autistic andreil hcs:
- neil gets super understimulated in class and he stims by clenching his jaw or chewing on things so he ends up chewing all his pens and pencils to shreds. they look like he was trying to eat them. sometimes he chews all the way through them. when andrew scolds him for it, he's like i can't help it i gotta bite i gotta chomp i just have to. so andrew gets him a teething toy from the baby section at the store, as a joke (or he acts like it's a joke). but neil starts using these, mainly the bigger ones that are kinda squishy and have the lil nibs on them. people look at him weird but he doesn't care. someone is like "is that...a chew toy?" he's like, "yeah my boyfriend got it for me cus i kept chewing on my pens and he was tired of it" and everybody actually finds it kinda cute and funny
- andrew cant stand silence, so he makes lil noises when it's too quiet, like tapping or snapping or thumping or whatever. unfortunately, these sounds make neil die inside and he desperately tells andrew to stop. andrew does, because he understands, but then they have to start playing soft music or background noise when they're hanging out in a quiet room together. they settle on lofi and it's actually kinda nice, they find, to listen to lofi and drink coffee and/or study and/or snuggle together, just the two of them.
- andrew usually wears noise cancelling airpods 24/7 (my hcs are modern au by default get off my dick) because he likes to block out the sound even if he's not listening to music (also it deters people from trying to interact with him, which is a plus). he buys neil some after the first time he notices neil cringing at a certain noise. later, watching them attached to each other's sides wearing matching armbands, matching airpods, and matching blank expressions become kinda comical (or kinda scary depending on how you look at it)
- neil almost exclusively wears oversized fleece-lined sweatshirts as soon as the temperature dips below 75. if he doesn't have any sweatshirts left, like if they're all in the wash or if the only ones he has left Don't Feel Right, he simply won't go to class
- nicky introduces him to oversized knitted sweaters, though. which he begins scouting thrift stores for and wearing frequently. nicky got him one that is striped with pastels and was probably knitted by somebody's grandma in the 90s and it's so heavy it's like a weighted blanket. neil wears it at least 3x a week. it's adorable
- while andrew has been listening to almost entirely the same music since he was fifteen, neil has adhd as well and thus has very eclectic music taste (this is my experience as someone with both). like he'll make a playlist of like ten songs he likes and listen to only those songs 24/7 for like three weeks. then they start making him feel gross and claustrophobic because he's been listening to them so much so he'll have to find a few songs in a COMPLETELY different genre and then repeat the cycle. so he'll go from like indie pop to death metal to hyperpop to showtunes in the span of like two months. lofi is always a staple for him though, it just doesn't give him the dopamine spike that he gets from other music
- (you know what almost always gives him the dopamine spike though? kpop lmao)
anyway, can you tell i'm projecting? there will almost certainly be more of these but i'll leave it here for now. (gotta speculate about andrews special interest at some point right?) send me any requests for aftg hcs please!!
