Work Text:
1.
Todd was not ready for this.
It was a normal evening, him and the other poets were having one of their 'study groups', talking amongst themselves. Pitts and Meeks were huddled over their radio, cheering silently whenever they heard anything resembling words. Knox was mulling over one of Keating's assignments that they had gotten the day before. And Todd himself was just minding his own business, trying to make sense of math with the help of Cameron, when the peace was disturbed.
"Neil, you look riddiculous in those glasses!" Charlie burst out jokingly, ruffling Neil's hair.
Todd's eyes unintentionally shifted over to the pair and felt his breath getting stuck in his throat when he saw Neil. To be fair, he knew that Neil sometimes used reading glasses to study better, but he had never actually seen him in them. And boy, was he gorgeous.
The glasses sat perched on his nose, framing those beautiful brown eyes that Todd always catched himself getting lost in when his roommate became absorbed into a particularly fun play and was telling him about it. He always thought about a certain sentence that people used to comfort those who were insecure about wearing glasses: "Your eyes were so beautiful, God decided to frame them". Neil was of course not insecure about it, but the sentence fit so very perfectly nonetheless.
Back to the present, Neil pushed Charlie away, telling him to fuck off as he fixed his hair and pushed up his glasses when he realized they had slid down. Todd followed the movement like a hawk, studying how the glasses made Neil look even more adorable than ususal.
"Hey, Anderson!" a pair of fingers started snapping in front of his face. Todd's attention snapped back to see Cameron looking at him with a confused pair of eyes. "Are you listening?"
Todd flailed and scrambled for his pen and rubber, trying to ignore the blush creeping up on his face. "Y-yeah, sorry..." The only reply he got was Cameron rolling his eyes before continuing explaining how to successfully calculate trigonometry.
It was a lost cause, the words barely sticking in his brain. His eyes continued to wander over to Neil who was hunched over his textbooks, fiddling with his pen while he thought over a tough question. But those damn glasses kept Todd under a trance, making him think how Neil looked almost like a puppy with them on. Maybe his hair was soft too...
A loud "thump" echoed in the room, making multiple eyes turn to the sound. Todd's head was laying on the table, being the source of the sound. He had to get rid of those thoughts in some way.
"Toddster, you okay over there, man?" Charlie called out after a moment of confused silence. Todd shoved up a thumbs up, face still on the table, not daring to look up and meet the glances his classmates were shooting him.
His answer seemed to make everything go back to normal, so Todd risked raising his head up and looking around. Bad mistake.
Neil was looking at him worridly, eyebrows furrowed in concern, making him look even cuter than before with his glasses. He saw his roommate mouthing "You okay?" to him, to which he nodded with a tiny smile. Gosh, Neil was too kind for his own good. If he knew how Todd felt around him, he doubted he would act the same.
He turned back to his math problems and tried to tune in to Cameron's tutoring, but he couldn't hear him over his own internal screaming.
Todd needed help.
2.
Yet again, Todd was not ready for this.
It was a peaceful Saturday evening. Todd was sitting in his bed, working on a poem that had been occupying his mind. Turns out, it was harder to put his thoughts on paper, so strewn across his side of the room were multiple crumpled up paperballs that had failed attempts written on them.
He was just getting frustrated when the door burst open, revealing Neil who was panting heavily, clutching papers in his hands. Todd tried to get a better view of what was written on them when Neil suddenly went over to him and sat down on his bed. A big and bright grin was plastered on his lips as he stared at Todd with shining eyes. Oh, Todd just loved how excited Neil could look. He must've done something incredible in his past life to be able to be his roommate.
"They're setting up a new play!" Neil exclaimed with glee, shaking the papers in his hands and laughing like there was no tomorrow. Todd felt himself easily influenced and laughed together with him and leaned over him to take a peek at what play it was this time, but Neil didn't give him a chance.
His dear roommate stood up, grabbed his glasses from his desk and stood in front of Todd where he sat on his bed. Oh no.
With a grin, Neil dramatically put on the glasses and pushed them up in a way that should not be that attractive. Todd immediately knew he was in trouble when he felt a blush rise on his cheeks, but it seemed like Neil was still in the dark with how affected Todd was. "The Tragedy of Macbeth. Ah, I love Shakespear! Such a genius! I don't care that others don't like him, because I do!"
Todd couldn't help but grin at Neil's obvious infatuation with acting. Oh, if only he was infatuated with Todd- woah, okay brain, take it easy. (Those thoughts were shushed and stored in the "for sleepless nights" department.)
Neil sat back down again, quite close to Todd, and hunched over the script, animatedly talking about which role he would love to have and his hopes for how the production would make the play, but the words went through one of Todd's ears and out the other.
He had zeroed in on Neil's round glasses that were slowly sliding down his nose the longer he was craning his head down to read the script. If he raised his head and looked at Todd with the glasses still down on the tip of his nose, he might just overheat and die. Todd was confident that Neil looked like one of those hot and young professors that girls usually romanticized about, and by god was Todd not going to be any better than them if Neil looked like that.
"- you understand, right, Todd?" Shit, he had not been paying attention to anything that Neil was saying. Something about how the tech team was going to use the lighting?
He looked up from where he was previously staring down at his lap, getting ready to agree with Neil, when he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw how Neil looked, staring at Todd with hopeful and gleaming eyes. Oh, and his glasses were indeed on the tip of his nose, making him look at Todd over the frames.
...
K.O!!
"Ah, I - uhm... B-BATHROOM!" Todd shrieked and bolted out of the room, trying to desperately repair his sanity. He didn't dare look back or listen to Neil's laugh and confused noises.
Those girls were onto something, Todd couldn't deny it. With how Neil had looked at him, the glasses perched low on his face like he knew something that Todd didn't and would gladly show him, it did something to his heart. And his brain, the chemistry had been completely changed. That scene would absolutely visit him in one of his sleepless nights. Fuck.
Todd needed a doctor to cure him of this.
3.
You guessed it, Todd was not ready for this. Again.
Todd thought he had hid his infatuation for Neil pretty well, but that was proven wrong one fateful evening.
Not all poets were present for their usual study group session, only Todd, Neil, Meeks and of course, where Meeks goes, Pitts follows. They were a package deal. Charlie was away doing god knows what, Knox was off meeting with Chris and Cameron was away tutoring some of the younger students.
Meeks and Pitts were huddled over their radio on one of the couches, whispering and giggling over their successful machine. They looked quite cute there, shoulders pressed together as they conspired over what invention to tinker over next. Todd kind of envied them with how close they were. Especially since Neil was sitting across from him at the table, mulling over one of their chemistry assignments and not sitting close to Todd.
Todd wasn't fairing any better though, so he couldn't judge. Chemistry sucked.
The sound of rustling papers made both boys shift their focus on the duo on the couch. Pitts had pulled out some sort of instruction paper, squinting at it like an old man, "Hey, Neil? Could you come here for a sec?"
"Yeah, sure. What's up?" Neil rose from his chair and walked over to the couch, leaning over Pitts' shoulder. He supported himself by propping his arm on the backrest, making his body tilt. Fuck, Todd should look away before he did something weird. Like falling over the chair or something.
Pitts pointed at something on the paper with furrowed eyebrows. "What does this word mean?"
Neil furrowed his eyebrows as well, humming to himself as he thought. From the table where Todd sat, he had to hold himself back from laughing at how funny Neil looked. If Pitts looked like an old man, then Neil was his great grandfather.
"Todd?"
The boy in question snapped his attention up and looked at Neil who had addressed him. "Y-yeah?"
Neil pointed at the table, "Could you get me my glasses? They're in their case."
Well, the situation was clearly heading towards Todd's demise, that was an absolute fact.
With shaking hands, Todd picked up the case and carefully opened it, looking down at the culprit of most of Todd's dreams (not the most innocent ones) and took them out of their case.
Todd stiffly went over to the other three and handed over Neil's glasses, trying his best to stabilize his hand to avoid embarrasment. He swore he could hear muffled laughter from where Pitts was sitting, which was followed by a muted "Ouch!".
Neil gratefully took the glasses from Todd's hand, his fingers brushing over the side of his hand (FUUUUUUCK), putting them on gently with a mischievous glint in his eyes. The now framed eyes slid over to the paper again and smiled to himself, "Gosh, they should really make the letters bigger, could barely see. It says 'Deburring', so it has to be connected to the word 'burr' and that you are undoing what the word means." Neil stood up from his leaning position, "Does that help?"
Meeks quickly nodded and stole the paper from Pitts' hands, reading over the word and the sentence it was in, "Yup, thanks, Neil. Pitts here can be a bit of a scatterbrain," Meeks gave his partner a mischevious look before looking back up at Todd and Neil, "We're good to go now. You guys can go back."
Neil shrugged and went back to his seat by the table with Todd dumbly following close behind to get to his seat. What was that all about?
You'd think the panic would've passed for Todd, but it was quite the opposite. Neil, the bastard, kept the glasses on, fiddling with them and adjusting them when they started to slide down. It got even worse when Meeks and Pitts bid them goodnight and went to their dorm, laughing and shoving gently at each other on the way.
The room was covered in silence and Todd didn't dare to look up at Neil. He used all of his willpower to keep his eyes on his homework, desperately trying to ignore the presence that existed on the other end of the table.
But the universe was never kind, was it?
"Hey, Todd?" Neil called out to him, but Todd refused to look up at the other boy.
"Hm?" he answered, doing his best to keep his voice stable. He was still looking at the same question he had been on for the past ten minutes.
He heard a huff opposite of him and the sound of a chair sliding back. Oh no, he was walking over to Todd.
"Look at me, please?" Neil's voice was closer now, right beside him. Was he leaning over him? Todd still refused to look up at him, "Come on, why won't you look at me?"
Todd stiffened when he detected something in his voice. Was he... teasing him? Had he figured out how affected he was? Was he ridiculing him? No, Neil wasn't that mean to him. Then what was he doing...?
As if he was about to look the sun straight in the eye, which he kind of was about to do, Todd slowly raised his head to look at Neil. He almost jerked back in surprise with how close he was to him. Neil had a shit-eating grin on his face, his eyes crinkled at the edges. "Hi."
Todd blinked at him in surprise. "Hi...?" His eyes flitted from Neil to the wall on the other side of the room, trying not to expload from how nervous he was.
A little chuckled escaped Neil. "Are you nervous about something? It's just me, I don't think someone else will come in here."
"Yeah, that's the problem." Todd groaned in his head but shook his head in lieu of an answer
The twinkle was back in Neil's eyes. "No? So why are you blushing?" Todd's eyes widened when he felt Neil's hand on his cheek, stroking it gently, "It's almost as if I'm the one making you nervous."
Was this real? It had to be a dream, surely. No way Neil would touch Todd so gently, so tenderly. It got even better when the hand slowly slid down to hold Todd's jaw, forcing Todd's gaze to stay on Neil.
"Holy shit."
Neil leaned down to Todd's height and whispered in his ear, "Just tell me you like me in my glasses, Toddy."
He left a lingering kiss on Todd's cheek before standing up straight, taking his belongings from the table, throwing a wink over his shoulder and walking out of the room. Todd was left alone, frozen in place from the sheer shock of all of that happening. His face probably looked like a tomato.
After processing what just happened, Todd scrambled for his own belongings and ran after his roommate, "N-Neil! Wait for me!"
So, yes, maybe Todd needed help, but he was okay with not getting it this time.
+ 1
Neil was not ready for this.
He was currently sitting in Charlie's and Cameron's room together with the two and Knox, the evening moonlight spilling into the room. They were working on a project in social studies, or, currently they were listening to Knox talking about Chris, but not in the way they thought.
"Yeah, so we decided to just stay friends."
Shock overtook the room, Neil and Cameron staring at Knox dumbly and in disbelief. Charlie was the first to recover, side hugging him since they sat beside each other on Charlie's bed. "It's okay, Knoxious. Things like that happen in life. You'll find your forever person soon enough."
Knox looked over at him with a smile, "No, it's literally okay, Nuwanda. We ended on good terms. After a while, we figured that friends just fit better as a label for us."
A unanimous "huh" came from the other three and they all nodded. Neil was happy for him, that was better than a heartbroken Knox. He would rather not deal with that again, he got really bad last time he got a heartbreak.
Just when they were about to continue with the project, Hager stuck his head into the room and harshly reminded them that curfew was coming up soon. Bummer, Neil was reaaally looking forward to continue with the project. Cue the eye roll.
After a quick visit to the bathrooms to freshen up for the night, Neil headed back to his room, longing to jump into cozier clothes and cuddle up with Todd.
Neil had realized he was flustering Todd after he had talked about The Tragedy of Macbeth in their shared room. When he saw Todd blushing up a storm, Neil felt like he had the confidence of a god. He thought he had a chance with Todd! Months of yearning were leading up to something really good, he had a feeling. But he had to test his theory.
The night when he, Todd and the radio duo were alone in the study group room, he had convinced Meeks and Pitts to help him a bit on the way, just to give him a reason to put on his glasses, which they successfully did. When he confronted him, he hoped he looked confident, because on the inside, his heart was beating so hard and fast he could hear it in his head like a hamer hitting him repeatedly. Thankfully, the night had ended with Todd giving him a shy kiss on his cheek, muttering about how cruel Neil was for tormenting him with the glasses.
It didn't stop Neil from continuing to use them, and Todd wasn't complaining either, so Neil counted that as a well deserved win.
While toweling his hair, Neil made his way towards his room, already looking forward to warm hugs and a nice bed, when he stopped dead in his tracks when he opened the door.
Todd, who was crowding over something on his desk, was wearing a sweater. Not just any sweater, one of Neil's, the green one he had on when he was chasing Todd around in their room. His pulse immediately went through the roof.
His knees unintentionally gave out under him and he fell down on them, startling Todd out of his concentration. He looked over at Neil with confusion and a sliver of amusement. "You okay?"
Neil blindly reached behind him to close the door and after succeeding, he made his way over to Todd and draped himself over his back. "I... you're - you're wearing one of my..." he was literally at a loss for words and Todd seemed to enjoy that a little too much.
His love looked back down at his notes but not without reaching with one hand up to run his fingers through Neil's hair. He had noticed shortly after the two offically became an item that Todd really liked playing with Neil's hair. It was nice, especially when they were just sitting together, reading poetry, and Todd would decide to fiddle with the ends of Neil's hair by the neck. It made him shiver with delight every time.
"I had to get back on you for all those times you used your glasses against me," Todd mused as he scribbled down some more notes, "I take it it's working?"
The bastard had the audacity to sound smug about it. Oh, he was asking for it.
Neil managed to drag Todd out of his chair and pushed him onto Neil's bed, to which he followed after him. They landed in a pile of limbs, not keeping track of who's leg was who's.
Todd's laughter rang clear in their room as Neil started to lay kisses on his neck, a bit grumpy about the fact that Todd was actually taking revenge on him. And that it was working. "It's working a bit too well..." Neil responded to Todd's question and started to trail his kisses up to his face, laying them on his jaw.
"Perfect. Now kiss me for real."
Neil didn't need help, he had the boy of his dreams in his arms.