Not Strong Enough

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/62564011.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Relationship: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Characters: Neil Josten, Andrew Minyard, Abby Winfield, The Foxes | Palmetto
State Foxes Members (All For The Game)
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Chronic Pain, Past Child Abuse, Non-Sexual Intimacy,
Andrew Minyard Loves Neil Josten, Hurt Neil Josten
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2025-01-27 Words: 2,762 Chapters: 1/1
 Not Strong Enough
by miauhito

Summary

“Neil, talk to me, what’s wrong?” Abby asks, her hand hovering over the knee that he’s
hugging to his chest but not actually touching him.

He shakes his head. “It’s just a little bit of pain, it will pass, there’s no need to panic over it.”

“Liar,” Andrew calls him out, an emotion Neil identifies as rage hiding underneath his stoic
tone. “You’ve been massaging your knee all day without even noticing it, and you couldn’t
even hold your mug up with your right hand this morning.”

Neil grits out, “It’s just some pain.”

Or, where Neil's body is begging him to take a rest, until it forces him to.

Notes

Hi, I've been meaning to write a work like this for months, so I hope you enjoy it.

I must clarify that I don't have chronic pain myself, but since I have hypermobility sometimes
I have to deal with the pain that it causes to my knees, hands and other parts of my body
(along with a very old collarbone injury which still gives me problems to this day). If
something I said is wrong please let me know!

I'm also very thankful to skafune who beta read this for me <3

Title references Not Strong Enough by Boygenius.

See the end of the work for more notes

Sunrise, Abram, Death. Three truths Andrew had given him as examples.

Neil would add another one.

Pain.

It all catches up to him during practice, on an afternoon where nothing particular has been
happening except for the loud rain crashing into the stadium’s roof that fills the air around
them with gross humidity. They don’t usually get storms like this, but they adapt quickly to
the noise and keep on doing scrimmages as usual, even if Neil’s not sure that his body is
having an easy time with it. After so many body checks from the backliners, and clashing his
racquet against the other while trying to maintain or take the ball into his net a deep, blinding
pain has started to settle under his bones, weighing him down with frustration.

“You can run way faster than that, Neil!” Kevin yells at him, rebounding the ball to himself
as he tries to fend off both Math and Aaron, while Neil struggles to catch up and close the
distance between them. His body doesn’t want to listen to him anymore, but he can’t give up
so easily, not after everything that he’s gone through before.

He pushes through the pain in his right knee, but once he steps down with his left leg trying
to get more impulse, a cry leaves his lips without permission, a frown taking over his features
as his blood burns his bottom limbs from the inside. His knees shake when he catches
Kevin’s gaze, who’s dropped the ball and raises up a hand to pause the game. The unusual
action, coming from someone as obsessed with Exy as Neil himself, alerts everyone else and
they follow Kevin’s eyes to where Neil is still trying to make his legs function under him
while pretending as if nothing’s happening.

“What’s the matter?” Kevin asks, charging into his direction, but Neil brushes him off with a
hand even if moving his wrist like that also makes him clench his jaw.

“I’m fine,” he snaps, but cringes immediately when he sees that he’s gained Andrew’s
attention too, and he looks ready to snap at his choice of words. “Just nearly twisted my
ankle, nothing happened, we can go on,” he insists, lying through his teeth.

No one looks really convinced, but they resume the play just as they left it off. From outside
the court he feels both Wymack and Abby’s hawk eyes on him, but he ignores them too in
favor of getting himself back to normal, mentally trying to pick up the pieces of him that are
breaking down. Afterall, this is nothing new to him, and he can endure it.

Matt takes the ball from Kevin and runs to get it far away from the striker, but when Neil
turns his body around to run behind him, he only gets to take a few steps when he’s falling to
the floor, no longer able to support his body. His knees crashing into the wood rake his whole
skeleton, forcing him to shout out a ‘Fuck!’, and his yell is enough to worry the rest of the
Foxes, against his wishes.
Andrew is the first one to reach his side, and he lowers himself into a crouch beside his
crumpled body, scanning him from head to toe in search of an injury that he can’t find. Kevin
is next, but Neil can’t hear his string of questions and demands over the white noise
reverberating inside his skull. Instead, he closes his eyes and forces himself to take a few
deep breaths before he opens them again, finding himself face to face with Abby, worry
exuding from every cell in her body.

“Neil, talk to me, what’s wrong?” Abby asks, her hand hovering over the knee that he’s
hugging to his chest but not actually touching him.

He shakes his head. “It’s just a little bit of pain, it will pass, there’s no need to panic over it.”

“Liar,” Andrew calls him out, an emotion Neil identifies as rage hiding underneath his stoic
tone. “You’ve been massaging your knee all day without even noticing it, and you couldn’t
even hold your mug up with your right hand this morning.”

Neil grits out, “It’s just some pain.”

“Don’t be fucking stupid–” Kevin starts to amonish him, but Nicky quickly covers his mouth
with his hand, not allowing him to go into a rant.

“Look, let’s pause this scrimmage and just get Neil outside of the court,” Dan says, and
instantly Matt gets closer, offering to help him get up from the floor. To his other side
Andrew mumbles a ‘Yes or no?’, and once Neil nods in affirmative, they both grab him with
one arm each and get him into a standing position again, helping him carry some of his
weight.

Outside, Wymack is looking at him with calculating eyes but Neil refuses to meet his stare,
focusing on the floor instead. Abby guides them to the infirmary, and she gently shoves Matt
away before he can pass the door frame, but she doesn’t even try to do the same with
Andrew.

Once only the three of them are inside of the room, Andrew helps him get on the bed, and
Neil places himself sideways so his legs are on it too instead of hanging down the side.
Andrew stays standing next to him, but he helps him get his armor off, knowing that he’s not
getting into the court again for the rest of the day.

“So, Neil,” Abby starts once they’re done with that. “Do you know if a specific injury is
causing you pain?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing at all.”

“Have you felt this pain before?”

He pauses for a moment, but he takes too long to answer and now it's obvious that lying
won’t get him out of this situation, so he decides to go for the truth.

“Sometimes, yeah.” He tries to pick at his cuticles, but Andrew reaches out and grabs one of
his hands before he can cause any harm. Abby watches them, but chooses to not say anything
about the interaction. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s not the same pain as you feel
when you place your foot wrong or hit yourself with a table, it’s more like a constant bother
inside of my legs, extending through the whole zone, and it turns into a flashing hot sensation
on my knees once I try to run or do something that requires more energy than walking.” It’s a
poor explanation and doesn’t completely describe the feeling, but it’s as good as it can get.

Abby nods, managing to follow his words while she looks deep in thought. She gets close to
him and asks for permission to touch him, and once she’s granted with it she palms his legs
with firm fingers, but the touch doesn’t cause him anything.

Andrew stays silent until that moment, when he chooses to talk, “It usually happens on rainy
or cold days.”

Neil didn’t even know that Andrew had noticed that he was in pain at all, but it makes sense
with how observant he is.

Abby’s eyebrows raise, and she immediately turns around to Neil again. “Is that true?”

He frowns. “I guess? I haven’t really thought about it but I think it may be true, but it’s not
the same as when my scars hurt because of the cold, not really.”

She purses her lips, but a spark in her eye shows that she’s getting closer to an answer for his
problem.

“So, I may know what could be causing you this, but I can’t really know the specifics without
running a few tests and asking you a few more questions.” Abby crosses her arms, supporting
herself on her desk beside her. “Chronic pain can be caused by a bunch of different reasons,
from illnesses like fibromyalgia or arthritis to conditions like hypermobility. We should also
take into consideration the overexertion your body probably suffered in the past and also the
bunch of injuries that may have left a trace behind if they didn’t heal properly.”

“How can I fix it?” Neil jumps to ask, not really caring about the whole technicalities but
instead focusing on how he can get back to normal –even if he’s not sure that he’s ever felt
normal in his body–.

“There’s no actual cure for chronic pain, hence its name,” Abby shakes her head, “Things
like medication can help during the worst parts of it, and massages and applying either cold
or heat on the affected limbs can alleviate it. But there’s also a bunch of factors that can
aggravate the pain, such as climate changes, over or underactivity, and even stress.”

Neil frowns, his heartbeat accelerating by the thought of something like this affecting his
career, which still has a long way to go. “So what do I do now?”

She gently caresses his cheek and rubs her thumb under his eye, trying to calm him down.
“For now, I’ll tell David that you should be excused from practice today, and tomorrow I’ll
try to identify a few more symptoms with you so we can start figuring out what exactly is
going on.”

“I’ll go with him,” Andrew declares, leaving no room for discussion.

Abby smiles, motioning for them to walk in front of her into the hallway. “I know, I’ll tell
David that too,” she nods at them, and once she disappears into the court’s direction they start
walking in the opposite way, with Andrew helping him with an arm around his waist until
they reach the car, and take into the dorm’s direction.

Inside of their room Andrew closes the curtains and keeps the overhead light off, choosing to
just turn on the lamp on their night table. It's much more relaxing like that and Neil is grateful
for the calm that it brings him.

He falls back into his bottom bunk, cradling his wrist into his chest and rubbing it with his
other hand’s fingers. He cracks his knuckles in hope of making the discomfort go away, but it
only seems to make it worse.

Andrew looks at him with profound focus before leaving the room for a few minutes, but he
comes back with a white bottle to find Neil in the exact same position as he was. Choosing to
not comment, he walks to the bed and situates himself at the end of it, where Neil's feet rest.

“Taking your pants off, yes or no?” he asks, and Neil doesn’t hesitate to answer even if he’s
not sure of what his intentions are.

“Yes.”

He reaches for Neil’s shorts, carefully lowering them without moving around his legs too
much. He throws them into a corner, and then he too changes out from his goalie’s uniform
into his usual sweatpants and black shirt. Andrew also helps him change out his shirt and
socks, dressing Neil in his comfiest pieces of clothing.

Andrew grabs his arm –the one that’s been bothering him– and delicately kisses his wrist,
being careful to not rustle it. Neil’s chest fills with warm, deep affection for Andrew, who
acts so though and doesn’t let any real expression into his face even if Neil has long since
learnt how to read him like an open book. Behind his neutral mask, worry lurks at the
shadows of his apathy.

“I’m going to touch your legs, tell me no if you don’t want it,” he says, and he seems to think
about something for a bit before he chooses to take off his armbands, uncaring about Neil’s
eyes falling down to the scars criss-crossing his inner forearms. He knows that he’s not
looking at them with pity or morbidity, he’s just looking, like he does with the rest of
Andrew’s body when he's got permission to.

“What are you doing?” Neil asks with curiosity, but he doesn’t say no, so Andrew reaches for
the bottle he’d grabbed before and squirts out a handful of cream.

“Giving you a massage,” he explains, before gently grabbing his right leg so he can start
spreading the cream all around it with his calloused hands. With no more than a little ounce
of force, he starts rubbing Neil’s leg starting from his thigh and slowly going down to his
knee, and then to his calf. Neil smiles during all of the process even if sometimes a frown
jostles his face when Andrew hits a sore spot. He slowly gets more and more relaxed into the
comforter under him, fully trusting Andrew to take care of him.
Once he’s finished with the first leg Andrew bends his back where he’s kneeled in front of
Neil, and he leaves a peck right over his knee, rubbing it with his thumb as if he’s willing to
take all of his pain away. It's such a simple gesture, but it manages to bring tears to the front
of Neil’s eyes even if they don’t actually come out. Without uttering a word, he moves onto
his left leg, and he starts the same procedure as before, grabbing cream again.

They don't speak to each other because they both know that in the next few days Neil is going
to have to do it a lot even if he doesn't want to. He’ll have to talk with Abby and then with
Wymack, and after that he’ll have to explain it to the Foxes too. He grimaces at the thought
of having to show them his vulnerability, the signs that indicate just how much his life on the
run and everything that came after that has left residues in him that he can't get rid of.
Chronic means forever, and he’ll mourn the healthy body that was taken from him and turned
into a landmine, the target of a war that should’ve never involucred him when he was just a
little kid, still innocent of the crimes that he was forced to commit years later to keep himself
alive.

He doesn't cry, he doesn't even know if his tear ducts still function after his childish
sensibility was beaten out of him, both by the psychopath that tried to turn him into his copy
and the mother that gave him suffering in exchange of surviving. He craves to ask Andrew
for a cigarette, but he doesn't associate the smell of nicotine with a car burning up in flames
anymore, it just reminds him of roof talks and late night kisses after sharing truths just for the
sake of knowing every inch of each other.

It's when Andrew kisses his left knee too that he's reminded that this is the person who
promised to protect him from inimaginable dangers before even knowing that they would end
up as lovers. This guy who for so long related physical touch with bad things, now doing
everything he can to stop Neil from hurting, even if it involves being so close to him to the
point that their breaths mix in the air shared between them. Someone who denied ever
wanting anything, choosing to sit in the same bed as him and kissing his body like he doesn't
see that it's a ruined, broken thing. To Neil it's just a human-shaped blurb with nothing more
to offer than scar tissue and damaged tendons, but somehow Andrew manages to oversee all
of that and he keeps on protecting him even if they’ve long broken up their deal, because
what they have now is more than nothing, and he helps Neil feel like someone with everyday
that passes.

“I noticed, but I was waiting for you to say something about it,” Andrew breaks the silence.

Neil purses his lips, “I'm sorry, I’ll do better,” he tells Andrew, making eye contact to convey
how serious he is.

Andrew doesn't answer. Instead, he lets go of his legs and lays down beside him, with his
back against the wall. When Neil has gotten into a comfortable enough position he throws a
blanket over both of them and reaches over him to turn off the lamp, resting his arm across
Neil's torso. He kisses his shoulder, not willing to reach for his lips with the darkness that has
taken over the room, but Neil won't complain.

He takes what Andrew offers him and closes his eyes with a smile on his lips, the pain
thrown to the back of his mind for now. He’ll deal with it tomorrow, and he knows that
Andrew will be by his side to support him too.
End Notes

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