#should i tag ppl. whatever i'm too lazy rn
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kandreil but like kandrew and/or kevneil happens before andreil pls and thank you???
hey there!! so. writing this was actually quite satisfying. we deserved kandreil endgame fuck you and everything forever. this turned out a but long tho :/ around 1400 words or so. i feel so powerful. anyway thank you for joining my mini and kinda mediocre celebration!!!!!!!!!
edit: also on ao3
Kevin Day had always been a very organized and clean individual. He kept his stuff in place, and he tried to do the same with his head, no matter how poor the results usually were. His clothes were always folded the same, his books were alphabetically and thematically ordered. He also organized his memories very well, folded them in his mind, categorizing them as good, bad, in between, and the ones to never be revised again.
He had exactly four favorite memories.
The first one was blurry, warm colors and it felt dusty, old, like a sepia photograph. This was how he remembered his mother, bright and radiant under the sun, paler than Kevin himself but the same green eyes, with an exy racquet in her left hand, her head held high and a proud smile after Kevin had scored for the first time.
The second memory was a quiet one, Kevin getting a french word horribly wrong and Jean laughing— actually laughing at him. Between dark rooms and broken bones, Kevin had managed to make Jean laugh.
The third one was one he placed together. An old letter, the first sight of a tall man with the same smile as Kevin, the word 'father'.
The fourth one was the one that filled him with grief, but made his chest feel warm every time. His first kiss with a dead boy, or as well as. Kevin didn't think about Nathaniel often, except he did. Frightened eyes, almost Kevin's height, not one bit of shame, but a peck on the lips that was shy.
Nathaniel had been with Kevin and Riko for a month on probation. He had disliked Riko, despite Riko's efforts to be likable and accepted. Looking back, Kevin felt kind of bad for him and left him thinking, that should have been the first clue. Nathaniel had adored Kevin, though, and Kevin used to melt under the attention that had always belonged to Riko. And it seemed like it would last forever, Nathaniel being their third one, for better or for worse. But Nathaniel disappeared overnight and it took Kevin a whole year to understand that he wasn't coming back. It wasn't meant to be that way, but it was. Someone always leaves first. This was the reason he left Riko. Like Nathaniel disappeared overnight, Kevin decided this family had taken too much from him, and if he was going to die, he would do it as Kevin Day, not Kevin Moriyama.
Because the fourth memory is not one of his favorites because of the memory itself; but because of what it represented to Kevin. Someone always leaves first, and he would never be the one that's left again.
And no matter how much it seemed he would at some point after Nathaniel came back as Neil, and he kissed Kevin again —because there were some things that Kevin couldn't deny to himself, no matter how evident it was that he would lose it— as Nathaniel had come back, so did Neil.
"Satellites can hear your thoughts from space," Neil muttered against Kevin's forehead. Kevin was lying half on top of him, his hand on Neil's chest and Neil's hand on Kevin's back. He pushed Kevin's chin up and looked him in the eye. "What is it?"
It had been three months since Baltimore. Remembering it was almost like a fever dream, a goodbye promise that Kevin was meant to be number one, a phone on the ground, and a zero. Then, Neil with a burned cheek, fast words in French, and an eleven-hour long interrogation. And then Neil was safe.
"How did you even survive?" he said, softly. It was raining outside. It was Saturday, and Andrew had a session with Betsy, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to be affectionate.
Neil shrugged, nonchalant, indifferent as he was. "It's kind of what I do."
Kevin supposed it was. He could never be indifferent about it, though. The longest years and the longest hours of Kevin's life had been those in which he didn't know if Neil was alive, the clock ticking, too much happening and yet nothing at all, his arms restless from not knowing if he would ever be able to wrap them around Neil again.
"Don't you ever want to talk about it? Or, think about it?" Kevin asked.
This seemed to break Neil's careless mask for an instant. "I don't— I don't know what else to expect," he said. "I was always expecting I would die. I think more about the fact that I won't die. Is there a difference? I think there is."
Kevin thought he understood. "Like you think about the future, not the past."
Neil traced Kevin's queen tattoo as if Kevin would break, as if he was thinking about the past. "I've always thought about the right now. There wasn't time to think about the past. Or the future.
There was something unsaid.
"And now?"
Neil raised a single eyebrow, habit he had picked up from Andrew, and his gaze fell on Kevin's lips.
"Now there's time for the future."
"That's good," Kevin said.
"Yeah." Neil kissed him.
The door opened. Neil broke the kiss.
Andrew stood there, an indecipherable expression on his face. He looked at Neil, and then at Kevin, and then he sighed and headed to the bathroom. Kevin felt Neil relax under him.
“He won’t say anything,” Kevin told him.
“I know,” said Neil. Something in his voice assured Kevin that he did know.
Kevin vaguely remembered Andrew when Neil went missing. There was a flame in him, one Kevin had never seen in him. There was also the slight view of the fire that came with the loneliness, and it reminded Kevin of himself, after Neil disappeared for the first time, back when Nathaniel still existed. It was a question he had never dared to even think, but it was there. “Why would he leave me?” even when it was irrational. Even when Neil had had no choice in either of these situations.
“Andrew kissed me once,” Kevin said.
He didn’t know what he was expecting when he did. Not jealousy, but perhaps anger. Possession. Again, irrational. He sort of wanted to laugh every time he remembered; not everyone was like Riko. However, he didn’t expect exact understanding.
“I think he told me he liked me once.”
Kevin blinked at him.
“You think?” he whisper-shouted.
“I don’t know! It was kinda vague,” Neil said in the same tone.
From the bathroom, Andrew said, "I can still hear you, you know?"
Kevin wondered the same thing.
Neil ignored it, as he did. "Besides, you're telling me that he kissed you. Kissed. Want to talk about that?"
That was also a good question.
Kevin could somehow still remember how Andrew tasted, how it felt. Cold enough to burn, a cigarette of ice pressed to his lips. Andrew’s hands in Kevin’s hair— then nothing. Just a standard static in the air, we kissed, it murmured, and that is all.
"It was before we recruited you," Kevin said. “We were both a mess back then. So that happened.” He bit his lip, just a little shy. A little lower, “I won’t happen again. I messed up.”
Neil didn’t have the time to reply when Andrew got out of the bathroom, face just washed. “Am I done cockblocking you two?” he asked, and didn’t wait for an answer. He lied against the wall, way too casual for him to be indifferent about this. “We were both messed up.”
Kevin sighed. Without forgetting that Neil was in the room with them, he figured this conversation needed to happen eventually.
It had been different with Andrew. With Neil there was expectancy, adrenaline, like running away from the same devil. Falling for Neil had been a lot like a tragedy set on fire, but the smoke of it evaporated when they were together and safe. Falling for Andrew, however, was resignation. Static, background noise you couldn’t help but notice.
“I did hurt you,” Kevin said.
Andrew didn’t miss a beat. “You touched, you got too close, and you stopped when I told you,” he confirmed. “And then I closed off, got too distant. You didn’t ask me to get closer, but maybe you should have.”
“Yours was just a reaction,” argued Kevin, heatless.
“So was yours.” Andrew sighed, pushed himself off the wall, and sat with them in his bed. “Here is what happened; I kissed you because I liked you, and you kissed me back because you liked me as well. I needed space as much as you needed touch. This is not something to be ashamed of. We were not for each other at that precise time of our lives, and that is all.”
Kevin had expected, somehow, that having this conversation would quiet the noise, stop the static. It did not. He could still remember the exact amount of care with which Andrew would hold him. Not gentleness, or passion. Care. Quite similar to how Neil held him. As Kevin needed to be held.
Kevin took a deep breath, intertwined his fingers with Neil’s, and said, “And now?”
Something appeared to break inside Andrew. Kevin didn’t have time to analyze it.
“Now, you two are in a happy and healthy relationship,” Andrew said with a sarcastic edge. Neil’s hand tightened around Kevin’s. “I’m not planning on breaking you two up, no need to worry about me.”
“I think,” Neil spoke, for what seemed ages, “that you told me you liked me once.”
Andrew’s eyebrows rose slightly in what meant he was annoyed. “Yes, your point?”
It was quieting. The noise. The rain seemed to be louder outside. Or perhaps it had always been loud, it’s just that there were other louder, deafening sounds drowning it.
As if on cue, Neil said, clearer than before, “I think that, if Kevin likes you and me both, and you like Kevin and me both—”
“I don’t need a pity free ticket to your relationship, Josten.”
“I don’t do pity, Minyard,” Neil said. “You said you wouldn’t mind blowing me—”
“He said what?!”
“Don’t interrupt me, Kev. I think I would mind. ” At Andrew’s scowl, he continued, “However, I wouldn’t mind kissing you. For now at least.”
It dropped, finally.
“I also don’t need you being a martyr,” Andrew said, but it carried no heat. It was just him, asking Neil to argue with him. To prove him wrong. Kevin could tell, as he could tell Neil would give him exactly that.
“I’m not,” Neil stated, plain and simple. “I would like to kiss you for you actually, not for Kevin.” Andrew blinked at him, Neil smirked, just a little smug. “Yes or no?”
Andrew stared at him for so long Kevin almost started to think he was angry. Then he just said, “Yes.”
So they kissed.
Andrew was almost timid; shy even. Hesitant. Neil kept his hands to himself, and Kevin vaguely remembered the first time they kissed; Neil holding Kevin’s face, his arms, his chest. Balance, Kevin thought, amazed. Neil and Andrew kissed with such a care, moved with grace, in syntony. Neil’s hand was still holding Kevin’s when Andrew’s own hand reached out to theirs without breaking the kiss. Kevin got the most warm feeling inside his chest, a wave of infinite affection.
After they kissed, it was simple. Andrew kissed Kevin again for the first time since their terribly messed up first chance. And it was good. Neil had been able to feed Kevin’s starvation for touch, and he had given Andrew his space. It was not only care. It tasted like a victory.
When they broke the kiss, Neil gave Kevin a shallow peck on the lips and lied on Andrew’s bed in his previous position, dragging Kevin down with him.
“I can’t believe you two parasites have invaded my bed,” Andrew muttered under his breath. Kevin chuckled, because he could.
There was a certain balance in the room. Or perhaps it was between them. A certain peace. It was strange, but not unwelcome. And it was raining outside, but it was sunny as well. Neil lied facing the ceiling, Kevin’s face on his chest, Andrew’s back to the wall, holding Kevin loosely but with care while he joined hands with Neil. It was messy but it was okay. It would be. Kevin had exactly five favorite memories.
#kandreil#aftg#all for the game#tania.500#andrew minyard#kevin day#neil josten#i worked three days on this so please read it and love it or whatever#also i'll post it on ao3 in a moment 😝😝😝#prompts#daysten#kandrew#kevineil#should i tag ppl. whatever i'm too lazy rn#t.writing
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