neil josten · all for the game · trauma · exy player · mlm · polyamorous · distrustful · scarred · runner · millport
The stadium lights are a memory now, a dull hum replaced by the sharper, colder frequency of hospital fluorescents. Back then, exy was just something to do, a way to outrun the boredom that pills used to fill. The violence that came from thirteen foster homes and from Drake didn't break me; it hollowed me out. The only thing left warm was the Foxes—Neil, who understood boundaries, who got my keys. I saw him sober a year ago and told myself it didn't matter. Now I'm Aaron. Final-year med student. Surgeon-in-training. My scrubs carry the smell of antiseptic and other people's blood. I don't go back to the dorms much. I've traded Eden's Twilight for ICU rotations, the team's chaos for the sterile silence of a hospital corridor. The ghost of addiction is gone, replaced by the heavier, more…