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You Know I’m Good On My Own
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Andrew breaks his arm two games into the season and it feels a little bit like Neil’s world snaps with it.
Neil is no stranger to physical hurts- his own body is a monument to the amount of suffering the human body can endure and survive, but-
It’s different this time. Because it’s Andrew.
Neil has never thought of himself as….nurturing. Has never had the instinct towards that type of kindness. He’s wrapped Mary’s wounds with a pointed sort of distance because that’s what he was taught to do. No use crying over spilled blood after all- there’ll only be more.
So when they pick Andrew up from the hospital, his eyelids dropping with exhaustion and hard medication, the fact that Neil has to ball his hands into fists to keep from sweeping Andrew’s mussed hair out of his face comes as a surprise.
Late September isn’t cold when you’re based in South Carolina but Neil fiddles with the heat settings with the hand closest to Andrew, just to keep himself from touching the back of his hand to his forehead. He’d tucked Andrew into the front passenger’s seat like he was made of spider silk, reaching over to clip in his seatbelt without a thought.
Andrew had watched him do all of this silently, licking his dry lips and sinking into the seat with an uncomfortable stiffness. He’s quiet still when Neil pulls them into a Wendy’s drive-thru and orders anything he can remember Andrew liking. Frostys, sea salt fries, those spicy chicken nuggets, and a cheeseburger just because.
Andrew puts the extra fries between his thighs and eats them tiredly with one hand, chewing slow and loud between jaw-breaking yawns. Neil feels like he swallowed a hot coal at the sight and has to remind himself to keep his eyes on the road and not on Andrew looking safe and mostly content beside him.
He takes the long way home because the roads are better that way and Andrew seems more awake the longer he’s upright, noisily slurping down his soda as day slowly turns to dark. They’re going to be at the house in Columbia for the night, getting Andrew settled down into his own bed until he has to endure Abby’s check-up and Wymack’s blustering concern. Neil had left the others back at PSU to give Andrew time to be hurt without eyes on him, knowing how important it is to them both to lick their wounds in relative solitude.
Neil will sleep on the couch, in the closet, standing in the corner if that’s where Andrew wants him tonight. Close enough to help but far enough away that he can smother the urge to, well, smother.
The sunset splashes the interior of the car in pinks and oranges and Andrew takes on the colours like he was made for them. He looks softer in this lighting, like he’d be open to all the urges Neil has that involve him. The care and the comfort.
If they were in bed instead of on the highway, Neil would pull the covers up over their heads, would tuck them away from the world until Andrew is well enough to face it again. It’s indulgent and selfish and impractical but Neil wants it all the same.
Instead, he turns them onto the road toward home, keeping the drive slow and easy as he maps out the steps to get them safely inside.
Andrew’s flagging again by the time they park, belly full and tank empty of the energy needed to endure the day. Neil reaches out to pop the snap on his seatbelt and feels oddly bereft when Andrew pops it first, grabbing the metal latch before it snaps up to bop him in the chin.
He gathers the garbage in one bag, stuffing the rest of their food in the other, and by the time he’s got everything cleared away, Andrew has already levered himself out of the car with a heavy sigh.
Neil grabs the white pharmacy bag out from between their seats at the last minute, already calculating the timeline of when Andrew can take another pain pill and sleep through the night. There’s an antibiotic in there too, a preventative measure to keep them from having to open the surgery site back up, and a brand new bottle of ibuprofen for when the oxy is done.
Neil knows Andrew will bin the hardest medication before they get back to Palmetto State, willing to put up with the pain if it means Aaron doesn’t have to face any tough situations.
Neil hasn’t touched his own food, his hunger like the distant rumble of thunder from a storm that he’s determined to ignore. Andrew’s already inside by the time Neil tosses their garbage and gets the front door closed and locked up for the night. He nearly trips over the abandoned sneakers left in the middle of the entranceway, Andrew’s shit kicker boots too complicated for one-handed application.
Neil bends down to set them together against the wall and when he stands back up, Andrew is looking at him.
Neil lets him look his fill, a paper bag in each hand like he’s prepared to offer up anything Andrew could need. When the silence stretches on, he asks, “Do you need something?”
Andrew sways, the motion so slight that Neil wouldn’t know it had happened if he didn’t know Andrew. He twitches forward but stops because his hands are full and Andrew’s already widened his stance, steady again.
“I need a shower.”
Andrew’s voice is rough, like the rasp of a blade against skin. He doesn’t ask for help but the implication is there if Neil wants to take it.
He does. He wants to very much.
“Sure. I can- I’ll get the garbage bags.”
Andrew leaves like a ghost, silent and untouchable. Neil grabs a handful of his own fries, chewing and swallowing them without tasting anything beyond salt and oil. They’re cold and he intends to make them colder by stuffing them in the fridge for a late-night snack.
They keep the garbage bags in a box under the sink. Neil knows where almost everything is in this house he holds a key to but he has to kneel on the counter to find a roll of packing tape. When he hops down and turns around, Andrew is standing in the doorway to the living room, watching him.
Neil swallows, lifting the bags and tape in his hands uncertainly. “This is familiar.”
Andrew looks so tired, Neil aches to fix it somehow. The impulse is foreign and unstoppable now that it’s been awakened. When Andrew reaches to unclip the strap of his sling, Neil’s spurred into motion.
“Let me,” he says and Andrew does .
Neil tries to be gentle but the sling is made of a stiff canvas that fights him. Andrew sways with the pull of his hands, unresisting and pliant in the darkening light. It feels both too heavy and too light between them, like they’ve swapped roles but the music stays the same. Neil touches Andrew’s wrist and feels the overlap of scars there. His armbands won’t fit over the cast but that’s a problem for another day, for the sunrise.
Here and now, Neil can touch those scars with careful hands and Andrew can let him.
He drapes the sling over the back of a chair in the kitchen, letting go of his wrist to flick out a large black garbage bag until it opens. Neil isn’t quite sure how to do this but Andrew lets him figure it out until Neil realizes Andrew should probably take his shirt off first.
He flushes and feels stupid for it.
“We should take your shirt off first,” he says, glancing up and away from Andrew’s face, his own cheeks warm despite the darkness of the room. He doesn’t feel like this is a moment that calls for tensions, sexual or otherwise, but that doesn’t mean Neil won’t enjoy getting Andrew out of his shirt.
Andrew pointedly doesn’t smile at him but something in the squint of his eyes lets Neil know he’s being made fun of, at least silently.
Andrew doesn’t look away as he works his free arm out of his shirt, twisting to work the soft cotton over his head and down over the cast on his arm. Neil takes the shirt from him, fingers tingling over the body-warmed fabric as he fights the urge to clutch at it, to tuck his nose into it.
He looks Andrew over with what he hopes is a clinical eye and has to bite his lip when Andrew flexes at him, the muscles of his pectorals twitching under his gaze.
“How high are you right now?” Neil asks wryly, his lips tilting up at the edges as he gets to work wrapping black plastic around the stark white cast.
“Enough.” Is the answer he gets, as vague and so typically Andrew it unclenches something in Neil he hadn’t known was so tense.
Despite Neil’s previous flustering, they don’t reenact everything about the last time they’d had to wrap wounds in plastic. Andrew totters off to shower on his own while Neil sits out in the hallway with an ear turned towards the closed bathroom door.
His phone is a mess of notifications, Aaron's most prominent and most annoying. Neil had left him behind today, a selfish impulse he’s having to face the consequences of now.
Aaron: I wanted to come with you, you dick.
Aaron: Answer me.
Aaron: Fuck you.
Aaron: Josten.
Aaron: Neil.
Aaron: Stopn ignoring me.
Neil takes a fortifying breath and opens his messages to reply.
Neil: We’re home. See you tomorrow.
Aaron’s reply is immediate.
Aaron: About time. How is he?
Neil: Fine.
Aaron: Don’t you fucking dare.
Neil truly believes there is no one in the world more annoying than Aaron Minyard.
Neil: He’s showering. He ate. He has medication.
We will be back before lunch tomorrow.
He pauses and then adds for good measure:
Neil: Go away.
Aaron sends him back a middle-finger emoji.
Kevin’s message is both the easiest and hardest to respond to: how long?
To anyone else, Kevin’s concern about the length of time Andrew will be out of commission might seem cold but Neil knows better. After pulling his share of risky on-court maneuvers, Kevin’s stringent and frustrated warnings to take care of himself make sense now. For better or for worse, their lives are entangled with exy- Kevin can’t navigate the delicate trap Neil has wrapped them in, he can’t turn back time and find Andrew before anyone has ever hurt him- but he can watch his back on the court. He can watch tape and prepare for any situation with firm defensive tactics or new drills. He can work with Abby to make sure Andrew completes his physical therapy when his cast comes off, he can nag them into eating better meals.
It’s as affectionate as it is unorthodox. Kevin doesn’t quite know how to make friends without making them teammates first but Andrew and Neil are willing to let him try.
Neil: Ten weeks.
Kevin: Fuck.
Neil: Twelve with pt.
Kevin: That’s right up to the last of the season.
Neil: Yes.
Neil doesn’t know what to say after that. They have Renee and another freshman goalie but neither of them are Andrew . It’ll come down to good defensive structure or simply outsourcing their problems to get back to Spring Championships. None of it means more than Andrew’s well-being but the reality of the situation they’re in sits in the back of Neil’s mind all the same.
Ichirou Moriyama won’t care about a single season- not even Neil is stupid enough to think his future career would be important enough to the head of the Moriyama Empire to warrant an early death. Neil will have a pro contract by graduation, forfeiting most of his money for the rest of his playing career, or he won’t. Ichirou will still be head of an empire whether Neil is breathing or not.
What bites at the edges of Neil’s mind right now is how Andrew will cope. It’s both a familiar and unique set of anxieties. Neil has committed himself to learning every aspect of Andrew’s heart and mind- his fears, his preferences, his plans for the future. Exy gives Andrew structure in a way he seems to find somewhat comforting, if not a little resentfully- he is a part of something here, an important cog in a wheel bigger than himself. Andrew needs to feel depended on- he’d chafed hard under Wymack’s rules during his first year as a Fox, lashing out and throwing ultimatums until he’d gotten his way.
After finally admitting- in his own Andrew way- that Exy is something he is willing to work for last year, it hurts Neil to think of what the next few months might do to that burgeoning motivation.
We’ll just have to make do , is what he sends to Kevin, just as the shower shuts off.
Neil tucks his phone away for the night, switching focus from later to now.
Andrew comes out of the bathroom in a billow of steam, the tips of his toes peeking out from the bottoms of his pajama pants. He’s flushed from the heat but even Neil can tell he’s exhausted, his gaze hazy as he catches Neil sitting on the floor.
He drags himself to his feet with a small smile. “I’ll get your medication and meet you upstairs.”
Andrew blinks a bead of water off his lashes, cheek twitching as it hits and slides down to drip off his chin. He nods, his head bobbing deep like he’d caught himself mid-falling asleep. They’re not old by any stretch of imagination but Andrew looks so young like this. Pliant and uncharacteristically trusting. He shuffles by Neil with a small hum, scrubbing his hair with one slow, hand and Neil gets lost in the picture of him.
He doesn’t move until Andrew is gone from sight and then he’s spurred to action.
He grabs another handful of fries, hungry enough the off-putting texture of cold potatoes doesn’t stop him from nearly choking on one. Andrew has to wear the sling to bed until his next appointment so Neil tucks it under his arm as he carefully reads the instructions on the orange and blue bottles he’s pulled from the pharmacy bag. Painkiller, antibiotics, anti-inflammatory…it makes his head spin but he dutifully plucks out the proper dosage for tonight and pours Andrew a cool glass of water to go with them.
He’s probably still full from dinner but Andrew needs to take half of his pills with food so Neil nukes one of the containers of spicy nuggets and tucks a packet of ranch dip into his pocket before he sets off upstairs.
Andrew’s cutting the plastic bag off his cast when Neil knocks on the barely open door. He waits for permission to enter, nudging the door with his hip when he hears a quiet, “Come in.”
“Let me help,” he says, dropping his haul onto a cluttered corner desk and moving to take the small pair of scissors from Andrew’s lax fingers. “Don’t move.”
Andrew watches him with a disbelieving arch to his brows like he thinks Neil is being ridiculous. “It’s a broken elbow, Neil.”
Neil shudders slightly and it’s only partially in jest. “Don’t remind me, I was close enough to hear it when it snapped.”
He had been too, the crack-pop of bone enough to make him sick. Andrew had let out a sudden but brief shout, dropping to his knees as he clutched his arm that wasn’t meant to bend that way. The stands had gone silent in moments, the cut off of jeers and cheers so abrupt it had left Neil’s ears ringing.
Between one breath and the next, he’d lost his racket, staggering towards the goal with a single-minded focus on Andrew’s pained expression behind the cage of his helmet. Neil had nearly strangled himself getting off his own helmet, sliding across the court just as Abby had come running over, her expression one of horrified intent.
Then noise had rushed back into the world and Neil was still there, trapped in that moment.
A cool hand touches his cheek, just the briefest brush of rough fingertips against skin. Andrew is watching him, always always watching him, and he catches when Neil comes back to him.
“It will heal. Stop worrying.”
“I won’t,” Neil replies hotly, more than a touch petulant. “I’m going to worry about you for the rest of my life.”
“Not if I kill you first,” Andrew says like he’s offering Neil his opinion of the weather. It lightens the mood, these casual threats of murder between them. Nature healing the way only nature does.
Neil refocuses on his self-appointed tasks- getting Andrew into a new shirt, going so far as to roll on a swipe of deodorant for him, strapping him back into his sling, and fluffing the extra pillow for Andrew to rest his arm on.
Andrew settles into bed wearily, sagging back against his pillow with a soft sigh. There’s barely enough room for himself and the extra pillow in bed and Neil knows he’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight.
“Here.” He cups the back of Andrew’s outstretched hand with his own as he tips the pills into his palm. Andrew looks at them hard, counting them with his thumb twice before popping them into his mouth and washing them down with the glass Neil hands him. He doesn’t take the scrutiny personally- Andrew has a history with medication Neil had been witness to. He’s not sure he wouldn’t feel the same if roles were reversed.
Andrew hands him back the empty glass and asks, just this side of sarcastic, “Are you done mothering me?”
Neil holds his free hand out flat and waggles it from side to side. “Maybe. Ask me again tomorrow.”
When he turns to leave, something snags the loose material of his sweatpants, stopping him in his tracks.
“Where are you going?”
Andrew’s barely awake, his grip already slipping from Neil’s pants as he turns back. Neil catches his hand and has to press his lips together to keep from grinning when Andrew tangles their fingers together.
“I’m going to sleep on the couch, the bed isn’t big enough.”
Andrew grunts, supremely unhappy with that explanation but he lets Neil tuck his hand back under the covers after a quick squeeze. Neil watches him fall asleep, gathering up the uneaten chicken nuggets for himself when he’s sure Andrew is out.
It’s only the first night on a long road to recovery but for the first time in days, Neil exhales without his breath catching in his throat and heads to bed.
~*~*~
Andrew hates codeine.
It makes him groggy and mean when he isn’t too cotton-headed to function. He sleeps hard, the kind of rest that should feel good but when the sun cuts through the gap in the bedroom curtains waking him, Andrew has to unclench his aching teeth.
He knows without looking for the time that it’s already mid-morning. There’s an ache in the middle of his lower back from sleeping on it all night but the pain in his elbow cuts through the grittness of his eyes and the thickness of his throat when he swallows back a groan.
Andrew could fall back into sleep despite it all. It’s an option. He isn’t obligated to go back to Fox Tower until Monday morning and there’s a part of him that wants to be contrary and stay here until he’s whole again. To stay here until his pills are gone, until his bones aren’t cracked and he can wake up with Neil curled in as close as they dare at his side.
And maybe that’s the seed at the core of his bad mood. He’s been sharing every bed he owns with Neil more often than not for months. Waking up alone makes him feel anchorless and it’s a feeling Andrew isn’t accustomed to.
As if pulled into existence by the force of Andrew’s pining, a knock on the door jolts him fully into wakefulness.
“Andrew?” Neil asks, voice muffled through the wood and even that layer of separation is unbearable. “It’s nearly ten.”
“I’m not talking to you through the door.”
Neil takes it for the invitation it is and Andrew finally lays eyes on him.
He looks like someone who slept on a bad couch, bleary-eyed and messy-haired. Andrew has always thought there was something fox-like about Neil’s face, sly and sharp-edged. Secretive. Intriguing. That didn’t stop his cheek from fitting into the cup of Andrew’s palm when his elbow wasn’t being held together with steel and fiberglass.
Neil has a small stack of toast wrapped in a paper towel in one hand and a bottle of Gatorade under the same arm. Andrew blames the lingering painkillers for how long it takes him to realize that Neil is studying him back.
“How do you feel?”
Andrew looks at him, letting Neil draw whatever conclusions he wants from the silence. He sits up and his elbow throbs with the beat of his heart. The prospect of leaving his bed sours his mood further.
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Andrew says after a moment and holds out his unpinned hand for the toast. It’s still warm, the scent of butter and jam clearing away the last of the sleepy fog from his mind. Neil’s cut the toast into squares already, and he cracks open the bottle of Gatorade before sitting on the edge of the bed to just, watch Andrew eat.
“How’s your pain level?” he asks, digging into the pocket of his sweats to pull out an orange pill bottle. Andrew chews slowly, letting Neil stew as he takes the sports drink from him and downs half of it in a handful of noise swallows.
“Flush those before we leave.” He takes another large bite of his toast.
Neil’s brows furrow, disapproval in every line of his face. “That wasn’t an answer.”
“Wasn’t it?”
Neil rolls the bottle between his hands, letting the pills rattle against the plastic before he shoves them back into his pocket. He takes a deep breath and tries again, “How did you sleep?”
“Like I was medicated.”
“ Andrew .”
He’s mid-chew when Neil’s hand comes up to brush his hair off his forehead, his palm warm. The touch is- Andrew has been touched like this before, of course he has, but there’s something about the hand on his head being Neil’s. Even with his surly disposition, Neil’s only concern is for his well-being. It makes something odd settle over him, oozing over the top of his head and settling in his toes.
All because Neil is taking care of him.
The hand on his forehead flips over and Andrew takes another slow bite as he endures Neil’s attention. If he leans into the hand pressed against him, there’s no one here to judge.
“No temperature. Abby can check to be sure when we get back.”
“I don’t need Abby to tell me when I have a fever,” Andrew says, drawing back from Neil’s touch. His hand slips away, dropping down to the paper towel to steal one of the remaining two squares of toast.
“No, but I do,” he says, biting into the toast with just a hint of viciousness.
Andrew is not unaccustomed to doing things for the benefit of other people. Murder, bodily harm, enduring - if all Neil is asking of him is to let Abby Winfield stick a thermometer under his tongue for twenty seconds, well, maybe Andrew can allow him this one thing.
“I do not need you to take care of me.” He says it to say it, just to remind Neil that Andrew is fully capable of surviving worse than this and doing so alone.
“Of course you don’t,” Neil says with a tone of his voice that implies the very thought is ridiculous. He leans in and his face is serious, his eyes that particular shade of blue Andrew has yet to find a name for. “But I want to.”
Then he steals the last of Andrew’s toast.
~*~*~
Neil is a terrible driver.
He isn’t, not really- that inauspicious title is reserved for Nicky alone- but it hits Andrew when they leave the Columbia house that he can’t drive until he’s been medically cleared and a churning, sick feeling starts to roil just behind his ribs.
He tells himself it’s hunger but the hashbrowns Neil orders for them sit heavy as he eats them and the coffee only seems to make his headache worse.
No, Neil isn’t the worst driver Andrew has ever seen but he’s so contentious it's grating. He comes to a full stop at stop signs and he cruises down the highway back to Palmetto at a steady five miles below the speed limit. It’s amusing in a way, to think that the mouthy rookie who told off the unstable second son of a vicious mafia empire on national television overuses his blinkers and yields to passing cars.
Andrew doesn’t mean to but he dozes in the passenger's seat, restless when playing on his phone gets tiring. The closer they get to Palmetto the tighter that lump in his stomach gets. Andrew doesn’t recognize it for nerves until they’re pulling into his assigned parking lot and the idea of having to talk to the other Foxes exhausts him.
Neil turns off the car and sits with him in the silence. The engine ticks as it cools down and for a moment it is the only sound in the world.
Andrew breathes.
"You don't have to face them today."
It's a bald-faced lie- the Foxes run on gossip and drama. Allison might physically die if she doesn't get to be the bearer of bad news. Dan will want to check in with him. Nicky, Kevin, and Aaron are family- Abby and Coach are an obligation.
Bee will want to talk about it. He needs to ask for an extension on his criminology paper-
Warm fingers touch the back of his hand. Andrew's thoughts still.
"I can sneak you in," Neil says, slipping his hand fully into Andrew's, just to hold while they wait. "I'll stand guard at the door."
"Don't be ridiculous," Andrew replies, his voice as flat as the horizon. "It isn't cute."
Neil laughs at him, tugging his hand over to rest on his lap as if their tangled fingers aren't enough.
Neil has always been that way with him, always willing to pull Andrew into his orbit, always twining their legs together in bed. Greedy with this one thing and it's him .
Andrew used to think he was better experienced at a distance. He doesn't think that's true anymore. Not when it's the right person.
Neil is still smiling at him, the curve of his lips unforced but undeniable, as if he can't quite help himself.
Andrew decides to smile back before he realizes he already is. Small, barely there, but real.
Between them, a phone beeps.
Aaron : Are you done staring into each other's eyes? There's pizza and it's getting cold.
—*