#and wymack was just like uh oh ok whatever you say

[neilsracquet]

neil after christmas break: *bloody, broken, tattooed, beaten to a pulp*

also neil: Who me? No i’m fine! Andrew will be back soon and that is all that matters!!!! :)

[beefy-keefy]

hands over your eyes

| T |  the monsters, a game of Guess Who, humor | done!aaron and andriel being annoying | 2k |

on ao3

His back shakes as his mouth silently quivers, open with pain so deep he can barely manage to make sounds when he cries. “You cheater,” Nicky sobs, voice thick and choked. “I give you all of my trust. And then this.” Hunched over and banging his fist on the ground, he wails and rolls around a few times before bumping into the edge of the sofa. The others circled around him regard him passively.

“It’s fucking Guess Who,” Aaron mutters.

or: a game of Guess Who between the monsters turns more into Guess Who Aaron strangles first.

For @i-care-bout-things-too as part of the @aftgexchange Valentine’s 2020 <3

fic also under cut! mwah

His back shakes as his mouth silently quivers, open with pain so deep he can barely manage to make sounds when he cries. “You cheater,” Nicky sobs, voice thick and choked. “I give you all of my trust. And then this.” Hunched over and banging his fist on the ground, he wails and rolls around a few times before bumping into the edge of the sofa. The others circled around him regard him passively.

“It’s fucking Guess Who,” Aaron mutters.

“Your turn,” Neil says.

Aaron flicks his gaze around his board. They’ve been trying to play for an hour now, but most of it was just everyone trying to teach Neil as he struggled silently. Nicky continues to bemoan how Aaron, ten minutes before, had walked over to his side and looked blatantly at his board. Which, obviously, was the wrong choice as Nicky had immediately dropped to the floor and began crying. “Is it Blonde?”

Neil glances down at his board Nicky had placed on his lap for him. His brow furrows. “Uh, her hair is kinda in-between. Nicky, is Ashley’s hair more Blonde or Brown?”

“You still don’t know how to fucking play,” Aaron announces. “Congrats.”

“You didn’t even pick Ashley,” Kevin says, pointing at Neil’s board from where he’s sitting with his laptop on the sofa across from Neil. Aaron is beside him, with Andrew on the couch above Neil and both Neil and Nicky opting for the floor. He reaches down to push Nicky’s quivering head away from the corner of the sofa before saying, “Your slider is on Bernard.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Aaron says, throwing his hands up. “This is why Nicky is on your team. To make sure you dumbasses don’t do shit like give away your entire game.”

Neil squints closer at the board. “I don’t remember picking Bernard.”

“What the fuck,” Aaron whispers. Slamming his board on the floor, he stands up, starting for the door. “Fuck this.”

“I was winning!” Kevin yells at his back.

“You weren’t even playing!” Aaron yells back.

“Come back,” Nicky pleads, voice thick from his wailing performance. He’s calmed down now, mostly. “I’ll make Andrew play.”

Neil tilts his head up at Andrew, the salt in his hair Andrew had sprinkled there periodically during the game falling off. He’s seated cross-legged on the couch above Neil, flicking the salt off of his pretzels.

Andrew’s stare is half-lidded. “You’re upside down,” he says.

“Yes,” Neil replies. “It’s because I’m looking at you.”

Brushing salt at Neil and narrowly missing his eye, Andrew asks, “Do you have to do it upside-down?”

Neil doesn’t move as salt falls onto his nose, his lashes. One particularly large flake goes up his nostril when he inhales. He sneezes, which, he discovers, is fairly uncomfortable when you’re upside-down. “Well, yeah, because you’re above me and I have to tilt my head to look up at you. So, upside-down.”

“If I have to hear them talk one more time I’m leaving again,” Aaron threatens from where he’s sitting down again beside Kevin on the couch. “This is the stupidest conversation I’ve heard in months.”

“I’m playing,” Andrew states. He shoves a pretzel against Neil’s mouth, jamming it in and nearly choking Neil.

“True love,” Nicky sighs as Neil attempts to chew and swallow upside down. He sits back up. “New round.”

Neil dutifully takes both boards to open all the tiles of faces and passing one to Aaron.

Outside, snow falls, heavy and pale. Dan was supposed to come and visit, and Renee and Allison the next week. The snow, however, is seemingly intent on keeping them from Neil. Wymack is out doing errands with Betsy and Abby--”If I find one speck of blood”--and won’t be back for an hour. Nicky had lamented dramatically for over an hour after they’d left about how scary life would be for the three of them being gone would be like, and only stopped when his throat was beginning to hurt.

“I don’t understand why we can’t just play literally anything else,” Aaron says, gesturing behind him towards the substantial pile of games Andrew had stolen from Betsy’s office. Neil recognizes Monopoly and Scrabble from conversations and references from Matt he only half-understood.“Why are we playing the dumbest one?”

“Because it’s easiest for Neil and Kevin to understand,” Nicky says. “The other choice would have been, like, charades but Neil would have pretended to understand in fear he would take up too much time from us like he’s worrying about now and he would have messed up every time by not knowing what half of the cards are.” He slings an arm around Kevin with a teasing smile and immediately wrenches it back when he realizes who he did it to.

Kevin doesn’t react. “I’m not playing,” he says, eyes on his screen.

Neil feels the oddest warm pulse in his heart. “Thank you, but I get it. We can start playing.”

“No you don’t,” Aaron and Nicky say in unison.

“I don’t,” Neil admits.

“That’s because you are stupid,” Andrew says simply, and says, “I’m with Neil.”

Nicky sighs. “But you were supposed to be with Aaron for like, bonding, and I just wanted to be with--”

“I’m with Neil,” Andrew interrupts. He glances at Neil, then at the spot on the couch beside him. Neil gets up with the board to sit beside Andrew.

“I was expecting that,” Nicky says, and scoots closer to Aaron so Neil can only see the back of their board.

“Can I go over this again?” Neil asks. At Nicky’s thumbs-up, he breathes out and scrunches up his face in concentration. “So, each team has a board,”

“Well, no shit,” Aaron cuts in. Andrew reaches over to jab his neck and Nicky shushes him, gesturing for Neil to continue.

“--and they each pick a person from the people tiles. But you don’t tell the other team who. And then you take turns asking questions--but they have to be yes-or-no. And then the other team will answer and you narrow down the people by flipping down the tiles on your board that don’t fit because you have the same boards. And whoever can guess the other team’s person first wins.”

“See, you say that, and then you do stupid shit liketell us exactly who your person is.”

Neil blinks. Nicky frowns, mimics Aaron, and pushes him. “You’re so sassy today.”

Aaron huffs. “Just play.”

“Us first,” Andrew says, and begins before the other team can answer. “Blonde or Brunette.”

“There’s so many things that are wrong with that,” Nicky says. “First off, you didn’t pick your person. Second off, even if you did, you didn’t discuss it with Neil. Third off, the oldest player starts--which is me--and how am I supposed to answer that?Blonde or Brunette?”

“It’s a simple question,” Andrew says cooly. “Blonde,” he pauses, “or Brunette?”

“It’s supposed to be a yes-or-no question!” Nicky says, with emotion.

“So answer it that way,” Andrew says, without.

“Wh--Blonde or Brunette?”

Andrew blinks slowly.

“I thought it was the youngest player first?” Neil asks. “I read the rules last night.”

“So you studied for this, Aaron says slowly, “and you still manage to fuck it up. What age group is this even for?”

Nicky had given up arguing with Andrew, and picks up the box. “Six and up.”

“So Neil is the and up then,” Aaron mutters. “Whatever. Let’s just play.”

“Blonde. Or. Brunette.” Andrew looks at Nicky expectantly.

Nicky buries his head in his hands and turns to Aaron. “You heard the man,” he whispers.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just answer it,” Neil says, unflinching.

He stares at Aaron. Aaron stares back. Finally, he cracks.

“FINE!” He yells. It’s so loud Neil can hear Matt’s feet hesitantly padding down the stairs. He silently wishes Matt would come down. Matt said he misses Neil.“YES! OK? YES!”

Matt finally pokes his head out from the doorway. “Everything okay here?” Nicky nods with fear on his face. “Oh, hey Neil,” Matt says when he sees him. He waves. “Oh, are you guys playing Guess Who? I love that game.”

“I’m learning it,” Neil says. “It’s fun.”

“Can I join in?”

“Oh, hell no,” Aaron says, standing up. “I’m done with your bullshit.”

“Who’s?” Andrew asks, innocently.

“How about Monopoly, then?” Matt says, confused. He slowly walks towards their circle on the living room mat, hand in front of him like he’s walking towards an animal. Cautiously. Kinda like when a victim is convinced they can talk down a criminal but later gets hurt to an excruciating degree and is later left with the aftermath of crippling PTSD and the knowledge that their trust is their downfall, Neil thinks passively.

Aaron and Nicky look up at Matt with visible panic.

“Sure,” Neil says, “Sounds fun. You’re going to have to teach me, though.”

“You’re going to leave a different man,” Nicky says, and leaves with Aaron in a rush.

Andrew stays, flicking a cold stare at Matt, chewing absent-mindedly on a pretzel. “I’m with Neil.”

 --

  BONUS

 --

 “That was fun,” Neil hums as Andrew pushes him against a wall. The hallway to their rooms is unoccupied, with everyone having mysteriously disappeared since the games had ended. “Don’t know why Matt had to go pee so often though. He’s actually really bad at staying hydrated.”

“Shut up,” Andrew growls against Neil’s lips. “Shut. Up.” Then after a beat, “And if you say make me--”

“Make me,” Neil says, because he’s a little shit and because he thinks that maybe, maybe Andrew likes it. A little.

“You’ve gotten disgustingly talkative since they left,” Andrew grinds out, pressing his forehead against Neil’s.

“You have a very bony forehead,” Neil observes.

Andrew pins him harder. “Someday,” he whispers, “I am going to drown you.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it!” Neil protests.

He nips at Andrew’s lips as an apology of a sort. They’re salty. Crusted with the sea salt Andrew had missed from the pretzels at the corners. Andrew tolerates it only for a few seconds before bringing Neil’s lips to find his again.

Andrew’s lips are always soft even though he doesn’t use the balm that the girls sometimes let Neil borrow. Andrew doesn’t stay hydrated enough, either. Neil thinks absent-midedly of getting him a bigger water-bottle.

Neil’s lips are always chapped. He feels clumsy sometimes, next to Andrew. His knees are always scrapped and his fingernails broken. He doesn’t know as much as Andrew and doesn’t understand things like Andrew does, even when he doesn’t show it. He’s not as experienced, but he thinks he makes up for it with enthusiasm.

But Andrew never showed any signs of caring.

They kiss the slowest they have in weeks, in stark contrast to the tight grip Andrew has on Neil’s shoulders. Neil hands grapple at the wall awkwardly before brushing hesitantly over Andrew’s hips.

He’s about to lean away to ask if it’s alright when Andrew impatiently pushes them down himself. Neil’s chest stutters. In nerves, or affection.

He’s not particularly used to either of those, but Andrew--

Andrew keeps kissing him. And he kisses back. Lucky, He thinks. Neil’s never really thought about luck before--he never saw how people could put such a complex thing like life into such simple terms. But recently, with the highs of winning and the highs of everytime he saw one of his foxes laugh, or maybe when Andrew pressed them together like now. He couldn’t help it. Lucky.

Neil tries to kiss the corners of Andrews lips. He saw it once in a movie with a boy and a girl who looked kind of like Dan. Then again, he thought that every pretty girl looked like Dan. And Renee. And Allison.

Andrew visibly grows annoyed. “I didn’t come here to feel the need to insult you.”

“I’m trying to slow it down,” Neil says. Andrew’s fingertips are, at once, the softest and hardest pressure on his back. Neil closes his eyes. Barely another second goes past before he gives up and rushes to connect with Andrew.

His lips are soft. Always soft.

The slower they kiss, the more Neil is destroyed. Devil, Neil thinks.

Lucky, lucky, lucky.

When they pull apart for air, he whispers, “You were amazing at Guess Who. It was really hot.”

“And you wonder why someone would be heartless enough to want to kill another human being, Andrew mutters, before tugging him in again.