Nicky Hemmick - Blog Posts

Nicky Hemmick is so Effie Trinket coded

I love knowing that with Neil’s stupid ass flip phone all of his texts from Nicky are like this

  □ ALLISON’S OUTFIT!!1!!11!  □ □ □ □

Nicky has terrible ADHD and Erik has to leave little colorful sticky notes all over the house to remind him to take care of himself

Red roses by Garden_Secret

[ Post-Canon ] | [ G ] | [ 1k+ ] | [ 1/1 Complete ] | [ English ]

Once again, not following his words, Nicky invites Andrew to give Neil flowers, otherwise “you seem to be dating, but don’t give flowers” the next day the guys had to look for a vase.

— What are your favorite flowers?🌹

i know literally no one will see this but i’m starting a new instagram for aftg content so if you’re feeling like an idiot extra kind human today go check it out perhaps? it’s called @kevins.estranged.wife merci my esteemed comrades

//:Nicky Hemmick, All For The Game

Does anyone want to start a atfg gc with me on twitter 🙏🏽🙏🏽 I need more atfg moots

it's tupperwares full of shredded cheese (they all have their own container)

i'm also not projecting btw

Guys, what do we think is in that cheese drawer in the monsters' dorm? Is it shredded cheese? Do they like Babybels? Does Kevin buy some fancy cheese that he doesn't let anyone else touch? Does Kevin buy protein cheese? (Ew) Does Andrew just buy whole blocks of cheese like cheddar or Jarlsberg and just take bites out of it as a snack? (Definitely not projecting) What's in the cheese drawer? I need to know everyone's opinion on this.

horror movie night with the foxes

please do not use, edit or post my art to other sites

fav hc is that aaron is a girl dad and neil and andrew are THE gay uncles(nicky is eternally pissed-erik loves it)

whether the monsters would fall while drunk running:

neil: absolutely not. that boy has been running since before he could walk and there is no way after all that running under so many kinds of pressure that he wouldn’t be able to handle drunken shenanigans

aaron: can run drunk surprisingly well but also will lose the ability to handle curbs or stairs and has tripped and ended up on the ground before

nicky: yes, 110% yes. definitely a drunk runner. cannot let him out of your sights bc he might decide to go on a little adventure and he largely overestimates his coordination and will be on the ground before he knows it

andrew: honestly i can’t imagine him running while drunk…….. but i don’t see him falling either. he has too much decorum

kevin: yes. less than nicky but yes and he will swear to you otherwise. you’d think after drinking so much he would have a better handle on things but there’s a reason he doesn’t dance and he only had practice controlling his speech and facial expressions while drunk

just got home after a night out and i’m drunk and thinking of the monsters getting to their columbia house drunk af and crashing the way i’m about to

dude i was dancing in a circle of my friends while leaning against the back of a stranger and i couldn’t think of anything except nicky and aaron on the dance floor week after week just getting drunk and turning up. partying with them would be so fun i can’t

I was testing my pen at 3 am

Also, I think Nikki is nice (PROTECT HIM, HE IS A SWEET BUN)

And sad Kevin as bonus, why not (protect him too)

Space gay Nicky was the Halloween miracle we deserved

no i'm not crying just sitting in the corner thinking of Nicky Hemmick becoming a literal fucking single parent to two teenagers who cannot even be fully described as traumatised because that word does not convey the sheer amount of hell they went through in their short lives while himself being barely an adult with laaaayers of trauma and guilt voluntarily leaving the only human with whom he ever felt safe and loved and truly happy for the uncertainty and the pain of a longe distance relationship knowing he wouldn't even get the acknowledgement for everything he sacrificed because aaron and andrew were not in the mental space for that--

I just know Nicky would unironically call borderline everyone Maus in German like if someone gets particularly nasty bruises or sprains from Exy he'd go "oh nein du arme Maus" or he'd look at pics of jerejean when they finally get together and go "aww guckt euch die beiden an, einfach Mäuse, die zwei" (he thinks the same about andrew and neil but wouldn't say it to their face because he values his skin in its unpunctured state thank you very much)

rip nicky hemmick you would have loved eurovision

love how nicky not only casually foreshadowed that somone's gonna get killed but specifically nominated seth to be the target

that's what you get for being homophobic

"Do you believe in fate?"

"No. Do you?"

"Luck, then."

"Only the bad sort."

@yufi_chi on instagram

Everytime I reread tfc I try to find a reason as to why Columbia needed to happen and I genuinely cannot find one. Like why did they do that??? I could never be Neil cause my sensitive ass would have quit immediately.

I love aftg because it’s literally impossible to water down the characters. Literally everything that they do is based on the unique intricacies of their circumstances. Like there’s no surface level behavior for them because they’re all so individual and have different responses to the situations they’re placed in.

This is also abt how annoyed I get when people try to dumb characters like Neil Josten to “short and feral and depressed” or Andrew to “angry and spontaneous bad boy” when they’re SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT RAHHH

Okay, I know I've already sent asks (and made sure to pick the most difficult ones 😂) but this time it's the other way around. 2, 3, 11 and 17? Two of those are literally canon with Andreil 😂.

No pressure, of course!

~ Nem

ayyo these prompts are mad cute i can't thank you enough for picking them

2: interlocking pinkies

3: smiling into a kiss

11: back hugs

17: tugging on the bottom of someone's shirt

~

2.

This was getting out of hand.

The flashing lights and pulsing bass did nothing to take Andrew's eyes off of Neil. Neil, who looked unbearably attractive in a tight black shirt at the bar. Neil, who's hair looked like a beacon in the middle of Eden's.

Neil, who was currently being flirted to death with by a stranger.

Said stranger was a little too Playboy-eque for Andrew's liking. Tall, curly black hair, muscular — he was basically the reverse-Exy version of Kevin (which made the hotness increase from the negatives to embarrassingly high).

Andrew gripped his glass so tightly he thought it might break. Actually, who care if it broke? He'd get glass shards in his hand, they'd have to call an ambulance, the club would clear out, Neil would come back, and Bar Bitch would get the hell away from Neil.

Maybe he was being a tad dramatic.

Taking a deep breath, Andrew tried to relax. This was fine. Neil could handle himself, and he knew Neil wouldn't act on any offers this guy made. Besides, Neil probably didn't even realize he was being flirted with; the man was incredibly oblivious. It would be fine. He was fine.

Andrew was just about calmed down — he was still staring at Neil just to make sure nothing happened, not at all because the lights were reflecting on the glitter on his cheek or anything — when his personal demon from Hell popped up.

"Watcha looking at?" Nicky plopped next to Andrew, his voice slurred from drinks. Andrew wrenched his neck away, but Nicky beamed when he saw the original target of Andrew's gaze. "OMG, so cute! Keeping an eye on your bae. That's so fetch."

"None of those words are in the Bible," Andrew grumbled. "Also, stop trying to make fetch happen, it's not going to happen."

Nicky giggled for long enough that it was weird. "Riiiiight, but currently you're literally too gay to function. So I win."

Andrew rolled his eyes and leaned back in the booth, deciding to ignore his highly drunk cousin. Nicky barely noticed, choosing to hum a random tune as he stared into the crowd. After what felt like hours of this, Andrew finally snapped. "Nicky. Shut the hell up."

"Nooooo," Nicky whined. "I'm like a siren. I'm luring your tiny little boyfriend here."

"He is not my— wait, what?"

"See?" Nicky waved in front of himself and slapped himself in the face. "He's right there!"

Andrew was a bit embarrassed at how fast his head turned.

Sure enough, there was Neil, in all his 5'3" glory. And there — there was Bar Bitch! Following Neil!

Andrew had just about had enough.

When Neil reached close enough to place the tray of drinks on the table, Andrew hooked his fingers in his belt loops and yanked Neil into the booth next to him. Resoutly ignoring Neil's startled intake of breath and Nicky's oddly hard kick to the leg, Andrew linked his pinky with Neil and delicately placed their hands on the table.

Subtle, yet effective.

Neil blinked at him in confusion, but Andrew only had eyes for Bar Bitch. He narrowed his eyes at the tall man, tightening his grip on Neil's finger, until the bitch threw his hands up and stumbled away.

Ha. Take that, asshole.

"What was that all about?" Neil nudged him softly.

"Nothing," Andrew ground out. "Absolutely nothing."

He didn't let go of Neil's pinky the rest of the night.

~

3.

Andrew was a sucker for roof time with Neil; he couldn't deny it. What he wasn't a sucker for was Neil bringing sheets of plays and team stats during said roof time with Neil.

He tried to subtly hint to Neil that he wanted the Exy gone. He laid down on the roof, letting his hair cover the papers (Neil very gently brushed his hair away but continued reading). He placed his head on Neil's legs (Neil rubbed a calloused finger across Andrew's cheek but continued reading). He wiggled up into Neil's lap (Neil wrapped him in a warm embrace but continued reading. Even worse, Neil moved the papers into his line of sight, as if Andrew was interested).

Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He leaned forward and snatched the papers out of Neil's hand, throwing the sheets behind them. Neil blinked in surprise at his now-empty hand before looking over at Andrew. "What's wrong, Andrew?"

"Nothing," Andrew said, despite looking obviously annoyed. At Neil's unimpressed silence, Andrew sighed. "Stop ignoring me."

Andrew could practically hear Neil's eye roll.

"Yes or no, Drew?"

Just to be contrary, Andrew huffed out, "No. You can go back to your precious Exy."

He decided to ignore Neil's grumbles that suspiciously sounded like 'drama queen.' "I wasn't ignoring you. I wasn't," Neil insisted at Andrew's glare. "I was just... focusing on Exy at the moment."

"Make a choice, Neil. Exy... or me."

Neil looked a little too panicked at that for Andrew's comfort. "Uh... "

"The fact that you actually have to think about this is very telling," Andrew scowled.

"No, wait!" Neil shook his head frantically. "I mean... Exy is what got me to stop running, but you were what got me to stay. If I have Exy, I'll also always have you, and vice versa."

Andrew jammed a very fierce elbow into Neil's gut. He relished in the misery Neil was feeling. "That was more of a love letter to Exy than me."

"Oh, is that the problem?" the junkie annoyingly perked up. "I can definitely write a love letter to you. Where should I start? You have really pretty eyes, your hair is so soft, your arms are crazy strong, you— "

"Shut. Up."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"Fine. But you'll have to make me."

Andrew barely held back a sigh and tried to calm his treacherous heart. "What, did you become the lead in a romcom when I looked away? That was so cheesy."

Neil just shrugged. "Did it work?"

"No," Andrew scowled. "Maybe. Yes or no?"

"Yes, alwa— "

Andrew cut Neil off with a kiss (no matter how bruised his tough-guy reputation was becoming now). He could feel Neil trying to smother a soft smile against his lips, and if Andrew had any shame left in him, he would be a bit embarrassed at how fast his heart starting beating when he realized that.

Because humans unfortunately needed oxygen, Neil pulled back a few moments later but stayed close enough that Andrew could smell the minty gum he had been chewing before they came up on the roof. "See? If you weren't so damn stubborn, we could have been kissing when I first asked you."

Ignoring this logic, Andrew pulled his the junkie back in for another kiss. He wondered in Neil could feel the small upturn on Andrew's lips too.

~

11.

This was just about the worst fucking day of Kevin Day's life, and it all started the day before.

He had been up for hours, starting with Exy at sun-up and ending with Exy at sundown. Except it didn't end with Exy, because he realized humanity was incompetent and then he was forced to catch up on a History essay his groupmates were behind on (5 hours after his detailed schedule!) and then he became too invested in the ruins of Mesopotamia and then he didn't sleep on time and then he missed his pre-alarm for his actual morning alarm and then he wasn't awake enough for his actual morning alarm and then—

Well.

Point was that Kevin was simultaneously cranky, sleepy, and frantically late, which is a shitty combination for anyone but especially for a person named Kevin Day. Which is to say that his perfectionist tendencies were starting to show their negative sides.

And to add company to misery, his fucking roommates had to be the absolute worst.

Kevin stumbled out of the bathroom (and crashed into three walls but that's neither here nor there) with a sock on his arm and one eye shut to make half his face feel rested when he came across the one thing that could possibly make his morning worse. As he sluggishly walked into the kitchen to get at least 3 cups of well-needed, strong-as-shit black coffee, he saw his two roommates directly blocking his access to the coffee pot.

Andrew was fiddling with the pot handle while Neil had his arms wrapped around his back. He was practically leaning all his body weight on Andrew and whenever Andrew murmured something to him quietly, Neil would give him his "Andrew-laugh" and somehow press in even closer. To make matters even sappier, every few seconds he would kiss Andrew — on the shoulder, neck, cheek, even going as far as to bring his hands up and kiss his knuckles!

It was disgusting. Kevin had never been more horrified to have these horribly-in-love-even-though-they-won't-admit-it-yes-he's-happy-they're-together-no-he's-not-happy-he-has-to-witness-this roommates.

Andrew and Neil were fully engrossed in their weird back-hug position, fully disregarding Kevin's coffee withdrawal. Irritated that he was being ignored, Kevin let out a highly unattractive noise that was half-groan, half-shriek, causing the two most hypervigilant people he'd known to jump apart. Except that Andrew was facing the counter so his diaphragm got fully smushed against it, causing the blond to let out an "oof" and Neil had open space behind him so he flailed around until he eventually fell onto his butt on the floor with a groan.

Massaging his stomach, Andrew turned a terrifying glare towards Kevin, who was suddenly waking up enough to realize how bad of an idea this was. Kevin slowly backed away, his hands up in a placating manner.

"Don't mind me," Kevin said. "Keep hugging or whatever. I'll just... go to Matt's room and get coffee."

Stumbling out of his dorm, Kevin crashed his way into Matt, Nicky, and Aaron's room, where Nicky was sitting on the couch on his laptop.

He winced when he saw Kevin zombie-walk to the coffee machine. "Andrew and Neil sexile you?"

As the machine whirred, Kevin groaned. "Something like that. Honestly, the two of them are so affectionate in the morning, it makes me sick."

At that, Nicky's eyes widened. "They're what?! Tell me everything."

Kevin sighed. Maybe he should get a second cup of coffee going.

~

17.

Neil didn't notice the cats until Andrew pointed them out.

The two of them were on a walk walking back over the hill in front of the Fox Tower after their classes. Andrew had made it a habit to pick Neil up after his Spanish class and his own Sociology class every Thursday, and the two of them would drop their stuff off at the dorms and go out to lunch together.

It was very nice, to put it lightly.

Andrew's hand was warm where it was threaded with Neil's, swinging lightly between their bodies. The two were so close to each other that Neil could feel their shoulders brush every few steps, could practically count every faint freckle on Andrew's cheeks if he wanted to.

So he did just that.

"Staring," Andrew glared.

"Yeah," Neil said shamelessly. "You like it."

Andrew squeezed Neil's hand. It was probably more out of annoyance than adorance, but he'd take it.

"You know, in class today," Neil started, mainly so he could hear Andrew's voice when he responded. "This absolute bit— ow!"

Unexpectedly, Neil promptly fell down.

"Typical," Andrew grumbled. "He can come back alive after being tortured by a serial killer but can't walk straight."

"To be fair, it's not like you walk any straighter than me."

After an appraising moment, Andrew shrugged.

Neil finally moved himself into a sitting position while Andrew watched with sheer disappointment oozing out of him. He tied his undone shoelace and was just getting up when he felt a sharp tug on his shirt.

Neil looked at Andrew in confusion, but Andrew had his sights set on something in the distance. Naturally, instead of explaining, he began dragging Neil, who was still halfway bent-over from tying his shoe.

"Andrew!" Neil yelped. "Do you want to let me know where we're going?"

"No."

Fair enough. Neil should have expected that.

Finally, after his shoes untied yet again from the stumbling he did over the hill, Neil finally saw what had caught Andrew's attention. There was a sign advertising a nearby cat adoption, with the directions showing it to be only about 5 minutes away.

Andrew tugged on Neil's shirt again. "We're going."

Neil blinked. "We can't have pets in the dorm."

"We'll sneak them in, it's not like we've never broken the law before."

"Kevin is going to lose his shit."

"You just incentivized me even more."

Neil had to bite back a smile at that. "Fine, fine, we'll visit. But we are not adopting any animals until we can figure out the rules."

"Eh," Andrew turned around, twisting his fingers into Neil's shirt so he'd follow the blond. "I can be very convincing."

"Andrew."

"Neil."

"We are not getting a cat."

"Nah."

"You can't just— Andrew!"

For the prompts - 16 and/or 23 and/or 19? (Andreil, of course)

you are in luck my friend because i'm sick of college apps so i'll just write a bit of all three !

16: "kissing knuckles"

23: "a hug that some might consider as ~too long~"

19: "peppering their face in kisses"

~

16.

So it turns out that punching a tree hurts a lot.

Neil would argue that it was worth it. Andrew seemed to disagree.

"Why," Andrew said flatly, inspecting Neil's split knuckles and glaring at him.

Neil considered — not lying, just... obscuring the truth — for a moment, but figured Andrew would see through it right away. "Technically, I did it for you."

"I do not recall ever asking you to punch a tree."

Neil huffed. "Well, you didn't but someone told me to, and I had to do it for you."

Andrew blinked slowly. "What."

Neil ran over the day's events. Honestly, it had started off pretty normal. He was walking back from a class, eager to see Andrew again, when he spotted a ball of white hiding in the arms of a student passing by it.

After staring at it for a few moments, he ran over (to a stranger!) and promptly asked if he could take a picture for his boyfriend.

The girl — Mara, she informed him — said sure, as long as he punched a tree.

Apparently, Neil explained to an increasingly annoyed Andrew, she was a Psych major doing a project on how far people were willing to go in order to act on their natural emotional response to cute animals. And of course, Neil wanted to show the furball to Andrew.

So he punched a tree. Which hurt.

"I'm fine though," Neil concluded. "I mean, it stings a bit and there's scratches everywhere and I can't really bend my fingers, but I'm fine."

Andrew huffed at him. "No."

"Here," Neil said after Andrew didn't explain further, shoving his phone towards him. "Appreciate the cat."

Andrew sighed as he looked at the picture, giving him an exasperated glance. "Junkie," he muttered, bringing Neil's hand up to plant a featherlight kiss on his injured knuckles.

Neil froze and gaped. His face felt unnaturally red. His fingers were tingling, he made a very squeaky voice, and he was probably staring a bit too much at Andrew.

"142%, idiot."

~

23.

Matthew Donovan Boyd was no fool.

Neil, though? The little guy had so little experience in the normal world, he was practically an infant (no short joke intended).

He knows that Andrew (probably) actually cares about Neil, but Matt's buddy sometimes forgets that not everyone outside of the original Foxes knows this.

This is why, as Matt casually walked with some freshman (Brian? Bradley? whatever) back from the store with bags of movie night snacks, he heard the kid's sharp intake of breath.

Matt's mother-hen instinct kicks in.

"What?" he asked frantically, dropping the bags. "Did you step on something? Did you trip? Did you see someone? Did— "

"Holy shit," Benjamin said emphatically. "Are Minyard and Josten... hugging? On the roof?"

Matt squinted at the striker. "That's what you freaked out about?"

"Look!" Bartholomew waved his hand around. "They've been hugging for at least a minute by now. I thought they hated each other?"

Wondering what he had done to deserve this, Matt ran a hand through his spiky hair. He probably shouldn't out Andrew and Neil, right? "Look kid. Toxic masculinity is not a good look."

"No, of course," Brandon bobbled his head. "Toxic masculinity is the worst. So not in style."

"... right," Matt agreed skeptically. "So, you know we all got pretty close last year—"

"Because of the murder stuff."

"Yes, the murder stuff. Anyways, hugging isn't uncommon between friends!"

"True," Benedict said slowly. "But they've been hugging for so long. More than what I would expect between just friends, if you get what I mean."

Matt ignored the weird eyebrow wiggle the freshman gave him and started picking up the dropped bags again. "That's... not really any of our business," he muttered, no matter how far in agreement he was with this young child.

There were a few moments of peaceful silence before Braxton's head jerked up.

"Oh gee. Hopefully they have socks on at least."

"What?"

"That way it's not gay! If they want it to not be gay, at least. Platonic hugs are valid though. Bad toxic masculinity! But gay people are just as valid— "

Matt let out a long-suffering groan. This was going to be a long year.

~

19.

Andrew was sick of Valentine's Day.

PDA-loving couples kissing everywhere, gooey movies playing on every channel, sappy love songs being blared on repeat by Nicky during weights — there seemed to be no positives.

He had already announced to Neil weeks earlier that he had no intention of celebrating this crass holiday, a proclamation that Neil thankfully agreed to. Instead, they took the relaxed evening after practice to be exceptionally productive: Neil went to the store and bought groceries, caught up on his homework, and took notes on two whole exy games.

Andrew took a three hour nap.

By the time Andrew groggily woke up, it was nearly 2 a.m.. Kevin was God-knows-where and he padded out of the room to find Neil staring unblinkingly at a muted TV, eyes glazed.

"Josten," Andrew grumbled and kicked him in the shin. "Get up, idiot."

Neil jerked awake with an uncharacteristic groan but begrudgingly agreed to be manhandled to the bathroom and finally to the bed so they could sleep.

Infuriatingly, Neil pointed out through a yawn that sleeping was all Andrew had done that whole evening. Andrew shut him up with a kiss and promptly flopped himself halfway on Neil's body.

Hours later, Andrew's eyes fluttered open at the light shining in through a window. He blinked a few times before registering a pair of piercing blue eyes gazing at him.

Andrew hated him. "308%, dumbass," he muttered into Neil's shoulder.

"Drama queen," Neil snorted. They lay in that position for a few minutes, Andrew moments from falling asleep again, before Neil tapped him on the arm.

"Drew, yes or no?" he asked. "Just kisses, though."

Andrew hummed a yes and leaned forward with his eyes still mostly shut, expecting to feel a pair of soft lips on his.

Instead, he felt a hand slap over his face and an oddly strong kick to his gut.

"What the fu—"

His sputtering was interrupted as hard pieces of... foil? began raining down on his face. He swatted them away, ignoring Neil's snickering. Finally, Andrew grabbed hold of one and his felt an exasperated frown cross his face.

"These," he said, waving the tiny cones in front of Neil's face. "are chocolates."

"Yup," Neil agreed proudly. "They're Kisses." At Andrew's blank look, Neil explained slowly, "I just covered your face in kisses."

"I got it."

"Great."

"I thought we agreed to not celebrate Valentine's Day."

"It's February 15 now. Not Valentine's Day."

"Neil Abram Josten."

"That's my name."

"Menace. Now give me an actual kiss, junkie."

BONUS:

"So!" Kevin clapped his hands. "You all need a lot of improvement if you want to be even close to presentable for Spring Championships, and we're already behind. We will not look like flailing monkeys in front of Jerem— USC, understood? Any questions?"

Neil raised his hand.

Kevin sighed. "Yes, Neil?"

"Just one quick thing," Neil said, rummaging his hands through his pockets. "Wanna kiss?"

The Foxes whipped their heads between an innocent Neil, a gaping Kevin, and an unconcerned Andrew.

"Is this like... a threesome thing?" Nicky whispered loudly to Matt.

"Wha— Josten, what the fuck?" Kevin's intolerable screeching promptly came to a halt as Neil chucked a silver projectile through the air, squarely hitting Kevin in the nose. "What is this?!"

"A Kiss."

"What— "

"I asked if you wanted a Kiss."

"No, you asked if I want to kiss. Which— no, by the way."

"Stop hitting on Neil, Day."

"Andrew, I literally wasn't— "

"Anyway. Wanna kiss again, Kevin?"

"NEIL!"

hey i love your page!! can you post some renison hcs? they're just so underrated <3

ok yall know how I said that alvarez and laila were my fav lesbians? i lied, so is renison I CAN'T PICK

so renee and allison seem shockingly different at first glance — where renee is quiet, allison is brash, where renee is demure, allison is obscene

in reality? allison sobs at any animal story while renee can nod and smile through gruesome horror movies

most people outside of the foxes don't really get it, but they don't really care

what they do care about? one-upping each other. constantly.

look, canonically allison is buff as hell, that's the whole reason she was told to stop playing exy

and goalies tend to have really strong and defined arms, so renee has biceps

the two of them are constantly arm wrestling and have full on tallies and bets to keep score

bus stuck in traffic? arm wrestle. waiting for food to arrive in a restaurant? arm wrestle. players not subbing out fast enough in the middle of a game? arm. wrestle.

in their fourth year, allison impulsively asks renee to dye her hair

she dies the tips pink and purple (for the bi flag) and the two of them constantly flaunt their matching colored hair

(allison likes to gloat to andrew and neil that she and renee are the sup-queer-ior couple because they have matching gay heads)

alli and renee love playing laser tag against each other

they forget their "ooey gooey lesbian love" as nicky puts it in favor of fighting to be the first to kill the other

aaron has been trampled multiple times when renee saw allison behind him and ran him over to get her out

their favorite dates are the ones in fun, quirky places

playing pac-man in old arcades, thrift store shopping, outdoor movies

they're not basic, is what i'm getting at

neither of them are exceptional cooks (tbh most of their and dan's food comes from matt), but renee is known in the fox tower for making perfectly shaped pancakes and allison always gets her burrito-to-filling proportion perfect

they both like trying to make new desserts though

renee likes to experiment while allison is wayyy more of a picky eater

sometimes renee will randomly put in vegetables or just plain weird ingredients to trick allison (who ends up loving all these desserts but only before she finds out what they're made of. funny how that works.)

renee loves paper crafts, like paper mache, origami, etc

each year for special occasions (birthday, anniversary, holiday) allison always makes her a craft with a note written within the folds of the paper

(there is a decent amount of complaining to dan about how her nails are getting ruined. renee's smile makes it worth it, though)

on their graduation day, allison gifts renee a massive basket of all the crafts she made and they sit on their dorm floor and look through all the notes and memories they made over the years

as a former soccer goalie, here are some very specific things andrew minyard does while playing exy

he has crazy good aim. that cone drill kevin and neil keep doing? andrew's an icon at that

he's gotta hit the balls directly at the strikers (or whoever else needs the ball) from a static position so his aim is probably better and stronger than most people on the team

andrew's literally shit at cardio. man literally doesn't run aside from normal conditioning (and chasing after neil) plus he smokes so his lungs do be constantly dying

also, i feel like people really underestimate how boring being in goal can be

like if the ball's not near you, there is nothing. to. do.

honestly, he probably just puts his racquet down or straight up sits on the floor when the action is on the other end of the court

(this is coming from someone who literally left the field for a few minutes because she had nothing to do)

another thing: the man can jump.

like, put him on a trampoline (not that he'd ever do that lol) and he'll fly above everyone else, no matter his fear of heights

especially because he's so short compared to the goal, he's gotta stretch in every direction to be able to reach the ball

he's mad flexible, is what i'm getting at

penalty shots are his worst enemy

idc how good of a goalie he usually is, most of the catches/blocks he makes are pure luck

and like. his height doesn't help with this at all

most of the sweating he does comes from his extra armor rather than the game itself

again. goalies literally don't move most of the time. for the longest time, nicky just thinks that andrew has some kind of magic deodorant he isn't sharing with the rest of them

(there have been more than a few raids into andrew's toiletries looking for it)

i literally used to get those misty fan water bottle things bc everyone else had one and it looked cool, not because i was ever tired after games lol

he likes interlocking his fingers to see how obtrusive the goalie gloves are

idk it's a thing that all goalies i know do, for absolutely no reason. it do be fun though

goalies have to do a lot of agility and reflexive drills. one of these is kinda like quickly running in place and jumping/rolling to the side to catch a ball someone throws at you

i'm just imagining andrew doing this bc it looks so. funny.

like the person doing the drill looks like some spider on drugs with how fast their feet are moving

(also it makes lots of goalies pretty good at dancing/stuff that requires lots of feet coordination. i'm not saying... but i'm kinda saying, if you get what i mean)

this isn't during exy, but sometimes catching things is so reflexive

once i caught a glass full of water before it shattered on a restaurant floor, and i imagine andrew does shit like that too

but the difference is that he gets so annoyed whenever it happens

being unintentionally helpful is andrew's least favorite thing (but neil finds it so goddamn funny)

sometimes neil randomly drops things near andrew just to watch him get annoyed at his reflexes

(also, i'm just imagining the foxes randomly throwing things at andrew. he's stuck between two situations: catch things and have the foxes laugh at him or let things hit him in the face and have the foxes laugh at him)

Hi! There's a headcannon that has been circulating that I never saw fully written, and I love how you characterize the foxes! Basically, Andrew living the setbacks of being short (either privately or publicly), getting frustrated, and Neil comforting him

THIS IS SO FUNNY SKDJFHK also i have always wanted to write a 5+1 so tyvm for this (again, this ended up so goddamn long but. what else is new.)

read "shortcomings (honestly, fuck you tilda)" on ao3 hereeeee

———

1.

Andrew gripped the edges of the counter. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Eye on the prize.

He squinted at the offensively orange mixing bowl that Kevin had placed far too high on the shelf earlier that day. He had planned on baking cookies (for no reason other than that he was bored), and that bowl was his lucky one: every baked good he made using it always rose perfectly.

Andrew had tried everything — stretching as far as he could, trying to move things with his mind, even going as far as going on his toes (after a cursory glance that no one was around).

He eyed the step-stool on the other side of the kitchen. He could always use that and put it back and no one would be the wiser. But no. Andrew was a fully capable adult with a reputation to uphold and he would get that bowl down by himself, dammit.

Andrew had been through hell and back, and then some. He would not be bested by cabinetry.

He rubbed his hands against his shirt before placing them back on the counter and took a running crouch. Andrew bounced lightly on his toes, mentally counted to three, and leapt up, hand reaching forward to grip at the bowl.

For one glorious moment, it really seemed like it would work.

Then the counter whacked Andrew in the gut, he smacked his head against the cabinet, and he slowly slid down to the floor, no bowl in hand.

Hmm. That wasn't supposed to happen.

He jerked his head up to glare at the stupid bowl and promptly felt extremely dizzy, slipping even further until he was collapsed entirely on the floor, limbs splayed.

That wasn't supposed to happen either.

Oh well. If he couldn't ruin his health with cookies, he might as well do it by laying on the most unhygienic piece of property he had ever seen. He supposed this was an acceptable way to go.

Andrew lay there on the dorm floor for a solid 15 minutes, willing the bowl to come down, until he heard the dorm room unlock and the sound of Neil's quiet humming filled the room. He didn't have the energy to get up though, so he flopped his legs around as Neil passed the kitchen to catch his attention.

"Oh, hey Drew," Neil shuffled further into the dorm after giving Andrew a quick glance and smile. A few seconds later, the humming stopped and Andrew saw the outline of Neil's body slowly move back into the kitchen doorway. "Um. Can I ask why you're starfished on the floor?"

Andrew sluggishly pointed upwards. "Bowl. High. Jumped. Fell."

Neil nodded knowingly. Andrew stared at him purposefully. Neil blinked.

Idiot.

"Get it for me," Andrew scowled with a well-aimed kick at Neil's ankles. Neil's eyes widened before filling with mirth. He walked forward and sat down next to Andrew's side, running a hand through his blond hair. Andrew hated himself for leaning into the touch.

"Aww, what's wrong?" Neil cooed. "Can't reach it?"

What a fucking asshole.

Andrew shot Neil a glare — he could admit that it probably wasn't super effective considering that he was on the floor with his not-boyfriend carding his fingers through his hair, but it was the thought that counted, okay! — and Neil gave him an amused look before pushing himself off the ground.

He shuffled around Andrew's limp body before giving an exasperated sigh.

"Andrew."

"Junkie."

"There is a stepstool right here."

"Yes."

"You didn't use it."

"No."

"... Why?"

Andrew shrugged in response.

He heard Neil grumbling under his breath and, a few seconds later, was rewarded with Neil's gross socks in front of his face as he went on the tips of his toes to grab at the bowl. Andrew glanced up and noticed that Neil's shorts were delightfully loose around his thighs.

Nice.

He indulged himself in the view until Neil dropped back down on the balls of his feet, holding the bowl proudly.

"Got it!" he grinned down at Andrew and flopped back down on the floor, pulling Andrew into a sitting position. Neil pressed up against him after a quick 'yes or no?' and handed over the bowl so Andrew.

"That was not fair," Andrew grumbled after a few minutes of calm silence. "You did that so easily. You're barely taller than me."

Neil nudged his shoulder and planted a kiss to the side of his head. "It's okay," he gave an annoyingly soft look. "I'll always be there to help you, whenever you need it."

Andrew huffed. "I did not ask for sentimentality, Josten. Just a bowl."

Irritatingly, this caused Neil to laugh a bit. "Okay, okay, I'll leave you with your precious bowl." He moved to get up and pressed a chaste kiss to Andrew's lips. "But for what it's worth, I think your size is perfect."

He left Andrew missing the warmth of Neil's body beside him before his brain caught up to what Neil just said.

"Josten. Josten! Was that a fucking dick joke?"

2.

There were moments where Andrew desperately wanted to burn Neil's clothing. He understood that they were remnants of past habits that were hard to break, but surely having this many gray and brown shirts had to be criminal.

Andrew refused to be seen kissing such a heathen in public but he really only knew how to put Neil in hot club clothes rather than hot casual clothes. And so, for the sake of humanity (and his dignity), he swallowed his pride and met up with Allison Fucking Reynolds.

Their plan to snatch up Neil from the Exy court to take him shopping at the mall appeared to be going well. So far, they'd bought him some shirts, artfully ripped jeans, denim jackets, and an actually functional pair of shoes. Neil, for all his stamina, looked like he was about to collapse from the weight of the bags, so Allison and Andrew took pity on him and decided to take a lunch break.

The three of them reached the food court and made their way to a noodle shop (after Andrew extracted a promise that he could get some ice cream afterwards). He and Allison sat Neil down on a bench to guard their massive pile of bags before going up to order.

By the time they were at the front of the line, Andrew was fully prepared to stab Reynolds in the middle of the mall. In a span of five minutes, she had managed to ask him about his and Neil's sex life, when they got together, what Neil's exact sexuality was, and had Andrew ever painted his nails?

He resolutely refused to answer any of those questions, on the principle that she didn't need more money from bets than she already had.

They ordered quickly, Andrew eager to get away from Reynolds, when the cashier said something that made him stop in his tracks.

"We actually have a discount right now for kids under 12!" she said smiling. "Is that something you'd be interested in?"

Andrew squinted. Why the hell would they—

Oh. Oh no, no, no.

Allison seemed to come to the same realization that he did, because she smiled wide and tapped her nails against the counter.

"Oh, that's just perfect!" she exclaimed. "Aaron here just turned 11 a few months ago. We'll take the discount."

Aaron?!

Andrew was going to kill her.

He was still planning bloody murder as Reynolds brought their tray of food to the table. He sat down with a scowl, and though Neil shot him a curious glance, he didn't push it.

Stupid considerate junkie.

Andrew muttered a percentage under his breath and proceeded to poke Neil in the cheek with his chopsticks. After a few moments of this, Neil turned to him with a scowl.

"Andrew," he grumbled. "What are you doing?"

Andrew glared at Reynolds.

Neil gave a resigned sigh and turned to her. "Allison. What happened?"

Reynolds smirked. "Oh, nothing much. Just that the cashier thought that your boy was a literal child and gave us a discount for kids 12 and under. I told her that it was great because Aaron over there," she jabbed a finger towards Andrew. "just turned 11."

Neil looked like he was biting back a laugh but then frowned. "Okay, but arms."

"True," Reynolds conceded. "However, consider this: tiny."

The two idiots nodded like they'd figured out some indispensable secret of the universe.

Frustrated, Andrew went back to poking Neil's face; when he finally glanced back, Andrew nudged his arms and shuffled a bit closer. Thankfully, Neil actually got the hint for once and scraped featherlight fingers into Andrew's hair.

"It's okay," Neil tried. "I mean, at the end of the day, all of us are just broke college kids—"

"I'm not," Allison interrupted.

Neil rolled his stupid, pretty eyes. "Okay, most of us are broke college kids—"

"Don't you have a bunch of mafia blood money and stuff?" Reynolds asked.

"Beside the point," Neil huffed. "Fine, Andrew, you are a broke college kid—" "Gee, thanks." "— and so you should be grateful that your height is saving you some money."

"That is dumb."

"You're dumb."

"How creative."

Neil scowled and tugged on Andrew's hair. "Shut up. Drama queen."

Andrew stabbed a piece of stir fry into Neil's mouth to close that damn mouth and resolutely ignored the click of Allison's phone camera.

3.

This was proving to be a problem.

Andrew stared at his $150 jeans, the bottom of the legs frayed and pale. He had just bought these two weeks ago. What a waste of money.

There really was only one thing left to do.

Minutes later, Andrew slammed open the door to his brother's dorm and dragged him out with Aaron demanding to know where they were going. By the time he had wrestled his idiot doppelganger to the car, Andrew was reaching. his. fucking. limit.

"Andrew, if you don't tell me where we're going, I swear I'll bite you. I'll push Neil off a treadmill and dump a bucket of mud on him. I'll throw all your ice cream in the trash. I'll—"

That last one was simply too far. He'd have to give Aaron some ground.

"Get in, loser," Andrew glared. "We're going shopping."

Thankfully, he managed to keep Aaron quiet until they reached the mall by letting him pick the music (it was country! Southern heathen). What a child.

Rich coming from you, a voice told him snidely. You can't even buy clothes for yourself properly.

Shut up, he scolded himself.

"Andrew," Aaron sighed exasperatedly when they reached the parking lot. "Can you finally tell me what we're shopping for?"

They got out of the car and Andrew raised an eyebrow as he faced Aaron. "Sex toys."

"WHAT THE FU— "

Andrew watched his brother's face turn red as he sputtered, before noticing the amusement in his face.

Aaron deflated. "Asshole," he grumped.

"Yeah, that is generally where the dildo goes."

"Shut up. I'm begging you."

Andrew decided to take pity on him and stabbed a finger towards Aaron's legs. "When did you buy those."

Aaron squinted. "My jeans?" At Andrew's nod, he looked confused. "Uh, like three or four months ago maybe. Why?"

Three or four months?! That was simply unacceptable.

"They are still in good quality," Andrew said slowly.

"...Yes?" Aaron looked lost for a few moments before his face brightened with pure, evil glee. Andrew hated the world more in that moment than he ever had before. "Oh my God. Oh my God. Are your jeans too long for you?"

"Be quiet," he snapped. "You just need to show me where you buy yours and never mention this to anyone or I'll stab you."

Aaron didn't seem as concerned as he should have been. "I don't need to do anything, dumbass. Why don't you just cuff them like me?"

"I refuse to look like a bisexual disaster."

"Hey," Aaron looked mildly offended. "That's not a bisexual thing. Right?" At Andrew's blank look, his eyes widened. "No. Oh shit. Is that why guys keep hitting on me at Eden's?"

Andrew actually blinked at that. He had not realized that his brother was really that stupid. "Aaron. Eden's is a gay bar. Obviously men will hit on you."

"Wait, it's a what— "

"Be quiet. You are coming with me now." He dragged his brother to the mall entrance as Aaron bumbled along behind him, swearing incoherently.

They weaved their way through what seemed like a million stores until Andrew walked out hours later, finally satisfied with his new haul of jeans that Aaron had oh-so-considerately helped to pick out, a few hundred dollars poorer, and two churros and an iced coffee fuller.

Andrew trudged up the stairs to his floor (perhaps this was a workout he should regularly implement in his exercise regime) while Aaron split off to find some study group or other.

By the time he reached his dorm, Andrew felt far more exhausted than the situation warranted and he blindly chucked the bags on the sofa, belatedly realizing that Neil was already sitting where the bags would land. Oops.

He sat down by Neil like the throw was entirely intentional as Neil sputtered when the plastic smacked him in the face.

"What's all this?" the junkie questioned. For fuck's sake, why did his eyes have to be so blue?

Andrew just gestured for him to take the clothes out and saw as Neil's face grew confused when he saw what he was holding.

"Jeans? Didn't you literally buy some like a week ago?"

"Two," Andrew corrected, because he was a petty bitch if nothing else. Neil rolled his stupid eyes at that but waited for Andrew to provide an explanation. Andrew heaved a regretful sigh. "The bottom of them are all frayed now"

"Frayed?" the striker's brows furrowed before his face cleared and a shit-eating smirk crossed his face. "Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying you were too short for your jeans?"

Andrew nearly stabbed him right then and there.

"Shut. Up."

"Oh my gosh. Andrew. Andrew."

When Andrew got up (not grumpily. never grumpily. (okay, maybe a little grumpily)), Neil tugged on his shirt sleeve with an apologetic grin. "Sorry, sorry, I'll stop making fun," but his eyes were squinted as he tried not to laugh and his face was flushed and his lips were red as he bit on them, and honestly, how was Andrew expected to stay annoyed after seeing that?

"I mean," Neil continued. "You're paying with whatever you have left of Tilda's life insurance, right? And it's technically her fault you're so, uh... vertically challenged because of the drugs and shit. So you buying all these jeans are like a big "fuck you" to her!"

Andrew blinked slowly at his not-boyfriend's not-cute not-endearing hand-waving and decided he could take a hit to his reputation if it kept Neil glowing like this. "Josten. Are you saying that being short is literally in my jeans?"

"Holy shit, yes."

4.

To be fair, he had been warned. This was probably his own fault. Which he would never admit, but whatever.

It had started fine enough.

Andrew had been smoking by the windowsill as he waited for Neil to come back from his class. It was raining heavily and he felt a comfortable laze settle in his bones, so he didn't bother to open the window, despite Kevin's complaints.

"Andrew, stop smoking in here. If you want to destroy your lungs, at least do it away from me."

"Shut up and watch your damn Exy, Day."

He shut up and watched his damn Exy.

Andrew let the sounds of the game wash over him as he let his eyes droop (when did Exy become... relaxing to him? That was moderately concerning), so by the time he realized that there was an incessant beeping sound in the background, everything was too far gone to not have gone to shit.

His body finally jolted into action when he finally registered that the smoke alarm was blaring in their dorm and he heard yells coming from outside in the hallway, which probably meant an RA or some other Foxes were about to burst in and see him smoking where he wasn't supposed to. For the third time this month.

Crap.

"Day. Day! Get off your fucking computer and turn off the alarm," he hissed as he (gracefully) scrambled to the kitchen to find a towel.

"Hmm?" Kevin hummed blearily. "Oh. That. Well, I told you so."

Andrew simply could not believe it. (Well, maybe he could a bit. Kevin was just that kind of asshole frie— person.)

By the time he dampened a towel (wow, they really needed to do the dishes sometime soon), the shouts were right outside the door and he heard keys jingling in the lock. Quickly he scrambled up the table, but in his haste, kicked over a glass of water (vodka? Sprite? whatever).

He tripped over slightly and his foot splashed into the puddle on the table, causing him to cringe internally. His sock felt horribly wet and tingly, and it was nearly enough to distract him from the creaking of the door opening. Quickly, he reached up, flapping the towel near the smoke alarm to turn it off.

It wasn't enough. He couldn't reach the alarm.

In a split-second, he decided to just fuck it and leapt up to see if that would work. However, the uncomfortable feeling in his feet and the stupid smoke alarm and the fucking banging of the door made him severely misjudge his strength.

Andrew jumped a lot further forward than he expected. He flew through the air, one foot catching on the top of a chair, the other stabbed by the edge of the table. In a futile attempt to gain his balance, Andrew flailed his arms around, but that just caused the towel to smack him in the face.

Eventually, gravity took hold of him and he (and the chair) crashed into the floor, the towel mockingly flopping on his hair. Blearily, he raised his head up and saw Neil and their RA staring at him concernedly from the doorway.

Well, this was awkward. At least the beeping had stopped.

Their RA, an unfortunately attractive tennis player named Richard Addams (Nicky found it hilarious that their RA's initials were R.A.. Andrew called him 'Certified Dick™'), stepped in cautiously. "Andrew, everything okay?"

"Just peachy," he grumbled.

Neil ran to Andrew's side at the sound of his voice and pushed his blond hair out of his face. "Why peaches? They're honestly not even that good; I can only stand the really big and thick and juicy ones."

Andrew froze and even Kevin closed his laptop that. "Neil," Certified Dick™ said slowly. "Do you know what peaches are?"

"Duh," he rolled his eyes. "Fruit. That's why Nicky has a peach next to my name in his contacts. Because I like fruits."

Idiot.

"It means 'ass,' " Andrew informed him. Neil gaped.

"It means wha— "

"Okay," Certified Dick™ exclaimed cheerfully. "I'm gonna leave y'all here. Andrew, I'll assume you weren't doing anything against the rules because you are a kind person who always listens to what I say."

"Of course," Andrew said blandly. "I am a wonderful student." He fingered the edges of his armbands.

Certified Dick™ slowly backed out of the room.

Neil let out a breath and blew his hair out of his eyes. "Okay," he started. "We'll talk about the ass thing later. But first, what the hell just happened?"

Andrew pointed up at the smoke alarm.

"Well, yes, I got that, but why were you jumping around like an absolute idiot?"

"Kevin is useless," Andrew announced.

"Not true!" Kevin protested immediately. "You just never listen to me. It's not my fault that I'm always right."

Andrew glared at him and turned back to Neil. "I couldn't reach the stupid smoke alarm," he finally gritted out, bracing for someone to mock him.

It never came.

Instead, Neil gave him a cheeky grin and a wink (at least, Andrew assumed it was a wink) and turned to Kevin with a faux-annoyed stare. "Seriously, Kev? You didn't help him?"

"He got himself into his own mess," Kevin shrugged.

"Okay, and what if someone had caught him? They might have not allowed him to play Exy for a bit! Or maybe while he was trying to shut off the alarm, he could have really hurt himself!" Neil was really laying it heavy on the dramatics, brandishing his arms wildly.

Kevin's eyes widened in horror at his words. "Shit."

"Yeah," Neil nodded graveley. "Us Exy players have got to look out for each other. How else will we live to our potentials?"

Kevin looked like he was going to be sick. Quickly, he whipped open his laptop and began muttering questions on how to secretly disable smoke alarms.

"Junkie," Andrew muttered to Neil. Neil just hummed and pressed a kiss to the crook of his neck.

"Yeah," he whispered a few moments later. "Only for you."

5.

Hmm. This was nice.

Andrew never could have imagined he would be the kind of guy to stumble over furniture while kissing his way through a room, and yet, here he was, crashing into tables and upturning chairs and tripping over bags.

He had Neil's fingers intertwined with his and was dragging him through the dorm, the kisses constantly pausing because Neil kept breaking off into small smiles and laughing into his neck. Every few steps, Andrew would take a look at his flushed junkie and absolutely forget about his plan to reach the bedroom, choosing instead to kiss him ferociously right there.

They were lucky that no one else was in the dorm.

When Andrew realized that it had taken them a solid seven minutes to walk about 15 feet past the door, he realized they would probably never reach an actual bed at the rate they were going. He told Neil as much and was rewarded with a shrug.

"I literally don't care where we end up," Neil said breathlessly before pulling him into another heated kiss. "I just wanna kiss you."

Andrew nearly snorted at that. How predictable. "I got that" he muttered. "But what do you want?"

Neil raised an eyebrow and deepened his voice mockingly. "I want nothing."

"You are actually so insufferable."

"Yeah, yeah," Neil waved him off and latched his mouth on Andrew's neck. Fuck. "Hmm," he said a few moments later. "Carry me?"

Andrew resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Ever since the junkie had seen how much he lifted at the gym a few weeks ago, this had become one of his favorite requests (and really, who was Andrew to deny him?).

Nevertheless, he leaned down and grabbed both of Neil's thighs, pushing him up until his legs were secured around Andrew's waist and Andrew could comfortably hold him up, his body flush against Andrew's.

Yeah, he got why Neil liked this so much.

He wasn't sure how long he'd be able to hold Neil up for though, considering that they actually had a game tomorrow and he didn't want to put up with Kevin's annoying complaints if he didn't try at least a bit. Andrew glanced around for a second before his eyes caught on the perfect place.

He adjusted his grip on Neil, causing him to let out an oof in surprise and carefully made his way to the kitchen (with only a slight amount of kissing in the middle). Andrew messily deposited Neil on the island counter and was promptly faced with another problem.

Neil was up there. Andrew was down here. How the hell were they supposed to make out now?

Andrew frowned slightly and tugged at Neil's collar. "Lean down," he commanded.

Neil complied and pressed a searing kiss to his lips, tugging at Andrew's hair, but too soon he pulled back.

At Andrew's 'yes or no?' Neil smiled down sheepishly. "It's a yes, but this angle's going to end up destroying my back."

That made no sense — whenever Andrew sat on the counter, he never had to lean down that much. He reasoned that the weight of being an Exy junkie was finally catching up to Neil's spine, though.

"Well," Andrew huffed. "I'm not going up on my toes."

"Why would you need to go on your toes?" Neil looked genuinely confused as Andrew frustratedly gestured at the air between them. "Wait, wait. Can you not reach me if I'm sitting up here?"

Andrew's thoughts came to a halt.

He pulled back (well, as much as he could while still staying in Neil's arms) and squinted suspiciously at his not-boyfriend. "Can you normally reach me when I sit up?"

"Well, yeah," Neil blinked. "I mean, I have to stretch a little bit but it's usually fine."

What.

Unceremoniously, Andrew yanked Neil off the counter and sat himself up (he pretended not to notice the stare that Neil gave when he flexed his arms). He hooked his ankles around Neil and dragged him closer, coming nearly forehead-to-forehead.

Forehead-to-forehead. Neil could reach him.

Andrew let out an uncharacteristic groan and dropped his head on Neil's surprisingly comfy shoulder. Neil snorted quietly and patted his head.

"It's okay, Drew," he said, his voice muffled but teasing as he pressed a kiss to the top of Andrew's head. "Maybe next time we can get you a stool or something. That'll be real attractive."

Andrew scowled and kicked him in the leg.

Neil's voice softened as he lowered his arms to rub soft circles on his back. "But I'm serious Andrew, it's okay." He pressed a soft kiss to Andrew's collarbone, the underside of his jaw, the corner of his lips. "Does this feel good?"

Andrew swallowed. Hiding from Neil was a fight he knew he'd lose, and there was no point prolonging the inevitable. "Yes."

"Then that's all I need. Making you feel good makes me feel good," he whispered. "I really like this, what we do right now. And if you want, we can still find more positions that feel really good. Don't stress, we have time."

"Hmm," Andrew said a few moments later. "That is all fine and well, but actually, we now only have about 20 minutes until Kevin comes back from class, and I would highly appreciate it if you could get me off sometime soon."

"Asshole. We were totally having a moment."

"Next to a bowl of apples."

"Rude. I bet those apples appreciated the conversation."

Andrew rolled his eyes at Neil's idiocy, but kissed him hard to convey everything he felt: you care, you listen, you are okay with me, you are safe for me. Neil seemed to get the message, because his body softened under Andrew's grip as he kissed him back eagerly.

When they finally pulled apart, Andrew felt heavy and sated and secure in the way he only associated with Neil. He looked into Neil's blown-out pupils, the blue peeking brightly at the edges of his eyes as he slowly brought Neil's hand to the waistband of his jeans.

"Right," Andrew tried for a nonchalant tone. The slight voice-crack may have betrayed him, but whatever. "Take off my pants now?"

+1

South Carolina winters were shit.

Growing up in Oakland meant that he was pretty used to cold winters and hot summers, but usually things only got unbearably chilly at night, when he could pile tons of blankets on himself. Unfortunately, winters in the South brought biting wind and snow. All day long.

Andrew hated the cold (sure, he could walk around with a blanket draped over him like a cape in his dorm (he did. occasionally), but alas, he actually had a reputation to uphold)

And yet, when Nicky and Dan enthusiastically told Neil about their stupid plan and Neil had sent a stupid questioning gaze to Andrew's stupid face, he sure as fuck couldn't use "the cold" as an excuse to deny those eyes.

So he bundled up into a turtleneck, a sweater, a thin jacket and a snow one, a beanie, a pair of gloves, leggings and then sweatpants, and his warmest socks (Andrew decidedly ignored Neil's snickers, who was annoying dressed in just a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. how rude.)

The so-called Monsters trampled down to the parking lot outside the Tower, boots sinking deep into the snow. Andrew shivered at the sudden wind and if he walked a little closer to Neil's hot warm body — well, no one needed to know.

Within seconds of their arrival, Andrew was regretting coming out.

A massive snowball soared through the air and slammed into Aaron's face, who promptly fell on his ass from the force of it.

"What the fuck?" he sputtered, wiping snow out of his eyes.

"HA!" Reynolds hollered. "Take that!"

"Oh dear," Neil muttered. "I didn't expect this much violence from the start."

"We are Foxes," Andrew scoffed. "Violence is the whole point."

"Actually, there's this one piece of shit in my Stats class and he tried to tell me I was wrong — I wasn't, by the way — and instead of punching him, I just very mathematically proved how incompetent he was and I told him that his parents' miscalculation when it came to conceiving him evidently got passed on to him in the form of his nonexistent math skills. So. No violence."

Andrew wasn't sure if he should kiss Neil or smack him. "Right. Because verbal annihilation is a very tame response."

"Since when have you been such a peacemaker?"

"Renee."

"You two literally beat the shit out of each other every week."

Andrew shrugged. "Semantics."

"I really don't think— "

Their conversation was rudely interrupted by Matt throwing a snowball mere inches away from Andrew's face. At his glare, Matt promptly ran behind a car.

"Neil," Andrew sighed. "I hate you."

"I didn't force you to be here," Neil pointed out. "Could've said no. What did Nicky call you? 'Whipped.' So ha." With that profound statement, Neil ducked and dumped a handful of snow down the back of Andrew's shirt.

"Ha," Andrew said back smugly. "Layers." Neil looked betrayed.

"Layers. I forgot."

"I didn't."

"Asshole."

"Yup."

Neil scowled and kicked at Andrew's highly sturdy snow boots petulantly. Andrew refrained from rolling his eyes turned towards him. "Yes or no?"

"Oh," Neil perked up. Junkie. "Yes, yes."

Andrew jabbed him in the stomach and when Neil keeled over groaning, he pressed a kiss to his lips and shoved his head under Neil's chin.

"Personal heater," Andrew explained. Then he grabbed Neil's arms and tucked them around his waist. This was good.

"Right," Neil snorted. "Naturally. I can't wait until someone throws a snowball at your face and you get all cold and wet."

Andrew scowled. How rude.

"Oi, Minyard!" Dan called and Andrew sighed before wiggling around until he was facing her, back flush against Neil's front. "This is for drawing mustaches all over the pictures in the Court!"

Andrew raised an eyebrow. "You have no proof— "

His protests were cut off with the sight of a snowball hurtling full speed at him. He made to jump out of the way (maybe Exy was good for something after all), but Neil's arms around him proved to be a real hindrance.

As it was, he got jerked back into place, the snowball inches in front of him. Andrew shut his eyes, hoping he could use this as an excuse to drag Neil into the dorm to warm up, when he heard an "oof" from behind him.

Andrew twisted around to find Neil's face covered in an explosion of snow, water dripping down his shocked expression.

His eyelashes were nice. Hmm.

"Wh- What?" he shivered. "How is there snow on my face? Wasn't it supposed to land on you?"

Oh.

Andrew brushed off some snow that had settled on his cheekbones before stepping back a bit (still in Neil's arms. that was necessary). And Neil was right, it was odd, the snowball was supposed to hit him and instead, it had smashed itself on Neil.

"I believe," Andrew said slowly. "My height has proved to be advantageous."

"Advan— you mean you were so short the snowball literally missed you and hit me?!"

"Yup," Andrew felt extremely self-satisfied. "See, had you been shorter, this wouldn't have happened. Alas, there's just more of you to hit when you're tall."

"That— I— Andrew!"

"That's my name."

"Ugh. I am cold and wet and very much not liking this," Neil grumbled.

"Bet you wish you had as many jackets as me, huh?" Andrew crowed.

"You could always give one of them to me," Neil said as he yanked Andrew back against him.

"I could. Not feeling it, though."

"Bastard."

"Just a little," Andrew agreed. He tilted his head up to look at Neil and oh, that angle was good, his lips were right there, how did Andrew never notice that Neil's eyelashes framed his eyes so nicely?

Hmm. If this was the view, maybe his height had some... unforeseen perks that extended beyond snowball fighting.

"I win," Andrew told Neil seriously. At his confused expression, Andrew was forced to sigh out an explanation. "You are very pretty from down here."

"Oh?"

"Shut up."

"I think you're pretty too."

"198%."

"Kiss me?"

"Ugh, if you insist."

Andrew leaned up to press his lips to Neil, dutifully ignoring the cheers from behind him, as Neil placed a hand under his chin to tilt him up further, which felt very nice.

Yeah, Andrew was living the good life. He had a maybe-boyfriend who was the perfect height and a brother and cousin who might actually stay, and he was content and safe and— really fucking cold because there was a ball of snow sliding down his neck what the fuck what the fuck what the fu— .

"NICKY."

"Shit. Sorry!"

I always wondered how the foxes would react to finding out that it was andrew that "hit on" neil first (specially Kevin, since he was just standing right there while that happened)

(now, i don't think they would willing just talk about it but if one of them slip up...)

Btw: i absolutely adored the goodbye kisses series

AHHH sorry for being so MIA lately but i'm absolutely loving this! also i'm realizing that i'm very bad at actually getting to the point so enjoy a shit ton of irrelevant exposition :)

read it on ao3 here

— ··· —

Kevin didn't understand why they had to come to the zoo. It was smelly, there were kids screaming everywhere, and he'd nearly been stepped on three times in the past 10 minutes. He much rather preferred exy to this.

Team bonding sucked.

He trudged along beside Aaron as Dan, Matt, and Nicky actually tried socializing with the new Foxes. Normally, Kevin would jump at the chance to talk about exy with these recruits, but also, normally he didn't feel like he'd just just rolled through a flaming dumpster filled with screeching, pooping monkeys.

Kevin let out a sigh as they passed some sort of mildly interesting snake exhibit. He nudged Aaron, who was on his phone with a red face, which meant he was either texting lovey-dovey things to Katelyn or blasting an idiot in his Ochem class. You never really knew with him.

"Aaron."

Aaron just scowled at him. Kevin sighed again. Conversing was always so much more exhausting than he anticipated.

"Snakes."

"What."

"Do you want to... see the snakes?"

Aaron blinked in confusion. "Okay?"

Kevin led them to the snakes.

There, they shoved past some families and made it to the front of the glass enclosure.

"Well?" Aaron asked. "Now what do we do?"

Valid question, Kevin thought. He hadn't really considered what they were doing. He just wanted to see snakes.

He told Aaron as much, who rolled his eyes aggressively and went back to his phone.

Kevin felt a tap on his shoulder and twisted around, coming face-to-face (well, more like chest-to-face) with some sort of tour or information guide.

"Hi!" she smiled all too brightly. Kevin wanted to cover his eyes. "How are you enjoying the exhibition?"

"Um," Kevin gulped eloquently, then remembered his media training. "Oh yeah, it's great!"

"Awesome," she beamed. "You know, there's a snake feeding session in about 5 minutes if you and your son are interested."

Kevin's face contorted in confusion. He whirled around, assuming some tiny, lost child was latched near him, but when he turned back, the lady — Sandy — had her gaze intensely focused on the only other small person near him: Aaron.

Oh dear.

Aaron seemed to come to the same conclusion as Kevin did because his eyes widened comically and he hissed "I. am. not. his. son."

Sandy blinked owlishly. "Little brother then?"

Aaron threw his hands up. "I am 21! Leave me alone." He then proceeded to stomp out of the enclosure, dragging Kevin along and leaving a very flummoxed old lady behind them.

"I can't believe it," Aaron kept muttering. "Your son. Your son! I hate life."

Kevin was a bit miffed that he hadn't actually been able to see the snakes, but he figured Aaron's plight was slightly more significant than that.

After a few moments of silent walking (Kevin) and angry grumbing (Aaron), Kevin realized he couldn't see any of the Foxes anymore. He glanced around, instinctively searching for Andrew.

"Hey, do you know where Andrew and Neil went?" Kevin asked.

Aaron scoffed. "They're probably making out somewhere."

"Who's making out?"

Aaron and Kevin both gave unholy screeches as they turned around to find Nicky standing between them, a wide, innocent grin on his face.

"What the fuck," Aaron complained. "Don't do that again, you bitch."

Nicky waved him off. "Shut up. Who's making out? Might be able to close some bets."

Kevin rolled his eyes. "We just can't find Andrew and Neil anywhere. Aaron seems to believe they're off deflowering a zoo Port-A-Potty or something."

"Well then, we wouldn't want to interrupt them, right?" Nicky winked. "Anyways, we're all going to the butterfly exhibit right now so y'all have to join us. I'm not taking no for an answer."

It seemed that they had no choice, so after sharing a resigned glance, Kevin and Aaron trudged behind an overly enthusiastic Nicky while he babbled on about some parrots that he saw. It really didn't seem as interesting as Nicky was making it out to be, but Kevin didn't want to say anything lest he was expected to participate in the conversation too.

They finally reached the butterfly exhibit where the other Foxes were waiting for them. They entered as a mass of loud, mildy buff, smelly athletes and got more than a few glares from the parents of young children who moved out of the way.

But in all this movement, the path cleared and Kevin found... Andrew and Neil? He was about to turn to Aaron and tell him that they evidently not making out, until he noticed how still Andrew was standing and the glee on Neil's face.

Nicky's gaze caught onto them a second later, because he squealed and grabbed Kevin's arm, jabbing his finger at the sight.

"Oh my God," he whispered. "Is that a butterfly on Andrew's nose? That is adorable."

Kevin squinted, and yes, that's exactly what it appeared to be. Nicky's outburst had caught Allison's attention, and she began marching over to Neil and Andrew, the rest of the Foxes in tow.

Kevin could already tell this was going to be a mess.

When they finally reached Andrew, Aaron was the first to speak. "What the fuck?" he asked flatly. Andrew glared at him. Slowly, as to not move the butterfly, he raised his hand to gently flip off his brother.

Nicky immediately started cooing. "Aww, don't worry Andrew! I think you look adorable."

Andrew began slipping out a knife.

On Allison's left, Kevin saw Dan practically shaking with laughter as she pulled out her camera and snapped a picture.

Neil opened his mouth, probably to tell off Dan but Nicky rushed in to talk to him.

"Soooo," he waggled his eyebrows. "I didn't know you could see the future, Neil."

Neil stared at him blankly and turned back to Andrew as he pulled out a map, but Nicky rallied on.

"Like, you must have been able to predict that one day Andrew was going to be this adorable. That's why you asked him out, right?"

"What?" Neil asked distractedly. "I never asked him out."

Kevin blinked in surprise. After a moment's consideration, he realized that considering how utterly oblivious Neil could be, it really was no shocker that Andrew had to ask him out first.

"Wait wait wait," Matt shook his head. "So Andrew asked you out?"

Neil waved them off as he continued squinting at the map he was holding. "Yes yes, just go ask Kevin, he was there."

All eyes turned to Kevin. Kevin was very lost.

"What the fuck," Aaron repeated. "I'm so confused."

"Me too," Kevin muttered. "Me too."

— ··· —

After their long day at the zoo was over, the Foxes finally began the trudge back up to their respective dorms. The younger Foxes dozed off immediately, but the older Foxes gathered in the girls' room to drop off the bags they had borrowed for the trip.

In all the commotion, no one really noticed Andrew and Neil leaving together. But right before they slipped out the door, Renee caught sight of them.

"Good night, you two!" she called. Neil turned around and gave her a tired wave, his body slumped on Andrew.

"Wait!" Nicky scrambled off the sofa. "Before I forget: Neil, how did Andrew ask you out?"

Neil blinked sleepily. "Well," he slurred. "He asked if he could blow me."

The room went silent.

Andrew heaved a sigh and dragged Neil out the door, leaving seven wide-eyed, very much awake athletes in their wake. Slowly, everyone turned to Kevin.

"You!" Allison weakly jabbed a finger in his direction. "You knew about this!"

Too late, Kevin realized what Neil's statement meant. Andrew had asked out Neil in front of Kevin. By offering sex. Nothing could have possibly ruined Kevin's night as much as this information had.

He met the Foxes' eyes slowly. Even Renee looked a bit surprised at Neil's admission, but she was clearly biting back a smile. "Trust me," Kevin groaned. "If I had known this had happened, I would have won myself so many bets."

"Damn," Nicky sighed. "I wish Erik and I had such an iconic story. Who knew the quiet, stabby cousin was such a horny gay bastard?"

"I," Aaron announced hotly. "have never wanted to forget a conversation more than this one."

"But Aaron. Andrew asked to blow him."

"Nicky, I swear— "

"OH MY GOD. They're probably having sex right now! Kevin, could you— "

Aaron put his head in his hands. "Please shut up now."

andreil and goodbye kisses (pt. 8) ft. wymack (+ a bonus)

part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 || i'm actually feeling kinda sad that this is the last part but also my brain can't come up with more ideas lmao

wymack stands by the fact that he doesn't get paid enough to deal with andrew and neil's shit (both as separate idiots and together)

but he does care for all his foxes, despite all the... difficulties that surround them

and honestly? one of the biggest struggles he faces is how absolutely thick-headed and oblivious the foxes can be regarding andrew and neil's relationship

truly, the heart-eyes neil constantly gave andrew were so obvious, he's not sure how everyone missed them before

but because he's so observant, he doesn't fail to notice how the older foxes keep giving strange looks to neil whenever he leaves andrew's side now

wymack doesn't get in the way of his foxes' personal lives. but if they start causing disturbances on the court, it's his job as coach to get to the bottom of these issues

(okay, maybe he and dan catch up on the so-called "drama" in the team every few weeks but it's for completely exy-related business. ahem. of course)

one day, wymack corners neil and lets him know that he and dan were to meet in his office after practice to talk through some logistics for the winter banquet

neil agrees, and practice goes smoothly (or, as smoothly as it can go with the foxes)

but after practice is... interesting

wymack swears he had no ulterior motives planned with the meeting; it really was supposed to be a genuine discussion

but the outcome of it was certainly unexpected

he and dan both know to wait for neil, that he doesn't like changing in front of anyone

so they wait. and wait. and wait.

it gets to the point where it's nearly 45 minutes after practice and surely neil should be done at this point, no?

wymack gets up, fully prepared to break down the door to make sure neil is okay when suddenly it slams open

neil tumbles out hand-in-hand with andrew, with matching flushed faces and ruffled hair

wymack sighs

dan outright snorts, and neil's head jerks up and his eyes widen when he notices dan and wymack

but before he can say anything, dan stands up and grins at andrew

"fucking neil again, huh?"

neil chokes on a cough and wymack turns to dan with a groan when he notices the mischievous glint in her eye, almost like that was an... inside joke?

with minyard?

wymack is very confused

andrew just scowls at dan. "i will knife you and make it look like an accident"

neil is still recovering from his coughing bout, so wymack turns back to the stabby midget ready to reprimand him

"i'm not scared of you anymore, remember andrew?" dan's eyes are still bright as she tries not to laugh

"shut up, both of you" wymack interrupts their weird jokes conversation whatever gruffly. "neil, do you remember why we're here?"

"huh? OH. oh shit. drew, i'm supposed to be talking with them about some winter banquet stuff"

andrew considers this. "how long?" wymack tells him about an hour, and andrew nods and turns to neil. "i'll stay"

neil just rolls his eyes. "you have a paper due tomorrow that you haven't even started yet. go do that, i'll be fine"

wymack sighs. he's been doing a lot of that lately. "minyard, go finish your homework or i swear to god, i'll make you run three marathons next week"

andrew glares but mutters out a "fine." he goes to leave but neil tugs him back by the wrist

neil then proceeds to kiss andrew on the nose and gives him the most bashful smile wymack has ever seen on the kid's face

neil's happy. it's a christmas miracle! and it's not even christmas yet!

and that kiss... really, it was the last thing he expected out of neil and andrew but he's happy at how comfortable they've grown around each other

and okay, it was a little adorable

(not that he'd ever say that to their faces, of course)

andrew ends up stumbling out of the court with the reddest face wymack's seen as neil turns back to him and dan

"right" he says sheepishly. "banquet?"

BONUS:

abby doesn't believe it when david tells her about the nose kiss

she knows that neil has a heart of gold, she knows that andrew has so much capacity to feel

but a nose kiss? she doesn't think andrew would agree to that

so when her older foxes come over one night after a tiring, but successful, game, she decides she needs to see this for herself

after a hearty dinner, all the kids are sitting in the living room, with andrew and neil talking quietly in the back corner of the room.

perfect.

"neil!" abby calls, and everyone in the room quiets to look at her. "sweetheart, could you help me bring out the dessert?"

nicky immediately jumps up from beside her, saying how he could help if she needed it

"no no, it's alright, i was hoping to talk to neil, if that's okay? it might take a little while"

neil looks extremely worried at this and abby almost feels guilty.

almost

he glances at andrew and then he leans down so quickly that abby nearly misses it

neil kisses andrew on the nose.

abby barely notices andrew's bright blush, nor does she register neil moving towards her

she just feels so proud of her foxes for coming so far in a world that keeps trying to beat them down

it's a sentimental moment, which is completely ruined by kevin's woop and nicky's yell of glee

"YES BITCH THEY DID IT THEY DID THE KISS GIVE ME YOUR MONEY ALLISON"

"fuck you hemmick. fuck you"

neil looks at them wildly. "you guys were betting on us? i didn't think you would..."

matt sighs and slings an arm around his friend. "oh neil, do you still really think that low of us? we bet on everything"

JSKHKKSJ OK IT'S FINALLY DONE i already miss this series but it has been a fun time :) my asks are always open if y'all have anything specific you want me to write !