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Neil shuts the taxi door behind him and looks up at his three-storey Victorian as the car speeds away. There's a new car propped up on cinderblocks in the driveway, rusted wheel discs lying abandoned next to the tarp. It must have been a last-minute find, Andrew hadn't mentioned anything about eyeing a new project before Neil had left. Maybe in a few days he'd break out his lawn chair and watch Andrew dig around in it.
His trip hadn't been long, but it had been longer than anticipated and the extra days had crawled by like extra weeks. All hustle with the unexpected change in plans he hadn't been able to call home other than to say he'd be away a few more days. Somehow he's even busier in retirement as an MLE analyst and general exy celebrity than he'd ever been as a player.
It's good though. It keeps him on his toes.
But the times his job cuts into his personal time he almost resents it. He should have had nearly a week off to laze around but now it was barely a long weekend. He'll have to steal the time back somewhere else, he refuses to let the camera have a single minute of his time that he could give to Andrew instead. Speaking of.
All the lights are still on in all the rooms they use. Living room, dining room, bedroom, kitchen, even the workshop. It's such a waste of energy but Andrew always leaves the lights on for him when he's been away. So he has something bright to come home to.
Neil unlocks the front door and steps into the front hall. He hangs his coat in the closet and puts his shoes in the rack, but throws his travel bag onto the armchair instead of taking it right up to the bedroom like he's supposed to. He'll get to it, either tomorrow or Wednesday or a month from now. Andrew won't move it himself but he will glare at it on the chair every day.
Rolling out his shoulder, Neil pads down the long hallways looking for his partner.
The house is warm and the air smells like dry, well-worn wood and lingering curry spices, the floor a little rough against his bare feet. Already he can feel his muscles unfurling at the familiarity, the weight of the long conference and nightmare airplane delays settling over him. He could finally anticipate a good night's sleep now in his own bed.
He finds Andrew in the kitchen, washing dishes at the sink with his back to the hall. Neil leans his shoulder against the doorway and appreciates his familiar shape under the lamplight, the shifting shadows of his shoulders as he scrubs the wok.
"Staring," Andrew grumbles, not even glancing over his shoulder.
Neil smiles, cheek smooshing against his shoulder. "Admiring," he corrects.
Andrew just grunts. He still hasn't even looked at Neil. He'll be stripping off the nonstick coating soon if he keeps scrubbing the pan.
"Did you miss me?" Neil asks.
"I miss the peace and quiet."
"You hate peace and quiet," Neil reminds him. Andrew is cresting on the edge of a bad mood, Neil can tell in the way he won't turn to look at him, the extra strain around the edges of his voice. He's trying though, keeping up their banter and teasing. It's not quite a bad day, but close to one. The sort of day where the tides have risen until they lap around Andrew's legs and slow down his steps, but haven’t swept him off his feet yet.
Neil pushes off the doorframe and pads across the kitchen, keeping his footfalls heavy and deliberate, so Andrew will know he's approaching. "I missed you," Neil tells him as he reaches the sink. Neil's never been shy about making sure Andrew knows that he's the axis Neil's world rotates around. Most days he can get away with it in a touch or a gesture, skating around the words with a joke. Other days, he needs to tear down any veneer between them, to make sure Andrew knows. That he's loved, that he's missed.
Slowly, Neil slips his arms around Andrew's waist. When he's not rejected, he settles in against Andrew's back, sliding his hands into place on Andrew's hips, nuzzling his face into its spot on Andrew's neck.
"What's wrong?" Neil murmurs into his skin, eyes half closed, tracing little circles with his fingertips. The fact that he'll turn the city upside down to fix whatever it is, goes unsaid.
But instead of a problem to fix, Andrew says, "You were supposed to be home three days ago."
To anyone else it would be ridiculous. Clingy or possessive. But Neil understands. His own worst days with Andrew pass easier than some of his best days without him. After so many years together their sense of comfort is inextricably intertwined. Even silently across rooms and through walls, they ground each other. Apart, they are unmoored.
Andrew had needed an anchor, and Neil hadn't been there. When Andrew had hunkered down to wait for him, Neil had stayed away even longer.
But Andrew hadn't asked him to come home and Neil knew Andrew didn't blame him for the unreliable schedule of a sports celebrity. It hadn't been an emergency, but still Neil knows that he would have been a welcomed comfort.
Remorse is useless and unwelcome, though. Andrew would hold Neil's apologies against him far more than he would the mishap.
He's here now. That's all that matters.
So Neil tightens his arms around his partner and holds him a little closer. "Well I'm home now," Neil assures him.
After a second Neil feels the tension start to ease from Andrew's shoulders. "Whatever," he mumbles. Neil laughs at him, muffling it against his neck, and he's already coming undone.
Andrew sets the meticulously clean wok in the drying rack and rubs down his hands on the towel. "I'm tired," he says, pushing back against Neil and breaking their hold. Neil lets go immediately as Andrew turns to face him. He searches Andrew's face, looking for anything he might have missed. He looks wrung-out, but nothing dark creeps under the surface. He just needs to sleep.
"Let's go to bed, then," Neil smiles
---
They shower together first, to wash away the smell of the airport and the extra days apart.
Andrew offers his back to Neil again and lets him run the loofah across his shoulders and down his arms. His back. His sides. Neil loops his arms around Andrew to draw circles over his chest and heavy stomach, relishing in holding him again. He'll never forget the shape and feel of Andrew, it's burned into his muscle memory as deep as breathing, but he still takes the time to remap it every time he can.
They're quiet under the pounding spray of the water, not talking. They don't kiss either, and their hands don't wander, not even when Neil bends down to wash Andrew's legs. They're just relishing in each other's company tonight, safe and content in each other's hands.
When Neil finishes washing Andrew he offers him the loofah, just in case he wants to reciprocate.
He does tonight, taking it and reapplying more body wash and stepping right into Neil's space, toe-to-toe on the slick porcelain floor.
Neil closes his eyes and leans his head back, Andrew sweeping across his front and the water pounding against his back. It's as nice to be touched as it is to touch again, Andrew's hands firm and steady, sweeping across his skin.
Soon they're clean and shutting off the water, toweling down and stepping out of the shower. They brush their teeth side by side while they wait for their hair to dry enough for bed. Andrew tilts against his side the longer they stand there, his eyelids already starting to droop closed. It seems he didn't get much sleep while Neil was gone, and now that he's back it's all hitting him at once.
They spit, and Neil takes Andrew's hand in his and leads him into the bedroom, grabs them both some soft fleece pants from the dresser on the way to the bed. Andrew barely pulls his on over his hips before falling into the bed and pulling Neil down with him. Neil huffs, slides on his pants while horizontal and slips into Andrew's arms as he pulls Neil into his chest and settles the blanket over them.
Andrew grumbles something incomprehensible, his hands stroking Neil's back and sides, unconsciously following the old patterns of his scars. He's fading fast.
Neil kisses his chest, right over his heart. "Go to sleep, love," Neil smiles, "I'm here." Then he pillows his cheek on Andrew's chest and twines their legs together, listens to Andrew's steady heartbeat under his ear until his breathing evens out a few minutes later. Finally, he closes his own eyes and drifts off.
---
Neil's body wakes him up against his will, bright and early the next morning, straining for its morning run like a dog scratching at the door. He lets out a long, aggrieved sigh, wishing he could just fall back asleep but knowing he won't be able. Instead, he tips his head up to watch Andrew.
They're still in largely the same positions they fell asleep in - Andrew on his back with Neil curled around him on his side, head on his chest - only loose and slack from sleep. Unlike Neil - provided he's not awakened by anything else - Andrew doesn't have an alarm clock buried somewhere in his system. If Neil doesn't move he could lay here for hours, riding the gentle rise and fall of Andrew's breathing.
There are worse ways to spend the day, Neil supposes, than watching the sway of the shadows cast by his partner's eyelashes.
He passes an hour or so like that, cataloguing everything he can see and touch and sense of Andrew under him, inch by inch. It luls him into an almost meditative state.
Andrew is so perfect, so solid and beautiful beneath him. It took them years to be able to sleep tangled together like this. Now, after more than twenty-five years, Andrew is the most comfortable pillow Neil's ever laid his head on, the warmest blanket he's ever wrapped around himself. He can't sleep anywhere quite as soundly as he can sleep right here, in this bed with this man.
Eventually though, he starts itching to get moving, and Andrew shows no sign of waking up soon. So he begins the glacial process of extracting himself from the bed. Andrew is still a perilously light sleeper, if not one that awakes with a knife in hand at the lightest feather touch anymore, and Neil wants to let him sleep as long as he can.
By the time he slides himself over to the edge of the bed, it's almost 10am, hours later than when he usually gets up.
As soon as he stands, Andrew lets out a long groan behind him, one arm flailing as though searching for something.
"Don' go," he grumbles. He's not even properly awake, just barely cognizant enough to realize that Neil isn't by his side anymore.
The warmth of being so known overflows from Neil. "I'm just going for my run," he lies.
"Bullshit," Andrew protests, though if he's caught Neil or if he's simply bemoaning his absence is unclear. "Stay," he calls, throwing his arm over his eyes, "Wan' you here."
Neil almost caves and crawls back into bed, to tangle back together until he loses track of where one of them ends and the other begins. It would be so easy.
"Go back to sleep," he says instead. He has something to do. "You won't even know I'm gone."
Andrew harrumphs and flops over onto his stomach, pulling the blanket up over his head to block out the sun. "'Always know when you're gone," he mumbles, but he's already fading back into sleep again.
Neil could just die right there; he's so blessed by this life, but whatever comes next could never compare to what he has here, now.
He doesn't bother to grab a shirt or anything as he slips out of the room and pads down the hallway to the stairs. It's a big house. The kitchen is far enough away from the bedroom that Andrew shouldn't know he's still in the house if he's quiet.
He starts a pot of coffee first, then leaves the machine to brew as he moves to check the refrigerator. They have an overwhelming amount of mixed berries, which Andrew swears comprises sixty percent of Neil's diet. Not that he doesn't eat them too, if maybe not quite as much.
Humming tunelessly to himself, Neil pulls out everything he needs. The berries. Milk, eggs, and flour. Etcetera etcera. Andrew does more of the cooking, but Neil is just as capable, though not as skilled. But fruit pancakes are easy.
He makes a dozen, with a side scramble of eggs and spinach, because the eating habits of a professional athlete are hard to let go. Piling dishes, mugs, food, and silverware on their largest cutting board to act as a tray, Neil snags the whole steaming coffee pot and the jug of maple syrup (pure) and begins to make his precarious way back up the stairs.
He must make a racket moving, because as he pushes into the bedroom Andrew is already pulling the blanket off his head, blinking blearily. "Liar," he mutters.
Neil beams at him over the pile of food, making his way over to the bedside, pushing everything to the back of the nightstand as he slides the board onto it.
"Breakfast," he grins, kneeling on the edge of the bed and cupping Andrew's face in his palms, bringing him in to kiss, over and over, deep and effortless and dizzying. Andrew wraps his arms around him and drags him the rest of the way onto the bed, into his lap, until they're chest to chest again, moving against each other in their perfect, familiar rhythm.
They break apart only far enough to lean their foreheads together and catch their breath.
"So," Andrew drawls, "Are you breakfast too?"
Neil smirks. Rolls his hips down and kisses the underside of Andrew's jaw. "I could be," he purrs, "If you're hungry."
Neil's back hits the mattress as Andrew flips them, bearing down on him. "Starving," he growls, and kisses him again.
---
They have to eat the pancakes cold.