#so Andrew changes course and goes over to where Neil’s still sitting at the edge of the pool to take the phone

[emry-stars-art]

You may ask “Emry how do you imagine it goes down if Neil and Andrew are comfy enough to use the pool they miraculously have to themselves”

Shameless flirting and simply enjoying each others company ✨

[imperfectcourt]

Andreil Prompt:

Neil is an Assassin. Some day something goes very, very wrong. So the first time Andrew meets Neil, Neil has to explain to him that he accidentally poisened him and Andrew has to go to the hospital to get the antidote.

So I was really unsure about this but when I got going I got really excited about it! But I also COMPLETELY MISSED the line where it said "the first time" so this is very much not the first time they meet ;__; sorry! I hope you like it though!

Neil had never panicked on a job before. He’d never made a mistake or killed the wrong person or not killed the right person. He could kill whoever he was told to kill, he could kill however he was told to kill, and he could be whoever he was told to be in order to do it.

Killing Andrew Minyard was the worst and last mistake Neil would ever make.

Worming his way into A. Minyard’s life hadn’t been easy but it had been natural- the most honest work of his filthy, bloody life.

It had to be this way. It couldn’t look like a typical mob hit, anything abrupt and easy would look suspicious. The call had to come from inside the house, or so they say.

Neil tipped the vial into the remnants of the whiskey bottle and poured two modest glasses. It wouldn’t be pleasant for him but he’d built up enough of a tolerance to survive. Odorless, collarless, no paper trail. He’d suffer some hallucinations and maybe some minor liver damage but he’d live and after tonight he’d be free. No more Moriyama’s. No more contracts. No more death.

No more Andrew.

Neil brought one glass up to swirl, smell, sniff, and sip. A perfectly normal glass of whiskey. He brought out onto the small balcony and put them on the rickety table between two lawn chairs. Andrew picked his up and didn’t make the small cheers motion he always did as a silent thanks, didn’t drink. He’d been staring at his closed phone for the last half hour. Neil knew he would say what was wrong in time (if there was time).

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said after several long minutes, punctuating the statement with a sip. Guess there was time, after all. Neil sat sideways on his chair so he could watch Andrew light a cigarette.

“That sounds ominous. You’re not a murderer are you?”

Andrew’s top lip curled in a small, vicious smile. “That’s a truth for a different day.”

No, it wasn’t, and Neil found himself reaching for another mouthful of whiskey. Andrew raised a brow at this, having caught on a while ago that Neil liked to draw the drink out as long as possible if it meant he didn’t have to go home yet.

“It’s nothing to form a drinking habit over, calm down.” Andrew took up his drink again and every sip he took felt like friendly fire. “You’re going to see something on the news tomorrow and I’d rather tell you myself than get pissy with me for not bringing it up sooner.”

“Secrets secrets are no fun,” Neil parroted. Andrew kicked out his socked foot to hit Neil’s heel and didn’t pull it back.

“A story will be dropping about my brother’s involvement in a gang bust tonight. Just got word that everything went well but his services had been needed on sight.” With the hand that held the cigarette, he gave his cellphone a little shake.

“You have a brother?” That hadn’t been in the assignment, but family matters were often left out for jobs like this. He couldn’t go in knowing too much and risk exposing himself.

“My twin.”

“You have a twin?”

Andrew threw back the rest of his drink and waved it at Neil’s face. “The only reason I’m telling you is because you’re going to see him parading around on t.v. with my face. We’re not that close.”

A gang bust. Big enough for national news. That couldn’t- that would mean-

“What’s his name?”

“Aaron.”

“A. Minyard. Doctor Aaron Minyard.”

Andrew froze. Looked at Neil so expressionless he might as well have been stone. “I never said he was a doctor.”

He didn’t have to. Dr. A Minyard. Fox affiliated attached to a photograph. Andrew had his PhD and his connection to Kevin Day was easy enough to find if you knew where to look. The Foxes were an elusive bunch of vigilantes but everyone had heard of Kevin Day, son of the founders of the Foxes.

Neil had never made a mistake before and killing Andrew Minyard was the biggest mistake of his life. He knocked the glass from Andrew’s hand only because Andrew let him.

“Now, right now,” he changed, grabbing Andrew by the sleeve and tugging him back inside. It only worked because Andrew let him. Andrew was always letting Neil, trusting Neil. And for what? For this?

Neil let go when he was sure Andrew would follow him and rushed to the tiny kitchen. He took the water glass by the sink and upended the entire salt shaker into it.

“Drink this right now,” he ordered Andrew.

Andrew did not take it.

“Andrew, trust me just one last time. Just this one last time trust me and drink this. Just this once. Just this one last time.” There was time. There was barely time. It had been less than a minute, there had to be time.

Neil didn’t know what he would do if Andrew didn’t drink, if Neil killed him for nothing. No matter what the outcome, no matter Andrew's decision, Neil would die either way.

Andrew took the salt water, drank the whole thing, and promptly threw up in the sink.

Neil watched, hands in his hair and tears clouding his eyes as Andrew righted himself, wiping at his mouth with the back of his wrist.

“That’ll give you time to get to the hospital. You have to go now, you’ve got time.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Andrew put his hand slowly, calmly, over Neil’s throat, “until you explain.”

He pressed him into the wall.

Neil let him.

“You were supposed to be my last one and my contract would be fulfilled,” he said.

“Explain better than that. What does this have to do with Aaron?”

“There’s no time-”

“Then make it quick.” He pressed against Neil’s throat and Neil’s hands came up instinctively to grab his arm. He stopped before making contact.

“I was born into a debt that the Moriyama’s own. I was one of their hit men. A. Minyard. Fox associate. And a picture. That was my last assignment and I could finally… I could…”

Words were getting harder. He had begun ingesting the poison before Andrew and hadn’t gotten any of it out of his system.

“You’re the only one I never…”

“Never what? Never shot like a coward? Never succeeded in killing?”

“Never wanted to.” His hands came down onto Andrew’s forearm even though he didn’t have permission. His vision was swimming around the edges and he couldn’t tell if it was because of the drug or the pressure on his trachea. “I didn’t want to kill you. H-hospital. You still need the hospital. You have time.”

“Why should I believe a single thing you say?”

“I’ve never lied to you.” It was so important for him to say that somehow the words came out with conviction. “Never lied. Andrew, you’re amazing and I love you but you need to leave right now.”

His knees gave out and for the briefest moment all of his weight was being held by the hand on his throat. Andrew lowered them both to the ground.

“What did- You idiot.” Ah, yes. He must have caught on. “You did all this to live only to fucking kill yourself? Neil. Neil… Neil!”

Neil had never panicked on a job, but he’d also never woken up in a hospital bed before. He was aware of the spike in noise before he was aware of his surroundings.

“The worst assassin in history.”

Neil groaned but didn’t yet open his eyes. His memory was just solid enough to know what he’d taken and experience told him he wasn’t ready to face the spinning world.

“Can’t say he was wrong, technically,” the same voice said.

“What kind of assassin not only chooses the wrong target but falls in love with their dumb ass?”

“This dumb ass has the same level of education as your dumb ass.”

“My dumb ass has a doctorate of medicine, not in books.”

“Literature.”

“Still dumb.”

“Sssh,” Neil breathed out, testing the waters of control and strength. He had very little of either.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the dumbest of asses.”

“Give him another hour and he might even be able to respond.”

“Now who would want that.”

The second time Neil woke up in a hospital, it was enough for him to look around and realize this was not a hospital but rather a medically furnished bedroom.

“I hate you.”

He turned his head to see Andrew slouching back in an overstuffed, wingback chair. The look on his ever-passive face was angry and Neil would take angry over dead any day.

“You made it,” he slurred. His mouth felt like cotton. “You made it,” he said again because it was right and good. “You made it.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m fine. Got a tolerance”

“Is that something they teach you in the bright sunny world of the Nest?”

Neil made a finger gun at Andrew (why?) and slowly, slowly tilted himself onto his side to see him better. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew there were things he needed to worry about, but for now he just wanted to look.

“I’m happy you’re alive.”

“I don’t care.” And he sounded like he didn’t, but that was how he always sounded. Still Andrew. Still him. Still alive. For a long, quiet while they stared at each other.

“I have to go before the Moriyama’s come looking to do clean up. This won’t be tolerated.”

“No. It won’t be. But not by the Moriyama’s.”

Andrew stood in a motion that made him look much older than he was, tired. As he came to stand over the bed, Neil couldn’t help but stare because not killing Andrew Minyard was the only right thing he had ever done.

“The Foxes completed their take down of the Moriyama’s. It’s been all over the news, which you would have seen if you hadn’t poisoned yourself.”

The… the what? Something must have shown on Neil’s face because Andrew pressed him down into the bed a split second before he’d tried to sit up. As consciousness cleared his fog, his brain began catching up enough to understand that he wasn’t understanding. The synapses were there but they weren’t connecting.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered. Andrew’s mask twitched.

“Of course you don’t, you’ve been too deep cover to keep up with what was right under your nose. The Foxes won, there are no more Ravens, and you, Nathaniel, are a free man.”

The sound of that name, his name, sent a flinch so hard through his body that it made something cramp in his stomach. Andrew watched, bored, as he curled in on himself. If he knew that name, if his cover was blown so spectacularly, then there must be an ounce of truth to it.

“I’m just… Neil. I just want to be Neil.”

“Well, Neil.” Andrew slid his hand into Neil’s hair and squeezed, not hard but enough to tilt his head back. “If you ever do something that stupid again I will kill you myself.” Something in his eyes, however passive he tried to pull off, told Neil that Andrew was not referring to his own attempted murder.

“Were you… worried about me?” That couldn’t be right.

“I don’t know, Neil.” He kept saying his name like that and Neil didn’t know what to feel about it. “My whatever of a good stretch of time nearly killed himself. How should I be feeling?”

“I nearly killed you. I only poisoned myself a little.”

“Why?”

Why? The easy answer was forensics. Two glasses. Two drinkers. One lucky to survive the ordeal. But that wasn’t all of it. As Neil stared up up at Andrew, here at the other side of it all, he could admit to himself that he was glad for the punishment.

“Because… because I was going to kill you to save my own life and I had never hated myself for anything more than that.”

“I hate you,” Andrew spat.

“As long as you’re alive to hate me it’s fine.”

“Shut up.”

“Tell me more about the take down.”

“No.”

“Is your brother a Fox? Do I have to be killed for knowing that?”

“You have to be killed because you won’t shut your mouth.”

A good stretch of time. That’s how long Neil had been worming his way to be Andrew’s whatever. And in all that time he’d never felt safer. He lifted a shaky hand and waited. It took nearly a minute before Andrew released his hair and took the hand up in his own.

He didn’t apologize for trying to kill him. He didn’t apologize for coming into his life under false pretenses. If Andrew was there now, he trusted Neil enough to understand. They could talk about it later.

“Go back to sleep,” Andrew ordered quietly.

“So I’ll shut up?” Neil whispered back. His eyes were already drifting closed.

“Sure.”

[jemej3m]

To the Good Place We Go (p.2)

part two! (sorry about errors totally didn’t read over this)

credit goes to @gluupor​ for the idea! link to their the good place au here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16782301

warning: aftg typical violence

part one here: http://jemejem.tumblr.com/post/182518320202/to-the-good-place-we-go

“I don’t belong here.” His voice shook. He imagined his father was looking up from the Bad Place, grinning like the mad-man he was. Neil was delivering himself into hell, because it was the right thing to do. His morals had been warped and distorted on Earth. If he was going to spend eternity suffering, he might as well make himself feel better by doing it honourably.

Also, he wanted to prove Andrew wrong. But that was besides the point.

Three-hundred and twenty-one residents, an omnipotent ethereal being and a walking Wikipedia stared at him in shock.

“Well.” Wymack clapped his hands together. “Dismissed, everyone!” He crooked a finger at Neil, and he felt his heart clambering to get out of his chest as he shuffled forward. He tried not to flinch as Wymack’s fingers brushed over his shoulder, and in less than a blink, they were standing in his office. Wymack rounded the desk and grabbed a stress ball off the desk and propping his feet up on the oaken edge, throwing it up and catching it repeatedly.

“Well?” Wymack offered him the chair. Neil sat. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I didn’t try to get in or hack the system somehow.” Neil murmured. “I’m not a mole. It’s a complete mistake.”

“Ha. A human, hacking into the universe? Very interesting. Very impossible. You humans are so strange.” He caught the ball, took his feet off the desk and leaned forward. “Neil Josten, you’ve been chosen as a candidate for MPP. The Middle Place Project. Nicky!”

“Yes?” Nicky had blooped into existence next to him.

“Strike Neil Josten off the Test One list.” Wymack’s smile was small but warm.

“That was a test?” Neil said testily. Wymack held out his hands.

“Honesty is an integral part of being a good person. You, out of everyone, are the most practised liar. Eight years on the run, twenty-two identities—I’m surprised you aren’t having an identity crisis.”

“Same.” Neil muttered. In all honesty, he was glad to have died as Neil Josten. Neil Abram Josten. Out of everyone he’d been, Neil was his favourite.

“If you can come forward, in front of the entire neighbourhood nonetheless, then I’m sure the rest will follow.” He cleared his throat. “The Middle Place Project is proving that humans are capable of  change, whether it be improving, or failing. There’s a few in the midst of the neighbourhood that we’re watching to see whether or not you can improve from your characteristic behaviours on earth.”

“Will we get into the Good Place if you do?”

“Maybe in five-thousand years.” Wymack promised. “If I can manage to convince my superiors of  your genuine progress.”

“Right.” Neil drawled. “Five-thousand years. No biggie.”

He glared at Neil with intense scrutiny, but somehow, Neil was unafraid of this ethereal being. He was giving Neil a chance, wasn’t he?

“Well?” Wymack grouched. “What are you still doing here?”

“What am I supposed to—“

“Figure it out, Josten. Just don’t tell anyone it’s a test. Got it?”

He pursed his lips. “Cool. Yeah. Got it.”

Wymack watched him, unimpressed, as he shuffled towards the door. Neil shot Wymack a quick grimace as he slipped out.

He blew his bangs out of his face with relief. Andrew stood in the waiting room, arms crossed and eyes barely slits. “So?”

“I’m alive.” He twinkled his fingers. “See?”

“Actually,” Nicky piped up.

“Shut up, Nicky.” They both ground out.

“Test forty-seven!” Wymack clapped his hands. “We’re finally getting into the good stuff. Ethical responsibility!”

Neil threw a troubled glance at Andrew, who, of course, stared impassively back. Ethics?

“What’s sitting in a classroom gonna do about our ethics.” Seth grunted.

Neil had decided he disliked Seth intensely. It was something about the constant fits of anger, irrational judgements and toxic intolerance to everything that wasn’t Allison’s tits or Adderall.

“Well, actually,” Kevin chided. Wymack snapped his fingers, effectively muting Kevin. The young man tried to scream in horror, but slumped in his chair with defeat.

“We’re going to be learning about some of your moral philosophisers and interpret what they had to say about what’s right and wrong. How about some basic questions, hm? Just to gage where each of you at.”

This wasn’t going to go well.

It was fine, wasn’t it? They had, what, five-thousand years?

“These first few should be simple.” Wymack picked a clipboard off his desk. “Let’s see. Neil?”

He looked up at the towering, omnipotent being. “What?”

“Is murder good or bad?”

Neil shrugged. “Depends.”

Wymack looked a little dismayed. “Andrew?”

Andrew jerked his thumb at Neil. “What he said. For example, Seth is a perfect example of why murder isn’t always bad.”

Neil grinned at him, and liked the way a spark of amusement glinted in his eye. Seth was probably clambering out of his chair to haul himself at Andrew in a fit of rage, but Neil wasn’t watching. He simply appreciated the sunlit hair that shone like spun gold, and the perfect understanding shared between them.

Their benevolent guardian simply dragged a hand over his face as his classroom dissolved into chaos.

“Good morning, son.”

Neil opened his eyes slowly. He was sleeping in a double bed, his double bed, in his cottage. In the afterlife. He was in the Middle Place. His name was Neil Josten. He had died at the age of 19. He played striker. His soulmate was Andrew Minyard.

Sitting upright, he saw Andrew standing at the opposite end of his bed. There was a young man standing behind him with a vicious glean to his eye; He had his chin hooked over Andrew’s shoulder.

Andrew was gagged, hands cuffed behind him. His feet were bare: His skin shone with sweat as his muscles convulsed. There were bruises blossoming under his skin: He’d put up a serious fight. How was he bruising? Could you be hurt in the afterlife?

“I said, good morning.”

Slowly, Neil craned his neck around. All six-feet of his father were craned over the edge of his bed, one fist denting the mattress and the other wrapped around Neil’s neck. He was looking at a mirror image, the eyes and the hair and the sadistic smile. Thick fingers tightened around Neil’s windpipe.

“Young Drake Spear was promoted to help me. It’s time to collect our rewards for such excellent work down in the Bad Place.” His grin was that of a wolfs.

“Fitting.” Neil wheezed out. Honestly, he was terrified. The thought of eternity trapped with the unending methods of his father was enough to wish that there was a way for Neil to die and end up in a further layer of the afterlife.

His father only laughed. The last thing he remembered noticing was Andrew closing his eyes. For a moment, it looked as though an angel was praying.

Dan crouched down, back to the wall. In her hand was a magnetic clamp, ready for Bad Nicky. It’d render him useless, and they couldn’t let Nathan Wesninski, Drake Spear or Riko Moriyama have access to him. They were powerful enough as it was.

Kevin was bone-white beside her. It had to have been years since he saw Riko Moriyama. Neil and Andrew weren’t the only ones facing their old demons today.

The man who’d stabbed Dan in the back had been boiling in a pit of acid. The demon in charge of the tank flashed a grin at her. “Want to join him?”

Aaron’s mother had leapt out at him from a shuffling line of prisoners, grabbing for fists of his hair and screaming. She hadn’t been able to tell which twin it was, mixing up the names as she spasmed with hysteria. Aaron had clutched his arms to his stomach and hurried away.

With Dan and Aaron’s close calls, Renee knew it was every possibility that her old gang leader had heard the commotion the group had caused and would want to connect with the girl who ended his life in a knife fight. Renee was clutching her rosary, praying as every demon brushed by her.

God, was Dan exhausted. Matt, Aaron and Seth had all been lured with narcotics. Then Matt got into a fight with a security guard, and Seth backed him up. Then someone insulted Allison as she was trying to flirt her way through a checkpoint, and she’d clawed their eyes out with her nails, but gotten bust up at a result.

So yeah. Not a great time for any of them.

“This is it, kid.” Wymack warned. “We’ve got a window of thirty seconds to get them out of there.”

Dan nodded.

A young man left the room, meaning Bad Nicky was watching over Andrew and Neil. Dan rolled out from her hiding position and bolted at the black-clad man standing in front of her. She whacked the cuffs on, stunning the look of contempt right out of those big brown eyes. He stumbled, turning around to look at her.

“Oh my god,” Allison cackled. “Bad Nicky is a straight, fuck-boy version of Nicky?”

It was true. He was wearing a flat-cap, backwards, and a big grey hoodie underneath a leather jacket. His jeans were torn and he wore stupid, stereotypical boots. He had a tattoo of a girl with her tongue between her fingers on his neck, and a gold-capped tooth.

“Hell.” He slurred. “You got me. Ha-aahh.”

Nicky was staring at himself with horror. “Disgusting.”

“Andrew,” Kevin faltered. “Where’s Neil?”

Andrew was sitting up, both hands chained to the bedposts behind him. He was blindfolded, his clothes in tatters and bloodied. Aaron rushed forward, dragging Nicky with him. The chains were cut and Dan watched Aaron murmur something to Andrew as he tore his blindfold off.

“We have to go.” Andrew said, fierce. Dan had never seen him so angered. “I know where Neil is.”

Matt grabbed bad Nicky and hauled him over his shoulder. The group filed out, lead by Andrew, Aaron surprisingly right on his heels. Despite the obvious abuse, he was legging it down the hallway. With the chaos of the Bad Place, the rag-tag team and their badges had looked like nothing more that a bunch of demons. With a Bad Nicky incapacitated and over Matt’s shoulder, they were running out of time. Andrew somehow had perfectly memorised the route to Neil’s cell.

They were almost there, when Andrew staggered to a holt. The young man they’d seen leaving the room earlier was standing in front of them. Aaron acted too quickly, brandishing a knife and jumping the guy. The knife buried itself into the man’s chest. Dan gasped.

“I won’t let him touch you again.” Aaron promised his twin. “Go.”

Andrew said nothing, instead shoving his way through a metal door on the left just metres past.

The demons present whirled upon their entrance. Dan felt her blood boil as she saw Neil in a chair, head hung. He couldn’t even lift his head to see who’d appeared.

“Wesninski, these humans are mine.” Wymack growled. “Give them back. They’re official property of the Middle Place.”

“Oh, oops.” The man—who did look scarily similar to Neil—grinned at the younger boy. Riko Moriyama. “It’s almost as though demons have to follow rules. Incredible.”

Riko had no eyes for anyone but Kevin. Kevin, who stood with his chin up and broad shoulders as he stared the other boy down.

“I’ll oversee your retirement myself, you rotten sack of sadistic fuckery.” Wymack snarled, stepping forward with Nicky at one side and Andrew at the other. “Back down. Now.”

“Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.” Riko clucked his tongue. “It’s so nice to see you. Such a shame that we’re opposed like this, brother.”

“I’m nothing like you.” Kevin rasped. “I’m going to go to the Good Place.”

“Why bother?” Riko leered. “When you can have so much more power, down here? They recruit the worst, you know. I was just human too. Now look at me.” He lifted his hand, and Neil spasmed, head flung back and mouth open in an aborted scream.

That was the precise moment that everything went to shit — as if everything hadn’t already gone to shit. Wymack launched at Wesninski: Andrew was hurling towards Riko, and the rest were attempting to shut the door on the copious amounts of demonic spawn trying to get a better look.

Dan was desperately trying to get someone’s attention but the only one who listened to her was Renee. That was ultimately futile, because Allison was thrown aside and Renee, obviously lost her shit. Even the faithful had their breaking points.

Kevin was desperately clawing for Neil to break him free: Andrew was brawling with Riko with a desperation that had Riko shaken, Wesninski was waving a knife in Wymack’s general direction, Matt was thrown over a demon’s shoulder and causing a ruckus, Seth was yelling and Allison was wiping furious tears off her face, snatching a knife off Renee.

Wesninski threw the knife. Riko threw himself at Neil. The door was thrown open.

“ENOUGH.” Nicky screamed, standing in the middle of the room.

Everyone froze.

“I’ve been through a lot, today!” Nicky’s voice was so shrill that Dan would have winced if she weren’t completely stiff. “I’ve hauled almost a dozen of you shits through portals, this way and that way. I’ve been running faster than I’ve ever had to run in my life, because I don’t run, I teleport! My husband’s disappeared because he wasn’t compatible with the Bad Place, I’m not meant to be this emotionally distraught because I’m just a machine, and now this?” He gasped. “I. Am. Flabbergasted. It’s my favourite human word, and that’s what I am right now. Not only have you—“ He pointed to Wesninski. “Defied basic laws by having a child with a human, you’ve been recruiting humans! Gracious, do you know the worst part of this entire shit-fuckery?” His voice raised into a scream once more. “I have to live out the rest of my eternal existence knowing that Bad Nicky is a straight fuck-boy!”

“That’s the worst part?” Neil said, weakly, his voice raw with screaming. “Well, gee, Nicky. I missed you too.”

“So,” Nicky continued. “I’m going to unfreeze my friends. Friends. F-R-I-E-N-D-S. And we’re going to leave. And am going to report your demonic asses to the new Lord Ichirou of the underworld, and I hope you live in agony for eternity. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” He snapped his fingers and Dan almost collapsed, if it weren’t for Matt holding her up. “We’re leaving.”

Andrew hauled Neil to his feet, clutching the taller boy to his side in a fit of possessiveness.

Dan stood by the door as she counted her crew out of Neil’s cell, watching Nicky carve an angry path through the mob of frozen demons. She glanced over her shoulder to see Kevin glaring at Riko.

“Kevin,” Dan started.

The man slapped Riko so hard that Riko’s head shifted, even with Nicky’s freeze power. Or whatever the fuck that was.

“You deserve so much worse than hell.” He said, calmly, before marching out the door. Dan followed him, squeezed his shoulder. His look was not as confident as he’d been momentarily ago, but he offered her a shaky smile.

“Let’s go home.” Wymack said, tiredly slinging an arm around Nicky’s shoulders.

They all smiled faintly, and with a nod, they were on their way home.

“How’d you do in the Trolley exam?”

Andrew glared at the sun. It was still peering over the horizon, the endless rolling hills, trying in vain to grasp a few more minutes of illumination. It turned the sky into a brilliant palette of purples and blues.

He wanted to shove Neil off the roof of this stupid house, but he probably wouldn’t even break a bone. He had been sleeping in Neil’s grossly cramped cottage for a few months, where there was only one room and Andrew had been donated the couch. They’d razed Andrew’s old house to the ground a few weeks back. That had been great fun.

The reason he wanted to shove Neil off was murky, but he knew part of it was because Neil provided him a tether: To stay in the Middle Place, to try and achieve Good Place status with everyone else, to stop himself from marching down and delivering himself into greedy hands. It didn’t matter if Drake and Wesninski and Riko were gone. Hell would still suck.

He hated it.

But he also couldn’t cut the rope.

“I ran you over. It was very satisfying.”

They corner of Neil’s mouth quirked. Andrew hated that too. He hated Neil’s stupid red curls and brilliantly blue eyes. They were sparkling in the sunset, each freckle and scar glossed with a decadent shade of gold. “What was it between?”

“You and nothing. I think I’m a bit behind in class.”

Again, the quirk of the mouth.

Truthfully, the choice had been between Neil and Aaron. Because they were all already dead and this was just a theory, Andrew knew it didn’t matter. But still, he’d found himself torn. Usually apathetic and uninterested, he was placed in the simulation and felt a strange thrumming in his. ear. His heartbeat. Quickening.

Aaron was his brother. He had promised Aaron protection. Aaron had gotten them both killed. Aaron ignored his conditions and went out with Katelyn, and lied about it. Aaron was his brother. Andrew died protecting Aaron from their mother. Aaron had stabbed Drake for him. Aaron was his brother.

But Neil was his other. Neil listened. Neil smiled. Neil was honest with Andrew. Neil was relaxed with Andrew. Neil looked at Andrew in a way that made Andrew felt as though he was coming undone, unravelling at the seams. Neil could see Andrew. Neil understood Andrew.

He’d only had a split second left to decide.

He’d chosen Neil over Aaron.

“Yes or no?”

Neil narrowed his eyes. “To what?”

“A kiss.”

The word sounded so delicate out of Andrew’s mouth. He felt delicate, exposed and raw to Neil’s understanding gaze. All this studying of ethics and morality and those stupid philosophers was getting to Andrew’s head. The question yes or no was balanced on a scale, the decision between forever and never ultimately resting on Neil’s final answer. Andrew fucking hoped it was a yes.

Death made one’s apathetic resolve melt like ice sometimes.

Gosh, he was a miserable forking sap. It was disgusting.

Neil smiled, so hesitant that it was almost unnoticeable. But Andrew saw it. Maybe Andrew understood Neil, too. “Yes.”

Fork the Good Place. Andrew was already there.

once again, credit goes to @gluupor /// link to their the good place au here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16782301

hope u enjoyed!

[winterblues]

the shape smoke takes

andreil + shotgunning + long-haired neil, nuff said.

“Do you want to try it again?” Neil asks.

Andrew tips Neil’s chin up, softly prying Neil's lips open with the hilts of his fingers and placing the cigarette in between them. “Breathe it in. Do it slow and make sure it reaches down into your lungs. You will feel it. Here,” Andrew brings Neil’s loosely curled palm up over the expanse of his own sternum and flattens it there with his hand. Neil detects the faint stir of Andrew's heartbeat. “Hold it for five seconds and kiss me.”

Neil does as he is instructed, his every thought pirouetting around the phrase kiss me kiss me kiss me.

Andrew said it out loud. That makes it real.

read it on ao3 or under the cut

Neil’s eyes are glued to the man sitting at the table nearest to the bar; dressed as always (like he’s prepared for his own funeral.)

The heavy gleam of a stare, ambling spectrally, giving itself away in its attempts to be inconspicuous. Neil’s fingers grow warm and leave lined imprints on the shot glass he’d been polishing. He has a feeling that his gaze is being carefully returned, somewhere past the foggy algorithm of dry-ice and the pool of flooding customers, all drunkenly swishing and swaying against one another like plastic bags caught in a squall. Their movements erratic and possessed, as if the bass dropped a demon in them. He catches a quick glimpse of a pale blond head thrown backwards, and the empty glass sure to follow suit. Neil’s stomach erupts with warmth at the sight; as if touched; by something as trivial as a blink.

Neil knows how dangerous it is. If his mother were here, she would strike him in between the shoulder blades, and tell him to snap out of it. His father’s bloodhounds will kill him if they sniff him out. Whether he plays by the rules or not, someday, his past is bound to return in the form of a haunting. The dead always catch up. He may be escaping the clutches of said death, having changed his name and being forced to lie low; working in the flashy wilderness of Eden’s Twilight to keep himself from raising any suspicion and assuming a whole new identity—but, it still feels like being strangulated.

He was offered a new life, the least he should be able to do with it is live a little.

Neil’s spent the past year under the Witness Protection Program, living with a tight leash around his neck in return for that protection. It’s a borrowed freedom, and Neil isn’t sure how long it’s going to last. The sharp, familiar gaze reaches him; burns a hole straight through him. He feels the leash loosening in silent revolt and a relief in his chest like a retreating snake.

He's still interested in me.

Neil looks up, just as Roland snaps heavily-ringed fingers in his face. “Hey, Romeo. Stop ogling and start attending. I know he’s cute, but will he still be cute after you’re fired for boning a customer?” Roland’s tone is lighthearted as he animatedly twirls a glass of vodka behind his back and expertly tosses it at him. Neil catches it on instinct, before pouring a drink for an eager woman with the foreboding depths of her cleavage propped up against the counter.

Neil offers her a dull, plastic smile as she carelessly waves her credit card in his face. He plucks it smoothly from her fingers before punching the price into the machine and handing it back to her.

Neil finds himself fascinated by this night-time species, this throng of people with dazzling grins, an insatiable thirst for alcohol and fairly inexhaustive wallets. This secret world that exists like a sweet distraction from the frantic city that lies above it. The job is easy enough. He’s worked up a colorful resume over the years, and though the training period was trying, six months in and Neil’s able to tie a cherry stem with his tongue while flinging a bottle up into the air with one hand, and pouring champagne with the other.  

Thrust into eye-contact, flighty feet, glass-shard violence and wrists tilted in precision—the bar becomes a stadium in its own right. Neil has gotten so used to people divulging their life stories to him under the influence; without asking for anything in return, that he almost forgets that the truth often comes at a price.

That is, until Andrew.

“Hey,” Roland murmurs. “Tuck that shirt in, we aren’t barbarians. Bar- barians. Get it?”

Neil slides him a bone-dry look. “No.”

There are two facets of the job Neil could live without: Roland and his shitty puns, and bar dress code. The uniform is far too flamboyant for his tastes. Neil can’t help but feel like he stands out, despite his repeated efforts to dilute himself as much as he can. Every staff member is required to, at the bare minimum, wear eyeliner and body glitter. Something about fitting the customer aesthetic and subliminal sales techniques; as if people actually give a damn whether Neil glitters or not before buying a drink. It doesn’t quite help that Neil is stuck in a pair of unforgivingly tight pants. The bartender’s vest he wears on top of a standard black shirt is heavy over the shoulders and clings to his torso like hide skin, the grating magenta making him feel like some kind of a glorified eggplant. Roland of course, often works shirtless, wearing nothing but an unnecessary and painfully bright tie around his neck. The eyeliner is doable, but the glitter splashing his eyelids and cheeks is rather itchy and unfavorable.

Luckily, Neil usually sweats it all off by the end of a routine shift. Unluckily, it gets extremely hot as the crowds drool in, and Neil hasn’t had a haircut in weeks. They’ve taken on a life of their own at this point and grown out just past his chin. He keeps the hair that will cooperate tied back in a bun, but it still manages to fall apart from friction. Neil would have chopped it shorter if it weren’t for the fact that Andrew seems to like getting his fingers tangled up in it. Now that his protection has been more or less secured, Neil has taught himself to let go of the clutch of contact lenses and hair dye. He’s still reminded of his father everytime he looks into a mirror and cold blue eyes stare back, but he’s still learning. He can’t live his entire life hiding. It’s not worth half the effort that goes into it. There’s also the fact that anyone with a keen enough eye would be able to recognize his frail disguises with no trouble. If he has no choice but to hide, maybe he should do it in plain sight.

It isn’t until the cocktail crowd clears up a little that Neil’s eyes gravitate to him again. This time, Roland’s gaze follows. “Can we share him? He could be my type. He’s a little short, but look at that body, and he’s got that whole dead-inside, estranged bad boy vibe going on. A mysterious hunk with definite chances of a damaged past. They’re usually really hot in bed. Kinky, too. That is, once you endure the tragic backstory, but it's worth it. Trust me. ” Neil can practically see the thirst building in Roland's eyes and alarms sound off in his head. “When he returns for a refill, I’ll be the one to serve him.” Neil isn’t sure if his voice sounds unnaturally gruff, or if he’s just imagining things. By his side, Roland pouts. “You never let me have any fun.”

“Sink your dirty claws in someone else,” Neil snaps, without sparing his coworker the attention he so craves.

“Uh oh,” Neil hears the grin in Roland’s voice before he realizes the insinuation it carries. “Threat Level Midnight.” Neil ignores him in favor of frothing at the mouth as Andrew begins to amble over, but now Neil’s caught up in the way the strobe lights limn the sharp length of his jawline, like the edge of a blade. In a millisecond, Neil’s caution furls into a disbelieving and growing fascination. Maybe it’s because he’s spent so much of his life in the shadows—but he’d convinced himself long ago, that he's incapable of conceptualizing notions of butterflies & pounding heartbeats & urges beyond that of the animal.  

Andrew parks himself right in front of Neil and swirls a vague finger at his empty tray. “Hi,” Neil’s voice trembles like a short circuiting wire, his hands reaching for the faucet. As he watches the gold liquid sloshing around in it, he puts every remaining ounce of effort in trying not to think about the places where Andrew’s lips met the rim of the glass.

Andrew slants an intent look his way. “When do you get off?”

Their eyes meet, and Neil’s anxiety ebbs away, transforms to a solid state of certainty. “That’s up to you.”

Roland’s lips curl up into a suggestive smirk. “Get out of here, you two. I’m practically suffocating in the fumes of your oh-so-sexual tension.” Andrew does not acknowledge the comment, but Neil turns his head. “My shift is still—”

“I’ll cover for you tonight, but you owe me one, Foxy.” Roland had taken to calling Neil that, solely because he turned up to work in a graphic t-shirt with a cartoon fox on it one time—and that had only been because Stanley had picked it for him. It isn’t long before Neil finds himself on Andrew’s solemn heel as they head down a dimly lit hallway. The smoking zone allows for just a little more room than an airport bathroom stall. It’s a small, airy balcony that Neil often takes the liberty to close off to the general public. This is not the first time Andrew and Neil have ended up here together, and it won’t be the last, but tonight feels different.

Tonight feels like a confession.

Andrew clambers onto the edge and settles down with his knees drawn up to his chest, and his back against the cold wall. Neil joins him, a leg dangling loosely on either side. There’s rain trapped in the air, and the clouds hang like blemishes yet to burst, a humid breeze that preys on skin. The steady trickle of dull music springs up from the ground beneath their feet, all too easy to compare to a heartbeat. Neil finds himself inexplicably drawn to Andrew, pulse thrumming like rippling water.

Andrew produces a pair of slightly bent cigarettes out of his back pocket and hands one to Neil. At his appraisal, Andrew leans in and bunches a fist in Neil’s collar. “Your shirt reeked of nicotine last week,” he explains, and lets go; even though Neil doesn’t want him to let go.

Andrew lights them, and Neil accepts his without a thought. The pure orange flame glows in the night like a rescue flare. Andrew’s cigarette slips effortlessly in the hollow between his lithe fingers, as he places it, like the barrel of a gun, to his mouth. Something craved and immediately lost in the thoughtless routine of the movement.

(They are caught up in this dance, in this game, in this ritual. Neil spoke his first truth in years, out loud in some back alley under a bleary moon, staring softly into a disenchanted pair of honeyed eyes, his words a relief and an invitation; spilled into Andrew’s open mouth; his chest soaring with quiet sounds of touch and need and want—all words that bloomed like roses along the thorny stems of resolute promises. Neil has never been interested in another person before, not like this. Even as his toes itch with the whim to run, his ribs burn for more, more, more. This is something he wants to hold onto. Does that make him selfish? Does that make him greedy? Does he care?)

“You’re staring,” Andrew says, watching the distant highway lights, the predictable performance of miniature cars snaking past narrow roads in a gentle, vein-like flow. Low sounds of traffic popping and fizzing far away from where they are. “Did you notice me watching you?” Neil knows the answer, but maybe he can trick himself into taking a confirmation as a promise. “I could barely focus on my job, you know. It’s starting to become a real problem.”

“Your problem,” Andrew corrects, and Neil smiles, cigarette flickering in a suicidal haze between his fingertips. “What’s one more problem to add to my multiplying list?”

Andrew falls quiet, and Neil chews on his bottom lip nervously. That’s a new feeling. He's spent a laughably large portion of his life in acute danger, and now he’s on a nightclub rooftop, growing nervous over something like this. Growing nervous over someone . Curious, too. Neil's mother used to say that learning about people will do him no good. Do you bother to learn the name of every road you tread on, to get you where you need to go? Of course not.

He doesn’t care. He’s hungry to know—every conceivable thing, hungrier more, for what’s invisible. The reason for the black cloth that veils Andrew’s forearms, the reason for the technicolor bruises he wears around his knuckles, the reason why he understands Neil, on a seemingly molecular level— without a morsel of question or concern.

“When did you start smoking?” Neil inquires, to which Andrew only blandly says, “You do not get an answer out of turn.” Neil frowns. “How about a bonus round?” When Andrew says nothing, Neil sighs and meets the other man’s eyes. “I do actually want to tell you something, and you can have this for free.” Andrew nods, before tilting his chin and taking a lengthy drag.

"Andrew-"

Neil hesitates, throat closing up at the sight of the muscles working in unison under Andrew’s neck and making a blue vein strain in result. Andrew exhales with the same efficiency, plumes of smoke exiting his lips like fluid ghosts, leaving him in search of the light.

“This… whatever it is we’re doing. It means a lot to me. I’m not used to having desires, or being attracted to other people. I didn’t even think I was capable of anything like it. You make me want to be something other than nothing. You… You don’t have to answer. I just wanted you to know that.”

Cool fingers close around his neck. Neil’s body is slack with notions he’s grown weary of trying to comprehend, notions bigger than the both of them, bright and wide as rivers. Neil’s attention flickers to the rapidly dying cigarette—and why does it feel like it’s burning him down with it?

“Did I ask for a reason?” There’s a stray ringlet of blond hair interrupting Andrew’s eyes. The urge that dawns over Neil is heavy and explorable, but it’s only when Andrew does not back away, that Neil raises his thumb to gently brush it off, tucking it as far as it’s willing go, just above the slender curve of his upper ear. “You asked for the truth.” Neil says, hand falling into his lap in between them; lest his touch mistakenly linger.

“The truth has its limits,” Andrew’s face is close and not close enough. Neil wants him so close that he can longer tell their bodies apart.

“Mm,” he mutters, absently; skin hot from the humidity or maybe from the need to be touched—not just any need. The need to be touched by Andrew is different—but maybe it’s more than different, something too sacred for words. It's not a purely sexual feeling, it's a certain, overwhelming sense of safety (a notion as unfamiliar as the surface of Mars). Safe. Somehow... Andrew makes him feel safe.

“How do you know?”

“Because you seem to have none. Come here,” Andrew’s fingers against the nape of Neil’s neck are shaping; guiding, as he gently pulls Neil towards him and picks the half-exhausted cigarette from his hands, before flicking it away. “How wasteful,” Andrew says, tone tinged with the palest hint of disapproval, while his lips part in earnest. “I need the smell, but I don’t really hold a desire to smoke it.” Neil admits. Andrew shoots him a hard glare, and it feels, for a moment, as though there is nothing in between them—not even air or moonlight. Neil can’t look away from the face of the man he has been kissing in silent corners for six months. He can’t quite keep his lungs from pooling either, like light through a doorway.

“Yes or no?” Andrew asks.

Neil’s answer is an incontrovertible ‘yes’ gasped out like a dying man’s final wish.

There’s a sudden look behind Andrew’s glassy eyes, and maybe Neil is just seeing what he wants to see, or maybe not. Maybe there was a shock of increible feeling that momentarily eclipsed Andrew, before passing as swiftly as it had arrived. Then again, maybe it was just a smoke-induced hallucination.

Andrew draws closer and Neil stares at the way his cracked and peeling lips navigate around his cigarette, how his fingers tremble without volition. Andrew watches him back; closely. Neil is unsure of the steel expression betraying nothing; but the flicker of his eyelids suggest he is furiously muling something over, something clearly substantial. Andrew lets out a preparatory breath, before taking one of Neil’s hands with his free one and placing it over his shirt, just beneath his ribs. The world shivers and Neil’s pulse rings out like a snare-beat. This is the first time Andrew has ever allowed him to touch him like that. To touch him somewhere below the neck. Neil finds himself suddenly overwhelmed with more gratitude than he can convey in the involuntary twitch of his fingers against the worn fabric of Andrew’s shirt. Andrew makes it a point to keep a firm hand wrapped around Neil’s wrist; now pressed into his diaphragm, before he inhales, deeply. Their gazes are rapt on one another. Beneath the scar-ridden skin of Neil’s fingers, Neil can feel the conscious rise of Andrew’s chest, the strong muscles expanding beneath his stomach, the lick of heat as Andrew's lips slide open to meet his own and he pours his breath into Neil’s mouth. Momentarily suffocating; dreamy. Libation-spill.

Neil’s eyes fall closed.

The back of his throat scalds and he has to repress the urge to break into a coughing fit, but then the discomfort passes, to be replaced with an indelible need. Even the smoke escaping between them seems to linger reluctantly against their mouths, and then everything within Neil returns to the eager slide of Andrew’s tongue. A gasp of pleasant surprise and a soft scratch of teeth and delicate devouring. Neil’s hair coming undone, his grip on Andrew’s shirt growing more faithful, their breaths rattling out heavy and indulgent.

Neil’s mind mimics a blank slate, Andrew’s breaths run through him. His free hand slips into Andrew curls. He does not tug or disrupt, just holds on for some sense of an anchor and Andrew’s palm latches harder onto Neil’s neck, a finger twisting a loose strand of hair. Just as Andrew begins to draw away so that they can catch their breaths, Neil tugs at his lower lip and pulls him in once again. The smoke is long lost to the whims of air. Neil can feel the way Andrew’s stomach contracts with the sudden gesture, how his body falls slack as if aching to be reshaped, the pronounced jut of his neck. This time, Andrew rips himself away and takes Neil’s lower lip between his fingers, pinching them together in feigned annoyance. They’re tangled together like a pair of wrinkled clothes on a washing line. Neil’s heart pounds dizzyingly. Andrew’s eyes slant lazily and take on a starry glaze, a consequence of a kiss shared like smoke and digested.

Andrew’s cheeks are red and raw with stray constellations of sticky flecks.

“I'm sorry I got glitter all over you,” Neil hums, unapologetically.

Andrew blinks a sparkling speck out of his lashes. "Liar."

"I've never kissed someone like this before."

"I can tell."

There's a pleasant halo of warmth spreading around them now. Neil pushes his hair back from his face. "You're really good at that."

(A perfunctory pale stare.) “You claim to hate it yet you consume like a junkie.”

(More importantly,) Andrew hasn’t dropped Neil’s wrist yet.

“I think I could get used to smoke as long as it comes from your lungs.” Neil grins. Andrew shoots him an unempathetic look, but it holds no bite. He looks so young all of a sudden, with glitter dust highlighting his features and Neil's hand held to his lungs, standing as a counterweight to the fumes.

"102%."

"What does it signify?"

"The likely chances that I will hurl you off this ledge to your untimely death."

“Before you kill me..."

"Do you want to try it again?” Neil asks. Andrew tips Neil’s chin up, softly prying Neil's lips open with the hilts of his fingers and placing the cigarette in between them. “Breathe it in. Do it slow and make sure it reaches down into your lungs. You will feel it. Here,” Andrew brings Neil’s loosely curled palm up over the expanse of his own sternum and flattens it there with his hand. Neil detects the faint stir of Andrew's heartbeat. “Hold it for five seconds and kiss me.” Neil does as he is instructed, his every thought pirouetting around the phrase kiss me kiss me kiss me . Andrew said it out loud. That makes it real. That makes it a promise. Neil’s hand creeps up Andrew’s chest and locks around his neck. He leans in and Andrew’s mouth falls open invitingly, swallowing the smoke that seemingly travelled light years to reach him.

They’re still kissing long after the smoke has dissipated and their mouths are sore and Andrew’s cigarette has died out in his hands. An airplane grazes the night sky overhead, drowning out the consequences of body heat and the sound of hitched breaths and transparent bodies colliding; like a car crash in the dark.

When they finally break apart, Andrew has glitter sprawled over his nose and Neil’s body is an ocean.

“Fuck,” Neil breathes. “Andrew, you’re amazing.”

Andrew blinks at him, expression steady, chest still heaving from the aftermath. “Don’t say stupid things.”

“I mean it,” Neil insists. “Thank you for…” He fumbles over the words for a moment, unsure of how to put a feeling so massive into a weak network of words. So he reaches out for Andrew's shoulders instead. The delirious feeling of fingers digging into the soft skin of his inner forearms, and tracing back. “Shh,” Andrew moves smoothly, like the start of a flame, and then he has Neil pinned down, the weight of a knee digging into his chest, and an arm, coiled over his side as counterweight to the ledge. Voice tender. “Stay.”

“Will you?” Neil asks, breath thin and collapsable.

The longest silence in the universe.

“I am not going anywhere.” Andrew’s tone is perfectly dry, but it conceals open wounds. Wounds Neil wants to fill with kisses and shared cigarettes and a heady rush of safety. The sort of imagined, persistent safety found beneath blankets after midnight, at the bottom of cardboard boxes, along a line of streetlights.

Neil smiles—big and genuine. “Me neither.”

Neil wants to see Andrew. Again and again. Why? Because of the way roofs cave in to mounds of snow, because of how a hand can be transformed by the simple act of touching another hand, because of a dry spell in the tropics, because of alcohol warming a system, because of the blood spoiling almost every single one of his shirts; the smell of nicotine. And the way that the world feels calmer; less angry, less out to get him. The way their friction reinvents hope and blocks out both sun and shadow. Because he does not want to live like the dead when he's not dead yet. Because Andrew’s breath tastes like a promise. Because he wants to be selfish and brazen and in love with something he can’t understand (not yet). Because Neil is tired and everything hurts and he just wants to feel something good. Because Neil could choose to run, like he always does, but he doesn’t. Not tonight. 

Because living like that doesn’t mean a thing.

[badacts]

i’m sure this has been done. but. eh.

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Neil says.

Andrew looks away from the road to Neil, and then back again.

“They’re not,” Neil attempts.

The only reason Neil finally agreed to go to the dentist was because of the threat of being benched by the coaches. Not because the pain has been affecting his playing - of course it hasn’t - but because everyone on the team is sick of him holding and rotating his jaw all the time, obviously in pain but completely unwilling to admit it.

“You do as the doctors say now,” Andrew says, a reminder of an old agreement made back when Neil first went pro. Neil’s innate distrust in people wasn’t ever going to be a good enough reason for him to be stupid in regards to medical care when he was out of Abby’s hands. Andrew would like to think that now they’re on the same team he would have slightly more sway over Neil, but that’s never really been the case.

“He’s not a doctor.” The level of scorn in Neil’s voice is truly impressive. 

“Medical professional, then.” Andrew imagines the look on the dentist’s face as hearing Neil’s real opinion of him.

“Lots of people keep their wisdom teeth,” Neil says. “You still have yours.”

Andrew’s aren’t growing sideways out of his skull and threatening to crowd all his other teeth together. The term the dentist had used for Neil’s was ‘severely impacted’. He’d referred Neil to a maxillofacial surgeon and said that Neil would be lucky if they could be removed under sedation rather than a general anaesthetic. 

“I know,” Andrew says, rather than attempting a logical argument. There’s really no point.

“What?”

“I know, it’s hard to believe that my mouth really is bigger than yours,” Andrew says.

The threat of benching works well enough to get Neil to the surgeon, which is unsurprising to anyone who actually knows Neil. He’s calm and unafraid all day, except for the piercing look he gives Andrew in the moments before he’s ushered away.

“There’s a quiet waiting room just through here,” someone says, indicating a door. “You would be amazed how ill people have to be before they stop considering asking for an autograph.”

It’s been a while since anyone over the age of about sixteen asked Andrew for an autograph - the older ones got the idea eventually - but the offer of a quiet place to not be stared at isn’t anything to be sniffed at. Andrew goes through the door and takes a spot on a chair next to the window with a clear view of the door.

His fingers itch for a cigarette. He reaches for his phone instead.

Social media isn’t of much interest to him, so he spends a good half-hour reading news articles spiralling into scientific studies and then into the rabbit hole of wikipedia. He’s not sure quite how long it’s been when a knock at the door interrupts him from the page he’s reading on Indian mathematics.

Someone in scrubs puts her head through the door. “Mister Minyard? Neil is in recovery now. You can come sit with him.”

Andrew stands and follows her quick bustle of a walk, putting his phone in his pocket as he goes. The nurse is chatting as speedily as she walks. “Once he’s more awake and we know for sure he’s feeling himself he can be discharged. He’s a little quiet right now, but he asked for you before.”

She ushers him into a private room - another perk of being professional athletes - with a smile. 

Neil is lying on his back on the bed with his eyes closed, but he opens them when he hears Andrew sitting in the chair at his side. He looks a little like a chipmunk with the gauze stuffed in his cheeks, his jaw swollen enough that it’s grotesquely square rather than its usual fine-angled shape.

“Hey,” Andrew says.

He’s not necessarily expecting chattiness, but he is expecting an answer. Instead Neil just stares at him. His eyes are very large, as are his pupils.

“Hi,” he says eventually. He sounds exactly like he’s talking through a mouthful of cotton. The nurse comes in and fiddles with the blood pressure cuff on his arm, and Neil rolls his head around to watch her doing it.

“I’m just going to squash your arm again, okay?” she says, with the manner of someone talking to a child or an adult who is exceptionally out of their mind on drugs.

Neil doesn’t say anything for a moment, and then comes out with, “This is Andrew.”

The nurse flicks Andrew a look and a small smile. “We met, actually. He was waiting outside for you.”

“He’ll always wait for me,” Neil tells her, matter-of-fact. “He’s my partner.”

The nurse’s expression doesn’t change much, but it’s only through power of will, Andrew suspects. She looks like she would love to laugh. “That’s really nice of him.”

“Yeah,” Neil sighs warmly. He’s pathetic. 

“I would have recognised him anyway,” the nurse says, still looking amused. “I’m a Rebels fan.”

Neil, who is the biggest Rebels fan in the city, does something that might have been a half-smile if it weren’t for the current state of his face. Then it falls off. Mournfully, he says, “I can’t play this week.”

“No, but you’ll be back out there before you know it,” the nurse comforts. Her name tag says ‘Helen’ and has a yellow flower on it. “Are you playing, Andrew?”

“He’s the starting goalie,” Neil says before Andrew can say anything, almost making it to sounding affronted. Mostly he just sounds loopy. Andrew has never seen him have so many emotional shifts in thirty seconds before.

“I thought he might be stuck looking after you,” Helen replies. “I know what athletes are like.”

“I can look after myself.” That’s a very Neil answer, and also a complete lie. Andrew is banking on Neil being too miserable to want to come to the game in two days, because otherwise he’ll be on the bench in all his swollen-faced glory.

“I’m sure you can,” Helen says, and pats him on the shoulder condescendingly. Neil doesn’t notice at all. “I’ll come back in fifteen minutes and see how you’re doing.”

She bustles back out again, closing the door behind her gently. Neil sighs and rolls onto his side, muttering something indecipherable when the blood pressure cuff gets pulled tight under his body. It doesn’t sound pleased, and it’s definitely not in any language Andrew recognises.

Neil raises his unrestrained hand towards Andrew. It swerves a little in the air. “Can I?”

“Yes,” Andrew says. He’s expecting Neil to take his hand, but he doesn’t flinch when Neil reaches for his face instead. What he currently lacks in coordination he makes up for in gentleness, but Andrew closes his eyes anyway to lower the risk of losing one to a poorly-aimed finger.

“You look weird,” Neil mutters.

“You look weird,” Andrew tells him, mostly because it’s true, partly to see Neil wrinkle his nose at him.

“Do not,” Neil replies. He pats Andrew’s cheek, and then gets distracted by Andrew’s hair. That’s not unusual, to be fair, though the level of concentration he’s giving it is. “Hey.”

“Yes?”

“Hey.” More insistently this time, like he doesn’t already have Andrew’s full attention. He tugs Andrew’s hair. 

Never let it be said Andrew can’t take a hint. He lowers himself onto his elbows on the edge of the bed and puts his forehead to Neil’s. Even though they’re at odd angles, Neil sighs in satisfaction. His eyelashes flutter against Andrew’s temple, fingers stroking idly over the arch of Andrew’s ear.

“Good,” he mutters, seemingly to himself.

They stay like that, Andrew’s chin pillowed on the starchy sheets and his forehead likely leaving an imprint on Neil’s fairer skin. Neil dozes, hand going lax, and Andrew closes his eyes and thinks in circles for a little while about the Bakhshali Manuscript.

Another knock at the door makes him raise his head. Neil’s eyes flash open, and then he blinks like he’s reeling a little. His fingers have fallen to Andrew’s wrist, and they tighten for a split-second before dropping away.

“Hi again,” Helen says gently. “Let’s get a look at you, Neil.”

Andrew moves aside and lets her at him, ignoring the disgruntled sound this earns from the bed. Neil is distracted quickly by Helen extracting the arm with the cuff from under his body and taking his blood pressure again, before removing it and making him sit up. Then she leaves, and returns with clothes and a clipboard. The clothes she leaves for Neil to attempt to put on. The clipboard she gives to Andrew.

“Rather than it turning out as a discharge form as signed by Alexander Pushkin,” she explains with a shrug. It’s fine, Andrew is all over Neil’s paperwork these days. He flips through the notes and signs in the right places then hands the board back, and gets a sheet of discharge instructions in its place.

“I’ll leave you guys for a sec and sort things,” she says, and does just that. It leaves Andrew to subtly ensure that Neil puts all his clothes on the right body parts. He’s looking less high but still dazed, his eyes hooded but his face pulling tighter. In the fall down, he’s always uncomfortably aware of the abnormality of being out of control of himself. Years later that hasn’t changed. Andrew isn’t surprised.

“You’re good to go,” Helen tells Neil when she returns, and then says to Andrew, “Good luck!”

He would like to think, as he manoeuvres Neil out, that she means for the game on Friday. It’s not likely, though.

Neil falls asleep against the window on the drive home. Andrew prods him awake so he can walk himself into the elevator, where he sags against the wall, and then into the apartment. He shuffles into the bedroom, still making gentle smooching noises at Sir and King as he winds himself into the duvet. He’s out ten seconds later.

Andrew watches for a moment while King curls up beside him and Sir gently begins to groom his hair, and then retreats to the balcony for a cigarette.

Andrew has relocated inside to the couch by the time he hears stirring from the bedroom a few hours later. The Neil who emerges is rumpled but sleepy in a normal sense rather than because of lingering sedation.

He lowers himself gently onto the cushion beside Andrew, and then even more slowly lowers his head down onto Andrew’s thighs.

“Painkillers?” Andrew offers. The discharge notes included strict instructions on dosage and timing, but Neil’s been asleep long enough to be due another couple of pills.

“In a minute,” Neil mumbles, like he’s trying to move his jaw as little as possible. He pats Andrew on the shin. “Stay.”

In an hour Neil’s going to be pissed off and probably a little anxious, wanting to move but knowing he can’t, irritated by the pain. But for now, it’s pretty easy to read a book and play pillow while Neil rests.

[defractum]

andreil soulmate au

An @aftgexchange pinch-hit for @andrewjsten; I hope you enjoy!

Imagine an AU where you can’t lie to your soulmate. 

Everyone knows this.

Well, as in, it is physically possible; Neil can open his mouth and say something untrue to Andrew.

But soulmates are two people who share a soul. Two people who were meant to be one, but were torn asunder by the gods in their rage.

A soul will know the condition and the intention on its other half; for they are part of the same soul, in the end.

Which means that Andrew knows that Neil is his soulmate almost immediately

He flies out with Kevin to meet this rookie forward that Kevin’s raving about. He hasn’t bothered to watch the videos, he’s just going because they’re desperate for a new team member after the last recruit, and Kevin insists on going and Kevin won’t go alone

So he has the lowest of expectations when Neil comes rabbiting into the changing room and Andrew swings without thinking about it

His first thought is ‘what an idiot’ and his second is ‘hot tho’

And then Neil says something about not deserving to play on the same court as Kevin and Andrew can feel it in his bones, in his heart, in his soul that Neil is lying

Which makes his third thought about Neil ‘well fuck’

Andrew hasn’t given much thought to having a soulmate before. That sort of thing is for fairy tales and happy endings, it doesn’t happen to people like him

He lets Kevin do his speech, and Wymack do his speech. (No one expects a speech from him.) 

He herds Kevin outside into the car Wymack had rented at the airport, and tries very hard not to think about it because hell, Neil might not even join the Foxes anyway.

Except then he does. He arrives early too, just when Andrew was planning to have a summer of pissing Kevin off by refusing to go practice, and every other sentence out of his mouth is a lie.

Andrew watches the TV as Aaron and Nicky play some video game, barely registering what’s going on (though, if he tries to think about it, he’ll be able to remember) and has a very calm, very minor freak out. It mostly involves him being even more sharp and sarcastic than usual – even Nicky falters and stops talking to him

Of course it makes sense that his soulmate is a fucked up piece of shit. They complement each other perfectly.

Andrew breaks into Neil’s room when it’s empty and rifles through his stuff and when he finds the binder full of articles on Kevin and Riko, he numbly thinks oh, this is what truth feels like and it’s the same disappointing feeling he’s felt before when families told him he couldn’t stay for any longer, and Andrew thought he’d got over being disappointed by now

He gets a slightly perverse interest in making Neil lie more, making him dig himself deeper into his own grave, because every time Andrew hears I’m fine or Andrew’s body tells him that was a lie, he relishes the pain of it a little bit more

It’s a startling moment when Andrew lets himself acknowledge that pain is a feeling

They take Neil to Eden and Andrew wants to know what it’s like to hear truth out of Neil’s mouth, and he hates that he’s interested in what he has to say

He’s even actually surprised when Neil gets himself knocked out, to the point where he actually helps lug his stupid hot body in the slightly tight black t-shirt he picked out back to the car

After that, Andrew goes up to the roof almost every night. Kevin complains that he has to come up to fetch him for the night practices but Andrew ignores him for the swoop of nausea that sweeps through him every time he looks over the edge of the concrete, and tests every time whether it swallows the hope churning in his stomach, growing ever bigger despite his best efforts

Andrew knows that Neil doesn’t know. Neil, for all his wariness and suspicion, doesn’t hide feelings well enough for that and besides, Andrew doesn’t lie

He considers it, every so often when Neil is particularly pissing him off, just announcing something like actually I love Exy or this is the most exciting game I’ve watched or perhaps I want you to get the fuck out of my life just so Neil can see what it feels like to know the other part of your soul is lying to you

He buys Neil a phone when they go group shopping and picks out the same one as his own even though the store tries to upsell him something nicer and he puts himself in as first on speed dial. He silently makes a bet with himself on how long it would be before Neil actual considers calling him

They go to the Fall Banquet at Blackwell and Neil gets between Riko and Kevin and rips Riko a new one and Andrew is actually amused that there is nothing but truth coming out of his mouth

Also, boy looks good in a suit. Andrew has fucked up levels of serotonin, but he’s still in full possession of all his other hormones, okay

When he and Neil start their game, a question for an answer, Andrew expects it to last one question, maybe two before Neil hides behind his wall of falsehoods, but Neil gives him truth, and truth, and truth, and Andrew doesn’t know what to do with it

He doesn’t care about any of it

He wants to know everything

And then… and then even when they’re not playing the game, Neil stops lying to him. Andrew stops feeling the clench of muscles when Neil speaks.

And then sometimes they don’t do much speaking

Nicky laughingly comments on how Andrew always seems to know when Neil is coming up with some kind of bullshit, even if it’s I can’t stay, I’m got homework but after the first time Nicky mentions it, Aaron looks at Neil again more carefully, with a narrowed eye

And then Neil says thank you, for everything and Andrew knows that he means it, he means it so much

Andrew gets his hands around Kevin’s neck and no one, not a single fucking one of them, knows why Andrew is so pissed off at the moment. Andrew can tell when Neil Josten, a fabrication himself, is telling the truth but all he needs right now is to choke the truth out of Kevin

What’s the goddamn point of having an infallible lie detector if someone’s just going to lie by omission anyway?

Andrew knows that he’s angry most of all at himself, for not seeing this coming

Neil would tell him that it’s not his fault, he can’t control everyone around them, and Andrew would curl his fingers into fists, but that’s not the current concern.

Neil tried, the last time Andrew saw him, to tell him the truth, to lay it bare even if he couldn’t explain it and now he’s fucking disappeared and he never even knew about this stupid thing between them

He smokes until his lungs wheeze and struggle for air, and ruins one of his knives by stabbing it into hard surfaces. Every time he sees the mottled bruises on Kevin’s neck getting darker, he feels like doing it again

When he hears that they’ve found Neil, he’s back, he’s here, he barrels his way to the Foxes’ room – Wymack is doing much the same thing so it’s pretty easy when there’s a man built like a bear shouldering his way through doors for him

He wants to see Neil, all of him, and it outweighs the need for any words, until Neil says something first: “I’m sorry.”

Andrew pulls his arm back because fuck him, Andrew hates him so much right now, how fucking dare he

It’s almost suffocating, the other people around them. He knows, objectively, that they care about him, the sentimental fucks, but he’s waiting, biding his time until they’re gone

It’s not until it’s just Neil and Andrew sitting in the back of a car and Neil traces the outline of a key onto his hand and says, “Neil Abram Josten”

For the first time, it’s not a lie

He won’t do it now, not when the FBI are listening and watching them, but Andrew tells himself then: he’s going to lie to Neil

[philosophiums]

Angst is my favorite thing to read what is wrong with me but anyway what about Andrew almost relapsing and Neil or Betsy stopping him?

i think you were talking about drugs but that’s not at all where my mind went. i also know you said “nearly” relapsing but………. so yeah this is probably not at all what you wanted but there’s definitely a lot of angst here

tw for self-harm and blood

The dripping of Andrew’s blood into the sink is steadying in a way he doesn’t understand but isn’t ready to challenge. He counts off the dripping, one drop per second, and when he gets lost in the rhythm he drags another line across his arm. Too deep. He bites his tongue and hits the heel of his palm against the vanity. The slip in control is worse than the bite of the cut and the thick rivulets of blood that race each other down his arm. 

He shuffles the razor between his fingers as he surveys his arm. His life with Cass Spear is buried under his scars. He toys with the idea of digging around under his skin just to see if he can find that piece of himself and rip it from his body. It might be worth all of the blood and mess. 

Another cut, just as straight as the last five and the exact same length. The pain is not grounding, but it is steady and it is real and he’s in control of it. The drip of blood into the sink counts off half seconds now, but it’s still steady. Andrew curls his hand into a fist and the blood flows faster, relaxes his hand and it slows down. 

The knocks on the bathroom door are unexpected and loud to Andrew’s ears. He freezes. It’s the middle of the night; Neil isn’t supposed to be awake.

“Andrew?” Neil’s voice has the slow and heavy tone of one still half asleep. “Andrew, hurry up, I need to pee.”

“Go downstairs.” He knows his voice is too hard when Neil tests the doorknob, finds it locked. 

“Why can’t I come in?”

Andrew clenches his fist again, and the blood drips faster. The deeper cut pours blood. It’s a mourning, of sorts, but maybe he’s better for it. He unlocks the bathroom door, and Neil is over the threshold just as fast as Andrew can draw his hand back.

The changes in Neil’s expression are as rapid as his icy blue eyes taking in the scene. Scene. Andrew tastes the word and discards it. Scene implies a crime, implies a murder. This is just a bathroom.

There is something haunted living behind Neil’s eyes when he drags them up to Andrew’s. Andrew refuses to feel bad. Neil isn’t supposed to be here. The blood never should have been in his line of sight. Now it’s going to get on Neil’s hands, and where is the control in that? The blood is just a side effect, anyway. The pain is the priority.

“Are those because of me?” Neil asks, and oh, Andrew hates that self-destructive part of Neil almost as much as he hates how the question feels like a kick to his gut.

He’s not going to lie to Neil. They promised each other that they would never lie. “Not entirely.”

A shutter slams over Neil’s expression, and Andrew can feel the crash of it settle in his bones. He doesn’t feel guilty about cutting himself; it felt necessary in the moment, and it feels justified now. That doesn’t mean he feels good about the way Neil is already distancing himself from the situation, from Andrew. 

“But I have something to do with it?”

Andrew decides that not answering is less damaging than saying yes. 

Neil closes his eyes like a man burdened, and nods once, short and clipped over tense shoulders. When Neil opens them again, his eyes are on Andrew’s arm. “Can I….” Teeth sink into that full lower lip. It’s not often that Neil is found searching for words. “I can leave.”

“No,” Andrew says, and the word is a sigh. 

Andrew is more than a little familiar with the fortification process that he watches in Neil now. “Can I touch you?”

Giving up control after carving it from his skin seems counterproductive, but Andrew says yes anyway. He drops the razor onto the edge of the sink and runs his arm under the faucet while Neil digs around for the bandages that so frequently accessorize Neil’s skin. It’s odd in an unbalanced way that their roles are reversed now.

Neil is not a gentle nurse. He uses rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball to clean all six cuts, and the way he rubs perpendicular to the lines has Andrew grinding his teeth. “Stop bitching,” Neil says, though Andrew hasn’t spoken a word. The sharp retort on Andrew’s tongue withers and dies when he notices the mess Neil has already made of his bottom lip. 

It takes four layers of white bandages before the red stops bleeding through. Neil rips off the strip and tapes it down, and then he disappears. Andrew is used to being left to pick up the pieces, but he’s not used to being made whole and then finding that his supports have rotted away.

Andrew knows that he doesn’t owe Neil anything. He is allowed his own bodily autonomy, at the very least. He isn’t going to be controlled anymore.

But he goes after Neil anyway.

The rest of the house is asleep when Andrew goes downstairs. Neil’s shoes are gone, and Andrew narrows his eyes. Of course Neil would run. But now that Andrew’s down here, he’s itching for a cigarette, so he grabs his pack and shoves his way onto the porch. 

Neil is sitting on the top step, staring into some middle distance that Andrew can’t see.

There’s a habitual ease that Andrew settles into when he lowers himself to sit beside Neil, when he lights two cigarettes and passes one over. He resolutely begins dragging on his cigarette. He’s not going to talk unless Neil wants to know.

Of course, Neil wants to know. “Why? Maybe not… you don’t have to tell me everything, but I deserve to know my role in it.”

Some part of Andrew is relieved that Neil isn’t demanding everything. The rest of him knew that Neil wouldn’t. Neil, of all people, understands that some information is more useful and grounding when it’s kept secret. But Neil’s right, and that’s the easiest reason to explain. “I’m not always convinced that you’re not a fever dream.”

Neil brings the cigarette closer to his face, and the cherry illuminates Neil’s furrowed brow. “We’re back to this again? I’m not a hallucination.”

Andrew looks at Neil’s scars, red and angry in the glow of the cigarette, and he’s reminded of how they looked when Neil came back from Baltimore. No, Neil is not a hallucination. Someone who has been through so much pain and caused Andrew so much panic has to be real. “All bedrooms look the same in the middle of the night. Trying to ground myself by looking at you doesn’t work if my body’s numb.” 

It’s obvious that Neil doesn’t completely understand, and Andrew is grateful. He doesn’t want Neil to understand. Andrew would raze the world to the ground.

“And that’s enough to make you cut yourself?” 

Andrew drags in a long breath, appreciating the sting of Neil’s directness. “Not on its own.” They have reached the extent of the knowledge that Neil was looking for. Andrew isn’t going to answer any more questions tonight.

Neil asks one anyway. “How can I help?”

A dog barks a block or two away. When it quiets down, the only sound is the gentle sizzle of fire consuming tobacco and paper. Andrew finishes his cigarette and flicks the butt away. He droops his arms over his knees and tilts his head back. The stars are barely visible this far into suburbia, but the brightest ones still manage to shine through the contamination.

When Neil’s cigarette burns itself out, Andrew is the first on his feet. “Come back to bed,” he says, and convinces himself that it’s not an answer.