soft andreil because it’s v day & these boys own my heart, i’m sorry in advance?? now excuse me while i go put my andreil playlist on repeat
So there are nights when Neil just watches Andrew sleep because he can’t fall asleep for whatever reason, and of course, there are always a thousand reasons. The stress of getting back into something as trivial as schoolwork after everything that’s happened, dealing with the new additions to the foxes who Neil sometimes feels were placed there just to torment him further, the PTSD and the bad dreams, that drumming fear in his chest & that odd twitch in his feet that still function on an old familiar instinct to run and just get the hell out.
On those nights looking at Andrew, asleep and undettered by his side is therapeutic, it reminds him that this, this, this is what he’s fought for all these years without even realizing it. This sense of stability, home, hearth.
Sometimes it collides with a warring sense of utter disbelief. There are times Neil still wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat afraid out of his mind that he’ll be alone in some strange city somewhere, or trapped in Edgar Allan with nothing but Riko’s abuse for company or watching his mother’s corpse go up in flames at a beach. There are times Neil has to sit down and relearn breathing, times he has to remind himself that this isn’t some cruel dream. That he gets to keep this. No hallucinations. No sick games. Just this. The two of them. Together.
Watching Andrew sleep always sends the haunting thoughts spiraling away, because all he can focus on is the loose set of Andrew’s jaw, the dim fluttering of his pale lashes that catch the moonlight like powdered sugar and the way his breaths come and go.
How lucky he is, he thinks, to be the one to get to have Andrew like this, in the way nobody else gets to. He would never admit it to anyone, but sometimes, he feels almost smug about it.
But mostly, he feels grateful. Grateful for the kisses and the keys and the company, for the trust. He couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be for Andrew to let himself fall asleep next to someone else, to not yank out the knife everytime he feels Neil twist in his sleep or hears Neil’s breathing at his ear, to restrain his movements so that he doesn’t wake in a violent spasm and break one of Neil’s ribs in the process.
Andrew’s an extremely light sleeper, so sometimes he thinks he knows Neil’s watching him, can probably trace his gaze blind, but he never says anything about it, never reprimands him over it. Neil’s just glad he doesn’t have to hear Andrew go “stop looking at me like that” with his eyes closed and feigning sleep.
Neil can’t help but think how young and unimpeachable Andrew looks in his sleep. The way the light spills into his hair, how it frames him like a portrait that deserves to hang in an art museum somewhere. Sometimes, Neil thinks, Andrew tries so hard to appear baleful, that the people around him forget that he’s just a damaged kid, coping against all odds, in the only way he knows how.
He really will be pummeling someone six ways to Sunday if they ever try to convince him Andrew’s a sociopath ever again.
Some nights, when neither of them can sleep, Andrew just silently gets up and grabs the keys for the Maserati before heading out the door, knowing Neil will follow.
And they drive and they drive with no particular destination in mind. Sometimes they’ll talk. Most times they don’t. They just soak in the reassurance of the other’s presence like they might run out if they don’t keep acknowledging it. Usually, they don’t bother to turn on the radio. They both appreciate the silence. Sometimes Andrew will allow Neil to crack a window. They’ll enjoy the night breeze, the sound of the tires squelching smoothly against the asphalt, a weirdly calming percussion.
Tonight, Neil’s feeling experimental. He flips on the radio and Andrew says nothing about it. Not an approval, but not a negative either.
There is something torrentially exhilarating about driving as far away from Palmetto State University as possible then turning right back instead of skittering off into the unknown. He’s mapped these roads into the back of his hand, he knows them like he knows his own name. He knows he’ll always find his way back from here. Back home.
The song on the radio intones what he’s feeling, the artist says we’re running on fumes but we’ll make it through the night.
Sometimes they’ll park the car on the edge of the highway and kiss each other until they can’t feel their mouths. Neil thinks Andrew is the only thing that keeps him grounded sometimes, that keeps him from having a virtual panic attack every ten minutes.
“You’re real,” Neil says, between kisses, it was meant to be a statement but it comes out as a question. “As real as you.” Andrew’ll reply. He knows how much Neil needs to hear that, even if it gets repetitive and annoying, he knows he needs to keep being reminded that he’s home now, and that he’s fractured & reeling & disturbed but that he’s okay.
When they do eventually go back to sleep, Neil will wake up before Andrew just to run a finger through his hair or over the ridges of his cheeks as he sleeps so that he can memorize this touch, the feeling of this touch, burn it into his brain for when it gets bad again.
