#Nicky: ​why do you bother? it’s just going to get dirty or bloody again’

[ravenvsfox]

Hi I love your band au fic! I was wondering if or when you were gonna write the next chapter :3

(thank you so much honey, here’s chapter four!!)

Their first show goes badly. 

They don’t practice for long enough, just two weeks of lyric reworking and transposition, Neil trying to bring his technique back from the dead, Kevin spitting and tearing his hair out.

They find themselves onstage like a machine with five separate motors and all the bolts loose. Andrew watches the way Neil’s shoulders turn into water when the stage lights hit him, the seam of dark hair that splits his scalp becoming a winding red river. 

It's the stupidest thing, how he looks copy and pasted out of history, a magazine rocker back from when that meant something dangerous.

Kevin plays over top of Neil’s vocals. Bouncy bass lines that spit like oil in a pan, so out of place that Aaron stops playing, confused. Neil sings louder and his voice strains and pulls apart so you can see the tendons in it.

The audience screams and whispers, they're not sure if Neil is here to stay, they don't know what it would mean if he did. Do I stop buying their albums? They murmur. Is this them selling out? Mainstream, pretty vocalist on top of their band like a wedding cake topper?

And then closer to the stage, tuned in, pupils swollen, Neil’s voice speaks to some of them like an open fire, turns their faces red, opens them up.

Andrew watches them with a kind of gratification, though he's not sure if he’s thinking of the band’s success or the way he feels the same draw as them, warming his hands on something as nuclear as Neil.

They slice the end off of their set. They can’t get their sound all the way together, even when the 50 fans they'd really reached shout for an encore. The rest of the venue leaves in ecstasies of conversation: who is he? Who is he? Who is he?

Or maybe that's the sound of Andrew’s furious thoughts, drowning it all out.

Or maybe it’s the mushrooms he took before the show. It’s the kind of high that pries everything apart and make him feel like he wouldn’t be able to hide even if all the lights were off, even if he had a hand clapped over his mouth.

Neil spins and starts to gather his microphone cord, preoccupied. Kevin puts his bass down carefully in its stand and shoots whiskey out of the bottle. He always makes the same face after, like it only hurts narrowly less than it helps.

“What the fuck was that?” he asks.

“Yeah, what was it?” Neil returns, like he was waiting for it. The house lights are on now, and all the sweat that made him look waxy and feverish as if by candlelight is now dark on his t-shirt and slick as grease in his hair. “You forget what dynamics are supposed to sound like?”

“I was trying to compensate for your horrifying lack of skill and professionalism,” Kevin says.

“Oh yeah? So you thought you’d play badly enough to drown me out? Interesting tactic.”

Kevin steps closer and Nicky stands in between them, guitar jutting out like a gate. “Kev,” he says lowly. “We're still getting it together. No one thought our first show was going to be groundbreaking.”

“Then why did we bother having it?” he snaps.

“Practice,” Andrew says. “Like everything else.”

“Yeah, hey, I’ve heard it makes perfect,” Nicky jokes nervously.

“That’s not fair to the audience,” Kevin says. “We can’t be figuring our shit out on the stage they paid money to—“

“Oh, but it was your fault, wasn't it Kevin. Let's be honest,” Andrew says. “You decided Neil was going to fail before we stepped foot on stage, and then you made sure of it.”

Kevin looks gobsmacked, and Andrew hears Aaron muffle a laugh. Neil looks back and forth between them, strung between surprise and suspicion.

“I didn’t—“ Kevin stops, puts a steadying hand on his stool. “I wouldn’t sabotage our set to—what—prove a point?”

“Because you’re above that kind of thing,” Neil says sarcastically. “Except that your playing is always going to come before other people though, right?” He seems to realize halfway through speaking that he respects this quality in Kevin, and his voice softens.

Kevin doesn’t answer, but his eyes are needly. “So you’ve all decided to pin this on me?” He’s looking at Andrew.

“Sure have,” he replies cheerily. “Don’t do it again, hm?”

Kevin swallows and thumbs the tuning pegs on his bass, upset. “I fucking hate you when you’re high.”

“Are we supposed to believe he's the love of your life when he’s sober?” Aaron asks flatly. Kevin’s opens his mouth, teeth bared like he’s going to reply, but instead he shoves a sheaf of notes and music off of his stand and storms offstage. Andrew watches the paper flutter to the floor.

“I didn’t need your protection,” Neil says.

“So you keep saying,” Andrew says, and then he follows Kevin to the bar.

______

Neil comes up when you google him, now.

Wymack released a clipped statement on behalf of Palmetto that Neil is the fifth member of Ausreißer and that yes, they know it's unorthodox to change the line up halfway through a tour, but they’re excited to be working closely together on new music. He runs it by the band before turning it over to the press, and Neil frowns all the way through it.

They do a handful more shows on the east coast where Neil and Kevin don’t look at each other. The audience swells, curious or infatuated with the singer whose voice lays on top of the instrumentation like oil on water.

Neil has a wicked panic attack in the motel bathroom when Nicky shows him his wikipedia page, no picture or credits, just a line of text that links him undeniably to the rest of the monsters. He starts wheezing, then falling, and Andrew squeezes the back of his neck and tells him over and over again to come back to himself and cut it out. 

Nicky stands with his hand over his mouth and tears in his eyes until Neil gasps and breathes deeply.

At a show in New York, Neil starts experimenting, playing with the audience, his presence taking up so much of the stage that the air starts to feel thin and hard to come by. He’s still a little high from the afternoon edibles they took, and his voice is throaty and loose. 

He makes a bad joke about Kevin's tattoo, something about his solos being like labyrinths, and Kevin grins, does an open slide down the fretboard that might as well be a thank you. When music is their primary language, they never fight.

Neil’s all over the stage, twitching with music, eyes closed. Nicky takes his hands off his guitar to spin Neil into his body and then out again, and the momentum sends him over to the drum kit.

He sings into Andrew's microphone, silver tongue, yellow hair long enough to stick to his cheekbones. For a moment, he wants him so completely that it makes his drumsticks tangle, a few beats bunching together like a clot in the rhythm. Neil’s eyes open, right next to him, car crash blue.

Andrew doesn’t look away, and in his head, pieces of lyrics start to hatch, bloody. Inspiration never used to come as easily or painfully as this, like Neil took a screwdriver directly to his brain and pried the words out.

Neil drifts away again, singing about not wanting to be seen, singing about the way staying alive is different from being alive. He always speaks Andrew’s lyrics like they’re just now occurring to him, and it makes him almost jealous.

He spends more time on stage than off. His talent loosens and rolls out like well-worked dough, voice going so relaxed and syrupy that it seems almost involuntary.

Halfway through one of their sets he sits in the middle of the stage, in a snake pit of wires, and sings clunky hard rock like a ballad. The rest of the band and the audience all crane towards him, listening for him like a pulse.

In private, they eat burger king in the van, Aaron dips fries in the zesty sauce that's meant for onion rings, Kevin plucks at a guitar to hone his skill on a broader fretboard, and Nicky squats outside the open driver's side door and tries to beckon a street cat into his lap.

Andrew lights a cigarette and wonders if Neil is aware of how he arches into the smoke like it’s fresh air.

"What are you doing?” Neil asks, leaning over the seat between them to look at Andrew’s open notebook, the cigarette between his fingers instead of a pen.

“Writing.”

Neil looks sceptical. “Lyrics?”

“The great American novel,” Andrew says sarcastically.

“Read it to me,” Neil challenges.

“You are bored,” he says. A side effect of his increasing comfort on stage is a dullness everywhere else.

“I’m trapped constantly in a van with shitty company.”

“Great, this can be your stop, then," Aaron says, waving a fry in Neil’s direction. There's almost no heat though. They all know that it’s too late to cut Neil out without surgical intervention.

“I’m great company,” Nicky says in-between kissy noises. The cat has wandered almost close enough to touch. “And I’m squandered on you.”

“When we get back to Columbia, I’m getting a hotel room,” Neil says.

“With what money?” Aaron mutters under his breath.

“The secret rolls of cash in his socks, probably,” Andrew says. Neil glares.

“Well anyway, you can’t,” Nicky says. “We’re supposed to play nice with the illustrious Foxes while we’re home, and we need to keep tabs on you.”

Neil looks surprised for a fraction of a second, but his expression settles quickly back into annoyance. “Hotels have phones.”

“The house is close to the studio,” Kevin points out. “I don’t give a fuck about what you do with your spare time, but we still have work to do.”

“And dinner. At Abby’s. The whole Palmetto family,” Nicky interjects.

“Is that—“ Neil wrestles with words for a second, coming up with dirty hands and not much else. “Normal?”

“Not really,” Nicky shrugs. “But this isn’t an average label. Wymack basically hand picked all of us. We’re kind of—“

“Don’t say misfits,” Aaron interrupts.

“Misfits,” Nicky finishes, with relish. “But he had the good sense to separate the pop from the rock and roll. We don’t exactly lead compatible lifestyles. I still think we should’ve gotten Renee, though.”

“We don't need two drummers,” Kevin says sourly.

“She plays violin too,” Andrew says. “We could have swapped out a guitar.”

“You’d sell out your own family?” Nicky says, faux hurt. Andrew gives him a blank look.

“We don’t have the right sound for violin,” Neil says. “We’d eat her alive.”

Nicky’s gotten ahold of the cat now, a smudgy grey thing, and it’s grappling up his shoulder with its claws. Andrew watches the way Nicky lets it slice him to pieces just for the feeling of something in his arms. “Yeah right,” he says. “You haven't met her.”

______

He meets her—and everyone else—a week later. Andrew starts drinking at noon just to prepare himself for the spectacle of it, the way Abby’s house will inevitably suck Neil in just like the stage did.

They’re all dishevelled when they stagger up the path to her front door, and the blinds are pulled but Andrew can see the yellow living room light and hear the roll of laughter from inside. His stomach sinks.

Neil picks his way across the grass behind him, hands shoved deep into his pockets. His shoulders are up by his ears and his feet drag. Nicky passes a flask down the line and they each take a generous swig. Kevin raps at the door, and it swings inward almost immediately.

It’s Wymack, an over-full tumbler in his hand and sweat peppering his hairline. Andrew’s willing to bet that he was watching for them, on the outskirts of socializing, trying to keep an equilibrium between his Foxes and his Monsters.

“About time,” Wymack says. His gaze finds the flask that ended up with Neil at the back of the line. He rolls his eyes. “You all planning on being civil tonight?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Andrew asks, pushing past both Wymack and Kevin to get to the warmth of the foyer.

“Shoes off,” Abby calls from somewhere in the bustle spilling out of the kitchen.

“The liquor cabinet’s locked,” Wymack leans over to tell him surreptitiously.

“Like that’s ever stopped him,” Aaron scoffs.

“It better,��� he warns. He looks at Neil again. “How you doin’, kid?” Neil nods noncommittally. “They pushing you around?”

“Trying,” Nicky says, smiling. “He won’t budge.”

“Good.” He reaches out as if to cuff his shoulder but Neil flinches away.

Andrew feels something in his chest, a sliver of rib or a ventricle wriggle away and dissolve. He pulls Neil away without thinking, just a brisk tug and a release. Wymack’s already looking away, but Nicky’s watching Andrew, mouth quirked.

“Hey,” someone calls. Matt, it turns out, tall and irritatingly affable as always, hair slicked almost vertical. He nods at the group, but beams and holds his hand out to Neil, who separates from Andrew to shake it. “Matt Boyd, guitarist for Foxes. You’re Neil, right?”

“Yeah,” Neil says. “Vocalist.”

“Man, finally,” Matt says. “I really thought they’d never find a guy. But anyone who’s survived the monsters this long has already impressed me.”

Neil shrugs keeping his eyes carefully forward. “They’re interesting.”

“Oof,” Matt says. “That’s one way to put it. No offence Nicky.”

Nicky shrugs. “Nah, I know what we are.”

“You gotta meet the girls,” Matt says, guiding Neil towards the kitchen. “Dan keeps trying to mother you and she hasn’t even met you.”

Neil looks uncomfortable, glancing back towards the band, but they’re all scattering, preoccupied with food and dishes, or talking shop with a reluctant Wymack, in Kevin’s case. Andrew moves silently with Neil, fingers numb from the booze.

The kitchen is loud, buzzing with fluorescents and conversation. Dan’s sitting on the counter, and it’s almost funny, the way her mouth hitches wickedly when she spots Neil, then deflates when she sees Andrew. Matt slips an arm around her waist, and she seems to find an emotional middle ground.

“Neil Josten,” Dan greets. “We’ve been talking about you all month.”

“Is that supposed to flatter me?”

“Your choice,” she says, grinning. “I didn’t tell you what we were saying.”

“Hello Neil. Hi Andrew,” Renee says sweetly, waving.

“Renee,” he says. It’s a relief to see her. Her face is even as snow.

“By the way, I’m Dan. Wilds. I dunno if you’ve heard our stuff? I never wanna assume.”

Neil nods. “A little. You’re the lead singer?”

“Also on keys, on a good day. This is Renee Walker—she fuckin’ ruins on drums. Allison Reynolds, our badass bassist. And you met our guitarist,” she says, leaning up to press her smile into Matt’s jaw.

“‘From the Top’ is a good track,” Neil compliments stiffly. Andrew can tell from his awkward, twisting hands that it’s the only title he remembers.

They all cluck and groan, and Renee laughs, “it’s always that song. Really not our best.”

“It blows,” Dan agrees. “They play it at last call when they want to clear the place out.”

“Oh, they’re self aware,” Andrew says, quietly enough that only Neil seems to hear. His mouth twists a little meanly.

“So you sing,” Allison interjects, stepping close enough to toy with Neil’s collar, but he seems unfazed.

“Apparently.”

“In the middle of all that noise?” she asks, looking meaningfully at Andrew.

“I manage,” Neil says wryly.

“She’s just used to being the most grating thing in a room,” Andrew drawls.

Allison looks at him sharply. “So are you sober or what, monster? We going to have to lock up the knives?”

“Only if you’re stupid enough to think that I’m not carrying any.”

“Not stupid,” Dan says tiredly, “hopeful.”

“Naive,” he corrects. He’s feeling a little separate from his body. If Neil weren’t so caught up in this orbit, he’s pretty sure he could rope him into hotboxing the bathroom.

“Seriously Neil, are you juggling all of this okay?” Matt says, forehead creased like some sort of caricature of concern. Andrew was right, of course. They’ve only just met Neil and already they’re preoccupied, worried, slicing off parts of their lives to offer him. “It’s a hell of a thing to jump into all at once.”

“I’m fine,” Neil says. “I’ve jumped into much worse.”

Matt scoffs. “I guess that’s fair enough. Let us know if you need a little stability, okay?”

“I can handle myself,” Neil says, eyes flinty, and Andrew almost believes him. He keeps insisting that he’s on top of things, even when that mask of his is oozing blood and history. “But to be perfectly clear, I wanted to be a part of Ausreißer the second I heard them play, and that hasn’t changed. At all.”

Andrew chews and swallows this. His heart lifts, involuntary, and he has to go through the whole production of catching and strangling it like a bird.

“He’s one of them,” Allison says dramatically. “It’s too late.”

Dan rolls her eyes, but smiles at Neil. “That’s great, Neil. They’re a hell of a band, I won’t fight you on that.”

“For real,” Matt agrees. “If Kevin wasn’t such a raging asshole I would pretty much pay to jam with him. Don’t tell him I said that.”

“Doubt he would hear me from inside his own ass,” Neil says.

Matt’s smile brightens. “Love that attitude. Can we borrow him?”

“Good luck keeping hold of him,” Nicky says from behind them. “He’s slippery. Right babe?” He squeezes Neil’s cheeks and gets his hand slapped away.

“But you like ‘em slippery, right Nick?” Allison says.

“Guilty. And I’m not the only one,” he says, and Andrew sends Nicky a warning look just as he glances meaningfully in his direction. Renee looks between them curiously.

“Well,” Matt says. “I’m fucking hungry. Anyone else feel like they haven’t had a home-cooked meal in a hundred years?”

“God, yes,” Dan says. “All they ever give me to eat are salads with half a teaspoon of oil or lemon juice or whatever.”

“Vinaigrette,” Allison corrects.

“Vinai-shit. I need something so greasy that it makes me sweat.”

“Matt’s right there,” Allison says, and Matt flicks her in the neck.

They bicker amongst themselves until Abby ducks her head in to tell them it’s time to eat. “Go ahead and serve yourselves, okay? And there’s, uh, cider in the fridge. No hard stuff until you’ve all eaten.”

“Thanks mom,” Dan jokes.

“Oh, please, I might as well be,” she replies, waving her off.

“Does that make Wymack our dad?” Matt asks slyly, obviously fishing. Abby gives him an unimpressed look and bobs back out of the room without answering.

“Come on monsters, new and old. Lets pretend we can stand each other sober,” Allison says, pushing off the counter.

They filter out, and Andrew hears Nicky say, disbelieving, “you guys are sober?”

Neil lingers in the kitchen, so Andrew leans up against the doorframe and waits.

“You can go,” he says.

“Yes,” Andrew agrees.

Neil’s shoulders sag, and he covers his face with one hand. “I can’t remember the last time I—socialized.” It’s an unexpected piece of honesty, and Andrew purses his lips.

“It shows.”

Neil looks up, disbelieving. “What, do you think you’re the paragon of small talk?” He tilts his head, scrutinizing, and answers himself— “No. Too much like lying, right?”

“Ding ding ding,” Andrew says. “He misses nothing.”

“I can’t usually afford to.”

Andrew stares. Neil looks back, looking a little clammy, a little hyper-focused. “Or what? Something gives you one of those scars?”

“Did something give you scars?” Neil counters, nodding at his arms.

“Mm, no, still not a good enough trade.”

“Then I’m still waiting,” Neil says lowly, “for you to tell me what is.”

Andrew stares at a crack in the ceramic backsplash, feeling Neil’s gaze rove over his face. 

He suffers through it for an entire ten-count, then turns wordlessly into the dining room. Neil follows immediately, before Andrew can catch his breath.

The room is full, the usual healthy dose of tension curdling in the joy that people like Nicky and Renee and Abby can’t seem to help spilling everywhere. Andrew sits at the head of the table, and Kevin settles at his right hand. He nudges out the seat to his left with his foot, and Neil sits in it wordlessly.

Renee bows her head in prayer. Nicky reaches for a ladle full of potatoes and Andrew yanks his hand back until Renee smiles and waves them ahead.

“So Neil,” Abby starts.

“Don’t put him on the spot too badly,” Dan says, licking sauce off of her thumb and reaching for the iced tea. “We’ve done enough of that already.”

Abby raises her hands innocently. “I was just going to ask how long he’s been singing.”

Neil appears pristinely composed, accepting everything that’s passed to him. Every expression moves across his face like it’s designed to look like a certain emotion, one mask in a series. “As long as I can remember,” he says thinly. “When I had the chance.”

“Any professional training?” Her face is mild and pleasant, and it sets Andrew’s teeth on edge.

“He’s an amateur,” Kevin answers for him.

“More of a natural talent,” Nicky says warmly, winking at Neil.

“I see,” Abby says slowly. “How did you… I mean, how did the boys find you, exactly?”

“He was trying to steal from us,” Andrew says. Neil looks at him narrowly.

Matt guffaws. “What could they possibly have had that you wanted?”

Neil shrugs with one shoulder. “Whiskey.”

Matt laughs again. Wymack rolls his eyes. “They conveniently left that part out when they were pitching him to me.”

“Would it have made a difference?” Andrew asks.

“No,” Wymack replies easily. “But I would’ve double checked my locks.”

“I’ve never stolen unless it was absolutely necessary,” Neil says woodenly.

“Right, so with the whiskey you were what? Dehydrated?” Allison says.

“Ease off, Allison,” Dan warns.

“Broke. Homeless,” Neil replies, sipping water, pretending not to notice that he’s the stone causing all the ripples of stress in the room. “But it wasn’t really worth the guitar to the stomach, in the end.”

A wince shudders around the table, and Wymack squints in Andrew’s direction.

“Wasn’t it?” Andrew asks, thinking of the way Neil’s head had eased back when he pinned him to the ground, bright interest in his slitted eyes. “We gave you your stage. You’re halfway to a household name by now.”

He says it because he knows, he can tell, what that visibility is doing to Neil. There’s always a second, before he loses himself onstage, that he scans the crowd for something, and his face is unrecognizable with fear.

Those eyes find him again. “So you want me to thank you for the smashed ribs? Should I be thanking Kevin for the bruised windpipe too?”

“Would you?” Andrew says, faux sweet.

“Jesus, Andrew,” Matt says.

“Thank you,” Neil tells him, eyes dark, almost hollow. “Really. It’s almost like being at home again.”

He stares. There are people in Baltimore who want me dead. That’s what Neil had told him about his home. He’d torn out of the van like it was filling up with water when he woke up in Annapolis.

The look on his face was unforgettable. His panic was like a corpse thrashing with electricity, like someone had tried to animate a dead thing.

He can remember staring at the little brass Spears written in cursive over the mailbox, facing the slate grey front door, never knowing whether he would open it to find a home or a nightmare. He’s since realized that they can be precisely the same thing at precisely the same time, tempting as a hearth until someone holds your hands in the fire.

“Andrew,” Renee says, coaxing his gaze away from Neil, away from the whole smouldering pile of memory and obsession. She’s smiling gently. “Do you want some gravy?”

He nods slowly. Neil’s focus is on his food now, and Dan’s talking earnestly to Wymack. Dinner trundles on.

They bring out dessert before all of the main course is cleared away, and he eats the maraschino cherries first, licking syrup off of his fingers, then dissecting graham crumbs and whipped cream from the filling. He stares down at the creased, recently frozen base, the middle breaking apart without a foundation, the off-white cream.

He splits the crust in half and reassembles the cake as a sandwich. Dan wrinkles her nose at the mess. Neil folds his cherry into his napkin distastefully. Andrew suddenly craves a cigarette more than sugar, and even more than that he needs a way to get his thoughts out.

He stands, and ignores the way everyone lets their conversations go to look up expectantly. He brushes past the table, through the living room, and out the front door. 

The screen clatters behind him, and he lights up immediately, flicking ash at the porch when it withers in the wind. He thinks of Neil guessing, without trying, that small talk is a lie Andrew refuses to take part in. He hates him so viciously that he can feel it showing on his face.

He digs in his back pocket for a notepad and stubby pencil, breathing sour, woody nicotine.

pipe dream, he writes. pipe dream, pipe dream. He rips the sheet out and tears it to soggy pieces with his teeth. Then he writes:

I can always taste

salt and copper when I’m dreaming

took a pipe to my head,

but you’re the one who’s bleeding

breaking crime scene tape

to open the front door

invisible monsters

no one fights anymore

lying like a mouth on fire

we’ll go up in smoke if we get any higher

Salt and copper cocktails

rim the glasses red

better off dying than already dead

drink yourself home, the sting might kill you

pare back your skin, make it grow back new

just because you set my bones, doesn’t mean you own them

it’s never flower bouquets, always fists full of stems

you’ll have to kill me

if you cut me from this ground.

He puts the notepad upside down on the top step and grinds his boot into its spine. Then he paces down the front path and crouches in the grass, and when he puts his cigarette out in the frost, the fresh, cold air makes his chest seize.

He looks down at the ‘no’ tattooed on his hand, and he lets the word blur into a mantra in his head.

“What’s this?”

He wheels around, and finds Nicky leaning over the top step with his squashed book in his hands.

“Put it down,” Andrew says, moving quickly back up the path, watching Nicky’s eyes dart over the page and feeling his legs go rod-straight with anxiety.

“Oh, Andrew—“

“Put it down,” he repeats, “or I put you in the hospital.”

Nicky’s grip sags, and he struggles to stand upright. “You can’t just—are you honestly going to pretend this isn’t about him?”

He doesn’t reply, but he swipes for the book hard enough that he raises a pale line on the back of Nicky’s hand. He throws it to the side, out towards his parked car, and takes Nicky to the front door with a forearm braced at his throat.

“Fuck, Andrew, you can’t be serious,” he struggles to say.

Andrew starts to shake, rage and fear rising in him at once, twin tides.

“You’re writing songs about him?”

“I wrote lyrics for our new vocalist,” Andrew snaps, “because you requested it.”

“Not for him. About him,” Nicky says, a veil of sadness over his whole face. Andrew shakes him. “But Andrew, I don’t think he’s—“

“I don’t care,” he grits.

Nicky looks uneasy. “I think you do.”

“I didn’t ask for an opinion.” He hammers the flat of his wrist into Nicky’s neck, somewhere between a shove and a blow, then lets him go all at once. He sags into the doorframe, apparently more stunned than hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Nicky wheezes, and Andrew knows he’s not talking about the unsolicited advice or invaded privacy.

Neil’s face appears at the hall window, reacting to the noise of a scuffle before anyone else. His expression is difficult to parse, poised like a pen and furrowed like paper.

Andrew climbs down from the porch, gets into his car, and drives away.