#exy is the unspoken fourth

[overallsonfrogs]

I have come to the conclusion that Kevin belongs in at least a throuple, no matter what combination of other characters he’d end up with

[crows-and-crumbs]

Andrew and Aaron go weekly grocery shopping together

Here’s another one! I loved this as well, please I want to write more little things like this! Hope you enjoy Anon

I love the twinyards, they just need a little nudge to reach their full potential :3

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Aaron and Andrew didn’t talk about it. They didn’t sit down and plan it, didn’t communicate anything other than simple text of when, and then they did it.

It had been Bee’s suggestion, and not something either of them would have proposed themselves.

“It would be good for you to share short and necessary errands with a specific goal in mind” she had said with a soft smile that was only met with Aaron’s look of doubt and Andrew’s indifference.

Normally it was Nicky who did the grocery shopping, it had always been like that, and it had stayed that way.

Kevin was too busy with Exy and whatever monthly existential breakdown he’d succumbed to that week to do anything.

Aaron was a MED-student and athlete leaving little time for stuff like that, and Andrew was... well he was Andrew.

That and for the first long while of them going to college, he had been high as a kite and not allowed to drive anywhere.

Not even to the grocery store.

Which is where the Aaron found himself, pushing the wagon as Andrew carelessly threw stuff from the isles down into it, eyes never leaving the tiny list Nicky had handed them.

“Kevin’s gonna strangle you” Aaron broke the silence that had been suffocating him ever since they left Fox Tower.

Andrew had already placed three tubs of ice cream into the basket and was reaching for the fourth.

Slowly Andrew raised his eyes to meet Aaron’s own, and for a second Aaron thought he might have broken one of his brother’s stupid unspoken rules.

But Andrew didn’t seem angry at all, he never seemed anything now a days, but this was a different kind of nothing.

It was in the twist of his eye, slightly upward, he was fucking smug.

Slowly and deliberately, without breaking eye contact, Andrew let the fourth tub drop into the wagon.

“You’re Andrew Minyard!” The starting contest Aaron had been intend on winning was cut short by a high pitched child’s voice, making both the twins turn to look down.

A little girl was standing there, dark hair a mess and bright eyes so wide It looked like they might pop out.

Andrew tensed beside Aaron but didn’t answer, the girl didn’t seem to notice or care all that much.

“You are so cool!” She shrieked, jumping slightly where she stood “your game against the Ravens was legendary! You totally beat their ass!” She giggled, it sounded like bells.

“Andrew” Aaron hissed when his brother seemed to be doing nothing.

“Can I have your autograph? Pretty please?” There it was, every single alarm bell went off in Aaron’s head.

Body moving before he thought, he got ready to stop Andrew from murdering a 10 year old by the ice cream section, but that proved unnecessary.

Andrew slid down into a squad, making himself a couple centimeters shorter than the girl, who could only look at him as if he was gods gift to earth.

“Sure” Andrew answered simply, reaching for her book.

She scrambled through her back pack, almost dropping the notebook with how enthusiastically she pulled it out.

Andrew caught it before it could hit the floor, taking the pen she offered and signed it before handing it back to her.

“Thank you so much mr. Minyard! This is the coolest thing ever! She exclaimed “I’ll keep watching all the games! My friends aren’t gonna believe this!” She hugged the notebook close to her and in that moment Aaron decided to turn his gaze on his brother.

Andrew seemed... content? Another word he wouldn’t associate with his worse half, but the only one he could come up with to describe what he was seeing.

It made something tingle somewhere in him. He pushed it down enough to punch the wagon forward, nudging Andrew soft enough that it would make him fall over, but hard enough to gain his attention.

Andrew got up from his half seated position on the floor, still looking at the girl.

“Gabriella?” Somewhere a frantic woman’s voice called and the girl spun around on her heel.

“That’s my mom, goodbye mr. Minyard! Thank you!” And then she was gone in the crowd.

They spend the rest of the trip in silence, Aaron trying to banish the picture of Andrew’s features softening when he sat down in front of the girl.

He didn’t like to think of his brother as a human like anyone else. If he had to use any descriptors for his brother it would be the uncanny valley.

Something that lived, breathed and paraded as a human, but something was just off enough to make one doubt.

It was stuff like what had happened at Thanksgiving, when Josten went missing and now this little girl, that reminded him that his brother was human. And that terrified him.

The trail was in two months, and Aaron had done his best to keep the thoughts of it as far away as possible, but how could he ever forget, when Andrew did stuff like this.

Had emotions that could be other than apathy and rage. Aaron didn’t know how to interact with that Andrew.

It also pissed him off endlessly.

All these random things and people that waltzed in and out of their life, sometimes even ruining it, could make his brother feel, but Aaron couldn’t? What had he done that made him different?

“Does Katelyn want kids?” The question comes out of nowhere when they reach Fox Tower and Aaron goes for the bags in the trunk while Andrew lights a cigarette.

“I don’t know” Aaron answered honestly, it wasn’t something they’d talked about yet, and wouldn’t be for many years if ever.

“Hm” Andrew hummed and took a drag “do you?” He continued.

Once again Aaron didn’t know what to respond. Did he want kids? He didn’t know. At first thought the answer was, no, absolutely not.

He knew that the cycle of abuse was hard to break, and if he wanted to be healthy enough to have a kid, he had a lot of work to do. And even then, Katelyn and him would have to talk about it for a while.

However the longer he thought about it, the more doubtful he became of his initial definitive no.

“I don’t know” the long period of silence that had been left between the question and the answer spoke volumes and Andrew blew out another smoke cloud.

Aaron left then, up with the elevator and into their dorms to put the things away.

Maybe These shopping trips wouldn’t be that bad.

[aelysalthea]

Baby Foxes Still Bite: Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Day 2, Part 2

"It's a racket."

Neil looked up at Matt from the stunted racket in his hands, an expression that clearly said 'I know, idiot' written across his face. It was followed barely a beat later in words slow and a little exasperated: "I know."

At least he left the 'idiot' part off.

Matt couldn't help but laugh. Being called an idiot was far less offensive coming from a kid who barely reached his hip in height, and even less when that kid was Neil. Not just Neil but baby-Neil, which was about all Matt could think of him as. Nicky had coined the term the previous morning, if only in private to avoid Neil's blatant hatred of nicknames, and it had stuck.

He wasn't a baby by any stretch, but it was impossible not to think the nickname was accurate given Neil was… that.

A day and a half wasn't enough for that particular change to have settled as a reality. In a lot of ways, Matt was still pretty convinced he was dreaming. It was impossible, right? Everyone said it was - or that it should be. Except baby-Neil was very real, and he didn't look to be changing back to the slightly bigger version of himself any time soon.

Matt was torn on that front. On the one hand, six-year-old Neil was about the cutest thing on two legs, and Matt was perfectly entitled to think as much despite having a girlfriend because Dan readily agreed. Tiny, baby faced, his eyes so big and bright when not clouded by the wariness that routinely afflicted them, Matt had to withhold the urge to scoop him up and squeeze him like a stuffed toy on frequent occasion. He knew he wasn't the only one, either; Nicky openly admitted to his own urge, and even Allison had to catch herself from petting his head as though he was a puppy.

Never having a younger brother before, or a younger cousin, or a younger anyone quite so small, Matt was enamoured. He knew it - everyone knew it - and he didn't care a lick that they did. It was nearly impossible to leave the kid alone because… because… baby-Neil.

At the same time, however, Matt was gutted. It hadn't quite struck him until he'd seen Neil for the first time again that morning that it was his friend in that tiny body, and that meant that his friend was sort of missing as a result. It might not be even two days since he'd disappeared - or transformed, or 'regressed' as Aaron called it, or whatever else - but that particular part of reality stung with increasing severity. It almost hurt.

Matt couldn't quite bring himself to leave Abby's house. Not that day, and hopefully not any time soon. What if he missed something? What if something happened? What if Neil changed back and he wasn't there to help explain or, worse, what if he never changed at all?

Baby-Neil might be adorable as fuck, but Matt kind of wanted his friend back. He missed him more than should have been possible for only a day, but he knew he wasn't the only one. In an attempt to stave off his discontent, Matt had turned to one of the few things that never failed to distract him.

The racket was too big in Neil's little hands, even as a minor's size. Matt had to cover his mouth with a hand to hide his grin and exchanged a glance with Dan over Neil's head. Too cute, was shared with unspoken words, despite that Matt had to duck a step backwards as Neil abruptly flipped the racket up and nearly impaled him.

"Whoa, there," Matt laughed, dancing from the line of fire as Kevin darted a hand in to grab the wayward racket. "You could take someone's eye out with that."

"Oh." Neil pursed his lips, regret flooding his face. That regret quickly morphed into wariness bordering upon fear. "I'm sorry. I – I didn't mean to. I really didn't. I won't do it again, I promise, I -"

"Neil," Andrew called from where he lazed on the back steps of Abby's house. "Stop."

Neil's mouth hung open, but with a glance at Andrew he slowly closed it once more. More pursed lips, a furrow wrinkling his forehead as he met Andrew's gaze across the yard, until he nodded.

There was that, too. Neil was a bit of a weird kid - or at least he would have seemed weird if Matt didn't know his story. That he did know just made Neil's 'weirdness' tragic instead. But what was even weirder was whatever was going on between him and Andrew.

Andrew was actually good with kids. Or at least one kid in particular. And, studying him as he had for the past day or so, Matt couldn't quite pinpoint what it was that made him 'good' except for the fact that Neil seemed comfortable in his company where he wasn't quite with anyone else. Not even Abby.

It was odd, but then again it had been and likely would always be odd, regardless of how old Neil was.

"So, you think you've got it all?" Matt asked Neil, smiling down at him encouragingly as, beneath the weight Andrew's words, Neil's uneasiness retreated. "Would you like Kevin to go over the rules again?"

"We hardly went over the rules the first time," Kevin grumbled, releasing his hold on the racket in Neil's hands with obvious reluctance. "We barely scratched the surface of -"

"And the surface is all that's going to be scratched," Dan said, overriding him and flicking aside Kevin's ensuing glare with barely a raised eyebrow. "We'll get down to the nitty-gritty when Neil's played a few games or two."

Neil glanced up at her. He glanced at Kevin, then at Matt, then at Andrew again. Slowly, a smile drew across his lips and, hands tightening on the racket, Matt saw it. That. Neil might not know of or understand exy just yet, but even as a kid he had the same light in him. The same excitement, the same thrill that could only be triggered by the competitiveness of a sport. Matt saw it and couldn't help but reach out and scrub a fond hand through Neil's hair. He was rewarded with the fact that Neil let him this time as a day before he hadn't.

It was just half the team, with Allison and Renee 'helping' Abby with lunch and Nicky likely doing even less than their distracted attempts. Time out had been called for with the general rowdiness that arose between Allison and Nicky until Abby had all but kicked Matt and the rest of his teammates into her minute backyard. Just the four of them - or the four of them and Andrew, though Andrew had taken up residence on the back porch, legs dangling over the edge and elbows propped on his knees with the kind of lazy disregard and disinterest that Matt recognised from years as his teammate. Except for his stare. His eyes were hooded, seemed bored, but he barely blinked away from Neil unless someone caught him watching.

As he noticed Matt did. With a shift of his gaze, Andrew stared Matt down until Matt couldn't help but look away. It was with a faint smile of his own, however; it wasn't often that Matt caught Andrew unnerved, and he had no other word for his unerringly attentive bodyguard duties of the last couple of days. It had been strange enough when it was for Kevin the past few years.

Dan divvied them into minute teams, that Neil immediately refuted with a gesture towards Kevin and a remarkably pragmatic "but isn't he the best? Why can't I be on his team?" It was maybe for different reasons than the practical ones that Matt reasoned, but Dan didn't refute it nonetheless.

Facing off against Kevin and Neil in Abby's patchy backyard, their makeshift goals just as patchy, would have been laughable even without the slightly resigned look on Kevin's face and the jittery bouncing in place that Neil seemed incapable of suppressing. Matt shared a smirk with Dan, hefted his own racket, and nodded.

"Ready?"

Neil smiled.

There was little about the game that ensued that resembled exy. Not only was the court - if it could be called a court - far too small and their teams just as handicapped, but Neil didn't properly know the rules. And Matt didn't play more than to 'defend' him. And Dan ran more than she intercepted the ball. And their 'passes' would have been better suited to the lesser intensity of a lacrosse court than an exy game. Kevin was about the only one who seemed to be attempting to stick to the rules at all, but even he seemed to accept the impossibility of actually playing within a handful of minutes.

"I'm open, Dan, I'm open!" Matt said at one moment, running backwards with deliberate slowness and placing himself in Neil's direct path.

"Dan, that's an illegal move," Kevin said at another, though the words seemed more instinctive and resigned than reprimanding.

"She shoots, and - ah, another miss!" Dan cried for what must have been the fourth time in as many minutes when she lobbed the ball towards the goal and deliberately - because Dan could only ever miss so badly if she tried to - struck the corner to have it rebound.

Neil, picking up his pace and scooping the ball up with far more dexterity than he'd been capable of at the beginning of the game, spun on his heel and took off towards the opposite end of the yard. Dan yelped before deteriorating into laughter as he ducked around her, so light on his feet he barely seemed to touch the ground at all, and Matt couldn't help but join her when Neil raced towards him, far exceeding his ten steps, and proceeded to weave around him, too. It wasn't only because of Matt's leniency that he didn't intercept him; he could have, had he tried, but despite his diminutive size and age, Neil was crazily fast. Apparently, it had been a lifelong skill.

When Neil shot at the goal, it was such a near miss that Matt had to squint to be certain it went in, but he was cheering an instant later when Neil turned with a satisfied smile. His cheeks flushed, his chest heaving a little, he swung the racket around himself as though it were a baseball bat and trotted back towards Matt.

"You were too slow," he said.

"Damn right I was," Matt replied, slinging his own racket across his shoulders. He wasn't out of breath himself, and even in the heat of summer it wasn't quite enough for him to work up a sweat, but he felt the familiar hum of joy and satisfaction buzzing under his skin as he played even the massacred version of exy that they attempted.

"You've got the knack for this, Neil," Dan said, jogging to Matt's side. "You're super fast."

Slowing to a stop before them, Neil beamed. It was remarkable how he flourished before the outlet of a sport, even one he wasn't familiar with. It seemed to put him at ease like nothing else. And that smile… Matt would have no hesitation in admitting that he'd be nothing more than putty in Neil's hands before his smile.

"I like running," he said, which was the understatement of the century.

"I'll say," Matt said. "I'll bet you could outrun anyone."

"Yeah. Even you."

Matt bit back on another outburst of laughter. Honestly, the confidence of some kids. "Bet you're good at sport at school. You said soccer, right?"

"Yeah." Neil swung the racket around himself once more, albeit with a little less abandon than he had prior to their game. He might be the kind of kid to all but require constant movement - or so it seemed - but he was clearly restraining the urge a little after his not-scolding when he'd nearly knocking Matt's head from his shoulders. "I'm faster even than Kenny, and he's really fast."

"How fast is fast?" Dan asked.

"Really fast. He's eight already, too."

"Is he?"

"Yeah, and he's the fastest kid in his whole grade, except he's not really that fast, even though he's bigger than me, and everyone says he's really cool 'cause they think he's fast, even though he can't play soccer or anything even a little bit, but when I told Rochie and Miles at school they said that it didn't matter if he couldn't kick a ball straight even though it does because…"

Neil's chatter ensued with sporadic tangents reminiscent of the careless swinging of his racket. Easy. Relaxed, even as Matt would expect of a kid. It was painfully nice to see. Matt propped his racket on the ground, folding his arms over the top, and only half listened. He knew he was smiling and couldn't have stopped even if he'd wanted to. He was almost certain that the slight sappiness he caught on Dan's face from the corner of his eye was at least doubly apparent on his own.

Kevin, retrieving the forgotten ball with a practiced scoop, drifted towards them as Neil continued his unending sentence. From the slightly deadened expression on his face, Matt supposed he'd finally accepted that, when it came to exy, he was going to have to sideline his obsession for a time. He wasn't looking quite so harried as he had the entirety of the previous day, though, so there was that.

"... think she could be really, really good if she got better at it, but she says she doesn't like to play anymore because she'd be the only girl on the team," Neil was saying, and Matt cooed at positively adorable way he scrunched his nose as if to emphasise his own words. "I don't get it. What's wrong if she's the only girl?"

It took Matt a moment to register that Neil was actually asking a question, and Dan had dived into replying before he could himself. "There's no problem at all with a girl being on the team. Your friend should be allowed to play if she wants to, and she shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable simply because she's the only one."

Neil blinked up at her, his racket-twirling finally slowing as he lowered it alongside himself. His smile died into a blank expression before being replaced by a slight frown. "Rochie isn't my friend," he said.

Dan cocked her head. "Oh? Sorry, I thought she might have been -"

"She really isn't."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest -"

"I don't have any friends at school."

Dan's smile disappeared in an instant, and Matt felt his own vanish just as fast. At his side, he felt Kevin tense slightly but didn't care to wonder why. He could only stare down at Neil, at the abrupt dampening in his mood that wiped clean the excitement from their game that still flushed his cheeks a soft pink. A twinge speared through his chest at Neil's words, ringing in the silence that followed, and not because they were flooded with regret. That would have been expected for a kid. For any kid who claimed they didn't have 'any friends'.

Not Neil. He spoke as though in defiance. As though in reassurance. As though he were insisting upon the truth of his claim, denying the potential for opposition, in words that sounded as though he'd spoken them before. With the rapid dampening of his own mood, Matt realised that Neil seemed to have a fair few of those kind of words and statements - the kind that had been practiced as though drilled into him from an early age.

"Oh," was all Dan seemed able to say, and Matt agreed. Oh.

Neil dropped his gaze to the ground, jabbing the racket idly in the dirt as he shifted from foot to foot. He glanced sidelong, up at Kevin who regarded him with a tightness around his eyes, and then up at Matt. "What?" he asked, almost challengingly.

Matt opened his mouth to reply but couldn't find the words. Neil's question hung between them, growing heavier by the moment, until Kevin cleared his throat and reached for Neil's racket.

"You shouldn't do that," he said. "It'll damage the head."

Neil's frown shifted, adopting a hint of petulance. "So? You said before that it's a really old racket anyway."

"It doesn't matter -"

"And Abby said that she was probably going to get rid of it anyway."

"Even if she was, that doesn't mean -"

"It's got even more dirty bits on it that your one, and your one looks really, really old."

"It's disrespectful -"

Andrew's snort interrupted Kevin's increasingly agitated reprimands. Matt glanced towards him along with the rest of them and felt a small smile resurface at the utterly bored expression Andrew pinned Kevin with. Reclined on his side now, he looked utterly done with the situation, and with Kevin's spluttering in particular.

"Really, Kevin?" Andrew said, his voice just as bored as his face. "You're going to get your nose out of joint about a kid's racket that looks like it's hardly holding itself together?"

Kevin's hackles visibly rose. "It's the principle of the thing. If you don't instil appropriate boundaries at a young age, then you develop poor habits."

"Matt was doing it, too," Neil pointed out, glancing towards Matt. "You didn't tell him off."

Kevin swung a frown towards Matt. "Matt should know better."

Matt called forth a grin that was only half forced. It was better to just… to just overlook some things. To overlook the little nuggets that Neil dropped as though they were commonplace. Matt knew that most of the Foxes had a rough childhood; he considered that he'd gotten off the lightest out of most of them. On the flip side, Neil seemed to have had some of the worst, and Matt knew that. Still, hearing it aloud and seeing it in motion…

Shrugging, both physically and with a mental disregard for the sombre thought, Matt took a step to Neil's side and scrubbed a hand through his hair again. "Matt should know better," he said, "but Kevin should also get the stick out of his arse. Right, Neil?"

Neil blinked up at him, eyebrows rising. Then his smile returned and it was as though Matt had been given a Christmas gift early. "Yeah." Neil turned towards Kevin. "Get the stick out of your arse, Kevin."

Andrew snorted again, but Matt hardly heard it for the irrepressible laughter that burst from his own lips. Dan cackled, Kevin glared, and Abby would likely cuff him over the head for swearing if she heard, but Matt didn't care. Watching a six-year-old telling Kevin off was worth whatever scolding it provoked.

At that moment, Renee appeared at the back door. "Lunch is ready, everyone," she called. "If you don't come in quickly, Nicky says he's going to eat all the dessert."

"There's dessert?" Neil said, perking up as he spun towards her. "For afters?"

Renee smiled, nodded, and beckoned them inside before turning back within. Matt glanced down at Neil, tugging on his curls once more. "You done for now? We can come back out later if you'd like, yeah?"

Neil nodded, already properly distracted by the prospect of food, but recalled himself enough to spare a final moment for the racket in his hand. "I think I like exy."

"Of course you do," Dan said. "You'll be an awesome player someday if you keep it up."

"Really?"

"I know it for a fact, actually."

Neil eyed her as though expecting her to retract her words, but when she didn't, he tucked his chin and shuffled between his feet in an unexpectedly moment of bashfulness. "Thank you, Dan," he said quietly.

Matt might have just melted just a little bit more than he already had. It was all he could do to share a doting glance with Dan - one of how many? - before reaching for Neil's racket. "Here, I'll take that," he said. "Want to race back inside? What do you think, reckon you could beat me?"

Neil glanced up at him. For a split second, his eyes darted towards the back porch where Andrew was climbing to his feet, to the back door, then returned to Matt. Just for a moment as flicker of mischievousness flitted across his face -

Then he was off, sprinting for the door, and damn, the kid really could run.

Falling into helpless laughter once more, Matt spared only a moment to shake his head, to share a grin with Dan, before racing after him. Baby-Neil might not quite be the friend that Matt knew and loved, but he was damn good company nonetheless.

~|=|~

Abby passed the bowl of popcorn into grasping hands. "You can stay," she said, "but only if the last one of you awake turn the tellie off before you fall to sleep."

The last word had barely passed her lips before the living room erupted with whoops and odes of gratitude. Nicky pledged his own words of thanks that even he couldn't quite make out as he accepted the overflowing bowl, and Abby shook her head before she left the room.

"See that, Neil?" Nicky said, dropping back onto the cushion-mattress he'd built for himself. "That's how you get what you want. It's all about persistence."

"You're teaching him back lessons," Dan said, though she didn't seem particularly concerned. Nicky couldn't blame her; Neil had probably known such a lesson from birth.

"You all get to sleep over?" Neil asked, glancing around the room.

"You bet, kid," Allison said, flopping down across Renee's lap and almost kicking Dan and Matt off the other end of the couch. "You get the pleasure of our company just a little longer."

"Oh." Neil blinked. He glanced at Nicky, at the bowl Nicky held, then at Andrew as if in question. Nicky had noticed he often looked to Andrew for answers. He shouldn't be surprised at this point, but it still struck him every so often. "Is it like a party."

"It'd be a pretty dead-beat party if it was one," Aaron said. He'd returned with Katelyn in tow in time for dinner and, though subdued, seemed to have settled a little. Still unnerved, Nicky thought, given that he was nowhere near as cold-shouldered to Neil as he was when Neil was – well, bigger. But he was better. Recovered as much as the rest of them were.

Hold it together, Nicky reminded himself as, to the sound of the Foxes' exchange, offered the bowl of popcorn out to Neil with a smile. It's not like you haven't faced worse. So much worse. This is just another weird situation like any other.

Nicky had been telling himself that for the past few days. Telling himself almost exactly that on constant repeat. He wasn't sure if he believed it just yet. Murder and the mafia, criminal exchanges and secret runaways – they were one thing, and one exceptional, horrifying thing, but they weren't quite within the realm of the supernatural. Not like this was.

Which didn't mean that Nicky had to treat it any differently. He wouldn't let it be anything more than exceptional. Like always, he would smile, shrug, and shoulder his way through long enough for his mind to catch up with reality. Hopefully, reality would properly reinstate itself before logic caught up in turn and began to babble hysterically about the impossibility of a grown adult turning into a child.

"Whatever you'd like," Renee was saying, smiling at Neil as Neil clambered up into the couch between Andrew and Kevin. "What would you like to do, Neil?"

"I get to choose?" Neil asked, eyes widening a little.

"Sure," Dan said. "Like Renee said. Whatever you'd like."

"I," Neil glanced at Andrew again, though it was less in query and more simply in confusion. "I dunno. I don't even know what you're supposed to do at a party."

"Neil," Nicky said, sighing heavily before taking a morose nibble on a handful of popcorn, "please tell me you've had a party before."

"That's kind of a stupid assumption to make," Aaron said.

"I know, Aaron. Jesus, let me just pretend, okay?"

"I've never had a party before," Neil said, completely overriding Nicky's attempt.

Nicky sighed again, and there was a similar response from the senior Foxes. He really hadn't expected otherwise. He and the rest of them knew Neil well enough – and knew from their own personal experiences – that 'childhood' and 'party' weren't necessarily linked.

"Alright, then." Matt hauled himself to his feet, extracting his keys from his pocket. "We'll keep it simple. I doubt Abby's got much of an inventory of movies, so –"

"Oh, I'll come," Dan said, rising alongside him. "Any requests, anyone?"

A scattering of such requests – alongside a few that were immediately disregarded – chased Matt and Dan from the room. Kevin's muttered "we could just watch a few games of exy," was similarly disregarded with many an eyeroll and Neil's curious, "Why do you want to watch more exy? We played for ages before."

"Ha," Nicky crowed, scoffing. "I love this version of Neil."

"Give him time," Allison said lazily. "He'll become a fanatic in short order."

"What's a fanatic?" Neil asked.

"It's an ignorant fool with an unhealthy obsession with trivial sports," Andrew said.

"Oh. So then, kind of like Kevin?"

Nicky lost himself to laughter, and he wasn't the only one. Even Aaron cracked a smile.

Matt and Dan returned with enough movies to last them a week alongside a veritable grocery store of junk food that Nicky immediately scrambled for. He'd never turn his nose up at free food, and despite Kevin's usual insistence upon appropriate dietary requirements, even he seemed to make an exception that evening. In short order, bags were popped open, chips were crunched, and the majority of the M&Ms were filched by Andrew's deft hands before Nicky even noticed him reach for them.

Not that he cared. Chewing through a wad of gummy lollies, he spread out the selection of Matt's movie pickings in an array on the floor. "Right, Neil," he said, beckoning him down onto the floor alongside him. "Come on. I need your help choosing. What movies do you like?"

"I don't really like movies," Neil said, though he crawled to Nicky's side nonetheless.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Nicky scrubbed his head affectionately, his hand lingering for a moment before he forcibly lowered it. "But still. You can help pick. Whichever cover looks the best, okay? You can – oh, man, is that Bambi? Matt, how could you grab that one? It's traumatising."

"Hey, look, I just chucked anything that looked vaguely like a kids movie into the bag, okay?"

"That was probably my fault," Dan said. "I've never seen it, to be honest."

"You know what happens, though, surely."

"Yeah. Oops."

"I'm not sitting through Mary Poppins," Allison said, leaning over the edge of the couch to glance at the range of movies. She pulled a face. "Musicals give me indigestion."

"I thought you liked Dream Girls when we went and saw it?" Renee said.

"You liked it. Not me."

"Rocky Horror is an exception," Nicky pointed out.

"I don't consider that in the same category of musicals, so yes, clearly."

Nicky grinned. He and Allison didn't agree on much, but some things were pure objective truth. Turning back to Neil, he tipped his head to peer at the trio of movies lined vaguely before him. Frowning, he quickly plucked one away from him, holding it up with a wave. "Matt, what the fuck? Felidae?"

Matt paused in whatever he'd been saying to Allison to glance towards him. "What? Okay, I swear I've never seen that movie before in my life. I don't even know how I have it. I think it was a school text or something."

"It's got a cartoon cat on it," Dan said. "I assumed it was –"

"It's a crime fiction detective movie about a murder-solving cat that's practically an allegory to nationalist eugenics," Nicky said, noticing and rolling his eyes at the raised eyebrows his words elicited. "That, and it's probably in German. Maybe not?"

"Yeah, maybe not," Dan said with a smirk.

Shaking his head, Nicky discarded the DVD and scooted closer to Neil's side. "Sorry, Neil," he said. "Choose another one. What've you got?"

Neil didn't reply but to shrug as he took a sweeping glance of the wealth of movies before him. "I don't really care," he said.

Nicky didn't believe him. Not for a moment when he took a glance at the remaining two movies that were placed not quite close enough to appear a selection to the passing eye but distinctly nonetheless. He found himself smiling slowly and cast a glance at Andrew, who only stared him down flatly. Did Andrew know…?

"Hey, Neil," Nicky said casually, "do you… maybe like cats?"

"Hm?" Neil glanced up at him, a flicker of wariness surfacing before it disappeared. "No."

"Really?" Nicky's smile widened as he glanced back down at the movies. "Maybe I guessed wrong, then." Snatching up one of the selections, he walked on his knees to Abby's television. "Sorry, Allison, but I hope you don't object to Disney songs."

"Tell me it's not a fucking –"

"Aristocats only has a couple of songs in it, right?"

It might not have been Nicky's first pick, but he doubted his own picks would have made the selection Abby would have considered suitable for Neil's child eyes. Besides, even if Neil hadn't expressly said as much…

Dan turned the television on. Matt got the lights. The ambiance smothered the room, broken only by the crunching of jaws and the intermittent comment from various derisive viewers. Nicky sprawled back on his nest of cushions pread across the floor and didn't notice for the first few minutes that Neil hadn't moved back to the couch alongside Andrew. A sidelong glance found him tucked in upon himself, arms hooked around his knees, gazing up at the television from barely an arm's reach away from Nicky's nest.

Nicky smiled. He couldn't help himself. He smiled because this was still Neil, but he was so much more open, revealed so much more, than his friend ever did. It was saddening to think that he'd changed, been forced to change, and hide so much of himself from the child he'd been, but somehow also delightful.

We miss you like hell, Neil, Nicky thought, holding out the bowl of popcorn to Neil and chuckling as Neil didn't shift his gaze from the screen to notice. But it's weirdly nice to see this side of you, too.

The Aristocats became Cats & Dogs despite the cringing distress of most of the room's occupants. "You're the one that brought it over in the first place," Nicky argued to Matt, to which Matt grimaced an apology with a muttered, "It's a kids movie, right?" By the time Nicky slid Oliver & Company into the player, though, even those complaints had died. The sombre opening chords of the first song, and Nicky slumped sleepily back onto his cushions with an idle glance around the room.

Neil, it seemed, was the only one still properly awake and watching.

Allison still had her head in Renee's lap, her eyes mostly closed. Renee was weaving her fingers through Allison's hair with one hand as she propped her chin with her other, gazing sleepily at the television. Matt looked like he'd fallen fully to sleep, leaning heavily against Dan who had taken to flicking absently through her phone.

Kevin had slid so far down in his seat that his head was nearly at knee level, his eyes staring at but likely no longer seeing the movie. As Nicky glanced their way, Aaron yawned, nudged Katelyn awake, and they slipped from the room with barely a whisper of noise. As for Andrew, he'd tucked one leg under himself, an arm hanging over the side of the couch as he picked through the bag of M&Ms in his lap. Nicky didn't know how he was still eating, but he didn't comment; Andrew had always had a sweet tooth that he would kill anyone for identifying aloud.

Nicky's gaze drifted back to Neil, his chin resting upon his knees and eyes fixed on the television screen. Nicky realised he was smiling again, and he buried himself down into his cushions a little further to hide it from sight. He hadn't much of an interest in the movie himself, but if Neil liked it? Actually liked it? It was worth putting up with even the worst kids movies for him.

As such, he didn't notice when Neil disappeared from his side. Not until the movie drew to an upbeat close and the credits rolled. Groaning, rubbing a blurry eye, Nicky glanced around the room once more and scoffed when he realised that most of the Foxes seemed to have fallen completely to sleep. Dan hadn't even managed to put her phone away before she'd fallen back against Matt as he in turn all but crushed her in his own slumber.

A movement from Andrew's direction drew Nicky's attention towards him, but the sleepy question that rose onto his lips died as he caught sight of him. An unexpected lump rose in his throat and his instinctive swallow did nothing to shift it.

Andrew had climbed almost silently to his feet. He moved with faint awkwardness which had nothing to do with his own sleepiness but rather Neil's unconscious curl against him. Neil was tucked upon himself, knees to chest once more and his head bowed. Like a baby fox pressed to his mother's side, he all but snuggled into Andrew's side, and Andrew –

Andrew let him.

Nicky watched as Andrew manoeuvred Neil off him slightly. He could only keep watching as Andrew stood, reached for Neil, and lifted him seemingly effortlessly into his arms, adjusting Neil's own around his neck as though he'd done it a thousand times before. The lump in Nicky's throat seemed to grow even larger as he watched Neil unconsciously tighten his hold, watched Andrew shift him just so before glancing towards Nicky with a challenge in his flat gaze.

It was Nicky who spoke, though. "You're pretty good with kids." He cleared his throat, shaking it of its hoarseness. "Or is it just because it's Neil?"

Andrew blinked slowly. He glanced down at Neil, then back at Nicky, the gesture shifting his chin to rest atop of Neil's head. Without a word of reply, he turned from the couch and left the room. Nicky listened to his faint footsteps as he descended the hall and climbed the stairs. The silence that followed rung with his own words.

Shaking his head, Nicky turned back to the television. He wordlessly attended to Abby's orders, switching it off and stowing away Matt's DVDs before crawling back to his bed of pillows. When Nicky rested his head, he found himself smiling for what must have been the hundredth time that day.

It would have been nice, perhaps, had the rest of the Foxes had the chance to see such a side of Andrew. Potentially beneficial to both sides of the field, too, especially given that most of them still considered Andrew unhinged. But for himself, Nicky was a little delighted that he had been the only one to bear witness, and he knew, as he fell to sleep, that he would keep the memory to himself.

~|=|~

A/N: Thank you to all of the lovely people who have read and been following this story. I hope you’re liking it so far, and I’d love to hear your thoughts! If you’ve got a second, it would be wonderful if you could drop by my AO3 page to say hi :D