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Neil Josten has been through a lot in his life and if anyone understands that, it's Andrew. The team says over and over that they have no idea how Andrew and Neil got together but to Andrew it's obvious. He and Neil had been through very different experiences in life but they had both learned how to lock people out and push those closest away when things get hard. Andrew believes that this fact alone is why he is also the only one who noticed. Everyone on the team has obviously seen the odd things that Neil does, but none of them truly see what Neil is doing or why. If he didn't know Neil at a molecular level, he might have also missed it, chalked it up to anxiety and learned paranoia, but it isn't that. Ok, well maybe it is a little but it's something deeper, something Andrew doesn't even think Neil sees.
Neil has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD. Andrew will never tell Neil this because he is uneducated and will just argue that he's perfectly fine, and for the most part, he is. It took Andrew a little while to notice, too. Obviously, he knows what OCD is. Bee has it and he spends a lot of time with Bee but Bee and Neil's OCD are very different. Bee is very organized and not to say that Neil isn't, it's just very different. Neil would never survive in an office like Bee's, but all of his things have a spot and those things do not move from that spot.
The first time Andrew noticed it, the interaction was small. Andrew had gone to clean the sheets; they currently room together with Kevin, and Kevin knows better than to say anything about them sharing a bed. Andrew had stripped the bed, done the laundry and then remade the bed, or so he thought. When it was finally time to turn in for the night, Neil seemed very distressed and Andrew couldn't figure out why. Finally, he asked Neil about it.
"Junkie, it's late, what's wrong?"
"Nothing, it's fine. I'm fine" Neil replies rushed
Now Andrew made Neil very aware that he didn't accept "I'm fine" as a valid answer but it seemed like Neil wasn't in the right mind to remember that right now.
Andrew grabs Neil's hands. "Abram, give me a truth."
"It's missing," Neil replies softly after about a minute of silence
"What's missing?"
"It's stupid"
"Obviously not"
Andrew is racking his brain when the memory hits him. He found an old shirt in with their laundry after he washed the sheets. He assumed it was a shirt that Neil slept in because he had seen it before, so just put it away with all of Neil's other clothes.
"The shirt," Andrew says before Neil can keep brushing his own feelings off.
Neil is quiet and burns a hole into the floor with his eyes.
Andrew walks over to their dresser, opens Neil's shirt drawer and pulls it out. "I washed the sheets and this was in with them. I didn't know it was important."
Neil takes the shirt from Andrew and places it under his pillow, "It has a spot, it goes there."
"Thank you for telling me."
Andrew brushed this interaction off; he does odd things due to being in foster care for such a long time. Neil deserved to have his weird quirks that comfort him. After a while, he started noticing more things that Neil does that are a little, out of place. His locker is organized in a specific way, he puts on his gear in the same order every time, tightens his racket in a specific way before every practice and game, and checks it constantly. The next big thing that heavily stood out to Andrew was another small incident between the two of them.
It was a weekend when the crew was out in Columbia and they had just returned to the house. Now Andrew knows that Neil enjoys changing whenever he comes home, Andrew assumed it was because he spends most of his time running when he's out of the house, but he was wrong. Neil had gone to the bathroom, and Andrew was exhausted, so he flopped down on the bed they shared and started playing Sudoku on his phone. Neil walked out of the bathroom and froze, staring at Andrew.
"You haven't changed"
"No rabbit you were hogging the bathroom and I'm tired," Andrew says to Neil not looking away from his phone.
"Yeah right mhm" Neil replies back and his voice sounds strained
Andrew looks over to him and he looks mid panic attack, which caught Andrew very off guard. He then remembers that he does normally change when Neil does. Neil had never asked Andrew to do this but a part of Andrew felt that it was something important, and now he knows that that feeling was right. Andrew gets up off the bed and goes over to Neil.
"Yes or no?" Andrew asks with his hands out
Neil grabs Andrew's hands without responding and they stand there as Neil slowly calms down. Then he speaks up,
"Could you change?" Neil asks quietly not meeting Andrew's eyes
"Yeah rabbit I can"
Once Andrew is back from changing into his pajamas, he notices that the bed sheets have been changed. He doesn't bring it up to Neil but notes it mentally. He'll later bring up these two situations to Bee during a session because he worries about Neil, though he'll never admit it to anyone but Bee. Autism had been the first thing Andrew thought of but he knows Autism, Kevin has Autism and Neil is not Kevin. Obviously, Andrew knows Autism is different for everyone but that label didn't feel right for Neil and what he was going through. Bee had brought up OCD but Andrew was skeptical so he did his own research.
Through his research, he started to notice other things Neil did and everything started to make a bit more sense. Neil has a problem with getting rid of things; Andrew did too for a while but it always seemed worse for Neil. He still has the original bag he came to the foxes with along with the original eight outfits even though he doesn't wear them and has many other items of clothing now. Neil also kept the binder. The binder used to be his lifeline, but he doesn't need it anymore. Kevin had once broached the topic of getting rid of it but Neil yelled at him and went for a very long run after so they didn't bring it up again. Thinking hard about that incident also pulled a memory to the front of Andrew's mind from after Drake was killed. Neil really wanted to keep the racket after the incident. Everyone joked about how Neil just didn't want to go get another because it was expensive but Andrew remembers Neil looking genuinely distressed about the thought of not using that one to play, murder weapon or not.
Andrew brought this up with Bee again and she helped him see that these were compulsions that Neil was dealing with. They're different than what someone might originally think of when they think of compulsions, since he's not flicking switches and checking locks, though he does check windows and exits to make sure he knows where they are and are easily accessible. Bee brought up bringing in Neil to do a session with Andrew and they could talk about it together but Andrew denied. He knew Neil would never go for it and he was slowly starting to open up to Andrew about his compulsions, even if he didn't know that that's what they were.
Neil lives a pretty simple life. He plays exy, studies math and language, goes for runs, and antagonizes Kevin whenever he gets the chance. Andrew wants Neil to be happy and to enjoy his simple life, so if that means he changes from "outside clothes" to "inside clothes", makes sure that none of his stuff is moved, and goes along with whatever small things Neil feels comfortable enough to ask him to do, then he will. This also means he lets everyone believe that Neil just has left over paranoia and anxiety from everything that's happened and that's why he's a little different.