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Neil is the last one to leave.
Miles’ haven is too clean, too bare to possibly be comfortable to Neil, a creature used to ordered chaos in every aspect of his life. But Miles is there, so it really can’t be that bad. And it feels wrong to leave him there, alone, Marcos no longer at his beck and call. Which, in a way, might really be his fault.
It seems a lot of things are his fault as of late. His shoulders curl in towards himself at the thought, hands clasped nervously in an attempt to keep from biting the ragged skin around his thumbs. The sky is still clear. It should be, anyway. Neil does his best to ignore the impossible nausea swirling in his stomach as he tears his eyes away from the looming bathroom door and stumbles down the stairs and to the front door.
It’s cold. Neil sucks in a breath just to feel the air, and turns his eyes upon the stars. Mercury is beginning to crawl its way up from the horizon, glowing an almost noisy red. Sometimes he wishes there wasn’t so much light pollution here, that he could see deeper into the darkness, pick out more patterns and reassurances and predictions that might just keep things like this from happening again. Or, at least, have the decency to let him know about them first.
What Miles did was an anomaly. Everything in the known world has a rhythm, a sense of coherence; things happen in particular ways, rhyming across years and decades and centuries. Not rules, per se, but regularities. Miles doesn’t… he’s broken from the ways Neil knows him to be, his actions no longer in line with his behavior in the past. Something in the world, singing out of tune, playing the wrong chord. It scratches at the corners of his mind insistently, even as the stars seem to whisper their truths to him.
It’s not as though it can’t happen, but it takes a lot. And it makes Neil wonder just how much Marcos meant to him. Maybe, really, this is in line with Miles, and Neil just didn’t know him well enough. Doesn’t know him well enough.
A hand on his shoulder breaks Neil out of his worried trance. He turns his head to see the only person it could possibly be, looking at Neil with an expression he can’t quite place. It’s hard to read Miles at the best of times, with every intent and emotion wrapped up in layers of performance and politics, and now is even more difficult. He thinks it’s sadness that flickers across Miles’ face before he speaks.
“You should be going.” It comes out sounding tired.
“Should I?” Neil responds, before he can think better of it.
Miles sighs raggedly and drops his hand from Noel’s shoulder. Even though his hand isn’t warm, hasn’t been for over a decade, the loss of contact manages to feel cold. He watches as Miles’ shoulders drop before he walks to the steps leading up to his front door and sits, arms resting on his knees. He doesn’t even seem to care about sitting on the ground in his suit. Miles looks at Neil expectantly, waiting for him to sit too.
Neil knows it’s a bad idea to stay. Because he has things to do, very important things to do, yes, and because the longer he lingers around Miles the more the guilt pooling in his stomach climbs up his throat and threatens to spill out, telling Miles that he made sure Marcos wouldn’t…
(And something else is beside that guilt, something Neil doesn’t want to name lest it become real. Something he really, really cannot deal with right now.)
He does anyway, of course, because to deny Miles this much would seem cruel, and the last thing Neil is is cruel. He steps stiffly over to Miles and sits beside him on the step, leaving a generous few inches of space between them, and waits for him to speak.
“This has not been a very pleasant year,” Miles mutters.
“No, it hasn’t,” Neil agrees, barely above a whisper.
“It’s not as though it were ever good , you know, all of…” Miles waves a hand vaguely. “All of the kindred business. Cutthroat.”
“This is different.”
“I know.” Miles brings a hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose with a grimace. “It’s just never been so. Personal, I suppose. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Marcos was beyond harm, of course. But I didn’t think…”He trails off, the ensuing silence absent even of breath from the two kindred.
“Yeah.” Neil presses his lips together, uncertain. “I mean, I-I-I don’t want to impose myself when this is—this is all your, uh, stuff. But, um, I know. How it feels. Politics getting personal.”
The memory of Nara that arises at those words feels like a warm blanket draped around his shoulders. It stings, knowing that he still has her, in a way, and Miles has… what, really? Them? Him?
“Politics, yes.” Miles’ jaw tightens. “I don’t know if the politics in New Haven have been operating as intended for a while now.”
It sounds more like the thought is meant for Miles himself and not him, so Neil doesn’t ask what he means, just pulls a beaten pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and takes one before offering it wordlessly to Miles. He accepts and lights his own with an expensive-looking silver lighter that gleams in the low light before leaning over and doing Neil the rare courtesy of lighting his as well.
It’s weird, the feeling that arises when Miles’ body crosses the imaginary threshold Neil had put up between them. His heart doesn’t beat, no color rises to his cheeks, but his fingers dig into the wooden step with a tension that wasn’t all present before. It feels wrong for an incalculable number of reasons, too, most of all the fact that he wishes Miles had a reason to do it again.
Neil swallows and puts the nearly empty pack back in his pocket. “Thanks.”
Miles shrugs in lieu of any real response. It’s a gesture that’s far too casual, in a way that doesn’t really suit his polished and practiced exterior, but Neil likes it for that reason. They sit in silence for a long minute, smoking quietly, until Miles reaches the filter and drops his on the step. Neil does the same, stepping it out with the toe of his sneaker.
“He was very…” Miles presses his lips together, choosing his words with caution, always careful in his speech. “He was very important.” To me is left out, but Neil’s good at patterns, good at intuiting what people mean even when they don’t intend it.
“I don’t know how I—I don’t know what people do. When things like this happen,” Miles continues. “It’s been a very long time.”
“I don’t th-think any of us are a good resource for—I don’t know either,” Neil admits, turning to Miles. He doesn’t know what he’d do if one of them—faces flash in his mind, his coterie, Nara, Miles —the idea sits uncomfortably in his mind, made all too real by recent events.
Miles’ shoulder bumps against his. “I would rather nothing like this happen again. Losing important people.”
Neil doesn’t know what to make of that, so he stays silent, fidgeting in quiet nervousness. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Miles move to take his glasses off, slipping them into his breast pocket. He turns to face Neil, who immediately and insistently looks towards the ground, avoiding Miles’ eyes.
This maneuver only means that he is surprised when he feels Miles’ hand on the back of his head, fingers curling in his hair, and gently but firmly tugging Neil to face him. Miles has this look on his face—determined, maybe, layered over a sadness that Neil isn’t really sure he thought Miles capable of. It’s confusing, and he wants to know, and Neil studies it for a moment too long, because before he understands it Miles’ mouth is pressed to his.
It’s not bad, not at all, but it is unexpected. Neil whimpers a little in surprise. A litany of objections run though Neil’s mind: Miles doesn’t know what he’s doing, Miles is in no state to be doing this, he’s in no state to be reciprocating, what about Nara, what about everything, this is his fault, his fault, his fault. What bothers him most of all is the fact that, despite this, Neil leans forward into Miles, whose grip on his hair tightens just enough to be painful.
Neil whines again and it seems to be what makes something in Miles snap, because a moment later Miles’ hand drops and he draws back with what is clearly ambivalence written on his face. Neil’s shoulders stiffen, and his hands move to twist anxiously in his lap as he once again looks at the ground.
Miles speaks after a moment that feels longer than it should. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t—I’m not well.” There’s something truly apologetic in his tone, something Neil isn’t sure if he’s ever heard from Miles. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.
He’s confused. He’s confused and he’s in mourning and Neil is probably doing nothing at all to help by staying here any longer, just as he thought. He stands abruptly, tearing his eyes away from the stairs to glance at the stars glittering overhead in a manner that seems more taunting than reassuring at the moment. The guilt from before hangs heavy in him, so determined to make itself known that he can almost taste it in the back of his throat.
“It’s o-okay,” Neil says, still looking upwards. Mercury hangs higher than before, its graceful arc across the night sky nearing its peak. Worry, and regret run in currents down his spine, occasionally punctuated by the persistent urge to sit back down next to Miles just to be near. “It’s fine. W-we’re all a little on edge.”
Neil hears the rustle of worsted wool as Miles stands. He presses his lips in a hard line and looks to him. Miles’ expression has dissolved back into that unreadable and poised mask as he brushes away nonexistent dust from his trousers. “You should be going,” he says, a little too flatly.
Neil nods quickly, wound too tightly to respond, and tucks his hands in his pockets before darting down the steps. When he reaches the bottom, against his better judgement, Neil turns just as Miles’ door closes softly behind him. Something twinges in Neil’s chest before he leaves the property entirely, dipping back into the cover of night as he always has.