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rainbow-femme · 10 months

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Thinking too much about AFTG again and I know we rag on Neil for being oblivious but I don’t think Andrew understands for most of the story that Neil likes him back

(FYI I haven’t read all the extra content, Nora may have said something about Andrew’s mindset that contradicts this, I don’t care it’s my literary analysis and I control my interpretation and the only canon that exists is what’s in the books. Also I’m Jewish, and the number one rule is anything can be true so long as you can back it up textually)

You’ve got the whole “I’m not your answer and you sure as fuck aren’t mine” line. By this point two things have happened recently: Neil has become outwardly more emotionally and physically vulnerable, and Neil has shown more interest in spending time with Andrew as well as interest in Andrew in general. And Andrew’s response to this seems to be the assumption that Neil is having a crisis he isn’t sharing and seems to have decided that Andrew is the answer to fixing that crisis. To be fair he is having a crisis, Andrew is just an unrelated benefit.

Which makes sense, most of his relationships are based, at least in Andrew’s mind, on him providing a service in exchange for someone’s presence in his life due to his belief that people will not be around him otherwise. So if Neil is looking at him in an open, appreciative, and interested way he seems to assume it’s because Neil, the terrified guy on the run from something, has found himself enjoying the stability Andrew provides and is seeing being near Andrew as a solution to his problems. That maybe Neil has tricked himself into thinking he has feelings for Andrew because he likes having someone take care of him and that’s the reason, and we see from Andrew stopping the kiss when Neil is upset that he does not consider being interested in someone while emotionally vulnerable to be real consent, therefore if Neil is interested in him due to being upset and afraid that is not Neil actually being interested. He also is clearly very agitated by this first kiss, seeming to see himself as a predator who lost control and harmed Neil by taking advantage of him.

He also continues to do nice things for Neil after getting back, despite initially seeming to express frustration, disinterest, and distaste for Neil. Giving him keys to the car, buying him a new charger, giving Neil the shotgun seat. Andrew’s habit of feeling the need to incentivize the people he cares for to stay with him, as well as what appears to naturally be his love language of giving gifts and acts of service as a replacement for verbally sharing emotions. I’m not saying that when he’s doing nice things it’s for personal gain, but I think part of him feels good doing it and part of him believes this is all he has to offer this person. He got back and didn’t say nice things to Neil because he can’t, but he can quietly take care of Neil in a way that says “please stay with me, I want you to be ok” that he verbally can’t. He knows Neil values the ability to leave upsetting situations, that Neil reacted positively the last time Andrew gave him keys, gives Neil a way to charge his phone ie have a lifeline to safety and Andrew when needed, and he’s saying that he still implicitly trusts Neil with things that are important to him. And of course shotgun means “I want you to be the person who is nearest to me”. He similarly starts making a habit of sitting next to Neil when the team is together. Andrew very much is a cat, he’s going to swat at you but also glue himself to your side

There’s also the various moments where Andrew states out loud that he has an attraction and growing emotional attachment to Neil that he has already written off as impossible. He calls Neil a pipe dream, says he knows nothing will come of having an interest in Neil without having made any attempts to see if Neil is interested. If you follow up a confession of interest with a statement that nothing will happen, you can’t be hurt by rejection because you didn’t give the person a chance to reject you.

And it doesn’t seem like it’s because Andrew is purposely avoiding attachments to people. Most of the effort he puts into his life is in his relationships, specifically into giving people reasons to stay near him. He makes the deals with Kevin and Aaron, he could have gone to a school with a more competitive Exy program but went to one where Nicky and Aaron could come and be on the team and in fact made that a requirement, he proves to Kevin that he made the right choice in making Andrew his shield by attacking anyone who hurts Kevin and putting a target on his own back. Before the start of the books we know he went out of his way to connect with Renee and do things for her that meant a lot to her, things that again seem to represent “I am doing her a favor, therefore she will be more likely to stay.” And anything else could be written off as born again Christian charity rather than acknowledge she has love and care for him.

He doesn’t see an attempt at connecting with Neil to be useless because he has no interest in building relationships with people, if there’s anything Andrew is passionate about it’s building and maintaining relationships with people. He sees it as obviously useless because there’s no way Neil would legitimately want to be with Andrew in the same way that Andrew wants him, that it is impossible to consider Neil reciprocating the way he’s feeling because all he wants is Neil himself and he doesn’t think anyone could just want him and think it’s enough.

Neil says he allowed himself to be abused by the Raven’s for two weeks on the chance he could help Andrew, that he wants to care for Andrew even without any personal benefit, and that is when Andrew calls him a pipe dream. Neil has just said that he, the guy who previously was so terrified for his own safety that he put it above all else, would willingly sacrifice his safety for Andrew. When Neil says this Andrew covers his mouth to make him stop talking, which to me suggests that this revelation was an absolute gut punch to him, that what happened to Neil was not only for his sake but accomplished nothing. Andrew’s reaction to Neil saying this is to say that Neil was supposed to be a side effect of the drugs. Meaning what Neil just said made him feel so strongly for Neil that he previously assumed it could not possibly be something he naturally has the capacity to feel.

(And he stills says that he doesn’t think he could ever have from Neil what he wants. So yeah Neil isn’t the only one who can hear a heartfelt confession and come to the conclusion that the other person is completely uninterested)

Also the whole “there is no this” conversation they loop through a few times. Again, Andrew loves building relationships, but they all are ticking clocks in his head, most of them graduation unless he can come up with something to convince them to stay. And then Neil keeps trying to say that there exists a relationship between them that has not been carefully negotiated with a clear end date, which is probably terrifying to a guy who doesn’t think he can trust anyone unless he is providing them something that makes him more useful around than not.

What Neil is proposing is that Andrew has intrinsic value and his presence is all Neil wants, and that probably seems terrifying and untrue. If Neil isn’t getting a tangible benefit that outweighs any perceived inconveniences, and if there is no point where they “re-up” their contract, then at any moment Neil could change his mind and take this thing away from Andrew. He’s had people he loved decide he’s not worth it, he knows it can happen and how terrible it is to experience. He willingly dealt with Drake and harmed himself to keep Cass, and he still lost her because he in and of himself wasn’t enough to be kept and loved because he wasn’t easy enough to love, he was broken, he was damaged. There can’t be a non transactional relationship between them because Andrew can’t see himself being enough and thinks losing it would be too painful to willingly risk

(Nicky, Kevin, and Aaron also seem to have this same view as Neil in their own way of Andrew’s inherent worth to them. Nicky really deserves more recognition for clawing his way to happiness then willingly giving it all up and upending his life and doing things repeatedly that make him unhappy because he cares so much for Aaron and Andrew, aligning himself against possible friends who could make him happy because he will always choose supporting Andrew over himself. And you have Aaron showing that he will fight Andrew tooth and nail if it means they can have a good and lasting relationship, and we see Kevin form genuine love and affection for Andrew outside of their deal, but again Andrew seems to view the relationships at the time as transactional or obligatory on their ends)

Or my favorite, the scene where Andrew makes a comment about Neil’s “neck fetish.” Neil has kissed his neck only about two times by that point, and both times it has elicited what is clearly a pleasurable response from Andrew. But Andrew can’t accept the idea that Neil is doing something with no benefit to himself and only a benefit to Andrew, that he is choosing to take time away from his own immediate pleasure to do something solely for Andrew’s enjoyment of the moment

Neil responds to the comment by saying “You like it, I like that you like it.” Neil is saying that he cares enough about Andrew to have paid attention to what pleases him and wants to take the time when they’re together to make Andrew feel good in a way that Andrew makes him feel good, that he knows Andrew has trauma with physical touch on most of his body but this is a way he can reciprocate that has no negative connotations for Andrew and serves solely to make him feel good. And Andrew does not or cannot let himself see it that way because it’s too vulnerable.

The sex is supposed to be transactional, this is what Andrew has to offer to make Neil stay with him, uninterrupted time of Andrew making him feel good and asking for nothing in return. Neil is breaking the rules, he’s making it reciprocated, if he is making Andrew feel good then Andrew doesn’t have that safety net of being the one with something to offer. So it has to be something that secretly benefits Neil, it has to be that Neil is getting something out of it or Andrew is back to not having anything special that he offers to make Neil stay with him. If it’s just Neil sitting back while Andrew gets him off then Andrew is automatically the most convenient sexual partner for Neil and he won’t look for someone else. If it’s reciprocal, then it stops being a favor Andrew is doing and takes effort on Neil’s end, as well as means the sex includes Andrew knowing what it’s like to be loved and cared for, which means he will feel it’s absence when Neil inevitably leaves because Andrew isn’t convenient enough.

It honestly seems like the turning point is his conversation with Aaron about breaking their deal, Aaron making him choose their deal or Neil. Because it A. Forces Andrew to see that Aaron intends to stay in his life without the deal, meaning that yes one of the most important people in Andrew’s world loves him without a contract. And B. It forces Andrew into a position where he has to take a leap of faith that Neil isn’t going to just walk away, that Neil sees Andrew the way Andrew sees him. And I wonder if Aaron brought up the conversation he had with Neil, that Neil said he didn’t think Andrew would fight for him, and he realized that Neil not only has been thinking about him the way he was thinking about Neil, but that he had this person in his life that he cared about and he was acting in a way that made that person not feel valued and it could probably cause the very thing he wants to avoid by pushing him away.

So you finally get the very end of the last book where Andrew doesn’t deny it when Neil says Andrew likes him, which is for him incredibly vulnerable. He’s shown that he will always protect Neil without their deal of protection, and Neil has shown that he sees everything about Andrew that other people don’t like and he loves Andrew anyway.

Because the story is from Neil’s point of view we see his internal growth as he learns to recognize and accept love and care from others but Andrew has been doing the same, realizing and trusting that Kevin and his family will still be there even if he has nothing tangible to offer, and accepting that someone could genuinely know and understand him, all the things that make him inconvenient, and still want him with no extra incentive because even as broken as he sees himself to be he still has value to others and he can trust Neil in the way he wants Neil to trust him

#long post #this got so much longer than I intended oh my god #this was supposed to be like 3 paragraphs max #I have a lot of thoughts about Andrew desperately wanting love without thinking he can have it #even though he has people who love him #aftg #all for the game #tfc #andrew minyard #neil josten #andreil

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