Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The witch next door kept stealing his shit and Andrew Minyard was not amused.

It had started with his hellebore, just a few snips that perhaps a lesser gardener would not have noticed - but Andrew Minyard was not a lesser anything, thank you very fucking much. Then, a couple days later, an entire oleander sapling had been kidnapped. Dug right out of the ground like Andrew wasn’t going to fucking notice.

‘It isn’t worth it,’ his brother Aaron had said when Andrew had declared his intent to march next door and demand his sapling back. ‘Besides, what if he casts a spell on you or something? Look, just let it go.’

Now, Andrew didn’t not follow his brother’s very sound advice. He wasn’t wrong, after all. Witches weren’t really people you wanted to cross - and if this witch was stealing hellebore and oleander then it probably wasn’t for anything good. Both were extremely dangerous on their own. Andrew was no witch, but he knew enough about the plants he cultivated to know what one might do with them. The last thing he should do was confront a witch in his own territory….

Which was why he was hiding out in his own damn garden for the third night in a row, waiting for the little bastard to make his next move. Perhaps Andrew wasn’t prepared to take on a witch in his own territory, but in his garden he was more than ready, more than willing to throw down.

The first night Andrew hadn’t much expected an intrusion - since so far the sneakthief hadn’t hit two nights in a row, but he hadn’t wanted to take the chance of missing him. The second night he’d used the time to tend to his moonflower bushes. It was on the third night that he was apparently going to get lucky, because just as the time crept past midnight, a shadow appeared at the top of the wall separating his and the witch’s property.

Andrew went very still within the shadows where he waited. He tightened his grip on the sturdy broom he’d grabbed as a weapon and readied himself for the moment the intruder landed on the grass.

(A broom would only bruise or incapacitate while a rake or shovel might spill blood if things got messy - witch blood was said to be toxic and he wasn’t willing to risk spilling any on his charges.)

Be it by magic or the witch’s nefarious nature, he didn’t make any noise as he swung himself over the top of the wall and slid down the cold stone, landing in a crouch on Andrew’s side. There was no scrape, no thump, no catch of breath. If Andrew hadn’t investigated the garden thoroughly and found that the patch of grass was slightly trampled in this spot, thus knowing to watch from here exactly, he wouldn’t have known someone had come over the wall at all.

The witch stayed low to the ground as he crept away from the wall, then stood up straight and began to jog silently toward the belladonna bushes. Andrew tightened his grip again, then loosened and adjusted it to prepare to deliver the wake-up-call this witch clearly needed. Careful not to breathe (because witches could probably sense that shit), he drew his arms back and just as the wiley little fucker passed him he swung.

Either the witch was going faster than Andrew realized or a witch really did weigh the same as a duck because when contact was made, that fucker went flying.

Andrew gave himself a moment to reflect on that, gauging how much air the thief had achieved in his stellar wipe-out and giving his broom an appraising look. Satisfied, he approached the witch.

“Going somewhere?” he asked quietly, his voice empty of all inflection.

The witch, who had landed on his back, wheezed out something inarticulate.

“Didn’t catch that.” He came to a stop just a few steps away, broom in one hand with the tip of its staff pressing into the soft dirt, his other hand casually hooked into his pocket.

The witch pushed himself up tenderly. There was a gray hood pulled down over his face, the light from the moon hitting him just enough to show the twist of his mouth, lips slightly parted as he struggled to get his breath back.

Andrew watched him for another moment, waited until the sound of those short, ragged breaths smoothed to something steadier - not because he cared if the thief-witch was hurt or not, but because he wanted to make sure the man could fully hear and then answer his questions. He tapped the handle of the broom against the dirt twice to get his attention, then asked, “Why does a witch want an oleander sapling? What are you planning to do with it?”

Of anything Andrew might have expected to get as an answer, it was not, “I’m not a witch you asshole, I’m a botanist.”

“A what?” Andrew blinked, then frowned. He did not like being confused.

“A botanist. I study--”

“I know what a botanist does.”

“Amazing, then you aren’t as stupid as you look.”

“Says the guy who got caught sneaking into someone else’s garden,” Andrew shot back, annoyed now. The ‘botanist’ (Andrew was still skeptical) made a sound that might have been a laugh, rubbing one hand over his lower abdomen where Andrew must have nailed him with the broom. Then he reached up and pulled down his hood.

The man’s face was its own story. On one cheek was a cluster of burns, round and rough in a way that Andrew couldn’t place their cause - too big to be caused by a cigarette but not the right shape for a hot poker. The other cheek bore a crosshatch of slashes, the scars glinting almost silver in the moonlight - which now fully highlighted the marks as well as the dark circles that stained the soft spots under the bluest eyes Andrew had ever seen. Even with the scars, there was no mistaking how unquestionably beautiful this man was. Andrew wasn’t sure whether it was the shine of his cosmonaut eyes or the twist of a not-quite-smirk on lips that looked way too soft, but all of a sudden he had a whole new problem.

He refused to crush on his fucking witch-thief-botanist neighbor. No.

“I’m Neil,” said the bad idea.

And Andrew, lacking anything better to say, said, “You look like a witch.”

The witch Neil chuckled, the sound a crackle of dry leaves under sturdy boots, at once tense and somehow morbidly amused. “Says the man with a broom,” he returned with an easy gesture.

Andrew tightened his grip on the broom, but Neil didn’t look worried about him using it again.

“You kidnapped my oleander sapling,” he said instead, internally cringing at the lack of venom in his voice. Most people were intimidated by his default flat tone and blank stare, but this botanist thief here looked at him like he could see right through him. Maybe he didn’t call himself a witch, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have some sort of sight or gift.

“I promise, she’s doing just fine. You can come visit her if you want.” Was… was this fucker teasing him?

Andrew narrowed his eyes. “Or you could just give her back.”

“She likes it better at my place.”

“You stole her, she didn’t have much of a choice,” Andrew pointed out.

“She was your smallest sapling, and she was overcrowded on the plot - it’s not like she was having a blast,” Neil said as he pushed himself up to stand. Andrew took some satisfaction from the way he winced and rubbed at his abdomen again. At least he’d come away from this encounter with some bruises to remember him by. Well, to remind him not to steal from his garden again. Yeah - that.

He was also mildly surprised to see that his thief was only a few scant inches taller than him. At five foot even, Andrew was used to a much greater difference in height - though it was somewhat annoying that even this cheeky little cretin was taller than him.

“She was not overcrowded,” Andrew argued back with a frown. Who did this guy think he was, to tell him how to tend to his oleander?

“Oh I think if you take a look at the plot you’ll find that she was. She’s doing much better in the pot I’ve got her in now.”

“You put her in a pot?” Andrew asked, and this time the disgust broke through.

Neil sniffed, indignant and wrong about it. “Yes. It has sunflowers on it.”

Andrew stared at him for a long moment. “You put an oleander sapling in a pot… with a sunflower on it.” It was not a question. He was just clarifying that the ‘botanist’ standing in front of him was really that much of a jackass.

“Sunflowers. Plural. They have faces, actually, smiling ones - and they’re dancing.”

“Now you are just fucking with me.”

“I would never,” declared the jackass - but the twitch of a grin at the corner of his mouth said otherwise.

“Liar,” Andrew accused. Neil only shrugged, the curve of his lips now flavored with amusement. Andrew wasn’t sure whether that made him want to kiss him or punch him in the face. Being around this botanist witch was beginning to get very taxing.

“Come over tomorrow and see for yourself then. Unless, I mean, you’re scared to go into the big bad witch’s house." There was ever so much of a sneer on his face, a distinct curl and weight in his tone when he said the word 'witch' that suggested Andrew wasn't the first one to make the assumption and he only had limited patience with the accusation. "Which would be completely understandable, of course. I know that I’m terrifying.”

There it was again. Andrew wanted to wipe that teasing little smirk off his stupid beautiful face, and he wasn’t sure whether he would rather do it with a fist to the teeth or by kissing him so thoroughly he forgot how to breathe.

“You do not scare me,” Andrew said instead - and though he was completely honest, he knew it sounded like he was insisting a bit too forcefully. He gritted his teeth when Neil only smirked at him. “Fine. I will come see what you have done to my sapling, and then I will take it back with me. And you will never trespass in my garden again.”

That smirk shifted to a bright grin and Neil rocked back on his heels. “Excellent. It’s a date then.”

Wait, what?

Before Andrew could clarify on that misleading terminology, Neil had already turned to head back to the spot of the wall that he’d come over. Andrew watched as he scaled it like a fucking squirrel. He perched at the top for just a moment and gave Andrew a two-finger salute, pressed to his temple, before dropping down the other side.

Andrew just watched the empty space where the botanist-thief had just been for a full two minutes before shaking his head and turning to head back toward his own house. Before he got halfway there, though, he paused and changed direction. When he arrived at the cluster of oleander saplings he crouched down and studied the spacing between these saplings and where he knew the stolen one had been.

“Fucking pest…” Andrew shook his head. Against his will the smallest tug of something pulled at the corner of his mouth. Because Neil was right - the spacing was off and that sapling would have been overcrowded.

Well, all that meant was that the man wasn’t entirely ignorant when it came to plants. Which… really shouldn’t be as attractive a trait as it was. But even if Andrew thought that, it wasn’t like there was anyone around to know it.

Andrew pushed himself back up to his feet and headed back to the house. At the very least, tomorrow should be interesting.

Andrew did not tell his brother that he was going over to the alleged witch’s house the next day. Aaron would have only fussed and then he would have told Nicky and Nicky would have made a drama of the whole thing - and, well, no one needed that. Still, he took precautions. He wore his knives, hidden in the armbands he never left the house without. Around his neck he wore an iron charm that was supposed to dampen the effect of magic (Nicky had gotten each of them one of the charms when the supposed witch moved next door).

See? He was prepared - though he did not think he would actually need the knives or the iron. Sure, they had been in Andrew’s own garden last night, and on his own turf Neil would probably be more powerful or whatever (if he was, despite his protests, actually a witch) - but Andrew liked to think that he was a good judge of people and their intentions and if Neil had wanted to do him harm he thought he would have done so last night.

Whatever Neil said, his house did look like a witch’s house with its ivy-covered walls and overgrown lawn only barely visible through a rusted iron gate - the whole property was surrounded by an ancient-looking wall no less intimidating and impenetrable for its age. It was a large house with what had to be at least three or four floors, though was narrower than it was long. There was even a goddamn spire topped with a crooked chimney that occasionally puffed out oddly colored smoke at all hours of the day and night.

While the driveway looped around from the gate up to where a malnourished old sports car sat half-drowned in overgrowth, Andrew diverted from it just past the entryway to take a broken stone footpath up to the front door. It was lined with weeds and wildflowers that were locked in a slow-moving battle for dominance over the yard. Here and there through the bright petals and twisted stems, Andrew caught glimpses of what was either lost statuary long since claimed by the wild flora, or curious creatures holding still as they watched him tread along their playground. He certainly felt like he was being watched, anyway - whether the eyes on him were living or made of stone. Andrew supposed that if Neil actually was a witch it wouldn’t matter much, because everyone knew that a witch could take anything living or dead and make it their unwitting spy.

The old steps of the front porch complained as Andrew closed the final distance to the front door. There was enough hissing and creaking and shuffling that he thought perhaps he’d upset some kind of nest, but nothing came out to attack his ankles so he decided he didn’t care much if he had or not.

The door opened before Andrew raised his hand to ring the bell.

(Which was a literal bell, by the way - the thin blue cord dangling from its yoke probably the only bit of newness on the property. Its almost plastic sheen seemed violently out of place and Andrew had the sudden urge to take his good pair of shears to it so that it could be replaced with something rougher or more organic. Let it not be said that Andrew had no appreciation for aesthetic.)

Since last night, Andrew had managed to convince himself that Neil was not nearly as interesting or attractive as he had seemed during the witching hour under the glow of the moon. Surely, he was just an annoying little thief that had been more talkative than Andrew had been expecting, which had caught him off guard. The moon must have reflected from Neil’s eyes in a weird way, that’s why they’d seemed to have been spun from raw starlight. Andrew had just been tired from a full day of work followed by several hours of staking out the garden wall, it was nothing more than that.

Except the man standing in the doorway, looking particularly pleased to see him, was - if anything - more beautiful in the daylight than he had been last night. His hair, which Andrew could now see was tied back in a short tuft at the nape of his neck, was a deep auburn - almost brown but for the flash of red and gold that gleamed when hit by the sun. The way loose strands kept wanting to curl rebelliously around Neil’s face made Andrew want to run his fingers through it, the sudden urge to do so strong enough that Andrew shoved his hands in his pockets. Those star-spun eyes? They did not reflect light like the moon or mimic a morning sky. Rather, they seemed to emanate their own light, with the sky and the sea and the delphinium kestrel herself cast as the actual plagiarists.

“You came,” Neil said, and the smile sounded just as good in his voice as it looked on his lips. Andrew fought the impulse to wrap his fingers around his iron pendant, just in case he was being enchanted. But Andrew had felt the press of that kind of magic before - he and his brother both had a natural resistance to it (probably the one good thing they’d ever gotten from their mother). This was not that - it was something much, much worse.

Genuine attraction. Andrew-fucking-Minyard was actually crushing on his maybe-not-a-witch neighbor. Fuck.

“So little faith. I said I would. I thought witches could see the future or the nature of people at the very least.” His tone remained dry and unamused, but somehow he thought Neil could see how flustered he was beneath the surface.

“Not a witch,” Neil reminded him with a shrug that was too tense to be casual, and Andrew caught the way the other man's jaw tightened at the mention of that word: witch. Still, Neil tried to play it off, stepping back and holding the door open for him. “Just a botanist.”

The door swung shut behind him once Andrew made it into the hall. “Right,” he said with a heavy dose of skepticism. “Which is how you knew when I was going to show up. How you knew with such precision that you were able to open the door before I even rang the bell.”

“You’re just being pissy because you wanted to ring the bell.”

Andrew glared. Neil grinned back, then shook his head with a chuckle.

“It’s nothing that impressive. I have a motion detector installed on the gate. When it opens, I get an alert.” He pulled a very modern-looking phone out of his pocket (that, weirdly enough, seemed to be the same model Andrew owned) and gave it a little wave in front of him before tucking it away again. “I have just enough time to get down from my workroom by the time someone reaches the door.” He shrugged. “It happened to work out that I opened the door right before you rang the bell, but it wasn’t intentional.”

Andrew looked around at the narrow little entryway, which was in a similar state of willful neglect as the yard had been. “If you rushed down because you were afraid your property or home was about to be vandalized I am afraid you are already too late.”

Neil chuckled like he’d said something funny (which he had - Andrew just wasn’t used to people laughing at his particular brand of humor), then gave him another one of his annoyingly pretty smiles before saying the most absurd thing Andrew had ever heard:

“Nah, just excited you came, that’s all.” Then, while Andrew worked on processing that, Neil turned and gestured for him to follow deeper into the house. “Come on, you’re here for Matilda.”

“Who the fuck is Matlida?” Andrew asked, though he realized the answer the second the words left his lips. Matilda was the oleander that Neil had so ruthlessly kidnapped the other night. Though Andrew was beginning to reconsider that perhaps “ruthlessly” and “kidnapped” were both a bit harsh, especially as they entered the kitchen and he got a good look at her new setup.

Neil’s kitchen - if it could really be called that at this point - more resembled a poor man’s greenhouse (or a hedge witch’s potion room), with various greenery taking up all the counterspace and both the small kitchen table and the island. Matilda had been potted in a spacious but kitchy sort of planter - which did, indeed, have happy sunflowers on it that appeared to be… dancing? It sat on the table amid a number of other smaller potted flora. She was already looking better, and it had only been a couple of days. Andrew wasn’t sure whether to feel more insulted or impressed.

“See? Thriving. Now that she isn’t being smothered thanks to your negligence.” The words were said almost fucking cheerfully as the witch botanist stood in front of the table, hands on his hips as he admired the little oleander sprout.

“If you’ve been in my garden at all - which you have, because you have been stealing from it every other night - you would know that negligence is hardly my crime,” Andrew tossed back smoothly.

“Tell that to Matilda.” Neil shot him a look that was far too cheeky, then stepped to the side and made a grand gesture toward the plant in question.

Andrew kept his gaze firmly on Neil. “I will not explain myself to a plant.” At least, not in front of this impossible man.

Neil scoffed, pulling on a pair of thick gardening gloves with floral-patterned cuffs that Andrew hadn’t seen him pick up from anywhere obvious. “Why not? I’m sure you’re used to talking to them. What?” He paused when Andrew stilled and shot him a sharp, suspicious look. “Come on, no one has a garden like yours without actually talking to the plants. Do you think my house would look like this” -he gestured ambiguously with both hands- “if I treated the lot of these freeloaders like they were inanimate objects?”

“You sound like a crazy person,” Andrew intoned dryly. Then, after a beat of thought, he added: “Or a witch.” But it wasn’t like he was exactly wrong, either.

Neil raised a finger. “Not a witch. Botanist. Bo-tan-ist. I study plants. Occasionally I liberate them from my neglectful neighbors. I do not use them for any kind of spellwork.”

Somehow, Andrew found this less convincing than the botanist likely intended, though he refrained from commenting further on the matter. It was there again, the tension and the barely subdued… something that might have been anger and night have been hurt. Whether he was a witch or not, Neil clearly had an opinion about being thought of as one and Andrew wanted nothing more than to poke at that weak spot. Instead, because apparently his brain did not seem to favor rational function while around this strange man, he asked, “Why study them?”

Andrew did not need to know why Neil, The Botanist, studied plants. He did not come here to get to know him or something ridiculous like that. The only reason he was here was to check on Matilda. Now that he had done that he, logically, reasonably, had two options. One - he could take her and leave. Two - he could let Neil keep her, and leave. His purpose here had been accomplished, interaction could now cease.

Except Andrew did neither of those things. Rather, he followed Neil as he left the kitchen and headed deeper into the house, trailing along like some kind of morbidly curious duckling. He told himself it was only so that he could get the answer to the question he really hadn’t needed to ask in the first place. After all, if he was going to waste his interest on this annoying, probably at least mildly insane thief - he might as well get his answers before he left.

Neil didn’t answer until they’d passed through the kitchen and into a narrow room just beyond it that functioned as a cross between a mud room and a storage closet for various botanical supplies.

“I’ve been around plants my whole life,” he said as he rustled through one of the overcrowded shelves. “Spent more time hiding in the greenhouse than I did… well, hiding anywhere else.” When he turned around he held another pair of thick canvas gloves, these ones with cactus-print cuffs, which he then tossed his way. Andrew caught them on reflex and spent a moment staring dumbly down at them until an offensive sound of amusement dragged his attention back to the Bad Idea on the other side of the tiny room.

“You’re going to want to wear those,” said the Bad Idea, looking way too happy about all of this.

“Why?” Andrew was grateful he was able to keep his tone as flat as his glare, because his heart seemed to think he’d swallowed something toxic by the way it kept jumping around.

“I mean, you’re welcome to go without - but you of all people should know that harvesting aconite with your bare hands can get kinda uncomfortable.” Neil blinked innocently at him, and Andrew was too distracted by how criminally long his eyelashes were to be offended by the terrible ruse.

“Did I say I was going to harvest your aconite?”

“Flirt.” Neil grinned and Andrew almost choked on the air rapidly getting twisted up between his lungs and his tongue.

Having absolutely nothing to say to that, Andrew just said, “Aconite.” Then he frowned and amended, “Wolfsbane? You want me to help you harvest some wolfsbane and you say you are not a witch.”

Neil gave a delicate sniff. “Says the man who wanders around in a dark, poisonous garden with a broom in the middle of the night.”

“That’s--”

“You knocked me down in a veritable grove of deadly nightshade,” Neil cut in before he could defend himself.

“Okay fair.” Andrew sighed and tugged on the gloves, ignoring the way Neil’s pleased little smirk caused a traitorous flutter in his chest that was probably definitely annoyance. Maybe. “So are you going to tell me why I’m helping you harvest wolfsbane?”

Neil hummed and pushed open the door that led them out into the expanse that was the botanist’s land. “You don’t have any of your own.”

“So?” Andrew frowned as he followed Neil out and shut the door behind him. “There are a lot of plants I do not have.” For various reasons - chief of which was the ability to actually get his hands on some of them. Particular plants, like aconite (and oleander, when ordering at a certain volume), were closely monitored because of their magical properties. Andrew did his best to get those sorts of plants without drawing unnecessary attention. He didn’t need the authorities thinking he was a witch.

Not that it was illegal to be one or anything, this was a modern society after all, but Andrew really preferred to fly as under the radar as possible and people thinking he was a witch would be the opposite of that. Which was why he really rather understood why Neil kept insisting that he was just a botanist even if he was, in fact, a witch.

Neil jumped down the three short steps of the back porch and turned to face him, hands on his hips again.

“I took Matilda from you,” he said with a sigh. “It’s only fair you get something of equal value in return. Come on, you can choose the ones you want and I’ll help you bring them over.” Then he shrugged, like it was just that damn simple, and began striding down the broken-stone path.

Andrew stared after him for a long moment, doing his best to ignore the fluttering in his chest. Only when he was sure that he had himself under control did he follow Neil down the steps and along the cracked, winding path. This meant nothing, he told himself. It was nothing. Just a couple of neighbors who both liked plants, exchanging poisonous black-market flora. It was totally casual. After this, Andrew would never even have to see Neil again, really. Not if he didn’t want to.

And he didn’t.

Really.

Chapter Text

Andrew saw Neil again literally the very next day. And the day after that. And two days after that. Honestly, over the next several weeks there were more days that he did see Neil than days that he didn’t. Sometimes he would stop by just long enough to check in on Matilda before he made his escape. Other times he would spend hours with Neil in one of the various pockets of the botanist’s land, talking with him as they collected samples of this or sketched pictures of that.

Unlike Andrew, Neil did not exclusively grow plants that were regarded as poisonous. He also didn’t necessarily grow things in an organized fashion at all. Andrew’s garden was neat and carefully maintained. Neil’s land had been overtaken by various breeds of flora that seemed to have developed their own culture, hierarchy, and greater society outside the confines of human intervention.

(Andrew absolutely recognized the irony of Neil’s rampant botanical free-for-all, considering how much shit he’d given him about ‘smothering’ and ‘neglecting’ poor Matilda.)

((Which was ridiculous, by the way. Oleander trees were incredibly resilient. Perhaps Matilda had been growing in smaller than her sisters but that didn’t mean she was unhealthy or weak. There was nothing inherently weak about being small, thank you very fucking much. And no, he did not have a complex about it.))

Today, though, Andrew wasn’t actually coming over to fuss around in Neil’s botanical habitats. On his third visit he had allowed curiosity to divert him from the path to the front door so he could instead check out the old car he had noticed being slowly absorbed into the overgrowth of Neil’s wilds. That car, he had quickly discovered, was a fucking 1947 Maserati Gran Turismo (an A6 1500 to be precise) and despite the way the weeds and various flora had curled around the car, it wasn’t nearly as derelict as it first appeared.

Which was why he was here today with his tool kit instead of his gardening shears. He’d spent a little bit of time here and there over the past week or so clearing the space around the car and now he was finally ready to get some work done on it. Because Neil was an idiot and didn’t realize the wonder that was sitting in his own front drive. When Andrew had pointed it out to him, he was bewildered (and a little offended if he was being honest) by the uncaring shrug Neil had given him in response. He’d said that the car had been a gift from his uncle, but he hadn’t actually driven it because he didn’t like to drive. Instead, he rode his bike, walked, or just took public transportation. On the rare occasion that he did need to drive somewhere, he used the brand-fucking-new SUV that was also a gift from this mysterious uncle.

The SUV was the one Neil parked in the garage. Because he was a sacrilegious lunatic.

Andrew had attempted to explain this to him, but Neil had only watched him with an expression Andrew still couldn’t even begin to decipher. Then the questionably sane botanist had pulled open the narrow junk drawer in the kitchen, fished something out, and tossed it to Andrew.

‘It’s yours then,’ he’d said - easy as you please. Then he’d hummed to himself as he traipsed off through the kitchen to head out back, leaving Andrew struck dumb where he stood, staring at the keys in his hand.

Keys. Plural. Because attached to the key to the Maz was also a key to the front door, which Neil had waved off when Andrew had asked about and then attempted to return.

‘You’re over all the time anyway. I trust you.’ Said the man who had installed motion detectors on his gate as well as a fairly impressive security system that was linked to every door and window. A security system Neil had then given Andrew the passcode to, since he “had a key anyway”.

It was a lot to digest, and made him feel way too many things at once. A tangle of fast-growing vines quickly taking over his nervous system with all the ruthless efficiency of a kudzu plant. So he’d done what he typically did best, and he shoved it all aside, curled his fingers around the keys, and told Neil that there were no takesies-backsies - that poor neglected angel in the drive was his now.

Then Neil had smiled at him, and Andrew had thought about that smile so much over the last week that it still teased him through the dark whenever he closed his eyes. It taunted him now, as he stood in front of the car, the shape of it both a warning and a promise Andrew hadn’t yet decided if he wanted to take the jump and believe.

“I thought you were going to fix up the car - oh, or can you do that with the power of your mind? Gotta say, that’s pretty impressive if you can.”

Andrew barely managed not to jump at the familiar voice from just over his left shoulder. Neil, that sneaky little fuck, must have come up on him from somwhere else in the front yard. If he’d been up at the house, Andrew would have seen him approach the driveway.

Instead of commenting, Andrew just turned his head to shoot him a sharp glare.

Neil just grinned cheekily at him. “Does that mean you can’t?”

“One of these days, someone is going to show you just how not-funny you are in the form of physical retaliation to your persistent stupidity,” Andrew said as dryly as possible.

“Eh.” Neil shrugged. “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Had to, actually - because the one I went in with ended up soaked in blood.” He gestured ambiguously to his face and the scars on his arms in a totally nonchalant way that in no way matched the tone of those injuries.

Someone else might have been stunned into an awkward silence. Or might have attempted to apologize or slather platitudes over the social faux-pas. Andrew took his time to scan his gaze over the evidence of each slash and burn he could see - which was quite a bit, seeing as Neil was wearing a short-sleeved tee to accommodate the warm weather. Neil waited patiently, watching him as he looked his fill.

When he had, Andrew met his eyes and said, “Clearly they didn’t realize who they were dealing with.”

Neil remained impassive for a moment, then he gave the smallest of smiles - his lips parting in a quiet huff of a laugh. He lifted one hand and turned around. “Have fun with your baby or your ride or your dream boat or whatever you car guys say. I’ll be taming down the Jessicas.”

Andrew didn’t ask who ‘the Jessicas’ were, but considering the man’s shorts barely hit mid-thigh and were fitted so nicely, he did watch him walk away.

Perhaps in other parts of the country, April existed in this mythical limbo called “spring”. In South Carolina, April was really just pre-June. Which meant that while the mornings usually started out fine, the sun turned into a veritable fucking demon the closer it got to midday. Any clinging vestiges of winter or “spring” - those cool breezes and lungfuls of fresh, clear air that blessed you from time to time like kisses from God - were smothered under layers of humidity so thick that Andrew was probably replenishing all the water lost from sweating just by breathing.

Now, when Andrew had first started working, it hadn’t yet hit the hottest part of the day, and so even with his usual layers he only peripherally noticed the discomfort. Then the day was dragged forward by the steady rise of the scathing sun higher and higher overhead - and Andrew really started to notice how this particular patch of Neil’s property seemed completely devoid of all shade. The combination of undershirt, arm bands, and long-sleeved shirt (all in black) became more and more suffocating until finally he had to reevaluate his situation.

The next time he rolled out from under the car to get a swig of water, Andrew stood up and stretched, looking around for Neil out of habit (not that he regularly looked for Neil, just that he liked to be aware of where other people were - that’s all it was). The troublesome botanist had spent the entire morning steadily working his way along the large stone wall that surrounded his property, trimming and occasionally making notes about the overwhelming cascade of Carolina jessamine that occupied and spilled over the top of the wall.

These, Andrew had learned when Neil had brought him a pitcher of water about an hour into working, were ‘the Jessicas’. Yellow jessamine was South Carolina’s state flower, and Andrew might have attempted to tease Neil about being weirdly loyal to his state of residence if not for the fact that yellow jessamine were also incredibly toxic, made even more dangerous because of how closely they resembled honeysuckles.

Dressing his property with the state flower in a show of weird local patriotism wasn’t exactly this particular botanist’s speed. Nurturing the plants out of irony and then hanging six signs on the outer wall that all said ‘DON’T SUCK THE FLOWERS THEY WILL KILL YOU’?

Yeah, that was more like it.

Neil was more than halfway down the wall now, but still seemed to sense Andrew’s movement - or maybe he could feel his eyes on him - because he looked up from where he was hunched over the top of the wall, perched precariously on his ladder. He grinned and gave a small wave, apparently completely unbothered by the suffocating heat. Then again, Neil was dressed in tiny shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, whereas Andrew admittedly dressed like he’d be marked unmarriageable by the marquess should he dare flash an ankle.

Going back to the house to change into a short-sleeve shirt was too much of a hassle - even though in the back of his mind he knew that it was probably the smarter choice, because then he could apply the sunscreen he really should have put on before coming over this morning - so Andrew just stripped off the long-sleeved overshirt, tossing it to the side as he turned back toward the car, and went back to work.

Or at least, he would have gone back to work - if it weren’t for the sudden shout and crash on the other side of the yard. Andrew whipped around to find the source, and despite the sea of utter chaos that was Neil’s front lawn, he quickly spotted the heap of limbs and ladder that marked where Neil had toppled from where he had been working.

Andrew was moving before he gave his feet permission to do so. First it was one step, then another, and then he was running, vaulting over broken stones (and was that a severed tricycle?) and dodging various flora he’d seen Neil sidestep around before. In less than three seconds he had cleared the space between them and was sliding to his knees to shove the ladder off the clumsy fucking idiot beneath it. Swear to fucking God, if this stupid little asshole broke his goddamn neck or fractured his fucking spine because he didn’t know how to properly climb a ladder of all things...

“Don’t move,” Andrew hissed in warning when Neil winced and made like he was going to try to get up as soon as the ladder was shoved off him. Displaying probably the first hint of sense in his disaster-driven life, Neil stilled and settled back against the ground.

“I’m fi--”

Andrew’s glare was sharp enough to cut him off without the need to verbalize his threat. Don’t you dare. When Neil sighed and pressed his lips together obediently, Andrew nodded and tore his gaze away from Neil’s to be able to scan him for signs of injury.

“Can I touch you?” he asked when nothing appeared to be bleeding or visibly broken.

Neil coughed lightly and when Andrew looked back at his face he saw that the prone botanist was suddenly flushed. Narrowing his eyes, he pushed up higher on his knees and leaned over him, bracing one hand beside Neil’s head so he could use the other to gently pull off the stupid orange bandana he was always wearing. “Neil,” he said - both in question and as reprimand - once he’d set the horrid thing aside, hovering his hand now over the other man’s tousled auburn hair.

“Y-yes. I mean. Yeah. Sure. Anytime. I mean, yes. Go ahead.”

Andrew frowned, glancing down to briefly meet Neil’s eyes before focusing again on the top of his head as he gently sifted his fingers through his hair, searching for bumps or blood. Below him, Neil’s breath caught and Andrew paused.

“Does it hurt there?” he asked, prodding the spot gently.

“Uh. No… no it doesn’t hurt. Um. A-all. All good.”

Andrew snorted. Idiot.

Once he completed his inspection of Neil’s scalp he pulled back enough so that he could use both hands to carefully check his neck to make sure there was no pain or stiffness when he moved it. Only when he had then checked both arms, wrists, knees, and ankles did he finally hold out both hands to help Neil sit fully up - not trusting the dumbass to do it without hurting himself.

“Uhm. Thanks. I’m alright though, really,” Neil said as he twisted his back this way and that. He flashed a small grin before pushing to his feet. “Though this is probably a good time to take a break anyway.”

Andrew looked longingly back toward the Maz, and was about to say that Neil could take a break but he was going to get back to work when Neil said, “I made some pie this morning before you came over.”

“Pie?” Andrew looked back over at Neil. The clumsy little fool seemed to have recovered his bearings because he was smirking cheekily at him.

Neil nodded. “Chocolate cream,” he elaborated.

Andrew narrowed his eyes. “You don’t like chocolate.”

“You do.” Neil’s shrug matched the easiness of his tone - like that was just… a thing now. Neil making chocolate pies for Andrew just because Andrew liked them - that was a thing that happened. Something swarmed inside him, buzzing between his ribs and scaling the inside of his lungs like the spark of a flashfire - sudden and hot and all-consuming.

Perhaps it was time to get out of the heat.

Instead of saying anything, Andrew turned and started heading for the house. Behind him, Neil chuckled as he followed.

The pie was fucking delicious. Andrew ate two slices before Neil covered it up again and tucked it into the fridge, then proceeded to stand guard in front of it - declaring that Andrew wouldn’t get another bite until they’d both eaten lunch. Since Neil had made the pie, Andrew made them both sandwiches - because even in the air conditioned house there was no fucking way he was turning on the stove to actually cook up anything.

Even though he’d only taken off his shirt for the last ten or so minutes they were outside (seeing as Neil took his tumble right afterwards), his skin still felt tight like he’d absorbed too much sun too quickly. The back of his neck and his face - which hadn’t been protected at all - were the worst, and he was pretty sure he was already burned.

This was confirmed when, after lunch and while Andrew was digging into his fourth slice of pie in total, Neil entered the kitchen from the stairs that lead directly up to the actual tower that branched off the house - good as any neon sign that might proclaim ‘WITCH LIVES HERE! HERE HE IS!’ He was holding a small bottle as he came back into the room.

“Found it!” he said with a grin, giving the bottle a triumphant wiggle. “I knew I’d left it up in the workroom.”

Andrew took a slow bite of pie and gave him a blank look.

Neil rolled his eyes, but didn’t lose the smile. To be fair, it was a nice smile and deserved to stick around. “Sunscreen,” he explained as he dropped into the chair next to Andrew. Matilda had grown nicely and was now in a slightly larger planter just inside the living room and since Andrew had been coming over Neil had decided to relocate the other plants that had been occupying the kitchen table so that they’d have a place to sit and eat when they took breaks from the various gardens, wilds, and the very impressive greenhouse Andrew had only discovered in his second week of visits.

“Sunscreen,” Andrew repeated dubiously, eying the handwritten label.

“I made it myself.” Neil screwed open the lid and sniffed it, then offered it to Andrew. Sighing so that Neil knew how much of an imposition it was, Andrew set down his fork and accepted the bottle. He sniffed it as well, curious when it didn’t smell like the typical sunscreen he usually bought in the store. He’d never met a sunscreen that didn’t vividly smell of, well, sunscreen.

“What’s in it?” he asked after taking another sniff. He dabbed a finger on the swirl of pale lotion and rubbed it on the back of his hand. It was more oily than he expected, but absorbed quickly once it was on his skin.

“Mostly? Alfalfa and alexandrian laurel.”

“No coconut oil?”

“I’m allergic. It’s one of the reasons I decided to make my own.”

“Huh.” Andrew rolled the bottle in his hand and stared at the label again - and now that he was actually paying attention he was able to decipher Neil’s sharp scrawl. “Did you really call it ‘Delobsterfication Cream’?”

When he looked up to give Neil the full weight of his judgement, the botanist just shrugged and plucked the bottle out of his hand. “It’s an accurate description.”

“It implies that it cures sunburn, not prevents it,” Andrew corrected.

“Which is exactly what it does.”

“You said it was sunscreen.”

“Well yes it does that too.” Neil dabbed a small amount of the Delobsterfication Cream into his palm, then proceeded to rub his hands together to lightly coat them before distributing the cream along his arms. Instead of spreading it evenly over his skin in broad strokes, though, Neil was massaging the thin lotion gently around the multitude of scars that Andrew hadn’t yet learned the story of. He worked the lotion in, first up one arm and then the other - pausing only briefly when he noticed Andrew watching him.

“Some of my scars are photosensitive,” he said lightly as he returned to his process, brushing his thumb over one of the many circular burns of unknown origin that filled the space between vicious slashes clearly caused by a knife in the hand of a psychopath. Andrew had seen the scars many times by now. He didn’t know what had happened to put them there but there was no mistaking their deliberate execution. Normally Andrew honestly didn’t pay them much mind, though. They were just another part of Neil that was neither as interesting nor as distracting as the infuriating man’s smile or his eyes or the random shit he said that always managed to take Andrew off his guard.

So why, if he had never really found those scars interesting enough to hold his attention before, was he suddenly fixated on the way Neil’s hands carefully worked over them?

The impulse to take over - to be the one applying the lotion on the other man’s skin, touching each mark, soothing their sting - hit him so vividly out of absolutely fucking nowhere that Andrew missed it when Neil said something. He only knew that something else had been said at all because Neil’s hands paused for a long enough moment that Andrew snapped out of his weird fixation.

“Andrew?” Neil asked, one brow raised - curious but not concerned.

“What?” He pretended not to be embarrassed so convincingly even he almost believed himself.

Neil studied him for a moment, then the corner of his mouth quirked in a way that Andrew had quickly learned to identify as a prelude to trouble. “I said that you should use some. It’ll help with your burn and protect you when we head back outside.” He hummed in thought, then picked up the bottle again, pausing with it half tilted like he was about to dab some more onto his palm.

Then he asked, “May I?”

“May you… what?” But Andrew figured it out halfway through the question. His stomach dropped at the same time that his heart swelled and rose to get lodged in his throat, tethered to over-inflated lungs and dragging them along as well. It was like being torn in half, bisected by things he wasn’t sure he was even allowed to want but was too stubborn to push away completely.

He must have been quiet for too long because Neil straightened the bottle and dropped his other hand. He had the sunscreen half extended in offering for Andrew to anoint himself when Andrew finally found his voice and said, “Yes.”

There was a weighted pause. Neil met his eyes and read them, leaving just enough of a pause for Andrew to change his mind before he pulled the bottle back toward himself with a nod.

“Arms and shoulders?” he clarified as he tapped the sunscreen into one palm.

Andrew hummed in consent and turned in his chair to face him since it wasn’t like Neil would have to put much on his back. Two heartbeats later Neil had taken one of Andrew’s elbows in his empty hand, neatly skipping past the arm band - and Andrew realized how fucking stupid he was.

Because this was the first time that Neil had ever touched him. Andrew had been touching Neil damn near compulsively since the day they met - a hand on his arm, a shove to the shoulder, a touch to his back, a hurried but thorough inspection to make sure nothing was broken when he fell off that ladder… which included running fingers through his hair.

(Fuck, Andrew wanted to run his fingers through his hair again and actually pay attention to the sensation this time.)

Right now though? Right now Neil was touching Andrew and there was reverence in that touch. The hand cradling his elbow was steady but the one lightly smoothing the sunscreen over his bicep nearly trembled. When Andrew looked from where those fingers splayed across his skin to meet Neil’s eyes he saw not only careful concentration in that fathomless blue but the way Neil’s lips parted slightly on a shallow breath and the touch of color to his throat and cheeks that… was not an unfamiliar expression. Andrew had seen it before on Neil over the last several weeks, scattered between sharp smirks and throw-away comments that might have been genuine flirting and might have been Neil just being a contrary asshole.

Except now Andrew knew the answer to that is-it, is-it-not question he’d worked so hard not to think about.

“Neil.” Andrew’s voice was quiet but it felt louder than it was, thanks to the stillness that had fallen over the kitchen.

Neil responded like he’d been given a command to stop, both hands pulling away just enough to leave a three-inch barrier between them and Andrew’s skin. His eyes remained locked on Andrew’s, expression closed for just a moment before it relaxed into something almost sheepish.

“Wanna know why I fell off the ladder?” Neil asked after one more beat of silence. It was such a random fucking question that Andrew frowned at him in annoyance - because they were having a fucking moment here, and Josten wanted to bring up his fucking clumbsiness now? Neil laughed at his expression, a half-groaned self-deprecating chuckle that ended with a sigh before he said, “Andrew - it was because you took off your shirt.”

Oh.

Oh.

So.

Well.

Neil’s expression shifted again, this time from vaguely amused embarrassment to something sweeter and much more infuriatingly pleased.

“We need to put some of this on your face too, don’t let me forget.”

Jesus Christ, Neil. Andrew gritted his teeth and glared at him, which only made Neil fucking glow. Andrew hated how beautiful he was when he was happy like this. He hated hated hated it and he wanted to see it every damn day if he could get away with it.

Andrew followed Neil’s gaze as he broke away to look back down at where Andrew’s arm was hovering between them. He nodded toward it. “Shall I?”

It crossed his mind to tell Neil ‘no’. Because if he was going to be a brat about all of this then there was no reason when Andrew should indulge him. Except Andrew wanted to indulge him. Moreover, Andrew wanted to feel Neil’s hands on him again.

So, he sighed and gave a nod of consent. “If this shit turns me purple or something, I will stab you.”

Neil laughed and then those hands gently surrounded his arm again, one under his elbow and the other folded over his bicep. Andrew’s heartbeat stumbled and shook at the contact, and he suddenly had to fight back the impulse to swallow.

“Andrew you literally just saw me put it on myself.”

“Maybe it doesn’t affect-" Andrew stopped and changed the word right before he said it "-botanists in the same way.”

Neil studied him for a moment, then his expression softened to something far more dangerous in it's fondness before he said, "I don't think it works like that."

Andrew watched Neil’s face as he rubbed in the lotion, and despite the steadiness of both the idiot’s hands and the playful grin he was still wearing, there was absolutely no disguising the way he’d started to blush again. Maybe Andrew felt annoyed, but he couldn’t deny that he also felt a certain bit pleased as well.

The five minutes it took Neil to apply sunscreen to both arms and shoulders were probably the most sexually frustrating two hours of Andrew’s goddamn life. It might have helped if they’d talked at all during the process - but Neil was preoccupied with Andrew, and Andrew was preoccupied with Neil’s stupidly attractive blush, and his eyes, and his mouth, and --

Look, it was a trial.

What was worse, when Neil finished using just the tips of his fingers to rub lotion into the back of Andrew’s neck he pulled his hands back and dabbed just a little bit more of the sunscreen onto his fingertips before hovering them near Andrew’s cheeks. His voice was soft and a little bit breathy (Jesus fuck why did it have to be breathy?) when he then asked, “May I?”

Andrew’s own was rougher than he’d ever later be willing to admit when he answered (without even fucking hesitating), “Yes.”

Neil’s fingers touched his cheek, the heat of them somehow still noticeable even through the initial coolness of the lotion. Those blue eyes followed the path his fingertips made as they gently smoothed the lotion over his cheek and up his temple, over his forehead and down his nose before mirroring the journey along the other side. Andrew didn’t even realize that he’d stopped breathing until his lungs started to burn in protest.

It was when both Neil’s hands gently cupped his face so he could smooth the last of the healing sunscreen over the crests of his cheeks and under his eyes with just the pads of his thumbs that Andrew realized how close they’d gotten. That he realized Neil wasn’t really rubbing in the lotion anymore as much as he was just… holding him.

Something warm and brittle softened and curled inside his chest.

“Andrew--”

“I want to kiss you.” He said the words before he could think to pull them back.

“Then kiss me.”

It was such a cheeky fucking answer. It was so… so Neil - and Andrew didn’t see a damn reason why he shouldn’t follow through.

So he did. Then he did it again.

Chapter Text

Thunder crashed, shaking the foundations of the house so hard that Nicky’s teacup collection rattled anxiously in their saucers. Andrew glared out the kitchen window as he refilled the coffeemaker for the second time that morning, the storm having woken him up well before any reasonable hour. Insult was added to injury, then, because instead of spending the extra time in the garden, Andrew was forced to sit inside and just stare out into the wettest apocalypse ever conceived. Sure, he could have come up with something to do - but he was feeling both tired and incredibly bitter because all the plans he’d had for today were now completely ruined.

And he had had them. Plans, that is. He’d had plans for today that had included him and Neil and the forested land beyond their properties. Neil liked to explore it, drawing plants in one of his eighteen thousand notebooks (seriously, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the man with the same notebook twice) or taking samples to compare to ones he had back at his house. Andrew didn’t mind watching him draw, and Neil never seemed to have any protests when Andrew got bored and wanted to do something more entertaining. Sometimes that meant Andrew would get up and leave Neil where he was to go explore on his own, and sometimes that meant Neil ended up having to gripe later about losing another pencil because the one he’d been using got lost while they were rolling through the grass during a heavy makeout session.

Yeah.

So maybe most of his plans lately always had an allowance for a makeout (or two, or four) with a particular menace. Look, it wasn’t Andrew’s fault that kissing Neil was like swallowing live lightning. It was an experience that left all his nerve endings dancing with electricity, his lips buzzing and his breath crackling in his lungs. Just a touch, just a look from Neil could set him off some days. Neil still insisted that he wasn’t a witch, and Andrew logically knew that there really was no enchantment being cast on him but damn if there wasn’t something… other, something magical about being with Neil.

Andrew paused mid-motion of pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee, almost overfilling his cup as he very forcefully redirected his thoughts away from the treacherous, traitorous, terrible line of thinking that had put kissing Neil in the same realm of being fucking magical. What was he, some woefully repressed teenager scribbling away in his diary?!

Dear Diary,

Guess what!? I’m even gayer than gay because I just thought that kissing some imbecilic twerp with pretty blue eyes was magical.

I officially revoke my Grown Ass Gay card and accept my demotion to Infantile Disaster Gay. May I rise through the ranks once more in time.

Goodnight,
Andrew

Ridiculous. Fucking ridiculous.

Andrew sighed to himself, turning away from the counter after adding the appropriate amount of candy-inspired creamer to his coffee and heading for the stairs. If he moved quickly enough he would just miss Nicky - which was preferable since he wasn’t up for conversation, particularly not any conversation that was bound to start with “wow, it’s really raining out there isn’t it!?” because, yeah, no shit of course it’s fucking raining.

His timing ended up being perfect, as Nicky’s frantic footsteps spilled into the hall not seconds after Andrew clicked his door shut. A familiar cacophony followed, and Andrew made his way over to the window as it sounded. Nicky talking and singing to himself as he got ready, then thundered around both the upstairs and downstairs, whirling through the kitchen and then out the door. Andrew’s window was situated facing Neil’s house, far enough forward that he was able to see the wild mess of the front lawn and porch over the wall but not so much that he was able to see the street directly in front of his own house.

Years ago, when he, Aaron, and Nicky had been freshly liberated from three very different circles of hell some ignorant fucks might call “childhoods”, they had chosen this house because it was the only place that could comfortably fit the three of them for longer than six seconds without turning in to a murder scene while also being comfortably within their budget at the time. Thanks to the location (right next to a creepy witch house) and general state of repair (decrepit), they’d ended up with a rather large home for next to nothing.

Andrew hadn’t really cared about the challenges or benefits or the “tons of potential” the old house had, though. He’d been sold the second he’d stepped into this room on the tour and had seen that window. It was wider and taller than most bedroom windows and the sill was broad enough that it was more like an unfinished window seat. Maybe a larger man wouldn’t have been able to perch comfortably on it - but Andrew? It was the perfect size for him. Not only that, but it afforded a view down along the side of the house along the high stone wall that separated their property from the neighboring one, which was where Andrew had wanted to begin his garden. Sure, he also had to put up with seeing the strange house next door and the untamed growth that was the lawn, but at least that was still interesting.

So he’d claimed it as his, and they’d gotten the house.

Andrew had spent many hours sitting in that window since then, surrounded by wide-leafed flora and his hanging vines. Sometimes reading, sometimes watching his garden or the stars or, yes, the rain.

And sometimes, maybe, sometimes, he kept an eye out for a particular nuisance that lived next door. Not that he did so regularly.

Because he didn’t.

In weather like today, it wasn’t like he would be able to see anything anyway. The rain was still coming down in thick sheets, the wind whipping it around into an onslaught of watery torment that was nearly opaque. Andrew sighed as he settled into his seat at the window, all ready to get cozy for a day of being bitter and bored. Maybe he would read a book in a little bit, when he was done brooding.

Just as he was about to turn to retrieve his coffee from where he’d placed it on his desk, something caught his attention in the corner of his eye and he quickly whipped back toward the window, leaning in to peer carefully through the rain and over the wall.

There, huddled on the bottom of the front porch, was a shadow. It was small enough, distorted enough through the rain that Andrew couldn’t even identify it as a person - not at first. The longer he looked, though, he was able to make out the angle of hunched shoulders and a bowed head.

Soaked with rain, Neil’s auburn hair - usually wild and rebellious to its master’s control - was plastered flat to his head, the wet staining it almost black and erasing it of its usual flashes of red and gold. Andrew could make out no other distinguishing features, but he was so… still. He was used to seeing Neil in motion. Even when he was calm, Neil vibrated with energy and intent. He could be exhausted, collapsed on his couch or in his favorite armchair in the front parlor of that ridiculous house of his - cradling a cup of tea as they watched tv before Andrew returned home after a day of working in one of their gardens and Neil would still be this bright presence that filled the room.

Even from this distance, Andrew could see that all of that had somehow been wrung dry - and it was... It was wrong.

Andrew didn’t remember making the decision to move, but he suddenly wasn’t sitting in the window anymore. One moment he was in his room, and the next he was moving down the stairs. Another second passed and he’d hit the front door, then he was striding down the lawn and turning the corner to stand before the opulent gate that guarded Neil’s property. There was no need for a coat in the middle of a summer storm - and an umbrella would have been useless even if Andrew had been capable of stopping long enough to think to grab one.

The storm within Andrew had overpowered the storm without. The wind was no barrier, the rain no challenge. It was like he wasn’t even capable of registering the badgering elements when he had the image of Neil’s hunched form fixed so firmly in his mind’s eye.

And then he was there, standing less than a foot away from where Neil had curled in on himself on the bottom step of the porch. He didn’t look up at Andrew’s approach, like he didn’t even notice he was there, and something inside Andrew thundered even louder because… because Neil always looked at Andrew. It didn’t matter if he was right beside him or across the lawn, Neil was always able to find him, and when he looked at him he always… he always saw him. Andrew had noticed it before, many times, and sometimes it unnerved him how Neil was able to do that. How he was able to find him no matter where he was, like he had some kind of a sixth sense tied to him that allowed him not only to find him wherever he was in the room but to… to well and truly see him in a way that no one else seemed capable of.

Because people did not like to look at Andrew Minyard. They didn’t like to see him. They didn’t like to know that he was there. Sometimes, he knew, it was because his strength intimidated them. But he hadn’t always been the force of nature he was today. He had once been smaller and softer and far more vulnerable - and people hadn’t wanted to see him then, either. It was easier for them if he was invisible in all the ways that mattered, and so they chose not to see. Even Nicky and Aaron chose not to see him, see all of him.

Everyone did… except Neil.

Instead of calling out to him, Andrew slowly crouched down, making himself smaller and bringing himself down to Neil’s level so that he was closer to his space without breaching it. He waited a couple of beats, the thunder rumbling around them as the storm picked up again, like it was trying to remind them that it was the greater power here. A storm was the smiting breath of god, after all - and they were just two mortal rebels with no right to keep their feet through the battering. When Neil still did not look up at him, Andrew held up his hand and pushed it forward, palm up, into the other man’s field of vision.

He waited.

One minute passed. Two. The storm raged on, howling for attention. It beat on them, tugging at their hair and their clothes. It tried to shove Andrew down, tried to upset his balance where he perched before Neil - but Andrew would not be moved. He would not be torn away from precisely where he chose to be.

And Neil? Neil was a stone at the bottom of an ocean, the pressure of his own demons pinning him in place. Even a storm that could wreck cities couldn’t move a single pebble if it was already locked under several miles of sea.

But after two minutes - or three, or five - there was a small movement. Apparently even if the breath of God could not touch the shadows at the bottom of the ocean, a ripple caused by a mortal rebel could. Neil’s hand shook as it lifted. It was cold where it landed in Andrew’s palm and Andrew had to resist the urge to cover it with his other hand, to tug it close and breathe warmth into icy fingertips. Instead, Andrew curled his fingers around Neil’s and squeezed gently. When Neil didn’t pull away, he held on a little bit tighter and slowly stood.

Then, when Andrew gave a tug, stepping backward to pull Neil forward, Neil finally unfurled himself and stood. He still didn’t lift his head, his other arm curled around his middle, holding on to keep himself small - reflexively trying to protect himself from a knife already buried too deep.

But when Andrew led him along, pulled him away from the house and through the rain, down the drive and past the gate - he followed. He held onto his hand, and Andrew swore, he swore, he could feel his grip growing stronger until by the time they reached his own home, the door left open and the foyer soaked with rain, the weight of Neil’s hand in his was a more present thing.

With only a brief pause to make sure that the door was shut and locked securely behind them, Andrew brought Neil directly into the kitchen and pushed him gently into the chair. The rain followed them in, clinging to their skin and their hair, dripping steadily from their clothes in an effort to paint their refuge in residual destruction but it was an effort in vain. Neither of them paid any attention to the mess. Andrew’s whole focus was on Neil, and Neil’s on Andrew’s hand.

Still, the air conditioner whirred in steady reminder and Andrew’s skin chilled instantly as the artificially cooled air made contact with the water clinging to him. Neil was shaking, and that trembling intensified as the change in temperature took a hold of his bones. Andrew released Neil’s hand, already turning partially away so that he could find them some towels - but was brought to a halt when instead of falling to his lap, Neil’s hand curled tighter around his own, not letting go.

Andrew turned back around and then he was crouching down again and Neil’s one hand, trembling and cold and curling tighter around his palm, was cradled between both of his. How was it that his body seemed to know what to do before his brain caught up? How was it possible that he had instincts for this? It didn’t make any sense and yet… and yet Andrew was grateful.

He held Neil’s hand and this time he did bring it to his lips. This time he breathed warm air gently over his fingertips as he rubbed the back of his hand, his thumb brushing over the circular burns on his knuckles that by now he’d kissed half a dozen times but he still didn’t know the origin of.

“I am not going away,” he heard himself reassure quietly, his voice pitched low. “I am only grabbing some towels, that’s all.”

And then, finally - finally - Neil’s eyes found his. They flicked up and that blue just… broke him, if only for a moment. It shattered him because he knew that look. He had lived under the crushing weight of his own histories for too long not to be able to recognize it even in another’s gaze. What killed him was that it was in Neil’s. A thousand pages of pain were scrawled in the slashes of his irises, written in a language that Andrew had been born fluent in, the ink stained bone-deep in a way that could never be eradicated.

Heart clenching, Andrew pressed his lips to Neil’s fingers. “Thirty seconds,” he promised, lips still brushing against cool, damp skin. Neil didn’t nod, nor did he make any other motion or sound of acknowledgement other than to loosen his hand so that Andrew could withdraw both of his own.

It probably took less than those thirty seconds before Andrew was back in front of Neil, a stack of towels in hand. Neil hadn’t moved, other than his head bowing again, his gaze firmly locked on where his hands were clasped over his knees, clawlike and trembling. Andrew couldn’t tell if the shaking was more because of the airconditioning beating against his cold skin or because of whatever had caused him to be out in the rain to begin with - but since he still wasn’t sure how to soothe the second he focused on the first. A few moments later, he had a towel wrapped around Neil’s shoulders, another over his lap, and a third gently draped over his hair, careful so as not to let it hang in his eyes.

Neil still hadn’t looked back up at him. His focus was on his hands, though Andrew couldn’t tell if he was actually focusing on them or just staring down and his hands happened to be in the way. Moving slowly so that Neil could see what he was doing, Andrew covered those hands with his own.

“Neil,” he said quietly. The storm was still raging outside, angrily trying to beat down the doors and shake the windows, furious at Andrew for stealing Neil away from it’s torment and at Neil for letting him. It took a moment, but then Neil’s eyes flicked up. His chin lifted just slightly - just enough so he could look at Andrew more directly. He still didn’t speak, didn’t so much as breathe deeply, but he looked… he looked like he was on the edge of collapse. His mouth tightened and his throat bobbed, his eyes wide with effort and the tension in his forehead pushing his brows together. As Andrew watched, Neil’s lips trembled and then parted on a soft gasp as he tried - as he tried so fucking hard to keep himself together.

Still. He was still trying to keep himself together. Something had happened. Something had pushed him beyond what he could cope with today and he was still… he was still trying to hold all of his broken pieces into some kind of uniform shape. Something cohesive so that when the storm inside him lost its vigor the pieces could fuse back together again. Maybe they’d be a little bit askew - but they would hold at least enough for him to mold himself back into shape when he was on steadier ground.

But Neil didn’t need to do that anymore. He didn’t have to do it all by himself. He was not alone.

Andrew lifted his hands off of Neil’s so that he could cup his face instead, brushing his thumbs over the rough texture of his cheeks, slashes on one side and burns on the other. A topography of pain, of survival, of strength.

Did Neil have any idea how remarkable he was?

Andrew wished he knew how to tell him. He wished words existed for this… but there weren’t. So instead, Andrew settled for a more basic truth:

“You are safe here.” He kept his voice quiet, but he put as much surety as he could into the simple words.

Neil’s breath caught, his eyes closing.

Andrew said another one: “I am not going anywhere.”

This time Neil swallowed hard, and Andrew could feel the tension in his jaw as he bit down on whatever emotions he was fighting. Fear, panic, maybe even relief - Andrew couldn’t say for certain. He didn’t know what Neil was feeling and he didn’t know why. A part of him wanted to know, wanted to ask - because he couldn’t destroy something if he didn’t know what it was, and he very much wanted to destroy anything that put all those sonnets of torment in Neil’s too-blue eyes.

But he didn’t. He didn’t ask or demand an answer. He didn’t make guesses, and he didn’t attempt to cajole an explanation by assuring Neil he could tell him anything.

Because… because he realized that if Neil didn’t feel the need to tell him, Andrew just… didn’t need to know. All that mattered was that he was here. He was safe. All that mattered was that Neil knew that he could be safe here.

Here, with Andrew.

“Andrew.” Neil’s voice wasn’t really a voice at this point. It was a whisper, brittle and raw. It caught on the edges of his struggle and snagged on all the thorns still pointing inward, gouging into his most tender places.

Andrew pushed up higher onto his knees to bring them closer, pulling Neil down slightly so that their foreheads pressed together. “I am here,” he murmured, he promised, he swore. It was an oath now, one he was prepared to brand on the center of his chest. “I am here.”

He could feel more than see Neil’s nod. Then Neil’s eyes opened and that blue swallowed him whole while in his periphery he registered an aborted movement. Neil’s hand, half-raised, hovering between them.

“C-can I?” Again, Andrew’s body seemed to realize what Neil was asking before his brain caught up, because one hand dropped away so that it could catch Neil’s. Then he was tugging him forward, and then they were both on their knees, still soaking wet, in the middle of the kitchen. Andrew guided Neil’s arms around him before wrapping his in turn around Neil. One of his hands found the back of Neil’s head and guided him down, so that Neil’s face was cradled against his neck.

Then Neil was holding him tightly. Clinging, desperately, as if letting go would mean falling off the edge of the world. Andrew held on just as tight, as if he would never let him go, and gradually - Neil calmed.

Something like two hours later, both of them were dry and warm, safe behind a locked door in the familiar space of Andrew’s bedroom. The exact timeline was fuzzy, the edges of each action and transition blurred by intangible things like worry and relief - and more solid things like the feel of Neil relaxing into his arms and the sound of his slow, shaky breathing.

They had stayed on the kitchen floor for a while after Neil finally relaxed fully into Andrew’s arms, the rest of his tension banished by relief or exhaustion or a combination of the two, before Andrew had finally nudged the other man up so they could stop being cold.

Now Neil was wearing Andrew’s favorite fleece pajama pants (they had angry cactuses on them - a cheeky gift from Nicky he would never admit out loud to appreciating) and a hoodie from Andrew’s high school sport days, the formerly bright orange ‘03’ on the back cracked and faded from too many years of washing. Andrew had changed out into a dry long-sleeved shirt (black) and a pair of loose sweats (also black) but after a moment of deliberation had decided against putting on a dry pair of arm bands. His sleeves would cover his arms just fine, and he just… he didn’t feel the need to actively hide anything from Neil.

Once dry and dressed they’d climbed onto Andrew’s bed and with a few monosyllabic negotiations arranged themselves so that Andrew was sitting up against the wall and Neil was curled against his side with his head on Andrew’s broader chest. Andrew’s arm held him close, fingers absently toying with the wayward curls that stuck out along the back of Neil’s neck.

Outside, the storm still raged - but inside things were quiet.

Even Neil’s voice, when he finally drew breath to speak, was only barely above a murmur.

“He wasn’t a witch, but he wanted to be one.” Though the tone was quiet, the words were steady. This was clearly a story Neil had been rehearsing in his head for some time now - though whether that rehearsal spanned the length of this storm or this spring Andrew couldn’t say.

A long enough pause followed this opening, though, that Andrew asked, “Who?”

“My father.” Neil didn’t hesitate with the answer, but he said the words like something was trying to hold them back, keep them lodged in his throat like a bullet in the chamber - jammed at the worst possible time. Neil wasn’t exactly the type of man to let a jammed gun keep him from taking his hit, though. He was more the kind to impulsively chuck the whole gun at someone’s head, and so after a moment of tension he pushed through and continued with, “He and his followers, they thought they could become witches if they tried hard enough, were cruel enough.”

Andrew felt Neil shake his head, felt him turn it so that he could hide his face a little more against Andrew’s chest, felt him take a slow, deep breath. Something dark and malevolent and angry stirred deep in Andrew’s chest. It rumbled a quiet, waking warning, and Andrew closed a careful fist of control around its maw. There was nothing that his anger could do for Neil right now.

“They were the ones who hurt you.” It wasn’t a question, but Neil nodded in answer anyway. Andrew had seen plenty of Neil’s scars by this point - and not just the ones on his face and arms. Though they’d never explicitly talked about the origin of Neil’s scars, Andrew had guessed it had something to do with the family he also never spoke of. Sometimes looking into Neil’s eyes was just too much like looking into a mirror for Andrew not to have figured out that much. The grimy echoes of an abusive childhood left familiar marks, even if the weapons of each particular trauma were different.

“Mum came from a line of witches. She didn’t have much power herself, and what little she did have was unreliable at best by the time I came along. Maybe that’s why--” Neil cut himself off and took a sharp breath in, shaking his head again. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. She… She’s been dead for years now. My father is in jail. His following was dismantled. It’s supposed to be over. It was over. It is over.”

Andrew wasn’t sure who Neil was trying to convince more -- Andrew or himself. He twined his fingers in Neil’s hair and gave a short, sharp tug to make him look up at him. Their eyes met, and when Andrew was sure he had his full attention he asked, “What happened today?”

He hadn’t been going to ask, not even when Neil decided to start sharing the history he’d kept quiet about for so long now. If Neil wanted to share the root of today’s breakdown, he would. If he didn’t, then it was none of Andrew’s business. Simple as that.

Except there was something in what Neil just said that had his hackles raising; an implication that there might be an active threat lurking in the shadows. That wasn’t something that he was willing to let just slip by. He didn’t care if this asshole had a whole cult of witch-wannabes or even a full coven of genuine witches - if he thought that he was going to set one fucking finger on Neil, he was going to be in for a very nasty surprise in the form of Andrew’s knife in his fucking throat.

Because he was contrary and an idiot and something of a pipedream, Neil downright softened at the murder likely blazing in Andrew’s eyes. One hand lifted and Andrew didn’t move away as Neil brushed the backs of his fingers over his cheek. Those blue eyes flicked to Andrew’s lips in a brief tell and for a moment Andrew thought that Neil was going to ask for a kiss.

Instead, he said, “I’m safe. I know I am. He can’t get me anymore.”

“But…?” Andrew wasn’t going to let him explain this away. He would not accept tentative reassurances that Neil didn’t even believe. Not as easy as that.

Neil scrunched up his nose and sighed, pulling back. Andrew dropped his arm and watched as Neil slid out of the bed and started to pace. Andrew watched him move, pointedly ignoring the annoyingly pleased beast beneath his skin that very much approved of how cozy Neil looked in his pants, swallowed up by his hoodie, comfortable and at home in Andrew’s bedroom.

After a few passes, Neil finally paused and faced him. There was a painful mix of anger and shame on his face that made Andrew want to break something, and the violence in his blood easily overpowered whatever stupidly romantic feelings he had about seeing Neil in his clothes.

“They let him publish a book. A memoir.” The words came out thick and stilted, laced with the frantic energy of a cat desperately trying to not go into the crate. “I knew it was happening. My uncle has been trying to fight it since he first got the book deal and I just… I tried to stay as far away from it as possible.” The tension in Neil’s form was palpable. It filled the air and sat heavy against Andrew’s skin, a buzz of electricity against his pulse that increased in wattage with each thump of his heartbeast. “I didn’t realize that the release date was coming up. That it was so close. And then it was here, and I didn’t think about the package I got yesterday until I opened it this morning. I never wanted to see the damn thing, Andrew. I wanted to keep pretending it didn’t exist, that he didn’t exist anymore. I know that sounds fucking stupid but--”

“No,” Andrew interrupted, standing from the bed. He took Neil’s hands in his own and squeezed tightly, because the idiot had started to wring them so violently Andrew was worried he might dislocate a damn finger. “It is not stupid. You don’t owe him or anyone else shit, Neil. If you don’t want to fucking think about him or his stupid book, you shouldn’t have to.”

Neil took a shaky breath, but he nodded. Andrew squeezed his hands again and took a slow, controlled breath himself. He meant for it to calm his own temper, but when Neil mirrored him he took a few more until they were both steadier.

“I opened the package, not thinking… And when I saw the book I just…” Neil shrugged, but Andrew didn’t need any more elaboration to know what he was trying to say. He could only imagine what the fuck it would have done to him to suddenly see a shiny new memoir for one of his abusers in his home, in his hands. To have touched it. Even thinking about it made him feel a little bit sick.

“What is it called?” Andrew took no offense to the wariness in Neil’s eyes and just shook his head before clarifying. “I’ll text Renee. She’ll make sure that the bookshop won’t carry it.” It was a small enough town that it would be fairly easy to keep something like some random memoir from popping up all over the place. They only had the one little bookshop, run by Renee and her three-to-seven shop cats. If people wanted to buy the damn thing they could go to the city or order it online - and then Neil wouldn’t have to see it when he biked into town to pick up his various orders.

Neil’s eyes widened with such a degree of shock that Andrew almost was offended then. Instead, he rolled his eyes and tugged sharply on a lock of hair hanging in front of those soul-blue eyes. “Stupid.”

A blink, then a sigh, and some of the tension still clinging to Neil’s shoulders fell away. He breathed out a small laugh. “Yeah.” Neil pulled a hand away from Andrew’s to rub over his face, digging the heel of it against his eye then a rough palm over his mouth before he sighed and nodded. “Butcher,” he finally said. “It’s just called… Butcher.”

Andrew held his gaze for a long, steady moment, then he nodded and dropped Neil’s other hand so he could fetch his phone.

To: Renee
if you have or planned to get any stock of a memoir called ‘butcher’ get rid of it

From: Renee
I do not approve of glorifying a sick, murderous maniac so I never intended to stock it in the first place.
But can I ask why you’re asking?

To: Renee
wasn’t asking
no

There was a buzz of a response but Andrew had already slipped his phone into his pocket. He looked back at Neil and sighed when he saw the droop of his shoulders and the fatigue in his eyes.

“Lay down.”

“What?” Neil blinked at him, confused.

Andrew nudged him toward the bed. “Lay down and stay warm. Mental breakdowns are exhausting.”

“I’m f-”

“Don’t you fucking dare, Josten. Just lay the fuck down. I’m going to make some cocoa and clean up downstairs.” He knew that Neil must really be drained from his ordeal when the idiot didn’t attempt another protest and instead allowed himself to be herded onto the bed and tucked in. When Andrew left him to head downstairs the only thing visible was the slightest bit of scar on one cheek and a sliver of blue growing thinner and thinner beneath a drooping eyelid.

Only after Andrew had finished cleaning up all the water downstairs and put on the kettle to make himself some cocoa (and Neil some tea) did he pull out his phone again. He closed out of his messenger app without bothering to read Renee’s further probing and instead opened up the web browser. After only a moment of hesitation he tapped on the search bar and set it to an image search before typing in ‘butcher memoir new release’.

He half expected to see a smattering of different self-published books about working in the meat industry. Instead he was greeted with a wall of the same cover over and over again in different resolutions, linked to hundreds of different sites promoting it. He tapped on the first one and let it fill his screen.

Butcher: A Memoir by Nathan Wesninski was laid out over the front in bold, professional font, the author’s name several sizes bigger than the title. Behind the words, though, the cover itself was deceptively nonthreatening unless you knew what you were looking at. Tall, thick green stalks with wide leaves, topped with clusters of white flowers that would look at home along any riverbank. Andrew would recognize giant hogweed anywhere. It was an invasive, violent species that not only smothered surrounding plants but could turn life-giving sun into something far more lethal - and that was only the mundane, non-magical variants.

Giant hogweed had three different magical subspecies, one of which was rumored to have the ability to drain a witch’s magic. It was a rare breed that showed up shortly after people stopped burning witches at the stake and started institutionalizing them instead. Used at first as a method of ‘therapy’ to try and ‘cure’ the witches of their magic affliction, it eventually fell out of favor because the process needed very careful handling. Apparently it looked bad on the asylums propagating that they could rehabilitate witches when those witches kept dying.

Andrew stared at the picture until the kettle shrieked from the stove, then he decisively closed the tab and shoved his phone back into his pocket. He made his cocoa and a cup of tea for Neil before carrying both upstairs. Neil was sleeping and instead of waking him, Andrew just set his tea on the mugwarmer he kept plugged in on his desk before taking his own mug back to the window where he reclaimed his seat and went back to watching the rain.

Chapter Text

“I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely getting murder vibes. Are you about to murder me, Andrew?” Neil looked over at him with both brows raised in curious appraisal, like he thought it would be quite the interesting turn of events.

To be fair, they had been walking through the forest for a little over an hour now and Andrew still hadn’t told him where they were going or why - nor did he intend to. It wasn’t often that Andrew planned things, and when he did he was fairly stubborn about making sure that they went according to said plan. This plan required Neil to not know where they were going or why they were going there until they actually arrived at their destination - and so, he’d said nothing.

“I’m a little disappointed,” Neil continued with a sigh, shrugging his shoulders as he tilted his head back to look up at the trees. The sunlight filtering through dappled over his face and down his neck and Andrew was uncomfortably enamored with the image.

“Oh?” It was the first time he’d spoken in a while, content to listen to Neil fill the air between them with his theories and not willing to accidentally give anything away.

Neil hummed and gave a small nod, still looking up at the trees instead of the path in front of them. “I kinda figured that when you finally decided you’d had enough of me you’d at least have the decency to murder me in my own garden. Then, maybe if you were feeling particularly sentimental, you’d bury me in yours.”

The absolute menace looked over at him then and flashed a grin that was far too cheeky to be allowed.

Andrew rolled his eyes and reached out one hand to give the idiot a firm shove. Neil laughed as he stumbled, catching himself just before running into a tree, and the sound released a flurry of lightning bugs in Andrew’s chest - glowing in time to the beat of another’s pulse. Andrew felt the corner of his mouth quirk up and he let it happen, allowed the smile to stain him - at least for the moment - as he continued forward through the trees.

“Trust me, I would never disturb my garden with your corpse. Anything that feeds on you is bound to mutate and I do not have time for that shit.”

Neil had caught up with him, falling back into step at his side as he said, “Nah, I think you would. I think you’d do it because it might mutate your garden. Anything feeding off my bones is probably gonna end up carnivorous so you could plant it around the edges of your property. My zombie sapling offspring would be your guard-plants. I think it’d be a pretty fitting afterlife.”

Andrew came to a full stop and just stared at him. “You are really fucking strange,” he accused when Neil paused and looked at him curiously.

The laugh that Neil responded with was bright and buoyant, rumbling from somewhere deep in his chest and taking flight throughout the trees like the sound had wings of its own. It was a sound of hard-won joy, raspy around the edges but filled with an energy that could be both heard and felt. It was there, resonating in Andrew’s pores as it brushed over his skin, and Andrew wished there was a way to absorb it. If he could harness that sound, turn toward it like leaves exposing themselves to the life-giving energy of the sun, and transmute it into something physical to keep with him, keep inside him - then he thought he would maybe never know the cold again.

Andrew could feel his neck growing hot and he hurriedly started walking again, brushing past Neil to keep them moving.

It only took a few steps for Neil to catch up to him. “How would you kill me, then?” he asked, endlessly curious about the stupidest fucking things.

“I’d shove you off a fucking roof.”

“Nah, you’re too smart for that. You know I’d drag you down with me and then where would you be?”

“Haunting you and making your afterlife a living hell.” Obviously.

“Un-living hell. Well, or would it just be hell?” Neil hummed, and this time it was his thoughtful hum. Not his playfully thoughtful hum, his genuine ‘I’m thinking seriously about this’ sound. It was a bit lower and drawn out with the slightest hiss of breath because Neil always chewed on just one side of his lower lip when he was genuinely thoughtful like that and the twist of his lips allowed some air to escape. Andrew did his very best not to find it attractive, but he was starting to think that his ‘very best’ when it came to resisting Neil ‘not-a-witch’ Josten would never be anywhere near good enough for success.

“Depends on what you consider to be hell,” Andrew offered after a few more steps, but Neil waved a hand in instant dismissal.

“No, that’s too subjective. Besides, spending an eternity with you is basically the opposite of what I’d consider hell, so that wouldn’t apply to this theoretical situation.”

Andrew almost fucking tripped, barely catching himself before he stupid fucking feet betrayed the way his traitorous little jackrabbit of a heart had done a fucking cartwheel out of fucking nowhere because how the fuck dare this asshole say something like that to him?

Absorbed in his thoughts, Neil didn’t seem to notice - so perhaps small mercies did exist.

“I hate you,” Andrew grumbled on reflex once he was mostly sure he was steady enough not to trip over all the excess feeling that kept tangling his shoelaces.

Neil smiled over at him fondly, and Andrew had to look away. There used to be a time where if he said ‘I hate you’ to someone they would quiver in fear - terrified that Andrew would weaponize that hate against them and tear them down to their fucking knees. Andrew wasn’t sure if he was just losing his touch or if Neil really did know him that well.

“Look at the fucking trees or something, I’m not that interesting,” Andrew protested as dryly as possible, reaching over to shove Neil’s face away.

This time he felt Neil’s laugh in his fingertips and his breath fucking shuddered because he was clearly a sappy loser now.

Fine, whatever. He would accept his fate.

At least it wasn’t too much further to their destination. He wasn’t sure he would be able to handle Neil’s particular brand of horrible flirting for much longer, especially considering the surprise ahead of them that Andrew was only doing a passable job lying to himself about how much he didn’t care if Neil liked it or not. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter one way or another. It wasn’t like he’d been the one to actually create the place they were going. Andrew had just stumbled across it one day and decided that Neil might like it, and so he was showing him. That was it, nothing more and nothing less.

Okay, well. Maybe there was a little bit more to it than that.

Andrew led them through the trees and then down a series of short but steep hills until they came to a lower elevation where a clear brook was bubbling a twisting path through a miniature valley. They followed the stream down until it curved around a sharp overhang, continuing it’s sprint under the hanging vines of a cluster of willows that acted as an entryway to the glade Andrew had found. Neil slowed his step slightly as he saw the trees, casting another inquisitive look Andrew’s way.

It was now or never, so Andrew shrugged and gestured with a lift of his chin for Neil to keep walking.

He did, Andrew trailing just a couple of steps behind him but far enough to the side that he could watch his face as he pushed past the swaying branches of the willows and stepped into the quiet, hidden little glade.

When Andrew had first discovered this place, he had instantly thought of Neil. Something about the calm strength of the willow trees, arching high and sweeping their branches around the space to keep it sheltered and protected. Safe, but also a little bit sad. The brook ran through the space, providing clear sweet water to those who sought refuge here and then continuing on its way. It was a quiet place, except for the gentle whisper of the water as it danced steadily along its path. Sheltered and quiet and peaceful - but somehow humming with an energy that Andrew recognized on an instinctual level. It was an energy that reminded him of Neil, as well. It was something… alive.

The quiet, humming glade was home not only to the brook and the willows. Growing all over the place were the most beautiful gatherings of wild foxglove that Andrew had ever seen. There were several varieties of foxglove - some that needed to be cultivated by gardeners and botanists and witches, and some that came into existence unaided. These though? Andrew had never seen foxglove quite like this before.

Most foxglove plants had tall pyramids of bell-shaped flowers that were a rich violet or pink that stayed uniform from plant to plant. Foxgloves did not come in gradient - or at least, Andrew hadn’t thought they did until he’d stepped into this clearing for the first time. The flowers that filled this sacred space were every shade and swell of blue, from the crash of a mediterranean storm to the pale song of starlight on an open sky that seemed almost silver until you saw it beside the deeper oceans and skies around it. Some bushels of the flowers started light at the top and got darker as they fanned out around the base of their pyramids; some were all the same bright and hungry cerulean, a beacon to deliverance or a lure toward something much darker.

Walking into this little glade had been like walking into a corner of Andrew’s own soul, with all that blue thriving within the protective circle of the willows. It had felt… personal somehow. He’d stood there for a very long time before venturing deeper, and then had sat against the solid trunk of one of the willows until the sun had started to dip enough that the shadows swallowed half of the blues around him, turning them indigo and inky black.

Now, Andrew stood two steps behind Neil and three to the right and he did not look around at the clearing. Instead, he watched Neil’s face intently - like it would try to hide a truth from him and he would have to be studious in order to catch it.

Except Neil did not hide. Not even a little bit. They stepped through the draping vines of the willows and Neil went still, his eyes wide as if by opening further he could better drink in all that was around him. He took in the brook, the trees, the foxglove, the quiet, and the wonder on his face was clear. His eyes were so bright that they sang harmony with the star-song petals that clustered along the northern curve of the glade. They were filled with so much energy that they outshone the raging cerulean storms and the deep-sea tremors that battled for dominance along the brook.

“Andrew,” he breathed, and Andrew felt something that was no longer new swell proudly in his chest.

“I found it, and I thought of you,” Andrew confessed quietly before he quite made the decision to do so.

All of Neil’s attention landed on him then. “This beautiful place?” he asked.

Andrew met his eyes without hesitation, holding his gaze, both terrified and hoping that he would read the truth in them, and said, “Yes.”

There was a complicated array of thoughts and feelings that flitted across Neil’s face, and even knowing Neil as well as he did now, Andrew couldn’t catch them all. The arrangement they settled into, though - that was familiar. The warmth in those eyes, the quiet set of his mouth, the peace in his shoulders.

Yeah, that was familiar - and Andrew let that look make itself a home in him. He welcomed it this time, basked in it, allowed himself the caress of it.

Neil took two slow steps toward him and now they were only one step apart but that was one step too far so Andrew finished closing the gap. He reached and Neil met him, letting Andrew take his hands and draw him in. He brought those strong, scarred hands up around the back of his neck and left them there, knowing Neil would never take more than he was given, then moved his own hands so one could cup Neil’s cheek and the other could wind around his waist to bring their bodies flush.

Neil was sighing “yes” before Andrew even asked the question, and then they were kissing. Oh and it was a slow kiss, a dance of mouths and breath and heartbeats. Andrew put all the diction that most people wasted on words into kissing Neil. He told him with tongue and teeth and lips and the very air in his lungs all the truths that were hidden inside of him. Honesty, straight from the source. Words could twist and lie by the time they touched the open air - but touch couldn’t, not between them. There was nothing more honest than their mouths together and the reverberations of their heartbeats chasing each other’s around a shared pulse.

Some people may use words for these things. They said things like “you’re beautiful” and “I feel safe with you”, “come home with me” and “I love you”. They spent spent so much energy worrying about what to say and what not to say, and if the person they were saying things to would know what they meant when they said whatever words they managed to patch together in hopes of conveying the intended message.

But Andrew and Neil… They had spent so much of their lives in the hands of liars - whose words and touches spoke opposites. They had spent so much of their lives feeling cold and angry and lonely that it seemed wrong, a disservice to both of them, to waste more time and more breath on unnecessary words when a touch could say the same thing more honestly.

So Andrew took Neil in his arms and he kissed him. The fingers curling against his waist whispered ‘beautiful’ and the one cradling his cheek, thumb brushing over one of those terrible scars, declared ‘precious’. The scrape of his teeth over Neil’s lower lip, teasing his mouth into opening for him, said ‘I want to keep you, I want to keep this, I never want this to end’. All while Neil’s body leaning into his hummed assent, singing ‘safe’. The stroke of his thumbs along the sides of Andrew’s neck murmured ‘home’ and the quiet curve of his mouth as he opened it to Andrew’s searching promised ‘I want to stay, I want this, I want you’.

Even when the kiss slowed and quietly broke, neither of them pulled away, foreheads resting together as they both caught their breath. Andrew kept his eyes closed, relishing in Neil’s closeness in a way he never would have thought possible with anyone - not before meeting the strange and wonderful terror that was Neil Josten. Neil was still gently stroking his thumbs up and down the sides of Andrew’s neck, fingertips gently beginning to massage along the back of his neck and base of his skull, blunt nails lightly scratching against his scalp in a soothing pattern.

Neil’s lips moved to press lightly against his cheek, then up to his temple before kissing a path down to his ear. “Can I wrap my arms around you?” he asked quietly, and Andrew’s heart shuddered - because even now, even with all their wordless confessions and obvious comfort with each other, Neil still didn’t take more than he was given. He didn’t assume things, because he knew that Andrew needed him to abide by his restrictions and he respected them - in every situation.

Andrew nodded and Neil didn’t hesitate to release his neck to wrap his arms about his shoulders, holding him loosely at first, then more tightly - because just as he respected Andrew’s boundaries, he trusted him to know himself. If Andrew said it was okay, then it was okay - and if that changed and it suddenly wasn’t, he trusted that Andrew would tell him that too.

“Thank you,” Neil’s voice kissed against his ear again, soft and low. “This place is… Thank you.”

Andrew’s own arms wound tightly about Neil’s waist, fingers curling in his shirt. “Idiot,” he grumbled, and there was light blooming in his heart a moment later at Neil’s answering chuckle. He rolled his eyes, then pulled away with a brief parting kiss before nudging Neil forward into the glade. “Go on,” he said with a sigh. “Go do your botanist thing with the pretty flowers while I set up lunch.”

Neil’s eyes widened briefly, then he grinned and turned back toward the clearing, slipping his bag off his shoulder as he hopped over the stream to head toward a particularly vibrant cluster of foxgloves. Andrew watched him for a moment then sighed and shook his head. He shrugged the bag off his own shoulder, packed with a picnic lunch since he’d known that Neil’s would only ever contain the frames and books and pens and measuring equipment that he used for his field studies and brought with him everywhere.

While Neil got himself lost in his work, Andrew set out the small blanket under a border willow. He gave Neil a good ten minutes before unpacking their small lunch and calling him over. Neil only pouted for a few seconds before answering the summons, and dived eagerly into the fruit and sandwiches Andrew had packed them.

This was a good feeling, Andrew decided once lunch was done - as he watched Neil scurry back over to study the strange foxglove. This warm, glowing thing that had made its home inside him - it was good. It felt like peace and Andrew supposed maybe he hadn’t had enough of it in his life, for it to have seemed so new when it had first arrived to make its nest sheltered behind his ribs. He watched Neil, and then he read some of his book, and after a little bit Neil joined him over on the blanket even though he easily could have continued scribbling his notes where he’d been sitting beside the plants before.

Yes, he decided firmly as he glanced up over the edge of his book to watch as Neil sketched the broader curves of a vibrantly cyan foxglove flower.

This… this is good. This is mine. This is worth keeping.

They stayed in the foxglove glade for a few hours, Neil mostly sketching and making notes and Andrew mostly pretending to read and watching Neil over the edge of his book instead. If Neil noticed at all, he didn’t say anything - but Andrew doubted that he noticed. Neil was hardly oblivious, but he did tend to be rather singularly focused and didn’t usually register things outside of that focus if he felt safe enough to devote the entirety of his considerable attention onto something.

If Andrew perhaps felt a little bit smug about Neil feeling so secure around him that he could let himself get completely absorbed in whatever he was doing, well, it was nobody else’s business now was it?

There was a little bit more kissing, too, but Andrew restrained himself fairly well. He had brought Neil to the glade because he had known he would find it fascinating - that he would want to study the foxglove that grew there. Besides, there were a couple of different beds and couches that they could make use of when they got back to the houses and Andrew would far rather take Neil apart there than outside when they had an hour hike between them and getting properly cleaned up.

When they gathered up their things to head back, Neil offered his hand and Andrew took it. The walk back seemed to go by quicker than the journey out to the glade - and before Andrew had really realized they were almost home, Neil was tugging him to a stop as the large stone wall that surrounded his property came into view through the trees.

“I have a small confession to make,” Neil said quietly as Andrew paused beside him.

Andrew waited, curious but not wary.

“When you said that you were going to show me something out in the woods today, and that we’d be having lunch while we were out, I took advantage of you being away from the house to arrange something…”

Now Andrew’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t pull his hand away from Neil’s because he trusted that whatever Neil was ‘arranging’ was going to be - at worst - annoying rather than actually harmful, but he really wasn’t one for surprises and Neil was well aware of that.

“I know you don’t really like surprises,” Neil said, echoing his thoughts. “But! This is different. I think you’ll like this one. Do you trust me?”

Andrew studied him, then sighed, making a vague gesture with his free hand for him to carry on.

Neil grinned at him and squeezed the hand he still held, then tugged them into motion again. They had to return to their properties through Andrew’s garden, because Neil’s property was completely enclosed - the only gate being at the very front, and Andrew didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until they had fully cleared the trees and passed the first few plots.

There was something different, he realized as they walked further through the garden, about the wall. Since Neil was leading them up the grounds closer to the wall, the angle of their approach made it difficult to figure out exactly what that was - and so it wasn’t until they were almost right on top of the oleander trees that Andrew saw it.

There, between two neatly spaced rows of oleander and where there once had been a solid wall, was an archway.

Someone had to have carefully moved and replanted the oleander to mark the path. Indeed, they’d had to have dug them up completely and moved them out of the way for the reconstruction of the wall - and Andrew had no idea how they’d gotten it done in one fucking afternoon but… well, there it was. There used to be a barrier between his garden and Neil’s - one that either needed to be scaled or gone around in order to pass from one property to the other - and now there was an open path.

Well, not quite. There was also a gate installed in the archway - a gate with a lock on Andrew’s side.

They had talked about it - about knocking down a part of the wall between their properties so that it would be easier to get from one side to the other. Neil was adept at climbing over the wall - though he hadn’t done so since Andrew first came over to his house all those months ago - but Andrew wouldn’t be able to do so without a sturdy ladder on both sides and even then he wasn’t a fan of falling to his death from any height, even if he was unlikely to actually die from the ten or so feet that the wall stretched skyward. They’d been making do with going the long way around each day but…

After the release of that bastard’s book, Neil had started having nightmares. Because he was an idiot, Neil had not told Andrew about the nightmares. Instead, Andrew had found out about them one night when he’d been unable to sleep himself and so had been spending time out in his garden, his peace suddenly interrupted by muffled screaming coming from Neil’s house.

He’d been in his garden and over the wall he’d heard that screaming - and he’d had to run the full length of his property almost twice over in order to get to Neil’s front door. When he got there, he’d used the key Neil had given him for the first time, thundering inside to find Neil up in his bedroom, sitting up in bed, gasping and barely aware of where he was.

It had taken well over an hour and several cups of tea for Neil to calm down and when he did he finally told Andrew about how he’d gotten those scars.

Neil was safe now. That bastard was locked up and he wasn’t getting out, despite the taunting action of sending that damn book to Neil. His most dangerous followers were all either also dead or imprisoned, and really, even if they were out roaming about there was little reason for them to come after Neil again.

‘They’d gotten what they wanted from me and they left me for dead in that basement. I’m not sure how I survived long enough to call my uncle, but I did. I passed out while talking to him and the next time I woke up I was on a private jet halfway across the atlantic.’ Neil’s voice had been raw, his eyes haunted, and Andrew hadn’t pressed for any more than Neil was willing to tell - despite the million questions that had spawned in the quiet between them.

It was the first night that Andrew had stayed the night. One night turned to two, then three. Andrew started spending more nights per week sleeping over at Neil’s than he did in his own bed, and that was when he’d first griped about the long walk around.

‘We could tear down a part of the wall,’ Neil had suggested one morning as they lay in bed together. They didn’t always share a bed on the nights Andrew slept over, even on the nights where they utilized that bed before retiring to sleep - but sometimes they did and Andrew was becoming more and more fond of the feeling he got when he opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was Neil’s own, blue and bright welcoming him to the new day.

Andrew had agreed. He’d liked the idea - because then they could easily go from one house to the other and if Neil were ever in trouble Andrew wouldn’t have to waste precious time running the length of two large properties to get to him.

(Not that he’d shared that particular reasoning.)

But that would take money, and planning, and they’d both have to rework parts of their gardens along the wall to accommodate the project and it was too big a project to jump into when summer was already almost over.

Next year, they had reasoned. In the spring. Until then, they would just make do.

“How?” Andrew finally asked, his voice softer and a little rougher than he realized it would be. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the elegant curls of the gate.

“I called in some favors,” Neil said quietly - and there was an anxious stillness in his voice that made Andrew turn to look at him. When he did he saw that Neil was chewing his lip - not at the corner like he did when he was in thought, but along the inside of his lower lip in a nervous habit that cropped up whenever he was unsure or doubting himself.

Andrew squeezed the hand he’d never released and brought it up to his lips, holding his gaze as he kissed it. “Those must have been some favors. I thought we figured that this wasn’t a single-day project. We were only gone for a few hours.”

Neil relaxed at the reassuring brush of affection and flashed a small, crooked grin, familiar mischief dancing in those blue eyes. He lifted a finger to his lips, blocking that grin for just a moment. “Shh, don’t ask and I won’t have to tell.”

Andrew studied him, just for a moment. Then he asked, “Does that mean that if I asked, you would tell?” Suddenly they were talking about a lot more than just the suspiciously quick and quiet installation of a gate between their properties, and Neil’s expression sobered. He didn’t close off, though - just became… quieter.

There was trust in his eyes when he said, “Yes.”

He almost asked. There were a million questions that Andrew still didn’t have answers to. Questions about the new gate in the wall and about Neil’s past - he wanted to know everything there was to know. A part of him needed to know it all.

So he almost asked. But more than those answers, he wanted… well, he wanted Neil. He wanted to be able to stand beside him, trusting and trusted. He wanted this… what they were doing with each other… to be a partnership. And even if one was willing to give everything for nothing, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. The world was not a fair place, and Andrew was all too aware of that fact - which was why when it came to the people he cared about he strove to instill that fairness, that honesty, that balance as much as possible.

“Alright,” Andrew finally said with a nod. “Truth for truth, then. For every answer you give, you’ll have one of mine as well.”

Neil’s eyes widened, clearly not expecting that, then he softened - then he chuckled and asked, “Andrew, can I kiss you?”

“You get to ask me any question, knowing I will give you the full truth, and that is the first one you pick?” Andrew asked with mock derision, scoffing to hide his smile.

Neil wasn’t bothering at all to hide his. He squeezed his hand and faced him more fully, taking a small step forward - breaching his space without crowding him. “Yup,” he said, letting the ‘p’ pop playfully from his lips. “What is your answer, Andrew. You’ve got to give me the truth now, since you’ve committed.” Teasing - the little asshole was teasing him!

Andrew scowled, but by the playful smirk on Neil’s face it wasn’t very effective.

“Well?” Neil asked, his voice a little softer, the smirk fading to a familiar look of… well, Andrew could admit it now - it was adoration and it was for him. “Yes or no, Andrew?”

And Andrew sighed, and he felt the truth swell up from his toes, growing wide and filling his heart to overflowing before spreading throughout the rest of his body even before his answer touched his tongue. When it did - when he opened his mouth and let it sail - he did it with a smile, one he didn’t even try to subdue.

Andrew smiled. He leaned forward and a little bit up, and with his lips already grazing Neil’s - he said, “Yes.”