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imperfectcourt · 5 years

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Andreil Anastasia Au

So I was gripped by something and I wrote this on my phone. Don't look too closely at literally any detail I just was smacked in the brain by an andreil Anastasia au and it was supposed to be short but now it's a lovely, unintelligible 2.1k

So.

I mean, Neil is obviously Anastasia, and the Monsters are going to take him on a grand road trip back to his father

And Neil lost his memory when his mother died while on the run. He doesn't remember how, just that there were flames and that he needed to run change lie

He knows there are gaps in his memory and despite his instincts to flee he's filled with a desperation to be someone and he has a postcard in his duffel bag that's worn and wrinkled so much that he can't make out the words on the back but the front is a picture of an old brick house and Edgar Allen Poe and he doesn't know when he got it or why he's kept it but if Neil from Before kept it he should too

Now the monsters. They need a bargaining chip. They have Kevin. The Moriyamas want Kevin back very desperately. Have been hounding and threatening them for months.

See, they had a great investment that went missing several years ago and they can't afford to lose Kevin as well. No, that just won't do.

So Andrew strikes up a deal. If he can find their lost investment and bring him back, they can keep Kevin. One investment is better than none and reuniting a poor kidnapped boy with his poor heartbroken father would do well for their reputation after the skiing accident.

Now, this is all on Andrew. Because Andrew has a promise to keep and he's going to fucking do it. He's heard enough stories and rumors and Kevin's drunken ramblings to know about Nathaniel. The Moriyamas pass a message that he was last seen north of Seattle so that is where they monsters conveniently vacation right after the semester ends. Aaron thinks it's a dumb vacation destination. Nicky loves the lgbt scene. Kevin follows Andrew.

At night, Andrew holds auditions for someone who can pass well enough as Nathaniel Wesninski to convince a few people who had met him when he was ten. According to Kevin, his father probably didn't actually want anything to do with him unless it was to kill him so chances were they'd never meet. If he can find and train someone good enough in the same city as Nathaniel's most recently known whereabouts, it should be good enough.

And the tip wasn't completely off. Nathaniel was on his way to Seattle because he thought it was time to come back through the continental u.s. Neil is looking for a place to crash and breaks into a boarded up motel whose aura makes him want to vomit and he's counting on that to keep others away.

When Andrew sees this short, flighty looking bastard with a shitty dye job skulking around his audition space he can't deny the shockingly blue eyes are exactly what all the others have been missing. Neil flinches at the name Wesninski and blames his feeling of dread on the blood stain next to the empty metal bed frame. (He doesn't need to know that his body is reacting to both things. His brain might not remember the sight of his mother being struck but his heart does).

He's desperate for a purpose and desperate to run change lie and it might not be an accident that he allows Andrew to stop him. It is an accident that he lets his guard down enough for Andrew to get a hold of the post card and make a comment about the Edgar Allen House in Baltimore. He'd never known what the weird house was. And really, that's the only reason he agrees to go on this crazy adventure. Possibly being reunited with a man who lost his son? Someone who shares his eyes and who comes from the same place as his only personal item? Learning who he is? Going to college? Playing a sport? What's the worst that could happen?

He agrees to go back with them. Andrew tells the others the plan- teach this kid enough about Exy to be useful by the time they get to the east coast so he can attend Edgar Allen University in Kevin's place. Neil is excited about a college education and answers and family and a purpose. Kevin feels sick with relief and guilt and clings to Neil's desire to go through with it.

And so they road trip. In a pinch, coast to coast is 40 hours of straight driving. They meander their way back and stop by any public court they can. Kevin teaches him how to perfect Exy (god, Neil feels so alive and right this is exactly what he's been missing why did his body know and crave this sport so deeply that his bones ached for it)

Andrew and Neil are both overly cautious, still. They trade as many truths as you can with someone who lost their memory. Neil can't trade his past but he can trade himself and he becomes so desperate to stay in the game that he begins giving away everything he's kept close (why had he? Why run why change why lie? Being known was everything, as long as Andrew was the one knowing).

He thinks he's been to Europe because he can never find chocolate that tastes exactly right and he knows some German and Russian. He has spent time in England probably because sometimes he uses words that make Americans tilt their heads. He knows French but usually speaks Quebecois French and he starts to do it around Kevin because it makes Kevin a little bit nuts and Neil is an instigator at heart.

These start out as secret truths. By the time they get to Wisconsin, he is much more open with these little bits of himself, as if others knowing them meant they are real, he's real (Andrew always knows first, though)

One day at a court near a public park in Madison, he mentions that he thinks he really likes math and Kevin snorts. "Russian, England, math. You sound more like Abram Besikovitch than Nathaniel Wesninski. Now set me up for that play again, it was terrible."

But Neil doesn't set him up again. He stops and stares at Kevin's mouth and then walks away in without a word all the way back to their shitty motel. Andrew follows him and puts the chain on the door to keep the others out. It's Neil's turn for a truth so he just raises his eyebrow and Neil doesn't need a clarification after weeks of zigzagging across america. He tells Andrew that Kevin made a joke and Neil didn't like it for some reason. Andrew says that Kevin will not say it again. When they smoke that night, Neil is solemn and feels like the void he'd been filling all summer has cracked open even wider in his chest.

In Chicago, some fans spot Kevin and ask for some selfies. Neil stands off in the background with Andrew and Aaron and Nicky and pokes fun at PR Kevin in rusty German.

Andrew gets a text from an unknown number later that says he has done a good job.

In Cincinnati, Andrew kisses Neil after a day of no Exy. In Pittsburgh, Neil kisses Andrew after a game with some local college kids. In Morgantown, West Virginia they stay in a decent hotel and kiss on the roof until the sun comes up. In Weston, Kevin has a panic attack and refuses to look Neil in the face and they order pizza and Neil falls asleep on Andrew's shoulder. In Ripley, Andrew does not believe in regret but he does believe in mistakes. On Route 77, he rummages through Neil's duffel while they all take turns peeing in the woods and its mildly helpful.

At a campground in Kenna, Neil goes missing.

While Nicky drives, Andrew chokes Kevin in the back seat and demands to know what he realized last week.

Neil doesn't know the woman who took him but his lungs do.

In the car, he remembers. The smell of burning flesh is pungent and unforgettable and singes his brain now like it did under the iron years ago. He screams and struggles and pleads. He thinks about Andrew and Kevin and the way the Maserati smelled after they drove too long with a broken air conditioner and the weight of an Exy racket and the absolute peace of kissing Andrew for hours and hours and of being known.

In Baltimore, he doesn't know how he could ever forget. He stares at his father and remembers. He remembers getting a postcard when they were at Uncle Stuart's house. He remembers the pipe to his mother's stomach. He remembers the car accident when he realized what had happened to her and the fire and stumbling through the California woods away from the emts and rescue and passing out near a stream. He remembers waking up and passing out all the way to the Canadian border where he used French that he didn't know he spoke and a passport he didn't know he had to cross into Vancouver.

He asks his father why, but really it's for Andrew.

Did Andrew know? Did Kevin recognize him? Had this always been the plan? Was any of it real? Was he real?

Desperation to fulfill a purpose. That was a joke. Desperation to survive was the only thing that mattered. Run change lie. Nathaniel fought his way away from his father, pulled himself across the concrete floor with his torn up arms, closed his body around the foot that kicked him in the ribs to trip, stall, anything.

A crash. Pop Pop. Thud.

Uncle Stuart wasn't surprised to see Nathaniel. Neither were the emts or feds. Nathaniel didn't have the energy to care anymore. He let them take him. His father was dead and he had no obligation to the Moriyamas and they had no real claim to him. What was it to him if the FBI had some questions.

It was all in exchange for some legal paperwork. Neil was back and he had some college credits in his back pocket and a decent high school GPA and absolutely no prospects outside of possible witness protection.

2 nights before his release from the hospital, Uncle Stuart comes back with a folder of paperwork for a university in South Carolina. He pats Neil awkwardly on the shoulder and says that the FBI aren't the only ones who can pull strings. Neil asks why this school. Uncle Stuart says that's where his friends go. Neil says that people who trade in people are not friends. Uncle Stuart asks if Neil really wouldn't sacrifice a stranger to save someone close to him. Neil says he has no one close to him and hates that it feels like a lie. Uncle Stuart asks if he still loves Exy.

In 2 days, he leaves the hospital and an agent drives him south.

A paper in the folder has an address and apartment number on it. When Neil presses the buzzer, he is let in with a disgruntled sound over the intercom. When he knocks on apartment 724 he comes face to face with a tall man who asks why he's so late to summer training and then how he expects to play in that condition. Neil asks what the fuck is going on. So does Kevin. Neil asks what the fuck again.

See, Stuart was always going to come after Nathan but a call from a boy who should not know his number had pushed up the date.

See, Andrew had looked for literally any clue that could be useful in Neil's duffel bag and found a phone number coded into a paper of numbers. Abram had been the key.

See, after Andrew had choked Kevin he learned that he had been surprisingly successful in acquiring an Exy investment for EAU. He learned that death would not pass over this unknown mistake, it would come looking for the runaway. He called the number, he asked about Baltimore, he told Stuart who he would probably find in that basement.

Neil hummed and waited on the couch. Andrew entered the apartment with a crash and did a poor job of looking unaffected. He clutched at Neil's bandaged cheeks and cursed him out for nothing, just to curse him. Fuck you you fuck you stupid fucking idiot you fucking dumb exy fucking fuck.

Neil asks about the promise. Andrew says that he always keeps his promises. Neil asks about the deal. Andrew says that the promise will just have to be long term babysitting if it can't be solved permanently. Neil asks about the kisses. Andrew says he doesn't believe in regret. Neil asks yes or no. Andrew doesn't answer with words.

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