Work Text:
"And after that, he told me that—" Feeling a lack of reaction at his left, Charlie interrupted himself. He shot a deceitful look at his friend. "Neil, are you even listening to me?"
Neil Perry nearly jumped. Stopping his fidgeting with the woollen threads unravelling from his sweater, he lifted his head, guiltily. He hadn't caught a single word.
"Sorry," he apologized, the word hanging heavy in the ensuing silence.
The boy began to fiddle with his hands, a bad habit he had when he felt bad. Charlie was now rambling for a few minutes, and Neil didn't even know what he was talking about, too preoccupied with his own troubles to pay attention to Charlie's.
He was going to play Puck. After countless hours of work — mouthing his lines in classes and reciting them to anybody who would listen — he had gotten the role. Dizzy with joy, Neil had sworn he had never felt happier. Was this happiness? This warm feeling that made him want to laugh and jump until he was out of breath? It had felt like a dream, at the moment. But dreams weren't eternal. Like water, happiness had slept through his fingers until there was nothing left of it.
His father had called. In the middle of the last class of the day. Neil had been summoned to the principal's office, and forced to pick up a black phone handed by the headmaster to endure the bitter taste of his father's reproaches. Neil had bitten his cheek, hard, until he had felt the taste of iron in his mouth. He had nodded his head — as he always has — along, as if to give reason to his father's cutting words. Yes, what a disappointment he was.
After what seemed like hours, Thomas Perry had hung up, without, of course, sparing himself a few well-felt words. (I wish you could realize how much you deceive us.) Neil had pressed his eyelids hard against each other, trying to make the stinging disappear. It didn't. He had left Mr Nolan's office with his head down, avoiding the headmaster's piercing gaze. Somehow, Neil was scared that he would see through him.
What impact simple words could have, when they were chosen carefully.
When Neil had returned to class, his face was pale and his eyes bleak. Evading eye contact, he had sat on a chair at the end of the classroom and had spent the rest of the period scribbling unintelligible shapes in his notebook. When the bell rang, he had rose from his seat and left the classroom first, before his friends could call him. He didn't want to talk. He wanted space, he wanted time to think. To ruminate. Neil went to the lake, and, sat on the pontoon, head in his hands, let his thoughts submerge him.
Neil thought too much. He knew it. But no remedy could stop the incessant buzzing in his mind. In these moments, he just sought silence and buried his face in his palms, trying to loosen the grip the cacophony of voices held around his neck.
His father had forbidden him to play. To do what he loved. To be honest, Neil didn't understand. He was appreciated by all his teachers, had good grades, was doing everything he could to succeed, everything he could to, at last, see the pride in his father's eyes.
But every time he received a good grade or a compliment on his hard work, Thomas Perry lifted his expectations higher. Higher and higher, so high that they were out of reach. Neil had tried to tell him, of course. To make him understand. But his father never did. Of course he didn't. He never listened. He just rolled his eyes to the ceiling at Neil's pleading and left the room, rumbling about "those lazy teenagers who make me lose my time".
However, Neil Perry was everything but lazy. He was tearing himself in half to reach his father's desires. But it wasn't enough. It was never enough.
A lump began to form in his throat. Right now, in the flickering light that shone in Charlie's dorm, Neil felt trapped. He wanted to play Puck, of course. But if he did, his father would catch him and make him change schools. Neil didn’t want to leave Welton. He had all his friends here. He didn’t want to be in a foreign school. He didn’t want to lose his bearings. He didn’t want to lose his friends. He didn’t want to lose every little thing that coloured the grey tones of his life.
Neil tended to see everything in colours. His father was ash grey; when he screamed, he radiated with a deep tone of black, as if the shadows were enveloping him. Neil didn't like dark colours. They reminded him of winter. He hated winter.
Charlie was bronze, sightly orange when he laughed. Knox was light brown. Todd was blue, probably. Neil didn't really know, to be honest: Todd inspired him a whole colour palette. He was light pink when he smiled, crimson when he laughed, moonstone blue when he cried. That day, when he had thrown verses of poetry at the amazed class, he had been burgundy red. So red that it had been impossible for Neil to look away.
Charlie suddenly sighed, silencing Neil's thoughts. "It's late."
Neil's eyes wandered over the walls of the room, painted in a light yellow hue that threatened to peel. There wasn't any indicator of time on the dorm's parapets. Charlie hated clocks; he always claimed that he didn't want to be trapped by time. One of the many reasons why he was often late to morning classes.
"You should probably go to bed."
"Yeah," mumbled Neil, avoiding his friend's gaze. He didn't want to be questioned, and he felt that if he lifted his head and caught Charlie's stare, he definitely would be.
Charlie often saw right through him. He noticed. More than Neil would have thought. Charlie always asked what was wrong. Neil didn't want to talk about what was bothering him. He couldn’t. The words were choked in his throat. That was something Charlie didn't really understand. So Neil apologized again.
"Jeez, it's okay, man," laughed Charlie. "Wasn't that important, anyway."
Neil shook his head. "No, I'm really sorry, alright? I'll catch up tomorrow, you'll tell me everything."
Charlie got up. The lump in Neil's throat tightened.
"Alright. Good night, Neil. You look like you need sleep."
Neil nodded, got up, and hurried towards the door before Charlie changed his mind and decided to ask questions. He could feel his eyes on him, following every movement. He closed the door behind him.
The hallway was desert. Every door was closed, every light turned off. He hurried towards his room. It was late. Todd was probably sleeping. Neil opened the door slowly, careful to not make the door squeak. He knew Todd had trouble falling asleep; the last thing he wanted to do was to wake him. The light was turned off, and Neil saw a form resting on Todd's bed that moved softly as the boy breathed.
Trying to make as little noise as possible, Neil headed towards the bathroom, washed his face, undressed and put his pyjamas on. He shivered. It was the end of November, and the temperatures had begun to drop quite low. As old as Welton was, the radiators were obviously not working. He hurried to wash his teeth, then crawled towards his bed. Wrapped in his blankets, he fell asleep surprisingly quickly.
You're not doing enough.
Are you even trying?
We are giving up on opportunities to pay your fucking university, that's how you thank us?
Try harder.
You're not doing enough, Neil.
Try harder.
Try harder.
Try har...
"SHUT UP!"
A voice woke Neil Perry up with a start. His first reflex was to cover his ears, before he realized he was the one screaming. He stopped abruptly. Did he had woken up Todd? He shot a quick look at his left. Hopefully, the form hadn't moved.
Neil sighed, feeling nauseous. He sat up on his bed. Suddenly, the cold had disappeared. It was hot in the room. So hot.
He heard steps in the corridor. Noisy steps. That were growing louder and louder. Coming toward him. He knew these strides. They were his father's. Neil pushed his covers, now fully awake. What was he doing here, in the middle of the night?
He didn't have the time to get up from his bed that his father violently pushed the door against the wall.
"Neil."
Neil didn't dare to move, didn't dare to ask questions. He stayed still as a stone. His father's piercing eyes detailed him with disgust.
"I don't want you to be my son anymore."
The revelation left Neil speechless. Cold sweat ran down his back. He looked at the man in front of him, who was, without a doubt, deadly serious.
"What?" was all the boy managed to say.
"You heard what I've said. I will not repeat myself a second time. You know how that makes me."
Neil didn't understand what was going on. He didn't have a clue.
"But, father, I—," he took out a deep breath. "I didn't do anything wrong."
Clearly, that wasn't the right thing to say. Neil's father's ears took a shade of red. He began to scream at him.
"Anything wrong?" he repeated. "ANYTHING WRONG?"
It seemed that his father was growing taller and taller in the little room, and now was occupying the whole space.
"You dropped your studies to become an actor," he screamed. "A FUCKING ACTOR."
Neil remained silent. He blinked away the tears forming in his eyes. His father hated to see him crying. Said that only weak people cried. Neil rarely did.
He hated crying. He hated to feel the cold, salted tears in his cheeks. He hated the redness of his eyes after. He hated to feel his body shaking, his nose sniffing, he hated the shape his mouth took. He hated crying without succeeding to stop. And he hated how empty he felt after.
He had cried a lot when he was a little boy. When he had scraped his knee, falling off his bike. When his father screamed at him because he had dropped a plate. When he had ripped his favourite shirt, the burgundy one with white stripes. Every time, his father slapped him, saying that it was going to toughen him up. "You'll thank me when you'll grow up," he had asserted to the child who held back his tears with a hiccup. Neil had quickly understood to never cry in front of his father. When he did, he hid.
When he was twelve, in the bathroom, after throwing up the rest of his dinner. The doctor had revealed him after he suffered from appendicitis, and had blamed Mr Perry for not having taken his son to a doctor earlier. Neil had endured a five-minute monologue from his father who had screamed at him for "not having warned him before". But the thing was, Neil had warned him earlier. But Thomas Perry had been too busy with his work to pay attention to his son. When Neil had insisted (a thing he rarely did) that he had a really, really bad stomachache, his father had gotten annoyed and told him that it was going to pass. It didn't. It only got worse. Two days later, he had to bring Neil to the hospital.
When he was fifteen, in his bed, in the dead of night, after realizing he liked more boys than girls. That he didn't like girls at all, to be honest. Neil looked a little too long and a little too intensely at his boyfriends.
He had never told anyone. Not his father (of course he hadn't), and not even Charlie. But he suspected him to know. Charlie read Neil like a book. Neil didn't care: he trusted Charlie. He wouldn't tell anyone. To be honest, he didn't think Charlie even cared about his sexual orientation.
His father, however, was a different story. Neil didn't even wanted him to think about it. Mr Perry was the kind of person who refused to see the world changing. And homosexuality wasn't even something new: it had existed for centuries. That didn’t bother Thomas Perry. He despised those who were different than him. Neil suspected that, deep down, his father could be scared of them.
It was a strange thing to feel. How could homosexuals, — how could him — be scary?
But Neil hadn't asked questions. He had kept quiet and hid who he really was. He was very good at it, actually. He always presented himself to others as he wished them to see him. His father saw the perfect son, who wasn't only successful in school: the perfect son was stoic, compliant, careful, realistic, and pragmatic. Neil was none of those things.
He was not stoic; he often acted impulsively, driven by his passions and desires without always thinking about the consequences. Neither compliant; Neil hated to follow rules and expectations. He wasn't careful, pragmatic or realistic neither: the simple idea of following the path his father had designed for him made him sick to his stomach.
But Neil was an actor. He could pretend.
So he had glued on his face the mask of the perfect son. From time to time, it choked him, making it hard to breathe through. But Neil made himself suffocate. He kept his head underwater.
Just a little more, he always told himself. Just a little more.
Days, weeks, and months had passed, and it seemed like the mask was glueing to his face tighter and tighter, as if the lie was reaching for his neck to cut any air from entering his mouth.
But Neil couldn't take the mask off. He couldn't make it stop; he was too deep in the pretence. There wasn't any going back, now.
Just a little more.
He had to wait. But what was he waiting for? There was no rest at the end of the line: Neil was supposed to go to Harvard to be a doctor. Which he didn't want to be. Would he wait again? Until he was a doctor? But again, what would he wait for? Some rest? (What rest?) Would he wait for his death?
Neil Perry was indeed trapped, and there was no way out. No escaping the lie. He would never take off his mask: he would suffocate for the rest of his life.
However, his friends often kept Neil's head out of the water. The mask was always there, of course, but sometimes, it peeled off a little. Just a little. During Mr Keating's classes. During the Dead Poets Society meetings. With Charlie. With Todd. Especially with Todd.
Sometimes, Neil felt like he was an open book that Todd could read every word of. The sandy-haired boy didn't talk a lot. But he observed. He noticed everything. Every little detail.
So, when Neil felt like he was choking, Todd was there. Always. He knew what to say, what to do, to make the hands around Neil disappear. To stop him from suffocating. Todd knew when to talk and when to stay silent. He never forced Neil to speak about what was troubling him, but he knew, no matter how good Neil hid it, that something was wrong.
When words occasionally weighed too heavily in Neil's stomach for him to speak, Todd sat at his side, and they remained like this, sometimes for hours. And it was enough.
Neil felt the mask almost slip, sometimes. When he was with Todd. Maybe that was the way the boy looked at him: like he was something precious, someone worth smiling at. Not something cumbersome, like he felt in his father's presence. Todd's company made Neil feel something he had never felt in his entire life: peace. When he was here, the voices in Neil's mind hushed. Todd made everything quieter.
Neil didn't think he knew it.
They always stuck with each other. Todd and Neil. United like the fingers of a hand. Never the one without the other. Neil didn't mind, not in the least. He enjoyed Todd's presence more than any other. He liked the solace it gave him.
The thing was, Neil hadn't the slightest clue that, maybe, someone could have spotted his little game. No, he hadn't noticed. But if he had looked more attentively, maybe he would have. Maybe he would have caught the mischievous little glint in his teacher's eyes. He hadn't, though.
He would have if it was his father. But, fortunately for him, Thomas Perry was more interested in the success of his son's studies (sometimes, Neil wondered why his father didn't go to school instead of him) than his love life. The only thing he wanted was "good grades to assure a good job".
This imposed lifestyle made Neil want to drown. Go to school. Study. Study even more. Get a job. Get a wife. Construct a family. Raise your children. Die. "He lived a great life."
This didn't feel like living to Neil. More like surviving. Or waiting. Always waiting. For the better.
Neil didn't want to survive, he wanted to live. He wanted to do what he liked, to find someone he really loved; he wanted to discover every corner of the planet, to speak every foreign language, to read every book and to play every instrument. He wanted to experience every emotion a person can experience, and to die with a smile on his lips and a heart full of memories.
That was a few of the many reasons he wanted to become an actor. He didn't care about money. He cared about being happy.
And now, he was enduring the consequences. Because everything had a price, his father always said. Even happiness.
But Neil was tired of enduring.
He screamed back.
"This is my future. Not yours. I don't want to be stuck in an office and be unhappy like you are. I don't want to follow the path you've designed for me because you couldn't succeed in taking it. I won't do that; I'm not like that. You know it."
Neil's father froze. He seemed too stunned to speak for an instant.
When he finally de-froze, he took two steps forward and, brutally, he put his hands around Neil's neck. Strangling him.
The boy didn't have the time to react. His father's hands were choking him. Burning him. Neil reached up, clawing at the older man's grip, trying to break free. No success. He began to suffocate. The air in the room was growing hotter and hotter. So hot that he couldn't breathe.
Air. He needed air. Desperately, he reached for something. Something solid enough to smash his father. Anything.
"Neil," a distant whisper called.
Neil's heart was pounding. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He was going to die.
"Neil. Neil!"
Suddenly, the temperature dropped. The pressure on his neck seemed to reduce itself. Still suffocating, Neil started to shiver.
"Neil, you're having a nightmare. Wake up."
He opened his eyes, brutally. Todd was at his bedside, worry filling his blue eyes.
Seeing that the boy had woken up, he stepped back to give him space. Suddenly, his father's hands had disappeared. But he still felt the ghost of their touch on his neck.
Neil sat and took a deep puff of air. The lump in his throat was more painful than ever. He rubbed his neck, hoping to make it go away, then looked at Todd. And burst into tears.
For a brief moment, Todd froze, not knowing what to do. Should he say something? Get someone? Leave? Bring Neil something to drink?
Finally, without thinking, Todd stepped forward, hesitantly wrapped his arms around Neil's shaking body, and hugged him.
He had never seen Neil crying. Neil never cried. His brown eyes always shone with a little glow that reminded Todd of constellations. He loved constellations. Neil was always smiling. Yet, he was here, arms wrapped around Todd's torso, who felt a weird heat in his chest.
Suddenly, he wanted to cry, too. He didn't. Instead, he tightened his grip around Neil's neck.
"Shh. It's okay. It's okay," he whispered, patting Neil's back shyly. "You're okay."
For any answer, Neil sobbed even more. Todd began to slightly panic. What could he possibly add to cheer the boy up? What could he possibly do?
Instinctively, he placed his hand on Neil's neck and gently stroked his hair. Neil buried his chin into Todd's neck.
He felt it again. The weird heat in his chest, like someone had just lit a long-extinguished fire. The world felt suddenly quiet.
Neil's hair was soft to Todd's touch. He stroked his hair, softly, as if the boy in his arms was made of porcelain.
He felt Neil's touch everywhere. His arms, on Todd's torso. The wetness of his cheeks, on Todd's neck. His hands, on Todd's back. His heart beating, against Todd's chest. His lips, in Todd's nape. The boy shivered when Neil tightened his grip and held him closer.
They stayed intertwined for a long time, in silence. Todd had figured that this time, words weren't necessary. His actions were louder. So he had held Neil, silently promising he would stay.
After a moment, Neil's shoulders stopped shaking. But the two boys hadn't moved, hadn't talked. They didn't need words. Their embrace was enough.
Shyly, Todd had rested his cheek on Neil's shoulder. He had closed his eyes.
Neil had smiled softly. He had apologized. Todd had shook his head. Told him that it was normal. That was what friends did.
Neil had silently repeated the word. Tasted it on his tongue. It sounded weird.
Friends.
Friends.
But were they, really? He knew every little detail of Todd. He knew that the corners of his mouth twitched when he was about to cry. He knew that he had a tiny scar on his left cheek. He knew that his ears took a shade of red when he was embarrassed. He knew that tiny dimples were forming on his chin when he smiled. He knew that a little glow shone in his eyes when Neil made him laugh. He knew that he had a little specks of grey in his blue eyes.
That was hard to qualify him as a friend when he was all Neil was looking at.
"What's wrong?" Todd had asked. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he had added, quickly. "I'll get it."
Neil hadn't cared. He had told him everything. Tears had fallen again from his eyes. Todd had dried them with words, as he cried, too.
After a moment, the lump in Neil's throat had vanished. The two boys had looked at each other. Brown melting in blue. Todd had the most beautiful eyes Neil had ever seen.
He had watched that little speck of grey in Todd's eyes, then the freckles on his cheeks. He had brushed a strand of Todd's hair from his forehead. Todd hadn't flinched. His heart pounding, had brought his hand to Neil's cheek and gently stoked it. Neil's mouth had shaped into some kind of radiant smile. Todd loved that smile. He felt Neil's dimples under his fingers.
He smiled, too.
"I love you," he had suddenly whispered.
The words had come out of his mouth without him being able to stop himself. Neil's smile dropped. He froze. Todd straight up regretted his words, as true as they might be.
He had lowered his head. Tears had begun to form in his eyes. He had ruined everything.
He didn't see the smile that began to form on Neil's face. Bigger and bigger. Neil had laughed. Todd had lifted his head.
"Oh, Todd," Neil had giggled, before he grabbed Todd's cheeks and kissed him.
It was clumsy and gauche. They were both laughing and crying at the same time, but Todd never had felt anything as beautiful in his whole life.
He let the warmness in his chest explode. He wanted to laugh. He felt Neil's thumb stroking his cheek. He kissed him harder. When, out of breath, they parted, they rested their forehead against each other.
"Will you run away with me?" Neil asked.
The faint shadow of the moonlight shone on his face. Todd thought faintly that he had never seen anything as mesmerizing in his whole life.
"I'll go anywhere with you," he had whispered.
Neil had grinned. Todd had kissed him again.