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Stay with me. Please.
Neil didn’t say it. The words were there, on the tip of his tongue, ready to tumble out into the open and reveal how truly desperate he was, but he didn’t need to say them. He never had to say them.
He could feel Andrew surrounding him, enveloping him with a solid weight, evenly distributed from his hips all the way up to his neck. Andrew was straddling him, one hand solidly cupping the back of his neck, the other rubbing smooth circles into the tense muscles around the base of his wings. Neil struggled to relax, to sigh evenly into the mattress and allow himself to be handled, it was what they had agreed on. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop the constant thought that this wasn’t okay, that he was in danger, that he had to run.
Run, fight, kick, this is not okay, this is painful, run run run, this is what your mother warned you about, run and hide, fight like your life depended on it, say no, your wings are vulnerable, your life is not in your hands, who is on top of you, who is beside you, who is touching your back, whose hand is on your neck, stay stay stay stay stay stay
“Neil, yes or no?” Andrew’s voice cut like a knife, but it was so much more than a tool for harming.
Neil let out the breath he had been holding captive, and wished silently that his consciousness would disappear into the air along with it. He turned his head and nodded once, his cheek dragging along the mattress that he had been laying on for far too long. “Get it over with.” He didn’t say please. He never had to.
Abby’s white coat appeared in his peripheral, and her concerned blue eyes were soon to follow. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital for this? They have drugs there Neil, anesthesia,” she said it like a prayer, like just saying the word would end whatever uncomfortableness she was feeling about the situation.
“No hospitals. No drugs. We agreed.” He was reciting the same lines that they had rehearsed over and over and over, and Neil was tired of telling Abby that this is what he wanted. The pressure on the back of his neck increased for a moment, a silent reassurance that only he could understand. This is what they wanted.
Stay stay stay stay
Abby swallowed. It was a strange thing, to see people swallowing their resolve. “We’ll start with the bones first, and then fix up the feathers.” Starting with the bones meant breaking and then setting them, and fix up the feathers meant pulling out the ones that were irreparably damaged, like pulling teeth. “Four primaries, two secondaries, and a couple coverts. Ulna, radius, pollex.”
It wasn’t the first time Neil had heard the plan, but it made him tense up like she was reading aloud his death sentence. He let loose another measured breath and tried not to flinch as Abby spread out his right wing. It was sore, but no worse than usual. Maybe this was a bad idea.
He forced himself to focus on the weight pressing him into the bed. The weight had a name. The weight was Andrew.
Andrew Andrew Andrew it was a mantra, played on repeat inside his head like a broken record. He caught a whiff of the antiseptic sitting on the bedside table, waiting its turn next to a bundle of bandages.
Andrew Andrew Andrew. He lifted his arms to either side of his head and clutched at the fitted sheet beneath him. It was halfway off the mattress, since neither boy cared enough to fix it during their lazy mornings or exhausted afternoons. He grabbed a fistful in each hand and tensed.
Andrew Andrew Andrew. He watched Abby in his peripheral, one knee on the mattress beside him. She hesitantly carded her fingers through the small feathers at the base of his wing, searching for the bones that had grown out wrong, that had been abused for half his life by none other than himself.
Andrew Andrew Andrew. He felt a hard squeeze on the back of his neck, unrelenting and determined and full of promises.
Andrew Andrew A—
The world went dark, and the tower fell.
It was raining. It wasn’t like the rain that gently lulled you to sleep at night, or the rain that promised clear skies and rainbows if you waited it out for another ten minutes. It was a torrential nightmare. Without warning, the skies had grown dark and within seconds the streets were flooded and without an umbrella, Andrew and Neil were soaked to the bone and miserable. Well, Andrew was miserable. Neil thought it was hilarious.
“If we would’ve just stayed put,” Andrew grumbled, hunching over and letting his wings take the sudden drenching in favor of his favorite black t-shirt. It would have to be washed now, and the black would definitely fade. What a waste.
“You wanted to get away from Kevin just as much as I did,” Neil countered. He seemed completely unaffected by the downpour, standing next to Andrew like an impregnable statue. A living, breathing statue whose auburn hair was now flattened and dripping, whose clothes hugged his body and showed months of hard work and toned muscles, whose small wings were flexing and stretching towards him. The rain suddenly stopped.
“I don’t need your charity.” Andrew swatted at Neil’s outstretched wing, the red feathers slick with water but so incredibly soft to the touch. Even wet and darkened by rain, the color of them still made Andrew want to stare for hours on end. Blood Neil had said, but Andrew only saw sunsets.
The rain returned, somehow harder than before. Neil laughed, and the sound was like church bells on a Sunday morning. Andrew needed it to stop.
“Stop.”
Neil stopped laughing almost immediately.
“We should run.”
Neil ran and Andrew followed, the sound of bells fading, fading, fading into oblivion. He tucked it away, unseen and unheard, until the day he could finally allow himself to drown in it, like the world drowns in unforeseen rainfall.
Makes me feel like I can't live without you
It takes me all the way
I want you to stay
The song sounded small and tinny coming from his phone speaker, laid beside him in the gravel that covered the expanse of the rooftop. Nicky had stolen his phone weeks ago, claiming that he needed to study archaeological finds for a class, and had returned it with a full playlist of music and pictures of his face in contorted expressions. Neil didn’t complain, the music kept him company and filled him with thoughts of the older foxes, and the pictures made him and Matt laugh for hours. They had printed out the best ones and used them for decoration in the Foxhole Court locker room.
Neil sighed. He missed the older foxes just as much as he missed his mom these days.
He flexed his wings and winced at the feeling of unused, tight muscles. They were still healing, but the bones were finally set properly and he could feel the itch of new feathers growing in, so he remained hopeful. Hopeful of one day seeing uninhibited, wide open skies. Hopeful of strong, capable wings taking him anywhere he wanted to go. Hopeful of freedom, of not running. It was dangerous to hope for so much and to pit it all on his pathetic, damaged wings. The wings that reminded him of blood and ice and pain. So much pain.
Round and around, and around, and around we go
Neil considered his choices before reaching for a new crayon. This one said Robin’s Egg Blue on the side of it. He thought it was fitting, and added it to the collection of greens, blues, and light browns that were piled next to his notebook, humming along to a new song that filtered out from Nicky’s playlist.
The smell of cigarette smoke suddenly permeated the air, a smell so much like home that it set his heart racing. He smiled as he recognized the sound of crunching gravel and thrashing wings settling down from flight.
Oh, he'll buy me a thorn before he'll buy me a rose
Andrew hovered over him. From his position on the floor, Neil couldn’t crane his neck far enough to see his expression, but he knew enough about the blonde at this point to guess. He would be indifferent, apathetic, a slight grimace on his face as he saw what Neil was currently drawing. He would be Andrew.
“125%, Josten.” Andrew growled as he lowered himself to sit next to Neil. It was a graceful movement, his wings stretching out behind him and assisting in the effort. They were larger than Neil’s, but then again his were very tiny compared to most. They were also beautiful, and no drawing with crayon and notebook paper could ever do them justice.
“They’re so unique,” Neil said, his voice a reverent whisper. He hadn’t spoken all day; his mind was filled with so many thoughts but no one was there to help him organize and communicate them. He didn’t like living alone. “Like an ocean at daybreak.”
Friends say I'm stupid and I'm out of my mind
But without you, boy, I'd be bored all the time
Andrew scoffed and reached over to flick his ear. Neil grinned in return. An affectionate gesture that wasn’t affectionate in the least was something only Andrew could achieve, and something only Neil could appreciate.
Neil pushed up onto his elbows, hesitantly transitioning himself into a sitting position. “Yes or no?”
Andrew stared at him, and kept staring as he puffed on the cigarette dangling from his mouth. Neil stared at it, wanting so badly to pluck it from his full lips and flick it over the edge of the rooftop. But he would never do so without permission, without consent. A small breeze played with tufts of blonde hair and tufts of blonde feathers, and he shivered minutely as the encroaching night grew colder around them. Andrew reached up and grabbed his cigarette with two fingers, then unceremoniously flicked it towards oblivion. Neil didn’t see where it landed. “Yes.”
I'm in love (I'm in love)
I'm in love (I'm in love)
Their kisses weren’t chaste. They weren’t small promises of sweet nothings whispered between closed lips. They weren’t meaningless gestures of unresolved promises. They were wholesome, all-encompassing, fearless. They were the type of kisses that left them breathless and wanting more more more. Their kisses meant more to them than any other act of kindness, any other physical assurance. They meant don’t run. They meant stay with me.
They separated, coming up for air as if they were drowning. Their breaths mingled together, Neil’s forehead resting against Andrew’s as the chorus from a song drifted between them.
I’m in love with a monster
“I’m going to murder Nicky.”
“Don’t get caught.”
“Stay with me Neil, damn it.” Andrew slid off of Neil’s back the moment he stopped crying out in pain.
This was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Neil should not have agreed to this. The warning signs were there; it wasn’t even a year ago that Neil had gone to Baltimore, that he had suffered at the hands of not only his father but also his murderous lackeys. He couldn’t even sleep at night without nightmares invading his dreams, startling him awake with the remembrance of pain and suffering. Andrew could always bring him back on those sleepless nights, with whispered names, outlined keys, and fervent kisses. He couldn’t bring him back now, not when the pain was so real and so damning.
Their tower was destroyed, tipped over so violently that more than a couple pieces scattered into depths beyond their reach.
“Neil, honey, I need you to breathe.” Abby’s assurances were like a butter knife attempting to cut through steak, but at least it brought him back to the present. Andrew lowered himself to look directly into Neil’s icy blue eyes, wide awake and unseeing. He was somewhere else entirely.
Andrew kept a grip on the back of Neil’s neck. When Neil eventually resurfaced, it would be a pleasant, grounding weight. It had to be. He moved his thumb downwards and finally found a pulse at the base of his jaw. It was spiked, going so fast that each beat molded into the next, preventing Andrew from reading it even remotely accurately. Hissed curses left his mouth, stringing together to form incoherent messages of hate, remorse, guilt, damn it Neil, damn it.
Neil was panicking. Andrew was panicking. It seemed like the whole world was one giant, high strung ball of pure unadulterated panic. “Andrew!” Abby’s voice was stern, solid, a counterweight to the chaos. The butter knife finally became a steak knife, a switchblade, a cleaver.
Andrew took a breath. Then another.
“Abram,” he whispered, his mouth inches away from Neil’s ear. It was a plea, a bargain, a prayer. A promise.
Neil’s eyes found his.
“There you are.”
“You’re the biggest idiot I’ve ever met,” Andrew growled, but it wasn’t a harsh growl. It wasn’t a stay away from me growl. It was just Andrew. Just an Andrew growl. He liked Andrew growls.
Okay, so Neil might be a little drunk.
Neil nodded solemnly, “I’m the biggest idiot I’ve ever met.” Their dorm room was hot, but that could also be from the alcohol affecting his system. His cheeks felt warm to the touch and he had insisted on wearing just his boxers when the fourth cup of whiskey was poured. They were huddled together on the couch, Neil tucked into Andrew’s side and trying his hardest not to fall off the edge.
Andrew’s wing protruded from underneath Neil, pulling him closer and acting as a sort of guard rail. His wings were soft and tickled Neil’s back which caused him to squirm and burrow further into Andrew’s side. Neil could tell that Andrew was being careful not to brush against his bandaged wings.
The pain was there, but it was a dull throbbing ache that matched the beat of Andrew’s heart. Neil ducked his head and pressed his ear to Andrew’s chest, counting out the staccato rhythm in a whispered voice. ONE two three FOUR five six ONE two three. Like a waltz performed only for them. “Maybe we should send Abby a fruit basket.”
“What would we write on the card?” Andrew’s voice had a lilt to it, like a small secret was hiding in the corner of his mouth. Neil knew that he was amused.
“Sorry for making you reset my wing bones and panicking halfway through, I hope you like passionfruit.”
Andrew’s hands tightened around his waist, a small ghost of pressure that might’ve been a warning. Or an encouragement. Or a promise. Neil couldn’t read him very well at the moment.
ONE two three
“I wish I wasn’t drunk,” Neil said, purposefully separating his words so that they didn’t slur without his permission; drunk words didn’t follow the rules of consent very well.
“So I could hear you bitch and moan about your wings all night? No thank you.” Hazel eyes looked down, hazel wings inched closer.
FOUR five six
“So I could answer Yes or No.” Neil knew what his answer should be, what Andrew wanted his answer to be. Andrew wasn’t even asking, but he already knew how the conversation would go. He needed this conversation like air, like water, like he needed Andrew to say yes. But he wasn’t asking, and neither was Andrew.
ONE two three
Andrew wasn’t going to answer him, or ask him, or demand any more of him tonight. They fell into silence together like there was no other way to communicate, hushed breaths intermingling and points of contact cold and calculated, careful brushes of feathers and the lightest touch of hands on hips. Neil needed him to stay, and he stayed despite everything that had happened. It was a push forward, a momentum that needed to keep building until both players were ready to start on their foundation again. They would be stronger this time, sturdier. Their tower wouldn’t fall so easily next time; and that was a promise both of them meant to keep.
FOUR five six
Stay stay stay stay