Charity cases

Exy career was everything Neil expected it to be, it was his dream come true, his life. But his life no longer had an expiration date. Any missteps he made on the court (Actual missteps, pulled tendons, and torn muscles) followed him off the court. He was 27, and he already sounded like David did when he needed to sit down on their low set couch. And David was overplaying it just to get an amused but loving glance form Abby, and a kiss on a cheek when she joined him. Neil's back hurt. Most of his bones did. His right arm felt cold and tingly more often than not and keeping his ankle iced was not solving the issue of his inflamed nerve. But Neil expected that. What he was not expecting was seeing a mirror for those issues in Andrew. Andrew, who was strong enough to hold the weight of Neil's problems and stand straight. Was. Neil was glad they weren't hiding this, at least. He was glad Kevin wasn't living with them any more to witness as they allowed their bodies to fall apart. Neil, unable to hold a pen long enough to write sentence (Andrew was right about not giving a fuck about autographs). Andrew, unable to hold his own weight, never exactly comfortable with his own spine any more. How long could they do this to themselves? Neil looked at Andrew Forever. To each other? Andrew was already looking at Neil. “I Am not leaving you alone on the court.” Neil needed to find a way to quit Exy. ---   First, there was practice, a skirmish, and then a charity game. He watched his teammates’ bodies and wondered how much each of them could take before they would break. His eyes lingered on a few knowing that some of them were already past that point years ago now. “You’re doing it again.” Jean said, he lacked Kevin’s tolerance for Neil’s bullshit. This, of course, included his not at discreet staring and what Jean had derisively called ‘Running Exy Diagnostics’. “Are my stats dropping Capitane?” He said the title derisively, as always. “Yes.” Neil returned, utterly blunt. In the silence that followed it was easy for Neil to hear someone drop the soap with a curse in the shower room next door. Jean looked angry enough to start using Neil's past Aliases. “Your knee hasn’t healed up yet. You should sit out the next game.” Neil continued as if not talking about a death sentence. “I can play, the doctor said so, the coach said so.” Jean hissed through clenched teeth as he shifted his weight to his injured leg as if to make a point. ---   Andrew woke up to the early morning light. He tried to adjust to go back to sleep but no matter what position he tried his lower back ached. Back - Bad. Stomach - Uncomfortable. Left side - Wrong. Right side - worst, so bad that Andrew almost let out a perfectly worthless grunt of discomfort. “You don’t have to pretend to be asleep.” He hissed. Neil turned away from Andrew at the sound of his hiss. Andrew was always crankiest when he was in pain first thing in the morning. Neil could soothe him with a warm bath and a bit of a massage but not when Andrew was trying to pretend it didn’t hurt. He could offer those things later when Andrew has given up and taken his painkillers like a functioning member of society. “You’re not awake?” Came a voice muffled by their bedroom door before it swung open without so much as a knock. “Kevin, what the fuck?!” Andrew barked his anger blunting the pain of his lower back enough to stand on his feet without the need for painkillers. His charge had Kevin retreat only a step before Andrew’s back ached and he had to lean on the door frame for support. “You’re almost out of almond milk.” Kevin said holding up a mostly empty glass bottle that held just a single gulp’s worth of milk. Andrew pinched the bridge of his nose, he had enough wrinkles as it. In a way it was impressive how Kevin always managed to sculpt the ever present scowl on Andrew’s face into something worse every time the two of them spoke. Andrew thought briefly that it was a good thing that Kevin didn’t remain an arts student at Edgar Alan. “I need almond milk. That would make this situation better.” Andrew glowered as his golden eyes met Kevin’s green, “Let’s go get some tree nut milk, that is exactly what I need with the way this morning is going.” He said. Kevin’s brows furrowed as he looked at Andrew, “Wait, aren’t you allergic to tree nuts?” He asked moving the bottle away from Andrew as if the damage wouldn’t have already been done if that container had ever had almond milk in it. “Do we not have any more milk?” Neil asked and Andrew turned abruptly towards him but his anger had faded and the pain was back. He heard a rattle from behind him and turned to see Kevin holding a bottle of his pain medicine. Andrew snatched it and the milk bottle out of his hands as he took the medication with the last swig of the milk. “We’re out.” Andrew says handing the bottle to Kevin, “Didn’t you move across town?” He asks. It wasn’t as if Andrew had forgotten that Kevin had moved across town, it was more to put a spotlight on the fact that even with the distance it still, apparently, hadn’t been far enough. Not far enough to stop waltzing into their house uninvited as if he were merely walking into another room of his own home. It had been months since he had moved out of their house and into his own when Jean had made the National team. A few months just wasn’t enough to erase habits built through the years. Routines that he had formed his life around, routines built with the help of two, slightly more functional, men. Living at the nest had robbed Kevin of many ‘common’ things. Simple joys like a long hot shower. Mundane annoyances like standing in line at the grocery store. Obvious things like the knowledge that he could just leave his house at any given moment for no reason. Sensible things like remembering to set up automatic bill payments for his insurance and his car payments. Kevin had admitted that it hurt whenever his own father’s face twisted whenever Kevin struggled with these ‘common’ things. Wymack was a man who purposefully surrounded himself with tragedy and still was gutted every single time he saw it. Wymack agonized over every hurt kid and Kevin, now 30, was pretty tired of feeling like an injured child. So Andrew had remained Kevin’s go-to person. Most of the time Andrew didn’t even mind it. The big 2 story house with a fenced private garden was Kevin’s playground where he could learn to function and Andrew and Neil had both taken pride in being the family Kevin turned to. “…I was in the neighbourhood, so I thought that I’d make you both a healthy breakfast.” Kevin forges on with the obvious lie and Andrew’s too tired this Sunday morning to contradict him. They all knew that there was no reason for Kevin to be around. There was no ‘in the neighbourhood’ for Kevin Day a man who could only go outside if he had a task. “The closest store is an hour away Kevin.” Andrew reminds Kevin as if the man had not bitched about it mightily when he had lived there. “We could go together and get groceries?” Kevin suggests because he also knows that Sunday morning is when him and Neil usually peel themselves off one another to go buy their groceries for the week. It was funny that Kevin had clung onto this tradition more tightly than any of the others since he’d been the one who had initially put forth the idea of getting groceries delivered. Andrew and Neil had rejected the idea outright both too used to lives where they saved every penny and never wanting hired help to nose around in their private business. If Andrew set something down somewhere then he wanted to be able to categorically blame Neil if it wasn’t where he left it.