Chapter Text
“It would have been better for everyo-“ but before Aaron could finish his sentence he was interrupted by Andrew “don’t finish that sentence“ he and Aaron had a stare of for a bit before Aaron backed away.
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Survival instincts warred with need and twisted into an almost debilitating panic. "I have to talk to my mother," Neil said, because he didn't know what else to say.
"What for?" Wymack asked. "You're legal, aren't you? Your file says you're nineteen."
Neil was eighteen, but he wasn't going to contradict what his forged paperwork said.
“You know at this point nothing should be surprising” said Waymack, Andrew was at this point piecing things together, he new that Neil has been running for 8 years meaning he ran away with his mother at 10 after meeting Kevin, his mother has been dead about a year now and his father is a psycho and a killer.
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If his mother knew he was even considering this, she'd be furious. It was probably a good thing she'd never know, but Neil didn't think "good" was supposed to feel like a knife in his chest. "I'll talk to her tonight."
"We can give you a lift home."
"I'm fine”.
“but would she not be happy for him?” asked Matt “you never know maybe she hated exy for what ever reason” answered Abby “well it’s kind of refreshing to hear him saying ‘I’m fine’ even when he clearly isn’t” said Nicky.
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Wymack waited until they were gone, then turned a serious look on Neil.
"You need one of us to talk to your parents?" "I'm fine," Neil said again.
Wymack didn't even try for subtlety with his next question. "Are they the ones who hurt you?"
Neil stared at him at a complete loss. It was blunt enough to be rude on so many levels that there wasn't a good place to start answering it.
“Wow that could have not gone worse” said Dan “Well I’m sure coach didn’t mean for it to sound that way, right coach” said Renee smiling a reassuring smile and the other where laughing at how offend Neil seemed to be at coach’s question. But the reaction he gave looked like it meant that his mother is not that bad.
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Wymack didn't wait long for a response before going in search of Hernandez.
The back door banged shut behind him, and Neil's nerves broke. He ran for the bathroom and made it to a stall just in time to dry-heave into a toilet.
He could imagine his mother's rage if she knew what he was doing. He remembered too well the savage yank of her hands in his hair. All these years spent trying to keep moving and hidden, and now he was going to destroy their hard work. She would never forgive him for this and he knew it, and that did nothing at all to help the clenching feeling in his gut.
"I'm sorry," he gasped out between wet coughs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Everyone was shocked and saddened Aaron looked kind of angry too but the only thing that showed that what they had seen had any effect to Andrew was that Andrew‘s eyes had darkened ever so slightly, but every time they heard about Neil’s mother it all seemed to get worse making a mystery and nothing would change the fact that this was the first time they had seen Neil have a break down like that.
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He stumbled over to the sinks to rinse his mouth out and stared himself down in the mirrors that hung above them. With black hair and brown eyes, he looked plain and average: no one to notice in a crowd, no one to stick in one's memory. That was what he wanted, but he wondered if it could hold up against news cameras. He grimaced a little at his reflection and leaned closer to the mirror, tugging hard at chunks of hair to check his roots. They were dark enough that he relaxed and leaned back a bit.
It was making sense why he chose these colours for his hair and eyes since blending in is the best to do if hiding, they all saw how all this effected Neil having to come out of hiding and place himself in front of cameras was strategically the worst thing to do.