#holy hell – @coldsaturn on Tumblr

You know what’s so great about Andrew Joseph Minyard? Okay, you know how he’s so bored with life and Nora has said that Andrew before Neil and without Neil was/would just counting down the days until he takes his last breath and dies and that he would just go day to day surviving, but not living?

But then he fell for Neil and he found a reason to live? What’s so amazing to me, though, is that Andrew couldn’t have found a reason to live, even with Neil there, if Andrew hadn’t wanted a reason to live in the first place.

I hate to be crass, but if Andrew was so disinterested in life, why did he never just kill himself? Or seem to contemplate it? (or if he ever did contemplate it, why not seriously?) Because we know he cut himself when he was younger, but that wasn’t him trying to kill himself, that was Andrew trying to remind himself he could still feel. Andrew wanted to know he could, because like Neil said, Andrew really isn’t a sociopath.

Andrew still, with all that has happened to him, wants to feel, wants to live. Why else would he have experimented with his sexuality over the years? He wanted to feel.

In the second book (I believe) Renee said her and Andrew’s situations weren’t all that different and they are so different now because of luck and circumstance, and that is so true. Of course, Andrew wouldn’t have become a nice, gentle person like Renee or a born again Christian if Cass had adopted him, because he still would had to deal with Drake and still deal with all that happened to him for six horrible, long years. But I bet he would have been a little less bored with life, a little more willing to open himself up. A little less damaged.

And the fact that Andrew really wanted to be adopted by Cass? That Andrew had a desire for a family??? I mean, Andrew is so derisive of family in the books and for good reason, because his one attempt at making a family for himself went to shit. But the fact that he tried to have a family in the first place? And that he wanted it??? That’s huge, I feel, in telling you who Andrew is as a person.

And then there’s the fact that his brother needed him, that Andrew sacrificed a chance at some shred of happiness so his brother wouldn’t go through what he went through?? Because family is important to Andrew. He just never became lucky enough to really have that family he so craved. But he was going to protect what little family he did have and hold onto it, even if it meant giving up that small happiness he could have had with Cass.

And Andrew goes on about feeling nothing and nothing for no one, and wanting nothing, and it is such a lie, boy, come on.

If Andrew really didn’t feel anything, he would never have those moments of intense anger, he wouldn’t feel the need to talk to anyone, he wouldn’t have random bursts of frustration in Exy, or bursts where he really tries against a really hard team. He wouldn’t feel a need to “protect what is his” at all.

I think Andrew doesn’t want, never wanted to, be bored with everything. I think a huge part of him hates his boredom with life and wishes he could give a fuck about most things. I think a part of him wanted something or someone to come along and make him want to actually live life again, otherwise he wouldn’t have ever tried anything with Neil or anyone, or promised Aaron and Kevin - and then Neil - anything.

But Andrew has been through so much horrible horrible shit and been let down so many times with life that he couldn’t bring himself to care, or even try to care after a certain point. I think after Cass, and then after Tilda and everything, that was the last straw for Andrew and he just became incredibly bored with everything and how predictable life and everyone living became to him.

Then after he finally gave up trying, I bet it was hard for him to muster up a shit to give, because he probably had it in his head that it was just not worth it, that it would all end in a shit show and more pain and suffering, every time.

But you don’t almost kill someone for hitting what you consider “yours” and have so much feeling in your eye that it hits Neil something fierce and practically knocks the wind out of him if you didn’t still have that hope inside you for a reason to live again.

And then Neil came along, and not only was he attractive - especially with his blue eyes and auburn hair - but he was someone Andrew couldn’t figure out. For once in his life - or at the very least, a very long time, Andrew met someone unpredictable - Neil was a liar, which Andrew probably thought was the same ol’ same ol’, but it was more than that, so much more.

And Neil challenged Andrew every goddamn step of the way. He stood up to Andrew and he said with surety that he wasn’t afraid of him. He lied one minute but then opened his mouth and the words that came out of his mouth were fierce and cutting and Neil was way too perceptive for his own good (of course, except when it came to romance and sex). Neil said he wanted to be kept alive one second, but then seemed to have a death wish the next.

Neil said he didn’t swing either way, but then he goes and says “yes” to Andrew.

Neil wasn’t afraid to stand up to a man who could very well have him killed, but then he touched Andrew so gently, so respectfully - and didn’t touch him at all when Andrew told him not to. Neil was a firecracker, a hot head, and he sometimes showed an anger so intense it could rival the anger Andrew sometimes unleashed, but then he smiled at Andrew and looked at him softly and happily.

Neil seemed to be just another predictable human being - pathological liar, too stupid for his own good sometimes, obsessed with some stupid sport to the point of idiocy sometimes, and he was just going to run eventually anyway and leave Andrew, just like everyone else but then he goes and shakes Andrew’s whole world apart. Then he goes and talks logic to Andrew. Then he goes and stands up to Andrew and hits the nail on the head more times than Andrew would care to admit.

And Andrew, who doesn’t want to feel anything because of his own fear that a good thing will leave him, or that good thing could turn out to be a bad thing, feeling nothing. Except, he does. He just doesn’t want to. Because feeling things gets you hurt, gets you beaten down and heartbroken. Over and over and over again. Andrew isn’t going to let that happen again.

So he hates Neil. Because hating Neil is safe, it’s easy, it’s familiar. If he hates Neil, when Neil leaves it won’t hurt - at least, that is what Andrew tells himself.

But again, Andrew is not an actual sociopath. He’s a human being, he feels, however much he doesn’t want to, he has buried hopes and fears and desires. And he desires Neil.

The others call Andrew a monster or a “pet psycho” or a sociopath (not that you can blame them. That’s all Andrew lets any of them see. The bad parts. It gets them to stay away and not get close to him), but he isn’t one at all.

And Neil? Well, fuck, Neil sees that. He sees Andrew. He doesn’t see what Andrew wants him to see, he sees who Andrew really is, and Andrew hates that. He hates that he wants to kiss this boy and have him near and talk to him and he hates that Neil got under his skin and seems to know him better than he knows himself sometimes. He absolutely despises that he let Neil get so far under his skin.

And it gets to 101%, 102%, 103% because Neil keeps burrowing under Andrew’s skin to his heart and starts to make a home there and Andrew hates that someone got there again in the first place, that he’s being such a fool as to open himself up to more pain and hurt and heartbreak.

He hates that he almost lost Neil in Baltimore because he let Neil in, even when he didn’t want to, and then Neil fucking goes and almost dies on him. Andrew can’t stand that he almost found himself broken and bloodied and bruised again because of this boy. Neil almost left him, and Andrew wouldn’t have been able to ever truly live again after that. No more, Andrew would have said. Not that there could have been anyone else to settle into Andrew’s heart again.

But Neil lived. He fucking lived, and Andrew is so livid because of what he almost lost, but also because he had something that he could have lost again. And he just hates Neil more for doing this to him.

But Neil is alive. He is whole - bruised, bandaged and scarred, but whole - and breathing and talking and Andrew is able to breathe again. And fuck Neil for making him lose his breath in the first place. Andrew could kill the son of a bitch. But he can’t.

Because he fucking feels for the dipshit, and he could never bring himself to hurt Neil. To hurt him the way his father hurt him, to hurt him the way his mother hurt him, to hurt him at all. Because Neil has been through just as much shit as Andrew. It’s not the same shit, but it’s still horrible, hurtful shit all the same. And Neil understands having to survive.

And I bet Andrew wished he could have been taken away like Neil was. Change his name, his looks, not been Andrew for a long while. But that never happened, and Andrew isn’t a person who could do that, not anymore. He lost that part a long time ago. All he has left is honesty and survival.

But now…fuck, now he’s found a reason to actually live. And he hates it and loves it at the same time again (not that he would ever admit to the loving it part) and goddamn Neil for doing this to him.

But he wants it. He wants something that makes him not feel so bored with life anymore. He wants something that makes him feel. He wants something that makes him so alive it hurts, even as it scares him shitless at the same time.

Andrew could have killed himself, see. But he didn’t. He wanted to find a reason to live again. Even if it became the littlest part of him that you could imagine by his teen years….it was still there. Somewhere.

And Neil awoke that part of him.

Neil didn’t make Andrew want to live. He gave Andrew a reason to give into that want. To live day to day not just muddling through, waiting to die, but to actually want to get up and do something.

Andrew had a purpose with his promises to Kevin and Aaron before that, a purpose to make life not so boring all the time. But they weren’t reasons to live. Aaron, Kevin, Nicky, they kept Andrew’s head above water before Neil came along. But Neil is the one who got Andrew out of the water.

And this boy, this man, Andrew Minyard, is no sociopath. He’s just had a horrible, hard life and learned how to survive, how to stay alive and keep those he cared about alive.

But with Neil, Andrew learned how to actually live.

#the foxhole court #tfc meta #holy hell #suicide tw #rape mention tw #abuse tw