Work Text:
The first several times Andrew buys Neil an outfit, technically Andrew is not the one buying them at all. He sends Nicky instead, because shopping is an exercise in tedium and being in public spaces makes him feel like he has insects under his skin. It’s unfortunate, because shopping is a thing he doesn’t quite hate — when he’s sober at least. There’s a kind of satisfaction to be derived from acquiring clothing, and another kind of satisfaction from seeing Nicky’s face as the bill gets rung up.
Andrew would not quite say he is preoccupied with his own appearance, but half of the intimidation game is looking like you have your shit together — see: Neil looks homeless, ergo, no matter how many venomous insults he spits, he is as unintimidating as a feral kitten. Andrew is perfectly aware of his own height, the ways it makes him vulnerable, the way it causes people to underestimate him and assume he is powerless and weak and easy to make afraid. While Neil seems perfectly content making himself seem smaller, letting others underestimate him, Andrew must don his clothing like armor, encasing his weaknesses within. The black helps, and so do heavy combat boots with shirts tight enough to showcase the muscles of his biceps. Andrew does not allow himself to be vain, but he does not mind the figure he cuts, looking like this.
But Neil — oh Neil, useless as he is pretty, seems to have no idea that clothing can be anything other than another tool to make himself invisible. Andrew will just have to help him along, which is why he sends Nicky to dress him the first time they decide to bring Neil to Columbia. Neil is full of lies and paranoia, hiding under his drabness. Andrew intends to drag his true colors out.
The clothing Nicky picks is plain, but Andrew approves nonetheless. Neil is wearing jeans that fit him and a shirt that showcases the lean wires of his body, and it makes something inside Andrew stir hungrily. No longer washed out by his pale clothes, contacts removed to showcase eyes that are chillingly blue — oh — Andrew understands now why Neil covers those eyes of his, he would never be able to make that flat icy gaze seem like anything other than that of a predator sizing up its prey. Andrew pushes the flash of attraction down, because he has no intention of flirting with danger today, thank you very much. He is only barely clinging to himself as is, no reason to topple further down any other avenues of destruction.
Of course, the night goes poorly; it starts with clenches of nausea in Andrew’s gut before they can even get off the highway, and ends with Neil passed out in an alley, bruise ripening on his forehead and answers clenched tightly behind his teeth. Useless, Andrew briefly thinks, as Nicky hauls Neil into the car, Kevin and Aaron trailing them like ducklings.
When Neil flushes the clothing down the toilet the next morning as he escapes out the window, it really is just the icing on the cake. Honestly, Andrew should have known better than to try.
—
Later — much later, after Andrew is shredded apart and stitched back together inch by painful, sickening inch, after Neil scrapes himself out of hell via pure luck and shoves his stuffing back in out of sheer force of will, after there are deals with devils and kisses that mean more than they should and far, far more of this damned fucking sport than Andrew even cares to contemplate, Andrew dresses Neil again.
The armbands are simple, as far as things go, but they perhaps mean stupidly more than Andrew is willing to admit. “Choose us,” Neil says. “I don’t want it to end,” Neil says. Like there is something there to choose, like Andrew is not exhausted simply by breathing, like there is something worth trying for, and bleeding for, and living for. Andrew can’t contemplate that. Can’t contemplate the stretch of years and years of existence before him. Andrew has spent so much of his life feeling like he is going to die at any moment, whether by his own hand or that of some ephemeral fate, his strings snapping after being yanked on one too many times.
Seeing the bands on Neil’s forearms at dinner later gives him a sense of satisfaction, deep in his gut. Andrew is a possessive man, at heart, and seeing Neil marked in a way that is so obviously connected to him is pleasing, in a vague non-directional sort of way. It is lucky the upperclassmen are clever enough to mind their own business and not comment — this time, at least. Andrew cannot imagine it will be a trend that holds. They are as nosy as they are judgemental, and they will scrounge this bit of gossip for all the fruit it can bear them. It’s a minor annoyance at worst, but it pries at Andrew’s desire to remain above himself, outside of the world and the people in it. Reminds him that staying with Neil, choosing Neil, cannot exist in a vacuum.
Andrew is conflicted in himself, between his desire to mark, to be marked, to say I will scrape my insides out and lay them at your feet, boy. Can't you see it? Can't you see me bleeding? and this fearful twisting shadow he hides underneath to protect himself, retreating into a spiked shell never to return — hibernating in an iced-over pond through an unending winter.
Andrew has spent so much of his life throwing himself onto pyres. He is tired of it. Letting himself feel and not feel seem almost the same, from that angle. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. Oh but, but, but, look at Neil, foolish, clever Neil, willing to accept deadly risk for the slim chance to do this one thing that might make living worth it. It is perhaps an admirable trait, Andrew has mused. To decide you care about something, decide to weigh survival and joy against each other and pick the latter, against all odds and instincts, over and over and over again.
It is, Andrew thinks, probably the thing that entrances him the most about Neil. It is foolish, it is dangerous, it is disastrous, and it has only barely paid off, but Andrew looks and sees, and the traitorous, rebellious part of his soul — the part that looks out from beneath murky waters and tries to spot the light — thinks, Maybe I can do that too.
Like Andrew said: stupid.
—
Andrew is not a big fan of formal clothing. It reminds him of court hearings and forced church attendance and uncomfortable dinners with threats looming over him. Seeing Neil in slacks and a buttoned up shirt-and-tie does less than nothing for him, and that compounded with a banquet in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unknown faces, is a recipe for nothing but boredom and a far away, itchy type of paranoia. He mostly retreats into himself at these events, lets Neil schmooze and do his vice captain thing — ‘positively representing the university’ as Wymack might say — lets the music and the chatter and the fanfare wash over him, a rock steady in a rushing river.
Bee says that disassociating is an unhealthy coping mechanism that he overutilizes in situations that are perhaps not even stressful enough to warrant it, but Andrew rarely encounters healthy coping mechanisms anyway, and as far as it goes this one does relatively little harm. He only starts to float back into himself when Neil slumps down in the flimsy plastic chair next to him, looking about as worn out as Andrew feels.
Something unfurls within Andrew, as Neil slides him one of those sly looks of his and says, “Wanna go for a smoke?”
Andrew does not have words, right now, but he nods, and follows where Neil leads, out behind the auditorium this university has commandeered for the fall banquet, until they are far enough from the music and the chatter and the lights that Andrew can maybe start to feel like a person again.
The nicotine helps too, unfortunately, steadying Andrew’s twitchy hands — bringing him closer to the ground.
By the time he is finally entirely back within himself Neil has pulled off his hideous orange tie and unbuttoned several buttons down his dress shirt. Andrew can see the sweeps of his clavicles, the soft edged bruising that Andrew had left along his throat last night, the hint of scars peeking out from under dark edges of cotton.
It is almost unbearably attractive, and Andrew cannot bring himself to look away.
Neil notices, of course, because Neil always notices the things Andrew most wants to hide. He smiles his jagged edged smile at Andrew, gestures with the cigarette he doesn’t even have the decency to properly smoke and says, “Staring, Andrew.”
It is an old joke, at this point, well worn and faded. Andrew does not deign to give it a response, instead flicking the butt of his own cigarette down onto the curb and stealing Neil’s from his elegantly scarred hand. Neil lets him, looking disgustingly fond instead of any proper emotion. Andrew lets him get away with it, because Andrew has become habituated to letting Neil get away with far too much.
Andrew finishes smoking through Neil’s cigarette as well before he allows himself to be drawn into Neil’s orbit. He revels in the warmth of Neil’s body radiating through his shirt as Andrew presses him into the chilly brick wall, nose tucked into Neil’s throat and hands gravitating to Neil’s hips. Andrew tugs Neil’s shirt out from where it’s tucked and lets his hands and lips and teeth wander until Neil is warm and pliant and pleased underneath him.
Later, when they are back on the bus, he looks over at Neil’s pleasantly rumpled clothing, and thinks, Yes, much better.
—
The two years that occur between Andrew graduating and Neil transferring to Andrew’s pro team are frustratingly difficult. Andrew spends much of his time castigating himself for having invested himself so much in a single person that he has the gall to feel lonely. It’s dangerous, it’s pathetic, and worst of all, instead of burning the whole thing to the ground Andrew has to ignore his base self-protective instincts and be fucking patient.
It helps even less that the team he signs with in his first year going pro is — not ideal, to say the least. He’d picked the Atlanta Bulldogs primarily because they were close to Palmetto. A mistake fueled by sentimentality that Andrew does not intend on repeating.
It starts with his brain trying to fuck him barely two weeks into pre-season training.
He’d quit the cigarettes, because it was idiotic to decide to be a professional athlete and also continually destroy his lungs. It made him irritable and shaky and nauseous in a way that put him onto the edge of flashbacks. Being in a new place, being away from his “support system” as Bee might say, did the rest of the job.
Andrew had been lucky enough that he had manic episodes incredibly rarely, while going to university at least, and when he had them they were mild.
(The first time he’d had one after going off his medication he’d become paranoid that someone had drugged him again, and had trashed their dorm room looking for some evidence of it. Bee had explained that it was normal, that he needed to be kind to himself, that it would pass. He never got used to it, but knowing what — and why — made it easier, at the very least)
It usually took the form of buzzing under his skin, disorganized thoughts, paranoia and random surges of anger, slithering through the plates of his quaking apathy. Nothing chain smoking on the roof for eight hours in a row couldn’t solve, much to Bee’s consternation. Neil was good at noticing too, when the thoughts in Andrew’s head were too loud, his impulses direct and immediate and undesirable. He’d offer to drive when Andrew’s attention span got so short he could barely focus on a single game, much less operating a vehicle. It was easier, with people around. Andrew is fully capable of monitoring himself, but having people who know him, people who notice, well maybe there is some value in that.
So it’s not surprising that the move triggers an episode — what is surprising is how quickly it ramps from bad to worse.
It happens so slowly at first that he almost doesn’t even notice it, until he’s standing in his kitchen at 3am, insects buzzing inside his skin and breaths catching like thorns in his lungs. He’d fallen down a rabbit hole of unpacking, and then organizing and then reorganizing. Andrew is not particularly a stress cleaner, but he is aware enough of himself to know he should not be driving, so he is cooped in his bare bones apartment with nothing to do but scrub imagined blood off the walls.
He tries to sleep, at some point, but he cannot stop thinking there is someone in my bed, this strange atavistic sense of paranoia that leads to him turning all the lights on and pacing the living room frantically ranting to himself about who knows what, doomsday scenarios and half connected travel plans and what if what if and he is on a tightrope between too much and too little and pure, blind panic.
This is bad, he finds himself thinking, I should not be feeling like this. He needs to pick the phone and call Bee, call his new therapist, his coach, Neil, his captain, someone someone someone but as soon as the thought is there it flutters away again and he is going going going until suddenly there is noise and ringing and it’s so fucking annoying that he answers his phone with an angry, “What,” after elongated moments of waiting for it to stop. He is standing in the kitchen and there is sunlight streaming in through the windows. He does not know what time it is or what day it is or the last time he slept.
It’s his new coach, on the line, Andrew is having trouble processing words and tone right now but the deluge of panicked noise from the other end of the line indicate anger and disappointment and something something contract something something it’s been two days where the fuck are you etc. etc. It makes anger boil in deep his belly, spreading outward from there, simmering just under his skin until he is shaking with rage, I will tear you to fucking pieces, he thinks, as the man continues to yell.
Andrew interrupts him, too impatient to wait for this tirade to wind down as he says, “Coach. Coach. I do not think I am doing so well right now? Call back later? Good talk,” and hangs up.
Shouldn’t have done that, Andrew realizes, after a moment, that was a bad thing to do. Oh well. A problem for someone else, when he becomes a self that is not this one, on edge and fracturing along the cracks in his psyche he has spent so, so much time filling with glue.
Eventually eventually eventually, after he crashes so hard he cannot move, after more fucking therapy than he can tolerate and a fight with Neil about medication that he is almost sure they will not be able to come back from, after he finally gets his brain chemistry back to something that resembles functioning — after all that, he transfers teams, because despite managing to scrape together halfway decent statistics in the goal, he’s spent so much time trying not lose his absolute shit that he barely knows his teammates, and they are wary of him and his perceived volatility.
A bad start and a bad end, he thinks, so when they call him up and tell him they’re trading him to the Denver Grizzlies he accepts it without a fight. Better luck next time! He hasn’t run out of quarters yet, at least.
Denver is further away than he would like, more than halfway across the country, but Neil signs with a team in Oregon, so it is not so bad after all. Still frustratingly far, but this time Andrew has a rider in his contract that lets him take chunks of days off should the need arise, and has conceded to taking mood stabilizers, despite his deep hatred of medication and the many many ways it’s been used against him. Crashing like that again is not an option, he has decided. It’s not a decision he would have been capable of making even a year ago, but he is building this life now, and he refuses to allow it to crumble again.
It is better too, when Neil is pro, because they can antagonize each other for entertainment. The media goes wild with their so called rivalry, and Neil takes the ball and runs with it, because there is nothing Neil likes more than making a lot of people very very angry at him. Andrew finally gets a phone that is not a flip phone, and Neil gets one too, to the consternation of his PR manager, who Andrew suspects would rather Neil never think about even breathing on his twitter again, much less having 24/7 access to it on a device small enough to fit into his pocket.
This season is better. Andrew makes — well not friends, as such — but acquires hanger-ons who seem to classify him as some variety of entertaining. It is enough at least, that the team trusts him in the goal, trusts his calls and his skills and are willing to listen when he nags them. He is surprised to find he has opinions, even, on other players — on other teams. He spends ten minutes on the phone with Neil describing how useless Neil’s defensive dealers are before he realizes what he’s doing. It’s too late at that point. When he stops abruptly in the middle of a creative insult, Neil laughs — he knows exactly why Andrew has frozen himself in this moment.
“I’m glad you’re watching me, Andrew,” he says warmly. And then he moves the conversation on, does not give Andrew time to spiral into frustrated silence because he has dared to let himself give a shit about something.
But the moment where it pays off, the moment where Andrew realizes that this is all worth it, maybe, is when he sees Neil finally wearing a green and black jersey, JOSTEN #10, emblazoned on his back, but this time not in any other team’s colors, but Andrew’s. The place Andrew has chosen to stay, the place Neil has decided to join him.
Later, he will press Neil down into their bed in their new apartment and peel it off, and that is equally as satisfying.
—
Neil is annoyed, and he is making sure Andrew knows it.
“Do we seriously have to go to this thing? I hate drinking. You hate socializing. What’s the fucking point?”
The point is that Andrew can put Neil in skintight jeans and a leather jacket, actually, but Andrew isn’t going to vocalize that, instead opting to ignore the comment whilst digging through Neil’s section of their closet looking for the boots Andrew knows Neil owns, no matter how many times he chucks them somewhere and pretends that ratty sneakers only moments from falling apart are the only valid kind of footwear. He finally finds them, shoved in the back like Neil was trying to hide them. Andrew wouldn’t put it past him.
He grabs them and tosses them behind him without looking; judging by Neil’s yelp they hit him somewhere. Good. Andrew abhors whining.
“We are going. Do not complain. It is not attractive”
Neil makes grumpy noises, but when Andrew crawls out of the closet and climbs to his feet (the joints in his knees pop as he does it, aging is painful and Andrew fucking hates it) Neil is sitting at the end of their bed and fussing with his laces.
Andrew lets his eyes trail appreciatively down Neil’s body. It’s very similar to the first clubbing outfit Andrew had dressed him in, long sleeved black shirt, tight black jeans, heavy boots — but this time Neil’s hair is auburn and pushed back from his face, the faded slivers of scars only enhancing the deadliness of his eyes, the cut of his stubborn jaw.
Andrew crouches and knocks Neil’s hands aside and begins to untangle Neil’s shoelaces from the absolute mess he’s gotten them into. When he’s done he gives the laces one last firm tug before looking up at Neil, who is gazing at him with a look on his face that is disgustingly sappy.
“Staring,” Andrew reminds him.
“Yeah,” Neil says, “Thank you.”
He holds out his hand, and Andrew grasps it and allows himself to be pulled standing. The look in Neil’s eyes doesn’t fade, looking up at Andrew now instead of down. Andrew resists the urge to run his hands through Neil’s hair.
“If we do not show up management will be unhappy and I will never hear the end of it. We do not have to stay very long. You can be rude to as many paparazzi as you want.”
Neil rolls his eyes, but acquiesces, lets Andrew pull him up, their hands still joined.
They will go to the club that’s been booked for the team to watch the pro-league championship final that they only barely missed playing in, and Neil will say something catty to someone with a video camera outside the bar and the video will go viral with some inane caption about thirst traps and Andrew will ignore it because he does his best to ignore everything that Neil does on the internet ever, but — deep inside — he will feel smug about it for a week anyway.
—
Andrew wakes up so disoriented that he has to lie on his back for a moment and process. The room is dark, and he’s fairly certain it had been early afternoon when he’d fallen asleep, which accounts for the way he feels like he’s been hit by a truck, and then dumped on the side of the road. Napping was a mistake, he sees that now, even if he’d decided it would be worth it as he’d stripped down to his boxers and collapsed exhaustedly hours earlier. He’d fallen asleep sideways along the bed, feet pressed firmly along the wall underneath the window, head barely skimming the edge of the mattress.
The second thing he processes is the weight next to his head. He looks up and there’s Neil, stupid smug smile on his face. Andrew is thirty three years old — you would think he’d have become immune somehow, to Neil’s charm. But no — years later and there is a part of Andrew that sees Neil look at him like that and cannot help but collapse in on itself like a dying star.
Andrew has come to accept this weakness, at least. He lets the feeling sit in his chest, alongside his vague grogginess and the strange timelessness that always seems to come post nap.
“We need cat food,” Neil says, “And I'm out of nicotine gum.”
Andrew barely stifles a groan, “Why don’t you get it?”
“Because you haven’t been outside in two weeks, Andrew. It’ll be like those tigers who get meat pinatas thrown into their cages at zoos. Enrichment or something.”
Neil thinks he’s really funny and it’s incredibly unfortunate. Andrew reprimands him for this statement by jabbing Neil roughly in the side. Not hard, just enough for Neil to flinch away laughing.
“Interesting that you consider me taking a trip to Walmart the equivalent of letting a tiger loose on the unsuspecting populace.”
“Well yeah, I’ve seen how you treat retail workers.”
That gets him another jab in the side, but Andrew hauls himself into a sitting position before glancing over. He’s wearing his old fox hoodie, worn with age, but still neon orange despite the years. “Give me your jacket.”
“Huh?”
Andrew tugs emphatically at the bottom of it instead of deigning to respond. Neil rolls his eyes, but pulls the hoodie over his head anyway, baring the pale scarred lines of his stomach, the sweeps of his hip bones. There are bite marks on his torso, courtesy of Andrew, as well as a frankly impressive collection of bruises despite the fact that practice has been pared down to once a week, and most of the season canceled. It’s left Neil restless and snappy, which is annoying in and of itself, but the lack of places to go or ability to travel means that they’ve both been dealing with the worst of each other during lockdown. It’s fine, they’ll get through it, they always seem to.
Andrew pulls on the hoodie and then goes scrounging for a pair of sweatpants. He doesn’t bother with his armbands. Neil’s jacket is long enough that it goes down past his hands, and he’s reached the point where he doesn’t feel the need to have knives on him every time he’s out in public. He grabs a random mask from where several are draped over the top of their dresser. This one has a sharp toothed smile printed on it. He shoves it in his pocket and then glances back at Neil, who has splayed himself out over the bed now that Andrew has vacated it, arching his back slightly and sending Andrew a sly look.
“I’ll be here when you get back.”
Andrew crosses the room and bends over to look Neil directly in the eyes, touching their foreheads together. Neil tries to smile winningly, but Andrew is not fooled. Before Neil can stop him he reaches up and flicks Neil hard on the forehead. “You are not cute.”
Neil rubs at his head, a pout forming on his lips, “Actually, I think I’m super cute, you’re just mad about it.”
Andrew doesn’t agree with him, but he kisses Neil roughly on the spot he’d flicked before straightening up and heading out the bedroom door.
The night is chilly, but Neil’s jacket keeps him warm, and that’s enough.