Hugs (5+1)
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The dorm smells like cinnamon when Neil gets home. He shuts the door behind him—slowly, so as not to interrupt whatever music Andrew’s got playing—and sets his bag down on the couch.
“Oh simple thing, where have you gone? I'm getting old and I need something to rely on.”
Andrew is at the stove. He’s mixing something, fork in one hand, bowl in the other. There’s flour on the counter along with a couple of open Pillsbury dough cans.
“So tell me when you're gonna let me in. I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin.”
Neil makes his way further into the living room. Andrew doesn’t turn to look at him, but there’s a tilt of the head, a shift in weight. A greeting—though, hardly much of one.
Neil adores Andrew like this—sleep-mussed and bandless, comfortable in the sanctity of his own space. Neil’s gaze catches on the rhythmic movements of his wrist, the luminous spill of white-gold light across the bridge of his nose.
It’s moments like these that make Neil wonder what life could be like if they make it to thirty. Pajamas in the kitchen, coming home to each other. Snapshots of a future Neil would kill to make real.
Andrew looks over a shoulder. The wispy shadows of his eyelashes fall in brittle streaks across his cheekbones.
Maybe it’s already real.
“Try,” Andrew says, holding out the fork in his hand.
Neil crosses to the counter and lifts himself up onto it, avoiding the flour-patch. “What is it?”
“Icing.”
Andrew fits into the space between Neil’s knees. He lifts the fork to Neil’s lips, and it’s too sweet—the icing—but Andrew will like it.
“You made cinnamon rolls last week,” Neil observes.
Andrew puts the fork back into the bowl. “I wasn’t aware there was a refractory period for baked goods.”
“Refractory period,” Neil wrinkles his nose.
Andrew turns back to the stove. Neil takes a moment to appreciate the bare backs of his legs, the strain of his Achilles tendons.
And perhaps there was a time when Neil didn’t find him quite so captivating. Before all the promises—the secrets and cigarettes. Back when Neil saw the world in a categorical absence of color.
He doesn’t know when things changed. If he had Andrew’s perfect memory, he might be able to pinpoint the exact moment—but for now, the best Neil has got is that bus ride home his freshman year, when the sun turned Andrew golden for the first time.
The song changes. Neil feels a little senseless.
He says, “Dance with me.”
Andrew adds more powdered sugar to the mix. “Hit your head on the way home?”
“I want you to dance with me. Yes or no?”
Andrew sets the bowl down. He looks at Neil like he’s grown a third head.
“You don’t know how,” Andrew says.
“Show me.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Let’s make something up.”
Andrew blinks once, twice. He’s a flickering breadth of candlelight, a myriad of cogs turning beneath bones and skin.
It takes a whole minute for him to extend a hand.
“Yes.”
Neil allows himself to be pulled off the counter. He crosses his wrists behind Andrew’s neck, drawing him close enough to share breath. Andrew’s calloused hands find a home on the dip of Neil’s waist.
“But someone, they could have warned you.”
They’re swaying. It’s the best they can do for each other. Neil has never been to so much as a school dance, and he can’t imagine that Andrew has, either.
“When things start splitting at the seams and now the whole thing’s tumbling down.”
There’s a spot of icing on Andrew’s chin. Neil wants to kiss it off—could, very easily—but he doesn’t, because then they would be kissing, and Neil can’t bear to break this eye contact.
“It’s tumbling down, hard.”
“There’s a zit on your nose,” Andrew tells him.
Neil raises an eyebrow. “It’s hardly the worst thing on my face.”
“You’re right. It’s that mouth.”
“You like it.”
“One of these days, I am going to staple it shut.”
“And anything to make you smile. You are the ever-living ghost of what once was.”
Neil drags his thumb over the skin of Andrew’s nape. He feels Andrew tighten his hold in response, a bracket that expands and contracts with every breach of Neil’s lungs.
He thinks he understands why people do this. Dancing isn’t talking, isn’t sex. Not the way they’re doing things, at least. It’s existing together without the give and take.
“I never want to hear you say that you’d be better off.”
The timer on the stove sounds. Andrew stops their swaying but permits the noise for a while, holding Neil’s gaze like something that might wriggle out of his grasp if he loosens it.
Then his hands disappear. He turns, shuts off the timer.
Neil mourns the loss of him.
“And no one is ever gonna love you more than I do.”
Andrew takes the cinnamon rolls out of the oven. He turns off the heat, and then he’s back, hands on Neil’s waist.
There’s a question in Andrew’s eyes. Neil nods, feels something earthly uncoil behind his ribs.
Andrew wraps his arms around Neil’s middle. He draws them close, chest to chest, and Neil gets to be there when Andrew goes golden all over again.
Andrew tucks his face into the hollow of Neil’s neck.
“No one’s ever gonna love you more than I do.”
“What’s this for?” Neil whispers.
Andrew says, “Nothing.”
And Neil understands.
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The thrilling conclusion!! All 6 parts posted over on Ao3 if you’re interested. Songs referenced in this part are “Somewhere Only We Know” by Keane and “No One’s Gonna Love You” by Band of Horses.
Thank you all so much for the love and support on this series!! <333
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
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