Chapter Text
Andrew’s memories played on a scratched record, jumping back and forth between hushed words shared on a bus, between shared kisses and broken promises. Between Nicky crying, Coach yelling, between hands grabbing him and an empty seat in front of him.
Fracturing and distorting until he couldn’t make out which memory came first, which one was real and which one was self inflicted.
“I want you to let me out of our deal”
“Let me go!”
“Don’t come crying to me when someone breaks your face”
“I want you to let me go”
“Let me go”
“Let me go!”
“Don’t come crying to me”
“Let me go”
Andrew’s throat hurt. His eyes burned. His jaw was clenched so tight that it hurt more to relax it than keep it tensed. He could still hear himself screaming despite the fact he hadn’t said a word in over a week. He knew they were worried about him. He knew he couldn’t keep it up much longer before Bee got involved.
“Let me go!”
He rolled himself out of bed and grabbed the closest sweatshirt to him and threw it on. It was horrendously orange and baggy but he wasn’t going far and it was too late for him to be concerned about being seen in the monstrosity.
Andrew toed on his runners, silently grabbed his keys from the dresser, and left.
He hesitated for a moment in the stairwell, up or down?
Up or down?
Up to go down?
Down?
Down.
He started walking down the stairs, shaking a cigarette from his packet to distract himself, to keep his hands busy. He kept walking.
He smoked through his entire pack of cigarettes before he was standing in front of Wymack’s place. His hands automatically grabbed for another smoke but came up empty. Andrew flexed his fingers and threw the pack at the wall. He stared at the entrance for a while before he worked up the energy to turn around to start the walk back home.
“Andrew?”
Andrew’s shoulders tensed. He turned back towards the building to see his coach standing in the doorway with an unlit cigarette between his lips and a lighter halfway to his mouth. Andrew held out and waited. Wymack sighed, pulled out his pack and threw it towards Andrew.
“What’re you doing here, kid?”
“I needed to speak to him.”
Wymack stiffened.
“He’s not here.”
Andrew didn’t say anything else, he just took a long drag and relished the way the smoke filled his lungs and burned his throat. He ignored the way that his forearms itched and tingled and begged for the same sensation.
~
“What were you planning on saying to him?”
“Above your pay grade, coach.”
They were both silent then. Wymack teetering on the edge of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to set Andrew off. Eggshells mocked his feet.
Wymack looked at Andrew and took in the unwashed hair, the dull eyes, the 30 different shades of purple under his eyes and the orange sweatshirt. He hesitated,
“Have you been sleeping?” he asked gruffly.
“Sure.”
He looked more pointedly at Andrew.
“8 hours.”
“A night?”
More silence and then very quietly,
“In the last week.”
Wymack swore under his breath. He threw his cigarette butt to the ground and stomped it out before running a hand through his hair.
“Come on then. You can sleep on the couch.”
Andrew didn’t even put up a fight. He flicked his butt to the floor and followed behind Wymack without so much as a sigh. He looked like a ghost of himself.
Once upstairs Wymack left Andrew in the living room to collect some spare blankets and pillows. He came back only to find Andrew sitting on the couch with his knees pulled up to his chest, gripping a bottle of whiskey that used to be full like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
“That was hidden.” Wymack said gruffly, throwing the bedding onto the armchair in the corner. He reached for the bottle to claim some whiskey for himself and realised that a good third of the bottle was gone.
“ Was being the key word.” Andrew let the bottle go as though he didn’t even register he was holding it. His eyes glazed over and Wymack knew he’d gone somewhere.
He went to the kitchen to get a couple of glasses. He poured himself a double, downed it in one and then poured a double into the two glasses. He left the bottle in the kitchen.
Walking back into the living room, he shoved the one of the glasses at Andrew. He flinched, blinking out of whatever memory had him trapped.
“What were you planning on saying to him?”
~
Andrew gripped the cup with both hands. His mind becoming warm and soft with whiskey. He rolled the glass between his palms, the squared edges digging pleasantly into his palms.
“I was supposed to give him a year. I promised I would protect him for a year.”
Andrew heard Wymack’s sharp intake of breath but he was too blissfully numb to care. He felt damn near euphoric. His mind was stuck halfway between pain and mania that for a moment he thought he was back on his meds.
“That day on the bus, he asked me to let him out of our deal. To break my promise. Because he couldn’t stop running if he was hiding behind someone." Andrew felt laughter bubble out of him. He couldn’t stop it. It just kept coming.
“He- he asked me who was watching my back while I was protecting everyone else! Can you believe it?” Andrew was barely making sense and he knew that. But the laughter wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t make it stop.
“I thought- I- I thought he was choosing to stay. Choo- choosing me!” Andrew didn’t even realise when it stopped being laughter. He didn’t feel the tears as they spilled over and ran like rabbits down his cheeks, tickling his neck.
“But he KNEW! HE KNEW THEY WERE COMING” sobs wracked his body as he screamed but he couldn’t stop. A dam had broken and the water was destroying every single wall he’d ever built.
“HE RAN RIGHT TO THEM AND HE LEFT ME BEHIND! I WAS SUPPOSED TO GIVE HIM A YEAR AND HE CHOSE ME OVER HIMSELF AND I’LL NEVER FORGIVE HIM!”
~
Wymack watched as Andrew broke. He set his empty glass on the coffee table and moved towards Andrew. He couldn’t just sit here and watch as Andrew tore himself to pieces. Wymack gently pried the whiskey from Andrew’s grip and set it on the table alongside his own empty glass. Ready to be fought against, he slowly moved his hands towards Andrew, not even sure if he was registering hands through his tears, he reached his arms out wide in offering.
Wymack was winded by the force of Andrew throwing himself into his arms, but was quick to wrap the boy in a tight hug and rock him gently. Hoping to soothe his sobs, he rubbed a hand on his back and just let him cry. Eventually the sobs lessened and Andrew began muttering to himself, chanting the same indiscernible phrase over again until he fell asleep.
~
Andrew waited until Wymack had gone to his own bedroom before he got off the couch. He had had a lot of practice pretending to be asleep so fooling Wymack was no challenge. He stumbled into the kitchen where Wymack had stashed the rest of the whiskey. There was a notebook on the table open to a play Wymack was working on for the upcoming game.
Andrew wrote over the top of it, grabbed the bottle of whiskey, a pack of smokes, and left without making a sound.
He found himself on the roof of Fox Tower from muscle memory alone, stolen whiskey and smokes in tow.
He sat on the ledge of the building, straddling the knee high wall so that one leg was hanging off the roof and one was planted safely on the ground. He put the smokes and whiskey between his knees and waited to feel the familiar drop in his stomach, but it never came. Even his fear of heights couldn’t overpower the bone deep grief consuming his entire body.
He chain smoked the entire pack and chased each one with whiskey until he was swaying dangerously between the safety of the roof and the expanse of nothing below him. Just to see what would happen, he held the empty bottle over the edge and let go.
A hand reached out and caught it.
The hand was scarred with circular burns on each knuckle and thin slices criss-crossing between them, connecting each mutilation like a constellation of pain and suffering.
Andrew knew that hand, he’d seen it once before but that had been enough.
“Where have you been?”
“I’ve been here, waiting for you.”
“Liar.”
“You know where I am.”
Andrew swung his leg around so they were both on the roof and looked to where the hand had come from.
Blue eyes and curly auburn hair stared back at him. An unsure smile spread across soft pink lips before it was tugged at by scarred fingers.
“Stop it.”
The hand stilled and the smile became more confident. He stepped closer and Andrew craned his neck to look up at him. Inhaling deeply, hands twitching to reach out and touch him.
“I don’t mind waiting for you Drew.”
Andrew exhaled and felt himself relax for the first time in a week.
“I’ve never been very patient, especially when someone takes what's mine.”
Andrew pulled Neil into his chest, wrapping him tightly against himself, and let himself fall backwards.
~
Wymack woke the next morning to an empty apartment with a note scrawled across his playbook:
“Thank you, you were amazing.”