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It's the middle of the night and he's crying again. Neil has headphones on and music on shuffle, trying to calm himself down. The thoughts are bad tonight.
There's a ringing silence in his head as the song playing fades out, until a new one starts. Neil's heart clenches, a feeling of familiar familiar familiar as he turns on his phone and looks down. Local Boy In The Photograph by Stereophonics. His hands are shaking violently as he turns up the volume. He remembers this song.
He found the song at nearly three am, on a night he had spent spiralling. He had searched up a plethora of tags on Archive Of Our Own, knowing it would trigger him horribly and not giving two shits. A voice in his head, one that sounded like a mutant version of every member of the Babysit Neil So He Doesn't Accidentally Destroy Himself club, was telling him that reading characters killing themselves would make him feel worse, but Neil was certain it was the one thing that could stop him from doing something even dumber.
He was finishing some Spring Awakening story, one where Moritz stood on a rooftop in the middle of a blizzard and slowly stepped forward, and the author's note said to listen to the song the fic was named after. Neil queued the song up, letting the signature sound of haunting guitar and slightly straining voices sweep him into a different frame of mind.
Now, it's almost two years later, and he's in a bad place again, and he hasn't heard this song in ages, and FUCK. He remembers that story, remembers the detail put into it, remembers wincing at the final lines (he was looking for this, he wanted to read something like this, he read the tags), remembers the growing feeling of numbness that came to a discordant crescendo that slowly grazed his mind like the hand of a mother cupping her child's cheek, the mental tear down that started as he listened to the song.
The song's ended, Neil realizes, but he's not ready for that yet, so he starts over. It's snowing outside, just like it was in that story, and it's so cold that when Neil breathes he can see the air reflecting it. It's terrifying, absolutely paralyzing, because he's been dreaming of resting since he was just a little kid (he was in seventh grade, fuck, he was in middle school the first time he really wanted to die, and he had been all alone) and he's almost gotten it too (Charlie screaming that he couldn't keep mutilating himself, Todd begging him to eat something, telling him he didn't have to keep punishing himself, because there was nothing to punish, Meeks and Pitts and Knox and Cameron eyeing him whenever something went wrong) but despite all that, despite all of it, he was still alive, and the proof was right there in front of his eyes, right there in the frigid breath he just let out.
It was cold, in that story, when his favorite character died, and it's cold now, but Neil's watching his breathing fill the atmosphere, listening to the lyrics leaking through his headphones, and it's not fair, he realizes, any of it. It's not fair that these people died, and it's not fair that he's jealous. That's when the thought appears; he's not jealous, he doesn't want to die, not really. It's a scary, foreign thought, a statement he'd never even considered. Neil Perry Doesn't Want To Die. It's not right. It's just not right.
And Neil can feel himself start crying, turning the music up as loud as it will go, but it doesn't drown out the profound realization that Neil Perry, NEIL PERRY, doesn't want to die, and maybe he never has. Maybe he just wants to live a different life. Maybe he just wants to escape his problems. Maybe he just wanted to fall asleep with someone who cares and not feel like a burden the next morning.
The song is playing for the third time, and Neil's laughing. It's a wet laugh, the kind of laugh that borders on crying, but he can't stop, and he's smiling, because holy shit. He doesn't want to die.
Todd shifts in the bed beside him, and Neil tries to quiet down but he can't, so he grabs a coat and walks outside. He starts walking through the field that he knows well, he's rehearsed lines here, he's told jokes here, he discovered the Dead Poets Society here. It's snowing, coming down hard.
Neil sticks his tongue out, catching snowflakes, laughing like a little kid. He sticks his arms out next, spinning around in circles as faster and faster. He falls to the ground, body soaked in snow, but he can't stop giggling and snorting and cheering. He doesn't care if he wakes up the whole school, doesn't care if he's expelled right now. He's infinite. Free. And he doesn't want to die.
In that moment, Neil makes a promise to himself. It's the kind of promise that involves breaking a previous one. Neil once promised himself that he'd never try to tell an adult about how he truly felt ever again, not after the wasted attempt with his parents (Neil's father was predictably dismissive, telling him he was being overdramatic and needed to man up a bit. His mother seemed worried, but as always she didn't contradict her husband. Neil decided not to try talking to an adult about his thoughts in the future). However, Neil decides that tomorrow he's going to walk straight to Mr. Keating's office and tell him everything. After all, Keating's done a good job of acting better than most adults so far.
A part of Neil screams at himself that this is temporary, that when he wakes up he'll feel just as bad as usual, but Neil mentally flips off that voice. He's not stupid, he knows he's not going to turn in his razor blades and schedule weekly therapy visits, but he's going to stop lying. And it's a start, dammit.
It's a start.