Twelve Drabbles
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Fandom: dead poet's society
Pairing: mostly Todd/Neil, one w/ implied Neil/Charlie
Author: tenshinanashi
Rating: g-R or k+-m
Warning: slashy, mentions of death, swearing, nondescipt sex.
AN: unbetaed, commment if wording or grammer is off.
Summary: Twelve short-ish drabbles.

Drabble #1: Who
Who really, truly killed Neil Perry? Can a single person possibly bear the weight of a death? These questions constantly plague my mind, they have haunted me ever since people started to play the blame game. You know, the type of game where there are no winners and everyone ends up a loser.

I could easily blame Mr. Perry. It would be so very easy to say that he killed Neil, he didn't even have to pull the trigger, because he was the one plotting to destroy Neil's life and replace it with everything Neil didn't want. Mr. Perry was the one who was supposed to be Neil's father, supposed to support Neil, not try to life vicariously through his son. All of this and more could have me blaming Mr. Perry for his son's suicide, but that would be far too easy a road to walk.

I could always take Welton's stand and blame the man who dared to teach Neil to dream. I could blame Keating for teaching his students how to live life to the fullest extent. Neil would never have killed himself if he hadn't known that his life wasn't what he wished it to be. This was a good enough reason for the academy to lay the blame on Keating, but making the captain a scapegoat would be a fairly ignorant thing to do.

Blame could easily be put on Neil's friends or society itself, but who do I hold responsible for the death of Neil Perry? Who when so many could hold the blame… I choose to blame the one who pulled the trigger, the one who took his life. I blame myself…even in death.

Drabble #2: Reason
Most people liked Neil, loved him even, and he was a popular boy for all his peculiarities. Many of his peers envied him for his personality. He was a shining sun among stars, so bright that he lit up the world, and the only ones who couldn't see it were his parents.

Pitts liked Neil for the way that Neil never laughed at the awkwardness that the long limbed boy had even at a young age. Pitts loved Neil for gently rebuking those who maliciously made fun of his last name. Gerald Pitts was an easy guy to please.

At first Meeks was annoyed to find that Saint Neil was also good at school work. He just couldn't see how Neil Perry could manage perfect grades while baking cookies to get money for the less fortunate. Eventually, jealousy gave way to kinder emotions, and those same annoyances became the very reasons why Meeks grew to love Neil.

Cameron generally liked Neil, mostly because the other boy was an A student, however there was a big difference between getting good grades and being a brown nosing little shit. That difference is why Cameron never loved Neil Perry in any capacity.

There was a time when Knox was "in love" with a girl named Rose. Neil convinced him to talk to the girl before declaring undying love (as Knox had originally planned). Neil's advice won Rose over, and Knox liked Neil for giving him such great advice. When Rose broke up with him, Neil cheered him up, and Knox loved Neil for making him smile when he felt like crying.

The hell raiser known as Charlie Dalton loved Neil for the boy's confidence and guts. Charlie may have seemed like the leader of their little group but Neil was the heart, and Charlie loved Neil for it.

Todd Anderson loved Neil for being who Neil was…for shining light into the dismal place where Todd hid from the world. Everything Neil did, Todd admired, because it was everything that Todd desired.

Mr. and Mrs. Perry loved Neil mostly because he was their son. Mr. Perry loved Neil because he thought he could live through him. Slightly shallow love, but love just the same.

Mr. Keating loved all his students, Neil included, or rather...the new dead poet's especially. Neil reminded him of himself when he was younger, perhaps that was why Neil was one of his 'secret' favorites.

If Neil was so loved by everyone, then why is he gone? If so many loved him, if he had everything to lose, what could he gain from death that he couldn't in life? Perhaps that's the problem, he didn't seek to gain but to lose…to be rid of St. Neil: beloved son, friend, student, to give up his façade and be imperfect. Valid ideas, all of them, but I think he left for simpler reasons.

I think he left because no one ever told him that they loved him or explained why. If he didn't know that people loved him, he wouldn't feel like he was leaving so much behind, and he may have just thought that no one would mind if he freed himself from the cage that held him trapped.

If they loved him, they shouldn't want him to suffer behind bars so that they could selfishly keep him a moment longer. If they loved him, they would let him fly free.

Drabble #3: Knowing
It wasn't that he wanted to forget. It was that he just didn't want to remember until he was dead as well. Remembering would lead to pain that he couldn't emotionally handle right now. Death was a new thing to him, not in concept, but he had never had someone close to him die. In fact, he'd never had anyone so close to him before, not like the boy who had become his best friend…not like Neil.

He wanted to move on without forgetting, but that just never seemed plausible. Just yesterday, he had been asked about the society he had been in, and he had pulled a blank for the first time in weeks. Now it was cemented in his mind that he was losing himself, losing Todd, to whatever ignorance was helping him to survive day to day.

"Todd!"

"Are…Are you talking to me?"

"Yeah, who else?"

Silence.

"Uh…you coming to meeting tonight?" Pause. "I know you said it wasn't the same without Neil, but the Dead Poet's must live on."

"Neil…Neil…Neil Perry? The one who killed himself?"

The other boy stared at him in disbelief, "Yeah."

"Hm…I don't believe I ever had the pleasure of knowing him." And this was a lie, yet the truth in his shattered mind.

Drabble #4: Worry
Todd wouldn't leave their room , he claimed he just needed some time to himself, but one time…I caught him sleeping in His clothes. Todd said that all of his own were being washed but I didn't really buy it. Still don't, if anyone cares to know. I mean, I used to sleep in my dad's clothing when he went away on another one of his trips, because the clothes smelt of him. I bet that the clothing Todd donned smelt of Neil.

I just wonder about Todd's emotions, I've seen him sleeping in Neil's bed too, and often question if that could be paralleled to me sleeping in my dad's bed. I used to do that when I was trying not to break down and cry. Does he feel like I did back then? Does it torture him and save him at the same time?

I worry when Todd finally emerges from the room and is completely changed. He is far more outgoing now, I should be happy for him, but I can't help but feel that he has killed who he was and become what he lost. I worry about him, because I tried that once…it didn't work out too well.

"Hey, Todd."

"Yeah?"

"You okay?"

Todd smiles charmingly, "Yeah. Why?"

"No reason. Just…no reason."

"Okay, Charlie…see you later."

I shake my head thinking, 'No, you won't.'

Drabble #5: Coping
Some people deal with the loss of a loved one by forgetting, others by remembering, but I don't deal with it at all. It's not that I don't want to stop hurting, it's just that he haunts me whether I want him to or not. My coping mechanism must be broken, because I can't seem to get over it.

I tried to slice through my pain, cut my love for him out of my body, tried to pour crimson love until there was no more left, but that didn't work or satisfy me in any way. I couldn't bleed him from me, or join him in death. All I could do was wail and cry and scream.

I wrote millions of tear stained poems, cried endless tears, but none of it helped me one bit. I just couldn't remember him without the pain. I loved him, but I can't think of him without thinking of his death. So I slept in his bed to punish myself, and spent the whole night weeping.

Now, I've given up trying to cope, I just walk through the halls like a ghost. I'm thin, pale, teary eyed, and tend to ignore those around me. I drift from class to class and feel nothing but dull, numb pain. I'm empty without him, I've lost myself somewhere along the way, and I know I'll never find myself without him there to guide me.

Sometimes at night I catch myself stalking through the halls and classrooms for things he once touched or owned. A book goes missing, a piece of chewed gum, a desktop is painstakingly unscrewed and pulled from its place in the classroom, and all the while my soul is crying. And all the while my soul is dying.

Drabble #6: Undetermined
I used to lie awake at night and watch him sleep. He looked so much like a fallen angel with his relaxed face and gentle breathing. Sometimes his dark hair would resemble a halo and I would desire the feel of it underneath my striving fingers. He was so beautiful when he slept.

I would often sit up in the dead of night and write poetry based solely on him. He was a positively addictive person to be around, everyone wanted to be his best friend, but I was the one he chose. Funny that he would choose the shy introvert, the one who needed someone like him the most.

When he showed an interest in me, I deemed it to be a polite, casual interest, and thought it would fade as soon as he got to know the real me. I have long been the one ignored, Jeffrey's kid brother, and never any one special. Why should I have expected something so different from the great Neil Perry?

He had loads of friends who were far more open and talkative then me. I could never be more rebellious then Charlie, taller then Pitts, smarter then Meeks, more romantic then Knox, or more…brown nosing then Cameron. Why should he ever notice me? I was a weed among flowers.

I suppose Neil is just the type of guy who cares about everyone and everything. I once saw him watering the weeds. He probably is in some kind of loser out reach program requiring him to be nice to those like myself, or so the cynic in me says. The optimistic part of me says that Neil's way too nice to do that, to trustworthy to lie and lead me astray, and I would tend to believe that Neil is too good to do anything bad.

I don't quite know what draws me to him like a moth to a flame. His passion for life and beauty are admirable, I like his expressive eyes, but it is the bravery in his soul that calls out to me. He challenges me to live, it's like I could say anything and he would be okay with it, and his amused laughter would light up the room. His compassion can heal souls, fix broken wings, and save lives.

When he catches my eye in the showers, he smiles at me to let me know I'm not in any way inferior to the other boys, because he knows what I'm feeling. He knows my fears, comforts me, and helps me to conquer them. He knows my truths, the ones that never quite cover my feet, but he does not recoil from me.

I don't know why he is so nice to me. Sometimes his caring is smothering to me because no one ever has cared so much before. To my parents I am a mistake, one they cannot fix, and so they tend to ignore me. To anyone who has ever met my brother, I can never amount to what Jeffrey has. To the boys in the society, I am a shy friend who they tolerate for Neil. What am I to Neil?

I speculate late at night that I am his pet project, his best friend, his humble slave. If I am any of that, then it is my own doing. He loves me for me, and I can't lose that.

Drabble #7: Future
My parents have always been distant, too wrapped up in my older brother's life to care about what goes on in mine, and I suppose it has always been that way. Jeffrey was their first born, a son just like they had wanted, I was more of an after thought…if even that.

For the longest time, I was certain that they loved me...that my parents were just busy trying to help my brother succeed in his life. It was Jeffrey who burst my bubble; he explained that I was supposed to be a girl child, a Gwendolyn, and now they didn't know what to do with a second son. He told me that father even asked that the nurse check again when she told them that I was a beautiful, healthy baby boy.

I was hurt by my brother's harsh truth, but it explained all the girl oriented classes they had put me in as a child. They must have preordered the classes before I was born, ordered them for their daughter, and not been able to back out when I had turned out to be male. I remember being forced to learn how to cook and use proper table manners.

Now that the classes they preordered are done, they want me to attend the same school my brother attended, like they want me to follow in his footsteps or something. Instead of going to girly Balincrest, a coed school, they want me to attend Welton…a boy's academy.

The only problem with making me follow in my brother's footsteps is that I will always be an echo, and like a real echo…I will never be as good as the original. I will always be a sad copy of Jeffrey.

Drabble #8: Matters
He was like salt being poured into my open wounds, he tore me apart painfully, and then healed me again. He fixed parts of me that I hadn't realized were broken. He some how found a way to save me from myself. It didn't matter how much I wailed or resisted; he wouldn't let me free until I was whole again.

He was like the wind blowing through my hair, soft and gentle, or harsh and fast. His touch could be as the cool breeze that leaves me lonely, or as hot as the air that leaves me gasping, too dry to ever satisfy. He was almost intangible, untouchable, and yet…he could surround me in him.

He was my best friend, closest friend, like no other before him. I could say just about anything to him and he wouldn't rebuke me. He scolded me for my actions, not my thoughts and feelings. He was in awe of my words, the ones I can't speak, and sometimes he even helps me to say the things I want to. He tears them from my lips with his own.

Yet now…he's dead, cold and still in the ground. Food for worms, no longer alive to help me, to guide me. He is uncaring, perfect, and dead. He lies in the cemetery with flowers and grass at an age where people his age should not. What he was to me, what he meant to me are all that remain of him…all that matters.

Drabble #9: Heart
The first time I ever laid my eyes upon Neil Perry was during a nervous glance away from the ceremony I was supposed to be watching. My eyes scanned the many faces in the room, somehow landing upon him, and he was looking right back at me. His eyes were like windows into his very soul, in that one clash of gazes, I knew him and he saw me.

The first time I ever was touched by him it was a friendly, casual gesture. A touch that he initiated, because he was the type who gave touches out like raindrops during a storm. An affectionate boy, a lover of life, so I didn't think that much of the touch…he was like that with everyone. That was just who he was.

The second time I ever laid my eyes upon Neil Perry was the last time, because he was from that moment on…my best friend. The boy whom I would forever look upon with rose colored glasses, never able to see his faults, because Neil was the god of my idolatry.

The second time I was ever touched by him it wasn't even a physical touch. His caring and friendship got closer, deeper into me then any other touch ever could. The only touch that could have been more intimate would have to be that of a lover, and I had none nor did I want one.

The last time I ever laid my eyes upon or was ever touched by Neil Perry was at his funeral. I gazed down at him, crying, and caressed his pale face. He was still me best friend, still perfect, but now so cold. This sleep of death would be his forever, but he lived on in my heart that loved him so dearly.

Drabble #10: Write
They had to physically force me to let go of his body. It took Charlie, Pitts, and Knox to finally force me to release Neil from my grip. I hadn't wanted them to put him into the cold, dark ground, because I was worried that he would be afraid down there.

It sounds silly to me now, but at the time…I wasn't thinking too clearly. I just wanted to make sure that Neil would be comfortable…they made me leave before I could.

Later, when I had calmed myself down, they asked me why I had such a hard time letting Neil go. I gave them a well practiced answer, an untrue answer involving symbolism and pain, a lie that Neil would have been able to see through in a heartbeat, but they weren't Neil…he was dead.

They talk about me when they think I won't notice, too quietly for my ears to hear, but I know what they say. They wonder why I can't bring myself to write the beautiful poetry I once could, why I can't being myself to write at all. Neil would know it was because my inspiration, my reason for writing…was dead. Neil killed my reason, Neil was my reason.

Drabble #11: Rumors
Never having questioned anything you told me, I was shocked to hear the soft whispered rumors following your arrival at Welton, fellow students spoke of you as a deviant and troubled youth. I didn't quite know what to believe.

I remember the exact words that I took for truth, "my brother went here." So fast a reply that it seemed almost nervous, but you were new and I ignored it. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the way you said it. Knowing you much better now, I know that you lied.

I don't know why you left your old school, but unlike the rest of the vultures here at Hellton…I won't pry. I mean, the stories I hear are crazy, I can't see you doing most of it.

So being your friend and roommate, I tell the gossiping people to take a hike. They now whisper about me too. Not that I care what they say or think, because I think they are stupid to be talking about you…us in such a way.

I just can't see how they could think what they do about you. I can't even fathom shy Todd Anderson being a…deviant. It would be too easy to label you if I didn't know you, but I do know you, and I don't think you're what they say you are. Even if they say that it's always the quiet ones.

When I say deviant, that's their word for it, not mine. Being a dead poet makes me understand that anything different if labeled 'deviant' by the herd of mindless followers. Conformity is their dream, making anyone who differs from that a deviance.

In terms of what exact type of deviance they have accused you of…well, that too belongs in our carpe diem realm. Freedom is in our deviances, and I suppose that any facet that you may or may not be a part of is okay by me. I will love you all the same. I don't care about your differences.

So that's that, I'm decided. I don't care whether or not you kissed a boy at Balincrest. That no longer worries me.

"Todd."

"Yeah?"

I look at you with a smile, "You know I love you no matter what, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Good."

I smile a small satisfied smile because you understand. I'm not upset with you because you may have kissed a boy and lied to me about it when we first met. I wouldn't tell the people at my new school about something like that either. No, I'm not upset about you kissing a boy, I'm upset because it wasn't me.

Drabble #12: Sorry
You have been one of my best friends since forever, or so it seems. We go to school together, live near one another, and have always loved one another. That is the way it has always been, but then all things change eventually…I just didn't want it to change in the way it did.

I met someone earlier, someone new, someone who I really wanted. I could drown in his eyes, his body, in him. I know that you could see it in my eyes when I introduced him to you, you would have to be blind to miss it, and I know that's why you acted the way you did with him. You wanted both of us to know that you saw the raw potential for something and didn't like it.

He had such a beautiful soul and such a nice body, skin that looked edible, lips I longed to taste, and eyes that set my nerve endings on fire. I know I should have reassured you of our love, but my thoughts of him blinded me to your pain and uncertainty.

Our heated nights stopped being able to satisfy and I found myself fantasizing of a different bedmate. I no longer enjoyed what we did together, not the way I used to, because your gentle love making wasn't what I imagined it with him. He was soft, pliable, and I just knew I would have to be rough with him.

So when he and I were studying on my bed, our bed, and he leaned forward to point something out…I pounced. You weren't there and he was, I hadn't been with you in weeks, and he was soft and pliable just like I had imagined him to be.

Our kissed were like snowflakes, unique, I will admit. His were like strawberries and cream, and I couldn't help but plunder his sweet mouth. His hands ran through my hair, his touch was like wildfires burning through me, and it was hot and intense. Clothes were discarded along the way. Then it was, and he was, and oh god, so good. Wild, passionate, not like what we did together. This wasn't our gentle lovemaking, this was raw, animalistic, and uncontrollable.

You are either wondering why I did it, or better yet…why he laid there and let me. For my part, I loved…lusted for him, and just didn't love you enough not to. I can't truly say why he let me, but sometimes I still feel his eyes on me and it's almost like he's daring me to do it again. His eyes egg me on, lust for me, and damn if mine don't answer back.

I am sorry that you had to find out like this, I'm sorry I couldn't say this in person. I am so very sorry that I did this to you. I'm even more sorry that you'll have to deal with this on top of my death. I apologize from the depths of my soul that I still want to find Todd and keep him thoroughly debauched in my bed (our bed) forever.

I'm sorry I didn't love you enough Nuwanda,
Neil

AN: I wrote these a long time ago, but just decided to put them up. So they may seem like I was on some good crack or something...