The sun was already set on the day Nathaniel Wesninski took his last breath, leaving a bruised and achy blur of violet and charcoal coating the sky in its absence.
OR
The Monsters accidentally save a certain runaway from his father's people and find themselves saddled with a brand new striker, just in time for Kevin's return to the court
One thing about me is I will eat up any aftg fic where andriel is secretly married and/or shock whoever else is in the fic with the fact that they’re married like that’s cocaine to me my god
fandom:all for the game
title from:the crane wives - never love an anchor
word count:2.2k
warnings: discussion of a suicide attempt
FIRST CHAPTER
AO3
Neil ends up staying a whole week at Wymack’s before the coach puts his foot down.
“This is getting ridiculous, Neil.”
He just hums and continues folding his now-clean clothes and putting them back into his duffel. With one working arm it’s a hard task so he can use that as an excuse to keep him from looking up at his coach. It’s not the first time Wymack has tried to get through to him since Neil tucked tail and ran from sharing a dorm room with Andrew upon his discharge.
“You’ll do well to listen to me, boy,” the older man says and there’s an edge to his voice that stills Neil’s hands. He’s done so well when it comes to not being afraid of Wymack but every so often he’s caught off guard, when there’s a little hint of his father in the way Wymack moves or speaks.
Wymack notices this but pushes on, “you can’t avoid Andrew forever.”
Shaking the tension out of his neck, Neil returns to his folding. “I can sure try.”
A groan. “That does not make for a functional team, Neil.”
Neil doesn’t speak so the coach continues. “He’s alive and currently–”he checks his watch–”in session with Betsy, what more do you want from him?”
He bites down on his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. The bitter taste of metal floods his mouth and he swallows it down before turning to Wymack now, red on his teeth. “I don’t want anything from him.”
The older man has his hands on his hips and the scowl to match that tells Neil he’s done this dance a million times before. The Foxes are not an easy team, everyone knows that, but sometimes Neil forgets Wymack has dealt with their shit for years and will for many more. He’s got the better part of four years left to wrangle with Neil, by graduation maybe he’ll have the boy sitting on command like a prized poodle. “You need something from him to get this stick outta your ass. What is it?”
Neil’s resolve bends then but it doesn’t break. “I don’t know.”
It flashes then. Andrew on the floor. The pills. The chest under his hands. The slack lips that don’t press back to his own. Neil swallows the lump in his throat.
His coach just groans again. “Well, you can’t stay here.”
“Coach–”
Wymack holds up a hand to shush him. “I don’t wanna hear it. I’ll drive you back to the dorm tonight and you’ll stay there. If you can’t make nice with Andrew, you at least have to learn to live with him.”
Neil drops his gaze to his duffel and the one shirt he has yet to fold and put back in there. His stomach twists thinking about it now, as if this shirt is the last thing keeping the sword of Damocles from coming down on his head. He can’t go back.
“Coach…” he tries again.
“I know it was scary, I know you’re scared,” he says. “But you can’t be scared for your whole life, Neil.”
Neil stiffens. “I’m not scared.”
He denies it because no matter what, Neil is a liar.
-
The tension doesn’t leave Neil, he carries it to that afternoon’s practice. The stiffness of his muscles makes his shoulder ache but he’s beared worse.
It’s Andrew’s first practice back on the court and he defends his goal like he’d never stepped foot away from it. Even Kevin is having a hard time scoring against him.
Matt is taking a breather on the bench next to him, he keeps twisting his wrist back and forth and there’s a burning on Neil’s tongue to ask him when it started. The timing doesn’t like up but Neil would love another bad thing to pin on his imaginary corkboard with the title “ANDREW’S FAULT”.
“How are you holding up?” Matt asks, thumbing at a soft point on his wrist and wincing when it hurts. “Still at coach’s?”
Neil shrugs him off. “He kicked me out.”
Matt bristles. “He what? When?”
“This morning. I’m moving back into the dorm after practice, guess he was getting sick of me.”
“No offense,” Matt starts and Neil prepares his offense to be had. “But your issue with Andrew is kinda pushing everyone apart. We’re supposed to be a team, Neil.”
“We are a team,” he says plainly.
“It sure doesn’t feel that way as of late.” Matt is testing is grip now, flexing his hand. Neil has half a mind to sic Abby on him. If his grip is struggling he won’t keep up in the match next week. “You two are…” he trails off, unable to figure out the right words. “You two are close, this tension is not doing either of you any favours. I’m pretty sure I narrowly prevented Andrew’s disembowelment of Nicky last night. He’s on edge, we all are.”
“Not my problem,” Neil says with a shrug that tightens his chest with the pain blooming in his shoulder. He still hadn’t learnt not to keep still.
“It would be good for you to talk to him, y’know?”
“I’m fine,” Neil says, albeit a little too quickly, and Matt lets out a hollow laugh.
“I don’t think anyone believes you when you say that anymore, Neil.”
Neil doesn’t dignify him with a response. “You should see Abby about your wrist,” is all he offers.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Coach will smack you if it’s worse than you’re letting on,” Neil says.
Matt laughs again, but gets up from the bench. “Not all of us are out here dislocating limbs from playing exy in a blind rage, Neil. A twinge in my wrist is the least of the team’s problems.”
With that he’s gone and Neil is left to watch Andrew again.
Andrew doesn’t miss a step and deflects each attempt at his goal with a fervour Neil isn’t sure he’s ever witnessed in the shorter man before. Andrew doesn’t get this passionate about exy. Maybe Neil wasn’t the only one who used the sport as an outlet, maybe Andrew could find his passion in the feeling of power with a racquet in his hand.
Neil has taken to helping Wymack spot the team’s areas for improvement over the past almost two weeks of being benched. Like how Allison almost trips over her feet when someone gets too close to her when she has the ball, or how Nicky has lost his confidence when it comes to facing off with Kevin. So he watches Andrew, ready to pick apart his performance like he has a microscope in his back pocket.
It’s after a pretty impressive deflection that Andrew’s step falters and Neil’s interest is piqued.
The goalkeeper stops and presses his palm to his ribs, his head down. The stance lingers for just long enough that Neil can tell that he can’t catch his breath.
Neil had never considered his ribs after the CPR. Did any of them break?
Andrew recovers and gives his racquet and experimental swing but Wymack sees the same thing Neil did and calls Andrew off the court.
After a hushed conversation and Andrew’s mumbled responses, he’s sat next to Neil on the bench and Neil knows that his coach is just feeling a little too happy with the forced proximity. Neil tenses and pulls away, careful not to brush shoulders with Andrew.
Andrew doesn’t look at him, just fiddles with his gloves and takes a few awkward breaths around the obvious pain in his chest.
Neil breaks the silence, a little too cocky however. “How are your ribs?” he asks.
“How’s your shoulder?” Andrew bites back.
A stalemate.
They sit in silence.
-
Neil moves back into the dorms that night.
Only having one operational hand does not make things easy but luckily he’s just got a duffel bag and a dream so it doesn’t take him too long even with the handicap.
Before long he’s sitting in a bean bag, chest heaving as he tries to breathe through muscle spasms working their way up and down his arm. Black spots are dancing in his vision and it takes all of his strength to will them away but not before he’s caught floundering.
“You’re not going to be back on the court in time for the game,” Andrew says coldly. Neil knows he doesn’t actually care about the game and is just saying it to get under Neil’s skin but it works.
“Yes, I am,” Neil grits out. He still can’t feel his fingers but he won't give Andrew the satisfaction of being right about anything.
“You’ve got eight days and you just lost a fight with a duffel bag,” he says simply. “You’re toast.”
“I’m fine,” Neil snaps as he sits up. The room tilts.
“You’re seeing stars,” Andrew objects.
Neil doesn’t bother replying to him as he nestles himself back into the bean bag. His arm is settling and he can breathe even now but that doesn’t make Andrew any less correct.
Maybe if he didn’t keep testing the limits of his shoulder he would be better suited to take to the court next Friday but he wasn’t used to slowing down. All he knew how to do was run and now that he couldn’t run the least he was going to do was fight.
“At least let me help you get into the top bunk,” Andrew says after a while. His voice an edge softer now.
“No.”
Andrew tilts his head. “Are you going to sleep there all night?”
“Yes.”
“That’s going to be so good for your busted shoulder.” The sarcasm is not lost on Neil but he can’t do much about it other than grit his teeth.
“I don’t need your pity,” he says.
“Good.” Andrew steps closer, he’s toe-to-toe with Neil now and looming over him. “Because you don’t have it.”
His wrapped arms are folded across his chest and he looks down his nose at Neil. His eyebrows are furrowed.
“What do you want from me?” Neil huffs, wishing he could cross his own arms in some sort of physical barrier between himself and Andrew. He doesn’t like to be so vulnerable when Andrew is always a half-second away from a blade. Maybe he’d plant one firmly in Neil’s fucked shoulder so that he’d never play again.
“I want to know why you’re so angry.”
“I’m always angry,” Neil says, his steely gaze meeting Andrew’s.
“No,” Andrew says, stepping closer so that he pins Neil’s socked toes under the edge of his shoe. “Not like this.”
He doesn’t say the next part but Neil hears it. Not at me.
Neil pulls his foot back into the body of the bean bag and out of Andrew’s grasp. Andrew’s face twitches but Neil doesn’t know what to make of it as the eyes bearing down on him do not waver.
Instead of backing down he poises to strike. “Why’d you do it?”
Something unreadable flashes across Andrew’s face but he steps closer. Neil is running out of space to retreat. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
Another flash. This time in Neil. His hands. Shaking fingers under Andrew’s nose, wrenching his jaw open, thundering on his chest.
Andrew sees something on his face but Neil is watching the rise and fall of his chest. Not artificial this time, if Neil reaches out with his good arm his palm would feel the movement of it because of how close Andrew is standing to him.
Stupidly, he speaks. “You’re breathing.”
Andrew looks confused. “Of course I am.”
Something in Neil’s chest twists. It hurts as it pulls at his ribs and windpipe, bending and crushing his organs. “You weren’t.”
Andrew’s rage falters then. Maybe he’s clued onto the fact that behind Neil’s forced anger there’s just a smouldering pile of hurt. It stings and Neil swears Andrew can smell it.
“I’m sorry.”
That gives Neil pause. Apologies are few and far between when it comes to Andrew Minyard and Neil would enjoy it if it were even a modicum of what he wanted to hear.
“I don’t care.”
Hurt whips across Andrew’s usually impassive expression before it is replaced by a simmering rage. “What do you want from me?”
Neil doesn’t want anything from him, he wants to take his brain out and scrub it raw and bleeding until he can't remember Andrew's ribs bending under his palms. "I want you to never do it again.”
Maybe it’s a good thing that Andrew can read him like a book. “I-” his voice squeaks a little as it crawls out of his throat. “I won’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Andrew sinks to his knees in front of Neil and hovers a hand over Neil’s thigh. “Yes or no?” he asks.
No. Neil wants to say no. “Yes.”
It’s always yes when it comes to Andrew.
Andrew drops his palm softly onto Neil’s jeans and lets the weight of it sit there. “I don’t know why I did it,” head bowed, he won’t meet Neil’s eye, “but I won’t do it again.”
Preparing a scathing remark, any objection Neil had dies in his throat when Andrew looks up at him. There’s something in his face, if he were looking at anyone else there would be tears but Andrew doesn’t do that. He tried to kill himself and still he wouldn’t cry.
There are many new works or with few readings beyond the famous ones, so at least you will find a fanfic you didn't know before!
I have masterlist for:
🚒Buddie: 694 (for now)
💫Wolfstar: 308 (for now)
🚬Andriel (and Jerejean): 55 (for now)
🔮Steddie: 38 (for now)
Remember that at least once a month, the lists are updated.
Also, the difference in quantity is due to the amount of fanfics in AO3 of each ship.
I did this for fun and I hope you can share it with everyone who wants to! But if you can and want to help me go to law school next year, I'd appreciate any donations you can give me. My Paypal account is @groupielove21 or [email protected]
Thank you so much in advance and I hope you enjoy your readings!❣️
there's a special place in my heart for aus where neil is an absolute cryptid and the monsters and/or upperclassmen know that andrew is with someone and they've seen them together but not one of them can figure out who this man is and we deserve more of them
