#but here’s a short take on Neil vs the impact of Edgar Allan

[ninyard]

NEILS QUIRKS FROM THE NEST PLS

Had to clear this one from the drafts because YES. Enjoy:)

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Andrew suspected something had changed with Neil as soon as he started playing again after his disappearance at New Year’s. It wasn’t his hair, or the new scars that littered his skin from head to toe. It wasn’t the new ferocity he played with, though of course something had changed within him to make him play like a Raven. The differences weren’t in things physical, in looks or the way he played, but it still took him an annoyingly long amount of time to figure it out.

The first time he noticed anything wasn’t from Neil. He hadn’t been paying attention, instead watching Kevin who was watching Neil. In a split second movement Kevin’s attentive and focused face softened into a look that paled his skin and widened his eyes.

“What is it?” Andrew blurted out, and Kevin averted his gaze, not realising he was being watched. The look of horror was glazed over in seconds, his eyebrows furrowed instantly at Andrew’s question.

“Nothing,” Kevin snapped back. His grip tightened around the racquet he was holding before he barked an order down the court. He turned back to Andrew for a quick, “Watch the court. Keep your eyes on the ball, not me.” Andrew rolled his eyes at the suggestion, and looked towards Neil, who was following the ball with such intensity it took his mind away from Kevin for a minute.

The next time Andrew seen that look on Kevin’s face was when they were both sat on the floor of the court, watching Neil run drills, trying to regain his footing under normal conditions. Andrew almost missed it, but at the time Neil was aiming for a target Kevin had put in the goal. He didn’t miss a single one. He went again, and again, and again, not missing, until one shot fell a little wide and hit the back of the goal instead. Red illuminated his face and one, two, three he hit his racquet on top of his shoes. He repositioned his hands on the racquet, picked up another ball, and went again. Andrew had turned to Kevin before the light had went out, and he just caught the look when Kevin turned and wiped it away.

“What was that?” Andrew looked him dead in the eyes. “And don’t try tell me nothing.”

“Nothing,” Kevin’s eye twitched at the lie.

“Oh, it’s far too early in the morning to make me drag it out of you.” He squinted, trying to take the answer from Kevin’s eyes.

“I don’t know,” he tried, more honestly, less guarded. “Just.. watch him or go help him, I don’t care. Just stop looking at me, okay?”

Andrew watched Kevin for a moment more before standing up to grab his helmet and pull it over his head. He strapped it tight walking across the court, twirling his goalie stick in his hands. Neil turned at the noise, and his face softened ever so slightly when he realised he was coming to help. Andrew shoved the target out of the goal and stood, preparing himself, getting into position.

“Again.” He commanded, watching Neils hands, his eyes, his stance. He calculated where Neil was going to land the balls and allowed for three to pass by his racquet before deflecting a fourth. There it was again. One, two, three. Hard hits onto his shoes, done like a habit, like he wasn’t even thinking. Andrew snuck a glance at Kevin who was sat forward now, his head resting in his hands. Neil caught a ball into the net of his racquet and hurled it towards Andrew. He let it in, and watched the red reflect onto the floor of the court. Another twist of the racquet in his hands and he stopped Neils next strike with an echoing whack of the ball, sending it to Kevin’s side of the court. One, two, three. Andrew stood with his racquet by his side, and didn’t resume his position when Neil picked up a ball that had rolled back his way.

“Take position.” Neil nodded his head upwards, tightening his grip on the stick in between his hands. When Andrew didn’t move, he fell out of ready-position. “Andrew, come on.”

“What is that you’re doing?” He flicked up his visor to get a clearer look at Neil. “With your racquet?”

“What?” Neil’s reaction was genuine, like he hadn’t even realised what he was doing. His eyes flicked to his racquet when Andrew mimicked the tap, tap, tapping of the stick. He pulled his helmet off just enough to rest it on the top of his head. His hair stuck to his face with sweat. “Nothing. It’s fine. Can we keep going?” Andrew banged his stick on the court floor this time, instead of his shoe. It echoed around the stadium with a ferocious bang. “Stop. If you’re not going to be productive then put the target back and let me practice.” Even louder, he hit his racquet again. The court doors had opened and Kevin was making his way towards them to stop the interaction. Andrew made a stabbing motion with his finger towards Kevin and passed him as he headed to leave the court.

“Why are you mad at me?” Kevin threw his hands into the air and sighed as he kept walking, turning around for a moment and walking backwards.

“You know what that is,” Andrew waved a hand over his shoulder. “And you’re deciding not to tell me when you know he won’t.” He didn’t stop or falter on his quick walk to the door.

“Edgar Allan.” Kevin sighed Andrew’s way. When Andrew turned to look over his shoulder, Kevin was looking at Neil, who’d dropped his racquet to his side and raised his hands in a questioning gesture. “He must’ve picked it up over Christmas.”

“Well, he didn’t pick it up off the fucking ground.” Andrew had reached the court doors and leaned with his back against them. The three of their voices carried through the empty stadium, and even the smallest noise bounced off the walls.

“I’m right here.” Neil half-laughed, half-whined. “What are you talking about?”

“The Master’s cane.” Kevin sighed, switching to French. “The butt of your racquet.”

“Bonjour, oui oui, comment allez-vous!” Andrew mocked in a terrible french accent. “In English so the whole class can understand, Queen.” Neil had stopped, frozen while he spoke.

“Is that why?” Neil whispered in French to Kevin.

“You probably played on a couple broken toes.” Kevin looked at Andrew as he spoke, knowing he couldn’t understand, knowing he wouldn’t get it, even if he could. “He would do that,” Kevin quickly and quietly mimicked the banging of his own racquet onto the court floors, not quite able to meet Neil’s gaze. He had hooked his fingers into the of racquet and grimaced at the memory of gritted teeth and crushed digits. “Three times. If you missed a ball, if you didn’t catch it. It’s Pavlovian, maybe.”

“I don’t remember that.” Neil said, with a slow blink, a lie accompanied with a twist of the stick in his hands. He could remember, if he thought hard enough about it. He could hear the angry tapping from the sidelines as if it were on the court now, the throbbing pain caused by the cane slamming down onto blistered and fractured toes. “How long have I been doing it?”

“Since you came back.” Andrew coughed impatiently, annoyance growing at the continued French. “I was hoping you’d grow out of it.”

“You were…” Neil shifted in position and stood fully facing Kevin with his racquet in both hands across his waist. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was hoping you’d grow out of it.” Kevin repeated in a softer voice, picking up a ball that had slowly rolled his way, sitting it into his net. “Thea is the only other person I’ve seen do something like that, and she doesn’t even know that I’ve noticed.”

After a moment of silence, Neil turned to Andrew with a hand on his helmet, prepared to go back to the abandoned practice. He paused, as if finding it hard to find the right words in English. “It’s fine.” He said, meaning we’ll talk about it later.

Andrew nodded, meaning the explanation better be good.

They continued to practice in silence, Andrew off to one side of the court, and only a handful of times did Neil start to tap his foot or the court floor before he caught himself and took a pause. All three suddenly hyper aware of the anxious tic, the other two watched as Neil would consciously hold his racquet between his legs or underneath his arm to shake out his hands each time he noticed himself doing it.

Not long later, Kevin had shown him a video that had been taken during a penalty shoot out from a match, with the intention of either critiquing or complimenting his form. That became irrelevant, as Neil’s captured attention hadn’t lasted long, turning away from the video to cringe after watching himself in complete ignorance tap the end of his racquet on the top his shoe. It was a warning to himself to make the shot, but he hadn’t even realised that he’d done it. It didn’t matter that he’d scored, or that Kevin was speaking to him; All he could think of was the flashes of memories that came back from his weeks in the Nest.

The flashes of pain, of punishment, of languages he couldn’t understand and languages that he could. The thought of blood came in waves, hand in hand with the ghost of a thumb pressed hard into a bruise, of the mobility aid that had become a weapon, of ruthless and unrelenting pain.

It had taken quite some time to get rid of it, and even then he found it came back in random appearances. He’d made Andrew and Kevin both promise to point it out when he did it, and after the first few practices filled with wasted time caused by their frequent interruptions, he’d started to whittle it down to a fairly infrequent occurrence in order to maintain the flow of their sessions. It was a habit that stuck far longer than some of the others that had clung to him from the Nest. One that was too noticeable, too hard to hide. One that he eventually managed to grow out of.

Andrew and Kevin both noticed very subtly things on and off the court that Neil had brought home from Edgar Allan, but after the Spring that he had, after finally calling the Foxes his own, he slowly but surely got further and further away from what had happened to hum. The further he got from the Ravens, after Riko’s death, the end of a season, a summer of keeping himself in practice; he learned how to forget, how to move on from the deranged lifestyle of the Ravens that Kevin knew all too well. Eventually he would notice the three taps from the coaches bench during a Raven’s match, and eventually he wouldn’t feel his heart skip a beat at it.