#Neil x Andrew

[yukaruuyuh]

They are the stars I draw around my scars 🧡

[atlalasassy]

[gabumk]

🦊🐱

I wanted to draw them older, since I imagine that only after a few years together would Andrew let Neil touch him like that. But I ended up drawing them in the Palmetto uniform because I wanted you to recognize them even without seeing their faces. hope u like it even It’s just a Wip tho🙌

[astronocria]

i'm 10 years late

[herondaleoffspring]

[allforthegaymes]

Andrew sat in the fbi interrogation alongside Neil, stuck between trying to decide wether to keep his wary eyes on the agents sat across from them or to keep his eyes locked on Neil, as if he’ll disappear again if he loses sight of him at any point.

Instead he keeps a finger hooked around one of Neils belt loops and sets himself to memorizing every word out of Neils mouth, keeping a watch on the agents to make sure they dont make a sudden attempt to go back on their words.

Which means he gets the first hand sight of how other people would react to hearing about what Neil’s gone through. And while he’d accepted every word from Neils mouth without a facial reaction, watching how the agents react make him think maybe he shouldve.

(The whispered thanks from Neil afterwards about Andrew not looking at him differently changes his mind)

The only part that really makes him freeze is when Neil begins the talk of his mothers death. Andrews all too familiar with dead mothers in cars, but hearing about the gun wound, the vinyl seats sticking to a half burnt away body, the bone burial along the beach. Neil stutters only once during his recounts, where he slips and mentions the smell.

He compares it to the scent of cigarettes, used Andrew’s one marlboro reds as a reference and suddenly all those rooftop rendezvous together makes more sense.

Neils half smoked cigarettes, never stubbed out but left to continue burning on the concrete next to them while they sit and talk. The way he only does stub them out when talking about his parents, or when Andrew mentions something about his own mom, or when Andrew says anything about the earlier days with Aaron.

Neil stops talking for a moment after that. Lost in thought.

And as always, Andrew follows him half a step behind.

Neils adamant claims during their zombie apocalypse walks with Renee around the track that he would always burn their friends bodies to make sure they dont come back from the dead.

The way he always leaves the room when they watch the newest episode of that stupid viking show that Aaron and Kevin like to watch and theres a burning boat funeral.

The way he-

And then Neil starts talking to the fbi agents again and Andrew is forced to tune back in and tuck away those thoughts till later.

He tells them about what happened in Baltimore.

The torture from Lola. The dashboard lighter pressing seared wounds into his skin. Over the tattoo, scattered across his arms, the faint marks from where she tried to burn holes through his jeans to get to his thighs. Saved only half as well as they were by the fact he’d worn a pair of the carhartt work pants Andrew had bought for him and not a pair of the threadbare thrift store jeans he usually wore.

Andrew makes the mental note to stop using his own dashboard lighter to light the cigarettes he smokes in the car. And to swap cigarette brands. And to stop smoking in the car.

And then its about the trunk of the car, the way Lola had held onto him and the comments she made in the car, the basement, the offhanded mention about how Nathan was barefoot when he walked down the stairs.

The little details that only someone who’s truly grasping for any recollection in a traumatic moment would retain. The way even when Nathan was walking down to tear Neil limb from limb, Neil still couldnt bring himself to look at his fathers face. The face that Neil shares. The face Neil still avoids looking at when he walks past the mirror in the hall in Columbia.

And he thinks about the way Neil shied away from Wymack in the beginning, the way he now searches for Wymacks face whenever they get separated from their coach at away games.

The gun shots during the Hatford raid, the way even though Neil was bruised and battered he still found himself with a smile on his face when he saw Lola’s body get blasted apart by silenced guns.

The way he knew even if they got a proper funeral no one down there would get to have an open casket. The evidence in their bullet shattered bones that their bodies would never rest peacefully. That people in a thousand years would know from the unmarked graves and their remains that they deserved whatever ended them.

And then he claims it goes dark, he says it with the same way Neil lies about everything else, with his body forced relaxed to not twitch and give himself away, but he breathes a little heavier when he calmly tries to describe the way he came to and found himself being helped by the emergency services, feigning he doesnt know what theyre actually called, playing into the runaway kid sent on the road too young and not knowing completely how the world works still.

Andrew wishes he didnt know Neil well enough to know its only half real. Wishes he didnt know Mary probably only taught Neil how to recognize and run from EMT’s, and never actually explained what EMT was meant to stand for.

Andrew knows first hand how hard it is to gain sympathy from government officials, but Neil’s got them eating out of his hand with the way he words his story, their final nail in the coffin to take down the Wesninski trails in Baltimore and beyond.

Neil knows they need him and he knows how to play them to believe whatever story he deems they’re worthwhile to hear.

[popcornhee]

Uwauwgu

[rise-deepseamonster]

[In court]

Neil, whispering to his lawyer, Renee:

Renee: This has nothing to do with the case.

Neil: Just ask please.

Renee, sighs and looks at Andrew who's the judge: Do you think he's cute? Be honest.

Andrew:

Andrew: I hereby sentence you to death.

[starregulus]

I used to think when Neil told the foxes that "he asked" when the foxes asked how he got Andrew to do stuff he was just knowingly lying because it wasn't just asking, it was clearly an exchange, a deal.

but now I think that Neil just has such a genuine kinship with Andrew that their definition of "asking" is just completely different than other people's, that the foxes dont understand. To Andreil asking someone to do something is always an exchange of something. Especially in the world that they grew up in. Nothing came for free. In their world, there's no such thing as altruism. People don't just do things because you simply asked them to. They don't do things for nothing in return. So the typical concept of "asking" and just getting something done for nothing doesn't exist to Neil. So when he tells the foxes he "just asked" it's because he genuinely think that that's what asking is; he doesn't know it means something completely different to the foxes.

[fortheloveofexy]

my (second) fanart submission for the 2024 @aftg-mixtape

based on Alien Blues by Vundabar.

[excaliburarts]

I’m obsessed with them more than Kevin Day is obsessed with exy.

[gabumk]

🫶

I still haven't been able to standardize the way I draw Andrew, every time I draw him, he looks different😫 but I still liked how this one came out!

[the-best-of-the-myrmidona]

Andrew Minyard is so mentally scary and tough to me, and then I remember that he canonically matches things like his armbands with Neil. And then I remember he's also probably secretly a little mushy pile of love

[herondaleoffspring]

andrew interacts with neil like he's playing episode with no diamonds

[constantly-questioning-reality]

how do you think Andrew, who has again and again been condemned for being “out of control,” felt when Neil told him “i want to see you lose control”

[verdiris]

If you wake Neil up you better be ready to face the consequences 😒