Chapter Text
“I think I’m ready to take the next step with Neil,” Andrew admits on a random Wednesday in January to Betsy.
It is absolutely not the first time he’s admitted it to himself. The first time that he admitted it to himself was at the beginning of December, when he woke up for the fifth day in a row in Neil’s arms. Drool, morning breath, too warm, and Andrew wanted to wake up like this every morning. That wasn’t the moment exactly, nor when he realized he was hard.
Morning wood was nothing new to Andrew, the lack of disgust was.
Andrew had lain there, waiting for the revulsion as he stared at Neil’s face. Waiting to recoil, waiting to need an out, waiting for foreign hands, waiting for a phantom pain, but it never came.
He’d just lain there, counting Neil’s white eyelashes, wanting to kiss his stupid, drool-covered mouth, taking long relaxed inhales of Neil’s morning breath.
His mind went further, the way it always did for every escalation in his and Neil’s physical relationship. He imagined waking Neil up, and Andrew imagined Neil’s face when he felt Andrew against him. He wondered if Neil would realize just how good and safe he made Andrew feel.
Imaginary Neil asked him a question and Real Andrew said “Yes” and then Imaginary Neil had said that it was a “Yes” for him too. Then Andrew was moving and reaching for Imaginary Neil and-
Neil’s eyes opening broke Andrew’s fantasy, knocked out thoughts of miraculously placed lube and condoms. Andrew watched Neil slowly wake up. Watched his eyes fully open and clear. Watched as he smiled at Andrew in that slow way that would have had the gossip columns that talk about campus hunks going wild.
Then he saw Neil feel Andrew against him and saw Andrew’s stare. “You okay?” he asked, not moving an inch.
Andrew stared at him for a few moments longer. “Yes.”
They lay there like that and Andrew thought about his fantasy, but Neil didn’t play the next part the way he imagined it. “It doesn’t have to mean anything, Andrew, it’s just a bodily reaction,” he said softly and completely off-script.
Despite that, it only settled Andrew all the more.
“I know,” Andrew said, remembering how many times he’d said it to himself.
It was right then that Andrew decided he wanted it to mean something.
Not right then, not in that moment. In that moment, he kissed Neil and then sent him off to brush his teeth so that kissing him wouldn’t be such a chore.
Betsy is not even the first person he said it out loud to since the very first person had been Neil when he came back from brushing his teeth. Neil, who had settled back into bed and asked if Andrew meant right then and there because he hadn’t done mouthwash.
He hadn’t wanted to do it right then, he just had wanted Neil to know that it was now something he was considering.
It was always like that with their current sex life. Andrew was the one who moved forward and Neil was the one who was happy to walk alongside him every step of the way. Neil didn’t think about the next step without Andrew saying there even was one to take.
Even knowing what the next step was, Neil didn’t even consider taking it until Andrew did. It was one of the many, many reasons that Andrew often took those next steps. Neil gave him the space he needed to consider this next step more without a hint of pressure.
A week ago, he wanted to take that step. They’d been in their bed in Columbia and Andrew was feeling good. So he asked. Neil gave his consent. Andrew had gotten one finger in and then promptly freaked out and had to stop when Neil took a breath too sharply.
Which brought him here to Betsy’s office.
She blinks a bit in surprise. Andrew can’t blame her, it is quite a thing to say when the question was, “How have you been this week, Andrew?” Regardless, it’s an honest one. His failed first time with Neil has dominated his thoughts this week.
“It’s a huge step for you to take, Andrew, to want to be with someone like that. I know last year you told me that you weren’t interested in anything beyond what you were currently doing,” she says without a hint of embarrassment or judgement.
Andrew nods. He had really thought that there wasn’t anything more to want, even when he’d been physically interested in Neil. All he had wanted out of that was a few rounds of sucking Neil’s dick to get it out of his system. That clearly hadn’t worked out well for Andrew because he only wants more, the more that he does with Neil.
Which might be part of the problem.
“We tried last week, but…” he works his jaw. The image of Neil laying out in front of him had been such a good one and then Andrew slid his finger in and Neil’s pretty face scrunched up in discomfort, but Andrew’s brain twisted it to the one in his nightmares from November. Where Neil was in active agony, except this time it was Andrew hurting him. “I needed to stop.”
“I’m glad you didn’t push through it. I know how important Neil is to you,” Betsy says, and it’s the understatement of the century to say that Neil is important to Andrew. “What made you stop?” she asks.
“His face scrunched up, he wasn’t enjoying it.” Andrew says, and from all of his experiences, any penetration has always been painful. He knows, logically, that with proper prep and care that it doesn’t have to be. Nicky has made it impossible for Andrew not to know such things against his will. Even without his cousin’s constant and enthusiastic talk about his sex life, it isn’t like Andrew has never watched gay porn.
“Did you talk with him about it?” Betsy asks.
Andrew couldn’t talk to Neil at that moment. He had felt far too disgusting to talk with him. He’d ripped his finger out of Neil and had immediately gone to cool down. When he came back from chain smoking on the roof, Neil was sitting at his desk working on his math homework.
Andrew took a seat at his own desk, across from Neil’s, and Neil had looked up at him with uncertainty, but he still offered Andrew his hand. Andrew had taken it in an instant, not able to deny himself the offer of comfort.
The conversation that followed had set Andrew’s mind far more at ease than the cigarettes he’d smoked up on the roof.
“We did,” Andrew confirms.
“Can I ask what you talked about?” Betsy asks.
Andrew hesitates, but Neil has given him blanket permission to discuss things about him with Betsy. “He said that it didn’t hurt, it felt…weird but not painful.” Andrew takes a sip of his hot chocolate before he looks at Betsy. “I put my…own experience on him,” he explains.
“Are you here today for tools on staying in the moment?” Betsy asks.
Andrew swallows. “Yes.”
“Were you and he talking a lot during your first attempt?” Betsy asks, and Andrew blinks.
“We were trying to have sex, not continue our discussion about zombie apocalypse prep,” Andrew frowns at Betsy.
Betsy lets out a little laugh. “I know, but asking Neil questions during sex or saying how he looks and how he feels might keep you more present in the moment,” she says.
“Betsy, are you advising me to talk dirty to Neil?” Andrew asks, staring at his therapist in surprise.
She doesn’t fluster or blush; she merely nods. “If you’re asking Neil how it feels, and he’s explaining it to you in the moment that it just feels kind of weird, then there isn’t a lot of room for you to put your own experience into that moment,” Betsy explains more thoroughly. “Andrew, I know you’re quite proud of how well you and Neil communicate with one another. This isn’t any different,” she says, then takes a sip of her own hot chocolate.
Andrew takes that time to contemplate the solution she’s offering him.
He knows that his previous experience with sex and communication hardly count as communication during sex. Andrew isn’t any of the men who pinned him down, and if Neil said ‘no’ or ‘stop’, it would be respected in an instant.
He also thinks about his current forays into complimenting Neil. ‘Pretty Boy’ has been the one he keeps coming back to. It still doesn’t feel like enough, but Andrew still doesn’t have the words to fully communicate the magnitude of Neil in his life. Besides, Neil always turns away embarrassed when Andrew uses it, and holds his hand tighter, telling Andrew to stop it.
It’s nice to finally have a rebuttal for whenever Neil compliments him, since Andrew’s reddened ears never gave his ‘shut up’ the conviction needed to stop Neil from embarrassing him.
He thinks about Neil beneath him like he had been that weekend, thinks about how he’d look when Andrew calls him ‘Pretty Boy’ and there’s nowhere to hide.
“I’ll give it a try.”
***
Andrew ends up bringing it up with Neil that very night.
“Bee suggested we talk,” he says, sitting down across from Neil in the cafeteria. Neil pauses while eating his fruit salad, looking at Andrew with a raised eyebrow.
“About?” Neil asks.
“About how it feels when I have my fingers in you,” Andrew says, and Neil sets his fork down.
“Like I said, it didn’t feel bad or good. It just felt kind of weird,” Neil says, looking at Andrew with some confusion. “Haven’t we already talked about this?”
“She thinks we should talk while we’re doing it, more than just the yes and no,” Andrew explains and Neil merely nods. The two of them lapse into silence for a few minutes, with Neil returning to his fruit salad.
After he finishes picking out all the grapes, he looks back up to Andrew. “What kind of talk do we have during it?” Neil asks.
Andrew blinks and remembers that Neil is not quite like him. For all that Neil is happy to try out new things with Andrew, he does not seek things out the way Andrew does. Neil is a man who has likely never once in his life considered looking up porn.
“We would talk about what’s going on,” Andrew lowers his voice slightly.
“What’s going on?” Neil asks, tilting his head.
“You would tell me how my fingers feel as I fuck you with them,” Andrew says, leaning in as he watches Neil’s eyes dilate. “You’d let me know if I hit a spot that feels really good to you. I’d tell you how tight you feel and how good you feel on my cock. I’d ask you if you want me to go faster and you can tell me yes or no. I can ask if you want me to touch your cock.” Andrew leans back and takes a sip of his coke. “Stuff like that,” he ends casually, as if he hasn’t worked both Neil and himself up with the possibilities.
“I’d like that,” Neil says, pupils blown.
“Kevin is gone this weekend,” Andrew says.
“Early talks with the Dolphins in Washington,” Neil nods, knowing that Kevin wanted Wymack there for support and that his father had agreed.
“Saturday night,” Andrew says.
“Saturday night,” Neil agrees with a smile that has people bump into one another in Andrew’s periphery, or it would be in Andrew’s periphery if he wasn’t so utterly mesmerized by Neil’s smile.
Andrew doesn’t need to stock up on anything like he did the first time they attempted this, no condoms or lube, since they hardly made a dent in the lube, and hadn’t used the condoms at all.
So when Kevin leaves Saturday afternoon, they have all the time in the world to get started. Despite that, the door is hardly closed for five minutes before Andrew is pressing Neil into the couch as the two of them make out.
They eventually transition to the bedroom, shutting the door behind them, and then clothes become scarce as they’re discarded across the floor of their bedroom. Andrew gets to take in all of Neil once again. “Where can I touch?” Andrew asks.
“Anywhere,” Neil breathes out. “Where can I touch?” He mirrors Andrew’s question.
“Don’t touch my ass, but anywhere else,” Andrew answers.
It’s all going so well. They’re talking, and Andrew is only here at this moment with Neil. He’s here with Neil and he has two fingers in him. Neil’s finally moved past ‘it feels weird’ to ‘it feels good’, once Andrew figured out how to hit the more sensitive spots inside of him.
His Pretty Boy is flushed and pliant underneath him, and Andrew thinks he could probably spend the entire night just doing this, watching Neil writhe on his fingers.
“Andrew, I want more, c’mon,” Neil pleads for the fourth time and Andrew can’t help but give in to Neil’s requests sometimes. Especially when he asks for them so prettily.
“Then just lay there like that and I’ll give you everything you want, Pretty Boy,” Andrew says, wanting to see Neil’s reaction to the pet name while he’s like this. Wants to see the embarrassment, the blush, the-
Neil freezes the moment the pet name rolls off of Andrew’s tongue. All the warmth is gone and Andrew feels him tighten up around his fingers. Andrew withdraws without needing to hear anything, knowing he’s triggered Neil.
He backs away and Neil sits up. “I need to go,” Neil says, voice tight with emotion.
Andrew feels his heart twist as Neil nearly leaps out of their bed. His entire body shaking and his eyes looking everywhere other than Andrew.
“Neil.” Andrew rushes out of bed and reaches for the back of Neil’s neck, hoping to ground him in the present since Neil looks like he’s about to run.
Neil spins around and slams himself into Andrew’s dresser the moment Andrew’s fingertips graze the back of his neck. His eyes are wide and there are tears threatening to fall from them. Andrew feels like the whole damn world must be ending the moment he sees one crest over Neil’s eyelid and run down his cheek. “Don’t touch me. I-I just need a minute,” Neil manages, unaware of the tear.
“I won’t touch you,” Andrew promises. He shouldn’t have reached for Neil in the first place, so he holds his own hands behind his back in a move that mirrors what Neil would do during their earlier days. “Just talk to me, Neil. What happened? What did I say or do?” he asks.
Neil looks like there is nothing in the entire world he wants to talk about less. “I just…I need a minute. Just give me a couple minutes, Andrew. I just…pl-” Neil visibly bites the word back before it can leave his mouth, but Andrew hears it all the same. Andrew’s stomach is somewhere near the core of the earth with how far it has dropped.
“Ok, I’ll leave the room and you let me know when to come back in. We can talk then,” Andrew offers, not wanting Neil to leave because he can’t see a reality where Neil doesn’t go running off into the night.
Andrew sees Neil struggle with the offer, can see Neil’s muscles tensed to run, but after a minutes long internal struggle, Neil nods. “Ok.”
Andrew grabs his clothes off of the floor where he discarded them earlier and shuts the door to their room behind him as he heads into the living room of their dorm. He pulls his clothes on quickly and his fingers itch for a cigarette to hold, but he knows he can’t leave to go up to the roof and even the window is too far from the door.
The likelihood of Neil taking off is still too high for Andrew not to guard the exit.
So, Andrew sits on the couch and takes deep breaths to calm himself. He backtracks on everything that led up to Neil freezing the way he did.
Neil splayed out for him so prettily. Neil being so responsive to everything that Andrew tries on him and his vocal enjoyment of Andrew’s work.
“Then just lay there like that and I’ll give you everything you want, Pretty Boy.”
That was the moment everything went to shit.
When Neil went from wanton to hurt.
He grinds his teeth, trying to figure out what in that sentence could have set Neil off the way it has. He’s called Neil Pretty Boy plenty of times before, so the only option is the rest of the sentence. His stomach continues to drop further at the thought that someone else has told Neil to lie there and take what he’s being given.
He doesn’t even know which event it may have happened during. There are simply too many times where something could have happened to Neil. Winter Break at the Nest, in the trunk with Lola, or any of the years that he was on the run with his mother.
Neil has said nothing of that nature happened to him, but it’s just as likely that Neil may have blocked it out. Even when it isn’t physical, Neil is an expert at running away from things.
Countless terrible possibilities float through Andrew’s head.
Before Andrew spirals down towards the Indian Ocean, the door to their room opens and Neil walks out. He has on one of the hoodies he’s borrowed from Matt that absolutely swamps him with the hood up and a pair of sweatpants.
“I’m…okay to talk now,” Neil says, and Andrew rises from the couch to get a better look at him. Neil’s face has all the obvious marks of hastily wiped tears, but before he can reach out, Neil pulls the strings and obscures more of his face from Andrew’s sight.
If Neil wants to hide away for a bit, then Andrew will not be the one to stop him, but he hopes that it’s not out of some insane embarrassment for having cried.
Andrew lets it slide, for now.
He follows Neil into the bedroom and shuts the door behind him. Neil takes a seat on Kevin’s bed and Andrew takes a seat on theirs, if only to try to catch sight of Neil’s face, but with Neil hanging his head, all he sees is the top of Matt’s hood.
“What upset you?” he cuts to the chase.
Neil is quiet and Andrew hates the hood fiercely because Andrew can’t see his face to try to judge what he’s thinking at all.
“I should…have been more clear when we talked about this earlier and agreed to talking during sex. I liked all the talk about how I felt, what you were doing, what you wanted to do, and what you were going to do. I…don’t want you to degrade me when we’re together like that.” He watches as Neil wraps his arms around his middle as if to comfort himself.
Andrew feels like Neil has just said something in a completely new foreign language.
“Neil, what did I say that you took as me degrading you?” Andrew asks because he can’t think of a single degrading comment he’s made when they got started.
“When you…when you used that name again.” Neil holds himself tighter. “When you bring up how I look by calling me Pretty Boy.” Neil says the pet name in a mocking tone.
It’s only then, to Andrew’s dawning horror, that he realizes Neil wasn’t turning away in embarrassment all those times he’d call Neil ‘Pretty Boy’. His mind flashes back to all the moments where Neil asked him to stop and thinks about Neil’s sagging shoulders, how quiet he’d be, and how much colder his hand would be in Andrew’s.
Neil was uncomfortable with it. Neil’s never been comfortable with how good he looks, with how attractive other people find him. He knows that, he’s known that, and still Andrew had pushed forward with a pet name centered around it.
“You don’t like it when I call you that,” Andrew says the revelation out loud.
“I can put up with it in public,” Neil says without raising his head. “Just…I know you’re not with me for my looks, but don’t bring them up when we’re together like this. That’s my hard limit. I felt really vulnerable under you and…having you look at me and…” Neil’s voice cracks and he lets go of his middle to wipe at his face.
Andrew is at sea without a lighthouse to guide him through the tumultuous waves of his own brain. He’s being pulled in a thousand different directions and he doesn’t know which one to take. He needs to see Neil’s face to give him a clue on where to go and without even thinking about it, Andrew drops to his knees in front of Neil across from him. He looks up and sees Neil’s miserable face, and sees how hurt he feels and knows where he has to start.
Neil tries to recede his face further into the hoodie, to hide from Andrew’s gaze, but there is simply nowhere for Neil to run to, Andrew merely adjusts his gaze to follow him. “Neil, does it make you uncomfortable when I call you pretty?” he asks.
Without the hoodie obstructing his view, he can see how Neil’s face crumples further. “Despite my best efforts, I have looked in a mirror, Andrew.” Neil says, closing his eyes, seemingly not able to handle watching Andrew look at him.
“Neil,” Andrew says his boyfriend’s name, but Neil doesn’t open his eyes. “Neil, look at me?” he asks, and Neil swallows thickly before opening his eyes to look at Andrew. The tears that were gathering are now falling down his cheeks, and Andrew hates that Neil is crying because of him.
Andrew brings his hand up to Neil’s face, stopping before actually touching, waiting for Neil’s answer.
After a moment, Neil nods and Andrew brings his hand to Neil’s cheek and wipes the tears away with his thumb as he cups Neil’s scarred face with the rest of his hand. “I thought you liked it when I called you pretty,” he explains. “I thought you were just embarrassed, like when I tell you to shut up when you compliment me, not that you actually didn’t like it. I didn’t listen to you and I’m sorry,” he says.
Neil blinks at him, more tears spilling from his eyes that Andrew wipes away.
“Then why?” Neil asks.
Andrew shakes his head. “I wanted to get better at complimenting you.” Andrew forces himself to look Neil in the eye as he says the next part, “because you’re important to me, but I messed it up and I’m sorry.”
Neil’s eyes widen and then…then he smiles at Andrew with such obvious relief pouring off of him, and Andrew does not know how he’s supposed to not call Neil pretty. He’s so damn pretty that it makes Andrew fucking stupid.
“I forgive you,” Neil says, like it’s so easy to forgive Andrew’s months of accidental cruelty and boundary stomping. Andrew intends to properly earn the forgiveness, regardless. “You don’t have to say stuff like that to me, though,” Neil adds.
Andrew pauses. “What do you mean, I don’t have to say stuff like that? I did something wrong, so I’m apologizing,” he huffs, thumb brushing over Neil’s burn scar again.
“No, I mean thank you for the apology, but I was talking about saying I look good or that I’m pretty,” Neil says, arms loosening from around his middle, pushing his hoodie down before his hands come to rest in his lap.
Andrew freezes this time.
He rewinds the conversation in his head and forces it through a completely different line of misunderstanding. New dread settles in his stomach.
He can hardly wrap his head around it, but Andrew doesn’t want to run into this all over again. He wants this to be cleared up now and for both of them to be on the same page, so he poses a truly absurd question.
“Neil, do you think I’m lying to you or mocking you when I say that you’re pretty?” Andrew asks outright, and Neil’s face twists again.
“Andrew, I know I’m hard to look at.” Neil’s arms move to hug his midsection again and Andrew doesn’t think before he has both of Neil’s hands in his own. They’re cold and stiff in Andrew’s.
“No, you are exceptionally easy to look at because you are pretty,” Andrew says firmly, and Neil blinks, looking a little hurt.
“Andrew, we both know that ‘pretty’ is an exceedingly generous way to describe what I look like nowadays,” Neil says.
Months of conversations flash in Andrew’s head.
“Can’t make me look any worse.”
“That way, he won’t mess up when it matters.”
“Do you agree with what they say?”
“I don’t need makeup for that."
“Too bad, you can’t return damaged goods.”
There were dozens of other conversations about Neil’s good looks, except now Andrew realizes that, for Neil, those conversations were not about Neil’s good looks. If Neil doesn’t understand that Andrew thinks Neil is the single most beautiful man to walk the earth then-
Then Andrew needs to correct Neil’s misunderstanding this instant.
“Neil, do I make a habit of just saying things to make you feel better?” Andrew asks, and Neil blinks and shakes his head in the negative. “I don’t say things I don’t mean.” Andrew’s hands tighten around Neil’s. “I called you Pretty Boy because I think you are pretty. I’ve always thought you were pretty,” he insists because Neil had been so pretty at the beginning that Andrew, in his drugged up daze, had thought he was fake.
“Andrew, I…I might have been ‘pretty’ before, but I definitely don’t fit that definition now,” Neil tries, but Andrew shakes his head in the negative.
“Neil, you were pretty with brown hair and brown eyes. Prettier with your blue eyes. Prettier when you came back with your auburn hair, even with that stupid four under your eye. Prettier when you were in that motel room and you were alive. Prettier when I had to put garbage bags over your arms and scrub you down. Prettier when you stayed.” Andrew lists, and Neil’s face reddens in embarrassment. “Pretty isn’t enough to describe you, but it is a start,” he asserts with a scowl, because Neil isn’t allowed to think he isn’t pretty.
“You…you really think that…that I’m…?” Neil trails off as he struggles to meet Andrew’s gaze but this time for an entirely different reason if the goofy smile on his face is anything to go by.
“Pretty, yes. I really think that you’re very pretty,” Andrew confirms.
“Andrew,” Neil croaks out his name, “C’mon, you can’t be serious…you’ve seen my scars and-”
“I hate how you got your scars,” Andrew interrupts and this is easily one of the most embarrassing and vulnerable nights of his entire life with everything he’s giving to Neil, but it’s important.
It’s important, and he’s spent months accidentally tearing Neil down and if this is what he has to do, then Andrew will do it. “I hate that they hurt you. I hate how you feel about them, but I like them.” He massages Neil’s hands in his own. “I like how they feel on my tongue. I like that you’ve survived every single thing those scars come from. I like that even in the dark you’re unmistakable to me by touch alone.” He runs his fingers along the scars on Neil’s hands and looks at the burn on his face. “They don’t make you less pretty,” Andrew says, pushing himself to be clear.
Still, he’s not quite ready to admit that he maybe likes Neil’s face more now. He doesn’t want Neil to think that he’s got some sort of scar fetish, or worse (probably because it’s true) that he has some kind of Neil fetish.
Neil’s face crumbles and he squeezes Andrew’s hands back. “You really…so you weren’t just making fun of me being ugly when you said it before? You seriously believe that I’m…I’m pretty?” Neil’s voice cracks.
“If you never want me to say that you’re pretty or to never call you pretty boy again, then I won’t,” Andrew starts off, “but I’m always going to be thinking that you’re pretty. I’m going to think you’re pretty when you let me dress you up, when you’re in your own clothes, when you smile, when you pout, when your hair is a mess after a game, when you’re shit talking. There isn’t going to be a time where I don’t think that you’re pretty.”
Neil needs to understand because if he doesn’t get it at this point that Andrew thinks he’s indescribably pretty, then Andrew might have to rip off the bandaid and start listing the thousands of things he’s categorized as ‘pretty things about Neil’. They’ll be sitting across from one another for weeks if Andrew lists them all.
“If…if you really mean it, then I don’t…” Neil blushes and Andrew can feel embarrassed heat in his hands. “I don’t mind you calling me that but…just in private?” he asks.
Andrew feels his shoulders relax, the release of tension flowing through his entire body. “I mean it and I can do that,” he agrees, hands tightening around Neil’s.
The two stay like that for a while, Andrew holding Neil’s scarred hands and working the warmth back into them.
“Kevin’s still gone tonight,” Neil says in a veiled offer to continue what they had been doing before.
“Not tonight,” Andrew declines. He wants to talk to Betsy about all of this before he and Neil get together again. He’s relieved that Neil actually finally definitely understands how Pretty he is, if only from Andrew’s point of view, but realizing that he’s capable of having such a long-term misunderstanding with Neil leaves his skin feeling too tight and makes his hands and body feel alien to him.
“Okay,” Neil says, unbothered as always when Andrew is no longer in the mood. “But stop kneeling down there.” He stands up from Kevin’s bed and Andrew follows him up.
“I want to talk,” Andrew adds, and Neil nods again and the two lay in bed together as they talk about the moments that hadn’t felt quite right to Andrew over the months.
There were moments that Neil doesn’t remember that Andrew does. Such as when he’d said that Neil’s face was no worse than usual after he got hit by a beer bottle defending Kevin’s honor, or when Neil thought that Aaron giving him an ugly scar on his leg wouldn’t matter.
He’s not surprised that the first one that really impacted Neil was that night at Eden’s. “That guy said I was an easy lay because I’m ugly.”
“You’re not ugly,” Andrew insists, not wanting it to go unchallenged. “He was hitting on you because you were turning everyone’s head at Eden’s that night,” Andrew explains patiently.
“To gawk,” Neil dismisses with an eye roll.
“At the pretty guy,” Andrew insists.
Neil blushes and one of Andrew’s hands leaves Neil’s touching his burn mark again, always his emotional touchstone.
“I thought you were saying you agreed that I was ugly that night in the car,” Neil says, closing his eyes. “I knew you thought I was ug-”
“You thought you knew,” Andrew interrupts because he never thought Neil was ugly.
Neil laughs a little, eyes going soft. “I thought that you thought I was ugly, and you were telling me that my looks don’t matter, that they were the least important thing to you.”
“They are the least important. It’s a bonus that you’re pretty, but they are the least important thing to me,” Andrew confirms.
Neil nods, his hair getting messy against the pillow. “It’s my charming personality then,” he jokes.
Andrew rolls his eyes.
“Then…when we were at the haunted house and I said I didn’t need makeup to be scary?” Neil tries.
“I just didn’t want those girls to keep touching you like that,” Andrew admits.
“You were jealous?” Neil’s grin has Andrew pinching his cheek. “Ow ow, sorry sorry,” Neil laughs.
“I thought you were uncomfortable with people looking at you the way they were. I thought our conversation in the car was about how being perceived as good looking was uncomfortable for you because it was too much attention,” Andrew argues.
Neil blinks. “Oh.” He settles back down. Andrew watches as Neil keeps looking at Andrew before looking away.
“Just ask it.” Andrew presses his thumb into the burn scar.
“Then, when you said that makeup couldn’t possibly make me look better..?” Neil trails off and Andrew feels his face flush.
“I was saying that it’s hard to improve upon what’s already there.” Andrew can’t look Neil in the eyes as he says it, and he can feel his ears burning.
They lay there for the rest of the afternoon, talking about various smaller misunderstandings that had all led to the blow-up today. By the end of it all, Andrew feels a lot more settled in his bones but still has no desire to attempt his first time with Neil again today or until he fully talks through this whole catastrophe with Betsy.
Hunger eventually draws them from their cocoon as the two decide to grab dinner.
***
“Neil.” Andrew doesn’t raise his voice to call out to Neil. He knows he doesn’t have to even in the busy cafeteria. Neil’s gaze snaps to him in an instant and his smile draws the attention of almost everyone within its area of effect, but it’s all for Andrew.
He’s fresh off of his last double session with Betsy that he’s been having the last few weeks so that he can work on his own complicated feelings about having accidentally ignored a boundary from Neil. Neil even came in on one so that they could talk about how to better communicate so that in the future, nothing like this happens again.
They still haven’t had their first time yet. Andrew isn’t in a rush, not when there are other things for them to get up to while he works himself back up to that point. He knows he still wants to have sex with Neil, but he’s also fine with waiting until he knows he’s in the right headspace for it.
Neil takes a seat with his lunch tray across from Andrew with a smile. Andrew slides the fruit salad he picked up when he made his rounds, knowing that coming any later than 3 PM meant a lesser selection.
“Is this what Allison meant when she said ‘pretty privilege’?” Neil asks teasingly, as if he’s not also sliding over a slice of chocolate pie that he got for Andrew.
“Shut up, Pretty Boy.” Andrew huffs the nickname out and the reaction he gets now is leagues better than what it had been before. The way Neil’s face goes soft, how his eyes shine, and the dusting of pink across his cheeks.
He’s just so damn pretty.