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whisper-my-serenade · 2 years

Text

prelude to a kiss

summary: years after their time at welton, neil and todd still live together and neil is just as in love as ever. maybe one of these days his resolve will finally break.

words: 3741

Winter.

Red noses, chapped lips, cracked hands. Scarves, hats, gloves, ten minutes getting ready to be outside for thirty seconds. Waking up to fresh snowfall that you know in a few hours will turn into gray slush because this is New York, what else would it do, but for now the world just looks like it’s been perfectly coated in powdered sugar. The hum of a radiator, always on. A warm mug of tea with too much honey poured in it. Late sunrises.

So late, in fact, that when Neil wakes up to find the sun casting a hazy orange glow over his bedroom, he panics for a minute.

Oh, it’s Sunday. No worries.

Not like he’d have much to do on a weekday, anyways. Done with high school, done with college, script reading for his next show doesn’t start for another two weeks. He lays in bed, staring at the ceiling, letting his thoughts drift. The bed is small, all too similar to the dorm rooms he spent too many years of his life in, but it’s softer and warmer and the sheets are bunched up from too many nights of twisting and turning. The biggest difference is that it’s the only bed in the room. Just one wall separates this room from an identical one with the same twin bed. He and Todd bought them at the same time, back when they were first furnishing the apartment and they realized that buying beds was not exactly an aspect of adulthood they’d been prepared for.

It was the third year of college and both of them agreed that they were sick of living in dorms. Todd had suggested sharing originally, dug up the place, even, but Neil was the one who made the phone call. Soon it was theirs to be filled with books and dishes and shoes and memories. Even when they both graduated and made space on a wall for their shiny new degrees, neither suggested moving out. How could they? It’s home.

Neil hears Todd stirring from somewhere in the apartment (his bedroom? The kitchen? He can’t quite tell). Todd has always been a late sleeper, but becoming a high school English teacher has forced him to change his habits. Now he stays up late, gets up early, and has a nasty caffeine addiction. Music floats in from the living room. An old Billie Holiday record, of course. It’s one Todd has played many times, so Neil mouths the lyrics to himself even though he can’t really hear them.

If you hear a song in blue

Like a flower crying for the dew

That was my heart serenading you

My prelude to a kiss

Eventually Neil forces himself out of bed, the winter air hitting him sharply as he throws off his blankets. The bedroom door opens with a creak, and there’s Todd, softly singing to himself as he stirs cream into his coffee. He’s self-conscious about his voice, and he stops singing as soon as he notices Neil poking his head out.

“Morning,” Todd says quietly, setting his coffee on the counter to grab another mug from the cupboard. Neil picks up the song. Though it's just a simple melody, with nothing fancy, nothing much, you could turn it to a symphony一a Schubert tune with a Gershwin touch.

“Did you see it snowed?” Neil asks as Todd hands him the mug. Their fingers brush for a moment, and it warms Neil more than the steaming drink in his hand.

“Yeah, traffic’s gonna be a nightmare today.”

Neil shrugs. “Good thing we don’t have anywhere to go, then.” Todd smiles softly, still mindlessly stirring his drink.

Oh! How my love song gently cries

For the tenderness within your eyes

My love is a prelude that never dies

A prelude to a kiss

✲

Neil’s shown him the scar. It worms across his shoulder and upper back, sometimes branching out like lightning. It’s an ugly, mottled thing that keeps fabric around Neil’s shoulders almost all the time. In fact, besides the doctors, Todd’s the only one who’s seen it. The others know about that night, of course, when everything Neil thought he knew about love was shot down with the crack of a pistol, but secretly he thinks his friends don’t really understand. Todd, who never really knew what love was at all, does.

Todd always says he wishes he’d been there. Neil says he shouldn’t wish for that. Todd does not need to see any more love gone sour. Later, when they’re in their own rooms and there’s nothing better to do than stare at the ceiling, Neil feels guilty for having shown him. What did he want? Sympathy? For Todd to say he loved him? Clearly neither of them know a damn thing about love, so what’s the point? But the way Todd looked at him, eyes misty but no tears slipping, and the way his fingers ran across it, gentle and reverent and unafraid…maybe people don’t need to see. Maybe they only need to understand.

✲

“You haven’t finished that thing yet?” Neil asks jokingly as he pokes his head into Todd’s room, a bowl of soup in hand. He sets the bowl on Todd’s desk, right next to his typewriter, which has been dutifully clacking all day.

Todd laughs, leaning back in his chair and cracking his knuckles. “Novels don’t happen overnight, Neil.”

Neil leans in the doorway. “Will you let me read it when it is finished?”

Todd shrugs, delicately taking the bowl of soup in his hands. “Maybe.”

“C’mon, I haven’t read a word you’ve written since high school. And don’t give me that look like you don’t think you’re any good一” Neil points an accusatory finger at him. “Because we both know that’s not true.”

Todd rolls his eyes, but a small smile lingers on his face. “You have too read some of it. And besides, the book, it’s- it’s-” Todd starts stumbling over his words. The stutter still acts up when he’s nervous, but it’s been a long time since Neil’s seen it.

“It’s fine, Todd, really,” Neil says, reaching out a hand to ruffle the other man’s hair. Todd huffs.

“It’s just一some of the stuff in there is really…personal, I guess, and I don’t want you to一”

“Judge you for it?” Neil finishes his sentence as Todd trails off. Todd nods. “Please, Todd, I know too much about you to judge you for anything. Remember that night at that bar in Queens?”

Todd groans. “I really wish you’d forget that.”

Neil laughs and taps the side of his head with a finger as he turns to leave the room. To his surprise, Todd follows him, soup in hand. “Sorry, Toddsie, it’s locked in.”

“Well, if we’re playing the blackmail game, you’re the one in danger.”

Neil’s eyes widen as Todd laughs. The two sit down at their comically small dining table in unison, feet kicking against each other on accident. Soon they’re playing footsie like they did in school, exchanging embarrassing stories and trying very hard not to spill soup everywhere. Todd laughs often, loud and unrestricted, something he only started doing in college. Neil’s eyes linger on his lips, the way they curl with a smile when he calms down, the way his tongue pokes out briefly as he structures his thoughts. Then their eyes meet, and Neil must imagine the slight blush that creeps up his face. They stop joking when the moment passes, but they stay at the table, ankles gently resting against each other.

✲

Neil’s tempted to run after that. Run like every other time his own feelings have made him dizzy and sick, shameful and exhilarated all at once. Run to a place where all this pent-up something can be released without Neil’s own head getting in the way. Not often, mind you, only on nights when Todd’s out of town and there’s something clawing at a hole deep inside his chest, begging him to set it free and try to fill that hole with the first sandy-haired man he runs into. He never gets far, either一never farther than the door to the bar. Any farther and things get too real. He likes his little worlds to be separate. The stage and his apartment. Time with his friends and time with his father. The guys in those dark little corners of the city and Todd. He always comes home shaking, throwing his blankets over his head and begging the throbbing, clawing feeling to go away. It never does. The hole, at least, is filled when Todd is there.

Todd runs sometimes too, but Neil does not know where he goes. Sometimes he thinks the other man just retreats into his own head. Neil’s been there, too.

✲

After lunch, it’s Neil’s turn to pick the music. Todd sits on the couch reading the last few pages of a book while Neil dances around, pretending to do chores. The good thing about a small apartment is it doesn’t need a lot of maintenance, but Neil needs something to do when he’s home alone all day, so he does his best to keep up its appearance anyways. Neil sings loudly despite not having the best voice, and once or twice, he catches Todd singing along in spite of himself. The two have wildly different music tastes, but neither can deny themselves a bit of rhythm and blues.

You'll never, never know I care

You'll never know the torch I bear

You'll never know it, for I won't show it

Oh, no, you'll never, never know

Neil listens to Todd hum for a minute. Ah, irony.

Todd finishes his book with a sigh and immediately begins sorting through the precariously stacked volumes on their coffee table for another one. He ends up pulling out Neil’s show script, flipping through it and occasionally stopping to read Neil’s infinite annotations.

Neil laughs when he sees him reading through it. Todd, his favorite practice partner, had been running through the thing with him for weeks since he got it. “We could work on that, if you want.” Neil’s words seem to spook Todd, who jumps a little but nods eagerly.

Orestes. Neil had been apprehensive about dipping his toes into Greek tragedy, a genre he was wholly unfamiliar with after a lifetime (for that’s what four years of university feels like when you were never living before them) of studying Shakespearean comedy. Todd once mentioned he was fond of the play. Neil pretends his off-hand comment hadn’t affected his decision to join the cast. He finds himself rather enjoying it too, though, all things considered. Maybe there’s a place in his heart for the romance of tragedy after all. Maybe there always was.

“What scene do you want to work on?” Todd asks, baby blue eyes darting between the pages.

Neil snatches the paper out of his hands, flipping around until a scene catches his eye. “This one,” he says confidently, giving Todd the script again and settling himself on the floor, preparing his mind to sink into the thoughts of someone who is not himself.

Todd finds the first line of the scene, and the show begins.

Todd’s not an actor. He wasn’t made to be, Neil can tell from the way he uncomfortably espouses thoughts that are not his own. He was made to read his own words and weave thoughts that feel small and comfortable and domestic, nothing grandiose or dramatic like Neil’s trying to make him do here. Even so, he has a cadence in his voice that plays with the words the way all the best actors do, a way that makes you wonder if there’s always something bubbling beneath the surface. Neil, going scriptless, can do nothing but watch him as Pylades’ words spill from his own mouth. Not terribly out of character, actually.

"So what should I do?" Todd reads carefully, a more delicate version of Orestes’ uncertainty hanging in his voice.

"Any chance of staying safe here?" Neil asks in response, head craning slightly to ease his friend’s nerves.

Todd’s voice is small, quiet, afraid. A little too familiar. “No, none.”

Neil poses a question again, in the gentle yet serious way he responds to most of Todd’s mindless worries. "And if you flee?"

Todd surprises him here. He looks up for a moment, the closest thing to a sly grin Neil has ever seen spreading on his face. "Maybe, with luck."

Neil realizes what he’s getting at. This was, after all, not the home they started in. He meets Todd’s smile. "Well, it's better than staying." So much better than staying.

The moment passes, the scene continues as normal, but Neil seems to find Todd’s eyes wandering up to meet his more and more.

✲

"I must go. Unmanly to die here." Todd says in a somewhat bored drawl, as if simple matters like life and death don’t seem to hold as much weight as they used to.

Neil一Pylades一agrees, they discuss Orestes’ sister, then something new emerges.

“These ghastly goddesses—they'll send my wits astray.”

Todd’s voice breaks on accident, and Neil raises his head to shoot him a joking smile. He knows the next lines, he picked the scene because of it. Because he’d seen this story play out in real life, with the same man, in the same sort of winter where everything seems to begin and end at once.

"I'll take care of you," Neil says gently.

Todd reads from the script. "It's rotten work."

A teasing no plays in Neil’s head. “Not to me. Not if it's you."

Todd looks up now, and does not look away. There is careful determination on his face. Hope. "Beware the contagion of madness."

“Come now."

Todd gives him the smallest. fondest smile, and Neil’s heart flips in his chest. “You won't shrink back?" he asks, almost teasing. And then they’re seventeen again, running around their crowded little dorm room with stars in their eyes and hundreds of millions of words waiting to spill from their tongues. Todd’s eyes are the blue of a winter sky and yet in the center as dark as a pitch-covered night. There is no night that changes everything. There are a thousand little moments of something that coalesce and bang! a bigger, more meaningful something into existence. Todd is something, so powerful a something that Neil feels like he’s already gone mad with it. Something that gives him everything while knowing Neil’s willing to give everything back. That has seen his darkest moments and has chosen to fight for him anyways. Seventeen or fourty or a hundred and six, Todd will be the same open-sky home for Neil that he always was. Neil’s so taken by the sweeping feeling of love in his chest that he fumbles for the words.

“Sorry, um一could you say that line again?” he stutters out.

Todd cocks his head slightly with a smirk on his face, sending shivers down Neil’s spine. “You won't shrink back?” he asks again, voice low and leaning forwards slightly.

“I’m in love with you,” Neil suddenly blurts out.

Todd freezes and squints down at the script. “That’s not the line一”

“But it’s true,” Neil says before he can stop himself.

Todd slowly raises his head, eyes wide, and Neil feels the weight of the world fall on top of him. “Neil, I一”

Neil cuts him off, quickly standing and making to leave. He mutters a quick, “sorry,” before slamming the door in Todd’s face and rushing down the stairs as quickly as he can. His breath feels heavy in his chest, every moment with Todd from their years together flashing in and out of his brain. He barely registers the sharply cold air hitting his face as he opens the door of the building, stepping only a few feet out on the sidewalk before he freezes, unsure of where to go. Light, fluffy snowflakes fall on his eyelashes, clouding his vision, making him feel like a little figurine trapped in a snowglobe. The scar across his shoulders feels like ants crawling up his back. What the hell have I just done? And where could he go? Somewhere where he won't have to explain, where Todd can’t find him, where he won’t have the chance to ruin anything else. That place doesn't exist. The shadows of his mistakes are everywhere.

“Neil!” A voice calls from behind him, and he resists the urge to just take off. “Neil, get inside, please, it’s freezing out here.”

Todd steps in front of him, coat loosely thrown around his frame, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m sorry Todd, just please一don’t. Don’t,” Neil mutters, not able to look at him for more than a second.

“Don’t what?” Todd frowns, an ugly look on a pretty face. “You didn’t even let me finish.”

“I’m sorry,” Neil says again, staring at his feet. God, it is freezing out here, isn’t it?

“It’s fine, Neil, really,” Todd says in a small voice.

Neil shakes his head, voice crackling with the start of tears. “No, it’s not. I had no right to一and you don’t一”

He’s caught off guard when Todd reaches out and takes one of Neil’s hands in his own, both so cold that Neil can only feel the ghost of touch. “You didn’t hear me out. Just come back inside. Please.”

Todd almost sounds like he’s begging, and when Neil finally looks at him, the misty haze in his eyes nearly splits Neil’s heart in half. Todd turns to re-enter the building, still gripping Neil’s hand, and Neil allows himself to be led back up the stairs like a toddler. Todd looks back occasionally, as if to reassure himself that Neil is still there. But God, how could he go? The twisted, sick feeling in his gut morphs into something like anticipation as his eyes follow the head of soft, dirty-blonde hair in front of him. There’s nothing else in the world to look at.

Todd lets go of his hand to open the door, and walks into the apartment with Neil trailing closely behind him. As soon as the door is shut, Todd wheels around and hesitates for a moment before placing a hand on Neil’s neck and kissing him deeply. Neil’s eyes widen for a second before he shuts them tightly and kisses back. What started slow becomes fervent as the cold drains from all the places their bodies press together.

It only lasts a few seconds before Todd releases slightly, a shaky breath falling between his parted lips. The hand that had been caressing his neck stretches up to cradle his jaw, fingers biting and burning all at once. Neil opens his eyes slowly, helplessly leaning into Todd’s touch.

“Were you scared to say that?” Todd whispers, thumb caressing Neil’s cheek.

Neil lets out a nervous laugh. “Yes. Incredibly.”

Todd gives a miniscule smile, eyes darting to the floor as a blush creeps up his face. “As if I haven’t been in love with you since I was seventeen.”

Neil feels the wind knocked out of him, quickly raising a hand to rest on the one Todd keeps on his face. “Todd-”

Todd cuts him off. “If you want it, just say it. Say it, please.” His voice breaks slightly, and he squeezes his eyes shut, as if fearing an impact.

“I want you. I think I always have.”

Neil barely gets the words out before Todd kisses him again, gentler this time, his hand floating into Neil’s hair as Neil grasps at his shirt collar. Neil shivers as Todd’s other hand grasps to intertwine itself with Neil’s fingers. Neil raises his free hand to graze Todd’s jaw, short stubble poking the dry pads of his fingers. Todd’s breath hitches and they both freeze.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Neil asks quietly, with Todd’s hands suspended on either side of his neck.

“Jesus, Neil, yes,” he says in a pitched breath, not so much a moan as a release.

Neil presses their foreheads together as Todd’s hands slowly work their way down his chest until they rest at his hips. Neil takes a moment to breathe before kissing him again, reveling in the feeling of Todd’s hands tightening their grip on his sides. They slowly wander away from the door, legs tangling as they nearly avoid tripping over the furniture and all the little things in the apartment that make it home. The place had always seemed so small, but now it seems to take years to cross the cold floor until finally, Neil is pulling Todd into his bedroom and those delicate hands are pulling off his shirt and Todd is muttering that he loves him in between heated kisses and winter seems the warmest season of all.

✲

The next morning, Todd wakes him by gently caressing his face. Neil opens his eyes to see Todd laid next to him in his much-too-small bed, already dressed in a button-down and tie and hair only half-dry. Neil can’t help but smile at the sight of him as the memories come rushing in.

“I have to go to work,” Todd says in little more than a whisper, thumb still gently grazing his cheekbone. “But if you get up in the next few minutes we can have breakfast.”

Neil smiles wider, sighing and rolling over slightly. “I’ll be up, I promise. Just give me a minute.”

“‘Course.” Todd seems like he’s hesitating, so Neil takes the lead and leans forward to gently kiss Todd’s cheek. Todd quickly turns his head so their lips meet in a single breath. Neil knows they don’t have time, that he should be letting Todd get up and go to work, but he finds that all he can think about is the feeling of waking up with Todd next to him. It’s Todd that breaks him out of it by forcing him to his feet after too short a time.

Neil picks the music while Todd makes eggs. Ella Fitzgerald. One of their shared favorites. They eat standing up, sides pressed together, both occasionally humming along.

When you're in my arms

And I feel you so close to me

All my wildest dreams come true

I need no soft light to enchant me

If you'll only grant me

The right to hold you ever-so-tight

And to feel in the night

The nearness of you

(I'll get back to writing more soon I promise. oh, and shout out to @saturnewaves for beta reading this!! you're an absolute darling <3)

#dead poets society #dps #anderperry #todd anderson #neil perry #dps fanfiction #fanfiction #dps fandom #based on a billie holiday song #billie holiday my beloved #still think its kind of a mess but eh

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