yes or no?

kinda discusses his coping mechanism but then i went off track idk what this is

neil’s the runner, the rabbit. we know that. so it wouldn’t be surprising when i say: escapism

when it comes to neil, it’s not the sort of escapism of indulging yourself into a book or a fictional reality. he has the mindset of: “if i get far enough and get myself into another problem i’ll lose this one.”

he bottles up his emotions, he’s always paranoid. he’s living under the constant fear that someone’s watching him, someone knows who he is, someone recognizes him.

so it’s only natural to say his instinct is to leave, to run, to get away from everyone and everything.

but he cant always run away, can he? not when he stayed with the foxes. when he chose to stop running. so what’d he do then?

i believe he dyed his hair or bought new contacts every single time.

oh? he’s got finals and practice and andrew has already graduated and he wants to run but can’t? solution: split dye his hair. half ginger, half blond.

problem? not solved but at least he’s got cool hair now

altering small parts of himself became therapeutic, but as his hair slowly started to fry off, andrew stepped in.

he talked neil through painting his nails different colours, rhat way he’d never run out of options, and neil did try. he wanted it to work. but it just didn’t suffice.

so there it began. neil began to have horrible panic attacks, and everything felt too loud morphing into an intolerable cacophony so jumbled and manic that it was like he’d been plunged into a choking silence instead. he’d tug at his already fried off hair, chin digging into his knees as he shut his eyes and clenched his jaw.

neil was lost. and he didn’t know what to do. the trauma was catching up and he can’t find a way to keep it at bay.

and then the foxes came in. started a bet on who’d be able to help neil find a healthy coping mechanism first.

all bets were on either dan or matt, and aaron refused to participate. he didn’t “care about josten’s tantrums. i have more important shit to do than be a shrink”

and one by one, all their plans failed, and neil was only falling deeper into the rabbit hole of human desolation.

until one day, as he was having a panic attack on the couch, with allison trying to coax him back, aaron sat in front of the computer, frustrated. he walked over and pushed allison aside.

you know what, neil was a math major and aaron needed to study. he was tired of this. he still didn’t care though.

“neil, what is the derivative of (5+3x)^5?”

neil’s grip on his hair loosened, as he continued to rock back and forth, his breathing slowly getting less ragged.

“neil, i knoe you know this, what is the derivative of (5+3x)^5?“

with a shaky breath, neil tried to speak, but failed. aaron sat close to him. “imagine you’re blowing a candle, neil, come on. slowly. in. and out. in and out. now do you know the answer to my question?”

after a few seconds, neil lifts his tear-stained face and utters, with a shaky breath “it’s- it’s 15(5+3x)^4, you sol- you solve it using the uhm- the chain rule.”

“that’s right. now get up and wash your face. you look pathetic.” as he walked back to his seat, he could see the slight upwards quirk of neil’s lips.

though it was true that aaron hadn’t found him a coping mechanism, he found a way to pull neil out of the pain, temporarily.

otherwise, when things got bad, he’d go for a run until his muscles felt like mush, and his brain couldn’t handle the exhaustion.

and when he couldn’t do that? when he was desperate? he’d just look up a calculus worksheet or anything of the sort, just to ground himself, or he’d mess with one of aaron’s uni textbooks just for the hell of it

I wanna ask, what do you think about the relation between Andrew and Nicky? Especially post canon?

Also what are your thoughts on the ways the foxes cope with hard times? Like their coping mechanisms? I really like your blog and I would love to hear what you think on that!

hey! thank you for sending something in <3

okay so before i can answer that, i’d like to mention that canon nicky isn’t exactly how i see him. i think of him more as fanon nicky! (mainly because i don’t enjoy nora’s depiction of him, as she made him the gay poc character that seemed predator-y) (i especially believe that nicky offered neil a true and genuine apology regarding that night at eden’s, and neil eventually told andrew. this is very important since it will impact how andrew views nicky.)

so after a while of therapy, and learning to accept his emotions, as well as watching nicky’s actions as (in andrews eyes) he tried to redeem himself for that night, andrew begins to forgive him for it. he knows it’s not his call to make, it’s neil’s, but he can’t help but feel the surge of protectiveness that washes over him every single time he thinks of neil and nicky. it will take a while for andrew and nicky to heal their relationship after that, but they will.

something else i like to hc is that nicky joins in on one the therapy sessions one day. nicky doesn’t have a hard time opening up, so he does just that. he talks about how he feels towards the twins, and how being their guardian affected him and his life generally. don’t get me wrong, andrew doesnr pity him for having a hard life, for having to tkae care of him and aaron. it’s more like,,, he understands his cousin more now. he begins to find explanations to actions he couldn’t explain before.

andrew was never big with words. whereas actions? he was all in. it wasn’t any different with nicky. would he ever admit anything verbally? absolutely not. will he fly to germany when he gets a call from erik telling him that nicky has gotten incredibly sick and can’t seem to get out of bed? absolutely.

i’m not going to come on here and tell you that they turn into best friends and andrew immediately learns to open up and express his love. bht the one thing i can tell you is that andrew learns to care about his relationships with the people he loves. it takes time, but he learns how to get along with nucky, and nicky can see the change, he can feel it. whether it’s because they now go out to see dumb movies together or because he sometimes encourages nicky to sit in the passengers seat, nicky knows andrew cares, and andrew knows nicky cares.

it’s one of the first times neil and andrew sleep in the same bed, and yes, they’ve established a great base of trust to be able to do that, but andrew still isn’t comfortable sleeping shirtless or anything of the sort.

at about 5 am, neil wakes up to the rise and fall of andrews chest, and an unfamiliar warmth pressed onto his cheek, softer than andrew’s cotton shirts.

rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, neil realizes he’s on andrews chest. his bare chest. immediately, he gets off of andrew, or attempts to, before he feels a hand on the small of his back pushing him back down.

You might have already talked about it tho so here's this in that case: Renee and Neil friendship development over the years? I'm wondering how other people see their dynamic, because while Neil was really distrustful of her in the start, I like to think they became friends eventually

(now I'm more curious about the other thing.. eugh)

hey! thank you for sending something in <3

personally, i don’t believe they ever said “i love you” to each other simply because it was never needed. if the andrew minyard was to rest his forehead on neil’s, that’s more than enough to tell him and everyone else that he feels so much more for neil than love.

to me it’s the same concept as them not labeling each other as each other’s boyfriends since andrew felt that what they had was worth more than a silly label. the relationship they’ve managed to build is so much more than a crush, so much more than the little “i love you”s. they worked so hard to instil so much trust in between them, that it became their foundation.

andrew and neil may have different ways to express their love towards each other- but they both understand the irrelevance of three little words. they’ve gone through so much in their lives to comprehend how little words really mean. whether it was andrew’s “please” or mary promising neil they’d be safe from his father, or him having to lie his way out of everything.

to them it’s the little things, the slow yet steady progression. the key neil wears around his neck. the bed they share. the matching rings. the “yes or no.” andrew getting more comfortable with physical touch. neil slowly dropping the “i’m fine”s.

they meant the world to each other, and they were aware of it. those three words that they heard people tell them as an excuse of horrible actions and abuse will never be something they use with each other. “i’m doing this because i love you.” no, they show each other that they’re in love, and they believe it now.

i highly disagree with andrew “never crying.” there’s a difference between crying in front of people, and waking up from a godswful nigjtmare crying or having a full blown breakdown, that’s not something he can control.

you’re telling me all that repressed trauma won’t catch up to him ar some point? and that when it does, he won’t have a strong support system to be able to heal?

just imagine it’s the middle of the night or something, and neil is being an idiot and somehow manages to hurt himself and he can’t reach the injury so he needs help. he doesn’t go to andrew. he goes to aaron. yes, aaron will give him a lot of shit about it jokingly, but he’d use the most gentle hands, stay with neil for a few minutes after to make sure he’s okay and he doesn’t have any other injuries. insults will never seize to flow off of his tongue, but his mannerisms will still be full of care