Hello to all the little gay people in my phone!! I wanted to share some more anderperry writing i’ve been working on while procrastinating my school work, it’s rough and not proof-read so apologies in advanced if the flow and grammar are a little off. This one is meant to be an au in which Neil attempted to commit suicide, but his father found him right before he had the chance to go through with it. He still got sent to military school and is now a doctor, meanwhile Todd went on to pursue witting, but they’ve crossed paths again roughly a decade in the future. I sort of tried to write it to be a switch of their roles, in which Todd is now confident and mouthy and Neil is more repressed and hesitant. Hope you guys enjoy!!
“Divorced?” Todd gaped, sitting up a little straighter, and Neil had half the mind to take at least a modicum of offence to Todd's utter shock at the mere prospect of him even being married in the first place.
“Twice?!” Todd echoed, drawing forward, brows arched in utter disbelief, but now he was smiling. Todd’s impish gaze bored into him, searching. It lingered a few moments too many before he finally sat back again, the movement slow and deliberate as his back hit the couch cushions with a soft thud. “Boy, you’re a real heart breaker.”
Neil sputtered, it was something between a cough and a chuckle, tugging at his collar as he shook his head. “No, it’s nothing like that.” He hesitated, unsure of what to say next, because he knew how it looked, the absurdity of it all. Truthfully, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t quite sure what had compelled him to partake in the inevitable trainwreck that would be both his marriages, but admitting that would mean confronting a deeper, uglier part of himself he wasn’t so sure he was equipped to face. So instead, Neil turned his gaze to the window, feigning thoughtful sincerity, gesturing vaguely when he spoke, as if he were bearing a vulnerable, philosophical truth about himself, as if it meant anything at all. “I was…trying to make sense of it all, I guess. Trying to live a semblance of a normal life, sticking my nose in places where I knew it didn’t belong…”
Neil stilled for a moment, glancing warily at Todd, who had remained unostentatious against the worn upholstery. Although they’d only been reacquainted for all of two days, Neil was quickly coming to find just how inescapable Todd’s prying eyes could be. Hiding from Todd seemed to be an entirely impossible task, and Neil hated the way Todd looked at him, as if he were attempting to reach into Neil’s mind and pluck and prod at all the very worst parts of himself. It was torturous, a profoundly unsettling moment of introspection that Neil wasn’t ready to acknowledge. There’s something agonisingly uncomfortable about seeing one’s self through another’s eyes, splayed out bare and at the mercy of the sum of all of one’s own parts. Neil all but squirmed against the armchair Todd’s relentless gaze had him pinned to–the silence was loud, sickeningly so, and Neil found himself desperate to fill it, desperate to distract Todd from the pathetic spectacle he was making of himself.
Neil swallowed, it was thick and sickly and it primed his throat for something truly pitiful to slip out through parted lips. “I still talk to them.” he croaked, silently kicking himself as he watched Todd’s expression morph into something between that of bemusement and sympathy.
“Jesus, Neil.” The name dripped from Todd’s lips like honey, in bitter contrast to his mirthless laugh. Neil shivered, finding himself eagerly desperate to lap it up. “When did you become such a pushover?” And suddenly it was Todd, Todd, who reveled in the quieter moments, that was the one desperately wishing to fill the silence.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that–“
“And when did you become so brash?” Neil was smiling.
