Archive of Our Own

Andrew saw the man every day, on his phone, always talking to someone in low tones. He wondered if the person on the other end could even hear what he said over the din of the youth center and the shivery whisper of a voice the guy insisted on using. He seemed distressed whenever he ended the calls, but he also seemed distressed when he placed the calls. As if he’d rather do anything else than call the person on the other side of the line. As if he’d rather do anything but hang up on the person on the other side of the line.

A man of contradictions, going to the noisiest place in the center to speak in the lowest voice possible, calling a person he clearly felt conflicted about like it was a chore, but refusing to hang up until at least half an hour had gone by.

Andrew was curious.

The day the guy started working at the Foxhole, he’d said his name was Neil with the certainty of someone who’d woken up from a coma with a severe case of amnesia and read the name tag on their wrist. He was fidgety, and sharp around the edges, eyeing the exits of every room he entered before he seemed to catch himself with a frustrated twist of his mouth and pointedly turned his back on them.

Andrew knew Kevin must have known him from before, with the way he obviously kept trying to keep his hands to himself whenever Neil was within grabbing distance. Kevin looked as if he wanted to poke at Neil until he was sure Neil was real, to grasp Neil’s elbow and feel solid flesh beneath. Neil seemed oblivious, but he clearly wasn’t, if the progressively shorter distance between him and Kevin during every new staff meeting was anything to go by. Neil wasn’t as obvious as Kevin in looking for reassurance with physical touch, but he wasn’t as subtle as he probably liked to think he was.

“Neil, you’re on closing duty today,” Wymack said at last, once all the start-of-day announcements and assignments had been made. “For the love of god, make sure everyone has left before you lock the doors. We don’t want a repeat of last time.”

“In my defense, the kid definitely needed a place to crash. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t bothered.”

“Yeah, you’d know the type, wouldn’t you?” Wymack replied, wryly. A personality trait Wymack seemed to be familiar with, then. “In any case, double-check before leaving.”

“Aye aye, captain. No kid left behind and all that jazz.” Neil’s amusement was palpable from across the room. Andrew wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or entertained

“On second thought – Kevin,” Wymack huffed, “you’re on Neil-duty. Make sure no kid stays after hours.”

Kevin’s answer was simply a crisp nod, as if he’d been tasked with a terrible mission of utmost importance. The side-eye he gave Neil didn’t escape Andrew’s notice. Neither did Neil’s tap-tapping on the meeting room table.

Something was afoot.

(Andrew had always loved mysteries.)

***

If Kevin was being honest with himself (and he usually wasn’t), being assigned to closing duty with Alex Neil was both a blessing and a curse. He’d been meaning to talk to the other man about his suspicions surrounding “that particular night in New York” for weeks now after he’d found Alex, Neil, softly singing in the music room after closing hours. But, there was always something that needed to be done (a lie) that couldn’t be done by anyone else (also a lie), and that couldn’t be postponed (see? Only lies).

It was unusual to see Alex, Neil (it’s Neil now, not Alex), noticing all his aborted attempts at communication and not doing anything about it. He’d always been very direct and hated beating around the bush as a kid, unless he didn’t feel like he could keep control of where the conversation was going, how much he’d be revealing, how much he’d be agitating the other into divulging their quietest of thoughts. He was a little shit like that.

Which begged the question – did he feel like he wouldn’t have the words to answer any of Kevin’s questions? Was there more for him to reveal than uncover?

Kevin took a deep breath and straightened his back. Locking hours were still far from now. He had kids to teach and things to do.

(The slow but unbearably present thud of his heart served to remind him that, if anything, he couldn’t lie to his own body.)

***

“So. What do you think of the new guy?”

“Too jumpy. I feel like he might pull a knife on me if I don’t announce myself when I walk into a room he’s also in.”

“People have a right to be easily startled, Seth.”

“Cut your bullshit. Not everyone that’s easily startled also looks like they’re two seconds away from stabbing me in the hand every single time. Unless you count that psycho Minyard.”

“Seth.”

“Don’t look at me like that. He’s got knives on him. What the fuck am I supposed to think?”

“Dude, she’s giving you the look. I’d say sorry if I were you.”

“Fuck off, Boyd. I have more self-respect than to grovel at the feet of every girl I offend.”

“Oh, really? Was that what last night was all about, hmm?”

“Babe, come on –”

“Guys, I really don’t want to know. Really. Let’s focus on the new guy. I think he’s been through some shit, just like everyone else here. Let’s cut him some slack.”

“Danielle Wilds, the patron saint of lost causes, has spoken. I guess all must be forgiven.”

“Seth.”

“Whatever. Shutting up.”

“What do you think, Renee?”

“I think he needs a space to feel safe. I feel like he’ll get used to us sooner rather than later.”

“Let’s hope you’re right. He seems like an okay guy.”

“Okay-ish, at most.”

“Allison.”

“Fine, have it your way.”

***

Kevin wouldn’t be the first to tell you that having Andrew in the periphery whenever his hands started sweating was a strange sort of comfort, but he also wouldn’t be the last. Andrew could deny being the personification of a herding dog all he wanted; he was still there whenever Kevin was feeling a bit too lost for comfort.

They had met years ago when Kevin first started volunteering at Foxhole. His mother had just died in a car accident, and Kevin was a smoking pile of regrets and guilt. He’d left home years before that, chasing the impossible dream of creating a band, Exy, with Riko, trampling people on the way up and standing aside when Riko felt like trampling him in turn, their music tainted with violence and darkness. His mom had never really liked Riko, she’d said she’d known his uncle well enough to know he wouldn’t be able to raise any kid properly. She’d warned him to stay away. Again and again, she’d asked him to come back home, to cut ties with the Moriyamas.

Kevin had always been too stubborn for his own good.

Until one day, when the rising tension between them had come to a head. Riko had always been vicious with anyone he’d considered a threat to them – to him. It was the two of them against the world, until it wasn’t. Until Riko decided Kevin didn’t get to outshine him. Until he decided Kevin shouldn’t be allowed to play his music any longer.

He’d called his mom, hand a wreck, heart broken and heavy with the things he’d allowed to happen. The things he’d done. How he’d wanted to be remembered for his music, to be the top of the top, only to shatter that dream with his own two hands. How all she’d gotten from him came from magazines, from the paparazzi catching him stumbling out of a bar, drunk out of his mind – out of his misery. It had started with Riko snapping at him whenever he called his mom, calling him weak for clinging to his mother’s skirts. It had ended with years of no calls, no messages, nothing. It had ended with a call in the middle of the night, his voice wobbly and in pain. It had ended with –

***

“Kevin? Kevin, what’s wrong?”

“Mom. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Kevin, tell me where you are. I know you had a concert today in the city.”

“How did you…”

“Whatever you think, Kevin, I’m still your mother. I always will be.”

“I’m – I can’t. It hurts. So much. It hurts, mom.”

“I’m coming to get you, mo stóirín. I’m coming. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“…”

“Mom?”

“…”

“…Mom?”

“…”

“Mom, are you there?”

***

Andrew had to admit that watching Kevin lose his mind over how to approach Neil had lost its appeal about two weeks back. Especially considering he’d been completely fine talking to him before. It was like a switch had been flipped out of the blue, and there was only so much indecisiveness Andrew could stomach before it got tiring. It reminded him too much of the Kevin he’d met years ago, jittery and unable to speak his mind outside of his music, unable to stick to a decision without looking for approval in places only he knew about.

(Andrew hoped Riko Moriyama took a shit and died on a toilet.)

Granted, Kevin had come a long way from that scared, guilt-ridden mess of a person that had stumbled into the Foxhole looking for redemption. It’s just that Andrew would never forget.

He would never forget Kevin’s hoarse voice asking for his mother to stay in his sleep.

He would never forget Kevin’s dead eyes when a lawyer came knocking to talk about inheritance.

He would never forget Kevin’s trembling hand on top of a guitar he could no longer play.

He would never forget.

Andrew would often wonder if mothers were really worth all of that. His own mother had dumped him the first second she was able to, keeping one of them only to mess him up just as badly as if she’d left well enough be. Then he remembered –

He didn’t want to remember.

That house was a thing of the past, buried alive and screaming with its soft smiles and cookies, trying valiantly to drown out the dread of a door that wouldn’t lock and the bleach white of the bathtub draining him of all he had left to give.

He never knew if she’d been aware of what was going on, and he didn’t want to know. The signs had been there in stark relief if only she had the guts to open her eyes, to hear his silent screams. It had been clear in the way the Spears had to pry him off the edge of every building, his very soul sinking further and further into apathy with every step away from the ledge, until there was nothing left to feel.

So maybe he knew a thing or two about mothers, but not anything that he could, in good conscience, compare to Kayleigh Day. He knew the lengths to which kids could go to justify behavior that really shouldn’t be justified – quite intimately, unfortunately. He saw it in himself when he was younger, however much he wanted to deny it. He saw it in Aaron when he visited him in juvie and wouldn’t meet his eyes when Andrew asked him about the bruises. He saw it in every kid that came to the Foxhole saying their parents were just stressed, were just trying to make ends meet, were just too busy. Too gone to care.

He knew all of this, but he didn’t think Kevin had idealized his memory of Kayleigh Day. He loved her, and for all intents and purposes, it seemed like she’d loved him, too.

Maybe one of them could have caring parents, for once. Even if one of them was dead.

***

“I got assigned to closing duty today, you know?”

“…”

“Wymack said I can’t let any kids stay behind this time. Can you believe it?”

“…”

“I know, I know. I probably would ignore that if it weren’t for Kevin. He has to make sure no one’s inside the Foxhole after closing. I mean, I’ll still ignore it, but you know.”

“…”

“Remember Kevin? I told you about him before. You know, from before.”

“…”

“I still can’t believe he works here, too. At least he finally ditched that shit for brains Riko. I just hope I can listen to him play again soon.”

“…”

“Have I told you about Andrew yet? He’s –”

***

“Andrew? Weren’t you supposed to clock out early today?” Kevin asked with a confused frown.

“Yes. I already did,” he replied, shoving his hands in his pockets and plopping himself down on one of the bleachers overlooking the inner multipurpose court. Kevin was currently running inventory for their sports equipment, clipboard propped on his hip while he looked up at Andrew.

“So? You’re not driving me back today. Besides, I was planning on asking Neil for a ride,” he muttered under his breath.

Andrew had seen how reckless Neil could be behind the wheel if he felt like the car behind them had taken one too many turns on the same path as they were on, immediately jumping to the unlikely conclusion that they were being tailed. He would swerve, merge lanes, accelerate, and decelerate like his life depended on it, until he could no longer see the car in the rearview mirrors. Then he would look like he’d snapped out of a trance and sheepishly return to model citizen driving lifted straight out from a manual, like he was afraid to stick out from the crowd after going Tokyo Drift on them. Andrew could absolutely consider that the most absurd, unexpected supply run ever. He was also certain that he wanted to learn some of those moves in the near future.

(If he kept an eye out for their assignment schedules to see when Neil would be on supply runs again – well, that was no one’s business but his own.)

The point being, what he really wanted to tell Kevin was: “What, and let Neil drive you into a tree?”

But. Well.

Kayleigh Day had died after her car crashed into a tree in the middle of winter. So yes, maybe he should keep that joke to himself. (He wasn’t that much of an asshole.) Instead, what he actually said was:

“So you finally decided to get over yourself and talk to him?”

“I talk to him!”

Andrew guessed his flat stare was exasperated enough as Kevin spluttered and pursed his lips into a tight line.

“I do talk to him,” he insisted, arms crossed and clipboard hanging awkwardly from his hand.

“Really?” Andrew drawled, drawing out the word in a way that clashed with his deadpan expression. He truly enjoyed fucking with Kevin.

(And fucking Kevin, but that was a completely different can of worms he wasn’t willing to open anytime soon.)

“Yes, really.” Kevin huffed, eyes locked somewhere in the far end of the court.

“So you’re best buds now, is that it?”

Kevin finally turned to throw him a confused look, uncrossing his arms and turning his whole body to face Andrew. 

“What’s going on with you? Why do you care? It’s not like you.”

He was right. It really wasn’t.

Could Kevin really point any fingers at him, though? He was just as twisted up over the pretty blue-eyed mystery as Andrew was unwilling to admit he was. Neil was interesting. Andrew had shared more than one cigarette with him during his smoke breaks. He’d felt calluses on Neil’s hand one of the times their hands brushed in their almost daily ritual of cigarette sharing, although Neil never really smoked them – he just let them burn to the filter with a complicated expression on his face. He’d always go straight to his little corner to place his dreaded call right after.

So sue him (preferably not, thank you very much), Andrew was curious. He knew what Neil’s preferred weapon would be in the case of a zombie apocalypse (anything but an ax). He knew what Neil’s thoughts were on aliens (they’re definitely out there, Andrew. I hope we never piss them off). He knew what Neil would do if he were stuck in a time loop (you mean like the endless, will seriously never break out of it, kind of time loop? Probably piss everyone off until someone kills me).

He knew a lot of things about Neil that painted an incomplete picture of who he said he was. It’s not like Andrew didn’t believe him, it’s just that he knew how to read between the lines.

“Anything but an ax.” (Someone I feared hurt me with an ax.)

“They’re definitely out there, Andrew. I hope we never piss them off.” (I don’t like unknown variables. Especially ones bigger than me. They’re never good news.)

“You mean like the endless, will seriously never break out of it, kind of time loop? Probably piss everyone off until someone kills me.” (I want to have a say in how I die. I spent too long not being able to control anything in my life except how I would die. I don’t want to be alone.)

It’s just that he felt like Neil didn’t really know how to be a real person yet.

***

Everything was going to be okay.

Really.

(No, not really, but as Kevin established previously – lies come easily when directed at himself.)

He was going to walk to one of the backrooms where Neil was handling some of the transaction logs, and he was going to talk to him. He was finally going to ask him about New York. The night that had crashed into his spiral of despair and set his life off-course with the violence of a collision that rivaled the birthing of stars. The night that had made him remember the reason he even lay his pudgy, slobbery hands on top of his mother’s guitar as a toddler and never looked back. The night he stopped accepting Riko shoving and ordering him around like a well-abused toy. The night that had marked the beginning of the end.

Madison Square Garden had been underwhelming, in the sense that Kevin just hadn’t had any shits left to give, but had been expecting Madison Square Garden, of all things, to be able to shake him awake from his numbing funk.

Nothing had changed. Not the hollering of the crowd, the clamor when they stepped onto the stage, or the sweating ache of an evening spent giving all the pieces of himself he could spare to his performance, and the ones he couldn’t spare, too. (Nothing had changed until later that night, when a stranger in an unknown bar sitting on a crappy stool opened his mouth and started singing, the thrum of his guitar a lonesome scrape of longing.)

After the concert, Kevin had disappeared in the streets of New York, tired of Riko’s complaints about having to carry the show, and how everyone was obviously there for Riko. Tired of the frustration clawing at his throat trying to tear its way out, tired of having to hold back or face the utter destruction that was Riko on a jealous rampage. He had slipped away as Riko downed one of the many flutes of champagne that were sure to come, arm around the girl of the night and dashing smile hiding his viciousness disturbingly well.

Kevin remembered somehow finding the hole in the wall that called itself a bar and mistaking it for a club, noting the busyness of the street and making the executive decision to try his luck at a cramped, probably unpopular place that would make it harder for him to be recognized easily.

He’d realized as soon as he’d stepped into the establishment that it was far from a club – more like a music bar. He’d been two seconds away from turning back and leaving to find the trashiest club he could find around the area, when a man that had been ushering people in and showing them to their tables had smiled at him and asked:

“Hey, kid! Are you here for Abram? You seem like the type,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Come in, come in. There’s some space at the bar. He’s up next.”

It’d been easier for Kevin to be steered deeper into the venue and sit when prompted at one of the high chairs facing the bar than to deny even knowing any Abrams, and so he’d sat down and ordered whatever they had that was strongest, waiting to hear another kid struggle with keeping the audience interested in a noisy bar that had much better things to do than listen to another person cry at their guitars and thinking themselves the best thing since sliced bread.

He’d been very wrong, of course. Enough so that the glass he’d been holding had slipped from his nerveless fingers and clattered onto the sticky counter as soon as the redhead on stage strummed his guitar and started singing. It’d been a cataclysmic event for Kevin. An eye-opener that showed him the miraculous portrait of how he used to be. How he used to love music and composing. There’d been something magnetic in the way the guy performed, like the audience was just a second thought in his mind. It’d been like he’d been playing for one person only, and the rest had just been lucky enough to be in the vicinity. Like he didn’t care what people thought, but needed to sing anyway, to purge his feelings through the displaced air – weaving soundwaves out of his voice and his guitar. It had seemed so achingly familiar, it’d left Kevin wondering if maybe he did know an Abram after all.

Kevin could swear there’d been a moment when Abram had looked at him before hiding a small smile on his shoulder. For a moment he could fool himself into thinking the person Abram had been playing for was Kevin. That he’d been pouring his heart out in hopes to reach him, to lend him some of his warmth in the cold desolation that had become Kevin’s heart. Something to jumpstart the stalled engine of his motivation and spark his inspiration back to life.

In the end, it hadn’t mattered whether Abram had been singing for him or not – it’d still been enough. Enough for Kevin to dig his heels in as harshly as he could and rip himself away from Riko’s madness.

But, as was usual when ripping yourself away from somewhere you’d been stuck for a while, there were some casualties, pieces left behind that refused to be let go and part from Riko’s greedy hands.

It started with Kevin refusing to look the other way whenever Riko decided he felt like destroying another kid’s musical career. It started with Kevin refusing to keep playing his part as backing vocals and second guitar only. It started with Kevin pushing for his lyrics to be included in their next album and critiquing the vapid emptiness of Riko’s prose. It ended with one final argument and an ultimatum after a concert one cold December night. It ended with a shattered hand and a broken will. It ended with –

Well. You already know what it ended with.

***

“What do you think is going on with Kevin?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean ‘what do you mean’? The guy has been pining for the new kid even worse than he pined after Andrew. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh. That.”

“Yeah, that. So? What do you all think is holding him back? Any thoughts?”

“I think he’s just not the type to make the first move without being one hundred percent sure first.”

“I think he’s too emotionally constipated to even realize he’s pining.”

“Well, I think Day is too much of a pussy to ever do anything about it.”

“Shut up. Nobody asked you, Seth.”

“Allison literally said ‘you all’. I’m part of that all.”

“Allison will literally stick your sorry ass in pussy abstinence if you so much as try to use it as an insult again.”

“Babe –”

“Renee, what about you? What do you think?”

“You know I don’t like to get involved in this kind of thing.”

“Okay, fine. I think there’s something we’re not considering in this equation.”

“You probably mean some one.”

“I said what I said. Andrew is a murderous little – I said fine, Renee, geez.”

“So you think it’s because of Andrew that he hasn’t said anything? Are they even a thing?”

“Yet or still?”

“Look. I know Andrew doesn’t seem like the type to do ‘relationships’ but what the hell would you call whatever they have going on?”

“…”

“…”

“Fair enough.”

“Time to place some bets, bitches.”

***

Andrew knew he should leave things be and see how everything would play out, but he was curious.

What he and Kevin had could be described as nebulous at best, and mere convenience at not-exactly-the-worst. It was convenient. It was nebulous. That just wasn’t all it was.

It wasn’t by any means the first time Andrew chose something for the sake of enjoying the ability to exercise his free will, or the first time he regained the autonomy of his body and boundaries. It wasn’t even the first time he finally got his hands on something (someone) that would stay. It was just – Kevin.

Kevin who had needed a rock to lean on while he got his feet under him. Kevin who had looked at Andrew and seen something when others had seen nothing. Kevin who had set his jaw and stood on wobbly legs that became stronger every step he took without anyone to stifle his progress, with the certainty that he would have a wall to rest on if he got too tired. Kevin who had downed a singular shot of vodka and told Andrew in no uncertain terms that he would like to fuck if Andrew wanted to, too. Kevin who had flushed when Andrew hadn’t said anything but didn’t retract his words. Kevin who had taken up physiotherapy like his last thread of sanity, and whose hand would cramp before he dropped his guitar. Kevin who had grown and healed, not just because of the support of his family, but because he’d chosen to.

Just Kevin.

Yes, they would have sex when the mood struck, and yes, it was just sex.

But also:

Yes, Kevin had a key to his apartment, and yes, Andrew had been the one to give it to him. When taken together side by side, sex didn’t look just like sex and a key didn’t look just like a key.

This, in summary, was what Kevin was to him. This, in summary, was not enough to describe what Kevin was to him.

So he knew what that look on Kevin’s face meant. He knew Neil was someone incredibly important to him for some reason. He knew what Kevin looked like when he felt like he needed to impress someone, but wasn’t clear on how to do it. He knew what Kevin looked like when he was being stubborn and hiding his insecurities under a veneer of self-confidence bordering on arrogance.

He knew, but he wasn’t sure Neil knew. He wasn’t sure he wanted him to know. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to want him to know.

It’s not like it was his job to work as a Kevin-interpreter or a Neil-enabler. It’s just that, well. He’s said it many times before.

He was curious.

***

Kevin was most definitely not freaking out. He was blankly looking at a closed door, and he was completely cool about the conversation he wanted to have with Neil.

Tonight was the night he decided to talk to Neil about New York City, and of course, tonight was also the night Andrew decided it was more entertaining to poke his nose into his slowly broiling crisis than going home.

Kevin knew Andrew would give him space if he asked but he didn’t even know if he wanted to ask. He was feeling out of sorts and on edge for no good reason. Neil was an asshole, but not that kind of asshole. He hadn’t lied to Andrew when he’d said he had talked to Neil – he had. It’s exactly because he had that this was getting so out of hand.

Neil’s smile was sharp and wicked, just as much as it was soft and reserved — when he thought no one was looking. Neil was petty and feral, just as much as he was loyal and unbending. Kevin had gotten to know some of Neil-also-maybe-Abram beyond the guy in the bar that had helped him turn his life around; he had learned to reconcile the Neil-formerly-known-as-Alex that had lived next door and had been Kevin’s only friend as a child with the Neil-but-actually-Abram that had cast a spell on him that had never really gone away. Kevin had started to see him in a mesh of colors and sounds that spit out the impossibility that was Neil Josten, just another lost soul in New York City that had somehow popped into his life once more – that had a tendency to suddenly appear in Kevin’s life and be gone just as fast, if he was right about this hunch (this fact). Neil had transformed from an ideal image built from a memory into the reality of his tangible vitality in the mornings, his secret smiles in the evenings at the music room after closing hours where he played the guitar but never sang, his quiet interludes after those daily calls at the rec center, and his calloused fingers softly wrapped around Kevin’s cramped left hand.

The longer he spent with Neil, the harder it was for Kevin to bring up that night, and what it had meant for him. The more they made music together, the more nerve-wracking the idea of allowing a peek into his most disastrous years became. The more he learned to care about Neil (the person) again (…as if he’d ever stopped), the more he cared about what Neil thought about him.

Frankly, it was a little ridiculous. Considering Kevin had known Neil as a snot-nosed brat named Alex, that Kevin had taken under his wing when the kid’s eyes had sparkled at the sight of his guitar. It was even more ridiculous that he’d been so out of it that night at the music bar that he’d failed to place why that particular guitar-playing had seemed so familiar, even without the aid of clear features to help him recognize Neil. But the most ridiculous thing had to be the way he’d frozen up when months after slowly reconnecting with Neil, his forgotten childhood friend, he’d heard the soft sounds of a guitar coming from the music room at the Foxhole after closing hours, closely followed by the voice that still featured occasionally in his dreams. The most ridiculous thing by far was the way he peeked into the room, thinking he was perhaps hallucinating Abram somehow appearing out of nowhere, only to see Neil inside the room. Neil who was apparently (definitely) Abram. Abram who had nudged Kevin into rescuing himself.

Suddenly, talking to Neil had gone from natural to almost near goddamn impossible. The earth-shattering revelation had tilted his world on its axis.

Kevin was aware he wasn’t being subtle. His change in behavior had been almost immediate, his easy overtures of friendship becoming awkward and stilted. He wondered if there was a particular reason Neil was letting this slide, since he’d always been very keen on latching onto discrepancies like this, not letting Kevin get away with his bullshit. Had he seen Kevin that night in New York City, after all? God, that was embarrassing. What if he thought he’d been so pathetic then he wanted to spare him the humiliation now?

That didn’t seem like him, though.

His mind was tying itself into knots once more. Kevin was tired of this self-imposed awkwardness between them. At this moment he wanted to be like Andrew for just a second and face things straight on, everything else be damned.

(What Kevin didn’t know was that sometimes, even Andrew was the type of guy to decidedly not face things straight on. Especially things with green eyes and dimples, with dark hair and lopsided smiles.)

“Hey,” Neil said, startled at seeing Kevin standing in front of the door to the accounting office he had just opened. “What’s up? Ready for some straggler hunting?”

“I already checked. No one’s left inside.”

Neil paused on his way out of the office and gave him a measured look loaded with something Kevin couldn’t put his finger on.

“Hmm. All right.”

Sometimes, Kevin felt like Neil’s eyes were secretly lethal weapons that could see right through him with just a glance. He remembered when they were kids holed up in his room, sheet music strewn all over the floor and forgotten snacks littering his desk – remembered one day when Alex had huddled close to him and whispered something in his ear, his hair tickling Kevin’s cheek. He’d asked Kevin if he could keep a secret with a small, somber tone.

“What is it?”

“Promise me you won’t tell anyone first?”

“I promise.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Then Alex had told him about his mom and his dad. Not too much, really – just that it was dangerous. He’d told him that his mom didn’t allow him to play the guitar or sing at home, and the only time he could really let go was at Kevin’s home – and even then, no singing. He’d told him he had to beg his mom to let him be Kevin’s friend and that she’d agreed only if he swore to never tell him anything, or even so much as breathe music outside his house. He’d told him he was tired of hiding, and that he wanted to make music with Kevin forever. He’d looked him in the eye with pursed lips and took out his contacts like he was ridding himself of his last piece of armor, baring himself in front of Kevin.

His eyes had been piercingly blue then, daring Kevin to say anything. His hands had trembled in the air, halfway into spasming fists before he remembered he still had his colored contacts perched atop his fingertips. It had been him baring himself to Kevin, but Kevin felt like he was the one being stripped to the bone.

“We’ll definitely keep making more music together,” Kevin had said, when nothing had seemed good enough. “We’ll make music together and everyone will listen to what we have to say.”

The next day, after years of living next door, Alex disappeared.

***

Andrew wondered what Kevin finally talking to Neil after such a weird period of tension would mean for him. He wondered if his daily shared cigarettes with Neil would be replaced with empty space every other day until Neil decided Kevin was marginally less fucked up than Andrew was. He wondered if Kevin would stop by his apartment less frequently when whatever apparently magic thing he had with Neil finally sorted itself out. He wondered if he would care.

(That last one was a lie. He didn’t wonder.)

He smoked his third cigarette of the hour while leisurely leaning on a completely non-descript stretch of the Foxhole’s walls that most definitely did not coincidentally happen to be outside a certain music room and that he’d been frequenting more often than not.

It had started months ago when he’d felt like going back to his empty apartment was too much of a chore to bear. He would climb on the fire escape and lean back on the building that he’d found such fulfillment in. It was nowhere near high enough, but he made do.

One night, he heard some kind of music coming from the slightly cracked window he’d been sitting next to. It caught him off-guard, considering that out of all the Foxes , no one but Kevin knew how to play an instrument, and Kevin had gone home hours before. Of course, there was also the new guy that had started working at the Foxhole that same day. Andrew had strained his ears and finally managed to place the instrument. It was a guitar.

Just as he’d decided to dust himself off and maybe make an appearance at the window in hopes of scaring the shit out of whoever thought it was a great idea to sneak into the Foxhole to play the guitar of all things, he’d heard it.

A voice.

It started out as a low humming, that slowly built itself into a melody, and tripped into song as inadvertently as a child growing up. It hooked somewhere deep in Andrew’s guts and pulled.

He stood stock-still, halfway between crouching and sitting, the burn in his thighs nothing compared to the smoldering embers catching fire in his chest.

He’d slumped back down and let out a silent breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding in. He realized then, the person singing his heart out was Neil, the new guy. The person that had seemed fake and hesitatingly pieced together, until you placed a guitar in his hands, told him to sing, and he became unreal instead.

Andrew had kept a close eye on Neil after that night and slowly cataloged every new fact he’d unknowingly shared with Andrew with each cigarette that went unsmoked, leaving Andrew to hoard the tiny, shiny truths Neil kept giving away as he diligently tried to knit together the patchwork of the real person he ached to be. No matter how much Andrew compared Neil to a raccoon, he would always feel like he was the greedy pest digging through the trash to find new bits of information to take home with him.

He still remembered the night Kevin had found Neil in the music room about two months later. Neil had been in the middle of tuning the guitar when the door had opened noisily.

“Neil? You –”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

And that had been that, however cryptic it had seemed to Andrew from outside the window, Kevin and Neil seemed to have a language of their own, further cementing Andrew’s suspicion that they knew each other.

He’d noticed then that Neil would never sing when Kevin was there, and would stick to playing the guitar and discussing lyrics whenever they were both in the music room. He would only sing when he was alone. Andrew thought maybe he was embarrassed – Kevin used to be a renowned musician, after all. It didn’t seem to fit his character from what Andrew had gathered, though. There seemed to be something else going on.

Was it any of Andrew’s business? Probably not.

Did he want to know? No.

Yes.

***

“Any bets on what’ll happen today after closing? Kevin looked like a man on a mission.”

“Neil also looked like he decided to do something about whatever’s been going on these past two weeks.”

“What even happened two weeks ago, you think? Did we miss something?”

“It was so sudden, too. One day they were like long-lost brothers and the next day Kevin couldn’t even string two sentences together whenever Neil was in the same room. What the hell.”

“I can’t even tell if he’s embarrassed or just plain anxious about talking to him.”

“Maybe it was something Neil said?”

“Neil? It’s been months, I doubt anything he said could surprise Kevin by now.”

“Maybe it was something Andrew said?”

“…”

“Ohhh…”

“What ‘ohhh’, I don’t get it.”

“Well, there are only two options if it’s something Andrew said, really.”

“Guys. I really don’t think this is necessary.”

“Come on, Renee. Aren’t you curious? Isn’t the tension getting to you?”

“…”

“Forget about it. What the fuck did you mean by ‘ohhh’?”

“I mean, either Andrew told Kevin to set the record straight with Neil –”

“They did seem awfully close, right?”

“ Or Andrew told Kevin to set the record straight with Neil.”

“…You just said the same fucking thing twice?”

“Use your imagination. There are two ways you can set the record straight. One –”

“He’s off-limits.”

“Or two –”

“He’s definitely not off-limits and in fact is now inviting Neil inside those limits. In which case, damn them because they got ahead of us.”

“Ugh, fuck. I did not need to know.”

“Well, you asked. What did you expect?”

***

Kevin didn’t know what to expect.

Neil was looking at him with a peculiar expression on his face that brought to mind that last day when he’d spilled all of his secrets before disappearing into the ether. He really hoped he wasn’t about to disappear all over again.

“I really hope you’re not about to disappear again,” he blurted out.

Kevin didn’t know what to expect from this interaction, but what the hell. He was aware his brain-to-mouth filter had always been a bit lacking when it came to Neil, but this was overdoing it. This was bordering on idiocy and dipping into lunacy.

Neil gave him a strange look before he tried to stifle a laugh that his eyes failed spectacularly at concealing.

“No, Kevin. I’m not about to disappear again.”

“Promise?” Kevin felt childish, gripping the precious memory of their last day together as Kevin-and-Alex between his tightly clasped hands.

“I promise,” Neil replied, eyes clear and serious.

“Really?”

“Really,” he said, mouth quirking into a smile that let Kevin know he also remembered the promise they’d exchanged that day. “Was that what’s been bothering you lately?”

“Yes.” Kevin grimaced. “No.”

Neil raised an eyebrow at him, and Kevin could read the ‘which one is it, then?’ off the questioning arch of his eyebrow just as clearly as if he’d said it out loud.

Kevin had already decided to ask about Abram tonight, but the longer he stood in front of Neil in the threshold of the shadowed door under the dim office lights, the harder it was for him to breach the subject. Words escaped him at a rate steeper than Exy ’s rise to fame, and all his experience as a lyricist and composer might as well be void. He wanted a refund.

It was then Kevin realized you need to play to your strengths in times of crisis, and he gulped down the anxious bundle of nerves that had made its home somewhere in the middle of his throat with a half-baked plan in mind. He looked at Neil once more (…he’d never stopped looking), and gestured sharply to the hallway with his head, not turning around to see if Neil followed.

For a few moments, Kevin dreaded the silence that accompanied him five strides in. Had Neil finally gotten tired of his tiptoeing?

“Bossy.”

No, not today.

(Not ever.)

***

Andrew was starting to wonder if perhaps haunting this particular stretch of the wall this particular night might not have been his brightest idea to date. He didn’t know if he’d rather not hear anything, or hear everything. He didn’t even know what that everything might be, if anything. If he were a betting man, though, he’d bet anything that this would be where things played out, in the end. Kevin’s most eloquent language was still music, and Neil only ever approached anything near corporeal whenever he poured one of his songs out into the music room every other night like an inevitable oil spill that lit a beacon in Andrew’s brain and clung to his skin and his insides, burning him and burning him and burning him.   

About an hour after flicking a half-assed salute at Kevin’s baffled expression and retreating to his preferred hideout, Andrew heard the door to the music room slam open. Someone was in a hurry.

No one spoke for a while, and Andrew fiddled restlessly with the last cigarette of his pack, his heart beating as fast as if he were leaning over the edge of a rooftop without safety railings.

A sharp intake of breath, the sound of a hand trembling on top of silent guitar strings, the all-encompassing weight of things left unsaid. Andrew heard it all.

And then, a voice.

***

“Did I ever tell you about the time when I started singing?”

“…”

“I never did understand when I was younger, but I think I get it now. Did you hate him that much? Did I remind you of him so much you’d rather put your hands over my mouth than hear my voice?”

“…”

“I thought it was very hypocritical of you, you know? You never got rid of your guitar, even if you never played anymore. If it was so painful, why didn’t you throw it away?”

“…”

“Did you want to have something at home to give me the choice? Was that what it was about?”

“…”

“I only started singing… after. I thought you wouldn’t be able to tell me what to do and what not to do anymore. Then I felt guilty because it’s not like you didn’t have a reason before. The first time I ever sang for other people was while I was living in New York. No one really cares about anyone or anything there. It was the perfect place.”

“…”

“It was like I could finally breathe again. Like after so many years of running and hiding and lying, I could finally be someone real. I even saw Kevin there, one night.”

“…”

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s not like you’d care now. I don’t even know why I keep calling. You never say anything. I’m – I just…”

“Abram.”

“…”

“It’s okay. It’s okay now. I’m okay.”

“…”

“Did you know? I wrote my first song when I was seven years old. Something about being tired of the rain. That’s something I never missed after coming here. When you were five you said you didn’t like rainy days, either. I was so happy then. I was happy, until you said you didn’t like the rain because it kept you inside and you didn’t want to be inside when that man was also inside.”

“…”

“I didn’t want you to hate the rain, Abram. Just as much as I didn’t want you to hate music. He wanted you to learn an instrument as soon as you were able to stand on your own two feet, and oh, did he try. You know this. I couldn’t let him take the joy of music from you any longer.”

“…”

“Instead, I took you away. I took you away, and I took your music with me. I’m sorry.”

“…”

“I’m sorry.”

***

Neil Josten was a person that had only recently learned how to be a real person. It wasn’t easy or fun, but it was one of the only things he’d been able to control in his life.

From the day he was born, Nathan Wesninski had a plan for him, a new piece to add to his board. Up until he was close to eight years old, he was Nathaniel, an extension of that man. He’d been worked to the bone on musical theory, and cycled through an uncountable number of instruments and genres before he ever learned to swim or ride a bike. He didn’t know any kids his age – there were only private tutors, and no chance at any kind of socialization locked inside the manor all day long, all year long. He’d learned early on just how much of a say he had in any of this. That is to say, none.

When he was younger, he’d honestly thought it was completely normal to have your father cane your hands into a trembling, swollen mess if you missed a note because –  

“If your hands are useless then let them be useless because I made them so.”

He thought it was completely normal to have your father whip out a scalding hot iron out of a maid’s hand when you trip over a precious instrument, leaving a mark that would always remind you of the importance instruments could have over human life because –

“Unfortunately, you are turning out to be a worthless investment in comparison. Learn your place.”

He thought it was completely normal to live in fear in your own home, to know all the best places to hide in and to keep quiet when you weren’t meant to be heard because –

“If you’re unqualified to play even the simplest of instruments, then maybe your voice will do. You must have gotten something apart from your looks from me. Won’t you sing for me, Junior?”

He thought it was completely normal to be frequently threatened with an ax that always seemed a bit too polished, a bit too wicked, a bit too real for comfort because –

“Do you want me to chop your hands off? You’d be less of an embarrassment to my name if at least you didn’t have a way to play. No? Then how about you get singing, hmm? Maybe I can find a different use for this ax, after all.”

He thought it was completely normal to know how far apart he needed to stand from a man to be outside of his reach, how far apart he needed to stand to avoid even the bow of a violin swiping by because –

“How much longer do you intend to waste my time, Nathaniel? Do you need a reminder of what it means to be a Wesninski? Lola misses you quite a lot. She’s been talking about needing someone to test the sharpness of her knives, lately. She’s taken quite a liking for high cuisine cooking, you know? How about it? Get back here you little –”

There were many, many things he thought were completely normal. He was very, very wrong.

One day, his mother woke him up in the middle of the night and sat at the edge of his bed quietly. His father hadn’t been home the entire day and wouldn’t be back until the end of the week. It gave him enough peace of mind that his sleep had been heavier than usual. It was dark inside his room, and he had to squint his eyes to try to make any sense of what she was holding on her lap.

It was a guitar.

She’d looked at him then, eyes moist and mysterious. She held the guitar close to her like he remembered being held when he was five. She stroked one of the strings with the tip of a finger like she’d stroked the bridge of his nose tenderly when he was four. She pinched one of the tuning pegs between her fingers like she’d pinched his chubby cheeks flushed with excitement when he was three. She bent her head over the body of the guitar like she’d bent her head over his unruly curls when he was two. She hummed secret melodies at her guitar like she’d hummed softly into his ear when he was one. She cried silent tears into the inky abyss of the soundhole like she’d cried into her pillow when he’d been safe inside her womb.

Sometimes he thought he had dreamed that night of soft music and even softer singing.

It was only three years later when his mother had gone into his room in the middle of the night once again, duffle bag in one hand car keys clutched in the other, her guitar case slung over her back like an afterthought.

They left Baltimore as the moon peaked in the sky.

***

Alex Fairfield had a neighbor. His name was Kevin, and he lived with his mom only, just like him. Kevin’s mom was all about smiles and teasing. She liked to ruffle Kevin’s hair, but never did the same for Alex after the first time he’d forgotten himself and flinched away from her raised hand. She hadn’t said anything, and neither had he. She never complained about having him around, though.

Kevin was a little older than he was, and he hadn’t been very happy to be saddled with a kid he’d have to deal with every day. Little kids were annoying and didn’t know how to keep their hands to themselves, he said.

Of course, Alex wasn’t about to say he really, really knew how to keep his hands to himself (it was a lesson he’d learned quickly enough – after all, keeping his hands to himself meant keeping his hands, period). He’d pouted like he hadn’t been allowed to in a very long time, and he had discovered that day that Kevin was very weak for silent, pouting children (or maybe he’d been weak for Alex, even then).

“Fine, whatever. You can come into my room. Don’t touch anything!”

The first thing Alex saw when he walked inside Kevin’s room was his guitar. He’d stood without moving a muscle staring at the well-loved instrument, so different from the ones he saw every day in Baltimore. Suddenly, he remembered that night three years before, when his mom had snuck like a shadow into his room and played her guitar for him with her soulful voice barely a whisper in the night. Guitars were the only instrument that hadn’t been forced into his hands in that house. He didn’t know if it was because his father found them beneath him or if it was a way to punish his mother, but the result was the same – he’d been fascinated by the only instrument he hadn’t been allowed to play.

“You play the guitar?” Alex’s voice had trembled at that moment, the knot in his throat unexpectedly hard to dispel.

“Of course I do. Why else would I have a guitar in my room?” Kevin squinted his eyes at him, a little suspicious, a lot hesitant. This kid wasn’t like other kids, he thought.

“Can you teach me how to play?” Alex asked then, after a bout of silence. It had taken him mere seconds to decide, but a lot longer to build up the words that spilled out of his mouth as a hasty exhale.

Alex would later learn that Kevin usually didn’t just teach people. Although he was never cruel, he was too impatient, and his words weren’t very considerate. Music was too important to him, and anything less than full commitment was perceived as an insult to music in his eyes. Of course, most of that had changed by the time they met again, years upon years later, but the fact remained that ten-year-old Kevin wasn’t like that. The fact remained that Kevin had seen something in Alex that was apparently too similar to what he saw in the mirror every day that he couldn’t deny him the joy of learning a new instrument.

So of course, he said yes.

(Kayleigh had been proud of him. Alex could tell.)

***

Alex’s hands were sweaty that night as he waited for his mom to come back home. He’d spent most of the afternoon at Kevin’s house next door, feeling guilty like he was doing something wrong. He didn’t know what to tell his mom. It’s not like she’d ever expressly told him he couldn’t play the guitar, but she didn’t not tell him, and that made him antsy.

In the end, he decided not to tell her.

(In the end, Deborah found out one night after waking up from yet another unsettling dream – unsettling memory – to find her son, her precious Abram, shyly stroking her guitar like it was his only treasure. She’d sat just outside of his sight and watched him strum out a simple arrangement accompanied by the sweet sound of his voice humming along. She’d sat there in the dark hidden from view, heart clenching and breath choked. It was the first time she’d heard him make music out of his own volition, the first time seeing him smile so softly at an instrument, the first time seeing her in him, when all he’d seen before was Nathan.

She couldn’t bear it.)

Alex still remembered his mother’s face that night.

“Who taught you that?”

He’d been so spooked he was startled into telling her the truth.

“Kevin. From next door. His mom plays, too. Just like –”

“You’re not seeing that boy again. Do you hear me?”

“Mom, please, I can’t –”

“I don’t care what you have to say. I don’t want to hear you playing anything in here. We left that behind, and that’s where it’s going to stay.”

“But I want to be his –”

Friend.

Alex had learned then, that when you spend so long with a monster, some of that monstrosity tends to rub off on you.

***

Alex would never know what had changed his mother’s mind, and he would never ask. She’d disappeared for almost a week after that night, leaving behind a frankly ridiculous amount of microwavable meals in their house without a word.

The day she returned, they sat at the kitchen table in silence for minutes before she asked,

“Did you go visit him while I was gone?”

It was obvious who that ‘him’ she was referring to was. Alex wasn’t stupid.

“No.”

“Go see him today.”

He really, really wasn’t stupid.

“…I don’t want to.”

“Go see him today, Abram.”

“But – I don’t…I don’t understand.”

“You wanted to be his friend, didn’t you? Then go be his friend.”

He really, really, really wasn’t stupid.

“…Why?”

“Go be his friend. Go play your music there. Only there, and only the guitar. Nothing else.”

(Not here. Not anywhere else. It’s too dangerous.)

(Not your voice. I don’t want to hear it. No one should hear it.)

“…Okay.”

He wasn’t stupid, but he sometimes wished he was.

***

It had taken years before Alex felt confident enough to tell Kevin about…Well, about everything, really. He didn’t like sharing details, and they weren’t exactly necessary, but Kevin got the gist of it.

His mother knew as soon as he went back to their house. Maybe she saw something in him that gave him away, or maybe she just somehow knew. Just like he suspected she knew he’d been using her guitar all these years with Kevin.

“We’re leaving.”

“What? Why would –”

“You know why. Don’t even pretend you don’t know. There’s a reason you couldn’t tell him anything, Abram. This is what happens when you go back on your word. We’re leaving.”

Alex didn’t know if it’d been a coincidence or if his mother was actually prophetic, but that very same night their house was broken into. He heard a voice he wished he could have been spared from hearing for as long as he lived.

“We know you’re here,” a sickeningly saccharine voice called out. “Come, come. Come out and play!”

They’d been firmly pressed together in the confined space behind a false wall his mother had renovated in their coat closet years before. His mother had pressed her hand into his mouth when his breathing became too loud, and he remembered thinking it wasn’t too different from what she’d been doing all this time before that day.

When they finally came out of their hiding place hours after, they found their house in pitiful disarray, damage done for the sake of damage.

They left South Carolina as the moon peaked in the sky.

***

After so many years of running, hiding, and lying, and after so many years of no music following the Kevin fiasco, it had been all too insultingly simple when push came to shove.

It had started like this:

“You finally decided to come back?”

“There was no decision involved. Don’t be delusional.”

“You brought him along, too? How unexpected. He still looks nothing like you.”

And it had ended like this:

“It’s done, Abram. It’s done. You can leave, now. You can live.”

(Mary Hatford wouldn’t be able to leave for a long time after, and really, not allowed to live in all the sense of the word for many years after the fact.)

(After all, there were only so many benefits for a murderer in jail.)

***

Neil had always known that Kevin would fight to have his music heard wherever he went. He’d followed his career even as he and his mother were chased by bloodthirsty lunatics all over the country, and for a brief time, all over Europe. Neil thought Riko was a complete douchebag from what he could glean from their interviews. He could tell he was a trash musician (if he could even be considered that), as Exy got more and more popular and the lyrics and melodies got less and less like Kevin. Neil remembered being frustrated on Kevin’s behalf – Riko was dragging him down.

(He hoped Riko Moriyama choked on his ego and died.)

After his mother had taken care of their problem in a very…permanent manner, Neil had been left adrift. His uncle had intervened at some point, and he’d been left to wander with a new name and no purpose.

At least he could sing now, if he wanted.

(He really wanted.)

For so long, the only thing he longed for was that room in Kevin’s house where he had enjoyed music for the first time in his short life. He thought about Kevin when he took his mother’s guitar out of her beat-up case almost reverently. He thought about Kevin as he built up his calluses once more, and her, his, guitar welcomed him back. He thought about Kevin when he finally, finally, allowed himself to sing the songs he’d never stopped composing. He thought about Kevin when he stood on every stage, imagined he was back in his room and Neil was showing him all his new ideas.

Sometimes, Neil was convinced he’d thought about Kevin so much he’d manifested him that night in New York.

He doubted Kevin had recognized him then. He was no longer a kid, and he’d decided to forego any and all props to disguise his appearance, after all, everyone he’d been hiding from had been dealt with.

He’d spent a very long time thinking about Kevin whenever he sang. By the time Abram finally sang to Kevin, for Kevin, it had already become second nature to him. It had been incredibly surreal, and Neil would be the first to think he’d finally started seeing things, if this particular thing hadn’t had a confirmed sighting by Bill, the guy that usually worked nights and ushered people in.

Shortly after that night, Exy was involved in endless discussions about musical style and strained dynamics between Kevin and Riko. Until the day after the West Virginia concert.

It had been a homecoming kind of concert, seeing as Kevin and Riko had met in West Virginia after Kayleigh and Kevin had moved from South Carolina some years before. They met in high school and formed Exy by the end of their senior year. It was supposed to be the final concert of that tour before their break.

It turned out to be their last concert.

News about Kevin’s ‘accident’ (Neil had his suspicions, even then) spread like wildfire. He disappeared from the public eye right after the fact, and no one heard from him in the following years. Exy ’s decline after Kevin’s departure was clear even to the most rabid of fans, and it slipped into obscurity as suddenly as it had risen to the top.

New York had given Neil a sense of who he was and who he wanted to be, but he still felt like something was missing. This longing wouldn’t be quenched no matter how many calls he placed to the state prison. No matter how many songs he wrote or how many nights he spent singing at the bar, something was still missing.

(Someone was still missing.)

Moving back to South Carolina had been a desperate attempt at trying to reconnect with the place and time he’d felt the closest to his own music and self. The last person he’d expected to find his first day at his new job was Kevin. It was only then he allowed himself to admit that the someone that had been missing had been Kevin, all along, and that he’d always known that, one way or another.

If he hadn’t expected to find Kevin, though, then Andrew had been completely beyond his imagination, with the surprising added element of the unknown.

This new Kevin he’d found at the Foxhole was different from the Kevin he’d met over a decade before, but nonetheless he’d been built upon the pillars of the boy Neil’d spent his afternoons bickering about music with. Kevin had been familiar and safe in a way nothing had managed to be in Neil’s entire life. Andrew, however, had been a complete mystery to him. Kevin had once called him a nosy brat, and it seemed like that nosiness had never truly gone away.

Andrew was interesting. He was persistent, but not pushy. He listened to him without any judgment, took things as they were. They could sit together with the billowing cigarette smoke between them linking like their thoughts in the comfortable silence. Neil didn’t feel the need to be anyone but who he was with Andrew, even if Neil was still finding exactly who he was.

Neil had known he had a secret audience most of the nights he spent in the music room very early on, but it hadn’t been until his first shared cigarette with Andrew that he’d realized who it was. The cigarette smoke had been the thing to get him to sing that first night – it’d reminded him of his mother and all the things she’d taken from him, all the things she’d given him. It became a routine for Neil, singing whenever Andrew was there. For the first time, he’d decided to sing for someone other than Kevin.

It was a liberating experience. Separating his perception of music from Kevin in his mind had been almost unnatural, but it was only in the Foxhole’s music room at night, with Andrew somewhere outside listening, that he’d finally understood – music could be good even when he didn’t think of Kevin while making it. For so long, the only way he had to avoid resenting his music was to meld it together with the one time music hadn’t brought him pain before, the only place he could forget the cruelty of his father’s music and his mother’s silence. Only then he realized he could sing for himself, for others, just for the sake of enjoying his music. Andrew was the one that helped him realize how narrow his view of music had been then, and Neil felt like every new song he shared was a secret lovingly whispered into the ears of the person that had unknowingly brought him up from the ditch he’d been digging himself into.

He’d been looking so closely at Andrew after, that it hadn’t taken Neil long to notice Kevin and Andrew had some sort of…connection? Relationship? Something going on together. They weren’t like Matt and Dan. They weren’t like Seth and Allison, when they were on good terms, or even like Seth and Allison when they were on bad terms. They weren’t like Allison and Renee, either. They weren’t like anyone he’d met, really. That was kind of the issue. He didn’t know where he could fit in that picture, or if he even wanted to fit in it.

He wanted to know more, but Kevin almost choked on air when Neil had brought it up, cheeks uncharacteristically flushed for five minutes after, and Andrew’s answer had been ambiguous at best. Neil could put two and two together, though. These revelations had left him feeling like a thread that had been pulled taut for too long then suddenly slackened, turning him into an irreparably tangled mess of knots.

He didn’t know what to do.

Did he have to do something?

He probably should stop hiding from Kevin some time soon. He’d categorically refused to sing whenever they met at the music room for months because he didn’t want to know if Kevin would remember that night in New York. Neil didn’t know if he’d prefer to have Kevin remember him from then or not. That night had been a breath of fresh air for Neil, a blast of the past he’d needed when everything had been so different from what he’d been used to that he’d been afraid to lose the memories that had made him. He didn’t want to know if Kevin remembered, or if Abram had been so inconsequential for him that he wasn’t even a blip on Kevin’s radar.

Just as Neil had decided to cut his losses and finally come clean, however, Kevin’s attitude had suddenly undergone a complete 180. He kept Neil at a distance he hadn’t before, and the secrets Neil had wanted to share with someone other than Andrew, shriveled on his tongue. The uneasiness that crept up on him grew every day as Kevin shied away from a conversation with flimsy excuses and fled to Andrew’s side like a bat out of hell.

Neil wondered what he’d noticed.

Could he tell that Neil was a mess of yearning to belong?

Whatever it had been, Kevin probably hadn’t told Andrew. For those two weeks, he’d smelled Andrew’s particular brand of cigarettes wafting in from the music room’s open window more often than not. It was a relief.

Neil had been very close to shaking some answers out of Kevin when –

“On second thought – Kevin, you’re on Neil-duty. Make sure no kid stays after hours.”

A golden opportunity presented itself. Maybe Wymack was tired of the weird tension between them, too.

As usual, though, Kevin did the unexpected. He all but demanded Neil to follow him to the music room with a determined set to his jaw at an unrelenting pace that left Neil speed-walking to catch up to Kevin’s longer strides.

Once they finally reached the music room, Kevin abruptly turned around and gave Neil a look. Neil wasn’t sure what to make of it, but Kevin huffed out a breath and entered the music room, leaving Neil behind to stare at his back as he picked up a guitar and sat on one of the room’s chairs facing Neil.

Neil leaned on the doorjamb, arms crossed, and kept quiet. He looked at Kevin expectantly, waiting.

He could sniff out Andrew’s cigarettes even from where he was standing. He wondered if Andrew thought he was being subtle.

Then, a voice.

Kevin was singing.

Kevin was singing Abram’s song.

Neil was speechless – Kevin remembered. He remembered so well he could sing a song he heard only once three years ago. Neil was aware Kevin was some sort of musical genius, but even this was too much. If he had any lingering doubts about Abram’s  – Neil’s – memorability in Kevin’s mind, it would be foolish to cling to them after this. Kevin had heard him, all right. Kevin did more than just remember. The quiet thoughtfulness in his voice, the resolute strumming of the strings, the almost shy sweep of his eyelashes on his cheekbones – this song had meant something to him. It still did, if the way he swallowed after he was done was anything to go by.

Kevin looked at Neil like he was waiting for his verdict. Waiting for Neil to pass judgment.

“I know it was you,” Kevin said, eyes glinting in the night. “I only realized two weeks ago, when I heard you singing.”

“Oh,” Neil muttered. This had been the trigger for Kevin’s strange behavior. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but this clearly wasn’t it.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Kevin asked, as if afraid to hear Neil’s answer. His hands were clenched tightly on the guitar, the way Neil knew he did when he was nervous and trying to hide the tremble in his hands. “Did you…not see me, that night?”

“I did,” Neil replied, biting the inside of his lip. “I saw you. I sang for you.”

Kevin’s sharp intake of breath at Neil’s words took him by surprise.

“Then…why –”

Kevin’s grip on the guitar had become so tight Neil was afraid he would break something. Neil finally uncrossed his arms and walked into the room, standing in front of Kevin unapologetically. He reached his hands out and unclenched Kevin’s fingers, one by one. He could hear Kevin’s damp breathing by his ear, like he was holding back tears. He took the guitar from Kevin’s hands and placed it back into its case, next to the chair Kevin was sitting on. Then he dragged a chair over and sat in front of Kevin, Kevin’s broad left hand between Neil’s. He kneaded Kevin’s scars insistently, firmly pressing on Kevin’s fleshy palm almost without a thought. He waited until Kevin’s breathing went back to something resembling normal, and only then looked back at Kevin.

“I was afraid.”

“You were afraid?” Kevin exclaimed incredulously.

“I’ve occasionally been known to experience fear, yes,” Neil shot back, rolling his eyes.

“Why?” Kevin insisted, his face a study in confusion.

“There’s this game I play with Andrew,” Neil replied, instead.

“What does Andrew have to do with any of this?” Kevin asked, his frown deepening.

“He has everything to do with this,” Neil said, half a grin brightening his expression. “Also, he’s listening right now as we speak.”

A sudden metallic clang came from outside the window, and Neil couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him.

“There’s this game I play with Andrew,” Neil repeated. “It’s a truth for a truth, a trading game.”

“And this is a game you play with Andrew?” Kevin asked doubtingly. He sounded almost comically offended. “Since when does Andrew play any games?”

The amused since always from Neil, and the muffled you wound me, Kevin Day from Andrew came almost at the same time, startling Kevin into an aborted snort.

“So, wanna play?” At Kevin’s nod, Neil asked: “What were you scared of?”

“Straight for the jugular, huh. Still as merciless as always,” Kevin mumbled under his breath. “I was scared you’d seen me then and thought I was too pathetic to even bother mentioning that time of my life. I didn’t know which one was worse: me being delusional and thinking you were singing for me when you weren’t even aware I was there, or you seeing me and deciding it was something not worth talking about.”

Kevin’s breath left him in a hurried whoosh right after and he slumped over in his seat, his other hand coming up to close around Neil’s hands that still hadn’t let Kevin’s go. Kevin’s elbows rested on his knees, and his forehead touched their clasped hands. It looked awfully similar to a prayer.  

Neil was blinking down at Kevin’s dark head of hair when Andrew clambered up from the fire escape stairs and into the room through the window. For a second, he looked like a deer caught in the headlights, even if he’d been the one to show himself at last. Then he straightened out his shoulders and walked closer to where Neil and Kevin were sitting.

“Don’t be stupid,” Andrew said brusquely. He tapped twice on Kevin’s chair before placing his hand on Kevin’s nape. It was a firm hold, but something in the gesture seemed almost unbearably tender to Neil. “You’re not worthless. The past is the past, but you were never worthless.”

Andrew had looked straight at Neil while he said this, and Neil suddenly found his throat tighten with an unnamable emotion that threatened to choke him to death. Neil bent his head down until he bumped into Kevin’s and took a deep breath.

“You could never be worthless, Kevin.”

Kevin seemed to compose himself after a few minutes of three separate heartbeats beating in the silent room. He raised his head back up, but didn’t let go of Neil’s hands. Andrew didn’t let go, either.

“It’s your turn,” Neil reminded him. His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears.

“Why were you afraid?” Kevin asked him, eyes clear.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t remember me. I was afraid I would be forgettable in your eyes, like I was forgettable for everyone else in that place – like maybe I wasn’t real, after all. I was afraid that while that night had been important to me, it wouldn’t even register as anything out of the ordinary for you. Just one more kid singing on stage, playing the guitar.”

“You are also stupid,” Andrew concluded. He looked exasperated. “You’re the furthest thing from forgettable, Neil Josten.” Andrew turned to look at Kevin and continued, “Kevin. You’re both stupid. I can’t believe this. I want a refund. One of you needs to stop being stupid.” It was like Andrew couldn’t stop speaking, like he’d been holding this in for far too long and now everything was tumbling out from his mouth in a rush. “You can’t both be stupid at the same time. I know you share a brain cell, but this is too much. Where’s your brain cell? Oh. Do I have it? Do I have the brain cell now?”

“Does that make you stupid, too?” Neil couldn’t help but snark back.

“Yes. Apparently.” Just like that, it seemed like Andrew had said all he wanted to say on the matter. The stupid for you two went unsaid, but Neil could read it in the way Andrew’s thumb covertly swept from behind Kevin’s ear down his neck almost absentmindedly, and in the way Andrew gave him a look from beneath his eyelashes. Were those a thing, now? Were they giving each other looks? Kevin had given Neil one earlier, and now Andrew, too. Neil wondered if his look game was as strong as those two. (That’s all right. He could learn.)

***

“Did you see them today? I wonder if Kevin finally fucked it out of his system.”

“There’s no need to discuss this. I’m happy they managed to talk about what was bothering them. Anything else is just their own private business.”

“Sure, talking, if that’s what you want to call it. How do you think that went down?”

“It was probably a super cheesy confession that involved a guitar, knowing Kevin.”

“Dude, wait. What if that’s how things started out between Kevin and Andrew? We never really settled that bet. He probably serenaded him from outside his apartment, I can’t –”

“That’s unimportant right now. Besides, Andrew would probably never go for something like that.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Renee! You know about this! Spill! Spill, right now!”

“...”

“Ugh, what a tease. All right, whatever. Let’s all agree that Kevin’s preferred method of wooing –”

“Wooing, what are you talking about –”

“Wooing, is via song. Whatever it was, it certainly worked. Did you see them coming in together this morning?”

“Day’s face was disgustingly sappy, how could I miss that trainwreck of feelings.”

“You make quite the ‘disgustingly sappy’ face as well, whenever Allison –”

“Man, Renee certainly doesn’t hold back, god damn. Remind me to never get on her bad side.”

***

Andrew saw the man every day, on his phone, always talking to someone in low tones. Lately, this impossibility of a man had decided to drag Kevin from whatever he’d been doing before to sit with him at the music room after every call. Sometimes, he pulled Andrew along with a single look (he’d been getting better at those, too), and told him the story of a boy who’d met another boy and found the meaning of music. This boy, he said, then met another boy and learned the meaning of his own music.

“Isn’t this boy quite the accomplished little social butterfly, meeting boys left and right.”

The man would hold back a laugh, lips twitching, and tell him that the boy had already covered his quota of boy-meeting for now, not to worry, his eyes sparkling like the sun shining on a clear lake.

If you asked Andrew, the upgrade from covert listening from the fire escape, to a private audience inside his own apartment, was definitely a catch. Especially so when he got to sprawl on his cozy couch with the voices of the people he trusted and cared about weaving the kind of music people wrote stories about.

Even more so when they all sprawled on his cozy couch together, like well-fed, lazy cats lounging under the sunlight without a care of what the next day might bring. Because nowadays, it dawned on Andrew that whatever the future might hold in store for him, it would also hold these two impossibilities-made-possible by his side.

And that was more than enough.