neil is looking at him with eyes that know they'll leave, todd has noticed.
he could never quite put his finger on it, the same way a line of poetry sometimes flees him for days until he catches it on a napkin in some cheap diner in downtown philadelphia; could never quite name what made him so uneasy about neil looking at him as if he was a sparrow seconds from flying away.
"why ya looking at me like that?"
"what?"
"you're staring."
neil shrugged, his eyes still on todd. "just wanna remember this, is all."
todd huffed, not more than half a laugh. "i'll be here."
and neil would kiss him but not answer.
now, months later, with all the crying and shouting long behind them; desperation having turned into some stale kind of resignation, he understands that neil will be the one to leave.
not now, not tomorrow (he's made dinner reservations for next thursday), but eventually, the way you always know winter will come even when bringing your parka down to the basement in june.
and all todd can do is change and move and spin, be blurry and never sit still enough to be remembered. it's too early. just stay for a moment more. one more look. i swear you haven't seen it all.
hii not sure if anyone's on this blog anymore because it's been forever since i've posted (i'm sorryyy i swear more cowboy anderperry is in the making) but i've been thinking about starting a youtube or instagram to share little videos about the books i love - would anyone be interested? <33
a small thing that is promised to calm todd down when everything gets too overwhelming is playing with or brushing his hair.
which, unfortunately, is way too intimate a thing to ask his friends for- they help as good as they can already, trying to be quieter when todd gets that very intense look, passing him food that isn't too spicy or salty, talking loudly when a teacher is looking for people to get up front to the board, so that they'll gleefully pick the loudmouth.
but this is different; involves a kind of gentleness, of vulnerability that todd can't ask for. it means baring the parts of him that are most sensitive, revealing he's a baby bird in thunderstorms, asking for whispers and warmth in a place that doesn't offer these things.
neil still finds out.
which shouldn't come as a surprise to todd - neil has a way of catching him where he's most vulnerable, closing his palms around him as if he was a ladybug in a child's hand. careful now, don't hurt it. i'll keep it safe. i'll carry it off the pavement, put it where the grass sprouts in may-coloured strands.
so neil finds out, when they're laying on todd's bed (better sun in the evening), neil reading the script of his newest play, todd just breathing, trying to match the tides of neil's heartbeat below him, trying to slow down his own. and neil isn't sure what happens, because to his mind, nothing's changed, but suddenly todd's eyes have that frozen panic in them.
neil thinks he can feel the way todd's drowning in his own thoughts, and todd's thoughts tend to be quicksand in these moments. it's desparation, in the end, that gets neil to bury his left hand in todd's hair, carefully weaving his fingers through the sandy strands. he knows it's silly, but the urge to physically wipe the thoughts off todd's head is what makes him lightly trace his nails across the other's scalp, gentle, always so gentle.
and todd melts.
his breathing slows, and suddenly he's back, and neil's heart flutters like a dragonfly drying off its wings. he can help. not much, not always, but he can try.
he soon discovers that it helps after showers, too - todd is embarrassed enough to snap at him the first time, the first time neil's heard him rashly angry, but it only takes todd a week to come back and apologise, to say neil was right, but could he not make a big deal out of it. (and neil perry, king of theatrics, doesn't)
because showers can be overwhelming in these times, when todd's mind is a bridge wobbling on brittle foundations- standing there all wet, knowing he'll need to get out the stall, and dry off, and get his clothes and put them on and they'll still stick to him a bit and his toes will stay wet because the floor is cold, and- it's too much.
but neil can brush his hair, still wet and darker than usual, and the scratch of it along his scalp grounds him, puts his thoughts on a leash. neil will hum a song, and todd will ache with the sweet cruelty of love, the stinging tenderness of vulnerability.
and when todd gets into bed in exam season, and the sheets are fluffy and full of fresh air, smelling of spring and melancholy, he breathes in deeply through his nose. and neil walks over to him for a second before going to his own bed, three extra steps that make todd close his eyes and bury his face in the pillow.
and he runs a hand through todd's hair, and it feels like warm notes on a cello. like autumn sun falling through tall tree trunks, like a mug of cocoa, like a childhood kitchen table. his fingers trace lines across todd's scalp, reminiscent of the contrails of the plane that divides the sky three years later, like neil is already dreaming of it.
todd breathes and smiles.
good night, little poet <3
(i put this on ao3 even though it's ridiculously short, so you guys know what that means- the time of poet writing dps fanfiction has started, and the next ones are gonna be way longer)
first of all, he's obviously not evil - he's a teen he was scared he's a product of his environment etc. but i feel like we've gone from "cameron is horrible and needs to die why was he even in the movie" to something akin to "cameron actually didn't do anything wrong and was constantly treated so horribly by everyone else that it's no surprise he did what he did, he is the most traumatised out of all of them"
and i think it's important to keep in mind that 1) cameron did make a grave mistake, one that none of the other boys did. he isn't evil, but the way he behaved was wrong and had extreme consequences for others, no matter the reasoning behind it 2) the forces driving you to do something don't erase what you do - many people who do horrible things were themselves treated badly beforehand, but that is not an excuse (wrote a 4 hour discussion about this case soo sorry i'm trying not to ramble here) and most importantly
3) these boys are characters, not people. i love them with all my heart and i love writing headcanons and fanfic and all that but at the end of the day, they were written with a purpose. these boys have very strong archetypes (the hero's journey for todd, the tragic character for neil, the lover for knox etc) and cameron is one of those archetypes: he can't let go of the old ways and, in the end, goes down with them. i don't think it's fair to say that the writers hated him, he just serves a role for the story as a character.
all that said: he's really fun to write, i completely understand any die-hard defenders and i write fluffy headcanons for him too!! just wanted to get this off my chest okay byeee
the nectarine is so soft it feels molten and smells like tipsy sugar.
he should have eaten it earlier, but todd supposes that's the pattern of his life, biting into every sweet thing only once it's almost died and its sugar has turned into something twisted and addictive.
he grips the knife tighter.
the flesh of the overripe fruit oozes juice and gives way under his fingertips no matter how delicately todd tries to hold it. he tries his best not to think.
the juice runs through the gaps between his fingers, perfect drops leaving an itchy trail.
todd remembers last july, neil licking his knuckles clean - you can't cut fruit for shit, todd, you're all sticky - and the way todd flushed at the heat of his tongue, gone before it was really there.
he remembers sharing apple slices in the bathtub with jeffrey as kids, bare knees bumping together.
neil is still laying on the couch when todd brings the plate over.
"come on", he says when neil shakes his head and just goes on staring at the ceiling, "you need to eat something, neil. it's almost seven."
neil shakes his head again, his eyes still with that frozen look in them.
todd's skin tingles where the juice makes it sticky.
there's a plate between them, velvety zucchini slowly growing cold and turning from creamy silk into mud.
it's terribly quiet and neil can see how much todd is trying not to pick at the skin around his nails.
"i'll need a few minutes to pack."
it would feel less cruel had todd said he needed an hour, any span of time to keep up the illusion that he had a life here.
"sure."
anything else to pack than the clothes he takes off at night and folds neatly on a chair (todd likes for things to be in order, which is why neil expected him to understand the... issue of this whole thing) and the books he reads in bed after, not turned away from neil but somehow still so distant, his mind clearly somewhere else.
that's all he did here: undress and read.
"do you have somewhere you can stay?"
todd scoffs, his eyes an electric blue, like the hottest part of a flame. "like you care."
it's a punch to the gut, because it's not that easy. it's not that easy, todd.
"you make it sound like i'm throwing you out."
"aren't you?"
"todd."
his eyes soften.
they're still somewhere in there, those two welton boys. buried deep underneath bared teeth and hickeys and horrible arguments.
"philadelphia isn't far." todd sighs, nodding just once as if to convince himself. "i'll catch the 4:15."
there's nothing for neil to say so he just nods.
"do you need help packing?"
he won't even have to wash the sheets in the guest room. todd slept on the couch.
eleven nights.
"i'm fine. you do the washing up, i'll be packed by the time you're done."
eleven nights they tried this thing again.
eleven nights they tried to convince themselves that this time it would work.
the problem with pitts is that he's so fucking tall.
he's all knees and elbows, arms dangling at his sides when they walk so that his hand inevitably knocks into meeks', he's too tall for comfortably sharing their narrow welton beds; sharing them in a friendly way that doesn't mean meeks has to press his back to the wall to put at least some space between them, pittsie unbearably close and obliviously asleep, not aware that he's crowding into him.
he's too tall because he has to lower his face a little to properly look meeks in the eye, has to dip down in a way that does look like he's leaning in for a kiss, it does, meeks is not going crazy. and all he can do is lightly shove pittsie and laugh, laugh like he isn't thinking about how his shove can only ever reach pittsie's chest instead of the neutral space of his shoulder, meeks can only ever reach where pittsie is soft and warm and open, and when their knuckles brush he has to stare at the ground.
the problem is pitts is too fucking tall.
what will your verse be? @perksofbeingpoet - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
