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The air outside Eden’s is biting cold, rare for South Carolina, rarer for Andrew who grew up in California where it never dipped below fifty. He’s never quite gotten used to the cold, and he’s certainly not dressed for it. The wind nips at the skin of his legs that his ripped jeans leave exposed and at his elbows. Despite the quiet misery, and misery it is, Andrew makes no move to go back inside. He reaches into his pocket to pull out another cigarette and wishes time would move faster as he lights it.
Eden’s used to be an escape: there was no exy, there was no teammates. Only Andrew’s small family, booze, and a quick hookup if he wanted it. Neil, of course, ruined that. After his test, Neil slotted himself into the normal attendees of their outings—soon swaying Andrew to allow the rest of the team to attend.
Perhaps all of that would have been tolerable if not for Matt Boyd.
After all was said and done—Baltimore survived, championships won, fall classes selected—came the horrendous news that Neil was dating Matt.
Matt, who had been notoriously trying to date Dan for years despite her frequent rejections, and Neil, who Andrew was starting to think he had a chance with, dating.
But like with the cigarettes, which he no longer needed to curb the withdrawals, he couldn’t give up Eden’s. Even if it came with the cutting reminder of what he did not have.
The back door opens, sending a wave of hot air out into the night and breaking Andrew from his sullen silence.
Neil props himself on the wall next to Andrew. Habitually, Andrew offers him a cigarette. Habitually, Neil takes it, lighting it and letting it burn out between his fingers. “Not in the mood for partying tonight?” Neil asks.
Andrew takes an avoidant drag of his cigarette. “Headache.” The truth, if headaches were six-four and solid muscle. Maybe if Andrew found Matt attractive, he would find the whole situation less appalling; instead he just finds it aggravating.
Neil hums. He brings the cigarette near his face and takes a deep breath in. He seems unbothered by the cold, a thin sheen of sweat still glistening in the dim alley lights. Andrew wants to snark about wasting cigarettes, about second-hand smoke still causing cancer, but he can’t quite find the energy. He lets his head tip back and rest on the stucco wall.
“Want to get out of here?”
Andrew turns his head. With his chunk shoes and Neil’s slouch, they’re eye to eye. The decision is incredibly easy to make, yet he says, “Leaving Matt behind?”
Neil shrugs. “He’s an adult.”
Biting back a smirk, Andrew mentally tallies Andrew: 1, Matt: 0. “Sure.”
He types out a quick message to Nicky that they should get a ride back as they navigate towards the Mas. They slide in, and Andrew turns the heat on, holding his hands in front of the vents. Neil laughs under his breath, kicking off his shoes and tucking his feet under his legs.
Andrew peels out of the lot, only barely avoiding clubbers, as the Weeknd song that was playing when they got out of the car earlier reaches its zenith. He gets on the highway from muscle memory, and sets them on a path to nowhere.
The late night drives started after the championships, when Kevin relaxed on night practices minimally, and everyone suddenly had an iota of free time. Andrew idealized them as a time to find the words or actions to tell Neil how he felt, but he never worked himself up to it before the news about Matt broke. Instead of freeing himself from confined spaces alone with Neil, the drives continued. Neil may not have been a pipe dream side effect of the drugs, but he was a drug of his own.
Tonight, the winding highway takes them north and Neil switches Andrew’s playlist to classical music and hums along. It’s silent otherwise, but comfortably so. There’s no need for words between them, not when they can read each other so perfectly. So Andrew relishes in the quiet, stealing looks at Neil and pretending this is enough.
Although nothing needs to be said, never has been for them to understand each other, Neil whispers into the silence, “You’re my best friend.”
Andrew wishes he could find the words to say me too, to say I love you, I would die for you, I would live for you. Instead he turns the music up a notch and says, “Junkie.”
The look Neil gives Andrew says that he understands.
The Monday after the new year begins, Andrew walks into the locker room for practice already bored and ready to go back to the dorm, to a flurry of whispering. It’s barely a thrum, almost impossible to hear, but it’s a stark difference from the usual deafening chatter of the Foxes.
He makes his way to his locker, across from Kevin’s and thus across from Neil’s, isolated from both the upperclassmen and the new recruits. As he sets down his bag and convinces his lock to open, he catches sight of a bruise in Neil’s neck, slotted along the burns and scars. The telltale shape of a hickey.
Andrew’s world narrows to the shape of it. Try as he might to not, he wonders what Neil’s skin tasted like, how he responded to the attention, how he countered the action. He wonders how it would feel to have Neil arch into his hands as he ran the blunt edges of his nails down his back, what sounds he would make as he as Andrew wrapped his mouth around him.
Andrew’s willing to bet the rest of the Foxes are wondering the same things, though much less intimately than he is.
Andrew: 1, Matt: 1. A tie is not a guaranteed loss, Andrew reminds himself.
As the team funnels out of the locker rooms and to the inner court, Andrew lingers in the back of the pack with Aaron and Nicky, putting as much distance as he can between himself and Neil.
Nicky whispers to Aaron, or perhaps Robin, “I just wonder what the logistics are. The height distance is staggering. Does Neil have a step stool? Does Matt sit and Neil stands?”
Andrew clenches his fist around his racket, so hard that he makes crescent moon indents in the tape indicating his typical hand placements.
It does cross his mind though, that he and Neil would be much more matched height wise. Andrew: 2, Matt: 1.
And if Andrew rebounds every blocked shot off of Matt’s helmet that practice, no one calls him out on it.
The midnight moon does nothing to illuminate the rooftop of Fox Tower. It's only through muscle memory and his poorly adjusted eyes, that Andrew makes it to the ledge and settles down on it. He probably shouldn’t be up here, not after the amount of alcohol he consumed in the basement party, but he needs to breathe. Breathe without the pressure of the Spring Championships, now certainly in their future. Without the constant pressure of Neil, his relentless determinism, his cutting wit, his pinky linked with Matt’s as they make their way back to Fox Tower.
Breeze cuts through the night, ruffling Andrew’s hair that’s starting to get too long and chapping his lips. He licks his lips, as if that will help, but the next gale only makes them sting more.
The gravel crunches behind Andrew and he doesn’t even have to look to know it's Neil. Despite his rehabilitated image, no one else would dare to be left alone with him and a five story drop. Neil feels no such fear though, he never has. He drops impossibly close next to Andrew, their clothing nearly brushing together.
Andrew digs out the cigarettes and offers them up. Neil takes one, lights it, and inhales the smoke. Andrew never lights his. Despite the toll his liver likely took tonight, he’s feeling oddly disgusted about the notion of inhaling the smoke, the knowledge of what it would do to his lungs. But he feels overall too aware tonight. Of the air on his skin, the sweat still in his armbands from the game, from how loving Neil is a little bit like chain smoking. Impossible to stop, undeniably bad for him.
Neil, always adept at reading Adnrew’s moods, says nothing. He not-really smokes his cigarette and lightly bounces his heels against the side of the building, doubtlessly scuffing the hideously orange Converse Nicky bought him for Christmas. He watches though, his blue eyes tracing lines on Andrew’s skin that he can practically feel.
Andrew turns and meets his eyes. Neil’s tongue darts out and licks his lips. Andrew does everything in his power to not watch the fluid motion.
“Is it supposed to feel like this?” Neil asks, barely a whisper. Andrew’s never heard him whisper before. The rough gravel of it sends sparks straight through his core.
“Is what?”
Neil exhales, breath turning into a visible puff between them as the temperature drops further. “Everything.”
When Andrew exhales their shoulders bump and Neil shivers, ever so slightly. Andrew wants to stay there, lean into the touch, but he can't; he knows he can’t. He leans back, planting his hands on the gravel and ignoring the sting in his palms as he sinks his weight onto them. The campus lights make seeing the stars impossible, so he stares steadfastly at the moon. “Yes.”
Neil is quiet a long while, unmoving on the ledge. From this angle, Andrew can study the outline of his face as he worries his lower lip between his teeth. Andrew doesn’t quiet know what Neil meant by everything, the alcohol is starting to catch up with him and he’s too tired to fight the haze to analyze Neil’s tells. But, he’s almost sure everything is the universe that exists between them, the chasm that Andrew cannot reach across and close, the want that consumes him.
So maybe he wasn’t entirely honest. It isn’t supposed to feel like this, but whatever confusion Neil felt, he feels it too.
Denny’s is hot and sticky, the windows made blurry by condensation, and all the employees seem half awake, but not the Foxes. There’s no Eden’s in Pennsylvania, so their celebratory meal comes in the form of pancakes and rubbery bacon. The Spring Championships once again won. The Foxes, two time champions.
All of the free tables have been pushed together down the longest part of the restaurant and yet the Foxes are still crammed elbow to elbow. They’re raucous with the win, adrenaline and ambition keeping them awake after a long day and a longer game. Andrew and Neil are across from each other, somewhere in the middle of the table.
Around them, Foxes are laughing and chatting and throwing French fries at each other. The world is silent between them, they’re statues amongst the living. Neil’s stare in unnerving and unflinching at Andrew; Andrew refuses to look away from it. It’s the most interaction they’ve had in weeks.
So, they sit and stare and ignore everyone else, caught once again in their own orbit. For once, Andrew wishes they weren’t.
They get back to the hotel, a nice one that the PSU Student Athlete Association splurged on for them, to the room that they share in the same stony silence. Andrew is sure that if pressed, Wymack would claim the pairings were random. Andrew is sure that this was some 3D chess move to get them to work out their shit for the sake of the team. Andrew finds that completely unnecessary since it was his final three saves and a nearly telepathic pass to Neil that won the game not five hours ago.
Neil opens his duffle bag, upgraded courtesy of Wymack after the first championship was won, the metal zipper loud against the silence. Andrew sighs. The silence, the passive aggression. They weren’t meant for passive aggressiveness, they were meant for scraped knuckles, venomous words, slipped drugs, and nearly dying for each other. “If you have something to say, just say it,” Andrew says, finally shattering the silence.
It’s Andrew’s fault of course. Neil blames him for the demise of his relationship with Matt, Andrew knows its true. He never expected Neil to hate him for it though, not after everything. But he can’t bring himself to regret it, there’s not enough time in his life to regret all the questionable things he’s done. Even this one, even if it feels like a stab wound to the chest.
Neil looks over his shoulder, eyes hooded. “Just like you told Matt that Dan was finally ready to give him a chance.”
Factually incorrect, though Andrew doesn’t point that out. He told Aaron, who told Nicky, who told Matt. Matt who, though very remorseful about it, couldn’t resist the chance to at least try with Dan; even if that meant leaving Neil behind. “I’m sorry your boyfriend couldn’t resist the temptation of the woman he’s been in love with for years now.”
Neil spins around, leaning against the dresser, arms crossed over his chest. He raises an eyebrow. “You don’t sound very sorry.”
Andrew works hard to keep his face flat, to stave off the urge to blink dumbfounded. Did Neil really not know that Andrew was sorry, did everything he did in the aftermath not convey that? Long runs and silent cigarettes and hours on the exy court actually blocking his shots? Exy game reruns and strawberry milkshakes and library sessions? “I’m not sorry that you got dumped by a guy that obviously wasn’t good for you.”
At least that’s honest. Andrew had a front row view of the deterioration of their relationship. Andrew can, somewhere very deep down, admit that Matt is a good guy, but he wasn’t right for Neil. Matt couldn’t challenge Neil the way he needed to be. Not the way Andrew could, at least.
“So you sabotaged it?”
Andrew scoffs. “I did not. It’s not my fault Aaron and Nicky can’t keep their mouths shut. And it's not like you hadn’t been thinking of it for a while.”
“Why were you even talking about it with Aaron and Nicky in the first place?” Neil waves his hand around like he’s caught Andrew with that fact. “For the family you’re willing to die for, you never have anything to say to them.”
It hurts, just barely, to have Neil see right into Andrew’s messed up home life. The one that he can’t get right no matter all the ways he’s trying to. “Fine. Fine, you caught me,” Andrew says. He splays his hands on the desk in front of him, knocking brochures and complementary stationary out of the way. He catches sight of Neil in the mirror in front of him, wound tight and ready for a fight. “I set up all the dominos to break you and Matt up. Is that what you want to hear? Guilty as charged.”
Neil stalks forward, stopping just shy of the desk, just shy of Andrew. His cheeks are flushed ever so slightly pink. “No. I want you to admit you were a coward. You did it because it was easier to pull strings the way you always do that to look me in the face and tell me you wanted me.”
Andrew rears back as if he’d been slapped. “Excuse you?”
Neil goes on, bolstered by Andrew’s reaction. “You’re used to getting your way when you execute the plans you devise but did it ever occur to you that other people have feelings too? That maybe I didn’t want to just be a pawn in your game?”
“You were never a pawn. I couldn’t stand to watch you waste away next to Matt because you didn’t know better things were out there.”
“And you’re the better thing?”
A precipice, a bridge across the chasm. Andrew grasps on it. “Yes. Yes, I am. And…” He hesitates, trying to grasp the words, to not choke on them. “I’m sorry.”
The fight leaves Neil. He slumps against the TV stand. “You were an asshole.”
Andrew shrugs. “So were you.”
Neil chuckles softly. “So much time wasted I guess. You know, I never thought I would have time to waste.”
Andrew takes a step closer, closing the space between them. “Yes or no? In the interesting of not wasting any more time?”
Neil barely gets out his affirmative before Andrew presses their lips together, burying his fingers in Neil’s wild curls, pressing him against the desk. Neil pulls back, for a moment Andrew thinks that this is it, the moment that Neil realizes that he’s made a mistake choosing Andrew. But Neil only laughs softly and kisses Andrew with such intensity he stumbles back, knees hitting the bed and almost collapsing bringing them down.
The humid weather makes the heat inside of Eden’s almost unbearable, the South Carolina summer intensified by body heat, alcohol, and dancing. But Andrew would suffer through every sweaty second to sit by Neil’s side passing bitter commentary under their breath as they people watch.