Chapter Text
Follow You Through The Dark
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Part One: The Agreement
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“I need your help.”
Andrew doesn’t look up from painting his penultimate fingernail, the varnish thick and glossy as he curves it around the edge of his cuticle. He knows the desperation in his brother’s voice is an act at best; Aaron has snuck into his bedroom after dinner, practically tiptoeing his way over to Andrew’s side as he works. If the situation were as dire as he would have Andrew believe, he’d have tried to seek him out earlier.
“You can’t afford my help.” It’s a truth, Aaron loves to ask for things but seldom pays for their price. The fact that Andrew will almost always indulge him anyway is a secret he will take to his grave.
“Name it and it’s yours.” That catches his attention and Andrew smears the black polish over the edge of his pinky nail when he looks up. Carte Blanche is a dangerous game to play with someone as clever and as petty as Andrew knows himself to be.
Perhaps his brother truly is as desperate as he seems.
Aaron recognizes that he’s caught Andrew’s attention, if not his approval, and jams a hand into the front pocket of his light blue hoodie, pulling out a square of paper so worn looking, Andrew thinks it would feel like cotton if he touched it.
“Hear me out-”
Andrew doesn’t have time for these dramatics if he’s going to fix his pinky nail before bed- he makes to snatch for the paper but Aaron is quicker, holding it behind his back and wagging his finger in Andrew’s face.
“Just- listen, okay? I need five Saturdays of your time-”
“This attitude is not endearing me to whatever stupid favour you’re planning to ask of me,” Andrew tells him, screwing on the top of the nail polish before his brother can knock another thirteen-dollar bottle onto his rug. The stain from the last “accident” stares up at him, looking oddly like the threatening smiley face on the front of his brother’s hoodie. Andrew fights the urge to cover it with his sock.
Aaron blows his hair out of his eyes, hopelessly in need of a haircut and not whatever inane thing he’s angling for but Andrew watches him steel his spine with a small flicker of pride. The Aaron Minyard Andrew had met as a surly teenager might have shrunken under his put upon disinterest but years removed from Tilda Minyard’s heavy hands has done nothing but let his brother flourish into someone willing to stick up for himself.
Andrew will blame these sentimental thoughts for why he agrees to his brother’s request later.
Aaron unfolds what Andrew now realizes is a bright yellow poster and holds it up between them like he's the harried sheriff of a one-horse town looking for a masked bandit that's been terrorizing his fine folk for years.
(Andrew has probably been watching too many late-night westerns to deal with his insomnia lately. )
“Don’t say no-”
“No.”
“ Andrew -” Aaron shakes the paper a little in frustration before composing himself. “It’s a quiz bowl. Basic trivia. It runs for five consecutive weekends and there’s a prize at the end. I need you and your sponge brain to help me win.”
His brother has asked him for many things since Bee had pulled Andrew aside to tell him he had a doppelganger wandering around San Jose, California causing trouble but this might be the dumbest thing Aaron has ever asked him to do.
A trivia competition. A weekend trivia competition. As if Andrew doesn’t have the intentionally crafted reputation of being a dastardly misanthrope to uphold. Andrew didn’t do nerd things because Andrew didn’t care about them. Doing a fucking quiz bowl, sponsored by- Andrew leans in to read the small script on the poster and feels his face twitch in an aborted cringe- the Palmetto State Enrichment Society, whatever the fuck that was- would be the absolute last thing the Andrew Minyard he’s been projecting to the world would ever do.
It should also be the last thing Aaron Minyard would want to do too, considering his already monstrous workload as a pre-med student on a full scholarship.
Andrew narrows his eyes. “Why?”
His brother visibly swallows, an almost comical gulp he partners with an uneasy, completely not casual shrug. “No reason. It just seems like fun.”
And that is the moment Andrew knows that this is about a girl .
“ Ugh -” he turns away from the image of his brother’s patheticness with a noise of disgust. The only thing Andrew wants to do less than participate in a school-sponsored trivia game night is to participate in a school-sponsored trivia game night with the intention of getting his brother laid.
Aaron shuffles closer, not touching because he knows better but still somehow shoving the flopping poster paper under Andrew’s nose. “There’s a prize-”
“Not interested.”
“It’s free ice cream-”
“Astounding use of our tuition dollars.”
“For a year-”
“Truly amazing-”
“From Sweetie’s.”
That halts his ongoing denials. Andrew doesn’t know he’s given himself away, eyes jerking up to land on his brother’s smug expression before Aaron schools his smirk into a smaller grin.
“Sweetie’s,” Andrew prompts because if he’s going to debase himself for ice cream, he’s going to make sure the terms of this deal are crystal clear and unbreakable.
“They’re sponsoring the location and the prize this year,” Aaron confirms, holding out the poster for Andrew to take for himself. The words are underlined three times for emphasis. “Last year the prize was an edible arrangement from the drama club president’s grandmother so it’s kind of a big deal.”
Despite what his family might think about him, Andrew isn’t a big sweets person. His peculiar pallet just prefers bold flavours- spicy jalapenos, salty pretzels and Sweetie’s in-house triple chocolate caramel ripple crunch. He’s selective , not picky.
(Andrew is sure there’s a much deeper meaning to his attachment to this particular brand of ice cream, stemming from the memory of Bee sitting across from him in her fuzzy lavender sweater and telling him that he was never going back into the foster care system because she was taking him home with her but Andrew prefers to subscribe to the idea that Sweetie’s ice cream simply changed him as a person on a base, molecular level.)
The point is that Andrew would do numerous, highly illegal things to get free Sweetie’s ice cream for an entire year. Up to and including this damn trivia competition.
“Fine,” he says, ignoring the fact that Aaron actually fist pumps when he agrees. “I want you to know I am not doing this for you.”
His brother shrugs but there’s something lighter about his step now, something genuine in the slight hint of a smile on his lips. “Yeah, yeah you’re only in it for the ice cream.”
Aaron doesn’t roll his eyes but Andrew gets the distinct feeling that he wants to and that’s more than enough sass from him. He crumples the poster paper up into a ball, nailing Aaron squarely on the nose with a well-placed toss.
“Get out of my room,” he says, uncapping the bottle of nail polish remover at his feet. “I’m busy and you have to sign us up.”
Aaron unballs the paper, refolding it into a small square that he hides back in his hoodie pocket. He waits until Andrew is soaking the varnish off his pinky nail to say, “Naw, I did that yesterday, I knew you’d say yes if I asked.”
He bolts down the hallway before Andrew can take back his promise.
He doesn't even close Andrew's bedroom door.
Dick.
~*~*~
The rules of the quiz bowl, as Aaron explains over his cinnamon toast crunch, are nebulous and secretive. No one knows which categories will be selected on which days, no one involved in the organization of the quiz shall compete in the event and between the two of them, literature, biology, chemistry and law are covered.
It’s everything else that’s up in the air. Including pop culture.
“You’re gay , how do you not know who Lady Gaga is?” Aaron asks a line of sugary milk slipping down over his chin that he wipes away with the palm of his hand before licking it off. Andrew watches him with abject disgust, too stunned by the anguish of being awake to speak.
He does know who Lady Gaga is- his car has a radio after all, even if that style of music isn’t his taste- but it’s much more fun to pretend that he doesn’t when he’s being pelted with unnecessary information at seven in the morning.
“A relative of the British Monarchy?” He raps, keeping his face straight and bored enough that Aaron hesitates, squinting across the table at him in bleary-eyed uncertainty. His expression doesn’t change but some part of his brother- that innate twin connection neither of them has been able to explain to people who weren’t copy/pasted in the womb- realizes he’s being fucked with after a long moment of silent staring.
“The first answer you give is the one they pick so you’re going to need to store that attitude at the Quiz,” Aaron tells him before going back to obnoxiously chewing his now soggy cereal.
His brother should have picked someone else if he wanted someone with less attitude.
Andrew doesn’t say the words- his silence speaks volumes- but Aaron scoffs into the bottom of his cereal bowl, all but scooping the goopy dregs into his open mouth.
“You were the only person stupid enough to agree,” he says smugly before common sense and self-preservation catch up with him. “I mean, I really appreciate it.”
It actually sounds a little sincere and that’s the limit of Andrew’s endurance for human interactions this morning. He smacks a wad of napkins over his brother’s milk mustache on the way out and leaves him to take the bus to campus.
~*~*~
The night of the start of the Quiz settles over Andrew’s nerves with a fine dusting of impending doom.
Truthfully he expects Sweetie’s to be devoid of people between being ground zero for the least entertaining thing Andrew has ever had the misfortune of participating in and it being a Sunday evening, but the parking lot is teeming with unfamiliar cars when they finally pull in at quarter to eight.
The big front windows of Sweetie’s shop front are filled with staff and a ghastly number of their academic peers. The idea that not only will people see him there, but see him participating , makes Andrew’s skin break out in a cold sweat.
Aaron ducks his head, squinting through the fogged-up windshield to gawk at the unknowing crowd. They’re far enough away that faces are impossible to pick out, blurry smears against the fluorescent yellow light of Sweetie’s interior, but Aaron doesn’t seem to care as he presses his forehead almost flat against the cold glass and mutters something rhythmic and staccato to himself.
Andrew takes a moment to tap the beat against his leg and he rolls his eyes when his brain recognizes the melody to Lose Yourself.
He jabs his fist into the horn, a brief punch that startles Aaron enough to make him flinch and bump his head against the glass. He sits back to scowl, petulant and sulky but Andrew does not care.
“Get out,” he says, jerking the keys from the ignition with the air of someone going to the gallows. “I didn’t come here to watch you creep on some girl from the parking lot.”
“I’m not creeping,” Aaron mutters, unbuckling his seatbelt and nervously smoothing his hair at the same time. “You didn’t even want to come.”
“Don’t remind me,” Andrew tells him, locking the car with a quick press of the key fob. The crowd looks bigger out here somehow. “I will go home.”
Aaron ignores him, stalking off across the asphalt at a light jog, entirely too eager to be inside.
Andrew fingers the package of cigarettes in his jacket pocket but the urge to grab a hit of nicotine is quieted by the much larger dread of the rapidly approaching evening activities.
Walking across the parking lot to Sweetie’s has never felt more like a death march.
The bell above the door tinkles softly but the buzzing hum of excited voices all but drowning it out as Andrew slips inside and immediately wants to turn around and leave. More than a few heads turn his way, and Andrew finds himself shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket to glare back when Matthew Boyd does a violently obvious double-take at his arrival.
Three hundred and sixty-five days of ice cream doesn’t seem like enough, given the serious blow to Andrew’s reputation here. Especially if people are going to start thinking he showed up of his own free will.
Sweetie’s isn’t a brand-name ice cream shop by any stretch- it’s locally owned and the best in town- but it does what any small business demands of it and that means kid's parties. Off of the back right of the main dining area is an already almost jam-packed party hall, set up with orange and white streamers and a crookedly hung sign that ominously says ‘THE Q U I Z ’ in smaller and smaller lettering.
Someone has taken a casual wipe across the front of the ancient flat screen hung in the corner. Andrew captures a brief, uninterested glance of the animation of a rubber duck on fire bouncing across the screen before the sight of his brother hiding behind a large menu catches his attention.
Already pushing it at five feet flat, Aaron looks positively child-sized hunching over the peeling laminate tabletop. Their seats are far enough away from the center of the action that Andrew has some plausible deniability of his involvement in this entire event, even if their identical face kiboshes Andrew’s ability to pretend he doesn’t know Aaron from a hole in the wall.
He sits down with a soft sigh, feeling weirdly old among the laughing, hyperactive crowd. Bee would be proud of him for even being here- Andrew’s moderate agoraphobia isn’t much of a family secret but they don’t talk about it beyond that certain soft smile Bee gets when Andrew willingly participates in basically anything social.
The prospect of that smile and the cup of cocoa waiting for him back home is what fortifies him enough to look back at his brother.
Aaron is holding his menu upside-down, eyes on someone across the room.
Andrew doesn’t want to ask.
He doesn’t . He won’t. The curiosity is not eating him alive.
He sighs again, kicking out his legs and crossing his feet at the ankles. He kisses his teeth. "Where is she?"
His brother cuts him a sharp, horrified look. " No ."
Andrew meets his gaze, able and willing to wait him out. Aaron is a creature of impatience and before long succumbs to his nature. He looks to the right and Andrew takes the opportunity to follow his gaze right to the whole point of this embarrassing endeavour.
Whether it’s sheer intuition or their freaky twin ESP, Andrew’s eyes cut through the smaller groups of people to rest on the smiling face of a tall brunette. He doesn’t know her name but he knows her uniform- the garish bright orange sweater with a large white paw print on the front is a staple for the dressed-down members of Palmetto State’s cheerleading squad.
His brother has a crush on a cheerleader.
“You are so predictable-” he starts, his voice a toneless indictment of his brother’s boring personality when the crowd shifts and the man next to Aaron’s cheerleader catches his eye and halts his words.
He looks just as uncomfortable with the crowd as Andrew does but he hides it well, laughing mechanically at whatever joke just made the bubble of people around him laugh. The fluorescent light above them turns the deep red of his hair into a burnt umber colour, washing him out and setting him apart in Andrew’s mind in a way that leaves him disoriented.
Even from across the room, Andrew can see that his eyes are a shockingly bright blue.
“Who is that?” He asks, jutting his chin in the man’s direction. He doesn’t look away, oddly afraid that if he does, the man will blink out of existence but the noise of disgust Aaron makes jolts him back into his body and out of the thrumming state of… something he’d been sinking into.
“ Ugh , that’s Neil Josten. We hate him,” Aaron adds, taking a sip of his ice water. Andrew- who hadn’t even seen the server bring them by- stares at his own damp glass.
“We?”
Aaron sends Neil Josten a vicious side-eye over the rim of his glass. “ Yes . He’s mean, he’s rude, he thinks he’s better than everyone else because he’s a track star and some sort of math genius- pick a struggle already, jerk.”
Andrew looks back at Josten, clocks the varsity sports jacket he’s got tied around his waist like a confused barbeque dad at an amusement park. The clothes should be a turnoff but Andrew’s a little horrified to discover they’re working for him.
“What class do you have him in?” Because the crux of all his brother’s rivalries have stemmed from being academically challenged or bested.
Aaron sips at his water angrily, nearly choking on it. “Statistics. He’s a menace to society.”
Oh . Just Andrew’s type then.
As if he can hear them talking about him, Neil Josten’s head shoots up to pin Andrew to his seat. His stare is intense, even at a distance, a physical weight against Andrew’s skin but probably not in the way Neil Josten thinks it is.
If it’s meant to be an intimidation tactic, it blows. Andrew has met scarier people in the toothpaste aisle at Target. He watches Neil look over him once, eyes flicking over to where Aaron is probably glaring sulky little holes into his head before a slow smirk curls at the corners of his mouth.
Somehow, Andrew knows that Neil thinks they’re an easy mark and that with one look he’s thrown down a challenge without saying a word.
Andrew uncrosses one arm to tap two fingers to his brow. Challenge accepted.
“Hey, hey, hey!”
Jeremy Knox bounces onto the slightly raised flooring at the back of the room, nearly taking the crookedly hung banner out with his forehead as he goes. The mic in his hand screeches, the feedback so jarring half the crowd winces and covers their ears.
Knox taps the mic, but the sound reverberates through the room until he yanks the cord out of the bottom and tosses the mic over his shoulder. “We don’t need that, bring it in everyone! Come on, squeeze together- that’s right.”
Aaron makes to get out of his seat but Andrew grabs the back of his hoodie with one hand, keeping his brother in place with a firm look.
Knox nods and starts shaking the hands of a few of the students crowded in at the front of the raised platform, like a charismatic rockstar greeting his fans. There’s an air about him, something too polished to be real but too earnest to not be genuine.
He gives Andrew the absolute creeps .
“Thank you and welcome back for the third consecutive year…..The Quiz!”
Andrew tries to get the attention of one of the servers walking by but Knox calls out his thanks to Sweetie’s for hosting, his thanks to the crowd for coming, his thanks for modern technology when what Andrew assumes to be his assistant re-attaches the cord back into the microphone and adjusts the feedback for him.
The server walks out of the room with a flush high on her cheeks, completely ignoring Andrew’s slightly raised hand.
This is the moment Jeremy Knox makes himself an enemy. Andrew is tired and hungry and being ignored is the last straw.
He’s carried grudges for much less.
“This year we have a record number of participating teams, including last year’s champions,” Knox continues, jauntily putting a hand over his eyes as if to shield them from a spotlight. “Where are they- there they are!”
A couple of people Andrew has never seen before in his life wave shyly at the crowd as Knox whistles loudly. Andrew is sure they’re being punk’d.
“There’s a list of all contestants on that board-” he points to a poster hung up near the washrooms that Andrew has to squint at to read. “-be sure to check the date and time of your match up during the round-robin next week. You’ll be given a comprehensive list of which topics will be included in this year’s quiz but not in which order they will appear.”
The lights start to flicker, like some foreboding sign of incoming damnation although Andrew can see it’s just another Jeremy Knox intern flipping the switches with frantic fingers at the back of the room.
Knox’s voice cuts down to a near whisper.
“And now,” he says, crouching down until even Andrew is straining to see the top of his golden blond head. “The one you’ve all been waiting for…..” Matt Boyd starts to drum his hands on the top of his table.
"Claude!”
A group of people to Andrew’s right snap their fingers while someone a couple of booths over lets out an actual wolf-whistle. Knox surges up from behind the table, pulling his hand out from underneath the wrinkled plastic tablecloth to reveal a large, yellow rubber duck.
As he holds it above his head, Andrew can see that it’s old- the paint that makes up the large eyes chipped away until it gives the duck a permanently cross-eyed expression.
As Jeremy nods along to the claps and hoots of the audience, the duck still held aloft, Andrew leans across their two-person table to set his brother with a stern, disbelieving look. “Is this a freaking cult?”
Aaron crosses his arms defensively. “ No .”
Someone starts up a chant, the repetition of duck! duck! duck! filling the shop until Aaron’s expression dips into uncertainty. “I’d know if it was a cult.”
Andrew stares at him until he looks away because truthfully, his brother probably wouldn't know if the Quiz was a secret cover for a campus-sponsored cult.
Aaron, their bright-eyed doctor-in-training, had proudly brought home a $500 bill for Bee's simple tire rotation last week , telling them both that he'd splurged for the platinum member luxe air option.
Platinum. Luxury. Tire. Air.
Andrew had had to leave the house to stifle his urge to laugh as Bee gently explained that there was no such thing and that he’d just been had.
His brother is either going to be a brilliant doctor or the unintentional head of a multi-level marketing scheme by graduation. Andrew has money on the latter.
The crowd starts to disperse after their featherless leader makes its appearance, breaking off into groups to order dessert. One of Knox’s interns dashes around the room, shoving printed sheets of computer paper into everyone’s hands with a breathlessness that makes Andrew feel exhausted to look at her.
Aaron takes a copy with a muttered thanks and Andrew takes Aaron’s copy out of his hands without a word.
“You’re welcome,” Aaron says, snappish and annoyed but he doesn’t take the paper back.
There are nine other teams- Andrew recognizes Renee Walker and Kevin Day but not their partners. His eyes scan over the usual suspects- names and people he knows through Renee and Aaron but aren’t truly friends with himself. Matthew Boyd and Danielle Wilds from his Classical Literature class. Allison Reynolds and Seth Gordon. Dermott and Alvarez from the Palmetto State Out and About Club- they’ve never spoken but Alvarez has silently nodded at him at the start of every meeting and that’s just about the only level of friendship Andrew approves of most days.
He pauses at an unfamiliar name, his brain taking a second to recognize the last name Hawking. “Gorilla is here.”
Aaron’s bored expression collapses into skepticism. “Yeah right.”
Andrew hands him the paper without another word, watching his brother’s eyes widen. “No way- why would he enter a quiz bowl? He’s dumb as rocks.”
Aaron mutters the last part, looking around the room as if the man in question might hear him. Andrew understands the feeling even if he hates it. Gorilla had terrorized Aaron when he’d first been adopted by Bee, shoving him into lockers and knocking his books to the floor between classes. His brother had hidden the bullying until Andrew had seen it for himself and now…
Now Gorilla probably has an acute fear of tiny, blond men.
Andrew opens his mouth to say something but closes it with a quiet click of his teeth. Reassurances aren’t really his thing and there’s no one here to threaten besides a name on a piece of paper. The urge is still there though, a bubbling building need to remind his brother that no one will lay a hand on him again. Not while Andrew is around.
Aaron looks at him quietly, as if he knows what Andrew wants to say even if the words are never truly spoken between them and that understanding is enough.
The moment pops and settles just as a high, clear voice shouts from across the room.
“Aaron!”
Andrew watches his brother’s expression morph from beleaguered younger brother to something cocky and self-assured. It happens quickly- between one blink and the next, Aaron has relaxed back into his seat, his arm draped casually over the back of his chair as the cheerleader from across the room comes to stand at the edge of their table.
There's electricity to the air, something charged and challenging. Andrew has never seen his brother go from the massive dweeb he knows him to be to this .
“Hey. Katelyn.”
Katelyn sends Andrew a brief look, not unkind but clear that her attention is focused solely on Aaron and not his antisocial brother. Andrew kind of respects her nerve- not many people would dismiss him so easily.
“I didn’t know you were signing up this year,” she says and there it is- that specific tone again. Interested, inquiring, with just the hint of an edge, like she’s chewing on tough gum.
Aaron shrugs. “You kept talking about it, I figured it was time to see what all the fuss was about.”
His brother’s voice is noticeably lower, a bro’ed out version of someone who hadn’t all but begged Andrew to help him win this competition. He can’t seem to tear himself away when Katelyn sets her hand on Aaron’s side of the table and leans in and over him, making his brother tip his head back to keep her gaze.
“I just thought that, since you had so much trouble with Professor Winfield’s class last semester, you’d want to focus more on keeping up your GPA…”
Aaron’s mouth twitches like he wants to smile. “I think I’ll survive- how’s Spanish going, by the way? Doesn't my cousin run his tutoring sessions right about now?”
It clicks for Andrew over the span of a single breath that they’re flirting . This is some weird brand of intellectual foreplay for them and Andrew is sitting mired in the middle of it, an unwilling audience to their enemies-to-lovers rom-com roleplay.
The air isn’t charged, it’s hormonal and that’s enough to get him out of his seat.
He needs a cigarette. He needs a drink and for someone to invent a way for Andrew to send his past self a warning to shut the door in Aaron’s face the moment he tries to come in through it.
Katelyn jerks back at Andrew’s sudden movement but this time he’s the one ignoring her.
“I’m going for a smoke, Batman,” he says, just pointedly enough to watch Aaron flush with the realization that Andrew has witnessed all of that before he makes his way through the crowds of people.
Sweetie’s has a side exit Andrew knows from experience hasn’t been truly hooked up to the security system since the early nineties, and it’s that door that he slips out of now. No one looks up as the door makes a quiet click and the cool, wet air of the October night has him taking a deep breath. He feels bigger out in the dark somehow, like the crush of people, of strangers and being social, is a physical weight against his ribs now removed.
Alone, he can breathe again. He digs his pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, smacking it against his palm.
The sounds of distant traffic, of wet tires and rumbling engines, overtakes the noise of the crowd inside Sweetie’s. If he tries, Andrew can still hear the low murmuring of unfamiliar voices, the click and clang of dishes from the back kitchen, the-
“ Fuck .”
The curse of a stranger in the night. Andrew’s hand tightens on his cigarette pack as he looks around the wide opening of the alley he’s in. Sweetie’s sits side-by-side next to a taller office building full of metal fire escapes, their ladders crackled and rust-coloured from years of disuse.
At the mouth of the alley, the silhouette of a man catches his attention. A sudden burst of sparks isn’t enough to light up his face but Andrew somehow already knows the shape of him.
Neil Josten.
The rasp of a lighter refusing to catch covers the sound of his tread as Andrew walks towards Neil’s hunched form. There’s a cigarette dangling precariously between his lips, unlit as the light in his hand continues to throw sparks but not flames.
Andrew lights his own smoke, inhaling and exhaling gray air into the night. Neil’s eyes cut away from his own cupped hands to stare at him, his eyes dark as they flicker between the cigarette, the black nail polish, and the silver lighter.
Andrew offers it to him wordlessly and after a moment, Neil reaches out and takes it. “Thanks.”
They eye each other warily but Neil is the one to look away first, flicking open the silver top of Andrew’s lighter with deft fingers, and holding the light up to his face as he inhales. The glow of the flame makes him look like he’s splashed with gold, like he’s holding a tiny sun in the palm of his hand before it clicks off and drops them back into the navy darkness.
The lighter is warm from the heat of the flame and the warmth of Neil’s hand when he gives it back. Andrew keeps his own hand clenched around it in his pocket and leans his shoulder against the damp brick wall as they smoke in complete silence.
Well, Andrew smokes. Neil cups the orange-red end of his cigarette against the wind and holds it close to his face, letting the ash fall onto the cuffs of his jacket.
He’s genuinely bizarre and Andrew’s skin itches with how much he wants to know everything about him.
Neil catches him looking and raises his eyebrows. Andrew raises one back.
“You’re wasting a perfectly good cigarette.”
Neil tilts said cigarette in his hand as if he’s never seen one before. “I like the smell.”
“No one likes the smell, that’s weird.”
Neil laughs at him, a quiet huff of noise that has Andrew leaning in, inexplicably drawn towards the sound. Neil turns to face him, deliberately inhaling the smoke drifting up into the night until Andrew rolls his eyes and lets it go.
He wants to know things about this man in a way he seldom does with strangers- Andrew has been attracted to good-looking men before but there’s something perplexing about Neil, like he’s a math puzzle waiting to be solved, like he’s a radio frequency only Andrew can hear among a wash of static.
Andrew could ask any number of questions- about PSU, about the unsmoked but nearly burnt-out cigarette, about why Neil is out here and not inside with the crowd- but what comes out of his mouth is a flat “what’s with the duck?”
Neil eyes briefly him before looking around the front of the alley as if he could spot the specific specimen of waterfowl Andrew was talking about. “There’s a duck?”
Andrew jerks his thumb over his shoulder towards Sweetie’s. “The duck. The chanting.” The possibility everyone inside could currently be getting ritually sacrificed to sate the duck’s thirst for blood.
Neil’s confusion clears. “Oh, you mean Claude?”
Claude. Claude the rubber duck . Against everything inside him telling him it’s a bad idea, Andrew finds himself spiralling into a mild obsession with a piece of anthropized bathtub paraphernalia. “He’s French?”
Neil nods. “Jeremy named him Claude so Jean wouldn’t get homesick.”
Andrew doesn’t know any of these people personally but he recognizes the name Jean from the list of teams. “Did it work?”
“No, but Claude is an international internet celebrity and gets 10% off of the athletic merch at the PSU student shop on campus if you use his promo code.”
“Of course he does.” Andrew’s voice is a desert.
Something crashes loudly in the restaurant behind them before a chorus of cheering goes up, the sound dulled by the thick walls. The night feels like a physical barrier between them and the world, not heavy and oppressive but private. Like hands cupped against the wind.
Neil looks back at the door. “You’re missing all the action- the first night can get pretty rowdy. Matt still has the serving plate he stole from Red Lobster in his dorm from last year.”
Andrew flicks the ash off the end of his cigarette. “I’m fine here.”
A room full of college students is already at the height of distasteful, a room full of rowdy college students sounds like Andrew’s own personal hell.
He watches Neil move the cigarette between his fingers instead, twisting the slim stick around until the smoke swirls around in the air above his head. It’s mesmerizing, like the videos of people cutting soap or cats in sweaters that Bee sometimes sends him when Andrew’s had a long week of in-class discussions.
“Me too, lots of people aren’t really my thing.” Neil avoids his eyes at the admission.
He’d known somehow, from the brief look he’d gotten of Neil in Sweetie’s that Andrew had been looking at a kindred soul. Given the choice between their loud friends and louder strangers, Andrew would take this moment in a damp-smelling alley any day.
“And yet, here you are.” There’s a question unasked in that statement, an echoing why he doesn’t voice. Neil can answer it or tell Andrew to fuck off.
“Here we are,” Neil agrees, raising his eyebrow as if to say ‘you first .’
Andrew shrugs. “Ice cream.” That’s his story and he’s sticking to it.
“Hmm, peer pressure,” Neil admits wryly before shaking his head. “Katelyn asked. My cousin might appear sweet but she’s ruthless when it comes to a competition.” He gives Andrew a challenging, prideful look. “My condolences to your brother.”
Andrew can’t help the expression his face twists into- like he’d somehow just stepped in something wet with socks on- at the reminder of his brother and Katelyn, flirting over the tabletop inside and Neil laughs at him again like Andrew is the funniest man in the world.
The sound spurs something…almost playful in him. Emboldens his resolve to strengthen this tentative connection between them.
Most days, Andrew would cheerfully drop his brother into reeds of the nearest river like a modern-day Baby Moses but maybe it’s the fact that Aaron asked him or that Neil’s expression radiates a smugness that makes Andrew want to take him down a notch.
Hot or not, Andrew is more than willing to let his pride get in his way every now and then.
“Save your condolences for your cousin, after we win,” he says casually. He drops the very end of his nearly burnt-out cigarette to the ground, crushing it under the toe of his boot.
Neil flicks his cigarette out into the street, the dimming ember end streaking through the night. An irrational twinge of anxiety makes Andrew want to rush out and stomp on it, fueled by the ingrained memories of the fire safety lessons that had even been thrust upon him during the six months Bee had enrolled him into the local Boy Scouts chapter but he holds back the urge.
Neil cocks his head to the side, eyes bright. “Oh? That confident are you?”
Andrew doesn’t deny it. If there’s one thing his brother is it’s a massive nerd, ready and willing to subject himself to extra credit in the genuine pursuit of knowledge. Bee had even caught Aaron running an illicit homework forging business in his first year living with them- one where he was the person doing the homework. His brother had pocketed enough money writing college-level essays to buy out every pack of Pokemon cards in a ten-mile radius before he’d been permanently shut down.
The point was that if Aaron somehow didn’t know the answer to this whack job quiz bowl, he had Andrew to fall back on.
Neil bites at the tip of his tongue before he speaks."Confident enough to put your money where your mouth is?"
If those words had come out of anyone else, Andrew would be sure they were flirting but there's no heat in Neil's eyes, nothing to suggest he knows exactly where Andrew would like to put his mouth.
"What's your wager?" Andrew asks, intrigued all the same.
Neil makes a show of tapping his finger against his bottom lip, drawing it out. "You're a curious man, Andrew Minyard. Win a round and I'll answer any question you have."
It's a good deal, appealing to Andrew's general curiosity and his insatiable nosiness. Andrew knows he looks like your run-of-the-mill reprobate but deep, deep inside him, lives the soul of a meddlesome old lady, eager to peep out her crocheted curtains for neighbourhood gossip.
"And when you win a round?"
"I get the same.” Neil’s smile pulls at the scars on his cheeks. “Maybe I'm a little curious too."
A shiver makes its way down Andrew's spine. It isn't fear but something heady, anticipatory. He's known Neil for moments it seems and somehow he's already clocked Andrew as someone who runs his games on a currency of equal exchange.
It's refreshing and a little bit terrifying to be so known so quickly.
"You've got yourself a deal."
Neil clicks his tongue, amused for a moment before he holds out his hand. “May the best team win then.”
And Andrew reaches out and shakes it.
~~~~