Chapter Text
Drinks they had said. Drinks, a light dinner, some conversation. Not that hard, right? Find something about her to compliment. Her shoes, Allison had told him. Her dress, Dan had suggested. Be polite, smile, don’t talk about anything too personal. A first date was kind of like an interview to see if you wanted to see them again. You just had to show up, be nice and tell them you had a good time at the end of the night. You didn’t even have to get her number, they told him.
A simple date to get his friends off his back and Neil found that simple was the entirely wrong word. First, he didn’t drink, but he was meeting her in the bar off a popular restaurant 20 minutes before their reservation. She drank. She drank white wine that it took her five minutes to pick from the menu, asking his opinions about this brand or that, like he had any clue what any of them were. The only time he drank was when he was in pain and alone, and cheap vodka was a simple solution to that problem. The bar had a muted aspect about it. Warm wooden tone and soft lighting kept most conversations to a quiet hum and served to highlight the clinking of glasses and sounds of the kitchen through the doors behind the bar. Neil liked the place. It had reflective surfaces everywhere, allowing him to keep an eye on the whole room subtly, and clear exits that he kept one eye on at all times. It was the woman, Miranda, and her nervous expectations for the night that bothered him.
He could see the difference around the room. Most people were sitting in pairs, the couple beside them were clearly in a relationship, they were far more comfortable in each others presence. Touching each other lightly and smiling warmly with very little lull in conversation as they bounce between familiar topics. Another couple across the bar mirrored Neil’s own problem. Two men drinking slowly with one going out of his way to make obviously awkward conversation as the other man stayed resolutely silent, barely acknowledging the guys presence as he eyed to other patrons lazily. Neil chuckled to himself, glad that he wasn’t the only one to be dragged out on a date against their will.
The second problem was the clothes. Apparently Neil didn’t own anything worthy of being worn on a date and Allison had forced him to go shopping with her. Neil was certain that she just wanted an excuse to play dress up with him and buy him clothes that she deemed acceptable because he walked out of there with more clothes than he needed for five dates let alone one. Arguing with her had been futile. It was like talking to a brick wall when she got an idea in her head. The upside was that the long-sleeved shirt she picked for him covered most of his scars but there was nothing he could do about the ones on his hands and face. Which Miranda was eyeing nervously every few seconds. And this was why he didn’t get out and meet new people, they either want to make a big deal about finding out what happened to you or they try to hide their interest in the subject. People typically had three reactions to meeting Neil. 0ne) Fear. Pure and simple fear for what he’s seen and what’s he’s potentially done. He doesn’t mind this reaction because it means he’ll be left alone either way. Two) Nervous embarrassment. The people, like his date, who want to know. Want to get close enough to poke at him and are both terrified and excited by what they find if they ever find the courage to ask. They’re the ones that side-eye him on the train and skirt around him in the shop watching him from a distance. The ones that make him feel like he’s never left alone. Three) Protect. The people that see his scars and decide that he’s broken and in need of help and protection. All of his friends had started here, and are probably still there when he considers how much they like to meddle in his life, like setting up this date. They were worse when he first met them. A few screaming matches and the threat to never speak to them had managed to create at least some boundaries in his life.
By the time their reservation had been announced they had cycled through the barest most basic information about each other. Miranda was fresh out of college and living with friends as she interned at some fashion designer, which explained how Allison knew the poor girl. Neil had briefly explained that he moved to New York to take a position with one of the top accounting businesses there, he didn’t explain that he picked it for the anonymity of living in a big city where the people on the street didn’t look twice at you with the benefit of being close to Central Park where he could run every time the nightmares woke him. She looked less than impressed with his profession, probably hoping for some-thing more exciting to match his scary appearance. Neil fought the urge to roll his eyes and flicked his attention to the other couple across the bar to see how they were faring before they made their way to the dining area. The blond man was still leaning back on the bar casually ignoring his date who was babbling away and using his hands to detail whatever he was speaking about, for a brief moment he looked up catching Neil’s eyes before flicking them across room. Neil wasn’t sure who he felt sorrier for, the blond or himself, neither looked like they wanted to be there.
Pull out her chair for her, Allison had coached him. Make her feel special. Why? Neil wanted to know. He followed Miranda and the waiter through the restaurant to a section clearly set up for dates. Two-seater tables arranged with organised efficiency to pack as many guests in as they could while still maintaining a suitable distance from other tables. The bus boy was working quickly to clear a section of freshly emptied tables, preparing them for the next round of customers. Neil didn’t pull the seat out for her. Twenty minutes in her company and he was wondering how soon he could leave without being considered completely rude. She ordered another wine and Neil requested coffee to keep him awake throughout dinner.
She seemed nice enough for a blind date, but he was getting tired of her looking at his scars rather than his eyes. Just picking up a glass of water and her eyes were on the burns on his knuckles like she was staring at a sideshow at a circus. Neil already knew how bad they looked, he didn’t need the continuous reminder and certainly not from some-one who didn’t have the guts to ask. Why Allison thought this was a good idea was beyond him. He was planning the lecture he was going to give her the next time they spoke in the back of his head. Outwardly, he prompted her to talk about her work enough to keep him from having to put any more effort into the conversation.
If she thought that his job crunching numbers all day was tiresome it was nothing compared to the sheer boredom she described in detail as they looked over the menus. How she could be so excited to be ordered around to pick up people’s coffee and getting yelled at if she got the order wrong… but she beamed at the idea that it meant they were noticing her, like that would somehow win her a seat at the designer table.
They had just placed their orders when she started gushing about Allison herself. Neil leaned back in his seat to get away from the onslaught of Allison’s greatest hits and upcoming fashion line. He already knew more than he ever wanted to about fashion. His attempts to block out Allison’s voice as she rambled at him had failed on more than one occasion as she started demanding his opinions on designs.
A waiter showed another couple to the table beside them; Neil was grateful that the interruption seemed to remind his date to lower her voice with the tables being so close. He looked up when the man diagonally from him failed to sit when his date did. The blond man from the bar stood behind the seat staring openly at Neil and ignoring his dates nervous gesture to sit. Up close, he was far shorter than Neil had given him credit for across the bar. Well-groomed and confident enough to draw the attention of everyone in the room. Neil deliberately averted his gaze, hoping the guy would understand that he had no intention of dealing with people ogling at his scars.
Miranda went quiet watching the man out of the corner of her eyes, uncomfortable with the obvious attention that he was paying them. The man sat down but didn’t stop his staring as his date tried to reclaim his attention. Neil tried to shake it off, but his limited patience was already being pushed.
“Do I know you?” Neil snapped at him when he could no longer bite his tongue.
The blonde looked him in the eyes blandly, unimpressed with his outburst. “I don’t know, do you?”
“Just ignore it.” His date offered quietly, and Neil glared at her ignorance.
“Why?” He demanded. “If he has something to say,” he gestured towards the man. “Then I’d like to hear it.”
“Would you?” The guy asked, his voice never changing from calm indifference despite Neil’s hostility. “Most people don’t like what I have to say.”
Neil scoffed. “You’ll have to work hard to say something that I haven’t heard before.”
“Andrew.” The man’s date touched his hand lightly trying to draw his gaze. Neil watched Andrew stiffen under the touch, pulling his hand away with an icy look as he rounded on Neil again, touching a finger to his cheek where Neil’s bore a burn mark.
“That used to be a tattoo.” He told him. Neil’s hands clenched into fists as both their dates turned to stare at the burns on his face. Andrew held up four fingers, wiggling them in the air as Neil counted to ten in his head.
“Who the hell are you?” Neil asked. Very few knew about his stint in Evermore and less were stupid enough to mention it. He had never officially been on the Raven line-up, training with them during his final years of high school before running after Riko broke Kevin’s hand. He had tried to convince Jean to flee with him after Kevin abandoned them, but he had refused, and when Neil got caught by his father months later, he was glad Jean hadn’t come with him. No-one had ever seen that tattoo outside of Evermore stadium. Riko wanted him kept under wraps until he announced him on the Raven line-up and Neil had kept it covered when he ran to stop anyone from recognising him.
“How do you not know who this is?” Andrew’s date exclaimed, offended that they hadn’t been instantly recognised. “Andrew Minyard is the best Goalie in Professional Exy!”
“Minyard.” He thought back to the first few weeks of the nest. Kevin had been rambling about some kid named Minyard that he wanted Riko to recruit for the team. They had wanted him as their number five, the perfect court finally coming together, Riko had been in a foul mood for a month when they come back without a signed contract. And then Kevin had run straight to the team with the same Minyard on it. Neil huffed as the pieces fell together. “Kevin told you.”
“Kevin told me a lot of things.”
Neil didn’t wait to hear what else the great Kevin Day had to say about him. Instead, he got to his feet pulling out his wallet to drop enough bills on the table to cover the dinner that had yet to arrive and anything else Miranda might order in his absence and walking out without another word.
He thought about what to do next as he walked towards the subway. He should be calling his handler and telling him that he was burnt here, thanks to some Exy player that recognised him from Kevin’s stories, but that would mean giving up the life he had built here. He liked it here. He had a job that paid well and only required him to go into the office once a week, letting him work from home for the most part. A few friends he could call if he was feeling social and a great location with everything he wanted at his fingertips. He was almost at the subway when a black car pulled up beside him, the passenger window rolling down ominously, the sight was so familiar that Neil didn’t even question it as he reached for the door and slide into the car. He was unsurprised to find himself seated beside Andrew.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.” Andrew replied automatically. Neil reached for the door and Andrew grabbed his arm. “Stay.”
Neil slanted a tired look at the man and dropped his grip on the doorhandle. “Try for a real answer this time.”
“How about a date?”
Neil let out a startled laugh as Andrew slide the car into the busy New York traffic. “A what?”
Andrew sighed. “I need a date for a mandatory event some bastard managed to write into my contract. It’s rather difficult to find some-one that I don’t want to kill inside thirty seconds.”
“How about the guy back there? He would have loved being your date.”
“If he could shut up for five seconds, I might have blown him.” Andrew admitted with a side-glance at him. “As it was, I just wanted to blow his brains out. You know that feeling, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Neil lied smoothly, staring at the red Prius in front of them. “He shut up for five seconds while we were talking.”
“Are you trying to tell me you never wanted to pull the trigger on Riko?” Andrew scoffed seeing through his lie.
“Haven’t you ever heard of Seppuku? Riko killed himself.”
“Riko had no honour to restore, and he wasn’t suicidal.” Andrew countered easily.
“Are you extorting a date from me? Is that what’s happening here?” He asked in confusion. Tonight was climbing the ranks on his strangest encounters list by the second.
“I’m asking for a date to a snotty formal event that I can’t get out off.” Andrew clarified as they drove through the city. “The rest is curiosity.”
“I shouldn’t be anywhere near an Exy event.” Neil told him as his phone began ringing insistently in his pocket. He pulled it out, glancing at Allison’s name flashing on the screen before rejecting the call and turning it off entirely. He wasn’t in any mood to explain why he had walked out on the date she set up for him.
“Friend of yours?” Andrew glanced at him as he shoved it back in his pocket.
“I might disown her after tonight’s shitty setup.” Neil huffed. “That crap is why I don’t usually date.”
Andrew hummed, pulling the car into a valeted entrance and looking at him expectantly. “Yes, or no?”
“Yes or no, what?” He asked looking up at the restaurant in front of them.
“Dinner. Give me a chance to prove that I’m a better date then little miss fashionista back there. Neither of us ate, after all.”
Neil looked him over carefully. Andrew waited, making no move get out of the car until Neil made a decision. “And if I say no?”
“I’ll drive you wherever you want to go, and you don’t have to see me again.”
“Okay.” He decided when he couldn’t find any trace of a lie on his face.
“Okay?” Andrew asked for clarification.
“Dinner sounds good.” Andrews eyes widened slightly, and Neil wondered if he hadn’t expected him to agree.
“Okay.” Andrew said absently, turning the engine off and stepping out of the car. Neil followed him out with a grin. Andrew didn’t seem like the type to be easily surprised, furthermore, Neil wondered why he pulled up at a restaurant if he expected to be rejected.
Andrew stuck by his side as they entered the building, guiding him as they went without grabbing his arm or touching him the way the woman he’d been set up with had done earlier. Neil watched as he spoke quietly to the staff, securing them a private table without any reservations, and slipping them money neatly between hands to ensure their discretion.
“Do this often?” Neil asked when they were left alone again.
“No.” Andrew admitted, watching the staff as they scurried to meet his requests. “I worked in the service industry in high school, there are certain things that will always get you attention quickly, if you know how to play the game.”
“Why not bring the other guy here?” Neil wanted to know. This place was far more exclusive than the place they had met less than an hour ago.
“I hadn’t decided if I like him or not. I wanted to meet him in a place where there were plenty of people moving around to run interference and I didn’t want to give him the idea that he had a chance of going home with me. He was far too eager without my encouragement.”
“Why bring me here then?” He was sure that he didn’t fall into any of those categories either.
“I get the impression that you’d prefer the privacy.” Andrew looked at him in a way that had Neil believing that he saw through all his barriers and right to his core; if he was smart, he’d run away without looking back, but he was intrigued enough to stay. “Plus, some paparazzi asshole snapped a few shots of me entering the other place with Sam. I’d be all over the tabloids by the morning if they caught me with two dates in one night.”
Neil chuckled as he thought about the public backlash he would face as he tried to explain being seen with multiple different guys in such a short span. “Instead, they catch you walking out on a date before you even ordered dinner?”
“Could be the start of a great love story between Sam and what’s-her-face.” Andrew snarked. “Both stood up on the same night, at tables right beside each other…”
“He might be gay.”
“He’s bi.”
“She might be gay.” Neil grinned.
“She was on a date with you, moron.” Andrew huffed.
“And?” Neil laughed. “It’s not like you always date the people you’re interested in.”
“And who are you interested in?” Andrew stepped closer, robbing Neil of any smart-alec response he would have given if he could think clearly.
“You’re starting to pique my interest.” He said honestly, unable to think of an appropriate evasion.
Andrew studied him with increasing intensity. “Good.” He said breathlessly. “I want your attention on me.”
“Really?” Neil asked sceptically. “You don’t even know me.”
“I’d like to.”
Neil didn’t have a response to that, instead, he lost himself in the flecks of green in Andrews eyes. Wondering how he managed to get himself in such a position where he didn’t want to walk away despite every instinct screaming at him to do just that. Andrew made no sense to him, and he found himself wishing that he had kept up his obsession with the Exy world. He had given it up after the last encounter with his father. Being shoved into WITSEC without anyone to care what happened to him next, everything had lost his interest after that. Watching Exy had felt like a kick in the guts for everything he would never be able to have again. Seeing Kevin and Jean’s name’s cross the news made his stomach bottom out each and every time, he’d stopped watching in the end, throwing himself into his studies, into his work, and focusing on getting through the next day. Looking at Andrew had him wishing for everything he’d avoided for the past few years, none of it felt safe, and he felt more alive than he had for years.
“She called you Neil.” Andrew stated after the had been seated at a private booth in the back of the restaurant, the waiter taking their drink order and disappearing discreetly. Neil looked at the photo’s and autographs hung on the walls around booth, he didn’t know who most of them were but he got the impression that famous people frequented this establishment.
“That is my name.” He agreed, wondering which name Kevin had told him about. “It’s been Neil Josten for years now.”
Andrew nodded, accepting the fact without question which was a welcome relief. He hadn’t needed to explain his past in a long time, since the Ravens, and they all had a million questions to ask.
“Kevin tried to track you down, after that whole mess with your father was in the news. The FBI told him you were dead.”
“Yes, they do that when they want to make people disappear.” Andrew kept his eyes glued to Neil’s face and gestured for him to continue. “I still had too many people on my arse and no-where safe to go, so, WITSEC seemed like the best option at the time.”
“And now?”
Neil hummed in thought. “Most of them have been put away now.” He mused quietly, thinking how much trouble he would get in if he decided to ignore WITSEC protocol and continued living his life, it wasn’t like Andrew had announced his name to the entire restaurant and there wasn’t anyone actively looking for him anymore. “The threat seems minimal.”
“I won’t say anything. I’m good at keeping secrets.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Neil told him, running his finger of the lip of his glass and watching the ways the soft lighting danced off it. “There are those from the Nest who’ll recognise me if I show up at an Exy event.”
“Kevin.” Andrew agreed.
“And Jean, among others.” He nodded. “Why are you interested in this?”
Andrew was quiet, spinning a knife point down into the table as he considered his answer. “It’s not every day you come across a ghost in a bar.”
“I can’t imagine that Kevin spoke about me often enough for you to remember who I am, we never even met back then.”
“He spoke about you enough, called you unbreakable.” He set the knife down to watch him over the table when Neil huffed and shook his head. He had never been unbreakable. He had just mastered the art of getting back up and pulling himself together. Again. And again. And again… Planning Riko’s death in detail had kept him motivated enough to survive. “He used to talk about the way you would antagonise Riko and the other Ravens to keep their attention off him and Jean. How you would take their punishments to keep them safe. I remember that.”
The hungry look in Andrews eyes had Neil wondering if he wanted to see him break or if he had wished for someone who would have stepped in for him like that. Somehow, Neil didn’t think that a man who was willing to let him walk away with no further questions asked would be interested in pushing his limits which only made him wonder what Andrew had needed protection from.
“I would take anything Kevin said with a grain of salt.” Neil tried to brush off his words, finding himself uncomfortable with being seen after being in hiding for so long.
“I do.” Andrew confirmed, his gaze only intensifying as Neil looked at the photos again. “He has a nasty habit of downplaying what happened in the Nest. Still thinks that Riko and Tetsuji were his family.”
Neil scoffed. Kevin had always been delusional, trying to convince Neil and Jean that they were all one big family, that Riko was only hard on them because he wanted them to live up to their potential. Neil had thought that Riko breaking his hand would cure him of those delusions.
He was thankful for the waiter’s arrival interrupting their trip down memory lane, the ghosts of his past were too close for comfort most days, sharing that with someone who was familiar with them as well might not be the best idea in the world. Andrew rattled of his order, giving Neil a moment to collect his thoughts as he scanned the menu quickly, settling on one of the first things on the list.
“Why New York?” Andrew asked when they were alone again.
“Where else can you get mugged in broad daylight and not have a single person blink twice.” Neil chuckled lightly. “I could ask you the same. The best Professional goalie in Exy, you’d have offers everywhere.”
“I was in Chicago three months ago, where some pathetic excuse for a tabloid journalist outed me after a night at the club.” Andrew explained with a sneer. “New York was the only team that didn’t immediately lower their offer in light of my sexuality. I moved out here a month ago and realised that they went one step further than I realised and wrote it into my contract to attend certain events with a plus one. Unofficially making me the poster boy of being queer in Exy and New York becomes the ‘safe, go to’ team for LGBT athletes.”
“I’m sorry they did that to you.” Neil said when he was finished. “I know how crappy it is to have people plastering your life all over the media.”
“Exactly.” Andrew went back to twirling the knife through his fingers. “My new team is hosting the start of season entertainment for our division, which is the first mandatory event for me to attend and the first time I’ll be dealing with players in the league as a now, openly, gay man.” Andrew huffed in annoyance, tracing the tip of the knife across the polished wooden tabletop. “It was unfair of me to ask you to get involved in my mess.”
“I’ll do it.” Neil blurted without thinking.
“What?” Andrew blinked at him with wide eyes.
“If you still want me to be your date…” Neil said thinking back to all the reports of his fathers actions and his own ‘death’ at his hands, how many times had he wished for someone to be by his side during that, but all he had was an Agents phone number for emergencies. “I’m in.”
“Is this your martyr complex coming out?” Andrew studied him for any signs of uncertainty.
Neil dropped his head into his hand with a smile. “Maybe you managed to prove yourself to be a more interesting date than my last one.”
“That, I’m certain about.” He snarked with a slight upwards pull of his mouth that made Neil think he was fighting off a smile. “Are you sure about this? There’s going to be paparazzi there wondering who would be stupid enough to be my date.”
“I think they’ll be disappointed with Neil Josten, recluse accountant.” Neil gestured vaguely with a laugh.
“I haven’t seen anything disappointing yet.”
“Stick around and you’ll see just how boring I can be.”
It was much later than he anticipated when Andrew finally dropped Neil off at his apartment. With a new number programmed into his phone and an arrangement to meet for coffee the next day, he wasn’t able to keep the grin off his face. He had expected the night to be bad, it had started out as awful, but Andrew had managed to turn it around unexpectedly. Giving him a date that he actually enjoyed without the expectations of physical intimacy at the end of the night.
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