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Andrew’s come a long way since the days when he swore he wanted nothing.
He’s proud of that progress. Proud of the way he doesn’t flinch when the words leave his mouth anymore, the way nothing catastrophic happens when he admits he wants something more than what he already has.
But it took time.
Time and a decade of therapy and new meds that don’t feel great, but don’t make him manic, so he keeps taking them, and then more time.
Andrew thinks it might be pushing it, to say that he’s happy where he is now, but he also thinks the word “okay” covers it just fine, so that’s what he tells Bee on their weekly facetime calls. And she always gets a little too soft when he does, so he guesses that “okay” isn’t a bad thing to be.
He’s okay.
The problem with okay, is now that he knows what it feels like to want something, that seems to be all he does.
He wants.
And for the last seven years - ever since his first day of his freshman year of college - all of Andrew’s wanting is directed into one place.
Or rather, one person.
But that person doesn’t want Andrew the way that Andrew wants him, so Andrew keeps his mouth shut.
Andrew is okay, but some days, when he looks at Neil for too long, he feels a lot less than okay.
He doesn’t tell Bee about that part, but he thinks she already knows.
-
See, Neil was Aaron’s first.
They met on the first day of classes, latched onto each other immediately.
Aaron was premed, but couldn’t solve a calculus equation to save his life, and Neil was a maths major who also happened to be the idiot who got into a fight exactly ten minutes before his first class, and showed up bloody and grinning.
The two of them made a deal, when it became glaringly obvious that Aaron wasn’t going to pass this calculus class and Neil wasn’t going to stop being an idiot.
Deals were Andrew’s thing, always had been, and watching his brother trade tutoring sessions for dorm room medical aid didn’t feel good, but he could never quite articulate why it didn’t feel good, so he tried to let it go.
Andrew watched from afar as Neil became Aaron’s first real friend - one that wasn’t somehow tied to Andrew - and felt something close to contentment for his brother, and something a lot closer to a burning jealousy.
-
Neil was a blur of unruly auburn hair and icy blue eyes, skin rough with scars he didn’t explain for years, never staying still for more than a handful of seconds at a time.
He was magnetic.
Andrew could never pull his eyes away, and spent that first semester blowing guys with a similar shade of blue eyes in club bathrooms. He swore it would take his mind away from his brother’s friend, but when he’d get back to his dorm, Neil would be draped across the couch, trash-talking Aaron while he lost to Nicky in his video game, and throwing grapes at Kevin’s head from across the room. Andrew would have to push the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars, that way he would stop seeing the sliver of skin on Neil’s waist that was left exposed every time he reached an arm up to launch another grape at Kevin.
If Andrew had met Neil today, at the ripe age of twenty-five, when the dark is just the dark and not a threat, and when he doesn’t need to balance on rooftops to feel things anymore - maybe things would be different.
Maybe better than okay.
But he didn’t meet Neil today - he met him seven years ago as Aaron’s new friend, when the word want was a foreign body in his mouth, and so he didn’t speak a single word to Neil until the last week of that first semester.
Nicky had dragged them all to a party to celebrate the end of finals, and he didn’t bother asking Andrew to come, but Andrew went anyway because that was his job - and also maybe because it was the first time Neil had agreed to go to a party, and he was a little curious as to how it would go.
Neil had amassed a small following in that first semester, a group of friends who slowly became Aaron’s friends, and then Nicky and Kevin’s friends too, but not Andrew’s.
He didn’t mind. Or maybe he did.
They call him their friend now, but Andrew won’t forget the way they warned Neil to stay away from him back in college. It’s not a grudge, but also, it probably is.
The party was shit, like college parties were, and Andrew spent it perched on an armchair in the corner, trying to keep an eye on all his people at once, holding a can of beer he didn’t once sip from.
It took Neil all of an hour to cause a problem.
Well, that’s unfair. He didn’t cause the problem, per se, but he definitely escalated it.
Andrew had distantly noticed Allison - one of Neil’s groupies who Andrew thought sucked a little less than the rest - crying to Neil on the other end of the room, and Andrew had brushed it off, which in hindsight, wasn’t the smartest idea.
Because exactly thirty seconds later, Neil was dragging Allison’s new boyfriend - Seth - out of the house by his arm, holding the limb at a frightening angle behind Seth’s shoulder blades, the door slamming shut at their backs.
Andrew couldn’t brush that off, so he tossed his beer into the hands of whoever was closest and followed Neil around to the back of the house.
Andrew wondered for a long time if there was something wrong with him, that the sight of Neil throwing a man twice his size into the beige siding of the house made warmth curl in his gut. He thinks signs point to yes, but that didn’t stop him from watching as Neil broke Seth’s nose, voice carrying louder than Andrew had ever heard it.
Neil took a few hits, of course. He was always better at starting fights than he was finishing them, so when he stumbled, Andrew stepped in, knives flashing. Seth fucked off rather quickly after that, leaving Neil and Andrew alone in the dark.
Neil’s nose was bleeding, his knuckles split and swollen, and the smart thing to do would’ve been to call Aaron and let him deal with Neil, but Andrew, of course, did not do that.
Instead, he pulled Neil into the passenger seat of his car, shoved a pack of tissues into his hands, and made a joke about not being Aaron that was so bad his face still heats when he thinks about it.
But Neil had laughed, head thrown back the way Andrew only ever saw in the quiet of the dorm, and Andrew pretended that the exposed column of Neil’s throat wasn’t making him dizzy.
They stayed in the car until the party died down, and Neil told Andrew that Seth had raised a hand to Allison, and Andrew regretted not stabbing him when he had the chance. He told Neil as much, and half expected him to react the way the rest of campus did when Andrew expressed the violence everyone knew he was capable of, but Neil just smiled and said “next time, then.”
And just like that, as if it was really so easy, Neil became Andrew’s friend just as much as he was Aaron’s.
Neil spent even more time at the dorm, spent his nights in Andrew’s passenger seat, still got into fights - except after that party, Aaron didn’t have to patch him up as often, because when Neil would open his mouth, Andrew was never far behind, and Neil would look at him with a glint in his eyes as he reamed out whatever asshole had made the mistake of pissing him off, knowing he was untouchable as long as Andrew and his reputation were close by.
Andrew spent the rest of his college years pretending that being Neil’s friend didn’t feel like a slow death, and when they moved into a shitty two bedroom apartment together after graduation, he pretended a little harder.
-
Andrew wakes to the clatter of a pan hitting the stovetop.
Not a loud sound - just enough to drag him from sleep earlier than any human has any business being awake on a Sunday.
Neil’s up.
Which means Andrew should be up, too, because Neil in the kitchen unattended is a disaster that has, historically, ended in fire.
He drags himself out of bed, shoves a hand through his hair, and pads down the hall toward the glow of the kitchen lights.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the sight of Neil in the morning. It makes his chest hurt, a raw pain he tries not to focus on.
Neil is barefoot, curls sticking up like he was electrocuted, coffee steaming beside him as he squints the instructions on a box of pancake mix like it could somehow have changed since the last time he tried to make breakfast.
He’s wearing Andrew’s shirt - a worn grey tee with a hole in the seam and a band name that Andrew is sure Neil has never heard of - and it’s not unusual for Neil to prefer Andrew’s clothes to his own, but Andrew still has to suck in a breath every time he sees the way his shirts hang off of Neil’s lithe frame, exposing his collarbone if he moves just the right way.
Andrew leans on the doorway, ignoring his thrumming pulse with practice ease. “Care to explain why you’re trying to kill us at 6:00 AM?”
Neil doesn’t startle, has long since memorized the sound of Andrew’s footsteps, and replies without turning. “Because you said you wanted pancakes last night, and this mix expires next month. Plus,” he says looking over his shoulder at Andrew, “I’m better prepared this time. New spatula and everything.”
Andrew hums. “You didn’t have to make breakfast just because I mentioned wanting pancakes.”
They’ve had this argument before. Andrew never wins, doesn’t think he really wants to.
A book Andrew said he wanted to read showing up on his shelf the next day, midnight drives to the mom-and-pop ice cream parlor down the road when Andrew grumbles about an empty freezer, and pancakes in the morning simply because Andrew said he was craving them.
It drives Andrew up the wall, every small act Neil does to show he listens that never feels very small at all, and Andrew would demand that he stops - except Andrew does the same things for him, and Neil’s already accused him of being a hypocrite too many times.
Neil shoots him a look - flat, unimpressed, but undeniably fond.
Fondness is Neil’s default expression with Andrew now. Seven years, one shared lease, and a thousand conversions later, and that fondness has only sharpened.
It’s the sharpness Andrew has trouble breathing around.
“It’s also a bribe,” Neil reminds him, turning back to the bowl. “I didn’t burn anything.”
Dammit.
Andrew hadn’t forgotten about their plans tonight, obviously, but he was sure hoping Neil had changed his mind.
“Yet,” Andrew says. “And your bribe won’t work if it’s burnt.”
Neil flicks a small line of batter at him.
Andrew pretends he isn’t grateful for moments like this. Pretends it isn’t killing him slowly, the way Neil is so stupidly comfortable in Andrew’s space, in Andrew’s life, and has absolutely zero awareness of the crater he carved into Andrew’s chest and just…never left.
He grabs a mug from the cabinet. “You working today?”
Neil shrugs one shoulder - an unconscious, loose movement that exposes a sliver of skin above the waistband of his sleep shorts. It hits Andrew like a shove down a flight of stairs. “I got most of the translating done remotely last night, so Richie said I could have the day.”
Andrew raises an eyebrow. “You got off work to go to this stupid party tonight?”
Neil points the spatula at him, dripping a line of too thin batter onto the floor. “Andrew, you agreed to go to Allison’s party over a month ago. And I called Aaron - he said he got you to put it in writing.”
Andrew exhales through his nose. “Aaron is a traitor.”
Neil snorts, quick and soft, and bends to wipe the batter off the floor with a paper towel. He does it quickly, unconcerned, like Andrew hasn’t spent years training himself not to look at the jut of Neil’s hips, his ass. “Aaron knew you’d deny it,” Neil says. “You signed. In pen.”
“I was under duress.”
“You had one glass of whiskey.”
Andrew pours himself coffee anyway, dumps a fistfull of sugar into the mug, and takes a measured sip. He watches Neil pour the batter into the pan with too much confidence and not enough heat. The pan hisses weakly.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Neil says, quieter. He doesn’t look at Andrew when he says it, which is worse. “You know I won’t actually make you.”
Andrew’s mouth tightens. He hates that Neil always leaves him an out. Hates that he wants to take it and hates more that he won’t.
“I said I’d go,” Andrew says. “I’ll go.”
Neil glances back at him, studying, like he’s checking for the lie. Then he nods once, satisfied. “Good. It’ll be nice to see everyone in one place again, but I didn’t really want to go without you.”
Andrew tells himself the warmth in his chest is caffeine and sugar and not the way Neil said without you like he truly wouldn’t want to see his closest friends without Andrew. He doesn’t respond, never knows what to say when Neil talks like that.
The pancake bubbles wrong. Neil flips it too early. It folds in on itself like a dying star.
Andrew watches the entire disaster unfold without comment.
Neil stares at the pan. “…Okay. Maybe a little burned.”
Andrew takes another sip of coffee. “You said it was a bribe.”
“It still is,” Neil says stubbornly. He flips it again. The pancake lands half on the pan, half off, drooping over the edge. “I’ll just cover the burnt bits with chocolate chips.”
Andrew steps closer, close enough that he can feel Neil’s warmth, smell the cheap coffee and the soap he uses because Andrew buys it and Neil never complains. He reaches around Neil without touching him and turns the heat down.
“Next one,” Andrew says, voice even, “you wait until it bubbles.”
Neil looks up at him from under his lashes, something careful and pleased flickering across his face. “So you are helping.”
“I’m saving us from another stove fire.”
Neil grins, small and real, and for a second Andrew forgets how to breathe.
The ruined pancake goes onto a plate anyway. Neil sprinkles a handful of chocolate chips onto it like he’s placing mosaics, and slides the plate toward Andrew like an offering.
Andrew stares at it. Then, deliberately, he cuts a piece and eats it.
Neil watches him with open anticipation. “Well? Is it better than the last attempt?”
The bottom is slightly burnt, the middle barely cooked, and, no, it’s exactly as bad as the last attempt, but it’s still the best pancake Andrew’s ever had, and he ignores the unfiltered glee in Neil’s eyes as he finishes the plate.
Neil flips another pancake, then plates it, movements easy, domestic, wrong in the way the things Andrew wants always are. He slides the plate toward Andrew without looking, close enough that their fingers brush.
It’s nothing. It’s always nothing.
Andrew’s breath catches anyway.
He feels it everywhere - physical and humiliating. In the way his chest tightens. In the way his pulse jumps at his throat. In the stupid, visceral urge to pull Neil closer, to press him back against the counter and touch and bite and hold.
Friend, he reminds himself. Roommate. Everything and nothing.
-
They fall into the easy morning rhythm they’ve built together - Andrew checking his email on his phone, looking out for an update from his publisher, Neil complaining that chocolate chips have no business in breakfast foods, but adding them to each plate anyway.
It’s domestic. It hurts. It’s perfect in a way Andrew has no business wanting.
He wants it anyway. Wants more. Wants too much, too often, and says nothing.
This would all be easier if Neil wanted anything the way Andrew wants. Anyone.
But Neil has never shown a single flicker of romantic interest in anyone - not men, not women, not the slew of attractive people their friends have been not so subtly setting him up with for years.
Neil is…satisfied. Busy. Untouched by whatever gnawing thing keeps Andrew awake at night.
Andrew used to tell himself that was a good thing. That Neil not wanting meant Andrew didn’t have to lose him by confessing something that would only make Neil uncomfortable.
They never really talked about it, but Neil knows Andrew’s gay, has seen him slip into storage rooms at various dark clubs with various men. And Andrew suspects Neil might be asexual, or something adjacent, but they don’t talk about that either.
Andrew kind of wants to talk about it. Wants to know if, one day, Neil might pack up and leave, someone that’s not Andrew at his side. Andrew knows he’s being stupid, but the thought persists.
Neil lingers after the stove has been turned off, leaning his hip against the counter, close enough that Andrew can feel the heat of him through his clothes. “You start writing yet?” Neil asks.
“No, but I’m planning on getting the first chapter done today.”
Neil’s face lights up, and Andrew feels his face heat.
Everyone was surprised when Andrew majored in classic literature back in college, even more surprised when he wrote his first book. But not Neil, who read every first draft out loud, a tantalizing inch from Andrew’s side on their couch, expressive and entirely consumed by the words Andrew pulled out of his diaphragm and typed in neat lines.
Andrew refuses to hire an editor - despite his publisher constantly up his ass about it - because he has a Neil, and he’s the only one Andrew will ever trust with the raw, too young versions of his writing.
“You’re not allowed to read this one until it’s done,” Andrew says. He hadn’t decided he was going to say that until the words were already out, but he’s glad he did.
Andrew solely writes murder mystery novels, the type of classic “smartest man in the room” tropes, but when he reread the outline he sent to his publisher last week, he could instantly tell that the main character was going to resemble Neil to an undeniable degree. He can’t let Neil read any of it until he finds a way to scrub his personality from the margins.
Neil raises an eyebrow. “That’s new.”
“This one’s different.”
Neil nods, accepting the boundary without argument, like always. He reaches for the last bit of pancake on Andrew’s plate and breaks off a piece.
“Still bad,” he says thoughtfully. “I have no idea how you’re eating this.”
Andrew opens his mouth, then closes it again. “You made them,” he finally decides on, shrugging.
Andrew turns, then. Doesn’t want to see the smile he knows is forming on Neil’s lips. He has to brush past Neil to put his plate in the sink, arms loose at his sides, barefoot and comfortable. The kitchen is small enough that there’s nowhere for Andrew to put the wanting except straight through his ribs.
-
If Neil could somehow just read Andrew’s mind and reject him without Andrew having to, you know, say anything, Andrew thinks being his friend might be easier.
Or impossible. One or the other.
But obviously, Neil cannot read his mind, and there’s no good reason that Andrew can think of that would suggest Neil knows the horrifying degree at which Andrew is attracted to him - but in the last few months, there have been moments.
Brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments, where Andrew might think that Neil knows, and is - what? Reciprocating? Making fun of him? Hopelessly oblivious and acting exactly the same as usual and Andrew’s just losing his mind?
It’s most likely the ladder.
But still.
Moments.
Andrew catalogs them the way he catalogs everything else that doesn’t make sense - carefully, clinically, like if he lines them up just right they’ll stop feeling like a trick.
There was that night in October, when Neil came home from a date with a mousy looking guy that Nicky had set him up with, soaked to the bone from the rain. He plopped down on the couch, thigh pressed to Andrew’s, cold and damp, and when Andrew asked how the dinner went, fully expecting Neil's usual rants and complaints, Neil had just sighed and said, “I would’ve rathered have dinner with you. You’d have loved the dessert menu at that place.”
Andrew had stared at his laptop screen, processing absolutely nothing, and said, “And you didn’t bring me takeout? Cruel.”
Neil had cackled, and stood up to go get changed, tossing a box of takeout from the restaurant into Andrew’s lap on the way. “‘Course I did.”
There was the time in November, when Andrew had found Neil standing in the kitchen after a nightmare, looking like a deer in headlights. Andrew could tell it was about his mother this time - the dreams about his father usually sent him running for hours at a time, but the ones where Mary makes an appearance leave him frozen - and he didn’t stop to think before he told Neil to share his bed for the rest of the night.
He immediately wanted to take the words back, swallow them and choke, but the relief in Neil’s eyes was so clear it almost knocked him over. He fell asleep that night with his best friend curled up inches away from in, under the same blanket on the same mattress, and Andrew hasn’t slept that well since.
And then there are the smaller ones. The ones Andrew almost doesn’t keep track of because doing so feels indulgent, like giving them weight makes them real.
The way Neil knocks before coming into Andrew’s room, before Andrew even got the chance to tell him to. The way Neil’s eyes are always on him, the way they could be in a room full of people and Andrew will look up only to find Neil already watching.
Andrew hates that look most of all.
He tells himself he’s projecting. He tells himself that seven years of doing more than tolerating a person has rewired his brain, that fondness can look like anything if you’re desperate enough.
Except.
There was December, less than two weeks ago. Late, dark, snow piling against the windows while Andrew edited a chapter that wouldn’t behave. Neil was on the other end of the couch, half-asleep, head tipped back, socked feet in Andrew’s lap like it was the most natural thing in the world, which he guesses it was.
Andrew had shifted, just slightly, frustrated with characters who refused to do what he put them on the page to do.
Neil’s eyes hadn’t even opened. He’d just readjusted, tucked his feet closer, pressing them under Andrew’s thigh.
Andrew hadn’t breathed for a full minute.
Much later, alone in his bathroom with one hand braced on the sink and the other in his pants, Andrew told himself that Neil is tactile when he’s comfortable. That these moments mean nothing.
It’s always nothing.
-
The day slips by in increments Andrew doesn’t notice until they’re gone.
Neil laces up his running shoes by the door, bouncing lightly on his heels like he’s trying to bleed off excess energy. He stretches, checks his watch, then glances back at Andrew.
“Phone,” Andrew says without looking back, already seated at the desk, laptop open, document glaring white and expectant.
He hears Neil groan, the sound of his footsteps trudging back to his room and returning to wave the small device in front of Andrew’s screen.
Andrew reaches out and plucks the phone from Neil’s hand, tapping it alive.
2% battery.
He shoots Neil a glare, Neil leans over the back of the chair, chin nearly brushing Andrew’s shoulder as he peers at the screen. “Must’ve fallen off the charger overnight,” he says, entirely full of shit.
Andrew rolls his eyes, slipping his own phone out of his pocket and shoving it in Neil’s hand.
Neil blinks at the phone in his hand, then up at Andrew. “You’re lending me your phone?”
“You’re the idiot who’s about to go running in the snow,” Andrew says flatly. “Take it.”
Neil laughs, loud and bright, and the sound lingers after the door shuts behind him.
Andrew plugs Neil's phone in, and wanders back to his desk, staring at the blinking cursor. He types a sentence. Deletes it. Types another. Keeps it, then rereads it and grimaces. The character is too observant. Too earnest. He backspaces until the line loses its warmth.
Outside, the light dulls. Snow falls in earnest, fat flakes drifting past the window like static. Andrew writes anyway. Or something like it. Words accumulate. Time passes in chunks he can’t quite feel.
The clock ticks. The radiator clicks. Somewhere outside, a siren passes and fades. Andrew writes three paragraphs that feel like lies and one that almost feels true. He highlights it, considers deleting it, then doesn’t.
Neil is everywhere. In the cadence of his internal monologue, in the dry humor of the protagonist, in the way the mystery refuses to be clever without being cruel. Andrew closes his eyes and drums his fingers on the desk.
He changes the character’s name. Deletes a joke that sounds too much like Neil. Changes it back. Saves. Unsaves.
“You were right,” Neil says when he comes back an hour later, toeing off his shoes. His skin is flushed and damp, hair sprinkled with white flecks of snow and plastered to his forehead. He smells like cold air and sweat and winter. “It’s gross out there.”
Andrew minimizes the document reflexively. “Did you die?”
“No,” Neil says, then amends, “Not yet.”
Andrew accepts his phone back, doesn’t bother trying to hand Neil his. “Shower. You smell,” he says blandly, as if he isn’t actively staring at a bead of sweat sliding down Neil’s collarbone like a Victorian man seeing the slip of a woman’s ankle.
Neil throws one of his own two-fingered salutes back at him, saunters off to the bathroom, and Andrew lets out a long breath, fingers flexing over his keyboard.
Andrew listens to the shower start. Tries to write more. Fails.
By the time Neil comes back out, hair dripping and curls springing back to life, Andrew has three pages and a tension headache.
-
They spend the afternoon orbiting each other.
Neil reads on the couch, occasionally reading out loud passages he thinks Andrew would like, even though the words are in French and Andrew doesn’t understand a lick of it. Andrew pretends the sound doesn’t make him salivate and listens anyway. The sun shifts across the living room, light warming Andrew’s shoulders, then disappearing entirely.
At five, Neil stands and stretches. “We should get ready.”
Andrew checks the time, huffs. “Already?”
“Time flies when you’re dreading going to a party,” Neil says, grinning, and disappears into his room.
Andrew watches the hallway for a beat longer than necessary before forcing himself to look away. He shuts the laptop, rubs at the back of his neck, and sighs the sigh of someone who was definitely somehow coerced into signing his agreement to attend this party. In pen.
-
They get ready separately. Intentionally.
Andrew takes too long in the shower, lets the hot water beat some of the static out of his head. He waits until the pale skin on his shoulders turns pink from the heat before cutting it off, doesn’t bother to leave the fan on to unfog the mirrors.
It’s just a small party - he’d call it a gathering if it was anyone other than Allison throwing it - so there’s no real need to dress up, but Andrew figured out a long time ago that he feels extra shitty inside when he dresses shitty, so he spends a little extra time in front of his closet.
He settles on black - always black, though Neil’s neon college hoodie somehow found its way onto his shelf, taunting him - clean jeans, a fitted henley, boots. He checks the mirror once, then again, irritation prickling at how much he cares.
When he makes his way back into the living room, Neil isn’t there yet.
Which is strange in and of itself, since Neil never wastes more than a handful of minutes getting ready and is usually the one waiting for Andrew, but what’s worse is that when he does eventually emerge, Andrew is positive he’s never seen any of those clothes in Neil’s wardrobe before.
Everything about him has been heightened. Dark slacks instead of jeans, pressed and new. A soft charcoal sweater layered over a collared shirt, the neckline sitting just right at his throat. His hair is tamed, just enough, curls deliberate instead of chaotic. He looks…well, he looks like Andrew is going to need a lot more whiskey to survive this party than he thought.
“What,” Andrew says flatly, because his mouth has betrayed him and can’t say anything else.
“Allison stopped by yesterday,” Neil says, tugging at his sleeve like he’s checking the fit. “Dropped off the clothes, along with literal instructions on how to style them.”
“That tracks.”
Neil smirks and points a lazy finger at his eyes. “She also put what I’m pretty sure is eyeliner in the bag, but I’d like to keep my vision for now, so I had to pass on that one.”
Andrew huffs a laugh and forces himself not to picture Neil’s blue eyes lined with thick black pen, smudged and perfect.
“She’ll be pissed you didn’t try it.”
“Nah, she knows better than that. But I am counting on you to shield me when she finds out I dropped the stick-pen-thing under the vanity in the bathroom and can’t find it.”
Andrew snorts despite himself. “Not a chance. You’re on your own.”
Neil laughs, but his gaze lingers, something warm and curious threading through it. “You look good, Andrew.”
Andrew turns away under the pretense of grabbing his coat. “Fuck off,” he says, entirely without any of the heat he meant.
Neil follows him to the door, still laughing quietly. As they step into the hallway, Neil bumps Andrew’s shoulder with his own, easy and familiar, soft enough that it could’ve been an accident.
Andrew lets himself lean back for half a second before correcting.
The wanting follows him anyway.
-
The radio hums low between them, some half-forgotten indie station Andrew never bothers to change. Neil hums along under his breath, off-key but committed, fingers tapping lightly against his thigh in time with the beat. It’s absentminded, unselfconscious.
“You know, we’re going to be late,” Neil says eventually, thoroughly amused.
“Yes.”
“You’re doing this on purpose.”
Andrew flicks his eyes toward the speedometer and eases off the gas another fraction. “The roads are icy.”
Neil laughs, soft and delighted, and tips his head back against the seat. He keeps humming.
Andrew allows himself exactly one second to watch the vibration of Neil’s throat as he hums, before he snaps his gaze back to the road, nearly a mirror image of the first party they were at together, seven years ago.
They pull up outside Renee and Allison’s place twenty minutes late. Lights blaze in every window, music thumping faintly through the walls. Andrew cuts the engine and sits there for half a beat too long.
Neil unbuckles first. “They can definitely see us from the window.”
“If I pull around the block, we could just stay in the car the whole time. They won’t be able to see us then.”
Neil smiles like that’s an answer he respects. “Okay,” he says, but gets out of the car anyway, and Andrew follows, because of course he does.
Inside, the warmth hits them immediately, heat, bodies, noise. Allison spots them from across the room, not unlike a mother waiting up past curfew for her son to show up.
“You assholes are late,” she calls, already crossing the space. “I knew I should’ve told you the wrong time on purpose.”
“Probably would’ve been smart,” Neil says cheerfully.
She sweeps Neil into a hug, kisses his cheek, then steps back to look him over critically. “Eyeliner, Neil. Why am I not seeing any?”
Neil winces. “I value my corneas.”
“You’re a coward.”
“Allison,” Renee chides, smiling warmly as she hugs Neil next. “You look good.”
Andrew stands against the wall, watches as Neil gets swallowed up by hugs and bro-hugs alike, everyone acting like they haven’t seen him in years, even though they all spent Thanksgiving together barely more than a month ago.
Renee saddles up next to Andrew, a smile tucked in her cheek, and Andrew ignores her until he can’t anymore. “What.”
Renee’s smile deepens, soft and knowing in a way that makes Andrew’s spine go rigid. She follows his gaze without turning her head, watches Neil laugh as Matt nearly knocks him over with another hug.
“You came,” she says.
Andrew doesn’t look at her. “I said I would.”
“You did,” she agrees. “You look good, Andrew.”
Andrew finally looks at her. “What are you doing,” he says blandly, not really a question.
Renee laughs, feathery. “I just mean,” she says, “you look lighter. I’m happy for you, that’s all.”
Andrew’s jaw tightens. “Don’t.”
Renee doesn’t flinch. She never does. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“Good.”
Andrew looks back toward Neil on instinct. Neil has migrated to the kitchen now, one hand braced on the counter while Nicky talks animatedly at his shoulder, Aaron hovering nearby with Kaitlyn tucked into his side. Neil laughs at something, throws his head back, bright and unguarded.
Andrew feels it like a pulled muscle.
“I didn’t say it was because of him,” Renee adds gently.
Andrew’s eyes flick back to her. “You didn’t have to.”
Renee smiles at that - not triumphant, not smug. Just pleased.
Across the room, Neil glances over, eyes catching on Andrew like a hook. His smile shifts - dims for everyone else, sharpens for Andrew alone. He excuses himself from the group with a touch to Nicky’s arm and starts toward them.
Renee steps away without comment, like the devil she is.
Neil stops beside Andrew, shoulder brushing his. “You hiding?”
Andrew keeps his eyes forward. “I’m observing.”
Neil grins. “Sure.”
-
Aaron finds Andrew a short while later, once Andrew’s made himself comfortable on the couch, a glass of amber liquid in his hand, untouched.
He isn’t sure if Neil plans on drinking tonight, but he knows that he won’t if Andrew does, so he swirls the glass, watching the ice cubes clink against each other, and decides he’ll ask once the idiot appears again.
Aaron drops into the armchair opposite him without a word, knees wide, beer already half gone. He looks tired in the way he always has - overworked and never getting enough sleep.
But he looks happy, Andrew thinks, the gold band on his left hand glinting as he spins it between his fingers.
“You look like shit,” Andrew says instead.
Aaron snorts. “Asshole.”
They sit in silence for a moment, the kind that only comes from shared DNA and years of differences. The music thumps faintly from the kitchen. Someone laughs too loud.
Aaron tips his bottle back, then pins Andrew with a stare that makes him sigh. “Kaitlyn and I graduate this spring.”
Andrew’s fingers still around the glass. “So you’ve said.”
Aaron’s eyes flick away, feigning interest in the condensation on his bottle. “It’s a whole thing. The final whitecoat ceremony and all that. It’ll be long. Boring, for sure.”
“Sounds boring,” Andrew says slowly.
Aaron shrugs. “I tried to talk Nicky out of coming, but he’s too excited to be reasoned with.”
Another beat.
Andrew rolls his eyes, laying his glass down on the table by his knees. For someone about to be a whole doctor, his brother has always been a little dumb. “We’ll be there.”
Aaron blinks, like the answer caught him off guard. “What?”
Andrew doesn’t look at him. “I got the dates from Nicky. Neil already requested the week off work. We’ll be there,” he repeats evenly.
Aaron huffs a laugh and scrubs a hand over his face, suddenly looking too much his age instead of perpetually in his seventies. “Thank you,” he bites out from behind his hand, and Andrew wonders if the words were as hard to say as they were surprising to hear.
“It was Neil’s idea,” Andrew corrects, only half lying.
Aaron’s mouth twitches. “Of course it was. I miss that dumbass.”
“You guys call every week.”
Aaron waves a hand. “But you live with him.”
Andrew studies him for a moment, trying to find his point. “Engagement going that poorly already that you’re asking to move in?”
“Fuck off,” Aaron laughs. “Kaitlyn and I are perfect. I just didn't expect you and Neil to fit so well together back then. Though I should’ve, looking back.”
Andrew says nothing. Him and Aaron don’t do this, don’t ever talk like this. Andrew’s not sure if this is terrible or if it’s almost nice.
Both, maybe.
Aaron shrugs. “Anyway. I’m just telling you I’m not mad. That he chose you, I mean.”
Andrew stiffens. He schools it away immediately, lifting his glass again just to have something to do with his hands.
“Med school might be rotting your brain,” Andrew jibes. “You’re being sentimental.”
“Absolutely,” Aaron agrees without hesitation. “It’s a miracle I can still spell my own name.”
Andrew’s shoulders loosen a fraction. He takes a small sip this time, just enough to justify the prop, then sets the glass back down.
Aaron watches him over the rim of his bottle, eyes sharp even as his mouth stays easy. “Still,” he says, like he wants nothing less than to continue this conversation but he can’t quite help himself, “You two are good together.”
Andrew scoffs. “You’re drunk.”
Aaron grins. “Definitely.”
He walks away, mercifully, bottle raised in a lazy goodbye.
Across the room, Neil’s voice carries, and Andrew puts his drink down for the last time, and sets off to find the source of the sound.
-
“Everybody get your asses to the TV - it’s a minute to midnight!” Allison screeches from the living room, and the room fills with bodies immediately, loud and intoxicated and stupidly excited to watch a shiny ball drop on the flatscreen - a tradition Andrew never understood, nor participated in until he met these people.
Everyone pairs up within seconds, like it’s always been that easy, like there’s nothing to think about it.
Kevin and Jeremy are right in the middle of the chaos, speaking in hushed tones, faces inches away from each other.
Dan and Matt stand shoulder to shoulder with Nicky and Erik, conversation steered towards New Year’s resolutions, all healthy and happy.
Aaron and Kaitlyn are further back, and Andrew has to look away from the sappy expression on his twin’s face.
Allison has her arm around Renee’s waist, remote in hand to turn up the volume on the TV as the countdown to midnight starts.
Neil finds Andrew without hesitation.
He slips in beside him like gravity, close enough that Andrew can feel the warmth of him through his sweater, the brush of Neil’s sleeve against his wrist. Neil doesn’t say anything at first, just stands there, eyes flicking briefly to Andrew’s face before following his gaze to the room.
Neil’s shoulder presses a little closer, the only other person not angled toward someone else. Except that’s not quite true, because he is undeniably angled towards Andrew, the way he always is, and Andrew’s chest burns.
“Ten seconds,” someone shouts.
The room roars.
Neil’s eyes soften as he watches it all, something fond and distant and maybe sad passing over his face. Andrew tracks the way Neil’s mouth curves, the way his attention lingers on moments of connection like he’s treasuring them.
“Nine!”
“Eight!”
Andrew’s throat tightens. The noise swells, the heat of the room suddenly unbearable. He is too aware of Neil at his side. Of the space between them. Of the fact that if Andrew leaned an inch - just an inch -
“Seven!”
Neil glances at him then, really looks. His brow creases, barely. “You okay?” he asks, voice low, meant only for Andrew.
“Six!”
Andrew nods automatically.
“Five!”
Neil’s gaze doesn’t leave his face. He turns his body slightly more toward Andrew, a quiet, unconscious choice that feels like a hand closing around Andrew’s ribs.
“Four!”
Andrew’s vision blurs at the edges. He thinks, with startling clarity, I can’t do this anymore.
“Three!”
It hits him all at once - the wanting, the restraint, the certainty that he can’t have this without breaking it. That if he stays here another second, he’ll do something irreversible.
“Two!”
“Andrew -”
“One!”
The room explodes.
“Happy New Year!”
Andrew is already gone.
He slips through bodies mid-cheer, through laughter and clinking glasses and kisses pressed clumsily to mouths. No one notices him leave. He moves fast, silent, out the back door and into the cold.
The night air hits him like a slap. He sucks in a breath that burns his lungs and braces both hands on the railing of the porch, head bowed, heart hammering like it’s trying to break free.
Snow drifts lazily under the streetlights. Fireworks crack somewhere distant.
“Andrew.”
Andrew closes his eyes.
Neil is there a heartbeat later, no coat, breath fogging in the air like he ran to catch up. He stops a few feet away, eyes searching Andrew’s face like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal.
“You missed the ball drop,” Neil says quietly.
Andrew straightens slowly. Doesn’t turn around. “You should be inside.”
Neil huffs a soft, humorless laugh. “You kidding? I never understood that tradition. How does a big silver ball signify the start of another year?”
Andrew doesn’t answer. His eyelids feel heavy, his throat thick, and he thinks he would be crying if he was someone who did things like that, but he’s not, so he just looks out into the backyard, cold biting at his face.
After a moment, Neil steps closer, too close and yet still so completely out of reach. “Why’d you leave?”
Andrew swallows. His nails dig painfully into the wooden railing he helped Renee and Allison build last summer, a month after they moved in together.
He thinks that was a nice day.
He thinks that was the first time he said it out loud, with Renee listening serenely as he told her everything he felt for Neil, even though he’s sure she already knew.
He thinks seven years is too long to feel like this.
“I can’t be in there,” he says finally, voice low and stripped bare. “Not like that.”
Neil’s breath catches. Andrew hears it.
“Like what?” Neil asks, careful.
Andrew turns then. Really looks at him. Neil’s eyes are wet from the cold, curls damp with melted snow, his scars tinged a deep pink.
It hurts, looking at him. It always has, but it’s worse knowing he might never get to again if he keeps talking, so he doesn’t.
The fireworks crack again overhead, light flashing across Neil’s face.
Neil exhales, a shaky breath. “You know,” he starts, “I wanted to ask you to kiss me in there.”
Andrew freezes, chest tightening so suddenly it’s like his ribs have been clamped.
He swallows. Words lodge in his throat. He wants to answer, wants to tell Neil everything, but the truth is too sharp, too immediate.
“You -” he begins, then stops, shakes his head. “Why?”
Neil tilts his head, a faint, rueful smile tugging at his lips. “Sometimes, there are these moments where I think you feel the same way.” His voice drops to a whisper, barely audible over the distant cheers and crackle of fireworks. “But I can never tell for sure.”
The cold is everywhere - his fingers, his ears, the back of his neck - but Neil is warm in front of him, mirroring Andrew’s thoughts he tried with everything he had to hide. Neil smells like snow and laundry detergent and something familiar enough to hurt, and Andrew isn’t sure if he’s really here, or just in Andrew’s head.
“I don’t -” Andrew cuts himself off, frustrated and terrified and so fucking hopeful that he thinks it will kill him. “I need you to say it, Neil. I can’t read your mind on this.”
Neil’s eyes do that thing they do when he’s listening for real, when the rest of the world drops away. “Andrew,” he says again, and it lands like a hand on Andrew’s sternum. “I’ve wanted you as more than a friend for a long time. It just took me a while to realize it.”
Andrew shuts his eyes.
Neil waits. He always does.
Andrew opens his eyes. “Seven years,” he says, the words scraping his throat raw. “I’ve wanted you for seven years.”
Neil lets out a breath that’s half a laugh, half a surrender. “Seven,” he repeats softly, like he can’t believe it. “I think you’ve got me beat.”
Andrew still can’t breathe, still can’t be sure he’s not imagining the whole night, but his mouth quirks despite it all. “By how much?”
Neil rolls his eyes, fond and familiar. “Three. Maybe more if I’m being honest.” He shifts his weight, boots scuffing the deck. “I didn’t figure it out until after we graduated.” He shrugs. “But I always looked at you differently than everyone else.”
Andrew watches him for a second longer than necessary. Commits the way Neil’s smile softens when he’s nervous, the way his hands tuck into his sleeves against the cold. The wanting is still there, but it’s quieter now. Manageable. Almost gentle.
He clears his throat. “So,” he says, aiming for casual and landing somewhere close. “You said you wanted to ask me something earlier?”
Neil’s eyebrows lift, lips forming the smirk Andrew could never look away from. “Did I?”
Andrew leans closer, close enough that Neil has to tilt his head down ever so slightly to keep eye contact. “Yeah.” His gaze falls to Neil’s lips, then back up again. “Ask me,” he says.
Neil’s smile is so bright it’s nearly blinding. He doesn’t hesitate this time.
“Can I kiss you?”
Andrew’s pulse is loud in his ears. For a second, every old instinct flares, muscle memory of restraint and rules and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But the word comes out steadier than he feels, like it’s been waiting in him for years.
“Yes.”
Neil exhales a quiet, disbelieving laugh, like the answer still hasn’t quite landed. He steps in slowly, deliberately, giving Andrew every chance to pull away. He doesn’t, can’t imagine a world where he would.
The kiss is soft at first, almost careful. Neil’s lips are warm against his, hesitant enough to make Andrew’s chest ache. Andrew’s hand comes up without conscious thought, fingers curling into the hair at Neil’s nape.
Neil hums, low and surprised, and that’s all it takes.
Andrew deepens the kiss, just a fraction, and Neil responds immediately, like he’s been waiting for permission, for proof. His hands find Andrew’s coat, pulling him impossibly closer.
Another round of fireworks crack overhead, light flashing white and gold and blue across the snow-dusted yard, but Andrew barely notices. All he can feel is Neil - warm and unmistakably real against him.
When they break apart, it’s only because they have to breathe, and Andrew’s knees are weak, his head empty, and he thinks he’s never felt so much all at once in his entire life.
Neil rests his forehead against Andrew’s, expression whole and content. “Happy New Year,” he murmurs, lips brushing against Andrew’s with each word.
Andrew’s hand is still cradling Neil’s head, his thumb pressing against his jaw, like letting go would undo everything.
Andrew feels the quiet proof of him - the steady breath, the soft pulse under his jaw, the way Neil leans into the touch like it’s always been meant for him. Andrew has spent years cataloging absences, rehearsing losses before they happen, convincing himself that wanting is just another way to get hurt. But this doesn't feel like hurting.
Seven years of restraint loosen their grip all at once, not in a rush, but in a slow, inevitable collapse. Andrew thinks of the nights on the couch, of shared blankets and borrowed warmth, of Neil’s feet tucked under his thigh, of mornings that bled into afternoons because neither of them ever rushed to leave. Of coffee poured too sweet and pancakes burned just enough to be annoying.
He thinks of how carefully he learned to love the man in front of him.
He doesn’t have the words to show all of this to Neil, to make him understand, so he just pulls him in again, feeling him smile into the kiss as the party goes on without them a world away.
He thinks Neil understands, anyway.