🌈Raincloudbubble🌧️

When Neil was having a bad day he -- and no one was surprised by this -- ran. Until it felt like his lungs were collapsing and he was so tired his mind couldn't care about the long-dead demons chasing him, and all he could do was collapse.

On worse days, when he felt the smile of Nathaniel on his face and his name ceased to be Neil, he would go to Andrew and he would repeat his name like a prayer for a religion neither of them believed in.

Today was different. Neil woke up - and well that was kind of it. There was no excitement to play exy, or of seeing Andrew's rare grumpy but somehow soft look in the mornings. One moment he was dreaming and the next he was just...not. No alarm had woken him up, it was just early enough where the morning light was streaming into his room, and castling light onto the wall next to his bunk.

Neil's thoughts were weirdly empty and he found himself drifting, his eyes catching the dust particles as they floated through the air. He was...calm, but even that was muted.

Eventually his calm was interrupted by the sound of Kevin's alarm. Usually Neil would get up too and go for a quick jog, but today he just lay there.

Kevin got back and shut the door at which point Andrew got up as usual, and climbed down the ladder shaking the bed, Neil was staring at the wall but felt the rattling of the ladder pause as Andrew saw him huddled under the covers. Neil could imagine Andrew raising an eyebrow at him, but eventually he continued down the ladder and begun getting ready.

Once Kevin had enough wherewithal to recognize that Neil was not in fact getting ready, he came over to the side of his bed.

"Neil get up, you'll be late for practice." He says kicking the bed and making it shake. Neil thinks about flipping him off, but even the act of lifting his hand out of the covers is to much and settles on just shrugging. "Neil come on-" and suddenly there is an arm on his shoulder to give him a shake and god does it burn, like Lila and his mom and his dad and his whole fucking family. Neil thinks he hears his breathing quicken but all his brain is saying is "stop, stop, stop" and then suddenly the hand is off him and he can continue to stare at the pealing paint chips on the wall.

Vaguely, he hears a voice yelling and a door slamming and then nothing. He's still hyperventilating and only comes out of his head when there are black spots in his vision and a whispered "Abram" at the foot of his bed.

Neil glances down and there is Andrew as unfazed as ever, but Neil can tell from hours of learning his micro expressions that this particular furrow in his brow is that of worry. Neil must get lost in thinking about all the ways Andrew displays his emotions across his body, because when Andrew says "Breathe, idiot" Neil fills his lungs on instinct and then is suddenly gulping down breaths like he was starving for them.

He can tell Andrew doesn't know what to do. Its not his usual panic induced meltdown, or his junkie behavior of always moving. And to be honest Neil doesn't know what to do either.

"Yes or no, I sit in bed next to you?" Andrew asks.

Neil shakes his head and Andrew takes it in stride betraying no emotions to Neil's rare 'no'. It makes the corners of Neil's lips twitch up, at how much Andrew doesn't even question it. But the next question is harder.

"Yes or no, I stay in the room", Andrew moves away from the foot of the bed and towards the door. Neil takes a moment to think, because on one hand the urge to hide away is strong. He remembers nights where his mother would curl around him, and they would hide in a closet in a motel, waiting for their contacts to tell them that his father’s men had finished passing through town. He can feel himself already slipping back into that headspace where he felt so adrift, like being on an Exy court without a racket. If Andrew left the room, something tells him that Neil would lie here all day. And while that sounds appealing, he knows whatever is happening is not normal. So he nods his head.

Andrew is squinting at him, like he is trying to step into his mind and have a look around, see what's causing this particular breakdown. But ultimately, just nods and opens the door. Neil panics for a moment, but Andrew sees the look in his eyes and mutters a quiet "5 minutes Junkie", and closes the door.

When he comes back its with two water bottles, a book, and Matt's CD Player. He places one water next to Neil and the other on the stand next to Kevin's bed, and then sets the cd player up and suddenly there is Matt's indie rock music playing. Andrew settles himself on Kevin's bed and starts reading.

And that's how they spend the rest of the day. Neil zones out staring at Andrew, flipping over and staring at the sun on his wall, flipping over again. The entire time the sounds of Matt's music and Andrew flipping pages is enough to keep him tethered to the dorm and not thinking about whatever enemies hide outside his door.

After who knows how many hours, Neil finally seems to be slowly coming back into this realm of being, and grabs the water bottle to take a sip. Andrew briefly glances at him from his mostly finished book, but doesn't say anything. Waiting for Neil to break the silence.

The rest of the day is spend like this, until the sunlight on his wall shifts to the other and Andrew finishes his book and starts a new one. Eventually Neil will ask Andrew to lay next to him, and they will open up his laptop to a video of an exy game, and Andrew will continue to be unjudging as Neil describes how everything feels miles away.