#and even though he butchers the pronunciation it still makes Kevin bawl like a baby because he’d really forgotten so much about his mom

[ninyard]

niche hc but when Neil is having a Learn Every Language In The World day, he’s just being annoying with Andrew and going through every European language and stopping to google a few phrases before moving on. Eventually he gets to Ireland and Kevin’s not really paying any attention to him until Neil says a word like ‘thank you’ or ‘goodbye’ and he freezes up in the corner of the room.

Andrew notices straight away obviously and stops Neil but then Kevin just starts to cry.

When Kevin’s mother was alive she would call him pet names in Irish, and use some Irish words sporadically here and there when she was speaking, like most Irish people do, and he hasn’t heard anyone speaking Irish since she passed away. Thank you is one of those phrases that a lot of Irish people use day to day just to keep the language alive, and it was always one of those things she made him say as a younger kid to help her feel close to home.

Nobody really knows what to do, and he’s not sure whether he’s happy or sad or both or neither, but just hearing the language out loud causes such a visceral reaction for him that he can’t help it. It’s the first time in a while he’s caught himself thinking, I miss my mom.