It has been a bit of a mess, starting with not having access to the right PC for the full cover (Amazon requires back spine front be a single img, and psp5 is still only on the older pc), then to the usual distress over margins that requires ordering proofs after every tweak & waiting on delivery, then to the final book getting locked in a box I don't have a key to for four days. All that to say, sorry for the wait. ☠️☠️ My goal with tsc3/#6 is to ensure ebook & print release same day.
That being said, I am heading out for the year unless disaater strikes. Be safe, lovies.
Friendly reminder that ANDREW MINYARD HAS ABANDONMENT ISSUES our man is detached because it’s easier than caring trying to convince himself he doesn’t care MAKES WATCHING THE PEOPLE AROUND HIM GET HURT, EASIER ON HIM (supposedly but not really) ANDREW MINYARD CARES A LOT AND DONT YOU FORGET IT !!!!
bee tapping the table so andrew would stop hurting himself 😭 bee not being able to contain her joy when she finds out about andrew and neil 😭 bee getting all the milk and chocolate cuz she knows that andrew has a sweet tooth 😭 bee knowing andrew so well and caring so much about him she doesn't fear him, to the point he said they spent so much time together she became reckless with her questions 😭 bee hoping wymack would take care of her "most precious charge" 😭 bee being so, so proud of andrew for what he overcame 😭 bee not sending wymack away bc she doesn't want to make andrew feel unsafe 😭 bee being such a gentle being every one knows how much andrew appreciates her even if they don't understand it😭 bee watching a musical with andrew and wymack to distract andrew from what happened 😭 bee messaging andrew after the session™ saying she was happy for him 😭 bee and andrew texting each other regularly 😭 just mama bee
No thoughts today, just Andrew Minyard... Andrew Andrew Andrew. Andrew Joseph Minyard. Like, wow - He. Just yes, Andrew, Andrew Minyard. That's all I had to say, thanks, but most of all, my thanks to Andrew Minyard.
I just saw a post wondering what Andrew and Neil’s first proper argument is, and naturally I have to offer this:
Andrew and Neil don’t fight. They’ll ignore each other if they’re pissed off - but never for more than a few hours, or maybe until one of them has slept it off and decide it’s not worth it (usually Andrew). They’ll have tiffs but never over anything serious.
Except for in the months coming up to Andrew’s graduation. That is when I believe Andrew and Neil have their first real argument.
Andrew gets officially signed to his pro team around abouts the February of that year. It’s in a state further away that Neil expected, and since they found out, Neil keeps catching Andrew looking at apartments or researching the state and the team. He’s happy for him, of course he is, but he can’t quite identify what this feeling in his stomach is every time Andrew brings it up. The little fights that last longer than their usually bickering start not long after; Neil getting more pissed off by the little things Andrew does, Andrew having off-days with Neil more and more often, each of them asking for their own space because they know if they stay around each other they’re going to start a fight. It’s gradual in a way that they don’t realise for a little while that it’s getting worse, until just after the championship finals, and the season is officially over, when three days have passed without them talking for not much of a reason at all. Neil used his finals as an excuse, but Andrew didn’t have any good reason. After those three days, they’re finally alone in their dorm for whatever reason, and maybe Andrew has started packing or he’s just got some sort of welcome package from the team: everything explodes. Andrew tries to kiss Neil, and something feels wrong, and when Neil asks what the fuck is going on, all hell breaks loose.
Andrew doesn’t yell, of course he doesn’t, but he’s venomous. He’s asking Neil why he’s acting as if the world is going to end just because he’s graduating, he’s angry at him for becoming so dependent on his presence, he’s angry at himself for feeling like he’s found a future in Neil when this was never the plan. He was supposed to be nothing. A casual fuck, with an end date and no feelings but fuck if he can’t live his life without him now. Neil yells, because he does, and he’s angry that Andrew still seems so unsure about what they are, how comfortable they were, but suddenly things are different, and it feels like he doesn’t care. He’s angry at himself for building his life around Andrew, but he’s the only reason why Neil Josten exists. Andrew reminds him of that, and it makes everything worse.
It goes on for far too long, quickly becoming meaningless and just an excuse for either of them to vent out the frustration they’ve been keeping inside for months.
“You know that I won’t overstep your boundaries,” Neil points a finger at him. “So in your head it’s okay to treat me like shit and ignore me because you know that I will give you that space.”
He doesn’t even really think that, but every little thing, every little excuse is multiplied by a thousand when he feels this red hot rage. He hates the things that come out of his mouth, but Andrew gives it back, and his insistent refusal to back down just further butts their heads together and infuriates them both.
“I won’t chase after you because you’ve decided to allow me distance,” Andrew says, calm and ice cold. “You can’t invent boundaries for me and then be upset that they exist.”
Lows blows after low blows, unfair quips and insults from both sides, slamming of drawers and doors and throwing of things; they have never, ever fought like this before. It’s over everything and nothing at the same time. Andrew knew it was only a matter of time before campus security was called, but when he tried to tell Neil to calm down and lower his voice, it only made things worse.
They’ve been unkind and awful with each other for about an hour when Neil finds himself starting to get so furiously angry thats he’s upset, that he can feel himself being needlessly nasty with Andrew. For the first time ever he feels the tilt. He feels their foundations getting rocked, a crack in the base of the pyramid of their relationship that gives him the feeling that this might not last forever. He leaves their dorm with a slam of the door, and goes for a run. He hasn’t done that in a while, a run from his feelings, running from his problems and responsibilities. He’s not sure how long it’s been before he finds himself too far away from campus, because he just ran in a straight line.
When he checks his phone he realises he’s over an hour walk away from their dorms. He almost calls Matt, and hesitates over Coach’s phone number, but instead he clicks Andrew’s name. It’s only ringing for two rings before the ringing ends and there’s a quiet hiss at the other end of the line. Neil double checks that he’s answered, because Andrew hasn’t said anything, and brings the phone back to his ear.
“Can you come pick me up?” His breathing is heavy, all of his anger drained out through his feet with every single step that he took to get further away from their dorm.
“Where are you?” Andrew is quick to respond, and Neil can hear him already picking up his keys.
Neil tells him the name of some bar that he can see, and Andrew hangs up almost instantly afterwards. Neil starts to put his phone away, used to the abrupt endings of phone calls, but wishing he would say something more. He puts his phone away and wonders why Andrew can’t just give him something. He’s not looking for a Love you! Bye! But maybe just an answer that let him know he was listening. but then it starts to ring again, and it’s Andrew, and Neil doesn’t say anything when he answers.
“I’m leaving now,” Andrew says. There’s something in his voice. “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”
“Okay,” Neil responds. “Thank you.”
Andrew hums in acknowledgment, but this time he doesn’t hang up immediately. He hesitates, but he’s somewhere outside now.
“I will always pick you up.” He says after a while, after he’s shut his car door and the engine has rumbled to life, and maybe it sounds like I love you, I care about you, I need you. Maybe it sounds like I need you to know that i can’t lose this.
“I know,” Neil says, and it sounds like I can’t do this without you. “Thank you.”
Andrew waits a second or two then before hanging up, and Neil waits for him by the curb. Andrew is there quicker than twenty minutes later. Neither of them say anything as Neil slips into the passenger seat, and neither of them say anything as they pull away. Neither of them say anything until Andrew has switched the engine off, and the car is sitting in its parking spot. They look at each other then, and maybe then they understand what’s happening.
“I’m not above telling you that I don’t want to leave here,” leave you. “But this was always a certainty. You’ve had plenty of time to prepare.”
“I thought that I had,” Neil tells him.
It’s the truth, in some way. He realises then that all of these little fights, and growing agitation, and this almost primal urge to push Andrew away was how he’d prepared. He’s been trying his hardest to soften the blow that it would have on him, and if he pushed him away first, then it wouldn’t hurt when he inevitably pushed him back or let him go. Only, that was never going to happen, and that’s what made it worse - nothing could happen to them now that would not bring them back to each other. So when Neil pushed and pushed and pushed and Andrew was constantly hitting a wall instead of a door, all they were doing was filling the room with resentment.
They sit in the car then and talk about the reality: Andrew was moving away in just a few weeks, moving further away than they’d ever been apart. The truth was that regardless of whether or not Neil decides to spend the summer with him, August would come, and Neil would go back to PSU, and Andrew would stay wherever it was that he was staying. They’d been fighting more in a subconscious test with each other, to see if one of them were going to give up, to see it this was the thing that would finally tear them apart. They talk about that, too, as difficult as it is for Andrew to be honest about that kind of thing. Neil asks him if he thinks it would be better for them to break up, to give each other space, to let Andrew flourish on his new team and meet new people and grow into himself as a professional exy player. It’s the first time either of them have acknowledged the possibility out loud with each other, and it destroys Neil to ask it, and it destroys Andrew to hear it.
Andrew thinks about how Exy was supposed to be the deal with Kevin: how he was supposed to come off his meds, and Kevin would give him purpose, and he would find something to live for in the sport that would not love him back. Instead he gave him Neil. That was his something to live for, and while he’d started to learn how to live for himself, and he would eventually survive without him, he didn’t want to. He couldn’t. He would sooner give it all up just to keep him, and Neil knew that was the truth.
Neil thinks about how Neil was supposed to be temporary. Now it was the future, it was Andrew, it was a long and successful life. Neil Josten did not have an expiry date anymore. He could have things that were his own, things to keep, things to live for.
They knew it wouldn’t be easy, but as the evening went on, and they stay in that car and talk about the future, they’d truly come to the understanding that neither of them can lose each other. They will always be half of one another, and no amount of distance can change that. It’s hard conversation after hard conversation, and it’s emotional in the way that Andrew and Neil get emotional. All the fighting ends up being a catalyst for possibly the most personal, deep, intimate discussion they’ve ever had. There’s lots of silences and voices that threaten to raise but stay low. There’s a lot of questions, and answers, and questions without answers, too. Buts it’s needed. Andrew could not leave PSU without them having this conversation. If he had, I think they would’ve struggled a whole lot more with the distance, and the conversations they would have afterwards would’ve been far more difficult.
Ultimately that’s where they end the conversation sometime past midnight - with a semi newfound understanding of where they stand with each other, what they are, what the future means for them. It’s a fight that needed to happen, and in their own ways they apologise for the things that they said. Maybe they don’t say sorry, they just say everything is going to be okay, and distance will not be the thing that ruins this.
I don’t know. I really do think it’s a fight that’s needs to happen. I think it’s a terrible, angry, nasty argument, and they both feel awful about the things they said and did, but it had to happen. Yeah, could it have been communicated with words? Sure. But Andrew had to understand how afraid Neil was of losing him, he had to understand what Neil was doing to protect himself from it. And Neil had to understand that Andrew was always, always willing to fight for him, but he couldn’t do that if Neil wasn’t willing to see that he would.
Math major Neil and PreMed Aaron having to take calculus together.
Neil just gets it
Aaron does Not. And it pisses him off to no end
Aaron studies constantly and cannot get it. Especially like the concept of limits and stuff (me? Projecting? Never)
When Neil can (rarely) be bothered to show up, he doodles fox paws the whole time
Neil still scores higher on every test which causes Aaron’s eye to twitch
Eventually Aaron manages to score one percentage higher, activating Neil’s competitive mode
They spend more time getting on each other’s nerves and antagonizing to get ahead but also somehow bonding?
Because like “Aaron you idiot don’t do that the stupid way our Prof explained it, do it this way easier way” and “Neil you need to eat and sleep so when I score higher on you this next test you have no excuse”
They may not care about the class and care even less about each other but their drive to destroy the other means they both do really well in the class
Alternatively:
Aaron working on a research project and being super excited to do fancy statistical analysis with the guy his PI tells him is like a super genius only to find out it’s actually Neil
It takes all of his restraint not be like “you can’t be serious. This idiot can’t pay attention to a count down let alone run ANOVA”
If his future weren’t riding on this he would quit
They end up publishing and Aaron is livid Neil played an integral role in him getting into med school.
Andrew has a copy of the paper in a special binder neither of them know about
I just like the idea of them being forced to bond because STEM undergrad sucks and you can’t do it alone plus math and science always be arguing theirs is more important
personally i think Andrew gets jealous soooo easily. like he literally warned Nicky off from Neil with a knife and was so afraid his brother would ditch him for a girl that he made him swear to a "bros before hoes" pact. he has so many possessive tendencies, that man is JEALOUS.
a key part of his character is that he is convinced nobody would want to be around him without something in return. he literally makes deals because he doesn't trust people to stay with him. that man doesn't know the meaning of secure attachment! he's never even seen it before!
even if Andrew logically knows Neil is demi and doesn't feel attraction towards anyone else, that's not gonna snuff out his bone deep belief that he is disposable. he's gonna feel jealous and possessive and even insecure at times, even if he won't outwardly show it.
this isn't to say he doesn't learn how to have a secure attachment style with Neil or that their relationship is unhealthy. it just wouldn't be unusual for Andrew to experience extremely jealous feelings, feelings that he'll have to work through with Neil and also with Bee
Neil, with his tight, wiry muscles, entranced when Andrew does that thing where his relaxed arm is all soft and squishy and pliable and then he flexes and it becomes huge and hard and sculpted
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