Hi so sorry to hijack this it fell out of me in a fugue state u literally broke me heart with this
It begins so slowly he almost doesn’t notice it. First, it’s all tiny things, a remote an inch further away than he remembers placing it, less wet food than he’s certain was left. Neil asks him a question over the types of nutritious, mild meals they feed themselves these days, and Andrew pauses, a forkful of chicken halfway to his mouth.
He tries. He really tries to find it. It’s something about a date, something that he should be able to rattle off without a thought and instead: blankness. An absence.
“I don’t remember.” And Neil smirks a little the way he does and his face is wrinkled and familiar with it. Then, he realizes that Andrew has not snarked it, but meant it, and he sets his fork down and stares Andrew down with his faded blue eyes.
They don’t bring it up, really. Neil tries. Andrew does not. There are, he reasons with himself, many things he could comfortably forget. It does not need to mean anything terrifying. It will be okay.
He’ll wake, disoriented, to a comfortable room that is not his dorm and aches that go deeper than night practice. He will reach for blades that have been tucked away at the back of a closet since his twenties. He will dial out to a number that has been disconnected for years. He will crave hot chocolate.
Sometimes, he looks in the mirror and can only think Aaron. He will look at the gnarled backs of his hands and think about all of the lives they have saved. He is a stranger to himself but that is his brother’s face and his brother’s hands as sure as the sun rises in the morning.
As Andrew changes, Neil stays. He retired running away a long time ago. Of course he stays. Even when it is just Andrew and he cannot recognize himself and he cannot recognize his home and he cannot recognize his hands, he remembers curls of smoke and blood in his teeth and Abram Abram Abram Abram Abra
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