The 5 times one of the Foxes saw Andrew smile, and the one time all of them saw him smile
Because I love the 5+1 format, and because I just want Andrew and Neil to be happy. (Also I’ve decided that of course they would get married, because that just makes sense).
My apologies for any mistakes, this was written all in one go this afternoon and I was too excited to wait before posting. I’m also trying to sign up for ao3 so I can post it there, I’ll update when that happens:)
Thanks for reading!
1.
The mood in the room was unusually somber before the Palmetto Foxes third game of the season. This was especially unusual because they weren’t expecting any sort of backlash, and the team that they were playing against was pretty tame. No one had any particular fear against the Terrapins and the two teams were mostly friendly.
Allison knew that the dark vibe was from the silence that came from the corner that Neil and Andrew sat in.
Besides the cat fights with the new Foxes, everyone on the team has been working well together this year. The upperclassmen and Andrews group had an unbreakable bond from the events of last year, although they all pretended that they couldn’t care less about the other group (except for Matt. He couldn’t pretend to not care if his life depended on it, the sweet puppy).
Neil’s silence was accompanied by a far away gaze and sickly pale skin. Allison had already pulled him aside in the dorms to lecture him about playing while sick, but he insisted that he was fine. Allison had let him go, assuming that Andrew would take care of him. Now she was wondering if she should have pushed harder, since he looked absolutely determined to play today.
Renee’s soft nudge distracted Allison from their almost dead looking striker and she gave her an understanding look.
“I’m sure he’ll take care of himself,” Renee says quietly. Allison squeezes her hand, grateful to have her to lean against. She still wasn’t sure how Renee managed to understand exactly what everyone was thinking with such accuracy.
“Okay people, we’ve gotten a strong start, let’s keep that up,” Wymack says gruffly, sending a concerned look toward Neil. “If any of you aren’t feeling up to it, tell me now so we can change the starting line-up.”
Everyone looks at Neil, who stares straight ahead like he hadn’t heard Coach. He turns his head to avoid Andrews dark look, then gets up stiffly.
“We done Coach? Dan and I would like to start drills soon,” Neil says. Allison snorts at his poor attempt at changing the subject, but Wymack just lets him go with a nod.
As they make their way over to the court Allison sees Wymach snag Andrew. “You’ll keep an eye on him?” she hears him say. She doesn’t hear Andrew answer, but she knows that he will.
They’re up, 4-2, by the time the first half is done. Allison had kept her eye on Neil every time she was off, but he had looked fine while playing. Abby wasn’t able to check in with him during half-time though, too busy dealing with Jack’s minor injury that he had gotten from getting checked into the plexiglass. Allison had to admit that she had very little sympathy for the kid.
Everything was going fine until almost the end of the next half. Allison hadn’t been paying much attention to the health of her team while she was playing, focused more on actually playing, but no one could ignore the loud slam that came from near the other teams goal.
Allison instinctively looked toward the noise to find out who was down.
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