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Neil glanced up to where he knew Andrew was, face just about as bright red as his hair and needing an out from the seemingly possessed upperclassmen.  Unfortunately, Andrew seemed less than inclined to wade in on his behalf.  He raised an eyebrow at Neil from his place at Kevin’s side and leaned back against the wall.  It felt like a challenge, and Neil’s eyes narrowed before he realized Kevin’s had done the exact same, and his gaze had to suddenly shift up to the strange expression on his friend’s face.

Kevin seemed to not quite know what face to make, if he was being totally honest.  His eyes were narrowed as if he was searching for something in Neil’s own expression, but the corners of his mouth were drawn down in some unpleasant recollection, and his gaze was far too distant to be entirely present.  

Neil rolled his eyes.  Leave it to Kevin to turn one of the upperclassmen’s schemes into a guilt trip.

Nodding subtly between Andrew and Kevin, he turned his energy back to where Allison was tracing a route out across the map.  “Wait, so when are we doing this?  Are we doing this?”

Everyone seemed to freeze, and the room was blissfully quiet for maybe two seconds before Dan broke it.  “I’ll talk to Coach, but we should be fine if we go right after finals and come back in time for July practice.  He’ll bitch about conditioning but he lets us go home anyways so it’s not as if he was expecting us to not slack in the one month we have off.”

Surprisingly, it was Kevin that spoke up to back her.  “I can tell him I have something planned to keep everyone in shape while we’re on the road.”  His guilt complex seemed to have disappeared, and Neil was stunned to realize that Kevin actually looked slightly excited by the idea of a road trip.  Well, it was surprising for all of thirty seconds, until he got a closer look at the monument brochures Kevin was thumbing through in his other hand, and suddenly his excitement made much more sense. Neil couldn’t bring himself to care, though.  Road trips, for the past nineteen years, had meant moving.  They’d been full of stress and fear and the sound of dogs snapping at his ankles, and all of it was crammed into a single duffle bag.  There’d been no roadside attractions, no stopping on a whim, no returning to a place they had already left.  Neil wasn’t sure what it meant for something he had only ever seen as a necessity to suddenly be something his friends wanted to do for fun, but he felt for once like he was ready to find out.

________________________________________________________________

Logistics were turning out to be a pain.

Matt refused to let Neil bring his duffle bag, no matter how much Neil insisted he could fit everything he needed into it.  This trip, Matt insisted, was not going to be anything like the trips he had lived through in the past.  Even if it meant trying to cram nine foxes’ worth of suitcases, duffle bags, and other half-packed boxes into the bed of Matt’s truck without spilling any out onto the highway behind them.

Neil had stubbornly snuck his duffle into the trunk of Andrew’s car, and handed Matt a second, smaller bag that let Matt believe the dreaded duffle bag had been left behind until they were too far away to do anything about it.  Andrew had rolled his eyes when he had noticed it in the back, and Neil felt suddenly, irrationally defensive.

“Why shouldn’t I bring it?  I can make it hold more than enough for the trip.”  Andrew, listening to this, snorted and walked away.

“Whatever you say.  Get in the car, we’re going.”

__________________________________________________________________

Neil discovered early on that he liked riding in Andrew’s car best.  The older Foxes insisted on rotating who rode in what car at first to change things up, which was essentially a ploy to make Andrew share Neil.  Neil didn’t mind, but it wasn’t difficult for him to choose a favorite.

Matt’s car was fun, but it was loud.  When Neil had shifted into the backseat of the truck’s cab, so had Nicky.  They had traded with Renee and Allison, leaving Dan in the passenger seat with her fingers tangled in Matt’s over the dashboard.  They played music that left Neil breathless, windows down and conversation loud.  Even when they had traded off later, and Nicky and Dan had been swapped for Kevin and Allison, speeding through empty fields scattered throughout western North Carolina felt surreal.  Every road trip Neil could remember was full of tense silence.  This loud debate over monuments in Washington D.C. worth visiting, held over the sound of wind rushing through the windows and Carrie Underwood was something Neil had never experienced before.

Andrew’s car was certainly quieter, but Neil could feel the difference between his mother’s silence and Andrew’s easily.  His mother’s cars had been filled with tension and rushed questions about their new identities.  Every moment was a test, and every wrong answer was the difference between life and death.

Andrew’s silence was different.  It was long pauses in conversation that could be easily continued without words.  It was the quiet lull of the radio underneath their thoughts, Timberland and Nicky’s voice blending quietly with Renee’s responses and the sound of Andrew’s breathing from the driver’s seat.  It was a “Yes or no?” that was more breath than voice, with a reply in the form of interlaced fingers and soft sighs.

Neil knew which one he preferred.

______________________________________________________________

Rest stops always felt a bit like the Twilight Zone, Neil had realized.

In the past, they had been just another part of life – a hurried meal, a map, a bathroom, a bottle of water, some gas… whatever they needed to keep going.  With the foxes, they were something else entirely.

For one, Neil learned, Nicky and Allison could absolutely not be trusted in any sort of convenience store setting.

They debated for an entire five minutes over energy drinks and Pringles until Kevin materialized from behind the drink coolers and confiscated their entire basket with a disapproving glare.  The resulting argument only ended when the manager kicked all three out, murmuring something about not being paid enough to deal with teenage bullshit.

Neil was glad to see Kevin slap a hand over Nicky’s mouth when it looked like he was planning to retaliate.

“Unbelievable.”  Andrew’s voice came from somewhere behind him, and Neil turned around to see him looking over a row of car magazines, three bags of gummy worms already in hand.  

Neil turned and smirked.  “How long would it take them to notice if we just left them here?”

Andrew snorted, and Neil counted it as a victory.

_______________________________________________________________

Kevin was way too excited about stone slabs to be reasonably healthy, Neil reasoned.  He had never met someone so obsessed with reading every single plaque at a monument, which was especially unfortunate when mixed in with Nicky’s impatience and Andrew’s brusque nature.

Renee and Neil and been roped into Kevin’s impromptu history lessons, and since neither had the heart to stop him (especially when he hadn’t mentioned exy once in the past two hours), they’d been subjected to an incredibly in-depth discussion of everything to do with World War II.

Some of it was genuinely interesting, Neil had to admit.  Bomber planes and naval tactics were interesting, in a strange way.  Intense details on international summits… those he could probably have done without.

Neil caught Andrew’s eyes across the memorial track, begging for an escape, and was met with a heavy sigh before Andrew started to make his way over to them.  He turned back to Kevin’s narration on the war in the Pacific for another minute before a banded arm reached out to grab Kevin by the shoulder and tug him away.  “Come on, Eisenhower.  Did you want to see the Lincoln Memorial, or did you want to spend the rest of the trip here?”

________________________________________________________________

Neil was fairly certain nothing existed between Philadelphia and Chicago beyond the occasional truck stop.  He hadn’t been through that particular stretch of roadside Americana since he was twelve, but flashes of cornfields and boredom were all he could remember.

Unfortunately, he was right.

Nicky and Dan were driving in order to give Andrew and Matt a rest, and Neil was watching the sun come up from his place against Matt’s side, half awake and distracted by the quiet music on the radio.  Andrew was in the passenger seat of the Maserati, but Neil had been in Matt’s truck when the switch occurred, which meant he was scooped easily into his best friend’s side while said best friend’s girlfriend not so subtly snapped a picture of them before driving away.

It was that same best friend’s girlfriend who eventually pulled off the road at the first exit in what felt like hours.  Neil sat up, blearily rubbing sleep from his eyes, but he didn’t have to ask before Dan was filling him in.  “24-hour diner at this exit.  We can get breakfast and gas now, and God knows when we’ll find another exit.”

The diner, as it turned out, proved that life actually existed in the Midwest.

More than a few people were already seated at the counter, coffee in hand, when the Foxes entered.  The waitress greeted them with a cheery expression that could have matched Nicky’s, had he been awake enough to respond.  Aaron squinted at his cousin as they all sat down, and Neil snorted as his eyes widened at the speed with which Nicky downed his coffee.  “No more driving for you.”

Nicky dropped his head onto the table and shot a thumbs-up above his head in Aaron’s general direction.

Neil’s coffee-toast-and-eggs was an interesting sight next to Andrew’s Chocolate-French-toast-and-syrup-and-whipped-cream monstrosity and the waitress smiled as she set the plates down.  “You two make quite the pair, you know,” she noted, turning back around to her tray for Matt’s “Give me all the bacon and eggs you have” breakfast and Kevin’s “I’m at least going to attempt to stay on the diet” oatmeal and fruit.  Andrew glared behind his mountain of sugar, but Neil tried to force a polite smile before reaching for the pepper.

____________________________________________________________

“What’s the point?”

“I don’t know, Kevin, what’s the point of a giant slab of concrete with some writing on it?”

“Could the two of you shut up for like, once in your miserable lives?”

Neil wandered away as Kevin, Nicky, and Allison bickered, half-convinced they were vying for the imaginary crown of “Team Drama Queen.”  Maybe he should make one for them the next time they stopped at Burger king.

He was lost in thought when Renee slid up next to him, barely noticing her until she spoke.  “Have you ever seen this before?”

Neil shook his head.  He still didn’t quite know how to react around her, but he had realized he could trust Renee a long time ago.  “No time.  My mother wasn’t really into any of the tourist crap, especially not when we had other things to worry about.”

Renee was quiet a moment before replying.  “Once I left, I wanted to see all sorts of things I hadn’t had the chance to before.  I can’t say that this was on my list, though.” Neil smirked, watching Nicky attempt to force a t-shirt for the “World’s Largest Ball of Twine” over Aaron’s head, ignoring the indignant squawking underneath him.  “Yeah, neither can I.”

_______________________________________________________________

Neil didn’t know what to make of New Orleans.

For one thing, it was hot.  Almost unbearably so.   He knew it was essentially a swampland, yes, and he knew that it was June, but something about the mugginess caught him off guard.

For another, it seemed to change completely when the sun went down.

Lights came on in storefronts, on streets, in windows… everywhere he looked, it was almost as bright in the evening as it was during the day.  It felt much more surreal, however.  Andrew had been reading about ghosts and hauntings ever since they left Kansas, and Neil couldn’t seem to shake that sense of otherworldly-ness that tailed him as he watched the sun set on the water.

He and Andrew sat on the edge of their hotel’s roof, feet dangling over the side of the building and smoke from their cigarettes mixing with the smoke from the couple in the window beneath them and the man on the balcony across the street.

The sun seemed to paint the streets orange as it disappeared.  Neil knew that was partially because of the colored lights everywhere, but the reflection of the sun against the water left an orange glow across the rooftops, and tinted Andrew’s hair slightly reddish, as if it was trying to match his own.

“Stop staring.”

The command shook Neil out of his head.  “Do you believe in ghosts?” he asked, suddenly curious and spurred on by the city below them.

Andrew was quiet a long time, letting out a smoky sigh and taking another drag before finally replying.  “Why should I?”

“Why should anyone?”

Andrew let his cigarette hang between his fingers and watched the smoke twist in the air in front of them.  “Desperation for a second chance?  There’s very little I regret, Josten.  You of all people should know this.”

Neil thought for a moment, listening to the faint sound of Jazz trickle up from a club beneath them.  Aaron and Kevin had wanted to go there earlier, he remembered, and he was pretty sure Renee and Nicky had gone with them.  Matt and Dan had wandered off hand in hand in search of dinner hours ago, and Neil suspected it would be a while longer before they reappeared.

“Does a ghost really have to be a person to haunt you?”

Andrew chuckled, dry and humorless.  “It’s not really a ghost if it’s not a person.”

“But things can still haunt you.”

“Ungrateful,” Riko spits. The only hand that Jean feels is the one that slams hard across the flush of his left cheek. His breath stutters in his chest and his eyes flutter with shock as he takes two steps back. When he finally looks up—head bent under the weight of Riko’s wrist, gaze pinned to the highest point that it can reach—the smile from before stares sardonically back at him, sharp like a pocket knife.

I’m going to carve you, it seems to say, and Jean learns quickly to take it for the truth.

Every day, Riko carves him into a new set of strands.

Every morning, Riko expects him to be put back together.

[Every night, Jean thinks he lives a little less.]

Kevin Day is a strange sort of attraction. Nothing about his face is particularly striking, but then, this is before a lot of things.

French, namely.

It’s hard to remember what the language really sounds like after having lived with his mother’s family for so long. All Jean knows in the back of his heart is that it hurt to speak after a day’s worth of French—the words always rebounded so hard off the roof of his mouth that he felt winded in every breath that came afterward.

The tongue is different with Kevin, though.

There is an urgency to it, indubitably heightened by the horrors of Edgar Allen’s Nest. But where four syllables once became two in Jean’s past, Kevin somehow manages to account for every one. French comes off of his lips like liquid water from a funnel, spurns fast but soft in every possible sound.

And Jean thinks he loves it, for the few years that he has it.

He holds this reformation of his childhood close to his heart, determined to never let it roam too far from reach. Some semblance of relief takes to his aching bones, and for the first time in years, he feels something lift again. A few words each day is all it takes for him to fall asleep.

As for the day the words stop?

[“I’m signing on as Assistant Coach to Palmetto.”]

Jean doesn’t think that he shuts his eyes.

In the twelve seconds that it takes for him to realize that his time at Edgar Allen is finally coming to a close, Jean finds himself unsure as to whether he should be happy.

Two people stand before him, one largely unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but the other—

The other.

The ends of Renee Walker’s hair are doused in such vivid color that he has to blink twice. Of course, he’s had plenty of occasions to notice this before, but it’s a different sort of sensation to see it up close. Jean follows the disjointed rainbow from left to right, cotton candy pink through platinum purple, then runs his gaze back in the other direction.

“Jean.” He flinches immediately, though just barely, at the touch of her fingertips on his shoulder. It’s difficult not to act surprised when she nods and withdraws her hand a few seconds afterward, and he almost thanks her for the acknowledgement. It’s been years since he felt like he had room to breathe.

“Yes?” he answers, and his voice is so, so quiet.

Renee offers him a smile—soft, like ice cream. “You’re leaving this place, aren’t you?” she asks, and although it’s phrased like any other question, to him it feels like a final choice.

You belong to me, Riko echoes in his ears.

And he does, doesn’t he? He always has.

Andtrich steps away from his corner of the room and pockets his cell phone, annoyance crafted into every part of his face. “Damn right, he is,” the Edgar Allen President spits, but for all of the fear that suddenly spikes into Jean’s chest, he tries to focus his attention on Renee.

She smiles again, murmurs wholeheartedly, “Good.” Jean stares back at her, transfixed by kind words and a dozen pastel dyes.

And by four o’clock that morning, he’s across the state border.

It’s inevitable for the thing with Renee to fizzle out; they’re on opposite sides of the country, after all, and while Jean has grown to enjoy her middle-of-the-night phone calls, nothing speaks to him more than the unusual warmth of her presence, which he’s now limited to feeling less than ten times a year.

Renee kisses him on the cheek before sending him off to California, and as he walks out into the Arrivals terminal for Southwest, he manages to reminisce on the sensation for all of three seconds—

—three seconds that, in retrospect, he wishes he could have spared for one dirty blonde of twenty two.

“Jean, hey!”

I don’t even know you yet, he doesn’t say, too surprised to voice the words. Jeremy Knox looks him straight in the eye and laughs, as if he’s known Jean for every minute of his life. A few other members of the Trojans’ team come out from behind him, too, and their succeeding smiles only further disjoint the picture.

Panic sets into Jean’s chest fast and fierce, and he freezes where he stands. Renee had told him something before he turned away to go through airport security: “Allow yourself to believe you deserve more.”

The words turn over and over in his head, Jeremy and the rest of his future teammates steadily advancing all the while. Jean drops a hand to his arm and dips it under the sleeve, traces scars of years past left by Riko slicing him open. His other hand rises to the tattoo under his cheek, thumb pulling slowly over the black number three—the last thing that he shares with Kevin Day, in a way.

“Bonjour.”

Jean startles at the word, eyes finally lifting to see Jeremy Knox before him. The greeting is sloppy and dished out in an embarrassingly American accent, but strangely enough, he likes the new sound, and Jeremy, too.

The USC captain’s cheeks immediately flush crimson, and he looks away sheepishly. “Sorry,” he murmurs, “Kevin said you spoke French, so I thought—”

“I do.”

Allow yourself to believe you deserve more.

Jean almost smiles. “I do speak French,” he says, more clearly this time. It takes a moment for Jeremy to respond, but when he does, Jean swears to himself he’s never seen anyone brighter.

It’s like Jeremy Knox is built to bask in sunlight.

“Well, in that case,” he rebounds, and his lips slice wide into a toothy grin, “would you mind teaching me? I’d like to sound like something other than an idiot.”

Laila and Alvarez snort obnoxiously behind him, descend into even louder laughter when he shoots a look their way. The rest of the Trojans quickly join in the teasing, and somehow Jean finds himself sandwiched between twenty eight people who know nothing but love and life and laughter. 

Jeremy throws an arm about the back of his neck, says something about stick shopping later in the week. A dozen different voices echo, “Welcome to the team!”

And he feels it—hope, rising high in his chest.