#wymach and abby being neil's real parents | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eponinemylove · 4 years

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Headcanons about the Andrew( and the foxes) figuring out some of the fucked up things Neil’s mom did. Like I’ve always had a head canon that she is the reason he says he’s fine all the time

for sure! I have a lot of feelings about Mary Hartford. I want to say that if the conversation does ever manage to come up, Neil would immediately jump to his mother’s defense. We see everything she did through his memories of her, and while we can recognize it as abuse, Neil still thinks of her fondly. She was the only family he really had, and in his eyes, everything she did was out of necessity, if not love (CW: abuse)

(side note, I’ve briefly talked about aaron’s reaction before as part of a different post, and I stand by that. I’ve also brushed upon the subject of Mary and Neil being “fine” when I did a sort of sickfic hc!)

let me just start by saying how awful this news would be for the foxes. Like, it’s awful in general because what she did was fucked up, but their poor hearts… They managed the Nest. They managed Baltimore. They managed Drake (although that was Andrew’s past not Neil’s, they were still there for the murder and everything that followed). They have been through heartbreak after heartbreak for this kid who not only went through these things but thought, on some level, that he deserved them. So they really can’t take finding out that his mother—who Neil openly condones—is also one of his ghosts. They can’t take finding out that she’s partly the reason why he doesn’t swing, why he can’t trust, why he runs and hides and lies, why he doesn’t think he can have this. And if that wasn’t hard enough, to find out that Neil thinks this is okay, that this is fine—it’s too much to handle.

Andrew’s first reaction, predictably, is murder. This doesn’t quite work out for him, as Mary’s already dead, but the urge he feels to drain the life from her himself is frankly concerning. The second the words are leaving Neil’s mouth, the second all his suspicions are confirmed (because let’s be real, Andrew knew someone had hurt Neil, and his father had been too many steps behind him to cause that much damage), he sees red. Full on, knives out, burning rage. He’s shaking with it. You can tell he’s feeling an emotion, because he’s not grumbling about anything. He’s gone into quiet rage, the dangerous kind, in which he silently plots all the ways he can gruesomely arrange your departure from existence.

for a split second, the upperclassmen think that his anger is directed at Neil, and they subtly move in to block him from Andrew’s war path. This works out well for no one, because Andrew needs Neil in his line of sight right now to know he’s safe and here, and anyone who even thinks of touching this boy after what he’s just confessed to happening to him is getting stabbed. Repeatedly. It’s not their fault for assuming, though. They saw what happened with him and Aaron after this sort of thing, and they just want to shield Neil from that fallout. He’s been through enough

The only thing that manages to calm him down even somewhat is Neil himself. He holds Andrew’s gaze, doesn’t hide under it. He looks him straight in the eye. He is fine, now. He isn’t hurt. He’s with Andrew, and Andrew is going to keep him safe, and Mary is dead, and there’s nothing for them to fight anymore.

except there is, there is, because Neil is stupid. Neil is an idiot who doesn’t know the meaning of the word fine, who has never been fine a day in his life. this was never okay. he’s worse than Aaron, because at least Aaron came to his senses eventually. but Neil, even after everything, is still standing there, defending her. it makes his blood boil. 140%. 170. 200.

Later, Andrew has to physically restrain himself from pulling him into a bruising kiss. He makes a tangible effort to be as gentle with Neil as he can, because he refuses to show him that love should be rough. It shouldn’t. He holds Neil’s hand and kisses his knuckles, runs his hands softly through his hair. He shows him all the way touches should feel when coming from someone you trust. Neil thinks it isn’t necessary but he accepts it with a stuttering heart anyway. His hands shake.

Aaron is seething, but for an entirely different reason. He’s furious, because how does Neil not realize that they’re the exact same? Neil gave him so much shit when he was upset over his mother, but now he has the audacity to stand here and spout this crap? The only thing holding him back from beating the shit out of Josten himself is Andrew’s presence, radiating wrath from beside him. If he took a step in the wrong direction, his brother might genuinely kill him this time. It doesn’t matter. Neil went on and on and on about how Andrew was protecting him, how his mother was not someone who loved him but someone who hurt him, and how he should be glad she’s gone. And… and then this? No. No. Neil doesn’t get to love his mother after that. Mary hit him. She beat him to a pulp herself, nevermind what she said she was protecting him from. He wasn’t allowed to have friends, to talk to people, to go outside. He wasn’t allowed to speak. He’d had to keep his head down. Yeah, it sounds familiar. It sounds like Aaron’s quiet footsteps around the house, hoping to god he wouldn’t wake up Tilda. It sounds like him trying not to make himself seen when she came home after a night of using, like ducking his head and not meeting the eyes of her or anyone she brought home. It sounds like her fists on him when she was in one of her moods. It sounds really fucking familiar, and if Neil thinks he’s going to drop this, he is dead wrong.

Neil did not leave well enough alone when it was Aaron. He would not stop rubbing salt on the wound. And it hurt, a lot, but now Aaron is going to do the same. Not just for petty vengeance. Not just because Neil is a dick and this is payback. But because it helped. Aaron and Andrew are not on the same page about the way they feel, but they are about what to do next. Priority one is make sure Neil moves on, make sure he recognizes why Mary was wrong, and why it will never happen again, as long as any of the foxes have a say in it.

Matt and Nicky have the exact same reaction, which to immediately have their heart shattered. They’re in tears. Matt cares about Neil so, so much, and I know the fandom recognizes this, but I don’t know if people realize how deeply Nicky cares, too. It’s more than just cracking jokes; Neil is one of Nicky’s best friends. They’re going to make damn sure that Neil knows they will love him unconditionally, and that their love does not come heavy-handed. They will support him through this, even if they hate Mary for everything she had conditioned into him. Already they’re planning what they can do to get his mind off of this and get him smiling again as soon as possible. Nicky will probably push Neil harder than Matt, and it will probably be the wrong thing to do, but he’s trying so hard. He’s done this before, with Andrew and Aaron, and as heartbreaking as it was, he continues to do it because he loves them. And he loves Neil, too. Both Matt and Nicky already have adoption papers at the ready, and at this point they’re going to forge the signatures, consequences be damned, if it means Neil gets a happy life.

Kevin doesn’t have much to say about it when he finds out. I imagine he handles it with all of his usual finesse and sensitivity, which is none. He probably, not too gently, points out that Mary had a job to keep him safe from harm, all harm, and failed spectacularly at it. It’s not exactly helpful, but he does have a point. And when he get Neil alone, he offers to talk to him about it. He may not have been through the same thing, but he’s been through something similar enough. He had no family at the Nest, but at the same time they were the only ones he had, and they weren’t exactly gentle with him at the best of times. Riko and the Master weren’t Mary, but... they weren’t all that different, either. Like everything else, Kevin is there if he needs him.

Dan and Allison stare him down. They sympathize, they do, because this is awful, but they are not going to give him an inch. They don’t have time to coddle his feelings about his mother, and god help him if they hear an “I’m fine” fall from his lips. They’ll hold him, if he lets them, and they’ll be as soft and gentle as he needs, but they won’t give in to this. They aren’t going to pretend that he’s right–he’s not. HIs mother wasn’t what he remembers. She’s a complicated character. They’re not calling her evil; maybe she did what she had to, and maybe it was for the best. But it wasn’t right. They are steadfast in that. It wasn’t right. Neil can accept that when he’s ready, and when he does they will be there for him, taking care of him in their unassuming way so that he doesn’t feel like they’re walking on eggshells. He’s so grateful to have them. Grateful that they don’t push, but don’t give in either. Some of the strongest people he’s known…

Renee is the one who actually talks him through it. All the others are ready with their pitchforks, about to burn Mary at the stake, but she understands. She walks with him through everything, the good and the bad, and lets him come to his own conclusion. She listens to him when he feels like talking about what is was like, and talks about her own mother when he doesn’t. She shows him, subtly, what a parental figure is supposed to look like through her own stories. Lets him realize that sometimes the people who care don’t get it right, but that there are still others who love you, and that love doesn’t have to come with pain.

Bonus:

(Ik you didn’t ask, and this is probably too long already, but) Wymack and Abby find out about this indirectly, likely through either Andrew or Matt. Wymack had known from the beginning this would have been the case, but he’d had no idea it had come from his mother. It hurts him, that no one had ever been careful with Neil the way he needed. He doesn’t realize that he had been, though. Wymack hadn’t raised his voice, hadn’t made himself big in front of Neil. He had been careful to keep his anger far, far away and had always been there when Neil needed him. Wymack is his true father. Or mother. Or whatever.

Abby does what she does with Aaron: she gives him space. She knows that he’s probably never seen a woman in a comforting light before, and she waits to make sure that he’s okay with her presence before she gets anywhere near close to him. She lets him come to her, and, like Wymack, makes sure Neil knows that if she ever gets frustrated, that she would never take it out on him. They start the very slow process of showing Neil what it is like to be loved and cared for by someone who wants only to see you happy. Neil loves his family so, so much. He would choose them a thousand times over.

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