#Andrew brings it up to Neil in earshot of Nicky

[jtl-fics]

Fluent Freshman - Part 03

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In the Fluent Freshman AU I could see a moment where Andrew kind of misses having Renee around. She was a nice quiet support for him during her time at Palmetto and now she’s graduated. Bee suggests that Andrew try and make a new friend, he can try with someone on the team even.

Andrew, initially, thinks it’s a stupid idea. He real hates pretty much every sophomore (Jack’s group) and pretty much all of the new freshmen irritate him since they’re always trying to steal Neil’s attention with all their fucking problems. The only freshman that he has no opinion on (and therefore is miles and miles ahead of everyone else) is the quiet one that he glowered at pretty early on for staring at Neil’s scars.

Except now, with the knowledge that the kid is a foreign language major, he was probably just trying to figure out what language him and Neil were talking in since the kid isn’t phased at all when Neil absentmindedly used his shirt to wipe away sweat on his face. Everyone else had LOOKED but the kid had just continued on as if it were nothing.

Nicky likes him a fair bit and has assured both Andrew and Neil, after the fourth time the kid power walked away from them, that he’s not homophobic just due to circumstances public displays of affection make him deeply uncomfortable. The Foxes have pasts and if the kid isn’t going to make it their problem then Andrew isn’t about to get irritated over it.

(Nicky doesn’t elaborate that those circumstances being that he understands that Andrew is telling Neil all the places (geographical locations) that he wants to kiss Neil and where he’d do it. He’s really not a prude but how did watching Cars 2 result in this level of dirty talk?! He’s just trying to actually get to see these movies everyone keeps referencing so that he can join in on the conversation)

The kid’s quiet company the few times Andrew’s been in it and Neil has been making some slow progress on getting the kid to open up. Andrew knows that the kid has his own weekly meetings with Betsy and he’s not about to pry.

(It’s social anxiety and stress related. No he has not told Betsy about the whole Russian situation because she’d be mad at him right? Everyone keeps telling him that Betsy and Andrew Minyard are close and that Andrew is her favorite even if she can’t admit to having something like that. She’s nice but what if she gets mad about it and tells Wymack that he’s not fit mentally to be on the team? Then what? He can’t afford college without a sports scholarship. Oh god- Betsy spends a lot of time walking him through stress relief and not worst case scenario-ing every interaction)

Andrew figures that if nothing else this kid is fine with sitting in stony silence. If it doesn’t work then w/e he tried.

So, to Fluent Freshman’s absolute horror and dismay, Andrew Minyard starts to hang around him even when Captain Neil ISN’T AROUND. He becomes unbeatable at Poker and fluent in Japanese if not fully literate.

Once it’s just Andrew and Fluent Freshman sitting in absolute silence for an hour. This might be the nicest time Andrew’s had with someone not part of his family since Renee left. “You ever consider learning Russian?” Andrew asks.

Fluent Freshman’s award winning performance starts here.

“No, I have never considered taking Russian classes here.” He responds turning a page in his book on Esperanto (he thinks it’d be fun) because why take a class for a language he’s already fluent in. He’s bad at lying but he’s GREAT at just not saying the truth.

Andrew doesn’t say anything in response and they continue to sit in silence until Fluent Freshman has to get up and go quietly have a panic attack.

Everyone, except Nicky, all think that Fluent Freshman’s the second coming of Andrew’s general apathy. Bee is proud of Andrew for willingly sitting next to someone in almost complete silence. Andrew says it helps that there’s someone else like him (Bee is confused because Fluent Freshman is known to bring his own brown paper bag to hyper-ventilate into but she says nothing.)

Only Nicky knows the full extent. Fluent Freshman is doing breathing exercises, taking pepto bismol to help his stress related stomach ulcer, and considering using his art gen-ed for theater so that he can commit to this bit better.

Fluent Freshman kind of gets used to Andrew’s quiet company until one day they’re an hour and a half into their usual absolute silence when Fluent Freshman gets up to grab something Andrew looks at him and goes “Hey wanna learn how to use a knife?” And Fluent Freshman stiffens up and straight up faints.

NEXT

[billdenbrough]

did a flash fic challenge today & the character i received from the spin2win was kevin. @merceyca prompted “plexiglass” & immediately after that, @vykio prompted “haunted house”, because they love to make life easy for me LMFAO. predictably with this setup, this is kevaaron. so.

kevaaron + haunted house, plexiglass

“This was a terrible idea,” Kevin mutters.

Andrew obviously hears him, but predictably ignores him, instead choosing to poke experimentally at the cleaver hanging from the ceiling. Renee, at his side, gently lowers his arm.

Matt is sandwiched between Dan and Neil, a bit ahead of Andrew. Allison and Nicky seem to be competing to find the ‘hottest corpse’.

Aaron, bringing up the rear with Kevin, slants him a sidelong glance. “Because those two are three seconds from being sent to a sexual harassment seminar or because you’re worried Andrew will try steal a machete from one of the actors?” he asks dryly.

“They’re not sharp enough,” Andrew says blandly. Renee shoots Kevin an apologetic look over her shoulder—he’s not really sure why; or rather, the only answer that comes to mind is at risk of making him flush, so he beats it back with a stick—and loops her arm with Andrew’s, leading him further out of earshot. Andrew allows it.

When Kevin looks back at Aaron, he’s tilting his head.

“Or something else?” Aaron asks.

Kevin weighs up his options. Discovering no good ones, he grumbles, “I think I saw a clown chasing a toddler with a flamethrower.”

Aaron snorts. “The great Kevin Day,” he says. His tone is mocking, but like – in that Aaron way. Kevin doesn’t really know how to explain it. There’s mocking when Aaron means it, how he used to talk to Neil and the scathing tone he turns on the especially annoying freshmen on the line-up, and then there’s like this: that natural tilt to his voice, something blunt and sarcastic, but no force behind it.

Kevin’s seen what it looks like, after all, when Aaron puts his strength into it.

He’s about to huff—something waspish about haunted houses and horror films and the Foxes’ inexplicable idea of what constitutes ‘fun’—when Aaron shifts closer, the sudden flush of body heat emanating off him stealing the words from Kevin’s mouth.

Aaron doesn’t seem concerned with saying anything, so Kevin doesn’t either, just shifts his weight on his next step to move closer to Aaron, now that he’s allowed. Their shoulders brush. Kevin thinks again about Renee’s apologetic expression, and almost bites off his own tongue.

It’s two rooms later—after Matt had to pull Nicky back from peering into a coffin before a guillotine descended on him, and Dan swore loudly at a fortune-teller who appeared suddenly at her side and kept ominously intoning her name while Allison told Neil, yeah, so that’s why you never say anyone’s name in one of these things—that Kevin finally says, “It’s dark.”

Aaron opens his mouth. Pauses. Shuts it. Hums.

Kevin thinks he’s going to have to say more. Explain himself. Talk about claustrophobic spaces, stuck in the dark, threats of violence.

Then Aaron takes his hand, holding it tight, and it’s like the air goes out of Kevin’s lungs.

He thinks about the car ride over, when Aaron and Nicky debated which horror movie to watch later that night. Nicky had been texting the other car at the time, chiming in with suggestions from the upperclassmen, most of which Aaron had shot down. His knee had kept bouncing, the way it did when he was animated, or irritated, or annoyed, or over-tired, or restless, or a thousand other things that Aaron sometimes was, that Kevin sometimes noticed. He’d wanted to reach out and still Aaron’s leg. He hadn’t.

He thinks about a week ago at Eden’s, downing seven shots as he sat at the table, ignoring whatever the fuck Neil and Andrew were doing as he watched Aaron—fucking wasted—tilt his head back on the dance floor, the lights illuminating the line of his throat. He thinks about an hour before they left for Eden’s that same night, arguing with Aaron about something that didn’t really matter, until it did, and he was pressing Aaron against the plexiglass of the court walls, snapping at him, and then kissing him, and kissing him, and kissing him. He thinks about Aaron—pinned halfway up the wall, Kevin raising him up for a better angle, Aaron’s hand leaving an imprint on the plexiglass—kissing him back.

He thinks about a month before that, on the bus on their way back from a game against Belmonte, Aaron sitting beside him and—with a long-suffering sigh—offering one of his earbuds to Kevin. It hadn’t been music Kevin knew, which Kevin had said, to which Aaron had scoffed, and said, You don’t know anything that came out after the 1800s, which was rude, but possibly fair. Still, Kevin had argued the point, and Aaron had objected to each of his statements, and somehow they’d ended up spending the entire journey going through Aaron’s playlists while they tried to—in Aaron’s words—find ‘an actual music taste’ for Kevin.

Kevin thinks about all of these things, and about Renee’s apology, and about Aaron’s hand in his, and about Aaron shifting closer, and Aaron’s sidelong glance, and he swallows.

A clown could try murder him right now, he thinks, and he might not even notice.

Slowly, he squeezes Aaron’s hand: smaller than his, but firm, unwavering.

After a moment, Aaron squeezes back.

[markonasurface]

7/50 - “I’ve never killed anyone before.”

Fandom: All for the Game/The Foxhole Court Characters/pairings: the Foxes (mostly Neil and Kevin), Jack/andreil mentioned Summary: Jack won’t leave Neil alone. A/N: Because I saw this post and all I could think of was tfc/aftg. Tbh it’s all I think about these days.

http://maelerie.tumblr.com/post/135803922052/send-me-two-characters-or-more-and-a-prompt-and

From the beginning Jack had a problem with Neil. Neil didn’t know much about Jack except that he must have talent if Kevin wanted to recruit him. Most days he thought the talent wasn’t worth the headache he brought into Neil’s life.

Every week Jack focused on a different aspect of Neil’s life - past or present, his personality, his inexperience, his relationships, the way he passed the ball, whatever. He made stupid comments and was unnecessarily rough but Neil could handle it. He gave as good as he took and he was confident in his place on the team.

The first week Jack went on about how he didn’t feel safe living across the hall from a “mobster’s son.” Never mind that Jack worshipped Kevin who lived most of his life as the adopted brother to someone who was actually blood related to Neil’s dad’s boss.

The next week Neil’s offense was that he had only been playing Exy for two years. Neil didn’t deserve to be starting striker of any Class I Exy team, let alone Vice Captain of the reigning champions. How could anyone expect Jack to listen to someone who had less years of experience than he did?

The third week Jack couldn’t stop complaining about Neil’s height. Neil was short. Jack couldn’t respect a man shorter than the national average.

When he found out about Andrew and Neil, it was his main focus for weeks. It took Wymack, Renee, Matt and Dan together to pull Andrew off of Jack. From that point on Jack was careful to only make derogatory comments out of earshot of Andrew.

It was a mild topic compared to a lot of the other things Jack had brought up that finally made Neil snap. It started off mild anyway. No one was surprised - or they shouldn’t have been - when Neil tackled the freshman to the ground.

“How many people have you killed?” Jack asked when Neil joined the rest of the team for laps.

Neil decided it was too early to get into it with him and utilized his speed to join Dan at the front. She led them around enough times to equal three miles then took them to the press room for stretches.

“You must not have been very good at it since you won’t even change out with the rest of your teammates.”

He refused to give him a reaction and stared straight ahead, hoping that for once Jack would take the hint and go away. He saw Dan eyeing them and gave her a shrug.

On the court for scrimmages, Jack stopped in front of Neil. He looked back at Andrew guarding his goal, then down his nose at Neil.

“What?” Kevin finally demanded when Jack didn’t move into position.

“Nothing,” Jack said. “I was just wondering. Neil -”

“No.” Kevin said. “Stop wasting time. Let’s go.” He pounded his racquet on the court floor but Jack stayed where he was.

His grin was an ugly thing. “Is that what attracted you two to each other?”

Neil heard someone, probably Wymack, slam a hand against the wall. He ignored them and kept his eyes trained on Jack, face impassive.

“Do you get off telling each other about the people you’ve killed?” he continued. “Can you only get it up if you picture Aaron smashing a racquet into the skull of Andrew’s -”

Jack was only a couple of inches shorter than Kevin but Neil took him down easily. As long as he’d been trying to provoke a reaction out of Neil, he hadn’t actually expected to ever get one.

In the few seconds it took him to realize his comments finally had worked, Neil already had a hand around his throat, his helmet pushed off and his arm pulled back for a second punch. Someone yelled. The court door slammed open.

Wymack grabbed Neil’s wrist. “Enough.”

Neil stopped struggling when he heard their coach’s voice. He was breathing hard and he smiled his father’s smile down at the boy beneath him.

“I’ve never killed anyone before,” Neil said lowly and moved his hand from Jack’s throat to grip his chin, forcing Jack to meet his eyes. “But you could be my first.”

He shoved Jack’s face away and stood up, shaking Wymack’s grip. “I’m good.”

“Are you?” Wymack shot back.

Neil held his hands up in what was supposed to be a placating gesture but only drew attention to Jack’s blood staining his gloves. “Yupp.”

Wymack turned a disgusted look back to Jack still on the ground. “Get the fuck off my court. I just had it waxed and you’re dripping blood all over it.”

Jack stuffed his gloves in his helmet and tucked his helmet under his arm so he could pinch his nose. He shuffled off the court looking as infuriated as a guy with a swollen eye and blood smeared over half his face could look.

“Stop bringing this bullshit onto my court! Wasting my time!” Wymack looked around at each Fox. “We’re not here to chitchat and gossip and trade insults. We’re here to play Exy! Now start running.”

He grabbed the back of Neil’s jersey before he could start on laps. “I’m calling Abby. Get your hand checked out.”

“It’s fine.”

“Didn’t ask,” Wymack cut him off before he could continue. “Say, ‘yes, Coach.’”

Neil sighed. “Yes, Coach.”

“About time you knocked him on his ass.”

Wymack hit the back of Neil’s helmet. “Wipe that look off your face or I’ll sign Andrew up for a marathon.”

“Sort your drama out off of my court,” Wymack looked around at the Foxes sitting in the lounge. “Don’t do it during my time.”

He uncrossed his arms and gripped the edge of the entertainment center he leaned against. “You.” He singled out Jack. “The next time I have to pry one of your teammates off of you, I won’t do it. I’ll let whoever it is go to town on your ugly mug. Then I’ll sign you up for a marathon and bench you for the next year.”

Jack looked unhappy but he muttered, “Yes, Coach.”

“We’re all Foxes. We all have pasts. Leave it there.”

Wymack waited for the scattered responses of “yes, Coach.”

“Don’t let your personal prejudices or biases or drama or whatever the fuck affect our game. As soon as it becomes a problem for the team, I have to get involved and I’m sick of how much I have to see you as is. Get out of here.”

The Foxes all got up from their various seats to leave. They were quiet as they walked down the hall and out of the building.

Then Jack grumbled, “Thanks for your help, guys.”

“You’re welcome,” Allison responded.

“Seriously?” Jack stopped walking.

Slowly the rest of the team stopped, too, except for Neil and the twins. Allison poked Jack in the chest. “Yes, really. You got exactly what you wanted since the first day you walked into Fox Tower.”

“I wanted Neil to break my nose and paint the court with my blood?”

“Seems like it,” Matt shrugged one shoulder. “If it wasn’t what you wanted ... well, you deserved it so stop being a little bitch and accept that you got your ass handed to you.”

“Learn to show some respect, you homophobic asshole.” Nicky called over his shoulder as he jogged to catch up with Neil and his cousins.

Jack flipped him off and yelled, “He could’ve killed me! He was going to kill me!”

Kevin looked unimpressed. “No. Andrew was going to kill you.”

“My eye is swollen shut,” Jack pointed. “He’s ruined my game for the next couple of weeks.”

“Stop being so dramatic,” Kevin said. “You ruined your own game. You brought this on yourself. Don’t bother showing up tonight.”