Chapter Text
The desk lamp hums, casting a circle of soft yellow light across Neil’s open textbook. Late autumn at Welton always means the cold creeps into the room through the window glass, but inside it’s warm, quiet, and familiar.
Neil spins a pen between his fingers, his feet propped up on the edge of the wood. Across the room, Todd is stretched out on his bed, propped up against his pillows with a heavy literature text resting on his stomach. Every few minutes, the crisp sound of a turning page breaks the stillness, followed by the faint scrape of Todd’s sock against the bedsheets as he shifts.
"If Keating asks us about the third stanza tomorrow, I'm just going to improvise," Neil says, breaking the silence without taking his eyes off his own notes. He scratches out a word and rewrites it in better handwriting. "He likes the theatrical stuff anyway. I’ll make it sound profound."
Todd doesn't look up from his book, but a tiny smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "He'll know you didn't read it."
"He won't," Neil replies instantly, leaning back in his chair until the wooden legs creak. He stretches his arms over his head, letting out a tired sigh. "Because I *did* read it. I just don't know what it means. There’s a difference."
Todd chuckles, a quiet sound that barely carries across the small space between their beds. He flips another page, his thumb tracing the corner of the paper before smoothing it down. "It means what you want it to mean. That's literally the whole point of the class, Neil."
"Right, right. Carpe diem and all that." Neil turns back to his desk, shuffling through a stack of loose-leaf paper to find his blue ink pen. The desk is a disaster—open folders, half-eaten apples from the dining hall, two different history texts open to completely different chapters, and small scraps of paper covered in scribbled lines.
He likes it like this. It feels like real work, like he's actually getting somewhere, even if his head aches from staring at tiny printed fonts for three hours straight.
Outside, the wind hits the glass with a low rattle. Neil glances over his shoulder at Todd, who has finally let his book rest against his chest, staring up at the ceiling like he's trying to process a difficult line.
"You good over there?" Neil asks, tapping the end of his pen against the blotter.
"Fine," Todd says softly, glancing over. "Just trying to remember the dates for the history quiz tomorrow."
"Don't bother. Charlie said he's going to distract him with a question about the French Revolution at the beginning of period three to buy us ten minutes."
Todd gives him a skeptical look. "That never works."
"It worked last Tuesday," Neil points out with a grin. "Granted, we only got five minutes, but five minutes is five minutes."
Neil leans back over his desk, dipping into his notes once more. The rhythm of the room settles back into place—the scratch of Neil’s pen, the rustle of Todd turning another page, and the steady, comforting hum of a quiet night in the dorm.
The room falls quiet again. For a full minute, the only sound is the steady ticking of the alarm clock on Neil’s nightstand and the soft, occasional scratch of his pen against the page. Outside, the wind gusts against the windowpane, but inside, the air feels heavy and warm with late-night focus.
Neil stretches his back, wincing slightly as a joint pops, and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.
"Hey," Todd says softly, breaking the silence as he marks his page with a scrap of paper and sets the heavy text on his nightstand. "Did Cameron say if he had the notes for chapter four? I feel like I missed half of what Nolan said yesterday."
Neil turns in his chair, resting his chin on the backrest. "Yeah, he wrote down basically every single word. He was in the hall earlier trying to study, but Charlie was driving him crazy with that kazoo."
Todd lets out a small laugh and swings his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I should probably go grab them before he goes to sleep. If I don't read them tonight, I'm going to blank tomorrow."
"Good luck getting past Charlie," Neil says, grinning as Todd stands up and reaches for his cardigan hanging on the bedpost.
As Todd pulls the sweater over his shoulders, Neil suddenly remembers something. He glances down at his own cluttered desk, searching through the messy piles of paper.
"Oh—hey, Todd, before you go. Do you have that extra copy of the poetry anthology? The one with the green cover? I think I left mine in the cave last night, and I need to double-check the line breaks for tomorrow."
Todd stops near the door, his hand resting on the brass knob. He pauses for two or three seconds, his eyes darting up toward the ceiling as he tries to recall where he tossed it earlier.
"Uh... yeah, I think so," Todd says, gesturing vaguely toward his own desk in the corner. "It should be over there. Somewhere in the middle drawer, I think. Or behind the notebooks on the top shelf."
"Middle drawer or top shelf. Got it," Neil says, already pushing his chair back.
"Don't mess up my desk," Todd adds with a tiny, half-amused shake of his head.
"When have I ever messed up your desk?" Neil counters, looking dramatically offended.
Todd gives him a dry, lingering look, his hand resting on the cool brass door handle. "Literally yesterday when you were looking for your ruler."
"That was an emergency," Neil says, waving a hand dismissively. "Go get Cameron's notes before he locks his door for the night."
"I'm going, I'm going," Todd mutters, a faint smile pulling at his mouth as he finally opens the door. "Middle drawer or top shelf. Just don't destroy anything." He steps out into the chilly hallway, and the door latches shut behind him with a quiet click.
Neil stays sitting for a second, humming to himself, before pushing back his chair and walking over to Todd’s side of the room. Todd’s desk is always unnaturally neat compared to Neil’s chaotic pile of papers and half-eaten snacks, so Neil tries to be careful as he searches.
He checks the middle drawer first. He slides it open, bumping a neat line of extra blue pens and a ruler, but there’s no green book in sight, just neatly stacked index cards and a fresh block of lined paper.
He closes the drawer softly and checks the top shelf above the desk, reaching up past a stack of heavy history textbooks, and sure enough, sitting on the top wooden ledge, wedged between a heavy Latin dictionary and a stack of clean notebook paper, is a worn book with a dark cover. Neil reaches up, pulling it down by its spine. It feels about the right size, hardcover, slightly faded, perfect for an anthology.
Before heading back to his own chair, he notices a stray folder on Todd's blotter that got pushed crooked. Knowing how meticulous Todd can be, Neil takes two seconds to line it up parallel to the desk edge and nudges a stray eraser back into its spot.
Satisfied, he walks back across the room, sinks into his wooden desk chair, and pulls the small desk lamp a little closer to cast light on the cover.
He flips the book open to the very first page, expecting to see the printed table of contents for an anthology of classic verse. Instead, he’s greeted by Todd’s distinct, small cursive writing, trailing neatly across the blue-lined paper.
He glances down at the first few lines, scanning the black ink. It looks like a short piece about winter, or maybe the way the light looks hitting the quad trees in the early morning. Neil squints, reading two or three lines down, but realizes quickly that this isn't Keating’s assigned reading material.
Wrong book, he thinks with a soft, amused exhale.
Still, instead of closing it right away, Neil’s thumb idly flips to the next page. The handwriting here is tighter, scrawled a bit faster, like Todd had been writing in a rush before bed. Neil skips another page, his eyes darting across the lines.
The handwriting on this page is a little looser, slanting slightly to the right as if written on a knee or under a blanket in the dark. Neil rests his thumb against the edge of the paper, tracing down the stanza.
It takes him three lines to realize what he’s actually looking at.
The poem isn't about nature, or Welton’s bad weather, or abstract ideas about art. It’s about someone sitting at a desk. Specifically, someone holding a pen in his left hand, bad habit of tapping his knuckles against the wood, always leaving his ties loosely knotted until the very last second before morning assembly.
Neil blinks, slowing down. He turns the page back, flipping toward the middle of the book now, his posture going completely still.
The next entry is shorter, just six or seven lines. It mentions the exact way the sunlight hits a pair of dark eyes during second period, and the quiet, almost annoying laugh that usually follows a bad joke in the hallway. There are crossed-out words everywhere: brilliant scratched out twice, replaced by careless, which is then scribbled over until the paper almost tears, replaced simply with him.
Neil’s breath hitches, but he stays perfectly calm, his brain slowly catching up with what his eyes are reading. He doesn't move away from the desk. He doesn't close the notebook. He just sits there in the warm glow of the lamp, turning another page with steady fingers.
This one is dated from three weeks ago, written late at night or in a rush judging by the shaky ink. It talks about standing in the shadow of someone who fills up an entire room without even trying. It talks about the sound of a voice carrying over the sound of the wind, and how terrifying it is to watch someone be so completely brave when all you want to do is hide.
It’s subtle, written with Todd’s usual precise restraint, but there’s no mistaking who it’s about. The details are too specific. The way Neil paces when he tries to memorize lines. The ink stains on his middle finger that never fully wash out. The sound of his boots hitting the floorboards before anyone else in the dorm is awake.
Page after page, it’s all the same voice, all directed at the same person. It’s an entire catalog of tiny, unnoticed moments from the last two months, things Neil didn't even realize Todd was paying attention to, captured in quiet, careful verse.
Neil stays completely frozen, his eyes locked onto the bottom line of the page. Ten seconds pass. Then twenty. For a full half-minute, he doesn't move a single muscle, just staring at the blue lines as the meaning of every single stanza sits heavy in his chest. A sudden, unfamiliar warmth creeps up his neck and spreads straight into his cheeks, making his skin feel strangely hot under the dim light of the desk lamp.
However, the quiet muffled footsteps echoing down the wooden floorboards outside the hallway snap him out of it instantly.
His brain kicks into high gear. Neil snaps the notebook shut, careful not to let it make a loud noise, stands up, and darts silently back across the room to Todd's desk. He carefully slides the worn hardcover back into the exact spot on the top shelf where he found it, nestled right between the Latin dictionary and the notebook paper. He even nudges the folder back into alignment just to be sure.
In three quick steps, Neil is back at his own chair, dropping down into it and grabbing the nearest open textbook. He props his chin in his hand, eyes fixed on a random paragraph about European trade routes, leaning his face slightly into his palm to hide the lingering flush on his cheeks.
About twenty seconds later, the heavy door handle turns with a familiar metallic rattle. The door swings open, and Todd steps inside, holding a few stapled sheets of paper in his hand. The cold air from the hallway trails in briefly behind him before he clicks the door shut.
Neil keeps his gaze pinned to his book, turning a page with a sharp, casual rustle like he’s been deeply engrossed in his work the entire time.
"Got them," Todd says, tossing Cameron’s neatly written notes onto his own bed. He glances over toward Neil's side of the room, noticing Neil leaning over a different text. "Did you find the anthology?"
Neil doesn't look up immediately, letting his finger trace a line on the page before finally raising his head with an easy, practiced smile.
"Oh—no, actually," Neil says, waving a hand vaguely toward his open history text. "I realized I completely forgot to review the chapter four dates for tomorrow, so I figured I’d better get through this first before I start messing around with poetry."
Todd just nods, satisfied with the answer. "Fair enough," he says, taking off his cardigan and tossing it over his chair before sitting back down on his bed to check Cameron's notes.
Neil goes back to staring blankly at the same paragraph about eighteen-century trade agreements, but the words blur together into meaningless blocks of ink.
The heat in his face refuses to settle down. Every time he tries to force his mind back to his schoolwork, his brain immediately loops back to Todd’s handwriting, the crossed-out words, and what’s tucked into those pages. He can feel his pulse tapping a fast, unsteady rhythm against his ribs.
He shifts in his chair, carefully shielding his face with one hand while pretending to rub his temple, desperately hoping the dim lighting conceals the sudden flush covering his skin. He steals a tiny, cautious glance over the top of his textbook, trying to not be seen, but Todd is completely oblivious, leaning against his pillows, tracing a line on Cameron's paper with the cap of a pen, his expression as focused as usual when studying.
Neil lets out a long, silent breath through his nose and slowly closes the history book in front of him.
He pushes his chair back with a soft scrape against the floorboards and stands up, grabbing his pajamas off the back of the bedpost. There is absolutely no way he's going to get any more studying done tonight, and he knows it. His brain is far too busy running in circles to retain a single historical fact.
He slips out to the washroom to brush his teeth and wash his face with cold water, hoping it might cool down the stubborn heat lingering in his cheeks. It barely helps. When he walks back into the bedroom, Todd is already under his covers, his lamp turned off and his face turned away toward the wall.
Neil pulls off his sweater, changes into his flannel pants and shirt, and tosses his clothes over his chair. He clicks off his own desk lamp, plunging the room into soft, dark shadows, with only the pale moonlit sky shining through the glass.
He pulls the heavy wool blanket up to his chin and stares up at the dark wooden ceiling. He lies there, completely still, listening to the quiet, steady rhythm of Todd’s breathing across the room, knowing sleep isn't coming anytime soon.