Chapter Text
“Heedless to the unpredictable and annoying nature of New England weather, one lukewarm and clear-skied February evening, a boy by the name of Knox Overstreet stumbled into his room, having seemingly singlehandedly sucked up all of Vermont’s generous rain, for the liquid overflowing from his eyes made evident of its excess, and fell into bed, wrapping himself tight in his blanket, neverminding the Despair that had swaddled him even tighter, its cruel, lanky fingers creeping up to his neck, getting ready to strangle the air out of-”
“For the love of God, Charlie, if you don’t shut up, I’m gonna become your Despair,” Knox threatened over his shoulder and turned his face back to the wall. The narrator, Charlie, happily pranced into the room, dropping down next to him.
“Don’t you worry, darling,” he teased, “You’ll always be my one and only”
Knox’s silence indicated that he’d chosen the eye roll way of reacting to his friend’s antics. “I’m not in the mood for this, Charlie, I’m serious”
“I know,” he sighed, rubbing his buddy’s back, “You’ve always been serious about Chris”
The mention of his girlfriend’s name elicited a pained groan from Knox. “How could I not be? She’s literally the girl of my dreams: she’s pretty, she’s smart, she’s intelligent, she’s clever, and she’s pretty, too!”
“Jesus, Knox, we all know you’re head over dick in love,” he lovingly rolled his eyes.
“Ugh, shut up, you don’t get it - a nobody like me to be her boyfriend??” he turned over to look at Charlie, “That is the biggest achievement of my life, no doubt about it”
“That’s absolutely great for you, man!” Charlie shook him by the shoulder, “So why is such a lucky guy pissing and crying in his bed right now?”
“Excuse me, I am not pissing,” Knox sat up, unable to continue laying in the face of such claims.
“Sure smell like it, though,” the shorter boy ruffled his hair, “specifically cat piss”
“It turns out, Chris has a cat at home,” Knox sighed once again. “I don’t know why, but he doesn’t like me. I tried to hold him but then…”
“…it pissed on you?”
Knox rubbed a hand over his face. His brain began reconsidering what poor life decisions he must’ve made to end up here in this stick-up-its-ass school with the guy whose face might get stuck one day if he continued doing that goddamn smirk. Was it better to tell the truth and be teased till the day he died or to lie, risking getting caught and having his grave danced on for eternity?
“ No, ” he began calmly, “We were relaxing on the couch with Munchkin sitting on her lap-”
“Her cat’s name is Munchkin?” Charlie interjected.
“Wha- Yeah”
Charlie’s eyes morphed into almost convincing worry. “Oh, Knoxious! I’m so sorry!” he cried out and pulled Knox into an embrace, shoving his face into his week-old jumper.
“What? Charlie!” Knox tried to weasel himself out of his insufferable friend’s arms.
“It was a mirage! A bag of bones turned into a girl! So heartbreaking it must be!”
“What the hell are you talking about? Dude, you need to get that jumper washed, it’s disgusting!”
“Only 98-year-old grandmas from Michigan name their cat Munchkin, Knox,” Charlie stated, finally letting him break free.
“No, they don’t!” Knox rushed to defend his girlfriend.
“Oh, believe me, I know from experience”
“What experience? Sleeping with a 98-year-old grandma?”
Charlie leaned back as if an invisible wave had washed over him.
“Damn, Charlie, didn’t know you were that lonely,” Knox threw in a lighthearted diss.
Charlie stared at him, not firing back like he usually did. At one point, Knox was getting ready to duck in case Charlie tried his signature two-finger flick on him again. His forehead was sore enough from last night when he accidentally fell asleep before the Dead Poets meeting.
Speaking of whom, when the dorm finally fell silent, the rest of the guys, who had followed after Knox as soon as the guy came in until Charlie shut them out of the room, barged inside. Charlie stood up and began pacing, his face lined deep with thought.
“Ew, you guys smell piss in here?”
“What’s going on?” Meeks asked accusingly as the conga line of guys behind him entered the dorm.
Knox quickly looked up. “Nothing,” he scoffed as if that was an absurd question to ask.
Neil peeked out from behind Pitts. “Nothing? Then why does Charlie look like he’s having his first existential crisis?”
Knox bit his lip, unsure of how to explain the sudden change in his friend’s demeanor. He flipped like a light switch. Was it something he said? But what? Charlie wasn’t one to crumble under a passing comment. He hardly ever listened to those.
“Maybe that Beauvoir you’ve been reading aloud finally got to him,” Pitts offered.
“Hm? Oh, yeeaaah,” he agreed, “ perhaps our boy’s a little too young for nihilism”
“It’s existentialism, Neil,” Cameron corrected.
“Same thing,” Neil shrugged, instinctively looking over his shoulder for one blonde-haired guy’s approval. That boy was not there.
“You haven’t read enough of her works, then,” Cameron stated. He felt a little guilty after saying that, knowing by now that most of his admittedly snobbish comments weren’t doing anyone any good. But gosh darn, he just couldn’t resist.
“I’m trying, okay, the only reason Charlie’s listening is because he saw her author’s photo and thought she was hot”
Neil decided against explaining further. Although what he said was definitely part of it, Charlie’s out-of-the-blue desire to read the book one day surprised Neil more than he was willing to admit. He himself took the book just for the fun of it, not intending to actually read it. But here was his best friend, who usually was physically unable to sit still for more than he was required to, asking to dramatically read it to him out loud… for the fun of it?
“How old is she?” Pitts asked.
“I think she’s about 50”
Knox turned to look at Charlie with a teasing grin. “You’re not beating the grandma-lover allegations”
“The what allegations?” the guys raised a brow, not expecting to hear that type of sentence.
“Her works are also pro-feminism,” the freckle-faced boy pulled another fact from his mind encyclopedia.
The poets glanced at Charlie with a knowing gaze and began snickering. Most of them had no idea what ‘feminism’ meant but, being pubescent teens, anything to do with women was automatically deemed tantalizing.
“Big fanboy of Miss Beauvoir, aren’t you?” Neil leaned against the door frame.
Charlie’s glare shut them up. “Guys, I’m not trying to get into a 50-year-old French woman’s pants! That picture is from 20 years ago”
“Charlie dear, we aren’t accusing you of anything like that,” Knox innocently said, clearly trying to get under his skin, “although, it is weird that you thought of that”
Charlie groaned. “Knox, I swear I’ll blast you with my precious saxophone… I thought it’d be interesting to hear from a female author for once. What a concept, Jesus fucking balls”
“Oh,” his friends considered his words for a moment. They knew they had gone a little overboard, and let him cool down.
“Yeah, I guess we don’t read much of those at Welton, huh,” Meeks agreed. “I haven’t seen any books about feminism in our library, either”
“Where’d you find that book?” Knox asked Neil.
“I borrowed it from my mother’s bookshelf. I noticed it sitting there quietly one day during winter break. I don’t think she’s read it, though. Father would probably disapprove if he saw,” Neil said, the mention of his paternal figure sending a little shiver bumping down his spine.
“Mr. Keating told me that apparently, the faculty is considering taking Anna Karenina off the reading list”
“Why specifically that book?”
“Something about ‘the protagonist not being held accountable enough’ because she gets pregnant out of wedlock”
“What, is that a crime or something?” Pitts’ looked like his head was about to explode.
“I don’t think it’s illegal, but it’s a, like, a moral offense,” Neil offered his insight, having overheard his parents’ conversation one evening about their neighbor’s daughter. The way his father spoke about the poor girl sure made him a bit relieved that he was their only child. A boy.
“Oh, people with their morals! They think being a stiff, conceited bastard makes them a ‘good’ person. I mean, look at Welton - this is a paradise for them! The damn school won’t even let us have women thrive in literature!” Charlie raised a scornful fist at the sky. “That is so not feminist!”
“Yeah!” the guys chanted in agreement.
“Yeah!… Wait, what even is feminism?” Knox asked him out of genuine curiosity.
Cameron inhaled, ready to spew out an Oxford dictionary-style definition but then, at the last second, decided against it.
“I don’t know, but it has women in the name, so it has to be good,” Charlie guessed, taking off his jumper and tossing it on Meeks’ unamused head.
“It’s about women being equal to men in society,” Meeks calmly informed him, as he’d heard a bit about it from some TV show his mother had left on while cooking.
“Fuck yeah!”
“Aren’t they already equal?” Pitts innocently asked.
“Apparently not, Pittsie,” Neil pat his shoulder, “and that’s a shame”
Everyone ashamedly nodded. It was a weird truth to accept, like a visitor showing up unannounced in the middle of the night. How come they’d never seen it happen before?
“But…but I’ve heard that relationships are an equal partnership, and if that’s true…then how are there so many married people?”
The poets sat down on the floor, perplexed by that question. They absolutely had to figure it out, right here, right now. And, yeah yeah, sure, they had a shitload of other things to do like the three pages of trig they were assigned for homework tomorrow or the essay on the industrial revolution they were supposed to turn in yesterday, but screw that, they were busy dismantling (as close as six boys sitting huddled around on the floor in rural Vermont could get to that) injustice .
Just then, the door creaked open, and in came the last member of the Society, Todd.
“Uh, am I interrupting something?” he shyly asked, holding some book in his right hand. Neil looked up at him and smiled when he saw that spark of nervousness in Todd’s eyes, which playfully crackled when he was around the guys. He found it weirdly endearing.
“Todd!” Charlie jumped up, pointing a finger at the frightened boy. “Please, put us out of our misery!”
Todd looked at him with a half-intrigued, half-terrified expression. “Um, can I abort mission?”
Charlie blinked at him. “…the mission’s not even started?”
“I like to prepare for things ahead of t-time”
“Mr. Anderson,” he announced like a horn, “We were just discussing feminism and the unfair inequality of women - noble pursuits, I know, but we got stumped by the topic of marriage”
“Uh, okay, what about it?”
“What about it indeed! Why are there so many married couples if the woman is treated lesser than the man? Is there even love there? Come on, pal, we need to figure this out!”
The blonde-haired boy looked around at his friends, surprised why they were suddenly interested in such an issue. “That’s what y’all have been doing since Knox came back?”
“Well, it’s actually because Charlie-”
The guy grabbed Knox’s face, forcing him to shut up. “Answer the question, Todd”
Todd awkwardly grinned. “Why would I know? I, like, I assume they do it out of love, maybe, I don’t know”
“Hmm, you see, the amount of times I’ve heard adult men laugh and say how they despise their wives, acting like they weren’t the ones that proposed to them, suggests otherwise”
“I mean, it’s just how things have been since, like, forever? Girls are just kinda expected to get married, obey their husbands, have kids and that’s about it?”
The poets didn’t seem satisfied with his answer.
“You’re using the Appeal to Tradition approach?” Pitts squinted at him.
“The what now?” he glanced over to him.
“It’s a logical fallacy, the one that Welton is built on, basically,” Meeks pushed up his glasses.
“O-okay, uh… I don’t- my mother told me once that she had dreamed of being a physicist growing up but when she later met my father, she became content with staying at home”
“Ding ding! Anecdotal evidence - another logical fallacy!”
“What?”
“Wow, Keating was right! It’s so easy to spot them,” Pitts whispered to Meeks.
“I don’t understand what you- Do you guys think I’m trying to defend the system? You think I like it?” Todd cried, feeling uneasy with how his friends treated him like a text to analyze.
“No, no,” Meeks assured, “It‘s just, y’know, after that Mr. Keating’s class last week, I feel like I’ve been noticing how much the school likes to use logical fallacies to defend its bullshit values”
Charlie frowned. “That’s kinda sad, isn’t it?”
“What? Hellton being a shithole or-”
“The Todd’s mom story,” he clarified.
“I-I, well, my father makes quite enough money to provide for all of us, so I guess there’s no need for her to be working as well?”
“But does it have to be about money? Can’t she work because she wants to?” Knox chimed in, unconsciously siding with Charlie.
“Um…“ Todd wasn’t sure how to respond.
“What if she would’ve come to be the next Curie or, I don’t know, sent humans to space?” Knox continued.
“Or like, invented a crossbow where the bows would explode when they came into contact with anything!”
“Don’t mines already kinda do tha-?”
“NO, Dalton, we do NOT need those,” Cameron sprung up, “Jesus Christ, do you want another war to start?”
Charlie stared at Cameron as if he was the crazy one, as if feeling uncomfortable with the mention of explosives wasn’t a normal reaction. An unexplainable feeling of disdain bubbled inside him every time the redhead disagreed with him. Sharing a dorm with him only made it harder to keep from constantly throwing out insults. After all, as he’d learned, it wasn’t a guaranteed way to shut Cameron up.
Honestly, Cameron’s whole being seemed like a contradiction, an antithesis to Charlie, and if there was one thing about the guy, it was that he didn’t like being challenged. Nuwanda was the shepherd guiding his poets through their years at Welton, that was the way it had been since they all met. If anyone tried to step in his way, he would sure as hell hate them for it.
Charlie discreetly shook his pesky thoughts out of view. Damn that Cameron guy, totally unaware of how just him merely sitting there, resting his head on his knees evoked a sense of danger in Charlie’s not-so-poor soul. He didn’t know why, but whenever the guy was around him, he’d get snappier than usual, restless, annoyed even by the way the air in the space moved. And the only way he could justify this aggression toward his roommate was the same stupid Appeal to Tradition fallacy.
“I was just thinking ‘bout how to turn Hellton into a pile of ashes without getting caught,” was what he said out loud.
The poets’ conversation stilled. It wasn’t uncommon, especially when any of them would suddenly change the topic. Oh, then they’d all ride that train of thought right through the broken bridge to their demise, rarely managing to get back on track. Right now was no different, especially due to the oxygen-deprived air in the room making it hard for their already fried brains to think.
“What were we talking about?” Charlie asked Todd.
“Uh, about my- wait, no- I forgot,” he tried to lie, but the little chuckle that escaped Neil’s lips made his lie all the more obvious.
“Toddy,” Charlie stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder, “Are you lying to me? To your dear Uncle Charlie?”
Ironically, out of all the boys, Charlie was consistently voted the least likely to start a family. No one could picture the nut job as the type to settle down and find a corporate job to support his wife and three children. He moreso seemed like the funny uncle who took you to baseball games and sneaked a cigarette into your hands when your parents weren’t looking. Charlie, ever the character, found his friends’ opinion quite entertaining and started fully embracing his role in the Poet family.
Todd looked down like a guilty child. “No,” he said, deciding to play along in hopes it would satisfy Charlie enough to stop the interrogation, “I would never lie to you”
“That’s right,” he looked straight into his eyes, “Now boy, why can’t your mother be a goddamn physicist if she wants to?”
The dirty-blonde guy sighed. “Look, I’m not in control of this matter, okay, I’m practically a ghost in my own home,” he shrugged Charlie’s hand off, “They never ask me for my opinion on things, so clearly they’re not interested in what I have to say”
Neil reached his hand out and patted Todd’s calf. Todd looked down, and for a moment, Neil thought he saw relief in his gaze, simultaneously feeling the stiff muscles under his fingertips relax. How did Todd’s parents not want to hear what rich and colorful ideas their son possessed? If anything, it was their loss.
“Well… I personally don’t get why your father has any right to dictate your mom’s life,” Charlie began, his tone showing that he’d considered Todd’s words before speaking, “Like, would you do that to your wife?”
The blink-blink-blink of Todd’s eyelids made the fact that the boy hadn’t once thought of that topic very evident.
“Woah woah, I think we all know Todd wouldn’t do that,” Knox quickly came to Todd’s defense.
“Yeah, Todd’s definitely not gonna be like his father, right Todd?” Meeks laughed, expecting a sign of confirmation. Todd just shrugged - his typical response for everything because he never felt sure about things, not even himself.
“Hey hey, I know, I’m just doing my job and making sure that my nephew grows up a decent person,” Charlie defensively put his hands up.
“I… No, of course, I-I wouldn’t do that, obviously ,” Todd finally choked out. “W-who am I to… to do THAT? That is, wow, what kind of husband would-”
“Todd,” Charlie snapped his fingers.
“You haven’t ever thought about this, have you,” Neil laughed, saying it rather as a statement than a question. All Todd could do was sigh in defeat.
“My life has been all about getting better grades since middle school, what else do you expect from me?” he said, demonstratively knocking the book he’d been holding on his head.
“But you read and write poetry!” Neil was fast to point out. “Love is a common theme in that art form”
“I’ve only started that this year! And that’s all, uh, mostly because of Mr. Keating”
“Exactly, and remember what he said?” Charlie continued, “The Poets read poetry to woo women !” he exclaimed, ever so happy to reference the man he’d long declared his hero.
“Yeah, I’ve heard you’ve been wooing a lot of them,” Todd grinned, exchanging a look with Neil, similar to the one they had back when the casanova recited Lord Byron to the girls he brought to the Dead Poets meeting.
“Yet, I haven’t seen any stick around after the first date,” Cameron quipped, mindlessly looking around the room. The guys’ eyes widened as they glanced at Charlie’s dumbfounded face and broke out in laughter. The redhead snapped back to reality, not understanding why Charlie was staring at him that way, his furrowed brows painfully digging into his forehead.
“Now don’t be mad at me, man,” Knox whispered to him, “But he kinda got you”
Charlie pushed him aside. “At least I actually get women, unlike someone ,” he fired back.
Cameron shrugged. “Different priorities, I guess. Todd and I want to focus on getting ourselves an education, but hey, you do you”
“Well, I…” Todd rushed to explain, not exactly liking to be grouped in with Cameron. “I don’t know, I’ve just never thought that much about love in general”
“Oh, come on,” Charlie sat down on the edge of the empty bed, choosing to resist the urge to continue fighting, “Love’s everywhere you go! You go to a park and people are all going ‘round holding hands, making out, other stuff…”
“What park have you been visiting these days?” Neil snickered.
Charlie stuck out his tongue. “That’s not the point, the point is that everyone’s had a crush or two before finding out there are letters in math”
“Charlie dear, not all people are big romantics like you,” Meeks reminded him in a loving tone.
“Uh, I guess I haven’t… had that?” Todd looked like he was figuring it out as he spoke. “I haven't had that many opportunities to meet girls, though”
“Then I regret to inform you that Welton was the wrong choice”
“ Yeah , like I chose to go here myself,” Todd rolled his eyes, “You can thank the golden boy Jeffrey Anderson for that”
Charlie took his face in his hands, rocking back and forth for a pinch of dramatic effect. Theatricality flowed in his veins the same as beer rushed down his throat. Knox, meanwhile, decided to take the perfect opportunity to get back at him. He slowly slid just out of Charlie’s view, exchanging a mischievous grin with the others.
“Ow!” Charlie shot up, rubbing his forehead, “What the fuck, Knox!”
“Ha, 1-1!” Knox cheered.
“Be glad I didn’t smack you back, idiot”
“Don’t underestimate my abilities, Dalton, I strike when you least expect it!”
Unfortunately, Charlie didn’t let him enjoy his victory because right after that, he turned his attention back to Todd again. He looked the guy up and down, taking his time, probably not intending to make him uncomfortable. Todd, for whom discomfort was a constant state of living, fought hard not to crumble under the pressure, unsure of what his friend was trying to find. Whatever it was, he would surely be left disappointed.
To be seen indeed was the penalty.
Charlie’s gaze then wandered about the room, latching like hooks onto each guy until they all stood frozen, feeling undressed against their will. Even more disturbing was the smile that stretched across his lips.
He swiftly hopped on Knox’s roommate’s bed, testing the strength of its poor frame, possibly built in 1921. “Boys!” he began, effortlessly switching into a well-practiced principal Nolan’s voice. “Ah, Hellton Academy, the place of child eaters’ and academic narcissists’ dreams! Now, refresh my memory, what are the four pillars?”
“ Travesty, horror, decadence, excrement, ” everyone except Cameron recited the four words, earnestly but not quite as enthusiastically. They were scared of hearing what Charlie had to say. Sure, it could be dumb or vaguely clever, but it was never what they’d expect.
“Excellent, boys,” Charlie nodded, “Well, as I am sure you’ve noticed, there is a severe lack of girls in the school, after all, they make up only 0% of our students”
His friends snorted.
“I cannot, in good conscience, not call out our faculty for the immense lack of representation”
“If they keep shutting them even out of our books, that number’ll go negative,” Knox joined in, appointing himself as the principal’s secretary.
“Precisely, Mr. Overstreet,” he smiled with his eyes closed, leaning his arm on Knox’s head. “By now, we know that the lack of women in the students’ lives is detrimental. Just looking over the boys seated here today brings a tear to my eye. Oh, to think of their futures!” the guy gestured to the poets, clenching a fist to his chest.
“Pleasantly surprised that you’d cry for us,” Cameron grinned.
“Not for you, Mr. Cameron, oh, certainly not for you,” Charlie replied, his eyes still closed. “Alas! What will become of boys like you? I’ll be damned if you go on to continue the tradition of marrying for the sake of having a housekeeper! Lord, forgive me, but fuck tradition!”
The poets nodded vigorously, determined to not let their ‘principal’ down.
“You can count on us, Mr. Dalton,” Pitts saluted.
“Oh ho ho, well now, Mr. Pitts, I’m afraid I cannot be so sure of that”
“Why?” Meeks asked.
Charlie scoffed. “Can’t you see? How are you going to be good partners when nobody here even talks of love? How will you date if no one here teaches you boys what romance is? For Hell’s sake, this boy hasn’t even heard the word in his life!” he spouted, accusingly pointing at Todd.
“It’s not that I haven’t…” Todd mumbled, glancing at Neil, without any real reason.
“You boys will need to learn about l’amour if you want to become men! How will you poor little things learn if there’s nobody to teach you…” Charlie’s dramatic delivery rose and rose to climax just before stopping right at the edge, “Nobody…to…teach you…”
“Jeez, you’d think the world’s approaching the apocalypse or something,” Cameron dismissed his roommate’s antics, as he so often did. He was always quick to brush off almost anything Charlie said with confidence. How could a guy be so wrong most of the time and be so arrogant about it?
“I wouldn’t be surprised, honestly,” Neil drummed his knees, “What, with that new microchip thingy, everybody’s been going crazy with theories about how we’re gonna be able to talk to aliens and stuff”
Meeks and Pitts glanced at each other.
“I mean, I wouldn’t worry about it much,” Meeks offered with an awkward smile, “If anything, it could let our technology progress further”
“I’d heard a newscast on the radio a few months back, they said it’s gonna allow for the miniaturization of electronic components,” Pitts added. Neil nodded along, hiding his confusion behind the assured look on his face. He hoped he wouldn’t have to ask for a simpler explanation, but the tall guy just stared at him, wondering why he was still nodding to himself.
“That’s… an impressive vocabulary you’ve got, Pitts,” Knox chipped in. “All those words, damn”
Meeks sighed, knowing what he was getting at. “The chip could make computers smaller while still keeping all of the information”
“Aha! Yeah, that’s cool”
Todd suddenly remembered what he had come there for. “Okay, well, I came by here to-”
“I’VE GOT IT!” Charlie victoriously declared, jumping down to the floor. “Screw the faculty! If the teachers refuse to teach us how to talk to girls, we will learn ourselves!”
The poets took a second to respond.
“Yeah, duh , that’s your brilliant conclusion?” Cameron scoffed, feeling proud of himself for guessing that Charlie would once again say something dumb.
“Shush, you heathen! I’m not done! See, I know full well that y’all, except Knox here, are unfortunately helpless in that realm, so I, as a self-proclaimed Eros of Welton, will take on the responsibility of being your teacher!”
“Glad you admit to making up the title yourself,” Neil laughed.
“Laugh all you want, Perry,” he said, “You’ll see how good of a mentor I am in my classes”
Charlie stepped closer to Todd and began spinning him around. “I’ll prepare you, my dearest friends, for the untamable jungle of life!” he stole a glance at Knox, “I’ll teach you right so that you won’t become so desperate as to, let’s say, sleep with 98-year-old grandmas! No, sir! You’ll be thankful one day, coming to me and saying ‘Oh, Nuwanda, our honorable mentor, thank you for revealing your secrets to us!’ and sing of my heroic deeds for generations to come!”
Finally, he let the poor guy go, and sprung to the door, managing to add, “Classes will be determined later this week. I will be expecting perfect attendance, darlings!” before happily prancing out of the room. The rest of the poets were left speechless, either in shock or awe.
“Eros of Welton, huh?” Meeks concluded, taking a corner of his shirt to wipe his glasses. “It fits quite nicely”
“Can’t wait to hear what those secrets are now,” Neil said, getting up, “He really psyched it up”
“I bet that’s just weed,” Knox snickered.
“Either that or this ‘ol book,” he snatched the book Todd was holding - Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘The Second Sex’ - out of his hand. “Charlie would rather dig himself a grave than read a book beyond grade 7 level, yet I don’t know why he became so obsessed with this one”
“Can books act like drugs?” Knox asked out of the blue.
“Yes, reading can be quite addictive,” Cameron offered his expertise.
“Yeesh, if they make kids act like Charlie…”
“Why do they ban beer but not books? At least the former gives you a good time,” Pitts gestured at the open door.
“Woah, what’s with this book hatred?” Todd furrowed his brows, “Are these Mr. Keating’s students? It cannot be!”
“Easy for you to speak, Anderson, you bookworm with your prized Narnia collection under your bed,” Knox sighed.
“Wh- How do you know about my Narnia books?”
“Neil told me”
“Did he?” Todd turned to the guy mentioned, with what he intended to be fake betrayal in his eyes, but seeing concern flash through Neil’s face, he was reminded of his decent at best acting skills and instead turned it into a smile. ”I guess I shouldn’t say what else Neil brought from home…”
“Damn right you shouldn't,” he held up his finger, warning the blonde boy not to overstep the line. “There’s the concept of privacy, I think you’ve heard of it”
Todd tried to hide his amusement. He didn't expect him to play along.
“Oooh, whatcha hiding from us, Neil?” Meeks inquired, standing up and dropping on the bed beside Knox.
“Definitely not something from his father’s secret stash,” Todd continued incriminating his roommate while closely watching his face.
“Is he hiding it in your guys’ room?” Pitts asked, looking like a wild cat about to strike.
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“I gotta see it, then! Try to catch me, Perry, I’ll get there first!” the tall guy flew into the hallway, carelessly letting his oversized limbs flap with the wind.
“Goddamn it, Todd!” Neil yelled, scrambling to chase after Pitts. Todd snorted as he ran behind him, enjoying the chaos he caused that simultaneously drew attention away from himself. Better yet if the focus was on Neil, who deserved all the spotlight he could get. Whatever shenanigans occurred among the poets, Todd was happy just to witness it from the sidelines.
After Meeks went out after them, Knox was finally left all alone. He fell into his sheets, closing his eyes, basking in the sudden quietness - the only welcome guest in his dorm right now. Unfortunately, the putrid smell emanating from his chest started burning his nose hairs and he was reminded of his cat piss-stained shirt he’d hidden under his knitted sweater.
Goddamn, hope that washes off.
He hurried to open the window, praying that the smell would ventilate itself out before his roommate's return. A pang of guilt resurfaced with a punch as well, knowing that Chris had to clean up the mess Munchkin had made. All because the little prick decided Knox wasn’t to his liking.
As he took off the stained shirt and put on a fresh one, he swore to never own a cat. Who needs them when you’ve got six guys that like you and (hopefully) wouldn’t piss on you?