we built this town on shaky ground
fandom: the foxhole court
characters: neil & kevin
wordcount: 2133
ficathon: it's never the end - prompt #395 von tears-into-wine
notes: kind of a missing scene, set at the beginning of "the king's men" shortly after kevin offered neil to talk about riko.
there's a starry field around this lowlit kingdom where our defences are down.
Neil listened to the soft sounds his feet made as he walked down the stairs, trying to use his unusually heavy steps to anchor himself to his surroundings. This is Palmetto, he thought, willing the words to be true enough to pierce through hazy images of blades and darkness and fear. No matter how much he hated to admit it, his mind was too vulnerable right now. He couldn’t let Riko take permanent residence there, adding to a collection of shadows already big enough to swallow Neil whole on a bad day.
No - he had returned from Evermore a mosaic of cuts and bruises and jagged edges, barely balancing the thread between survival and breaking point, but he had made it back. He’d made it back to the people who mattered most, and he wouldn’t let his stupid nightmares take that away from him.
This is Palmetto, Neil repeated mentally - vigorously ignoring the quiet urge to taste the sound of the words on his tongue, to release them into the dark stairway of Fox Tower. Maybe he would be able to believe it then, if he said it. But he couldn’t risk that, not when This is Palmetto seemed synonymous with This is home. The thought unsettled him almost as much as the lingering threat of Riko’s knife at his throat or the Ravens’ vicious rage as they beat him into unconsciousness after practice.
Neil blinked several times to regain control of his thoughts, with questionable success. At this time of night, he hadn’t switched on the lights in the hallway, relying on muscle memory to find his way outside just fine. The darkness and downward-leading steps were easily mistaken for another, very different journey, though. He’d lost count of how many times he found himself regretting to have refused Jean’s offer to look at the sun while he still could. Buried alive in the Ravens’ Nest, Neil wished he had.
Just as he felt his breaths becoming shorter and quicker, not again not again not again, he reached the end of the stairs and dragged his gaze up to the front door. Pushing it open seemed like an impossible task. For a moment, Neil wondered if he would ever be able to strain his muscles again without aching everywhere, but then he stepped outside and could finally breathe.
The winter air bit at his face, cold and merciless although it wasn’t even windy. Neil welcomed the abrupt change of temperature. The claustrophobic heat of his sweat-soaked bed sheets had been unbearable, and combined with the metallic taste of blood on his tongue from when he must have bitten it during the nightmare, it was too much.
Bad enough to make him want to run, but not really, because that wasn’t an option anymore, right? He had decided to stay.
Maybe that’s why he didn’t just curl up in one of the bean bags to calm down and came all the way here instead; to prove himself he wouldn’t run.
Neil exhaled a sigh that was both relief and exhaustion, burying his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. Before him, the parking lot stretched out into dark campus grounds, the greyish-black surface disrupted by specks of light where lamps lined the paths. They looked dim and gloomy so far past midnight, the area completely deserted. Neil didn’t bother trying to spot Perimeter Road and raised his head skywards instead. He felt the quiet settle deep in his bones, soothing tired limbs and heavy eyes as he stared and stared - all stars, no clouds - trying to remember constellations.
He spotted one called Cassiopeia, a small cluster of jagged lines that his mother had pointed out to him once in a calm night in Germany. This time Neil ached differently: not because of current bruises but the faint memory of old ones, aded and healed, but never forgotten. He didn’t want to think about what she would say to his sacrifice, his decision to endure Evermore in exchange for Andrew’s safety. Neil didn’t want to think about how outraged she must be, even a lifetime away. Even in death.
The next breath he took seemed to freeze its way down to his lungs and grow roots there like a bigger, less pretty version of a frost flower. Neil suppressed a shiver.
It should have surprised him to realize he wasn’t sorry, but it didn’t. He would make the same choice all over again without hesitation. Riko might have come dangerously close to breaking him but he had not succeeded, he hadn’t, he wouldn’t -
“Are you trying to get hypothermia?”
Neil flinched so hard he almost stumbled, angling his body towards the sudden sound in the same motion and giving himself whiplash in the process. How could he have missed the door opening? Had he even closed it? He should have paid attention, should be getting away already -
“Neil, calm down.”
The voice was gruff and familiar, and then his panicked gaze cleared enough to recognize Kevin Day standing in the doorway, frowning at Neil with a guarded expression on his face. He looked even taller than usual with the dark hallway stretching out behind him like a void. Although Kevin didn’t make any moves to come closer, Neil retreated several steps until he deemed the distance between them far enough to have a chance if he had to make a run for it.
For a long, agonizing minute, they looked at each other in silence. Neil fought to keep his face neutral and shoulders square, unwilling to give more ground than he had already lost. His skin burned in all the places Riko’s knife had touched, the lurking sparks of pain returning to the surface with a vengeance now that he’d been startled out of his quiet refuge.
Don’t hesitate to cry if it gets too much, he heard Riko say, the taunting words sharp and clear and way too real in his mind. Before his brain had a chance to catch up, Neil raised a hand to his throat and touched the bruised skin there, needing to reassure himself there was no blade pressed against it.
There was a soft sound of distress.
Kevin’s expression faltered for a moment, something softening along the lines of his mouth and that was when Neil realized the sound must have been his own.
“He doesn’t let you go that easily,” Kevin said slowly, weighing each word with care. He never broke eye-contact with Neil. It must have cost some serious effort, considering how quick Kevin was to withdraw whenever Riko was mentioned.
Neil swallowed but didn’t manage to get rid of the lump in his throat.
“I’m f- ”
“You aren’t,” Kevin cut him off.
Something shifted in the air around them, falling into place amidst two boys; two kinds of chaos but similar kinds of struggle.
I know what he’s like, Kevin had said earlier this week. His confession had included a careful offer, and Neil thought maybe the well-meant words hadn’t been empty after all. He wrapped his arms around his torso, trying to keep warm or himself together, he wasn’t so sure.
“Come on,” Kevin said, gesturing vaguely to go back inside, but Neil exhaled a shaky breath and shook his head. The scowl he got in return suggested something along the lines of freeze your ass off then, not my problem, just like he had expected. Kevin still didn’t move, though.
“What?” Neil asked.
Kevin was quiet for a long time, looking lost and stubborn and overwhelmed all at once as he reached for the door and pulled it close, deciding to join Neil in the cold. He had pulled on a jacket before coming downstairs, even better equipped for the night than Neil. It was strange seeing Kevin like this - outside at 2am, sober and uncomplaining, bracing for a conversation neither of them wanted but both of them needed.
Neil focused on breathing again. Icy air filled his lungs, a promise not to get dragged into another nightmare anytime soon because his senses were shockingly aware. He couldn’t go back inside yet. He was glad Kevin didn’t try to make him. Instead, he sighed and gestured at Neil’s neck without stepping closer, the slow movement of his hand a mixture of consideration and bone-deep tiredness.
“He always liked to leave marks,” Kevin said in a hollow tone. “Made me watch when he did it to Jean.”
Neil tensed at the mention of Jean, steadily losing his grip on the present and suddenly there was a vicious edge to his thoughts he hadn’t intended to voice, but he clenched his jaw and asked, “Did you hold him down for Riko, too?”
Kevin visibly recoiled. His hands formed trembling fists at his sides. Immediately, Neil braced for a violent reaction, the tension palpable and suffocating between them, but Kevin just shook his head. “I told you he had to find subtle ways to hurt me. That was only one of them.” A harsh exhale followed his words. “Jean did what he had to, you know. He’s trying to survive.”
The sudden change of subject might have caught Neil off-guard if it didn’t make so much sense. Of course, Kevin knew Riko didn’t do all the work on his own, even if his words and attacks were by far the most terrifying.
Neil swallowed thickly. “I know.”
He wasn’t sure how to do this, how much to say, but he felt exhausted enough to try. A full night’s sleep was out of question if he didn’t get Evermore out of his head. Right now, he barely managed to re-adapt to the Foxes’ routine, let alone the fact they considered his injuries a reason to sit out on practice.
“I’m still … the days don’t make sense,” Neil offered.
Kevin didn’t respond, but for the first time since he had returned, Neil felt like he wouldn’t have to explain to be understood. It was a liberating and very unfamiliar realization. He let silence settle around them again and somehow it was okay; Kevin’s presence stopped feeling like a threat. Eventually, Neil turned around to the open space in front of Fox Tower, the parking lot and not-entirely-black darkness of campus with Cassiopeia and millions of her kind looming above.
Goosebumps spread across his arms beneath the sleeves of his hoodie. Bandages and healing skin itched in various degrees of unpleasantness, causing Neil to release the cautious grip around his ribcage. He searched for something more to say, a truth he could handle being out in the open. Without turning around, he said, “It doesn’t matter what he did. He doesn’t own me.”
A hardly noticeable pause, then: “I believe you.”
This time, Neil looked back at Kevin with wide eyes. “But …”
“I know what I said.” Kevin lowered his gaze to where he dragged the tip of his shoe over the ground in short lines. When he looked up again, his angular face was a hard mask, but something burned underneath. “You aren’t Jean. There’s a difference to have nothing or everything to lose. I get that now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You didn’t go because Riko threatened you, did you?”
Neil let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. No.
Kevin nodded slowly. “Right.” He seemed ready to crawl out of his skin at this point, but he continued. Neil couldn’t help but give him credit for that. “I don’t think Riko knows what that means - to have enough reason to defy him. You did, though.”
Neil stared at Kevin in silence for a long moment. With his heart beating a rapid rhythm against his ribs, it surprised him how calm his voice sounded when he finally spoke. “I’m just … sick of spending my life afraid.”
Sick of being the rabbit.
Neil didn’t mention who gave him that idea in the first place, but judging by Kevin’s look, perhaps he didn’t have to. It was hard to decide if that thought bothered him or not. Out here, feeling the winter’s cold creep into his bones and Palmetto like an invincible force between Neil and the old urge to run, it didn’t seem to matter.
“Riko isn’t done with you yet,” Kevin pointed out then, telling Neil there was a very good reason to be afraid.
“Good,” said Neil. “I’m not done with him, either. He thinks he can’t lose because he never did. We’re going to prove him wrong.”
Kevin frowned but, for once, didn’t argue.
Shortly after, as they went back inside and made their way upstairs in almost comfortable silence, Neil thought Kevin’s sudden lack of openly voiced doubt was exactly what they needed. He thought that maybe, maybe they would be okay.
characters: neil & kevin
wordcount: 2133
ficathon: it's never the end - prompt #395 von tears-into-wine
notes: kind of a missing scene, set at the beginning of "the king's men" shortly after kevin offered neil to talk about riko.
there's a starry field around this lowlit kingdom where our defences are down.
Neil listened to the soft sounds his feet made as he walked down the stairs, trying to use his unusually heavy steps to anchor himself to his surroundings. This is Palmetto, he thought, willing the words to be true enough to pierce through hazy images of blades and darkness and fear. No matter how much he hated to admit it, his mind was too vulnerable right now. He couldn’t let Riko take permanent residence there, adding to a collection of shadows already big enough to swallow Neil whole on a bad day.
No - he had returned from Evermore a mosaic of cuts and bruises and jagged edges, barely balancing the thread between survival and breaking point, but he had made it back. He’d made it back to the people who mattered most, and he wouldn’t let his stupid nightmares take that away from him.
This is Palmetto, Neil repeated mentally - vigorously ignoring the quiet urge to taste the sound of the words on his tongue, to release them into the dark stairway of Fox Tower. Maybe he would be able to believe it then, if he said it. But he couldn’t risk that, not when This is Palmetto seemed synonymous with This is home. The thought unsettled him almost as much as the lingering threat of Riko’s knife at his throat or the Ravens’ vicious rage as they beat him into unconsciousness after practice.
Neil blinked several times to regain control of his thoughts, with questionable success. At this time of night, he hadn’t switched on the lights in the hallway, relying on muscle memory to find his way outside just fine. The darkness and downward-leading steps were easily mistaken for another, very different journey, though. He’d lost count of how many times he found himself regretting to have refused Jean’s offer to look at the sun while he still could. Buried alive in the Ravens’ Nest, Neil wished he had.
Just as he felt his breaths becoming shorter and quicker, not again not again not again, he reached the end of the stairs and dragged his gaze up to the front door. Pushing it open seemed like an impossible task. For a moment, Neil wondered if he would ever be able to strain his muscles again without aching everywhere, but then he stepped outside and could finally breathe.
The winter air bit at his face, cold and merciless although it wasn’t even windy. Neil welcomed the abrupt change of temperature. The claustrophobic heat of his sweat-soaked bed sheets had been unbearable, and combined with the metallic taste of blood on his tongue from when he must have bitten it during the nightmare, it was too much.
Bad enough to make him want to run, but not really, because that wasn’t an option anymore, right? He had decided to stay.
Maybe that’s why he didn’t just curl up in one of the bean bags to calm down and came all the way here instead; to prove himself he wouldn’t run.
Neil exhaled a sigh that was both relief and exhaustion, burying his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. Before him, the parking lot stretched out into dark campus grounds, the greyish-black surface disrupted by specks of light where lamps lined the paths. They looked dim and gloomy so far past midnight, the area completely deserted. Neil didn’t bother trying to spot Perimeter Road and raised his head skywards instead. He felt the quiet settle deep in his bones, soothing tired limbs and heavy eyes as he stared and stared - all stars, no clouds - trying to remember constellations.
He spotted one called Cassiopeia, a small cluster of jagged lines that his mother had pointed out to him once in a calm night in Germany. This time Neil ached differently: not because of current bruises but the faint memory of old ones, aded and healed, but never forgotten. He didn’t want to think about what she would say to his sacrifice, his decision to endure Evermore in exchange for Andrew’s safety. Neil didn’t want to think about how outraged she must be, even a lifetime away. Even in death.
The next breath he took seemed to freeze its way down to his lungs and grow roots there like a bigger, less pretty version of a frost flower. Neil suppressed a shiver.
It should have surprised him to realize he wasn’t sorry, but it didn’t. He would make the same choice all over again without hesitation. Riko might have come dangerously close to breaking him but he had not succeeded, he hadn’t, he wouldn’t -
“Are you trying to get hypothermia?”
Neil flinched so hard he almost stumbled, angling his body towards the sudden sound in the same motion and giving himself whiplash in the process. How could he have missed the door opening? Had he even closed it? He should have paid attention, should be getting away already -
“Neil, calm down.”
The voice was gruff and familiar, and then his panicked gaze cleared enough to recognize Kevin Day standing in the doorway, frowning at Neil with a guarded expression on his face. He looked even taller than usual with the dark hallway stretching out behind him like a void. Although Kevin didn’t make any moves to come closer, Neil retreated several steps until he deemed the distance between them far enough to have a chance if he had to make a run for it.
For a long, agonizing minute, they looked at each other in silence. Neil fought to keep his face neutral and shoulders square, unwilling to give more ground than he had already lost. His skin burned in all the places Riko’s knife had touched, the lurking sparks of pain returning to the surface with a vengeance now that he’d been startled out of his quiet refuge.
Don’t hesitate to cry if it gets too much, he heard Riko say, the taunting words sharp and clear and way too real in his mind. Before his brain had a chance to catch up, Neil raised a hand to his throat and touched the bruised skin there, needing to reassure himself there was no blade pressed against it.
There was a soft sound of distress.
Kevin’s expression faltered for a moment, something softening along the lines of his mouth and that was when Neil realized the sound must have been his own.
“He doesn’t let you go that easily,” Kevin said slowly, weighing each word with care. He never broke eye-contact with Neil. It must have cost some serious effort, considering how quick Kevin was to withdraw whenever Riko was mentioned.
Neil swallowed but didn’t manage to get rid of the lump in his throat.
“I’m f- ”
“You aren’t,” Kevin cut him off.
Something shifted in the air around them, falling into place amidst two boys; two kinds of chaos but similar kinds of struggle.
I know what he’s like, Kevin had said earlier this week. His confession had included a careful offer, and Neil thought maybe the well-meant words hadn’t been empty after all. He wrapped his arms around his torso, trying to keep warm or himself together, he wasn’t so sure.
“Come on,” Kevin said, gesturing vaguely to go back inside, but Neil exhaled a shaky breath and shook his head. The scowl he got in return suggested something along the lines of freeze your ass off then, not my problem, just like he had expected. Kevin still didn’t move, though.
“What?” Neil asked.
Kevin was quiet for a long time, looking lost and stubborn and overwhelmed all at once as he reached for the door and pulled it close, deciding to join Neil in the cold. He had pulled on a jacket before coming downstairs, even better equipped for the night than Neil. It was strange seeing Kevin like this - outside at 2am, sober and uncomplaining, bracing for a conversation neither of them wanted but both of them needed.
Neil focused on breathing again. Icy air filled his lungs, a promise not to get dragged into another nightmare anytime soon because his senses were shockingly aware. He couldn’t go back inside yet. He was glad Kevin didn’t try to make him. Instead, he sighed and gestured at Neil’s neck without stepping closer, the slow movement of his hand a mixture of consideration and bone-deep tiredness.
“He always liked to leave marks,” Kevin said in a hollow tone. “Made me watch when he did it to Jean.”
Neil tensed at the mention of Jean, steadily losing his grip on the present and suddenly there was a vicious edge to his thoughts he hadn’t intended to voice, but he clenched his jaw and asked, “Did you hold him down for Riko, too?”
Kevin visibly recoiled. His hands formed trembling fists at his sides. Immediately, Neil braced for a violent reaction, the tension palpable and suffocating between them, but Kevin just shook his head. “I told you he had to find subtle ways to hurt me. That was only one of them.” A harsh exhale followed his words. “Jean did what he had to, you know. He’s trying to survive.”
The sudden change of subject might have caught Neil off-guard if it didn’t make so much sense. Of course, Kevin knew Riko didn’t do all the work on his own, even if his words and attacks were by far the most terrifying.
Neil swallowed thickly. “I know.”
He wasn’t sure how to do this, how much to say, but he felt exhausted enough to try. A full night’s sleep was out of question if he didn’t get Evermore out of his head. Right now, he barely managed to re-adapt to the Foxes’ routine, let alone the fact they considered his injuries a reason to sit out on practice.
“I’m still … the days don’t make sense,” Neil offered.
Kevin didn’t respond, but for the first time since he had returned, Neil felt like he wouldn’t have to explain to be understood. It was a liberating and very unfamiliar realization. He let silence settle around them again and somehow it was okay; Kevin’s presence stopped feeling like a threat. Eventually, Neil turned around to the open space in front of Fox Tower, the parking lot and not-entirely-black darkness of campus with Cassiopeia and millions of her kind looming above.
Goosebumps spread across his arms beneath the sleeves of his hoodie. Bandages and healing skin itched in various degrees of unpleasantness, causing Neil to release the cautious grip around his ribcage. He searched for something more to say, a truth he could handle being out in the open. Without turning around, he said, “It doesn’t matter what he did. He doesn’t own me.”
A hardly noticeable pause, then: “I believe you.”
This time, Neil looked back at Kevin with wide eyes. “But …”
“I know what I said.” Kevin lowered his gaze to where he dragged the tip of his shoe over the ground in short lines. When he looked up again, his angular face was a hard mask, but something burned underneath. “You aren’t Jean. There’s a difference to have nothing or everything to lose. I get that now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You didn’t go because Riko threatened you, did you?”
Neil let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. No.
Kevin nodded slowly. “Right.” He seemed ready to crawl out of his skin at this point, but he continued. Neil couldn’t help but give him credit for that. “I don’t think Riko knows what that means - to have enough reason to defy him. You did, though.”
Neil stared at Kevin in silence for a long moment. With his heart beating a rapid rhythm against his ribs, it surprised him how calm his voice sounded when he finally spoke. “I’m just … sick of spending my life afraid.”
Sick of being the rabbit.
Neil didn’t mention who gave him that idea in the first place, but judging by Kevin’s look, perhaps he didn’t have to. It was hard to decide if that thought bothered him or not. Out here, feeling the winter’s cold creep into his bones and Palmetto like an invincible force between Neil and the old urge to run, it didn’t seem to matter.
“Riko isn’t done with you yet,” Kevin pointed out then, telling Neil there was a very good reason to be afraid.
“Good,” said Neil. “I’m not done with him, either. He thinks he can’t lose because he never did. We’re going to prove him wrong.”
Kevin frowned but, for once, didn’t argue.
Shortly after, as they went back inside and made their way upstairs in almost comfortable silence, Neil thought Kevin’s sudden lack of openly voiced doubt was exactly what they needed. He thought that maybe, maybe they would be okay.