Archive of Our Own

I.

“I don’t want to see any more of that shit.”

Andrew doesn’t understand what Kevin is talking about. He’s vaguely aware of the mattress dipping under Kevin’s solid weight, but just so because his happy pills are still keeping him bouncing in and out of his head, nails digging in the sheets for a lack of any better thing to do with all the excess energy the drugs fuel into him, making him restless when he wants to take a nap and sedated when he needs to be awake.

Circa.

The sensation of another well-known body pressing into his isn’t exactly unpleasant, but it ain’t nice either. It’s just what it is. Perpetually cold Kevin Day snatching his natural body warmth from his side and pillowing his cutting cheekbones into the soft tissue right above his collarbone because that’s what Kevin Day needs right now.

Andrew knows that he must be grinning only because his face hurts all over.

“That shit what,” he asks, scratching the exhaustion away from his eyes with an ungraceful rub, slowly dragging his gaze from a very interesting cobweb dangling from the ceiling to Kevin’s mop of uncombed, unwashed hair until his nose connects to his scalp and, damn, that smell, he should really get a hold of himself and wash his fucking head if he doesn’t want to smell like an open-air hippie festival for the rest of his life.

Hilarious thought.

Hilarious hilarious hilarious hilarious.

He lets out a laugh that sounds like a broken sob and lets Kevin have it his way with burying his face into his neck.

Nothing nothing nothing.

The contact doesn’t hurt or burn. It simply is. Kevin’s nose is cold, so so cold, and Andrew giggles manically again just because.

“The letters,” Kevin says, his voice muffled where he’s tickling Andrew’s sensitive skin with his lips. Andrew thinks it’s funny. Many things have turned a hundred times funnier since the happy pills. He tilts his head and chews on a loose strand of Kevin’s dirty hair. It tastes like salt, keratin and chinese deep fried food. Food that Kevin has declined in favor of a healthier salad with unseasoned chicken breast cooked without fats, salt or joy. As Kevin sometimes does, by the way, not always but -- sometimes.

“We can burn them,” Andrew replies, the amused edge in his voice razor-sharp and cold. He hears Kevin huff quietly.

“Arson? Again?”

Arson is fun. Arson is fun. Arson is fun.

Andrew smiles. Perhaps his smile has never faltered. He can't say for sure. Kevin's steady, regular heartbeat thunders through Andrew's bones, only slightly quicker than its usual pace. It thrums. This, this he can define as nice. He squirms a little so his back can press further into Kevin's chest.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-

"If you want to."

Kevin shakes his head.

"No. I don't want you to. I just...I…"

"You want it back. Your life."

The gentle tap-tap stumbles just so. Andrew hums, pleased with himself. The long silence between them stretches out so much Andrew wonders if Kevin has fallen asleep. But no, he hasn't.

"I don't," he whispers. His breath is warm despite his hands and face being ice-cold.

Andrew's humming climbs in spiraling crescendo notes, he can't keep his voice low for shit when he's toeing the sweet, sweet line between high high high and sobriety.

"The fact that you don't want to see the truth, Kevin Day, doesn't necessarily mean that the truth isn't there, in plain sight, ready to jump on you at every corner," he chants, digging his nails into the worn-out fabric of Kevin's Armani tee. Yeah, he sleeps in Armani. Nicky has literally thrown a fucking temper tantrum when he has seen Kevin's discarded Armani jumpsuit used as a "shitty replacement for pajamas". Andrew doesn't understand Nicky's reaction, but it amuses him nonetheless. 

Kevin's right hand too finds the hem of his t-shirt and tugs until the palm is flat against Andrew's stomach, cold, not pleasing, not pleasing, not fucking pleasing.

"Get your hands off me," Andrew warns, and Kevin contents himself with ruffling Andrew's t-shirt for a moment before being back at clawing at his skin, desperate and broken and frail and hurt and-

"Is it that bad?"

Andrew smacks his lips together and then he sucks his teeth like an old man. It's funny. People are always unsettled when he sucks his teeth.

"Veritably despicable. Honestly, it makes me sick to my stomach."

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

"Fuck you."

"Hey I'm trying to be honest here. If you don't like honesty, it's your problem, not mine. Speaking of which. Don't touch me."

"I can't understand."

Andrew sighs. He's slowly slowly slowly, painstakingly slowly coming off his drugs and Kevin's touch is so intimate, so close, so overwhelming. But Kevin needs it and, somehow, he can't he won't let himself slip off his promise like this. Comfort is a form of protection, isn't it? Bee said it is. She always speaks the truth. 

"You never understand don't you."

Kevin shakes his head. 

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Quick quick quick. A little mouse trapped in a cage of blood and bones. Andrew laughs again at the thought. 

"I don't know what to do with the letters," Kevin ends up breathing out softly, the wetness of tongue rolling down Andrew's neck. Andrew snorts quietly, shifting until he’s facing Kevin and can comfortably grab a fistful of his hair, yanking roughly and forcing him to lower his gaze and look him in the eyes.

“You don’t have to do anything. We can burn them,” he simply states, tugging and tugging and tugging, watching Kevin bite down his discomfort even though he’d rather see him fight.

Fight fight fight coward fight.

“No, Andrew. No arson. It’s not...it’s not appropriate. Not right.”

Again, Andrew finds himself snorting. Kevin smells of someone who could really use a shower right now and, to some extent, it enthralls him as much as it disgusts him. Bodily odours -- what a weird concept.

“They must have beaten it into you really karasho, hu?”

A vacant gaze melts into a puzzled pair of green - green green green - eyes.

“Who. What.”

Andrew waves his hand in the stale, suffocating air. 

“This nicety towards your irritating cultists. Your,” he scratches some air quotes into Kevin’s scalp, “fans.”

Disbelief crosses Kevin’s features. It doesn’t last long. At least, it doesn’t last longer than Andrew’s risible attention span.

“They’re not cultists. They’re just dedicated. And it’s not...I don’t…”

“Wait, wait, I’m sensing some bullshit coming. You piqued my interest.” He makes a dramatic pause just for the sake of it. Just for the sake of mocking Kevin Fucking Day for his drama queen theatrics. Kevin scrunches his nose. “No, just kidding, you didn’t. But I’m in no position to zone out and simply stop listening, now, am I.”

A heavy sigh. Andrew’s hair sticking out at odd angles when Kevin blows hot air into it.

“Forget that. I’m not...bothered by the letters. I’m just...I don’t even know. I’m tired, Andrew.”

“Ha. A friendly advice: drink more water.”

Here here here, the crash. He comes down, he comes off, and suddenly the weight on his shoulders is so much, and the warmth, and Kevin Day. His eyelids feel so heavy, oh so fucking heavy.

"It'll help? With the letters I mean."

"Water? Yes. You can soak paper in water and make the...uh. Papier marché. "

Kevin lets out the ghost of a laugh. Andrew is decidedly aware that he's slurring by now.

"We should sleep," Kevin finally suggests. Andrew scoffs, but he's tired, so overwhelmingly tired. Kevin's heartbeat against his skin is oddly soothing.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-

II.

"Andrew."

His whisper is almost too soft to be audible, but Andrew hears it anyway. Somehow, he always hears it when it's Kevin who's calling him.

If Kevin calls, it means that he needs him.

God forbid that he lets Kevin down after having promised him to be his protector.

A knight in shining armor.

He pries one eye open, just to get a glimpse of Kevin's face; it's roughed up by sleep, but still a perfectly fine face that does things to Andrew, things that he refuses to acknowledge but, guess what Minyard, won't go away just because he wants them to go away.

He could just go back to sleep. Pretend everything is fine. Pretend that Kevin Day suddenly crashing into his life hasn't disrupted his hard-earned routine and fucked him up even further.

But.

Pretending would mean letting him down and sorry son, we don't do such shit in this neighborhood.

Andrew's mind is still foggy from the drugs and clouded with sleep. He moans.

"What."

Kevin's hand stops mere inches away from his shoulder; he must have understood by now that Andrew doesn't like to be touched or shaken when he is asleep or drifting.

Too much mess in Andrew's head.

He nibbles at his own lower lip instead.

"Take me to Court."

Andrew doesn't ask. He doesn't ask why or, more importantly, why should he. He makes an annoyed face, though, because he was fucking sleeping, but aside from a little sneer he doesn't turn Kevin down.

Kevin needs.

Kevin needs.

Kevin needs.

Andrew delivers.

He rolls out of bed quickly and silently, taking whatever sweater Kevin is handing him - it smells just like Kevin's shower gel, so it must be Kevin's - and shoving his feet into a pair of sneakers without bothering to put on socks first. The disapproving face Kevin offers him is entertaining.

It's the dead of the night. Andrew lights up a cigarette and his car comes to life with a musical roar that reverberates through the empty parking lot, startling a night bird that was picking at a trashcan to fish out its dinner.

"Don't. We're practicing tonight."

Andrew frowns slightly.

"Says who."

No answer.

Typical.

They drive down to the stadium in silence, Kevin's thigh bouncing now and then with something that resembles excitement - in his defense, it's still difficult for Andrew to discern excitement from antsiness - and sets his teeth on edge. In a fit of spite, Andrew lights up another cigarette, craving the breathlessness that will inevitably come with practicing at Kevin Day's pace.

"Change into your gear," Kevin orders when they're still at the gates, his right hand shuddering a little while he pushes the passcode into the electronic pad. 

Andrew pretends he doesn't know why he's doing this, but he's quick to change into his uniform and strap his protections on, focusing on the pieces of reinforced polymer that are more likely to get hit if Kevin wants to play serious, not safe.

When he gets inside the plexiglass box - yes it's a fucking fishbowl, Andrew does sometimes call the court "the fucking fishbowl" to purposefully make Kevin lose his shit - Kevin is still in his sweats and old Nike shoes, glancing at the goal as if the damn thing has done him some foul, unforgivable deed.

"Loony," Andrew says, whistling an arrhythmic tune under his breath. Kevin doesn't pay him any attention. His eyes are all for the goal.

"You have to block all my shots," he stares, deadly serious. Andrew shrugs.

"Whatever. I won't get anything from this anyway."

Kevin offers him an unimpressed glance before striding to the lockers. He struggles to adjust his gear with only one hand, not his dominant moreover, and the sight does things to Andrew, things he doesn’t want to see and that keep existing even if he's not waving on his drugs right now.

Side effects.

Pipe dreams.

Smoke smoke smoke, smoke and screen.

Andrew must bite his lower lip before letting out something he doesn't want to say as he shoots Kevin a glance and starts helping him out with his armguards and gently gently gently with his gloves. Both of them. His left hand is still all bandaged and roughed up and, perhaps for the first time ever, Andrew handles something softly , gently, slowly. The stargazed look Kevin offers him makes Andrew's heart do a fucking backflip, but he brushes the alien, foreign sensation away just in time to read steely determination behind the clear green of Kevin Day's eyes.

"Let's get this thing done."

He might as well have imagined the whole thing, now, isn't it? 

He's still under the distant influence of his drugs, after all. Lunatics are allowed to imagine things.

III.

The smoke swirls and spirals out of the window, green and blue and gray and thin, it burns in Andrew's lungs and throat just like tequila or any other colorful, sugary drink he gobbles down at Eden's, while at the same time it fills him with a whole other kind of satisfaction -- it has nothing to do with alcohol, but it works the same wonders, the same fucking magic.

It grounds him, taking away the manic smile and leaving his cheeks some time to recover.

Fuck, his face hurts all the time. All the damn time.

And his heartbeat is always so loud in his ears. So, so noisy. Unfiltered. Woosh woosh, blood running a marathon, his heart pounds and pounds and stumbles slightly and pounds some more.

It feels like panic, actually. Controlled panic, but panic nonetheless. Andrew can already feel his own lips curl against his will, and what's worse is that it literally pains him to try and smooth the vacant smile away.

"Kevin," he calls in a whisper. Aaron and Nicky are playing a boring wrestling videogame in the common living room, their voices pounding against the door like balled fists smashed violently in the wood, chipping it. Andrew thinks about the chirping of birds. A wet and empty laugh resonates in the back of his sore throat. "Kevin."

However, Kevin doesn't answer.

Sorry, Kevin Day can't pick up his phone right now. Care to call later?

Another laugh.

Andrew doesn't want to laugh. He wants Kevin to pay attention, he wants Kevin to listen, he wants a whole lot of things and he wants the magic magic magic of oblivion, of the hollow void cutting out all the noise, he wants-

Nothing.

Except that he wants something, he wants something he can't have, something he'll never have, but alas. He's not in the place of wanting , probably he'll never be, so why should he bother?

He glances at Kevin from his shoulder. 

"Kevin."

Nothing.

He's buried in a game, of course. After every new surgery - he's undergone four, for now, but his hand is reacting poorly, healing too fast, so cut and sew, cut and sew on repeat until tendons, muscles, bones and nerves start to knit back decently again - he's always watching game after game on his laptop, grainy figurines chasing an invisible ball until the goal buzzes red for the last time.

And then it starts all over. Another match. Another couple of teams fighting for a goal and the familiar red buzz.

"Kevin."

Finally, Kevin drags his gaze over him and Andrew, though being perched upon the windowsill, can clearly see that his eyes are red and watery and, truth to be told, he doesn't like the whole ordeal one bit.

"I want it back."

Andrew quirks his brow, lighting another cigarette and gesturing towards Kevin so he can move closer. As expected, Kevin does, and Andrew lights a cigarette for him too -- just for good measure. Kevin takes it with the trembling fingers in his right hand and the eagerness of an addict facing a days long withdrawal.

"What, your golden hand?" He inquiries, bending towards Kevin to get a better look at his butchered, bandaged hand that he wears on a sling, close to his chest. Something in the back of his head is screaming for him to touch it - a feather touch, nothing more, nothing that could hurt - and since he's still high on his drugs, Andrew gives in to his urge , reaching for Kevin's left hand and brushing the tip of his fingers against the rough bandages wrapping it up like a present for Christmas. 

"My life, Andrew," he whispers, cradling his broken appendage and biting hard at his lower lip. Andrew shouldn't find the sight hilarious - spoiler, it isn't - but the meds the fucking meds never fail to turn his brain to scrambled eggs and so here he is, smiling manically when anyone would offer sympathy and maybe turn on their heels to cry their very eyes out. Andrew blows a cloud of smoke directly into his face and makes a funny sound in his nose when Kevin grimaces in return.

"Ha, your life. Well, good morning to you, princess, this is your life now. You're stuck with the losers. My most sincere condolences," he inappropriately jokes, poking at Kevin with his dangling foot.

Kevin snaps his jaws closed and grinds his teeth.

"I never wanted this."

Ah yes the core of the rotten apple. The crux of the matter. The chewy part inside of a jellybean.

Kevin doesn't want to be here. Which makes two of them, because Andrew too doesn't want to be here but, hey, things to do, places to see, brothers that deserve a chance to enter med school, cousins that deserve a second chance at life etcetera etcetera.

He shrugs. The smoke burns a hot trail down his throat. Kevin's green stare is almost too much to bear, but Andrew Minyard never breaks eye contact first. Never. Not even when he's obviously playing with fire and getting burnt.

"Who did? Is there honestly any of us that has deliberately chosen to be here?"

Kevin gives him that obnoxious brand look, the face of someone that knows everything and is decidedly sure to simply know. Only because he's Kevin Day, Number Two, the brightest star of Exy, the very star of Exy, a cover man, all camera smiles and magazine-perfect abs, Riko's second,a Raven, the spirit of the Nest made flesh.

Andrew feels the urge of chipping his polished, pearly teeth with a right hook.

"You did," Kevin says, as if delivering some form of truer-than-true truth to the adoring mass of his cultists. He bites at the soft, internal lining of his cheek and flashes Andrew his greenest look. "You've chosen to be a Fox instead of a Raven."

Andrew sneers spitefully. Looking for something nasty to bounce back at him, he doesn't find anything that's even remotely interesting or impacting. His eyes, however, squeeze just so.

"You're on fucking thin ice, Day."

Of course he's grinning unwillingly. This doesn't make his face less threatening, though. Even if the drugs make him smile and find life funny and entertaining - artificial, artificial, artificial - he wants to scream. Kevin makes him feel and he doesn't want to feel. 

You let me down Andrew, you let me down even before picking me up.

In a destructive twist, he grabs Kevin's hand in a vicious grip, making him squirm and wail like a trapped mouse.

"Andrew Andrew let me go Andrew don't...Andrew fuck...hurts-"

He smiles and claws. His nails are caked in smudged, ruined black polish. Nicky hates it when his polish is cracked and almost faded.

He might have said fine at some point, but he's not sure. He just let's go of Kevin's hand enough not to hurt. But he holds it. He holds it as much as he holds Kevin's stare, the sensation of having taken advantage of him creeping up his spine with spidery legs and itchy hairs, but this makes for another thing that the happy pills will take away, right? Right? This guilt. This whole bunch of unpleasant sensations mixed with the bugs eating up his stomach whenever Kevin dares to plant his green green green eyes into his artificially enlarged pupils.

"Don't grab. It hurts," Kevin meekly whispers. Andrew scoffs.

"Don't you ever dare to imply that I've chosen this place ever again. Don't bring up your psycho flock of assholes. Don't. I made you a promise, didn't I? And I'm keeping it."

"Even against my will?"

Soft air spills from Kevin’s slightly parted lips. Andrew swallows compulsively. Kevin’s lips Kevin’s lips, Kevin’s lips, Kevin’s-

“If it’s against your will, why are you here in the first place? Assuming you do really have an individual, independent will, Day.”

Kevin takes a step closer, probably against his better judgment. Sometimes, his impulsiveness gets the upper hand on his cowardice. Does it disgust him? Does he tolerate it just for the sake of something he doesn’t even understand or care to understand? Andrew doesn’t know.

He.

Doesn’t.

Know.

What he knows for sure is that he’s stroking Kevin’s hand gently, now, even though his racing mind is screaming at him to hurt the fucker, to twist and bend his thin, frail fingers until they are no more, to crush and grab and claw and tear apart.

He won’t give in.

He won’t he won’t he won’t.

“You’re just being mean for the sake of it, Andrew.”

“I never do things for the sake of it, Day. I’ve just hurt you. I wanted to hurt you.”

“You did.”

No shit, Sherlock.

“Answer my question or I’ll hurt you again.”

Kevin puts out the butt of his barely touched cigarette on the made up ashtray they keep on the windowsill, blowing out one last puff of smoke he has nursed in his mouth instead of gulping down in his lungs, he ponders, he waits.

Take your sweet time, princess.

Andrew can’t stay still for long thanks to his drugs, so he fidgets with his own cigarette, takes a deep drag after the other, inhales the sharp, toxic fumes of the darkening filter. He pokes Kevin with his toes. He makes weird sounds while smacking his lips.

“Because I had no other place to run to,” Kevin finally admits, defeated, deflated. Andrew accepts his answer with his perennial smile and an overly-serene look. He’s still amazed by how much his microexpressions can change depending on how much his meds are affecting his mind. 

“Then why should I feel guilty I haven’t joined your sect, Kevin?” His name sounds like the outmost profanity right now, spoken like this, with thick sarcasm and spite. “Why should you want to go back? Riko broke your hand. Your golden hand. The precious hand of Exy. You want to run to him for comfort and let him break your right hand too? I’m genuinely curious.”

Kevin is frozen still, a perfect statue dedicated to an ancient creed that worships beauty, professional sport and orthorexia. Silence. Long, painful silence. Andrew toys with the idea of lighting up another cigarette.

“Habit. It's a habit. Muscular memory. I don’t know why I want to go back, but I want to go back. It just...doesn’t make any fucking sense. I feel empty without it.”

“Nah, stop shitting me. We’re not talking about the Ravens. You feel shitty without your abusive asshole brother.”

“It does make you uncomfortable.”

“Stop assuming things. I am never uncomfortable. It’s not about me.”

Kevin rolls his eyes just so. The fingers in his broken hand twitch slightly around Andrew’s.

“Yes, it is. It’s always about you. It’s always been about you.”

Cryptic much.

Andrew can’t help but scrunch his nose and smile.

“Ah, now it is,” he remarks, but this time with no real heat. The heat seems to be gone for the moment. Andrew is uncharacteristically tired and, judging from the slight sag in his posture, Kevin too is. He sucks the butt of another cigarette, meditating whether to smoke it for real or just let it dangle from his slack mouth until he’s ready for his nightly nap. “Now you say it is about me. Liar.”

Kevin chooses not to say anything on the matter. Years of press training kick in at the very last second. He purses his lips in a tight line and allows Andrew to test the firmness of his abdomen with his wayward foot.

“Why are we having this conversation?”

“I don’t know, you tell me. You did bring the subject up.”

Kevin exhales.

“I thought it was important. I thought I had to say something on the matter.”

“Good. You happy now?”

He shakes his head. Andrew notices that his hair is getting a little longer than his usual, especially on his forehead. Ink on coffee-treated paper. His heart stumbles and runs like a rollercoaster, up and down up and down.

“No. Not in the fucking slightest.”

“Nice. Me neither.”

IV.

“Dance with me.”

Andrew doesn't even lift his eyes from the table, where he's counting the nice line of tequila shots for the fourth time. He gobbles down one without bothering to use salt and lemon before he's ready to face Kevin Day, who's currently fisting his crop top while dragging desperate chugs from Aaron's spiked beer bottle.

The loom he flashes him is empty - is that an act or just plain habit? - but Kevin doesn't seem to mind it, a drop of tequila beer spilling down his chin and disappearing where he has undone the first three buttons of his black shirt.

"Ding ding, you picked the wrong twin this time! I'm not the dancing one."

Kevin makes a mildly offended face at Andrew's statement, brows knitting under the soft strands of sweaty, salty hair sticking to his face.

"I can tell you apart from Aaron, you know?"

Andrew's expression doesn't falter, even if he's surprised that Kevin knows who he is talking to at this point, so far in the night, in the dust and the alcohol.

"You're shitfaced," he observes, waving his hand gracefully in his general direction. Kevin snorts and shakes his head.

"You too."

Andrew doesn't bother correcting him, but he's not shitfaced, not really, thanks to his prescribed drugs he tolerates the not-so-law-abiding dust fairly better than Nicky, Aaron and Kevin himself. He groans softly. It's inaudible, drowned out by the music and the myriad of bodies swaying and rubbing one against the other, pressed on the dancefloor.

"Dance," Kevin insists, sweat making his skin shine blue and violet, almost fluorescent. The artificial lights suit him so much. They compliment him. 

Everything compliments Kevin Day.

"Not happening."

A pout. He looks so human when he pouts.

"Andrew."

Andrew wolfs down another tequila, this time though he licks some grains of salt from the back of his hand, and fuck him fuck everything, he jolts up from his seat and flashes Kevin a cold, deadly glare. 

Dancing is so stupid. Music is nice, it's loud, it keeps the whole thinking shit at bay, but dancing is so -- pointless.

Still.

Kevin wants wants wants. Sometimes, Andrew just vibes with his flow because it's easier than to try and swim against the waves. He likes to deny Kevin things. He likes to say no when he feels like saying no. Admittedly, though, it's so exhausting to always oppose everything. So, tonight, he vibes, mindless of the many elbows and butts and backs rubbing into his itching skin, of the stench of pheromones and young sweat and cocktails that envelopes him as he follows Kevin blindly, trustingly, until they reach a corner in which they can dance without being slapped hard by some undressed chick’s backside.

Aaron and Nicky are mere feet away, embarrassing themselves as they throw their arms in the air and rock their hips in sync with the bass that thrums through Andrew’s bones, shaking him from inside out. 

A dancing Kevin Day is such a lewd, obscene view that Andrew feels sick to his stomach. It’s the same kind of want that drives Kevin, to some extent. Now Andrew wants and he can’t cope with how much, how fucking much he’s craving.

He wants Kevin to come closer. To shove him against the wall. Slam him into the wall. Pin him there and suck the very life out of his cock, and lick his lips clean afterwards.

Lewd, lewd, wrong, slutty, wrong, disgusting.

“See? You’re dancing after all.”

Andrew snaps out of his head just in time to realize he is, in fact, dancing. Not awkwardly, not as ostentatiously as Aaron and not even as gracefully and wantonly as Kevin, but -- he’s dancing. He’s about to plant his feet firmly on the sticky floor just because - come on - he’s got some dignity left in him, but Kevin’s content grin and his silky black hair plastered to his fluorescent face keeps him moving and moving, sweating in his crop top until the fine, translucent hairs on his naked stomach are slick with his own sweat and Kevin’s, since they’re dancing so close, so close he can smell his fading cologne and the acrid whiff coming from his armpits.

“Shut up.”

Kevin grins again, pupils blown and intoxicated, black suffocating lush green.

“Shut me up.”

So, so close.

Andrew doesn't know why he's suddenly so breathless, his chest heaving with each sharp intake of stale, rebreathed air, but he is, he is, and it feels like walking on a thin line suspended between two skyscrapers, just like it.

"What the fuck did you say?" He asks. He'd like to think he's towering over Kevin - despite his risible height he always seems to tower over him - but in this very moment he's feeling just as small as mommy dearest has made him. A cold, wet shiver runs down his spine. Kevin bends over until the curls on his forehead are brushing lightly against Andrew's carelessly styled hair.

"I said that you should be the one to shut me up, Andrew."

Is it a request? A demand? A plea without all the pathetism that usually comes with that kind of stuff? 

Andrew gulps down mouthfuls and mouthfuls of filthy air, retreating just so. Kevin is relentless and stubborn, as uninhibited as the massive intake of alcohol never fails to make him, and he’s got the nerve of capturing Andrew’s wrist in his uncertain right grip, the pads of his fingers stroking the delicate skin wrapped around Andrew’s pulsing veins, his heart the bass and his brain the syncopated music boosting from the speakers and subwoofers scattered all around the room, hidden behind fake panels and curtains, springing from the floor like shuddering stalagmites. 

He wants he wants he wants.

Kevin wants.

Kevin wants him apparently. The subtle rolling of his hips against Andrew’s - it’s messy and awkward, but it’s there, he can’t have hallucinated that - is impossible to equivocate or misunderstand.

His eyes grow ten times wider when it’s Kevin to take a step forward and present him his obscene, beautiful, chiseled mouth, crowned by salty drops of sweet sweet sweat and sour remnants of his last drink. If he wants to give in, he must ask; the answer would be tainted anyway - who could think clearly in such a situation? - but this doesn’t mean that Kevin can’t have a say in what’s about to happen.

If it happens, anyway.

“Yes or no?”

Andrew has never asked this before. He isn’t sure about how he should ask, but a simple yes or no question seems like the most convenient option right now. Kevin acts like he’s taken aback when he should know better. He should know better.

“Kiss me,” he mouths, lips caressing Andrew’s temple, right over the curve of his ear.

“Yes or no?”

Oh, how utterly torturing it is to wait.

Kevin’s breath is hot and sugary. 

“Yes.”

Tomorrow, tomorrow, he’ll chastise himself tomorrow for having taken advantage of Kevin like this. He’ll make amends. He’ll make amends for the rest of his life if that would be deemed necessary. But, God, he wants now. Nothing has turned into something, and that something has turned into Kevin Day.

A long, languid exhale slips past his parted lips right before his mouth connects with Kevin’s and the world starts spiraling around Andrew Minyard in a maelstrom of greens and purples and blues.

When reality crashes down on him again - a cold shower, he doesn’t have a single breath of air left in his aching lungs - Kevin Day is still there.

He’s still there.

With stars in his eyes and a lovely flush on his taut cheeks.

He’s still there. He’s still there.

They’re both still there.

V.

Indolent and lazy are two very different characteristics. Andrew is never lazy, but sure as fucking hell he’s indolent. Especially when it comes to Exy. He swings his raquette back and forth, eyes unfocused and misty, as Aaron and Nicky get scolded for being a tad too soft when it comes to aggressive game.

Game.

Which fucking game?

He yawns without bothering to cover his mouth.

Kevin spots him and marches like a fucking Panzer across the court. Coach Wymack pounds against the plexiglass once, twice, but he's clearly on Kevin's side when it comes to force Andrew to care, so his threats are just empty and the pounding doesn't last long enough to stop Kevin on his tracks. A defiant smile twists Andrew's features, dark despite the happy pills. He stares vacantly, bracing himself for the inevitable impact, and when it comes he doesn't even falter, he doesn't even pretend to step back. He's a brick of a man, the obvious height difference between him and Kevin can't change that.

Thanks mom, powerlifting is relaxing.

"You're not even trying!" Kevin barks, so close to his face Andrew can smell dark chocolate protein bar in his breath. When he tugs at the grate of his helmet, Andrew sneers. His shoulders hurt. He rolls them tentatively, but in vain. They keep hurting, and his right arm hurts too. Someone is hammering nails in his joints. Kevin barks and barks and barks, Andrew shakes his head and before anyone can step in they're done - Kevin is done - and they're back to their drills in no time.

“Yeah. Whatever.”

He stops fifty attempted goals. Nausea roils in his stomach as he tastes sour on his tongue. Puking on court would be dramatically inelegant, so he just keeps his breakfast down and forces his sluggish, slow carcass to do what he’s got to do to escape the living hell of the court and just -- whatever. Going to die like a sad, old cat on the couch seems like the most comforting thought he can produce while missing a shot and snickering to himself. It wasn’t even a fast shot. His elbow creaks and hurts.

“See? You were just being a lazy fucker,” Kevin says, both praise and reprimand, when Andrew shoves past him to the showers. Explaining to him the abysmal difference between lazy and indolent would be a huge waste of his time, so Andrew skips that part and goes straight for his locker, stepping out of his gear with painstakingly slow movements and popping his sore bones while he’s at it. Aaron has switched their shoes again. He’s too weary to go fish his own, though. 

The hot shower makes his heart race, pulse visible under his left pectoral, a funny bump he pokes with his fingertip until the hard intercostal muscle starts to go numb. Wymack yells at him for taking his sweet time, but Andrew doesn’t pay him any attention, steam coming from his stall and a tune whispered under his breath. 

Kevin is waiting for him next to his locker, a movie star casually hanging by a college locker room that reeks of overused socks and masculine musk, and hands him a clean t-shirt with a frown on his perfect perfect perfect face.

“Have you eaten something today? You look pale.”

Oh, he speaks.

“Yes, mommy, I did. Thanks for asking. I’ve even tried to share, but you opted for your healthy alternative,” he answers, sarcasm oozing thick from his words. “And, flashnews, Day: I am pale. Let’s get the fuck out of here before I develop an allergic reaction to the raquets.”

Kevin’s stare follows him even when they’re walking mere inches apart, it doesn’t leave him even when they’re back at the dorm, Nicky cooking something and pretending to be the perfect 50s housewife, so he skips on his beauty rest too and chooses to idly play something with Aaron instead. At least until his vision falters for a beat and colorful dots start dancing in his peripheral.

“Hey.”

Aaron looks extremely comical with all the dots spinning and spinning around his blonde head. Andrew barks out a humorless laugh and the grip on his controller weakens and weakens.

"Hey. Andrew. You okay?"

He wants to say he is, but Andrew doesn't lie. He grunts instead and let's go of the controller that has suddenly become too heavy for his jelly hand. When he tries to stand - and tries is the keyword here - the dots spin faster, and the couch too, and the ceiling and the world itself. He blacks out for a moment, Aaron's high pitched, panicked "Andrew?" in his ears, and in the span of a few of his frantic heartbeats he's in Kevin's arms, his flushed forehead tucked in the crook of his neck, with Nicky squealing like a piglet to the slaughterhouse and someone else speaking of rushing him to the ER.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

He's not lucid enough anymore to sound coherent, so he just chases Kevin's cold skin to make the insistent pounding in his head go the fuck away, muttering something along the lines of I am not dying when a weak broken sob escapes Kevin's lips.

"Shit, he's burning."

Nicky.

"How long has he been unwell?"

Aaron.

"I don't know! He never says anything! I just assumed he was being lazy in the past few days!"

Ah, Kevin. Andrew blinks once, twice, Kevin's hair falling on his face, the pulse in his carotid artery rapid and panicky. Andrew must make an Herculean effort to lift his own hand and dip his fingertips into the soft flesh of his own neck, feeling for a pulse. It outruns Kevin's, of course. Jackrabbit fast and stumbling. He inhales and exhales quietly, Kevin's cologne itching in his nose, until he's drifting drifting drifting and the sudden motion doesn't give him unbearable nausea anymore.

It would be a shame to throw up on Kevin Day, wouldn't it.

It would be fucking hilarious.

He falls asleep, finally, counting Kevin's ever regular heartbeats, losing count and starting back again twice. His dreams are wild and colorful, another occasional side effect of his drugs. He dreams of kissing Kevin and, sometime during a very difficult intravenous access, he's absolutely sure it has happened, he's just too out of his mind to grasp at the details. Eden, first. Strobing lights. Purples and blues and greens dancing on Kevin's face. Them dancing. Oh, so fucking close. He's sure he's smiling in his half-asleep state by the time the needle finds his vein and someone starts sticking electrodes to his chest.

"Kevin-" He slurs, eyes rolling. Focus. Out of focus. Focus again. The lights here are so yellow. Sickly.

He remembers kissing Kevin another couple of times after Eden. On court during night practice, cradling his broken hand in both of his own like he's stroking a sick pet that's going to be euthanized soon. In the house in Columbia, dust-induced dehydration getting the upper hand right before their kiss deepens, leaving both of them skittish and unsatisfied. 

Cold metal digging deep in the hollow spaces between his ribs. The many fractured beeps of the monitor are loud, but his heartbeat is even louder, he feels each contraction deep in his chest and the blood rushing in his ears. An oxygen mask gets placed on his face and Andrew is sure he's laughing when a nurse has to fumble with the elastic band because his face is so tiny for a grown-up.

No familiar voices.

People say shit like antibiotics and infection and x-rays and he's tempted to shush everyone up rudely so he can go back to his nap. It doesn't seem to be necessary, though, because he feels himself drifting off milliseconds after a heavy-handed nurse has strapped a sphygmomanometer around his arm and he barely registers the pinch of the fucking thing inflating and tightening until it has trapped him.

Oblivion oblivion oblivion.

He doesn't dream about anything this time. Pitch black, white dots, then he squints and there he is, only partly awake, breathing mountain air and tasting something foul in his mouth as the already loud beeps become even louder. He tries to squirm away from an unsettling weight pinning him to the mattress, but to no avail.

Focus. Breathe. Focus.

At least he does remember he’s at the hospital. Oh the wonders of eidetic memory. It works even when he’s not exactly there but up up up in air somewhere, either because of the drugs or, in this case, because his brain was bubbling up and boiling from days of untreated whatever. He has to cross his eyes to look at what’s glueing him to the hard mattress and, thanks God, it isn’t a strap but just Kevin Day’s ridiculously muscular arm, all veins and dark, smooth skin where he has rolled up his sleeve to his elbow because probably the place is hot as fuck despite Andrew not being able to feel it properly. Feverish shivers run down his sore spine. The oxygen mask on his face grates where it has dug grooves into his skin so he gets rid of it with a funny, awkward flopping of his numb hand.

Kevin’s arm, now that he can size it up, feels weirdly grounding. No longer a malicious trap, but a warm invitation to just rest.

Andrew feels pathetic when the ever-present bugs start buzzing in his stomach once again.

“Kevin.”

His heart throws a visible skip when, after a particularly vigorous shake, Andrew can get his undivided attention. Kevin Day has never been one for waking up fresh and ready. This time, however, his mind flashes out of the comforting fumes of sleep as soon as Andrew gets a good grip on his hair and yanks, fingers trembling with the effort.

“Fuck. Andrew. Are you -- how are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” he answers, and he’s pleased when his lips remain relaxed, no longer hooked to the artificial smile that his drugs put on his face. He’s not feeling any withdrawal coming yet, so it’s entirely possible that he’s riding another kind of high, that someone has called in to inform the personnel that he’s medicated and in need to keep any sign of withdrawal at bay. He doesn’t care. He won’t care until it’s time to, at least. His head is still wrapped in cotton, and that’s fine. “Water,” he croaks, but Kevin shakes his head vehemently, gesturing towards his IV with his crooked index finger.

“You’ve got fluids already. And plenty of shit to treat your overlooked infection.”

Andrew lets a sound die in the back of his sore throat. No water then. The fluorescent lights, this time, do not compliment Kevin’s complexion at all; he looks tired, underfed, dehydrated, dirty. His green, watery eyes are rimmed red and puffy. Andrew frowns, and the artificial sun shining over his head starts to spin.

“You cried,” he breathes slowly, his hand still caught in the inky softness of Kevin’s hair. When Kevin looks away in a sudden bout of modesty, Andrew’s thumb brushes soft and feather-like against his temple.

“I couldn’t stop myself.”

Deep breath, deep breath, deep breath.

“Were you afraid?”

A tiny vein bulges right under the pad of Andrew’s finger. Kevin scoffs with all the energy of a sleep and food deprived dead man walking.

“Of course I was.”

“Hu. Fair. Protection doesn’t extend from the grave, Day, isn’t it?”

Kevin looks lost for a second.

“What?”

“Our deal. A corpse can’t keep promises, right? You were afraid your flock would snatch you back as soon as I kicked the bucket.”

Again, the lost look. If he wasn’t so inhumanly tired, Andrew would be pleased with himself. Green melts like ice in a chemically colored drink. There’s a glimpse of realization Andrew can’t place.

“What. What the...fuck. It’s not...it’s...another kind of fear, Andrew. I wasn’t afraid of them …”

Andrew’s hand drops to rest on Kevin’s lap. 

“Unpleasant much?” He ends up asking, tugging at his sweatshirt.

“Unpleasant much, yes.”

Andrew nods, closing his eyes. Both of his arms hurt. They must have poked him with a fucking lot of needles. He tugs at Kevin’s sweatshirt anyway, until he’s accomplished his last-minute mission and they’re laying with their foreheads pressed together, breathing the same carbon-dioxide filled air and tasting each other’s lips with their sticky, dry tongues, both present, both solid, both there.

Again.

For what it’s worth, it might as well last a lifetime. Then Andrew gets overwhelmed and gently pushes Kevin away with an excuse that isn’t entirely an excuse.

“Now fuck off for some hours, Day. I want to sleep. You must eat something, drink and take a shower.”

Kevin nods. His watch reads early morning, which means that Kevin has spent the whole night at Andrew’s side, and if ain’t something someone has ever done for him. Not even Aaron has dared to spend so much time keeping vigil when he was at the hospital with a fractured sternum and most of his ribs broken after having given Tilda what she deserved. It’s a moving thought to think that someone has really watched over him without meaning any harm or without the sole purpose of examining the loony kid as he’s trashing in his sleep.

Groundbreaking.

He’s not sure he can stand the feeling of being cared for without brushing it aside as a minor inconvenience. He’s not sure Kevin Day would understand.

“Yeah, I should go. Coach Wymack will be here soon. You want me to tell him not to come?”

Andrew shrugs noncommittally.

“Whatever. I don’t care if he comes or not.”

“All right. I’ll be back when I’m done, okay?” 

Andrew nods. He'd like to tell Kevin that he wants him here, that he wants him to stay or at least to come back readily, but the many words remain stubbornly shut inside his throat.

Before going, though, Kevin allows himself to grab Andrew's wrist gently and squeeze, offering a comforting smile and a soft brush as a silent apology for his temporary defection. 

Andrew can make do with this. 

He can make do.

+1

"Is he coming?"

The soft thud of Neil's sneakers as he strides across the roof is so painfully familiar that it opens a gaping wound in Andrew's heaving chest. He takes another drag of his cigarette and pretends it's nothing. Pretends that the urge to fidget doesn't come from the fact that he hasn't been alone with Kevin for weeks. 

Andrew pretends he's not weak in his knees with sheer fear of rejection.

Alas.

There's nothing he can do to escape what he's feeling, now, right? Bee says he should be careful but welcoming when it comes to experiencing something new, old or entirely forgotten stir behind his ribcage.

Do the fucking bugs in his stomach count? He never asked. How silly of him. But the bugs still bother him, from time to time. When he's watching Kevin from a safe distance and Kevin isn't staring back. When Kevin is taking notes on Exy games he watches incessantly on his brand new laptop. When Kevin is deeply asleep and his arm dangles from the edge of the bed, his loud snores looking nothing but graceful because he's Kevin Fucking Day and everything he does comes with the practiced beauty of being born and raised a star.

Andrew sucks in a sharp breath. Neil bumps his shoulder into his, careful and gentle.

"He's coming. It's going to be fine. You are going to be fine."

He flicks the butt of his cigarette away. If it lands on a car, it's not his problem. When he tries to light another one, Neil presses a palm over the back of his sweaty hand - he has never experienced sweaty hands before, and the thing is both interesting and disgusting at the same time - and says "Wait, all right? A couple of minutes. Or else you're going to need another pack from the store and who's got the energy to go and fetch that crap?"

Andrew winces, his grimace dark and cold against Neil’s quirked lip, but he obediently leaves the tattered pack tucked safely inside the front pocket of his jeans and growls quietly.

“Stop trying to mother me.”

Neil’s smile deepens and something screams violence inside Andrew’s brain.

“Not mothering you, just stating the obvious. I am tired, you are tired and sure as hell Kevin won’t go buy you cigarettes. Let alone Aaron…”

“He’s with the cheerleader,” Andrew scowls, balling his fists and unclenching them rhythmically until his knuckles feel numb. Neil places a soft, chaste kiss on his temple.

“He’ll be here soon. I’m going, okay? I’ll keep the phone close in case you need something.”

Yeah some fucking oblivion would be nice.

He returns the kiss just as chastly and he shoos Neil away before he’s got the chance of saying anything else, then he just waits. Kevin is a notorious coward, so chances are that he’s waiting in vain, but if he has told Neil that he’s coming...well, maybe he is coming, after all. He always seems to be longing for proving Neil that he’s more than what meets the eye. Layers and layers of artificiosity that he’s stripping away slowly, one by one, baring himself for all of them and for his own fucking sake.

Perhaps it's time for Andrew to let go of his rougher edges too, if only for a brief moment. If only for Kevin and Kevin alone.

When the creaking door gets opened a tad too violently, he jolts in his skin, numb and itchy hand already scrambling for his much needed cigarettes. Kevin walks gingerly, wearily, as if tiptoeing on eggshells, nervous energy escaping from his tense shoulders in black tendrils that slap Andrew square in the face.

What the fuck is he doing what the fuck why why why-

"Neil told me you wanted to talk," Kevin spits out from a distance, his voice muffled by the gust of wind that has picked up. Andrew turns to face him and he doesn't like what he sees. Not even remotely.

"Yes," he acknowledges after having taken stock of Kevin’s miserable state. He keeps his unlit cigarette between his teeth and gestures towards him to come closer, to take a seat. Wary wary wary, Kevin does.

“May I?”

Andrew hands him the pack and watches closely as Kevin brings a crooked cigarette to his lips, unpracticed fingers almost unable to produce a flame from the old Bic lighter. The bugs buzz and buzz, their tiny little wings this close to sever an artery and have him bleed to death for Kevin Fucking Day. As the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat, and he’s curious about how he’s handling this whole mess, so he checks for his own pulse almost absentmindedly and he finds it shallow and rapid, as if he’s on the verge of a panic attack but he hasn’t realized it yet.

Weird and enthralling. 

Scary.

They exhale a cloud of smoke in sync, both staring at something incredibly interesting just below the horizon, and it’s Kevin who speaks, letting out a heavy sigh as if to make it very clear that he’s not happy to be on the roof, no, not really. Or that Andrew has bothered him somehow. Suddenly, it ain’t clear anymore.

“For your information, Betsy has told me you wanted to see me, stating that you had explicitly asked her to because you know I’m not fond of surprises. She also said that she had suggested making us have a joint session, but you refused. Why?”

Andrew shrugs. 

“I didn’t want to have...anyone around. Not even Bee.”

Kevin inhales sharply, his ruined hand rubbing insistently in his fading Levi’s, the other one busy with holding the cigarette. He smokes eagerly, the wind ruffling his hair in a way that’s almost poetic, and then he sneers, flashing Andrew the camera smile he hates with so much passion.

“Well, I’m here. If you’re going to apologize,” he snarls, “let me just grab my phone and record the event. It’s rarer than to witness the Halley comet, hu?”

Andrew’s hands tremble and he hides one in his sleeve just to preserve the modicum of self-respect he still has in him. They weren’t trembling when he was keeping both of them clasped around Kevin’s throat in a deathly grip, choking the life out of him and counting the pathetic gasps and the fractured heartbeats that separated him from the fucking edge. Either you speak or you’re dead. He has chosen Neil Josten over him and, as Bee always says, actions do really bear consequences. Sometimes, he can avoid them altogether. Some other times, he’s forced to confront them and, man, it fucking sucks.

“Go grab your phone, then,” he flatly delivers, keeping the smoke in his lungs a beat longer than it’s comfortable. He can’t say he isn’t pleased when Kevin’s eyes threaten to bulge out of his skull for the surprise. His pulse skips almost painfully when he’s facing that green again for the first time in weeks.

“What? What did you just say?”

“I said go grab your phone,” he repeats, slowly and clearly. He kicks Kevin in the ankle casually, weighing his reaction. Nothing violent. He doesn’t jerk away, he just -- stares, opening and closing his mouth rhythmically in a weird impersonation of a Magikarp. “I found out I can actually regret things, ” he explains, suddenly finding his own nails a very interesting thing to look at. “I don't like it, but I can’t escape it. It drills holes in my head and I can’t make it stop.”

“What the fuck does it mean?”

Andrew scoffs.

“I don’t fucking know. It just bothers me.”

“Then why choking me in the first place. Why attacking me so viciously, Andrew? You have an explanation for that?”

Straight to the point. How unusual and brave for a skittish mouse like Kevin to grow out a set of balls just to slam them in Andrew’s face. Unguarded honesty has never been his forte, but it doesn’t mean Andrew won’t try.

“I panicked,” he candidly admits, fidgeting with the frayed hem of his hoodie and fighting against the urge to rebuild his walls right away just to tuck himself in and stop feeling this exposed. Andrew would rather partake in the tradition of making a few selected freshmen run naked around campus on their first night at the dorms as a victim, or get a colonoscopy for what it’s worth.

Been there, done that, after all.

It still felt better than -- this.

“You...panicked?”

"Yes."

Kevin has disbelief written all across his perfect face, the symmetry of his features unbothered by the manic look that has his mouth twisted in a half-scowl, half-pout. Weird. Andrew was expecting cold, he was expecting spite and rage and composure, he was expecting Kevin going all Raven as he used to do back in the day, but what he has is a goldfish with uncharacteristic balls of steel and a funny expression that's nothing like the freezing, dead ice that used to set deep in his bones when he had first stepped into Palmetto State University as a crippled cast-away.

"So...that's all you have to say? That you tried to murder me because you panicked?"

Andrew does reflexively draw his shoulders to his ears in an universal defensive gesture.

"Yes. And I regret it."

Kevin glares at him suspiciously, his previously bulging eyes now turned to slits.

"You're here because you don't like the sensation. You're not truly sorry, Andrew."

Is he, though? A part of him is, that's for sure. The portion of his mind where he stashes guilt and regret so he doesn't have to cope with them on their terms instead of on his own. It's such an abstract concept to make someone privy to. It's foreign. He returns Kevin's stare and his mouth tilts downward.

"Stop making assumptions, Day. I'm here because I've chosen to be here, and so are you. If you're so uninterested in what I have to say, no one is forcing you to stay."

Kevin flashes him an almost offended look as the cigarette wastes away slowly between his fingers. Unexpectedly, he kicks Andrew back, quite maliciously. The pain radiating from his ankle to his knee is almost sweet.

"You stop making assumptions, Andrew. And kindly fuck you. If you're sorry, just say that you're sorry. I'm tired of this...habit of yours, dancing around things so you don't have to deal with them."

Andrew scoffs.

"Wrong twin again, Day. I don't dance."

He earns another kick, but maybe it's just what he deserves. 

"Andrew."

Andrew's breath hitches. Through his half-lidded eyes, he can see that Kevin is struggling to bottle something that even he, as broken inside as he is, reckons shouldn't stay bottled.

Unless.

He motions slowly to reach for both of Kevin's hands. Eidetic memory. Muscle memory too. Kevin lets his cigarette drop to the floor, his brows knitted so tight they touch softly over the gentle crease in the bridge of his nose. Andrew blows smoke through his nose and disposes of his cigarette as well as he guides Kevin's hands to latch around his throat.

"Tight," he commands, waiting for the once familiar indentation fingers leave behind when someone is gripping at your neck. Kevin does so much as brushing his thumb along the sharp curve of his Adam's apple, his eyes fever-bright and slightly lost.

"What the fuck are you doing? You know I could never. This...this is fucking nonsense. It's not an eye for an eye matter, Minyard!" He says and fuck if he isn't his father's son right now. If Andrew wasn't trying so hard to push his feelings down down down he would probably cackle. He doesn't let go of Kevin's hands, though. Always so cold. As if he's perennially needing a warmer or some shit. His heart races against Kevin's calloused fingertips.

Fear? Anticipation? Antsiness? 

The bugs aren't stilling for shit.

"I want you to know that I feel regret. I don't...think there's another way to do this. For you to…"

Saying for you to forgive me sounds frankly stupid, so he just drops the subject and hopes that Kevin Day is clever enough to figure it out on his own. If only. 

“Wow, you are an idiot after all, aren’t you?”

Andrew swallows compulsively and his sand-dry throat spasms in protest. Time dilates painfully. When he’s finally able to let go of Kevin’s hands, his fingers feel sore and gnarled up, and Kevin moves to grab at his shoulders and squeeze, for once unmindful of how strong his grip is, even if one hand is maimed and kept together by tungsten wire and spite. Andrew bruises easily. Perhaps bruising means atonement. Or it doesn’t mean nothing at all, it’s difficult to discern such things when Bee isn’t around to guide him through the process.

“It’s something I haven’t done before,” he tries, as a pathetic self-justification. Kevin shakes his head, still keeping him in place with the tight grip of his fingers.

“Why can’t you just panic like all of us? Like a normal person?”

“Normal people don’t panic, usually. And I’m not, strictly speaking, normal.”

“And you almost killed me.”

“I know.”

There’s a long beat in which absolutely nothing happens, save for the fact that Kevin’s vice-like grip relents to a comfortable, almost gentle squeezing - Andrew notices how his left hand twitches now that he has overworked it - then he fills the silence with the most dreaded question, even if he’s not sure he wants to hear the answer.

“Are you afraid of me, Kevin?”

He has never thought, not even once, that Kevin could possibly be afraid of him. Not even during Kevin’s first days with him and Wymack, when he had behaved like a real shit with the sole purpose of annoying the fuck out of the Coach and tease the broken Raven to the point of rupture. He could have enjoyed a good fight back then. But Kevin had submitted so easily, so meekly, still used to Riko’s short leash and his violent fits, languid and unafraid. He hadn’t submitted to Andrew because he was afraid of him, but because he was seeking someone who could shield him against his fears and nightmares embodied. Thinking about how Kevin’s surrender was an act of trust now makes Andrew’s chest tighten with pain.

Unafraid.

Trustful.

Hopeful.

Kevin, seeing Andrew for what he was and deciding it was just... okay. Promising him to find something to make his life worth living then being repaid with betrayal and even more violence.

Don’t be afraid of me, Kevin.

Something inside of him must break, because Kevin’s eyes grow wide and almost soft and he strokes his shoulders with trembling hands.

“Sometimes I am, yes.” 

Andrew doesn’t find the energy to tell Kevin that he shouldn’t, because he knows, he knows that what he has done is, basically, inexcusable. Being finally aware of that, though, doesn’t mean that it hurts less.

“I don’t want you to,” he sighs weakly. Kevin shrugs. They end up sitting close, almost snuggled like a pair of odd baby penguins during an Antarctic storm, shoulder against shoulder and Kevin’s bad hand sprawled bonelessly in Andrew’s lap. Andrew asks for a silent permission and when it’s granted, he starts working his warm fingers into the many knots and bumps right under the thin skin.

“Are we trying again?” Kevin asks after a while, exhaling satisfyingly when Andrew gets the rhythm right and his tendons and muscles relax a bit. “With Betsy?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Bee will make things up. Bee will help. Andrew wants to think she will help, at least.

They stay on the roof a while more, the silence between them not exactly companionable but not tense either. He massages Kevin’s hand as if the small gesture is going to heal their relationship and basks in the small sounds he elicits whenever he’s able to work through a particularly tough spot.

The bugs still buzz in his stomach. They’ll never stop, will they? He should make peace with the fact that he’s got feelings for Kevin Day, even if the situation is far more complicated now than how it was when they had first shared a kiss on the dancefloor.

One step at a time.

One problem at a time.

What matters now is that Kevin isn’t running away, and the cologne Andrew can smell is so intense it makes him almost dizzy. Stupid, pathetic, weak, but some things he can’t just change nor bury. And that’s fine. Maybe not fine fine , but -- well. One step at a time.

They’re still here, after all.

They’re still here.