A Well-Timed Smile
Homie-G-Phones
Disclaimer : I'd love to own the Dead Poets boys. But I'm afraid I just don't.
Notes : Written for the twolines challenge. Feedback appreciated. kthx.
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and it hurts to want everything and nothing at the same time
i want what's yours and i want what's mine
- michelle branch, goodbye to you
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Before Todd Anderson had met Neil Perry, he was perfectly fine. A fine boy that knew what he wanted, knew what he couldn't have, and knew that he should just settle for what he could get.
But Neil changed his life.
And he hadn't figured out if this was a good thing or not, yet.
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It had really started when he'd first seen him. Those cheekbones. The defined jawline. The articulate nose. Every physical characteristic of this prim and proper upperclass boy read that he was just like the others.
But he had eyes, he had these eyes, Todd had decided when his met this boy, these eyes that were like nothing else he'd ever seen. Green and honey and chocolate all wrapped up together, in a color, that he found out later, would turn black when something was wrong.
But their eyes had met across a crowded room of the rich, and nothing had been the same.
Todd had never properly been attracted to anyone, and everyone had pretty much settled on the fact that he was asexual and would likely drink himself to death because of said lack of love. His parents, they told people that he was just too caught up on his performance in school.
His brother had been reading up on homosexuality, convinced that this was what the "problem" was.
And he was right in the end, Todd would come to decide.
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"I'm Neil Perry." The fabulous boy had said to him, giving him a genuine smile that brought a tiny flush to his face.
And they'd walked to their room together, Todd slightly behind him, watching the way his body moved so gracefully, and he deduced that this Neil was special.
But when he got to the room, he realized that Neil was not the only special one.
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Charlie Dalton was a punk by nature, a punk with a gentle side somewhere buried in him.
And he had eyes too, eyes full of curiosity and danger and Todd decided he liked Charlie's eyes too, and he realized that he especially liked them when they were locked with Neil's, whispering secrets from one iris to another.
And Charlie, Todd decided he wanted Charlie too, Charlie who had introduced himself with a well-timed 'I'll fuck you later' smile, Charlie and his rolled up sleeves and his smouldering eyes.
But Neil was in the way.
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And they were in love.
Neil and Charlie, that is, their secret smiles and the way they passed their cigarettes from one to the other and the way they would brush up against each other and had eyes that would meet.
But together, and with the rest of the new Dead Poets, they taught Todd what it was to really "carpe diem". Charlie showed him the feeling of smoke in his lungs, and Neil taught him what it was to fly.
But he still could have neither of them, he was still stuck without anyone or anything.
And their eyes and smiles still whispered secrets to each other.
And all he could do was sit in quiet want.
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By the time Todd had worked up his courage enough to tell Neil about his eyes and how absolutely perfect he was, it was the night of the play, the play that made Neil's eyes shimmer and made him talk in pure poetic phrases about how in love he was with acting.
He'd planned it all out, for when Neil entered the room to the moment when they would sleep, how stunning it was going to be with the snow as a backdrop and how maybe they'd get to share secret smiles too.
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They told him later that there was a note, a note on the desk, a note that said how much Neil loved him.
They let him have it, and blood dotted the I in his name.
And Todd never saw Neil's eyes again.
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When they kicked Charlie out of the school, before he left, he stopped by Todd's room and he told him everything.
About how Neil wouldn't stop talking about him.
About how Neil loved him more than he loved Charlie, but he was too scared to tell him.
About how Neil wanted to "carpe diem" and about how he wanted to fly.
And then Charlie had given him one of his well-timed smiles.
And kissed him.
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And after Charlie left, Todd adopted the well-timed smile.
He took Neil's eyes, the ones that he'd memorized every nuance of, and trained them to share secret smiles.
But he no longer had anyone to share them with.
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"Homosexuality," his brother had read, "is a mental disease that causes someone to be attracted to a person of their same gender. The only cure is to be admitted to an asylum."
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Neil had changed his life forever, and as Todd pushed the gun barrel further into his mouth, he decided this was the best thing that had ever happened to him.