Archive of Our Own

The day Andrew and Neil moved into their very own house in a nice, quiet neighborhood was, unfortunately, unbearably cold. South Carolina didn’t usually get to be too cold in the winter, but for whatever reason (perhaps the dying planet), it was thirty degrees and windy. So the moving-in process was less than ideal.

It was just Andrew, Neil, and Wymack. Both Neil and Andrew’s exy seasons were over, and next season, they would finally be playing on the same team—South Carolina’s team. So they bought a house, and they bought it in South Carolina, halfway between Palmetto and the exy stadium. Their very own house. Like real people. It was a miracle in a lot of ways.

They were about halfway done unpacking the U-Haul Andrew rented when a little boy suddenly appeared out of nowhere, scaring Wymack half to death. 

“Jesus Christ!” Wymack had gasped when he turned around, because suddenly, there was a kid standing right in front of him. 

Andrew had turned to see the kid, who had shaggy, black hair and dressed a little like Neil, in all baggy, uninteresting clothes. He reminded Andrew of the Neil he had met in Millport. 

“Who the hell is this?” Wymack asked. 

Andrew and Neil had both shrugged because, well, they knew just as little as Wymack did, which is to say, nothing at all. 

The kid had pointed back towards the house next door. “I live there with my mom,” he said. Andrew’s eyes moved toward the house in question, and sure enough, out on the front steps was a woman bundled in a long, black coat, smoking a cigarette. She smiled and waved, polite, and Andrew looked back at the boy. “Can I help you carry things inside? I’m strong,” the boy had said. 

Andrew looked at Neil, who looked at Wymack, who shrugged. “Sure, kid. Grab some boxes,” Wymack said with a nod. 

The boy hadn’t said anything else. He picked up boxes—as many as he physically could, like he was trying to prove his previous claim—and carried them into the house, placing them wherever Wymack directed. It only took a half-hour longer until the U-Haul was empty, and by then, the kid’s mom was outside the house, rubbing her hands together for warmth. Andrew and Neil stepped outside, and the kid stepped past them, joining his mom on the sidewalk. 

“Julia Mendoza,” the woman had said, waving. She put a hand on her son’s shoulder. “This is Angelo.”

Just in time, Wymack stepped out of the house. He was much more polite than Neil and Andrew, and also knew how to properly interact with other human beings, for the most part, which Neil and Andrew were still working on. Like the proper adult he was, Wymack waved and said, “David Wymack. I don’t live here; I’m just helping these two move in. Did they introduce themselves yet?” he asked. The woman smiled but shook her head. “Neil and Andrew. They’re not as scary as they looked. I promise.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true, but the sentiment was nice. 

“Nice to meet you two,” Julia said. She gestured to her house. “If you ever need anything, I’m right next door.” She looked down at Angelo. Squeezed his shoulder. “Let’s let them get settled in, Angelo. Jesus, it’s cold out here.” Down the sidewalk, back into their own yard, and then she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Keep warm!” And that was it. 

Wymack ushered Andrew and Neil back inside and shut the cold out by slamming the door. “You better be nice to that kid,” Wymack had said, immediately going to fiddle with the thermostat. “The lady, too. Don’t be little assholes.”

“I kind of forgot kids were a thing that existed,” Neil murmured as he kicked off his shoes, leaning against Andrew for balance. 

“Idiot,” Andrew had muttered in response, kicking his shoes off, too. 

-

The next time Angelo turned up outside their house was months later, in the early weeks of spring, when the days were growing longer, and the grass was getting greener. Now that it wasn’t so cold, neither Andrew nor Neil minded sitting out on their front steps to smoke. They really needed to quit, actually, but sometimes, on rare occasions, they would allow themselves to share one. 

They had been sitting on the front steps, knees pressed together, passing the lone cigarette between the two of them, when Angelo, hair even shaggier than before, appeared on the sidewalk. What he was wearing was slightly more fashionable this time—a black and gray, long-sleeved band shirt paired with baggy jean shorts, which Andrew wasn’t particularly the biggest fan of, but he could acknowledge that jorts seemed to be falling back into style with the youth these days. The youth. Jesus, he felt old sometimes. Angelo was also wearing a thick pair of battered shoes and held a skateboard under his arm. 

Neil, who had been feeling more like a real person since moving into the neighborhood, waved at the kid. Angelo waved back.

“Um.” Angelo tapped his fingers against his skateboard. “Can I use your driveway? To practice? It’s flatter than ours. I used to use it before you moved in. It’s okay if you don’t want me to, though.” His voice sounded forced, either like he was just an extremely awkward kid or like he wanted his voice to be deeper than it really was naturally. 

“Hmm,” Neil hummed. He was in a good mood that day. Andrew could tell. He was more chatty than usual, more touchy, more gooey. It was disgusting, and Andrew hated it. It was also one of Andrew’s favorites of Neil’s moods. “Maybe. Can you do any cool tricks?” Neil asked. Was this—was he trying to tease the kid? 

Angelo shrugged. “I can ollie, and a few other lame things. I’m trying to learn how to kickflip, though.”

“If you crack your skull open, will your mom sue us?” Andrew asked, because for one, skateboarding was stupid and dangerous, and two, if Neil could tease the kid, then so could he. 

At that, Angelo laughed, snickering toward the ground. “Don’t worry. We won’t, and even if we wanted to, lawyers are expensive.”

“Then, okay,” Neil said. Angelo grinned and tossed his board down onto their driveway. “But if you do crack your skull open, we’ll pay your medical bills, anyway. It’s not like we’ve got anything better to do with our money.”

Angelo’s focus remained on his feet as he adjusted them on the board. Over and over again, he tried and failed to land his trick. “Are you rich?” he asked. 

“We’re Exy players, unfortunately,” Andrew said. “Do you know how overpaid professional athletes are?”

“Extremely?” Angelo guessed. 

“Extremely,” Andrew confirmed. 

“Well, you could donate it. You know, like, to the Trevor Project, or the World Wildlife Fund, or one of those food and water charities. Or you could start a food pantry.”

“Good ideas,” Neil told him. Andrew agreed. Those were good ideas. Andrew had thought about them before, but he didn’t know exactly how to enact them. They had donated to plenty of charities online, but they always relied on Renee to help them find ones that aren’t secretly evil, or something. Lots of bad people hid behind good names, apparently. But Renee was good at that sort of thing—finding the right ways to help people. 

Angelo tried his trick for, maybe, the thirtieth time, and his board flipped in the air, and then he landed back on his feet, back on the board, right side up, and his hands shot up into the air as he let out a triumphant yell. “I did it! I did it!” he yelped. “Oh, my God, my mom’s not gonna believe me! Can you—can you tell her? Did you see it?”

Andrew, despite the unenthused look on his face, was thoroughly impressed. Mostly impressed that the kid hadn’t cracked any bones yet, but also slightly impressed by the trick. Neil, on the other hand, had his hands cupped around his mouth and was hollering all sorts of cheers. 

Before Andrew knew it, Angelo had disappeared into his house and returned back outside with his mom, pulling her by the arm, practically jumping up and down. “Tell her! Tell her! I did it, Mom, I swear,” Angelo was saying.

Julia was smiling fondly, staring down at her son with the warmest look in her eyes. A little, Andrew thought, like Cass. But no. No, that was not a good thought to have, because no matter how warm Cass sometimes looked, she was not a good mother, and Julia seemed to be a great one. Angelo seemed to love her, anyway, and Angelo never acted scared of her, and Angelo felt safe enough in his home to run inside shouting about the skateboard trick he landed. So Julia, most likely, was a brilliant mother, and Cass was not, so it was bad, awful, harmful for Andrew to make that connection between the two. Julia was Julia, and Cass was Cass, and they were not the same. 

“I believe you, Angel. I believe you!” Julia was saying through soft laughter. 

“It’s true,” Neil confirmed, standing up now, watching the pair. He linked his fingers tightly with Andrew’s, squeezing, maybe thinking of Mary. “I saw it. Andrew saw it, too.”

“Good job, sweet boy,” Julia said, and pressed a kiss into Angelo’s cheek. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, swinging him from side to side. “Good job, good job, good job,” she said again and again, Angelo grinning and swaying with her. She pressed one more kiss to his hair. “Go put on some nicer shoes, and we can get your favorite pizza for dinner.”

“Really?!” Angelo pulled away, eyebrows raised. “All I have to do to get what I want is learn cool skateboard tricks?”

Julia laughed and laughed. “No, absolutely not. Only sometimes. Or else it won’t be special anymore, will it?”

“Guess not.” Angelo shrugged, picked up his board, and started making his way down the driveway. “Be right back!” 

“Oh, and grab my purse for me, will you?” Julia called after him. 

Angelo stuck out a thumb and vanished into the house.

Neil squeezed, squeezed, squeezed Andrew’s hand in his. Andrew couldn’t tell if the happy day Neil was having was turning poisonous. He couldn’t tell if they would spend the night eating ice cream on the couch and mocking bad movies, or if they would spend the night in bed, curled into each other, reminding one another of how to breathe. It was a shame mothers like Julia had to be so goddamn rare. Or maybe they weren’t so rare, and Neil and Andrew had just gotten the short end of the stick. 

“Thank you,” Julia said, turning to face Neil and Andrew. Neil didn’t, or perhaps couldn’t, move, so Andrew gave a small nod. Julia took a deep, heavy breath. “He’s been having a hard time at school lately. I don’t know if he has any friends, and his dad—oh, I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear about this. Just—thank you for being kind to him.”

Andrew, again, nodded, unsure of what else to do. 

Neil’s hand slipped out of his, suddenly, and he stepped closer to Andrew, pressing their shoulders together. “Of course,” Neil said,  because they were adults, they were people, and they were functioning. They could be neighborly. “Enjoy your dinner.”

Angelo came bounding out of the house wearing a nice, mostly unscathed pair of Converse and wielding his mother’s oversized purse. “Thank you!” Julia called out to Neil and Andrew before joining her son in the car. A minute later, and they were gone, off to have a nice, lovely, mother-son dinner together, like good mothers and sons did. 

As soon as they turned off the street, Neil tugged Andrew into the house. The door shut behind them, and Neil was in his arms, face pressed into Andrew’s shoulder as Andrew ran his hand through Neil’s curly, auburn hair. 

Neither of them needed to talk. Neither of them needed to explain. That was the good thing about Neil, Andrew thought. He didn’t need to explain what he was feeling to Andrew because Andrew could already sense it, and Andrew didn’t need to explain what he was feeling for the same reason, and yet, if they wanted to explain, the other would always listen. Now, though, wasn’t a talking kind of moment. All Neil wanted was to hold and be held, and Andrew would gladly give him just that. 

-

“Hey!” a loud, disembodied voice echoed. 

Andrew looked at Neil, who looked at Andrew, who was obviously equally confused. They were in their backyard, making s’mores and listening to music under the string lights they had set up at the beginning of summer. 

Maybe whoever was calling out into the night, disturbing the peace like some kind of hooligan, was not calling to them and was rather calling to someone else. Maybe a mom somewhere down the road, calling for her kids to come inside. Maybe—

“Hey! Mister—ah, I don’t know your last names. I’m sorry. Neil! Andrew!”

Well, no, it was definitely someone calling out for Andrew and Neil, then. And only two people in the neighborhood knew Andrew and Neil, as far as Andrew was aware, and only one of those two people had an adult woman’s voice. 

Julia. 

Neil and Andrew both sat up a little straight, looking from left to right and finding nothing. 

“Up here!”

Andrew and Neil’s heads shot up toward the sound of the voice to see Julia poking her head out the window on the second floor of her house. Angelo was beside her, head in his hands. Julia waved an arm, probably smiling politely, but it was hard to make out her face in the dark, especially in juxtaposition to the bright light shining from Angelo’s bedroom behind her. All Andrew could really see were their silhouettes. 

Angelo and Julia were not at all close with Neil and Andrew, per se, but they talked to them often enough, now, that Andrew was willing to wave back at Julia. 

Almost every time Andrew and Neil went outside, really, Angelo said hello to them. It was annoying at first, but Angelo learned how to tell the difference between when they wanted to be left alone and when they wouldn’t mind him hanging around pretty quickly. 

“I taught Angelo how to make a new kind of bracelet!” Julia called out, probably disturbing the rest of the neighborhood without a care in the world. Angelo was an avid bracelet maker, apparently. When the weather got warmer, off came his hoodies and long-sleeved shirts, and on went his short-sleeved shirts, revealing the variety of bracelets around his wrists. He made several different types of string bracelets and dabbled a bit in beaded bracelets. Andrew didn’t understand how it could be possible for Angelo to have learned yet another type of bracelet, but whatever. “Do you want him to teach you how?” Julia asked.

Andrew looked to Neil, who raised an eyebrow. Andrew shrugged. He could use a bracelet. It would be a nice way to spend the evening, maybe, as long as Julia could quit her shouting. 

Neil turned back to Angelo’s window. “Sure! Come on over!” he yelled. 

Two minutes later, and Angelo was tossing his bracelet-making lunchbox over the chain-linked fence that separated their yards before hopping over the thing himself. He made his way over to where Neil and Andrew were sitting in a mopey tween kind of way, and Andrew found that half-amusing and half-depressing. Angelo wasn’t usually like this, but then again, maybe Andrew just hadn’t seen this side of him.

“Sorry,” Angelo said as he approached. “We don’t have to make bracelets if you don’t want to. She’s just forcing me to leave the house because I haven’t yet this weekend.”

“It’s Sunday night,” Neil said. Captain Obvious. 

Angelo shrugged. “And I didn’t have school to drag me out of the house yesterday or today, so why would I go anywhere? Why would—never mind.”

“I thought your whole… vibe was about being rebellious. Aren’t skater boys supposed to be rebels? You don't have to come out here just because your mom wants you to. Not very rebellious of you.” Neil was teasing—Andrew could tell—but Angelo either didn’t notice or wasn’t in the mood.

He shrugged. “I am a rebel, but I’m not unreasonable. I know when to listen to my mama. Just—do you want to make the bracelets or do you want me to sit and be quiet?”

This, Andrew thought, was extraordinarily strange. It was obvious that Angelo wasn’t trying to have a shitty attitude, but he was failing catastrophically at behaving like the happy-go-lucky kid that sometimes appeared in their driveway with a skateboard. When had Andrew or Neil ever once told Angelo to sit and be quiet? The answer to that question was absolutely never. 

“What is your malfunction?” Andrew asked, sounding a bit more blunt than he had originally intended.

Angelo huffed and plopped down in the chair across from where Neil and Andrew sat eating their s'mores at the table—or, rather, Andrew eating their s'mores. “I don't have a malfunction. I just had a shitty week, okay? Do you want to make the bracelets or not?” Angelo asked once again.

“I wanna make a bracelet,” Neil answered. He looked at Andrew. “Drew?”

“Sure,” Andrew said.

“Okay.” Angelo opened his string-containing lunchbox and dug around for a moment, taking out colors for his own bracelet, before sliding the tin over to Andrew and Neil. “Pick your colors. Doesn't matter how many, really, but the more colors you pick, the thicker it will be. I usually use, like, six max, or it gets too thick for me to like it. It gets itchy, and since it’s all one big, thick bracelet, you can’t really itch between like you can with a bunch of small bracelets—sorry. Doesn’t matter. Just pick some colors.” 

They dug through the tin, pulling out tangles of thread until they had the colors they wanted. Neil picked out purple, white, black, and gray. Andrew chose red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Angelo had taken out pink, white, and blue. 

Ah, Andrew thought, look at us—a perfect little queer inclusivity advertisement. 

Angelo set up their strings for bracelet-making and gave them a very in-depth tutorial of how to tie different knots and what order to tie those knots in until Neil didn't need any more reminding—Andrew stopped needing reminding after the first time, but he didn't mind letting Angelo attempt to guide him. Once they all got the hang of it, though, they sat quietly and worked on their bracelets together.

It was Angelo who, after five or so minutes of quiet, broke the silence with an unsure, “Are you going to ask me about my bracelet colors?”

Andrew raised an eyebrow. “Do you want us to?” He was educated enough to recognize the colors of the trans flag, and although he hadn’t considered the possibility before, now that Andrew was thinking about it, it would make sense if Angelo was trans. He wore baggy clothes, didn’t fit in with the kids at his school, and didn’t seem to be hitting any of the male puberty milestones most middle schoolers would be hitting, like embarrassing voice cracks and peach fuzz. All on their own, those signs meant nothing, but paired with a bracelet of pink, white, and blue, and the question ‘are you going to ask me about it’, they could only mean one thing. Still, it didn’t really change anything, and Andrew didn’t care to hear about it. If Angelo wanted to talk, he could talk, but if he didn’t, it wasn’t like Andrew gave any sort of a shit. 

Angelo didn’t look up from his bracelet, but Andrew could smell his anxiety from a mile away. His hands, which were previously moving smoothly and steadily, were now quivering, and Angel couldn’t seem to get a good grip on the string he was trying to knot. “Do you know what they mean?” Angelo asked. 

“Yes,” Andrew answered. 

For a moment, Angelo said nothing, seemingly waiting for something.

Finally, Neil realized that Angelo was waiting for his answer, too. “Yeah,” he said. 

Three times, Angelo opened his mouth to speak, but he only succeeded on the third try. “Don’t you think I’m weird, then?”

Andrew couldn’t help the scoff that escaped his lips. “Weird for what? Existing?”

“I don’t know.”

“We don’t give a shit.”

“My dad thinks it’s weird,” Angelo murmured. 

Andrew didn’t know what to say, and it didn’t seem like Neil did either, considering he was just as silent as Andrew. Neither of them had experience with transphobic or homophobic dads. Sure, shitty dads, but not, like, emotionally abusive dads. Andrew didn’t know his dad and didn’t care to, and Neil’s dad couldn’t bother to be homophobic because he was too busy trying to kill Neil. The closest thing they had to experience in this domain was their knowledge of Nicky’s experiences with his parents and being sent to a conversion camp. Even then, Andrew wasn’t exactly a comfort to Nicky in any way. He didn’t know how to talk about this.

Before he could think of anything to say, either luckily or unluckily, Angelo went on. 

“I mean, I’ve never met him, technically, so I guess it doesn’t matter. But Mom calls him sometimes. I hear her. She tries to get him to meet me, but he doesn’t want to. She tells him all about me, as if that’ll convince him, but the more she tells him about me, the less he wants to meet me.” Angelo explained all of this very quietly—so quiet that Andrew almost couldn’t make out his words. “It’s none of your business. I’m sorry. It’s just stupid.”

Neil sighed, a little awkward. “Dads don’t matter anyway, especially when you’ve got a mom like your own. A lot of the time, they’re more trouble than they’re worth.”

“You're probably only saying that because you probably had a bad dad, too. That's why your Coach helped you move in?"

“True. But also, I know a lot of people with a lot of shitty dads. You don’t need your father’s approval to just—I don’t know, to just exist. You don’t need his approval for anything, so there’s no use being miserable about it.” Neil wasn’t very good at seeming sensitive, but that didn’t seem to bother Angelo. 

“It’s not just him, though. It’s everyone. Everyone sucks,” Angelo said, voice suddenly fierce where it once was meek. He huffed, though, and deflated just as quickly as he’d riled himself up. “Except my mom. And maybe you guys, I guess. But everyone else sucks.”

“My friend Renee doesn’t suck,” Andrew said. 

Neil could read Andrew like a book. He must have known instantly where Andrew was going with this, because he quickly added, “Neither does my friend Matt. Or Robin, or Dan, or Allison, or Nicky, or Wymack, or Abby. Aaron and Kevin—well, they do suck. Just not in the same way most people suck.”

“Bee doesn’t suck, either,” Andrew added, because Bee most definitely didn’t suck and Neil was just petty about therapists. At his big age. Ugh. Someday, Andrew would convince him to go to therapy. He needed it. Everyone needed it. 

“The point is,” Neil said, “not everyone sucks, even though it seems like it right now. Someday, you’ll meet cool people, and they won’t suck. And you’ll feel like you have an actual place.” Andrew loved him. No, hated him. No, both. Hated how much he loved him? Andrew didn’t know, didn’t care. He just moved his leg closer to Neil’s until their knees were pressed together. “Trust me, I didn’t think it was possible at first, but it is, and you’ll find it.”

“Doesn’t feel like it, now.” Angelo was staring at his bracelet, almost finished, eyes made of glass. His voice was wobbly. 

Andrew prayed the kid wouldn’t start actually crying. That, Andrew couldn’t handle. He’d just get up and leave. “That is because you’re twelve years old and everything is shit when you’re twelve years old. Realizing that everyone sucks is a prerequisite to being in middle school.”

“I’m thirteen,” Angelo corrected. “I’ll be fourteen in October.”

“Because that makes a difference,” Andrew deadpanned. 

Angelo tied off the last knot on his bracelet, then held it out to Andrew and Neil. “Can you tie it on?” he asked, and stuck out his left arm. Andrew took the bracelet from Angelo and went to push up the boy’s long sleeve, so he could tie it around his wrist, but Angelo pulled away. “Do it on top of my sleeve. I’ll slide it under, after,” Angelo said, voice stiff. 

Andrew’s eyes darted to Neil’s. Neil was already looking at him, his eyebrows pinched together the smallest amount. He was thinking exactly what Andrew was. 

After Angelo shook his arm a little, pulling attention back to the task at hand, Andrew tied the bracelet around Angelo’s sleeve. When Angelo pulled his arm back, Andrew watched intently as the boy very methodically moved the bracelet to join the others under his sleeve. Andrew didn’t get a glimpse of what was under the sleeve, but he could easily guess. 

Oh, Andrew was going to have to snitch. 

Andrew remembered in gut-wrenching detail the heart-thumping fear of Cass finding out about the lines he was digging into his own skin at Angelo’s age. He remembered the way his whole body would spike with adrenaline when someone got too close to his sleeve, the way his stomach would twist when his teachers asked why he was wearing long sleeves in May, and how his whole body would freeze when Cass got too close to the drawer in his room where he kept his blades.

At this point in time, a handful of people knew about Andrew’s scars. Neil, of course. Abby and Bee. Aaron. Andrew hadn't told Nicky yet—not that he was going around telling anyone, but Nicky seemed like he ought to know, but he didn't. Wymack probably figured it out, Andrew assumed, but he never said anything about it. 

The point was, Andrew didn't want to be a snitch. He didn't want to tell Julia and give up Angelo’s own opportunity to do it. But he knew that there was an obligation for him to tell Julia, because Julia couldn't help Angelo if she didn't know, and if Julia couldn't help Angelo, then Angelo would continue to hurt himself, and—Andrew couldn't just sit with that. He couldn't.

“Does your mom know?”

What the fuck? What the fuck?

Neil was taking charge with this? 

“Does my mom know what?”

“About what you're hiding under your bracelets,” Neil clarified. Andrew slipped his hand over top of Neil's and squeezed a thank you. He couldn't—or didn't want to, rather—deal with this on his own. 

Angelo had frozen.

He began packing his string, aside from what Neil and Andrew were using, back into his little tin lunchbox. His expression was pinched and furious. A tear, real and thick and free this time, slipped down his face. Andrew's gut twisted, but he said nothing. 

“Angelo,” Neil said, tense and careful. It was like he was taming an angry animal. Or like he was talking to a younger Andrew, who had his knife against someone's throat or stomach and was one wrong move away from doing something he would regret. “I think you should tell your mom, so she can find a way to help you.”

“I've only—just a couple times.” Angelo’s voice was broken and difficult to understand over the sound of the crackling fire pit and the chirping crickets. His eyes shone under the string lights, seething and sorry and scared and shameful and sad. 

“Then you can nip it in the bud before it becomes a lot bigger of a problem and a lot harder to quit,” Neil reasoned. He was calm and tense at once, and Andrew kind of wanted to curl into his side and lie there till the morning sun rose, but now wasn't the time for that. 

Angelo shook his head. “No.” He yanked his lunchbox off the table and stood up. His sadness was fading away into all terrified fury.

“I think you should tell her. She will help you,” Neil said again. It was true, too, because Julia was a good goddamn mother. Far better than Mary, and fat better than Cass ever could have been. Telling Julia would mean getting Angelo help—real, actual, good help. “If you don't, I’ll do it.”

“No.” Angelo looked as if he wanted to say a lot more, but was entirely incapable. “No. No.”

“We cannot sit and do nothing while you hurt yourself,” Andrew said. He said it before he could think it. He felt his heart throb in his chest and wondered if Angelo felt the same. Andrew would have, if someone had given him this ultimatum. “I know that you’re probably afraid of your mom finding out, but she needs to know so that she can get you help, so you can stop before it gets worse.”

“No. You don't know. You don't—you don't understand.”

“I do, more than you think.”

“No. No!” 

And then Angelo was gone, storming off, back to his own house, slamming the door on the way in. 

And Andrew’s fingers were digging into Neil’s hand so hard that Neil had to pull them away. Andrew murmured an apology, two apologies, and Neil wrapped his arms around him and tugged him closer until Andrew’s face was pressed into his shoulder. 

-

It had been a month since Andrew and Neil told Julia about what Angelo was doing. 

They had given Angelo two days, and then they knocked on Julia’s door and asked her if Angelo had talked to her about it. She said no, so Neil told her, and she thanked them profusely through tears. 

Angelo stopped talking to Andrew and Neil after that. 

He stopped using their driveway when he wanted to practice skateboarding tricks, and he stopped saying hi whenever they were outside at the same time, and he wouldn't wave at them like he used to when he passed their house on the way home from the bus stop. He didn't look at them at all. 

But he was getting better.

Andrew could see it from afar. He could see it in the amount of time Angelo was spending outside, in his yard, drawing or skating or lying down in the grass and staring at the clouds. He could see it the way Angelo’s bedroom lights shut off at a reasonable time each night. He could hear it when Julia opened the windows to let in the early summer air, and Angelo’s laughter would echo out through the window screens. He could see it in the fact that Angelo had a friend over from time to time. He could hear it in Julia’s voice when she greeted Andrew and Neil, or when she smiled at them from her yard. Angelo was getting better.

Angelo hated Andrew and Neil, but Angelo was getting better.

That was okay. Andrew was used to being hated.

-

It was far too early in the morning for someone to be knocking on the door—at least far too early for someone to be knocking on Andrew and Neil’s door, anyway—but someone was knocking nonetheless. 

Neil sat up in bed, untangling himself from Andrew, much to Andrew’s dismay, and rubbed at his eyes. “It’s 8:45. What the fuck,” Neil muttered, grouchy and sleepy and pushing messy bedhead away from his eyes. “Who knocks on people’s doors at 8:45 in the morning?”

Andrew grumbled, wordless words, and curled toward Neil, pressing his cheek against Neil’s lower back. “Don’t care,” he murmured, and tugged gently on a curl at the back of Neil’s head. “Come back. Lay down.” It was one of their few days off from practice. They deserved to sleep in later than this.

“We need to answer, or they’ll just keep knocking,” Neil said, which wasn’t entirely true if you asked Andrew. Andrew could ignore the knocking for hours if it meant he got to stay in bed with Neil for longer, but clearly, Neil didn’t have that kind of dedication. Asshole. “I’ll be right back,” Neil said, getting up out of bed. 

“Liar,” Andrew grumbled. “You’ll be too awake, and then you’ll want to go on a run. I’ll lure you back with breakfast.” Despite his tired, achy muscles, Andrew got out of bed, too, with a huff and pulled a sweatshirt on over his pajama shirt. He wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep now, anyway, and now that he was thinking about it, he was a little hungry. Neil probably was, too. They had had an early dinner the night before. Andrew pressed a kiss to Neil’s cheek and led the way downstairs. He bypassed the door—someone was still knocking—and went straight to the kitchen to start breakfast. Pancakes, he decided. 

While Andrew started on the pancake batter, he listened to the sounds of Neil answering the door in the other room. There was a woman’s voice, too quiet to understand, but it sounded a little frantic. High-pitched and shaky. Who the hell could it be?

Andrew set the whisk and bowl down and peeked his head into the hall, peering down toward the front door. Neil was opening it wider, nodding his head, and when he stepped aside, Angelo walked in. What the fuck? Outside, on the front steps, was Julia, looking like a mess with raw, red cheeks, as if she had been crying. Angelo seemed unbothered, if not a little grumpy. What the fuck was going on?

As he made his way to the front door, Julia’s words finally came into hearing. “I’m so, so sorry. I just didn’t know who else to go to, and I don’t want to leave him home alone—”

“I’m not a baby, Mom. I’m perfectly capable of staying home alone,” Angelo said. In his voice, Andrew could hear a small amount of patience for his frantic mother, but also a lot of disdain for the situation at hand. “I used to stay home alone all the time. I’m not gonna—I don’t know what you think I’m gonna do, but I’m not gonna do it.”

“Honey, I don’t know how long I’ll be gone or where I’ll be, so please, please just humor me and stay here for the day. I don’t want you home alone for so long,” Julia said. She pressed a kiss into Angelo’s hair and turned away. “Thank you. Thank you so much! Call if you need anything! Thank you!”

And then the door was closing, and Angelo was in Neil and Andrew’s house, and Julia was leaving. 

Angelo and Neil turned, and they spotted Andrew in the kitchen doorway. Neil’s expression was tight and painfully awkward. Angelo’s was nothing short of a scowl. He sighed, long and dramatic, before stepping into the living room, out of Andrew’s line of sight. 

Neil rubbed at his eyes, already exhausted. “We’re making breakfast, Angelo. Want anything?” he asked. Angelo must have said something quiet, because Andrew couldn’t hear anything, but Neil nodded. “What are you making?” he asked Andrew. 

“Pancakes.”

“Pancakes,” Neil repeated to Angelo. Again, Angelo must have said something, because then Neil gave a forced smile and joined Andrew in the kitchen. “He’d like a chocolate chip pancake,” Neil said as he made his way toward Andrew. Andrew, warily, nodded and returned to the batter. Neil joined him at the counter, close to his side, and began to quietly explain. “Julia’s friend got into a car crash. She’s at the hospital and Julia’s her emergency contact. She didn’t want to bring Angelo and asked if we could watch him. She doesn’t want him home alone all day.”

“Perfect,” Andrew deadpanned. “Does she know that he hates us?”

Neil shrugged. “Probably. He’s not very subtle about it.”

“I hate everything.”

“Now you sound like you’re thirteen,” Neil joked, smiling soft and tired. 

Andrew rolled his eyes and got back to breakfast. 

When Angelo’s pancake was done, Andrew put it on the table, and Angelo came lurking. He hovered in the doorway, then near the table, before finally sitting down and picking up a fork. Andrew kept catching the boy staring at him out of the corner of his eye, but he never said anything. 

Throughout breakfast, Neil tried and failed, continuously, to strike up a conversation and ease the awkward silence. He asked terrible, mundane things like how’s your summer going? and got any fun plans before school starts back up? He sounded like a proper uncle, or something, and it was somehow simultaneously painful and adorable to witness. Andrew never considered having kids. For a long time, he thought he’d never heal well enough to be a decent father, and now, he knew he still wasn’t healed enough to be a good father. But maybe someday they could manage it. Maybe someday, Neil and Andrew would sit at the breakfast table with their own kid and torture them with questions they don’t want to answer. Then again, it would probably be next to impossible for them to get approved for fostering or adopting. 

Jesus. Why the fuck was that thought making Andrew sad? What an awful sap he was becoming.

“You don’t have to do this,” Angelo suddenly said, snapping Andrew out of his thoughts. The boy was glaring at his plate as he smeared a piece of pancake around in a puddle of syrup. 

“Do what?” Andrew asked, smearing his own pancake around in his own puddle of syrup.

“I mean, you can just pretend I’m not here,” Angelo clarified, shrugging. “It’s not like I can’t take care of myself. The only reason she won’t let me stay home alone is because you guys put it into her head that I’m gonna kill myself or something—which I’m not, by the way.”

Andrew very nearly scoffed, but he knew better than that, and if he was good at one thing, it was keeping a blank face. “Is that what you think we did?” he asked, voice flat and even and calm. He was angry, somewhat, on the inside. Or perhaps frustrated was a more fitting word. Frustrated that even after time, even after getting marginally better, Angelo still held what they did against them. Frustrated that Angelo couldn’t see that they were only trying to help him. Frustrated, maybe, that Andrew had once been just like Angelo. 

In response to Andrew's question, Angelo, once again, shrugged. “That is what you did. You told her, and now I have to see a psychiatrist once a week, and they’re putting me on medication, and my mom doesn’t let me close my bedroom door unless I’m changing, and she doesn’t trust me enough to stay home alone. That’s all your fault.” He sounded distant, like he didn’t really care about the words coming out of his mouth, but his expression was tight and sour. 

“Look.” Andrew shoved his sleeve up and pulled off an armband. He turned out his wrist, displaying the faded white lines on his skin to Angelo. He felt Neil’s hand on his back, soothing and grounding. “We didn’t do it because we don’t understand, and we didn’t do it because we wanted to get you in trouble. We did it because we do understand, and we know that you can get better.”

Angelo was staring, eyes darting between the healed scars and Andrew’s face. Andrew recognized previous resentment and fresh shock at war in Angelol’s expression. 

Pulling his armband back on, Andrew kept his eyes away from Angelo’s as he said, “You can hate us all you want for telling your mother, but you’d be lying to yourself if you said we did the wrong thing.” He pulled his sleeve back down, too, and got up to put his plate away. “Put your dishes in the sink when you’re done.” 

Andrew turned and left, heading up into the bedroom to sit on the floor and breathe, and breathe, and breathe. 

It was ten, maybe fifteen, minutes later when Neil joined him, sitting next to him at the foot of the bed, combing gentle fingers through Andrew’s golden locks after a nod of consent. “I think he’s starting to understand,” Neil said softly. “He didn’t say anything when you left. He just—he kinda just shrunk in on himself, like he wanted to disappear.”

“Do you feel guilty?” Andrew asked. He didn’t usually entertain these kinds of mental dilemmas outside of a therapist’s office, but he was an adult—a real one, now—and he and Neil could help each other through heavy conversations without Bee there to hold Andrew together. 

“For telling Julia?” Neil asked, and Andrew nodded. He didn’t feel guilty, perse, but he felt something. “I don’t feel guilty. Do you feel guilty?”

“No,” Andrew answered. “But I feel something. I understand why he hates us, and I would have hated us, too, for that, when I was his age. And I feel…” Fuck. How could Andrew still be so awful about acknowledging that he had feelings, after all his time in therapy, after all his time healing? “I feel—sorry, I guess, that I put him in a situation that would have been one of my worst nightmares at thirteen. And…”

“The medication?” Neil guessed, because he was Neil and he just knew Andrew that well.

Andrew gave a small nod. “I know, logically, that medication is a good thing for some people. That it helps people and that some people really do need it to function. But mine was fucked. It was fucked, and it was wrongly prescribed, and I cannot help worrying that other people—that Angelo—will have the same experience.”

“But we get to see him,” Neil said.

“What?”

“Angelo, on his meds.” Neil gestured vaguely to the doorway, referring to Angelo downstairs. “We know what he was like before, and we know what he’s like now, on his meds. He’s healthier. He’s doing better. He’s not like you were. He is very self-controlled, and calm, and okay. His meds aren’t doing to him what your meds did to you.”

Andrew nodded. He nodded because he knew Neil was right and he knew Angelo was okay. And they were supposed to be fucking babysitting, but instead they were upstairs, locked away in their room, because Andrew had too much empathy, of all things, for a thirteen-year-old kid. When the fuck did Andrew start feeling empathy?

“We should go downstairs,” Andrew said. Neil stood and held a hand down to Andrew in offering, which Andrew gladly took. 

When Andrew and Neil made it to the bottom of the stairs, they found Angelo in the living room, holding a video game controller in his hand. He turned at the sound of Andrew and Neil stepping into the room, his expression easier than it had been before. “Can we play MarioKart?” he asked, hesitant. 

Ceasefire. Truce. 

“Yeah, of course,” Neil said, grinning. 

And so they did. They sat in a row on the couch, each with a controller in hand, staring at the screen and throwing shells at each other as they raced. They played for two hours, race after race after race, until Angelo declared that he was tired of MarioKart and wanted to do something else. And so they played a round of Clue, and then a few rounds of some complicated card game Angelo had learned from his friend—his friend. His new friend from the skatepark, whom he met because he wasn’t hiding away in his room anymore. His friend, with whom he kept sending and receiving texts from throughout the day. His friend because he was getting better. 

They got terrible, greasy cheeseburgers from the fast-food drive-through for lunch, and watched some 90s, supposedly classic movie Angelo insisted on in the afternoon. After the movie, they played MarioKart for another hour, and then made cupcakes to have after dinner. For dinner, they made macaroni and cheese, because that was apparently Angelo’s favorite, and they ate it while watching an episode of a baking competition show. After dinner, they decorated their cupcakes and ate as many as they could without getting sick. 

And after dinner, as the sun began to set, Angelo suggested making bracelets. 

It hadn’t gone well last time, and part of Andrew wondered if it would bring some of Angelo’s previous sourness back into play, but he agreed, anyway. Angelo ran over to his house and retrieved his bracelet-making box before bringing it over to Neil and Andrew’s house. 

This time, Angelo chose each color of the rainbow, Andrew chose gray and black, and Neil chose several variations of the color orange. Angelo helped them get started again—not that Andrew really needed any reminding, but he kept that to himself.

They had been sitting quietly, making their bracelets and listening to Angelo’s playlist, for around ten minutes before Angelo broke the silence with a quiet, “I understand, now, I think.”

Andrew looked up from his bracelet to glance at him for a moment, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say, and even if he did, he wanted Angelo to have a moment to explain himself a little more. 

“I know why you told on me, and I think I would have, too, if I were you. And all it did was help, actually.” Angelo’s voice was wobbly and unsure, but not like he was going to cry. It was more like he didn’t know whether he’d be forgiven for his previous behavior—if only he knew that Andrew and Neil didn’t feel the need to forgive him, because he didn’t really do anything wrong. “I know I complained about the psychiatrist and the meds, but they have been helping. And besides, after next week, I’ll switch to a regular therapist weekly and only have to see the psychiatrist every few months. And I’ve been to therapy before—just not often. It helps, I think. It’s all been helping.”

“We’re glad to hear that, Angelo,” Neil said, because Andrew couldn’t say anything just yet, but it was clear Angelo wanted acknowledgement. 

Angelo seemed to hesitate for a moment, then went on. “I was—I was mad because I didn’t want my mom to worry about me, and because I didn’t think you understood. I’m sorry I assumed, and I’m sorry I’ve been rude. And I’m sorry you felt like—like you had to show me, for me to stop being an asshole.”

“I didn’t have to do anything,” Andrew said, finding his voice again. He stared blankly at his bracelet, tying knot after knot to keep his hands busy. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. I chose to show you that I understood because I wanted to, so you shouldn’t apologize for that.”

“Um, okay? I’m not sorry, then?” Angelo murmured, awkward. He drummed his fingers against the table a few times, breathed in and out, then added, “Thanks for telling on me. I think I’d do the same thing if I were you.”

Neil shrugged nonchalantly, a small smirk playing at his lips. “It’s nothing. I’ve snitched on much scarier people than you, so it was nothing.” What a dark way to lighten the mood, Andrew thought. 

Angelo, however, didn’t seem to get what Neil was saying. “What?”

Eyebrows furrowed, Neil turned to him, confused. “You don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?”

“Did you never Google us?”

“You play Exy. I already know that. Why would I Google you?” Angelo asked. 

Andrew very nearly laughed. It was a close thing. “Maybe try Googling him,” he suggested. 

Angelo’s eyes narrowed, and he dropped his work-in-progress bracelet to pull his phone out of his pocket. He started typing away, eyes moving quickly around his screen. Andrew watched the expression on Angelo’s face shift from confusion to utter disbelief. 

“Your dad was that crazy serial killer in Baltimore?!” Angelo shouted. 

“Yes,” Neil said, some mixture between disbelief and amusement on his face. It was nice, Andrew thought, that Neil could talk about this now without it ruining his week. That he could joke about it without having to spend the next few days in bed, torturously tired yet unable to sleep. “I can’t believe you didn’t know. Where were you in 2007?” Neil asked. 

“I don’t know. Learning my times tables?” 

“Shit. You were, what, seven?”

“Yeah. Wow. You were probably being hunted down while I was reading Warrior Cats.”

“Warrior Cats? What the fuck is Warrior Cats?”

“A book series about cats that are warriors, hence the n—”

Angelo was interrupted by a knock on the front door. In stark contrast to this morning, Angelo looked somewhat disappointed at the thought of going back home. Because he’d enjoyed himself. He’d had fun. At Andrew and Neil’s house. With Andrew and Neil. When the fuck did Andrew and Neil become good with kids?

“That’s probably your mom.” Andrew got up from the table and headed to the front door, Neil and Angelo not far behind with half-finished bracelets and Angelo’s tin lunchbox. Andrew opened the door, and sure enough, Julia stood outside, looking tired and relieved. “Hi,” Andrew said, because that was probably what normal people said when they opened the door. 

“Hi,” Julia echoed back at him, grinning at the sight of Angelo, happy, behind Andrew. “How was he? Were you polite, Angelo?”

“He was great,” Neil said. Angelo nodded in confirmation.

“Wonderful. Thank you guys so, so much. My friend is alright. She broke some bones and had surgery, but she’s healing up fine, and her sister will be in town tomorrow. Thank you so, so much for looking after Angelo. I’d feel awful if I had to leave him home alone all day long.” Julia was talking and talking and talking, quick and flustered, like some kind of movie character. Andrew kind of forgot that real people could be that way sometimes. When he or Neil was flustered, they simply didn’t speak at all. Most people, however, were not like that. Evidently. “Come on, Angelo. Did you eat? Did you have fun?”

“Yeah, yeah. It was good, Mom,” Angelo said, joining his mother on the front steps. He turned back to Neil and Andrew, smiling a small, delicate sort of smile. “Thank you,” he said, and he meant more than what his mother likely understood. He meant thank you for telling on me, thank you for helping me, thank you for understanding. 

Andrew nodded, and Neil smiled, and when Angelo and Julia turned away, they shut the door. The lock clicked shut, but Andrew could still hear Angelo’s voice on the other side of the wood. 

“I wish they were my dads, sometimes,” Angelo told his mom. 

And Andrew turned, and his eyes met Neil’s, and they both felt raw. Like one more word would shatter them both. 

They went upstairs, and they took turns showering, and they put on their pajamas, and they brushed their teeth, and they got into bed together. Under the safety of the blanket, Andrew wrapped his arms around Neil's torso, and Neil put his hands in Andrew’s hair, and Andrew pressed his face into Neil’s chest, and they breathed. They breathed in and out, together, because they were fragile, and they were healing, but they were once broken. Broken like Angelo had been, healing like Angelo was now. Fragile because neither of them, at thirteen or at any age, had their own Andrew or Neil’s. Neither of them had a person they could thank. Neither of them had ever thought, not once in their lives, that they could ever be something good to someone. That they could help someone else heal.

They could be good. 

Neil kissed Andrew’s hair. 

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Because they could say that, now, and it was true, and it wasn’t poisonous anymore.