. Beside it was a slightly smaller frame with a little black ribbon in the corner, holding an image of Kevin and a woman with matching bright green eyes.

Coffee rings and empty mugs covered all available surfaces, and stacks of books and files littered the floor. It would drive Bee mad, Andrew thought.

Coach Wymack emerged from his study, rubbing his eyes. “What do you want?”

Neil was completely unperturbed by his adopted-dad’s gruff tone. “Can Andrew and I borrow racquets?”

Wymack blinked down at him. “School ended three days ago and you want to play Exy already?”

“Pleeeeease?”

Coach huffed, ruffling Neil’s hair. “Go ahead. Take your phone with you.”

“Yes! Thank you!” He grabbed Coach around the middle, squeezing quickly before dashing off into the hallway.

Andrew felt a familiar turn in his stomach at being alone in a room with an adult man, but he took a deep breath, counting like Bee had taught him. Wymack was safe; if Neil trusted him, Andrew would too.

“Do you have a phone?” Wymack asked.

Andrew nodded.

“Good. Neil always forgets to charge his. Call me if you need anything.”

“Okay.”

Neil appeared in the doorway, arms full of gear. “Are you coming?”

Andrew gave Wymack a nod and followed Neil into the hallway. Exy was kind of annoying, especially with Kevin getting super competitive at practice all the time.

With Neil, though, it was kind of fun. Not that he’d ever tell Neil that.

Chapter Text

The first time it happened was at Andrew’s thirteenth birthday party.

Bee had invited all of his friends, which was code for Kevin, Neil, and that weird girl who had just moved in down the block. Her name was Renee. She was the same age as Kevin and had shiny black hair, and she would tell anyone who would listen that as soon as she turned sixteen and Stephanie let her, she was going to dye her hair purple.

Neil liked her because she was adopted like them. Andrew liked her because she was really good at fighting. Kevin liked her because she was good at Exy. It worked.

Bee bought him a chocolate ice cream cake and the four of them crowded around the table, edging the adults out of the way. Andrew looked up from where Kevin and Renee had started a raucous rendition of Happy Birthday and saw Wymack and his girlfriend, Ms. Winfield, smiling at each other. He leaned his shoulder against her and she raised their interlocked fingers together, brushing a kiss across his knuckles.

Abruptly, Neil’s arm against his felt like a flaming beacon. Andrew swallowed hard, looking back to his cake. Neil jostled him, his bright face shining, and Andrew flushed right down to his core. Neil’s hand was just a couple inches away from his on the table.

“Go ahead!” Neil said. “Blow out the candles!”

Andrew yanked his eyes away from Neil’s fingers and leaned over the cake, clumsily attempting to blow out the candles.

He missed four of them. “Four girlfriends,” Kevin said. “What are you going to do with four girlfriends?”

“Or boyfriends,” Renee said. When Kevin gave her a weird look, she got defensive. “What? Mom said I can have a girlfriend if I want. So boys can have boyfriends too, right?”

Kevin looked to his father, forehead ruffled in confusion.

Wymack cleared his throat, bemused. “If they want to, yeah.”

“Oh,” Kevin said. “Okay. But four is still a lot.”

“I don’t want any girlfriends or boyfriends,” Andrew said grouchily, tucking his chin in to hide how red he was. “I want cake.”

“Me too!” Neil said, and Bee laughed, budging in between them to cut the cake. Andrew couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed.

“If I had a boyfriend,” Kevin said after a moment, “I think it’d be Jeremy Knox from Mr. Tripp’s class. He’s nice.”

“Shut up, Kevin,” Andrew said, and dug into his cake with a vengeance.

The second time was worse, because nobody else was there to shield him from Neil. They were curled up on opposite sides of the couch, their feet tangled together under the blanket as they watched one of Wymack’s horror movies on Bee’s TV.

“How did you get Coach to let you watch this?” Andrew said, burrowing down deeper into the blanket and trying to keep himself from flinching as severed hand flopped onto the concrete on the screen, leaking black blood.

“I didn’t,” Neil said.

Andrew frowned at him. It was a good excuse to not be looking at the TV. Neil didn’t look remotely bothered, and he was only twelve. Andrew was such a wimp.

He wrapped that mean thought up and stowed it away, like Bee had taught him. Neil smirked, squirming a little in self-satisfaction. “I broke into his collection,” he said conspiratorially. “Renee taught me how.”

“She did?” Andrew said. He hadn’t realized Neil and Renee were hanging out. The twisting feeling in his throat might be jealousy. He pretended it wasn’t.

“Yeah,” Neil said, sitting up and pulling a pair of bent wires out of his pocket. “She made me these with a couple of paperclips. You use this one to twist the lock, and this one to poke at the inside and move the pins. See?”

Andrew bent his head to look at the lockpicks. There was a smudge of blue on Neil’s thumb from the half-melted M&M’s they’d been eating. Neil grinned at him, and Andrew realized Neil had been waiting the whole movie to tell him about this. He wasn’t even looking at the TV anymore, his brilliant eyes fixed on Andrew, waiting for his reaction.

“Cool,” he forced out. He thought Neil’s face fell a little when Andrew didn’t react more, but that was probably his imagination.

He scooted closer to Andrew and dropped the lockpicks in his hand. “I can show you how, if you want.”

He was just a handbreadth away now, the blanket hopelessly knotted through their legs. Neil’s calves were draped over Andrew’s ankles. He remembered a movie like this that he’d watched with Bee. The guy and the girl had been watching TV and the guy had put his arm around the girl’s shoulders, and then they’d—

His eyes got stuck on Neil’s hand on top of the blanket. He was so little—not that Andrew was much taller, but he’d put on some chub since Bee adopted him, while Neil was forever skinny and scrappy as an alley cat. His face heated as his brain supplied an image of his hand slipping into Neil’s slim one, Neil’s hummingbird-fast smile, maybe pulling Neil a little closer—

Come over here, AJ.

Andrew’s body flashed hot and then glacial cold. A wet slap reverberated from the TV and he flinched, eyes flicking there without meaning to. Blood dripped down a windowpane, the red imprint of a hand sliding downwards out of sight.

Andrew lurched to his feet. “Andrew?” Neil asked, his voice concerned, but Andrew could barely hear him. That voice. He didn’t want—he didn’t—

His body felt floaty and heavy at the same time, his hands trembling and slick with sweat. He bolted for his bedroom, stumbling over his feet and the blanket still tangled around his ankles.

“Andrew!” Neil said. “Andrew, what’s wrong?”

Andrew slammed his bedroom door behind him, locking the door. It wasn’t enough. He threw himself against the side of his dresser, pushing it across the floor. It jerked and scraped over so it blocked the door. Four white lines gouged into the hardwood.

Neil knocked on the door, still talking, but Andrew couldn’t make out the words. He couldn’t sit on his bed, not when he could feel hands—

He slid down to the floor, boneless, crumpled into a pathetic mess on the ground. His fingers dug into his hair, pulling, pulling.

He moaned into his knees. He was so wrong. So broken. How could he have looked at Neil like that, after everything—after so long trying to be okay.

There was one time, in third grade, before Bee, before he was adopted, when one of the bigger kids had tried to push Andrew around. He’d thought, because Andrew was skinny and small, that he would be a pushover. Andrew had clawed at him, biting his hand, scratching at his eyes. He hit him over and over, so that he’d know better than to attack Andrew ever again, and he hadn’t stopped until the teacher had dragged him off, kicking and screaming.

This one girl, Susie, had been almost like a friend before that; they’d been desk partners, and she always shared her snacks with him at recess. He remembered her wide eyes as she stood behind the teacher, blood on his fists and the other boy sobbing with snot running down his nose.

“Monster.”

She’d been right. He never should have tried to fool himself otherwise.

Bee got home half an hour later and took Neil home, unquestioningly. Neil and Andrew didn’t talk about the incident with the horror movie for three weeks.

Technically, Andrew thought, this probably didn’t count as talking either.

Neil cornered him under the slides, Andrew’s usual hideout. It was generally a pretty effective hiding place, mostly because the sixth graders and the seventh graders had different recess periods so Neil couldn’t find him here. He must’ve snuck out early today.

“Why are you being such a jerk?” Neil snapped. His arms were folded over his chest and a chilly wind made frayed ribbons out of his hair.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” Andrew said, sliding lower into the round tube. It was too narrow to be comfortable for most kids his age, which was why he used it.

Neil, however, was not deterred. He kicked the plastic siding hard enough to jostle Andrew out of his slouch.

“What the hell?” Andrew demanded.

“You said you were going to come to my Exy game and you didn’t come and you haven’t responded to any of my texts and you’re never there when classes are out and do you think I’m stupid or something?” Neil kicked the play structure again. “If you don’t want to be friends anymore you can just say it. You don’t have to avoid me.”

“I’m not avoiding you.”

Fire flared in Neil’s eyes, his mouth contorting into a snarl. Andrew stared at him. Tight hands clawed at his lungs. Neil must’ve guessed. He must’ve guessed about all the horrible things Andrew had been thinking about him. It was the only reason he’d be so angry.

“Fine,” Neil snapped. “You hate me now. I get it. Fine.”

“Fuck you,” Andrew said, his hands curling into fists. He should’ve stood up. Neil towered over him in his little hidey-hole, wind whistling through the plastic and setting the wooden bridge of the playground creaking ominously. There was no good way to climb out now without Neil kicking him and he didn’t want Neil to kick him—

Neil’s chin trembled as he scowled down Andrew. “I hate you,” he said, scrubbing at his eyes with one hand. “So you can just—go back to avoiding me or whatever. I don’t care.”

The rollercoaster dumped Andrew back down on solid ground. Neil was crying. Neil never cried.

“Neil,” he said, twisting his legs under him. His right knee got stuck as he tried to climb out, almost falling on his face.

“Fuck you,” Neil said, turning around and walking away.

“Neil, wait—”

Neil broke into a run. Andrew’s leg caught on the weathered, broken edge of the plastic tube where some high schoolers had set it on fire a few years ago. The kneecap of his jeans split with a terrible shredding noise and he toppled out onto the gravel, his chin smacking the ground, hard.

By the time he was back on his feet, Neil had disappeared into the throngs of middle-schoolers emerging from the school for their lunch break. Andrew had lost him.

Wymack gave Andrew a pretty eloquent side-eye when he showed up at the house four days later. It had taken that long for him to work up the courage. Also, Bee had taken that long to lure Andrew out of his bedroom with hot chocolate. He’d probably still be in there otherwise.

“Neil’s out back,” was all Wymack said. Andrew nodded, glancing behind him. Bee gave him the thumbs up from her SUV at the curb. His stomach did something vaguely acrobatic and landed with a wet flop.

He took the gate around the side of the house, preferring not to risk running into Kevin, who was almost as angry at him as Neil was. The weather had taken a turn for the colder, but Neil was still sitting out there in just a hoody.

“You’re going to freeze to death,” Andrew said.

Neil lobbed a handful of dried grass at him and Andrew dodged backwards, letting it bluster across the new patch on his jeans, which was shaped like a ladybug.

He folded his legs and sat down a few feet out of grass-throwing range. Neil set his jaw stubbornly, staring at the ground.

All of Andrew’s plans shrivelled up and died in the autumn air. The edge of the ladybug’s wing was slightly upturned, and Andrew picked at it, avoiding Neil’s gaze.

“I’m a jerk,” he said.

“You are,” Neil agreed.

The cold sun shone on their downturned heads, sharpening the light like an overexposed photograph. “I was a jerk too,” Neil said.

“Yeah,” Andrew said.

Neil sighed and scooted over to sit next to him, resting his shoulder against Andrew’s. Air gusted out of Andrew, and he sagged, closing his eyes for a long moment.

“Was it the horror movie?” Neil asked. “Coach told me off for taking it. It gave me nightmares for like, a week.”

“No,” Andrew said.

He turned to face Neil head on. After a moment he reached out, tapping his finger against his shoulder, right over where he knew the worst of Neil’s scars lay. Neil’s expression went from curious to flat in the space of a heartbeat.

“Are you ever worried…” Andrew said, frowning. The words tripped over his tongue, twisting like electrified wires. “Are you ever scared you’ll end up like him?”

Neil crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself. He looked away. “Yeah,” he said, whisper-soft.

“You do?”

“Sometimes I just get so angry. Like…I dunno. Like I could explode. Like I want to destroy everyone. Like I want to make them hurt.”

Andrew swallowed, hard, biting the inside of his lip. The pain tasted sharp, like metal. Like blood. “Me too,” he said.

Neil let out a shuddering breath, squeezing his arms harder. The tips of his fingernails bit into his wrists, making the skin go white.

Andrew tugged at his arms until his loosened his grip. Half-moon indents flooded with redness as Neil reluctantly let go.

“I’m gay,” Andrew said. Neil blinked at him, but Andrew didn’t give him time to connect the dots. “When I was little people…hurt me. And when I realized I like boys, I thought that made me the same. Bee says its not but it still…feels wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” Neil said. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’ve never had friends before and when I thought you hated me…I panicked.”

Andrew nodded. “Let’s make a deal,” he said impulsively. “Promise that if we ever start to get bad, we’ll stop each other.”

Neil glanced out towards the forest, fretting with his fingernails. They were peeled and scabbed, like he’d been gnawing on them all week. “Okay,” he said.

“Yeah?”

Neil looked back, a small smile on his lips. It pulled at Andrew’s insides, making him feel shaky and exposed and seen.

“Yeah,” Neil said. “I promise. If you do too.”

“Always,” Andrew said.

Chapter Text

Neil jumped to his feet, screaming his head off. His voice was lost in the tumult as everyone roared approval, the stadium shaking with the force of it.

“Did you see that?” Neil demanded, grabbing Andrew’s sleeve and yanking to get his attention. Andrew alone wasn’t on his feet, still playing on his phone. “Come on, that save was incredible! I bet even you couldn’t have done better.”

That got Andrew to shoot him a dead-eyed glare, which Neil counted in his private tally as a win. He’d happened to check Andrew’s phone in the middle of the game, and though he had some kind of game open, he had barely touched it. Neil was pretty sure if he pointed that out Andrew would never agree to come to a game with him again, so he didn’t, but he felt smug about it anyway.

“Get up, loser,” Neil said. “We’ve got fifteen minutes and Coach gave me money for snacks.”

“Fine,” Andrew said with a hard-done-by sigh. Neil didn’t know why he was being so dramatic. They’d even managed to leave Kevin behind, though that was mostly because his junior high Exy league had a tournament this weekend. Neil’s middle school team didn’t have weekend tournaments yet; he couldn’t wait to hit seventh grade in September.

Andrew followed Neil up the stadium steps to the food level. The air was sticky and sweet with the scent of carnival snacks.

Neil groaned. “Oh my god, there’s a million people,” he said. “We’ll never make it to the front of the line in time.”

Andrew made himself comfortable against the pillar next to the stairs, raising an eyebrow at Neil in challenge. “This was your dumb idea.”

“Shut up,” Neil said

“I’m going to go use the washroom,” Andrew said.

Neil sighed in aggravation. “Okay, what do you want? I’ll get it.”

“A corndog and blue cotton candy,” Andrew said.

“Fine, jerkface,” Neil said, and gave Andrew’s shoulder a quick bump with his own before trotting off to find the shortest line that served corndogs. It moved faster than Neil was expecting—everyone had their money out and was ready to go back to the game, too—but Neil was still vibrating by the time he reached the front of the line, checking his watch. He didn’t want to miss a minute of the second half.

“What can I get for you?” said the tired-looking service worker, his hair poking out from under his hairnet in a way that made Neil think he didn’t know how they worked.

“Two corndogs, two Pepsi’s and…” he trailed off, spotting the sold-out sign on the front of the cotton candy machine. “Shit,” he said.

“Language,” some lady behind him said. Neil glared at her. He was twelve. Just because he was still a bit short didn’t make him a little kid.

“And?” the service-guy said.

“Um, a cookies-and-cream Dippin’ Dots,” he said, and handed over two twenty-dollar bills. The food and drinks appeared on the counter a second later and Neil struggled to juggle it all in his arms as he weaved back towards their seats. He spotted Coach and Abby up in the stands above—they’d agreed to let Neil and Andrew sit on their own, but they weren’t crazy—and then beelined over to where Andrew’s shock of blond hair was leaning standoffishly against the pillar.

“Here,” he said, depositing the corn dog and Dippin’ Dots into Andrew’s arms unceremoniously. Andrew shot him a look, offended. “They were out of cotton candy, so I got you cookies-and-cream flavoured, I know it’s your favourite so don’t whine.”

Andrew stared at him. “How do you know it’s my favourite?”

“Right, because you’re so secretive about ice cream,” Neil said, rolling his eyes.

Andrew continued to stare at him.

Neil stopped. Peered closer at Andrew. He was still wearing a jersey, but it was no longer the Rachel Benoit jersey that Neil made him put on this morning. His hair also looked weird, like it had grown an inch shorter in the past fifteen minutes.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh my god.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Not-Andrew demanded, his hands still full of Andrew’s snacks.

“Oh my god,” Neil said. “Holy shit. Don’t move.”

He shoved the tray of soft drinks into the boy's unresisting hands and took off at a sprint. He rounded the corner, scanning the crowds. Being tall would be so useful right now. He tore through the swarms, nipping under people’s elbows and running out to the stadium.

Something grabbed his shirt, making him spin around. He wrenched himself free, then recognized Andrew glaring at him irritably. “There’s two minutes till the buzzer,” Andrew said. “Where’s the food?”

“No time!” Neil said. “This way!”

He took off back towards the crowds, but he only got a couple steps before he realized Andrew wasn’t following. He veered back, grabbing Andrew by the sleeve and tugging. “Hurry!” he said. “I found this guy, but I think I scared the shit out of him so we have to find him again, now.”

“What are you being so crazy about?” Andrew grumbled. His head bonked against someone’s elbow as Neil dragged him, but Neil didn’t stop to apologize.

“Just a sec he was right—about—there!”

Neil dragged Andrew out of the crowd, pointing triumphantly to where Not-Andrew was standing with a blonde lady, who was frowning down at him and his armful of Neil’s snacks. Neil pulled them closer as the boy was saying, “I don’t know, mom, some kid gave it to me and then ran off like a maniac.”

Neil let go of Andrew and retrieved the sodas from the boy. “Thanks,” he said.

Not-Andrew glared at him, eyes suspicious. “Who are you—”

His voice cut off. Neil stepped back, smug and satisfied as Andrew and Not-Andrew stared at each other, eyes going very wide, very fast.

“I tried to give him your ice cream,” Neil said helpfully.

Andrew cast him a wild look that made Neil wonder, belatedly, if he should have handled this slightly differently. “Um,” Neil said. “Should I be fetching Coach?”

“Aaron?” the woman said, placing a protective hand on the other boy’s shoulder. She stared at Andrew, lips parted in confusion.

“Why do you look like me?” Not-Andrew said.

“That was my question!” Neil said. Andrew elbowed him.

Neil swallowed his excitement like a snake gulping down a dead mouse. Andrew didn’t just look confused. He looked upset.

Neil looked at the blonde woman, then at Not-Andrew, saw what conclusion Andrew was drawing. His stomach went queasy.

“Hey,” the woman said softly. “What’s your name?”

Andrew didn’t seem capable of words, so Neil stepped up behind his shoulder to bolster him. “This is Andrew,” he said. “I’m Neil.”

“Andrew,” the woman said quietly. She regarded him for a moment longer, looking down at the boy next to her.

“I’m going now,” Andrew said.

“Andrew—” Neil protested, but Andrew was already backing away, disappearing into the crowd. Neil froze, looking back at the woman and Not-Andrew—Aaron. “What did you do?” he asked furiously.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I don’t know what’s going on. I think…”

“What?” Neil demanded.

The woman looked down at the boy. He looked up at her. She looked back at Neil. Everyone was looking and no-one was saying anything and Neil’s stomach hurt like might throw up the popcorn they’d eaten earlier—

“Neil,” she said. “It was Neil, right?”

“Yes,” Neil snapped.

“How old is your friend?”

Neil scowled at her, backing away another step. This wasn’t fun anymore. Andrew was upset, and now this lady was acting weird. “He turned thirteen three months ago,” he said.

“Oh my god,” Aaron said.

“What?” Neil demanded.

“Me too,” he said. “November fourth.”

“Oh,” Neil said, stopping. He stared at the other boy, hard. He looked like Andrew—but also a little bit not. He was skinnier, for one. And his ear didn’t have a scar from where Andrew had tried to pierce it last year and ended up getting a nasty infection. He swallowed down the uncomfortable feeling in his mouth and said. “Are you adopted, too?”

The woman stared at him for a long moment. “Are your parents around?” she asked. Neil nodded mutely. “Could you get them for me? We’ll wait right here.”

Neil looked at Aaron for another moment, then back at the crowd where Andrew had disappeared, then took off at a dead sprint. He scrambled up the stadium stairs to where Coach and Abby were sitting, sharing a bag of popcorn.

“Neil?” Coach asked, frowning. “Where’s Andrew?”

“He ran off,” Neil said, out of breath. “We ran into this lady—well, I saw the kid first because I thought he was Andrew, and then I realized it wasn’t him and I went to get Andrew and then there was this blonde lady who looked just like him and—”

“Neil!” Coach said, leaning forward and putting his hands on Neil’s shoulders to steady him. Neil swallowed, tears prickling at his eyes. “Neil, you’re going to have to go slower than that. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Neil said. “But…I think Andrew has a brother.”

Coach and Abby exchanged a look. “That’s…” Abby said.

“I know it sounds crazy!” Neil almost shouted. “But you weren’t there! They look exactly the same!”

“We believe you,” Abby said quickly, reassuring. “Why did Andrew run away?”

“Can’t you tell?” Neil snapped. “The other boy was with his mom. And if that’s his mom, then—” his voice started to get stuck somewhere in his throat, his vision blurring, “—then that means she sent Andrew away and she didn’t send the—she didn’t—”

“Christ,” Coach said, rubbing his forehead with one hand. “That’s insane.”

Neil’s nose was snotty and his eyes were spilling over. “You’re not LISTENING!” he shouted. “Andrew’s upset and—”

“Shh, shh,” Coach said. “I didn’t say I don’t believe you.”

He and Abby exchanged another inscrutable adult glance. The people in the stands around them were starting to side-eye them, hard, and Neil would be uncomfortable and embarrassed if he wasn’t so angry.

“I’ll go find Andrew,” Abby said. Coach nodded, then turned and leaned forward so his face was level with Neil’s. His thumb stroked Neil’s shoulder soothingly. “We’re going to take care of this, okay? Can you show me where this lady was?”

Neil nodded, scrubbing a hand through his snotty tears and feeling a pang of discomfort. He hated crying.

“Okay,” Coach said, getting to his feet. Neil tucked himself into his side and grabbed his hand. He knew he was too old for it, but he couldn’t help it. He tugged Coach along, discreetly wiping his face as they went.

The lady and the boy were still exactly where Neil had left them. Coach paused, staring at Not-Andrew for a long, hard moment. “Fuck,” he muttered. “That’s uncanny.”

The woman stepped forward. “Are you Andrew’s father?” she asked.

“No,” Coach said, shaking his head. “This is my son, Neil. I’m David.”

The woman held her hand out. “I’m Jennifer. I think we need to talk to Andrew’s parents.”

They missed most of second half in what Coach described as “some actual soap opera BS” and had Abby in tears at least twice, by the time she managed to lure Andrew back to them.

Aaron, it turned out, was also adopted, but he had lived with his biological mom for nearly three years before social services took him away. This meant that his adopted mom, Jennifer, and his adopted dad, Pete, actually knew things about Aaron’s family. One of those things was the fact that he had a cousin who had been taken by social services a few months after Aaron, due to something that the adults muttered under their breaths so the kids couldn’t hear. Jennifer and Pete had adopted both Aaron and his cousin Nicky a couple years ago.

Nobody had ever told them that Aaron had a twin.

Neil sat on the ground next to Andrew, kicking his feet against the stadium steps. Andrew had barely said a word in the past hour, even when it turned out that perfect blonde Jennifer wasn’t Aaron’s perfect blonde mother.

Neil stared out across the stadium. “That was a mess,” he said.

Andrew tucked his knee into his chest. His hands were white where they gripped his jeans.

“I’m sorry,” Neil said. “I didn’t really think it through when I saw him.”

Andrew snorted softly into his knee. “What else is new.”

Neil smiled a little, pleased that Andrew was talking, even just a little bit. “They were out of cotton candy but I got you Dippin’ Dots,” he said. “They melted. Super melted.”

Andrew made a grabby-hands gesture and Neil’s stomach loosened. He scrambled up the steps to where the adults were still doing intense adult conversation things and found their forgotten food piled next to the pillar. The Dippin’ Dots were a sludgy mess, but he grabbed them and the sodas before returning to the steps.

He paused before he got back.

Aaron was sitting next to Andrew, a few noticeable feet apart. Andrew’s face was angled towards him, his hair hanging over his eyes like a curtain. Sitting next to each other, they looked somehow more similar, and more different.

Aaron said something, and Andrew tilted his head in response.

Neil settled on the top step, placing the snacks to one side. Andrew was talking to Aaron, and Neil felt weirdly left out, but he stifled that feeling. The stadium around them resonated with screams as the USC Trojans put another goal on the board. For once, Neil didn’t feel the need to join them. Today, he decided, was just too damn weird.

Andrew’s eyes slipped up to spot him sitting there, and Neil relaxed a fraction. Andrew knew he was here.

It was going to be okay.  

Chapter Text

The goose fluttered its feathers, its beady eyes fixed on Neil. He circled warily. The goose lowered its head and hissed, its black neck arching like a sleek, feathery snake.

The Exy ball sat innocently on the ground behind it, about a foot and a half away from a dense clump of grass. Based on the goose’s bad attitude, Neil was putting his money on ‘nest.’

“Just leave it,” Renee said. “It’s not worth fighting a goose.”

Neil couldn’t afford to break eye contact with the goose to glare at her. Andrew and Renee had agreed to come out to the park to practice with him since training was cancelled over spring break, but Andrew kept clearing the ball too far and making him run for it. And this time he’d cleared it all the way out of the soccer field into the trees.

So now Neil had to do battle with angry waterfowl.  

“Go for the throat,” Andrew suggested, even less helpfully.

Neil stuck his middle finger up at Andrew and crouched, trying to ease around the goose’s side to reach the ball. It snapped its beak at him, flaring its wings. Neil snatched his hand back. “Asshole,” he muttered. “I think he thinks its an egg,” he said, louder.

Andrew and Renee didn’t answer him. Typical. Ever since they’d switched to the high school, he barely saw them, and it was terrible. The only person in his grade worth talking to was Andrew’s friend Robin (backliner), and they had different homerooms.

Neil grabbed a stick off the ground, poking it towards the goose. It honked, flapping its wings and hopping back a step. Encouraged by that success, Neil took another step forward, the stick wielded in front of him like a sword. The goose honked again, outraged.

The ball was nearly within reach. Neil shook the stick harder, and the goose squawked, flapping its wings harder towards him. Neil stretched his arm out, keeping his eyes on the goose. His fingers glided along the forest floor until he touched the hard surface of the Exy ball.

He closed his hand on the ball and the goose exploded in a storm of feathers and fury. Neil yelped, stumbling backwards as the goose blustered its wings at him, so close its wingtips grazed his face. He hit the ground, scrambling backwards on his butt.

The goose hissed one more time at him for good measure before waddling menacingly back towards its precious clump of grass.

Neil stuck his tongue out at it, then swivelled to raise the ball above his head. “I got it!” he said.

Andrew and Renee weren’t there.

Neil frowned, lowering the ball back to his side. He glanced warily back towards the devil bird, but it hadn’t budged, ruffling its brown feathers and running its beak through them as if to taunt him. Neil got to his feet and attempted to brush the leaf litter off his sweatpants for a second before giving it up as a bad job.

He found his wayward friends sitting on the grass. Andrew’s all-black ensemble was covered in bits of dried and dead grass, which Neil thought was wholly deserved for having abandoned him to the goose’s mercy.

“I won,” he said petulantly. “Not that you guys care.”

Renee looked up and smiled. “Neil, did you steal an egg?”

“No!” Neil yelped, “It’s not—”

He looked hard at the Exy ball. Definitely an Exy ball. “Oh, screw you,” he said, lobbing the ball at Renee’s head. She caught it, tossing it from hand to hand idly.

“Andrew, it’s not all that bad,” she said.

Andrew’s eyes had a glazed quality to them where he stared off at the horizon. “What’s not all that bad?” Neil said, dropping into a cross-legged position.

Andrew’s eyes dragged around slowly. “My mom,” he said. “Is dating. Her mom.”

“Ew,” Neil said. Andrew nodded mournfully in agreement.

“Oh, come on, Neil,” Renee said, exasperated. “Parents date. It’s not that weird.”

“Yeah, but.” Neil tried to picture it and recoiled as if he had just been electrocuted. Sure, adults dated. But Bee? She was a mom. She was Andrew’s mom. “Ugh,” Neil said. “Why do adults have to be so yucky?”

“Dating isn’t yucky, Neil, are you ten?” Renee said. “Have you never experienced a hormone in your life?”

“The only hormone Neil has is hormone-of-loving-Exy,” Andrew said, still staring forlornly at the sky.

“Hey,” Neil said, offended.

“Exy-tocin.”

“I’m on your side here,” Neil said, chucking a handful of grass at him.

“I mean,” Renee said, shooting a quick look at Andrew then back away again. “If they do—like, get together—”

“Gross,” Neil said. 

“—then…we’ll…kinda be like siblings, right?”

Andrew blinked rapidly, refocussing on her with razor sharpness. Renee looked away, a divot in her cheek like she was chewing on it. Neil bit his tongue before his brain could get the better of him. He waited, looking from Renee to Andrew and back again.

“I guess,” Andrew said, not breaking eye contact with Renee. She brightened like he’d just thrown her a party. She was good that way. She got it.

“I know you have Aaron,” she said. “But it could be fun, right?”

“It’ll be way better than Aaron,” Neil said, unable to hold back any longer. “Aaron’s a jerk.”

“You just don’t like him because he said your Exy team is lame,” Andrew mumbled. Aaron and his family had moved to the nearby city a few months ago, so Andrew saw him most weekends. Neil had decided early on which was the superior twin.  

“Yes,” Neil said. “Which is proof of his bad taste.” He was warming to this idea with every passing second. If Bee and Stephanie moved in together, there was a chance they’d move into Stephanie’s house. Which would mean both Renee and Andrew, his two favourite people, would live on his street.

This could work out well for him, actually. Even if adults dating was weird.

“You wanna hear something even worse than moms dating?” Neil asked.

“What’s worse than moms dating?” Andrew said.

“Allison is dating Kevin.”

“No,” they both said. Renee immediately looked contrite, but Andrew wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I thought she was dating that football bro,” he said.

“She broke up with him last week,” Neil said.

“I thought Kevin liked that band kid,” Renee said. “Jeremy.”

“Yeah, me too,” Neil said sullenly, shredding some of the dead grass beneath him. “I guess he got over it.”

“I mean,” Renee said cautiously. “At least she’s dating an Exy player now, not a football player?”

“Ew,” Neil said. “Ew, ew, ew. That’s Kevin we’re talking about.”

“How’d you find out?” Andrew said.

“I walked in on them,” he said. “Not like, doing it, or anything, they were just like. Holding hands and being gross.”

“I think she’s trying to date every hot guy in our school before she graduates,” Andrew said.

“Kevin isn’t hot.”

“I mean…”

“No,” Neil said. “No. No.”

“Objectively speaking,” Renee said. “He is a…classically handsome guy.”

“Not you too!”

Renee paused. “You’re right,” she said loyally. “He is a strange looking creature, and I would never lay a hand on him.”

“You would never lay a hand on any boy, but I’ll take it,” Neil said. “At least I don’t have to worry about her dating Andrew, too.”

He regretted the words the second they left his mouth. He was pretty sure Andrew had never actually told anyone other than him and Bee that he was gay. He wasn’t sure why, since Renee had been out in their circle of friends for nearly two years, but that was Andrew’s call, not his.

Andrew only snorted, thankfully. “Gross,” he said. “She’s so tall.”

“Well, the good news is she and Kevin probably won’t last long,” Neil said. “What’s Allison’s average relationship at this point? Two weeks?”

“Don’t be jerks,” Renee said. “She’s allowed to date whoever she wants.”

“Uh-huh,” Neil said, unconvinced. “Why does it have to be Kevin, though?”

“So mothers aren’t supposed to date, and brothers are also not allowed to date. Who exactly is allowed to date in your little world?” Renee asked, sweet as honey.

“Shut up,” Neil grumbled. “It’s gross and you agree with me.”

Renee rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well.” She tossed the ball up in the air, eyes reflective. She caught it, and glanced around furtively, like she didn’t want any other nonexistent park-goers to hear what she said next. “Ten bucks says they don’t last till the end of the season.”

Neil grinned. Renee put up a good front, but she was secretly a bit of a jerk. It was why they liked her so much. “I bet they don’t make it till the end of the month,” he said.

“You’re both idiots,” Andrew said. “They’ll break up by Friday. Just wait.”

Neil snickered, and Renee tried unsuccessfully to bite down on a smirk. She flopped down on her back and Neil shuffled over to lay next to her, grabbing her arm and arranging it under his head like a pillow. After a long moment, Andrew sighed and stretched out a few feet away on Renee’s other side.

Neil squirmed, grass prickling his back. He was still sweaty from their game—Renee had played backliner, while Andrew blocked all the shots Neil was able to get around her—and it wasn’t quite warm enough to be lying out here without a sweater.

He sighed. “Knowing my luck, Kevin and Allison are going to end up getting married.”

Based on the revolted noises Renee and Andrew made, they were at the very least picking his side on this one, so Neil decided to forgive them for abandoning him with the goose.

They ended up going to Neil’s house for dinner. Coach had made beef lasagne, though he complained that he’d meant to have leftovers for lunch tomorrow, not to feed four teenagers. They knew him too well to believe his complaints, but Neil’s curiosity piqued when Kevin refused to come down for dinner.

“What’s up with him?” he demanded as soon as Coach got back from delivering Kevin’s food.

“Allison broke up with him,” Coach said.

“Oh,” Renee said, unconvincingly. “Poor Kevin.”

Andrew coughed once, holding his hand out.

“Come on,” Neil whined. Andrew just stared across the table at him blandly. Renee shoved the side of his head.

Neil scowled at his lasagne. “I don’t get my allowance till Friday,” he grumbled.

“What’s this about?” Coach asked, eyeing them.

“Andrew bet that they’d break up by the end of the week,” Renee said.

“Don’t you bet on those idiots,” Coach said. “Now eat your damn salad. You kids are going to make me grey.”

Chapter Text

Andrew had made a decision.

While there was no more denying that he did like boys—he’d talked about it a lot, with Bee mostly, and a bit with his other therapist—he had determined that he wasn’t going to act on it. They were, first and foremost, far too young for that. He was only fifteen. And with all the bad things that had happened to him, he didn’t need or want to inflict himself on any other boys.

So that was that. He wasn’t going to touch any other boys, or think about kissing them. Which was a little difficult when so many of the boys in his class were suddenly getting very pretty and kissable, and when Neil was suddenly getting so much more touchy, always leaning on Andrew’s shoulder (which could probably be explained by his glee at being a whole inch taller than Andrew) or squashing into the same spot as him on the couch (which could not be explained by his recent growth spurt).

That was okay, because Andrew was strong and very determined. He had not told his therapist about his resolution. He wasn’t sure why, because it was obviously very smart of him, but he had a feeling she would not approve.

There was absolutely no way this could go wrong.

Andrew shifted his head and pressed hungrily into the other boy’s mouth. He let out a tiny gasp as he opened his mouth to Andrew, his lips tentative but warm. Andrew sucked in a heavy breath and squeezed his wrists, keeping his hands well out of the way as he kissed him breathless.

Not kissing boys was not going very well. Or rather, it was going somewhat spectacularly, so long as you ignored the fact that he was Absolutely Doing That.

“Andrew.”

“Shut up,” Andrew growled.

He got a bite on his lip for that and he reared back, glaring down. Kevin looked immediately contrite, and possibly a little nervous. “Was that okay?” he asked. “I thought—”

“Stop talking,” Andrew said. He was definitely not ready to address whatever the hell had just shot through him when Kevin nipped him.

“Are you—” Kevin started anyway, and Andrew pushed him back into the mattress and kissed him to shut him up. Sometimes it was really obvious that he and Neil were brothers, even if they weren’t blood-related.

They spent several more rather enjoyable minutes making out until a thump from downstairs made Kevin jump. Andrew sighed, pushing himself up again. Kevin really did look kind of nice, his hair all mussed and his cheeks pink.

“That’s probably Neil and dad getting home,” Kevin whispered.

It was probably a raccoon in the garbage can, but Andrew didn’t bother to argue. He refused to let anyone into his bedroom at home, which meant they were stuck doing this in Kevin’s room. That meant it was a constant war between finding time to make out and dodging Kevin’s very nosy brother.

At the bare minimum, at least they were both very firmly on the same page about that. Neil was not to be allowed to know about this. And it wasn’t like they were dating or anything. It was just that last year Kevin’s acne had started to clear up, and he was basically always training for Exy so he had really nice shoulders, and his cheekbones really were—

Andrew caught himself staring and blinked rapidly, ducking his head and biting at Kevin’s jaw to hide his lapse. Kevin sighed, stretching out his neck to give Andrew access, which, okay, that was hot.

“KEVIN, I’M HOME,” Neil bellowed, the door banging open downstairs. 

Andrew shot up, springing away from the bed like a startled cat. Kevin scrambled upright, his eyes wide with horror. Andrew raked his fingers through his hair and checked his reflection in the mirror on the back of Kevin’s door. Did he look too flushed? He definitely looked too flushed.

“Hello?” Neil yelled.

Andrew didn’t have time. He took a deep breath, re-set his shirt, and swung the door open, heading out into the hallway. The last thing he needed was for Neil to find them in Kevin’s bedroom together. Not that they didn’t hang out in there all the time, but—

“Oh, Andrew, you’re already here,” Neil said as Andrew came down the stairs. He dropped his Exy bag in the front hallway, ignoring the mud that he’d tracked all over the entry hall. Sometimes, it was very obvious that Neil and Kevin weren’t related. “How’s Kevin? Still sulking about championships?”

It took a moment for Andrew’s brain to reboot enough to register what Neil was talking about. “He’s insufferable,” he said, trying to feign normalcy. “You should take him out back and put him out of his misery.”

He held up a hand and mimed shooting, which made Neil’s nose wrinkle in amusement. “Asshole,” Kevin muttered from a few feet behind Andrew, evidently having had the same instinct as Andrew about Not Being Caught In Bed.

“We won, by the way,” Neil said, shooting Kevin a sunny smile. Andrew didn’t need to look to feel the force of Kevin’s glower and suppressed a sigh of relief. He should have known Neil’s post-game Exy tunnel-vision would stop him from questioning them.

“I’m gonna go shower,” Neil said. “I’ll be back down in a minute, then we can start the mov—”

“Hold it right there,” Wymack said, edging through the door with several bags of groceries hanging over his arms. “You’ll be getting the rest of the groceries and sweeping up the floor before you do anything else.”

“But Coach—”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over all the mud you’ve tracked over my nice clean floors.”

“You hate cleaning,” Neil muttered sullenly.

“And so do you, so stop walking your muddy shoes all over the floor.”

Kevin sighed. “I’ll clean it.”

“Kevin, no, Neil needs to—”

“ThanksKevinyou’rethebest,” Neil shouted over Wymack’s attempted lecture, dashing outside into the pouring rain to get the rest of the groceries.

Wymack squinted suspiciously at Kevin. “Since when do you clean up after Neil?” he asked.

Kevin’s face went red and he spluttered something incoherent. Andrew sighed again. Kevin had always been a horrible liar.

He headed back up the stairs while Kevin dug himself into a hole and came back a minute later holding Neil’s iPod.

“We broke it,” Andrew said, shoving it into Wymack’s hand.

“What?” Kevin said.

Andrew silently urged him to shut up and follow his lead, but he knew that he only had a brief window to get his explanation in before Kevin blew it. “We borrowed it to copy some music and Kevin dropped it down the stairs.”

Wymack glanced at the splintered screen with a grimace. Kevin’s face was now nearly purple with horror, but at least Wymack would probably assume it was because of the broken iPod and not because he’d been upstairs making out with Andrew for the last half an hour.

The door banged open again and Neil shuffled in sideways, overladen with grocery bags.

“Hey, kiddo,” Wymack said.

“Oh no,” Neil said. “You only call me kiddo when there’s bad news.”

“Kevin?” Wymack prompted.

Andrew stared at him over Wymack’s shoulder, trying to telepathically communicate to Kevin to play along. He gulped. “Um,” he said. “Me and Andrew broke your iPod. Sorry.”

Neil’s expression made several quick shifts in the space of a second. He shrugged off the grocery bags and stepped forward, his mouth settling into a frown. “What?”

“Kevin dropped it down the stairs,” Wymack said, holding it out. “Sorry, buddy.”

Neil took the iPod gently, staring down at the screen. It had been a gift from Abby, and Andrew had actually been there when Neil accidentally crushed it against the edge of his desk three weeks ago. He’d been agonizing about how to admit that to his dad ever since.

“I’m sorry?” Kevin said, and while it came out as a question, it seemed to jolt Neil out of his confusion.

“It’s okay,” he said, though his expression looked anything but. At least he knew how to play along.

Wymack shot Kevin a reproving look. “It’s alright. It might still be under warranty, we’ll get you a new one.”

Neil swallowed and nodded, his fingers closing over the fractured screen. “Okay,” he said.

“Go shower,” Wymack said. “Andrew and I will get dinner going.”

“We will?” Andrew asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re over here three nights a week, you no longer get guest privileges,” Wymack said. “Kitchen, now.”

Andrew wrinkled his nose but did as instructed. Wymack picked up the grocery bags and started unpacking them, placing some tortilla chips and shredded cheese on the counter.

Nachos were probably the only thing Andrew reliably knew how to make, which Wymack evidently knew. Bee was such a busybody in her off-work time. Andrew retrieved the rest of the ingredients from the fridge and found a couple baking sheets under the oven. Wymack turned the oven on preheat without needing prompting and left Andrew to do the prep work.

He was almost done by the time Neil came downstairs, damp and mussed from toweling his hair dry. Wymack checked the kitchen, then glared at the two of them, hard. “I’m gonna go shower,” he said. “Don’t set anything on fire while I’m not here.”

“Yes, Coach,” he and Neil said simultaneously.

Wymack jabbed a threatening finger at them, which Andrew did not believe for a second, and disappeared up the stairs. Neil squeezed in next to Andrew at the counter and started sprinkling jalapenos on one of the trays of nachos, since Andrew adamantly refused to touch them. They made his fingers smell for hours.

Neil shot Andrew a glare from beneath his hair, but it dissolved into a grin after only a second. “You’re such a jerk,” he said, jostling Andrew’s shoulder.

Andrew had to hold his breath for a second as the smell of Neil’s shampoo washed over him, all bright and fresh and pine-needly, making him all-too-aware that he and Kevin had been so abruptly interrupted only a few minutes earlier. “I told you you were making too big a deal out of it,” he said, once he’d regained control of himself.

Neil made a face at him, but he couldn’t hold it for long. They put the two baking sheets in the oven and Neil hopped up onto the counter, eating the escaped bits of cheese they’d left scattered all over the place. Andrew poured himself a glass of orange juice and leaned back against the counter beside him.

“You two are insufferable,” Kevin griped as he came back into the kitchen, clutching a mop in one hand. Andrew kicked it lightly as Kevin passed and Kevin smacked his leg with the wet mophead in retaliation. Andrew jumped as warm water soaked into his jeans, and Neil cackled.

A faint smile crossed Kevin’s face and he squeezed the mophead out over the sink before dumping it in the laundry room at the far end of the kitchen. Andrew’s lip curled at the damp feeling on his ankle, but he couldn’t help feeling a little smugly satisfied. Equilibrium re-established. They’d gotten away with it.

Everything was under control.

“By the way,” Neil said casually, “Allison and I are dating now.”

Orange juice went down Andrew’s windpipe and he choked, nearly snorting it out his nose. Kevin tripped over the garbage can and barely saved himself from knocking the whole thing over.

“What?” Kevin demanded. “Since when?”

Neil smirked, the fucking evil little bastard. “Monday.”

Since when was Neil interested in girls? Since when was Neil interested in anyone? “You can’t date her,” Kevin spluttered. “She’s my ex-girlfriend! You can’t date my ex-girlfriend!”

“Can so,” Neil said. “We’re going to the movies tomorrow night. You guys will have to go to the arcade without me.”

Andrew thumped his fist against his chest and coughed to clear the last of the orange juice. Neil hopped off the counter as if he hadn’t just dropped a grenade and brushed his hands off on his sweatpants. “So,” he said. “Buffy or Star Trek?”

He sailed straight out of the room without waiting for an answer.

Kevin and Andrew made eye contact from across the room, dumbfounded.

Where had that come from?

Chapter Text

Kevin was up to something.

Neil wasn’t sure what that something was yet, but he was going to find out. His going theory was that Andrew was blackmailing him because he’d done something embarrassing, like blurt out something stupid to Thea, or forget the name of the third striker on the national team.

Except Andrew would tell Neil if that were the case. Which meant possibly this secret was also embarrassing for Andrew, which was weird, since Andrew was not prone to embarrassment. Neil was going to have to think on it some more.

He should maybe not be thinking about this while he was making out with his first ever girlfriend.

Allison pulled back, popping her lips with a smirk. “How was that, freshman?”

Neil gave her a flat look and she grinned, rolling over to grab her laptop off the side table. They were currently locked in her room, which couldn’t look more different from Neil’s if they’d planned it that way. She had a four-poster double bed that looked like it came straight out of a fairy princess catalogue. The only thing they had in common was a jumbled pile of Exy gear crammed into one corner.

“Movie?” she said.

“Sure,” Neil said, shifting over so Allison could tuck herself into his side, their backs propped against a truly enormous pile of frilly pillows. She smacked one last kiss to his cheek before nuzzling in closer and propping her laptop on his legs. Neil put his arm around her shoulders and rested his head on her hair. She smelled like hairspray and bubblegum.

Neil liked this part of dating. He and Allison had hung out before, in groups, but getting to spend time one on one was nice. Allison was always dressed nicely—even now, when she was wearing her casual loungewear, she outshone most of the girls at school—but he liked seeing her relaxed like this.

“What are we watching?” he asked, running his fingers through her hair. It was surprisingly smooth, considering the amount of product he’d seen her put in it this morning.

She swatted his hand away, glaring at him as she smoothed the damage away. “Mean Girls,” she said. “You’re uncultured.”

“Okay,” Neil said, amused. He waited till she moved her hand to start playing with her hair again. She gave him a flat look, but Neil just smiled and toyed with the loose, wavy curls.

“Insufferable,” she muttered, but she didn’t try to stop him again. She dimmed the lights using a remote on her side table—rich people, honestly—and hit play on the movie.

Neil watched it with half an eye, more preoccupied with how soft Allison was against his side. Her fingernails glittered, painted with black with tiny gold stars. She’d threatened to do the same to his nails, but they both knew he’d only destroy it at Exy practice. Neil didn’t know how she managed to look so good even though she was one of the most aggressive players on the team.

The movie had been running for about half an hour when Allison abruptly sat up, dislodging the laptop. “Okay, what is going on?”

Neil stared at her, taken aback. “What?”

Allison glared at him. “This is the fourth time I’ve invited you over here for a movie, and you haven’t tried to feel me up even once.”

“Um,” Neil said. “Do you…want me to?”

“Well,” Allison said, looking a little put-out. “No. Not really. But it’s weird that you haven’t.”

“Okay,” Neil said. “Should I…do something?”

“I mean,” Allison said. Her ears were very pink, Neil noticed. “You could like. Maybe. Do…something.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither of them moving. “Was there something specific you wanted to do?” Neil asked.

“I don’t—” Allison pursed her lips, the redness creeping into her cheeks. “You’re making this very difficult, you know!”

“I know,” Neil said solemnly. “I’m the worst. C- boyfriend.”

“You are,” Allison said, but a smile was tugging at her mouth again, buoying Neil a bit. Maybe he was a terrible boyfriend, but maybe he could figure it out.

He slid his hand into her hair again. She liked kissing. He was sure he would, too, once he got the hang of it. It was just weird now because he didn’t know what he was doing. He only hoped he wasn’t too bad at it. He propped himself up on his elbow and pulled her down to meet him, pressing a kiss to her mouth.

Allison kissed him back for a moment before drawing away again, studying him critically. He waited, unsure of what she wanted.

She took his hand, sliding her silky-smooth fingers over his. She glanced at him again, cheeks flushed, and brought his hand up to her chest.

“Oh,” Neil said.

Allison swallowed, blushing, and let go of his hand. Neil shifted, his hand cupped slightly around her. He wasn’t sure what Allison expected him to do, but he was quite sure he was going to do it wrong if he tried.

So he didn’t try. He met her gaze seriously, sliding his hand upward.

Then he gave a light squeeze and made a honking noise with his mouth.

Allison shrieked. “You little—”

Neil rolled away, but not quick enough. She jumped on him, pinning him down. “You evil—”

Neil jabbed his fingers into her sides, making her shriek again. He tried to wiggle free, but she had him trapped, straddling him and tickling his sides. He squirmed harder, laughing now, and Allison laughed above him, her sharp fingernails digging into his sides. “No, stop it—ow—”

“That’s what you get, little monster,” she said, grabbing his wrists and holding him trapped. His cheeks hurt from grinning. “You are despicable. I can’t stand you.”

“You think I’m cute,” Neil said.

“It’s a weakness,” she agreed.

The room settled around them. Dust motes shone in the dim lamplight where their wrestling had dislodged them.

Allison shook her head and huffed, planting a kiss on his forehead before rolling off of him. They lay on her blanket for a moment, side by side, catching their breath.

Allison buried her face in her pillow. “I can’t believe you honked my tit.”

“Sorry,” Neil said, though he was still grinning too hard for it to sound believable.

Allison rolled onto her side, and Neil rolled towards her, their bodies curving together like two closed parentheses. Allison’s hair was completely ruined now, frizzy and flyaway. Her lip gloss was smudged from their earlier kissing.

“I’ve never had sex,” Allison whispered.

“Um,” Neil said, freezing.

“I don’t mean—” she stopped. “I know what people say about me. I just wanted you to know.”

“Oh,” Neil said. “Um. It would be fine if you had, though.”

“I know that,” she said petulantly. “I know.”

She tucked her head in, an unfamiliar vulnerability in her eyes. Neil shifted in closer, putting his arm over her waist, and that must have been the right thing, because she sighed, snuggling in until they were entangled together from hand to foot.

“It’s not like I think sex is bad,” she said quietly. “It just never feels right. Like—the first time is a big deal. And whenever I’m dating some guy, it’s like, we’re having fun, right? But I can’t imagine doing that with him. Because he wouldn’t do it right. Or I wouldn’t do it right. I don’t know.”

“That’s okay,” Neil said. “I mean, I’ve never had sex either.”

She sniffed. “Well, I knew that.”

“Shut up,” Neil said. “We were having a moment.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It was gross.”

“You started it.”

They dissolved into giggles, cuddled together like a pair of puppies, and even when they stopped they didn’t move, and after a while Neil dozed off, and he woke up with his nose buried in Allison’s shoulder and her drool on his forehead, and Neil thought maybe he could make this work after all.

Allison dropped him off at home at 9:30pm. Kevin was brooding by the doorway like he always was when Neil got back from his dates with Allison. He opened the door before Neil got to it and glowered down the driveway towards her.

She leaned out of her pink convertible, ostentatiously kissing her fingertips and blowing the kiss to Neil. He mimed catching it and blowing it back, mostly because the way Kevin bristled was hilarious.

“You’re late,” Kevin groused.

“It’s because we were having soooo much sex,” Allison said. “Isn’t that right, Neil baby?”

Neil grinned and winked at her as Kevin’s face went a deep shade of red. A smirk tugged at Allison’s lips and she put her car in reverse, waving her fingertips in goodbye as she pulled out of the driveway

“You had sex?” Kevin hissed. “Neil—”

Neil gave him a flat look and pushed past him into the hallway. He leaned into the living as he passed. “Hey, Coach, I’m—”

He blinked, reeling to a stop. Andrew sat on the couch, a bowl of popcorn on his lap, what looked like a documentary about seals frozen on the TV screen.

“Hey,” Neil said. “Didn’t know you were here.”

“Dad’s out,” Kevin said from behind him. Neil glanced over his shoulder and found Kevin’s disapproving glower had not lightened with Allison’s departure.

“Well that’s a relief,” Neil said. “Leaving the whiskey on the coffee table did seem a little risky.”

Kevin stiffened, shoving past Neil to scoop up the bottle and squirrel it away upstairs. Neil snorted, throwing himself down on the couch. He made to put his feet in Andrew’s lap, but Andrew’s shoulders tightened minutely, and Neil quickly retracted his feet.

“You’re drinking with Kevin now?” Neil said. “That’s a new low, even for you.”

Andrew shot him an unimpressed look. His hands were still curled loosely around his bowl of popcorn. “It’s not like you were going to drink with me,” he said.

“That’s because whiskey is disgusting,” Neil said. He held out his hand, and after a moment Andrew relented and handed him the bowl of popcorn.

Neil popped some in his mouth. Kevin’s footsteps moved around upstairs, muffled but still audible. Coach was pretty laidback about underage drinking—he took the attitude that he’d rather he knew what they were up to than have them get hurt sneaking around behind his back—but Kevin still kept his alcohol hidden in his bedroom vent. It was traditional.

“So you and Allison are really…” Andrew said.

Neil blinked. “Yeah?”

Andrew hummed, a quiet skepticism in his eyes.

“What?” Neil prodded.

Andrew’s fingers were very still resting on his legs, in a way that told Neil he would be fidgeting if he was someone else. “I thought you were just messing with Kevin,” Andrew muttered after a moment.

“Well, I am, as a rule,” Neil said. “But the Allison thing was just good timing.”

“Hm,” was all Andrew said. Neil pursed his lips, then un-pursed them to eat more of Andrew’s popcorn.

“We haven’t actually like.” His ears went hot, peeking at Andrew past the bowl of popcorn on his stomach. “Done it. That bit was messing with Kevin.”

“Right,” Andrew said. “Obviously.”

Neil scowled, poking him in the side with his foot. Andrew jumped and shot him a glare, which was familiar enough to make Neil grin in victory.

“Are you going to play the movie?” Kevin said grouchily, dropping into the armchair. Neil propped himself up on one arm, handing the popcorn to Andrew as he grabbed the remote from the table to hit play. The soothing voice of a nature documentary narrator filled the room and Neil reclaimed the popcorn from Andrew.

After a moment Andrew huffed, shifting Neil’s feet into his lap and throwing a blanket over the both of them. Neil hid his grin behind a mouthful of popcorn.

Everything was exactly how it should be.

Chapter Text

“I mean, he’s cute, I’m not arguing there—”

“But so serious.”

“Like, he looks like he could kill someone.”

“Neil?” Allison said incredulously.

“And he’s so short.”

“I will give you that one,” Allison said. “But the rest is crap.”

“Oh, come on,” one of the other girls said. “He’s so…dour.”

“Yes, exactly!” the other exclaimed.

Neil stood at the corner of the school as Allison peevishly defended him out of sight. Dour. He turned the word over in his head, frowning. Neil wasn’t generally bad-tempered. Sure, he didn’t really have much patience for people other than the approximately six people he liked. But dour?

“I guess that’s what Allison goes for though, isn’t it?” the first girl said, a tease in her voice.

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Allison groused.

“I mean, this is like a record for you, yeah?”

“Two whole months. You’re like, serious-serious.”

A pang of guilt hit Neil’s stomach. This was actually true. His relationship with Allison had passed her longest-lasting previous record three weeks ago. It was one of the longest-lasting relationships out of anyone in his ninth-grade class. Neil liked Allison.

Which only made what he had to do this afternoon suck even more.

He shook himself and marched out from behind the corner. Allison lounged at a table in the school courtyard, her pale pink backpack slouched with debonair nonchalance between her shining black flats. The two girls sitting with her clammed up immediately as they spotted Neil. They eyed him warily, like one might a stray dog that had come sniffing around for scraps.

“Oh, thank god,” Allison said. “Take me away.”

Neil held out a hand and she took it, rising to her feet with all the grace of a dancer. Neil spared the other two girls his dourest look and managed to hold onto it just long enough for them to squirm in discomfort.

His nose wrinkled as soon as they got out of sight. “Why do you even hang out with them? They’re insufferable.”

“Their parents are friends with my dad,” Allison said. “We end up at a lot of the same events.”

“So?”

“So…so, shut up,” Allison said.

“You don’t like them.”

“They’re not—” Allison cut herself off at Neil’s sideways glance, and she sighed. “Fine. They suck, I hate hanging out with them, and I hate going to my dad’s events. Happy?”

“Never,” Neil said.

Allison linked her fingers with his and tugged lightly. “Stop being smart. It doesn’t suit you.”

Neil smirked, but the expression died quickly. They walked the rest of the way to the car in silence, both preoccupied with their own thoughts. Allison unlocked the door to her pink Porsche and swung into the driver’s seat.

“So,” she said. “Dinner? Arcade? Movie?”

“Can we just go back to your place?” Neil said.

Allison’s expression flickered, but she brushed it off quickly. “Sure. Maurice is making casserole tonight, it’s actually pretty okay.”

“Sounds good.”

Her house was only a few minutes' drive away from the school. Neil spent the drive staring out the window and rehearsing the phrase in his head over and over again. He should probably have bought her something. That was normal, right? She hadn’t bought Kevin anything but—

Allison slammed the car into park. “Okay, what the—”

“Wehavetobreakup,” Neil blurted out.

A frozen kernel of silence condensed around them. Neil held very still, barely breathing.

“What?” Allison said.

Every single thing Neil had Googled last night fled his mind. “Um. I just think that this isn’t working out and—” what was he supposed to say he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to say “—you’re hot and all but you’re so clingy and—” oh god oh god oh god no “—and you’re really good at Exy so you should stick to that and—”

“Are you quoting how I dumped Kevin back at me?”

“—and somebody...uh…somebody asked me to the…uh—”

“Nobody asked you to Homecoming and I know that for a fucking fact Neil, what the hell?”

Neil shrank down into his seat. This was not going how it was supposed to go. “Sorry,” he said. He dug his fingers into his hair. “Shit. I’m—”

“I can’t believe Kevin told you about that,” Allison said, fuming. “That useless little twerp—”

“I’m sorry!” Neil said. “It’s the only break-up I know about.”

“That doesn’t mean you quote it, what the fuck.”

“I know,” Neil said. “I panicked. Shit. This wasn’t supposed to—”

Allison’s voice was suddenly much quieter. “You think I’m clingy?”

Crap—the one thing he’d blurted out that wasn’t from Kevin—shitshitshit. “I mean—"

“You do? Jesus Neil, what the fuck?”

He bit the inside of his cheek hard, pressing his eyes closed. Get it together, Neil. It’s just Allison. “It’s not that I think you’re clingy,” he said carefully. “I like hanging out with you. I like getting dinner, and watching movies, and even the hand-holding it’s just—”

“It’s just what?”

Neil swallowed, unable to look at her. “It’s all the kissing. It’s just—I don’t know. At first, I thought it was just because it was new, but it just—it never changed. It’s…it’s not bad. It’s just not anything.”

“You’re…not into me?”

“I guess.”

For a moment silence lay thickly across the car. “Are you gay?”

Neil shrugged. “Maybe?” He risked a sideways look at her. “I mean, if I’m not into you, I’m probably not into girls, right?”

“Don’t try to be charming with me right now,” Allison snapped, a scowl dug into her cheeks. Her hands twisted on the steering will for a second before she pressed her head back against the seat. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry—”

“I cannot be the girl who got dumped by a freshman.”

A startled bark of laughter escaped Neil’s mouth. Allison smacked him. “Don’t you laugh at me, you little prat. I am the dumper! I dump people! I do not get dumped!”

Her expression had already partially untwisted, and he could see the laughter she couldn’t quite resist behind her eyes. A smile tugged at Neil’s lips. He doubted she was actually done being mad at him, but at least she wasn’t yelling.  

“Your secret is safe with me,” he said solemnly. “For a price.”

“You think you can make demands here, little monster?” Allison said, stabbing a bejewelled fingernail at him. “After that botched-ass speech—”

“Let me drive your car.”

“No!” Allison shrieked. “You don’t even have a license! You’re not driving my car!”

“Oh, come on,” Neil said. “It would kill Andrew. He would die of jealousy. Please? You would love that. It’s totally worth it.”

“You don’t tell anyone you dumped me and I won’t tell anyone that you literally quoted your brother to do it,” Allison said. “And that’s final.”

“Technically, I quoted him quoting you,” Neil said. “And—”

“Shut up before I decide to run you over.”

“Fine. Deal.”

Silence crowded in once more. Neil sucked on his teeth. The jokes couldn’t quite cover the horrible awkwardness that had descended in the wake of his shitty attempt at a break-up.

“I think this is the part where I have to leave,” Neil said.

“Yuuuup.”

“Cool. Okay. I can just catch the bus—”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Allison said. “I’ll drive you.”

“You don’t—”

Allison stabbed a finger at him threateningly and restarted the engine. Neil bit his tongue and shifted in his seat uncomfortably. She drove for several minutes, chewing on the inside of her cheek, before she suddenly said: “Is it Andrew, then?”

“What?”

“You’re not into me,” she said, and Neil winced at how the blunt the words sounded in her voice before her next ones blindsided him. “So is it Andrew?”

“What?” he said. “No!”

“Geez, okay, just a question.”

“No, I mean—No? That would be weird. He’s my best friend.”

“People fall for their friends all the time. It’s like, the most normal thing.”

Neil’s nose wrinkled. “No,” he said. “We’re just—we’re me and Andrew. I’ve known him forever. He’s my best friend.”

His best friend, and his first friend, other than Kevin, though he didn’t say that to Allison. He and Andrew were solid. They were invincible. That didn’t mean he wanted to date him.

Did he?

He tried to picture it, but his imagination broke down. All the stuff he did with Allison, all the movies and the cuddling and dressing up nice for dinner, it didn’t fit with him and Andrew. They watched movies and hung out and ate dinner, but it was never like that. The thought of kissing Andrew rose up in his mind unbidden and he shuddered. It was ridiculous. Absurd.

“Ugh,” he said, shaking his head. “No way. That would be too weird.”

“Hm,” Allison said. “How about Seth?”

“Seth?”

“Not for you. For me. He’s hot, right? He’d totally say yes if I asked him out.”

“Oh god, no, I take it back. I’m un-breaking up with you until you get better taste in guys.”

“What would you know about good taste?”

“Better than Seth. He’s almost as bad as that football player.”

“Get out of my car or I’ll drive us both into the ditch,” Allison said, pulling up to the curb by his house at a skewed angle. “Seth is hot.”

Neil made a face, but he threw open the door and was halfway out before he paused, looking back. Allison’s mask was flawless, as usual, but he knew better than to believe it. “Are you—”

“Go away, Neil.”

“Okay,” he said, and closed the door. He felt bad for leaving her like that, but he was the last person she needed comfort from, right now. He’d revoked his right to that particular task.

He slung his backpack over his shoulder and trudged up the driveway. The engine behind him roared as Allison peeled away from the curb, spitting gravel all over the lawn.

The door had been left unlocked. He shoved it open. “I’m home!” he shouted.

“In the living room,” Renee called. Neil kicked his shoes off into the hall closet and followed her voice, finding her, Kevin, and Andrew sprawled on the floor in the living room amid the detritus of post-school snacks.

“You’re home early,” Kevin said in his usual disapproving-of-Neil-and-Allison voice.

“Allison dumped me,” Neil announced, sitting on the floor beside Renee.

“Thank god,” Renee said. She flushed when they all turned to stare at her. “Oh, shut up. You were all thinking it, I’m just saying it.”

“What,” Neil said drily. “Worried the hetero was catching?” He wiggled his fingers ominously at her and she laughed, swatting his hand out of the way.

Kevin’s face went blank. “Are you okay?” he said stiffly. “I know first break-ups can be very difficult. If you need anything—”

“You’re right,” Neil said, stealing Andrew’s bowl of chips. “I’m devasted. Broken. The only way I’ll ever recover is if you let me use your Switch whenever I want to.”

“Jerk,” Kevin muttered, his shoulders slouching back to his usual posture.

“Always,” Neil said. “Do you guys think I’m dour?”

“What?” Kevin said. “No.”

“You’re like a hyperactive squirrel,” Andrew said.

“Am not.”

“Are so.”

“Am not.”

“Did Allison call you that?” Kevin interrupted.

“No, her fancy-ass rich people friends.”

“Ugh. Rachel and Lucy?”

“Well,” Renee said fairly. “You can be somewhat…blunt, with people outside our friend group.”

“You mean he’s a dick,” Andrew said.

“How dare you,” Neil said. “I’m emotionally vulnerable right now, and you insult me?”

Andrew snorted and retrieved his chips. “Insufferable,” he said.

Neil flashed him a grin. The second they made eye contact his brain interrupted with all the questions Allison had raised in the car, and he quickly looked away, skin prickling with embarrassed heat.

Oh, he might learn to hate her for planting that little thought.

“So, what are we playing?” he asked, leaning forward, and Renee jumped in to explain, and Neil spent the rest of the evening getting his ass kicked in a series of video games.

It wasn’t until he was going to bed that night that he realized he had barely thought of Allison all evening, and the guilt of that realization was swallowed by his sheer relief that it was over. He fell asleep in minutes, and he dreamed of pixelated cars and flashing colours, and then he didn’t dream of anything at all.

Chapter Text

If Andrew was a better person, he would be less pleased that Neil and Allison had broken up.

As it was, Andrew was a selfish, jealous asshole, and his primary reaction to the breakup was smug relief. This was made easier by the fact that Neil did not seem at all bothered by the breakup, so Andrew didn’t have to navigate any friendship-ly duties that involved comforting him or expressing sympathy.  

A month after the breakup, the school announced an informal dance that Friday. Andrew hated people, and he hated dancing, so he was not going. Neil also hated people, and especially hated crowds, so he was obviously not going to go either. Everything was good.

“I’m going to the dance,” Neil announced, sliding into their table at the cafeteria.

Andrew inhaled his soda. He coughed, nostrils burning. “What?”

Neil shovelled a spoonful of cafeteria slop—Andrew was pretty sure it was nominally lasagna today, but it looked like it had been boiled until the internal structure had dissolved into a mass of pinkish goo—into his mouth. He shrugged one shoulder. “The team invited me.”

“The team,” Andrew said flatly.

“Matt, Dan and Renee,” Neil clarified.

“And you said yes.”

Neil shrugged again, a vaguely panicked look on his face. “You’re coming, right? You can’t leave me alone with them.”

“Dances always suck.”

“Yeah. But you’ll come?”

Andrew wiped his face, giving his questionable pink lunch a glower.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Fine.”

The dance was informal, but most people still dressed up a little. Andrew dug up a pair of snug, distressed black jeans and a navy button-down with tiny embroidered silver stars on it. He left it hanging open over a white tank-top and pushed his hair around with mousse until it was too sticky to touch and he gave up on it.

Neil hadn’t even tried. When Andrew strolled into the gym, trying to look disaffected and not like Bee had been coo-ing over his outfit in the car, he spotted Neil immediately in the bleachers, surrounded by the rest of the Exy team. He was still wearing the same orange shirt he’d been wearing to school that day. He looked like a traffic cone.

Kevin, beside him, was wearing a bowtie, which would have been absolutely absurd on anyone without Kevin’s inhuman self-assurance. Andrew strode up to them and propped his elbow on the railing.

“Nice bowtie,” he said, because he was an asshole.

Kevin shot him a glare. Neil snorted, shifting over to make space for Andrew.

“This sucks,” Andrew said, as he took his spot, surveying the gymnasium. A bunch of people were milling around while the DJ set up, and the gym teacher’s workout playlist was playing over the PA.

Neil nodded. “It sucks very much.”

“Why do you guys even come to these things?” Kevin muttered.

Despite that, the first couple of hours weren’t the worst. Andrew and Neil sat in the stands being judgemental about all and sundry while the music and dancing ramped up. They did spot Allison making out with Seth from across the gym, but luckily Neil just laughed at some private joke, and Andrew was once again relieved of friend-comforting responsibilities.

Eventually, though, the rest of the team dragged Neil away, and Andrew was left sitting in the stands by himself. He didn’t dance—literally couldn’t, couldn’t relax his body enough to do that, couldn’t stop being aware of every place his limbs were long enough to enjoy it—which meant dances were a particular bore for him. He flipped his phone out, scrolling through his text conversation with Aaron. His parents were considering moving to Palmetto for Aaron’s junior and senior years. He and Aaron had been carefully talking around the subject for weeks.

He glanced up again. Renee was dancing with a senior girl near the doorway. The upperclassmen were dancing in a circle by the edge of the crowd. Neil bobbed along awkwardly, nodding his head to the music. Kevin had escaped the crush and was standing by the drinks table with a couple of his classmates, a contrarian expression on his face as he argued with them about something.

Andrew checked his phone. Nearly ten. Plenty of time to drag Kevin out behind the school and get in twenty minutes of entertainment before their parents arrived to put an end to the tedious evening.

The song ended and Andrew stretched, getting to his feet lazily. Something came on, something slow and crooning that Andrew had heard no less than fifty times on the radio this week.

He stuffed his phone in his pocket and looked up, and missed the last step, smashing his knees on the steps of the bleachers.

Neil was still on the dance floor.

Neil was still on the dance floor, and his arms were tentatively wrapped around junior class president and school heartthrob, Jeremy Knox.

Andrew scrambled to his feet, glancing around. A pair of girls in lulu lemon tights giggled as he collected himself. He just needed to—

His eyes darted back to the dancefloor. Jeremy Knox smiled down at Neil with his perfect All-American boy charm, and his perfect All-American boy teeth, and his fingers brushed Neil’s hair out of his face, and before Andrew could move Neil’s face tipped upwards and Jeremy leaned forward and there was a sound in the back of his mind like a car crash, the screaming crunch of metal as all the gears in his brain came to a crashing halt.

Jeremy Knox kissed Neil on the dance floor in front of the whole school, and Andrew couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even think. He had thought—and Neil didn’t—

His chest felt overfull and scoured out at the same time, and that was the moment that he spotted Kevin again, still by the refreshments, his bowtie still prim and stupid on his chest. Andrew ripped his eyes away from the catastrophe that was happening on the dancefloor and stomped over to Kevin. He turned when he saw Andrew coming, nodding his chin at him in greeting. “Hey, Andrew,” he said. “What—”

“Yes or no?” Andrew said.

Kevin blinked. “What, now?”

Andrew stepped closer, burning eyes meeting Kevin’s gaze. “Oh,” Kevin said, melting, his body going pliant. “Okay, yeah.”

Andrew didn’t think. He grabbed Kevin’s shirt in both hands, hauling him down to Andrew’s level. Their faces bumped together, hard, before Kevin managed to catch Andrew’s mouth.

Andrew barely felt it. His body felt like fire. He slid his hand up into Kevin’s hair, pressing against him from head to toe. One of Kevin’s arms wrapped around the back of his neck, a safe zone, somewhere they’d gone before, and Andrew sank into it. He bit Kevin’s lip and pressed deeper when Kevin gasped. Kevin’s body heat was everywhere, his chest and hands and long, incredible legs.

It was almost enough to overwhelm him. It was almost enough to let him forget.

Kevin broke away, breathing hard. His body was curled towards Andrew, half-perched on the edge of the table. “Andrew,” he mumbled. “Wow.”

Andrew yanked his hair a little. “Hey,” Kevin said. Andrew loosened his grip, but his fingers still itched. He needed more. He needed to blank his mind, to completely forget. He and Kevin had never—well, they’d never done anything. But Kevin was looking at him all dopey-eyed and flushed, and maybe this was enough, maybe this was the moment. Andrew knew all the hiding places in the school. He skipped classes often enough.

Kevin’s eyes focussed on something beyond Andrew’s shoulder and his whole body went tense. Andrew twisted to look before he’d even consciously decided.

Neil stood at the edge of the dancefloor. Jeremy Knox was nowhere to be seen, and Neil’s mouth was hanging open in abject shock.

“Neil,” Kevin said, struggling upright. “Neil, I—”

Neil’s eyes shifted over to meet Andrew’s. Andrew couldn’t say a word. His lips were still damp from Neil’s brother’s mouth, his hands still tangled in Kevin’s shirt and hair. He watched the shift as if in slow motion. Shock, to fury.

“Neil!” Kevin said, shaking free of Andrew and lunging towards him, but Neil had already backed into the crowd, disappearing. Kevin plunged in after him, leaving Andrew standing by the refreshments table with a trio of football players staring at him in disgust, feeling like he’d just lost something very important.  

Chapter Text

Neil avoided Andrew for the whole weekend, and he didn’t see him at school at Monday, which was impressive because it wasn’t that big of a school. Andrew wasn’t moping—Andrew did not mope—but he might have scared a few freshman girls with how loud he slammed his locker at the end of the day. He glowered at them and took perverse pleasure in how quickly they scurried away.

He turned around and recoiled in shock.

“Fuck, Kevin,” he said. He glared up at him, standing a foot away. He was too damn tall to be that quiet.

“Hey,” Kevin said. His hand twisted on his backpack strap. Andrew frowned. Kevin looked…nervous. It put Andrew immediately on edge.

He hiked his backpack further up his shoulders and turned away, biting down a scowl. He strode off towards the front of the school, but that didn’t deter Kevin. He kept pace easily with his damnable long legs.

“Are we going to talk about this?” Kevin said.

“Do we have to?”

“Uh,” Kevin said. “Yes?”

Andrew’s mouth twitched. “Outside,” he said as they approached the main hallway and the swarms of students streaming towards the exit.

“Okay,” Kevin said. They muscled their way out the main doors together and onto the sparse green area in front of the school. The parking lot was lined with large, rectangular cement blocks, and Andrew hopped onto the one where he usually waited for Bee and folded his arms, giving Kevin a challenging glare.

Have you talked to Neil?

The words stopped in his throat, gumming up on his tongue. He couldn’t force them out. He needed to know too badly.

Kevin took a deep breath. “I was wondering if you wanted to—”

“Oh, look,” said a sneering voice. “It’s the happy couple.”

Andrew inhaled and held it for a count of four before turning slowly, focussing his glare on the speaker. Seth Gordon looked smug as a cat, his arm fastened firmly around Allison’s shoulders.

She smacked him, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be an asshole.”

Andrew barely heard her. Neil stood behind them, his hands empty and his face set like thunder. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, conspicuously away from Andrew or Kevin.

Andrew couldn’t help his arms unravelling at the sight. “Neil—”

“I’m heading home,” Neil said loudly, still not looking at them. He strode off towards the parking lot, and Andrew lurched off the cement block, about to follow him. He stopped, fists clenching at his sides.

He didn’t know what to do.

“Oh,” Kevin said, his voice small.

Andrew wrenched his head around to look at him, but Kevin’s expression was not illuminating. The nervousness was gone, leaving a small slump in its wake. Allison snorted.

“Oh, you fucked up this time,” she said, smirking. 

“Fuck you, bitch.”

“Hey,” Seth said. “That’s my bitch, not yours.”

“Go away before I make you.”

“You really gonna pick a fight with me?” Seth snapped, and Andrew was, he really was, because punching Seth had to feel better than whatever the hell was going on in his head right now, but Allison let out a huge, put-upon sigh.

“God, Seth, you’re such an asshole,” she said, ducking out from under his arm. “I’m leaving.”

“Hey,” Seth said, chasing after her, and they were arguing before they got out of earshot. Andrew stood, fists clenched and nowhere to go, and he counted to fifty before he could finally force himself to loosen his hands.

He swivelled back to Kevin. “You were saying?” he snapped.

“Nevermind,” Kevin said, but he was avoiding Andrew’s eyes. “It’s not important. I have to go get Neil before he runs all the way home.”

And then Kevin was gone too, and it was just Andrew again. Always, Andrew alone.

He didn’t know why he was surprised. Things had been going too well, for too long. It had to go to shit sometime.

It always did.

Friday afternoon, Andrew sat in the cafeteria alone for the fifth time in a row. Andrew’s popularity had always been in the bottom fifth percentile of his class, and it was only that high because the Exy team tolerated him. Neil wasn’t much better, except that he was hot enough that people still occasionally made overtures. On the rare occasions he gave in, they usually regretted it when they encountered the reality of his prickly personality.

The upside: a fight between two people as unpopular as them did not exactly break the rumour mill. Andrew overheard a few people talking about his and Kevin’s public kiss, and several more about Neil’s with ‘Certified Hottie’ Jeremy Knox, but the post-kiss drama was mercifully exempt from conversation.

The downside: the Exy team comprised both Andrew and Neil’s primary social circle, and the Exy team had picked Neil. The only person who deigned to be associated with him was Renee, and even she gave up after the fifteenth time he snapped at her. Andrew’s popularity had officially hit rock-bottom.

Not that Andrew cared. He didn’t need anybody. He never had.

He suspected Neil was having lunch in the gym, because he hadn’t even seen him all week. Kevin had likewise been absent, but he was standing by the windows now, texting somebody. The light glowed in his dark hair, ruffled and mussed like he’d been running his fingers through it.

Andrew shifted his food around with his fork and then gave up. He tipped his uneaten tray into the garbage and crossed the cafeteria, jabbing Kevin in the side and jerking his head towards the door.

He didn’t know if that was enough to make him follow, but he walked out like he didn’t care either way. Sure enough, five seconds after the cafeteria doors swung shut behind him, Kevin hurried out into the hall.

Andrew pushed open the nearest classroom door and let himself in, spinning on his heel to glare at Kevin. He didn’t have the good grace to look guilty, but he did lock the door behind them.  

“Yes or no?” Andrew said.

“What?” Kevin demanded.

The outrage in his expression would have been funny, at any other time. Andrew gave him a flat look.

“That’s it,” Kevin said incredulously. “You came in here to get off.”

“Why else would I?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin snapped. “Maybe I thought you would actually talk to me for five minutes.”

“As opposed to the rest of the week, when you’ve been so eager to talk to me.”

Andrew regretted saying it the minute it was out of his mouth; he’d meant it to sound mean, but he couldn’t quite stifle a note of hurt in his voice. Kevin obviously heard it, because he softened, stepping closer. Andrew dug in his heels and forced himself not to back away.

“I didn’t really know where to go from here,” Kevin said quietly. “I needed to think about it.”

“Nothing has to change.”

“Yeah, it kind of does.”

“What, because Neil knows about it now?”

“Because you’re in love with him.”

Andrew reeled back like he’d been punched. His hip hit a desk with a loud rattle.

He couldn’t breathe. “I am not.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Kevin said heatedly. “I saw how you looked at him. I’m not—bad enough I was hooking up with my brother’s best friend. But now—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Andrew snapped.

“Yes, it does!”

“He’s not interested in me!” Andrew snarled, the words tearing out of him like thorns. “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life alone just because one person doesn’t want me.”

“This isn’t about him,” Kevin shouted. “This is about me!”

The air felt like it had been sucked out of the room as the words echoed around them. A poster flapped idly under the vent. Kevin’s nostrils flared as he stepped forward, jabbing a finger into Andrew’s chest. His eyes burned.

“Didn’t expect that, did you?” he said. He shook his head. “You know, I was fine with it. Just hooking up, not dating. But then you kissed me at the dance, and I thought, you know, maybe you wanted more than that. And maybe, we could be something, right?

“But that wasn’t about me, was it? It was about Neil, it was about you, and you never even stopped to think about me. You never have. It’s always about you, and what you want. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think it wasn’t. Well, this time, it’s my decision. And I’m done with you.”

He stood there, breathing heavily. Andrew stared up at him, unable to make a single sound. Kevin waited for a beat, then nodded his head sharply and turned around, marching out of the room without another word.

The poster on the wall flapped pathetically at Andrew. His chest rose and fell rapidly as the dust settled. The vent sputtered a couple times and then heaved one last, long, loud sigh before dying completely, leaving only silence.

It was Bee who made him go over to the Wymack’s in the end, though it took her another week to wrangle it. Wymack let him in with a knowing look, gesturing up the stairs. Andrew skirted him and padded quickly up to Neil’s door. Loud music was pounding from Kevin’s, just down the hall, but Neil’s room was quiet.

He knocked. A muffled voice called out, and Andrew took that as an invitation, letting himself in.

Neil lay sprawled on his bed, his face buried in a Switch. His gaze struck Andrew with a glancing blow before he froze, eyes sliding slowly sideways as if Andrew would disappear if he moved too fast. Andrew rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans. The hair on the back of his neck prickled.

“Kevin’s room is that way,” Neil said, fixing his eyes back on the screen and jerking his head towards the wall.

“I know that.”

Neil mashed a few buttons. Sound effects bounced around the room, bright and playful sounds that were at odds with the ferocious tension in Neil’s back. Andrew shoved his hands in his pockets, twisting the fabric up in his fists.

Finally, Neil tossed the controller down on the bed. “What do you want?”

His fingernails bit into his palms. I want my best friend back.

He stood in the doorway and he knew, he knew, all he had to do was say it and Neil would break. Five years living with the Wymack’s, and there was still some fragile, frightened part of him that froze whenever people called him friend, like he still didn’t believe it was possible.

Andrew knew, and he couldn’t say it. Couldn’t force the words out of his stupid, stubborn mouth.

(Because maybe there was a fragile, frightened part of him that still didn’t believe it was possible, either.)

The moment stretched, and passed. Neil’s face twisted in a sneer.

“Get out,” he said, turning back to what was clearly Kevin’s Switch. Penance, probably, on Kevin’s part.

“I’m sorry,” Andrew said. “I was a shithead.”

Neil let out a long, loud breath and thumped his head down on the screen with a frustrated groan. He stayed like that, and Andrew stayed by the door, holding his breath.

“Did it have to be Kevin?” Neil said in a strangled voice.

Andrew tried not to slump with relief, but he didn’t know how successful he was. “I probably could’ve handled it better.”

“You definitely could have,” Neil said, and unfolded himself from his bed to sit up, propping his arms on his knees. He looked haggard, like he hadn’t been sleeping properly. That was a fairly standard Neil look—Andrew knew about his nightmares. The raccoon circles under his eyes were a usual fixture. The slumped exhaustion wasn’t.

“I shouldn’t have gone for Kevin. That…should have been off-limits.”

“It’s not that,” Neil said.

Andrew stared at him, and Neil’s mouth twisted. “It’s mostly not that,” he amended. He tugged at the fraying hems of his pants. “It’s that you kept it a secret for months. Don’t deny it. Kevin told me.”

Andrew swallowed. His legs felt liquid and unsteady. Cautiously, he crossed the room to settle in Neil’s desk chair.

“We didn’t tell anybody else, either,” he said.

“I tell you everything,” Neil said.

“You didn’t tell me about Allison.”

“I told you six hours after it happened,” Neil snapped. He jerked his head, looking away. “Whatever. I know that doesn’t mean—you don’t owe me. I just.”

His jaw clamped shut, muscles jumping in his throat.

And because Andrew was a masochistic idiot, he said: “You didn’t tell me about Jeremy.”

Neil groaned, leaning back against the wall. “There’s nothing about Jeremy. It was a stupid experiment. It lasted like thirty seconds. I’ve had like twenty people ask if we’re going to prom together.”

“People suck.”

“They suck so much,” Neil said with a sigh. The Switch made a forlorn beeping sound and Neil shoved it onto the bedside table carelessly.

He sank a little lower on the bed, his eyes fixed somewhere around Andrew’s left shoe. His hair fell into his eyes, hiding his expression. Andrew tried not to fidget with his keys in his pocket. His fingers were going numb from how tightly he had them twisted.

“Did I do something wrong?” Neil said, barely above a whisper. “That made you not trust me?”

Andrew sat bolt upright. “No, Neil,” he said. “It was never that. Never.”

“Then why?”

“It was just—” Andrew bit his tongue. “It was…”

He fished for words. None of them sounded right. Weird. Undeniably. It had also been really good. Confusing. Sometimes, but mostly he’d been quite sure what he wanted from Kevin.

“Private,” he said finally.

Neil didn’t look convinced, but Andrew didn’t have anything better for him. Complicated skirted too close to the issue.

“Neil,” Andrew said.

Neil avoided his gaze. “It’s fine,” he said. “I just…I thought telling each other stuff was our thing.”

“It was,” Andrew said. “It is.”

Neil still wouldn’t look at him, so Andrew took a risk and shifted to the bed, sitting beside Neil until he had no choice but to meet Andrew’s gaze.

“Do you really,” Andrew said, “want me to tell you about hooking up with your brother?”

“Oh, God, no,” Neil said.

An irrepressible laugh bubbled out of Neil’s mouth, and he smashed his face down into the pillow to stifle it. A warm, fizzing feeling sprung up in Andrew’s chest. Neil punched him in the arm, still laughing. Andrew stole the second pillow and propped it under his lower back, settling comfortably against the wall. Neil rolled over, sprawling his legs over Andrew’s lap.

“I can’t stand you,” Neil said.

“The feeling is mutual,” Andrew said, rearranging Neil’s bony legs so they didn’t dig into his thighs so hard.

Neil snorted. “I can’t believe you kissed Kevin.”

“I can’t believe you kissed Jeremy Knox.”

Neil slanted a flat look at him.

Andrew slanted it right back. “We don’t like him. We agreed not to like him last year after the Valentine’s Day pep rally.”

“I know, I know,” Neil said. “He’s so bubbly and nice.”

The distaste in Neil’s voice was tangible. Andrew stuffed down the traitorous fizzy feeling. But really. Where else was Andrew ever going to find a level of pettiness equal to his own?

He rubbed Neil’s ankle with his thumb, and Neil snorted again, propping his hands under his head. “It’s Allison’s fault. After I broke up with her—”

“Hold on,” Andrew said. “You told us she broke up with you.”

“Oh,” Neil said, a guilty look flashing across his face. “She made me promise not to tell.”

And then it came spilling out, the saga of Neil’s absolutely catastrophic breakup, and Andrew couldn’t do anything but stare as the horror unfolded.

“You are an embarrassment,” he said. “You should not be allowed to interact with people.”

“You can’t ever tell anyone. Allison will cut my heart out with her fingernails.”

“I’d stop her.”

“Aw, Andrew,” Neil said, cooing mockingly. Andrew flicked his toe in punishment. Neil snickered. “Anyway, she asked if it was because I was gay.” He paused, frowning. “I said that I didn’t know. But then at the dance, Jeremy asked me—and I figured, I won’t know if I don’t try, right?”

“No,” Andrew said. “That’s not how it works.”

Neil scowled. “Isn’t it?”

“I never had to kiss a guy to know I wanted to.”

“Well, I don’t. Know.”

“Okay,” Andrew said, rubbing his thumb over Neil’s ankle bone like a silent apology. Neil subsided, staring at the ceiling with a reflective look on his face.

“And?” Andrew said, because he couldn’t just leave well enough alone, could he? Neil quirked his head towards him, and Andrew clarified. “What were the results of your ‘experiment?’”

“I dunno,” Neil said. “It just didn’t feel like much of anything, you know?”

Andrew thought about the first time he kissed Kevin, about how he’d locked himself in his room for two hours afterward to remember how to breathe. About how even thinking about kissing sometimes still made his stomach turn.

“No,” Andrew said. He didn’t think there had ever been a time when a kiss felt like nothing. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but never nothing.

Neil’s expression dropped, immediately. “Of course, that was stupid,” he said. “I—”

“Shut up,” Andrew said, and Neil fell mercifully quiet. Floorboards creaked downstairs as Wymack moved around. The tap ran for a moment, a soft rush like blowing wind.

“I think there’s something wrong with me,” Neil said.

“There are many things wrong with you.”

Neil kicked him in the stomach, and Andrew let out a soft oof. He rubbed his belly, glaring down at Neil.

“I’m serious,” Neil said. “It’s like everyone else has this…switch that’s gone off in their brains. But mine’s not on. I don’t even think if I have one.”

“A sex switch,” Andrew said, keeping his voice very flat.

Neil blew right past the double meaning. “Maybe it’s for the best,” he said. “I was a shit boyfriend. Jeremy dodged a bullet, honestly.”

“That’s true,” Andrew said. “But not because you don’t like kissing.”

“Really?” Neil said. “Even you—”

He stopped, looking horrified at himself, but Andrew just shook his head. It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t also occurred to him. If it was someone other than Neil that said it, it might bother him.

It was Neil, so it didn’t. “So what?” he said. “I’m not into knitting, but Bee loves knitting.”

“I’m not talking about knitting.”

“It’s a metaphor, dumbass,” Andrew said. “Not everyone likes all the same stuff. That’s fine. You can play Exy until your little junkie heart gives out and you don’t ever have to kiss anyone if you don’t want to.”

Neil stayed quiet, a frown pinching his lips. Andrew wanted to smooth out that expression, but he just kept rubbing Neil’s ankle. “You’re also fourteen. It doesn’t have to make sense yet.”

Neil’s nose wrinkled. “Thanks for that wisdom, oh all-knowing fifteen-year-old.”

“I’ll be sixteen in a week.”

“Oh, well in that case,” Neil said, blowing air out through his nose. He shook his head. “What’s it like for you?”

Andrew shrugged. Neil picked at Andrew’s sleeve, refusing to be ignored. “I’ve told you about Jeremy. Fair’s fair. What is it about Kevin?”

“You don’t really want me to answer that.”

“Well. No, but yes. Tell me.”

Andrew stilled, staring at Neil’s knees on his lap without seeing them.

“Andrew?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Andrew said. “It’s over now.”

“You—” Neil propped himself up on his elbows, suddenly urgent. “You guys don’t have to—because of me—”

Andrew raised an eyebrow. Neil scowled, but it was a familiar, non-hostile scowl. “Fine, yes, I kind of hate it. But I’ll get over it. I don’t want—if you want to be with him, I don’t want to fuck that up.”

Andrew exhaled through his nose and shook his head. “It was going to end anyway. The writing was on the wall.” In big, neon letters. Andrew is a selfish asshole. That was another apology he was going to have to figure out at some point.

“Okay,” Neil said. He flopped back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. His foot dangled off the edge of the bed. Andrew gathered it back up and continued memorizing the bony jut of Neil’s ankle with his fingertips.

“If I was a better person,” Neil said, “I would be less happy about that.”

Andrew couldn’t help but snort. “If you were a better person, we wouldn’t get along."

And Neil laughed, and damn him if it wasn’t the most beautiful sound in the whole entire world.   

Chapter Text

Branches crackled underfoot. Andrew skidded a few more feet with a lurch before he managed to stab his poles into the snow hard enough that he crunched to a halt.

His throat squeezed. The snow under his skis was broken with twigs and pinecones. The rounded surface of the mogul he was perched on dropped away precipitously a few inches from the edge of his boots.

“Andrew?”

His fingers flexed tighter on the grip of his poles. Sweat slicked the inside of his gloves. He could hear the sickening crack of bones in his memory, remember the exact sensation of his leg snapping beneath him. It was going to happen again. His muscles screamed with tension, his weight teetering towards the drop-off.  

“Andrew,” Neil called, and Andrew’s head snapped up. Neil stood a dozen yards down the hill, lumpy and shapeless in his ill-fitting winter gear. His goggles were pushed up onto his helmet, an expression of concern on his face. Andrew didn’t know how many times he’d said Andrew’s name without getting a response. The thought made his stomach clench.

“You can just slide down on your side,” Neil said. “There’s a lot of branches but if you stay on the left there’s no rocks.”

Andrew stared mutely down at him. The gully’s steep sides closed in on either side, funnelling him down towards the half-melted stream at the bottom. He could already feel the cold water when he slid into it, sinking into his clothes, covering his mouth—

“Okay,” Neil said. “Don’t move. I’m coming back up.”

Andrew sucked in a sharp breath, swaying with the realization that he hadn’t done so for several seconds. Below him, Neil struggled out of his skis, stabbing them into the snow so they didn’t slide away. A part of Andrew knew he needed to tell Neil to stop, that all he had to do was shuffle sideways and he’d make it down the patchy slope, but he couldn’t make himself move. It was like his bones had calcified, fusing with the snow. His fingertips burned with icy cold.

Neil’s boots crunched as he kicked them into the hill. Andrew’s breathing echoed in his helmet, too loud. He had to move. He had to act, or—

Neil’s red face came level with his knees. Andrew couldn’t remember him climbing, couldn’t understand how he’d gotten there so quickly. Neil panted, pressing his gloves into the snow. “Shit,” Neil mumbled. “Fucking—steep—”

He took a deep breath and reached for Andrew’s boots. Andrew recoiled viscerally and his skis slipped. A strangled sound escaped his throat as he lurched downhill, his skis smacking Neil’s knees. Andrew slammed his body against the hill behind him, pressing hard against the snow like he could hold himself up by sheer force alone. Neil wobbled hard and grabbed for the twiggy branches sticking out of the sparse snow. His eyes squeezed shut as he clung there. Andrew’s chest shuddered and he tried to stay still, tried not to panic. He couldn’t let Neil fall. He couldn’t—

“Okay,” Neil said, between deliberate breaths. “I’m gonna undo your skis, alright? Then we can just. Walk down. All fine. Okay?”

Andrew couldn’t make his throat work, but he managed a bare nod. His skis stuck out into open air, only the centres still desperately digging into the hill.

Neil propped his arm under the base of Andrew’s ski and pressed the lever until his foot popped free. His weight shifted and he wavered again, his chest closing up.

“Just one more, Andrew,” Neil murmured, snapping the second buckle. Andrew scrambled backward, the hard, rigid boots denting the snow. Neil gripped Andrew’s skis, glancing backward with a considering expression. After a second, he looked up at Andrew and shrugged, pushing the skis down the hill behind him.

A small croak escaped Andrew’s chest as his skis bounced and slid down the steep snow. One caught in a drift, stopping halfway down, but the second ricocheted all the way down to the base of the gully, wedging into the stream and jerking a few feet downstream before it jammed between a couple of rocks. Andrew shuddered, his mind overlaying images of his own body bouncing down to the stream, bones snapping at each turn.

“Andrew, look at me,” Neil said.

With immense effort, Andrew dragged his eyes away from the base of the hill to where Neil was propped in the snow beside him. The hill was so steep he barely had to lean over to lie against it.

“I hate you,” Andrew mumbled through frozen lips.

“There he is,” Neil said, flashing a brief smile. “We just gotta get past this bit, okay? If you kick your boots into the snow it's not even that bad.”

“This was,” Andrew said. “Your. Stupid. Idea.”

“You can kill me once we’ve made it to the bottom,” Neil said. “Can you move?”

Andrew glared at him. Neil stood there, patient, waiting. Andrew inhaled through his nose, closing his eyes. “Why do I listen to you.”

“Not sure,” Neil said. “You’d think you’d have learned better by now.”

“Guess I’m not as smart as I think I am.”

Neil’s mouth twisted in a smirk and Andrew swallowed. “Let’s get this over with,” he said through gritted teeth.

Neil nodded and scrambled up a few more inches to jam his shoulder under Andrew’s armpit. He clung to Neil’s arm with a vice-like grip, breathing heavily through his nose. Neil levered him down onto the next mogul. The snow crunched under their heavy boots as Neil led him down one painstaking step at a time until they reached the spot where Andrew’s first ski had stopped.

Neil ducked out from under Andrew’s arm and scrambled up the side of the gully to retrieve it. He trekked back down to Andrew and made to grip his arm again. Andrew shoved him off with a glare. The hill had levelled out a little, and the tightness in his chest had alleviated just enough for him to see exactly how pathetic he’d behaved. God, if anyone had seen that—

Neil remained unfazed. “Almost there,” he said, trudging a few more steps. Andrew set his jaw and followed, using his poles to steady him as he stepped over the scrubby brush that stuck through the snow. They reached Neil’s skis, but he didn’t put them back on yet, even though he’d managed to stay on them through the worst of it and could almost certainly ski the rest of the way. He balanced the three skis under his arms precariously until Andrew shoved his shoulder roughly and retrieved his own ski. He slung it over his shoulder and hiked down towards the stream like he was marching to his own execution.

Bee and Wymack had thought it would be a fun holiday getaway. Spring break in the mountains. Fun winter sports. Neil had taken to it like—well, not like a fish to water, owing to how damned cold it was, but he had quickly split from the group on the second day and dragged Andrew off to explore the backside of the mountain.

The sign for Doognog Gully was half-hidden in a copse of trees. The route followed a narrow track through the woods for a hundred yards before spitting them out into this horrible little shute, where there were more rocks than snow and a fucking stream at the bottom—

“In my defence,” Neil said, catching up to Andrew as he reached the stream and jammed the back end of his ski into the snow so it wouldn’t slide away. The underside was scraped to hell and back from all the branches and rocks they’d slid over. “You also thought the name sounded funny.”

“I also said that it was a black diamond,” Andrew grumbled.

“Well,” Neil said. “Yeah, also that.”

Andrew stepped into the shallowest bit of the stream, his weight splintering the thin film of ice covering it. He held his breath, but the plastic boots didn’t leak, and after a second he forced himself to lean over awkwardly and yank at his wayward ski. It stuck fast, wedged between an icy bank and a few boulders, and he scowled, hauling on it with.

It came loose with a lurch, nearly sending him toppling onto his ass right there in the stream. Neil’s hands caught his shoulder and he held Andrew up for a protracted moment before he could get his feet underneath him. He shoved himself upright and glared at Neil.

Years of practice had inured Neil to it because he just grinned. “We should bring Kevin down,” he said. “We could—”

“The only thing I’m doing for the rest of the day is drinking hot chocolate somewhere warm,” Andrew said firmly. He climbed back out of the stream, the ice crystals at the edge of the rocks crackling underfoot.

Neil’s nose wrinkled. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

Andrew gave him a flat look and Neil sniggered, slogging up a few more feet onto the main track. He pulled his glove off with his teeth and wiped his face on his sleeve. “Fuck,” he said. “I’m sweating so much. This helmet is like a thousand degrees.”

“That’s what you get for hiking up a goddamn mountain.”

“To save your sorry ass.”

“And whose dumb fault—”

They bickered all the way until the narrow gully opened up onto the main skiway back to the village. A spike of anxiety cut through him as he stepped into his bindings again, his boots locking into place with a thunk. He breathed through it and pushed himself forward with his poles until he could slide sedately back towards the village. Neil skimmed ahead, sliding off the tiny jumps on the side of the trail and nearly toppling over when his skis crossed midair. 

The trail flattened out at the main village, a wide zone bordered by shops and overpriced food and guys with long hair who said ‘bro’ too much. Andrew shucked his skis and helmet the moment he could and ran his fingers through his sweaty hair. The cold stripped the heat of exertion from him in seconds, leaving him shivering.

He thrust his skis against the racks with a little more aggression than was strictly necessary. Neil followed suit, wiping his nose on the back of his glove. “I’m gonna get some fries, you want anything? Another poutine?”

Andrew had never had poutine before this week. He’d now had it every meal Bee would allow him to since they’d arrived. He glowered at Neil, fully aware that he was being managed. Neil stared back unrepentantly.

“Fine,” Andrew grumbled. “I’m going to shower.”

He stumped off without waiting for a response. His boots crunched against the snow, but he still heard Neil’s little snort of amusement before footsteps faded in the opposite direction.

Their hotel was only a block away, but it felt like a mile in his heavy boots, the weight of his earlier panic still settling in his bones. He pushed through the brightly painted doors and went straight for the elevator.

The shower burned his skin. His thighs were pink from the cold and goosebumps prickled up the backs of his arms. He cranked the heat up and shuddered as his freezing skin thawed like grabbing a hot plate with his bare hands.

The smell of greasy fries and gravy seeped under the door when he shut the water off and towelled off. He pulled a sweater and jeans over sticky wet skin and stepped out into the room.

Neil was sprawled on the second bed, still dressed in his snow pants, though his jacket was melting all over the chair. An empty box of fries lay on the bed beside him.

“Yours is on the dresser,” Neil said without looking up from his book. It was Kevin’s birthday gift to him, A Brief History of Exy. Those two were so predictable.

Andrew balled his towel up and chucked it at Neil’s head. “Go shower,” he said. “You stink.”

“You’re thinking about Kevin’s laundry,” Neil said, but he got to his feet lazily, stretching. He ambled over to the bathroom and a minute later Andrew heard the water start running again.

His poutine was waiting, as promised, on the dresser, alongside a massive hot chocolate. The small corner table was covered with Kevin’s homework. Andrew stared at it tiredly for a minute before sliding down the side of the dresser to sit on the floor and pick at his food. Wymack and Abby were staying in the adjoining room with Bee; Renee and Stephanie had opted out of the ski trip in favour of a charity event they were running in Atlanta.

Neil made a decent buffer between Andrew and Kevin, but he still would have preferred having Renee here to distract them. Kevin and Andrew had learned to handle being around each other—they had to, considering that Neil was an inextricable part of both their schedules—and for the most part things had gotten back to normal. That didn’t mean being stuck in a room with the-guy-he-used-to-kiss and the-guy-he-desperately-wanted-to was necessarily Andrew’s idea of an ideal situation.

He dug his phone out and skimmed through his text messages. Roland had sent him a text asking if he was free tomorrow, accompanied by a string of suggestive emojis. He stared at the message until his eyes blurred and he dropped the phone on the ground, sliding all the way down until he was flat on his back.

Roland was a junior, and therefore a year above Andrew. They’d met first in Auto Mechanics, and second at a party hosted by Allison after one of their Exy games. Roland was the second boy Andrew had ever kissed, and as of Christmas break, he was also the first boy Andrew had ever seen naked.

True to his word, he’d carried news of his successes back to Neil. Neil did not particularly like Roland—he thought he was a stuck-up prick, which Andrew conceded was mostly true. Neil in turn conceded that Roland was an improvement over Kevin.

So there, they were doing fine. Everything was normal. Andrew was doing great.

He stared up at the ceiling. His thighs ached from skiing and his back twinged from how many times he’d crashed yesterday during their lesson.

The bathroom door clacked open and Neil padded out, dressed only in a towel. Andrew didn’t move his head to look, but he could see the flash of pale skin from the corner of his eye and a strange tightness constricted his throat. Neil didn’t take off his shirt around his classmates, and he still rarely changed out in front of the Exy team. He vanished behind the second bed and emerged a minute later dressed in a ratty grey t-shirt and soft sweatpants. He came round the end of the bed and regarded Andrew on the floor.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I’m going to die alone,” Andrew informed him.

Neil snorted, stepping over him to the mini-fridge. “Don’t be stupid,” he said, like it was that simple. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

He opened the fridge and pulled out a Sprite, tossing it at Andrew’s face so he had to roll away to dodge it. Neil snickered and threw himself onto the bed. Andrew glowered at him. Neil just grinned.

“So,” Neil said, cracking open his own can of soda and grabbing the remote. “Whaddaya wanna watch?”

Chapter Text

The buzzer blared across the court. The plexiglass walls shook under the pounding of fists. Opposite Andrew, the glowing green score ticked up by one; Home: 7, Away: 6.

A second blast of the buzzer froze the score. Andrew dropped the head of his racquet to the ground and yanked at the strap of his helmet. The last half had worn the defense to the ground. Sweat clung to Andrew’s forehead and his bulky armour felt like a sauna.

His helmet clunked to the ground and the cheers of the crowd came through even louder, barely muffled the court walls. The screams of his triumphant teammates were so loud they bruised his ears.

A small figure broke free of the scrum at half-court, head turning to find Andrew. Neil’s grin was blinding even through the cage of his helmet.

Resigned to his fate, Andrew spread his feet to brace himself. If possible, Neil’s grin widened. He took off at a dead sprint towards the goal.

Even prepared, Andrew couldn’t catch himself as Neil tackled him around the middle. He curled as they fell, protecting Neil’s head against his stomach. They slammed into the ground in a heap.

“We won!” Neil said.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Andrew gasped. Neil only laughed. He buried his face in Andrew’s jersey, grinning uncontrollably.

“We’re going to championships!” he said, and squeezed Andrew around the middle so tight he thought his lungs might burst.

Andrew did not like being touched.

Andrew liked being touched by Neil.

He had several theories as to why this was the case. The first was the simplest: Neil was hot.

Evidence in favour: Andrew’s dick had, in fact, weighed in positively on the subject.

Evidence against: Roland was also hot, but Andrew could barely tolerate his touch at all.

Verdict: Inconclusive.

Kevin’s punctuality was rivalled only by Neil’s ability to disappear without notice for hours on end. In aggregate, these tended to cancel each other out, leaving the brothers slightly late to everything that wasn’t Exy practice, Kevin looking vaguely harried by their lateness, and Neil looking vaguely harried by Kevin.

Andrew had already selected the best chair in the place. The Exy team holiday party was happening at Allison’s because she lived in a mansion with an absurd amount of space, but the armchair by the fire Andrew had claimed was clearly superior to all of the other seats. The rest of the team was overspilling their couches, crammed in too close.

The room was already almost unbearably loud when Kevin and Neil tumbled in. Neil’s cheeks were bitten pink from the cold and he rubbed his bare hands together.

“Stop making me cold,” Allison said peevishly.

“Neil forgot to eat dinner,” Kevin announced as he shut the door. “We had to stop for food.”

“I didn’t forget,” Neil said. “I knew we’d have snacks here.”

“Popcorn isn’t dinner—” Kevin said, but got immediately pelted with popped kernels as the others shouted him down. Ever since the very real possibility of getting scouted for a college team had presented itself, he’d been in an extremely intense health food kick. Andrew was hoping it wouldn’t last much longer than the crochet obsession of last summer.

Neil slipped away from Kevin in the hubbub, eyes raking the room and finding the absence of open seats. He looked at Andrew and pointed at the armchair in question.

Andrew sighed and shifted over. A smug grin tugged at Neil’s mouth and he navigated through the furniture to squash down into the gap Andrew had made. The fabric of his jeans was cold, but his body heat was hot enough to burn it away.

The armchair wasn’t quite wide enough to accommodate both of them. Andrew endured nearly a minute of Neil trying to fold himself into the seam of the armchair before he sighed and grabbed Neil’s legs, pulling them over his lap. Neil immediately buried his socked feet into the cushion on Andrew’s other side, flicking Andrew a grin as he leaned over the arm of the chair to talk to Matt.

Andrew should have felt trapped. Neil’s legs caged him in, body weight pinning down his left thigh.

Mostly, he just felt kind of sweaty from the fire.

Theory the second: Neil was ace, and therefore not a threat.

Evidence in favour: Neil had very cheerfully settled into his role as the One Who Didn’t Date. Neil wasn’t interested in sex, so Andrew could let him close without fearing ulterior motives.

Evidence against: Bee was probably the least threatening human being he had ever met, he still only accepted her hugs a few times a year.

Verdict: Inconclusive.

“I have to piss,” Andrew announced from where his head was propped against Neil’s ankle.

“Thanks for the info,” Neil said, kicking the blanket free of Andrew’s shoulder. Andrew crawled up from his position on Neil’s bedroom floor, cracking his neck back and forth. Neil shuddered. “Gross. Why does that sound so wet?”

Andrew held up his hand and gripped one finger, tugging it hard enough that it made a loud pop. Neil gagged melodramatically.

Andrew’s mouth twitched smugly as he ambled out of the room. The door to the bathroom was locked, so Andrew propped himself against the wall, idly popping the remainder of his fingers.

“I can HEAR THAT,” Neil shouted through the wall.

The doorknob jiggled and Kevin emerged in a cloud of pungent body spray. Andrew waved a hand in front of his nose. “Is that meant to seduce Thea, or scare her off?”

Kevin gave him his uniquely judgemental glare, the one that even Andrew couldn’t rival. “You don’t get to criticize my dating choices,” he snapped.

That was probably fair. Andrew shrugged and tried to edge past him into the bathroom. Kevin caught his arm. He wrenched free, turning a sharp look on Kevin.

He glared back, unrepentant. His voice was low as he hissed, “You’ll never get over him if you keep it up like this.”

Andrew shoved him backwards. “Go to your shitty date,” he snapped, dragging the bathroom door behind him. He heard a stuffy hmph through the door, and then Kevin’s footsteps retreated down the hallway.

Andrew’s hands were unsteady as he relieved himself and patted his hands dry on the scratchy grey towel the Wymack’s never seemed to throw out.

Kevin was right, unfortunately.

He knew that. He knew that.

The thing was—

Neil was never going to want him back. If he knew what was good for him, he’d move on and find someone who would.

Except—

Except he didn’t want to.

Sure, sometimes the frustration of wanting to kiss Neil felt like fire ants crawling under his skin. But the idea of spending the rest of his life wanting Neil and not being able to have him was infinitely less frightening than the idea of spending his life without Neil.

Because Neil did want him. Neil wanted him sitting next to him in the sticky cafeteria chairs passing judgment on the outgoing seniors. Neil wanted him lying on the floor messing around on his phone while Neil did his homework. He wanted Andrew around when he was a grouchy, spiky mess and nobody else could talk to him without losing an eye.

If getting over Neil meant losing that, then—

He returned to Neil’s room and shoved Neil’s feet. “Move over.”

Neil didn’t even look up from his computer as he complied. Andrew crawled into the space he made and stretched out his shoulders until they popped.

Neil punched his stomach in retaliation.

Theory the third: Neil was just fucking special.

Evidence in favour: He just fucking was.

Evidence against: None.

Of course, if there was a way to get over Neil that didn’t involve torpedoing their friendship, Andrew was all ears. Some days just being around Neil felt like his brain was being turned inside out. He stomped up the stairs with a little too much force, throwing open his bedroom door.

Neil breezed in behind him, accompanied by the smell of grass and hot dogs. Exams had ended, which had led to a big school spirit event on the football field. Neil's hair was still bedraggled and dripping from the water fight.

He didn’t even look that good, Andrew thought grumpily. His shirt was a size too big and he had a big zit like the eye of a Cyclops in the centre of his forehead.

His stupid idiot brain did not care. “I’m gonna go clean up,” Neil said, indicating his hair, which did have a fair amount of the football field still attached to it.

Andrew threw himself down on the bed. Sometimes he really, really hated puberty. He stared at the smooth white ceiling. A handful of divots speckled the area above his bed from where he’d once tried throwing a pocket knife to stick it to the ceiling. He’d gotten pretty good at it before Bee found out and went into conniptions about knives falling on Andrew’s head. Or whatever.

“Hey, moody,” Neil said, leaning over him. His hair hung down to frame his face. “What’s wrong?”

Andrew could not say sometimes I want to kiss you so bad it makes my stomach hurt. Instead, he regarded Neil with as much bland disdain as he could muster.

A twitch at the corner of Neil's mouth said he wasn’t fooled. He didn’t move, though, and it took Andrew a second to realize why.

He was waiting for permission to join him. Andrew broke eye contact, tilting his head back to stare at the headboard long enough to control his reaction.

Beds were still a touchy thing for Andrew. His whole room, really—people in his space made him feel itchy.

He made a vague gesture with his hand and Neil crawled up, flopping on his stomach. He tapped one finger on Andrew’s chest in question.

Andrew groaned but opened his arm. Neil grinned and propped his cheek on Andrew’s shoulder. Andrew scooped his arm around him and repositioned him more fully onto his torso. So he didn’t make his arm go numb from lying on it, obviously.

“You’ve gotten clingy since you stopped dating,” he grumbled.

“Hm,” Neil said, the vibration rumbling through Andrew’s chest. “Turns out clingy is a lot more fun when you don’t have to worry about gushy romantic texts every few hours.”

“Hmmph,” Andrew said. The fan on the ceiling swung in long, looping arcs. Neil let out a soft sigh, settling onto Andrew’s chest.

Andrew was pinned, weighted down by Neil's sprawled body. The fear that should’ve elicited didn’t manifest. Neil's body was hot against his, his wet-grass scent brighter than the fresh detergent on Andrew’s sheets.

“Do you want to watch something?” Neil mumbled.

“You’re just going to fall asleep five minutes in.”

Neil peeled one eye open. “You could still watch something.”

“Hm,” Andrew said. The back of Neil's shirt was damp under his palm. Neil shifted, pressing his nose more firmly against Andrew’s collarbone. His breath gusted over Andrew’s neck and a rush of heat flooded his stomach.

Shit. He bit the inside of his cheek. Neil's hair tickled his nose.

He could always push Neil off. He wouldn’t even ask why.

Andrew fumbled his phone out of his pocket, awkward and one-handed. Neil made a vague noise of interest, so he propped the phone against a pillow where both of them could see it and clicked the first show on his Continue Watching.

It was a German crime show he’d been picking through—his cousin, Nicky, had just gotten back from a semester abroad and Andrew was grudgingly trying to learn the language to keep up. Usually, understanding the show was mentally challenging enough to absorb him.

Today, even his usually infallible memory couldn’t save him. He clung to the dialogue for a minute, maybe, then Neil made some sound or snort or lazy sigh, and suddenly it was body heat and the soft smell of his hair and Andrew didn’t even think Neil had noticed that his fidgety hands were pinching Andrew’s shirt and rubbing it and then Andrew caught himself, fixing his eyes on the tiny screen with desperation and restarting the cycle.

Then Neil hiked his leg up, rearranging himself, and his thigh scraped against the unmistakable result of all that overthinking.

“Oh,” Neil said, moving back immediately with a self-deprecating laugh. “Sorry—”

There was a paralyzing moment when all the blood in Andrew’s body rushed south, then rebounded and hit his face in a burning rush. He yanked himself away, knocking his phone to the floor. It clattered against the hardwood and Andrew shot out the door, horror supplanting the brief, sickening pleasure that had overtaken him.

“Andrew!” Neil shouted, but he was in full flight, like he hadn’t for years, not since he was too small to realize it wouldn’t do any good. His panic betrayed him; he’d run, not for the front door, but to safety. To Bee’s room.

She wasn’t there, of course. He threw himself inside anyway, plastering himself back against the door. “Andrew,” Neil said. “Come back, it’s okay—”

The wind lifted Bee’s curtains. There had been contractors crawling all over the house for weeks; her window screen had been removed to allow them access to the chimney outside. Andrew didn’t stop to think. He threw himself bodily across the room and slid the window open fully, scrambling outside. Neil had barely got the door open by the time Andrew’s sock-feet cleared the windowsill.

His hair snapped against his face in the wind. The perilous slant of the roof ended a scant two feet ahead of him. His stomach swooped and the sudden rush of terror actually slowed him down. He fumbled behind him, pressing his sweaty palms to the shingles and scooting up the roof away from the spot where Bee’s window protruded from the otherwise smooth roof. It was only two storeys, but two storeys was plenty high enough to break bones.

“Andrew, knock it off,” Neil said, craning his head around the edge of the window to look back at him.

“Stay away from me,” Andrew snarled.

“Okay,” Neil said. “I’m coming out. I’m not going to touch you.”

He shimmied around the jutting-out window more cautiously than Andrew had, clambering up on awkward all-fours. He was rumpled and slow and Andrew’s mind flitted back like it was possessed by a demon. That intense pressure. He felt sick.

“You don’t have to,” he managed. “You don’t have to—”

He couldn’t choke out the end of that sentence. Neil knew now, or he’d figure it out soon. Once he realized what it meant, he’d wash his hands of Andrew for good.

“I know I don’t,” Neil said peevishly, his tone at odds with the nausea in Andrew’s gut. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. You taught me that.”

Andrew wrapped his arms around his knees, flattening his chest against his thighs. He could still feel it between his legs, though his panic had killed the warmth there into something that felt more like a gut wound.

Neil perched just below the ridge of the roof, turning carefully to sit a few yards away. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Andrew stared at him in outrage. “Are you stupid?” he demanded, but he must have said similarly rude things too often because Neil just returned his stare flatly.

He jerked his head away. “I didn’t—” Andrew muttered. “I—you shouldn’t have had to—”

His inability to form words only seemed to worry Neil more. “I’m sorry if I surprised you,” Neil began.

“Sorry?” Andrew said. “Sorry? Why would you—after—”

“What?”

“Go away,” Andrew said. “You shouldn’t have to deal with—after what I did to you—”

“What you…did to me?”

Andrew made an aggressive, wordless gesture.

Neil stared at him. “Andrew, you moron, you didn’t do anything to me, you just got a boner!”

His voice was loud enough to ring off the roof. A pedestrian looked up, clutching her two small children. Her gaze went angry and disapproving and Neil stuck his middle finger up at her sourly.

By reflex, Andrew put his hand out to try and push Neil's down, but of course, Neil was too far away. His hand pawed once at the air before his brain remembered that even if Neil had been right next to him, the absolute last thing he wanted right now was to touch him. The lady gave them a last reproachful cluck and hustled her children onward.

Neil dropped his hand. “Honestly, though, it’s not a big deal.”

“It’s disgusting.”

“Not really. It’s a bit weird, but it happens, you know.”

“It doesn’t happen to you.”

Neil faltered. “It—what?”

“You’re not interested in anyone.”

“Well, no, but—" Neil frowned. “I mean, dating, or kissing, that doesn’t do anything for me, yeah. But I still—” He reddened. His voice went a little stringy and high, like he’d finally, finally realized what they were talking about. “Um. You know. Like in the mornings, sometimes.”

“Oh,” was all Andrew could say. He stared at his toes. One of his socks was wearing out at the heel. The grit of the roof dug into the exposed callouses.

“I’m still sorry,” he said finally.

“Don’t be,” Neil said. “I’m not mad.”

“You should be.”

“I’m not,” Neil said. “Well, I’m not mad about that. I’m starting to be mad that you dragged me onto this freezing rooftop for no good reason.”

Andrew shot him a glare, and Neil grinned, which Andrew realized too late had been the point, because now that he was actually looking at Neil it was abundantly obvious that he wasn’t mad. Neil's grin went smug at whatever understanding he saw in Andrew’s face, and he scooted down so he could lie on his back with his head just below the peak of the roof.

Andrew wasn’t quite ready to move yet. His body still felt wrong and bad, even if Neil said it was normal. But despite his complaint, Neil just folded his hands under his head and made himself comfortable.

“I wish I didn’t,” Andrew said.

Neil turned his head, studying Andrew, but he didn’t speak, which was alright. Andrew pressed his chin into his knees. He hated feeling like this, small and vulnerable, and the only thing that made it even a tiny bit bearable was that Neil understood. Neil, who was still afraid of his own anger, who bottled it up and crushed it until it spilled out of him like a pot under too much pressure.

His eyes stung. “It’s going to rain,” he said.

Neil hummed agreement.

Neither of them moved. The hulking grey clouds on the horizon billowed and swelled. The air grew heavy and damp, droplets spitting in their faces until the wind and the wet finally rinsed clean the last of Andrew’s horror.