It starts with red. The red of his father’s hair as it sticks with sweat to his forehead and turns a rusted shade matching the blood dripping from his knuckles. The red of Lola’s lipstick twists into a smile as she slides the knife home between the ribs over and over again. The red of his mother’s blood pouring from her body as they tear her apart piece by piece and laugh while Romero holds him down, forcing him to watch.
It’s all so red that he feels like he will drown in it — that he already is drowning and choking on his mother’s screams. Because in the end this is his fault.
{Read on AO3}
Oh what’s this? I’m not dead? That’s right! I’m back with a brand new tale for the @aftgbigbang! This year I’ve had the amazing opportunity to work with the amazing artist @fornavn and the best beta I could ask for @clockworkdragxn who have both helped me make this story amazing for you all! And the art. Oh man, I can’t wait for you all to see it!
Prologue Pt.2 - Then He Forged Himself Anew in the Flames
Neil waits and watches everything that will give him the edge he needs. He takes note of every guard shift, what keys go into whose hands, who watches him with blatant interest, who doesn’t bother to look at him at all, when the chimes of pins change every couple of months, everything. Neil waits and watches for the moment they slip, and he will seize the mistake and escape or die trying.
Okay I have to know!! What was Andrew thinking when he has Neil take out his contacts and was just staring at him in SN&E???????
Look I could just answer normally but where’s the fun in that? So take a little drabble x)
“Show me.”
He doesn’t know why he asks. It is a waste of a turn — a useless bit of information that he already knew even before Neil told him the truth (the rabbit had a habit of rubbing his eyes which shifts the contact and reveals a hint of the color underneath). He didn’t need to see their true color.
Later he will tell himself it was because he just wanted to see if Neil would do it, if he would fully honor their little game or if he would try weaseling his way. But the truth of the matter is that once the color blue left those lips, he had a burning desire to see it for himself (and oh how he hated that). But Neil was wrong when he said his eyes were blue. No, they were more akin to ice — near completely white with the barest hints of blue beneath the surface.
He reaches out and grabs his chin and forces himself to look this way and that, watching as the light bounces off those twin orbs of ice and glimmer in the studio’s fluorescent lighting. And yet for something so cold, a flame flickers in those eyes — a defiant gaze as he watches Andrew watch him. Somehow the paradox fits Neil perfectly, appearing as one thing but altogether something else entirely.
Tilting his face up causes the blue to sparkle in the light. The color fits him more than that disgusting brown ever could, a complement to the hue of his skin and offset by the dark locks of his cheaply dyed hair. He wonders what color he had been born with. Perhaps a blonde to go with the blue. Or maybe something as striking as red. He quite liked that image, could imagine a shock of red hair twisted in his hands as he-
He lets go and steps back, cutting off the thought before it could get any further and lights another cigarette to busy his hands from reaching out again. Dangerous. Neil Josten was dangerous and starting to become more of a problem than he expected in the first place.
A/N: So I was sitting here minding my own business listening to music as I was avoiding doing hw when I was hit with the inspiration for some Angsty Andreil from my SN&E universe. So I did it. Enjoy the pain while I cry and finish up the last of my hw
[Read on Ao3]
Neil sits in the empty studio and stares at the ivory keys beneath his fingertips. They trip and glide over the white and black bars but never press down hard enough to make a sound — almost too afraid of what will happen if he does. The piano was never his instrument, not in any way that mattered at least. No, it was always Andrew’s, a piece of the drummer only few got to see and even fewer knew how deep that part of him went. Maybe that’s why he sits alone tucked away in the empty piano room at Fox Records. It’s the only way he can feel close to him.
It’s stupid. Neil shouldn’t need an instrument to feel close to the person who made him real — to the person that breathed Neil Josten to life and told him to stay. But the fact is that Neil hasn’t seen or heard from Andrew in almost two months. Not since Andrew had stormed out of their room after the biggest argument they’ve ever had. He could still hear the ringing of the door slamming closed and the rev of the engine and Andrew’s sleek black car peels out of the driveway and races down their quiet suburban neighborhood.
At first, he just thought that Andrew needed to cool his head — take his space where he needed it after Neil pushed too hard for something he wasn’t ready to give. It was fine. Neil couldn’t begrudge him that, especially when he found his own blood boiling at the mere thought of looking at his boyfriend’s seemingly indifferent face after that particular argument — after he tore himself open only to have it shoved back in his face. He was fine. So, he pulled on a pair of running shoes and lost himself in the streets surrounding their home and city until the sun sets and the sky darkens too much for him to continue. When he gets back, Andrew is still nowhere to be found and his phone is silent. That should have been his first sign that something was wrong. Andrew may disappear from time to time but he always texted Neil, even if just to tell him to leave him alone. The silence was deafening.
But Neil didn’t heed that whisper in the back of his head, still too angry at himself and Andrew to think any more of it. It was a big argument. Maybe Andrew just needed more time to figure his own thoughts out; god knew Neil still did. He showered and went to bed, ignoring how the bed felt too big with Andrew there on the other side of the mattress and too cold without the warmth of his back pressed against a broad chest. When his eyes closed he thought to himself that tomorrow he would talk to him again. That he would fix this between them.
He didn’t know that tomorrow would never come. That he would wait day after day with no response from Andrew, no call, no text, nothing. He tried calling only to find that the number couldn’t be reached at this time. Then Neil really started panicking. Clutching his phone tightly in a fist, he rushes out of their room and flies down the stairs until he’s skidding into the kitchen where Nicky is cooking. The tall man startles, nearly tossing the contents of the pan onto the ground as he jumps.
“Jesus Christ Neil!” he gasps, putting the pan down and turning the flame on low. “What’s-”
“Have you heard from Andrew?”
His brows furrow, “Not since Friday. I just thought that he was off on one of his self-isolated road trips.”
“Friday, you’re sure?” Neil urges him.
“Yeah. He sent a text saying that he was taking a break and not to look for him.”
Neil runs through his hair. “Fuck.”
“What’s going on?” Worry starts to mar his face, but Neil is already turning away, running to the only other person who Andrew would have contacted.
He finds Aaron sitting on the couch with his phone glued to his hand like always. So irrational part of him wonders if that was Andrew on the other end of the screen no matter the fact that Neil knows the twin have texted each other only a handful of times in the two years he’s known them. Still, he wonders.
“Are you talking to Andrew?”
“No.” Aaron doesn’t even bother to look up from his screen as he types away at a message.
“Are you sure?”
He sneers, “I think I would know if I was texting my brother or not.”
Neil wants to tear his hair out. Or Aaron’s. “When did you hear from him last?”
“God what’s with the third degree? Go bug someone else.”
“Aaron,” Neil all but growls, “When did you last hear from him?”
“Fuck you.”
Neil dives for him then and he would have made it if not for Nicky coming out of the kitchen hot on Neil’s tail and yanking him back just in time. Aaron finally looks away from his phone and stares at Neil like he’s finally lost his mind. Maybe he had.
“Neil calm down!” Nicky tries to push him further away, but he pulls at his arms.
“I swear to fucking god Aaron, if you do not tell me right now, I’ll fucking kill you.”
Aaron gives him a bored look. “What did you lose your boyfriend? Maybe he finally got tired of you.”
Neil almost breaks free.
“Jesus Aaron really?” Nicky sighs exasperatedly. “Kevin! Get your ass in here before you have to find a new singer!”
Kevin ambles in from upstairs, looking for all intents and purposes like he just crawled out of bed despite it being nearly 11 am. “What the fuck is going on now?”
“Well as you can clearly see I need your help!”
Kevin looks between Neil and Aaron before turning around and going back upstairs.
“KEVIN!”
In Nicky’s moment of distraction, Neil breaks free from his grasp and grabs Aaron, yanking him off the couch and hauling him so they meet eye to eye. “If you do not tell me what I want to know right now-”
“You’ll what?” he sneers, pulling at Neil’s grip.
Neil only tightens it. “I was the son of a serial killer that liked to torture people for hours before he granted them even a thought towards mercy. I could kill you in ways that you could only image.”
Aaron pales and the sneer slips slightly.
“Neil,” Nicky whispers, voice shaking.
He ignores him. “Now when did you last talk to him?”
For a moment, he doesn’t think Aaron will answer him — that his stubborn nature and ill regard for Neil would keep his mouth silent. To his surprise, he answers. “Yesterday.”
Neil lets him go, the single word enough to open the world beneath his feet and leave him feeling. “What?”
“I said I heard from him yesterday. He texted to say that he’s going to be gone for a bit and to bug Renee if I needed anything since he wouldn’t be reachable.”
Neil’s world bottoms out. Andrew was gone. Gone. And he left his family to Renee, not Neil. Trusted Renee to keep them safe not Neil. The message hit him like a ton of bricks: painful and clear. Andrew couldn’t trust Neil to do that job anymore, nor did he want him to.
Nick was trying to say something to him, but the words fell on deafened ears. All he could hear was that slamming door and the rev of an engine. Over and over again. He’s flying out the door before he even registers moving — feet slapping concrete and sending shocks up his shin until it becomes painful. His lungs heave and constrict in his chest for the too little air squeezing past his throat. This time even when the sky darkens, he runs and runs until the sun peaks over the horizon again and he has to crawl to keep moving. When he gets home their bedroom is still empty and his phone is silent.
No one hears from Andrew for two months. Kevin is pissed, seething about the fact that they had to halt the progress on their next album with their drummer missing. Nicky looks worried and flickers between mother-henning the band and locking himself in his room to skype with Erik in hushed German. The Foxes range between worried (Dan, Matt, and Wymack) and apathetic (Seth and Allison) with only Renee giving him a sad pitiful look whenever he catches her eyes. Even Aaron starts to look a bit worried, but Neil can’t bring himself to care.
Staying in the house hurts — hurts more than anything his father or Lola ever did to him as a child or adult. He spent hours staring at their empty bed from a spot where he curled up on the floor since he couldn’t bring himself to sleep in it alone. The glass doors to the balcony became impassable and the empty spot in the garage opened a pit in his chest he thought he long since filled. After the first month, he gives up and moves onto Matt and Dan’s couch after the two of them offer him a place in their new apartment together.
He stares at the keys again, this time pressing one until a soft ping fills the room. The sound breaks something in him and he presses another. And then another and another until the room fills with a simple melody.
The piano was never his, but Andrew taught him some of the basics during the late nights when neither of them could sleep. It was never anything more than a couple of chords here or there or how to move his hands across the keys — even if they never moved half as fast as his. He loved those nights. Loved seeing Andrew lose himself in the music that once meant so much to him, even if it meant that no one else would.
He plays the melody over again, and then another time, adding a few complexities as he goes along until he can feel the hint of a song scratching at the back of his mind. His fingers fly and the music twists itself into words in his throat until he starts humming along trying to decipher them. When he opens his mouth, the words come pouring out.
Wish I could, I could've said goodbye
I would've said what I wanted to
Maybe even cried for you
He didn’t know. He couldn’t have known that when Andrew left he would never get to say goodbye. Even when he thought he had seconds left, he always knew he would spend them saying goodbye and now that he can’t-
If I knew, it would be the last time
I would've broke my heart in two
Tryin' to save a part of you
He should have kept his mouth shut. Should have never said a damn thing about it. But he was so tired. Tired of lying. Tired of pretending that he was nothing to Andrew. Tired of people thinking that they were nothing.
Don't want to feel another touch
Don't wanna start another fire
Don't wanna know another kiss
No other name falling off my lips
He didn’t want anyone else. Didn’t want to pretend that he could want anyone else. It was just Andrew. It would always be Andrew. No one else. Never anyone else.
To another stranger
Or let another day begin
Won't even let the sunlight in
No, I'll never love again
And he ruined it all. Ruined it because he didn’t want to hide anymore. He wanted the world to know that he was Andrew’s, even if Andrew would never be his. He wanted to scream it to the world, to take Andrew’s hand in his own and face all the shit the world threw at them. Because with Andrew at his side he felt like he could take on anything. But he pushed too hard.
I won't I won't I swear I can't
I wish I could but I just won't
He did the one thing he promised he never would do, he asked for too much. Too much and too fast for what Andrew was capable of giving him. Of what Andrew wanted to give to him. But he grew greedy. Greedy enough to want for something Andrew had told him from the beginning that he could never have. And yet he pushed, ruining it for good.
I'll never love again
His fingers slip and bang against the keys, the sharp noise jarring and dissonant to the soft melody still lingering in the air. He moves to start again, but his vision blurs with tears and a choked sob fills his throat. Hands curl into fists and bang onto the keys, filling the room with the same discord and disarray that echoes in his chest.
“Oh Neil,” Matt whispers from his spot in the doorway, but Neil can’t bring himself to look at him (too ashamed of the tears being spilled from his own doing). He feels a heavy hand fall softly on his shoulder, gently guiding him into a solid stomach. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”
Neil doesn’t say a word even after hours pass and Matt drives him back home. He doesn’t go back to the studio again.
Two days later Neil’s phone pings with a text message. It’s the middle of the night and his phone sits on the coffee table just out of his reach, the bright light from the screen cutting a path of blue light in the otherwise darkened room. For a second he debates letting it sit there unanswered, almost positive it’s Nicky trying to cheer him up or ask when he’ll come home (as if he still had a home there without Andrew). But that same stupid part of his brain holds out hope that maybe even now it will be Andrew.
It takes a few tries, but he manages to slide the phone off the table and into his hands, eyes squinting as the bright light shifts to blare in his face rather than the ceiling. He almost drops it when the name registers in his mind. Andrew Minyard. He stops, looks again, looks away, and then check again. The same still stares back at him. With shaky fingers, he swipes the screen open and clicks on the message.
There are no words, no explanations for where he has gone or why he left without a fucking word, just a simple link sitting in a small blue bubble with a still of a black title card. He clicks on the video only for it to open in his YouTube app. It was uploaded on an anonymous account and the thumbnail was a black background with the words For Him written in italic script. Neil hits play and waits for it to finish buffering.
It’s a video of himself, sitting in that empty piano room at Fox Records as he belts out the painful melody that took him over. The video is shot from his back so you couldn’t see the tears falling down his cheeks but the waver in his voice gave him away all the same, each intake a break stuttering slightly and his body trembling as it sways back and for. It captures most of the song ending with that same jarring key. Just before the video cuts out there is a soft “Oh Neil” that tells him just who is responsible for this latest video. His eyes dart down to the view count to see that it’s reached millions.
The phone buzzes again, this time with a single word. Studio.
Neil is off the couch and out the door in seconds, not bothering with even shoes or a coat despite the chilly autumn evening air. He runs faster and harder than he’s had to in a long time but its all worth it when he bursts through those doors to see Andrew standing there in the lounge. Dark circles rest under his eyes and tense shoulders betray his calm demeanor even as he turns to meet Neil’s gaze.
“You’re here,” Neil breathes, feeling like it’s the first full breath he’s had in months.
Andrew nods.
“You left.” Neil continues, stepping further into the room until they are less than a foot apart.
He nods again.
Neil wants to reach out and touch him, but he doesn’t — too afraid that if he does then Andrew will disappear again. “And you’re back? For good?”
This time there is a hesitation before he nods tightly, chin jerking like the question left him stilted and unhinged.
“Yes or no?” A quiet yes falls from those lips in a raspy voice from disuse and Neil feels something click into place. He falls into Andrew’s space, slotting their foreheads together and tangling his fingers in those soft blonde locks. Something else clicks into place.
“You left.” It comes out choked and small, even as he pulls away to meet Andrew’s eyes. “You left.”
“Yes.” He says it simply because it was. He left Neil behind.
“You left. Without a word or a text for two months.” This time Andrew didn’t bother replying. “What the fuck Andrew? What the actual fuck.”
Neil pulls away more firmly, anger boiling in his chest as the shock wears from his system. “What the actual fuck.”
Andrew crosses his arms. “What do you want me to say? I left.”
“Exactly!” It comes out near hysterical. “You left. Just like that. You asked me to stay and then you left me.”
Andrew’s jaw ticks but he says nothing.
“What was I supposed to do Andrew?” Neil grasps for understanding. “We had one argument and then you just disappeared for two months without a single fucking word. What was I supposed to do?! Did you even plan to come back.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Neil seethes, “Fuck that you do know. Were you going to come back?”
Andrew meets his gaze head-on. “I don’t know.”
Neil deflates, knowing the real answer. “You weren’t.” Andrew says nothing. “God, I don’t even get a reason why?”
“Why what Neil,” Andrew sighs.
“Why we have one argument about me wanting to go public about us and you drop off the fucking earth!” Neil explodes walking away. “Why that, Drew. Why fucking that.”
Andrew is silent for a beat, then two. “Because I can’t give you that.”
“Then why didn’t you just say-”
“I did, but you pushed. You pushed and I could see that you would keep pushing even if it took years until I was ready.”
“That’s right. I would have. I would have waited until the end of fucking time for that, so why push me away?” Neil’s voice is raw against his throat and he can feel tears sting the corners of his eyes but he pushes on. “Why.”
“Because you deserve better.”
Neil blinks. “Excuse me?”
But Andrew is done talking. “You heard me.”
“No, I don’t think I did.” Neil whips around, “Because it sounded like you just said that I deserve better. Whatever the fuck that means.”
Andrew remains silent. Neil explodes.
“Fuck what I deserve. Fuck what everyone including you thinks I deserve. I decide that.”
“Shut up.”
“No, I won’t. And you know what? I fucking deserve to be happy. I deserve to have someone that makes me feel like I’m an actual person. I deserve someone that makes me feel as alive as music does. That’s what I deserve, Andrew.”
His jaw locks, “Then what are you waiting for?”
“I’m waiting for him to say that he deserves that too. Because I can’t fight that battle for him as much as I fucking want to.” He crosses the space between them. “I fucking love you, Drew. More than I’ve ever thought I could love another person and I just want you to love you too. No more of this ‘deserve’ bullshit. Decide for yourself.”
They are inches apart now, breath intermingling and burning amber meeting icy blue.
“Yes or no, Andrew?” The question is soft off his lips.
A moment. Then two. Then three. Finally, “Yes.”
Andrew’s lips slot against Neil’s and it feels like coming home. It feels like first burning him alive and water drowning his every breath until all he can taste and think of is Andrew’s lips and the thundering beat of his chest matching the one in Andrews. They stay like that for eternity or maybe a few seconds before they must pull away for air, neither straying far from the other.
“Don’t leave again,” Neil whispers into the space between them. “Don’t leave me again.”
Andrew doesn’t answer, simply presses their lips together until his head becomes dizzy from the lack of oxygen. Hours later they would curl up on the lounge’s couch, Andrew pressed to the back cushions with Neil half pressed to his side and half on his chest. The lights are dimmed and the steady beat of Andrew’s heart lulls him to sleep no matter how long he tries to hold onto consciousness. Just before he slips away, Andrew’s arms tighten around Neil’s torso and he feels the rumbles of his chest as he speaks.
I just need you to know that I HAD LITERAL ACTUAL TEARS IN MY EYES during the end of SN&E during the show when Neil is saying goodbye to everyone! I have to ask: what was Andrew thinking???? (This fic was perfect literally thank you so much for hating it)
You already know that I’m going to make this a drabble, so strap in folks! Also, there is a read more b/c as you all know I’m incapable of writing anything remotely short...
Something was wrong with Neil. He didn’t know what or why, but he knew something was wrong. He knew it when Neil walked down the stairs that morning with circles lining his eyes and a far-off look glazing over his blue eyes. He knew it when Neil smiled at the foxes with that same fake grin he used when he first arrived in Colombia. He definitely knew it when he asked to break the deal. Something filled his stomach at that — at the thought of breaking it. Like if he did then Neil would really slip away like the pipedream he is.
But he did because if the only thing keeping Neil at his side was the deal then Andrew didn’t need him — didn’t want him. He learned his lesson long ago about trying to force something to stay the same; it always ended in his own blood being spilled. So, he let Neil go and promised himself that when someone came after Neil it wasn’t his problem anymore (he told himself repeatedly in hopes of making it true). Neil Josten was on his own.
Then Neil stumbles over a note Andrew knows he’s long since mastered and that same something filled his stomach. Danger. It was like an alarm blaring in his mind, screeching and high pitched in clear warning of something to come. But Andrew didn’t know what. Fuck Neil. Fuck him for ever worming his way under his skin and making him feel when he doesn’t want to. Fuck him. He ignores that whisper in his head telling him he doesn’t mean that because he does. He hates Neil — hates him with the core of his very being and is done with him. (Liar.)
When the song ends, Andrew gears up for their final number. Of course, he would have to play that stupid song Neil made from their two journals — the one they played together in the dead of night with no one else around to see Andrew pick up his drumsticks for the singer. No one to see the way Andrew stared at Neil’s lips as they crooned into the microphone of an empty studio room like he was giving Andrew his own personal concert. Fuck him.
He waits for Neil to give him the signal to begin but is stopped with a small shake of Neil’s head. Instead, Neil turns back to the crowd and starts talking to them. The alarm gets louder. Andrew is almost completely deafened by the time Neil turns to him last.
“Thank you.” Those twin blue eyes meet his hazel and the world goes silent. Words swim in that gaze, but they are all too fast for Andrew to grasp and understand, leaving him feeling like he missed something important. Some warning. “You were amazing.”
Those eyes turn away and Andrew is left reeling in their wake. He doesn’t remember walking off the stage nor how he was nearly to the back exit before Neil’s voice reaches his ears and he’s sprinting back for the stage, shoving Nicky and Kevin out of the way until he’s at the front.
Neil had only ever sung like this twice in his life. The first was that day back in Millport, the one that led Kevin and him to Neil in the first place. The second was the concert Riko crashed and Neil spilled himself open on the microphone to cover Kevin’s panic. This. This was something else entirely.
Blue met hazel and Andrew could see the unshed tears swim in those glacial pools. Wrong. Everything was wrong.
The song ends on a dying breath and Andrew feels like he’s drowning. He can feel the roar of the crowd and the Foxes was over him, sense their growing frenzy as they scream for Neil to give them more of himself — for Neil to bleed for them again — but he can’t see a damn thing other than Neil heaving at the microphone as he tries to bandage himself back together. When he turns to the foxes once more tears are dangerously close to spilling over the edge even as his own smile curves his lips. Andrew watches him and tries to piece together the torrent of emotions that flood him. But after years of numbing himself to everything but hatred and indifference, has left him unable to do anything but carve a blank mask to hide the turmoil beneath the surface.
He takes a step closer to Neil — to do what he doesn’t know, but the need to feel the heat of his skin against his own forces his body forward before his mind can stop it.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Neil Josten is yet another name in a long list of identities used to hide a boy long since dead from a past blood had been spilled to forget. Essentially, he is and always will be nothing. And yet there has always been one thing that made Neil Josten real: music. After his mother’s death, music and singing were the only things tying him the threads of reality by the strap of a well-worn guitar. Too bad he’s pretty sure that it’s also going to be the thing to kill him. Especially when Kevin Day, international rock star and blast of Neil’s past comes waltzing back into his life demanding he joins the upstart and infamous band EXY as its new vocalist. To make matters worse, Kevin’s unofficial shadow, Andrew Minyard with a rap sheet taller than he is has taken an interest in the lie that Neil Josten and has made it his mission to uncover the bloodied truth that lies beneath.
By all accounts, Neil should just pick up his guitar and disappear like he’s done so many times before, but the chance to be real and seen is almost enough for him to plant his feet for the first time in 11 years he’s been running. Going into the spotlight means certain death, but Neil’s just not so sure that leaving it would mean anything different.
It’s finally here!!! My addition to the @aftgbigbang hosted by the wonderful @defractum And let’s not forget some wonderful art by @uzea-ke which can be found on her blog.
I would just like to thank everyone who made this fic possible from my wonderful betas @lirinchi & @metaphoricallytheworst who helped with the idea stage of this fic and listened to me rant and rave like an absolute loon and to @nanfoodle who is to too good for this world and helped me polish and cut down this fic (ha) to the beauty that it is today. I cannot thank everyone enough for this opportunity to be a part of my first ever big bang!
