Work Text:
Andrew didn’t normally read newspapers. In this respect, he was probably a pretty normal university student.
So the fact that he currently had a newspaper in the dorm and was studying it like a live bomb was a bit of an outlier.
The amount of space his face occupied on the open page probably contributed.
His and Aaron’s, to be specific; the pair of them leaving the courthouse last week, dressed in suits that lawyer Waterhouse had bullied them into buying that cost more than a month of Nicky’s mortgage. Nicky and Neil were just visible behind the twins, their faces an unfocused blur. Aaron looked harrowed; Andrew looked empty. That photo had been circulating on social media ever since it had been released, alongside the media’s personal favourite, which was a shot of Drake smiling at the camera in his Marines uniform.
He dragged his finger along the flimsy newsprint. The ink smeared under the dampness of his finger, and he pulled away, wiping his hand on his jeans.
The much-anticipated trial of high-profile college athlete Aaron Minyard ended Thursday in a not-guilty verdict after nearly two weeks of testimony. Minyard, a member of the Palmetto State Foxes Exy team, was accused of second-degree murder in the death of Drake Spear…
Andrew skipped past the backstory into the meat of the article. His own name popped out at him several times. His words, printed in smudged ink.
It was strange. He’d been told a hundred times that his flat manner unnerved people, but his own words in newsprint didn’t even seem like his at all anymore. Every sentence had been rolled out and smoothed, the sharp edges painstakingly flattened to fit the confines of four narrow columns. He could replay every second of the trial in his mind if he wanted; he knew the quotes were accurate.
And yet.
The scuff of socks on carpet drew his attention up. Neil shuffled in, yawning. He and Kevin had been out till past midnight last night practicing. Andrew hadn’t joined them.
Neil stopped beside Andrew, waiting silently. They had shared a dorm for several months now, and this had become routine. At Andrew’s nod, Neil would lean in and kiss him, still ruffled and squinty from sleep.
Andrew turned away. Neil accepted that without a word, moving on to the coffee-maker. Andrew hadn’t touched him since the trial; they hadn’t kissed in longer. Neil hadn’t said anything about it yet.
Andrew watched him out of the corner of his eye and wondered idly how long it would take him to crack. He would, eventually. Neil would sacrifice himself on the altar of Andrew’s trauma again and again, but nobody stayed forever. There was no reason to believe Neil would be the exception.
Neil turned back to him, his eyes sleep-smudged but alert, and Andrew dropped his gaze, struggling to remember his certainty from a moment before. Neil was impossible. This was impossible.
And now the entire world knew why.
Neil spotted the article in front of him and he made a disgusted noise, taking the newspaper from Andrew’s unresisting hands and tossing it in the blue bin without a second glance. “Are you coming to practice today?” he asked.
Andrew’s thumb rubbed along the now-cold edges of his own coffee mug. He shook his head.
“Okay,” Neil said. “Text me if anything comes up.”
Not text me if you need anything; Neil knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with that. Andrew wondered if Neil was aware of how much his verbal gymnastics made Andrew want to throttle him.
Neil stalled for a couple more seconds in case Andrew had anything to say, then nodded to himself and wandered back into the bedroom to roust Kevin.
Andrew considered the newspaper in the bin. He hadn’t finished reading the article.
He exhaled through his nose and heaved himself off the kitchen stool, heading for the bathroom. Hot water wouldn’t burn off the itching feeling on his skin, but he cranked it up as high as he could stand anyway and let it singe his skin until he could barely feel anything at all.
The legal system hadn’t been put off by petty things like university schedules, but Andrew’s leave to miss class had expired days ago, as Wymack had reminded him yesterday. Skip too many lectures and he’d have his scholarship yanked out from under him.
It was, as these things went, not Wymack’s most compelling argument, but Andrew went anyway. There wasn’t much else to do. Staring at the dorm wall for eight hours had gotten old days ago.
The morning dripped past like a leaky faucet. He sat in the back of his lecture halls, twirling a pen around his fingers. He didn’t write anything down. He ate alone in one of the standard dining halls, knowing the others would stick with the athletes’ hall.
He wasn’t avoiding them. He just wasn’t seeking them out. There was a difference.
His final class of the day was a Psychology of Criminal Justice lecture at 4pm. Several people glanced at him as he slid into his seat, their movements too quick to be discreet. His hackles rose for a second before he exhaled, pushing the feeling downwards until it melted into the cool ocean at his core. They knew everything; they didn’t know anything. So what?
So what?
The tag in his collar scratched against his neck. His eyes wandered across the strata of the ceiling, tracing the lines of decorative wooden beams. This lecture hall always seemed dim, the seats too cushioned; he’d seen plenty of students nap in the back rows, lured to sleep by the low light and droning voice of their professor.
The short man stood on his podium with his notes arrayed in front of him. He coughed a couple times, whether to get their attention or because he actually had to cough, Andrew didn’t know, or particularly care.
“I’ve decided to deviate from our planned lecture for today for a special interest discussion,” he said, his dull, forgettable voice uncharacteristically animated. “This is a topic I suspect is on many of our minds in the past week, so I thought we’d spend some time on it today.”
He stepped up to the chalkboard and drew, with painstaking slowness, the words Media Bias in Legal Proceedings.
The pen in Andrew’s hands splintered as his fingers twisted it, hard. The girl in front of him jumped at the sound, glancing back at him anxiously.
He dropped his eyes to the pen. The plastic casing was bent and cracked, but it still held together. His fingernails picked at the cracks, peeling up a tiny sliver of plastic. He dropped it on the floor and continued shredding the pen, exposing the inky core.
“In law, we like to believe that our behaviour in court is what affects the outcome of a trial, but media coverage can be as critical—and more—than any argument made within a courtroom. Media coverage can influence a judge’s decision to aim for a light or heavy sentence, and there have been cases where media outrage has led to entire verdicts being overturned. Usually, of course, it’s less dramatic than all that…”
Andrew tried to tune out the professor’s voice, but he couldn’t quite manage it. His mind caught each word and inscribed them into steel, to replay over and over, never fading. He knew better than anyone how the media could spin things—but then, that’s why they were there, wasn’t it? His prof couldn’t have missed Andrew’s name on the course list. There were only about forty people in this class. What the prof really wanted was to look at the articles that had come out in the weeks leading up to Aaron’s trial, and only a thin line of respectability prevented him from throwing them up on the overhead and dissecting them right here in front of him. Andrew’s history of violence. Aaron’s history of addiction. Drake’s stellar record with the Marines.
Andrew knew what the media thought. If they’d had their way, Aaron and Andrew would have disappeared into the system a long time ago, never to be seen again. The fact that the media had spun their way at the last minute didn’t change the fact that they’d been condemned their whole lives, like a rundown house that the council rushed in to save the moment before the wrecking balls swung. Good bones, they’d say. A little rough around the edges, but the bones are still good.
A few people shuffled in their seats, glancing back at Andrew in discomfort. Andrew gazed right through them, watching their prof shuffle around the small stage, gesticulating enthusiastically.
The whispers grew. Andrew heard his name mumbled amid the hush and crushed the remnants of the pen between his fingers, dropping it on the ground. He shoved himself to his feet and strode out of the lecture hall. He didn’t rush. The whispers cut off abruptly, then rose again in his wake, louder than before.
His neck prickled. He forced his shoulders down and strode out like he didn’t care about what they thought. He didn’t care. He didn’t.
The empty hallways echoed under his boots. The cool air slipped over the dampness on his neck.
“Hey!”
Andrew ground to a halt.
Footsteps pattered up behind him. Andrew turned, levelling his flattest glare at the girl behind him.
“I’m sorry about Dr. Tyson,” she said. “That was a real dick move—”
“What do you want?” Andrew said in a voice like gravel.
The girl drew up short. “I just—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be presumptuous. I just meant, if you wanted to complain to the faculty—”
Andrew had already turned away, ignoring the girl’s fumbling behind him. He’d nearly made it to the double doors at the end of the hallway when she called out, “I read the articles.”
Andrew slowed, pressing his eyes closed. He breathed out through his nose.
“What you went through…no kid ever should have to deal with that. I know it doesn’t really help but…I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I ever thought what those articles said about you being crazy was true.”
Who says they weren’t true? Andrew thought bitterly.
He turned slowly and faced her. Her brown eyes were soft and shining with emotion. “The next time you speak to me,” Andrew said clearly. “I will cut out your tongue. Understand?”
The girl stumbled back a step, his words hitting her like a slap. Her eyes went wide with terror, then—
Pity and sorrow washed the fear away. A regretful understanding crossed her face, and she nodded quietly.
A snarl tore its way out of Andrew’s throat. He grabbed the door handle so that he didn’t go for a knife, wrenching the door open and striding through. His boots filled the stairwell with thunder. He itched like he was covered in ants. His skin felt exposed, torn, like someone had peeled him and left him outside to rot.
He did not need anyone’s pity.
He stormed out into the green. A couple people looked up at him, their eyes widening in recognition. A guy elbowed the girl next to him, glancing at Andrew furtively.
For a moment, Andrew imagined walking over there and putting his fist through the guy’s face. He imagined the snot and blood that followed, the screaming of the girl at his side. There were six of them total; enough that they might be able to overwhelm him.
He almost went. It would be a relief; to beat out his boundaries with his fists, to tell them to stay the fuck out—
He inhaled and shoved his hand in his pocket, pulling out his cigarettes. The campus only allowed smoking in designated areas, but no one would dare stop Andrew. Not now, not when his face and his story were pasted on every headline from here to California. He got a cigarette lit and sucked in a deep, toxic lungful of smoke. The fumes tasted like ash and metal.
By the time he got back to Fox Tower, the others were coming down the stairs, heading for their cars. It must be time for afternoon practice.
“Hey,” Matt said, stalling in the doorway with an uncertain expression on his face. “You alright?”
Andrew cut him a vicious look. Matt pursed his lips and nodded once, as if he’d expected that response, and headed on towards his stupid massive truck.
Andrew wanted to kill him. He wanted them all dead. He wanted to rip out their eyes and remind them why they were afraid of him. It was safer…it was safer if they were afraid…
He saw Renee coming out of the elevator and abruptly changed course. Most of his group had lectures until five on Tuesday’s and went directly from class to the court, so nobody would follow him to his car. He dropped into the driver’s seat and jammed his finger into the window button to open it while he lit another cigarette.
A soft tap came at the opposite window.
Andrew’s jaw clenched so hard he nearly bit off the end of his cigarette. He pulled it away and glared through the windshield as Neil opened the passenger door.
“I’m not going to the court,” he grit out.
“Okay,” Neil said. “Can I come?”
He contemplated the question. Violence still simmered under his skin like lava, hissing and spitting and coiling with the desire for destruction.
“Do what you want,” he said. Neil studied him for a long moment and Andrew didn’t even try to hide what was boiling inside him.
After an indeterminable amount of time, Neil came to a decision. He swung his messenger bag into the footwell and dropped in, buckling his seatbelt. Andrew waited until the passenger door closed to start the car.
The familiar roar of the engine bloomed to life under his hands. He put the car in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. Neil sat quietly in the passenger seat, typing out a slow message on his phone.
When he was done, he dropped the phone into his lap. After a minute it buzzed, then it buzzed three more times in quick succession. Neil checked it, sent a text that was so short it could only have been ok or no before he pressed the power button down and shoved his phone in his pocket.
Andrew ground his teeth in wordless frustration and focussed on getting to the highway. He didn’t know where he was going. He just knew he couldn’t be here.
Who’s the rabbit now? his mind mocked, the words whispering and curling inside his head. He set his jaw and sucked down a last drag before tossing his cigarette butt out the window.
They reached the highway and he punched the gas so hard it flattened him against the seat. A horn blared, but it was lost quickly in his wake. Neil didn’t say a word, just held on to the door as they wove through traffic.
Andrew coaxed the engine up a little higher. It jumped willingly under his hands, eager for speed. The cars on the interstate stood still as he shot by them.
His encyclopedic memory could provide the exact rules for speeding tickets in South Carolina; at these speeds, his car would be immediately impounded.
He didn’t care. Horns screeched in the periphery of his awareness. The Maserati jerked from lane to lane as he wove past people. He had to slow briefly for a curve, but once the road straightened out he let his foot drop. It was several minutes before he had the attention to spare to even glance over at Neil.
When he did, he had to double-take.
Neil had dug up a textbook from his bag and was writing on a piece of loose-leaf. Andrew could only stare for a fraction of a second before his eyes were needed on the road.
He let the Maserati ease off for a moment and watched Neil through his peripherals. He scratched painstakingly on the paper with his pencil at what was clearly some sort of math problem. At a particularly nasty lurch, his hand shot out to brace himself against the ceiling, but he didn’t say anything.
Andrew returned his focus to the road. Neil would never really care about his studies, not when Exy commanded every cubic inch of his brain space, but his marks had taken a rise when he’d switched into a major he actually enjoyed. It was still odd to see him sitting in the car, working on homework of all things.
The thought irritated him more than it should have. He jerked the wheel, swerving into the right lane to pass an irritating Subaru that was moving too slow in the fast lane. Neil hit the door with a grunt.
He didn’t say anything. Andrew grit his teeth, yanking them out of the right lane again. The Maserati tried to follow his direction smoothly, but his movements were too jerky. Neil’s pencil skittered against the paper at the ruthless motion.
His silence grated on Andrew’s nerves like sandpaper. He should complain. He should snap at Andrew, tell him to slow down, to ease up, he should say something—
Andrew spotted an exit coming up and made a split-second decision. He swerved, cutting through two lanes of traffic and hitting the exit ramp in a flurry of honking horns.
He picked roads at random, working his way towards the foggy blue on the horizon. He didn’t slow down, but the smaller roads demanded his full attention. Every time his eyes darted to his rear-view he expected to see blue and red lights. His grip on the wheel tightened every time he didn’t. He itched for a challenge. He needed an opponent. He needed someone to fight.
The cops failed him, and so did Neil. No matter what he did, Neil said nothing. He didn’t even try to turn on the radio. The fields outside whisked by and Andrew’s fury went nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, until it had nowhere to go but in.
The fields gave way to forests. He twisted through the narrowing roads as they wound upwards, climbing into the fading sky. The sparse branches were burnished in the fading sunlight. The autumn colours burned like a forest fire in slow motion.
He yanked on the wheel down another turn. A sign announced the Great Smoky Mountains, but he barely saw it. Twilight hid the curves of the road and he had to slow even further until even the sound of the engine couldn’t cover the ragged hiss of air through his lungs.
A sign indicated a viewpoint a quarter-mile away, and he turned onto it blindly. The cracked asphalt bumped under him, threatening the low-slung belly of the Maserati. He coasted to a halt in an empty parking lot.
Neil folded his notebook up and looked around with interest. “Where are we?”
Andrew shrugged, hauling himself out of the car. A low stone wall ringed the parking lot and the ground dropped away behind it. The misty evening blurred the distant mountains. They cut across the sky in smears of indigo and violet, like the lazy strokes of a paintbrush.
He shook out a pack of cigarettes and stood next to the wall as he lit up. The smell of smoke cut through the clear autumn air as he gazed unblinking out at the rolling forests beyond him.
Neil joined him a moment later. He tilted the pack of cigarettes towards him, but Neil shook his head, leaning out over the wall to squint at the drop below.
It was a formidable one. The slope wasn’t quite vertical; tiny plants and trees clung to crevices below, but long rocky patches showed where the ground had slid. It was over three hundred feet before the ground levelled out in a dry gully where a stream probably ran in spring runoff.
Neil turned away from his contemplation of the view and studied Andrew. He tolerated it for only a moment before he cut a brief look at him.
“Don’t,” he said.
Neil folded his arms, drumming his fingers on his bicep. “Don’t what?”
Andrew’s eyebrow twitched and he flicked his hand at Neil. “I can still push you off.”
Neil snorted and Andrew’s mouth flattened as he looked away. He could still see Neil out of the corner of his eye, though. He propped his ass against the stone wall, his back to the view as he watched Andrew.
Andrew leaned out over the wall, staring down at the drop below him. A vision of Neil’s body on the rocks below formed in his mind’s eye. Legs bent the wrong way, darkness pooling in the dirt below…
Andrew wrenched his gaze away and stalked back towards the car. His stomach churned. Every time he blinked he saw Neil’s dead eyes staring up at the sky. He took a long drag of his cigarette, trying to kill the feeling, but it clung to him like mould, sinking into his every pore.
He stopped by the door to the Maserati. They’d need to find a gas station soon. They’d need food, too; athlete metabolisms were not forgiving of missed meals. His stomach rebelled at the idea of eating, but logically he knew he needed it. He could force something down if he had to, even if it tasted as dry and bland as cardboard.
He leaned back against the car. The mountains sprawled out beyond, safely contained behind the retaining wall.
Neil hadn’t moved, so Andrew made a small, beckoning gesture. Neil tapped his fingers twice more against the wall, calculating, before he obeyed, coming to stand a few feet away from Andrew. His expression was carefully guarded like he was intentionally keeping his thoughts at bay.
For once, Andrew didn’t care. The urge to pick and pry, to peel back Neil’s masks and find out what lay underneath, had dissipated like smoke in the night, melting into the grey sky.
Neil stopped well out of reach. Andrew made another beckoning gesture and a faint frown crossed Neil’s face before he stepped in.
Andrew’s eyes drifted across Neil’s collarbone, avoiding the searching look in his eyes. The cold air tugged at the short hair at the back of his neck. He flicked his cigarette at the ground and reached out, pressing his palm against Neil’s chest.
He exhaled. Neil was warm under his hoody, his breathing slow and steady. Andrew could almost feel Neil’s heartbeat drumming steadily against his palm. Neil stayed absolutely still and Andrew’s eyelids flickered, almost closing.
Shit, he thought.
His whole body felt threadbare and thin, like Neil’s body heat alone would be enough to ignite him; reduce him to ash. Neil’s heart thudded against his hand. Alive. Alive. Alive.
Andrew dropped his arm and turned away. The sun was fully gone from the sky; stars had begun to emerge, obscured by pale streaks of cloud.
“Are we getting a hotel?”
Neil’s quiet voice was loud in the silence. Andrew shook his head. “Columbia.”
“Okay,” Neil said. “I can take a turn driving.”
It was a question, not a statement; Andrew considered it, rubbing his thumb along a dead bug on the windshield. He only succeeded in spreading the smudge a little more.
“I remember the way,” he said. Neil didn’t argue. He disappeared over to the outhouse for a minute, and when he got back Andrew was already in the driver’s seat.
The drive back took them past midnight. Even with Andrew’s memory, the roads looked strange in reverse, in the dark, and he missed two turns before Neil dug up a roadmap from the glovebox and started quietly directing him back into familiar territory. They picked up burgers and fries at a gas station and Neil took a turn driving so Andrew could eat. He stared out the windshield the rest of the way as Neil maneuvered the Maserati smoothly—if rather cautiously—back towards Columbia.
Neil parked in the driveway and retrieved his school bag from the backseat. Andrew trailed him into the house. His body felt as insubstantial as smoke. Neil flicked the hall light on and kicked his shoes off, proceeding into the kitchen with the remains of their dinner.
Andrew stopped in the dark entryway. The carpet cushioned the pressure on the balls of his feet, but he could still feel the ache from hours of driving.
Neil reappeared in the doorway, haloed by the kitchen lights. His phone was in one hand.
He studied Andrew for a moment. “I’ll sleep in Nicky’s room,” he said.
Andrew nodded slowly. Neil waited for a beat to see if anything else was coming, then vanished back into the kitchen. The words Kevin and Columbia murmured through the air, but Andrew didn’t stick around to listen.
He climbed the stairs to his room and locked the door behind him.
Staticky silence filled the house when Andrew woke the next morning. He peeled open gummy eyes and squinted at the lines of sunlight that cut across his wall like prison stripes. His head was groggy, as if he’d been out all night drinking.
The glowing display of the alarm clock said it was just past eight. All told, that probably gave him three hours of sleep, between sitting up smoking on the windowsill and laying on his bed staring at the ceiling until his eyes went dry.
He dragged himself upright and dressed in warm sweatpants and a sweater before heading downstairs. Neil was nowhere to be seen, but he found a note on the counter that led him to a container of pancakes in the fridge. He popped a couple in the toaster to warm up and leaned against the counter, his eyes unfocussed.
He’d just finished his eighth pancake when the door clacked open. A breeze gusted through the house, lifting the hair from Andrew’s eyes.
Neil’s head popped in a second later. His hair was pulled back out of his face with that ridiculous orange bandana. A bead of sweat traced its way down his neck and Andrew’s gaze followed its path to his collar.
Satisfaction tugged at Neil’s mouth when he saw the ruins of syrup and berries on Andrew’s plate.
“I called Coach,” he said. “I told him not to expect us back today.”
Andrew blinked at him. Neil nodded as if that had decided something and vanished into the hallway. A minute later the water cut on overhead.
Andrew dumped his dishes in the sink and wandered into the living room. He put the TV on something mindless and slumped in the armchair.
It was Wednesday, and they should have been at practice for hours already, with a day full of classes ahead of them. Neil came downstairs twenty minutes later and tucked himself into a corner of the couch. He worked on math problems until he reached the end of the homework that had been in his messenger bag and rested his head against the arm of the couch.
They ordered takeout so that they didn’t have to talk to anyone and ate it on the couch. The day oozed by. Andrew switched the channels from one trite, mindless daytime TV drama to another without absorbing any of it.
Andrew blinked and then Neil was yawning, peeling himself off the couch. “Dinner?” Neil asked. “I think we have some pasta in the cupboard.”
Andrew shrugged. Neil took that however he wanted and headed into the kitchen. A few crashes echoed down the hallway and Andrew heard a muffled curse, but the fire alarm didn’t go off, which was already an improvement on Kevin’s cooking.
A plate sliding onto the side table beside him made him suck in a breath, scooting upwards in his chair. He hadn’t even noticed that he was dozing off.
Neil glanced at him in apology for startling him, heading past him to sit on the couch with his own plate. He had somehow turned an empty pantry and a handful of wilting vegetables into a passable tomato sauce.
Andrew picked up his meal from the side table and drummed the tines of the fork on the edge of the plate. Neil made steady progress through his own food, but Andrew couldn’t bring himself to do much other than swirl the pasta around, unable to taste it.
He placed the plate back down. The TV rattled on in the background and Andrew studied Neil. His eyes were fixed on the screen as he shovelled food into his mouth. He always ate like that, like he might not have time to finish before he had to leave. Even though they hadn’t moved all day; some habits didn’t break easy.
The scars on his cheek tugged on his eye as he chewed. He’d stolen a red pyjama t-shirt from Nicky’s room, and it hung off his neck just a little too wide, exposing a small pucker on his collarbone that Andrew recognized as a bullet wound.
He’d touched it before, many times. Kissed it too, tasted the skin on Neil’s throat, his chest, lower.
His throat closed. He tore his eyes away. His stomach rebelled like he’d swallowed something hot and slimy that squirmed in his gut like a live thing.
He lurched to his feet and staggered to the stairs. Neil’s voice called out behind him, from a distance, underwater. He almost fell up the stairs until he reached the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
He doubled over the sink and spat, trying to clear the vile taste from his mouth. Fuck. He sucked in a deep breath that set his meagre dinner turning.
Sweat prickled on his forehead. His whole body twisted, grimy and cold like he’d been coated in black engine oil. He slammed his fist against the counter in frustration and struggled to remember to breathe. His head tipped forward until it was pressed against the tap and all he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears.
Fuck.
It took several minutes for his body to relent. He pressed his palms to the counter and levered himself upright.
“Andrew?” Neil’s voice said from outside the door, uncertain. Andrew didn’t want to know how many times he’d said that without Andrew hearing it. He didn’t want to know how much time he’d lost.
His reflection stared back at him with dead eyes, wan and sickly and sweaty like he was fighting a fever.
It shouldn’t make a difference. All that shit with Drake had been true before the trial. It hadn’t changed just because people knew about it now. He should be able to fantasize about kissing a guy without spiralling. He should be able to want without all of…this.
He knew better. He’d learned a long time ago that wanting wasn’t allowed for people like him.
The light burned his retinas. His reflection swayed, looking broken, pathetic.
A growl ripped from Andrew’s throat and he slammed his fist into the mirror. Pain exploded in his knuckles, starbursts shooting all the way up to his hand to his elbow. The mirror spiderwebbed, shattering his reflection into a thousand shards.
“Andrew!”
The doorknob rattled and Andrew didn’t have time to realize he hadn’t locked it before Neil yanked it open, eyes wide. Andrew gripped his injured wrist in one hand. Blood dripped off his knuckles in slow, heavy droplets.
Neil’s eyes dropped to Andrew’s hand and he swallowed, deflating slightly.
“Can I come in?”
Andrew retreated until his back was against the wall. Neil stepped inside cautiously, eyes darting around like he was looking for a threat.
After he was satisfied the room was safe, he extricated the first aid kit from under the sink. He held it out to Andrew, but he ignored it, sliding down the wall until he was sitting with his hands dangling between his knees.
Another droplet oozed up out of Andrew’s skin and fell to the ground with a tiny splat. He watched the blood well up again and did not look at Neil as he sat on the floor across from him, his back to the cabinets under the sink.
He placed the first aid kit on the floor and pushed it towards Andrew with his foot. Andrew left it there. The slow pattern of blood spots on the tile grew between his feet.
“I wanted to kill them,” Neil said, out of nowhere.
Andrew blinked, dragging his gaze upwards like it was a heavy thing. Neil’s gaze was fixed on his hands, which were clenched in his lap. “The cops, the lawyers. Even the fucking jury. He never should have been charged in the first place. The whole trial, I just wanted—” He cut himself off with a grimace.
He didn’t finish the sentence, but Andrew could guess that he was thinking about his father. “It doesn’t make you like him,” he said, voice low and dragging.
“That’s not what I meant,” Neil said, rubbing a hand through his hair. “This isn’t about me.”
He dropped his hands and met Andrew’s gaze, frustration in every jagged line of his face. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
His voice was full of such breathtaking anger that Andrew almost forgot the blood drying on his hand. He couldn’t pull his eyes away from Neil. It seemed so misplaced.
He couldn’t remember if he’d seen Neil angry at the trial. He wracked his brain, but even his formidable memory couldn’t recall things he hadn’t actually paid attention to. And he hadn’t…he hadn’t actually looked at Neil in weeks.
He’d seen him, in glances, his eyes sliding away so that he didn’t have to address it. So he couldn’t find out what Neil thought, in case it was unforgivable. In case it was pity.
Andrew had never considered himself a coward, but he may have just proved himself wrong.
Neil’s eyes were tight and ringed with faint blue like he hadn’t been sleeping. The lines on his forehead didn’t fade as the minutes ticked by and his mouth was pinched and dry. The ragged skin around his fingernails said he’d been chewing on them again, and he was breaking out along his hairline, tiny zits bubbling up from his skin.
Andrew exhaled, dropping his chin. He rested his forearm on his knee and contemplated his hand. A flap of skin hung, almost detached, from his second knuckle, tugging with every drop of blood.
“This isn’t something you can fix,” Andrew said finally.
Neil’s shoulders slumped minutely, Andrew didn’t know if in relief or disappointment. The lights overhead hummed faintly. A tiny piece of glass teetered and fell free of the mirror with a plink.
Bright red dried into dusty flakes on his hand. The droplets that had fallen into the grout of the tiles were steadily staining them brown.
Neil’s foot nudged the first aid kit closer to him again. Andrew stared at it for a beat before relenting, unzipping the case with his clean hand. He found some alcohol wipes and set about cleaning off his hand. He should just rinse it off in the sink, but he didn’t feel like standing up right now.
That was three Exy practices Neil had missed now. Andrew wondered what he would do if Andrew wasn’t ready to go back by Friday. Missing practice was one thing, but a game?
His stomach twisted. He didn’t want to know what Neil would choose if he put him in that situation. He didn’t want to know if Neil would leave to go play.
If he would stay.
He flexed his hand and dabbed Polysporin onto the cuts. He didn’t know what Neil would choose, but worse…
He didn’t want Neil to have to choose.
He wrapped a bandage around his knuckles to hide them, even though it was overkill for such small cuts. He scooped up the pile of pink-stained wipes and dropped them in the bin next to the toilet and forced himself to look Neil in the face.
He couldn’t find the energy to make any sort of expression, but Neil didn’t seem to care. His eyes darted across Andrew’s face like he could find the answers to the world hidden there.
“Movie?” he asked.
Andrew knew he was being offered an out and couldn’t make himself care. He nodded, pushing himself upright. They left the bathroom without cleaning the blood off the floor.
In however long they’d sat there, Andrew’s food had gone cold on its plate. He took it to the kitchen and microwaved it. It revolved in the microwave and Andrew stood with his hands against the counter, staring at nothing. The world had taken on a dull grey cast, like all the emotion of the past half an hour had drained the colour out of him.
He returned to the living room and found Neil squinting at Nicky’s movie cabinet, a slightly displeased turn to his lips. Andrew leaned past him and plucked a DVD off the wall, handing it to him.
Neil looked at him in faint surprise, but Andrew just walked past him and sat in his armchair. Neil got the DVD in and flicked through the menu.
“Which episode were we on?” Neil asked.
“Season four, episode three.”
Neil selected the appropriate episode and the opening credits of Criminal Minds started rolling. Andrew settled lower into his chair, taking a bite of his pasta.
Maybe they shouldn’t enjoy this show so much. There wasn’t an episode that went by that didn’t push on one or the other of their triggers; even Nicky, who had introduced Neil to the show, had quit watching it, stating that Andrew and Neil were “too goddamn morbid about the whole thing, Jesus.”
Indeed, they hadn’t made it five minutes before Neil scoffed. “Oh, that’s a load of—”
He immediately froze, glancing at Andrew. He raised an eyebrow, gesturing for Neil to go on. His shoulders relaxed and a faint smile creased his cheek for a second. A minute later he snorted. “Well, this bit’s accurate at least,” he said. “Cops really are that incompetent.”
Andrew placed his half-eaten food on the side table again and slouched, half-watching the screen through heavy-lidded eyes. Half-watching Neil.
Maybe Nicky was right. Maybe they should hate this show, maybe it should be horrifying and triggering for both of them. But somehow Neil’s mockery packaged it down into something trivial and digestible, turned their histories into tiny pockets of melodrama, easy to pick up and discard when the episode was finished.
On good days, Andrew joined in with scathing comments of his own. Today he listened to Neil, and remembered how to breathe.
About half an hour into the episode Neil’s phone vibrated. He dug it out of the couch cushion and checked his messages.
“Kevin wants to know if we’ll be back tonight,” he said.
Andrew slid his fingers along the edge of the table until a splinter caught him. He wiped his hand on his jeans and considered the plate of pasta beside him. The episode on the television. The white bandages on his hand.
Neil, waiting, unhurried on the couch next to him.
“Tomorrow,” he said.