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It’s dark and late, and though Neil should be worried because he needs to get enough sleep in order to be able to practice the next day, he isn’t. It’s as simple as that, Andrew’s presence gives him the comfort of quiet and stability, something he’s just grasping now even though it’s been years.
It’s dark and late, and the cats are playing somewhere downstairs, making a mess with their toys and leaving cat hair everywhere, and that’s their life.
They’ve been talking for a while, but it’s never exactly that. It’s more like Neil says something, Andrew mumbles something back or hums in response, Neil falls silent and plays with Andrew’s fingers until he remembers something else he wants to talk about. It’s weird to be that domestic, but it’s been years and he enjoys it way too much to consider it uncomfortable. It’s another kind of intimacy he thought he’d never want, another thing that only made click after Andrew figured him out and once he decided he wanted to understand who Andrew was too.
“I was so bad at German” Neil says out of the blue, an almost nostalgic smile on his face. Of course he doesn’t miss those times but he does no longer think of them with bitterness and fear. He’s free, it’s only a story to be told, one that Andrew’ll listen to willingly again and again, “My r’s sounded like French ones and I couldn’t get used to pronouncing every letter. It was hard because my mum made me talk to her in German and I couldn’t say anything” Neil continues.
Somehow, all of his childhood memories look foreign. The memory of his mother doesn’t exactly stain them, but it doesn’t make him feel better about his past either. He used to be able to excuse the way she so fiercely loved and protected him even when it was clearly abusive. He understood, though, Nathan’d made it clear how desperation can get to you before he got killed.
“Can’t imagine what a pain in the ass you were back then” Andrew answers, eyes still on the ceiling of their bedroom. His hand’s resting on Neil’s stomach, Neil’s fingers tracking the lines of the palm of it, their bodies touching absent-mindedly in places where Andrew’s comfortable with, “Not that you’re not one now”.
Neil scoffs, all feigned annoyance as he turns his head to look at Andrew’s empty expression.
“I’m pretty sure you weren’t an expert on German either” Neil answers, because he wants to change the subject, because he doesn’t want to make Andrew talk about his childhood without his permission. He’s sure Andrew was a pain in the ass as a kid probably too, in a good way though, but he won’t push.
“Halt die Fresse” Andrew says, almost defensively. His /r/ sounds way too natural for Neil’s comfort.
“You shut up” Neil retorts and goes back to looking at the ceiling. It looks dirty, but the light blue of it looks too pretty to look away.
“I wasn’t” Andrew says. Neil exhales and waits for him to continue, not hoping, just waiting, like he always does with Andrew. It’s something he’s used to, because he doesn’t want Andrew to feel like he owes him anything.
Neil’s childhood hadn’t been exactly great. Half of it he’d been surrounded by criminals and violence without him noticing it, the other half he’d spent making up new identities and acting too much like a grown up for it to be healthy. He usually compared it to what he knew of Andrew’s childhood. It wasn’t fair to do so, but all of the answers to the puzzle Andrew was were hidden somewhere in his childhood and teenage years. Neil didn’t want to know the answers, though. He didn’t want to solve him, he didn’t want to have all of the pieces because Andrew wasn’t supposed to be completed, he wasn’t missing anything. The pieces of him Andrew gave him meant much more than that. It wasn’t about knowing Andrew’s truth, secrets, or figuring him out. It was about getting just a little piece of him to treasure. It was about the keys, the trust and the kisses.
“I was quiet” Andrew continues and breathes in.
“What were you like?” Neil asks, knowing Andrew’s given him the permission to ask. He doesn’t want to know out of curiosity, he’s just happy Andrew’s okay with talking about it and wants to encourage him however he can.
When it comes to Andrew’s childhood and whatever little pieces and memories he gets out of it, they always stop at age 7. Andrew skips names, foster homes, foster parents, kids, everyone that was part of his life until he met Cass. And even then, he never says much. Neil’s thankful Andrew trusts him that much to know he understands without having to explain detail by detail.
It’s a different thing since Neil’s childhood is full of regrets, but Andrew’s isn’t. It’s only full of rage and loneliness.
“I liked puzzles. I always remembered the entire thing so I won all the time. I liked ice cream and I was just like you, unable to shut the fuck up when given the chance to talk” Neil tries to imagine an innocent version of Andrew, one that wasn’t shaped by trauma and anger, and it takes him only a minute to remember it doesn’t matter anymore. That kid, whose name wasn’t Andrew, is lost and long gone, even from Andrew’s memory. The Andrew Minyard he’s got now next to him is the only version he’ll get and the only one he wants to have, he needs to have, “I knew how to read and everyone asked me to read shit to them, it was stupid”.
Neil smiles brightly at the ceiling. Andrew isn’t looking at him, but he can tell he’s doing so by the breathy noise he makes when he tries to bite back a smile, “I don’t like ice cream that much, I never did” Neil shrugs uncomfortably because of the way his body’s laying on the bed, “I used to miss cities a lot at the beginning, then I just got used to it”.
“I never missed anyone from anywhere” Andrew says, low and slow, as if tasting the words. He’s letting himself remember –not that he’d ever forget-, “But I guess your stupid cities were better”.
“Nothing better than life threatening tourism” Neil laughs, “I missed them but I’d never wanted to stay though, I-“
“Until your stupid ass got obsessed with Exy” Andrew interrupted, his own fingers now finding Neil’s skin, trying to pinch and scratch as much as he could.
“I don’t think it was the place, it was more about the people”.