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We all know that Neil has two smiles, his "Neil-smile" and his "Nathaniel-smile". I went through the books to see how many times Neil actually smiles, because god knows it's not that many.
His "Nathaniel-smile" pops up a few times, usually when he's around Riko, threatening someone, or daydreaming about his father's gruesome death.
"Are you threatening a federal agent?" Nathaniel smiled so hard his burns ached. "I wouldn't dare."
He smiles his normal or "Neil-smile" a total of eight times through the series. Never in the first book, twice in the second, and six times in the third. Out of these eight, four were towards Andrew, one to Kevin, one to Wymack, one to Nicky, and one to Matt.
Nicky subsided with a lightning-quick grin in Neil's direction. Neil managed a small smile back.
The original point of this post was that Neil really doesn't smile or laugh or anything as much as he does in fanfictions and stuff. Andrew and Neil are not a grumpyxsunshine trope, Neil is not the light to Andrew's darkness, they're both massively fucked up and Neil does his crazy serial killer smile more often than his regular one.
He couldn't sleep, but at least he could daydream his father's death over and over again. That was almost enough to make him smile, and eventually it thawed the chill from his veins.
Anyways, that 𝘸𝘢𝘴 the original point of the post, but now I'm stuck thinking about how cute it is that he literally smiles only eight times throughout the entire series, and 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘳 of them are to Andrew. It's so fucking cute, especially when you consider the circumstances of the rest of them.
Andrew, who for once hadn't wasted their time denying that this thing between them might actually mean something to both of them. Neil hadn't even noticed the silence at first, too distracted by his dizzying thoughts. Now he couldn't help but smile and pull Andrew in.
He shares a tired smile with Kevin after the first Raven match. He smiles when Wymack picks up the phone when he calls him after he comes back from Evermore. He returns Nicky's grin with a small smile to reassure himself when Riko comes to watch their match against the Longhorns. And he gives Matt a tight smile during the final match against the Ravens.
"Neil?" All the gruff posturing left Wymack's voice; that sharp edge was all alarm. "Are you all right?" Neil smiled. It felt like it tore his face open. "No. No, I'm not. I know it's kind of sudden, but can you come get me? I'm at the airport."
With Andrew, basically every single time is directly 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 of him. Those smiles are some of the only times he actually feels or shows genuine pleasure or happiness, and I just think that's so cute.
It wasn't funny—none of this was—but that response was so obnoxious and so typically Andrew that Neil couldn't help but smile.
Technically he does smile a ninth time, at all of the Foxes, but since that was immediately after and because of Riko's death, I'm tempted to classify it as a "Nathaniel-smile" lmao.
Neil looked from one tired face to the next, soaking them in, reveling in everything they'd accomplished tonight and imagining how they'd react when they heard the news tomorrow. "What's so funny?" Nicky asked when he spotted Neil in the doorway. Neil hadn't realized he was smiling. "Life?"
(Also the word smile no longer feels like a word to me now. I never realised how often Renee smiled until I had to go through every single time any character smiled in the books)