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The first time Neil realizes Todd can blush like it’s nobody’s business is at a meeting with the other Dead Poets. When the stars align, (I.E Meeks being too stressed to care, Charlie being too drunk, and Cameron being half-asleep and apathetic), the meetings can get a little raunchy in their subject matter. As much as Todd cannot be asked to even pretend to care about the nude women Charlie can supply, the stories he can come up with are entertaining enough.
So, once again, Charlie Dalton is driving this bus. As he always does. The poetry wrapped itself up a good hour prior, the Poets now running off of stolen bread, booze and cigarettes.
Knox does not do anything to quell Charlie, more or less becoming complicit. Meeks and Pitts are simply watching and occasionally giggling, their eyes glazed over as Cameron is simply too over it to try fighting. Neil is more or less like Todd, a sick audience member to an even sicker show.
As Todd grew closer to the rest of the Welton alumni, they all felt free to talk about anything and everything without fear of Todd regressing back to the little shell he was in at the start of the year. Looks were rather deceiving, he loved getting in on any and all gossip.
Hell, he finds himself at outings that Cameron couldn’t come to.
One thing he has learned is that Charlie Dalton loves to push some buttons.
It should’ve been obvious from the start, what with Charlie getting a ‘phone call from God’, but here he is, hiding in his jacket as Charlie hounds him for his sexual history.
He has zero skin in the game, making Charlie’s brown eyes go wide as he hollers, “Anderson got no play at Balincrest!” (as if that wasn’t obvious), but he has some semblance of restraint and goes on to tease Pitts once this bores him.
Neil was only content to watch, occasionally giggling at some of the things Charlie came up with, but what really interested him was Todd’s face when he retreated from his coat.
He was so… pink.
Between the strange lighting brought by the cave and the blue of his eyes, Todd seemed to be cartoonishly pink. It’s as if someone cut a ripe grapefruit open and smeared some of the flesh onto him.
Then it all clicks with Neil.
It is incredibly easy to make Todd Anderson blush.
Huzzah! He has a new Todd thread to pull at.
He chuckles to himself as he takes a silent puff of his pipe, noting how Todd didn’t even see his glances.
He’s no worse than Charlie.
-
Metaphorical nails now fidgeting at metaphorical threads, Neil is now able to see that Todd’s blushing issue is so damn apparent. He doesn’t know how he hasn’t caught on before.
He lets himself indulge a little that following day.
“Okay, okay. Next flashcard. I think we have that one down.” Neil stares at the term written on the back of the card, possibly to just hold himself back from looking at Todd’s face in focus for too long when—
“Gaudium et Spes, which is used in moments of joy. Usually Catholic contexts.” Todd answers.
Neil peers up from his glasses and nods.
“Another tally for you. How many points do you have on me now?”
Todd scratches another line down their paper with ‘T’ drawn above it. They’ve made a little game out of studying, if not to soothe Neil’s competitive streak, then to make him actually do it.
“One, two… um, eight.” Todd admits with a smile.
“Shit, Todd.” Neil laughs in disbelief. Either Todd has gotten smarter or Neil’s getting dumber. “You’re going to pass up Meeks one day.”
“Isn’t it Cameron that’s better at Latin?”
“No, no, it’s Meeks.” Neil confirms with a small shake of his head. A beat of silence passes where Todd just seems to stare, those blue eyes vacant with a glaze that Todd only possesses when he’s proof-reading his poetry. And it’s not one that he crumples and throws away. It’s one he knows is good and makes him smile.
Todd is pink in the face again.
“Todd?” Neil asks softly, almost afraid he’d break this weird trance.
“…Todd.”
He finally jumps, shaking his head.
“O-oh. Sorry, I, uh, I’m coming down with a migraine.” Fantastic bluff, Anderson. One more tally! “It’s an hour past lights out anyway. We should probably start bedding down.” He mumbles sheepishly. He’s already rushing Neil out of his bed, his cheeks still rosy.
“Wha— Todd, please.” Neil whines, content to yank at the thread one more time before they go to bed. He looks at the boy one more time through his glasses.
It is finally clicking for Neil that the glasses are causing this. And perhaps his pleas, but that was too intentional for him to truly gain a point.
Todd purses his lips before shaking his head. His poor ears, Neil thinks. They’d have to be warm enough to burn him.
“Nope. You’re just mad. I’ve won again. Goodnight.” Todd completes, very keen on not making eye contact with Neil. He’s already tucked himself into bed, trying to shut his eyes to will the ‘migraine’ away.
Neil flops onto Todd’s bed, just about forcing him to look at those doe eyes behind frames. Todd is making up poetry in his head as this plays out.
“Come on. One more flashcard.” Neil asks, giving his crooked and stupidly cute smile to the blonde. Todd is going to kill him.
“Go to bed.” Todd scolds, but he’s cutting his eyes a little, grinning.
Neil gives it a rest. The itch is satisfied for today.
Such weird games these two tend to play.
-
Stacks of papers sit along a desk. Old pale hands select the first one in the stack, holding it in the air.
“Anderson.”
Todd hates exam scores day. His last name always puts him first to retrieve his score. He tries to soothe himself, assuring himself every last person in there is stressing over their own score, but it’s not like he doesn’t feel the eyes on him.
Studying with Neil has proven beneficial, but he’ll be lucky to get by with a—
Holy shit, he’s made a 105.
He shakes his head in disbelief as he sits back down, slipping the paper to Neil, who sat next to him in Latin.
“And you told me you’d only make a C!” Neil whisper-hissed.
Todd gave a bashful smile and shake of his head, mumbling, ‘I’m Cameron’, making Neil chuckle and kick Todd’s leg under the table. Todd ignores the warmth in his ears and the butterflies in his stomach already kicking into first gear.
Neil examined the paper, possibly looking to see if he and Todd had similar answers. With the occasional wince, Todd reached the conclusion that they didn’t, but the brunette remained happy for him.
“Attaboy, Anderson.” He praised, making Todd’s eyes go wide. He was lucky for the scolding looks their teacher was already sending, for Todd could not formulate a sentence if he tried.
Neil smirked as he slipped the paper back across the table, content that he scratched the itch without even trying.
As weird as it sounds, the pinker he was, the cuter he got. At least to Neil.
-
Neil bounded into his dorm after rehearsal, effectively whipped. They had stayed about 30 extra minutes to get some dress rehearsal semantics down, the director assuring Neil and his other castmates they’ll thank him for it later. Neil usually liked dress rehearsal, but he was over it by 10PM, for Pete’s sake.
“God! Remind me to never do The Sound of Music like— ever again. This show is ridiculous!” Neil announced to Todd, not totally expecting a response since he seemed to be deep in some poetry analyzing. He shut the door with a dramatic puff of breath.
Todd regrets looking up from his book, because every time he vows Neil stops materializing poetry and beauty itself into one being, he does it again.
He’s not in his Welton uniform, instead donning a short-sleeve dress shirt and khakis with his Converse, the ensemble effectively killing Todd slowly. Very, very slowly. And gayly.
Todd has a lot of ‘favorite’ Neil’s. Glasses Neil became an instant classic the day he noticed Neil needed them to read.
Soccer Neil is cute in the sense that he’s candid and boyish—almost a little frightening in his enthusiasm for the game—and Dorm Neil is so sacred to Todd because he is the only Neil that is solely his. His cat-like stretches of a morning, his gentle mumbles as he practices lines—it all belongs to Todd, and he wanted to keep it that way for the rest of his life.
Theatre Neil is in second or third place on any given day. The infectious joy that radiates off the male after rehearsal, the unmistakable sweat and rewarding exhaustion it gives him, the occasional glimpses of makeup he wears for performances—it truly takes the cake.
Theater Neil is right in front of him, panting and complaining about these incredible dance numbers they have put him up to, but Todd can barely hear words right now. He can hardly feel his feet bunched up beneath the blankets.
He needs to lose the blankets, actually; he’s been burning up since Neil got here.
“It’s going to be cool to see you do a musical, though.” Todd prays that’s relevant enough as he trudges out of bed. His plans to get anywhere that doesn’t have Neil with his forearms out are promptly killed by the man of the hour.
“Not so fast, Anderson.” Neil quips as he blocks the door, leaning on it. He tilts his head and smirks, his hair falling along his forehead.
Don’t do that, don’t do that, don’t do that, Todd repeats in his head as he does his best to play it cool.
“I, um, kinda have to pee?” Todd lies as Neil only chuckles.
“Todd, you’ve been my roommate since August. It’s February, not much is getting past me.” Neil says with a wry smile.
“I have… no clue what you’re talking about. Come on, Neil—“
“Sure you do,” Neil interrupts as he takes one of Todd’s hands and brings it to his cheek.
“Feel this. You blush like this almost every time we talk. And then you try and get up, or tell me you’re just sick, or— I dunno.” Todd is simply frozen in his place, one foot behind the other to brace himself.
“So, forgive me if I’m seeing things a little wrong here but I think—“ Neil stops to laugh, “I think we’re both a little wrong for each other, if you get what I mean.”
“N-Neil, can I—“
“Haven’t you learned from Captain yet? Carpe Diem, sieze the—“ Todd does not let him finish that cliché before rising to his toes to kiss Neil, knocking his head back onto the door with a loud thunk.
Todd is doing his best not to giggle, but he’s already thinking of how he can tease the hollow sound that echoed out of Neil’s head. Neil wasn’t complaining. He’s never heard a sound so sweet.
It was Neil’s turn to laugh as the blonde uselessly opened his mouth along with Neil’s, the other taking his hand to pull him back by his nape.
“Not so fast, Todd. We need to teach you where to bat before you can, uh— get a home run.” Neil chides, Todd noticing the glazed look in his eyes, the darks of them glittering the way they did when he had first shown him his knack for poetry.
“You sound like Charlie.”
“Give credit where it’s due. You’re going to be thanking him here in a second,”
“E-ew, don’t bring him up when we’re like—“ Todd is not able to name what this is supposed to be before Neil is pulling him back again, slotting the two of them in all of the ways Todd did not grasp.
As the two of them gently grasped at fabric over warm skin, Todd realized that this is remarkably easy. With the exception of his inexperience, it’s like they’ve always done this. He supposes it’s much like his love for poetry. Once he began, it felt as if it was somehow a facet of his entire life. Never once absent.
They pulled away one more time, stumbling with inexperience so glaring it was cute onto Neil’s bed. He felt Todd’s cheek one more time. He was still pleasantly pink. Neil fell onto his back, content to let Todd crawl onto him and kiss along his jaw, much like that of a zoo animal getting new enrichment.
“I’ve suspected you were into me since last semester. Good thing you have such a cute way of giving it away, huh?” He gushed. Todd came up to meet Neil’s eyes, now noticing how the brunette looks at him as if he ruled Venus.
Todd flicked his nose with a blissed-out laugh. He knew his ease of flush will now never go away.