chaos inside

Shidou’s just built different

And Sae hates being wrong

Alternate final panel: Forced In-Law bonding

I also choose to believe they’d be girl dads. So they have a daughter ( maybe 2 but who’s to say)

Did Andrew ever plan to live past graduation? Before Kevin came along and promised his life would have worth? Did he plan on disappearing when Aaron eventually walked away from him? Believing nobody would notice if he was gone?

He clung on purely for Aaron, to make sure Aaron had a bright future ahead and could go live without him. To make sure that Nicky could go back to Erik without worry.

Before Neil, Andrew didn't believe he had anything to live for. He made a very one sided deal with Kevin to find something, anything, to build his life around after graduation, believing his brother would leave him alone once again.

Because at the heart of it all, Andrew doesn't want to die. Not really.

Andrew has chronic depression and he is suicidal. He sits on the edges of roof tops to feel. He puts his life on the line again and again with little regard for his own safety. He makes promises that put him at a severe disadvantage.

His promises are what keeps him alive, what forces him to live. Dying would break his promise, and Andrew has suffered enough from broken promises.

He doesn't want to die. He wants to survive those who beat him down. He wants to move on. He wants to get better. He wants to live.

I got them therapy for their birthday

Aaron, whom he gives up everything for in an instant, despite never having met him. He gives up Cass who is maybe the first person to ever love him because he is afraid for Aaron— Aaron who is probably the first thing that has ever truly been HIS. His brother, HIS twin. He’s been in foster care for his entire life, never truly owning anything, never laying claim to anything or anyone as his own. Even Cass is Drake’s mother, not his.

But Aaron is different. Aaron is his in a way no one else is. Aaron is his DNA, his family. Tilda is not, she discarded him and Aaron and then reneged by only taking one back. To Andrew, she gave up her rights to either twin in that moment. But Aaron didn’t have a choice, HE didn’t abandon Andrew— he reached out. He sent a letter. He WANTED Andrew and Andrew wanted him.

Then Drake turned his gaze on Aaron and Andrew knew that despite all he stood to lose, he would NOT give his brother up to this man. He told Aaron off, he burned that bridge, and then made sure to eradicate it forever by getting sent away, away from Drake (and therefor Cass) so that Drake never looked Aaron’s way again.

Then Aaron reached out AGAIN. This burnt bridge, another thing Andrew had given up, CHOSE him. So Andrew, close to a second term in juvy (perhaps because a second term meant he could stay relatively safe for the first time in his life until he was 18 and then there would be no more need for foster homes with lurking predators) got his act together so he could protect his brother— his brother who showed up to meet him with a bruised face and a handful of lame excuses. His brother who showed all the signs that Andrew had seen on other kids, on himself. His brother, whom Tilda was abusing, whom Andrew would save like no one had saved him.

So Andrew told the truth for the first time ever to an uncle who saw him as a charity project in hopes that this man would help protect other children as well as keep Aaron away from Drake. And Andrew was dismissed.

Still, Andrew allowed himself to be adopted by the woman who had abandoned him as easily as trash on a sidewalk. And he took the name Minyard because it was AARON’s name, not because it was Tilda’s. So they would be a united front against the world.

And then he promises to protect Aaron, to make sure that bitch never lays a hand on his brother again.

He stands by that promise. He lives up to it.

And Aaron is not okay— not happy, not grateful. He looks at Andrew with resentment, with fear, with hurt. Suddenly, Andrew is “them”, the perpetrator, the offender. But that’s not fair, that’s not right. He did it FOR Aaron, just like he promised. He kept his promise when no one in the world had ever kept theirs.

So he’s angry and he’s hurt and he just wants Aaron to STOP looking at him like THAT. He didn’t hurt Aaron. SHE did. Why is Aaron grieving her?

But he won’t give up on Aaron. Aaron is still his. So he cleans the drugs out of his system, he wipes up any messes in Aaron’s life. No one will hurt his brother, not on his watch. And then they make a bargain; no one else but them against the world. Their own narrow, secluded little world where they look out for each other. But Aaron won’t forgive Andrew and Andrew doesn’t think he needs to be forgiven. So they’re at a stalemate. Their world is so very quiet, so very tense.

So NO Katelyn cannot intervene. She cannot be the person Aaron looks to for solace, for happiness. Not when Andrew’s life was carved to pieces to make it all happen. Andrew keeps the leash tight, keeps Aaron close because like hell he won’t be around to protect Aaron— like hell someone else will lay claim to the only thing in the world he has.

And then Drake happens. And there’s Aaron, covered in blood and terrified.

“Did he touch you?”

“Answer me, I said did he touch you?”

No no no no. Why wasn’t he *strong* enough, *good* enough, *unbreakable*? Why is Aaron in the same room as Drake after all these years? After all Andrew has done and given up to prevent it? Why is Aaron looking at him like the world is ending?

And Andrew, who hates being touched, who loathes the feeling of a body pressed against his, lets Aaron cling to him. Lets Aaron crawl across that bloody mattress and hold on to him even when his skin is still crawling from the last man who touched it. And Andrew is grabbing him, feeling him, insuring that Aaron is safe and there and whole and untouched.

How DARE Luther? How dare Luther let Drake in the same house as HIS brother? Never mind Andrew is broken and bleeding and in so much pain and that smile won’t fucking come off his mouth. That nasty, acidic high is still costing his tongue, fogging his mind, and he can’t even get up to strangle Luther himself.

And then Aaron is arrested, Aaron is taken away in cuffs for coming to Andrew’s defense: Andrew, who is supposed to be the protector, the wall between them and the world. He can’t even protect him from that— no, he’s shipped off to yet another fucking nightmare that will pump poison into his blood.

He can’t look at Aaron. It’s always been hard, now it’s impossible. Aaron saw that *weak* side of him, that *humiliated* side of him and Andrew can do nothing to erase that image, that stain.

Then there’s fucking Katelyn, who knows NOTHING, who IS nothing. Yet Aaron is willing to fight for her, is willing to break Andrew away from the one person he cannot live without, for her. So their bargain ends, not because Andrew is choosing Neil over Aaron but because Andrew is grasping at straws— one promise for another. If having Katelyn is what Aaron wants FINE. Fine, he can have her. Even if that means he won’t pick Andrew.

But Andrew cannot let go. And even though it’s the last thing he wants, even though he would rather choke on his own blood than admit it, the lawyers need him to testify. Need him to show the world the side of Drake that has been hidden for so long under the weighted silences of his victims. And it has to be Andrew who breaks that silence, because if it’s between his pride and Aaron’s safety, he will suffer every time.

So he speaks. So he spits out that awful truth, that nasty, terrible humiliation that has scarred him inside and out. And just once, he lets his gaze slide to his brother— his brother whose head is bowed, whose shoulders are shaking—and who looks up at him like he can feel his gaze. And they are not fixed, they are not untouched— but there is understanding there for the first time ever.

think of any 16 year old boy you know. does he look like an adult to you? would you call him a whore if you'd found out he'd gotten into five different men's beds in less than a week?

no?