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Todd loved the way his vision was condemned by the windscreen to the narrow road stretched out before them. He loved it, because he could almost imagine that the road went on forever, and they would never have to stop, and he could stay in this moment for the rest of eternity.
Light pollution turned the night sky a murky black, and though no stars were visible, every now and again the smokey clouds would part for a brief moment to reveal the moon, nearly full, casting her cold, unforgiving gaze over the earth.
Todd felt as if she was staring him directly in the eyes. Calling him a coward.
And maybe he was.
But no matter how much he wanted to say something, anything, the second he opened his mouth, it would burst the fragile bubble of existence cast around the car. And he couldn't let that happen, you see, he just couldn't.
Ignoring the constant gnawing anxiety (that was simply a given by now), this was the most at peace he had felt in a long, long time, and he imagined it was much the same for Neil.
Neil had it so much worse than Todd. Todd's parents generally just ignored him, whilst Neil's were.. too far the other way. His every move was examined, and if he so much as breathed wrong, the consequences could be severe.
Todd had seen the scars.
So it would be selfish, you see, for Todd to break the peace by asking a question neither of them knew the answer to.
And whilst some small part of his brain begged him to ask, desperate for closure, desperate to just know, the rest of him was more than happy in Neil's company.
Well. The closest he could get to ‘happy’ anymore.
“Can you take this left, here?” was what he said instead of voicing any of his thoughts. He spoke quietly, not daring to raise his voice louder than the steady hum of the engine.
Todd didn't look at him, but he could imagine Neil furrowing his eyebrows. “But that's a longer route.”
“I know.” said Todd. And Neil understood. Of course he understood, Goddammit, this was Neil. Neil knew Todd better than Todd knew Todd. He was intertwined with Todd's soul, and Todd his.
So he took the left. And they slipped back into the little pocket of bliss.
The presence of Neil beside him brought Todd unimaginable comfort. The night air was bitter and the heater was broken, but simply being with this man was enough to make his insides feel warm and mushy.
“I think if I died right now, I could die happy.” said Neil.
Todd swallowed.
“Like.. I'm content with this being my last moment. I want this to be my last moment.”
Todd kept his eyes fixed firmly on the forever-road. “You shouldn't say things like that, Neil.”
Neil spared him a glance, and Todd didn't want to meet his eyes because he couldn't deal with the inevitable open vulnerability that would shine in them. “You don't agree, then.”
It wasn't quite a question. It also wasn't quite not.
It was the sort of distinction that could only be made by a poet.
“Of course I do. Jesus Christ, Neil, of course I fucking agree. But you still shouldn't say things like it.”
“Why not?”
“You'll upset people.”
“Like who?”
“I don't know. Just.. people. Normal people.”
“So not you or me, then?”
“No, not you or me.”
“But we're the only ones in the car.”
“Yes. That's true.”
“So then I can say it.”
This, like a lot of things Neil did, sent Todd into a fit of adoring laughter. Neil laughed with him, loud and free and beautiful, and Todd wanted to put it into a jar and carry it with him wherever he went, or wear it as a cologne, or turn it into words and form it into a poem to preserve it forever in the highest honour known to man.
“You're such a dick, Neil.”
“Well, yes, but I'm your dick.”
And God, Todd wouldn't let himself think about the implications of that.
“Honestly?” he whispered, his lips still smiling around the shape of his laughter, “Having this as my last moment would be heaven.”
“Well, no, we'd go to Heaven,” chirped Neil mischievously.
“I think you'll find we are most definitely going to Hell.”
Neil sighed in easy acceptance. “I hope they have poetry in Hell.”
“If not, we can introduce it.” suggested Todd.
“Aw man, think of that! We'd go down in Hell-history.” He grinned as he turned this over in his mind, then suddenly gasped excitedly. “Hey, I bet we'd meet a bunch of our idols! Like, uh, like Oscar Wilde.”
Todd clapped his hands together with delight like a small child. “And Walt Whitman!”
“Oh my God, yes.”
And Todd finally, finally let himself look over at Neil, and Neil looked right back at him. Their smiles were both just as wide as the other.
Neil's chocolate eyes sparkled in the darkness, with joy, with love, with a thousand different emotions, and Todd wanted to drown in them.
And he wanted more than anything he had ever wanted in his life to just lean in and kiss him, to see what that smile tasted like.
But that would be wrong.
By 6:00 in the morning, the city was in uproar. There had been an accident on a side road leading off of the highway right in the centre of town, and it was a nasty accident, too. A truck carrying a load of materials to a building site had lost control of its steering, and collided with a car that had been driving the other way. The truck driver survived unscathed, but.. for the two young men in the car, it was a different story.
Their faces were plastered on the news. People who had never known them wept, grieving them not because of who they were, but simply because life was cruel, and people don't like to be reminded of that fact.
They would both have hated it.
A good thing they weren't there to see it, really.
They would, instead, stay forever in that little moment of shared smiles, of the hum of the engine, and the simple joy of being in each other's company.