#andrewneil

“You should go to Bee,” he suggests one morning as he pours himself a cup of coffee, back turned to Neil.

Neil scoffs. “And why would I do that?” he asks, not looking up from his breakfast.

“Because you’re going to break if you keep going like this,” Andrew says, and it sounds almost soft, coming from him.

“Like what?” Neil asks, voice narrowed.

“You’re obvious, Neil,” Andrew says, standing on tip toes to reach for the sugar. “You don’t like being touched. No, you can’t stand it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Neil says, voice flat.

“No?” Andrew questions. “The way even an innocent touch makes your skin crawl, makes you taste the blood in your throat, makes you remember all the bad things that happened to you? Who do you think you’re talking to Neil.”

Neil’s fist comes down on the table, a loud slam. Andrew’s right, and he hates it. Andrew is always right.

“I’m not going to Bee,” he says instead of admitting it.

“Then we’ll work on it,” Andrew says like it’s the end all be all. 

And it is.

The work is slow going. Andrew carefully laces his fingers through Neil’s after two weeks, watches Neil closely, the only sign he gets is a tightening of Neil’s lips. After a month, Andrew can slip his hand into Neil’s without warning and without reaction.

Even when he thinks Neil’s better it comes in waves. It happens one night when they’re sound asleep, Andrew’s arm curled lightly around Neil’s waist. Neil must wake up from a nightmare because he strikes out, hitting Andrew soundly in the chest. Andrew recoils and is about to hit back, but realizes where he is in time.

Neil huddles on the other end of the bed, eyes wide, small frame shaking. Andrew just eyes him. He doesn’t ask if Neil wants to talk about it, knows he doesn’t. He just waits until Neil starts breathing again. Waits until he lays back down silently. Andrew lays back down, his back pressed against the wall, giving Neil plenty of space.

Neil had left Andrew’s place with a new stolen jersey, two worn soft hoodies that he didn’t plan to put into the wash, and his emotions in a swirling mess 

They had spent the weekend talking, slowly rekindling themselves, Neil doing his best to skirt around the issue of basically no sleep and trying to keep the rest of the Foxes from figuring out his slow collapse. But Andrew could still see through his smoke and mirrors, could draw out a sigh and an honest answer with the touch of his thumb to Neil's cheekbone

So they talked about the future, where they’d go from here. 

“It’s simple. every time you thought about telling me something, sending me a message or a picture, you do that. You don’t ignore it, you just send me a picture of that stupid sign at the coffee shop.” Andrew had summed it up, the way he stared at his cup for a few seconds before the only indicator of his unease with the open talk. He had gotten better at it over the years, but Neil suspected that the break hadn’t exactly helped in healing old wounds.

“I just don’t want to annoy you. Or distract you.”

“Neil. as much as you annoy me sometimes, I much prefer that over not knowing whether you’re about to keel over from sleep deprivation.”

Neil blew out a huffed breath “That’s not what I want it to be about. We’re not doing this because I apparently function better with you around. If I send you something or call you I want it to be because we both enjoy it.” he shifted uneasily, keeping his toes tucked under Andrew's thighs, trying to ignore the way Andrew kept drawing small circles on his ankle almost unconsciously, “I don’t want you back just so I can sleep. I could have figured that out. I want you back because having you there makes everything easier, yes, but it also makes everything better. I love having you around, I want to talk to you just because it’s you and you’re, well, you’re my favourite person.” 

He knew his head must have been fire engine red at this point, and his eyes kept flickering over to the book on the shelf, the cat dish by the door, the picture of the twins at graduation day on the wall 

(He remembered Nicky beaming at finally getting a picture of the two of them, how he kept calling out obscene things to try and get them to smile until Aaron finally cracked and started laughing, leading to Andrew throwing his brother a look that could be called slightly bemused, the corners of his mouth twitching. He also knew Nicky had his own copy of the picture at his house in Germany, and according to Erik kept showing it off as “My cousins, the doctor-to-be and the exy star”) 

Andrew looked at him, his hand closing around his ankle, biting his lip before letting out a slow breath: “I have pictures on my phone. Of the cat, and some random Exy magazine with Boyd’s badly photoshopped face on it that I wanted to send to you. It could fill a whole wing at the damn MOMA at this point. I told you yesterday that I would have driven down to see you. I’m not here to be your sleeping pill, and I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do.”

And Neil had inched forwards, dropping his head on Andrew’s shoulder and pressing a kiss against the hinge of his jaw. “It’ll work this time, right?”, he whispered against Andrew’s skin, slightly timid in the face of his own vulnerability. 

“We want it to,” Andrew replied, pushing his nose into Neil’s hair, “We’ll make it work.”

[n] - “i hate this.”

“i’ll be home in ten, i’ll call you.”

[n] - “no, don’t. it’s fine. i’m fine. i just.”

[n] - “i miss you so goddamn much.”

[n] - “i just want to see you. no pixels no phone no anything. just see you”

[n] - “sometimes i wake up and i think you’re there because the blankets you left when you moved out are all bunched up behind me and i can feel them at my back and i go to touch you and there’s nothing.”

[n] - “and it just hurts.” [n] - “but it’s almost worth it because for that split second i think you’re there. i dream about you and then i wake up and for a second you’re actually here.”

[n] - “but you’re not.”

[n] - “i’m sorry. i know you’re busy and this isn’t the right place. and it isn’t your fault. this is all just screwed up.”

“i miss you too”

[n] - “andrew”

“i’ll call you, okay? i’m almost home.” 

“I can’t believe you actually send me a care package.” Andrew drawled, but Neil could hear the undercurrent of amusement and found himself squishing the phone closer to his ear

“I have half your closet in my drawer at this point. Figured it was time to even the score a bit,” he replied, lazily stirring his pasta around and watching the bubbles break at the surface.

“That explains the jersey and the hoodie, but not the rest.”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t been missing those bars, the café basically went bankrupt without you buying up their stock.”

 Andrew had gotten weirdly obsessed with the chocolate oat bars the small coffee shop just off campus sold in his fourth year, and Neil blamed Renee entirely. She had dragged him there the first time, after all. Neil still found the occasional crumb in some of his jackets from Andrew smuggling those things, “And the book looked like something you’d be interested in, that’s all.” 

“It is,” Andrew answered after a small pause, and Neil considered how he could manoeuvre around draining his pasta one-handed before he decided to just drag it off the heat. Let it be soggy. The speaker on his phone was rubbish anyway.

Neil leaned back against the counter, absentmindedly rubbing at a stain with his thumb. “Do you like it? Not just the book, the whole thing. I just thought it’s one of those things, right?. I wanted to send you some of my clothes. And I wanted you to have those bars and the book. Just like the pictures.”

Andrew huffed a small breath, his voice quiet, and Neil wanted so badly to just see his face, “Yeah Neil, I liked it.”

They stayed silent. Neil in his shoddy dorm kitchen, his pasta slowly turning cold and mushy, his roommates discarded plate in the sink. He could imagine Andrew in his house, on the couch or just out the back door, twirling a cigarette between his fingers. He had given up smoking before graduating, but his hands still needed something to hold on sometimes. Or maybe he was in his bedroom, the unpacked contents of the package around him. Neil wanted to be there, regardless. 

“The cat toy was unneeded though.” 

“That cat needs something to play with, even I know that.”

“She’s not my cat, Josten.”

“You sent me a picture of her sleeping on your chest literally a week ago.”

“That was confidential.”

“That was adorable, Andrew. I made it my home screen. She’s your cat. Take the damn toy.”

Neil woke up with a start, only realizing his phone vibrating on the bedside table had woken him up after a second of startled panic, picking it up and squinting at the brightness of the screen

[andrew] - “can i call you?”

He hit call on Andrew’s number before he could even think about it, dread rising back up at the back of his throat. 

“Neil.” Andrew’s voice was low, and it took Neil a moment to place the forced calm in it. 

“Hey,” he replied softly, scooting out of bed quietly and making his way to the couch in the living room. There was a blanket on there that Nicky had left behind when he went back to Germany that always reminded Neil of him, and he wrapped his legs in it now, “Hey, I’m here.”

There was nothing on the line apart from Andrew’s shallow, fast breathing, so familiar to Neil after years of sleeping in the same bed and waking up to nightmares creeping at the edge of the window. 

“D’you want me to talk?”, he asked, voice soft and quiet both for the sake of his roommates and Andrew.

Neil could hear Andrew shifting, the almost-not-there sound of his feet on the wooden floor of his bedroom as he went over to the window, the slight creak in the handle as he turned it to let some air in. 

“Yeah. Talk.”

“Dan stopped by today, she was on her way to a conference,” Neil knew this game from too much practice, knew the exact sort of topics and tone to use, “Some of the freshmen wanted to pin her down and force her to be our new coach, but I guess that’s what happens if you don’t know her drills” 

He could hear Andrew huffing and felt himself relax the tiniest bit. Reactions were good, and he didn’t know if he could live with himself if his voice wasn’t enough tonight. 

So he kept talking, about Dan’s commentary on the team’s form, about her ruffling his hair when she hugged him goodbye, about the pictures Allison had sent him from her trip to Portugal. 

Nothing too complicated, nothing too emotional. Nothing about how he’d had a nagging worry at the back of his head all day when Andrew didn’t reply to his messages, or the fact that he had once again found himself staring at the prices for last minute plane tickets, toying with the idea, the team and school be damned. Neil could see the clock in the corner lazily shifting from 2 to 3 am, and settled in deeper into the couch cushions. 

“Oh, and Dan brought me something, actually,” he found himself saying, the end of the sentence trailing off into the darkness of the room.

“What did she bring you?” Andrew asked, his voice rough but had lost the tension that was all over it just 15 minutes ago. 

“Some pictures, of your graduation party.” Neil could basically feel the slight hitch on Andrew’s next breath and leaned his forehead on his drawn up knees. He hadn’t wanted to bring it up, but the night apparently made him lose his head just a little bit. “She hadn’t sorted through them yet when she was here the last time, but she found a few she thought we might want. She’ll send the rest to Nicky and Aaron.” 

Dan had mentioned the rest of the pictures, of Nicky in his sparkly graduation cap chugging a bottle of champagne at 3am and Aaron falling asleep on the couch next to his twin, snuggling an oversized plush toy bear dressed as a doctor that the cheerleaders had gifted him. But Neil had only nodded, staring at the pieces off glossy photo picture she had stuffed into his hands. 

“There’s a few of us,” he started, clearing his throat slightly, “On the armchair. I don’t really remember it, it must have been late.”

“During the karaoke.” Neil could basically see him, the faint light from the streetlights spilling on his hair, the cowlick near his ear that always appeared after sleeping, the crinkles in his old faintly blue sleep shirt and he closed his eyes, willing to keep the longing at bay. 

“Probably,” he replied, shifting his head on his knees so he wouldn’t muffle the phone, “they’re not perfect, some of them are out of focus and the colours are all weird from the lights the girls dragged in but,” he cut himself off, pressing his mouth closed. This had never been supposed to be so hard. 

He could hear Andrew breathing out again before his voice came through the phone, “You were in my lap, sideways. You had been wound up all day, but you were relaxed then. Laughing at Boyd murdering Holding Out For A Hero. There was glitter in your hair from all the horrid party hats. Your shirt kept slipping off your shoulder because you mixed them up and put on the bigger one that morning.”

“You kissed me,” Neil whispered, not wanting to interrupt Andrew but the words slipping out anyway, “When Nicky and Katelyn were doing Summer Nights. Dan got it in the background. Everyone’s looking at the two of them, but we’re just. There. Together. Your hands are under my shirt”

“I didn’t want to leave,” Andrew said, and the words seemed to crackle in hundreds of miles between them. 

“I didn’t want you to leave either,” Neil replied, feeling his heart clench, “I thought about that night a lot, you know. When we were,” he paused, biting his lower lip, “Not us.”

“Me too.” There was a pause before Andrew spoke again, his voice just a bit less vulnerable than a minute ago. Neil admired his ability to try and dredge them up from below, “Give some of them to me, when I’m coming down.”

“Two weeks,” Neil smiled slightly, half bitter half happy, at the mention of Andrew’s nearing visit. There was a countdown on his phone, but hearing it made it seem more real. 

“Two weeks.” 

Neil sat up, trying to blow the hair off his forehead. It was almost 3:30 am, but he knew he couldn’t just go back to sleep now, and he knew Andrew would be feeling the same way. 

“Hey, you wanna watch a movie?” he asked, already pushing the blanket off his legs, “I just need to get my laptop.”

Andrew huffed, “Yeah, I do. My choice, though. I’m not watching another Mission Impossible.”

“Admit it, you like them,” Neil said, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth while he got up and padded to the desk to retrieve his laptop. 

“Lies and slander,” 

A few minutes later Neil was curled up again, his laptop on his legs and the phone on speaker on his shoulder, the world not looking quite as blurry with the shine of the laptop screen and the sound of Andrew navigating the Netflix menu through the speaker. 

“Hey, Neil?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re trying. We’re making it work.”

“I know. And just two more weeks. I don’t think I’ll let you leave the room.”

“And what if I want to say hello to our darling coach?”

“I think you’ll be quite happy here, with me.”