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Andrew Minyard always wanted to be haunted.
He thought, as a kid, that it might be kind of cool to have a ghost follow him around day in and day out. To have someone watching over him, watching the twists and turns of his daily life. To have someone just for himself, someone no one else could see or feel.
Malevolent or not, Andrew thought he might like having a being see who he was without ever having to open his mouth and tell it to them.
The problem was, though, that he didn’t really believe in ghosts.
It was a childish fantasy - albeit a strange one - to be seen by one person in such a way that no one else could even fathom. The feeling of being understood was not one Andrew was familiar with, and it was a fact, he knew, that it wasn’t a feeling he’d ever experience. Over the years he learned to be okay with that fact, to not be bothered by the thought that he could only ever trust himself so wholly.
So, even though he never really believed in them to begin with, Andrew stopped fantasizing about ghosts and hauntings and all things paranormal. Over the course of his twenty-four years, he built a life for himself. A life that included only a small handful of people who knew solely what he allowed them to know, and he tethered them to himself through deals and promises that he’d rather die than break - because at his core, Andrew was alone. But he didn’t want to be alone.
He had made his peace with the way his life was going. It was bleak at best, but it was his, and he made a point to leave behind any and all pipe dreams.
That is, until Andrew met Neil Josten.
And then, all of a sudden, Andrew thought he might believe in ghosts after all.
***
As long as Andrew can remember there was that low hum of death ringing through his body. Like under his skin was a nest of wasps, buzzing and buzzing until the sound was the only thing he could think about. It wasn't always so all-consuming, but on the days it was, there was only so much of it he could bear.
Was it still considered being suicidal if he didn’t want to die? Andrew wasn’t sure. All he knew was that, on the Bad Days, death was at the forefront of his mind, an impenetrable wall that was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Just there.
The first Tuesday of January was a Bad Day, and not even an endless stream of cigarettes could chip away at the wall in Andrew’s mind. He thinks that, probably, that was what brought him to the roof of his apartment building that night.
He wasn’t really going to jump. He doesn't think. Not that it particularly matters - he never got the chance to figure it out.
In the two years Andrew had been living in his apartment, he’d never seen another person up on the roof. He had been the one to jam the lock after he picked it for the first time, ensuring that the door at the top of the stairs would open anytime he felt the need to visit. There was no evidence that anyone else even knew about the space, and Andrew liked it that way.
It was his.
Except, on the first Tuesday of January, when Andrew went up to the roof, not to jump (or maybe to jump, it doesn’t matter), there was someone else already there.
There was a man sitting on the very edge, his legs dangling over open air. The wind was relentless that night, cold enough to bite, and yet the man was dressed in jeans with one too many holes to be purposeful and a thin, worn t-shirt. The fabric fluttered against him in uneven bursts, like it might give up entirely if the wind pushed just a little harder.
Andrew noticed the cigarette first, the ember burning steady between two fingers, smoke curling up and disappearing with each second that went by without the man bringing the stick to his lips.
Andrew must’ve shifted, or maybe the door slammed a bit too hard behind him, because then the man spun around, like he’d been caught doing something forbidden.
From the new angle, Andrew could see auburn hair, wind-tossed and a little too long. It curled up around his ears, strands falling in front of his eyes. And his eyes - a shade of blue eyes that Andrew didn’t think he’d ever seen on a person before, cold and icy and trained on Andrew alone.
It was because of the weight of the man’s stare that it took Andrew so long to notice the rest.
Scars cut in slashes across the man’s face, dragging from cheek to jaw in shiny pink lines. A matching set ran down both arms, a jagged tic-tac-toe board of cuts and circular burns that started at his fingertips and spread up to where his sleeves fell short.
Andrew’s gaze lingered on the man’s arms for half a second too long, and when he looked up again, the man’s expression had changed. Gone was the careful calculation, the suspicion, and in its place was a sheepish smile.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice roughened by smoke or misuse, “did I steal your spot?”
The wind howled louder the closer Andrew got to the edge, tugging at his clothes like it’s trying to drag him down the rest of the way. The man didn’t move as Andrew stepped up beside him, just shifted his gaze, tracking him, cigarette still burning slowly between his fingers.
Andrew stopped at the ledge, looking down. New York dropped out from under him in a dizzying rush of lights, buildings stretching as far as he could see. His stomach swooped at the sight, instinctive, something ugly and alive clawing up his throat. Andrew exhaled through his nose.
Not today, he thought. The words settled neatly into the space where the buzzing had been screaming the loudest. Death could wait.
“It was never mine to begin with,” Andrew responded, taking a step back.
The man hummed, soft and amused. Then he smiled again, less shy this time.
He stuck his cigarette between his teeth, still not taking a drag, and pulled a crumpled pack out of his pocket, holding it out towards Andrew.
“Do you smoke?” he asked, like an afterthought.
Andrew stared at the offering.
He had his own. A near-full pack sitting heavy in his pocket, but still - Andrew took one.
“Andrew,” he said, an answer, though not one to the question he was asked.
The man leaned in without asking, close enough that Andrew could smell the smoke clinging to him, something faintly metallic underneath it. The tip of his cigarette flared brighter as he tipped it toward Andrew’s, providing a light without a word. Andrew didn’t move away.
The flame caught easy. The cigarette burned to life between his fingers, the first inhale harsh and unfamiliar in a way his own brand never is.
After a few minutes, the man looked away, out over the edge, and said, “Neil.”
And that marked the first time Andrew Minyard had ever seen a ghost.
***
He didn’t realize Neil wasn’t real at first.
It wasn’t until the second time they ran into each other that Andrew began to suspect that he might be the only one seeing the man.
***
No one lived in the apartment next door to Andrew. It was vacant the day he moved in, and he’d never seen or heard any signs of someone filling the space since then. He liked it that way, having one less noisy neighbor to deal with.
But two days after the roof, there was a knock on Andrew’s door. Andrew ignored it at first.
He was on the couch, one arm slung over his eyes, the TV muted where it’s playing some old-timey movie in front of him. The knock came again, and Andrew still didn’t move. He didn’t have to check the time to know who was here, to know that he was supposed to meet Kevin downtown a half hour ago.
The knocking persists, knuckles against wood, getting increasingly impatient. “Andrew,” Kevin calls through the door. “We had plans.”
Andrew huffs, but he crosses his apartment anyway. He pulls the door open just enough to see Kevin standing there, phone in hand, irritation written across his features.
“It’s 1:36,” Kevin says immediately, not even looking up. “You know I have practice at three -”
Andrew stopped listening.
Over Kevin’s shoulder, he could plainly see the vacant apartment, which, all of a sudden, didn’t look so vacant anymore. The door was open, just a crack, and a beat later, the man from the roof slipped silently out of the apartment.
Neil was wearing the same clothes as the other day, his scars catching the hallway light in pale, uneven lines as he pulled the door shut behind him, utterly silent.
Andrew looked between him and Kevin, who was still talking, and considered saying something. Asking when Neil moved in, how Andrew hadn’t noticed, why he was on the roof that night.
But then Neil looked up, scanning the hall, and those blue eyes found and stuck on Andrew. He smiled. The same way he had on the roof, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it curl of his lips. Neil lifted a hand, casual as anything, and gave a small wave over Kevin’s shoulder.
Andrew stared at him for a second, then lifted his own hand, a mirror of the gesture.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Andrew looked back to Kevin, but his glare was only met with a furrowed brow. He was looking up from his phone now, finally, a frown tugging at his lips.
“What are you -” Kevin glanced over his shoulder, then back again. “Who are you waving at?”
Andrew looked back. The hallway was empty.
The door to the neighboring apartment was shut, unchanged, like it hasn’t been opened in months. There was no movement, no sound. No trace of auburn hair or blue eyes or the faint smell of cigarette smoke.
Nothing.
Andrew’s hand was still half-raised. He lowered it slowly.
Kevin was watching him now, confusion pulling at his expression. “Andrew,” he demanded, “What are you doing?”
Andrew stared at the door next door for a breath too long before he dragged his gaze back to Kevin, face blank. “Nothing,” Andrew said.
Kevin’s frown deepened, but he let it go, checking the time again like that’s the more pressing issue. “Fine. Whatever,” he said. “But we’re leaving. You’re not blowing me off again.” He turned and left, expecting Andrew to just follow behind without a second thought.
And Andrew did. He stepped out into the hall, pulling his door shut behind him. He didn’t look at the apartment next door again, nor did he think about that smile, not even as Kevin rambled on about his lacrosse team’s new training schedule and wasted opportunities.
***
Andrew can count a hundred times Neil has appeared in the year since then, but he can’t think of a single moment where Andrew wasn’t alone in seeing the man.
At first, it was just the roof, always the roof. Almost every time he’s gone up, Neil would be sitting in the same spot, or he’d show up not long after, appearing at the door like he’d been waiting for Andrew to get there first.
They didn’t talk much in the beginning. A few words. A few shared cigarettes. Long stretches of silence that never felt truly uncomfortable in the ways Andrew was used to.
Then Neil started showing up elsewhere. The first time, it was a knock on Andrew’s door, so gentle it was almost polite, like Neil was testing it.
Andrew opened it to find him leaning against the frame, hands shoved into his pockets, eyes bright and a little too clear. “Got a light?” Neil asked.
Andrew swallowed. “You have your own,” he pointed out.
Neil grinned. “I do.”
Andrew shut the door in his face. When he opened it again a minute later, Neil was still there.
It became a pattern. Neil asking for small things.
A cigarette when he ran out. A glass of water after a run. A place to sit when his apartment got “too cold,” even though the temperature never seems to bother him anywhere else. Somewhere along the way, Andrew stopped closing the door.
And then it shifted again. There’s no moment Andrew can point to, no clear line where things change from tolerable to something else entirely. One day Neil is an intrusion, an oddity Andrew hasn’t figured out how to get rid of, and the next, he’s just there.
On Andrew’s couch, stretched out like he belongs there. Perched on the counter, picking idly at a label on a bottle Andrew left out. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, hands gesturing as he talked.
And the talking - Neil was always going on about something or other, but the sound didn't grate on Andrew the way it did when Nicky would babble for too long or Aaron would get into a kick and complain for hours on end.
It felt, abruptly, like a friendship. Or something close enough.
Nowadays, Neil is at his apartment every day. Not always for long - sometimes he’s gone as quickly as he arrives, disappearing without a word, leaving behind nothing but the faint smell of smoke and something metallic Andrew has since stopped trying to place.
But not once has Andrew ever seen inside Neil’s apartment. Not once.
The door next door stays shut, exactly the same as it had been the day Andrew moved in. No noise seeps through the walls, no footsteps, no running water. Nothing to suggest that anyone has been living there at all.
Andrew has tested it. Of course he did. It’s who he is.
He asked the neighbors, casually, disinterested. Mentioned the apartment next door, asked if anyone’s moved in recently. The answers were always the same.
Empty, they said. Has been for ages.
At first, it bothers Andrew. The lack of concrete evidence, the possibility that he’s officially lost his mind. It wasn’t an overwhelming feeling. Like a splinter under the skin he can’t quite dig out. He didn’t necessarily want to get rid of Neil, not at all, but he needed to know for sure. So he started paying closer attention. Watching, looking for something, anything, that proved Neil existed outside of Andrew’s head.
He tried to catch him interacting with something real. A neighbor. A cashier. Kevin or Aaron or Nicky, when they show up out of the blue. It never happens. Neil never crosses paths with anyone else. There’s always just enough distance, just enough separation, that Neil remains untouched by the rest of the world.
Andrew drove himself crazy for a while looking for proof. Something tangible. Something he can point to and say, this is real. But there was nothing.
No extra dishes in the sink, not even when Neil spent hours in the apartment. No displaced objects - every time Neil would come over, everything in the apartment would be exactly where Andrew left it. Neil had a habit of running his fingertips over the spine of Andrew’s books on his shelf, but not once has Andrew found a single book out of place after he’d gone. He never left anything behind, never took anything with him.
No signs of another presence beyond what Andrew can see, can hear, can imagine. Because that’s what it is, his imagination. It has to be.
So he decides Neil isn’t real. A figment. Something his brain built for him and him alone.
If anything, the realization made things easier. Because if Neil isn’t real, then there are no consequences. No risk in being known, in giving himself bit by bit.
So Andrew starts talking.
Not all at once. Just pieces, small, controlled fragments of himself he wouldn’t give to anyone else. Things that don’t matter, and things that do. Observations. Thoughts. Half-formed sentences that don’t need to be finished because Neil never asks him to.
It feels redundant, because why explain yourself to something that only exists because of you? But Andrew keeps doing it anyway. He finds he wants to, wants to tell Neil everything and hear what he has to say in return.
And then, miraculously, Neil starts talking back. Neil tells him things, small things, at first. Disjointed.
He likes strawberries. He has nerve damage in his fingertips from his scars. He only smokes because he likes the smell, because it reminds him of his mother.
Andrew listens. Doesn’t push for more. He doesn’t need to. Neil talks whether he does or not, words slipping out of him, sometimes too fast, sometimes like he’s dragging them up from somewhere deep and buried.
Then Neil starts staying longer. Talking more.
The first time it happens, they’re on the couch.
Neil’s eyes on the TV, but Andrew can tell his mind is anywhere else. Andrew is on the other end of the couch, a careful one cushion between them, and, as always, his eyes are focused on Neil.
Neil doesn’t look at him when he starts talking. His gaze stays fixed on the TV, like he’s reading the words off something written there. “My father wasn’t a nice man,” he says, his voice quieter than usual.
Andrew clicks off the TV, and he stops pretending like he wasn’t watching the man to begin with, turning to face him fully.
Neil keeps talking, stories falling from his lips in tumbles, and all Andrew can think is -
Of course. Of course this is what his mind would come up with.
Andrew’s mind doesn’t do vague when it comes to pain. It does this. It builds something intricate. Something cruel. Something that makes sense, that’s gentle, and then twists it.
Neil keeps going over time. A name dropped here, another there. Places Andrew has never been, never heard of. People who exist only in the way Neil says them, like speaking them too loud might bring them crashing through the door.
Andrew listens to every single one, committing them to memory without trying. And with each new detail, each new fragment of a life that sounds more like a nightmare than anything else, Andrew finds himself thinking that if this were real, if any of this were real, he’d find every person who ever put their hands on Neil. The men who made him run, the woman who carved those scars into his skin - and Andrew would do anything to keep Neil safe.
A serial killer father. An abusive, but trying mother. Twenty-two names, dyed hair and fake contacts. Five languages and four continents. Only Andrew’s brain would build something like this, something so detailed, so relentlessly cruel, that it loops back around into something almost believable.
Something that makes Andrew want to act, something that would turn him into the monster everyone already believes him to be.
It’s just proof, more proof that Neil isn’t real. He can’t be.
***
Andrew’s standing in front of the open fridge, one hand braced against the door, wasting the cold air that’s spilling out around him. His attention had, at some point, slipped and gotten stuck on Neil, the way it always does when he’s not careful.
Neil, who’s sitting on Andrew’s countertop like someone’s placed him there. One leg pulled up, heel resting against the edge like an animal, fingers picking idly at the frayed hole in his jeans. The motion stills when he looks up, noticing Andrew’s eyes on him.
“You’re doing that thing again,” he says simply.
Andrew shuts the fridge, leaning a shoulder on the door. “What thing?”
Neil laughs, dropping his hands into his lap. “That,” he says, gesturing vaguely toward Andrew’s face. “You’re staring at me like you expect me to disappear, or something.”
You will, Andrew thinks to himself. One day you will.
Because nothing like this - easy, uncomplicated in a way Andrew has never known - nothing like this lasts. It never has. It never will.
Neil is no exception. Especially not if he isn’t real. Which Andrew is, at this point, positive he’s not.
But Andrew says none of that.
Instead, he just shrugs. “We have no food,” he says.
And the ‘we’ comes so naturally that he doesn’t even notice he’s said it until it’s too late. Thankfully, Neil doesn’t call him on it. He just tilts his head, considering. “We could order something?”
Andrew moves to prop himself up against the counter across from him, arms crossing loosely over his chest. His kitchen is small - too small for two people, realistically - but Neil never feels like he’s taking up space he shouldn’t. He just fits.
Andrew’s gaze flicks, unbidden, toward the door. He should know better by now - he does know better - and yet he asks, “Or we could go out.”
Neil’s expression freezes. Just a hitch in his shoulders, a tightening around his eyes before he smooths it over. “Um,” he says, the hint of a wince on his face. “I mean, we can. But didn’t you want to watch a movie tonight?”
Andrew watches him. Watches the way his foot presses harder into the edge of the counter like he’s forcing himself to stay put. “We could grab something and bring it back,” Andrew says, desperate to fix it, but still testing, always testing.
Neil hesitates. It’s small, barely there, but it’s enough for Andrew to drop the subject completely. He knows, immediately, that it’s not going to happen, and he won’t force it to.
Andrew doesn’t ask why Neil never wants to go out. He already has an answer. Because his mind built it that way, because of course it did. Because if Neil is going to exist, he has to exist in a way that doesn’t break under pressure. Doesn’t get seen. Contained, safe - and completely in Andrew’s head.
Andrew shrugs again, like it doesn’t matter. Like he hadn’t already known the outcome. The last thing he wants is to dig too deep, to press too hard at the edges of something that could start to unravel. If Neil is a ghost, then Andrew isn’t stupid enough to try and prove it.
So he unlocks his phone, scrolls until he finds what he’s looking for, then slides it across the counter toward Neil. “Order something,” he says. “Not Chinese again.”
Neil looks at the phone. Then at Andrew. For a second, Andrew thinks he might refuse, that he’s ruined it, but after a minute, Neil reaches out, careful, and takes it. His fingers curl around the phone, but his eyes don’t drop to the screen - they stay on Andrew. Always on Andrew.
“Sorry,” Neil says.
Andrew wants to tear the word out of his mouth, but he keeps his face blank, doesn’t react. “For what.”
“I just -” He pauses, thinking. “I just don’t like being around that many people. Some days it’s fine, but - you know.”
Andrew does know. Because he made it up.
Because every piece of Neil, every boundary and hesitation and crystal clear detail fits perfectly into a narrative Andrew didn’t consciously write but understands all the same. He knows it because it’s his. Because Neil is his, his mind, his imagination.
Andrew nods, seeing the way Neil’s shoulders drop the slightest bit, relief, no doubt.
“What am I, then?”
The question comes out before he can stop it, though Neil doesn’t look nearly as surprised to hear it as Andrew feels to have asked it.
His mouth curves, something almost fond flickering through his expression. “You’re Andrew,” he says simply, like it’s obvious.
Andrew sucks in a breath, taking the feeling those words evoke and pushing them down before they threaten to spill out. “Order the food,” he says, waving a hand at the phone in Neil’s hand.
And so Neil does.
***
Andrews has never touched Neil.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to. He thinks he’s wanted exactly that since their first night on the roof. But Neil’s never touched him, never reached out like that - and besides, Andrew thinks it might be considered taboo if he fucks a figment of his own imagination.
But it’s more than that. Andrew has this fear - and fear is, really, the only word for it - that if he touches Neil, the man would dissipate from under his fingertips, vanishing into the air like smoke. Reaching out, feeling, tasting, it’ll break the barrier, and Neil will be gone. Permanently.
So Andrew bites his tongue, he keeps his hands to himself, and he tries not to marvel at the way Neil does the same without ever having to be asked. And he pushes all that wanting down and aside, but his apartment is too small, there’s nowhere for it to go except between his ribs and through his throat.
***
“It’s just weird, isn’t it?”
Neil’s sitting cross-crossed by Andrew’s feet, his back flush against the couch. Andrew looks down at him, at the top of his head, and then at the inch of space between his shoulder and Andrew’s knee.
He’d barely have to move at all to close that distance. A shift, a stretch, and he’d be able to feel Neil’s warmth against him.
He’s never wanted to be that close to another person before, never been able to sit so near to another body and feel as calm as he does right now.
It probably has something to do with Neil not being real and all, but he has a hunch it’s just Neil.
“What’s weird?” Andrew asks. He lost the thread of conversation minutes ago.
Neil huffs. “The guy I was telling you about,” he says. “I swear he’s been following me on my runs the last three days.”
Andrew feels something in his body pause at that. “One of your father’s people?”
Neil’s quiet for a long moment before he finally shakes his head. “No. I don’t think so,” he says, sure of it, and Andrew lets himself exhale. “He’s too young - our age, maybe. I’m pretty sure he’s just trying to recruit me for something.”
“For what?”
Neil tilts his head back on the couch, auburn curls falling in a halo next to Andrew’s thigh. Andrew has to tighten his hands into fists to keep from running his fingers through them.
“Some sports team, I assume,” Neil says, looking up at Andrew. “I dunno. If things were different, maybe I’d consider talking to the guy instead of sprinting away every time.”
If things were different, Andrew repeats in his head.
If you weren’t still being chased, or if you were real?
***
It’s been weeks since Andrew’s visited the roof with any intention other than smoking. The wasps have quieted again, faded into the background enough that he can almost pretend they never existed at all.
He’s become a semi-functioning member of society again - meeting his brother for coffee once a month, phone calls with Nicky from Germany, the occasional lunch spent with Kevin when his practice schedule lines up just right.
Neil never joins him for any of these events, and Andrew finds himself distracted, more than usual, by the thought of what it would be like if he could. If Neil and Aaron would get along, or if they’d be at each other's throats in seconds. If Neil would find Nicky endearing or overwhelming. If Neil would be interested in hearing Kevin replay his lacrosse games for them as if Andrew didn’t watch each one himself anyway.
But Neil won’t do any of that - can’t do any of it - so Andrew does his best to tune back into Kevin’s droning.
“- I mean it, Andrew. This guy’s insane,” he’s saying, picking the tomatoes out of his salad and dropping them unceremoniously across the table and onto Andrew’s plate.
Andrew glares at the tomatoes. He slides them cleanly off his plate and onto a napkin, crumpling it up and chucking it at Kevin’s chest. “Remind me,” he says, bored, “who’s insane?”
Kevin splutters, flicking the napkin away and pinning Andrew with his best “listen to me, dammit” stare. “The guy,” he repeats. “The one I started running with the other week? He has a four minute mile. Four minutes, Andrew! He refuses to talk to me, but he’s finally stopped ditching me, so I think it’s a sign I should ask him to join the team.”
Andrew barely refrains from rolling his eyes. “Your team is doing so badly you’ve resorted to harassing strangers on the street now?”
Kevin doesn’t even register the dig. “The New York Barons are the best lacrosse team in the country, you know that. And I’m telling you, this guy would run circles around all of us.”
Andrew hums. “He doesn’t sound too interested.”
“He will be,” Kevin answers with his nose in the air. He adds, “Once he stops running away from me.”
It doesn’t occur to Andrew - not in this moment or at any point in the near future - that Kevin might be trying to run with Neil, his Neil, that they might be one in the same.
It’s not even a thought in his mind, because Neil isn’t real. He just doesn’t exist.
***
The roof is different in the summer.
The sun settles into the concrete, rising up in slow waves that sticks to Andrew’s clothes, his skin, his lungs. The city stretches out around him, loud and bustling, a constant that never quiets.
Andrew sits with his back against the low brick wall, knees bent in front of him, a cigarette burning between his fingers. It’s too hot up here, but he’s not ready to go back inside yet, so he takes another drag and tries not to feel like he’s melting.
Neil is beside him, close enough that Andrew can almost feel the heat of him, maybe, or the space he occupies - real or not - pressing just slightly into Andrew’s own. He’s lying back, propped up on his elbows, legs stretched out. His hair is a mess in the humidity, curls sticking to his forehead, and his thin t-shirt clings to him in a way that makes Andrew look away more often than he used to. Not that it helps any.
“You’re not listening,” Neil says.
Andrew flicks a clump of ash into the neat pile he’s created next to him. “I am.”
“You’re not,” Neil repeats, not bothered by it. “I just told you a whole story.”
Andrew hums, noncommittal. He glances over.
There’s a smile playing at the corner of Neil’s mouth, easy and fond in a way that still catches Andrew off guard, even after all this time.
“I heard you,” Andrew says.
“Oh yeah?” Neil tilts his head, watching him. “What did I say?”
Andrew doesn’t answer. Because he wasn’t listening, not really. He’d been watching the way the light catches in Neil’s hair instead, the way his voice takes on an edge as he complains, the way he looks so alive it hurts.
Andrew looks away. The city blurs the further his vision stretches, lights bleeding into each other as the sun dips lower, painting everything gold and orange.
Neil lets him get away with it, picking up and retelling his story about some asshole at the grocery store, his hands waving as he acts out the guy’s mannerisms for Andrew.
Andrew takes another drag of his cigarette, lets the smoke sit heavy in his lungs before exhaling slowly. He thinks about how nothing in his life has ever been this simple, this steady, this good - and how cruel it is that it can’t even be real.
Andrew thinks about what it would mean if any of this were real. If Neil were real. If this - this steady presence at his side, this person who sees all of him without asking him to explain himself, who listens without demanding more - if this could exist outside of Andrew’s head.
He thinks about what they could be, what he could give. Wanting something means acknowledging it can be taken away, but if Neil doesn’t exist, then there’s no harm in admitting Andrew wants more. That he wants anything Neil would be willing to give him, that he wants him to stay.
“I wish you were real,” Andrew says out of the blue, because why not? Because if Neil isn’t real then the words mean nothing.
Beside him, Neil stills, pausing in the middle of his story. There’s a beat of silence, and Andrew refuses to look at him, to see the knowing look on his face at the words, at Andrew acknowledging what isn’t meant to be acknowledged.
After a second, Neil takes a breath, and Andrew can hear the smile in it before he sees it. “I am real,” he says, like it’s not even a question.
Andrew finally turns his head.
Neil is watching him, eyes bright, mouth curved into something almost teasing, like Andrew just said something ridiculous.
Andrew can’t help but stare at him. At the way he exists so easily in a world that, by all accounts, does not include him.
He shakes his head once, small and definitive. No, he thinks to himself, you’re not.
Neil’s smile falters the longer Andrew stays silent, his brows knitting together just slightly, like this - this of all things - is the part he doesn’t understand. Like everything else in the world makes more sense than this moment right here. “Andrew,” he says, so slowly, “you do know that I’m real, right?”
Andrew looks at Neil - at the way he’s still watching him, still waiting, still there - and he says, “Obviously.”
Neil’s shoulders loosen almost immediately, the tension bleeding out of him in a single breath. “Good,” he says, softer, like he believes him.
Because of course he does. He has no reason not to. That was the first lie Andrew’s ever told him.
***
The faint metallic scent that always seems to hang around Neil is stronger today. Andrew can smell the metal as soon as he gets off the elevator, and he knows there’s something about it that feels familiar, the way a papercut never hurts in a new way, but he doesn’t register why just yet.
He’s halfway down the corridor, keys loose in his hand, when voices drift around the corner ahead, low and conversational, almost whispering. He could’ve kept walking and normally, he would’ve.
But then he sees it - a thin strip of yellow tape holding Neil’s apartment door shut.
Police tape, he thinks, his pulse pounding in his ears instantly.
Then he hears them.
“…I saw him. Right before the cops got here.”
Andrew slows in front of his door, his steps silent against the worn carpet. He looks up at the two figures at the end of the hall, talking in hushed tones to each other. He recognizes Mrs. Dample from 406 first - he’d know her voice anywhere, high and reedy. He knows the man with her lives in 400, but he isn’t sure he’s ever heard his name.
“Kid looked like he’d been through hell,” she’s saying. “And those - those scars -”
Andrew freezes, his hand raised halfway to unlock his door.
“Poor boy,” she finishes, tutting softly.
The man with her snorts. “It looks like he got what was coming to him, if you ask me.”
Mrs. Dample makes a noise, disapproving, but not enough to argue. “I just don’t understand how he got in there,” she says instead. “401’s been empty for ages.”
Andrew’s grip tightens around his keys. The metal edges press into his palm.
401, he thinks. Neil’s apartment.
Then, Police tape. Why is there police tape on Neil’s apartment?
“He was squatting,” the man says, his tone disgusted. “Those typa kids do that. Find an empty place, hole up for free until someone notices.”
“Someone did notice,” she shoots back. “The super said there was a break-in this morning, that's why there were so many blues here. Did you get to see the mess that was left before they cleaned it up?”
Andrew stops breathing. The hallway presses in around him, too narrow all of a sudden, confining. He’s gripping his keys hard enough to bite into the meat of his palms, but he doesn’t feel it at all.
A mess. A mess and police tape and a break-in and the smell - and Andrew finally realizes why it feels so familiar.
It’s blood.
It sits heavy in the air, thick and unmistakable now that the pieces are right in front of him. Not something metallic, but blood.
Andrew’s stomach turns, something cold sliding down his spine as he finds a sick sort of clarity. That smell - it’s always been blood. On the roof, the first night, faint under the cigarette smoke. In his apartment, lingering after Neil leaves, clinging to him.
Neil isn’t real.
The thought comes automatically. A reflex at this point, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Neil isn’t real, so this has nothing to do with him. It's a coincidence. Andrew doesn’t believe in coincidences, but for this he can make an exception, because the boy his neighbors are talking about can’t be Neil.
There are other men in this city with scars. Other men who might squat in an empty apartment building, who always seem to find themselves in some sort of trouble. It doesn’t have to be his Neil.
A year and a half of nothing - no evidence, no proof, no interaction with anyone else. No one has ever seen him. No one has ever spoken to him. He doesn’t touch anything, doesn’t leave anything behind.
Andrew eyes flick, unbidden, to the taped apartment door. He recoils from it like it burns.
“He’s gone now, anyway. Ran off, apparently,” the man continues. “Good riddance.”
There’s a pause. Andrew can picture it without looking, Mrs. Dample’s lips pressing thin, her hands wringing together like they always do when she’s uncomfortable.
“I don’t know,” she says, quieter. “He’s just a kid, Robby.”
The man laughs, short and loud. “You saw the same kid I did, right? All cut up like that? That’s not normal.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“I just hope he’s okay,” she says finally.
Andrew doesn’t wait around to hear the rest. He turns abruptly, shoving his key into the lock with too much force. The door jerks open, and Andrew steps inside like he’s escaping something, like the hallway floor is about to drop out from beneath him.
The door slams shut behind him, and he presses his back to it, exhaling hard. He drags a hand down his face, too rough, and thinks, desperately, Neil isn’t real.
He repeats it again and again and again, until they’re the only words left in his head.
***
The tape disappears after a week.
Andrew notices because he’s always watching that door, even when he pretends not to. One day it’s there, bright and impossible to ignore, and the next it’s gone, like it was never there to begin with. The door to 401, Neil’s apartment, sits closed again, quiet and unremarkable. Empty, just like it’s always been.
There’s talk, eventually, after the second week. A young couple, Mrs. Dample says one morning when she catches Andrew on his way out. Moving in soon, in the next few days. The first time the place has been filled in years.
Andrew doesn’t respond. He doesn’t look at the door (but he does). He doesn’t think about it (but he does). Because there’s nothing to think about (but there is).
***
Andrew inhales slowly, dragging smoke into his lungs until it burns.
It’s a Bad Day. He knows it the second he wakes up. There have been a lot of Bad Days lately, in the month since he overheard that conversation in the hall.
The wasps are loud, louder than they’ve been in weeks, crawling under his skin, buzzing and biting and refusing to quiet no matter how still he lays. It’s the kind of day where everything presses in all at once and doesn’t let up.
A month.
Twenty-nine days since he’s last seen Neil, twenty-eight since the break-in next door.
Andrew stares at the ceiling, cigarette burning down between his fingers, ash threatening to fall onto his shirt. He doesn’t move to stop it. He thinks about nothing. About everything. About the boy who used to sit on his counter, who used to fill the empty spaces of his apartment with something that wasn’t silence. He thinks about the way he used to shut the door in Neil’s face, about the way things started seeming a little brighter once he stopped.
Andrew closes his eyes. It was always going to go like this. He knows that. Things like Neil - things that aren’t real, things that only exist because Andrew’s brain is a cruel place - they don’t last. They can’t. They fade, eventually, disappear like smoke, like something that was never really his to begin with.
Andrew knows that. He just forgot. That’s all.
For a while, though, he thought it was his fault.
“I wish you were real,” he’d said up on the roof. He acknowledged the thing he wasn’t supposed to, gave it a name and handed it to Neil.
Maybe that broke something. Maybe that was the moment Neil stopped being…whatever he was, and started unraveling. Andrew had turned it over in his head, again and again, picking at it like a scab he couldn’t leave alone.
Then the thoughts warped, because maybe Andrew was wrong.
Maybe Neil had been real. Human and alive and touchable. Maybe there was a boy squatting in that apartment, bleeding, hurt, running, and Andrew -
Andrew had done nothing.
The thought never lasts long. Andrew doesn’t let it. He shuts it down, buries it under everything else, because if he lets it sit, lets it take root, it will consume him and he knows it.
So he tells himself the truth. The only truth that matters.
Neil was never real. This was always going to happen.
Andrew lets his cigarette burn down to the filter between his fingers. His phone buzzes on the table, but he ignores it. It’s been buzzing a lot lately.
Usually Kevin. Sometimes Nicky or Aaron, when Kevin calls them to tell them Andrew’s lost it again. Messages. Calls. Voicemails Andrew doesn’t listen to.
Andrew doesn’t care. He can’t care about any of it. Not when the wasps are this loud, not when his apartment feels this empty, not when every thought threatens to circle back to blue eyes.
There’s a sharp knock at his door, just one. Andrew doesn’t move.
Kevin, he thinks. Persistent as ever, and utterly unwilling to take a hint.
Andrew presses the heels of his hands into his eyes until colors burst behind his eyelids. Go away, he thinks. Just go away.
Another knock, louder this time. Then three more.
Andrew clenches his jaw.
He’s not doing this today. He’s not listening to Kevin complain about his missing running partner, who he's been unable to shut up about since the guy stopped showing up a few weeks ago. He just doesn’t have the energy.
The knocking doesn’t stop. It keeps coming, steady and relentless, like whoever’s on the other side has no intention of leaving.
Andrew bites his tongue hard enough to taste iron, irritation cutting through the fog just enough to push him upright. “Fuck off,” he mutters under his breath, swinging his legs off the couch.
The knocking continues. Andrew crosses the apartment, each step heavier than the last, the wasps screaming louder with every second.
He yanks the door open, prepared to forcibly remove Kevin from his doorway if need be - and freezes.
Because it’s not Kevin at his door.
It’s Neil.
He’s dressed appropriately for once, jeans that actually fit him and a t-shirt without any holes, and he’s standing in Andrew’s doorway like nothing has changed. Like a month hasn’t passed. Like he didn’t disappear, like there wasn’t any -
He’s dressed better, but he looks worse. There are deep purple hues under his eyes, a cut along his jaw that’s mostly healed, and a pale green blooming under his collar, hidden just enough to suggest healing that Andrew can’t see.
But his eyes - his eyes are the same. Bright and clear and so blue they pin Andrew where he stands, his mind blanking.
For a second, neither of them moves. Andrew doesn’t think, doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe.
“Hey,” Neil says, like it’s been a day instead of twenty-nine of them. Like Andrew hasn’t spent a month convincing himself he was never here to begin with. He shifts his weight, something uncertain flickering across his face. “Can I come in?”
***
“Andrew,” Neil says, slower than before. “Can you just -”
Andrew turns.
Neil’s on his couch, leaning forward slightly, forearms braced on his knees, like he’s trying to make himself smaller. His eyes don’t leave Andrew’s face, haven’t since Andrew let him in.
“Can you sit down?” Neil asks. “I have to…I want to explain.”
Andrew doesn’t move. The wasps are back. Louder than before, filling his head, drowning everything else out, buzzing so violently it feels like his skull might split open with it.
This is it, he thinks, I’ve officially lost my fucking mind.
“I can’t,” Andrew says, his voice sounding off even to his own ears.
Neil’s lips tug downwards, but he nods once, like he expected that. “Okay,” he says quietly.
He drags a hand through his hair, something restless in the movement, something real -
Andrew clenches his hands into fists at his sides.
“I’ve been -” Neil starts, then pauses, like he’s trying to figure out where to begin. “I’ve been with the FBI.”
Andrew blinks.
Oh, he’s really gone fucking crazy.
“My father -” Neil continues, faster now, like if he doesn’t say it all at once, he won’t say it at all. “- one of his people found me. One of the last ones. I didn’t know he was still out there, I thought -” He cuts himself off, breath hitching. “It doesn’t matter. He found me. At the apartment.”
Andrew can’t seem to get any air into his lungs. Everything feels too tight, too close.
“They showed up after,” Neil says. “The FBI. I didn’t call them, they just…that’s a long story, but they tracked me down. Offered me witness protection.”
Witness protection, Andrew thinks. Then, this is insane. He’s going insane.
“I didn’t take it,” Neil says quickly, like that matters. “I mean, I did. For a bit. They needed statements, they needed everything I could tell them. That’s where I’ve been for the last month.”
Andrew’s throat feels like it’s sealed itself shut.
“They said I’m safe now,” Neil continues. “There’s no one left. It’s over.”
Andrew stares at him. This is too much. Too detailed. But isn’t that exactly the point? Andrew’s mind has always been like this. Thorough and too creative and hell-bent on making him suffer. Of course it would build a story like this. Of course it would try to fix what it broke.
“Are you going to leave again?” Andrew asks, the words coming out before he consciously decides to speak.
Ghosts don’t hesitate, but Neil does. “I -” he starts, then stops. His hands curl together between his knees. “I wanted to see you,” he says instead, so quiet Andrew almost doesn’t hear.
“I wanted to come back,” Neil continues, too fast now, like he’s losing control of it all. “I mean - I like it here. New York. I like -” He stumbles, just slightly. “I like you. I don’t want to go. I don’t -” He cuts himself off, breath uneven. “If you want me to leave,” he says quickly, “I will. If that’s what you want, I’ll go. I just -”
“Are you real?”
Neil stops. For a second, he just looks at Andrew, like he doesn’t understand the question.
Then, something clicks. Andrew watches it happen. The recognition, the memory.
“I wish you were real,” Andrew had said that day.
Neil’s expression shifts, something almost incredulous flickering across his face, something disbelieving and a little bit hurt. “You do know I’m real, right?” he says, in the same cautious tone he used back then.
Andrew’s head shakes before he can stop it. “No,” he says. “I don’t.”
The wasps are deafening now. His thoughts spiral, slipping over each other, breaking apart as fast as he can try to piece them together.
“You’re not -” Andrew starts, then stops, dragging a hand through his hair. “You’re not real. You can’t be. No one saw you, no one -”
Neil stands. The movement is sudden enough that Andrew’s mouth snaps shut. He feels manic, like he did so many years ago, when the courts prescribed him those god-awful drugs. He feels hysterical, as he did then. Crazy.
“I’m not a hallucination,” Neil says, close enough that Andrew can feel his breath against his face.
“No,” Andrew says immediately. “You’re a pipedream.”
Neil stills at that. “A what?”
Andrew doesn’t answer. He can’t. The word hangs between them, fragile, and the wasps in his head surge louder in response, like they’re trying to drown it out, like they know it's not true anymore.
Neil takes a deep breath. Then, carefully, he says, “Can I show you something?”
Andrew almost laughs. “You’ve been showing me things for almost two years,” he says. “That’s the problem.”
Neil just watches Andrew, eyes too focused, present. “Yes or no,” he asks.
Andrew doesn’t know what he’s asking for, doesn’t know what illusion he’s about to shatter, but the word comes out anyway, automatic and inevitable.
“Yes.”
Neil moves, measured. Like he’s approaching something skittish, something that might bolt if he moves too fast. Andrew doesn’t move at all
Neil’s hand closes around his wrist. And Andrew -
Andrew feels it.
It’s not a suggestion of touch, not a presence. He feels Neil’s hand, solid and warm against his own.
Neil guides Andrew’s hand upward, slow enough that Andrew could stop him if he wanted to, could rip free, but he doesn’t. Neil presses his hand to his neck, right beneath his jaw.
“Feel that,” Neil says, his voice barely more than a whisper, but steadier than it’s been since he walked in the door.
Andrew does. He doesn’t mean to. He doesn’t choose to. But it’s there.
A pulse, strong and steady. Undeniably alive. It beats against Andrew’s fingertips in a rhythm that doesn’t belong to him, doesn’t echo anything inside his own chest. It’s separate. Distinct.
The wasps go silent. Like someone flipped a switch inside his skull and cut the noise clean out. All that’s left is that pulse.
“I’m alive, Andrew,” Neil says. “I’m real.”
Andrew’s mind tries to fight it.
It scrambles, frantic and desperate, reaching for something, anything, that can explain this away.
Brains are powerful, they can do this, they can create sensation, they can -
But not like this.
No, because Andrew knows his own body. Knows the difference between imagined and felt, between memory and reality, between the absence of something and the undeniable presence of it.
And this - the pulse pounding evenly beneath his fingertips - this is real.
Andrew’s fingers twitch against Neil’s skin, pressing harder without meaning to, like he’s trying to break through it, like he’s expecting it to vanish under pressure.
But it doesn’t. The pulse keeps beating.
Andrew doesn't remember leaning forward, but the next thing he knows, his forehead is pressed to Neil’s, inhaling each other's breath not an inch apart.
He has a hand fisted in the front of Neil’s shirt, pulling him closer like he’s afraid he’ll disappear if he doesn’t. He is afraid of that, he thinks.
It’s too close, too much. It's everything he’s avoided for nearly two years, everything he told himself could never have and yet, Neil is still here in his hands.
“You’re real,” he says.
And it’s meant to be a statement, but it doesn’t sound like one. It comes out like a question, one that Andrew needs to hear an answer to, again and again to believe it.
Neil doesn’t pull away. “I promise I am,” he says.
“You’re real,” Andrew repeats with more force this time, like he’s trying to make it stick.
“I promise,” Neil says again.
Andrew’s eyes flick down, just for a second, to Neil’s mouth. He wanted to watch the words form, to see them be spoken in real time, but his eyes get stuck, and once he’s there he can’t look away.
“Andrew.”
“Shut up,” Andrew bites out.
“Andrew,” Neil repeats, barely more than a breath. “Yes or no?”
Andrew doesn’t answer with words - he isn’t sure he has any left. It’s not gentle, the way Andrew’s lips crash into Neil’s, teeth clashing and scraping, and it’s not gentle, but it’s more than desperate.
He knots his hand tighter in Neil’s shirt, his other hand coming up to cradle the back of Neil’s head, pulling him closer and closer still, like he can’t get close enough, like he needs more, needs proof, needs to feel it in a way his brain can’t deny.
And Neil kisses him back just as hard.
There’s nothing hesitant about it, nothing unsure at all. It’s all heat and pressure and spit that meets Andrew head-on, matches him.
And Andrew feels it. All of it.
The press of Neil’s lips against his. The way he gasps into Andrew’s mouth when Andrew bites at his bottom lip. The way Neil’s hands come up, then still a breath away from Andrew’s head, going back down to settle at his sides.
Real, Andrew thinks, he’s real, he’s real, he’s -
Andrew pulls back just enough to mumble a quiet “you’re real,” again, trying to understand it.
Neil huffs a low, breathless laugh against his mouth. “I’ve been trying to tell you that this whole time,” he murmurs.