Hi there do you think you could explain what exactly Kevin promised Andrew? In exchange for protection? Sorry I've just seen your (awesome) analyses of these books and I've never really understood this. Thx!!
No problem anon-san, I’m always down for meta and giving a hand (or two) to better understand these books :3
“Andrew on his drugs is useless, but Andrew off his drugs is worse. His high school counselor saw the difference between his junior and senior years and swore this medicine saved his life. A sober Andrew is destructive and joyless. Andrew has neither purpose nor ambition. I was the first person who ever looked at Andrew and told him he was worth something. When he comes off these drugs and has nothing else to hold him up I will give him something to build his life around.”
You can read the scene where Kevin tried to recruit Andrew HERE, where there is the exchange that will change Andrew’s life:
Kevin made a frustrated gesture and lowered his hand. “I refuse to take you back with us if you’re going to play all of your games like you practiced tonight. You have no place on the Raven line if you’re not willing to be the best.”“What a hypocrite,” Andrew said, “considering you’ve built an entire career around being second best.”[…]“You’re worth it.”It was barely a whisper, but Andrew went still.
The last pieces we’re missing is how Andrew is reacting to the agreement:
“He asks and you give–okay, okay, okay. He asks and I refuse, absolutely not. I’m waiting for him to give up. He has to walk away eventually.”
(cue Kevin’s version “I made him a promise, he’s waiting to see if I can keep it” which is so interesting because Kevin focuses on keeping his word, Andrew on waiting for Kevin to break it)
“But he’s fighting you every step of the way. Why?” “When I first said you would be Court, why were you upset with me?”“Because I knew it’d never happen, but I wanted it anyway.”
So, putting everything in order: Kevin needed protection, but even before needing it, back when he was still with the Ravens, he saw Andrew’s potential and even offered buying the judges to take him off his drugs. When Andrew argued, Kevin said he was worth it. Here we’d need Aaron’s quote that Minyards don’t get higher than rock bottom, and yet Kevin had truly seen something in him.
Yet as we know, Andrew will straight out lie to himself about how much he had enjoyed playing against Kevin, and will refuse the offer. Time skip, Kevin joins the foxes and needs protection because he’s absolutely terrified that Riko will take him back.
He’s probably ready to fly to the other side of the world, but here comes one of the most heartwrenching things Andrew will do in the timeline of the series: he will take Kevin’s word and make an agreement with him. Andrew will protect Kevin from Riko, if Kevin can make good on his promise, and give Andrew something that he can build his life around after he’s off his meds, after sobriety presses him down facefirst on gravel. That something is, in Kevin’s book, Exy. He’s sure that later a sober Andrew will realise what incredible talent he has, and will live his life for Exy instead of counting the days until death between one promise and the next. Andrew too knows that Kevin means Exy, and he actively fights him and dares him to give up, because, as Neil has rightly said, they both want it so much that it hurts, and when you see what you want but believe you can’t get dangling in front of your eyes, well, you’re excused if you get pissed.
Let me stress the point again: Andrew offering protection to Kevin for this is an active action toward his own well-being. Andrew self-destructive and apathetic Minyard not only convinces Kevin to stay with them because he wants what Kevin can offer, but even though he believes that Kevin will back off or that nothing will come of it, he will still strike a deal with Neil so Kevin won’t leave once they know that Riko is breathing on their neck.
The promise with Aaron is for Aaron’s sake, the promise with Neil is indirectly and unofficially for Neil’s sake, but Kevin. Kevin’s promise is for Andrew and Andrew alone. And together with his commitment to seeing Bee, I– I’m just emotional toward Andrew making his own space in the world (cue THIS SONG for added feels).
Andrew is trusting/hoping/not-believing that Kevin is right: once the meds aren’t there anymore to keep him miles high from his traumas, Andrew won’t sink and wait to drown, but will still be able to find life and adrenaline and colour. A future. Kevin doesn’t know, but he already fulfills his half of the deal at the beginning of the foxhole court, when he recruits a mouthy lil shit from Millport.
“It shapes too much of his life in the end, Exy and Neil, Neil and Exy. It is having a place, having a team, a different city every week and cigarettes and drinks in-between. And one day Andrew’s going to realize that perhaps even he is having a bit of fun.” (X)
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