going off my last post, here’s a short headcanon of Neil’s relationship with music (+ kevin & neil bonding /p)-
• It starts when Andrew drags him out of a particularly bad panic attack.
• on his third or fourth session, Betsy told him that music might help to calm him down.
•He said he would try it the next time he felt anxious.
• that night he told Andrew
• and after practice he saw spotify downloaded on his phone, already set up on Andrew’s account.
• he just stared at it and smiled to himself.
• Neil very quickly found out that he hated heavy metal.
• it hurt his ears, but still did it’s job of keeping his mind from slipping into the past.
• (he only listened to it because it was on andrew’s playlist and he didn’t exactly have his own music taste yet.)
• Besty told him it was progress.
• at least they had found out that music helped
• Neil was at lunch with kevin
• “what song is playing on the speakers?”
• “uh its a song by conan gray i think.”
• neil looked him up that night.
• he was soon caught in the rabbit hole of all these different songs
• it was a bit overwhelming.
• he showed kevin his playlist of all the songs he sifted through
• “never took you for an alt music type of person” kevin said.
• kevin laughed and showed him more songs of the same genre.
• at the end he had a playlist consisting of 3+ hours of just indie/alt music.
• he decided that he liked kevin as he wasnt as much of a jerk as he put up to be.
• neil was sitting with his legs dangled over kevin’s lap. they were currently criticising each other’s playlists.
• “carpetgarden? cmon neil. that guy is morbid”
• “kev, my dad was the literal butcher of baltimore. I think I can deal with a little gore.” neil scrunched his nose in disgust, “ed sheeran? He’s kinda gross”
• “he’s an ugly redhead like you”
•they bickered until andrew threw his book at them and told them to be quieter.
• andrew didn’t mind these sessions, he could tell they put neil more at ease.
• he obviously couldn’t let his apathetic and annoyed persona slip though, no matter how much he loved neil.
• the next time Neil felt anxious kevin was the one there instead. (andrew was at a therapy session)
• kevin just quietly slipped his headphones onto neil when he started seeing telltale signs that neil was panicking
• they sat together, neil focused on the music, kevin telling him encouraging words until andrew came back.
