Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Aaron is already up, staring into space over the kitchen island with a coffee cup cradled in hand, when Andrew yawns his way out of his room. Andrew straightens his glasses the better to glare in the general direction of the coffee maker; there’s only a fifty-fifty chance that Aaron and Katelyn haven’t already drained the carafe for all that the sun is barely tinging the sky pink through the floor to ceiling windows of their cabin. 

“Sup?” Aaron mumbles as Andrew shuffles past. 

Andrew flips him off amicably and snags his favorite mug from the cabinet. It’s giant, black, and inlaid with the Pleiades in silver - Katelyn gave it to him for his birthday last year. He supposes having Aaron’s soulmate around all the time has its benefits; she has excellent taste in presents. 

Andrew dumps what might be slightly too much sweet cream creamer in his mug, and tops it off with coffee. He takes a sip, squinting at Aaron over the rim of his mug, satisfied that the ratio of creamer to coffee is actually quite perfect. He raises an eyebrow at Aaron. 

“Kate left for an early shift at the clinic,” he says in answer to Andrew’s unspoken question. 

Andrew makes an indecipherable noise. 

“I’m not heading in until three. Gaby’s got Robin in charge of the kitchen until I get there, but I have to supervise the dinner crowd.” 

Andrew nods once and gestures with his mug in the vague direction of his tower. 

“Nice talking to you,” Aaron tosses at him sarcastically. 

Andrew flips him off over his shoulder once more for good measure before snagging a banana and a handful of the snickerdoodle cookies Aaron made last night. Aaron knows he doesn’t word before his first cup of coffee, and besides, he’s busy: he needs to boot up his system, lay down the sequences that woke him up in the middle of the night - sequences insistent enough that he’d scrambled for the marker he keeps on his bedside table and scribbled them across the back of his arm. 

It’s two sets of stairs to reach the tower, the height necessary to get Andrew and his telescope above the mountain treeline with unfettered access to the night sky. It’s a roomy nest, closed in on all sides, but two walls and half the roof are glassed in. Protected by glass or not, the stunning view of the Blue Ridge Mountains swoops unpleasantly through Andrew every morning before he locks the feeling down to a low simmer in his gut. Andrew’s telescope takes up a good chunk of the space, his computers and equipment another good chunk, but there is also a corduroy couch that is comfier than it has any right to be, a small overstuffed bookshelf, a half bath, and a kitchenette.

Andrew settles at his desk, logging in and pulling up the imagery from the sequences he’s been running overnight on government telescopes across the country. It takes him a handful of moments to make adjustments to the programs he is handsomely overpaid to monitor for NASA before turning to his own project. 

He’s been hunting Comet King Max since grad school. The fancifully named and elusive son of a bitch had been discovered by his advisor, and she had predicted it would return to visibility from earth five years ago - and it should have. Andrew has checked and rechecked Bee’s calculations more times than he could count. The calculations are right. 

Except they aren’t, because the damned thing hasn’t come back through yet.

Andrew pulls up the program he’d developed with Bee and adjusts the coding based on the new sequences. Once applied across the vastness of the night sky, these minuscule tweaks will have a gargantuan impact on the range they cover. It’s a risk; this will set the program on a new course, meaning they abandon the quadrant they’ve been tracking for three quarters of the year, but something is pulling at the back of Andrew’s brain and he’s had more than one successful discovery fueled by his uncanny intuition. He doesn’t hesitate before hitting exe on the code.

Andrew nibbles at his pilfered snickerdoodles and spends a few hours clicking rapidly through the mind-numbing imagery of the sky his program has flagged as potentially interesting, but there’s nothing there, just pinpricks of steadily dying starlight - no tell-tale blur of fuzzy light that would indicate a comet. 

Hunger eventually drives Andrew downstairs just in time to benefit from Aaron’s current culinary obsession. “What’s in this one?” Andrew asks, lifting the edge of the golden buttery crust on the sandwich Aaron slides in front of him. 

“Gruyere, caramelized onions, and apple butter on honey wheat,” Aaron says, sitting across from Andrew and contemplating his own sandwich with a furrowed brow. He’s been developing fancy grilled cheeses for The Bluebird for a month now. Last month was spent perfecting his lobster mac and cheese, which is currently the best selling item on Gabrielle’s menu.

Andrew takes a bite, and barely manages to stifle the satisfied groan that wants to sneak out of his throat. It’s really fucking good - perfectly crispy and buttery on the outside, the gruyere a sharp contrast to the balanced sweetness of the onions and the smooth unadulterated apple butter. 

Aaron smirks at him when he takes two more bites in quick succession. “Good?” 

“It’s okay,” Andrew says blandly, holding his gaze and taking another bite. 

Aaron rolls his eyes at him. “Ranking?” 

Andrew considers. Taken alone, it’s a 10/10, but Aaron is asking him to compare it to every other concoction he’s plated up for him this month, and that’s stiff competition. 

“Six out of ten,” he says grudgingly after he’s finished the whole thing and has pried loose a stray swipe of melted gruyere from the plate. 

Aaron hums. “So. Still the fontina and goat cheese with roasted tomatoes and balsamic.” It’s not a question; it’s the only one that Andrew has rated a 9/10 so far. Katelyn had given it a 10. 

“Try again tomorrow,” Andrew says. 

Aaron snorts. “You want seconds?” 

“Obviously,” Andrew says, holding out his plate. 

Andrew is back in his tower after lunch, overfed and not mad about it. His programs are whirring away happily, his telescope set on its new path and ready to record an unending series of ten second images tonight, seeking and seeking for Comet King Max. There is nothing productive Andrew can really do until the sky is dark. 

He shoots a quick text to Kevin: done for the day, i can come over now if you’re home. The three dots pop up immediately on the screen, but then disappear and stay gone for a whole minute before Kevin’s answer appears: no, just come for dinner.  

Andrew frowns at his phone. The reply lands a little sideways in Andrew’s chest, just like most of Kevin’s behavior lately, but Andrew is not going to argue a clear no, so he sprawls onto the couch, tosses his legs over the armrest, and cracks open the newest book Renee has loaned him. 

It’s a dystopian novel, some fantasy setting where soulmates don’t exist and the world has come crashing down in a grand economic collapse. It’s bizarre to consider: a world without soulmates. A world where you choose. It’s a complicated, intoxicating concept for Andrew, a reflection of the competing feelings mapped out in juxtaposition across the insides of his forearms. Every human theoretically has the potential for two soulmates; one platonic, one romantic. You are marked at first contact, first touch - platonic soulmarks blooming on the inside of the right forearm, and romantic ones on the left. Aaron has Katelyn, their twin marks swirled pink and gold and shining on their left arms, and Andrew has Kevin. 

One romantic. One platonic. One set of twins. 

Scientists claim that everyone is born with both a romantic and platonic soulmate, but that many people never find theirs and that some soulmates die before they even have the chance. It had been a particularly drunken night after Aaron had first found Katelyn that he confessed to Andrew that he wondered if it was different for twins. That maybe they only get one pair, shared between them. Aaron had been so happy, and yet so guilty. 

As if Andrew’s bond with Kevin is lesser-than. As if Andrew is missing out. As if Andrew isn’t perfectly content finding random, nameless hook ups in Asheville when he has an itch to scratch. A world without soulmates means a world without Kevin and Andrew isn’t willing to give that up. 

It’s a good life they have in Fox Springs, and it was finding Kevin that brought them here. Aaron loves his job at Gabrielle’s restaurant and he adores Katelyn. Andrew has his books and the night sky and a career that leaves most of his time free; he has Kevin and Gabrielle; he goes fly fishing with Wymack and exchanges books and punches with Renee. He has a home. He has a family. He has a soulmate. 

Andrew rubs absently at the scars on the inside of his left arm and it’s only with a trace of the ancient aching pain that he reminds himself that a romantic soulmate was never something he wanted anyway.

He is already halfway through the book when it’s time to go. Andrew marks his page and changes clothes before firing up the engine on the ancient red Ford truck he shares with Aaron. He lets the diesel engine warm up before setting off down their long, steep driveway, the radio bleating happily, set on some dumb pop station. He gives it a minute, secretly hoping they’ll play Taylor Swift and he can tell himself it was already on so he might as well let it play, but it’s just commercials and news and more commercials. 

Andrew has little tolerance for the soulmate obsessed media, and he cuts the radio off before he’s even hit the main road into town. Nathaniel Moriyama’s name has been plastered over the tv and radio for weeks now. It’s all anyone can talk about. The horror, they say, of losing your soulmate like that. What Riko must be going through, they say. Andrew is simultaneously angry and uneasy at the thought. His relationship with the idea of soulmates in general may be complicated, but Andrew would tear the world apart if Kevin went missing, and he would burn it down if anything were to happen to him. 

The thing is, something is definitely happening with Kevin these days. 

Andrew parks in front of the generous four square Victorian house at the edge of town, the trim a bright white, the hardboard siding an ocean blue. Gabrielle is out the door to meet him before he’s shut the door to his truck.

“Andrew,” she says, the warmth of her tone in contrast to the small frown on her face. 

“Gaby,” Andrew says. He’s fond of Kevin’s wife. “What’s up?”

“Another bad day,” she says, wringing her hands and looking over her shoulder. “He’s in the rec room, if you want to go around back. I’ll have dinner ready in a bit.”

Saturday night dinner was born out of the messy six months after Kevin had walked past Andrew in a used bookstore in Asheville, their fingers brushing, their twin platonic soulmarks blossoming on the inside of their right arms. Andrew had been on winter break with Aaron, with six months still left on his postdoc at UNC. Kevin had been working for his dad in Fox Springs, and was engaged to Gabrielle, who had just opened The Bluebird. It was a four hour drive between them, and they had alternated driving to each other over the weekends. Six months later Andrew graduated and dragged Aaron to the middle-of-nowhere-Appalachia, but Saturday night dinners hadn’t ended with proximity.

“It’s Kevin’s turn to cook,” Andrew says with a small frown of his own. It is part of the tradition, rotating through who’s in charge of dinner. They’d decided early on that it is cheating to count Kevin and Gabrielle as one person - even if she is a professional chef. If Andrew sometimes has Aaron help him with recipes and prep on his nights, that is no one’s business but his own. 

“It’s fine,” Gabrielle says, her usual smile making a brief appearance. “I’m making pasta, it’s meditative. Go see if you can make more headway than I did.” 

It used to make him angry, how easily Gabrielle had welcomed Andrew into their lives, how her eyes never sparked with jealousy, how she was as easy spending time with them together as she was to shoo Andrew and Kevin off to bond on their own. Now he just feels a quiet rush of gratitude, comfortable and confident in his place in this constellation as he tosses a two fingered salute Gabrielle’s way and heads around back.

Kevin is leaning against the dormant air hockey table when Andrew walks in, futilely bopping one of the pucks with his striker and staring at the flatscreen across the room. It’s on mute, but the subtitles are on, rolling across the screen on repeat with the same words Andrew had heard on the radio on the way over. Riko Moriyama is life-size on the giant screen, all slicked back media training and ostensibly handsome, but he’s always made Andrew’s skin crawl. 

Kevin startles when Andrew turns the TV off. He looks tired, but he smiles, and rolls his shoulders a couple times. “Hey, I must have lost track of time - I haven’t started cooking. You want to help?”

“Nope. Gaby’s cooking.” Andrew flips the switch on the table and the air hums on, floating the puck a few inches. 

“Shit,” Kevin says. “Is she making pasta?” He sounds forlorn, as well he fucking should. Gabrielle only makes her pappardelle from scratch when she’s upset. 

“Yup.” Andrew snaps his fingers in his face. “Best of three,” he says. “And then you are going to tell me what the fuck is going on.”

Kevin stiffens a little. “Nothing is going on,” he says. 

“You aren’t usually in the habit of lying to me,” Andrew muses. He captures the puck with his striker and raises an eyebrow at Kevin. He’s right handed, and not wearing his armbands, which means the swirl of gold and green and amber and black on his right arm is on full display - the exact same soulmark that’s peeking out from under Kevin’s rolled up sleeve. 

“Fine,” Kevin says, setting up to defend his goal, striker poised. From the beginning Kevin has both loathed and thrilled at the fact that Andrew is his match at the air hockey table. It’s a challenge. It’s annoying. It’s a blast. The table has always been an equalizer for them, a place to meet in the middle when they were just finding their footing as soulmates. 

Andrew wins the first game, the puck a blur across the table until he takes the seventh goal. Kevin has the puck back in play for game two with nary an eyebrow raise, and beats Andrew seven to six. In the final game neither of them give up a point for minutes and minutes, until Andrew finally breaks through Kevin’s defense, and then the points fly back and forth until Andrew snags the third round. 

“Fuck,” Kevin says with grudging appreciation. “You should play pro.”

“Yes, because becoming a professional air hockey player would fulfill all my hopes and dreams,” Andrew says drily. He gestures at the couch. “Sit.”

Kevin sits, the high of the game wearing off quickly as he realizes it’s time to pay up. Andrew ducks his head to look in the cabinet by the door and is gratified to find that Gabrielle has replenished his Scotch stash. He pours two glasses, ignoring Kevin’s wrinkled nose of distaste when he sees what’s in the glass. 

“Do not make faces at my single malt,” Andrew admonishes him. He tucks himself into the corner of the couch and kicks Kevin’s shin. “Drink it, all of it, and tell me what the fuck is going on.”

Kevin wrinkles his nose again, but obediently downs the contents of his glass, chasing it with an epic wince. Andrew sips his and waits. And waits. And then Kevin gestures at the black TV screen. “I know him,” he says. “Knew him, I guess. I knew him.”

Andrew frowns. “Riko?”

“Well yes, actually, him too. But I mean Neil.” Kevin peers into his empty glass, and Andrew goes back to the cabinet for the bottle. 

“Who the fuck is Neil?” Andrew asks when he’s refilled Kevin’s glass and his own. They are sipping now, which is at least less abusive to the Scotch. 

“Nathaniel. I used to call him Neil. He prefers Neil,” Kevin says softly. “My mom and his dad were on the Senate Armed Services Committee together. Nathan Wesninski was a son of a bitch, tucked firmly in the back pocket of the Moriyamas. But Neil-” Kevin takes a sip and then another, chases both with their own dedicated winces. “We were friends.” 

Andrew considers this. He knows pretty much everything about Kevin and he didn’t know this, which means there’s something more to it. “Just friends?” he asks. 

Kevin blushes. He fucking blushes. “We kinda - fuck, I don’t know. Do you call it dating when you are fourteen?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Andrew asks with an arched brow. 

“Fuck you. He was my first kiss.”

“Hmm,” Andrew hums, tucks this bit of information around the edges of Kevin’s weirdness the last few weeks. “And you’ve been upset because he is missing,” he concludes. 

Kevin hesitates. “Yes,” he says, in a completely unconvincing tone. “And…”

Kevin trails off, looks around the room at fuck if Andrew knows what, and then leans in closer to Andrew, his long fingers gripped tightly around his glass. “Look,” Kevin starts in a fierce whisper, “the Senate kids all kinda hung out together. We all knew each other. Riko was a prick, and Neil and I avoided him but we couldn’t always. I know that they shook hands at least once back then.” Kevin pauses and drains his glass, looking at Andrew intently. 

It’s Kevin, and Andrew is his soulmate, and it takes him barely a second to catch his point. “There was no soulmark,” he says. 

“There was no soulmark,” Kevin repeats, his frown deep and complicated. 

“Fuck,” Andrew says. 

The implications are not insubstantial. To all the world Riko and Nathanial Moriyama have been happily married for years. Soulmates who came together to solidify the bonds between two powerful political families. A modern day fairy tale. But if they aren’t soulmates, that means the marks were faked, which makes a ruthless sort of sense in the context of political gain, but is a risky move. Soulmarks aren’t particularly hard to fake with a good tattoo artist, but it isn’t the initial marks that are problematic. One way or another the truth will out; either someone meets their real soulmate and has to contend with a mark blossoming where it shouldn’t be able to, or someone will want to break the relationship off. Barring that, there have been several high profile cases where the tattoo artist is arrested and gives up the names of their clients. Either way, faking soulmarks is illegal and would be an unprecedented scandal for the Moriyamas. 

“So,” Andrew says carefully. “The announcement today?”

Kevin runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “When they got married, I told myself that Riko had changed. That he and Neil had grown close after I left Washington. I convinced myself that even if the mark was fake, that it was what Neil wanted.”

“You weren’t in contact with him?”

Kevin shakes his head. “I was a mess when mom died. I didn’t - I’m not proud of it, but I cut all ties when I left. Neil called me a few times, but I didn’t take his calls. I did call him a year later, but his number had changed. I didn’t try very hard,” Kevin says miserably, pinching his left hand cruelly over and over, the skin around his silvery scars worried red from his ministrations. 

“Kevin,” Andrew says, holding out both hands. Kevin doesn’t hesitate, the habit ingrained in him to place his hand in Andrew’s. Andrew rubs the tight scar tissue lightly, methodically. “You think Neil didn’t consent to this marriage,” Andrew concludes when Kevin has calmed down a bit. Kevin nods. “And now you think he is on the run.” Kevin nods again. “Okay,” Andrew says. 

“Okay?” Kevin repeats on a sharp exhale. 

“You were a kid. What, they were eighteen when they married? You were nineteen. There was nothing you could have done about it.”

“I could have told someone.”

“Told who, Wymack? And what was he going to do about it? He’s the mayor of a tiny mountain town in the middle of nowhere North Carolina, and to all the world Riko and Neil are soulmates, with all the privileges and protections the law provides.” Kevin goes to jerk his hand away, but Andrew doesn’t let him. “You can be worried about him, if you want. You can continue to be a fucking mess if you want. But you do not get to beat yourself up about this,” Andrew says fiercely. 

Kevin stares back at him, dead still for a very long moment, and then his shoulders sag. He slumps against the couch in defeat. “He was my friend,” Kevin whispers. 

“I know,” Andrew says. He keeps rubbing Kevin’s hand, the motion repetitive and soothing and carved out between them over years. “You need to tell Gabrielle. She’s worried.” 

“I know,” Kevin sighs. 

Andrew squeezes his hand, and then drags him off the couch and up the stairs. 

They’ve barely reached the landing before Kevin spills everything. Gabrielle is perfect, like she always is. If the woman has flaws Andrew doesn’t know what they are. He knows there’s got to be something, but whatever it is must happen behind closed doors. Maybe she snores. 

Kevin’s relief at both his soulmates knowing this thing that had been weighing on him for weeks is visible. It’s still there, in the pinch of his brow, the slight downward tug at the corner of his mouth, but the bundle of nerves that has warped around Kevin Day for the past weeks has relaxed its grip. Kevin won’t fully process this until Neil is found. At three weeks out Andrew highly doubts he’ll be found alive, but he keeps that to himself. 

When Kevin’s done, Gabrielle steps in and takes care of Kevin like she had been trying to for weeks, and he finally lets her, folding into her embrace, letting himself be held in a way that Andrew doesn’t have the capacity to offer. 

It’s later, their plates licked clean and wine swirling in their glasses that Gabrielle starts giggling and can’t stop. “I’m sorry,” she says, catching her breath and holding up a hand. “It’s just, I didn’t know you’d ever had a boyfriend.” 

Kevin frowns at her. “Does it matter?” 

“Oh god no,” she says, still grinning. “I was just thinking it’s one more thing the three of us have in common.” 

“What?” Kevin says, his frown twisting a little in confusion. 

“We all like dick?” Andrew suggests. 

Gabrielle’s giggles burst free again at that and she lifts her glass in a salute before downing it. 

“We never exactly got that far,” Kevin mutters. He is blushing again, but at least he’s smiling now, too. 

Gabrielle makes the rounds of the table, topping off their glasses and kissing Kevin on his temple. She pauses near Andrew, squeezes his shoulder after he nods his permission, and he knows the gesture for what it is: thanks for snapping him out of it. 

It’s well past eleven when Andrew gets home. He plans to check his sequences, pour himself a drink, spend some quality time with his telescope, and maybe finish that novel so he can talk shit about it with Renee tomorrow, but instead what he walks into stops him in his tracks. He freezes on the threshold of the cabin, one hand on the door, the keys forgotten in his slack fingers. 

Nathaniel Moriyama is on their couch. 

It is undeniably him, for all that he is pale and dirty and bruised and thinner than in the pictures and footage of him that have been circulating in the media. There’s a tattered duffle bag on the floor at his feet, and his eyes are closed and fluttering weakly, but he’s awake - he’s jaw is clenched too tightly for sleep. There’s a whiff of just settled frenzy in the air; Katelyn has produced a saline drip from somewhere and Nathaniel’s - Neil’s - left arm is slung over the back of the couch to give her access to his vein. The positioning gives a clear view of his mangled soulmark; it looks like it has been hastily burned off, the scabs raw and angry and weeping. 

None of this though, is what has frozen Andrew in his tracks. Andrew’s gaze is riveted on Aaron. Aaron, who is gripping Neil’s right hand in his. Aaron, who is watching with wide eyes as matching blue and gold and bronze soulmarks bloom on his and Neil’s arms.

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Andrew snaps out of it when Aaron throws him a look of sheer panic. He shuts the door, drops his keys, and is at Aaron’s side in a blink. 

“What in the everloving fuck?”

Neil opens his (shockingly blue) eyes at that - looks between Andrew and Aaron and then down at the brand spanking new soulmark on his arm. “Hilarious,” he rasps out just before his eyes roll back in his head and he passes out. 

Andrew feels like he’s been punched in the gut. What in the everloving fuck?

Aaron starts wheezing, holding on tightly to Neil’s hand, and that, at least, is something he can distract himself with. Andrew claps a firm palm to the back of Aaron’s neck. “Stop that,” Andrew says, and looks up at Katelyn for an answer. 

“He was in the woods at the base of our driveway. My headlights caught him, and when I stopped the car he ran.” She gets the needle placed and pulls the rubber loose from Neil’s upper arm, taping the whole thing down and starting the saline drip. “He didn’t make it far, just stopped, leaned against a tree and watched me approach. When I was close enough he said Kevin’s name, and then fainted.”

“Fuck,” Andrew says. Aaron still hasn’t said a word, but his breathing has steadied. Andrew can’t tear his eyes away from the man on their couch. From Neil. It’s not like he hasn’t seen him plastered all over every news outlet for almost a decade, but there is something technicolor and electric about seeing him here, in the flesh. 

“He’s dehydrated, and that arm is infected, but he hasn’t let me do a full exam so I don’t know what else is wrong with him,” Katelyn says. She’s got her fingers pressed on his wrist now, eyes on the clock across the room. “Pulse is weak, but steady,” she says after a few more seconds. Katelyn settles his arm carefully and meets Andrew’s eyes. “He came-to when I got him in the car, and tried to jump out when he realized I wasn’t taking him straight to Kevin.” 

“Idiot,” Andrew says. Really pretty idiot, he adds silently.

Neil’s eyelids squeeze, and then he tilts his head and opens his eyes again. “I’ve been called that before,” Neil says . “You must be the one that belongs to Kevin.”

“I told him I lived with Kevin’s soulmate,” Katelyn says unapologetically. “It kept him in the car.” 

“It’s fine,” Andrew says. He pulls out his phone and holds Neil’s gaze while he calls Kevin. 

“Andrew?” Kevin’s voice comes through on the fourth ring, already groggy with sleep.

“Can you drive? I need you to come over.”

“Are you okay?” Kevin’s voice is instantly clear and slightly sharp. 

“I am.” Andrew hesitates. He’s not sure what they are dealing with yet, but he’s starting to get an idea, and he’s not sure he wants to say Neil’s name over an unsecured line. “Just come,” he says, and hangs up. 

Andrew turns to Aaron and squeezes his neck harder. “Are you broken?” he asks.

“Andrew, I-” Aaron yanks his hand out of Neil’s almost like he’d forgotten it was there. “I didn’t mean to,” he sputters. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Andrew says. “Nobody ever means to.”

Aaron’s eyes drift back to Neil, who is still awake and staring at Aaron, and Andrew watches Aaron reach for his hand again like he can’t help it. Neil flinches, but lets Aaron take his hand. Andrew remembers exactly what that feels like, the tug at your soul when you snap into orbit with your soulmate. The whole universe shifts whether you want it to or not. He doesn’t believe in magic, not in any real sense, but the soulmate bond sure fucking feels like the closest thing. He doesn’t begrudge Aaron that. He can’t. 

And the fact that Nathaniel Moriyama is exactly Andrew’s brand of distraction doesn’t mean anything. It can’t mean anything. Just like the buzzing under his skin means nothing. Andrew needs to focus; they have way bigger problems right now than brand spanking new soulmarks and Andrew’s neglected libido.  

“Neil,” Andrew says, and Neil’s gaze snaps back to him. 

Neil makes a soft, surprised sound at the nickname. “He told you about me,” he says. 

“Yes,” Andrew says. “Does anyone know you are here?”

“Jean,” Neil says, trying to sit up.

“Stay still,” Katelyn barks at him.

“Easy, Kate,” Aaron says. She rolls her eyes. 

“Jean Moreau?” Andrew interrupts. “Do we need to be worried about that?”

“Not like that. He’s not chasing me, he ran with me,” Neil wheezes out. “I need help.”

“Clearly,” Andrew deadpans. 

“I need help with Jean,” Neil clarifies. “He broke his leg. I got him stable I think, and hid him, and left him with all our supplies. I thought if I could get to Kevin, he might help us, without turning me in.”

“We’re not going to turn you in,” Aaron says vehemently. 

“No,” Andrew agrees. “We aren’t.”

Katelyn’s frowning down at Neil’s burnt left forearm arm, and when she looks up her face is pale. “I don’t think this soulmark is real.”

“Ding ding ding,” Neil says tiredly, and then he closes his eyes. “I think I need to lie down.” Andrew considers pointing out that he is lying down, but then Neil’s whole body relaxes, his head lolls to the side, and his breathing evens out. 

Katelyn checks his pulse again. “He’s fine. Let him sleep.”

“He didn’t want me to touch him,” Aaron says softly. Neil’s limp hand is still resting in his, and Aaron can’t seem to let it go. “Katelyn went to get supplies and I tried to help him get to the couch, but he snapped at me not to touch him. And I didn’t. But he tripped. I caught his arm. It was an accident.”

“Can we get back to the part where this soulmark isn’t real?” Katelyn whispers loudly. “What is going on Andrew?”

“How do you know it isn’t real?” Aaron asks. 

“I’ve seen burns on soulmarks at the clinic - accidental ones, but the colors show up even through the burns. This is scabbed, but there’s patches where I should still be able to see it. This is a tattoo - or it was.”

“Holy shit,” Aaron says. He frowns, and Andrew sees anger brewing as he considers what that might mean. 

“Yeah,” Andrew agrees, because matching anger is swirling in his gut. “Kevin knew him, in Washington. He knew the soulmark was faked. He just told me and Gaby today.”

“Holy shit,” Aaron says again.

Katelyn comes around to sit next to Aaron on the coffee table and he grabs onto her with his free hand. “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to figure out how to get a man with a broken leg off a mountain without anyone knowing about it,” Andrew says, and he pulls out his phone again. 

Renee answers the phone quicker than Kevin, her voice husky and quiet instead of sleepy, and under any other circumstances he’d roll his eyes and ask her who’s bed she had climbed out of to answer the phone. “Andrew?”  

“I need you,” he says. 

“On my way,” she murmurs. There’s some bed squeaking as she hangs up the phone, and Andrew scrolls through his very short list of contacts to make one more call. 

“Do you know what time it is?” Wymack grouses into the phone as a greeting. 

“No idea,” Andrew lies. “I’ve got a problem.” 

“Can this problem wait until daylight?” 

“If it could, I would be calling you in daylight,” Andrew says. 

“Fuck,” Wymack mutters. “On my way kid.” 

That done, Andrew slips his phone onto the table and assesses the situation. “Are we on the same page about this?” he asks his family. 

“We’re not turning him in,” Aaron repeats. 

Katelyn crosses her arms. “I don’t like this at all,” she says. “If they are looking for him they are going to eventually end up finding him. What happens to us then?” 

Andrew waits. Katelyn is not a coward, but she’s practical, and ultimately it’s Aaron who she will listen to, so it’s Aaron who is going to have to fight. 

“It’s a fake soulmark,” Aaron says calmly, because there is no quicker way to get Katelyn to refuse to talk than to throw hysterics at her. “He obviously ran away for a reason, and is scared to be turned in. We have to help him.” 

Katelyn frowns. “And would you make the same argument if he wasn’t your soulmate?” she asks. 

“But he is my soulmate,” Aaron says quietly, firmly, and there is wonder coloring the edges of his voice. 

Katelyn softens an inch before throwing her arms up into the air. “Fine, we help him, but if we all die I am blaming it on you,” she says, before stomping off to the kitchen. 

“Dramatic,” Aaron calls at her back before turning to Andrew. “Do we have a plan?” 

“Working on it,” Andrew says. He watches Katelyn storm back with soap and water and cotton and settle it on the side table. “He said he doesn’t want to be touched,” Andrew reminds her. 

“Sure,” she snaps. “I literally hauled his heavy ass into my car and placed this IV. I think he’s over it.” 

“Wake him up first,” Andrew insists. 

“Andrew,” Aaron says, but he lets go of Neil’s hand. 

“Wake him up, so he knows what you are doing,” Andrew says, his voice leaving no room for argument. 

“Fine,” Katelyn says, rolling her eyes. “Lord save me from the Minyard twins.” 

“Neil.” Katelyn pitches her voice a little louder. Neil doesn’t move. “Neil!” she all but yells. 

Neil’s eyes squeeze tight and then blink open. He looks at her for a full minute before he says, sluggishly, “What?” 

“I’m going to clean your arm now, okay?” 

Neil shakes his head slowly and tries to sit up, “No, I haveta go get Jean,” he says. He blinks again and then his brain appears to come online. “Why are you asking me now?” 

“Andrew said I have to ask before touching you,’ Katelyn says. 

Neil cuts those crystal eyes to Andrew. “Hi,” he says stupidly. 

Hi, Andrew thinks, but what he says is, “What did you put in that drip?” 

“No,” Neil says before Katelyn can say anything. “I mean, thank you. Is Kevin here?” 

“He’s on his way.” 

“Ha,” Neil says. “I told Jean I could do it. Anyway, it doesn’t matter ‘cause she already touched me.” 

“What does that mean?” Aaron asks, but Neil’s eyes are closed again. 

Andrew frowns. “Are you sure he didn’t hit his head? He sounds delirious.”

“I didn’t see any signs of a head wound,” Katelyn says, bent over Neil’s arm. “But it’s possible if he’s been running around the woods passing out.”

It’s Kevin who arrives first, tumbling through their front door without knocking, seeking Andrew with his eyes before registering anything else. “What’s wrong, are you hurt?” He’s already halfway across the room before he sees Neil and it’s like his feet just stop working. Kevin comes to a swaying stop and just stands there, gaping. 

“He was asking for you,” Katelyn offers helpfully.

Kevin swivels back to Andrew. “Did you go get him for me?” he asks. Andrew raises an eyebrow. “No, that’s fucking stupid,” Kevin says before Andrew has to tell him that’s fucking stupid. “How?” Kevin sputters, quickly following with, “Is he okay?” 

“Dehydrated, arm infected, not sure what else, probably needs to eat, might have a head wound, lost his boyfriend in the woods, and is, apparently, Aaron’s other soulmate,” Andrew lists. Kevin had sunk down next to Aaron on the coffee table to stare at Neil, but his eyes fly to Aaron’s arm at that last. 

“Not my boyfriend, asshole,” Neil rasps out amicably, his eyes fluttering open, and a tiny there-and-gone smile flits across his lips. Andrew tries very hard to not care about the not my boyfriend part. “Hi, Kevin Day,” Neil says. 

“You idiot,” Kevin whispers. 

“See, I told you I’ve been called that before,” Neil says. 

“You really need to stay asleep,” Katelyn informs him. 

“Never have been good at doing what I’m told,” Neil quips weakly. 

“Lovely, and just like that we have Minyard triplets.” Katelyn says drily. “Are you going to stay awake long enough to eat something then?”

“Yes ma’am,” Neil says. 

“I’ll get you something,” Aaron says, hopping up. Andrew doesn’t miss the fact that Neil very pointedly does not look at Aaron. 

Neil does seem to be managing to keep his eyes open this time, though, and he’s staring at Kevin like he’s a mirage. “You look good,” Neil says. 

“I’m married,” Kevin bursts out. “To my soulmate. Gabrielle. She’s wonderful. Even Andrew likes her.” 

Neil laughs. It’s raspy, like everything else, but it’s a laugh. Andrew likes it. He thinks he might be losing his mind. “I’m not hitting on you, Kevin,” Neil says. Kevin blushes, and Andrew counts that as three blushes now that he can attribute to Neil, which, fair. 

“What are you doing here?” Kevin asks when he gets his shit together. 

“Running,” Neil says. The doorbell rings and Neil almost jolts off the couch, his eyes going wide. 

“Calm down, rabbit,” Andrew says. “It’s just the cavalry.” 

“You called the police?” He’s panicking, and Andrew twitches, wanting to grab him and steady him, but on no planet is Andrew going to touch him without permission.

“Aaron told you we won’t turn you in,” Andrew reminds him. 

“And I’m just supposed to trust him because he’s my soulmate?” Neil’s voice drips with sarcasm, and there’s a minor crash in the kitchen, but Andrew can’t spare a look for his brother right now because Neil looks like he is about to bolt. 

“Fine.” Andrew takes a breath. “Then trust me.” And for some fucking Andrew really, really wants him to.

“Why?” Neil asks him seriously. 

“Because I do,” Kevin says.

Neil looks back and forth between them, his brow furrowed, but before he can say anything Aaron is back with a bowl of soup wrapped in a kitchen towel. Neil hesitates to take it - he only has one good hand - but Kevin solves the problem by taking it for him and handing him the spoon. 

“It’s chicken noodle,” Aaron says. “I make it in batches and freeze it. I’m the sous chef in Gaby’s restaurant. Um, Kevin’s wife, Gabrielle.” Aaron is babbling but at least Neil is looking at him now. He slurps noodles and nods and Andrew lets his brother babble it out under Neil’s cautiously watchful gaze while he goes to open the door.

It’s Wymack and Renee and only one additional car in the driveway. Which means Renee was probably in Robin’s bed when Andrew called, since Robin lives next door to Wymack and Abby. Convenient - the less cars calling attention to whatever this was going to be, the better. 

“Your shirt’s miss-buttoned,” Andrew tells Renee as he lets them in. 

Renee grins at him and doesn’t bother to fix it, just glides past him with Wymack in her wake. “Oh I see,” she says, taking in the scene around the couch. 

“Is that-” Wymack starts. 

“Yeah,” Kevin says. 

“Fuck,” Wymack says. 

“I’m getting that a lot today,” Neil says, slurping the last of his soup. 

“Sorry,” Wymack amends, running a hand through his hair. “It’s good to see you kid.” 

“Is it?” Neil asks seriously. 

“Of course it is,” Wymack says gruffly. “Been awhile.” He squeezes Kevin’s shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Neil says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know where else to go.” 

“Shut up,” Kevin mutters. He’s put the bowl down and is leaning bodily against Andrew now. Andrew wonders how many people in this room are going to lean on him for support before he topples over. 

“Hi, I’m Renee,” Renee says, stepping up with an easy smile on her face. She doesn’t hold a hand out to shake, but Neil comes half off the couch when he sees her, and lifts his hands out to her, palms up and open. Renee’s smile doesn’t falter because she never falters. She just places her hands in Neil’s and lets him turn her wrists until the inside of both forearms are facing up. 

Renee’s arms look charred from the inside of her wrists to the crook of her elbows; a wasteland of ruined soulmarks, the burnout that happens when a soulmate dies. It’s not the result of a wound like Neil’s arm, but instead a graveyard of skin, a broken bond. Dead magic. It isn’t unusual to see a death-smudged soulmark on the elderly, but Renee isn’t even thirty and has two. There is a history there that few know - Andrew does, and Wymack. 

Most people recoil from such blatant loss and wreckage, but Renee is the first person that Neil reaches for voluntarily to touch since stumbling into their path. He swipes a thumb up the inside of her arm before stilling and looking up. “I am sorry,” he says.

Renee squats in front of him, her face serious. She turns her hands over. Neil lets her go, and she keeps reaching, tracing a finger along the outer edge of his burned arm, still propped up and tethered to the IV. “You did this to yourself?” she asks quietly. 

“Not the mark,” Neil says, tilting his chin up slightly in defiance. 

“The burn,” Renee says on a hum. Neil nods and Renee smiles at him again. “I’m sorry too,” she says. 

“Do you two know each other or something?” Katelyn asks. 

“No,” Neil and Renee say at the same time. 

“Cute and all,” Andrew says. Interesting, is what he means. “But we have shit to do.”

“How can I help?” Renee asks, looking to Andrew.

“Search and rescue,” Andrew says. “Neil lost something in the woods a few miles back.”

“Twenty four,” Neil corrects. 

“What?” Andrew says.

“Twenty four miles back.” 

“You walked twenty four miles in the mountains without any supplies?” Wymack asks.

“Ran,” Neil says.

“You ran twenty four miles,” Andrew says, eyebrow raised.

“Mostly.”

“Neil, that is a marathon ,” Kevin says.

“Explains why he’s so dehydrated,” Katelyn says, shoving a water bottle into Neil’s hand. “Drink, we might as well re-inflate you from two directions.”

“Your bedside manner is stunning,” Neil says, but he takes the bottle. 

“Perhaps we start at the beginning?” Renee suggests. 

“Which beginning?” Neil asks warily. 

“Whichever beginning will give us enough information to find your friend,” Renee says kindly. 

Neil nods, sits up enough to drink water and not fall asleep. “I can trust everyone here?” 

He’s looking at Kevin, but it’s Andrew who answers. “You don’t exactly have any other choice.” 

“Yes,” Kevin says, throwing a look at Andrew. “You can.” 

“Okay.” Neil takes a breath. “Okay,” he says again, steeling himself. “When my dad died, there was a chance for me and Jean to get away, so we took it. It’s been long enough since I tried to run that I don’t think Riko was expecting it, so we got a good head start, and I was able to secure some money before he cut off access. We geared up, managed to get to the Virginia/North Carolina border, with the plan to hike the Appalachian Trail to Fox Springs. Riko would never think to look for us in the woods, and Jean and I are pretty fit. Anyway, we’ve been hiking it at night, because-” Neil pauses to gesture at his highly recognizable face “- and then camping out in the day, off trail. But this morning when we were setting up camp Jean slipped and fell off the edge of this stupid cliff. It wasn’t a big drop, but I am pretty sure he broke his leg. I knew we were close, so I just - I hid him away and left him with our water and food.”

“You could have at least taken a water bottle,” Katelyn says with a snort.

“Did anyone see you running today?” Andrew asks, ignoring her. 

Neil shakes his head. “I ran off trail, I didn’t see anyone until Katelyn.”

“Did you leave him with a phone? Anything that will help us find him?” Wymack asks. 

“No phones. You can track them. But I know where he is. If you can take me back there, help me get him…” Neil trails off. 

“Get him where, exactly?” Andrew pushes.

“I don’t know,” Neil says, frustrated. 

“We’ll take care of him,” Aaron says. “We can get him here and take care of him, but you can’t go.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” Neil all but spits at him, and Aaron freezes. Everyone’s silent for a moment. The vitriol seems to pull the energy back out of Neil and he sags. Andrew sees a flash of regret across his face, there and then gone, but Aaron is looking at his hands and misses it.

“I think what Aaron means,” Renee says, “is that in addition to the fact that you need to eat and rehydrate and sleep, you are too recognizable and will only draw attention to us when we go get him. And we are going to go get him. Me and David - that’s why Andrew called us.” She flicks a look at Andrew for confirmation and he nods. Wymack knows these mountains better than anyone, and Renee could probably be airdropped into the middle of the wilderness and survive for ten years without stepping foot into civilization again. It also wouldn’t be suspicious for them to disappear for a day or two for a camping trip, since the two of them have the habit of tottering off into the woods a couple times a month at least. 

More than any of that, Andrew trusts them.

“What was the plan when you got here anyway?” Kevin asks quietly. 

“Mexico,” Neil says. “I had hoped you could help us get there. I didn’t-” Neil pauses. “Like I said, we don’t have anyone, not anyone who wouldn’t turn us in. I have money…”

“We don’t want your money,” Kevin says, the offended look on his face almost comical. “Mexico though?”

“No extradition for soulmates,” Renee says, and Neil nods.

“We’ll deal with that later,” Andrew says decisively. “Where is Jean?”

“Off a trail called Lovers Leap. By a river?”

“Hot Springs,” Wymack says, both eyebrows shooting up. “It’s on the French Broad.” He and Renee exchange a look. 

“We can take my truck,” Renee says. “Park it at Matt and Dan’s place? They are out of town until next month.”

“Damned convenient actually,” Wymack says. “Anything else you can remember about where he is?”

“There’s a trailhead marker. We went straight up and over the mountain instead of using the trail, and once you crest the summit he’s about twenty yards down. There’s a small clearing and three distinctive boulders. Can one of you whistle?”

Renee trills a couple of notes in answer. 

“Okay, if you do this-” Neil whistles a few distinctive bars “- he’ll call out for you. And just tell him Abram sent you. I think that will be enough.” 

“We’ll get everything together tonight,” Renee says, “but we’ll need to wait for the morning light to go up the mountain, so we don’t end up with two more broken legs from stumbling around in the dark. We will call as soon as we have him so you won’t worry. Tomorrow afternoon at the latest we’ll be with him, Neil. I promise.”

Neil grabs ahold of her arm again. “Thank you,” he says. Renee nods, smiles, and squeezes his arm. Neil almost leans into the touch, and Andrew still doesn’t know what to make of that reaction from a man so keen not to be touched. 

“You should stay inside,” Wymack says. “Riko has basically put a bounty on your head, even if that’s not what they are calling it. Half a million, the radio said today.”

“You can stay with me,” Kevin says.

“No,” Andrew says. Kevin looks at him surprised, but Andrew isn’t sure why he said it himself.

“What are the chances Riko will figure out you were heading for Kevin?” Wymack asks.

“Not likely,” Neil says with a frown. 

“But not impossible,” Wymack concludes. 

“Not impossible,” Neil admits. 

“He’ll stay here,” Andrew says. Aaron lets out a nearly inaudible sound next to him, but Andrew hears it, and Neil does too, judging by the cautious look he throws at Aaron. Andrew’s own nerves settle down when Neil doesn’t argue with him. Andrew wants him here. Which completely has to do with Aaron and Kevin and not at all with the way Neil is looking at him right now, like he’s already decided that Andrew can be trusted, like he’s already decided Andrew can keep him safe. 

“Good, that’s settled then,” Renee says, standing up. She and Wymack say quick goodbyes and then are gone. 

“Now-,” Andrew starts, but Katelyn just shakes her head and holds up a hand.

“Nope,” she says, her face determined and her jaw set. “You can interrogate him tomorrow, but Neil needs sleep and as I am the only doctor in this house, those are my orders. Where are we putting him?”

“Fine,” Andrew agrees, but only because Neil looks on the verge of passing out again; if he and Jean have been hiking at night and sleeping during the day, it’s likely Neil’s been up for at least twenty four hours on top of running a goddamned marathon through the trees. Andrew weighs the options - they only have two bedrooms in the cabin, but the couch in his tower is wide and comfortable. It wouldn’t be the first time Andrew has slept on it, and he’s not going to leave anyone unsupervised around his telescope. “He can take my room, I’ll sleep in the tower.”

Andrew puts Kevin and Katelyn to task getting Neil settled, tucked away in Andrew’s bed with extra blankets and his saline drip. There’s no sense in changing the sheets with how dirty Neil is anyway - a few weeks in the woods will do that to you. Yet another thing that can be dealt with tomorrow. There is something that can’t wait though. “Aaron,” Andrew says, gesturing at him to follow Andrew outside. 

“I’m okay,” Aaron says in a shaky voice once they are side by side on the porch swing that Katelyn had insisted on. Andrew pushes them off and lights one of the rare cigarettes he allows himself. 

“It’s not about you,” Andrew says. “Whatever is going on with Neil and soulmates.”

“I’m not stupid,” Aaron says. “I know that.” 

“Okay,” Andrew agrees. 

Aaron groans in frustration and runs a hand through his hair, the new soulmark distracting and shocking in the soft glow of the exterior lights. “I can feel the pull, it’s weird. Different from Katelyn, but just as insistent. I don’t know how he is ignoring it.” 

“He’s not,” Andrew says, offering a cigarette to Aaron. 

“I don’t smoke,” Aaron says, taking the cigarette. 

“I know,” Andrew says. 

They swing and smoke in silence until Kevin steps out onto the porch. 

“He’s asking for you,” Kevin tells Aaron.

“Really?” Aaron’s voice is so full of disbelief that it hurts Andrew’s head, so he shoves Aaron off the swing and ignores the glare he throws over his shoulder on his way back inside. 

Kevin takes Aaron’s spot, snagging the pack of cigarettes off Andrew’s lap and tossing them over his shoulder before Andrew can blink. Andrew doesn’t bother to protest; the damned things are only a few feet behind them on the decking, and he has another pack inside. Kevin leans into him and pushes off, lifting his feet off the ground like a kid. 

“This is a mess,” Kevin says. 

“It’s our mess, now,” Andrew says. 

“You don’t have to-”

“Shut all the way up, Kevin.”

Kevin sighs, and looks up. It’s well past one in the morning, and the stars are out in abundance, winking at them in the clear night. “His parents were soulmates,” he says eventually. “It wasn’t good. That plus what Riko must have put him through…I can’t blame him for not trusting the soulmark.”

“They’ll figure it out,” Andrew says. “We did.”

“But what if he still wants to go to Mexico?”

Andrew closes his eyes and hums. It was hard enough when he and Kevin were a four hour drive apart, he couldn’t imagine him in an entirely different country. There’s a visceral ache that builds in his chest if he goes too many days without seeing Kevin. It’s not that some soulmates don’t choose to be apart, for whatever reason, but it’s not pleasant. Even if Neil does get over his issues - if he does want to stay - Andrew’s not sure how they are going to deal with the Moriyamas. He stops the swing and retrieves his cigarettes, lighting one up before he’s even sat back down. “It’s a two cigarette day,” Andrew says.

“Yeah,” Kevin says, not trying to stop him. “A whole fucking mess.” 

They lean back and watch smoke curl up into the night sky. 

Chapter Text

__________________________________________

Kevin is snoring gently when Andrew wakes up. Andrew lays there in the dark, staring up at the ceiling and letting the soothing sound wash over him. In and out, a lion’s purr of a sound, reliable as clockwork. 

Kevin had refused to go home last night, so Andrew had tugged the fancy air mattress out for him, setting him up in the tower right next to Andrew’s couch. Kevin was out like a light in minutes, and Andrew should have been too, but for all that they had crawled into the wee hours of the morning, sleep eluded him. He’d cracked open Renee’s novel, finished it around three am, and finally fallen into a dreamless sleep. 

The truth is Andrew sleeps better with someone he trusts in the room with him - which is something he’s only ever admitted to Aaron and Kevin. It was a chance encounter, another slip of fate that had brought Andrew out of foster care at fourteen and into a cramped two bedroom apartment with Nicky and Aaron. For the first time in his life, Andrew slept in a room with someone who didn’t want to hurt him, and he slept deeper and more peacefully than he ever had. 

It’s the same now, almost fourteen years later.

It’s still dark out, and while Andrew is tempted to roll back over and sleep, he has people to check on downstairs. Andrew steps out quietly, shoes in hand so as not to wake Kevin, and makes his way to the kitchen, where Aaron has, apparently, been cooking for hours. 

“Six a.m. is a little early to be making breakfast for the entire town,” Andrew says, gathering coffee and creamer and mug and throwing side-eye at the veritable feast that has Aaron at its epicenter. 

“I don’t know what he likes,” Aaron mutters. “He needs to eat.” 

Andrew frowns at him. Aaron looks tired, like he somehow slept even less than Andrew. They both tend to dark circles under their eyes - the curse of pale skin - but Aaron’s are deeper than usual this morning, his mouth drawn tight. “Is he still sleeping?” Andrew asks, deciding not to ask his brother if he really needs to be making waffles in addition to the pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, sliced fruit, and grits already lined up in platters on the kitchen island. 

“He’s in the shower, been in there awhile,” Aaron says, pressing the waffle iron and flipping the turkey sausage. “Katelyn just left for work, she couldn’t get out of the shift.”

“Aaron." 

“I know,” Aaron says without looking up. “I’m being ridiculous.” 

Andrew sighs. “That’s not what I was going to say.” He tops off Aaron’s coffee while he’s at it, adding a dollop of his precious creamer. “He’s your soulmate,” Andrew says. “This is what we do.” 

Aaron blinks at him for a few seconds, and then the light on the waffle iron turns green and Andrew watches him pull out the first waffle and pour more batter. 

“What did he say to you last night?” 

Aaron huffs a small sound, and waits until the second waffle is done to answer. “He apologized,” Aaron says, flipping the stove off and shoving the sausage angrily and not looking at Andrew. “He said he was sorry I got stuck with him as a soulmate. He said that he is nothing, and that I won’t miss him when he is gone.” 

“Okay,” Andrew says. 

“Okay?” Aaron repeats, turning to him and crossing his arms. “It’s not fucking okay, Andrew.” 

“It is not me you are angry at,” Andrew tells him. 

Aaron deflates a little. “Yeah, but you’re the one I can yell at.” 

“I love that for me,” Andrew says drily. “Did you make cinnamon rolls?” 

“Of course,” Aaron says, turning to pull them out of the oven where they’ve been warming. 

“You’re forgiven then,” Andrew says solemnly. 

Aaron snorts, and the tiniest edge of a smile makes an appearance at the corner of his mouth. “Asshole,” he says. 

“Hey,” Neil says, walking into the room, and oh, Andrew is not prepared for this. He’s clean, his wet hair the darkest copper, his cheekbones on full display now that they aren’t hiding under a layer of dirt, and he’s wearing Andrew’s clothes. He’s wearing Andrew’s clothes. “Aaron said this was okay,” Neil says, plucking at the faded black NASA hoodie as he slides onto a stool. 

Andrew doesn’t say anything, because he’s pretty sure he’s incapable at the moment, so he gets up to pour Neil some coffee. “Creamer?” he asks, when his brain comes back online, holding up the bottle of sugary goodness. 

“No thank you,” Neil says. 

“Heathen,” Andrew says, setting the mug of black coffee down in front of him. 

“Here.” Aaron shoves an empty plate into Neil’s hands. “Fix your plate. Or if you want something else, I can make pretty much anything.” 

Neil looks at Aaron and then at the insane amount of food. “Um,” he says. 

“It’s what he does,” Andrew says. “When he has feelings, he cooks them away.” 

“Shut up, Andrew. Here, have a waffle, they’re warm,” Aaron says to Neil. “Do you want syrup? We have maple and there’s this blueberry one that Gaby makes, I have a jar of it somewhere…” 

“This is fine,” Neil says, picking it up with his hands. 

Both of Aaron’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “You don’t like food?” he asks, pained. 

“Uh.” Neil frowns, looking from the waffle to Aaron, and then to Andrew for help. 

“Put something on the waffle, Neil,” Andrew says. 

“Okay,” Neil says, slowly, like he’s talking to a wild animal. “Do you have peanut butter?” 

“Yes!” Aaron is a little too enthusiastic, pulling fresh ground peanut butter from the cabinet. “And this, and this - can I?” Neil nods, and watches a bit nonplussed as Aaron spreads peanut butter on his waffle, drizzles it with honey and a few dashes of cinnamon. 

Neil takes a bite and smiles in pleasant surprise. “It’s good.” 

Aaron beams at him and Andrew resists the urge to roll his eyes. Aaron needs to tone it down a bit or he’s going to scare their little rabbit away. He glances at Neil’s soulmark peeking out of the cuff of his pilfered sweatshirt. Not their rabbit, actually. 

“Do I smell bacon?” Kevin mumbles in a very loose approximation of words as he shuffles into the kitchen. “Gaby never makes me bacon. I’m moving in.” 

“Didn’t make you bacon,” Aaron says, but he sets a fully loaded plate with extra bacon and a cup of coffee in front of Kevin’s usual spot right next to Andrew. 

“I didn’t know you stayed,” Neil says. Andrew watches him lick a slash of peanut butter from the corner of his lip and decides Neil must be trying to kill him. 

“Of course I did,” Kevin says when he’s done yawning into his coffee mug. 

Andrew’s phone pings in his pocket. “They’ve started up the trail,” Andrew says, reading the message. “Renee will let us know as soon as they find him.” Neil nods jerkily and doesn’t say anything, his face pinching together quickly before it smoothes out. “They’ll find him,” Andrew says. Aaron’s gaze snaps to him, and yeah, alright, Andrew’s brand of comfort doesn’t usually include platitudes, but it’s not lip service; Renee and Wymack will find Jean, of that he has no doubt. The issue will be what next. “Eat,” Andrew says, nodding at Neil’s plate. 

The four of them are quiet after that, finishing their food and settling in to wait. Neil makes it all the way to eight a.m., cradling his coffee and bouncing out of his skin, before he asks, stupidly,  “Have they found him yet?”

Andrew raises an eyebrow at him, cuts a look at his phone - which has been sitting on the counter this whole time - and says, “No.” 

“I can’t just sit here,” Neil says, launching off his stool, but with nowhere to go he just stands awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen. 

“Scrabble?” Kevin offers, only half joking.

“Really?” Neil says, looking incredibly unhappy

“We have Mario Kart,” Aaron suggests.

“Maybe we could call Renee,” Neil says. 

“No.” Andrew stands up. “She’ll call as soon as she finds him, and they just started up the mountain. Mario Kart will distract you, come on.”

Neil frowns. “I don’t know how to play,” he says, but he follows Andrew and Aaron to the den, and Kevin hands out controllers. It’s the only video game they have on an ancient Nintendo gamecube - a relic from college that Aaron refuses to give up. 

To Kevin’s absolute embarrassment, it is one of the very few things he is not good at. Aaron and Andrew usually trounce him, taking first and second, and leaving Kevin and Katelyn to limp in in seventh and eighth place, but Neil puts a kink in the usual rankings. After spectacularly crashing and burning on the first two courses, he gets the hang of it, and spends the next two fighting for second. By the time they level up it is Andrew and Neil battling for first with Aaron coming in third, to his very vocal annoyance.

“Are you sure you’ve never played this?” Aaron says, throwing his controller down after Neil knocks him out of second place with a turtle shell to sweep past the finish right behind Andrew. 

“We weren’t allowed,” Neil says.

“Allowed?” Andrew repeats.

Neil shrugs and pokes at his controller. 

“Go again,” Kevin says, pressing start and changing the subject.

“You’re a glutton for punishment,” Aaron says, picking his controller back up, and the three of them proceed to trounce him into the late morning. They are mid-way through the rainbow road on the highest level when Andrew’s phone starts buzzing. Neil, who thus far has not once fallen off the course, immediately kamikazes and turns to stare at Andrew as he answers it.

It’s Renee. Andrew puts it on speaker, because maybe he is an asshole, but he isn’t going to make Neil wait or sugar coat whatever she’s going to say. 

“You’re on speaker,” Andrew says as a greeting. 

“We found him.” There’s feedback through the phone from what must be wind on the mountain. “Can Neil hear me?”

“Yes,” Neil manages. He’s dropped the controller and has voluntarily scooted closer to Andrew on the couch, leaning over the phone with an intensity like he can manifest Jean through the tiny speaker. 

There’s some shuffling, and then, “When you went for help I didn’t know you were going to send a goddess to find me,” a smoothly accented voice comes through the phone. 

“Jean,” Neil chokes out, half laughing, half gasping. “Fucking flirt. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s my line,” Neil says, not looking as relieved as he might. “How are you actually?”

“He will be fine.” Renee’s slightly amused voice comes back through. “It’s going to take us a while to get back down the mountain, but-” she hesitates, and Andrew waits, because she said he will be and not he is.  

Neil clearly reads between the lines too, because he frowns. “Just say it.”

“I don’t think this is something Katelyn can deal with. This leg needs surgery.”

“Fuck,” Aaron says. Kevin deflates in his chair. 

Neil pales, looks up at Aaron and Kevin and then back to the phone. He opens his mouth, and then stops, closes it. Leans back. 

“Any chance one of you have a surgeon in your back pocket we can trust?” Wymack’s gruff voice comes through. 

Andrew surveys the stricken faces around him before answering. “No,” he says. 

Neil makes a choked noise and Andrew looks at him sharply, meets blue eyes laced with panic. “Breathe, Neil.” Neil stares back at him, decidedly not breathing. “Aaron,” Andrew snaps. 

Aaron jumps up, settles carefully next to Neil. “Can I?” he asks, holding out a hand. Neil freezes for barely a moment, then latches on to Aaron’s hand and sucks in a breath. 

“Yes, like that,” Andrew says. Neil flips him off with his free hand, and well, that’s better than dying of self imposed asphyxiation.  

“I have a plan,” Renee says after a moment. “Someone owes me a favor, a big one.”

“Renee,” Andrew says warningly. 

“Do you have a better idea?” she asks. Her voice is smooth, unconcerned, but what she is suggesting is definitely concerning. 

“You will not compromise yourself,” Andrew says. It is both an acquiescence and a warning. Renee is a big girl, she can make her own decisions and assess her own risk. If she’s willing to revisit Natalie Shields’ old stomping ground, it’s not up to Andrew to argue - but he doesn’t have to like it. 

“I can handle it,” she says. 

“What are you talking about?” Aaron asks.

“There’s someone who owes me a favor. They can help Jean. We’ll have to go to Chicago though.” 

“I will go with you,” Neil says, leaning forward again, intent. 

It sounds like Jean who snorts at that, and then his voice comes through the phone again. “Don’t be ridiculous. That is the opposite direction that you need to be going. He’s not going to stop looking for you, Neil.” 

“I will take good care of him Neil, I promise you.”

Neil makes a sound of frustration and runs a hand through his hair. 

“You should go on without me,” Jean says. 

“No, fuck you,” Neil says. 

“Neil can wait here, with us,” Aaron says. Neil huffs loudly.

“Of course,” Renee agrees. “Is Kevin there?”

“Hey,” Kevin says weakly. 

“Hey kid,” Wymack’s voice comes through again. “You’ll need to come pick me up if Renee is going to head straight to Chicago. The rest of you need to lay low and go on about life as normal - don’t draw attention to yourselves.”

“I’ll be there in an hour,” Kevin says. 

“It will take us at least two if not longer to get Jean down the mountain, take your time.”

“Renee,” Andrew cuts in. “Do you need anything? We’ll send whatever you need with Kevin.”

She hums along with the wind whipping into the phone. “I can borrow clothes and supplies for both of us from Matt and Dan, they won’t mind. But, I’m traveling a little light these days. Perhaps the black bag hanging on the left side of my wardrobe, Kevin? Andrew has a key to my place.” 

“Done,” Kevin says. 

“Thank you. We’ll keep you updated.”

“Renee,” Neil chokes out. “I- fuck. Thank you.”

“He’s going to be okay, Neil.” Renee’s voice is warm, soothing. Neil nods even though she can’t see him. 

“Neil.” Jean again. Andrew picks up the phone, clicks it off speaker, and hands it to Neil. Neil cradles it like it’s precious, squeezes his eyes shut, and then releases a string of French into the phone.

“Okay?” Andrew asks him after he’s hung up. 

“I don’t understand why you are all helping us,” Neil says miserably. He’s clutching the phone and staring at it.  

“Isn’t that what you came here for?” Andrew says.

“This is too much. Renee’s putting herself in danger. The longer I am here, the more danger you are in.”

Aaron frowns. “From Riko? They are just politicians Neil, what exactly are we in danger of?”

Neil flips the phone over and over in his hands, and takes a few deep breaths. He’s shaking and Aaron offers his hand again. Neil takes it without hesitating, and Andrew watches Aaron try not to show how inordinately happy it makes him. 

“The Moriyamas aren’t just politicians, not really. They have direct ties to the Yakuza. My dad sold me to them, to Riko, in exchange for a boost up the political ladder.”

“What do you mean, sold?” Andrew asks, keeping a careful tamp on his anger.

“I mean sold,” Neil says. “Bought and paid for. Kengo has built his presidential platform on strengthening soulmate laws, on the sacredness of soulmate bonds over others. Riko didn’t have a soulmark when everyone else in the family did. He was an embarrassment. The Wesninskis and Moriyamas have always been aligned in the senate, so it was solidifying that alliance, really.”

“That’s medieval,” Aaron says. He looks shocked. 

Neil shrugs lightly. “Dad said he’d kill me if I ran, that this was my duty to the family.”

“And you believed him?” Aaron asks. 

“Yes. He killed my mom right in front of me. He’s done…other things. He would have killed me.”

“But now he’s dead,” Andrew says. Nathan Wesninski had been assassinated, actually, in the middle of a live broadcast. He is well and truly dead.

“Now he’s dead,” Neil agrees, looking like he almost doesn’t believe it. 

Kevin has been silent, but he leans forward at this. “So what if you came forward? You can prove the soulmark isn’t real, now.” 

Neil shakes his head. “I think Riko would have me killed. Probably Jean too. Make it look like an accident. That’s not an option.” 

“We don’t have to figure this out yet,” Andrew says. “It’s going to be at least a week before Renee gets Jean to Chicago and back.”

“There’s nothing to figure out,” Neil says, his jaw set. “When I get Jean back, we’ll go to Mexico and disappear. We’ll pay you for all the trouble.”

“Neil,” Andrew says. “Listen closely. If you offer us money one more time I am going to kill you myself. Understand?”

“Great,” Neil deadpans. “More death threats.” But he smiles, just a little, and Andrew counts it as a win. 

“Okay,” Kevin says. “I’m going to go get Renee’s stuff and then get dad. Aaron, I think Gaby can cover for you if you want to stay here today?”

“No,” Andrew says. “We all need to stick to our normal schedules. Aaron, go to work. Kevin, don’t come back here today. Wymack’s right on this one, we don’t need anyone to make any connections, and it sounds like one of the only connections Neil has is Kevin. Riko will eventually figure that out, if he hasn’t already.”

Aaron and Kevin both grumble about it, but they do as they’re told. Neil lets Kevin pull him close into a hug before he goes, and Andrew leaves Aaron to have some some time with Neil before he has to go in to work. They’ve booted Mario Kart back up by the time Andrew heads up to his tower to check on his systems and to get a little breathing room himself. 

Andrew pokes at his work computers. There isn’t much to do calculations-wise; his systems mostly run themselves, but he has an email from Bee regarding the new programming, and about eleven million scans to scroll through. 

Instead of dealing with any of that, though, he snags his laptop and curls up in the corner of the couch. He googles Moriyama Family and the whole first page of results is taken up with the search for Nathaniel Moriyama. The second page, though, wields speculation into President Kengo’s health; he has apparently just been released from his second hospital stay in the last month alone. The third page hones in on Ichirou Moriyama, Riko’s older brother, who was recently elected into his first term in the senate, representing New York. Most pictures show Ichirou with his pregnant wife on his arm, their matching soulmarks strategically bared for the camera. 

Andrew opens a new window and searches Riko Moriyama this time. The first page is still news articles on Riko’s missing husband, but this time they trend towards speculation on what Riko meant when he suggested Nathaniel might not be in his right mind. None of them, however, cast any aspirations on Riko’s genuine concern for his “soulmate.” 

Further down the rabbit hole Andrew lands on youtube clips from Riko and Nathaniel’s wedding, and puff pieces on the couple’s storybook romance from the year Kengo was running for president. In every picture, every video, Neil is buttoned up, coiffed, and smiling the fakest goddamned smile Andrew has ever seen. Anyone who has spent any time with Neil would never fall for that look on his face. His lips are turned up in an approximation of happiness, but his vibrant blue eyes are dead, his posture stiff, his words measured and scripted. And, in almost every picture and video, Jean Moreau stands unreasonably tall and stoic at his side. 

The sun is setting by the time Andrew shuts the laptop, pours himself a few inches of scotch and starts scrolling through the telescope images from last night. Not a comet to be found. 

He’s two hours in when Neil knocks at the glass storm door.

“Hey,” Neil says, stepping inside when Andrew nods at him. “You have a treehouse.”

“Tower,” Andrew corrects him. 

“Looks like a treehouse to me. Aaron said to tell you he left chili warm on the stove. He’s gone to work.” 

“Great.”

Neil steps further into the room, looking around wide-eyed, and Andrew watches him take stock, giving himself a moment to get used to his brother’s very attractive soulmate moving around a space that is so very Andrew. 

Neil runs a finger along Andrew’s bookshelf, looks up through the half glass ceiling, before his eyes land on the telescope. “I guess this makes sense, then,” Neil says, running a hand down the NASA logo on his pilfered sweatshirt. “Are you looking for life on other planets?” 

Andrew snorts. “I hunt comets, mostly. And some other boring things that pay the bills.” 

“Is it boring?” Neil asks. He seems genuinely intrigued, his hands hovering around the telescope but not touching. 

“I like it,” Andrew admits. 

Neil nods. “Can I-” he tilts his head, inspecting the telescope. “Is there anything to see in it? Can I look?” 

Andrew considers him, then sighs and gets up. “Not really in that one, it’s programmed and I can’t shift it without screwing up the sequence.” 

“Oh, okay,” Neil says, backing up carefully so as not to bump it. 

“This one though,” Andrew says, setting up a smaller telescope and opening the retractable section of glass to the right of his desk. Neil waits patiently while Andrew sets it up and adjusts the positioning and focus until - yes, there. Saturn, it all its ringed glory. “Here,” Andrew says, gesturing grandly at it. 

Neil leans down carefully, pressing one eye to the eyepiece, and then lets out a puff of breath before lurching upright again and looking at Andrew. “Is that real?” he asks. 

Andrew tries very hard not to be pleased by the wonder in his voice. “Yes. Look again.” 

Neil does. He looks for a very long time before finally standing upright again. “It’s beautiful,” he says. “I can’t believe you can see the rings like that, it looks fake.” 

“It does,” Andrew agrees, looking through the finder scope and tilting the whole thing a bit to the left. “Here,” he offers, stepping away. 

Neil leans in. “Ohhhh. Jupiter?” he asks without looking up. 

“Obviously,” Andrew says. Neil is close, less than six inches away, and Andrew suddenly realizes he smells like Andrew’s shampoo, because of course he does. He takes a step back out of self preservation. When Neil looks up from the telescope his face is softer than it’s been since he landed on their doorstep. Andrew takes another step back and leans on the wall. 

“There’s a planetarium at the Smithsonian. Jean and I went once, when Riko was out of town. It was nice, sitting in the dark with the stars like that. Everything else becomes trivial, for just a moment.” 

“Are you in love with him?” Andrew asks, internally wincing at his own question, but Neil doesn’t seem to mind. 

“Jean? No. Not like that. He’s my only friend. The only one Riko would let me have.” 

“Let you?” 

“Hm. Yeah.” Neil hesitates, looks down at his arms and then sits on Andrew’s couch, picking up Renee’s Novel and flipping through a few pages. “We made a deal, Riko and I. He wouldn’t touch me as long as I didn’t touch anyone else. But Jean...” Neil trails off.

“He’s like Renee,” Andrew guesses, understanding dawning. “Riko didn’t want you to touch anyone because the soulmark was faked, and every new person was a potential threat to that lie.” 

Neil points at him in acknowledgement. “Jean’s family is crooked. They had some dealings with the Yakuza side of the Moriyamas that went south, and they gave up Jean to balance the ledger. He’d already lost his romantic soulmate before they shipped him to Washington. His platonic soulmate was one of Riko’s bodyguards.” 

“Was?” 

“Riko had him killed. I can’t prove it, but that’s what happened.” 

“Fuck,” Andrew breathed. There’s no cruelty in this world that can surprise him anymore, but his soulmate bond constricts at the very idea of someone going after his soulmate just to hurt him, and he has to tamp down the urge to dig out his phone and call Kevin. 

“So, yeah. Jean has two burned out soulmarks and Riko…gave him to me, I guess.” 

“And the deal?” Andrew asks when Neil stays silent, tracing the pattern on the cover of the book. 

“What about it?” 

“Did Riko honor it?” 

Neil’s finger pauses in its path. He’s still for so long that Andrew thinks he’s not going to answer, but then he looks up, that media smile bright and plastic and he says, “Mostly.” 

Andrew says nothing to that. He’s too busy wrangling the white hot rage that bursts through him as he considers what that mostly means. He crosses to the couch, and sits down at the far end from Neil. “You can stay with us,” Andrew says when he has himself under control. “Indefinitely.” 

“I can’t,” Neil says, shaking his head. “It’s not safe for you.” 

“You can,” Andrew says. “I will make it safe.” 

“How would you even do that?” Neil says, looking at him now. 

“If you decide you want to stay, I will find a way,” Andrew promises. 

Neil looks genuinely confused. “Why would you do that? I’m nothing.”

“You are my brother’s soulmate. You are my soulmate’s friend. You are not nothing to us.” 

Neil stares at him, opens his mouth and shuts it several times, and finally says, “That doesn’t mean anything.” 

“Oh, Neil. But it does. It means something whether you want it to or not.” 

Neil doesn’t argue again, but he searches Andrew’s face and Andrew lets him, sitting still under his piercing gaze until Neil lets out a great heaving sigh. 

“Think about it,” Andrew says. 

Neil closes his eyes and nods. “Okay. Thank you. For everything.” 

“Shut up,” Andrew says. 

Neil cracks an eye open and grins at him, and it’s real, not plastic and pinned on his face like it’s painful. Andrew suddenly and abruptly realizes he is going to be stuck in this house with this drop dead gorgeous man for the next week while everyone else goes resolutely about their normal daily lives and jobs. 

Well. Fuck. 

“Out,” Andrew says, making a shooing motion with his hand. “I have work to do.” Neil stands up, turning the book over one last time. “Take it,” Andrew says. “You’ll like it. There aren’t any soulmates.” 

“Ha,” Neil says without any mirth, but he takes the book. He stops at the door and turns back. “It’s not that I don’t like the idea,” Neil says very quietly. “I just don’t trust it.” 

Which is fair. Andrew sighs. “I didn’t either,” he admits. 

“But you do now?” 

“It’s Kevin.” Andrew says. 

Neil nods thoughtfully. 

“You can trust Aaron, too.” 

Neil nods again, not an agreement, but not disagreeing either. “Thanks for the planets, and the book,” Neil says eventually, and then he’s gone, closing the door carefully after him. 

Chapter Text

__________________________________________

“This book is bullshit,” Neil says, dropping it on the couch next to Andrew. 

“You finished it in one night?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “Half the characters die, and the girl clearly picks the wrong guy to be with - he was kind of a controlling dick actually - and they still end up on the other side of the country from each other.”

“It’s called drama.”

“It’s depressing,” Neil says. “I think there is enough drama in real life.”

“In your life maybe.”

Neil laughs and flips the book over. “No soulmates though,” he says thoughtfully. 

“No,” Andrew agrees. 

“I didn’t like that as much as you thought I would. It felt like something was missing.”

“Maybe if there were soulmates, she wouldn’t have ended up with the controlling dick.”

“Maybe,” Neil says with a small frown.

***

Andrew is clicking through the images he’s been ignoring and whittling his inbox down to the single digits when Neil slips through the door 

“Renee says four more days and they’ll be able to drive back,” he says, sliding Andrew’s phone onto the desk. Andrew had tossed it at him after lunch, when Neil was standing at the window watching Aaron drive down the hill and head into work. 

“Call Jean,” Andrew’d said, and then tucked himself away in his tower. That had been two hours ago. 

Neil bounces on the balls of his feet a couple of times, and Andrew ignores him, finishing out his email to Bee before finally turning to look at him. Neil is in Aaron’s clothes today, a soft plaid flannel shirt with blue undertones that does things to his eyes that should be illegal, and Andrew can’t quite ignore the spark of jealousy that flares through him. He squashes it brutally; this is not something he gets to want. 

“Can I help you?” Andrew asks. It comes out harsher than he means it to, but Neil is undaunted. 

“I don’t know,” he says, leaning forward a bit and furrowing his brow at the numbers running across one of Andrew’s monitors. “Maybe I can help you? I’m good with math.” 

“What you mean is you are bored,” Andrew says drily. 

“Maybe,” Neil says, rocking back on his heels again and gazing out the window at the mountains. “Maybe I could go for a run, after dark. No one will see me in the dark.” 

Andrew snorts. “Our search and rescue team is currently occupied in Chicago. I have no one to send after you when you fall down a mountain and break your leg.” 

Neil just hums, taps a finger against the desk, bounces some more. It’s startling, how at ease Andrew is with this perpetual motion machine masquerading as a man, filling up his tower with movement. His treehouse, as Neil calls it. It’s only day three and they’ve fallen into a rhythm; mornings spent with Aaron and Andrew and Neil drinking coffee and picking their way through Aaron’s breakfast feasts, followed by a check in with Renee, and then Andrew leaves the two of them to Mario Kart and soulmate bonding while he checks in on his telescopes. 

It’s when Aaron leaves for the restaurant after lunch that Andrew finds himself saddled with a bored, bouncy Neil until Aaron and Katelyn are home.

“No running,” Andrew says with a sigh, but he gets up and crooks his finger at Neil, and Neil follows him obediently. 

“Yoga?” Neil says skeptically when Andrew hands him a spare mat. 

“Yoga,” Andrew agrees, flipping through their streaming services until he finds the one instructor he likes. 

“Wouldn’t have pegged you as a yogi,” Neil says, one eyebrow still raised, the mat gripped in both hands like a foreign object. 

Andrew shrugs. “Go change clothes, there’s work out stuff in the second drawer of my dresser.”

He realizes his mistake when Neil comes back in a black tank top and a pair of running shorts that Andrew could have sworn he threw away last summer - they are bright orange with two black paw prints right on the ass, a cheeky nostalgic gift from Nicky that Andrew had definitely never worn. Andrew knows he’s staring but he can’t quite manage to stop. 

“What?” Neil says, looking down at himself and then back up at Andrew. 

“Roll out your mat,” Andrew says, ignoring the question and pulling his own hoodie off. He’s got a t-shirt underneath and he’s already in sweatpants; Andrew does not see the need to put on real clothes when he’s not planning to leave the house. 

“Can I see?” 

Andrew turns back to Neil to find him staring at him this time. He goes a little still when he realizes Neil’s gaze is directed at his arms, and for a moment he doesn’t know what he wants to say, but then Neil gestures at his own soulmark and Andrew relaxes; he doesn’t mean Andrew’s scars. Andrew turns his right forearm around and takes a step closer to Neil. He holds his breath when Neil reaches out one hand to him and lets it hover in the air inches from Andrew’s skin. For a breath of time he thinks Neil is going to touch him, but then he drops his hand to his side, and Andrew feels a confusing twinge of loss. 

“Will you tell me how you and Kevin found each other?” Neil asks. 

Andrew tells him. About the spontaneous trip with Aaron to Asheville, how they’d wandered into that bookstore, how the back of Andrew’s hand had brushed Kevin’s. 

“What did it feel like?” Neil asks. He’s stopped bouncing, is just standing still and serious, eyes still focused on Andrew’s soulmark, tracing fingertips mindless over his own. 

“You know what it feels like,” Andrew says, pointedly. 

Neil’s gaze snaps up to meet Andrew’s. “I don’t trust it,” he says. 

“Which part?” 

“I don’t trust the feelings,” Neil says. “They aren’t mine, they are out of my control.” 

“So tell me how that is different from any other feelings?” 

Neil frowns. “What do you mean?” 

“Are your feelings for your friend Jean in your control? Can you just turn them off?” 

Neil’s frown deepens as he considers the question. “No, I don’t think I can,” he says eventually. 

“So,” Andrew says with a small shrug. 

Neil hums, but he doesn’t say anything more. 

“Yoga,” Andrew says, gesturing at the screen. “Have you done any?” 

“No, but it’s just stretching right?” 

“Sure,” Andrew says, purposefully flexing a bit and swallowing his smirk. He presses play. “Try to keep up.”

An hour and some change later Neil is dripping sweat and is flopped on his mat, the last sounds of sitar fading away as they finish savasana. “Holy fuck,” Neil says soulfully before rolling onto his side to eyeball Andrew. “That was really hard.”

“But Neil,” Andrew says innocently. “It’s just stretching right?”

Neil flips him off before groaning and sitting up. “I think I like it. I don’t know what that says about me.”

“That you’re a masochist?”

Neil huffs a tired laugh. “Not the first time I’ve been called that, either.”

“That’s a lot of nicknames for such a small man.”

Neil doesn’t call him on his obvious hypocrisy, just holds up a hand and lists off, “Idiot, martyr, masochist, junkie.” He raises an eyebrow at Andrew. “Rabbit,” he adds quietly. 

Andrew ignores the little leap his heartbeat gives at that. “Who calls you a martyr?”

“Jean.”

“And are you?”

Neil’s smile is small. “Sometimes,” he admits. 

“Take a shower,” Andrew says. “You’re gross.”

“More yoga tomorrow though?” Neil asks hopefully. 

“Yes, Rabbit,” Andrew tosses over his shoulder, ignoring the soft little laugh that draws out of Neil. 

***

“All I am saying,” Katelyn says, tipping her glass of rosé towards Neil. “Is that there is no reason you can’t stay.” 

“There are literally so many reasons,” Neil counters. He’d accepted the gin and tonic Andrew had basically forced on him after their afternoon yoga, when even with triceps shaking from an obscene amount of chaturangas Neil still hadn’t been able to sit still. Renee had texted them that all was fine, but that Jean had a small infection and was too tired for his daily phone call with Neil, and it might take an extra day for them to make it back. The result was a quiet and jumpy Neil until Andrew had the brilliant idea to give him alcohol. Now he’s on his third drink -  still jumpy, but a lot less quiet. 

“Fine,” Katelyn says. She’s plastered to Aaron’s side and she’s plastered a determined look on her face. “List them.”

Neil shoots a look at Andrew, but he just leans back in his chair and raises an eyebrow.

“Jean,” Neil says, like that is a reason all in itself. 

Katelyn just shrugs. “He might want to stay here when they get back, you don’t know. I’ve heard once you go Renee you never go back.”

“Kate,” Aaron barks out in faux shock, but she just grins and sips her wine. 

“Riko won’t stop until he has me back.”

“He’ll stop if he doesn’t have a choice,” she says. 

“You don’t understand how he is,” Neil says in frustration. “The literal mafia is after me.”

“You said yourself they aren’t really the mafia, more like the mafia by association,” Katelyn points out.  

“That’s still a lot of mafia,” Neil mutters into his glass. 

“And I’m still waiting for a real reason,” Katelyn pushes. “What do you think they will actually do? Kill all of us to get to you? That’s a big mess to clean up for a fake soulmate. And now you have a real mark, and your fake mark is mangled. How will they deal with that?”

Neil stares at her. “I-” He stops. Looks at Aaron and then Andrew. Andrew shrugs at him. He doesn’t disagree with Katelyn.

“I think,” Katelyn says carefully, “that you might now be more trouble than you are worth, to the Moriyamas.”

Neil tosses a hand carelessly. “Great, so then they just kill me and Jean too.”

“Andrew won’t let that happen,” Katelyn says.

“I will not let you all get hurt because of me,” Neil says, shoving back from the table and storming off, but Katelyn stands up too. 

“Bullshit.,” Katelyn says. “Maybe you don’t want to stay, that’s fine, but just say so. Pull the bandaid off now, Neil, because otherwise you’re just stringing Aaron along and that’s cruel.”

Aaron puts a quelling hand on Katelyn’s arm, but it’s too late. Neil stops in his tracks halfway across the room, and even from here Andrew can see his chest is heaving. Andrew almost gets up, almost goes to him - to do what he doesn’t know - but it is Aaron who stands, who makes his way to just behind him, who places one hand carefully on his arm. 

“Neil,” Aaron says. 

Neil turns to him jerkily. “Of course I want to stay,” he whispers fiercely, and then he’s collapsed into Aaron’s arms and they are hugging tightly, and Aaron makes a small choked sound. 

“And there it is,” Katelyn says softly. 

Andrew looks up to see satisfaction on her face. “You did that on purpose,” Andrew says. 

“At least he’s admitted it now.” 

“Fuck you, Kate,” Neil says, his face muffled in Aaron’s shoulder. 

“Yeah,” she agrees. “I know. But you want to stay.” 

“I want to stay,” Neil repeats. “Oh my god.” He sags in Aaron’s arms.

“So we figure it out,” Andrew says. “But we do nothing until Renee is back with Jean.” 

“Agreed,” Aaron says, pulling back from Neil and gripping his hand to pull him back to the table. 

“I’ve got some work to do,” Andrew announces once they’ve settled again. He hooks a finger into his own glass and heads out to his tower, ignoring the look Neil throws after him. 

He does have work to do, but nothing he really needs to take care of in this very moment. The truth is, Neil has just admitted to his soulmate that he doesn’t want to leave him. Andrew is happy for Aaron. He is. 

He also doesn’t want to sit here and watch them make soulmate eyes at each other. 

***

Andrew doesn’t come back into the cabin until well past when everyone should be asleep, but he still finds Neil sitting at the dining room table poking at one of Andrew’s puzzles. 

“You should sleep,” Andrew tells him, dropping his glass off in the sink. 

“Can’t. I tried.”

“Try harder,” Andrew says, but he sits down across from Neil. The puzzle is 1500 tiny pieces that make up a swirling, ethereal image of the milky way. He snaps a couple pieces in one after the other. Neil watches him for a minute, then goes back to perusing his own pile. The puzzle is fucking hard, and they poke at it in silence for a while until Andrew counts Neil’s third yawn. 

“Why can’t you?” Andrew asks. 

Neil snaps a piece into place, completing the border. “It’s too quiet. My thoughts are too loud. I’m tired, but I just close my eyes and I am wide awake.” He pulls a face. “I’m not used to sleeping alone I think.”

Andrew doesn’t ask what he wants to ask, but after they sort a few more pieces in silence he can’t stop himself. “Riko?” he guesses. 

Neil finally looks up at Andrew, and then shakes his head slowly. “Not anymore, not after our deal.” 

Andrew snaps the piece in his hand in half.

“It’s fine,” Neil says. He’s earnest about it too; he really thinks it’s fine. Andrew glares at him, but he’s gone back to the puzzle. “It’s Jean who I’m used to sharing a room with.”

Andrew smooths the mangled piece and sets it aside. He glances at the clock; it’s almost two in the morning. Andrew sighs, and feels very incredibly stupid when he says, “Come on.”

“Where?” Neil says, blinking at him, but he stands readily enough and follows Andrew. 

Neil watches with wide eyes as Andrew pulls Kevin’s air mattress out of the closet in the tower and plops it next to the couch. “I’m not going to blow it up for you, pump’s in there too.”

“You want me to sleep with you?”

Andrew does not blush. He frowns instead and says, “You need to sleep. If this will help…” He forces a shrug, like it isn’t a big deal to invite Neil up here to sleep, like Andrew has ever shared a room with anyone besides Aaron and Kevin since such things were in his control. 

But Neil doesn’t know any of this. Instead he smiles gratefully, his shoulders relaxing as he pumps up the bed and wiggles into the double wide sleeping bag that Andrew tosses on top. Andrew’s made a veritable nest on the couch over the last few days, sneaking the best pillows and quilts from the armoire downstairs, so he has a pillow to spare. He throws it at Neil’s face and turns off the lights. 

“Thanks,” Neil whispers into the dark once they’ve both settled. 

“Better?”

“Yeah I think so.”

Andrew grunts at him.

After a bit Neil rolls over, rustling in the bean bag, and then, “Oh.”

Andrew unburies his face from his quilt and looks up. The stars are out in abundance, and with the almost non-existent light pollution in Fox Springs, they lay spread out in all their glory beyond the glassed in roof. “Yeah.” Andrew says. “They’re something.”

“If I lived here I’d sleep under them every night,” Neil says softly.

“Okay,” Andrew says. “So live here and sleep under them every night.”

“In your treehouse?”

“In my tower ,” Andrew corrects him sternly. “And yes, if you want.”

“It can’t be that easy.”

“No one said anything about easy,” Andrew says. 

Neil laughs a little into the dark. 

“Go to sleep, Neil,” Andrew whispers into the dark. 

“Okay, Andrew,” Neil whispers back. 

Andrew stares up at his stars until Neil’s breath evens out, deep and rhythmic, and then he closes his eyes and drops swiftly and smoothly into sleep. 

***

Andrew really needs to see Kevin. 

He gets anxious after more than three days apart, and it’s been five now. There is always Saturday dinner, but they normally gravitate towards each other a few days a week beyond that at least - meeting up at The Bluebird, or fishing with Wymack, or fucking off into the wee hours of the morning just running their mouths. 

This week Andrew has been loath to abandon Neil completely, and further, if Riko has eyes on Kevin they don’t want to draw attention to Andrew as well. 

“It’s fine,” Neil says. “Go. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Ha ha,” Neil says, but he looks forlorn. 

Andrew is torn. He hesitates, and then he says something stupid, which seems to be his modus operandi around Neil. “You could come with me.”

Neil sits up at that. “That seems like a stupid idea,” he says.

“It is,” Andrew mutters, but he holds up a hand and pulls out his phone to call Kevin. 

“Hey are you on your way?” Kevin says by way of greeting. Andrew can hear the strain in his voice, and it mirrors the pull he feels on their soulbond. 

“Shortly. I need to park in the garage, we just had the truck detailed.” Andrew is pretty sure it is unlikely Kevin’s phone is directly tapped, but he’s also sure that key words are monitored by systems not dissimilar to the ones tracking potential comets in Andrew’s tower. 

And fucking bless Kevin, because he barely hesitates at that ridiculous statement, just says, “Sure, I’ll move the jeep,” and that’s that. 

“What are we doing?” Neil says. 

“Sneaking you into Kevin’s,” Andrew says, twirling the truck keys and opening the front door - and then Andrew almost runs smack into Jack, the town’s only postman and Andrew’s least favorite person in Fox Springs.

“What in the fuck are you doing here Jack?”

Jack jumps back, but leans a little to look past him. “Who’s in there with you?”

“Excuse you,” Andrew says coldly. “Why are you on my property?”

“Package,” Jack says, holding up the heavily taped box with one hand. 

“We have a P.O. Box,” Andrew reminds him. 

“Needs a signature, and I was out running deliveries anyway. I thought I saw someone behind you though?”

Jack is an absolute fucking pain in the entire towns ass, and he’s not going to let this go until he gets an answer. “My boyfriend,” Andrew says with a sigh. 

“Your…what? Damn man, I didn’t know you were a poofter.”

“A poofter ? Seriously?”

Jack glares at him. “Well, it’s not like I’m allowed to say faggot anymore am I?”

Andrew doesn’t even flinch. “Not unless you want Renee to kick your ass again.”

Jack pales. “Right. So what’s his name, this boyfriend?”

“Roland. Are we done now?” Andrew asks sarcastically. 

“It looked like he had red hair - does he have red hair? Can I meet him?” Jack peers around Andrew again. 

“No and no. He has brown hair. Bye Jack.” And with that Andrew goes back inside and shuts the door in his face. 

“Son of a bitch,” Andrew says to the empty room. 

Neil pops back out of hiding from Andrew’s bedroom. “Who was that?” 

“The town gossip. Also known as our postman.” 

“Did he see me?”

Andrew shakes his head. “Not really. He saw someone. I told him it was my boyfriend Roland. That little scrap of news should distract him enough.”

Neil frowns. “Why?”

“Because, Neil,” Andrew says with a sigh. “Most people in this town don’t know I am gay.”

“Oh,” Neil says, surprised. “You didn’t have to out yourself for me.”

Andrew rolls his eyes. “I’m not in the closet. I just don’t date, and I am not in the habit of confessing my sexual preferences to people on the street.”

“Oh,” Neil says again, considering. “Does Roland know you don’t date?”

“He sure does,” Andrew says drily. He peeks out the window to check that Jack’s truck is long gone. “Coast is clear, let’s go.”

“You’re still taking me?” Neil perks up. 

“Yes, but you’ll have to stay hidden in the floor well of the truck until we get to Kevin’s.”

“Yes, I’m on it. I’ve been told I am very small,” he says with a cheeky grin.

“You are a menace,” Andrew says with a sigh and a hope that his ears aren’t flushing red. 

“New nickname.” Neil’s grin gets cheekier. “I like it.”

“Oh my god.”

***

Kevin is waiting for them in the garage when they arrive, propped up against the far wall with the door remote in hand. Just seeing him soothes Andrew’s frayed nerves. He’s out of the car faster than he will admit to, with a hand clasped on Kevin’s arm. The contact makes his soul hum. 

“Do you want a hug?” Kevin asks. He always asks, even though Andrew can see he’s practically vibrating with wanting one himself. If Andrew says no, Kevin will deal with it, but Andrew is long past the days where he is wary of touch from Kevin. He answers by wrapping around Kevin’s waist, and Kevin folds over him carefully, and Andrew feels like he can take a deep breath for the first time in days. “Let’s never do this again, that was too many days,” Kevin says into Andrew’s hair. 

“Sap,” Andrew says, but he pulls him just a little bit tighter before letting go. Neil has crawled out of the truck and is stretching a little off to the side. “I brought you a present,” Andrew says, gesturing at Neil. Neil rolls his eyes, but when Kevin opens his arms he steps into them. 

“Do you still play air hockey?” Kevin asks Neil when they pull away from each other. 

Neil lights up. 

Andrew groans. 

“Round robin?” Kevin suggests hopefully. 

“Fine,” Andrew says with a sigh he doesn’t really mean.

***

They stay until dark, until round robin at the air hockey table leaves the three of them tied and tired, until Gabrielle is home and Kevin and Andrew make dinner together, and Neil laughs out loud at the stories Gabrielle tells of when she and Kevin first met. 

When they leave, Neil hugs Kevin and lets Gabrielle pull him into a careful, tentative hug, too. Andrew squashes the rise of jealousy that has been haunting him these last days. It doesn’t even make sense, not really. Andrew doesn’t like touching people either; he usually avoids it as rigorously as Neil does. 

Except Neil has touched Katelyn and Aaron, Renee, Kevin, and now Gabrielle too.

It’s dark enough that when they leave, a plate of Gabrielle’s famous brownies in hand, that Andrew only makes Neil duck down until they are out of the main part of town, and a few more times when headlights appear. He doesn’t crawl into the floor properly, just kind of folds himself in half until he is out of sight, waiting for the all clear. When they pull up the drive and park in front of the house Aaron and Katelyn’s cars are both already there, and there’s a warm glow from inside the cabin. The stars have gone missing behind clouds tonight, and there’s a vague threat of rain. 

Andrew cuts the engine but doesn’t get out. “Can I ask you a question?” Andrew says into the steering wheel. 

“Of course,” Neil says. He shifts, turns towards Andrew on the bench seat, so Andrew turns to him too. Neil is relaxed, arm propped against the back of his seat, the blue of his eyes swallowed up by the dark in the truck. 

“The touch thing. Is it only because of your deal with Riko or is there more to it?” 

“The touch thing,” Neil repeats. “Is that why you haven’t touched me?” 

“You don’t want to be touched,” Andrew reminds him. “I’m not going to cross those boundaries when it’s a no.” 

“Everyone else around here does,” Neil says. 

“I am not everyone else,” Andrew says, uncaring what his voice betrays for once.  

“I guess it doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Neil says. “Yes it was originally because of the deal with Riko, but it’s been so long now that maybe I’m a little scared of it now too - the idea of touch. Of being touched.”  

“You hugged Gaby,” Andrew points out quietly. 

“I did,” Neil agrees. He tilts his head a little, and then slowly puts his hand flat on the seat between them. “I’m not scared of you, Andrew.”

Andrew stops breathing, staring at Neil’s hand, his heart beating wildly in his ears, and all he can think is that this is an unreasonable reaction to such a small gesture. 

Andrew lifts his hand just as slowly, lets it hover over Neil’s. 

“It’s a yes,” Neil says, and Andrew nods, but he can’t seem to move. They are suspended, on the precipice of something Andrew can’t quite understand, and then - bang bang bang!

Andrew startles back from Neil and looks up to find Aaron peering through the truck window, a look of small concern on his face. “Everything alright?” he asks when Neil opens the door for him. 

“Everything’s fine,” Andrew says, hopping out and slamming his door. He resolutely does not look back at Neil before climbing the stairs two at a time and locking himself away in his treehouse tower with a bottle of scotch and his racing heartbeat. 

Chapter Text

__________________________________________

Andrew is not an idiot. He has multiple degrees to prove it, too. 

And sure, he’s gay, and Neil is hot. Really, ridiculously, distractingly hot. 

But there is something tugging at Andrew’s soul that is more than just the curve of Neil’s ass when he’s in downward dog. 

Andrew’s on his second drink when Neil throws the door open, but that’s only because Andrew had downed the first in one shot. It’s been less than five minutes since he’d fled the truck, and Andrew’s heart is still beating wildly in his chest. The pull that has been tugging at him, that low hum of background noise, has suddenly and irrevocably been turned up to a hundred, and he can still feel the electric current of their almost-touch crackling the air between them.

“Andrew,” Neil says, stepping into the room, his face engaged in a tug of war between terror and determination. He says Andrew’s name like he’s tasting each of the letters, like he’s never said it before. He comes to a stop two feet in front of Andrew, within touching distance, within grabbing distance, within holding distance, within kissing distance. He comes to a stop, and he holds out his left hand, palm up and open and seeking, the wasteland of his fake soulmate exposed, mottled with tight, thick scabs and shiny skin.  

Andrew stares at Neil’s hand. A low rumble of thunder heralds the incoming storm, and still Andrew does not move. Neil waits, steady and patient, and when Andrew looks up to meet Neil’s gaze, to find him studying Andrew in return, all the traces of fear have dropped away, a soft wonder coloring in the spaces left behind. 

“Andrew,” Neil whispers, and it’s not a hurry up, it’s not a prod or a poke, it is just Neil saying Andrew’s name again because he wants to keep the feel of it in his mouth. Andrew can hear it. He can feel it. 

“I am not going to do this if you aren’t going to stay,” Andrew finally says, trying for steadiness and falling a little short. 

“I said I wanted to stay.”

“Wanting to stay and actually staying are two different things.”

“I am staying,” Neil says fiercely. 

Andrew hunts for the lie in his eyes and finds only truth wrapped in the blue of an Appalachian summer sky. “For Aaron,” Andrew says. 

“Yes. And for this. For you.” 

“This might be nothing,” Andrew warns. 

“I’m staying either way.” Neil’s hand hovers still between them, a lifeline, an impossibility. 

“Neil,” Andrew says, because it’s been too long since he’s said Neil’s name, because he can’t help himself, because no matter what this is, it’s definitely not nothing. 

Andrew is frozen on the precipice again, standing at a height, about to crash and burn, either from reaching for something he’s never allowed himself to want or because what he has always known to be true will be true, and this will be nothing but a touch, nothing but an absolute pipedream.

But Andrew has never been a coward; he’s never let fear push him back from the ledge. 

Andrew reaches out with a steady hand. Neil’s sharp inhale is audible even over the incessant sound of rain. With the tips of their fingers within a whisper’s distance, Andrew looks up, catches Neil’s gaze not on their hands but on Andrew’s face, and Andrew plummets into the depths of Neil’s blue velvet eyes as he slides his hand onto Neil’s. 

Neil gasps, the breath he has been holding bursting free, his fingers tightening around Andrew’s, and Andrew inhales in great gulps like he’s cresting the water, like he’s been drowning for years and he’s finally been given oxygen. His lungs burn, his eyes water, he cannot look away from Neil, cannot look down, does not have to look down, because he can feel it - feel the pulsing burn of it crawling up his arm like a wildfire that has caught spark from their joined hands. It thunders loudly outside, and the lightning creeps closer, and Neil and Andrew stare and stare and gasp for breath and grasp for skin, feel the warm pull of hand in hand, the impossibility of pulling away. Andrew feels the soulmark blooming, feels everything that is Neil rushing through his blood at this touch. This. This is the thing that Andrew was never going to get to have; a soulmark on a canvas so ruined, skin that Andrew had carved and marked and marred until it was unrecognizable, a stretch of real estate that no one could want. And yet, now, it is claimed. By Neil. 

Andrew’s knees give out, and he sinks, but Neil doesn’t let go; Neil follows him over the edge, falls with him, until they are crumpled together on the floor hand in hand and faces so close they are stealing breath from each other. Andrew finally looks down, and Neil does too, until their foreheads are pressed together and the new place of contact sizzles. 

Andrew rolls his hand over slowly until the back of it is pressed into Neil’s palm, the inside of his forearm turned up and exposed in a move anathema to Andrew. He doesn’t hide his scars, not anymore, but he also doesn’t make a habit of putting them on display. Andrew’s heartbeat trips over itself at the fresh riot of color splashed across their arms, the matching soulmarks swirling almost iridescent, their scar tissue making the colors shine and shimmer like trapped starlight. 

Neil lifts his free hand and tests the air above Andrew’s arm. “You can,” Andrew whispers, and then Neil’s fingers land lightly, tracing the whorls and swirls of the galaxy that has appeared on Andrew’s skin. The contact makes Andrew shiver. “Look,” Andrew says, bringing his own fingertips carefully to Neil’s arm. The fake mark has been completely covered, replaced with colors matched to Andrew’s, every dimension of rainbow, like their scars fractured light into all of its components and scattered them across their skin. The scars, the burns, the scabs - nothing of Neil’s ravaged skin is immune. It is desperately beautiful. 

The breath Neil lets out is ragged, and Andrew pulls back to see his face. 

“Hi,” Neil whispers. 

Andrew rolls his eyes. “Did you really just ‘hi’ me?” 

“Mmmmhmmm,” Neil hums. “I’ve heard that means you are supposed to kiss me now.” 

Andrew knows he’s trying for humor, but it comes out all husky and Neil’s eyes are shining and his face is intent and his gaze is on Andrew’s lips, and Andrew feels it in every inch of his body. Instead of kissing him though, which is the only goddamned thing Andrew wants to do right now, he collects himself forcefully, and lifts his hand to slide careful fingers along Neil’s jaw, to card them into the soft, thick hair tucked behind his ear. Andrew ignores the way Neil’s eyelashes flutter at the touch, ignores the way Neil leans into his hand like an alley cat, ignores the way Andrew’s own damned heart tries to tumble out of his chest and collide with Neil’s. 

Andrew ignores all of this, and says, very carefully, “You do not have to do anything you don’t want to do. This only means what we want it to mean.” 

Neil shifts, and for a horrifying moment Andrew thinks he is going to pull away, but then Neil leans closer, so close that when he closes his eyes his lashes sweep across Andrew’s cheek, and says, “I want this,” the words landing in teasing little puffs of air against Andrew’s lips. 

Andrew closes his eyes, holds very, very still for the smallest of moments, because his soul is screaming through his blood, and he needs to make sure, make damn sure, that his brain did not just make up those words. 

“Say it again,” Andrew demands. 

“I want this, Andrew, I want you.” 

Andrew closes the distance between them before Neil barely finishes speaking, his mouth still open on the last word when Andrew presses their lips together, his entire body yielding to Andrew’s kiss so completely that they topple over, a controlled fall this time, Neil on his back, arms wrapped around Andrew to pull him close, Andrew sinking into him, both of them scrambling to get closer. Andrew gets a knee between Neil’s and Neil has one hand up the back of Andrew’s shirt, and their kisses are earnest and seeking and better than breathing. It feels amazing, all this touch, all encompassing, Neil wrapped around Andrew and plastered to him in a way Andrew has never allowed. 

It’s not until lightning flashes bright around them, followed immediately with deafening thunder and total darkness that Andrew realizes that the power is out. He pulls back so reluctantly it hurts, slides both hands to cup Neil’s face. “I have to get up,” he says, pained, “I have to shift my fucking programs to an off-site system, before the auxiliary laptop runs out of power.” 

Neil turns his head and kisses Andrew’s palm. “Okay, so do whatever that is really, really quickly, and then come back here and make out with me.” 

“I can do that,” Andrew says. He doesn’t move. Neil kisses his palm again. “Come with me,” Andrew says. 

“To your desk?” 

“Yes.” 

“It’s three feet away.” 

“I am aware.” 

“Okay,” Neil says, like this is a reasonable request. They get up and shuffle to the desk in the dark, fingers entwined. Andrew’s auxiliary laptop is whirring away, overloaded with the programs normally running on the two desktops. It doesn’t have the power reserves to keep this up for more than half an hour. 

“I need both my hands,” Andrew says.

“No problem,” Neil says, and he drops Andrew’s hand just to wrap around him from behind, his chest flush to Andrew’s back, his hands hooked around Andrew’s waist. Andrew shouldn’t be okay with it. Andrew is one hundred percent okay with it. He squints at the screen, hotspots his phone since the cabin internet went down with the power, and quickly shifts his entire workload to a set of offsite NASA servers in Houston. It takes five minutes; it takes entirely too long. Andrew executes the migration, holds his breath for the thirty seconds it takes to go through, and then decisively shuts the laptop and turns in Neil’s arms. 

“Hi,” Neil says when they are face to face again. 

“You have got to stop saying that,” Andrew groans, but he leans up to kiss Neil - to kiss his soulmate - because it feels like he can’t stop, like they have years and years to make up for, like Andrew wants to kiss away every touch that Neil didn’t want, like he wants to press every touch into Neil’s skin that he longed for but couldn’t have. 

They end up sprawled on the couch, Andrew backing Neil up slowly until his knees hit the cushions and he pulls Andrew down on top of him. Andrew’s body hums in happiness again at the contact. His soul is content, and the whole thing would be disconcerting if Andrew hadn’t felt the flip side of this coin before, but he has. He knows exactly what it is like to be in close proximity to his soulmate - even if the kissing thing is new. Soulmates . Plural. Andrew has two soulmates. He kisses his way down Neil’s jaw to his neck. “We should talk about this,” he murmurs at Neil’s earlobe before kissing that too. 

“Okay,” Neil says, nuzzling his face into Andrew’s cheek, and jesus fucking christ. Andrew lets his hands wander of their own accord, down Neil’s arms, across the backs of his hands, his waist, his hip bones. Andrew is careful, so careful to not move lower. Soulmate or not they will talk about consent and boundaries before they kiss themselves stupid and go any further. Andrew heads back north instead, tucks fingers under the hem of Neil’s shirt, starts to slide his hand against the warm skin he finds there, and it’s only because he’s so close that he catches Neil’s breath hitch, feels how still he goes underneath him for a moment. 

Andrew pauses. “Is this a no?” 

Neil hesitates, and Andrew immediately removes his hand and tries to pull back, but Neil stops him, fingers wrapped around Andrew’s wrist. “It’s not a no,” Neil says, and he pushes Andrew’s hand back under his shirt, presses it flat against his abs. “It’s just, there’s these,” he adds quietly, letting Andrew’s hand go and pressing it firmly against his stomach for good measure. Neil’s holding his breath again so Andrew keeps his hand still and resumes kissing his neck instead. When Neil sucks in a quick breath, and then a steadier one, Andrew lets his hand roam again. 

It’s scars. Lots of them. Andrew traces a long line up Neil’s ribs, then another next to it. Andrew knows what scars feel like, knows what the clean lines left behind by a knife or a razor blade feel like. He stops kissing Neil’s neck, and Neil sighs. “I know, it’s gross.” 

“Shut up,” Andrew says. He follows lines like hash marks up Neil’s chest. “Who?” 

“My dad,” Neil says. It’s an answer, but not the whole answer. 

Andrew wishes he could see Neil’s face, but it’s darker than midnight in the tower. “And?” Andrew has reached his collarbone now. He follows the line of it to Neil’s shoulder. He swirls circles into the bone there.

“I got to choose,” Neil says finally. “With Riko I got to choose. Before we had our deal, I could sleep with him, or we could continue what my father had started.” Andrew tenses. He waits, hand stalled out on Neil’s shoulder, but Neil laces his fingers with Andrew’s, pulls their hands to the center of his chest and presses them there. “He didn’t think I was going to choose this. I never-” 

Andrew brings his hand up to cover Neil’s mouth. “You don’t owe me that.” Neil kisses Andrew’s palm, and tugs his face out from behind it. Andrew lets him. 

“I never slept with him,” Neil finishes. He’s rubbing his thumb along the curve of Andrew’s bicep. It’s soothing. “It wasn’t until Jean arrived, when he found his platonic, that it even crossed Riko’s mind of the danger in that happening with me. We made our deal, and he only broke it a few times. Most of these,” he slides their joined hands down the scars on his belly, “are old.” 

“And the ones that aren’t?” Andrew can’t help but ask. Neil doesn’t hesitate this time, just presses against Andrew until he can sit up and pull his shirt all the way off and bring Andrew’s hand to the middle of his back. Andrew splays his fingers. Even in the dark he knows these are burns, not cuts, and that they are newly healed. 

“He was going to take some imagined insult out on Jean, I intervened,” Neil says. 

“Martyr,” Andrew says, remembering Jean’s nickname for him. 

“Biggest argument Jean and I ever got into,” Neil says. “And also the catalyst for us finally planning to leave, although my father’s assassination expedited it.” 

“Come here,” Andrew says, tucking himself against the back of the couch and pulling Neil against him until Andrew has him settled between his knees, his back flush against Andrew. Andrew wraps strong arms around him and pulls him in tight. Once they’re settled Andrew takes Neil’s hand and presses his fingertips to his left wrist, then drags them slowly up the inside of his forearm. “I used to hide these,” Andrew says. “I wore armbands all the time, or long sleeve shirts. I still wear them, sometimes, but less and less since finding Kevin.” 

“You did this, right?” Neil is running a fingertip along Andrew’s scars, one by one like climbing a ladder. 

“Yes,” Andrew says. He takes a breath. This isn’t a story he ever planned to tell with so much skin contact, but the idea of letting Neil go right now is impossible. “I had a foster brother who raped me. Repeatedly. He told me that maybe if we kept trying, our soulmarks would appear.” Andrew says it all in one breath, no emotion, detached. 

Neil doesn’t stop what he’s doing, tracing lines, his free hand tucked under Andrew’s, but he says, oh so softly, “Where is he now?” 

Andrew shrugs a little against him. “Dead. Exploded in a tank in Afghanistan.” 

“Oh,” Neil says, his disappointment obvious. 

“Oh?” Andrew repeats. 

It’s Neil’s turn to shrug. “I was looking forward to killing him, is all.” He says it so forlornly, so matter of fact, that all Andrew can do is pull him impossibly tighter and huff a laugh into his hair. “I’m serious,” Neil says. 

“I know,” Andrew says.

They lay there for minutes, moments, eons, the rain splattering the glass, the thunder and lightning a roving punctuation, their fingers finding idle paths of exploration, swaths of skin to touch. It’s not long before Neil turns in Andrew’s arms and straddles his hips and starts kissing him again. 

Which is how Aaron finds them when he walks in without knocking, a lantern in one hand and an umbrella in the other. 

The lantern is an old gas-fueled camping thing, heavy duty and bright as fuck, and it lights up the entire tower. Neil sits up and smiles at Aaron, but doesn’t climb off of Andrew or reach for his shirt, and Andrew isn’t going to make him, which leaves them frozen in a tableau -  Aaron taking in the state of them, Andrew’s hands gripping Neil’s hips, Neil straddling Andrew, his lips kissed cherry red, the scars littering his torso on full display, and the colors of their brand new soulmarks practically dancing in the lantern light. 

“I know exactly how you feel,” Andrew says drily. It’s a risky move - he’s not sure how Aaron’s going to react and really, Andrew had vaguely thought they would at least have all of their clothes on when they went downstairs to tell him. 

His volley pays off though, because Aaron unfreezes and shuts the door and the umbrella before saying, “Not exactly I don’t think,” but he doesn’t sound mad - at least not at Andrew. 

Andrew can see his brother’s gaze locked on the neat lines of scars carved into Neil’s skin, just as deliberate as the ones that line Andrew’s arms - scars that Aaron is very familiar with. “Who did that to you?” he says to Neil, “And how in the fuck is this just now happening?” He gestures between the both of them, because they’ve both sat up now, their matching soulmarks on full display. 

“We just touched,” Neil says. “But I think I’ve known for a day, maybe two.” Andrew’s gaze snaps to him. This is new information. Neil blinks back at him. “Didn’t you?” 

Andrew didn’t put it together until the truck, but thinking about it now, some part of him must have. He nods. 

Neil pulls his shirt on and leans into Andrew’s side, and Aaron sits on the coffee table facing them, consternation on his face. “How have you not touched until now? You’ve been spending every day together.” 

“He said he didn’t want to be touched,” Andrew says. 

“And I thought you didn’t want to be touched,” Neil says. 

They all three look down at Neil and Andrew’s thighs pressed together. It’s Aaron who starts laughing, quietly, and then louder. He shoves the back of his wrist against his mouth, but it doesn’t help, and then there are tears at the corner of his eyes. Andrew is confused, but when he looks to Neil for help, Neil is just grinning, and he reaches out to grab Aaron’s hand. Aaron holds on to Neil for dear life and tries to get himself together. It takes a few tries. 

“Have you fucking lost it?” Andrew asks. 

Aaron shakes his head and wipes his eyes and then gifts Andrew with a brilliant smile. “I’m just happy. This is a good thing, isn’t it?” 

“You’re just happy,” Andrew repeats, frowning, which has the unfortunate effect of making Aaron burst into laughter again. 

“I think we broke him,” Neil says, but he’s still grinning like a loon, and Andrew feels…Andrew feels. Well. Fuck. It creeps over his face too, slow and insidious, until he wants to press his face back together with his fingertips, because fuck if he isn’t happy too. 

“Goddamnit it,” Andrew mutters through his own rusty smile, which just sends Aaron into a new fit of laughter. 

When Aaron finally gets himself together he stands, and sets the lantern on the table in his place. “I made hot chocolate on the old camp stove, if you want to come down. Can I tell Kate?” 

“Of course,” Neil says. 

“We need a plan, soon.” Aaron adds. “There’s no way you are leaving now, right?” 

Neil shakes his head. 

“Good,” Aaron says. “We’ll figure it out before Renee and Jean get back then, and be ready to act. We’ve got two days right?” 

Andrew nods at this. Aaron looks at Neil and then Andrew. “I guess this is a moot question after what I just walked in on, but you’re both happy about this right?” 

Neil takes Andrew’s hand. “Yes,” he says without hesitation. 

“Yes,” Andrew says, giving him a small squeeze. 

“Great,” Aaron says cheerfully. He turns to Neil. “If you hurt my brother I will kill you,” he says. 

Neil’s grin blossoms again. “Understood.”

Aaron nods and looks at Andrew. “And if you hurt my soulmate, I will kill you.” 

Andrew huffs a small laugh, but then he nods and says, “Back at you little brother.” 

“It was three minutes, Andrew,” Aaron says. “Are you coming down?” 

“Yeah, give us a minute,” Neil says. Aaron’s almost to the door when Neil calls out. “Aaron?” Aaron stops and turns and waits. “I would have stayed with you. Even if this hadn’t happened, I would have stayed.” 

Aaron stares at him for a long time before nodding and ducking back out with his umbrella, leaving Neil and Andrew alone again and illuminated in the lamp light.

Chapter Text

__________________________________________

The power comes back on the next morning and Andrew spends hours revisiting his Google searches on the various Moriyamas, leaving Neil and Aaron to their own bonding time. Once Aaron is gone for work, a wild Neil appears, looking sleepy but happy. Relaxed. Jean will be back tomorrow, Renee has called with updates, and Neil is staying. With them. 

“Come here,” Andrew demands, and Neil does, and Andrew wraps around him because he can. Their soulbond has cut through years of trauma in one fell swoop, doing in the breath of a moment what years of therapy had only been able to scratch at ineffectively. It means that Andrew can finally reach out for something he’d always needed, something he’s always wanted, whether he admitted it to himself or not. Something that he knew - he knew he could never have. He pulls Neil closer and tucks his face into his neck, which is already becoming familiar, which is already becoming his favorite place to be. 

“Any luck?” Neil asks, the words ruffling Andrew’s hair as he wraps arms around Andrew in return. They’d stayed up late, talking and kissing, poking at their pasts and starting to press at their future. Andrew had left Neil at breakfast with Aaron saying only he had the beginning of an idea for dealing with Riko. 

“Maybe,” Andrew says. He tumbles them onto the couch, and Neil goes willingly, curls up against Andrew’s chest when they land. Andrew had realized as he was glaring at his laptop this morning that they had the best source of information right here: Nathaniel Moriyama himself. “What’s really wrong with the President?” 

“Besides the obvious authoritarian and cult-like undertones of his political platform?” 

“Ha,” Andrew deadpans and thumps Neil’s arm. “He’s back in the hospital as of this morning.” 

“Ah,” Neil says. “Cancer. Started in his colon but it is everywhere now. He’s riddled with it.” 

“Prognosis?” 

“Not good. I don’t think anyone who knows about it expects him to live through this term.” 

“Hm,” Andrew says. He has no empathy for the man, and if anything this news solidifies his plan. “So this is why Ichirou has been making moves.” 

“Ichirou?” Neil repeats, confusion in his tone. 

“Senator Ichirou Moriyama,” Andrew recites, “recently announced his intentions to run in the 2024 presidential election. The senator’s wife and soulmate, Thea Muldoni, stood by his side at the press conference. Muldoni is pregnant with the couple’s first child.” 

“Ah. Yeah, no one is surprised.” 

“It’s early still to announce a presidential run, though,” Andrew says. He gives Neil a minute to catch up. 

“It’s brilliant, politically,” Neil says slowly. “Because Kengo will most likely die in office. Ichirou will play the grieving son in the public eye, but the back story will be his 2024 bid…the press will latch onto it, style Ichirou as the natural successor to Kengo’s dynasty and ride the coattails of America’s grief.” 

“That’s what I was thinking, yes,” Andrew says. 

Neil sits up and looks at Andrew and Andrew shifts upright too, and holds out his hands. He’d traced the lines of Neil’s soulmark over and over again last night. Andrew finds those paths with his fingertips, sliding past color and line, careful over still tender burns. 

“What kind of man is Ichirou?” 

Neil shrugs a little, tracing Andrew’s touch with his gaze. “Ichirou’s not the worst of them. He’s ambitious, but he’s fair, in his way. I always kind of liked him, actually.” 

“It’s the ambition I’m interested in. Riko was the family embarrassment until he married you, according to the political gossip blogs. How exactly will it look when it comes to light that Riko faked your soulmarks?”  

Neil is already shaking his head “I told you, he’d kill us if we went public.” 

“I’m not talking about going public,” Andrew says. “I’m thinking just the opposite. How invested would Ichirou be in sweeping this all under the rug “ 

Neil blinks. “Oh shit.” He stares at Andrew. “Why didn’t I think of that?” 

“Because you are a rabbit. The plan was to run. And because you had no leverage until you met me and Aaron.” 

“Oh shit,” Neil says again, mulling over the idea. “I- it might work. I don’t think Ichirou would risk killing all of us, it would be too hard to cover up. Besides, he’s not as involved with that side of the family. He doesn’t have a taste for it.” 

“Do you have his direct number?” 

“Yes.” 

“Great.” Andrew slides out his phone without letting go of Neil and texts Aaron one handed. 

Aaron responds by calling and Andrew puts him on speaker. “We have an idea,” Andrew says. He explains the news he’s caught up on today, and Neil’s assessment of Ichirou and Kengo’s health. “I want to call Ichirou, offer our silence In return for him getting Riko off Neil’s back. We can use the soulmarks as leverage. However we feel might feel about the laws, Ichirou cannot deny that soulbonds trump Neil's marriage to Riko.” 

Aaron doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and then, “Chances that he can track the call?” 

“High,” Neil says with a grimace. “At a minimum he can pull strings and get the data records from his service provider.” 

“I don’t think it matters,” Andrew says. “Ichirou is a politician through and through. Ambitious. If the option is to get one person - Riko - under control versus killing all of us, one of those things is a lot less messy than the other.” 

“Still a risk,” Aaron says. 

“Yes,” Andrew agrees. 

“I have to talk to Kate first.”

“Do it. I want to do this now,” Andrew says. 

“Got it,” Aaron says, and he hangs up. 

They wait. 

It’s only a moment before they get Aaron’s text: We say do it.

They do. Aaron texts a picture of his arms, taken in the bathroom mirror at The Bluebird. Neil and Andrew stand, pressed close with arms bared and do the same, including their faces for good measure. 

“Together?” Andrew offers, poised to press call on his phone after Neil dictates the number. 

“Together,” Neil agrees. 

Ichirou picks up on the second ring, with a sharp, “Who is this?” 

“Ichirou. It’s Nathaniel.” 

There is the tiniest sharp inhale and then the distinctive sound of a door closing. “Nathaniel. And why is it that my sources have yet to inform me that you are safe and sound in Mexico?” 

“What?” Neil’s eyes fly up to Andrew and Andrew grounds him with a hand on his knee. 

“You knew that Neil was heading for Mexico,” Andrew says. 

The line is quiet and then, “Who is that?” 

“My soulmate.” 

Quiet again. “Platonic, I presume.” 

“Romantic, actually, imagine that. But I found my platonic too. They are brothers.” 

Ichirou says something smoothly in Japanese and Neil responds in English; “We have no secrets. He knows everything. How did you know about Mexico?” 

“Oh Nathaniel. Short sighted of you to not realize what a close tab I keep on my brother’s liability of a husband.” 

“I’m not the one who is a liability.” 

“Maybe not,” Ichirou says mildly. “This would be a lot easier if you and Jean disappeared somewhere south of the border. Why do I get the feeling that is no longer the plan?” 

Neil takes a breath. “No. I’m staying where I am.” 

“Are you.” If Andrew didn’t know better he’d think Ichirou sounds amused. Ichirou sighs. “I suppose you have proof of these new soulmarks then?” 

“Yes,” Andrew says. 

Ichirou sighs again. Dramatic fucker. “Send them. I’ll be in touch.” 

And with that the call ends. Andrew texts the pictures through quickly, and then looks at Neil, who is surprisingly relaxed about it all. “Not panicking?” 

“Actually, I think that was better than could be expected,” Neil says, letting out a big exhale. “He knew I was running and to where, and he didn’t try to stop me.” 

“An unexpected ally,” Andrew says. 

“Yes,” Neil says. “Our interests seem to align at least.” 

“Interests being that he wants you out of the picture.” 

“Exactly.” Neil’s eyes are wide, hope glimmering at the corners. “This just might work.” He collapses against Andrew and Andrew hauls him close. 

“And if it doesn’t, we’ll all just move to Acapulco.” 

Neil snorts against him. “Aaron," he says. “Kevin, Katelyn, Gabrielle. What, we take them all?”

“I hear they have big houses. We’ll start a commune.”

“Ha,” Neil says. “Sounds awful.”

***

Jean and Renee arrive unceremoniously and right on time the next day, and Aaron and Andrew stand side by side trying not to twitch as Neil and Jean hold on to each other for way longer than seems necessary, whispering fiercely in French. Neil had told Jean about the soulmarks over the phone, but Jean inspects his arms carefully, inspects Neil from head to toe actually, while Renee leans against the wall, arms crossed and a soft, amused smile on her face. Jean has a bulky cast on his leg and fresh hickies on his neck. 

“Hickies? Really?” Andrew says to Renee when he moves to prop up at her side. 

“I’m not the only one who’s been busy,” she says, tapping the back of Andrew’s arm lightly. Andrew absolutely does not feel his ears turning pink. He does not. “We’re happy about it, yes?” Renee murmurs. 

“We are,” Andrew says, and he can’t help the soft contentment that colors his voice. 

“Good,” she says. “So what’s the plan then? Because I am happy about this too.” Her this clearly means Jean, and Andrew blinks a little in surprise. He’s never known Renee to pick one person and settle. She flits from bed to bed, from person to person, and everyone in town knows it, basks in their moment to be graced with the gift that is Renee’s full attention, for however long it lasts. That attention though is now laser focused on the unreasonably tall Frenchman who still has his hands all over Andrew’s soulmate, and it doesn’t look like it’s shifting any time soon. 

“How’s your Spanish?” Andrew asks lightly.

“Oh you make jokes now,” Renee says with a small laugh. “We are happy about this then.”

Andrew rolls his eyes. “We called Ichirou yesterday. It went better than expected.”

That gains Renee’s full attention and she turns, raises one strong eyebrow at him. 

“Kevin’s on his way over, we’ll go over the whole thing when he gets here.” 

They’ve barely gotten Jean settled on the couch, his foot propped along the length of it, when Kevin all but bursts through the door. 

“Let me see it,” he says in greeting, making a beeline for Andrew. Andrew sighs and holds out his arm. Kevin’s grip is somewhat reverent, cradling Andrew’s hand. “Neil?” Kevin says without looking up from Andrew’s arm. Neil gets up from his spot next to Jean with a small fond snort and holds out his arm. “Fuck,” Kevin says reverently. “I’m happy for you both, so much. Can I?” He opens up his arms and Andrew nods and Neil grins and Kevin pulls them both into a smothering hug. 

“Okay, that’s enough,” Andrew says, pulling away after barely a moment, but there’s no heat in it. Kevin knows all the unspoken things that this means for Andrew, that this means for Neil. Neil presses a hand against Andrew’s lower back and then together they dutifully ignore Kevin’s suspiciously shining eyes and herd him to a chair. 

“Kevin, Jean, Jean, Kevin,” Andrew says by way of swift introduction. He watches them size each other up, watches Kevin’s eyes widen when he clocks the marks on Jean’s neck and his proximity to Renee. 

Katelyn is apparently watching too, because she says, “See I told you, they say once you go Renee you never go back.” 

Aaron chokes on an aborted laugh, and Renee smirks at Katelyn. “Is that what they say,” she says, pitching her voice in a certain kind of way. Katelyn blushes, which is in and of itself a feat. 

“Quit it,” Andrew says, throwing a throw pillow at Renee. “You might break her.” 

“Anyway,” Aaron interrupts meaningfully. 

“Anyway,” Andrew agrees. He fills them in on how they’ve reached out to Ichirou, the surprising response, that they are waiting for his verdict. Jean nods along thoughtfully, and Kevin frowns, but no one interrupts until they are done. 

It’s Renee who turns to Jean at the end, who says, “Do you want to stay in Fox Springs?” There’s something unspoken, a story that Andrew doesn’t know that passes between them. 

Jean looks back at Neil when he says, “Yes,” and Neil’s answering smile is brilliant and sharp. 

“Good,” Renee says, twining her fingers with Jean’s. The burnt ruins of their forearms are on display, a poignant soulmarking in its own right. “Then we wait, it seems. But we stay alert, prepared. The Senator may be the lesser of the two evils when it comes to the Moriyamas but it makes my skin itch that he has the means to find out exactly where Jean and Neil are right now.” She slides a hand against her ribs and Andrew sees the subtle outline of her gun strapped there. She catches Andrew’s eye. “Time to bring your armbands out of retirement, wouldn’t you think?” 

By armbands she means the wicked knives she had taught him how to use. Andrew nods. “We’ll arm anyone else who’s comfortable with it,” he adds. “And we wait. We stay in contact. If Ichirou doesn’t come through, we’ll reconvene and make a new plan.” 

“Acalpulco,” Neil says quietly. Andrew squeezes his hand. 

***

Ichirou doesn’t contact them the next day, or the day after, and the waiting is torture. 

Andrew isn’t entirely sure what the plan will be if this doesn’t work. Jokes aside, asking Kevin and Gabrielle to move to Mexico with them would be too much. Andrew knows, if he asked, they would do it, which almost makes it worse. Aaron had pulled him aside last night and whispered that he and Katelyn had talked it over, that they would go, if that was the best thing. Andrew can technically work from anywhere, although it would be an ordeal to recalibrate his telescopes and programs to a new location. Katelyn is a trained doctor and actually does speak Spanish - she can find a job. Gabrielle had texted Andrew this morning, just this: we will do what we need to do.

It’s not a decision Andrew wants to make.

It is not something he wants to ask of his friends. His family.

At the end of the day, though, the decision is taken out of his hands by a knock at the door. 

It’s unexpected, but innocuous. They live in a small town, people do stop by, deliveries get made. Jean is laid up on the couch, Neil next to him, some stupid French cartoon on the tv. Aaron and Renee are at work, and Katelyn should be too, except when Andrew opens the door, Riko fucking Moriyama is standing there, one hand wrapped tight around Katelyn’s throat and the other holding a gun to her head. 

“Andrew Minyard, I presume,” Riko says, pushing Katelyn inside and following after her. Andrew steps back carefully, his eyes on the gun, his fingers twitching for his knives. 

Katelyn is furious, her face a storm bursting at the seams, and not a trace of fear. Andrew hears movement behind him, and as he backs further into the room he sees that Neil has come to stand between them and Jean. 

“Ah, so the little postal rat was right,” Riko says, his eyes landing on Neil. “Hello my darling husband, I’ve missed you so.” 

Andrew bites down on the hiss that wants to escape. Fucking Jack. He is going to kill him - after he kills Riko, and then hides Neil away where no one will every fucking find him. 

“Riko,” Neil says calmly. He’s got Andrew’s NASA hoodie on again, his arms covered, hiding both the knives sheathed there and the soulmarks that Andrew is pretty damned sure Riko doesn’t know about yet. “There’s nothing here for you. Let Kate go.” 

“Kate,” Riko spits out. “So friendly. So familiar with your soulmate’s wife.” 

Okay so maybe he at least knows about one of them. Riko pushes Katelyn farther into the room, moving seamlessly with her, the gun pressed to her temple making an indent in her skin. 

“It’s time to come home, Nathaniel. Your little road trip is over. We’ll have a conversation, and then it will be just like this never happened.” The way Riko says conversation makes Andrew’s skin crawl. 

“No,” Andrew says. “That’s not going to happen.” 

Riko raises an eyebrow at him. “Ah, I see. The brother. So chivalrous, to protect what doesn’t even belong to you, so brave. So stupid. Nathaniel, come here.” 

Neil moves slowly forward, not looking at Andrew. “Okay,” Neil says. “If you let Jean stay, I will come with you. Willingly.” 

Katelyn makes a choked noise and looks desperately at Andrew, but Andrew shakes his head subtly. 

“Like I give a shit about your boyfriend,” Riko sneers. Andrew almost startles but then realizes that Riko is referring to Jean. “Naive of you to think the family won’t hunt him down, even if I let him stay, but sure.” 

He’s unhinged. Andrew is sure of it. The media gleam of the man that plays so well on the big screen wears thin like poorly mixed varnish in person. He appears to be alone, uninformed, and clearly desperate. And there is no fucking way that Neil is going anywhere with him. 

Andrew reaches out an arm slowly. “Give her to me,” he says, and Riko does; he shoves Katelyn at Andrew, and then their little cabin explodes into chaos. 

Andrew catches Katelyn just as a knife flies from behind them, lodging brutally into Riko’s hand. The gun goes off as Riko screams, and Andrew tugs Katelyn to the floor just as the front door bursts open, a sea of men in black filling every space in the house. Riko is still screaming, cradling his hand, and Renee has him by the back of his neck and on his knees, and Andrew can’t fucking find Neil in all the confusion. 

With one arm still wrapped around Katelyn and his heart in his throat, Andrew yells, “Neil, where the fuck are you?” 

“Here, I’m here, I’m fine,” Neil soothes, shoving past a suit and dropping down next to Andrew. The motherfucker is fucking smiling through the sheet of blood gushing down his cheek. 

“I hate you,” Andrew growls, his gentle touch belying his words as he presses at the side of Neil’s face. 

Neil doesn’t even flinch. “It just grazed me, I’m fine.” 

“At some point I won’t have to keep sewing you up, right?” Katelyn says, her voice only a little shaky. 

“Nathaniel.” 

The smooth voice simultaneously interrupts them, and parts the sea of government agents blocking the door. Senator Ichirou Moriyama steps through, and Riko, still pinned to the floor by a stone-faced Renee, starts to whimper and sputter in earnest. 

“Little brother,” Ichirou says, barely sparing Riko a look as he walks past him. Andrew was right the first time: drama queen. 

“This is how you chose to deal with the situation?” Neil says drily, because clearly the idiot can’t help himself. 

Ichirou’s answering smirk is minuscule, but there. “I had to give him enough rope to hang himself with, brother-in-law.” Ichirou deigns to squat in front of them. “Show me,” he says. Neil bares both arms, and carefully unstraps the sheathed knives blocking his soulmarks. Ichirou stares at his right arm for a long time, and then raises an eyebrow at Andrew. “And yours?” 

Andrew bristles and grits his teeth, but he shifts away from Katelyn and peels his armband off, turning the matching mark for Ichirou’s perusal. Andrew doesn’t realize that Ichirou moving out of the way is strategic until Riko’s wail of fury rises up around them, his mad eyes trained on their arms. He struggles, but Renee shakes him like a rag doll, twisting his arm farther behind him. 

“Well,” Ichirou says, ignoring his brother. “It seems congratulations are in order. I will take care of…this,” Ichirou says, gesturing behind him at Riko. “And you will disappear. I never want to hear about Nathanial Moriyama again. Or Nathaniel Wesninski. If I do - if I hear one whisper about any of this - I will get in touch with a few of my uncles and cousins. Do I make my meaning clear?” 

“Crystal,” Neil says. 

“Lovely,” Ichirou smiles. “Pick a name. I’ll have documents sent in the mail - though you might need a new postman. Riko has your current one tied up in the backseat of his rental car.” 

Neil stands, and Andrew helps Katelyn up from the floor. “And Jean?” Neil asks. 

Ichirou flips his hand indulgently. “Sure, keep him. Make a new name too. I have a feeling that Nathaniel Moriyama and Jean Moreau will be found soon, dead and drowned in the Potomac.” Andrew tenses when Ichirou steps closer and tilts his head at Neil. “I always did like you, Neil. Don’t fuck this up. I don’t do second chances.” 

Ichirou turns to sweep out the door, and Renee relinquishes her grip on Riko just for him to be grabbed by two of the stoic suits. They are almost all filed out the door when Ichirou pauses, turns back, and says, “Don’t forget to vote Moriyama,” and then he is gone, the door shut behind them, the whole thing relegated to the space of a fever dream if not for the blood on the floor and the wash of it across Neil’s face. 

“Holy fucking shit oh my god please call Aaron,” Katelyn says, crumpling to the ground again. Renee is faster than Andrew is in catching her arm, and Neil is already pulling out his phone. 

“Did that just happen?” Jean says dazedly, hobbling over from the couch finally. It was his knife that had caught Riko’s hand; the idiot had discounted him because he was injured, blinded by his obsession to the fact that Jean is literally a professional bodyguard, broken leg or not. 

“Apparently,” Renee says mildly. 

“How are you even here?” Andrew asks her quietly while Neil updates Aaron over the phone. 

“I saw the cavalcade of black cars pass my shop in your direction. It wasn’t complicated to put two and two together. I followed them. Discreetly, of course.” 

“Of course,” Andrew says. 

“Aaron’s on his way,” Neil says, “and Gabrielle too - she’s stopping to get Kevin.” He looks shell shocked. 

“It worked,” Andrew says. “You’re free. You can stay.” 

“I can stay,” Neil repeats. 

“We’re staying,” Jean says, his voice filled with wonder. Neil sits down, dragging Andrew with him, and wipes at the blood on his face. Renee helps Jean down too, and none of them move or talk until Aaron bursts through the door and crashes to the floor next to them, his hands on Katelyn and Neil and Andrew until he his satisfied that his people are okay. 

They still haven’t moved from the floor when Kevin comes in, Gabrielle on his heels, and says with a small frown, “Why is Jack hogtied on your front porch?”

***

Wymack kicks Jack out of Fox Springs, more or less. It’s decided that Andrew and Renee can’t kill him, much to their chagrin, but Andrew gets it. Low profile and all; neither of them want to draw attention to Neil and Jean. 

True to Ichirou’s word, Nathaniel Moriyama and Jean Moreau are found dead and drowned in the Potomac.

No one to blame, they say. 

A tragedy, they say. 

Riko, in his abject grief, commits suicide over the loss of his husband - his soulmate . 

Understandable, they say. 

We could not imagine, they say.

Soulmates across the country hug each other a little tighter, hold on a little longer, but no one in Fox Springs mourns the loss. Instead, Fox Springs embraces their two newest residents, one Neil Josten, and his brother, Henri Josten. 

“I cannot believe you picked a last name from that book. You didn’t even like it,” Andrew says as he and Neil curl up on the brand new bed he’s set up in their treehouse, under the stars, just like he’d promised. 

“Would you have preferred I picked Minyard?” Neil teases. 

Something in Andrew’s chest squeezes and refuses to let go. “Yes,” he says. 

Neil sobers and props up on Andrew’s chest. “Well. Maybe one day Neil Josten will marry Andrew Minyard and take his last name.” 

“I hate you,” Andrew whispers. 

“You don’t,” Neil says, and kisses him.