I have a personal headcanon that Andrew and Neil never have children for multiple reasons. But you know who does have children? Matt and Dan. And they just moved to town.
Uncle Andrew and Uncle Neil spend extended amounts of time with the kids only three times. It goes as follows:
Incident 1: The Presents
- The second time that Neil and Andrew see Matt and Dan’s children is when the kids are 6, 8, and 9.
- The first time was when they were born.
- Around Christmas time, the foxes always make an effort to see each other.
- It’s hard for them to all get together at once, so they make rounds as they can.
- This year, things were more convenient for Andrew and Neil seeing as Matt, Dan, and the kids had just moved closer.
- Dan got a new job and Matt was able to sign a new contract with a team in the same area.
- They decide to meet up the week before Christmas this time.
- Which means that Andrew and Neil need to buy some presents.
- Except Andrew and Neil honestly know jack shit about children.
- They have no idea what kids were into these days. They didn’t even know when they were children.
- All that Neil knew was that he never had any toys. Ever.
- All that Andrew knew was that toys were bribes and tricks and never anything he got to keep.
- Which is how Andrew and Neil end up at Toys R Us.
Tag: hc
okay but what if stuart showed up too late
what if nathan cut all of the tendons in neil’s knees and ankles like he’d said
and the neil that gets collected by the cops is a neil who will never walk without assistance again let alone run
neil with a physical disability and chronic pain along with his scars and his ptsd and all the other shit he has to deal with
neil who used to be the fastest of the foxes taking twice as long to do everything because his legs are a painful mess of scars and feel like deadweight most days
neil who has to use a wheelchair for long distances and on bad days because they did every surgery they could but there is no coming back from the hack job nathan did
neil using forearm crutches to get around the dorm and andrew losing his shit on anyone who leaves stuff lying on the ground because it’ll trip neil up
neil in near constant pain still telling everyone he’s fine, but the rest of the foxes know him too well for that
i lied this is actually the last one. whenever neil is being sassy towards matt he likes using matt’s full name. “no need for the attitude MATTHEW”
neil has no qualms about whipping out the matthew donovan boyd like an angry suburban mom but matt can’t retaliate bc neil refuses to tell him his middle name so matt makes up his own middle names for him
“don’t use that tone with me, neil franklin josten”
“neil ebenezer josten i can’t believe you would say that to me”
“NEIL PRUDENCE JO-” “IT’S ABRAM MY MIDDLE NAME IS ABRAM, MATT”
#hc that they both do it to kevin too #but they make names up since kevin doesnt have a middle name #and they use weird history names that they think he’ll appreciate #‘kevin andromeda day-’ #‘ive had enough of your bad attitude kevin priapus day’ #‘kevin ferdinand day that is no way to talk to your father’ #‘watch your mouth kevin louis iii day’ (tags via @foxes-evermore)
bless u for this addition
in the future, trading cards get made of the best exy players. neil buys every pack he sees until he collects all his friends. (collecting kevin’s feels like a completion to the binder he’s long since buried) (he mails matt his card with every letter he sends, because it makes him blush). he gives riko’s trading card to andrew to burn because that never gets old. he smiles every time he sees ‘andrew minyard’ on a card, but andrew likes to burn those too.
seeing the words ‘neil josten’ on a trading card, his history reduced to his achievements in exy, feels like the end of a story he never thought he’d get to tell. he keeps one above his desk in the apartment he shares with andrew and it’s another way to feel grounded. he exists. he’s real. this is real. and it’s good.
#but where does neil keep his secret andrew minyard hoard? (via @evil-diabolical-oops)
asking the real questions
secret??? andrew knows exactly where it is. neil is a practiced liar, but he has no secrets from andrew and hasn’t since the first year.
andrew lets him be, even if he hates that he knows it’s his card whenever neil smiles that smile. he lets neil put it back with a feigned nonchalance, face down as if that stops andrew from knowing whose face is on the card, and he lets neil hide them in ridiculous places – a bookmark in the history of exy, behind neil’s healthy cereal, under a pile of bills – as though that keeps him from knowing.
occasionally he rescues one from one of the cats. occasionally he doesn’t. occasionally, if neil’s getting too much, he’ll swipe one to burn. neil smiles in a way that can be described as things other than fondly (even if the words aren’t coming to mind right now) and says “yes, andrew, you’re very dangerous and scary. sorry i forgot.”
Neil is majoring in mathematical sciences so imagine him calculating the trajectory of Exy balls being rebounded at different angles and being able to help Kevin make a supposedly impossible shot and Andrew is unsure of whether he wants to bang Neil or kill him.
- oh my god
- imagine established sugar addict andrew minyard starts carrying around lollipops
- and sucking on them all the time
- literally All The Time.
- (when they’re not in practice or sleeping or eating or Doing Stuff.)
- (he wants to cut down on smoking and the lollipops are a substitute)
- (as much as he loves to tune out kevin’s constant health talk he does see the merits of a Healthy Lung as an athlete)
- the first time neil witnesses it it almost gives him a stroke
- nicky, matt and neil watching tv on the couch eating take out
- andrew walks in with the lollipop in his cheek
- neil freezes with the fork half way to his mouth
- nicky almost chokes on a spring roll
- matt doesn’t realize at first
- when he does and finally overcomes his shellshock
- he sprints of to tell the girls
- nobody is ok
- the second time it happens isn’t much better
- andrew knows what he’s doing
- neil has to conceal so many fuckign boners
- he dies a little more inside everytime it happens
- it leads to heavy, not family friendly make-out sessions on the roof
- nicky continues to not being able to believe this is actually happening
- kevin is conflicted over andrew smoking less vs. this shitshow of sexual tension at night practice
- aaron is Disgusted
- allison wins a few entailing bets
- (andrew has little sense of self-preservation but he’s also not stupid)
- (he gets sugar free lollipops)
- (when neil retaliates everything gets So Much Worse)
kevin and neil headcanons because i dont see nearly enough for them
☆neil: what is ‘dabbing’ kevin: absolutely not
☆kevin has to chop vegetables into tiny pieces and sneak them into neils dinners because his eating habits are shit
☆they go grocery shopping together and neil keeps putting junk food in the cart and kevin keeps shoving it back onto random shelves with varying levels of rage
☆neil: do i even weigh anything to you? kevin, holding him a foot off the ground: no. its like holding a bag of grapes
☆whack each other w their exy racquets when they get too Extra during practice
☆scary movie ride or die fans
☆kevin curls up and watches through his fingers and neil punches kevins leg when a jumpscare gets him
☆kevin: *mentions anyone who has even slightly inconvenienced him* neil: you should kill them
☆kevin can always sense neils bullshit and he will, inevitably and invariably, be able to tell when neil is doing Something Stupid
☆neil photobombs kevins interviews at/after games ALL THE TIME
☆kevin: it was a tough game but our hard work paid off
☆neil: in the background wearing 3 pairs of sunglasses and dumping an entire gatorade over his head while maintaining eye contact with the camera
☆neil can suplex kevin
☆they are savage at dragging like god help whoever brings down their Roasting Session upon themselves bc they will taste the wrath of a god
☆neil makes a game of how many outlandish claims he can make and still have kevin believe him
☆neil: did you know i once spent a week in australia and had to eat nothing but jellyfish and twinkies to survive
☆kevin, wide eyed and scandalized: how are you alive
☆neil WILL pick a fight in a fast food restaurant and kevin has to bail him out
☆kevin listens to 80s pop music when he works out and neil finds out. neil Finds Out.
☆neil plays 21 loops of tom jones’ ‘whats new pussycat’ and kevin tells him to put in 1 ‘its not unusual’
☆kevin will send neil a million texts until he gets a response. like in a row, in the span of 15 seconds buzz buzz bitch where are you
☆neil watches chopped and kevin loses his mind because neil will drag a contestant for mixing caviar with peppers while at the same time eating like mac n cheese with nutella
☆they get too into laser tag and get kicked outthanks i love them
Like I know Neil loves exy more than life itself and almost more than Andrew but I can’t help but think he gets caught up in the stick ball jokes simply because it makes Kevin shit himself. So imagine Neil getting drafted onto his pro-team and saying: “I’m just so thankful for this opportunity. I used to think I wouldn’t make it this far but Stick Ball has given me a reason to live.” And Kevin, who’s in the audience, legit lets out a horrified yelp and the camera pans to him and he’s sobbing.
Could you elaborate on their first kiss (if ur not gonna write it in a different post?)
tbh, this ask is psychic. i was actually going to do it on a text post but like, i barely had enough time to do b&r, much less that. so like, you’re a fucking lifesaver, anon.
- at this point, neil hatford has changed about pretty much all of andrew’s rules apart from the jock thing. neil has made andrew:
- bring someone home for something other than a group project
- eat someone else’s cooking (not after the incident in first year)
have a crush on a jock- andrew’s reputation around the school counts for him being in the gsa (people think he’s there to mooch up on renee), having hospitalized that dude at the freshman mixer (which was actually aaron’s doing), taking unknown medication in the middle of the day (pain meds because he doesn’t wear his hearing aids to school), and being the MVP of the debate team (him and aaron are a roasting in a package deal, okay)
- in all the weeks that came after andrew’s realization of his crush, neil has:
- improved his grades
- been to at least two of the debate team’s events
- invited andrew to all of his games (”what makes you think i want to go there” “well it wouldn’t hurt to ask, wouldn’t it? it’s not like we have anything apart from tutoring on fridays”)
- stayed over to keep andrew company on more than one weekday (which only renee used to do)
- once, neil even barged into a debate meeting to have a silent freak out about his A- on biology while andrew just looked on not-fondly
- aaron: that is bull
- andrew: shut up, your girlfriend makes you look stupider than this
- aaron: you may not know this but you just played yourself
- andrew’s pretty much screwed the pooch, especially with how he gives neil Special Treatment, or so aaron calls it.
HS AU
and how everything revolves around our soft boys, Andrew and Neil
before this begins: neil is not a josten, but a hatford. this is set in a remote town in california, and andrew has pink hair because he wanted renee to test it on him
(part two)
- andrew joseph minyard, for all intents and purposes, does not want to associate himself with Anyone, if he could help it.
- he does his group projects so efficiently, his classmates deem him the lifeguard to all group projects
- he avoids having to sit in lunch with anyone save for renee and aaron, if he can
- he’s always on the rush to get home because he can’t take just using pain meds to get rid of the horrible, horrible feeling of disorientation
- he also has this long-standing dislike of jocks bolstered by either of 3 things: a) he’s a natural genius, b) he’s gay, and c) aaron had to assault one for getting andrew roofied at the freshman mixer.
- ENTER: neil abram hatford
- neil and kevin are new to The States. being friends since neil was eight (when kayleigh finally settled down from bumming around in ireland), kevin and neil were basically stuck to the hip.
- they transferred to the US when kevin finally landed himself an exchange program in california, neil because he could, kevin because of his dad, and both because they were tired of the ravens at their old boarding school
- as soon as the school year starts, both of our lovable idiots join the soccer team (sorry, no exy 😦 ). they take the same spanish class, the same history class, and even have the same lunch blocks. so basically, they do everything they did back in the UK
- so technically second year debate team genius Andrew Minyard shouldn’t actually care about first year exchange student and jock Neil Hatford
- here’s the kicker
Nothing but My Aching Soul 