Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Spring 2008

Andrew groaned as Renee kneed him in the gut. He barely kept himself from doubling over, nausea pulsing through his system. She didn't relent; she had left the Christian act at the door today, the stress of finals and her last year in Palmetto getting to her. He had watched her slowly fraying at the edges over the past few weeks, like during the weeks before their final match against Riko, her lot was relying on her to carry them, and it was beginning to show.

She carried her friends and absolutely obliterated Andrew on the mats. Had in fact been doing so for the past four weeks.

When Renee was being holy, they were pretty even by now, versed enough in each other to keep the score balanced. But her need for an outlet far outweighed his skills. Andrew didn't mind, she'd let herself get beaten up after Higgins' call, and seeing more of Natalie was worth the bruises.

Renee blocked his uppercut effortlessly, kicked his legs out cleanly from under him, and settled on his chest, her knees pinning his arms to the mat. He tried to buck her off, but her balance was too good, and her being weaker than him didn't help when she wouldn't let him use his strength. After a few valiant but rather useless attempts, he tapped stop.

Renee immediately rolled off his chest and onto the mat next to him, keeping the customary few inches between their bodies. "Thank you."

He grunted in return, feeling his ribs one after the other. It didn't feel like she'd broken something, but lying on the side would be fun for a while. "Again?"

With a shake of her head, Renee grabbed two water bottles and handed one to him. The last few weeks she had been quiet, talking less than usual about mundane things. Now there was the thoughtful look on her face, the one she always wore when Natalie had vanished and Renee was trying to find a holy angle to a conversation.

"I want to ask you something personal that I have been wondering about. May I?"

Andrew, fool that he was, shrugged. He was feeling pretty alright; seeing unfiltered, raw Natalie in action was a sight to behold, and his body was currently in the adrenaline-induced sweet spot of exhaustion mixed with just the right amount of pain. Renee was already back to being holy, what damage could one question do? She'd take it in stride if he refused to answer.

"You've never been attracted to anyone on the team before, but Neil and Kevin are different, aren't they?" Renee asked, voice serene like she wasn't tearing Andrew apart with those few words.

Andrew had lifted the water bottle to drink from, and he almost poured water over himself when his movement stuttered. He forced himself to sip the water slowly, both to give himself time and to keep any further visible reactions at bay. Not that it wasn't already too late anyway, Renee had been watching him and the look on her face was pretty telling.

They hadn't talked about his sexuality since their slightly awkward conversation when the bets had started. Renee hadn't brought it up again, and neither had Andrew. Why should they?

Apparently, the days of conveniently ignoring that part of his life were over.

Andrew should have known better.

Except for Neil and Renee, no one on the team knew he was gay, and while Neil was a little less oblivious to those topics now that he wasn't focusing all his energy on survival anymore, he was still Neil. But Renee? Renee was good at connecting dots, at seeing through Andrew's behavior when it came to his social relationships. She understood why he made deals, why he had offered one to Kevin and one to Neil.

So, with his attraction growing stronger each month, despite the unattainable impossibility of anything coming of it, he should have expected her to pick up on it. And to want to talk about it, because of course she fucking wanted to talk about it.

Yeah, Neil and Kevin were fucking different. It was also fucking irrelevant.

Andrew bit down the urge to deny her accusation and twisted the cap back on his bottle. He forced his body into submission and stood up, leaving the water bottles and mats for Renee to clean up.

"What does it matter?" he replied as he pulled on his shoes. Neil didn't want sex in general, Kevin was too invested in being heterosexual. Not to mention that they both had easier, less fucked up options. His fantasy of replacing Roland with one of the strikers when he swallowed him whole was all that would happen.

He didn't wait for whatever biblically-compliant advice Renee had to offer.

Tuesday Night, August 12th

Andrew gave up pacing the dorm room he shared with Neil, Kevin, and Nicky. Their night practice should have been over more than an hour ago, they should have been back more than half an hour ago. Even if they got lost in practicing a new drill, Kevin had to give a presentation on Greek mythology tomorrow. The strikers had insisted on running back from the court for extra cardio, ignoring Andrew's offer to take his car.

Before he could descend further into catastrophizing, Andrew grabbed his car keys and drove to the court. He followed the route they usually took, finding neither orange spots in the dark nor bodies on the ground.

The lounge was dark, as was the main hallway. After more than two years of playing for the Foxes, both strikers knew their way around the stadium in total darkness and rarely bothered with the lights. Andrew peered into the men's locker room; their duffle bags and contents were strewn across the locker room benches, towels still unused, no sign of a fight. Andrew exhaled deeply, fucking junkies. Kevin was usually too adamant about health and rest to get carried away during night practices, so in a way, this was probably progress, and it wasn't like they had a curfew, but he still wanted to-

The lights in the the hallway connecting the foyer to the court were shut off, only the emergency lights lit his way. That light came on automatically when the court lights were on. Andrew's heart skipped a beat as he tripped over a discarded Exy racquet. Kevin's, not Neil's.

There was no way the striker would leave his racquet behind, not on his own will.

Had the Moriyamas decided to tie up loose ends? Neil and Kevin were behaving and performing like perfectly trained little monkeys, flushing money into greedy Yakuza pockets. They had no reason, and killing them on the Exy court would be a Riko, not an Ichirou way of handling things; the heir preferred his dramatics less public.

They hadn't had any trouble with Raven fans for a while. Andrew checked his last memory of the parking lot, but the only two cars there had been his Maserati and the car of a janitor that had died the previous afternoon. The front door hadn't been visibly tampered with.

He grabbed the racquet and weighed it in his hand, finding the perfect place to hold it for maximum force. His goalie racquet would be better, the flat 1.5 by 2 feet head was better for killing people than the loose striker net. In a pinch, it would do though, as history and Aaron had proven. He walked slowly up to the ajar doors to the inner court, took a deep breath, and slipped through the crack just as a loud buzzer caromed off the stadium walls.

The court was coated in red.

It took Andrew's brain a second to understand that it wasn't blood, and it only really clicked when the red made room for the dim emergency lights.

A goal. Someone had scored a goal.

The door to the court was open. Andrew gripped the racquet tighter, inching closer as his eyes adjusted to the darkness again.

Again, the buzzer sounded and the court turned red.

He could make out two people on the away side of the court, flashes of dim orange clothing.

It took another buzzing sound, another red light, and a loud, dirty moan for Andrew to make sense of the scene before him. He barely managed not to let go of the racquet.

Kevin was standing in front of the away goal, palms pressed against the plexiglass. He had lost his gear and pants somewhere along the way, his shirt was rucked up, all of that showing so much skin. Neil was behind him, still wearing his shirt but none of his gear, one foot tangled in a puddle of his shorts, the other already free.

It had been Kevin's moan. Kevin's moan as Neil thrust into him. Technically, Andrew knew he couldn't see the way Neil's muscles moved, the way his thighs tensed every time he fucked into Kevin, but his mind still enhanced the image. He could see Neil grabbing Kevin's hips, could hear them both moaning -- Neil's moan was throatier than Kevin's, less needy -- as they adjusted the angle; he could imagine the redness on Kevin's skin where Neil grabbed him, and imagining he fucking did.

After four more goals, Andrew's brain finally got a grip on itself and stopped merely processing what was happening. He couldn't help but look up at the scoreboard, the Foxes were up and leading, 11 to 0.

He drowned. Drowned in shame, drowned in disgust, drowned in anger, drowned in something Bee might call pain but what merely felt like the piercing absence of numbness.

The buzzer for the Foxes' twelfth goal finally jolted him out of his stupor. He retreated, walking backward; he knew how many steps he needed, he knew when to step sideways to slip back through the door he had come through. He swam, desperate to reach land or at least a rock large enough for apathy to get a hold of him.

Back in the court hallway, Andrew carefully put Kevin's racquet back where he had found it. Adjusted it two times, so it was exactly as the strikers had left it. Went back to the door to close it a little more. One never knew what would trigger Neil's survival instinct, and he wasn't going to leave unbent tags behind this time.

Distantly, he was aware that he was dissociating. What had once just felt like walking through too viscous air now had all those fancy psychological word associations, narrated in Bee's voice. She buzzed in his head now, but he ignored her. Knowing what was happening didn't make it happen less.

Andrew let the stadium door fall shut behind him.

Cont'd

By the time Andrew pushed the worn 3 in the Fox Tower elevator, he had decided that he wasn't going to cut himself over this.

Once upon a time, when a younger Andrew had looked up what crime he had to commit to get locked up until he was eighteen, he had still been cutting into his arms. Had carved deep enough that he to this day had numb spots on his left arm, nerves too damaged to ever function again, just another part of Andrew lost to the fucked-up concept of family. It had been a means of survival, desperate efforts to cling to a life he'd never thought possible, a mother he'd never thought possible. He hadn't punished himself (despite what so many of his therapists had thought), quite the opposite, actually. Cutting himself had meant being able to endure Drake in order to become Cass's son, to get the life he hadn't dared to dream of since the age seven. A home, with cookies and hugs and being cared for.

But still, he had cut himself for someone else. Had let himself get destroyed by Drake for someone else.

When he had met Aaron, when Nicky had taken them in, when his bedroom had been safe and his for the first time, he had made a promise to himself: he would never cut himself for another person again, would never cut himself to keep another person. Never again.

So far he had kept this promise. There had still been days that he had survived only because drawing blood had kept him grounded, because the pain reminded him that he was alive and that it was in the past, but the triggers had never been people from after. It had been memories, it had been nightmares, it had been running into an overly affectionate former foster father at the grocery store; his past catching up with him but never his new life forcing a blade under his skin.

Cutting himself belonged to Andrew Doe. When Andrew went to work on his battleground of skin now, he did so because of something that had happened to Andrew Doe, not because of something that was happening to Andrew Minyard.

So no. What he'd seen on the court wasn't going to be a reason to get the knife out of his sock drawer, the knife that was buried even deeper than the rape backpack.

It didn't feel like a victory over some dark impulse of his psyche, the way it sometimes felt when he managed to reveal something to Aaron in therapy that burned on his tongue. Cutting, as dysfunctional as it was, was a viable coping mechanism, and he had no fucking idea how to deal with this without it. For the thousandth time, Andrew wished for a way to erase memories. For a way to forget at least the details, not having to know that he would carry the sound of their moans in his brain until the day he finally died.

Not allowing himself to cut deep enough that the pain overshadowed everything else made him long for the fucking pills. Flying sky-high on medication he was legally required to take absolved him from responsibility for his life, for the choices he made; it was useless to try to steer his life in any direction, to think about goals and make plans when the drugs wouldn't even let him walk in a straight line.

Right now, he wished for the option to laugh about what he couldn't stop but feel. The dissociation provided a fog, but that didn't stop sharp, pointy thoughts from piercing through the veil and leaving him a bloody mess.

Andrew dropped onto the sofa after glancing into their bedroom (Nicky was snoring peacefully) and raiding Kevin's liquor cabinet (the most expensive whiskey, out of spite). He couldn't, wouldn't sleep tonight. Not without sorting through this first.

He stared at his phone, at his first speed dial. Bee would pick up, she always did. But he hadn't told her any of this, and certainly not the reason why he was watching this fragile house of cards that she liked to call "the road to recovery" collapse in front of him.

Andrew had been attracted to both Kevin and Neil from the start (almost, Kevin-with-Riko had sparked disgust and something akin to pity, but that first meeting didn't really count). They couldn't be more different in the way they looked, in the way they handled their bodies, but Andrew hadn't been able to stop staring helplessly ever since.

Kevin, who held his chin up high when the rabid Raven fans hurled eggs and insults at him, who bowed his head when he begged Andrew not to let Riko take him back.

Neil, who tried so hard to stay unremarkable, dying his hair brown and hiding his eyes, who picked the door to his dorm and burst in, yelling in angry French at a man who just needed to remember him to pass a death sentence.

When Renee had asked him, he had shut down the conversation with "What does it matter?"

And yeah, what did it matter?

Neil was asexual and not interested in sex. Kevin was heterosexual and not particularly interested in sex either, only blowing off steam every few weeks when someone at Eden's caught his eye.

Those were the two facts that had protected Andrew, the two facts that had kept him from indulging in the daydreams his brain wanted to torture him with.

Apparently, those two facts were fundamentally, completely wrong.

By the time the strikers returned, glowing with post-coital hormones, he still hadn't found a way to integrate the new knowledge into his world.

Kevin glared at Andrew on his way to the bedroom, probably annoyed that he was still awake after refusing to train with them. Something in Andrew's posture stopped him from a lecture about wasting his time.

Neil stopped in his tracks, looking at Andrew, at the whiskey, and back at Andrew. He raised an eyebrow. "Company?"

Andrew hated him. So much. Both of them. Kevin for not pushing tonight, Neil for asking. He couldn't stop hearing Neil moan. He dismissed him with a flick of his hand and Neil obediently followed Kevin to bed.

Chapter Text

Tuesday morning, August 12th

In the beginning, blowing Roland had been supposed to be the first step toward something bigger, the first step toward a future where sexual encounters could become an interaction instead of a physical form of monologue. Having to handcuff Roland had been a setback, but it had worked.

At some point in the past few years, Andrew had accepted that blowing people he had to restrain so they wouldn't touch him without permission would be the entirety of his sex life. It wasn't a step on the ladder anymore, it was the top where he'd made himself comfortable. He didn't need more, he was fine with the way things were. The potential benefits of other sexual experiences didn't make the risks worth it, a simple calculation.

Seeing Neil fuck Kevin changed things. Many things, but also the factors in the equation.

Neil respected each and every of Andrew's boundaries. He never pushed, taking whatever Andrew was willing to give and thanking him with unwavering trust.

Kevin respected each and every of Andrew's boundaries. He always pushed, but he knew exactly how far he could go. He didn't push for his own benefit, he pushed because he thought it was best for Andrew.

Andrew would deny it at gunpoint, but the strikers were the reason that the time after graduation, when Aaron fucked off to play happy I-am-totally-not-fucked-up family with Katelyn and Nicky returned to Erik, didn't loom over him anymore. He would survive losing his twin, he would survive losing his cousin, as long as he could keep the two men who had never shied away from him in his life. He'd sign for a fucking team in the middle of whatever teams they chose, he'd play the fucking stickball, he'd let Kevin rant about how he should care about his media perception and indulge Neil with extra sessions on the court.

Somehow they had wormed their way into his life and crawled under his skin. Made themselves at home in his emotions, in the plans for a life he had never thought possible, with their unyielding belief that he could make something out of himself, that he could be more than a broken traumatized victim, that he already was more.

It had been easier when it had still been the drugs wanting them, not Andrew. It had been easier when he had been able to blame the drugs, to cuss them out, to hate them for making him feel this way.

Then he had seen a protected and kept-safe Kevin and a battered and bruised Neil in a car park of yet another house of horrors, and he had known he was fundamentally fucked. Had worked through that, because he wanted to postpone the inevitable.

All of this had always been a fragile construct, one that made Andrew want to clutch it in both hands. Once their deals were done, once Kevin was safe from Riko and Neil from Nathan, once they'd sold themselves to the Moriyamas in exchange for a bigger cage and painted it golden with their talk of being free, Andrew had waited patiently for the day they'd give up on him. Had still let them in, because he wasn't fucking learning.

They had lured him into believing that he could keep this, keep them. He'd willingly jumped into the trap set by Kevin researching soon-to-be-open goalkeeper positions with teams within driving distance of the one he'd just signed with Moriyama ink, the trap set by Neil talking about Andrew shutting down the Olympic goal with so much pure excitement.

He should have known better. Should have known he wouldn't get to keep this.

The fragile construct was breaking, because he couldn't stop thinking.

He couldn't stop thinking about possibilities.

He couldn't stop thinking about Kevin's face and the dirty moan echoing against the court walls.

He couldn't stop thinking about Neil's grunts as he fucked Kevin against the goal, each thrust bathing the court in blood, the number of goals on the scoreboard rising steadily.

He couldn't stop thinking about the blanks his brain had filled in, the red marks on Kevin's hips left by Neil's grip, the sweaty strands of Kevin's hair, Neil's dick buried deep in Kevin's ass.

He couldn't fucking stop thinking about the what-ifs.

What sounds he could get from either of them if he swallowed them whole, not having to worry about handcuffs because neither of them would ever touch him without permission. Maybe, fuck, maybe more. He'd sworn to himself that nobody would ever touch his dick again, that he'd gut anyone who tried, but the idea of Neil or Kevin wrapping their hands around it-

Andrew came into his hand, leaning against the chilly tiles of their dorm shower. He let go of his dick and held his hand in the water jet, he couldn't handle the sensation of semen, not today. Not when nausea was so close, when he had to use the techniques Bee had taught him, when he had to remind his body and his brain that he was allowed to do this. That it wasn't bad, that it was different than what had happened to him, that he wasn't doing anything wrong or dirty when he jacked off in the shower.

It didn't work. Hands touched his body, roaming everywhere, ghosting over skin. He wanted to puke, wanted to skin himself, wanted to cut away the part of his brain that controlled his sexuality, the part of his brain that had made him stain his friendship with Neil and Kevin, that had made him think of them with his hand around his dick-

Andrew stumbled back and pressed his naked body against the cold wall. Fumbled with the knob until he managed to turn it to the coldest setting.

The knowledge that nothing would ever come of it had saved him for too long, had allowed him to smother any ideas before they could burn him. Now he had lost control of the situation, of his thoughts. Everything was on fire.

When Andrew finally got out of the shower ten minutes later, he was shivering. He forced himself to look in the mirror, to stare back at his face until he was sure that none of the inner turmoil was bleeding through the cracks.

Tuesday afternoon, August 12th

If any of the topics his professors talked about were going to be on the exam, not even Andrew's memory would help him - he hadn't listened to a word they had said, so there was nothing to remember.

He dreaded practice. Dreaded changing in the same room as Kevin, dreaded where his mind might stray, no matter how much he pulled on its leash, dreaded seeing Neil's excitement, dreaded seeing Kevin's determination. Dreaded seeing Kevin and Neil, period.

Unfortunately but not unexpectedly, not wanting practice to happen didn't stop practice from happening.

Compared to two years ago, both strikers were in peak form. Countless night practices had honed Kevin's ambidexterity into a dangerous tool, he regularly switched between hands without missing a beat. Neil was still the fastest striker in the league, but now there was more experience and power behind his style.

Together they were pretty much unbeatable: Kevin wore down the defense with his stoic, perfectly executed machine-gun fire, Neil exploited every lapse in speed, every little misstep they made. By now, they rarely even needed words, the amount of French on the court had decreased significantly with every month they perfected their matched style of play, shouted instructions were now usually in English or, when Neil was talking to Andrew and his family, in German.

Andrew couldn't help himself. He shut down the goal, denying both strikers point after point after point. He talked to Aaron and Boyd, gave them instructions. He watched Kevin grow more frustrated every time he denied him, watched Neil light up every time Andrew made an impossible save.

When Wymack banged against the court walls to end their one-sided scrimmage, Kevin made one last, desperate attempt to score. Andrew swatted the ball down the entire length of the court, right into the Away goal that Neil had fucked Kevin against last night. It lit up red, the only goal scored in the last twenty minutes.

He needed a fucking shower. Get out of the bulky goalie armor and get the sweat off his body. Wymack watched him with too much intent as he stalked past him to the showers, but Andrew wasn't going to play nice and join the post-training analysis, not today. He slammed the door to the court hallway shut behind him to drown out his team's excited chatter. He could still feel Neil's eyes burning his back all the way to the showers.

Wednesday afternoon, August 13th

Andrew stared at the little marshmallows on top of his hot chocolate. Today was an individual therapy session, Aaron and him only attended the first session of the month together by now. He would have preferred joint therapy, focusing on his twin instead of his own head.

Bee sipped her chocolate and watched him in that quiet, assessing, non-judgmental way that was inherently Bee.

He didn't look good, he'd slept about three hours last night, bringing the sum of hours slept in the last sixty hours to a dashing grand total of three. Andrew was no stranger to sleep deprivation, he had spent most of high school only sleeping every other night, but he wasn't used to it anymore and the physical demands of their practice schedule made the problem worse. The dark circles under his eyes made it easy to tell him from Aaron.

After about five minutes of silence, Bee scribbled something in her notebook. Andrew looked up. "What are you writing?"

His therapist pushed the notebook across the table. Early on, when Bee had just been a name to add to his list of incompetent therapists, they had talked about Andrew's complete lack of trust in the medical system. She had surprised him by being honest about her opinion of his drugs and then offered to let him read her notes anytime. If he didn't want what she wrote in his file, she would shred the paper in front of him.

It had helped build trust. A few sessions were just blank paper in his file, the ones where they had talked about specifics like foster fathers and brothers.

GAF↓50s? -- Withdr | Sleep? MC -- R/t?

"GAF?"

"Global Assessment of Functionality. Ranges from 1 to 90 or 100, depending on the version. It's a quick way to assess the impact of a patient's symptoms on their life. 100 means they are not currently experiencing any symptoms that affect them, a 1 means they are in serious danger of hurting themselves or others. It's not state of the art, but I am using the term in my notes for my general impression. 50s are moderate symptoms with a considerable, but manageable impact.

"You are more withdrawn than you have been in a long time and you are not sleeping, the latter being my main concern. I don't know what has caused this change in your symptom severity, as I'm not aware of major trouble with the team or any relevant anniversaries," she explained the rest of the note without forcing him to ask.

Andrew pushed a marshmallow under the chocolate surface level with his spoon and held his breath. Only when he couldn't keep himself from breathing anymore he let the marshmallow bob back up to the top.

"Dreams," he said quietly.

Bee nodded encouragingly and annoyingly said nothing. She was awfully good at reading his silences and knowing when he would go on without being prompted.

"I dream about- things. Sexual things. I don't want- I know it's not wrong, but it feels like it, and I can't- handle that."

"Is there a specific reason you started dreaming like this or did it come out of the blue? You don't have to talk about the reason if there is one." As always, Bee's voice was calm and warm and neutral. She had never shied away from sexual topics, neither the pleasant nor the past ones.

"Reason," Andrew admitted and smushed the marshmallow against the rim of his cup. "Not gonna talk about it."

"We can go through some exercises that can help deal with the spillover of dreams into the real world, or talk about what happens in your dreams?" Bee offered.

Neither, actually. Andrew watched the marshmallow sludge slide down the mug into the chocolate.

Bee waited him out.

"No nightmares," he finally forced out, putting the mug down to grab hold of his armbands. "Good ones. Until I wake up. It's about ... someone I know." He waited a heartbeat, expecting despite knowing better that Bee would react in some way, would scold him or be disgusted. His past was lurking in the back of his head, asking You wanted it after all, didn't you? and whispering You enjoy it too, don't pretend.

"Andrew," Bee's voice cut through his erratic thoughts. "Breathe with me?"

She counted, Andrew breathed.

"Do you want to talk more about this?" Bee asked after he managed to release the death grip on his forearms. He had slid one thumb under an armband, circling over one of the very bumpy scars from his very early teens - it had taken him a while to learn to stitch himself up properly. The familiar sensation helped.

"Feels wrong. Dirty. I can't- It's. Wrong. Didn't get consent for it, but I can't fucking make it stop. And not only dreams, I- fuck. I jerked off to the image, and- fuck." Andrew hated the desperation in his voice. Stared at his thumb moving under the silky material of the armband.

Bee remained as unflappable as ever. "Do you feel like you are violating them when you dream about them in a sexual way or have sexual fantasies involving them when you masturbate?"

Andrew grunted an affirmative.

"When we started working together, we talked a lot about how you experienced masturbation in general as shameful and how you would remove any sexuality from your life immediately if possible. Over the past three years, that belief system has changed a lot. Do you think the shame and guilt you feel about involving people from your life in your sexual fantasies may be another step on that road?"

He pressed his thumb against the scar hard enough to feel its pulse. "No. Different. Wouldn't want- I don't want them thinking about me either." The words hurt on their way out, each slicing his throat like razor blades, but if there was one person he trusted not to use them against him, it was Bee.

"You are not them," Bee said. "You did not rape this person and you will not rape this person. That makes it impossible for you to be like them."

Andrew nodded once to show he was listening.

"Having fantasies about other people, especially those we are sexually attracted to, is a perfectly healthy facet of human sexuality. You are not violating anyone, least of all in the way you have been violated in the past.

"As we talked about, masturbation can be an important tool in reclaiming sexuality for survivors. I know it's complicated living in a dorm, but can you try to pay extra attention to creating a safe environment for any sexual activity in the next few weeks? Especially in terms of aftercare, think about the list we made. Anything that helps you stay rooted in reality works."

Andrew, of course, remembered the list. They had written it at the end of his first year with the Foxes, when things had started with Roland and masturbation ended in panic attacks more often than not.

He hated it. Needing a tool he hadn't thought about in over a year felt like defeat, like he was going backward instead of making progress.

"Correct me in case I am mis- or over-interpreting," Bee began and Andrew snorted. She rarely got him wrong. "I want to make it very clear that you are not regressing. Coping skills are a toolbox that we are constantly working on to give you a variety of methods to handle whatever challenges you face in a healthy way. Think of the list as a hammer that we put in your toolbox for a particular job. Now there is something else that needs to be worked on, and the hammer can help you with that."

He hummed. He still hated it.

"I also want you to journal about this. Try to write down your emotions without judging them, neither the bad nor the good."

Bee talked a little about her summer vacation while Andrew raised his walls again. They had tried different rituals including meditation exercises, but her doing one-sided small talk worked best. Andrew downed the cold but still delicious chocolate.

"See you next week, Andrew," Bee said gently.

Chapter Text

Thursday evening, August 28th

Neil crashed into the court wall so hard Andrew could have sworn he felt it echo off the plexiglass at his back. The Bearcat's goal lit up red as Kevin drove the point home.

Andrew watched the striker collapse on the floor and gripped his racquet tighter to keep himself from rushing over there. It wasn't the first time Neil made ridiculous moves, but it was by far the most unnecessary and stupid in a long time - they were leading by three points and the incapable freshman had all had their time to disappoint already.

This year, they had established a system of their strongest players taking over the last fifteen minutes of the game: with Aaron, Andrew, and Boyd holding the defense line, a relentlessly offensive dealer sophomore named Helen Smith, and Neil and Kevin as their strikers, they could clean up any messes the newer Foxes left behind.

So there was exactly no reason for Neil to disregard any sense of personal safety or consideration for his health, except for the fact that it was a positively deranged play that would dominate the college Exy news for the next few weeks. Not that the moron cared about that, Andrew was pretty sure that the reason for jumping straight into the wall to pass perfectly to Kevin was simply "because I could do it" in an overly excited voice.

Neil flopped on his back. Kevin was on him in seconds, yelling in angry French - Andrew was far from fluent, but the waterfall of insults was pretty conclusive. The court door opened and Abby rushed onto the field, carrying the large medical equipment bag - the one that included a cervical collar.

Andrew watched as she went through the steps of ATLS.

Neil stared at her with a slight look of confusion, but he opened his mouth and answered everything she asked him. The familiarity with which he removed his glove to give her access to his wrist for the circulation check should have been a warning sign to anyone remotely capable of surviving that he should take better fucking care of himself, but since they were talking about Neil "I'm fine" Josten, it was unlikely that he would learn from the situation.

Kevin's snarled "Soyez honnête, putain" was audible even to Andrew in the goal as Abby guided Neil through moving and bending his extremities. Andrew snorted as Neil looked up at the taller striker with an expression somewhere between defiant and sheepish, and said something else to Abby, probably more honest this time.

After three minutes, she stood up and pointed in the direction of their benches. Neil shook his head, scrambled to his feet, and swayed a little.

Andrew looked at Wymack, who was standing on the other side of the plexiglass, watching their interaction with a grave expression on his face. He pounded on the glass, but Neil only glanced in his direction for a second before going back to arguing with Abby.

The head referee joined the commotion. She interrupted Neil and spoke to Abby, holding up two fingers - the minutes the Foxes had to either get Neil off the court and replaced or back into the game, Andrew guessed.

Abby gave her a strained smile and continued to talk insistently at Neil, who seemed far from backing down.

Andrew looked at his racquet and considered banging it against the court wall, but Kevin beat him to it by interrupting the fight between their nurse and the suicidal striker. The man stepped between them, towering over the much smaller redhead, and said something, too quiet for Andrew to make out any words.

Neil started to say something, but Kevin wasn't finished. At the end of his short monologue, he pointed to their benches. After a few tense seconds, Neil stalked off the court. The cheers that bid him goodbye were, although a little belated, much louder than those that welcomed Kevin's annoying protégé back onto the court. Andrew managed not to stare at Neil sitting on the benches or being examined by Abby, mostly because he was staring at Kevin doing that instead.

The game resumed. Andrew watched his goal light up two times in as many minutes before Wymack pulled him for a sub. He couldn't bring himself to bother, to care about the game.

When Kevin and he had made their deal, it had been Kevin-and-Andrew. Kevin hadn't left Andrew's side, there hadn't been the need to yank on his leash as often as there had been with Aaron, and as annoying as Kevin could be, Andrew had gotten used to his company. Then Neil had thrown himself on the stage of The Fucked Up Foxes, and lured everyone, including Andrew, to fall for him.

After they had defeated the Ravens, Andrew had expected the strikers to become the duo Riko and Kevin had been, only less toxic, and not care about anybody outside of their mentor-protégé relationship. He had waited the rest of his second and the better part of the third year for them to pull away from him. A few months ago, he had begun to believe that they might not do that after all: they kept bugging him about night practices, they kept randomly showing up with coffee during their shared free periods.

Even though they were no longer bound to him by a deal, for some reason they had decided to stay by his side. And Andrew had fucking trusted that not to change.

He knew, technically, that he was spiraling. Bee buzzed in the back of his mind, offering gentle validation and support.

It didn't help.

"Andrew?" Nicky asked as he stalked past him. Wymack considered him and then stepped out of the way, apparently deciding that this was personal business or that he didn't have the nerves to deal with Andrew's antics today; Andrew didn't care either way.

Neil was not there, nor was Abby, apparently she had insisted on finishing his check-up in the infirmary. Good. Andrew didn't want to talk to him right now. He ignored the few press technicians who were setting up everything for the post-game interviews on his way to the locker room and headed straight for the showers.

Stripping in a public space was never going to be pleasant, especially when his brain was off the rails, but the lockable shower stalls made it a little easier. Locked doors had not always been safe, but after more than three years of showering here without interference, he managed. The hot water hit his shoulders and he forced his body through a short session of makeshift PMR, tensing and relaxing one body part at a time while keeping his head underwater.

It drowned out the noise from the stadium, but not the noise in his head.

Saturday, September 13th

"If it makes you feel better, fewer than twenty planes crash every year and it's not always due to the weather. Sometimes pilots are just unreliable. I'm sure it's a quick death either way."

Neil's words, spoken more than a year and a half ago, did in fact not make Andrew feel better, though not necessarily because of the rather unhelpful approach given all the incredibly lucky situations in his life, but because he had already known. Before he'd had to force himself onto a plane for the Foxes for the first time, he had thrown all sorts of keywords into Yahoo, Google, and MSN, eventually landing on a site dedicated to airplane disasters (admittedly not his brightest moment, but researching the topic had seemed like a reasonably good idea under the influence of certain impending doom).

The website had kindly informed him that yes, the number of accidents per flight had dropped rapidly over the past few decades, but the number of fatalities remained the same. They explained it with the higher number of passengers per plane, but Andrew was fairly certain that that was just a stat trick.

He had also learned about fatality rates during different phases of the flight. From take-off to reaching cruising altitude more than half of the people were killed, but except for taxiing to the runway, fatalities always happened.

More than half of the accidents were the result of human error. Neil had also been right about the weather - that was sitting at a comfortable 13%.

In his quest for at least one piece of information that would soothe his nerves, he had also read some information for "Fearful flyers", which had in fact done as much to calm his nerves as Neil had. Andrew didn't believe in higher powers, whether they were called a variation of God or Fate, but low chances of something happening hadn't proven helpful in the past.

Funnily enough, that was not his main problem today. Yes, he was scared shitless, yes, he hadn't slept last night, yes, the thought of getting on that fucking plane made him want to vomit, yes, he was sweating through his fucking shirt even though the layover airport was running its aircons blasting on full intensity. But none of that came close to the two problems that plagued him right now.

It was the first flight this season. Neil and Kevin had apparently decided that he needed babysitting and had bribed him with chocolate to sit down in one of the areas of the airport where he couldn't stare at planes taking off, landing, or crashing into the ground. For the past forty minutes, they had kept up a conversation without him having to say a single word.

It wasn't even fucking Exy. Neil pestered Kevin about the life of Caterina Sforza, an Italian noblewoman who had lived during the Renaissance. The fucking topic of the only high school history presentation that Andrew had not thrown away, the woman had thoroughly impressed him at 17 years old. The strikers had helped Nicky clean out the attic a few weeks ago and found his poster.

This created two very distinct problems, both leading to the same conclusion, which was the biggest fucking problem on his personal pile of shit.

First problem: They remembered Andrew's fascination with the woman after seeing an ugly high school poster that hadn't been thrown away.

Second problem: They actively distracted him from his fear of flying and had been damn well prepared for it. Kevin hadn't known much about Caterina a few weeks ago, Neil didn't give a shit about history unless it was about stickball.

In conclusion, Andrew's biggest fucking problem: They cared. Somehow they still fucking cared about Andrew and went out of their way to make the situation easier for him.

After the game two weeks ago, Andrew had mostly gotten his head sorted. Had made very sure not to walk into them again, had made very sure to keep his thoughts where they belonged. Had made damn fucking sure not to daydream.

And it worked, it fucking worked. He was okay at night practice. He was okay when Neil obeyed Kevin's furious instructions not to try a maneuver again because it wasn't worth the health risk, he was okay when Kevin lit up like a fucking chandelier when Neil stared at him in admiration for scoring on Andrew. He was okay when Neil knocked on the bathroom door while Kevin was brushing his teeth in the morning and left with messy hair. He was okay when he saw the hickeys all over Kevin's shoulder and the other Foxes teasing the striker about them.

He had finally made whatever part of him had ever considered anything else possible understand that any ideas about Neil or Kevin were as good as mental suicide; that it wasn't worth ruining the friendship with either of them.

He had already come to terms with never being with them once, when he had thought it impossible because neither of them was in any way attracted to men (or willing to act on it).

Coming to terms with it again had been harder, the scene on the court burned into his memory and smoldering in his mind, but he had managed. They were just as off-limits and beyond reach as before, it was only the reason that had changed. They were not for him to touch, not for him to have.

That they went above and beyond to make flying easier for him was not fucking part of this plan, and it didn't fucking stop with Caterina Sforza. When Wymack had handed out their tickets earlier, the old man had looked at the seating plan in confusion.

As captain, Neil was in charge of the booking, which always required jumbling seating arrangements until it was fairly reasonable to expect no physical fights between the Foxes. Apparently, Neil had switched seats with Smith at the last minute, trading his window seat for the aisle seat across from Andrew's aisle seat. Historically, Kevin always sat next to Andrew, which placed Andrew between Kevin and Neil and with direct access to the aisle, which was the best seating arrangement for his aviatophobia.

Andrew couldn't help but hate them. Desperately so.

Andrew also couldn't stop himself from following the strikers through airports and bus rides like a fucking lost puppy.

Wymack handed them their hotel room cards as they gathered in the hotel lobby. During the "Who rooms with who?" discussion, which came dangerously close to bloodshed, Andrew had remained quiet, so Kevin and he shared a room as usual.

He didn't want either striker to know that he knew, didn't want to open that can of worms when it wasn't necessary, and he hadn't been able to think of a way to get Neil and Kevin to room without drawing attention to the fact that he was aware of the change in their relationship.

Riko had long since been buried (or whatever his jolly older brother had decided to do with the wretched remains), but it was still known that Andrew rarely let Kevin out of his sight, especially in unfamiliar territory. By now, most of the Raven fans had calmed down, but the ones who still jacked off to Riko's pictures were becoming more and more obsessive, almost as cult-like as the team they had once worshipped had been. That hadn't changed, so he had no chance to change the hotel room arrangement without revealing his knowledge.

Andrew trailed Kevin to their room, ignoring Neil's lingering gaze.

Cont'd

Andrew nearly tripped over nothing as he left the bathroom. Kevin was standing in the middle of their room, tight suit pants already clinging to his legs, his shirt hanging open, showing off his chest.

It wasn't as if Andrew didn't know what Kevin's body looked like. Aside from living with the man for over two years, there had been so many Raven photo shoots catering to the audience in a sometimes subtly, sometimes obviously sexualized way that there were very few people in the Exy world who didn't know how well Kevin could pull off boxer briefs.

But this was different. Andrew hadn't allowed himself even a single glance at not-fully-dressed Kevin in the locker room or during the morning rush in the dorm for the past few weeks. He hadn't been fucking prepared for Kevin to look like this, half-long hair still wet from his shower and dripping on the light gray fabric of his shirt.

Andrew willed his legs into obedience and fetched his own dress shirt. He was still buttoning it when there was a knock at the door.

Kevin let Neil in and Andrew reconsidered his religious beliefs. There was clear evidence for the existence of some kind of devil.

Neil had received a pastel pink package wrapped in parcel tape with Reynold's signature a few days ago. After reading the accompanying card, he had rolled his eyes, muttered something about not needing people to dress him (Andrew disagreed), and tossed the offending package into a corner.

Apparently, he had decided to wear the suit Allison had sent him after all, much to Andrew's distress. Neil had looked gorgeous as hell in the suits he had worn the past few years, but this one was downright cruel. Since the Fall Banquet wasn't as formal as the Christmas one, he had rolled up the sleeves of his dark green shirt, showing off his scarred, defined forearms and accentuating the lean muscles in his upper arms.

Andrew fled to the bathroom and went through the motions of styling his hair the same way he had a few minutes ago already. He focused on the feel of the hair between his fingers, the soft sounds of Neil and Kevin talking in the bedroom, and the cold seeping through his socks until he was reasonably sure that neither striker would see through his mask.

"-sat the Ravens far away from us again, Jeremiah texted me the seating arrangements," Neil said when Andrew returned. Kevin nodded guardedly. The banquets got easier for Kevin every year, with each graduating Raven and each Raven who had never set foot on the court under Riko's eyes, but Neil had put a stop to him getting shitfaced this year.

Andrew forced himself not to think about the implications of Kevin's easy compliance.

Thursday afternoon, October 16th

Practice was hell. For more reasons than usual.

Not only was it loud, not only did the Foxes fight each other every step of the way, not only did this year's cubs collectively suck, not only did people expect Andrew to care about stickball - no, he fucking wanted to. He fucking wanted to be better, to play like he meant it. To mean it.

He wanted to aim Kevin's fierce smile and Neil's unapologetic joy at himself like the weapons of destruction they were, designed to dismantle his curated shell of apathy and offer up his core on a chopping board.

It was boring.

It was invigorating.

It was mind-numbing.

It was mesmerizing.

Andrew imagined a rope stretching from one side of the court to the other, dangling half a foot above Kevin and almost a foot and a half above Neil. He swatted ball after ball against the rope until the strikers caught on, until Neil's steps got even more bounce to reach that high, or dash after the ball if he missed, until Kevin took two steps back to have a better chance at hitting the ball.

He bathed in their attention, devouring every oh-so-telling gesture like forbidden fruit. He hated every second of it, he never wanted it to end.

And that was the problem, wasn't it? Once he let their infectious love for this stupid fucking sport touch him, once he let that carefully smothered spark ignite, he'd burn. Burn all the way down, burn through the layers of recovery and progress until there was nothing left and he once again stood in the ashes of his own making.

He had promised himself that he would never make himself palatable again, that he would never do anything for the sole purpose of making others want him again.

And here he was, breaking that promise to himself one blocked goal at a time, because of two contagious bastards, two bastards who had settled into his life as if they actually wanted to be there for more than just a lack of other options. Two bastards whose affection and attention were water to a man presumed dead long ago. He was burning with unrelenting fire, thirsting violently for their acknowledgment and approval.

Worst of all, they were doing what he craved, adding twist after twist to the vicious circle.

Wymack called a break, and the two useless defense line cubs caught in the crossfire collapsed to the floor, unable to bear the heat of the battle between their starting strikers and goalkeeper.

Neil leaned on his racquet, panting from the miles he had run after the balls Andrew had smashed through his defense. Kevin tore off his helmet and walked over to Andrew's goal, his usually graceful steps now wobbly. Kevin's strength was in his shots, in his arms and torso, in his mind. Not in his legs, and Andrew had made him run, countering the merciless technique with speed and precision, wearing him down as best he could.

Kevin was glowing. He was sweaty, face red and breath wheezing, and he was so beautiful Andrew wanted to use his racquet on him. Destroy Kevin before he would inevitably destroy Andrew.

"That was insane, Andrew," he panted, the wild, dazzling smile the press never got to see lighting up his face.

Andrew snorted. "Insane's my specialty," he said, accepting lightheadedness as the price of a level tone.

"We'll win every game if you play like this," Kevin said and raised his racquet.

Burning, he was burning.

This admission, this lack of "You have to play like this all the time" or "Why don't you always play like this?", this shift from total entitlement to acknowledgment, turned Andrew's stomach upside down. Helplessly, he mirrored Kevin's gesture and clicked their racquets together, all too aware of Neil watching them.

Chapter Text

Friday evening, December 12th

123 days since Andrew had found Neil fucking Kevin on the Exy court.

126 days since Andrew had last knelt for Roland, almost to the dot.

He hadn't allowed himself to blow the bartender. Whatever Bee had said, thinking about Kevin or Neil when he jacked off still felt like he was overstepping boundaries, like he was taking. Wrong. He kept his thoughts under strict control, but so far, he hadn't dared to do more than masturbate in the shower.

After bothering him a few times, Roland had stopped asking. He still mixed their drinks and still got massive tips for it, but Andrew disappeared behind the building to smoke instead of going to the back room; he didn't want to risk Neil noticing a change in his behavior.

It had been two weeks since Kevin-and-Neil had haunted his dreams and behaving normally around them was more real than pretend again. During practice this afternoon, Andrew had found himself thinking about Roland. Until he had leaned against the bar and waited for the bartender to make his way to him, he hadn't been sure if he really wanted to do this again, but with the Christmas banquet and both strikers in suits tomorrow, getting any sexual urges out of his system was a reasonable precaution. If Roland still kept the handcuffs around.

"The usual?" Roland asked in lieu of a greeting.

Andrew nodded and watched him mix their drinks. When the tray was almost full, he asked, "The cuffs still in the back?"

Roland almost dropped the vodka. "Fuck, Andrew- yes, yes they are. I'm on break in twenty minutes?"

Andrew nodded and carried the drinks to the table. Aaron, Katelyn, and Nicky had already gone to dance. Neil's head lay on the table, eyes half closed. Kevin was nowhere in sight.

"Bathroom, started talking to some fans on the way there," Neil explained unprompted.

Andrew offered him one of his drinks. Neil considered him and the glass for a second, before he raised it to Andrew, downed it, and then wrinkled his nose.

Andrew almost smiled at that. Neil still rarely drank and never got more than tipsy in public, but he had found some likes and dislikes. Whiskey Up was not one of his likes.

"One could think you hated yourself for drinking this voluntarily," Neil said.

"That's why I give my drinks to you," Andrew replied drily and offered a second one. Neil took it.

"Has Kevin bought any alcohol this week?" Neil asked.

Andrew raked through his memory and shook his head. Last time, Kevin had stocked up on bottles and only Neil's intervention had saved him from another completely sloshed banquet. Either Kevin had gotten better at hiding his alcoholism or he was actually planning on getting through the Christmas banquet sober.

Andrew told himself that he didn't care.

"Smoke," he said and left Neil to watch the table.

Ten minutes and one cigarette later, he was leaning against the wall next to the staff room, watching the small commotion that was still going on around Kevin. One of the bartenders, who had started around the same time as Andrew and Aaron, was watching the huddle, the fans were excited but respectfully kept their physical distance, and although Neil's head was still on the table, he was also facing that direction; there were zero reasons for Andrew to barge in and remove Kevin from the premises.

He still found himself wanting to and completely unable to stop staring.

"He'll be fine, Lizzy's got an eye on him," Roland said behind Andrew. He barely managed not to jump.

"None of your business," Andrew replied. Roland just smirked at him, knocked on the door to the storage room, and unlocked it.

Not much had changed in there in the last four months. Roland's tote bag with handcuffs, lube, condoms, and wet wipes was still unceremoniously stuffed on a shelf between a bunch of old drink menus and mop head replacements.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy, but what changed?" Roland asked as Andrew kicked the door shut and locked it. It was an open secret that this room was mainly used for fucking, so the staff never entered without knocking, but drunk guests regularly mistook the door for the men's restroom.

"None of your business," he repeated, watching Roland go through familiar motions.

Roland wrapped the rope that connected the handcuffs around one of the shelving columns and put the handcuffs on. In the beginning, he had asked Andrew to do it, but Andrew had refused - he wasn't going to stand on fucking tiptoes, if the man wanted a blowjob, he had to take care of the safety measures himself.

Roland tugged at the cuffs. The shelf didn't budge. Andrew shoved all thoughts about Kevin-and-Neil out of his head and dropped to his knees.

Later that night

Aaron and Katelyn maneuvered a thoroughly drunk Nicky into her car, leaving Andrew with the questionable honor of driving a slightly tipsy Neil and a sullenly sober Kevin back home.

Kevin was physically unharmed when Andrew returned to the table, but whatever the fans had wanted, it had ruined his mood. Neil hadn't been bothered about it and spent the rest of the night talking their ears off about some kind of new Exy maneuver he wanted to try while Andrew was busy hating himself for not being able to stop listening.

Neil lingered in front of the house after the others had gone inside. He was smoking less by now and was usually content to sit in Andrew's smoke bubble, but tonight, he raised his hand in question. Andrew threw the pack and matches at his head and sat down on the porch.

They smoked in companionable silence. Neil actually took more than the first puff instead of just watching his stick burn to the filter. He was beautiful in the dim moonlight, as relaxed and unguarded as he ever got.

"What?" Neil murmured after a while, his eyes almost completely closed.

Andrew didn't answer; there was nothing to say that he was willing to say out loud. Neil took his silence in stride and took another drag on his cigarette.

This was okay.

No, this was more than okay. This was good.

For most of Andrew's life, happiness had been a fairytale told for and by other people. There had been no happiness in his life, no genuine joy, no childlike excitement.

Even before he had turned seven, he had been starved, beaten, and screamed at. He had learned that he didn't belong, that he wasn't wanted, that even when he was good, all it took was one real family emergency, one lost job, one failed marriage to kick him to the curb again. He had learned that calling a place home meant pain, so he had decided not to want it anymore. Had let go of the innocence of being a child and the naive desire for protection.

Then he had turned seven and the last innocence had been pounded out of him in exchange for the first big trigger, a word he still could not even think of without risking his grip on reality.

He had offered his trust twice again as a teenager, once to a woman he wanted to call mother and once to a man who demanded to be called uncle. Both times, the lesson "You're on your own" had exploded in his face.

Andrew was a slow learner, but in the end, he learned his lessons and he did so thoroughly. Happiness had never been and would never be in the cards for him.

Bee had been good with that when they had talked about his goals for therapy - that alone had helped, that agency about what they were going to work on instead of what the most pressing issues were according to her therapy guidelines.

She hadn't batted an eye when he had told her that his goal was to be okay, to get six hours of sleep a night consistently. She also hadn't batted an eye when, intrigued by her gentle acceptance, he had elaborated that he was broken beyond repair, that a happy family life with a partner and the average number of 2.04 kids would never work for him. That college was the dead end for him, that he wasn't going to talk about plans for life after graduation because there was no point.

Over the years, a lot had changed.

Now he was sitting in front of a house where he had never been raped, a house with a bedroom that was safe. He was sitting next to a man who had smiled death in the face as it burned his body, who didn't need Andrew's protection anymore but still stayed by his side. Who had chosen to spend the happily tipsy hour before he inevitably crashed and fell asleep on the spot with Andrew, smoking cigarettes in silence, as if Andrew's presence was worth it.

And somewhere along the way, he had started to believe that. Had started to believe that maybe, maybe, maybe he could keep this for a little while longer. At first, he had rationalized it as an exchange, his protection and then his Exy skills for their friendship, but he still hadn't told either striker that he was going to go pro, he still refused to entertain any conversation about it, and they still stayed by his side. No longer hiding behind him, but standing next to him.

Whatever the fuck had happened, he had found a place to belong. He wasn't ever going to have the life other people led, he would never know a life without cPTSD, but he had learned to live with it, and he was still making progress.

Andrew was 22, and for the first time in his life, he was doing more than waiting to die. For the first time in his life, there was something better than just the absence of pain and humiliation; for the first time in his life, he was happy.

Neil looked at him with a bemused expression.

"What?" Andrew asked, fighting for control of his voice. He might be happy, but he wasn't going to bleed it all over the place.

Neil just shook his head gently and stole another cigarette.

Then the door behind them flung open.

Cont'd

The light in the hallway backlit Kevin's hunched posture. Even before he opened his mouth, it was obvious that he had spent the last thirty minutes inhaling whatever alcohol he had found.

"Neil," Kevin slurred. Neil had frozen, staring up at the man looming over them.

"You're drunk," he said slowly. Andrew appreciated that, it saved him the trouble of stating the obvious.

"Need to talk to Andrew." Kevin swayed a little and grabbed the door frame for support. He missed the mark by a wide margin, stumbling forward a foot or two before regaining his balance.

Neil looked at Andrew, who raised an eyebrow. It wasn't his alcoholic boyfriend doing his best to get absolutely plastered, he had no explanations. With a sigh, Neil stood up.

"I'll go pour the leftovers down the drain, if there are any," Neil muttered darkly and closed the door behind him.

Andrew's eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the relative darkness again. Kevin stumbled down the three steps of the porch and planted himself in front of Andrew. If it hadn't been Kevin and if he hadn't been so drunk, it might have been threatening, as it was, it only made Andrew curious - what the fuck?

"Roland," Kevin said after they had stared at each other for a minute. Andrew exhaled cigarette smoke. Well.

"Bartender at Eden's, 25 years old, brunette, white-"

"Andrew."

"Goalkeeper at PSU, 22 years old, blo-"

"Andrew."

"Kevin."

"You can't be gay."

Andrew closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Except for Neil and Renee, he hadn't talked to anyone about his sexuality. In fact, he had only talked to Renee about it and she had told Neil. Andrew didn't particularly like to talk about it. Especially not with Kevin, for this very reason.

He took a drag on his cigarette and let Kevin marinate in silence. It didn't take long.

"It's- you can be Court, Andrew. You can't be gay."

And wasn't that funny? What had Kevin said about Neil more than two years ago?

"It'll be easier if he remains heterosexual. Imagine the impact it would have on his career."

He doubted that Kevin remembered what Neil had said back then, but Andrew still couldn't help but reply, "We aren't really having this conversation."

Kevin pressed his hands to his hips and stared at Andrew, face a thundercloud.

"Yes, we fucking are. You need to be more careful. Get a beard so no one looks too closely."

Be more careful. Fucking be more careful.

"Fuck off, Kevin," Andrew warned him.

Apparently, Kevin had drowned caution in liquor. "No, Andrew, this is important, I'm worried about your career, I don't wan-"

"You do not get to lecture me about this." He didn't have to try hard to put steel in his voice.

"Andrew, don't be difficult," Kevin insisted.

Andrew had enough. "Worry about your own career and get off your high horse, Kevin Day. Getting fucked by your co-starting striker isn't exactly the most heterosexual thing to do if said striker is a guy. So shut the fuck up, will you?"

Kevin froze. "You," he started and then fell silent again, staring at Andrew as if he had just admitted his undying love for Riko Moriyama.

Andrew stubbed out his cigarette and tossed it into the small trash can Nicky had put on the porch for him.

"You know?" Kevin said, voice breaking at the second word.

Andrew wasn't in the mood to answer stupid questions, so he pushed himself up.

"How long?" Kevin demanded to know.

"Long enough to know that I don't give a fuck," Andrew lied and left the striker to his misery.

Saturday afternoon, December 13th

Andrew hadn't slept until the sounds of Neil and Kevin moving around the house downstairs had died down. He had kept his door closed and focused on not listening when he went to the bathroom; he didn't want to hear what Kevin was telling Neil or what Neil had to say about it.

After getting back to Palmetto in time for the bus to the Christmas banquet, Andrew had planted himself in his back row with a book Renee had sent him and alternated between reading and mentally preparing for the evening. The banquet was hosted by the Belmonte Terrapins, so at least they didn't have to fly there and would be back early Sunday morning; as expected, the vote to not stay for the second day had been unanimous. The Foxes had gained some respect in the division and were being treated better as a result, but the collective memory of the condescension of past seasons lingered.

After a stop at a gas station, Andrew gulped down a sugary energy drink and pretended not to see Kevin's withering stare. At least the man was still sober. For now.

A few minutes after they were back on the road, Neil dropped into the row in front of him.

"What?" Andrew asked after a few minutes of the redhead patiently waiting for him to stop reading. He had been reading the same sentence over and over again, without understanding any of the meaning.

"Will it be a problem? Kevin and me?" Neil asked.

As much as Andrew usually appreciated Neil's habit of getting right to the point, he fucking did not appreciate having to talk about this. Not after thirty-six hours of zero sleep. Not when he hadn't worked out what it meant that first, Kevin knew he was gay, and second, Kevin and Neil knew he knew (if he hadn't been this close to the edge, he might have appreciated the irony of going through this middle school level of drama in his early twenties, but right now it simply sucked).

"The concept of gay sex horrifies me," Andrew deadpanned.

Neil smirked. "I don't want it to change anything between us," he said then, expression sober again.

Did Wymack still bring an emergency vodka bottle for Kevin? Andrew fucking needed a drink. Or to jump out of the moving bus. Neil and he could be scar buddies on another level. He felt a slightly hysterical laugh bubble up inside him and strangled it.

"Andrew," Neil insisted.

"Neil," Andrew replied helplessly.

"Kevin will get over you being gay, he's just projecting. After that, will we be okay?" Neil gestured between himself, somewhere in the front of the bus, and Andrew.

Neil was so wrong and so right. Andrew was annoyed by Kevin's lecture and couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't get a little ugly if the striker tried again, but that didn't change shit. It didn't affect whether they would be okay. That depended solely on Andrew keeping his fucking head under control and not fucking everything up.

Last night he had been quite sure he would be able to do that.

He should have known better. Should have known that good things never stayed, not for him.

He knew that it was mostly the lack of sleep, the lack of time alone to process this, and the vague invasion of his privacy talking, but today? Today it felt like a huge fucking unsolvable problem. Something that wouldn't get any better over a cup of chocolate in Bee's office, that wouldn't get any easier to deal with by sitting close to the edge on the roof.

"Don't ask me stupid questions," Andrew said after a minute.

Neil tilted his head. Whatever he found in Andrew's carefully blanked expression seemed to be enough.

"Can't guarantee that, I'm pretty stupid," he replied breezily and returned to the front of the bus.

Andrew spent the next few hours staring at the same page.

Sunday afternoon, December 21st

Renee tapped on the mat and Andrew pushed himself off her. She was stopping by on her way to Reynold's, taking his "do whatever you want" response to her inquiry to visit him as the invitation it was.

Kevin and Neil had dragged Nicky to Exites, and Aaron and the cheerleader were on a disgustingly hetero ice-skating date, so after suffering through a Christmas movie night with everyone, Andrew and Renee had most of Sunday to themselves.

"You're slow, Walker," Andrew said and leaned against the sofa they had pushed against the wall to make room for sparring in the middle of the living room.

"I'm still working out, but it's not the same," Renee panted. Andrew handed her a bottle of water. "And you're fast today."

He decided to ignore that remark and the subject she was hinting at as long as she would let him - he had felt her gaze all evening last night, watching his every interaction with Kevin and Neil.

As far as Andrew knew, no one but him knew about Kevin-and-Neil, but he didn't put it past Renee that she had figured it out. Neil had fallen asleep on the sofa next to Kevin yesterday, his head resting on the taller man's shoulder - innocent enough that none of the others had batted an eye, but Natalie had learned to pay attention to the relationships of the people around her in order to survive, and Renee had never broken the habit.

To distract her from the messy underbelly of his life, Andrew asked about hers. About Reynolds, about the Peace Corps, about her mother. Renee indulged him, glowing whenever she mentioned her girlfriend.

Whatever she saw in Reynolds, it was clearly working. They had been circling around each other their entire fifth year, and Renee had finally made the first move a few days before they moved out of Fox Tower. Long distance for at least a few years had scared her, but Reynold's money bought enough planet tickets to smooth the waters.

"How about you?" Renee finished a lengthy tale about Thanksgiving. Fence season was apparently over.

"Peachy," Andrew replied and stood up. He needed a cigarette.

Renee smiled a holy smile and followed him to the porch, wearing one of Reynold's old PSU hoodies.

"I want to know how you are doing, if you are willing to share it with me," she repeated calmly.

Andrew took a drag on his cigarette and played with the left-over match. "Been worse."

She waited patiently. Andrew hated her. Playing the waiting game was his thing, but both Bee and Renee regularly used it against him, somehow more adept at enduring silence than he was.

"It's not official yet, but they want Neil with the Kansas Bulls. Kevin has signed with the Toronto Devils," he said when the thick silence threatened to suffocate him. Most athletes signed their professional contracts in their fifth year, but the Moriyamas had greased the wheels to pull on their pets' leashes and remind them of their place.

"Muller of the Chicago Tigers is rumored to be retiring next fall," he said then. The words tasted like sweet ash. Muller was the starting goalkeeper. They had two other goalies closing in on thirty, they needed fresh meat. Since his second year, Andrew had been at the top of all goalkeeper statistics, even though he sometimes arsed about.

Renee's smile was golden. "That would put you right in between."

He hummed.

She didn't let him off the hook yet. "Have you told them yet?"

He hadn't. In fact, he had barely spoken to either of them since the Christmas banquet. Which Renee had probably picked up on yesterday - Kevin was sulking and Neil was offering olive branch after olive branch, but Andrew couldn't bring himself to deal with either of them. Renee was too observant to miss that he hadn't said a single word.

"Nope," he said, popping the word.

"I'm sure they would be overjoyed," she said. Not gently. She was testing the waters.

He hummed with as little inflection as he could muster.

Renee toyed with the bottle in her hand. "Is it okay if I talk about what I think about them? And you?"

It wasn't, not really.

Andrew didn't want Renee to say things. Again, Renee and Bee were too similar for his liking. He didn't want to be called out on shit he did or thought, he didn't want them to understand him, to see him.

Andrew was also, unfortunately, too self-aware to simply act on that impulse. Instead, he stepped back and looked at it as Bee had taught him, using the time Renee was quietly waiting for him to make up his mind.

A few years ago, he would have just shrugged and let Renee talk. Nothing people said had affected him, he'd been flying too high, and even off meds he hadn't let anything get close. It had taken quite some time with Bee before he let her words do more than just be words.

Then Kevin and Neil had happened, both stabbing his armor over and over again, with no intention of doing any real damage.

Renee had always kindly kept her distance, not pushing for anything. Asking a question here and there, but never running after him when he just walked away.

And that was the fucking problem; he knew he wasn't going to walk away now. If he allowed her to say whatever was on her fucking mind, it wouldn't just be water off a duck's back to him. Not anymore.

Knowing better, but being a fool nonetheless, Andrew nodded.

"Your dynamic has shifted," Renee stated. She waited a heartbeat, but he had nothing to say.

"They've both always been circling around you, but now you're pushing them away more than before. And I assume it's been like that for a while."

Andrew played with his cigarette pack to keep himself from fidgeting with his armbands. The way Renee phrased this made it clear that she had been thinking about it for the last few hours. It still made him angry, because if he wasn't angry, he would feel something else entirely.

"I'm not doing shit," he gritted out.

"Andrew," she said softly. "What happened?"

They didn't fucking circle around him. Maybe they had, when he had still been useful as a protector, but now they didn't need him anymore. And they were both growing past their traumas, while he was stuck being fucked up. He'd follow them as long as he could, but the distance was growing. Eventually, he'd be left behind, out of sight and mind.

"Nothing," he said.

Renee considered him for a long minute. "Their relationship with each other has changed."

Andrew worked his jaw around all the words he wouldn't say.

Renee waited.

Andrew slouched against the post.

Renee waited.

Andrew grunted. He put effort into the grunt, making it a complicated, multi-dimensional sound to convey all the things he didn't want to say out loud.

Renee waited.

"Kevin knows I'm gay," he offered another one of the Things That Had Happened.

Renee waited.

He hated her. "I saw them fuck on the second Monday night of the semester. Last weekend they found out I know."

Renee waited.

Why did he put up with her? "Kevin saw me with Roland at Eden's. He tried to lecture me about the implications for my career."

Renee winced.

"'Getting fucked by your co-starting striker isn't exactly the most heterosexual thing to do if said striker is a guy,'" Andrew recited.

Renee snorted. "I take it that went over well?"

"Splendidly."

"Are you okay with him knowing?"

Andrew shrugged. "As long as he keeps his mouth shut about possible impacts on my career."

"And with them being a thing?"

Andrew flicked ash onto the grass. "What does it matter?"

A joyless smile played across Renee's face. It was a smile thoroughly unlike Renee, but it didn't quite feel like Natalie's, either. "It matters to me. You deserve to be happy too, Andrew."

It was Andrew's turn to snort. "Because people get what they deserve?"

Her smile turned holy. "Don't nitpick my choice of words after my first sparring session in months. You know what I mean."

Andrew pushed himself up. "Ice cream?" He knew what she meant, but he refused to think about it.

He felt Renee's eyes pierce his back, but she followed him inside without saying another word about Kevin, Neil, or Kevin-and-Neil.

Chapter Text

Later that night

After dropping Renee off at the airport, Andrew drove aimlessly through Columbia. He needed to sort his thoughts, but he couldn't do it at the house, not with Kevin and Neil both there. He needed to get himself under control after Renee had torn him open so gracefully, and he needed to do it fast. Tomorrow, Erik would arrive and Andrew would need every ounce of strength not to commit murder during the insufferable mixture of over-the-top German and US-American Christmas holidays.

The question that had been asked, if not explicitly, had fucked with his head. Just nine days ago he'd had it all so clear, sitting on the porch with Neil and being happy. Now everything he had figured out going up in flames.

Was he okay with the way things were? No, he wasn't. He had no idea how he was going to sleep tonight, no idea how he was going to interact with Kevin or Neil, no idea how he was going to talk to Bee about it, no idea how he was going to deal with the fact that he didn't want to go home until the strikers were asleep.

And that was it, wasn't it? The problem, the big problem he couldn't ignore anymore after Renee had slapped it in his face, in her gentle, kind, brutally ruthless way.

It had taken him a long time to feel safe in the Columbia house. Partly because Aaron's grief and fury had ruined all of Nicky's attempts to create a sense of home, but mostly because it had always been dangerous to feel at home anywhere.

And now he didn't want to go home.

Until he had seen them fuck, his attraction to either of them had not been a problem. It had been there, constantly, all the time, coloring every interaction in a different light, but it hadn't been a problem. It hadn't affected what Bee and he had worked for.

Then he had caught them and he had dealt with that, too. It hadn't been pretty, but he had been able to get it under control. To get himself under control, because only he had known about it.

Now, he couldn't fucking do that. He couldn't control what Neil or Kevin would do, now that they knew that he knew.

He had to figure out how to either get his head under control and in a position where he could deal with whatever Kevin and Neil did, or he had to change something about this entire situation. He didn't want to think about what measures that might take, didn't want to entertain the idea that life without them might be duller but safer for him; but he also wasn't going to let this ruin the progress he had made in the last few years.

The house in Columbia was safe. He wasn't going to give that up.

"Bee," Andrew muttered, too quiet to be heard over the ear-shattering music. He needed to talk to Bee.

Their next session was ten days away. He could call or text her, but there was no way they work this out in only one session. Having made the decision to talk to her about it already helped. Andrew was good at perseverance. He had to make it ten days, then Bee could help him figure this out. Dividing his energy into ten days was doable, didn't feel like a void that would swallow him whole. He was good at enduring for a limited period of time.

Andrew backtracked the roads he'd taken in the past hour and headed home.

Cont'd

The house was dark when Andrew parked the Mas. He felt a little less off-kilter now, but he was still glad he wouldn't have to deal with either the strikers or his family.

He quietly unlocked the front door and slipped into the dark hallway, avoiding knocking over Kevin's gear that was leaning against the wall by half an inch and stepping over Neil's shoes.

He froze on the way to the stairs when he heard low whispers coming from the living room. Whispers that included his name.

Andrew generally considered himself above childish antics like listening at doors. As he inched closer to the ajar door, he also decided that today was not the day to hold himself to high standards.

"—doesn't talk to me at all." Neil.

"He shouldn't be mad at you." Kevin.

"I don't think he's mad."

"Then what?"

"I don't know."

"I won't apologize. He's risking his career. He could come out after he signs his first pro contract, but until then he has to stay in the closet."

Andrew took a measured breath. It didn't make it much better that Kevin had said this in one way or the other to his face already, it still pissed him off.

"Kevin. He doesn't need to play to survive, he's not like us," Neil said. Whether he meant their unhealthy addiction to Exy or the Moriyamas was up for debate. 'He's not like us' got filed away to mull and over-interpret later.

"He's too good to end up on some third-class team," Kevin all but whined.

"It's his choice."

"He's making a stupid choice. And now he won't talk to me anymore because I told him it's a stupid decision."

"Kevin."

Kevin groaned in lieu of a response.

Andrew turned to go back upstairs, he had heard enough.

A racquet crashed to the floor with a loud thud as he knocked it over. It hadn't been there the last time he had seen the hallway with the lights on.

Neil threw open the door, halfway geared up for a fight, one of Kevin's heavy history books in his hand. Upon seeing Andrew, he visibly deflated.

"Andrew," he said.

Andrew bent down and picked up the racquet. Aaron's. Even after six years of more or less living together, Aaron still hadn't learned that there were designated places to put stuff. Like the wall next to the front door, where all the fucking stickball gear was.

"Did you hear us talking?" Neil asked.

Andrew put the racquet next to Kevin's.

"Andrew."

Had Neil forgotten his memory? Most people weren't prone to forgetting their names, for Andrew it was downright impossible without some kind of major brain damage.

Kevin showed up behind Neil. "What the fuck is your problem?" He winced when Neil elbowed him in the side but kept his glare up.

"I do not have a problem," Andrew lied.

"You're not even talking to Neil. If you're pissed at me for telling you to be more careful, go ahead. But Neil has nothing to do with this."

If only it were that simple. Andrew would gladly take a world in which Kevin needling him about his career was the only fucking problem, but as usual, he didn't get his way.

"Neil can speak for himself," Neil muttered.

"But you don't fucking do and I can't stand him treating you like that," Kevin sneered.

Under different circumstances, Andrew might have been impressed. Kevin standing up for something other than Exy and far away from the court was a wonder to behold, but right now it just pissed him off more.

"Shut up, Day," he warned.

"What the hell is your problem? If one of us has done something wrong, then fucking tell us so we can fix it," Kevin spat.

Andrew considered pointing out that Kevin had indeed behaved like an asshole, but he didn't feel petty enough - whether Kevin understood what this was about didn't exactly matter.

"You haven't done anything wrong," he stated calmly.

"So what's your fucking problem?"

"That is the fucking problem, Day."

"Then talk. Talk about the fucking problem."

"I can't stand you," Andrew said, turned around, and went back to his room.

Neither striker followed him, which was the first good decision they made tonight. Andrew resisted the temptation to slam the door, simply because he did not have the energy to deal with an Aaron whose precious cheerleader's beauty sleep had been disturbed.

His room was silent and empty. He bolted the door and dug a bottle of vodka out of his drawer.

The line between solitude and loneliness was thin tonight, and he refused to find out where exactly it was drawn. 'He's not like us' played in his head, on repeat, until he drowned it in alcohol.

Monday afternoon, December 22nd

Andrew swung his legs from the edge of Fox Tower. His heart was pounding against his ribs as the too-distant ground sang its siren song, luring him down.

The chances of surviving a fall from this height were fifty-fifty. Or rather, a jump; falling from a building implied an accidental character, while jumping clearly pointed to suicide. It had always struck Andrew as odd. If he weren't desperately, stupidly clinging to survival, he'd walk over the edge and fall, not jump.

No dramatic, tragic slamming of the book, just the quiet end of a page no one wanted to read anyway.

They had returned to campus for two nights to escape the scene of Nicky and Erik's reunion. Neil had asked about night practice, but Andrew hadn't been able to get himself to say yes. Last night's fight was still hanging over them, every interaction awkward and stilted in a way it hadn't even been at the Christmas banquet. He was so tired.

The roof door made a screeching sound as it opened.

"Can I sit with you?" Neil asked quietly a few seconds later, somewhere behind him.

Andrew considered telling him to go. Was about to do so. But then Neil would actually leave, and he didn't want him to. The boundaries between solitude and loneliness were still blurry. "You can do whatever you want."

Neil dropped carelessly onto his butt, close enough to the edge to send Andrew's heartbeat into overdrive. He looked tense and determined, like he dreaded what he had to do but was set on doing it anyway.

"I'm sorry," Neil said without further preamble, leaving Andrew reeling.

"I think I figured it out. I figured out what the problem is. And I'm sorry," Neil stressed. "I didn't know you liked Kevin. I didn't even know I did, until it just... happened."

In the periphery of Andrew's vision, he saw the ash from his cigarette fall onto his sweatpants. He breathed. He pulled on his cigarette, once, twice.

He was acutely aware of the fact that Neil was still looking at him. Expecting a reaction, or at least patiently waiting for one.

Denying everything Neil had just said was the easiest option. It also became less believable with every second of thick silence between them.

Besides, Andrew didn't want to lie. Not to Neil.

Boiled down to its rawest essence, his relationship with Kevin had been built on the fact that they had needed each other.

Kevin had needed someone to stand between him and Riko.

He had needed someone to believe in him, who believed that he was worth more than the number on his cheek, that he could be someone outside the comforting prison of Riko's shadow and without a puppet master at his back. Andrew had been willing to fight Riko physically (happily so), but that had never been the point of their deal: If Riko had decided to let Kevin be kidnapped, Andrew would have died in the crossfire, Riko would have survived the championship, and Kevin would be wearing black and red. But Riko's pride hadn't allowed for that, he had needed Kevin to come back willingly, to crawl and grovel and beg for forgiveness. Kevin had needed Andrew so that he wouldn't obey the deranged siren call.

Andrew had needed someone to believe in his future.

A juvenile delinquent, released early on good behavior attributed to wrong reasons (he had put in the effort for blown pupils and bruises on a carbon copy, not to salvage the smoldering pile of his own life), violent enough to be put in a chemical prison, useful enough at stickball to accept his family as his terms and conditions. Kevin had seen him play, and Kevin had ignored all the warning signs, all the spikes and defenses. Kevin knew he was capable of killing and desperately wanted him to pick up a racquet. Andrew had needed Kevin so he wouldn't stop trying once the chemicals stopped pushing him on and on and on and on.

With Neil, the foundation was different. It was truths, it was truth.

Neil had lied to him, had left out important parts and molded his story, but in the end, he had come clean. It had taken many sessions with Bee for Andrew not to resent the lies he had always known were there. He hadn't believed the redhead was telling the whole truth until the second Neil had asked Andrew to follow him into an FBI interrogation room.

Andrew had flayed himself open to learn more about Neil, keeping their exchange even. He had demanded cruel answers from Neil and been asked cruel questions in return, but lying had never been in the cards.

It burned him, but he didn't want to risk losing Neil over a lie.

So he wasn't going to lie.

Andrew pulled his knee up and rested his chin on it, staring down at the parking lot with the few too-tiny cars and fewer too-tiny people. His heart was still beating to the rhythm of his phobia, stumbling with every careless move Neil made, so close to the damn fall.

"My turn," he said. They hadn't played their game in over a year, it hadn't been necessary. Somehow, it both felt like a step forward and like a step backward to their first year together. Andrew tilted his head and stared at Neil, needing to see the truth in his face. "Would it have changed anything?"

Neil froze for more than two seconds. Both seconds stabbed Andrew in the chest. Neil was never still, was a force of nature always in fluid motion. Unless he was cornered, unless he was pinned against the wall, unless he was conserving energy and assessing the best escape route.

He wasn't looking for an escape route anymore, the runaway had become a fighter somewhere along the line, but the familiar tell was still there.

"Not for me," Neil replied softly, wrapping the words in gentleness that didn't suit him. Or hadn't suited him before? Andrew had been fundamentally wrong about him once, the precedent was set.

"So what does it matter?" Andrew offered the conclusion he had come to dozens of times already.

"It does," Neil stupidly insisted.

Andrew scoffed and lit another cigarette. The striker held his hand, half an inch away from brushing his fingers against Andrew's hand. The cigarette changed owner. He lit another one.

It does.

Their relationship was built on truth.

Fuck it all, Andrew believed Neil, he believed that Neil cared about him, that Neil was sincerely apologizing, even though he had done nothing wrong, just because Andrew had been caught in the crossfire.

"When did you find out?" Neil asked after a minute.

"Second Monday night of the semester," Andrew replied. He frantically pushed the memory away, shoving Neil's moaning and Kevin's panting down into the pit of thoughts not to be thought.

"Oh," Neil replied and blushed.

Fuck the universe, honestly. Neil didn't have it in him to blush, especially outside of Exy-related conversations. You've been wrong about a lot of things lately.

"The court?" he asked.

Andrew nodded, painstakingly fighting to control his expression, his breathing, his body language. He wasn't lying to Neil, but that didn't mean he needed to fire off truths on all fronts.

"It started a few weeks before that," Neil said quietly. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

Andrew shrugged. "You didn't have to."

"I wanted to. I just didn't know how."

Andrew hummed. It didn't matter. Neither the apology nor the reasons for it. He knew Neil meant it, but that didn't make it matter. Words were words and words remained words.

Neil took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. He toyed with his cigarette. He fidgeted with his shoelaces, with the cord of his disgustingly orange hoodie, with the armbands Andrew had given him so long ago. He took another breath.

Andrew was good at waiting.

Neil wrapped the cord of the hoodie around his finger until the tip changed color. Frowning, he unwound it again.

"My turn," he said and Andrew closed his eyes. He could call off their game, but their relationship was built on truths. They were even, right now either one of them could ask for the next truth.

"Will you be okay, with Kevin and me being a... thing?"

Andrew let his head fall back, exposing his throat. It didn't matter, Neil knew a dozen ways to kill him anyway, and yet he used his words to murder Andrew. It was cruel in a fundamentally Neil way, cruel in the same way he asked questions like "You spend all this time watching our backs. Who's watching yours? Don't say you are, because you and I both know you take shit care of yourself." Questions that made it impossible for Andrew to ignore things he'd been happy to ignore. Cruel because it wasn't cruel, lacking all intention of doing damage and doing it anyway.

"Don't ask me stupid questions," Andrew replied after a minute.

Neil glared at him. "Humor me."

"Would it change anything?" Andrew asked back. They hadn't needed to talk in circles like this for ages. He hated it. He hated that he needed it now.

Neil fidgeted with his armbands again. "If it means losing you, then yes." The expression on his face was scorching and Andrew burned. Neil had said almost exactly that once before, almost exactly in this place, after he had surrendered himself to Riko in a vain attempt to keep Andrew safe. And since then, he had kept that promise, had stayed at Andrew's side.

He couldn't lose him. He wouldn't fucking survive it because he had been stupid enough to let the strikers close enough.

Andrew breathed, purposefully. Fuck box breathing, too complicated. Just focus on exhaling slowly, trick your nervous system into thinking you're safe even when you're anything but.

Neil watched him for another second and then looked away, turning his head to let Andrew regain his composure.

He couldn't fucking answer the question. He couldn't fucking do it. How was he supposed to explain that it wasn't just Kevin, that he wanted both of them with every fiber of his fucked up existence? He knew he wouldn't get either of them, he knew knew knew. There was no point in telling Neil.

There was no pretty way to say it. He couldn't veil it, he couldn't hide it or cloak it under layers of words; Neil had asked a question of truth.

He worked his jaw around the words that formed in his brain.

He didn't want to tell Neil about his attraction. He wanted him to know so they could move on without landmines lurking in the foundation of their friendship, but he didn't want to tell him.

Andrew scooted a little closer to the edge, grabbing the fire escape railing next to him for support as he looked down at his dirty shoes and the ground beneath them, far too far away. His breath hitched as the ground tried to pull him down. Neil was shuffling next to him, but no part of Andrew had to brace itself for non-consensual touch.

Neil's hand appeared in front of his face, hovering a few inches away. "Andrew," Neil said.

Andrew tore his eyes from the abyss. His heart pounded against his ribcage.

He wasn't going to tell Neil that he had planned to talk to Bee about this. It was one of his rules about therapy; in the past year, he had sometimes talked to Kevin or Neil or both of them about something that had been a topic in therapy, but only afterward. Never before. Therapy couldn't become a space where he talked about things because he had promised someone that he would bring them up. Therapy was his space.

"Your thing is yours," he said after another minute of silence. "I won't intrude."

He wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't. Andrew closed his eyes again. Maybe it would get easier after being rejected, when they knew about it all. With everything out in the open, they could find a new normal (there was hysterical laughter in the back of his mind).

Neil fiddled with his shoelaces. "Not what I asked."

Andrew glared at him. "I hate you."

The striker shrugged, not taking the bait of distraction.

"This is more than what you asked for. Truth on credit, remember?" Andrew said.

Neil nodded.

"I will be okay. I'll get over both of you."

He could see the wheels turning behind Neil's all too blue eyes. Andrew no longer had any illusions about being able to hide his truth in honesty anymore, Neil had spent too much time learning how he communicated.

The second everything clicked into place, those damned eyes widened.

"Both of us," Neil repeated slowly.

Andrew hummed. It should probably have felt more humiliating than it did (Bee buzzed in his head, gently chiding him for that choice of words), but whatever hopes his medicated brain had nurtured in the beginning, he had buried them all long ago.

And it wasn't that he didn't understand. Rejection was familiar in the way it was wrapped around his life. He was broken, beyond repair (Shut up, Bee, not the point). Kevin and Neil were broken in their own ways, but they had fewer edges to cut yourself on, they healed and grew more than Andrew ever would. They had a shitload of options, including each other. The fact that they were the only people Andrew could even entertain thinking about didn't mean there had to be any reciprocity.

He would be fine being on his own.

"Why did you never say anything?" Neil asked, voice quiet and small.

"I'm self-destructive, not stupid. I know better," Andrew replied. It wasn't a question of truth anymore, so he could get away with the half-lie.

Neil stared at him and opened his mouth as if to say something. He closed it again.

In another situation, rendering Neil speechless would have made Andrew's day. Today it fed the tension in his body and increased the speed with which he had to play whack-a-thought.

"Okay," Neil said after a seemingly endless pause.

Well, that was that. Andrew hadn't expected anything else, it still hurt. Andrew lit another cigarette and offered it to Neil.

They smoked in silence until Andrew couldn't take the way he still craved Neil's presence anymore.

"Leave."

Fuck. His voice wasn't as neutral as he wanted it to be, wasn't as calm and collected as he needed it to be. He was burning and bleeding and his voice betrayed him.

Neil flinched.

Andrew turned to the side and watched the striker go as he had asked him to. It was a miserable feeling that tore him apart on the inside. He was thankful for it, thankful that Neil respected his boundaries despite everything, even if it hurt them both.

With a soft thud, the door closed behind Neil.

Chapter Text

Cont'd

Silence didn't help. Being alone didn't help.

Neil being gone didn't help.

Andrew stared at the sunset, his thumb hovering over Bee's speed dial. She'd pick up, she always picked up when this phone rang, no matter the time or day.

He didn't want to talk to Bee.

It made him sick, but he didn't want to talk to Bee.

He wanted to go and join Kevin and Neil for night practice. Get engulfed in their fierce determination, in their unrelenting joy, in their unapologetic love for stupid fucking stickball.

To love something unconditionally, to be willing to destroy yourself for something, and to believe with all your heart that it would never happen.

Andrew didn't get it. He had tried it, had tried to destruct himself meticulously for Cass, and where had it left him?

He wanted to get it. Desperately. Wanted to understand Neil's decision to join the Foxes and then not run when any sane person would have, wanted to understand Kevin making that tattoo appointment and facing his abuser, chin held high.

Andrew made fun of them, taunted them and their love for Exy. Their relationship with the sport was toxic, no question, but deep down he desperately wanted what they had.

Pathetically, he wanted to love something and feel loved back. Feel like it wasn't a futile act, like it wasn't automatic self-destruction to love and dare to hope for love in return.

He wanted to go and watch them play, repeat the same drill hour after hour after hour until they got it right, until there was no margin left for error, until they could do it blindfolded. He wanted, needed, craved to see them give their all to Exy so that maybe he could believe that at some point in his life, he might have something like that. Someone or something.

Angrily, Andrew wiped a stray tear from his cheek.

Crying hadn't been cathartic for almost two decades. Tears had been dangerous, no matter what caused them - his foster parents didn't care if he cried out of the physical pain or the psychological one, they just cared that he wasn't good. Tears told secrets, so Andrew had unlearned how to cry around the same time he had unlearned how to smile.

With the progress in therapy and learning from scratch how to deal with emotions after the chemically enforced dis- and over-regulation, his body didn't play by his rules anymore. Bee had said it was normal and healthy when he had complained to her about it. That it was common for abuse survivors, especially those who had been subjected to abuse at a very young age, to become extremely emotional, to cry about things that had never bothered them before.

Andrew was okay with that. In theory. If he started crying over kitten videos, he could watch them in private and get it all out.

He wasn't okay with the extra layer of complexity that tears added to his current misery.

Tears were inextricably linked with shame, with helplessness, with potential danger.

You're rationalizing. Don't look at the meta-level while you're still processing, Bee buzzed in his head. Andrew laughed, a half-aborted sound closer to a choke than a genuine laugh. He lit another cigarette and fell onto his back, staring at the darkening sky above him.

It was out of his control now. Everything.

Neil's thoughts and emotions were out of his control, whatever consequences the man would draw, whatever reaction he would find reasonable, all Andrew could do was wait and see.

Would he tell Kevin? If so, what would he say? Were they downstairs right now, figuring out the best way to demote Andrew to nothing more than one of the Foxes, worth fighting for and worth protecting, but always on the periphery of their lives? Strategizing how to accomplish that without losing his skills on the court?

The hilariously pathetic thing was that they didn't have to worry about that. If the past few months had proven anything, it was that Andrew was helpless in his fight against craving their attention. If they decided to stop dealing with him, he wouldn't be able to give less than a hundred percent at training. If they treated him like one of the cubs, he'd join the young Foxes in their desperate attempts to win the approval of their star striker duo.

The cold crept through his windbreaker.

Look at that, Bee, Andrew thought in a feeble attempt at dark humor. For years they had worked on his control issues, now he had bashed the entire fucking ball into Neil's half of the court and stripped off his gear. He stood there, waiting for judgment, without any protection left.

The brutal, cruel thing was that he was still burning. There was this quiet, merciless part of him that had discovered how to hope and wouldn't fucking stop.

There was no hope that anything would come of it - as he had told Neil, he was self-destructive, not stupid. Maybe Neil and Kevin were fucked up enough to get him, but why the fuck would they want him?

Fucking unfortunately, there was hope that everything would turn out okay. That it would suck and hurt like a bitch, but that it would pass. That he hadn't destroyed two of the three friendships he had somehow managed to build.

Andrew didn't believe in that, but he still couldn't stop hoping for it.

Somehow that was worse.

Cont'd

Long after ten, Andrew ran out of cigarettes. Neil had left about three hours again, three hours Andrew had spent talking himself off the ledge. He hadn't called Bee. His throat was sore.

He considered his options.

He could take the Mas and drive back to the house, but he really didn't want to be anywhere near Nicky and Erik. Not only because they were in the middle of catching up on months without sex, but also because they were so happy. He couldn't handle that right now, couldn't account for what he might say or do.

He could take the Mas and just drive somewhere, but he didn't fucking trust himself. Didn't trust himself to keep the speeding under control. Didn't trust himself not to look for an empty road and crash into a tree, brakes untouched.

He could stay on the roof.

He could go back to the dorm. Kevin and Neil would be at the court for night practice for at least another hour.

His whole stiff body ached as he pushed himself up. Standing was disorienting after hours of not moving more than necessary to smoke, and for a second, he contemplated using the dizziness as an excuse to stumble over the edge.

The odds were fifty-fifty.

With most students visiting their happy families for Christmas, Fox Tower was pretty empty, and he made it back to his dorm without encountering any students. Fifty-fifty wasn't good enough.

He unlocked the door and opened it halfway before his brain caught up: light under the door.

For a brief second, he considered just slamming it shut again.

Avoidance had never helped. Andrew pushed the door open.

The strikers were in the kitchen. Neil was sitting on the counter, watching Kevin chop vegetables. There were a lot of chopped vegetables.

"Andrew," Neil said quietly, voice laced with a sense of relief that tore through Andrew.

"As large as life," Andrew said and marched past the kitchen to the bedroom.

Why weren't they at the fucking court?

"Can we... talk?" Neil asked, the hesitation so unbelievably uncharacteristic that it almost brought him to a halt. The striker dropped from the counter and stood about five feet away from Andrew, arms crossed over his chest and fingers playing anxiously with the fabric of his hoodie.

Why did everyone always want to fucking talk?

Andrew ignored him in favor of stuffing some clothes into a bag. Wymack always had a new spare toothbrush for any Fox in need, and a bunch of old clothes, too, but Andrew much preferred his own clothes.

"Andrew," Neil repeated. He was now standing in the doorway to the bedroom. Hovering behind him was Kevin.

Why couldn't they just fucking forget all this?

Andrew picked up one of the books he was currently reading and shoved it into his bag. Neil didn't get out of his way.

"Andrew," Neil said in a voice that others used for a cursed word. Andrew hated him. Hated that the desperate pleading would eventually work.

He just wanted to leave, for fucks' sake. Just wanted to get to Wymack and get shitfaced.

"Where are you going?" Kevin asked from behind Neil.

"Wymack," Andrew said, mostly to test his voice. It wasn't wavering, but it wasn't as flat as he wanted it to be either.

Neil took a step to the side, clearing the way. "Can I talk first? I just want you to listen."

Andrew walked to the door. Stopped in front of it, and stared at the handle for a moment before turning and looking at Neil.

"Thank you," Neil said. He was still fidgeting so fucking much.

"I don't know how to do any of this," he continued with a smile that bordered on embarrassment.

Just get it over with. Tell me to fuck off. Andrew braced himself for impact.

"What's between Kevin and me has nothing to do with you and me. Or Kevin and you. This," he gestured between the three of them, "is way out of my depth."

Andrew needed another cigarette. He needed a bottle of vodka. He needed to get the fuck out of here.

He stayed where he was.

"I never thought- It was never in the cards for me. Relationships. I wasn't very interested and whatever I might have tried, Mary put a stop to it.

"You two are the most important people in my life," he admitted quietly.

Andrew was burning burning burning. Kevin took a step closer to Neil, not touching him, but silently providing support.

"I have no idea what I'm doing. But I don't want to ignore it just because it's new." Neil exhaled heavily and looked in Kevin's direction.

Andrew refused to think about any of the implications and followed his gaze to find Kevin already looking at him with an intensity only matched by his Exy focus. He couldn't see the green in his eyes in the dimly lit dorm room, but that didn't lessen the effect.

"I am sorry," Kevin said, punching the air out of Andrew. He forced himself to exhale and inhale slowly.

"I fucked up. I ..." He looked at Neil, who looked back. It wasn't exactly an encouraging look, whatever they had talked about in the last three hours, it hadn't been easy.

Kevin took a deep breath. "I like you. Always have." He said the words so fast that they sounded more like Ilikeyoualwayshave than five separate words in two separate sentences. He said the words so fast that Andrew had to repeat them a few times in his head before the meaning knocked the ground out from under him.

Andrew couldn't take this. What the fuck was he supposed to say to any of that? This was surreal, completely fucking surreal.

For a heartbeat or two, he thought they might be making fun of him. But he knew better than that, knew they were better than that. Both strikers could be ruthless in pursuit of what they wanted, but neither of them was cruel.

Besides, they wouldn't risk the team dynamic like that.

No, they were not making fun of him. But he couldn't fucking deal with this right now. Everything was up in flames and he had no one to blame but himself.

Andrew turned and left the dorm.

Cont'd

Andrew took the direct route to Wymack's apartment complex. The front door was open and the elevator was waiting.

He didn't even try to pick the lock to the apartment itself. With both hands clenched into fists, buried deep in his pockets, he could pretend they were not shaking. Instead, he kicked at the door until the coach's exasperated voice yelled at him to wait a damn second.

For good measure, he kicked the door one more time and then took a step back.

"What the- Andrew?" Wymack interrupted himself. He took Andrew in, eyes glued to his bag as he stepped aside.

Andrew marched past him into the kitchen. Wymack followed.

"I can't remember the last time you knocked," Coach said.

Andrew flashed him a ghost of his medicated smile. "Half a year ago. Getting senile, old man?"

Wymack flipped him off and dug into his liquor cabinet. It had a lock these days, to put an extra step between Kevin and the booze. "Shitty vodka or shitty whiskey?"

"Whiskey," Andrew said.

Wymack made two glasses, not caring about the plimsoll lines. As he handed one to Andrew, his gaze dropped to Andrew's hand. Andrew couldn't keep the anxiety out of it, the honey-colored liquid spilled over.

"Should I call Betsy?" Wymack asked, his gruff voice unusually soft, as he looked at the drops on the floor.

Andrew grabbed an open pack of cigarettes from the kitchen table with his free hand and walked into the living room. "Could have gone straight to her, no?"

He didn't want solutions tonight. He didn't want to think about what Kevin and Neil had just told him. He didn't want to be reasonable, to take steps on the path of recovery. He wanted to get drunk.

Andrew stared dismissively at the TV until Wymack changed the station from some 24/7 sports program to nature documentaries.

It almost felt like he was back on his pills. He couldn't stay silent, his whole body buzzing with adrenaline, different from the medication-induced mania, but no better either.

"Recruiting Josten was a fucking mistake," Andrew said after a lengthy explanation about bird mating calls.

With a groan, Wymack turned to him. "This again? I thought we had that handled ... what, two years ago?"

Two years ago, Andrew had been in Easthaven and Neil in the Nest.

Andrew grimaced. "Bad decisions don't magically get better just because you stick with them, Coach."

"Christ. What the fuck happened between you two? And don't give me shit about my pay grade, you show up here and complain, you fucking talk."

"Don't think so, David," Andrew said. "Besides, we should've fucking let Kevin rot with the Ravens. That's as much on me as it's on you, though." He knocked the whiskey down. It was indeed shitty, but the burn in his throat was welcome. Wymack offered the bottle.

"Don't tell me you're fighting with both of them."

"Whoopsie-daisy, Coach's got a bingo!" Andrew said. It was more than half a lie, but it didn't really matter. Questions above pay grade didn't warrant honest answers. He refilled his glass.

Wymack pinched his nose. "I'll get the blanket."

Andrew lifted his glass to him.

By the end of the bird mating call documentary, Andrew's hands had stopped shaking. He had wrapped the blanket around himself and smoked his way through half of Wymack's cigarettes.

Wymack's phone buzzed. "Are you officially here?"

Andrew shrugged. "If it keeps the children off the streets." He had told Kevin that he was going here after all; if Wymack denied it now, the strikers would probably come looking for him. Another thought with implications he refused to address at the moment.

After typing a short message, Wymack got up with a groan. "I'll head to bed. Suit yourself."

Andrew raised his glass to him again.

The bedroom door closed behind the man and Andrew pulled his blanket tighter around him.

He was so, so fucked. He couldn't even begin to think about what Neil and Kevin had just said; he had to pinch the soft skin in his elbows every time his brain started to replay the scene in their dorm just to fucking stop thinking.

When Andrew finally fell asleep, an empty whiskey bottle on the floor next to the couch he had pushed against the wall, Wymack was already on his morning walk.

Tuesday, December 23rd

Andrew didn't leave Wymack's apartment all day.

He woke up around noon to the smell of coffee and bacon, went back to sleep after forcing himself to eat and blocking an attempted heart-to-heart with the old man, and slept through the afternoon and the evening.

Wednesday morning, December 24th

Andrew woke up as Wymack made coffee for his morning walk.

He was so tired.

He fell back asleep as the apartment door fell shut.

Wednesday around noon, December 24th

Andrew's phone buzzed.

[24/12, 11:29 am] Neil: Columbia?

Andrew stared at his phone. Wymack stared at him staring at his phone.

Andrew put his phone down. Wymack did not stop staring at him.

Wymack's phone buzzed.

Andrew stared back at Wymack. Wymack stared at his phone.

"You going to answer them?" Wymack asked.

Andrew sighed and typed a message.

pick you up in 45

He scrolled through the messages he had ignored since Monday night.

Neil had left only one other message.

[22/12, 11:48 pm] Neil: Call if you need anything

Kevin was more persistent and typically one-track-minded.

[23/12, 06:30 am] Kevin: Gym?

[23/12, 08:48 am] Kevin: Well be at the gym til 11

[23/12, 04:35 pm] Kevin: Night practice?

[24/12, 06:38 am] Kevin: Gym til 11 again

Surprising no one, Nicky was annoying.

[23/12, 11:30 am] Nicky: omggg Andrew u r at wymacks ??

[23/12, 04:21 pm] Nicky: u ok ?? If u wanna talk just call, Erik'll understand ;)

[23/12, 09:25 pm] Nicky: seriously Andrew whats goin on, kevin said you aren't talking to him or neil either

[24/12, 11:01 am] Nicky: u still coming home for xmas ?? :(

He hadn't expected Aaron to text, but the Nicky-to-Katelyn pipeline apparently included Andrew's personal drama.

[24/12, 11:23 am] Aaron: I am not wearing the fucking pajamas alone.

Andrew closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Since they all seemed perfectly capable of talking about what Andrew was doing and where he was without him providing any information himself, he didn't bother to answer any of their texts.

"I'll bring Kevin back for dinner tomorrow," Andrew told Wymack.

Wymack rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Figure your shit out."

"Mind your pay grade, will you?" Andrew said without heat.

Wednesday afternoon, December 24th

After a quick shower, Andrew drove back to Fox Tower. The strikers were sitting in front of the building: Neil was smoking a cigarette and Kevin was glaring at him.

Andrew took a deep breath and stopped at the entrance. Pushing his emotions down was a familiar exercise, but it was getting harder with every step on the road Bee called recovery. Seeing the two strikers sitting there, waiting for him to pick them up, after they had kept their distance and hadn't pushed more than six text messages in total, didn't help the matter either.

Neil stubbed out his cigarette as Kevin loaded their duffle bags into the car.

"Hey," Neil said quietly as he got into the passenger seat.

Andrew wanted to be quiet. He didn't want to talk. He wanted to go back to Wymack's couch and ignore all of this until it just went away.

He grunted half a greeting back.

Kevin stared at him through the rear-vision mirror. The wing mirrors would have to do for now; it helped to know exactly how long his car was and where the little decorative pillars in front of the entrance were.

"Andrew," Kevin began as they rolled out of Palmetto.

Andrew turned up the music.

Chapter Text

Wednesday evening, December 24th

One exhausting and tense drive later, Andrew parked in the driveway behind Erik's rental SUV. The sun had already set, but the front yard was brightly illuminated by a visual cacophony of Christmas decorations. The house wasn't the worst on the street, but it did its best to rank in the top five.

The front door opened and Nicky ran toward them, a bright and cheerful smile on his face. It was more genuine than usual, as it always was around Erik. Nicky's fiancé had a calming effect on him, taking his over-the-top behavior down a notch. With Erik, Nicky pretended a lot less, not necessarily becoming quieter, but less flashy.

Andrew barely escaped a hug from his cousin. Neither Kevin nor Neil were as lucky, which also left them with reindeer headbands, complete with ears and antlers. Blinking.

Next, Aaron followed Erik out the door. His twin was wearing a Christmas sweater, probably the reason he got away without a ridiculous headband. Erik had to duck through the door thanks to a giant Christmas tree headband that put him somewhere over seven feet tall. It also blinked.

Andrew stalked past the commotion and into the house, almost running into the cheerleader. She was covered in flour, which did little to hide the horrible Christmas sweater dress with a candy-cone colored scarf around her hips, and was also wearing one of those ridiculous headbands. A Santa Claus head for her, expression somewhere between stoned and utterly intoxicated. Surprisingly, it didn't blink.

"Oh, Andrew! Happy Holi- actually I'll just get out of your way," she babbled and then did just that, pushing herself between the wardrobe and the assortment of Exy racquets against the wall with a terrified expression on her face.

Andrew was so tired. "Don't bother," he said, voice raspy from not saying anything since he'd left Wymack's and smoking too many cigarettes on the road. The cheerleader's eyes grew wide and confused. Andrew didn't wait for her to understand, or worse, ask questions, and marched past her up the stairs.

In front of his room sat a paper bag. Andrew stared at it in misery, hating Bee, Aaron, and Nicky in equal measure.

It felt absurd, completely absurd.

He picked up the bag, not needing to look inside to know what was in it: Bee had spent the last year gently nudging Aaron and him to show their appreciation for Nicky. Ever since the seeds of mending the relationship between the twins had begun to grow, she had been on a warpath regarding their entire little fucked-up family.

A few weeks ago, she had asked if they would give a little ground when it came to Christmas traditions. In a rare and uncomfortable moment of Twin Telepathy, Andrew and Aaron had stared at each other. Aaron had finally broken the silence: "The pyjamas are still in the attic."

During their first year at PSU, Nicky had tried to start a new Christmas tradition. Combining the German custom of exchanging gifts on the evening of the 24th and the American celebration on the morning of the 25th, he had insisted on exchanging one set of gifts early: Christmas-themed pyjamas for everyone, including Erik, to wear the next morning.

Predictably, the twins had refused to wear the pyjamas. Predictably, Nicky had plastered a watery smile on his face throughout breakfast.

So this year, they had agreed to wear them. Aaron had even called Erik to make sure he brought his, and they had bought onesies for Neil, Kevin, and the cheerleader.

Andrew locked his door and dumped the bag on his bed. His pyjama, neatly wrapped in gift paper, peeked out. He glared at it with negligible effect.

Talking about it in therapy had made it feel manageable.

Andrew had spent almost all of his Christmases in orphanages before juvie, most foster families didn't bother buying presents for their extra kids and saved everyone the embarrassment by shipping the extras back to where they came from after collecting the December cheque. The few homes that had kept him over the holidays had been far worse than the brutal forlornness of an orphanage dressed up in the cheapest secondhand Christmas decorations you could buy.

Despite it all, Andrew had never managed to hate Christmas. Had naively longed for the devoutly domestic bliss portrayed in Christmas Hallmark movies.

Cass had fulfilled that dream one year. The next, Drake had been on furlough for the holidays.

Nicky had tried too hard. Neither Andrew nor Aaron had been able to handle it, and Nicky had slowly stopped trying.

It didn't feel like he would be able to manage it today either.

Downstairs, someone put on Christmas music. Andrew opened his window and lit a cigarette.

He still didn't know how to deal with Kevin and Neil.

Over the past two days, he had slowly, slowly allowed himself to think about Monday night. Had cautiously approached the subject again and again, backing off whenever it overwhelmed him. What they had said, the implications of it all.

It hadn't helped, he still had no fucking idea what to tell them, what to think, what to do. What to do with the Christmas present he had been looking forward to giving them.

His phone buzzed.

[24/12, 08:23 pm] Aaron: Erik takes Nicky for a walk now. They will be back half past nine. Don't chicken out.

Andrew lit a second cigarette.

He needed to talk to Neil and Kevin, but he had no idea what to say.

The absurd scenario they had alluded to, the scenario of Andrew somehow fitting into whatever the fuck it was between them, except for a thing, was pretty much out of the question. He had no idea how to navigate the few friendships he had, his only lasting sexual relationship only worked with Roland tied up, and he didn't fucking want to lose either striker. Couldn't fucking risk it.

Friendships were complicated enough. Adding additional layers of emotion and intimacy on top of that just wasn't worth the risk of fucking it all up.

Except it was a little too late for that, wasn't it?

Cont'd

Since they had left Erik and Nicky alone on Monday, they had turned the living room into a Christmas postcard. Granted, it was a bit tacky, and if you looked too closely you could see that most of the decorations were secondhand, but it was more than obvious how much effort they had put into it. If Andrew knew what to do with that emotion, it would probably feel cozy.

Neil and Kevin were sitting on the sofa, both still wearing their ridiculous headbands. Kevin was reading a history book, Neil was focusing on what looked like calc homework, his feet stuffed under Kevin's butt. When he noticed Andrew in the hallway, he looked up, a cautious but thereby not less devastating smile on his face.

The vulnerability in his expression tore Andrew apart. He corrected his course to the kitchen.

The cheerleader was studying her phone with determination, Aaron was sitting on the counter, watching her with an entranced expression.

Hopefully, Andrew didn't look so stupid when he looked at Kevin or Neil.

When he dropped his wrapped pyjama on the kitchen table, Aaron smiled tentatively at him. Andrew nodded back.

He could do this. Half an hour, an hour at the most, then he could go back to his room. Tomorrow would be breakfast and lunch before they'd head back to Palmetto to take Kevin to his Christmas dinner with Wymack and Abby. Limited periods of time, enduring something with a deadline, Andrew was good at that. Less than seven full days until he would see Bee again, less than twenty hours until he wouldn't have to deal with so many people anymore.

"Erik texts when they're five minutes out. Kate's got some champagne ready," Aaron said. Andrew nodded.

The cheerleader looked at Aaron. Aaron looked back and tilted his head. The cheerleader looked at Andrew.

He had no clue what they had just discussed in silence. He tried not to care, tried not to care how this had worked for him with Kevin and Neil up until talking had ruined it all.

"My aunt's German and always sends me German beer for Christmas," the cheerleader said. Belatedly, Andrew realized she was talking to him. "I don't really like it and usually just give it to my sibling, but they're trying to drink less alcohol, so..."

She faltered. Andrew waited.

"It's in the fridge if you want some?"

Andrew silently added the cheerleader to the list of people he needed to talk to.

He didn't like her, and probably never would, but as long as she didn't hurt Aaron, he wouldn't pull his knives on her again. Allowing her to spend Christmas with them and paying for half of her fucking Christmas onesie apparently wasn't enough to make it clear that he had no intention of stabbing her.

For now, he nodded at her and grabbed one of the beers from the fridge. He glanced at the logo - Koestritzer Schwarzbier. Nicky had waxed lyrical about the assortment of lager beers in Germany. The adjustment from a deeply religious US-American household to a free-spirited family in a country that allowed 16-year-olds to buy beer and wine had led him to drink copious amounts of alcohol during his first year with the Kloses.

He took a sip of beer.

It was entirely fucking different from American beer. Better, more intense.

Aaron looked more smug than he had any right to be. Then he fished his phone out of his pocket. "They're almost here," he said. The cheerleader smiled brightly at him and handed him his headband.

Andrew fled the scene before either of them could try anything to make him reconsider his stance on committing murder tonight.

He dropped his pyjama under the plastic Christmas tree, not looking at either of the strikers in favor of inspecting the ornaments. For the past few years, Nicky had always used the ornaments his parents had sent him in guilt-ridden Christmas packages. This year, none of those ornaments were defacing the tree.

The front door opened, saving him from any attempts at small talk.

"Oh shush," Nicky said giggling.

"Trust me," Erik replied in his deep accented English, with a lot of emphasis on the r.

The cheerleader scurried past them into the living room, carrying a tray of champagne flutes with the ease of an experienced waitress.

Erik guided Nicky into the living room. He had wrapped a Christmas scarf around Nicky's eyes.

Andrew dropped into his armchair.

"In Germany, we do presents on Christmas Eve. The twins and I would like to exchange one round of presents tonight, because we'll need them for tomorrow, Schatz. You can take off the scarf now."

Nicky did so, eyes already misty. Aaron slipped into the room and leaned against the door, looking as uncomfortable with the situation as Andrew felt.

The cheerleader smiled brightly at Nicky. "Let's toast and do the gift exchange after that!"

They toasted. The champagne tasted bitter compared to the almost chocolaty beer. He downed it anyway, watching his carbon copy do the same.

Erik nudged Nicky towards the tree. "Go ahead!"

Ten minutes later, everybody had unwrapped their pyjamas and Nicky was bawling his eyes out. He didn't attempt to hug either twin, but the positively glowing smile on his face was almost worse than any physical display of affection would have been. Andrew burned under Neil's soft look and Kevin's fierce smile.

Andrew used a heated discussion about the merits of exchanging gifts in the evening instead of the next morning to escape to the porch with a second beer and his cigarettes.

He was halfway through his cigarette when the door opened.

"Oh, sorry, I was looking for Aaron- I'll-," the cheerleader blathered.

"Sit," Andrew said. He was so tired. But this was something he could handle now, this was just exhausting, not terrifying. This was solvable.

Eyes wide with fear, the cheerleader- Katelyn obeyed. She sat down on the other side of the porch steps, as far away from him as possible without falling off.

"You're not hurting Aaron," Andrew stated.

She crossed her arms in front of her ridiculous dress. "Of course not." Her voice wavered, but she jutted her chin forward and stared him down.

"Then stop being afraid of me."

Katelyn opened her mouth and closed it again. A tentative smile grew on her face. "Thank you, Andrew. Seriously. I love your brother. I would never hurt him, but I know what it means that you trust me with him," she said slowly.

Andrew grunted. He was so, so tired.

"Sleep well later," she said, got up, and went back inside.

Andrew stayed where he was until the noises from inside the house died down.

Thursday morning, December 25th

Andrew stared at his ridiculous pyjama. He had unceremoniously dropped it on his desk yesterday. The thought that Aaron was doing the same thing next door didn't help as much as he had hoped.

Why had they let Bee talk them into this?

Well, he knew the answer: because she hadn't actually talked them into it. In the end, it had been their idea and she had gently encouraged them.

If he could just hate the pyjama, it would probably help, but a part of him was actually, somehow, excited about it. A part that a few years ago would have been strangled into submission and out of existence, but that now smiled gently at him from the back of his head, happy to be ignored, but fundamentally there.

Recovery was fucking bullshit.

A knock on the door startled him out of glaring at the aggravatingly unresponsive piece of clothing. He pulled a shirt over his head and unlocked the door.

Andrew snorted. Aaron looked ridiculous and very, very angry about it. Behind him was the cheer- Katelyn, barely hiding her glee. She looked decidedly too comfortable in her jumpsuit.

"You'll look just as stupid as I do, stop looking so happy about it," Aaron muttered darkly. "Erik's at church with Nicky. Kevin and Neil are preparing breakfast right now. Kate and I are going to prepare the living room, can you help with the food?"

Andrew nodded and closed the door.

Recovery was fucking bullshit, but it led to civil interactions with his twin, so maybe it was fucking worth it. How he was supposed to survive being stuck in a kitchen with Kevin and Neil, with nothing but Christmas brunch preparations as a buffer between them, he didn't know, recovery be damned.

The pyjama fabric was surprisingly comfortable. The colors were decidedly not. Other than on the court, Andrew couldn't remember the last time he'd worn so many bright colors. He felt like a fucking billboard.

After a quick trip to the bathroom, he ignored the strikers in the kitchen and went out to smoke, which bought him another seven-minute reprieve.

He pulled some weeds out of the rather sad-looking planters on the railing.

He fixed the Santa hat on one of Nicky's ugly lawn gnomes.

He ran out of things to postpone the inevitable.

Andrew walked back into the house and into the kitchen, feeling like a martyr for all intents and purposes. Nicky better appreciated what they were doing here (it didn't help that Andrew knew he did. Nicky had sent a Thank you to the family group chat last night, completely without exclamation marks, smileys, or heartfelt declarations of affection that neither Aaron nor he would have been able to handle).

The kitchen was warm and filled with instrumental music. A thick, sugary smell hung in the air. Walking through the door felt like entering another, stickier dimension; a dimension that was completely incompatible with Andrew as a person in general and especially right now.

Neil and Kevin were both wearing the black, red, and white Christmas onesies. Neil's was a little too long for him, so he had rolled up the sleeves and legs. Kevin wore his onesie the same way he wore his Exy gear, which meant he took to it like a duck to water. They looked at peace as they worked side by side on the cinnamon roll frosting. Kevin mixed the ingredients Neil handed him, interacting with the same ease they displayed on the court, working together toward a common goal.

He couldn't fucking lose them. It was also so so clear that he already had. Their relationship had developed to another level, somewhere Andrew couldn't follow. At some point in the last few months, they had left him behind.

Andrew braced himself for impact. Neil's gentle smile as he turned still hit him like a freight train. After his father had gone down, it had taken months for Neil to smile again, the expression inexplicably associated with Nathan in his mind. Now, he wore dozens of smiles, each more devastating than the last, and deadly in a way very different from the Butcher.

"Good morning. Merry Christmas!" Neil said.

Andrew grunted and made a beeline for the coffee machine. His favorite mug was waiting for him, along with cream and sugar.

"Merry Christmas," Kevin said after putting the mixer down. He fumbled with the stirrers and offered them to Andrew.

Andrew nodded to him and accepted the frosting-covered stirrers.

"Cinnamon rolls are almost ready. Erik had a recipe for ... that German bread thing he claims is superior to donuts." Kevin looked at Neil.

Neil looked back, obviously amused. "Brötchen. And they are. Donuts are nothing compared to Brötchen."

"Yeah, that. The dough's rising now, they'll go in the oven in five."

Andrew licked the icing off his stirrers.

"Can you put the breakfast stuff on the table?" Kevin asked.

Andrew nodded again, threw the stirrers in the dishwasher, and got to work. It gave him something to do, something to shuffle around the two men without having to participate in conversation.

Unfortunately, it was not a consuming enough task to keep him from thinking.

Two years ago, Andrew had spent Christmas in East Haven, Neil under Riko's knives, and Kevin under the supervision of the upperclassmen.

A year ago, they had all been busy healing. Kevin had been drunk the whole two weeks, he probably still didn't remember anything from Christmas or New Year's. Neil had been sucker-punched by the anniversary, stubbornly insisting that he was fine until the lack of pressure from run-or-get-killed situational circumstances made his lack of care for his mental health so obvious that he had agreed to a few emergency sessions with Bee.

Andrew had too many of these anniversaries. Christmas had never been great, and the combination of a sped-up withdrawal process and Proust had been ugly, but Bee and him had prepared. It hadn't been pretty for him either, but he had coped much better than the strikers.

They were all supposed to be in a better place this year.

He hated his memory. So much. For so many reasons. Mostly because his life was a pearl necklace of bad memories, neatly threaded one after the other.

There were rare good memories, and both because of the way his life was and because of the way he was as a person, Andrew rarely got to enjoy them. They all got ruined one way or another, just like the moment before Kevin dropped his newly acquired knowledge on him, when he had been sitting on the porch with Neil and had just been happy for once.

As Andrew should know by now, that was a fucking mistake. People like him didn't get to be happy.

Case in point: right now, his brain was providing him with a play-by-play of a session with Bee a few months ago, just before Aaron and he had agreed on their damned Christmas plans. She had asked him what he could look forward to in the next twelve months, and like the fool he was, he had offered Christmas after a few minutes of thought.

Erik had already bought his plane tickets back then, which meant that Nicky was going to be happy. Aaron had asked about his cheerleader and Andrew had agreed to accept her presence, so he was going to be happy, too. It had been supposed to be a new beginning for Kevin, Neil, and him; a happy Christmas, surrounded by people they actually liked.

Andrew was a fucking moron.

It probably wouldn't have hurt as much if Bee and he hadn't dug deeper into the subject. Over the next few months, the thought of Christmas had kept Andrew company during sleepless nights and silent panic attacks.

He couldn't find it in himself to be surprised that it hadn't worked out. It never did.

Cont'd

Nicky and Erik returned from church a few minutes after Andrew had finished setting the table. His cousin started to cry again when he saw both Aaron and Andrew actually (sullenly) wearing their pyjamas and sobbed all over Erik's church shirt.

Andrew was too tired to be annoyed by the antics; at least Nicky was happy. Aaron's coping strategy of choice seemed to be to hide behind Katelyn, the expression on his face only readable to Andrew thanks to their shared face. His twin was waiting for the second shoe to drop, unable to believe in a happy holiday.

At least, that had already happened for Andrew. His shoe had dropped. Didn't make it any less painful, but at least he didn't live in uncertainty anymore.

The food was good. Even though Erik claimed that real German Brötchen were better than what they'd baked ("You have so many weird flour mixes here, but it's impossible to find properly ground whole grain flour!"), they were still delicious. Andrew devoured about a quarter of the cinnamon rolls.

No one tried to talk to him. Aaron, Neil, and Kevin looked at him from time to time. Andrew was so tired.

In the light of horribly blinking headbands, the distribution of presents went smoothly. There were more tears on Nicky's side, a disgustingly hetero kiss between Aaron and his cheerleader, and slightly confused expressions on Neil and Kevin's faces about the amount of presents they got. Andrew was curled up in his armchair, a stack of books growing beside him.

Surprisingly, Katelyn had not just joined in Aaron's gift plans for him; she handed Andrew a neatly wrapped present with a timid smile. It was the first issue of a one-year subscription to the most renowned journal about juvenile probation and one of the few reasons Andrew had to force himself into the library every now and then. She had seen him check it out a few months ago.

He waited until she made eye contact and nodded his thanks, making her light up like the fucking Christmas tree. Aaron stared at both of them, apparently he hadn't known about her plans. Andrew ignored his twin's dense gaze and flipped through the magazine, making mental notes of the articles that interested him.

After the hubbub around the presents had died down, Neil turned to Andrew. "When do you want to head back?"

It was the first time today that someone had actually asked him a question that he couldn't just shake his head or nod at. It was also one he couldn't answer. Andrew looked at Kevin; it wasn't his family that needed them back in Palmetto at a certain time. Last year, Wymack and Abby had started dinner at 7:30 and required Kevin to help with setting the table around 7.

A complicated expression flickered across Neil's face for a second before he followed Andrew's gaze.

Kevin looked back at Neil before turning to Andrew. It all felt so absurd and stupid.

"I need to get changed at the dorm first, so back around six?"

Andrew nodded and stood up. They could do the math for when they had to leave on their own, he needed a fucking cigarette and space to prepare for another car ride with the two strikers. Aaron stared at him in barely concealed confusion as he walked past him out of the room.

The only gift that hadn't been handed over was still sitting on his desk in his room.

Chapter Text

Thursday evening, December 25th

From the roof of Foxhole Tower, Andrew watched as Kevin and Neil left in the Maserati and Neil returned.

The campus was pretty empty, few students stayed for the holidays; whether they celebrated Christmas or not, most used the two weeks to visit family or friends. Therefore, the strikers were a little more open in their interaction, lingering touches and open smiles. Also, there was a delay of almost nine minutes between getting in the car and actually driving.

Not that Andrew was counting.

Neil parked the Mas in reverse. Unexpectedly, he was a good driver - after a few hours of Andrew teaching him how to behave properly in traffic. No-parking zones hadn't been part of Mary's driving lessons in Europe; being able to control a car at over 120 mph and always going full throttle in time to hit the sweet spot when cornering were admittedly smoking hot but rarely useful skills.

Without looking up, Neil sat down on the steps and lit a cigarette. Andrew shook another out of his pack, too. For a few seconds, he allowed himself to wallow in the pathetic metaphor hidden in the physical distance of their shared smoke, then Neil pulled out his phone and typed something. A second later, Andrew's phone buzzed next to him.

[25/12, 7:13 pm] Neil: Are you on the roof?

Andrew hated him so much. Neil knew exactly where he was, but he also knew that he couldn't just ask Andrew if he wanted company, that right now, Andrew wouldn't be able to say yes even if he wanted to. So he veiled the question to give Andrew both an out and an option for company without having to say it outright. Andrew sighed and typed the inevitable, obvious answer.

yep

Four floors down, Neil jumped to his feet and walked into the building. Two minutes later, the roof door opened with a squeak.

Neil sat down almost exactly where he had sat on Monday night. Physically, Andrew wasn’t as close to the edge today, but Neil’s proximity to the abyss still caused his heartbeat to launch into overdrive, he just lacked the convenient excuse of acrophobia.

“Tell me to leave,” Neil said. Stated. Asked. Somewhere in the middle of both.

Andrew put a finger to his neck, found his carotid artery with ease, and focused on the fast but steady pulse. He should tell Neil to fuck off and take this last exit Neil offered. He shouldn't think about how Neil's voice was so utterly devoid of any emotion, every inflection stripped away carefully.

Andrew did not tell Neil to leave.

They sat in silence for another two shared cigarettes before Neil pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged his shins, playing with the drawstrings of his ridiculously orange hoodie. "Full disclosure: I told Kevin that I wanted to talk to you. I won't tell him anything else unless you are okay with it. Okay?"

His voice was still so flat. Andrew flicked ash from his cigarette. "Do whatever you want."

A smile appeared on Neil's face. It wasn't a happy one. It bordered on self-deprecation but fell a little short. "Nope."

Knowing better and still unable to stop himself, Andrew asked, "Why?"

Neil shot him a look and tied the drawstring around his fingers. "Because I want to kiss you, but I won't ask until we have talked."

The world tilted a little bit to the side. Andrew dug his shoes into the ground harder so he wouldn't fall over.

I want to kiss you.

He'd been three-quarters of the way to convincing himself of ... well, of something else, something that meant that maybe, just maybe, they'd get back to their old normal once this whole affair had died down, that he hadn't ruined it all. Something that very much did not include Neil saying those five words to him and making everything even more complicated, making Andrew's heart skip beats that had nothing to do with the abyss two feet away from him. He kept his finger on his throat, needing to hear his body function despite it all.

There was no way his voice would hold up, so he turned to look at Neil properly instead.

It was the first time they were alone since Monday, and the first time in a much longer time that Andrew allowed himself to really look.

The striker looked bad. Not that he wasn't attractive anymore, Neil was still fucking drop-dead gorgeous, but the dark circles under his eyes weren't just caused by the bad lighting. When he blinked, it was a slow, stuttering movement, as if he had to force his eyes open again by sheer force of will.

Also, as Andrew now noticed, the ridiculously orange hoodie had a muted white three on the chest. A bright stain on the left shoulder confirmed that it was a hoodie Andrew had thrown away about a year ago after staining it while helping Renee with a dye job.

Andrew was burning.

Neil followed his gaze and had the fucking audacity to blush. Andrew breathed against the urge to push him over the edge and jump right after.

"Talk," Andrew ordered flatly (at least he pretended there was no emotional inflection in his voice).

"I've prepared a full-blown speech but I can't remember much, so bear with me," Neil muttered darkly and fiddled with his sleeves. Then he took a deep breath.

"Like I said on Monday, I have no fucking clue what I am doing, with ... all of this. I have no idea how to do any of this. The Foxes taught me friendship, I never expected anything else. Relationships are not for people like us."

Andrew snorted. Neil smiled again, self-deprecation with a touch of humor.

"I want to try things. But I am not willing to lose you. If you tell me to fuck off, we can pretend this never happened, okay?"

Mutedly, Andrew nodded.

I want to kiss you. I am not willing to lose you.

Illogically, the two sentences collided in Andrew's head. It didn't make any sense. Any fucking sense.

Neil and Kevin were together. There was no place for him. Poly relationships existed, sure, but why? Why would they want him? Everything he could offer they already had anyway; he had never stopped looking out for them, the official end of their deals hadn't affected that, and he was already putting effort into fucking stickball.

Hell, Andrew was too fucking fucked up for this. If they were looking for a third person in bed, for some variety, they'd have better luck at Eden's or in the fucking student cafeteria. Andrew was all hard edges and rejection, too messed up by his past to walk into the future Kevin and Neil had waiting for them.

"I don't understand attraction," Neil said, pulling Andrew out of his thoughts. "Never did. I thought it was something Mary had beaten out of me, but she didn't. I'm still ... different. I can't imagine fucking someone I don't know, or even almost everyone I do know. When Kevin kissed me for the first time, I had no idea what to make of it."

Andrew barely managed not to picture the scene.

"There's ... there's this level of connection that I need to even think about any of that. Sex, romantic relationships."

He should have told Neil to go. Should just jump (walk) off the roof right fucking now to save them all the hassle. He could still tell Neil to fuck off and he would, no questions asked.

Andrew pressed his finger harder against his pulse point and stayed.

"I think about it with you," Neil said. His voice wavered, almost collapsing as he said the last two words.

Andrew was burning.

I want to kiss you. I am not willing to lose you. I think about it with you.

He wanted Neil. Desperately. He wanted him so much that it was the background music of his life, a chronic pain that affected everything, terribly familiar, hurting day in and day out. Now Neil had ripped open the barely scabbed-over wound, rendering Andrew incapable of ignoring it any longer.

He also couldn't think about it, about what it meant. Until now he had survived on the knowledge that every scenario his brain came up with was completely unrealistic, zero percent chance of ever happening.

He wasn't going to survive this.

Andrew turned his head and looked at Neil as he was consumed by the flames. "Kevin," he said, voice too loud for his ears.

Neil looked right back, expression open and vulnerable and scared and so so fucking trusting. Jumping off the roof looked more attractive by the second.

"We're not exclusive. We talked about that in general and also regarding you." Neil took a deep breath and Andrew braced himself for impact.

"I don't want you to get over me."

I want to kiss you. I am not willing to lose you. I think about it with you. I don't want you to get over me.

How could he ever prepare for a sentence like this? Half of Andrew's life consisted of words, phrases, and sentences that haunted him. Few of them had started out as good and most of them had turned into something that cut him open later. He had four new sentences to add to that list. There was no way this wouldn't come back to haunt him at some point. It never worked out for people like him.

"I don't need you to say anything tonight. I'll wait, but I want you to know where I stand," Neil said, confirming that he had to be a fucking pipe dream, because Andrew actually believed him. Neil had proven time and time again that he respected Andrew's boundaries. Whenever Andrew hadn't even been able to talk about something, he had waited.

"I like you, Andrew. And I really want to kiss you."

Neil didn't move, didn't put any of his words into action. Just sat there, waiting for Andrew to react or run away or do whatever. Didn't lean in for the kiss he claimed he wanted, didn't force Andrew to make a decision now.

"Neil," Andrew said, helpless and helplessly, wanting to make a decision.

Neil was still looking right at him. Seeing him. Andrew wasn't sure he could control his expression right now, and, somehow, it was only half as terrifying as it should be.

He wanted. Wanted to kiss Neil. Wanted to know more about what I like you meant. Wanted wanted wanted.

Then it hit him like a fucking truck: he could. He could kiss Neil now. It was up to him.

Andrew was nothing if not a fool; shooting for the moon again and again, no matter how many times he ended up riddled with bullets instead.

"Keep your hands to yourself. I want to kiss you. Yes or no?" he asked, ignoring how raw his voice was.

A brilliant smile lit up Neil's face, a dizzying mix of excitement and surprise. He dropped his hands and sat on them (fuck). "Yes, Andrew, fuck, yes," he said, a little breathless.

Andrew leaned forward and buried one hand in Neil's soft hair. It wasn't the first time he'd touched it, but from the way it changed his heart's gear, it might as well have been. He pulled Neil closer until their noses almost touched and got lost in the bright blue of Neil's eyes. He was so incredibly beautiful.

And he had asked Andrew to kiss him. So Andrew did.

Neil's lips were chapped from worrying his teeth into them. For the first two or three seconds their kiss was tentative, almost cautious, until Neil took a deep breath with a hint of a moan, opening his mouth. Andrew grabbed his hair tighter in retaliation and brushed over Neil's lips with the tip of his tongue, coaxing another hitched breath out of the man as he pushed against a slightly swollen, bruised spot.

Andrew pulled him closer and Neil had to lean on one of his hands to keep from falling over. The asshole made sure not to touch Andrew anywhere, to lift himself up enough so that he didn't put any weight on Andrew or risk falling on him.

Andrew hated him so much. Andrew kissed him harder.

His world shrank to the space necessary for the kiss, his existence beginning and ending with the touch of their lips.

Andrew usually had a pretty good sense of time. Right now, he had lost all sense of it, measuring its passage only in sections marked by brief pauses for breath, warm air exhaled against each other's faces before their lips pressed together again.

After a minute or an eternity, Neil pulled himself up, a slightly dizzy expression on his face. Andrew didn't want to imagine how he looked, his heart pounding against his ribs and he felt untethered, as if he had jumped off the roof and forgotten to crash into the ground, falling falling falling.

Flying.

Neil caught his breath with a shudder and stole Andrew's pack of cigarettes. Andrew watched him light up and then accepted the cigarette.

After Neil's warm mouth, the cigarette felt almost cold for a puff or two, before the familiar harsh taste took over. Andrew pressed his thumb to his bottom lip and stared at the horizon. His skin buzzed and he could barely hear the passing cars over the sound of his pounding heart.

"Shit," Neil said after a minute of silence, half a laugh wrapped around the word. His body language had changed, back to relaxed limbs and open expression. Andrew vowed to never stop appreciating that he was allowed to see this side of the striker; that happy, contented language from a body scarred for a dozen lives, this trusting look from eyes that had seen men being cut into dozens of bloody pieces, this relaxed grip on a cigarette from hands that had counted and burned a mother's bones.

Around Kevin and Neil, Andrew understood a little better what had drawn Renee to religion, and right now, with their kiss still lingering in the air, he didn't have it in him to stifle the pathetic thoughts of devotion.

After another shared cigarette, Neil looked at him again. "I want to kiss you again."

Andrew's heart stuttered. Neil was going to kill him and he was going to let him. He grabbed the front of Neil's horrible hoodie and pulled him in, muttering a Yes into the lack of space between them before their lips met again.

It was almost better in a way, this second time. Andrew's brain had caught up a bit, had stopped yelling in confusion and accepted this absurd situation for now, allowing him to focus more on the kiss.

Neil was ridiculously responsive. He went where Andrew pulled him, making sure their bodies didn't touch, opening his mouth more when Andrew pushed, breathing with just a hint of a moan when Andrew nibbled at his lips.

The way they were sitting now, Neil had to support most of his weight with one hand on the ground. Andrew still had his hand buried in his hoodie. He grabbed Neil's sleeve to pull his hand up, keeping the striker upright with a combination of the man's ridiculous core strength and the tight grip on his hoodie. Andrew put Neil's hand in his hair and took a deep breath.

It felt good. He took another breath.

It didn't stop feeling good. No demons lurking, no shadow hands running over his body. His heart was pounding, but that had entirely different reasons, reasons that included the fact that Neil was looking at him, keeping his body still and his hand in Andrew's hair stiller, waiting for Andrew to make up his mind.

"I'm going to push you off the side," Andrew muttered darkly. "Shoulders and above only."

Neil's face lit up with a dazzling smile. "Do it. I'd drag you with me." Then he tugged gently on Andrew's hair, inviting him to come closer again. Andrew went.

Neil shifted a little beneath him, hand buried deep in Andrew's hair, never really pulling, just holding. His breaths grew ragged as they kissed and Andrew pretended it wasn't the same for him.

The world was lost to them until Neil's buzzing phone demanded attention. Neil ignored it, pushing it away a little, but Andrew bit a particularly sore spot on his chapped lips, earning a ridiculously hot moan and a glare for his consideration. "Could be Kevin."

Neil sighed. "Will you ever let him drive your car?"

Unlikely. "Not without extra driving lessons." Giving his key to Neil before Easthaven had already been a gamble on the survival of the poor thing, and even then, Neil had had considerably more driving experience than Kevin, who owned a questionably legal license in Moriyama ink and had a total of five hours behind the wheel under his belt.

Neil rolled his eyes, the gentle smile on his face unwavering. He opened the flip screen. "He asks to be picked up in thirty. You coming?"

"What are you going to tell him?" Andrew asked.

Neil played with the folding mechanism. How his phone had survived his anxious habits for the last two years was a mystery to Andrew. "I want to tell him that we kissed, but only if you are okay with that. We talked about it, we can do whatever we want as long as we use protection."

Andrew valiantly smothered any thoughts of activities that required protection. "Do whatever you want."

Neil smirked and leaned closer, fingers still wrapped around his phone. "Yes or no?"

Andrew really should push him off the damn roof. Instead, he gave his consent and forgot to think for the next few minutes, until Neil's phone vibrated again. Neil groaned. "Should have never let you buy me one of these," he grumbled and typed a reply. "So, you coming?"

Andrew thought about it. Then he shook his head. He wanted to talk to Kevin, tonight, but whatever Neil wanted to tell him, he should hear it first. "Don't wreck my car."

Neil left with a raised middle finger and a devastating smile on his face.

Cont'd

After the door fell shut behind Neil, Andrew stared at it for longer than he cared to admit.

He could still feel Neil's lips on his and Neil's hands in his hair, on his shoulders.

Andrew closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He focused on exhaling, drawing it out, and counting to five. Breathed in again, counting to three. Exhaled, counting to five.

Bee buzzed in the back of his mind, gently demanding permission to provide guidance on how to wade through this morass of confused and confusing emotions.

I kissed Neil. The realization hit Andrew like a truck again, mowing down whatever little effect his breathing exercise had had on him. He pressed his thumb to his lip.

He had kissed Neil, and it had felt good.

It had been the first kiss of his own volition, the first kiss he'd wanted to happen, the first kiss that hadn't been forcibly taken from him. And it had felt so fucking good.

In the dead of night, when he hadn't been able to care enough to keep his mind from wandering, he had imagined what it might feel like to kiss Neil.

In fact, he'd used that to keep himself from wanting it too much, because all his memories were tainted, cruel, brutal, and if you took all that away and imagined a kiss to be the little that was left, there wasn't much to it. A few physical sensations, skin against skin, nose against nose, but he had never managed to imagine there to be anything good about it. It had rarely even bordered on being neutral.

But actually kissing Neil?

Andrew had been right in thinking that this would ruin him. Kissing Neil like this, being kissed like this, he wouldn't survive it. He tore his eyes away from the door to the spot where Neil had been sitting with his hands under his butt until Andrew had invited him to touch.

Yeah. That. That was the fucking problem, wasn't it?

Neil had sat on his hands. Voluntarily. All Andrew had had to say was don't touch me and Neil had made sure he wouldn't. Even though he wanted to, otherwise he wouldn't have needed to stop himself from reaching out, which became clear later when he had buried his hands in Andrew's hair almost desperately.

Andrew flinched as the door of the Mas fell shut downstairs. He hadn't noticed Neil leave the building or walk to the car, but he watched the taillights disappear, thumb still pressed to his lower lip.

Chapter Text

Cont'd

Five cigarettes later, Andrew watched Kevin and Neil return.

He had no fucking idea what to say to Kevin. They were too similar.

Neil had never learned to tear himself into pieces and offer them up as a bartering chip in a fucked-up hunt for a sad excuse for love. Sure, his relationship to Mary was complicated, she was an abusive piece of shit, and she had the medium-to-long-term future planning ability of a decapitated amoeba, but her ulterior motive had been to keep her son alive.

Kevin and Andrew both knew how to bleed for people whose ulterior motive was their own pleasure.

Then there was the point of their deal. They had never talked about it.

Neither about Andrew choking Kevin nor about Riko's death.

Their deal had ended quietly, fading into black when it wasn't necessary anymore.

"I am sorry."

"I fucked up."

"I always liked you."

Liked. Past tense. It made sense. Andrew had had his reasons, but he had attacked Kevin when he had promised to protect him.

Andrew was so tired. Talking to Neil, kissing Neil, it had taken so much energy, but he still had to focus on Kevin. Wanted to focus on him, get this whole fucking misery sorted out, so they all knew where they stood, to borrow Neil's words.

His phone buzzed.

[25/12, 10:47 pm] Kevin: Can I come up if u r still on the roof?

yep

Ten minutes later, he heard Kevin fumbling with the door. He didn't have the experience in opening it that Neil had, but he managed.

Andrew stared at his hands folded in his lap. He didn't have a clear memory of how it had felt to wrap them around Kevin's throat, he hadn't been thinking clearly enough at the moment to register that, but he did remember Kevin's terrified and hurt expression.

“We need to talk,” he said into the silence between them as Kevin appeared next to him. The usually terrifying expression that more often than not represented a relationship’s death knell felt liberating in this moment because it wasn’t heralding the end, it was an acknowledgment that they needed to get things out in the open to find a way to move forward. It was an acknowledgment of the changes in their relationship and the ongoing change outside of the boundaries that their deal had dictated.

"Okay," Kevin said after a few seconds. He sounded choked.

"Sit down?" Andrew asked.

Kevin sat down.

"Baltimore," Andrew said.

Kevin stared at him, confusion written all over his face. Andrew played with the box of matches, unable to keep his anxiety in check.

"We never talked about me choking you," he clarified.

Kevin continued to stare at him, the confusion still written all over his face.

"We don't need to talk about that."

Andrew turned his head. "I only promised to protect you from Riko, but not attacking you myself was... implied."

Kevin barked a laugh. "It was an extreme situation."

Andrew gritted his teeth. Kevin had been working with Bee for two years, and they had made progress in his worldview but apparently hadn't tackled his habit of excusing behavior with situational circumstances. Yes, Andrew had reacted to the circumstances of Neil being gone and Kevin not telling him the whole truth, but that didn't mean he wasn't responsible for his actions.

It didn't mean that Kevin didn't get to be mad at him for it.

"I'm not mad at you, Andrew," Kevin said.

Andrew barely stopped himself from opening and closing his mouth like a fucking fish.

"Why?" he asked and lit a cigarette.

"Give that to me," Kevin demanded.

It took Andrew a few seconds to understand. His fingers were shaky from not having eaten since they had left and too much nicotine, but he managed to keep them steady enough to hand over the cigarette.

Kevin drew on the cigarette. He didn't choke. Instead, he exhaled the smoke slowly and made a face. "Still tastes as shitty as I remember it."

Andrew opened and closed his mouth like a fucking fish.

"When Riko and I were younger, before... before everything got ugly, we sneaked out to smoke a cigarette sometimes. Felt like we were the most badass rebels to ever set foot in Castle Evermore."

Distantly, Andrew noticed Kevin's tone of voice. There was no longing anymore, no yearning for the idea of Riko he'd had in his head for so long, the idea he'd mourned after Ichirou had put the real Riko down. If anything, it was the tone in which one told stories about a childhood friend, whose landline number and favorite ice cream one remembered, but who didn't play a role in one's life anymore. A memory from times long passed.

Maybe Kevin had made more progress in therapy than Andrew had thought.

Kevin flicked the ash from the roof and rolled the cigarette between his fingers. "I'm not mad at you, Andrew. I was hurt, for a long time. A little mad for a while, too. But I'm not anymore."

There was only static in Andrew's mind, he had no idea how to parse what Kevin was telling him. He shook another cigarette out of his pack and struck a match against the side of the match-box. Both Kevin and he watched as the match came to life. Andrew inhaled deeply as he lit a second cigarette.

"You already liked him back then, didn't you?"

Oh fucking hell. Andrew closed his eyes and nodded.

"It wasn't fair to be mad at you, because me too. I would've done the same if I had thought you were hiding something," Kevin admitted quietly.

Andrew was burning burning burning.

He hadn't expected Kevin to be okay with it, had assumed that choking Kevin on the bus to Baltimore was the equivalent of killing Aaron's mother. He had been too afraid of losing Kevin to bring it up, to ask about it, and had expected the ugly barb to fester and infect their relationship a little more each month.

He also hadn't expected that Kevin had already been into Neil back then.

"Also, you didn't use your knives. You choked me. You lost control because you let someone in, because you weren't as apathetic as you wanted to be. I knew I would hold up my end of the deal as long as we got Neil back. I always thought I could, but when you lost control because of someone else, enough to choke me and forget about your knives, I was one hundred percent sure for the first time."

Andrew stared at Kevin. He had in fact never even thought about using his knives.

He was ready to use them if someone tried to hurt him or his family, he would gut any asshole who tried to harm Aaron, Nicky, Kevin, or Neil without a second thought, he was also willing to threaten them with them, but he would never actually use them against the people he had dedicated his life to protecting. Not even to protect them from each other.

At least that was the rational, conscious explanation for his behavior.

Looking back, he hadn't thought about any of that when he had wrapped his hands around Kevin's throat. He had acted on the irrational feeling of betrayal, on the way it had hurt to be on the other side of a literal interpretation of a deal. It had been anything but rational, just an all-consuming rage to cover up the bone-deep terror of having lost Neil.

Maybe he'd also done it to see the same intensity of panic and terror in someone else's eyes, caused by himself, to feel less alone in his overwhelming panic and regain some control. Like cutting himself, just by proxy for once.

It also didn't change a fucking thing. "Doesn't make it okay what I did." He ironed his voice flat, removing any wrinkle that might betray his emotions.

"No, it doesn't. But I've forgiven you a long time ago."

"You don't want an apology?"

Andrew felt a faint pang of triumph as Kevin fell silent. It didn't last long.

"No, not... not really. But I want to ask you something, and I want the truth, not some lyrical bullshit."

Funny how it always came down to truths. Also funny how Andrew couldn't appreciate the irony at all.

He had already made his biggest confession, there was nothing left to guard, so he nodded.

"Is it true what you told Neil about me. That you also... also like me. Like you like him." For the first time since they had started talking, Kevin's voice wavered. His voice barely rose at the end of the sentences, making them statements rather than questions in all regards but their grammatical form.

Andrew's breath caught as he understood at least part of what had happened.

They were too similar. Kevin was as terrified as he was.

For Neil, this was all uncharted territory. For Kevin and Andrew, it hit far too close to home, felt like it could turn into what they had experienced in the past at any moment.

He was burning.

Andrew breathed and forced himself to look at Kevin. Kevin was staring at his left hand, thumbing over the fine web of scars crisscrossing the skin, the smoldering cigarette forgotten.

"Kevin," he said. Repeated it more insistently when Kevin still didn't look at him. Kevin took a deep breath and tore his gaze away from his hand.

"Yes," Andrew said. "Almost from the beginning."

Kevin's eyes widened. "And... Roland?" he asked.

Andrew stared at him. Roland? What the fuck? "What."

"You and him, you're not...?"

Oh. It was Andrew's turn to bark something that tried to be a laugh but fell short. "No. I blow him in the storage room and leave when he's done. He's not good at following instructions, but he's willing to handcuff himself."

Apparently, it was now Kevin's turn to imitate a fucking fish. It took him a minute.

"I'm sorry, Andrew. Neil gave me a real dressing down and I guess I deserved it."

"I don't want an apology either." Apologies were just words, worthless. "Why didn't you tell me about you and Neil?" Andrew asked.

He didn't expect a good reason, just... Kevin's apology for the Roland situation was worth even less if he hadn't understood that his own homophobia was the fuel behind his behavior.

Kevin had to pull on his cigarette several times to get the cherry to light up again. The striker closed his eyes and exhaled smoke. He was so beautiful.

"Because I'm scared shitless," Kevin said. "I'm... I've been able to ignore what I feel for you because you haven't pushed in that direction. Neil did, though he didn't really know what he was doing."

The fond smile on Kevin's face stabbed Andrew in the chest before he realized something else that took his breath away.

Feel. Present tense.

"No one really cared who we fucked in the Nest. 'What happens in the Nest stays in the Nest,'" Kevin continued, seemingly oblivious to the turmoil inside Andrew.

"No one would ever have spoken a word about gay sex in mixed company. But... this. Neil. You. It's different with you."

Andrew tried his best to take a deep breath without making it too obvious. His head was spinning. Kevin pulled one knee up to his chest and wrapped his arms around it. His next words were so soft that Andrew had to strain his ears to make them out.

"I wouldn't be here without you and Neil. I'd be back in the Nest, drinking myself to death, never playing again. I want... what Neil said. I don't want to ignore it because it's new. But I can't- I can't lose you. So I tried to pretend it was business as usual."

Breathe in. Exhale.

Breathe in. Exhale.

They were too fucking similar.

Andrew didn't know what to tell Kevin. Didn't know how to tell him that he understood, really, really fucking understood what Kevin was talking about. That he had spent the last months trying to pretend that everything was normal, until it almost was, only to have reality catch up with him again.

Avoidance never helped.

Andrew replayed this conversation in his head. What I feel for you. Is it true what you told Neil about me.

He replayed the conversation in the dorm room days ago. Ilikeyoualwayshave.

Fuck.

Fuck it.

He stubbed out his cigarette and turned to Kevin. His heart was pounding against his ribcage as if it wanted to break free and run away from this situation. Andrew didn't blame it.

The edge, the fall was still calling to him. It always did when he was up here. Offering a way out, a hopefully deadly gamble on a fifty-fifty chance to be another failed Fox. A siren's call, whispering its seductive allure in Andrew's ear, promising him death and thus provoking the opposite desire.

Whatever it would cost him, he was in over his head, burned down to his core. And if there was one thing Andrew wasn't doing, it was backing down.

"Kevin," he said.

Kevin was tense, fingers gripping the opposite sleeves, expression locked somewhere a few inches shy of a proper neutral Raven façade. He stopped staring at Andrew's chest and looked back at him instead.

Andrew had seen Kevin scared, had talked him through panic attacks and pure terror, he had dragged him to the bathroom and held his hair while he puked, he had seen him red-eyed and utterly lost after Riko's death. He had never seen him this vulnerable, not even trying to protect himself.

"I want to kiss you. Don't touch me anywhere. Yes or no?" Andrew asked.

Kevin's eyes dropped to Andrew's lips before he looked back up, expression as terrified as Andrew felt. "Yes," he answered after a second.

There was no uncertainty in his voice. There was also none in Andrew's head, he didn't know much about this situation, but he knew he wanted to kiss Kevin.

So he did. He leaned forward and buried one hand in the silky dark hair, running his fingers through the strands.

Something in Andrew broke and shaped itself into a new beginning as their lips met. Kissing Kevin was pure thrill. Kevin placed his hands beside Andrew, not touching him, and leaned in further, chasing Andrew's mouth.

Without thinking, Andrew opened his mouth and welcomed Kevin. Then he lost time to their kiss until they had to break it up, coming up for much-needed air.

The striker sat back down. He looked somewhere between awed and smitten, an observation Andrew refused to process for now. In its desperate search for another train of thought, his brain instead provided a comparison of kissing Neil and Kevin.

Neil willingly went where Andrew dragged him. He wasn't passive, far from it, but he relinquished control to Andrew and followed his lead, being incredibly responsive but not taking initiative.

Kissing Kevin was a fight for control. Kevin pushed and prodded, without ever coming close to Andrew's boundaries. He had taken Andrew's consent to the kiss and deepened it while keeping his hands to himself. It was a battle, but the goal was the opposite of mutual destruction.

Who would have thought that kissing could be like this? Who would have thought that kissing could reflect more personality traits than just takes whatever he wants? Who would have thought that kissing could be this good? That there were so many different ways to be kissed, to kiss, and that he wanted to experience them all?

A sudden wave of wanting washed over Andrew, scary and terrifying and exhilarating. He didn't know what to do with it, where to put it, how to deal with it. How not to run from it.

"I need to think," he said, voice cracking over the last word.

Kevin nodded. "Can I kiss you again before I go?"

Andrew thought for a few seconds, analyzing the turbulences in his brain. Then he put his hand in Kevin's hair again. "Yes."

Kevin smiled, surprise and delight warring for dominance. Andrew smothered their fight by pulling Kevin in.

Their second kiss was shorter, a promise of more to come.

Andrew carved a few words out of his head. He had put his feelings into the two kisses, had tried to convey all the things he didn't know how to say, but they were too fucking similar. Kevin needed things spelled out for him, or his head would go rogue, running in all the wrong directions, setting fire to reason.

With their foreheads still pressed together, Andrew cursed the gods he didn't believe in for falling for two Exy junkies and whispered, "When they offer it to me, I'll take Muller's place."

It took Kevin about four seconds to connect the dots; one dot being Neil's pro team, another dot being his own pro team, and the line between them cut almost perfectly in half by the dot labeled "Chicago Tigers" and their soon-to-be vacant goalkeeper spot.

Kevin's smile grew slowly, blooming into something brilliant and dazzling. He gently nosed Andrew and then stood up.

Andrew tried hard not to fucking fall over while sitting.

Cont'd

What the fuck.

What the fucking fuck.

It was well past midnight by now and Andrew felt like he was drowning in everything that had happened in the last few hours.

He was still staring at the door that had fallen shut behind Kevin. He still felt Kevin brush their noses together, a touch so devastatingly innocent that Andrew didn't know how to get over it.

Nobody had ever done that.

No bad memories were lurking in the shadows, ready to taint this new experience with their rotten taste if he didn't keep them at bay.

Andrew leaned against the wall of the HVAC equipment storage next to him and let his head fall back. It hit the concrete, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to tether him to the moment.

He was so exhausted. He was feeling so much, but he couldn't put it into words, couldn't sort it into the neat little categories Bee and he had designed to make his emotions understandable. They had never talked about categories for these feelings because there had never been feelings like this.

With a frustrated sniff, he wiped the tears from his cheeks. At least, these were not born from being hurt, that much he knew; rather a combination of being so completely out of his depth and completely overwhelmed.

Ironically, it was Kevin's last gesture, the pure innocence of their noses touching, that had broken down whatever functionality had been left in him.

For so long, touch had been pure horror. There was not one square inch of Andrew's body that had not been touched with the intent to take, not one fucking body part that had not been touched by those who haunted his dreams and memories.

Over the years with the Foxes, he had slowly untangled that web of broken wires in his head, to the point where Neil and Kevin could hug him briefly after a won game, to the point where he didn't have to threaten Nicky with knives every time the man came within a foot of him (Aaron had always been the exception). To the point where not every touch made him want to vomit and defend himself violently.

His narrative for this recovery path had been to get to a point where he could handle the casual interactions in his daily life without having to draw his knives or handcuff guys to blow them. A point defined by tolerating touch. Therapy had never been about getting rid of the knives for him, although he knew that lots of people hoped that being less inclined to use them was the primary goal.

Andrew was fine with them thinking that, with them not thinking any further about why he did what he did. It gave him peace of mind to know that even most of the Foxes didn't have the least inkling; that they didn't know shit about the reasons behind his seemingly easy penchant for violence. It protected the weak parts of him, the traumatized remnants of a life that had been supposed to end so many times, that went on out of sheer stubborn spite. If they didn't question his motives, he didn't have to explain them; being called a violent psychopath didn't even register on the scale compared to what had happened in the past.

That narrative was changing right now, knocked out of place and turned upside-down by a gentle brush of noses. The part about the irrelevant opinions of other people, those outside the little bubble he'd die and, more importantly, live to protect, wasn't changing, but his goal when it came to touching people was.

But just as it somehow, magically, felt possible to maybe explore other sexual acts with Kevin, Neil, or Kevin-and-Neil than just blowing them (and that thought alone filled Andrew's head with static), maybe he would one day be able to like and enjoy casual contact.

Andrew took a deep breath and sniffed.

He smoked two more cigarettes. He needed to talk to Kevin and Neil, talk about boundaries and rules and what they wanted out of this, who they wanted to talk to about it. Neil had said Kevin and he weren't exclusive, that they didn't have to tell each other anything (he valiantly ignored the protection-comment bubbling up from his memory). That wouldn't work for Andrew, but he didn't know where exactly his boundaries lay yet.

With Nicky and Erik in Columbia, they had their dorm to themselves for the next few days. They had time to figure things out. Andrew had time to let the dust settle and think about what he wanted out of this... this poly relationship he had somehow been invited into.

What the fucking fuck.

He had never expected to find one partner in his life. To find one man he was attracted to, who he genuinely liked and cared for, who was able to accept boundaries without asking, who would then also be satisfied with the little he had to offer, willing to accept the pile of shards and trauma that Andrew Joseph Minyard was made of? A pipe dream, on a good day.

Two people? Back in the beginning of his time as a Fox, Andrew had sometimes considered poly relationships. As an option for much later, when he had healed enough to be able to give a little in a relationship, to keep the relationship open for the other man, to give him the freedom to get from someone else everything Andrew couldn't provide. He had toyed with the concept and then abandoned it as useless to think about, with Nicky going back to Germany and the stuck situation with Aaron, a future after college had been laughable.

Besides, it had never been about him having two people who were his partners in one way or another. Especially not two people who were already happy together but still wanted him for some fucking reason. As if he could bring something to the table that they couldn't get easier somewhere else.

Andrew pulled his knees up to his chest, buried his face between them, and wrapped his arms around his legs. He focused on the feeling of his chest expanding and pressing against his thighs with each breath, timing them to keep the oncoming panic attack at bay.

He was fucking overwhelmed. And terrified of the fact that he still trusted the strikers. He couldn't get Kevin's brilliant smile about his pro plans out of his head, or the way Neil had sat on his own hands. It felt like the worst decision he could make, trusting them with this, handing over parts of himself that had barely begun to heal and would be destroyed without a trace if they chose to do so; yet it was the only decision he wanted to make.

Bee was going to have a fucking field day with this.

Andrew breathed through the precursor of the panic attack and managed to stave it off. He smoked another cigarette before getting up again and stretching; his body didn't hurt as much as it had after Monday's roof session, but it sure as hell wasn't the weather for sitting here for hours.

His fingers were still numb from the cold when he fumbled with the door to the dorm. Everything was dark, Kevin's soft snoring the only sound. After drinking some water and brushing his teeth, Andrew sneaked into their bedroom.

Neil was still up. He was sitting on his bed, blanket wrapped around him, and surfing the Internet. When Andrew entered, he removed one of his earplugs, smiled with a gentle happiness that made Andrew ache, and mouthed, "Good night."

Andrew stared at him for a second, unable to comprehend, then nodded at Neil.

He ignored the fact that Neil put the laptop away as he changed into his sleepwear. If he pretended that Neil hadn't stayed up until he got back, he wouldn't have to think about it.

With his back pressed against the wall, Andrew fell asleep within minutes.

Chapter Text

Friday morning, December 26th

Kevin's alarm ripped Andrew from his sleep. The dorm was still dark, well before sunrise. He groaned and pulled his blanket over his head.

It took the strikers about five minutes to get up and dressed. Andrew pretended not to be there, or at the very least to be fast asleep.

"Andrew," Kevin said. Andrew pulled his pillow over his head. "Gym?"

Gym. Before fucking sunrise. On a day off. A holiday, even. "Fuck you," he muttered.

Kevin sighed a sigh of desperate misery and followed Neil out of the room.

Sometimes, Andrew wondered how it had come about that he'd been declared clinically insane and not people who voluntarily went to the gym at this time of day.

After the door fell shut behind them, Andrew tried to fall asleep again. It had been a good night so far, no nightmares.

It took a while, but he finally managed to drift off for an hour before his brain refused to stop thinking about yesterday.

Yesterday.

Yesterday, he had kissed both Neil and Kevin.

Andrew rolled over and winced; like every morning, his back was sore from being pressed against the cold wall all night. He stared at the dust dancing in the sun rays.

If he were anyone else, he'd probably be questioning his memory now, wondering if he hadn't just dreamed it all. But he knew better, knew that all of this had actually fucking happened: when his dreams got the better of him, haunting him throughout the day with memories and imagined pain and touches, he still knew that they were dreams. His memory was perfect, he could reconstruct every minute of yesterday in excruciating detail up until the time he went to bed, dismantling most of the nightmares' effects save for the emotional backlash.

Knowing the dreams hadn't been real (this time) didn't make them feel any less real.

But this? This was real.

He couldn't stay in bed anymore, the sudden realization that this was real made his heart beat faster than was appropriate for eight fucking thirty in the morning.

For good measure, Andrew glared at Kevin's alarm clock for a full ten seconds before he got up to smoke in the living room. Then he showered.

Then he paced the living room.

They still needed to talk. They had talked so fucking much yesterday, and there was still so much demanding to be talked about.

Andrew smoked another cigarette.

He paced a bit more.

He took the present out of his duffel bag and put it on the coffee table.

He made some coffee.

He smoked another cigarette.

He answered a text from Renee wishing him a Merry Christmas.

He flipped through one of his books, not taking in what he was looking at.

At about a quarter to ten, he turned on the coffee maker, set it to brew a whole pot, and placed Neil and Kevin's favorite mugs next to it.

He took the present from the coffee table and placed the envelope between the two mugs.

He stared at the mugs and the envelope for a few seconds, then grabbed the envelope again, carried it to his desk, wrote Kevin and Neil's names on it, and put it back between the mugs. Better safe than sorry.

Why was he so fucking anxious about this present? He knew they'd like it.

"Ridiculous," Andrew muttered darkly to himself, ignoring that it felt even more ridiculous to talk to himself, and grabbed his coat and cigarettes.

From the roof, he watched the parking lot. Predictably, the strikers had run to the gym instead of taking the Mas like reasonable people would. He watched them warming down in the parking lot, faces red from exercise and cold, talking to each other now and then, but mostly quietly in sync with each other.

Could he really be a part of this? Relationships, interacting with others, none of it came easy to Andrew. He had to fight for every single bit of it.

Inconveniently, something Bee had said a while ago buzzed in his head.

"You're not as alone with your experiences as you were before anymore. You've found people who can relate to parts of what you've been through, and opening up to them about it can be a healing experience."

It had felt ludicrous, but one of the most annoying traits of Bee was that she was usually right.

Neither Neil nor Kevin were good at human interaction. Neil's first-ever friends had been Foxes, Kevin had grown up in a fucking cult.

They apparently still managed to do this. Maybe especially because they both had to learn how relationships worked long after everybody else had.

Maybe Andrew could do this, too.

He watched the strikers enter the building and let his head fall back against the wall behind him as his anxiety spiked. The cigarette in his hand was trembling and he was sweating despite the cold.

Ridiculous. Fucking ridiculous.

By now they were probably back in the dorm and had found the coffee. And the envelope. Andrew breathed.

Twenty seconds later, his phone buzzed. Avoidance never helped.

[26/12, 11:13 am] Neil: Holy shit Andrew

[26/12, 11:13 am] Kevin: How did u get those tickets?? They were sold out so fast

[26/12, 11:14 am] Neil: Thank you

[26/12, 11:14 am] Kevin: !!!!

Andrew breathed some more. His heart rate returned to normal. He felt stupid.

He had known that they would like his present. There was no fucking way the two junkies wouldn't be thrilled about tickets to the final game of the pro season.

Their future pro teams, the Kansas Bulls and the Toronto Devils, were dominating the professional Exy world since the Moriyama-run Baltimore Wildcats had gone down in the aftermath of the Raven investigation, and unless another pro team "pulled a Fox," the finale would go down between the two.

The tickets had sold out ridiculously fast. With the unstable Internet connection in the dorms, there was almost no way to enter all the necessary information fast enough, so Andrew had asked Bee if he could use her computer and then done his best to go through the forms as fast as possible, managing to buy three tickets with good sightlines.

Since the tickets were already expensive, the hotel reservation was not exactly fancy, but there was a shuttle to the stadium and a low chance of bed bugs.

Andrew went through a few breathing exercises to get the remaining anxiety out of his system and gather enough courage to go back to the dorm.

Kevin was in the shower, Neil was curled up in one of the beanbags, but got up as soon as Andrew hung up his coat.

"Can I kiss you?" Neil asked in lieu of a greeting, devastatingly handsome with his sweat-soaked hair and Kevin's hoodie.

"Yes," Andrew replied helplessly and pulled Neil in.

Neil buried his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. Andrew couldn't even think about it, his thoughts evaporating in a useless blob of smoke the second their lips touched.

"Thank you so much," Neil said a few minutes later (Andrew guessed that part, time seemed to just fuck off during these kisses), his lips brushing over Andrew's.

Andrew made a sound that hopefully conveyed an appropriate response. Neil smiled brightly at him and kissed him again before he dropped back into his beanbag. Andrew stared at his hands, now wrapped around a glass of water; hands that had stayed in his pockets the entire time they had been kissing.

Thus dazed, Andrew stood in the middle of the room for a few seconds before he managed to force his wobbly legs into compliance and sit down on the sofa.

They sat in comfortable silence until Kevin, as handsome as Neil, joined them. The combination of the two was bound to give Andrew a heart attack one day. Kevin dropped onto the sofa next to Andrew, keeping a few inches between them.

Before the silence in the room could become tense, Neil pulled his legs up to sit cross-legged and said, "I have a few things I want to talk about. Boundaries and stuff. I read up on the important stuff we should cover last night. You okay with doing that now?"

Not that Andrew felt ready, but since that wasn't going to get any better, he nodded. Kevin tensed next to him but also nodded his consent.

"There are apparently a shitton of different constellations for poly relationships, and all the guides say it's important to make that explicit. When I talked to Kevin about you, we already said that we don't want anyone to feel less important. No hierarchy, no primary relationships. Just us three. Do you also want that?"

Kevin nodded. Andrew tried not to lose control of his breathing. He counted in his head, to three, to five, to three, to five. Neil patiently waited.

Andrew felt like he had left reality behind when he had stepped through the door. This had to be a dream, cruel in its beauty. We don't want anyone to feel less important. What a wild thing to say. What a wild thing to imply.

He'd watched Neil and Kevin interact over the last few months, their bond strengthened and new, sturdy twine weaved in, raising their relationship and trust to a level Andrew couldn't even imagine ever reaching.

And now they sat there, in complete agreement, saying things like Just us three, like it were reasonable to not only let Andrew into the space they had carved out of the world for themselves, but to invite him to be an active inhabitant. Wanted, not just tolerated as long as he was useful.

Three, five. Three, five. He cleared his throat. "Okay," he said, feeling strangely bold while terrified of admitting this. Half a thought was dedicated to a cruel what-if, to the idea that Neil and Kevin would laugh at him once they had gotten him to admit what he wanted, that they would turn it against him. But he knew better. Knew better because he had handed over so many guided missiles aimed at his underbelly already and they had never once used them, had instead protected the trust he offered.

Both strikers smiled. Maybe Andrew would die right fucking here and now.

Neil took a deep breath and continued, "Things with Kevin and me were open. We could veto if something didn't feel right, but we didn't have to tell each other unless asked or we wanted to. I'm fine with whatever you want to do, I don't need or want anyone outside of this," he gestured between the three of them, "but whatever works for you works for me." He looked at Andrew.

Andrew fought the growing instinct to run away to the roof. Kevin shifted next to him. Andrew looked at Kevin, hoping the striker would say something before he had to.

"That I wanted an open relationship was... that was about Andrew," Kevin said softly and Andrew's brain short-circuited.

What.

Judging by the look on his face, Neil had not expected that, either.

Kevin turned bright red. "So, eh. I don't really need that anymore."

Andrew stared at him some more, desperately trying to sort out what he had just heard. Then he stared at Neil, who for some fucking reason had decided to look at both of them with an incredibly fond expression on his face, which did not help.

"And I can't- I don't want you to fuck other people. I don't know if I can- I mean, if you don't want to break up with Roland, that's something else, I guess, but-" Kevin faltered.

Neil was looking at Andrew. As if Andrew was supposed to say something. Which he knew he should, but his brain wasn't back online yet, still stuck on That was about Andrew just thrown in his face like it made sense.

"Andrew?" Neil said.

Andrew forced himself to shake his head and answer, "Roland is irrelevant." Roland was attractive, sure, but it had never been about him. He had been a means to an end that had nothing to do with who he was as a person. Blowjobs in storage rooms were the beginning and end of their relationship.

Kevin relaxed noticeably beside him.

"So you're all fine if we do this exclusive? The three of us, no one else?" Neil asked.

Kevin nodded. So did Andrew, trying hard not to look as relieved as he was - he still couldn't really imagine being in an open relationship. Not with Kevin and Neil. When he had toyed with the idea years ago, it had been about a hypothetical man in a hypothetical situation in a hypothetical future, not about two men, larger than life and so so so painstakingly real.

The simple agreement of the two strikers saved him from having to say it out loud. He was already so far out of his depth, so deep into territory previously thought untouchable, that he probably wouldn't have been able to continue the conversation now if he would have had to explicitly state what he wanted.

"And how do we do... this? Between us, I mean. What do you want to know, what are the rules for being with each other?" For the first time in this entire fucking discussion, Neil looked at least a little as insecure as Andrew felt. Still, he pushed on, "I think I'm fine if we... mostly continue like this? It's not like we don't spend most of our days together anyway, I just want to know what you're up to. I want to know about things between you if you want to tell me."

Kevin pulled one knee up to his chest and wrapped his arms around it. "I want to know about things between you, too. At least what's... happening in general."

Andrew imagined what a deep breath would feel like. They knew about Drake, they knew about please and misunderstanding, and Kevin knew the broad terms of his arrangement with Roland, but he wasn't exactly sure they knew exactly how broken and fucked-up he was. "I don't know if there will ever be more than kissing or me blowing you," he forced through clenched teeth. He wanted wanted wanted, but he had no idea if he would ever be able to.

Neil choked on his water, blushing furiously and more than justified if it was only about fucking up the act of drinking. Besides, Neil never choked on either food or drink, being quiet at all costs too beaten into him to risk it.

Kevin had apparently come to a similar conclusion; he was staring at Neil, one perfectly plucked eyebrow raised so high it almost disappeared behind his bangs.

Neil put his glass of water back on the table. Neil wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Neil got his glass back. Neil took a sip.

"If you're up to it, now or at some later point," Neil took another sip, "I was just thinking about me fucking you, Kevin, while you watch, Andrew-"

Well. Andrew was glad he wasn't drinking anything right now, because he'd probably choke on it as undignifiedly as Neil had. For the second time, the wiring in his brain overheated and short-circuited, leaving him with nothing but stunned static in his head.

First of all: fuck. He had just jerked off that one miserable time to the scene on the court. Of course, the memory still lived rent-free in his head, but he had refused to think about it again in that context. This explicit permission to watch them... Andrew breathed, which was all he could do at the moment.

Secondly: fuck. The easy acceptance of his boundary pulled the rug out from under his feet already. The fact that Neil's reaction was not only that acceptance, but also an idea on how to incorporate that boundary, knocked him flying.

He pulled his legs up to his chest to hide how his breath was stuttering.

Kevin next to him didn't fare much better. His expression had morphed into a sorry imitation of the Raven press conference blankness, betrayed by the redness of his cheeks and the tight grip on his leg. "Fuck," he muttered quietly, saving Andrew the trouble of saying it himself. "Yeah. That sounds like... yeah."

Andrew closed his eyes. They were going to be the fucking death of him, for fucking sure. "That might work," he admitted.

Neil bit his lips and took two deep breaths. "Okay, well, yeah. Let's put that on the back burner. If you ever want to try, it's on the table from my side." He took another deep breath, his cheeks slowly returning to a little less shiny red. "So we tell each other what's happening, broadly? But in general, everything's a go as long as everyone's on board?"

If they ever managed to have a normal conversation about all of this without Andrew's brain throwing one exception after the other, he needed to tell Neil that he was impressed with how he managed to stay on track and steer this discussion. Andrew hadn't even known how to start it, and Kevin wasn't good at this shit either, but Neil pulled it off.

Which, on second thought, wasn't all that surprising. Neil was all-or-nothing, quite literally do or die. Andrew had already been on the receiving end of the man's relentless pursuit of his goals, when Neil had handed himself over to Riko, when he had used Katelyn to force the twins into joint therapy, when he had invited Andrew into an FBI interrogation cell. He shouldn't be this surprised that Neil was tackling this conversation like every obstacle he'd encountered since he'd stopped running and started fighting.

Subdued, he nodded.

"Yeah, just... tell me what's going on between you two. I- I don't want to have to guess," Kevin said, not looking at either of them.

Andrew nodded again, swallowing the urge to clear his throat before he said, "Works for me."

"Same. I don't mind telling either of you anything you want to know," Neil agreed. He waited a few seconds to see if anyone had anything to add before he continued, "Last thing I wanted to talk about is who we tell."

Kevin tensed again. "We can't make it public. Not in any way until we have a standing in the pro world. And even then, we probably have to run it by them."

"Doesn't mean we can't tell people we trust."

"Bee, Aaron, Renee, Nicky," Andrew interjected. Each of them could keep their mouths shut. Even Nicky, when it came to the important life-or-death things, things that touched on Yakuza business.

Neil looked at him with an expression far too soft to handle right now, so Andrew looked at Kevin instead, who nodded slowly. "Dad, Abby. Also Bee."

"What about Kate, Allison, and Erik?"

Reynolds wasn't Neil's real question here. When Renee and Reynolds had drawn closer and closer circles around each other, Andrew had involuntarily spent more time with the dealer, and when they had made things official, they had come to a mutual truce of sorts. On top of that, she was one of the original Foxes, who still entertained a relentless gossip circle, but would rather shave her hair than discuss Fox business with outsiders.

Same went for Erik. Apart from him being in Germany, where Exy wasn't a thing and nobody knew who they were, he had by and large pieced together enough of the Moriyama family puzzle to understand that he would jeopardize a lot of lives if he ran his mouth.

The question was whether he trusted Katelyn. Aaron was the only Fox with a relationship with a true outsider, and as far as Andrew knew, he had never told her about the Moriyamas, so she was unaware of the stakes at play. She was an outsider whom Andrew had long distrusted explicitly and violently.

Yet the answer was surprisingly simple. She had been nothing but supportive of the twins' work on their relationship. Andrew trusted her with Aaron. She wouldn't risk compromising the progress they'd made.

He nodded. "They won't tell."

Kevin opened his mouth and closed it again.

"I want to tell Matt. That way Dan will know too," Neil said. Then he smiled; a soft, vulnerable thing. "So all original Foxes, including the adults."

Kevin nodded slowly. "The whole family."

Family. Partners. Andrew's head was spinning.

"You got anything else you want to talk about?" Neil asked.

Even if Andrew had something else, he doubted he'd be able to talk about it now. Tomorrow, maybe. But as it was, he was still processing everything that had just happened.

Kevin shook his head.

Neil untangled his legs. "Okay. If you think of anything, we can always talk about it later. I need a shower."

Off he went, leaving Andrew and Kevin in the wake of a storm called Neil Abram Josten On A Mission.

Consequently both dazed, Kevin and Andrew stared at the bathroom door. After a minute or ten, Kevin turned to Andrew.

"Thank you, for the tickets and the hotel. And for coming with us," Kevin said, expression as excited as after a perfectly executed play on the court.

Andrew had no idea what to do with that. He grunted a wordless reply.

"He always just says things like this. Just says them," Kevin wondered quietly after a few seconds of silence, eyes glued to the bathroom door again.

Andrew snorted. Neil was in the habit of saying words that caused disproportionate amounts of havoc wasn't exactly news.

"Can I kiss you?"

Speaking of Just saying things like this. Andrew still felt like he was floating, like the world had shifted an inch to the left and his body had forgotten to follow suit. A little dreamlike, but miles away from nightmare territory. He stared at Kevin, who somehow managed to have more patience waiting for Andrew's answer than he could muster for an entire afternoon of training with the Foxes.

Andrew couldn't take it. He grabbed Kevin by the collar and pulled him in, saying his yes the second before their lips met. Kevin braced himself against the back of the sofa. Kevin's hair had grown long enough for a short ponytail, but he mostly wore it open, giving Andrew the perfect opportunity to bury his fingers in the silky strands.

They kissed for seconds that felt like an eternity only coming to an end when Neil got out of the shower. He walked back into the room, one towel wrapped around his hips and another around his neck like a scarf. Andrew only stopped himself from staring because he got up to smoke by the window. Kevin wasn't as subtle, his eyes following Neil with a shameless ease that felt less absurd to Andrew than it probably should.

"Exites has a new collection of striker racquets. Maybe the new goalie line is already in, too," Kevin said.

Andrew closed his eyes and sighed.

He couldn't even blame anyone but himself that this was his life.

"I'm driving."

Chapter Text

Wednesday morning, December 31st

Five days.

Five days of being allowed to kiss Kevin and Neil.

Five days of falling asleep and waking up and going through his day knowing how it felt to kiss them. How it felt to bury his hands in their hair, and sometimes how it felt to have their hands in his hair, kissing until they had to come up for air, hearts pounding and foreheads pressed together.

It still hadn't sunk in. Reality hadn't found Andrew yet, not since he'd stepped into his dorm room and into this wild, unbelievable relationship negotiation.

Slowly he was adjusting. The world still shifted an inch to the left, but it wasn't the first time everything changed without him really understanding what was going on or being able to control it. Maybe this was his new normal now, being shifted an inch to the left. Maybe he'd bounce back once his brain understood that this was reality now, that something had changed for the better instead of going to shit.

Andrew stared at his phone.

They had agreed to wait a few days before telling anyone, to have time to figure out this new thing in the bubble of a deserted Christmas holidays campus. Aaron and Katelyn were coming back to campus around noon today, in the evening they'd all go to Columbia and hopefully find Nicky and Erik at least half-dressed.

Today marked the end of the grace period. Kevin was at Wymack's, Neil had set up a video call with Boyd and Wilds.

That left Andrew to talk to Renee, Bee, Aaron, and Nicky; in that order.

Avoidance never helped. He hit the call button.

"Andrew!" Renee said, the genuine smile on her face audible in her voice.

"Renee," he greeted her.

"Hang on, let me get to the balcony," Renee said.

Andrew let his head fall back. Oh, to be fucking known. One word, and she knew he wanted to talk about something without Reynolds overhearing. He listened to the brief bantering between the two women before a door fell shut, cutting off Reynolds' complaints.

"How are you doing?" Renee asked.

Andrew lit a cigarette and considered the question. "Better," he finally settled on.

"I am glad to hear that." It was incredible how genuine Renee could sound when she said empty phrases like that, filling them with her honest interest in his well-being.

"How about you?" he asked. He was stalling, and she probably knew that in the uncanny way that Renee always knew such things, but since he had been the one to call for once, she would probably (hopefully) indulge him a little longer.

"I'm great. I may have to ask Matt to teach me a backliner trick or two when we visit Dan and him next week, because Ally keeps trying to buy me clothes and I think bodily keeping her from doing so is the only chance I have, but I am glad to be back for now. I miss work, but I also miss being home when I'm overseas."

"Why don't you let your girlfriend spoil you?"

"Because she keeps trying to buy me designer clothes. She insists they are from labels that are cruelty-free and sustainable, but I told her I don't trust their labels. Yesterday, I caught her grilling one of the managers of a company somewhere in the supply chain about their workers' conditions, so I am pretty sure I am going to get a step-by-step account of each piece's journey soon, just so that she can put me in a dress," Renee said, voice somewhere between suffering and stupidly in love.

Andrew snorted. "You knew what you were getting yourself into."

"I don't regret it at all," she replied, voice serene and dangerously holy. "I am really happy that you called, Andrew. What did you want to talk about?"

Andrew took a drag on his cigarette and watched the smoke evaporate.

"I talked to Kevin and Neil," he said.

"Oh?" Renee asked.

Why was it so fucking terrifying to say it out loud? Andrew wasn't fucking superstitious, saying things out loud didn't change anything, it didn't mean he was dooming everything to fail. And Renee already knew about the worst, knew that he had fallen for two junkies.

Besides, how the fuck was he supposed to put this into words? Together didn't cut it, neither did relationship. Both felt simultaneously too small a word for how they had turned his world upside down and too big a word to be spoken aloud.

Somehow, he wasn't even fucking surprised that he could wrap the words in Exy.

"I'll contact the Tigers about Muller's spot."

"Yeah?" Her smile was audible again.

Andrew hated her for making him spell it out more clearly.

"It's good now," he forced himself to say.

"I am so happy for you," Renee said. "Congratulations."

Andrew stubbed out his cigarette and lit the next. "You can tell Reynolds. Keep it between the two of you until tomorrow, we still have to tell the others."

"Promise," Renee said, and Andrew believed her.

Cont'd

can you be at therapy at 3:30?

[31/12, 11:25 am] Aaron: Yes? Why?

Andrew put his phone down and lit a cigarette. He hadn't left the roof since he'd ended his call with Renee, trying to figure out how he wanted to tell Aaron. Then he had sent Bee a message to ask for a longer session. She had replied within minutes.

So, now he had to prepare himself to tell Bee, Aaron, and Nicky. Renee had been the easy part, the trial balloon; she already knew.

Nicky was comparatively easy, calmed by Erik's presence and finally able to respect some boundaries, Andrew would have to endure his excitement and probably some hurt feelings about the lack of gay bonding, but aside from the fussing, Nicky wouldn't be a problem.

With Bee, this session was going to fire the starting pistol to delve deeper into the topic, to talk about intimacy and companionship and trust and sex and the L-word, all of which Andrew would very much like not to talk about. Today, he'd probably get off easy with just telling her what had happened; though putting it into actual words, not coated with the safety of an Exy analogy, was terrifying enough.

But Aaron? Aaron didn't even know he was gay. Maybe he suspected it, maybe he didn't, but they'd never talked about it.

Andrew didn't leave the roof for another two hours, until he was chilled to the bone and desperately needed to piss.

In the dorm, Neil was curled up on the sofa, absorbed in a book about Exy strategy (of course). He looked up when Andrew entered. "How's Renee?"

Neil had never completely stopped being wary around Renee, and he also knew that Andrew wasn't the type to talk on the phone for hours and hours. Andrew hated him for caring and showing it in a way that Andrew could handle.

"Reynolds is currently revolutionizing the fashion industry so she can spoil her with sustainable, cruelty-free, high-end fashion," Andrew replied drily.

Neil laughed. "They don't know what they have coming."

"Renee sends her regards," Andrew obediently relayed the message Renee had given him for Neil. Her protective streak was showing more than he had expected.

"Thanks," Neil replied easily. With anyone else, Andrew might have considered that the subtext had been lost in translation, but not with Neil. If the striker knew one thing, it was to be threatened, even if it was done as sweetly and innocently as Renee had managed. "What time do you want to get going tonight?"

Not at all, if Andrew had his way, they'd extend their grace period indefinitely. "Six? I'll be at therapy until four, Aaron will need some air then." Besides, he didn't want to be stuck in a car with his twin before said twin had had the chance to vent to Katelyn.

Neil smiled at him. "I'll let Kevin know."

Andrew nodded and headed for the bedroom to get a thicker hoodie. Halfway there, he pivoted, heart pounding.

Asking for something hadn't really gotten less terrifying with every yes he'd gotten in the last five days. "Yes or no?" he said and almost got whiplash from the speed with which Neil let his book fall to the floor.

With a pointed look, Andrew saved the book from having its spine broken.

"Yes," Neil said, impatiently. He was going to be the death of Andrew.

Andrew pulled him in and kissed him before he could do anything worse.

"Can I-" Neil asked half a question before Andrew kissed him into silence. He ran a hand down Neil's arm and grabbed his hand, planting it in his hair. Neil smiled against his mouth. Andrew hated him.

They were both panting when they parted again.

Fuck, Andrew wanted to kneel in front of Neil, and see how many of the sounds he had heard on the court they could recreate with Neil's cock down his throat.

He also needed to go to therapy. Really really needed to. Especially before he did things like kneeling in front of Neil with his cock down his throat.

Feeling more than a little sorry for himself, Andrew got up.

Wednesday afternoon, December 31st

Today's therapy session had been optional. A contingency plan, in case shit went wrong. Most holiday sessions were like that, though they had gone from opt-out to opt-in a year ago when both Bee and he had felt certain enough that he would actually ask for therapy when he needed it.

This was the first time in their entire therapeutic relationship that Andrew had asked for a session because shit had not gone wrong. In fact, shit had gone spectacularly right. He had spent the last few days thinking it through on his own, hitting roadblocks along the way and falling into spirals of anxiety, so that he could actually say it out loud in front of Bee today.

Saying things in front of Bee made them more real. As long as he kept his thoughts and emotions inside of his head, contained behind the mask of inclined-to-violence apathy, he could pretend they didn't exist. Even the last five days, with the empty campus, spent in the bubble of their dorm room and the roof, felt like a separate little world, unconnected to real life.

If anything would shift the world back into place, it would be saying things out loud to Bee.

Andrew drove below speed limit on his way to her.

He was rarely anxious about therapy. He trusted Bee. He knew how she would react. Unfortunately, his heart was still pounding against his chest. Maybe even because he knew how she would react, Andrew rarely felt as uncomfortable in therapy as he did when Bee praised him for something, pointed out progress, or explained why something he had done was a big step on the recovery road.

Besides, he was fucking terrified to talk to Aaron.

His twin had made a lot of progress with Nicky, to the point where he had apologized for his homophobic comments sincerely enough that Erik was willing to talk to him again. But that was Nicky. Nicky had not killed Aaron's abuser. Aaron loved Nicky.

Andrew's relationship with his twin had improved. A civil Christmas with fucking Christmas pajamas had been unthinkable only one year ago. But Andrew had kept this part of his life from Aaron, even the tentative attempts at consensual exploration during his teenage years had taken place far away from his family. He hadn't exactly hidden Roland, but he also hadn't mentioned it either.

What if their relationship wasn't strong enough? What if he'd finally ruin it all, because Aaron would be too hurt that he hadn't told him earlier?

What if Aaron's homophobia was still lurking in the shadows?

The last person to insinuate that Andrew was gay because he had been sexually abused by men as a child had been a therapist in juvie. He'd broken the man's nose, and the guy hadn't even known for sure that he'd been raped, he'd just been so thoroughly homophobic that he'd started down that alley the second Andrew mentioned not being attracted to girls.

He had no clue what he would do if Aaron thought the same, especially since he knew. Knew about Drake. Knew that Andrew had been so desperate for a family, a mother, that he'd endured a monster in his bed.

He couldn't attack Aaron. He wouldn't attack Aaron. Never. But he also didn't know how he would react if Aaron said something like that.

Not to mention the whole poly thing. Katelyn's sibling was in an open relationship with their boyfriend, but Aaron generally held himself to higher standards when his girlfriend was involved and liked to aim low when it came to his twin.

Andrew brought the Maserati to a screeching halt in front of Bee's house and fumbled for his phone.

i'm in the car outside

It took less than two minutes for Bee to respond.

[31/12, 11:59 am] Bee: I'm waiting for your hot chocolate right now. Do I need a jacket?

idk bee i just can't be here rn

[31/12, 11:59 am] Bee: Three minutes. Can you try to focus on your breathing?

Andrew threw the phone on the backseat and tried to focus on his breathing.

Three minutes later, a gentle knock on the passenger door jolted him from his thoughts. Angrily, he wiped his wet cheeks and unlocked the passenger door.

Bee sat down, bringing with her the smell of hot chocolate. She buckled up without asking.

Andrew started the car and drove.

When they reached one of the endless backcountry roads, she handed him his mug.

"I told Aaron to join us at 3:30," Andrew said. Bee hummed and sipped hot chocolate.

"I have something to tell him," Andrew continued. It was 2:17. He sipped hot chocolate.

"Am I going to be referee or am I assisting in telling him?" Bee asked.

Andrew sipped more hot chocolate. It was the expensive, fancy kind. It was good, it grounded him. Hot chocolate didn't fix his problems, but it made them more bearable, and hot chocolate meant Bee, who was his best chance to fix his problems.

"Referee," he said. He was going to tell Aaron himself.

Bee nodded and sipped hot chocolate.

By the time he finished his, he was calmer. Still spiraling, but not close to a panic attack anymore.

He looked at the clock again. 2:34. He parked the Mas in a 7-Eleven parking lot and set the parking brake.

"Second week of the semester, I saw Neil fuck Kevin on the court," he said.

Bee, as expected, was unperturbed. He couldn't even tell if she already knew. Andrew rolled down the window and lit a cigarette.

Bee waited him out.

"That was... not good," he squeezed out. "Up until then, I thought Neil was ace. And that Kevin would rather lose a game on purpose than admit that he's not as hetero as he wants to be. That made it easier to... to ignore it. To ignore them, when it comes to things like this. Blow Roland and otherwise ignore sex."

Bee nodded. And still didn't say anything, not even about his cigarette. She hated the smell of cigarette smoke. Andrew pushed open his car door and turned his back on Bee to keep the smoke out as much as possible.

"I couldn't... I couldn't ignore it after that. I couldn't keep them out of my head now that I knew."

"Your dream was about them?" Bee asked.

Andrew ashed on the ground. It still surprised him when Bee remembered. He was still so used to people forgetting what he told them if they didn't downright disregard it. Even after more than a decade of knowing that his brain worked differently, it still stung every time. But here was Bee, remembering and connecting the dots about a therapy session that had happened months ago, a topic he hadn't brought up again until now.

"Yeah," he admitted. "They found out I knew because Kevin saw me with Roland. He started lecturing me about being careful because of my career and I told him to shut the fuck up as long as he was fucking Neil."

"That sounds like a difficult conversation," Bee said diplomatically. Andrew snorted. He was glad she couldn't see his face like this, as much as he hadn't been able to get out of his car to go to her home office earlier, he could control his expression right now, and he couldn't flay himself open on two fronts at the same time. Fortunately, the parking lot was pretty deserted.

"Last Monday, Neil and I talked on the roof. I..." Andrew hesitated.

Avoidance never helped.

"He was worried that I was going to have a problem with Kevin and him. I told him I'd get over both of them." He took a deep breath and pushed on before Bee could respond. "After that, Neil and Kevin told me they were not exclusive. And I lost it, a little. Also, Christmas. Aaron and I wore the fucking pajamas. There was no time for... for my breakdowns or any of that."

Bee hummed. She could hum in many ways. This particular hum right now translated into a stern expression with raised eyebrows, the auditory equivalent of, Let's talk about these priorities for a minute, okay?

Andrew didn't want to talk about those priorities right now, so he again didn't give her a chance to say anything.

"When Kevin was at Wymack's for dinner on Christmas Day, Neil and I talked again. And kissed. And then Kevin came back and we talked and then kissed, too."

It felt unreal. He remembered every second of it, but it still felt like he was describing the plot of a book, not his own life. Like he had stumbled onto the set of a movie, accidentally played a part, and then left again.

"It... fuck. I didn't know kissing could feel like this," he said quietly, stubbing out the cigarette on the sole of his boot and turning back into the car to toss it in the ashtray.

"We don't really have a term. We talked, and it's... Neil called it 'The three of us, no one else,'" Andrew said, drawing air quotes with his fingers. He still avoided looking at Bee. "We can't make it public because of them, but we're telling the team. The old one." We. Talking about we didn't make the situation any less surreal.

"I'm so happy for you," Bee said. Andrew closed his eyes. Bee was as good at filling empty phrases with genuine warmth as Renee was. He hated them both for it, for making him believe in empty words.

"Aaron won't be," he said curtly.

Bee tilted her head and looked at him. "For the record, there are a few things here that I'd like to talk more about if you'll allow me, but none of them are urgent. We can do that over the next few months, whenever we have the room for it. Is that okay with you?"

Andrew was pretty sure he wouldn't like whatever she wanted to point out. He nodded anyway, that was future-Andrew's problem.

"Aaron then, now," Bee said and hummed. This hum was a planning hum, a hum that said, We need a strategy.

"Am I right that he doesn't know that you're gay?"

Andrew nodded and shrugged. "Don't know. Don't think so. I never told him. Katelyn might have guessed it, she paid more attention to me at Eden's than he did, and Roland is very openly gay. I don't think she would have told him unless she was sure, though; she has... has been good at staying out of my shit with Aaron after our deal ended."

Bee shifted in the way she did when she wanted to take notes. Probably because he had called the cheerleader by her name. Andrew sighed. "I talked to Katelyn at Christmas. Gave her my blessing or whatever."

His therapist's smile was much wider than warranted.

"So we're assuming Aaron doesn't know that you're gay, and we're pretty sure he doesn't know about Neil and Kevin?"

Andrew nodded.

"Do you already have ideas on how to tell him?"

"Hello, most precious twin I have for you are the only one, I fuck men, as do Neil and Kevin, so we decided that it was a great hobby to share?" Andrew offered.

Bee laughed. "I suggest to fine-tune the phrasing."

Andrew let his head fall back against the headrest. "What if he thinks it's because of Drake?" he asked quietly.

"Then I will end the session immediately," Bee replied without missing a beat.

Andrew opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. He stared at her. What.

"Andrew. You are sharing your therapy sessions with Aaron because you want to work on your relationship. That work is going to hurt sometimes, but there is a very big difference between working through what happened in the past so the two of you can find a way to be brothers in the future, and linking abuse to sexuality. Even if it were true that the abuse you survived had shaped your attraction to men–and both the scientific research I know and my personal conviction is that that's absolutely false–, it wouldn't matter because you are who you are now. I will not tolerate him attacking you in this way."

Andrew had not considered this. Not looked at it from that point of view. He trusted Bee, more than almost anyone else, but the thought of her standing up for him like that hadn't even crossed his mind. He opened his mouth again, but there were still no words.

Bee smiled gently at him and hummed. Now, it was a Well, we'll get back to that topic later hum. It was quite similar to the Let's talk about these priorities for a minute, okay? hum, just that it happened when they encountered something Andrew hadn't even considered yet, instead of having different ideas about values. He could practically see their list of future session topics growing.

"Bee, I... I think I can be..." He faltered. "I can be okay like this." He couldn't say it. Couldn't bring his mouth to make the movements necessary for the word happy. It also wasn't necessary, Bee knew how to read him. "With them. But I don't know if I can do that if it means losing Aaron," he said before his brain could strangle the thought. He popped out another cigarette and lit it with a quiet, "Sorry."

"As long as we keep the windows open, I don't mind," Bee said.

"I can't promise you anything, but I think it's highly unlikely you'll lose Aaron over this. I can't tell you how he'll react, but you've both made a lot of progress. Your acceptance of Katelyn shows you're willing to give ground. Aaron has apologized to Nicky for his homophobic remarks and you told me a few weeks ago that you hadn't heard him say anything like that in months. It may be difficult for a while, but I believe you will be fine."

Andrew inhaled the smoke and held it in his lungs until he almost choked on it. His vision was a little blurry. He nodded, slowly. "I didn't accept Katelyn to put pressure on him. That was before. Unrelated."

"You paid for half of her Christmas pajamas months ago. I know," Bee said gently.

Andrew took a deep breath and looked at the clock. 3:06. If he took the direct route back, it would take them 13 minutes without red lights. Aaron was usually seven minutes early.

"Nicky cried. A lot," he changed the subject as he reversed out of the parking lot.

"How did you feel?" Bee asked, taking it in stride.

"Uncomfortable. But not... not in a bad way. Just, overwhelmed?" Andrew said, accelerating the Mas. It was cold in the car, getting colder with the wind from driving, but he had to keep his hands busy with smoking.

"It was good, I think. He was happy."

"What did you think of the pajama fabric?" Bee asked.

Andrew snorted. He preferred to sleep in sweatpants and shirts; Bee was a strong advocate of silky satin. When they'd tried to find ways to calm him after nightmares, she'd tried to get him to try satin sleep-wear to give his brain a different texture than in his memories, but he couldn't stand the feel on his skin. "Wasn't satin. Very soft-scratchy."

"I'll convert you to silk," Bee said, grinning. Then she hummed. Andrew braced himself for impact, it was an I want to tell you something you don't want to hear hum. He hated those.

"I want to ask a question about Kevin and Neil to get a fuller picture before we talk to Aaron. Is that okay? I can play referee without it."

He shrugged. "Go for it."

"You kissed them. How did that work?"

Andrew gave her a side-eye. "You know, lips, meeting each other - Bee, you're old enough for that! Don't make me tell you about the birds and the bees."

Bee grinned. "You know what I mean. I only ask because I assume it has already crossed your mind. If it hasn't, just consider it something I want you to think about: do you think you'll need handcuffs if you ever do more than kissing them?"

Andrew was silent for a good mile. Then he shook his head. "No. I don't know if there will be more than blowjobs, but I won't handcuff them." He sighed. "Neil sat on his hands. When I told him not to touch me anywhere. He didn't argue, didn't ask why, just sat on his hands and let me kiss him."

He avoided looking to his right, not wanting to see the bright smile that was practically lighting up the entire car.

"I'm proud of you, Andrew."

Well, that was arguably worse than that smile. He turned a corner, faster than necessary, and grunted. "It's Kevin and Neil. It's different than Roland. They are different."

Bee didn't comment on his speed. "Exactly! You've found people who are different and you've formed relationships that are different, this isn't only about Kevin and Neil being who they are. I am proud of you for trusting them with yourself. You have built relationships with them that are based on mutual respect and that trust. It's not just that they don't cross your boundaries, it's also that you trust them enough to put yourself in vulnerable situations with them, where you wouldn't be able to defend yourself immediately if they did."

Andrew shrugged.

Unfortunately, Bee was relentless. "I'm proud of you for letting your guard down around them. You've survived the part of your life where you could never do that, where you had to be ready to defend yourself at all times. Now you're in a better place, a safer place, and you're taking a giant step on the road to recovery by allowing yourself to trust them."

He turned into the street that led to her house. "Whatever."

Bee smiled at the street ahead.

Chapter Text

Cont'd

Andrew settled into his armchair.

Aaron and he had never shared a session in Bee's home office, and he wasn't willing to give up his chair. Bee had rearranged her office in preparation, moving the third armchair out of the corner so they sat in a V formation. The small glass side table stood between the chairs, providing a physical barrier as well as a place for hot chocolate, tissues, and her clock.

He heard her rummaging in the kitchen and nervously tapped against his neck to the beat of his pulse.

Too fast.

He got to his feet again and walked to the window, hidden behind the thick curtains, and immediately found his twin leaning against Katelyn's car, staring at nothing. Aaron was always seven minutes early and waited four minutes to announce himself. Andrew listened to Bee's clock tick away the seconds until Aaron walked to the front door.

Andrew settled back into his armchair.

The third armchair, positioned next to him at an angle that allowed them to look at each other but wasn't confrontational, looked like it was years younger than the other two. The client's armchair looked the worst, its armrests torn by anxious hands seeking physical support.

He breathed and listened as Bee small talked friendlily at Aaron, who didn't respond. Andrew shifted in his seat, suddenly acutely aware that the seating arrangement he had chosen put Aaron between him and the door. There was the window behind him, but he'd ruin Bee's rose garden if he jumped out.

He wiped his expression blank as Aaron entered the room. His twin took in the room, seemingly intrigued by the abstract paintings on the walls for a few seconds, before he focused on Andrew.

"Andrew."

Andrew nodded back.

Bee sauntered into the room, carrying three mugs of steaming hot chocolate with ease. She smiled warmly at Aaron. "You can sit in either chair," she said.

Was there ever a situation like this where someone chose the chair that was angled at the other two? Andrew might have, years ago. Bee put the mugs on the table. Aaron sat next to him. Bee sat in her chair.

Aaron looked at him. Andrew looked at Bee. Bee looked at Aaron.

There was a joke in there somewhere. Two twins walking into a therapist's office, something something. Andrew wasn't a funny enough to find the punch line.

"Thank you for joining on short-notice, Aaron. How are you doing?" Bee asked warmly.

Aaron's frozen expression didn't thaw. He didn't look away from Andrew either. "Why am I here?"

Andrew slid his thumb under his armband and rubbed small circles on the bumpy scar. He had been through worse.

Words failed him.

"Andrew," Aaron said more insistently.

"I need to talk to you about something," Andrew pressed out. He was stalling. He hated it. Bee knew it too, as did Aaron. Bee leaned forward and busied herself stirring her hot chocolate.

Aaron sighed. Like Bee with her humming, Aaron could convey a whole emotional panoply with his sighing. This one meant, Andrew, don't be difficult. He looked to Bee. Bee looked back but didn't say anything.

Fucking hell. Andrew couldn't say it.

"Is it about Kate? I thought that was... that was okay now. She told me what you said to her, I thought-" Aaron faltered. Andrew tore his eyes from Bee to his twin.

"It's not about Katelyn," Andrew said, a dozen times calmer than he felt.

What if this was the last somewhat civil conversation they'd ever have? The last time they'd share a therapy session?

He had almost lost Aaron once. Now, more than a year and a half later, he knew that if he hadn't let Aaron out of their deal, he would have any chance for them to ever be brothers in more than blood. It had felt like defeat, like he'd cut the last thread connecting him to his twin, but it had actually been the moment they'd started to make real progress in therapy.

What if he was going to ruin that? Ruin the progress they had made? Andrew's personal drama aside, Christmas had been good. He wouldn't be able to cope if this was the last and only family celebration that would ever be good, if this year's Christmas wasn't the beginning but the cold, dead end.

He couldn't take it.

Avoidance never helped.

"I'm gay," Andrew said. Surprising him, his voice didn't waver.

Aaron's face did something complicated, emotions jumping around on different parts of it; mouth opening slightly, eyebrows rising and dropping again, nose crunching in the way they shared when they were trying to understand something complex.

"Okay," Aaron said.

Andrew couldn't read him. He had never been good at it, which was ridiculous at best considering they shared a face, but they used it so differently that a lifetime of staring staring at his twin's face in the mirror had only very occasionally helped him decode Aaron.

Bee sipped her chocolate. Andrew didn't get a good read on her either, which, well, was fair, he'd asked her to only play referee, to be there, and nothing else. Privately, he still resented her for it for a moment.

Andrew imagined what a deep breath felt like and pushed on. "Thoughts, comments?"

"What do you want to hear?" Aaron asked.

Who's being difficult now, brother dear? Andrew refrained from saying that.

"Whatever." It wasn't a dismissive whatever. It was a whatever that tried to be open to anything, the opposite end of indifference, an invitation to share whatever thoughts and comments Aaron might have. Clouding the desperate hope for acceptance.

Aaron crossed his fingers, his hands trembling subtly from how hard he was squeezing. It looked oddly like he was praying, though Andrew knew he didn't put much stock in any gods.

"Who?" Aaron asked.

Well, fuck. Andrew had a plan, dammit, he had wanted to give Aaron time to recover from the first blow before delivering the second.

Andrew's plans rarely worked when it came to Aaron. For a start, Aaron liked being difficult just as much as Andrew did. Moreover, he was smart. Andrew being gay wasn't exactly something that warranted a short-notice session with their therapist; it could have waited until their next scheduled session.

Avoidance never helped.

"Kevin and Neil," Andrew said, feeling like he was signing his death sentence and not sorry for the pathetics.

Aaron's face did something complicated again. He mouthed, inaudibly, Both? He stared at Bee, who looked back at him serenely. He avoided looking at Andrew and stared a hole in the space next to him.

"Kevin is gay?" Aaron asked after half a minute.

Andrew barked half a laugh. That was certainly one take-away message. "Bi, I think. In crisis when he thinks too much about it."

Aaron nodded and went back to staring at his hole.

Andrew pressed harder on the scar under his armband and forced himself not to watch every muscle twitch in his twin's face. Aaron hadn't yelled yet, hadn't stormed out, hadn't even insulted him. Had not mentioned Drake.

"Do they make you happy?" Aaron asked and Andrew's brain raised white flags.

What.

He stared at his twin.

"I can be okay like this. With them. But I don't know if I can do that if it means losing Aaron."

Andrew did not consider himself a pessimist. He gathered evidence, applied logic and his understanding of the people around him, and then figured out the probabilities.

Aaron's reaction threw him for a loop because it hadn't shown up on the list of possible outcomes.

He hadn't really expected Aaron to confound sexuality with abuse. His twin was working himself into the ground trying to become a doctor, and unlike so many Andrew had encountered, Aaron had the empathy for the job. He was a prickly asshole in private, the problem more often than not being that he knew where to aim so his punches drew blood, but he wasn't cruel and he was firmly rooted in a science-oriented worldview.

He had been terrified that Aaron might react like that, but rationally he had known the chances were slim to none. Bringing it up with Bee had been an attempt to get emotional, panic-stricken thoughts out of his head, not actual preparation for a realistically occurring reaction.

The idea that Aaron cared most about his happiness was about as likely as the Drake-reaction.

The only time Aaron had done anything to aid Andrew's happiness had been when he had forced Andrew to let him out of their deal, and that had decidedly been for a reason that started with Kate and ended with Lyn. The positive outcome for Andrew had been purely coincidental, an accident.

Andrew's hand was getting numb from how deeply he was pressing against the scar on his wrist. He forced himself to relax a little.

"Andrew?" Aaron asked, something between panic and fury warring on his face, body suddenly coiled like a spring wire ready to attack. "They are not like... like him. Tell me they are not. I won't get away with another homicide, let alone two."

Andrew's brain weakly waved the white flags.

He shook his head, then nodded, which was arguably not the most helpful reaction.

"They're not like Drake," he squeezed out.

Whatever Aaron found in his face made the tension in his body disappear. "Good," he said.

"Yes," Andrew said, answering the question still hanging in the air.

Aaron carefully separated his fingers again and got up. "Good," he repeated. "Josten's an asshole and Kevin's a coward, but as long as they make you happy, I won't stand in your way."

A year ago, that would have been a stab, aimed at hurting and pouring salt in the shared wound caused by their deal. Now, it was a promise that Aaron would accept Kevin and Neil on the same terms and conditions as Andrew's acceptance of Katelyn. Don't hurt my twin.

He nodded and watched Aaron leave without another word.

Wednesday evening, December 31st

The house was still covered in Christmas decorations. The gnomes in the garden had acquired a second accessory, not only donning Santa hats now, but also holding up little Happy New Year flags.

Kevin, Neil, and Andrew stared at them in shared disbelief.

"Is this what normal people do?" Neil wondered after a while.

"Don't let Nicky hear you call him normal," Andrew said.

Kevin had nothing relevant to contribute and busied himself with lugging their bags into the house.

Music was blaring through the house, the smell of bacon hung in the air. Aaron was sitting on the sofa in the living room and barely looked up as they passed, nose buried in a book that looked decidedly too much like coursework for New Year's Eve. On his lap was a curl of red locks, half covered by a blanket, snoring gently.

Andrew tore his eyes from the sheer domesticity of the scene and headed for the kitchen.

Nicky was sitting on the counter, talking animatedly, while Erik was loading the dishwasher.

"Nicky," Andrew interrupted him.

Erik looked up and nodded at him. Andrew nodded back.

"Andrew," Nicky greeted him, smiling brightly. "I was just telling Erik about how our defense line worked in the last-"

"I need to talk to you," Andrew interrupted him again.

For a second or two, Nicky's face lost its bright glow. He slid down from the counter. "Don't let my bacon burn, babe," he said to Erik, gave him a kiss, and followed Andrew to the front porch.

"Is everything okay? Everyone alive?" Nicky craned his neck to look at the Mas, as if to check if there was blood all over it. Andrew was almost offended, he'd successfully staged a car accident at 16, he wouldn't keep a bloody or suspiciously dented car in the driveway.

"I'm gay," Andrew said. It felt easier by now. Not just because this was Nicky, but also because he had said it out loud so many times.

Nicky gaped at him. His mouth was hanging open, eyes wide. He had stopped in mid-movement. The whole picture was a bit cartoonish, an exaggerated display of shock; it was utterly Nicky.

"I'm with Kevin and Neil," Andrew continued and headed back inside.

Nicky grabbed the door before it could close.

"You're gay and poly?" Nicky said. He spoke quietly enough that no one in the house could catch what he was saying. Andrew hated him a little for it, he could end this conversation if Nicky would cross boundaries, would give him a reason to draw his knives.

The question was still stupid, so Andrew didn't answer.

"How- how long?" Nicky asked.

That was another stupid question. Andrew sighed. "What exactly?"

Nicky made a broad, all-encompassing gesture.

"Knew I was gay when I was 13. Came to terms with it a bit before PSU. Didn't know about poly until Kevin and Neil happened last week."

Nicky looked startled, which was probably fair. Andrew hadn't expected to answer the question either.

"Why didn't you say something? I could have... could have helped. With coming to terms to it," Nicky said next. He looked hurt, but calm; miles away from the anxious bundle of emotional immaturity he'd been years ago.

Andrew almost felt sorry for answering the way he did, if he wasn't so tired of caring about how other people felt about how horrible his life had been, considering he'd had to live that shit, not just hear about it. "Because I didn't want to talk about how I thought I was gay because I had been raped by a man," he said flatly. Because you still don't know half of it and I will do my best you'll never have to, he didn't say.

Nicky recoiled.

Andrew shoved his foot in the door to keep it from slamming shut.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't- I wasn't thinking," Nicky said frantically.

Andrew shrugged.

"If you ever want to talk about any of it, you know where to find me." Nicky's smile was weak, but it was there. He was staring at Andrew's foot. Andrew had the distinct feeling that his cousin was reading way too much into the gesture.

"You can tell Erik, but nobody else. I don't give a fuck, but the Moriyamas might," Andrew said.

Nicky nodded vigorously. "Scout's honor." Then he took a deep breath and looked directly at Andrew. "Thank you for trusting me with this, Andrew. I'm rooting for you three."

Andrew shrugged again and pointed toward the kitchen. "Bacon's burning."

"Oh fuck," Nicky exclaimed and followed the faint smell of burning bacon.

Andrew went back out and lit a cigarette.

He had never expected to feel much relief when telling his family. Had never expected to do it at all, to be fair; once he had ruled out any non-sexual relationships for himself, there had been no need to tell them anything.

Knowing they knew really turned out not to be a weight off his chest, but knowing how they had reacted was. The tentative hope that new family traditions were not just superficial, but a sign of real change was growing inside his chest, and somehow he couldn't bring himself to snuff it out.

The door opened behind him.

His twin looked at him. Aaron had stared at him many times over the past years, but rarely like this. It happened sometimes in therapy, the will to actually see, to look at Andrew and accept whatever Aaron would find. It made Andrew want to bury himself in the front yard.

"Can I tell Kate?"

For the second time today, Andrew's brain raised white flags.

"You haven't yet?" he heard himself ask.

If Andrew wouldn't know better, he'd think Aaron almost looking hurt. "No. I wanted to, but it felt wrong." He took a deep breath, just as Nicky had done minutes ago. "I'm glad you're letting me in. I'm not going to run to my girlfriend and tell her what you talked about in therapy unless it's about me too."

Andrew lit a second cigarette. "Make sure she doesn't talk to outsiders. The old Foxes know, Kevin told Wymack and Abby too. The Moriyamas can't."

Aaron nodded and went back inside, leaving the door open.

Maybe Andrew read entirely too much into this gesture now.

Chapter Text

Thursday night, January 1st

When you lived longer than you were ever supposed to, when you survived your own death over and over again, when society had thrown spears and men and hate at you to wipe you from existence, a boy with nothing but a first name to his person, the overarching goal to reduce you to a tragic statistic, and yet you lived? Clinging to survival out of deep, stubborn spite?

Then life lost meaning.

Being alive was reduced to going through motions to wade through the mud of each day, a breathing corpse without goals or ambitions. You stopped surviving for something, you stopped fighting for something. There was no deeper reason, no heroic "I chose myself! Despite it all! I'm a survivor against all odds!", nothing that would make a good blurb for the back of a self-help book.

That had been all Andrew had wanted out of life since he had turned seven: to stay alive. Not to die by someone else's hand or his own.

He hadn't noticed, hadn't wanted to notice, how that had changed until it had been too late, until he had found himself sneaking through the hallways of the Foxhole court, expecting a bloody crime scene and finding his own demise instead.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, he had forgotten who Neil and Kevin were, their key feature lost to the abyss of a months-long mental breakdown. Andrew snorted (great job, brain; never forgetting anything didn't do jack shit if you gaslighted yourself into adding up the evidence wrong) and looked at the sky, where the sun was slowly being eaten by the horizon, exchanging the hint of warmth for the cool embrace of the moon.

They accepted him. As he was. They pushed and prodded and teased and demanded that he'd do more than just go through the motions of a normal human being, that he'd do more than just pretend, but they accepted him. Without fail, both Kevin and Neil backed off when he drew a line, never daring to cross it, never threatening him to behave or else.

Andrew watched the sun sink, his only company a pack of cigarettes and the lingering feeling of voluntarily exchanged kisses on his lips. He pressed a thumb to his lips, the tingling sensation too much to bear.

Maybe this would work.

Maybe it wouldn't.

He couldn't control it. He could fight for it, could go to therapy, could rip the terrifying words out of his brain and offer them to Kevin and Neil, but that was all he could do. It wasn't all up to him, so little of it was under his control.

If they were going to break his heart in two, then that would happen and there was nothing Andrew could do about it. He couldn't control what they would do with his emotions, his feelings, his heart now that he had given it to them.

He could only hope it was held in safekeeping and try to be worthy of that.

Kevin and Neil accepted him as he was now, and he could only hope they'd continue to want whoever he was going to be next week, next month, next year.

Andrew lit a cigarette and watched the match crumple. He couldn't go back downstairs yet, couldn't join Neil and Kevin in their dorm room. Their presence, their happiness, it was too much, too suffocating as he bobbed above the surface of the sea for the first time since he had begun to drown in the belly of the Foxhole court.

The sun had almost completely sunken by now, the world beneath Andrew lit by street lanterns, building lights, and the occasional passing car.

Hope was a dangerous, disquieting thing, but Andrew thought perhaps he liked it.

He hoped that he wasn't making the biggest mistake he'd ever made, bigger even than Cass, because the decision he'd made back then had been born of despair, of the cruel, childish, naive desire not to be carted away again with nothing but a trashbag to his person.

He had been twelve, he had been thirteen, he had been so alone and out of options, clinging to survival out of sheer spite, daring the system to deliver the killing blow itself if it wanted him dead, refusing to cut deep enough to become part of the statistics.

Now he had more than that.

He had Renee, who still called him even though she could have lost his number the day she graduated.

He had his family, a concept that became less cruel every time Nicky accepted his boundaries, in turn allowing Andrew to give a little ground, every time Aaron and he were able to have a normal, brotherly interaction.

He had Kevin and Neil, this thing that wasn't defined in terms used by the general public, but that made his stomach flutter, the anxiety soothed by the knowledge that they really, truly weren't out to hurt him.

And fuck, yes, he had the Foxes, the original rag-tag team that had stood up to the Yakuza, that had given him a chance he hadn't been able to appreciate back then. Seven Foxes who had stuck out his drug-induced mania, three adults who were paid to look after their team and never hesitated when their official job description didn't cover what one of their kids needed.

Andrew dragged on his cigarette and watched the last rays of sun vanish.

Maybe this would ruin him. Maybe they would ruin him. But he had made his decision.

If this was going to end smashed to smithers, then it would end in blood. He would bleed, no more fail-safe walls putting distance between him and them.

It wasn't just up to him anymore. He was along for this incredible, absurd, breathtaking ride. Maybe he would end up crashed against a wall, broken body and mind and heart, but so be it. The ride was worth it.

Kevin and Neil weren't his panacea. The fact that Andrew had found them didn't absolve society of the violent cruelty he'd been forced to defy for the first two decades of his life. But they were a giant lighthouse, guiding him to a harbor after years of being tossed around on the ocean, ship and crew on fire and thirsting, but too fucking stubborn to drown.

Choosing Kevin and Neil, surrendering his core survival method to the possibility of happiness and a place to belong, was a decision paved by years of therapy and building something in his corpse other than hateful apathy.

For years, he had worked on having a comfort zone, on ruthlessly enforcing his boundaries to protect what was ultimately his alone for the first time. It had served him well, had kept him alive and paved the road of recovery. He had carved his boundaries in concrete and drawn his knives on anyone who crossed the lines. Now the concrete had been ground down to sand. It was time to step over the lines, to map out new lines and to find out what was worth pushing his boundaries for.

It was time to step out of his comfort zone.

Andrew stubbed out the cigarette and went back to the dorm, knowing that Kevin and Neil were waiting for him.