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Andrew put the Maserati in park, but didn’t turn off the car. His hands slid from the wheel to rest on his thighs, but he didn’t look up at Neil, who had paused getting out of the car when he realized Andrew wasn’t moving.
“You have the list?“ it was rhetorical, even though Andrew didn’t it made no difference. He’d glanced at the list before they left, but left it crumpled up on the table in the entryway of their apartment. Neil knew he never bothered to bring it anyway.
“I do.”
“Okay.” Neil watched him for a second longer, opening his mouth to say something else, but Andrew cut him off.
“You trust me, right?”
“What kind of question is that?” Neil narrowed his eyes at Andrew, not bothering to respond. They both knew the answer anyway.
“Go inside, take your phone.”
Neil was reaching for the door when he froze. “Why?”
“Because I asked you to, Josten.”
“I don’t need it,”
“Neil,” Andrew finally locked eyes with him.
“We always go together,” Neil said. It wasn’t quite a question, but Neil still hadn’t quite gotten the point of what Andrew was asking him to do.
“Just take your phone, and go inside, I will get you the list.”
Neil held his gaze for a moment longer before he scooped his phone out of the cup holder, and got out of the car.
Andrew watched him walk into the grocery store and counted to ten, before flipping his phone open, and hitting the first number set on speed dial.
It rang three times, Andrew could hear Neil freezing up even from the parking lot, but he fought the urge to go inside after him, and waited.
“Hello?”
Neil wasn’t exactly sure how long it had been since he’d frozen in the middle of the frozen foods aisle, ironically, but it had been long enough.
“God you sound like I am calling you to give you the worst news of your life.” Andrew’s voice was on the other end. Neil didn’t reply. He’d seen the name on his screen when he opened his phone, he’d been anticipating the call as soon as he’d stepped foot inside the store. But his body didn’t seem to care. His ears were still roaring with adrenaline. He gripped the handle of the shopping cart so tight the tips of his fingers were going white. Neil caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the freezer door, and it felt like the world was falling out from under him. He could see his chest rising and falling faster with each drag of his breath. He was having a panic attack over a phone call in the middle of the grocery store on a Saturday morning. Perfect.
“Just listen, Josten.” Andrew said, his voice firm and steady. “Listen to my voice.”
Neil sucked in another ragged breath and tore his eyes away from his reflection in the glass.
“Do I need to go home and get the list?” Andrew asked, like he couldn’t hear Neil falling apart on the other end. He would have reached for Andrew to slow his spiral right now, but the only thing he had was a phone in his hand and the sound of Andrew’s voice.
Neil hesitated. He could say yes. This was the longest amount of time he’d been on the phone since Andrew had forced the wretched thing into his hands a lifetime ago. He could tell Andrew to go get the list and they would walk up and down each aisle, Neil pushing the cart while Andrew walked beside him. But he’d only ever managed to dodge phone calls for so long because he had lived with everyone who would need to get him in a moment’s notice. He made himself easy to reach so he would only have to answer the occasional text. Things were different now, Matt and Dan weren’t outside of his bedroom door anymore. Andrew wasn’t always ten feet from the door to his dorm. Andrew knew he needed this, Neil knew that pushing himself was hard, but he knew that Andrew would never push him further than he could go.
“No, I’m listening.” He said, finally, hoping his voice didn't betray him. It didn’t matter much anyway, Andrerw could surely hear his panic on the other end of the phone.
“Okay, what aisle are you in?”
“Frozen foods.” Neil kept his eyes fixed on his hand that was gripping the handle of the shopping cart.
”Neil,” Andrew's voice suddenly had a serious edge. “Breathe.” He demanded, not waiting for Neil to reply. “I am sitting in the car thirty feet from the door.”
“Yeah, I know.” Neil forced a few slow breaths, before making the decision that he was going to go through with this. If he could survive Riko Moriyama and the Butcher of Baltimore, he could survive talking to Andrew over the phone for more than a minute.
The sentiment didn’t really help, but Neil pushed on.
“Good. We need cookies and cream, and mint chip.” Andrew said. He knew that keeping Neil moving would be the only way to do this.
By the time Neil got out of the frozen foods aisle, he’d regained feeling in his fingers, and by the time the cart was half full Neil didn’t have to stop what he was doing to remind himself to breathe anymore. Soon it was just the sound of Andrew’s voice in his ear and the clicking of the wheels of the shopping cart as Andrew directed him through their shopping list for the week.
“You got it from here?” Andrew asked when Neil had retrieved the last item on their list.
“Yeah, I will be out in five.” Neil said, immediately turning towards the checkout.
Andrew had pulled the Mas up just outside of the store, idling in place with the trunk popped open. He was leaning against the passenger side door as he finished off a cigarette. They loaded the groceries into the trunk without a word and Andrew slammed the door shut, discarding his cigarette to the pavement as they got into the car.
The silence that immediately plagued them without anything to do pressed on Neil’s chest adding weight by the second.
“Yes or no?” It was all Andrew needed to say, to gauge where they were. It was hard to believe that Andrew didn’t know if he’d pushed Neil too far. Neil couldn’t imagine what kind of toll that was taking on him.
“Yes,” Neil whispered, his eyes fixed on the dash.
Andrew reached his hand to the back of his neck, pulling him close enough to press his lips to Neil’s hairline, staying for just a second longer than Neil knew he needed to, before pulling away to tuck Neil’s face into the crook of his neck. Andrew’s other hand stayed fisted in his lap, but he held Neil like they had been forbidden to until that very moment. He held Neil like he was scared that Neil would ever ask him to let go.
Neil felt a little fuzzy around the edges, but not in a particularly terrible sense. He was on edge, but the soft caress of Andrew’s cologne and cigarette smoke was easing him slowly back down to a manageable state of mind.
“I’m sorry.” Andrew’s voice was impossibly quiet, sometimes Neil would spend so much time away from the person that Andrew cradled so close to his heart that when that part of Andrew would come out, in momentary flashes, it would leave Neil knocked clean on his ass.
He pulled away to watch Andrew who had defaulted to staring at the wheel of the Maserati like he was trying to burn a hole in it.
“It’s okay,” Neil’s brow furrowed slightly, and he held out his hand, hesitating.
Andrew’s eyes flicked across his face as he put the car in drive. He slid his hand into Neil’s and they were silent the whole way home.
Neil was half expecting the whole ordeal to be their new routine. Sometimes it was still so easy for him to forget that Andrew could figure him out with a glance. Or at least, he could gather enough to piece together a scarily accurate narrative of what was going on inside Neil’s head. Andrew recognized that whatever they had been attempting at the store wrecked him through and through for the rest of that day, and the majority of the following day. Andrew hadn’t been much better. But they had learned early on that avoiding each other because they were having bad days wasn’t the answer. It had taken Neil longer to come around to this truth, an isolationist to his core, but Neil had never felt anything like the first time he allowed himself to seek comfort in Andrew’s presence, instead of locking himself in their bedroom. So when they got back from the store, Andrew had pressed his lips to the heat of Neil’s skin in silent, endless apologies.
Before they went to bed that night, Andrew showed him the corner of their kitchen counter that he had designated for charging their phones. Neil plugged his phone in beside Andrew’s and they went to bed.
—
The next time they went grocery shopping, Andrew was moving to get out of the car before Neil could even ask him about the list, but Neil saw it clutched in his hand and almost didn’t say anything.
“Don’t you have to run to the pharmacy?” Neil asked over the hood of the car, jutting his thumb to the building on the other side of the strip mall.
Andrew stopped, and watched him, “I can do it after,” He hadn’t been anticipating Neil taking this into his own hands. He’d probably figured Neil would opt for taking a break from this for a while, but Neil figured it couldn’t get much worse than it had been.
“We’ll be done sooner, it’s fine, go.” Neil shrugged one shoulder and held up his cell. Andrew watched him a second longer. They could talk about it, really talk about it instead of thinly veiled questions about groceries. Andrew could ask him if it was really okay, if he was sure it was a good idea. But Neil Josten was nothing if not stubborn enough to make even the most patient of people lose their cool.
“Text me when you're inside.” Andrew said, before getting back into the car. Neil picked up a shopping cart on his way inside and shot Andrew a text when he was through the doors.
When his phone rang, he reminded himself that Andrew was just on the other side of the shopping center, it was maybe a three minute walk if he found it truly necessary. But there was no reason for him to run, there was no reason for him to avoid this. Because no one was chasing him anymore, and when he turned back to look over his shoulder, Andrew was always waiting.
Andrew directed him through their shopping list and Neil found getting lost in the hum of Andrew’s voice the easiest way to drift through the trip.
“Neil?” Andrew said, a little louder than he’d been a second ago.
“Hmm?” Neil blinked, and called himself back. “Yeah?”
“Did you get everything?”
“I think so,” Neil shrugged one shoulder, if Andrew had said it out loud, he had grabbed it.
“I’m almost to the parking lot.”
“Okay.” Neil said, steering himself towards the checkout and hanging up the phone.
When Neil got back to the car, he was tired, but in a way he felt after a hard game. Like the exhaustion was worth it. Andrew seemed to pick up on it too, looking less guilty than he had the time before which was also a win.
Neil still spent the rest of the day between cups of coffee on the couch.
—
It was easier after that, learning to try and use his phone regularly. He still hated the thing with a passion. It was difficult to use and overall was just a hassle. Half of the time he forgot his phone and the other half he forgot it on purpose. But he tried, because Andrew had asked him to. And that was enough incentive for him to try.
Andrew had classes so Neil woke up alone, but he’d quickly slid into his usual routine. He even managed to remember to shoot Andrew a text before he abandoned his phone on the kitchen counter to continue the rest of his routine.
Neil didn’t really resurface from the mindlessness of his routine until his phone rang. The phone ringing was wrong. Andrew didn’t call him without warning, no one really called him because they knew he would never pick up the phone. But it still rang, went silent, and rang again.
He reached for it, feeling it jitter in his hand was strange but part of him seriously debated answering. He’d spoken on the phone with Andrew a few times since his last trip to the grocery store and every time answering the phone was a little easier, it didn’t take as much energy out of him and he felt like he needed to run sprints a little less. There had to be another step, a bigger step he could take. Neil couldn’t wait around forever to be able to answer the phone.
“Good morning, can I speak with Mr. Josten?”
Neil gripped the phone in his hands until his joints began to ache. It wasn’t Andrew’s voice on the other end, Andrew wasn’t within reach, he didn’t have anywhere to go, there was nowhere to run to but deeper into his own head. He’d always known that he’d never get the call he was waiting for but the anticipation every time he picked up the phone was enough to make his heart race. Waiting for that call was the only thing he’d had left. Cigarette smoke meant something else now.
Neil was sure something was wrong when he realized he still hadn’t answered.
“Hello…..? Hello?”
Neil blinked, once, and then twice, and realized he needed to hang up the phone. It was stupid, he had a work email for a reason, he’d been only talking to Andrew on the phone for a reason. Andrew was in class, he was home alone and he’d been stupid enough to try and pick up the phone.
He’d never willingly been alone when panic set in like this, when his chest ached too much to fully expand and the world began to spin. He’d been stupid to try and do this himself, he was pushing himself too far too fast and now he was paying the price.
He hung up the phone, and stared at the thing in his hand. Andrew’s contact was the only one he ever really used.
Come home.
Neil stumbled to the bathroom and locked the door, before he folded in on himself on the bathroom tile.
—
He distantly heard Andrew open the door to the apartment, and Neil counted the seconds it took for Andrew to find him, only five. Andrew knocked, softly, two taps on the wooden door. Neil flicked the lock and Andrew slides through the small space that the door opens. Due to Neil being curled in the corner by the door hinges.
Andrew shut and locked the door behind him. His shoes were already gone and his school stuff was nowhere in sight. Had it really only been five seconds from the door opening to now?
Neil felt shame boiling over when their eyes met, his brows pinched together. He had made a stupid decision he should have known better than to pick up the phone, and now Andrew was skipping class.
Andrew didn’t say anything, he just slid down the wall and sat beside him with his elbows propped on his knees.
“I’m sorry,” Neil whispered.
“Stop apologizing.” Andrew said, Neil could feel Andrew’s eyes on him. Neil couldn’t get his mind to work enough to get a good read on him.
“Neil.” Andrew could probably hear him thinking.
“Yes or no?” Neil whispered, forcing himself to meet Andrew’s eyes.
Andrew just tugged Neil into his space, but Neil hesitated to watch Andrew for any kind of guide on what was off limits. In a smaller space, Neil wasn’t going to risk an accident.
“I’m okay, Neil, just come here,” Andrew watched him expectantly, tugging on the sleeve of Neil’s hoodie again.
Neil finally gave in, melting into Andrew’s side. His face planted into the side of Andrew’s neck, Andrew wrapped his arms around Neil, Andrew was holding him together.
“What happened?” Andrew’s hand was working through his thick curls making it difficult for Neil to think about anything else.
“Got a call for work,”
“They are supposed to email you.”
“I know.” Neil sighed, “But I answered anyway. I thought maybe…I thought I could do it, but I couldn’t.”
“Beating yourself up because you pushed yourself too hard won’t do anything, stop it.” Andrew said. They went quiet for several minutes.
“Thank you for texting me, instead of dropping off the face of the Earth.”
“I uh, I didn’t even really think about it, this time.” Neil admitted, realizing that as soon as he hung up the phone the only thing he could think about was reaching for Andrew, who hadn’t been there.
“You’re shitting me,” Andrew had this half smile on his face like he really couldn’t believe Neil hadn’t tried to get out of their apartment immediately.
“No I… I texted you and locked myself in here and that was it.” Neil squeezed his eyes shut, still just breathing in the smell of Andrew’s cologne on his skin.
“Wow, how’d it feel?” Andrew huffed out a soft laugh. Neil felt it reverberate through Andrew’s chest.
Neil thought for a moment, “I just wanted to feel safe…so like shit until I heard you open the door.”
Andrew hesitated, going quiet for several moments. “I’m proud of you,” Andrew whispered into his hair, squeezing Neil closer.
Neil suddenly had a lump in his throat, his breath catching every time he tried to expand his lungs. Tears burned in his eyes, but it felt okay. Andrew would hold him, if he cried.
Andrew just tilted Neil’s face towards him, and waited for Neil to give him the go-ahead, before carefully pressing their lips together.
Neil felt overwhelmingly grateful that Andrew had been so patient with him in every moment that they spent together. Andrew waited while he learned how to love, while they both learned the planes of each other’s faces and Andrew took the time to learn each scar that had been carved into his soul. But he supposed that he’d been the first person in a long time to give Andrew the same in return.
—
On Saturday mornings, Neil’s favorite thing to do was always sleep in. Keeping schedule and routine typically helped him operate the best he could. But on Saturdays, waking up to Andrew beside him and laying in bed in his arms for a few extra hours in the mornings.
But he woke up alone.
On the rare occasion that Neil did wake up in their bed, alone, it didn’t take him particularly long. It was easy because Neil could only come up with two possible answers to why Andrew would leave him alone on their one day of the week where they got to spend a little extra time together.
Andrew could have had to leave, whether it be last minute baby-sitting duties for Aaron and Katelyn or something in the wide variety of Kevin’s needs. Or Andrew could be having a bad day. Neil certainly preferred one option over the other.
A simple glance at his nearly dead phone allowed him to quickly deduce that Andrew was not in fact called out of the house for some other emergency, so that left one possible other option.
Neil dressed quietly and slid out of their room, pocketing his phone to plug in at their makeshift charging station on the counter beside the coffee pot.
Andrew had already made coffee, and was seated on the couch with a steaming mug, so he couldn’t have been awake for too long, thankfully.
Neil poured himself a cup and plugged in his phone, before going back over to the couch. Their heather gray couch was just three cushions, but Neil hand found it the perfect size for the assorted purposes it served. It was a comfortable width and length for sleeping and the cushions were large enough to provide ample personal space barriers if either he or Andrew felt like they needed it. Andrew had picked it out soon after they signed the lease on the flat and Neil hadn’t realized how much he liked having such a good couch.
Neil curled up on the cushion beside Andrew’s, lying on his side, with his head resting on the top of the back cushion as he watched Andrew with a careful and still sometimes unnerving blue-eyed gaze.
There wasn’t really a question there, not that Andrew could see, but they both knew what exactly Neil was trying to assess.
Andrew took another slow sip of his coffee, all of his hoodies faintly smelled like the grinds, even after they washed them, Neil had noticed. Then Andrew slowly brought his right hand up to bury in Neil’s untamable curls. Curls that seemed to be the bane of Nicky and Allison’s existence with their imperceptible perfection without much attention or care while Nicky had probably an eighteen-step routine to care for what pathetic waves his genetics could muster. While Allison just found herself pissed off that Neil was effortlessly attractive. Not that she wasn’t, Neil just had no appreciation for it.
Andrew gently brushed his thumb back and forth against Neil’s temple and for the first time since they met Neil wasn’t quite sure what Andrew was thinking.
“You’re soft, just here.” he whispered, a small line between his brows that Neil had become intimately acquainted with.
“So are you,” Neil pointed out.
“Yeah, I know.” Andrew nodded.
Neil’s eyes locked onto Andrews and they stared at each other in silence.
“You were dreaming,” Neil finally managed, even with Andrew’s fingers massaging mind-numbing patterns into his skull. He hated how much he loved having Andrew’s hands in his hair.
“Mm,” Andrew hummed, unamused with Neil’s careful observation skills.
“Talk to Bee?”
“Noon.”
“Good,”
“We have to go get groceries.” Andrew glanced towards the kitchen, neither of them had eaten yet, and Neil figured there was probably very little to aid them in making breakfast in the fridge.
“I can go,”
“Can you?” Andrew raised an accusatory eyebrow at him. They hadn’t attempted much else on that front since Neil’s work call mishap, but part of Neil felt like if he didn’t try to move forward, he’d let all of his progress diminish. He also knew that Andrew always seemed happier when Neil succeeded at things they had been working on together. So if Neil just told himself it was more for Andrew, than for himself, it was easier to stomach.
“Yeah, I’ll text you when I get there. It’ll be less than an hour and then I’ll be back. Unless you want to go together, later.” Neil’s heart still hurts when Andrew would have particularly hard days, but if he could be closer to Andrew, for longer, on days like that then he would take every chance he got to be by Andrew’s side.
“Go, text me.” he nodded, drawing his hand back.
“Can I wear one of your sweatshirts?”
“That’s a stupid thing to ask permission for.”
“I’m never not going to ask, Andrew.”
“I love you.”
It almost knocked Neil over, with how firm and serious Andrew said it. Almost like he was scolding Neil for doing something stupid. Another small thing of Andrew’s that Neil was intimately familiar with. But the words were different, heavier.
“I love you too.” Neil lingered in the threshold between the hall to their bedroom and the living room. Andrew held his eyes and Neil couldn’t figure out if there was something else he was supposed to say. So he turned and went back to their bedroom to retrieve a sweatshirt from their closet (which was mostly communal anyway) and get the keys to the Maserati from the bowl on the table in the entryway.
“Phone, Josten.” Andrew called as Neil opened the door.
“Shit, right,” Neil grinned despite himself as he jogged back past the couch and then he was gone.
This time, Neil didn’t flinch when the phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, reminded himself to breathe, and opened it.
“Breathing and blinking, Josten?”
“Yup.” Neil nodded, just once, and leaned on the handle of the shopping cart with his forearms.
“We need more mouthwash, and we’re out of sponges.”
Neil doesn’t feel off balance as he goes about their usual shopping trip. It’s just the slightly abrasive lights of the grocery store and the sound of Andrew’s voice in his ear as they try to get through it as quickly as they can.
Neil was back in less than an hour.
When they finished putting away the groceries, they made a breakfast/also kind of lunch before Andrew pulled him back to the couch where they curled up together until Andrew’s call with Betsy.
—
Since Neil was finally learning to get a handle on his fight or flight, learning to slow down was an art he was still mastering. He could stop when they were walking down the street to look at stickers plastered all over a lamp post or they could spend mindless hours researching what they could possibly need to adopt cats in the future. He could do all of those things with Andrew because they finally had the time. There was no looking ahead to death, or signing a contract, or looking back over his shoulder while running from a past he’d long disowned. There was time for him to appreciate the mundanities of everyday life even if it was just the privilege of holding Andrew’s hand while they crossed the street, or knowing exactly which brand of ice cream Andrew liked.
House chores, and sitcoms, and brushing their teeth together side by side before bed. Neil was living a real life, with boring things in it. And that was okay, because none of it was boring when he had Andrew, and friends who loved him and a life that he had complete control over for the first time in well over a decade.
Neil was allowed to slow down and appreciate all the small things because now he had the time too. And he found that there was something perfectly poetic about it.
—
“Nicky is trying to throw a party in our apartment.” Andrew said, not looking up from his phone screen as they walked through the produce section. All of the foxes were back in town for the Olympics and for some reason Nicky was hell bent on throwing something he called ‘an official reunion’ even though nearly half of the foxes were going to be at the olympics in some capacity.
“Did you tell him no?” Neil half smiled over his shoulder.
“Words mean nothing to the blissfully stupid.”
“You two share blood.”
“Thankfully not enough,”
Neil scoffed and rolled his eyes, “He just wants to spend time with everyone like before.”
“Ugh, what is he, old?”
“Drew he’s like twenty-six,” Neil shook his head.
“Whatever,”
Neil’s phone began to vibrate in the pocket of his (Andrew’s) hoodie and he pulled it out, almost surprised to see Kevin’s name on the front. Kevin never really bothered to do anything other than email and text him, but he was going to be staying in their extra room until they flew out for the olympics. So Neil figured he probably needed something from the store.
“And to what do I owe the pleasure?” Neil sighed, when he held the phone to his ear.
“I forgot to pack toothpaste, I’m sending you a picture of the one I get, please tell me you finally learned to follow simple directions.”
“A girl can dream,” Neil sneered.
“Fine. I’ll just send it to Andrew and he–”
“He’s right here, it’s fine, we’ve got it,” Neil shook his head incredulously. Sometimes Neil wondered if Kevin was aware of the possible benefits of taking a Xanax.
Andrew stared him down for the duration of the phone call. Neil decided not to return the stare.
“Thank you,” Kevin said, shortly, before he hung up the phone.
Neil snapped his phone shut and grinned like a menace back at Andrew whose face was starkly calm in comparison. Neil directed them towards the hygiene aisle and Andrew locked their hands together, giving Neil’s hand a gentle squeeze as they finished their shopping trip together.