Chapter Text
16 December, 1959.
“Neil?” The name pours out of Todd’s mouth like a dam’s been broken. His arms reach out in front of himself, trying to reach for that being in his bed. “Neil!” Todd says again, louder. His tone is a distant cousin to the desperation he had given the name, Neil, the night before.
Neil rises from his sleepy positions, rubbing his eyes with curled up fists. When he looks at Todd, he first seems calm. Then, the alarm sets on his features. It’s like he’s been slapped with clarity; last night was not a fabricated fable of the mind.
“Todd!” Neil’s croaky, tired throat says.
Todd falls forward onto his knees. The pain that visits him in his kneecaps shoots up and kisses the bottom vertebrae of his spine. He doesn’t care. Neil is here. Neil is alive and nothing else matters- nor bursting bones, not shattered spines.
Neil nearly trips twice getting to Todd. There’s too many sheets and bed posts to knock him off balance. But, when he does make it, Todd bands his arms around Neil’s legs. Neil sets one hand on the back of Todd’s scalp, the other on Todd’s shoulder.
They sit like that for a long time. If anyone passes by their open door and catches them like this, they don’t notice. It’s too early to be concerned and too late at the same time. It’s the sixteenth of December.
“You’re here,” Todd breathes, his voice muffled. His face is nuzzled against Neil’s waist and stomach. “You came back.”
Neil nods. “Of course I did.”
If it was a better moment, one not so heavy with unsaid words and memories Todd cannot explain, Neil might’ve added a joke to that. He would have quipped something like “Of course I did, we have finals soon” or “I promised Charlie I’d sneak him extra toast at breakfast this morning.” He doesn’t. Instead, he adds this:
“I promised you I would be back in the morning.” Like he’s asking permission, Neil slowly moves the hand on Todd’s scalp down to his jaw. He guides Todd's head up with his fingers so they can look at each other.
Todd professes, “I couldn’t be sure.”
“I know,” Neil says and Todd thinks, for a short moment, that Neil does. The moment passes, however, when Neil smiles. Todd’s glad for it. It means that Neil will never have to understand the depravity, the truisms that cut and bleed when you’re not completely sure someone will be alive at dawn.
To Neil, the one that’s here now, death is not an unstoppable force. Todd believes that might be how he feels now too because, really, death isn’t. Not this time, not here. Death is not something to pick and choose, no matter how lasting it felt in front of Neil’s father. The only thing Neil has to choose is who sits in front of him now, nervous on his knees.
Neil taps Todd’s arms with the tips of his fingers. When Todd’s grip falls, Neil lowers himself down so that they are on the same level. Neils sits, criss-crossed legs, and Todd mirrors that position. Taking his hand and pulling it into his lap, Neil rubs comforting circles into Todd’s palm with his thumb.
Suddenly, Neil asks Todd, “You know I had to go, right?” The circles under Neil’s eyes look dark and deep. The half-moon shape gives the impression that eclipses have appeared here before. Sun in eyes, moons beneath them.
Todd knows. “I didn’t want you to.”
For some reason, Neil smiles at this. He laughs a little, too. Looking into Todd’s eyes, Neil’s stare sits somewhere between contempt, loveliness, and graveyard memory. “I know you didn’t. I didn’t want to go either, but I knew that it was important that I did.” He raises Todd’s hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles, one at a time; like it’ll soften everything, every blow. It works because, by the last kiss, Todd is smiling, too.
Todd sighs, then admits, “I was really upset.”
“With me?” Neil squeezes his hand.
“No.” Todd answers quickly.
“With what, then?”
“Everything else,” Todd sniffs, throat instantaneously tightening. “I was, I was upset because it felt like I couldn’t stop you from leaving but I don’t think that’s fair. I couldn’t stop you and that should’ve been okay. It is okay. But I couldn’t stop you.” He takes a deep breath, one that lasts for eight counts and feels like eight minutes. “I was upset with Keating for telling you to stay and Charlie for holding me back and your father…God, life, all of it, I was upset with everything because it felt like it was over.”
Neil understands better than anyone. He knows what Todd means when he says everything felt like it was over. He felt it, too. He listens to Todd speak and holds onto every syllable. He urges Todd to keep going with every instance of his lips to Todd’s skin and squeeze to his hand. He holds his breath. When Todd finishes, Neil breathes out like he spilled his own upsets, too. Then, when Neil is ready, he does it for real.
“I promised a lot last night. I told you I would stay. Even if you aren’t upset with me, you could be. I wouldn’t mind,” Neil chuckles. “When I got into my father’s car, all I could think about was how I was going to make it up to you in the morning.”
“There’s nothing to make up for.”
“There is.” Neil says, “I told my father what must have been a billion times that he would have to drive me back here in the morning. You know what he said to that? Nothing. He said absolutely nothing.”
Todd is shocked. “He said nothing?”
“Nothing in the car,” Neil exclaims. “Outside of the car and inside the house, he said a lot. He told me that I wouldn’t come back here in the morning. He told me that he was going to take me out of Welton, Todd, and put me in military school. ‘You’re going to be a doctor,’ that’s what he said.”
It’s weird hearing about a conversation Todd had spent years making up in his head for years and years. There’s a chill on the back of Todd’s neck, like the ghost of his past breathing into his skin, that tells Todd that maybe he shouldn’t know this. But Neil is sharing it with him and it feels therapeutic. It wants to drink in the words like sweet tea.
“What…What did you say? Are you going?”
“No!” Neil shakes his head dramatically. “That’s the best part! I told him that I wouldn’t. I told him that, that, that the best chance I had at any sort of future was at Welton. And, Todd, I told him how I felt. I told him everything.”
Todd whispers, “everything?”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said.” Neil lowers his voice with Todd, “In my father’s house, he’s yelling at me and all I can think is that you said this would kill me.”
Todd wants to apologize, but Neil stops him like he’s already said it. “No, no, it’s good you said that. The last thing I said before he went to bed is that, if he took me out of Welton and didn’t start trying to understand that I should be able to live my own life, it would kill me. And you know what, Todd?”
“What?” Todd, eyes wide, wonders.
“I think he believed me.”
“Yeah? You really think so?”
“Mmhm,” Neil hums. “After all of that, I got back into my father’s car and just… sat there until he got into the car, too.” Even in the aftermath, Neil is surprised at himself. There’s a flush to his cheeks that’s colored with ambition. “I think I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was driving and, and there was a part of me, I think, uh…” He trails off like the words he wants to say will sound too otherworldly. He thinks up some new ones. “He’s driving and it felt like I was driving past my old life and into a new one. I know, I know that doesn’t make sense. I’m the same me I was yesterday. But, Todd, I don’t know, I feel a lot newer. I feel a lot better.”
He ends his sentence with another kiss to Todd’s knuckle. Then, he adds on what he possibly wanted to say in the first place. “I feel like standing up to my father gave me, well, um…”
“A second chance?” Todd asks, the answer like a church bell singing.
“Maybe.” Neil isn’t sure what to make of that. Then, he says something that makes Todd hear Keating’s voice in his ears so clearly it’s like he’s in the room with them. “Keating talked to me about second chances, too, right as I was leaving.”
“What did you say to Neil before he left? You said something to him.”
“Oh.” Keating perks up like he forgot that occurred. He opens his mouth to answer, then promptly shuts it. “When Neil is back, ask him yourself.”
“What did he say?” Todd asks.
“My father was so mad Keating was whispering and he couldn’t hear him. You would have thought Kearing was doing a spell or something, but,” Neil answers, “he said to remember that second chances don’t come around often.”
“Neil, remember everything we’ve talked about. No matter what that man says to you, take control and let it run off your shoulders into a stream of second chances. They don’t come around often. Think of that boy over there begging you to stay. Good luck.”
Todd’s lips curve up into a smile. Oh. So, that was what Keating had whispered to him. And Todd had thanked him by screaming at him for it, like Keating was ruining everything, too. Todd will apologize for it later and thank him, truly, for being in his corner.
“Do you think it could be true?” Neil questions, “that I’ve been given a second chance? Do we get second chances in this life, Todd? Is that possible?” Neil asks him like he expects a negative answer. Todd doesn’t give it to him.
“Yes. We do. I know it.”
Neil, the smallest bit afraid of that not being true, let’s go of Todd’s hand. While doing so, he gives a half-hearted laugh. He’s interested in whatever poetry Todd has thought up to be sure of second chances. He’s feeling poetic, too. Neil backs himself up, leaning against Todd’s bed frame. He pats the space next to him so Todd will sit next to him. Todd does.
“Do you?” Neil grins, playfully elbowing him.
“I’ve had a second chance.” Todd says.
“Did you at least wait to take it? That second chance? Until the world was more peaceful, more kind?” With his own poetry, Neil asks Todd for more than a bare minimum answer. He’s asking if there’s any explanation for why he feels so free and transcendental. Does everyone feel this way? Is it possible? If that’s possible, what else is? Is the world not so bad? What happens next?
And, to all of that, Todd has an answer.
Todd didn’t wait ten years for his second chance. Sure, he waited ten years for it, but he didn’t know he was doing it. And second chances don’t wait for peace and kindness, they wait for the exact moment your life could not be more fucked up. Somehow though, it’s worth the wait.
There are no worlds that exist that are perfect, peaceful, and kind in all their entirety. What there is, however, is what Todd wanted all along; a world small enough to count with your fingers. The Dead Poets Society, including Neil Perry. That world is kind. That world is peaceful. And it's a lot of other things, too. It’s arrogant and romantic and stuffy and sour. Sometimes, it’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen. It never comes before the second chance, either. Todd had to work for it. He had to wait only for a world he could understand.
“No.” Todd says.
“Hm?”
“No.” Todd repeats.
That second ‘no’ makes Neil laugh out loud. He bows his head forward and puts his palms on Todd’s cheeks. “No!” Then, without much of a warning, Neil kisses Todd. It’s not a quick peck, but a passionate, funny thing that mollifies into something more tender.
When they part, Todd tells Neil it was completely worth it.
“Ugh, you’re disgusting, it’s six in the morning!”
Neil and Todd jump back from each other, each facing the door to see an annoyed looking Cameron. Charlie’s right behind him.
“Ah, grow up, Cam,” Charlie says. “You’re one to talk about being disgusting when-”
“I don’t know what you’re about to say but! Um! How dare you-” Cameron’s sputtering makes his attempt at defending himself futile.
“Are you two coming with us to breakfast?” Charlie offers, ignoring Cameron. “Rumor has it, the eggs today are not going to be scrambled. Personally, I’m hoping for sunny-side up. It’ll match the weather.”
“Oh, can the weather be described as sunny-side up now? I didn’t know.” Neil easily jests with Charlie.
“No, it cannot,” Cameron says.
“The sun is UP, Cam.”
“It’s snowing, Charlie.”
“The sun doesn’t rise up anymore because it’s snowing?”
“The yolk of the egg showing is what makes a sunny-side up egg, sunny-side up. The sun is not showing because it’s snowing and there’s too many clouds. The sun not showing means the weather cannot be described as sunny.” Cameron’s arms are crossed, but there’s no pulsing vein to his temple that would show any other sign of anger. He’s not angry. He’s not annoyed.
Todd sees it happen so quickly that anyone else might have, would have missed it. While Cameron speaks his truth on the technicalities of weather and eggs, Charlie makes direct eye contact with Todd and winks.
Todd nods at that, but says nothing. Their conversation a few hours ago was worth it.
After a few minutes of hurrying to get dressed (and a few more kisses), Neil and Todd join the others at breakfast. Sitting down next to Neil, Todd thinks this might be the best meal he’s ever had. Not because it’s actually the best. It’s okay. The eggs are, in fact, sunny-side up, and the hashbrowns actually look cooked. But, the reason it’s actually the best meal is because all of the Dead Poets are together. All of them. On the sixteenth of December.
“What happened to going off campus?” Gerard is the one to ask as he shovels hashbrowns onto his plate. He speaks at a hushed volume, though the room is quite empty. Even some of the teachers have missed their prayer before meal times. The end of the semester is getting to them all.
“I wouldn’t want any of us getting expelled for leaving campus.” Surprisingly, it isn’t Richard Cameron who says this. It’s Charlie Dalton. He takes a large bite from a lightly toasted piece of sourdough.Cameron tries to hide it by lowering his face, but he’s softly smiling. He’s rolling his eyes too, like Charlie is repeating his own words back to him.
Knox shrugs, reaching across the table to pick a grape off of Neil’s plate. “Could you really get expelled for sneaking off campus?”
“Maybe not if your last name is Overstreet,” Meeks says. Gerard has to cover his mouth to stop potato and ketchup from spilling out.
“Yeah, how many times did you go see Chris?” Neil asks.
“Okay, okay,” Knox huffs. “A guy wants to get away from campus once or twice, can you blame him?”
“Yes.” Neil responds.
“Boo!” Charlie throws a used napkin in Knox’s direction.
“Oh, you’re one to talk, Charlie!” Cameron says. “I know for a fact you snuck off campus at least once a month sophomore year.”
“What can I say, I’m a changed man.” Charlie responds like he was expecting the accusatory remark from Cameron.
“Guys.” Todd pipes up. He tries to stop himself from smiling, but his sides are beginning to hurt because he’s stopping himself from laughing, too. “We’ve all snuck off of campus. We do that every week, remember?”
“Oh.” Charlie says. “You’re right.
Then, like it was the funniest thing any of them have ever heard, the group howls in laughter. Knox beats his fist against the table and Neil grabs onto Todd’s shoulder. Charlie is leaning so far forward his hair might be touching his eggs. Gerard looks like he’s about to cry. Meeks is hiding his giggling face in his hands. Cameron’s absolutely cackling. It’s the loudest Todd has ever heard him. Neil asks if it’s different if they sneak out at night and not during school hours.
“Boys!” A voice booms over their laughter, which makes the group want to laugh harder. But they calm when they see it's only John Keating, whose lips are held together so thinly, because he wants to laugh with them.
“Captain!” Charlie says.
“Mr. Dalton,” He acknowledges Charlie. “I can see you boys are absolutely delighted at what I must assume is Welton’s finest breakfast?”
“Of course, sir.” Neil gestures to the food in front of him. “Delicious.”
“Mmmm..” Keating nods. Like it’s turned into a private conversation, Keating tells Neil: “Oh, and last night you were wonderful, Neil. You have a gift. I’m sure I don’t speak for only myself when I say you left me speechless. I hope you’ll keep up with this.”
“Oh!” Neil blushes, the scarlet darkening when the boys around him start cheering. They bombard him with compliments they realized they haven’t gotten the chance to say. It’s sweet. Todd grabs onto Neil’s hand under the table. “Thank you, Mr. Keating. I plan on it. We run through the weekend, but I’m already…excited for the next one.”
“Good.” Keating says. “I’ll leave you boys to it.”
Keating walks away from them. Before he does, though, he looks at Todd. Todd mouths ‘thank you.’ They both smile in victory.
–
17 December, 1959. Thursday. The Final Dead Poets Society Meeting of the Semester.
When they’re in the cave for the last time in the Winter of 1959, each of the boys read a singular line from a poem. The line is meant to embody themselves, their feelings towards the semester, and their current lives. Todd reads his first.
“O days of the future I believe in you. I do not know what is untried and afterward, but I know it cannot fail.”
Then, Charlie reads his.
“The soul of a man is audible, not visible.”
The third line comes from Meeks.
“The greater your real strength and power, the quieter it will be exercised.”
After, Gerard stands up and says his, eyes closed.
“I am a happy camper, so I guess I’m doing something right. Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”
Knox follows.
“Once, if I remember well, my life was a feast where all hearts opened and all wines flowed.”
After Knox, Cameron reads.
“It's better to lose your ego to the one you love than to lose the one you love to your ego.”
And, finally, Neil reads his last.
“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
—
19 December, 1959. Onwards.
When the first semester of the boys junior year ends, it feels a lot like they’re saying goodbye forever. They’ll only be apart for seventeen days, until the fourth of January. But it’s the first time in four months they won’t see each other every day. Charlie says so for days. It makes Knox teary-eyed every time.
“This has happened every semester since third grade,” Meeks says to Todd in between the group hugging and saying their farewells outside of Welton. “Charlie says its the first time we’ll be apart in months and Knox cries. Then-”
Cameron hits Charlie’s shoulder hard. The sound the contact makes crackles like lightning. Charlie’s whine afterwards is thunder.
“That happens…” Gerard sighs.
Todd can’t act too amused. Neil told him the night before, after the Dead Poets meeting, how sad he was to leave Todd for the first time. Even though Todd will see him tomorrow evening for the closing performance of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ he’s sad, too. It will be odd remembering what it’s like to sleep without Neil.
Todd hugs Neil the longest and does not let go until Neil’s mother honks her horn at them. He feels pleasure knowing that Neil’s father hasn’t yet returned from Chicago. Good. Whenever he does show up, it’ll be too soon.
They aren’t there for the closing performance, Neil’s parents. It’s fine. Todd somehow convinces his own parents to join. He tells them on the drive up that Neil is amazing and, during intermission, they agree with him. They even stand up when Neil bows at curtain call. It’s not enough to make up for the last seventeen years, give or take a decade, but it’s something. They like Neil.
The goodbye backstage is longer than the one back at Welton. Todd’s sitting on the counter in Neil’s dressing room and Neil’s kissing him, stopping only when their names are called for the tenth time. The lights to the building are being turned off. They giggle with their foreheads pressed together. They sound like wind chimes.
Though this goodbye hurts worse, it is made better when Todd receives his first letter in the mail from Neil. Todd writes back. It’s exciting and secretive and makes Todd feel like forbidden love is a lot more interesting than love seen by everyone. When Neil writes back, it doesn’t appear until they’re back in their dorm for the second half of the year.
Neil tells him to write back when he’s home for the summer. Todd does, of course. They’re apart for two months and able to share a total of twelve letters with each other. When the other Poets find out about this, they send letters, too. That summer, Todd gets five letters from Charlie, two from Cameron, three from Knox, three from Meeks, and two from Gerard. Todd’s hand gets cramped writing back. His parents comment that he gets more mail than any of them. He gets more mail than even his brother, Jeffrey.
Todd cries a lot that summer. It’s good.
The letter writing habit of the boys turns into passing notes during class throughout their senior year. The only teacher that never stops them is John Keating who, if they were lucky, would slip his own notes to the group during lunch.
Todd keeps all the notes he gets inside his desk. The notes from Keating say things like ‘Remember the poetry assignment due next Tuesday.’ and ‘I’m proud. Every moment of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle. -W.W.’ The notes with poetry on them are brought to Dead Poets Meetings. They are everyone’s favorites.
Neil keeps his notes tacked up on the wall above his bed. He tells Todd that he doesn’t care if Nolan finds out and gets mad. He likes them where he can see them, Todd’s scrawled out hearts and Charlie’s awful handwriting.Todd shakes his head and tells Neil to remember to be careful. He doesn’t tell Neil he likes them hanging up too, but Neil knows.
When their senior year ends, Neil sobs harder at graduation than anyone. He cries and cries and tells his friends it’s because he’ll miss them all so much. Neil explains that, after playing Richard II at Henley Hall that year, he hasn’t been afraid of their lives changing. 'Mine Honor is my life,' he says. But he’s afraid because, even if most of them are going to the same university, they aren’t majoring in the same things. They won’t see each other. That makes him feel hollower than any king.
That night, Charlie calls Todd and proposes that they all get an apartment together.
So, that’s how they end up. They move to a place in between Fordham and the city of New York, Todd, Neil, and Charlie. It doesn’t happen all at once. Charlie’s the one to sign off on the apartment, but Neil and Todd move in first, at the beginning of summer. It’s a two bedroom place. Charlie moves in closer to the beginning of the school year. Cameron takes a lot longer to decide to move in. He stays with them during holidays, but he doesn’t have his clothes in the closet until four years later, when he graduates.
Meeks, Gerard, Knox, and Chris like to visit, too. It's cramped when they all come. Todd likes it this way.
Neil is away sometimes too, starting the Autumn of his sophomore year, late in 1962. He has auditions and college productions to be involved in. At these times, when nights are late, he’ll stay in friends' college dorms. When the college productions evolve to professional contracts, Neil stays with friends or in housing paid for with his contract. There’s a letter in Todd’s mailbox at least once a week, when Neil is gone for long. Sometimes the letters are weighed down with seashells and tea leaves. Todd always writes back with heart-heavy things like poetry and updates on his English degree.
They graduate university together. Most of the parents make it, but the best part of the day isn’t the attendance. It’s speeding Neil into the city for a particularly special audition. It's worth it to Todd every time he does this for Neil, travels with him, because he can see him in every audition, callback, heartbreak, and celebration.
And a few months later, Todd does it again. He travels to the city. Only this time it’s Charlie and Cameron who come with him, not Neil. Knox, Chris, Gerard, and Meeks meet them in front of the theatre. John Keating is there, too, visiting from London. There’s a girl with him, the one in the frame that lived in Keating’s office. Together, they see an off-broadway production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ where Neil stars as Lysander.
It’s great, rumored to get a Broadway transfer. Not that that matters, of course. Todd will see any production Neil is in, no matter what the industry claims to be important. Neil knows this and, when the audience has left and the last program has been signed, he goes home with Todd to their apartment for the night. There, Neil pulls Todd into their bedroom and gives him a letter heavier than all the others.
It’s not the first piece of jewelry Neil has bought for Todd, but it’s certainly the nicest.
“I’ve been saving up. I know it’s not really possible. Not here, not now. But will you have it?” Neil says as Todd carefully puts the ring on his finger. It’s snug in a good way. It’s perfect, a thin silver band that looks like it’s been carved out of the moon.
Todd reaches out and touches Neil’s jawline with the edge of his finger, only one finger. He promises to get Neil one of his own through blubbering tears and a million versions of ‘yes.’ He cries harder when he hears the thunderous applause outside his bedroom door. Todd squeals in delight when he opens the door and sees all his friends are there to celebrate.
A year later, in the Summer 1966, they hold a small, private ceremony in their apartment. Within that year, Todd gets a job teaching, like he had been the first time, but it’s nicer. He’s inspired to write, kept alive by the very subject that sleeps next to him every night. He publishes a few things in the paper and writes a book that sells pretty well.
And the ceremony is sweet. It’s nothing much. It’s perfect. A lucky number seven years after Neil and Todd met for the second time. Todd gives him a gold ring, a bit thicker than his own band. They have a dinner on the plates Todd’s parents gave him some Christmas after he received his degree.
—
15 December, 1969. Ten Years Later
If you would have asked Todd Anderson nine years and three hundred and sixty four days ago where he would be in ten years, waking up in his bedroom with Neil Perry would have felt like a faraway aspiration.
But when Todd Anderson wakes up for the second time on the fifteenth of December in 1969, it is not the once death date of Neil Perry. It is not ten years after. There is no before or after Neil. There only ever is. Todd feels it for certainty whenever Neil stirs in his sleep next to him. He feels it when Neil makes him breakfast and kisses him goodbye before going to a rehearsal for a play Todd’s never read. He feels it when he reads the newspaper and sees Neil’s face on the front page, having been interviewed about the rehearsal process. He feels it when Neil comes home that night and wraps Christmas presents.
When Charlie and Cameron knock on their door to join, holding mugs of cocoa and wearing their pajamas, Todd feels it. When Neil shoos them away because “they’re gifts for you two!” he feels it. He feels like his toes are buried in sand and will never leave. There's claws of crabs and there's seaweed. They all add something. It all means something. Todd feels it.
There are pillows with clean cases and good friends in Todd's life, ten years after meeting Neil Perry for the second time. In the world that he’s in now. There’s hot cocoa and cold hands. There’s hope and love and bark and bite. It’s all good because Todd exists. He exists like snow, he exists like stars, he exists like rain, moons, suns, cosmos, he exists. He exists and Neil Perry exists, too. They exist and they're alive.
It’s good.