"It's about second chances, Neil."

they do not operate within the confines of a normal heterosexual nothing’s-gone-wrong relationship. unlike katelyn, neil knows how to handle his own shit on top of everyone else’s. the problem is that he doesn’t stop at his own shit. he barely even handles his own shit.

neil means a great deal to andrew because he’s so fucking stupid. he harps on and on about self preservation and yet he throws himself into the street for the first fox to get nicked. there’s too much to unravel there that it’s almost hard to look at. andrew will never be the worst he’s seen, though he should be.

neil trusts no one but himself. he’s self reliant to a fault. he knows what he wants, and anybody who gets in his way will do so only to their detriment. these are things to like and hate him for, because he will put himself in your way and force you to face truths about yourself that you have not thought about, have purposefully not felt, in many, many years.

if andrew were to blindly like him for these things, it wouldn’t be real. if andrew were to blindly hate him for these things, it’d be clouded. there’s a balance to be struck, and andrew lives there.

kevin promises andrew out of fear for his own skin. aaron promises andrew out of his own grief, and because he has no one else. andrew is a last resort for them both. neil still stands the only one who does it out of his own volition, yes, he was dying, yes, he knew he was dying, but he lived! he came back to life, and he was still there.

neil asks andrew to break his promise for his own good, not out of his own desires like aaron or out of circumstance voiding it like kevin. neil wants to stand on his own two feet. neil wants to stay, and not only because andrew told him to. neil is his own person, and he voluntarily chooses andrew. andrew hates him for it, because he has decided andrew is worth something past protective purposes.

this could be misread as a “first person to ever show andrew respect” kind of issue, but it’s not the case. it’s about trust. neil lies to everybody else, but he never lies to himself. within that chaos is this stability. he is not nathaniel because he decides to be neil, which is why andrew him to bury nathaniel in baltimore. had he said something else, andrew’s response would have been different. neil is not reliant on andrew to hold him up, but if andrew needed him to, neil would entrust him with his life.

if andrew needed neil to rely on him so he could continue having a purpose in living, he would do it. this is neil-selflessness. this is trust, in putting his life in andrew’s hands, he is prolonging andrew’s. mutual exchange. everything is about mutual exchange, and it persists past canon. he doesn’t need andrew anymore once he has his exy and his protection from the moriyamas.

so it all comes down to this. everything about andrew that neil used to need him for, when he no longer does, he still chooses him. andrew doesn’t exactly need him either, but if andrew were in the place to need him, neil would put himself in the position to need andrew back, because he understands his absolute loathing of unequal exchange.