#nicky hemmick

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thatpettyblackgirl:

Since Easter is on April Fools this year:

Imagine Nicky doing this to Andrew. Imagine Andrew attempting homicide because ‘some shit isn’t funny, Nicky!’

i like to think andrew is the type of person to get hyper fixated on things that his friends talk about. It could be smth trivial like a tidbit about a classmate or a full on hobby like chorcteing but the moment he deems you as “his” he’ll go out of his way to learn everything to know about that topic.

eg, renee is obsessed with floriography and botany in general and the moment andrew found out, he borrows all the books he can find on the topic just to talk to renee about it

Even aaron. He takes the time to rmb all of aaron’s basic lessons on his classes. Endospore formation for microbiology?? ask andrew. Virus infection cycles and sites?? andrew knows them all

With nicky a lot of the time andrew tries to stay as far away as possible cause he’s annoying but everytime he hears nicky mentioning a certain type of softener or pipe cleaner, he’ll research the fuck out of them and drop little insights on their cost or effectiveness

With kevin, it helps that andrew has an eidetic memory because he reads up on all the different types of wars, revolutions and adaments just to give kevin someone to talk to

On the rare instances that andrew and allison “bond” they fit so well because andrew listens and may attentions to the products allison uses and duh allison uses fucking amazing products?? u bet ur ass andrew has the exact same ones to match allison

 the foxhole court hogwarts au: Danielle Leigh Wilds, Muggle-born, Gryffindor Seeker & CaptainKe the foxhole court hogwarts au: Danielle Leigh Wilds, Muggle-born, Gryffindor Seeker & CaptainKe the foxhole court hogwarts au: Danielle Leigh Wilds, Muggle-born, Gryffindor Seeker & CaptainKe the foxhole court hogwarts au: Danielle Leigh Wilds, Muggle-born, Gryffindor Seeker & CaptainKe the foxhole court hogwarts au: Danielle Leigh Wilds, Muggle-born, Gryffindor Seeker & CaptainKe the foxhole court hogwarts au: Danielle Leigh Wilds, Muggle-born, Gryffindor Seeker & CaptainKe the foxhole court hogwarts au: Danielle Leigh Wilds, Muggle-born, Gryffindor Seeker & CaptainKe the foxhole court hogwarts au: Danielle Leigh Wilds, Muggle-born, Gryffindor Seeker & CaptainKe the foxhole court hogwarts au: Danielle Leigh Wilds, Muggle-born, Gryffindor Seeker & CaptainKe the foxhole court hogwarts au: Danielle Leigh Wilds, Muggle-born, Gryffindor Seeker & CaptainKe

the foxhole court hogwarts au:

  • Danielle Leigh Wilds, Muggle-born, Gryffindor Seeker & Captain
  • Kevin Day, Half-blood, Slytherin Chaser
  • Andrew Joseph Minyard, Werewolf, Slytherin Keeper
  • Matthew Donovan Boyd, Half-blood, Gryffindor Beater
  • Aaron Michael Minyard, Half-blood, Ravenclaw Beater
  • Bryan Seth Gordon, Muggle-born, Slythern Chaser
  • Allison Jamaica Reynolds, Pureblood, Gryffindor Chaser 
  • Nicholas Esteban Hemmick, Half-blood, Hufflepuff Beater
  • Natalie Renee Walker, Half-blood, Hufflepuff Keeper
  • Neil Abram Josten, Half-blood, Gryffindor Chaser

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roumoonchild:

nicky: So… what’s it like being married to Neil?

andrew: Once, I asked him for a water while he was pissed at me ,and he brought me a glass full of ice and said “wait

Weird AFTG Headcanons (Pt.5)

Part 1||Part 2||Part 3||Part 4

  • Andrew and Neil wear each other’s clothes a lot because Neil is always too hot and Andrew is always cold. Andrew, sticking to his aesthetic, never wears enough layers. Neil, being bad at forethought, wears too many. (It’s also how every blanket on Neil’s bed always seems to migrate to Andrew’s)
  • Renee is an incredible gymnast, like she can easily do a bunch of those fancy flips without even thinking about it and she’s just super flexible
  • Since they met, Nicky has been dragging the twins on what he calls ‘cousin dates’ where they go out to coffee or dinner and Nicky pays. Both twins absolutely pretend to hate it, but Aaron likes to just go out and do something and Nicky buys Andrew as much ice cream as he wants
  • Speaking of Nicky, he has Erik on FaceTime for games and puts his phone propped up in one of the court side seats so Nicky gets to feel like Erik’s there because he can just turn and see his face
  • Kevin despises cardio and would rather die than have to go on a run with Neil because he physically can’t keep up. His ego just can’t handle it
  • Dan & Matt have shared Pinterest boards for their wedding, their future house and cute kiddie activities
  • Wymack gives in and buys a spray bottle for the foxes so anytime one of them misbehaves he just sprays them like a naughty cat
  • Allison and Matt, because they were little rich kids, absolutely cannot cook. Like neither of them know that spaghetti needs to go in water to be cooked and they should not be left unattended in a kitchen
  • Every birthday, Andrew buys Nicky a No.1 mug. It can be No.1 anything. Nicky’s got No.1 grandma, No.1 colleague, No.1 Footballer, it literally doesn’t matter. Nicky cries when Andrew finally gets him one that says No.1 guardian

Neil & Stuffed Animals: A headcanon

  • It starts with some shitty little fox that Nicky bought him as a joke because he found it in the baby aisle, but Neil fucking loves it.
  • He drags it around like a toddler with a blanket, taking it to all his games and sleeping with it every night.
  • Then, the fox starts to fall apart, mainly due to it being taken around the country every week for months (and that one time Aaron threw it out a window)
  • Neil says he’s “fine about it, it’s just a fox” so Andrew buys him a new one, because Neil just looks so sad when Andrew has to sew the tail back on for the 10th time.
  • Seeing how happy the new fox made Neil, Andrew buys him another one, a bear this time
  • Then a frog
  • Then a lion
  • Andrew keeps buying them because his bad days mean he can’t always cuddle with Neil, but stuffies don’t have that issue and Neil deserves hugs
  • (Also Neil does this little grin whenever Andrew hands it over and Andrew would die for that shit)
  • All of a sudden Neil, who has never been allowed to be soft nor form attachments to something as silly as a stuffed animal because they might need to leave it behind, has a shit ton of them
  • Like, he has to put them on the floor to physically fit in his bed
  • They all have names and Neil constantly forgets them because there’s so many, so he has to turn to Andrew because he’ll never forget them
  • He chooses a different one every night to sleep with so none of them feel left out
  • There’s always one at each game, in its own court-side seat
  • And Neil loves all of them, because he never really got to be a kid, never got to fret over something as trivial as the opinion of a stuffed animal and he’s making up for so much lost time
  • However, Andrew does debate when they move in together whether the smile was truly worth having to give up space in his own bed to an inanimate object
  • (It was)

I know a lot of AUs of AftG/TFC have been done in the Avatar universe, but has anyone done an Avatar: the Last Airbender AU?

Kevin, the Avatar has been missing for 100 years, before he is unwittingly discovered inside an iceberg by estranged waterbender twins Aaron and Andrew and their nonbending cousin Nicky who live in the Southern Water Tribe. (Aaron and Andrew do not give me waterbender vibes, but changing the nations didn’t work that well, since either their trips would end up way shorter or the Air Nomads would be the world invaders. Which, no. Oh well, Aaron wants to heal people.) They find out he is the Avatar and reluctantly agree to accompany him to the Northern Water Tribe to learn waterbending. Along the way, they find out the exiled fire nation Prince Nathaniel is hunting the Avatar, in order to regain his honor. He is traveling alongside former General David Wymack, a taciturn man who nonetheless tries to guide and help his ward.

Along the way, they meet some interesting people and new friends including Roland, the leader of the Freedom Fighters, Dan, a young earthbender who Kevin helped break out of prison, and Erik, who leads the Kyoshi Warriors, and also encounter new enemies, including Commander Tetsuji of the Fire Nation. Once they get to the Northern Water Tribe, they meet the waterbending master Chuck. Initially, he wants to make Aaron go into warrior training instead of healing, as he wishes, due to the fact that male waterbenders are drafted to fight. But after a beatdown from Aaron, the Healing master Abby, and the fighting master Betsy (women fight here, they have an option but men have to) he agrees to let Aaron train as a healer. Andrew learns how to fight alongside Avatar Kevin. The Fire Nation invades, Kevin is briefly captured by Prince Nathaniel who Andrew defeats in a few seconds flat, and Commander Tetsuji tries to kill the Moon and is dragged into the Spirit World. Goodbye and good riddance to him.

So, next stop is the Earth Kingdom, where they look for an earthbending master. Eventually they find Katelyn, a young earthbending prodigy who was blinded in an accident as a child, and is therefore overly sheltered by her parents and sneaks out to fight in the Earth Rumbles. She travels with them to teach Kevin earthbending, and despite her disagreements with Kevin and Andrew (Aaron is immediately rather taken with her), she becomes a part of their group. They find out they have a new pursuer, the Crown Prince Riko of the Fire Nation and his two close nonbending friends, Jeremy, a cheerful chi blocker, and Jean, an apathetic swordsman (Knives will be Neil’s thing). Meanwhile, Nathaniel and Wymack end up pursued by Riko as traitors, and are forced to go incognito in the Earth Kingdom, taking on the names Kyle (idk, in honor of Kayleigh, okay?) and Neil Josten.

Their paths cross in Ba Sing Se when they meet the conniving leader of the Dai Li, Proust. They tangle with the Dai Li and the incognito Prince Riko who is disguised as Erik, who recently rekindled a romance with Nicky on their way across the Serpent’s Pass and was captured shortly after. After Nathaniel and Andrew are captured and thrown into the catacombs together, they talk, during which time Nathaniel expresses remorse for the suffering and personal trauma the Fire Nation inflicted on Andrew. He in turn, reveals that he is only after Kevin due to fear of what his father, Firelord Nathan, would inflict upon both him and Kevin’s group if he doesn’t obey, saying that while he is attemoting to capture Kevin to prove himself worth keeping alive, he is also trying to keep Kevin and the team out of his father’s hands. Andrew tells him to “stop being a martyr”. However, after they are freed and encounter Riko and Wymack in the catacombs, Nathaniel appears to change his mind and joins Riko in fighting Andrew, Kevin, and Aaron. Wymack surrenders himself in order to let the others escape. Riko mangles Kevin’s left hand and almost kills him but Aaron manages to heal him and Andrew promises to protect him.

The Monsters regroup incognito in the Fire Nation to wait for the Day of Black Sun invasion. The invasion day arrives and everything seems to be going as planned until Kevin, Aaron, Nicky, and Katelyn encounter Riko in the throne room instead of Nathan. Nathaniel confronts his father and escapes to join the Monsters and most of their allies end up captured, though their old Freedom Fighting friends Matt and Allison and the earthbender Dan escape with them. They arrive at the Western Air Temple to recuperate and attempt to think of a new Firebending teacher for Kevin. Nathaniel, who now goes full time as Neil Josten, arrives and offers to help. He is immediately scorned by Kevin and mocked by Aaron and Andrew. However, when the assassin Gorilla (sent by Riko) arrives to kill the Monsters, Neil saves them and they reluctantly accept him. He warms up to the group members one by one, helping Nicky break Erik out of the Boiling Rock and helping Aaron hunt down and kill his brother’s former tormentor Drake. While at the Boiling Rock, Jean makes a split second decision to save Neil, who he used to be close friends with, and Jeremy jumps in to help, resulting in their capture. After their “field trips”, Neil tentatively earns Andrew’s intrigue and Aaron’s reluctant acceptance.

The comet arrives and Kevin goes missing. The rest of the monsters find their old mentors including Betsy and Abby, and Neil discovers Wymack as well. They reconcile and he advises them about what to do next. As the comet approaches, Aaron, Katelyn, Nicky, and Erik travel to the airship base to hopefully meet up with Kevin as he confronts Firelord Nathan. Neil and Andrew travel to the Fire Nation to confront Riko. After an extended, tough battle, when all hope seems gone, Kevin manages to hit Nathan, momentarily incapacitating him enough to kill him. Riko challenges Neil to an Agni Kai which he accepts. He is winning until Riko aims lightning at Andrew instead and Neil dives in front of him. Andrew fights Riko and manages to chain him and smash his arm. As a result, he has a psychotic break and kills himself. Andrew heals Neil and yells at him for making himself a martyr. Neil says that he wouldn’t have done anything that might result in losing Andrew. He so explains that if he had turned on Riko in the catacombs, he would have been exposed, and his father would have stopped at nothing to break him, including torturing the Monsters. Andrew appears to accept the explanation.

And we know the rest: Kevin is crowned Firelord, and he, Jean and Jeremy, figure out where to go from there. Aaron travels home with Katelyn, Andrew stays to protect Kevin, and Neil stays with him, and Nicky and Erik leave to travel the world. Dan and Matt, and Allison and Renee get together and return home as well. And they live, not happily ever after, but something approaching it.

P.S. a few years later, Kevin goes on a search for his mother Kayleigh.

Neil: Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.

Nicky: Neil, not even God knows what you’re doing.

Not to be dramatic or anything but I finished ALL FOR THE GAME trilogy and now I don’t know what to do or how to feel.

  • Do I wanna Cry
  • Re-read it
  • Or just lay down and question my existence and inability to savor a good book

HELP!!!

P.S I WOULD DIE FOR NEIL ABRAM JOSTEN

 Here’s my gift for @princess-of-the-worlds for the @aftgexchange !A Hogwarts!AU where they all get  Here’s my gift for @princess-of-the-worlds for the @aftgexchange !A Hogwarts!AU where they all get  Here’s my gift for @princess-of-the-worlds for the @aftgexchange !A Hogwarts!AU where they all get

Here’s my gift for @princess-of-the-worlds for the @aftgexchange!

A Hogwarts!AU where they all get snowed in during a randomly collective quidditch practice (really only Kevin is complaining) and Neil pulls a James Potter.

I had so much fun drawing this for you and coming up with all the magical details! I hope you like it! :)

Happy Holidays!!  


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Aaron: the glass is half empty

Nicky: i think the glass is half full

Aaron: i think you’re full of shit

My@aftgexchange gift for @bayta-darell !!! I’m so sorry that this is late, I went to post at the beginning of the posting week but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I’ve spent the week doing a rewrite. There was more of it (Kevin and Neil having a discussion) but I just wanted you to get something rather than nothing. I really hope you like it. A general foxes type fic where they do some healing.  Canon warnings apply- mentioned not detailed.

———

Twenty minutes. Twenty whole minutes it took of the foxes remaining silent for Betsy Dobson to realise she’d have to make the first move if she wanted to make any progress at all here today.

“David first suggested this for you all once before and you refused, which I respected. I will not force anyone to talk until they are ready. But you’re all here today and I feel I should ask the nine of you, why now?”

Aaron watched as everyone not-so-subtly shifted their eyes to look at Josten who opened his mouth as if to speak before closing it again. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them from where he sat on the floor by Andrew’s chair. There was a space next to Boyd on the plush yellow couch but well…

“This is the second time this week Neil has almost stabbed one of us.” Ah, Reynolds. Always making sure she got straight to the point. Matt glared at her, muscled arms crossed over his chest.

“I said it was fine, I startled him-”

“It damn well isn’t fine, Matt! Were you not a boxer with some good reflexes, he could have done some serious damage.”

Aaron watched them argue back and forth until Betsy politely cleared her throat, her calm, soothing smile never once leaving her face.  He admired the woman, he truly did; he couldn’t imagine dealing with people’s shit all day and managing to still look sane and collected. His own mind was enough of an asshole as it was. “I’m glad that we’ve gotten to why you’re all here, but I’d like for us to remain civil in these sessions. Talking about such things can be straining and I want you to remember you’re a team, that you’re friends.” Matt nodded and threw Neil a small smile and Allison simply flicked her hand, bright red nails catching in the sunlight streaming through the window. Aaron caught Neil bringing a hand up to rub at the scarring on his face but then Andrew’s hand came down to hold the back of his neck, thumb rubbing back and forth carefully and the tension Neil was holding in his shoulders eased up. His twin met his stare without faltering and simply raised a pale brow at him, as if daring him to comment. Aaron kept his mouth shut and turned back to Betsy. “Now Neil, would you be able to tell us what might have brought on these outbursts of violence?”

“I’ve always been this way, thanks to my mother.” Aaron saw Andrew’s jaw clench at the mention of Mary Wesninski; he knew well enough how his brother felt about abusive mothers. “But this is different. We lost our most recent game. We’re falling behind a little and if we don’t win the next game, we don’t get to progress any further.” Aaron couldn’t stop his mouth from moving, even if he had tried to.

“You’re telling me that Boyd almost got stabbed because we lost a game? Are you serious right now? It’s not the end of the fucking world!”

“It is for me!” He stopped and said nothing more, turning his face away from them all, ignoring their looks of confusion. He knew Josten loved Exy as much as Kevin, but he didn’t think such a thing was enough to stab someone over. Kevin sighed, eyes closing before he put his head in his hands. Neil’s jaw clenched and he stood abruptly, walking towards the door, Andrew following just a few seconds after. Betsy, bless her heart, she tried to reason with two of the most stubborn beings on the planet.

“Neil, maybe you’re not quite ready to talk, but we’ve only just-”

“I apologise, Dr. Dobson, but I can’t talk with you in the room. Anything regarding that part of my life cannot be discussed outside of the people who already know. I do not wish to implicate you.” The woman wrote a few things down; the scratch of the pen was loud to Aaron’s ears.

“Very well, then. Let David know when you’re all ready to come back, and we’ll schedule something between classes and practice.” Neil and Andrew disappeared out of the door and Aaron and the rest were quick to follow, but not before Renee, ever the peacekeeper, gave the woman a gentle smile and told her they’d see her next week. As if she alone could wrangle them all into another session. He made his way over to the mas with Nicky and Kevin, where Neil and Andrew waited, sharing a cigarette between them, and the upperclassmen left ahead of them in Matt’s truck. No one spoke until they were all in the car and on the move, and of course, it was Kevin.

“This isn’t a good idea.” Nicky leaned across the seats and over Aaron to bat at Kevin with one hand, all the while texting Erik on his phone in the other.

“Shut up. You don’t think that anything is ever a good idea unless it’s one of yourideas.”

“Neil I really don’t-”

“Enough, Kevin. I’m telling them and that’s final. I should have told them all anyway.” Kevin sat back with a huff and Aaron rolled his eyes at the idiot’s dramatics, staring out the window for the rest of the unusually quiet drive back to fox tower, except for the clicking of Nicky’s phone and the quiet giggles he would let out at whatever he and his fiancé were talking about. When they got there, Andrew found the closest parking spot to the building that he could, because his brother preferred not to do any more exercise than being an Exy player forced him to. The others hadn’t waited for them, not that Aaron thought they would have, but he thought at least Allison would have been standing at the doors so Neil couldn’t slip away and get out of telling them anything. 

They hadn’t, however, stopped themselves from taking over Aaron’s old dorm room he shared with the rest of the ‘monsters’ before he moved to Matt’s. Dan and Matt were sitting together on the couch, the former tucked into the latter’s side, Allison was lounging in a beanbag while she inspected her nails and Renee was sitting on the floor in front of the small and worn table, sorting Nicky’s nail polishes into some sort of order. “Now that you’re here,” Allison said without even bothering to glance in their direction, “let’s get to this secret you’ve been keeping from us, shall we?” Aaron watched Andrew move over to the window to sit on the sill, lighting up another cigarette. He knew there was no need to worry about the smoke alarm because Andrew had taken it out from the first day they moved into the room. It was clear he wasn’t bothered by any of this, at least Aaron didn’t think he was, which means either he knew what Neil was going to tell them all, or he had guessed early on and hadn’t pushed for a definite answer just yet. 

Kevin sat down in the other bean bag, although with how tall he was, he seemed to dwarf the bag. The sight was odd, considering that caused him to slouch more than a chair or the couch would have, something he would moan at the rest of them for when they did it. Nicky sat himself next to Renee, gushing over how she’d organised all of his colours, nodding so enthusiastically that his messy brown curls bobbed with the movement. Aaron went to lean against the wall closest to Andrew, who didn’t acknowledge him other than glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. They were better than they were before, Aaron actually managed to have whole conversations with his brother now and he was no longer hostile towards Katelyn, letting her come along sometimes when they went to Sweeties and Eden’s. He knew it would take time to have some sort of a stable relationship with Andrew but they were trying, and that was okay for now. 

Neil stood in front of them all, hands in the PSU foxes hoodie he wore, barely any emotion on his face, as he always was. No wonder he and Andrew worked so well together, Aaron thought, internally rolling his eyes. He got straight to it. “After Nathan was killed, all his debts with the Moriyamas fell onto me. The money my mother took when she decided that we should run belonged to them. In Ichirou’s eyes, they still own Kevin and Jean too.”

“What does this have to do with you turning into a murderous little rage machine?” Matt rolled his eyes at Allison. 

“I made a deal with Ichirou.” Dan dropped her head into her hands while Nicky made a choked off sound. Aaron was tired of Josten making dumb decisions and not telling them. This is what happened when the fucking idiot ended up at Baltimore. “I wanted something and to get him to give in to that, I said he could have the majority of our earnings when we went pro.”

“Wait.” Neil turned his head towards Kevin, who was outwardly confused now. “You said he wanted a take of what we earned, that I knew. But you didn’t say it was in exchange for something, what did he give you?”

“I wanted Riko dealt with and he was.” Aaron’s eyes widened at that, as did the others in the room. Kevin went deathly pale and he stood slowly, looking at Neil as if he didn’t even know him. He opened and closed his mouth several times before he gave up and disappeared to his room without a word. Aaron had a feeling there was a bottle of vodka waiting for him to drown his sorrows in. Allison looked mildly impressed. 

“We all knew the suicide story was suspicious, but I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I wanted him to pay for what he did. I walked out of that room and I laughed. But that’s why the nightmares have kicked in and I’ve picked up old habits, like sleeping with a weapon under my pillow. If Ichirou notices any slack, he will kill me.” Aaron looked to Andrew again, and his brother was staring back at Neil, as if waiting for him to fall apart. Dan stood, determination on her face and a fire in her eyes. 

“Then we help you stay on top of the game. We’ll fit in an extra practice a week and on the free period you share with Matt, he can discuss drills with you.” Aaron saw Matt smile and nod, receiving a dip of Neil’s head in return. “We’ll tell Coach that we’ll have an evening a week at the court, watching old games and seeing what we can take from them. No one gets to ruin this for you, they don’t get to take anything else.”

Nicky whooped and got up to hug Neil quickly, after he got the consent for one. Aaron wasn’t too happy about all this extra work for a sport he wasn’t even that bothered by, but he supposed he owed Neil this. After all, he was the one, no matter how stupidly he went about it, that finally managed their rag tag group work as a team and to become friends. He brought them together, and so Aaron would do this

So that they could staytogether. 

~~~~~

They did get better over the weeks, and they won their next game, letting them progress further into this season. 

The session with Betsy continued, though progress on that front was slow going to begin with. Neil’s confession had broken the ice, and each of them would discuss assignments they were struggling with or the odd everyday problems life gave you. Betsy never pushed them, allowing them to get used to talking first before she tried diving for issues hidden deeper down. 

After a few weeks, Allison discussed her parents when she had gotten a phone call from her mother out of the blue. Apparently, they had started to notice how the foxes were on the up and up, and how much more media attention they were getting. Allison’s mother wanted to use her daughter for her own gain, to get their businesses promoted through the foxes and for Allison to start building their incomes through Exy. Aaron didn’t understand a lot of it, other than that his teammate’s parents were some of the most self centred assholes on the planet. After all this time, they hadn’t gotten in contact with Allison to see how she was or to ask about working on their own family issues, but just to see how they could make life better for them. The blonde had said in the one session that she finally told them where they could stick it, and if they wanted to cut her off from the money they could. If they didn’t want to love her as parents should, then she wanted nothing to do with them. 

When Allison ended her rant with the words ‘fuck them’, the foxes repeated them- even Andrew, to everyone’s surprise -loud and clear. Betsy tried to be reprimanding, but Aaron could see she was proud and trying valiantly to not smile with them. 

~~~~~

Some months or so after that, Aaron was attending one of his sessions where it was just him and Andrew. It was coming up to a year now since they’d first started these double sessions with Betsy, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit he liked coming to them. Yes, sometimes it was bad and they’d end then arguing heatedly, or sometimes, it would leave them exhausted but content that they were managing to get on to the same page with each other. And other times, well, those times managed to bring their walls crashing down. 

Today was one of those times. 

“Aaron, you don’t look as if you’re well. Is everything alright? If you’re unable to sit through this one, you may go back and rest if you like.” He knew he must look like shit, after the night he’d had with his mind torturing him, but he felt as if this is why he’d been so plagued by nightmares the last few nights. Like Andrew had to know about them. 

“Nightmares.” His throat felt raw and scratchy, but he supposed that was normal when you wake yourself up by screaming yourself hoarse. 

“Are you able to tell us what they were or about?” He nodded, turning on the couch so he was angled to the left, making it easier for him to look directly at Andrew. His brother seemed unfazed as he usually did, but Aaron thought there was something different about him today, though he didn’t quite know exactly what was different. Maybe he felt like today was going to be better for them, too. 

“I thought I was already awake, because I was walking around the house in Columbia. It was too quiet, and the house was dark, and it was almost as if I could feel the shadows closing in around my shoulders.” He breathing became ragged and clenched a fist where his hand rested on his thigh. “I thought I heard glass smash and the sound of a thud, like something had hit the hardwood floor. It was muffled, coming from upstairs so I followed the sounds.” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard; it was like he was back in the nightmare and he couldn’t get out. 

“Aaron? Aaron, you can stop if you want to.” He shook his head, feeling part of his hair fall onto his forehead. 

“The noise was louder up there, coming from your room.” He opened his eyes again, catching his brother’s gaze, hazel eyes that matched his own. And they knew, they knew where Aaron’s nightmare was leading them, yet he didn’t flinch away. “I opened the door and it was back to that day, and Drake…” Andrew did not outwardly show any reaction to the name of his abuser, though Aaron saw his fingers stray to the edge of his armband. As if it soothed him to know he had a way to keep himself safe. “When I tried to get in there, it was like there was an invisible barrier in front of me. No matter how hard I kept hitting it, it never went away. I kept screaming at you, to look at me, so you’d know I was right there but there was nothing.” His cheeks felt wet and brought a hand up to find that those were tears running down his cheeks. 

Andrew’s eyes had widened, and the hand that was holding his armband started to drift towards Aaron, but stopped just shy of making contact. He took a few deep breaths before he felt like he could go on. “I closed my eyes after a while but I didn’t stop trying to get to you. Then all of a sudden I could hear laughing, and when I opened my eyes, I was back in that shitty apartment, before you came and Tilda had locked me in the closet. She had her Junkie friends over doing all sorts of shit, music on as high as possible.” He felt like he could breathe, as though someone kept on piling invisible weights on his chest, one after the other. “I had one toy, a couple of granola bars and a bottle of Gatorade, of all things. No matter how loud I shouted for her, she never came to let me out. I woke up screaming after that, scared Katelyn half to death.”  He’d kept his gaze on the floor when talking about his mother, knowing she was a touchy subject between them. 

There was a quick tap to his knee and, a bit reluctantly, he lifted his head to look at Andrew again. His brother was breathing a little heavier, and Aaron could see the way his chest moved. There was more emotion on his face than he’d ever seen. When he was on the meds it was different, it was just a constant sort of forced excitement. This was real and this was Andrew. His twin. “I’m going to hug you, yes or no?” Aaron almost choked on air at the words. Words he’d never expected to leave Andrew’s mouth. He saw Betsy falter just a little out of the corner of his eye, her own stalling from where she was writing things down. 

“Yes.” Then slowly, carefully, Andrew shifted forward so he could pull Aaron into him. His arms went around Aaron’s back, and he hesitated just a little before doing the same. Their cheeks rested against each other and when Andrew spoke next, Aaron could feel the words against his ear. 

“We’re okay, you hear me? Both of us. We’re a little bit broken, but we’re doing okay.” Aaron nodded, taking a stuttered breath. And if the two of them, the same yet not the same, held onto each other for just a little longer then that was just fine. 

They were just okay.

———

Again, I’m sorry about the lateness! Hope you liked it:)) I’m also sorry it’s not as long as it was, but trying to remember everything to rewrite was so difficult.

Nicky: Love is feeling everything in your surroundings just melt away when you think of the person you love

Neil ingoring Nicky: [thinking] Andrew’s a lil bitch

Nicky: I heard 1 in 5 people are gay. That means one of us is probably gay. I hope it’s Neil, Bc he’s cute.

Andrew: Me too.

Nicky:

Andrew:

Nicky:wait-

aftg but the twins are played by one actor and instead of cgi-ing them onto a scene where both twins are present, they have to constantly switch between playing andrew and aaron and it’s just the same actor running back and forth

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