#the twin test is aaron dressing up as andrew to see if neil can tell them apart

[jingerhead]

I'm obsessed with Aaron and Neil having an intense rivalry with each other whereas Andrew and Neil are deeply in love with each other like

Aaron, walking into the living room: you have my approval

Andrew, looking up from his phone: I thought you hated him

Aaron: oh no I do

Aaron: I will forever be offended that on the day we met he made fun of me for going to med school

Aaron: but unfortunately he passed the twin test

Andrew: the what

[plaidfurby]

Under the Weather

I saw a Tumblr post this morning by @monstersanonymous​ asking for a “fic of Nicky getting sick and [the twins] trying to take care of him” and they told me to tag me when I post it, so here you are! The Thing!

this work was also posted to my ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26161240

WC: 1623 TW: I don’t think there’s anything, but notify me if you spot something!

Nicky rarely gets sick. It’s something he considers himself lucky to be able to say, seeing how unforgiving most of his former employers tended to be with that sort of thing; and yeah, Nicky gets it, businesses depend on their employees to keep things running and it’s a hassle to try to navigate the shift adjustments, but what’s he supposed to do? Somehow, he doubts simply apologising for passing out by a customer’s table would help.

His ‘employer’ is much kinder, nowadays. Nicky texts Coach Wymack almost immediately after he wakes up, letting him know that he won’t make it today - a 103 degree fever and endless shivers are nothing to sneeze at (though Nicky does) - and all Wymack responds with is ‘rest up, kid. Try to drink some tea’ and Nicky sort of absentmindedly wonders if this is what it’s like to have good parents.

He isn’t first up, but he’s up before Kevin. The loft bed on the other side of the room was empty - both bunks - when Nicky woke up, so the disaster duo is likely to be on the roof, where only God knows what they get up to. (Nicky stopped vocalizing his theories when Andrew stabbed the kitchen table during breakfast several months ago - the mark is still there, forever marring the beautiful oak.)

Kevin still hasn’t woken up when the front door opens and the aforementioned duo steps inside, noses and ears nipped pink from the winter chill. Nicky has made his way to the kitchen and is sure he looks piteous, half-leaned over, wearing a blanket like a cape, cup of tea clutched in his hands. He certainly feels it.

Andrew casts him a brief glance and turns away. Then freezes, and slowly turns back around. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks, with all the tact that he cares to have (which is to say: none).

“I’m sick”, Nicky explains. Clearly. “I’m not coming to practice today.”

Neil gives him a concerned look. “What kind of sick?”

“Ah, nothing major”, Nicky says, waving a hand dismissively. “Running a fever, shivers. I have a headache but I think it’s dehydration - if I rest today I might be fine by tomorrow.”

Andrew is still looking at him. Nicky can’t read him very well, so he has no idea what he’s thinking, but it must be something to warrant that long-lasting of a look. Eventually, he says, “I’m making breakfast. Lie down.” That’s it. But it’s… A lot, still, really. So Nicky does.

He gets comfortable on the couch, burrowing into his blanket and trying to get comfortable. Neil leaves the bedroom fully dressed with pillows and blankets in his hands that he offers to Nicky. “Aww, you’re so sweet. Thank you.” Neil shrugs it off, but the tips of his ears go slightly red and Nicky decides it’s really cute. He’d spend some more time looking if his eyes weren’t weirdly warm and all he wants is to close them, so he does.

When Andrew hands him a bowl of oatmeal, complete with three types of berries and a sprinkle of sugar, Nicky tries to thank him, which he sneers at (but Nicky can’t see the usual irritation or anger in it, so he imagines it’s just what he thinks he should do). Since he won’t accept that response, Nicky just nods gratefully when he also fills a decanter with lemon water and leaves it and a glass beside the couch, glaring at Nicky as if daring him to say something.

When the others leave for practice, Nicky spends some time staring at that decanter, tracing the edges with a fingertip, feeling very, very warm.

***

He must’ve fallen asleep at some point, because the front door opening wakes him up. He’s sweating and his head is pounding more intensely than it was before, so he can’t help the groan that escapes his lips. His throat feels like he’s swallowed sand, and he reaches a hand down to fumble for the water.

“I told you to drink that”, Andrew says.

“You told me nothing”, Nicky rasps out in response. He furrows his brows when Aaron kneels down next to him to pour a glass of water but receives it gratefully. “What’re you doing here? Not that I’m not glad for the company. And…” He looks around, but the twins are the only people in the room. “... the others?”

“Practice didn’t end yet”, Aaron mumbles, getting to his feet. “You need food.”

Andrew walks wordlessly into the kitchen.

The whole thing is really very confusing. “Wait, it’s Wednesday - you have a session with Bee?” Nicky struggles into a sitting position, leaning heavily against the armrest.

“We cancelled it”, Aaron explains. “You need to get out of the blankets for a while, so we can get your natural temperature. It’ll show higher if you don’t.”

Apparently, no more answers are forthcoming, so Nicky hooks onto that line of questioning while Aaron helps unearth him from his mound of blankets. “Why?” The cold (actually room-temperature) air feels nice against his skin for all of two seconds before he starts shivering uncontrollably.

Aaron shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “Andrew told me you’re sick.”

And that’s all it took?

That’s apparently the extent to which Aaron feels like explaining things, because he mutters about the thermometer before running off into the bathroom. Nicky listens to the sounds of Aaron looking for the thermometer, struggling to distinguish them from the clanking going on in the kitchen, and he is very, very confused about the whole thing.

“Can I, uh, get my phone?” he asks feebly.

Expected responses: “Go get it yourself” (Andrew); “Go get it yourself” (Aaron).

Actual response: “Give me a second”, Andrew says.

Nicky stares.

And then he does go get his phone for him, but he doesn’t look him in the eye when he hands it over. And then he goes back to the kitchen, quickly replaced by Aaron with a thermometer in hand that he makes Nicky hold in his mouth for an awkward amount of time before it beeps. “103”, he notes.

“Same as before, then”, Nicky comments and leans back into the pillows.

“Have more water”, Aaron tells him, and goes to get seated on a beanbag. So he does, and ten minutes later, Andrew hands him a bottle of soup, still steaming, and a spoon.

“Thank you”, Nicky tries again, and Andrew just grunts and goes to get seated by the window. He still feels that strange warmth. He thinks he might cry, but tries not to. He can’t imagine the twins would know how to deal with that. One time Neil was on the verge of a panic attack and Andrew told him to ‘stop it’.

By the time the others arrive back from practice, Nicky has finished the soup and is lying contentedly in his blanket fort, barely shivering anymore but still running a fever. Kevin, apparently, has bought him something to deal with the sickness: one of those health drinks he’s always chugging down, but with ginger and lemon and honey. Neil refills his decanter.

Since when are the people in this dorm so nice?

***

That night, Aaron goes back to his and Katelyn’s place and Andrew retreats back to the bedroom. Kevin is, as he often is, watching an exy game on his laptop, headphones pulled over his ears. Nicky’s temperature has dropped by several points over the course of the afternoon and evening, so he doesn’t think he’ll have to spend another day in this textile pile, but he decides to stay in it for a little while longer. Getting up seems too exhausting after a day of immobility.

Only he and Neil remain in the living room. Neil, lying on his stomach on a beanbag, legs stretched out on the floor (how can that be comfortable? Nicky has no idea) is studying for one test or other, and Nicky watches him for a while. Eventually, he notices and looks up.

“Something on your mind?”

Nicky shrugs.

“Andrew was worried about you during practice, you know. He’s hard to read, but he was.” And if anyone can read Andrew, it’s one Neil Josten, so Nicky has to trust his word on the matter, but it feels kind of difficult.

“I didn’t… They gave me soup. And took my temperature. And got my phone for me when I asked?”

Neil’s smile is amused. “Real signs of love.”

“I mean yeah, in their case, it’s like… I didn’t… I.”

He must be looking piteous again. Neil seems to think so. “They care about you, you realize that, right?”

Nicky raises one shoulder, pursing his lips.

“Nicky”, Neil says and sits up. “You’re like an older brother to them. You saved them from a really bad situation and they realize that. Of course they’re going to take care of you when you need it.”

Nicky laughs, but he thinks it sounds distraught. “Then why does Andrew keep pointing knives at me?”

“He does that to everyone.”

“He threatens to kill me every single day.”

“I’d say join the club, but I think you joined it before I did”, Neil says wryly. “Nicky, not a day goes by where I don’t get told he’ll push me off the roof.”

Well… Andrew really does care about Neil, that much is obvious. And if he does it to Neil, too…? Nicky is struggling with this.

Neil’s voice gets uncharacteristically soft. “Andrew sent four guys to the hospital for you. Don’t think Aaron wouldn’t at least try to do the same. They’d kill before they let anything happen to you.”

When it comes to those two, that really isn’t an exaggeration. Somehow, Nicky can’t help but smile.

[jsteneil]

familiar stranger (strange family)

leave all pretense of realism at the door pls here’s a thing

“It’s only two hours,” Neil says.

If looks could kill, he probably would collapse on the floor right here and then. Aaron only stops glaring daggers at him to bury his head back in the toilet seat.

“Why is he even here,” he asks after dry-heaving for a minute. “Go away.”

Neil rolls his eyes so far back that Andrew can see the whites. He pushes at Neil’s arm gently in direction of the door: Neil is Neil, and Andrew trusts him, but this isn’t the kind of situation he’s helpful in.

“I’m just saying,” Neil says, “you’ve played full Exy games through worse—”

“You’re starting to sound like Kevin,” Andrew tells him.

“Sometimes he’s right.”

Something hits the wall a good foot left of Neil’s head and Andrew turns back to his brother’s prostrate body.  

“Leave,” Aaron all but growls.

“I hope you throw up on yourself,” Neil snaps, but he steps outside.

Andrew waits until he can hear the suite door opening and closing, then he steps closer to his brother, reaching for the glass sitting on the sink.

“Drink,” he says, thrusting the glass at Aaron once he looks up.

“This is Matt’s.”

“I’ll wash it.”

Aaron spills a little down his shirt as he takes a long sip, closing his eyes against another bout of nausea. Andrew swipes his phone from the vanity, quickly enters the password he’s learned a long time ago, and pulls up the browser. He dislikes having to see the background picture of a certain smiling cheerleader, but his own flip phone doesn’t come with internet access. The phone buzzes; Andrew swipes away the text notification when he sees the name of the sender. Aaron even added a heart after her name; this is an unfortunate depth of sappiness Andrew hadn’t predicted.

“What are you doing?” Aaron protests when he hears the buzz. They both know Andrew has never taken his phone off silent. “Give me that.”

“Drink and shut up.”

The first site he checks is unhelpful; they advise deep breathing to fight off nausea and drinking water to prevent dehydration. He nudges Aaron’s thigh with his foot. “Small sips.”

As if to prove him right, Aaron vomits back up the long gulps of water he’s just drank.

“I’m calling Abby,” Andrew says. “You’re not going to that final.”

If possible, Aaron looks even more panicked. “No, I have to go.”

“With a bucket?”

“Powell hates athletes, he’s been waiting all year for an opportunity to fail me. He won’t accept a note from Abby.”

“Tragic,” Andrew says, composing the number.

Aaron’s hand on his wrist stops him. “Andrew.”

Andrew jerks away but locks the phone. He meets his brother’s gaze, crumpled on the floor next to the toilet, his face sweaty and ashen gray. It’s a familiar sight: it brings back up memories of long days spent outside the bathroom at Tilda’s, before Nicky got them away from the place. It seems they always go back to this: silent show of support and hard-won care.

“Andrew,” Aaron says again.

Their high school years were a blur of barely restrained hostility and ambiguous protection, but Andrew also remembers what having a twin felt like; the invisibility of looking exactly like another person, the usefulness of it all.

“No.”

The word is final. Like more and more often, Aaron doesn’t care. “You have to,” he insists.

“Have to nothing,” Andrew tells him. “This does not benefit me.”

“If I’m held back, you’ll graduate without me. I know Powell will do everything in his power to fail me even at the makeup test.”

He’s learned where to strike. Unbelievably, Andrew can feel his resolve crumbling under the what-ifs.

“I’m not a Biochem student.”

Andrew’s specialty is crime and violence. He doesn’t care about the intricacies of the human body he’s damaged time and time again, others’ or his own.

“My notes are on my desk,” Aaron insists. “You have four hours. It’ll just be a multiple-choice quiz, he told us.”

Andrew’s mind is already drafting a pro or con list. He can recognize the battle he’s lost.

“Call the cheerleader,” he tells Aaron, chucking his phone at him. “You need saltines and water, and I don’t have time to baby you.”

Aaron’s head whips up, the look on his face surprised. Andrew inwardly scoffs. He should know better by now only to try and fight battles he knows he can win.

“Thank you,” he says.

“Take a shower,” is Andrew’s sole response.

Andrew settles on the couch with Aaron’s thick pile of notes. He knows his brother’s handwriting almost as well as his own, as well as his note-taking habits. The information is always clearly presented, easy to read and grasp. Easier even to retain, for someone like Andrew.

She knocks on the door thirty minutes after he’s left Aaron in the bathroom. The water has cut off a few minutes ago, but apart from one sound of retching, Aaron has yet to make any noise or an indication that he’s leaving the room any time soon.

“I brought medicine and crackers,” she says when he opens the door.

She has the good sense not to smile at him.

“Don’t talk to me,” Andrew warns her. “He’s in the bathroom.”

She goes without another word, returns soon for plastic bags and a bottle of water, then Aaron slowly inches out of the bathroom into the bedroom, and she closes the door on them.

Andrew goes back to the stack of notes he’s learning. Aaron’s final is early in the afternoon; since Matt called them in when he left for one of his own, it leaves the entire morning for Andrew to try and learn three years’ worth of a subject he doesn’t take. Luckily, he has Aaron’s textbooks for any concept he might not know, and good memory of the course he had to take in freshman year for his gen eds.

Matt comes back sometime around ten, followed closely by Dan. Andrew checks the time. Neil should be going for his last final soon.

“How’s he?” Matt says when he sees Andrew.

Dan, always more suspicious of her players called Minyard, asks: “What are you doing?”

“Bedroom,” Andrew tells them, checking his phone.

A message from Neil, timestamped from five minutes ago: I’m going now. See you for lunch?

Aaron’s final starts at one, Andrew sends back. Neil will understand.

Don’t make him do too well.

“Oh, fuck,” Dan says, leaning over the couch to look at Aaron’s notes. “Andrew, you’re not serious.”

“Go away.”

“If you get caught—”

“It’s not your team anymore,” Andrew reminds her, because they lost against the Trojans in semis two weeks ago.

“What’s happening?”

“Andrew is going to fill in for Aaron. Andrew, I know you don’t care about legality, but you do know the consequences of you getting caught, right? You’ll both be kicked out, at the very least.”

“Funny,” Andrew says, “he didn’t seem to mind when he asked me earlier. Now go away.”

Dan swears violently, and trudges into the bedroom.

“Babe,” Matt calls, jogging behind her. “He’s really not well—”

The door closes on the rest of their conversation. Aaron’s state must have weakened Dan’s anger; by the time they come out of the bedroom, she’s calmed enough to leave the suite without talking to Andrew.

It’s not like Andrew minds.

When the clock hits half an hour before the start of the exam, Andrew’s had time to read all of Aaron’s notes twice. He feels confident, if only because it’s the only way he knows how to feel for accomplishments he’s set his mind to. He’ll walk in the room, take the test, get Aaron to pass, and come home to collapse on his bed with Neil, who’s been far too stressed lately. Neil’s not the best student, mostly because he never learned how to study, and the weight of Exy in regards of his academical results is too heavy for him to ignore.

Luckily for Andrew, he doesn’t care.

He goes into the bedroom to look for Aaron’s book bag, putting in the notes and too many pens. Aaron always prepares for the worst on exam days. He adds a bottle of water and swaps his phone for Aaron’s.

The whole time, Aaron lies in his bed and watches him without speaking.

“Clothes,” Andrew asks.

“Left side of the closet.”

They dress mostly alike, in dark colors and heavy fabrics, but Andrew leaves behind his armbands, too recognizable, and his boots. Aaron favors lighter shoes, black high tops with dirty white soles. He parts his hair the way Aaron does, lower on the side. He doesn’t have to hide his natural look anymore: without the manic grin, their expressions are similar.

“Good luck,” Aaron says finally, tucked into his blankets.

“You owe me.”

“I covered for your shit so many times—”

“No,” Andrew insists. “I have three finals tomorrow. You owe me.”

“Alright. Don’t let the other students to catch you—”

Andrew doesn’t answer. They’ve done it enough time in high school for Andrew to know how to pass for someone he’s not.

“Wait, Andrew—” Aaron’s tone of voice makes Andrew stop, one hand on the knob. Aaron takes a breath and says: “It’ll look weird if you don’t at least wait for Katelyn at the end.”

“I’m not touching her.”

“That’s okay, you can say you’re not feeling well. I’m going to be stuck here for a few days anyway. Just—don’t blow her off in front of everybody, alright?”

“I left my knives.”

Aaron’s glare is withering. “You know what I mean.”

Andrew killed for Aaron; he got into a car accident, and he accepted to join college and play Exy even when he was sure he was going to kill himself before their time was up. But this might be too much.

Andrew arrives almost at the last minute to avoid being roped in a conversation with Aaron’s classmates. The cheerleader, who left Fox Tower a little before noon to get something to eat and prepare for the exam, is watching anxiously from her seat in the middle of the room.

Their seats are assigned in alphabetical order. Andrew signs in as Aaron at the list near the door, and makes his way to her, since her last name places them next to each other. He supposes it might be a comfort for them usually; but she looks uneasy enough that Andrew hopes his presence makes her fail.

He’s barely taken out a pen when the exam starts. Aaron was right, at least: it is a multiple-choice quiz, but a long one. Despite his memory and Aaron’s notes, Andrew has to make up some answers when he finds himself unable to even understand the question.

He finishes early. He’s not the first one to leave the room, but the clock indicates an hour of time left. The cheerleader glances up when he gets up: she’s still only halfway through, which means Andrew leaves the building and her behind without a second thought about his cover. Waiting an hour is a waste of time he cannot be bothered with.

Aaron is sleeping soundly when Andrew comes back. He doesn’t stir even when Andrew changes back into his clothes, drops the bag and switches their phones again.

Andrew nudges him with his foot.

“Fuck off,” Aaron mutters in the pillow.

“I’m done.”

Aaron wakes up properly. “How did it go?”

“You’ll pass.”

“I need to have good grades for med school.”

“Should have thought of that before getting too sick to move,” Andrew says, unsympathetic.

“You’re a jerk.”

“I’ll ask you for something later.”

“How could I forget.” Aaron drops back down into his pillow. “Thanks,” he says more seriously.

Andrew slams the door when he leaves the room.

Neil is waiting in their suite, buried in a bean bag with an Exy match playing on the television. His eyes flit over to Andrew as soon as he opens the door, though, an indication that he’s not actually paying any attention to the screen.

“How did it go?”

Andrew shushes him, collapsing in the bean bag next to Neil’s. Neil drags his a little closer, lying down so their legs are touching from the thigh down.

“That bad, uh?” he says.

Andrew slaps a hand on his mouth to keep him quiet. He feels exhausted, drained more than he thought he would be after an hour of exam. It’s a good thing Neil can understand the command for what is: a prayer of quiet.

Neil kisses Andrew’s palm when he’s too slow to take it off his mouth, and Andrew opens one eye to glare at him. He has that look in his eyes that promises tenderness, even though they’re both still learning that language.

Andrew closes his eyes again, drawing strength from the smooth feeling of Neil’s shirt under his fingers. Neither of them turns to the television again for the rest of the evening, but it doesn’t matter.