one aspect of neil that i find super fun and interesting is how manipulative he is. you actually get to see neil consciously decide to manipulate his environment. like, you could argue that by lying he is constantly manipulating everyone around him and ig to some extent that’s technically true, but i’m talking more about all the times he literally stops and goes “how do i make this happen” and then he goes “i will figure out what they want and then offer it to them” or “ah yes, i will back them into a corner :)” on one hand he’s obviously good at misdirection and camouflage but then he’s also great at bargaining (on a small scale with andrew although i think there’s a whole lot more to their little back and forth than just Neil Manipulates, and later with ichirou) and even though he’s never had a normal relationship in his life before tfc he’s really good at picking up group dynamics and others’ emotional states. (and of course, his real talent is in provoking people. if neil was a d&d character he’d be that one obnoxiously chaotic personality that always Gets Away With It because his charisma stat is just That high.)
i definitely think the way he grew up (both before and after going on the run) influenced his ability to read his environment and how compulsive (and sometimes ruthless!) he is in using that information to his advantage. on a completely different and contrary note, though, he does feel guilty about the lying and the long-term game he’s playing. which is so interesting because i think most people would find neil’s lying less offensive than his attempts to influence their personal lives. and not just for the fact that neil’s lying is quite literally a life or death habit that’s been beaten into him. i think the difference to neil is the intention behind his actions; with aaron and andrew, he’s ultimately trying to help, whereas the lying is to him at best something he does to survive (something that only benefits him) and at worst something that indirectly gets people hurt. but otherwise he’s quite unashamed about nudging people into specific directions; he guilts bee for being complicit in andrew’s medication plan, has no compunction about talking to katelyn behind aaron’s back. it’s a kind of “this is for your own good” mentality (something he was likely used to from his mother, an unapologetically ruthless form of “care.” although to be clear neil is not abusive. mary was). neil is learning how to let himself care for people without fear or guilt and also how to do so in a way that isn’t just “i want these people to survive” but “i want these people to be happy.” that’s the key difference. he’s essentially getting the house in order so that he can finally move in without worrying that it’s going to collapse on itself.
there’s a difference between the way neil acts behind a facade compared to when he’s trying to influence his environment as someone who will be around long enough to take responsibility and deal with the consequences. no-name abram manipulates with lies and diversions; he didn’t have substance or weight, just needs to get you to look the other way long enough for him to slip away. neil josten manipulates with the truth; he’s trying to fortify the home he’s chosen. “weak links” such as the team’s disastrous relationships and et cetera are like a broken roof or a busted pipe to neil. something you can take a hammer to and manually fix so that he can continue to live inside the home he’s chosen. neil’s also been socialized to believe that his “house” could literally fall apart around him at any moment. he doesn’t have time for subtlety or waiting around for people to heal themselves or for group dynamics to play out naturally! not when it could mean losing them. that’s also part of neil’s journey! he has to realize that he’s NOT losing them, that the habits he’s learned on the run aren’t compatible to a functional, healthy life. he has to override his mother’s voice in his head, both the one telling him to run, and also the one telling him that in order to save something, you have to break it first.
As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse. It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms
As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable. As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.
Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.
⁂
Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.
www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.
www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free
Oops, I never uploaded this one to Tumblr (which I only realized when someone else did, but then was kind enough to tag me, thank you)!
This is the comic that kickstarted my obsession with telling stories with as few panels as I could (usually 10-11 haha), so it’s got a soft spot in my heart.
My bestie @archiveofourfoxes is sick and shared an andreil sickfic headcanon with me, so I’m writing a quick drabble for them! I know I have a million other things I wanna be writing...but I'm literally so busy and I happened to be focused on doing this so I went with it haha. I hope you enjoy!!
~*~
Andrew woke up and his whole body ached.
He barely wanted to open his eyes, squinting despite the only light in the room being what made it through the curtains. The sheets were tangled around his legs, but the rest of the blankets had been kicked off the bed at some point in the night when Andrew had gotten too overheated. He was still too hot, his head was pounding, and he couldn’t breathe through his nose, which meant his throat felt like sandpaper.
And to make it worse, it was both summer and a day off, so Andrew couldn’t skip exy practice. That was the real tragedy.
It was very rare that Andrew got sick, only once every few years, but when it hit it would hit hard. He could barely swallow the little spit that was in his mouth, but moving at all sounded like the worst plan ever, despite Andrew needing to drink some water. He slowly turned his head on the pillow to glance at the clock, seeing that it was almost seven in the morning, which meant that Neil would be home from his morning run soon. All Andrew had to do was wait for a little while and then things would be fine.
After attempting to swallow again with little success, Andrew managed to weakly kick the rest of the sheets off his body and turn on his side. He sniffed, but despite feeling congested, his nose was just as dry as his throat, which probably meant that he’d need fluids soon. But Andrew wasn’t getting out of bed when his limbs felt brittle and yet like jelly at the same time, head pounding so much he was sure he could tap a rhythm along to it.
Not only that, but he felt disgusting. He wanted a shower, and for Neil to get back soon so that he could bring him a glass of water. Hell, Andrew would choke down some pills as well just to feel a bit better, and he hates swallowing pills. He tried to remember what medicine they had around, sure they had ibuprofen and cold medicine from the last time Neil had been ill. It’s always a nightmare when Neil is sick, because he always goes with his default ‘I’m fine’ excuse until Andrew can get a list of his symptoms out of him.
Speaking of Neil, where the hell was he?
Andrew suffered for another ten minutes in silence. He didn't even have the cats for company to keep him distracted, but that was probably for the best. Sir would want cuddles, and King would get hair everywhere, which would only make Andrew feel even more uncomfortable than he already was. He heard the keys at the front door, heard footsteps walking towards the bedroom, and then finally Neil was there, eyebrows furrowed and a plastic bag clutched in one hand. He wasn’t even wearing running clothes.
“Hey,” Neil said, toeing off his shoes near the bedside table and sitting on the edge of the mattress. “What do you need?”
Thank fuck Neil didn’t waste time on stupid questions like asking how Andrew was feeling. “Water,” he managed to get out, closing his eyes when the mattress moved as Neil got up. He was back in seconds, a large glass of water in his hands. Andrew lifted his head to sip at it, the sandpapery feeling in his throat not going away, but his mouth wasn’t dry, so he counted that as a win.
“I got DayQuil,” Neil said, ripping the plastic packaging off of an orange bottle. “Did you know you have to show an ID when you buy it, now? Apparently ‘cause there’s alcohol in it. That’s what took me so long.”
Andrew attempted to sniff again, trying to work his throbbing head to remember any other interactions with Neil that morning. He was pretty sure that he’d woken Neil up by shoving all the covers away, which led to checking for a fever, which led to Neil checking their medicine supply and… “We have cold medicine,” Andrew managed to say, voice still raspy.
“It’s just for congestion,” Neil said back, pouring some of the orange DayQuil into a small medicine cup. “Here, this will help more.”
Grimacing, Andrew held the medicine cup and debated on pouring it out on the floor. The only thing that stopped him was the thin carpet under their bed, which had been a housewarming gift from Bee. So instead, Andrew attempted to knock back the medicine like a shot, almost spit it out on the sheets, but managed to choke it down. “Water,” he said again.
“You can’t drink water right after drinking medicine,” Neil said, taking the medicine cup back. “Take a shower. You’ll feel better.”
“My head is going to explode,” Andrew huffed, reaching for one of Neil’s hands. Neil reached back, allowing Andrew to tangle their fingers together. “Fix it.”
Neil let himself be moved so that he could brush some of Andrew’s hair away from his forehead, palm feeling for a fever. “Take a shower,” he said again. “I’ll make you some tea. It’ll help.”
“Tea?” Andrew asked, wrinkling his nose at the thought. He’d never had tea in his life, because who needed it when there was coffee?
“Yeah,” Neil agreed, taking his hand back. It was only then that Andrew noticed the way they were shaking just slightly. “Tea. Need help?”
“No,” Andrew grumbled, pushing himself up. His head was still pounding, but the more awake he was, the more manageable it got. He’d survive a quick shower.
Neil was out of the bedroom quickly, leaving Andrew to gather a change of clothes and trudge to their bathroom on his own. He decided to steal some of Neil’s sweatpants - the good ones with the cuffed ankles, because if he was going to suffer then he was going to be comfortable dammit, and his favorite hoodie. The bathroom steamed up quickly, and the longer Andrew spent standing in the shower the less congested and more clear-headed he felt.
Andrew changed and brushed his teeth, decided not to bother combing his hair, and found the bottle of ibuprofen pills, hoping it would clear up the last of the headache he still had. He then walked to the living space, plopping down on the couch and grabbing a pillow, staring at where the cats were sitting in their tower. Neil came by a moment later, placing a steaming mug on the coffee table.
“Want the remote?” Neil asked, arms fidgeting after putting down the mug. “A book? Blanket? You warm enough?”
“Quiet,” Andrew mumbled into the pillow. “Neil, that better not be tea on my coffee table.”
“It’s our coffee table,” Neil reminded him. “We bought the furniture together.”
Dammit, they had, and when Neil had started freaking out about owning furniture, Andrew had calmly told him it was theirs. And for some reason, that had seemed to help out. Maybe it was the idea of not owning something so permanent alone, or maybe it was just something in Neil’s head that Andrew wouldn’t quite understand. “It’s mine when I’m sick,” he decided, lifting his head so he could glare at Neil. “I don’t want it.”
“It’ll help,” Neil said, his voice just barely going quieter and making Andrew feel things. It made him want to do something stupid, like drink the damn tea. “It’s Green Tea. It won’t even taste bad.”
“All tea tastes bad,” Andrew argued, now staring at the mug.
“Try it?” Neil asked, turning to walk back to the kitchen. “I bought some soup, it’ll be easy on your stomach.”
Andrew continued to glare at the mug of tea, deciding now wouldn’t be the best time to ask for ice cream.
The mug was left untouched even after Andrew had sipped some soup and grabbed himself some cough drops. Neil barely let Andrew out of his sight, always hovering around and getting whatever Andrew wanted. It was weird, but that had to be because this was the first time that Andrew had been the sick one. Neil was barely used to taking care of himself, let alone trying to nurture someone else back to health. Andrew was glad that he wasn’t nauseous. He didn’t want to know what Neil would be like if he was.
Unfortunately, Neil seemed pretty set on the tea thing. When Andrew let the first cup go cold, he simply got up and made another one. The second cup was ginger tea, and then after that it was peppermint. Andrew was ready to curse his coffee drinking habit that let him gather so many mugs by the time there were four on the coffee table, all cold and untouched.
“How much tea did you buy?” he dared to ask.
Neil shifted on his feet, which was enough of an answer for Andrew. “I read it would help,” he said, almost sounding upset if Andrew didn’t know better.
“Tea is gross,” he grumbled.
“It’s not,” Neil snapped back, kneeling down to frown in Andrew’s face. Slowly, it melted away. “Sorry. I’m pretty bad at this.”
“Yeah,” Andrew agreed, reaching out to grab the nape of Neil’s neck. “But at least you’re pretty.”
That damn fever.
Neil rolled his eyes. “I’m not kissing you when you’re sick. That’s gross.”
A shame, Andrew decided. Instead of asking for one, he pulled Neil closer and shifted on the couch. They both settled down with Neil resting against one of the armrests, Andrew laying his head down in his lap. “My head hurts,” he complained again, trying to blindly find one of Neil’s hands. Thankfully, Neil finally got with the program and started to lightly massage the back of his neck, and Andrew felt like he may have melted.
“You should have some more medicine soon,” Neil pointed out.
“I want coffee ice cream.”
“Of course you do,” Neil snorted, pushing one thumb more firmly against tense muscle when Andrew opened his mouth to complain. “I don’t think ice cream will help.”
“It will,” Andrew weakly argued. His eyes were drooping, as though he was starting to fall asleep.
Hmm OK I wanted to ask about this certain flavour of fantasy genre. Do you have any books where like classic fantasy creatures are living in society side by side and pulling integrated. Like say the fae sell Coffe with a shot of confidence to help calm urself kinda vibe kinda book?
You know what, I think I do have some soft sci-fi/fantasy/urban fantasy for ya! I know a lot of graphic novels and webcomics that fit the bill, but not too many prose books. Some of these are for younger audiences, too, which has never prevented me from reading anything and if you don't think "kid books" are for everyone then you're wrong and have a nice day.
I follow a webcomic on Webtoons - Crumbs by Whitherling (now complete!)- and it is exactly what you're looking for. A legit magical bakery that serves emotion-flavored treats, witches and magic people, beautiful soft art, and a story about finding yourself and who you want to be. A complete heart-warmer.
The first prose book that came to mind is The Cybernetic Teashop by Meredith Katz. It's a sweet ace romance between a Latina protagonist and a sapient robot. It's not quite cozy teashop vibes as it has some heavy looking stakes, but it looks super good and has been on my to-read list for a while now.
Magic to Brew by Grace Ellis, Shae Beagle, Kate Leth (Illustrator), Caitlin Quirk (Illustrator), Clayton Cowles (Illustrator) - a graphic novel
Werewolf barista Julie and her new girlfriend go on a date to a close-up magic show, but all heck breaks loose when the magician casts a horrible spell on their friend Chet. Now it's up to the team of mythical pals to stop the illicit illusionist before it's too late. - Goodreads
The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O'Neill - dragons that make tea and how to take care of them. I can't think of anything cuter than that. Seriously, what are you waiting for?
Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker, Wendy Xu (Artist), Joamette Gil (Letterer) - I love Wendy so much and this book looks so sweet.
Snapdragon by Kat Leyh - another graphic novel about a witch and magic and wholesome vibes.
Snap’s town had a witch.
At least, that’s how the rumor goes. But in reality, Jacks is just a Crocs-wearing, internet-savvy old lady who sells roadkill skeletons online. It’s creepy, sure, but Snap thinks it's kind of cool, too.
Snap needs a favor from this old woman, though, so she begins helping Jacks with her strange work. Snap gets to know her and realizes that Jacks may in fact have real magic—and an unlikely connection to Snap’s family’s past. - Goodreads
Séance Tea Party by Reimena Yee - people on Goodreads say this one will make you cry, but in a good way.
After watching her circle of friends seemingly fade away, Lora is determined to still have fun on her own, so when a tea party leads Lora to discovering Alexa, the ghost that haunts her house, they soon become best friends. - Goodreads
Anything by Molly Ostertag. She has a new release, The Girl from the Sea, which is a sweet selkie romance about growing up queer and being who you are - in Canada!
Personally, I had feel-good vibes when reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. There's some violent and kinda spooky scary stuff in it, but I like those kind of softer ghosty feels.
If you're into podcasts, I'd recommend Love and Luck. It's super queer, Australian, full of love, and so, so sweet and healing.
Australia's first LGBT audio drama, Love and Luck is a fictional radio play podcast, told via voicemails. It’s a slice of life queer romance story with a touch of magic.
The story is about two men who fall in love, learn they have magic powers, and use those powers to support and protect their community. The good guys win, no one gets killed, and queer people of all types are all loved and valued.
“neil is so oblivious” “neil is so observant” “neil is bad at reading people” “neil is great at reading people” nah listen neil has spent his whole life on the run from the mafia. he is really observant but the thing is the only thing he is looking for are things that are potentially threats. analysing power dynamics of the foxes on day one? check. noticing any time wymack is even a little bit annoyed because historically annoyed older men has meant pain? check. keeping track of where everyone is at any given point and how close the doors are? double check.
but what he isnt used to looking for? good things. anything good, because he literally just does not expect good things to happen to him. nicky considers him a friend and has for months? blindsided. allison found it in her to forgive neil for his role in seths death without ever saying a word to him? shattered. the least emotionally expressive guy on the team has been progressively falling in love with him in such a way that multiple team members have already clocked it? never even considered the possibility until it was literally spelled out.
tldr; neil is great at ferretting out threats and absolute dogshit at noticing when people care about him because he’s been programmed his whole life to expect the first and not the second
It starts with some shitty little fox that Nicky bought him as a joke because he found it in the baby aisle, but Neil fucking loves it.
He drags it around like a toddler with a blanket, taking it to all his games and sleeping with it every night.
Then, the fox starts to fall apart, mainly due to it being taken around the country every week for months (and that one time Aaron threw it out a window)
Neil says he’s “fine about it, it’s just a fox” so Andrew buys him a new one, because Neil just looks so sad when Andrew has to sew the tail back on for the 10th time.
Seeing how happy the new fox made Neil, Andrew buys him another one, a bear this time
Then a frog
Then a lion
Andrew keeps buying them because his bad days mean he can’t always cuddle with Neil, but stuffies don’t have that issue and Neil deserves hugs
(Also Neil does this little grin whenever Andrew hands it over and Andrew would die for that shit)
All of a sudden Neil, who has never been allowed to be soft nor form attachments to something as silly as a stuffed animal because they might need to leave it behind, has a shit ton of them
Like, he has to put them on the floor to physically fit in his bed
They all have names and Neil constantly forgets them because there’s so many, so he has to turn to Andrew because he’ll never forget them
He chooses a different one every night to sleep with so none of them feel left out
There’s always one at each game, in its own court-side seat
And Neil loves all of them, because he never really got to be a kid, never got to fret over something as trivial as the opinion of a stuffed animal and he’s making up for so much lost time
However, Andrew does debate when they move in together whether the smile was truly worth having to give up space in his own bed to an inanimate object
Part six of my shitty all for the game headcannons
Neil is very good at parkour and he didn't really know that is was Parkour when he was doing it
Like he can long jump really well and fucking like fire escapes and shit
When matt and Dan get a bit older and have kids and stuff they start showering and having baths together alot because its a really simple and convenient way to slip some intimacy into the beginnings and endings of their busy days
Its not his favorite but andrew does like mint chocolate chip ice cream and if you fight him on this he will stab you
Andrew hates vanilla ice cream and doesn't really like strawberry so he has eaten the entire chocolate side of a neopolitan tub and left the rest for everyone else
Matt has a unrivaled talented for chugging things
Full Gatorades in seconds
But this boy cannot do keg stands for the life of him (this is entirely because he can't do a handstand in the first place without tipping over and breaking his neck)
Nicky however? Keg stand God.
Andrew is so fucking loud when he walks and it's on purpose
If he needs to be stealthy you can't hear his footsteps but any other time and he is willingly a elephant
Him going down stairs is so so so loud
Like he just stomps and smacks his feet so fucking loud for no reason other than being a nuisance
Nathan is a born Russian and like most Russian men, is fucking huge
270 pounds and 6'5
Gigantic man
And then Neil was a stick figure clocking in at 5'3
I love the andrew rips food into small pieces headcannon I think thats adorable
But also when he eats small things like m&ms or chocolate chips or just tiny things that come tiny he eats equal amounts on each side of his mouth
Like he'll shake a handful of m&ms into his hand and then he eats like two at a time with one on one side of his mouth and the other on the other side of his mouth
And if he shakes out an odd amount he throws the extra one as far away as he can
Andrew also does not like to eat things off the bone
Chicken wings are his fucking nemesis
And he keeps a bag of chocolate chips in the freezer all the time because he likes frozen chocolate
Nicky really likes painting
Eriks family in Germany own a little plant nursery and its nickys favorite place in the world
Eriks grandmother adores nicky
So do his parents
Eriks whole family just loves nicky so much and nicky loves then more than anything
We all know neil has a way with words
But I think its more than insults
Like I think he is kinda poetic by accident all the time
Like hell say something and matt will be like "that was beautiful man" and he's fucking clueless about it
But he can also like completely half-ass assignments and then just spend 3 minutes righting a 520 word long email apologizing and the teacher just let's him get away with it
His essays are fucking masterpieces but they are done in a 2 hours before night practice with kevin
He can convince almost anyone to do almost anything
Do you know any traditional Celtic dishes for yule? Everything I found so far is just generic Christmas-y treats and someone adding a star or something and calling it Celtic.
Indeed I do, my friend! I have three lovely cookbooks in my collection which I highly recommend on the subject:
Celtic Folklore Cooking (Joanne Asala)
Witch in the Kitchen (Cait Johnson)
The Food and Cooking of Ireland (Biddy White Lennon & Georgina Campbell)
Celtic Folklore Cooking includes an entire section in the index on dishes for Yule. The Food and Cooking of Ireland has a number of feast-worthy recipes, and a very informative foreword which describes the holiday traditions celebrated in Ireland today. Witch in the Kitchen has a lot of tasty vegetarian options for any occasion year-round.
Dishes for Yule include:
Apple Fritters
Baked Apples
Chestnut Soup
Chranachan
Christmas Plum Pudding
Eggnog
Faerie Cakes
Hot Buttered Rum
Irish Stew
Marmalade Loaf
Mulled Cider
Pan Haggerty
Roast Goose with Stuffing
Savory Yuletide Pie
Shortbread
Stuffed Acorn Squash
Stuffed Braised Beef
Tea Brack (aka Barm Brack)
Wassail
Stay tuned, I’ll be posting the recipes for all of these throughout the day!
It all started after they had to get smartphones. One day, while getting cleaned up in the locker room thinking about what Andrew would want to eat that night at their apartment, Neil received a text. He turned his back to lean against the lockers and hid his small smile behind his phone as he opened a message from Andrew.
He almost freaked out. It was.....a giant broccoli with a face. Specifically with Andrew's eyes and mouth. Neil knew both too well to mistake them.
Underneath the picture was a simple message that said, Pasta or pizza?
Neil was far too focused on the broccoli to care about any other food. He almost sent a question asking Andrew how he was a broccoli, and more importantly why he had sent a…broccoli message. But at the same time the message was so unexpected and hilarious that Neil couldn’t figure out how to type something back, too busy trying to keep a smile from forming on his face. He couldn't waste any time getting back to their place for an explanation.
He was on his way out of the locker rooms when he got another text from Andrew. Once again he was using the broccoli filter, this time with the message Pasta or pizza, I need to know. But Neil couldn't get his fingers to type out a response because he was too busy trying to hold in any laughter from looking at that vegetable with Andrew's face telling him to choose what to have for dinner.
"Neil?" one of his teammates asked, a concerned look on her face. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," Neil assured her, pressing his lips together firmly. Of course, Andrew sent him another picture in that moment, the same goddamn broccoli with the message, Neil I'm next in line. Andrew's eyes were looking up, probably waiting for his turn to order food for them that night, but Neil still couldn't get his fingers to work.
"You're shaking," the teammate said. "Are you hurt? You should go to medical if you are."
Neil just nodded, because if he opened his mouth he knew he was going to start laughing, and started to walk away. The moment he was in the parking lot he got another message from Andrew, this time with no caption to go with the broccoli picture giving him a deadpan look. The moment Neil was locked inside his car he let his laughter escape, leaning his forehead against the steering wheel and finally trying to type out a response.
Nel, said a panicked looking Andrew-broccoli before Neil could finish his response.
Why are you broccoli? Neil sent, still laughing to himself over the messages.
Why cant you choose a food group? I got you pizza, Andrew sent back.
WHY ARE YOU BROCCOLI?! Neil sent.
Nobody will believe you.
I can't marry broccoli i hate it
I can't marry someone who won't tell me a food group
I WAS LAUGFJS BY ASS SJOOFFFFF YOU ASSHOLEEEEEEEEE
After Palmetto, Andrew signed on to a good pro team and played there for 3 seasons before he and Neil get married bc they’re in love for legal rights or whatever
The fact that Andrew Minyard was married came as a surprise to literally all of his teammates.
There hadn’t even been an engagement that the team knew of.
Andrew had simply shown up after the off season with a ring on his left hand.
One of the new teammates, who’d had the least amount of experience dealing with Andrew was the one to ask if it was a wedding ring.
“What the fuck else would it be?” Andrew replies
probably the most some of his teammates had heard him say since he’d started playing for them three years ago
Everyone sits in the lounge gaping at him until Andrew sighed and finally confirmed their suspicions, “Yes it’s a wedding ring.”
The captain was the first to get her act together and cleared her throat awkwardly. “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone. Congrats, though, that’s awesome.”
Andrew just like nods in her direction
Another young teammate asks “What’s her name?”
“Or his,” says the only teammate Andrew doesn’t actually hate
Andrew answers “It’s none of your business.”
Their coach is like “While I love this enthralling discussion of Minyard’s personal life, we need to focus on what I actually pay you to do.”
And then they go back to focusing on exy and Andrew being married isn’t really brought up again but everyone remembers
Andrew holding on to Neil’s clothing is my Fave Thing™ so let’s just expand on that
he still always grabs at Neil’s hoodie, esp the neckline
what a gr8 way to get Neil’s attention bc he doesn’t have to bother with words and also? Now Neil’s looking him? double win.
(also this is #content for a whole other post but consider, if you will, selectively mute Andrew. nonverbal Andrew. thank you for ur time)
triple win actually bc then it’s easy to tug neil closer for a kiss. Nice.
he grabs Neil’s clothes almost all the time, like when they’re sitting next to each other on the couch or in a booth, just to remind Neil that he’s there and to remind himself of the same thing
sometimes he just hooks a finger in Neil’s collar and sometimes his whole fucking hand is just splayed across Neil’s chest.
He does the whole arm-around-the-shoulder thing when they’re chilling together at home and his arm wraps so far around Neil his hand is resting against Neil’s chest, under his shirt.
Neither one will say it but it makes them both feel safe. Andrew can feel Neil’s heart beating steadily and Neil feels the warm, solid weight of Andrew’s hand holding the scarred mess of his skin together.
once when they’re in a big crowd and they’re trying to move quickly Andrew almost gets separated from Neil but nope. he hooks his fingers in the back of Neil’s sweatshirt. Can’t lose him if he’s got a handful of his shirt.
Andrew has also been known to hook his fingers thru Neil’s belt loops when they’re walking in a crowd
picture this please: Andrew, exy badass, no one has seen him smile ever, stoically silent and judgmental At All Times. and more often then not he’s walking on the court with one fist balled up in the back of his boyfriend’s jersey. adorable.
