Aftg react

Part57

Foxes react: chapter10

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After a minute's serious study, Nicky complained, "There's nothing to watch. I'm going to scour Matt's collection."
He said it definitively, but he waited a beat in case Andrew shot that idea down. Neil looked from him to Andrew, who was rolling his pint between his hands to soften it. When Andrew said nothing, Nicky vanished. Neil locked the door behind him and carried his ice cream to Andrew. He knelt on the floor near Andrew's beanbag chair and listened. He didn't hear the sound of a game coming from the bedroom, but Kevin's headphones weren't on his desk anymore. Neil set his ice cream and spoon to one side and turned a searching look on Andrew.
"Question," Neil said, but it took him a few moments to figure out the right words. "When you said you don't like being touched, is it because you don't like it at all or because you don't trust anyone else enough to let them touch you?"
Andrew glanced at him. "It doesn't matter."
"If it didn't, I wouldn't ask," Neil said.
"It doesn't matter to a man who doesn't swing," Andrew clarified. Neil shrugged. "I don't because I've never been allowed to. The only
thing I could think about growing up was surviving." Maybe that was
why this was in that gray area of what was acceptable.
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"Letting someone in meant trusting them to not stab me in the back when terrible people came looking for me. I was too afraid to risk it, so it was easier to be alone and not think about it. But I trust you."
"You shouldn't."
"Says the man who stopped." Neil gave Andrew a few moments to respond before saying, "I don't understand it, and I don't know what I'm doing, but I don't want to ignore it just because it's new. So are you completely off-limits or are there any safe zones?"
"What are you hoping for, coordinates?"
"I'm hoping to know where the lines are before I cross them," Neil said, "but I'm open to drawing a map on you if you want to loan me a marker. That's not a bad idea."

This was different but it showed how good they fit together, it was nice how even after Andrew told Neil about his feelings he still asked were the lines where. Andrew from an outside perspective looked like he was unaffected by all this but watching something like that from the future made it all look like pipe dream was maybe something more then just a dream but if anyone asked about how he was feeling about what he saw right now he would ignore it like he never saw it.
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Andrew did push, but he followed Neil down.

Renee was smiling and everyone could hear Nicky when he went to say something of the lines "go get em ti-" but was cut of by Andrew and his knife witch made some of the others laugh.
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Neil pushed himself up with unsteady hands and retreated to Kevin's desk with his ice cream. Getting the plastic safety seal off was the hardest thing he'd done all year, but at least it gave him an excuse to not look at Nicky.

They laughed at that, someone that had endured two weeks in hell that they still couldn't get over from talked about how a plastic safety seal was the hardest thing he's done.
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Andrew did, and like always, he fired the rebound where Neil could get it. Neil tore off up the court like his father was on his heels, and there was nothing his striker could do to stop him.

They gaped at that because did Neil just say that, they didn't know if they were allowed to laugh or were supposed to cry but it was funny and that was better than hearing about other depressing things.