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scribbleb-red · 5 years ago

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Neil is a lying liar who lies AU

A Morning AU - with a fab prompt from @djhedy

There’s a new boy in Andrew’s class and there’s something not quite right about him. He’s mouthy and sharp, the kinda kid that should end up in detention three times a week but never does.

They are seven years old, though the new kid looks five, with eyes like a wide open sky.

He is very pretty - that’s why Andrew notices him first - he looks like a fairy prince.

And it’s because Andrew is watching that he notices though: the kid is a big bad lying liar who lies.

The day he joined, the kid said his name was ‘Stefan’ to Mrs Stewart and ‘Chris’ to Mr Brasenose. The next day he was just ‘Neil’ and was given a fond, exasperated warning to keep his make believe in the playground.

But the kid didn’t stop lying.

Some lies were big and others were small.

On a Tuesday, Neil announced that he’d had a huge feast for breakfast - listing all the foods and making everyone’s mouth water with the descriptions. (But Andrew saw how he winced nd held his stomach like it was empty.)

On a Thursday, Neil said he grew up in England and proceeded to spend the next week speaking in a post English accent. (But he later admits at lunch it was just a couple months).

On a Friday, Neil whispers that his house is haunted and he’s scared to go home for the weekend. (There’s a little too much truth shining through those eyes as he talks about the ghost in his house. Andrew doesn’t doubt that he’s scared of something).

The following Monday, Neil explains his bruises by saying he spent the week learning to skateboard.

“My cousin visited and let me use her skate board. It was pretty rad.”

(Andrew eyes the split lip, it could be true. But then he sees the hand shape around Neil’s thin wrist and knows the truth: it’s a lie.)

Through it all, Andrew is very quiet and very alone. He knows how this goes - he’s seven years old with more cracks in his heart than a fifty year romantic - but he kinda enjoys Neil’s lies and how he gets away with them.

He particularly likes the outrageous ones:

My father parachuted into Paris because he’s a spy. He died landing on the Eiffel Tower. I once wrestled a monster. I won but it stole all my mom’s apples. I’m telling the truth. My tongue goes green when I lie. I met Kevin Day.

Andrew won’t pretend he’s not intrigued. He thinks Neil is interesting and his lies are ones he can often hold in the dark, imagining over and over when he’s hurt and wishing to be anyone, anywhere but here.

Plus Neil is funny - he always snarks at the teachers and gets away with the most ridiculous things. Other kids always want to play with him because his games are brilliant - epic journeys, castles and wizards, magical tigers, patchwork villains made from the skin of children.

Some of Neil’s tall tales are part fairytales, part nightmares. And Andrew isn’t sure which part Neil actually belongs to. There are times where he’s the brightest, prettiest boy on the playground. And times where his eyes are haunted, mouth wicked cruel. And then there are times like today, where Neil is quiet and blank - a little too familiar to what Andrew sees in the mirror these days, looking like someone has scooped out his insides and left nothing but darkness behind in its wake.

Andrew almost talks to him then.

Almost.

But he doesn't. Not for another few weeks. Not until Neil's facing down Greg Doyle - the fight has the vibe of a hissing kitten against a rottweiler.

There's no way Neil can win. Greg is a third grader and big beside.

But Neil doesn't look scared. He looks ferocious.

Not that appearances are going to help. Neil could have the sharpest claws of them all and he'd still weigh nothing against Greg. Neil dodges and ducks the first few blows. He snipes and snarks, that liar's mouth rattling off stories of how he took down a SWAT team once.

But dumb luck can’t do everything and finally Greg gets a thump in, straight across Neil’s jaw - hard enough to make him stagger.

"So much for a SWAT team, fucking liar."

There are gasps at the bad word from the growing first and second grade audience.

"Tongue turns green," Neil says. He spits out blood.

Andrew's had enough when he sees the blood.

Neil might be an idiot but Andrew knows that there's no way to win this one on alone He steps forward and puts himself between Neil and Greg.

"Oooo who's this, your boyfriend?"

Andrew would roll his eyes, but can't be bothered. He is the tallest kid in their year at nearly 4'5. He can look the nine year old Greg in the eye without trouble and he can see the bigger kid calculating his chances of taking Andrew on instead of the skinny little creature that was Neil "motor mouth" Josten.

"Back off," he says. He doesn't inflect. He watched a cartoon where a character spoke completely flat and it was really scary so he figures this might make Greg cower too. "Leave him alone."

Greg nearly steps into Andrew's space but someone has started a whisper:

Andrew Doe is the kid who killed his parents. Andrew Doe is the kid that burned a house down. Andrew Doe is the kid who took on Bertie Becker from fifth grade and flushed his head down the loo.

It's the last one that gives away the source of these rumours - Neil has started a chain of Chinese whispers. And Greg hears them swirling from mouth to mouth, ear to ear, each more terrifying than the last. It makes Andrew want to grin, so he does. Greg actually whimpers.

The crowd laughs when Greg runs away - he can’t save face when he’s fleeing from a first grader.

Andrew feels triumphant.

Especially when Neil steps up beside him, shy smile and summer sky eyes. “Thanks Andrew.”

Neil Josten knows his name, Andrew thinks. Wow wow wow.

Neil’s mouth is swollen but he’s still the prettiest boy in the playground so Andrew doesn’t say anything.

“Want to play a game?” Neil says.

Andrew shrugs.

“Yes or no?” Neil says again. “I won’t force you but I’d like to play with you to if you’d like to play with me.”

Andrew thinks about it before saying yes.

It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

They start with games - make believe quests and imaginary journeys. They visit magical worlds in their heads and fall about laughing when one of them (mostly Andrew) doesn’t break character even for class.

They become inseparable - two boys with home lives full of ghosts but dreams that can take them anywhere. The lying liar is the better story teller but the stoic hero a better actor. And sometimes in games they hide their truths - violent families and horrifying pasts.

Neil shows Andrew his scars, “I sometimes say they’re from a shark or ninjas and stuff but...”

“That’s from an iron.”

“Yeah.”

In turn, Andrew tells Neil about his foster family.

“We could poison him,” Neil says. “I heard we can make poison from apple cores. Applesenic or something.”

If only it were that simple.

It happens just before the end of the year - summer is nearly there and Andrew can only imagine how fun it'll be having a friend to adventure with for the first time. And then he finds out that his foster family is getting rid of him. He'll be packed off at the end of term.

"I think mom and I will move too," Neil admits. "We never hang around anywhere long."

"Because of your dad?"

"Yeah..." Neil plays with the hem of his t-shirt. "He's in prison but mom is still terrified. She moves us a lot."

"Maybe you can move to the same place as me."

They pretend that the world isn't going to split them apart.

They pretend that they're going to have the summer together.

And the year after.

That they'll start middle school together.

And be best friends all the way to the end of high school.

And go to the same college.

"We could play exy together all the way through," Neil says. It's his new obsession.

"I'm not going to play stickball. I prefer playing games with you."

"We can play games on the court. You can be the fierce dragon and I'll be the knight that looks after you."

"You'd steal all my dragon gold."

"Would not."

Andrew raises one eyebrow.

"Okay, yes I would. I'd be the knight trying to take your gold. But I'd be sneaky about it." Neil's laughter is high and bright. "Does that mean you'll play with me?"

"Yeah okay," Andrew says.

But it doesn't work out that way.

Neil vanishes like sun behind a mountain the day after term ends.

Andrew's bags are packed. He's dumped in a new home near the beach. He hates the beach. He misses Neil the way his lungs miss oxygen when he's stuck in the swell of a wave.

He does play exy though.

He does it because he figures one day he'll find Neil on a court too.

He'll either face him down or by some miracle they'll be on the same team.

He'll find Neil again. He will.

He tells himself this every day.

Even when it feels like a lie.

Something like an epilogue

Years pass before Andrew hears anything about the little boy who - for two semesters when he was seven - was his best friend. So many years that if it weren't for one polaroid from a cheeky arcade photo-booth, he might have let the idea of Neil go.

But he keeps the photo with him - through home after home, through Cass and Drake and juvie and Aaron and Nicky. He hides it in books, folds it into pockets. Makes sure to hold onto Neil and the memories of those few happy months.

He plays exy. Keeps track of other teams and their players. The sport does nothing for him - but sometimes he closes his eyes and imagines Neil with his flashing blue eyes mischievous smile and that long ago conversation. He remembers why he's doing this.

At 13, he asks Pig Higgins to do a search on Neil's name but the policeman refuses.

At 14, he goes through the entire directory for California and when that's exhausted, he starts searching every state from West to East.

He calls 362 Jostens across the USA. None are Neil.

When he turns 16, he uses a fake and has two small dragons outlined on the top of his left shoulder.

When he's 17 he meets Riko and Kevin Day. He remembers Neil once saying he'd met Kevin and wonders if that was true or just one of Neil's many many lies. He turns the Ravens down.

He signs two weeks later with the Palmetto State Foxes - taking his brother and cousin with him.

He watches as the lists of drafted players on other teams go up. There's no Chris or Stefan or Abram - not with the matching face Andrew wants. There's no sign of a Neil Josten.

Andrew smooths out the photo at night, slipping it between the pages of Whitman's Leaves of Grass every morning.

Maybe it's time to put the memory of Neil to rest, but he can't.

Neil is one of those beautiful ghosts that he can't help but hold onto. The one unspoilt thing in his memory.

Unspoilt, that is, until a Monday when Kevin Day announces he's recruiting a nobody from a nothing town in the middle of nowhere Arizona and the nobody's name is Neil.

"Neil what?"

"Josten. Want to see his tape?"

"Nope," Andrew says. But his heart is a thunderdrum, hope cutting through the medicated hyper mania easy as a knife through butter. "Actually yes, gimme the tapes little birdie."

Kevin grimaces at his nickname but says nothing until they’re watching the tape. And then he can’t shut up about the player’s potential, his speed and natural flare on the Court.

It's not Andrew’s Neil.

But it is too.

The striker on the court is a brunette with dark eyes but he runs like Neil. He's ferocious and plays like it's the last thing keeping him afloat. He has that little flick of his racquet before he goes to score, a telltale that would never get passed Andrew but no one else seemed to have noticed.

Andrew says as much to Kevin.

"Exactly," Kevin says. "That's why we have to have him."

So they go to Millport.

And Andrew knows Neil well enough to anticipate that he'll run.

Knows him well enough to trip him with a racquet and catch him as he falls.

Neil hasn't grown much either - he's still small and sharp and far too pretty to be real.

"Stupid little liar, you should watch where you put your feet." Andrew wishes he were sober. Wishes he didn't have to greet Neil with this grin splitting his face.

Wishes wishes wishes.

But his one wish has already come true, Neil is here with him. Warm and lithe and alive.

"Drew?" Neil says, but the word is choked and breathless. Neil’s voice does something to Andrew’s insides and Andrew feels the muscles beneath his hands warring between flight and relief.

"Neil," he replies.

"Oh my god, Drew."

And then Neil's arms are around Andrew's shoulders, and his face is turning into his neck and Andrew realises they're hugging and he shouldn't want to hug back but he does. He does because it's Neil. His friend. His pipe dream. The little boy with the pathological need to lie and an imagination that could create whole worlds from a handful of dust.

He hugs Neil tight.

Never wants to let go.

Kevin of course ruins the moment.

But Neil isn't going to say no to the Foxes. Not now.

And even though Andrew can recognise the lies slipping passed Neil's lips, he doesn't tell Wymack. Doesn't call out his idiot's new ouchies. Doesn't answer any questions when Kevin demands answers.

"Sign," he speaks only to Neil. He means, Stay with me. "We can play a game. Yes or no?"

"Yes," Neil says and his smile is a little wild, a lot wonderful. "Let's play a game."

The End.

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