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Todd supposes he can just wait until morning but something keeps him up- tossing and turning within the tangles of sheets. Some stronger force pushes him out of bed, into his clothes and out the doors of Welton Academy with a lantern swinging idly at his side. The air is cold on the walk to Indian Rock but Todd doesn’t feel it, the night's events replying idly in his mind.
Neil was captivating. He seemed to shine even brighter than the spotlights that made his eyes sparkle with unadulterated lust for the stage. Todd could hardly breath as he spoke words of love, magic and the power of one’s dreams. While he had heard these lines practiced again and again behind the quiet closed door of their room, the stage seemed to bring about a new air of thrill that Neil had been missing during his monotonous studies.
Neil’s eyes had caught Todd’s several times throughout the night and Todd tried to fight the tight fluttering that caused a pleasant ache behind his ribs. Perhaps it was a mere coincidence that Neil has caught his gaze while speaking so sweetly of “a lovely boy” and “stirring love.” That’s what he tells himself anyway.
And that fateful moment after the show in which Todd had barreled out of the theatre still riding the high of those transcending words only to find Neil being dragged to his father’s vehicle. Todd had tried to reach Neil who avoided his eyes, his expression downcast. There was a brief moment where their shoulders brushed and Todd had tried to reach out for him. He missed.
The look on Neil’s face, listless and dull and so unfamiliar to Todd replays in his mind on repeat as he makes his way down the well-trodden path to the stones, weaving between still branches. The night, so quiet and dark, nearly shadows the figure visible through the mouth of the cave. Nearly. Todd stands frozen in fear as he lightly lifts the lantern to peer into the opening.
Neil, in only his trousers and boots, shivers against the cold stone of the rock. His shirt is nowhere to be found and Todd tries not to stare, instead looking towards Neil’s crown of thorns from the play which are still clasped tightly in his hands. They are red from the crisp weather and scraped from grasping the sharp garland far to tightly.
“Neil?” Todd jumps quickly to his aid, placing down the lantern on the hard floor beside him and wrapping his coat tightly around Neil’s shivering form. Neil grabs urgently at the warm fabric and for just a moment their hands touch.
His hands are cold. So cold. So much colder than they should be. Neil is bright and warm with a smile that lights up a room like a well-worn lantern. His hands should be the same- able to send gradual warmth from the tips of his fingers into the depths of one's bones with a single touch. Now his hands remain shivering and gripping the jacket that Todd had given him. Perhaps his smile is worn and the lantern's wick is dying. Todd wants to take Neil’s hands between his own and set them ablaze just as Neil does with his laughter. He hesitates and before he can decide Neil speaks.
“My father keeps a gun in his desk drawer,” Neil starts. His tone lacks feeling but that isn’t right because Neil always feels. Todd holds his breath.
The wick dwindles.
“Before you came I was planning to take it and-,” Neil shudders, unable to finish his sentence. His eyes well with tears and they meet Todd’s, “The craziest part is that I know it won’t matter!” Neil’s laugh is abrupt and pained, “If I died in my father's study by his own gun he would find someone else to blame. He would find another reason for my pain, for my death. He would hold my lifeless body in his arms and I would still be his legacy, not his son. I could scream from the rooftops but he would still not hear me… see me.”
“I see you.”
Todd has never been good at expressing himself. Despite Keating’s belief, his mind was often so jumbled of thoughts left unsaid that the words that tumbled out of his mouth or onto paper only cover a small fraction of the feelings that swirled inside him. It was often easier to use another's words as his own.
“‘If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream…’”
Todd stops, feeling no need to continue, nor believing that he could.
“That was a message to your father,” He is quiet as he speaks, “It was a reminder that acting is still just a fantasy and despite how you wish it to be true, with him around… it will never be. You feel hopeless and- and tied down by this destiny that your father has set out for you and you don’t deserve that.”
Neil looks like he was about to argue back but Todd quickly continues, reciting from the play again. “But you are a ‘merry wanderer of night,’ and you can do so much, Neil. You are an inspiration. As I watched you on that stage I felt-” Todd struggles to find the words, “I felt like I saw you for the first time. Not the you that hides their emotions behind a smile that sometimes looks more like a grimace. Not the you that is at the mercy of his father. Not the you that is supposed to be a doctor because that’s what everyone seems to expect. I-I saw the real you.”
Just the same as the divine force that pushed him into the freezing winter earlier that night, Todd suddenly finds his hands cradling Neil’s face and wiping the tears that were beginning to go bitter on his cheeks. He is still too cold for Todd’s liking but the growing warmth he feels beneath his palms reassures him if only slightly.
“‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’ because you, Neil Perry, are more than a mortal, you are something infinite and beautiful and I’m sorry that your parents can’t see that but I can see it. I can see you… all of you.”
Todd doesn’t notice when he starts crying, but the gentle caress of Neil’s hand on his jaw reminds him of how dangerous he’s being. He feels as if their ribs had been pried open to expose their fragile insides to the biting chill of the world and even worse to the clumsy hands of each other. One wrong move and their innards could spill upon the stone beneath them and leave their chests empty and broken.
Neil moves first. Quick and forlorn, he presses his lips to Todd’s in a tender yet emotional kiss. It lasts only a second before he pulls back, his eyes still shining with unshed tears and another layer of vulnerability lit behind them. It’s Todd that pulls him in again, this time intense and somehow more vulnerable. The spark he felt dying inside of Neil seems to blaze brightly again as he deepens the kiss- desperate and starved and scorching. The fire ignites from every touch of Neil’s gentle hands, gathering his organs and holding them close in a fiery embrace.
And he feels warm. He feels hot to the touch. He feels electric and real.
When they pull away, their chests heaving and faces burning, their breaths mingle humid in the air. Todd’s breath only becomes more laboured when he sees Neil smile, beaming brighter than any star in the sky. He can’t help the grin that pulls at the corner of his lips in return.
They laugh. The words between them unspoken, bubbling out of their chests in a magnificent cacophony of roars. They laugh out of fear and nervousness and happiness all the same. Todd doesn’t know how long they laugh and smile and sometimes kiss before he finds himself wrapped around Neil in an embrace that is somehow impervious to the cold. They gaze out at the sky behind the trees and watch the stars turn.
Todd doesn’t want this to end. He can feel Neil getting more tense as time wanes and the light of the lantern fades with their joy. Their situation, so dire, causes the cold to creep in again.
“I can’t go to boarding school,” Neil’s voice breaks the stillness, “I won’t forgive myself.”
Todd doesn’t mention that it’s not Neil’s fault that he is being sent- his father had decided his fate long before he first auditioned for the play. Perhaps it is because he knows there is a voice in Neil’s head that is still wondering why he didn’t pull the trigger.
Todd imagines a better place- a haven. Somewhere they can flee from life’s expectations and the pain of their parents berating voices. One where Neil could be free to shine as brightly as he wants and Todd could watch without shame and praise the ground he walks on like he deserves.
“What if we leave?”
Todd's words are a surprise to even himself. Before he can take them back in stuttering breaths, Neil amazes him again.
“And where would we go?”
Todd hesitates before his response finds itself easily placed upon his tongue.
“Somewhere where the ‘wild thyme blows,’” Todd recites from the play. A genuine smile tugs the corners of Neil's mouth upwards as he recognizes them.
“Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.”
Neil’s eyes shimmer as he recites the lines from memory, the passion spreading through him like a wildfire.
“As long as we are away from here.” Todd whispers, the “we” in the sentence holding more weight than he thought possible.
And so they went- quiet and undetected in the cold night ‘swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow,’ with only the lantern to guide them. The blessed snow filled their footprints and by morning, as the sun lit the sky aglow, it was almost as if they ceased to exist at all.