anactualfairyqueen:

The Minyard twins rarely get along. Nicky spent good hours of his life playing therapist but the two were impossibly stubborn. Eventually they would be able to align each other’s interest by having a mutual hatred for something or someone, but that was difficult because Andrew was pretty apathetic and Aaron rarely wanted to correspond. 

until one day they just did. 

It was a fluke, unloading the bus at 3am and exhausted. Neil was half asleep already, side of his face bruised up from the force of his helmet being shoved against the glass wall. Matt had whistled when he caught sight of the bruising, commenting on what a good thing it was that they wore helmets if that was the result. They had won but it was a long game, referees making it rain cards. 

Andrew was hauling up one of the bags of goalie gear when Aaron said almost thoughtfully from behind him, lifting a cooler up-”Hey what if we had a third twin named Arnold but he lives in a mansion and has a pony would that be fucked up or what”

He had turned around and given his twin a look. “I should’ve eaten u in the womb”

They didn’t mention it again that night, trudging their way back to their respective dorm rooms, watching Matt try to get Neil walking in a straight line. 

.

Two weeks later after a light practise Andrew turned to look at Aaron in the locker room. “I bet Arnold would wear polo shirts.” Everyone gave him a weird look but Aaron gave a surprising wolf like grin as he shoved his helmet deep into the locker. 

“Boat shoes.” 

The two nodded to one another and then returned to their own respective silences. 

It was Kevin who announced what everyone else was thinking. “What the actual fuck?”

.

It was a constant thing, either Andrew or Aaron bringing up Arnold’s not real existence. “He’d eat kale chips,” Andrew decided. 

“Probably does charity work.” Aaron would nod in agreement. 

“Competitive chess player,” the two declared in perfect harmony. 

.

It was Neil who had the misfortune of being paired with Arnold Mayes from his mandatory English elective. It was his worst class due to his tendency to scramble up verbs and tenses (it was hard to keep strictly English when German, french, Polish and bits of Spanish would creep in.).

He wasn’t thrilled about working with Arnold, due with the guy’s insistent belief that they were somehow good friends (hopefully sliding further along that relationship, the way Arnold would hint.) and also the fact that Arnold Mayes had a slight resemblance of Andrew and Aaron with his blond hair and attachment to wearing black. He was quite a bit taller though, close enough to Kevin’s irritating height. 

Andrew discovered first, his class partner, and immediately in the middle of Arnold introducing himself pulled out his phone, opened the rarely used snapchat app that Renee had coaxed him into downloading and took a picture of the still talking Arnold to send to Aaron. 

.

Both despised Arnold. There was an unsettling way about how he liked leaning closer to Neil, in Andrew’s opinion, and he refused to figure out that Andrew and Aaron were not the same person. They were also highly biased against his basic existence. 

Neil came home one day to finding Andrew sitting at his work desk looking proud and was informed that he wouldn’t have to meet Arnold the following the day since he did his work for him. He threw a handful of printed papers at Neil that landed in a flutter. 

“That was unnecessary.” Neil informed him as he looked at the pages explaining how stupid the project was. “Pretty sure my assignment wasn’t drawing a picture of Arnold choking on-what are those? His shoes?”

“Yes.” Andrew said smugly. 

.

“How exactly are you going to kill him? He’s taller than both of you combined.” Kevin asked post practise when Aaron mentioned the partner. 

“Break his knee caps.” Andrew stated smugly when Aaron said at the same time, “Tackle the piece of shit.”

Kevin looked alarmed. 

.

Aaron came home from a late practise to find Neil and Arnold sitting at the kitchen table together, the space in between them somehow shrinking as Arnold slid his chair a few inches closer each time. Neil was close to tilting out of his chair in his efforts in subtle avoidance, jabbing aggressively at a flow chart. 

He yanked a chair out from the other side of the table and shoved it in between the two, plopping down stubbornly. “This looks stupid. Did you design this chart, Arnold? This is such a stupid chart.” 

.

Eventually Arnold Mayes went away after the project was completed (this was ensured by Andrew grabbing him in a dark alley and holding a knife to his throat) but the general hatred for possible Arnold Minyards remained an essential element to their conversation. They would comb through twitter, facebook and instagram for all users with that name and block them. One reporter was banned from attended press conferences because his name was Arnold and blond hair was a major red flag for the two (the reason was never really decided well but at the time it slid by surprisingly well until three years later Allison stated in an interview about them still bonding over hypothetical triplet status.)

It got to the point they would send each other Christmas cards out of sheer spite, rather send one to each other than an Arnold. (”You know Arnold isn’t real?” Neil asked one day as Andrew was focused on picking out a suitable card. 

“You know that bitch might have a manson?” Andrew retorted, picking one with a cat on the front.)

.

No one really understood the Arnold thing. 

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inspired by: 

http://twnyards.tumblr.com/post/161552931671/aaron-at-three-am-hey-what-if-we-had-a-third