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Assistant: Title: backstage (the world is yours)
        Author: Major_816 Major_816 
        Chapter: 1/1 
        Summary: The best part about the light room is that it’s dark. Andrew likes it that way. It’s also far the f@ck away from the b@llsh@t of the actual stage. It doesn’t hurt that the only person with a direct line to him—ignoring the times when Aaron actually shows up to run sound or when Jean’s done haunting the second stage where the seniors are rehearsing—is Neil. It’s always Neil, isn’t it?~They're in high school and they're theatre kids, that's all.
        Contents: Summary:
            
              The best part about the light room is that it’s dark. Andrew likes it that way. It’s also far the f@ck away from the b@llsh@t of the actual stage. It doesn’t hurt that the only person with a direct line to him—ignoring the times when Aaron actually shows up to run sound or when Jean’s done haunting the second stage where the seniors are rehearsing—is Neil. It’s always Neil, isn’t it?~They're in high school and they're theatre kids, that's all.
            
        

        
  Notes:





    
      hello lovelies,i've crawled free (momentarily) from my pit of post-assignment despair with the aid of Halloween cookies and Miss Marbles insistently trying to sit on my phone while purring like an old engine to present you with whatever this is meant to be. i really don't know. Lev, little superstar, correcter of commas, love you lots <3anyway, i'm going to put on another horror movie and make dino nuggies and cry because wow everything is terrible always and our only salvation is making soft things for broken boys who have never existed :)Enjoy! - Mac ❤️
    

    
        (See the end of the work for more notes.)
    



  





    
        
          
  The best part about the light room is that it’s dark. Andrew likes it that way. It’s also far the f@ck away from the b@llsh@t of the actual stage. It doesn’t hurt that the only person with a direct line to him—ignoring the times when Aaron actually shows up to run sound or when Jean’s done haunting the second stage where the seniors are rehearsing—is Neil. 

  It’s always Neil, isn’t it?

  
    “Drew, guess what.”
  

  Neil.

  Andrew picks his head up, forehead probably reddened and imprinted with the wrinkles and creases of his sweater. They take a short break on stage and he gets Neil in his ear for twenty glorious, uninterrupted minutes.

  Glorious. 

  “What.”

   Mouth-made buzzer sound on the headset, and Andrew swallows the smile that wants permission he’s not willing or ready to give. Strangle it, smother it, shove it back down. 

  
    “Nope,”
  
   Neil denied. Pops the ‘p’. He’s probably smiling.
  
     “Better.”
  

  Andrew shuffles around, lets his expression fold with thought since there’s not a soul there to see it. When Neil’s listening and the lights are off it’s easy to be…well. Easy to be Andrew. Whatever that means. 

  Better than what.

  “Miss Winfield and Coach Wymack admitted they’re in love.”

  
    “Better.” 
  
  Neil insists.

  Better?

  His foot knocks the rainbow tape snack trolley he keeps up there for emergencies. Lien knocks off the corner edge, hitting ears first and rolling to hit Andrew’s wayward foot. 

  Stupid unbalanced bunny.

  For a fleeting moment Andrew thinks of better things and wants to say them. Thinks of–

  Oh hello forbidden thought, go back home now.

  Andrew snags the LPS bunny from the floor, holds onto him. 

  Better than Miss Winfield and Coach Wymack? What’s–

  Oh. Yes. 

  Obviously.

  “Did Mike and Da-”

  
    “Lizzy found Mike and Daniel going at it in the greenroom.”
  

  Andrew spins his chair out, huff-scoff and untranslatable gasped surprise. “No sh@t?”

  
    “Yes sh@t.”
  
   Neil counters. Andrew can hear the smile now. Loud and f@ck@ng clear. That’s not fair really, because Neil sounds good when he smiles, but he 
  looks
   even better. Andrew could close his eyes and see it. Might.
  
     “And because it’s Lizzy she went and told Sara right away and, well I mean it’s so stupid that Sara didn’t know, everyone knows Mike’s had it so bad for Daniel since they did The Scene last year together, I don’t know what Sara was thinking trying to go for him-”
  
Oh. Oh no. Now Andrew’s going to smile. No. Nope. Not f@ck@ng today. 
  “Neil,” he interupts, inner cheek chomp for composure. “You’re rambling.”

  
    “Oh,”
  
   Neil stops. Silent stretch and Andrew’s sitting on the edge of reprimanding himself when he starts again.
  
     “Right, sorry. Anyway, so Lizzy told Sara and she confronted Daniel about it who called Mike and now Marcy’s saying Sara doesn’t want to do the show anymore.”
  

  His forehead bends together with confused furrows. The room’s dark enough to smooth it over. “She has the lead,” Andrew points out. They both know; he says it anyway. “Why would she quit the show because Mike’s gay?”

  
    “Well, I don’t know,”
  
   Neil dismisses.
  
     “I already said I thought she was dumb, clearly she’s just 
  
  
    really 
  
  
    dumb.”
  

  Lip-twitch. It’s a f@ck@ng Wednesday. Andrew refuses to smile on Wednesdays and Neil 
  knows 
  that. “Miss Bee said you can’t keep insulting everyone in the show.”

  
    “I’ll stop insulting them,”
  
   Neil agrees. Too easy. Wait for it.
  
     “When they stop being stupid.”
  

  Well…No, fair point that one.

  “They 
  are
   stupid,” Andrew argues. Agrees? Both? Neil’s not 
  wrong
   but he fails to reconcile a state of being with a condition for change. “They can’t just stop being what they are.”

  People can’t be anything they’re not. 

  Andrew thinks about Neil Josten who showed up halfway through freshman year with scars early enough in the healing process to be wounds and a name too new to be responsive.

  Most people.

  Neil snorts. 
  
    “Wow, it’s almost like Miss Bee said you had to stop insulting everyone in the show too.”
  

  “Miss Bee can’t hear us.”

  
    “Miss Bee always 
  
  
    knows.”
  

  Andrew double checks the stage, but it’s just no-nut butter sandwiches and carrot sticks being thrown like javelins between the seats. No Neil. 

  “Maybe because you’re standing backstage where everyone can hear you?”

  
    “Hey give me some credit,”
  
   Neil complains.
  
     “I’m hiding.”
  

  Andrew lifts a brow directed Lien’s way, hoping Neil feels it all voodoo b@llsh@t or…something.

  “In the clothes rack?”

  
    “...in the clothes rack.”
  

  “Is that why you’re whispering?” Andrew asks. 

  There’s a clothes hanger clatter and the shuffle of stage costumes, Neil’s muttering breaths and Andrew will not smile on a Wednesday. Nope. Nope. Not even a little bit.

  
    “I’m never telling you anything ever again.”
  

  Andrew hums, unphased. “Yes you will.”

  
    “F@ck you.”
  

  God, Andrew wishes. 

  He sets Lien down and the bunny falls head-heavy back to the floor. Stupid f@ck@ng rabbit.

  Stupid f@ck@ng Andrew.

  Neil doesn’t come up to the booth often. No one does. It’s isolated and it’s not like it’s an interesting place to be. 

  It’s Andrew’s safe space.

  Jean’s on some stupid medical leave after catching mono from Jeremy and Aaron shows up maybe twice a month at most and only when Miss Winfield drags him out of the bio labs by threatening to tell Miss Bee he hasn’t been showing up. 

  Like Miss Bee doesn’t already know. They have enough awkward ‘so how’s the sound going, Aaron?’ pointed looks over Italian-style meatballs at the dinner table not to know she knows.

  Andrew’s got his blanket over his shoulders like a shawl, neon pink and fluffy, and he’s slouched low in his chair mindlessly clicking through the cues and recording an easy confirmation for them all. Miss Bee’s excused him from P.E. to run all 167 cues before their affectionately named Hell Week starts on Monday; he isn’t thrilled to be metronomically tapping through lighting shifts—and he’ll have to run the sound next, god knows Aaron won’t f@ck@ng do it—but he’s thrilled not to be in a room full of idiots with plastic floor hockey sticks.

  He checks the next cue—87—and reaches one-handed for the open pack of Twizzlers on his snack cart. 

  “Why the f@ck are your Twizzlers orange?”

  Andrew doesn’t jump. He 
  doesn’t.
   But his hand knocks the snack trolley and poorly manufactured, miserable, head-too-heavy-for-his-body Lien falls.

  “Why are you here?”

  Neil seals the door behind him, closing them in the ill-lit booth. It’s unfair that Josten—snarky, athletic, dark history, can sneak up on Andrew f@ck@ng Minyard Josten—looks good with a wrinkled expression and the flashing of strobing stage lights across his face.

  Sure, there’s a bit of an odd distortion near the scarring on his cheekbone but all Andrew really wants to do–

  He bites his Twizzler. 

  “Miss Bee signed me out of Mr. Forester’s extended session,” Neil answers easily. 

  He moves to the far corner, dropping unceremoniously into the ratty old chair that’s been designated as his ever since he started making these…unexpected arrivals. Andrew used to be able to hide up here. Neil found him three weeks into dimly lit lunch breaks and joined him not 
  often
   but…frequently enough considering. 

  “She said you were running all the cues alone.”

  Andrew, suddenly aware of cue 87 coming to its well-timed conclusion behind him, checks it on the list. F@ck. He’s wearing his pink blanket like a f@ck@ng–

  “D’you wanna trade?” Neil asks, scooting his rickety chair closer and offering a narrow-eyed proposition and a bumble bee pillow pet. 

  It’s Andrew’s, bought with downcast eyes and an opaque bag three months after Bee signed the adoption papers for him and Aaron. Miss Bee at school.

  Andrew squints, considers how close Neil is to him and how it might benefit him to have something squishable in his arms for when Neil inevitably starts smiling and laughing and doing all the stupid things that make Andrew want to reach out and touch. 

  “Fine,” he agrees, unrobing the blanket from around his shoulders like a fairytale maiden. “On three?”

  Neil rolls his eyes, plays along. There’s a tug-and-sn@tch trade between them and Andrew’s tucking his knees up with his bumble bee pinned between them and his chest watching Neil swaddle himself.

  “So,” Neil muses, head tilted and relaxed. “Orange Twizzlers?”

  Andrew hums, holds one out. “You’ll hate it,” he warns.

  Neil almost spits it back out when he tastes a defiant bite. 

  It’s a Friday, Andrew smiles.

  Andrew double checks the smoke system is still unalarmed from the last time he f@ck@d around with the wiring. If he has to be here on a Sunday—he’s almost jealous of Renee, using her f@ck@ng church card to get out of the 7am call time—he’s going to be miserable about it.

  If he’s miserable he’s going to smoke.

  Sorry, Bee.

  
    “Hey, Drew?” 
  
  Neil calls, stupid little headset mic bringing Neil’s voice right up close and personal
  
     “You hear me?”
  

  Andrew hums in answer, inhales nicotine and refuses to feel bad about it.

  
    “Are you smoking?”
  

  “Don’t say it out loud,” Andrew hisses.

  
    “Oh, relax,”
  
   Neil huffs. 
  
    “No one’s around.”
  

  “Still,” Andrew mutters. 

  Bee always finds out. Somehow. He’s beginning to think Neil lied when he said there weren’t any cameras up in the booth. 

  
    “Save me one?”
  
   Neil asks.

  And f@ck. F@ck, f@ck, f@ck. Andrew looks reincarnated straight from the grave, he’s got f@ck@ng gravy on his sweatpants. Not that anyone can see it since they’re black, but he 
  knows
   it’s there.

  “Yeah,” he answers. “Always.”

  Stupid f@ck@ng–

  He spins the chair, mourning his idiot self from two hours ago who was too lazy to put on a proper pair of f@ck@ng jeans. Laying on the snack cart instead of sitting up—not because Andrew gave up, he just likes it better this way, thank you very much—Lien is f@ck@ng laughing at him. 

  He knows it.

  Andrew’s been dragged from the safety of his booth, standing ragged stone edges in the middle of a wicked sea of students flurrying around. Lizzy frowns when she sees him there, opens her mouth, closes it again. Gets her elbow snagged by Mike and washes away in the tide.

  Andrew doesn’t move, standing right of the stage and looking up.

  The light is f@ck@d. 

  He ran all his cues on Friday, seamless execution, not a single f@ck@ng problem. Ran them all through the first tech run on Sunday. Not a single f@ck@ng problem. Monday. Not. A. Single. F@ck@ng. Problem.

  Wednesdays are his no smile days, but Tuesdays? Nightmares. 

  Wednesdays are reserved for mourning his Tuesdays.

  Today is Tuesday and he regrets getting out of bed.

  “Andrew?” Daniel asks. “Lizzy said you were down here, what…” he trails off when Andrew doesn’t look at him. “Did you need something?”

  Andrew hums and it sounds a little strangled. He’s caught fishnet and floundering. Drowning? No, he was the rock he can’t drown if he’s the–

  He could sink though. Surely he’s sinking.

  “Right, um…” Daniel is still there. “If you don’t need anything…”

  Daniel inches away, shaking the peripheral blur of his head at someone. Maybe Lizzy got him. Andrew didn’t mind Daniel too much, when he came out last spring Andrew let him sit at his table until his friends found him and told him he was an idiot. Sometimes Daniel nods at him in the hallway and Andrew finds himself nodding back. 

  Alphabet solidarity. Or something.

  This is the worst Tuesday in a long history of terrible Tuesdays, Andrew thinks. It’s worse than Tuesday last week when Aaron spilt chinese fried rice in the backseat of the car and Andrew had to spend the entire afternoon vacuuming it out because apparently it was his fault Aaron was a f@ck@ng idiot and opened the takeout before they got back home. 

  It’s even worse than Tuesday seven weeks ago when Andrew almost, maybe, so, so, so stupidly asked Neil for help with the maths homework for a class he isn’t f@ck@ng in because he chickened out of asking him to go to the town’s theatre production. Or the Tuesday six weeks ago when he found out Neil went with a couple of the upperclassmen after Kevin invited him along. 

  F@ck he hates Tuesdays.

  “Drew?”

  He flinches away from the taunt of the catwalk and there’s Neil, bright blue and bedheaded.

  “Were you napping?” Andrew feels out of place and out of time and the whole thing is absurd.

  “Uh, no?” Neil frowns. “I just never went home last night so I’m sort of.” He gestures at the rumpled state of himself and shrugs. “You went home though.”

  It sounds, oddly, like an accusation.

  “So?” Andrew huffs.

  “So why do you look worse than I feel?”

  Andrew scowls, turns away from Neil and then turns right back because no thank you he will not look at the catwalk and the broken f@ck@ng light. Neil looks concerned. 

  “You okay, Drew?”

  Andrew makes a strange noise, mostly without his permission. His nod turns into an almost desperate shaking of his head and it’s really hard to breathe when you’re the rock and the water and drowning and sinking and–

  “Okay,” Neil says. “Okay, I’m gonna take your hand now, is that alright?”

  Andrew nods, feels the calloused and scarred warmth of Neil’s palm press against his and when Neil pulls backwards Andrew follows like it’s the only thing he knows how to do. He hopes, stupidly, that he’s not about to be flung skipping-stones back into the deep end. Latches onto the way Neil’s hand is still in his. 

  He doesn’t want to sink Neil too. Holds on and hopes they can both float.

  Neil tucks them into the shadow of a corner three hallways down from the auditorium and waits until Andrew’s breaths start inflating again.

  “What happened?” Neil asks. “You hate coming backstage.”

  Andrew’s head falls back against the brick, turns so he can see the wooden casing of a trophy case. Because of course if Neil has to run from the theatre he’s going to run to the only other safe place he knows. Neil Josten, resident track star and theatre kid because one isn’t enough, no sir. 

  Andrew doesn’t get far enough into thinking about the sculpt of Neil’s thighs and how soft they might be if he could just grab on before Neil’s hand, still in his, gives a little squeeze.

  “Drew,” he mutters. “Why’d you come out of your den?”

  “S’not a den,” he grumbles.

  Neil rolls his eyes. “Sure, and I’m not stage manager.”

  “Probably won’t be for long if you don’t get back there,” Andrew hedges. “You know Kevin would love to come down as a senior student to take over.”

  “F@ck Kevin,” Neil says easily. “Tell me what you needed, you looked scared.”

  Andrew closes his eyes. Doesn’t want to have to look at Neil. “One of the lights is wrong,” he says. “Might just be loose, could be burnt out. I have to go up and check it.”

  Neil knows, is the thing. He knows Andrew’s whole…
  thing
   with heights and he knows about that one time in the ninth grade when Aaron dared Andrew to go up in the Ferris wheel and he was so nauseous with his fear that he made himself sick for two days afterwards.

  Neil was there.

  And Neil’s here now too.

  “Do you want me to check it?” He asks. 

  Andrew shakes his head. “You won’t know what to look for or how to…” he takes a trembling breath and opens his eyes like it’ll convince either of them he’s telling the truth. “I can do it.”

  “Okay,” Neil agrees, nodding slowly. His eyes are so stupid and blue and f@ck@ng sincere and Andrew wants to–

  Well, he wants.

  Like he always does.

  “I’ll go up with you,” Neil says. Like it’s easy.

  It’s not easy. One quick chat between Neil and Miss Winfield lets Andrew off the hook for any of the lighting for the rest of rehearsal. The next few hours pass slowly as a result, Andrew spinning in his chair in the booth, pink blanket and bumble bee pillow pet self-soothing and falling desperately short of the reassurance that was Neil’s hand in his. It’s not their fault, and halfway through the third hour Andrew ends up with Lien in his left hand and curled up by his collarbone. It’s stupid. He feels stupid.

  He feels stupid now too, weak in the knees and dizzy with how high up he’s standing on the fourth rung of the ladder.

  Most of the cast and crew have gone home by now, the only ones still lingering are siblings of the seniors still rehearsing with Miss Bee in the school's 
  actual
   theatre. Neil’s still bitter about that. Just because they’re juniors doesn’t mean they should get the sh@tty end of the stick, he says.

  Andrew doesn’t particularly care.

  What he cares about is that there’s no one left in the auditorium except him, Neil, and the janitor cleaning the bathroom. Even Miss Winfield left to go sit in on the seniors’ last hour of rehearsal with a strict promise to be careful and find her as soon as they were finished.

  It’s the only perks of being related to the school teachers, Andrew knows. Bee becomes Miss Bee but the tender affection doesn’t fade. He doesn’t know if it’s the same for Neil with Coach Wymack and Kevin but…well.

  Miss Winfield trusts them enough to leave. Or maybe she can see the way Andrew is going to hurl and wants to get as far away as she can before that point.

  “Ready for the next one?” Neil asks. He’s a rung below Andrew, technically more than just one but with the way it works all laterally and whatever the f@ck Neil feels 
  close.

  Andrew doesn’t answer, but he steps up another two rungs.

  “Oh okay,” Neil teases. “Big moves from Minyard.”

  Big moves from Minyard would more reasonably be moves like kissing Neil’s stupid f@ck@ng mouth.

  Andrew goes up a third rung.

  “So what d’you do if it’s broken?” Neil asks. “If it’s loose you can just, like, twist it back right? But if it’s like broken then–“

  “I fix it,” Andrew grunts. “That’s what you do with broken things.”

  Neil’s quiet for three more ladder rungs. “Is it?” he asks. “I thought you just got new ones.”

  Andrew doesn’t answer, climbs one hand over the other over the other over the other over the–

  Catwalk rattles when his palm finds it and he freezes. Neil’s right behind him, a steady heat and a solid wall. 

  “Good job, Drew,” Neil says. “Wanna shuffle to the side so I can fit up, too?”

  Andrew crawls, hands and knees and white knuckles. He might puke. It’s a convenient excuse for getting the f@ck back down. Neil lifts himself easily up to the catwalk platform, twisting as he goes so his legs stay dangling off the edge. Andrew wants to grab him, pull him the rest of the way up.

  “Nice,” Neil muses. “Lights now?”

  F@ck.

  He’s not ashamed about the way Neil has to bribe him into standing up, the iron grips, even if Neil lopes and sways with his steps.

  He’s a little ashamed. 

  Maybe.

  Doesn’t matter.

  Andrew stops when they’re under the right light, brushes his fingers on Neil’s wrist to stop him. Neil looks down at him, up at the light with three loose wires and a cracked grin.

  “Broken then,” he says.

  Well, f@ck.

  Andrew can’t reach it. Not flat-footed and reaching with one arm, not on his tiptoes and stretching for a couple seconds with two.

  “You’re gonna have to stand on the lower railing.”

  Andrew shakes his head. Shakes it, shakes it, shakes it. He can’t do that. He can’t. Nope. He’s barely standing right now. Neil’s wrist is going to be bruise shades and sorry in the morning with the way Andrew’s holding on to it.

  “Neither of us can reach it,” Neil says. “But if you stand on the lower bar then–“

  “Neil,” Andrew chokes. “I can’t–“

  Neil smiles, the softest f@ck@ng thing Andrew’s seen in his seventeen years of misery, and he leans his shoulder into Andrew. “I’ll hold onto you,” he says. “You know I won’t let you fall.”

  Oh Neil, Andrew thinks. 

  Andrew’s always falling.

  Andrew shutters his expression only after his disdain is made wonderfully apparent. “Thought you had mono.”

  “Have,” Jean scratches out. He adjusts the mask on his face, eyes belonging to sweat-stained pillows. 

  “Why are you here then?” Andrew presses.

  Jean sighs. “Miss Winfield asked me to come for an hour just to make sure you were okay.”

  Andrew will be having words with Bee at dinner. Many words. Words like ‘I don’t need a senior assistant’ and ‘seriously?’. He’s got time, he can probably come up with even more words before dinner.

  “I’m okay,” Andrew says, a dismissive wave directed at all the controls he has set up and ready to go. “You can go now.”

  Jean sighs again. “Jeremy is my ride.”

  Andrew hates Thursdays.

  He ignores Jean as the stupid French b@st@rd settles phantom of the opera into his morose-looking corner, pulls his hot plate and a pot off the bottom of his snack trolley.

  Jean’s eyes are heavy on him when he snags two styrofoam bowls, two plastic spoons, and one of his big two-person soup cans usually reserved for when Neil announces he’ll be coming up for lunch or dinner or six in the f@ck@ng morning ‘I didn’t eat breakfast and I know you’ve got food Drew’ mealtime. 

  Stupid f@ck@ng Jean and his stupid f@ck@ng mono.

  Isn’t that sh@t contagious?

  Hotplate on and already heating up too much for Andrew to bear touching it, he pulls the pop tab on the can lid, peels the b@st@rd back and dumps it in the pot. Pot on the heat, Andrew’s eyes jumping pot to stage to sulky sick man in the corner of his safe space. 

  “Do you want crackers?”

  Jean startles. “What?”

  “With your soup,” Andrew grunts. “Crackers?”

  Jean shrugs, “Sure.” 

  Andrew turns back to the stage just in time to watch Neil come stalking out, clipboard and headset and annoyance written on his face.

  Andrew follows the line of the marker Neil sketched out with the x-acto knife, shining prideful and stupid for all the ways Neil’s not bothering to track his every movement the way he does when literally anyone else is holding something sharp.

  He keeps his hands steady, tries not to think too much about the repercussions of Neil trusting him, and cuts out the stupid cardboard…actually Andrew has no f@ck@ng clue what this is supposed to be.

  “Neil,” he calls. “Neil, the f@ck is this?”

  Neil looks over, furrowed brow. “Part of the plane,” he says easily. “Were you not paying attention when Marcy broke it?”

  Andrew thinks about the course of his day: ran out of Twizzlers, opened Sweetarts, watched Neil scold Mike and Daniel about f@ck@ng in the closet when they were supposed to be in wardrobe, more Sweetarts, Aaron arriving to run sound sh@t, burritos courtesy of Katelyn, Neil’s thighs, Neil’s arms, Neil’s–

  Yeah, no. Andrew didn’t remember the plane breaking.

  To be honest, he doesn’t remember agreeing to stay late and help Neil fix it either. 

  And yet.

  Andrew sets back to cutting the supposed plane parts out, watches Neil start mixing paints and holding swabs up to what remains of the existing plane.

  Huh. How did Andrew miss that?

  They get the plane cut out, wrestle with it until it’s bent into something like submission, held that way by copious amounts of tape, dental floss, and the creative string of non-violent threats Neil dropped on it. 

  Halfway through painting it Neil pauses, considers the chopstick piercing the garbage bag everyone had dumped their grocery store pre-packed sushi containers in after lunch. 

  “Most lethal utensil,” he says. “Go.”

  Andrew lifts a brow. “Knives.”

  “Knives are excluded,” Neil negates. “Unless you’re talking those fancy Christmas-looking butter knives.”

  Andrew wrinkles his nose, thinks about the awkwardly weighted candy-cane one Bee loves to bring out as soon as November first rolls around. 

  “Forks are a real contender here,” Neil ponders. “Not exactly sharp but they’re probably the best suited for piercing.”

  “Tiny wounds though,” Andrew counters. “You’d have to stab someone a hell of a lot to really do damage. Not like they’ll be bleeding out from a fork wound.”

  “Chopsticks then?” Neil offers. “Like a mini spear or whatever.”

  “Spoons,” Andrew decides. His next brushstroke picks up some of the still-not-dry previous colour, he winces without showing and wipes it off on the bottom of his boot. No one has to know.

  Sh@t, there are probably cameras on the stage.

  Well…

  Whatever. 

  Neil twists, aghast. “Spoons? You really think–”

  “King Lear on Stratford,” Andrew interrupts. “Did a whole shabang where they removed the eyeballs with spoons.”

  And it was f@ck@ng traumatizing. Andrew can say that; he has trauma. Lots. Some of it a direct result of Stratford actors plucking out fake eyeballs with real spoons and dropping them 
  
    SPLAT
  
   onto the stage in front of an entire school trip of seventh graders. 

  Who the f@ck let seventh graders go see King Lear, actually?

  “And that increases lethality how?” Neil presses.

  Andrew rolls his eyes, more paint on the brush, strokes on the plane. “Lethality is not a word.”

  “Could be,” Neil muses.

  “Could not.”

  “You’re deflecting.”

  “Am not,” Andrew responded, childlike and feeling silly in the glow stick and sunshine way. 
  “Lethality,”
   he teases. “Can’t just be based on stabbing ability. Take someone’s eyes out and they’re likely going to die unless you cauterise the wound or treat it in some way. Plus if you wanted you could jab the non-spoony end into someone’s throat.”

  “You could do that with any utensil though,” Neil points out.

  “Then any utensil can be lethal,” Andrew says. “But spoons are the most fun about it.”

  Neil frowns, forehead creased with consideration. “Sporks,” he says.

  Andrew huffs something that feels like a laugh and rocks back from his squat onto his ass, legs kicked out in front of him. “Huh,” he says. “Sporks.”

  Somehow it takes Andrew until opening night to realise that the musical they’re doing is f@ck@ng Catch Me if You Can. You know, like the f@ck@ng 2002 movie remade into a musical in 2011 that’s basically a funny version of Neil’s entire life history? 

  It can’t have been that hard to get the rights for it, but how in the f@ck did Neil manage to convince the drama department to let them do–

  No, actually. Andrew doesn’t want to know. Neil f@ck@ng Josten has never had any issues getting people to do exactly what he wants when he wants them to. Andrew doesn’t need to know the secrets as to how, he might start falling for them then.

  The run goes well, lighting and sound cues running flawlessly and Andrew’s maybe at least a little bit proud of that. Prouder still of the fact no one noticed the tiny little rabbit he painted onto the underside of the plane.

  He’s managed to keep it, strike over and done with and yet again the entire auditorium cleared out apart from him and Neil. There’d been a lingering look from Bee and Miss Winfield before they’d dragged Coach and Kevin out with the rest of the dawdling cast members.

  Andrew flips the hexagon of cardboard between his fingers like one might a coin, just watching Neil as he walks himself to the edge of the stage and sits with his legs dangling. Somehow Andrew’s the one who feels like he’s about to fall.

  “It was a good show,” Neil says.

  Andrew lowers himself next to Neil, careful to keep himself back from the edge. 

  “It was,” he confirms.

  Neil nods. Picks at the rubber coming loose from the sole of his shoe. 

  “I wanted–” Neil cuts himself off and shakes his head. He seems smaller. Young and fragile in a way he’s never been before. 

  Andrew’s peeled him off sidewalks and out of panic attacks and somehow he’s never seen Neil look so…defeated.

  “Neil,” Andrew mutters. 

  He’s slow, doesn’t know how to approach this when he doesn’t know where the threat is coming from or if there’s even a threat at all.

  “I just thought that maybe–” Neil is rough with himself, violently pulling on his fingers and twisting them like he’s hoping they’ll break.

  Andrew takes Neil’s hands in his own, tries to sooth whatever storm is brewing before it can do any damage.

  Neil’s jaw grinds into itself, blue eyes and sincerity and–

  “Can I kiss you?”

  Andrew blinks. 

  1,

  2,

  3.

  What?

  He swallows, says the same thing with wet words that taste like sawdust. “What?”

  Neil breaths so deeply it looks like it hurts to exhale. “Can I kiss you?” he repeats.

  Andrew nods. Nods faster. Tries to slow himself down but then his stupid mouth is open and saying “Yes. Neil, yes you can– yes.”

  And Neil is kissing him. 

  Neil is kissing 
  him.

  It’s not a long kiss. Andrew can’t confidently say it’s even a 
  good
   kiss, his point of reference is a painful zero. But Neil kisses him and then before he can get too far Andrew kisses Neil. It’s ridiculous and silly and they’re sitting on an empty stage and Andrew can feel Neil’s smile against his mouth and it’s–

  Andrew backs off and drops his forehead onto Neil’s shoulder instead. “D’you have any idea how long–” he groans. “I asked you for maths help.”

  Neil laughs, and then he’s kissing Andrew’s temple. “You’re not even taking maths this semester, Drew,” he says.

  “I know.”

  Neil takes Andrew’s hand, pulls him to his feet. They’ve got people waiting outside with heated cars and bouquets they didn’t technically earn but aren’t about to contest. 

  Andrew follows Neil’s lead, exits stage right with a Tuesday smile on his face.'
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