Chapter Text
Jeffrey leaves on Friday, which still gives them two days to make up for the years of distance between them.
On Thursday morning, Todd finds Jeff out by the lake again.
"I read the rest of the poems," he says. "I liked the O'Hara ones best, I think."
Jeffrey hums. "Good to know. Hey, uh, not to pry, but—have you told Neil? That you're…"
"No," Todd says quickly. "I haven't told any of them."
It's odd, how quickly this feels natural: sharing secrets with his older brother. Todd can almost pretend it's normal, like this, like the two of them have always been this close.
"Maybe you should," Jeffrey says, and even Todd manages to catch the forced casualness in his tone.
"No." It makes him jumpy just thinking about it. "I can't."
"Todd, he's, uh, quite physically affectionate with you…"
"That's not—that doesn't mean anything," Todd manages. "Neil's just like that."
"Maybe it doesn't. But maybe it does, y'know? It seemed like he was only really like that with you ." Jeffrey is being polite about it. He's always being polite about things; Todd is beginning to pick up on it.
Todd hums noncommittally, picking at a stray thread on the cuff of his sleeve.
"Just… think about it," Jeff says.
It's all Todd has been thinking about for weeks, is the thing.
Neil, a blanket cape thrown around his shoulders as he practices his lines. Neil, half-asleep in Trig class. Neil, whispering ghost stories in the cave, hands spreading across the air.
There’s a part of him that’s itching to say carpe diem and just tell Neil—even just part of it—but he knows the fear of the fallout will stop him everytime. Because the worst case isn’t that much of a stretch: Neil doesn’t want to share a room with him, the other Poets don’t want him around, hell, he could get thrown out of Welton entirely. He needs some way to gauge the response—just Jeff’s second opinion isn’t enough.
“It could go… badly,” Todd says, trying to express this.
“It could,” Jeffrey acknowledges. “So, I mean, we take you out of the equation to start. I’ll bring it up instead.”
“You’ll—you’d do that? But you aren’t…?”
“I’m not, but they don’t know that. Plus, I mean, all my college friends are, anyway. I don’t have to lie or anything. And I'm leaving tomorrow—no harm, no foul.” He shrugs. “I’ll stop by your dorm when class lets out. Don’t chicken out, alright?”
“ Carpe diem ,” Todd breathes.
" Carpe diem ," Jeff agrees.
True to his word, Jeff is sitting in their dorm when the school day ends. As always, he’s effortlessly existing—as if he belongs there, as if it isn’t still a shock for Todd to see him.
“Jeff!” Neil greets him brightly, dropping his armful of books onto his bed. Todd lingers by the doorway, sloughing off his jacket and folding it over the back of the chair.
Todd stays standing in the doorway, eyes bouncing between the two of them as they engage in casual conversation. He jumps every time Jeff brings up college, his roommate, until—
“—you’ll have to let me know the next time you’re in a show. I’ll come down here, to see you guys—and my roommate and his boyfriend’ll tag along, too, I’m sure, they’re artistic types…”
Todd stiffens; stares at Neil. Neil blinks a few times in rapid succession, then a cautious smile curls onto his lips. “That sounds… yeah. Yeah, I’ll let you know.”
Todd feels his chest shake with his relieved exhale. No comment, no discomfort—Jeff looks at him with a small, surreptitious smile.
When Jeffrey leaves, Neil settles onto his bed with his History textbook open in front of him. Todd leafs through the Poetry Magazine again, mouthing the words to himself: “ I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love. ”
“What’re you reading?” Neil asks, barely looking up from his notebook.
“Poetry.” Todd shrugs. What else?
“Anything good?”
“Yeah.” He bites the inside of his lip.
“Maybe I’ll borrow it when you’re done,” Neil muses.
“Maybe. Uh,” Todd says. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Uh oh.” He grins. Neil’s always smiling like this: as if it’s blossoming into his expression, just secret enough to feel special. Todd catches his breath.
“I’m gay,” he says, fingers curling around the edge of the book. Again, there’s a frustrating anxiety haunting him: he knows Neil, he knows Neil will be okay with it, and yet there’s the fear that he doesn’t know his roommate as well as he thinks he does.
“Oh,” Neil says. Todd’s fingers tighten with the urge to hurl the book across the room. “Me too, I think.”
What?
Todd doesn’t—“What?”
“I dunno. I didn’t really think about it much, but then—I, um, I started to, and, well… yeah.” He sets down his notebook and pen, turning to face Todd across the room.
“Oh,” Todd says dumbly. “Uh, it’s you, by the way.”
“I’m what?”
“That I—uh, I like you. And if that’s—weird, or whatever, I can—we can ignore it. It’s not—it’s fine. Just… carpe diem , right?” Todd closes the book and sets it down so he doesn’t ruin the pages. He’s still tense, coiled, waiting for the verdict.
“Todd, are you—God, I’ve been—I’ve only started thinking about it since I met you. When you made up that poem in class, it was—I mean, just— Todd .” There’s a certain weight to his name when it comes out of Neil’s mouth. Currently exasperated, fond, curling pleasantly around the vowel; always significant.
“So, do you—” Todd hesitates to say it, he always hesitates, because there is always the chance that he is going to sound foolish. But he’ll probably sound foolish regardless, so he says it anyway: “You like me, too?”
“ Yes. ”
Thursday evening passes in a blur of cold fingers and warm lips; hands running through hair and over sweaters. Legs hook around each other under the table at dinner, which isn’t new, but feels different nonetheless.
Thursday night, spent the same as all the nights before, but now the air is more open: Todd lets himself stare at Neil’s face under the moonlight, and does not scramble to look away when he gets caught.
Friday morning, spent:
“Fingers more breathless than a tongue laid upon the lips
in the hour of sunlight, early morning, before the mist rolls
in from the sea; and out there everything is turbulent and
green.”
Jeff leaves on Friday, but not before Todd makes his way out to the lake to say goodbye before class begins.
“Everything went alright?” Jeffrey asks, stifling a laugh when Todd turns red and attempts to fix his hair.
“Yeah—yes. Yeah,” he mumbles. “Thanks, by the way.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Jeff says, waving a hand. “I’ve got years of brotherly bonding to make up for. I’m—I’m sorry that I wasn’t around for all of it.”
“Me, too,” Todd says.
“It’s not your fault.” Jeff shakes his head.
“If it’s not mine, it’s not yours, either. It just was . And now it isn’t . I think that’s enough.”
“God,” Jeff laughs. “You really are a poet, huh?”
Todd’s smile inches up at the corners. “See you soon, Jeff.”
“See you,” he says, and gives Todd one good hug before he heads off.
Jeff sends them all packages next December (and, although he doesn't advertise it, the gifts were chosen with clear help from his friends at Harvard and a fair amount of letters exchanged with Todd). An album for Charlie ( An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer ), a copy of As You Like It for Neil.
And, for Todd, an annotated copy of Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara.