rycha
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Summary
Neil channels all of his energy into looking incredibly unbothered, like getting caught crashing a wedding by the groom’s twin-slash-best man was all part of his grand plan.
The other man breaks the silence first. “Who are you?”
Stubbornly, Neil keeps his ass planted on the ground while he racks his brain for the bride’s name. Kate? Kathryn? Katie? Oh, right—“I’m Katelyn’s cousin.”
The best man tilts his head, observes Neil, and says, “No, try again.”
Fuck.
*
Neil is no stranger to crashing weddings. This one would've been a walk in the park, if not for the groom’s twin getting in his way.
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Dan and Neil exchange a look. Then Dan sighs, rubbing a hand across her forehead. “Great. Just what we need. A prank war. The last time the team faced one of those, I lost a dealer, a goalie, and someone was nearly blinded.”
“All in one day?” Neil quips.
AKA: Five times the Foxes were pranked, and the one time the prankster gets their due. -
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The outside of Abby’s house, decorated with lights and dusted with snow, is like something off a Christmas card.
The inside is chaos.
Andrew and Neil must be the last ones to the party, or close to it, because more than a dozen college athletes are already packed into Abby’s open-concept kitchen when they arrive. Something smells on the verge of burning and two electric beaters are whirring at once.
So Andrew’s suffering begins.
In which Andrew and Neil attend a holiday party, exchange gifts, and get to have a nice Christmas for once in their goddamn lives.
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It doesn't make sense. Neil was fine. More than fine. He’s safe at home with Andrew, and this should be the best possible ending to one of Neil’s best days, but when Neil squeezes his eyes shut, all he can see is —
Riko grinning with vicious pleasure as he slices Neil open. Riko’s eyes reflecting the glow of the lighter licking Neil’s skin. Riko laughing as a tattoo gun needle digs into Neil’s cheek.
Riko, Riko, Riko, smothering and impossible to escape. Panic knifes through Neil as he yanks uselessly against the handcuffs. No, no, no —
And then he’s saying it aloud, “No, no, no,” because there isn't a gag cutting into the sides of his mouth. Because Neil isn’t at Evermore. He’s at home with Andrew, who’s right there when Neil opens his eyes — only near the foot of the bed now, not touching Neil at all.
Neil has long gotten used to reading the faint shades of emotion that pass for expressions on Andrew’s face. But never, not even in Andrew's medicated, manically expressive days, has Neil seen Andrew wear anything like his current look of horrified shock.
Neil agrees to try the handcuffs in bed. It goes badly. Cue angst and h/c.
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Summary
“Have you considered the possibility that Neil has chosen you, but believes you have not chosen him?” Renee says. "Have you ever explicitly told him what you want?”
“Neil knows what I want,” Andrew snaps. This is not Andrew’s fault.
“How do you know?”
Because Neil always knows. He is as fluent in Andrew’s micro-expressions as he is in German and French. He knows which head tilts mean “go on” and which ones mean “shut up.” Without ever asking, he learned what it meant to see Andrew wearing double layers of long sleeves, or taking multiple showers in a day, and learned to hand Andrew the car keys.
That has always been the most terrifying thing about Neil — his patience to wait, watch, listen, learn. The prospect that if Neil were given enough time, there would be no part of Andrew that was just Andrew’s anymore.
“He has to know,” Andrew says.
“Does he?” Renee says. “Have you ever known Neil to assume that he is wanted?”
Five times Neil tells someone that he and Andrew aren’t dating, and one time Andrew uses his words to set the record straight.