#like 'hey you need to lead this training exercise meant for 20 people except actually you only have 4 people'

[miodiodavinci]

im being so so brave but also i am gripping you by the shoulders and leaning in and letting you know i am so tired of being brave

[orangefoxes]

Hey, so I've been trying to submit a prompt but it won't work so here it goes I know this will be sad but what if Neil gets really sad and depressed (the reason is up for interpretation ex: bullied by jack or is haunted by PTSD) and so he becomes full of self hate and becomes anorexic and cuts himself #andreil (this would mean so much since I've been through similar circumstances and was strong enough to pull through and keep living, this book and your Tumblr have helped me so much)

Hi @soph-ie21 I am so sorry this took a whopping 4 years for me to post. I’m terrible for not checking my inbox as my notifications have been turned off for tumblr since I was like 13. I’m so glad to hear that you recovered from your ED, you must be so strong and I’m so proud of you as I know how difficult that is to do. I’m hoping this is the sort of prompt you were looking for, if you’re even looking after this long, as it’s not very dialogue heavy, but here you go.

TRIGGER WARNING: EATING DISORDER, SELF LOATHING, ANOREXIA.

When in high stress situations, to cope, the brain releases a hormone called cortisol. It’s alright in small doses, helpful even. It triggers your fight or flight response and readies the body to do something, fast. Constant exposure to the hormone however, has some not so good long term effects. Effects that include, but are not limited to: high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and, arguably the mildest, weight gain.

Cortisol results in weight gain for two reasons. The first is because it slows your metabolism, and the second is because the drop in blood sugar from constant high blood pressure means that you start craving fatty, sugary foods, which leads to overeating. Neil’s memory is not nearly good enough for him to recall what foods he had craved over the years, but he and his mother shied away from sweets and chocolate for dental reasons, it probably would have been a hardship for many kids growing up but Neil had never much cared for sugar anyway. However, what he and his mother did indulge in is a lot of fatty, fast food. Partly because it was cheap, partly because it was something they could eat while on the move, and partly because no one would look twice at two sketchy people in a Burger King or remember a beaten up old car briefly pausing in a drive thru.

While never giving much thought to how he looked (short of checking for ginger roots and the bruise on his cheek from where his mother had slapped that smile from his face), Neil does remember his weight fluctuating a lot when he was younger. The more stressful the months, the chubbier he got. It was in the quiet periods as he and his mother settled down and didn’t dare to venture into the supermarket too often that he began to lose it again. It was a cycle.

In Millport, Neil was at his lowest weight yet. There was only a solitary McDonald’s in town and Neil wasn’t about to become a regular. He stocked up on tinned food from the supermarket in his first week in town instead and meticulously made his way through them, heating the can up on the hot plate he had bought for four dollars from the thrift store in the high street.

He gained weight again once he started at Palmetto, he gained muscle mass too. This, of course, was thanks to three free meals a day and a new training regime with daily exercise. It was to be expected, but if, perhaps, he gained weight quicker than his teammates and muscle slower, well, he had bigger things to worry about.

Then he knew he was going to live.

Then everything with the Moriyamas was…well, not gone, but resolved.

That’s not to say there was nothing to stress about. There was the influx of reporters wanting to catch the Foxes’ attention to ask about Nathaniel Wesninski. There was Kevin’s impending break down as Riko’s funeral came and went. There was Aaron’s trial. Honestly it probably would have gone as stressful situations for Neil always go - here and gone just as quickly - except it turns out that Nicky cooks when he’s stressed, and Neil, well, he’s a stress eater.

After Aaron is declared innocent, Nicky resumes as normal. Neil…not quite. He’s constantly opening the cupboards to look for something to eat only to close them again when he finds nothing of interest. Without Nicky cooking, there’s nothing he can easily dig into and Neil, while accumulating many skills over the years, had never been a hand in the kitchen. The only things ready-eat that were consistently in the dorm were ramen and ice-cream. Even the thought of ramen makes Neil want to vomit and Neil wasn’t so desperate that he would resort to eating something as sweet as ice cream. Not that Andrew would let him if he did. (Andrew wasn’t a sharer).

He started to feel hungry.

He was always hungry.

The first few days he started to skip meals, he didn’t even notice he was doing it. Surely he didn’t notice he was doing it.

It’s just -

Here’s the thing.

Maybe he stress eats. Maybe his mother did too. They spent long car journeys with a family sized bag of potato chips resting by the gear stick and they spent half the time stuffing handfuls into their mouths and the other half checking the mirrors for cars that stayed behind them a touch to long. So maybe he stress ate, but it was never because of hunger: it was because of craving. It was because it gave him something to do with his hands. It was only when things quietened down, when the weeks turned long with the monotonous almost-existence that took up the majority of Neil’s life growing up (here’s something no one tells you about life on the run, in between the moments of sheer terror, it’s very very very boring), it was only then, that Neil actually began to feel things like hunger.

So when the hunger pangs began to curdle in his stomach, well, he didn’t mind. It meant he was safe enough to feel the hunger.

Maybe for the first couple of days he didn’t notice it. But then he noticed it.

He noticed enough to avoid things like rice and bread. Danger foods that packed on the calories and that made him bite the inside of his cheek until it bled at the mere thought. He noticed enough that he began to watch the others train and saw their muscles flex and couldn’t help but track their muscle growth and measure it up against his own. He always found himself lacking.

That’s when it started to get worse. If Allison spent 20 minutes on the treadmill. Then Neil would do 30. If Kevin did 40 push ups. Then Neil would do 50. If Renee had a salad for lunch, then Neil would just have a fruit pot.

The first time Andrew noticed that he skipped a meal, Neil just blinked. Being who he was, Neil didn’t do stupid things like stumble for lies and this time was no different. When Andrew asked about him not eating Neil just blinked like he hadn’t even noticed until Andrew brought it up.

He blinked and said “oh, you’re right. I got so caught up in watching exy reruns i didn’t even notice”

He said, “thanks, I’ll grab something in a sec”

Andrew breathed a scoffing breath down his nose, rolled his eyes and called him a junkie. He didn’t look at all surprised, as though Neil was only confirming what he had already guessed. Which of course is the trick all good liars employ.

Neil wondered if he would be surprised if he were to find out how impossible it would be for Neil to forget a meal time. He could never forget. All he thought about was food. It was all he thought about.

Food began to feel like it was all he cared about. Cared about more than school. Cared about more than exy. Is it terrible of him that that more than anything else feels like the worst thing?

And then, as things do, it got worse.

It turned into Neil stood in front of the mirror (looking at his body but not his eyes, never his eyes) and pinching the flesh between his fingers. Noticing every part of him that didn’t harden into muscle like the others. Noticing all the scars that had stretched strangely over a waist and thighs that are no longer as small.

He begins to peck at his food. Rip it into tiny pieces. Andrew looks down at his plate and glowers at him. Neil gives him a cheeky grin. He knows what he’s thinking. That this is just another one of those Andrew-mannerisms that Neil is taking on for himself. Like the sarcastic salutes and the blank, waiting stares. It’s so much easier to hide how little you’ve eaten when it’s all in pieces.

He didn’t know how to explain it. He just knows he needs to be thinner. He needs to weigh less. It’s not about looks. It’s never been about looks. He just needs to do this. He needs to be smaller. It will be alright then. Because then…then…

Well it will be alright then.

So here’s the thing about guilt and self loathing: they’re useless emotions. Andrew would be quick to agree. (Though Andrew is a hypocrite and is chock full of the both of them). His mother would agree too. How many times had Neil slipped poison into someone’s drink, stole from someone just as desperate, shot someone who maybe or maybe-not deserved it? And how many times after that did his mother pinch and prod at him and repeat the same mantra of “don’t you dare let guilt slow you down, you slow down and you’re dead”

Well, Mum, he’s slowed down. He slowed down so much that he’s stopped altogether and guess what? He fucking hates himself.

He replays it all in his head like a terrible loop. The boy in Switzerland that he tricked into taking his jacket so His fathers men would go after him instead. The old women he and his mother tricked into housing them and then slipped something in her tea until she slept and never woke up again. The homeless man who had broken into the house they were squatting in that Neil had shot on instinct. Seth.

Seth. Seth. Seth.

He fucking hates himself. Honestly the hunger pains kind of feel like the best thing he’s ever felt after that. The pain, the ache, he deserves it.

Then it gets worse. Then comes the worst part.

Andrew’s meds change again. The others had begun to make him irritable and he always had an energy crash by about 5pm and a terrible headache. The new ones wouldn’t be of much note as they did nothing groundbreakingly different, short of getting rid of the headaches and not sapping so much of his energy.

Except for one key side effect of the meds.

They suppressed Andrew’s appetite.

More and more Andrew is missing meals. He won’t even eat more than a tablespoon of ice cream. Neil watches him and adjusts himself to suit. He doesn’t know why, but he just can’t be eating more than him, he can’t.

The frustration he feels about Andrew’s meds soon turn to resentment. He hates that he has to watch Andrew not eat and not seem affected by it at all. Andrew lessens his exercise under Betsy’s advice and yet nothing changes. His weight stays the same. He probably even loses some thanks to the loss of muscle. Neil watches and Neil hates. He hates that if he skipped out on training he would pack on the pounds, he hates that his stomach hurt and hurts and Andrew doesn’t spare a thought on food at all.

He starts to avoid the roof. He starts to dodge Andrew’s gaze the same way he does his own in the mirror.

The next time they’re alone and Andrew leans in, more hesitant than he’s been in months, Neil jerks back and snaps “No.”

It isn’t even completely because of the resentment. The majority of it is because he feels disgusting and fat and he can’t bare Andrew touching him right now. Can’t bare him looking at him.

Andrew’s face closes off and he slides back to the other side of the couch. He’s searching Neil’s face, trying to find the misstep, trying to find what he did wrong.

Good, let him think he did something wrong.

Now that’s the resentment.

It’s immediately one of the worst things Neil has ever thought. He remembers sitting, trembling, on the roof, Andrew refusing to touch him saying “I wont be like them, I wont let you let me be”

And Neil’s trying to make him think, wants to make him feel -

Jesus Christ. He’s a piece of fucking shit.

He slams his way out of the dorm and runs and runs and runs.

He sleeps in the locker room and slumps out in the morning so he’s first in the main room for the meeting with Wymack. He sits on a chair that’s as far away from every other seat as it can get while still completing the make do semi-circle around where Wymack usually stands. When the others begin to filter in they take in his new seat, but don’t comment when they see his storming expression.

When Andrew sees him he pauses for a beat in the doorway before continuing to his usual seat on the couch. He stares at Neil blankly, but his hands are clenching and unclenching in his lap. Wymack hesitates but doesn’t say anything. The others play at being uninterested and only Aaron openly looks between Neil and Andrew with a steadyingly darkening expression.

Neil slams his locker and gets changed in the cubicles for the first time in months. He’s vicious in practice. Throwing in as many dirty moves as he can. Andrew stands in the goal and does nothing. When it’s only Wymack’s sharp whistle that stops Neil bringing his racket down on Matt’s arm when he attempts to steal the ball, Neil is benched.

He yanks off his helmet and slumps down on the bench and tries to remember how to breathe through rage.

He’s sat, pinching at the skin on his thigh, for ten minutes before Allison joins him. She holds out a breakfast bar and Neil stiffens.

“Eat, it might help you stop being such a raging asshole,” she says.

Neil takes the breakfast bar and when she doesn’t immediately leave he opens it and snaps a bit off with his fingers.

He stares down the rolled oats and nuts and grimaces at the sticky feeling of the syrup that holds them together. He feels sick.

“Are you going to eat?” Allison says.

Neil looks at her and huffs a bitter breath through his nose. A wry smile pulls at the corner of his lips.

He remembers that Allison battled bulimia for years.

You can’t lie to a liar.

She looks at his face. Concern trying to become anger that she’s trying to force to stay concern. She looks at his face and then over at Andrew, who is stood in his goal watching them as Kevin shouts at him to fucking do something already. She looks back at Neil.

“You know, relationships are hard enough without mental health problems in the mix. Seth and I were a terrible combination for many reasons and that was one them. I’m not saying it can’t be done or that it shouldn’t be done, I’m just saying it makes it so much harder. He used to try to make me eat. I hated him for that. Hated that I had to hide my own habits in my own room. One day, after he stopped me from going to purge one too many times we got into an argument. I said some disgusting things to him. The next day he was in the hospital because of an overdose. He had to get his stomach pumped. You know what the worst thing is? I don’t even remember what it is I said. I don’t know if what I did triggered him or if it would have happened anyway, but it couldn’t have helped. You’re always going to trigger each other at one point or another, it’s unavoidable. But if you know that and you don’t do anything to help yourself…well that’s when every shit thing you think about yourself starts to become true. So tell me, are you a piece of shit that’s going to drag everyone down with you, or are you better than that?”

Neil looks down at the breakfast bar. He still can’t make himself eat it.

He swallows harshly against the lump in his throat. He has to swallow two more times until he’s sure he can talk without crying.

“What’s betsy’s number?” He asks.

Allison doesn’t smile, but she nods like he’s done the right thing and pulls out her phone.

SIDE NOTE: I’d like to point out that Neil is very flawed and toxic in his thinking and Allison is harsh in what she says to him just because she’s a harsh person. If you have an eating disorder I know sometimes help and recovery seems like the worst thing in world and something you really don’t want, but please, please seek help. You can do it.