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"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended."
—William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Things like flying desk sets and secret poetry societies don’t exist in reality. All the same, Neil makes them happen. He makes things move when they’re still and run when they want to slow down. He’s dynamic, impossible, audacious in a way that would be frightening if he wasn’t still young enough for it to be brushed aside as childish naïveté.
Todd follows Neil around with the same enchantment Neil follows Keating with. Neil gives Todd a vision of the future and a goal to work towards, and Todd tells himself that someday he will repay the favor. When he first sees the printed words: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, he thinks he might finally have the chance to do so.
"The King doth keep," Todd prompts, poking Neil in the stomach. Neil tries to remember what he's supposed to say, but Todd keeps poking him at the most inopportune times.
"The King doth keep...his promises tonight?" he guesses, staring at the back of the script in a futile attempt to see through the paper. "The King doth keep his princesses in line? The King doth keep the Queen's face free from horrid wrinkles?"
Todd swats him over the head with the script.
"The King doth keep his revels here tonight," he reads in his youthful, clear voice. Neil nods and mutters the line to himself a couple of times, bouncing slightly on the bed, frowning when he trips over “his revels” and forgets the rest of his speech.
"Read the whole thing through again?" he asks, and Todd nods, jumping off the bed to pace around the room reading Neil's lines in a booming, overdramatic voice that morphs into a self-conscious giggle whenever he looks at Neil.
Neil thinks it's charming that Todd can let himself go like this only in the privacy of their room. It makes him feel special, privileged even, to see a glimpse of the person Todd resembles more every day, a man who is confident in himself and his genius.
He smiles as he imagines the two of them poring over scripts at night sometime in the future. Todd will sit at his desk and scribble notes over the pages while Neil holds a script high over his head, sounding out the lines. It's a future Neil thinks he might actually enjoy.
His smile slips. This is the first time he has dared to defy his father, and if he is successful, it will be the last time he has to. This is going to be the performance that defines his life, the performance that decides whether he will be allowed to pursue that future or whether he will be forced into a life that isn't much of a life at all to him. Yet it's just under a week before the premiere and he can't even remember his lines, let alone act them out.
He is tempted to laugh off his worries like he always does, but he has never been able to lie like that to Todd. Neil has to paint his dreams big so that Todd can share in them too. He can’t laugh at his own helplessness because that would mean there are things Neil cannot do, no matter how much he wants to.
"Hey," Todd says, scrambling over to Neil's side of the bed. "Hey. Look. This is a comedy, isn't it? Smile."
Todd crosses his eyes and scrunches his nose. It's rather adorable, and it sends Neil into peals of laughter. He laughs so hard he can't say his lines properly even though all of a sudden he remembers them.
He leaps up onto his knees, desperate to get through the speech at least once before he forgets again, but Todd is relentless, pulling faces throughout Neil's rendition, making Neil choke through his description of Titania's affair and hiccough at the word “perforce”. By the time he reaches the last line, his sides are aching and he’s so out of control he has to mouth the final words, breath catching in his throat when he tries to force a syllable through his lips.
Todd smiles at him, shy, and Neil stops laughing. The breath's been knocked from his lungs with that smile. The blood's been punched out of his heart. Todd doesn't need him anymore.
Maybe it's Neil who wants Todd around with a little more desperation than Todd wants Neil around. Maybe it's Neil who needs someone to remind him that he's doing the right thing.
It's Neil who needs someone to lead, more than Todd needs someone to lead him. It's Neil who needs someone to smile at him when he makes a speech.
Somewhere amidst the kind pressure of English lessons and new friendships Todd has outgrown him. I will lead him up and down, he thinks wryly, if I do not grow up.
He opens his mouth to say something; he doesn't know what. Instantly, Todd's eyes are riveted on Neil's face.
So this is trust, he thinks. So this is what it means to follow when you are strong enough to choose not to. Neil won't lose. He's going to shine so bright on stage that his father won't know what hit him. He is going to win, because as long as he tries his best there is no way he can fail. There is no other option.
He reaches out to grip Todd's shoulder, feeling its warmth under his fingers.
"Thank you," he says, and Todd understands.
Neil spots Todd in the audience and remembers reading this speech in his mother's voice while Todd hugged himself to keep from laughing. Todd drilled him on these lines fifteen times yesterday, until Neil threw the script in the air and tackled Todd to distract him, only to be overcome by Todd's inhuman skill at finding Neil's ticklish spots.
Neil remembers nights in the caves reading bawdy love songs and days full of those whispered words: carpe diem.
The King doth keep his revels here tonight. Neil is going to live like it's the last night of his life. His performance here tonight is going to be the culmination of everything he's worked toward this year, and the genesis of everything he will have in his future.
He looks around for his father. The night is almost over; this is his last chance to prove himself. He takes his heart and offers it to the crowd in his hands, palms up, arms outstretched.
Look at me, he thinks. This is where my heart is. I want to be an actor. Neil Perry wants to be an actor. Look at me, Dad. Can't you believe in me?
It's too dark where the spotlights don't shine. Neil isn't the type of person who can live in that anonymous gloom.
Light spills over his face as he smiles. His voice rings out over the hushed crowd.
"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here,
While these visions did appear;
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend."
The curtain falls.
It's Sunday. As usual, the room is empty. Todd flops down on Neil's bed and closes his eyes, blindly pushing strange, unfamiliar clothes off the covers.
"If we shadows have offended," he begins, and dares not open his eyes.