#but after everything after Neil josten his perfect court is gone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imperfectcourt · 3 years

Text

((CW: descriptions of abuse, violence, Andrew's past, the Nest, and the Butcher's profession))

There exists a soulmate Au in which you see flashes through your soulmate's eyes in their most desperate moments. And in this world, Andrew Minyard wants absolutely nothing to do with his. He refuses to allow this kind of trouble anywhere near his family after working so hard to keep him safe.

He knows someone is after his soulmate- he's seen glimpses of grizzly wounds in mirrors, of gunbarrels, of cleavers- all in vastly different places. He is running, and Andrew will not be the destination.

He's seen a fire and charred bones and a plastic ID with a tiny little picture labeled Last name: Josten, First name: Neil.

When fate tries to bring them together-as of course it does, it always does- Andrew intervenes. A file comes across Wymack's desk and Andrew throws it straight in the trash. Kevin gets his hands on a tape left in the player and Andrew breaks it over his knee.

He doesn't care that this Neil Josten is his soulmate. Aaron is clean. Nicky is safe. Kevin is healing. They are real and they are his and he will protect them.

Too bad fate, relentless as she is, is always trying to pull shit.

Wymack goes to Arizona alone. He sees a fox. He leaves Arizona alone but he has hope.

Except… except except except. Wymack wasn't the only one to get a file on Neil. He was just the only one to get a personal phone call along with it.

Andrew hasn't gotten anything from this "Neil" since the fire and backpack and bones over a year ago- the longest he's ever gone.

But then one day early in summer he gets a flash of a black cane and monochrome, windowless dorm room.

He laughs because that's all his body seems capable of doing. He has no remorse for this turn of events and wishes the Ravens luck with whatever hell storm Neil Josten is going to rain down on them.

The flashes come more frequently again, seen through his soulmate's eyes when he's desperate and scared. Most are of small knives. Twice, he's looking up at his hands cuffed to the bed. Once, it is directly into the mirror.

This Neil no longer matches the image on his ID. This Neil has lighter hair and bright blue eyes- huge and dead as he stares at the fresh number tattooed on his cheek.

The state of this stranger is not Andrew's responsibility. That he is plagued by these flashes is more of a nuisance than anything- happening far more frequently for him than for most people who are not bound to walking tragedies.

He doesn't bring it up to Kevin. He has too many things to panic about and Riko trying so desperately to beef up his perfect court with scraps doesn't need to be another.

This decision was, perhaps, a mistake when two people join Kevin on Kathy Ferdinand's show. Kevin looks like he's been slapped, more heartbroken than scared.

And there is Andrew's soulmate, being introduced by a different name and staring back at Kevin with the same expression.

And then… and then something unexpected happens.

After Riko releases Kevin from a hug so awkward and painful, Kevin reaches out and pulls this stranger into his arms. Envelopes him in an embrace so fully that his massive form obscures everything but the two hands coming up to cling to Kevin's back.

When they sit, the stranger puts himself between Kevin and Riko. The interview is fine until it's not and Renee can barely keep Andrew from jumping down there and ending the whole thing.

Except… except except except. The surprises have not yet run their course. This Nathaniel has a mouth directly proportionate to his idiocy. He stands up for Kevin, for his choices, for the foxes. It's visibly unexpected by everyone on the stage.

When the cameras are cut, as soon as Kevin is off the stage, Andrew is up and backstage in a blink. He passes the green room and hears Riko talking far too pleasantly. He continues, finds Kevin around the corner, speaking in rushed, low voices with Nathaniel. Of all things, he sounds apologetic and Andrew hates it.

I didn't know it was you. Wasn't allowed to go to Arizona. Why didn't you sign with the foxes? Wah wah wah

Oh woe is me I didn't think it was safe. Tetsuji came two days after Wymack. I didn't have a choice blah blah blah

As soon as Andrew was close enough, he shoves Nathaniel and drags Kevin away by the arm. There is no recollection on Nathaniel's face. And why would there be? Andrew could guess at the things Nathaniel has seen through his eyes and none of it would be identifiable. That was how it was for most soulmates. Just lucky I guess.

Kevin is a mess on the bus ride home. He's plied with alcohol, drunk in minutes, and spilling his bleeding heart out onto the aisle. His dear old friend Nathaniel, missing and presumed dead for years. He was great at exy. He understood Kevin. He would have been a great Fox.

"He was supposed to be a fox," Wymack says, eyes on Andrew. So it seems Coach recognized the disguised little runaway. Andrew shrugs and smiles, high and bored of this conversation. He kept his promises and that's all that matters at the end of the day.

That night, it takes Andrew hours to go to sleep, bombarded with flashes of handcuffs, hands, knives, bloody rags, ripped bedding. It goes on until it's nearly morning.

Andrew refuses to reconsider his stance.

Nathaniel Wesninski only brings trouble.

Life goes on. School is school. Exy is boring. Aaron is an ass, Nicky is overbearing, Kevin is annoying, and his soulmate is a lost cause. Same old same old.

The fall banquet is a comedy shit show. Of course they're put with the Ravens, Nathaniel is seated right at Riko's elbow, tie tight around his throat and sleeves pulled too far down over his palms to be fashionable. He doesn't look at any of them, stares up somewhere at the wall.

Jean's speak to Kevin in French, haughty face betraying his words. Riko spits out things in English and Japanese. Nicky comments on Nathaniel's demeanor in German. All of it grates on Andrew's nerves.

"He was a lot more entertaining last time," Aaron says in kind.

"Entertainment comes at a price," Andrew tells them. "What do you think- a cut for every word he spewed or did he gauge the punishment by audience applause?"

Nathaniel finally lowers his dead stare onto Andrew who feels himself smile against his will because he knows that look.

"How many more ouchies do you think his dear old captain added to his collection?" He asks in German but looking at Nathaniel. He's pushing. He's testing the waters. He wants to see what will happen, how interesting it can get. Is his family smart enough to catch on? Is his soulmate stupid enough to complain about language barriers?

Nathaniel's dead stare turns.

He becomes calculated in a way that tells Andrew he miscalculated again and he very nearly laughs at his own drugged up impulsiveness.

And then Nathaniel becomes angry and the fire in his eyes is ten times more exciting than any exy game.

"I didn't want to cast aspersions since Kevin is so fond of you," he spits in German far superior to any of theirs, "but I guess they don't call you a monster for nothing."

Nicky gets offended for Andrew when he won't for himself, trying to defuse the situation but only making it worse with his foot in his mouth. Andrew laughs. Delighted. Manic.

"So you've finally caught on, have you?" Because that's what that look is. Realization.

Clever.

"Caught on to what?" Aaron asks. Nobody acknowledges him.

Not so clever.

"You know what he does to me there," Nathaniel, rightly, accuses. "Get me out."

"No," Andrew grins. Unrepentant. Uninterested. Unmotivated.

"Please."

"I hate that word."

"In English, maybe, but I doubt you knew German that long ago."

Andrew's smile freezes on his face. Because that is assuming. Accusing. Understanding.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Nathaniel doesn't seem pleased that he is. "How wonderful for me to be tied to someone so willing to watch this all happen. Do you get off on it? Do you keep Kevin because his suffering gets your rocks off?"

Nicky and Aaron jump out of their seats in defense, in offense. Kevin jerks at the sound of his own name in a conversation he doesn't understand. Riko looks pleased at the chaos even if he doesn't know what is being said. Andrew sees Wymack approach at the same time Nathaniel does. He turns all of his attention to Kevin and rips into him in French.

Kevin looks suitably wrecked by the time they are separated. He's quiet through dinner at their new table. Glued to Andrew's side when they're forced to linger. Tense when Riko's flock descends.

Funnily enough, his shoulders unwind when Nathaniel eventually makes his way over alone.

Nathaniel ignores Andrew which is well enough. The French is annoying, though, and it doesn't seem like a particularly happy conversation.

Kevin reaches out to touch but doesn't. Nathaniel looks then to Andrew for one scathing second and says in German, "If he looks upset enough when I leave maybe you'll get some sleep tonight."

Then he contorts his face in direct opposition to the soft cadence of the French he exchanges with Kevin, all show and little substance.

Kevin plays his part well, cowering and crumbling as they leave.

Andrew refuses to allow anyone close to them at the back of the bus, especially Nicky and Aaron who won't stop trying to bother him about this soulmate business.

It's all much less funny as he comes down off his last dose.

"Tell me everything he said to you," he demands.

It takes a bit before he can.

"He was supposed to be a Raven, something between me and Jean. It could never be good there but… it's worse for him now than it ever would have been if he'd just stayed. The Master, Riko… we have to get him out of there, Andrew."

"We don't don't have to do anything."

"If we don't, he will die."

"That's not my problem." How presumptive he was about Andrew's priorities. How entitled he was to Andrew's help.

"You're fine with leaving your soulmate to be tortured and killed and chopped up into pieces?"

Kevin had either pieced it together or was clued in by a broken little bird but in the grand scheme of things soulmate was the least interesting thing about Kevin's assertions.

"To know the fate of man. You're not a fortune teller, Kevin. Your imagination gets more creative with every passing breakdown."

"It's a fact. He told me his father is going to be released from jail next year and he's going to do to Nathaniel what he made us watch when we were kids and cut him apart and-"

Kevin's wheeze was not one of fear but despair.

"I won't let him stay there, Andrew, and I can't do it alone. I can't do it without you but I'm going to do it regardless."

A spine.

Andrew had no memory of a time he saw Kevin with one off the court. And that it was inspired by Andrew's soulemate, well…

Fate was a real bitch sometimes.

#aftg #andrew minyard #neil josten #andreil #kevin day #nicky hemmick #aaron minyard #soulmate au #my writing #trying to feel better about myself not being able to write a regular fic so i dressed up my twitter thread from the other day

325 notes · View notes

doodlingstuff · 3 years

Text

Neil’s (fake) B-day

Let’s celebrate my boy’s birthday with some fluff :)

All likes, shares, kudos and comments make my day shine. Thanks for reading ❤

***

( Chapter 14 of Comeback)

Andrew was definitely allowing himself to get carried away by Neil’s joy, otherwise, there is no logical explanation as to why he is driving the pipe dream towards the stadium instead of Fox Tower after he got Abby’s clearance to get back to classes. They could be using each other time’s in more pleasant ways, but then again, Neil loves his newfound family and all their nonsense. And Andrew is no one to take that away from him. Even less after everyone thought they’d lost him for good. Twice.

Matt’s massive truck and Allison’s hideous atrocity are already there when they arrive. Neil is still too unsteady to walk that much from the parking lot to the court on his own, and he is too stubborn to use any walking aid, but Andrew has proved his talent as a reliable walking stick, so he lets the striker hold to his arm and squeeze it all the way.

As Andrew knew beforehand, the lounge is covered with streamers, balloons, confetti, and an enormous Happy Birthday sign.

Every Fox approaches Neil with a big smile. Some dare to pat him on the shoulder and Matt ruffles his hair. Almost everyone gives him presents and of course, the boy looks lost. He turns to see Andrew, but it wasn’t his idea, so he won’t make it easy, although there is the faint ghost of a smile trying to break free as Neil gets more and more confused.

“Happy birthday kid.” Coach is the last one to approach and the striker finally finds it in him to talk.

“Thank you? It’s-It’s not my birthday, tho”

His comment is received by a well-deserved couple of pairs of eye rolls.

“Some things never change, do they?” Aaron asks. Her cheerleader shushes him with an elbow on the ribs. Maybe Andrew doesn’t hate the woman that much after all.

“Sweet baby, don’t tell me you forgot your own birthday,” Nicky says.

“It’s March 31, Neil! We promised you a party!” Matt follows with one of his brightest smiles.

The auburn-haired turns to look at Andrew as if he’d had any part in that. He was only the driver and his attention is drifting away from the happy reunion as he eyes the big cake on the back. That may be worth the bother.

“Told you my birthday was in January,” Neil says, clearly uncomfortable.

“And you were getting killed then.” Allison goes on. “You deserve a birthday party. Even if it’s not your real birthday.”

“But-”

“Lookit this way,” Nicky interrupts. “You get to celebrate twice every year. Sounds like a dream.”

Neil looks like he wants to keep arguing, but Wymack steps in before. “Shut the fuck up before I get sick. These morons made you a party. Enjoy it and stop looking like a stray cat for once.”

The next argument in Neil’s tongue dies as everyone starts to roll food around. They are smart enough to restrain themselves from singing and the cake finally arrives. Since the junkie is happy talking to everyone and watching wide-eyed all his presents, Andrew can distract himself by seeing how many slices of birthday cake he can eat before getting sick of it. As if that was possible. It’s easier for Kevin to die from diabetes just by watching.

"Alright. Time to get serious.” Wymack is clapping to get everyone’s attention after they all are stuffed and ready to pass out. It takes almost fifteen minutes for the team to clear their heads and gather in the sofas around their Coach.

“As you know, we are too far away to have a normal championship, but after how things unfurled for the Ravens,” He spares a brief glance towards Andrew that the twin dismisses “They decided to get them back to their original district. That said, championships will be only a single round of deathmatches to be played on the same day. Winner teams will be qualified by points scored. The two best go directly for the championship and the rest can wait until next season.”

“I still don’t know which team we will be facing but from now I tell you that for once, it doesn’t matter the score. This year had brought a shitload of problems I hope I never have to face again, but we made it to this round, so let's take the chance as best as we can and keep showing we are not a joke anymore.

Wymack is faster to keep talking before his shortest striker speaks “As for you Neil, don’t even expect to play more than five minutes. You are allowed back to practices, but I will strangle you myself if you pull another fucking stunt in the court. Depending on how you do and in the remote chance we pass, I might think about letting you play the full final match. Doubts?”

Everyone shook their heads or deny. Andrew can’t take the perspective of getting back to practices, but Neil is radiating energy only with the perspective of five minutes on a match, so he abstains from complaining as Kevin starts talking endlessly about every single plan and strategy he’s plotted during the past months.

Andrew can’t wait to get out of there, but if Neil is happy, he can stay a bit longer.

Campus is swollen by darkness when they get out of the gathering. Nicky spends the short ride speaking, as he always does, and Kevin is making a tantrum from traveling in the back. Andrew can’t care less. If he doesn’t like it, he can walk to Fox Tower or catch a ride with the rest.

When they arrive at the building, Andrew takes Neil’s duffel bag and motions towards the elevator. The junkie is about to protest, but he is finally learning to tell when he’s tired and the night hasn’t ended for them, so he steps into the elevator.

Andrew has the door of the dorm open for Neil. They step in and the blond makes way to the bedroom. He dumps the duffel bag on the bed and looks for the things he stuffed in there before heading out.

“Wait.” There it goes. The cogwheels inside the junkie’s brain finally move. Nicky and Aaron pause their silly game to see “This is not my dorm.”

“It is now.” Neil looks for the lie in Andrew’s eyes and then he sees Nicky laughing as bills pass between him, the other twin, and even Kevin.

“You are such a cute thing. Andrew kicked Aaron out as soon he knew you weren’t dying.”

Neil looks startled from Nicky’s gigantic smile to Andrew’s shrug. They had shared enough nightmares and had slept together so many times for it to be a scandal, but it was until then when the blond realizes he didn’t ask. He just acted out of spite because he wanted to have Neil close.

A big smile spreads on the striker’s face and then he follows Andrew to the roof.

After three cigarettes, Andrew still can’t find how to get this over with. They had talked about bigger demons before. They had shared more intimacy. It shouldn’t be a big deal. Still, his voice is almost scared when he talks.

“Enjoyed your party?”

Icy eyes send a wave of shivers down his spine. “I guess. I’ve never had one.”

“And you won’t ask me why I didn’t get you a present?”

“Do you want me to? I don’t need presents. And you had given me much more.”

“Then shut up.” He says and finally drops the contents of his pocket in Neil’s hands.

Minutes pass before the striker can talk again. “My phone and keys.”

“You left them on purpose.” There is a hard swallow traveling down Neil’s throat.

“Told you I never thought I’ll stay. And... I couldn’t be Neil Josten in the Nest. If I took these, they would’ve been more reminders of the life I couldn’t have anymore.”

“You have it now.” The official IDs sent by Kengo are still unbelievable to Neil. He nods as he grips the objects in his hands. The proofs that he is real, that he didn’t come out from Andrew’s drugged mind and he will stay. Probably.

“And this is your present.” The blond drops a packet of cigarettes in Neil’s lap. He looks bewildered and attempts to give them back.

“Abby says I shouldn’t smoke again.”

There is no point in explaining things to the pretty idiot, so Andrew settles for looking at him until he opens the damn box and takes out a couple of pieces of cloth.

“You want me to sew your socks?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Andrew replies while pulling up his sleeves. Maybe Neil can get the hint that way.

“Armbands?”

“It’s already hot as fucking hell and you keep wearing long sleeves.”

Realization crosses fast through his face. If the junkie thought Andrew wouldn’t notice he didn’t want the scars on his wrists on display, he was even dumber than how he looked.

“Thank you,” The red-haired says while slipping the pieces of cloth through his hands.

Words are burning Andrew’s throat worse than the smoke of his sixth cigarette. He doesn’t want a no , but he knows he won’t be in peace if he doesn’t ask. “Will you stay now?”

“I haven’t gone anywhere.”

The blond only spares a glance at Neil. He doesn’t want to explain. However, as silence stretches, he knows he needs to make sure the point is understood just in case Neil is indeed stupid or Andrew hasn’t been clear enough.

“Last year I told you to give me your back and stay. You ran away and did the exact opposite. You’re not in danger anymore. The promise stands. I’m just asking again.”

A wild river clashes with sweet honey. For the first time in a long, long while, Andrew can’t tell what hiding those eyes are hiding. He is the one with the blank expression, not Neil. Silence keeps growing between them. The blond is sure he talked too soon. He is expecting the dream to vanish because it has been a big strike of consecutive good weeks and nothing lasts forever. He doesn’t forget that.

“Your memory isn’t so perfect after all.” Andrew is startled by the comment. Of course, it is. A fucking burden he never asked to have. A good thing when it comes to Neil and the bright smiles he gives. The twin starts digging if he had any other slips like the room swap without asking first, but he can’t find any. “I said yes. Always yes.”

“It was a different question.” Relief spreads as he speaks.

“But the answer is always yes.” The blank stare is quickly replaced by a big smile.

Andrew knows he has to tell him that always can’t be his answer for everything, that there will be times when it’s no, that he will respect any change of mind, that he doesn’t want to force it, that he is afraid everything is still an illusion, but Neil is so close and he has talked so much, that the only thing he manages is a soft growl as the striker´s lips are near his neck, and then, every objection gets drowned in a kiss.

“One condition,” Neil says when they part. “You don’t protect me. We protect each other.”

Every complaint dies even before Andrew can voice it because it is true.

Before Neil said it, he gave his life willingly for Andrew, and the blond had turned the world upside down in a week to keep the pipe dream safe. The promise was fulfilled before it was made.

Regardless, it’s the first time someone says to him anything like that, and it fills his chest with something so powerful and strange that he isn’t sure if his life is really this good. Perhaps he died in juvie, or in Thanksgiving, or in Easthaven, and this is all a weird fantasy created to bear the boredom of being in hell.

When they return to the dorms, neither asks before getting inside the same bed to fall asleep with their fingers intertwined.

If always feels like this, Andrew can get used to having it.

#aftg #aftg fanfic #aftg fic #all for the game #the foxhole court #the raven king #the kings men #canon divergent au #canon divergence #andrew minyard #neil josten #andrew x neil #neil josten & the foxes #david wymack #always yes #fluf #birthday #party

9 notes · View notes

aftgficlibrary · 4 years

Note

Do you know of any fics where Andrew and Neil are in foster care together?

hi! here is what i have found :) -Scout

i'd die for you (that's easy to say) by vicariously kingly (pelted) (M | 13,435 | 1/1)

Overall, Renee liked Neil. He was smart. He was quick. He wasn’t squeamish. He took no for an answer. He was fifteen, knew how to keep mum, and wielded knives almost as well as she did.

The Kenseys as a foster family were known to be absent, not supportive. She wondered briefly if they knew Neil hadn’t been home in days, and then decided that no, they probably didn’t.

( Mary leaves Neil to Witness Protection at age eleven, and the world isn't the same. )

/ Underage

Through Rose Coloured Glasses by puddlejumper99 (G | Incomplete | 1/?)

a collection (hopefully) of short ficlets set in a world where neil and andrew are adopted at a young age and grow up as best friends.

Ink Pots and Foxgloves by queerwriterbee (T | Incomplete | 2/?)

{***FIC CURRENTLY ON HIATUS UNTIL AUTHOR GETS HIS SHIT TOGETHER***}

It's been two years since Neil left behind his life of running and fear, two years since the Wymack's took him in as their foster child, two years since he began his new life in Palmetto.

It's been three years since Andrew became an emancipated minor, three years since he discovered his twin brother's and cousin's existence, three years since he started at Bee's Flowers and Apothecary.

Now the two young men are neighbors on the top floor of the Court Boulevard Suites, with Neil working at the Foxhole Tattoo and Piercing Parlor on the second floor and Andrew at Bee's on the first and their lives are about to change in ways they never could have anticipated.

(Or: my try at the Tattoo Artist/Florist AU with some good Andreil fun)

My way home... by ionlyloveyouironically (T | Incomplete | 7/?)

Two years after they run, Mary Hatford decides it's not working.

At age 11, Andrew Doe moves into a massive house with his new foster mother, Stella Josten. They make a picture-perfect family: mother, son, and strange boy who lives inside the walls.

Glitter and Gold by trubenblack (Not Rated | Incomplete | 4/?)

Slightly altered timeline. After Mary dies in Seattle when Neil was 10, Neil escapes briefly but Lola, Romero and Nathan catch him again, only to be caught by a police officer and imprisoned for child abuse. Neil is sent into a foster home. Shenanigans with a small blonde boy ensue

Blindsided by headbanging_nightrunner (M | Incomplete | 2/?)

Abram's world goes dark when he's 10 years old. He doesn't understand what's happening or why suddenly, besides losing his sight, he and his mom are suddenly on the run with a target on their backs. Then suddenly, he's Abram Doe, his mother is gone and he's under the care of the foster system without really understanding how he got there.

/ Graphic Depictions of Violence

Just a Figment by Foxandraven for smokesprite (Not Rated | Incomplete | 1/?)

If there was one thing that haunted Chris’s dreams more than his father, it was Figments. They were everywhere on the streets, trailing faithfully after their creators. If there weren’t any physical Figments around to remind him, someone had it covered; the news with a change in the Figment Laws or how to properly care for them, people talking about charities, donations, foster and halfway homes.Chris couldn't escape.~Or the universe in which Imaginary Friends (Figments) actually exist and Wymack ends up running a halfway home for everything deadly and dangerous that needs a second chance.

74 notes · View notes

fallingin-like · 4 years

Text

november 2

andriel into the future (series) by @dustbottle

see which other fics i’m reviewing this month! / my review request post!

these are some wonderfully written post-canon fics that make you feel warm and safe. we get to see neil and andrew’s relationship grow and strengthen. there’s neil’s year at psu without andrew, a minyard-josten rivalry fic, just some good times, coming out, and cats! there are 5 fics in this series.

missing you (is all i am)

i feel like this whole series is so iconic, and i understand why. it’s really well written and is just such soft content. as much as it’s fun to read the many au’s that are out there, it’s nice to come back and have some comforting post-canon that wraps you up like a blanket because you know andrew and neil are just out there living their life together.

parts i really liked:

”tension scraping at the back of his throat and humming distractingly under his skin. the quiet of his empty apartment… is pressing in on him from all sides, treacherous and thickly oppressive.” i really like the description that you use so well. i can imagine how this feels, you’ve put to words something that i have only ever experienced before

that the exy highlight is literally just neil. andrew is so far gone ahhh

”in neil’s absence, andrew feels strangely untethered, smaller and emptier and less somehow than he has in years.” i just really like the words you used, it is so right

that when andrew finally sees neil looking bad and immediately looks for an injury or something, it reminds me that andrew doesn’t realise how much neil missed andrew. during the novels we saw everything from neil’s perspective and it can seem like andrew is just an anchor, so it’s nice to understand that andrew, like everyone, is uncertain and unsure and new to this whole relationship thing too. i find it’s easy to forget because andrew always seems so decisive and confident, that he’s never done anything like this, let himself be so vulnerable, given parts of himself away to other people like this.

”he bleeds raw emotion all over the place even as he fights to keep it contained.” i love the imagery here

“neil says, and smiles; a dismantled gun; a knife wrapped in lace.” yes!

”’because it’s the truth,’ neil tells, trusting and honest and harsh, and just like that, the resistance breaks apart.” this feels so fitting, because truth is such a huge part of the foundation of this relationship.

minyard-josten: a rivalry for the ages

i think like most people in the fandom, rivalry!au’s are so so fun to read. there’s something fun about being in on a secret, especially since in these fics, it’s not necessarily a secret, people just are oblivious.

parts/things i especially enjoyed:

West! not going to lie, he actually kind of reminds me of someone i know (named Wes) who fits this character. the guy i know is really nice and chill, but has serious muscle, a bunch of tattoos, and always looks super cool which is how i picture Wes. and i like when this type of character feels awkward, it endears me to them a little bit more

great to hear of the bonding between neil and his new teammates! i imagine it must have been tough for him at first, he has to adjust because the foxes were his first team, but also his first family and that’s something you can’t just move on from.

”…[matt] keeps an impressively straight face, commenting that andrew and neil have always had a ‘unique relationship’…” i LOVE when the foxes play up the rivalry with increasingly ambiguous and wild comments. i mean they’re not wrong?? they’re just purposely misleading the public and i am here for it!

”kevin catgeorically refuses to talk about anything not strictly exy-related; when pressed, he stiffly remarks that their teamwork had never been a problem.” of course kevin tries to stay out of it. he must be preparing such a long lecture for the next time he sees andrew and neil.

the bit where neil scores on andrew and andrew grabs his helmet. they’re sO cute!! i can only imagine that it must be so rewarding for neil to be able to read andrew so well because it shows him that 1. how he is affecting andrew and making him feel things and 2. allowing himself to have a strong enough relationship with someone to recognize all these small quirks, etc.

”as he watches the other team celebrate their win, with andrew a speck of calm indifference in their midst” something about the imagery of andrew being this calm in the chaos. i think that’s such a big part of their relationship. neil knows that no matter what, andrew will be there for him, his rock, something stable when everything else is crazy.

you did a really great job transitioning between all these scenes in such a short amount of time. going from the intensity of the game to the quiet of the changeroom, moving from having their teams and the crowd around them to being alone. there’s this distance between them when they’re on court, but when they’re alone? they’re free to be themselves and it’s so interesting to see how different and similar it is to how they normally act. andrew shows his affection in all the little gestures and neil is able to catch all of them where other people just see the blank mask still.

the self i am

the parts i really enjoyed:

something you don’t quite emphasize, but the fact that they’re driving home. it’s clear that since they’ve been driving for such a long time, it would make more sense to fly, but it’s cute that they don’t. first, it shows just another way that neil takes andrew’s preference into consideration. second, it gives them time to spend together! even though they’re about to have a few days alone in the columbia house, there’s definitely something different and intimate about being in a car with someone for hours. there’s nowhere else to go and no way to reduce the time that you’re together (because i’m sure that andrew was speeding anyway)

andrew not smoking around daisy. although i do think that neil has softened some of andrew’s edges, i do think that andrew would be more considerate towards children than adults/teens. he knows too well how vulnerable they are and even if he doesn’t enjoy spending time with them, i believe he would do the small things like not smoke around them, or share his candy with them.

”progress is slow and not always linear, but it is there” sometimes this can be easy to forget, but that doesn’t make it less true.

all the ways that andriel should have been obvious to the public but they were too oblivious to know (perfect format of a 5+1 if people still did that HAH you know what maybe there is one like that out there and i just can’t recall it at this moment)

”’i’ll think about it,’ he says, and it would have been a dismissal from anyone else, but from andrew it’s a promise.” i like this because it shows that andrew won’t commit to doing something if he’s still unsure about it. he still takes his word very seriously and doesn’t want to give neil false hope.

oh double fudge ice cream sounds GOOD

”winter sunlight bathes andrew in watery gold, lending his pale hair an almost ethereal glow, and neil feels, with a fierceness that surprises even himself.” i love the imagery you use in this. watery gold? yeS.

th e kiss!!! yeahhh

”kevin is staring stoically ahead, either resigned to his fate or possibly sleeping with his eyes open” I LOVE KEVIN DAY (and also the way you wrote this. so funny)

woohoo! acknowledgement that even though neil is mostly soft, he is also a knife boy and could cut you if he wanted *insert knife emoji*

i can imagine the headlines MINYARD-DAY RIVALRY?

bless the foxes and their reactions. they’re exactly what i would expect.

neil asking if andrew wants him to sleep on the couch!! so considerate! these boys!!

i wanted to say that i like that this fic didn’t just end with the kiss, in fact that’s the middle of the fic. the fall-out/reaction of the public is definitely some of the more interesting parts, and the scenes where andrew and neil are likely dealing with the most stress

a battle, a war, a growing up

things i really liked:

hearing about andrew’s childhood! i think the idea of andrew reading harry potter is pretty fitting too, i imagine that it would be something easy to come across and that he would be the type to try and spend time at the library, either a public one or with school

acknowledgement of andrew missing neil, it must be hard for him, after trying to pretend he is independent for so long

”andrew’s mind is flat with the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that comes from beating himself bloody against the constraints of his own spiralling thoughts.” i feel this.

that andrew is still in contact with bee! and he still comes and talks to her about the big decisions he is making in his life. i think that it’s great to see how much he trusts her and wants to share himself with her, she’s probably the second adult he has been able to do so with (first being wymack).

”you have been taking care of people for years, andrew… this is not so different when you think about it.” YES THIS IS GOOD

i like the idea of andrew picking out two cats at once, of the cats being brothers and keeping them together

the first time that king sits in andrew’s lap is so soft

”there are no more sharp edges to the way he feels about neil; there is only trust, hard-won but utterly true” ugH this is so good! their relationship started as only sharp edges and things that they could cut with, it’s so great to see how time has worn them softer and allowed them to grow and live and want and love

sir! allowing! pets! bless this moment forever

YES NEIL. YOU ROAST THAT REPORTER!!!

oh dang, i forgot that andrew being sick would likely be so similar to withdrawal that it would trigger him. i think i read a fic that explored this but i cannot for the life of me remember what it was called.

”bee picks up on the first ring, just like she always does, and andrew finally exhales.” i just really like the wording that you used, it feels so right

neil and his bandana strikes again, stealing andrew’s heart (and mine)

so nice to see aaron and andrew getting along!! i do believe that post-canon they work things out like this. they’re still rough around the edges, i think that’s how most siblings are, but they have come to an understanding that they won’t always understand each other but that doesn’t mean they won’t always support each other.

also? i just relate to this fic because i really really want a cat. this just made me want a cat more. they’re such a perfect addition to the life that andrew and neil have.

i think this whole series was lovely. the writing is really easy to read and i love seeing the progression of neil and andrew’s relationship, both with each other and the rest of the world. you have great characterization and i like the direction you took with all of these fics. it was really nice to see glimpses of their life in this last fic and it’s so nice to hear everything from andrew’s thoughts. he’s a character that keeps so much on the inside that it’s great to be able to explore what’s really going on inside of his head and see how he reacts to everything inwardly and his process filtering these reactions. this was so nice to read again, and i’d love to read any more additions to this series!!

#andriel into the future #aftg fic review #raelle writes

17 notes · View notes

knox-knocks · 5 years

Text

home alone au

i was going write an entire fic for this but then i ran out of time so have this instead! also this got kind of long so i put it under a keep reading

neil lives with matt and dan his sophomore year of college

this is a couple years after his father was executed by his uncle, so neil is free to be neil josten without having to worry about his father finding him

matt and dan are going to paris with allison and renee

they offered for neil to go, but neil declined and decided to stay home

alone

after making sure he’s really really going to be okay by himself for two weeks, matt, dan, allison, and renee go off to the airport

neil’s okay

really

maybe a bit lonely

but he did survive on the run for eight years so he’ll be fine

insert andrew

or “the monster” as matt and dan call him

andrew lives alone a few houses down from neil, matt, dan

rumor has it he killed his parents and his twin brother out of cold blood and buried their bodies in the yard

too bad there just wasn’t enough evidence to convict

so andrew minyard walks free

now neil is NOT scared of andrew

he’s short, he’s grumpy, and he’s an asshole

but he’s not scary. not to neil

so he just kind of leaves andrew alone and andrew leaves neil alone

a couple days into neil being alone, he’s watching tv in the living room when he hears voices outside the house

neil freezes and goes to investigate

he nearly books a plane ticket to argentina when he sees who’s lurking outside

riko moryiama and romero malcolm

neil thinks they found me they found me they’re going to kill me

he quickly flicks on the light and runs upstairs to the find a weapon before he hides

but they don’t follow him

they thought the house was empty and good to rob, but when the light turned on they got spooked and left

they actually had no idea neil was there

the next day, neil is walking back from the grocery store

a bit spooked after seeing andrew, but andrew didn’t pay him any mind

neil isn’t paying attention to where he’s walking and is nearly hit by a van

driven by romero with riko in the passenger seat

neil immediately recognizes them of course

but they don’t seem to know who he his

he goes home, confused and more than a little freaked out

when romero and riko return to the house that night, neil quickly finds out that they turned to thievery after falling on hard times after the moriyama/wesninski empire was dismantled

and this is just some horrible horrible coincidence

once the mobsters-turned-bandits are gone, neil goes to the nearby court

it’s the middle of the night so he doesn’t expect anyone there, which is what he wants

he never played exy again after he and mary ran

but sometimes he’ll sneak into a court when he feels bad to hit some exy balls around with a borrowed racquet

it’s not the same but it’s something

except the court isn’t empty

and that’s when neil has his second heart attack in a week

kevin day is on the court, firing balls into an empty goal and going through several intense drills by himself

everyone knows that kevin’s career was ruined when he broke his left hand in a skiing accident. he tried to play a season with the palmetto state foxes, but he was never the same and he stopped playing after the foxes’ failure

neil never thought he’d see kevin pick up an exy racquet ever again. but now that he has, neil is in awe

kevin doesn’t see neil, he’s too absorbed in his game

but the person in the bleachers does

andrew minyard is watching him from his spot a couple rows up

when neil sits to watch kevin practice, andrew hops down the last couple rows and settles a couple feet away

neil tenses, but andrew doesn’t say anything. they just sit in silence until kevin is done and neil leaves before kevin can spot him

neil returns every night after that, and eventually they do start to talk

andrew drops kevin off at his house but he finds neil again and joins him on a walk

they start to talk

neil asks andrew if he really murdered his family

andrew confesses his mother died in a car accident, but she deserved it because she was beating aaron and andrew promised to protect him. but he never met his dad and andrew hadn’t talked to aaron or his cousin nicky since he graduated highschool

neil understands killing in defense, so he doesn’t hold it against andrew. if anything, it helps him understand andrew better

in return, neil tells andrew about how he got his scars after andrew asks about them. he tells him the basic gist of who is father was and being on the run with his mom

he tells andrew about mary’s death and the burning car. the kidnapping and the dashboard lighter. the execution and neil’s freedom

they learn to trust each other, even though it hasn’t even been that long since they officially met

a couple days later, three days before christmas, riko and romero return

neil just barely fends them off by making the house seem full, using mannequins allison left over and the life-size cut out of jeremy knox tied to a roomba

he hears romero say that they’ll come back on christmas eve, giving neil two days to prepare

that night, neil doesn’t tell andrew about riko and romero. instead he lets andrew talk about his family, and how he adamantly refuses to admit that he misses them

neil feels a pang at that. his mother wasn’t good, but sometime he still misses the good parts of her. and he misses matt and dan so much, even though they’ve only been gone for a week and a half

neil tells andrew that he should contact his brother, but andrew refuses

aaron has katelyn now, and nicky has erik. they don’t need andrew anymore

and andrew promised to protect kevin, no matter what. nothing will come in the way of his promises

the next day, neil begins to set up a bunch of traps

he ices the steps to the door, and puts an iron on the doorknob to make it super hot. he sets up a glue-and-feather trap in the living room and tar and nails along the basement stairs

when riko and romero show up on christmas eve, they don’t stand a chance

they both quickly figure out who neil is, and they really, really want to kill him

neil doesn’t call the cops of course. he doesn’t trust the police, not after those two cops that were paid off when neil was sent to his death by his father’s hands

so he lets riko and romero go through his traps

and, if he’s being completely honest with himself, it’s really funny to watch romero get hit in the face with a flying paint can and the outline of an iron on riko’s stupid face is hysterical

plus he shoots them with a bb gun, so that’s pretty great too

but neil’s fun ends pretty quickly when romero and riko catch him in the neighbors house

neil knows it’s the end for him

he’s trapped and romero has a gun. riko has two wicked-looking knives

neil squeezes his eyes shut, silently apologizes to matt and dan, and waits for death

except it doesn’t come

neil opens his eyes to see andrew with a blade against riko’s throat

neil takes his chance and dives for romero

the gun goes off and hits riko in the leg, causing him to drop his knives

neil snatches it before riko can and drives it through romero’s palm before he can shoot andrew

the cops come, and romero and riko are arrested for all the robberies

luckily, the cops know exactly which houses they hit, since they left the water running in all of them

neil and andrew go home to neil’s house, completely safe

that’s when andrew kisses neil

and neil thinks that this is definitely something he could get used to

the next morning, neil wakes up alone

well

with andrew borrowing the couch in the next room

neil goes downstairs. everything is quiet, and it’s snowing outside. it’s really peaceful

then he turns around and sees matt

and matt runs to him and gives neil such a massive bear hug that it takes neil off of his feet

matt tells neil that he didn’t want neil to spend christmas alone so he decided to come back to be with him. he tells him that he had to catch three different planes and had to get a ride with two other guys and it was crazy!

neil laughs and he really is grateful that matt is here

then a man with tanned skin and dark curls walks in with ... andrew?

no not andrew

his twin. aaron

matt introduces them as the guys he got a ride with, nicky and aaron

and that’s the moment andrew decides to come downstairs

matt stops because w t f why is the monster in his house and why does neil not look alarmed

he is even more confused when nicky immediately runs to andrew and stops just before he goes to hug him. andrew nods once and nicky pulls his cousin into a simple hug and doesn’t let go until andrew basically shoves him away

behind them, aaron and andrew nod at each other in acknowledgement

and THEN

dan, allison, and renee pop up behind them

they caught the morning flight and made it back just in time

neil, matt, dan, allison, renee, nicky, andrew, and aaron all decide to have christmas dinner and exchange presents

andrew calls kevin and bee and they come over with kevin’s dad, wymack, and his step-mom, abby

neil doesn’t think he could ever be happier than he is in that moment, surrounded by friends and family

for the years to come, they all get together and have christmas dinner with each other

and it’s perfect

#aftg #tfc #all for the game #the foxhole court #andreil #neil josten #andrew minyard #matt boyd #dan wilds #allison reynolds #renee walker #nicky hemmick #aaron minyard #kevin day #home alone au #merry christmas everyone :)#mine

339 notes · View notes

ashrelfury · 5 years

Note

Could you do an AU in which Neil has a 'romantic' relationship with that asshole guy who sometimes hits him (he hits back, ofc). (Y'know, like a really unhealthy relationship). But then, he meets Andrew and the Foxes!

The guy’s name is Patrick.

His profile says he’s Ace, which is perfect because Neil is honestly tired of dating people who expect him to cuddle and have sex.

He wasn’t broken, but sex just wasn’t all that important to him. He was focused on his BA for applied mathematics, and playing exy for the Columbia Dragons.

What the profile didn’t say was that he had heavy fists. It took Neil 3 months to figure it out.

It took Patrick 4 seconds to know that Neil gave as good as he got, if not better.

The first time, Patrick accused Neil of cheating on him with his roommate. Aaron wasn’t impressed, but he stood there in the living room, listening to Patrick yell and Neil fume, though Neil plays his part silently.

It obviously isn’t what Patrick wants, because the anger just seems to rise and now its Aaron who’s withdrawing slowly, memories of his mother clouding his mind. Of fists and words and...Abuse. That’s what it was. Abuse. Aaron knows that now, can admit it to himself. His foster mother, Bee had helped him work through it.

Neil is reminded of his father, and that makes him numb inside. Fury is an affective counterattack to apathy though, becasue soon, Patrick’s fist is holding tight to Neil’s shirt collar and then a fucking brick is coming down on his face.

Neil falls back, but it doesn’t last.

Nobody knows what happened to Nathan Wesninski. The Feds never managed to find evidence, and no one really bothered for long. No one cries when bad men die. No one worth while anyways.

Neil knows though.

Nathan Wesninski died with a knife in his throat, looking up at his son’s smiling face.

When Mary left for England without her son, her son decided enough was enough. He killed his father and walked away in the dead of night. Nathaniel Wesninski died that night, buried in that horrible mansion with his father, and Neil Josten came into existence thanks to a friendly hacker in San Antonio TX known as Becky.

Now, standing in front of a pissed off 5′11 asshole who thought anger gave him reason enough to lay hands on Neil.... he snapped again.

Using training he never wanted to learn in the first place, Neil rolled to his feet, spitting up blood on the floor and smiling grimly through bloodied teeth. He saw Patrick’s brown eyes widen, he saw the bigger man take a large step back, he saw Aaron pull out his phone.

He didn’t care.

“You’re going to regret that.” Neil said calmly, and then he’s all elbows and knees, because Lola had been a very effective teacher too. Even without the knives.

Patrick goes down after two blows and Neil legs him fall. He’s on the ground, but still conscious. Neil leaves him there. He turned instead to focus on Aaron, who reeled back at whatever he saw on Neil’s face. Neil didn’t blame him for it.

“Thanks for the help with Science. I’ll see you in class.”

And then he left.

Patrick called on Thursday. Neil ignored him.

Patrick found him on Saturday, apologizing and crying. Neil spat in his face.

On Tuesday, he came to Neil with a new pair of running shoes and Neil’s exy jersey number stretched over his broad back, a shy smile on his face and guilt in his eyes.

Neil gave in.

The peace didn’t even last 2 weeks.

He was in Patrick’s dorm again, Aaron in his room with someone Neil didn’t get a good look at, because he’d been taking a shower. His apartment was out of hot water, and using the dorm’s showers was better than using the ones in the court. Neil hated open showers, his scars always standing in stark contrast to his pale skin.

He had on a large shirt, a shirt he’d stolen from Rivers, his teammate on the Dragons. Apparently, that was his mistake.

The second he walked into the living room, Patrick’s smile dropped like a bomb, and Neil hadn’t even heard the whistle before the boom. The glare nearly had him stumbling though, which was sorta amazing, given his past.

“That’s not your shirt.” Patrick said, voice gravel and dangerous. Instantly, Neil’s back straightened, his heart pounding in his chest.

“It’s Rivers’.” Neil answered, as clearly as he could manage. (”Don’t mumble at me, boy! Speak clearly or get the fuck back down to the basement!)

Neil was too lost in his thoughts to notice that Patrick had gotten up off the couch and started to stalk towards him,.

He did notice when his back hit the wall though. He also noticed when a fist dug itself into his ribs.

“What the fuck are you doing wearing another guy’s shirt?!” Patrick hissed. Low. Quiet. Like he didn’t want to get Aaron’s attention. He likely didn’t, but Neil sure as hell did. Because this wasn’t Nathan, and he wasn’t helpless.

“Get the fuck off me!” Neil yelled, and a knee came up right into Patrick’s side. The man’s hands fell away, but Neil wasn’t done. An elbow to the back of Patrick’s head had the man on his knee, a groan falling from his lips. Neil’s smile was sharp. The Butcher coming back for a peak at the real world, and craving blood.

“What the fuck is going on here.”

Neil looked over Patrick’s doubled over form and met eyes with Aaron... wait... no.

“Aaron?” Neil called, his tone more a question than anything.

And then another Aaron came up behind the first one and Neil’s brain did a double step.

“Not Aaron.” He heard himself say, just before his back hit the wall again, his head cracking as it too collided with the white plaster, and also, Patrick was in his face.

“You fucking piece of-” Patrick didn’t even get to finish.

In the blink of an eye, Not-Aaron was behind the bigger man, and Patrick stiffened, everything going still in a hot second and Neil was left confused.

“Fuck! Andrew!” A new voice came from behind Patrick, one Neil didn’t really recognize. He didn’t really care about it one way or the other, especially not when he heard the low order spoken in a near whisper, just over Patrick’s shoulder.

“Step away from him, or you’re going to need a new kidney, Miller.”

Not-Aaron... Andrew, had a more dangerous spark to him than Patrick could ever hope to, and Neil didn’t even need to be looking at his face to notice it. He felt it, like liquid nitrogen being injected right down his spinal cord. And Neil shivered. Not entirely in fear.

Patrick did step back, pure terror in his eyes as he looked into Neil’s face, not even daring to try to turn.

“It was just an argument, Minyard.” He tried instead, but the tremble in his voice and Neil’s derisive snort were more than incriminating enough.

“I don’t care what it was. Go. Lick your wounds in private, Miller. I don’t want to see you again while I’m here, and if I do, I’ll strike first. No questions later.”

In a mere moment, it looked like whatever had been keeping Patrick stationary was now taken away, because the big man moved faster then Neil had ever seen him move, out of the room and back into his own. Not even sparing a glance back at Neil, who now stood face to face with Not... um.. right, Andrew.

You must be Josten.” Andrew said. And just like that, all the treat was gone. All the danger disappearing like it was never there. Neil relaxed despite himself.

“And you’re Andrew. The Twin.” He didn’t need to be a genius to guess, and Andrew obviously thought so too if his bored expression was anything to go by. For some reason, Neil found himself grinning.

“Thank you. But I could have handled it.”

“Yeah. Aaron said you could. Doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy doing that.”

Neil laughed.

“Holy fuck, is that an honest smile?!”

The voice drew Andrew and Neil’s attentions away from each other, and to Aaron’s door. There, in the doorway, stood a tall curly haired men with a wide grin on his face and a friendliness to him Neil had never been comfortable with.

“Hey, I’m Nicky. Aaron’s told us all about you.” Nicky winked, and Neil frowned.

“I didn’t tell you shit.”

Aaron came out next, and he gave Neil a slight nod. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” it came out like a reflex, but it was true this time. His eyes wondered back to Andrew, but the other man was looking at the door.

“Lets go.” Andrew said, moving for the exit.

“Shit! Andrew wait! Kevin isn’t even-” Nicky tried, but Andrew spoke right over him.

“Fuck Kevin.”

Aaron sighed, but walked to the door anyways. Before he walked through it, he looked over at Neil. “Well. You coming?”

Neil didn’t have to think twice.

He never expected to find a home at the Foxhole. The therapy gym had character, but no where near the level of its workers within.

It took Neil 3 months to become family.

It took Andrew 4 to kiss him.

And it took 2 years to get married.

Maybe sex wasn’t so bad though, because no matter what Neil’s sexuality had been before, he was Andrew-sexual now.

(I wrote this at work. On my phone. Which is a fucking nightmare in itself, but I did it. I’m sorry its so short, but yeah. Here you go lol.)

21 notes · View notes

fuzzballsheltiepants · 6 years

Text

The Eulogy

Okay, here it is. The All For the Game fic that ruined @tntwme‘s day. The title should be enough to give a clue here. Read on AO3 if you prefer.

Andrew stood under the lights he had left behind so many years ago. He knew there were people there, facing him, waiting for him to speak: Neil’s family, and his, inside the court, and who knows how many fans up in the stands or around the world, watching on their computers. All he could think was how pissed Neil would be if he could see the court being used like this, the risk of the chairs marring the polished floor.

He pushed his glasses up and adjusted the microphone, because of course he had to go after fucking Boyd. There was no part of him that wanted to do this, but he would never forgive himself if he didn’t. He owed Neil this, no matter what it cost him. Everyone who mattered was there; everyone but Wymack and Bee, who both had preceded Neil on this journey years ago. Renee caught his eye, smiling serenely through her tears. He didn’t know what pictures were showing on the screen over his head. Dan and Allison had picked them out, spending hours going through them, trying to capture a whole life in a few hundred stills.

“Neil Josten was an idiot,” he began, and he saw fond smiles twitch across the dozens of faces before him. “And he was brilliant. He was raised to be a liar, but he told hard truths. His first instincts were always to run, yet he would stand his ground for anyone he cared about. He was taught not to love, but he loved more fiercely than anyone I have ever met. And while he spent the first twenty years of his life trying to be invisible, he spent the last forty never shutting up. In short, he was a conundrum.”

Right then, Andrew wasn’t sure if he blessed or cursed his perfect memory. Every moment was there. Dark haired, dark eyed Neil bolting, then calling him out for not being medicated. Wrapping him up in a bloody sheet. Covered in bandages, layers of fresh wounds over old scars. Beaming like the sun after scoring an impossible goal. Flopping in his chair at the kitchen table, still disgusting and sweaty after a run. Cradling Aaron’s first daughter in scarred hands. Moaning beneath him. Swamped by Matt and Dan’s children. Washing dishes in the kitchen with one of the cats on his shoulder. Reading Green Eggs and Ham in French to the first child they took in because Sam said the sound of that soft language made his nightmares go away. The pair of them lying tangled on the couch, laughing themselves senseless while Neil plotted how to eviscerate some asshole on the internet.

The feel of his emaciated body shuddering as he gasped his last breaths. Then the sudden and eternal heaviness in Andrew’s arms, in his heart, as Neil left his body; left him behind.

“The world first came to know Neil because of exy. While I know for a fact he was inordinately proud of that,” there was gentle laughter from the others, “it was just the surface layer of him. It was the first part of his identity he clung to, that gave him a foothold to become who he really was.

“At his heart, Neil was an advocate. It started small, with him standing up fiercely for his teammate on national television, when all logic would have dictated that he keep hidden. He ended up fighting for all of us that first year, in one way or another, and he never really stopped. He used his platform as one of the best athletes in the world to speak out again and again. Which means I have it on good authority that the head of PR of one of his teams burst into tears when he found out Neil had been signed.”

Said head of PR was sitting near the back of the crowd, balding and stooped; he laughed with the rest of them. Neil had won him over, of course. As he won almost all of them over, in the end.

Nobody likes a smart mouth, he remembered saying, all those years ago. Except you, Neil had replied. Neil had always seen through him. He wondered what Neil would see now. What he would make of the empty shell that was left now that Andrew’s heart was gone. If he would realize that Andrew was just waiting, like the last of the autumn leaves, for a strong wind to come and carry him after.

“I don’t think there’s enough time to go through all of the causes he championed, but I do know that there are so many people in this world who have received support from him. From queer athletes who followed his lead, to the children and cats we gave safe haven to, to his rather biting indictment of the gender pay gap and the infamous Twitter war he engaged in with a certain former President who shall remain nameless.”

Abruptly the agony surged again, clawing up his throat, choking him. He needed to feel those scars under his fingers again, to run his hands through graying auburn hair that hadn’t thinned like his own, to dance unseen by anyone but their cats in the garden Neil had insisted on developing during his retirement. To go back to a year ago, before they first noticed him looking a little gaunt, before they sat in that doctor’s office with the huge window, laced fingers clenching tight with the words “pancreatic cancer” reverberating around them. He wanted to erase the memory of Neil waking up in that hospital bed with the knowledge that the surgery had failed, and Neil shrugging and saying, “I should’ve known a knife would never save my life.”

But he couldn’t go back, none of them could. He looked at the dozen young men and women watching him with their tear-stained faces, the ones who had grown up with Neil as the shooting star they all followed through the darkness, and cleared his throat. “Neil seemed to care about everything, which made most people wonder how he ended up with someone who cared about nothing.” Kevin gave him a knowing look from where he sat next to Nicky’s family. “I maintain that I provided the necessary balance to keep the world from imploding. Trust me, the internet would never have been able to handle Neil on social media if it weren’t for my restraining influence.” A loud “ha!” sounded from someone in the audience and his lips twitched in response. His friends knew well exactly how much—or little—restraint he had ever exercised, how he goaded more than pruned.

“But the truth is, I have no idea how it happened. I don’t know why a man who had been so marked by knives would choose someone who wielded them. I don’t know how he could see through every mask when he wore so many himself. All I know is, forty one years, three months, and six days passed between the first time I kissed him and the last, and it wasn’t enough.”

He stepped back from the podium and looked up at the ceiling. Even he wasn’t sure if he was trying to see the photos that were flashing up on the screen, or through the roof to the sky above. “Thank you,” he murmured, not caring if the microphone caught his words, if the hush that rippled through the stadium was a result of it. “You were amazing.”

#aftg #all for the game #andrew minyard #neil josten #andriel #angst #all the angst #i'm sorry #tfc #the foxhole court #my writing #fanfic

322 notes · View notes

scarredsilk · 5 years

Text

Something Real (Chapter Two)

Chapter Master-list tag list: @trashcan-filled-with-fandoms , @moonsandstarsaregay read on ao3

Neil Josten focused a lot more on who he wasn’t than who he was.

Who he wasn’t was simple and comforting and easily countable.

1. He was no longer Nathaniel. After his final encounter with his father, Neil had permanently changed his name and taken a deal with the FBI.

2. No longer being Nathaniel also meant no longer being the Butchers son. One could not exist without the other and Neil was more than happy to sever all associations.

3. He knew he wasn’t a runaway anymore. The deal with the FBI would only work if Neil didn’t disappear on them. And Neil had spoken to the Moriyama’s and agreed to give them more than half of his pay once he made Court. But with the help of the FBI, Neil didn’t owe the Moriyama’s a thing after that.

However, who he was seemed to be a more complex matter.

Neil was a mystery even to himself. After running for so long and coming up with new identities, new accents, new lives, Neil did not want to admit that there was nothing beneath the surface. That the person he presented to the world was just a conjured-up mess of his pass lies. Neil Josten had a name and a face and that was it.

No, that wasn’t true. He had Exy and Matt and the Foxes that glued him back together time and time again. But besides that? The endless possibilities of interests and hobbies and goddamn living scared the shit out of Neil.

So yes, focusing on who he wasn’t was always easier than focusing on the infinity of who he could be.

And when the days started to blend, and the panic would rise like vomit in his throat, he’d repeat these words like a mantra: I’m not Nathaniel, I’m not the Butchers son, I’m not lost.

Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, Kevin was usually the one to get under his skin.

“Did you forget your brain before coming to the Court?” Kevin asked him one day during practice.

Neil’s day was going sour the moment he woke up that morning. Every brush of an arm felt like a razor to his skin and every word spoken ringed like sirens in his ears. After a few more ugly insults from Kevin, Neil tried breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. I’m not Nathaniel, I’m not the Butchers son, I’m not lost—It calmed him down for a moment, but then he got a good look at Kevin’s face Neil prayed to every God that the punch he would throw wouldn’t break the bones in his own hand.

Before Neil could make the move, Matt was by Neil’s side and put a careful hand on his shoulder. Neil shook him off and stomped his way out of the Foxhole Court.

Back at the dorms, Neil had cooled off enough to feel guilty. Frankly, Kevin deserved to be punch, but Neil felt bad for shrugging Matt off when he was just trying to keep the practice afloat.

Neil shuffled into the main room and sat beside Matt and Dan on the couch. “Hey guys.”

Dan lifted her head from Matt’s shoulder, a dopey smile on her face. She must have taken a nap after such a grueling practice. Neil didn’t blame her. “Hey Neil.”

“Uhm—Matt? I’m sorry for earlier. Kevin just—“

“Don’t worry about it, dude. We all have bad days.” Matt smiled at him so genuinely that Neil’s heart clenched. “And usually I would be the one taking a swing at Kevin. But the monster was watching today, and I didn’t want us dying prematurely.”

Neil slumped further into the couch. “You mean Andrew?” He had never interacted with the other Minyard twin other than a few nods in his direction. Mainly because Andrew didn’t play Exy and there was no real reason Neil would talk to him. But also because Neil got the feeling that Andrew would cut him off at his knees if he tried.

“Yeah, I don’t know why they let him hang around when he’s not a fox.”

Neil considered that for a moment. He knew Andrew had two family members on the team and he was obviously close with Kevin and Renee. The answer was so obvious that before he could get it out, Dan spoke up for him. “Maybe he has nowhere else to go.”

The silence in the room stretched as the three of them pondered over the mystery of Andrew and his motives for sticking around as long as he did. After a few seconds, Matt broke the spell. “Let’s watch a movie before Seth gets back.”

The rest of practices for that week was ridiculous. The small chip in the fragility of the team turned into a splitting crack within a matter of days. And on Friday, the whole thing shattered.

Nicky and Aaron were fighting with Seth, who was also fighting with Allison. Neil and Kevin were spitting ugly insults in French, and Dan, Matt, and Renee were just trying to keep everyone moving.

By the end of practice, the tension in the air was suffocating.

Neil could feel the rage building and by the time he was in the shower all he could see was red. Under the water he scrubbed his skin raw and punched the wall a few times for good measure. I’m not Nathaniel, I’m not the Butchers son, I’m not lost.

Once he changed into his regular clothes, the anger subsided, and the fear sunk in. At the state they were in, the Foxes probably won’t make it into the championships. Neil knew it was already too late to switch teams due to the contract that Kevin had him sign.

Could he make it into court with a poor record? Probably not. His deal with the Moriyama’s would fall through and Neil would spend the rest of his life in witness protection, sleeping with one eye open.

When he got back to the locker room, his team was gone, and Kevin was waiting for him.

“Whatever you have to say, can you make it quick? I have somewhere to be.” He didn’t, but Kevin did not need to know that.

Kevin rolled his eyes, something he did a lot around Neil. “This team’s a mess and so are you.”

Neil’s hands tightened around his bag strap. “Do you get off on stating the obvious?”

Kevin took a step forward, determination settling across his features. If Neil was being honest, it was a little unnerving and he did everything in his power to not shy away from that look. “I believe we can turn it around. That’s why I signed with foxes and signed you.”

Neil scoffed at that. “Sure there wasn’t any other reason you’re forgetting?”

“Do you understand what I’m saying? I believe in you. And this team. Starting in a week or two, me and you are going to have nightly practice sessions.”

Neil shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Nightly practice with Kevin Day sounded like the worst thing in the world. But Neil couldn’t help himself. Kevin was everything Neil wasn’t, and if Neil had a chance to get better at Exy, maybe he could finally be worthy enough to play with Kevin side by side. “Fine. Why not start now?”

“Practice by yourself for now.” Kevin touched his left hand but didn’t seem to know he was doing it. “I’m not—I can’t go too hard too fast yet.”

Neil had assumed Kevin wasn’t playing to his fullest potential at practices. He’s broken, Neil thought. He shook his head like he could clear it. Not broken, Kevin was healing. And so was Neil, in more ways than one.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

The very first night Neil came back to the court for extra practice, he was exhausted from the day. Even though the walk to the court was short, he should have really asked Matt for a ride. His legs were beginning to feel like jelly.

Neil dragged himself through the parking lot, his bag in one hand and a water bottle in the other. If he was more awake, he would have noticed a familiar car parked outside, and might have avoided running into Andrew Minyard altogether.

All through that practice, Neil’s mind ran back to the interaction with the short blonde. The adrenaline of walking into the locker room and realizing he wasn’t alone was enough to pierce through the exhaustion, and now he couldn’t shut his brain off. What was Andrew doing here so late? Was he really just exercising? Why do I even care?

He didn’t care. Neil was just curious. Curiosity is what brought him to the foxes in the first place. He was curious what Kevin had to offer, and curious of how many promises Wymack could keep. But most importantly, he was curious about the kind of life he could have with the foxes by his side.

As Neil smashed the ball down the court, he asked himself if the present was everything he could have asked for. If the foxes were worth it.

He thought of Matt’s smile and Dan’s unwavering loyalty. He thought of Allison’s candor and Renee’s kindness. He thought of Seth and Kevin and Aaron and Nicky and Wymack and Abby and all the people that had called him Neil and meant it.

Yes, it was worth it. They were worth it.

Neil figured he would never see Andrew at the court again. At least, not after practice hours.

But when he made it to the Court one night, Neil heard the unmistakable sound of an Exy ball ricocheting off the plexiglass all the way from the locker room. He wondered if Kevin was finally ready to practice with him. Without even changing out, Neil rushed to the bleachers to see Kevin in all his glory.

What he saw was something from a dream. Or a nightmare, whichever way you looked at it.

Andrew was here, on the Court, and smashing Exy balls like they were nothing. Neil’s eyes were glued to the blonde and nothing could pull them away, even if the ghost of his father was sitting beside him.

Andrew was effortless and beautiful with his swings. He hit each ball with grace and seemed to know where the ball was going before it even left the machine. Did he memorize the pattern? No, Neil thought, that was impossible unless Andrew had a perfect memory paired with years of Exy practice.

But that idea was getting harder to rationalize as Neil watched.

After a while, Andrew’s fierceness turned into obvious frustration. Neil had no idea why, considering Andrew hadn’t missed a shot since Neil was here.

Andrew began to throw himself into each swing, contorting his body every which way. It was like he was fighting something. The machine? Exy? Himself?

Neil knew he overstayed his welcome as Andrew started to pack up. Only being caught in the act could break the trance that Andrew put him in. And as Andrew finally saw him in the bleachers, Neil hoped that he couldn’t see the surely ridiculous expression that was splattered across his face.

Neil was in awe of him. He had never seen something so amazing.

Neil decided that this was definitely a nightmare. Andrew had so much potential and it was dreadful to see him waste it like his.

As Neil walked to the dorms that night, he found himself smiling like an idiot. Andrew played Exy. Andrew played Exy and he was good, really good.

Andrew would be the key to the foxes, Neil could feel it in his bones.

Now only if Neil could get him to play with the team.

#andreil #andreil fic #aftg #aftg fic #tfc #my writing #sr chapter two

2 notes · View notes

belabellissima · 6 years

Text

AU a day - 2. Spy

Interviewer: Can you remain still please? We’re about to begin. [pause] Polygraph for CIA admission. A few questions for control. Your name is Andrew Minyard?

Minyard: Yes.

I: You are 25 years old?

M: Yes.

I: You reside in South Carolina?

M: Columbia. Yes.

I: You speak six languages?

M: Yes.

I: Okay then, now I’m going to ask you some personal questions. You told us in your vetting interview that you’ve never had a serious relationship, but your last ‘fling’ ended two years ago.

M: Yes

I: You met abroad.

M: No.

I: Did you love her?

M: No. I tolerated him.

I: The sex was good?

M: Adequate.

I: It ended badly?

M: No worse than any other.

I: Did that bother you?

M: After three weeks, he left me in the middle of the night with a cryptic note and a $50 bar tab. What bothered me most was losing the $50.

I: We are looking for a yes or a no.

[Huff of laughter]

M: Can you repeat the question?

I: The question is this: If you join the CIA, will you be able to separate your work from your personal life?

M: Yes. I will.

Andrew doesn’t know what he hates more – the fact that he has to lie as a part of his job, or the fact that he has to live close to Aaron’s wife.

Nicky had gone back to Erik in Germany after graduation, and Aaron had become a doctor, married Katelyn, and had two kids. Andrew had been scouted to play professionally, but there really was nothing to keep him doing it, so instead Andrew had enrolled in CIA training. Being pulled out early comes as no surprise – he’s the top of his class, far outranking any of his classmates. The only problem with being sent to Langley is that he’d had to move.

The house in Columbia wasn’t anything important to Andrew, though Nicky refused to sell it, so Andrew was forced to move into his brother’s guest house, a lavish and completely unnecessary addition to the already profligate home Aaron and Katelyn lived in. Andrew hates being so close to her, though his twin nieces aren’t as bad. They at least understand how to smuggle candy to him.

An agency car picks him up for his first day, dropping him off at the gate to let him through security. A man tries to talk to him, but Andrew just ignores him as he walks in. Getting his badge is time consuming and tedious; fingerprints are recorded, a retinal scan is uploaded, and his picture is taken multiple times until the perfect one is chosen. After, Andrew is sworn in under oath, and then finally, sent on his way.

The elevator thankfully doesn’t play music as it ascends. Andrew doesn’t know if he could handle that every day. When the doors finally slides open, a harsh green light blinds Andrew for a second, before relocating to the floor.

“Andrew Minyard?” the man with the green laser pointer asks, standing up and looking straight over Andrew’s head as he talks. He has a shock of red hair on his head, and the bluest eyes Andrew has ever seen. The most striking feature about him though are the marks on his face. On the man’s right cheek are three vertical scars, the middle one rising high enough to go through one eye and eyebrow above. On the other cheek is a mess of burn tissue, extending in a circle along the cheekbone. Half of this eyebrow is burned away.

“Yes,” Andrew says.

“Neil Josten, tech ops, and your friendly neighborhood cruise director. Walk with me.”

Neil turns away down a hallway, the green laser scanning the floor, a digital cane to keep him from tripping over anyone. He talks as he walks, unprompted as he explains the gist of everything.

“Fifty percent of the agency has five years’ experience or less. You’re not special for being the new guy, so keep up. Second chances are rare around here. You’ll find that besides that, it’s a weird place to work. Polygraphs every year, no cell phones aloud inside the building, no dating foreigners. In fact, the CIA highly encourages dating within the agency. Keeps things in the circle of trust. It’s like Club Med, but without the free drinks.”

Pity. Andrew would’ve loved free drinks.

On the other hand, being encouraged to keep it within the agency? Andrew looks at Neil’s face again as they come around a curve. Neil points out the food court, but Andrew’s still trying to catch another glimpse of blue, blue eyes.

Maybe it’ll be worth it.

#bela writes #andrew minyard #neil josten #andreil #andreil fic #no profreading we die like mne #AU a day #day 2 #any of y'all ever seen Covert Affairs???? This is that

9 notes · View notes

tfcrp · 6 years

Photo

THIS IS YOUR GAME

Name: Claudia Jewell Age: Twenty One Class Year: Junior Position: Backliner, Vice Captain, #13 Hometown: San Diego, California

THIS IS YOUR MOMENT

TW: kidnapping

Her story may begin and end with Claudia Jewell, but it’s the middle that is perhaps the most interesting, and the middle is Daphne O’Shea. Claudia Jewell’s life was nothing of note: upper-middle-class parents living in California, each with respectable jobs and a large amount of love for their infant only child. But the worst tragedies seem to befall the most ordinary people, and such was the case when one-year-old Claudia was abducted from her mother’s unlocked car in a grocery store parking lot, left unattended for only a minute when she went to put the shopping cart away.

The O’Sheas, on the other hand, might have appeared to be a normal family, but the cracks were readily apparently upon further inspection. Martin O’Shea traveled often on business, leaving behind a delicate wife. Miranda O’Shea’s untreated postpartum depression after having their daughter Daphne spiraled into something that left her riddled with fault lines and fractures, and while her husband was away her daughter accidentally drowned in the bath. She could have sworn, she told the police much later, that she had only left her alone for a second. She’d panicked, unsure of how she could ever tell her husband what she’d done, until—and surely, she thought, it must have been fate—she saw a child that could have been the spitting image of her departed daughter. And so she took her, and Claudia Jewell became Daphne O’Shea, and when her too-busy husband returned from his trip overseas, he didn’t seem to know the difference.

Daphne was raised a princess: a father that, while often absent, spoiled her beyond belief, always returning from his business trips bearing gifts from faraway places; a mother that loved her beyond belief—but clung to her so tightly that she’d leave bruises behind. The guilt that Miranda carried was a poison, and it corroded the edges of what should have been a picture-perfect life. She’d sit up nights crying, only to wake Daphne in her bed to hold her and whisper apologies for things Daphne didn’t understand, because her mother wouldn’t explain. Her mother was near-terrifying thing in the hush of darkness: pale as a ghost and wailing like a banshee, and Daphne could never be certain if she was going to do harm to her—or to herself.

In the morning such instances were washed away with a smile. They never spoke about those strange nights in the light of day, and they never told Daphne’s father. Why worry him? Miranda would entreat. He’s been so stressed at work lately. Besides, I don’t know what came over me. And so her mother’s fragility was a secret that Daphne alone seemed to bear, and she watched her seem to break apart a little bit more every year without understanding why.

And maybe that was the root of all of Daphne’s silent unhappiness, or maybe there was a part of her that knew all along that she didn’t belong—she just didn’t really know until she was fourteen years old. Kidnapped Claudia Jewell showed up on the news reliably once a year on the anniversary of her disappearance, but with every year that passed it became just another unsolved mystery, a case where a happy ending seemed impossible after so much time had gone by. But the Jewells never gave up hope, and maybe fate rewarded them for that: thirteen years after Claudia Jewell disappeared, the remains of a one-year-old were dug up during the building of a new housing development. DNA testing of the remains revealed that it was not Claudia Jewell, but further testing led them right to the O’Shea’s door—and right to where Claudia had been hiding, there under everyone’s noses the entire time.

It took a long, public, and messy trial, but the end result was this: the woman she called her mother was imprisoned; the man she had called her father hid himself away with his guilt, wanting nothing to do with the daughter he had raised; and Daphne O’Shea was returned to her birth parents and given back a name that she was told had been her real one all along—Claudia Jewell. And then she had to figure out what that meant.

SEIZE IT WITH EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT

With her entire world and her entire self turned on its head, Claudia made a decision: that Claudia would be everything that Daphne was not. And since Daphne had been a cheerleader, bouncing ponytails and waving pom-poms, Claudia would play Exy. And so she did, and she let it define her. And despite not having touched a racquet until she was fifteen years old, Claudia brought unparalleled grit to the court, giving every game and every practice everything she had until there was nothing left, all of her confusion and her anger and her divided loyalties left behind on the court. Her parents wanted to cling to her, the daughter they lost miraculously returned, but Claudia didn’t know how to relate to them, and it soon became clear that they didn’t know how to relate to her, either.

She saw the way the light in their eyes dimmed when their daughter wasn’t the perfect loving angel they had constructed of her in their heads, and she set her sights on college—and on Exy—as a means of escaping the weight of that disappointment. She was the one to send her stats and tapes of her games to Palmetto State, determined to earn herself a spot on that line. And now, after playing with the Foxes for two years, the team is her life, and she is its staunchest defender. It’s the tradition of the Foxes, dating back to Dan Wilds and Neil Josten, to rotate captaincy between male and female players, and at the end of last year it was formally announced that Claudia would be the team’s Vice Captain and next Captain—formalizing what most everyone on the team already knew.

CLAUDIA JEWELL is portrayed by CAITLIN STASEY and is OPEN

#claudia jewell #claudiabio #a #f #o #of

2 notes · View notes

c-valentino · 7 years

Text

Rooftop Songs

Fandom: All For The Game Characters: Aaron & Andrew Minyard

written for and inspired by foxesrefuge

because you can’t have enough of the Twinyards

People always looked at him and asked themselves: Is it him? Andrew, his infamous twin, was always the first who came to mind when confronted with their faces. They couldn’t help it, he wouldn't be any different in their place. But he wasn’t Andrew; in fact, he was nothing like his brother. Sometimes he had no clue who his brother really was either and Andrew sure as hell did his best to keep it that way. In return, his twin did nothing to figure out who Aaron really was.

If you ignored their identical faces, you could have thought they were two strangers sitting in the same room when you came across them. Except, Aaron knew Andrew paid him more than enough attention. He knew all about the parts he shouldn't know. He knew about Katelyn; even though Aaron wished he had never found out about her. Their relationship was already too fragile and Aaron wasn’t sure it could be saved. He was, although, pretty sure Andrew wouldn't care. His twin had a new obsession now, one named Neil Josten, a striker who had recently joined the team. Aaron didn't like the guy and quite frankly, he didn’t get what all the fuzz was about. So the guy had issues. Wasn't that pretty much a requirement to join this team? He didn't get it.

While everyone was busy getting to know the new fox, Aaron kept his distance. There was precious little alone time as it was. The monsters, as everyone liked to call the group around Andrew, usually stayed with each other. Now it seemed like Andrew wanted to make Neil part of his little circle as well. He didn't require the approval of anyone else, –not even Neil’s, even though the guy hadn't figured that one out yet –he would just decide and that would be that.

The guitar hummed in his hands, willing but Aaron had yet to figure out how they would get along. He had bought it recently, thought he could teach himself to play but he still sucked at it. He kept it hidden from the others. He didn't know why, but he liked the thought of having something just for himself no one else knew about. –That, and he didn't like people listening to him practicing. He went up onto the roof to do so when the weather was nice. No one ever came here. Well, that couldn't be true, since the lock had obviously been tampered with at some point, but Aaron had never met another living soul up here before.

Weeks went by and everything seemed to get from bad to worse around the fox court. A dead teammate, a declaration of war from the Ravens –thanks to Neil, the escalation in Columbia and the following backlash from the upperclassmen –thanks to Neil, Andrew acting out more often than usual –again, thanks to Neil… Aaron was more than sick of all of it. At least his guitar play improved steadily, thanks to youtube videos and hours of practice. It calmed him down, grounded him and kept him steady in times when everything else was just fucked up. He could now play some of the songs they listened to at their dorm room. Sometimes he sang along but it was more fun to play more than just guitar chords and figure the more complicated parts out by himself. When he couldn’t, he found the sheet music on the internet. Aaron worked methodically through each song at a time and committed them all to memory. His might not have been as perfect as Andrew’s but it was still pretty good compared to the average minds of his classmates.

He was found out one night, when someone entered the roof behind him, hesitating at the door for a second, confronted by him sitting there crosslegged and playing another song he had just memorized the day before. By the pause Aaron could tell that they both had expected to be alone up here. He didn't turn around to see who it was. Maybe they would leave again. He would be fine with that. Instead, the door fell shut and someone stepped closer behind him. Not one of the girls, Aaron could tell by the steps and then he heard the familiar sound of a lighter and the exhale of cigarette smoke. Aaron’s fingers fell away from the strings and he looked over his shoulder. His brother was standing a few steps behind him, looking down on him, expression blank as usual. He must just be coming down from his drugs for the night, Aaron thought. What was Andrew doing up here? His brother was afraid of heights. No one else knew but Aaron had noticed a while ago.

They looked at each other, two identical faces of two people who felt like they didn't know each other. Andrew was the first to break the awkward silence between them.

“I didn't know you played.”

“No. Now you do.” Another puzzle piece for his brother’s games.

“Now I do,” Andrew repeated and took another drag from his cigarette. He sat down behind his twin, facing away from him, not looking at him like always; because that was how they worked these days. Aaron turned around again, hand hanging limply next to the strings.

“I thought you don’t like heights.” Not What the fuck are you doing here? but close enough.

“I don’t,” Andrew admitted. He pulled one leg up to rest his arm on top.

“Then why are you here?” He clearly hadn’t been looking for him.

“It’s not that difficult, is it?” Despite all their differences, despite all the shit that had been going on and all the fights that were sure to come, Aaron didn’t like the sound of that.

“You don’t need to be afraid to feel something, Andrew.”

“Don’t I? Are you an expert now? Did you get your medical degree along with those guitar skills behind my back?” Because everything always had to be a fight between them. Andrew wouldn’t have it any other way. Aaron didn’t answer. He thought about leaving Andrew here, when his brother spoke again. “Alright. Go on then, play and make me feel something.”

Aaron hesitated, then began to play again. He picked his songs carefully. He knew what kind of music Andrew liked, they had shared their room for a while after all. Sometimes he hummed, sometimes his fingers alone were enough. He didn’t say anything when Andrew stood up again after a while. He knew his twin would need to go to bed soon, or he would crash and would have to take another dose. Andrew left without another word and was already asleep when Aaron entered their room that night. Kevin too was already snoring softly on the other side of the room.

From that night on, their paths crossed more often on the rooftop. Andrew seemed to have figured out where his twin vanished to, and like every other piece of information, he used it. They never talked much up there. Andrew just joined him shortly after Aaron had gone up and sat down behind him. Aaron was just trying to figure out a new part, as his twin suddenly leaned back against him, his broad shoulders a solid weight against his back, warm and unexpected.

“Play that other one.” It was the first time ever Andrew had requested a song from him.

“Which one?” Andrew thought about it but maybe he didn’t know the same because he started to hum the refrain softly. It was such an unfamiliar sound that it was actually Aaron who felt something at that moment, something he hadn’t in a while. Brotherly love was a rare thing between them these days. He leaned back a little against his twin, counterbalancing them so he could play more easily. Andrew lit another cigarette. When Aaron’s clever fingers plugged the melody from the strings, Andrew leaned his head back and rested it on his brother’s shoulder.

That night, Andrew said something before he left. “You can bring that down with you, you know?” Aaron still hid his guitar outside of their room. He had no real reason for it but now he had Andrew’s approval to stop doing so. It pissed him off a little that Andrew thought he would need his permission –but then he just huffed a little laugh, because he just couldn’t take a simple invitation at face value it seemed. Because everything had to be a fight between them.

#fanfiction #all for the game #fanfic #andrew minyard #aaron minyard #foxesrefuge #twinyards

143 notes · View notes

aftgficlibrary · 5 years

Text

Baltimore Masterlist

Updated 11 November 2018

cigarettes and riots. by nebulousviolet (T | 1/1 | 2,709)

“Renee,” he acknowledges. “Matt and Neil?”

She flashes him a smile, a little too knowing for his taste, then dulls. “Matt’s being kept behind a while longer,” she explains. “We-I didn’t see Neil there. There’s another hospital nearby that he could’ve been taken to.”

Andrew doesn’t care about Neil being in another hospital. He knows, with blinding clarity, that he will not be there. Matt would’ve made sure where he was if that was the case. Neil is gone.

—

or, Andrew and Binghamton featuring his constant inner monologue.

neil josten can never die by kuroneko (T |1/1 | 2,802)

After their match and the riot breaking out, Andrew realizes Neil is nowhere to be found…

baltimore blues by spanglebangle (M | 3/3 | 17,097)

He saw the duffel. It was battered all to hell and the strap was nearly torn from the bag, but it still glowed almost neon in the darkening night and streetlamp glare. Neil would never… He dropped to his knees beside it and rifled through it, looking for any sign, any clue as to where Neil might have run. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Until his fingers found the keyring. Until he found the phone.

Andrew’s perspective on the Binghamton riot and the walking tragedy that is Neil Josten.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence

where the evening splits in half by countlessuntruths (kalicephirot) (G | 1/1 | 587)

“Thank you,” Neil says. “You were amazing.”

Andrew has but a second to wonder why it sounds like a goodbye.

you were amazing. by tolvsmol (Not Rated | 1/1 | 5,271)

“Thank you. You were amazing.”

Why was there such finality in those words? Like he was thanking Andrew for more than the game? Andrew knows every breath Neil took was at least half a lie, concealed hints of the truth laced with every other word. So why did this sound like the most honest thing he’d ever said?

amazing by reneewvlkers (M | 1/1 | 4,892)

Andrew can be patient. His knuckles are red, and with that familiar pain comes a wave of calm. He has no control over this situation and that’s nothing new. Neil Josten is a force of nature; utterly unpredictable and infuriating.

But he knows one thing. Neil would not leave if he had a choice. He would come back to Exy, to the Foxes, to this godforsaken bus if he had to limp the whole way. And Andrew will be right here when he does.

falling by fuzzballsheltiepants (G | 1/1 | 4,663) (also on tumblr)

When Neil disappears during the riot in Binghamton, Andrew is going to tear the world apart to figure out where he’s gone. (The King’s Men abduction scene from Andrew’s point of view.)

i felt your pain when you were gone by elfo98 (G | 3,533 | 1/1)

Another Soulmate AU where Neil and Andrew can feel each other’s pain and how the Foxes find out.

Or: my take on the Baltimore incident because I can’t seem to get enough of it.

Series: Part 1 of soulmates

lost boy by amesbaloo (T | 2,421 | 1/1)

It fell completely silent when the rest of the team realized what Andrew had noticed minutes earlier: Neil was nowhere to be seen. Neither the bus nor the slowly thinning crowd contained the striker.

Andrew’s PoV during Neil’s absence.

our days are numbered by unknown_entry ( M | Incomplete | 13/? )

What if the FBI stop the Hatfords from entering the country on the day of Nathan Wesninski’s Parole? What if Neil was left in his father’s hands for longer than a few minutes?

/Graphic Depictions of Violence

through your teeth by modernpatroclus (T | 2,598 | 1/1)

prompt: andreil + “things you said through your teeth”

Andrew’s phone rang where he clutched it in his fist. It was blaring Neil’s ringtone. As he answered, the rest of the Foxes crowded around him, Dan demanding, “Is it Neil?”

Andrew ignored her and said, “Neil,” into the phone. Neil didn’t respond to him, though. He listened to a voice beg on a whisper, “Please, please don’t.”

It was Neil.

here and where you are by pentagrammed (Not Rated | 24,999 | 1/1)

“I exist in two places, – here and where you are.”

On March 10th, Neil Josten died.

After awhile I thought I'd never find you by Moth2Flame (Not Rated | 7,754 | 1/1)

He never came back.

The space carved out for him ripped open like a jagged, rotting wound. Never healed, never filled. A festering gash contaminating the air around it with something black and toxic, so thick you could choke on it. So contagious it could seep into your skin and infect every muscle, every bone, every organ, every pore.

It could steal your very breath and turn your vision black.

It could crawl into your veins and grip your heart so tight it turned to a charcoaled dust.

AU if Neil never came back from Baltimore as is presumed dead Andrew's POV

Anything by a_case_for_wonder (T | 4,595 | 1/1)

Andrew promises to close the goal against the Bearcats, and Neil says "anything." Now all Andrew has to do is figure out what he wants in return.

5 things Andrew doesn't end up asking for, and 1 time he figured out the perfect trade

Two Can Keep a Secret if One of Them is Dead by ThePackWantstheD (T | 1,186 | 1/1)

Kevin had ignored the itch under his skin as they filed out, contributing it to the satisfaction of a win and the urge to get right back on the court to feel the rush again, and now Neil was gone and everything felt wrong.

Wheat Is Still Wheat by monster_without_a_name (Not Rated | 928 | 1/1)

a re-imagining of parts of baltimore with trans Neil

Series: Part 2 of trans!neil

Love Hurts by Demi_jos10 (T | 3,319 | 1/1)

Soulmate au where you get the same injuries as your soulmate.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence

Martyr by PalmettoFoxDen (Not Rated | 8,763 | 1/1)

Andrew catches on that there is something off when Neil takes longer than usual in the locker room after a game and then thanks him for putting effort into the game with a little too much weight behind his words. So he goes to investigate and convinces Nathan's men that taking him instead is a better way to truly punish Neil.

Waiting on Nothing by Sundaye (M | 1,902 | 1/1)

A short piece on Kevin's perspective of the events that followed the riot at Binghamton.

Kevin has to deal with the realization that Neil isn't returning to the Foxes once he goes missing following the riot at Binghamton. Being the only person who knows the whole truth about Neil's father, he makes that realization before everyone else.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence

dealbreaker by lolainslackss (T | 1,095 | 1/1)

In Baltimore, Aaron figures some stuff out.

Colors of You by foxesjosten (Not Rated | 3,580 | 1/1)

Neil first sees the world in color when he's looking up at the boy who smacked him with an exy stick. That same boy sees color for the first time as he's taking a swing at Neil. If both of them ignore this obvious mistake, then it isn't real. The universe would eventually fix its mistake. What Andrew can't ignore is the world reverting to black and white when Neil goes missing. And there's only one reason Andrew would lose his colors, but that's another thing that can't be real, right?

Four minutes ahead by Obsessedwithfanfiction (T | 943 | 1/1)

Small drabble of the scene after the riot if Kevin had made himself tell the truth before Browning called Wymack to tell them Neil was alive

Coming Home to Hell by RayreadsDestiel (E | Incomplete | 6/7)

My EXTREMELY GRAPHIC take on what could have happened in the Baltimore house after Neil was reunited with his father.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence /Rape/Non-Con /Underage

You knew the game by EvanJosten (Not Rated | 3,733 | 1/1)

What would've happened if Baltimore had gone as planned for Nathan Wesninski is a path full of tears and regrets. One of the hardest things I've ever wrote and kept secret for a long time.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence /Major Character Death

Everything by conniptionns (T | 7,076 | 5/5)

Baltimore from Andrew's pov

“Thank you, you were amazing.”

The words sent a thrill up Andrew’s spine. No one had ever spoken to Andrew with such conviction before—at least not in a positive light. Whenever foster parents had spit venom at him, Andrew always knew that they were telling the truth. He had always had a knack for knowing when someone was lying to him, and when his foster parents had told him how worthless he was...he knew they weren’t lying. And that was what he deserved. Not a ‘thanks’ spilling from the lips that had never conveyed so much emotion before.

Andrew was certain that he deserved the opposite of a ‘thanks.’ And Andrew was mad, because he never should have let Neil have this much of an effect on him. What was worse was Andrew didn’t think anyone had thanked him for anything before. There was a reason that they called him a monster, and there wasn’t a moment that Andrew had ever disagreed with the assessment. Andrew knew when people lied to him, and he knew that they were being genuine when they called him a monster.

Viva la cucaracha or whatever the fuck.

Scars by all_my_dreams_and_ambitions (M | 3,098 | 1/1)

An AU where the injuries of one soul mate appears on the skin of the other, but they aren't as severe. This is a oneshot focusing on Andrew's take on what happened to Neil in Baltimore after they played the Bearcats.

When he’d been younger, Andrew had never thought himself worthy of a soul mate. His own mother hadn’t wanted him, let alone a random stranger. Then, he felt the sharp pain of a knife on his ribs. A few months later, the hot press of an iron left him blistered and red under his shirt. Years later, the shape of a bullet hole appeared in his shoulder and that’s when he realized he’d been wrong the whole time.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence /Rape/Non-Con

You'll Have to go Through Me by Pyreof_Books (E | 2,380 | 1/1)

When Neil is taken from under the Foxes noses, Lola taunts him. She shouldn't have threatened his family.

Andreil Week 2018 Day Eight

/Graphic Depictions of Violence

Coming Home by puddlejumper99 (T | 19,341 | 1/1)

After Baltimore, the Foxes get Neil back--in a jar of ashes.

Across the ocean, Nathaniel Wesninski schemes to get back to his family.

Angst and copious amounts of fluff ensue.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence

Baltimore Memories by Wolvesandwerewolves (Not Rated | 3,422 | 1/1)

Idk what this is. I was bored, its not my best, I apologize.

Lola recorded some of the Baltimore kidnapping. The videos surface after years.

Aaron and Katelyn visit New York City to see the ball drop. Aaron can't miss the opportunity to see his brother while he's in town.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence

At least he said goodbye by AlexGlass (G | 1,715 | 1/1)

Neil dies in Baltimore, but leaves behind letters for the foxes.

/Major Character Death

two birds by hulklinging (M | Incomplete | 1/3)

"I almost believe you," Lola says with a smile. "That's too bad. If you're telling the truth, we didn't really need the one in the trunk."

The ride to Baltimore takes on another level of horror as Neil fights with thoughts of who is in the trunk, and who he hopes it isn't.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence

#masterlist #baltimore #theme:baltimore #binghamton #riot #canondivergence #povandrew #masterlistmonday #kandreil #andreil #violence

197 notes · View notes

berrysbestbloggityblog · 7 years

Text

13th February 2017- All for the Game series

Author: Nora Sakavic Genre: Thriller, sports, relationship Rating: This is the only series ever to challenge Harry Potter as my favourite. It is incredible Favourite Quote(s): (You should be lucky I narrowed it down to five) ‘Fight because you don’t know how to die quietly. Win because you don’t know how to lose.’ David Wymack, The King’s Men ‘Is your learning curve a horizontal line?’- Andrew Minyard, The King’s Men ‘I’ve been a problem for nineteen years. I’m too tired to be one tonight.’- Neil Josten, The King’s Men ‘Don’t look at me like that. I am not your answer, and you sure as fuck aren’t mine.’- Andrew Minyard, The King’s Men ‘I won’t be like them. I won’t let you let me be.’- Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, The King’s Men

I’m going to warn you now, this is going to be long, and spoiler-y, and probably make little structural sense.

So I hate sports. Any kind of sport. I just about tolerate swimming, and never just doing lanes.

I would also probably sell a kidney to be able to play Exy.

This series, quite honestly, has changed my life (and not just about sport). It features; diversity, therapy, alcohol, abuse survivors of all kinds, not enough playing the actual sport, torture, the MobTM, extreme character development, my OTP and too many chess references.

I will start, quite appropriately, with Neil Abram Josten, the many named man. I will not lie and pretend that one of the main reasons I love this series is not because Neil is the first canon demisexual character I have ever read. As a demisexual, this representation was something I didn’t even know I had been craving until I got it. His character made me more secure in my identity; he meant that I wasn’t making it up, that I was real and valid and there wasn’t anything wrong with me. I wasn’t picky or just ‘hadn’t had enough alcohol yet’ (thanks mum); what I felt was different but it wasn’t bad. For all the demisexuals out there, Neil was a godsend.

(For clarification on Neil’s sexuality I recommend reading SpangleBangle’s one-shot ‘Swinging Along the Z Axis’ on Ao3.)

More than that, Neil’s character just broke my heart. He’s haunted and hunted and desperate not to let anyone else get caught in the crosshairs. He doesn’t always do the smart thing, but he does generally do the right thing, and never takes the easy way out. He’s scarred and easily triggered and in some ways damaged, at least when he first arrives at Palmetto, but never, ever broken. Not even Baltimore or Evermore could break Neil Josten and while he’s sometimes regarded in the fandom as the soft to Andrew’s sharp, you’ll never find the Foxes thinking that because Neil is sly and underhand and play’s dirty when someone he cares about is on the line. If Andrew had to be the one to cut the deal with Ichirou, he would never have gotten out of that car alive.

He asked Andrew TO HIS FACE why his ex thought Andrew was tying him up, and didn’t clock for a single second until Andrew literally told him he’d blow him. He asked Nicky if they were friends because he’d never had any before. He is about as quick to get a social cue as I am running. He is so respectful of Andrew’s boundaries even before he found out why, even before their deal. He left Andrew, a person whom nobody had ever admired, whom no-one had ever been grateful for despite Andrew giving up EVERYTHING for them, with “thank you, you were amazing” and figured that would be enough to cover the destruction his death would bring. He chose being tortured by Riko on the off-chance it might spare Andrew some pain, and he chose to be taken to quite literally his worst nightmare, giving up his life and his freedom and everything he’d managed to accomplish that year to keep his Foxes safe.

For the first canon demisexual, he’s certainly setting the bar high.

I’ll save Andrew for last, so let’s get on to the rest of the Foxes.

I’m quite sure I could write an essay on each of them (except maybe Seth. Sorry. I just. Hated that guy). For your sake I’m going to keep it short, but feel free to ask me for a full character eval I’ll be happy to do it.

Matt Boyd- Literal sunshine, saw actual homeless child Neil Josten and decided immediately he would die for him, half of the brOTP of the century, you just KNOW he’s so sweet and attentive and respectful of Dan because she’d never go out with him otherwise. He canonically has a white and orange themed wedding… I actually can’t. He didn’t blame the Monsters for forcing him to go full cold turkey even though he knew Andrew didn’t do it for him and he was ready to fight to keep Neil after Baltimore.

Dan Wilds- Absolute BAMF, can and will kick your ass, the only female captain in Class I Exy and she’s had an uphill battle on her shoulders for years before Neil or even Matt arrives at Palmetto. She has short hair and probably wear gym shorts 90% of the time but she’s still allowed to dress up without everyone being like ‘omg wow dan in a dress’ like it would be in any other book. She was a stripper and she owns it because it’s what she did to survive and it was selflessness not ignorance or anything else that’s stereotypically attributed to strippers, that drew her to it.

Renee Walker- Basically a flower, if it was a flower that could also slit you from neck to gut and plaster on a serene smile a second later, she’s an accepting Christian who isn’t gay herself (*cough* EXTREME RENISON SUBTEXT THO *cough*), she’s working her way through her trauma in a way that is healthy, she wants to put her past behind her but she’ll bring it out to protect/help her friends. She’s the only person that stays with Andrew without some kind of deal between them and she doesn’t do it out of pity.

Allison Reynolds- will slay anybody with her look, refuses to let her grief break her, came through being cut off by her family for not being picture perfect and an eating disorder with confidence and grace and sass. She’s brutally honest in a refreshing way and I think that post King’s Men, with all the secrets out of the way, her and Neil can become much closer.

Aaron Minyard- oh he’s an asshat but he still wheedles his way into your heart. He loves Katelyn more than he probably thought possible, and he’s so snarky I love it. He also killed Drake despite training to be a doctor which I think is something everyone always forgets. I think the thing that annoys me the most about him is not that he’s mean to everybody but that he doesn’t even try to understand Andrew; he just immediately blames him and hates him but not enough to let Andrew go.

Nicky Hemmick- ‘let’s get this straight: I’m not’, nobody really talks about how horrific his childhood being raised in such a homophobic household did to him. They sent him to CONVERSION CAMP and only falling in love with Erik managed to save him from that dark place. His parents refuse to love him on account of his sexuality and then they manipulate him in order to set up Andrew for rape. Obviously it’s Andrew who gets hurt the most here (well I mean Drake dies but like that’s a good thing) but Nicky, like Neil, has to live with that guilt for the rest of his life. He’s a constant ray of positivity despite everything, despite his cousins never thanking him for doing this long-distance mess from his home just to be there for them.

Kevin Day- oh Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Kevin comes perhaps the farthest of all the foxes over the course of the series and it makes me feel so proud. I screamed in delight and had to put the book down to do a little victory dance when he got his Queen tattoo. I worry sincerely about his liver. He’s a sad little history nerd who has made Exy his LifeTM and an actual asshat on the court. Probably about as good as Neil at knowing how to make friends and he shows he cares through Exy references only but I still love my toll bean.

Ok. Deep breaths. We’re onto Andrew.

Sometimes I think about his character and it just makes me tear up slightly? He’s an apathetic shitty midget who hates Neil and sits on tall buildings because he’s scared of heights for the AestheticTM. Basically everyone on this Exy team is some shade of LGBT+ and yet there’s no similarities between how they express their sexualities. Andrew is gay and a sexual abuse survivor and a foster kid and ex-juvie, but he’s not stereotyped into any of the boxes any other series would put him in.

I know too many people who have been sexually abused. Any other time that I’ve read a book where someone was sexually abused it was either liberally ignored/easily overcome or the person was driven to committing suicide. Neither is particularly helpful to survivors in my opinion, not that I am any kind of expert, and therefore Andrew’s story blew my mind. Andrew is never going to ‘go back to normal’. He is always going to have boundaries and yes or nos and triggers. He is never going to smile often or take Neil off on romantic dates or care about more than his minimum. And that, that is ok. There is no checklist for trauma survivors that they have to work through to be counted as better. Even more brilliant than Nora allowing Andrew to be changed permanently by his trauma, is the way he has an active and encouraged approach to his own recovery. His relationship with Bee is something I truly treasure. I am lucky enough to have not ever gone through something similar to Andrew, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be extremely happy that other people have that representation. Recovery is a slow process, with setbacks and bad days, which is also shown in this series, but it’s possible.

I like that Andrew didn’t always somehow magically know to go and get therapy. He survived Drake through self-harm and while he doesn’t encourage it, which is good, he also doesn’t completely demonise it like some people do. I will be the last person to condone harming yourself, but wanting to be able to make choices in an otherwise choice-less situation is completely understandable.

Proust trying to ruin his scars makes me want to vomit.

He was put on meds after he attacked some men for attacking his cousin and everyone thinks he’s dangerous? And manic? And out of control? Neil is perhaps the first person Andrew lets in enough to understand that everything Andrew does has a reason, and while it’s not always a good one it is also never a selfish one. Their relationship was a trust-build for two and a half books and it makes it so much more powerful. By the time they progress to anything physical, they’re already tied by something unbreakable, not that Andrew’s likely to admit it any time soon.

This is already like five pages long oops so I’m going to round off now.

This series made me laugh, and cry, and I quite literally screamed into my pillow when Andrew finally kissed Neil but I think most importantly it opened my eyes to lots of previously not-thought-about topics and I’m a better person for having read it.

z��_�

#the foxhole court #all for the game #the raven king #the king's men #books #my review #nora sakavic

4 notes · View notes

callunavulgari · 7 years

Text

tagged by wellhalesbells to list my top 5 otps. ftr, i know exactly what you mean about this being harder than you remember and not really making many attachments, because oh my gosh. this was so easy last time. now its just like... okay, i like reading and consuming media but there isn’t a pairing that i’ve really connected with outside of sterek in... quite a while.

blah. bleh. bleeeeegh. okay. let’s do this.

stargate atlantis. rodney mckay and john sheppard. this has been the most promising of all the new pairings that i’ve dabbled in to try to fill the sterek-shaped hole in my itty bitty heart. smarty pants cocky asshole + hot, capable soldier types that are also secretly smart is pretty much the formula for a guaranteed otp for me. see also: sterek. i have a type, it’s a thing, don’t make a big deal out of it. and like, the thing about this pairing is that it is so fucking good. so fucking good. it’s perfect and there’s a lot of material for them, and there’s this, which i will never get over and probably never stop talking about because it’s what made me click over from ‘huh, that could be nice’ to hardcore shipper in exactly three minutes and forty four seconds.

the flash. eobard thawne and barry allen. what’s just as likely to turn my crank as the smarty pants + hottie pants mentioned above? Villains and heroes. together. y’know, biblically. Like, yeah sure. It’s no-good, bad, wrong, problematic - I get it. These two? Will never have a healthy relationship. But there’s something about the particular formula that’s like catnip for me. God, I explained it really well somewhere else, I just know it. I don’t think I’m going to go look for it because that takes time and I told myself that I would beat Origins before I play KH 2.8 which I just bought and I still have laundry to do, so just. okay. listen up. sometimes, it’s just nice to think about two hot people kissing. sometimes, that’s all it is. sometimes, it’s even nicer because the two hot people don’t like each other very much. sometimes, it’s even nicer because the two hot people who don’t like each other very much have complicated pasts and tragedy and every reason to literally want to kill each other, but are pulled to each other anyway. and sometimes, sometimes it isn’t even that. sometimes it’s the complicated power dynamics and the way the characters themselves change each other, in good ways and bad. and all of this talk is prepping me for my third otp, because everyone gets super butt hurt about it. but that’s okay, you don’t have to like it. i do.

star wars. rey and kylo ren. remember how i said you don’t have to like it? good, great, if you don’t, just kindly skip to the next otp, please and thank you. for those of you still here, i would like to kindly direct you to these four fantastic fics. the first one is the one that made me realize that i really liked thinking about these two characters kissing. the second one is the one that made me realize that for this particular pairing, aus could really be my jam. the third is the one that made me realize that not only did i like watching these two kiss, but i also like how they change each other. how they make parts of each other grow (hur dur, unintentional) and flourish. the fourth one isn’t even a reylo fic, but it’s the one that made me realize that i actually like kylo ren as a character himself and not just someone for rey to put in his place. i like the idea of them balancing each other out, her bringing him back out and into the light while he makes her realize how to utilize the darkness inside of her. and i just, i think that’s great. they’re a good example of a relationship that isn’t particularly healthy, but has the hope of becoming so. eobard and barry? never gonna be a good thing. there will never be a true happy ending for either of them. rey and kylo? maybe. and even if they aren’t, i really like it when they make kissy faces together.

Captive Prince and The Foxhole Court. damen and laurent & andrew minard and neil josten. (okay, first of all, i have to say. @wellhalesbells have fun! the second book was my favorite but king’s rising is definitely going to pull you deeper into the excellence that is damen and laurent. it will eat you up and you will reread the books and realize that you’re just as gone on them. also. try reading the first two books in less than five days and then realizing the person who recced it to you didn’t warn you that the third didn’t come out for half a year. the salt was real. ahhhh, they’re great though, for real, have fun.) okay okay, no, this is not a new book you haven’t heard of. this is me frowning a lot and realizing that i can’t decide between the two, so they get to share a spot on the board. first up, we have damen and laurent, which is yet another example of both my types: smarty pants + hot soldier type while also literally being the canon example of what can happen when the enemies to lovers trope is done well. while they don’t particularly fall under the heroes + villains subtype, they share enough in common that it pretty much immediately had me hooked. and it is just, done. so. fucking. well. this is what happens when you have enemies end up in a stable, healthy relationship. ugh, i just can’t. i can’t, okay? and then we have andrew and neil, who are also pretty much straddling the enemies to lovers trope. i think every single pairing on this list started at some point with the characters not liking each other (with the exception of eobard and barry, who... are very complicated since barry did like eobard when he first met him, because he didn’t know who eobard was and eobard, who hated barry when he ‘first’ met him and slowly grew to care for him as he pretty much stalked him his whole life. goddamn. time travelers.) anyway. it boils down to the fact that i really like it when people make grouchy faces at each other and kiss anyways. and i really, really like it if that kissing turns into mutual love and respect and owning an apartment with 2.5 cats.

teen wolf. stiles stilinski and derek hale. i would like to say that i’m over these two. i would love to say that. but considering i fretted about whether or not to include them for over ten minutes and still occasionally get completely gut-punched by fanvids and gifsets, i’m going to say that maybe i’m not completely over them. i’m... very angry with the show itself. i haven’t read a fanfic for them in months. but i still feel soft when content comes across my dash. this pairing was the most at home i’ve felt with a fandom since kingdom hearts owned my soul. i made friends here. i wrote so much fic that i got closer than i’ve ever gotten to breaking my record fics for a fandom (kh is holding at 147. i ‘came close’ with teen wolf at 84. something tells me i’m not going to break that record.) the point is, stiles and derek are smart and capable and enemies to reluctant allies to friends to maybe lovers and just. they are everything i have ever wanted out of an otp, which is maybe why it’s been so hard to extricate myself from them, even after i’ve stopped everything else fandom wise.

i tag anyone because i just had a brown out and i swear to god if i lose all of this i’m throwing my computer out the window.

#heather says what #about me #memes #okay but for real though #wellhalesbells you're tagged in the middle because i had to spaz out a little about captive prince at you #my bad bro #enjoy the pain and joy and exploding feeling in your chest okay it'll be great

3 notes · View notes

aftgficlibrary · 6 years

Text

Enemies (to Friends) to Lovers

This Is What Hollows by constellationqueen ( E | Incomplete | 20/? )

A month after Kevin runs from the Ravens, Nathaniel Wesninski is sent to the Foxes as a message from Riko.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage

The Bodyguard by bourbon ( T | Incomplete | 11/? )

“Hello, you’ve reached the homosexual agenda, how may I help you?”

“Nicky.”, Andrew growled.

“Oh, my favorite cousin! I would ask you to join our cause but it seems you already did.”

_______

Or where Neil hires Andrew as a bodyguard but ends up (fake) dating him instead.

Natural Born Kissers by conniptionns ( E | Incomplete | 4/? )

“The fuck is your damage,” Neil seethed.

“That’s my seat,” the blond informed him in a bored monotone.

“Okay, and?” Neil was incredulous.

“And, get the fuck up.”

//\\

A coffeeshop meet-not-cute

/Graphic Depictions of Violence

Camp Foxhole by everythingsshiny ( G | 24,294 | 5/5 )

Working at Camp Foxhole was supposed to be just another way for Neil to hide.

Perhaps if he knew how chaotic a summer camp could get, or how prone one particular co-worker was to violence, he would have chosen to hide somewhere else.

Stranger Lay Beside Me by conniptionns ( M | Incomplete | 5/? )

commission prompt: Andrew has it all and Neil's never wanted for more than he's had, but now Neil's something Andrew get can't easily get and Andrew's something Neil thought he would never need.

not expected by hmm ( E | 5,301 | 1/1 )

Neil’s halfway through his fifteenth lap around the court when he decides he hates Andrew Minyard. It’s not that Minyard’s specifically targeted Neil or anything, but Neil is positive the other man is out to get him. What other reason would Minyard have for provoking Coach? Neil knows that Minyard earned the team thirty laps on purpose. He can’t prove it yet, but he plans to.

See, it isn’t that Minyard’s flat out told Neil to go fuck himself, although Neil’s sure he’s thought about it many times. It isn’t even that Minyard has been physically aggressive towards Neil, which he’s seen on many occasions. It’s more the fact that right before Minyard mouthed off to Coach, earning thirty laps for the whole team, he sent Neil a smug grin, a challenge evident.

Neil’s never been one to back down from a challenge.

Feels Like Wasted Youth by conniptionns, exybee ( M | Incomplete | 1/6 )

Neil’s current living situation is … complicated.

Between his roommates’ badass rager parties and his neighbors’ constant barging into his apartment, Neil’s sure he can handle anything junior year throws at him

That is, until someone leaves a passive-aggressive noise complaint on his door. Unfortunately for the second floor, Neil has skipped the passive and gone full aggressive.

Shenanigans ensue.

Or the Neighbors AU featuring post-finals parties, ill-timed fire alarms, and campus squirrels that are on some next level shit.

night and day by reneewvlkers ( T | 3,044 | 1/1 )

It's that classic story of girl likes girl but doesn't realise she does so they flirt by arguing in front of everyone they know until they finally own up to it.

Gucci Gang by wesninskids ( M | Incomplete | 4/? )

Perfection is everywhere. It’s hidden, it’s safe and sound where curious eyes don’t think to linger, it’s where the night stops and starts, in the little things we do not hear. It lies where the right people can spot it—and sometimes, sometimes it lets itself be taken and used, be loved, destroyed even.

Nathaniel Wesninski had never been after perfection. He thought it reserved to the weak-minded, at first, those who’d never have anything else to search after than beauty, those who would never understand it and never quite do it justice. But when you’re nineteen, anything can be beautiful: from a timid sunset to gentle hands running along your spine, a kiss, a lie, a pitch black night with nothing but mystery and unknown and secrets. Chaos, too. Chaos above all things.

The gods should have considered it when they gave Nathaniel Wesninski all the tools he needed to obtain it: money, power, beauty and depth, eyes that never stared for too long and never gave away everything. They should have known it’d take a monster to destroy one. They should have known monsters and perfection never did too well.

If they had known, then perhaps no one would have died.

Perhaps.

Let me tell you a story about war by wesninskids ( M | Incomplete | 8/? )

Nathaniel Wesninski is the third dangerous piece of machinery to Riko's Perfect Court. He's a Raven before the hour, and it's a somber wagon Jean Moreau is the latest addition to.

Taller, older, fuming with pride and anger, dangerously charismatic and with a certain talent for causing trouble, he's the kind of threat Nathaniel should eradicate for his own sake. But Ravens operate on a pair-based system to enhance synchrony, and he's stuck with Jean whether he wants it or not.

There can only be so long before one of them breaks, and Nathaniel is determined not to be the first.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence, Underage

Black As Is The Raven, He’ll Get A Partner by nekojita ( E | Incomplete | 31/?)

When Wymack, Kevin and Andrew came to recruit Neil Josten in Millport, Neil decided to say 'no' instead of 'yes' to joining the Foxes and does what he does best, which is runs. Unfortunately, that brings him to the attention of the Moriyamas, who return him to to his 'rightful' place.Now Neil has to learn how to survive at the Nest with his only ally another 'asset' long kept under Riko's heel.

/Rape + Violence

#masterlist #enemies2lovers #masterlistmonday #andreil #au #theme:au #theme:enemies2lovers #lailalverez #jean/neil #kevineil #rarepair

96 notes · View notes