Chapter Text
“I want to know
what it means to survive
something.
does it just mean
I get to keep my body?”
-Olivia Gatwood. ‘Life of the Party.’
Todd Anderson was five years old when he learned the difference between accident and purpose.
There was this sandbox on his school playground. One that was encompassed by this bed, red concrete ring that kept the sand from spilling out onto the grass. Todd liked to spend all of his free time here, sitting in the sand without a care in the world. He didn’t care that the dirt would wedge itself between the divots on the bottom of his sneakers and made tracks in his mother’s clean living room later.
He liked it too much to leave.
He liked to pick up clumps of the sand, squishing it together. When it was especially cold and rainy, the grains would hold together. When it was warm, Todd would let the sand fall through his fingers, slow like time itself felt back then. He would grin at the comforting feeling of holding something so easy to let go off.
However, that comforting feeling would never see the age of six. It would stay here, at half a decade. If Todd had been older, maybe he would have seen it coming.
But he wasn’t older. He was five years old and the idea surrounding ego did not exist yet. Five was the age of gapped teeth and the dirt under your fingernails being the sign of a well-lived youth. It was an age where one should not care about anything other than whether or not your parents cut your sandwich into triangles. Or if the crust had been carefully sliced away. That was why Todd hadn’t heard anybody coming up behind him. He hadn’t seen the raised hands of an older child, vampiric claws, in the shadows before him. He had only heard the shrill laughter that followed, hyena-like and cruel. Hands pressed into his back and pushed him forward, into his beloved sand.
That day, Todd had cried out of pure despair for the very first time. There was blood spurting from his gums and sand crunched between his teeth. “Hey!” He had cried, “You hurt me! My teeth!
“It was an accident,” said shrugging shoulders and a mean squint.
It was then that Todd discovered that human hands were mean and could shove you while claiming to pull you in. It was then he knew that sweet words meant nothing said by someone with poison under their tongue. It was then he knew that the mouths of older boys could bite you as quickly as they could kiss you.
So, why is he at this party, twelve years later, feverishly kissing a boy he barely knows? Why was he kissing a boy with a reputation that precedes him and a chapped mouth with a cupid’s bow so enticing, the moment he walked in, Todd knew he had been struck?
Neil Perry was the kind of boy that you could bring home to your mother. He was tall and endearing. He spoke politely to authority figures and held doors open, sure to let everyone enter a room before he did. And he had a set of teeth so perfect, Todd has to hold himself back from asking if they’re real. He was to stop himself from wondering, outloud, if his own crooked, not-so-perfect teeth were a turn-off.
This kissing Neil Perry was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Todd couldn’t screw it up now. Neil Perry never stayed in one place for long. According to the whispers around town, Neil’s polite nature was nothing more than a way to keep the principals off his back and pretty people in his lap. He held doors simply so he had people to watch him enter the room. His teeth were perfect but, like the boys before, belonged to something phantom-like and bloodthirsty. They were sharp enough to wound a neck. It didn’t matter if it was for blood or for a hickey.
Either option. All of it excites Todd.
Todd had been nursing a drink that tasted like watered-down bleach when Neil walked in like the house was his own. He had scanned the place with his eyes casually, like he wasn’t actually looking for anything.
But Todd was looking.
So, Todd, being braver than he has ever been before in his life, walks up to Neil with a goal in his gaze and a deafening beating of his heart. He asks Neil if they had ever met before. Neil responds with a comment that makes Todd squint in the best way possible.
“I think I’d remember if you went to Welton.”
“I haven’t. But I’ll be there this year. Moving from Balincrest.”
“Well, what God did I please today?”
“Do you believe in God?”
“If you ever meet my father, tell him I answered in the affirmative.”
Todd laughs. He covers his mouth with his right hand. Pretending not to notice that Neil tilts his head like he’s trying to figure Todd out, he lets the laugh fade out. There’s nothing to solve, no mystery to be seen. Tonight will happen and then it will be over. The school year will begin and they’ll both forget this ever happened.
That’s why Todd’s focus intensifies when Neil presses his perfect lips to Todd’s neck and bits down hard. He wants to remember this moment so much that it’ll make an appearance in his dreams for the rest of time. They’re in a bedroom somewhere in the back of Chet Danbury’s house and there’s music pulsating against the walls. People are banging on the door. They’re looking for a bathroom, a place to fuck, or whatever they could possibly need enough to disrupt this. This. Right now.
Right now, Todd needs to inject this into his veins so deeply, the feeling of Neil’s fingers gripping his arm never leaves him. He needs to remember how Neil’s hands slide from the back of his neck to his waist. He needs to remember that every time he softly begged please, Neil kissed him harder. He needs to remember how it felt to have Neil’s fingers trace his jaw.
He needs to remember. Todd has to know that this really happened.
Because when school starts a week later, Neil Perry seems to forget.
—
Changes in the season were cruel. Summer turned into Autumn and flings turned into nothing. People like Neil Perry…of course they would be struck with amnesia the instant their lips parted forever, forever from Todd Anderson. If Todd was luckier, everything about that night would be nothing more than the memory. Something to think about when he was alone.
Again, if Todd was lucky.
But Todd Anderson was not lucky. No. More often than not, Todd’s heart would be begging to jump out of his throat. He would stub his toe on unsuspecting corners. His meal was always the last one to come out at the restaurant and his ice cream was always a little too melted. His teeth a little too crooked. And, don’t get him wrong, that was fine! Todd was used to this! It was fine!
However, there are still bouts of unluckiness that can shock even the most ill-fated. There are instances that can make the most iron-stomached turn green. And one of those instances is here, now. Now, as Todd Anderson is unpacking his suitcase in his new dorm at his new school.
There’s a half-hearted knock on the door. Todd’s head doesn’t even perk up at it. It’s only when he hears a polite “hello” that his ears twitch and his throat dries.
Neil Perry, with whom Todd assumes is his father at his heels, walks into the room with his very own suitcase. And he sets it on the bed across from Todd’s. He starts to unpack and all Todd can muster up is a sad sigh because, well, of course something like this would happen to him. Of course his happy memory would turn sour by the fact that he would have to face it, head-on.
“I guess we’re roommates, huh,” Neil speaks again only when his father, who reminds Neil no less than eighty-five times to behave and get good grades, leaves.
“Hm? Oh.” Todd’s hands slip from the sheet he’s attempting to tuck under his mattress. They snap audibly enough to embarrass Todd out of responding again for several moments.”I guess we, um, are. Yeah.”
“I’m Neil Perry,” Neil turns, holding out his hand to a starstruck Todd.
“Ex…Excuse me?” Todd’s eyes go from Neil’s shoes to the top of his head, searching for some sense of irony, a joke that he didn’t get the first time. When he doesn’t find it, Todd slowly reaches for Neil’s hand and shakes it. “I…I know who you are…”
“Oh!” Neil pulls away casually, but it’s just so slightly too quick. “I suppose that isn’t good for me, huh?” He chuckles, though it isn’t very convincing. Neil turns away, resting himself against the edge of his bed, one foot crossed over the other. “Do I still get to know your name despite your image of me being tainted before you put a face to my own?”
This person who sits before Todd is confusing, to put it lightly. This cannot be the same boy who looked at Todd like he was something to conquer. This cannot be the boy who embedded his nails into his skin and kissed Todd like he was sucking the poison from his lips. No. No, this boy, he’s…different. Neil looks at Todd like he’s waiting to be hurt. He looks at Todd like he’s expecting something harsh; a whip to the face or a fist to his belly.
And he doesn’t remember who Todd is.
“Oh,” mimics Todd. “Todd. I’m Todd Anderson.
Neil stares, trying to study him (or remember where he’s seen Todd before). Todd anxiously slides his tongue against the back of his front teeth. He watches as Neil eyes his mouth, taking in a memory he knows exist but can’t see in his mind. Todd shuts his mouth. There’s too much light in this room. His tilted teeth are far too evident here.
Lowering his head, Todd hides himself even more.
—
Neil’s friends, Todd finds, are just as forgetful as Neil himself.
Around nine that evening, Neil leaves the dorm room with nothing more than a whispery explanation to Todd. Todd doesn’t reply simply because he doesn’t even register that Neil is speaking to him. He sits in a welcome, deep silence for maybe half an hour before being interrupted by some sort of commotion down the hall.
“Damn it, Cameron! This is your fault!”
“It is not! You are carrying illegal substances on school grounds! I’ll have to report you for this, Dalton!”
“Please? If they expel me now, I’ll never have to see Dr. Hager’s disappointed face again.”
Todd rises in his bed, tugging his blanket all the way up to his mouth. The phrasing that boy down the hall had used, those illegal substances. What did that mean? He shifts his ear towards the door as if to communicate to the closed door that the words had piqued his interest. Then, sudden and too soon, Todd’s door swings open. There, standing in his doorway, is a boy Todd recognizes as a friend of Neil’s: Charlie Dalton.
There’s a flash in his mind, back to the party. Charlie was standing right behind Neil, practically stepping on his ankles, as they walked into the house. Todd remembers looking into Charlie’s eyes for a split second before pulling Neil away. He remembers Charlie patting him on the back when Todd was leaving the house. He remembers that Charlie had said goodbye.
And now he’s here in Todd Anderson’s dorm room with his arms piled with pillows, blankets, and, from the crinkling sounds from within the pillow case, snacks he likely wasn’t allowed to have on the Welton campus. Charlie’s hair was dripping wet and his t-shirt was sticking to his skin. There was a fresh cut on his cheek. Outside of a single sock on his left foot, he had nothing on his feet.
Todd, wide-eyed and caught off guard, wasn’t sure where to look. He settled on that cut; it felt a less demanding than the wildness of Charlie’s eyes, even being so red and glistening.
“Um…hi?” Todd stammers.
“You’re not Neil,” Charlie’s eyebrow raises, lips curved into something accusatory.
Todd squeaks. “No.” He clears his throat. “I’m Todd.”
“You a snitch, Todd?” Charlie glares, looking Todd up and down like he’s searching for a hidden mic.
Todd shakes his head, wanting so badly to promise that he isn’t one. He isn’t a snitch. “No, no, um…Neil’s, um, out. It’s just me here. I’m…Todd.” His bottom lip begins to tremble. It isn’t out of a need to cry, but out of a sheer misunderstanding of how he’s meant to respond here.
“Fuck,” Charlie sighs out the curse. He doesn’t care if anyone at the administrative level can hear him. He throws everything in his arms onto Neil’s bed (which Todd appreciates). He digs into the pillow case and pulls out a bag of individually wrapped candy. “You want one?” Charlie unwraps a lime flavored thing, bright and headachingly green, and pops it into his mouth. Todd tries not to visually cringe when he crunches it down with his teeth.
And maybe this is where Todd could have asked Charlie to leave. This is where he could have said something ferocious, in a “Todd Anderson” way. “Shut the door on your way out. Neil’s probably waiting for you somewhere.” The not-so-nice part of Todd, the part that’s scared of boys and their sharp teeth, wants to say that. But he doesn’t.
Instead, Todd kicks off his blanket. He brushes his hair out of his face with his fingers. “Do you have a cherry one?” He asks with a voice that croaks and shakes. To Todd’s surprise, Charlie steps back like Todd’s question had smacked him square in the chest. Then, his pulled down lips turn into a soft smile. Charlie dips into his bag and pulls out a fist of several red candies. Todd takes one, trying not to notice how sugar sticky Charlie’s hands are.
“Don’t mind that,” Charlie reads his mind. “My roommate,” he scowls, “made me drop my drinks. I tried to clean it up but with Cameron nagging in my ear,” Charlie’s hand becomes the nagging voice in his ear. Todd laughs. “I won’t touch your stuff or anything. Promise.”
“No!” Um, no,” Todd’s face hears up, “Is that the…illegal substances?”
Charlie laughs out loud, the word being the very understatement of the century. He falls back onto Neil’s bed, crushing everything beneath him. Todd’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head. Is he being laughed at or with? Does Charlie think he’s a major loser idiot? Has Neil mentioned anything about the boy he kissed at that party?
Charlie takes a big breath, sighing in that pleased one one might sigh after eating something refreshing. Todd peeks up. With Charlie’s head thrown back, he can see the green fragments of lime candy stuck to the bottom of his teeth.
Pulling himself up, Charlie tosses a few more cherry candies in Todd’s direction. They hit Todd’s knees and bounce onto the bed. “Sorry, that was fucking gold. You heard all that with Cameron, huh?” He stands and steps over to Todd’s bed, sitting on the edge.
“Mmhm,” Todd nods.
“Yep,” Charlie nods back. “Don’t worry about that. Yes, he’s talking about the candies and soda and shit, but it’s not actually illegal. I’m just not supposed to have it on campus.”
“Oh,” an embarrassed Todd responds and doesn’t press further. Charlie seems to sense this and continues for him.
“Cameron’s just…he’s a little…into the rules, you could say.” Charlie elbows Todd’s leg playfully. “He’s mad that I didn’t share with him.”
The two of them, Todd and Charlie, sit like this comfortably together. They slowly eat their candy, one at a time. Charlie eventually notices how Todd cringes at the crunches and stops. They have a few other snacks; cookies, chips, etc, which Charlie gladly shares. Todd doesn’t have to say aloud how hungry he is. It’s almost as if they’ve known each other for a long, long time.
—
Was there ever a point in history where nothing existed and then, all of the sudden, it did? Not in the Big Band sense. In a “there was no other being, no mammal that could feel this connected to another until now?” Was there left before the first pump of nervous blood? Before a nail could scratch, an eye could beg, a tooth could bite?
These were the questions that raced like fish downstream in Todd’s mind for the rest of the evening. For a moment longer, it’s just him and Charlie. Then another three boys show up. They don’t introduce themselves, only enter the room and sit down like the beds and doors and desks were built for them. Todd does what any mammal ought to do when the situation gets questionable: he adapts.
“I could definitely make it in Hollywood,” Charlie Dalton, lying on Neil’s bed with his hand propping up his head, says assuredly. “I’ve got the face for pictures.”
“Yeah, maybe if the movies were silent,” Richard Cameron, Charlie’s roommate, grumbles. He sits close to Charlie, leaning back against Neil’s bed frame. Though only half an hour ago he was yelling at Charlie for smuggling in forbidden loot, his cheeks expanded with an orange candy that he rolled around his tongue as he spoke.
Charlie reaches over with his free hand and hits Cameron on the back of his head. He smiles devilishly when Cameron yelps. It becomes outright hellbound when Cameron threatens to tell on him.
“I don’t think I could be in the movies,” Gerard Pitts softly comments as the scene forms in front of him. He’s sitting across from Charlie on Todd’s bed, back against the wall. His legs hang over the edge.
Steven Meeks agrees. “I don’t know anything about movies. Couldn’t name a single actor if I tried.” Sitting below Pitts, Meeks places his head against Pitts’ legs.
“I know ‘em all,” Knox Overstreet copies Meeks’ head tilt, though his head sits against Neil’s bedpost.
Charlie comments, “What you’ve gotta know about Knoxious, Todd, is that he only watches the romance movies. So when he says he ‘knows ‘em all,’ he really only means Judy Garland and whatever co-star she has.”
“That is not true!” Knox’s head shoots up. “I also know Debbie Reynolds.”
And Todd doesn’t entirely mean to, but he starts to laugh. These comments, the ways these boys are so familiar with each other. It’s all very…funny. Todd watches as Knox tries to defend himself some more. He notices that Meeks is falling asleep on Pitt’s leg. He doesn’t say anything when he catches Charlie passing Cameron some secret pastry wrapped in plastic. These boys know each other so well. And Todd doesn’t know much, but he can feel his own familiarity evolving.
Todd finishes laughing, pleading Knox for forgiveness when he’s shot an offended glare.
“Ah, leave him alone, Knox,” Charlie scoots forward from the bed and pushes Knox’s head with his foot. Let the kid laugh at you.”
“You mean laugh with me, right?” Knox swats his foot away.
“No, I mean at you, but whichever one makes you feel better is the one I said.”
“Ha!” Cameron points at Knox with a finger that raises as a reflex.
“I know you’re not laughing, Cam,” Knox crosses his arms defiantly. “I may like Debbie and I may like Judy, but I know that you secretly feel inspired by-”
“Shut UP!” Cameron desperately shakes his hands back and forward, begging Knox to not finish the sentence that sits ready and waiting on the tip of his tongue.
“Mickey Rooney!”
“WHAT!” Charlie roars, causing the entire room to erupt into laughter. Cameron looks about on the edge of tears. He shouts over the laughter, trying to explain himself and express his confusion at how this could possibly be more embarrassing than Knox’s infatuation with the idolized female actresses of this decade and decades passed.
“My mother really enjoys his work, okay!” Cameron explodes, trying to calm himself with a deep breath. He bits into the pastry Charlie handed him before. “She thought I seemed…kind of like him…”
This does not help Cameron’s case. In fact, it makes it much, much worse.
But those seconds of hilarity pass by. It dwindles the way a boat shows proof of their presence through leftover ripples in the water. It passes because someone says Neil’s name. And Todd becomes acutely aware of the fact that he is in his bedroom with a bunch of boys who are only there because they expected Neil to be, too.
Todd covers his mouth with his hand.
He doesn’t know if Charlie notices how this movement is accompanied by a lowered head and a sad brow. But Charlie clears his throat and pats his hands against his lap. He grins, the laughter of the past about to spill. But it doesn’t. And Charlie asks Todd a question that makes every single query to come before seem meaningless.
“Todd! Do you know the Danbury’s? They live in town. Their kid goes to the public high school.”
Todd’s back there, then. In that room. He feels the pressure of fingertips on his skin and lips on his throat. Teeth searching for his blood. He feels the heat bubbling in his stomach. He feels the redness protruding under his cheeks, beaming like rays from his flesh. He feels Neil Perry.
“Not really,” Todd answers. “Why?”
“There’s awesome parties thrown there all the time,” Charlie explains, “you should join us this weekend.”
Todd swallows, eyes flicking to the door in search of an escape route to scurry off on. “Oh? Why?”
Charlie stands, letting candy wrappers and crumbs fall from his pants. “Jesus, Anderson.”
Todd tries to hide the apprehension that seeps out from his bones and onto his skin. “What!”
“Why?” Charlie chuckles, “so we can talk about it in front of you and not invite you.” He says so like a fact, but it's not hateful. It’s a genuine friendly jab that doesn’t make Todd want to disappear. “Obviously I asked so we could invite you. Come with us this weekend.”
Todd wants to go. He wants to go but, no matter what, he cannot say that. It doesn’t matter how much his heart is leaping at the suggestion that he might be making some real friends right now. And those friends want to be around him and invite him to a party? Oh, God, Todd’s never had to handle that much positive emotion in one go. It shows in his wide, tooth-and-gum smile.
If things were different, Todd wouldn’t have cared that Charlie’s eyes seemed to catch on his mouth. He wouldn't have sped to raise his hand over his mouth for a second time in minutes. Covering his jagged, crooked mouth, it was so much work. If things were different, Todd wouldn’t have felt the need to say “what!” so defensively, so afraid.
“Are you going to come?” Meeks, sleepy, half-awake, asks.
Gerard adds on, “you should! It’s not really my thing, but we can stand in the back together.”
“You really should come.” Charlie reiterates just so much he wishes for Todd to join them at Chet Danbury’s dirty, sticky-floored party at his fancy, billion dollar home.
“I don’t really like parties. Even…even standing against walls and stuff.” Todd quietly mumbles.
The group energy dies after that. Pitts, the usual comfortably quiet one, leaves first. Meeks follows, body heavy with the imagination of sleep. Cameron says his social battery has run low. And, any other night, that might have been normal. But it’s Charlie’s depleted energy that makes Todd feel like he’s ruined any chance of longevity in friendship. It’s like his disappointment has hit the entire group like a stomach bug that would spill from their guts if they dared to open their mouths.
So Todd, as quick as he had made them, accepts that maybe having friends and smiling isn’t for people with crooked teeth.
___
“Why isn’t Todd coming to the party?”