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Neil dreams of Baltimore.
When put this way, it sounds horrific, but the dream is not all bad. There were moments of his childhood that were good: when spring turned to autumn and leaves started falling to the ground, Neil remembers his mother letting him stay late after practice to jump in leaf piles with his teammates. He was never allowed to call them friends, but they were familiar, and the simple joy of it all was freeing. There are memories of his mother’s arms wrapped around him, both of them wrapped in a thick quilt by the fireplace while they watched an inconsequential Hallmark movie. His mother had nothing kind to say about those films, but they were safe, and the peace of the recycled tropes and predictable plotlines was grounding. One summer, Neil was allowed to swim with a t-shirt on at the public pool near the exy court. He didn’t take to that quite as readily as the rest, but when he learned to float, water lapping over his ears, he found tranquility for the first time.
The dreams are not so organized as memory would have them be.
Sunshine warms his skin as he sinks through the basement. Bloodstained walls surround him as he tries to curl against his mother’s bosom, trying to find the warmth of her through the bulk of his exy gear, the simple melody of a Hallmark comedy surrounding them even as she pinches his ribs through his armor and scolds him to sit upright, to be ready. Ready for what? he wants to ask, but the words don’t come.
He sinks through the couch, into the floor, his lungs filling with dirt and asphalt and then chlorinated water, so strong that his eyes burn from the smell of it alone. He floats, still sinking, and the contradiction seems minor. In a dream, both things are true. In a dream, his life is calm and peaceful even as his father’s touch sears his skin.
He floats away, his lungs full of blood and despair, and finds himself in a tunnel. His mother avoided the subway whenever possible—too easy to be trapped—but there’s no one there. Just the tunnel, with peeling posters pasted across every inch of the stone-brick walls. A train whistle echoes toward him, and he feels the rush of its arrival, but he can’t see it. Knows that he ought to be on board, that his life depends on getting inside one of those cars, but the rushing only grows stronger and faster and louder as nothing happens and he’s trapped, no way out, no stairwell to take him to the surface; he needs this train, needs to leave, but it’s not there—and then he’s laying in a pile of leaves, his heart beating its way out of his throat, and he’s not safe, but that’s fine.
He stares at the clouds rolling above him, and feels the leaves beside him shift as someone lays down next to him. His skin prickles, his eyes burn, but he can’t look. Knows that if he does, he’ll make his mother angry. But if he doesn’t, his father’s cleaver will find him. He needs to look, but he can’t—can’t take that risk, would rather find himself at the end of the Butcher’s ax than risk this, but he’s not sure why. Doesn’t know why he’s so compelled to use his body as a shield. He never wanted that before.
His father finds him, and Neil is drawn through the earth and back into the basement of his childhood home. He endures incomprehensible pain, but it’s not until his father’s blade cleaves through the fragile tendons of his knee that Neil wakes, sweaty and out of breath, his ribs aching. It takes him too long to realize that’s because he’s not breathing, not correctly. Staring at the dark ceiling, Neil inhales, exhales, repeat, repeat, repeat, until the dull ache in his ribs subsides.
Sitting up, Neil pushes hair out of his face and takes in the room around him: he’s here, in his dorm room in Palmetto State, in the bunk beneath Andrew’s. Kevin is snoring on the other side of the room; Neil focuses on the rhythm of it, finds the indent in the springs above him as proof that Andrew is still here.
Something loosens inside him.
Neil gets up and goes to the kitchen, closing the bedroom door behind him with a quiet schnik.The linoleum flooring is cold and vaguely sticky beneath his bare, sweaty feet, and his clothes cling strangely to his skin. Nightmare-sweat is different from exy-sweat, cold and serving no purpose but to steal the moisture from his mouth. He hates it, suddenly, almost as much as the flashes of Baltimore clinging to his eyelids. Wants nothing more than to feel along the seams of scar tissue and rip himself apart, if only for a second’s reprieve from the agony of skin sitting wrong atop flesh.
“Quit that,” Andrew says, hand wrapping around the back of Neil’s neck.
“Not doing anything,” Neil replies, but it’s weak. That he didn’t notice Andrew’s approach—that there was a half-second of tension before he registered Andrew’s familiar hold—says more than enough to kill any chance at denial.
“You were spiraling,” is all Andrew says before he shoves Neil toward the bathroom. Neil’s neck is immediately cold without Andrew’s hand. “Shower.”
Time clips, and somewhere between one second and the next Neil is naked in a cold shower, rinsing the nightmare’s film from his back and pulling his skin mostly back into shape. There’s a fresh pair of sweats, thin socks, and a soft t-shirt waiting on the sink that Neil has no memory of grabbing. Andrew pushes a cup of ice water into his hand when he re-enters the suite and turns the muted TV on, switching quickly to some nature documentary. Neil sits on the other side of the couch and holds the cup close to his chest. Cool sweat gathers on the glass, beading around his fingers and bringing him slowly back to his body.
The seconds tick steadily by. Andrew blinks slowly at the TV as a penguin falls off a craggy mountain. Neil drinks the water.
“This isn’t my shirt,” Neil notes several minutes later.
Andrew casts him a look, unimpressed by Neil’s subpar observational skills, as he should be. The black PSU t-shirt is soft and well-worn, stretched through the shoulders enough that the neck doesn’t creep up Neil’s collarbone to choke him out; there’s no mistaking it for one of Neil’s.
They sit, sagging deeper into the cushions as the documentary shifts from penguins to gazelles. Neil tries to understand the underlying theme of the show, but then it shifts to rainbow shrimp, and he gives up. He’s gotten better at picking his battles, he thinks.
As the shrimp—he thinks it’s the shrimp, anyway; it could easily be another small sea creature—is dragged into an eel’s den, Neil’s attention turns to Andrew. His eyes are lidded, his body loose. One hand rests on the cushion between them, the other on his belly. His armbands are a different, richer shade of black than his soft muscle tee and loose sweats, and Neil wants, suddenly, to be held.
“I want to you to lay on me,” Neil says, not knowing how to phrase it in a way that doesn’t sound strange. “Yes or no?”
Andrew’s eyes flick to him. To anyone else, the dry look he gives would be chilling, but it fills Neil with a cautious, giddy warmth. His eyes flick to Neil’s hand four inches away from his own as he says, “Yes.”
It takes some shuffling, but before long Neil is laid out on his back with Andrew lowering himself onto Neil’s chest. Taking a deep breath, Neil relaxes, melts into the couch, into Andrew. He smells good, like soap and boy, and Neil itches to hold him, nestle into him, and never let go.
Folding his arms on Neil’s chest, Andrew tilts his head. “I do not smell that interesting.”
“No,” Neil agrees. That’s half the appeal, the familiarity.
“Stop staring,” Andrew says, but he’s staring too; maybe he’s talking to both of them.
“Can I kiss you?”
Andrew blinks slowly down at him, taking his time to answer. He taps a finger on Neil’s pec, hums lowly. Neil feels the vibration in his bones.
“Depends,” Andrew says at last. “Is this another breakdown?”
“I’m all here,” Neil responds, gently, fondly. “The shower helped.”
“Then yes.”
Their breath mingles as they come together, noses brushing as they angle their faces, slot their lips together. It’s gentle in a way they had to learn, easy in the way that familiar things are, and Neil feels more centered than he has since he woke, sweaty and scared.
Kissing Andrew never gets old.
They’ve shared a thousand kisses, but each one is slightly different. At the beginning, they tended toward the hot and heavy; neither of them knew any other way to confront this thing creeping through the cracks. But as they kept kissing, kept settling into the nooks and crannies made bare to them, the kisses changed, evolved, and Neil will never grow tired of this mutual exploration.
“Shoulders and up,” Andrew says, trying so hard not to be affected, but his voice is hoarse and breathy with want. Neil shivers and wraps his arms around Andrew’s shoulders, feeling the shift of muscle beneath his fingers as Andrew kisses a line down Neil’s neck, to the hard line of his collarbone.
Andrew’s teeth scrape against skin and Neil pulls him closer, tilts his head back to accentuate the lines of his throat, but Andrew ignores this. Ignores Neil’s quiet yes as his breath tickles across Neil’s skin, over the thick, numb scar tissue on his shoulder, that old iron burn, a gift from his father—Neil’s thoughts skitter away. Andrew keeps moving, doesn’t spend too much time with the scar that puts a fissure between his brows, and kisses Neil’s pec, lips ghosting warm and soft over Neil’s nipple, his hands holding Neil firmly within his skin.
Neil’s hands migrate up Andrew’s neck, his fingers slipping into Andrew’s hair. He tries to hold himself still, stop himself from anticipating, but each kiss throws sparks, lights him up from the inside out, and his hips rock despite his best efforts.
“Andrew,” he gasps, his throat thick. He wants—he doesn’t know what he wants, except that he needs to do something, to occupy himself before his desire for everything Andrew has to offer leads him to crack open his ribs and pull Andrew inside. Neil holds onto Andrew’s neck and arches his back to guide Andrew back up, and loses himself into the hot slide of Andrew’s lips against his own, in the weight of Andrew’s body against his, and in the press of Andrew’s cock against his hip. He wants so much that he doesn’t know what to do with it all.
Hand sliding to the band of Neil’s sweats, Andrew pauses to looks Neil in the eye. “Yes or no?”
“Yes,” Neil says. He looks at Andrew so he can absorb the flush working its way down Andrew’s neck, so he can lose himself in dark pools of Andrew’s eyes, so he can see the way Andrew’s desire mingles so neatly with his care. Neil stares, eyes locked with Andrew’s, and fights to keep himself together when Andrew’s hand slips beneath his sweats and wraps around his dick. “Yes,” he says again, relaxing into Andrew’s touch. “Do it slowly?”
Andrew’s breath stutters, his eyes slipping shut, and he holds himself still. Composing himself, probably, although Neil can’t fathom why; it’s not like he’s done anything particularly arousing.
“You’re not real,” Andrew grits out, but his hand is gentle when he guides Neil’s foreskin carefully over the head of his dick. He moves so slowly, hand wrapped loose enough that the friction doesn’t become too much without lube or spit to ease the way, and Neil could fall apart, could shatter in moments like these, if not for the way Andrew presses his forehead against Neil’s chest and breathes so carefully that Neil knows Andrew wants more but wants Neil to feel good first and foremost.
“I’m real,” Neil manages after a moment. “Can I take my pants off?”
Andrew hesitates.
“I can keep them on,” Neil says, keeping his hands loose over the back of Andrew’s neck. “It’s no big deal.”
“Your shirt,” Andrew says, sitting up. Neil lets his arms fall to his sides. “Not the pants.”
Neil waits, watching him, making sure this is okay, but aside from that moment of hesitation, Andrew looks normal. Aroused, yes, but not closed off.
He sits up, legs slotting neatly around Neil as he does so, and watches Neil take off his shirt, giving him an unimpressed look when Neil tosses it to the floor. Andrew takes a deep breath, then pulls off his shirt, too.
Neil’s mouth goes dry at the sight of him, healthy and strong. Tending goal has done his body a world of favors, not to mention Andrew’s dedication to the weight room, and Neil doesn’t know where to look. Doesn’t know how to appreciate the man before him without leering, without making him feel uncomfortable.
For his part, Andrew doesn’t shy away from looking at Neil, either. He acts for all the world as if this is perfectly normal, the way they’re supposed to be, and maybe that’s true—or maybe he’s putting on a show, holding himself in check. Neil’s not sure if it’s those small hints at restraint or the comfort with which Andrew navigates their evolving sex life that fills him with more warmth; he’s not sure it matters, either way.
“What did I do to deserve you?” Neil asks, holding out his arms to bring Andrew closer.
Andrew flicks his side. “Nothing,” he says. “Nobody deserves a person.”
There’s layers to that statement that Neil doesn’t begin to know how to sift through, so he doesn’t. Instead he smiles and wraps a hand around the back of Andrew’s neck, kissing him slow and deep as they settle back into each other. Andrew grunts, pushes his knee in between Neil’s thighs, and Neil’s hips press into the contact before he can think to stop them, but it’s okay—Andrew takes Neil’s dick in hand and jacks him off, slow enough that his dry, callused hand is pleasing.
Neil groans, wraps his arms around Andrew’s shoulders, mouths along the strong line of Andrew’s neck, and loses himself to the heat building in his gut. They’re quiet, all-too aware of the fragile peace of the early hour, but Neil has never needed to be loud to tell Andrew how good he makes him feel.
“Like that,” he whispers when Andrew’s grip tightens at the base of his cock.
“Fuck, yes,” he gasps when Andrew spits into his hand and strokes Neil faster.
“Do that again,” he begs when Andrew twists his hand just so around the tip.
And on and on, until Andrew is watching sweat bead across Neil’s forehead, moving at just the right speed, the right rhythm, to bring Neil to the edge. Neil speaks and pretends he doesn’t notice the way Andrew’s gaze darkens with each reminder that this is good, that Neil likes it, that he’ll tell Andrew what he wants, what he needs.
Neil thinks Andrew says something when he comes, but he doesn’t quite hear it, doesn’t know how to do anything but wrap his arms around Andrew’s shoulders and remember how to breathe. Andrew kisses Neil’s neck and lets him burrow into his shoulder, and Neil wonders if that’s where it ends. He’s holding Andrew, he realizes. He should let go, give him room to leave if he needs to.
It takes Neil a moment to recognize Andrew’s grunt as one he makes when getting off. It takes him only one more to realize that Andrew’s taking care of himself, his breathing rough and uneven.
“I want to touch you,” Neil says, because the wanting has nested so deep inside he doesn’t know how to deal with it. “Tell me no.”
Andrew pauses, leans back. Neil lets him go, his arms falling limp at his sides. Not touching. He burns with the loss, mourns it silently, but that’s his problem, not Andrew’s.
“Why?” Andrew asks, looking Neil over.
Neil shrugs, or does the best he can, anyway, laid out as he is. “Same reason you want to touch me,” he says. “I just do.”
“Not today,” Andrew decides after another moment of deliberation. “You can look. Do not talk.”
Even this is so much, an incredible piece of Andrew that Neil is honored to receive. He nods, kisses Andrew, agrees without speaking, trusting that Andrew will understand.
Slowly, Andrew takes himself in hand. He watches Neil closely as he begins, each stroke deliberate and measured. Neil watches, and does not touch, and is more aware of the hushed, uneven sounds of their breathing than he has ever been.
Andrew’s hand moves perfunctorily over his cock, like he’s acquainting himself to the sensation. Neil slides his hands between his back and the couch, and meets Andrew’s gaze steadily. Watches the tiny flit of expression, there and gone again, before he inhales sharply and wraps a hand around Neil’s throat. Not tight; just present. Neil hums lowly, and Andrew’s eyes darken. His grip on Neil’s throat tightens while his other hand glides quickly over his cock. Neil’s pulse jacks up as Andrew’s breathing grows harsh and jagged, as Andrew’s hips join the motion of his hand, thrusting into his grip. He watches as Andrew’s expression goes tight, as his lips part around a sound denied, and a moment later Andrew comes in a haphazard spurt across Neil’s chest.
Neil stays quiet and still as Andrew’s breath steadies. He tucks his cock back into his pants, sits back on Neil’s thighs. Neil’s throat feels warm and vulnerable without Andrew’s hand covering it.
“You are disgusting,” Andrew says, eyes flicking to their come on his torso. His jaw tenses, the muscle moving as he works through a problem beyond Neil’s comprehension. Then he moves, grabs his shirt off the floor, and wipes Neil clean. Every line of him is tense.
“I can shower,” Neil says. He will never understand what Andrew goes through in the aftermath of sex, but he doesn’t need to know; he just needs to listen.
Andrew purses his lips. “Put your shirt on.” He stands, flicks off the TV showing a gaggle of turkeys in a burnt umber plain, and walks back to their shared room with Kevin. “It is too early to be awake, even for you.”
“Okay.”
Neil follows his lead, pulling on the soft shirt Andrew lent him as he goes. Andrew tosses his shirt in the hamper and retrieves a long-sleeved black henley, the soft fabric resting easily on Andrew’s back. Neil pauses, swallows thickly when Andrew slips into Neil’s bed, but he doesn’t comment. Doesn’t treat this like anything out of the ordinary as he lays down beside him, doesn’t do anything to betray the pleasant ache behind his ribs when Andrew grunts and pokes at him, arranging them into a bundle of bodies and limbs.
When sleep finds Neil again, it is with Andrew’s nose tucked into his neck and Andrew’s chest pressed against his back.
When Neil dreams, it is not of Baltimore.