First Contact With the Enemy

Andrew very rarely lets himself just do something. He made plans. He made backup plans. Bee had told him that it was something from the utter lack of control in his childhood. Andrew couldn’t argue that. He couldn’t argue it because it was true. Neil is the sweet breath of spontaneity in his life. He planned to go to the grocery store with a list; then he sees that Neil’s seasonal favorite fruits look extremely good today and he buys four of them despite his budget. He planned to study; then Neil comes in from a run looking like something had chased him the whole time and Andrew has the keys to the Maserati in his hands already. He planned to smoke up on the roof for an hour; then Neil comes up and he spends the entire evening kissing Neil until he was breathless. He planned to just drift through life after college, after his deals with Kevin and Aaron are done; then Neil asked him to choose him and now he’s the #1 goalie in professional Exy who is on the national team with Kevin and Neil. He planned to live his life alone with no attachments; then Neil disappeared in Binghamton and Andrew wanted to burn the entire world down to find him. He planned to get what he needs from people whose hands he can tie away; then Neil was what he needs and Neil would never touch him if Andrew didn’t want him to and Andrew would never tie Neil’s hands away chancing Riko’s ghost. He planned and planned but Neil is always the unforeseen, the unpredictable, and the only option Andrew can pick when it’s presented. Neil’s the only option that Andrew wants, and worse the only option that Andrew needs. He still plans. Sometimes, even when they involve Neil, his plans work out exactly as he had intended them to such as his plan to get Neil and him on the same professional team the moment Neil got out of college. Sometimes, he has to divert to plan B or C, or D but it still works like when he managed to get Neil to finally go to the dentist. Sometimes his plans still go completely awry in the worst ways possible due to a combination of Neil and the world at large. Like when he’d planned to take Neil apart after their celebratory dinner at a fancy French restaurant to celebrate that Neil had been Neil for 7 years per his registration date as a Millport senior. Only some punk had decided to try and mug them, and Neil had put himself between Andrew and a gun when the Junkie had tackled the man, disarmed him, and dismantled the gun. It had happened so fast that Andrew hadn’t even managed to fully pull out his knife. He was just staring at the aftermath with rage that had nowhere to go now that Neil was knelt on the mugger’s back telling him to call the police. Andrew had been so furious when he’d driven them home after the police report. Furious when Neil refused to apologize and his plans to make Neil forget the name they had just celebrated are well and truly ruined when he yelled at Neil to get the hell out of his apartment. Neil was gone before Andrew could even try and take back what he’d said but Neil had not left so fast that the devastated look on his face wasn’t burned into Andrew’s retinas as though he had stared at a star going supernova. Neil was gone for an entire week and a day before Andrew managed to find him pale, thin, exhausted, and shaky in Andrew’s favorite coffee shop. Andrew wasn’t much better, but he’d at least spent his sleepless nights in a bed instead of the park benches that Neil had used. Neil had tried to leave, had apologized for showing up at all in front of Andrew, and promised that he’d go. Andrew had managed to convince Neil to come back to the apartment, but Neil did not treat it like a home anymore. Neil kept what he truly couldn’t live without in a duffle bag, ready at any time for Andrew to kick him out again. Ready to be without shelter again because Andrew had already made him homeless in his pointless rage. They’d spoken many times. Andrew trying to reassure Neil that the apartment was his home, that he never had to leave it, and that he never had to leave his keys behind no matter what Andrew said. Neil had always just nodded tightly when they talked about this but his trust in Andrew’s apartment being home was well and truly shattered. The bag was never unpacked. It’d taken a terrible and stressful month before Andrew thought of a solution. Neil had helped Andrew pick his apartment in New York City, and had helped him decorate it, but Neil was not the owner. Neil had moved into Andrew’s apartment. So, Andrew plans and comes up with options and presents them to Neil at dinner. They sell the apartment and buy a house that Neil likes, a house where Neil is a co-owner, a house that is neither Andrew nor Neil’s entirely. He held Neil’s hand as they looked up at their brownstone in Brooklyn right by the stadium and running paths, “Let’s go look at our house.” He said watching with an almost desperate relief as Neil smiled back at him fully without a hint of wariness for the first time since that fancy dinner. The first thing Neil unpacks is his duffel bag. Andrew never wanted to go through something like that ever again but it helped him. It helped to have a moment where everything went wrong, where things were said that he hadn’t meant, where the consequences were far beyond what he could handle, and where it wasn’t up to him if they could really be fixed. It helped that even with all of that, at the end of it all, he was standing next to Neil looking up at their new house smiling. He spoke to Bee about it during their weekly Skype call. She tells him that it’s good that he’s come to view Neil as a constant, a pillar. Someone that will be there even when everything goes wrong, someone that Andrew will fight for, someone that will forgive his screw-ups and still care about him, and someone that can be such a force of good in his life. He tells her that it’s a comfort to know that Neil will never willingly choose to leave him. That Neil had left because Andrew told him to, and Andrew knows that he’ll never be able to tell Neil to really leave ever again. Kevin had promised him something to build his life around and he’s sure Kevin meant Exy but in the end Kevin had given him Neil. Truly the first plan ruined by Neil and the beginning of Andrew’s lifelong appreciation for Neil’s ability to wreck his plans in the best ways. The beginnings of a new plan start forming one day. They’re down in New Orleans visiting Kevin. It’s the second time that they’ve visited Kevin down here and they’re walking around the French quarter when Neil sees something and asks Andrew to wait but runs off before Andrew could agree to anything. Neil returns 5 minutes later with a bag of beignets from the bakery that Andrew thought had the superior bake. They’re the chocolate ones that he’d said he liked the most almost a year ago. “They’re your favorite right?” Neil asks offering a piping hot one for Andrew to eat. A dangerous thought entered his brain right then and Andrew had exactly zero desire to dismiss it. ‘I love you so much, let’s get married.’ He embraces the thought like a man meditating for days under a tree would embrace a revelation. He eats the beignet out of Neil’s hand and licks the powdered sugar from Neil’s scarred fingers. Suddenly, all he can think about is how much he wants to marry Neil Josten. He has to plan. He has to make it perfect. Neil deserves it

***

One thing that he had not really anticipated at the beginning of his whole ‘something’ with Neil was that Neil had a family that adored him. Andrew thinks he can be forgiven for the mistake considering literally everything he had seen of Neil’s family at that point. The Hatfords are just different beasts from the Wesninskis and the Moriyamas. All the same violence, brutality, immorality, and illegality are still there (though maybe less brutality, the Hatfords are far more interested in a clean job than the Wesninskis). It’s just that the concept of a ‘useless second son’ or 'torturing your son to death' is completely foreign to them. The Hatfords treasure their family. The Hatfords treasure Neil. They want to make up for every bad thing that happened because Mary kept them in the dark and then refused to reach out to them for help. To the point that Andrew had been anxious at the thought of letting Neil go alone to meet them, worried that he’d never get his Rabbit back. He had gone with Neil every time his Junkie had gone to visit them in England. The very first time they had gone Andrew had dealt with veiled threats of violence, with every member of Neil’s family trying to set Neil up with other people so he’d leave the Foxes and come to England, and blatant attempts to leave Andrew behind for the first day. Then one of Neil’s older cousins, the likely heir to the family, got overly friendly with Neil at dinner. He pulled him away from where he and Andrew had tried to sit at the overly long dinner table, arms around his shoulders in a vice. Tried to have Neil sit with his cousins and away from Andrew despite Neil saying no. Kept touching him when Neil asked him to stop, kept poking his scars, and then had the audacity to pull at Neil’s armbands. “There’s nothing to hide around your family Nathaniel.” Andrew had him on the ground with a knife to his throat before anyone could blink. “He said no.” Andrew had hissed and drew a bead of blood from the cousin’s neck. “Just because you’re family doesn’t mean you get to hurt him. I’ve already broken the arm of a crime lord’s kid when he tried it on Neil last year. Nathaniel is buried in Baltimore with his father, Neil is the one that flew across an ocean to meet you.” He hisses and pushes the knife just a breadth closer to where he can see Neil’s cousin’s pulse. Neil had been the one to pull him off of his cousin with gentle words in Russian. Neil had looked at his family and said that maybe it was better that they find a hotel, that he didn’t want to cause problems. One cousin, a different much younger one than Andrew had pinned, had asked if Neil was really leaving his family. Neil said that he was picking Andrew over them without hesitation. Stuart had booked them the Penthouse suite at a 5-star hotel just a few blocks down. The Hatfords came by the next day. The cousin, Lucas, apologized to Neil and to Andrew and made a firm promise to not do it again. The Hatfords treat him like one of their own after that. There are cards addressed to Neil Josten & Andrew Minyard, he gets presents on any gift-giving holiday, and he gets recipes that Neil’s family thinks he might like because they know Andrew likes to bake and cook. He gets cards in the mail addressed to him during the horrible year that he and Neil do not live together between his graduation and Neil’s. The Hatfords take care of their own and they liked anyone who would take care of their own. So, Andrew thinks about proposing during their yearly trip to England to see Neil’s family before they take the Chunnel over to the continent to see Nicky. He considers it enough that he brings the ring in its stupid orange box with him. He feels like the TSA agents are giving him looks because there was no way he was checking his bag with Neil’s ring. Neil’s biological family would be there. The monsters were all meeting up in Germany for some fun (with Katelyn coming with Aaron) so Andrew’s family would be there afterward. Andrew takes his pre-flight medication before he gets on the plane and falls asleep against Neil’s shoulder while holding Neil’s hand. If he enters into the slightly loopy stage and spends the first hour tracing a ring onto Neil’s ring finger…Neil has seen him do weirder things. Then they’re in England, Neil is tired because he stays up to keep watch while Andrew sleeps through the flight and Andrew takes charge in Heathrow. He gets them to the luggage claim, to the car rental place, into the Aston Martin that he’s trying out, and shifts his mindset to the wrong side of the road with hardly a misstep. Neil sleeps in the car and Andrew considers carrying him out when they reach the hotel. They are staying in the exact same one that Stuart had booked for them the first year and Stuart books it every year for them. He shakes Neil awake gently and carries the majority of the bags in as they grab their key and head up to the penthouse suite. It’s strange to find a place they only stay at once a year so familiar but it’s the room where he’d let Neil fuck him for the first time. He remembers smiling into Neil’s kisses and saying “I want it. I want you. Everything else is opposite here anyways, why not this?” he had joked. Neil had been so careful, and Andrew had felt so good. It was a room with nothing but good memories. It’d be a great room to come back to after he proposed. He starts to plan.

***

As is tradition, Neil sleeps through the rest of their arrival day. Andrew heads out and grabs some snacks to put into the fridge. Fruit and ice cream. They head out to bar hop with Neil’s cousins. Lucas checks with Neil and gives him a big welcoming hug and offers his hand to Andrew for a respectful handshake. They have a good time but not too good of a time. They’re meeting up for brunch with the entire family tomorrow and then Lucas will be heading to do some ‘work’ for the family. One of Stuart’s men, Alex, drives them back to their hotel for the evening with a promise that he’ll be by tomorrow to take them to the brunch restaurant. Neil’s (adorable) accent comes out the more time he spends in England. Andrew knows that Neil’s chameleon tendencies are born from his life on the run, but Andrew feels his knees get a little weak when a tipsy Neil calls him ‘love’. So weak that he might have to kneel in front of him on one knee and pull out the box that’s been burning a hole in his pocket for two months now. He manages to stave off the inclination to propose but Neil calls him love when they’re alone back in their room and strokes his face so gently that Andrew does end up on his knees. He gives Neil a blowjob that knocks the entire English language out of Neil’s brain for 5 minutes, so he feels like they’re having an equal impact on one another. He has plans for when he’ll kneel next. There’s a large family cookout whenever Neil comes back. It apparently harkens back to the one the Hatfords had back when Neil won his first championship as captain during Kevin’s final year. It is casual and every member of the family comes to enjoy the brief time they get with Neil every year. Many of the families bring significant others and significant others bring their family members as well. It’s also the perfect time for a proposal. Unfortunately, it seems that Lucas agrees with Andrew. Before he can get down on one knee Neil is patting his shoulder and pointing as Lucas kneels in front of his longtime girlfriend Cecelia with a ring box. The whole family is delighted even if Andrew quietly fumes. He doesn’t want to share the day with Neil’s stupid cousin Lucas. They’re walking back to the hotel hand in hand having waved off Alex’s offer to drive them. “I’m glad she said yes,” Neil says apropos of nothing. “Cecelia?” Andrew asks, “Isn’t it obvious she would?” Andrew frowns because Cecelia had always been visibly and undeniably in love with Lucas. Had said she was waiting for a proposal. “Oh, just…I’d hate something like that.” Neil says awkwardly, “She was really surprised when he asked her. I’d hate being surprised in front of a bunch of people like that.” He says scratching his cheek with the hand that isn’t holding Andrew’s. “You like surprises.” Andrew counters the unopened box in his coat pocket suddenly weighing thousands of pounds. “Being surprised in front of a lot of people usually ends badly for me,” Neil admits quietly. Thank god for Neil’s stupid cousin Lucas. “What if I surprise you when we’re alone?” he asks. Neil offers a shy smile, “I like it when you have a private surprise for me.” He squeezes Andrew’s hand. He spends the rest of the trip thinking of different plans and enjoying Neil’s company while he endures the company of both of their families. When the TSA agent scans his bag again, he tries not to feel like a failure when they see the ring box unopened.

***

Andrew makes a different plan. Neil and Andrew have been working on turning bad anniversaries into good or okay anniversaries for years. Both of them had days or weeks that were still too painful to convert into anything good. Neil couldn’t handle his birthday at all and tended to go catatonic if Andrew didn’t keep him out of his head. Andrew would go completely silent and only able to touch and be touched by Neil when the anniversary of the Hemmick’s Thanksgiving came around. Neil and Andrew had made memories over other bad anniversaries. Neil and Andrew had first held one another and slept through the night on the anniversary of the time Andrew had drugged Neil at Eden’s. They’d looked at apartments for Andrew on the anniversary of Andrew getting into the fight that had him medicated. They’d gone on some truly magnificent river cruises on each of the weeks that Andrew had been trapped in Easthaven. They’d adopted Sir and King on the one-year anniversary of Andrew telling Neil to get out of his apartment. Andrew wants to reclaim a day for Neil. Neil and Wymack always text one another on New Year’s Eve. He’s heard the story from Neil, how he’d gone to Wymack to be put back together. How seriously Wymack had taken the job and how desolate Neil had felt watching the ball drop as he sat next to their college coach. It’s not really an Evermore memory because Neil still barely remembers what happened to him in the nest. Betsy says he may never remember it, or it could come back when something triggers the memories. Andrew hopes that if he does this then he can claim this time of year with a good memory. Hopes that whatever Neil may eventually remember will always be drowned out by Andrew’s proposal. He spends the day out of their house preparing some things. He gets the stupid fake champagne (“It’s sparkling grape juice Andrew not fake champagne” Neil had argued with a pout that shouldn’t be so adorable) that Neil likes. He’ll order something when he gets home and gets the lay of what Neil wants to eat. Andrew comes into their house with bottles of fake champagne (“It’s sparkling grape juice!”) and some bottles of real champagne. He calls out to Neil to let him know he got what Neil wanted; it was a specific brand that only one store across town had. Neil leans out of the kitchen, smiles, and thanks him. “What are you cooking?” Andrew asks with a frown. “I just finished! I made that tilapia dish that you like. With the Boursin sauce and risotto.” Neil says and Andrew blinks because it’s easily one of his favorite meals. Even better, Neil always makes it the way he likes it where the skin remains crispy since he doesn’t dump the sauce onto the fish. It’s not a meal that Andrew had necessarily wanted to be served the night he is going to ask Neil to marry him. He knows that Neil likes the meal just fine, but Neil has just never been a big fan of fish since he so rarely got to eat it when he was on the run, and it usually made him sick. Andrew thinks about dessert, what he’ll order to preserve just a fraction of his plan for the evening. “What’s for dessert?” he asks and Neil smiles. “I got a big variety assortment of macarons from that bakery you like,” Neil says and his smile takes on a nervous tint, “Is…is that okay?” he asks like Andrew wouldn’t be happy about macarons from his favorite bakery. Except, Neil could always read him so well, he was probably seeing the slight disappointment that Andrew could, privately, admit to feeling that Neil seemed to have decided to make the night about Andrew when Andrew had wanted to make the night about Neil. Andrew steps into Neil’s space and waits a moment for Neil to nod before he wraps his arms around his thoughtful Rabbit. “That sounds great.” He says and kisses Neil’s neck in the spot that he knows makes Neil weak in the knees. Neil sighs and relaxes again. Neil finishes cooking dinner and the two of them sit down to enjoy the meal. They chat about a wide variety of things. Matt and Dan’s kid, Kevin’s third bisexual awakening, Renee’s recent Peace Corp work, how Allison’s fashion line was doing, Neil’s running nemesis, Andrew’s least favorite barista, how Aaron and Katelyn are doing with their residencies, Nicky and Erik’s recent trip to Athens, how Robin was leading the Foxes and Coach’s most recent hopeless cases. Andrew never gets tired of talking to Neil. Andrew wants to listen to Neil talk about how his running nemesis is like the Kevin of running technique but with none of the associated skills to back it up. The box is in Andrew’s safe in his bedroom. He needs an excuse to get up and grab it but then Neil is by his chair kneeling on the ground with a small box in his hands. “Andrew, I know that you’re probably going to say no and that you might not talk to me until next year because of this…” Neil offers an awkward smile at his lame joke and Andrew barely registers it because Neil opens the box as he says it. His eyes are transfixed on the black ring in the blue box (Andrew’s favorite shade — the ice blue of Neil’s eyes) Neil is holding, “…but I just wanted you to know that this is a forever thing for me. I wanted you to know that for me, it’s always going to be you.” Neil swallows thickly looking nervous, “You don’t need to say yes for me to still want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I just wanted you to know. You can do whatever you want with the ring, it’s yours. If you want to toss it into a gutter or shove it down my throat you can.” He says eyes shining bright, “Will you marry me, Andrew Minyard?” he asks voice cracking slightly with nerves at the end. Andrew stares at him. He blinks. Neil is still kneeling in front of him with a perfect ring for Andrew. He blinks again. Neil is still kneeling in front of him with a perfect ring for Andrew because he wants to marry Andrew. Neil had cooked one of Andrew’s favorite dishes, gotten him dessert from a place he liked, and had such a wonderful speech. Neil was always the best plan ruiner. Andrew gets to his feet and heads straight to his office where he keeps his safe. He pushes in the pin (The day he hit Neil with his racket in Millport) and pulls out an orange ring box. He grabs it, shoves it in his cardigan pocket, and doesn’t bother relocking the safe. He returns back and finds that the table has been cleared. He walks into the kitchen and Neil has his hand under the water and when Andrew moves closer, he can see a gash in Neil’s left hand that had definitely not been there before. “What happened?” he asks and all thoughts of the ring in his pocket leave him. “I got a little clumsy when I was grabbing everything to put into the dishwasher,” Neil says his laugh is awkward. It was just like Neil to go and get himself hurt right after their engagement. “Let me see.” He demands and Neil blinks in surprise before a soft smile spreads across his face and he gives his hand to Andrew. The cut isn’t deep and wouldn’t need anything other than some antiseptic and a Band-Aid. He grabs the small first aid kit they kept in one of the drawers and does the basic first aid. Neil’s hand is wrapped in bandages “Thanks, Drew,” Neil says as Andrew finishes. “I’ll get the leftovers into Tupperware,” Neil says as he moves to put the remaining tilapia into the aforementioned Tupperware. Neil is always serious about not wasting food and Andrew loves eating this particular meal ice cold as breakfast. “Let me help.” He says, stripping off his cardigan, hanging it on a hook by their back door, and starting to clean the dishes after Neil finishes removing the meal components from them. “Are you sure? Weren’t you heading out to smoke?” Neil asks but hands a pan over to him despite the question. “I’m not going out for a smoke.” He denies, unsure of why Neil would think so. “You can’t get your bandages wet,” he adds and Neil smiles back at him. They work in comfortable silence until all the pots, pans, and plates are cleaned and, in the dishwasher, to be sanitized. “Thanks, Drew,” Neil repeats. Andrew looks around, “Where’s my ring?” he asks and Neil blinks before pointing behind them. Andrew finds the blue box with his ring inside of it sitting on the back counter. He opens it and doesn’t hesitate to slide it onto his ring finger. “You like it?” Neil asks. “Yeah,” Andrew confirms. It fits him perfectly. “I’m glad.” Neil admits shoulders relaxing as he opens the fridge “The fireworks should start soon; I’ll bring the macarons out and plated if you want to get the back patio all set up for us to watch.” Neil says. A nice division of labor. They’re going to be so good at being married. Andrew spends that night wrapped in a blanket with Neil on their back porch. He is high on the feeling that Neil had, once again, ruined his plans but he’d just beaten Andrew to the punch. He feeds Neil a bite of every single one of the different macaron flavors trying to find one that Neil likes. Unsurprisingly, it’s the fruit ones that Neil gives his approval to. They kiss at midnight and Andrew finds that the fruity flavors taste like they’re wedding cake worthy when he tastes them on Neil’s tongue. Andrew could tolerate a strawberry or a mango wedding cake.

***

Andrew’s mind moves on to planning their wedding with frightening speed. He starts a Wedding Pinterest board on the 1st of the year and begins hunting down specifics on the 2nd. He offers to take Neil to a few venues, but Neil doesn’t seem interested in leaving bed for some reason. He orders a wide variety of sample cake flavors from a wide variety of bakeries, but Neil doesn’t offer his opinion on any of the cake or frosting flavors to try. Neil seemed completely uninterested in planning their wedding. Andrew got to have exactly half of a day of doubt. Neil isn’t wearing his ring but that’s because the bandages would make it difficult. Neil hadn’t expected Andrew to say yes, maybe he didn’t really want to get married maybe- Then Andrew goes to pull on his favorite cardigan to go pick up the cake samplers and Andrew remembers what he had dismissed when he’d seen Neil with a bleeding hand. Neil’s ring. Andrew realizes with horrifying clarity at that moment that Neil had proposed to him, and Andrew had walked off without a word. Neil hadn’t wanted to leave the bed because he was probably a little sad at what he would likely perceive as a blatant rejection. Andrew has his ring on his finger, but Neil had given it to him no matter his answer, and Andrew had not said yes. He hadn’t gotten down on his own knee and opened his own bright orange ring box and said “Yes, of course, I’ll marry you. I was going to propose to you, but you beat me to it.” Andrew hadn’t said it and Neil took his silence as a ‘no’ because Neil would never assume a ‘yes’. So, Neil Josten has no idea that Andrew had spent the last two days in engagement bliss because he has no idea they’re engaged. Before Andrew can burst into their room and explain the mistake it appears that Neil has pushed through his sadness over his perceived rejection. He offers to go with Andrew to the bakeries saying that even if he didn’t like cake it’d be nice to spend more time with him. Any attempt to clear this up now feels like it’d come off as pity. As if he doesn’t want to marry Neil but feels bad for rejecting his proposal. Andrew is an idiot, and he is back to square one. Andrew needs a new plan.

***

The pressure of another failure has Andrew put the plan ‘ask Neil to marry me’ on hold and instead he continues to hyper-focus on planning his still hypothetical wedding with Neil. He has a wedding Pinterest board that is hidden under a VPN and diligent use of the private browsing tab so that Neil doesn’t accidentally see it if he ever borrows Andrew’s computer. He finds himself looking at venues to relax when he looks at Neil’s empty ring finger. He thinks about guest lists whenever a teammate or a reporter says something irritating. He considers which colors would be the best when he dresses Neil up for a night out. He decides on a Fall Wedding when Neil mentions that it’s his favorite time of year when he talks about missing fresh hot apple cider. He thinks about suit cuts and which fabrics would not only look great on Nei but would also be gentle on his skin when the new brand of undershirts they try irritate Neil’s old scars. He thinks about who he wants to give speeches at their wedding when Neil calls a reporter a judgmental idiot straight to his face. He wonders if Neil would be okay with being dipped into a kiss at the altar when Neil kisses his cheek on a hard day. He thinks about how the groomsmen and women will be divided up and how they might need joint custody of Kevin when Nicky calls to check up on him. Neil looks at the ring on Andrew’s finger with a sort of pleased sadness. Like he’s happy to see Andrew wearing it even if it doesn’t mean what he wants it to. Andrew looks at Neil’s ringless finger but he already has decided on a venue. Andrew forces himself to stop planning for a wedding that Neil has not consented to. He needs a plan and thankfully Neil had already shown him an excellent one.

***

Andrew had decided on a day. It’s the day after one of the very worst of Andrew’s entire life. If things had happened slightly differently, if Stuart had been slightly later, if Neil had resisted slightly less than he had then it would be the worst day of Andrew’s entire life. The only redeeming quality of March 9th is that Neil Josten was alive in that motel room on March 10th. Andrew still struggles with it. Every game they had in Binghamton had been fraught with tension from all the Foxes who had been there when Neil was taken. Andrew was not alone when he’d traveled there for Neil’s senior year game at the Bearcat’s stadium. Andrew can close his eyes and still remember how Neil had smiled at him. Truly happy at that moment when he’d given his cryptic goodbye. March 10th was the only redeeming thing about March 9th. It was the day after Andrew realized that what he had with Neil was never nothing, it was always something. It was the day after Andrew broke a promise, broke a deal, for the first time in his entire life when he strangled answers out of Kevin. It was the day after Andrew understood that a world without Neil Josten was not a world he would tolerate. It was the day after Andrew had let himself regret truly and deeply that he hadn’t grabbed Neil when the riot started. It was the day after Andrew had wished, desperately, that he was still on his medication so that this wouldn’t be so agonizing. It was the day after Andrew had wanted the entire world to burn. Then it was March 10th. It was the day that Neil, through his survival, had given Andrew a second chance. It was the day that Neil came back to him against every odd. It was the day that Neil asked if he could stay and said he would go if Andrew wanted him to. It was the day that Andrew realized that he’d go wherever Neil went, so he might as well stay. March 11th was when Neil had signed all the paperwork to make himself officially, legally and permanently Neil Josten, but it was March 10th when Nathaniel truly stopped running and became Neil. No matter what and no matter how he was going to propose on March 10th. Neil, as always, had struggled with nightmares the entire week leading up to March 9th, and Andrew, privately, believes that the countdown was harder on Neil than any of the torture. It’s a hard time for Andrew because he hates it when Neil starts to look worn down by anxiety and hates that texting Neil anything during the week leading up to the 9th is a recipe for a panic attack. Andrew takes Neil’s phone so that Neil doesn’t have to worry about it. He won’t leave Neil’s side for longer than a bathroom break during this time anyways. Andrew takes out some of his own anxiety by messing with Neil’s uncle Stuart. Stuart had contacted Neil to confirm that someone was selling his Millport Highschool Exy jersey. Coach Hernandez is selling it as part of a fundraiser for Millport’s dismal Exy team, selling memorabilia of their one successful Alumnus. Andrew finds it and reads the particularly interesting details of the final day bidding war for this particular bidding website. A plan starts to form. It’d be great if he could just pre-emptively mark all of Neil’s family down as confirmed. This is just practical; Stuart would never go back on a deal, and he knows that Lucas hasn’t set a date for his stupid wedding with Cecelia. Andrew’s going to get first dibs on his preferred date since Lucas went and ruined his first, admittedly terrible, proposal plan. A different part of him admits that it is nice to pay Coach Hernandez back for sending in Neil’s tape and profile to Wymack by ramping up the purchase price. Neil sleeps for the first time in days and Andrew gets to mess with Stuart Hatford and ensure that no one will be taking his planned dates. He hangs up with Hatford and thinks about the Millport Jersey that Neil had stashed at the very bottom of the duffel bag he’d brought to Palmetto. Thinks that there really was no need to have two framed Millport Jerseys in his study. Andrew spends the next few days helping Neil take whatever naps he could manage. They spend almost all of March 9th in bed. They don’t kiss or do a single sexual thing together the entire awful day. Andrew just holds Neil tightly in his arms and lets Neil take comfort in his presence. He runs his hands down Neil’s back and whispers that he’s safe. Neil drifts to sleep at around 11 AM and Andrew is loathe to wake him but won’t let Neil go an entire day without eating. Neil comes with him, not able to be alone, and Andrew just makes oatmeal with fruit. Neil’s stomach can’t handle anything more flavorful on March 9th. They crawl back into bed and return back to how they’d spent the majority of the day. March 9th ends with Neil safe, warm, and loved. March 10th begins with Neil needing to hit the gym because he hasn’t been there all week and he has energy to burn. Andrew lets him go. Today is the day and he has plans. He wonders if Neil will think this is cheating. Neil had made Andrew his favorite meal and picked up Andrew’s favorite dessert when he’d proposed. Neil had been thoughtful and charming, had a whole beautiful speech, and had proposed to Andrew. Then Andrew walked away like an idiot without saying yes. Now here’s Andrew, three months later copying everything his Junkie had done except with Neil in mind this time. He’s making Chicken Parm with spaghetti noodles because Neil loves it and loves sending pictures of himself eating it to Kevin almost as much. He’s got the strawberry crème brûleé getting ready to set in the fridge once they reach room temperature. He’s caught up in his own thoughts. Wondering if his speech will mean half as much to Neil as Neil’s speech had meant to him. He doesn’t need to practice what he’s going to say but he is fine-tuning it. He’s practicing making the perfect sugar topping. Not burnt but not raw. Reworking his proposal to Neil. Worrying about if it’s enough, worries if it’ll be as perfect as Neil’s proposal would have been if Andrew hadn’t fucked it all up. “What are you making?” Neil’s voice startles him while he’s holding the torch. He turns around with the torch still on and draws a line of fire across Neil’s exposed forearm. There is one downside to taking hard days and turning them into good days. The hard day’s memories are always close. Neil lets out a scream of pain as his flesh burns and Andrew can see the moment that he’s no longer safe in their home but handcuffed in a car on his way to Baltimore with Lola pressing burn after burn into his skin. “Neil-!” he tries to reach out, trying to ground Neil. But he has to turn off the torch. It’s a work of 3 seconds but Neil is the fastest man in Exy and now Nathaniel has the wheel. He’s out the door and running like a monster is chasing him. He doesn’t put on a coat, or his shoes, or take his keys. Andrew is further slowed as he shuts off the stove, slams his feet into sneakers, grabs two coats, and locks the door behind him. He’s lucky that when Nathaniel panics this badly he runs straight so Andrew catches sight of him running into the park by their house. He’s sprinting after Nathaniel with everything he has. He yells Neil’s name, he yells Abram, he yells junkie, he yells rabbit, he yells stop. Neil hesitates when he yells the last one, a part of Neil that always stops when Andrew tells him to. That part of Neil is strong enough to halt Nathaniel’s flight. That part of Neil is strong enough to make a lifelong runaway stop in his tracks. That part is part of the reason Andrew fell in love with Neil and that part is Andrew’s only saving grace at this moment. Andrew takes that hesitation, that moment where Neil stops as Nathaniel urges him to run and tackles Nathaniel to the frozen ground. He does his best to soften the landing for Nathaniel, cradling his head as they go down. “Please…please let me go Lola, please stop…stop stop stop!” Nathaniel begs him frantic and scared as he tries to wiggle out from underneath Andrew. Andrew hates the world please, thought he couldn’t hate it more than when it came out of his own mouth, but finds he hates it all the more when he hears Nathaniel begging. He hates it with even more passion because he knows that Lola didn’t stop either. “Neil! Neil!” he tries but Neil is fighting him desperately. “Lola, please…please just let me go!” Nathaniel begs. “Please don’t bring me to my father. Just kill me. Just kill me here.” Nathaniel sobs and Andrew knew how deeply Nathaniel had feared his father. How if Nathaniel had been able to, he would have killed himself in that car to stop from meeting Nathan. (“I’m glad I was so panicked.” Neil had said with a sad smile, “If I’d been thinking clearly at all I would have just bitten my tongue off.” He closed his eyes.“If I hadn’t been so scared, so panicked, then I wouldn’t have this.” He said squeezing Andrew’s fingers as they had laid in Andrew’s bed together a year after Baltimore.) Nathaniel was built for survival, built to adapt, built to run, and it killed something in Andrew to this side of Neil reduced to someone so desperate and hopeless that he’d beg for death from a woman who was melting his skin off. “Neil,” He pins Nathaniel’s hands with one of his own and uses the other to cup Nathaniel’s cheek he needs to keep an eye on Nathaniel’s mouth, making sure that he doesn’t bite down on Neil’s tongue. “Neil, it’s Andrew…you’re safe. Lola is dead and you’re safe here with me. You’re with Andrew and you are safe.” Andrew needs Nathaniel to return to his grave and needs Neil to come back to him. Neil lets out a shuddering sob, “Don’t hurt him. I’ll be good, just don’t hurt him. Do whatever you want to me just don’t hurt Andrew.” He begs and this is all Neil. Nathaniel didn’t care about anyone except Mary. Nathaniel was survival, fear, escape, lies, and adaptation. Neil is self-sacrifice, courage, endurance, truth, and love. Nathaniel begged for death and Neil begged for Andrew to be safe. “I’m here Neil. I’m right here. I’m always going to be here.” Andrew leans down and kisses Neil’s forehead. “You’re safe, you’re here with me. Nothing is going to hurt you, Neil.” He promises, “Come back to me Neil. Come back and I will take care of you.” He peppers kisses on Neil’s face. Neil sobs again but this time he cracks his eyes open before his gaze lands on Andrew, “…Drew?” he breathes out, voice so hopeful that it cracks something in Andrew to hear his name said that way. “I’m right here Neil. You’re safe. I accidentally burned your arm. It triggered you.” He explains quickly and hesitantly he releases Neil’s hands from his grasp. He hates pinning Neil down even though Neil gave him permission ages ago to do it if he’s out of his mind. He sees the new burn on Neil’s arm properly. Already blistering and painful looking. “I’m…I’m-!” Neil tries and Andrew can see the mental struggle to bury Nathaniel, to let his ghost rest in the coffin of Neil’s bones. “Andrew…I-I didn’t mean to run.” He hiccups. “You didn’t run. Nathaniel ran.” He soothes kissing Neil’s temple, “You stopped, you stopped when I asked you to.” He holds Neil’s face in his hands and wipes away the tears. “You always stop when I ask you to.” He brings their foreheads together. “Thank you for coming after me,” Neil says instead of apologizing. It’s something they’re working on, being thankful instead of being sorry. “Thank you for helping me put Nathaniel to rest, for being gentle with him.” He says as if there was a part of Neil that Andrew would ever be cruel towards anymore. Nathaniel made sure Neil survived to meet Andrew. His burial was never hatred of that side of Neil, but always a hope that Nathaniel would finally rest. Andrew could never hate the only part of Neil that wanted Neil to survive as much as Andrew did. Andrew loves all of him so much. “Will you marry me?” Andrew asks, the words would have come out of his mouth in this moment even if Andrew hadn’t spent almost a year thinking about them. Still, Andrew wants a time machine. He wanted a perfect moment, Neil deserved a perfect moment, Neil had given Andrew a perfect moment. This moment is so far from perfect. Neil probably has a 2nd degree burn. Neil’s sweaty and pale from the dissociative fugue state he’d been in barely three minutes before. Neil had begged for death and then begged for Andrew’s safety from a threat that had died years ago. He’d left the chicken in the oil when he’d taken it off the heat, if it wasn’t burnt it was definitely disgustingly oily, the noodles were not even al dente yet when he’d left them, and the crème brûleé wasn’t going to set properly now that he’s missed the timing. This wasn’t the plan. “W-what?” Neil asks eyes wide in shock at Andrew’s question and Andrew knows that if he plays it off then Neil will accept his initial question as something he misheard. Neil will accept that it wasn’t something Andrew had wanted to say. Except, Andrew has never been a coward. The words are out and there’s no putting them back, and he means them. “I want to be your husband and have you as my husband for the rest of our lives. Will you marry me?” He asks again and Neil is looking up at him and his mouth is open in shock. “Andrew…” Neil’s voice is hesitant, and Andrew is so nervous. How the hell had Neil accepted Andrew’s non-response, how had he not demanded an answer? “…you don’t want to marry me, Andrew, you said no.” Neil reminds him gently and Andrew can feel him start to shake from the cold and perhaps a bit from shock from all the emotions he’s dealing with. “I didn’t say no.” Andrew denies as he pushes up off of Neil’s chest to look down at him, glad that no one is in the park at this hour in this cold weather. “I came back and put the ring on, didn’t I?” he asks holding up his hand with his engagement ring because fuck if that’s not exactly what it is. He puts his hand down, leverages Neil up so that he’s sitting and grabs the jacket he’d dropped when he’d tackled Neil and starts to pull it around Neil’s shoulders. “I…thought you just liked the ring.” Neil says eyes wide. “I do like the ring, and I thought that if I put it on then we’d be actually, officially, engaged,” Andrew says and watches as a look of dawning understanding comes across Neil’s face. “The cake tastings?” Neil remembers hands pulling the jacket more securely around himself. “I was trying to plan our wedding until I realized that I hadn’t said yes, and you had no idea that I had accepted your proposal. Worse,” he reaches into his inner coat pocket where he’s kept this box for almost two months now, “I realized I forgot to give you the ring I got you almost a year ago because I got distracted by your bloody hand and then was too excited about feeding you those damn macarons until we found a flavor you liked.” He says and presents the box to Neil. “Almost a year?” Neil asks eyes locked on the orange box in Andrew’s hand. “I bought it back in May. I decided I was going to ask you to marry me last April.” He says. “Last April?” Neil questions, likely trying to remember some grand gesture that had swayed Andrew into wanting to make their forever a legally binding thing. “You remembered the beignets that I liked. The chocolate ones.” He reminds. “That…that was the moment for you?” Neil asks and it seems impossible for his eyes to get any wider. “That was the moment I realized what I had been feeling.” The moment that Neil had unpacked his duffel bag in their brownstone two years ago was probably the moment that Andrew accepted, unconsciously, that this was a forever thing. Andrew moves off of where he’d still been sitting on Neil and kneels in front of him, he opens the ring box to reveal the silver band he’d bought almost a year ago, “Neil Josten, I want to run after you for the rest of my damn life. I want to bundle you up in whatever jacket I manage to grab before running after you and I want to bring you home until we’re both using walkers. Will you marry me? Yes or No.” He demands and he means it. He wants to run after Neil and bring him back to the safety of their home into his 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, until the moment that Neil dies and then he’ll run after Neil to the afterlife. They’ll find a home there together too. Neil is looking up at him with wide eyes again and there are tears running down his face. “Do you really mean it?” He asks voice cracking. “Yes Junkie. I mean it.” He says. Neil’s smile is so wide and so bright that it feels like the sun has appeared in the middle of the darkened park. Andrew would happily go blind staring at it. “Yes! Yes, I will marry you.” Neil nods eagerly. Andrew feels a deluge of relief flows through his entire body. His shoulders sag and he carefully pulls Neil’s hand up and slides the ring onto the appropriate finger. He thinks about how amazing it feels and pulls his own ring off and hands it to Neil, “Take two.” He says because Neil deserves to feel like this instead of the accidental rejection Andrew had given him on New Year’s Eve. Neil blinks at the ring that has sat on Andrew’s finger any moment he’s not on the court for the last three months before a softer smile falls on his face. “Andrew,” Neil holds his hand, and his ring looks perfect on Neil’s finger. “I want you to know that this is a forever thing for me and that for me…it’s always going to be you.” He holds up Andrew’s ring, “Will you marry me, Andrew Minyard?” he asks. “That’s not exactly what you said the first time. What if I wanna throw it into the gutter or shove that ring down your throat?” Andrew asks but his finger already feels barren without his ring. “You can do that if you want. I can throw it right now.” Neil counters winding his arm back teasingly. “Put my ring back on my finger Josten,” Andrew says not willing to chance it. “What’s your answer, Minyard?” Neil returns. “Yes, I will marry you, Neil Josten.” He finally answers the way he should have months ago. Neil slides the ring back onto his finger. Andrew zips the jacket up around Neil and traps his arms within since Andrew didn’t want the burnt skin to get stuck. Neil’s feet had gotten cut from his shoeless flight, so Andrew had no choice but to scoop his junkie up and carry him home. Neil had argued that he could walk, it barely even hurt, but Andrew pretends to have gone deaf. Every moment that he’d spent in the gym doing strength training was worth carrying Neil bridal style over the threshold and into their home. It felt like an echo of something he’d do under even happier circumstances in the near future. It’s something he’d like to do every time they come home. They enter the house and Andrew sets Neil down on the living room couch. He unzips the jacket and promises he’ll be back quickly. He checks on dinner and finds that it is truly unsalvageable from the noodles to the dessert. He orders from Neil’s favorite pizza place where they know the delivery boy and the owner. He tells them that if the delivery boy stops and buys a dozen dark chocolate-covered strawberries then he’ll give a $300 tip. Andrew grabs the impossibly well-stocked first aid kit that Abby had gotten them for their housewarming gift and made his way back to Neil who was sitting on the couch admiring the ring on his finger. He has a goofy smile on his face as he looks at it, running his fingers over the silver band over and over again. “Second thoughts?” he asks as he takes a seat next to Neil on their couch. “You say that like I even had a first thought about marrying you.” Neil jokes back, “You’ve had this ring for months. Why wait?” he asks. “I wanted it to be perfect,” Andrew admits and lets himself feel slightly embarrassed. “I had plans, but…” “…but they didn’t work out?” Neil finishes and Andrew nods before taking Neil’s arm and starting to clean the burn. The frantic run and tackle into the dirt had done the injury no favors. Neil barely flinches. They sit in silence as Andrew cleans the burn, smears it with burn cream, and wraps it in the non-stick bandages that Abby had drilled into him to use for any burns. He gives Neil some painkillers which Neil swallows dry and then moves on to take care of Neil’s feet. He takes his time washing Neil’s feet free of the dirt and grime his flight had put on them. He kisses the top of Neil’s left foot when it’s clean and then every one of Neil’s gnarled crooked toes. He repeats the exact same process on Neil’s right foot before he carefully disinfected the cuts, removes some embedded debris, and wraps Neil’s feet in gauze. “No walking for a couple of days, I’ll carry you wherever you need to go.” He orders strictly. Neil just rolls his eyes spotting Andrew’s blatant excuse to carry Neil around for a couple more days. The doorbell rings and it’s their pizza, the strawberries, and garlic knots that he hadn’t ordered. “Neil likes them, they’re on the house.” Their delivery guy, Ryan, shrugs. Andrew tips him $500 and vows to only ever order pizza when Ryan is working and from where Ryan is working for as long as he’s in the delivery business. He puts the strawberries into the fridge and brings the pizza and garlic knots to the couch. Andrew feeds half the garlic knots to Neil before Neil can convince him to eat anything. They eat their pizza, watch mindless television, and Neil asks if he can lay against Andrew’s chest. Andrew has him wait, grabs the strawberries, sets them in easy reach, and settles himself and Neil so that he can spend the next hour lazily hand-feeding Neil strawberries until Neil says he can’t eat another one after the fourth. Andrew accepts that and puts the lid back on the container. He has Neil sit back up, putting the remaining strawberries away, coming back to the couch he moves to sit down before Neil raises his arms to be picked up, “I wanna go to bed.” He says. Andrew could hardly deny him. They complete their nightly routines with Neil sitting on the toilet lid, so he remains off of his feet as he brushes his teeth. They fall into their bed together and found one another’s hands. If Andrew fell asleep to the sensation of his fingers running along the band on Neil’s hand, then the only person who would say anything is Neil and he had no room to talk.