#and Neil is also in his right to he angry that Aaron is accusing him though this isn’t Aaron’s fault bc Aaron is checking to see if his | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

codename-adler · 3 years

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...dance 'til you find someone to die for...

What if instead of Seth, Riko tried to get rid of Aaron?

Chapter 17 ♟️ [table of contents]

(CW: canon-typical violence, Drake Spear, referenced canon SA, implied/mentioned alcoholism + drug addiction)

Aaron Minyard killed a man. One swing of a racquet; one lifeless body.

Blood everywhere.

He did it. Aaron Minyard had murdered a man.

Aaron Minyard was a murderer. Just one swing of a racquet; one lifetime of darkness.

Trouble everywhere, forever.

And he'd do it again. Even all alone and facing criminal charges, prison sentences, endless interrogations and angry cops, that's what kept him going.

It took almost a day before he was let out. He came back to Wymack and Nicky and Abby, to the Foxes by extension, to Kevin too, and he could stay til the trial. Aaron didn't ask where Andrew was. He knew. He didn't understand, but he knew. Neil was still there, though. With a lot to say, apparently.

"Are you at all sorry? You took his family from him," he accused Aaron. Aaron knew he was getting at something, but he didn't have the energy to humor Neil; he stayed silent and stared blandly. "Cass and Richard Spear. They were going to keep Andrew. Drake was an inconvenience Andrew was willing to live with in exchange," Neil went on viciously, but still Aaron said nothing.

An inconvenience...

An inconvenience.

Oh, that fucking compulsive bullshitter with his bullshit opinions and bullshit threats...

Wait until you get what's coming for you, motherfucker.

"And now Drake is dead. Do you think Cass will ever forgive Andrew? It doesn't matter what Drake did to him. She won't be able to look at Andrew without knowing her son is dead because of him," Neil said.

I don't care.

If I could bring him back from the dead and kill him again, I would.

He dared touch Andrew.

He had it coming.

But Aaron said none of that. Neil didn't deserve to hear it. He wasn't the one who needed to hear it. Aaron simply looked at Neil, waiting for him to spit out the last of his poisonous barbs.

"You look like someone who doesn't have an ounce of regret... So you get it. You do get it. Why Andrew killed you mother. You understand why he did it, because you did exactly that, last night. For him. You-" Neil tried to go on.

"Stop."

"Oh, no, no, no, this has gone on long enough and you need to-" Neil continued.

"To what? Hear you out? Apologize? Beg? Repent? Forgive and forget?" Aaron said, his tone cold and razor sharp.

"Oh, well all of the above, while you're at it. You have a couple of weeks to meditate on that and get your act together until Andrew comes back and to present a united front next time we face the Ravens and the other-" Neil tried to say.

"I said, stop. Stop it, Neil. Just stop." Aaron's voice cracked. But Neil didn't care. Neil never cared. He opened his mouth again, but Aaron cut him off before he could speak.

"No. No, Neil. I won't cave. I won't cave for you like everybody else has. I said stop, and you didn't. I don't owe you shit. You take Andrew's side? Fine. God knows he needs someone in his corner, even if it's you. He won't let me in. Do you understand that, Neil? He won't let me in. I've had years to come to terms with what he's done. Years. I've grown. I got over it. I understood. And I got to be grateful for it. My resentment does not lie where he thinks it seems to. If he doesn't see that, if he refuses to open his eyes and see the change that happened, if he refuses to change himself, then that is on him. Not me. And if you really believe what you think you see when you look at me, Neil, that is also on you. Has anyone on the team ever made you justify yourself for the way you act? Even though you make no sense most of the time? No. Not even me. And all you've ever done for me in exchange is make my life a living hell. You did that. Not Andrew."

Neil rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air, then started to turn away.

"Neil Josten, you will listen to me. Turn the fuck around, right now," Aaron said, his voice thunderous despite keeping it low. "You seem like a guy who isn't really close to his parents, but then again you also seem to think you know Andrew and his mother inside-out. Let me introduce you to my mother, now."

Neil recoiled. Aaron didn't care.

"Tilda Minyard was a neglectful mother who abused her son, in all forms possible. She was also an addict, and it's the only family value she would pass on to to her son. That was Tilda Minyard. The only thing she ever was, and would ever be. Because she died. Doesn't matter how. She died. So what was so bad about that? The orphaning of her son? The unsolved circumstances of her death? Or perhaps the unresolved trauma she inflicted upon her son? Because her son didn't care he hadn't had the chance to say goodbye, though that upset him for a while. And he didn't care that his newfound twin brother had committed murder for him, though that upset him, too. No, the worse about the death of Tilda Minyard was that her son would never be able to hold her accountable for all the shit she had given him. That was the most upsetting, the most unforgiveable. That was the worse. She was gone and, if not at peace, she was at least unbothered for the rest of eternity. But her son was still here. Still alive. Still hurting. He would never get revenge. He would never get to punish her himself, and make her have a taste of her own medicine. He would never get the satisfaction of looking in her eyes to see the light go out, not from death, but from defeat. And above all, he would never get to understand why. Aaron Minyard would never get closure. That's what had been robbed from him. Not a mother; closure."

Neil seemed to have deflated entirely. His mouth was hanging open, hurt in his eyes. Aaron didn't know what was the deal with Neil's parents, but he certainly knew that what he saw in Neil's eyes was also recognition.

So you see, you get it, now.

But Aaron wasn't letting him off the hook so soon.

"Nobody knows that. Because nobody ever fucking bothered to see past what I was apparently 'projecting'. They prefer to assume. You are the first I ever told. So maybe I should thank you for that, Neil Josten. Thank you for making the last 24 hours even more exhausting and horrible than they already were. Thank you for only caring about your fucking Exy team when the man standing before you is facing a life-sentence. Thank you. Thank you so fucking much."

Neil retreated even more and with that, and before Aaron choked on the lump in his throat, he turned around to leave, only to collide with a wall of muscles.

"Oh, hi Kevin. Glad you're not gone with Andrew. You took good care of Nicky for me?" Aaron said like it was nothing.

Except it wasn't, and Kevin wasn't fooled. The tears were already streaming down Aaron's face, even as he smiled big and bright while talking. Kevin had heard most of the exchange between Neil and Aaron, but he understood and felt all the tension in the air. As glad as he was that Neil promised to protect him during Andrew's absence, he didn't know how that would work if Neil and Aaron tore each other apart, especially if Kevin took Aaron's side. Because he was extremely tempted to, even when he knew Neil had only months left to live and had sacrificed everything to join the Foxes. He filed that thought for later, lest the situation before him escalated too much. Kevin tried his best when he answered.

"It's Neil's turn to watch over Nicky, so I came down. You can go now, Neil," he said, eyes fixed on Neil. As angry as he looked, Neil was also showing signs of distress and hurt, so he took the way out Kevin was offering him and left to go upstairs. Kevin waited a couple of minutes to make sure Neil had truly gone into Nicky's room and had closed the door.

Before him, Aaron was still crying silently, his smile fake and flaking and stuck to his lips, his eyes cast to Kevin's chest as though he could see right through it. Kevin moved away from Aaron, walking towards the stairs, before he turned back, waiting for Aaron to follow.

He didn't. He was frozen in place.

"Minyard. Minyard! God, Aaron! Dammit, shithead!" Kevin whisper-yelled at the short blonde. Aaron finally reacted on the last word, his eyes trailing from the wall to Kevin. "Oh, that's the name you respond to, now? Good to know. Move your ass, will you, shithead?" Kevin replied, his words dripping sarcasm.

"And where do you think you're going?" Aaron replied, sniffling back tears and wiping his eyes, nose and cheeks with his sleeve.

"I- Well, someone has to make sure you and Neil don't ki- fight each other while nobody's looking. Plus, I don't wanna hear whatever is going on with Coach and Abby if I'm on the couch, so... Upstairs I go."

"You can say the word. 'Kill'. I won't kill fucking Josten while he sleeps, don't worry about it. I can control myself," Aaron snarled.

"I know that and fuck you for thinking otherwise. Move your ass or take the couch, I don't care, just don't stay there like a creep," Kevin shot back, unfazed.

"You don't?"

Kevin raised an eyebrow, not understanding Aaron's question.

"Care. You don't?" Aaron repeated.

Kevin couldn't answer. Not that question. Not to Aaron. Not even to himself.

"If you don't regret what happened to Drake, neither do I. I don't care about that. If you want to stand all night long staring at the wall, suit yourself. I don't care about that. But if it's all the same to you, we're both tired, I need a drink and you need a friend. Sounds familiar, don't you think? Remember our deal, Aaron." Kevin finally said.

Slowly, oh so slowly, Aaron nodded, all the fight seeping out of him, his shoulders sagging. He sniffled some more, gathering the last of his strength a few moments longer, before shuffling his way past Kevin and up to his room. Kevin followed him quietly, letting out a relieved sigh when Aaron brushed past him. Once Kevin closed the door, Aaron burrowed under the covers of his bed, pulling the comforter over his head and letting the dark swallow him. Kevin wanted to look around, wanted to take in everything of this room he'd never been in, this room that was entirely Aaron, but he couldn't bring himself to. It felt too private. Too close to... too close.

He was regretting his impulse to convince Aaron to hide from the others. He shook his head and made a move to exit. He heard ruffling at his back and Aaron's muffled voice made its way to his ears.

"If you step out that door, can you promise me not to drink?"

No.

Not yet.

One day, maybe.

But not tonight.

Kevin removed his hand from where it had latched itself on the doorknob and turned around. Aaron flapped open a corner of the comforter, keeping his head buried in the mattress. Kevin closed his eyes, took a deep breath and stopped himself from thinking twice about it. He joined Aaron on the queen bed and pulled back the covers again over their heads, soft darkness overtaking once more. Kevin was glad to be in sweats from head to toe, comfortable enough to lay on his stomach like Aaron. His head, resting against his arms, was turned towards Aaron, and they breathed the same air for a while, only making out faint shadows of each other's face.

Kevin wanted to say something. Kevin wanted Aaron to say something.

The mattress started shaking suddenly, and Kevin felt a pain in his chest when he realized Aaron had started crying again, less quietly, more painfully. He moved his leg to nudge Aaron's.

"Hey, hey..." Kevin whispered between them. "I- Aaron... You'll-"

"Don't tell me I'll be okay, Day, or I will push you off," Aaron whispered back between two sobs.

And right then, if Kevin still didn't know what to say, he knew what Aaron needed to hear.

"You're right. Drake is dead, Andrew is gone, and you are not okay. You know that. We both do. But from now until the trial, you are still ours, and I'm still the man you gave your game to. I haven't forgotten that. I don't care what people label you as because of what you did, I don't care about what you did, and neither should you. So tonight, rest. Tomorrow, rise," Kevin moved one hand from under his head to gently grab the back of Aaron's. "I will keep my end of both our deals. What you do is up to you, but you can't run. You don't run from this. You stay, and you play, and one day you'll win. Until that day, you fight, Aaron. Tell me you will."

Minutes passed as Aaron's breathing evened out. Slowly, his gaze made its way up Kevin's face, until they locked eyes through the darkness cast by the comforter overhead. Aaron exhaled once more before answering.

"I will."

(read on Ao3 here !)

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ambergreyowl · 4 years

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the foxes playing among us

neil is of course, a literal god. he has all the tasks memorised if someone asks and uses all sorts of tricks (pretends he's afk, self reports, hides the body...)

he refuses to kill andrew which makes the game more interesting. andrew also wont kill him but the other foxes realise this quite late (renee knows but wants to see how long it takes them so she doesnt say anything)

if neil and andrew are BOTH imposters? speed run victory

aaron is. pretty bad at this. he will point blank see someone vent and call a meeting only to be ejected himself and get very angry. he rage quits and doesnt realise he has to complete his tasks as a ghost for them to win (dan has to call katelyn for katelyn to get aaron back online)

nicky is also not the best and forgets to mute himself often, culminating in him yelling KILLING TIME while not muted and being immediately ejected

kevin is actually a decent imposter. he also has all the tasks memorised and moves left to right through the map when hes a crew member (this leaves him vulnerable to kills but only andrew notices)

renee is of course, also a literal god at this. she could kill someone in front of 3 other people and still not be accused. no one knows how she does it she doesn't even say anything to defend herself half the time

matt almost does the nicky thing of shouting KILLING TIME but dan interrupts him just in time (they are both ejected even though dan was innocent)

allison is also decent but very much prefers sabotaging people as a ghost. her and andrew actually make a very good imposter team

dan is an AMAZING detective and shes the only one who can organise the crew members to do elaborate plans to catch the imposter

BONUS: katelyn is also quite good and aaron plays better when shes playing too but andrew will kill her off at every chance he gets (even if he is immediately ejected). she starts walking around next to neil to avoid this

#among us #aftg #all for the game #tfc #bullet point hc #aftg hc #i dont do this often but this has been bouncing around my head like a windows screensaver #this will get 0 notes #im aware

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percontaion-points · 3 years

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Foxhole Court chapter 2

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions.

Chapter 2

Finally he followed signs down a hall and up a flight of stairs to Arrivals. Friday afternoon meant the small lobby was comfortably crowded, but spotting the ride Coach Wymack promised him was easier than Neil expected.

So the entire first chapter was just what? Just pretty cake decoration or something? What was the point even if Neil was just going to turn around and sign anyway?

"Maybe you'll forgive me for not reacting well."

"Maybe I won't. I don't believe in forgiveness, and it wasn't me you offended. That's the second time a recruit has told [Kevin] to fuck off.”

I don't know. Maybe if Kevin learned how to understand the meaning of the word “no”, less people would say rude things to him.

Aaron pulled at the wheel, sliding the car from one lane to the other without bothering to check the traffic around him. Horns blared behind them. Neil watched in the rearview mirror as cars swerved to avoid hitting them.

"It's too nice of a car to wreck," he said pointedly.

"Don't be so afraid to die," Aaron said as the car kept gliding across the four-lane road to an exit ramp. "If you are, you have no place on our court."

I have a feeling that this is going to be a reoccurring thing I say a lot during this series but: JFC dude. Maybe go to therapy instead of dragging others down into the muck with you.

Kevin Day and his adoptive brother Riko Moriyama were hailed as the sons of Exy. Kevin's mother Kayleigh Day and Riko's uncle Tetsuji Moriyama created the sport roughly thirty years ago while Kayleigh was studying abroad in Fukui, Japan. What started as an experiment spread from their campus to local street teams, then across the ocean to the rest of the world. Kayleigh brought it home with her to Ireland after completing her degree and the United States picked it up soon after.

Kevin and Riko were raised on Exy. When Edgar Allen's massive stadium Castle Evermore, the first NCAA Exy stadium in the United States, was little more than blueprints, Kevin and Riko had custom racquets. After Kayleigh's fatal car accident, Tetsuji took Kevin in, but the Ravens' new coach had no time to raise children. Riko and Kevin spent their formative years at Evermore with the Ravens instead and were considered the team's unofficial mascots. When they weren't being coached by Tetsuji, they were coached by the team, and tutors were brought onsite so they wouldn't have to leave the stadium for school.

Kevin and Riko grew up in front of cameras, but always with Exy as a backdrop and always together. Until Kevin transferred to Palmetto State, he and Riko were never seen in separate rooms. Their unconventional childhood led many to worry about their psychological well-being but also fueled a rabid obsession with the pair. Riko and Kevin were the face of the Ravens. To many, they were considered the future of Exy.

Last December, Riko and Kevin vanished from the public eye for weeks. When spring championships started in January, neither man was on the Ravens' starting line-up. It wasn't until the end of January that Tetsuji Moriyama addressed the topic at a press conference, and the news was a cruel blow to Exy fans everywhere: Kevin Day had broken his playing hand on a skiing trip.

Ski trip. Riiight. And not the crushing reality that your sole personality trait is a sport that doesn't give a fucking shit about you.

Andrew was smiling, but Neil knew his cheer didn't mean he was going to play nice. He'd been smiling when he smashed a racquet into Neil's stomach, too.

Friendly reminder that that happened. And despite that, Neil still decided that he wanted to spend the next five years with these people.

"This is where Coach lives," he said unnecessarily. "He makes all the money, so he gets to live in a place like this while we poor people couch surf."

Sports are a goddamned drain on our economy. College sports are even worse.

I have a lot of opinions about sports, and I'm not going to be shy about expressing them.

He'd been on his own since his mother died, and the last man he'd lived with was his father. How was he supposed to let Wymack lock the door every night with both of them under the same roof?

This book is doing nothing to stop me from thinking Coach has a habit of grooming vulnerable boys so that he can molest them.

Holding down one corner was a hefty prescription bottle. Nicky scooped the bottle up with a triumphant sound and twisted the lid off.

"That's not yours," Neil said.

"Painkillers," Nicky said, ignoring that implicit accusation.

[…]

He shook a couple pills into his hand, screwed the lid on, and put the bottle back.

Just casually takes some pills.

Although in the grand scheme of everything that's happened so far, I'm barely even blinking over the implication that, on top of everything else, there's going to be drug use in this, too.

"Ready," Neil said, and started after his teammates.

Chapter 2 summary: Despite the entire point of the first chapter being “I don't want to get involved with this; go away”, Neil sets off for North Carolina in the second chapter. I mean, we knew that he would because it's literally in the title, but his random flip-flopping is already annoying.

Neil is picked up by one of the twins who beat him up at the high school locker in the first chapter, and they go to Coach's apartment. The other twin, as well as their cousin is waiting to take Neil into the apartment, since Coach isn't there at the moment.

We also get some backstory on Kevin: his mother and his mother's friend invented the sport of exy, and it spread across the world. Kevin and a boy his own age, Riko, were raised as team mascots for their parents. Except when Kevin's mom died in a car accident, Riko's dad tried to raise both of them. Except that he was more focused on being a sports star than being a father. Eventually, Kevin disappeared from the college exy scene for a while before Riko announced he'd broken his hand. To make matters worse, Kevin stopped playing for the Ravens, and instead joined the Foxes. It made a lot of fans very angry.

In the apartment, the boys are... well. Sociopaths little shits, and the author probably thinks that she's clever for writing such mental characters. One of them randomly pops some pills. One of them (I already can't tell them apart; they might as well be three different sheets of printer paper with names written on them) is supposed to be on parole for having attacked somebody at a club. He's supposed to be on heavy medication and thus, not drink. But he's literally drinking right then.

The coach comes home after a while, and allows Neil to stash his only earthly belongings in a lock drawer. Neil then leaves with the cookie-cutter boys, to go meet Kevin at the sportsball stadium. One of the twins threatens Neil, although for some unholy reason, Neil is surprised by this. Despite the fact that the twins had literally beaten him up at the high school.

#All For The Game #Foxhole Court #chapter 02 #Neil Josten #I cannot deal with this #Kevin Day #shitty people are shitty #Aaron and Andrew Minyard #Riko Moriyama #playing sports is not a personality trait #David Wymack

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badacts · 7 years

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i have a prompt if that's okay? neil being pissed w/ his tongue untied + "Out of all the people, why the hell would you think Andrew and I would be violent towards each other?"

[exception]

It starts with a bruise.

To be precise, it starts with a hickey - one too high on Neil’s throat to be hidden by his shirt.

He’s a marked man, but the kind of marks Andrew leaves on him are different. They’re the sort he doesn’t have to look away from in the mirror, the kind he can press his fingers to and feel the ache without attendant memories of real and frightening pain. They’re reminders of pleasure, pure, not quite simple but as close as the two of them ever get.

They’re past the point of avoiding them, these days. They’ve evolved a little past careful discussion, too - Neil can say, yeah, like that, I want it, I want you, and have it mean yes, I consent. And Andrew can trust that.

Careful isn’t something they’ll ever grow out of entirely, but there’s room there to stretch.

The Foxes live in close quarters, so it’s tricky to hide everything - kiss-swollen mouths, delicately discoloured finger-and-thumb marks on hips, traceries of scratches nowhere near deep enough to draw blood on backs, and the aforementioned hickeys. Neil tries - he’s a long, long way from shameless - but he also doesn’t want to put them on the same level as the scars he hid to stay alive for all those years.

Neil unbruised is a rarity, anyway. He plays hard on the court, in games and in practice, and Exy isn’t the kind of sport where you can walk away without a mark. He also has Andrew intent on teaching him a few more methods of protecting himself, with rare and precious determination. Neil repays that in spades, but there are consequences.

Andrew looks at him after one bout, Neil panting and sporting forearms that will look faintly blue and green tomorrow, and says, “I thought you were a faster learner than this.”

“No you didn’t,” Neil tells him. “I’m trying.”

“Try harder,” Andrew recommends. It’s not until later that Neil notices how he avoids those marks on his arms, and resolves to improve.

Neil doesn’t think much of it, other than that. It’s not until he sticks his head into Aaron, Matt and Nicky’s room to ask if Matt has seen his spare pair of gloves that it even occurs to him that someone else might.

The three boys are sprawled across the furniture. Neil feels a tiny burst of affection at the sight of them so relaxed together. It fades when Nicky cranes to see if there’s anyone standing behind Neil, and says, “Are you by yourself? Get in here.”

Neil steps inside the door and closes it behind himself without a question, puzzled but not suspicious. Andrew and Kevin are waiting in the car for him to locate his missing gear, Kevin probably still huffing about being ‘late’ while Andrew smokes and ignores him.

Matt and Nicky both shift in their seats, exchanging a quick look. Aaron is the only one who doesn’t move, his focus on the muted television still.

“Hey,” Nicky starts, brow furrowed. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Neil says automatically, and then, “With what?”

Nicky opens his mouth, but it’s Matt who says, “With Andrew.”

“It’s fine?” It comes out like a question, but mostly because Neil is now openly confused. He clears his throat. “It’s fine. Good.”

He and Matt have had this conversation before, but it wasn’t like this - they’d both been drinking, and talking under the cover of blaring music. Then, Matt had looked amused. Right now, he looks deadly serious, in a way that he rarely does.

Nicky, meanwhile, looks nervous. He does when discussing Andrew even now, but Neil supposes he has a reason to. He knows Andrew cares about Nicky, but he’s not kind with it. Nicky is the sort to flourish with kindness and wilt with cruelty - that’s why it’s impressive that he stuck out the twins as teenagers. It’s also one of the reasons Neil likes him: his devotion to draw blood out of stones.

Right now, he wonders if he’s the stone. Especially when Nicky says, “Are you sure?”

Neil frowns. “Why?”

“Because - because of that,” Nicky says, pointing. Neil reaches a hand to his own throat, and then remembers there’s the edge of a mark there, purple and indistinct. Nearly covered, but not quite. He feels his ears heat with a blush.

“What about it?”

“You’ve had a lot of them recently,” Nicky says. “Bruises. Everywhere. Sorry, but it’s kind of hard not to notice. I thought I got used to them back in your first year, but apparently not so much.”

“I always have bruises,” Neil points out stupidly. Both Nicky and Matt are staring at him like they’re waiting for him to get it. That’s not particularly unusual, but it’s generally a source of amusement for the other Foxes. Right now, they’re the furtherest thing from amused.

“They think my brother is beating the shit out of you,” Aaron says, bored, and Neil could swear the floor tilts under his feet.

He thinks about his father backhanding his mother, bloodying her mouth - Mary Hatford, a queen in her own right, brought low by the Butcher’s hideous temper and utter disregard for her. They are nothing like that, nothing, but the implication turns his stomach anyway.

“Why the hell would you think Andrew and I would be violent towards each other?” he demands. “Don’t you think we’ve both had enough of that?”

Their faces say it’s not Andrew we’re worried about. And Neil has known for a long time what the Foxes think of Andrew, what they’re willing to believe about him, but he never really thought he’d hear it like this.

He waits for one of them to say oh no, you don’t understand, and then explain themselves. None of them do.

And just like that, the taste of bile in his mouth turns coppery. “He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Do you think no one ever says that and believes it,” says Aaron coolly, without looking up, “Even when it’s not true? People justify getting hurt all the time, if they love the person enough.”

“You would know.” The words come out sharp as the report of a firing gun, rat-tat-tat. Aaron Minyard loved his mother. Neil doesn’t understand why he’s here, saying something that doesn’t apply at all to Andrew and Neil.

He finally turns to glance at Neil. He looks for an instant like his brother, flat-eyed and bored. It’s an affectation in a way that Andrew’s expression isn’t, blankness pasted on over his reaction. He says, “You’re right.”

“We’re just worried about you,” Matt cuts in. He sounds calm, a furrow between his eyebrows as he watches Neil. “Both of you.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Neil says, staccato. “Whatever you’re thinking, you’re wrong, and you need to stop.”

“Okay, alright,” Nicky says, placating, his hands up. “We’re just making sure. It’s our job to worry about you, right? We’re family.”

Neil considers saying I asked for them. Then he remembers his mother saying don’t make him angry and thinks it might sound like someone saying it’s my fault. Maybe he shouldn’t feel like this when they’re just trying to protect him - even Aaron, in his sour way - but he doesn’t owe them all of his and Andrew’s secrets.

He can’t tell from their faces whether or not they believe him. That makes it worse.

“I’m guessing you haven’t bought this up with Andrew,” Neil says. His voice has taken on a lilt, almost teasing. It sounds familiar, but he can’t place it. “I suppose you thought he didn’t need the same warning as I do.”

“No,” Nicky says. “No, we-”

“Don’t,” Neil says. “You won’t like it if you do.”

It comes out pretty, like a joke, said on a huff of a laugh. Amusement, or a seeming of it, shown as a lie only by the words themselves and whatever expression is in his eyes over the smirk.

It comes out like it would from his father’s mouth. That’s why it’s familiar. Wesninskis are at their most dangerous when they smile.

He doesn’t slam the door behind him when he leaves. Andrew is waiting in the hall, leaning against the far wall in a slouch which everyone mistakes for insolent.

Neil walks straight past him down the hall. Andrew catches up in time to get into the same elevator car, and they ride down in silence.

Kevin is waiting in the passenger seat of the Maserati, and he scowls at Neil when they approach. “What the hell took you so-”

The crash of Neil’s door slamming closed cuts him off completely. Kevin jerks, and then for an extended moment they sit in total silence.

Andrew, who has his door open but hasn’t got into the car yet, leans down to look between the front seats at Neil. After a moment where Neil won’t look back at him, he says, “Kevin. Practice tonight is cancelled. Go away.”

Kevin starts to protest, turns to look at Neil, and then stops. Being readable to Kevin is a good reason to get control of himself, but right now Neil doesn’t care to. When he makes to undo his seatbelt again, Andrew says, “Not you.”

Kevin gets out of the car. Andrew gets into it and starts the engine, pulling out of the parking lot. He turns off campus and onto the backroads around Palmetto, a roundabout route towards the highway where there are no cops to see his flagrant breaking of the speed limit.

He heard. There’s no way he wouldn’t have, to have sent Kevin away. Neil curls his fingers into fists and waits in the thrumming silence for him to say something.

Eventually, he says, “Do you think I don’t know what they think of me?”

“No,” Neil replies. Monster. The upperclassmen still call him that, and it’s more than a habit. They mean it. Neil doesn’t often correct them, but now he doesn’t think he can hear that word again without breaking something.

“Then you know it’s a waste of time to get angry over it.” Andrew sounds careless, not resigned. That’s because he doesn’t care. Neil isn’t the same - he’s boiling inside, pressure behind his eyes and in his chest like his rage might blind and choke him with its power.

“When they accuse you of hurting me, I’ll get as angry as I fucking like,” he snarls back. He’s sick and tired of resignation, and he’s never been capable of carelessness.

“They think I’ll hurt anyone,” Andrew replies. “Did you think that you would be an exception to that belief?”

“I am an exception.”

It’s true. In every way, he’s an exception to Andrew’s rules - except for the ways where he’s only really an exception in terms of the people in Andrew’s life. Andrew edges him a look in the rearview mirror, the blue glow from the dashboard barely illuminating the impatient set of his jaw.

Neil told him once that he’d fight for him. He meant it. Whether or not Andrew thinks it’s necessary, he will, because he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t.

Andrew doesn’t disagree with him, which is as good as an agreement. Instead, he pulls over onto the side of the road in a spray of gravel, without indicating. There’s no one else out here, but Neil learned to drive according to the actual laws - mostly to avoid suspicion, but still - and winces anyway.

When they come to a stop in a billowing cloud of silver-lit dust, Andrew says, “I am not your chauffeur.”

Rolling his eyes, Neil climbs out of the back and into the front seat. “Happy now?”

“I have no interest in talking you down from a temper tantrum,” Andrew replies, even though that isn’t an answer, and isn’t even true. As always, he’s here. As always, that alone is enough.

“That works, because I’m not interested in being talked down,” Neil tells him. Him being there is enough, but his touch is what has Neil swallowing the last of the taste of blood in his mouth. When they kiss, it’s the same old thing he’d kill for.

#the foxhole court #andreil #discussion of domestic abuse #no actual abuse between the main characters #my fic #prompts #i hate to write bye #Anonymous #exception

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