sometimes i just wonder what Andrew thought the first time they got into the dorms
remember that moment ? when Neil goes out to buy some shit and comes back and looses it when he realises someone 1. touch his stuff 2.put it all back together the right way 3.forgot the weirdly folded tags
first Andrew and his eidetic memory : did he left the tag on propose to mess with Neil ? did he not see them, thus couldn't replace it because it's a very fucked up things to do ? i mean, he's a foster child with heavy trauma, I'm sure he knows how to keep an eye on stuff, even more if it's the stuff of someone who could hurt his family so I think he knew and just wanted to leave it in the open for Neil to see but not obvious for any reational person to back him up
and in the possibility in which he did not realise there were tags to deal with, imagine his utter confusion at Neil's entrance in his dorm, messing with Kevin and glaring draggers at him because somehow he knows
or, if Andrew knew, he must have realised how dangerous Neil could be, because this kid knows exactly how to make sure no one can look into his bag without him knowing, he has this weird ass folder with Kevin and Riko everywhere, he comes, barging in, and spits french at Kevin's face
sometime I wish we had Andrew pov for the story, like, discovering Neil from an outside perspective, with him just being a new kid in a sport team, must have been a wild trip
I'm thinking of Neil when he finally finishes college and has to leave Palmetto and Columbia. I don't know if they keep the House, if Nicky leaves for Germany and sells it or if it's part of the family now. but the idea of Neil having to be detached to the first place he could call home, the key tightly squeezed in his hand. idk there's angst to write about that I think
going to school with Neil -and any of the fox- must have been wild like
imagine
following the same Spanish class or math class as Neil, seeing this kind of skittish kid who refuses to speak or aknowledge another soul, he's quiet, he's fine, he does want to work with anyone but he'll do it when he has to, like to train in Spanish and pairing but it's barely if anyone knows his name
turns out he's in the exy team, the one who make the news at least once a year because of drugs, death and whatnot
he shows up on social media after his interview with riko and Kevin and like, this is a random dude in class, but hes sitting beside two international superstar of sport and he's being sassy as hell
he's always tired but that's normal until he shows up after xmas absolutely beat, he's skin looks weird you don't really know why, there are some bruises showing under the makeup at the end of the days, he has a tattoo on his face ???, he's a red head ??? no one recognized him at first
then he shows up bloodied and battered after Baltimore and at this point nobody is willing to point it out,
I just-
being a normal student must have been wild at palmetto
don't get me started on the other sport students who had nothing to do with the team but woke up once a week to a fight between Seth and Kevin, matt and Andrew, Allison and Kevin, Allison and Seth, Nicky whinnying about shit, Andrew throwing shit around, etc
and Neil at the beginning was just standing behind, looking between the other foxes. imagine coming out of your room because some of the shitty neighbours are being noisy again and there is this random new guy standing and watching with careful eyes, a bit freaky, like. nope I'm out
steddie soulmate au, swapping bodies once in a while after a certain age part 1
and i can wait for you
part 1 | part 2 | Ao3
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eddie cannot wait, he has always loved the idea of soulmates, of someone, be it platonic or romantic, meant for him, just as he was meant for them. he loved to know that someone, out there, in the big bad world, would accept him for himself. he clinged to it after his parents disposed of him, after his father went far far away once his mother passed from a disease no one had bother naming for him.
of course he had heard of people without soulmates, or of those who didn't get along like they should, or disagreed too strongly on some matters that they couldn't look at the other.
but eddie refused to believe he would be one of them, because then, the universe would really hate him, wouldn't it? because eddie, at least until Wayne, had no one. nobody by his side. the universe would make it all alright by giving him a soulmate that would love him. he knew it. he had to.
because what else could he do when he had been alone, scared in some shitty apartment where the electricity had been cut out for days, and not a soul had stepped through the doors for just as long. when the cops barged in, carried him out and told him he wouldn't be seeing his dad anymore, when he was left with a man he had never met before and been told this would be his new life.
so Eddie hopped and waited, patient, alone. but he had Wayne to tell him stories. tales about his own soulmate, Patricia. She was german, tall, and lived on the road, driving through Europe in her big truck just like Wayne had done for years through the states. they never met, but both agreed that their life was too much of a mess, too much moving, too much distant, to try and connect. they had their lives, they adored each other but as soulmates goes, there was nothing more than deep, platonic care for one another.
the first time Eddie met Patricia had been wild.he had woken from nightmare with a jerk, finding waynes too smiley face above him, all soft eyes and laugh lines out, and he flinched so hard he fell on the floor. she had apologized, they both had laughed. it was all fine and well. they spent the day cooking after that. Patricia, using Waynes body so differently than her soulmate, had cleaned and complained, reassured the young boy that she loved doing it and seeing what wayne had done with his life, that complaining, for the pair of them, was a way to show that they cared. she introduced him to the lord of the rings for the very first time.
so he waited and hoped until his fifteen birthday, he waited and listened to stories, to Patricia who told him in hushed tones in front of the trailer while hanging the laundry to dry, about soulmates who were not woman and man, about same gender couples, she told him about things he would hear but shouldn't listen to. and he listened to people ar school saying things that went the other way around. about the way the universe sometime made mistake and how gross and terrible it was.
but eddie did not care, he just wanted his soulmate.
the say he turned fifteen, he was buzzing. waiting desperately for it. he might not meet his soulmate now, he was young and couldn't afford to travel, but he could learn to know them, little things about their lives that built the soulmate he was meant to have. and Wayne kept repeating that he shouldn't get his hopes up.
Eddie knew, of course, that soulmates might not swap immediately. his soulmate could be younger, and swapping came at random. once he had not seen Patricia and her soft accent for almost six month before she was there again, and then she spent three days by his side, laughing loudly about how much Wayne would appreciate the time on the rainy roads of southern England.
and he waited and waited some more while he saw peers around him behaving strangely before they announced being the soulmate. there was a girl once who started spatting japanese at a teacher's face when he kept asking about her homework. and Eddie waited.
