Neil & Jean

some rambling about Kevin from Andrew’s pov -

Kevin’s first addiction was other people. He was hooked long before he ever tasted the burn of liquor. To be alone was to slip into a sudden feverish withdrawal, hands splayed out and grasping for another hit. He detested other people, yet crawled after the mirage of connection like a dying man to water, finding refuge in the shade of another. Andrew blamed Kayleigh for the pathetic habit - 9 years of that pure high from unconditional love only to leave Kevin hooked on the cheap stuff, a pale imitation cut with a violence that was slowly killing him.

Andrew wishes he could go back in time and press the thin tip of his blade up into the soft spot right between Kayleigh’s ribs and make it known that Kevin would never end up in the Nest. Exy be damned. But Andrew can’t, so he’s stuck dealing with the fall out of Kevin’s addiction, forever forced to pacify shaking hands with platitudes of protection. (And he wouldn’t lie to himself and say that there wasn’t a safety in knowing Kevin couldn’t leave). Because what was their deal if not the impossibility that Kevin would stop needing him wagered against the certainty that Andrew would never want anything enough to make him go - both of them satisfied with terms that could never be fulfilled. Andrew had been flinching desperately, trying to catch his own shadow moving without him, but safe in the knowledge that it never would. In the end, Kevin was the one who left. Or maybe Andrew told him to go. It was hard to keep track.

chu chu 💘

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that he hurt you, I’m sorry that you’re still afraid to talk about it, and I’m sorry that you think I’ll never understand. I’m sorry that he tricked you into thinking you deserved it."

this game has welcomed me back to moe hell with open arms

edit: fixed it, ya filthy animals!

Kevin Day One-Shot

This is a little snippit of Kevin’s first couple of weeks living in dorms after leaving the nest (pre- the foxhole court). I’m just trying to get a grasp of Kevin and Andrew’s dynamic in the beginning and ended up writing a k about Kevin trying to cook eggs for the first time. I’m operating on the assumption that Kevin’s life was pretty strictly controlled in the nest.

CW: Discussion of disordered eating | food insecurity

Kevin was frozen in the kitchen and wasn’t that annoying. The pan was slowly getting hotter, the bottom burning some dark substance encrusted to the stove top where someone, probably Nicky had spilled something without bothering to clean up. The scent made him sick. He knew he should probably pour some oil in the pan or atleast take it off the heat so the non-stick coating wouldn’t be ruined, or at least that’s what Renne told him two weeks ago. The pan was smoking now.

A soft shuffling came from the doorway behind him. The sound didn’t startle him but the presence of another body was enough to break his trance, and he grabbed the pan with his right hand, moving it off the heat. Later, when Kevin met Neil and then Nathaniel and then Neil again, Kevin would learn how to be alone but for now he let himself be relieved at another person’s breathing softening the silence. People were Kevin’s first vice, before the vodka and maybe even before exy. He wasn’t certain that he existed when he was alone, sure that his body would disappear if no one’s eyes were constantly holding it down from slowly seeping away into the floorboards of the court and making sure his body was still made of flesh and bones instead of nylon lace and hardened plastic. The night time glow streaming through the window was an unfamiliar blue instead of red and wasn’t this whole thing annoying.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Andrew’s voice was rough with sleep.

 Kevin turned to him, hyper aware of his muscles forming the lost expression on his face. He was never good at hiding his reactions, especially from Riko, never from Riko. When Keven didn’t say anything, Andrew just stared back at him, unmedicated expression blank. 

After a while, Andrew hummed and walked around the counter into the kitchen. He didn’t look at Kevin as he grabbed the vegetable oil from its place on the second shelf. Kevin didn’t move even as Andrew reached across him, maintaining his prescribed two inches of space between skin, to grab the pan which was sitting uselessly on the cold backburner (And wasn’t that funny) and sit it back on the still hot burner. He turned the knob to medium heat. Reaching into the fridge, Andrew moved aside Nicky’s half full jug of orange juice and a couple beers to grab Kevin’s carton of eggs. It was full - he had just bought it today. 

He hadn’t even been planning to buy them. The Palmetto student athlete contract included full access to a dining plan with a wide variety of balanced nutritional options for him to properly fuel his body for exy. He had no reason to use the kitchen in their shared dorm room, but he had walked past the over priced campus grocery store on his way back from class and stopped. A sickening buzz of adrenaline had clawed its way up his throat when he pushed open the door. Entering a grocery store felt like falling off a cliff, the little door bell his last warning before free fall, and didn’t that just make Kevin want to break something. Instead he bought a carton of eggs at a 200% markup and now they sat on the counter in his dorm room kitchen at 2 in the morning. The nest didn’t have a kitchen.

Andrew grabbed an egg, still in silence, and expertly cracked it against the edge of the counter, then unceremoniously dropping the contents of the egg into the pan. He did this three more times in quick succession. They stood shoulder to shoulder listening to the sizzling cracking sound of the oil, not looking at each other. After about a minute or two, Andrew seemed to deem the eggs as “done”,  though Kevin didn’t know how Andrew could know, seeing as he didn’t even set a timer. He divided the eggs onto two plates. Two for himself and two for Kevin. Andrew walked over to the table and sat his plate in front of himself and then slid the other plate with perfect precision to rest in front of the seat across from him. The plate made sure to make a mocking scraping sound on the way over to its destination. 

Andrew devoured his eggs in seemingly two bites and then finally raised his eyes to meet Kevin’s. In the dim kitchen they were impossibly dark, not a hint of their usual gold. Kevin dropped the eye contact, he regretted it instantly and stared down at his eggs, ears burning. 

The thing was that Kevin hadn’t planned this far ahead. He’d already tried to make eggs twice. Once as soon as he had gotten back from class, still riding whatever nauseating delusion that had caused him to go into the store in the first place. He quickly realized that he didn’t know what temperature you were supposed to cook eggs at: was it a slow cook at low heat or a fast fry at high heat? And once the eggs start cooking, how long do you leave them for? And maybe he should separate out the yolks and just use the egg whites? His neck had started heating up and his knuckles turned white around the spatula, trying to stop himself from snapping it, not that he really cared if he broke the cousins’s shitty dollar store spatula. He ended up watching an old exy game instead.

The second time, he made it as far as the fridge, before he realized he was wasting time. He wasn’t at Palmetto state to make eggs. He went back to his dorm bed to do some grip strengthening exercises and review some outlines he’d made for the team’s Friday practice.

So now he was sitting staring at two fried eggs with round unbroken yokes glaring back at him and for some reason he couldn’t even remember if he really liked eggs. He took a bite anyway, knife scratching against the ceramic plate in the silence. He met Andrew’s eyes again, still engulfed in darkness. Andrew sneered at him. He tilted his chair back, resting on the back two legs and lazily nodded his head towards the kitchen. Bored. Always bored.

“Don’t forget to clean up.”

Kevin scowled at Andrew’s retreating form. Kevin didn’t finish his eggs, simply scraping them into the garbage, but he did clean up. Afterall, Kevin was well practiced at existing in a shared space, even if he could count the times he’s had to wash dishes on one hand.

Andrew didn’t do anything and he didn’t want anything. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. But he made him eggs. Kevin knew he was getting distracted - he’s been unfocused for a while. This is why the nest operated with strict rules and clear outlines with harsh but immediate consequences. Without a structure, he started trying to build meaning out of groceries. He thought about Andrew’s dark eyes and how they looked like dark rooms and he felt nauseous again. After he finished cleaning, Kevin always completed his work, he grabbed the entire carton of eggs and dumped the whole thing in the trash. 

I finished aftg this week and I'm not ok, so I present aftermath Kevin Day but with hair grown out??

My thoughts behind the drawing under more ❗️spoilers for King's Men (last book)❗️

Kevin after Riko's death. Kevin attending the private funeral despite every horrible thing as a last goodbye, maybe out of spite, maybe to reassure himself the king is dead, maybe out of actual grief, either way he arrives, paying his respects ...

my campain for everyone to read all for the game continues

these two, i’m… *shakes fist*

/check for some serious triggers before reading tho!/

Sometimes you have to beg your best friend to leave the only place he’s called home since his mother died because he will not survive if he stays - even if that means leaving you. Sometimes you have to mop up your best friend’s blood and try not to look at bone sticking out of skin. Sometimes you have to convince your bestfriend that the person he loves (the person you hate more than anything) does not love him and will never love him and never did love him because love doesn’t look like sacrificing someone else’s dream for the sake of your own pride. Sometimes you have to let your best friend go even though it might end with you soaked in your own blood because you know that you were always stronger than him and you can endure it - you have to endure it. Sometimes you are Jean Moreau and you are very very alone.

Ooops

First it was Neil and Jean but the thought of Andrew kept me up so

I really love them…