Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kevin and Aaron were judging him hard .

Andrew was bent over at an angle (that Kevin was ready to tell him off about due to the future back pain it was going to cause) with stencils, washi tape, colored pencils, and fucking glitter splayed across Aaron’s previously clean living room floor. Aaron's eyes were narrowed as he watched Andrew color in a perfectly shaped Exy racquet that had hearts wrapped around the handle. Aaron was going to fucking gag. Kevin was watching in mutual mild disgust as Andrew held a marker cap between his teeth while he neatly outlined the letter “N” on the hot pink piece of paper he had.

“So Andrew,” Aaron finally interrupted, clearing his throat twice before continuing. “What do you think about Valentine’s Day?”

Andrew scoffed. “What?”

“Valentine’s Day.” Kevin repeated. “What do you think about it? Do you celebrate it?”

“Why the fuck would I celebrate Valentine’s Day?” Andrew questioned as he made a small heart instead of a dot about the “i” in Neil.

Aaron blinked at him. “You have a boyfriend.”

“Your point?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Kevin pressed.

“Because Valentine’s Day is a marketing ploy to make dumb fucks like you two spend money on dumb shit that’s going to end up rotting in a dirty glass vase because nobody casual can keep roses alive for more than a week.” Andrew capped his marker and picked up a roll of thin white washi tape. He started using it to shape the letters he had just outlined. 

Aaron’s eyebrows scrunched together in pure confusion. “What the fuck are you-”

Kevin swatted at him to shush him as Andrew turned to glare at them. He waited for a moment for them to continue but rolled his eyes and turned back to his art project instead. Kevin and Aaron watched as Andrew very carefully used patterned scissors to cut out pictures of Neil’s dumb fucking face from photo strips. He then used glitter glue to paste the photos to the card he was touching far too delicately to really be Andrew fucking Minyard.

Andrew wrote Neil Fucking Josten in the middle of the card in calligraphy that neither other man in the room realized he knew how to do.

Kevin frowned at it. “That’s not his middle name.”

Andrew flung a marker at Kevin without bothering to turn around. It smacked against Kevin’s cheek and he whined at the pain. Aaron huffed and threw the marker back on the floor. 

“Fuck all the way off, Day.” Andrew muttered as he carefully folded the card. Andrew drew another beautiful “A” on the front of the envelope, managing to make it look like he had printed it off of a font website. He picked up a rubber stamp, smashed it against a red ink pad, and started decorating the front of the card with hearts.

“What about love?” Kevin piped up.

“What the fuck are you on about now?” Andrew asked as the tip of his tongue stuck out in concentration, just barely wetting his lips.

“What do you think about love?”

“Why are you two asking so many stupid fucking questions?” Andrew wondered aloud. “Love is weakness. It’s a mistake. It’s an excuse to do inexcusable shit. It’s an error of human evolution.” Andrew flipped the envelope over and wrote “I Hate You” in flowy skinny red letters.

Aaron gaped at him. “Are you serious right now?”

“Did you expect a different answer or something?” Andrew asked as he started dotting glitter on the edges of the cardstock in front of him.

“You’re making Neil a goddamn Valentine’s Day present, you asshole-”

Andrew had removed a knife from his armbands and had it pointed at Kevin before he could finish his sentence. “I will finish you before you dumb fucks have enough sense to get each other a present a week before the day you celebrate the dumbest fucking holiday alive. Capiche?” 

Kevin paled at Andrew’s accusation. “I’m not- We’re not-”

“He and I aren’t-”

“Oh you two are going to lie to me now?” Andrew snorted and stood up, leaving his mess untouched on the floor. “Your stupidity when you’re around each other is a gift in itself.” He sauntered out of the room with his homemade Valentine’s Day card in hand.

Kevin and Aaron remained on the couch, looking at the remnants of a sparkly troll that had thrown up in their living room. Aaron cleared his throat and stood up. He stretched his arms above his head and let out the fakest yawn ever but Kevin was too focused on his own thoughts to say something. He muttered something like yeah, sure and waved Aaron away.

___ 

Valentine’s Day.

___

Kevin went to seventeen different stores to find a present for Aaron. Seventeen . He went alone to the first five, Nicky tagged along for three of them, Neil somehow ended up accompanying him to seven, and Allison (the only useful one of them all) went with him to the last two. He found something Aaron would like at the last two stores and purchased them immediately, vowing to never go gift shopping again.

“Did you get me a present?” It was the first question Aaron asked when he stumbled into their shared bedroom. Something that was as friends to start but they actually had five people living in a four bedroom house and two of them were actually dating. There wasn’t a need for anybody to share a room yet they did. 

Kevin stared at the suspicious gift bag in Aaron’s hand and pointed an accusing finger at it. “What is that?”

“It’s a present for you!” Aaron barked, rubbing his free hand over his face. “I thought we weren’t getting each other anything!”

“The fu- then why do you have a present?” Kevin retorted.

“Because-” Aaron did not have an answer. “I- it- fuck, Kevin.”

Kevin laughed softly. He reached into the closet he was standing next to and pulled out a gift bag that might be the same exact one that Aaron was holding. “Here.” He set it on the bed and made a grand gesture with his arm. 

Aaron sat on the end of the bed and gingerly set his bag next to Kevin’s. The bags were identical and their contents looked eerily similar from the outside. They started pulling out the contents and they each froze. Inside each bag were two of the same exact items. 

Kevin let out a startled laugh as he held the softest sweater in his hands. It was a soft blue color, like the color of the middle of a breaking wave in the middle of the summer. Kevin’s favorite. In Aaron’s hands was the softest gray sweater, Heather gray like the middle of the first rain cloud during a summer storm. Aaron’s favorite. They had two favorite parts of the summer, Kevin’s being the constant access to water and Aaron’s being the cooler but also humid days of summer rain. They locked eyes for a moment, smiled slightly, and reached for the second item.

Aaron squawked at the plush item and looked up at Kevin. “Did you really-”

Kevin’s hands grasped his gift at the same time and he snatched it out of the bag. “This is-”

“Our first-”

“Date! When you-”

“Won you that dumb fucking-”

“Stuffed bird!”

“It was an owl!” Aaron defended, his lower lip sticking out in a way that Kevin had grown to adore.

Kevin snorted out a burst of laughter. He reached out to cup Aaron’s cheek and the blonde’s laughter stopped, his cheeks coloring. “Aaron, damn you.”

Aaron’s lip quirked up. “Kevin Day, do you love me or something?”

Kevin rolled his eyes and leaned toward Aaron. “Did you maybe go shopping with Allison?”

Aaron nodded. “I did. She offered. She found the best store there. She ditched me while I looked around and she couldn’t stop laughing after I picked those out so I kind of thought they were dumb.” A frown tugged at Aaron’s lips that Kevin wanted to kiss off of his face.

“They’re perfect.” Kevin murmured as he leaned in and did just that. Aaron enthusiastically met him halfway.

The card was sitting on Andrew’s pillow when Neil woke up that evening. He had pulled an all nighter studying for a math exam and other than watch him study for 47 minutes, Andrew simply fell asleep as he usually did. The warmth of the summer sun greeted Neil when his eyes fluttered open. His jaw popped with a long yawn and he reached for Andrew but his side of the bed was cold. 

Neil frowned and tried to remember what day it was. It was that kind of a nap.

He found the thick envelope instead. He sat up in bed and stared at it for so long that it started making his vision swim. Neil picked it up and ran his fingertips across the “A” Andrew had drawn on the front of it. Andrew had picked up calligraphy to keep his hands busy when he tried to quit smoking. He didn’t quit in the end but he picked up a new habit and he was a natural at it. Neil smirked at the dots of glitter in the corners, remembering a classmate's rant about how glitter and resin are ruining the planet. Neil later told Andrew that while he did love turtles “and fish and shit” he also liked glitter eyeshadow and fancy little figurines with dried flowers inside of them.

Neil scoffed as he opened the envelope and more glitter spilled out onto their comforter. That was not going to come out easily. He snorted quietly at the Neil Fucking Josten scrawled across the front in that flowy writing Andrew mastered without even really trying. The homemade card was covered in hearts. Stamped ones, drawn ones, tiny ones, big ones- all varying shades of red. The inside of the card had pictures from a picture booth six of them shoved themselves into. Andrew had snatched them away from Nicky before anybody else had a chance to see them. There were four carefully cut out squares (that had some kind of fancy border) arranged across the page. There were six people in the photos but if you were to ask Andrew he would only have seen Neil. In each photo, as everyone else was struggling to get their face in the camera and Neil was oblivious to his surroundings: Andrew was watching him. Andrew’s hazel eyes were glued to his face in each photo, the ghost of a smile dancing on his lips.

Neil’s eyebrows furrowed together as he read I really do hate you, Abram at the bottom of the card. There wasn’t a letter full of emotions and feelings, only a singular statement that said everything Neil needed to know. Neil sucked half of his bottom lip between his teeth and chewed on it. 

He also got Andrew something. Neil had zero experience giving gifts, absolutely none, he was barely experienced receiving them. He went to Nicky for help because everyone went to NIcky for help, he was the dad of their group of misfits after all. Wymack could have been an option if Neil hadn’t previously heard from Kevin that he had to be reminded of birthdays, anniversaries, and the slightest celebration. Wymack got Abby a snowglobe for the first anniversary. A snowglobe purchased from a gas station. A gas station they stopped at on the way to their anniversary vacation. Abby cherished it but Neil was not impressed. 

Neil glanced up at the doorway when he heard stomping up the stairs, Andrew’s heavy feet thudding against the wood. He slammed the door open and was huffing with exertion. He held up an envelope and pointed a shaky finger at it.

“The fuck is this?”

Neil shrugged one shoulder. “It’s- I don’t- you don’t like it?”

“I didn’t say that. I asked- what the fuck- what- when?” Andrew’s chest was heaving and Neil was watching him carefully. He… did like it?

“You do like it?” Neil had to ask.

“Shut the fuck up, Josten.” Andrew stepped into the room and pushed the door shut so hard behind him that a framed photo of a magazine that had Andrew frowning on it fell off of its already sketchy nail. 

“The photo!” Neil gasped as if it mattered in the slightest.

Andrew yanked his own shirt off and clambered up the bed. “Yes or no?”

Neil’s whispered yes had barely passed his lips before Andrew was kissing him. Neil melted against him, sighing contentedly and grinning against his mouth. 

“Stop smiling.”

Neil could not stop smiling.

“I cannot stand you.” 

Neil’s smile, for whatever reason, widened. “So you do like-”

“Ask me one more goddamn time, Josten.”

“Have I ever told you how much I enjoy your idea of foreplay?” Neil kissed Andrew again. Andrew pulled back to glare at him. He turned the envelope over until the object of their discussion fell onto the bed.

“Who took these?”

Neil glanced at the calendar. “I did.” Andrew’s blank stare said he did not believe Neil. “Allison helped. She picked out the clothes and showed me how to use the camera. It had a timer thing on it. She helped me print it but swears she didn’t look at the photos. I told her it wouldn’t end well if she did.”

“November-” Andrew stressed the word. 

Neil rolled his lips between his teeth to keep from smiling again. November was the most fun to take. It was Andrew’s birthday after all. “November.” Neil repeated, enunciating. 

“You’re wearing my jersey.”

Neil nodded. “I was.”

“And nothing else.” Andrew clarified.

Neil shook his head. “Not true, I had shoes on-”

“Neil fucking Josten, strappy high heels are not- you are not-” Andrew sputtered.

“The jersey was a nice touch, wasn’t it?”

“You’re a fucking junkie.” Andrew hissed as he rolled his hips against Neil’s. “Absolute fucking junkie.”

Neil’s laugh was a combination between groaning and trying not to lose his shit. “Happy Val-”

“Shut the fuck up.”