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Living with Todd for the past four months has taught Neil some things. Todd, for example, is as much of a morning person as Neil hates getting out of bed before ten. When two people have the same favorite cereal, it tends to disappear from the cabinet pretty quickly. Todd likes things being clean but doesn't particularly like cleaning, and between the two of them, they have almost as many sweaters as they do utensils.
Living with Todd for the past four days has also taught Neil some things—namely, that air freshener completely saturates the air after about the third time one sprays it all across a room. Of course, by one he means Todd, and by his fifth trip around the apartment, Neil is about ready to lock Todd outside until his parents arrive.
"At least stop with the coffee," Neil says as Todd starts drifting towards the kitchen again. "Eventually your hands are gonna start shaking so bad you won't be able to hold the Febreeze anymore."
This is what finally gets Todd to stop long enough for Neil to guide him to the couch and sit him down.
"No more caffeine, okay? And that includes tea."
"Irish breakfast tea doesn't have that much caffeine in it," Todd says. His eyes are still focused on something just past the opposite wall, and his voice is detached.
"With the amount you drink? Yeah, it does." Neil takes the air freshener out of his hand, albeit with some resistance as Todd's hand has locked up around it.
When his hand opens and closes around nothing but air, Todd finally refocuses and notices where he is. He looks around in confusion before his eyes land on Neil and he relaxes minutely.
"I didn't know you stress cleaned," Neil continues. "That's a new one."
"Just wait until finals," Todd says as he leans back into the couch. "Pretty sure my roommate plotted at least three ways to murder me with my feather duster."
"You have a feather duster? I don't know whether that's sad or adorable."
"Ha ha, very funny," Todd deadpans. "I hope your jokes are there to comfort you when I die." He falls onto his side and covers his face with his arm. For Todd, it's very dramatic, and Neil is appropriately worried.
"Do you wanna take a nap?" Neil asks, rubbing a hand over Todd's back. He, personally, would love to take a nap, just curl up there on the couch and ignore everything past the snow sticking to the window. Neil drapes himself over Todd, ignoring his boyfriend's complaining groans, and sighs. Despite Todd's cleaning streak, everything still smells like cinnamon and the artificial pine Neil had sprayed on their tiny plastic tree in the corner and Neil immediately starts to falls asleep.
From where they lie on the couch, they can see almost the entire apartment, from the mismatched mugs on the shelf in the kitchen to the meticulously wrapped presents under the little tree. Todd is still thinking about the pasta sauce that sounded complicated but was easy enough to make that Todd just needed to actually make, and picked out the sheets for the sofa bed later, and the shoe by the door that isn't in line with the others, and there's something on his cuff, and maybe he could sweep under the couch again if there's time.
"You're thinking too loud," Neil says, face pressed into the collar of Todd's sweater.
"There's a lot to think about," Todd replies. Even he can tell, though, his thoughts whirring in the muffled quiet of the snow-covered street outside. He wants to sink through the hardwood floor into the apartment below, and then the one below that, and the next, until he's gently being pulled further and further into the dirt.
Neil hums and pulls back, as much as he can on the tiny couch, to look Todd in the eye. "You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah. A nap first sounds good, though. Let's do that."
Neil lies back down, head resting on Todd's chest. Todd had plugged in the lights on the tree and twisted around the curtain rod during his anxious cleaning, and when he squints his eyes they get all fuzzy. He can feel his head growing heavy, his eyes accidentally closing for longer and longer with every blink.
When Neil starts humming a song that was playing on his special holiday playlist earlier, the sound vibrates between their chests on a shared frequency. Slowly Todd feels some of his worrying slip away. The scuff marks on the floor by the door don't matter, the pasta slowly cooking on the stove doesn't matter, the four hours before his parents arrive don't matter, the fear of any of a million things going wrong (it's awkward, his parents still haven't fully accepted him, they suddenly don't like Neil anymore, there's a blizzard and they're all stuck together for a week in discomfort) doesn't matter... as much as it did before.
But Todd is doing okay for the moment, and it feels like it could be the start of an upward trend, which would be beyond helpful because he could really use one of those right now. Slowly it feels better, and that's all that matters.