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Neil would like to say he’s a pretty decent fellow.
Or, at least, that’s what most people say about him, and he’s not one to look too closely at himself and figure out what part of him is a charade and what part of him is the raw truth, so if most of the people he’s encountered call him decent, then he’ll go right on to believe them.
This is all to say, of course, that he isn’t purposely snooping.
Which – he will admit, clarifying that he isn’t snooping on purpose, which is commonly indicative of the fact that Neil Perry, is, in fact, snooping, isn’t the best look for him, but, well – all right. Hold on.
The entire situation arises on a casual Thursday night, the kind in which he and his friends make no plans to sneak out, too many of them too busy, and so it’s just him and Todd in their shared dorm, as it often is, studying late into the night, or until one of them mentions turning off the light, and then it’s shuffling around in their beds and mumbled conversations.
There is, however, the preface of him slaving over McAllister’s Latin homework, translating, I have not eaten the plums. You did not eat the plums. We did not eat the plums., while he is compelled to bash his head into the plain, beige wall in front of him, as Todd scribbles away in his notebook that he used to quickly turn away when Neil would enter the room.
Call him boastful, but he can’t help the shine of pride that gleams in him every time he retreats to their shared dorm and Todd doesn’t hurriedly flip to a fresh page, instead resolving to look up and offer a smile that makes Neil progressively concerned for his own heart health. He ought to start avoiding the dining hall’s breakfast bacon.
He leans back into his seat, tipping his head back, uncomfortably so, but just enough to peer at an upside-down Todd, who leans against the corner between his bed’s headboard and the wall that he is so keen towards, his mouth a slight twist of pink as a frown, and his eyebrows furrowed. Even like this, he is captivating.
Neil stares long enough to be considered a little less than chivalrous, and lets out a despaired sigh. This, predictably, gets Todd to glance up from his paper, pencil ceasing in tapping. The crease between his eyebrows lessens. “Are you okay?”
“Todd,” he begins, “I’m afraid I can feel my brain leaking out of my ears.”
Thankfully, his antics are worth the slight tilt of Todd’s mouth, in that small smile he does sometimes, and Neil feels like he’s won something grand. Todd asks, “Which is it this time? Still Trigonometry?”
“Latin,” Neil bemoans, and the dramatics aren’t really all that deserved, especially when they both know he’s as good as Latin as they come, and he’s often the only tending to others during their Latin study groups, but he thinks he deserves the ridiculousness just this once. “How long do you think they’d take to find me if I ran away?”
“Over Latin?” Todd questions, eyebrows raising, but he seems amused, nonetheless.
“Over Latin,” he sighs.
Todd stares back at him, squinting, as if to think with much consideration, until he settles on, “I say three days, tops.”
“Have you no faith in me?” Neil whines, and Todd only shrugs, smile growing. Neil fights down his own, and raises a hand to press against his forehead. His neck, where the chair digs in, aches. “You wound me.”
“If it’s really that much of a bother,” Todd says, and he shifts as he does, placing his notebook beside him while he scoots up to the edge of his bed, and Neil watches him, “you can always finish tomorrow. I’m sure you could get it done during lunch.”
“I suppose,” Neil replies, eyes on Todd, who gets up to place his notebook on his desk, pencil rolling off, until it hits a textbook. Neil sits up, grimacing at the hike of pain in his neck, and presses a palm against his nape. Still, silently, he watches as Todd stretches, the bit of his sweater that rises with it, and he quickly looks away, as if he’d nearly walked in on something he shouldn’t have.
It’s quiet business as Todd ruffles through his closet, and Neil jots off the last problem he can handle. The subtle shove of metal hangers against the pole accompanies the scratch of pencil, until Todd grabs his sleepwear and heads off to the bathroom.
Neil stares at the sheet in front of him, the questions left in the textbook that seem to taunt him, and, if he stares long enough, the words seem to melt together. He presses a finger against the page, and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath in.
He gets up and flips the textbook close, shoving his paper in as a placeholder. His back vaguely aches in the hours spent hunched over his work, and he lets out a slight groan as he tilts back, attempting to straighten out the damage. His bones crack in response, and he winces, sounding a little like a firecracker.
When he stands upright, his blood rushes to his head, and he, embarrassingly, loses balance, just a little, as he stumbles, and he yelps as he nearly careens into the wall across him. He catches himself in the nick of time, but barely grazes Todd’s desk in the meantime, hip brushing the infamous notebook and sending it to the ground.
He huffs in a breath, standing properly, and swipes at his cheek. He clears his throat and looks down at the ground.
There’s a poem on it.
And – predictably, of course, there is. Todd, ever the silent, humble poet, would never willingly allow Neil’s eyes to see this – at least, not without some pleading and a bargain or two. Neil, ever the enthusiast of literature, and, adjacently, Todd, can’t help the curiosity unfurling in him, pricking at his palms.
He kneels down and picks it up.
We’re – sitting beside each other –
And this is where, Neil supposes, the snooping comes in, because – he doesn’t mean to latch onto the words as quickly as he does, but he’s always greedy for whatever bit of poetry Todd has the compassion and pity to grant him, and, all right, he’s more than just eager to get another glimpse into Todd’s brilliant mind.
The page is littered with scribbles, with smudges of a dull pencil tip, and words crossed out and written over, full lines sliced through with a stroke of gray graphite. Even with Todd’s clunky writing, Neil’s eyes make quick work in sifting through the mess of writing and scribbles.
And, he figures, as he reads, it’s –
We’re sitting – beside each other
And you – float – above it all
The sly-eyed conductor, and – we as your symphony
You – don’t know of the crowd and the – creak of chairs
When you raise your hands and the – rise of – stares
We bring our – violins and flutes – up –
But the orchestra will never be enough
You don’t know of the diamonds and – sapphires
As you – stroll past, your lines of admirers
You don’t know of – me, the single player
– Looking at you like a holy prayer
– a love poem.
Neil blinks. And blinks again.
A love poem.
Todd’s written a love poem.
The common elation of finding a good poem, as it so often does, seems to fill him to the brim, and it only subsides to make room for the strange, fuzzy feeling when he knows it to be Todd’s, the electricity in his fingertips that crackles and snaps as he holds the notebook in his hands. He stares at the page.
It feels a little involuntary when he reads it once, twice, thrice, something innate in him moving, as if to try and imprint it all into memory, press it into stone, until he needn’t look at the page to remember the syrupy, pollen-coated words.
We’re sitting – beside each other, and you –
We’re sitting beside each other, and you – float – above it all
We’re sitting beside each other, and you float above it all –
Alongside it all, however, is something a little grander, something less definable or discernible, something Neil doesn’t know how to fit in his hands to take a gander at when he tries to put a name to it, something that blooms and twists when he puts the words love and Todd next to each other.
It is, Neil is quite sure, a love poem, because – he can’t imagine himself ever writing something like this about any of his friends, no matter how familial they feel. The admiration seems to bleed through the ink, and he can’t picture Todd writing about someone so casually, so platonically, without it being something – more.
Todd, Neil realizes, is in love.
The murmur and clatter and chatter of boys and men alike outside of the door filters in again, over the rush of jubilation in his ears, and he stares down at the page for another long while, until he’s quite sure he’d be able to see it with his eyes closed, and he places the notebook back onto Todd’s desk.
There is, of course, the streak of guilt underneath it all, because it, certainly, had been an action on a sudden whim, the impulsive bit of him that he needs to tame, but he’s always been a sucker for poetry, and notably Todd’s, most of all. There’s been an undying need in him to experience more of Todd’s words, Todd’s poems, Todd’s thoughts, and Todd’s – everything, ever since Mr. Keating had strung Todd around and around and pulled out a free string of brilliance from the unspoken knot inside Todd’s head.
He had felt it, then, that surge of a big, great – something, and now, too, it washes over him, and he swallows as he stares at the notebook. He stares, and stares, and stares.
His face feels warm.
He wants to look at the poem again.
Neil does, however, have a grain of self-control, and quickly turns away and to his closet, hurriedly tugging off a pair of clothes and heading to the door. His body feels all clumsy, suddenly, as though he’s lost all coordination, and he’s desperately trying to pull his mind off the poem sitting a few feet away from him, but his mind is a stubborn thing, sticking to the words like his life depends on it.
As it so happens, when he heads to the door, trying very hard not to think about the poem at all, Todd comes in, and Neil barely steps back before they collide.
“Oh,” he remarks intelligently. “Um.”
“Sorry!” Todd squeaks out immediately, and they’re – close to each other, both of them shoved into the doorway, and standing only a few inches away from each other. Sorry comes out a little high, and it’s a – pretty thing, how pink flourishes onto Todd’s face, like it so often does, ever so easily embarrassed.
Neil, despite himself, smiles. It can’t be helped, with Todd’s unintentional, endearing awkwardness. “No worries,” he replies, moving aside to let Todd slip by. His chest feels, oddly, fluttery and light, startlingly warm when Todd brushes past him.
Todd pauses at the sight of his own notebook, where it lies facing up, poem to the ceiling, and then turns back to Neil. He furrows his eyebrows, and Neil, a little bit, feels like doomsday is coming. “Neil?”
He hadn’t expected to be debunked so quickly.
Neil braces himself. “Yes?”
Todd’s eyes flicker between the notebook and Neil, and his face is progressively getting pinker. It makes him look sweeter than he already is.
“Did – did you read this?”
Neil presses his lips together. “A little,” he admits, and then, because he’s never really liked lying to Todd, “okay, yes, I did, but Todd –”
His immediate reassurances, however, are deemed fruitless when Todd brings up his hands to his face, pressing against his cheeks and face as he groans, “Neil.” He finds refuge behind his hands, where his face is, presumably, definitely becoming pinker, and his embarrassment is evident while he hides himself in his palms.
“Todd,” he returns, resisting the urge to reach out and pull his hands away, “listen, I think it’s great, really, I think it’s wonderful, and it’s – it’s poetry, and you know I wouldn’t lie to you about this! I don’t understand why you hide it, it’s –”
“It – it’s – it’s embarrassing, Neil,” Todd complains, and he only retreats from his hands to flip the notebook to a blank page, before pulling open a drawer and shoving it in. “I – I mean, you can feel free about looking through anyone else’s stuff, but not – not this, all right?”
“I know,” he hurries to say, “I didn’t mean to, Todd, honest, but it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” He bites his lip, and he adds, “You know I love what you write.”
Todd’s face, somehow, gets impossibly pinker. “Um,” he says, in a strange voice. And then, after another moment, when it seems to click as to what Neil had just told him, he adds, sounding more satiating than sincere, “Okay.”
Neil raises an eyebrow. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Todd huffs, and waves Neil away. “I – okay. Go – go do what you were going to do.”
Neil smiles, all too familiar with Todd’s avoidance with anything kind. “But Todd –”
He is, however, effectively kicked out and into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind him as he holds his clothes in his arms. His stomach feels entwined with electricity. His smile still sticks on his face. His face is still warm.
You don’t know of the crowd, he remembers, and his mind works to put the puzzle together, where, if he thinks hard enough, he can nearly envision the scribbly scrawl of Todd’s, writing out the poem in his head. The creak of chairs.
The hallway is still bustling with the rest of their peers getting ready for bed. He can hear, underneath it all, someone, presumably Charlie, with his aggregation of musical instruments, playing some sort of wind instrument, and Knox lingering near Charlie and Cameron’s room. When he stops by for a quick goodnight, they all pause to chorus their own departure, and Knox pats him on the shoulder before he leaves for his own room.
Holding a bundle of his own clothing, he enters the bathroom, where it is equally crowded. Changing into his sleepwear is quick work, and he spends a moment or so combing his hair, grinning when two others toss an empty shampoo bottle overhead between each other, three others grappling between them for it.
When Neil splashes cold, cold water onto his face, he still feels unbearably warm.
“Romeo and Juliet!”
Neil does nothing short of barge into Todd and his shared room, coat flurrying behind him while he shuts the door and offers the flier to Todd with a grand flourish. He’d feel more inclined to calm down on the theatrics if he weren’t so excited. His veins feel full of bees.
Poor, unsuspecting Todd, who had been sitting on the windowsill, Keating’s assigned reading in hand, glances over the paper in his hands, before peering up at Neil. He’s dressed in a blue sweater. It brings out his eyes. He looks – it looks nice.
“Romeo and Juliet,” Todd repeats, blinking. “And – and you’re auditioning?”
“Of course!” Neil exclaims, and his cheeks hurt a little from grinning so hard. He had nearly skipped all the way back to Welton. “The production begins in late January, well after exams, which gives me plenty of time for rehearsal and all – I mean, if I do get a part, but –”
“You will,” Todd blurts, before turning red in the cheeks. Neil pauses, words falling silent when Todd stumbles over himself to clarify, “Get the part, I mean, you’re – you’ll get the part, I’m sure, since – you – you know, you’re good at – at – acting,” he finishes, looking close to imploding right then and there. “I mean.”
Neil’s grin, impossibly, grows brighter. “You think so?”
“Yes,” Todd croaks.
Neil is suddenly, oddly, strangely, urged to sweep Todd up in his arms.
He settles for leaning over and ruffling Todd’s hair, laughing when Todd swats him away, to no avail, pink in the face and now messy hair. “You flatter me,” he says, and ignores the swell of summery sunshine in his ribcage. “As I was saying, auditions are just next week, and I ought to –”
The next few weeks breeze by, and Todd seems to be a bit of a psychic, because that is how, later, the snow-barren fields of Welton find Neil and Todd making their way towards the dock, the lake’s surface of ice having finally melted away, with a month left before spring makes its arrival. It’s pleasant for a winter afternoon, no chilling breeze to be found, and enough sunlight for the mirage of warmth.
“O calm, dishonorable, vile submission!” Neil recites, coat whisking behind him as he walks forward, and Todd looks at him with a slight smile, the unabashed sort when it’s only them. He clutches Neil’s script in both hands, getting roped into helping Neil rehearse when they’re both bare of any homework to do.
Todd, although he is not one for drama, is a good friend, one Neil finds more thankful than anything at times like these. In spite of his own reluctance to speak up, he finds it in him to indulge Neil anyway, filling in for characters, when Neil is only one man.
“Alla staccato carries it away,” Neil announces, and he looks around, them approaching a leafless tree, before he leans down and swipes off a fallen branch, long enough to reach out at least three feet. He positions himself, as if moments away from exclaiming, En garde!, and points the branch towards Todd, who regards it warily. Neil grins. “Tybalt, you ratcatcher. Will you walk?”
Todd takes a glimpse at the script, the words unnatural in his mouth when he reads, “What would – wouldst thou have with me?”
“Come on,” Neil prompts, poking at him with the branch, and Todd rolls his eyes as he waves him away. “Give it some aggression! Some – some anger!” He raises his branch once up again, close enough to barely brush Todd’s nose. Todd goes cross-eyed looking at it, and Neil exclaims, loud enough to echo into Welton’s halls, “Tybalt, you ratcatcher! Will you walk?”
“What wouldst thou have with me?” Todd shouts, this time around, and Neil whoops, spinning in place and relieving Todd’s face from the tree’s branch. When he turns around to spot Todd again, his mouth is split into a smile, and Neil can feel his body pent up with energy.
We as your symphony, he thinks. Me as your symphony. He forgets which is correct. Me as your symphony sounds more accurate, he knows, when he watches Todd take a look at the script again, and back up, and Neil can’t tear his own gaze away.
A part of him, lurching and obvious, begging to be let out, has been aching to ask about the poem. Another part, the part that hangs onto and files away every move of Todd’s, knows better. Maybe someday, when he’s braver.
Neil waves the branch in the air, coat fluttering behind him as he bounces from one place to another. “Good king of cats,” he emphatically claims, and he can feel the grass twisting underneath his shoes as he spins again, going without stumbling when he catches Todd’s eye, “nothing but one of your nine lives!”
He brandishes his branch, outstretched and offensive to Todd, and waits. Todd’s eyes flick down toward his script, and look back up.
“I am for you,” Todd says, voice loud and abrasive, and Neil feels all too proud of himself, like he does, whenever he pokes and prods enough to finally pull Todd out of his quiet exterior.
Todd looks around, until he finds a similar branch, holding it in one hand, while the other grasps at the script. He’s all too sheepish in it, but Neil whacks the side of his branch – or sword, for theatrics’ sake, against Todd’s, who has the gall to look affronted. He whacks back, and Neil lets out a surprised laugh.
“Come, sir,” Neil declares, and puts one foot forth, as though getting ready to fight, “your passado!”
He twirls his improvised sword towards Todd, who startles, before taking a step back. When Neil only takes a step closer, he readies his own arm. Neil grins.
Neil, for all he is, does, in fact, have a shred of dignity to care for when he only mimics the posture of the fencing classes he had taken so many years ago, until it had been swapped out for soccer instead. Now, it’s only a skeleton of proper etiquette, but it doesn’t matter when it’s only pretend, poking at Todd with a twig of a tree.
They do move like an orchestra, Neil mildly thinks, as they lean back and forth, both dodging and half-heartedly attacking, fluidly clumsy and carefree in their own way. There’s other Welton students strolling about, the afternoon pleasant enough for a free game of football or a calming walk outside, and both he and Todd catch the attention of other by-passers. Still, he can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed in the slightest, not when he feels so utterly alive, like spring blooms are sprouting up from his very skin. It’s an often occurrence, when acting.
It’s only furtherly heightened with Todd beside him, broken out of his shell, whose laughter bubbles up in him, and he copies Neil’s own stance messily, pointing his own – sword at Neil, before encroaching. Neil swipes at him.
Todd flinches, exclaiming as he jumps away, as the point of the sword nearly hits him in the arm, and he retaliates, slicing through the air, just when Neil dodges and makes towards Todd, their swords colliding and clashing, and he huffs a laugh while Todd twirls his sword away and jabs at Neil once more.
“Villain!” Neil yelps as he narrowly leaps away, and it earns a full laugh from Todd. Neil’s grin widens, and regards Todd with his own sword. It only lasts a second, his own sword, before Todd hits it hard enough for it to fly out of Neil’s hand, and he gapes as Todd advances. “This is – uncouth!”
“All’s fair,” Todd claims, boyishly charming when he smiles like this – blatant, unashamed, unveiled, and Neil wants to treasure it, mark it in oil paints and hang it up to dry, to admire. Even amidst the frigid ends of February winter, he feels alight with warmth, with that of spring, of sunshine.
He remembers to dodge, but only just, and he stumbles back, falling onto the dead grass with a light oof, sprawled in a mess of legs and limbs. The sun shines into his eyes, and Todd looms over him, sword poking at Neil’s chest while he peers down at him, sunsilk hair falling into his eyes. Neil’s hands twitch.
“I surrender,” Neil sighs, breathing, just a bit, harder than usual, and Todd beams at him, dropping the branch aside. “I’ve been ambushed.”
“Hardly,” Todd replies, breathing hard himself, and he looks sweet, smiling, looking down at Neil with upturned eyes. “I win.”
“Fitting for your role,” Neil notes, and lets his body seep into the earth. “All right, Tybalt, help me up.”
Todd offers a free hand to tug Neil up, and Neil’s own fingers wrap around his, palm against palm, before –
“God – damn it, Neil!” Todd yelps, landing onto Neil, who laughs as Todd falls as well. Todd is a hard and firm thing against him, the tangle of their coats and bodies when he collapses onto Neil, and his own joy feels explosive in him. His insides feel made of helium, floaty and light in his body, and his cheeks hurt from smiling. “You – sore loser.”
“All’s fair,” Neil quotes, and Todd scoffs, squirming away, until they’re side by side. Their arms still press together, which – he isn’t quite sure why he notices, or cares so much, but it’s nice. The contact is nice. Steady. Reassuring.
We’re sitting beside each other. You float above it all.
He blames the heat on his face from their slight fight.
It’s a quiet moment as they catch their breaths, staring up at the cloudless sky, the sun staring down at their heaving chests. The sound of distant classmates are the only bits of noise in the air, no birdsong so early in the year, but it is, undeniably, pleasant. Neil feels hot to the bone. He nearly considers stripping his coat.
“I want to do this for the rest of my life,” he decides, the words leaving his mouth easily, and he finds them to be true.
Todd’s breaths come out in huffs. “What? Lose in a fight of branches?”
“No,” Neil answers, and Todd laughs. He turns to catch it just in time, Todd gazing up at the sky, face flushed and hair away from his face, and his smile lingers. He looks – enchanting, if Neil were allowed to be free with his words. “I meant – acting. Like this.” He breathes out a deep exhale, and turns back to the sky. “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted, Todd.”
He hears it as Todd lets out a deep sigh, and there’s a moment before he says, sounding a little embarrassed, “You could do it. As a – a proper job, I think. You – you’re good.”
His heart thumps in his chest. “I’m glad you think so.” The cool air feels nice in his mouth, his insides hot and syrupy. “Although, I must admit, my claim to fame really relies on one pressing factor.”
“Wh– what?”
“You have to assist me in practicing for each of my roles,” he tells him, and Todd snorts.
“Yeah, right, Neil,” he huffs, and he sounds light. Neil wants to look at him again, so he does. Todd’s still looking up at the sky, and he seems calmer, now, although the corner of his lips are still upturned.
“Well, why not?” Neil questions. He’s earnest about it, because, for a reason Neil can’t entirely pinpoint, other than the swell company Todd provides, rehearsing with him like this brings out something else in him, something more than happy and more than inspired. “You’re a great scene partner.”
“Okay,” Todd says, in that voice again, that he does when he doesn’t quite believe it, but doesn’t want to argue about it.
Neil’s mouth twitches, and his eyes look back to the sky. He’d get Todd to believe it, one day. Eventually.
“I meant it, by the way,” he mentions. “You should come ‘round rehearsal, one day. You could help out with lights, or just watch. You’d have fun.”
When Todd shrugs, their arms brush against each other, and Neil cares too much about it. “Maybe,” he replies. Then, with a sudden teasing tone, he asks, “Will the girl who played Hermia be there?”
“Oh, jeez,” Neil groans, pushing at Todd, who only laughs in return. It had been a grave mistake to mention her to Todd, when trying to convince Todd to join him, just once, for rehearsal, with the promise of pretty girls, because that would work on any of the rest of their friends, except it had sorely backfired when Todd inquired, Yeah, what’s she look like?, and, almost immediately, Neil had replied, Forget it, you aren’t coming., and Todd had laughed while Neil quickly changed the subject.
“What?” Todd protests, although he fully well knows what, when he laughs, even as Neil pokes at him, and he half-heartedly swats him away. “I was only asking!”
“One day, Anderson,” Neil warns, “I’ll convince you.”
Todd shrugs. “All right,” he says, in that voice again.
Neil squints at him. His eyes catch on Todd’s smile, the gleam of his teeth.
You float above it all, he thinks involuntarily.
“One day,” he promises.
“I dreamt a dream last night.”
“So did I.”
Romeo regards him interestedly. “Well, what was yours?”
Mercutio slyly smirks. “That dreamers often lie.”
The crowd laughs.
When he glances at the crowd, Todd’s near the middle, with Pitts to his right, and Keating to his left. He looks happy.
“In bed asleep while they do dream things true,” Romeo sagely returns.
Mercutio quickly looks back.
Something blossoms in Neil’s stomach.
The rest of the night flies by, faster than Neil gets to catch his breath.
There’s a dinner the cast mates all share, and, as much as he’d love to, he humbly refuses to instead have Charlie toss an arm around his shoulders, Todd sitting in the chair next to him, while Meeks tosses a fry into Pitts’ mouth, in some diner in the middle of town, the night cast out with warm lights, but no warmer than Neil feels.
The adrenaline still runs high, and he feels so happy, it seems to drown out his insides and all the important organs. His cheeks ache from smiling, and he’s pleasantly exhausted. He remembers the laughter of the crowd, the reassuring pat of Keating afterwards, the shine of Todd’s smile all night. Neil wants to feel this way forever.
“Romeo, o Romeo,” Charlie sings, snapping his fingers in front of Neil’s eyes. “Where art thou Romeo?”
Neil laughs easily. “Nowhere else,” he says, before glancing down at his plate. He blinks. “Did you steal my fries?”
“No idea what you’re referring to,” Charlie answers, and quickly turns away to ask, “Speaking of fries – Cameron, do your dear old pal a favor and –”
“No,” Cameron responds immediately, and swats at Charlie when he makes grabby hands.
Neil looks over to Todd. He has an idle smile on his face while he watches Meeks ramble on about something or another – some new, niche topic he’s become interested in, surely, like he does so often, and Neil would pay more interest in it if his eyes felt too impossibly stuck onto the sight of Todd.
Todd himself is doing nothing particularly out of the ordinary when he’s only sitting there, watching Meeks, except, lately, even the most ordinary feels so extraordinary when it comes to Todd. Something about the absence of Todd’s usual, too self-aware curl of his shoulders, or the unabashed smile on his face, is doing something acrobatic to Neil’s heart.
He had dressed up, as well as the rest of their friends, in a suit, with a tie to match, and hair gelled. He looks reminiscent of the same boy Neil had met on the first day, but more comfortable in his skin, lax in his seat while he’s surrounded by company. It makes Neil want to pull him close, shake out all the energy in his own body.
He looks lovely, Neil decides, underneath the diner’s warm lights. He’d feel more embarrassed by the thought if it didn’t feel so factual, and it would be hard to argue otherwise, if not for the soft curve of Todd’s jaw, how the burgundy of his suit jacket compliments him so well, the charm of his smile when he’s like this.
There’s a faint pinkness in Todd’s cheeks, as well, one that Neil is quite sure there’d been a simile or two to compare to in the play, but his mind seems to blank when it only deepens as Todd glances over to Neil, and catches him staring.
His eyes are a little wide. “What?”
“Nothing,” Neil shrugs, unashamed in his wide smile. Todd stares at him, if not a little confused, and it’s endearing and it’s sweet and it’s contagious, and Neil presses his hand against his own knee, before reaching over and stealing a fry.
“Neil,” he complains lightly, although it’s clear he doesn’t mind, not really. “First Charlie, now –”
“Toddrick, don’t you dare, you offered your fries to me, and –”
“Me getting up to get napkins is not offering my fries to any –”
“All I did was make the most of the opportunity given to – hey!” Charlie squawks, narrowly dodging as Todd chucks a scrunched-up napkin in him. Pitts takes the time to throw his own balled-up napkin at Charlie, and soon, Cameron sees the chance for revenge to aim his own, and the moment slips out of Neil’s fingers as Charlie is suddenly under a siege of napkins.
The sky is starry, glimmering as they finally retreat to Welton, and the hallways are dark when they turn in for the night. It’s a quiet affair, getting ready for bed, and the buzz of the night still lives under Neil’s skin while he pulls on his pajama pants, combing a hand through his freshly washed hair.
When he finally collapses in bed, he feels – content.
More than content, he thinks. More than anything at all. More than life.
Todd walks into the room a little later, fiddling with the watch on his wrist, and when he looks up, Neil catches his eye immediately. “Light?” He questions, and Neil nods. Todd runs his fingers over the switch, and the room is bathed in darkness, moonlight filtering in between their beds.
Neil rolls over to gaze at the ceiling, blank as it ever is, but never empty when he pours out all his thoughts onto it. The squeak of Todd’s own bed follows, accompanied by the rustling of his sheets, and, suddenly it’s just them and the moonlight, like it so often is. Neil’s heartbeat thuds in his ears.
He’s been feeling strange, lately, Neil observes. Inexplicable, yet so significant in the symptoms of something unnameable. He’s not sure if he doesn’t know what it is, or if he doesn’t want to say what it is.
His mind, as it’s been doing for the past month and some, returns to Todd’s poem.
Guiltily, it’s a late night indulgence, rerunning the verses in his head like he would a script, mouthing it silently, turning the words over in his mouth like honey hard-candy. He’s sure he has some bits messed up, some bits incorrect, but the sentiment lies there anyway.
He’s not sure why he feels so obsessive over it. He, admittedly, had been reminiscent of the first poem Todd had shown him, a little after Keating had provoked the impromptu poem in front of their classmates. That one, though, had been unintentional. The one Todd had shown him had felt oddly personal, strangely intimate.
That, assumedly, had only been in Neil’s head, but he’d rather not think so. There’s some kind of pride – or rather, happiness, comfort, in thinking that Todd had trusted and regarded Neil to be so close as to show his work, the kind he still refuses to show the rest of their friends, even after months of meetings and tomfoolery.
Still, he hadn’t been so – fanatical about it, and he certainly hadn’t committed it to memory like this, reciting it before bed in fear of forgetting it. That’s – that isn’t the case at all. Neil isn’t sure what to make of it.
Alongside it all, however, has been the question ringing through his head, ever since he first laid his eyes onto Todd’s scribbled poem, ever since he was forced to put love and Todd next to each other, ever since he’s had to memorize, If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking, and you –
The constant question has only been getting louder, only more impossible to ignore, with Romeo and Juliet, with Keating’s past lessons on sonnets, with the remnants of Valentine’s Day only just receding, with it all burning in Neil’s mind, with Todd just a few feet away, the subtle rise and release of his breathing. He’s still awake.
We bring our violins and flutes up, he remembers, like always, but the orchestra will never be enough, you don’t know of –
Now, still, again, he, confessedly, still has the lingering inquiry of –
"Todd?"
There’s a pause, and Neil, for a moment, wonders if Todd has already fallen asleep, until the bed shifts, and the slightly muffled, eloquently expressed answer arrives, “W’uh?”
Neil, despite himself, cracks a smile. He, a little uselessly, asks, “Are you asleep?”
He hears Todd suck in a deep sigh, a slight groan as he repositions himself, the springs of the bed squeaking, and he answers, “No. Almost.” Neil nods, although it probably goes unseen, and then, “Why?”
“No reason,” Neil bluffs. He chews on his cheek. “I just had a question. That’s all.”
“Oh,” Todd replies, a little mumbled. He yawns. “What was it?”
Neil stares up at the ceiling. Carpe diem, and all that, he thinks. The sentiment feels a little too large to carry.
He asks, “Have you ever been in love?”
There is a very long pause.
The bed squeaks again. It feels thunderingly loud.
“Um,” Todd replies, and it’s – not a no, although he sounds a bit like Neil had just asked him to jump out the window. “I – I don’t – um. Why?”
“No reason.” The ceiling has never felt so daunting. “Just – curious.”
Silence follows.
Half of Neil is barely resisting rolling over to see Todd and gauge in however he’s reacting, if he’s frozen up or if he looks mortified, if he seems like he knows or if he thinks Neil is being insane again, like he often gets. Another half resists suffocating himself in his pillow.
Silence passes once more, and, for once, embarrassment, as promised, does arrive, barging in through the door and hammering around Neil’s brain, while he attempts not to make early due to death. Neil, for as long as he and Todd have known each other, has been crossing and erasing lines as much as humanly possible. Perhaps he’s finally drawn past the final one.
“Um,” Todd begins, after a long pause, “there’s – it’s – it’s not –”
Neil waits. He can nearly imagine Todd’s face right now, the quick blinking he does sometimes, when the words aren’t coming out right, or, sometimes, the slow flush on his face that rises, flustered at his own stuttering. Neil wants to look at him.
To his surprise, Todd says, “I – I think so.”
Neil can’t resist. He looks over at the other bed, where Todd’s head is already moving, as if just turning away, as if he’d been already looking at Neil. He wonders how many times Todd had been looking without him noticing.
You don’t know of me, he unwillingly recalls, looking at you. A holy prayer.
Neil’s stomach flips.
“Really?”
Todd’s hands move, turbulent underneath his covers, until they’re on his chest, and he fidgets. “I think,” Todd repeats, a little quieter, and he clears his throat. His voice, somehow rough around the edges yet soft all at once, in the unsure tone it’s often in, sounds a little hesitant when he confesses, “I mean, I – I’m not sure, but I think so.”
“Oh,” comes Neil’s brilliant reply. The impulsive streak in him brightens when he, impetuously, asks, “What’s it like?”
“I,” Todd starts, and he clears his throat again, as though his voice is failing him. “It’s not – I’m not, um, sure, but –”
“Tell me anyway,” Neil insists, and watches Todd’s Adam’s apple bob when he swallows. His hair is splayed out on the pillow case, away from his forehead. He’s a moonstone in the night.
Todd breathes out. “Okay,” he gives in, and Neil feels a spark of relief in his chest. “I – well. It’s just – nice, I guess.” Neil waits. He tries to control his own anticipation, at the promise of something new, something they’ve never touched to come out of Todd’s mouth, the excitement that comes at discovering new bits of Todd. “I mean, more than nice. It’s – it’s kind of like music, I think. I don’t know.”
Neil blinks. “Music?”
“Yeah.” Todd shifts under his covers. “It’s just – the moment is nicer when it’s – when they’re there, I suppose. Like when Meeks and Pitts brought along the radio last meeting.”
That had been nicer than usual, Neil thinks. It had brought a constant melody to the poems they read, the rhythm of their swaying and fiddling, the impromptu dance Charlie had dragged Knox into suddenly joining, before the rest of them had also joined.
It had gotten even nicer when Neil had successfully pulled Todd, who had been content only bobbing his head along, off the cave floor and standing up, attempting to sway both of them into some clumsy dance that included more arms than necessary, Neil’s laughter when they continuously bumped into each other contagious enough for Todd to forget himself and laugh along as well.
“That was nice,” Neil agrees, although it doesn’t feel adequate.
“More than that, though,” Todd continues, soft in the night, like a secret between them. “You want them with you, even if – if they don’t need to be, I guess. Or – or when they are there, it’s – you’re more aware of it, and you feel – strange, but a – a good strange, and you – you might stare, maybe. I – I’m not – I don’t know if –”
“It makes sense,” Neil interrupts, having already predicted the doubt seeping into Todd’s words. Strange sounds right. “Do you – can – can you continue?”
“I – yeah,” Todd replies, sounding unsure, but he goes on, anyway, relenting. “It’s – um. You, um, get happy, I guess, or – proud, when they tell things they only want you to know, or – or before anyone else, and they’re just – they’re different from anyone else. You’d – you’d pick them over anyone else.”
Neil stares at the slope of Todd’s nose, the whites of his eyes that seem to shine in the moonlight. It all makes sense, Neil knows, because Todd is ever so eloquent in his words that no one else seems to achieve, because, even through stutters and awkward pauses, he speaks so clearly, anyway.
It all feels achingly familiar, startlingly easy to attribute it all to –
“Oh,” Neil whispers.
“And,” Todd murmurs, hushed, with a tone of finality, “you – you want to spend the rest of your life with them.”
“Oh,” Neil blurts, and then – “Oh, God,” he unthinkingly swears.
He scrambles to sit up, the covers strewn over his waist as he hurries to get a hold of himself, and he’s sure he must seem crazy, wide eyes and mouth slightly agape while he seems to feel the entire array of human emotions, because –
“What?” Todd asks, worried as he also sits up.
Neil stares at him, and Todd looks so sweet, as he always does, eyes earnest and mouth downturned in concern, and he looks beautiful in the night, Neil thinks, hair falling over his forehead and into his eyes, and there’s that strange flower encroaching his throat again, and –
Neil realizes, “I’m in love.”
Todd stares, and stares, and stares, and stares, and –
“With you,” Neil clarifies.
And –
“What?” Todd chokes out.
Neil, a little belatedly, remembers the heaviness of his own words. He stares at Todd, and Todd – sweet, unsuspecting Todd, stares back.
“Oh,” he says, and his voice sounds a little far away, now, as though Neil’s body is currently a foot away from his own mouth, and he says, “I –”
“You,” Todd croaks. “What?”
Neil presses his lips together. “This is not how I meant for this to go.”
“What,” Todd says again, and Neil is beginning to worry he’s forgotten the rest of the English vocabulary.
“Sorry,” is where he decides to begin. He moves enough for his socked feet to land on the wooden floors, body towards Todd, who is still barely up, leaning on a single arm. “I – well. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, but then you started talking so I – well. You know. I forgot myself, for a moment. Sorry.”
“Sorry,” Todd echoes. He looks positively scrambled – more scrambled than Neil has ever seen him. Even through the times Neil has tried his best to startle Todd, Todd has always broken through to surprise Neil instead. Now, however, Neil is afraid he might have broken Todd past resurrection. “You – you’re sorry?”
“Yes?” Neil tries. It feels like a trick question. He doesn’t know the right answer. He goes for the truth. “I suppose I am. Not for – loving you, but springing it upon you like this.” He bites his lip, anxious, but – he’s crossed far past the line, now, and he continues, trying to go for lighthearted, “If you promise to forget this, I promise to make the next confession much more romantic.”
“Next time,” Todd repeats, sounding a little vacant. He props himself up properly, until he’s sitting. This, suddenly, feels much more intense. “Neil.”
He swallows. “Yeah?”
“Wh– what are you saying?”
That is a rather good question. He answers, prudently, “I love you.”
Todd falls silent, this time around, until they’re two boys staring at each other in the dark, and Neil can feel himself growing increasingly flustered – enough so that he’s half afraid his face is glowing pink in the night. Still, he can’t look away from Todd’s stare, who so often avoids eye contact like the plague.
It isn’t after what feels like an eternity that Todd, slowly, reluctantly, as if he’s afraid of the answer, asks, “Are – are you sure?”
“Yes,” Neil says immediately.
Todd frowns, and Neil is almost worried he has, somehow, answered wrong, although truthfully, and if he could take it back, he wouldn’t, because he’s sure it’d suffocate him from the inside, but Todd is still frowning, and Neil, for a moment, imagines if he did.
After a moment, Todd, slowly, gets up, revealing himself from his covers, and Neil can’t tear his eyes away as he watches him walk over to the light, cascading the room in low brightness, and Todd returns to his bed, sitting back onto the sheets at the end of his mattress.
“Are you – still sure?” Todd questions, as if the light could have deterred the skipping thump of Neil’s heart.
He can’t help himself when he lets out a small laugh. “Yes, Todd,” he replies, smile lingering, despite his nerves, “I’m sure.”
“Okay.” Todd fidgets with his fingers, and Neil is almost inclined to ask if he should leave, if it makes Todd any less nervous, although he’s sure he could be a whole ocean away, and Todd would still be fidgeting in his bed, and – “I – I was talking about you.”
Neil blinks. “Just now?”
Todd looks down at his hands, before giving a singular nod.
“Me – about the – the –” Neil stumbles, and he, vaguely, feels like they’ve swapped roles. “Really?” Another nod. “Are you sure?”
This, thankfully, seems to bring a small, amused tilt of Todd’s mouth, and he says, “I’m sure.”
“Oh,” Neil breathes. “Okay. Great.”
“Great,” Todd says back, and he seems properly amused now, much to Neil’s delight, the corners of his mouth quirked upward.
Neil gets up, and Todd blinks as he watches Neil head to the lightswitch again, the light flickering out, until it’s just the darkness once more. Todd looks, just a little, puzzled, when Neil stands in front of him, head tilted upward to meet his eye, until he also stands up, coming only a few inches shorter in height.
They’re both in the moonlight, now, where the window lives on the wall, uncurtained, and Neil places his hands onto Todd’s shoulders, as if holding him in place. Todd raises an eyebrow.
“Toddrick Anderson,” Neil begins.
Todd bites down a smile. “That’s not really my name, you know.”
“Todd Anderson,” he begins again, and Todd’s smile breaks through. Neil can’t help but mimic it. “It is, with the best and most chivalrous intentions, my pleasure to proclaim that I am positively,” Todd raises his eyebrows, “and irrefutably in love with you.”
It feels both too much and insufficient.
“Me too,” Todd says, and that, somehow, someway, feels like just enough.
It hits him in a dizzy wave, and he shakes Todd by the shoulders, and Todd laughs as he lets it happen, until his hands bring up to grasp at Neil’s elbows. Neil says, “That time was much more romantic.”
Todd shakes his head, and is released from Neil’s hold to fall onto his bed again. He looks up. “How?”
“How?” Neil repeats incredulously, and Todd’s smile grows, watching while Neil gestures around them. “It’s just us, standing together in the moonlight, no suddenness, in the same room we spend some of our best times together.” He does a little spin as he motions to it all, before he turns back to Todd. “How could it not be?”
Todd shrugs. “It – it doesn’t need to be romantic,” he responds, quiet enough to be a mumble. He pulls at his own fingers. “It just needs us.”
Neil’s heart skips a beat.
“Todd,” Neil coos, syrupy sweet enough for Todd to cringe at his own unintentional sappiness. “You romantic.”
Todd sputters, “I – I didn’t mean it to –”
“But you did,” Neil proclaims, pressing the back of his hand against his forehead. He’s never felt so out of bounds, no matter the theatrics. "Oh, be still, my beating heart," Neil dramatically sighs, closing his eyes and falling onto the bed.
Todd scoffs, trying to push him off from where Neil had landed half his body onto him. "You're insane," he observes, but Neil can hear the smile in his voice.
He grins, taking a moment before he opens his eyes. "The best artists are, if I recall correctly." He turns to look at Todd, who is merely inches away now, who meets his eye, who loves him, as well. They’re both sprawled onto the bed now, with Neil having knocked Todd back into the sheets, and Neil content with lying down like this.
Neil chews on his cheek, before he musters up the courage to pat around for Todd’s hand, until he slips his fingers together, careless for Todd’s slightly clammy palm in his. He squeezes it, and is delighted when Todd doesn’t tug it out of his grasp.
Their faces are still inches away. If he wanted, Neil could lean forward, enough for their noses to bump.
“I should admit,” Neil confesses, voice coming out quieter than he expected, “that what I say next is a little less – gentlemanly.”
Todd blinks at him. “Say it anyway.”
Neil resists the urge to nervously bite at his lip. Carpe diem, he thinks again. Gather ye rosebuds.
Todd’s cheeks are still pink, prettier than any roses Neil could ever imagine.
He asks, “Would it be all right if I kissed you?”
Todd stares at him.
The answer, of course, comes quicker than expected when Todd’s suddenly much closer, close enough for their noses to brush, and there’s the shaky exhale of his, or Todd’s, or both, before Todd presses a kiss onto Neil’s lower lip.
Despite having granted almost complete permission, Todd is still hesitant when he kisses, as though he’s ready to be pushed away immediately, and that won’t do. Neil’s own hands, so often grabbing and pulling and tugging, hold onto Todd’s bicep, before leaning in even closer, tilting his head to slot their mouths properly.
It feels like a curtain call. It feels like sword fighting. It feels like life itself.
It tastes, vaguely, of toothpaste.
His fingers poke into the fabric of Todd’s sleepshirt, and Todd feels like he’s shaking all over, and when they part, he looks a little mortified, terrified, and – awed.
Neil smiles.
Todd blinks once, twice, and, slowly but surely, relaxes beside him, before letting out a shaky breath. Neil’s thumb strokes over the slip of skin underneath Todd’s sleeve. They stare at each other, until Todd can’t seem to take it, and looks away, warm all over. His eyes glance back up, and quickly flick away again. Neil never wants to stop looking at him.
You don’t know of me, he remembers, amidst Todd’s scribbles, looking at you.
Todd raises a shaky hand to hold his elbow. Neil tries not to blush, and terrifically fails. “Um,” Todd says, looking more than a little nervous, and Neil has never claimed to be any sort of mind-reader, but he has a pretty good guess of what Todd wants to say.
When Neil leans forward, he meets him halfway, Todd’s warm mouth on his.
Neil thinks, I’m always looking at you.