A little thing I headcannon is that Andrew never asks where Neil is. Neil is CONSTANTLY asking where Andrew is if he hasn’t seen him for approximately 0.5 seconds and even Jean notices how they give “lingering looks when one fell out of orbit for too long”, but Andrew never asks, wanting conceal to the others how much Neil is a weak spot for him. Instead, his eyes slide across the room, scanning, and if he can’t see Neil then Andrew simply gets up and goes in search of him, he knows all of his spots anyways. The foxes, initially just put Andrew’s abrupt leave up to his blatantly disrespectful self, deciding he wasn’t interested enough in the conversation, so they don’t really care. However, that isn’t until they notice the pattern. First, Renee, then Dan and Aaron, and soon the others catch on. They observe the way Andrew’s fingers start tapping at his sides when his head swivels round and cannot find his specific ginger. They observe the way he gets up immediately and strides towards the door. They also observe the way Andrew hands still slightly as Matt says, “he’s on a run” or Kevin tells him Neil’s just practicing on the court. Andrew doesn’t acknowledge it openly of course, he never asked and would’ve been able to find him himself easily, but they all don’t miss the way his head lowers for a second, giving a subtle nod, placated by the fact someone always knows where Neil is. I guess they all know the alternative, when his hands were shaking, wrapped round Kevin’s neck in Baltimore. He didn’t ask, “Where’s Neil?”, he screamed it. And the others didn’t know. And Andrew couldn’t find him.
