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The feeling comes and goes.
Neil feels like he’s floating. It’s not a pleasant feeling, but it’s not an unpleasant one, either. It feels like his body’s going one way and his mind’s going the other; like they’re in a bitter disagreement. When he hauls himself out of bed, his body clambers up but his mind lingers where it was for a second. Neil sways for a moment, feeling like vertigo is clutching at him while he struggles to pull his mind back to his body.
His arm gives one weak throb, and when he glances down there’s blood dripping off his hands and onto the carpet. It’s all over his shirt, which is going to be a pain to clean out. He slides his sleeves up, trying to figure out where all the blood is coming from. There’s just scars. Scars and skin. He feels his stomach shrivel at the sight of them, like someone’s vacuumed his guts out.
He hears Lola’s voice sometimes. It’s not important, so he doesn’t tell anyone; but she says things occasionally in his mind. The scarring makes him shudder and he scowls down at the ruined skin like he can make it melt off and fix itself.
Something moves. Neil jolts away from the motion, slamming his back into the wall and snapping his gaze up. He doesn’t find an attacker. Only Andrew.
Andrew sits on his bed, hands folded together and hanging down between his legs. He’s slouching forward, looking tired and disinterested; but his eyes are stuck to Neil.
Neil wheezes in response to the new information his mind’s just collected.
“Sorry,” Neil says about the blood. Andrew quirks an eyebrow, but he doesn’t offer up a response. “About the carpet.”
Andrew’s eyes drop down, roam around, then come back up to stare blankly at Neil. Apparently the carpet doesn’t interest him, ruined or not. Neil worries briefly that he’s dripping on a new patch of carpet now, but when he glances down it’s clean where he stands. The blood on his hands is drying already.
“I’m—,” Neil starts, and then the fuzzy exhaustion waves over him again and he cuts off, shrugging. Standing up feels dizzying. Andrew stands up, but Neil’s already moving toward the door. Andrew catches his arm, pulling Neil to a halt just long enough to yank his sleeves back down. Then he leans against the wall, letting Neil take his leave from the room in peace.
Take his leave he does. Neil slips into the kitchen, fumbling through the cabinets. His old medication from after Baltimore is in here somewhere, and when he finds it he sets it victoriously onto the counter and fills up a glass of water.
Nicky comes into the kitchen while Neil’s in the process of trying to twist the lid off the medication without hurting his hands. They don’t hurt now, but he knows it’s just the shock. They’ll hurt soon if he doesn’t take the painkillers now.
“Neil?” Nicky says, blearily grabbing cereal from the cupboard. “What’re you taking those for?”
Neil blinks at him like he’s stupid. He holds out his palms to Nicky, showing off the streaking, still-wet blood on them. Nicky stares at them blankly.
“Didn’t you stop needing pills for those months ago?”
They weren’t bleeding again out of nowhere months ago, Neil thinks, but doesn’t respond. Instead, he sets to work trying to open the bottle without putting pressure on his hands.
“Why… are you holding it like that?” Nicky asks, still blatantly failing to assess the obvious in the situation.
Neil huffs in frustration, pounding the medicine bottle back onto the counter. It’s smeared with his blood now. More to clean up later.
“Neil,” Nicky says, sounding hesitant. When Neil doesn’t reply, he tries again—more urgently this time. “Neil, your hands are fine.”
“They’re bleeding,” Neil replies dryly.
Nicky just picks up the medicine bottle, pushing it further down the counter. He doesn’t throw it away or hide it, just puts it slightly out of Neil’s reach, but it’s still aggravating.
“Your hands are fine,” Nicky repeats. “Neil, they’re fine.”
There’s something in his voice now. Maybe concern. Maybe nerves. Some uncertainty, definitely. But Neil can’t place the rest.
His hands are dripping blood onto the counter. They’re bleeding more profusely than before, practically sopping wet, and Neil steps back nervously. His hands, of course, follow him. He backs all the way into the kitchen wall, then drops onto his butt on the floor, hands held out in front of him. He dimly notes the fact that they’re shaking. Or he’s shaking? Or both.
“Neil,” Nicky says, and when that doesn’t work he promptly leaves the kitchen.
His mind can’t decide what to focus on. Does he focus on his hands, which are turning the floor a deep, rich red? Or does he focus on the fact that he can’t feel his body, and he’s buzzing, and everything in him in coming undone and detaching?
There’s a dull roar outside of his head. Neil tries to tune it out entirely, but it’s loud and insistent.
His mind makes its switch between issues, temporarily putting his floating body on hold in order to panic over the fact that his hands have now bled so much that it’s past his ankles, filling the apartment and threatening to down him— them.
Andrew is there. He squats in front of Neil, arms wrapped around his legs. He isn’t saying anything, isn’t making any move to touch him, so Neil says, “you should sit higher up.”
Andrew just quirks an eyebrow, same as before. Only this time he says, “why?”
Neil gestures vaguely and tiredly to the wine-colored flooding in their kitchen.
“It’s a kitchen,” Andrew notes. “Didn’t care yesterday. Don’t care today.”
Neil stares at him with the same blank stare that Andrew gives back to him. Nicky is hovering in the doorway.
“I need to wrap my hands,” Neil reminds them. “And take my medication.”
“You don’t.” Andrew sounds bored.
“I—,”
“Stop.” Andrew says. “Your hands are fine.”
Neil glowers at him. Andrew glowers back. Nicky radiates nervous energy. Nobody makes a move. Until finally Andrew stands up, brushes his hands off on his pants, and disappears.
He comes back holding a kit. Neil relaxes infinitesimally. After days of wrapping Neil’s hands after Baltimore, Andrew is an expert. He makes quick work of it, wrapping the bandages neatly, tightly, and securely around Neil’s trembling palms and fingers. When he’s done, he snaps the kit shut and raises an eyebrow at Neil.
“Pills,” Neil reminds him.
“No,” Andrew replies, standing up and taking the bottle with him on his way to put the kit away. When he returns, his hands are empty. Neil decides to pick his battles wisely and settles for at least having his hands wrapped for now.
Neil opens his mouth to speak, and then his body deteriorates and he’s forced to spend the next second or two finding it again. When he has, Nicky is gone from the doorway.
Andrew is sitting in front of him again. “Yes or no.”
For the first time, Neil ponders the question. He only thinks for a second, and he only hesitates because he doesn’t want to get all this blood on Andrew, but he’s selfish. “Yes.”
Instead of kissing him, Andrew picks him up like he’s nothing.
You are, Lola reminds him cheerfully.
They go to the living room, where Andrew deposits Neil onto the recently-added couch and sinks into the less-recently-added beanbags. He still looks bored, but he’s watching Neil with an intensity that says otherwise. It’s not interest that ignites his gaze. Neil doesn’t know what it is.
“What do you need?” Andrew finally asks.
“You,” Neil says. “Here.”
“I am here,” the other boy retorts smartly.
“Closer.” Neil shifts to press further back into the couch, leaving a space for another body next to him. “If you want.”
Andrew stares him down like he’s all the answers to all the questions he doesn’t want. Then, “yes or no.”
“Yes.” Neil says. “Yes or no?”
Andrew blinks at him sullenly, eyeing his bandaged palms and tired eyes. “Yes.”
With that, he joins Neil on the couch. Had it been anybody else, he probably wouldn’t have been able to fit. But Andrew, in all his 5’0 glory, could fit fine with the space with Neil had given him.
Andrew had done the hard work, moving to be closer to Neil, so Neil does the rest. He shifts to rest his forehead against Andrews, closes his eyes and lingers in the smell of smoke and cheap beer. It’s not a romantic scent, not like it sounds in old, cheesy novels. But it’s Andrew, so the sharpness of it is familiar and comforting.
“They’re not bleeding.”
“Not anymore,” Neil agrees. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything but humor you,” Andrew mutters dryly. “They were never bleeding. You would have had to cut them on something. You were asleep.”
“I move in my sleep.”
“You don’t.” Someone else’s voice would have sounded like an accusation. When Andrew says it, it’s just a fact. “You don’t move in your sleep, you didn’t cut your hands, and you don’t need the pills.”
“I--,”
“Neil.” Andrew’s eyes aren’t even open anymore. “Be logical. Your hands healed months ago.”
Neil opens his mouth to argue. Sure, it’s not logical, but it’s happening, isn’t it?
Except Andrew and Nicky don’t seem concerned, which wouldn’t be strange, except the Foxes are always concerned. This isn’t his mother on the road. It’s his teammates, who always fret and fuss and never let him just say ‘fine’. If he were bleeding, like before, someone would have said something. Right?
So he can’t be bleeding.
Except the proof is there. It’s on the floor. Neil sits up, ignores Andrew’s grunt of protest at being moved, and scours the floor for the blood trail that he’s left. There’s nothing there, so he lunges over the back of the couch and into the bedroom. He thinks he sees red, but he blinks and it’s gone. The carpet is clean.
He trails back into the hallway, body feeling weird and fuzzy and disconnected from his foggy brain. Nicky is back in the kitchen. He’s cleaning out a bowl at the sink. He glances up at Neil when he enters, eyes lingering on the bandages.
“Alright?” He asks.
Neil nods slowly. “Yes,” he agrees, but his mouth feels thick and dry and full of cotton.
He leaves Nicky in the kitchen and returns to Andrew in the living room. At first glance, the boy on the couch seems asleep. But he lifts an arm lazily, an invitation for Neil to join him on the couch if he wants. So Neil climbs over Andrew and resumes his previous spot on the couch.
“Yes or no,” Andrew mumbles, and at Neil’s approval the arm up comes down to settle over his shoulder. “Your hands are fine.”
“My hands are fine,” Neil repeats, feeling very faraway.
“And you?”
“Fine.” He receives a flick in the head and corrects himself. “I saw them bleeding, but they’re not. And I feel… weird.”
“Bad?”
“Fine. Not good, but… not bad. Just somewhere in the middle. Really fuzzy.”
Andrew’s eyes peel open to stare back at Neil. He looks tired. Neil wonders if he’s been sleeping much lately. He’ll have to make sure of it tonight. They watch each other quietly, and the arm draped over Neil’s back shifts and becomes a hand rubbing below his neck. It’s gentle, ghosting so lightly that it could hardly be called touch at all. Andrew’s giving him time to refuse, to get rid of the hand, but Neil doesn’t and the ghosting becomes a presence.
“Go back to bed,” Andrew says, letting his eyes fall shut again.
Neil watches, eyes trailing up and down and memorizing the skin and the way that his eyelashes curl around his skin. The hand on his back eventually stills and relaxes, but Andrew isn’t asleep. His chest is falling up and down evenly, and he would seem like it if he were anybody else, but Neil knows that Andrew won’t sleep until he’s sure that Neil is.
So Neil shuts his own eyes, settles into the couch and tucks his chin into Andrew’s neck. Sleep comes easy and fast, and when he wakes up he’s still warm and his head is less fuzzy than earlier that day. Andrew is still there. He’s awake, scrolling lazily through his phone with one hand while the other taps light rhythms on Neil’s back. Neil’s content to stay there all day, but there’s things to do.
“Practice?” Neil mumbles into Andrew’s neck.
“Missed it,” Andrew replies, as if that’s some sort of casual thing to say. “It’s four.”
“P.M.?”
“Too bright to be A.M.,” Andrew snarks, but there’s no malice. Neil groans, but he doesn’t really mind. He feels undeniably better, and he glances down and his hands aren’t streaked with blood. They never were. The bandages are still there, but they’re not stained or aching. It was just in his head.
Neil knows logically that he never would have been able to get through classes and practice in that mindset. At least, he wouldn’t have remembered anything he learned and he wouldn’t have helped the team in any way. He wants to be irritated with Andrew for not waking him up for practice, but in the end he’s relieved.
“Kevin and Nicky?” He asks.
Andrew turns his phone off and lays it on the arm of the couch. “They went. Told Coach we wouldn’t be there. Should be back soon.”
Neil hums his response, choosing to just stay in the moment that he’s in. Andrew’s warm next to him, and he feels safe from the weight of the arm wrapping over him. It’s nice.
“I’m good,” he tells Andrew with finality, and he hopes that the real meaning behind it conveys. Andrew just grunts in response, but a hand rubs his back and Neil knows that he understands.