ravenvsfox:

(100 years later I finally got to your prompt, mac-noa ! I wasn’t explicitly lovey dovey bc I didn’t want to be ooc and it’s only actually from Matt’s POV, but I hope it works for you!!!)

Matt and Dan walk in late, strung together by the hands, still flushed from kissing in the car pre-practice. They go sheepish when they see the unimpressed look on Wymack’s face. Renee smiles brightly at them and Allison gives them a brisk nod, but the monsters are in more disarray than usual. Bits and pieces of their group are missing, and it leaves Matt with the peculiar feeling of looking at a familiar photograph that suddenly has the faces scratched out.

Their ringleader is absent, for starters, couch conspicuously empty beside Kevin — who looks unmoved and stoic and nauseated as usual.

It’s not unusual for Andrew to do things just because it’s inconvenient for others, but it’s a little weird for Neil to skip out as well. It’s a lot weird that he’s late at the same time as Andrew when Exy hangs in the balance. 

Any association between them feels like something Matt has to fix, like he set something bad in motion by meeting Neil later than Andrew did in the fall. They’re probably off having one of their weird, close, angry looking conversations that always end in agreements Matt doesn’t understand.

Wymack waits thirty seconds past Matt and Dan’s arrival, and then he looks at the couch like it’s causing him pain, and starts delegating tasks for the day. He only asks once where the missing links are and there’s a lot of shrugging and staring straight ahead before he gives up.

They’re less rowdy than usual, and Matt thinks they’re all individually trying to solve Neil and Andrew’s absence in their heads. (As soon as they get up to move to the court, Allison starts whispering numbers for their betting pool until Dan bats her away.)

Matt squeezes Dan’s hand until she looks at him, and they have a brief conversation in smothered smiles.

They split up to change, and Matt straps into his gear feeling vaguely ill at ease. He keeps glancing at the door between straps and tugs of his uniform, and he notices Nicky doing the same thing. He smiles awkwardly when Matt catches him, and Matt feels a rare pulse of kinship for him. Both Andrew’s lot and the upperclassmen seem equally confused, so they have something in common for once.

The strange feeling follows Matt all the way to the court and through the first set of drills before Neil finally shows up, looking harried and flushed and all sorts of things Matt doesn’t usually associate with Neil.

He pushes into the court straight past Wymack’s blustering reprimand, and Matt catches the tail end of a flippant apology before Neil’s sprinting to centre court.

Matt stares at him. Neil waits, twisting his racquet in his hand, shoulders tense like he expects someone to toss him into the gameplay by force.

“What?” Neil asks, annoyed.

“You’re late,” Matt says stupidly.

“Twenty minutes late,” Kevin interrupts. “Almost like you’re trying to get worse.”

“He was with me,” Andrew says suddenly, breezing past them towards goal looking impossible to have spent twenty straight minutes with. Neil sort of jolts at the sound of his voice, and Matt eyes him narrowly.

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