Archive of Our Own

Andrew Minyard leans against the wall outside the Calculus II lecture hall and tries not to feel like too much of an idiot. With a coffee in each hand and a cigarette between his lips, it is becoming increasingly obvious that this task is nearing the impossible. He takes a drag, and watches as a clump of ash falls off and lands on the tip of his shoe in a pathetic little mound. When he kicks it away from existence, the coffees slosh in his hands.

His watch tells him the doors to the lecture room should be opening any moment now. He makes a valiant but ultimately useless attempt at taking comfort in this fact, and resigns himself to the bittersweet flutter of anxiety that’d been plaguing him since early morning.

He doesn’t know why he’s here. It’s unlike him, so fundamentally uncharacteristic, to act on such a curious impulse. There has always been such a clear distinction between his want and his need, and yet here he stands, unsure where the decision to come here originated from. He searches for some sense of worry, for that tender insecurity of losing what’s his, but comes up empty. This is different, he knows.

The doors open, and he lets the cigarette fall to the ground, smashing it’s bright red butt against his heel and leaving a streak of ash in its wake. Students spill out, and none of them really spare him a glance, and if they do he doesn’t see them. His eyes snag the head of curly auburn hair dipped low, trailing over Neil’s concentrated face as he frowns at whatever his plain-looking classmate is telling him. Andrew thinks of waving him over, but in that moment it feels like an inexplicably immature thing to do, so instead he stays still and silent, staring at his striker. As if he could will Neil to look, to see him.

The thought is so depressing it fills him with fury for the split-second it takes Neil to glance in his general direction and freeze in his track, waving his classmate away with a half-hearted gesture before he’s walking over. Andrew immediately misses his cigarette.

“Hey,” Neil says, and it sounds like a question. Andrew’s answer is the jerk of his right hand, nearly shoving one of the coffees in Neil’s chest. He does something funny with his face when he accepts it, and Andrew doesn’t feel like dealing with whatever he’s going to try to say, so he turns on his heels and starts for the food hall. Predictably, Neil falls right into step with him.

“This is a surprise,” Andrew hears. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Neil take a sip of his coffee and smack his lips appreciatively.

“Lecture ended early,” Andrew mutters, and it doesn’t sound defensive, and it certainly wasn’t meant to be defensive, but Neil still gives him an inquiring look.

“Didn't say it was a bad surprise.”

Andrew doesn’t have anything to say to that, so he brings his own drink up to his lips as they cross the wide lawn in front of the library. Students are scattered across the grass like impressionist strokes on a green canvas, meaningless smudges on their own. He sees a couple laying together in silence, she on her phone and he immersed in his homework, before they blur together like the rest of them.

His hand bumps against something, and he looks down to see Neil’s arm suspiciously close to his. When he looks up again, Neil appears both smug and bashful.

“Hey,” he says again, and this time it isn’t a question. Andrew’s answering hum invites him to continue. “Thanks for this.” And he lifts his coffee, and Andrew gets the impression he isn’t really talking about the coffee, but he nods and they both pretend they’re referring to the coffee.

He feels a bit silly, suddenly. The slightly embarrassing kind, that makes him look away but doesn’t bother him, not really.

It’s not like this is a thing. It’s just coffee. And a walk. And, maybe most importantly, just company. It doesn’t have to be a want or a need, because it doesn’t have to be anything at all. It just is. It’s just Neil, and him.

He glances back at Neil, sees him chewing on his bottom lip. He’s been doing that a lot lately. Talking makes him stop, so Andrew asks him about his lecture, even though Math is boring and pointless. But Neil seems pleased to have something to say, and that’s really all there is to it.

It irks him that the athletes have a food hall to themselves. He has half a mind to skip it entirely, to grab lunch with all the other students and fill his plate with greasy lasagna and sugar bombed desserts, but Neil isn’t a very big fan of the idea, and Andrew takes at least some pleasure in watching him struggle through his mandatory portion of steamed vegetables. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s usually the least busy of the two, what with all the busy athletes wolfing down their meals and speeding off to class, or practice, or gym.

They grab their food and sit at the same table they always sit, the one closest to the door, and Andrew tries not to think about how lunch together has become a routine. Neil is still talking about the girl in his class who insisted she had to have his number so they could meet up for their group assignment sometime later that week, and Andrew is vaguely amused.

“So did you give it to her?” he asks between a mouthful of cooked cabbage. It’s disgusting. Briefly, he mourns the lasagna.

“My number?” Neil frowns. “Of course not. I told her we’ll just meet up on Thursday after class.”

“Was she disappointed?” Andrew keeps going, against his better interest. He can’t help the satisfaction that blossoms in the pit of his stomach when Neil shrugs and says;

“I didn’t really care to notice.”

And that’s really, really all there is to it.

Despite the cold outside, the heaters on the inside seem to have been cranked to the max, and as they keep eating, Andrew grows increasingly uncomfortable with the heat pooling beneath his arms. Without much thought, he shrugs off his leather jacket, stretching a bit to pop his back. He’s just got his T-shirt on now, and it’s a bit tight around the shoulders, not unlike the way his armbands hug his forearms. He’s been bulking recently, much to Kevin’s annoying satisfaction.

When he looks up from his plate, Neil is silent, and there’s a faint blush dusting his scarred cheeks, barely visible beneath his tan. His eyes are unsubtly glued to Andrew’s chest. Feeling a sudden rush of power, Andrew straightens his back so that the fabric is pulled taught against his pecks, and isn’t really expecting it when Neil’s head jerks to the side, his ears going bright pink.

It’s a precarious position to be in. He could say something, a taunt or a tease, see how far he can push Neil’s embarrassment. But Neil isn’t usually like this, isn’t the type to wear his attraction on his sleeves, in the open, so Andrew lets it go, and the moment passes.

———

They’d spent the last week of summer in a beach house with the upperclassman, paid for by the hefty sum of both Reynolds’s and Boyd’s budgets. Andrew initially hadn’t cared for the idea of spending so much time confined with them, but Neil’s melancholy was infectious, and Andrew wasn’t completely against the six-room arrangement that gave them more privacy than they’d ever experienced over the past two years. Besides, it was Renee’s last summer before she fucked off to whatever missionary trip her heart desired. Andrew wasn’t particularly sad about it, but it quickly became obvious that the pros were outweighing the cons in this situation, so in the end he’d agreed to go. And he didn’t even revoke it when Aaron announced he’d be bringing Katelyn, but it was a near thing.

Recently he’s been thinking about that summer trip pretty often. He hadn’t expected the girls’ absence to be so thorough, but over the past two months since classes started he’s felt a sort of disconnect, and it definitely isn’t just because they’re gone, but he’s not stupid enough to believe that  it isn’t an important factor. Wilds had been his captain for three years, Bee pointed out. And he never really respected the whole hierarchy thing, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t feel the shift.

The thing is, it’s not at all a bad feeling. He doesn’t find himself missing them, not even in the slightest, but there’s a hole that hadn’t been there before, and he’s caught between letting himself stretch out in the space it’s given him, or tripping over it when he forgets it exists. He isn’t sure what to do with himself, and it’s a feeling so foreign it leaves him uneasy on his feet. He knows something’s different, this year, this time around, and he can’t exactly pinpoint what or when it changed, but he keeps going back to that beach house.

It feels like something ended then, he’d explained to Bee. But looking back at it, he doesn’t think that explains it very well. Because everything continued, except under a different hue.

Last year he’d been stretched thin. It wasn’t good, wasn’t easy, dealing with the aftermath of Neil’s abduction and the consequential fall of Riko Moriyama. And Aaron’s trial was harrowing, a compilation of statement after statement of bile-inducing descriptions regarding his consistent abuse under Cass’s ignorant eye. He’d been stripped down to the bone and left to hang under the critical gaze of a jury who had a hard time consolidating their pity for him with the full extent of his crimes and accusations. Month after month they’d postponed the verdict, and by the time Aaron was finally free of all charges Andrew had been so done with all of it that he’d crashed out for three days straight, and it’d taken the joint efforts of Wymack, Bee, and Neil to piece him back together.

And then that summer break, in the beach house, something washed over him. The sun was warm and teetering on unbearable, the skies were clear, and the ocean was a constant roar. And Neil was Neil, laying on his stomach on the sand, wearing a shirt because he never really got over his scars. And looking up at Andrew, with those ice-coloured eyes, coy and knowing, so damn knowing.

The pain wouldn’t stop. He still has nightmares, still bristles on bad days. But it wouldn’t be like it was before, like it had been last year.

Andrew doesn’t regret how their arrangement played out during the past year, how he’d kept Neil at an arm’s length the whole time, how their progress had been slow and torturous. Neither of them could have handled any more than what they had, he knew. But it still amuses him how quickly things have escalated over the past few months, since the beach house, since Andrew bit Neil’s earlobe in their bed, sand rubbing their skin raw, and asked if he would blow him, and Neil let out a startled moan as he tumbled into his orgasm with a strangled yes.

A couple weeks later, after summer practice had already started, Andrew had sat on their bed in Columbia, and Neil had gotten down on his knees between Andrew’s legs, and he’d looked so beautiful sucking Andrew’s dick, and Andrew really hadn’t stood a chance.

Presently, he watches Neil change out of his gear with as much shame as he can muster, which is none at all. At least he’s sly about, keeping his chin ducked and pretending to fiddle with his arm bands as his eyes train over the delicious curve of Neil’s ass, and that sliver of hipbone visible between his boxers and the sporty shirt Reynolds had bought him last year, just a size too small. He sends her a mental finger as he watches the way the fabric clings to Neil’s waist.

Andrew knows Neil feels it too, the girls’ absence. Probably feels it more than anyone since, in his own words, Dan’s shoes are pretty big to fill. Privately, Andrew thinks Neil has been doing a fine job as the Foxes’ new captain, but again, he’s never really respected the hierarchy thing, so he’ll never say anything about it. But he listens when Neil rants, and he’s only half joking when he offers to stab that lowlife Jack for him on more than one occasion.

Neil often gets pretty wired up about things. Usually he’ll deal with it himself, in his own weird, Neil-esque methods. Longer runs, heated exy marathons. It’s not often that Andrew feels the need to intervene. He knows to respect Neil’s space, knows that with time, and if he wants, Neil will come to him. But sometimes his behaviours become recognisable in their self destructive nature, and Andrew has to put a hand out for Neil to remember he doesn’t have to deflect help when it is open to him.

Like now, as Neil’s eyes bounce around the locker room maniacally, probably unaware of the way his teeth have already slit his bottom lip and a pebble of blood is pooling on the flesh. Unthinkingly, Andrew reaches out, cups his jaw and swipes his lip so that Neil finally releases it from between his teeth. It would be funny, the way they both freeze for a moment, if it wasn’t so disconcerting.

Their eyes meet, Andrew’s a mask of indifference, Neil’s a cold sheet of vulnerability. They aren’t alone, but it feels like it. Andrew is suddenly aware of his own near-nakedness, of his bare legs and torso, and Neil seems to remember this fact at the same moment, because his gaze flickers down, and that warm blush blooms across his cheeks.

Andrew lets go of Neil’s jaw, but he isn’t really breathing well. It feels like the building has tilted sideways, and he thinks maybe everyone has been watching them. He sweeps his eyes across the room and finds no one has so much as spared them a glance, so he looks back at Neil, but he’s already turned away.

He’s not moving, one hand pressed firmly against his locker, the other shaking slightly where he’s gripping a fresh change of clothes. Andrew isn’t worried.

On the drive back to Fox Tower, he wonders if it’s weird, just how much they turn each other on. That line of thinking comes to an abrupt halt when he realises he really doesn’t care, and as they walk up the stairs leading to the rooftop, he can’t remember why the thought even popped up in his head in the first place.

It’s chilly, which is unfortunate, but they’d tried the whole car thing, and Andrew, for all his passion of sexy sleeks with quality leather seats, hadn’t found it particularly sensual. Not that the rooftop is necessarily any better, but at least it gives them a stronger sense of privacy. And he isn’t against the way the cool breeze gives Neil goosebumps as Andrew rucks that pretty shirt high enough to rake his hands along the bumpy expanse of his abdomen. He gets an impulse to lean down and press his lips to Neil’s chest and doesn’t fight it, lets his mouth travel across his warm skin, revels in the way Neil hisses quietly when his lips wrap around his left nipple.

“Andrew,” he mumbles, because he knows, like he always knows, that Andrew likes it when he says his name like that, thinks its hot how it comes out in one long breath.

Neil reaches up, and Andrew lets him wrap his hands around his shoulders, squeezing the meat of them with an appreciative hum. He slides them up along his neck, digs his fingers into the hair at the back of his neck. Tangles into it. Pulls.

Andrew grabs his hips and shoves him hard against the concrete, watches the way Neil throws his head back, squeezes his eyes shut, and presses his lips into a tight line. There’s something here that Andrew isn’t quite sure about, something significant he’s seeing through a blurred lens, or not really seeing at all. But there’s not enough time to figure it out, not when Neil’s opening his eyes again and tugging him back down for another long, wet kiss that has the both of them panting into each other’s mouths.

Neil is sensitive, and it’s absolutely intoxicating. When Andrew slots their hips together, Neil lets out a strangled moan, scraping his nails along Andrew’s scalp in a way that should be painful but is instead entirely pleasurable, because it’s Neil.

It’s always delicious like this, rutting against each other, chasing the other’s pleasure like a wild race. Andrew quickly grows impatient with the semi-friction, and reaches down with firm hands to tug both their joggers down low enough to pull their dicks out, pushes his up against Neil’s and appreciates the way his hands scramble, unsure whether to grab Andrew’s shoulders or dig into his hair. Ultimately it’s both, and Andrew muffles his satisfied grunt into the crook of Neil’s neck.

They come like this, pressed together with the cool wind blowing against their napes. Neil’s first, because he always is, and he moans loudly when Andrew doesn’t stop, when his pleasure inevitably becomes oversensitivity. Andrew thinks it can’t feel good like this, can’t possibly be pleasurable with so much stimulation, but when he goes to pull away Neil whines, unhappily, and hooks a leg around his thigh to pull him closer still. Andrew comes like that, gliding against Neil’s spent dick, and biting into his shoulder to keep himself silent.

After, when they’ve pretended to clean themselves up, Andrew presses his thumb against the small bruise beginning to show on Neil’s shoulder where he’d bitten him. It’s an apology, but it’s ultimately unnecessary, and Neil shivers before he presses their lips together again.

———

Six months ago, Bee had announced she’d be changing offices. It wasn’t anything particularly significant, just a matter of a growing staff and not enough space to accommodate everybody. The new place had turned out to be even closer to the stadium, which was convenient for everybody, but the novelty of it had initially grated Andrew’s nerves. He’d been sure, back then, that this would throw everything off kilter, would reopen all those gooey wounds they’d worked so hard on throughout Aaron’s trial. He’d been furious, inconsolable.

Neil is not entirely wrong, Andrew thinks placably, when he calls him a drama queen.

“I've picked up a mocha variant this time around,” Bee comments offhandedly, setting Andrew’s mug down on the small coffee table between them. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Andrew looks at her flatly, accepts the mug and twirls the spoon around impatiently. He does mind, and they both know it, but he’s not going to admit it, and she never speaks for him. He takes a sip, burns the tip of his tongue a bit.

“I must say,” she continues speaking when he doesn’t say anything, “I was a bit surprised when you texted me about this session.”

“No you weren’t,” Andrew says, setting the mug back down. “You were waiting for it.”

Bee pauses, like she’s thinking about it, then laughs.

“I reckon you’re right.” She taps her fingers against her own mug. “But I wasn’t expecting it. It’s been a while since we’ve had the chance to talk like this, right? Just the two of us.” She takes another sip. “Does it feel strange, without your brother here?”

Andrew shakes his head no. Aaron’s presence had initially been stifling, sometimes still is, but Andrew has witnessed first hand the benefits Bee’s counselling has brought upon them, and he’s long since stopped resenting his brother for tagging along to their weekly sessions. On occasion he misses the intensity of the one-on-one, but Bee has made it clear that if his progress has been effected at all by Aaron’s presence, then these effects have been entirely positive.

“It’s different,” he concedes.

Bee hums in agreement.

“Tell me why you decided to see me on your own today. I know you don’t have a lot of afternoons off, and I would have thought you’d rather spend them on your own.” She pauses. “Or with Neil.”

Andrew can’t help the bemused curl of his lip.

“I'm here because of Neil, actually,” he says. “It isn’t really any of my brother’s business.”

Bee smiles knowingly.

“No, I suppose it isn’t.”

It’s his cue to start talking, he knows. Strangely, he finds himself without words. He gets up, ignoring the bristling part of him, and walks towards the wooden shelf pushed up against the wall opposite to the door. He’s grown fond of this new place, likes the fact that there’s more space, appreciates how the small glass animals he picks up for Bee have been scattered across the room, inhabiting it like they’re very own ecosystem.

“I don’t really know how to explain it,” he admits.

“Have you been fighting?”

“No, no.” He picks up a clear, blueish lizard. Twirls it around in his hand. “It's nothing like that.” Sets it back down. “I just—well. Things have been feeling kind of off, but not really in a bad way?” He tries not to feel childish for how it comes out, and succeeds, but just barely. “It’s intense, when we fuck. And sometimes I feel like he’s not telling me something, and I don’t know if I should push him to spit it out or just leave him alone.”

Bee presses her lips together, hands folded over the notepad on her lap.

“What do you mean, when you say it’s intense?”

He slides his gaze towards her.

“I don’t mean it in a bad way.” He looks away again, finds it easier to continue. “It’s a good intensity, overwhelming but not… dark.”

“Intimate?” she prompts. Andrew suppresses a shudder, nods. “Do you find yourself weary of it, the intimacy?”

“No,” he says, slowly. “I’m more concerned with how it feels like he’s hiding something.” He pauses. “No, not hiding. It’s like he’s trying to show me something he doesn’t know how to say.” He picks up another animal, a toad, and adds, “Like I’m some kind of mind reader.”

“Does the fact that your desire is reciprocated make you uncomfortable?”

Andrew sets the toad down a bit too forcefully, feeling slightly embarrassed. Sex is always so complicated, even with Bee. He’s not sure what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything at all.

“Have you considered he might be trying to communicate his own attraction to you, without having to find the words for it?”

“That’s a theory,” he says mildly.

Again, Bee smiles. Andrew doesn’t mind it when she does it, doesn’t find it as irritating as when anyone else does. Well. Almost anyone.

“I think he’ll come to you,” she concludes. “Each person experiences attraction and sexuality in a unique way. It is possible there’s a kind of fear there, something foreign and unfamiliar to him.”

Andrew mulls this over in his head. He thinks of Neil’s lingering gazes, of the recent reappearance of that warm blush on the tops of his cheeks. He considers, also, the inherent vulnerability of allowing oneself to be desired, and the shamelessness of desiring another. It’d make sense that Neil, both rabbit and fox, immense in his attempts to make himself minuscule, would be wary of something so terrifying.

He sits back down on the armchair, looks disdainfully at the mocha hot chocolate.

“You should stick to traditional.”

Bee nods gravely, staring down at her own mug with a pitiful kind of regret.

———

Andrew knows, objectively, that he is an attractive man. He knows because he puts effort into it, picks his clothes out carefully, gets his hair clipped every month at the same semi-expensive barbershop. He shaves with a frequency that borders on obsession, and he keeps his deodorant in check because he hates the stench of his own sweat. He’s clean, he’s handsome. He takes care of himself.

It wasn’t always like that. When he was younger, all his effort went into the exact opposite. He cut his own hair, allowed his stubble to grow in uneven patches. He wore dirty clothes and showered maybe twice a week, all to appease that childish part of him that needed everyone else to feel as disgusted with him as he did with himself. He thought, and hoped, that maybe if he smelled bad, and if he looked ugly, then they’d leave him alone. Then it would stop. But it never did.

He watches himself in the mirror and feels something complicated twist in his gut. He’d taken to getting piercings done over the past few months, daringly switching from poking holes in his ears to doing so on his face. His septum is fully healed by now, but the metal bar through his bridge is still a little tender. Kevin still bothers him about it, and purposefully aims shots straight at his face as if the impact will make it start bleeding again and he can turn around and say see? I told you so.

He’d asked Andrew once, why he’d even gotten them done. Nicky had teased, said something along the lines of Neil enjoying the way they looked, but that wasn’t really true.

Andrew doesn’t want to think about why he got them done, doesn’t want to contemplate the implications of going out and doing something for himself just because he can. Not because it’ll piss someone off, and not because Neil will like it. Just because he can make that decision and see it through.

He isn’t even sure where Neil stands on them, the piercings. At the end of last semester, when Andrew had commented he’d be getting his septum done, Neil shrugged and accepted it as the invitation it was to tag along. He’d sat on an armchair beside him where he laid down, watched with that piercing gaze as the guy swiftly stuck the needle through, pushing the jewellery in right after. When a mirror was pushed into Andrew’s hand, he’d taken a quick look, found he didn’t hate what he saw, and then it was over.

Andrew realises, now, that Neil never said anything about them at all. His only comment had been after the bridge, which hurt more than Andrew had been expecting, and the location meant his eyes had immediately, and against his will, swelled with tears. Neil looked at him funny, called him a crybaby, and then, again, it was over.

His reflection puckers his lips, and he feels the cold metal of the two spikes through his septum against his upper lip. It’s true, what they say about piercings. They’re addictive. Once you get one, you just keep going. Andrew’s not going to pretend he’s above that kind of addiction.

He wonders, perhaps a bit dramatically, if Neil would even realise he’d gotten a new one if he went and did it by himself. It’s a silly thought that lacks substance, so he immediately discards it.

There’s a hard knock on the bathroom door, and he hears Kevin’s disgruntled voice demanding he get out. He briefly entertains the idea of staying here longer, just to piss him off, but finds there doesn’t seem to be anything in it for him. So he finishes buttoning up his shirt, leaving the top three popped open, and ruffles his hair in a matter that looks both messy and intentional.

Kevin bullies past him as soon as he unlocks the door, but Andrew doesn’t stick around to hear him complain any more, instead makes his way to their bedroom. The door’s shut, so he knocks and hears Neil quietly tell him to come in. He does, closing the door behind himself.

“Hey,” Neil says from where he’s sat on Andrew’s bed, clearly struggling to pull on the boots Andrew had picked out for him. Eventually he lets go with a frustrated huff, and finally looks up.

Something warm like liquid spills in Andrew’s stomach when Neil freezes, his eyes catching on the patch of skin Andrew purposefully left exposed, where his collarbones dip and his chest starts, before disappearing into the deep maroon of his dress shirt. He lets him look, savours the deep blush spreading across his face, and concludes Neil doesn’t know what he’s doing as he does it.

Andrew thinks back to his conversation with Bee. It feels somewhat obvious now that he thinks about it, that Neil would not know what to do with his own attraction, wouldn’t even recognise it for what it is. Bee thinks he’ll come to him. Andrew doesn’t know if he believes her.

It’s obvious how much effort Neil puts into wrenching his gaze away. It’s a clear war, between want and need and desire, and it’s so stupid that Bee had to point it out for him to see it. And then Neil’s glancing off to the side, looking bashful, and Andrew stops thinking about Bee entirely.

He forces himself forward until he can step between Neil’s legs. Slowly, Andrew grabs Neil’s face and tugs it until he’s facing up, staring at him with shivering cracks in the ice of his gaze. Andrew knows he doesn’t have to ask when he leans down, pressing a hard kiss to Neil’s lips. The sound he makes feels raw and tender.

He pulls away, and something inexplicable within him prompts him to speak.

“You look good.”

“Gee,” Neil scoffs with a kind of self-conscious laugh, looking away again. Andrew can’t have that, so he slides his fingers into those auburn curls and tugs.

“You look hot,” he insists, and it’s true. He won’t even take any credit for it. Sure, Andrew had been the one to pick out the outfit, to see that shirt in the store and know exactly how it would hug all the sweet curves and hard edges of Neil’s torso, to recognise that it’d be worth it to snag those baggy pants because of the way they accentuated his waist, never mind the fact that he wouldn’t really be able to appreciate Neil’s ass in them. Neil looks hot because he is hot, because everything about him is intense and sensual, and Andrew honestly never stood a chance against the pull of his gravity. It snatches a confession right out of his throat: “I’m going to eat you.”

Neil laughs again, but this time it’s startled and genuine, and a smile tugs at his face before it disappears behind the fist he shoves against his lips. Andrew allows him this privacy, letting go of him to squat down and properly undo the laces of those heavy black boots.

“You know, you…” Neil starts, but doesn’t finish. Andrew waits patiently, taking his ankle in his hand to help the boot slide on, and it’s unnecessary, it really is, but he does it anyway. Neil clears his throat. “That’s a good shirt.”

Andrew snorts, casting him a flat look.

“I’m so glad you approve.”

“Fuck off.”

Neil shoves him so he falls back on his ass, but there’s something like amusement tugging at the corners of his eyes, so Andrew doesn’t get worked up about it.

He stays down and watches as Neil ties up his laces and gets up, giving his own hair a good pat down before stepping over him and popping the door open. Andrew’s not subtle with the look he’s giving him when Neil turns around and speaks.

“Come on. Unless you want Aaron to be upgraded to designated driver.”

Andrew shudders, disgusted.

———

It is one of the universe’s greatest ironies, Andrew thinks, that Neil would turn out to be the jealous type. Andrew has had long and inconclusive conversations with himself regarding this issue, which is really a non-issue, and how it effects their thing, which is really a non-thing. A nothing that’s something. A not-nothing that grants him some sadistic sense of satisfaction when Neil settles firmly by his side at the bar in Eden’s, giving Roland a deeply unsettling smile as he tries and fails to make conversation with them.

“Anyway,” says Roland, after his nth failed attempt at finding some sort of topic that Neil won’t deflect with vaguely gruesome dialogue. “Always great to see the happy couple. Run along now.” And then he’s gone before he can so much as graze the nasty look Neil shoots him.

Andrew pops the tray with their drinks onto his shoulder and lets Neil lead the way towards the tall table they’d found near the dance floor. There aren’t any chairs, and they only spot it because Kevin’s standing there like a bean post, looking grumpy and impatient. Which is to say, looking like his usual self.

Aaron and Nicky materialise immediately, and after two rounds of shots, Neil and Andrew are left alone again as the other three disappear into the mass of sweaty bodies.

The music feels nice inside his chest, an unsteady thump reminiscent of an inconsistent heartbeat. It’s warm enough that he feels some sweat pool inside the collar of his shirt, and he reaches up to tug at it. It doesn’t surprise him when Neil follows the movement with his eyes.

Andrew can’t help it when he wonders what might be going on inside that big head of his. Wishes, momentarily, that he could crack his thick skull open and rummage inside so he can read, clearly and objectively, what Neil’s thinking. It’s a need, he realises, that surpasses curiosity, shapes itself instead as hunger. He’s starving for it.

The worst part is that he thinks he can see it, in the look Neil is giving him. Thinks he might be beginning to understand. But then Neil is twitching, bringing a hand up to his forehead like it hurts. A look just short of devastation flashes across his features before it’s gone entirely, and he turns away.

Andrew feels frustrated. He’s close to a discovery, he knows it. But he doesn’t know which direction the treasure lays, and he doesn’t feel like digging all around, so he plucks the drink out of Neil’s hands and sets it back on the tray.

“Yeah?” Neil asks, a little breathless because he knows what it means when Andrew asks him to stop drinking, knows where the lines of his understanding of clear consent are drawn.

Silently, Andrew nods, and lets his hand, which has been itching to reach out and touch, finally meet Neil’s lower back. It slides around his waist, savouring the outwards slope before finally settling on his hip. His fingers flex, digging into the denim, teasingly slipping beneath the hem of his shirt. When Neil’s breath hitches, a fire bursts to life inside Andrew’s groin.

It’s early in the night, he knows. There is no point in getting himself and Neil so worked up at this hour, when the others are still sober enough to refuse to head back to the house so soon. Andrew entertains the thought of shoving Neil into the car and driving off just the two of them, but there’s no plausible universe in which he’d leave the thoroughly intoxicated idiots to fend for themselves, so it’s immediately disregarded.

He looks around, absorbs the familiarity of this kind of nightlife, of the people and the drinks and the drugs. Then he looks down at Neil, at the nervous and unconscious twitch of his fingers. Andrew squeezes his hip, and Neil sways, shoulder pressing firmly into Andrew’s chest. When neither of them budge and Andrew keeps them both planted steadily on their feet, Neil shudders. His hands scramble before gripping the edge of the table, and Andrew is at once lost and possessed by a specific kind of urgency that has him moving on his feet before he really knows what he’s doing.

“Keys,” he says shortly. Rolland gives him a despicable grin that says he knows exactly what he’s doing and he isn’t being subtle about it. Then again, Andrew has never really been one for subtlety, so he jerks his hand out pointedly, palm faced up.

“Jesus,” Rolland laughs. “Someone should put a leash on the both of you, keep you dogs under control.” But he’s reaching over the counter and dropping a set of keys on Andrew’s hand anyway, and Andrew thinks of commenting on how that’s rich coming from someone like Rolland, dirty Rolland who doesn’t know how to keep his hands to himself, but at that moment he finds he doesn’t want to talk to Rolland anymore, doesn’t even want to look at him, so he walks briskly away from the bar and finds Kevin leaning forward on the table to say something to Neil, who clearly isn’t listening.

Andrew doesn’t miss the way Neil’s looking at him so intensely, but he tragically ignores that for the moment.

“We'll be back eventually,” he tells Kevin, before snatching Neil’s wrist and plunging the both of them into the ocean of inebriated dancers holding sloshing drinks and half-empty packets of cracker dust. He feels Neil’s heartbeat against his fingers, where they press against the pulse, and for some reason it feels almost too erotic, too naked.

They make it to the furthest end of Eden’s, where a hidden door gives under the weight of Andrew’s push, and they’re stumbling inside. The music becomes muffled and nonsensical as he shoves the door closed again, slipping the key inside the lock with practiced movements, twisting. The lock clicks into place with a firm sound, and then he’s turning around to find Neil staring at him with wide, awed eyes. The blue of them is lost under the red light of the room, like everything is bathed in a sheen layer of blood.

“What is this place?” Neil asks quietly.

Andrew spares their surroundings a brief glance. Nothing is the same as it had been all those years ago, when he’d worked here with Nicky and his brother. The beanbag is pushed up against a different wall, and there’s a pile of videogames next to a battered up console that hadn’t existed in his memory. There’s bottles scattered across the floor, and a crumpled jacket has been tossed into one corner of the room like an afterthought.

“Ours,” he replies, gesturing to the keys. “For now.”

Neil nods, his gaze flickering down to Andrew’s body in understanding. Andrew wonders, wildly, whether Neil’s blushing, finds himself a little dizzy with the idea of it.

Glass bottles clink loudly when Andrew kicks them on his way closer to Neil. It’s devastatingly easy to push Neil against the wall, to put both hands on his waist and squeeze. His hair looks like it’s on fire, mirroring the thing burning in Andrew’s crotch.

“Yes,” he breathes, “or no?”

It’s formidable, how he knows the answer before Neil speaks it into existence.

“Yes, Andrew.”

Despite the desperation lacing every fibre of his being, Andrew is slow with the way he presses their mouths together, keeping the kiss chaste for as long as it takes Neil to grunt into it.

“Andrew,” he says again. “Can I touch you?”

It’s the way those words are spoken, stretched out and urgent and not unlike a whine, that has Andrew groaning into Neil’s mouth. He pulls away just quick enough to tell him:

“Above my waist.”

Neil’s reply is written in the strong hands which latch onto Andrew’s biceps, squeezing and sliding and feeling up the muscle like they’ve been starving for it. The kiss becomes messier as Neil prods the seam of Andrew’s lips with his tongue and Andrew immediately concedes, jaw going slack as he gives Neil permission to explore.

His wrists hurt with how hard he’s gripping onto Neil, but Andrew just can’t seem to get enough of his waist, how it fits into his palms so perfectly. The muscles twitch and spasm, tensing and relaxing like the pull of the ocean. Andrew thinks back to the beach house, to the sight of Neil sprawled out beneath him in bed, eager and wanting and desperate to please, and something in him snaps as he reaches up wildly, grabbing Neil’s jaw in an unyielding hold, forcing them apart as he presses Neil’s head into the wall. He wonders, savagely, if the flesh of Neil’s jaw will bruise.

It’s a shattering thought.

Andrew lets go, feeling something nauseating and unsteady inside of him. But as his finger’s ease their harsh grip, Neil lets out a garbled noise, hands shooting out to grab either side of Andrew’s face.

“Wait,” Neil says in a stutter. “Andrew, just—”

He gives a frustrated huff, and Andrew watches him squeeze his eyes shut. Andrew hangs onto the moment like a body dangling over a precipice, heart pounding and knees weak. A wicked sense of vertigo washes over him, and he thinks he might be sick. Everything is happening both too fast and too slow. He waits, terrified, as Neil takes in a shuddering breath.

“I…” Neil starts, but nothing more comes of it. Andrew wishes he could rip the words out of his throat.

Neil opens his eyes again. He seems to realise that words have failed him, so his hand trails carefully down Andrew’s arm where it’s gone slack at his side. Neil takes his wrist, slowly brings it up, and Andrew feels his own breath hitch as Neil settles his hand almost on the exact same spot it’d been before, but lower. On his neck. Around his throat.

The air in Andrew’s lungs leaves in one long sigh. He thinks he might pass out, wonders if he already has. His head is spinning, and Neil’s skin beneath his fingers feels hot like molten iron.

It should feel wrong, the sight of his hand wrapped around Neil’s neck. It should be fundamentally disturbing, to see the person of his desire willingly bare and open, accepting to whatever Andrew may choose to inflict upon him. It’s power he shouldn’t want, power he doesn’t need, and he should be buckling under the weight of it.

But Neil is looking at him with a plea exposed in his gaze, and it isn’t a very difficult decision to make when Andrew finally tenses his fingers and squeezes.

Neil’s moan is feral, obscene over the ringing in Andrew’s ears. Andrew expects him to look away again, imagines how his blush would look on his face in any other lighting. But Neil keeps his gaze steady, looks into Andrew’s eyes as his throat rumbles with the sounds he makes, like he knows that they toe a frail rope, and if he looks away it will snap at once and Andrew will wrench himself from his hold.

“God,” Andrew hears himself say, and even to his own ears he sounds wrecked.

“Andrew.”

“You're so—” He doesn’t know how to finish that, but Neil seems to understand him clear enough, and he feels a hand dig into his hair before he’s pushed forward and back into a kiss.

This time it’s filthy from the start. Their tongues meet in a rough tangle, one tasting the other. Neil nips his upper lip, so Andrew retaliates by choking him at the same time he shoves his tongue in deeper, feeling for the very back of Neil’s mouth. He doesn’t know if that guttural sound is his or Neil’s, but he thinks it doesn’t really matter and takes Neil’s bottom lip between his teeth, pulling as Neil’s grip in his hair tightens.

The press of Neil’s crotch against his hip is a welcome surprise, and Andrew responds by shoving a thigh between his legs, so he can feel the full length of Neil’s boner. Neil’s groan is muffled by Andrew’s lips, and Andrew decides he can’t have that, so he keeps his hand firm on Neil’s neck as he pulls away from the kiss, rocking his thigh upwards at the same time.

He watches, body burning, as Neil’s face contorts into an expression of pure pleasure, mouth falling open in time with the hard squeeze of Andrew’s fingers.

It’s a shame to have to pull away to undo the button of Neil’s pants, but Andrew can’t really do it with one hand, and Neil’s complaint is immediately squashed by a groan when each of Andrew’s hands wraps around his dick and his neck, one tugging, the other squeezing.

Unfortunately for Andrew’s sanity, Neil is absolutely dripping precome. Maybe under better lighting he’d be able to see a dark patch on the front of Neil’s jeans, but for now he can only imagine it as his thumb swipes at the head of Neil’s dick, gathering the wetness. He brings it up between their faces, not sure what he’s doing until Neil is wrapping his lips around Andrew’s thumb, moaning as he licks the taste of himself off Andrew’s skin.

Andrew hears himself groan, a little delirious, before he grabs Neil’s dick again, giving it harsh and fast tugs as their mouths crash back together. Neil has never been this loud, and Andrew thinks of how these sounds will be forever ingrained into his brain, wonders how he’s supposed to go on about his life with the soundtrack of Neil’s pleasure playing in his ears. The thought sparks something crude and possessive within him, and he channels it through the hand on Neil’s throat, choking him until Neil is panting wetly, hands scrambling before finally settling on Andrew’s forearm, encouraging him to keep going as his moans cut off with a gasp. Andrew feels it when he comes, spine bending and body going taught as he spills between their torsos, getting the both of them filthy and wet.

As Neil’s orgasm ripples out, Andrew thinks back to that time in the rooftop, how Neil had liked it when he’d kept going. He experiments, rubs his thumb carefully on the sensitive head of Neil’s dick. His own crotch throbs when Neil’s hips hitch forward, inviting, and his grip on Andrew’s arm tightens.

Andrew leans back, looking him in the eyes when he asks:

“Yes or no?”

Neil moans, eyelashes fluttering but eyes staying open as he rocks his hips forward, into Andrew’s grip.

“Yes.”

It’s all Andrew needs to keep going, to run the lengths of his fingers over Neil’s dick. He twists his hand, using his flat palm to polish the head in a manner that has Neil positively writhing between him and the wall.

Andrew’s pretty much holding up both their weights by now, and his leg is starting to cramp where it’s still hitched between Neil’s legs. He knows this won’t last much longer, so he decides to use the best of the energy they both have left to go harder, to squeeze the head of Neil’s dick and jerk him off as if he isn’t already going soft. He digs the blunt edge of his nail into the tip and brings his other hand down between Neil’s thighs, cupping his balls and pressing against his perineum with the pads of his fingers.

Neil’s hands fly out to grab Andrew’s shoulders again, head thrown back now that his neck is bare. Andrew sees when it’s enough, when Neil goes silent and slightly still, eyebrows knit together. He lets go carefully, mindful of the sensitivity, and ignores the dull ache in the back of his thigh as he keeps holding Neil steady, supporting his weight so that he doesn’t have to.

Andrew’s hands are sticky and wet, and the mess spreads as he grabs Neil’s hips, rubbing his hipbones with his thumbs. As the minutes pass Neil’s breath, once frantic and uneven, begins to ease, and the bruising grip he had on Andrew’s shoulders weakens so his hands are sliding down, settling in the crooks of Andrew’s elbows.

While Andrew waits, he runs the past few events in his head calmly. He’d choked Neil. More importantly, Neil had wanted to be choked. By him. It’s a daunting thing, a concept that doesn’t feel quite real. He’s not stupid, he knows it was good, knows Neil enjoyed every second of it. But his own arousal baffles him, sends a disorientating bout of uncertainty up his spine. He feels a little too big for his own skin right now.

“Andrew,” he hears. “Do you want—”

“No,” he says quickly, too quickly. Neil’s face creases with worry, and Andrew smoothes it over with a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth, and then another on the apple of Neil’s face where his burns have scarred over. “Not here.”

Neil accepts this with a hum.

When Andrew’s finally sure Neil won’t fall over on his own, he lets go, untangling their bodies. He grabs a tissue box he’d spotted beside the beanbag and does a sloppy job of cleaning them both up. Andrew feels a quiet thrill when Neil hisses as he drags his jeans back up.

When they’re presentable enough, Andrew retrieves the keys from where they’d fallen to the ground, and slots them back into the lock. He pauses, turns back around. Thinks about it.

“When we get home, I want you to suck me off.”

Neil jerks, buries his face in his hands.

“Jesus, Andrew,” he groans.

Feeling smug, Andrew unlocks the door and pushes it open for the both of them. There’s an unhappy looking server who he doesn’t recognise lingering outside, and she says something dirty to them before snatching the keys out of his hand, but Andrew doesn’t catch it, too distracted by Neil’s finger hooked with his own and the pleasurable adrenaline vibrating in his throat.

———

They’ve never really talked about their dynamic, when it comes to the sex. Andrew wonders if that’s the reason everything is unfurling as it is, in bursting increments, overwhelming in their nature. Had they spoken about it more openly from the very beginning, would this have been any easier? He’s skeptical to think so.

It has always been a novelty for Neil. Neil, who has only ever known pain, who until two years ago didn’t even swing. Andrew knows there would have been no point in sitting him down and giving him a list to check off, to confidently claim his likes and dislikes. Neil wouldn’t have known.

But Andrew supposes he wouldn’t have known either. They are parallel in their tentative exploration of their sexual natures. Andrew may have the experience, may have figured out the general shapes of his preferences long before Neil knew he was even allowed to have those, but that doesn’t make him infallible in his assumptions of self.

He watches Neil demonstrate a Raven drill to the new strikers, using that sharp intonation reserved for his role as team captain, and thinks of choking him in Eden’s two weeks ago. It is not entirely surprising that he feels himself twitch inside the protective cup of his armour.

Andrew knows, better than most, that sex is never just physical. And he sees this fact reflected in the way Neil openly rejects anyone who isn’t Andrew, in the way Neil only ever lets himself feel good when it’s Andrew giving it to him. The question is whether or not Neil has been able to connect these dots, and his reputation compels Andrew to think maybe he hasn’t.

Maybe Neil doesn’t see the correlation between wanting Andrew to choke him when they’re by themselves and keeping an iron fist of control over his life when they’re not.

Andrew’s head throbs in time with his dick, and when a ball comes flying over to his goal where he hasn’t really been paying attention, he smacks it away so hard the attacking freshman yelps and drops his stick. Neil stops and gives him a look, which kind of pisses him off, so he does the same thing with the next shot and sees Boyd duck just in time to not get smacked on the helmet.

Much to his disappointment, Wymack calls for a time off before he can really get it going, so he lets his stick fall with a heavy clatter and leans against the wall to undo his gloves. He hears someone approaching and doesn’t have to look to know it’s Neil.

“Hey,” says Neil the genius. Andrew just stares at him, and he purses his lips, looking kind of constipated. “What is going on with you?”

Andrew looks beyond him, at his huffing and puffing teammates dawning varying expressions of irritation, and says:

“Boring practice, captain. Had to give them a bit of a thrill.”

“Can’t you do that without trying to break any of their bones?”

Andrew blinks.

“But then there’d be no thrill.”

Neil rolls his eyes and steps in close, grabbing the guard of Andrew’s helmet and tugging. Andrew is uncomfortably reminded of his half-chub as his traitorous eyes zero in on the flesh of Neil’s lips. Neil sees it, breath hitching.

“You're being weird,” Neil mutters.

“Sorry, I was trying to be sexy.”

“Andrew.”

Neil is sweaty. Some of it is dripping down the column of his neck where he’s removed his neck guard, disappearing beneath his armour and jersey. He’s breathing heavily, and Andrew knows it’s because he’s been running around all practice long, but the quiet panting brings forth a filthy image that has his fingers twitching by his side.

They haven’t talked about this since Eden’s. The choking. Andrew is very quickly realising this is a tragic issue, the not-talking. But he does not know how to approach the matter without scaring the rabbit off, or whatever. Every day that passes without Neil pulling him into the bedroom and kissing him filthy, telling him how bad he wants Andrew to choke him, is a grave frustration.

Andrew holds his breath and places a hand on the base of Neil’s throat, close to the dip of his collarbones. He feels it when Neil swallows, observes the rapid colouring of his skin as it flushes bright red.

“I would argue it is not me who is acting strange,” he says. Neil bristles, and Andrew mourns the loss when he looks away. Distantly, he acknowledges the hard thump of his own heartbeat. “Neil.”

Andrew lets his hand fall. Neil glares at him.

“What do you want me to say?” he asks haughtily, and Andrew is only slightly taken aback.

“I don’t want anything,” he quips. “But a word of advice: you should start being a little more honest with yourself.”

Neil laughs bitterly, and Andrew doesn’t like the sound of it. He thinks this moment might be more important than he’d meant it to be.

“Do you hear yourself?” Neil snaps. “You're such a hypocrite.”

“Down, bunny.”

Neil’s ears go bright red.

“Fuck you.”

“You want it,” Andrew states.

“So do you,” Neil retorts, and Andrew, ever the mature one, decides being difficult is getting them nowhere, so he surges forward and fists the fabric of Neil’s jersey. He’s rewarded with a startled squawk.

“Yes,” he hisses. “Yes, I want it. I want you.”

Neil’s staring at him with wide eyes and a slack jaw, and a million things are going through that head, but Andrew can’t read a single one of them. He shoves him back not too gently and makes a beeline to the door, where Kevin is very unsubtly gaping at him.

“What—”

“Don’t.”

Andrew locks himself in the locker room, trembling inside. He’s so hard it hurts when he finally manages to get a hand around himself, and when he comes it’s to the image of Neil staring at him with unconcealed devotion.

———

The thing is, nothing had really come of the incident in Eden’s. They’d gotten off together a couple times after it, but Andrew never got around to choking him again, and Neil didn’t ask. Because Neil never asks. He lets Andrew dictate the pace, lets him choose how they’re going to go about it, follows easily where he leads. But what about what he wants, what he desires?

Andrew reflects on this later that night, leg dangling over the ledge of the rooftop and giving him a chilly rush of adrenaline. He’s overdressed for this kind of weather, but his blood runs cold, and the tips of his fingers feel frozen solid where they light a cigarette.

He takes a drag, lets it mingle in his lungs until his eyes start to burn, then expels the smoke in one long exhale.

Andrew likes it when Neil gives him complete control of his pleasure.

It is a bittersweet confession, a criminal admission of guilt. He wonders if he should shoot Bee another text, tell her this is an emergency and he needs her to help him figure this thing out, but…

But it’s not painful, not in the way he expects it to be. It’s a fact. It just is, because it is. He’s had Neil for over a year now, has seen the most intimate parts of him, and has come to show his own vulnerabilities in turn. It’s daunting, it’s terrifying. He wouldn’t trade it for anything else. He wants more of it, he wants… He wants.

There has been, throughout his life, a steady stream of people hellbent on breaking him. He has known the pain of broken bones, of torn skin and scattered bruises. He has grown up repulsed by the image of himself, horrified by the nature of the world and his place within it. During Aaron’s trial he had to relive most of it, to relapse into thrashing self-loathing and profoundly suicidal thoughts, as his abusers voiced his greatest fears, as they convinced him they were one and the same, that he could not want without taking,

But Andrew is not that kid anymore. He’s a man, and he is allowed to desire, even if the object of it is difficult to look at, nauseating to face.

Does the fact that your desire is reciprocated make you uncomfortable? Bee had asked.

In the pathway leading up to Fox tower, he sees a figure jogging steadily, and takes another drag of his cigarette. When the figure is close enough, he lets the cigarette drop from between his fingers, watches it land right in front of them.

Neil stops and looks up, finding him instantly. Andrew doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even move as Neil crouches down and plucks the cigarette, popping it between his lips in a gesture reminiscent of two years ago. And then he disappears into the tower, and Andrew waits.

The door rattles open a couple moments later. He’s still staring out at the open campus when Neil sits down on the concrete beside him, crossing his legs over each other.

“Hey,” Neil says, tentatively, and Andrew is suddenly very tired.

He looks over. Neil’s wearing his jogging shorts and an old T-shirt Andrew remembers telling him to throw out. There’s goosebumps on his skin, and Andrew wonders if he’s feeling the cold. Curious, he takes Neil’s hand in his. It’s warm. Unlike him, Neil runs hot.

Andrew hears a sigh. Neil has his eyebrows furrowed, and he’s biting his lower lip again.

“Stop it,” Andrew says.

“I'm sorry.” He thinks Neil maybe isn’t talking about using his own lip as a chew toy, so he reaches over to pinch the inside of Neil’s arm. “Hey!”

“Stop being an idiot.”

Neil pouts, rubbing his arm with one hand, but the other is still holding onto Andrew’s.

“You make me feel like an idiot,” Neil admits quietly.

“Don't blame me for your inferior intellect.”

Neil’s lips quirk, and he’s quick to hide his smile behind his hand. But Andrew catches a glimpse of it, a flash of white teeth, and it makes him feel fuzzy.

They’re both silent for a bit. It’s a Wednesday night, so the campus is relatively still. Andrew thinks he can see a few different people walking about, but most of them come and go like lifeless ghosts with things to do, places to be.

Neil clears his throat, and Andrew recognises it as the nervous habit that it is.

“I think there’s something wrong with me,” Neil says. When Andrew quirks an eyebrow, he adds begrudgingly, “Aside from the obvious, of course.”

His hand feels a bit sweaty. Andrew twists his wrist so they can interlace their fingers, and when Neil squeezes him back it feels like a victory. He hums, signalling for Neil to keep going.

“It’s not good,” he continues, and Andrew feels something within him go still. “This thing I’ve been feeling. It’s like, completely out of my control, and that’s—I don’t know, it’s weird.” Neil sucks in a shaky breath. “It wasn’t like this before, and now I just—I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“About what?”

Neil bites his lower lip again, and Andrew chastises him with a tug at his hand.

“About you,” Neil concedes, and relief floods the cavities in Andrew’s heart, drowning him.

“What about me?” It comes out as a croak.

Neil blushes, but meets his gaze. His eyes are hard with determination, and the intensity would’ve swept Andrew off his feet, had he been standing.

“Everything,” Neil starts. “Your face. Your hands.” He looks down at Andrew’s chest. “You're body, how you’ve been bulking.” He pauses, looks back up. “Your cock.”

Andrew’s blood suddenly rushes south, and he has to let go of Neil’s hand to shake out another cigarette, but when he goes to light it, it falls onto the concrete. Neil calmly picks it back up, puts it in his mouth and leans forward. Andrew is shaking slightly when he lights it for Neil.

Your cock. Christ. Andrew’s going to have wet dreams about that. Andrew is currently having wet dreams about that.

Neil takes a drag before handing the cigarette back over to him.

“I’m just thinking about you all the time,” he continues, and Andrew is torn between wanting him to shut up and clinging to his every word. “Everything you do, it’s just so—” He cuts himself off with a groan, squeezing his eyes shut. “Even when it’s not sexual, it’s… I get so…”

“Horny?” Andrew prompts, and Neil laughs, once.

“Yeah, that.” His eyes scour Andrew’s face. “You make me very horny.” Then his expression crumples, and he looks down. “Sorry, it’s weird.”

Andrew’s mind blanks for a second.

“I'll stop, I—I’m trying to stop, really. I know it’s, like, gross or whatever.”

“Neil,” Andrew says urgently. “Neil.”

Neil’s head jerks to the side, like he’s ashamed. Andrew stubs out his cigarette and reaches forward, gathering Neil’s face in his hands.

“Do you honestly believe,” Andrew begins, “that I don’t think about fucking you all the time?”

Neil tenses. He’s frozen for a very long moment, something complicated happening behind his eyes.

“Do you think,” Andrew keeps going, “that I don’t fantasise about that loud mouth of yours? That I don’t get off to the thought of coming on your tongue?”

There’s a low noise coming from the back of Neil’s throat, and he doesn’t seem to realise he’s doing it until it becomes a whine, and then, regretfully, he cuts himself off. His face is hot between Andrew’s hand, and Andrew feels intoxicated, lips open and tongue too loose.

“Neil, I want to kiss you every time I see you. I want to push you up against a wall until you’re groaning with how good I give it to you.” Neil licks his lips, and Andrew chases it with a peck. “I want to get you off until your knees are weak and your hair’s all messed up.”

“Andrew,” Neil chokes out.

“Neil.” Andrew tugs Neil’s hair, tilting his head back. “Do you fantasise about me too?”

Neil closes his eyes for a moment, and Andrew lets him, watches him grapple with the complex whirlwind undoubtedly going on inside his head.

“Yes,” Neil breathes, finally. His eyes slide back open. “Yes, Andrew, I fantasise about you all the time.”

“Yeah?” Andrew pushes himself up on his knees, leans forward so their noses are touching. “Tell me what you want, Neil.”

“You.”

Andrew pulls more harshly on Neil’s hair, tuts.

“Tell me what you want me to do.”

“You know what I want,” Neil complains. He’s panting now, and Andrew thinks he might be as well, but he holds them both back for the moment. He needs to hear it.

“No, I don’t.” He dips down, presses his lips to Neil’s ear. “Tell me.”

“I want—” Neil breathes in sharply, shaking on the exhale. “I want you to control it.”

“How?”

“Choke me,” Neil pleads, and it sounds so beautiful. “God, Andrew. I want you to choke me.”

Both of them moan into it when they kiss. It’s desperate and dirty, and Andrew struggles to pull away when Neil swipes at his teeth.

“What else?” Andrew insists, because Neil is being so open and bare and good. “Tell me what else you want.”

“I want to make you feel good. And I—” Neil’s teeth click as his mouth snaps shut and he swallows, like he’s mulling something over. Finally, he says, “Andrew, I want you to fuck my mouth.”

Andrew doesn’t have an answer to that, except for pushing Neil backwards until his back is flat against the concrete and Andrew can crawl over him. Their kiss is even more forceful this time around, and Andrew knows he’s being rough with the way he’s handling Neil, but Neil likes it, Neil wants it, and the knowledge of it has him quivering with desire.

But he’s rubbed raw, and he knows it. His nerves are on fire and his mind isn’t really in the right place, and he tells Neil:

“I want it. I want to fuck your mouth. But not now, not today.”

And Neil nods eagerly, because he knows it too, and he accepts Andrew’s offer to get him off with a quivering moan.

So Andrew does, get him off. He sits up slightly, pulls down Neil’s joggers and fists his dick. And when he wraps a hand around Neil’s neck, squeezing, he feels a spurt of precome spill all over his fist. Slowly, but not without urgency, he works Neil up to his peak, choking him until his strangled noises reach an all time high and he spills all over himself.

They stay like that for a little while, until Andrew wipes his hand on Neil’s ruined shirt and climbs off of him, feeling dizzy. Neil asks him something, but Andrew doesn’t hear it, waves him off with a twitch of his fingers. It’s not meant to be mean-spirited, or regretful, and he isn’t sure if he communicates that well enough, but Neil seems to understand. He leaves Andrew alone on the rooftop, shuts the door quietly behind himself, and a few minutes later Andrew comes so hard into his own fist he thinks he might not be able to get back up again.

———

“I told you this was going to be a problem.”

“You said no such thing,” Andrew mutters without taking his eyes off the television. There’s a cooking program going on, an elderly couple making an apple pie together, except the old lady is doing all the work while the man watches, looking half-dead already. Andrew really wants apple pie. He wonders if Neil will come with him to that place twenty minutes from campus.

The TV goes black, and where there once was a gorgeous apple pie baked to golden perfection, there is now the horrifying expression of one Kevin Day. Andrew is terrified.

“Andrew,” Kevin seethes, because Kevin is always seething. “This is serious.”

Andrew looks over one shoulder, then over the other, then back at Kevin, deadpan.

“Who’s laughing?”

“I knew this was going to go wrong,” Kevin groans, burying his face in his hands. “God, I should’ve put a stop to it when you first started eye-fucking him at Eden’s.”

“I was eye-fucking Neil way before Eden’s.”

“Not the point.” He pauses, looks back up at Andrew. Squints. “Wait, what do you mean—actually. Nevermind. I don’t care.”

“You're being dramatic.”

Kevin grabs a throw pillow off the couch and, well, throws it at Andrew, effectively proving his point.

“Do you have any idea what’s on the line here?”

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business,” Andrew says, maybe a little snappy.

“Isn't any of my—God, you’re so fucking dense.” Kevin rubs his eyes frantically before taking one deep breath, like he’s getting ready to lecture a child. “How do you think it’s going to effect the team, now that our team captain can’t even look our starting goalie in the face?”

“They’ll live.”

“You almost killed Robin with how hard you were hitting those shots,” Kevin says pointedly. “And don’t think I didn’t realise you were aiming for her head. Neil just let it happen. And Neil likes Robin.”

“She's alive, isn’t she?”

“Of course she’s alive.” Kevin says it like it’d be an offence to assume he’d let anyone onto the team who couldn’t take a few balls to the head. “But that doesn’t mean your being any help.”

“Ah yes, because I’ve always loved being so much help.”

“You know what? Yeah, yeah you have.” Kevin shoves in accusing finger at him. “I was actually beginning to think I’d been wrong, and that this whole thing with Neil was like this heaven-sent gift or whatever, because you were actually starting to be honest with yourself. But now everything’s going to shit because you two are having a childish little fight—”

“We aren’t fighting,” Andrew says calmly.

“Oh yeah? I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t care.”

He grabs the remote and tries to turn the TV back on, but Kevin snatches it right out of his hand. Andrew looks at him.

“Remind me again who’s the childish one?” he asks flatly. Kevin ignores that.

“Look, I don’t care who did what, I don’t care who’s feelings are hurt. I just care that this stupid thing between you two is affecting our teamwork, and I will murder the both of you in cold blood if it costs us the game tomorrow, I swear it.”

“You're a pussy, not a cold-blooded murderer.”

“I swear to god, Andrew, I don’t care how much fucking it will take to fix this. In fact, I will willingly sexile myself if it means you and Neil can finally fuck your way past whatever—”

There’s a loud noise behind them. Andrew tilts his head back to see Neil with one hand on the doorknob. He’s in his gym clothes, wearing ankle-length socks like a loser, and staring at the two of them with both his eyebrows raised.

“Um,” he says, then points at the hallway with a jerky motion. “I'm gonna—yeah. Bye.”

Then he’s out the door quicker than Andrew can fully appreciate his ass in those gym shorts. In front of him, Kevin makes a deeply distressed sound.

“Oh my god,” Kevin cries. “Oh my god, Neil hates you. It’s over, it’s so over.”

Andrew replies with violence (smacks Kevin’s head with the throw pillow) and then gets up and locks himself in the bedroom.

———

Despite popular belief, him and Neil are not fighting. In fact, Andrew thinks with amusement, it’s quite the contrary.

Andrew knows that most of the Foxes, at least those aware of him and Neil, honestly still believe it’s some sort of hate-fuck situation. (Even Nicky still makes jokes about it, though he’s been doing so less and less, and Andrew reckons it’s because of the eerily threatening post-its he’s been hiding in Nicky’s things. One of them read: razorblade in a cornfield. Nicky hasn’t touched his box of cornflakes since he found the note inside his umbrella. Unbeknownst to him, Andrew has been happily munching away.)

And they wouldn’t be entirely wrong to think so, but Andrew likes to kid himself that he’s come a long way since a year ago, and yeah okay maybe he doesn’t hate Neil. He certainly doesn’t hate him when he’s pressed flat against the bathroom door, hand over his mouth to stifle his own heavy panting as Andrew works his dick from behind, chest to back, hips rocking forward so Neil can feel the imprint of his arousal against his ass.

“You look so hot like this,” Andrew confesses into Neil’s ear.

“Mmmphrra,” is his reply.

And this, here, is the problem. It’s not that they’re mad at each other, that they’re so upset they become repulsed with the sight of the other. No, it’s just that every time Andrew so much as glances at Neil’s general direction he’s overwhelmed by the memory of Neil’s pretty flushed face and coy eyes as he admitted to thinking about Andrew’s cock on a daily basis.

So there’s really no explaining that to the likes of Kevin Day.

They’d won the game, anyway. Andrew wouldn’t have let them lose, not after Kevin wiggled his grimy little finger at him and accused his and Neil’s—thing—of deteriorating the quality of his perfect little team. In the end he’d shut out the goal, hadn’t let the opposing team score even a singular, meagre point, and when the buzzer sounded Neil had come running up to him with a fire in his eyes that had Andrew, to put it eloquently, totally bricked up. The hours after that had been excruciating and painful, but now Andrew can’t remember what he’d been so grumpy about.

Comme ci, comme ca.

“I'm gonna come,” Neil warns him.

“What if I don’t let you?”

Neil groans beautifully, and Andrew’s hips twitch in time with the hot throb of his dick. He reaches up and covers Neil’s mouth with one hand, helping him quiet down as the other hand keeps jerking him off in long, deliberate strokes. Andrew licks the strip of skin exposed by Neil’s crooked collar, and the taste is savoury and delicious.

He notices Neil’s got his eyes shut and his hands balled into fists, shaking all over. Andrew realises, a little dumbly, that Neil is holding off his orgasm because Andrew implied he wouldn’t let him come. The thought is so hot he hears his own brain stutter to a stop.

“Fuck, Neil,” he grunts into Neil’s skin, increasing the pace of his fist and adding a fancy little twist at the head. It’s wild, the way Neil is writhing against him, twitching savagely like he doesn’t know whether to fuck up into Andrew’s hand, or get away to stave off his orgasm. Andrew decides for him when he jerks Neil’s head back and tells him, “You can come now.”

And Neil does, going still against Andrew as his cock shoots ropes of come onto the door, making a mess. It’s so hot, and Andrew decides they’re definitely going to explore this in the future, but for the moment he’s hard and aching, so he turns Neil around and kisses him wetly.

“I want to come in your mouth,” Andrew says against said mouth, and Neil replies by immediately falling to his knees. Which is, like. Insane.

It’s really unfair how good Neil looks on his knees. Or in any position. At anytime. Everywhere. Andrew supposes something had to cancel out the fact that Neil Josten is a massive fucking loser who gets turned on when his—when Andrew makes a conscious effort at actually hitting the stupid ball with the stupid stick and ultimately winning them a stupid game. God, he’s so lame. It’s embarrassing, just not as embarrassing as it is to smack his dick on Neil’s face because in the moment it feels like a totally necessary thing to do.

“I hate you,” Andrew lies, and Neil’s lips part into a genuine smile, and he doesn’t hide it behind a closed fist this time, and he’s still smiling when Andrew jerks himself off quick and rough, before coming with a sharp hiss. Most of it misses Neil’s mouth entirely, gets all over his face instead, and for a few long moments Andrew is so engrossed in appreciating the view that he doesn’t even register the loud banging against the door until Neil winces slightly.

“I think someone needs to piss,” he says lightly.

“Not our problem,” Andrew replies.

But it does eventually become their problem when the banging doesn’t stop. Andrew begrudgingly tucks himself back in his pants and washes his hands, then decides he doesn’t want to help Neil and instead leans against the wall to watch him through the mirror. Neil gives him a look before dragging his fingers through some of the mess on his face, and the familiar heat of arousal is slowly creeping down Andrew’s torso again. Mercifully, Neil stops the teasing and washes all of Andrew’s come off his face, and then they open the door and slip past the short line of angry students waiting for the bathroom, their complaints getting lost in the heavy drum of music and loud party-goers.

Andrew needs a moment to himself, and Neil seems to understand and allows himself to be immediately engulfed by some of the other athletes congratulating him on the win. Andrew heads for the door, swiping a bottle of beer on the way, and meets Kevin’s gaze on the other side of the room. He’s got a hard look on his face, but it quickly dissolves as he shrugs to himself and takes a large swig of the bottle of vodka in his hand. Andrew slips outside, and the cool air is a blessing to his burning skin.

———

Ever since they’re conversation on the rooftop, Andrew can’t stop imagining himself fucking Neil’s face. It’s a problem. Someone call Bee! Or maybe don’t.

He’s going a little insane, he knows. But the very subject of Neil Josten is insanity, and there was never any other option, not really. The honesty felt good to hear, still feels good to recount, and Andrew gets dizzy every time he thinks about Neil admitting that he wants him, Neil putting his desire out in the open like that.

Andrew wants to be greedy, wants to hear him say those words again and again and again. Instead, he contents himself with a steady replay of all the times Neil has sucked him off on his knees, staring at him with those blue eyes like he’s pleading for Andrew’s come. He discovers he can have a very colourful imagination when it matters, and pictures himself carefully supporting the back of Neil’s head as he feeds his cock in and out of Neil’s willing and awaiting mouth.

Would he gag? Andrew wonders. His dick isn’t particularly impressive, honestly about average in length. But the head is fat and wide, and if he really wanted to he could just about graze the back of Neil’s throat. He thinks of doing just that, of slowly sliding it against the pad of Neil’s tongue until Neil’s nose is digging into his pelvis, and then he thinks of holding him there, of letting Neil moan and gag on his dick.

Andrew comes into his own fist and it’s kind of sad and unsatisfying, so he throws himself into the shower and decides, resolutely, that they have got to put an end to this madness.

———

Nicky looks kind of haunted when Andrew tells him he and Neil will be going to Columbia by themselves this weekend, but he doesn’t put up much of a fight. Doesn’t put up any fight, actually. He mutters something about not wanting to go anyway, and Andrew swiftly hides the green pad of post-its he’d carelessly left on his desk.

(The last one read: Speeding car, beware the deer in the highway. You are the deer.)

Aaron’s not an issue because, as Andrew could have predicted, he immediately takes it as an opportunity to spend the weekend in his redheaded cheerleader’s dorm. Andrew doesn’t want to think about the implications of that, and vice-versa, so the topic swiftly comes to an end.

Kevin’s annoying about it, until Andrew points out how it’s kind of pathetic that his social life is entirely restricted to him and Neil, to which Kevin reacts with a defensive I have other friends that neither of them fully believe, and Andrew laughs in his face, so Kevin boldly claims he’ll be going to Matt or Patt or Catt’s house party and then promptly shuts himself in their room. True to his word, when he comes back out a few hours later he’s all dressed up, and Neil and Andrew are getting ready to leave. Kevin is obviously still annoyed with Andrew, but on his way out the door he stops and gives them a look that says he’s glad they’re not avoiding each other anymore, and Andrew slams the door in his face.

“Hey,” Neil says when they’re on their own. He drops the duffles in his hands and loops his arms around Andrew’s shoulders, biting his lip as his eyes rake over Andrew’s face. “What’ve you got planned for us, hm?”

Andrew holds his waist, fingers catching on the fabric of Neil’s shirt as he slides his hands down so they can settle on his hips. He rubs his thumbs in circles, leans forward to kiss Neil.

“I want to fuck your face tonight,” he speaks lowly against Neil’s lips, feels it when Neil’s breath stutters and his shoulders twitch. And, because he has to: “Yes or no?”

Neil’s answering yes comes out in one long sigh, and when he tugs Andrew back into another kiss, Andrew finds himself going easily.

———

The car ride isn’t as torturous as he’d been expecting. Neil flicks through the radio noncommittally until he lands on something grunge-y and definitely meant for middle-aged men with erectile disfunction, but Andrew makes an approving noise anyway so Neil lets go and leans back on the passenger seat, head tilted so he’s watching Andrew.

“Staring,” Andrew says, and Neil hums in agreement.

They stop at Sweetie’s and the hostess recognises them and smiles the entire time, completely undeterred by Andrew’s silence. She sits them at a booth by a window, and Neil starts telling him about this guy in his class who keeps bothering him when he’s trying to pay attention, and by the time their food arrives he still hasn’t realised this guy is in love with him, so Andrew tells him. Neil makes a face.

“But he, like, barely even knows me.”

Andrew doesn’t grace that with an answer, and instead chooses to dig into his portion of large, no, extra large fries, and his big and fatty burger. It’s so good. He hates the athletes’ food hall.

Afterwards they order the ice cream special, and Neil has a couple of bites before he declares he can feel the diabetes forming in his veins. Andrew tells him that’s not how it works and he’s a loser who hates fun, and promptly finishes every last bit of the ice cream on his own, thank you very much.

He lets Neil drive the last leg from Sweetie’s to the house because he needs that time to digest, and when Andrew tilts his head over on the passenger seat Neil says:

“Staring.”

And Andrew hums in agreement.

———

There’s a palpable tension in the air when Neil pulls up to the garage and cuts the engine off. Andrew thinks he can physically feel it, the anticipation, like he can reach out and hold it in the palm of his hand. There’s an itch just behind his ear, and he lifts up his hand but scratching it doesn’t make the feeling go away, and he grows restless very quickly. He pushes the door open and steps out of the car, letting the cool air fill his lungs.

Neil takes a while to get out, and Andrew’s sort of relieved that Neil’s feeling just as disorientated as him.

They grab their things from the backseat and head towards the house to unlock the front door. Everything feels slow and syrupy, but there’s an underlying sense of urgency laced into every step against the hardwood floor, every rattle of keys and ruffle of clothing.

Andrew knows Neil’s following him when he starts for the room that has somehow become their room, kicking off his shoes along the way. The door feels light when he pushes it open, but it closes behind Neil with a heavy and definitive thump. Andrew glances around, at the queen-sized bed and the small table on either side of it. The lighting is too harsh, too reminiscent of stale white hospital lights glaring down at him, so he clicks on the tall lamp in the further corner and turns off the overhead light, so they’re immediately bathed in a warmer, welcoming glow.

When he turns, Neil is already staring at him, hanging around by the door.

“Hey,” Neil says, and his voice has an uncertain waver to it.

Andrew steps forward until he’s standing in front of him. He brings a hand up and snags Neil’s hair, giving it a ruffle that’s neither here nor there.

“Your hair’s long,” Andrew comments.

“Yeah, Allison isn’t around to drag me to the barbershop every other week anymore.”

Andrew gives the curls a firm tug.

“Good,” he says. “I like it long.”

Neil starts to smile before he’s pressing his fist against his lips, trying to stifle it. Andrew knows it’s never a particularly conscious decision, more reflex than anything else, but he decides he doesn’t want that, so he wraps his fingers around Neil’s wrist and pulls it down.

“Don’t hide.”

“‘M not hiding,” Neil mumbles, glancing away.

There’s a balance to their game of push and pull, and Andrew knows they’ve been toeing this frail rope for too long now. His mind supplies him with the memory of the beach house, and the warm haze they’d basked in for those few precious days. Neil’s naked body beneath him, glowing under the warm sunlight, his beautiful and scarred face looking up at Andrew with a thousand and one words concealed in every crease and curve of his expression. His desire, written in the hard line of his cock in Andrew’s hand, reciprocated by the fire in Andrew’s groin.

Andrew takes a deep breath before he tips the balance, yanking Neil’s head back with a harsh pull of his hair.

“Look at me,” he orders, and Neil swallows loudly before he slides his gaze towards Andrew’s.

Andrew feels a shiver down his spine, as if the ice of those eyes has touched his bare skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. His hold on Neil’s hair tightens briefly, and then he lets go.

“Shirt off,” he says, and his voice is thick and coarse. Neil visibly shudders. There’s that familiar blush on his cheeks, quickly spreading to his ears, and when he pulls his shirt over his head Andrew is given the privilege of watching it crawl down Neil’s neck, fizzling out like a flesh-coloured gradient.

Neil is staring at him when Andrew touches his fingertips to Neil’s collarbones, tracing them down to the dip in the middle where the hollow of his throat meets his chest. Neil sighs in time with the slow drag of their skin as Andrew presses his palm flat to Neil’s chest, letting his hand wander over one peck to the other, bumping into his scars and catching on his nipples. Andrew digs his fingers into the muscle, watching as Neil’s face contorts and he lets out a strained grunt, like he can’t help it, but also like he can’t decide whether or not it’s pain or pleasure or both.

“Yes or no, Neil?” Andrew asks, looking at Neil through his eyelashes.

“Yes, Andrew,” Neil says, in that same way Andrew’s obsessed with, breathy and light.

Andrew digs his blunt fingernails into the sensitive meat on the side of Neil’s torso, then drags his hand down and across, observing with wicked satisfaction as his fingers leave behind bright red lines. Neil sucks his bottom lip into his mouth like he’s trying to muffle the sounds his body wants to make, so Andrew clicks his tongue and pinches his stomach.

“What did I say about hiding?” he reprimands. Neil immediately understands and lets his mouth fall open slightly. He’s sassy about it, and he doesn’t roll his eyes but it’s a near thing. It’s followed by a sweet sound, though, so Andrew doesn’t bother him about it. “You've been thinking about me,” Andrew says, rather than asks.

Neil takes a few moments to reply, and Andrew easily concedes them to him, understanding that the sort of vulnerability that comes with the admission of desire is slippery. But he won’t let it go, not this time. He pinches the skin of Neil’s waist.

“I have,” Neil confirms.

Andrew is careful not to break their gaze as he brings a hand up and teases lightly, pretends he’s going to wrap it around Neil’s neck, but grips his jaw instead. Neil sees the trick for what it is, and smiles, but barely.

“Well?” Andrew prompts, eyebrow raised. “Do tell.”

Neil’s muscles twinge like he’s going to turn away, so Andrew tightens his grip in warning. Neil’s eyes flutter but ultimately stay open, and Andrew rewards him with a strong squeeze of his hip.

“I…” Neil starts. Stops. Licks his lips, like he’s revisiting his fantasies, like having Andrew right in front of him is giving him a plethora of wet dreams to choose from. Andrew’s hand on his hip slides up encouragingly, settling on the dip of his waist. “I’ve been thinking about your cock, mostly.”

Every hair on Andrew’s body stands tall. It feels just as good hearing it for the second time. He thinks he might ask Neil to say it right into a recorder so he can set it as his alarm, wake up to Neil thinking about his cock everyday. That’s one way to make his mornings more interesting.

“How much I fucking love it,” Neil continues, and seems to regret it instantly. His eyebrows furrow and his eyes slip shut. Andrew uses his own hips to slam Neil’s onto the door, and the grip on Neil’s jaw to push his head back against the wood with a hollow thump. Obediently, Neil’s eyes fly back open, finding Andrew’s instantly.

“You were saying?”

Neil’s hips twitch against Andrew’s, and he lets out this breathless little sound that Andrew wants to swallow. He can feel how hard he is, can only imagine how desperate he must feel inside those jeans.

“I fucking love jerking it,” Neil moans. “I love how it feels in my hand, love how fucking fat your cock is, Andrew. God.”

“Blasphemous,” Andrew teases.

“You want me on my knees for you?” Neil quips, something smug flashing in his eyes as his face settles into one of careful determination. “Because I’ve been thinking about that, too.”

There’s sweat gathering in the back of Andrew’s neck, pooling in the collar of his shirt.

“Have you?” he croaks.

“Yes.” Neil rolls his hips forward smoothly, and Andrew is forced to break their eye contact to glance down at where their arousals are meeting. It’s then that he sees Neil’s hands balled into fists at his side, like complacent little soldiers awaiting permission to release. “It’s driving me crazy, how bad I need your cock in my mouth.”

“You can touch me above the waist.”

Neil moans in time with his arms reaching up, finding their favourite position propped atop Andrew’s shoulders, so that his hands can dig into the strands of Andrew’s hair.

“I think about it all the time,” Neil continues without Andrew prompting him. “When you’re changing out, all I can think about is getting on my knees right then and there, in the locker room, and sucking you off.” He scratches Andrew’s scalp lightly. “And when I see you lifting in the gym? Fuck, Andrew, I wish you’d just drag me down and fuck my face.”

Andrew’s beginning to think, deliriously, that this is getting a little out of hand, so he drags Neil’s face down and smashes their lips together in a messy clash of tongue and teeth. Neil doesn’t seem to mind, if the way he moans loudly is anything to go by.

It’s always so good with Neil, always so much. The way their mouths move against each other feels like parts of an entity coming together to form one, fluid being. Andrew sucks Neil’s tongue into his mouth with an obscene sound, and Neil takes Andrew’s bottom lip between his teeth and pulls down, until the flesh escapes his hold and he resolves to pressing wet kisses to Andrew’s chin.

The fire under his skin is edging on unbearable, so in one swift move Andrew pulls away and makes for the bed, sitting down on the edge of it. Neil stares at him with his pupils blown wide, hands stretched out uselessly in the space where Andrew had been standing a few seconds ago. There’s a slight tremor to his fingers, and an obvious weakness to his knees, like he’s struggling to keep himself upright even with the firm help of the door at his back.

Andrew blinks at him slowly, then pointedly spreads his knees apart, gesturing to the Neil-sized space before him with a tilt of his head. It takes Neil a few seconds to understand the message, but when he does his body immediately jerks into action.

Andrew stops him before he can get to his knees, and Neil shoots him a confused glance. Without a word, Andrew settles both hands on either side of Neil’s hips over his jeans, teasing his fingers along the edge of the fabric and watching the way it makes Neil shiver. Finally, he slows at the front of his pants and slowly works the button open, taking his time with the zipper as well.

Neil looks like he’s going crazy, so Andrew pulls back and tells him, smoothly:

“Take off the rest of your clothes.”

And Neil, beautiful, eager Neil, does exactly as he’s told. Andrew reaches a hand out to help him balance as he kicks off his pants, holding him steady until he’s peeled off his boxers as well, and then he’s finally naked.

Andrew casts a pointed look to the clothing carelessly tossed on the ground, and Neil replies with a disbelieving huff and a small smile. Andrew drinks from it like it’s fucking ambrosia.

Neil, despite his attempts to prove otherwise, is a very awkward individual, and as he stands there butt naked while Andrew traces every little dip and dent of his body, he fails to hide his increasing embarrassment. Andrew extends the torture for only a few more moments, watching with great satisfaction as Neil’s dick bobs where it’s standing hard and long.

“Andrew,” he mutters, pleads, hands twitching at his sides.

Mercifully, Andrew takes each of Neil’s wrists in his hands and guides them up so they can settle onto Andrew’s shoulders, giving him solid support. Neil bites his lip, eyes flicking over Andrew’s expression nervously. Andrew looks back at him, bringing his fingertips down to the sides of Neil’s legs, close to his knees, and beginning a light and teasing journey up to his hips, before flattening his palms against the skin and sliding back so he can give that beautiful ass a firm squeeze. Neil’s fingers spasm where they’re holding onto Andrew.

“I'd like to establish a rule for tonight,” Andrew says, kneading the muscles of Neil’s glutes.

“Yeah?”

“Hm.” He slides his hands down, squeezing Neil’s thick runner thighs before gliding back up, teasing the crease of his ass with his fingertips. “You don’t come until I say you can.”

Neil throws his head back silently, and Andrew lets him. He’s preoccupied with the delicious give of his striker’s flesh, of his beautifully sculpted body. There’s a sudden ache in his teeth, and he decides the only way to appease it is by leaning forward and biting hard at the pudgy skin between Neil’s waist and hip. He gets a startled hiss in return, Neil squeezing hard at his shoulders. When he leans back slightly, the skin is bright red around the deep indents of his teeth.

“Fuck,” Neil croaks. “Fuck Andrew, yes, yes, yes…”

Andrew licks at the bite mark before trailing a bit lower and biting again, this time right over Neil’s hip bone. At the same time, he carefully brings a hand between Neil’s legs, cups his balls and squeezes, just barely. His mouth moves on its own, creating a path of nips and hickeys across Neil’s lower abdomen, all the while his hands tease around the striker’s crotch. He traces the length of Neil’s dick with a fingertip, letting his nail catch slightly on the thick skin of the head. His shoulders are beginning to ache with how hard Neil is leaning on him, and the pain is so delicious it makes him groan into the skin against his lips.

He presses a soft kiss to the other hip bone before he pulls back, looking up to where Neil is watching him with slightly parted lips and furrowed brows. Andrew holds his gaze as he finally relents, wrapping a hand around the base of Neil’s cock and squeezing firmly. Neil’s jaw goes slack in response, and when Andrew gives him one slow jerk, twisting his wrist when he reaches the head, he lets out a low and desperate sound.

Neil is already wet, like this, but Andrew knows it won’t be long before friction becomes a nuisance, so he lets go and reaches for the drawer of the closest bedside table. Neil’s hands slide off his shoulders with the motion, and it’s only when he’s done rummaging through the mess and locating the half-used bottle of lube that he realises Neil has a tentative hand wrapped around himself, and he clicks his tongue in disbelief.

“Did I say you could touch yourself?”

He watches Neil freeze for a split second before he flinches away like he’s touched a hot stove. His dick bobs pathetically, but Andrew’s got his eyes trained on Neil’s face, watching it burn bright red as his eyes dance across the room frantically before settling on the ceiling.

When the silence stretches on and Andrew doesn’t move, Neil takes in a deep and shuddering breath before rasping:

“I'm sorry.”

Andrew’s own cock throbs painfully in his sweats, and he feels a little high right now. Instead of words, he forgives Neil with a firm hand smoothing over his abdomen, and Neil’s exhale is shaky and dripping with arousal.

He doesn’t say anything as he pops open the lube and spreads a generous amount between his two hands, drenching his fingers with it. This time he grabs Neil’s length with both of them, keeping his fingers in a tight enough circle that lets him feel all the ridges of Neil’s cock.

Andrew jerks him off slowly at first, coating the length of his dick in lube with smooth and deliberate movements. Above him, Neil lets out a quiet sigh and tentatively reaches forward, settling his hands on Andrew’s shoulders once more. Andrew answers with a hum, briefly glancing up to see the wild look in Neil’s eyes as he watches Andrew work him hard, and then looking back down at the dick in his hands. When they slide all the way down, digging into Neil’s pelvis, the head pops out, and it’s swollen and red and shiny. Andrew can’t resist a taste, dipping down to wrap his lips around it, swirling his tongue around the sensitive skin. The sound Neil makes is strangled and desperate. Andrew lets go with a pop, meeting Neil’s gaze as he swipes his tongue along his lips, savouring it.

“Fuck,” says Neil.

Andrew goes back to jerking him off, this time twisting each hand in opposite directions every time he slides downwards. Neil moans more openly, hips bucking and fucking into Andrew’s hands. The pace starts off steady, but Neil very quickly loses his grip on the rhythm, and their timed movements gain an animalistic quality to them. Andrew lets it happen, watches as Neil screws his eyes shut, broken moans falling out of those pretty lips as he chases his own pleasure.

There’s a certain curiosity burning on Andrew’s tongue, almost sadistic. He’s on the edge of his seat, eager to see what’s going to happen next, what Neil will allow to happen. There’s a brief moment in which he thinks Neil might actually choose his pleasure over the one simple rule Andrew had established for the night, but in the end it doesn’t surprise him when Neil pulls his hips back and away from Andrew’s tight hold, muscles tense and body trembling as he grips onto Andrew’s shoulders for support, head hanging low while he watches his own dick twitch in distress, weeping over his quasi-orgasm.

Andrew comforts him by palming at the inside of his thigh, getting it wet and sticky with lube. Neil is holding his breath, like he’s struggling to stave off an orgasm caused by Andrew’s slippery fingertips drawing patterns on his sensitive skin. Andrew hums contently.

“That was hot,” he says honestly, and is rewarded with a breathless laugh. He palms himself roughly over his sweats, just to really bring home the point, and Neil moans like he’s the one getting touched. “Again?”

Neil nods frantically, face screwed up like he’s already on the verge of an orgasm when Andrew gets hold of him again. He’s already panting by the time Andrew starts twisting his hands once more, tightening his grip in steady intervals. Neil’s hips start moving all over again, but this time it’s unsteady from the start, and the way they twitch uncertainly would be amusing if it wasn’t so devastatingly hot. It takes less time for Neil to get close, and Andrew lets him grapple with himself, with the many convincing arguments surely ringing inside his head, telling him to keep fucking into Andrew’s hands, before he ultimately settles on complying once more, jerking his cock free with a loud gasp.

“Fuck,” he moans.

His legs are visibly trembling. Andrew casts his gaze upwards and watches Neil’s face carefully, observing the tight lines around his eyes.

“Okay?”

“Yes,” Neil answers immediately, sucking in a sharp breath. “More than okay, even. Fucking fantastic, actually.”

“Yeah, got it.” Andrew digs his thumb into one of the darker bruises around Neil’s hips, revelling in the broken moan he gets in return. “Again?”

Neil’s answering yes is a symphony to Andrew’s ears, high-pitched and perfectly tuned. He decides to be kinder this time around, and when Neil tumbles towards his orgasm with unimaginable force and speed, Andrew makes the difficult decision for him, snatching his hands away before he can tip over that glorious edge. He thinks he could do this forever, would if given the opportunity, but Neil is swaying slightly, like his legs are threatening to give out beneath him, and Andrew has a very pressing matter to attend to.

When he stands up from where he’d been sitting on the bed, Neil holds onto him like a lifeline, moaning into it when Andrew kisses him deep and with purpose. His hands find their spot on Neil’s waist, and the cool lube against his burning skin must be a nasty kind of relief.

“I'm going to fuck your face now,” Andrew announces between heated kisses.

“Oh, fuck yes,” Neil eloquently supplies.

Andrew turns them around so Neil’s back is to the bed, facing him, and he kisses him one last time before he carefully pushes down on Neil’s shoulders. Neil takes the hint and sinks to his knees, letting go of Andrew to settle his hands neatly over the tops of his folded thighs.

He looks comfortable, snug between Andrew’s body and the bed behind him. Andrew watches him intently, burying a hand in his soft hair and massaging his scalp as he appreciates the view. Neil, on his knees, looking up at him with those cold, wide eyes. Bathed in the warm light, soft shadows cast across his face. Andrew has never been so hard.

He’s slow with the way he tugs down his sweats, takes his time circling the elastic before finally pulling it down so it settles just beneath the curve of his ass. He palms himself over his boxers, sighs quietly, and Neil watches everything, licking his lips like he’s hungry for it. Andrew squeezes his balls with one hand, tracing the outline of his dick with the other. It’s a small relief, but it isn’t enough, and soon the anticipation becomes too much to handle.

There’s an ill-concealed thrill to tugging down his boxers, to finally pulling his dick free and staring at it in his hand, with Neil’s pretty face in the background. He hums in satisfaction as he jerks himself off a couple of times, staring into Neil’s eyes while he does it. Eventually he has to let go, and they haven’t even gotten to the important bit, but Andrew already knows this isn’t going to last long.

“Open your mouth,” he says, vaguely surprised with how steady his voice sounds.

Neil does so, almost panting as he allows his jaw to go slack. Andrew, by now a few too many planets away to care about decency, slaps his dick against Neil’s willing and awaiting tongue, once, twice, three times before Neil moans loudly.

“I know, I know,” Andrew mutters, guiding his cock by the base so the tip settles on the rough pad of Neil’s tongue. “You're desperate for it.”

Neil agrees with a placid hum, holding Andrew’s gaze as he slowly wraps his lips around the girth of his dick, bobbing his head down so he can take most of the length inside his mouth. Andrew tuts and twists his fingers in Neil’s hair, tugging his head back harshly.

“I set the pace,” he says calmly, but no less demanding.

He waits for Neil to show he understands, and when he gets a jerky nod and a yes, Andrew, he starts to feed his cock back into Neil’s mouth.

Andrew has loved the feeling of Neil sucking him off since that very first time after the beach house, when Neil was still worked up about his inexperience but no less eager to make it good for Andrew. He’s always been obsessed with the idea of his dick in Neil’s mouth, and ever since he first got to see it the image has been playing in his mind like a broken film player on repeat.

“Fuck,” he mutters, watching Neil’s eyebrows twitch as Andrew carefully pushes his head down until his nose is pressed against Andrew’s lower abdomen, until he thinks he can feel the back of Neil’s throat suffocating his sensitive head. “Fuck.”

It’s good to know he’s never going to get sick of this. Like, ever. Not of him, not of Neil. Not of handsome Neil with his sharp jawline and strong nose, with his eyes that are at once devilish and angelic. They flutter shut when Andrew tugs harder at his hair, pulling back just to roll his hips forward again in one smooth motion, lips parting as he’s engulfed by that wet heat.

Warmth pools in the pit of his stomach as he does it again, and then again, and then Neil moans around him and Andrew thinks this really, really isn’t going to last.

He catches sight of the way Neil is desperately clutching his own thighs, fingers digging into the flesh and leaving bright red marks, as if the pain is the only thing holding him back from clutching his weeping dick. The wave of arousal that hits him is so strong Andrew has to pause the movement of his hips for just a moment, burying his dick even deeper than before so Neil lets out a beautifully choked sound. He takes a moment to appreciate the view, then lets out a long breath as he pulls back out. Neil gasps as Andrew’s cock slips from between his lips, eyes screwed shut. Andrew angles Neil’s head back roughly, grabbing his jaw with his other hand.

“Look at me,” he repeats his order from earlier, and Neil obeys. Andrew slides his fingers from Neil’s jaw and prods at the wetness on his lips before sliding them in, letting Neil wrap his tongue around his digits with undeterred enthusiasm.

Andrew’s dick is aching too hard to keep up with the teasing, so he’s quick to slip his fingers back out, settling them on Neil’s jaw again. He keeps Neil’s mouth open as his cock slides back into place, and this time both of them moan when he’s buried down to the hilt.

Neil’s eyes stayed locked on his as he resumes the sweet rock of his hips. Neil keeps perfectly still as he does so, hands trembling and eyes brimming with hunger. Andrew decides he’s being too good, too sweet, too perfect not to deserve a moment’s relief.

“Touch yourself,” he says, and Neil’s eyes go wide with devotion. His hand is clearly shaking with agitation, but he’s slow with the way he takes hold of himself, squeezing tightly at the base. There’s a question in the way he’s staring up at Andrew, and Andrew answers it with a grunted, “No, you can’t come yet.”

It’s all out of his control from then on. He lets go of Neil’s jaw and digs both his hands in his striker’s hair, doubling the strength of his hold as his hips slowly pick up their pace. Occasionally he’ll stop with his cock stuffed deep in Neil’s throat, other times he’ll pull out just enough to hear Neil’s frantic moaning clearly, but he’s always quick to pick it back up again.

All the while Neil is touching himself with wild, jerking motions. Sometimes Andrew will see him get himself really worked up, to the point that he’s teetering on the edge, but then he’ll snatch his own hands back, dig his fingernails into the muscles of his thighs, and his desperation is enough for the two of them to share spilled moans between them.

It’s hot. It’s dirty and sensual and erotic, and Andrew knows his orgasm is coming when Neil tries to swallow around the length of him and ends up gagging, and the sound makes something feral scream inside of him. His hips take on a frantic pace as he fucks Neil’s face, cherishing the soft and hot wetness of his mouth as he hurls himself towards his peak.

When he comes, Neil moans so loud it’s almost too much for him to handle, and he swears he can feel the vibrations of it down to his very bones. His orgasm crashes into him like a wave, drowning him in the pleasure of it as he buries himself one last time. Neil’s tongue slides along the length of his dick, and Andrew can feel it when Neil swallows him whole, and this time he doesn’t gag, doesn’t even twitch. Neil swallows every last drop of his come like he’ll die if he doesn’t, and Andrew takes an embarrassingly long time to realise that loud and deep grunting sound is coming from himself.

“Shit,” he hisses, fucking shallowly into Neil’s mouth. Neil whines, and Andrew thinks he’s never going to recover from this, not physically nor mentally. “Shit, Neil.” He pulls out completely and immediately falls to his knees, ignoring the dull pain to pull Neil into a heated kiss.

He tastes himself off Neil’s tongue, and Neil moans when he swipes at the back of his teeth. Andrew lets one hand slide down from his hair, trailing down Neil’s neck and across his chest, past his abdomen until it finally settles on his dick, and Neil lets out a garbled sound when he tugs roughly.

“What do you want?” Andrew prompts, pulling harshly at Neil’s hair when he takes too long to reply.

“You,” Neil gasps, bucking up and into his hold. “Anything you give me, Andrew, just you, you…”

He makes a sad sound when Andrew pulls his hand away, so Andrew presses a wet kiss to his cheek before he helps him up and onto the edge of the bed. Andrew settles between his legs, hooking both of Neil’s knees over his shoulders and shoving his chest back roughly so he’s half-laying on the bed. Neil looks like he’s halfway to heaven.

“I'm going to suck you off,” Andrew explains, and the sound Neil makes can’t possibly be entirely human. “And you’re going to come.” Neil’s nodding wildly even though Andrew can’t see him all too well from this angle. “And then I’m going to keep sucking you off.”

Neil’s hands scramble to find purchase in Andrew’s hair when he takes Neil’s cock into his mouth, but he’s mindful about it, careful not to push Andrew’s head down. Andrew rewards him for his good behaviour with probably the best head he’s ever given in his life, pressing his tongue flat to all the right parts of Neil’s dick, burying it deep into the back of his throat.

Neil is thinner than Andrew, but he’s longer, long enough to make it a challenge. A delectable, tasteful challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. Yet Andrew has spent the better part of the last two years learning how to make Neil writhe, and he makes sure to put all of that carefully collected wisdom to use in the way he now sucks Neil off.

It’s quick work, and it really doesn’t take long for him to spot Neil’s tells; the way his moans pitch up before stopping completely, how his hands almost go slack in Andrew’s hair, how his thighs shake and quiver around Andrew’s head.

“I'm gonna—!” Neil starts, and he doesn’t even get to finish before he’s spilling into Andrew’s mouth. And Andrew, feeling hot and restless, eagerly returns Neil’s earlier favour by swallowing all of Neil’s come, even as it keeps spilling, even as his dick keeps twitching and his thighs keep shaking.

Andrew makes true of his promise and doesn’t stop, but slows down just so he can focus on the sensitive head, rubbing the rough pad of his tongue against it until Neil is groaning hard and letting go of his hair to dig his hands into the blankets. Andrew glances up to see his head’s thrown back and his mouth is clenched shut, face screwed up in a beautiful mix of pain and pleasure.

He closes his eyes and keeps going, uses his hand to help when Neil starts to soften slightly and begins to slip out of his mouth. Andrew swallows him whole again, drags his teeth slightly just to make him jump, then pulls back just to play with the head again. Above him, Neil is whimpering into his own fist. Andrew keeps it up until he hears a different kind of edge creeping into the sounds he’s making, and then lets go of Neil’s dick completely.

For a long time, they’re both quiet, except for the sound of Neil’s heavy breathing. Andrew watches him patiently, smoothing over the skin of his thighs with the palms of his hands. He lets his fingers massage the muscles lightly, just enough so Neil knows he’s here and willing and waiting.

Andrew takes this as an opportunity to ingrain every detail of this image into his mind. He follows every bit of wrinkled skin and scar tissue, traces every bump and divot he’s memorised time and time again. He thinks of the beach house, of Neil in the sunlight, and he compares it with now, with Neil in the dim light, half-bathed in shadows. The conclusion is at once terrifying and warm: this, here, which is nothing, is in fact everything.

Neil comes back to him in pieces, first with the tentative touch of his hand, followed by half-lidded eyes meeting his own, and then finally a gentle and beautiful smile that makes him ache.

———

Andrew wakes up with the sun bleeding through the blinds, and it takes him a couple of moments to gather his bearings. When he finally manages it, he flips himself over on the bed. Neil is already awake, staring at him silently. Somehow Andrew ended up hogging all the blankets over the night, and he has half a mind to feel bad about it, but Neil doesn’t really look like he cares. He just looks… soft. Comfortable. Andrew wants to cup his face with his hand, so he does, and Neil’s eyes flutter shut as soon as their skin meets. He tilts his head slightly, presses his lips to Andrew’s palm and says:

I want you. I always want you.

Andrew observes him, squished face and messy bed hair. Quietly, he replies:

You have me.