I'm still trying desperately to write my dead poets society fic. I've been working at this for a while, I was stuck on some parts, I'm really happy about others. I don't know when it will finally be done bit I wanna share this last scene I've been writing (it's still unedited so beware there are probably typos) but! I would love to hear what you think of it so far. I'm looking for motivation, honestly. Here goes.
The next couple of days are a blur. On Sunday, Neil asks to go outside. Todd tries to argue- there's still heavy snow on the school grounds, Neil's coat is too thin, sky is dark and it will most probably rain again- but Neil's mind is set and he's nothing if not stubborn. Todd puts on whatever warm item of clothing he can find, which is not much. Todd has always liked winter but only because in winter it's perfectly nice and socially acceptable to stay inside. In winter there's no gym class as well, but that's only a bonus. The point is, Todd hates being outside in the cold. Neil knows this. Todd knows that Neil knows this, which makes all of it somehow worse. But Todd is a weak man, and there has not come the day when Neil will ask something of him and he'll refuse.
He grabs a beannie his brother gifted him about three Christmas ago and a scarf he's had for so long he can't remember it's origin. He also grabs a sweater and forces Neil to wear it. They pull on their coats and leave the warmth of the room behind.
Neil mostly keeps quiet. He drags him around the entire building, the entrance patio, the back garden, the stadium. Todd can't do much; he follows Neil around, stares at how ridiculously red his nose has gotten, and pray he doesn't catch a cold.
Without Todd realising, they reach the dock. Since arriving at Wellton, just a few months prior, scared and alone, the dock has always been Todd's favourite place. The view on the lake is unmatched. If he closes his eyes, if he looks at it just from the right angle, he can pretend he is floating above the water, lost between the horizon and the the slow-moving bodies of the willow trees. At first, this place was so dear to him, so precious in a school that seemed actively hostile to anything that brought Todd joy, that Todd was reluctant to share it with anyone. Even with Neil. He knew it was stupid. The docks were public, just a few minutes walk from the patio, but most of the boys were too preoccupied with football, or classes, or beating each other up.
The point was: The the dock was beautiful and Todd loved it because it was maybe the only place in this school were he could be alone.
He remembers the first time he took Neil to see the willows. It was still autumn then, the air wonderfully crisp, the leaves trailing off the trees in dancing paths and Todd was so angry in that awful, directionless way that made everything feel unbearable. He missed his home and he hated that he missed it, he loathed the math teacher, he dreaded Keating's class and the unavoidable anticipation of whatever his new idea of an impossible assignment would be.
And then Neil had said something to him and he had just- snapped.
He doesn't remember the world's exactly. Only thay Neil had said something about life needing daring, something about the loathfulness of complacency, something about those philosophical ideas he always liked to talk about, the kind that somehow always sounded like they were aimed straight at Todd.
Todd hadn't intended to sound mean. But the easiness Neil spoke about ideals and worst of all the easiness with which he embodied them were slightly too much to shallow down. "Yeah," he'd laughed, snapping the words out like they were potion. "Life would be oh, so wonderful, if all of us could just be you."
He regretted the words immediately.
It was not Neil's fault that his belief is faultless. Todd would never want Neil to lose that; the ability he had to loved the world enough to demand better from it, the way he spoke about how things should be in a way that always made them sound possible.
Todd never hated himself more then when he has the one to cause Neil to go so quiet. "I never said that I wanted you to be like me," Neil had said. He sounded defeated.
Todd had wanted to crawl into closet and hide. He'd wanted to apologise. He wanted Neil. He was still angry at everything but now he was angrier at himself for ever being angry at Neil.
So he took Neil to the dock. It was the one true gift he could offer, one he could never take back. He offered all of it to Neil and ever since the docks were never truly his again. To this day he can't know if Neil ever understood what it meant.
Now, the willow trees are a different color and the question Todd was asking Neil was asked in a different life. He walks beside him until the tips of their shoes reach the frozen water and for a moment he's scared if he turns his gaze to check Neil will have disappeared.
"It's beautiful," Neil says.
Since that day, just a short months back Neil and Todd have visited the dock a hundred times. They have rehearsed lines and stared at the lake, and talked under the trees. Todd has written poems about those visits, stolen the memories and desperately tried to store them into incomplete lines, but nothing, he knows, will ever be adequate enough to do their beaty justice.
"It's freezing, Neil," he says and he swears, he tries for it not to sound so affectionate.
Neil looks over at him and then digs his heels deeper into the snow. "You always say that. Look, the snow's already almost gone."
Todd laughs. "Yeah. You've been gone a while." The air keeps pushing the thin branches of the willows this way and then the other.
Neil stares at the lake. "I guess I have. I'm going to be a doctor."
Todd feels like he's been slapped. He knows Neil is not trying to be self-deprecating. He's only stating a fact. The reason he truly returned to Welton. "You will be great at whatever you do," he says.
Neil is beside him, rocking back and forth on his heels, his hands buried in his pockets and his gaze far, far away. "I really thought there'd be a way out. I- I'm a fucking fool, right? I knew my parents would never agree with anything less than med school. I knew my dad would never be convinced by watching me play. What point was I even trying to make? My life plan- perfected, decided most probably before I was even born and now it's like... back on track. Hooray."
Todd doesn't answer right away.
The lake is still, half-metallic. The ice has melted in places, and the water is a deep grey like it's adopted the heavy humidity of the sky. Todd doesn't know what the correct answer is.
"You were amazing in the play," he says finally. "I- I just realised I never got to say that. I wish your dad could see."
Neil shakes his head. "It doesn't matter now," he says. His mouth turns a bit upwards, but it's a small, sad thing.
"It does," Todd says. Then, quieter but firm, "It does matter matter."
Neil tries to object, but Todd cuts him off. "I was there. I saw it. Whatever happens next, whatever you end up doing- it mattered, Neil. No one can take that away."
Neil looks at him and then away. If this were the painting- the gloomy sky, the ice in the water, the picture of the school imposing on the background- it's a painting Neil would fit.
"It felt so right. Being on stage, being part of something that's- I don't know, bigger than yourself, in a way. A team." Neil's voice falters. "It was terrible. Having known it. It felt like I could never go back."
"Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter : In a sleep a king, but waking no such matter."
"Shakespeare?" Todd asks.
Neil nods. Todd's heart skips a beat. After all of it and Neil is still quoting sonnets. He hopes he never stops.
Todd thinks about this dock, this lake. How much this place has seen. How much it's kept.
He's briefly awed by the way Neil manages to find the words to describe his feelings so effortlessly. The way poetry rolls of his tongue with such unpracticed ease, the grasp his memory has on the fluidity of the verse, the ability to recall it whenever he feels he needs it.
He hopes this place can hold this moment too. He doesn't want to lose it.
