Thinking About Kevin Day Winning His First Olympic Gold Medal.

im proud of him!!

Neil & Jean

neil and the foxes part 2 because i can’t control myself and i’m a hoe for aaron x katelyn (the first part of this can be found here or in the aftg headcanon tag on my blog)

after a bit neil realizes that he actually really likes physical affection, he never knew that touch could be so friendly and warm and caring

the foxes are always careful, but they pick up on how he subconsciously leans in or gets a tiny smile

allison starts pecking him on the cheek before and after games and it stirs up some media attention that they both mercilessly sass away

dan always hugs him and matt ruffles his hair, renee likes to link their arms together, and nicky starts dramatically collapsing on him during halftime or hangs onto him whenever they’re out and about

kevin does not do touch and neither does andrew or aaron, but there are rare occasions in which kevin will clap neil on the shoulder in stoic approval

neil and katelyn become friends and it’s super confusing at first but everyone quickly realizes it kinda makes sense in a weird way

neil especially likes how she’s just super casual about the intensity of the competitive cheer she’s done for her whole life, like he just stares at her in awe while she’s happily recounting all the times she either bruised her ribs or fell from terrifying heights

she shows him a video of her tumbling like a badass and nicky’s like “twinyards your s.o.’s are going to run off together” 

whenever aaron is being a dick or difficult in practice, neil starts pretending to wave at someone nearby and goes “hey katelyn!”

it is RIDICULOUS how aaron keeps on falling for it, like he knows she’s not there at 7AM on a tuesday morning but he still perks up and his head whips around

the rest of the team starts doing it and if he didn’t hate neil before he definitely hates him now

neil confesses he doesn’t really have a favorite food and everyone is appalled

even though he’s traveled all over the place, they avoided restaurants and mostly just went for whatever was cheapest and fast

allison and nicky make it their mission to introduce him to as much stuff as possible and see if anything really catches his attention

neil does not care for sweets or spicy stuff at all, which results in the expected “you’re so white” jokes from nicky

he does really like stuff heavy on the umami, so the team starts ordering a LOT of asian food

at the end of the upperclassmen’s last championship (that they totally win of course), neil breaks his ankle in literally the last thirty seconds dodging his mark to make a goal

he tries to pretend he’s fine but he falls down when he tries to walk so matt scoops him up bridal style and andrew stays glued to him

they completely ignore the press and celebrating and everyone goes with him to the ER and force their way to his bedside

it’s bad enough the doctors put him on painkillers which make him super high, but he doesn’t have anything to hide anymore so…

neil starts to just like spill all of his feelings about everyone and they’re already so overwhelmed by winning championships a second time they can’t take this too

“matt i just want you to know that you’re like my big brother and you’re always taking care of me and i know you and dan are going to make such good parents one day” “dan you’re so strong and beautiful i want to be like you when i grow up, i swear i’m gonna try to be as good to the foxes as you were to us”

“kevin you absolute ASSHOLE, you FIEND, you’re the best exy player ever and that’ll never change and i wouldn’t be good without you, i hate to say it but you deserve happiness i guess” “katelyn’s way out of your league aaron i have no idea how the fuck you got her but don’t lose her and i want to be your child’s godfather”

“allison you’re such a bitch but you’re my best friend and i wouldn’t have it any way, you can cook my face whenever you want” (everyone knows he means bake) “renee, renee i would always stick with you during the apocalypse, whenever you do the hooky elbow thing i feel all safe and warm inside” 

“nicky…we’re your family now. we’re always gonna be your family now. okay?” 

“wymack you’re not fooling anyone with your tats, we all know you’ve adopted us, i used to be scared of you because of my dad–FUCK him by the way–but i realized what good dads are like because of you” “abby i would kill anyone who wronged you, even if they cut you in line at the grocery store, i would knife them no hesitation” 

he mumbles something to andrew that no one else can hear, but that’s fine

everyone’s too busy weeping anyway

neil’s a little in and out after that, but when he fully regains consciousness he’s on a pile of blankets, surrounded by his team again on the floor

i need to stop myself but…mayhaps a part 3 is coming??

People calling Kevin toxic for andriel are we reading the same series???

Did you miss Kevin taking care of Andrews's meds which is such a trusting thing on Andrew's behalf because he's gone his life doing things alone but now Kevin's offered to help and not interfere in Andrews's life and business and RESPECTING HIS BOUNDARIES???

Did you miss Kevin threatening Neil to tell him his actual condition and NOT the "I'm fine" bullshit he's constantly saying.

Did you miss Kevin being the FIRST person to see something in Andrew? Even before Neil did, not his cousin, not his brother not the system but Kevin fucking Day saw something in him and promised to give him something to structure his life around??? Kevin believed in him whether on not Andrew was on his meds.

Did you miss Kevin telling Neil to run away when he finds out his identity because he doesn't want Neil to be caught back up with the Moriyama's. It's too late for Kevin to escape, he's been under the limelight for years now and Exy is the only thing he'd been brought up to know. But he wanted Neil to run even if it meant the Foxes couldn't qualify to play he was willing to give up the thing cared most about to keep Neil safe.

"The day Kevin stops playing is the day he dies. He has nothing else. He wasn't raised to have anything else. Do you understand? We cannot lose to the Ravens this year. Kevin won't survive it." KEVIN WAS WILLING TO GIVE THAT UP FOR NEILS SAFETY.

Did you miss how Kevin purposefully feigned disinterest in Andrew when he was with the Raven's because he didn't want to drag Andrew into the nest??

Did you miss Kevin fucking Day grabbing Riko Moriyama's arm- his LITERAL abuser to stop him from hurting Neil?? Did you miss how Riko immediately hit Kevin back but it didn't stop Kevin from trying.

HELL I COULDN GO ON AND ON DO NOT FUCKING TRY THIS WITH ME Kevin saved Andrew and Neil just as much as they saved him goodnight

My adaptation of the God of Arepo short story, which was originally up at ShortBox Comics Fair for charity. You can get a copy of the DRM-free ebook here for free - and I'd encourage you to donate to Mighty Writers or The Ministry of Stories in exchange.

Again it's an honour to be drawing one of my favourite short stories ever. Thank you so much for the original authors for creating this story; and for everyone who bought a copy and donated to the above non-profits.

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

edit: fixed it, ya filthy animals!

nathaniel wesninski had been dead for years before they left him buried in baltimore. he had been dead, but he’d also been ever-present, pacing in the muffled beat of alex’s footsteps, crouching beneath the hooded circles under stefan’s eyes, twitching at the base of chris’s trigger finger. pulsing in the pit of abram’s throat as he stuck a lighter to the hood of his mother’s car. he crawled into bed at neil’s side when he tucked away his brown contacts and pulled out his binder. but neil, abram, alex-stefan-chris, weren’t the only ones he haunted, because he haunted evermore too. he was the silhouette that sat on the edge of the bed opposite jean’s when zane wasn’t in the room. he was the phantom that drew cold fingers over the number that should have been his scrawled on the face of the boy he should have been able to save. he was the speck of light jean saw when he opened his eyes underwater long enough he forgot how to breathe. he was the glinting edge of a box-cutter and the creaking floor of a wooden box and the stale air in jean’s lungs from 48 hours in hell. the point separating 11.9 from 1.19. misplaced forever partners united by being haunted by the same ghost.

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. 

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.

You told her the wave was seven feet. You ran to her on the beach. There were seagulls. She wore a hat with a blue ribbon, a long dress with a blue and red flower, and yellow sandals covered in sand. She was pretty. She was really pretty. And you…you were happy.