Archive of Our Own

It is without dignity that Andrew yanks the car door shut behind him. Irritation trips beneath his skin, pulsing at both temples, and he is no stranger to anger—he wouldn't have been a fox if he was—but Neil Josten is, always has been, and always will be a uniquely vexing creature. It's part of what drew Andrew to him in the first place.

But tonight, all Andrew can think about is how handsomely he would suit a full-body cast.

The engine is purring before Neil's ass so much as grazes the passenger seat. Andrew toes the gas as the door swings shut, smacking Neil's head back against the leather headrest with a thump.

"Fuck," Neil mutters, righting himself. Andrew says nothing.

The sun is about halfway set. Oak trees curl above the narrow road, slats of bright orange flashing over the dash as the car gains speed. The knuckles on Andrew's left hand are white on the wheel.

"Are you going to be an ass if I apologize?" Neil asks, and Andrew considers, briefly, how difficult it would be to reach over and push Neil out of the moving car.

"Give it to me," Andrew says in lieu of a response. He holds out his right hand, palm up. He keeps his eyes on the road.

Neil sighs—with his body more than his mouth—and obliges. Andrew's fingers curl around the cellphone hard enough to make the plastic creak. He wastes no time in attaching it to the charger plugged into the car port, and it's so dead the screen doesn't even blink with a red battery symbol.

When Neil had headed out earlier this evening, it was still bright outside. Just going for a run, he'd said. Be back by dinnertime, he'd said.

Liar.

Andrew's foot punches the gas. The road they're on is rural, desolate. No houses in sight. It's a long route, and Neil likes to run the trail beside it when he's feeling particularly antsy. Nothing gets Neil antsy like the off-season. Come July, he transforms into an even bigger pain in Andrew's ass, equipped with too much energy and too much free time. An insatiable mover. If the walls of their apartment weren't a factor, Andrew isn't entirely unsure Neil wouldn't vibrate across state lines in his sleep.

And Andrew's not stupid. He knows it's inevitable. It doesn't make it any easier to stomach when Neil goes radio-silent for hours on end, knowing full-well that Andrew will jump to yakuz-ish conclusions. He's good at imagining it: Neil in the back of a black van, getting his fingernails removed slowly enough to hear; Neil, limp, on the side of the road, riddled with bullet holes.

It's stupid to shut his eyes while he's driving, but Andrew does. Just for a second. Tries to give himself the slightest reprieve while his hands do their best to disappear into the leather of the steering wheel.

When he opens them again, Neil is staring at him. Always staring. And what an excruciating picture they make: Andrew in the driver's seat, doing his best impression of a bear-skin rug; Neil in the passenger side, cast in arresting orange, knowing he's about to get away with the entire evening so long as he bats his eyelashes at just the right frequency.

They should have left Neil in Arizona. Then, maybe, Andrew might have stood a chance at some real peace and quiet.

"I think the battery is going out," Neil says after a bit. "It needs to be replaced."

Andrew grits his teeth. "You are not funny."

"I'll get it replaced, Andrew."

"Stop talking."

The speedometer climbs and Andrew watches the trees whistle past. He turns the knob on the radio until the volume splits ears. He catches Neil's eye-roll, just barely, and it's so familiar to Andrew he can see it when he blinks: one of those shit-eating, too-Josten gestures that makes Andrew's pulse skip.

The last time Neil disappeared like this, he returned hours later with a fractured tibia and a sprained ankle, courtesy of a wayward biker who didn't stop to make sure Neil was still breathing. The time before that, he had a panic attack so severe it benched him for a week. The time before that, Neil had to be dragged out of his father's basement by a handful of FBI agents.

So, yeah—sue Andrew for freaking out a bit.

Minutes pass in irritable silence. Andrew is vaguely sure the song they're listening to is something by the Eagles, but as long as it's loud, he couldn't care less.

And maybe it's the music, maybe it's the borderline apoplectic rage simmering just beneath the surface, but when the car veers sharply left, Andrew barely feels it—thinks it's just a bump in the road—but then the Mas makes a horrible popping sound, followed by a stark hissss, and suddenly they're lopsided.

Neil swears loudly, hand flying up to the grab-bar. Andrew's foot comes down hard on the brake and the whole car comes skidding to a stop, rolling just off the asphalt onto the side of the road. The vehicle stills. It is notably askew.

"Are you okay?" Neil asks, breathless.

Andrew's teeth slide together. His hands stay on the wheel for an extended moment, leather creaking beneath his fingers as his heart hammers in his chest. Neil has to reach over to kill the engine.

Once enough time passes for Neil to determine Andrew probably doesn't have an answer in him, Neil pushes out through the passenger-side door. He clambers onto the grass and Andrew watches him pass in front of the Maserati, casting a long shadow over the center console. He moves until he arrives at the front left tire and then crouches out of sight.

Andrew doesn't move until Neil pops up again to tap on the driver's side window. Andrew rolls it down without expression.

"Flat," Neil declares, running a hand back through his sweat-damp hair. "We went over a nail. Can you pop the trunk?"

Andrew does, and Neil starts for the back of the car.

With Neil disappeared once again, Andrew finally leans back. He squeezes both eyes shut, tries to smother the lingering adrenaline—the irritation, two things that have become easier to feel in years past. Andrew doesn't know if it's courtesy of Neil, or Bee, or the not-so-simple process of getting older every day, but he's grown worse at suffocating. It is supposed to be a good thing. It does not feel that way.

A few more moments of collection pass before Andrew allows himself to exit the car. He shuts the door behind him harder than necessary, one boot slapping against asphalt and the other swishing through shorn grass. At the trunk, Neil is bent over, top half obscured by the hatch. Andrew arrives just in time to watch his biceps strain lifting the spare tire.

In the years since Palmetto, Neil has put on a decent amount of bulk. Andrew remembers how thin he used to be—how breakable. And comedy may not suit Neil, but his new physique certainly does: lithe muscle crawling beneath marred skin. His armbands conceal everything below the elbow, but Andrew knows the way those scars and tendons feel beneath his tongue. Could map them with his eyes closed.

Irritated. Andrew is irritated.

"If you get the jack for me, this will go a lot faster," Neil says.

Not a demand. Not really a question, either. Andrew gives him a look that says he'd rather eat glass.

Neil carries the spare over to the front of the car before returning for the jack. He grabs the tire-iron, too, and when he passes Andrew again, Andrew catches the sheen of sweat on his shoulders, so graciously exposed by the cut of his tank top. He's wearing those stupid running shorts that ride up to just under his ass.

Irritated.

Andrew has never changed a tire before. It occurs to him quietly, watching Neil jack up the Mas and set to work removing each lug nut. The GS was Andrew's first car, and it never blew a tire. The way Neil does it is quick—practiced. Not his first rodeo. Andrew can imagine a young, weary Neil making a quick tire change under Mary's watchful eye; dark road, middle of the night, pulse skyrocketing with every passing vehicle.

Things like this come to Andrew's attention every so often. Last year, for example: a power outage during a winter storm. Neil had flown into action. He sequestered them to the bedroom, hung thick blankets over all the windows. Towels stuffed under doors. He took a scented candle and did some bullshit with tinfoil and a flower pot, and it was enough to warm Andrew's shivering hands.

It's a tiny reminder that Neil can take care of himself. A tiny, tiny reminder, but enough to make Andrew's distress deflate a bit.

This brand new space in Andrew's attention makes room for the way Neil bites his lip pushing down on the tire iron. He uses both arms, most of his body weight. Andrew leans up against the Maserati and watches with a startling abandon. Neil gets the last lug nut off and stands to scrub a hand down over his face. Disgusting—but what's worse is the answering twitch of Andrew's dick in his jeans.

"Will you help me lift it off?" Neil asks.

Andrew folds his arms. "You are a professional athlete."

"And this tire is an awkward size." Then, "Andrew, I'm sorry about the phone."

"Move."

Andrew pushes Neil a foot to the left so they can each get a good grip on the tire. It lifts with ease, but certainly easier with two sets of hands. It replaces the spare in Andrew's trunk.

Then it's Neil again, applying the spare tire and securing it tight. Andrew feels a flush beginning to creep up from his sternum—not entirely from the heat. He takes a long breath in through his nose.

"I ever tell you about the time I almost broke my hand doing this?" Neil says, voice straining as he puts pressure on another lug. "My mom was leaning against the car like you. The jack slipped and the tire fell on, like, three of my fingers."

Andrew makes a show of leaning a bit harder. "We can fix that 'almost.'"

"Didn't I say I was sorry?"

But Neil is smiling, and it's a stupid smile. Andrew lets up on the car.

By the time the sun disappears, Neil has replaced the tire and is pumping the jack back down. Andrew is becoming less and less concerned with acting like he hasn't been staring this whole time.

Neil finishes with the jack. Oblivious as ever, he fists a hand at the bottom of his shirt and tugs it up, up, to pass over his face.

And oh, that does it—those fucking abs. Not so lithe anymore, and the patchwork of scars on his abdomen catch the dying light in a way that feels far too soft-core for a random fucking Tuesday. Beads of sweat disappear into the waistband of those low-slung, horrible shorts, and the lewd V of his pelvis points down, down, down. Nothing Andrew hasn't seen before, but all it means is that he becomes Pavlov's dog against that car, body responding to those too-familiar angles in too-familiar ways.

Andrew is at a point where he can admit to himself when he wants something. It's not his fault Neil looks stupid hot with that tire iron in his hands, or that all of tonight's circumstances have coalesced and congealed into something that burns.

Neil catches him looking. The right side of his grin falls. The other stays. He says nothing.

Andrew clambers back into the car while Neil returns the iron and the jack to the trunk. It isn't until Neil returns to the passenger side that he realizes Andrew hasn't reclaimed the driver's seat.

"If that tire falls off at forty miles an hour," Andrew says, handing Neil the keys, "I will turn you into a collection of leather belts."

Neil shrugs—takes the keys. "I'd make some interesting patterns."

Seconds later, he's in the driver's seat, and the Maserati is thrumming back to life. Andrew barely feels it. He's become achingly aware of his body, the way his pant-seams sit against his inner thighs. The denim has been too tight for too long.

And it's infuriating—how Andrew's ire gives so easily to Neil's magnetism. He's angry. He's fucking livid, but—

But maybe Andrew is remembering the last time he saw Neil this disheveled. Maybe it was in their bedroom, and maybe Neil was sucking bruises into Andrew's thighs while he was three fingers deep.

Andrew takes a steadying breath. This is ridiculous.

Neil's got the window cracked, letting the Colorado breeze whip a select few curls every which way. The radio is on again, quieter this time, and Neil's fingers tap absently along to the music. He's been comfortable behind the wheel since Andrew first handed him the key.

And it's—well, it's another reminder of Neil's ability to handle himself. He may not know how to plug a phone into the wall, but he is not so accident-prone, these days.

Andrew is still mad.

"Yes or no?"

It takes Andrew a moment to realize he's even said the words. Neil looks over at him, lips parting in surprise. It's not often they have to ask anymore.

"Yes," Neil says, like it's easy.

Andrew puts his hand on Neil's thigh. It makes Neil grin, wide and belligerent, and Andrew understands all at once that Neil has been pretending at ignorance tonight, at least to some degree. He knew what he was doing when he hopped to changing that tire. When he pulled up his shirt to wipe his face. As stupid as Neil tends to be, he has the occasional ability to play a very smart game. Andrew has the occasional ability to indulge him—and, perhaps, himself.

Andrew's hand inches higher, higher. Neil's skin is hot beneath his palm, just slightly damp. He can feel the subtle shift of Neil's tendons where they lay beneath smooth tissue.

A sharp gasp from Neil, when Andrew finally starts toying with the hem of his shorts. His grip tightens on the wheel.

"Hey," Neil breathes. "Hi."

Stupid.

Andrew slides his hand further inward, runs a teasing finger along Neil's femoral, because something about this feels appropriately arterial. Blood singing, like going one-hundred-and-four on an empty stretch of dark freeway. Like biting into something that gushes.

He makes a slow, bold pass upward, hand settling over the firming shape of Neil's erection. The fabric of his shorts is dangerously thin. Andrew squeezes. Neil makes a choked-off sound at the back of his throat, and Andrew thinks, smart games, stupid prizes.

"Pull over," he says.

Neil jerks the wheel. The Maserati rolls to a stop once more, albeit at a much more comfortable angle this time. Brake, park, and then Andrew's mouth is on Neil's, hot and insistent. Neil responds in desperate kind. His lips move against Andrew's, soft. So pliant.

Neil's hands make a tentative plea at Andrew's arms, asking without asking. Andrew pushes into the contact. Neil's skin on his own is high-octane, pulling Andrew halfway across the center console by sheer magnetism alone. Andrew steadies himself with a hand on Neil's thigh.

And Neil is awful—gasping at every brush of Andrew's fingers against his rapidly hardening dick. His voice strips the inside of Andrew's brain, frays the edges of his patience until Andrew gives in to the urge to squeeze Neil around the base. Neil grips Andrew's biceps with a feverish intensity. Hot, hot hands.

"Jesus," Neil pulls away just far enough to pant against Andrew's mouth. "That really did it for you, huh?"

Andrew bites down on his lower lip—hard. Neil's dick twitches beneath Andrew's palm.

"Like you didn't know what you were doing," Andrew accuses. "Backseat. Now."

Neil answers with the click of his seatbelt. His hands fist at the front of Andrew's shirt, pulling him close. The front seat slides back with a shhk, giving Neil enough room to draw his legs up.

It isn't easy, but seeing as either one of them could fit in a decently sized ottoman, it isn't too hard, either. Andrew falls on top of Neil in the backseat, bracketing his hips with both thighs. Neil grips at Andrew's waist, drawing him in again, rucking his shirt up to reveal a pale strip of stomach. His hands pass over Andrew's skin with a carnivorous abandon, and when he licks into Andrew's mouth, a part of Andrew's brain goes blissfully numb—lidocaine. Lost power in a summer storm.

It's rare for Andrew to undress before Neil, but he needs more. He pulls back just long enough to tug his shirt over his head, discarding it somewhere inconsequential. Neil's eyes lock onto the newly exposed flesh, and it had not always been so easy for Andrew to let himself be looked at this way. Neil's gaze used to grate—used to flay Andrew to the bone with a single glance—but somewhere along the way, his body learned to covet it. Learned to feel it like the pass of a hand over his skin. Goosebumps spring with the drag of Neil's eyes, and Andrew makes himself still long enough to let it happen: payback, for having to watch him change that tire.

Neil traces a reverent finger down Andrew's sternum.

"You're leering," Andrew admonishes, stifling a shudder.

Neil's eyes fall to the waistband of Andrew's jeans—to the trail of dark blond hair that disappears beneath it.

"You're hot," he says simply.

Andrew flushes up from his stomach, and Neil must catch it, because his answering look is self-righteous. Andrew shoves him roughly back and grinds down into his lap, which has always been a good way of shutting him up. For a while, at least.

Andrew takes to sucking a bruise over Neil's carotid. Neil's pulse hammers beneath his tongue—patpat, patpat, patpat—and it's a thrill to know that Andrew is the only one who can work him up like this, that no one else has ever had the burden or privilege of knowing what Neil sounds like with someone else on top of him.

And there is something to be said for fucking in a car: they can be as loud as they want in here. Not a neighbor in sight. Andrew is going to take Neil apart.

Neil's shirt joins Andrew's in the foot-well, and all of him is on sudden display. Andrew runs his hands down Neil's marred torso, fingers sliding over familiar ridges. His chest is slick with sweat, rising and falling beneath Andrew's palms. There have been hurricanes less devastating.

It takes less than a second for Andrew to fall back into him. Skin on skin, and the heat makes things a bit terrible, but Andrew is too wired to care.

The push and pull of their bodies is a routine thing, but far from banal. Andrew likes that he knows just how Neil will react to the roll of his hips, the bite of his jaw. Predictable—to a degree. Neil knows when to nip back, when to ghost a hand over Andrew's ribs just light enough to spring goosebumps in eighty-degree weather.

"Off," Andrew demands, pulling back to push at Neil's waistband.

"Wait," Neil stops him with a hand on his wrist. Andrew stills. "What are we doing?"

Andrew just barely refrains from rolling his eyes. He grabs Neil's jaw and tilts it up until their noses brush.

"You are going to sit there," Andrew says, "and try to remember how a phone works while I fuck myself on your cock."

Neil's pupils blow hilariously wide. He blinks for a moment, flashes of unsettling blue, before nodding quickly. He bucks his hips and Andrew shifts back to help him get those godawful shorts off. His underwear disappears somewhere along the way.

And then Neil is bare from the waist down, dick springing free from his boxers to lay stiffly against his stomach. Hard, thick, pink. Andrew's mouth goes dry.

"Uh," Neil falters suddenly. "Lube." Then, "Lube?"

Andrew reaches back for the center console. It comes open with a pop, and from it he retrieves a small bottle. Neil's eyes widen.

"No way," he huffs a laugh.

Andrew shrugs, letting the console fall shut. "I wasn't about to have a repeat of Savannah."

"Savannah" had been January's impromptu road-trip, and the harried nature of it all had resulted in too little preparedness and too much spit to compensate. Andrew refuses to endure a repeat.

Andrew discards the bottle for the time being and gets to work making Neil squirm. The first graze of Andrew's knuckles against his bare cock results in a full-body shudder, Neil's head falling back against the seat. His palms find homes on the tops of Andrew's thighs, gripping hard. Andrew presses his thumb into Neil's frenulum and Neil arches away from the seat.

"Andrew," Neil brings his eyes back, and they're' dark—so pretty.

Andrew holds his gaze as he gives Neil a lazy stroke. Neil bites down on his lower lip. Another stroke, and Andrew's thumb is making a soft pass over Neil's head, pressing into the small bead of precum there. Andrew doesn't think he imagines the hiss of air through Neil's teeth.

Because as predictable as Neil is, Andrew is worse. He'll do the same song and dance all over again just to hear those sounds from Neil—whatever Neil wants. Whatever Andrew has to pull to make Neil move like that.

Andrew's other hand slides lower to cup Neil's balls, and oh, that makes his eyes roll back—throat bobbing, splotchy with Andrew's developing marks. He throbs in Andrew's hand, so alive, and it's like sculpting, the way Andrew drags slowly up, down, carving Neil into something that twitches and bucks and whines. His fingers dig into Andrew's thighs through his jeans.

Andrew strokes him a few more times before letting go. Neil makes a weak sound of protest, but the disappointment is quick to ebb when Andrew brings Neil's hands around to rest on either side of his ass. Neil's answering exhale is little more than a shudder. He looks up at Andrew like he's concussed, and Andrew presses back into the feeling. He grinds down in to Neil's lap. Neil squeezes, making a low sound in his throat. He leans forward to catch the angle of Andrew's jaw with his lips, dragging down, down, and nipping at the skin above his jugular.

"You feel so good," Neil murmurs against his skin. He pulls Andrew's hips into a lazy back and forth, bringing their cocks into dizzying contact with one another.

Electricity starts low in Andrew's stomach.His hands slide up to cradle the base of Neil's skull, then back down to sweep over his throat, the perfect slope of his shoulders.

Andrew thinks back to the first time he straddled Neil like this, some years ago on the roof at Palmetto. He remembers the way gravel dug into his knees and the way his hands shook at the weight of someone between his legs. Wanted. Needed, for the first time ever. Neil hadn't moved to touch him once.

Today, Neil's hands are a thrilling weight, pressing into the flesh of Andrew's ass and drawing him closer. Neil's cock makes a slow drag downward, passing over Andrew's taint to press against his hole through the fabric.

Andrew makes a sound through his teeth. He needs more.

Wordlessly, Andrew pushes up on his knees to get his pants and underwear down around his thighs, then off entirely. Neil's hands are gone and back in an instant, mapping over the fine hairs on Andrew's thighs, the stretch marks on his hips. His cock brushes Andrew's—finally, totally bared—and Andrew isn't sure whose is more sensitive.

"Touch me," he breathes.

Neil is quick to oblige. He relocates one of his hands to the base of Andrew's dick, squeezing lightly. He uses the other to tap two fingers at Andrew's lower lip. Andrew holds his eyes while he takes him in to the first knuckle, laving his tongue over the faded scars there. Neil's eyelids fall, and Andrew takes him deeper, letting his teeth graze. Neil tastes like salt—sweat. The inside of a nightmare. He starts an agonizing rhythm on Andrew's cock.

It's better, Andrew has discovered, to have something in his mouth when Neil touches him like this. Neil had jokingly chalked it up to Andrew's oral fixation, but the truth is that the feeling of Neil's hands on him, more often than not, is incendiary in a way that requires some sort of distraction. His tongue slides between Neil's fingers—sticking Andrew to the moment with long, slender pins.

"So pretty," Neil says. "God, you—"

Andrew applies some pressure with a canine, effectively snapping Neil's jaw shut. Neil's hand slides up, down, and Andrew is bleeding, hemorrhaging want by the time he manages to locate the bottle of lube again, Neil's touch bringing him to the edge and back until Andrew finally pops the cap.

When he hands it to Neil, Neil's face opens up into something besotted. He kisses Andrew hard, and it tastes a bit like "thank you." He lets go of Andrew's dick to squeeze some lube onto his fingers.

"Ready?" Neil asks.

Andrew breathes—nods. Neil reaches behind him, tracing a feather-light line down the column of Andrew's spine. Then he's there—slick, exactly where Andrew wants him—and Andrew doesn't know if it's the adrenaline of the evening or if he's just that far gone, but the pressure whites out the part of his brain that cares to differentiate. Neil's touch is gentle, questioning. He holds Andrew's gaze and Andrew fights not to let his eyelids shutter.

"Still okay?" Neil murmurs.

Andrew nods. He pushes into the contact, feeling the slick tip of Neil's finger catch on his rim. The sensation is equal parts warm and obliterating. Neil circles for a few moments before pushing in.

It hasn't been too long since they've done things this way. The stretch is familiar, but Neil still goes slow. His other hand maintains a steady pull on Andrew's cock, coaxing Andrew's hips into rolling. Forward into one hand, back onto the other.

By the time Neil adds a second finger, the edges of Andrew's awareness have gone hazy. Neil is hot beneath his thighs, sticky with sweat. His breaths come in dizzying pants. He rocks his fingers in tandem with Andrew's movements, and the angle isn't perfect, but Neil manages to find his prostate after a few thrusts regardless, and—oh. Jesus fucking—

"So good," Neil breathes. "So, so good."

Shut up, Andrew thinks. Shut up, shut up, shut up—but Neil's voice is low, wrecked. Andrew isn't even touching him.

And isn't that absurd? How completely Neil dissolves whenever Andrew gives a bit of ground? It doesn't make sense—hasn't, since Andrew first placed Neil's hand on his chest in their dorm room Neil's freshman year—but it rankles. It peels and rips and breaks. Andrew was never supposed to feel this way. Neither was Neil. The fact that they do, and that they feel it for each other, should be the punchline to a cruel joke.

Neil wants him. Really, actually wants him.

Irritating.

Three fingers, and Neil has taken to rubbing incessantly at Andrew's prostate. Shock after shock wracks its way up Andrew's spine. He has to reach back to clamp a hand over Neil's wrist before things end prematurely.

"Junkie," Andrew hisses.

Neil grins up at him, dumb and pretty. Andrew wants him dead.

Andrew steels himself before lifting up on his knees. Neil eases his fingers out of him, reaching up to steady Andrew's hips. Andrew holds himself there for a moment, staring down into Neil's face, processing the absurdity of their position and how, just a few years ago, the mere idea of this would have put Andrew in the hospital.

Neil's pupils eclipse themselves as Andrew leans in for another kiss. He breathes Andrew's name into his mouth, and that's all there is.

Sinking down onto Neil's cock is something that used to threaten Andrew's indifference to the point of breaking. These days, it still does, but in a way that hurts less—better. Like the place a bruise used to be. The stretch of himself around Neil is victory—it is heat and ruin and home. He lowers himself until his thighs are flush with Neil's again, and he is full with him.

Neil sucks in a breath. His fingers tighten on Andrew's hips, eyes fluttering shut. He tips his head back against the leather seat.

Andrew is—he is breathing. Lowly, slowly, like squeezing a handful of broken glass. Every shift of Neil inside of him is a split atom. Neil opens his eyes again, and it carves something important out from behind Andrew's ribs: composure. Restraint. A little bit of fear.

"Andrew," Neil murmurs on an exhale.

Andrew kisses him. This is deliverance.

Forward, backward—Andrew shifts, re-familiarizes himself with the sensation of being filled. Neil whines, soft and broken into Andrew's mouth, and Andrew lets the sound cover him—a scalding wash of sound—taking Neil as deep as he feasibly can. He wraps his arms around Neil's shoulders. Neil's scars press against Andrew's own through the fabric of his armbands, and it means something Andrew made peace with a long time ago.

Once he has enough of a hold on himself, Andrew pulls away to hold Neil's gaze. He lifts up on his knees again—rises until Neil is just barely inside of him—before sinking slowly, meanly down.

"Fuck," Neil hisses, and when Andrew pulls up a second time, Neil's eyes go glassy.

Down again, and god, Neil is deep—thick, perfect. Andrew's spine wracks with a shudder. Neil grips his hips with an intensity that's just short of bruising, and Andrew fucks down on him again.

Neil's ragged breaths spill into the hot space between them. He chokes out a moan on Andrew's next stroke. Andrew licks the sound from his mouth, runs his tongue along the backs of Neil's teeth.

When he pulls back again, Neil's eyes are shut. Andrew seizes his chin with a hand.

"Look at me," he demands. "Neil."

Neil's eyes snap open—awful blue. His lips fall apart between Andrew's fingers, wet with spit. Fucked-up. Fucked-out.

Andrew says, "What's my phone number?"

Neil makes an incoherent sound. Andrew picks up the pace.

"My phone number, Neil."

"Fuck—" Neil gasps, "Fuck you."

He snaps his hips up to meet Andrew's next downstroke, punching the air out of Andrew's lungs. Jesus, fuck—and when he does it again, Andrew's vision goes white.

"Three—" Neil breathes, smug. "Zero, three—"

Andrew covers his mouth with his own. One of these days, he is going to sew it shut.

The heat in Andrew's stomach builds with every drag and catch of Neil inside of him. He starts moving with increasing abandon, letting Neil continue to fuck up into him. At one point, Neil's hand moves up to pinch at one of Andrew's nipples, and Andrew has to bite down on a hiss.

"You feel so good," Neil tells him. "So fucking good."

The praise sings down Andrew's spine. His ass meets Neil's thighs, slapping wetly in the silence of the car, and it's obscene—cliche—but Andrew is losing it. Neil was tailor-made to ruin him. He drives himself upward, splitting Andrew in two, and it feels a little bit like betrayal: how did did Neil ever become so adept at dismantling him? How did Andrew ever decide that it was okay?

A betrayal, maybe, but one that feels just as good as it does nuclear. Andrew can live with that.

A few strokes of his own cock is all it takes to send him over the edge. He comes with a low sound—electric from the waist down. Neil murmurs something encouraging into his ear but it gets lost behind layers of gauzy, shifting fabric, passing over Andrew's skin and springing little tremors to the skin of his bare legs. He lets his forehead fall against Neil's shoulders as he rides out the aftershocks.

It isn't for a few moments that Andrew realizes Neil hasn't moved. Andrew draws up, catching his breath, before rolling his hips again.

"Sh—" Neil bites.

"You're going to come for me," Andrew tells him, threading his fingers through the curls at the base of Neil's skull and tugging. "You're going to come in my ass."

"Andrew."

Neil raises his hips again. His cock drags against Andrew's spent prostate, but it isn't unpleasant, not when Neil looks ready to fall apart underneath him.

By the time Neil is spilling warmly, thickly inside of him, Andrew's thighs are burning. Neil chokes out a moan, fingers digging into skin.

"Shit," Neil gasps, head tipping back against the seat. "Shit, fuck."

Andrew lets his hips still. He watches Neil's chest heave, covered in sweat, and traces one of Neil's scars with a finger. One of Neil's hands is on Andrew's thigh, the other splayed over Andrew's ribs. He squeezes gently before bringing his head back up.

"Three, zero, three," Neil says breathlessly. "Four, two, eight, nine, two, six, six."

Andrew pops him lightly on the temple. Neil laughs, and the sound is like rain.

He's smiling up at Andrew. The scar on his upper lip pulls ever-so-slightly—a remnant of Neil's first pro season—and Andrew's tongue twitches with the bone-deep memory of passing over it.

Neil reaches a hand up to tuck a wayward strand of blond behind Andrew's ear. Andrew is gone enough to lean into his palm. He's sticky—they both are—but pressing into him right now is as necessary as breathing. Andrew doesn't know when it became so important to be close, after—probably around the time Andrew admitted to himself that this—them—could never really be nothing.

There was a time when it couldn't have been so casual. When he and Neil had to carve days out of their schedule to see if one of their boundaries would tolerate budging.

Now, Neil can fuck him in the backseat and Andrew can like it. Andrew can let Neil soften inside of him and feel like he won something.

Andrew kisses him. Slow, languid. Neil wraps his arms around Andrew's hips.

"Feeling good?" He murmurs into Andrew's mouth.

And for once, Andrew doesn't feel the need to bite back. He lets his nose settle against Neil's as he says, "Yeah. Good."

They stay like that until Andrew feels evidence of Neil's release starting to dribble out of him. He braces himself, using Neil's shoulders to lift himself off, and then it's all over his thighs, dripping, dripping—

"Holy shit," Neil laughs. "Hold—hold on."

He reaches behind Andrew for the front seat, returning with a handful of takeout napkins. Andrew sits back on the center console and lets his knees fall open so Neil can clean him up.

"Disgusting," Andrew mutters.

Neil raises an eyebrow. Then, without warning, he scoots down, tugging Andrew forward by the hips. He licks a long, generous line up the inside of one thigh, catching a wayward drip. He punctuates with a sharp nip to Andrew's skin and Andrew swears he sees god for a second.

When Neil looks back up at him, his lips are wet with himself. Andrew needs a cigarette—he hasn't had one in four years.

Dressing, once Neil stops fucking around long enough to clean up his mess, goes quickly, if a bit awkward. Andrew has to lay back into the front seat to help Neil get his pants over his ass, and Andrew's shirt goes on inside out the first time he tries. Neil falls into the driver's seat so hard the car shakes.

"If I had known that's what I would get for fixing a tire—" Neil starts, but Andrew smacks him on the arm.

Andrew clambers into the passenger seat. He's—well, he's a bit sore, but he's doing a good job of breathing through it. They will go home and follow each other into the bath and it will feel better. Neil will be there. They will be together and Andrew won't have to worry if Neil is in pieces at the bottom of a quarry.

Neil steers them away from the curb with one hand and keeps ahold of Andrew's with the other.

A sudden chime from the center console. Andrew looks over.

Neil's phone, lit up green—finally charged enough to blink awake.

Andrew squeezes Neil's palm hard enough to make his bones creak, but all Neil does is laugh.

"I'm going to smother you in your sleep tonight," Andrew says.

"Yeah, okay," Neil grins. "Good luck finding someone who changes tires as sluttily as I do."