Neil Josten Fan club

Neil's Birthday present

**Note** So I'm gonna say this takes place Neil's last year at Palmetto after his Foxes and Andrew has graduated and his only friend is Robin (from the extra content by Nora) annnddddd I'm doing it in Andrew's POV cause I can :)

Seven Months. It's been seven months since Andrew has seen him. And it didn't matter, not really. Seven months was barely anything when he thought about it, but it felt....well damn it felt. He wasn't really sure he was okay with the fact that he was feeling anything about how long it had been since he'd seen Neil. Actually, he knew for a fact that it was a terrible, catastrophic, idiotic thing to feel at all. But Andrew already knew he wasn't as smart as he thought he was, and when the calendar started creeping closer to January 19th well, Andrew decided seven months was long enough.

Knowing Neil the way he does, he wont have celebrated his birthday beyond not openly showing aggression to those who had wished him a happy birthday. Perhaps Wymack and Abby got him something, and Andrew wouldn't be surprised if he had let Robin dote on him a little bit, but Neil hated his birthday more than any other day of the year. And Andrew hated that he hated it. Almost as much as he hated the man himself. As retribution Andrew decided to take his free Saturday off from practice to go and tell Neil in person precisely how much he hated him. He considered that maybe showing him how much he hated him might be...interesting. 

Fox tower was the same as it always was when Andrew finally pulled into the parking lot in his shitty rental car. Andrew found himself checking his pulse, noticing how fast it had become. He couldn't help it, he couldn't slow it down. It felt like falling. Andrew pulled out his phone and dialed before he could think too much about it. It rang once. Twice. Three times. And just as Andrew thought the idiot had let his phone die once again after having received explicit instruction to never let it die or turn it off when Andrew wasn't within Fifty Miles of him, he picked up.

Slightly breathless, Neils honeyed voice came through the phone, "Andrew?"

Something happened to Andrews heart. It might have been moving so fast he was dizzy, it might have stopped beating entirely and now his brain was lacking oxygen. It was the only explanation he could come up with for the sensation he felt when he realized that the voice over the phone was attached to Neil, and not from hundreds of miles away, but just across the threshold of that building.

"Junkie." Andrew said somewhat proud of how calm and hollow he managed to keep his voice.

"Hey," Andrew could practically hear the smile on his lips, "I didn't expect you to call tonight. I just, um, sort of raced out of the shower to get to the phone." Andrew definitely did not think about the way Neil looks just after getting out of the shower. Definitely didn't think about the lack of clothes on him either.

Andrew feigned boredom and drawled, "Maybe you should go finish that shower then, we wouldn't want your poor roommates to pass out from the smell of you."

"Oh, well no, I've been done for a while actually I just..." Neil's voice fell a little "I just was trying to relax." Andrew knew what he meant. Knew that his birthday didn't pass easily, that last year Neil had run 26 miles on the day trying to get out of his own head. He wanted to run more but before he could, Andrew had shoved him in the car and driven him around until the world went quiet. He guessed now that he was actually at Palmetto he could admit that it was part of why he'd come. Not out of spite, or curiosity or free time like he'd been convincing himself. But because he was worried about his runaway. Worried that he would drown under the weight of his hurt without Andrew to hold him up.

"I have an idea for how you could relax." Andrew said, as unaffected as he could muster.

"Oh ya? Whats that exactly? Should I gorge myself on sweets or threaten people with knives?"