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NMFTG Chapter 25

Christmas Miracles

Still in New York for the holidays Neil has several very sane conversations

ao3: chapter below cut

Neil spent the next two days of the vacation sitting on the couch with a blanket over his eyes as everyone ignored his suffering.

“Why did Riko call you that? Stop pretending to be asleep. I can hear you mumbling, answer me.”

“Okay, I think you were right about the stitches, but please take it easy.”

“Neil I need you to take me to an Exy court, I can’t live like this Neil, Neil please.”

“Make a noise so Katelyn knows you’re alive, she won’t hang up until you do.”

“Buddy, are you sure you’re okay? You keep saying you’re okay and then not moving for long periods of time?”

“Neil, are you sure you’re not feeling up to broadway, we’re going to broadway!”

“Why did Jean keep saying you were gonna die?”

Neil sat up, pulled the blanket off his head and squinted at Aaron. Everyone else was out seeing something called Spring Awakening. “Why do you hate Andrew?”

“I don’t hate him,” Aaron sputtered.

“You don’t talk to him, ever, and he doesn’t talk to you.” It was the core of all their colossal issues, that the two of them wouldn’t just talk to each other.

“This is besides the point—“

“No, I’ll answer if you answer.”

“He killed my mom.” Aaron said it with a surprising amount of anger.

“Wasn’t she abusing you?”

“Oh my god, did he tell you that? Why would he tell you that?”

“I asked.”

“You asked Andrew about our mother and he answered you?”

“Yes, asking, that thing people do when they talk to each other.”

“Andrew was lying to you, alright, he killed her because she gave him up and he’s a petty bastard.”

“Andrew doesn’t lie.”

“That’s all he does.” Was Aaron insane? Was Neil? Had they both shuddered into some alternate reality where the guy who goes around saying whatever hard truth that enters his mind was somehow a liar?

“Aaron, I am quite literally a pathological liar. Andrew doesn’t lie.”

“So, your name isn’t Neil? Riko was right?”

“Oh my god,” Neil flung himself back down on the couch and immediately regretted it. “I can produce very convincing looking documents that all say my name is Neil Josten.”

“THAT ISN’T AN ANSWER.”

“Why does this matter?” Neil asked. “Can’t you just let me be Neil? Can’t this just be enough?” Who cared if Neil was lying a little bit about everything or a lot about his identity. Aaron didn’t work for the IRS, what did it matter.

“Why did Jean keep saying you were going to die? You specifically.”

“Oh we all die someday--”

“Be serious, for fucking once just give me the real answer. You’re worse than Andrew, I swear.”

Neil sat up again, stood up. Was confronted with his own truly degenerate B.O. He grabbed Aaron’s shoulder and looked into his nervous eyes. “Jean kept saying I was going to die because I am. Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t worry about it?” Aaron turned and started pacing the living room. “You can’t just say that and expect me to shrug it off and move on with my life, what is Riko going to do?”

“Riko is going to keep skulking about thinking he knows everything, it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re my best friend, dipshit, I don’t want you to die!”

“Best friend?” Neil asked. He sat back down on the couch.

“Oh, don’t sound so surprised, it’s either you or Kevin and you piss me off less.” Aaron’s face went red and he avoided eye contact.

“Huh,” he’d seriously need to get around to asking someone what constitutes friendship, although Neil can’t be doing too bad if he’s got a best friend, even if said best friend Aaron ‘born to irritate’ Minyard.

“So, it matters, alright. What’s going to happen to you?”

“I will mouth off to the wrong person and they will inevitably dismember me. Look, it probably won’t be Riko, he’s not as good as he thinks. I’ve been hoping your brother would put me out of my misery but to be honest I think he finds me amusing.” Such obvious bait.

“What the fuck is going on with you and my brother?” And yet Aaron is just a brainless fish.

What was going on with Andrew? Crisis prevention? Aaron had called them ‘weird murder buddies,’ which didn’t feel right exactly, but it wasn’t like Andrew was around to offer his two cents on the matter.

“I think we’re friends,” Neil admitted, bewildered with the realization. But if the other Foxes were his friends, and it seemed ridiculously that they were, Neil spent just as much if not more time around Andrew. Andrew trusted him, at least with his family, and most to watch his back, to be handed a knife and stand guard. To stand a bit closer then he let most people get. Friends didn’t feel right with anyone but what else was Neil supposed to call it?

“He doesn’t have friends, he has control issues and knives.”

“You are so weird, you are all so weird,” Neil tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling, it gave him no comfort. “I, the scarred dangerous stranger who almost killed a guy two days ago, can have friends. But your brother, who by all means is just some guy, can’t?”

“HE KILLED MY MOM.”

“So? I lit my mom’s dead body on fire and watched it turn to ash, are we no longer best friends?”

“Why the fuck would you do that?” Aaron’s face went pale.

“Because if anyone found her body it would be easier to track me down, I bet Andrew didn’t even delicately pull your mother’s still warm bones from the fire and bury them on a beach.”

“You are lying to me, right? This is part of your whole pathological liar routine?”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, you’re the one who wanted me to kill Riko in front of you.”

“Oh, fuck Riko, at least if someone killed him things would get better.”

“And things didn’t get better when Andrew killed your mom?”

“Jesus Christ, why can’t I know any normal people?”

“You know Katelyn,” Neil shrugged.

“I am in love with Katelyn, and she thinks I’m a catch, she’s not normal.”

“What are the terms of your deal with Andrew?”

Aaron groaned and sat down on the couch. “I stay with him until graduation, stay clean, don’t associate with anyone he doesn’t approve of and in return he gets the satisfaction of ruining my life.”

“Aaron.”

“He protects me from women.”

“You are the dumbest motherfucker in the world.”

“Okay, now we’re no longer best friends.”

Neil dragged a hand through his hair, so specifically stupid. The way that Aaron runs around doing exactly what he promised not to, expecting Andrew to what? Give up? Not kill Katelyn? “Hey, hey, dumb fuck,” Neil said, kicking Aaron’s leg until he turned to look at him. “No amount of me being friends with Katelyn is going to stop Andrew from murdering her, you need to sort this out when he gets back.”

“How the fuck do you expect me to do that? Anytime I have ever tried to talk to him he pulls out a fucking knife!”

“Oh boohoo, the consequences of your actions.” Neil only had so many friends he couldn’t afford to have them all killing each other while he was still alive. “What do you want? Do you want him to fuck off forever, do you just want him to stay out of your shit, do you even want a brother?”

“I’ve always wanted a brother, he’s the one who told me to fuck off!” And for good reason, even if Aaron was a little too slow and set in his opinions of Andrew to realize it.

“Fine then, here’s what you’re going to do. The third day after Andrew get’s back from rehab you go up to him and you ask him to negotiate, be clear, be concise, be willing to barter, and fucking listen when he tells you no.”

“He’s not going to listen to me.”

He probably wouldn’t considering how every other interaction with Aaron must have gone for them to get to this point. “You have to prove that you’re willing to listen.”

“I have to prove,” Aaron scoffed.

“Yes, jackass, Andrew isn’t like you. He’s like me. Why do you think it’s taken me so long to even entertain the idea that we are friends? You have to meet him where he’s at.”

“Is that what you did?”

“I guess, look, just.” This was impossible, Neil was setting the team up for mass self-destruction via two stubborn bastards. “The two of you need a fucking mediator and if I try to do it I will lose my patience and kill either the both of you or myself. Call Dobson, ask her to do it.” She had proven herself a miracle worker, even if Neil would rather chew off his right hand then talk to her again.

“You really are his friend, aren’t you?” Aaron looked vaguely horrified at the idea. Be it that he had something in common with Andrew or that someone actually liked being around his brother, Neil couldn’t tell.

“I honestly think if I tried to say that to him he would stab me,” now there’s an idea.

“I’m telling Katelyn you said she’s your friend.”

“Okay.”

The others came back after their show and they all helped Randy decorate for Christmas. Soft music with demented lyrics played, all stuff about Santa going on a murder spree or chipmunks biting it. Randy and Matt sang along loudly and the others found it begrudgingly amusing. Neil went where he was directed, the couch, and did the job Randy gave him, opening ornament boxes and handing them out to the others.

All of the ornaments were old and worn, each one a little snapshot from Randy and Matt’s life. A picture of Matt as a baby in a snowman frame, a little exy racquet, a boxing glove, a fox. Their whole lives in small objects hung on a tree. It was interesting.

Nicky was begging Randy for more baby photos of Matt when a knock sounded at the door.

“Nicky, could you stop being a nuisance and get the door?” Matt asked.

Suspicious, very suspicious. Neil considered sprinting across the room and opening the door first, but his head still hurt so he stayed put and watched Nicky go to the door.

Nicky opened the door and immediately burst into tears, the man--who Neil hoped was Erik--wrapped Nicky up in a hug, lifted him off the ground and pressed kisses to his face and head.

Neil looked at Matt who was beaming with clear involvement.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” Nicky was chanting inbetween sobs.

“Yes, baby, I love you too,” Erik said in german. The likelihood of this tall blonde guy speaking German and holding onto Nicky for dear life not being Erik was insanely small. “HI,” Erik said in heavily accented English to the rest of them, over Nicky’s shoulder.

“Hey Erik,” Aaron said without inflection.

“Okay, okay,” Nicky hopped down from Erik's arms and let him come into the apartment. “This is Randy, she’s amazing. Matt, her son. Kevin, who only talks about Exy. And Neil--”

“The one whose ass you kept telling me about?” Erik asked in amused German.

Oh, did Erik think that was funny? Well, Neil was about to be hilarious.

“Yup, that’s me, if you could get him to stop talking about my ass that would be great actually,” Neil said in german.

“YOU’VE KNOWN GERMAN THIS WHOLE TIME?” Nicky yelled.

“Oh my fucking god,” Aaron awed. “No, no way.”

“Yeah I lived in Germany for a while as a kid,” Neil answered, still in German.

“This is hilarious,” Erik said in English. “You are my new favorite man.”

“Erik!” Nicky whined.

“Second favorite man.”

“I am so impressed that you managed to sit on that one for this long,” Matt said. “How?”

“I honestly kept forgetting to tell anyone.”

“How many languages do you know?” Aaron asked.

“Uh, fluent in three, okayish in another four.”

“Andrew’s gonna lose his shit when he finds you you’ve understood us this whole time,” Nicky warned.

“Andrew knows,” Neil told him. “Honestly, I figured he would have told you but then you kept talking about my ass.”

“Why did Andrew get to know you speak German!”

“He asked.”

“If we ask you questions will you tell us the truth?” Matt asked.

“It’s entirely possible.” Neil shrugged. He wouldn’t go around giving any monologues about his torrid past, but the idea of answering some questions with a bit of honesty wasn’t as revolting as it once was. Friends, yeah? That’s what they all were, hostile but loyal.

Nicky and Erik took off on their own and the rest of them settled in to watch movies.

Neil woke Kevin up early the next morning on Christmas Eve, dragged him out of bed and ignored his bitching while he made them coffee and shoved Kevin out the door.

“Are we going to court?” Kevin asked, still bleary and exhausted.

“No, we’re going shopping.” Neil told him.

“You hate shopping, let’s just go to court.”

“Yeah, I do hate shopping but we need to get everyone Christmas presents.”

“What?”

“Presents, for the team, people who care about each other occasionally exchange items,” he was adapting Matt’s dating rules, there was certainly enough proof to suggest it was the right track. All of the holiday movies they’d watched the night before had suggested the same.

“That’s,” Kevin dragged his hands across his face. “Neil, what?”

“I have never had friends, I’ve also never bought anyone presents.” They stepped outside and Neil started ushering Kevin towards the subway. “You’re going to help me.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re friends.”

“That’s--” Kevin made a face. “Fine, but I’m not getting anyone anything.”

“Yes you are.”

“I don’t do presents.”

“We’re learning right now. Look,” Neil grabbed onto Kevin’s arm. “I am going to die, you won’t. You get to live Kevin. So, you are going to live. You’re gonna let the upperclassmen befriend you and you’re going to keep dragging Andrew to court. And you are going to be fine. You will have friends and a team and Coach and Abby and you will live a long stupid life for the both of us.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” Kevin admitted.

“You think I do?”

“I don’t know how to do any of it, Exy makes sense at least.”

“I don’t think it’ll ever get any easier, but it’s worth it. Isn’t it?”

Kevin scratched his left hand. And gestured for Neil to keep leading the way. They got onto the subway and sat in silence while Neil threw Riko’s SIM card into the air and caught it over and over again. He still hadn’t decided what to do with it, hadn’t worked up the nerve to slip it into a phone and look through the contents. Maybe he’d ask Andrew for help in the New Year and pawn it off on him.

Shopping was inordinately hard, Kevin and Neil kept arguing over what people would like. Neil found a t-shirt with a mangy looking cat on it and showed it to Kevin, “this is you.” Neil said.

Kevin retaliated in the next store with a picture of a dumb looking sheep. And on it went. As Neil picked out the softest scarves and sweaters he could find and Kevin tried to make an argument for nutrition based gifts.

“Should we get stuff for Coach or Abby?” Neil asked.

Kevin looked at the wall of coffee mugs. “Probably, I think Nicky did.”

Neil grabbed two and put them in the cart. Done and done.

Kevin picked up a mug covered in racquets, “Wymack’s my father,” he said quiet and defeated.

That made a concerning amount of sense. “Are you going to tell him?” Neil asked.

“I don’t think it’ll go over well.”

It wouldn’t, Wymack wouldn’t believe him and Dan would probably challenge him to a duel for Wymack’s honor or something equally ridiculous. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think Wymack would stab you.”

“Neil.”

“I’m just saying, as far as fathers go he seems very unstabby. Against stabbing even, if we consider how he reacts to Andrew.”

“None of this is fair.” It wasn’t a complaint or a whine, it was just a fact.

“I know,” Neil agreed. “You should tell him he’s your father while I’m still around. A little entertainment is the least I deserve.”

Kevin reached over and shoved him. Neil shoved him back. Kevin grabbed a mug off the shelf and then shoved the cart forward.

“You should talk to Dan,” Neil told him.

“What?’

“Well, she’s the captain and wants to be Wymack when she grows big and grumpy. She’s basically your older sister.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“I’m delegating, I can’t help you with this shit, my experience with fathers is exclusively being hunted for sport. Besides, if you go to Dan first she might not hate you forever.”

“I don’t care if she hates me or not,” Kevin grumbled.

“You’re going to start,” Neil told him. “You have to carry on being a demented asshole for me after I’m dead and that means caring about all the other demented little assholes on our team.”

“That’s not--”

“I don’t care, this is what I’m asking you to do. Will you do it?”

“You’re asking for a lot.”

“It’s literally my dying wish.”

“I’ll try.”

They finished shopping before noon, before anyone else even had the chance to wake up and wonder where they’d run off too. Neil managed to discreetly ask Randy for spare wrapping paper and then him and Kevin horrifically wrapped and labeled all their gifts for everyone. Most went into the new suitcase Neil had bought while they were out for this purpose. A whole second bag to lug presents back to South Carolina.

Randy passed around eggnog and Erik told everyone stories about Germany. They all played cards and Randy put on old Christmas music to fill the air. Kevin made conversation and didn’t insult anyone for the whole night.

It was nice. It was nice to see Nicky so happy, Aaron so calm, Kevin so trying. Matt seemed pleased and his mom seemed over the moon and Neil thought it was all just really nice. It was nice to spend this time with them, it was even nice to miss the others. To look at the texts from the girls and Seth and think about Andrew in rehab and know that they were all safe enough. That he would see them in the new year. It was nice that he got to have any of this at all.

A warm blanket wrapped around him as he played a game everyone explained the rules to, it was good.

Late in Christmas morning everyone came into the living room on some sort of understood Holiday tradition. Matt and Randy exchanged presents. Randy gave them all candy and an invitation to come back in the Summer.

Nicky handed out presents, he gave Aaron a set of video games and Matt a stack of horrible looking movies. He gave Randy a pair of earrings and Kevin a set of leather gloves. He gave Neil a soft black coat.

Nicky kissed Erik on the cheek and sat back down with him.

“Right then,” Neil said, he poked Kevin in the side.

Kevin got up and got the wrapped presents from Randy’s guestroom.

“You got us presents?” Nicky asked in an amazed slightly shrill voice.

Neil and Kevin handed them out silently.

Neil gave Randy a soft scarf, Kevin gave her a coffee mug that said, “Mama Said Knock You Out,” on it.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, touched.

Neil gave Matt a T-Shirt with some movie character Matt liked on it. Kevin gave him a book of comics that seemed vaguely familiar to one of Matt’s other pop culture obsessions.

“These are both really thoughtful,” Matt admitted, his jaw slack.

Neil gave Aaron a keychain that doubled as brass knuckles. Kevin gave him a book on the history of handwashing.

“You motherfuckers.”

They each gave Erik an envelope containing IOU’s with the offer to pay for flights to South Carolina.

“Thank you,” Erik said with a giant smile, slipping the envelopes back into his pocket before Nicky could look at them.

Neil gave Nicky a fuzzy sweater and Kevin gave him a pair of socks covered in the word “Slut.”

“You guys got me presents,” Nicky was crying.

“Aaron have you never gotten your cousin a present?” Neil asked in utter disbelief.

“Oh, shut the fuck up, I called Erik didn’t I.”

“I’m telling Katelyn.”

Aaron stood up grumbled and cursed and left the room and then came back still grumbling and cursing with his backpack. He pulled out a wrapped present that he tossed to Nicky and then one that he threw at Neil. “These are from Katelyn, not me. Shut up. She made them.”

Nicky opened his, shuddering as he tried not to cry. It was a deep green knitted hat that looked complicated to make and warm. Nicky immediately pulled it on and smiled bigger than Neil had ever seen, except for maybe when Erik knocked on the door.

Neil opened his, it was bright orange with white Foxes and Exy racquets all around it. Neil ran his hand along the knitted fabric. “She made this?” He asked. She made it for him? For him?

“Yeah,” Aaron shrugged.

And finally Neil and Kevin both exchanged their dumb animal t-shirts that they’d both managed to purchase without the other noticing.

“You both did such great jobs with literally everyone else, what is this?” Nicky asked.

“That’s what Kevin looks like,’ Neil said, pointing to the yacking homeless looking cat on the shirt Kevin was holding up.

“That’s what Neil looks like,” Kevin said at the same time pointing to the brainless sheep without a thought behind its eyes on Neil’s shirt.

Matt had them both hold up the shirts again so he could take a picture and send it to everyone else.

On New Years Eve Nicky wanted to go to Times Square.

“Describe this experience to me?” Neil asked.

“Everyone goes to Times Square on New Years Eve, there'll be music and fireworks and it’ll be neat!” Nicky said.

“Everyone? In one of the most densely populated cities in the world will be in one place, with loud noises, tonight?” Neil asked.

“Yes!”

“Nicky, I will freak the fuck out. I will freak out so bad you’ll all be so pleased to return to someone well adjusted when I give you back to Andrew.”

Nicky pouted but then agreed to a far more low-key New Years on the condition that Neil have champagne.

Randy put the tv on to show the Times Square show and Neil silently patted himself on the back for avoiding that colossal trainwreck. Nicky could go to Rockin’ New Years Eve when Neil was dead and rotting.

They played poker and maintained conversation that wasn’t awkward or strained or even slightly hostile. Erik was the dealer and they were betting with cookies shaped like trees.

“Neil, how the hell do you keep winning?” Matt asked.

Neil kept winning because he learned poker from criminals and how to remain calm under pressure from being tortured by criminals and how to read people from running from criminals. Also he was cheating. But that’s on everyone else for getting up to get snacks so constantly and leaving Neil at the table alone with all the defenseless cards.

“Matt, sweetie, after you fold could you run down to pick our food?” Randy asked.

“I’m not folding!” Matt said.

“Well,” Neil said, because Matt had zero poker face and also Neil had looked at his cards. “You are, but it’s okay. We can trade hands, I’ll go get the food.” He tossed his hand over to Matt, who looked at the cards and then mouthed ‘what the fuck’ to Neil. Probably at the statistically improbable perfect hand Neil had put together for himself when no one was looking.

Neil put on his new coat and asked Randy for the directions to the pizza place again. It was just down the block, there was still an hour until midnight. He could do with a walk, with a little bit of time away from the idiots. And he was feeling magnanimous, almost high off everyone getting along and having a good time.

The buildings in New York had a way of turning the wind into knives. Of cutting right through the bone, every exhale left a trail of smoke as Neil made his way to the pizza place Matt and his mom were obsessed with. They’d saved “New York Pizza,” for New Years Eve, a huge deal apparently.

Their time in New York was coming to an end, they’d leave in two days and then they’d pick up Andrew from rehab and time would march on. However much of it Neil had left.

Neil looked up at the generic looking glowing Pizza sign and pulled the door open.

The bell above it rung.

Neil stepped inside, the pizza place distractingly warmer then the streets outside. The lights were dim, no one was behind the counter.

There was a room off to the left full of people, Neil stepped over to it hoping to catch the eye of whatever asshole worked here so he could pick up the order for Boyd and be on his way.

Neil looked around the dining room of the Pizza place and several facts and figures fell into irritating alignment. Men in suits everywhere, especially stationed around the walls obviously packing heat. The six men seated around a table with shiny watches, one of whom Neil recognized as a contact from France who nearly got him and his mom killed and one of whom looked too much like Riko to not be his older brother.

There’s a place down the road that mom and I think might be a front for the mob. Matt had said. Matt had said out loud to Neil. Neil had listened, had processed those words and verbally responded and then he had forgotten. Like a fucking moron. I don’t think it’s a mob we know.

Moriyama territory, New York was Moriyama territory, how stupid could they all fucking be.

“Wesninski,” French dickhead, Simone Breton, said. “You’re still alive?”

God Fucking Damnit. Neil was having a good night. A great night even.

The nearest guard grabbed ahold of Neil and shoved him forward. The guard standing behind Breton was too close to be normal, all the tables had plastic covers over the table cloths, there was a carpet on the floor that looked like it should be there, maybe, if the owners were insane and had about thirty backups or a good dry cleaner. The careful distance between Breton and Ichirou, so the little heir wouldn’t get any blood or viscera on his nice clothes.

“Simone Breton, still double dealing and stealing profits?” He’d bragged about it to Mary before he’d called Nathan and sold them out, all arrogance and no sense. Neil had a road rash scar all along one side because of this asshole. His head was pounding. Neil put up a token struggle and slipped the gun from the guard holding him.

Everyone in the room looked at Breton. “Please as if this unruly child has any idea--” Neil jerked his arm out of the guard's grip and shot Breton in the shoulder. Ten weapons were trained on Neil. Neil raised his hands up, letting the guard behind him take the gun from his grip.

“You will die for this,” Simone spat out, barely coherent. He passed out, tumbling from his chair. Pathetic pain tolerance.

“Not this,” Neil disagreed. He turned to an unimpressed Ichirou Moriyama. “My apologies, my lord, for jumping the gun, so to speak. He tends to monologue a lot if memory serves really just better to cut him off at the start.”

“And you presume to know anything? Wayward child?”

“I presume to string basic facts into an intelligible order, yes.” Neil gestured to the carpet, the tables, the man who had been ready to execute Simone.

“Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you right now for your arrogance?”

“Because I’d die content with a smile on my face, having wasted your precious time and resources to get out of what I’m sure is a long list of torture my father is planning for this fall. Why spoil his fun just to make my death a little better for me.”

Ichirou waved his hand and all the guns went back to their holsters. “Everyone else leave, tonight went as planned and nothing happened unless I say otherwise, deal with that,” he gestured to Breton. “You sit.” He said to Neil. Everyone else filtered out.

Neil sat down at the table. It was like his brain had switched off, he really should be terrified but all he could wonder is where the fuck the people who actually worked at the pizzera were. And subsequently where the damned food that Randy had ordered was sitting.

“Where are you getting all this audacity from?”

“Considering my father is your father’s bitch, I guess, I get the audacity from my mother.”

“A bitch that will kill you.”

“Oh, painfully, slowly, and with all the knowledge of how best to make it hurt. He is good at his job. I really would rather you just shoot me.”

“Where is your mother?”

“Dead.”

“And why are you here tonight?” He asked.

“I’m sure you won’t accept bad luck as an answer, my lord, so let’s go with stupidity.” Neil reaches into his jean pocket and tosses Riko’s SIM card across the table. “You should check in on your brother’s keepers; he's getting a little unruly. Leaving trails left and right that will ruin everything your father’s built before you can inherit it.”

“There’s that audacity again,” Ichirou looked at the SIM card.

“Yeah, well, my mother was a bitch too, she just went freelance.”

“You belong in Evermore working off the money you stole.”

“I’d die in Evermore before I ever made anyone a cent, if you don’t collar Riko, Jean Moreau will die before he can make you anything. If he’s even still functioning right now. Evermore is a pit where investments go to die.”

“Your father would never accept you living free.”

“He would never accept me living, is your father about to put a bullet in his head before he removes mine?” Neil wasn’t supposed to exist but Moriyama decree, he knew a losing fight before he swung.

“What do you even think you have to offer here?”

“Friendly advice from beyond the grave,” dying would put one hell of a damper on New Years. “And directions to half a million dollars.” His binder was in his bag at Randy’s, but Ichirou didn’t know that or need to.

“Money you stole.”

“Money my mother stole, or what’s left of it I guess. One could make the argument that I’m precisely where your family wants me, on the court.”

“You are nothing, no one that I would ever deign to listen to. Untested and unworthy.”

“And yet here we both are,” Neil spread his hands magnanimously. “Because I could be a huge pain in your ass or I could play Exy until my father kills me. And I shot the annoying french man who was stealing from you.”

“Until your father kills you, so you're not here to beg for your life?” How many times do they have to go over this?

“Neither of us have any say in my death, let’s not be delusional.” Even if he could convince Ichirou to convince Kengo, nothing short of the grave would stop Nathan. “I am here because the way Tetsuji and Riko run Evermore is going to cause a public incident. Because Riko has already been careless enough to make threats in public places, make attempts on people's lives, leave money trails with known offenders and criminals. And to come after me by himself. What is Exy to you? My lord, what is it to your father? A convenient cover, a bit of extra money? It’s not worth the fall out the Ravens are setting up right now.”

Ichirou stared at him, looked down at the SIM card and tilted his head.

“So, then, why not just clean house?” Ichirou asked. “Be done with the lot of you.”

“What did I say about not being wasteful. If you let Kevin and Jean go they’d never speak a word of any of this, there’d never be proof of anything other than Riko being a sadistic asshole. Riko has ensured that comes out, you and your father have the opportunity to properly disconnect. Cut Riko off, muzzle him, leave behind Exy for what you do best. There are plenty of economical ways to go about this.”

“Economical, and what of you?”

“What of me? I’m here right, at your little meeting. I put a bullet in Simone’s shoulder, he keeps his real books in the hollow of his fern by the way, back in his estate in France, it’s the one with the blue flower. I doubt he’s changed it since, that sort of arrogance results in complacency. I’m untested? There.” Neil gestured to the blood still pooled on the carpet. “Unworthy? Sure, but I don’t have to be your problem.” He was threatening the heir to a crime dynasty. He was beating Aaron out for dumbest motherfucker in the world.

Ichirou stared at him, this whole time Neil couldn’t tell what he was thinking. The man was inscrutable, it was impossible to adjust language to appeal to him. Neil was still expecting for Ichirou to call out to one of his men and have Neil’s brains splattered all over the dining room.

“You’re insane,” Ichirou said. “Insane, rude, and quite possibly the most idiotic person to ever sit at a table with me.”

“Give me a little more credit than that, Simone Breton was just sitting here.” Neil was going to die, but he would die doing what he loved. Being a little shit.

“I’m going to look into this,” Ichirou waved the SIM card through the air. “And in one week a man will be at your door to collect the ‘directions to half a million dollars,’ and possibly kill you.”

“Do you promise?’ Neil asked. “If you order him to use a gun and aim for my head I’m willing to up the probability.”

“Leave,” Ichirou commanded, his face finally breaking out of cold stone into incredulous confusion.

Neil stood up, his knees nearly buckled. His legs weren’t working right, weren’t listening to his brain telling them to fucking move. “You know if anyone’s working here tonight, I was supposed to pick up a couple of pies?” Neil asked.

“If you don’t leave now, I'm killing your entire team.”

Neil nodded and jabbed his fist against his thigh to get it in working order. And he left the pizzeria. He couldn’t feel the cold on his face as he left the store and took the long way back to Randy’s apartment. He could make a fifteen minute walk an hour. He wanted to make it three, to ensure he wasn’t followed, but they lived so close, it was more dangerous for Neil to be away longer.

Still he went into another pizzeria and got whatever they had ready to go. His phone started buzzing in his pocket on the way back but Neil was terrified of what would be on the other side.

He walked back up to Randy’s apartment and knocked on the door.

“Dude, what took so long?” Matt asked, stopped, stared at Neil’s face. ‘Okay, what the fuck happened.”

Neil put the pizza down on the table. It was well past 12:30, he’d missed the ball drop.

“That isn’t the place we ordered from?” Randy observed.

“Neil is that, blood on your cheek?” Nicky asked, his voice shaky.

Neil grabbed Matt by the shoulders. “It was a mob we know,” he told Matt in a dead slightly hysterical voice. “The pizzeria is run by a mob we know.”

#nmftg #aftg #fanfiction #no more fucks to give

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