Andrew had shit to do this afternoon, but for the past hour, he’s been trapped in a beanbag chair by Neil’s sleeping body weight. He doesn’t even have the remote in reaching distance, so he can’t change the channel away from ESPN.
Neil — whose legs are across Andrew’s lap — is going to be so mad when Andrew fails his sociology paper and gets kicked off the team because their captain couldn’t locate his own mattress.
Whatever. Neil’s head is on his shoulder, so Andrew amuses himself by wrapping a particularly ringlet-y curl of Neil’s around his finger and stretching it, letting it spring back into place again and again. Neil’s arm is draped loosely over Andrew’s middle, so Andrew keeps two fingers pressed to his wrist, lulled into patience by the steady beat of Neil’s pulse.
Suddenly, Neil twitches. A short, startled whine punches out of parted lips, muffled against Andrew’s collarbone.
“Neil,” Andrew says firmly, and Neil curls in toward the sound of his voice, fingers gripping at the fabric of Andrew’s shirt.
“Baby gator bit my ankle,” Neil mumbles.
Andrew, who had been steeling himself for the resurgence of a gory memory or a dream-induced panic attack, finds himself huffing in amusement.
“No, it didn’t,” Andrew says.
The tension bleeds out of Neil immediately.
“Oh,” he says, and then his breathing evens out once again.
When Andrew looks up, Kevin’s imperious face is on the screen — ESPN has decided to torture Andrew with a segment on the National Exy League’s star rookie. Andrew sighs, rests his cheek on the top of Neil’s head, and resigns himself to the reality of the moment.
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