neil dylandy and Q for that writing meme, go :>
for a minute i forgot what this was about and thought you meant q from star trek
He refused the calls when he was fifteen, feeling betrayed and furious that Lyle had just fucked off back to boarding school now of all times. Not that there were many to begin with, but Neil would watch the display ring out on each one out of principle.
He didn’t answer when he was seventeen, running with the kind of people Mam would darkly call ‘lost souls’ in a frustratingly futile attempt at reaching someone who could carry some blame for the bombing. He wasn’t proud of what he was doing, but he was long past caring - except that he still didn’t want Lyle to know. He didn’t want the fight, not any more, but more importantly he didn’t want to face Lyle’s judgement.
Nor did he answer when he was nineteen, out of the gangs and in the army, equally frustrated but now with a growing kill-count, because however much he missed his brother he knew there would be an argument about the money that was anonymously arriving in Lyle’s account every month, and Neil refused to give him an excuse not to accept it.
He couldn’t answer when he was twenty, after hiding the name Neil Dylandy behind Level Seven locks and joining Celestial Being. Even keeping his old phone was probably a violation of secrecy, but it wasn’t even as if Lyle really tried any more. As long as all he did was watch the display light up with Lyle’s name and fade out, and let those years of missed calls notifications pile up, Neil-- Lockon Stratos figured nobody else needed to know.
He was 24, and the door to his room was buckling as he slammed his entire body weight into it for the third time. As it crashed open, the faint noise of the phone began, buzzing insistently in its bag at the bottom of his closet. Neil ran out of the destroyed doorway towards the Gundam hangar.