Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Neil grasped at Kevin’s skin with wanton fingers, licking sweat from his neck, biting his full bottom lip hungrily, eyes squeezed shut because he wanted this to last forever and he knew he was losing it. 

In fact it was already happening, and there was nothing Neil could do about it. He had known it might happen before they’d even tumbled into the bed together, fueled by some momentary spike in Kevin’s libido, naked skin sliding against naked skin, a tangle of limbs and scars and tattoos in messy white sheets. 

But the spike didn’t last. 

It never really did, anymore.

Disappointment sluiced through Neil’s veins.

It was a moment resting on bated breath, a second where Neil hoped desperately that he was wrong, and then Kevin’s hands lost the intensity of their movement, his lips lost the feverishness of their pitch. He took his tongue back from Neil and pressed soft kisses down his jaw. He pulled his hand away from Neil’s dick, slowly circling his hipbone instead. 

Neil grit his teeth and barely kept himself from bucking up in protest, barely managed to swallow his small sigh of frustration. 

Kevin tucked his face into Neil’s neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Neil said, tilting Kevin’s face back up to kiss him gently. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, and you know it.” 

Kevin looked sad, his grass green eyes washed out in the bright light streaming in the floor to ceiling windows of their bedroom. “I don’t know it,” he argued, and reached his hand lower, stroking Neil’s cock again. 

Neil couldn’t quite stop his indrawn breath, and he bit his lower lip, because fuck yes please this is what he wanted, but he forced himself to wrap his fingers around Kevin’s wrist, to pull his hand away. 

“No,” Neil said, softly. “It’s okay.” 

“It’s not,” Kevin said, clearly frustrated. 

Neil tucked Kevin’s hand between them and held it firm before he kissed him again, plunging his tongue into Kevin’s mouth and pressing him back into the bed to prove a point. Kevin opened his mouth to Neil but went still and rigid against him, his tongue slack, his kiss non-existent. Neil pulled away immediately. “That’s what I thought,” he said. 

Kevin blinked at him, not one goddamned ounce of arousal in his face, his dick soft against Neil’s leg. “Fine,” he said, but he splayed a hand across Neil’s chest. “You do it then.” 

Neil searched Kevin’s face. He was sprawled and naked and still very fucking hard - and he’d be a liar if he said he wanted to move away from Kevin’s gorgeous, naked body pressed full length against his side - but there were other options here. “Are you sure? I can jack off in the shower.” 

Kevin shook his head a little and pulled Neil closer. “No, please. Stay.” 

Neil wrapped his hand around his own cock and kissed Kevin gently on his temple. “Okay love,” he said. He closed his eyes, stroked himself firmly and quickly, imagined that Kevin wanted him in the same desperate way that Neil wanted, imagined Kevin bruising his skin with his teeth, licking his cock with his tongue, fucking him hard with a finger and then his dick. 

Neil imagined being wanted, and as his orgasm spilled over his knuckles, he pretended he didn’t hear Kevin’s litany whispered fervently in his ear: I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.

***

Neil might have realized that last night had sent Kevin into a spiral, except he was so stuck in his own damned head about it that he had spent the whole night wide awake and miserable, staring at the ceiling until he gave up on sleep and dragged himself out of bed at 4 a.m. to paint it out in blues and greys and the particular shade of green that Neil had only ever seen in Kevin’s eyes. 

After all, it wasn’t unusual for Kevin to sleep in. It wasn’t like they had nine to five jobs to get to, and inspiration sometimes kept them up at all hours of the night. Neil’s paintings and Kevin’s photography both did well enough to pay their bills, and even if that wasn’t the case, well - they had more than enough money sitting in the bank from their modeling days that they’d never have to work again if they didn’t want to. For all the fucked shit they’d gone through with the Moriyamas, the twenty percent of their earnings that they’d been allowed to walk away with was not insubstantial. Neil left Stuart to manage their funds because he did not care, but the last statement he’d had to sign off on had listed their wealth at the several million dollar mark. They’d figure out what to do with that money eventually. For now, Neil had all of the things he wanted: Kevin, all the acrylic paint that money could buy, and a home that no one could take away from him. 

So, sleep was not a regulated commodity in their loft, and Neil didn’t think anything of it when at 10 a.m. he was lacing up his shoes for a run and Kevin was still tangled in the white sheets of their bed, eyes closed and limbs still, dappled morning light scattered over the feathers of the giant black owl tattooed on Kevin’s back. 

Neil did pause however, when after he’d run eight miles and showered off the sweat and the paint and eaten a half-hearted bowl of Lucky Charms, Kevin was still in bed, curled sideways now with his head on Neil’s pillow. Neil glanced at the clock. It was after noon, and they’d gone to sleep before midnight last night. 

More than twelve hours in the bed was a lot, even for Kevin. 

Neil dropped his towel on the chair and pulled on a pair of relatively clean sweats from the floor. “Kev?” he tried quietly, in case he was actually still asleep. 

It took longer than it should, but eventually Kevin said, “Yeah,” his voice low and whispery, and well, okay. It was going to be one of those days. 

Even curled sideways, Kevin was taking up most of their bed, diagonal across it with his feet on his side and his head on Neil’s. Neil sat on the edge and pushed one of the pillows a little closer, and had the passing thought that maybe it was time they invested in a king size bed. He aligned himself carefully behind Kevin, not touching him yet, because for all that Kevin could be an octopus, when he had days like this he sometimes couldn’t bear to be touched. 

“Can I?” Neil asked once he was arranged and had his toes tucked under the sheets. Kevin nodded against the pillow, and Neil pressed his hand against Kevin’s back, sliding his fingers soothingly along warm skin. After a few moments Kevin shifted a bit, and Neil slid his arm under Kevin’s head, pulling him just a little closer, still leaving room for Neil to trace the lines of his tattoo over and over again. 

Neil didn’t ask if Kevin wanted to talk about it; he knew from experience that Kevin wouldn’t say any more words today, and potentially not tomorrow either. Neil stayed quiet too, nothing but soft touches, slow swirling patterns of fingertips, and the gentle rise and fall of shared breath - shared between two men who had once fought together for every ragged inhale they got to take.

Time went elastic as the sunlight dipped in and out of the clouds, the rays shifting through the window until they shuffled over the roof and beyond. 

At some point, Neil propped Kevin up and made him eat a handful of saltines, cajoled him out of bed to pee, curled up around him again to read out loud. 

At some point, Kevin took Neil’s free hand and tucked it under his chin, and Neil set the book down, let Kevin wrap around him, silent and breathing softly against Neil’s collarbones. 

At some point, Neil made Kevin a grilled cheese, tucked his long limbs together as best he could, and wrapped around him to watch Spirited Away on the laptop. 

When Kevin finally fell truly and deeply asleep again, the sky was dark and the sounds of New York City had drifted into their evening melodies. Neil climbed carefully out of the bed and pulled the sheets up to Kevin’s shoulders, tucking his hair behind one ear. It was longer than Kevin liked it, but Neil preferred it this way, just enough length that it started to curl at the ends, his fringe falling into his eyes and brushing against his cheekbone and the small chess piece tattooed there. Neil stifled the urge to brush fingertips along Kevin’s jaw, not worth the risk of waking him now that he was resting more peacefully than he had all day. 

Neil left Kevin in the bed and stepped to the painting he’d started in the wee hours of the morning, the turkey sandwich he’d thrown together gripped in one hand. Something about it felt unfinished, but he didn’t have a pull in any direction about what, exactly. 

Neil painted mostly in the abstract, bold plays on colors to create dimension and to carry the eye over large, exuberant canvases in a way that made the viewer pause and backtrack. This one though. It needed light. Too much of the darkness in Neil’s heart had bled out onto the canvas and it was hard to look at. 

He set his half-eaten sandwich down and squeezed out shades of yellow and white and green onto his palette, eschewed brushes for his small, well-loved set of painting knives, the ends made of flat metal and wedged into different shapes for pushing the paint around. Neil scraped colors directly onto the canvas, mixing his shades of cadmium yellow against hooker’s green with abandon. He slashed white through the bright swath, then cut it with violet at the edges, hints of ultramarine too, lines of highlight and lowlight across one side of the canvas until it looked like two paintings had been jammed together, photoshopped into one big, angry, painful, acrylic mess. 

It was hours and hours before Neil dropped his palette and knives on his work table and took steps back from the canvas. It was still dark out, late enough that the city had quieted outside their windows, but Neil’s heart was raging. He hated the painting, hated that it looked exactly how he felt inside. It was ugly. 

Neil walked back to the canvas, hand held out to ruin the still-wet paint, when he heard Kevin shift in the doorway behind him. 

“Don’t,” Kevin said, coming toward him slowly, eyes on the canvas. His hair was wild from more than twenty-four hours spent in bed but his eyes were clearer than they had been. “Don’t,” he said again, coming behind Neil and pushing his hand back down to his side. “It’s really good.” 

“I know,” Neil said, because he did know. “Doesn’t mean I can’t hate it.” 

“I know,” Kevin said into the top of Neil’s hair, and he pulled Neil fully against him. “If you still hate it tomorrow I’ll help you destroy it,” Kevin promised. He tangled fingers with Neil, smearing paint onto his own skin, but Neil didn’t stop him. 

Neil hummed and closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at himself on the damned canvas anymore. If Kevin had found his words then he was obviously feeling better, which meant that Neil had the space to fall apart a little, but eyes closed and wrapped in Kevin’s arms he just felt drained. He’d excised all his fear with color and now all he had left was exhaustion. He let out a deep, shuddering sigh. 

“I’m sorry,” Kevin said, pulling him even tighter. 

“I don’t want you to be sorry,” Neil said. 

“Doesn’t change the fact that I am,” Kevin said. He turned Neil around and tilted his chin up, and Neil let him, let Kevin lean down and kiss him softly, let Kevin tow him to the shower. 

They stepped under the spray together, and Kevin kissed Neil until he couldn’t breathe, turned Neil around and pulled him flush against Kevin’s wet, naked body, and Neil tried to pull away. 

“Let me,” Kevin murmured in his ear. “Let me, I want to.” 

Neil let him, let himself be pulled close, one of Kevin’s hands on his chest and the other wrapped around his dick, Kevin’s lips on Neil’s neck, and his strokes sure and firm and just how he knew Neil liked them. 

“I love you, so much; it hurts how much, sometimes,” Kevin whispered in his ear, and Neil cried out, and Kevin twisted his wrist and bit down on Neil’s neck, and Neil came with an uncontrollable shudder and sagged. Kevin caught him, slid them down to the tile floor and leaned against the wall of the shower, Neil tucked between his knees. They sat there, the water beating down on them like rain, while Kevin meticulously picked all of the paint off of Neil’s hands and arms piece by piece. The hot water had started to wane and the sun had started to peek over the horizon when they hauled each other up again, washed their hair and their bodies quickly, and crawled back into bed together, laying side by side and naked on top of the sheets. 

After a while Kevin turned towards Neil, and Neil let his head flop to the side to look at him. 

“I like making you feel good,” Kevin said, and he put fingers to Neil’s mouth to stop whatever protest was forming. “I like it,” Kevin assured him. “It makes me happy to make you come, to make you fall apart in my hands. Just because I don’t always want you to do the same things to me doesn’t mean I don’t like doing them to you.” 

Neil frowned a little at him, but he couldn’t see the lie in Kevin’s eyes. “I don’t know what that means,” Neil said around Kevin’s fingertips. 

“I am not sure I do either,” Kevin finally said, letting his fingers trail down Neil’s neck. “But I feel like I disappointed you last night.” 

“You didn’t,” Neil said fiercely. 

“That’s a lie,” Kevin said softly. 

Neil huffed in frustration. “It’s not that simple,” he said. “I am not disappointed with you.” Neil struggled to find words to say, and settled on stealing Kevin’s. “It hurts how much, sometimes. How much I want you,” he said on a whisper. “I will take whatever I can have, but only what you want to give me. That will always be enough.” 

“Is it though?” Kevin asked seriously, his gaze unwavering on Neil. 

“Yes,” Neil said, and it was the truth, because it had to be. 

Kevin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t want you to be stuck with me. If you don’t want to be.”

Neil leaned up on an elbow and hovered over Kevin, tucking fingers into his hair. “Don’t say stupid shit,” he said firmly. “I am right where I want to be and I am not going anywhere.” 

“But-” 

Neil cut off Kevin’s protest with a sharp tug on his hair. “You do not get to make that decision for me,” he said. 

Kevin searched his face and then finally nodded, and Neil pulled him close, tugged the sheets out from under them, and then arranged himself around Kevin. “Go the fuck to sleep Kev,” Neil muttered into his hair, and Kevin kissed the edge of Neil’s wrist, and they both eventually fell into a fitful sleep. 

***

They went to Renee’s Friday night party because they always went to Renee’s Friday night parties. 

There weren’t a whole lot of spots where they could truly relax and be themselves outside of their own home - both of their faces were too recognizable, even after the several years that had passed since the takedown of House Moriyama. If the striking cut of Kevin’s jaw and the intensity of his green eyes weren’t enough, the startling chess piece tattooed on his cheek clued most people into his identity. 

Neil’s coloring was even harder to dismiss; one fashion magazine had described his hair as “tufts of sinful cinnamon meringue,” and called his eyes “twin pools of crystal to drown in.” (Kevin hadn’t let that one go for months.) His cheekbones were nothing to snuff at either, but it was the three parallel scars cleanly sliced into his skin that drew attention and widened eyes. They were unmistakably purposeful, scattered with freckles like music notes, and just as recognizable on the streets of New York as Kevin’s tattoo. 

New York City knew who Kevin and Neil were, and if any other place could possibly feel like home, they’d leave the notoriety far behind for some small town America. 

They’d talked about it, once - closed their eyes and slid hands over a map, fingers landing softly on some place called Palmetto, South Carolina. But, for all the horror of their history here, they refused to be ousted. 

Instead, every Friday, they stepped into the warmth of Renee Walker’s three level penthouse in Park Slope, and their shoulders dropped a couple of inches along with their coats. 

Renee’s parties were a veritable laundry list of the real who’s-who of the New York late twenty-somethings. Everyone here was either obscenely talented or obscenely wealthy or both, and no one got in without a personal invitation from Renee or Jean or Allison. The parties skewed wild or sedate or kinky depending on the zeitgeist of the night and the whims of their hosts, and tonight was apparently a night for ropes. Allison wrapped Neil in a tiny cloud of expensive and perfectly subtle perfume, and Neil saw that Renee already had a stunning young woman half suspended in the middle of the sunken living room; the lilac ropes twined and knotted intricately and looped through a large metal hoop secured to the hard suspension point in the ceiling. 

“Where’s Jean?” Neil asked when she’d pulled away and leaned in to kiss Kevin on the cheek, somewhat surprised Renee wasn’t tying her partner. 

“Watching,” Allison said with a wink. 

Neil tangled fingers with Kevin and they slipped into the room. 

Seth was spinning something that sounded vaguely North African, twisting the notes with a thrumming dubstep that immediately set a slow burn through Neil’s blood. The usual suspects were scattered around the cavernous room, sprawled or leaning, but all eyes were on Renee and her careful, clever hands binding the woman’s lithe, naked body. 

This was more about the art and the aesthetic for Renee than anything else; Neil would know, he’d been snared in Renee’s ropes more than once, the hug of the rope delicious and floaty against his skin as Kevin’s camera snapped and flashed and clicked around him. 

Kevin and Neil settled into one of the plush sunken steps, Neil tucked between Kevin’s knees and leaning into him, just as Renee finished wrapping the woman’s left thigh, looping the rope through the hoop, and pulling her into a full suspension. Renee twined a hand in her long hair, pulled her head back slowly, and Neil gasped a little at the serenity on the woman’s face, her eyelids closed and fluttering, her mouth hung slightly open. 

The colors were perfect: black hair, red mouth, lilac ropes digging into creamy skin. Kevin already had his camera out and Neil felt a flash of jealousy that he couldn’t carry his easel with him as easily. 

“Beautiful, yeah?” Allison said as she settled down next to Neil and handed him a drink, a familiar tone of awe and satisfaction coloring her tone. 

He took a sip, letting the really excellent champagne bubble across his tongue and rolled his eyes. “One of yours, I take it?” 

Allison hummed, and Neil didn’t miss her gaze flitting to Seth behind the turntables before landing back on the suspended rope model. Allison had a whole string of lovers who had colored her tone with awe and satisfaction at one time or another. 

“It’s not like that,” she said eventually, softly. Kevin snorted and Allison tossed him a glare. “Anyway, their name is Robin.” 

Neil noted the pronoun and recalibrated. “Well, they are breathtaking,” he said kindly and Allison smiled at him almost shyly. 

Neil blinked. Maybe it really wasn’t like that this time. He for one had never seen Allison Reynolds, wealthiest asshole in this whole entire penthouse, do anything shyly. “Well, I’m happy for you then,” he said around the rim of his glass and Allison squeezed his knee. 

“Who is that?” Kevin murmured to Allison. Neil looked up. Someone had stepped forward to help Renee start to bring Robin down from the suspension, which was. Odd.

“Robin’s roommate, Andrew,” Allison said. 

“Andrew,” Kevin repeated. He snapped another picture. 

“Why isn’t Jean helping Renee?”

“Robin doesn’t like when men touch them,” Allison said quietly. 

Neil cocked his head and looked at Andrew. He was definitely a man - short, maybe shorter than Neil, but muscled, his biceps flexed and defined as he supported some of Robin’s weight. Allison probably meant men who Robin didn’t know, and well, yeah. Neil felt much the same.

“He’s beautiful too,” Kevin said. 

Neil did roll his eyes then. “You are such a whore for aesthetics,” he said, flicking the side of Kevin’s knee, but Kevin wasn’t wrong. Andrew was pretty, in a rough around the edges sort of way. He had ash blond hair that verged on white in the low light, cleanly trimmed in an undercut, the longer fringe on top flopping artfully over his forehead. His nose was small, his lips full, his whole face stoic and expressionless except for the corner of his bottom lip tucked between his teeth in concentration. Andrew had full sleeves of tattoos on both forearms that Neil couldn’t quite discern from where he sat, and he wore a faded New Order t-shirt that molded to his back muscles in such a way that Neil imagined he’d bought the damned thing new many years ago, and not last week from Urban Outfitters. His jeans were skinny and expensive and inky black, his boots broken in and laced up his ankles. Neil wondered what color his eyes were, wondered what slash of paint would tell his story.

Andrew and Renee had Robin down, and Allison hopped up to go scoop up Robin and whisk them away to a corner of the room. Renee was pulling out her green ropes, which meant she was going to suspend Jean too, and, yeah, a quick glance that way showed Jean stripping out of his clothes. Neil stood and stretched, kissed Kevin on his temple - he knew Kevin would want to stay and take pictures of Jean in the ropes - and wandered to the kitchen to find something with a little more kick than champagne. 

Renee’s kitchen was a sprawling, understated landscape of cool marble countertops and stainless steel and glass cabinets. She’d had it re-done when Jean moved in, and they’d all reaped the benefits; Jean’s cooking was divine, his baking exquisite. Neil wasn’t a foodie by any stretch of the imagination, but even he never missed one of Jean’s dinner parties. 

The kitchen was blessedly empty. Neil hooked a knee up on the countertop and hoisted himself up gracefully to reach the top row of cabinets, and then frowned when he found his little hidden cupboard empty. He whipped his head around at the sound of glass on marble to find Andrew had appeared and was watching him, his fingers wrapped around the very bottle of Scotch that Neil had been looking for.

“I see you found my stash,” Neil said, hopping down. 

Andrew tapped the edge of his glass, which was three fingers deep with liquid amber. He didn’t say anything, but raised an eyebrow and tilted the bottle towards Neil. 

“Not nice to go rooting through other people’s cabinets,” Neil said, but he shrugged and snagged his own glass. 

“I’m not nice,” Andrew said. His voice was low and monotone. 

Neil took a welcome sip of his whiskey and contemplated Andrew’s face. The Scotch was smokey and strong, its familiar bite soothing. It reminded Neil of his mother. This close he could see that Andrew was actually a few inches shorter than him, and that his eyes were a complicated swirl of hazel, a mossy green tinged with warm brown and notes of gold. He wondered if Renee had any paint tucked away somewhere.

Neil grinned his trademark crooked grin. Might as well introduce himself. “I’m-”

“Nathaniel Wesninski!” 

Neil stilled, his jaw tightened. He set his drink down carefully and turned to find some idiot smarming his way into the kitchen, an empty wine glass dangling from his fingers and a sharp grin on his thin lips.

“That is not my name,” Neil said coolly. 

“It is though, it is you, isn’t it! Nathaniel fucking Wesninski!” he crowed triumphantly, leaning forward with a squint and pointing his glass at Neil. “I can tell by the-” he made a slashing motion in the air in the vague direction of Neil’s cheek.

Neil arched an eyebrow at him. “No, it is not me you fucking moron. Do you have a hearing problem? I just said that is not my name, and as I haven’t given you a name to address me with, clearly I have no interest in talking to you.” Neil raked a scathing look over the man, from the tip of his popped collar to his fucking Golden Goose tennis shoes. “Run along, before I do something about the fact that you clearly don’t belong here. In fact, if you have any sense of self preservation, I would suggest you leave, now. Certainly leave this room, ideally leave this party, and fuck, why don’t you just go ahead and leave this city you boring, plebeian, sack of shit?”

Sack of Shit gaped at him like a fish for a second before his face flushed purple in rage, “Do you know who I am?” he sputtered. 

“You are no one,” Neil said, and made a little shooing motion with his hand before turning back to his drink. 

The guy really must have had a fucking death wish, because before Neil could even pick up his glass again, Sack of Shit grabbed his arm and said, “Hey asshole, I was talking to you.”

Neil froze, and thought, dully, that Jean would be pissed if he got blood on the marble countertops, but before he could unfreeze and do something about the fingers digging into his bicep, they were gone. 

Neil blinked. Andrew wasn’t across the counter from him anymore. 

Neil blinked. There was an agonized yelp followed by the crash of glass breaking on the floor. 

Neil whipped around to find Sack of Shit on his knees, five-foot-nothing Andrew with one hand on his neck, the other hand wrenching his arm behind him. There was a pop, and then Sack of Shit screamed.

Neil wasn’t sure if it was the breaking glass or the scream that summoned everyone, because he couldn’t take his eyes off of the rage on Andrew’s face. He blinked again, and then it was gone, Andrew’s impassive mask slid firmly back into place. 

The noise was deafening - Sack of Shit screaming, Kevin shoving into the room, Seth yelling, Allison shouting back out the doorway that everything was under control. Robin slid to a stop next to Andrew, their voice a low litany that Neil couldn’t hear over the cacophony. 

Neil picked up his drink, took a sip. Kevin was at his side, but before he could say anything Renee slipped into the room, Jean on her heels still naked and trailing green ropes behind him. 

Renee surveyed the room quickly. “What happened?” she asked calmly. 

“Andrew dislocated Sack of Shit’s shoulder,” Neil said. He took another sip. “I think.” 

“Fuck,” Seth said. 

“Who is this?” Jean asked, frowning. 

“Seth’s boyfriend,” Allison said, crossing her arms. “I gave it the go ahead.” 

Renee looked at Andrew this time. “What happened, Andrew?” 

When it became clear Andrew wasn’t going to answer, Neil sighed. “He called me Nathaniel and grabbed my arm, and then-,” Neil gestured at Andrew. Sack of Shit was whimpering now, and crying. It was horribly pathetic. 

“Fuck,” Seth said again. “Goddamnit, Bartholomew.” 

“His name is Bartholomew?” Kevin whispered not-quietly-enough. Neil snorted. 

“It’s a family name,” Bartholomew whined. 

“Get him out, Seth,” Renee said. “Now.” 

Seth stepped up and Andrew finally released him. 

Bartholomew wobbled unsteadily to his feet and looked up. “Holy shit, it’s Kevin Day,” he said stupidly, blinking at Kevin through his tears. 

“Renee,” Neil said conversationally, setting his glass down. “I am about to get blood all over your kitchen.” 

“Jesus fuck,” Jean muttered, finally free from the last of the ropes. He stomped over, dick swinging free, and shoved Seth out of the way to grab Bartholomew by the collar and drag him from the kitchen before Neil could break his nose. Shame that. 

“You okay?” Kevin murmured in Neil’s ear, wrapping a tight arm around his shoulder. 

“I’m always okay.” He turned to Andrew. “I could have handled that,” Neil said. 

“Good for you,” Andrew said. He tapped two fingers against his forehead in a mocking salute and then disappeared towards the living room, Robin in his wake. 

Neil sighed and went to find a broom to clean up the broken glass. 

Chapter Text

Kevin tucked Neil under his arm as they left Edens, and Neil pressed up against him. Their fingers laced together at Neil’s shoulder and Kevin’s breath pressed small huffs into the tangle of Neil’s hair. They fit, they always had, since the first time Kevin had pulled him in like this, Neil’s lonely and hungry body calling for the warmth and safety of Kevin at his side. 

They strolled the sidewalk lazily in the direction of home, strides matched - Neil lengthening and Kevin collecting until they were in unison, two fragile pieces woven together into a single strong front.

It was barely a block from the club when Neil saw him sitting on the curb in the edge of a streetlight, elbows propped on knees casually, a thin line of smoke curling around blond hair. 

“That’s Andrew,” Neil said. Kevin hummed agreement. They stopped next to him, and Andrew looked up at them, his face the same impassive mask it had been the other night at Renee’s, but this time his lip was split, blood smeared across his chin and there was shiny swelling around the side of his eye. When he raised his cigarette to his bloody lip, Neil could see that his knuckles were busted open. 

“Have a nice fight then?” Neil tried for nonchalance, but in truth he was entranced for a moment by the white of the cigarette and the red of the blood and the gold of Andrew's hair in the streetlight, and his fingers twitched for his paintbrush. 

Andrew gazed at them unblinking, cigarette dangling from the less bloody side of his mouth, and in the next breath Kevin had his Nikon out, capturing the image. Andrew didn’t flinch. Kevin took a second photograph. Andrew flipped him off. He took a third, then tucked the camera away before dropping down into a squat in front of Andrew, his long legs bending impossibly. 

Neil resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Kevin was fixated. He had been talking about Andrew every day since the party, about how he wanted to photograph him. This was unavoidable happenstance; Andrew, here, bloody in the street, as silent as he’d been the other night and just as fucking beautiful. 

“We live a few blocks away,” Kevin said intently. “We’ll clean you up.” 

“Speak for yourself,” Neil muttered, and Andrew cut his gaze to him. Neil shrugged. This wasn’t really where he’d wanted his night to go. Now, though, Neil was already pretty clear that Kevin wasn’t giving up until they’d toted Andrew home with them. Andrew was staring at him, and Neil wasn’t going to apologize - he didn’t think Andrew wanted him to. Neil sighed. Maybe Andrew would sit still long enough for Neil to figure out exactly how to paint that slip of gold in his eyes. Relenting, Neil held out a hand. “Come on,” he said. “We have antiseptic and good booze.” 

Andrew considered him. Neil wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but it was only a moment before he grabbed on and let Neil pull him to his feet. 

They walked in oddly comfortable silence. Andrew lit another cigarette and Neil held his hand out. He grinned when Andrew handed it to him and lit another for himself. 

“I think we should get drunk,” Kevin said to the stars when they turned onto their street. Neil laughed and blew smoke into the night. 

“Sure,” Andrew said, stomping out his cigarette with the heel of his scruffy black Converse when they reached their building. 

They filed into the narrow hallway and Kevin shoved the industrial grate of the elevator aside and executed a sweeping bow to usher them inside. Neil punched the only button and leaned against the back wall to make space. Andrew didn’t turn to face the door, but wedged himself into the corner - so he could keep an eye on them, Neil imagined. He’d have done the same. 

The elevator was slow, even with no other stops. Their loft was the only one in the building, the rest of it a mostly empty warehouse that Stuart said he was sitting on as an investment, but Neil was pretty sure he’d just bought it for Neil and Kevin because he could. They reached the top and Kevin shoved the door aside and the main room of their loft opened up before them. 

It was a vast space, with floor to ceiling windows thirty feet high and very few walls. The only fully enclosed space was Kevin’s dark room; the walls splitting off their bedroom and the bathroom only went halfway towards the ceiling, leaving the space above open and airy. The rest of the loft was scattered with random overstuffed chairs and sofas and tables and easels and a very nice but underutilized chef’s kitchen tucked away in one corner. There was an enormous TV on one wall, and every other inch of wall space was covered in framed and unframed art and sketches and photographs. 

Kevin made a beeline for the kitchen to dig out the first aid kit, and Andrew stopped in front of the eight foot by ten foot giant portrait hanging next to their bedroom door. 

“So you are red,” Andrew said, when Neil stopped next to him and looked up at the photograph. 

Neil frowned at it. It was Kevin’s favorite, but Neil was mostly indifferent. It was him, a couple years back, overexposed in low light. His back was turned to the camera and his arms were bound behind him in the red ropes that Renee used only on Neil. He was naked, but his hands and the rope hung in a way that covered anything that might get censored, just leaving an expanse of skin and scars and ink and rope. The tilt of his head was captured so that his profile was visible over his shoulder, his gaze set on the distance, a small, secret grin on his lips. The scars on his cheek had been fresher then, still angry and red. On sleepless nights Neil would stare at them until he wondered if they would start dripping blood. He was indifferent. Sure. 

“Come on,” Neil said, motioning over to the largest couch in the room, a faded grey velvet Chesterfield. Andrew sat and Kevin dumped the first aid kit on a nearby coffee table. Neil pulled out the peroxide and some cotton. “Can I touch you?” he asked, hands hovering on either side of Andrew’s face. 

It was only because Neil was so close that he saw Andrew’s eyes widen slightly at the question. 

“Yes,” Andrew said after a minute. 

Kevin started plunking down liquor bottles one by one in a row while Neil dabbed efficiently at the corner of Andrew’s lip. 

“Who ran into your face?” Neil asked. 

“Some guy,” Andrew said with a small shrug. 

“Do you just incite violence by breathing?” Neil asked on a hum. Andrew huffed. Neil took it for the small laugh that it was. 

“I imagine he was upset that I was sucking his boyfriend’s dick,” Andrew said, his intonation flat but his eyes locked on Neil’s. 

Neil didn’t falter. “Unfortunate,” he said. He dabbed at the other side of Andrew’s chin. “Next time make sure you ask the boyfriend’s permission first.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Andrew said.

“Drinks!” Kevin announced, flopping down next to Andrew on the couch. Neil paused in poking at Andrew and they all three downed the shots that Kevin passed out. 

“Fuck, Kev, you have to warn me before you break out the tequila.” 

“It’s Mezcal,” Kevin said, affronted. 

“Still tequila adjacent.” 

Kevin shoved another round into their hands and Neil sniffed this one carefully. 

“Agave,” Kevin said. 

“This is a bad idea,” Neil said, eyeing the line up of liquor bottles on the table. 

“Yes,” Kevin agreed and they downed their shots. 

Kevin busied himself with bottle number three and Neil held out a hand flat to Andrew. 

“Are we working our way through?” Andrew asked with a glance at the line of liquor bottles. 

Neil turned to watch Kevin briefly. “Seems like it,” he said. Kevin had every single bottle of liquor they owned lined up on the table, something like fifteen bottles. “You don’t have to,” Neil said with a small shrug.  

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to,” Andrew said, finally placing his hand on Neil’s. 

“Good,” Kevin said. “Drink.” He handed them both shots, and they drank, Andrew’s hand still resting on Neil’s palm. 

“Gin,” Neil said with a grimace, dropping his glass on the table and inspecting Andrew’s hand. 

“For a Brit you have a surprising lack of appreciation for gin,” Kevin said. Neil ignored him and reached for the peroxide again - the skin on Andrew’s knuckles was busted open in three places. 

“You don’t sound British,” Andrew said. 

Neil must be already getting used to the husky monotone of Andrew’s voice because he recognized the subtle question woven in and frowned. He paused in his dabbing at the blood on Andrew’s skin to exchange a look with Kevin. “I would have thought you’d Google me after Renee’s party,” Neil said carefully, holding his hand out for Andrew’s left. This one was in better shape. Andrew must do most of his punching with his right hand. 

“I did,” Andrew said. Neil’s eyes snapped up again, and Andrew recited blandly: “Neil Josten is a lauded New York avant garde artist, sought after socialite, ex-Moriyama model, and is romantically linked with Kevin Day, also ex-Moriyama model and celebrated portrait photographer. Josten’s mediums include acrylic, oils, watercolors, mixed media, and he has been featured in the most exclusive galleries both domestically and internationally. His highest selling painting, ‘The Nest,’ sold for a quarter of a million at auction.” 

Neil frowned. “That’s the summary to my Wikipedia page,” he said. 

“Google yourself much?” Andrew said. 

“No, but Jeremy Knox thinks it’s funny to edit it, so I keep an eye on it,” Neil muttered. “Sought-after-socialite is a new one.” 

“More like misanthropic recluse,” Kevin said, reaching for the next bottle. Neil flipped him off.

“It didn’t say anything about British,” Andrew said.

“And when you Googled the other name?” Neil asked. 

“I didn’t.” 

“You didn’t,” Neil repeated. 

“I didn’t.” 

Neil stared. “Why not?” 

“You said it wasn’t your name.” 

Neil blinked at him. Andrew’s hand was still in Neil’s, warm and dry and mostly not bleeding anymore. “It’s not.”

“So,” Andrew said, like that explained anything. 

“So,” Neil said. 

“So,” Kevin said, and he handed them all Jäger shots. “What happens if we Google you?”

Andrew downed his shot. “Nothing. I don’t exist,” he said when Kevin and Neil followed suit.

“But you do, don’t you,” Kevin said intently. He leaned forward, opening the Hungarian palinka without taking his gaze off Andrew. 

Andrew didn’t look away, just cocked his head a little and considered Kevin before slowly tipping his glass. 

Kevin filled it to the brim. “This one bites,” he said seriously. It did - Neil had more than one regretful night that had centered around the potent fruit brandy he and Kevin had discovered in Budapest, but Andrew knocked it back without a wince. 

Neil wasn’t sure what shot they were on, but Kevin had his fingers on the vodka now and Neil had tipped well past pleasantly buzzed. He hopped up and dragged a rogue loveseat closer so he could spread out without crowding Andrew, and Kevin relocated to curl up next to him, leaving Andrew the whole couch. Andrew raised both eyebrows at them, the little glass of vodka at his lips when he paused, watching them get settled, a tiny frown at the corner of his mouth. 

“What?” Neil asked, the palinka and the mezcal and whatever else Kevin had handed him so far working their magic to pry his curiosity loose. 

Andrew lowered his glass. “I thought you brought me here to fuck,” he said, unapologetic. 

“Why would you think that?” Kevin asked when he finished choking on his own vodka. He’d dribbled on his chin. Neil made a noise he didn’t recognize - it was not a giggle -  and Kevin shot him a look, wiping at his face. 

“It’s a thing people do,” Andrew said.

“It’s not a thing we do,” Neil said. 

“Okay,” Andrew said, and he took his shot. 

“Wait,” Kevin was still staring at him with something like awe on his face. “Does that mean you wanted to have sex with one of us?”

“Or both,” Andrew said. 

“Both,” Kevin repeated, like he was tasting the word. 

“Drink,” Neil said, nudging Kevin with his knee. 

“Drink,” Kevin agreed, pouring a bourbon this time that cost more than the couch Andrew was sitting on. 

They drank. Either the bourbon went down smoother or Neil’s taste buds had gone numb from everything that came before. 

“I don’t want to fuck you. I want to photograph you,” Kevin said to Andrew. The edges of his words were a little slippery.

“I seem to recall you had that privilege already,” Andrew said. 

“Yes but, more,” Kevin said. “Like a whole afternoon, in the city, when the light is right.”

“Junkie,” Andrew said, but it wasn’t a no. “What will you give me for it?”

“Anything,” Kevin says, stretching against Neil.

“Not anything,” Neil corrected. “You’re drunk.”

“Am,” Kevin agreed with an earnest nod. “It’s delightful.”

“Idiot,” Neil said fondly. He tucked his toes under Kevin’s thigh and Andrew tracked the movement. 

“Truths,” Andrew said. “Tell me something true.”

“One truth, one picture?” Kevin offered hopefully.

“So you already owe me three,” Andrew said, holding out his glass. “Why did you call Neil British?”

“Ah, but that’s not Kevin’s truth, and I’m not the one that wants to take your picture,” Neil said with a grin.

“What do you want then?” Andrew asked. 

“Nothing. Everything,” Neil squinted. “I want to know what color your eyes are.” He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. 

Andrew leaned forward, propped one elbow on his knee, and crooked a finger at Neil. Neil leaned forward too, until Andrew’s face was a foot away from his. “And?” Andrew asked, pointing at the corner of his eye.

“I think that you have all the colors in there,” Neil said, and for some reason he couldn’t look away. “Ochre maybe. Hooker’s green like Kevin.” Neil hummed and tilted his head. “There’s gold, but I’d have to mix that.”

“Paint,” Andrew said. 

“Mmm,” Neil agreed. 

“Drink! And truths!” Kevin said. He poured rum this time, the liquid dark and dangerous. 

“This is one of the colors,” Neil said, peering at the amber rum in his glass. “In your eyes,” he clarified unnecessarily. 

“See there it is,” Kevin whispered loudly to Andrew. 

“There what is?” Neil asked.

“You went British just now,” Kevin said. 

Oh well fuck. “Oh shit, I’m drunk,” Neil announced. 

“Obviously,” Kevin agreed. 

“That was the plan,” Andrew said. 

“Drunk-ing, not fuck-ing,” Kevin said sternly, pointing a wobbly finger in Andrew’s direction. 

Andrew huffed his tiny little not-laugh again and Neil grinned. 

“What if we just talked,” Kevin suggested. 

“Talked,” Andrew said. 

“Yes, you know,” Kevin said, flapping the arm that wasn’t around Neil’s shoulder in the air. “Talked. About things. Like Neil’s adorable drunk British accent.”

“I have never been adorable a day in my life,” Neil said, affronted. 

“Hey Neil,” Kevin whispered loudly. “We’re supposed to be telling the truth.”

“I am,” Neil said. He realized he was the only one who still had rum in his glass so he downed it. He felt fuzzy around the edges and warm and safe. “Not adorable,” he asserted, holding out his glass.

“Agree to disagree,” Kevin said, filling them all up again.

They got drunker. Well, Neil and Kevin definitely did. Neil was pretty sure Andrew was wasted too though, because even though his words never slurred and he was sparse with his truths, his shoulders had unwound inch by inch until he was half sunk into the couch. 

They talked too, rounds of truths about nothing and everything. It was easy, somehow, comfortable in a way that Neil and Kevin rarely found with anyone outside of their immediate circle of friends. Andrew told them he’d moved to New York last month to spend time with his brother, that he’d known Robin since they were kids, that he was from LA. Kevin told him his mother had been an internationally famous model, but that his father was a talented photographer, that he’d always preferred being on the other side of the camera, when he’d had a choice. 

Neil wrapped a little tighter around Kevin as truths slipped out. There was truth, and then there was truth; depths behind these words that didn’t need to be plumbed tonight.

“And your accent?” Andrew asked again, turning to Neil after shot number ten. 

“You’ve fixated on that,” Neil said, slurping the last drops of cachaça out of his glass. 

Andrew shrugged. “I pull at threads, sometimes something bigger tugs loose.”

“That was poetic,” Neil said

“I’m a poet.”

“Are you?”

“Songwriter,” Andrew said after a moment.

“Are you,” Neil said again, a different tone of voice this time. Andrew watched him steadily. Neil sighed. “My mom was from London,” he said, setting his glass down.

“But you grew up here,” Andrew said. 

“Mostly,” Neil said. “But my dad was a son of a bitch and my mom ran with me when I was seven to her family in England. My dad brought me back here after she died.” Neil didn’t really want to say any more about that, so instead he said, “Drink!” 

“Drink!” Kevin agreed, grabbing the Scotch that was next in line. Neil felt a small pang at doing a shot of his favorite single malt - it definitely deserved a good leisurely sipping - but he downed it in one go anyway. 

Andrew was still watching him, but he took his own shot and then asked Kevin his thoughts on film versus digital photography. Neil smiled a small thanks at Andrew and leaned into Kevin, content to listen to the rant about light and shadow and real skill that he’d heard a hundred times before, but never quite tired of. He was surprised, though, by the serious and quiet attention that Andrew gave Kevin, and it softened a little corner of his heart that was usually muffled and hidden and tucked away out of sight. 

Or maybe that was the ouzo speaking. 

“This was an excellent idea,” Kevin said after they downed the fifteenth shot, and he flipped his cup upside down on the table. Neil wasn’t even sure what was in his glass this time, but he drank it and did the same. Kevin stood up and stretched, his shirt pulling up and showing a generous strip of skin and tattoo and muscle for a minute. Andrew watched over the rim of his last shot, the liquid still shimmering clear and dangerous in his glass. “You’re staying right?” Kevin asked Andrew. 

Andrew started nodding slowly, pausing only to swallow the last of whatever was in his glass in one go. “Okay,” he said. 

“Good. I like you,” Kevin said. He turned to Neil. “I like him.” 

“I know, love,” Neil said, the endearment they usually kept to themselves slipping out unbidden. Kevin smiled at him and Neil stood up and gave him a push. “Bed,” he said.

“Night ‘Ndrew,” Kevin mumbled. “I’m glad we found you on the street.” Neil snorted and Kevin waved over his shoulder and yawned dramatically on his way out to the bedroom. 

“Preference?” Neil asked as he spun around a bit off kilter, gesturing at the no less than four couches around them. 

Andrew stood and turned with small motions, considering with the tiniest frown pulling at his mouth, and Neil quite suddenly realized what the problem might be. He walked over to the big brown leather couch, soft and strategically worn and more expensive than most domestic four-door sedans. Allison had unceremoniously had it delivered one day when she redecorated after her break up with Seth. In fact, most of their (really nice) furniture had been courtesy of Allison’s break ups. 

“This is the best one,” Neil announced, and started pushing it. He squatted low, and with the single minded determination of the inebriated, pushed until the couch was flush against the wall furthest from both the front door and Neil and Kevin’s bedroom. When he stood up Andrew was staring at him with the closest thing to a real emotion that Neil had seen on his face yet, but he couldn’t quite parce what the look meant. “Better?” Neil asked. 

Andrew’s face shut down immediately, but a little hint of something lingered around his eyes and he nodded once. 

Neil rummaged in one of their wall cabinets and pulled out a quilt and some pillows and dropped them on the couch on his way to the kitchen to fill up three giant water bottles with ice and water. Andrew was standing by his couch now, watching him. He’d pulled off his hoodie and kicked off his Converse, left in socks and jeans and a snug black t-shirt with an album cover on it that Neil didn’t recognize. 

Neil handed him one of the bottles, and his gaze caught on the tattoos that had been covered all night. “Oh,” Neil said, stupidly transfixed for a moment. Andrew’s arms were completely covered in music notes, living lines of sheet music imprinted onto his skin, along with a glowing amber guitar inked into the back of his left forearm. There were scars there too, lined up like staff lines, treble clefs and bass clefs scattered amongst them, notes dancing on the faded silver lines but not covering them. Andrew stood still, letting him look, not moving to hide the scars or the ink. When Neil glanced up, Andrew’s face was blank, but he cut his gaze pointedly to the giant portrait of Neil hanging across the room, where every inch of Neil’s scars were on display, and then back to the lines on Neil’s face, and then Andrew dropped his arms and his whole posture relaxed. 

“Thanks for the liver poisoning,” Andrew said. Neil saw him hesitate and then he added, “And the couch.” 

Neil looked at Andrew in the wan light, his hair almost white, his face chiseled and expressionless, his eyes a kaleidoscope, and was struck again with a replay of the night, of how easy it had been, how effortless. 

Andrew was one of them, with the scars and ink and ghosts to prove it. 

Neil smiled. “Of course,” he said, and he tossed Andrew the same two fingered salute he’d been given at Renee’s. Andrew raised one eyebrow, and then he grinned, a fleeting look that danced across his face in full glory before skittering away again. 

Neil was surprised to find Kevin awake and blinking at him sleepily when he slid into their room. He handed him a water bottle and Kevin sat up to take a few long swallows while Neil disappeared to pee and brush his teeth and strip down to his boxers. 

“How are you even awake?” Neil murmured as he crawled under the sheets. Kevin didn’t answer, just wrapped warm arms around him and pulled him close, and kissed the ever-loving daylights out of him, slipping his tongue past Neil’s surprised gasp to sweep into his mouth and drape half on top of him. 

“Okay, hi,” Neil said when he let him up for air. It had taken him off guard, and he tried to ignore the bit of warmth coiled in his belly from that kiss, because it wasn’t like Kevin was going to ravish him right now with Andrew in the other room, even if he was somehow in a rare mood for it. 

Kevin hovered over him with a soft smile, a hand on either side of Neil’s face, thumb absently tracing the scars on his cheekbone. “Would you have?” Kevin asked quietly. 

Neil frowned, trying to catch up, but he failed. “Would I have what?” he asked, sliding his hands to Kevin’s back and drawing circles on his skin. 

“Andrew thought we wanted to fuck,” Kevin said. He was looking at Neil more seriously than anyone should be after that amount of alcohol, and in the darkness of their room his eyes were almost black. “Would you have?” 

The warmth in Neil’s belly from Kevin’s kiss faded and he stilled. He pulled his hands away and frowned at Kevin. “What exactly are you asking me?” 

“Don’t pull away,” Kevin said, and he tucked his face into Neil’s neck. Neil softened, and carded his fingers through Kevin’s hair. 

“Okay tell me exactly what you are asking me, then.” 

“I wouldn’t mind,” Kevin said, very quietly. “If you wanted to fuck someone else, I mean.” 

“Andrew?”

Kevin shrugged in his arms. “Anyone, really.” 

Neil sighed, and closed his eyes, and didn’t say anything for so long that he was surprised Kevin didn’t give up on an answer and fall asleep, but Kevin’s fingers were still tracing the line of his bicep over and over again when Neil finally tried to explain. “It’s just you, love. I don’t - it’s just you that I want.” 

Kevin hummed into his neck. “Okay,” he said, and Neil could hear the sleep in his voice now. “I do like Andrew though,” he added. 

Neil huffed a little laugh and pulled Kevin closer. “Clearly,” he said. He closed his eyes, listened to Kevin’s breath evening out, long and slow as he fell asleep in Neil’s arms.

***

Neil woke with a start, covered in sweat and gasping, his head pounding and his dick hard. 

“What the actual fuck,” he whispered. Kevin was out cold snoring beside him, having flopped away from him in the night, leaving one heavy leg still hooked over Neil’s thigh. 

Neil blinked rapidly, trying to catch his breath. His brain felt like it was trying to climb out of his skull, pickled in fifteen shots of every alcohol known to man. He pulled his leg carefully out from under Kevin, who kept right on snoring, and grabbed his water bottle on the way into the bathroom. 

Neil gulped half his water down in one go and then gripped the counter top, closing his eyes. Which was, perhaps, not the best choice, because flashes of his dream eagerly replayed themselves on the back of his eyelids

... lips on his neck that weren’t Kevin’s...clever calloused fingers gripping his hips...skin sliding against skin….notkevinnotkevinnotkevin....

Neil groaned, his dick clamoring for attention, his skull and his ribcage both trying to crack wide open. This wasn’t the sort of nightmare that normally dragged him from bed. But. Had it been a nightmare? Fuck. The dream was already fuzzing around the edges, dripping out of his consciousness in slow motion like honey in a sieve, leaving his nerves unsettled and an aching unfinished arousal throbbing in its wake. Neil counted his breath, splashed his face, drank some more water. 

His fucking boner was insistent. 

“Goddamnit,” he muttered. 

Neil dug around in the bottom drawer for the lube that they rarely used for no other reason than it would make this go faster. He slicked up his hand and dropped the bottle on the counter. He leaned against the door and shoved his boxers down, letting his eyes fall closed as he gripped himself and set a perfunctory pace - stroke, stroke, twist. Efficient, detached. 

Except that as he came, spilling hot and and fast over his own knuckles, Neil’s mind supplied one last whispery golden image from the dream. 

...a full bottom lip dragging across Neil’s throat...a tendril of blond hair soft on his scarred cheek...a hard cock sliding against his own…

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Neil whispered, sliding down the door to sit on the floor. He slid one knee up and propped his wrist on it, the cum and lube already cooling on his skin. “Fuck,” he said again. 

Neil felt gross, wrung out, and thoroughly hung-the-fuck-over. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but he was certain that he’d needed more hours than this to sleep off the booze. He toed open the drawer again and dug out some Advil, swallowing three of them down with the rest of his water. He dragged himself to standing eventually, cleaned up as best as he could and finished with another splash of cold water on his face. 

When he slipped back into the bedroom Neil glanced at the clock to find it blinking 5:15 a.m. Not an unreasonable hour to run this uneasiness out of his heart; he was pretty sure sleep was out of his reach at this point. He tugged on a hoodie and some shorts, and tiptoed into the loft with his sneakers in hand. 

Andrew’s back was turned to the room, the quilt slid down to his waist, and when Neil sat to lace up his shoes Andrew turned, blinking at him sleepily and half raised off the couch. 

“S’fine,” Neil said quietly. “Just going for a run.” Andrew turned all the way over so he was facing the room now, and nodded once, his eyes closing again. Neil was struck, stuck staring at Andrew’s face from across the room, barely enough light creeping in the windows to throw his face into shadows, to limn the blond of his hair in pale outline. 

Neil frowned, feeling sick to his stomach, and slipped out quietly. 

He was slow, feet plodding heavy against the concrete, and his head still hurt, and he thought his sweat might smell like that one time in Budapest, but Neil doggedly ran six miles, stopping when he was still a couple miles out from home and the sun was just starting to creep into the cross streets as it started its slow ascent to the roofs of the skyscrapers. 

Neil took his time walking back, and was only vaguely surprised to find that Andrew was gone when he let himself back in. He’d left a note though, painted with some of Neil’s cobalt acrylic on sketch paper; just a phone number and three music notes. 

Neil couldn’t stop his tired grin as he stared down at the paper. He set it on the counter where Kevin would see it when he woke up, downed another bottle of water, showered, and crawled back into the bed. Neil snuggled himself against Kevin’s warm back, and managed to pilfer a few more hours of dreamless sleep. 

Chapter Text

The sounds of the city waking up engulfed Andrew as he stepped out onto the street. It was early, not quite 6am, and even his honorary status as professional drinker had left him dry mouthed and hung over this morning. He’d probably do better with a few more hours, but he’d been unable to find sleep again once Neil had slipped out for a run; it was harder to coax himself into closing his eyes and sleeping in a strange space without the buzz of alcohol to sing him a lullaby.

Taxis were already honking in the street, bodegas rolled up their plastic awnings, voices rose and fell over each other, runner’s shoes pounded on the pavement. Every noise trickled into Andrew’s brain, catalogued and organized, some of them tripping off into new songs, others inserting themselves into half-finished melodies and lyrics and baselines.

It was Bee’s fault, really, this private playlist that played on a loop in Andrew’s head.

When Bee had found him, Andrew was thirteen years old, fresh off a string of bad and worse foster homes, this last one being both bad and worse. He’d carved control into his arms, but he hadn’t been able to control his words – his language tripping over a stutter that only worsened when he was angry.

And Andrew was always angry.

Bee’s house was meant to be the last-ditch-last stop-last chance for the kid with the anger problem, the attitude problem, the kid who couldn’t be left alone to hurt himself or someone else.

Or to crash a police cruiser.

Andrew could admit now that it was fortunate the cruiser he’d stolen had belonged to one Officer Phillip Higgins, but at the time he’d just been angry – furious even, that his plan to get himself safely ensconced in juvenile hall had been wrecked (wrecked, ha!) by a meddling do-gooder Pig. That instead of Juvie, with his own locked door on a hall with kids his age and cameras to maybe keep him safe from night visitors, Andrew was being sent to foster home number thirteen. Unlucky number thirteen, just like Andrew.

Except when Andrew, sullen and terrified and angry, walked into Betsy Dobson’s house, when he’d looked behind her, around her, he’d seen…just Bee. No husband, no brother, no son. Just Bee.

He’d been shown to a room that was all his own, with a double bed and a bookshelf full of books that Andrew hadn’t actually read three times over, along with brand new bottles of shampoo and soap in the bathroom cabinet, and, wondrously, a deadbolt on the inside of the door.

Andrew didn’t say thank you, just stood warily in the middle of the room clutching the blue duffle bag that Cass had tearfully told him he could keep, and Bee smiled, softly, and said she’d be downstairs making dinner and is there anything that Andrew didn’t like to eat? Bee’s smile didn’t fade or falter when Andrew didn’t say anything or move or return her smile, and then, after pulling the door closed behind her, she was gone. 

It was that unflappable steadiness in the face of the molten volcano that was Andrew that eventually wore down his defenses, that allowed him the space to erupt outward, to come as close to cleansing his wounds as he ever would, instead of smoldering steadily under his skin, instead of ruining himself with self hatred and loneliness.

He never did tell Bee that he didn’t like to eat meat, but she figured it out anyway, quietly and efficiently shifting their meals vegetarian. Just like she noticed that Andrew only wore the long sleeve t-shirts and hoodies she bought him, and even though he was pretty sure he’d been careful enough that she’d not seen his scars, one day he came home from school to find three sets of black armbands laying on his bed.

So of course it was Bee who noticed that Andrew didn’t stutter when he sang, that with his headphones in and something epic on his iPod, he’d sing and trill notes, change melodies and lyrics, his voice smooth and strong and sure. Bee signed him up for guitar classes, and piano, her only words about it that he didn’t have to go if he didn’t want to. (He did want to.)

Somehow, over minutes and days, weeks and months, through a thousand tiny and immeasurably huge moments, Andrew lost his stutter and found himself in music. 

Somewhere, over minutes and days, weeks and months, through a thousand tiny and immeasurably huge moments, Bee built him a home and told him to stay.

Andrew lit a cigarette and looked around. It had only taken a week for him to have New York’s grid system committed to memory, and he actually wasn’t far from Robin’s apartment. He set off at a brisk pace, driven by the thought of coffee and a greasy egg sandwich from the diner next to their building. Then he’d have a few hours to tease out the lyrics that had Neil and Kevin’s names on them, words dancing around each other in his head, punctuated with the bass notes of the city - a beat that followed the pulse of Neil’s heartbeat, that vibrant tattoo of blood that had hummed against Andrew’s fingertips when he’d lightly pressed them to Neil’s wrist. A melody kicked in, surfing the soothing timbre of Kevin’s voice as he lectured on aperture and dark rooms, his gaze intense and open and sharp enough to cut yourself on. 

Fuck. This was going to be a problem. But for now, it was music and food and caffeine and shower, and then, well. And then Aaron.

The apartment was empty when Andrew let himself inside, dumping his breakfast spoils and coffee cup on the table before kicking off his shoes and grabbing his laptop. He ripped his avocado and egg sandwich into small bites and thumbed through his missed texts from last night while he ate. Robin’s was the most recent, from 5am: 

     headed to a shoot, hope the dick was good

Andrew snorted softly. He had one from Bee, asking him to call sometime today, and one from Aaron confirming that he could meet up when his shift at the hospital ended. Roland had sent him a blurry half naked selfie in the middle of the night, a frown on his smooth, handsome face: 

     had to take some rando home, his mouth was not as good as yours. when you coming back? :(

Andrew rolled his eyes, sent some emojis to Robin and Roland and a thumbs up to Aaron. He’d call Bee later - it was something like 4am in LA right now. 

Andrew was starting to feel a little better than death warmed over, so he reluctantly opened his email. He had a string of ten emails from Ronan - who refused to send text messages like a normal human - the last one a rambling mess about how he desperately wanted his next song to clearly portray the absolute agony of wanting someone that you couldn’t have. 

Andrew sighed. Ronan had crashed and burned through a messy and very publicized break up with one of Hollywood’s playboy a-listers last year, and then spent the entirety of this year hopping from one bed to the next, his current body count a list of who’s-who that would rival Mick Jagger’s. Then, last month, at a boring LA party he’d drug Andrew to, he’d fallen head over heels for one of the prettiest boys Andrew had ever seen. 

Adam Parrish was otherworldly, and Adam Parrish was decidedly straight - dating some tiny actress who’d just made it big in yet another teenage vampire movie. 

Adam Parrish also thought that Ronan was a little bit of a slut and a lot bit of an asshole, and well, he wasn’t wrong. 

Ronan’s email devolved into a drunken rambling about the blue of Adam’s eyes, but all Andrew could see was the piercing ocean of blue that belonged to Neil - a perfect complement to the verdant vibrancy of Kevin’s. 

Talk about things you couldn’t have. 

Andrew lived in LA, partied with arguably the most popular pop star of the modern age, and had enough money and recognition to get any dick he wanted. He’d thought he was immune to pretty faces at this point, but the moment he’d seen Neil and Kevin walk into Renee’s the other night he’d had to fight to tear his gaze away, the two of them punching holes in his precious control like it was made of tissue paper. It was more than their objectively stunning faces though. It was the way they orbited around each other; angels come to earth to do penance.

Angels come to earth to do penance. 

Andrew opened up his songwriting software and went to get his guitar. 

It was hours later when he came up for air, words jumbled and scratched out on the notepad next to him, notes scattered across the screen, his calloused fingertips humming from teasing out variations of melodies over and over again as Andrew wove a tapestry of his and Ronan’s words together into a song that might maybe not be at all about Adam Parrish. 

Andrew scanned the page one more time, cleared his throat, and pressed record on his phone, recording the song in his strong tenor that almost no one besides Bee and Ronan had ever heard. He didn’t even listen to it before he texted the file to Ronan, and then responded to his most recent email with check your text messages asshole.

***

Aaron was ten minutes late getting off his shift at the hospital. 

It was still a shock every time Andrew saw his twin’s face - the same, but not the same at all. 

Aaron had found out about him six months ago, after his mother had finally offed herself through some accidental combination of too many pills chased with half a bottle of Vodka. Aaron hadn’t put it quite that way, but the words were right there, waiting to be teased out from between the lines. Aaron had found their birth certificates and managed to hunt Andrew down with the help of his Uncle Luther, finally connecting to the foster system in California, and reaching him through Bee. 

Aaron and Tilda had left for South Carolina when Andrew was thirteen. As in, round about the time when Andrew knew he couldn’t survive Drake for much longer. So, round about the time Andrew had set out to send himself into lockdown, Tilda had been moving her chosen son closer to his family.  

Six months ago Aaron had called him. One month ago, Andrew had picked up his life and moved to New York. Three weeks ago he’d seen Aaron’s face for the first time, and two weeks ago Luther and Maria had flown up from South Carolina, spent the weekend, bought them expensive dinners. Andrew had watched, listened, paid attention, let Luther pick up the check, let him evaluate and misunderstand what he saw, didn’t tell him that Andrew didn’t need his money, that Andrew could buy out the whole restaurant, if he wanted. 

Andrew had built a life around being underestimated. It suited him. 

There was a cousin too apparently, although Andrew hadn’t met him yet. Nicky lived in Stuttgart with his husband, and Andrew had read between the lines that Luther spouted too, that Nicky hadn’t been back to the states since high school, that Erik was referred to as Nicky’s friend, and never by name. 

Aaron though, Aaron didn’t require reading between the lines: he wore his trauma on his face, in the dark circles under his eyes, in his indrawn posture, his inability to meet Andrew’s gaze for too long. Drugs, Andrew had thought, the first time he’d seen him, and he wasn’t wrong. But Aaron was also stubborn, determined, was in his own way a survivor, had clawed his way out of a house that had given up one twin and seemed determined to destroy the other. Aaron had managed to drag himself through undergrad and into med school at Mt. Sinai, shackled to a bucket load of student loans and an on-again off-again girlfriend named Katelyn that Andrew had yet to meet. 

“She’s not talking to me again,” Aaron announced sullenly as they started their second lap around the duck pond in central park. Andrew had tried to drag Aaron to eat, but he’d mumbled that he wasn’t hungry and had just started walking.

“The girlfriend,” Andrew said.

“You know her name,” Aaron said with a small scowl in his direction. 

“I do,” Andrew agreed. “I want to meet her.” Andrew did want to meet her. He’d sussed out pretty easily that the times Katelyn stopped talking to Aaron were the times Aaron was high as fuck, and maybe, just maybe, this Katelyn was an ally who actually gave a shit about his brother.

Aaron didn’t say anything. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his scrubs, a grey zipped hoodie snug up to his neck. He was scrawnier than Andrew, thinner than he should be, and Andrew really wanted him to eat. 

“She’s busy,” Aaron said eventually with a tiny shrug, but his shoulders didn’t come down, stayed hunched up by his ears. “Med school, you know.”

“You’re in med school. You’re here,” Andrew said. 

“Anyway, like I said. Not talking to me. Maybe next time.”

Andrew felt the raw helpless anger pushing out of his ribcage, the flood of it becoming a familiar feeling around his twin, an awful feeling that he’d thought he’d put behind him. 

Before Aaron. 

If Aaron were his, Andrew would lock him in a room and not let him out until the drugs had sweated themselves out of his system, until he was broken down so he could be built back up again. Stronger, safer. As whole as he could be. As whole as they could be.

But Aaron wasn’t his. Tilda had stolen that from both of them, and Andrew was stuck here playing the waiting game because he had a fucking brother and he didn’t know how to fix him yet.  

They walked another lap around the pond in silence before Andrew stopped Aaron from starting a third lap with a hand on his arm. “We’re getting lunch,” Andrew said, and turned to walk out of the park. Aaron followed him - Andrew hadn’t been entirely sure he would - and they settled into the cracked vinyl booths of an ancient looking deli. 

Andrew ordered for them - grilled cheeses and tomato soup - because Aaron just blinked dazedly at the menu when their waitress showed up. 

Aaron had been on a graveyard shift at the hospital, and while med students bore the brunt of a crap schedule, the opiates Aaron was pilfering sure didn’t help. Aaron didn’t even complain this time about the vegetarian lunch when it arrived in front of him, just started mindlessly wolfing his sandwich down. 

Andrew watched him, tearing his own sandwich into bits and dunking them into his soup one piece at a time. It wasn’t until Aaron had eaten his entire sandwich and half his soup that he looked up, blinking at Andrew and said, “Wait, what happened to your face?” 

Andrew regarded him impassively. He’d told Aaron he was gay in one of many facetime calls in the months before he’d come to New York. It clearly made Aaron uncomfortable, and meeting Luther and Maria had just confirmed that his twin had come by his latent homophobia honestly. Andrew didn’t care. “Sucked the wrong dick I guess,” he said, staring Aaron down. 

Andrew didn’t really realize until he’d said it that he’d wanted a reaction - any reaction - and instead his heart sank into his stomach when Aaron just nodded once, his eyes glazing over as he turned back to his soup.

***

The late night and the booze and the subsequent early morning and dealing with Aaron left Andrew feeling hollowed out and aching. He flopped on the couch back at the apartment, wrung out and worn out and feeling something like homesickness, or just feeling like he wanted to be anywhere but here. 

He had a new email from Ronan, just one line: fuck you you asshole this is so good how do you do that? 

Roland had texted too, just an oops and a sunglasses emoji. 

Andrew thought about the half moons of purplish skin under Aaron’s eyes, the lackluster afternoon of ducks and soup and talking about nothing that mattered, and he wondered, not for the first time, what the fuck he was doing here. 

He called Bee. 

“Andrew,” she said, picking up on the first ring. 

“I don’t know what I am doing here,” he said. 

Fuck, he hadn’t meant to say that. He closed his eyes and flung his arm over them. 

“Hmmm,” Bee said. “That bad?” 

“He was high as a kite today,” Andrew said. 

“And how do you feel about that?” 

“Don’t therapize me,” Andrew said. 

“I’m not. I’m mom-ing you.” Andrew could hear the little smile in her voice that was all Bee. 

“Don’t do that either,” he grumped. “I don’t know why he even wanted me here.” 

“This was your idea Andrew,” she reminded him. 

Andrew was silent at that. Bee let him be, because she was good like that. 

“You can come home any time you need to,” she said finally. “And you can go back to New York any time you want. It’s okay to need a break.” 

Andrew didn’t know how to say that he was terrified that if he left, Aaron would disappear, slip through his fingers like so much dust, destroyed and crushed and gone like he had never been real in the first place. “How’s Brooks?” Andrew said instead, and Bee let him change the subject, regaling him with the most recent antics of the six month old scruffy mutt of a dog that she had rescued off the streets last month. Andrew let her voice soothe him, and by the time she’d finished filling him in on the Great Toilet Paper Caper, he felt like he could take a deep breath again. 

“Tell me one thing that’s good before I let you go,” Bee said after she’d run out of new Brooks stories. 

It’s a question Bee used to ask him every night at dinner. One thing good. Andrew could think of two things, but he wasn’t entirely sure that was good - Neil and Kevin could more accurately be categorized under problem. 

“I wrote a song today,” he said. 

“Can I hear it?” 

“You can hear it when Ronan’s next album comes out.” Bee laughed. Andrew huffed. Like he would really tell her no. “I’ll text you the file.” 

She told him she loved him before they hung up, and Andrew texted it back to her. Love you. It was their thing. 

He thought maybe he would say it out loud, one day. 

Today was not that day. 

A few texts had come through while they’d been talking and Andrew thumbed past Robin’s and Roland’s to open Aaron’s. 

     I have saturday night and sunday off this week. 

     okay. 

     i can take you to my favorite restaurant? 

     okay. 

     Nicky wants to facetime us together Sunday morning. 

     okay. 

     okay. 

Andrew had just dropped his phone back on his chest, intent on sleeping the rest of the afternoon away right the fuck there on the couch, when it buzzed at him again. He tilted it up to see a new text from a number he didn’t recognize. No one had this number. Except. Blue paint, early morning light. Andrew was an idiot. 

     What are you doing?

Andrew considered. He should ignore this. He didn’t.

     is this blue eyes or green eyes

     Green. Blue is busy helping Jeremy set up a new exhibit. What are you doing?

     jacking off

     Are you?

     …

     Right. Well when you are done you want to meet up? The light’s going to be perfect in a few hours

Andrew stared at his phone. Considered that this was a terrible idea. Considered that most of his ideas lately were terrible. Fuck it. 

     sure. what time and when?

     Six? Meet me at my place?

It wasn’t quite four.

     okay.

     Excellent. :) 

     Oh, to clarify, I want to take your picture. Tonight. 

Andrew huffed a tiny laugh.

     yeah, I gathered that. 

     :)

***

The sky was clear, a sun-washed and faded blue, rays of the sun smashing into the top windows of skyscrapers to scatter beams of light across the city. Kevin was waiting for him on the steps when Andrew arrived, a bigger Nikon than the one Andrew had seen last night hanging on an embroidered leather strap around his neck. Kevin was right: this was good light, and Kevin looked damned good in it. 

“Hey,” Kevin said, his voice warm and deep and soft and Andrew had the unreasonable urge to climb inside of it. A new song started to uncurl on the sheet music in his mind. “So how many pictures did I earn last night?” Kevin asked when Andrew stopped in front of him. He hadn’t stood up, and from where he was sitting they were eye to eye. 

“Probably not as many as you are going to take,” Andrew said. 

Kevin grinned at him, and then reached up slowly to hover finger tips near his bruised cheekbone. “Can I?” Kevin asked. 

The words echoed Neil’s from last night and made Andrew’s throat tighten for just a moment. It wasn’t anger, but it felt the same somehow. How dare Kevin ask before touching him. The tightness passed, though, and Andrew nodded once, and then Kevin was touching his cheek carefully, sliding gentle fingers along the line of the bruise. 

“Problem?” Andrew asked, and he felt a quick stab of thankfulness that his voice was steady and his stutter didn’t choose that moment to make an appearance. It didn’t really, not anymore, but sometimes when he was tired, his defenses battered, those tricky words that started with P or B could trip him up. 

Kevin shook his head and dropped his hand. “No. You’re perfect. Ready?” 

“I’m here,” Andrew said with a small shrug, and Kevin grinned up at him for a moment before hauling himself to his feet. 

They walked. Kevin talked. Andrew listened. Kevin seemed to know the history of every building they passed. 

“This one was once the most infamous speakeasy in New York during the height of Prohibition,” he said, pointing at a squat beaux-arts building on their right. “It was run by the mob, and when the cops finally shut it down they found several million dollars in renaissance paintings that had been missing for fifty years tucked away in one of the store rooms.” 

Andrew nodded. 

“Oh and this one,” Kevin pointed across the street. “You know Andy Warhol?” 

“Yes,” Andrew said drily when he realized Kevin was waiting for an actual answer. 

“So, he was famous for The Factory - his studio, you know? - but that wasn’t just one space - there were several of them. He kept moving, changing spaces. This was the third one.” Kevin frowned. “No, the second one. The building the third one was in was destroyed last year actually.” He sounded genuinely sad about it. “This is where Valerie Solanas tried to shoot him. Well. She did shoot him, but he lived.” 

Kevin gazed at the building a bit more, then turned to him. “They say he was never the same after that, never felt safe. Couldn’t be touched without jumping, wouldn’t trust new people.” 

Andrew stared at him. 

Kevin shrugged lightly and smiled. “Sorry. Come on, we’re almost there.” 

It was two more blocks and two more building histories before they reached an old pre-war brick building. Kevin produced a key and let them in the stairwell. It looked like apartments, or condos, the hallways smooth and updated, the decor understated, the paint fresh. Andrew followed him up the stairs, realizing belatedly he should have asked for clarification on where exactly Kevin wanted to take his picture, because suddenly he found himself standing on the rooftop of the building, ten stories high, his heart hammering a bit off kilter in his chest. 

“I traded one of Neil’s paintings for a set of keys and unlimited roof access,” Kevin said, looking out over the skyline laid out in front of them. They could see clear across to Brooklyn, a perfect break in the buildings rising up around them to somehow give a clean line of sight over the bay, and the sun streaking across it all was glorious. 

The rooftop itself was nothing, except for the fact that it was many many feet higher off the ground than Andrew wanted to be. It had been ten years since Andrew had dragged himself to the roof of his high school on a regular basis in order to feel something, anything. 

Now though, he’d managed to crack himself open enough to let in Bee, and later Roland and Ronan. Managed to create a space in the world for himself, to seek out places he was safe. Had built a place to land and found a place to go, and no longer had to use his unreasonable fear of heights to tear down the walls around his heart. 

Well. It was the falling he was afraid of, really. 

“Andrew?” Kevin was watching him carefully with that intent gaze of his. 

Andrew shrugged it off, gave a stern lecture to his heartbeat, and asked, “Where do you want me?” 

“Can you lean on the ledge? Over there?” Kevin gestured to the corner of the roof where the sun was busy glazing the world a hazy orange. 

“Sure,” he said. Andrew leaned against the corner of the roof, a ledge rising up three feet, and propped his elbows on it, careful to not look out or down. He raised one eyebrow at Kevin, thinking if he asked him to smile he was out of here, but Kevin just lifted his camera and took Andrew’s picture. He took another and another, moving a little here and there, sometimes looking through the viewfinder and then not taking a picture at all, adjusting something, then click. A small step, a crouch, then click.  

“Look out over your shoulder a bit?” Kevin said from behind the camera. 

Andrew did, and immediately regretted it. He looked up and out, but suddenly he was so much more aware of exactly how far up from the ground he was. His body reacted before his mind caught up and he stumbled away from the edge and crashed face first into Kevin’s camera. 

“Oh shit,” Kevin said, grabbing Andrew’s elbow to steady him. Andrew was chasing down his breath and he felt stupid in a way he hadn’t in a very long time, and Kevin’s hand was warm against his skin, and he didn’t want to step away because away was towards the ledge. 

Kevin wrapped long fingers around Andrew’s other elbow and tugged firmly down until they were sitting, cross legged and knee to knee. Andrew let out a ragged breath. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you were scared of heights?” 

“Fuck you,” Andrew said without heat. His split lip had opened back up, and he could feel blood on the corner of his mouth. He let himself flop back on the roof, uncaring what Kevin thought, and then he heard the click and for some reason, some ridiculous reason, it made him huff out a laugh. 

Kevin sprawled out next to him and they both lay there looking at the sky. After a moment Kevin turned, propped up on an elbow, took another picture, but he didn’t lower his camera, watching Andrew through the viewfinder. 

“What do you see?” Andrew asked. 

“You,” Kevin said. He laid back down and rested the camera on his chest. 

The sky was lavender now, faded streaks of gold at the edge. 

“I told you I don’t exist,” Andrew said. 

“You do though,” Kevin said, holding the Nikon up a few inches off his chest. “I have proof now.” 

Andrew sat up and held out his hand. Kevin considered him for a minute and then lifted up his head to pull the camera strap loose and handed it over to Andrew. It wasn’t the first time Andrew had his hands on a real camera; Robin was a professional photographer, though they preferred Canon. The mechanism was generally the same though. Andrew flicked the camera on, found Kevin’s face through the viewfinder. Click. Just once, and he handed it back to him. 

“Face tattoo is an odd choice for a model,” Andrew said after he’d laid back down. His arm was close enough to Kevin’s that he felt him tense a little, and then let out a small sigh. Andrew purposefully didn’t look at him, waited him out. 

“It wasn’t a choice,” Kevin finally said. “And I am not a model anymore.”

Kevin had told him he preferred to be behind the camera instead of in front of it. “You never wanted to be,” Andrew said. 

“It’s more complicated than that,” Kevin said. “I thought I wanted it, at the time. It was all I knew. All I had been raised for. I was very good. The best maybe, though Riko-” 

Kevin stopped talking suddenly. Andrew watched him press fingertips into the tattoo on his cheek. “Riko put a number on me,” Kevin said. “It was towards the end, after everything was already breaking. I covered it up.” 

Andrew sat up and pulled out his cigarettes. “Riko Moriyama,” he said when Kevin didn’t continue. Kevin nodded. “Good riddance then.” 

He lit the cigarette and took a heavy drag. Andrew didn’t live under a rock. He knew who Kevin Day, Riko Moriyama, and Nathaniel Wesninski were. Well, Riko was dead and Nathaniel no longer existed. He hadn’t lied when he said he didn’t google Nathaniel, though. He didn’t know much about the trio other than the general public knowledge that they were the famous faces of House Moriyama before that house had gone down in the flames of scandal.

Andrew knew a little something about building a life up from the ashes. 

“Ask me something,” Andrew said. 

Kevin grinned a little crookedly. “I thought I still owed you for the pictures.” 

“You do,” Andrew said, the corner of his mouth curling with smoke. “But ask me anyway.”

“You said you write songs.”

Andrew nodded. 

“Can I hear one?”

Kevin asked so quietly, so softly, his head tilted towards Andrew, his eyes unreadable. The sky had gone amethyst now, and shadows were splayed across Kevin’s face, and Andrew somehow felt more at home ten stories off the ground than he had since he’d come to New York. 

He pulled out his phone, turned up the volume, and clicked on the last saved audio file. Andrew closed his eyes as the first notes of his guitar heralded the song he’d written just that morning about things he couldn’t have. He heard Kevin shift beside him as the first words of the song came through, and Andrew knew without opening his eyes that if he twitched his fingers they would brush the back of Kevin’s hand. 

The song ended. Andrew noted a couple places that he might tweak it, filed that away for later. He was feeling some kind of way about what he just did, but he shoved that down and then Kevin breathed out his name like a prayer. Andrew opened his eyes to find Kevin staring at him reverently. He frowned, put his hand in Kevin’s face and shoved it away. 

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“But Andrew,” Kevin said from behind Andrew’s hand. “You are really good.”

Andrew huffed a small laugh at that. “Yes, I know.”

“No, but Andrew. Like you should be famous.”

“I like not existing.”

Kevin blinked at him, a little frown on his face, and then suddenly it cleared. “You are a ghostwriter.”

“Ding ding ding,” Andrew said.

“Who do you write for?”

Andrew cocked an eyebrow at him. “If I told you I’d have to kill you.”

Kevin laid back down with a great heaving sigh. “You are really good,” he said again. “You should be in LA. That’s where your scene is.”

Andrew shrugged against the concrete. The sky looked like a bruise now. “This is where my brother is.” The words felt weird in his mouth, but that didn’t make them less true. “I just found out about him six months ago.” 

Kevin hummed. “You had different moms?” he guessed. 

Andrew closed his eyes again. The back of his eyelids were the same color as the sky. “He’s my identical twin.”

Kevin was quiet for a while, and then he shifted the tiniest bit closer. “I found out about my dad when I was sixteen. He lives in South Carolina. It’s. Not easy.”

It was Andrew’s turn to hum and then neither of them said anything at all for a long time. The sun disappeared, leaving them illuminated in the millions of lights of New York City, the tall buildings around them oversized night lights in the dark. At some point, Kevin reached over and took Andrew’s hand, wrapping Andrew’s calloused fingers in his own, and Andrew let him even though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d let someone hold his hand. 

Which probably meant he never had before.

Chapter Text

The thing is, for better or worse, Andrew had never really been alone. 

To say foster care had been shit was a gross understatement, but there had been Robin and a few others. They’d clung to each other as best they could. Then there had been Bee, an ever present, benevolent presence in his life from the moment she’d taken him in. (It had been a no-brainer to return the favor when he’d bought his first house and move her in with him.) And then Andrew had met Ronan in high school, and Roland in the first year of college before he’d dropped out when it was clear he didn’t need a four year education to make a shit ton of money writing songs for his best friend. 

His circle of people was small - his family - who he would protect fiercely, who he would die for if need be. 

But now, here, on the other side of the country from the life he had built up, he found himself alone far more than he ever had been before. Robin’s career was booming, and they were in high demand for fashion shoots all over the city and beyond. Even when they weren’t working, they spent half their time at Allison’s, so the apartment was basically left to Andrew. 

And Aaron. Well. Aaron was complicated company even on his best days. 

Andrew might punch someone in the face if they suggested he was lonely, but he didn’t really have a better word for it. 

Perhaps this was a revelation. 

Perhaps he should call his therapist. 

Instead he found himself lying on the hardwood floor, staring up at the ceiling and tapping his phone, thinking about Kevin Day and Neil Josten and contemplating giving Eden’s another try that night - he might, maybe, be able to find a pretty boy who could keep his hands to himself and perhaps didn’t have a heretofore unmentioned boyfriend lurking in the shadows. 

He thought about flying Roland out for the weekend. 

He thought about Kevin’s warm fingers wrapped around his. 

He thought about Neil’s full bottom lip. 

Fuck. 

His phone buzzed, and like he’d somehow summoned him, there were three texts, one after the other, from Kevin fucking Day. 

     I’ve developed your pictures

     What are you doing?

     Come over and see them.

     okay

     Okay? We’re going to Jeremy’s opening tonight. Neil said you should come. 

     did he

     yes (this is neil)

     be there in an hour

     text when you’re here i’ll come down to let you in

     great

Andrew was an idiot. 

He dug his favorite suit out of the closet, slim cut and black and snug across his shoulders and biceps. He knew he looked good in it, and worst case, he could hit up Eden’s after the opening and find someone who agreed with him. After a brief moment of hesitation he pulled on a faded black Raven Boys t-shirt, which was washed and worn so thin you could barely read the lyrics on it (Andrew’s lyrics) and then slipped into his converse before switching them out for boots - just this side of not trying too hard. 

Neil was covered in paint when he met Andrew at his door, an oversized and ancient button up shirt practically hanging off his frame and almost covering the cut off denim shorts he was wearing. Swirling watercolor tattoos peeked out from under his rolled sleeves and dipped along his collarbone, but it was impossible to be sure what was tattoo and what was stray paint. He grinned at Andrew and Andrew scowled back. It should be illegal to look that good while dressed so horribly. 

“You look really nice,” Neil said, his gaze traveling up and down Andrew. He had the door propped with one hip and a paintbrush still gripped in one hand. 

“You look feral,” Andrew said drily. 

Neil’s grin just widened. “Come on,” he said. “Kevin’s going to vibrate out of his skin if he has to wait any longer to show you.” 

Andrew raised an eyebrow and followed Neil into the elevator. It was just as slow as the last time, and Andrew leaned against the back wall. Neil was watching him, something tugging his face into a look Andrew couldn’t quite catalogue. 

“Staring,” Andrew said. 

“Yeah,” Neil agreed, but he didn’t stop until the elevator finally came to a halt and he pulled the gate open. 

The loft was messier than last time, glossy photographs spread across most of the furniture, and Neil’s corner was an explosion of paint and canvases and small buckets and brushes, and the air smelled vaguely of chemicals - turpentine and developer and paint. Swingy jazz was playing, the low hiss kiss bang of the cymbals punctuating the vibe, and Andrew could see at least three different half empty pizza boxes. The couch Andrew had slept on was still pushed up against the far wall, pillows and blankets and all. Kevin was nowhere to be seen.

“Feral,” Andrew repeated.

Neil blinked, looking around before turning back to Andrew. “It’s - we get a little single minded sometimes when left to our own devices. I’ll open a window.” 

Andrew started to follow him to the wall of floor to ceiling windows letting in late afternoon light, but got distracted by the series of prints laid out on the velvet Chesterfield sofa. He didn’t realize that Kevin had managed to capture him looking over his shoulder before he’d panicked and launched himself face first into the camera. 

There were four shots; Andrew in profile in each one of them, the bruised side of his face turned away from the camera, the black collar of his shirt cutting a sharp line below his jaw. He was framed in orange light that somehow had hit the lens to fracture and shoot an arc of rainbow across his temple and off into the skyline behind him. Each photo had a slightly different tilt of Andrew’s head, and the progression of the light morphed minutely in each one, so it looked like a series of movement; a set that belonged together. 

They were really fucking good. 

Neil came back to his side. “Yeah,” he said reverently. “He’s amazing isn’t he?” 

The darkroom door opened at that and Kevin ducked out, face serious and clothes just as disheveled as Neil - just with less paint. He looked up from the print in his hand and smiled at Andrew. “Oh, you look really good,” he said. Andrew did roll his eyes then, if just to keep himself from blushing. What the fuck was wrong with him? 

“I am assuming you two are going to change before we go,” Andrew said, gesturing at them. “Or is ‘hobo’ the new artist chic?” Kevin laughed and Neil bumped his elbow and Andrew shrugged out of his jacket before someone got paint on him. 

“Here,” Kevin said, coming close and holding out the photograph in his hand. Andrew stared down at it. It was the single picture he’d snapped, Kevin’s face half in shadow, the chess piece in stark relief on his cheek and a soft, easy glow in his green eyes as he looked up at the camera. (As he looked up at Andrew.) “It’s good,” Kevin said. 

“Humble aren’t you?” Andrew said. 

Kevin laughed again, and leaned closer until their shoulders were brushing. “You took the picture, not me,” he said. 

“Kevin knows he’s pretty,” Neil said with a small snort and headed back to his easel. 

“You’re just jealous,” Kevin said, amusement coloring his tone. 

“Of course I am,” Neil agreed easily. 

“There’s enough of me to go around,” Andrew said. 

Neil turned and brandished his paintbrush at him. “I was hoping you’d say that. Come here.”

Andrew went, the picture of Kevin still in his hands. Neil was staring at him again, and Andrew still didn’t know what to make of it. 

“I think they are a different color today,” Neil said. “Your eyes.”

“I contain multitudes,” Andrew said. 

“Multitudes of color?”

“Sure.”

“Sit?”

Andrew put down the photo and sat. Neil stared at him some more, and then sighed. “You need to be painted in oils. You glow too much for acrylic.” 

“You already have your oils out,” Kevin said from across the room before ducking back into his darkroom.

“I know,” Neil muttered. “Still messy though.” 

Andrew watched Neil push paint onto his palette, mix colors, switch paint brushes, pour out more chemicals, then more paint. Neil stared and Andrew stared back. It was oddly comfortable. When Neil’s brush first touched the blank canvas in front of him, he tucked his bottom lip between his teeth and started humming. 

“Is this weird for you?” Neil asked after a long while. He wasn’t looking at Andrew, just steadily cresting a wave of amber paint, swirling it into another line he’d created. It didn’t look like anything in particular to Andrew, but it was mesmerizing, the movement of the color across the canvas. 

“Which part?” Andrew asked. 

Neil waved his paintbrush vaguely around the space. “Me, Kevin. Artist obsession. All of it.”

Andrew shrugged lightly. “No,” he said. And it wasn’t, somehow. 

Neil turned back to his colors with a grimace. “I’ll ask you again after tonight, you might change your mind.”

“Planning to be weird?”

Neil paused, then loaded his brush up with more golden paint. “No. No weirder than normal.”

Andrew huffed a laugh and Neil grinned. “But?”

“But,” Neil repeated, considered Andrew and then the painting. Switched brushes. “You haven’t been around us around other people. It’s a lot. Us, in public. Everyone knows who we are. Kevin deals with it better than I do. I have been told I am a bit of a dick,” Neil said, the corner of his mouth turning up to demonstrate just how much he cared about that assessment. 

“I think I got a taste of it,” Andrew said drily. 

Neil’s grin blossomed. “Bartholomew,” he said. 

“Bartholomew,” Andrew agreed. 

“I could have handled that,” Neil said.

“I know.”

Neil looked at Andrew. Really looked at him, searched his face. “So why did you do that?”

“He touched you. You didn’t want him to.”

“No,” Neil said slowly, the look on his face complicated. “No, I didn’t want him to.”

“So,” Andrew said. 

“So,” Neil repeated. He was staring again, and then he reached out with his paintbrush. Andrew held his breath, and Neil swiped paint across Andrew’s cheek. Slowly. Deliberately. The paint was cold, the bristles made his nerves tingle. Neil’s face crumpled into confusion and he frowned. Andrew didn’t move, watching him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.” Neil was frowning in earnest now, and Andrew had the unreasonable urge to wipe the look off of his face. Neil’s paintbrush was still hovering near his face, so Andrew reached up to grip Neil’s wrist, to hold him steady. 

“It’s okay,” Andrew said. 

They didn’t move for an age, Andrew’s fingers wrapped around Neil’s wrist, his pulse rabbiting, his brow furrowed. 

“We should get ready.” Kevin’s voice broke whatever spell they were under and Neil startled. He grabbed a cloth and started wiping at Andrew’s face carefully, and Andrew sat very still and watched Kevin watching them, an unreadable look on his face. 

After Neil and Kevin disappeared into their room, Andrew gathered the pictures from the Chesterfield before flopping onto it to wait. 

He resolutely did not think about the sound of the shower running and these disaster idiots naked under the spray. 

He resolutely did not look across the room at the canvas already alive with slashes of every color that he’d seen in his own eyes, and in Aaron’s too. 

He resolutely did not look at the single drop of golden paint on the back of his index finger; it had landed there when Neil had painted a stripe across his cheek, when Neil had looked at Andrew like he wanted nothing more than to be kissed. 

It was quicker than it should have been, only a few minutes strung together of Andrew resolutely not doing things, before Neil and Kevin re-appeared, clean from paint and skin gleaming, Neil snug in an amethyst velvet blazer, and Kevin in a forest green button down that was doing indecent things to his eyes. 

“Fuck,” Andrew said. 

Neil smirked at him and winked, the asshole. Kevin just grinned. “We do okay,” he said. 

“Fuck you both,” Andrew said. They laughed at that, and Andrew rolled his eyes and shrugged back into his own jacket, helpless to do anything about the blush he knew was tingeing his ears. 

Andrew thought they would walk to the gallery - even though he had no idea where it was - but when the elevator reached the entry level floor, Neil went right instead of left. They went through an access door that opened up to a small ground-level garage to reveal a very shiny, very black Aston Martin DBS, which, if Andrew was anyone else, might have been impressive. Instead, what took his breath away was the only other car in the small garage, tucked away behind the Aston - also black, also pristine, and really fucking beautiful. 

“You have a Gullwing,” Andrew said, stepping around the Aston Martin. “1955?”

“1954,” Neil said. 

“Why?” Andrew couldn’t help from asking. Neither of these two looked like they cared about cars - and these were car people cars.

“Uncle Stuart,” Kevin said with a noise that was somehow derisive and fond all at once. Andrew tore his gaze from the Gullwing to look at them. Neil looked - embarrassed wasn’t the word. Andrew couldn’t really imagine him ever looking embarrassed. But mild discomfort probably covered it. 

“My mom’s brother,” Neil said. “He likes to buy us things.”

“He feels guilty,” Kevin said matter of factly. “And is shit at showing his emotions, so he does the next best thing and buys us things. Like useless vintage cars.”

“Useless,” Andrew repeated, resisting the urge to run his hands along the swooping lines of the car. 

Neil rolled his eyes. “Kevin’s just salty because he doesn’t fit in it.”

“It’s a ridiculously small car,” Kevin said. 

“And you are a ridiculously tall human.”

Kevin scoffed at that, but he pulled Neil close and kissed him on his temple. 

“We could just leave him here,” Andrew suggested hopefully. 

Neil did laugh at that, but he clicked the keys in his pocket and the Aston Martin lit up. “Nobody wants to deal with Jeremy’s disappointment if Kevin doesn’t show up,” he said. “You can drive the Gullwing tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. You’re staying right?”

Well. Fuck. 

“Sure,” Andrew said, and he climbed into the goddamned Aston Martin with the two men that he was sure were going to be the death of him. 

Knox Gallery was on the top floor of a sleek building in SoHo. The Aston Martin had been whisked away by a valet, and they’d been handed glasses of champagne in crystal before even setting foot in the elevator. 

Andrew heaved a tiny sigh as they were whisked up to penthouse level. He guessed if he was going to stick around for a while, he’d have to get used to everyone wanting to spend their time so high off the ground. At least in LA the creme de la creme assholes liked their space; he was more likely to spend his time on a sprawling estate in the hills or on the coast than twenty stories above sea level. 

The doors opened to a vast expanse of white walls and high ceilings and perfect lighting, with preening gallery goers clumped here and there around soaring canvases of black and gold. 

“Incoming,” Neil said quietly when they’d barely stepped into the room, and Andrew looked up to see a blond god of a man walking towards them. 

“Jeremy,” Kevin said warmly, just before he was engulfed in a hug. 

Neil plucked Kevin’s champagne flute out of his hand with practiced grace and downed it in one go while the two tall, beautiful men held each other tight and murmured unintelligible nothings in each other’s ears. 

“Who’s your friend?” Jeremy asked when he and Kevin finally pulled apart. 

“Andrew,” Neil said, and Jeremy held out a giant hand and Andrew shook it because Jeremy’s warmth was infectious and Andrew didn’t want to put a dent in the glowing look on Kevin’s face. 

“It’s lovely to meet you,” Jeremy said, letting Andrew’s hand go just before it was going to become too much. “Thank you for coming. I always get a little nervous with the new artists. I’m glad y’all are here.” Jeremy was beaming at them, and he wrapped an arm around Neil’s shoulder, pulling him close for a brief moment. 

Andrew sipped his champagne and thought, vaguely, that Jeremy didn’t belong in this world of pretty people and snooty art and jaded assholes who dressed in money and burned any lingering earnestness to ash. 

“Come, Kev, you need to meet the artist.” Jeremy turned to Neil. “Can I steal him for a bit?” 

“Like you need to ask,” Neil said, and with a wink from Jeremy and a half backwards apologetic glance from Kevin, they were gone. 

“That was a lot,” Andrew said, watching Neil snag a third glass of champagne from a server passing with a tray full of them. “Are we in some sort of drinking competition I should know about?” he added with a nod at Neil’s glass. 

“Hmm?” Neil hummed into his champagne, gaze flitting around the room. 

“The champagne,” Andrew said. 

“Yes,” Neil said. He was watching Kevin’s back now, his shoulders tense and the glass almost empty already. “No,” he said, shaking his head and draining the glass. “It’s fine, I’m fine.” 

Andrew frowned. “Neil?” When he didn’t respond Andrew stepped closer and only briefly hesitated before pressing his hand to Neil’s lower back, the nap of the velvet soft and warm under his touch. 

A small shudder went through Neil, and Andrew thought he might pull away, but instead he leaned back, leaned into Andrew, and he relaxed enough to turn a wry grin Andrew’s way. “I hate these things,” Neil said. “Shall we do art?” 

They did art.

They moved in tandem from painting to painting, pausing, looking up and down, Andrew’s hand on Neil’s back, Neil drinking steadily. Occasionally they’d hear Kevin’s laugh, and Andrew watched Neil track him from time to time, but he made no move to get closer. Kevin looked relaxed, happy, snug against Jeremy’s side, but Andrew saw him throwing a look their way here and there, checking in on Neil. 

They didn’t linger long at each painting, which probably had more to do with the people trying to talk to Neil than the art itself. If Neil stood still for too long, someone would sidle up next to him, strike up a conversation, ask him when he was going to grace the world with his next art show, ask him if he was taking commissions, ask him ask him ask him.  

For all of Neil’s warnings about being a dick, his answers were polite, if distant. 

He was clearly miserable. 

By the third interrogation Neil was on his sixth champagne and Andrew was done. He tucked his fingers around Neil’s bicep, grabbed two full glasses of champagne with the other hand, and towed Neil out the heavy glass door to the wide balcony he’d spied two paintings back. 

“What are you doing?” Neil said, hesitating at the threshold. 

“Taking in the view?” Andrew suggested. 

“You don’t like heights.” 

“Kevin told you.” 

“We tell each other everything.” 

“Of course,” Andrew said. He tugged Neil along to the wall farthest from the railing, and leaned against it. 

“Thanks,” Neil said, posting up next to him and taking the proffered champagne. 

“How many more of those before you go British again?” Andrew asked after a minute. 

“Fuck you,” Neil huffed, but his shoulders relaxed a bit more and he let his head fall back against the wall. 

“Why come if you hate it so much?” 

“Jeremy’s a friend. Family, really. And I don’t actually hate it.” 

“Liar,” Andrew said. 

Neil grinned a little, but then it dropped. “I don’t, really. I just.” Neil paused. Andrew waited. “It’s stupid.” 

“Okay,” Andrew said. “Tell me anyway.” 

Neil slid down the wall to sit, and with a slight twinge at the thought of his suit snagging on the concrete, Andrew did the same, until they were shoulder to shoulder on the ground. 

“It feels the same,” Neil said finally. “Everyone wanting a piece of me. It feels the same, as when we were modeling. It puts me on edge. Like I said, it’s stupid.” 

“It’s not stupid,” Andrew said. 

“Jeremy is good for Kevin,” Neil said after a few moments of silence. “Kevin met him at a runway show during fashion week some years ago. They hit it off. I don’t think that Kevin really understood things could be different before he met Jeremy. Before their friendship.”

“And you? Did you understand?”

“I understood everything,” Neil said. He turned to look at Andrew. “My father sold me to the Moriyamas after my mom died. I was property. An investment. It was why she ran with me in the first place, and legally Uncle Stuart couldn’t do anything to keep him from taking me back to the States.” Andrew didn’t react, and after watching him for a moment Neil turned away and kept talking. “He said he’d kill me if I tried to run.”

“Where is he now?”

“Dead.” Neil smiled up at the sky. “He went to prison for insider trading and was killed in a riot.” 

“Anticlimactic,” Andrew said, which made Neil laugh. 

“Yeah,” he said. Andrew dug out his cigarettes and offered one to Neil. They smoked in silence. Neil didn’t say more until his cigarette was at the filter, and he stubbed it out on the ground.  

“It still took a while, after that. To get away, I mean. It was Riko’s jealousy, really, that crumbled everything. Kevin walked the runway, but Riko and I both were too short - we worked editorials. But then Kevin started booking editorials too. He booked a Vogue ad, and Riko was livid, but Kevin wasn’t an investment like me, and Riko hadn’t completely lost it yet. So, Riko took his anger out on me.” Neil rubbed at his chest, just below his collarbone. “It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth time it happened that Kevin walked in on it,” he said quietly. “I had passed out and-” 

Neil stopped when Andrew’s hand covered his mouth. “You don’t have to,” Andrew said. Neil wrapped his fingers around Andrew’s wrist and pulled steadily until his hand moved. 

Deliberately, carefully, Neil laid Andrew’s hand face up in his lap, his fingers resting in the cup of Andrew’s palm. 

Andrew let him, hinged on the moment. 

“I think,” Neil continued on like Andrew hadn’t offered him the out, “it was because Tetsuji had sent Kevin on a look-see for Prada’s new campaign, and he didn’t even bother to send Riko. Kevin booked the campaign. He texted me right after. They told him right on site, which is unprecedented. Riko had me cuffed to his bed before Kevin even got back from the audition.” 

Neil’s fingers had slid to the inside of Andrew’s wrist while he talked and Andrew swallowed back his helpless anger. He wanted to yank his hand away, but he forced himself to still. 

“Like I said, I passed out. Kevin told me later that Riko was cutting my face when he walked in. We figured out that he had drugged me.” 

Neil was tracing music notes now, gaze locked on Andrew’s tattoos, on his scars. His touch was light and soft and Andrew couldn’t look away from the trail of his fingers. 

“Riko overestimated his worth,” Neil mused. “Tetsuji beat him within an inch of his life, and when he recovered enough, I think he’d finally gone batshit crazy. He drugged Kevin and tattooed a number two on his cheek.” 

Neil’s fingers were tucked as far as they could go under Andrew’s suit sleeve now, his thumb rubbing idly back and forth along a scar. Andrew thought he hated it. He should hate it. Still, he didn’t move.

“It was Jeremy who took it to the press. I called Stuart after that. Tetsuji went to prison for human trafficking. The empire fell.”

“And Riko killed himself,” Andrew said. 

“Sure,” Neil said, and he looked up, blue eyes seeking out hazel. 

Andrew lifted his free hand and fit his fingertips against the scars slashed into Neil’s cheek. He let out a breath, and Neil took one in, and there was no movement except for Neil’s thumb ghosting back and forth over Andrew’s arm, his fingers splayed against ancient wounds, and Andrew wondered stupidly when he’d let these two crack his heart open and crawl inside.

“Neil,” Andrew said quietly, and he couldn’t help the dip of his gaze to Neil’s lips. 

“I will never give him up,” Neil said quietly, desperately, his eyes burning a glacial path into Andrew. 

“No one is asking you to,” Andrew said, only barely grasping the thread. 

Neil nodded once, and he pulled his touch away, sliding back down the path of Andrew’s arm, the heel of his hand, the ends of his fingers, and then it was gone. 

Andrew dropped his hand from Neil’s face at the last moment, and bumped out two more cigarettes. They’d just lit them when Kevin appeared, an entire bottle of champagne in hand. 

“There you two are,” he said, softly, delighted. “This is the last place I would look, because you know-” he gestured at the skyline and then sat down facing them, long legs folded criss cross, one knee pressed against Neil’s and the other against Andrew’s. It was calming, the warmth of Kevin’s knee against his, and Neil’s shoulder still at his side. 

Andrew wondered who even the fuck he was anymore that he felt bereft without these assholes touching him. 

Later - after they’d made the rounds again and hugged Jeremy and drank more champagne - a rather tipsy and very British sounding Neil tossed Andrew the keys, and Andrew drove them home. They ordered Thai take out and slid the Chesterfield in front of the big screen and argued over which movie to watch. By the time the second Indiana Jones movie had started, Andrew found himself propped against Kevin’s knees, Neil asleep on his shoulder. It wasn’t long after that that Andrew fell asleep too, Neil drooling on his arm and Kevin’s fingers carding softly through his hair. 

Andrew woke up groggy with a face full of velvet couch and his phone buzzing insistently in his pocket. 

He vaguely remembered Kevin prodding him awake at some point and trying to move him to the leather couch, but Andrew had been undeterred and intent on sleep, so Kevin had covered him in a quilt and tucked a pillow near his head before half carrying Neil to bed. 

Andrew rolled over and dug his phone out. He had a dozen texts from Roland, one from Robin, one from Aaron, and an audio file from Ronan who had apparently learned how to work his phone. Roland had met the love of his life last night and sent one too many pictures to prove it, Robin wanted to know he was safe, and Aaron wanted to know if he could make lunch instead of dinner. 

Andrew squinted sleepily at his phone and shot off replies ( happy for you - i’m at kevin and neil’s - yes, send me the address ) before clicking on the link from Ronan and closing his eyes again. 

Guitar flowed out of the tiny speaker, Ronan’s clever fingers on the strings, and then his voice smooth and deep like honeyed whiskey singing the lyrics Andrew had written about Adam Parrish and Neil Josten and Kevin Day. When it finished Andrew clicked it again, noting the points where Ronan had tweaked the notes or changed a word here or there. It was good. 

Andrew pulled up his contacts and hit CALL next to the raven emoji. 

Ronan answered the phone after three rings. “Fuck you,” he said, and then hung up. 

Andrew smirked and dialed him again. 

“It’s six am Andrew!” Ronan yelled into the phone when he picked it up again. 

“It’s good,” Andrew said. “Really good.” 

“Yeah?” Ronan said, quieter this time. 

“Who’s that?” came sleepily through the phone.

“It’s Andrew. Go back to sleep,” Ronan said, a note in his voice that Andrew had never heard before. 

“Ronan Lynch, is that Adam Parrish in your bed at six am?” 

“Fuck you so very much,” Ronan said, and he hung up again. 

Andrew huffed a tiny laugh and sat up to find Kevin and Neil leaning side by side at the kitchen counter, twin cups of coffee in their hands. Neil was grinning and Kevin’s eyes were as big as saucers. 

“You ghostwrite for Ronan Lynch?” Kevin screeched. 

Andrew blinked at them warily, and Neil’s grin got wider. “Kevin’s a big Raven Boys fan,” he said, and he took a sip of his coffee. 

“But Ronan writes his own songs,” Kevin sputtered out. 

“I don’t think he does, love,” Neil said, his gaze on Andrew. 

“Lost Boy?” Kevin asked. 

Andrew sighed. “Mine.” 

“Last Night of the Wolf?” 

“Mine,” Andrew said. “Any more of that coffee?” 

“Quicksand?” 

“Mine, Kevin. They are all mine. Ronan can’t write a song to save his life,” Andrew said, wrapping his hands around the mug Neil handed him. 

“Oh my god,” Kevin said. 

“You’ve broken his heart,” Neil said with way too much amusement. 

“You can’t tell anyone,” Andrew said into his coffee. 

“We wouldn’t,” Kevin said indignantly. “But oh my god.” 

Neil hopped up on the counter and patted Kevin on the head. “Gullwing?” Neil offered. “It’s nice out.” 

Andrew shook his head. “My dinner with Aaron got moved to a lunch in-.” He tapped on his phone. “In Queens, what the fuck.” 

“Gross,” Neil said, scrunching his nose. Then he shrugged. “Well, stay for breakfast. You can shower here. I’m sure I have something you can wear, and then just, take the Gullwing to Queens.” 

Andrew stared at him. 

“Yeah, I’ll go get bagels,” Kevin said, with a quick kiss to Neil’s cheek. 

Andrew nodded about as dumbly as he ever had in his life, and that is how he found himself pulling up to the curb of White Hall Jerk Hut in Queens four hours later, smelling like Kevin’s shampoo and wearing Neil’s skinny jeans and driving a vintage Mercedes the likes of which wet dreams were made. 

Aaron was standing on the sidewalk with a petite, curvy woman, gaping at him as he parked illegally right in front of the restaurant. 

“What the fuck Andrew, where did you get that car?” 

“It’s a friend’s,” he said with a shrug. 

“A friend’s,” Aaron repeated, staring at it. “Can I?” he asked, hands hovering. 

“Hi, I’m Andrew,” Andrew said drily to the woman, who was clearly trying not to smile in amusement. 

“Fuck, right, sorry. Andrew, this is Katelyn. Kate, this is my brother.” 

“Clearly,” Katelyn said. She didn’t try to shake Andrew’s hands and he gave her points for that. “Nice to meet you Andrew. Shall we?” Katelyn cocked her head at the restaurant, a hole-in-the-wall nestled in a strip of hole-in-the-walls. The place was clean though, and so was Aaron today - bright eyed and focused, greeting the staff by name and settling them into a table in the far corner. 

The server dropped off three glasses of fresh guava juice with the menus. “Good to see you Aaron,” she said with a warm smile and the barest lilt of a Caribbean accent. 

“Thanks Essie, you too. Is the breadfruit ripe today?” 

“Sure is,” she said. “We’ve got just one and it has your name on it.” 

“Great,” Aaron smiled. “My brother is a vegetarian.” 

Andrew startled a bit at that. He wasn’t sure Aaron had even noticed. But. This Aaron. This is one he hadn’t seen before. Confident, talkative, friendly. Andrew’s theory about Katelyn had to be true; she was here because Aaron was sober today. 

“I can eat things that have meat in them,” Andrew clarified. “I just don’t like the texture of meat itself.” 

“Ah! Well then. We have pumpkin soup on today,” Essie said. 

Aaron’s face lit up. “Andrew, do you mind if I order for you?” Katelyn and Essie were watching him expectantly, so Andrew nodded slowly, and then watched in thinly concealed surprise as Aaron ordered a string of things without even looking at the menu. 

“Aaron is an amazing cook,” Katelyn said when Essie had gathered their menus and walked away. 

“I don’t know about amazing,” Aaron said, his ears a little pink. Andrew sipped his juice. 

“He is,” Katelyn affirmed. 

“I don’t cook a lot of vegetarian,” Aaron said slowly. “But I could. If you wanted.” 

“Okay,” Andrew said. 

“You could bring your friend,” Aaron said slyly. 

“There’s two of them actually,” Andrew said, ignoring his tone. 

“A dinner party then,” Katelyn suggested brightly. “It’ll be fun.” 

“Sure,” Andrew said. “I can bring them.” 

“Great,” Aaron said awkwardly. 

“Great,” Andrew parroted. 

Katelyn rolled her eyes and proceeded to carry the conversation for them until the food came, chattering about hospital gossip, and Aaron’s to-die-for bolognese, and prompting Andrew with innocuous questions about his life in LA. 

It wasn’t long before Essie was back, loading their table with plate after plate of shared dishes. Aaron pointed out what Andrew didn’t recognize: the pumpkin soup, rich with spices next to a dish of fragrant rice and peas, boiled green banana, breadfruit smeared with butter, fried plantains, and a pungent pile of greens called callaloo. There was a pile of jerk pork next to curry chicken and something called oxtail, too, but Andrew ignored those as he piled his plate. Andrew wasn’t a foodie by any means, but everything was delicious, and he went for seconds on the pumpkin soup. 

“That’s my favorite too,” Aaron said, watching him. “They stew like three kinds of root vegetables for hours, and there’s cock broth and stuff that you can’t really get here at a regular supermarket. They don’t always have it because the vegetables are hard to find too, but there’s a good Caribbean population in New York, so we are lucky.” 

Andrew set his spoon down and raised an eyebrow. “Cock broth?” 

“It’s a packet,” Aaron said. “Cock like chicken, not like-” he stopped and blushed. 

“Not like what?” Andrew prompted. 

“Oh, fuck off,” Aaron said grumpily, stuffing a piece of jerk pork in his mouth, but he grinned a little, and Katelyn laughed, and Andrew dipped into the soup again and felt like maybe things might just be a little bit okay.

Chapter Text

Kevin watched Andrew squeeze across two lanes deep of bumper to bumper taxis outside LaGuardia without a glance in either direction before sliding into the backseat of the Aston Martin and shoving his leather carry-on onto the floorboard. 

Something settled in Kevin’s chest the moment Andrew slammed the door closed and the three of them were reunited, ensconced in the quiet and warmth. He hadn’t realized how on edge he’d been this week; Andrew back in L.A. for work, and their loft feeling less than and empty to him for the first time since they’d flown the Moriyama’s nest. 

“Here,” Andrew said, and when Kevin turned to look at him he was met with a face full of fabric that was soft as a baby’s blanket and smelled like the sea. It dropped to the console and Kevin grabbed it and shook it out. 

“It’s a-,” he started, and then realized what he held. “Holy shit, Andrew. It’s-”

“What is it?” Neil asked, throwing a quick look Kevin’s way before pulling out into traffic. He reached over to paw blindly at him. 

“Quit it,” Kevin said, batting him away. “Don’t get us killed. It’s a vintage Raven Boys shirt, with their first album cover on it.” 

“There’s a note,” Andrew said, his face and tone giving nothing away. 

Kevin worked at the safety pin that was holding the folded piece of notebook paper to the green t-shirt. He read it quickly, and then again, and he felt a flush spreading across his cheeks that he was helpless to stop.

“Well?” Neil prompted, sparing a quick glance from the road again. “Share with the class?”

Kevin cleared his throat. “For Kevin Day - even if it’s a little gay to fucking fan boy out when you’re famous yourself. Anyway, this was mine, now it’s yours. Andrew said it would match your eyes. x’s and o’s and shit, Ronan Lynch.” 

“It’s the first shirt we pressed,” Andrew said. “He wanted you to have it. Wouldn’t even let me wash it first.”

“Bribery,” Neil said. “He doesn’t want Kevin to out his ghostwriter.”

Andrew snorted softly.

“Oh my god,” Kevin breathed, ignoring both of them and staring down at the shirt in his hands, running careful fingers over the faded design across the front. His brain was snagged on the thought that Andrew had talked about him to Ronan, talked about his eyes, talked about him enough that Ronan had sent Kevin the literal shirt off his back for Andrew’s...friend? Was this friendship? It felt like more. “Thanks,” Kevin said quietly, folding the shirt carefully in his lap.

Andrew didn’t answer, just leaned forward, propping one elbow each on the back of Kevin and Neil’s seats, close enough that the fabric of his armband brushed the back of Kevin’s ear. 

It was comfortable silence with the skyline of New York City spread out in front of them through the windshield, the late October sky stark blue with nary a cloud and the leaves on the trees lining the Hudson were deep orange and gold and beautiful. 

“Jean’s cooking tonight,” Neil said once they were in the city proper, stuck idling in midmorning Manhattan traffic. “We’re heading over early to help Renee with something, if you aren’t too tired.”

“Ropes?” Andrew asked.

“Yeah,” Neil said, finally sneaking around a stopped Uber and turning onto their street. 

“She’s got a suspension with a new rope bunny at Eden’s next week and wants to test out some new ties on Neil first,” Kevin added, and he turned to catch Andrew’s subtle indrawn breath, to trace the tendrils of want that had been growing in Andrew’s eyes over the last weeks, tucked into the gilded corners, tripping against the light when he watched Neil - when Kevin watched him watching Neil. 

“I’ll take a nap,” Andrew said, resolutely not looking back at Kevin, and Neil beamed and pulled into their garage. 

The evidence of Andrew’s slow migration into their loft was spread out before them when they stepped off the elevator, scattered and entrenched and imbued with belonging. 

The entire far left side of the loft had become Andrew’s; the squishy leather couch divested of its back cushions, effectively transforming into a permanent twin bed, and piled with no less than three pillows and five quilts (because Andrew gets cold, and Neil had developed the habit of bringing quilts home for him from bougie stores he passed on his runs). 

His guitar was here too, propped up on a stand that Neil rescued out of some alley, and one of the coffee tables had been turned into Andrew’s desk, littered with sheets of staff paper. Kevin had even cleared out three of the wall cabinets for Andrew’s clothes once Robin had officially moved in with Allison. 

Andrew hadn’t said, but Kevin and Neil figured out pretty quickly that Robin’s empty apartment had been a slow and steady assault on Andrew’s well-being. When Neil suggested he just go ahead and “move in already,” Andrew had barely hesitated. 

They had fallen together like things had always been this way: Andrew, giant headphones over his ears, plucking at his guitar and humming, bits and pieces of nascent Raven Boys songs the ongoing soundtrack to their lives; Neil tucked in his corner with the light, covered in paint and generally half dressed, occasionally remembering to order food for them all; Kevin, ducking in and out of his dark room, in and out of the loft, camera in hand, warmth buzzing in his heart. 

Andrew had quietly started organizing their space too, actually taking out the trash, putting leftovers in the fridge instead of the counter, signing them up for Hulu and a grocery delivery service. 

It was nice, to never run out of coffee and creamer and bagels and peanut butter, and they were obsessed with Letterkenny now - steadily working their way through all nine seasons each night, the three of them on the Chesterfield with good scotch and bad take-out, Neil leaning on one of them, his feet propped on the other.  

“Do you wanna take the bed?” Kevin offered after Andrew had dropped his bag by his couch and kicked off his shoes. Andrew looked at him, the tiniest hint of surprise on his brow. Kevin shrugged lightly. “That way you can close the door and we won’t bother you while you nap.”

Andrew nodded. “Wake me up in time to shower.”

***

Neil was magnificent in the ropes, but it was the look on Andrew’s face that took Kevin’s breath away. He crouched on the far side of Renee’s sunken living room, his camera raised, Neil cradled and suspended in red between Kevin and Andrew. 

Click.  

He adjusted the focus, so Neil was a blur of tattooed skin and red rope, bringing Andrew’s face into focus in the distance. 

Click.

Renee pulled her last rope taut, tying off a final knot, and then leaned in to whisper in Neil’s ear. Kevin couldn’t hear them, but Neil nodded slowly and Renee brushed a careful hand along his limbs before stepping back to survey her work. She wouldn’t leave the room while he was in ropes, but she’d give him space to float for a bit before bringing him down. 

Neil was suspended sideways, his calves bound to his thighs with laddered diamond criss-cross knots, his arms confined behind him in an intricate chest harness. His torso was tilted slightly down, eyes closed, face blissed out. Neil didn’t like most people to see him like this - at least, not in person; Kevin had done an entire exhibit of Neil in ropes for Jeremy’s gallery when Renee first started tying him. But Renee liked to practice on him, and Neil liked to fly in the ropes, and Andrew here now was the first time that someone who wasn’t Kevin or Renee or Jean was seeing it first hand. 

Andrew being here was a big deal. 

Except. It wasn’t.

Renee had set Neil to spinning, ever so slowly, and Kevin could capture every angle of him without moving. There would be lines later, on Neil’s skin, temporary markings that Kevin would run his fingertips over like a meditation. 

Click.

Neil spun, drifting, until his face was towards Andrew, and suddenly Andrew was on his feet, moving carefully towards Neil with the grace of a jungle cat. Kevin exchanged a glance with Renee, because nothing seemed to be wrong, but he remembered Andrew helping Robin down from the ropes, and maybe he saw something Renee didn’t. Renee just shook her head slightly though, a considering look on her face as she turned back to Neil. 

Kevin settled, and lifted his camera to catch the moment that Andrew slid a firm hand along Neil’s jaw and tilted his face up.

Click.

Kevin stood up, worked his way around opposite from Renee and closer to Andrew and Neil until he could see Neil’s whole face, and when he could, he froze. Andrew had his fingertips tucked under Neil’s chin, his thumb pressed against Neil’s bottom lip, and Neil was looking up at him raw and open and vulnerable and fuck.  

Kevin wanted to capture it, but he couldn’t seem to lift his camera, stuck stock still staring at Neil, suspended and held, cracked asunder by Andrew’s touch. Neil blinked, and then looked at Kevin, and a low noise came from the back of his throat, and Andrew slowly pulled his hand away. 

Andrew’s gaze was still fixed on Neil and Neil was looking at Kevin and Kevin lifted his camera. 

Click.

They said nothing, for Kevin didn’t know how long, the three of them in this triangle, pinned in place. Kevin’s heart thudded out of control in his ears and then - and then -  Renee was beside Andrew, pressing a hand into his arm gently, and Andrew startled subtly before looking up at Kevin, before turning on his heel and walking out of the room. Kevin stared after him as Renee started to bring Neil down, feeling pulled in two impossible directions. 

He couldn’t follow Andrew though, because Neil would need him when he was out of the ropes. He got floaty and brain fuzzy in suspensions, and Kevin would carry him off to the spare bedroom and wrap him up in warmth and love and safety and hold him until he came back on line. There was nowhere else that Kevin would be when Neil needed him like that - trusted him like that - but as he watched Renee’s clever fingers work, as she reversed the knots and pulled the red rope through and through and through, a question was burning in Kevin’s mouth. 

A question for Andrew. 

Neil was dopey and languid when Renee turned him over to Kevin, kissing Neil’s temple sweetly, chastely, before heading into the kitchen to help Jean. Kevin bundled Neil in his arms and herded him to the second guest room, which had a cosy king bed piled with pillows and blankets and nominally belonged to Allison when she stayed over with Jean and Renee. The window shades were already drawn and the giant salt lamp sculpture in the corner gave off a warm glow.

Kevin leaned against the headboard and opened his arms and Neil poured himself into them. He had only a pair of small, tight shorts on, so Kevin pulled one of the soft faux fur throws over him and handed off the water bottle Renee had left on the side table. 

“Good?” Kevin asked, fingers slotting soothingly into the rope marks around Neil’s bicep. Neil made an incomprehensible noise against Kevin’s neck and then sighed, and it was nice. Lovely. Familiar. As regular as clockwork how he and Neil fit together. Kevin propped his chin on Neil’s head and thought he would give him anything, everything; thought about how he was starting to see that he could give Neil even more - give himself even more.

Andrew.

It shimmered behind Kevin’s eyelids, just out of reach, this thing that could-be should-be might-be, how it would all come together, the possibility of two becoming three and becoming whole. 

The thing is, Kevin paid attention - to Neil, specifically, but to all those he cared about really. He actively cultivated awareness now, because before...he didn’t. He’d had his head in the sand about Riko, about what he had been doing to Neil - what he had been doing to Kevin - and they had both paid a dear price for his obliviousness. It had been a lot of work to forgive himself, and some days he wasn’t sure he had, but Kevin was fiercely determined that it would never happen again. 

And now. Well. Neil said he was fine, sure, and he was. Kevin knew Neil loved him. But was Neil getting everything he needed from Kevin? Kevin didn’t think so. And all he wanted to do was to give it to him. 

There was a single knock at the door, halting Kevin’s train of thought. Neil mumbled against Kevin’s chest, and he pulled him tighter and said, “Yeah?” 

Andrew stepped in, face somehow both impassive and hopeful at once. It was painful to look at, squeezing Kevin’s battered and twice-healed heart in a vice. 

“S’Andrew,” Kevin murmured into Neil’s hair.

Neil nodded against Kevin’s chest and reached out a blind hand behind him. 

Andrew took it. 

Neil pulled steadily until Andrew was crawling across the bed and settling next to Kevin against the headboard. 

“You ran away,” Kevin said quietly. 

Neil opened his eyes and blinked up at them. 

Andrew didn’t deny it. He shrugged a little, not looking away from Neil. “I came back,” he said. 

Neil was looking steadily back and forth between them, the blue of his eyes midnight and velvety in the low light. The vice squeezed tighter around Kevin’s heart, and he couldn’t have stopped the words that tumbled out of his mouth if he wanted to. 

“Is it just him?” Kevin asked Andrew softly. 

It hurt, but there was no other choice. He had to ask or be burned to dust, no matter what the answer was. Neil tensed in Kevin’s arms, and Kevin fought a brief stab of panic, because fuck Neil was coming down from the ropes, and this was the worst time to do this, and fuck fuck fuck. Then Neil relaxed again, and Kevin took a halting breath, and Andrew was looking at him, at Kevin, those eyes of his pure amber and fire, angry and not angry all at once. 

“No,” Andrew said, after an age, after the Roman empire had been built and fallen and the entire universe had stopped and started again. “It’s not just Neil.” 

Neil sat up, pushing off of Kevin’s chest, his eyes wide. Andrew looked at Neil, and Kevin lost the thread, lost track of everything, couldn’t comprehend the silent question that was being asked, didn’t understand Neil’s careful nod, his whispered, “Yes,” and Kevin thought Andrew would lean to Neil, but he didn’t - he didn’t. 

Instead, Andrew reached up to slide a hand behind Kevin’s head, and he pulled until Kevin fell off the edge of the world and into Andrew’s kiss. 

It was a free fall, tumbling out of control, until suddenly - suddenly and irrevocably - it all snapped into place. Andrew’s kiss was seeking and Kevin let himself be found, let himself be told over and over with the press of lips, “It’s not just Neil, it’s you too, it’s us, us, together, Kevin, Kevin…”

Andrew’s warm hand slipped to Kevin’s cheek, and it was safe, and good, and Kevin reached for Neil and Neil was there, fingers entwined with his, and when Andrew traced the seam of Kevin’s mouth with his tongue, when Kevin opened for him with a small gasp, Neil’s fingers tightened on his and the answering noise he made was primal. 

Andrew pulled back, eventually, after god knows how long, after thoroughly spinning Kevin into a new orbit. 

“Hmphn,” Kevin said stupidly, scrambling after his breath and his senses. Andrew’s forehead was pressed to his, and his small huff of laughter in response ghosted across Kevin’s cheek. Kevin wondered if Andrew was just as wrecked as he was, and then Neil made a small noise and they both turned to look at him as one. Neil was. Oh. 

Neil was very, very still, eyes very, very wide, half his bottom lip drawn between his teeth and his grip on Kevin’s hand was steel. 

Andrew reached out, pressed his hand to Neil’s face and Neil softened, just a little, leaned into Andrew’s touch like a cat, another small strangled noise escaping his lips.

The question still hovered, shimmering in the air between them. Neil took a quivering breath and shifted, and Kevin realized Neil was hard, the outline of his dick stark in the small shorts, the blanket having fallen from his shoulders when he sat up. 

“Neil-” Kevin started, but Neil cut him off with a sharp shake of his head, pulling rather violently out of Andrew’s touch. Kevin froze, and he felt Andrew tense beside him, but then Neil shook his head more gently, and he was crawling towards them, curling up between them. He laid his head on Kevin, pulled Andrew’s arm across his ribs. Kevin shared a look with Andrew, and then, “Neil?” he tried again cautiously. 

“Not right now,” Neil said, and he turned his face into Kevin. Andrew was rigid, his face doing something complicated, but then Neil pulled him closer, said, “Stay,” and Andrew’s shoulders relaxed an inch. 

Panic warred with elation in Kevin’s chest, confusion swirling uncomfortably in his stomach, but he clamped it down, reached for the blanket to pull over Neil and held him, Andrew a steady, silent presence at his side.

***

Dinner was a nightmare. 

Well, that was perhaps unfair. Jean’s cooking was divine as ever - osso bucco with polenta and stuffed roasted bell peppers, charred broccolini and lemon braised artichokes. But Kevin was living a nightmare; the food tasteless in his mouth, Neil at the other end of the table, Andrew across from him, and the feel of Andrew’s kiss still tender and uncertain on Kevin’s lips.

Neil had roused himself when the rest of the crew arrived, Allison’s voice drifting through their door from the hall. He climbed out of his Kevin-Andrew nest and got dressed, smoothing his hair and slipping out of the room without a look back at the two of them. Kevin and Andrew had followed silently, Kevin fighting every urge to grab them, to drag them home, to sort this out. 

Instead, Kevin sat, both of them too far away, winding himself tighter and tighter into a ball of anxiety and poking at his food. He took a healthy swallow of the really excellent wine in front of him and looked up to find Renee watching him. He frowned, and she smiled, and then Allison commanded her attention with talk of some steampunk thing she planned to drag them all to - post-Halloween of course, because who dressed up on actual Halloween anymore? 

Robin was tucked next to Andrew, and at least he had the chance to distract himself catching up with his erstwhile roommate. Jean had made ratatouille for them, since neither of them ate meat; it looked amazing, but the unctuous heavy aroma of tomato and olive oil was only serving to turn Kevin’s already flighty stomach. 

“Kevin,” Seth said, a hint of amusement in his tone. 

Kevin turned a wary gaze on his seatmate. Seth was solo tonight, but the table balanced out because of Andrew. Jean and Renee, Allison and Robin, Seth, Kevin and Neil and...Andrew. An intimate table to be sure, but still twice as many people in the room as Kevin had the capacity to deal with right now. 

“What?” he snapped. Neil’s gaze flew up at his tone, guarded but searching for a moment before Jean unavoidably tugged his attention away again. 

Seth visibly sobered though, and his eyes were kind when he asked, “Hey dude, you okay?” 

Kevin let out a sigh and picked up his fork again. “Yeah, shit sorry,” he lied. He forced a smile. Seth narrowed his eyes, watching him, but didn’t push it, turning back to his own plate. 

Determined to avoid any more concerned looks, Kevin steeled himself, dusted off his old media training, and pulled on the plastic persona he had abandoned with his modelling career. It was enough to fool everyone except Neil and Andrew and Renee, but none of them said anything as Kevin led the conversation for the rest of the night - charmingly commiserating over working with models with Robin, teasing Seth fondly about Bartholomew (“He gave good head, okay?” Seth laughingly protested), waxing poetic about Jean’s vanilla poached pears paired with blue cheese and a delicate moscato. 

He avoided Renee and Allison because they’d known him for too long, and while Allison seemed blessedly distracted enough to not notice the thin veneer Kevin was spackling over his distress, he certainly didn’t want to call her attention to it. 

He avoided Neil and Andrew too, resolutely, totally, until - pears cleared away and compliments to the chef filling the air - Neil stood up from the table abruptly and disappeared into the kitchen. That did get Allison’s attention, and she stared after him for a moment before turning to narrow her eyes at Kevin. Before she could open her mouth though, Andrew stood up - smoothly - and followed Neil into the kitchen, and there was nothing for it now but for Kevin to go too. 

Kevin stopped just short of reaching Neil. His back was to them, his hands braced on the counter, the scotch Renee kept just for him in front of him but no glass in sight. Neil turned around as soon as he heard them. 

“What are you doing?” he demanded of Kevin. 

“Freaking the fuck out,” Kevin said, shattered, his hands open placatingly at his side.

His voice sounded raw even to his own ears, and Neil’s face fell catastrophically, all the nascent anger draining, and in two big steps he was in Kevin’s arms, face pressed into his neck, fingers curled tightly in the hem of his shirt. Andrew stepped close, put a hand to Kevin’s low back and the other to the back of Neil’s neck, and Neil shuddered in their hold. 

“We need to go home,” Neil said, muffled. He pulled back and said it again, looking at both of them. “We need to go home, right now.” 

“Go,” Renee said from the doorway, startling them. She ignored that, making her way to the sink with a pile of dishes that Kevin was pretty sure were a manufactured excuse. “Go, I’ll make your apologies,” she said, and her voice was kind. 

Neil didn’t hesitate, just turned, exited the other side of the kitchen to circumvent the dining room, and Andrew and Kevin followed him because of course they did. 

It was cold, and they had a twenty minute walk. Kevin hadn’t thought about their coats, but Andrew had. He must have snagged them somehow, though Kevin didn’t know when - just that he handed Kevin his, and Neil his, before shrugging into his own. 

They walked shoulder to shoulder and briskly all the way home, Kevin’s mind racing. Neil had given his yes. Kevin worked it out pretty quickly once Andrew’s lips were on his; it had been Neil’s consent for Andrew to kiss Kevin. It had turned Neil on, clearly, and then - what? They needed to talk but he didn’t even know where to begin. The question he’d had for Andrew had bloomed fully formed, and Andrew had answered it with that kiss, but Kevin didn’t know what was going on in Neil’s head, only that he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Neil wanted this, and that maybe, just maybe, they could have it.

“Neil, what-” Kevin said when they’d almost reached their building.

“Not yet,” Neil cut him off, resolutely, but he took Kevin’s hand in his and held on tight.

Their elevator was slower than ever, Andrew closed off but watching, the three of them tucked together in a moving box and the air taut with silence. 

“Finally,” Kevin breathed when they came to a stop, and he shoved the gate open.

They barely made it through the threshold before Neil was turning, and Andrew was right there, and Kevin was still tethered to Neil when Neil said, “Yes,” and then Andrew was kissing Neil and Neil was kissing Andrew and Kevin was inches from them as his heart climbed into his throat and took up residence, and...

Holy. Fucking. Yes. 

It was insistent, hungry, yearning; the intensity coming off of them like a heat wave and the warmth of it unfurled a smile of satisfaction on Kevin’s lips. It was stunning. Overwhelming. 

It was everything Kevin had hoped for. 

Neil’s quiet noises were beautiful, and that final puzzle piece snapped into place with such a resounding crack that it took Kevin’s breath away. He let go of Neil’s hand because he had to, had to step back from them to see the picture come into focus, to glory in the rightness of it, the affection he felt for the two of them - Neil, the light of his life, Andrew, the fuel that had set them both ablaze with possibility.

Kevin was swept up in it, on fire and burning, and so he missed it - he missed it - when something shifted, changed so swiftly that Kevin couldn’t clock it, because in one moment Neil was in Andrew’s arms, and Kevin was there with them, and it was good - it was perfect - and then suddenly Neil had shoved back, was gasping for breath, was staring at Kevin, his hand held out between them, opening and closing over and over, in slow motion, grasping at air. 

“Neil,” Andrew said, cautiously. 

“I-,” Neil croaked. He closed his eyes, dropped his hand. Kevin held his breath, terrified to set off whatever powder keg had just landed at their feet. “I can’t,” he said, opening his eyes, and then he was moving - past Kevin, past Andrew. 

Neil was running. 

“Neil, wait!”

Neil’s hand was on the gate. 

“Abram!” Kevin tried, desperate. 

Neil paused, but he didn’t turn, his grip on the iron turning his knuckles white. “I’m not running.”

Kevin took a tentative step, but it made Neil visibly tense. Andrew hadn’t moved, and Kevin couldn’t quite bear to look at him yet. “Don’t,” he said. 

Neil nodded, once, and Kevin didn’t know what the fuck that meant, what was happening, only that Neil was leaving, and Andrew was frozen, and Kevin’s world was crumbling into so much sand running through his fingers.

It wasn’t until the elevator gate crashed closed, the car disappearing slowly with Neil pressed against the back wall and staring at his feet, that Kevin began to think that maybe he had it all wrong: instead of snapping the last piece of the puzzle into place, he had flipped the table and scattered the whole damn thing to the floor.

Chapter Text

Kevin was in a spiral of panic, but he didn’t realize he was shaking until Andrew stepped to him.

“Kevin,” Andrew said, wrapping strong hands around Kevin’s wrists to hold him still. “Stop it.”

“Can’t,” Kevin said through gritted teeth.

“Yes you can,” Andrew said firmly, calmly. 

“I fucked up,” Kevin said, mumbling, shaking hard. Andrew pushed towards him until he was sitting, suddenly below Andrew, looking up at him. Andrew stepped between his knees, a port in a storm, a safe harbor. 

“I don’t know why I thought you two would have talked about this while I was gone,” Andrew muttered. He sounded annoyed - as annoyed as Andrew ever sounded - but he was running a soothing thumb across the heel of one of Kevin’s hands, and Kevin focused in on the touch. 

“Sorry,” Kevin whispered. 

“Kevin,” Andrew said, his voice a tether. “You need to get it together for a minute. Where would he go? We need to go get him.”

Kevin nodded quickly, clenched his teeth tighter to keep them from chattering, wanted to curl up in the bed and not talk for days, but Andrew was right, they needed to go get Neil. 

Kevin really, really wanted to go get Neil.

“Allison’s,” he said. He thought about it. “Maybe Jeremy’s, if he thinks Allison is still at Renee’s.” 

“Call them,” Andrew said, and he let go of one of Kevin’s hands to let him dig his phone out. 

Allison didn’t answer, which meant she was still at the party, so Kevin left a message and tried Jeremy. Once it was ringing Andrew hauled Kevin back to his feet and to the elevator, hitting the recall button. The thing started it’s slow ascent and Kevin thought, frustrated, that it was time to rip the whole thing out and put something faster in or he was going to lose his goddamn mind. 

“Hey!” Jeremy’s voice came through the phone warm and a little drunk. 

“Did Neil call you?” Kevin rushed out in greeting. 

“No, what’s wrong?” Jeremy asked, immediately serious. 

“Nothing. I don’t know - is he, are you home?” Kevin mumbled.  

“Yeah, what do you need?”

“Nothing just - can you stay there? Let me know if he shows up?”

“Of course,” Jeremy said. “But what happened? Let me help.”

“I-,’ Kevin stopped mid sentence because the elevator had finally arrived, and Neil was still in it, slumped down to the floor, arms propped on bent knees, staring at them through the metal gate. “Fuck. It’s. He’s here, Jeremy. I gotta go.”

Terror gave way to relief and then anger in quick succession, and Kevin flung the gate open and yelled, “What the fuck Neil?” 

Neil blinked at him. “I didn’t run,” he said. He didn’t make any moves to get up.

“You sure the fuck did!” The dregs of Kevin’s fear only served to fuel his anger, and he would have said more except Andrew shoved him towards the elevator and Kevin stumbled when his feet took a second to catch up. 

“Sit,” Andrew said, turning on his heel and walking back into the loft.

Kevin sat, sliding down the side wall of the elevator and stretching his legs long until his feet touched Neil’s, and it soothed something - just a little - when Neil didn’t pull away. “You scared me,” Kevin said, drained to quietness. 

Neil nodded, but didn’t say anything to that, and then Andrew was back, a bottle of scotch in his hand. He sat too, leaned against the wall across from Kevin, opened the bottle, and took a healthy swallow before handing it to Neil. 

“Talk,” Andrew said, kicking Neil’s foot, which jostled Kevin’s. 

Neil contemplated the bottle in his hand before bringing it to his lips and taking his own swig. “This is a very expensive bottle of scotch for trash drinking,” he muttered, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“Neil,” Andrew said. 

“I know, just.” He turned to look at Kevin, the twin stars of his eyes burning. “You let me go.”

Kevin frowned. “What?”

“You let me go,” he bit out. “Is that the plan? To just, turn me over to Andrew? To not have to -” he stopped. 

Kevin wasn’t sure there was any air left in his lungs, was pretty sure he pulled it out of the marrow of his bones to ask, “To not have to what?”

“To not have to be with me!” Neil rushed out. “To not have to touch me, to-” he shook his head. “And now - and now I want this, oh god, I want this so much.” He flung a desperate hand towards Andrew before pulling it back into his lap. Neil took another swallow from the bottle and blinked at Kevin, his entire heart quivering in his gaze. “I don’t want to lose you,” he said, fervently, and he turned to look at Andrew. “I don’t want to lose you either.”

“You’re the only idiot that ran away in this scenario,” Andrew said bluntly, but Kevin saw the caress in the movement when he kicked Neil’s shoe again. 

“I have several things to say,” Kevin said carefully, “But - I don’t know what you mean that I let you go.”

“You dropped my hand,” Neil said.

“I dropped your hand,” Kevin repeated. 

“When Andrew kissed me-”

“When we kissed,” Andrew clarified.  

“When we kissed,” Neil said with an eye roll. “Kevin dropped my hand.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Kevin said with a frown.

Neil huffed. “I am not saying it made sense, I’m just - I don’t know, you let go of my hand and I panicked. You said you didn’t want me to be stuck with you. You said I could fuck other people. And then this started happening,” he twirled a hand between the three of them wordlessly, “but it didn’t feel real, not until you two kissed and all of a sudden everything was very, very real. And if it’s real, then I can lose it.”

Kevin stared at Neil before leaning forward to snag the bottle from him. He took a long enough swallow that he coughed with the burn of it. 

He took a breath, and another. 

And then.

“Neil Abram Josten you are an idiot if you think I am ever - ever - going to let you go,” Kevin said vehemently. “I let go of your hand because I had to step back, so I could see every fucking piece of both of you when you kissed because it might be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and fuck if I don’t want to, to photograph the two of you kissing, to - I don’t know - photograph the two of you fucking, because - oh my god - but in every scenerio I’m there too. I am there too. With you. With Andrew.”

Kevin took another swig of the scotch. He’d been looking at Neil, who was gaping at him, and he turned to Andrew to find him watching Kevin with a considering look on his face, so Kevin steeled himself and...kept going, quieter, looking at Neil intently.

“I know, okay? I know that I am- that I can’t give you everything you want in bed, but what if Andrew can? What if you can give each other the parts I don’t have to give? And you for him? What if this is just, what if it is just fucking perfect? And what about the fact that that doesn’t even matter because I feel like he’s ours now either way, so what the fuck, Neil, because I love you and I will never stop loving you and I’m falling in love with Andrew and I think you are too, so, are we doing this or not?”

Neil went very still, a subtle but obvious change because Neil was always in motion  -  fidgeting, tapping a finger, moving his hands, his feet. So when he went still, it was a deafening silence.

“It can’t be that easy,” Neil said after a very long, very quiet moment. 

“Why not?” Kevin said, frustrated. 

“Because!” Neil started. “Andrew-“ He didn’t finish his sentence, just looked at Andrew beseechingly. 

“Because Andrew what?” Kevin didn’t wait for Neil to respond though, turning to Andrew too. “Why did you come home with us? That first night?”

“To fuck,” Andrew said, a hint of something - approval? At the corner of his lips.

“And why have you stayed?”

Andrew hesitated.

“If we have to do this, you have to do it too,” Kevin pushed. 

Andrew glared at him, but he said, “Because I want this.”

“You want to be ours?” Kevin asked, a quiet hope coloring his words. 

Andrew reached forward, held his hand out, and Kevin met him halfway to give over the scotch.

“Yes,” Andrew said, once he had a hand tightly wrapped around the bottle.

Half of Kevin’s heart started beating again at the word. 

Andrew took a sip of scotch before raising a casual eyebrow at Kevin. “Did you just say that you want to photograph me and Neil fucking?”

“Oh my god,” Kevin groaned, and he thunked his head against the wall. He thought he might be blushing, but he didn’t fucking care. Andrew was smirking, and it was a gorgeous look on him, but Kevin snapped his gaze back to Neil, though, because Neil...snorted. He had the back of his hand pressed to his mouth and he….snorted again. And then he was laughing. Fucking laughing, but he reached out, and he was reaching for Kevin, who didn’t have the bottle, so Kevin took the hand of his stupid laughing boyfriend and yanked him until he tumbled half into Kevin’s lap. 

“It’s not funny,” Kevin muttered, but he couldn’t be mad, not with an armful of Neil, not with Andrew here with them, not with a careful hope permeating the air. 

Neil eventually quieted and sat up, a lot closer to Kevin this time. Neil reached for Andrew, hand open, palm up, and Andrew took it, sliding closer. 

“Okay,” Neil said quietly into the space between the three of them. “I’m in.”

Andrew nodded slowly, then gripped Neil’s chin, tilting his face up and holding him steady. There was the weight of something Kevin didn’t entirely understand in his voice when Andrew said, “Do not do that to me again. You are not the only one in this elevator with issues, and I’ve worked too hard on mine to have them trampled on.”

“I won’t,” Neil said seriously. A promise. 

Andrew searched for something in Neil’s eyes for a moment, and he must have found it because his shoulders relaxed a little. “You tell me when it is a no. I will always respect it,” he said, a promise in return. He looked pointedly at Kevin too, after Neil had nodded into his grip. 

It was a promise for all of them. 

They got out of the elevator eventually, when their frayed nerves had been soothed by silence and scotch and careful touch. It was almost midnight, and while that didn’t really mean anything to the three of them, the emotional rollercoaster of the day and the tentative promise of tomorrow had wrung Kevin out entirely. There was so much more to talk about, but Andrew wanted to be theirs and Neil hadn’t run - not really - so for now Kevin could crash land because he was out of words and he could trust that his boys would still be there in the morning. 

“This way,” Neil said, snagging the hem of Andrew’s shirt when he walked out of the bathroom and started to head for his couch. It was Kevin’s turn to pee and brush his teeth, but he paused, watching the two of them, watching Andrew’s small nod, watching Neil tow him towards their bed. 

Good. 

Kevin came out of the bathroom to find Neil sitting on the edge of the bed, Andrew standing between his knees, the electric light of the city at night bathing them both in faded neon. Kevin propped against the doorway and Neil’s quick glance said that he knew he was there. 

“Try again?” Neil said, his voice barely a whisper, his hands gripping Andrew’s hips, and Andrew carded his fingers in Neil’s hair and kissed him. 

It was different this time, languid and soft and pliant, and Kevin desperately had to get closer to them. He crawled into the bed behind Neil and stretched out, propped up on one elbow, his body curved like a comma around them. Kevin slid his hand under Neil’s shirt, pressed palm to skin, warm and grounding; he was fascinated, fixated even, and the intimacy of being here with them was precious and pure. 

Neil moaned quietly when Andrew licked into his mouth, and Andrew moved like it was some sort of signal, pushing against Neil until he tumbled back into Kevin and Andrew crawled into Neil’s lap, straddling him, holding him there, kissing him, Andrew’s musician fingers wrapped tight around Neil’s wrist and pressing into Kevin’s chest. 

After eons, after Kevin was lost and found twice over, they broke the kiss, and Neil pushed himself farther onto the bed until he was flush against Kevin before pulling Andrew back down. Andrew licked at Neil’s jaw, kissed his neck, and Neil tilted his head back on a sigh, making eye contact with Kevin. 

“Is this okay?” Neil asked him, the words turning into a moan as Andrew bit down on Neil’s collar bone, but then Andrew was looking up at Kevin too, waiting for his answer. 

“More than okay,” Kevin breathed. He didn’t know what made him do it, but he swiped his thumb across Neil’s slick bottom lip before doing the same to Andrew: a benediction. And that was it, Kevin saw it happen, saw the moment Neil let go, let openness seep into his heart and lungs and sineue, the moment Neil offered himself up in every capacity to this. Because Neil didn’t do anything halfway. Because once he was committed, Neil wouldn’t run, or hide, or hold anything back. 

It was one of the things Kevin loved most about him. 

Andrew tugged his shirt up and off, the muscles of his biceps looking like sculpted marble under pale skin. He tucked fingertips under the hem of Neil’s shirt next and cocked an eyebrow at him. Neil breathed, “Yes,” and then Kevin was helping Neil pull his shirt over his head and jesus christ they were both so fucking gorgeous and - funny or not - Kevin’s hands twitched for his camera. Neil was smooth planes of ropey muscle, his body a canvas reclaimed by tattoos, his face the kind of beauty that you could hurt yourself on; he was a stunning counterpoint to Andrew’s coiled power, his reserved promise backed by solid muscle and a quiet beauty that you could trust. 

They were glorious together. 

Andrew kissed down Neil’s neck, his chest, licked his nipple, palmed him through his boxers, and Neil arched off the bed - simultaneously pressing into Kevin and reaching toward Andrew. Kevin fucking loved it. He fucking loved them, and this was surreal and amazing and everything.  

“What do you want?” Andrew asked huskily, keeping Neil pinned in place with one hand on his dick and teeth nipping at his neck. 

“Everything,” Neil groaned. 

Andrew chuckled and pressed his face into Neil’s neck and Kevin reached out to brush the hair out of Andrew’s eyes so he could see his face. 

“I could blow you,” Andrew said. 

“What about you? I want you- I want you too, I want you up here. With us,” Neil babbled. 

Andrew huffed and kissed Neil quickly and fiercely before leaning up, looking at Kevin with a question in his eyes, and Kevin answered it with his own kiss, just as Andrew had for him. 

“Lube?” Andrew rasped out when he pulled away. 

“Bathroom,” Kevin said. “I can get it.” He started to shift out from under Neil, but Andrew stilled him with another easy kiss - shockingly easy considering the journey they’d trekked in the last few hours. 

“Stay,” Andrew commanded both of them, and then he kissed and licked his way down Neil’s body, slid Neil’s boxers deftly to his thighs, and swallowed him down in one go before popping off with an obscene noise. 

“Oh my fucking god, ” Neil ground out, and Andrew grinned wickedly before disappearing into the bathroom. 

Kevin barely had time to kiss Neil - Neil panting and needy and biting Kevin’s bottom lip - before Andrew was back. 

“Off?” he asked, the lube in one hand and one finger tucked in the boxers shoved down Neil’s thighs. 

“Off off off,” Neil said, and Andrew made quick work of Neil’s boxers before stepping out of his own, Andrew’s cock nestled in blond curls and already straining against his hip. Andrew crawled back over Neil and handed the lube off to Kevin with a pointed look, and Kevin made quick work of the cap while Andrew made quick work of riling Neil up again. 

When Neil was a writhing, moaning, mess under Andrew, he held his hand out for the lube and Kevin was there, ready for him. Andrew wrapped his lube-slicked hand around him and Neil together, and Neil gasped, and Andrew kissed him messily and Kevin felt warmth flood his body. 

This had been building for too long, and neither of them lasted. There would be time for slow, time to dismantle each other bit by bit, time to take their time. 

Tonight though, It was moments, minutes - seconds maybe - before Neil came with a raw groan that tore Kevin apart, Andrew right behind him with a soft moan that put Kevin back together again, and he held onto them both with everything he had because he was exactly where he wanted to be. 

***

Kevin woke up alone in messy sheets with sunbeams in his eyes and the soft thrum of guitar strings in his ears. He stretched decadently, dragged himself from the bed to pee and pulled on sweats and a two-day old flannel. 

Andrew was tucked into the corner of his couch, hair a disaster, guitar propped in his lap. He looked up when Kevin flopped on the Chesterfield. 

“C’mere,” Kevin said through his yawn. 

Andrew raised an eyebrow, but he set the guitar aside. When he was close Kevin patted his lap once, and Andrew raised both eyebrows, but Kevin just grinned sleepily at him. “Morning,” he said. 

“It’s past noon,” Andrew said, but he climbed onto Kevin’s lap, and Kevin gave him time to settle, to brace his knees on either side of Kevin’s thighs. 

“Hi,” Kevin said, pleased with absolutely everything. 

“You are an oversized person,” Andrew said grumpily, but he tucked his hands behind Kevin’s head amicably enough. Kevin just grinned back at him. He was rumpled and glowing in the soft light; Andrew in the morning was Kevin’s favorite, and one of these days he’d have to drag himself from bed with the sun to catch the first rays on his face with his camera. 

Kevin brought his fingers to Andrew’s face, tracing his cheekbones, lightly brushing the ash pale stubble of his jawline. Andrew watched him stoically as Kevin pressed firmly into the crease between his brows with both thumbs and smoothed outward, as he laid his palms flat on Andrew’s temples, made small circles with his fingertips at the edges of his nose. 

Kevin’s roving fingers had just found the shell of Andrew’s ear, eliciting a shiver with a light touch just behind his neck, when Andrew murmured, “You said you were falling in love with me.” 

Kevin paused for the barest moment before continuing the trail of touch down Andrew’s throat and back up the sides of his neck to tuck into the hair behind his ear. 

“Yes,” Kevin said. “You don’t have to say anything about it.” 

“I’m not going to,” Andrew said, but he leaned forward, captured Kevin’s lips with his own, kissed him earnestly, and Kevin let himself get lost in him all over again.

Which is how Neil found them tangled up on the couch, making out like high school kids when he walked in with a cardboard carrier full of lattes and a giant, shiny black shopping bag. 

“I bought a bed,” he announced, plopping down on the couch next to them, a gloop of foam popping through the lid of one of the lattes and landing on his hoodie. “Shit,” he mumbled, swiping at it. 

Andrew slid off of Kevin’s lap and snagged two of the cups, handing one to Kevin. “What kind of bed?”

“Big one, king size, so we can all fit,”  he said. 

Kevin and Andrew blinked at him.

“What?” Neil said, blowing on his coffee. “I passed a decent looking store on my way back. That Mitchell Gold Bob blah blah one that Allison likes. They are delivering it tomorrow.”

When no one said anything Neil started to look a bit unsure. “I thought we’d keep the queen in there too? I guess it is weird to have two beds like that, but we have the room, and that way if one of us needs space some night, at least we’ll still be together.” He trailed off. “Why are you two looking at me like that?”

“Because, Neil,” Andrew said, amused. “You went running and came home with a bed.”

Kevin couldn’t tamp down his smile. “At least it wasn’t a quilt this time.”

Neil hummed and looked away, sipping his latte nonchalantly. 

“You didn’t,” Kevin said. 

“Oh but he did,” Andrew said, snagging the shopping back and pulling out the quilt inside. It was tumbled silk, fluffy and light and the color of a whitewashed blue sky. 

“We didn’t have a king sized one,” Neil said, stubbornly not looking at them, but Kevin could see the grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

“Ridiculous,” Andrew said, but he commandeered it, wrapped himself like a burrito in the billowy cloud of blanket and leaned back against Kevin to drink his coffee. 

They vegged on the couch, letting the caffeine seep into their veins, tapping at their phones and stealing corners of Andrew’s blanket, until Neil resolutely set his cup on the table and turned until he could lean against the armrest of the couch, socked feet plopped in Andrew’s lap. “We need to talk,” he said. 

“Do we? I’m still recovering from yesterday’s talk,” Kevin said warily. 

“Sex,” Neil said matter of factly. 

“Boundaries,” Andrew added before sinking his teeth into the edge of his cup. 

“I thought we did pretty okay last night,” Kevin said.

“Well yes,” Neil agreed, and his face started glowing. 

Andrew kicked him. “Don’t do that.” 

“Do what?” 

“Your face.” 

Neil grinned and kicked him back.

“What exactly are we talking about?” Andrew asked, when they quit kicking each other. 

Kevin shrugged a little. “Me, probably,” he said. He didn’t really want to have this discussion, but it wasn’t fair not to. It had been a cobbled together (mis)understanding between him and Neil for far too long, and now Andrew was involved too, which meant it was time to air it out. “We should have talked about this a long time ago.”

“Probably,” Andrew agreed dryly. 

Neil kicked him again. 

“So violent,” Andrew huffed, but he dropped a hand to Kevin’s ankle, grabbing hold and grounding him. 

Kevin contemplated the plastic lid on his latte and tried to figure out where to start. “I liked last night,” he said slowly. “A lot. I am okay - more than okay actually - with being there for anything you two want to do, but I think that, most of the time, I don’t want to participate.”

“Kevin,” Neil choked out, and Kevin blanched at the look on his face. 

“No! That’s not what I mean.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have never done anything with you that I did not want to,” Kevin said, and he fucking meant it. “I really like getting you off, it makes me happy. And sometimes I am okay with being more involved.” 

“I would never ever want you to do something you didn’t want to do.” Neil looked stricken. 

Kevin’s heart clenched. “Can you just come here?”

Neil climbed off his end of the couch immediately, and Andrew shifted to make room, and then Neil was in Kevin’s arms, Andrew a steady weight against both of their legs. 

“So,” Kevin said against his hair, trying to figure out how to explain something he didn’t entirely understand himself. “You want to have sex with me right?”

Neil snorted softly and turned to smash his face against Kevin’s shoulder. “Pretty much all the time. But you don’t want me like that, do you?” Neil asked, the question muffled by the flannel of Kevin’s shirt but the words and the careful hurt behind them ringing loud and clear. 

Kevin sighed. He was so fucking bad at this. “Neil, it’s not you. I think it’s just how I’m wired. If anything, you are the only one I’ve ever even wanted to have sex with at all, okay? Well, and now maybe Andrew.” Kevin winced a little at his own maybe, but Andrew just started rubbing small calming circles on his ankle so he plowed on. “I’m going to try to explain, so just...let me get through this?” 

Neil nodded against him.

“I want things with you, like I want to grab hold of you and never let go, like you make my heart so warm and alive, like little things you do make me feel like I have to put my hands on you and kiss you, but it doesn’t -” Kevin huffed a little in frustration at his own inadequate words and ran his free hand through his hair. “Look, sometimes, yeah, I do want sex. But most of the time, I don’t, and sometimes… sometimes when we are having sex, I get so in my head about it that I just can’t be a part of what is going on anymore.”

Neil made a quiet noise, and Kevin wasn’t sure what it meant, but he didn’t interrupt him, and he was still warm and present and so very much Neil in Kevin’s arms. 

“It’s different, though, when I am just doing things for you,” Kevin said quietly. “Like, the pressure is off of me, and I get to make you feel good. I love making you feel good. I love to make you come. I liked jacking you off in the shower last time and the look on your face after. You kinda glow, all post orgasmic and soft.”

“He does,” Andrew agreed. “Glowy face.”

Neil snorted a little again, but didn’t say anything. 

Kevin reached over Neil’s shoulder to card his finger’s in Andrew’s hair. “Same for you,” he said quietly. “Everything I said, the same for you.” Andrew leaned back into his touch like a cat.

Neil eventually let out a shuddering breath and sat up a little, sandwiched between Kevin and Andrew. “Okay,” he said. 

“Okay?” Kevin repeated tentatively.

“ Yes, it’s okay. Fuck, it’s okay if you never want to have sex again. I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I didn’t say never,” Kevin said. 

“Okay,” Neil said again. “But if it was never, that would be okay too.”

Kevin couldn’t help it, he wrapped his arms around Neil again and pulled him in and kissed him. 

“So, can we talk about literally anything else now?” Kevin said when they broke apart. 

“Breakfast?” Andrew suggested.

“We have Lucky Charms,” Neil said. 

Andrew rolled his eyes. “I’ll make pancakes, you heathens.”

“Oh I am so glad we’re keeping him,” Neil said cheekily, and Andrew shut him up with a kiss on his way to the kitchen.

Chapter Text

Neil was having more sex than he’d ever had in his life. Really, really good sex. 

It wasn’t just the sex though; it was the feeling of completion, the realization that they’d been missing something this whole time, the way that home felt so much more like home with the three of them in it. 

Neil should have been terrified. He had been terrified. But his terror had spawned only from how much he wanted this, how much he’d thought it couldn’t possibly be that they got to have this. That after surviving the Moriyamas, after getting the chance to build a life with Kevin that worked for them, after everything they survived, well-

They should have been happy enough, he told himself. 

They should have been content with what they had, he told himself. 

And they were. 

They had been. 

Except, no one had ever told Neil there was another option. Because now there was a this. There was Andrew. And it was good. So incredibly fucking good. 

Neil had big feelings about it all, and big feelings for him generally meant an even bigger canvas. 

It was gloomy and gray outside - not quite raining yet, but threatening to - when Neil realized the painting was finished. Neil had the loft basically to himself; Kevin had been in his darkroom for hours and Andrew was out. He took a minute to step away from the canvas and flip the record - because they had a record player now, and most days Andrew came home with another weird find in hand from some hidden basement record store. Last week he’d brought a moody Swedish bluegrass band, and Neil had been obsessing over it hard enough that Kevin had hidden it on top of the highest cabinet in the kitchen and Neil had to parkour the counter to get it back down again. 

Neil set the needle on the spinning record, climbed back up his ladder, and considered the canvas laid out in front of him. Lavender swirled, silvery like moonlight. The deepest blues, lines of ochre, pale sage greens limning edges of emerald, soft swaths of velvety brown buffeted against the deepest garnet red. The paint glowed on the canvas and pulled you in right to the center. Neil had worked only in oils since he’d hunted for the color of Andrew’s eyes, and that triumph was here too, the perfect meld of light and amber and flashes of olive green flung against Neil’s own colors of arctic blue iced over with shining white highlights, wrapped in grays and rich russet. The lines of Kevin brushed through it all in ebony and grass green, with deep grounding violet connecting everything. 

Neil let his gaze slide easily over his heart splattered out in paint before him, letting the painting lead him, spiral him in. It was Neil on a canvas. It was always Neil on a canvas - all instinct, no plot, just a moment in time, a brush in hand. 

Usually there was shrapnel when Neil painted like this. Tender skin and ragged shell torn asunder by the emotional explosion on the canvas. But this time. This time, it didn’t hurt. It was Neil on a canvas, but he wasn’t alone; Kevin was there too, and Andrew, and this whole messy, beautiful thing they were building together, slashed out in every color, every line, every press of paint.

A slow, warm smile crept over Neil’s face, and he climbed down from his ladder and started cleaning his brushes. He had just flipped the record again when Andrew came in, hidden under scarf and hat and heavy coat. He had a new record wrapped in shiny plastic, which he promptly unwrapped and put on the player after liberating Neil’s Swedes. 

“Hey,” Neil protested, wiping turpentine off his hands.

Andrew just raised one eyebrow and placed the needle. Sultry, swingy, old timey notes filled the loft, and Andrew grinned, just a little, a flash across his face and gone. “It’s time to stop torturing Kevin,” he said. 

Neil huffed and closed the distance between them, grabbing one end of Andrew’s scarf and unknotting it, then stealing his hat, unbuttoning his coat. Andrew watched him steadily, stoically, and when Neil had unwrapped him he leaned in, slid cold hands across cheeks until they were buried in Neil’s hair, and kissed him hello.

“S’cold,” Neil said against his lips, leaning back just enough to cover Andrew’s freezing nose with his warm hand. 

Andrew glared at him for all of three seconds before his attention snagged over Neil’s shoulder. “You finished,” he said, and Neil couldn’t deny the warmth that flooded him. It wasn’t a question. Andrew didn’t have to ask if it was finished; he knew it was by looking at it. 

Neil turned around to look at the painting. “Yeah,” he said. His eye traveled the same lines of the canvas even from across the room, and they stared at it together, quietly, before Andrew grabbed his hand and pulled him along in his wake, detouring to rap three times on the door to Kevin’s darkroom before continuing his path to the foot of the canvas. 

He didn’t let Neil go when they rocked to a stop, didn’t let Neil go when Kevin ducked out of the darkroom behind them with a groggy, “What?” followed by an, “Oh,” and then Kevin was tucked to his other side, staring with them. “You finished,” he breathed reverently. 

Neil nodded. 

“Holy fuck,” Kevin said. 

Neil nodded again. 

It was so obviously them. Tangled and entwined, messy and impossibly perfect. The oils glowed back at them, taking everything Neil had thrown at the canvas these last weeks - his love, his fears, his want, his need, his Kevin, his Andrew - and somehow making it beautiful. Evocative. Mesmerizing. He stripped himself bare for this one, but what came out of that rawness wasn’t ugly, wasn’t terrifying. It was hopeful. He liked it. 

“Kevin?” Andrew murmured. 

“Andrew?” Kevin murmured right back. 

“Chances that you are up for helping me take our boy apart?”

“Hmm,” Kevin said, not looking away from the canvas. “Chances good. High chances.” He finally turned, hooked an arm around Neil and hauled him up, and Neil was caught up in the shine of Kevin’s eyes, his hand still wrapped in Andrew’s when Kevin kissed him thoroughly. 

“We’ll be late,” Neil said breathily, not really complaining, not willing to stop whatever momentum Kevin had right now - but they were supposed to meet Aaron for the first time in less than two hours. 

“No,” Andrew said, the word landing on Neil’s neck to send a shiver straight to his dick. “We’ll fuck you, and then we’ll shower, and then we’ll go. We’ll be right on time.”

Well, when he put it like that. 

Neil liked it best when it was the three of them, when Andrew laid him out just like he did now, naked and wanton on the giant bed. Kevin stretched next to them, and he got Kevin’s kisses too, Kevin’s hands on Neil’s cock, but it was Andrew who hooked Neil’s legs up and around his hips, Andrew’s clever fingers that worked him open, Andrew’s palm on his neck and his words in Neil’s ear when he pressed into him, slow, so slow, so tantalizingly careful. It was Andrew, but Kevin was there, he was there too - his hand in Neil’s hair, smiling down at him when Neil looked up through damp eyelashes. When he came, Andrew came with him, and Neil’s orgasm was a wash of paint in his blood, an explosion of shapes behind his eyelids, a riot of colors that don’t have names in this universe. 

Neil had barely caught his breath when Andrew shifted half off of him, towards Kevin instead of away, and Neil blinked his eyes open to find them kissing just inches from his face, and even though Kevin had kept his jeans on, Neil could see he was half hard. 

He gathered enough wits to wiggle a bit closer, to lean up and nuzzle into Kevin’s neck. “Kevin?” 

Kevin broke his kiss with Andrew to whisper, “I told you it’s not never.” 

Neil tried and failed to stifle the wide smile that stretched across his face. “Want me to blow you?” he asked, in Kevin’s ear. 

“Yeah,” Kevin said, his voice husky and soft. He tugged at Neil’s hair, and they kissed, and Andrew propped next to them, tracing patterns on Kevin’s palm with one finger while Neil kissed gently down Kevin’s chest, licked at his hip bones, freed him of his jeans, and sucked him off hard and fast just like Kevin liked. 

Neil swallowed him through his orgasm, then captured Kevin’s hand to kiss his fingertips before resting his head on Kevin’s thigh and closing his eyes. Kevin buried his hand in Neil’s hair, and Neil felt Andrew’s finger land on his nose, tracing it to the tip and then tapping once. He cracked an eye open. 

“That was hot,” Andrew said. 

Kevin huffed a weak laugh.

“Maybe next time Kev will loan you his camera.” 

“I wasn’t kidding about that,” Kevin said. 

“We know,” Andrew and Neil said in unison, and Andrew thumped Neil on his nose this time. 

“We might be late now,” Andrew said, rolling off the bed. 

“Sorry, not sorry,” Neil said. He groaned when Kevin moved underneath him, and tried to flop boneless on the bed, but his boyfriends each grabbed a hand and hauled him up and to the shower. 

They were late, but only by five minutes, so Neil counted it a win - or he did until he managed to Park the Aston Martin outside Aaron’s building just as the sky fell out in torrential rain around them. 

“Wouldn’t be about to get soaked if we weren’t late,” Kevin said, wrinkling his nose. 

“Worth it,” Neil said. 

Andrew led the way, jogging down half the block. Neil ducked his head to avoid the rain, and almost crashed into Andrew’s back when he stopped abruptly just underneath the (thankfully) generous overhang in front of the apartment building entrance. 

Neil looked around Andrew to find a short, pretty woman wrapped snug in a khaki trench coat, a domed umbrella open rather uselessly over her head, her face a riot of barely contained emotion - she was fully under the overhang, which Neil was not. He pressed a little against Andrew and Andrew stepped forward. Neil barely kept himself from shaking off like a dog. 

The woman had her arms wrapped around her waist, the stem of the umbrella pressed against her shoulder, and Neil was momentarily distracted by the striking colors set off by the gray dim of early evening that hit the city when it rained: wildfire hair almost the same color as Neil’s, the bubblegum pink of her umbrella, the bright red of her boots. 

“Katelyn,” Andrew said tightly, his tone immediately putting Neil on edge, and causing Kevin to step up a little closer behind them. 

“I tried to call you,” Katelyn said with a tight shrug. “But he wouldn’t give me your number.” 

“I see,” Andrew said. 

Neil did not see, at all. Kevin moved around him, more under the overhang, raindrops glistening at the tips of his hair as he stepped forward, hand out and a mask of friendliness pulled over his features. “Hey, I’m Kevin,” he said, and Katelyn shook his hand, not entirely managing to hide the look of surprised recognition that flashed over her face. 

“Katelyn,” she said, her accent drawing the syllables out pleasantly, even around her clenched jaw. 

“This is Neil,” Andrew said, his tone fully monotone now. Katelyn didn’t try to shake Neil’s hand, just nodded. 

“He’s pissed I left,” she said to Andrew. “I just waited here to warn you. I think you should reschedule.” 

Neil was absolutely missing something, but he bit his tongue, watched the silent exchange between Andrew and Katelyn - who Neil at least knew was Aaron’s girlfriend - and then Katelyn nodded at all three of them, and set her chin at a determined angle. She paused though, just at the edge of the overhang, the very edge of the merry umbrella catching raindrops and rolling them off dutifully. “He’s not always like this,” Katelyn said, so quietly that Neil almost didn’t catch the words, and then she disappeared into the rain. 

“What the fuck?” Kevin said on an exhale, but Neil was watching Andrew fold in tightly on himself and he reached out to give Kevin’s wrist a quelling squeeze. 

Andrew said nothing, just marched to the lobby door and pulled it open. Neil and Kevin followed Andrew into the elevator, and Andrew tucked himself in the far corner, staring at the doors that had closed behind them, his face unreadable. 

It was either a blessing or a curse that this elevator moved at light speed compared to the one at their loft. There was no time to talk, to tease words out of Andrew before the elevator alighted on the 19th floor. They stepped out together and Andrew paused, back still turned to them. 

“He’s a drug addict,” Andrew said. “Katelyn left because he is high.” 

“Okay,” Neil said. He tapped the back of Andrew’s hand, and Andrew reached back, let Neil squeeze his hand once before letting go again and striding briskly down the hallway. 

Andrew knocked hard three times on the door. They waited, and waited, and just as Andrew raised his hand to knock again, the door swung open. 

It was a small shock, seeing Aaron for the first time. Neil knew he was staring, but it was like looking at an old tintype photograph. Aaron was Andrew’s identical twin, and those pieces were there - their hair the same ethereal ashy blond, the same plush lips, the same slightly too small nose. Aaron was a little thinner though, lacking the muscle that Andrew meticulously maintained, and while his eyes were the same haunting shade of hazel, they were red-rimmed and squinty, the kaleidoscope of color in his irises dull behind a glassy sheen. 

Aaron looked like he’d been crying, but he smiled a weak smile at Andrew and stepped back, barely sparing a look at Neil and Kevin. Andrew glanced back at them before following his brother in, and the closed off look on his face cracked Neil’s heart. 

It was a small apartment, and it smelled nice - like garlic and onions and baking bread - but a quick glance at the stove showed that dinner preparations had been abandoned. The stove was off, the oven cold, and there was a bottle of red wine with the corkscrew half buried in the cork, the wings of it sticking straight up in distress. 

“Come in,” Aaron said, waving at them vaguely, even though they already had, in fact, come in. “Are you going to introduce me to your friends?”

“Boyfriends,” Andrew corrected, his voice as flat as Neil had ever heard it. 

Once again Kevin stepped up to bat, held out a hand, and said, “It’s so nice to meet you, Aaron. I’m Kevin.”

Aaron stared at Kevin’s face in a way that made Neil bristle, before whipping his gaze to Neil. He gaped a little, making no move to take Kevin’s hand. 

“Aaron,” Andrew said. Neil heard the warning in it, but Aaron clearly didn’t. 

“Your boyfriends-” he said, his tone dripping with censure, though Neil didn’t know if it was because they had dicks, because there were two of them, or because of who they were, “-are Kevin Day and Nathaniel Wesninski?”

Neil didn’t grab Andrew’s arm, because he knew better, but he did step in front of Andrew, effectively blocking his path to Aaron without touching him, holding out his own hand and pasting his model smile brilliantly and aggressively on his face. “I prefer Neil,” he said. 

Aaron managed to read the room in a brief moment of clarity, and reached out to shake Neil’s hand. “Shit, sorry,” he mumbled. He shook Kevin’s too, then stepped back and looked around. “I uh-,” he ran a hand through his hair. “Katelyn got held up at the hospital, actually. She won’t be able to make it.”

“Did she,” Andrew said. 

“Yeah, um. And I forgot - um.” He looked lost, staring at the kitchen and then the door for long enough that the silence was stretching into uncomfortable. Neil almost felt sorry for him; this was Andrew’s brother, he was wearing Andrew’s face, and he was clearly not okay. 

“Andrew?” Neil said quietly. He meant what do you need, how can we help, what do you want to do?

“He needs to eat,” Andrew said quietly. 

“I’m on it,” Kevin said quickly, clearly just as desperate as Neil was to do something. He brushed Neil’s shoulder when he passed. 

“Aren’t you going to offer us a drink?” Andrew asked when Kevin was gone. 

Aaron blinked at him. “Oh, yes. Yeah, Katelyn brought some wine.”

“Yesterday, you must mean,” Andrew said. He was already in the kitchen, opening the wine. 

“What?” Aaron didn’t follow him, just kinda collapsed on the couch. 

“Since Katelyn is stuck at the hospital, she must have brought this wine over yesterday,” Andrew said carefully. He pulled out three glasses, filling one with tap water and the other two with wine. Neil watched him open cabinet by cabinet after that, searching, until he had placed another bottle of wine and a bottle of Johnnie Walker on the counter too before sliding them out of Aaron’s view.

“Right,” Aaron said, nodding a little sloppily. “Yesterday.” He had sunk further into the couch and actually closed his eyes. 

Andrew handed the wine to Neil and then kicked Aaron’s shoe. He didn't even startle, just blinked his eyes open slowly. 

“Sit up, drink this,” Andrew said.

“I don’t want wine,” Aaron said. 

“It’s water,” Andrew said, squatting down in front of him. 

Aaron struggled to sit up, to take the cup in both hands from Andrew, and some fucked up part of Neil wanted to paint the tableau in front of him; Andrew and Aaron face to face, one brother broken, the other trying not to break.

“What are you on?” Andrew demanded when Aaron had finished the water and handed the cup back to Andrew like a toddler. 

“What?” Aaron bristled, throwing a wild look at Neil who was still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room double fisting cheap red wine. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“What pills have you taken, Aaron?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired,” he said sullenly, trying and failing to sit up straight. 

“Here,” Neil said, holding a glass of wine out to Andrew. Andrew glared up at him, but Neil met the look unflinching and raised one eyebrow at him. “I have to pee. Aaron?” he said brightly. “Bathroom?”

“There’s only two doors, one’s the bathroom,” Aaron said with a hand flap at the short hallway behind him. 

“Fantastic,” Neil said, setting his glass on the table next to Andrew. It was pretty clear with Andrew’s collection of bottles in the kitchen that he wanted the substances out of Aaron’s apartment, and this, at least, was something Neil could help with.

The first door he opened was the bedroom, and while Andrew could probably see him, Aaron wouldn’t be able to. Neil ducked inside, closing the door until it was barely ajar. Aaron lived alone, and it was likely that he didn’t bother to hide his stash all that well. He started with the bedside table and immediately found two small orange bottles - Percocet for Joseph Kleinfeld in one, Klonopin for Samantha Gonzolas in the other. Neil pocketed them and made quick work of the crooked dresser, the pockets of Aaron’s coat hanging on the back of the door, and his messenger bag - a search that yielded another bottle of Klonopin and one valium, all prescribed to patients who were decidedly not Aaron Minyard. It was barely two minutes before Neil was in the bathroom, making appropriate noises while he did a rudimentary search that came up empty this time - addicts don’t keep their drugs in bathrooms that their disapproving girlfriends might use. 

“More wine?” Neil asked with fake cheer, brushing past Andrew and straight to the kitchen. 

Andrew followed him, crowding him next to the counter. “What are you doing?” 

“This,” Neil said, emptying his pockets onto the counter. Andrew stared at the bottles. He picked one and then then another up, carefully reading the labels. “This should be most of it. It could be worse,” Neil added. “There’s no oxy or morphine.” 

Andrew’s gaze snapped to his. “And you know this how?” 

Neil shrugged. “My mom,” he said quietly. “What do you want to do?” 

“We’ll take it all with us when we leave,” Andrew said. 

“We can take him home with us, too, if you want,” Neil offered. Andrew didn’t answer. “It’s your home, Andrew. If we need to-” 

Andrew cut him off with a sharp shake of his head. “He won’t come, and I am not going to make him.” 

“Okay,” Neil said. He shoved the bottles closer to the pile of alcohol, out of sight from Aaron, before refilling their glasses, since that’s what they were ostensibly in the kitchen to do.

Andrew and Neil settled on the opposite end of the couch from Aaron to wait for Kevin to get back, and Andrew clicked on the TV - some dumb action movie. It wasn’t long before a couple low thudded knocks at the door announced Kevin’s return, and Neil hopped up to let him in. Kevin’s arms were overloaded with bags, which explained the low thuds; he must have knocked with his foot. 

“I didn’t know what to get, or if Aaron is a vegetarian like Andrew,” Kevin said sheepishly, sliding his bags on the counter. He frowned at the pile of bottles, but didn’t say anything, just watched in silence while Neil emptied one of the food bags and then filled it back up again with prescription drugs and booze. 

They ate, crowded around the coffee table, the TV on, Andrew stoic as he shoved Aaron into some semblance of upright and handed him a takeout container of baked penne. Neil peppered Aaron with innocuous questions about med school and South Carolina to keep him awake, and Andrew managed to bully him into finishing half of his food and another full cup of water. Five minutes later Aaron had slumped onto the couch, his mouth hanging open alarmingly, but his breath steady and even. 

Neil slid two fingers to his neck; his pulse was strong enough. “He’ll be fine Andrew, he’s just asleep.” 

“Fuck,” Kevin breathed. 

Andrew batted Neil’s hand away from Aaron and clicked the TV off. Neil and Kevin watched Andrew arrange his sleeping twin on the couch for a moment, and then Neil slipped into the bedroom to grab a blanket while Kevin started dealing with the mess in the kitchen. 

“Okay?” Neil asked, watching Andrew stand stock still in the middle of the living room, staring at Aaron. 

“No,” Andrew said. “Let’s go.” 

Neil and Kevin exchanged a look, grabbed the bag of drugs and alcohol, and followed Andrew out. 

The rain had stopped while they were inside, the patchy dark clouds above them already breaking apart to show the full moon that had been hiding behind them. They climbed into the Aston Martin silently, and Neil turned them towards home, ignoring the buzz in his chest for now. It had been a long time since Neil had cased an apartment for drugs or checked the strength of a pulse, but he could hear his mom’s slurred speech and feel the clammy touch of her skin under his fingertips like it was yesterday. 

This wasn’t about him though. Andrew was tucked into the front seat, staring out the window, his face a shuttered mask, his body leaning away from both of them. 

Neil made a split decision and cut across two lanes of traffic suddenly, taking the exit for the Brooklyn-Queens expressway. 

“Holy shit!” Kevin shouted, grabbing for the back of Neil’s seat as two separate cars blared their horns at them. “What are you trying to do besides kill us?”

“Not taking us home just yet,” Neil said with a quick glance at Andrew, but he didn’t protest, just blinked back at Neil impassively. 

It was only a thirty minute drive to Queens. Neil parked a few blocks away from their destination, and Andrew didn’t ask any questions, just zipped his coat and put on his hat and followed Neil and Kevin silently to the chain-link fence.

“What is this?” Andrew finally asked, when they stopped to stare up at the giant circus-like structure illuminated by moonlight. 

“Ask Kevin,” Neil said with a quick flash of a grin, and then he hopped a foot up the fence and clung there before climbing up and over. 

“It’s the New York State Pavilion - built for the 1964 World’s Fair,” Kevin said. “And we are one hundred percent not supposed to be here.” 

“Obviously,” Andrew said, a hint of his usual dry sarcasm back in his voice, and Neil smiled to himself as he heard the two of them scrambling over the fence behind him.

It took a little while - Andrew standing off to the side at first while Neil and Kevin explored - but after the third orbit Neil made around him, Andrew joined in with their bullshit, claiming it was just to keep warm. Neil grinned at him and bounced off more walls until a tiny grin slipped onto Andrew’s face too and he joined them in earnest, climbing half crumbled piles of rubble and running roughshod over the modern ruin.  When they were out of breath and warm and loose, they propped up shoulder to shoulder against one of the concrete walls, just under faded painted letters proclaiming “ SKATE RENTALS.” The stars were out now, the moon impossibly bright, and it felt like an entirely different night than the rain soaked one they walked out into hours ago.

“Did you know that they were supposed to tear this down after the World’s Fair?” Kevin said after a while. “It was too expensive, though, so they left it.” 

“I did know,” Neil said.

“Only because I’ve told you before,” Kevin said. 

“I didn’t know,” Andrew said, shoving a little against Neil’s shoulder. It was the first he’d touched either of them since they’d left Aaron’s apartment, and it settled Neil’s heart a little. 

“This whole floor was a concrete mosaic map of New York - like, the largest map ever. It had gas stations on it.” Kevin gestured out in front of them. 

“What else?” Andrew asked.

“It was a roller rink for a while,” Kevin said. “And that yellow color on the trusses is called American Cheese Yellow. That’s not original though, they repainted it in 2015.” 

“It’s hot when you go nerdy,” Neil teased, and Andrew actually huffed a small laugh. 

They stayed until their teeth were chattering with the cold, and then piled back into the car. Neil blasted the heat, put on some chill music, and Kevin leaned forward to offer his hand up on the console. Andrew took it, curling their fingers together, and Neil wrapped his hand around the both of theirs and headed for home. 

Chapter Text

“Why the fuck do we have to do this?” Ronan asked for the eleven billionth time.

“You know why,” Andrew said.

Ronan frowned and squinted, his face in miniature on Andrew’s laptop screen. 

Andrew sighed. “Click the little window, top left of your screen.”

“Fucking fuck,” Ronan said. He leaned closer to his own screen until Andrew could practically see up his nose. “I hate everything. Just move back to L.A. so we can do this in person.”

Andrew rolled his eyes and shifted the guitar on his lap. “I’m not moving back,” Andrew said. He plucked a note and then another, ignoring the string of steadily more inventive cursing coming through the fancy speakers he’d linked to his computer. 

“Fine then, I’m moving to New York,” Ronan declared.

Andrew snorted without looking up. The idea of an unfettered Ronan Lynch roaming the streets of Manhattan was laughable. He’d burn the city down within a week. He needed the wide open spaces of California, places to run away to when people got too peopley. “Sure,” Andrew said. “We’ll go apartment hunting.”

“Apartments,” Ronan scoffed. 

“We’ll pick out curtains,” Andrew said.

“I can pick out my own curtains,” Ronan muttered, and then, “There! I can see you now.” When Andrew looked up Ronan was pulling his own guitar into his lap, and Adam had appeared, grinning devilishly.

“I’m glorified tech support,” Adam said. He licked the side of Ronan’s face and disappeared again, and Ronan wrinkled his nose in mock disgust, but Andrew could tell he was pleased, the faint blush giving him away. 

“Cute,” Andrew said dryly. 

“Fuck you,” Ronan said. 

Andrew quirked the smallest grin - there and then gone again - and said, “Count us in.”

It was past midnight when they perfected the song, but Andrew was wired from it, just like he always was when he wrote music, bending the notes and the melody to his will. He’d been tinkering with the hook for weeks now, and bandying it back and forth with Ronan had shaped it perfectly, until the notes dropped into your soul and made a home with a cozy blanket; they made you feel things before the lyrics even registered.

Andrew clicked out of the software with a two fingered salute tossed off to Ronan and closed the laptop to find Neil shuffling out of the bedroom in nothing but boxers and bedhead.

“Fixed the song?” Neil yawned at Andrew on his way to the kitchen. 

“Yes,” Andrew said, following Neil. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Neil hummed a yes and fished a bottle of water from the fridge and leaned against the counter with it, his throat working as he swallowed and his eyes on Andrew. He set the bottle down half empty, a drop of water on his chin that he wiped away carelessly with the back of his hand. He was irresistible and Andrew was vibrating with music that had to go somewhere.

Which Neil knew. He smirked, a sloppy look for a perfect face, and said, “You’re bouncy with it aren’t you?”

“I don’t bounce,” Andrew said. 

“You do,” Neil countered. “Bounce over here. I’ll catch you.”

And well, he wasn’t wrong. Andrew took the two steps to close the distance between them, to press against Neil, who was so much skin — warm still from their bed, tattooed and scarred and honed to a knife’s edge. Andrew carded a hand into Neil’s tangled hair and pulled him down for a kiss, because he could, because this was his life now, because Neil always kissed him back like Andrew was unbreakable, and Andrew liked it. He imagined that one day he might be able to go more than a few hours without kissing Neil or Kevin, but he was nowhere near that point yet. 

“Kevin?” Andrew asked once he was satisfied with the dazed look and slick lip that he’d left on Neil’s face. 

“Huh?” Neil said. 

“Is he asleep?” Andrew wanted to know where he was dragging Neil to, because he was about to drag him somewhere. 

“Snoring like a freight train,” Neil said, before leaning in to trace Andrew’s bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. “Couch?” 

Andrew answered by gripping Neil around the waist and hoisting him onto the counter. “Or this,” Neil said, his voice dropping into a new register. Andrew wanted to take him apart and put him back together all over again. Andrew wanted… Andrew wanted something that he’d never admitted he could want. But maybe he could, with Neil. With Kevin. 

“Lean back,” Andrew said, and Neil did, propping back on the counter, and lifting his hips obligingly when Andrew tucked a finger into the waistband of his boxers. It was a moment and then Andrew had Neil splayed out gloriously naked, all bunched lean muscle and half hard dick nested in dark red curls because Neil refused to manscape. Andrew slid his hands up Neil’s thighs and looked at him, drank him in, and Neil waited, watching him back, that impossible blue under hooded lids, backlit by the undercabinet lights. Patient. Edible. Perfectly imperfect, sculpted somehow right out of Andrew’s deepest dreams. 

Andrew stepped even closer and Neil spread his thighs wide to make room, hooked his ankles around Andrew’s ass as Andrew slid his hands tauntingly near Neil’s dick, pressing thumbs into the creases of his thighs, brushing guitar string-calloused fingertips against the ledge of his hips. He ran his hands higher, across the taut plane of Neil’s stomach, across his nipples, which made him twitch but he stayed open, waiting. 

It was not until Andrew tucked both hands behind Neil’s neck and dragged him forward that Andrew decided to unlodge the swirling want lodged deep in his belly. “I want you to fuck me,” he said, his lips brushing the apex of Neil’s shoulder. He didn’t whisper it, or rein it in. Neil knew the shape of the razor blades lodged in those words.  

Neil lifted a hand to Andrew’s jaw, pressed a thumb into Andrew’s bottom lip and pushed him back until he could see him. From the counter Neil was even taller than he usually was over Andrew, and he curved his torso concave until they were eye level, Neil’s hands entwined loosely in Andrew’s hair. 

“Now?” Neil asked. 

Andrew shook his head. Not now. Now he had other plans. But he wanted this, wanted it out there and known, wanted it percolating. 

“I’d like that,” Neil said, and he kissed Andrew then, the slide of his tongue insistent and hot and perilous. Andrew let himself sink into it, into Neil, until he pulled himself just barely back from the brink and pushed at Neil, kissed and nipped his way back down his body, pinned him to the counter with a hand on each hip, and sucked his dick so hard and fast that Neil barely had time to shout his warning before he was coming down Andrew’s throat. 

“Jesus,” Neil said, slumped and debauched and perfect against the cabinets. 

“Don’t move,” Andrew said, swiping his hand across his mouth. He retrieved one of Kevin’s cameras, the Nikon that was Andrew’s favorite, and snapped two pictures in quick succession. 

“You tease him,” Neil said, sliding off the counter. 

“No,” Andrew said. “I make promises.” 

Neil raised one eyebrow at him. “Your turn,” he said. The words were not a question, but his thumb brushing against Andrew’s belt was. 

“Yes,” Andrew said, and he let Neil press him against the wall, kiss his neck until he was shivering with want, and he didn’t look away when Neil dropped to his knees and wrapped his mouth around Andrew’s cock, returning the favor with as much love and brutality as Andrew had given him moments ago. 

***

It might have been Neil’s intention that the two beds in their bedroom would have their own space, apart, islands of blankets and pillows they could nest or sprawl in at will. What really happened though, is that the first night they had pushed the second bed flush up against the first and there it had stayed. 

It worked for them; Kevin on the side closest to the bedroom door, Andrew farthest away, and Neil in the middle - a barrier that kept Kevin-the-Octopus from startling Andrew out of sleep with a responding punch to the gut or the nose. They sorted their boundaries, and usually mornings found Andrew waking up safe and warm with most of a bed to himself, cocooned in the soft blue silk comforter that Neil had bought him. Some mornings it was just Kevin in the bed, Neil already fucked off for his morning run, and Andrew would stretch a hand across the expanse between them to grab Kevin’s wrist and tug, pulling a giant armful of barely awake boyfriend into his arms. Andrew liked the closeness, as long as he was the one holding, as long as he was awake to know this was his choice, one of his people. Kevin came readily those mornings, already fast asleep again once Andrew had arranged him to his liking. Other mornings Andrew would wake up to Neil looking at him with the barest slivers of the iciest blue, early enough that he hadn’t yet disentangled himself from Kevin, and he would smile a soft smile when Andrew accused him of staring. It was a rare morning that the three of them would awake together, when they would pee and brush their teeth quickly and then tumble back into the bed with minty kisses and lazy morning hand jobs, Kevin’s sleepy green eyes a touchstone, Neil’s touch a banked fire smoldering in Andrew’s heart. 

It was one of those mornings that Kevin had said, “Stay.” 

Andrew had rolled his eyes. “I am.” 

“Permanently,” Kevin had said. 

“Or as long as you want to,” Neil had added. “We can do something with downstairs. Make a recording studio or whatever.” 

“I don’t record the songs,” Andrew had said. 

“Or whatever,” Neil had repeated. 

Andrew had whatevered the both of them all over again after that, until they finally had to drag themselves out of bed for showers and food and a Sunday afternoon spent flopped and tangled on the couch. 

This morning though, Andrew woke up to Neil and Kevin dead asleep, the sun barely tinging the skyline outside their windows, and his phone buzzing insistently from the floor next to him. By the time Andrew realized what it was, the call stopped, and he closed his eyes again, assuming a drunk dial from Roland or Ronan or Robin - and, he thought sleepily, why the fuck all his friends had R names was beyond him - but then the phone started buzzing again, and Andrew’s eyes snapped open. He was suddenly and startlingly awake, and he draped over the edge of the bed to frown at Aaron’s name on the screen. 

“What?” he croaked into the phone as quietly as he could. Kevin would sleep through most anything but he didn’t want to wake Neil. 

“Andrew?” It wasn’t Aaron’s voice that came through the phone, but Katelyn’s - quiet and timid in a way that Andrew had never heard her be, and it sent ice down his spine. He sat up. 

“Katelyn, what happened?” 

“He’s okay,” she said quickly. “I got him to the hospital.” 

“Katelyn,” Andrew said, clear warning in his tone. 

There was rustling behind Andrew, because he wasn’t being quiet anymore, because he couldn’t, and he was frozen, stuck to his spot at the edge of the bed. It was Neil who appeared beside him, not touching him, face serious, just as Katelyn said, “He overdosed, but he’s stable. We’re at Lenox Hill. Can you come?” 

“Yes,” Andrew said, and he handed the phone off to Neil. 

“Hey, this is Neil, can you give me the details?” 

Andrew stood up, clenched his fists and released them over and over until he had some semblance of control over the molten anger coursing through him. He needed to see that Aaron was okay, and once he was satisfied that his idiotic brother would survive this, Andrew as going to fucking kill him, and-

“Andrew?” 

Andrew blinked, and Neil was standing in front of him. 

Andrew blinked and Kevin was awake now, propped up on an elbow, gazing at them blearily. 

Andrew blinked and Kevin was on his feet, and both of them were getting dressed. 

“You don’t need to go,” he managed. Kevin handed him one of his hoodies and Andrew grasped it mindlessly. 

“I’ll drive,” Neil said, ignoring him. 

“You don’t-” Andrew tried again. 

“Of course we are going,” Kevin said calmly. 

Andrew blinked at him, then blinked again, and then they were in the elevator. 

He blinked, and then they were in the car, Kevin in the back, an elbow on each front seat.

Neil took the corners in the still-dark streets of Manhattan at speed, but Andrew was still moving in slow motion, the weight of his terrified anger filling his veins like ichor.  It was helpless anger, the kind Andrew had eradicated from his youth, the kind that struck out at those around him indeterminately and unfairly, the rage that had defined him before Bee had sanded off the edges. Andrew was livid - at Neil and Kevin for being there, for being calm, for being exactly what he needed - how fucking dare they. He was furious at Aaron for being so stupid, at himself for not being able to stop this before it got this far, at the universe for keeping him apart from his brother - his twin. Andrew stared out the window at empty sidewalks and wobbly street lights blurring past, and it wasn’t for the first time that he thought none of this would have happened if Aaron had been his, under Andrew’s protection from the beginning. 

Andrew blinked and they were there, the entrance to the hospital depressing and efficient, Kevin climbing out of the car with him before Neil peeled away to park. 

“Aaron Minyard,” Kevin said to the woman paying no attention at the desk. Her name tag read Shelly.  

“Are you family?” Shelly asked without looking up. 

“I am his brother,” Andrew said. 

“I.D.” 

Andrew slid his license across the counter. She barely glanced at it, and then said, “Sign in. Just you. Visiting hours haven’t started yet, so family only. Your friend will have to wait here.” 

Kevin cleared his throat before leaning on the counter next to Andrew. When Shelly finally looked at them, he pasted on his megawatt model smile. “Oh my god you’re Kevin Day,” Shelly squeaked. 

“I am,” Kevin agreed, his smile somehow getting even shinier. Andrew rolled his eyes, and right about then Neil appeared beside them. 

“Nathaniel Wesninski!” Shelly whispered. 

Neil frowned and opened his mouth, but Kevin hip checked him. “Yes,” Kevin agreed again, pure honey in his tone. “We are Andrew’s boyfriends, so that makes us family, wouldn’t you say Shelly?” 

“Um,” Shelly looked rapidly between Neil and Kevin in a way that, under any other circumstances, Andrew would have found highly amusing. It was Neil who tipped it in their favor, propping onto the counter next to Kevin with a dangerous grin that Shelly clearly mistook for flirtatious. “Okay fine,” she whispered loudly. She shoved the sign in sheet in Kevin and Neil’s direction and they signed in. 

“Thank you,” Kevin said warmly. Andrew was somewhat surprised to find that the warmth was genuine, and less surprised to see Shelly flush with pleasure. 

Neil led them confidently in the direction Shelly had sent them, and Andrew belatedly realized that Katelyn must have given him instructions over the phone. He followed close behind, Kevin a sentinel taking up the rear, until an elevator and four more hallways brought them to find Katelyn standing outside the closed door of room 413B, tucked into a tidy little quiet enclave of rooms clustered around a gently buzzing and mostly abandoned nurses’ station.

Katelyn looked like shit; her usually meticulous makeup mostly tracked by tears to pool and dry under red rimmed eyes, her hair piled on top of her head but flopped off to one side. She was in rumpled pajama pants with rainbows on them and untied tennis shoes and she didn’t uncross her arms or shift to greet them as she watched them approach. Andrew cataloged all of this numbly, tamping down on the burning anxiousness that told him to shove her aside, fling the door open, press a finger to Aaron’s pulse until he knew from his own touch that his brother’s heart was still beating.

“He’s sleeping,” Katelyn said, releasing a hand to swipe it across her nose.

“Tell me,” Andrew said.

She sniffed and glared, but it wasn’t at Andrew, more an angry look thrown against the wall across from them. “We had a huge fight yesterday. I told him I was done - with all of it, with him, with the drugs. Then he called me, after midnight. He sounded weird - I know what he sounds like high, but this was different.” She swiped impatiently a few times at her watery eyes and frowned. “I’ve been carrying Narcan on me for awhile, it’s not like I didn’t know this would happen at some point. I just got exhausted waiting for it.”

“Narcan?” Kevin repeated gently.

“It counteracts the overdose,” Neil said. Katelyn cut a look at him, and Kevin shuffled a little closer to Neil’s side. Andrew remembered Neil’s expert and experienced casing of Aaron’s apartment, and not for the first time he wished Neil’s mother was still alive just so he could un-alive her himself. 

“I had to administer it twice, and performed emergency breathing while I waited for the paramedics,” Katelyn continued, eyes back on the wall over Andrew’s shoulder. “He had stopped breathing when I got there, but his heart was still beating, and he started breathing on his own after the second dose of Narcan. He woke up and was lucid during the ambulance ride. They’ve got him on an IV for hydration and under observation now, but they probably won’t keep him overnight.” She did look at Andrew then and set her jaw. “I’ve been doing this for ten years. He can’t come home with me, and I am not taking him home. I can’t keep doing this. I won’t survive it.” 

Andrew nodded, stepped around her, and walked into Aaron’s hospital room. He heard Kevin ask Katelyn quietly if she’d eaten, heard Neil say he’d go pick something up, and then the door was closed, and he was alone in a cocoon of quiet, broken only by the steady beep of machines and the heavy weight of Aaron’s shallow breath. 

Andrew dragged an armchair from the corner of the small room to the side of Aaron’s bed without picking it up, and Aaron’s eyes cracked open a sliver just in time to glare at Andrew as he plopped into it. 

“Asshole,” Aaron rasped. 

“Back at you,” Andrew said, but Aaron’s eyes fluttered closed again and Andrew let him be for now. 

He sat, staring at his brother’s face, war torn and ragged, hollow and strained and shaded in purple the color of bruises under his eyes. He stared as Aaron’s breathing evened out again, as the drip of the IV plopped rhythmically, as the screen next to him pushed Aaron’s heartbeat out in patterns on an indifferent screen. 

When he couldn’t restrain himself any longer, Andrew reached out and tucked two finger’s under Aaron’s wrist, feeling for the steady thrum of his heartbeat. When he found it he pressed and held and counted the beats. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Strong. Solid. Aaron’s chest rose and fell and rose and fell, and Andrew had no idea how much time had passed when Neil slipped into the room to drop off coffee and a brown bag with what was probably a bagel. He pressed briefly against Andrew’s side and then he was gone again, and Aaron was still breathing. 

Andrew drank his coffee and watched, crossed his arms on the side of Aaron’s bed and watched. Slipped his fingers under Aaron’s wrist again, promised himself it was the last time. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. 

It was Katelyn who came in next, and this time her face was washed clean, her topknot centered and tidy, her shoelaces tied. “I’m supposed to be at the hospital in an hour for my shift,” she said quietly. “We both are, actually.” 

“Go,” Aaron said. Andrew twitched and turned to look at him. Aaron’s eyes were open and clear and he was staring at Katelyn. “Go to work, Kate.” 

Katelyn frowned at him, and dropped a hand down to his like she couldn’t help it. Aaron gripped her hand and Katelyn winced and briefly caved in on herself. “I’ll tell them you’re sick,” she said quietly. 

“Don’t. I’ll deal with it.” 

“Aaron-” she started. Aaron shifted and pulled her forward until she fell against him. Andrew still had two fingers pressed to his other wrist, but Aaron didn’t pull away from him as he wrapped a deceptively strong arm around Katelyn and tucked his face against her neck. If Andrew could, he maybe would have given them a moment, but he couldn’t, so instead he stared at the back of Aaron’s hand while Katelyn sobbed and Aaron whispered over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry.”

After Katelyn left Aaron sat up, fiddled with the needle in his arm attached to the IV, and then looked at Andrew. “She called you,” he said. 

“Clearly,” Andrew agreed blandly. “Were you trying to kill yourself?”

Aaron’s mouth tipped down in a sullen frown. “No.”

Andrew raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “Katelyn broke up with you.” Andrew gestured at Aaron. “Then you did this.” Aaron moved, quicker than he should have been able to, and wrapped a hand around Andrew’s wrist. Andrew could pull away, easily, but instead he let Aaron pull his arm across the side of the bed, let him turn it over, let him push the sleeve of his hoodie up. 

“Were you, when you did this?” Aaron said. It was soft, not accusing, not anything really. Andrew looked down at his arm, at the neat and infinite march of scars entwined with music notes. 

“No,” Andrew said. “I was trying to survive.” 

“Me too,” Aaron said, letting him go and flopping back on the meager hospital pillow. He sighed, dramatically, and with much more gusto than should have been possible after trying to drown himself in opiates. “I was jealous of you, you know. When you first showed up.”

“Jealous,” Andrew repeated. 

Aaron waved a hand at him. “You and your L.A. life, best friends with Ronan Lynch, all that money - I’m not as stupid as our aunt and uncle you know.” 

“Your aunt and uncle.”

“You don’t get to pick and choose - if you want me, you get stuck with them too.”

Andrew crossed his arms and said nothing to that little piece of bullshit. He’d been choosing his family since Bee had plucked him from the hell that was the foster system, and he wasn’t about to go back now. 

“And Bee,” Aaron said, like he could read Andrew’s mind. Andrew frowned at him. “You’ve told me enough that I know she was the perfect mother.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

“She was sure as shit better than Tilda.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Andrew said drily.

Aaron ignored the jab. “And you love Bee, it’s obvious even if you don’t say it.”

“Your point?”

“Why don’t you eat meat?” Aaron said.

Andrew blinked at the non-sequitur, and then grit his teeth when he realized what Aaron was getting at. “Expired meat is cheap,” he said. “One of many tactics foster parents use to stretch a dollar and pocket as much of the money the state gives in return for each kid they take in. Multiple bouts of food poisoning is a pretty effective way to turn you off of something.”

Aaron stares back at him without flinching. “And your arms?”

“That is a big truth you are asking for.”

“Fine, what do you want for it?”

Andrew wanted to lock Aaron in a small room and systematically destroy every single percocet and valium he could get his hands on. Instead he said, “Rehab.”

“I can’t afford that.”

“I can.”

They stared at each other, both resolute, two jaws clenched, hazel eyes locked and loaded. 

It was Aaron who broke first, gaze flicking down to his own hands then back up to Andrew’s face. “And what then?” he asked. “I go back to the hospital, if they’d even take me? Become a doctor for real? I don’t know how that would even work.”

“Do you want to be a doctor?”

“Of course-” Aaron started, but Andrew held up a hand and Aaron stopped, stared, and then slowly shook his head. “Fuck,” he said. “I-” he paused again. 

Andrew waited. Aaron stared at him, his mouth slack, and then his face firmed, and Andrew saw steel in his brother’s eyes for the first time. 

“Actually, I don’t,” he said. 

“Okay,” Andrew said. 

Aaron lost his nerve just as quickly as he’d found it and melted back into the sparse pillows behind him. “Fuck,” he breathed. 

Andrew shrugged. “So don’t be a doctor.”

“It’s that simple, huh?” Aaron’s tone was sarcastic and tired and he closed his eyes. 

Andrew reached out and tucked two fingers under Aaron’s wrist. 

“Checking for a pulse?” Aaron snarked.

“Yes,” Andrew said. 

It was clearly a struggle, but Aaron blinked his eyes open again and looked at Andrew. “I guess I’ll go back to South Carolina then.”

Andrew fought the furious flush of anger that bull rushed his veins at that statement and was quiet for long moments, the only betrayal of his turmoil a tighter grip on Aaron’s wrist. “Stay,” he said.

“You want me to stay?”

“I-” Andrew paused. He was long past the days of claiming he wanted nothing, of believing that he deserved nothing, of knowing that he could have nothing. A picture show flashed in fast forward of the things Andrew wanted now; Kevin and Neil, and music, and Ronan, and Bee, and dinners at Renee and Jean’s, and everything that New York City had served up on a platter for him when he came here for a brother - a fucking twin - that he never knew he had and couldn’t know he wanted. “I want you to stay,” he said. 

Andrew held his breath. Aaron stared. And then Aaron’s hand turned over in his, and he gripped Andrew’s hand, and he said, “Okay.”

Chapter Text

“Hey.” Kevin’s voice cracked a little on the word, the first he’d spoken in three days. This had been a rough one, sending Kevin into an immediate spiral. For the first time in a long time Kevin hadn’t been able to convince his limbs to assemble themselves the next morning, to crawl from bed, to eat, to shower, to ever take a photograph again, 

“Hey yourself,” Andrew said from the other bed, which Neil had shoved to the far side of the bedroom to give Kevin some space. As the fog dissipated from his brain, Kevin knew that was why Neil did it. But when he’d actually done it two nights ago the vise grip on Kevin’s lungs had tightened.

Kevin cleared his throat and rolled over to grab one of the water bottles his boys had left on the floor near the bed. “Where’s Neil?” he asked when he’d drained it. 

“I shoved him into the elevator in his running clothes about half an hour ago,” Andrew said, dropping the novel he’d been holding onto the bed and sitting up. “Can I come over there?”

Kevin’s heart clenched a little, like an ache trying to stretch itself out. “Yeah,” he said. Yes fucking please is what he meant.

Andrew slid onto the bed next to him. “Touch?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” Kevin said. It came out on a breathy sigh and he didn’t even care. Andrew said nothing, just kicked the sheets out of the way and pushed Kevin to his side with no gentleness, wrapping strong arms around Kevin’s waist and pressing his nose into the back of his neck. Kevin sighed again, and Andrew hiked one leg over his hip. It shouldn’t work really - Andrew was buff, sure, but he was a foot shorter than Kevin. It didn’t matter; through some magic that wholly belonged to Andrew it did work, and the body heat and skin to skin contact unwound Kevin even more. “Is he still mad?” Kevin whispered.

“The both of you with your stupid questions,” Andrew muttered against Kevin’s neck. “He was never mad at you.” 

“Sounded mad.”

“Frustrated maybe,” Andrew conceded. “He was mostly mad at me.”

Kevin furrowed his brow. “You?”

“For saying anything in the first place.”

Kevin frowned. They’d been talking about where to hang Neil’s new painting - the fact that they were keeping it went without saying, but the walls of the loft that weren’t taken up by windows and built in cabinets were covered in photographs and sketches. 

“Maybe it’s time to replace that portrait of Neil,” Andrew had said steadily. 

“My photograph?” Kevin had asked, surprised, eyes darting to the oversized print of Neil in Renee’s ropes, the print that reminded Kevin every day that they’d survived, that they’d walked out of hell hand in hand and never let go. 

“See what Neil says,” Andrew had suggested, the casual shrug in his voice deceptive. Kevin already knew that Andrew was never casual, never said anything without intent behind it. When Kevin had turned to look at Neil he found him glaring daggers at Andrew, and it had been right there in that moment that Kevin had started to sink.

Kevin closed his eyes and pulled Andrew tighter around him. “How did you know?” he asked. 

Andrew hummed a little, the sound pressed against Kevin’s neck like a purr. “I didn’t. It was a guess at something I thought I saw the first night I came home with you.”

“And what did you see?” Kevin asked.

“Neil disappearing.”

Kevin frowned, and tried to think through it, but he was still foggy, still tender. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“He is expressive. Every thought Neil has dances across his face in real time. When he looked at that portrait his face shut down, became a mask.”

“So he hates it,” Kevin said miserably. “And I never noticed.”

“I don’t think he hates it,” Andrew said. “I think it exposes parts of him that he would rather not revisit every day.”

“I should have known,” Kevin said. 

“He should have told you,” Andrew said. 

“It’s important to me,” Kevin said quietly, “that I don’t miss things again.”

Andrew said nothing, because Andrew already knew. Kevin didn’t have to rehash all the bits and pieces of a heart that shattered when he’d realized just how much he’d missed happening right in front of him to the person he would have given his life to protect. 

Kevin shifted, and Andrew let him, loosening his arms just enough before tightening around Kevin’s ribs again. The movement sent up a waft of sourness and Kevin wrinkled his nose. “I smell awful,” he said. 

“You’ve smelled worse,” Andrew said, and it startled a bark of laughter out of Kevin. “Shower?” Andrew offered. 

“Yeah, I can manage that,” Kevin agreed. He untangled himself from the sheets and from Andrew, his limbs protesting as he dropped heavy feet to the floor, talked his body into moving towards the bathroom. He didn’t close the door behind him, but he was still surprised when Andrew followed, turning on the water and pulling fresh towels from the cabinet. Kevin’s breath caught a little when Andrew turned to him, tucking fingers under the hem of Kevin’s shirt and tilting his head. “Yes,” Kevin said, to whatever question Andrew was asking, because he knew Andrew wouldn’t ask for something he couldn’t give right now. Andrew tugged the shirt up and over Kevin’s head, and Kevin leaned forward to give him access, let his boyfriend undress him perfunctorily before shoving him under the steaming spray of the shower. He was surprised again when Andrew shed his own t-shirt and pajama pants quickly, following Kevin in, and fuck if Kevin didn’t realize that he’d not even wanted to be alone in the shower until his heart settled at the relief of having Andrew there.

“Still too tall,” Andrew said, poking Kevin in the arm, and Kevin leaned down so Andrew could soap up his hair. Andrew could reach the rest of him though, and he lathered the fancy cedar body wash Kevin preferred and washed him methodically and efficiently, and Kevin watched him: the neutral look on his face, his dick soft and nestled in short, trimmed dark blond curls, the music notes on his arms glistening under the water. Andrew had freckles the same as Neil - ones that you could only see up close.

“Hey,” Neil said, poking his head through the door and interrupting Kevin’s numb thoughts. He was sweaty, in tiny running shorts, a look of concern on his face. Andrew coaxed him in with an incline of his head, and Neil slipped inside to lean against the counter. “Feeling better?” he asked tentatively.

“Come here,” Kevin said, and Neil didn’t hesitate to kick off his shoes and step into the shower fully clothed, to walk into Kevin’s open, soapy arms. 

“You are both ridiculous,” Andrew said. Kevin propped his chin on Neil’s head and watched Andrew lean down, pull off Neil’s socks one by one, shuck his shorts, drop a kiss on his hip before he tugged at Neil’s soaking wet shirt. Kevin let him go reluctantly, and Neil raised his arms obediently for Andrew to finish stripping him naked. Andrew piled Neil’s sopping clothes into the corner of the shower.

Neil looked at Kevin, and Kevin pulled him back into his arms without breaking eye contact. “I’m sorry,” Kevin said. 

Neil shook his head hard. “There’s nothing to apologize for.” 

Andrew dumped a handful of shampoo on Neil’s head and Neil closed his eyes and tilted back into Andrew’s touch. “You both need therapy,” Andrew said. 

Neil scoffed and frowned without opening his eyes and Andrew tugged sharply on his hair. “Ow,” Neil said, but he smirked.  

They were all covered with soap now, and Neil had shampoo running down his cheeks. Kevin shuffled them under the spray, and worked the suds out of Neil’s hair, pushing his wet bangs back and wiping water from his eyes until those arctic blues blinked open and were looking back at him solemnly. “It’s okay for me to say sorry,” Kevin said firmly. He flicked a look at Andrew. “And I don’t know. Maybe I would go to therapy.” Neil blinked at him, and Kevin sluiced water from his face again before pulling him close. 

“I’m not going to therapy,” Neil said belligerently. 

“Okay,” Kevin said softly. Neil deflated against him and didn’t say anything else.

They stood there, until they were washed clean, until Andrew shoved off the tile wall of the shower to cut the water and grab fluffy towels for all of them. 

Chapter Text

Ronan arrived four hours early, and it’s not that Kevin didn’t know he was coming today, but he thought he’d have more time to prepare himself. Take a shower, put on something nice, maybe clean up a little. Instead, Kevin ducked out of his darkroom, smelling like developer and wearing the Raven Boys t-shirt, to find Ronan stepping off of the elevator, a beat up army-green duffle slung over his shoulder. 

“Nice shirt,” Ronan said. 

“Jesus Christ,” Kevin whispered. 

Ronan tilted his head. “I’ve been called worse.”

Kevin blushed. He could feel the flush creeping up his neck to his face. “No, I mean. Fuck .”

Ronan smirked at him and dropped his bag. “You must be Kevin,” he said. 

“Yeah, I think so,” Kevin said. Ronan Lynch was standing in his living room and he was making an ass out of himself, and where the fuck were Andrew and Neil?

Both of Ronan’s eyebrows shot up and he was definitely amused. “You think so? Shit dude, I thought Andrew was just fucking with me.” He rocked forward on his toes, and then shoved his hands into his pockets. “You do know you are famous too right?” 

“Right,” Kevin said stupidly. 

There was a shuffle from the bedroom, then the door opened to reveal a disheveled Andrew with his jeans on but not buttoned, shrugging into a t-shirt that was inside out and backwards. It was the most flustered Kevin had ever seen him. He rolled his eyes. 

Ronan laughed. “Dick,” he said, but it was fond, and he pulled an unprotesting Andrew into a hug. 

Kevin blinked. He’d never seen Andrew hug anyone besides him and Neil - not even Robin. 

“Asshole,” Andrew said back, just as a slightly sheepish Neil appeared, still working his arm into the sleeve of Andrew’s hoodie, his hair sticking up in many directions, and his face raw from Andrew’s two-day old stubble. 

Kevin watched Ronan clock Neil’s appearance over Andrew’s shoulder, then pull back from the hug to glance sharply at Kevin, but then Ronan was saying hello to Neil and shaking his hand while Neil tried to surreptitiously arrange his hair into some semblance of order with the other, and Kevin shook the strange look off and joined the fray, finally shaking Ronan Lynch’s hand before he was hauled into a surprisingly perfect hug. 

“Warm,” Kevin said, half into Ronan’s neck. 

“Huh?” Ronan said, letting him go. 

“Nothing,” Kevin mumbled and he knew he was blushing and Neil laughed light and clear like a bell and crashed into his side.

“Which camera can I use?” Neil asked. “I need to document this train wreck.”

“Fuck you,” Kevin said but he grinned and wrapped an arm around Neil’s shoulder. 

“You’re early,” Andrew said, looking down at his shirt and tugging at the collar, finally realizing the damned thing was backwards. 

Ronan shrugged. “Adam wrapped up shooting early, headed to Virginia to see Blue, so I rented a car and drove up.”

“By yourself?” Andrew said with a frown. 

Ronan pointed a finger at him. “Nope. You do not get to mother hen me, Dobson. You left me, remember? I am perfectly capable of driving up I-95 without security. Besides,” Ronan grinned and dug into his bag, “I brought my own goddamn welcome gift.” He held up a little tin with a grin of wicked triumph and Andrew groaned - actually groaned - but that didn’t stop him from reaching for it and plucking it out of Ronan’s hand. 

“What is it?” Neil asked. 

“Andrew’s favorite edibles,” Ronan said. 

“You do the pot?” Kevin said, looking at Andrew surprised. 

“The pot,” Neil snorted, leaning to look at the tin too. 

“Edibles,” Andrew specified, pointing at him. “And only sometimes.”

“Sometimes like now?” Kevin said tentatively.

“That was the plan,” Ronan said, dropping his bag on the floor. “Rabbit hole, Drew?”

“Drew?” Neil mouthed up at Kevin. 

“Fuck you,” Andrew said, shoving Ronan. He turned to glance at Kevin, and then Neil. “It’s a pretty chill high, if you’re in.”

“I’m in,” Neil said easily enough. 

Kevin hesitated, but Andrew seemed relaxed, happy even - no dark cloud of Aaron and his addiction anywhere near the room - so Kevin nodded. It’s not like he and Neil had said no to the occasional line of coke or weed pen passed at a party. He took the small purple gummy handed to him obediently and popped it in his mouth without asking any questions, because he trusted Andrew. 

An hour later, Kevin had just about decided that the pot gummies were duds when he realized that Ronan, Andrew, and Neil were staring at him. 

“What?” Kevin said.

“What, what?” Neil said around his grin. “You just said Ronan was so hot it should be illegal.” Neil’s accent was making an appearance, but that was beside the point.

Kevin frowned. “I said that out loud?”

Neil dissolved into giggles. Fucking giggles. That was hilarious. “Ha!” Kevin said. 

“Oh my god,” Andrew said, but he was grinning too. 

“Ha!” Kevin said, pointing at Andrew’s mouth. Oh wait. “Oh wait. I’m high.”

Andrew laughed out loud then, which made both Kevin and Neil whip their heads around to stare at him, and Ronan, who seemed entirely unaffected, rolled his eyes. “Got any booze?”

Neil hopped up and walked very carefully to the kitchen. “Water?” Kevin yelled after him hopefully. He was suddenly and desperately and irrevocably parched. 

“It is,” Ronan agreed, his eyes twinkling. 

“What is?” Kevin said. He might have been frowning, but it felt weird. He poked at the corner of his mouth with a pointer finger. 

“Parched is a funny word,” Ronan said. 

“I said that out loud?” Kevin said. 

“You did,” Andrew said, and he stroked a finger across the top of Kevin’s bare foot. 

“Oh,” Kevin said. That. That felt really good. “Do that again.”

“You are so fucking high,” Neil said, dropping a kiss on Kevin’s head and dropping a water bottle in his lap. 

“Am,” Kevin agreed. He wasn’t concerned about it, he’d been high before. But. “Different?”

“Probably the CBD,” Ronan said, leaning forward to snag the bottle of bourbon that Neil had set on the table. “This one is heavy on chilling your body out, not just mind fuckery.”

Kevin nodded and shoved his feet farther in Andrew’s lap. Andrew snorted, but he grabbed onto Kevin’s foot easily enough, dug two thumbs into the arch, and started rubbing it. 

Oh. Fucking. God. 

Kevin’s eyes might have rolled into his head. He was unsure. This felt better than sex. Not that he really cared about sex. 

“Um.” That was Ronan. Kevin opened his eyes. Everyone was staring at him again. Ronan had a slight blush across his cheeks. 

“I said that out loud?” Kevin guessed. Andrew squeezed his foot, and Kevin decided he didn’t care; he let his eyes flutter closed again and lolled his head back on the couch. “Well,” he said. “It does.”

Kevin lost time again, or at least the thread of the conversation, because the next thing he heard was, “It helped with my stutter.”

“What?” Kevin said, tried to sit up a little. Andrew let his feet go with a little rhythmic tap. 

“In high school,” Andrew said. “My stutter was better than when I was a kid, but not entirely gone. Ronan had tried pot with his twat waffle ex-best friend Kavinsky-”

Andrew had to pause while they all lost their shit over twat waffle.

“Anyway,” Andrew continued. “Ronan thought it would help.”

“With your stutter,” Neil said, not quite a question. Kevin had managed to lever himself upright, and he sagged into Neil’s side so he could turn and see Andrew better. 

“That was his excuse, anyway,” Andrew said drily. 

“Hey,” Ronan said from the other side of a very full glass of bourbon. He pointed at Andrew. “That’s slander.”

“Is it?”

“Calumny,” Ronan added with a more pointy point. 

Andrew rolled off the couch and snagged a glass of his own. “You wanted me to get high with you,” he said, choosing one of the whiskies and pouring his own generous glassful. 

“Both can be true,” Ronan said wisely. “Besides, it worked.”

“It did,” Andrew agreed. “That, and music, and copious amounts of speech therapy, and you know.”

“Bee,” Ronan said, raising his glass in a little toast.

“Bee,” Andrew agreed, raising his own glass before settling back down on Neil’s side this time. 

“I like this,” Kevin decided. “Talky Andrew.”

Ronan barked out a laugh and Andrew glared and Neil patted him and Kevin just grinned and drank his water. 

“I talk,” Andrew said. 

“You do,” Kevin agreed amicably, reaching over Neil to pat Andrew’s knee, too. Andrew batted him away and Neil fell into another fit of giggles. 

“Talky Andrew and Giggle Neil,” Kevin declared. 

Neil hit Kevin’s arm. “I do not giggle,” he said, affronted. Which had the hilarious effect of making Neil giggle again.  

Kevin felt unbearably fond and thought he might die if he didn’t kiss Neil immediately, so he did - though he kinda missed the mark and his lips landed a little to the side of Neil’s mouth. Andrew reached over and shoved at Kevin’s cheek until they were lined up properly and Kevin all but sighed into Neil’s mouth at the contact. Neil kissed him back with enthusiasm, slid his tongue along the seam of Kevin’s lips, and damn did that feel fucking delicious. Kevin melted, turned into a puddle, twisted and half tried to climb into Neil’s lap, and kinda forgot they weren’t alone for just long enough to almost embarrass himself. 

“So,” Ronan said loudly. His tone was odd, and it dragged Kevin away from Neil’s perfect mouth to look at Ronan straight on. “Are we gonna play those records or what?”

And well, that got Kevin moving. Neil had gotten into polka lately and Kevin wasn’t having any of that; it would totally kill his high. He popped up only a little unsteadily, and beckoned Ronan over to their record collection so they could paw through it together. 

“You choose,” Kevin said, “Guest of honor.” 

Ronan snorted but took to the task seriously. After more than a few minutes of careful consideration, he pulled out a Fleetwood Mac album triumphantly, flashed a look at Andrew who groaned but pulled Neil to his feet. Kevin thought he had died and gone to heaven when Ronan started singing along to Landslide, his rich honeyed voice sending electricity through all of Kevin’s pot-addled nerves. 

The track rolled into Sarah. Kevin spaced out, leaning against the wall between two of his own photographs, and watched Andrew tuck Neil into his neck, swaying softly to the music. Kevin felt incandescent watching them, flooded with nothing but love. He turned to share a smile with Ronan, and startled to see Ronan frowning intently at Andrew and Neil. 

And. 

Oh. 

Kevin stared at Ronan long enough that Ronan felt it. He tore his eyes away from Andrew and Neil to finally look back at Kevin, and the look on his face immediately shuttered, sliding from frown, to blank, to that easy, sexy smile that graced magazine covers - the smile that Kevin had already parsed in the last few hours to be a lie. 

“Absolutely not,” Kevin said, a little too loudly. Ronan looked surprised, and Andrew raised one eyebrow at him over Neil’s shoulder, but he didn’t stop spinning Neil in slow circles. 

For a moment Kevin regretted the open floor plan of their loft. He needed to drag Ronan somewhere, but his darkroom felt too intimate, and there really wasn’t room for two people in there - at least the two of them in the room who were over 6 feet tall. Instead, he snagged the edge of Ronan’s shirt, and tugged him into the bedroom without looking back. There was only a brief hesitation against his pull before Ronan followed him willingly enough. 

In their bedroom Kevin watched Ronan clock the two large beds shoved against each other, the silk quilts piled here and there; little colorful hills on the expanse of mattress. Kevin folded his arms, forced his fuzzy brain to flip through the possible problem before landing on a few likely contenders, and starting with the most obvious option. 

“Are you in love with Andrew?” 

“The fuck?” Ronan said, his shock genuine when his gaze snapped back to Kevin. 

Kevin refused to be moved. “Are you?” 

Ronan snorted, and sat on the edge of the bed. “Not since 9th grade,” he said, running a hand over his buzzed hair with an odd look on his face. 

“Okay,” Kevin said. “Then you don’t approve.” He didn’t have to say of us, of this, the three of us.  

“No! Fuck. That’s not-” Ronan stopped and found a point to stare at on the bedroom wall, his jaw clenched so hard that his cheekbones shifted. 

Kevin held his breath and sat on the bed next to his idol, next to Andrew’s best friend in the whole world. “That’s not what?” he prompted. 

“Fuck,” Ronan said, long and drawn out, and Kevin wondered how Ronan made it through so many interviews without using fuck between every word. “I just.” Ronan stopped again, opened and closed his mouth a few times, and then, “You’re okay with this?” It took Kevin a moment to get his meaning, and Ronan flapped his hand around them at the bed, and then in the direction of the door that Kevin had closed behind them. “I can tell you are, and Andrew is-” he paused again. “Andrew is happy,” Ronan said, and Kevin could see the surprise on Ronan’s face as the words left his mouth. “Andrew is happy,” Ronan said again, firmly. 

Both of Kevin’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re worried,” he said. 

“I was worried,” Ronan corrected. “It’s taking me longer than I thought to turn that off.” He looked at Kevin then, earnestly, those blue eyes intense, a little darker, a little richer than Neil’s. Kevin was briefly distracted by wondering if Ronan would let him take his picture, but he shoved that thought down for later. 

“I love him,” Kevin said. He shrugged. “Neil loves him too, though those aren’t words he says as easily.” 

Ronan stared and stared at him, and then he rolled his eyes and said, “Ugh,” before flopping back on the bed. “Why did the two of you have to be in New York? Even San Francisco would have been better than this.”

Kevin flopped beside him, agreeably. Because, well. Fair enough. He and Neil had stolen Ronan’s best friend after all, even if it was Aaron that had brought Andrew into their lives in the first place, really. 

“Come visit as much as you want,” Kevin said. “We can even build you your own room, right next to Aaron’s. But we’re keeping Andrew.” 

They laid there in silence for a while, the music trickling in over the bedroom walls. Kevin felt like he was floating. Eventually Ronan rustled beside him, and Kevin turned to see those blue eyes staring at him intently again. 

“Hurt him and I will end you,” Ronan said. 

The words were menacing but the tone was soft, and Kevin grinned back at him. “Did I just get a shovel talk from Ronan Lynch?” he asked, delighted. 

“Ugh,” Ronan said again, emphatically, and covered Kevin’s face with his hand. 

“Can I take your picture?” Kevin asked from behind Ronan’s palm. 

Ronan barked out that laugh of his and shoved and Kevin laughed too, and everything was just fine. More than fine. 

They emerged from the bedroom to find Neil putting on a goddamned polka record and Andrew pouring shots. 

“Sort yourselves out?” Andrew said without looking up. 

“Ronan said I could take his picture,” Kevin announced. 

“The fuck I did,” Ronan said, but he pulled out the little tin of edibles and shook it in the air. “Round two?”

They did round two. Ronan relaxed; he promised to sit still long enough for Kevin to take his picture tomorrow. Kevin’s cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing. Neil was glowy and languid, giggles escaping here and there. Kevin watched Andrew too, and Ronan was right; he was happy. 

It was well past midnight when Andrew pulled out his guitar and pulled a chair up next to Ronan, that focused look on his face that Kevin had come to know so well. Neil saw it too, because he said, “Go to sleep before the sun comes out,” and herded Kevin to their bedroom with two bottles of water in hand. 

“How are you feeling?” Neil asked, after they’d both peed and brushed their teeth and crawled into bed. Andrew’s guitar and Ronan’s voice floated softly in, soothing and beautiful, and Kevin was grateful for once that their walls didn’t reach the ceiling. 

“Nice,” Kevin said, burrowing his face into Neil’s neck. “I like Andrew’s edibles.” 

Neil hummed into his hair. “Me too,” he said. “I like Ronan.” His fingers shifted over Kevin’s shoulders and trailed down his back. Kevin tried to focus when all he wanted to do was purr. 

“Yeah, yes. His eyes are darker blue than yours,” Kevin said. 

Neil’s giggle was a softer thing now. “So you are still high then?”

“Totally,” Kevin agreed. 

“Here,” Neil shifted and pushed at Kevin, and Kevin rolled obligingly to his stomach, letting Neil rearrange him until he was splayed out on a pillow that smelled like Andrew and tucked around his favorite silky amber colored blanket. Neil slid fingertips under the edge of Kevin’s shirt and drifted them softly along the skin of his lower back.

“Oh,” Kevin sighed. “God, that still feels so good.” 

Neil snorted, planted a kiss on the top of Kevin’s ear, and then really got to work, kneading muscles and tracing tattoo lines and brushing his lips after his fingers, rucking up Kevin’s shirt to work his way up his back, then dipping below the neckline and up the sleeves to find corners of skin to delight. 

Kevin thought maybe he said more words, thought maybe Neil giggled a bit more at him, thought maybe he heard Andrew and Ronan playing Green Eyes in the living room. 

He was too busy floating to be sure. 

Chapter Text

They usually did Thanksgiving at Jean and Renee’s with the rest of their crew, but this year wasn’t usually. 

Aaron had gotten out of rehab at the end of the summer, and moved into the loft, sleeping on the same couch Andrew used to sleep on. Andrew had introduced Aaron to their friend group carefully - protective of triggers and recreational drug use that might send his brother into a spiral - but after the first Friday night party they missed post-Aaron, Renee and Jean had banned all drugs harder than pot from their apartment. 

Andrew didn’t have to say any words for Kevin to know he felt some kind of way about that. 

So they folded Aaron into the group. Jean took him under his wing immediately, Aaron sous-cheffing dinner parties, and even making his own impact on the menus; by the end of September, Jean set Aaron loose in his beautiful kitchen on his own and they were rewarded with shrimp and goat cheese grits with chorizo, summer squash ratatouille with parmesan and sage, sweet potato biscuits with cardamom butter, and a chocolate chess pie topped with bourbon-marshmallow whipped cream that was so good Andrew threatened to write a song about it. 

In October there was a flurry of construction to finish Aaron’s room along with three other guest rooms on the newly constructed “second” floor (Aaron had protested the expense, but Neil had flapped a hand at him and said, “Uncle Stuart is paying for it - at least this way a new car won’t show up at Christmas”). And anyway, a need for guest rooms that didn’t consist of the Chesterfield sofa had arisen: Betsy Dobson, Nicky Klose, and his husband Erik had been invited for Thanksgiving.

Kevin was apparently the only one who wasn’t nervous for the visit. Aaron poured over his meal plan and bickered with Andrew about pies. Neil had Allison over daily, furnishing the guest rooms and incorporating a long, heavy vintage table into the space to accommodate them all for the actual dinner. 

One of the couches had to go, to make space for the new table, but Kevin enjoyed the additional elevated surface to spread out his work. He’d agreed to let Jeremy feature his work in a special showing next month, and Kevin was obsessively organizing and reorganizing his photographs, planning for a series of life size portraits. He’d taken new photographs of Neil; studio shots, dim amber light, not quite black and white but washed of color. He had Ronan too, and Andrew of course. Renee had modeled for him, and Robin. Jeremy and Allison and Jean. Kevin had faith he would talk Aaron into it too, before the end of the month. 

For now, though, Aaron was too stressed, and Andrew was stressed about Aaron being stressed. It was Neil who finally snapped at Aaron, held up a hand while he sent a mysterious text, and then dragged Aaron somewhat reluctantly from the loft. 

That was the day Aaron discovered that Renee’s ropes did the same thing for him they did for Neil: put him back into his body, calmed his mind, pressed the reset button. 

So, Kevin may have been the only one not worried leading up to Thanksgiving, but as they rolled into hour two of Nicky's non-stop crying, he thought he may have miscalculated. 

“I still just can’t believe it’s you,” Nicky said for the fourth time, reaching out to touch Andrew’s arm. Andrew steeled himself each time, but managed not to flinch away. 

Bee’d been there for a day already, but Nicky and Erik missed their connection in Amsterdam due to a delayed flight, and ended up arriving just as Aaron and Jean were setting the table. 

They’d sat, finally, after a flurry of too long hugs and introductions, Nicky snagging the chair next to Andrew. 

Neil flopped into the chair on Andrew’s right, as far away from Bee as he could manage. 

“Will Katelyn be joining us?” Erik asked as Jean and Aaron set the rest of the food on the table. 

Aaron stilled for only a moment, and Jean and Renee exchanged looks. “We broke up,” Aaron said. He said it easily, nonchalantly, but Kevin knew what that nonchalance cost him. 

“Oh Aaron, that’s so sad!” Nicky said through a fresh wave of tears. “I thought you two were endgame!” 

Aaron shrugged, and took his seat between Renee and Jean. Kevin raised an eyebrow at the hand Renee laid on Aaron’s arm.

“Well this meal looks divine,” Bee said, gracefully changing the subject. 

“Aaron did all of the cooking,” Jean said. “I’m just the sous chef tonight.” 

Aaron blushed, the color blooming across his cheeks and ears in the same pattern as Andrew. 

“Wait,” Nicky said, undeterred from Bee’s obvious attempt to re-direct. “She broke up with you while you were in rehab?”

“Nicky,” Andrew said, warning clear enough in his voice for Neil to tense. 

“It’s fine,” Aaron said, throwing a quick look at Andrew, before looking back at Nicky. “Yes, she broke up with me while I was in rehab, and I don’t blame her, and we’re not mad about it, okay? Can we please fucking talk about literally anything else?”

“Aaron is going to open up a food truck called Two Grits,” Kevin said, picking up the mashed potatoes and pointedly shoving them into Nicky’s hands. 

It worked. “A food truck!” Nicky said, delighted. He spooned potatoes on his and Erik’s plates and peppered Aaron with questions. Andrew and Neil’s shoulders both relaxed an inch or two as Aaron detailed his plans for the Southern inspired street food truck that Andrew was investing in. He was excited about it, and that excitement carried them through dinner until they had cleaned their plates and all of them had gone in for seconds. 

“Well if this dinner was any indication, I’m sure you will be wildly successful,” Bee said over the rim of her wine glass. “Have you solidified your menu yet?”

“I’ve been workshopping it with Jean,” Aaron said. “Grits, obviously, two styles available every day - hence the name. We’ll definitely have ham biscuits with apple butter, and a vegetarian option too - probably a chicken-fried tofu, although there’s this really great soy based fake pork that the Chinese markets around here carry.”

Bee smiled warmly at Aaron after a quick glance at Andrew. “That’s really thoughtful, to have the vegetarian option. I’m sure that’s not easy in Southern cooking.”

Aaron shrugged a little. “Honestly, I think anyone who doesn’t offer options like that is just lazy. There’s some pretty inspirational stuff coming out of the South these days.” 

“He’s being modest,” Jean said. “It’s not easy to make good vegetarian versions of a lot of soul food, but Aaron’s very talented.”

“And Andrew’s been taste-testing all of the recipes,” Renee added. 

“Has he?” Bee said, beaming at Aaron.

Aaron blushed again, and Neil shockingly seemed to take pity on him this time. “What else is on the menu?” he asked, even though Kevin knew he knew. They’d been (happily) eating their way through all the iterations of the Two Grits menu for weeks now. 

Aaron listed off cornmeal fried okra - “but sliced long-ways just once so they are like fries” - and smoked deviled eggs with pickled onion, little cups of banana pudding “made the traditional way, because you can’t mess with perfection.” 

“Don’t forget my pie,” Andrew said. 

“And Andrew’s pie,” Aaron added with a small smile at his brother. “Chocolate chess pie, but little tiny ones, with toasted bourbon marshmallows on top.”

Nicky snorted. He was crying again, but he laughed through his tears. “Little tiny,” he said. “I get it. Because-”

Nicky cut off when twin hazel glares turned his way. Kevin didn’t dare laugh, but it was a near thing. Neil was definitely smirking.

“Speaking of,” Jean said, excusing himself from the table and then returning with a pie in each hand. Aaron broke his glaring contest to jump up and bring two cakes from the kitchen. 

“If y’all would,” Aaron said. “Taste test - we want a third dessert option to go with the chess pie and the banana pudding. So. Vote.”

The coconut cake won hands down. 

Later, Bee managed to corner Neil by his canvases, and he seemed to loosen up as he talked about art. Jean was making fancy cocktails for Nicky and Erik, and Renee and Aaron were curled up on Chesterfield sofa, flipping through some potential Two Grits logos Neil had drawn up. They were sitting just a wee closer than Kevin thought was casual. Jean didn’t seem concerned, though, so what did Kevin know?

Andrew had been missing since they’d had dessert, but Kevin caught the scent of something that might point to his whereabouts. He snagged a bottle of bourbon, not bothering with glasses, and slipped into their bedroom. 

Andrew was propped up on the little desk by the window smoking - a desk they’d acquired via Allison shortly after they’d acquired Andrew, and though Neil hadn’t said, Kevin knew it was for just this purpose. 

“Hey,” Kevin said, handing over the bottle after he took a healthy first swig. 

Andrew took a drink too, before setting the bottle down on the desk. “Hey yourself,” he said. 

“Nicky seems to have stopped crying,” Kevin reported. 

Andrew huffed. “Small miracles.”

“Your mom has finally gotten Neil to stand still for five minutes and talk to her.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow. “Big miracles too, then.”

Kevin smirked. “Yeah,” he agreed. He pressed into Andrew’s side and Andrew yielded to him, wrapping an arm around Kevin’s waist. They leaned into each other, the smoke curling out the window, car horns drifting up from the street below, the lights of New York City twinkling and winking in rainbow color before them. 

After a while Kevin scooped up the bourbon again, raised it for a drink, then paused. “I think something’s going on with Aaron and Renee,” he said. 

Andrew’s answering sigh was long suffering. He took the bottle from Kevin and took another big swallow before adding, “And Jean.” 

“And Jean?” Kevin repeated, both eyebrows flying up. 

Andrew passed the bottle back and stubbed his dying cigarette out. “Yep,” Andrew said, popping the “p” real hard. 

Kevin couldn’t help it. He started to laugh. Andrew glared at him, and shoved him in the ribs, but Kevin refused to go. “I’m sorry, fuck,” he said when he managed to catch his breath. “It’s just, well. It seems we’ve started a trend.” 

“I hate you,” Andrew said, but the corner of his mouth ticked up, just a little. 

“Ah, but you see, there’s the thing,” Kevin said, turning fond and serious in a flash. “You really don’t.” 

Andrew rolled his eyes at him and Kevin grinned, and Andrew was left with no other choice than to shove Kevin onto the bed and kiss him stupid until Neil wandered in to find them tangled up. 

“Oh, hell no,” Neil said, grabbing Kevin’s leg and yanking him half off the bed. “You left me alone to face the wolves.” 

“And by wolves I take it you mean Bee?” Andrew asked him, amused and now starfished flat on his back. 

“Don’t at me, Andrew,” Neil said with a pointed look. “You just wait until Stuart gets here for Christmas. Then we’ll see who’s laughing.” 

“Ah, your doting uncle who buys you buildings and cars and shares your imposing stature of a whopping five foot three inches. Terrifying.” 

“My mafia uncle,” Neil said. “And stop distracting me, I needed backup and you two abandoned me to make out and-,” Neil paused, spying the bottle of bourbon on the desk. “Oooh,” he said, dropping Kevin’s leg in favor of snagging it for himself. 

“You are a raccoon,” Andrew said. “Distracted by shiny objects.” 

“Well,” Neil said, climbing onto the bed with the bottle in hand. “What does that make you two then?” 

“Shiny?” Kevin offered. 

“Mmmm,” Neil said, falling into his arms and barely managing to not spill bourbon everywhere. 

Kevin relocated the bourbon to the bedroom floor and lost track of time kissing both of his boyfriends, fueled by the buzz of love and liquor in his belly, until Nicky walked in without knocking. 

“Neil, did you convince them-- oooooohhhhh!” Nicky interrupted himself to squeal loudly, and then promptly started crying again. Erik showed up at his shoulder, concern clouding his face, but Nicky just dabbed his eyes and babbled, “I’m just so happy you have all this love, Andrew.” 

“Convince us of what?” Andrew asked, studiously ignoring his cousin’s fresh bout of tears and the word “love”. 

Neil sat up. “Oh yeah. Nicky wants to go do karaoke,” he said solemnly. “I told him you know all the Raven Boys songs.” 

“Neil,” Andrew said, warningly. 

“By heart,” Neil added. 

“That Ronan Lynch is just so fucking hot, ” Nicky said, mock swooning against the door. 

“Goddamnit it,” Andrew said, closing his eyes. 

“I told you you shouldn’t have abandoned me to the wolves,” Neil said, poking both of them. 

Kevin started laughing. 

They went to karaoke.

Chapter Text

“So,” Jeremy said, after all but draining his first mimosa. “Aaron.” He waved his hand in the air in a little circle. “With Jean and Renee, huh?”

Kevin snorted and didn’t look up from the menu. “Apparently,” he said. 

“Polyamory seems to be a good look on him,” Jeremy mused. 

Kevin nodded. He thought he might do the french toast. It was his birthday after all. 

“It’s certainly a good look on you,” Jeremy said. 

Kevin did look up at that. Jeremy was grinning at him, and Kevin couldn’t help the answering grin that blossomed on his face, nor the flush he felt across his cheeks. He never used to be a blusher before. Or maybe he had. He couldn’t remember. 

“Things are good,” Kevin said. It was an understatement, but Jeremy knew him. Kevin registered the satisfied gleam in Jeremy’s eyes and tried to hide his smile in his bloody mary.

“I was worried, you know,” Jeremy said, after their server had taken their order. French toast for both of them, and they’d decided to split a ham and gruyere omelet too.

Kevin frowned. “Worried?” 

Jeremy shrugged. “I don’t know dude, something was off. Not quite right, before you guys met Andrew. Now things seem … better?” 

“Things weren’t bad with me and Neil,” Kevin said, the urge to pull back, wrap up, defend overwhelming him for a moment.  

“I know,” Jeremy said. “Hey?” Jeremy tapped at the table. “Hey, Kev, that’s not what I’m saying.” 

Kevin blew out a breath and squeezed the back of Jeremy’s wrist. “I know. And you’re not wrong.” 

It wasn’t until the food arrived and Kevin was halfway through his second bloody mary that he blurted out, “I’ve been going to therapy.” Kevin wasn’t sure why it felt like a confession, and he froze up a bit after the words came out of his mouth, but Jeremy just nodded at him encouragingly. 

“Sophia and I just started couples therapy,” Jeremy said. 

Kevin stilled. “What? Are you guys okay?” 

That startled a surprised laugh out of Jeremy. “Yeah! We’re good! Just like, it’s therapy you know? We could all benefit one way or another.” 

Kevin blinked at him. “Huh.” 

Jeremy sat his fork down and gave Kevin his full attention. “I apologize,” he said. “You were… is this a new thing for you?” 

Kevin nodded. 

“Like, first time ever?” Jeremy asked incredulously. 

Kevin nodded again. 

“Well fuck. Okay.” A string of complicated emotions flashed across Jeremy’s face in quick succession, which, fair enough. Jeremy knew everything - everything - that had happened to Kevin and Neil, how things went down with the Moriyamas. It had been pretty fucked. So fair enough that he assumed Kevin and Neil had gotten some goddamned therapy. Kevin had only begun to scratch the surface of things with his new therapist. Jeremy finally landed on a question. “Neil too?” 

Kevin snorted a laugh. “Andrew’s working on him, but I don’t know that he will.” Neil was squirrely enough as it was when Andrew’s mom was here for Thanksgiving, and she wasn’t even trying to lay Neil down on the metaphorical couch. 

Jeremy nodded thoughtfully. “You want to talk about it?”

“About what?” Kevin hedged.

Jeremy shrugged affably. “You brought it up my friend.”

Kevin considered. Therapy was one thing, and he talked to Neil and Andrew of course, but it might be nice to talk about it to someone he wasn’t paying or living with. He’d been figuring out so many things about himself, and who else would he tell but Jeremy? Kevin sat up a little taller, and said, a bit stiffly, “I’m asexual.” 

Jeremy blinked in confusion. “Asexual,” he repeated. 

“Yeah, like,” Kevin twirled his hand in the air awkwardly. “I don’t experience attraction, really.” 

“I don’t know what that means,” Jeremy said carefully. “Would you explain it to me? I can google, if you prefer.” 

“No,” Kevin said. He mulled over what to say, and landed on making it personal. “How does it feel when you want to have sex with Sophia?”

Jeremy set down his fork, propped an elbow on the table, and appeared to seriously consider his answer. “I am not entirely sure what the question is,” Jeremy confessed after a long pause. “Like, what about my wife turns me on?”

“Sort of,” Kevin said. “You are sexually attracted to Sophia, yes?”

Jeremy rolled his eyes fondly. “Inordinately so.”

“Okay, so, how do you know? What does that feel like?”

Jeremy hummed, chin propped in both hands now. “I’ve never tried to describe this before, so bear with me. I kinda always want to have sex with Sophia? I mean, have you seen my wife?” Kevin raised an eyebrow at him and Jeremy laughed. “Right, not helpful. Hmmm.”

Jeremy tapped a finger against his jaw while he thought about it.

“Okay,” Jeremy said, and his voice was softer and warmer than it had been a moment before. “Sometimes she will tilt her head to the side, just a little, and her hair falls over one shoulder, and it’s like a little current runs through me and all I can think about for a moment is sliding my hands along her skin and tucking my face into her neck. Or, when she says something that is just, so brilliant, in that accent of hers, and all I want is her underneath me, in my arms, naked. It’s lots of little moments: her sleepy face in the morning, the spark in her eyes when she is furious with me, the way she looks when she has her glasses on and her hair piled up on top of her head. Is this what you are asking?”

Kevin held his hand up in a seesaw motion. “I feel all of those things, I mean, sort of. But it doesn’t translate into wanting to have sex.”

Jeremy considered. “So in those moments - the metaphorical messy bun and glasses moments - you feel affection, fondness - but you don’t want to have sex?”

Kevin blinked, thinking about Andrew’s bedhead and tortoiseshell glasses, and Neil covered in paint, highlighted in the late morning sun. “Yeah, exactly.” 

Jeremy sat back a little and picked up his fork again. “But you do have sex with Neil,” Jeremy said, pointing his fork at Kevin. 

“Sometimes,” Kevin said. “And Andrew too. But that’s kind of the point. You said you were worried about me. Before. I was worried too. About Neil being happy. I thought he wanted more than I was able to give him.”

Jeremy’s face clouded over in an instant, an intensity Kevin hadn’t seen since Jeremy had found out about Riko. “Did he say that to you?” 

“No!” Kevin said too loudly. The table next to them looked over, and a woman across the room did a double take and then started whispering to her table mates. Kevin forced his hand still, kept it from creeping up to hover over the tattoo on his cheek. He lifted his chin instead. “No,” he said again. “Of course not. He’s said the opposite. But sometimes my brain is an asshole.”

Jeremy’s face didn't exactly clear. “I don’t think the answer is you have sex if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t have sex when I don’t want to,” Kevin said.

Jeremy stared at him, frowning. 

“Hey, Jer? I know this is complicated. Imagine me navigating it before having words to make it make sense. But sometimes I do want to have sex, and Neil and Andrew would never, ever pressure me.”

“Okay,” Jeremy said, finally relaxing. “Good.”

“It is. Good, I mean. I think that - Andrew makes us whole. Things were good before him, but now they are better. It doesn’t make me and Neil any less. It’s just… it’s more, now. And the sex thing well…” Kevin trails off.

“I take it Andrew is not asexual,” Jeremy said, amused. 

“No,” Kevin said, thinking about hot skin and hot eyes and the hungry slide of Andrew’s hands on Neil. “He definitely is not.” 

Jeremy laid down some bills. “Birthday brunch, no way you are paying,” he said when Kevin tried to pull out his wallet. 

“I’m really happy for you Kevin,” Jeremy said, tucking an arm around Kevin’s waist while they walked. 

“Me too,” Kevin agreed with a contented sigh. 

***

It was relatively quiet in the loft when Kevin walked in, but he spotted his boys immediately. Andrew was tucked up on the Chesterfield with giant headphones on, idly strumming his guitar and squinting at the laptop in front of him. Neil was in his corner, acrylics arrayed around him and a freshly stretched canvas on the easel.

“How’s Jeremy?” Neil called over his shoulder.

“Wonderful,” Kevin said. He dropped his bag on a chair, but his gaze snagged on the very large, very chocolate cake sitting in the middle of the table. “Cake?”

“Aaron made that for you,” Neil said before making one more decisive green slash on the canvas in front of him, and then dropping the brush into a jar of water. 

“I thought they were coming over for dinner?” Kevin said, surprised. “Why would he bring cake early?” Kevin had grown rather fond of Andrew’s prickly twin, and he was supposed to be hanging out for Thai take out and movies - Kevin’s preferred birthday plan. Of course they’d invited Renee and Jean, too. 

“We rescheduled it to tomorrow,” Andrew said, coming up behind Kevin and wrapping strong hands around his waist. 

Kevin frowned, but before he could protest, Neil stepped in front of him and held out a box. It wasn’t wrapped, but there was a bright red bow on top, its floppy edges draping down the side. 

“We can call them if you still want it to be tonight,” Neil said, “but we have a surprise for you that we thought…” Neil trailed off and shrugged. He wasn’t blushing - Kevin had never actually seen Neil blush - but it was a near thing. 

“You’re being weird,” Kevin said. 

“Open the box, Kevin,” Andrew said. 

Kevin opened the box. It took him a minute to clock what he was looking at, and then the ramifications, and then the first thing out of his mouth was, “Who’d you get to develop this?” 

It was an 8 by 10 picture of Neil, sitting on their kitchen counter, slumped and flushed and naked and recently having had at least one orgasm. Kevin was real clear on what Neil’s just-fucked face looked like. Underneath the picture was Kevin’s favorite Nikon, nestled on a scrap of velvet. 

“This is … my camera?” Kevin asked, confused for only a moment before he felt heat climb into his cheeks. “Oh,” he said. 

“Yeah,” Neil agreed, a slow smile blooming on his face. “If you want to.” 

“If I want to,” Kevin repeated, looking at Neil, who had a bright yellow streak of paint across his cheek, and then Andrew, who had slid around from behind him to hook a finger in Neil’s belt loop. 

“Yes,” Andrew said. “It’s a yes from both of us.” 

“Fuck,” Kevin said. 

“Happy Birthday,” Andrew said. “Where do you want us?” 

“Now?” Kevin stuttered. 

“Now,” Neil agreed. “We prepped and everything.” 

Kevin clocked the damp edges of their hair, clocked what Neil meant by prepped, and he promptly short circuited. It wasn’t lust, but it was … Kevin was overwhelmed. That they were giving him this thing. He knew what it meant, for both of them, to offer up this trust. This vulnerability. 

Kevin finally managed to reboot by force of will alone, and gripped his camera, images slipping across his vision in fast forward - Neil and Andrew and hands and moans and lips and touch and - 

“Paint,” Kevin said. 

“Paint?” Neil asked.

“Remember? You were trying to paint Andrew’s eye color and you painted him, instead. Here,” Kevin said, slowly running a fingertip along Andrew’s cheek, where Neil had slashed gold paint across the whisper of Andrew’s freckles so many months ago. “I want to photograph you painting him.” 

“Oh.” Neil looked surprised for only a moment before he cocked his head and said, “We can do that.” He turned to walk back to his easel, deftly shedding his clothes as he went until he was naked and holding a wide flat paintbrush in his hand, the green paint dripping off the end onto their floor. He turned and grinned and crooked a finger at Andrew. 

Andrew rolled his eyes in response, but dropped his headphones to the table, kicked off his shoes, and performed his own perfunctory strip tease, leaving a pile of black clothes on the floor before obediently putting himself in arms length of Neil. 

“Goddamn,” Kevin said, leaning against the wall. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from them, couldn’t move, couldn’t breath. The winter sun streamed through the window to bathe them both in pale yellow, turning them into a glowing expanse of skin, a landscape of tattoos and freckles and battle scars. 

Neil braided fingers with Andrew and then turned, twirling them both to face Kevin. Neil pulled Andrew against him, skin to skin, back to front, and the little gasp Andrew let out was audible as Neil draped Andrew’s arm up and around his head. 

“Stay,” Neil said in Andrew’s ear, loud enough for Kevin to hear. Andrew’s dick was already half hard, and it twitched at the word. Neil splayed a hand flat on Andrew’s stomach, and slowly painted a long, glistening line down his chest. Andrew shivered. “S’okay?” Neil asked. 

“Yes,” Andrew said, tilting his head back onto Neil’s shoulder and closing his eyes. 

Neil swiped a second line up Andrew’s neck to behind his ear. It was decadent, Neil holding Andrew on display like this, presenting him for Kevin. God, Andrew was fucking beautiful. Trusting. Perfect. Theirs. 

Kevin finally lifted his camera. 

Click.

He caught the moment Andrew’s mouth dropped open, Neil’s brush dipped in blue now and sliding down Andrew’s ribs. 

Click.

He caught Neil’s teeth on Andrew’s ear, a slash of amber down the corded muscle of Andrew’s forearm. 

Click. 

He caught the softness in Andrew’s face as Neil swirled white paint over his shoulders. 

Eventually Neil lost the brush. The painting devolved to fingertips and lips, color smeared on both of them. Andrew looked up at Kevin on a delicate shiver, heavy-lidded, and said, “You are very far away.” 

“Let’s take this to bed, then,” Kevin said. 

“The sheets?” Neil asked, but he was already towing Andrew to their room. 

“I’ll buy new sheets,” Kevin said. 

It was Neil who pushed Andrew down when they got to the bed, Neil who crawled on top of him, thighs spread wide, hands on Andrew’s painted chest. “C’mon,” he said breathily, and Kevin kicked off his own shoes and stripped out of his shirt and pants. He hesitated, then pulled his briefs off too, and crawled into the bed beside them, wearing nothing but his camera. 

“You want to participate?” Neil asked. He did that now: asked. Directly. They’d both learned that from Andrew. It made Kevin feel warm. Loved. 

“No,” he said. “Not right now.” 

“Okay. You want to direct?”

Kevin shook his head. “Just do whatever you want,” he said, and took a picture, then another when Neil leaned down to kiss Andrew. 

The kiss was slow, languid, soft. They could be urgent, but this wasn’t that. This was a gift, a show, a display for Kevin, but it was genuine. It was love, affection, promise. It was the past year and the fights and making up and figuring it out. It was a symphony that only made sense to the three of them. 

Neil stayed on top, smeared with blue and green and gold from Andrew’s chest, their fingers tightly woven as Neil lowered himself on Andrew’s cock, and Kevin thought this might be the bluest Neil’s eyes ever got. 

Click.

Kevin captured the sheen on Neil’s skin, the flex of his thighs. 

Click. 

He captured Andrew’s grip on Neil’s hips, the bite of Neil’s lip in his teeth, Andrew’s eyes rolling back when Neil shifted and slowed his pace. 

Click. Click. Click. 

“Andrew,” Neil managed. “Can you..” 

If Andrew said anything in response it was lost in the movement as he flipped Neil onto his back in one practiced display of strength.

“Yeah, like that,” Neil said, as Andrew hauled one of Neil’s legs up to his side and fucked back into hims slowly, steadily. Neil sighed so hard his teeth chattered. 

Kevin pushed his camera off to the side and pressed close to them, his face inches from Neil’s. “Good?” he asked. 

“Fucking, duh,” Neil managed between Andrew’s thrusts. 

Andrew breathed out a tiny laugh at that, and hauled Neil’s other leg up. “You lost your camera,” he said. 

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed, and leaned up to meet Andrew in a soft kiss. 

Neil tucked a hand in Kevin’s hair, and Kevin tucked his face in Neil’s neck, and Andrew pressed closer to both of them, slowing his pace and dropping kisses on Neil’s cheeks, on Kevin’s nose. 

There was paint everywhere, on all three of them, on the sheets. Andrew gripped Kevin’s hand, adjusted his angle, and rocked into Neil with a new rhythm that set Neil to babbling. “Gonna come if you keep that up,” he said breathily. 

“So come then,” Kevin crooned into his ear. He pressed his free hand between Andrew and Neil, and Neil whined filthily when Kevin wrapped his fingers around his weeping cock. 

It was a handful of moments, quiet breath and moans and touch, and then Neil came, a steady pulse over Kevin's hand, Andrew fucking him through it, following him into orgasm. It was the three of them, entwined: Andrew’s lips on Neil’s, his hand in Kevin’s, Kevin’s face tucked into Neil’s neck, his hand on Neil’s cock, their breath shared, the moment magic. 

Kevin didn’t need a camera to capture it, to hold on to it, to wrap it up in his heart. 

“I’m happy,” Kevin said, minutes later, sprawled with his sticky boyfriends in their very large beds. 

“Good,” Neil said around a yawn. “Happy Birthday.”

“Birthday nap?” Andrew suggested.

“Birthday nap, then birthday cake,” Kevin amended.

Andrew rolled a bit to prop his head on Kevin’s shoulder, pausing to wipe away most of their mess with the edge of the ruined sheets before flinging a leg over Kevin's thigh. Neil was already tucked into Kevin’s other side, drawing circles around Kevin’s belly button with one fingertip. 

Kevin reached for his camera, held it aloft. 

Click.