Uh, Neil's first time getting hammered (blackout drunk, not... That.) (sorry, this is a hell of a lot longer than I meant it to be)
The foxes decided that they enjoyed the first time they vacationed to the cabin enough that they wanted to do it again the next summer.
And this time, Neil drinks. His foxes know everything now, he has nothing to hide anymore, he possibly doesn't pay attention to how much he's drinking.
For once in his life Neil decides to let loose and not be afraid to trust his team like they trust him.
They had forcefully put Neil in his and Andrew's shared bedroom when they realized they had gotten him way too drunk for him to still be freely out and about.
But, about an hour later, when Andrew decided it was time for him to go to sleep, he walked into their room and found an empty - messy - bed, a bunch of shit everywhere, an open window, and no sign of Neil.
So - then completely sober in his thoughts - he searched the entire room top to bottom, briefly freaked out thinking Neil ran away even after all this time, realized Neil wouldn't do that, worried he got kidnapped again, realized they hadn't wronged anyone else, and went back to the main room.
Andrew headed to Nicky first, looked him dead in the eyes and told him with a straight face that Neil was missing. He got exactly the reaction he wanted when Nicky repeated his words back to him, just at an extremely higher volume.
This of course got everyone else to hear, and they spent the next ten minutes searching every inch of the cabin looking for Neil.
Andrew forced everyone, including his begrudging brother, into their cars to look for Neil. They all just hope he didn't make his way into the woods.
About two hours later, they all met up back at the cabin, empty handed, and Neil nowhere to be seen.
"Ok seriously, no one's seen any sign of him other than his shoes in two opposite directions both somehow three miles from here??"
Nicky sounded just about ready to lose it, a laughter in his voice that was more to keep himself from breaking down. In the background the other foxes all sat around the living room worried, but silent.
A cough came from the corner and every head in the room slowly turned to look at,
"Aaron, did you find something?"
Nicky was the only one talking, but really he spoke for every other fox in the room as well. An endless silence stretched on for all too long. Minutes later Aaron let out a grumpy sigh and responded.
"I didn't find something, I found him."
Aaron was glad Andrew was still out searching for Neil despite the rest of the team telling him to come back, if Andrew was currently in this room Aaron would've kept his mouth shut to keep himself from getting stabbed.
"Off the road by some lake. He's asleep, on a picnic table. And damp. And smelly."
Aaron grimaced at the memory of his smell.
He had been unwillingly driving around muttering curses under his breath when he accidentally caught a glimpse of something someone passed out on a picnic table on the beach of a random mountain lake. He did a double take and turned around.
He hadn't pulled off to the side immediately, instead driving past and then turning around again, and again, and again, until he eventually cursed under his breath and pulled his car aside.
He smelled Neil before he was close enough to realize he was damp, muddy, sandy, covered in grime from the lake, and missing both shoes and a sock. He had called out his name a few times, not putting much effort into it. He settled for poking him with a stick rather than touching him.
Neil didn't wake up and Aaron absolutely wasn't about to pick his smelly, damp, dense ass up. Let alone put him in his clean car. So. Against his better judgement, and even knowing Andrew would probably kill him, he decidedly left Neil on the picnic table. But not before ten more minutes of back and forth in his car again.
Aaron shrugged, heard a car pull into the gravel driveway outside, then silently got up, went to his room, and locked the door. He didn't feel like dying today.
Downstairs, Nicky broke the news to Andrew and it took half the foxes to hold him back from getting upstairs. Thankfully he was too - in his own Andrew way - worried about Neil to kill Aaron immediately, so he instead left the cabin without a word and drove off.
He found Neil at the lake, dragged him into his car, whispered to his unconscious body that he'd be in charge of cleaning the car in the morning, and got him back to the cabin.
When he parked, he opened the back door and stared at Neil's lifeless looking body, silently leaning over his face, and blandly saying his name.
Neil woke immediately, but violently, at the sound of his name from Andrew's mouth. Andrew got knocked upside the jaw before he could bring his still slightly tipsy self to move out of the way.
He stepped back and when he looked up Neil was standing and rubbing at his eyes with both his hands. He dropped his hands and opened his eyes for the first time since falling out of the car and when he saw Andrew he gained a sparkle in his eyes that Andrew had never seen.
Neil dramatically opened his arms, throwing his hands into the air like he wanted a hug.
Andrew almost expected Neil to throw himself at the shorter man, but Neil just stood there with open arms.
Andrew gave him his hand and turned around before he could see Neil excitedly grab it and follow Andrew inside.
The others, minus Aaron, were all still in the living room waiting. When Andrew walked in with Neils grasping his hand and talking his ear off, the conversations stopped, and heads turned.
Neil didn't notice for a while, but he saw that Andrew's line of sight wasn't anywhere near him and turned to look. This didn't fare well for any of them, as within the second he noticed Matt's presence he was somehow across the room and ready to jump into his arms.
Matt, who had Dan practically on his lap, and the other girls also shoved onto the same couch, panicked but froze. The girls all braced for impact because none of them could move fast enough and-
Neil's excited yell of 'Matt!' is cut off with a thud, and the impact never comes.
They all looked to see Neil sprawled over the ground with his feet still caught on a small ottoman. Apparently he tunnel visioned and didn't see it.
Before any of the foxes could even get any words out, Andrew had Neil by the ankles and was dragging him back to their shared room.
Neil scratched at the floor, yelled for Matt to save him, clawed at the doorway, and ultimately disappeared when Andrew tugged him in and slamed the door.
The foxes stared in silence.
"You guys smelled him too, right?"
If I really feel like it, I'll write more of this, but this has been sitting in my drafts for way too long and I can't bring myself to write anything else.
I'm also not sure why this is so long. Mb
If the tense doesn't make sense, ignore it, I'm tired and can barely read rn.
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