Nathaniel, Neil, Nathaniel, Neil. Andrew Flips The Two Names Around In His Head Like Tossing A Coin.

Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about how in the shower scene, Andrew took off his armbands. He wasn’t scared of getting them wet or anything; he was literally wearing the rest of his clothes, but he knew that he was seeing Neil’s scars so he let Neil see his

Might I present the newest print ready EXYLLENT-issue

Happy birthday to the twinyards! At 38 they:

Have known about each other for 25 years, or 65% of their lives

Have been living as brothers for 22 years, or 58% of their lives

Have stuck together without a deal for 18 years, or 47% of their lives

Have learned to be brothers even when living apart for 15 years, or 39% of their lives.

Their time together surpasses the ones with their abusers, they know more life with each other than without and every year they see the good years growing bigger than the bad ones.

They've been brothers for most of their lives now and that means so much when there was a chance they would never get to be brothers at all.

andrew's first pro game in the city aaron lives. he doesn't send tickets or ask aaron to come and he doesn't even tell aaron his team is coming to town. if aaron wants to come he will. andrew can't make him do anything.

between quarters, the jumbo tron is showing a "look-a-like" game on the screen where the camera operators find people in the crowd who look like different celebrities or animated characters. andrew's not paying any attention to it when the crowd goes wild. a teammate nudges him to look up and lo and behold, wearing a Minyard jersey is andrew minyard's look-a-like, aaron minyard himself.

he rolls his eyes when the camera focuses back on him for the side-by-side shot and but aaron can see that andrew is actually very pleased.

Calling Neil "a rabid little fox who'd had a lifetime to master his lies" is such a move. Jean sees the vision. He understands that Neil is just a dangerous feral creature.

what the fuck do you mean there are people out there liking jean's and thea's "friendship" ??? "she was like a sister to him" ????? the girl that asked him if he was back to his “old tricks” when she saw him in THAT state?? his old tricks being him getting fucked by older guys when he was 15/16 years old?? "riko made her believe he was willing" he was a kid??? "she is a victim too" i don't care let her heal far away from jean??? i hate u

The Sunshine Court being a trilogy just means Nora is treating this story with care and wants the final product to be as fleshed out as possible. It means Jeremy’s backstory is somehow more complex than we thought. It means Jean and Jeremy’s relationship is a slowburn but maybe they kiss in in the second book and figure stuff out in the third (i.e., Jeremy’s family, Jeremy’s captaincy, Jean’s past trauma and his healing.) It means we get another two books of Jean learning to live because he wants to. It means another two books of You’re place is here with me, with us. I’m you’re captain. You’re my partner. We’re supposed to be doing this together, aren’t we? Stop leaving me behind. Look at me.

Neil knows love exists because Andrew is full of it. He sees it when Andrew cooks two different batches of pancakes, one batch being regular and the other chocolate chip, because he knows Neil doesn’t like sweets.

He sees it when Andrew specifically puts sticky notes on the wall next to their front door because he knows Neil is likely to see them and be reminded of things he needs to do that day.

He sees it when he and Andrew drive hours to listen to Aaron give his valedictorian speech at his university graduation.

And he feels it when Andrew cradles his head in the dead of night and reminds him who he is. Saying:

“You are Neil Josten, a nuisance with a smart mouth. And you are home.”

Thinking about how, after Riko's death, maybe Kevin was given a box when he and Wymack attended the funeral. About Kevin getting back all of his books on history, his favorite hoodie, all of the things that he'd left behind when he ran.

And maybe, just maybe, tucked into the box among his other abandoned possessions, he finds old photographs of himself and Riko as children, grins wide with missing teeth and little league exy racquets in their hands. Of awkward teenagers in suits that make them look like they're playing at being grown as they attend their first press conference. He finds old, folded notes written in Japanese and scrawled on torn sheets of notebook paper passed between them during their homeschooling lessons.

Kevin feels safe enough with his father at his side to allow himself to grieve not only the loss of his best friend of twenty years, but also the people that he and Riko could have been if things had been ever so slightly different.

You know what I want?

Well I'm getting ahead of myself already. You know what I like?

I like those fics where someone says something untoward about Andrew (usually about his character, usually in reference to violence, and sometimes in reference to be worried about Neil's domestic safety) and Neil just,,, immediately starts tango-ing with his instinct to commit violence (sometimes an immediate 'oh. i gotta kill them now' or 'they mean well and also don't understand, don't kill them don't kill them don't-').

I also like those fics where Neil confronts his ability to be violent, but in a way that contains too much willingness and not enough shame, thus triggering his Wesninski Prodigal Son Issues (best when it's because his violence comes from either survival instincts or protective instincts - 'better them over me/my family').

With that in mind, you know what I want? I want a post-canon fic that is a big character study on Neil's capacity for fatal violence vs his desire to preserve life. First half of the fic being the tragic "Am I really my father's son?" angst where the person who keeps helping him through it is Andrew. Probably someone said something Quite Accurate But In Bad Faith about Neil in the media, which gathered attention, and it hit home harder than anticipated and now Neil is spiraling.

Do this a few times, Rule Of Threes and all that.

Then have a scene where Andrew does some violence (someone says something sexual about anyone under Andrew's umbrella of 'I care about this person but don't tell anyone I said that') and Neil stops him from doing something *clears throat* Not Great When Caught On Camera, and as a consequence someone expresses something about Andrew.

And Neil? Responds accordingly. Very Wesninski coded (I refrain from saying Nathaniel coded because that one fic somewhere on my pinned post convinced me that Nathaniel was never a cold blooded violent type - that was never his purpose. Nathaniel takes hits and survives them, he gets cut and makes sure he doesn't bleed out, he gets cornered and finds an out to run through. Nathaniel was never a predator, he was always prey, and that's why Nathan always saw him as a failure because Wesninski's were always supposed to be Apex Predators- but i digress)

Cue Neil unrepentantly embracing being Very Very Scary and later Andrew asks him how that little show is holding up with his issues. Neil shrugs and spouts some unintentionally romantic shit about not letting shit slide in regards to besmirching Andrew's character in front of his face. Cue Andrew saying something about 'Wesninski's would never commit violence out of protective affection. Only a Josten would do that.'

and suddenly Neil's spiraling is over via the power of Realizing Things, there's some banter about letting each other fight their own battles, Andrew says he hates him, questions get whispered and yeses get exchanged and lips get locked and other things get extracurricularly activitied-

Yea, that's what I want