His brown eyes ( short anderperry fic)
Todd had always thought that Neil and him should have switched eye colors.
It was a quiet thought, one of those strange, lingering notions that settled in his mind without ever fully forming into words. Neil’s eyes, deep and warm, should have been blue—wild like the tides, constantly moving, reaching for the sky with an uncontainable energy. And Todd’s, pale and uncertain, should have been brown—steady like the shore, quiet, observing, never demanding anything from the world.
He never told Neil this. Never told him how unfair it was that the universe had gotten it wrong. How blue suited Neil’s spirit better, how brown would have fit the quiet steadiness Todd had always tried to maintain. It was just a thought, one of many, lost in the unspoken spaces between them.
Then Neil died.
And everything was wrong.
Todd stood in the snow, his whole body trembling, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. He felt like he was being pulled apart, like the world had shattered, and the pieces had lodged themselves inside his chest. The sky stretched endlessly above him, and for the first time, he understood.
His eyes weren’t meant to be brown. They were meant to be blue—wild tides ruled by the moon, untamed, restless in the night, reaching up, always reaching, always searching for something that was no longer there. And Neil’s? Neil’s were brown, like the shore, finally still, finally quiet, watching over the tide as it raged and crashed and broke itself against the world.
The universe hadn’t gotten it wrong.
It had just known something Todd hadn’t.
But now he knew and so he sat by the shore to breathe in his brown eyes