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It starts, perhaps, in silence. The way snow falls, noiseless but full, blanketing the world in a hush that makes everything feel sacred, or at least worthy of reverence. That is how Todd Anderson sees Neil Perry for the first time, really sees him—when Neil is laughing at something Charlie said, his head thrown back, his throat an exposed stretch of light and movement. Todd notices that Neil laughs like someone who has never been afraid of being looked at, which makes Todd’s chest ache, makes him tighten his grip on the edge of his book as if it might tether him to something solid.
But Neil turns, smiling, and says, What’s so serious, Anderson? like he’s already trying to pull Todd into orbit, like he’s already rearranging gravity.
Todd looks away. Neil doesn’t.
Later, Todd will think of that moment as the first step toward some inevitable disaster, like a fault line shifting beneath his feet. Or maybe it wasn’t a disaster at all—maybe it was an opening, a door creaking wide.
---
Neil is a body in motion. He moves like a flickering flame, restless and bright, all energy and hunger and insatiable longing. He speaks in rapid bursts, his thoughts tumbling out before they’re fully formed, and he wants, wants, wants—wants to act, wants to live, wants to take up space in the world without apology. Todd has never known someone like him before.
Neil perches on Todd’s desk, talking about the play, about Puck, about how he’ll sneak out for rehearsals and his father will never know. His eyes are alight with something Todd can’t name.
“You should try out next time,” Neil says, leaning close, and Todd flinches because Neil is too much, always too much—too bright, too loud, too close to the things Todd is afraid to name.
“I don’t think so,” Todd murmurs, looking down.
Neil exhales, something soft and fond and exasperated all at once, and then—Todd doesn’t know how it happens—Neil’s hand is on his wrist, just a brush of fingertips, just enough contact to send something sharp down Todd’s spine.
“You’re more than you think,” Neil says.
And Todd wants to believe him.
---
The first time Todd sees Neil in his costume, his breath catches in his throat. It’s not just the clothes—though the ivy crown and the green velvet make him look like something pulled from a dream, something meant to be worshipped. It’s the light in his eyes, the way he stands taller, unafraid, fully alive in a way that Todd has never seen before.
Neil turns, grinning, arms outstretched. "How do I look?" he asks, spinning once, twice, his laughter filling the room like music.
Todd can’t answer. The words tangle in his throat, get caught in the part of him that never learned how to say what he wants. He wants to say: You look like the person you were always meant to be. He wants to say: I’ve never wanted anything the way I want you, and it terrifies me.
Instead, he just says, “You look—” and then stops, because Neil is already moving again, already reaching for the script, already burning too brightly for Todd to hold onto.
---
The first time they kiss, it isn’t planned. It isn’t a moment of declaration, isn’t a grand gesture like something Neil might script in his head. It’s just them, tangled in the hush of their dorm room, moonlight slanting through the frost-rimmed window. Neil is pacing, talking about how God, Todd, I feel like I could do anything, don’t you feel it too? and Todd, dizzy with something nameless, something terrifying, reaches out without thinking and pulls him in.
Neil stills. The silence stretches, and for a moment, Todd thinks he’s made a mistake—
—but then Neil exhales against his lips, and his hands find Todd’s face, and suddenly it’s not quiet anymore.
Neil kisses like he speaks, like he moves—reckless, urgent, full of something just barely contained. Todd clutches at him, not knowing what else to do, and when they part, Neil presses their foreheads together and laughs, breathless.
“I knew it,” he whispers. “I knew it.”
Todd doesn’t ask what he means.
---
It is a winter of secret things.
Of stolen glances across candlelit desks in the cave. Of Neil mouthing words from Shakespeare with a smirk, his voice curling around Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? like a promise. Of Todd pressing his hands to Neil’s ribs under his sweater, feeling the shiver that runs through him like a live wire.
Of Neil grinning as he sneaks Todd out onto the frozen lake one night, dragging him by the wrist until they stand in the middle of all that untouched white. “We could die out here,” Todd says, shivering, and Neil grins. “Then at least we’d die doing something real.”
Todd shakes his head, but when Neil laces their fingers together, he doesn’t let go.
They share a bed most nights now. It’s easier in the cold, easier when their roommates are gone. They do not talk about it, do not put words to the way Neil tucks himself against Todd’s side, the way Todd presses his face to Neil’s hair and breathes him in like he’s memorizing something fleeting.
One night, Neil traces a fingertip along Todd’s shoulder, over his collarbone, down the center of his chest.
“What are you thinking?” Todd whispers.
Neil doesn’t answer for a long time. Then, so quietly Todd almost doesn’t hear it:
“I think I’m afraid I’ll disappear.”
Todd presses a kiss to the top of his head. “You won’t,” he says.
But Neil does not reply.
---
But winters don’t last. Snow melts. Ice cracks.
There is no warning, and yet Todd has known all along. There is no logic, and yet it makes perfect sense.
Neil is a force of nature. He was always going to burn out. He was always going to fly too close to something vast and unbearable. But Todd—Todd never thought it would happen like this. Never thought he’d wake up to Charlie’s voice tight with something raw, never thought he’d hear Neil’s dead and feel his chest cave in like a house collapsing in on itself.
Never thought he’d be standing there, outside, in the bitter cold, looking up at the stars and thinking, But he was supposed to be infinite.
The first snowfall of the season comes a week later. Todd stands in it, face tilted upward, and wonders if Neil would have liked this—if he would have run out barefoot just to feel it against his skin, if he would have thrown himself onto the ground and laughed, arms outstretched like he was making a snow angel, like he was trying to carve his shape into the world, make it remember him.
Todd closes his eyes.
It starts, perhaps, in silence.
But when the snow falls, Todd swears he can still hear Neil laughing.