Work Text:
December 22nd, 1959. The First Time.
When Todd Anderson met grief, she came to him as snowfall on the frame of an open window. She was cold, sure. Calculating. Despicable to come at just the wrong time. But, she was also inviting. The chance to bury yourself in blankets as she danced around you. She was the feeling you get when you don’t get the job, but the person in front of you pays for your coffee. She was fire on fingertips and the torn edges of a photograph of someone now gone.
And gone was Neil Perry.
Todd Anderson decides to talk to the air about it.
He’s in his bedroom, the one at Welton. The one that Neil Perry was once present in, who would watch Todd like a spectator to some magnificent show that never went on for the public. Neil Perry, who said all his thoughts aloud and was once alive, alive, alive.
Todd stares down at the empty bed frame that once held Neil’s mattress. Then he stares at his own. He thinks that there’s no point in Christmas this year. There’s no one to go home to and no one to come back here with.
“Jesus,” Todd, ironically, says to himself. He’s shocked for a moment, as he’s usually not one to speak when no one else is in the room. Hell, he hardly wants to speak when anyone else is in the room, save for Neil. “Jesus,” Todd repeats again when he recognizes that thought.
“I’m so mad at you,” Todd says to the bed frame. Then he corrects himself. “No. No, I’m not.” He steps forward, kneeling down and resting his chin on the wood. “I’m not mad at you. But I am mad.”
His mouth keeps moving, like a vinyl record. Not because he wants to but because it feels like he was placed here to do so.
“I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go home to my family. They’re gonna, um, talk to me about you and I don’t think I can stand it. There’s a part of me that never wants to speak about you again. I want all of this to melt away with the winter so it’s impossible to think about you or Keating or anyone else.”
“But I…I don’t think I can be that selfish. I don’t think I can or, at least, I don’t know how. You know, my mother told me last week that death was a natural part of life, but I don’t think it should be. Not when it’s not time. She told me it’s a divine plan. Your death, my…my, suffering,” he chokes out, “it’s all planned long before I’m born. Is that fair? So, so like, I’m sad because it’ll teach me something, but what is this teaching me? To be angry? To hate everything that comes after you? Before you?”
“I just. I started all these dreams when I met you. I started thinking about my future and what that means and yeah, fuck, maybe that felt divine. Maybe. Otherworldly? I don’t know, but it made my chest hurt. But now, I don’t think any of it is going to happen. I don’t think it can. What if I’m just… this , forever? What if I stay exactly where I am and fucking melt into the floors of Welton, what then? Is it bad if I never move on? What if I can never move on? What if? Fucking answer me, please!”
“If I don’t become all the things I thought I would, I’m afraid I’ll continually trace it here,” Todd stands up. He doesn’t check for evidence of wetness on his cheeks. “I’m afraid I’ll always be. Seventeen. I’ll always feel this and it’ll be because of you. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to say it like that, but I kinda do. If I fail, will I tell everyone I might have been better off if you never died? Will that be it? Will you always be my excuse?”
Todd lowers his voice. “I want you to be. I want you to be my excuse.”
Todd takes a breath, deep and shaking. He exits his room, without his suitcase. He’ll tell his mother he didn’t mean to. He’ll tell her he was feeling off, seeing the empty bed on the other side of his room. She’ll cry.
He’ll savor the attention for a fleeting moment.