Chapter Text
Neil sits sprawled on the bleachers, wisps of smoke curling around his head like a particularly ironic halo. The pitch is practically empty by now, but Neil holds himself as still as possible while still appearing unbothered to an onlooker.
Renata still hasn’t calmed down. She’s twisting and snarling quietly beneath his oversized hoodie, slipping between forms so quickly that even Neil can’t keep track of them. The cool scales he feels against his chest barely have time to wrap around his torso before they become coarse fur, which melts into downy feathers. She’s supposed to be a hare. Neil Josten’s daemon is a hare.
Neil doesn’t rush her, just looks out on the court with a deceptively lazy gaze.
Finally, she is a quivering lump on his chest, tiny paws (still bigger than a rabbit’s) pressed over where his heart is. He waits a second before speaking.
“Okay?” he asks in low Russian (Never English in a country like America.) because he knows it will calm her. Lessen the soreness of the question for both of them.
She crawls up his chest with surprising grace. (No one ever expects twitchy creatures like hares to move with the liquid ease that she does. It’s part of what makes this form so perfect.) Neil tilts his chin up as her quivering whiskers peak out from his hoodie collar, suppressing a shiver as she presses her nose into the hollow of his throat. He waits for her to wiggle free of his hoodie and cradles her to his chest so she doesn’t have to strain to keep from slipping down his torso.
“Okay.” she murmurs back. Even shaken like this, her voice does not waver. “I am sorry, Abram.” she adds.
“Not your fault. Never your fault,” he assures, kissing the top of her head. He doesn’t say that this is the third time in one week she’s gone feral and unresponsive like that. He doesn’t say they’re fucked. (He doesn’t say we’re dying-)
They both know it anyway.
“Josten”
They both freeze.
Coach Hernandez stands above them, looking apologetic at catching them being affectionate, his German Shepard daemon shifting at his feet. Neil stands, and Renata hops onto his shoulder, not even wobbling at the movement.
(She’s always on him when others are around. His mother used to force her to hide in Neil’s clothing, but ever since she died, Renata has refused to do so. Not that she’d ever had to actually verbally refuse him.)
“There’s someone here to see you.”
Renata’s foot thumps against his shoulder in half irritation, half anxiety. She doesn’t like beating around the bush, and there's no one who would want to “see him” in Millport…. Well, no one friendly anyway.
The man hovering behind Hernandez steps into Neil’s line of sight. He’s middle-aged with broad shoulders. Average height. Tribal tattoos on his biceps. Something about them tugs at the back of his brain. The pitbull at his feet has light brown fur and oak-brown eyes that seem to pierce Neil’s flesh. Renata shifts anxiously, her soft fur pressing into the sensitive skin of his neck. Neil looks back at the man’s face, his crow's feet, his tired eyes, the scuff on his weathered jaw, and frowns.
“I don’t know you.” It’s not a question, and it’s definitely not polite, but it’s the truth. His legs are already shifting, poised to run.
“He's from a university. He came to see you play," Hernandez cuts in, drawing Neil’s sharp, accusing gaze back to him. Renata’s teeth chatter, making a chit-chit sound as they rub together.
"Bullshit, no one recruits from here. No one knows where it is." Neil retorts. So the man isn’t one of his father’s men, come to remove his skin from his scalp to his toes, that doesn’t do much for Neil’s paranoia.
“There's this thing called a map," the man says. "You might have heard of it."
Hernandez sends Neil a warning look and gets to his feet. "He's here because I sent him your file. He put a note out saying he was short on his striker line, and I figured it was worth a shot.” he gives Neil an apologetic look. “I didn't tell you because I didn't know if anything would come of it, and I didn't want to get your hopes up."
Neil stares at him. "You did what?"
His world is silently collapsing in on itself. Hernandez has killed them. He’s killed them, and he doesn’t even know it.
"I tried contacting your parents when he asked for a face-to-face tonight, but they haven't returned my messages. You said they'd try to make it."
"They did," Neil says, trying to keep his voice level around the ball of panic expanding in his throat. "They couldn't."
"I can't wait for them," the stranger says, coming down to stand beside Hernandez. "It's stupid late in the season for me to be here, I know, but I had some technical difficulties with my last recruit. Coach Hernandez said you still haven't chosen a school for fall.”
“Works out perfectly, doesn't it? I need a striker sub, and you need a team. All you have to do is sign the dotted line, and you're mine for five years."
Neil opens his mouth. Closes it. Tries again.
“You can't be serious," he says, almost pleading with the man. The pitbull at his feet tilts her head curiously at him and Renata, like she heard something in the waver of his voice.
"Very serious, and very out of time," the man says.
He tosses his file onto the bleachers, and Neil blinks down at his name, which is scrawled across the front in black marker.
His mother warned them that their obsession would get them killed. Exy is a risk that they can’t afford, and yet they have indulged anyway. And here they are facing the consequences.
"Please go away," he says quietly, Renata nearly falling off his shoulder with how far she was leaning toward the folder.
"It's a bit sudden, but I really do need an answer tonight. The Committee's been hounding me since Janie got locked up."
Neil's stomach drops so quickly he feels dizzy with it.
"Foxes," he realizes, head whipping up to meet David Wymack’s eyes for the first time since they’ve been speaking. "Palmetto State University."
The coach’s bushy eyebrows raise, dark brown eyes scanning Neil’s face with unintrusive curiosity. "I guess you saw the news."
Neil nearly bursts into laughter, fake as it may be. Apparently, Janie Smalls slitting her wrists counts as “technical difficulties.”
That’s not what’s important now. Foxes means Kevin Day, and Kevin Day is the worst possible scenario.
"You can't be here," Neil says, stepping back and shifting his weight so he’s ready to run. Renata slides into the hood of his hoodie, her long ears brushing against the ends of his curls.
"Yet here I stand," Wymack says. He would almost look oblivious to Neil’s nerves if it weren’t for the way his daemon, Esperanza, he recalls her name, has gotten to her feet and braced herself in a wide stance. "Need a pen?"
"No," Neil says. "No. I'm not playing for you."
"I misheard you."
"You signed Kevin."
"And Kevin's signing you, so—"
Time to go. Wymack’s daemon would have posed a problem to get around, but Neil doesn’t bother. He hops onto the bleacher seats, leaping nimbly from one to the next. Once he’s cleared both of the older men, he lands back on the steps, making a break for the locker room. The scrape of dog nails against metal follows him into the locker room, but he refuses to look back.
Renata chitters agitatedly at him, the weight of her bouncing against his back, but Neil doesn’t care about anything but escaping. Escaping Wymack, Kevin Day, Milport, Arizona, Neil Josten…
He is halfway through the locker room when he realizes he isn’t alone.
He sees the racket too late to actually stop before he’s seeing stars. He goes down hard.
Renata leaps from his shoulder and bounds for the door as Neil gasps in pain (if one of them is being attacked, then both of them are, and everyone knows to go for the daemon first—) but she is pinned quickly beneath the giant paw of a—
Shit.
Neil can see the leopard’s ribs, and even then it’s huge, thin, and a little wobbly looking, but shocking with its all black coat. The spots are so dark that they seem to absorb the light around her, her eyes two flashing pennies in the locker room lights. Silver claws glint against the red-brown of Renata’s fur.
A black leopard. Accompanying one David Wymack. God-fucking-dammit.
Neil looks up through his fringe of dark hair to glare at Andrew Minyard, who grins his medicated grin back at him.
“Better luck next time!” the blond cackles, twirling the racket and resting it across his shoulders with the dorkiest salute Neil’s ever seen. It would almost be funny if Neil could breathe around the bruising pain in his lungs.
“Fuck you,” Neil snarls.
“God dammit, Minyard! This is why we can’t have nice things!”
Neil’s eyes catch on Renata. Shit. She’s shaking. Anyone else looking at her would think it’s from fear, but Neil knows what rage looks like on his daemon, can feel it writhing in his own gut like untamed flame. She can’t lose control here, not in front of these people who will see— flashes of misshapen animals, a doe with the slitted eyes of a cat, a mouse with the talons of an owl, an otter that spits poison, a hare with a mouth full of fangs—
He uncurls himself slowly, placing his hands down flat on the tiled ground and maintaining steady eye contact with Renata. He pushes the panic and anger down hard, inhaling deeply through his nose and out through his mouth.
We are safe, he thinks, and wills himself to believe it. Renata is a part of his soul, and if he pretends hard enough that he is calm, she will settle with him.
We are safe.
Chit, chit.
Renata stills.
Neil raises his eyes slowly, peering at the leopard through his lashes. It feels too bold to make direct eye contact with her. Sezia is the beast behind Andrew Minyard’s madness. She looks back at him, expression unreadable, and Neil cocks his head to the side minutely.
“I think that belongs to me,” he says quietly, suddenly aware of the silence that has fallen over the locker room. There’s a long pause as Sezia surveys him, and Neil stays very still. “She would appreciate it if you let her go.” he continues, a slight edge to his voice now. Renata bristles at his tone.
Chit, chit.
Silence.
Sezia steps off of Renata. Slinking back over to Andrew, she sits down, officially bored with all further developments. Renata is on Neil’s shoulder in two seconds flat, hissing unintelligible curses in his ear. He flicks his hand at her, in their sign for “quiet” as he gets to his feet.
“Who’d you steal that from?” he croaks out, eyes refocusing on Andrew, whose gaze is oddly piercing.
"Borrowed." Andrew tosses the racket at Neil. "Here you go."
Neil slaps it out of the air, Renata shivering with rage on his shoulders. (He can practically feel the fangs pushing at her gums. Rabbits don’t have fangs, hares don’t have fangs, Renata can't have fangs— )
"Neil, Jesus, are you all right?" Hernandez says, flinching back when Neil glares at him.
"Andrew's a bit raw on manners," Wymack says, coming around to stand between Neil and Andrew.
Andrew throws his hands up in an exaggerated shrug and retreats to watch Neil and Renata from the shadows of the locker room.
"He break anything?" Wymack asks.
“I'm fine. Coach, I'm leaving. Let me go."
"We're not done," Wymack contradicts.
"Coach Wymack," Hernandez starts.
"Give us a second?" Wymack cuts him off.
Hernandez looks from Wymack to Neil, then lets go. "I'll be right out back."
"I already gave you my answer. I won't sign with you." Neil bursts out once the door shuts behind him.
"You didn't listen to my whole offer," Wymack says. "If I paid to fly three people out here to see you, the least you could do is give me five minutes, don't you think?"
Fear. Cold and sobering like ice water down his back. Three people. God-fucking-dammit.
"You didn't bring him here."
"Is that a problem?"
Neil purses his lips, eyes darting back to the exit door over Wymack’s shoulder. "I'm not good enough to play with a champion."
"True, but irrelevant.” Ah. Neil hasn’t heard that arrogant voice in a while. Granted, Riko did most of the monologuing back then, but Kevin Day has never once in his life been modest.
Fake brown meets steely forest green, and Neil scans the Exy prodigy before him. He’s a long sprawl of lean muscle, not quite the awkward preteen boy Neil remembers. Neil remembers all of the Ravens having the same air of untouchable perfection about them, wielding their sculpted faces and bodies like formidable weapons.
The bald eagle is new too. Baysan almost looks like any other bald eagle except for the way his talons and beak have been noticeably filed down.
Neil’s stomach twists at the sight. He’s heard of people doing that to their daemons. Declawed panthers, vipers with their fangs torn out, vultures with their wings clipped. People domesticating their own souls just to avoid being perceived as something dangerous. Something wild.
"Why were you leaving?" Kevin asks him.
“I asked you first," Neil snaps.
"Coach already answered that question," Kevin says, rolling his eyes dramatically. "We are waiting for you to sign the contract. Stop wasting our time."
“The little raven should fly back to his coop. He has no business here.” Renata snarls viciously in Russian, giving Neil heart palpitations.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Andrew tense at the sound of the foreign language, even as Kevin bristles at the rudeness.
“What was that?” Kevin snaps.
“She said you should find someone else. I’m sure there are hundreds of other strikers that will play for you.” Neil says.
Kevin huffs dismissively, and Neil is grateful for his self-absorbed stupidity. Despite all his trauma, Kevin doesn’t seem smart enough for suspicion.
“We're here to sign you, so stop wasting our time with your petulance." Kevin snaps impatiently.
"We’re wasting your time?” Renata snarls, agitation nearly launching her from Neil’s shoulders before Neil stops her with a hand on her quivering chest. “We’re not the ones who flew all the way out to bumfuck nowhere to try and recruit some high school kid for their shitty Exy team.”
"I won't play with Kevin." Neil says, before they can demand to know what Renata said.
"You will." Kevin objects, eyes narrowing.
"We should have thrown away your coach's letter the second we opened it," Kevin sneers, a dangerous edge to his voice. Well, his tone would have been dangerous if Neil hadn’t seen bigger and stronger monsters than anything Kevin Day had ever seen. “Your file is deplorable, and I don't want someone with your inexperience on our court. It goes against everything we're trying to do with the Foxes this year. Fortunately for you, your coach knew better than to send us your statistics. He sent us a tape so we could see you in action instead. You play like you have everything to lose.”
Both man and daemon go still at that, giving Kevin their undivided attention.
"Maybe you haven't noticed, but we're not leaving here until you say yes. Kevin says we have to have you, and he's right." Esperanza tells them with a shake of her large, muscled body.
"I should ask my mother." Neil says, finally, glancing back at the exit that Andrew and Sezia had very firmly placed themselves in front of.
"What for? You're nineteen. You don't need a parent's signature." Wymack protests.
"I should still ask." Neil responds, shrugging lamely.
(Sometimes he hates how easily it is to fold Nathaniel up so that he fits between Neil Josten’s meek shoulders. Sometimes it’s the only thing that allows him to sleep at night.)
"She'll be glad."
"Sure," Neil says, a wry note to his voice that says a little too plainly that his mother would beat him bloody if she knew about this.
"Want a lift home?"
"I'm fine." Neil assures. He moves towards the door, fully intending to knock Andrew on his ass at this point, but Kevin steps in front of him before he can.
Chit chit.
"Go wait in the car," Wymack barely glances at his two players as he watches Neil, eyes all too knowing. Unfortunately for him, or Neil, depending on how you look at it, he doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does. "Give us a minute?" he says to Hernandez.
Hernandez hesitates but eventually turns to walk back into the school. Wymack leads Neil away from the cars and into an open space in the parking lot.
"You need one of us to talk to your parents?"
"I'm fine," Neil repeats. He’s starting to get annoyed by his own mantra.
"Are they the ones who hurt you?" The blunt question has Neil blinking rapidly.
"I'll rephrase. Hernandez thinks there's something wrong since you don't change out in front of teammates or let anyone meet your parents. That's why he sent me your file. He thinks you fit the line. I can fly you out early after your graduation. We'll tell everyone you're there for early practices to get you ready for the season. Half of them will probably believe it, but it doesn't matter. Foxes are foxes."
Neil stares at him, searching his face for any hint of deception.
“Why.” The word comes out harsher than he meant, more of a demand than a question. Old habits die hard, he supposes, and suspicion is a primary pillar of his personality at this point.
"Neil, I built this team for second chances to people like you. Not some stupid PR stunt." Wymack huffs out. "So I'll ask again: are your parents going to be a problem?"
Neil examines him, maps out his face, and notes the genuine worry in his eyes and the gentle tilt of his brows. He opens his mouth to refuse, and then Renata speaks.
“We can not live like this, Abram. I cannot live like this.” Neil stops, tilting his head as her whiskers brush his ear. “It is not enough for us to survive just for the sake of being alive. Give us something to live for.”
There is a pause, Wymack’s eyes bounce between man and daemon.
“This will be our end,” he answers finally, his voice hollow despite himself.
She lets out a chuffing sound, the closest thing she has to a laugh.
“Did we ever get a beginning?”