Chapter Text
Aaron wasn't exactly sure how it happened.
He was straight for God’s sake. Or he thought he was, at least. For so long he’d never had the time or energy for anybody. He’d been too busy burying himself beneath layers of secrets and lies. Too busy covering up bruises, making up excuses for why none of his friends could ever come to his house, ever meet his mother. And then he’d been too busy finding out he had a secret long-lost twin, becoming an orphan, and moving in with his nutcase cousin. So there’d never been time for romance or love.
But when he let himself fantasize and imagine, it was always a girl. Someone faceless but beautiful, who would accept him for the bruised and battered boy he’d always been and would always be. Men never crossed his mind. Not once.
And then there’d been Katelyn, who was kind and soft and liked him for him. Who saw him for more than a mediocre Exy player, a single-minded student, or god forbid, Andrew’s less interesting brother. He lost himself in her, and before he’d known it, he’d fallen helplessly in love. In love enough to break Andrew’s deal. In love enough to solidify that belief that he’d always held:
Aaron was straight. He had no reason to believe otherwise.
But that was all before Kevin Fucking Day came crashing into his life and ruined everything.
***
At first, Aaron had hated him. How could he not? Kevin Day, who was rich and beautiful and talented. Kevin Day, whose mere presence caused even more unnecessary trouble for the Foxes than they were already always in. Kevin Day, who caught the attention of his twin with nothing done to earn it. Who had drawn Andrew’s eye immediately, and had gained his protection while seemingly giving nothing in return. When Aaron had clawed tooth and nail, bargained away his freedom just to receive a drop of the ocean that Kevin received.
He was everything Aaron despised in the world and god, how he hated him.
It didn't help that Kevin was so…Kevin. That was prickly and cold and temperamental. That he screamed at them at practice, made Aaron feel even worse about his game than he already did. That he went to Eden’s with them just to drink himself into oblivion and mope around.
Kevin was a trainwreck of a human being, and no matter how much time forced in his proximity, Aaron just couldn't be made to relent.
He figured the first bits of his hatred began to chip away with the appearance of Neil Josten.
At first, Aaron had thought Neil wasn't so bad. Aaron had seen the way the rest of the Foxes were drawn to him, and the way Andrew thought he was a puzzle to be solved, but Aaron couldn't be bothered to care. For the first little bit, Neil just kept to his business, and Aaron kept to his.
Eventually though, Neil’s layers of disguise stripped away, and he revealed the deepest core of his personality underneath–that he was argumentative and difficult and prone to starting fights he wasn't able to finish. And then he gained Andrew’s attention and protection, somehow even fiercer than Kevin had. And that had been that.
Aaron’s dislike of him strengthened the more trouble he caused, the more danger he put them in. And it crystallized into hatred when he was forced to see the reality that his cold, unfeeling twin had somehow fallen in love with the idiot. This boy who would never do anything but drag Andrew down with him. And no matter how much Aaron tried to tell himself he didn't care, he couldn't stop from knowing deep in his bones that he didn't want his brother to die. Not for Neil Josten.
So as Aaron’s hate for Neil grew stronger and stronger, his hate for Kevin slowly started the process of fading into the background. It wasn't that he didn't dislike him still, because he did, but there was only so much hate Aaron could carry. And Josten took up most of it.
He figured more of it chipped away after Riko’s death. Kevin became distant then, coping with the loss badly. He drank even heavier than before, slept even more. He withdrew into himself, and where he'd started out rude and arrogant, he quickly became a shell of the man he'd been when they first met. It was startling and troubling to watch, even as distantly as Aaron did.
Andrew and Neil didn't understand. For them, Riko’s death was nothing but a gift to be celebrated. It was a good thing, for Kevin more than nearly anyone. But still, Kevin ached.
Aaron, however, understood. He knew what it was like to love the person who hurt you most. To mourn them. So no matter how pathetic Kevin acted, how dramatic he seemed, Aaron couldn't find it in himself to blame him. Not when he'd been the same not so many years before.
Then, one night in the early weeks of that summer, Aaron had come out of his room in Columbia to get a glass of water in the middle of the night, and found Kevin on the kitchen floor. He was sitting against the refrigerator, long legs sprawled out in front of him and head lolled to the side. At first, Aaron had thought he was asleep, but as he drew closer he saw the way Kevin’s eyes were hooded but still open, and the way he clutched a half-empty bottle of vodka in his hand.
For several long moments, Aaron just stood and stared at him, Kevin too drunk to yet notice. He should leave him, he thought. Kevin’s problems were not his to solve. His demons were not Aaron’s to fight. So he didn’t know why he felt his feet moving beneath him until he was lowering down on the ground across from the fridge. He hadn't even made the choice to move, his body somehow unconsciously making the decision without his mind catching up.
It was then that Kevin noticed his presence, his head coming up straighter and his grip tightening on the bottle.
They sat for a minute in stillness before Aaron reached out his hand. Kevin bit down on his lip before finally relenting and holding out the bottle. Aaron took it, tilting it to his lips and letting the lukewarm liquid slide down his throat. It burned his tongue, but he was more than used to the discomfort. He took a long sip before wiping his mouth and placing the bottle down next to him, not exactly away, but strategically out of Kevin’s reach.
He didn't speak. He didn't know what to say. Kevin didn't speak either. They sat in perfect silence, nothing but the cicadas outside chirping and the low hum of the refrigerator.
He had no clue how long had passed before Kevin’s voice finally cut through the air between them, hushed and raspy.
“I know I should be happy. I am. But…” He trailed off, drawing his left hand into his right and running his thumb across the scar there, still raised and jagged. Finally, he said, “But he wasn't always like that. It wasn't always bad.”
Aaron just looked up and held his eyes before carefully replying, “I understand that.”
Kevin stared at him, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion before a look of recognition blossomed across his face, and he nodded.
“Yes, I would suppose you do.”
They said nothing more, just sat on the cold floor of their kitchen in the dead hours of night as the minutes bled forward. Aaron watched as Kevin’s eyes finally drifted closed, his face softening and his head lolling back to the side. He started to snore quietly, and it was a sound Aaron was painfully familiar with from months of sharing a dorm.
And as he sat there watching Kevin sleep, he realized with a start that perhaps he didn't hate him any longer.
***
That summer was a strange one. After not too long, Nicky swept away to Germany for some much-needed quality time with Erik, and Neil and Andrew vanished for days at a time with hardly more than a word, taking off in Andrew’s fancy car to go god knows where. So more often than not, Aaron found himself alone in the house with Kevin.
After that night on the floor, something between them softened. Despite how much time they were forced to spend together in the past, they'd never been anything close to friends; there’d always been lingering tension held between them. But after that night, some of that tension bled away. Aaron would still never have said they were particularly comfortable with each other, but they weren't particularly uncomfortable as well. And that softness between them only increased with the days they spent trapped in the house with no one but each other.
Because of his time in the Nest, Kevin had never been very good at being alone. With the Ravens gone, he trailed around Andrew and Neil like a lost puppy, rarely more than a stone’s throw away from at least one at any given time. So it shouldn't have been surprising when, with no one left around but him, Kevin turned into a shadow Aaron just couldn't shake.
Aaron would wake late in the morning and come down to make himself breakfast, and it would never be long before Kevin slunk into the kitchen as well, still always sweaty and clad in running clothes. While Aaron cooked something edible, Kevin would fix up some disgusting green smoothie that always had Aaron wrinkling his nose. They'd eat (or drink) in perfect silence.
After breakfast, Kevin would trail Aaron into the living room where they'd end up seated on opposite sides of the couch. While Aaron read his book, watched Grey’s Anatomy (which he'd been working through for months), or played video games, Kevin read his own book or watched Exy videos on his phone. At some point, they'd each vanish into the kitchen to forage for lunch before returning to their respective spots on the couch. And eventually, Kevin would give up on Exy and just watch Grey’s Anatomy as well, even if he bitched about how stupid it was. (Aaron ignored him).
At dinner time, they'd go back into the kitchen. Kevin had never learned to cook for himself, whereas Aaron had grown up in a house where if he didn't feed himself, he didn't get fed, so it fell on Aaron to make dinner. While he cooked, Kevin would sit at the table and punch away at his phone. He always scowled at whatever Aaron put on the table and complained it was too unhealthy, to which Aaron always told him that until he cooked for himself, he needed to shut the fuck up.
After they ate, Aaron would disappear into his room for a while and Kevin would disappear into Nicky’s, which he'd been occupying while he was out of town. Aaron would call Katelyn, letting her soft, melodic voice bring him a sense of comfort he always so desperately craved. He’d listen to her tell stories about her family and home and hanging out with her friends, and he’d pretend for just a few minutes that he was normal as she was, even if he knew deep down what a complete and utter lie that was.
He wasn’t sure exactly what Kevin did while he talked on the phone. He figured more often than not, Kevin just kept reading his book or thinking about Exy. But sometimes, he’d hear voices through the wall. Sometimes, it was the light, jovial voice Kevin only ever used with Jeremy Knox, and sometimes it was the calculated, strategizing voice he used when he was talking Exy with Neil. And every once in a while, it was hushed, tense French, and Aaron knew that Kevin and Jean were beginning the slow process of repairing their broken relationship from opposite sides of the country. It gave him an odd sense of satisfaction to know it, though he wasn’t sure why.
After he finished talking to Katelyn, he’d head back downstairs, and sure enough, Kevin would join him. When they’d both resumed their spots on the couch, one of them would put on a movie and they’d watch together in silence. It was always something nonfiction–historical or a documentary. Something the two of them both enjoyed. And when the movie ended, they’d go back to their rooms and sleep before the cycle repeated the next morning.
Day after day. Time passed. The summer drew forward. And slowly, some of their walls began falling down. Neither he nor Kevin were talkative people, but eventually, the words between them grew more frequent. The space between them grew less tense. The routine became something comfortable and familiar instead of something tedious. It became something Aaron strangely began to rely upon.
One night towards the end of their short break, the two of them sat on the couch watching their movie like always. It was something about ancient Greece, and Aaron was a bit more invested than he wanted to let on, which was the only reason he was firmly planted still on the couch despite the fact that his feet were freezing. Bad circulation in his extremities was a long-term side effect of Aaron’s years of drug abuse, one he found supremely irritating and slightly embarrassing. Usually, he always wore socks, even in the dead of summer, but he’d forgotten to put a fresh pair on after his shower, and he was paying the price now. He tried to subtly rub them against the couch cushions, rub them together, hoping the friction would improve his condition a bit. It did not.
And just as he was resigning himself to the fact that he’d have to get up, a hand suddenly wrapped around his ankle. He was startled, but before he could pull out of the grip, his eyes caught on a familiar scar weaving across a familiar hand. Kevin dragged his ankle forward, forcing Aaron to extend his legs, and then he tucked the tops of Aaron’s feet beneath his thighs. Instantly, Kevin’s body heat spread across his skin, the sensation warming him up from the inside out.
He had been cold and Kevin had noticed. And then Kevin had done something about it.
It was then that Aaron realized that somewhere in the space of their summer, Kevin had stopped being someone he disliked at all. In fact, Kevin had become his friend.
***
Their break ended too soon, and before he was ready, Aaron found himself back on campus. It was practically still deserted with the exception of the team, and without the distraction of classes or Katelyn or his few acquaintances from his major, Aaron felt empty. He liked school, liked having other things to occupy his mind. And without those distractions, he just felt…empty.
It didn’t help that he was forced to do nothing but play Exy and spend time with a team he had very little interest in spending time with. And the freshman sucked, just like always. Not quite on Josten’s level of suckiness, but close. They were difficult and argumentative and their presence did nothing but put all of the veterans in a bad mood, Neil and Kevin more than anybody.
And Kevin was his own issue in and of itself.
They no longer lived together, and Kevin was so busy with wrangling the freshman, talking strategy with Coach, and following Josten and Andrew around to extra sessions at the court that he’d practically vanished from Aaron’s life. Aaron hated how much his absence bugged him.
A couple of weeks into practice, Aaron was sitting in his common room, fiddling around with a video game he was paying very little attention to. Matt was off with the girls, and Nicky was shut up in the bedroom on the phone with Erik, so Aaron was alone. Just like always.
And then there’d been a knock on the door.
When he pulled it open, Kevin was on the other side, hair dripping from a shower and clad in soft-looking sweats. Aaron just stared at him for several seconds before finally saying, “What are you doing here?” It came out colder than he’d meant.
Kevin just said, “There’s a new documentary about Oppenheimer I thought you might like.”
Oh.
“What about night practice?” he asked.
Kevin shrugged. “Neil and Andrew told me they were going for a drive and that I should fuck off. So here I am. Fucking off.”
So Aaron was still the second choice. But at least he was a choice.
He held open the door and Kevin came in before plopping down in the beanbag chair next to Aaron’s and turning on the movie. And for that time, Aaron felt more normal than he had in weeks.
Movie nights became a regular thing again, every once in a while. Aaron figured it was really just when Josten and his brother wanted some alone time (ew) and left Kevin on his own, but he didn’t have it in him to protest. Not when he finally had his friend back.
***
School started up, and so did the Exy season. Katelyn returned to campus. Life went back to how it was just a few months prior, with few exceptions, Kevin’s newfound presence the most startling of all. Aaron went to classes and he went to practice and he went on dates with his girlfriend. But he also ate meals with Kevin now, watched movies with him on weekends, and sat with him sometimes on the bus. And Aaron felt stupidly happy and satisfied that he had someone else, someone who seemed to oddly enjoy his presence. He was happy to have a friend, a real friend, when he wasn’t actually sure he’d ever had one before.
At some point he realized Kevin was probably his best friend, which felt a little sad. He knew with certainty he probably wasn’t even close to the top of Kevin’s list–there was no way he ranked above Neil, or Andrew, or Jeremy, or even Jean.
I probably rank above Thea, he thought, feeling slightly smug. He couldn’t even remember the last time Kevin had spoken to her at all. In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure they were still together. He also wasn’t entirely sure why he cared.
But he had a friend. A best friend. And that was enough for Aaron.
***
Time ticked forward. They scraped through games, and Aaron scraped through classes. And before he knew it, it was nearing Thanksgiving.
Aaron desperately wanted the time to mean nothing to him, but it did. The holiday drew closer (the anniversary) and Aaron retreated into himself. It didn’t help that the date for his trial had finally been set, and he could no longer avoid meeting with his attorney. He’d spent nearly a year pushing off letting himself think about that day and about the consequences of it he was still facing, but he couldn’t do that any longer. The anniversary was nearly upon them, and barely a month after that would be the trial.
He figured Katelyn’s steady presence should be a help to him, but it wasn’t.
The issue was that she was always so positive. She always wanted to tell him how everything would be okay (it would not), and how he had nothing to be worried about (he did). But worst of all was when she said things like What you did doesn’t make you a monster. It doesn’t make you a killer. You don’t want to hurt people, and I know that.
He hated when she said things like that because they simply weren’t true. Aaron had wanted to hurt Drake, and if he had the opportunity to do it again, he would. There was no part of him that regretted his actions. And he was a killer. He had killed that disgusting excuse for a human being, and he was happy about it.
He knew Katelyn didn’t get it. She was too pure. She was incapable of seeing the kind of darkness in someone that Aaron had buried deep in his chest. Because he was violent, like his mother, and a monster, like his brother, and he didn’t have it in him to be ashamed of that fact. And he hated the way she treated him differently than she always had, walking around on eggshells like she was terrified of breaking him.
She wasn’t the only one.
As Thanksgiving grew closer, he caught the way the rest of the team shot him wary glances, and the way Coach and Abby gave him sympathetic looks when he told them he had to miss practice for a meeting with his lawyer. He saw the way tears basically sprang to Nicky’s eyes every time he looked at him, and the way Andrew refused to meet his gaze even more than usual.
Strangely, the only one who treated him the same as before was Kevin. They watched their movies and bitched about inaccuracies in Grey’s Anatomy and ate their meals like nothing was different at all. They continued on like before, and never once did Kevin look at him with pity or despair.
Aaron loved it. He needed it like he needed air.
On the year anniversary of the attack, their whole group tried to pretend it was just like every other day. They didn’t go to Abby’s for break even though she invited them, instead opting to go to Columbia and treat it like a normal school holiday. Aaron moped around his room the whole day, practically only getting out of bed to use the bathroom. He slept for as many hours as possible, ignoring the panging in his stomach and dryness in his throat. But he was stirred awake just once by the sound of a door creaking and the heavy sounds of footsteps. And then there was a plate of food and a glass of water being placed on his bedside table by a familiar, scarred hand.
***
Katelyn broke up with him soon after Thanksgiving. He saw it coming. He barely spoke to her the whole break and then avoided her like the plague in the days that followed. He just couldn’t stand any more of her sympathetic glances. Her kind words. It made him sick, so he avoided her. It wasn’t mature or fair, but it was all he could handle.
I will always love you, she’d said. But you and I both know this isn’t working any longer. I still want to be your friend, and I will of course be here for you if you need me, but not as your girlfriend anymore.
Aaron hadn’t been sad. He hadn’t even been disappointed. All he’d been was relieved.
***
Christmas break was more or less the same as Thanksgiving. The Foxes had managed to snag a spot in the championships despite the ineffectiveness of the freshman, and Aaron had managed to pull through his classes, even as he grew more and more depressed, the waves of his sadness threatening to drag him under.
The only thing keeping him above water was Kevin.
When they got back to Columbia, their routine resumed, even with the constant interruptions from Aaron’s incessant meetings with his lawyers. As the trial grew nearer, Nicky spent all his time in his room talking to Erik, and Neil and Andrew grew more and more vacant, never more than a few inches from each other and never in the house more than necessary. Aaron knew that no matter how hard this whole thing was on him, it was probably just as hard on Andrew, who would have to get up in front of a room full of people and describe in detail his years and years of abuse. Despite how much Aaron disliked Josten, he couldn’t help but be a bit relieved that Andrew had somebody, at least. And if Andrew had Neil and Nicky had Erik, Aaron had Kevin.
Christmas and New Year’s passed with little fanfare, and time drew forward until before he knew it, it was the day before the trial.
It was one of the worst days of Aaron’s life, and he’d had more than his fair share of horrible days.
Nicky burst into tears the second Aaron walked into the kitchen that morning, and then Andrew had gone slamming out the door, Josten right on his heels, and neither of them came back for the rest of the day. Aaron didn’t speak once, just going through the motions, reviewing his lawyer’s notes one more time, and laying out his only suit.
When night fell, he found himself sitting out on the lawn of their house, leaning back on his hands and staring up at the stars. He wasn’t sure why he was out there, just that he couldn’t stand to be shut up in that house any longer with Nicky’s tears and Andrew’s absence. So he’d sat on the lawn even though it was a little damp and the air was unpleasantly cold. He sat there and he thought about how this could be his last night of freedom.
He heard when the door opened and footsteps began trailing across the grass, and then a heavy coat was being draped over his shoulders. It smelled of a familiar woodsy cologne and the vaguest hint of leather. A body dropped down next to him.
“You’re going to freeze out here,” Kevin said after a few moments.
“Don’t care,” Aaron replied, his voice raspy from disuse.
They didn’t talk after that for quite a long time. Aaron just breathed in the smell of Kevin’s jacket and stared up at the stars, desperate to memorize them in case he never got to see them again.
Finally, voice barely a whisper, he said, “I don’t want to go to prison.”
Now was when Katelyn would say something like You’re not going to prison. You did nothing wrong.
Aaron braced for that kind blow.
Instead, Kevin just took a deep inhale followed by a heavy exhale. Then he very methodically said, “Andrew’s testimony is going to be persuasive and detailed enough that it will be difficult to discredit it. There are multiple sources that can verify that Luther lured him to the house and deliberately misled him to get him alone with Drake, and Neil witnessed the attack directly. Andrew’s rape kit will entirely remove any doubt that the assault took place at all. All Drake has is character witnesses, but so will you. There’s no way to know for sure what the jury will decide, but the odds are in your favor. That’s just a fact.”
Aaron was astounded by how much thought Kevin had put into this. By how much detail he’d put into that response. His words and his specifics were more of a comfort to Aaron than he thought anything else could have been.
“And if it happens, we’ll appeal it. We won’t go down without a fight,” Kevin added, and Aaron’s chest tightened on the word we.
Aaron figured he should thank him. Instead, he turned so he could meet Kevin’s eyes and said a truth he’d wanted to say for over a year: “I don’t regret it. Not one bit.”
And what Kevin replied was, “Good.”
Something about that word, about Kevin fucking getting it when no one else did was what broke Aaron. So for the first time in a year, he felt tears begin to stream down his face, and he did nothing to stop it.
He went to wipe them away but before he could, Kevin’s palm was pressing against his cheek, his thumb swiping away the wetness. He kept his hand there, and Aaron realized with a strange lurch that this was the first time someone had touched him intentionally since Katelyn, and he knew that he needed it. That he’d needed Kevin’s skin against his own. He could faintly feel Kevin’s pulse through his fingers, and Aaron focused on that beat beat beat until he knew his own heart had synched up.
He expected Kevin to pull away, but he didn’t. Instead, he gently tugged Aaron forward until his head was resting against his shoulder, and then Kevin wrapped his arms around him, keeping him cradled. Aaron felt tears falling again, but this time he didn’t bother wiping them away. He let them bleed into the fabric of Kevin’s shirt, sobs starting to wrack his body, but Kevin just held him tight, never letting him go. Everywhere their skin met felt like it was on fire, and although he was the most scared he’d ever been, Aaron felt that he’d never been safer in his life.
When he’d finally cried himself out, he picked his head up and leaned back far enough to meet Kevin’s gaze. His eyes scanned across the queen tattoo on Kevin’s cheekbone, the emerald green of his eyes, the fullness of his lips even as they were tugged down into a concerned frown.
And all at once Aaron was overwhelmed by the sudden, desperate desire to kiss him.
Fuck.
The urge overwhelmed him. He’d never in his life wanted someone so bad as he wanted Kevin in that moment. He wanted to pull their bodies together, to lose himself in the way Kevin made him feel. He wanted to hold on tight to this sensation of being seen, understood, cared about.
He wanted to kiss his best friend.
Once he’d hated him, then disliked him, then considered him an acquaintance, a friend, and then a best friend. But those feelings were long gone. Instead, there was a much more troubling realization lurking beneath Aaron’s skin.
He was in love with Kevin Day.