The flush of the known universe is in him

[a_mighty_yawp]

Todd can't remember every looking forward to... anything. Not in a long, long time. But now he looks forward to the end of every day, not necessarily because it means classes are over, but because it means he can spend time with Neil between activities and study group. The best part of the night is when they go back to their room, and even if nothing happens, Todd doesn't feel so desperately lonely anymore.

At the end of the week, Todd finds himself standing in line behind other boys in Keating's class. He's almost zoned out, just waiting his turn to participate in the most recent weird exercise in free thinking. Something in him seizes when he hears their assignment: write a poem for Monday, a poem to be read in front of the class. Todd feels his stomach churn at the thought.

He's caught up in his head as he climbs onto the desk at the front of Keating's classroom. He's about to jump when he hears his name, catches himself, and Keating says, "Don't think I don't know that this assignment scares the hell out of you."

It's not fair that Keating knows. Maybe it's obvious - to everyone - but having it made note of in front of all his peers somehow makes it worse. Todd hops off the desk and returns to his own to collect his books, suddenly, utterly forlorn. Well... at least the day is over.

Comments

[shadows_have_offended]

After classes, Neil goes wandering sometime. Some days, he's so overwhelmed by expectation and responsibility and the rigor of Welton that he can barely stand it. It pulls at him, rips at the inside of his lungs. The only one that's ever seen him so beaten down was Charlie, but it's been a year or so.

Today is not so bad. Things have been livening in him with Todd around. His quiet candor is fortifying against all the melancholy under Neil's skin. And Mister Keating, as well. Neil doesn't think he's ever trusted an adult as much as he does Mister Keating.

So today, Neil takes himself on an adventure. He wanders, after class. And that's when he finds it. Just a flier, just simple paper, but something in it shouts to him. Seize this day.

By the time he's back to their dorm room, Neil is jubilant. "I found it."

[a_mighty_yawp]

Todd has been trying for hours to find words he wants, to find the order, to find... something. He has a few crumpled sheets of paper on the bed next to him and he's on another draft when Neil practically bursts into the room like the sun itself.

His smile makes Todd blush and he draws his knees up, hiding his notebook.

"Found what?"

[shadows_have_offended]

Neil is too excited to take more than passing note of Todd hiding behind his notebook a bit. He kneels beside the bed, thrusting the flier toward Todd and smiling so brightly he thinks his cheeks could break.

"What I wanna do right now. What's really inside me."

[a_mighty_yawp]

Todd's flustered when Neil gets on his knees by his bed, too flustered to realize what he's holding for a second. He lifts his eyebrows when he actually gets to read it.

"Midsummer Night's Dream. A play?" He looks over at Neil and the light on his face is-- it's making him blush, he's sure of it.

[shadows_have_offended]

"They're putting it on at Henley Hall. Open tryouts."

Neil wants to kiss Todd, he's so excited. He can barely contain it. His smile feels like the sun. He slaps Todd's mattress and then jumps to his feet, sweeping his own blanket off the bed and wrap around himself dramatically.

"I'm going to act. I'm gonna be an actor! I've want to try this, I tried to go to summer stock auditions last year--but, my father wouldn't let me. For the first time in my whole life, I know what I wanna do!"

Neil grabs some of the loose sheets of paper on Todd's bed and playfully tosses them in the air. "I'm gonna do it whether my father wants me to or not! Carpe diem!"

[a_mighty_yawp]

Neil is amazing, a beam of light as he bounces around the room, wrapped in his own blanket. Todd can only look, can only absorb the radiant light coming off him.

"But what about your father?" he asks, voice soft and almost frightened. He doesn't ask to dim Neil's light; he asks because he worries. He doesn't want Neil to get in trouble; he doesn't want Neil to be punished for doing something he so clearly loves.

He doesn't ever want to see that sort of crushed look on Neil's face again, the one he'd seen his first day here, after Neil's father left.

[shadows_have_offended]

Neil pauses a moment, thoughtful, gears turning. He looks out to the courtyard below, gripping the blanket around his shoulders, then seems to settle.

"First, I have to get the part, then I can worry about telling him. He won't have to know about any of this."

[a_mighty_yawp]

"You could just ask him," Todd tries. "He might say yes?"

Even as he makes the suggestion he doesn't believe that it's true, but he wants it to be for Neil's sake. If his father could just see how happy it makes him, if he could see what Todd sees right now.

[shadows_have_offended]

"That's a laugh," Neil says, and can feel himself drooping. He flings his blanket back onto the bed, watching the way it rumples. Like when he and Todd have been in it for an hour or two, even just holding each other, it reflects a world that Neil can feel slipping out of his fingers.

"At least if I don't ask him, he can't say no."

[a_mighty_yawp]

Todd shakes his head. "But wouldn't he kill you if he finds out you auditioned and didn't even tell him?"

What is he doing? Why can't he stop talking? He can see Neil deflating and it's because of him. But he has to know, doesn't he? He has to know his father would-- Todd doesn't know what he'd do if Neil gets taken out of Welton.

[shadows_have_offended]

"Jesus, Todd, who's side are you on?!"

The words come out, and Neil wishes they were on a fishing line, that he could drag them back into him. But he's moving too, grabbing up the flier and folding himself into the corner of the window and looking out at the courtyard.

"I haven't even gotten the part, can't I just enjoy the idea for a minute?"

[a_mighty_yawp]

Todd jumps a bit when Neil takes the flier back. He looks down at his notebook, at the imperfect words across the page; he can't bring himself to look at Neil and how sad he is. That's his fault.

He can't bring himself to say anything at all, not to answer whose side he's on and not in response to Neil's plea to enjoy the moment. Of course he can; he should, and Todd wants for him to do this play more than anything in the world if it makes him so happy.

Why can't he be more brave?

[shadows_have_offended]

Neil deflates in the wake of Todd's silence. He felt he could, though, which said more for Todd than for the overwhelming defeat that sank through his bones.

He sinks onto the radiator by the window, still looking out for a moment. Sometimes, he wishes it weren't so easy to upset his moods.

"You're coming to the meeting, right?"

[a_mighty_yawp]

Todd shrugs one shoulder. He feels like a heel now and he wishes he could take everything back. "Maybe, I don't know," he answers.

He has this poem to write, and he's sure it'll take him all weekend and that even then it won't be anything worth reading out loud.

[shadows_have_offended]

The hesitation, somehow, hurts more than Todd's worried questions did. Neil fidgets on the radiator as Todd fidgets with his notebook, and it occurs to him: they are having an argument.

Neil's always hated confrontation like that.

His mouth was opened by that snap a moment ago, and so Neil found himself saying, "Nothing Mr. Keating says means shit to you, does it? Being in the club means being stirred up by things--you look about as stirred up as a cesspool."

[a_mighty_yawp]

Something in him threatens to shatter and Todd grips his notebook tighter. Are they fighting? He feels a stir of heat, defensive, when Neil accuses him of being-- of being stagnant.

"So-- what? You want me out?"

He'll leave before Neil can decide he's not worth it. Maybe it's better that way.

[shadows_have_offended]

"No," Neil almost gasps, standing from the radiator and leaning on the bit of wall nearest Todd's bed. He wants to touch, wants to reassure. But his fingers are still shaking a bit, upset at the loss of euphoria.

"I want you in, but being in means you gotta do something. Not just say it."

The words come out and he looks at Todd, and he realizes that part of him is wanting Todd to say he's in with this, with them, whatever it is.

[a_mighty_yawp]

Todd just shakes his head and moves so that his back against the wall. He looks at Neil.

"Listen, Neil. I-I appreciate this concern, but I-I'm not like you. All right? You--you--you say things and people listen. I'm--I'm not like that."

He hates that he stutters a bit, but at least he's managed to get it out.

[shadows_have_offended]

"Don't you think you could be?" Neil asks. Todd's moving away from him, and Neil wants nothing more than to follow, to chase, to drag Todd out of his shell and show him how the world sees him. How Neil sees him.

[a_mighty_yawp]

"No! I--I, I don't know, but that's not the point." Todd feels himself getting flustered but he also feels his own voice and he can't let it go now. Even in the face of someone like Neil. Neil, who wanted... wanted what? To save him?

"The--the--the point is that there's nothing you can do about it, so you can just butt out. I can take care of myself just fine. All right?"

[shadows_have_offended]

Neil's fairly certain that's the most certain and self-assured he's ever heard Todd, and it strikes him that it suits him. Todd with self-assurance in his voice, even if it's couched in something like worry or shame or disappointment, is a good look for Todd Anderson.

"No," he says. Todd can take care of himself, but that doesn't mean that Neil has to let him suffer in his shell.

[a_mighty_yawp]

Todd blinks, looking entirely perplexed for a moment. That's not-- is that even an answer?

"What do you mean, no?" he asks, eyebrows drawing together. He's not even sure what, precisely, Neil is saying no too.

[shadows_have_offended]

"I mean, no."

Then, Neil grins. He reaches out, before Todd can react, and grabs his notebook to see what he's so intent on hiding behind, and bounds across the room to his bed.

[a_mighty_yawp]

"Neil-- Neil! Give it back!" Todd launches off the bed to try to grab his notebook back, desperate to keep anyone else's eyes from seeing it. Especially Neil's.

"Come on, this isn't funny!" he pleads, chasing Neil up onto his bed to try to get it back.

[shadows_have_offended]

"We are dreaming of a--" Neil reads as he scampers away from Todd on his bed, to the floor, to Todd's bed. His face brightens into a grin.

"Poetry! This is your poem!" He turns to look at Todd and laughs excitedly. "I'm being chased by Walt Whitman!"