Chapter Text
“You ready?”
Looking up unexpectedly from his notebook, Todd half-nodded to his friend to signal he needed a couple more minutes. The friend in question was Steven Meeks: brainiac, musical enthusiast, sweetheart, and roommate. They’d met their first week at university, both idly looking at the Dead Poets flyer in the welcome stalls with optimistic half-smiles before glancing up each other as if in on some type of conspiracy. Stood there at the stall was two boys who they would later know as the club’s leader, Mr Keating, and fellow club member Gerard Pitts. A preposterously tall boy with the goofiest grin he’d ever seen.
Before either of them knew it the first year had passed. Now living with Pitts, the three coexisted rather peacefully with both knowing Todd so thoroughly they could sometimes sit in complete silence. The two had seen him go from awkward knee-jittering stuttering English major to… Well, he still stuttered sometimes but now he was president of the Dead Poets club. The announcement shocked no one but himself, and it was a bittersweet celebration Mr Keating declared his retirement.
The retirement was not just from the club but as a professor. Being the only professor so invested in their clubs he said it was time to pass the love down to someone he knew shared his mind, was the Frodo to his Bilbo. It was with this touching metaphor and impish grin Keating left them looking around at each other, like toddlers unsupervised.
Caught in his own reverie Todd straightened his posture. It was 8pm, time for the meeting of the Dead Poets club meeting. The place of the meeting could be located in the English department, in a long-abandoned classroom, they dimly lit the room with an old lamp that belonged to Keating’s mother. Never one to be stingy their beloved teacher often sent a box of cookies to the room from Australia, along with a bottle of wine they’d long been saving for a special occasion.
Arriving only a couple minutes late Todd, Meeks and Pitts were met by the fellow members with stricken looks on their faces. Knox and Cameron met their gaze with glumness before pointing to the note on the door. The two boys had joined halfway through the year but poured their everything into it. Cameron is a business major and Knox working towards a law degree.
Strolling ahead of them Pitts snatched the paper stuck to the door.
“Dear Dead Poets club,” he started. “We are apologetic to announce that we will now be utilising this classroom for janitorial purposes. After Professor Keating’s departure, we have deemed the club a low priority on room space. Many apologies for any inconvenience we have caused.”
“W-What the hell,” Todd sputtered indignantly. “Can they do that?”
“Sure, they can,” Cameron grumbled. “They basically just said in no certain terms we’re disbanded.”
“Hello?”
All five boys whipping around they found a man looking at them with intrigue. Leaning against the wall, heeled boots tapping the floor as he stared at them with a loose smile. The guy exuded a kind of relaxed self-assuredness that Todd instantly felt simultaneously unnerved and interested. Moving to offer his hand, the stranger took it.
“Todd, leader of the Dead P-Poet’s club,” he started, smile growing as he felt the boy’s grip was equally relaxed. “Or at least I was.”
“Was?” he repeated with furrowed brows. “Charlie, I was here hoping to join.”
Meeks peeked at them from behind Pitts’ shoulders. “We just got a notice telling us we can’t use the classroom anymore.”
Charlie surveyed them all carefully before fumbling in his pockets, pulling a packet of cigarettes from them. Shuffling the packet and pulling one out – Todd always thought that looked pretty cool in the movies – he tucked it behind his ear, safely snug under the beret. “Well, I don’t see why that should stop us from starting the meeting. I know just the place we can go, follow me, lads!”
Trotting ahead of them in his heeled boots he didn’t look back once. Looking amongst the members all they could do was shrug, that is until Pitts nudged him. “What do you think, captain?”
Smiling proudly at the hereditary title Todd gave his friends a nod: “I say off we go.”
Rushing ever so slightly to catch up with Charlie he was met with a smug grin. He seemed the perfect fit to them already, they always needed chaos to stir up the calm along with the poetical texts. The five blindly followed this strange gentleman for what seemed almost twenty minutes before coming to a grinding halt. They were on the grounds just outside the university, tall oak trees looming over them in the dusk and the moon glistening in joyful solidarity as if not used to the company.
It was then Charlie cleared his voice and pointed to a cave just to the left. “I now present… The new meeting place!”
“It’s… A cave,” Cameron pointed out.
“No duh Cameron,” Knox replied. “But also, why outside? Isn’t it kinda gross?”
“What? Too pussy for a bit of dirt, Knoxious?” Charlie scoffed. “You were just the same in summer school.”
It was then as they all turned to Knox the realisation seemed to dawn on him. Looking back and forth between the two Meeks adjusted his glasses in that Meeks-ish fashion. “You two know each other?”
“Oh, I and Knox go way back…?” Charlie faded off, awaiting a name.
“Meeks,” the ginger smiled. “And that’s Pitts and Cameron.”
Flushing slightly at the forgotten responsibility Todd stayed silent, watching the reunited friends – were they friends? – bickering for a couple minutes. Once it had petered out the captain took a move towards their newest addition. “So… Why do you want to join Dead Poets, Charlie? There’s an l-lot of other clubs.”
“Well…” Charlie started, bringing his thumb and forefinger to his chin. “I guess a simple ‘I like poetry’ won’t cut it? I… Well, I love life Todd Anderson. I’m a pretty passionate guy and I think poetry is a perfect outlet for those like me.”
A moment pauses. He cracked a grin. “Plus, it’s a real crowd-pleaser with the ladies… And men.”
Todd didn’t know what to say for a moment. Upon his second sentence, the sandy-haired poet could practically feel Pittsie, and Meeks relax, he was like them to some extent. Hell, even Todd relaxed upon hearing that. Gay solidarity aside, he had a good feeling about Charlie. He was them in more ways than one, he loved poetry with a passion which… Was pretty rare, and probably why the group had always been relatively small. “You’re in.”
“Bet your ass I’m in,” he crowed.
With that out of the way, they braved the cave. It was a relatively clean experience as far as the members were concerned, although Knox insisted on making a scene of laying out his jacket while squabbling with their newest person. The dark was fast approaching so all save the lanky hypochondriac turned their phone flashlights on, screen facing the leafy ground as the five lights shone onto six smiling faces. God, he’d never get sick of this.
Clearing his thought, Todd took the stand with supportive whoops from his friends. An eager smirk quirked at his lips upon appreciating the accuracy of their opening line now. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…”
It was gone ten before any of them knew it. Chipper from the prose and rosy-cheeked from the cold, the five had accepted Charlie as one of their own rapidly. They’d gotten to know him almost as well as they knew each other during these past two hours, one of the things they learnt was that Charlie loved to talk and he was good at it. He could talk for America and none of them really minded, it fits them. It wasn’t that Todd hadn’t grown out of quietness, he had monumentally improved with the help of his friends, but even so, he always fell on the quiet end of the spectrum.
Sidling next to him, Charlie offered him a cigarette. He took it. It was a nasty habit, but it was oddly calming and although he didn’t feel anxious that minute the socialising would wear him out pretty soon. It wasn’t that he didn’t love the poets – he did - but it was like a battery. As long as he was fully charged or had access to the isolation needed to charge he would be fine, but the lower the battery the worse the performance.
“H-Hey,” he stuttered. Functions like speaking without that stutter. “You like the meeting?”
“Like it? Todd, I loved it!” Charlie retorted. “Swear to God, you guys were just incredible. Don’t get me wrong I’m a people person but I’m always… don’t know, looking for people I can really relate to. The LGBT club was fun, but I had nothing in common except liking dudes.”
“I-I get that,” the captain replied, a rueful smile playing on his lips. “Meeks and I originally wanted to join it, but it made us too nervous. What’s the next best thing for a couple of gay nerds? A poetry club, I-I guess.”
Charlie laughed at that, a real monstrous rambunctious thing. It felt as if it shook the cave with how fierce it was. Todd liked it when people laughed like that, it had taken him years to stop hiding his laugh behind his hands and even now he sometimes succumbed to old habits.
“Man, my friend Neil would love this,” Charlie hummed. “He’s a drama major too, not necessarily into poetry but I bet coming here could sway him.”
“You should bring him,” Todd insisted, a little too enthusiastically bumping his head on the cave’s walls. “O-Ow. Seriously though we’re always looking for new members. Limited requirements: like poetry and don’t be a dickhead.”
“Oh, come on,” the drama major chided. “I could see the way you assessed my reasons. If you didn’t think I loved poetry you wouldn’t have let me join.”
Was he really that transparent? Feeling a little embarrassed he noted the nudging from the new member, a gesture that said not to sweat it that he completely got it. Todd let out a sigh of relief that Charlie understood. The love for written words that took place amongst them was sacred in a way he couldn’t describe; it was a seedling watered by their beloved Keating that now stood tall craning their stems for a taste of the honey poetry offered.
“You like musicals?” Charlie asked.
“M-Musicals?” Todd repeated, looking beside him. “I like a couple of them, but Meeks is the superfan. He’s dragged me along to far too many Hamilton productions.”
Charlie now sported an ear-splitting grin. “You guys should totally come to see my pal Neil perform, they’re doing Spring Awakening at the university on Friday.”
“Really? Well…” Looking to Meeks, he saw him nodding his head viciously to the point of detaching it. Scratching the back of his neck he couldn’t help but smile at the boy, “Sure.”