usually reading, always weeping

It was a thought that didn’t go unnoticed. “Stop that,” Andrew grumbled through the cigarette balanced between his teeth.

“Get used to it.”

He’d only had Andrew’s gaze, but now Neil also had his attention. Exhaling hard, Andrew pulled the last dregs of the cigarette from his mouth and stubbed it out. From under the blanket they were huddling in together, Andrew brought his free hand up to Neil’s face, only allowing himself his fingertips against Neil’s jaw once Neil whispered an affirmation. His thumb ran along Neil’s bottom lip as he huffed, “You’re impossible.”

Andrew released his thumb only to replace it with the insistent press of his own lips. Neil could still taste the fleeting bitterness of the smoke that lingered on Andrew’s tongue but there was a sweetness mixed in as well, one not as easily explained.

His own hand drifted to rest on top of Andrew’s still cupping his face. The kiss deepened, so Neil pressed his cheek deeper into the touch, sighing and squeezing Andrew’s hand with his own.

They broke away then and Andrew’s hand retreated, but only to the more familiar territory of the back of Neil’s neck. Neil dropped his hand back to his side where it belonged.

Andrew searched Neil’s face for an answer Neil was sure he already knew, but he still asked, “What’s gotten into you?”

The corner of Neil’s mouth twitched. “You.” Andrew looked ready to throw him off the balcony, so he added, “My answer will always be you.”

The murderous glint didn’t leave Andrew’s eyes but he pulled Neil toward him all the same as they stumbled back inside their flat.

---

When Neil woke up for the second time that day, he was splayed on his back, the worn blanket doing little to disguise the stiffness of the hardwood floor. He would’ve been surprised that the last rays of sun were already sinking below the horizon but he hadn’t been sleeping well the past few days. Stretching, Neil pulled off the second blanket that had been thrown on top of him and looked around. Through his weary daze, he could see a familiar figure on their balcony once again, this time bundled in an old sweatshirt that didn’t quite belong to him and sitting on the piece of furniture they had the audacity to call a couch.

Wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, Neil ambled over and settled down next to Andrew who spared him a glance before taking the cigarette out of his mouth and passing it to Neil.

Time seemed to freeze during these moments, like nothing else existed except the intensity of Andrew’s stare and the cigarette wordlessly shuttled between them, but for the first time since all this started however many years ago, Neil hesitated. In that instant he wondered just how many times they had repeated this routine over the years, this exchange that was anything but silent. He never would have imagined that he could even have habits at all, let alone one that was shared. It was ingrained in him as much as it was ingrained in Andrew and that realization left him breathless.

Before Andrew could comment on the stutter in Neil’s movements, Neil accepted the cigarette and considered it between his fingers, the vibrant red and drifting ash, before getting up and holding it over the balcony.

To his credit, Andrew didn’t flinch. His eyes flicked from the cigarette to Neil before narrowing.

It was only fair for a silent question to receive a silent answer, so Neil asked again, this time with words, “Would you?”

Aside from his eyebrows knitting together, Andrew’s expression didn’t change much. “Are you asking?”

“Yes.”

“Why should I?”

“So your lungs don’t turn to tar before you’re 40.”

Only then did Andrew smile, but it’s almost mocking in its formation. “Didn’t you say it wasn’t righteousness?”

“It’s not.”

“Then what is it?”

Neil didn’t know how to put what he’d been feeling into words, so he began with a bit of truth. “You don’t need it.” Andrew scoffed, which forced the whole truth out of Neil in a rush, “But I need you.”

Andrew’s eyes widened and Neil winced. He could feel his whole body tingling, there was a tightness in his chest that was burning, burning. The absolute stillness that followed was so long that the once freshly lit cigarette in Neil’s hand turned to ash and broke away from his loose grip. It brought him back down to Earth with it. Such a waste.

He wiped his now empty hand against the blanket. “I’m not.” He looked up and sighed. “I’m not as demanding as I was in college, so if you want we can pretend this conversation never happened.”

Given Andrew’s perfect memory, it was a stupid thing to suggest but Neil figured he’d already suggested worse. He sat back down and opened the blanket up. An invitation.

Andrew didn’t take it. “You’ve gone soft.”

Irritation welled up in the pit of Neil’s stomach. “Andrew, I just said…” he began but Andrew cut him off.

“Before you would’ve bargained to hell and back to get me to do what you asked.”

Neil blinked. “What?”

“What would you give me to stop?”

Something clicked. “I have nothing left to give. Everything I have and am is yours and always will be. No matter what.”

Bolting up, Andrew pointed a finger at him. “When will you stop with the always?”

Despite himself, Neil felt a prickle of amusement. “Never? That’s kind of what it means.”

Maybe Andrew was right, he was going soft. Because before the speed at which Andrew had taken ahold of the collar of his shirt wouldn’t have taken him by surprise, but now the air had been pushed out of his lungs, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Don’t give me that bullshit when a minute ago you were running away from your own words. You brought it up only to try to walk away.” Their faces were only a breath apart now. “Once a runner, always a runner.”

The accusation cut him even after all this time, even if it was partly true. “Either I’ve changed or I haven’t, which is it?”

“Don’t get smart with me, Josten. Let’s try this instead. Either you tell me what’s going on in that tiny brain of yours or I throw you off this balcony without a second thought.”

The threat was empty but the heat was real. A trickle of guilt lodged at the base of Neil’s throat.

“Okay,” he whispered, hands ghosting over Andrew’s. “I’m sorry.”

“Save it.”

“Andrew,” Neil murmured. “You know I’d give you anything. All you have to do is ask.”

For a moment it seemed that Andrew would kiss him and the conversation really would be forgotten in the crush of lips and heated skin, but soon Andrew’s hold relaxed and he took a seat next to Neil again, closer this time.

“Talk.”

There was no good place to start so Neil picked up where he left off. “I need you. I need this.” He paused but Andrew was well past the point of denying there was a this. “Not just now but tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. For months, years, decades.” Neil had to laugh at the word decade, so foreign on his tongue. “I’ve never considered my life like this before. Before you. I was always sure I’d die before I turned 30. Hell, I’d have considered it a win if I made it to 25.”

A few beats of silence. “So you don’t have a death wish anymore?” Andrew asked but there was no malice in his voice.

Neil rolled his eyes and gestured between himself and Andrew. “This is the first thing I ever did for myself. I had always thought it was exy, but that was chosen for me too.” Andrew looked like he was about to say something snarky so Neil amended, “Don’t get me wrong, I live and breathe that sport, but there’s still an invisible gun pressed to my head every time I play. You and the Foxes were a choice that was wholly mine and it’s a choice I intend to make last for as long as I can. Smoking less is just a means to an end.”

There was silence again but also a subtle reshuffling. An arm thrown here, a leg laid there and before Neil knew it he and Andrew were once again under the same blanket shoulder to shoulder, Andrew bearing the full weight of Neil’s body against his chest.

A half-finished pack of cigarettes floated in front of Neil’s face before landing onto his lap. “Keep it. Toss it. Do whatever you want with it,” Andrew muttered into Neil’s hair.

Neil stared at his lap. “I wasn’t saying cold turkey. I meant not a pack a day.”

“I know.”

“So…”

“So then hold onto them and if I want it I’ll tell you or if you want one then tell me, but it’s not we’d need them any other time.”

It took everything in Neil not to gape at Andrew. All these years, he’d assumed that he’d been an unwelcome intrusion in a space that wasn’t his and that Andrew allowed it for the same reason he allowed Neil to put his hand over Andrew’s heart and keep it there.

And maybe it had started that way but when Neil finally gave in and turned to look at Andrew to express his disbelief, he saw his answer. It was an answer he should’ve known all along. The habit hardest to break had never been the cigarettes.

“Oh,” Neil breathed and Andrew gave him a wry smile.

“You’re a real dumbass, you know that Josten?” he said as his lips traced Neil’s in a movement so whisper soft that Neil would have agreed to anything Andrew said to make it continue.

When he said as much, their bodies went from fitted together to one and the same. Every part of him Andrew touched burned and Neil thought if this went on for much longer there’d be nothing left of him but ashes.