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That day Todd woke up sore from exhaustion.
He was finally eighteen and the most tired he’d felt in his entire life. His head throbbed from too little sleep, his spine ached from whatever strange position he slept in and his eyes felt like their corners were filled with sand after long hours of studying chemistry for an exam of topics he barely understood. He definitely didn’t have an ounce of energy to get up yet; the approaching algebra classes felt like a punishment for whatever sin he may had or had not committed.
The other bed creaked loudly in the quiet room, bringing a wince out on Todd’s features. Apparently Neil had noticed the change in his breathing – damn him and his patience for Todd which the latter really did not understand.
“Time to wake up, Todd!” The voice sounded closer than Todd expected and it almost made him fall out of bed. A hand came to rest on his bare arm – somehow he managed not to freeze without a sweater during the night – and spilled so much warmth on his skin that Todd immediately wanted to come back to sleep.
“Five more minutes,” he muttered under his breath and adjusted the covers so there was no chance that Neil could take them away from him. He heard a deep, exaggerated sigh and crackles of bones as the other boy lifted himself up and took a sit next to Todd’s hips. The hand slipped into his messy hair, ruffling it.
“Just wanted to wish you
happy birthday
, but I see you’re not interested, huh?”
Todd smiled to the darkness behind his eyelids. Sometimes Neil sounded like a toddler whose mother didn’t want to buy a candy and it made him more adorable than Todd could ever bear. Of course, he’d never tell him anyway.
“Really? Shall I leave you alone,
my lord
, or will you eventually honor a peasant like me with a look of your eyes?”
Before Neil was able to drag on with his usual enthusiasm, Todd shot out of the covers and blindly threw himself at what hoped would be Neil’s body. It was, luckily, and so the smaller boy ended up with his face in the crook of Neil’s neck, arms wrapped around his middle and fingers clutching the soft fabric of Neil’s night shirt. The other boy burst out laughing; his chest shook with the sound, making Todd smile, and smile even wider when arms came to rest on his back, big hands splayed over his shoulder blades.
For a sweet moment, it was quiet – air filled with even breathing and a rustle of Todd’s thin shirt as Neil’s thumb kept stroking his spine in circles. But it couldn’t last long; Neil was never a man of silence.
“Todd?”
“Mhm?”
Todd leaned away just a little, enough to look at Neil’s face without a weird angle that would destroy his neck. The other boy was beaming at him, lips slightly parted, crinkles around his deep brown eyes. It made Todd’s heart melt.
What would he do without him?
“I gotta ask you something,” Neil said a second later, moving a hand from Todd’s back to the nape of his neck, then cuping his cheek. And now Todd was definitely blushing.
He would be a very, very sad and lonely person, that’s for sure.
“Wanna check if your parents sent you the same deskset this year?”
The pillow that landed on Neil’s face did awful job in stifling the boy’s laughter.