Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“We’re waiting for Neil.” Nicky explained to the guard, as the team waited for their resident rabbit to make it out of the showers.

Alarm bells had been screaming in the back of Andrew’s mind since the end of the game, but he figured that they were at least somewhat due to the fight that had broken out with the final buzzer. He should be at ease now that his people were safe in the changing rooms, but his instincts started going haywire when the two alpha guards had entered the lounge. 

Usually Andrew did what he could to press down his insticts. Scent patches kept his feelings hidden from those around him, and his own sheer determination to ignore his inner alpha was usually enough to keep it in check. Tonight, instead of keeping with the rutine, every modicum of instict in his body screamed to him that something was wrong.

The feeling only heigtened when, seconds after, Neil appeared in the room.

There wasn't anything starkingly different from how he usually looked. Same trash clothing he’d worn since he’d arrived at Palmetto. Same mousy demeanor, like he wanted to bolt. Andrew perked up suddently, as a small realization jumped to the forefront of his mind. Neil didn’t just look skittish; he looked tense.

If Andrew didn’t know better, he’d even think that Neil looked down-to-the-bone terrified. 

As usual, Neil was wearing his military grade patches and on the strongest suppressors he could take safely. Most of the team even believed that he was a beta with his lack of any scent. But Andrew knew better. And he was certain that underneath it all, Neil's scent must have been putrid with terror.

Andrew took three steps to close the distance between the omega and himself and for a second he had to hold himself back from the instinct to bury his nose into Neil’s neck. His inner alpha screamed at him again as Neil's eyes fixed on him full of something close to grief. It took him effort, but he pushed down the sudden need to peel off Neil's scent patch and burry himself in the crook of his throat; to scent him where Andrew’s mark lay hidden.

The sensical part of himself knew that the mark had been a mistake. If anything, it made him hate Neil even more for having so much of a hold over him that one heat spent together left them with a mating bond. The more animalistic part of him however was pleased every time he remembered that no matter what, Neil was still his. He hated him.

“Thank you.” Andrew could see the dread colored in the icy blue of Neil’s eyes, next to something that he refused to examine in that moment. Neil wasn’t usually good at lying, at least to Andrew, but it was the first time in months that Andrew felt like he couldn’t read Neil like the open book he had become to him. Something was wrong, and Neil’s words were not matching the melancholy of his everything else. 

“You were amazing.” Andrew had to stop himself back from taking a step back in surprise. There was more that Neil wanted to say to him, that could feel even with how the scent patches they both had to wear now to hide their marks subdued their bond. Andrew wanted to punch him in that moment, maybe knock some sense into him to stop acting strange - like he was saying goodbye, but the guards were starting to push everyone out of the doors. The answers would have to wait for the bus. 

His focus shifted away from Neil the second the first bottle collided against Aaron’s face. Andrew didn’t think he’d ever stop regretting that.

After the riot died, the instigators having been taken by police and the more severely wounded by ambulances as well, almost all of the Foxes were accounted for. Wymack was able to get the information for the hospital the girls were taken to with minor wounds fairly quickly, and everything was supposed to be fine. 

Everything was supposed to be fine, except that Neil wasn’t there. 

Wymack entered the bus with a grim expression, and Andrew stood the moment he realized that Neil wasn't following behind the coach. The few injured foxes had been taken to a local hospital, but no one had information on if Neil had been hurt during the riot or to where he could have been taken. Andrew interrupted the rest of whatever Wyamck was saying by walking past the man and off the bus entirely.

Every word out of Wymacks mouth only solidified the cold feeling of wrongness that had been prickling at him since the locker room into an icicle piercing right through his chest. He could hear shouting at him, but paid it no mind. The frantic steps behind him told Andrew that at least Kevin had decided to follow him out. The crowd was almost completely gone by that point, the only remaining stragglers being those being pushed into patrol cars.

Andrew felt the bond pulse and, almost on instinct, drew a hand to the scent patch covering the bitemark on his neck. Before, in the locker room, the bond had felt stilted by the patches, as if a blanket had been thrown over it. Now, it felt distinctively far away, like he could feel the sudden distance between Neil and himself like a physical pull. 

He couldn’t recognize the direction, or any way to find where Neil had gone, only that the distance was growing by the second. Andrew wanted to growl but suppresed the need to as his fangs elongated ever so slightly.

Andrew knew it was futile with how many measures Neil took to hide his scent, but desperation was a powerful thing, so he turned his nose to the wind trying to find even a wisp of Neil’s scent. The pounding scent of anger, blood, and leftover aggression in the air was overpowering everything else. Still, Andrew continued with the sisyphean task of smelling the air in search for a scent he knew wouldn’t be there. 

Beyond the patches. Beyond the supressors. Beyond the nauseating smell of violence in the air. Andrew could feel right to the marrow of his bones that Neil was fading. That he was too far away from him to be found. 

“Andrew!” Kevin shouted from a few meters in front of him, his tone filled with urgency. 

Andrew ran to where the taller beta was standing and his balance seemed to shift under him at the sight of where Kevin was pointing. In the middle of the ground, trampled by the chaos, laid Neil’s now dust covered bag and his Exy racquet. Andrew picked up the equipment bag, feeling the familiar canvas under his fingers as cold dread fell down his shoulders.

He followed Kevin to the bus in a tomblike quiet, and he could see how the man's knuckles had turned white from the grip he kept around the ruined racket.

The silence once they entered the bus with their findings was sharp enough to cut diamond. Andrew wanted to scream but the tension around him constricted his lungs too much to be able to get anything out. He growled under his teeth before realizing why and lifted his gaze to find Nicky trying to carefully take Neil’s bag from his hands. 

His cousin let go of the bag the moment the sound came out of Andrew’s mouth, and Andrew noticed the rest of the Foxes around him take a tentative step back. All except for Kevin. Next to him, the striker continued to shake like a leaf, not even Andrew’s rare display of his animalistic side enough to break him out of his trance.

Andrew pushed past the Foxes and sat down on his usual seat, setting the bag down so that he could look through it. He wanted to turn back time, to return to before the game, to when the Foxes had left the bus at the rest stop and, for a few minutes, he and Neil had been alone. Andrew remembered the way that Neil had lowered his scent patch only for a moment, the feeling of Neil’s nose against the mark on his neck. Neil’s blue eyes as he stared at Andrew from the seat in front. The weight of Neil’s lips over his for the single moment they had kissed on the bus, before leaving to join their teammates and stretch their legs. 

Andrew opened the bag and rummaged through it with indistinct care, folding the clothing back to place it on the seat next to the bag. Placing the equipment carefully over it as well. Only when the bag was finally empty Andrew could feel the weight of something else in an outer pocket. 

He felt his blood turn cold, mirroring the glass screen of the phone in his hand. Andrew touched his fingertips to the plastic with a looming feeling of dread. Neil would never leave his bag and racquet behind, that had been something that Andrew knew for sure, but this cemented every last worry he had into something heavier. Neil’s phone was in his pocket when they left, it was alway in his pocket, even when turned off.

Andrew knew this because Neil had promised him that it would be. 

If Neil’s phone was in the bag, it was because Neil had placed it there. Had left it where Andrew would find it. 

Kevin let out a strangled laugh from behind him, and when Andrew looked back at him: he saw that the striker had finally looked up from the racquet. That his gaze was fixed on the phone in Andrew’s hand.

Andrew’s alpha screamed at him to do something, anything. He knew now that Neil was in danger and his anguish was a physical thing around him, like a thorn-infested vine hugging him tighter and tighter. Neil hadn’t left, Riko had taken him, and nothing mattered more to Andrew in that moment than getting back what was his. 

Andrew unlocked the phone, still ignoring the choked sounds of Kevin’s panic behind him. Everything seemed normal, it was Neil’s phone, familiar to Andrew since he had been the one to set it up. Andrew opened the messages, expecting to find only the Foxes’ conversations that Neil had mentioned before, but a different text stared at him. The number was hidden but the “0” felt ominous on the screen. Andrew looked for more messages, but if Neil had received any others, they had been long deleted. He checked the call log next, and although he knew that the contact on top should be his own, an unknown number stared at him through the screen.

“Baltimore?” He whispered, looking at the area code. The rest of the Foxes were hovering around him in a sepulchral silence unfamiliar for the lot. Kevin was the only exception, and while he previously was muttering something akin to the start of a panic attack, his breathing closed to stop at Andrew’s words. Kevin knew something, and he was terryfied by it.

 “I don’t have time for this, Kevin.” Andrew growled again, this time a conscious choice. It had the desired effect as Kevin shrunk down at the sound and Andrew couldn’t help but notice how his head had started to move as if to bare his neck. “What do you know?” 

Kevin looked at him with eyes filled with grief, surprisingly similar to the expression Neil had worn in the locker room. The look of someone already mourning.

He didn’t say anything, but in his eyes Andrew could see that whatever it was that he knew, haunted him profoundly. Andrew’s body acted before he could think and his hands wrapped around Kevin’s throat and he used the mixture of Kevin's surprised and his own impulse to push the striker back against the wall and keep him pinned there.

“Who took him?” Andrew asked, his now fully elongated fangs bared, “Did Riko do this?” He could feel someone try and fail to pull him off of Kevin, earning only a teeth-bared growl in response. This was all alpha fury, and Andrew relished in it. 

“Father,” Kevin wheezed out, fighting Andrew’s hold as much as he could with his hands.

“Andrew" Coach's voice reverberated loudly across the bus as he projected it. It wasn't a command, yet, but there was the anticipation of a threat under it, "if you don’t let go he can’t tell you anything." Wymack stood directly behind him, and Andrew begrudginly softened his hold of Kevin’s throat, settling with only pinning him against the wall. 

“Tell me.” He growled again as Kevin wheezed, trying to catch his breath.

“If someone from Baltimore took him,” Kevin’s voice was hoarse with the strain of breathing, “then we should assume that his father has him and that's he’s probably already dead.”

“Neil’s father is the one who is dead,” Andrew answered with anger in his tone, his usual attempts at apathy thrown out of the window the second Neil hadn’t gotten back on the bus. “What do you know that I don’t, Day?!” His fingers tightened for a moment around Kevin’s neck in warning, and if their strength wasn’t enough to sever their deal then he would be surprised.

“Neil’s father is alive," the beta said, "the Butcher of Baltimore,” Kevin stopped speaking after that, like that was enough to fill the rapidly emptying chasm his words were creating in Andrew’s chest. 

“Who?” One of the Foxes asked and Andrew's head whipped back with his fangs still bearred. He had somewhat managed to forget about the team waiting behind them, and, as lucidity settled over him for a moment, he could smell the confusion, urgency and anxiety clouding the air on the bus.  

“Neil is our friend too,” Matt said. He was the only other alpha in the team besides Coach Wymack and Allison, but she had been carted to a hospital somewhere.“ And the girls are at the hospital alone. I understand how you are feeling Andrew but we have to-”

Andrew’s scent soured with rage and he was ready to jump on Boyd as well before Wymack spoke, “ENOUGH.” Wymack’s alpha voice echoed the command across the bus. It wasn’t enough to get Andrew to bare his neck to the older alpha, like he noticed his teammates starting to do, but it did settle him from his live wired rage to something calmer and simmering. 

The coach stood between Matt and Andrew with an undistinguishable look on his face.  The usual no-nonsense glare was present but Andrew noticed the exhaustion under it. Wymack was terrifyingly good at controlling his scent, but Andrew imagined if he hadn’t been doing it, then the smell of despair currently being held back by his patches would cling to the coach’s skin as well. 

“Minyard, just let us go to the hospital and Kevin can explain on the way, but we do need to pick up the girls.” 

“Fine,” Andrew huffed, moving away from Kevin, finally. The shape of Andrew’s hands was quickly imprinting into his skin with angry bruises and Abby moved forward to check him out. 

Andrew sat down in the seat in front of Abby and Kevin as the bus started to move away from the parking lot. He needed to wait until Abby was done with Kevin to ask him his questions, and the lack of Neil next to him carved a hole in his chest that got deeper with each passing secnd. Now that his fury had somewhat settled, the sorrowful feeling of distance between him and his mate felt heavy like an anchor. 

Unconsciously, Andrew brought a hand up to his neck. He could feel his bond almost pulsing inside of him. His inner alpha waling at him in desperation. 

Mating, Bonding. It was never something he thought about much. Andrew had  resented his presentation ever since it happened. Alphas, omegas, bullshit. Second genders were not absurdly rare, but also not a given, and Andrew presenting had been a cosmic joke in a life already filled by too much shit. Alphas were supposedly strong, dominant, powerfull; what good had it done him to present as an Alpha when he had still been nothing more than powerless as a child against those who’d wanted to harm him. 

He’d presented while locked up in juvie, his first rut a miserable stint in solitary so he wouldn’t kill his cellmates as his instincts kicked in for the first time. He’d spent three days in pain, clawing at the skin of his arms and screaming until his throat had gone hoarse. Then came scent patches, and special separate classes to control his instincts, scent and aggression. How dens worked, and how he had to be careful while he was there so that he would not turn his cell into one or he would be in physical pain after leaving.

His second gender only served to continue to fuck him over. It didn’t matter when Nicky was getting beaten, Andrew was a young alpha who had clearly no control over his instincts, so now lets get him antipsychotics and suppressants. Keep him manically happy, make sure to suppress his instincts and his alpha and his scent as if that wasn't painful and unnatural. It's okay, everyone will be happy that way and Andrew Minyard will get to be a normal person.  To others, no actions were his own; nothing he did mattered since it was always his alpha acting for him. 

Andrew had been sober picking up Neil from the airport, and for once the rolling wave of nausea didn’t matter as much as the way his interest picked for a moment at this mysterious liar who was showing up to fuck up his life completely. 

Neil was meant to be nothing more than a mild inconvenience, much like the rest of Renee’s Foxes were. Discovering the illegal suppressants was more than mildly dumbfounding, and, to Andrew's drug-addled mind, close to tragically hilarious. Andrew only needed one look at the fucked up drugs Neil was injecting into himself to see how close to his own they were, only lacking the mania inducing anti-psychotics the court had added into the mix for him. He understood what Neil was doing to himself and hated him all the more for it. 

Andrew hated his designation, but he hated the suppressants more. He’d had almost four years with his designation before they had been prescribed, and the jarring and sudden lack of it had felt as physical as the loss of a limb. Even his own body felt foreign with the sudden lack of his own scent around him. When the last of his clothing and his room lost the remaining scent a part of him even mourned it. 

After Eden’s, it had been the first thing Andrew asked him, surprising even himself. He needed to know, needed to understand. How could someone choose for himself the torture that had been forced on Andrew?. According to Neil, he hadn’t. The familiarity of that only made Andrew hate him more. The sob story of a child who had no other choice but to force himself onto helish medication (that god only knew how he got his hands on) as soon as he presented as an omega alone and on the run. After all, if he didn’t have any instincts to grow into, then they couldn’t hold him back.

Promising Neil protection was a mistake, and Andrew knew that from the start. Beyond just the sheer stupidity of that too-rabbity Fox, incapable of staying out of trouble enough to give Andrew or the other Foxes any peace of mind, there was something dangerous about Neil Josten's blue eyes that looked at Andrew with the grief of someone much older. Something about his scent, lemongrass and salt. A fresh scent that somehow made Andrew understand why people felt the need to be covered in someone else's scent.

Seeing Neil after Easthaven, his alpha honestly awake and present for the first time in years, had felt almost as dizzying as withdrawal. With a single salute and the promise that he was real, Neil had gone from interesting to outright dangerous. Andrew hated how much more he wanted. He wasn’t someone who wanted, had learned the inutility of that feeling as a child longing for safety, for love and protection. 

Neil was quickly growing into a tumor, but it was supposed to be something removable and killable. Neil was going to be gone by the end of the year, according to himself. Neil didn’t swing. Neil was only one more thing Andrew wasn’t allowed to want. 

Neil wasn’t supposed to look at him that way outside of Eden’s that night, the night Rolan slipped up and Andrew confessed. Andrew wasn’t supposed to kiss him; Neil wasn’t supposed to like it. Andrew was never meant to know how Neil’s lips felt or how he tasted. Less of all how he smelled. 

Neil’s scent was the last secret that he kept. Even after Abby had gotten him off the illegal suppressants, Neil still was able to get his hands on the military grade patches needed to hide his scent completely and pass off as a beta. It wasn’t immediate, but after a few days of clandestine kisses while hidden away from the Foxes, Neil had taken a hand to his neck and pulled back one of his patches completely. 

From the first moment he caught Neil’s scent, Andrew knew that it was a problem. Just a whiff was enough to make him want more. He craved the smell of him, and everything it implied. Andrew had buried his nose in Neil’s neck only moments after the smell of his pheromones had reached him, inhaling deeply only to turn around and leave down the stairs back to his dorm. Neil had gone after him, trying to hide the souring of his scent at the rejection, only to find Andrew struggling to bring his fangs back in, already dripping with venom. 

That should have been enough to either scare Neil off or force some sense into Andrew so that he could say goodbye to Neil and wall him off. Instead, a January filled with Andrew lying through his teeth that they were nothing while his alpha felt alive like a livewire every time Neil touched him turned into a February where Andrew knew how Neil sounded as Andrew took him apart little by little with the melody of Neil’s pleasure surrounding him. 

“My heat is coming up,” Neil had said one day while on the roof as if it was nothing, “It should start on the last Saturday of the month and last three or four days. Abby already said she’d cover for me and say I got sick like she did last time.”  Blue eyes looked at him, failing their attempt at disinterest, but Andrew refused to meet his gaze.

“I thought you were on suppressants,” he answered noncommittally, looking straight ahead at the sun setting behind the horizon. He took another drag of his cigarette and waited. 

“I am not,” Neil answered, “Abby threatened to blood test me monthly and tell Coach if I didn’t give the illegal suppressants to her.” Neil stayed silent for a moment, the look on his face telling Andrew that he wasn’t done, just looking for the best way to say the next thing. “When the season started and I had to get the blood test done, Abby told me that taking those suppressants ever since I presented and not ever having a heat in five years had a good chance of fucking up my body permanently. That the first heat cycles before reaching maturity are how your inner omega develops and you grow into your instincts or whatever.”

“I had sex-ed class,” Andrew said simply.

“Well I didn’t,” Neil bit back. “My mom was a beta and my alpha father hated omegas, so when I ran on my own and then presented all I knew to do was pretend it wasn’t happening. I didn’t know what a nest or scenting was until I got here. I thought that everything my father said about omegas in heat being desperate whores was true.” 

“I still don’t understand how any of this is my problem.” Andrew tried, and probably failed to hide the ire that Neil’s words caused him. Neil talked very little of his parents, the most that Andrew knew of them was that they were dead, leaving Neil to become a runaway from the yakuza as a child with what his father had stolen, and that not all of Neil’s scars were from a life on the run. Andrew for a moment wished for a way to bring Neil's father back from the dead just so he could enjoy killing him himself. 

“I want to spend my heat with you,” Neil said, as if he wasn’t asking Andrew for the world. “You can say no if you want to, and you don’t even have to have sex with me during it if it would be bad for you.” Andrew arched an eyebrow as he stared at Neil, “But I think that even if you don’t, I want you there. I was miserable last time. I was in pain and alone and even with all of the comforting items and medicine that Abby could provide I still hated it.” 

“What makes you think I would be any different?” Andrew lit a second cigarette and inhaled the smoke until it was almost too much. “I already told you I am not your answer.”

“You smell nice,” Neil said in an almost-whisper, letting the words hang in the air between them like a confession. “I never was interested in anyone before, I didn’t lie at the start of the year when I said that I don’t swing. And I like how it feels when you touch me. Even if you don’t fuck me I really want you there, and if you do want to fuck me then you can, cause I do want you to, but only if you want to as well.” 

“I need to tell Bee that you are an omega,” Andrew answered, finally meeting Neil’s eyes, which stared back puzzled, like he felt betrayed but also knew Andrew enough to understand he had his reasons. “This is not something I can even start to consider as if it was nothing. I will not tell her anything else.” 

“I understand,” Neil said. “I want this to happen, Andrew, I really do, but only if it doesn’t make things worse for you. You can tell Dobson if you need to, but only that.” 

“Only that,” Andrew answered, his cigarette had burned entirely without him taking another drag, so he lit another one and motioned Neil to leave the roof. 

Bee was surprised, but helped Andrew walk through the possibilities, through his triggers and the ways he could prepare himself so that he wouldn’t spiral. For the three weeks between that conversation and Neil’s heat, he’d kicked Aaron out of their sessions and spent them talking to Bee about Neil. 

The reality was, Andrew knew that while it was true that just his presence in the room would probably make it easier for Neil, his alpha hated the idea of not doing everything he could so that his omega, Neil would be okay. 

Neil’s heat ended with matching mating marks on both of their necks. It was stupid, insane even, but Andrew’s alpha still purred with pride at the sight of it, and Neil had stared at it with something close to awe. Andrew allowed his instincts to guide him to his mate and stood behind Neil in silence as he brought soft fingers to the scabbed over mark.

“I like it,” Neil said, and Andrew’s alpha preened like it was praise, “I should hate it probably, and I’m smarter than this, but you are a part of how Neil Josten is the first time I've been real. I like having something to make me permanent, like I can stay.” 

“Will you stay?” Andrew hated the vulnerability of the question, even when his expression didn’t betray anything. Still, neither he nor Neil were wearing anything to block their scents, so he could feel the way his scent tinted itself with fear. Fear that even after this, after their promise, after their truths and secrets, Neil would only be one more thing that Andrew lost. 

“I want to stay,” Neil turned around and faced Andrew directly, his scent didn’t change, but something in Andrew knew that Neil was close to grief. It would take a while for two liars like them to become used to the bond that connected them with shared truth. 

“Then stay,” Andrew moved to Neil’s neck again, grazing his teeth over the new mark and inhaling Neil’s scent softly, letting it imprint into his mind. “Stay here.” 

In the end, Neil hadn’t. He was made entirely of lies, but Andrew knew with too much certainty that the almost-devotion he had looked at Andrew with that day when he said he would stay wasn’t one. If anything, that made things worse. Ultimately, it had been Andrew who failed him. 

Andrew sat in silence as Kevin started his story. He told them about a boy who arrived at Castle Evermore looking like fear was the only thing he was. Short, quiet, looking exactly like his father. He told them how that same kid had played alongside Kevin and Riko, and had seemed more alive on the court than anyone Kevin had ever seen before. Kevin told the foxes how the three of them, still too young to know the violence that their parents and carers had used on them until then, were brought up to the East Tower to see a man get torn apart by Neil’s father. 

Kevin said that Neil had held his hand, squeezing as if trying through their touch to take Kevin’s fear away. All while he stood in silence and kept his gaze fixed ahead on his father. The only thing to show for his own horror being the fear reflected in the ice blue eyes of the man in front of them. 

Andrew took one of his knives out of his armbands and held it as Kevin explained how the reason Neil was there in the first place was to see if he had the potential needed to be raised in the hell of the Nest like Kevin. Andrew dug the knife into the seat next to him, staring at green eyes, when Kevin told them how Neil had been sold. 

“Nathaniel was property of the Moriyamas when his mother stole their millions and ran with him” Kevin’s expression shifted at his own words, like someone who’d tasted something sour. “Neil discovered it during the fall banquet. He decided to stay until spring and then turn himself in to the FBI.” 

Kevin’s gaze fixed on Andrew finally, filled with insurmountable grief. “He told me that he would turn in everything he knew about the Moriyamas and his father, even if it got him killed.” He took a deep breath and as if he was trying to will the air entering his lungs to hold him together, he added: “You were always going to lose him.”

Andrew started to rise, decidedly in the direction needed to throttle Kevin again. Boyd moved at the same time, ready to stop him, even though his scent was as filled with anger as Andrew’s.

In the end it wasn’t necessary. Andrew fell to his knees before he could reach the striker, agony exploding from every nerve ending in his body. 

He could hear a wailing scream in the distance, but the ringing in his ears was too loud to care about it. Nails dug into the skin of his neck as he fought against his scent patches, and the noise of surprise around him at the mark present was unimportant as Andrew dug his fingers into it. His alpha screamed, tormented, as Andrew realized what this unmooring feeling meant.

Somewhere, too far away for him to reach, Neil was dead.

Nathaniel came back to himself painfully. It took him a moment to register his surroundings fully as his eyes opened, but the surprise was immediate when he realized he wasn’t in that basement anymore. 

That night flashed through his mind. Lola’s laughter, the smell of burning skin, the feeling of his skin splitting under his father’s blades. Towards the end he saw his father fall. He was vaguely aware that another voice had been there, that his father had not fallen and had rather been taken down. Still, by then he’d already felt too far from his body from the blood loss to notice. 

When Nathaniel lost consciousness, he was sure it meant the end.

Nathaniel finally opened his eyes, and blinding white light seemed to surround him completely for a moment. He recognized the space around him as a hospital room, and took stock of the many different tubes and wires that were currently connected to him. He tried to move his hands so that he could pull them out, but they were stopped by the familiar, and crushing, feeling of handcuffs around his wrists. 

He was on the start of panic when he noticed the other people in the room with him. Standing on the far wall was a doctor. She was probably an omega, based on the soothing scent she was releasing, and Nathaniel hated how much it worked as he started to settle. Sitting each to one side of the bed, were two men that he had never seen before, but could tell were feds with one look. 

“It’s good to see you’re awake,” one of them said, “We thought you weren’t going to make it for a moment there last night.” He looked at Nathaniel with an analyzing look, like he was a puzzle to be solved. “I am Special Agent Browning, this is my partner Special agent Towns. We hope you can answer some questions for us.” 

“Why am I handcuffed?” Nathaniel asked.

“We are sorry about that,” Towns answered, “but we weren’t sure you were going to cooperate without them.” 

“I won’t answer your questions if you don’t give me one truth first,” He said, quickly growing uncomfortable with their presence and the unmoving doctor. “There was a riot last night, I want to know if my team is okay.”

“Out of the eighty six wounded, three were your teammates,” Browning replied, “All of them were taken to a hospital and treated for minor wounds. They were brought in for interrogation after we recovered you from the house, but were placed on a plane back to South Carolina after we determined they weren’t aware of your real identity. As soon as you get discharged we are taking you to a field office so you can tell us the full story, then we’re placing you in witness protection. If you don’t cooperate, they can take you to prison on several counts of false Identification to start.” 

Nathaniel thought of the foxes, of Andrew. He could feel the lack of his mate by his side like a missing limb. He looked back at the year behind him and knew already what his answer to the agents was. “I want to see my team.” Nathaniel pulled on the handcuffs, if bandages weren’t covering his wrists, he would probably be splitting open the skin. 

“I am sorry but we cannot let you do that.” Towns answered. “They are back in Palmetto by now. The Minyard kid fought back hardest but in the end left with them as well.” Nathaniel knew that the words out of the agent’s mouth were a lie. The foxes would have no choice but to leave on behest of the FBI, hell after learning the truth about him they probably had done so willingly, but Andrew would never leave without him. 

“I know that my team is still nearby,” Neil said, “Even if the others were ready to leave, Andrew would not leave without me, and they can’t leave without him.”

“Andrew Minyard thinks you are dead,” Browning looked sternly at him, “the rest of your old team does as well. We need them to believe that to keep you safe.” 

“I am not telling you anything until I see my team.” 

“Nathaniel,” Browning looked at him, losing patience by the second. “Lola Malcom and her brother are still at large, they made it out of the shootout.” The blood running through his veins turned cold as terror set inside of his chest. “We are pulling every resource at our disposal to find her but until we do that you being dead is all that is keeping her from going after your team and your mate to draw you out from hiding.” 

“We need to place you in WitSec so that she cannot find you again, is our only chance at finally taking down the Butcher of Baltimore.” 

“The Butcher of Baltimore is dead,” Nathaniel said, more to remind himself than anything else. He had seen the bullet lodge itself inside his father’s skull and the memory of it was sure to bring him peace for years to come.

“Yes but his associates are not.” Towns added, “and neither is his operation. We want to dismantle it completely, take into custody every single person ever responsible for the butcher’s power.” The agent handed Nathaniel what looked like a newspaper clipping and he stared at it with a mix of open mouthed surprise and horror. “This was printed this morning.” 

A picture of him mid exy game, face alight with joy sat on the middle of the page. Next to it, his father’s old mugshot stared at him and Nathaniel replayed his tormentor's death in his mind again to ward off the fear that still creeped into him at the sight of him. 

TRAGEDY IN BALTIMORE: EXY RISING STAR DEAD AT 19. 

STARTING STRIKER FOR THE PALMETTO STATE FOXES NEIL JOSTEN, WAS REVEALED LAST NIGHT TO BE THE PRESUMED DEAD SON OF BALTIMORE BASED BUSINESS MOGUL NATHAN WESNINSKI. 

IN THE EARLY HOURS OF YESTERDAY MORNING, THE FBI CONDUCTED A RAID OF WESNINSKI’S HOME AFTER HIS RELEASE FROM A STATE PRISON IN SEATTLE, WHERE HE HAD SPENT THE PAST TWO YEARS ON COUNTS OF TAX EVASION. FOLLOWING LEADS OF NATHAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN ORGANIZED CRIME AS THE CALLED “BUTCHER” OF BALTIMORE. 

NATHAN’S WIFE MARY AND HIS ONLY SON NATHANIEL, HAD BEEN REPORTED AS MISSING IN 1999 AND SEVERAL THEORIES HAD POINTED TO WESNINSKI BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR DEATHS. WHILE THE RAID DID UNCOVER ILLICIT ACTIVITY IN THE HOME, AND LED TO NATHAN WESNINSKI’S DEATH IN A SHOOTOUT, IT WASN’T THE ONLY THING THE FBI FOUND. 

NEIL JOSTEN, THE ELUSIVE STARTING STRIKER FOR THE PALMETTO STATE FOXES, HAS BEEN MAKING NEWS ALL SEASON AS THE BOTTOM TEAM IN THE NCAA CONTINUED TO SURPRISE EVERYONE WITH THEIR PRESENCE AND PERFORMANCE IN THE SPRING TOURNAMENT. RECRUITED AT THE LAST MINUTE FROM A SMALL TOWN IN ARIZONA, JOSTEN HAD FAMOUSLY LEARNED THE SPORT IN ONE SEASON, AND HAD BEEN PERSONALLY RECRUITED BY “PRINCE OF EXY” KEVIN DAY.  THROUGHOUT THE PAST SEASON, JOSTEN ROSE QUICKLY TO STARDOM, ONLY BEING SURPASSED IN SEARCHES BY RIKO MORIYAMA AND THE AFOREMENTIONED KEVIN DAY, WHO ARE ARGUABLY THE MOST FAMOUS PLAYERS IN THE SPORT TODAY. 

JOSTEN HAD BEEN MISSING SINCE THE RIOT THAT ERUPTED IN BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY AFTER THE FOXES’ WIN, WHICH HAS ALSO NOW BEEN DECLARED AS A SETUP BY WESNINSKI SO THAT JOSTEN COULD BE TAKEN WITHOUT ISSUE. ACCORDING TO THE STATEMENT RELEASED BY THE BUREAU, NEIL JOSTEN, WHO WAS THEN IDENTIFIED AS NATHAN’S SON NATHANIEL, WAS TAKEN TO THE BALTIMORE RESIDENCE AND TORTURED BY HIS FATHER FOR AN UNKNOWN AMOUNT OF TIME. SINCE NATHANIEL HAD BEEN PRESUMED DEAD FOR THE PAST EIGHT YEARS, THE AGENTS WERE NOT LOOKING FOR HIM DURING THE RAID, AND AFTER THE SHOOTOUT WHICH ENDED NATHAN WESNINSKI’S LIFE, FOUND HIM IN THE BASEMENT WHERE HE HAD ALREADY DIED TO HIS INJURIES. 

NATHANIEL HAD APPARENTLY SPENT THE TIME HE WAS PRESUMED DEAD ON THE RUN FROM HIS FATHER, THE ALLEGED “BUTCHER OF BALTIMORE”. NEIL JOSTEN ONLY THE LATEST OF HIS FALSE IDENTITIES, WAS RECRUITED ALMOST BY CHANCE BY DAVID WYMACK’S TEAM, AFTER HIS HIGH SCHOOL COACH SENT IN A TAPE OF HIS PLAYING, AS WELL AS HIS SUSPICIONS THAT SOMETHING WITH HIS HOME LIFE WAS AMISS, AS JOSTEN APPARENTLY CHOSE TO SLEEP AT THE SCHOOL’S LOCKER ROOMS WHEN HE COULD. 

THIS PUBLICATION REACHED OUT TO THE PALMETTO STATE FOXES AFTER THE TRAGIC NEWS BROKE OUT BUT ALL REFUSED TO COMMENT. THE FOXES’ “MIRACLE SEASON,” AS THEY CONTINUED TO RISE AGAINST ALL ODDS AND PREDICTIONS, HAS NOW COME TO AN UNFORTUNATE END, SINCE JOSTEN’S DEATH PULLED THEM BELOW THE MINIMUM PLAYERS REQUIRED. 

Nathaniel moved his eyes away from the paper in his hands, which had been wrinkled almost beyond recognition under his grip. He saw how it continued but couldn’t bear to read any more. “What is this?” He asked, his voice shaking. His eyes burned but no tears formed and the air around him soured with the scent of his sorrow. 

“We gave authorization for that to be released yesterday,” Towns answered. He looked at Nathaniel with something akin to empathy. “As of two days ago, Nathaniel Wesninski is dead. We understand that this is difficult, but if you can’t help us then your father’s people will find you eventually and finish what he started. You and your team will be targeted then, and we won’t be able to get you out a second time.”

“We know this was an abrupt measure,” Browning had apparently given up on his bad cop persona, though Nathaniel still didn’t trust him. “But our priority right now is keeping you safe from the Malcolms, and your death was the only way to do that.” 

Lola’s laughter as his skin burned flashed through his mind. In his imagination, Andrew’s face in a pain filled expression replaced his own and the idea of it was enough for bile to rise up his throat. “Will Andrew be safe if I do this?” he asked, “can you truly promise that?” 

“Your former team has been assigned a detail until the end of the year,” Towns answered, “nothing so far indicates they are in danger from retaliation but they’ll be protected until the end of the year just in case. You will be given a new identity and re-located within the US until your father’s people no longer pose a risk to you.”

“And that’s it?” Nathaniel felt a tired sort of resignation fall over him, a second coat over the pain already covering his body like a blanket.

“There is one more thing,” Browning looked uncomfortable, for the first time not meeting his eye. He gestured to the doctor who’d been listening to their entire exchange, “But we wanted to wait until you understood what would happen next. Doctor if you please.” 

“Hello Neil, my name is Tracie Mancourt. I also work for the bureau, Witsec more specifically, and I will be the doctor in charge of your case.” Nathaniel was almost struck by that name on her mouth, grieving the boy who he almost became. He didn’t doubt that she was another one of the feds, but the omega doctor had spent the entire conversation releasing calming pheromones. Nathaniel trusted her almost without wanting.

“Why are you assigned to me?” He asked, feeling the exhaustion of the conversation pull at him. His mind was wrapping around the fact that he would never see Andrew again, and grief had started to make a home in his chest.

“I am an Obstetrician specializing in male omegas,” She answered with a cautious smile. “When you were admitted, the hospital ran a pregnancy test as is protocol for anyone who can carry.”

A new fear made home in him as Nathaniel predicted the words that followed. “

“According to hormone levels when you were admitted two nights ago you are pregnant Neil, though it is still too recent to show up on ultrasounds” The doctor continued, “We ran some repeat testing today to confirm it, and it showed that pregnancy is definitely progressing.” 

The face of Nathaniel’s mother, mouth open in fury as she beat his teenage self bloody for one kiss flashed in his mind. He tried to bring a hand to his stomach, the handcuffs keeping him from doing that. The idea of a pup growing inside him filled him with fear and abject horror. Something else laid alongside those feelings, something entirely more alarming. 

The warm feeling of Andrew's bond settleing into his body during his heat. The nights in the rooftop. Andrew's lips on his. The smell of smoke and wood. Andrew.

Andrew 's pup as well.

“I will go with you,” He almost whispered. He imagined himself on the run. If Lola was truly still out there, then Nathaniel would have to return to who he was before Palmetto. Back to ephemeral names and an existence without identity. He imagined a child, his child, condemned to the same fate he had been, but all the more smaller. Born into blood and fear. 

Nathaniel thought of Andrew, alone and afraid in the foster care system without anyone willing to listen.

“I will go into Witness Protection,” He looked up and stared the agents down. “But you better make sure that you keep us safe, and burn all of them to the ground.”

“I am glad to hear that Nathaniel,” Browning replied, Towns nodding alongside him. 

“We will leave now so you can rest,” The doctor said, “throughout your relocation process I will continue to be your doctor, and will be located in the same town to continue your care until the birth.” Her words rattled inside him with the weight of them. “I guess congratulations are in order as well.” 

Nathaniel looked at the agents as they left the room finally. In silence he mourned his mate. And Allowed himself to bid Neil Josten a final goodbye. He was determined to protect his pup, and to do that leaving Neil behind felt like a small price. Even as grief rattled his very bones.

Sleep was easy to find with the exhaustion in his bones. For the first time, but not last, Neil dreamed of Andrew. Golden brown eyes and his mate’s scent which he would one day soon forget.

Chapter Text

Five years later

“Are you planning on watching the game?” Noah Johnson sips on his cup of warm coffee, a part of him wishing that it was a cigarette in his hands instead.

It is five P.M on a Saturday and he heard a similar rendition of the same conversation every time today that he's entered the room. Noah rarely partakes in workplace socializing, prefering to just finish his long shifts with his head low and without calling attention to himself beyond necesity. Today however, he finds himself listening in to their conversation.

He knows what they’re talking about. Only one game that somewhat matters will happen tonight. 

“My shift is done right before,” A second voice answers, “I’m planning on going to the sports bar down the street with some of the guys.”

“Ya think we have a shot?” The first voice asks again. “I think we do since we made it this far already, but my wife insists we can’t win against Day.” Noah feels that name pierce his chest like an icycle but doesn't react.

“I think your wife is right,” The other chuckles defeatedly, “Although even if he wasn’t there I don’t reckon we stand too much of a chance against that goalkeeper either.” Noah stills at that, frozen by the mention of him. He hasn't seen Andrew Minyard directly in five years, but with only the though his mind flashes with brown eyes and a steady hand holding him against staircase walls. It's so overpowering for that single moment that he needs to shake his head slightly to wash it away.

The coffee tastes bitter when he takes another sip. 

“Are you planning on watching Noah?” His expression is back to being friendly but neutral when he turns around to where Garret and Mike are talking only a few feet away from him. He should have imagined that the limited space of the room would not be enough to save him from getting roped in.

“Exy is not my thing,” He lies in a single breath- as if he couldn't still feel the missing weight of a racket in his no longer calloused hands like a phantom limb. “Is it an important game?” 

He knows how important it is, understanding instictually how far along the season is even when he hasn't been able to bear to keep up directly with Exy news in five years. It is the most important game, Tampa against Denver. A home game against Andrew and Kevin's team.

“It is the last game before semifinals,” Garret answers smiling, “Though we are definitely not going to make it much further.” 

Noah’s pager ringing saves him from the conversation, and he can’t help it but be glad for the excuse to stand up and leave, “Well good luck, I guess.” Noah walks silently back to the emergency room.

The day moves quickly around him, the busyness of working the ER almost enought to quiet the racing of his mind. As always, he delays his break and finally heads up two hours later to the daycare. The hospital is welcoming to staff with children, and their childcare amenities had been a major factor when choosing where to find work after finishing his ASN.

Doctors, nurses and even non medical staff were allowed to leave small children at a daycare for the duration of their shifts. Like Noah did almost every day, they were also allowed to spend the meal times with their children, since the kids were served meals and snacks while they were in the day care. It was a relief for him not needing to afford separate child care while also knowing that Adrian was safe and close to him. 

It had taken him work to accept the idea of separating from Adrian, even in the same buiding. A heightened paranoia having clung to him like second skin the moment that his pup was born; primal in its need to keep Adrian at his side. A lot of times he wondered if it was the same thing his mother had felt through their years running.

His year with the foxes as Neil Josten had served to peel the layers to his anxiety and guards, walls and secrets crumbling one by one with every day learning what being real felt like. Even the first few months he’d spent alone in Tampa before Adrian’s birth had not been as difficult since he was for once somewhat sure of his safety with the mixture of the FBI and his uncle protecting him.

All of It had changed the moment that a nurse handed him Adrian for the first time.

His pregnancy and birth existed as a blur in Noah’s mind. A swirl of the first painful months without Andrew, as his body and inner omega pleaded for a mate too far away to reach. The only reprieve to his torment a hodie Noah knew inmediately belonged to Andrew by how it was covered in his mate's scent.

Dr. Mancourt was a lifesaver at times as she helped Noah navigate his budding instincts which he was listening to fully for the first time, and the omega’s presence in his life made it slightly  more bearable. She guided him through nesting and listening to his inner omega. Taught him about scenting and nesting, explained all of the things he’d never understood like how his touch starvation had actually been heightened by his second gender since omegas usually need physical contact more than others. 

Dr. Mancourt had even helped undo a lot of the hate filled teachings he’d been given about omegas. He’d imagined already from the heat he’d shared with Andrew that the idea that omega’s lost themselves to their sexual urges and became mindless whores during their heats was at least somewhat wrong. While his libido had been heightened during his heat he’d been in complete control of his faculties throughout it; sexual release had also not been the only thing he’d craved during it, a lot of times Andrew’s presence and scent being enough to pace him through the pain and heat of his body.

The doctor had explained to him how the first heats after presenting, which usually were shorter in average and happened approximately once a year, didn't even affect or were influenced by reproduction. For the years of adolescence before sexual maturity between the ages of seventeen and nineteen, omega heats were the body’s way of balancing hormones and cementing pack instincts. Pups usually spent them with their families or packs and things like scenting and nest sharing eased them through the pain of them. 

The only reason really why Noah’s few heats at palmetto had been so painful before the one he’d shared with Andrew was that his body needed to catch up with years of suppressed instincts and hormones. Noah understood then why Abby had been horrified at him taking suppressants so strong they’d taken his ability to distinguish scents, something even betas could do, and why he was forced to stop them. 

Noah learned more about his designation in those first months than he ever had while on the run, and a little against his will a seed of resentment towards his mother grew as he imagined the pain he could have saved himself had he only learned these things about himself as soon as he presented instead of taking the suppressants. When Neil was a child his father had often boasted hatred towards omegas and the superiority of alphas. His mother wasn’t as hateful or violent but she’d made sure to beat into him the need to hide and suppress his presentation, how she would not let him being a “needy omega” endanger them. 

Adrian was born in autum, making his entrance into the world in the middle of November while the dried leaves decorated the world in a mantle of orange. Noah doesn't remember a worse moment than having the nurses take Adrian away for the moments it took to clean him and swaddle him, and having his pup finally craddled in his arms felt like the most important moment in the world as the golden brown eyes of his sire looked up at him.

Maybe for the first time in his life, Noah understood then what people meant when they spoke of love. Wondered what his mother would think of him now and also in a way understood her fierce need to protect him. He knew right then that if it took lifting a mountain with his bare hands to keep Adrian safe, then it wouldn't feel heavy at all to him.

Silently, he also vowed to himself to never turn into what his mother had been to him. Mary had been the most important person in his life, everything he had. The unshakable force keeping him safe. Still, through her violence and ferocity Noah had hated her through most of his adolescence, and the mere idea of doing anything that could cause Adrian pain clouded his mind with dread and made his spine shiver.

Noah promised then to be better than her.

He takes a moment before making his prescense known to look into the window of the daycare room. His rutine at the hospital is rarely predictable, but dinner with Adrian is the one part he tries to stick to almost religiously. He rings the small doorbell to let the attendants know that someone is outside and Katie, a chipper omega who Noah finds surprisingly likeable despite her demeanor, opens the door with a smile.

“Hi, Mr. Johnson, here for dinner?” She asks with a smile.

“I am,” He replies. 

He can tell the moment that Adrian notices his presence, the toddler's brown eyes shining with excitement when he looks up from where he’s stacking blocks with other kids and sees him. “Mommy!” The three year old stands up with no hesitation and runs to him.

Noah matches his speed by dropping on one knee so he can catch the impact of the boy running to him. Lifting him up in the air a moment after so he can carry him. The weight of Adrian is familiar and welcomed as the boy curls up into his chest and tucks his head instinctively in the crook of Noah’s neck, inhaling at the scent gland there. Noah in turn, presses his face into blonde curls, scenting his pup as best as he can and feeling him relax into it.

“Hi bug,” Noah clings onto Adrian and lifts him into the air, letting him shift into a more comfortable hold. Adrian inherited his parents size, and is somewhat small for his age, Noah is grateful for how it allows him to hold Adrian closer. His paranoia has dwindled into a more manageable anxiety in the years since he was placed in Tampa, but still he will always prefer to have Adrian close. 

“Is it home time?” Adrian asks, and Noah hates to answer knowing that he will be disappointed.

“It is dinner time,” He tells the pup, and notices the quick shift of emotions in his son’s face as he tries to hide his disappointment. “We’ll eat together tonight, and then in a few hours when I’m done working we’ll go home.” 

Adrian doesn’t answer, instead clinging closer to Noah and letting his dad carry him to the hospital’s cantine. They were allowed to eat at the daycare room, but Noah preferred to take Adrian to the canteen as a little adventure. Adrian is fascinated by every part of the world around him, and it never ceases to fill him with awe to see it.

Noah understands now that Adrian's curiosity is a characteristic of him being only a kid existing in the world for the first time and therefore filled with the need to understand it. Sometimes he wonders if he'd ever been the same way. Other times he wonders when his father had taken that impulse from him, and imagines it was sometime around the smell of his own charred skin as burning hot metal peeled it off his shoulder.

“What did you do today with Miss Katie?” Noah asks him once they’re sitting facing each other even though Adrian is almost too small to have more than just his head over the table. He knows that the pup probably needs a booster seat, but was refused the last ten times he offered with Adrian's certain clarification that he is big and doesn't need it, so Noah stopped asking. Instead he helpes the pup discreetly to reach his utensils and cup better.

Adrian rambles about every activity he did that day with the other kids. He talks Noah’s ear off about coloring and going to the park in front of the hospital with their teachers, and how Miss Katie read him a book about a caterpillar. Something tugs at Noah’s chest every time he gets to eat with Adrian, to hear his son talk and talk and talk the way he was never allowed to as a kid who was "better seen and not heard".

Adrian has friends. He goes on playdates and likes coloring. Adrian watches Disney movies on repeat untill Noah starts mumbling theme songs without realizing. He is nothing more than a normal kid, and to Noah that is nothing short of a miracle.

Adrian still knows not to trust strangers. He knows that mom has scars and that bad men hurt him. But still Adrian is a kid. He behaves like a kid, and is only afraid of the dark. He asks Noah to check for monsters under the bed, but is only afraid of fluffy fake monsters from stories. Adrian doesn’t know what a monster is and Noah will make sure he never does.

“Mommy,” Adrian is snuggled into the crook of Noah’s neck as he carries him back to the daycare. He is just on the edge of a little old to be so attached to Noah’s scent, but he couldn’t care less. After the years of avoiding his instincts Noah allows himself to relish his pup for as long as he’s able. And after a childhood filled with fear instead of comfort, he plainly refuses to deny Adrian when he comes asking for it. “When do we go home?”

The question isn’t unexpected, and a familiar pang of guilt flashes across Noah’s chest. His watch tells him it’s half past seven, so he still has almost five hours of his shift. “After your bedtime tonight bug, I’m sorry.” The apology falls out of his lips even when he isn’t sure it's necessary. Still, he knows that Adrian hates his night shift and doing bedtime at the daycare, so he apologizes.

“And we don’t have to come here again tomorrow?”

Noah smiles softly at him, “No we don’t, we don’t have to be here until next week.” 

Leaving Adrian behind is never easy, especially not when this is the first shift this week that he was able to eat with him. He finds comfort at least in knowing that after today he will have two full days with Adrian before having to return to the hospital. 

The rest of the shift as night falls passes excessively slowly, made worse by the way that Noah needs to avoid the nurses lounge since a group of his colleagues decide to use the empty room and the surprisingly slow night to watch the night’s exy game.

Neil Josten’s “death” had ended the PSU foxes season automatically since they no longer had the minimum amount of players required, but the circumstances and Wymack’s already existent efforts to recruit paired with their almost making it to semi finals meant they weren’t kicked out of Class-1 status. When the next season began the following August Noah, who was by then visibly pregnant, and had recently been placed in a studio apartment in Tampa, sat down to watch it on the laptop his uncle had given him. 

The first half of the match had been hard, a layer of melancholic nostalgia coating him as he watched his old teammates on the court without him. Noah had always known that this would happen, that his time with the foxes would be short and eventually he’d have to run to the next destination and leave them behind. He hadn’t expected it to be this difficult when for his entire life before palmetto, he had been someone made for leaving. With every moment that made Neil Josten into a person Palmetto had also turned into a place that left scars in him, this time not from violence but from the many ways Palmetto and the foxes had burrowed into his chest.

Andrew hadn't stepped into the goal at all for that game, but Noah still had to turn off the screen the moment they showed him sat on the bench and wholely uninterested. His chest throbbed with grief at the image of his mate in front of him yet too far too reach and impossible to touch across the screen. Noah brought Andrew’s hoodie to his nose then to quell the ache of his absence as much as he could, craving Andrew like water in the desert. 

Noah never stopped keeping tabs on Andrew and Kevin, on how the foxes went on to win two championships without him and how Andrew, Kevin and Matt got pro contracts. He never stopped knowing how they were but after that day he avoided pictures of Andrew like the plague. He had thought once that nothing would ever compare to the pain of losing his mother. He knew then that losing Andrew was a good second. 

Noah’s shift continues with him avoiding the nurses lounge and counting down the hours and minutes until he can clock out and take a he hoped asleep Adrian back to their home. 

He calculates it must be the second half of the match when he finally caves and enters the room to get another cup of coffee. Noah keeps his eyes on the floor and hears the commentator on the tv speakers. Andrew’s team is winning based on his co workers dejected groans at the game and because Noah is just that lucky; everything goes to shit the moment his curiosity wins and he looks up at the screen through the corner of his eye. 

Kevin rebounds the ball against the wall in a fluid motion, only to be taken down by a backliner in a definitely illegal check before he can grab it again. The referee doesn’t stop the game before Tampa Bay’s dealer gets a hold of it who passes it to a striker. The striker takes off without a second thought and after ten steps hands off the ball to his second striker who is dangerously close to the goal. In a miracle move the second striker dodges both backliners and moves to shoot at the goal only for the referee’s whistle to finally bring a stop to the game. 

The next moments pass almost in slow motion as the striker tries to stop only for his momentum to propel him forward and towards Andrew. His impulse wins over his attemps at stoping and he collides against the goalie who can't stop the fall. Andrew's head collides against the court floor and bounces, his helmet cracking on impact in a crunch sound that will haunt Noah's nightmares for the foreseeable future.

Noah feels himself shake as the court suddenly fills with people and he can tell that the first person to run to Andrew’s side is Kevin, even before he removes his helmet. The team’s medic follows him and soon white EMT’s cover the court with a stretcher for Andrew. Andrew who has been trying to to stand back up while Kevin screams at him. 

For the first time in years Noah’s mark pulses painfully as Andrew’s face contorts once he’s in the stretcher and he forces himself not to flinch at the sensation. He can’t afford any of his co-workers around him noticing.

“Shit that’s in our zone,” someone shouts next to him, and Noah’s ears perk up in attention. 

“What?” He asks, almost dazed with the cold realization of what that means. 

“The stadium is in our catchment zone,” the girl next to him answers, “They’re bringing Minyard here.” 

Noah was vaguely aware of that fact already. It was rare, but every once in a while a player from the Tampa Bay team would be referred to the hospital for severe injuries. It had never mattered to him since his job didn’t change whether the patients were Exy players or not. Even with how his heart clenched with the nostalgia of their equipment under his hands.

As if on cue, the ER Phone rings at that moment, and the charge nurse’s voice answers with her usual severity. She speaks fast and to the point, and Noah can feel the ground start to crumble under him as she speaks “Injured Exy player, stable on scene with suspected skull fracture, five minutes out.” She shouts and the ambulance team prepares to receive Andrew in the ER where Noah works. 

It is a foreign fear that sits coldly in his chest at the prospect. On one hand he was never meant to see Andrew again, if Andrew knew that he was still alive then other people could find out as well. His father’s remaining associates, or the Moriyamas could find him. Find Adrian. On the other, his chest flutters with excitement every second that Andrew gets closer to the hospital.

His omega cries for Andrew louder than it has in years. Andrew who without knowing it, is on his way to him.

Andrew arrives in the emergency room surrounded by a security team and too much noise, and Noah does what he can to stay away from the commotion. He is glad when they don’t need him to treat Andrew and focuses on other patients around the ER, staying always close enough that he can see Andrew from the corner of his eyes. 

From this close to his mate, Noah can feel everything Andrew can. His pain, his discomfort, his fear. His omega screams at him to go to his alpha, to feel Andrew’s scent on himself once more like it's supposed to be. Instead Noah bites his tongue until he can taste iron and ignores the now throbbing pain in his scent gland as best as he can. 

He hears the constant commotion from where Andrew waits and receives treatment in one of the rooms and moves away from it time and time again as his feet seem to always take him back there without him thinking. Once he even had to move his hand away from the door right before opening.

In the longest hour of Noah's life, Andrew is admitted, evaluated, determined to have a miraculosly mild skull fracture and concussion and sent up to the inpatient floor to spend the night in obervation before being discharged tomorrow.

Even with the difficulty of having Andrew close by, seeing him be wheeled away only increases the ache in his chest. A small but selfish part of him wonders if Andrew could feel him close by and immediately regrets it. Andrew knowing he is here would only put Adrian in danger, and that remains something that Noah can’t afford. 

The rest of his shift passes normally, and soon enough Noah heads to the daycare where no doubt Adrian will be waiting for him fast asleep after pushing his tiredness off for as long as his small body could. It remains his long running project to make it to midnight awake so that he can wait for Noah to pick him up but he still hasn’t managed it. It also couldn’t have helped that today Noah had to come in early to cover someone who got sick so he’s been here for fourteen hours instead of his usual twelve.

It’s a little bit without thinking and a little bit following the incessant pull on his chest that he ends up staring at the door of the one he knows is Andrew’s room

The closed door stares at him with the severity of something out of reach. Noah feels a soft throbbing in his scent gland at the side of his neck, where his mark has laid ignored for the past five years. He can almost feel Andrew sleeping on the other side of the door, their dormant bond pulsing with how close his mate is. 

He shouldn’t enter. The right thing, the safe thing, is to walk away, take Adrian home and wait out the short time it will take for Andrew to get discharged and sent home. Noah’s spent the past half a decade staying away from the painful remains of Andrew in his heart, walking away should be easy. The part of him that still sleeps in Andrew’s frayed orange sweatshirt, clinging to a scent that had faded years prior screams at him to open the door. The part of himself that is connected through their bond is begging and Noah doesn’t have the strength to not listen. 

Andrew sleeps completely still, almost like the dead and Noah immediately knows that they must have sedated him for that to be possible. Like him, Andrew had learned to sleep light from a young age, and specially in an unknown place like this one. An unfamiliar anger simmers in Noah’s chest suddenly as he wonders whether this was something Andrew chose himself and comes up with the clear answer that he never would. 

In sleep, Andrew’s face is relaxed. His hair is still short, but long enough that a fringe falls over his closed eyes. After that first game, Noah has refused to watch or look at anything that would mean looking at Andrew. Matches, magazines, forums; all of them have been a forbidden thing at how much pain the image of his mate caused him. Now that Andrew is laying in front of him, Noah can’t help but truly realize how much Adrian looks like him. 

He was always able to see Andrew in the pup they created together. Adrian’s blonde hair and brown eyes which shine gold under the light acting always as a stark reminder of the alpha who sired him. Now Noah can see the way both of their faces are squared in the same way, how Adrian got from Andrew the shape of his nose like the shape of his eyes is Noah’s.

Noah has gotten used to the smell of hospitals, how antiseptic and rubbing alcohol sink into your skin until it's all you can smell or think about. Now, Noah inhales without realizing he had been holding his breath and the sweet familiarity of Andrew fills his senses. He smells like caramel and burning rubber and if he concentrates Noah can smell hints of lemongrass from his own scent and how they merge together in a way that shouldn’t make sense. He wants to touch, to feel Andrew’s skin under the pads of his fingers just to prove to himself that this isn’t a dream. 

Noah wants to bury himself in the crook of Andrew’s neck, to feel Andrew’s embrace and hide himself away from the past five years of missing him like a limb inside of his arms. He wants to return to that rooftop in palmetto where the smell of cigarette smoke comforted him like a hug while they exchanged truths and kisses, not knowing that one day Andrew would be nothing more than another truth that Noah kept hidden close to his chest. 

Noah wants to kiss him, and his longing for the feeling of Andrew is strong enough to hurt. Still Andrew remains asleep and that is not something Noah will do to him. 

Nothing is easy about knowing that he has to leave, that Adrian is asleep in the daycare waiting for Noah to take him home. The minute he’s allowing himself to see Andrew one last time before he fades from his existence like smoke once again is almost over and his chest feels heavy with grief. 

Noah settles instead with pressing his wrist against Andrew’s, needing at least something to calm the tortuous screaming of his omega. The feeling of Andrew’s scent gland against his own is akin to pieces of a broken puzzle slotting back together, it feels like homecoming. He bites back a whine, as his inner omega pleads with him to stay, to wait until Andrew wakes up and his mate returns to him. Seeing Andrew was a mistake, and the grief of having to leave is immediate but Noah starts to walk away regardless.

He feels a hand tightening around his own, only for it to let go a second after and Noah runs from the room without stopping to check whether he imagined it.

Chapter Text

The dream always starts the same way. Andrew looks out the window at the fast moving landscapes surrounding the motorway taking the foxes to New York for their last match of round three of the spring tournament. He's not focused on anything in particular as much as he's avoiding turning to face the unmoving stare in front of him.

Neil, who had only a moment ago finally defied Kevin and taken the seat in front of Andrew, and was now leaning his weight against the backrest of his own seat to look at Andrew. 

Neil looks at him with bright blue eyes reflecting the sunlight like sapphires. His hair looks closely like fire under the light. Andrew tries and fails to ignore him, the tug in his chest connecting him to Neil making him look back. 

Neil's heat did not end that long ago, and Andrew can feel the bitemark decorating his omega's neck even under the scent patch he's donning. Neil's lips are pink and stretched into a soft unconscious smile. Andrew wants to close the distance and kiss it off of his face.

“Stop,” he manages to wrangle his tone back into emotionless. 

“I'm not doing anything.” Neil answers innocently, pretending not to know that he's looking at Andrew like he was nothing short of precious. How fucking dare he.

The dream continues and Neil tells Andrew a story of a teenager on the run. Of American roads and run down hotels. Of occasional homeless shelters for just a night. Of the fear of existence and the small beauties of each place in the US he passed through. 

Neil talks about too many places for a child to have known fear in, Andrew tells him about Columbia. About a teenager learning maybe for the first time what having a family can mean, even with how odd and dysfunctional the odd trio he’d made with the twin who hated him, and a cousin too young to sacrifice his life for two teenagers, one of whom he'd never met before. 

He doesn't tell Neil the part where Nicky was the first guardian to truly care about him. That is a truth he hasn't fully told himself yet. 

The dream continues, the bus stops and Neil is next to him. Andrew recons that when it actually happened, there were other people around him, but this is his dream and there's no rush to join others. No worry that someone might barge in or see them.

“I need to break our deal,” Even though it isn’t the first time that Neil has asked him to get rid of the promise Andrew made to protect him, it is the first time it’s not phrased at all like a question.

“No.” Neil doesn’t look surprised at his immediate refusal, only mildly exasperated. 

Neil’s scent suddenly fills his nostrils and Andrew sees how the omega lifted a corner of one of his scent patches just enough to reveal his still not fully healed mating mark.  Not three weeks had passed since Neil’s heat had ended with them mating, and still the sight of the mark on the omega’s neck made him want to croon.

He took Neil’s invitation and buried his nose into the gland. Because it’s the dream, Andrew can almost feel the scent, can almost pretend like he remembers it beyond the clinging to the frayed and now scentless clothes that remain of Neil he does when he’s awake. 

“I told you I want to stop running Andrew.” Neil’s voice doesn’t waver as he lets every bit of his fear lay into his scent. “I can’t do that unless you let me fight my own battles. I want to stay here and not lose this.” Before Andrew can even think to interrupt him Neil continues. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Andrew looks back up at blue eyes that now look only slightly more translcent. He agrees with Neil while screaming inside, and tears fall down his cheeks as his mate smiles into the short kiss they share. Neil doesn’t notice as salt coats their lips before separating, hiding his scent behind the patch once more and getting up. Andrew sees as more and more light shines through him as he walks towards the bus’s door. 

This is the part of the now familiar nightmare where Andrew screams himself hoarse. He shouts and pleads at Neil to not leave his side. The scent of his mate will fade as he leaves the bus and Andrew will look down to see glistening red blood coating his hands before waking up with tear tracks on his face. 

This time however the scent doesn’t leave, he can feel it all around him as he stirs awake carefully, his canines sharpened into fangs. Someone is in his room and still he feels none of the familiar fear that should surge from an unknown presence. He can’t when the only thing that matters is that all he can smell is Neil. 

As consciousness finally wins over the last remnants of sleep, he feels finally that there’s a wrist pressed against the scent gland on his. His initial instinct should be to pull away, but the scent around him is familiar in a nostalgic way that makes his eyes burn with tears even though he hasn’t cried since he was a teenager. It’s so familiar that Andrew isn’t completely sure that the dream has ended, he can’t be when this scent is all he’s craved for since Neil died. 

He opens his eyes carefully to not move so much that he lets whoever is next to him notice that he’s awake, and all he can see is a flash of ice blue as the man turns away. If the scent hadn’t been enough to convince him this could not be real, then the unmistakable blue of those eyes should be. He moves quickly, trying to grasp the ghost’s hand as he turns away and leaves the room, but his scent lingers behind him. 

Andrew pinches his forearms, not knowing what else to do in this moment where no other explanation can exist other than this being a fucked up dream. It is not the dream, he didn’t wake up with the feeling of his hands drenched in blood, but it has to be a dream because this scent belongs to a dead man. 

He jumps from his bed then, running out of the room as well as he can while still connected to the IV on his arm, but the hallway is completely empty. He growls softly as the scent lingers, his alpha screaming at him to follow it, to find his mate. He starts doing just that when a nurse turns the corner and spots him.

“Mr. Minyard, you shouldn’t wander on your own. Can I assist you with anything?” She asks, sounding more annoyed at having to lead him back to bed than concerned.

“Did a nurse come into my room?” He asks. Andrew knows that his fangs are still elongated and poking at his lower lip slightly, but hopes it can be brushed off as the stress of a hospital stay. 

“Not that I know,” she answers, guiding him back into the room, “Since you’re not on any medication you are not on rotation for night shift. No one will enter your room unless you press the call button.”

He lets her leave without more protest and resigns himself to not sleeping that night. In the minute that he was out of the room, the scent faded enough to almost convince him that it was actually a dream. Another sick trick of destiny that Betsy would simply call unresolved grief. Or that Aaron would scoff at angrily as nothing more than Andrew’s debilitating denial. Pressing the gland on his wrist against his nose and inhaling proves differently. 

In the years since Neil’s death, his own scent has many times felt wrong or incomplete. Insipid when compared to the way it was supposed to be; mixed with Neil’s in their bond, swirled so completely together that it was almost impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

In those cold first months after Neil’s death, Andrew had been careful with every piece of clothing left in Neil’s dorm. He’d howled in agony when he felt Neil’s death, and tore the scent patch from his neck revealing the mating mark present. The foxes made the connection easily enough, and allowed Andrew to claim Neil’s things for himself.

His clothing lived under Andrew's pillows for that first year; a rotating cycle of shirts taken one at a time out of a sealed bag so that he could prolongue the time he had with all that he still had with Neil's scent. He thinks that part of his obsession started as the scent faded more and more while the bond still agonized in his throat. Every thing he read or heard told him the same thing, that after the death of a mate the bond would fade eventually. Still, Andrew’s didn’t.

He spent a year obsessed with finding Neil, with the idea that the rabbit must have simply needed to escape and run. During that year his usual apathy was replaced by anger and irritability as his alpha screamed and thrashed for the mate he could feel was out there.

He can’t be back in that place four years later, Neil is supposed to be dead, Andrew is supposed to have moved on from fruitless hope. Neil was buried in Palmetto, Andrew only kept the clothes and the binder the omega had protected. Neil is dead. Neil’s scent is gone from Andrew’s life. The bond is only still there because Andrew’s alpha can’t cope with the loss of his mate, a rare thing that can happen according to Betsy.

Neil’s scent is clinging to Andrew’s wrist. Andrew inhales and it’s fresh air, almost as if color returned to his black and white world for the moment that it lasts. 

Neil is alive. Neil was in his hospital room. 

The rest of the night passes in slow motion as Andrew tries and fails to sort through the rushing flood of his mind. When he finally gets discharged with nothing more than instructions to not play for another 8 weeks until the fracture heals and follow up with his doctor back home. His coach is there to fly with him back even though the rest of the team left Tampa the night before.

Exy becoming his job was not something Andrew ever imagined happening, but at least continuing with the almost mindless inertia of it kept him in motion. After graduating it was simply easier to move to Denver with Kevin than to find an entirely new thing to occupy his time with. Betsy finally finding a collection of meds that worked for him also helped. 

Now he was on his second season with Denver and playing professionally, and while tedious it was not unbearable.

The trip back to Denver was peaceful, his coach similar enough to Wymack in his respect for Andrew’s silence and boundaries regarding his personal time as long as he played well. His almost impeccable record meant that he could get away with not speaking to his coach at all through the flight beyond relaying the doctor’s instructions and how he’d be missing the few weeks that remained of the season.

Ever since landing in Tampa early the previous day, Andrew had been on edge. An odd sense of something close to expectation clouding his thoughts as it pulsed in his chest. He wonders now that the feeling has been gone since leaving Florida if it could have something to do with Neil. If it could be the bond reigniting in some way with Neil’s closeness. 

Kevin is at the apartment waiting for him when Andrew returns. Living together is surprisingly easy even when just the two of them. Neil’s death changed Kevin as well, in ways that Andrew would not have foreseen at twenty. He suspects that the boyfriends he spends the off seasons in California with, also help. 

“I have eight weeks off.” Is the only way Andrew announces his arrival, raising an eyebrow at how he can see Kevin restraining the comment he clearly wants to share. “Coach already knows, I’ll be back for next season.” 

“I’m just glad you’re okay.” Kevin answers with an exhale, the slumping of his shoulders a tell of his tiredness. Andrew wonders then for a moment if Kevin slept the night before or if his worry was enough to keep him up. "A skull fracture is no joke."

“Did you make lunch?” Asks Andrew as the only reply, suddenly unconfortable by Kevin's concerned tone. “Coach got me a coffee at the airport but I think we both just wanted to be out of Florida as soon as possible.” 

“There’s chicken and vegetables leftover in the fridge.” Kevin answers. Andrew can and has admitted to himself that his current existence is strange. When he was in univerity it was a given that Exy was just a pointless endeavor to pass his time untill it wasn't enought to quell the constant boredom anymore. It was obvious that Kevin and his family would only stay until their respective deals were fufilled and then leave Andrew to his own devices to wander aimlessly until he died.

Then Neil happened. Neil who after running for a decade told Andrew he wanted to stay. Neil who made him dissolve their deal only to get himself killed less than twelve hours later. Neil who left Andrew with nothing but a binder of money he kept under his mattres yet refused to touch and a stubborn bond that refused to sever even when his mate was dead.

After Neil's death, during that first year Andrew quit Exy and spent his time between bed rotting and manically chasing after the posibility of Neil being alive somewhere out there; it was Kevin and the rest of Neil's Foxes that didn't give up on Andrew, on getting him to come back to life. Now he's become a strange fixture in his life, their deal has been void for years now, but Kevin remains steadfastly at his side, even after everything and with two boyfriends waiting for him to join them in California during the off season.

Andrew hums a thank you before sticking the food in the microwave. A part of him wants to tell Kevin about what happened the previous night, about Neil. The other part knows how he will react. He’ll tell Wymack, or Aaron, and soon every single one of Neil’s Foxes will be in Denver ready to support Andrew through another relapse in his mental state. Another episode of denial. He will not deal with that, not before having physical proof that it was Neil in his room. Even with the heavy certainty pulsing in his chest that it was.

It hums under his skin, the buzzing of Neil’s existence. His mate is alive and out there, Andrew almost feels like he can reach into their bond and grab him if he tries. For the first time in years, he can feel his alpha inside of himself, the desperate need to run to his mate. To find Neil. He’s spent years pushing down his animal side, uncaring as it agonized. With the loss of Neil, of his mate, paying any amount of attention to it was only useful to help Andrew drown in his own useless sorrow quicker, and so he fought to drown his own alpha instead. 

He never returned to suppressants, the memory of the awful drugs still so close that the mere idea made his skin feel as if stretched over his bones, but he could get scent patches and wear them religiously until he could almost forget his own scent. He could spend ruts locked in his room playing deaf ears to what his alpha needed and pushing the pain of it into a box in his mind. He could ignore his alpha and the sickening pull of the bonding mark to someone no longer alive until his instincts were all but dead.

The bond calls to him now, like an old friend appearing at the worst possible time. A low murmur buzzing under his skin. It is expectation and its most dangerous companion which Andrew should have learn as nothing more than futile as a child. It is hope.

It follows Andrew in the weeks after, an ever present companion in his mind. He almost feels like he's a sophmore at Palmetto again, high and completely obssesed with the cryptic freshman wearing contact lenses. Of course back then his obsession was a mixture of attraction and absolute mistrust of the boy who looked like he existed constantly a second away from choosing flight. Now it's Neil having used the few months by Andrew's side to know him completely, to get his trust. To get him to want.

It's Andrew accepting, even with how foreign and wrong it should be, that he wants more than anything for Neil to be somewhere out there. To be alive. He is hungry for it. In five years continuing therapy, and even being forced by his twin and cousin into a short lived test run with grief counseling, he's at least learned to welcome some feelings into his life but want has stayed forbidden, blocked and hidden deep inside of his chest.

Nothing good can come out of wanting. This is something that Andrew knows is true, and yet it stubbornly carves a space deep in his chest for the weeks he spends recovering.

Denver wins the championship three weeks after Florida, and while Andrew no longer considers Exy nothing more than a bother akin to a stone in his shoe; he still is grateful for the rest order from his doctor that allows him to stay at the apartment for the last few games of the season.

Kevin's bags are already packed, ready for the eight weeks he'll spend in California with his boyfriends. A part of Andrew wonders why he hasn't transferred yet to join them in the sunshine state, the other knows that it is because of him. At the end of the day, even with the tentatively called friendship they've built, Kevin is just another one of Neil's Foxes who doesn't trust Andrew to not completely go off the rails if left to his own devices.

Andrew knows that technically he will be proving all of them right with what he's planning for when Kevin leaves but he's never been one to care much about what others think of him anyway.

Kevin leaves on a Monday, three days after Denver takes home the trophy; by Tuesday morning Andrew's own bag has been packed and loaded into his car. The drive down to Florida is long, but the thrum of the Maserati still feels as natural around him as that first day in Atlanta. The smell of worn leather, the rumbling of the engine, all comforting as he travels down the I-70.

He still remembers the first time he drove the Maserati again after Neil's death. For the first month after returning from Baltimore it stayed untouched in the parking lot of Fox tower, ignored by Andrew the same way every thing that wasn't his bed was. Betsy went to see him weekly at his dorm for that first month, sitting on the bed next to his while Andrew stared at the wall giving one word answers to her questions.

It was late into the night the first time he got back inside of the car, nightmares of Neil's agony-filled screams as he was tortured keeping him up. Nightmares before Baltimore were not frequent, but also not completely out of the ordinary. Mostly because he rarely slept deep enough to dream anymore, not when his mind had learned all too well with the years that it didn't take sleep for unwanted monsters to prawl in the night.

After Baltimore, they became regular enough to completely destroy his already flimsy sleep schedule. He'd mentioned them to Bee once, one of the rare moments of actual communication from him since everything had gone down, but nothing had been helpful so far; not when the nightmare of seeing Neil die over and over again only continued when he was awake.

That night, the third in a row being woken up by an imaginary choir of agonizing screams from his mate, Andrew finally decided to go for a drive. Usually he'd gone to the roof and chain smoked until the dizziness was enough to be taken for numbness, but the roof was too close to Neil in his chest to consider entertaining the idea. Car ride it was.

The scent hit him the moment he sat in front of the wheel, and Andrew rushed to close the door less any got out. Somehow he hadn't considered that with the car seeing absolutely no use for a month, that it still smelled painfully like Neil. His body moved faster than his mind, and Andrew pressed his nose against the passenger side's headrest. Neil's Lemongrass mixed with his own burnt rubber invaded his senses and for the first time in years, Andrew felt ready to cry.

For the first time since Baltimore, the bond throbbed in his neck. It was faint, almost not there. It was the faint pulse of his alpha responding to the scent of his mate. The others never quite understood where Andrew's obsession over Neil being alive started, but he knew it had been there.

He only drove at night at first, jealously keeping the remnants of Neil's scent for himself the same way he did with the clothes the omega had left behind. Wymack had claimed his Exy jerseys. One to bury with Neil's empty casket like the junkie probably would have wanted. One to hang framed on his living room wall next to Gordon's. It was poetic in a fucked up way. The year had started with only one fifth year senior and only one rookie, now it had neither. Andrew imagined the laughs the drugs would have pulled out of him for that bit of horrible irony.

With time he got more and more used to driving again, found in it the same comfort he had in the GS when he felt completely free for the first time after the hag's death. With time Neil's scent also faded down to nothing like it did on everything else, and while eventually he allowed other people to ride with him in the car, the passenger seat remained empty.

It is fitting in a way, he thinks to himself now as he continues down to Tampa, the wild goose chase for his pipe dream started in the Maserati. The same car that is now taking him to where he knows Neil is. He knows because he has to be. Neil has to be in Tampa because Neil has to be alive. Even if Andrew is equally unsure about what he will do if he is as if he isn't.

The trip down to Tampa takes three days of driving ten hours before stopping in hotels to sleep. The good thing about having pro athlete money, is that it buys silence. A thousand dollars to the secretaries makes sure no one finds out that he's there.

The buzzing sensation under his skin returns the moment he enters the city limits and he understands it now as a sort of primal anticipation. It's more animal than human, a pull starting from the center of his chest letting him know that his mate is near. Andrew knows that Tampa is too big for it to be possible but as he opens the car window to smoke he could almost swears that he can smell lemongrass on the air.

The humid ocean air makes his skin gross as his hair sticks quickly to the back of his neck and Andrew is somewhat glad to have showered in the hotel he stopped at in Alabama. Tampa surrounds him completely, and dread builds with every passing moment as the question of why would Neil be in fucking Florida of all places grows steadily in his mind.

A dark cloud of uncertainity presses against his brain as he drives towards downtown Tampa guided by the car's GPS. Doubt settles in with every turn of the wheels, the posibility that once again his mind played a trick on him last time he was in Tampa sitting heavily inside his chest. That just like every time Andrew has seen Neil around corners and in between crowds this past five years, this is all in his head.

Andrew cringes internally every time he remembers the more than one occasion he chased after auburn-haired backs walking away from him only for the very confused, and very not Neil, people to stare back at him.

The sun has started its path back down by the time he reaches Tampa General Hospital, a beheamoth of a complex standing tall against the blue sky. It takes him close to ten minutes to find the main entrance and accompanying parking lot, and he sits inside of his car for ten more. His window is open slightly so he can smoke out of it without it being too obvious, and he's glad for the dark windows which don't allow anyone outside the car to see in.

Andrew lets his determination win, needing to at least know whether he imagined the entire interaction or not, and puts on a black baseball cap to hide his face. He has a pair of sunglasses to complete the incognito semi-celebrity look, but as the sunset progresses, he imagines that it will look more suspicious if he wears sunglasses indoors than if he doesn't. He completes his preparation by turning off his phone and placing the strongest scent patches he could get his hands on over his scent glands.

His mission seems slightly more daunting as he stands at the general entrance and pushes the doors before walking in. Andrew skips the information desk and walks directly to the inpatient floor he remembers being in. It feels like the easiest choice to begin.

He walks across the hallways and finds the room he knows was his, but walks away after seeing a nurse walk inside. It becomes a waiting game after that , and a little bit of prayer to a god he does not believe in for the next thing to actually work and not land him in jail. Now that would be a disaster of a scale he will not imagine.

Andrew waits until the nurses' station clears almost completely and makes his move. Luck smiles at him as the nurse, a young beta girl whose name he does not bother to learn, guides him to the room he needs after the first flash of the wad of cash he prepared.

The employee files are inmediately daunting, drawers upon drawers of information for him to sift through. If, and that is a big if, If Neil is working on this hospital, he can't be doing so as a doctor. The option also exists that he was not an employee, but a patient in the biggest coincidence to happen to Andrew since Pig Higgins found Aaron at a fucking hockey game of all places. But he doesn't entertain it. Can't right now.

Neil being a patient would mean every part of the plan unravelling. Andrew knows very little about confidentiality legislation, but at least he knows that those records are ought to be protected enough to be too far from Andrew's reach.

Logically a Neil who works at a hospital in Tampa of all places should work as a type of clerk or janitor, someone who can slip unnoticed by most people. Andrew has only one counterargument, so absurd that he shouldn't even entertain it. Instinctually, his more animalistic side, the part of him that's been on edge ever since arriving to Tampa, tells him to look in the section for nursing. Because logically Neil would never work in any position at a hospital in Tampa, he might as well check.

It doesn't take Andrew long to find him, the blue eyes giving him away the moment they cause Andrew to pause. Neil Josten, Andrew's Neil, has been dead for five years. After two hours of looking through files, Noah Johnson's picture stares back at Andrew with blue eyes so familiar that they make his chest ache.

Andrew stares at the picture on the file. The clearest difference from his Neil present in his hair, a dusty blonde only a few shades darker than Andrew's. Still, his eyes are the same as they were. Andrew doesn't know or understand what could be compelling Neil to keep his natural eye color instead of covering it up with contacts like he had when he’d first arrived at Palmetto, but he won't question it if it means getting to look at those eyes again.

The other important change, are the scars littering Neil's face.

The Last time Andrew saw Neil he had the number four tattoed on his cheekbone to signal him as Riko's , the picture has a jagged burn scar covering the spot. On the oposite cheek, cris cross knife cuts have created white scars, and one of his eyebrows is parted as well.

The need to see him grows ferviently in seconds. Andrew maps the scars marring Neil's face in the picture and comits them to his memory. With the uncertainty of everything he doesn't know, he clings to what he does. Neil got taken by his father. Neil got hurt. Andrew never saw a body but he remembers the basement covered in dried blood. Neil is alive, not dead, working as an ER nurse in Tampa.

Neil is alive and, for the first time in five years, within Andrew's reach.

He scans over the file to find the mailing adress listed and writes it down into his phone quickly before sliping back out of the room. His skin feels like it's buzzing over his bones as he walks again through the maze of hallways towards the entrance, and it becomes a struggle to keep an even pace and not attrack more attention than he wants to.

The drive is surprisingly short, and the car's GPS leads him to a neighborhood that's definitely too nice for a first year as an RN's salary. It's close to one in the morning when he reaches the house, having lost too much time in the hospital looking for any information proving Neil was in this state, and it looms tall over him with its two stories like his very own Mount Everest.

An odd feeling settles in Andrew's gut, the possible culmination of five years of desperation. Here, he either finds Neil once and for all, proves to his brother and every one of the Foxes that he was never insane, and gets his mate back; or he breaks into a random house, finds nothing and lands himself in jail.

He's gotten too far to turn around, driven by an uncharacteristic determination Andrew gets his lockpicks from the glove box and gets to work on the house's front door.

Literal crickets chirp around him as he works and his usual black clothing proves useful to cover him in the darkness of the night. The lock gives under his ministrations, but when Andrew attempts to open the door, the handle does little more than wiggle. It makes sense to him, to the part of him that knows or at least knew Neil, that it wouldn't be so simple if the junkie remained as paranoid as he always was; but it doesn't make it less frustrating.

Andrew presses a look into the keyhole, trying to determine how many internal locks separate him from being able to enter. Maybe looking for a window would be more productive.

His mind races ahead of him as he tries to conjure a way to enter should his lockpicking attemps fail. He imagines now that they will if Neil lives here; knows that the fucking rabbit is too paranoid to leave his door defensless enough for a simple lockpick to work.

He follows the many trails of ideas in his head when they all quiet suddently and at the same time. Sushed into complete silence by the familiar feeling of a knife against the skin of his throat.

Chapter Text

Click

The sound is faint, almost imperceptible at a distance, but still so unmistakeable that it's enough for every hair on the back of his neck to stand in alert. Noah knows what that sound is, a part of him has feared that sound for years, knowing what it means.

Someone is trying to open the front door.

Adrian stirs, frowining at the sharp turn of Noah's scent, but doesn't wake up. Noah inhales, focusing on keeping his scent calming and soft - like every night for bed time. Adrian stops moving, the slight frown gone with the same speed it had appeared. Noah slips out of the room in quiet but fast steps so that he doesn't risk waking Adrian up -his mind racing ahead of him as fear settles into a cold stone in his chest.

Noah feels his fangs elongating just enough to be sharp, a growl forming in the inside of his throat that swallows down as he close to runs down the stairs as quietly as he can.

Someone is downstairs. Someone is trying to open the door. How Lola found him, he doesn't know. Someone on the FBI ratted him out most probably, but it's all completely irrelevant when Adrian is sleeping in his bedroom. When they could get to him.

He has only one chance to do what he needs to quickly, to null any opportunity of the person downstairs to reach the sleeping pup. His pup. Noah is grateful then, that his everpresent paranoia means the door is well secured with several locks and deadbolts. Annoying when he needs to wrangle a toddler out in the mornings, but vital when someone is trying to force the door open.

The gun is locked away and trying to get it now will lose him precious seconds he needs desperately. Noah imagined that keeping it as hidden as he does would bring him problems eventually, but with Adrian he refused to chance the posibility of him finding it. He remembers the pain of his first bullet wound at only twelve, and even with the difficulty it poses now, he will not risk the chance of Adrian getting hurt with a gun in the open.

He left Palmetto so that Adrian would not know the fear of his own childhood; his mother keeping a gun under the pillow like Noah’s own did wasn’t something that kids who didn’t have terrible childhoods had to be wary about. 

Noah instead quickly grabs the meat cleaver from the kitchen drawer, suppressing the familiar shiver that runs down his spine every time he makes eye contact with the sharp thing - the unavoidable reminder of his father- , and slips out of the side window without making a sound. The person is close to kneeling down on the floor, trying to pick the second lock with only one hand as a flashlight balances on his shoulder.

Noah smells at the air carefully as he approaches , but he’s either a beta or wearing really strong patches since he cannot get a single discernable scent. He uses the nimble legs that Exy footwork left him so many years ago and crosses the distance between them silently in five steps. He feels the man stiffen as soon as the knife’s blade settles on his neck without pressing. 

The man remains crouched in front of the door, giving his back to Noah as the knife’s top presses another millimeter in. He guides the stranger to stand by lifting the knife slightly against his chin, and the man follows. Any discernible characteristic still obscured by the dark hoodie. Only  moments after the man stands, Noah holds onto one of his shoulders and turns him around, pushing him in one quick motion against the door making his head hit the door behind him with a soft thud. The knife still threateningly pressed against his throat. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” The words tumble out of Noah’s mouth as the brown of Andrew Minyard’s eyes stares back at him like a ghost of every one of his mistakes.

The knife clatters as it hits the floor. 

Andrew stares at him, an array of emotions flashing in rapid succecion through his face and breaking the indiferent look Noah remembers as the alpha's gazes scans him from head to toe. His expression settles finally, his mouth pressed in a tight line, something indiscernable to most others, but that Noah understands inmeiately with one look into Andrew's eyes. Rage.

In the second that follows, he notices the scent patches on Andrew’s throat and almost wants to tear them off.

“Neil.” Andrew’s words are almost breathless and the name that hasn't been his in years ignites something too close to longing inside of his chest. 

“Don’t call me that,” He corrects, holding down a wince. “Neil Josten is dead.” 

“I know I read the fucking news papers.” Even in Andrew’s anger there’s an undertone of something raw and burning in the shape his voice takes then. “Buried a casket completely empty save for you old exy jeresey and racket since your father wasn't kind enough to leave enough of you to put on the ground” Andrew’s words are sharp as he speaks. “Now we know why the FBI wouldn’t surrender your body.” 

Andrew is standing in front of him after five years. Noah goes back to that night so many weeks ago when he'd finally felt Andrew again after years of wanting, feels the burning sensation of a hand holding onto his wrist and curses himself for being stupid enough to lie to himself conviced that Andrew hadn't noticed he'd been there.

Andrew is standing in front of him and all Noah can think of doing is letting the alpha kiss him untill he melts into the ground, unamde by the warmth of it. Can only think of burying his face into the blonde’s neck until the mere thought of once again forgetting his scent feels impossible again.

Andrew's attention on him, even with the ice cold expresion he's wearing, have his omega screaming inside of him louder than it has for the alpha in five years. Desperate for contact, for closeness. Having Andrew, his lips, his face, his arms, only centimeters away now somehow harder than the years of unclosable distance.

“Stop staring.” Andrew close to growls and Noah realizes then that he was doing that. He wants to force himself to tear his eyes away from Andrew but can't, the most primal part of him craving whatever closeness he can get from his mate. 

“Sorry,” He says. If for leaving, or for coming back he doesn't know. Most definetly for how he'll need to make him leave as soon as he can.

“Fuck you.” Andrew bites out at that probably more loudly than he intended but it works all the same to snap Noah out of the fact that they are outside of his house and one of his neighbors could see them and start asking very uncomfortable questions.

"We need to go inside," Noah says, "Someone will see us." Andrew doesn't reply, choosing instead to signal with head for Noah to lead the way. It's silent and familiar, one of those Andrew-isms that once almost constituted another language he knew to perfection, and it makes his chest ache.

Noah tries to grab his keys out of his pocket to realize that he’d left them inside in his rush to get to the intruder. “Follow me,” he sighs, guiding Andrew to the side window he’d used to get out of the house. Andrew’s footsteps follow him steady and sure. His closeness at his back and the security that he is safe with Andrew covering his rear achingly familiar.

He enters first and helps Andrew maneuver the opening so that he doesn't make noise. He doesn't need Adrian to wake up.

“Wait here,” Noah sits his mate in the sofa and heads to the kitchen to grab him an ice pack, suddently aware that Andrew only recently recovered from a concussion and the way he hit his head on the door can't be painless. His eyes glance at the empty space in the knife block and he settles for retrieving that later. 

Andrew’s eyes fix on him as soon as he enters the living room again, ice in hand, and they follow every one of his movements. “Here” Noah hands him the pack and Andrew looks at him with something close to disbelief before grabbing it and placing it on the back of his head “Keep that on for 20 minutes, it will help avoid swelling, and I have some tylenol as well if you have any pain.” 

“I’m surprised you’re not just offering me a swig of whisky and some stitches.” The answer comes as soon as Noah sits down in the armchair in front of him and the venom present at the door hasn’t left Andrew’s mouth. His resentment is palpable in the way he throws Noah’s truths at him. 

“Andrew, why are you here?” He lets his exhaustion blend into his voice, begging his scent to not betray just how much having Andrew in front of him now is everything he’s wanted for the past five years and more. 

“I didn’t believe them.” Andrew stares daggers at Noah and speaks without a single hint of hesitation. “I felt you die that night in Baltimore. I felt myself burning from the inside out as I felt you die. And still I couldn't believe it.” Noah vaguely remembers the doctors telling him that he coded once on the ambulance because of the blood loss after Baltimore. He never imagined Andrew would have felt that.

“I looked for you,” His mate continues, and even through the unshaking fury in his voice, Noah can hear the grief present in every word. “I spent a year looking, desperate to find you since there was no way for you to be dead."

"Everyone treated me with kid gloves thinking I lost my mind and I refused to believe them untill I found your uncle's number on your bag and called him. Begged him to help me find you.” Stuart never told Noah this, and he knows his shock is present in his expression and his scent. “He took me to the basement. Showed me how your blood stained the walls and the chair where your father had slit your throat. He said that there wasn’t much of you left to bury with how he tore you apart.” 

Noah winces. He imagines Andrew in the basement of his nightmares, standing alone. The lies of his death leave a sudden acrid aftertaste in his mouth. Since he found out he was pregnant with Adrian, every single one of his priorities shifted into doing whatever was needed to protect him. Leaving the foxes, leaving Andrew, was only worth it because it was how he would be able to keep Adrian and keep him safe.

Still the picture of Andrew, standing alone in the basement makes the ground shake under him as something like guilt clots in his stomach. 

“They needed me to die so that I could join Witness Protection.” He knows that nothing he can say to change his choice, especially when even with how much he hates the pain Andrew went through he cannot regret his decision. But Noah can at least give him some explanations before never seeing him again.

“You told me that you didn't want to leave," Andrew bites back. "You promised me that this time you would stop running." Betrayal is present in every word, dripping from his tone like blood. “So?" Andrwe asks, "Everything you said to get me to break our deal about you standing on your own feet. Everything about wanting to stay but needing to do it on your own strength. Everything was you lying so that you could run again.” A storm brews behind Andrew's eyes, and Noah can only hope to survive the winds.

“I knew that you were nothing but a coward waiting to escape.” His tone fills with sorrow and Noah’s chest aches. “Maybe I stopped fighting the idea that you were actually dead because it meant that you were not one more person to lie. One more person to leave.”

"I didn’t lie.” He hates the way that Andrew is looking at him, the self hatred he sees in him at the confession. “I really didn’t have a choice.”

“That is bullshit and we both know it.” Andrew takes a step in his direction with his teeth bared in anger but Noah doesn’t back down, bearing his throat instead; not in submission, but in a show of trust. He isn’t afraid because he still knows that no matter what people say of him Andrew is the farthest thing from a monster he knows. That Andrew will never hurt him. A more twisted and desperate part of him just wants Andrew to get closer.

“You could have chosen to stay.” The alpha says finally, taking a step back.

Andrew tears the patch out of his neck and Noah amost whines relieved at the way his scent curls around him. It's been five years since Noah has been able to be surrounded by Andrew like this, and he doesn't care about how every bit of Andrew’s infuriation is seeping through; it's irrelevant when the scent of smoke feels like breathing clearly for the first time in years.

He looks down to the mating mark on Andrew’s neck and it sends a shock of possessive satisfaction down his spine. Even with everything that happened, Andrew never got it removed.

“Why would you let me do this if you were only going to leave?” Andrew asks poining to it, and Noah can smell the desperate plea in his words. He can smell the way that longing fills and coats Andrew's scent, much like it does his own. He understands that this is Andrew giving him a chance to explain, to give him a reason beyond the lies. 

“I didn’t want to leave.” Is all he can say, trying as hard as he can to wrangle his scent back into something neutral. 

“Then why did you?” Andrew is standing so close to him that Noah would only need to lean forward to touch Andrew’s nose with his own. 

“I can’t tell you.” Noah replies, undertanding that the questions mean that Andrew doesn't know. He understands the nescesity of the lie, and still winces at how his mate's expression breaks. Andrew scoffs angrily, hiding his scent once more.

“Andrew, you can’t tell any of them that you found me here." He pleads, "Neil Josten is dead and he needs to stay that way. I’m sorry but I can’t tell you why.” He knows he sounds desperate. Knows that to Andrew it will be the frantic desperation of a liar caught, and fights to keep the alpha away from the tracks he's trying to hide. 

“Fuck you.” Andrew says with vitriol dripping like venom from his throat. 

The hatred palpable in the air makes Noah flinch. The rejection from his alpha making his inner omega scream and tear with sharp claws at his chest. He wants nothing more than for Andrew to look at him how he used to back at the roof in palmetto, but Adrian is still asleep upstairs. Adrian is mre important.

Noah needs Andrew to leave, even if his hatred will destroy him completely. 

“Mom?” Cold fear runs down his back as small feet walk softly down the stairs. A light turns on behind him, reflecting on the wall in front of him. Adrian turned on the light on the stairs like Noah always tells him to do before coming down. 

“Shit.” Noah tsks, looking up at Andrew quickly trying to find a way to make it out of this night unscathed and knowing he will fail. “Stay here.” He tells Andrew, motioning him to sit down on the sofa so that he can intercept Adrian at the bottom of the stairs. 

Adrian turns the corner of the stairs in his elephant pajama onesie, making his way down slowly and holding on to the rails carefully. Noah kneels on one knee at the bottom of the stairs, ready to catch him when he gets down. 

“Why are you out of bed?” Noah asks softly once his pup is comfortable in his arms. 

“I had a bad dream.” Noah can tell now in the dim light that Adrian’s eyes are shinny with tears and when he inhales around Adrian’s hair he can smell a faint hint of fear under the pup’s usual scent. Guilt crowds inside his chest with every other feeling. “You were not in your bed when I went to look for you.” 

Noah wastes no time releasing a calming scent, rocking Adrian slightly in his arms. “I’m sorry bug, do you want some warm milk before going up?”

“Are you coming with me?” Adrian’s lip wobbles slightly.

“Not yet, Bug.” He rocks Adrian a little, “I still need to stay here for a little longer.”  He can feel Adrian slump sadly. “What about this? I’ll prepare you a warm glass of milk and tuck you in my nest, and I’ll be up as soon as I can so I’ll be next to you when you wake up tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Adrian says, his eyes blinking sluggishly, “Can I have hot chocolate?” 

“Not tonight, you won't be able to sleep. But I'll add some vanilla to your milk and you can have hot chocolate for breakfast, okay?”

“Okay.” Noah carries Adrian into the kitchen and rocks him as he puts a mug filled with milk in the microwave. Adrian clings and inhales Noah’s calming scent, which he hasn’t stopped pushing out since his pup appeared down the stairs. Part of it to calm the clearly upset pup, part to distract him from Andrew's scent in the livin room.

He also hates to admit it, but having Adrian in his arms also helps balance him, and allows himto collect his thoughts before he needs to face Andrew again. 

Noah sets the pup down on the counter so that he can move the milk to a cold mug so that Adrian won't burn himself and adds a little vanilla. Adrian sips contentedly and Noah smiles at the drowsy way that his eyes threaten to close on him. “Are you ready to go back to bed, Bug?” He asks and Adrian can only nod, the ears on his onesie flopping slightly. 

He lifts him and Adrain attaches to him like velcro once again as Noah starts walking. He can feel his pup relaxing his hold as the weight increases, and he’s glad for it as he needs to return to the living room so that he can go up the stairs. Noah doesn’t miss how Andrew stares daggers at him before he goes up, but is glad that the alpha doesn’t follow him. 

Adrian’s fist tightens slightly around his clothes as Noah tries to lay him down inside his nest, but the fight is gone from the pup as soon as his mom’s scent surrounds him completely. Noah tucks him under a soft blanket and brushes a curl away from Adrian's face before walking away.

A single inhale makes it into his lungs as Noah pauses on the top of the stairs, and he wills it to give him the strength he needs for what will follow. To his surprise, Andrew is not waiting on the sofa anymore, but rather directly at the bottom of the stairs. Noah sees a hailstorm of emotions behind Andrew’s eyes and places a finger in front of his lips before the alpha can say anything and wake Adrian up. 

Noah guides him back to the kitchen and closes the door behind them. Time seems to stop in the second before he turns to face Andrew. An interval of peace before hail starts to fall.

“Do you want hot chocolate?” Noah asks him, the fight having left his body completely. And Andrew stares at him close to dumbfounded. 

“Will I be able to sleep after?” The alpha cuts but it lacks a lot of the sharpness present before Adrian’s interruption.

Noah doesn't reply, simply sighing while he places the milk on the stove. “Ask me.” 

Noah sees the shifting expression of Andrew’s face as he looks over possible questions in his head. Noticing the turbulence of not knowing where to start. 

“How old is he?” is what the blonde finally settles for. 

“He’s turning four in November," Andrew’s shoulders tense slightly, although Noah imagines that his answer  only confirms what he was already suspecting. “I found out after-” He inhales sharply, the memory of that night still burning him with the smell of his own charred flesh. “-After Baltimore.” 

“And what, you thought that your best chance was to not tell us?” Noah is surprised that Andrew apparently includes the foxes in that us, but makes no comment. With every second passing he sees Andrew slumping more and more into his chair with understanding. Sees the anger melting further away to leave sagged. 

Noah waits before answering, grabbing both of the mugs he’s now filled with Hot chocolate and placing them on the table. Andrew’s mix visibly darker than his own. 

“You don’t like sweets.” The alpha interjects matter of factly as soon as he sees that Noah also poured a mug for himself. He looks at Noah with a searching look, like analizyng the passing of five years through him. 

“You can blame him for that.” Noah chuckles slightly, close to taken aback by the sudden absurdity of Andrew Minyard sitting in front of him with a hot mug in his hands. The image is so painfully familiar, a balm to every piece inside of  him that has been aching for the years without Andrew. And still it feels like an image across a looking glass. Noah half expects to wake up and reach for a missing weight next to him the same way he has for the past five years. 

“He definitely has enough of an aggressive sweet tooth that I’ll lose my salary in dental work one day if I don’t keep him in check,” he chuckles,”  and during my pregnancy like ninety percent of my cravings were in some way composed of sugar..” Andrew’s gaze is indecipherable as he listens to Noah talk. “Chocolate I think is the only one of those that stuck.”

The tension in the air hasn't completely disappeared, but it has at least diluted slightly. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Andrew asks close to resigned. “If you had come back we would have figured it out.” 

“Leaving really wasn’t my choice Andrew.” Noah pushes his scent our faintly, putting into it every bit of longing inside of his chest. “I woke up two days after the feds found me and by then they had already published my death. At first I fought back, I was ready to tear everything down if it meant getting back to you.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Andrew’s scent surrounds him again as the alpha stops whatever control he was keeping over his scent. Noah’s eyes travel back down his trhoat, lured to the mating bond at the side of it, the one matching his own, before inhaling and truly seeing everything Andrew is feeling. Andrew is baring to him what is the truth linking them. Now neither of them can hide. 

“Because Lola was still out there.” He answers and by how Andrew’s fist closes tightly around his mug, the alpha clearly knows who Noah is referring to. “My father was dead, and trust me I still repeat that to myself whenever I need a pick-me-up but Lola was out there.” Andrew inspects Noah for what feels like the first time, his eyes moving quickly across the many scars marring his face. “Lola is out there.” 

He bites the inside of his cheek for a moment. “I was not supposed to even be able to get pregnant at all, not after supressing like I did for so many years, but as soon as I found that there was no other choice to make. Even if Lola had been killed, the Moriyamas would not allow him to live.”

Andrew’s eyebrows raise in response to his words and Noah wonders how much he knows about everything. He reacted angrily to Lola’s name so it isn’t nothing. “The deal Kengo had with my father was that if I was sold to the ravens then I’d be allowed to live. Children of subordinates for them are nothing but a risk they cannot afford so if I couldn’t pass the audition that Tetsuji composed for me then I would be executed.”

“And he would be at the same risk.” Andrew doesn’t ask, simply states. Noah suddenly realizes that he hasn’t told Andrew what their pup’s name is. 

“I don’t think they would have even gotten to the point of other options.” He admits, “I already had cost them too much money in the years my mother spent hiding me from them. As soon as they learned that I was pregnant, and they would have, I don’t doubt they would have put a bullet between my eyebrows.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t run.” Andrew answers. It is not even an accusation. It is simply a fact from the person who knew Neil Josten the most. 

“The way I saw it my options were: return to the foxes and be murdered by the Moriyamas,” He counts with his fingers, “Run and hide, maybe leave the country and return to the life I had before Millport, constantly looking over my shoulder. Or take the offer of Witsec and at least spend whatever time I had before Lola found me again taking them all down.” 

“That didn’t answer why you didn’t take the second option.” 

“Because I was not going to allow Adrian to grow up the way I did.” To him it is the most obvious answer in the world. “I spent more than a decade knowing nothing but fear and the smell of blood. Even if we pretend that having a newborn with me wouldn’t have slowed me down, it took a lot of violence for me to become good at running."

"My mother saved my life, she gave hers so that I could escape and she kept me alive for years. But every one of her lessons I learned through the bruises on my skin.” Andrew’s facade broke completely as perfect understanding overtook his features. "Her death was the worst thing that happened to me, but I hated her through a lot of my adolescence."

“Adrian.” Andrew almost whispers with a softness that cradles the name carefully. 

“Adrian Joseph Johnson." Noah replies and Andrew looks away from him, as if unbalanced suddenly.  “I have made many things wrong in my life Andrew, and leaving you was the hardest choice I ever made. But Adrian doesn’t have scars, and when I ask him about the bad dream tomorrow all of his monsters will be imaginary.” 

Andrew’s hand cradles his chin suddenly, and the soft feeling of a calloused thumb caressing the tears away from his cheeks is the only way Noah realizes he’s crying. In the moment it took him to blink, Andrew switched chairs so that he’s now directly at Noah’s side, cradling his face between his hands like something treasured.

The distance between them now is almost null, so close that he can feel Andrew's warm breath over his nose. The alpha looks at him, every bit of anger gone from his eyes and replaced by a chasm of grief. "Yes or no?" His mate asks him, and Noah could laugh at the sharp joy of hearing those words again.

He's not done breathing out his assent when Andrew’s lips meet his, closing the distance spanning five years between them. They feel like running home. The part of him that’s spent the time missing Andrew, his Andrew. His alpha. His mate, like a phantom limb finally quieting as his scent covers him. Finally, it's not disturbed by doubt, sorrow, or anger. This is Andrew pure and true and Noah can only whine at the feeling.

He allows his inner omega to take the smallest bit of control, to reunite with his mate like it’s been pleading to do. The kiss deepens in a familiar rhythm, and yet it lacks the expected force. Even in their mutual desperation, there’s a tenderness there as they find each other once more. 

Noah bares his neck in a wordless plea and Andrew wastes no time latching his teeth into the mark, it's not strong enough to break skin, but the sensation is enough to overwhelm every sense in his body as Andrew licks around the mark and then presses his nose to the gland there to drink in Noah’s scent. 

Noah pulls softly on Andrew’s blonde hair and brings him up for another kiss, his mouth opening immediately at the soft prodding of Andrew’s tongue. 

His mind returns to another time, another place. To a cold rooftop and the feeling of a beanbag behind his back. To Andrew’s arms holding him together and taking him apart. Noah gasps into the kiss and it becomes nothing but a battle for dominance as both of them intensify it progressively. Noah feels ready to melt into Andrew until there is no more telling where one begins and the other ends. The molten desperate want inside of him threatening to burn him alive.

Andrew hisses lightly as Noah presses too much on his shoulder without realizing and it’s enough to break him out of his concentration. “Wait,” Noah whispers. He pulls back slightly but leaves his forehead pressed against Andrew’s. “If we don’t pause I won’t be able to stop and Adrian will wake up if I’m all covered in an unfamiliar scent when I go up.”

Andrew tsks and Noah can feel the twinge of annoyance through their bond. It is a sudden realization how the strings of their connection snap together for the first time in years, and his surprise must have reached as well because his mate looks at him with soft wide eyes. Andrew moves his hand down until it’s placed directly over Noah’s mark and the soft caress of his fingers sends shivers down his spine. 

Noah matches Andrew’s approach from earlier and buries his face on the side of Andrew’s neck, nuzzling the gland and inhaling deeply Andrew’s scent. It is as welcoming as scenting Andrew’s wrist in the hospital room, at the same time it’s so much more.

“We need to shower now.” Noah chuckles, at how miffed the alpha looks suddenly at knowing that Noah will wash off his scent. “I have a guest room you can use, I can give you some spare clothes.” And Noah knew that Andrew could hear the plea under it. A silent don’t leave yet that could cost him everything. 

Andrew nods and kisses Noah again, calming every one of his racing thoughts.

Chapter Text

Someone is watching him sleep. Andrew wakes up with the alarming realization that there is someone else in the room with him. Blearyness dilutes instantly and awarnes of his surroundings crash into him a moment after. He is not in his own bed, the bedsheets feel off. And the way the sun is warming his face would not happen in his apartment where he always closes the blinds. 

Andrew opens up his eyes and his body springs up in the bed as his back quickly finds the wall. Movement in his periphery tells him that the other person in the room was not expecting Andrew to suddently jump. Adrian was the one watching him sleep and he jumps back slightly as well, startled by Andrew.

Grey floppy ears bounce back with the sudden motion and the previous night's events flash suddenly across Andrew’s mind as his eyes finally focus on the three year old. Adrian looks at him with a mixture of curiosity and surprise. Andrew imagines the latter was caused by how he jumped awake, and he’s suddenly glad he doesn’t sleep with knives anymore. 

“Hi.”It has been a long time since Andrew's had to interact with children directly. His mind supplies memories of a childhood as the usually eldest kid in foster homes, but none of those kids he was forced to learn to take care of were his own so he still feels more than a little stumped as to what he should say. The simple greeting feels like a decent way to start.

“My mom is making breakfast.” Adrian says, before turning around and walking away in that unstedy wobble run children use. He’s definitely too small to make a loud sound when closing the door behind him and still the rattling of wood echoes between Andrew’s ears as he tries to process the scene. 

As soon as he lifts himself out of bed, a new things jumps to his awareness and its the fact that he's not wearing his own clothes. Spare pijamas that must have belonged to Neil had been waiting for him outside of the shower last night, and Andrew put them on even when his own clothes were waiting for him in his car.

At the top of the pile, Andrew's old number three jersey which had dissapeared that first awful year stared at him. Usually he refuses to wear anything Exy related by choice, but, this was a piece of clothing that Neil had somehow managed to keep with him. After all of this years, the orange of the text had faded and chipped in places, but the only scent on it was Neil's and Andrew felt a primal sort of pride at that.

Last night's black hoodie is draped over a chair in a corner of the room. Andrew grabs it and presses it close to his nose, letting Neil’s scent present on the fabric overwhelm him like a tidal wave.  The mixture of both of their scents drowning him in the memory of last night -Neil's lips on his, his teeth on Neil's neck like they were meant to be there, Neil next to him and Neil's scent all around him.

Neil is alive. Neil is real. This hoodie is covered in Neil’s scent and so was Andrew before he had to clean off the previous night. Neil is alive. 

Andrew feels their bond pulsing at his throat, lit alive for the first time in five years now that Neil is close by. It's a buoy in the middle of the ocean, solid ground appeared all of the sudden for Andrew to cling to after years spent barely threading water.

He takes a look around the spare bedroom he spent the night in. The walls are colored a soft cream color, close to white if one looked at it from afar. Andrew slept on an adult sized twin bed made fully with a brown duvet and two pillows. The window doesn’t have curtains, but it faces to the backyard rather than to the street. Against the wall opposite the bed, there is a desk with a chair. The bookshelf is almost empty but the top shelf carries what Andrew realizes are medical journals and nursing handbooks.

The room is completely average, a regular guest bedroom inside of a regular family home. It's disorienting in a strange way. Being honest to himself, everything that’s happened in the last twelve hours has been disorienting one way or the other. 

Andrew gets dressed with last night's clothes, pressing his nose into the jersey one last time before carefully draping it over the pillow. The hallway outside the door is a straight line with only two windows. He realizes that the three bedrooms stand in a line, one after the other, with "his" at the farthes end, right next to the bathroom instead of to the stairs at the other end of the hallway.

His memory cycles through the brief tour Neil had given him before leaving him alone to shower, so that Andrew would know where everything was located, but the darkness hadn't allowed him to see the many pictures covering the walls. Adrian looks at him from every one of the frames, and Andrew can’t help but look back. 

A few of the pictures are of Adrian as a baby. Small and bald, his wide eyes looking at the world around him. As Adrian grows, more and more pictures show his progress. There’s Adrian crouching on grass with a butterfly on his extended finger. Adrian waving hello next to a dog. Adrian holding a picture book with laser focus. Adrian blowing out the number-three-shaped candle sitting atop a birthday cake.

A photo stands out to him inmediately, slightly bigger than the others and a clear center piece. From it, a young Adrian crawls in direction of the camera. His eyes shine with joy, and the widest smile Andrew's ever seen is plastered on his face from ear to ear. All of the love that a toddler can hold is in the way that he makes his way to the camera, staring with almost golden eyes at the person taking the picture outside of the frame. With a warm feeling in his gut, Andrew knows that it was Neil.

He notices quickly as well that Neil isn’t in any of the pictures. A part of him isn’t surprised, Neil hated having his picture taken when he was back at Palmetto as well; most of the ones that included him in Dan’s wall having been moments where the upper-classmen had dragged a reluctant Neil into the frame. There used to only be one clear picture of Neil there, a picture Dan had taken of them talking at the airport before the first game of that spring season against UT. 

They had started their nothing around a little before then, and Andrew was still in the throes of denial about how much he needed Neil. It was the day that Neil learned that Andrew was afraid of flying and the day that through both flights he’d made sure he sat next to Andrew so that he could hold his hand under the seats. It was the day Neil had given him his real name. 

It had taken Andrew months to notice the picture on the wall after Neil’s death. He never had placed close attention to Dan’s wall of memories. Until one day he heard Nicky pointing happily to where Dan had taken a picture of him and Erik and placed him on the wall from when the German had visited and come to a match. Andrew hadn’t cared, still in those first months of brain fog after Neil's not death, but he’d still directed his gaze to where his cousin was pointing. His eyes locked instantly on the auburn hair and Neil’s blue eyes and he unpinned the picture only a moment later - not caring about the Captain’s loud “HEY” as he did so.

Five years later, the picture lived inside of his bedside table, under the few of Neil's clothes he still kept even after they'd lost the omega's scent.

Andrew heads down the stairs and the pictures end as soon as he reaches the first floor. The part of his mind that still understands Neil intrinsically, knows that it is so that if a stranger steps into the house, they won't by definition gain access to Adrian. Andrew wonders a little what gives him permission to stare at the pictures the way he had and asks himself if he should have. The idea of Adrian’s existence remains still an unsteadying thing.

Adrian who has his name. Adrian who has his hair. Adrian who looks like him but who still has the light in his eyes that a three year old should have. 

Every one of his insticts had been set alight last night the moment he put eyes on the pup.

Even after years of searching with Neil finally in front of him, Andrew'd felt a little like a dog finally cathing it's own tail without knowing what to do with it. The sight of him alive and well after five years of grief having turned unexpectedly sour in his mouth. The scent patches he'd been wearing, the only thing keeping his scent from betraying his sudden onset of rage - a bottomless pit inside of his chest. Something both nonsensical and familiar at the same time.

It's not that he'd been entirely surprised at the revelation. Even when the sight of the basement had killed any rational ideas of Neil existing out there, something inside of Andrew had never truly given up. Every rut his alpha had suffered and begged for Neil to return, pleading for a mate he could feel out there. Every day he’d try to appease the stubborn bond which refused to fade even after Neil’s “death” with scent patches and distance. 

And still having Neil, his mate who'd he'd been yearning for for five years, staring at him as if it'd been him who was seeing a ghost caused a dark feeling to settle on his gut as one final realization locked into place in the twisted puzzle of his mind. A thought which hadn't been allowed to form completely within his grief.

A Neil who was alive, who had been alive for the entire time, was a Neil who had chosen to leave.

Gazing into freezing blue eyes, first whiff of lemongrass and salt were a bucket of ice water on his face waking him up after years in stupor. Andrew’s logic won over everything else and for the first time in years anger took him over. Anger at Neil for dying, Anger at himself for failing. Now that Neil wasn’t dead or on the run, anger at him from choosing to leave. 

His logic demanded answers, and yet every cell in his body had been lit on fire by Neil’s proximity. It took every modicum inch of his self control to not pounce on Neil then and there until he was covered in Andrew’s scent, until Andrew could make sure he was real. 

Adrian had really been the only thing to break the spell of his outrage and resentment. The light turning on suddenly spiked the hairs at the back of his neck, but the soft voice calling Neil “mom” left him picking up the remnants of his jaw from the floor. If Andrew had been surprised, Neil looked outright panicked for the second it took him to push Andrew back on the sofa and turn to face the new focus of his attention. 

Nothing in the file said anything about a kid. And yet Andrew was left staring at a toddler wearing a grey onesie who called his mate mom. The moment he put eyes on the kid, his inner alpha threatened to claw his way from the inside of his chest and out. Andrew knew then without a shadow of a doubt that he’d sired the pup. The sobering realization was close to enough to dissipate his anger. 

Why Neil would choose to leave after Baltimore when he’d promised Andrew he’d rather die a fox than a lie he couldn’t feasibly comprehend. Why Neil would turn into the cowards he hated so much to protect his pup made a lot more sense. It still didn’t answer as to why he was willing to keep this from him, but it’d made the dark voice in his mind that said Neil had left him without reason or a second thought a little quieter.

Now Andrew knew once more what Neil felt like when pressed against him, how their scents could mold together as he nuzzled into Neil’s throat.

Adrian sits coloring on the floor of the living room in front of a small TV Andrew hadn’t noticed the day before. The kid pays him no mind, the colorful cartoon on the screen clearly more interesting than the stranger in their guest room.

Andrew turned the corner into the kitchen, and the view of Neil cooking with his back to Andrew is so domestic that it stings; it sits in front of him like a flash of the almost. Neil moves around the kitchen quickly, taking care of whatever's cooking on the stove while taking things from cabinets. The lack of scent patches on Neil’s neck had been surprising the night before, but now Andrew appreciates it as the entire house is mildly coated in the familiar scent. 

“Breakfast is ready!” Neil shouted, finally turning around. The surprise in his eyes telling Andrew he hadn’t noticed his presence in the kitchen yet. “You’re awake.” He says as Adrian races next to Andrew and attempts to sit by himself in one of the chairs which is clearly a little too tall for him.

Neil wordlessly boosts him up with one hand, like this is a normal routine for them. Andrew can't help but stare. “He came into my room to wake me up.” He answers simply, unbalanced by the simple absurdity of the scene in front of him. “He said you were making breakfast?” 

Neil looks close to apologetic, but get's interrupted by Adrian before being able to say anything. “Who are you?” He asks Andrew with a mouthful of scrambled eggs. The look on Neil’s eyes turns from neutral into panic and back in the second after.

“That is very rude, we do not talk with our mouths full.” Neil says to his pup who swallows apologetically. 

“Sorry mister.” Adrian replies the second he’s done with swallowing. Although his focus is quickly taken by the strawberries on his plate. 

“I am-” Andrew starts looking at Neil for a clue as to how to proceed. He doesn’t imagine that going up to a three year old and saying “I’m your father” is a good idea. Especially when Andrew still can’t fully believe it either. 

“He’s one of my friends.” Neil answers, and while Andrew understands the quick dismissal, it still stings lightly. Ironic considering he spent every moment of their short lived relationship until the heat they shared swearing up and down that they were nothing. It was difficult to keep defending that mentality when they both donned equal mating marks, but Andrew still wondered sometimes how much longer it would have taken for him to change his song and dance had Neil not “died.”  

“But Mommy you don’t have friends.” Andrew is standing behind Adrian, so he's unable to see the look he directs towards Neil - his only clue the way he tilts his head in a similar fashion to dogs when they are confused. Every time Adrian moves, the elephant ears move with him, and it makes Andrew understand a little why people think children are cute. Andrew also has to summon a lot of strength to not laugh at the very out of pocket comment. 

“Do you want breakfast?” Neil asks Andrew, failing to hide how red his ears turned. 

“You can cook?” Andrew can only hope Neil still knows him enough to not mistake his tone for mockery. 

“I am still not great at it,” Neil answers, “Never needed it before to be honest but now I get by.” 

Before; The word seats heavy between them. Before Adrian. Before Baltimore. Before Andrew and Palmetto. 

“Sit down.” Andrew points to one of the chairs and walks over to the stove.

“You don’t have to.” Neil tries to protest. 

“I want to.” Andrew replies simply, not letting show how much his alpha is craving to provide for Neil now that his mate is finally in front of him again. 

“Mommy you are going to eat with me like when we go to where you work?” Adrian asks and Andrew can see tension melting away from Neil as he chuckles.

“Yes bug,” He answers, and Andrew almost can’t fathom the warmth his voice takes when he talks to the pup. To their pup. Before, Andrew was able to see the way that Neil craved touch, comfort and connection. The desperate yearning of a boy to be real ever present in everything that Neil did. Even then, Andrew would never have called any part of him soft. 

The Neil that is raising Adrian is soft like Andrew wished every adult in his life would have been before learning that adults could be things much worse than cold. 

Andrew is quick as he whisks eggs together and puts bacon into a pan for Neil. He pours coffee from the machine into two mugs as everything cooks and he can feel Neil staring at him throughout. The eyes leave the back of his neck only when Adrian commands his attention and talks. 

Andrew has by now gotten used to tuning out the people around him. It  is an important skill to have when he lives with Kevin for a good part of the year. Right now it would be easy to allow the kid talking at the table to dissolve into background noise, but he finds that he doesn’t want to. As soon as everything is cooked, Andrew plates the food and sits at the table in front of Neil, passing him a steaming cup of coffee. His arrival back is apparently fascinating to Adrian, whose attention moves back to him immediately. 

“What is your name mister?” He asks and before Andrew can answer, interrupts and answers the question himself. “My name is Adrian and I am three.” Adrian holds up three fingers.

“My name is Andrew.” He tries to not let the hesitation show in his voice. “Do you want me to tell you how old I am as well?” There is something about talking to Adrian that reminds him of the times in foster homes when he was put in charge of taking care of younger children.

“You are old like my mom.” Adrian answers simply. There is something about the way he speaks that is fascinating to Andrew. Adrian doesn’t say it as an insult, or even to be dismissive. In his eyes, Andrew is old, and he says so.

“I am not old.” Neil replies, feigning offense at Adrian’s comment. “I am only twenty-three.” That means that Neil is not lying about his birth year anymore, Andrew takes note of that and saves it in a quiet place inside his brain. He wants to keep as much of this Neil as he can. 

“That is old,” Adrian interjects. “Your number starts with a two.” 

“Yes it does.” Neil concedes, and there is a sort of melancholy shining in his eyes. Andrew realizes then that Neil probably never imagined that he’d get to see himself get to the age that he is now. 

Adrian is quick to finish his meal and return to the living room, leaving Andrew and Neil eating alone in the kitchen. “I don’t usually let him watch TV in the mornings.” He starts as soon as silence appears between them. “We have a deal that he can watch cartoons on Saturday mornings.” 

Andrew is unsure of what feels more unstabilizing to him. The way that the word “deal” twists around him like a vine, even when he imagines it doesn’t hold the same weight for this family as it does for his. Or how Neil seems to be trying to justify his parenting choices to Andrew, like Andrew would have a right to judge him. 

“I don’t care.” Andrew answers, hoping that Neil understands it for what it is. That Andrew doesn’t care because he can’t judge Neil for letting a three year old enjoy time in front of the television. He can’t when his own complaints for his caretakers when he was three were not being fed or given warm clothes in winter. 

The silence between them is heavy like led. Andrew can’t help but stare at Neil as he eats, truly taking him in for the first time since finding him last night. This Neil is blonde, the color matching Adrian’s almost perfectly. The same way that Adrian matches Andrew. Neil’s eyes are still as blue as Andrew remembers them to be, but his face is a painting of the violence of Baltimore. 

Andrew now knows that Baltimore didn’t kill Neil. But a conjoining of burn scars cover what used to be the IV tattoo on one of his cheekbones. The rest of his face wasn’t spared. On the left corner of his lips, Andrew can see where a knife was dug into the skin by how his smile elongates slightly to one side. And healed criss crossing scar tissue shows Andrew where someone dug a blade into soft flesh.

“When is your flight back?” Neil breaks the spell of their silence and shapes it into an anchor tied around Andrew’s neck. 

“I drove here.” Is his answer. “Do you want me to leave?” his anger simmers anew inside his chest. The wrongly placed resentment of having grieved for the very much alive man in front of him for the past five years.  

“I don’t” Neil answers. The omega is someone who lies by default, a learned behaviour carved into him by years on the run. In his words however Andrew finds nothing but the truth. They are a terrified confession that can be given only to him. “But you have to.” 

Andrew can feel Neil’s grief through their bond, the way that he is getting ready for losing Andrew again even as they sit in front of each other. “I need a cigarette," he says; the pause right after getting up from his chair a clear invitation which Neil takes.

“On the back porch.” His mate guides him outside, closing the door behind them.

He is surprised when Neil produces a box of cigarettes from under a loose tile and hands a stick to him. They are the same ones that Andrew has been smoking since he was fifteen years old - the same ones that they used to share between truths and now broken promises. They are the same ones Andrew still smokes, the habit one of the last things that keep him close to Neil.

“I stopped doing this while I was pregnant.” Neil assures him, “but the one hoodie I had that still carried your scent finally lost it completely when Adrian was a few months old. The smoke of this is almost good enough on the bad days.”

Andrew lights up in silence, and passes the lighter to Neil. It is entrancing to watch how he takes one single drag to light the stick before placing it close to his nose to smell the smoke. Andrew hadn’t understood at first why Neil didn’t smoke and yet surrounded himself by the second hand remnants of it every chance he got. Not until one of their nights on the rooftop when he confessed that it reminded him of his mother.

At the time, Andrew heard a story that fit into the narrative of Neil running alone. Now that he knew better he hated how much he wondered about the lies and truths they carried. Truths he’d had to hear from Kevin and an assortment of federal agents instead of from Neil.

“Truth for truth.” He lets the familiar words fall from his mouth, words he hasn’t said in five years. 

“We don’t need to do that anymore,” If he didn’t know better, Andrew would think that Neil looks hurt. “I was going to tell you the truth that night anyway, I don’t want to lie to you anymore Andrew. There is no point now, is there? I don’t have any hidden truths to share anymore, it’s just my life.” 

“Fine.” Andrew says. “You work as a nurse.” He knows that is not exactly a question, but the slight shift of disbelief in his tone turns it into one regardless. 

“I am a nurse.” Neil corrects. I was in witness protection and my uncle gave me some money and bought the house so that I could stand on my feet for the first few months, but the feds needed me to have a job, and I needed a way to put food on the table once Adrian was born.”

“How did you manage to get that job?” he changes the question. “I didn’t know the feds were willing to go that far to hide your identity that they’d forge a degree.” 

“That’s because they didn’t.” Neil shrugs at Andrew’s raised eyebrow. “It was Dr. Mancourt’s idea. I could finish my pregnancy in peace and once I had him then apply for scholarships and financial aid, the distressed omega really sells for those types of things apparently.” Andrew doesn’t miss the disgust Neil laces through his words. “I could get my degree to become an RN in two years and have a semi steady job for the rest of my life if I needed to.”

“Doctor Mancourt.” By the rules of his game, Andrew owes Neil many truths, secrets. But Neil said that he doesn’t care about the game so Andrew doesn’t let the tension of the debt bury its thorns into him.

“She’s a doctor for the FBI. Still a fed but the only one I met I didn’t immediately hate. She was my OB until Adrian was born, helped me settle into this placement”. 

“Were you ever going to tell me about him?” Andrew’s cigarette is down to the last drag, and Neil’s won’t be far behind. They are going to have to go inside in a moment and their not-game will need to end. Andrew needs to know .The weight of his curiosity a clawing beast inside his heart. 

“No.” The truth of it sits heavy between them. "Not if the worst didn't happen and I managed to stay alive. I made my uncle promise that if they found me and something happened that he would make sure Adrian would end up with Wymack.” 

The thing out of everything that makes Andrew turn is how resigned Neil sounds. It reminds him of the Neil he knew, the one sure he wouldn’t make it past that year. Andrew understands this Neil, the one who still is waiting for every good thing to end. The one who has a plan so that his son won’t be alone when the next thing taken is his life.

“But not with me.” And Andrew fights against the anger that wants to resurface. The simmering resentment he doesn’t want to allow to lay waste at the monumentality of Neil’s life in front of him. 

“I wrote Wymack a letter explaining who he is, and where I was. Letting him know that if he received it, it meant that I had failed and that I hoped that he’d be okay taking care of Adrian. That he should let you know then.” 

“And that would be better than sending Adrian with his father,” The word almost tastes sour in Andrew’s mouth. Like saying it out-loud will allow the cracks on the ground under his feet to finally tear open, letting him fall into the abyss.

“I didn’t know if you would want to be a father, Andrew.” Neil almost laughs as his scent sours, spiking into something defensive. Andrew thinks that his expression is the pure flight or fight of a cat ready to pounce or bolt. “We were nothing and then we were everything and then I found out I was pregnant right after reading a newspaper article about how I died.”

Neil's scent turns sour, and Andrew's alpha turns suddently desperate to go to his mate and close the distance between them. To scent him untill its his distress is covered away completely by Andrew's scent. He holds himself back as the tension in his shoulders solidyfies. Every fiber of his being hates causing this to Neil but he needs to hear the answer. Especially because he knows that Neil is not entirely wrong.

“I don’t regret Adrian but he was not in our plans and I was not willing to put you through having to open the door one day to a kid on your doorstep.” Something in his mind clicks together as he puts together one meaning out of Neil’s words. Something almost far fetched but if he’s been pushing he can shove. He needs to know if he’s right.

“You don’t doubt that I would open the door to him.” Andrew finally takes one step in the direction of Neil, waiting to see if his mate will walk away. He almost croons when Neil doesn’t. “You don’t know whether I would want to be a father-” want is a very charged word for people like them, kids who learned at a too young age that nothing good could come of it. “-but you know that if Adrian was left on my doorstep with a note telling me that you had our pup and then died, I would open it and let him in.”

Andrew takes another step, and the sourness starts to dilute away from Neil’s scent.

“You found out that you had a twin and let go of the only mother you’ve ever wanted to keep him safe, even when your own safety did not matter to you.” Neil answers, his blue eyes searching. “You almost killed four men when Nicky’s life was in danger even after only knowing him for a few months.”

Neil steps towards him, his eyes so full of something that Andrew knows would kill him to descipher. This Neil. His Neil. So different one from the other as they stand five years apart, and so similar in the look that they give Andrew. The alpha almost feels terror of being seen, of being known.

“Adrian is your son, you would not have let him go to foster care, no matter what your own sacrifice would need to be.” 

Another step and they're so close now that Andrew thinks for a moment that Neil is going to kiss him again, craves it almost to have their lips slotted together like they were always meant to be. Instead, his mate buries his nose in the crook of Andrew's neck relaxing instantly at the first inhale of Andrew's gland. The alpha wants to keep this moment forever, stay here in this porch with time paused where nothing has to change.

Neil's grief still reaches him through the bond, and Andrew lifts an arm to surround Neil completely, rubbing his nose into Neil's hair to scent him even more. Neil finally steps out of Andrew's embrace, the blue of his eyes turning melancholic. The innevitably approaching goodbye hanging over their heads like a sword.

“Adrian will notice we are gone soon.” Neil looks at Andrew from only a few steps away, but the distance feels like a chasm. The omega enters the house, leaving Andrew to stare at the rattling door as it closes.

He sits on the porch again and lights another cigarette, willing the smoke to hold him together until the end of the day. 

Chapter Text

When Andrew finally enters the house again, Neil is speaking into a cellphone in the kitchen and Adrian has not moved from where he’s sitting crisscrossed in front of the television. Neil frowns at whatever the person on the other line is saying and Andrew can't get himself to do much more than stare at Neil talking on the phone casually -like this is something that Neil does. 

In the five years that have separated Neil’s “death” from this moment, Andrew has both changed so completely that it's dizzying and, at the same time, stayed the same. He has an Exy career, a part time roommate he knows is the closest thing he can have to a best friend in Kevin; Andrew has a real family in Nicky and Aaron who against all odds have stayed in his life and a makeshift family in the foxes who also have somehow stayed. 

Andrew hasn’t changed, and at the same time the man he was when he started university- out of his mind with drugs he hated and held together by deals and self hatred- would scratch his head at the grief laden yet semi-content life he currently lives. 

Andrew changed in five years, so he should not be surprised that Neil has as well. Still, the casual way that Neil holds a phone, as if it wasn't any more consequential to him than it is to every other person in the planet, strikes him like a bullet. It is the sudden realization that Neil really hasn’t spent the last five years dead and as a torn apart corpse where no one will find him. That Neil is alive and will still be alive even when Andrew inevitably has to leave. 

That Neil really has stayed alive and built a life for himself and for their pup. For Andrew’s pup who can only know him as a friend of his mom while Andrew leaves. 

Andrew leaves Neil to the conversation he’s clearly not enjoying by the tight furrowing of his eyebrows and steps out of the kitchen. He can feel Neil’s annoyance through their bond, a constant presence now at the edge of his mind.

Andrew can’t help but wonder what will be worse, the past five years of the painful reminder of Neil’s death every time he saw the mark on his own neck, or whatever follows now that their bond has reignited and that Andrew will know Neil is out there, but somewhere that Andrew has no way of reaching.

He walks into the living room, where the night before Neil listened to him as Andrew unloaded every one of his frustrations. He looks at the pup as he watches the television, Adrian's head leaning slightly to the right in a position that would make Andrew’s neck hurt after only minutes, but that doesn’t seem to bother the pup as he stares at the tv. 

Andrew sits next to him quietly, crossing his legs under him to match Adrian but without bending his neck. The show on the tv is colorful and apparently about horses. If the pup notices Andrew’s presence he doesn’t show it, his focus not shifting from the screen. Andrew almost wants to wonder if it’s healthy for a child to be this fixated, but he rarely had access to luxuries like a tv or entertainment as a child so he doesn’t have much experience to draw from. 

Andrew doesn’t stare at Adrian exactly, but he does pay attention. This kid has his eyes and his pale hair. He frowns at something on the screen and Andrew draws from his mind the pictures Aaron once showed him of his childhood, since Andrew didn’t have any from his own.  He sits, almost stuck as he looks at this kid who somehow shares his DNA while also looking too close to happy to ever look truly like him. It fascinates him, how his genes were able to create a kid this joyful, and grief makes itself known inside his chest as he wonders what it would have taken for his own childhood to be like that as well.

Grief, Andrew finds, seems to cling to his skin in a new way in this house that holds everything he ever wanted. And things he never even thought he could.

“Is your face stuck?” Adrian speaks matter of factly even when asking rude questions and its almost amusing. 

“What do you mean?” Andrew asks instead of responding. More curious about how his pup perceives him than offended.

“You don’t smile,” Adrian says, “My mom told me once when I saw an old lady with a weird smile at the hospital that sometimes old people’s brains’ bleed and then they get stuck. You are not old and your face is not like hers but you also don’t smile so maybe you are stuck differently.”

Andrew thinks carefully about how he should reply. He knows the answer, that not much about his life has ever given him want or need to smile. That for three long years smiling was not something he could choose not to do and that without the pill induced mania smiling almost sickens him. He imagines however that this is not something appropriate to tell a three year old stranger and also that the pup would probably not understand. 

“I am not stuck.” Whatever explanation he can give will probably make the most sense if he starts by answering the kid’s question. “I just don’t smile very often.” 

“Is it because you are sad?” Adrian’s attention moves completely away from the tv and its colorful cartoons as brown eyes matching Andrew’s own stare him down intensely. Andrew can’t fully understand how a kid this young can make him feel exposed like a burn with a single stare. 

“A little bit.” This cannot be a good way to explain depression to a three year old, but to be fair Andrew hasn't talked to a three year old since he was the eldest kid in foster homes and had to care for littles when parents refused to, so this entire thing is beyond anything he could have prepared for. He also wasn’t prepared for Adrian’s intelligent eyes and attentive curiosity. “But it’s more like I don’t like people to see what I feel.” 

“I’m sorry that you are a little bit sad.” Adrian answers and the honesty of it knocks the air out of Andrew’s lungs. “Do you like hugs? When I get sad my mom hugs me until I feel better.”

“I don’t usually,” Andrew answers, “But thank you for asking.” 

“My mom says we should always ask people before touching them.” Adrian nods agreeing with himself. “He says that if people don’t say yes then you can’t touch them, even if it's a nice touch like a hug.” 

“Your mom is a very good mom.” Andrew replies, feeling suddenly unbalanced. He finds that most things these past few days have made his world tilt a little bit sideways.

“Yes he is.” Adrian answers, turning back his attention to the TV as his curiosity is apparently sated. 

Andrew takes that as his cue to lift himself from the floor and walks back into the kitchen where Neil cleans plates pensively.

“Adrian asked me if my face is stuck.” Neil jumps slightly when he hears Andrew’s voice, clearly entranced in whatever he was thinking before he entered the kitchen. “He found my not smiling troubling enough that he didn’t care about the tv for a little bit.” 

Neil’s eyes widen in disbelief and something close to embarrassment. “I swear he’s usually more polite,” he defends himself, “Based off of today you must think that I’m doing a terrible job at that but he’s just curious since he’s never met you before.” 

“I didn’t mind.” Andrew continues, noticing Neil’s stress. “I know that it wasn’t much better for you but in my world when I was three people didn’t smile often.” 

“In mine neither.” Neil sighs.

“Adrian is so used to smiling that he was concerned I wasn’t.” Andrew shrugs, “I don’t think you are doing a bad job.” 

“I’m glad,” Neil chuckles slightly, “cause I promise you Adrian will disagree with you in a moment.” Andrew notices the resigned drop of Neil’s shoulders and the tension suddenly present in his face. He thinks back to the phone call and the way Neil’s eyebrows furrowed as he listened.

“What was the phone call about?” Neil looks surprised that Andrew connected the dots and at the same time his blue eyes shine in recognition. 

“It was the hospital,” He answers, “I’m technically on call today and they need me to come in to fill in for a few hours.”

“And Adrian will not like this.”

“He doesn’t like having to spend so much time at the hospital daycare.” Neil shrugs tiredly, years of resignation finally showing themselves in the faded circles under Neil’s eyes. The omega’s exhaustion, carried with the subtlety given by five years of lonely acquiescence making itself known to Andrew for the first time.

Focusing on his anger at Neil willingly staying away, on his own grief at the loss of him; Andrew forgot to give thought to how Neil had gone through the same thing but completely on his own. Completely alone save for the pup he had not only given life to but also raised into a happy child. 

Andrew wants to croon at the omega, his omega. His inner alpha preens proudly at how his mate raised their pup and hates itself at the same time for not being there at his side the way an alpha is supposed to.

“And today is what we call “free days-”” Neil continues, oblivious to the storm brewing inside of Andrew’s mind, “-meaning that I don’t have a fourteen hour shift at the hospital so he won’t have to spend the day at the daycare while I work. He always gets mad at me when I get called in during free days, even if it’s not for a full shift.”

“How long will you guys be gone for?” Andrew asks knowing that he must sound desparate with how much he hated the idea of Neil leaving his sight now that he's found him. Every bit of instinct wants him to hold onto Neil until he can just with his touch show him how much he can never be grateful enough for what he’s done for Adrian.

Adding to the unfairness of it all, Andrew knows that Neil’s shifts usually are until midnight. Neil already said that Andrew can’t stay and Andrew knows that he will have to leave sooner rather than later; but there’s something twisted about losing the one day he has with his mate to a fucking work schedule. Then again, Andrew was supposed to have given up on fairness a long time ago. 

“It’s only for three hours,” warm relief courses through Andrews veins suddenly, “but it doesn't change how angry Adrian will be.”

“I really don’t think that kid has the bones needed for anger.” Andrew answers and Neil laughs, honestly laughs at that. Not a humorless or sarcastic laugh, but a deep chested bright laughter that Andrew is not sure he’s heard before now.

“He does have them, trust me.” Neil chuckles, “He has good lungs for tantrums.” 

“Well he just told me that you give good hugs when he’s sad and that you are a good mom.” 

Neil’s face turns to the archway leading into the living room, almost as if he could see Adrian through the walls. “He said that?” He asks wistfully and in a way that allows that edge of tiredness in his voice to make itself known once more - almost like he can't believe it.

After Neil died, the foxes took to telling stories of the lost striker like a family talks of a lost child. Andrew took to tuning most of it out, at the time too focused on the pain that came from a bond not fully severed like it was supposed to with the death of his mate - now at least he has an answer for that if nothing else. Still one story told by Nicky from Andrew’s time in East Haven stuck in his brain. 

All of the foxes seemed to remember with the same clarity Neil’s reaction to Nicky calling him his friend. The raw disbelief at having someone call him a friend, even after months forming part of the foxes’ dysfunctional family, months of doing everything he could to bring them together. Andrew hadn’t been there, and he didn’t do anything like friendship, but in his mind he’d been sure someone like Neil couldn’t be real. Someone truly selfless, even generous for a monster like him. 

“He said that,” Andrew answered, “And for what is worth, I agree with him.” 

“I don’t know if you should,” Neil replies humorlessly, “But thank you.”

Andrew immediately wants to argue. Neil’s self deprecation is not entirely new, but it feels somehow heightened in this present Neil. One more layer created in the five years of their distance. One more layer of sediment building up the Neil that stands before him now. 

He's uncertain as to how he should respond, not knowing if he's allowed to say everything that he wants to, so he settles instead on releasing a calming scent and hoping the pheromones tell his mate everything he wants to. Neil visibly relaxes after an inhale and Andrew once more suppresses the need to croon. A pit of satisfaction heavy in his stomach at how Neil seems to lean into his scent to regulate. Just like a mate should be able to.

“When do you need to leave?” Andrew hates the smallness of his voice with how big the question feels. Will I get to stay? Is what he wants to not leave unsaid, but can’t get himself to.

“I need to be there in an hour,” Neil answers, and they both can feel the heaviness of it. “I need to get Adrian ready now if I want to make it in time.”

“I can make lunch for you when you return.” It’s a plea as much as it is an offering. Andrew doesn’t want to have to leave yet, and he’s mostly sure that Neil doesn’t want him to either. 

He can feel Neil’s hesitation, the way that words are choking in his lungs as he debates letting Andrew stay, even if just for a few more hours. Andrew knows, as much as he hopes Neil does, that if he’s asked right now to leave, he will. Not returning is something he won’t let himself think about yet, not when he knows that Neil might not let him come back. But just the thought of losing Neil again makes his heart ache.

“That works for me,” Neil sighs, letting a little more of that tension leave his shoulders. He looks at him with eyes so piercing that Andrew almost wants to look away again. “That would be great actually.

Neil leaves the kitchen and to Andrew’s surprise climbs the stairs instead of removing the pup from the tv just yet. Andrew sits on the sofa behind Adrian, this time both staying silent while Adrian looks at the screen and Andrew looks at him. He focuses on the air around them while Neil gets ready upstairs and whiffs at Adrian’s soft scent for maybe the first time, truly looking for it. 

Now after almost twelve hours spent in this house, Andrew can feel how Neil’s scent envelops him almost completely. This is Neil's territory, thorouly scent marked and Andrew knows that he doesn't fully deserve the comfort that brings him. It is only directly next to Adrian that he can smell the pup’s scent as well. It’s fresh like Neil’s, to be expected since his mom is the person who scents him the most. 

Something sour curls inside of his stomach as another stark reminder that Andrew hasn’t been around hits him. Normally, pups smell like a milkier mix of their parent’s scents. Andrew didn’t cause he was left alone before he could even understand what being alive was. Adrian doesn’t because Andrew hasn’t been around. 

As he looks at the child he knows carries his DNA even with how much that fact threatens to unravel him completely. A part of him wants to wonder what would it have been to have been around; for Neil to have stayed. He wonders about a reality where Neil was never taken, where Andrew was able to safeguard the omega from the worst of his fears. Where at only twenty Andrew got told he’d become a father, even when he never had one of his own.

Andrew wonders what Neil looked like when he was pregnant. He won’t ask if it was difficult, doesn’t need to ask questions he knows the answers to already. Not when his own alpha almost drowned at the sudden lack of his mate. He can’t even begin to imagine what it was like as a pregnant omega, who needed a mate’s pheromones, to go through it alone. He doesn’t know if he can bear to know, so he doesn't ask like a coward.

Brown eyes look at him puzzled and force Andrew to snap out of his trance. “Can I help you?” he asks, still unbalanced by how perfectly Adrian’s eyes match his as they stare. 

“You are looking at me.” Adrian answers with a shrug. He doesn’t sound offended, or like he finds it off putting. He’s a mixture of matter of factly and curiosity. 

“I zoned out.” Andrew explains, oddly wanting to apologize.

“Zoned out,” Adrian seems to chew on the words as he whispers them to himself. “What is that?”

“What is zoning out?” Andrew asks. The pup simply nods in response, encouraging Andrew to continue. “Well,” He thinks, “It is a little like getting stuck.” he answers. Andrew has always been a man of few words. He’s finding that Adrian both makes him speak and also try to shape his speech into something a three year old can understand. “It’s like thinking so much that you pause.”

“Okay.” Adrian answers. “My mom does that.” And with the suddenness of a crash turns back to the tv once more, leaving Andrew to his own thoughts. 

“Hey Bug.” The nickname for the pup, or the softness with which Neil uses it as he comes down the stairs shines something warm in Andrew’s chest.

He’s wearing green scrubs and the sight of them sours Adrian’s expression immediately. He frowns deeply and Andrew is once again struck by every sudden small reminder that Adrian looks just like him.

“No.” The pup says immediately at the offending clothes, and Neil flinches slightly.

“It will not be for the whole day.” He starts defending himself to the toddler, “we will return home for lunch.”

Adrian remains unwavering in his unhappy stare, staring daggers at Neil with a frown. “I don’t want to go.” He answers in the best way a three year old can. “Today is a free day.” 

Both ignore Andrew completely, even when his position leaves him quite literally in the middle of their argument. Neil is an ER nurse and works long shifts. Adrian is too young to go to school. He imagines they both spend too much time in the Hospital to want to be there when it’s not necessary. This looks like a practiced argument, and Andrew can’t ignore the tired resignation coating Neil’s frame. 

“Can I bring him with me?” Adrian surprises Andrew by pointing to him and it startles a surprised noise out of Neil as well. 

“No he can’t go to the daycare with you.” Neil’s tone remains even but Andrew recognizes a sort of sharpness under it, like he is preparing. 

“Why?”

“Because he is a grown up.”

“Miss Katie is a grown up too” 

“Yes but Miss Katie’s job is to take care of you when you are in the daycare.” Neil’s patience doesn’t waver even as Adrian continues the argument, and something tells Andrew that even if Adrian were to switch to schreechier methods of debate, Neil wouldn’t. “Andrew can’t be in the day care because his job is not taking care of you in the day care.”

“I want to stay here with Mister Andrew.” Alarm coats Neil’s face for a second before neutrality returns, and Andrew stores it for later as a pang of something he needs to decipher shoots into his chest. Something unsettling about Neil’s apparent horror at the idea of Andrew staying with Adrian.

“You can’t stay here,” Neil replies, “We will come back and have lunch with Andrew Bug, I promise.” 

“I. Don’t. Want. To. Go.” Adrian stomps in place, his arms crossed over his chest and his lower lip close to a wobble. He’s too small to be intimidating, but Andrew is surprised at the shift in the kid’s expression, the ire that the three year old can summon.

“We’ll make a deal. You can go in pajamas." The word “deal” once again used too casually for his sanity unnerves him once more as Neil gives as his final argument, the urgency of the lost time more tangible in his voice. “You can take the elephant suit to daycare if you get in the car with me in the next ten minutes.” 

Adrian’s face lights up, “yes?” He asks. 

“Yes,” Neil answers, “but you have to put shoes on.” Adrian bolts up the stairs as quickly as his small legs can take him, his love for the onesie strong enough to make him forget his tantrum. 

“He likes the daycare,” Neil’s shoulders sag as he sighs, “He just misses me when I’m all day away from his side”.

It is definitely not the time to bring up the storm of doubts clouding his brain, not when Neil will leave as soon as Adrian comes down the stairs. “What does he like to eat?,” Andrew deflects instead, storing his questions for later. “I don’t know what to make that he will like.” 

“He’s surprisingly not so picky,” Neil relaxes slightly, “He had a phase last year when he would basically only eat cheese and strawberries for like a month but he likes most things just not mashes or eggplant.” 

“Mashes or eggplant.” Andrew replies, as if verifying.

“He calls them “water greens”. Neil adds, “I don’t know how he came up with the term but he will not touch anything in his plate if there’s even a little bit of zucchini or eggplant. And he’s also surprisingly averse to mashed potatoes or squash.”

“Things he can chew and not water greens.” 

“People have told me that I should teach him to just eat anything,” Neil says then, continuing their conversation with apparently the one thing that occurs to him. “But I don’t like vegetables either that much so it felt unnecessarily mean to feed them to him when no one forces me to eat things I don’t like.”

Andrew thinks back to homes where he’d be fed next to nothing on good days, others where he’d be forced to stay seated as a foster parent screamed at him to finish food that he hated. He sometimes remembers the pain of hunger. He can’t imagine himself choosing differently than Neil is if it was him raising their child. 

“Stop justifying your choices Neil,” The omega visibly flinches at the name, and Andrew imagines that will be amongst their talking points for later. “Is there anything that you don’t want him eating?” What Neil is probably failing to notice, is that Andrew also wants to not fuck this up. 

“Not really,” He says, “I try to control how much sugar he eats, but that is more for my sanity than anything else. I don’t know a lot about other three-year-olds, but Adrian doesn’t sleep great when he’s had too much sugar” Adrian’s feet coming down the stairs interrupts their conversation. “I was planning to go to the grocery store later today anyway so feel free to use whatever we still have.” 

Adrian arrives at the ground floor with an entirely new onesie to both Neil and Andrew’s surprise. The one he’s wearing now is bright orange and distinctly fox shaped. It is so painfully something Exy obsessed Neil Josten would dress a pup in that Andrew almost wants to laugh in relief. The color is offensive to his retinas, but Neil Josten bought his, their, pup a fox onesie. Neil Josten is not as gone as this new Neil wants him to be. 

“You changed.” Neil says, grabbing the red shoes from Adrian’s hands and guiding the pup to sit on the stairs in what’s clearly a practiced shoe lace-tying routine.

“Day care clothes are clothes that are allowed to be dirty or broken.” Adrian says, and Andrew wonders if he’s repeating something Neil said by how he’d speaking in an almost lecturing tone. “The fox is allowed to be dirty or broken because I like the elephant better.” 

Neil looks comically pained at the statement, and Andrew just wants to laugh again. Neil shoots a death glare at him like saying “not one word”, and Andrew lifts his hands into the air. There’s a painful familiarity in the interaction, something too similar to who they were in palmetto, who they were before Neil died.

“Thank you for the laces.” Adrian says as he stands up once Neil is done fastening his shoes.

“You’re welcome bug.” Neil smiles, kissing the toddlers forehead. The relief at Adrian no longer refusing to leave palpable. “We will come back for lunch but say goodbye to Mister Andrew.” 

“See you later Mister Andrew.” Adrian says waving him goodbye.

“See you later,” Neil copies. His tone is twinged with an odd melancholy, but its not goodbye yet and Andrew holds onto that small detail like a rope holding him over the cliff.

The door closes behind them and the sound of the car driving away still settles inside of Andrew’s stomach like a stone.

Chapter Text

Noah understand the heavy feeling in his chest as the undeniable truth the he is being a coward. He remembers all the times at Palmetto that he’d been angry at Kevin for what perceived as cowardly avoidance; for drowning his sorrows in the bitterness of spirits instead of facing his own. He knows also that he’d been a hypocrite even back then, that a person made completely of lies and the urge to run had no right to declare anyone else was more of a coward than he was.

Currently, his cowardly action of today is how a small part of him was glad when the charge nurse on shift, Jenna, called him to cover the last 3 hours of a shift. How a part of him was glad for the excuse to not have to continue facing Andrew so completely, and most importantly, not having to face the very real fact that Andrew will have to leave. 

The shift is as uneventful as a 9-12 stretch can be on an Emergency room shift, and all too soon Noah is back in his car driving to the house he’s come to call home in the years he's lived in it with Adrian.

His pup, having forgotten his initial refusal to go now that he was able to tell everyone at the daycare that he was wearing pajamas outside, sings along absentmindedly to the children’s music playing through the car stereo from his seat in the back.

Andrew is waiting for them at the house. It is something so preposterous to imagine that part of Noah still wonders if he didn’t hallucinate every moment since finding the attempted intruder the night before. Because for five years Andrew has been everything and nothing. A broken promise so all-consuming that Noah needed to push him down into the farthest corner of his heart he could find. 

Because he remembers the misery of his pregnancy. For mated omegas, especially in moments like a pregnancy, their alphas can be vital. Their scent and hormones are everything from emotional to physical regulators. Since at the beginning his uncle had still been working with the FBI, his men had somehow managed to get him a single Jersey that he kept jealously under his pillow to imagine Andrew had simply left for a moment. To lie to himself that he would return.

Now that he has, Noah wonders if he can survive losing him again. 

“What are we lunching?” Adrian asks in his familiar toddler speak as the streets becoming familiar signals their approach to home. “I’m hungry.”

“I don’t know, Bug.” He answers, his eyes catching on the familiar black Maserati parked a few houses down from his own. In the dark of night, it’s no wonder that he hadn’t noticed it. The realization that it’s the same car he purchased for Andrew while at Palmetto tugs at his chest. “Andrew is making lunch today.” 

“I like Mister Andrew.” Adrian declares with a nod as Noah pulls into the driveway. 

“You do?” He asks, glad that Adrian is too young to perceive the strain in his tone. 

“He smells nice,” is the pup’s only answer before unbuckling his seatbelt and jumping from the car, ignorant of the way that his words reverberate and bounce around inside of Noah’s skull. They ricochet inside of his chest as he remembers saying something similar to Andrew before they shared that hit.

At the same time, Adrian is just a pup, barely past toddler age. The same way that he’s perceptive to Noah’s scent, he is sure to be to Andrew’s. Because Andrew sired him. Noah can't help but wonder if a part of Adrian can feel that connection to Andrew now.

It is a startling thought, realizing that Adrian will lose Andrew a second time too.

Noah has known since Adrian was born that eventually the pup will probably get curious about his sire. He knows that he’s been lucky that he still hasn’t, even if the lie he’s told everyone else in his current life has been ready since even before Adrian was born has been ready to be shared with their son as well.

Noah is used to lying, the familiar habit never leaving him even during his time with the foxes. Knowing that he will have to lie to Adrian one day leaves a sour taste in his mouth thats akin to shame.

The house smells like it always does. Noah has dedicated plenty of time to scent in thoroughly since moving in. The smell has been so strongly of Adrian and him that the sudden faint addition of a new scent should be alarming. Noah knows that if it were anyone else’s, his fangs would already be out, ready to tear the throat out of whoever dared encroach on his territory and risk his pup.

Even after years he’s not entirely or usually connected to his omega senses all of the time, but when it comes to protecting his pup Noah knows that there’s something feral and paranoid inside of him leftover from years on the run. An instinct he’d almost think resembles his mother if her violence hadn’t been aimed at him so many times. The thought of harming Adrian even in the name of protection was too foreign to ever understand the molten bruising his mother had so many times left on his skin. 

Andrew’s scent is faint, barely more than a wisp with how little time he’s spent in the house, but it remains enough to sow a string of relaxation into Noah’s muscles as if it was allowed to make a home there. Noah almost wishes it could. 

There’s something concerning about how easily Andrew’s presence has burrowed in his chest, has turned into a guide stick holding him up and together. After years of following strict rules that have kept him safe, Noah craves for a world with a simpler truth than how Andrew will have to leave.

Adrian stops waiting next to Noah, clearly unimpressed by his standing in front of the doorway, and runs to the sound of clattering plates coming from the kitchen. Noah follows him, relishing Andrew's scent for one more second, letting it prepare him to face the alpha again.

He’s woefully unready as he steps into the kitchen. Andrew is focusedly pulling a baking dish out of the oven, his expression blank but soft as Adrian tells him about how fun it is to wear pajamas to daycare. Noah stares unabashedly from his spot as Andrew plates the lasagna. He wonders when Andrew learned to cook. When he started caring enough to.

Questions rush through his mind, all the little tidbits of this Andrew he doesn’t know and at the same time knows intrinsically. Andrew who still plays Exy even when it bores him. Andrew who wears scent patches even when he used to hate them. Andrew who knows how to cook and, by the lax set of his shoulders, doesn’t mind Adrian’s company.

There’s also the familiar things. The blankness of his expression that others always mistook for apathy but that Noah spent months learning to read in the time spent hiding away on a faraway rooftop. The black armbands hiding away his scars, but that lack the usual knives judging by how smoothly the fabric sits against his forearms. His chest pulses with the understanding that it’s to keep Adrian safe. 

“Staring.” Andrew says, the words so familiar that they sit heavily in his chest.

He doesn’t respond, can’t really without saying something he’ll regret like asking Andrew to stay. He settles instead of chuckling away the burning of tears in the back of his eyes and sitting down next to Adrian.

Andrew’s stare burns him as he cuts up Adrian’s food methodically into bite size pieces. The pup replaces his chatting for his new interest in destroying a piece of cheese garlic bread with his hands before shoving bits of it into his mouth. An image plagues him then, Andrew in Palmetto tearing his food completely before even considering eating it. He can see him do the same thing even now and even when he knows that Adrian’s reason to do it is that he was taught by Noah he should so that he can chew it properly. 

The same way that Adrian usually talks incessantly to him when they're eating, so much so that sometimes Noah needs to remind the pup to eat, he's now doing to Andrew. Noah stares silently at the scene, entranced by the domesticity of it. Andrew look relaxed, his attention completely on Adrian's words like the pup's comments on bugs were the most important thing he's ever heard.

It's painfully domestic, almost taken out of all the hopes Noah doesn't allow himself to have. Andrew found them; Andrew found him. Even with their deal void, Andrew found them. Andrew had entered the house and he was looking at their pup with both curiosity and something melancholic and adoring - like he was trying to memorize the pup's face.

Noah joins their conversation eventually when Adrian asks him to share with Andrew the story of a caterpillar they'd found in the park a week prior and named George, and does so swallowing down the chocked up tone his voice wants to mold into. Just speaking feels herculean since speaking makes time pass, and Noah almost doesn't want it to.

Even when he understands every reason the alpha has to resent in and can never blame him for that, Noah wishes momentarily to have Andrew's memory. Craves a way to keep this moment forever.

Adrian is unhelpfully helpful when they finish eating, eager at first to lift the tray of leftover lasagna out of the table. Noah aims to stop him, knowing that it's definitely too heavy for the toddler to lift it on his own without making a mess in the best case and possibly getting hurt in the worst. Andrew comes to the rescue instead, giving the pup the empty plates to carry instead which pose a much smaller risk for him.

It's Andrew's turn to stare now, as Noah and Adrian fulfill their own free day routine. Noah washes the dishes, and dries them, before giving the lightest ones to Adrian to "help" put them away - all the light plates and pots which coincidentally live in the shortest cupboards. Adrian helps his mom with determined pride like he does every day, and Noah's heart swells with a bit of that too.

It's irrelevant to him that Adrain learned it from a cartoon bear, his pup's determination to always help him and everyone around him fill him with raging pride. Kindness was never allowed to exist in his own childhood, not from other people or from him, so he's determined to always protect Adrian's.

Andrew hmphs behind them, an eyebrow raised in amusement as he steps next to Noah and takes the clean cloth from his hands to start drying the now clean dishes. His scent patches from last night are gone and Noah inhales softly at the tranquil smell, inching closer to Andrew almost automatically - just how they would back at their rooftop.

The alpha doesn't step away, instead looking ahead at the window over the sink with a pensive look. Noah feels like he knows what's passing through his mind, understands because with every thing about this Andrew that's different from the one that used to hold Noah in rooftops and against pillows, his face of trying to find the answer to something remains the same.

A part of him wants to say something, interrupt the silence and ask but he doesn't dare to.

It feels like the whole day passes by like that in an odd way. Noah preferring the silences to the inevitable heartbreak of what can't be changed.

The routine continues and the day that they spend together feels so typical that it hurts. Andrew runs with Adrian around the backyard. listens to him as he explains the intricate story of how all of his toy dinosaurs are actually related. He makes the pup a snack in the afternoon and helps him build a tower with legos. Laughs in the bathroom during bath time as Adrian covers both of them with foam and bubbles from his bubble bath. Throughout it all, Noah stays in the background, listening to them and imprinting the moments in his heart.

He does the dishes alone after dinner, reassuring Andrew that he'll be fine when Adrian begs the alpha to do bedtime with him. Andrew follows the pup with almost no reluctance as Noah finishes putting everything in it's place. And Andrew's voice steadily flowing from Adrian's room beckons him to follow it like a trail.

Noah stands just outside of the doorframe, looking at the scene through the ajar door while his heart hitches in his chest. Adrian is wearing his elephant onesie again. It's his favorite and, while he has a three days in a row limit before Neil has to wash it, right now he doesn't think it's worth it to interrupt the moment just to make it easier to clean tomorrow.

Andrew sits in Adrian's bed, over the duvet stamped with stars and galaxies. He's holding a tall but thin hardcover picture book that Neil doesn't recognize as one they own, so Andrew most likely bought it while they were at the hospital. The cover is colorful, shapes that Neil can't quite distinguish from his quiet observer position.

Adrian looks at whatever lays inside with brown eyes filled with wonder, entranced as Andrew reads in a deep but soft voice Neil doesn't think he's ever heard before. The pup is sitting right next to his sire, leaning his weight against him as his eyelids seem to become heavier with every word.

He takes one step away, then another; runs to his bedroom hoping that he has enough time before the story ends. The camera lives on top of his bedside table, a small cube he found once inside of a pawn shop and couldn't help but buy. He runs back to the room and almost sighs relieved when they haven't moved at all.

Noah snaps the picture, sure that Andrew heard it but not caring. He waits for the small plastic paper to eject from the small opening before shaking it until the image forms. When he looks up, the story has ended - the book closed by Andrew's side - and Adrian is definitely asleep with his head on Andrew's lap. The alpha doesn't look uncomfortable, but stays stiff in what Noah imagines an attempt to not wake the toddler up.

He enters the bedroom to save the alpha from the predicament, lifting Adrian in the familiar hold he uses when he has to retrieve him from day care at the end of his shifts. He hums softly as he scents Adrian with calming pheromones, making sure he doesn't stir awake while Noah tucks him into bed.

Andrew stands next to him, staring at the rise and fall of Adrian's chest while Neil turns the elephant night light on and the big light of. The room turns a warm but faint shade of gold as they leave. Noah doesn't say anything when Andrew pauses to run a hand through Adrian's blond curls.

The alpha stares, and stares. And Noah's heart breaks knowing he's fixing the picture of Adrian like this, safe and relaxed, inside of his mind. That neither of them know when or rather if Andrew will get to see it again.

They walk out of the room. Andrew closes the door behind him without making any noise, but the faint click as it shuts still rattles deep inside Neil's bones. They walk side by side, through the hallway an down the stairs until they are back in the kitchen. Noah sits on the porch, retrieving a new cigarette from his hidden stash and waiting until he feels the weight of Andrew next to him.

They smoke in silence, and it sits between them heavily. The air feels thick as it constricts around Neil's chest, beyond the usual discomfort of Florida's summer humidity. It's a solid wall between them, the silence, so filled with everything they want to, need to say that it feels physical and overwhelming.

"What book where you reading?" Neil breaks it as he lights the second cigarette, a full minute after his burned to the filter. "I didn't recognize it."

"Where The Wild Things Are," Andrew answers dejectedly, "I used to read it when I was in foster homes. Found it at the local library and obsessed about it for a month before I had to move to a new placement and leave it behind."

"I never read it," Noah answers; he can hear the notes of grief in Andrew's voice. "What is it about?"

The alpha pauses next to him. He takes another drag of his cigarette, looking up at the stars as the smoke leaves his mouth in one long string. "It's about a kid who behaves "wildly" while dressed as a wolf," Andrew say, and in the reflection of the kitchen's light in his eyes, Neil can see a trace of glassiness in his eyes; something close to unshed tears.

"He is so wild that his mom sends him to bed without dinner, and that night his bedroom turns into a jungle." He looks away from Noah, fixes his eyes forward where Noah can't find the small changes that read the expression in his face. "He takes a boat and sails to a place full of monsters, and dances and plays after being named the King of the wild things."

"And he stays there?" Noah asks, almost interrupting but imagining why the story held a place in Andrew's heart.

"He doesn't." Andrew surprises him, "He realizes that he misses his mom and decides to return." He inhales, pausing for a moment before finishing. "He arrives back at his own bedroom to find that his mom brought him dinner while he was gone."

"Oh"

"I remember being hungry a lot," Andrew says, "when I was younger." His eyes remain fixed on the horizon, but he doesn't protest when Noah inches closer until they're side by side. "I remember when there would be too many kids to a house and scarce food. Or when misbehaving would mean not getting to eat."

"I remember the first time I read that book," He adds, finally looking straight at Neil. "I was hungry, my fosters at the time hadn't allowed me to eat dinner the night before or breakfast that day since I would be fed lunch at school anyway. I spent the thirty minutes of recess in the library like every day, and Norma gave me that book because it had just arrived."

Noah doesn't interrupt, letting Andrew speak of those times so long ago that they've never breach them - even during their game of truths. He lets Andrew's words and the softness of his voice envelop him; feels as they surround him like a blanket and basks in the comfort of this moment that will end soon with the inevitable ending of Andrew having to leave them behind.

"That was the first time I wondered what it was like to have a mom." The heaviness of the confession lingers between them; it stays in how through their bond Noah can feel the bitterness still harbored in Andrew's heart, right next to the grief that Noah's grown to understand has been one of the building blocks to Andrew for probably his entire life.

By instinct alone, Noah starts releasing a comforting scent, needing to erase the sadness out of his mate's. Andrew inches closer again and the almost imperceptible tension lingering over his shoulders dissipates with every inhale he takes.

"I wanted to read Adrian that story because it was my favorite when I was a kid," Andrew speaks again with an almost foreign shakiness to his words, "but I also wanted him to have it because it would mean something different to him. Because he will never think that he deserves to be hungry, or in pain; he will never cry for his mom knowing that it won't matter because no one is coming for him. Adrian will grow up knowing that he's loved unconditionally and that is because you are his mom, Neil."

Andrew look him in the eye and straight into his soul. With the only name that Noah's ever wished he could keep. "I wish you could stay," He says, almost in a whisper, "I wish you could be here and be Adrian's dad, and be my-"

In all honesty Noah doesn't know what to say next. They were nothing for most of their everything at Palmetto. They didn't get enough time as mates to be that truly, even when their bond had changed them both to their cores.

"People ask me a lot about Adrian's dad." He settles for one truth he hasn't told Andrew yet. "It's impossible not to notice how young I was when he was born and unmarried, unmated omegas with pups are not generally well regarded."

Andrew's scent turns sharp for a minutes, sours with what Noah can feel is the instinct to protect him.

"I built the life with Dr. McCourt, it was her idea that a young widow with a pup would at least harbor pity. I knew from my time on the run that sometimes to be pitied is just what you need for people to look the other way."

"We made a whole story. How I got married and mated to my childhood sweetheart when we were both too young to know better. He was a good man, from a good family and he died when I was pregnant and didn't get to meet the pup we were both so exited to add to our lives."

"He was an only child so he was able to leave us a hefty sum that I used to put a down payment on this house and support myself through my ADN. Adrian's grandparents still send money every month to cover the mortgage."

"Does Adrian think that his dad is dead too?" Andrew mournfully.

"I don't think he's realized yet that he doesn't have one."

"And when he does?"

"Then yes, Andrew. He will think that his dad is dead."

"I thought you were done lying." Andrew spits, and the alpha must know he's being unfair but Noah is too tired, melancholy and grief stuck to his bones like saran wrap, to tired to fight him.

"I'm also done putting other people in danger in my stead," He replies, trying to make it sound more like standing his ground than tormented resignation. "And I am not willing to put him in danger."

Andrew must understand why he's doing this, has to. In only one day in Adrian's presence Noah has seen how just the knowledge of his pup, their pup's, existence has peeled many of Andrew's layers down. Left behind only a soft grief filled core for the life Andrew will leave behind after tonight.

"I told you to stop being a martyr, Neil."

"That is not my name," He replies shakily, "it doesn't matter how much I wanted to be." and he looks at Andrew again, see's the fire behind brown eyes of trying to find an answer to this that Neil knows doesn't exist. Has spent too many nights awake and desperate for it to know that there is no other choice. "And you only told me that no one wanted it, never that I had to stop."

"You are Neil Josten." Andrew gives emphasis to his words, biting them out one by one. Shooting them like bullet's into Noah, who's not foolish enough to think he can be right. The alpha softens only slightly the next moment, pausing to think his next words before continuing.

"You matched my claiming mark on my throat and told me that you wanted to stay," Andrew says to him. Gone is the frustration, and while the soft tones of grief stay there, the fire of determination sits right beside them. "I told you to stay if you meant it. I told Neil Josten to stay."

"But I am not-"

"Yes you are." The alpha interrupts. "You can't be Neil Josten in public, or for the FBI or at work, hell even to Adrian. But you are Neil Josten, Palmetto State Foxes star rookie striker, Kevin Day's fucking protege, honorary vice captain even when fucking dead."

"What?" he asks. Not interrupting becomes impossible with how Andrew's words rattle his bones as if they were dice in a cup. "What do you mean?"

"What the fuck do you think I mean?" Andrew replies with a twisted and humorless chuckle escaping him as well. "I wasn't the only one who lost you Neil, and yes this very convenient bond of ours made it a tad heightened, but there are seven other foxes, a Coach, a team nurse and a fucking French fuck who also happened to mourn you for the past five fucking years."

"Yes, but I never became captain," he retorts, trying to compress every single one of his jagged emotions back into their boxes and knowing he will fail miserably.

"It doesn't matter when the end result of your presence was the fucking same," Andrew snarls at him but without violence, only pure liquid grief. "Even when I spent a year rotting in bed, I could tell how your being there, even ephemerally, changed things. When Wymack buried your jerseys and rackets and bought a plot and a headstone for you, he told the team that you would have been our vice-captain the following year. Even when Boyd had to take the title, it was too unavoidably obvious that it should have been you."

A life flashes behind Noah's eyes, a sea of the what ifs that he missed. A pregnancy spent with Andrew and surrounded by warmth and comfort instead of so miserably alone that he was sure it would kill him. Adrian growing up in Fox Tower, while he returned to the court. Becoming captain after the girls left, holding up the championship trophy when the foxes won finally in Andrew's fifth year, his family by his side. Both the chosen one made by the foxes and the one he created with Andrew and Adrian.

He imagines having won it before, tasting glory in his freshmen year when no one saw it coming.

Noah wants it so bad that it hurts.

Even now when he can't ever return he wants at least to have the parts that mean Andrew by his side. He wants to return to Neil and never let him go again.

Want, it feels too simple of a word for how etched it feels on every corner of his skin; how it has torn him apart and put him back together all of his life. Wanted love from a father who couldn't offer him more than violence. Wanted comfort from a mother who only knew how to protect him by being cold and solid like jagged stone. Wanted Kevin, and Riko too when he was a kid and teenager and hadn't met the "king" for long enough to know the true nature of his cruelty. He had wanted to keep them close to his chest while running as living reminders that a different way exited. He'd wanted Exy even when mentioning it had only earned him more of his mother's viciousness.

He'd wanted Andrew.

He'd wanted to keep his life at Palmetto until the day he died.

He'd wanted to be real.

Neil Josten let his head fall onto his mate's shoulders, inhaling the grief stricken scent with the devastating certainty that they don't have a lot of time left. He closes his eyes for a moment, relaxing into Andrew and allowing himself to imagine for one moment that they are in a different place and a different time. They are nineteen and twenty years old, sitting against the ledge of their roof back at Palmetto with cigarette smoke curling around them.

Neil looks up at the sky and imagines that this stars are the same ones that he would gaze into then. He knows in a way that they are; the stars being really the only steady companion he's had along years of running, along many lives and many lies. He looks at them know knowing that he's too far away from the kid he was in Palmetto for the lights to recognize him.

"Fuck." Neil cries at the stars, not caring about the tears that fall down his cheeks as he grieves for that life properly for the first time. He wants to scream, needs to scream, but too conscious of the neighbors hearing him presses the palms of his hands to his mouth as a hoarse half whispered wail comes out, accompanied by almost too much air.

Andrew's arms surround him only a second later. The alpha, his alpha, loses no time pushing out a comforting scent to bury the bitterness of his distress. Neil screams again, this time muffling it by burying his face in Andrew's chest as he holds onto the fabric covering his shoulders with a tight knuckled grip.

It takes a solid few minutes for the thickest of the tears to stop, and there is a wet patch in the middle of Andrew's chest by the time Neil has enough of a grip on himself to move back.

"Stay." He begs. "Not forever, that's impossible, but for tonight." They don't have enough time to truly dive into how much this being their reality feels like nothing short of divine punishment meant to keep them apart. "Sleep with me on my nest tonight so I can have you just for one last moment. So I can be Neil in your arms for one last night."

He doesn't tell him the part where he needs Andrew to stay close to him, even if for only a few short hours more, that it might kill him. It might kill him just like it will to let Andrew go tomorrow.

Andrew closes the distance between them and kisses him, Neil melts under him the moment their lips meet. He feels Andrew's fingers tangle into his hair, holds on too Andrew by looping both arms behind the alpha's head.

Andrew's tongue licks at his lower lip and Neil opens his mouth, inviting anything that means getting Andrew closer to him. He tastes into Andrew's mouth and almost mewls in delight when he's manhandled into the alpha's lap.

"Is this okay?" He asks, wanting to make sure and letting his weight settle down the moment Andrew's yes leaves his mouth.

There's new intensity with the change in position; Andrew dives in to claim Neil's mouth again. Every inch of Neil's body feels like a live wire with want. Want to keep this moment forever. Want to turn it into more.

He moves down, kissing the corner of Andrew's mouth and then the edge of his jaw before moving down to mouth at his neck. Andrew's head falls back, lending more of the space in his throat for Neil to ravish. And he does. He kisses the space around the bite he gave Andrew. He moves to it and presses his teeth against it, letting it release Andrew's scent without breaking skin. The alpha moans at it, lust radiating through their bond and reaching Neil like a storm.

"Let's go upstairs," Neil whispers through haggard breaths, his own desire pulsing through his scent." They get up from the floor together, and Andrew's eyes are dilated with pure need when Neil looks at him illuminated by the kitchen light.

They walk hand in hand, silent as Neil guides Andrew through the path of where to step so that they don't make noise. They climb the stairs and reach Neil's bedroom since it's the first one once reaching the second floor.

With the closed door in front of them, Neil gets overwhelmed with a sudden itch at the realization that Andrew will finally be inside of his nest. He pauses without opening the door and signals to Andrew to wait for a moment before entering the room alone. His nest is familiar to him now, lays over his bed against the far wall.

Neil runs to it, and after turning on the lights, starts to fix the pillows and blankets and clothing scattered through it. He makes it and unmakes it, fixes the positions of everything at least twice and still feeling like there's something missing. Andrew's jersey is not on his bed, since he gave it to the alpha last night in a selfish attempt to get his scent back on it.

He opens the door until it's ajar, still not letting Andrew inside since his nest is not perfect yet. "Can I have the shirt back?" He asks almost sheepishly and Andrew lifts an amused eyebrow at him before walking to the guest room at the end of the hall. He emerges holding the white and orange jersey, and it takes Neil a monumental effort to wait until he reaches him instead of jumping for it.

Neil feels his omegan instincts crawling into the forefront of his mind and he lets them. He presses the shirt into his face the moment Andrew hands it to him and purrs at how Andrew's scent clings to it. He runs back into the room and puts it inside of his nest.

He returns to Andrew and opens the door fully to him, letting him step into the room. His alpha follows obediently, letting his gaze wonder until it settles on the nest in the corner. Andrew doesn't say anything, and for a second and irrational fear appears in Neil's heart that maybe he doesn't like the nest, that it's wrong somehow and that he needs to make it better for him.

Andrew surprises him by taking off the hoodie he's wearing and giving it to him in one quick motion. "Here," the alpha says with a croon halfway out of his throat. "I never got to court you properly in university."

"I thought you didn't care about that," Neil laughs, pressing the hoodie to his nose anyway and inhaling deeply so that the scent wraps around his heart.

"I don't," Andrew replies honestly, wrapping Neil into a tight and all-consuming embrace; he inhales at his scent gland and makes him shudder. "But I want- I need- to leave something here to remind you of me until I see you again."

"Andrew…" Neil doesn't want to let go of the futile hope that arises with the alpha's words.

"I will see you again Neil." Andrew says with the conviction that a forest fire has of its ability to cause devastation. "I will get to be Adrian's dad and your husband. I will return you to the Foxes if it's the last thing I do."

"I believe you." The honesty of that statement surprises him - the conviction that Andrew will keep every promise he dares to make to him.

"Yes or no?" Neil asks, sitting inside of the nest and putting a hand next to him to signal Andrew over.

The alpha lunges forward and kisses him stupid. Neil lets Andrew take him apart piece by piece. Allows himself to unravel knowing that his alpha will build him back up.

Andrew stares at Neil as the omega sleeps. He fixates on the rising and falling of his chest, every breath proof that he's real. Neil look's peaceful, his face relaxed in sleep, his scent almost null but still almost unbearably sweet.

Dawn has just started to break. Clouds keep direct sunlight away, but the room becomes progressively lighter with every passing second. Andrew needs to leave

The lump in his throat turns into a solid jagged stone as he presses a last kiss into Neil's sleeping temple, willing to risk the omega waking up for this last moment of contact.

He leaves the nest, even when he feels like the simple motion tears a hole in his chest, and puts his pants back on as silently as he can. He considers reaching for his shirt, but he has more in the bag packed in his car, so he leaves it behind for Neil. Instead, he reaches for a sweater draped against a chair and puts in on the moment he feels the scent of lemongrass and salt on it.

Andrew should go straight for his car, he knows he should, but he also can't help turning to the room in the middle of the hallways and opening the door as silently as he can.

Adrian sleeps as peacefully and silently as Neil, and Andrew suppresses the whine that his alpha wants to let out. He has a pup, one that he's leaving behind without anything else he can do right now. Andrew wasn't lying last night when he told Neil that he'd set him free some way or another.

Andrew steps closer to his bed, careful to not wake him up and grateful that the carpetted floor muffles his every step. He looks at the way Adrian's chest rises and falls with his breathing, the same way he did with Neil, and runs a hand through the blonde curls that match his own before walking away.

Andrew found a way for Jean and Kevin to be free once, he will find a way for Neil as well. Even if he has to tear the Moriyamas down piece by piece to achieve it. He can feel the determination to get his mate and his pup back to his side burning in his veins like a wild fire.

He can't leave through the front door, so Andrew climbs out of the kitchen window the same way Neil guided him in two nights ago. In more than one way, Andrew can't believe that it's been that short a time since finding Neil again. He swears to himself that it will not be five years until the next time.

It takes him a full half an hour to be able to start the car once he's inside, his alpha begging him to not drive away. Daylight has fully set in when he finally turns the key in the ignition, and he feels sick with every mile that separates him from the house.

The open road is good, because as soon as he knows that no one can hear him, Andrew screams.

The drive back to his apartment in Denver is a full day shorter than it took him to get to Florida, choosing to drive for eighteen hours a day instead of for nine and only stopping at a gas station in Alabama to buy a burner phone . It's reckless and he knows it, but he needs to get there as soon as he can.

The apartment is as empty when he returns as it was when he left it only a week and a lifetime ago. Kevin is still with his boyfriends in California, none the wiser to Andrew's trip, and that's how things will stay until he returns when training starts back again in three weeks.

Andrew beelines to his bedroom, without turning a light untill reaching it even though night has fallen a few hours ago already. Under his bed lays a safe he hasn't opened since that first year Neil was gone. Now, he pulls it and opens it without hesitation.

Neil's binder lays inside, where Andrew kept it safe even when he was convinced that his mate was dead, and he takes it out. He turns to one of the last pages, past the Kevin shrine he's since then understood is somewhat of a cover, and takes out the poem he needs.

Andrew spent a good part of that first year cracking open most of the codes and cyphers from within. It lead him to Stuart that first time, and to that basement that still hunts his nightmares. He dials the number again, close to praying to a god that he doesn't believe in that the line will connect.

"Who is this?" Andrew almost sighs in relief at the familiar accent that picks up. Stuart Hatford sounds groggy from sleep and angry at the unknown number, but Andrew could not care less about how late it is in the U.K

"Stuart" He says, "This is Andrew Minyard."

"Why are you calling me again," Sleep seems to have left the mobster completely at those words.

"I know about Adrian," Andrew hears Stuart take a sharp breath, "I need your help."

END OF FIC