Adam: I got a question for you.
Ronan: Okay.
Adam: Do you ever think about the future?
Ronan: Sure, I do.
Adam: Yeah, am I in it?
Ronan: Parrish, you are it.
“You’re all zoned out,” Matt says in her ear. Dan tips him immediately backwards with a hand to the chest.
“Shush,” she tells him, gritted through the straw she’s worrying between her teeth. She ran out of the watered-down pepsi they’re serving in battered plastic jugs a half hour ago.
“Dan.”
“Shush,” she insists, pressing two fingers to his mouth. She’s watching Neil trying to fill his water cup over at the far side of the banquet hall. He’s hovering in that way he does, like a shark who hasn’t figured out if something’s food yet.
There’s this sweet brown-eyed boy trying to talk to him, possibly the only male cheerleader in the room, certainly the least in the loop about Exy gossip. Dan watches him touch Neil’s arm and Neil jerks backwards into the table, toppling an entire icy water jug so it slops onto the floor and seeps through the tablecloth to the dark wood underneath.
Heads pop up, the boy falls all over himself to pour Neil a new glass, and Neil wanders off, bored.
Dan has noticed that people really want Neil to have a heart of gold. They like the news stories and they want them for themselves. They want the seams showing on his face and the tragedy in his back pocket, and they want to show everyone how accepting they are for finding his scars sexy.
All they really want is his trim waist and his pretty eyes and his vice-cap badge and the way he shoves cameras away and has more history than any twenty-year-old has any business having.
Dan’s seen it all before. The way people like the character you’re playing so much that they want to take you home and open you up and see how deep it goes.
Neil’s worse at knowing when it’s happening. Dan’s a professional. She can see the way their eyes follow him because at least a dozen are always following her too, especially in places like this banquet. They look at Neil, or Dan, and a little part of them expects a show.
She watches Neil walk towards them with his eyes pouring over the room like liquid and finding every crevice, every exit. She looks at Matt.
“He’s doing that thing where he’s making a spectacle but he thinks he’s being very subtle.”
“That’s his whole shtick. I’m fond of it, now.” Matt grins.
“Do you think he actually noticed he was being hit on?”
Matt hums, watching Neil wind through the tables back to the fox—trojan extravaganza at theirs. “I doubt he knows anything about that boy other than the fact that he was in front of him for a bit.”
my marvelous anon, i am here to grant thine request, with a small side of accidental lowkey renison. enjoy <3. also on AO3.
He did it. He actually did it. After months of constant warnings and threats, Wymack finally followed through.
Neil can do nothing but stare at the flyer in his hand, mildly in fear and majorly in shock. A mere thirty seconds prior, Wymack had stormed out of his office brandishing this piece of paper like both a white flag and a declaration of war. He had paused just inside the lounge, making sure to gather everyone’s attention, before striding over to Neil and shoving the flyer in his face.
“This is for last weekend,” Wymack had said. “I already—don’t give me that look, you know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about. I already signed you up. It starts at 8:00 AM on Saturday, and unless you want your ass glued to the bench for the rest of the season, I suggest you be there.” He had then turned back around and disappeared into the hallway, leaving a room full of confused and curious Foxes in his wake.
A full minute passes before chaos breaks out and everyone starts moving at once. Various forms of “What the hell?” can be heard from all corners of the room. Neil blinks as the flyer is yanked out of his hand. He looks up to see Andrew, his eyes scanning the paper. Andrew looks up at him, and Neil’s heart nearly explodes because this look on his face, it looks like the honest-to-god beginnings of a smile. And sure, it’s at Neil’s expense, but he would embarrass the fuck out of himself at every turn if this was his reward. Andrew moves to hand the paper back to Neil.
“Okay, seriously,” Kevin huffs out with impatience as he pushes through his teammates. He snags the flyer away from Andrew who couldn’t be bothered to stop him. Kevin reads aloud, “The Annual Hilton Head Island Marathon…a MARATHON? Really, Neil?! Is this a joke?”
“I don’t know, Kevin,” says Andrew, his voice taking on the persona of a kindergarten teacher. “Did it look like a joke to you?”
Kevin’s only response is to scowl and shove the flyer into Neil’s chest. “This better not affect your performance at our game on Friday. You don’t get to take it easy just because you have to run 26.2 miles the next day.”
By the time Kevin has stormed out of the building, the rest of the Foxes have commenced their team wide freak out.
“Seriously?! He actually came through on that threat?” Dan is caught halfway between being genuinely worried and dying of laughter.
“Neil…bro…what the fuck…” Matt says from somewhere on his left, placing a consoling hand lightly on his shoulder.
“Oh my god, Neil. We have to be there. I have to witness this historic moment. You finally get to put your insane running habits into practice,” Allison is rambling from across the room.
“Wait, what was Wymack talking about ‘last weekend’? What did you do?” Asks Nicky, unaccustomed to being out of the loop.
All the way through Victor has been supporting Yuuri through his anxiety, but what ruffles Victor? I hope we get to see more of his softer side before the season is out!
Nothing but My Aching Soul 