;p

we know his first experience with sexual assault was at 7, by his foster father. Assuming that man had been middle-aged, as is the average age of fostering adults, it is fair to say that he would have lived as a young adult through the peak of the HIV endemic in the early 80s. it would be likely that he had exposure to the virus. 

The thing is, if you combined the probable neglect and abuse that andrew endured with contracting HIV at 7, it is unlikely he would have lived very long. there are plenty of circumstances where AIDS doesn’t develop until adolescence/adulthood, but there was a reason that HIV became such a feared disease when it started appearing in children, mostly from naetal-transmission. It really, really fucks up a kid’s chance of living past 10. 

as we all know, andrew’s alive in the books.

so, that leaves us with option b. 

drake. 

so: andrew’s 13. drake is 18? 19? and training for the marines. he contracts HIV from a fellow trainee and transmits it to Andrew during the summer that he’s home: andrew has no clue. it’s unlikely that drake would’ve known, either. 

andrew doesn’t experience early onset of AIDS (remember, HIV is the virus, AIDS is the compromisation of one’s immune system thanks to the deactivation/destruction of important immune-fighting cells - helper T cells, to be precise). he leaves. goes to juvie. finds aaron and goes to live in south carolina. 

then tilda dies. andrew, obviously, goes to hospital and gets tests run after the accident. he then, consequentially, discovers he has HIV. there is no cure for this disease. doctors tell him that he hasn’t got aids - yet. it will inevitably progress there, unless a cure is found. 

he doesn’t tell anyone. that’s not exactly andrew’s style. 

cut to aftg. everything happens much the same. that is - till drake attacks. there’s blood everywhere. when aaron comes closer, andrew tells him not to touch him, or touch drake’s corpse. to wash his hands of the blood. 

why, his brother asks. 

because he’s why im positive, andrew says. 

and aaron realises. it makes so much sense. why andrew went so cagey after tilda’s death. not because he cared about their mother, but because he realised he’d saved aaron from more than just drake’s abuse: he’d saved him from inevitable death. 

andrew gets shipped off. we all know what happens. 

when he comes back and asks why neil went to the nest, neil tells him. when neil realises he failed to protect andrew, andrew just shrugs. ‘he’ll get what he deserves’. proust hadn’t thought to protect himself. there’s no way he wouldn’t have contracted it. 

this is what steadies andrew. he doesn’t care that he’s dying. its the sort of poison that ruins all those that take without asking. that take without thought of consequence. it creates - not a layer of protection, but a surefire way to come through on his promises of ruination. inescapable fate. 

he won’t touch neil. he hates neil, but neil doesn’t deserve to die. he keeps his distance with practised ease, until, of course, roland fails him and lets the whole fucking herd of cats out the bag. 

neil comes with questions. with corpselight in his eyes. curiosity, all that shenanigans. no, saliva doesn’t carry the virus. only blood and genital fluids can. no, neil, we’re not doing this now. 

then the car happens, and they drive home, and they kiss on the rooftop, keys and sunsets and promises and andrew fucking hates himself for it, more than he hates neil. but he’s dying. who cares. 

he hadn’t thought that neil would come closer to dying first, even knowing all his half-truths. they’re in the shower. andrew doesn’t want him to leave, but he can’t risk it, not when neil might actually matter, not when neil hasn’t taken anything andrew wasn’t willing to give. 

so he grabs neil’s towel, out of spite, and makes sure nothing goes anywhere near him. there’s too many open wounds for it to be safe otherwise. 

neil’s heart is melting. he thought he’d be dead before he had to face the way he felt, but now his father’s dead and andrew cares so much, even if he can’t - won’t - say it. 

and i could end this on a sad note - like andrew eventually finds himself succumbing to a respiratory disease during his pro-years, only just after they’d finally traded onto the same team and renewed their vows and adopted the cats together - 

but i’m not that mean. 

so, i’ll give you this: ART (antiretroviral) programs became commonplace across the US in 2016. all andrew would need to do was survive without reaching stage 3 of HIV till he was 28 - achievable, especially as a pro-athlete. Then, the likelihood of him both developing AIDS and passing HIV to Neil, even without protection (though they’d still always use protection), would drop down below 10%. 

so, he’d be okay. because that’s what andrew does. 

he survives.