“You know, studies show that long distance running is actually really bad for your health.”
Neil hadn’t noticed Andrew leaning against the dorm when he started stretching, but he doesn’t let his surprise show. He switches quads and flicks an unimpressed look towards Andrew.
“Andrew, I fully expected I’d be dead by now,” Neil says. “I don’t give a fuck if this messes with my knees when I’m 50 or whatever.”
so after the foxes win everyone starts paying attention to them
suddenly the press is all over their social media and wants them on talk shows and panels all the time
and they do it bc they could use some good publicity tbh and they rly need a bigger team
one day allison (her and neil are bffs now dont fight me on this i s2g) is watching tv w neil and he is rly into what’s happening and she pulls out her sc and starts taking a video
she holds the camera so both their faces show and goes “hey neil” and and when he starts to look over she kisses him on the cheek (allison reynolds does not give 2 shits about neil’s scars and she’s gonna show every1)
the video ends just as neil smiles
ppl on the internet lose their shit !! this video is everywhere
allison moved on from seth and NEIL JOSTEN is dating a teammate
so they go on a lowkey trashy talk show (and everyone warns neil to keep his mouth shut)
the lady is like “so neil i hear ur in a relationship with one of ur teammates”
all the foxes hold their breath he’s too unpredictable
wymack takes a drink
andreil arent hiding anything really they just dont do pda so neil is like “oh ya we like to keep our relationship private tho lets talk about exy”
and she is like “well it didnt look like you were keeping it private when allison posted this on her sc” and she plays the video
all the foxes start laughing except kevin, andrew, and aaron
allison is literally losing her shit and matt has trouble breathing for a few seconds
and the lady is like “…um did i miss something haha”
and nicky takes pity on her “we’re just laughing bc neil and allison are definitely not dating sry”
and she is like “???????????? but ur still dating a teammate”
kevin quickly redirects the conversation back to exy bc they do not have the time to sit here and talk about andreil’s love life jfc
she cant get anything else out of them
so ppl are just losing their minds for like a week trying to figure out who neil is dating when renee posts a pic on instagram of them w the caption “neil drove me to lunch and paid for my meal” ((they actually talk about andrew lol))
and now every1 is like omg !! this is it!!
so the foxes are doing a panel and they get through a decent amount of exy related questions and then
“i have a question for neil. would u like to comment on ur relationship w renee walker??”
“id like to comment that my relationship w renee is that we r good friends and that id like to talk about exy now”
they cant get anything else out of anyone
so now ppl rly confused bc neil is a Straight Man and only Dan is left but her and Matt are very publicly dating
what kind of sexual deviancy is this ??????????? is neil josten engaging in some kind of polyamorous relationship with his teammates?????? no one can answer
ok so next talk show
this woman barely gets the introductions out before she leaps right in
“neil are you currently in a relationship with dan wilds despite the fact that she is dating matt boyd?”
neil has had enough
this boy just wants to play exy hes too old for this
he just stares at her
he cant even speak like who is this woman??
he didnt ask to dismantle heteronormativity in america but apparently he has to
“i dont have a gf”
she stares back
“are you no longer in a relationship with one of your teammates as you previously stated?????”
the foxes are getting worried neil might kill her
it’s getting very hard not to laugh
neil stares a little longer
“i dont have a gf”
the host’s eyes widen
the audience goes silent
“am i to understand that neil josten, breakout exy player of the year, has just come out??”
ppl start clapping (some ppl boo and nicky starts to flip them off before kevin grabs his hand)
this woman has just gotten one of the best stories of her life on live television
she cant stop smiling
once again kevin steers the conversation back to exy (even when he isnt insulting ppl why does neil always have to cause problems ??) and doesnt let her go back
there’s wild speculation about which boy he’s dating bc it doesnt makes sense ?????/
aaron has been seen kissing katelyn after games
kevin and thea are now officially dating
nicky is v vocal about his bf (like 12 times a day on twitter)
matt and dan are definitely still dating
andrew is not capable of relationships ????? and him and neil hate each other ???/
the answer comes 3 weeks later
they are all in the girls’ room for a movie night
everyone but renee is slightly drunk
allison and renee take a cute pic
in the background u can kinda see neil asleep on andrew who in a rare display of affection actually has a hand in his hair
allison notices right before she posts it on instagram but andreil have already said that they arent rly trying to hide their relationship they just arent going to go out of their way just for crazy talk show hosts
and DAMN
the way they are leaning against each other is unmistakable (esp in light of recent news)
neil josten and andrew minyard are in a relationship?????? have been in a relationship?????? the ppl need confirmation
neil’s twitter (that he uses to retweet exy players and occasionally start fights w them) is being blown up
finally he goes on twitter and makes his first original tweet
“Andrew is my boyfriend.”
twitter literally explodes and “andreil” is trending for a week
Andrew doesn’t have nightmares like Neil does. He doesn’t jerk awake panting, doesn’t take minutes to shake his way down from the sick adrenaline that his own subconscious triggers. He doesn’t scream, doesn’t thrash, doesn’t bolt afterwards like the runner he swears he isn’t.
When a therapist pre-Bee asked him about nightmares, Andrew told him that there was nothing he could dream about that was worse than what he’d lived through. He said it to shock, with the sharpest edge of his drugged humour, and refused to say anything else afterwards. There was another shrink across the desk not long afterwards.
He was lying anyway. There’s always something worse. But nightmares have never a problem for Andrew.
Neil has survived the yakuza. He’s survived his own father’s dedicated attempts at killing him, and come out of it scarred and with an even shittier attitude than before. He survived whatever came before that on the run, the marks clear as day on his skin.
He’s a cat with nine lives who must have used up eight of them. It hasn’t made him more careful. He’s a reckless asshole who balances on the edge of buildings, who drives a hair over the speed limit with one hand easy on the wheel, who can’t open his mouth without daring someone to break him. Who doesn’t even seem to realise he does any of that.
A fall, a crash, a single hit could wipe away everything that is Neil Josten. Neil can’t seem to stop flirting with them, less self-destructive than he is purely ignorant of the fact of his own mortality.
Self-destruction isn’t the only kind of destruction, of course. There are plenty of regular, everyday ways to die.
14. “How can I hate someone that I’m in love with?” (Hi there I combined this with another request, so this is the sequel to my 99 prompt with Neil getting hurt !!)
“All they had in the tooth-rotting section at the corner store was coffee crisp and triple fudge so I got both,” Neil announces, shouldering their door open with his hands full of ice-cream tubs and an array of keys.
He’s taken to wearing them on a lanyard like a school teacher, and Andrew knows he does it because he wants them at hand, near his heart. Renee bought him a fox charm and it hangs between the key to the court and the first one Andrew ever gave him — he’s memorized the shape of it without trying to.
Kevin glances at Neil over the screen of his laptop and stands immediately, walking wordlessly to his room. He retreats to his bedroom whenever Andrew and Neil are in a room together, lately. ‘A precautionary measure’ he’d sneered when Nicky had asked.
“Is that okay?” Neil says, suddenly standing above Andrew, head cocked.
“It’s acceptable,” Andrew replies, and opens his hand. Neil presses the triple fudge into his palm, and produces a plastic spoon from the shopping bag to balance on top.
“I figured you wouldn’t want to wait,” he explains, mouth quirked.
Andrew ignores him, hooking his finger in the plastic seal and breaking it apart. Neil collapses into the couch next to him, tossing his feet up over Andrew’s lap and dropping the bag on the carpet. Andrew looks at him. “It’ll melt.”
“Eat fast,” Neil says, and grabs Andrew’s first spoonful for himself.
“I should’ve let the FBI take you.”
“You should’ve,” Neil says seriously, “Now I’m your problem full-time.” He leans in enough that Andrew can see the chocolate in the corner of his mouth, the complicated relationship between his freckles and his burns —
“Andrew!”
He’s yanked back to the present by Nicky’s frantic voice, a high discordant thing like a wrong note in a bad piece of music. The rest of the foxes crest over the slant of the hallway, a wave of good intentions that pushes Andrew back into the wall and takes his breath. He can’t deal with them, he can’t escape to somewhere else when prying voices are trying to keep him here. He can’t be fighting to see Neil with foxes holding his hands behind his back.
“What’s the news,” Allison asks when they’re close enough, looking uncharacteristically haggard with her lipstick wearing away and her shirt untucked.
Andrew shakes his head.
“He’s not…” Dan starts to ask, horrified, and Andrew’s fists clench so hard his knuckles crack.
“No,” Matt says firmly. “The monster would be ripping this place apart.”
Andrew produces a knife instantly, and renee catches his wrist, eyes hard and terrible above her smile. “You’re going to get yourself kicked out of the hospital.”
He hates it, he hates it, because it’s the only thing that could’ve made him stop.
He drops the knife on the floor and Renee quietly stoops to pick it up and pocket it.
“He’s going to be okay, Andrew,” Nicky says earnestly, skirting carefully around Renee to stand in front of him.
“He’s survived worse,” Kevin agrees, an old haunted look on his face.
“Don’t,” Andrew says. It’s all he can manage.
There’s a knife in his chest and Neil has the handle; if he dies now the blade never comes out. If he dies it won’t matter how much armour Andrew puts on, the knife is already in, always.
can we talk about the first time each of the foxes walks in on neil and andrew doing anything remotely coupley though???????????
kevin barging into their dorm reading exy articles on his phone only to freeze in the middle of the room when he realises he’s caught andrew and neil mid-makeout
neil’s on the beanbag chair and andrew’s straddling his lap and neil’s hands are clamped around andrew’s waist to keep him from attacking kevin while andrew’s hands are still in neil’s hair
andrew’s hair is all dishevelled (y’all know neil tugs on it it’s literally canon) and they’re both panting a lil, staring at kevin in disbelief (neil) and with murder in his eyes (andrew)
kevin doesn’t even say a word, just hightails it the fuck out of the room
aaron coming into the kitchen in columbia one morning to find andrew looking like he’s sleeping standing up with his face buried in neil’s back and his arms around neil’s waist while neil sleepily makes them coffee
he offers aaron a “hey” and a “want one?” when he notices him in the doorway
aaron is so shocked by how soft and approachable andrew looks he forgets whatever sarcastic remark he was gonna throw at neil
(100 years later I finally got to your prompt, mac-noa ! I wasn’t explicitly lovey dovey bc I didn’t want to be ooc and it’s only actually from Matt’s POV, but I hope it works for you!!!)
Matt and Dan walk in late, strung together by the hands, still flushed from kissing in the car pre-practice. They go sheepish when they see the unimpressed look on Wymack’s face. Renee smiles brightly at them and Allison gives them a brisk nod, but the monsters are in more disarray than usual. Bits and pieces of their group are missing, and it leaves Matt with the peculiar feeling of looking at a familiar photograph that suddenly has the faces scratched out.
Their ringleader is absent, for starters, couch conspicuously empty beside Kevin — who looks unmoved and stoic and nauseated as usual.
It’s not unusual for Andrew to do things just because it’s inconvenient for others, but it’s a little weird for Neil to skip out as well. It’s a lot weird that he’s late at the same time as Andrew when Exy hangs in the balance.
Any association between them feels like something Matt has to fix, like he set something bad in motion by meeting Neil later than Andrew did in the fall. They’re probably off having one of their weird, close, angry looking conversations that always end in agreements Matt doesn’t understand.
Wymack waits thirty seconds past Matt and Dan’s arrival, and then he looks at the couch like it’s causing him pain, and starts delegating tasks for the day. He only asks once where the missing links are and there’s a lot of shrugging and staring straight ahead before he gives up.
They’re less rowdy than usual, and Matt thinks they’re all individually trying to solve Neil and Andrew’s absence in their heads. (As soon as they get up to move to the court, Allison starts whispering numbers for their betting pool until Dan bats her away.)
Matt squeezes Dan’s hand until she looks at him, and they have a brief conversation in smothered smiles.
They split up to change, and Matt straps into his gear feeling vaguely ill at ease. He keeps glancing at the door between straps and tugs of his uniform, and he notices Nicky doing the same thing. He smiles awkwardly when Matt catches him, and Matt feels a rare pulse of kinship for him. Both Andrew’s lot and the upperclassmen seem equally confused, so they have something in common for once.
The strange feeling follows Matt all the way to the court and through the first set of drills before Neil finally shows up, looking harried and flushed and all sorts of things Matt doesn’t usually associate with Neil.
He pushes into the court straight past Wymack’s blustering reprimand, and Matt catches the tail end of a flippant apology before Neil’s sprinting to centre court.
Matt stares at him. Neil waits, twisting his racquet in his hand, shoulders tense like he expects someone to toss him into the gameplay by force.
“What?” Neil asks, annoyed.
“You’re late,” Matt says stupidly.
“Twenty minutes late,” Kevin interrupts. “Almost like you’re trying to get worse.”
“He was with me,” Andrew says suddenly, breezing past them towards goal looking impossible to have spent twenty straight minutes with. Neil sort of jolts at the sound of his voice, and Matt eyes him narrowly.
Listen lads today Neil might have dropped the famous “thank you. You were amazing.” line but I’m excited for tomorrow, when we can celebrate the day that Andrew, kneeling in front of Neil in a decrepit hotel room, comes to the realization that this isn’t something he can just back out of and that he’s in for the long haul
the scene where neil finds out andrew chose him over aaron is like…So Good…it hits him that andrew really, truly does care for him….and that what is happening between them is actually a ‘this’ because at that point andrew would not be able to come back from losing neil, he is the one thing that got between his resolve to never want anything after cass because it nearly killed him, and andrew knew better but, “perhaps it’s the self-destructive streak in me?”
do u ever cry because andrew gives, and gives, and gives, but neil never takes. he asks. he accepts. he gives back. but he’ll never let himself become those people who just took what they wanted from andrew, whenever they wanted, and andrew does the same for neil. they are so intent on consent. it may not always be verbal but they always wait for ‘yes’
Nothing but My Aching Soul 