#nicky hemmick angst

[dustisus]

Imagine you are Erik Klose. You get an exchange student who is obviously not doing alright, but you and your family show him that there is nothing wrong with him. Over the year he comes out of his shell and you are so in love with the vibrant person who has been hiding in there all year so you tell him you love him and he tells you he loves you too.

He goes back home but he returns (for you) when there is nothing left for him there, and your family is so ready to embrace him as one of their own. You catch him and your grandma in the kitchen, and she's teaching him the family recipe for Spätzle and he's teaching her the ingredients' names in Spanish. When the winter comes he is always the first one to volunteer to shovel snow with your father. When warmer temperatures come you wake up to his voice streaming in from the window where he always has breakfast with your mother. Your family loves him, so when he decides to move away again to take care of his own family (we are your family, too, you tell him, and he just smiles) they cry just as much as you do. The night before he has to wake up early to catch his plane you ask him to marry you, in the future, when it's legal, and he says yes. Still you wake up from his alarm early in the morning and his kiss goodbye.

At first you speak on the phone every day but then a job takes you across the country and takes all your time, and when his first job doesn't make him enough money for a three-bedroom house, he gets another one, and then another, until you have to schedule calls days in advance and most days you just text. But he tells you again and again that those boys need him, and from the sound of it, they do need someone to love them. And who will love them like your fiancé will love them? You have never met a person so capable of love, of engagement, in your life.

The call comes one early morning and he says that one of the twins has been arrested, that he has gotten into a fight, that it was to defend him, and doesn't mention until several minutes into the frantic call that it was him that he was defending. He says he has a smarting rib but is okay but what will happen to his cousin? I don't care, you don't say.

Finally the twins turn 18 and you start a countdown until they graduate in the spring, but come March he calls you and says they have all been offered full-ride scholarships, on the term that they all play Exy. The coach says he needs to keep an eye on Andrew, and maybe that would be for the best? he asks, and then when can start a life together I'd have a degree, and... and... By the time the call ends, he's convinced, and you could never step on his dreams.

Over the first year he calls you and tells you about his asshole teammates, and of how he answers on Andrew's beck and call to make sure things run somewhat smoothly within the team. You hear him pause slightly before choosing his words, consciously choosing the most innocent ones for his twins and the most incriminating ones for himself.

In the summer he comes home to you, but the summer is too short.

The next year, his texts dwindle and on your calls he sniffles but says he's not crying. He calls and says he did something bad and whatever comes to him it's his fault, but won't elaborate. This sounds like what he was saying when he first met you, so you comfort him and says it isn't. It's just been difficult, he says, when a teammate's died. You want to tell him it's so simple here, so simple to you, but you don't. It's not what he needs to hear.

The next few months are a shitshow that you only hear about from his calls and texts, and then eventually some news articles that reach you from the other side of the world. It worries you to know that he is distantly involved with some of the people that are not mentioned by name in the articles, but that you recognize from his stories. Once again, you tell yourself that he knows how to manage it, has always been able to manage it.

The chaos culminates at the championship finals and you are there to see it all go down. He turns his head to you, shouts your name as you spot the opposite player come close to killing your fiancé's friend. He lives, but the opposite player doesn't, and there are no loud celebrations for you to take part in. That night you and your fiancé celebrate quietly, on your own. You have not seen him in almost a year, and it's as if some of the vibrancy has run out of him. His eyes lack a glint, his hair a shine.

You stay a week and you meet the twins in person for the first time. Andrew is more subdued now than in past stories, Aaron feistier. You don't care much for them, but they are important to Nicky, so you make an effort. Neither will talk to you.

It only takes two days until Aaron catches you cuddling on the sofa in the dorm and you overhear an ew. It bewilders you but Nicky is falling asleep so you just continue running your fingers through his hair. The next day all of the Foxes have gathered for a film night, and Nicky has talked about how excited he is for you to meet them and introduces you to them with a joke and a flourish. They tell him to shut up, and Nicky laughs it off as a joke. Maybe you just did not get it. The rest of the night they try to pull you into also harping on Nicky, and get bored when you just say that you love him.

A week into your visit, Andrew pulls a knife on Nicky, and all the moments you have shared with him, all the ones you have planned, flash before your eyes. Nicky doesn't even seem scared, and the Foxes around them watch you curiously instead of the crime before them. Before you know what you're doing you have grabbed Andrew to pull him off, pull him away, but you're quickly overpowered.

Nicky cries as he patches you up. You understand he had not wanted you to see that, and you don't know what to say. You pull up the edge of his shirt to find small scars patterning the bottom of his abdomen, and for the first time you see them as what they are and not as a result of the game. You ask how often this happens, and he says only when I deserve it. He says it and you watch yourself transported, sitting in Berlin with a boy who said I deserved it, and once again you tell him he has never deserved this. You tell him he needs to leave, to please go back home with you, that they are not his family, but he says he can't. You have not seen him so grey in years.

He sees you off at the airport when you leave. Once again you plead for him to come with you, and once again he says he can't. You know you can't force it, can only say that you'll wait as long as it takes.

[dustisus]

#think it says something about how nicky approaches the world in regards to his own safety#aaron mentions in the extra tkm chapter about how nicky quote 'weaponizes' his sexuality#meaning he's always open and loud about it because it's easier to find out that way who will accept him and who won't#and given the books are set in 2006#he'd be shunned or hated for it more often than not#by the time we see him in TFC nicky has built up this sort of shell personality to conceal himself in#and the shell is a lot stronger than the kid cowering inside it#when you build that armour it gets stronger and thicker every time you take a hit#the first few will hurt#but eventually you learn that it's faster to see one coming + just take it#rather than spend time trying to delay or lessen the inevitable#because we also know nicky is aware of andrew's violent tendencies but he also becomes victim to them multiple times in the book#at his core nicky wants to believe andrew would never seriously hurt him. i don't think he would. but nicky is tired enough by now of#keeping up all these acts that he doesn't care how many times he gets hurt#he'll do what's easiest for everyone and get it over with#because eventually you're hurting so much that all the pain just dulls#and you don't feel anything - @minyard-05

yeah you're not hiding this in the tags

One of those things that I just can’t get out of my head every time I read the foxhole court is why in the ever loving fuck does Nicky shake Andrew to wake him up in chapter 10? You’d think he’d know well enough at this point to not touch Andrew when he’s sleeping, particularly because when he asks Neil to wake him up in the car he says “preferably without touching him” so he for sure knows what will happen if you do and yet he chooses to shake him anyway. Nicky also doesn’t wake Andrew and Kevin up on the bus to Kathy’s show because he says he doesn’t want to die so Wymack ends up throwing his wallet at Andrew to get him up. Obviously this is not the best way because it still puts Andrew into a panic upon waking up but he recovers quick and no one gets hit so it’s evidently a better way than touching him. You’d think even if Nicky hadn’t found a way to calmly wake Andrew (which he obviously hasn’t) he would use some sort of strategy like that but homeboy just braces himself and shakes him knowing he’s about to get hit

[frannonfire]

thinking about: a barely adult nicky was the first person who made andrew feel somehow safe

[mostlyvoid-partiallyflowers]

Give me Kevin day angst!!!!!!!!!!!

Hiiiii Alice! Here's some really angsty shit just for you! Xoxo

WIP Wednesday 1/22/25 | Kevin Day Angst

Kevin remembers Riko looking into his eyes, marker held in his small hands, hands innocent still of the violence they would someday inflict. Careful lines drawn under his left eye, marking out a small “2,” hands shaking a little with the effort of drawing a straight line. Kevin remembers back when Riko was his friend, not his keeper, just his brother, not also his abuser. It kills Kevin to know that in a different world, he and Riko would still be together with none of the pain and hurt and destruction that lies between them now. In a different world, a better world, Kevin could have both Exy and Riko. He dreams, sometimes, late at night when he can’t hide from his most naive imaginings, of a world where he still has the full use of his left hand, still has his brother. A world where the Perfect Court exists, a dream realized not for the Moriyamas but for the pleasure of playing and playing well.

He knows it’s an impossible dream, that Riko has been shaped so cruelty is second nature, his divine right, but he misses those days where they played together as children. He misses the days before Riko understood the concept of property and what it meant for Kevin to be his. He misses back when he was Riko’s and Riko was his. He knows brotherhood isn’t perfect, even when it doesn’t have the pressure of fame and the Yakuza at play. He’s watched Aaron and Andrew dance around each other, the way they avoid catching the other’s eye. He watches Nicky try to ignore the way the two’s parallel orbits encircle him, always going around and around, but never meeting. Despite their differences, Aaron is kind to Kevin in his own hard way and Andrew holds Kevin up when he feels he’s going to fall. Together they balance him.

[dustisus]

realistically i think he's had to move on after thanksgiving but i can't stop thinking about his "Please, Neil? I want my mom back. I miss her more than you can know" when trying to convince neil to ask andrew about seeing them in trk. ohhh he's not ok and he makes me not ok

imagine nicky crying into erik or his mom's arms on their wedding day because all he wants is his parents there for him

he wants to see his mom and his dad on his side of the aisle, and to dance with his mom while erik dances with mrs klose

[weirdhamfire61]

Just finished reading The Ravens king.

Yall did NOT WARN NE ENOUGH!!

I FEEL BETRAYED

[kiwiaok]

just a lil continuation of my angsty aftg rambling (link to pt.1 below):

andrew being absolutely terrified that one day he’ll wake up and realise he’s not actually gay. bc he fought tooth and nail to accept this part of himself and the thought that what he fought so hard for is just a residue of filth the men that touched him left behind? terrifying. even years down the line, when he’s married to neil, when they live together and have sex regularly and tell each other ‘I love you’s in a million different ways, the fear is still there. it never leaves.

nicky. NICKY. WE ARE NOT TALKING ENOUGH ABOUT NICKY!!! nicky who always tries his best to stay positive, who never talks about what’s troubling him. nicky who had to grow up too fast. nicky who learned very early that love is conditional. nicky who learned that people only stay when he fits to their tastes. nicky who abandoned his life to take care of the twins and accepted that he’ll never mean to them as much as they mean to him. nicky who knows shame and fear. nicky who has self harm scars around and on his private parts, a souvenir from years spent under luther’s regime that no one will ever know about

[palmettoshitposts]

rooftop gays

part time soulmate, full time problem by crystal ball kefu

hello! it is 🔮! i have returned after months to shamelessly promote my new (but actually has been sitting in my docs for ages) fic, affectionately titled rooftop gays. it's basically a character study about the times andrew and neil retreat to the roof when life gets too much. neurodivergent andrew, therapy avoiding neil and renee being the only fox with any brain cells. enjoy ✌️

[hatfordheadquarters]

completed fic ✎ 3/3

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞: 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐨: 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐘 𝐁𝐎𝐘

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞: 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋

Nick Hemmick centric Fic���

mature, angst, past rape/non-con, stalking, hyperreligiosity, homophobia, suicide, etc. (please treat yourself kindly and stay safe ❦)

pre-canon & post-canon

multiple POV

background andriel (if you squint)

ace rep

Nicky finally snaps

twinyards & Nicky learn to communicate

𝚊𝚘𝟹 𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢:

Nicky would do anything for the twins.

When money problems threaten his ability to maintain the home he had managed to create for them, Roland offers Nicky shifts after-hours at Eden's.

Nicky sacrifices himself a little more, and soon a person from his past creeps back into his life to push him closer to his limit.

He worked so hard to keep this part of their lives his personal secret, but the desperation of the past never leaves quietly.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝

Nicky turns to sex work to support Andrew and Aaron, and must deal with the toll it takes.

(inspired by "Making Ends Meet" by onedayanauthor and "All we need is somebody to lean on" by AgapantoBlu)

✨check it out!✨

[dustisus]

From EC: Maria taught Nicky some Spanish once he started middle school, but Nicky switched to German his freshman year at Macon High. He was slowly coming to terms with his sexuality, and he needed a safe way to express his confusion and fear. He started keeping his diaries in (broken, misspelled, half-unintelligible) German and passed the pages off as a school project whenever his parents asked.

I keep thinking about Nicky's unintelligible journal from the EC. I think about him coming across it years later, trying to parse together what he was trying to express. He doesn't need to understand the misspelled words and broken sentence fragments when he remembers the fear and confusion and self-loathing exactly. How he would move his fingers over tear-stained pages and the well-worn cover and remember how it got worse before it got better. But, oh, it got so much better.

[youdontknowhowtodiequietly]

so this prompt has been stuck in my head for EVER and it's probably gonna need to be a long fic but it could be shortened

whatever(sorry). so aaron minyard POV he's been slightly relapsing but it's just over the counter stuff and katelyn breaks up with him around the time she found out but they also been having issues lately and then him and kevin get closer when kevin finds him doing drugs in the bathroom at edens and he's about to be taken advantage of but "it's nothing that's never happened before" (Yes kevaaron or just single aaron platonic friendship with kevin) and YO I love nicky bring a comforting cousin like i need that for aaron and some andrew and Aaron therapy moments/bonding brotherly moments (sorry again)

fall in love with a girl (4899 words) by crazy_stupid_potato Chapters: 3/3 Fandom: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Katelyn/Aaron Minyard, Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Nicky Hemmick & Aaron Minyard, Kevin Day & Aaron Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, but only in the background, Kevin Day/Aaron Minyard Characters: Aaron Minyard, Katelyn (All For The Game), Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day, Nicky Hemmick, Neil Josten, Original Male Character(s) Additional Tags: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Wholesome Twinyards, Healing, Drug Use, Drug Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Spoliers, there WILL be kevaaron in this fic, that is a threat - Freeform Summary: An Anon Tumblr request. Aaron and Katelyn have issues - Aaron has relapsed - Shit goes down at Eden's, and Andrew is nice, for once. (Title form loml Cavetown's new album songs.)

Here you go bub! I did not expect to get this out the day after I said you'd probably be waiting a while for it, but fuck if I am not a reliable person lmao!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

[sagelvr111]

TALE OF A MARTYR IN XII PARTS- REDSKIESANDSAILBOATS

TALE OF A MARTYR IN XII PARTS- redskiesandsailboats for chubbytomato

All For The Game - Nora Sakavic  

Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard

71k words

12 chapters

complete

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day & Neil Josten, Neil Josten & The Foxes (All For The Game), Neil Josten & Jean Moreau, Neil Josten, Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day, Riko Moriyama, Matt Boyd, Allison Reynolds (All For The Game), Danielle “Dan” Wilds, Aaron Minyard, Seth Gordon, Renee Walker (All For The Game), Nicky Hemmick, David Wymack, Abby Winfield, Robin Cross

Alternate Universe - Soulmates, kind of, Grim reaper au, Reaper!Andrew, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Character Death, AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2021, Angst with a Happy Ending, POV Neil Josten, This is so much longer than I thought it would be, but im not complaining, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied Violence, Happy ending people, I promise, andrew is tired, Neil is relentless, and they literally love each other

Neil closes his eyes and counts the things that he knows: One: Death has a name. Two: He has met Death before. Several times, in fact. Three: Someone is trying to kill him. Permanently. But it’s only kind of working.

Or, the one in which Andrew is the Grim Reaper, Neil is very, very good at dying, over and over and over again. They teach each other a few things over the centuries.

[mostlyvoid-partiallyflowers]

Hiiii my lovely <3 <3 you know I want Kevin angst pretty pls

Of course my darling!

WIP Wednesday 3/26/25 | Kevin Day angst

Aaron waits for Kevin outside his history class leaning against the side of the building and texting on his phone, presumably talking to Kaitlyn. He falls into place at Kevin’s side, heading towards the athlete’s dining hall. The Monsters have made quick work of welcoming him into their strange little family. They find him at the end of his classes and accompany him from place to place, never leaving him alone too long. It’s a far cry from Riko’s oppressive, constant presence, but it’s close enough to offer comfort. 

When Andrew came home with him in tow, Nicky welcomed him with open arms, happy to take in another stray. The reality of Kevin’s state of being is enough to push Nicky off kilter. Kevin can tell that he’s used to the silent, stoic anger of Aaron and the manic highs of Andrew, but not the panicked spirals Kevin spins himself into. Since Kevin moved in Nicky has gotten better at sitting and offering silent comfort when it’s needed and leaving his spirals to Andrew when they get to be too much. Kevin doesn’t take it personally. He knows he has always been too much and not enough. If all he can do to make up for it is give his all on the court, then that’s what he’ll do

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

Wymack collects another traumatized gang member

by InvictaCorpus Jason didn't know who he was anymore. Was he Jason Todd? A zombie who's only purpose was his partners and child. Was he The Red Hood, crime lord and protector of Gotham's unfortunate? Was he Tayir Khaled? Student at Gotham University studying English Literature and playing for the Gothan Exy team? He didn't know anymore. What he did know was that in his hands was a scholarship letter from an Exy team in a different state with a reputation for being all sorts of screwed up yet somehow being one of the best in the span of just a year. tldr: Jason joins the foxes as his civilian identity Words: 1255, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic, Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), The Flash - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M Characters: Jason Todd, Roy Harper, Lian Harper, Koriand'r (DCU), Andrew Minyard, Aaron Minyard, Neil Josten, Kevin Day, Nicky Hemmick, Renee Walker (All For The Game), Danielle "Dan" Wilds, David Wymack, Betsy Dobson, Abby Winfield, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Wally West, Damian Wayne, Tim Drake (DCU) Relationships: Roy Harper/Jason Todd, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Dick Grayson/Wally West, Katelyn Mackenzie/Aaron Minyard, Roy Harper/Koriand'r/Jason Todd, Koriand'r/Jason Todd, Roy Harper/Koriand'r Additional Tags: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Aftermath of Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Jason Todd Has Mental Health Issues, Established Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Other Additional Tags to Be Added via https://ift.tt/LTRAfG0