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todd hates this.
he hates welton, with its strict rules that have him fearing punishment if he treats it like a normal school. he hates neil and his friends, not for any real reason, just that he wants to be a part of their group but can't even bring himself to talk to anyone other than his roommate. he hates neil, especially, with his stupid eyes that stare and stare and make todd's face hot. he hates mr. keating for making him read aloud, for bullying him more than any student ever did, even though todd knows he means well.
he hates not being able to do the things he wants, not being able to “suck the marrow out of life” without choking and sputtering. he hates the way his hands shake and his heart races when he tries to talk to people, hates how he kicks himself after every little slip-up in conversation. but mostly he hates himself, because all his problems are really just his own fault.
the library is quiet, except for neil-and-company, who chatter and laugh around another table. a teacher yells at them and neil comes scampering to todd's table, sliding into the seat next to him and leaning in so close that their shoulders brush against each other. the feeling makes todd's brain short-circuit.
neil wants to know if he's coming to the meeting. todd wants to say yes, say it sounds fun, say neil could smile at him like that and he'd probably do anything.
instead he says no, he doesn't want to do it.
he does want to, really, but he just can't read out loud. not to cameron, who already doesn't like him ("looks like a stiff!") - not to any of the others, who probably share a similar opinion.
it's not even particularly that he feels like he'll do something wrong, though he is worried about screwing up or getting them caught - it's more that he feels like he'll have done something wrong simply by virtue of him being him.
neil asks him if it's a "problem". todd thinks maybe it is, but he doesn't say that, because neil doesn't have to know how bad it is. he says it's not a problem, he just doesn't want to, and he doesn't mention how the thought of reading aloud makes his gut swim with nausea (and maybe something a bit more hopeful, too, though it's quickly drowned out by the gnawing fear).
neil has a meddling look in his eye. he says todd doesn't have to read. that they can change the way it works, like it's nothing at all, like the school motto of tradition means nothing. like that's how anything works. like they'll change things to make it better for him. for him. the concept is absurd to him.
todd laughs. scoffs, really, at the idea. it's ridiculous. it's not like neil is just going to go over to the other boys and ask them to change the rules, and-
what is he doing.
todd frantically whisper-shouts at neil as he stands, but he doesn't want to get in trouble, and really he wants neil pressed against his shoulder again, faces dangerously close to each other, but he'll get in trouble - tradition, and all that.
later, as the boys mill about in the bathroom that night, neil taps todd on the shoulder - shocking him out of whatever reverie he had found himself in - and tells him that he's in.
neil smiles, and todd doesn't know how he couldn't be.
neil doesn't understand.
todd wants to be in the society the same way neil wants him to be in - he wants to read his poems out loud like they're even comparable to whitman and wilde, wants to yawp and "carpe diem!" with the others, singing like drunks as they stagger towards their cave. he's started thinking of it as their cave. todd isn't sure if he includes himself in that.
the point is - he wants to be in. and if neil wants him out, he'll be out, simply because todd knows that he can't really be in, no matter what. what todd wants doesn't matter, it never has, and especially not when compared with the sheer force of neil perry, the wonderful boy with a blanket cape around his shoulders who stood in front of him just moments ago, the wonderful boy who is standing over him now and leaning against the wall.
neil knows what he wants. even if he feels like he's not allowed to have it, he wants it. todd isn't like that. todd isn't allowed to want.
he's not like neil. he doesn't have a passion like him, something he knows he's good at and wants to do and wants to share. he has his flimsy notebook, missing half its pages, and scribbled out words on college-ruled paper that he'll hide from the world, and that's fine. he'll never be any more than second best, and rarely that, but he'll take it, because he isn't like neil.
neil is confident, and he takes initiative, and he's frankly gorgeous when he looks at him like that, all furrowed brows and long mouth, and-
todd isn't like neil. he isn't allowed to want.
he tells neil he can take care of himself. he's easy and he stays out of the way and he doesn't need neil trying to lead him by the hand out of his comfort zone (though he wouldn't mind it, especially if he really did lead todd by the hand somewhere, fingers wrapped loosely around his own-)
he can take care of himself and neil can’t do anything about it because he doesn’t understand, because todd can’t make him understand with only the half-finish poem in his lap, because todd won’t let him understand.
neil says no. he looks confused, insistent, that same face on: eyebrows pulled together, eyes squinted and worried.
todd blinks at him. what does "no" mean? todd can take care of himself just fine, he's not a child, he knows what he can and can't do and he knows he can't keep thinking about neil, about his mouth stretching up into a smirk, about the dimples in his cheeks, the raise of an eyebrow - about the second "no" that leaves his lips that makes todd pause, sets his mind blank.
todd's in awe. neil's audacity, his beautiful disregard for stringing words into phrases that actually mean things, strikes todd right in the heart. this is maybe the one thing that keating said that really meant something to todd. english was not invented to communicate. it was invented to woo, and neil had mastered the language with a single two-lettered word.
suddenly, the notebook is in neil's hands instead of todd's lap, and all smirks and dimples and "no"s have been forgotten in todd's desperate attempt to retrieve it. they scream and holler, bumping against walls and trampling over creaky bedframes, and todd's fingers keep brushing over neil's shoulders and hair, and he almost trips when neil looks back at him with a bright grin. he finds himself out of breath, red-faced, but beaming just as large.
maybe todd is more like neil than he thought.