#i think riko finds kevin very. helpless and stupid

[dayurno]

ur tags on the succession post is killing me. in the dark of their dorm at night riko is like. I Wish you were a woman. i would marry you. we would be together forever. and kevin, who has just recently discovered the joys of gay sex with one jean moreau, is sweating like Hahah yeah…. Im not tho…. sorry

ITS FUNNY ITS REALLY FUNNY TO ME. i think riko thought of kevin as a girl often and unabashedly and the idea started out as a normal repressed thing when they were like 10 and turned into "i'd castrate and marry you in a heartbeat" up until the point of canon. there's a very real distinction though that riko wouldn't say i wish you were a woman, he'd say i wish there was a way for me to turn you into a woman. because if he had the chance to change kevin in a way so permanent that would only benefit riko on the long run he would do it without thinking twice of it, and he'd find himself in his right to

i was going to say this is like a feminization fetish and i'm sure part of it could be but really it's just how i imagine riko's brain works. like if it was achievable he would absolutely do it. no woman has ever interested him in the way kevin does but obviously anything with kevin would be impossible with the master looking over them. a lot of riko's feelings towards kevin would be on that very crux of possessiveness and willfull ignorance of consent which is very interesting for me

[codename-adler]

...dance 'til you find someone to die for...

What if instead of Seth, Riko tried to get rid of Aaron?

Chapter 4 ♟️ [table of contents]

(CW: violence, wounds, blood, implied/referenced addiction, discussion of bad mental health, depressive thoughts, intervention)

The aftermath of that fateful night is nothing short of disastrous. 

First, Seth completely goes off his rocker, because he might be an A-grade asshole, but he’s not stupid. He knows that his car burning had nothing to do with “toxic athletic rivalry and jealousy affecting the PSU campus.” He knows his car going up in flames has everything to do with “the fucking little shit-midget that second-rate Day hired to sabotage them all.”

Obviously, he goes after them with all his gorilla strength and tries to murder Kevin with his bare hands, which, every Fox knows, is the stupidest move to make in front of the crazy Minyard.

But then Seth decides to go after Neil, too, and that gets as much of a reaction out of Andrew as his attack on Kevin did.

Andrew Minyard doesn’t hold back. People really need to learn not to touch his things to respect boundaries.

Matt has to call Wymack for back-up. The girls absolutely do not get involved.

Neil runs.

Nicky tries to get through to Andrew with words, to no avail. Kevin attempts to catch his breath in a corner through his bruised lung, his broken nose and his barely-freed throat. Andrew hits and punches and slices and hits and hits and hits and hits.

In the end, Seth, and Kevin, are rushed to the hospital with Abby and Wymack, for damage control, both literal and metaphorical. Betsy comes in, too, to take over from Matt with Andrew.

And Aaron… Aaron watches the scene unfold as if on the other side of a glass prison. 

He looks like shit. He looks like death, like sickness. Like the slightest touch would finish him off. Like the faintest breeze would make him disappear, scattered in the wind. Yet even if he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, doesn’t do a thing to stop his brother, deep down, very deep down, Aaron feels everything.

It’s too much.

Seth annoys him, Neil annoys him, Andrew annoys him, Kevin puzzles annoys him, yes, but…

The guilt. The shame.

The utter despair and helplessness he feels when watching his life crumble around him, all because a stupid fucking game he had never wanted to play and a fucking addiction he would forever carry.

He was a pathetic little shit, even more than fucking Josten.

and now looking at all the hurt his weakness had led to, he wished, not for the first time, that his drug problem had, once and for all, taken care of the real problem; himself.

Aaron had always been a burden.

He’d burdened his mom, his own brother, then his cousin, his team, his captain, his coach, his secret ex-girlfriends who could never really get through to him, his past teachers who would always watch him drown his efforts in drugs, and basically everyone who had ever met Aaron. He considered himself a waste of time, space and potential. And apparently, the team’s nurse considered that time, space and potential should be wasted on him in the hospital, with Seth and Kevin.

“You’re coming along too, Aaron. You need to get that 'flu’ checked out and no, I will not listen to your excuses,” Abby tells him.

So that’s how he ends up squished and watching over a bloodied Kevin in the backseat of Wymack’s old Ford Escape while Abby takes Seth aboard her Mini Cooper. Kevin keeps trying to lean his head back, and so every two or three minutes, Aaron has to shove his hand on Kevin’s nape and force his head down so the blood from his nose doesn’t choke him from the inside. Really, an Exy superstar who’s had countless nose injuries and also happens to be an ex-Raven should know better.

Perhaps the Kevin factor explains the idiocy. That man was a danger to himself even when Riko wasn’t after him.

Just when Aaron thinks of the similarity between the blurry cat meme and the life of the striker now bleeding out next to him, Kevin leans back in his seat, again.

“Goddammit Day, keep your fuckin’ head down, will you? You’re already trouble enough in the state you’re in, if you start choking, I’ll let you,” Aaron grunts, pushing Kevin’s head between his knees once more.

“Fu’… off…” Kevin mumbles back, no heat to his words.

They play that game until Wymack pulls up by the ER’s entrance, Abby waiting for them already and Seth nowhere in sight. As Aaron helps Kevin out of the car (that man is heavy ), Wymack drives away to find parking and Abby joins them to lead them towards different doctors.

“What are you going to do with him?” Aaron asks Abby as she tries to lead Kevin in an opposite direction. “Where are you taking him? Don’t let Seth go near him. Wait, what are you doing?”

Two doctors begin to corner Aaron away from Kevin.

“What is this, an intervention?”

“Yes, Aaron. This is an intervention. Kevin needs immediate surgical care, but you need urgent psychological care. I don’t know what happened, but I know a crisis when I see one. You’re dying inside, Aaron,” Abby tells him as quietly and calmly as possible.

The two doctors start walking to each side of Aaron’s trembling form before Kevin starts to trash a little bit.

“Wha– No, you don… s'not what you… think… don’t…” he tries to say.

“Are you sending me somewhere? Did Betsy put you up to this? Wait, did Andrew…? For fuck’s sake, you can’t lock me in again! I won’t! I’m perfectly fucking fine! Don’t touch me! I won’t go! I’ll die before I let you put me away again!” Aaron starts to yell at the doctors, at Abby, at Wymack who just came in.

The doctors try to take a hold of Aaron’s arms, but even in his state, he is still a backliner for the PSU Foxes, and he’s got tricks up his sleeves. With great mental effort but no physical one, he wrenches from their hold and starts walking towards the exit.

Wymack blocks him.

“Minyard, you ain’t 'fine’. You don’t look fine, you don’t sound fine, you don’t act fine. No, don’t lie to me. We can’t really afford to lose a player now, but we really can’t afford to lose a player now. You get me? This is the best we could come up with at such a short notice. Don’t knock it 'til you’ve tried it,” Wymack states in a dead-serious tone, one he’s never used before.

Aaron is so tired.

Tired to fight, to put up a fight, to resist, to feel alone, to care… It’s as if his body becomes liquid, as if all his muscles and nerves snap, only to leave a faint form in the doctors’ arms.

They start to pull him away, but Kevin isn’t having any of it. If Aaron had shut down, then Kevin lit up from the inside. He regains the function of his lips with the adrenaline rush.

“No! Fucking listen to him! You’re not taking him away. You’re not. You’re just not. Coach! Please… You don’t understand… You don’t– It’s them, Coach. It’s him . He knows about Neil and Andrew and Aaron and– And– If you take Aaron away now, he’s not coming back, you can be sure of that. So don’t. Don’t take him away, Coach. Don’t,” Kevin manages to blurt out without stumbling on his words or choking on his blood.

Wymack stares at Kevin as if he grew a second head.

Aaron stares at Kevin as if he was seeing him for the first time.

He doesn’t recognize that boy, this man , who just walked away from his doctor, from his Exy duties, to defend him.

Aaron doesn’t know anything anymore.

Just these words.

Don’t take him away.

(read on Ao3 here !)