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Andrew, at the window: Aaron.

Aaron, minding his own business: What?

Andrew: Someone's here to pick you up.

Aaron, thinking of Katelyn and peering down the window: ...

Aaron: But there's no car there only a garbage truck-

Andrew: ...

Aaron: You little shit—

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i wanna talk about this scene because its one of my favourite character moments for both aaron and neil. theyve just gotten to the cabin, only a handful of days after nathans death, and aaron gets neil alone and says this:

now listen. maybe what aaron is doing here is exactly what it looks like. maybe he is concerned that neil is exploiting andrew, and this is him being a protective brother. and i do think theres a part of him that is. he could also be reacting badly due to homophobia, and maybe a part of him is too. but mostly -

he's testing neil.

see, aarons not totally heartless. in that moment in baltimore, when neil was bloody and beaten to shit - aaron was horrified with the rest of them. he might not like neil particularly much, but when you see someone you moderately dislike tortured past the point of human endurance, youre going to put aside your dislike for a second. youre going to take their side, and aaron does. when the foxes claim neil, aaron is right up there with them.

but unlike neil and andrew, who spend the next few days in the emotional wringer with the feds, aaron had several days to process. to really process what allison pointed out to them.

and he realized he could use it.

maybe thats callous of him, but mostly its inevitable; this is how the twins have learned to communicate, to leverage each other with bribes and threats. he watched andrew nearly kill kevin, pick a fight with the feds, grip neils hoodie like he might disappear if he didnt hold on tight enough, and he understood that there was nothing andrew wouldnt do for neil.

meanwhile, neil is still coming off of weeks of telling himself, gritted teeth, its fine so long as andrew doesnt care about me, its fine so long as andrew doesnt care about me, its fine so long as andrew doesnt care about me...

hes barely begun to acknowledge the much less dangerous fact that he has feelings for andrew. less dangerous because if andrew doesnt care about him, then neils death wont hurt him, and neils feelings cant be hurt if hes the one that dies. but if andrew has feelings for him, then this whole time hes been risking that his death would break andrew - break the very person he most wants to protect.

so neil denies it. hes made the first wobbly step towards freedom, but he hasnt yet dealt with the moriyamas. he could still die at any moment. wrapping his head around his fathers death hasnt given him enough time to break those weeks of conditioning himself in the dark. andrew doesnt care about me. andrew cant care about me. neil will go to war for andrew but the idea that the converse is true is too dangerous to look at directly. to protect andrew, to protect himself, he denies it.

but when aaron asks neil if andrew will fight for him, he's not really asking. we can see it in the casual way he shrugs off neils denial. he doesnt care what neil says. he wants to see what neil does. he already knows - or has a pretty strong bet - what andrew will do. what he needs to know is if neil is serious.

listen, i am personally of the belief that if andrew released aaron from his deal for neils sake and then things went sour with neil, andrew would respect the broken deal anyway. but i dont think aaron sees that - he hasnt yet fully internalized that andrew does things out of his own brand of fairness, and not out of malice. so he needs to know; andrew will fight for this. will neil?

so he lobs a grenade at neil, a loaded accusation, and neil comes back swinging. and theres aarons answer. neil isnt exploiting andrew, hes not just playing around. hes as viciously protective of andrew as andrew is of him and those two repressed assholes might not be saying it with words, but aarons not stupid. andrew gave himself away when neil went missing and now neils showed his hand too.

neils right. he has been had, and hes just lucky that what aaron wants is exactly what neil wanted anyway.

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I'm so normal about them...

inspo -> this tweet :)

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Sleeping kittens💕

cat!AU Andreil

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Some andreil meme sketches , featuring also Kevin and Aaron

And Nathan vs Nathaniel, figuring out how other characters look.

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In each other’s gravity

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KevNeil brainrot

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Neil @ Riko: shut up 1 a 10 is speaking

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andrew staring at neil's ass from across the court:

aaron: do NOT do that shit with OUR face are you SERIOUS

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no no no no no but like. they were. they were supposed to be partners. nathaniel was supposed to stay and be a raven he was supposed to be the three to jean's four he was supposed to be his forever partner but he wasn't because somebody loved him enough to escape before he could risk being killed by his own father so nathaniel escaped but jean was sold to the ravens and he was permanently half of a whole he got a number that wasn't supposed to be his and in the end there's no universe where nathaniel saves jean. maybe he makes it easier. maybe they are slivers of light for each other inside the nest but this is the only universe where jean lives to see outside the nest and he must do it without nathaniel by his side. they are always going to love each other but sometimes it will hurt

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i want us all to sit and think more about the "he was jean’s misplaced forever partner, an unfulfilled promise jean had stopped believing in years ago" quote. those words are in jean's pov. are jean's thoughts. he lived for years thinking mournfully of nathaniel, of what he could have had. imagine him meeting neil for the first time and watch him talk to riko without holding back, without fear. i know that maybe he believed that neil would have suffer in the nest because of his bratty attitude but i also know that one part of him was selfish enough to imagine a life where nathaniel was his shield in the nest, of nathaniel talking back to riko because of him, of nathaniel protecting him, of nathaniel making his life more bearable.

little does he know that if only neil were in the nest he would have never left jean behind.

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Neil Abram Josten. 19 years old. Milport Dingoes striker.

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Neil Josten my beloved (he’s the cure to my art block)

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Andrew Minyard

*that’s it that’s the post

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Day 1678 of me still not being over the fact that, day one, Neil was able to tell the twins appart because of Aaron’s flat ass.

What a legend.