Archive of Our Own

That night, Todd didn't sleep. Neil could tell, his breath was like the sound of a messenger bag rattling in the washing machine, metal buckles slamming and clunking against its sides, characteristically awake. It was so painfully Todd. Neil found that Todd rarely felt truly at ease, fully present in the moment, rather than half lost in the static of his thoughts. The boy was akin to a river, and this was evident in the way he moved, the patterns of his breath, the rhythm of his heart — clumsy, rushing, and slamming against the banks, pulling and pushing. At times, it was through his anxiety, and at times through his brilliance. Seemingly, Todd's depth was normally only fully perceived once one was knee-deep in his inner workings, and not many ever seemed to let the water brush past their ankles. Neil quietly prided himself on being the exception to the rule, on seeing, on recognising, on knowing his artistry, his greatness, from the moment they met, the moment they shook hands. To him, it was evident in the furrow of his brow, the twitch of his mouth, the light tangled in his hair. Neil was always good at not letting his gaze linger, at skimming right over what he should not want, but not with Todd. Not with Todd who stumbled into his life with fumbling fingers and apologetic eyes, who shook his routine and pried his heart open to nestle at its center. Slipping on the depth of his greatness was damning evidence, not a shock.

Neil was certain of what thoughts clouded their shared ceiling. It must be faces, he thought. Must be the looks of awe, of boyish admiration laced with envy, and built on surprise. Sitting in that classroom, gaping right at Todd, he felt proud, so, so proud, even smug. Although his eyes did not leave the boy at the front, he was quite sure the others wore a look similar to his, although at the same time entirely different. He knew there was no doubt to the part of his mouth, the flutter of his eyelashes, his dilated pupils. I told you so echoed in his mind, the way it would in the emptiness of the cave, and maybe his brain too was emptier, with Todd having pulled all thoughts out of it to sit in the middle. He hoped Todd thought of all of that, too. He hoped he noticed. Selfishly, he hoped his face was the one he thought of first, thought of most, when recalling the event.

But it wasn't just faces, Neil was sure Todd thought of a pounding heart, a foreign palm, a voice in a place in which he thought it did not belong. A voice ricocheting off the grey and tedious walls, a voice filling the room entirely, molding its very foundation to contain it.

'Todd?' the name had left his lips before he could consider the awkwardness and consequence of breaking a nursed silence. Neil spoke at the ceiling, eyes pointedly away from the other boy. Early in the year, he had established a sort of quiet, unspoken rule — he was not to look at Todd at night, unless strictly necessary or when they were both engrossed in an active conversation. Neil knew the swelling of his heart well enough to realise that watching Todd as he went about his day was entirely different from looking at him under the watchful gaze of the moon. Todd found one pair of eyes, even if celestial and unreal, enough to be entirely embarrassed of his existence. At a moment this vulnerable, Neil thought it would be intrusive to look.

'Yes?' Todd croaked, hoarse, and quiet, and too quick to pass it off as natural.

Neil smiled. Softly, face too tired to fold into a grin, but never quite too tired to smile at Todd. 'What are you thinking about?'

The other boy didn't question how Neil knew he was, in fact, wide awake. Neil doubted it had anything to do with Todd's self awareness regarding his palpable anxiety, doubted Todd was at all aware he was not as invisible as he believed himself to be. 'I...' He paused, 'Uh, just... Neil, I think you know,' he eventually spluttered, frustrated, as he shuffled under his blanket for a beat longer than considered normal, even for Todd.

'You never stay still when you sleep, did you know that? Well, you're not sleeping now, but you get my point. You thrash all night, every night,' Neil whispered into the void wrapped around their beds.

The other boy let out a helplessly confused, little noise, that sounded a bit like he was choking.

'Todd. Todd, you're brilliant. How do you do it?' Neil's affection was, perhaps, too fervent, too evident in his tone. At this time of night, he did not think it was too important.

'You're exaggerating,' Todd responded with an awkward chuckle, although the tension seemed to have, partially, eased out of him. 'It's really nothing... much.'

'Nothing much? Do you hear yourself? Todd, it was everything.' Neil sat up abruptly, his head spinning with the intensity of the exchange, and the sudden movement. His eyes flicked to Todd, who, to his surprise, was already looking at him. They stared at each other, their silence punctuated by the caw of the birds above Hellton.

Todd laughed. Brightly, shyly, and a tad too loud for the hour. Neither of them cared. That night, it was the last thing Neil thought about before falling asleep.

Todd's impromptu poem sparked a sort of creative symbiosis, a newfound codependence, a learning process of comfort and artistry. Neil was pulled into it easily. However, getting Todd to share his work with him reminded him of a game of chess. Something that Neil, to the dismay of his father, was never good at. He was impulsive at his core, planning ahead for ultimately meaningless moves was tedious and bored him, and he always found himself too invested in offense to ever consider the standing of his king. After years of trying, and it becoming clear that Neil was neither a prodigy, nor a quick learner, his father gave up. However, casual, cruel remarks about this particular failure were commonplace even years later. Still, he found he didn't quite mind the strategising when it was Todd's mind he was trying to unravel.

The air of the late autumn afternoon was biting, chilling down to the bones. Neil was glad to be out of it and back inside the dorms, even if only for a short while. Although the lights in Wellton weren't necessarily cold, any warmth or homely atmosphere they could provide was stripped from them by the accumulation of propriety and decorum within the buildings. Still, since the beginning of this year, the school's walls no longer felt like the bars of a cage. They really were simply walls, solid and cold, but not dangerous, not eternal, not forever. Neil reached his hand out towards the plaster as he headed towards his room. It was rough under his fingers, like a calloused hand. The few boys passing him by in the corridor sent him odd looks but he didn't mind. Carpe diem, he thought and smiled to himself, small and sweet.

Carpe diem. He really was trying but the words sat nicer on his tongue than they did in his hands. Every evening at Henley Hall sent his blood rushing and he felt as his heart swelled and grew. He was overjoyed. He was terrified. He was living, truly living. He was so close to losing it. Neil knew this wouldn't last forever, how could it? Good things never seemed to stick to him. His father would find out sooner or later, he dreaded the thought. He didn't know what he would do. Well. Well, he did. He didn't want to think about it, not now. It felt like recalling a dream, hazy and blue and entirely unreachable. No, perhaps it was golden and grainy, like going out into the hallways of his house at night and turning on the lights, entirely too mundane for what it was. But it was reachable, it was and he had checked where, how to reach for it. He wasn't quite able to grasp it all. He felt like a caged bird, looking up at the sun, and the moon, and the stars through the bars of his father's expectations. He yearned to run through the fields of life, yawp and collapse into heaps of laughter. He loved life itself, loved feeling, loved senses, but not this. Not the one that was ahead of him, not the one that was behind him, not the unavoidable. He had grown to accept that there was no hope, no realistic optimism, that this plague, his affinity, was life. That he couldn’t daydream about the future because he wouldn’t live to see it, and even if he did he would still be blind to it. He lived because he was born, because he hadn’t yet died, not because he was alive.

His step had lost its spring and his hand had fallen back to his side. He treaded the rest of the hallway with biting thoughts, and a deep-rooted feeling of impending doom. A few steps away from his door, he heard Todd's muffled voice. He couldn't tell what he was saying, probably either talking to himself or reading over a poem, but it made him feel a little bit lighter, nonetheless.

He warned Todd with a few undignified knocks on the door, before bursting into the room. Todd startled, standing in the middle of the room, eyes wide, hair waving gently from the gust of Neil's entrance, weathered notebook resting in his palms. He was like a fallen autumn leaf, shaken by Neil's wind. He looked pretty like this, Neil considered it an objective, undisputable fact.

‘Evening, Todd,’ he said with mock flourish, as he bowed and twirled his hand in their open doorway.

‘Hi,’ Todd responded quietly, eyes crinkling in a soft smile.

‘What have you been up to?’ he asked, as he pushed the door ajar, not quite closed, behind him.

‘Nothing much,’ Todd said, hesitantly, and paused, ‘writing. Don't get too excited about it,’ he added, the corners of his lips curling.

‘Well then, what would you say about an artistic exchange, this fine afternoon?’ Todd interrupted him with an unimpressed huff. In a few short strides Neil snatched his script from Todd's desk, finding great satisfaction in its position in Todd's space, its shared nature. ‘We can go down to the docks, and then you could show me what you've been working on?’ He tried to sound encouraging, gleeful.

‘Sure, yeah, if– If you really want to read it.’ Todd shrugged on his coat and clutched his notebook to his chest.

‘Is that even a question?’ Neil grinned, placed his hand on Todd's shoulder and gently moved it down his forearm, hooked it on Todd’s fingers, if only for a moment. He hoped it didn't weird the other boy out, but a plain smack on the back or shoulder felt out of place with Todd. Too distant.

The walk towards the dock was spent on clumsy staring and even clumsier eye contact, and quiet chatter about rehearsals, assignments, and the various shenanigans the Poets have recently gotten up to. Finding their space and flicking through the script was entirely muscle memory, it has become their thing, their own personal routine.

Todd cleared his throat. ‘Where art thou… Proud Demetrius? Speak– Speak thou now.’ His voice was quiet, a little uncertain, the way it always was at the beginning of their readthroughs. He was standing stiffly by the water, on squelching and squealing and rotting leaves, elbows stuck to his ribs and head bowed. Neil couldn’t wait to pull Todd out of his and into Neil’s comfort zone, into the wilderness of acting, of adopting a new soul.

‘Here, villain, drawn and ready. Where art thou?’ Neil jumped around him, knees bent and face twisted. Laughter was bubbling low in his throat and stomach. To Neil, this was freedom. In the wind, cold to the bone, but so warm beneath it. His very own voice was gone, rejected entirely. Puck didn’t have to worry about expectations, picture perfect families, medical school, and the ebbs and floods of his heart.

Neil loved the artistry, the beauty and elegance of words written down only as a formality, always intended to be said, proclaimed, lived out, and felt. He loved reading a story that held him firmly by the elbow and wriggled its way into his heart and mind. He loved being able to show people just how it could make them feel, to stand on a stage and say, entirely without words: this is real life without reality, without life at all, and it is beautiful. Still, in a much quieter way, he loved being able to live out all this. His entire life, he was asked to be everything good, everything noble and everything admirable. But not this. Any Puck-ish quality his father could ever notice in Neil, he would pry out of him with cold, long fingers. But on stage, by the docks, that didn’t matter. He could live out everything, truly everything. Neil didn’t matter, he was not there, entirely gone under the feather-light burden of another person. Through his words and projection, Neil discarded his voice.

‘I will be with thee straight,’ Todd said, voice tinted with mirth and a barely contained fit of giggles. He said it a little louder, a little brighter than before. The difference wasn’t large or particularly notable, Neil noticed it anyway. His hair was tousled by the wind and he clutched the script tightly, despite the fact that he probably knew the lines, with how often Neil had asked him to go through them. It never took a lot to convince Todd, truly, there was no convincing at all. He always went entirely willingly, despite the undeniable awkwardness he found in acting.

‘Follow me, then, to plainer ground.’ Neil wiggled his eyebrows, he was probably losing focus but he didn't mind.

‘Lysander, speak again. Thou runaway, thou coward art– Art thou fled? Speak! In some bush? Where dost thy— Thou hide thy head?’ Todd's projection came as a genuine surprise. One of his hands left its guard on the script, a corner that has been continuously marked and worn down by the boy's fingers, leaving a mark that Neil couldn't help but admire whenever he picked the papers up. Todd rolled his wrist, swayed a little.

‘Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars, telling the bushes that thou look’st for wars, and wilt not come? Come, recreant! Come, thou child! I’ll whip thee with a rod. He is defiled that draws a sword on thee.’ Neil kept orbiting around Todd. He had the fleeting thought that Todd is much more like the moon than he is the sun, but Neil will happily disobey the laws of the universe if it allows him to create his own, with Todd so prettily at its centre.

Their eyes met. Neil slipped on the leaves, almost fell.

‘Yea– Art thou there?’ his voice caught at Neil's misstep. He couldn't bring himself to feel indignant, with Todd sounding so amused. He suddenly felt warm, not just deep in his organs but right under his skin. Not the kind of warmth of the summer heat, the warmths brought by the sun, that sticks to skin and drips. No, this kind was perhaps only caused by the moon, it was a warmth that penetrates the skin, buries itself in the muscle and finds a way into the bones. He was grinning, he realised, not smiling, not smirking, not smug, and not Puck at all.

‘Follow my voice. We’ll try no manhood here.’

Yet I wait still
Trace circles in the air with the shovel
Breathe hard, collapse,
Sleep and scream and cry.
Yet I wait on
      Who is he?
Nothing, everything
Like two halves of a broken clock
A universal, existential constant of him not being there
And me waiting for him to come
And change is a constant.
I wait

Neil clutched the paper tightly in his hands, fearing that the wind, creeping in through their open window, too yearned for a piece of Todd’s mind. His eyes were stuck to the page for longer than strictly necessary. He kept rereading the words. Feeling the sentences around in his mouth. In the corner of his eye, he could see Todd squirming, clearly unnerved by the time Neil was taking. His heart felt brittle and pained, he didn't know if it was due to Todd's melancholy or his own.

‘Todd.’ He brought his eyes up, watched the boy trying to make himself smaller, curling in, like a wild animal, and avoiding his stare. ‘This is fantastic.’

Todd smiled and sighed in relief, chest falling, shoulders a tad straighter. Neil brushed and swept his gaze all over him. ‘It's a first draft. I don't even really… Know what it is.’

‘Well, then I can't wait to see the final draft. Although this really could be it. Don't overwork it, I… I really love it like this,’ Neil's voice caught when he realised what word was pushing against his teeth. He said it anyway.

‘Thank you. I'm not— I’m not that… Sure about it, but thank you.’ Neil passed the notebook back to Todd, who took it easily. He didn't claw at it desperately, didn't try to hide it, as if Neil could read every page by looking at the cover alone.

‘You really scared me. You're usually a quick reader’ Todd chuckled, eyes still sweeping the dust off their floor.

‘Oh, sorry! Didn't mean to do that, I just wanted to get a good look at it. Remember it, maybe,’ he said, brightness mixed with a heavy pulling on his heart. He felt like spilled sugar and salt, mixing, indistinguishable.

‘Re– Remember? Why would you want to– Remember?’ Todd furrowed his brow, brought up his glare, his lips twisting.

‘I like remembering you. I— I hope I never forget this.’ He jerked his hand towards the crumpled paper and softened cover of the book. It was easy, instinctual, to memorise it. Neil found he did that a lot. None of his words felt truly original, they were regurgitated thoughts, ideas, quotes from long forgotten texts. Neil rarely stumbled over his words, rarely didn’t know what to say. It was as if the things he said came from some other place, he was merely a vessel. Somehow, he couldn’t get this out so smoothly. He was sure he wasn’t the first person to think of this, to say this, it was obvious, and yet—

‘You— I— Me too. I— I like… remembering. You. As well. It matters to me a lot that— That I couldn’t ever forget you,’ Todd choked out, his face was flushed and his hands stuck to the notebook and the hem of his shirt. He looked sweet, sugary. His eyes were stuck on Neil’s, intensely and in a way that suggested he wasn’t particularly comfortable with it, but was too scared to change it. He wanted to grab him, hold him, bring him so close he could memorise exactly how the blue pooled under his eyelids. He wanted Todd to always, always look right at his soul. Unravel him like this.

Breaking eye contact and moving towards his desk was entirely instinctual, and at the same time the most challenging decision Neil had ever made. He grasped a spare paper, a half dry pen, almost blindly. His eyes were wide open but he couldn't see, knowing Todd was right behind him like this.

You see me
With my shirt one size too small,
An ornate body
Of the son himself,
You’ll snort, that snort you and I both know, the one that
Breaks up the knot of your face,
And say I’m the spirit at best

His handwriting was shaky, falling and tripping to the right, the lined legs on his t’s and i’s mirroring his own, entirely unlike the pretty cursive of his notes and letters, always up to his father’s standards and inspection. It was not illegible, but Neil wouldn’t call it pretty, dignified, proper. He would call it Neil-like, though he has never seen it before, not coming from his learned, exceptional fingers. He held the paper tight until he pushed it at Todd, letting go like it burned. Maybe it did. He didn’t have time to think about the words. He realised, to his surprise, horror, and perhaps delight, that he didn’t remember them.

There was a, difficult to entirely admit, kind of beauty to Welton in spring. It was much needed. The bright green leaves, the birds, and the flowers, the ones that always brought Todd to a crouch to get a good look at them, reminded Neil of his love of life. The life outside his cage, which he didn’t know if he still had, they hadn’t talked about it, his father hadn’t told him. Neil was leafing through Todd's notebook. After everything they've been through, Todd had lent him this piece of himself. He would clip together or mark pages he didn't want Neil to read, the rest he was free to look at. At first, the notebook had been punctuated and sprinkled with the markings, but Todd had relaxed over time, leaving only a few pages hidden from Neil’s prying eyes. It was precious, to hold this part of him solid and warm in his hands. He knew Todd was a poet, he always knew, but his poems never failed to shake him. To grab his heart, give it a squeeze, and whisper syrupy obscenities into its ear. His tired, with the kind of exhaustion sleep won’t fix, eyes latched onto every page, every stanza, every word. They lacked their previous urgency. The urgency of a month, two weeks, three days, to absorb as much of Todd as he could. Always too little time, too little he knew, too little to bury in the still invisible, but not for long, wound on his temple and forehead. Now, he had time. He didn’t know how much. Too long, always too long, his brain wanted to whisper, but not when it came to Todd. He would never have enough time with Todd, would never have Todd for enough time.

Neil didn't know what did it. Maybe it was self preservation instincts, a conscious choice, or his shaking hands. The bullet grazed his head, didn't even touch his brain, his desperate mind, aching for release. His parents had rushed him to a hospital, despite the damage not being deep. The whole ordeal did not last longer than two weeks. What had kept him entertained throughout the uncertainty of his parents‘ choices, the omnipresent silence, the whitest white he's ever witnessed, and the heavy air, was Todd's poem.

He returned to Welton on a Sunday afternoon. His father didn’t say anything during the drive, and neither did Nolan, who was waiting by the dormitory doors to walk him in. He didn’t look at the men’s faces, but he could still latch onto the judgement. Hang from it like a child from monkey bars. They didn’t understand, they never could. He slipped into his room as quietly as he could, shaking off the curious Welton boys greeting him in the hallways, inquiring about his departure. It wasn’t hard, he had barely made any noise, been allowed to make any noise, during the past weeks.

Todd was napping on his bed. He was a light sleeper. By the looks of it, recently he hasn’t been a sleeper at all. The moment the door clicked shut behind Neil, seemingly the first thing to willingly talk to Neil recently, Todd was up. He had twisted in his bed, wriggled up his elbow for support. His eyebags were palpable and unwavering.

‘Neil,’ his voice was hoarse and slightly high-pitched as he spoke, somehow, he wasn’t bothered.

‘Todd,’ Neil responded, entirely indulgent. He didn’t move from his post by the door, didn’t lean on it either. The room hadn’t changed, his bedsheets remained crumpled, slept in, although sprawled on his bed differently than he expected them to be, the mess on his desk was entirely untouched. He had never realised that their room had a scent. It smelled of detergent, wood, ink, and something irreplaceable, something inherently Todd. He felt like he was floating, in the limbo of this grey afternoon, of being thrust into his very own life, but not entirely, not now, not yet. He was still elsewhere, for the remainder of the day,it had seemed that he wouldn’t yet be back.

The other boy had untangled the bedsheets knotted around and with his legs, stomped towards him. He brought up his hands, hesitated. They fumbled in the air before finding his shoulders, before moving to his jaw, and cheeks, and face. Todd was gentle, unsure, but the weight of his palms and fingers was the realest, most solid and heavy thing Neil has felt in weeks. He searched the other’s face, with wide, deer-like eyes, as Todd’s fingertips grazed all his features.

‘What happened?’ Todd whispered, unsure, feather light, words like birds coming back after a sub-zero winter. He was delirious.

‘I– I… Tried to. Do something. To myself. But I didn’t— It didn’t work… out. I didn’t do it right— But no, maybe I did. Maybe I did it exactly— How I was supposed to.’ He didn’t know entirely why this was what dripped past his lips. He wasn’t certain whether being back at Welton was a good thing, the right thing, whether it was for good. But with Todd’s hands on him, he was certain of one thing. It didn’t fix it all, didn’t make it right, didn’t make him forget the scar on his temple, but it was enough to find solace in. Enough to settle, enough to have something, even if small, to keep him in place. ‘But I’m— I’m here now. I’m alright. Well, maybe not but— As alright as I can be. God, Todd, don’t look at me like that. Your eyes are gorgeous. Don’t ever waste them looking at me like that.’ He was quite sure he hadn’t read that anywhere.

Todd looped his arms around Neil’s neck. Mumbled into it, something about talking later, about worrying, about longing, or loving, he didn’t exactly hear. Their shoulders quickly were drenched from tears, from the emotion of the moment. Todd pulled him close and dragged him to his bed, with shaky, thumping, clumsy steps, as Neil shrugged off his coat and awkwardly kicked off his shoes, Todd’s arms only moving when they couldn’t find a way around it. Todd’s bed was warm in a way his never had been, and when Todd, in his tired stupor, threw an arm around Neil’s waist and brought the other one to his chest, his hands were more confident than they had ever been. This, Neil thought, was going home. He found himself back in the old shoes of his Welton life, as if they were never untied, never taken off. Despite this being something completely new, he found his heart was back to its usual, daily rhythm. Through the hours of sleep they shared that afternoon, that night, Neil made himself an expert at breathing with his face smothered in Todd’s chest, tucked under his chin. Learned exactly how to exist with him in this air pocket.

His father had called, later, the following week. Said Neil’s mother begged for him to explain, for Neil to know that no military school would take him, that everyone they spoke to recommended Welton, that some recommended theatre. His father deemed it foolish advice. He didn’t say whether Neil was allowed to pursue it.

The memories plagued Neil’s fingertips as he passed them over a poem.

The clouds’ pulchritude,
A tragedy of shadows and the sun
In two acts,
Beckon me to look
But it hurts.
A patchwork of bright yellow-gold,
And blue like the snow at night.
The sun on my face through your window,
Is a tiny white flower,
A crumb,
A dust bunny,
In a meadow
By the pavement.

Birds caw and sing my name,
Mimicking your voice,
But they’re screeching, shrill, and loud
And the thump of their wings interjects in
The mimicking of your voice.

They leave my mind pounding,
And my bones tired,
From shaping them into a nest.

Neil could almost hear the words in Todd’s voice, in Todd’s mouth. Neil himself, similarly to the poems, had been shaped by Todd’s palms. Todd’s voice. Neil could tell it apart in any room, he could recognise, name, and indulge all its quirks. Like the way Todd said the word ‘you’, how he threw in a ‘like’ or a ‘kinda’ completely consciously, to dilute the intensity of his emotions and statements, how he spoke at a slow pace to plan every word, his enjoyment of sarcasm, his inclination towards words like ‘mundane’, ‘heeding’, or ‘viscera’, just how loudly he could scream when he really tried. Neil had never known a lot about love. He had taught himself affection, but couldn’t teach himself love. But hearing Todd’s voice and exact phrasing in his head, he thought, quietly, that maybe it was something like this.

He heard a knock at the door, quiet but decisive. He looked up as the door opened. Todd wore a maroon sweater and his hair was messy from the wind. He looked warm and snuggly, and Neil, how he often did, found himself wanting to hold him.

‘Hi,’ Todd smiled sweetly, closing the door with his hands behind his back.

‘Hi, Todd. Could you— Come here?’ He felt his heart press into his bones, contorting, molding and denting like a sponge around them. Todd raised his eyebrows, smile widening in confusion, as he walked over towards Neil, keeping his hands behind his back.

The moment Todd was within reach Neil wrapped his arms around his waist, nuzzled his face into his sweater. Ever since December, the two found themselves a lot closer. Reaching, and grabbing, holding each other, scrambling for purchase and reassurance that they are alive, together. Todd kept one of his hands behind his back, away from Neil’s arms, and immediately brought the other around his shoulders.

‘What’s up?’ Neil said, muffled and entirely unclear, with his face pressed against Todd’s chest. He giggled in response. Neil felt it in his spine. He momentarily made his vertebrae into a spiral of a notebook, with the feeling of Todd laughing against his body written on every page.

‘I… Uhm–’ The boy tensed in his arms, his fingers beginning to rub and pull on the fabric of Neil's shirt. The nonsensical patterns Todd drew on his shoulders were poetry on their own, ‘I wanted to, maybe—’

‘Todd,’ he moved away from the other’s chest and looked up at his face. Todd’s cheeks were flushed, lips red from his anxious chewing, and his hair fell over his wide, wide, blue eyes. Neil’s gaze darted all over his face, taking in every part of it. Todd had faint freckles on his nosebridge, and his nosebridge only. Neil memorised them like constellations. Todd was gorgeous. Neil didn’t care if it was an objective fact, he was entirely stricken, heartsick and moved, and that was all that mattered. Todd was the kind of beautiful that brought out human nature, the urge to sing, dance, write, to create. It was a disservice to him, to the world, it was a waste, to let it pass entirely unexpressed, for it to have created nothing lasting at all after stirring such a reaction. Neil wished the patterns the boy traced on his body would leave scars. Todd was a blooming carnation, the first day of March, but even those descriptors were utterly lacking in beauty. ‘What’s going on?’

Todd pushed his hand forward, and placed a flyer on the desk. Blocky letters at the top of the glossy paper read: ‘HENLEY HALL: OPEN AUDITIONS FOR “SPRING AWAKENING”’. The moment the flyer met the desk, blowing with the sudden movements of Todd’s palm, his hand found Neil’s chest. It settled, easily. How a crane might in a field, a pigeon on a rooftop, a crow on their windowsill. ‘I know this is… Risky. But you've just— You only ever act at Society meetings — And even that isn’t fully acting – And I thought that… You miss it. Neil, I can see it in how you look at that book, how you read one more poem every time. You haven’t really done… Theatre. Since December. I know this is, maybe, choking on the bone, but I think you should try.’

Their window was open. The sounds of teenage boys roughhousing, of leaves and branches forming a river with the wind, of birds, of spring, found their way into the room and weaselled in between the two boys. It was awfully ironic.

‘Todd… I sure would love to but my father—’

‘No, but Neil! He mentioned— You doing theatre, he didn’t forbid it, but even if he did, what— What could he… Do?’ Todd’s voice caught. His hand shifted from Neil’s chest to his neck. He never mentioned it outright, never wanted to call it what it was. It seemed much less out of any discomfort Todd might feel around the topic, and much more an attempt to protect Neil, to not bring up the distressing memory. Neil found it sweet, considerate. A little nerve-wracking too.

‘I don’t know. But I’ll think about it, I promise.’ Neil smiled at Todd, and pulled him closer, nuzzling into his ribcage. Todd stumbled into him. After a moment of silence, ‘A musical?’

‘Why not? You sing well,’ he murmured into his hair. His face was warm and peered its way into his dark brown hair with the ease of a rabbit returning to its burrow. His waist was soft and solid, pliant, and comically holdable.

‘I’m not sure if choir necessarily makes me musical-theatre-level good.’ Throughout his life, it has seemed that Neil’s father could only respect artistry if it was sacral. He dragged Neil to church every Sunday, told him to listen, to appreciate the stained glass, the sculpted likeness on the cross, the acoustics and song, the cross-like layout of the churches, the bare walls, bare just like his soul. He would tell Neil about the stations of the cross, tell him to ingrain the suffering in the folds of his brain, as if it was drilled in with the thorny crown itself. Tell him that it was for his sins, his faults, that he will never be innocent, blameless. Neil would confess with his forehead resigned to the wall, kneel before the altar to take his communion, lights always blue and golden, diffused in the cold air, and feel his gut twisting with guilt. With a secret, a lie, a truth that he knew no one could accept. He felt humiliated, stripped, like everyone could see right through him, and into his sick, sick mind. Not long after, his father decided it’s only right for Neil to join the children’s choir. It was simultaneously one of the best and worst parts of his childhood. The performance was exhilarating, the music reverberating and ricocheting off the empty, ornamental walls. He couldn’t stand even a second in the church.

‘I… I think you’re good enough. You’re good, I don’t know if it’s church, or just— You, but you’re really, really good.’ In response, Neil squeezed his middle even tighter, despite not having thought it possible.

Neil did miss the arts. He missed theatre, feeling like a true, authentic thespian, Todd was right. However, he realised, it wasn’t just theatre. Neil has found himself barely doing anything artistic these days. It was all Welton golden boy, chemistry nerd, one of the few privileged, chosen ones who actually understood anything in Latin, all perfect son. His only taste of godhood, of being something repulsively more than human, something artistic and so painfully Earthly, was at society meetings. It was, really, quite an upsetting development. After half a year of trying to Carpe Diem, of getting entirely carried away and reveling in it, he has found himself washed back on the same shore he frantically escaped from. It was wholly and entirely frightening and unbearable. Neil didn’t know what to do with the knowledge that felt like weights tied to his fingertips, blue and drained of blood. He had to wriggle free of it.

The play was all he dreamt of. His worst nightmare. Neil had truly no idea how his father could react to him attempting to join another production. He had no idea how the casting directors would react. Did they know what happened after Midsummer? He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be sure. What if he lost his only way out? Only way in? His palm on the handle of the exit door, slipping at the last second, colliding head first with a wall. That night, he brought his hand up, as if reaching for the invisible stars and soundless birds above Welton’s ceilings and roofs. He flexed his arm, waved and twirled his fingers through the staticky, grainy darkness of a school night. Watched his skin, barely darker than its palest winter shades, the way his palms wrinkled, and thought of everything these hands haven’t done. What was his father doing at his age? He didn’t care to remember but he definitely had it all planned out, in nearly tied, handsome ribbons. Neil watched his friends scheme and devise, play instruments, turn scrap into a contraband radio, write, dance, laugh, and love, make art. They all made, and created, and did things. Their hands always shuffling, calloused, dry, and scratched. He thought he maybe understood better, how twelve year old Todd felt, sitting at the edge of a courtyard, watching everyone else play tag, while he was frozen on a bench, painfully aware he was like a statue. His hand flopped back onto his chest, right above his heart. He could hear Todd’s steady breaths. He decided to do something, he had consumed enough, it was time to create.

The school day passed in a blur. He listened much less attentively than he should, although he still listened, out of force of habit and guilt. He felt giddy whenever he got lost in his thoughts during class, thoughts that weren’t entirely unpleasant. He slipped into the library as soon as he could, curious looks thrown carelessly at his back. He weaved through the shelves like through a forest he loved in his childhood but hadn't seen in a decade. He couldn’t find the poetry section. Did Hellton have a poetry section? He didn’t know and he did not want to ask. He was sure Todd would know, he spent ridiculous amounts of time in the library. Neil was sure he knew the exact number for every category in the room. It was silly and irrational but, somehow, Neil was squeamish around the thought of doing this with Todd. Of showing him, immediately, telling him immediately that he was about to delve into entirely new waters, not knowing if they’re closer to a river or lake. He will soon. Once he gets to feel around the tide for just a moment.

Finding the right section took him an embarrassing amount of time. In his defence, it really wasn’t a vast section. It was stuffed at the bottom of an inconspicuous shelf, dusty and grey. The spines were unaligned, each work shifting nervously in a different direction, like crabs trying to escape a pot. He folded into a crouch and bumped his finger a quarter of the way from the top of each spine. His eyes dragged lazily over Whitman, Wordsworth, Shakespeare. He felt suddenly beguiled by them, by the taste of poetry that he knows, the piece of it that he has experienced and savoured in the cave, in English classes. He could try it again, find inspiration in a known place, submerging himself in the water of a pool, rather than a wild stream. As his finger hooked on the spine of ‘Leaves of Grass’ he thought that, perhaps, this wasn’t it. He needed to get carried away. Have his life flipped, not with gentleness, but force. He jerked his hand to the left, not by much but by just enough. He pulled out the collected poems of Vita Sackville-West.

The book was… Not in great shape at best, unsightly at worst. He fingered through it, and immediately flipped back to the first pages. The school’s stamp was missing. He turned the copy around in his palms, taking another look at its cracked and wrinkled spine, which, to his surprise, was also free of the usual library signage. When he pushed his eyes back to the timid shelf, he noticed easily half the texts were in a similar condition. The corners of his mouth quirked up. There weren’t many people at Hellton willing to secretly donate poetry. Neil cherished the collection, the opportunity to have it for this sweetly short frame of time.

The book felt like contraband. He itched to grab it the entire day. He felt it burning and marking his skin even through the various layers in between. It whispered soundless nothings. It was exhilarating. Neil tried to enjoy the small things in every day, he learned to, over the course of a life with milestones that all felt like heavy burdens, placed there by a higher power. He learned to appreciate the softness of the clouds at sunset, the various blurs and shades of the sky, the decisive, tiny steps and hops of birds, the softness of Todd’s mousy blond hair and his thick sweaters, the weight of a line, a sentence, a speech, that found its way to sit beneath his collarbones. He had immediately grown to adore the feeling of a poetry collection by his side, among his school books.

At night, when the school was bathed in secrecy, and its own, unique kind of silence, Neil would devour the collection like a feast, a last supper. He hoped this was only his first. He developed a symbiotic system, hidden within his sheets, of the book, scrap paper, his favourite pen, and an awkwardly shaped flashlight. He was enthralled by the poetic voice, the diction, the carefully arranged and chosen devices, the deeply human meaning of it all. He started with hesitancy at sacrificing his sleep. Soon, he dived head first into the willingness to not sleep a wink for days, if it meant he could read over the words once more. It all made him feel like a dehydrated houseplant, finally moved to new soil, finally watered and pampered.

He read poetry every week, more and more each time. He had for months. It felt like ‘Five Centuries of Verse’ was one of his bones, a part of his inner workings, skating right by his femur. It became routine, drowned in the heaviness of being. Sackville-West was not in the book, this was new. It was something he could sink his teeth into, broaden his horizons. He was particularly drawn to ‘The Greater Cats’, to ‘Days I enjoy’. To ‘Man's love is transient as his death is long.’, to ‘A broken mirror that once gave a whole reflection,’. And they, in turn, drew Neil towards the scrap pages, the lines yet to be filled with ink. They drew him to the discomfort he felt at that emptiness, to inspiration. He didn’t know how, but he had realised entirely anew just how much he loved poetry. It had somehow momentarily slipped out of his grasp, just to plunge right back into his palm, surprise him all over again. What was in no way surprising, bewildering, or shocking, was the face that his brain pieced from the words, shaped the stanzas to form its image. He thought of soft hair, sharp, blue eyes, a wonderfully twisted, grimacing mouth, a careful voice that made everything sound like poetry. He refused to look towards him, but he realised he didn’t have to. He committed all of him that he has ever seen to memory.

Words kept coming to him in a dense, crowded blur, right as he was falling asleep. They tumbled out from under his hands, fresh in their derivativeness.

All a man does is run, the fields of holy pomp,
With loafer shackles on his feet,
Wails praise for the urban swamp,
Men: forgotten is that the meat
Of the Earth, of sculpted calves,
Of reports, of boxed dinner, and all his words
Is the poetry.
Of the snark of the birds
He shoos away from the windows
Of the home of his face.

Neil and Todd laid on the grass, clothes and hair soaked. They watched as the rain clouds parted, packed their damp bags, and drifted away. Neil had dragged Todd out into the courtyard for no reason whatsoever. They didn’t bring any script, book, schoolwork — nothing. Neil had caught Todd by the hand and dragged him outside into the rain, ran with him through the short, even grass, slipping and stumbling, eventually collapsing into a heap of laughter on the wet soil. At the beginning, Todd tried to inquire as to what Neil was doing, what came over him so suddenly. He wasn’t dignified with a response, and so he dropped it, simply going along with whatever it was the other boy came up with. Neil’s resolve was solid gold, determination glinting in his dark eyes. Their jog through the hallways caught eyes and prompted whispers, turning Todd’s face red, and only further motivating Neil. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell Todd the reason for this sudden wilderness, he frankly didn’t know it himself. He had looked out at the downpour on the empty field, green sprinkled with the brightest shades of life, and felt the need to experience it. He suspected it to be the nights of poetry rather than sleep that turned him a tad delirious. And what better way to be wild and out of his head than with Todd? Todd, who started off shy, like a puppet or stuffed animal dangling by the legs of a child, but quickly absorbed the infectious nature of Neil’s furor.

Their hands were still loosely linked where they laid, clammy and slick with the rain. Their hair was a mess of strands clinging to anything they could hold onto, darkening and in turn and lightening with bright, slippery highlights. Neil laughed loudly, he wanted to scream, to yawp. He didn’t. It was still Hellton, after all. He simply laughed, bittersweet and passionate, belly full with all of it. Todd turned his face towards him, chuckling. There was a strand of hair stuck to his brow. Neil brushed it away.

‘Todd, I think this is poetry,’ he said simply, eyes locked on the blue of the polished windows to Todd’s mind and heart and soul.

‘Poetry?’ he asked, amused.

‘Poetry. I’ve been…’ He turned his face away, Todd’s half-lidded gaze suddenly heavy on his lungs, chasing after him as he shifted. ‘Reading it more, lately. I, again, realised how much I love it. Did you ever realise you could forget you love something?’ He chuckled at his own antics, his dramatic nature, head jerking slightly in Todd’s direction. His eyes were still drilling into his.

‘No. No, I don’t think I did,’ he whispered into the air between them, Neil could feel it ghosting on his cheek. The boy was sure if he were any further he wouldn’t hear it, he felt it more than he heard it. Despite the openness of the courtyard, he suddenly felt like the sky was a blanket right on top of them. His eyes scanned the timid, blue expanse. There was a faint rainbow blurring into the clouds. He felt as if it had torn its way out of his chest, pressed on it with all its weight. Todd looked up too. ‘I’m glad you found it again. You found something that— That inspires you.’

I found you, Neil wanted to say. It all started with you. He clicked his jaw shut, words lodged in his throat, too big for his mouth. He felt as if he had no voice he could use to proclaim them.

‘Mr. Perry, could you stay for just a moment?’ Keating leaned over Neil’s desk, voice warm, unreadable. Neil paused, hands halting in their meticulous packing. He shuddered at the words, at ‘Mr. Perry’, so deeply tied to his father. He looked up at Keating, smiled back at him and nodded, fervently.

Todd, as he usually did, drifted to loom beside his desk. He was quick with packing and leaving the class, only ever letting himself be slowed down by the Poets, most notably Neil. In his years-long pursuit of namelessness and transparency, he had learned to drift in and out of spaces swiftly, with an anxious sort of ease. He caught Neil’s eyes, a wordless will you be okay? In response to Neil’s nod, he verbally added ‘See you, then,’ and fled the classroom.

Neil leaned on his desk, waiting and yawning into the crook of his elbow. A few seconds later, when the room cleared and the door closed after the last boy, Keating said, with that deeply emotional voice of his, ‘And that is precisely what I wanted to inquire about. Those bags under your eyes could count as a student of their own. Is something bothering you?’ His tone softened significantly with the last words. Ever since the beginning of the year, Keating has become the only adult Neil could trust. His only source of support within the staff. The closest he’s ever had to a dad, rather than a father. He had become especially cautious and attentive since December. Neil was grateful. He tried to thank Keating in all the ways he could manage, but often found the sentiment clumsily tripping out of his mouth, back down his throat

‘No!’ Neil declared, too loudly for the tranquility of the room, ‘No, quite the opposite. Captain, I’ve had a… A really marvelous couple of days. Or— Nights, actually.’

‘Has that splendor been what’s keeping you up at night?’ Keating smiled wider, exaggerating the words, but the concern hadn't fully left his voice.

‘Yes, actually, I’ve been reading poetry. ‘The Collected Poems’ of Vita Sackville-West. And I presume the copy belongs to you.’ Neil perked up immediately at the opportunity to speak on his not-so-newfound interest.

‘My copy? No, that’s entirely impossible, preposterous even. Where would you have gotten it from, a donation to the library?’ Keating laughed, ‘I presume you like it?’ he added, calmer but breathy from laughter still.

‘Yes! Yes I— I really like it.’ He chewed on his lip, carefully considering the request he was about to make. Seeing the hefty amount of unmarked copies sitting on that meek shelf, Neil figured Keating probably wouldn’t mind. ‘Actually… Do you— Could you recommend another collection to me? Something you really love.’

‘It would be my pleasure.’ Keating smiled and headed for his office. ‘Something to love…’ he muttered under his breath. Neil followed him into the other room, giddy and joyful like a child.

The small room was half dark with the blinds encroaching on the windows. It was cluttered, the fact only enunciated by the sharp, light-yellow lines of the afternoon sun. The space reminded Neil of fish tanks, littered with various ornaments, that the fish somehow seemed oblivious to. It smelled delightfully of nothing. Before Neil was able to fully grasp the familiar place, Keating had found what he was looking for and outstretched his hands toward the boy, proudly displaying ‘95 poems’ by E. E. Cummings.

‘This one. This one is something to fall in love with. Have you ever read anything from Cummings?’

‘No, I don’t think I have,’ he said as he plucked the collection out of Keating’s hands. It was in the same miserable state that all of them seemed to find themselves in. He peered down at it with fascination, turning it around in his hands. A smidge of embarrassment drifted to the forefront of his mind – he was acting as if he’s never seen a poetry collection before. He held it more steadily, familiarly.

‘Then I’m glad to be of service. Now go, boy, I’m sure my intervention into your schedule will not be appreciated.’

Neil frantically bid his thanks and goodbyes, and ran to his next lesson. From the moment he opened the door, he could feel and see Todd’s eyes fixed on him, unwavering. Throughout the remaining classes, he snuck looks at the faded words of the collection. Realising it had only been published in ‘58, he was, once more, bewildered by the state of the book. The cover and spine were wrinkled and faded, and the pages bore notes, ranging from analysis to inside jokes Neil couldn’t understand. The poetry was brilliant. He had never even realised poems could look like this, be written like this, be this.

He wrote in the margin of his chemistry notebook:

I wish for a moment of stillness     Crickets
which sound like they are read
ing one of my
poems one i never wrote one I never
                                                    read
still in my throat still is my heart
but not the grass or the leaves or the class

By the time the school day and studying were done, ‘no raucous rogue & vivid voltaire you beautiful anarchist (i salute thee’ had circled his mind at least a dozen times. He kept reciting lines in his head, reshaping them, trying to imagine how E. E. Cummings would sound reading them out loud.

Todd had grown increasingly exasperated with him, his head in the clouds and his distracted state, and cornered him the moment they were back in their room. Neil had settled on the windowsill, how he often did. Todd watched him, let him readjust, and once he deemed him stable, he leaned on the wall beside him, one of his hands pressed to the windowsill, right by Neil’s legs.

‘What did Keating want?’

‘Asked if anything’s been keeping me up at night,’ Neil turned his face from the collection in his lap, and towards Todd. His face was so close he could remind himself of the sparse freckles on his nose, could see the cracks and lines of his pink lips. Standing so close, towering over him, Neil was sure Todd could see his stare not quite reaching his eyes. As nervous as it made him, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. ‘Told him I'm fine, just too invested in a poetry collection. So he lent me another one,’ he added, quieter, eyes still wandering around Todd's face. He jerked the book up in demonstration. Todd smiled softly, but looked generally unimpressed.

‘You really should try. To sleep. You don't have to read at night I— We could read them. Together. If you want to— That is.’ Todd's eyes shifted between his, suddenly nervous, as if damned by his words rather than their position, their proximity.

‘I'd love that, Todd. I'd definitely want that.’ He smiled, that one grin that crinkles his entire face, reaches his upper eyelids, the one reserved only for special occasions and Todd. Always Todd, whose very existence is a special occasion on its own.

Neil caught Todd's hand and jumped off the windowsill, landing on the floor with a dull thump. He stood in the middle of the room and pulled Todd in. He stumbled towards him. Neil placed a hand on his chest and pushed him down on his own bed. Todd was yielding, obedient under his palm. He leaned back on the bed, planting his elbows on the sheets. He looked up at Neil through blond eyelashes, knee jerking slightly. ‘Free the stage, Todd,’ he declared mock-seriously, and giggled immediately after. The scene looked nothing like a poetry recital.

‘Wouldn't dare to disturb the actor.’

He stood in the middle of the room, between the beds and paced around the thin stripe of ground that has become his stage. Neil opened the book on a random page, landed on a random poem. He was reminded of the exercise Keating had beckoned them to do at the beginning of the year. Finding one's own walk, one's own voice. Neil realised, really, there was no better time to try it again than now.

‘Never could anyone. Who simply lives to die,’ he read, tone solemn. He took small, calculated and rhythmic steps. It was a complete act, a full attempt of putting on a persona. Trying out a walk. ‘Dream that your valentine. Makes happier me, than I.’

Todd giggled, eyes never leaving Neil. It was slightly uncanny how enthusiastic, enduring he was with his stare, compared to how pliant he was under Neil’s hands. Neil spoke for him. Entirely for, and to him. He hoped Todd knew. With every word he became more aware of what kind of poem he landed on, on its sincerity. He felt almost bare, like the only clothing draped on his textured back was weaved from the weak threads of the character he willed and brought forward with the first words of the poem.

‘But always everything, which only dies to grow, can guess, and as for spring, she’ll be the first to know,’ he stated, simply, even professionally, and entirely without emotion. He felt slightly bad, for mishandling such good poetry with a stuck-up character. He looked up and right at Todd, still.

‘What was that?’ Todd said, breathy from laughter, ‘A Nolan impression?’ he added. The boy pushed himself up and sat properly on the bed, eyes locked on Neil, like a hawk’s on a sparrow.

‘Do you remember that time Captain made us walk around, find our walk? Well, I’m trying out some new ones. Trying out walks, and, perhaps, voices as well. I’ll find my own. Wait, maybe you’ll like the next one.’ He shot him a flamboyant grin, the kind of smile heart throbs in movies would shine at their girlfriends.

‘On littlest this, the off twig three souls sit, round with cold— Three, huddling a-gainst one immense, deep hell-o of keen— Moon.’ He took large steps, closer in reality to jumps than steps. He read dramatically, almost wailing, every Puck-ish bone left in his body aching pleasantly. He bumped his shins on the beds multiple times, sparks of pain running through him. He felt like a bird on a faulty wire, zapped, and first confronted with and grasping at the experience of having senses, of being alive. ‘Dream unthings, silent three like your, my life, and our.’ Neil was beginning to realise what kind of poet Cummings was, he thought they could see eye to eye.

Todd stood up on shaky legs, baby bird out of the nest for the first time, and scooted close to Neil. He grabbed the book out of his hands, brought them cheek to cheek. ‘I did like that one more. Let me try, with my voice.’ He flicked toward the end of the collection.

Neil sat down on the bed, fitted his body into the space Todd’s occupied just seconds before. He was now the audience member, the observer, the bird-watcher. It was intoxicating. Todd rarely read out loud, whether his own work or someone else’s. They had coaxed him out of his shell a few times at Society meetings,but it was still distinctive, important in its own way, to have Todd be willing to do this. To share with the world his voicebox, a piece of his soul.

‘I carry your heart with me, I carry it in— my heart. I am never without it, anywhere I go you go, my dear.’ The words lodged themselves in Neil’s throat, as if he was the one saying them. Todd took small steps, leaning from side to side, as if to a song only he could hear. He read quietly. With a voice sweet, small, and shy, and yet persistent still. ‘And whatever is done by only me, is your doing, my darling.’ He paused. Looked at Neil, flicked his head, ever so slightly. The boy stood up before he could even process the action. ‘I fear no fate. For you are my fate my sweet. I want no world, for, beautiful, you are my world, my true, and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant. And whatever a sun will always sing, is you.’ As the words rushed out of Todd’s lips, the two weaved around each other. Light steps, entangled hands, and swaying together, stepping closer, and further. Despite the theatrics, the words, the voice, and the dance were so painfully Todd. Raw and undiluted.

‘What, is the stage suddenly enough for the two of us?’ Todd halted the recital and laughed quietly as Neil twirled him, ‘95 poems’ almost falling out of his hands.

‘No, but we’ll fit together anyways, we always do.’

‘Here is the deepest secret nobody knows,’ Todd continued. ‘Here is the root of the root, and the bud of the bud, and the sky of the sky of a tree called life, which grows higher than soul can hope, or mind can hide. And this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart. I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart.’ He threw the collection on the bed, into the, suddenly nonexistent, audience. He placed his now free hand on Neil’s shoulder, at first only hovering above it, to then fall on it gently like the most delightful calamity. His other hand remained in Neil’s. They kept dancing, at some point started to hum.

‘Did you find your walk?’ Todd asked.

‘I think I did.’

‘Did you find your voice?’

‘No… Not yet.’

‘What do you need to find it, then? You’re already halfway there, with the walk and all…’ Todd’s face was so close Neil swore he could hear the blue of his eyes.

‘I’ve been writing poetry. Writing to… Sound like me. Read like me. For my voice. And I write based on these poets I read, and Todd, Todd you too are always somewhere in there.’ They were no longer swaying. Just standing in the middle of their room. The space was a comfortable temperature, smelled of dust, and the shy spring sun was a pink and green blanket on their reality.

‘Is that— Is that a good thing?’ His voice shook, Neil yearned to steady it.

‘Yes! Yes it is, I think— I think your voice is a part of mine. I could never get rid of it. It’s like you’re— Somewhere on my lips, like a filter, so that all I say ends up shaped by you.’ The words spilled out with far too little caution for Neil, for Hellton, for his father’s son, for a boy who grew up in church. For something he’s been dancing around for far too long, but never could grab.

‘Would you let me… Could I really be on your lips?’ Todd sounded like he could cry. His hand shook on Neil’s shoulder and his palm was clammy. His hair was in his eyes in a way that looked like it hurt.

‘Would you want me to?’ Neil’s hand, which had previously been hovering in Todd’s air, landed on his waist, like a bird’s landing slashing through the surface of a still lake.

‘Yes— Is that a question? Don’t let it be a question, Neil, please—’ He was gasping. It had suddenly, dumbly, occurred to Neil that Todd too must be horrified by his admissions, that he was braver than Neil, whether throughout this exchange, or ever.

Neil kissed him. He half-missed, placed his lips off-center, towards the left corner of Todd’s mouth. He pulled away before he fully registered what he did and how it felt. He was unsure whether he really did it. He tore his eyes open, stared at Todd, jaw slack. ‘Was that okay? Can I kiss you again?’

In response, Todd closed the gap between them. The press of lips lasted longer, moved slowly, gently, subtly. The blood rushing through Neil’s head was so loud he could barely figure out what he was feeling, he could barely register the warmth of Todd’s mouth, before it was overwhelming. His lips were chapped and uneven, warm and dry. His waist was hot to the touch. The kind that radiated into Neil’s hand, pulled at his muscles from within. Not the heat of the sun on skin, of holding a cup of tea, something entirely deeper. They parted, just to meet in the middle once more merely seconds later. Neil’s hands were squeezing Todd, holding him like he would fall through the floor the moment Neil’s grip loosened. Todd’s hands still shook, he pressed as close to Neil as he physically could. From afar, they would’ve looked like one being, two halves of one creation, one entity. A biblical angel with four eyes.

‘Neil— What is this? What are we?' Todd breathed against his lips.

'Lovers. Partners. If you let us, if you want us.'

‘I do.’ He kissed him again. ‘I do, I do, I do.’

Neil had realised relationships are quite like theatre. Especially at first. They are stepping into someone else’s shoes, being followed by eyes, a singular, most important pair, as one recites words that, although may seem derivative, are entirely and utterly true and genuine. Not much has changed between him and Todd, since their relationship began. They kissed, and some of the tension has eased out of their room, shoulders, and minds, but not much has changed. It was like shifting closer to someone already clutched so close to one’s chest, there were barely any points of contact left to be created.

Neil was perched on the windowsill, legs swinging over the floor of their room. He was humming a song he had heard the past week, but didn’t catch the title of. Todd was over in Meeks and Pitts’ room, fretting over a math test. Earlier, right after the door closed after him, Neil placed a torn out sheet of paper on Todd’s desk.

As casual as he was trying to be about it all, he knew he couldn’t wait for Todd to be back. He was staring at the door, as if he could contrive Todd opening it, will it into existence through sheer willpower. At first he had attempted to read, to write some more, to do anything at all. He didn’t know how long he had been sitting there, zoned out on the image of the door. It was an unbearable sort of waiting. Adrenaline rushing, blood pumping, and head spinning heavily in anticipation of something nerve-wracking in the best of ways. It reminded him of sitting by his cousin’s window as a child, observing a bird-feeder, having seen an animal there before, but now memorising the lines of its emptiness. Breathlessly hoping for another bird to come, to dignify him with its quiet, slightly unnerving company.

The moment the door handle shook, Neil noticed. His face broke entirely and momentarily into a smile. Todd strolled into the tranquil room, notebook, textbooks, and many flyaway papers stuffed into his arms, and clicked the door closed with a foot.

‘Hi,’ Todd said, amused and visibly baffled by Neil’s inactivity. Neil smiled wider.

‘Hey.’ He watched as Todd made his way through the room, reached for his desk to drop off the dreadful schoolwork, but paused, briefly, at the sight of the paper. He placed the pile delicately beside it and reached for it, smoothing it out with his fingers, and glancing up at Neil in confusion. Neil didn’t take his eyes off of him for a moment as he scanned the page, eyebrows wrinkling and bunching up in concentration.

my Heart is an           Anchor
in the water of your palms, an Anchor
torn out
with a piece of the edge
of the seabed
sour syrup in the sweet
est
apple so far from the tree —
at the bottom of its root system,
three eyes stare
Down           at me,
and they all look like mine, but they do not reflect me
Or you
or us
like mine
I read of nature dying
leaving alone, us alone, Her alone,
but not quite, if we still breathe and age, and a bird a Crow
                                                          I presume a crow,
dripped fruit on the page like Blood

‘Neil,’ he said, enunciating the vowels as if the name was the sweetest thing ever known to men.

‘I’m going to audition. I’ve got my voice. I want to try. I want to use it,' he said, jumping off the windowsill to wrap his arms around Todd, and pull him close to his heart, bury his face in the juncture between his shoulder and neck. Todd fit perfectly into his arms, like they were crafted with the sole purpose of holding him, molded around him.

Later, when they had made their way into the hall and stood by the phone, Neil’s father had cursed him, yelled, and wasted breath. Went on and off about the semantics of ‘dutiful son’, or the definition of ‘grateful’. He called him a disappointment, a misuse of resources, he said he’d make the call, write the document, the permission slip, if only to get Neil off his back.