Archive of Our Own ^beta

SEPTEMBER 1959

By the time it starts getting truly cold, below-fifty cold, Todd has been walking for three hours and twenty-two minutes.

He doesn’t know how far he’s made it, with his staggering pace and all the hills that make up Vermont, but he knows night has turned into late-at-night and he can barely see his own feet in the darkness. They’re throbbing but the pain is distant, his mind zoned out somewhere blank and transparent. It’s comfortable. He thinks that if he stops walking, he’ll leave that comfortable place, and that thought scares him more than anything.

He'd been more panicked, earlier—slinking out of his house as his parents slid into bed, his heart galloping through him so painfully he could feel it in his fingertips, his neck. As he’d stood on the circle drive, door shut tightly behind him, his breath had caught. The cool night air stuck in his throat, his chest seizing in the way it does during his fits. Fear of his parents waking up propelled him, however, and he’d faded as he walked, his mind somewhere above his body and his legs almost seeming to move of their own accord.

He's made it far out of the neighborhood by now, nothing but tall pines and black velvet skies above him. The road is like an empty cavern, gleaming blackness twisting, snakelike, always bending somewhere out of sight. A damp fog has descended and he’s become almost unbearably chilled. He can see his breath in front of his face in the bright moonlight, the exercise of walking the only thing keeping his temperature up.

As he rounds the next bend, he can see a faint yellow glow beyond the trees, the first thing to dim the stars in the last few miles. He hikes his backpack up on his shoulders, ignoring the way his fingers refuse to uncurl, and speeds up.

It soon becomes clear that it’s a small mom-and-pop diner, open 24-hours for the weary traveler. Its façade is a fading white, the glass lining the entrance dulled with age and neglect, but its lights are on and there are at least two cars in the parking lot. Todd, hair and clothing damp with autumn mist, is too grateful to hesitate.

Dry, warm air blasts across his face as he pushes the door open, faint music and the clatter of dishes comforting after the long, unending silence of the Vermont woods. It isn’t until he’s in the warmth, in the sounds of life and near other bodies, that Todd realizes just how frightened he’d been as he’d walked, and walked, and walked with no destination in mind and no one to go back to. He starts shaking despite himself, and it’s in that state that the waitress finds him, trembling and wide-eyed and barely in the vicinity of the hostess stand.

She’s older, maybe in her early fifties, and the warm hand she rests on Todd’s shoulder makes him flinch. “You alright, sweetie?” she asks, and Todd nods, hating how jerky it comes out. Her frown deepens.

“You sure?”

He nods again. “I—walked. I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry,” she says, and the kindness in her voice makes a small lump appear in the back of Todd’s throat. “All by yourself?”

To Todd’s everlasting thanks, she takes his nod in stride instead of asking him further about his parents. She leads him to a table in the back, ushering him into the booth with kind touches to his arms and upper back.

Once he’s settled, backpack in between the wall and himself, the waitress gives him an assessing once-over. “I’ll get you some coffee, okay?” she says. “That’ll warm you right up.” She has graying brown hair tied into a frazzled bun, and fine wrinkles all across her face that make her look worn in the way of a well-loved book. Her nametag says Marjorie.

Todd doesn’t know how to say he hasn’t had coffee before, but Marjorie is gone before he has the time to stare awkwardly, giving the table a firm pat before heading off towards the kitchen.

Todd rolls his lips between his teeth and stuffs his hands underneath his thighs to warm his frozen fingers. There’s a burning feeling in his chest that he imagines is the suppression of his heartbeat, the tenuous hold on his anxiety shaking when he turns his head to look out the window, the world outside oppressive in its opaque darkness. He quickly tears his gaze away and instead starts looking at the menu, a paper thing covered in coffee rings and sticky syrup. His hands tremble as he peels it open.

Nothing feels quite real, and he doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at lists of breakfast plates, pies, and omelets when Marjorie returns, a steaming mug in hand. “Got you a hot chocolate,” she says, sliding the mug in front of him. Whip cream has been piped generously on top, spilling over the side in a thin stream. She smells strongly of cigarettes. “You look wired enough without the coffee.”

“Thank you,” he says quietly, and he means it. She narrows her eyes at him.

“How old are you?”

Todd’s heart starts pounding, and he stares at the hot chocolate like it has all the answers. “Um,” he says, stuttering, “eight—eighteen.”

He looks up to see how his lie has landed and is surprised to find her gaze softened.

“You don’t look more than sixteen,” she says, and his heart drops, but then— “but what do I know? Eighteen-year-olds just keep looking younger and younger these days.”

Todd, not for the first time in his life, is at a loss for what to say.

He ends up just taking a sip of the hot chocolate, its creamy sweetness sliding down his throat like lava, and Marjorie surprises him by sliding into the bench seat across from him.

“Listen,” she says, her voice lowered so that the smoker’s rasp was especially apparent, “why don’t we get some pancakes in you, starving as you are, and I can tell you about my friend who lives just up the way?”

 “Your friend?” Todd asks. He knows his voice can’t be much louder than the music playing from the jukebox, but Marjorie makes no indication she’s troubled by it.

“I’ve got this rancher friend,” she explains, catching his gaze, intent. “He’s not in the best shape. He hires young men like yourself to help with the horses in exchange for room and board. I can’t remember if there’s a salary. I think he has a spot open—and, if you don’t mind me saying, you look like you could use a place to stay.”

Todd breathes in, hope and fright and relief chasing away any feelings of exhaustion he’d been feeling before. Marjorie smiles at him, encouraging. “Well? What do you think?”

“Thank you,” he says, unable to help smiling back at her. She grins wider in response. “Well—I mean—yes. Thank you, yes. Please.”

“I can give you a drive up there after my shift, if you want?” she says, and Todd shrinks back into himself.

“Um. It—it’s okay. I can walk.”

She gives him a dry look. “You don’t even know how far it is,” she says. “What’s your name?”

“Todd,” he says, because he doesn’t think to lie.

“Well, Todd,” she says, “I say: I give you some food, on the house. You mess around in here until I get off at eleven, and I drive you up to Dead Poets so you don’t have to walk seven more miles in the cold and the wet. How about that?”

And Todd—Todd can feel his still-damp socks in his still-damp shoes, his skin icy and his fingers unwilling to curl and uncurl, the backs of his heels rubbed raw from his sneakers. He feels paralyzed with indecision.

“Why?” he blurts out when the silence grows too heavy. It comes out almost angry, but again, Marjorie is unbothered.

“Because you seem lost, and you seem sweet,” she says. “You’re not the first kid in need of somewhere to go I’ve seen.”

Todd doesn’t know what to say to that. His silence must signal something to Marjorie, because she continues: “Listen. I know it’s scary. I know it’s hard to trust a stranger. But I don’t want you going back out there alone, and I don’t think you want to do that either.”

“No,” Todd croaks out, eyes downcast. She’s right: it’s a risk to walk to an unknown destination to meet an unknown man, more of a risk than walking here was, and he doesn’t have many options outside of staying in this booth until his parents eventually find him. And, despite her words, he does trust Marjorie. There is something warm about her he hasn’t found in many adults before. He finds that he likes her quite a bit. “I—thank you. Marjorie.” He can’t seem to make it much louder than a murmur. He risks a glance up at her.

“Oh,” she says, a pleased grin once again crawling across her face, “none of that. Don’t thank me ‘til it’s done. Now, the real business: pancakes or waffles?”

…

Marjorie’s car, predictably, smells strongly of cigarettes, the seats made of brown cracked leather and the exterior covered in a fine powdered dirt. Todd is allowed to sit in the passenger seat, and Marjorie chats at him for the entire forty-five minute drive without seeming to need much response. Todd, content to sit and listen, watches the dark shapes of trees rush by and imagines himself, walking, just along the edge of them.

Soon, almost too soon for Todd’s tastes, they turn onto a long dirt road that eventually leads to a shoddy barbed wire gate, “DEAD POETS HORSE RANCH” printed neatly on a sign hung in the center of it. There’s a man on a horse waiting beside it, and as he unties the cord to walk the gate open for their car to crawl through, Todd realizes that Marjorie must have called her friend ahead of time back at the diner to give him a proper warning.

“That’s John,” Marjorie says, as if reading his mind. “John Keating. He’ll love you.”

You barely know me, Todd doesn’t say. Instead, he stays silent, watching as Keating follows their car on horseback up to the ranch house at the end of the driveway.

They pull up to a small, square house with a large front porch, sagging slightly in the middle with age. The air is chilly as they climb out and walk towards the front door, the night impenetrably dark outside of the ring of yellow light cast by the two lanterns hanging on either side of the porch. The clouds must have cleared alongside the fog, because when Todd cranes his head back as they wait for John to hitch his horse, he can see an impossible number of stars, sprinkled across the sky like a fine powder.

“So,” Keating greets, climbing up the porch steps towards them, “you must be young Todd?”

He holds out a hand for Todd to take, and Todd jerks his hand up to meet it in what he hopes is good time. Keating doesn’t flinch at Todd’s clamminess, instead meeting Todd’s eyes with an amused twinkle as he gives him a firm shake. His hand is large, warm and dry – calloused, too.

“John Keating,” Keating says. “The boys call me Captain, though. I understand you’re to be joining in their ranks?”

“Um,” Todd gets out, when he realizes John is expecting a response. “I think—yeah. Yes. Thank you, sir.”

“No need for thank you’s,” Keating says, giving him a warm smile. “You’ll be doing me a favor, don’t forget. You’ll be working for your dinner here.”

Todd flushes, chastened. “I know. I’m sorry. Marjorie told me.”

Keating frowns at him, but Marjorie starts talking before he can say anything else. “Thank you, John,” she says, like Todd hadn’t just been scolded for doing the very same thing. “I wasn’t sure if you had any spots open, but he just looked so—”

“Plenty of spots,” Keating interrupts lightly, still giving Todd an unreadable look. Todd can feel himself turning a darker red underneath the attention. “I had two leave me in August for greener pastures. Thank you, Marjorie, for pointing this strong young man my way!”

He speaks with a sort of gusto Todd imagines in a politician, or maybe Captain Ahab. Maybe that’s why the others call him Captain—an irresistible zest for life.

Marjorie laughs. “Well, good, because I’ve really got to get home.” She turns towards Todd, raising her eyebrows. “You going be okay here, hon?”

Todd nods, because it’s not like he can say ‘no’, and Marjorie pulls him into a tight, boney hug. It’s like being enveloped in a cigarette. Todd goes stiff despite himself, unused to it, but Marjorie is undeterred, and he finds himself regretting the loss of warmth once she pulls away.

“Here,” Marjorie says, pressing a small slip of paper into Todd’s palm. “That’s the number for the diner. Call and ask for me if you need anything, okay?”

Todd unfolds it, stares at the scribbled digits in red ink. “Thank you,” he whispers, and she squeezes his shoulder.

She says her goodbyes to Keating and turns to leave, giving them one last wave before slipping into her car. Todd finds himself sorry to see her go, something twisting uncomfortably in his stomach as he watches her taillights disappear around a bend in the drive.

“Well, son,” Keating says, after they’ve stood there in silence for a little while, the crickets chirping, “why don’t I introduce you to your fellow workers?”

…

As they walk across freezing wet grass towards a barn some yards away from the house, John explains that the ranch hands sleep in the hayloft there and then dine with him in the house at breakfast and supper. Todd nods along, trying not to shiver, exhaustion more than chill trying its best to shudder through him.

“There are two young men that I took on in the spring, a little older than you, and one boy closer to your age. He’ll be a good one to show you the ropes,” Keating explains. The light bleeding out of the barn hasn’t reached them yet, and it’s only the lantern in Keating’s hand that allows Todd to see his expression, cast in shadows as it is.

Keating continues. “I’ll introduce you once we’re inside. I’ve already got some blankets there for you, and a pillow, of course. You have clothes in that bag?”

Todd scrambles to answer. “Y—yeah. Um, underwear, and some shirts?”

Keating raises his eyebrows. “Oh, you’re going to need more than that, son. Those slacks aren’t going to last very long out here.”

Todd doesn’t own a pair of jeans, and it’s not like he could go back and get them even if he did. “Um. I don’t—”

“We’ll concern ourselves with that later. For now, we’ll get you settled and rested. Something tells me you’ve had a long day,” Keating says wryly, mouth twisted into a knowing smile.

Keating pulls open the barn doors without ceremony, and a wave of warmth and the musty scent of hay and farm animals tugs at Todd’s hair.

“Captain?” a voice immediately calls, and Todd follows Keating’s lead in walking in and looking up. A boy around Todd’s age is peering over the edge of the hayloft, face indistinct in the shadowed nook. “Is that him?”

“Neil,” Keating greets, while Todd stares. “Come on down for a second, will you?”

Neil acquiesces, and soon he’s standing in front of Todd, brown eyes alight with curiosity. “Hi,” he says, and his voice is deep enough that it sends a prickle up Todd’s spine. “I’m Neil Perry.” He sticks out his hand—Todd takes it.

“Todd Anderson,” he says, and they shake while Keating looks on, amused. Todd shifts under the attention, barely able to maintain eye contact with Neil before looking back down at the ground.

“Looks like you’ll be bunking with me,” Neil says, and Todd looks towards the hayloft, heart sinking. It looks cold and dark—more than he had been picturing.

“I’ve already told Todd here that I unfortunately don’t have enough beds for all of my ranch hands,” Keating says, following his gaze. “But the boys all tell me the hay is quite comfortable.”

“It’s better than it seems,” Neil agrees, looking eager. “You get used to it quickly.”

“Okay,” Todd says, voice small. He isn’t convinced, but he’s certainly not going to complain. It’s dry and the barn is fairly warm—better than sleeping outside in the cold, which Todd had been concerned he was going to have to do before Marjorie had brought up the ranch.

“I’ll let you boys get settled, then,” Keating says. “Neil, would you show Todd here the ropes tomorrow, so to speak?”

“Of course, sir,” Neil says, and Keating claps him on the shoulder. Todd startles when Keating then turns to do the same to him, giving Todd a firm pat as he walks past.

 “For you, Mr Anderson, I’ll try to rustle up a pair of jeans. Might not fit very well, but I think anything will be better than those slacks of yours.”

Todd flushes and nods, unable to get any words out in response. Keating smiles and then turns to walk out, whistling as he goes and shutting the heavy barn door behind him, leaving Todd with Neil and nothing worthwhile to say.

Luckily, Neil doesn’t let the silence rest for very long. “Follow me,” he says, before climbing the ladder up to the hayloft. Todd follows, his chest feeling wobbly.

The hayloft is dark, but a scant amount of light from below still manages to illuminate the space, revealing two dark lumps that Neil points to with a wry grin. “That’s Michael and Rob,” he whispers, leaning over to whisper far too closely in Todd’s ear. “They sleep like the dead.”

Neil leads him to the far end of the hayloft, to the side sharing a wall with the barn doors. Todd stumbles, unable to really see where his feet are, and Neil puts out a hand to catch him. He laughs, fingers still wrapped around Todd’s arm. “Sorry,” he says, too loud, “should have taken the lantern up.”

“It’s okay,” Todd whispers back, hoping his volume reminds Neil to lower his. His entire face is hot, still able to feel Neil’s fingers around his arm even after Neil pulls away. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop blushing, at this rate.

“Here, your bag can go here,” Neil says, shuffling the final few steps and then kneeling between two makeshift pallets of blankets and pillows. He turns and holds his hand out for Todd’s bag, which Todd sets into his palm after only a slight moment of hesitation. Neil makes a little oof sound as he takes the full weight of it, his thick eyebrows shooting up.

“What do you have in here? Books?” he asks, voice laughing, and Todd feels shame creep up his cheeks.

“Um,” he stutters, embarrassed. He does, but right now, it seems like the worst thing in the world for him to admit to. “N—I don’t—no.” He falls silent, already regretting the lie but afraid that if he opens his mouth further, he’ll sound even more like an idiot.

“O-kay,” Neil says doubtfully, but he drops it, instead sprawling across one of the pallets. Todd thinks he has a remarkable amount of energy for a boy who’s been sleeping on hay for who knows how long. “Come and lie down.”

Todd obeys, crawling onto the pallet between Neil and the wall, the hay underneath the blanket whispering as it’s pressed together. It is, surprisingly, soft, if a little lumpy, and Todd finds himself lying down easily. He turns to look at Neil, whose eyes are glittering from the light below the hayloft.

“It’s pretty okay, right?” Neil says, voice lowered to a murmur. “The captain told me they used to sleep on hay mattresses, when they couldn’t afford anything else.”

“It’s good,” Todd says softly, and Neil smiles at him.

“Goodnight, Todd.”

“Goodnight.”

Neil turns over, and Todd rolls to lie flat on his back, the musty scent of hay filling his nose and the roof of the barn too dark to see. Anxiety niggles at the edges of his thoughts, but he’s too exhausted to feel much else, his body heavy where it lays on the blanket and only growing heavier and heavier.

He falls asleep between one moment and the next, warm enough to forget about the second blanket lying folded next to his head.

…

Todd sleeps terribly, despite his exhaustion. His dreams had been vivid and strange, and he’d woken up about five times during the night, wide awake each time.

It’s probably been thirty minutes since he’d managed to doze off again when he’s shaken awake by a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he rolls over to find Neil leaning over him, holding a lantern and looking at him eagerly. “Good morning,” he chirps, and Todd shoots up into a sitting position.

“Uh—” He starts smoothing his hair down, although he can’t imagine Neil can see him very well even with the lantern. It’s still dark—Todd had expected there to be daylight poking through the cracks of the wood, at least. “Is it morning?”

“Just barely. Chores start early,” Neil says, with some amusement. He hands a bundle to Todd, and upon inspection it turns out to be a pair of blue jeans and a thick belt. “Here, from Keating. The other two have already started.”

Todd gives Neil a disbelieving look.

Neil laughs. “I know, it’s painful. You get used to it. The cold will wake you up, anyway—it won’t get warm for another couple of hours. Go ahead and get changed. We’ll start with the horses.”

Todd is already very awake, but he stays quiet, instead changing his slacks for the jeans as quickly as possible. They’re a little wide around the waist but the belt cinches them well enough, and only a little short in the legs. Neil is politely turned away, and it’s not until Todd starts pulling on his tennis shoes that he turns back around, excited grin on his lips. “What do you know about horses?”

Todd shakes his head. Jeffrey had done a brief stint as a polo player in high school, but it had been short lived enough that Todd had really only been dragged to a couple of games, the horses as distant to him as they would be on a television. “Nothing,” he admits, inadequacy a familiar weight in his gut, but Neil looks pleased.

“Good,” he says grandly, stepping back to allow Todd to stand. “I didn’t know anything either, when I first came. They’re just—you’ll see. They’re wonderful.”

Neil leads him out into the pale morning, the sun just starting to rise and casting a light pall over the darkness, a faint, ghostly purple on the horizon barely bleeding into midnight blue. It’s cold and damp, the grass wet with frigid morning dew, and Todd’s feet are blocks of ice by the time they come to a stop at a long, low building at least five times bigger than the barn they’d slept in.

“These are the stables,” Neil says, waving a dramatic hand. “Over forty horses.”

“Why?” Todd asks, watching as Neil takes out a ring of keys and starts towards a small shed set up close to the stables. Immediately, what sounds like several different horses start neighing from inside their stalls, as if they were somehow able to hear the faint jingling of the keys. Neil laughs, and Todd can’t help but smile as well.

“Why what?” Neil asks, and Todd has to work himself up to answer.

“I mean, what do you do with them? The horses?”

Neil makes a little ah sound. “Sell them, mostly,” he says, unlocking the padlock and pulling the door open, the bottom of it scraping loudly over patchy lumps of grass. “We break them—train them—and then sell them to rodeos, farms, racers. I know the Captain has looked into giving lessons, but I think he’s too attached to his isolation.”

He ducks inside, Todd following. It’s a tiny shed that smells like damp wood and animal feed, its walls lined with shelves laden with tools, opened boxes, and burlap sacks. It’s dark at first, but Neil’s lantern lights up the small space easily.

“This is the shed,” Neil says, rather redundantly. “Most of the horse supplies are here.” Neil picks up two pails from the corner and sets them out in the middle of the floor. “We’ll fill these with water and check on all of them—you’ll like to meet them, I think. Rob and Michael will take them out to pasture a little later.”

Todd nods, taking a pail, and Neil gives him a curious look. “You’re pretty quiet, you know that?”

Todd blushes, panic and a small amount of irritation sparking through him. He hates when people point it out, like he doesn’t know, like they want to make sure he knows he isn’t doing enough for them. He also fears, suddenly, that Neil is already bored with him. “Sorry,” he says, a little defensively, and Neil frowns.

“No, it’s not—the horses will probably like that, I mean.”

Todd finds himself relaxing, surprised. “Yeah?”

Neil smiles, dimples showing, but it isn’t condescending or pitying like Todd might have expected—just pleased. “It’s true! I have to lower my voice around them. I almost got Michael kicked, once, just by saying hello.”

Todd huffs a small laugh, smiling back, and Neil points towards a blue waterspout poking out of a hill just a little further away. “Onwards!”

Neil shows him how to pump out the water, so that Todd can work the spout while Neil deals with the metal pails. They then splash their own faces with the water, bitingly cold, and take long drinks from cupped hands. Todd’s face and hands are numb, but he thinks it might be the best water he’s ever tasted, cold and clear and sweet.

The stables are one long building lined with wide doorways, out of which several tossing horse heads are poking out, eagerly awaiting Todd and Neil. There’s an awning extending from the roof that stretches the entire building, concrete slabs covering the ground underneath it. As they walk up, Todd notices each stall door has a trough attached to it, where the horses can poke their heads out and drink.

The first stall holds a gray horse, who has a lovely white nose and dark ears, which it has pulled back even as Neil makes soothing noises. After a brief, nervous dance on its hooves, the horse finally allows Neil to bribe it with a sugar cube that he’d had in his pocket and settles. Todd watches it all from a distance, alarmed by the horse’s apparent unease, and only comes closer once Neil beckons him, one hand still on the horse’s snout.

“This is Good Morning,” he says, warm affection in his voice. “She’s the oldest horse here.”

“She seems nervous,” Todd says warily, and Neil shrugs.

“She’s always been that way, at least according to Keating. He says can’t sell her because of it—she kicks.”

“Is she the one that kicked Michael?”

Neil smiles conspiratorially. “As a matter of fact, yes. Would you like to pet her?”

“After you just finished telling me that she kicks?” Todd says without thinking, and Neil lets out a surprised laugh.

“I don’t mean to make her sound awful,” Neil insists, eyeing Todd with a new interest. “She’s really quite sweet, if you can stand to be patient with her. Besides, she can’t kick you from here, and she doesn’t bite. Usually. Really, come and pet her.”

It’s not very convincing, but Todd steps forward anyway, hesitatingly putting a hand out towards Good Morning. She snorts, tossing her head, and Todd yanks his hand back quickly. He’s seen horse teeth—he would really rather avoid getting a horse bite.

“Don’t go so slowly,” Neil says. “But you shouldn’t go suddenly either. Here—” And then he’s taking Todd’s wrist in his hand and guiding him towards Good Morning at the proper speed.

Todd’s entire body goes hot, and he barely remembers to open his hand enough to fit atop Good Morning’s nose, his entire being zeroed in on where Neil’s fingers encircle his wrist. It’s not until Good Morning’s velvety nose is beneath his fingers and Neil’s warm grasp is gone that Todd remembers to breathe, cursing himself.

“See?” Neil asks, oblivious.

“Got it,” Todd forces out, feeling like a gigantic freak. He feels, suddenly, too large somehow, despite Neil’s inches on him, too predatory, and it’s all he can do to resist withdrawing, making himself smaller.

“You can pet her now,” Neil prompts, looking amused, and Todd realizes he’s just been standing, stock still, with his hand on Good Morning’s nose like an idiot.

He flushes and quickly gives her muzzle a short stroke. He feels shaky as he does so, but she seems to enjoy it, pushing her nose further into his hand. The motion makes something warm bubble up in his chest and without thinking, he raises his other hand to stroke her as well, marveling at the depth in her big black eyes.

“She’s lovely,” he breathes, and Neil hums in agreement beside him.

Neil fills her water trough while Todd distracts Good Morning, who insistently presses her nose into Todd’s hands the entire time. When Neil indicates that they should move to the next stall and Todd drops his hands to follow him, Good Morning nudges his shoulder so hard he nearly falls over.

Neil crows a disbelieving laugh as Todd stumbles, eyes wide. “Sorry!” he chuckles, putting a hand out to steady Todd. Good Morning lets out a displeased huff. “Jesus, girl, alright. I’ll leave Todd in your very capable hooves.”

“What?” Todd asks, and Neil gives him a helpless shrug. He reaches into Good Morning’s stall and unhooks a brush from the wall, passing it to Todd.

“I’ve never seen her ask for more attention like that before. I’m just going to be doing the same thing for the rest of the horses—I think you should stay here with her. She likes getting brushed, when she’s in the mood.” Neil unlatches the stall door. “Here, she won’t run. Just don’t go around behind her and you should be alright.”

“O—okay,” Todd agrees, uncertain but not willing to argue with Neil on his first day here. Neil, inordinately pleased, moves onto the next stall, leaving Todd to swing Good Morning’s door open and slip in besides her.

It isn’t graceful, his movements jerky alongside the nervous pounding of his heart, but Good Morning doesn’t appear to be bothered. She nickers softly as he places the brush against her, and he shushes her, moving it lightly down the long length of her neck. A cloud of dust follows the brush, and Todd realizes that the point of this isn’t to comb her hair or make it neat, but instead to knock all the dirt and grime that had gathered on her in her time out to pasture.

“Good girl,” he soothes, doing another pass, firmer this time. More dirt falls from her gray coat, and he soon gets into a rhythm, mind blissfully empty for the first time in what feels like years.

“You’re wonderful,” Todd tells her, when he’s finished brushing her coat and Neil is walking back towards him from the other end of the stable. “I don’t know why nobody’s ever wanted to buy you.”

Good Morning whickers, uncaring, and asks for more attention by nudging Todd in the stomach so hard he has the breath knocked out of him.

…

Todd spends the rest of the day with Neil, learning how to repair barbed wire fencing with a fence stretcher, to muck out horse stalls, and to feed chickens. The noon September sun is brutal, and they work without stopping, taking only a short break for cold pieces of chicken and a glass of water sometime around eleven. By the time dinner rolls around, Todd is sweaty and exhausted and the sun is setting, an entire day gone without him hardly having realized it. It’s hard to reckon with the knowledge that just two days ago, he’d been sitting in the living room across from his parents, having the worst conversation he had ever had in his life.

Neil is wonderful, more wonderful than the horses, even. He’s kind and patient, and seems to have no problem chattering on to Todd without much response, although he listens intently when Todd does muster up the courage to actually say more than ‘okay’ or ‘got it’. He makes Todd less nervous for the dinner they’ll spend in the house with Keating and the other ranch hands, makes Todd feel like he’ll have an ally to lean on should the conversation, God forbid, turn to him.

Neil shows him how to wash up at the waterspout, and they change their shirts before heading towards the house for dinner, Todd having found a neat pile of flannels and another pair of jeans lying on top of his pillow.

Dinner is thick slices of honeyed ham, green beans, and cheesy potatoes, and it’s the best thing Todd thinks he’s ever tasted. He shovels food into his mouth alongside the others, listening contentedly to the conversation swirling around him and relieved no one is addressing him. It’s not until dessert, which is scoops of vanilla ice cream, that he realizes he’d been left alone only because they’d had more sinister plans in mind for him.

“Alright, boys,” Keating announces, clinking his spoon against his glass. “Time for tonight’s verse!”

Groans and cheers mingle from the other three ranch hands, and Todd thinks that Keating is about to read a portion of the Bible out to them when he pulls out a worn copy of The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde. Keating begins to explain, anticipating the questions blooming in Todd’s mind. “Todd, we here at Dead Poets Ranch try to live up to the name and take turns reading poems to each other every night.”

“It’s painful,” Rob remarks, and Keating waves a dismissive hand at him.

“Hush. Normally, it would be Rob’s turn in the cycle, but I thought it might be a good way to bring you into the fold to have you read tonight instead. Here, my apologies for the melancholy material.” He hands Todd the book, seemingly unaware of how Todd’s hands have started to shake. “We’ll start at the beginning, with the first poem.”

Todd stares at the first line, barely comprehending it. He did not wear his scarlet coat. “Um, s-sir, I don’t—I don’t think—”

“Read, Todd,” Keating says. “It might be embarrassing at first, but you’ll get used to it. It’s easy to find the rhythm after a few lines.”

Todd knows, has written poetry, has read poetry for longer, but he doesn’t—it’s not something he shares. He certainly doesn’t read it out loud. But he’s afraid to protest further, his position on the ranch still shaky and uncertain, and so he starts reading.

“No,” Keating interrupts, almost instantly. “Stand up! Speak loud! From the heart, Todd—this is a man grieving his life, his friendship. He’s just been betrayed! He means what he says.”

Todd nods, eyes still glued to the page, and clumsily stands. His mouth is so dry he can hear it click, and the water he drinks doesn’t help. It’s a terrifyingly long poem, but the thought of refusing is more frightening than just reading it, so he remains standing, sweaty palms dampening the cover of the book.

He starts reading, mouth clicking with every word. He’s shaking, and doesn’t really stop, but Keating is right—he does calm, starts reading more steadily, and as he does, he begins to actually process what he’s reading. A man, a prisoner, watching another man hang. A rumination on life, on souls in pain. As Todd gets further, lines begin to ring through him like bells, something deep within him shaken with something like truth.

I only knew what hunted thought

Quickened his step, and why

He looked upon the garish day

With such a wistful eye;

The man had killed the thing he loved,

And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,

And some when they are old;

Some strangle with the hands of Lust,

Some with the hands of Gold:

The kindest use a knife, because

The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,

Some sell, and others buy;

Some do the deed with many tears,

And some without a sigh:

For each man kills the thing he loves,

Yet each man does not die.

As he reads, he thinks of Paulie, for the first time since—since everything. He thinks of Paulie’s face as he’d gone into the principal’s office and Paulie had come out, their parents flanking them like jailors. The final line— Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek / The kiss of Caiaphas—is like a particular punch to the gut, and it’s with a lump of tears in the back of his throat that Todd sits down, tense and afraid to look at the judging faces around him. He stares down at his bowl of ice cream as Keating says something he doesn’t comprehend and doesn’t look up until he feels a soft hand at his shoulder.

“That was brilliant,” Neil breathes, and his eyes are so bright that Todd, briefly, forgets everything in favor of looking at that inexplicable expression of wonder.

…

Keating holds him back after dinner, invites him to sit down in the living room with a serious expression on his face. Todd, very afraid he’s about to be told it isn’t going to work out, that he’d failed some kind of test at dinner, or maybe even earlier, with the horses, follows him into the living room and sits down carefully on the sofa. Keating settles into an armchair across from him, glass of wine in hand.

“What brings you here, Todd?” he asks, and oh, this is so much worse than being told to leave, because this is the test, and Todd is going to fail it.

“Um,” Todd says, and can’t say any more. He almost feels like Keating already knows, that he’s only asking to make Todd say it out loud. He still feels raw and exposed from dinner, like all of his secrets have been laid out before him for all to see. Keating only looks at him, however, expression kind, and leans forward.

“It’s alright, I don’t need to know why or how or anything like that,” he says. “It’s not my business. But I do need to know how old you are, and if anyone is going to appear on my doorstep looking for you.”

“Please don’t report me,” Todd bursts out, panic sending his thoughts scattering like bowling pins. “I can’t—they’re going to—”

Keating moves quickly to sit next to him, placing a large warm hand on his shoulder. Todd flinches, and Keating immediately removes the hand. “I won’t report you,” he says firmly. “I’m certain you left for a good reason, and I won’t interfere with that. I just want to be prepared to send someone away, and to know if I have the legal right to do it.”

Todd stares at him, uncomprehending. “You—I don’t have to leave?”

“Please, don’t,” Keating says, and Todd relaxes, just a little. “Are you eighteen?”

Todd thinks about saying yes, but after a moment, decides to shake his head instead. Something about lying feels wrong, here, in Keating’s fire-lit living room. “That’s alright,” Keating says. “Neither is Neil. Should I expect your parents to come here? Do they know where you could be?”

Todd feels a flush start across his cheeks at the truth of the matter: that no one will come looking for him. “They don’t know,” he says. “They—they won’t look here.”

Keating frowns. “You’re sure?”

Something dark is growing in Todd’s stomach, something that had started at dinner, nauseating and hollow.

“I’m sure.”

…

That night, Neil talks his ear off about poetry and Todd’s reading, claiming he had been enraptured. It’s nice, but Todd can barely focus on the compliments, too in his head to really follow any kind of conversation, his gut churning with sickening anxiety even as he makes himself smile at Neil’s compliments and answer his questions.

Neil takes a while to fall asleep, but eventually, he does. Todd waits until he hears Neil’s breathing even out before getting up and tugging on his shoes, uncertain of everything except for the knowledge that he needs to get out of the barn as quickly as possible.

He can’t stop thinking about his parents, his brief conversation with Keating and the poem he’d been forced to read circling in his brain over and over and over. Their cold stares, the disdain that had curled around his mother’s lip in the principal’s office that had never left even after they were home. The eternal, pervasive feeling that there is something wrong with him. The knowledge that his parents always knew there was something wrong, had known for his entire life, had known to steer clear, had had their suspicions finally confirmed—

He's vaguely aware he’s started to hyperventilate, lips trembling and throat tightening, but he can’t pull himself back. His heartbeat is so loud and hard he can feel it thudding through his chest, hear it his ears, deafening. He’s such an idiot.

What was he even thinking, running away? Coming here? He doesn’t know how to do anything, has never done anything besides schoolwork and read and write useless poetry, and God, maybe he should have let them try to fix him. The pain would surely be worth it. Better that then inflict himself on Neil, the poison of his thoughts inescapable even here, even as he runs away again, but from what? Towards what? He’s a coward; he’s weak; he’s pathetic.

His feet carry him out into the chilly night air and across the dark green grass, and it isn’t until he’s nearly upon it that he realizes he’s made his way towards the stables. By the time he gets to Good Morning’s stall he’s gasping for air, throat nearly closing in on itself, and he’s afraid he’s going to spook Good Morning with the terrible noises he’s surely making in his attempts to breathe, but all she does is nudge at his chest. He chokes out a sob, and it’s all he can do to stroke her nose, desperately trying to keep a steady rhythm that he can force his breathing to follow along with.

He's never going to see his parents again—he doubts they’ve even bothered looking for him. He’ll never speak to Jeffrey on the phone again, never exchange letters. He’ll never pass the days reading in bed, never take his notebook out to his mother’s garden, writing as she weeded and always trusting she wouldn’t ever care enough to even be curious about what he was doing. He’s always felt lonely, has felt this way his entire life, but now he feels utterly alone. The feeling is frightening; he feels like he’s balanced precariously on an edge, although the edge of what is a mystery to him.

Eventually, Todd’s breathing steadies, although he has no idea how long it takes. He slumps against the stall door, exhausted. Good Morning, still content to be stroked, pushes her nose into his hands when they grow too slow. He laughs softly and presses his forehead against the bridge of her nose. It’s not enough; he unlatches the door to her stall and slips inside to more fully press his face against her neck, breathing in her horsey smell and relishing in her warmth. He thinks, nobody wants me either, and with that, he’s crying in great, heaving sobs, hiding his face in Good Morning like he can hide from the deep, aching wretchedness echoing through his body.

He grieves: grieves everything he’s lost and everything he’s never been allowed to have, grieves his parents and his life and what happened. He doesn’t know how long he grieves, only that when he’s done, he feels empty, hollowed out but without the sticky darkness, and returns to the barn to sleep for the few hours still left before morning.

…

OCTOBER

The days pass into weeks, and before Todd knows it, the leaves are starting to change and the air is starting to crisp, the skies an almost permanent shade of hard and clear October blue. The time flies by through hard labor and renewed inspiration, which Todd uses to scribble down ideas and verses into his notebook whenever he has a private moment to himself, but it’s mostly his growing friendship with Neil that has made the time spent at the ranch so sweet.

Rob and Michael, the other ranch hands, are nice, but they are in their early twenties and relatively uninterested in whatever company Todd has to offer. Neil, on the other hand, seems to relish in Todd’s companionship, sticking to him like glue even long past his need for guidance around the ranch.

Neil is kind, and funny, and exuberant to the point where Todd can’t help but be swept up in whatever momentary theatrics Neil wants to indulge in. Most importantly, Neil seems genuinely interested in what Todd has to say, and Todd finds himself speaking without hesitation whenever he has a thought to share, no matter how inane. Neil always has a response for him, a thoughtful one, and Todd has found himself in the type of extensive conversations he’d formerly thought only existed in books.

It's early on Sunday, their day off from the harder chores, when Neil finds Todd reclining on the square hay bales piled in the back corner of the barn. Todd had thought to use the morning for writing, but he’s happy to set his journal aside to greet Neil instead, especially when Neil comes with two plates holding thick slices of chocolate cake.

“I come bearing gifts,” Neil announces, and Todd smiles his thanks as he receives his plate. Neil sits down next to him, so closely that their knees are nearly touching. Todd moves his knee away, afraid Neil might feel how tense he’s gotten. Neil doesn’t seem to notice.

He takes a bite of cake and can’t help but hum at the rich taste of it, the mousse holding the whole thing together so chocolatey that he thinks he could live with tasting nothing but that for the rest of his life. He looks up to tell Neil, but the words die on his lips when he finds Neil already looking at him, an unreadable expression in his eyes that quickly vanishes when Neil tears his eyes away, the tips of his ears bright red.

Todd blushes in kind, suddenly aware of how stupid he must have looked, savoring the cake like that. “What—?"

“You were writing?” Neil asks hastily, and Todd has to take a moment to adjust to the turn in conversation. “Well, at least trying to write?”

“I guess,” he answers, laughing at Neil a little. “It’s quiet in here. At least, when you’re gone.”

“Hey!” Neil’s offended expression doesn’t hold nearly long enough to be convincing, bright curiosity quick to take over. “What were you writing about?”

Todd shrugs, words sticking in his throat. Neil asks this every time he sees Todd with his journal, and he answers the way he always does: “Nothing, really.”

“Nothing, really,” Neil parrots sardonically, laughing. “What, do you just sit in here pretending to write? Are you just scribbling nonsense to try and trick us into thinking you’re having some kind of brilliant stroke of genius?”

Todd’s brain stutters, Neil’s sarcasm and the idea of pretending at genius so baffling he genuinely doesn’t know what to say. Usually, Neil drops the topic of writing when Todd tells him there’s nothing to talk about, which Todd appreciates. Neil never pries too hard or pushes him to answer when he doesn’t want to, and Todd does the same—Neil doesn’t clam up often, but he does occasionally, and Todd always leaves him be. Secrets were secrets, and it was up to them to decide when and if they wanted to talk about any of it. Now, however, Neil is changing the script, and Todd has been left on the back foot.

“Well,” Todd says, laughing nervously and unsure of what part of Neil’s statement to address, “I might as well be.”

“Might as well be?”

“Pretending to write something—something good,” Todd explains, starting to get flustered. He sets his plate aside, appetite lost. “It’s worthless, Neil. Just—it’s not worth reading.”

“Then why are you writing it?” Neil demands, getting excited. Todd watches warily as he leaps to kneel beside him, eyes big and trying to hold Todd’s. “Oh, come on, Todd! Nothing you make could ever be worthless. If you’d just let me—” He reaches for the journal sitting on Todd’s other side, but Todd snatches it up before he can touch it, his heart pounding.

“Neil, no,” he tries to say as sharply as possible, but his voice comes out embarrassingly wobbly. “What—what the hell has gotten into you?”

“I’m sorry,” Neil says, sounding anything but. “I just—you’re writing all the time, and you always have such wonderful things to say that I’m curious about what you could be writing. Is it poetry? Have you shown Keating?”

Todd is certain he’s cherry red by now, half-afraid Neil is going to try taking his journal out of his hands. He hugs it against his chest to prevent it. “Neil, just drop it, okay?”

“No!” Neil answers, and he seems honestly affronted.

“No?” Todd repeats, starting to get frustrated, panic shooting up in electric peaks within his chest.

“Absolutely not! You’re keeping brilliance from me, and I simply won’t stand for it. With the way you read poetry, you have to be the next Walt Whitman.”

Todd hates that Neil has latched onto the idea that what he’s been doing is writing brilliant poetry, and he even more so hates the fact that he’s right, or at least, right about the poetry. Todd’s poetry is terrible—nowhere near the level of Walt Whitman. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Neil,” he states firmly.

“Not through any fault of my own!” Neil cries. “You’re so—” He cuts himself off.

Todd squeezes his journal so tightly he feels his knuckles tighten and turn white. He stares hard at the hay bales below them. “I’m so what?” he forces out, after a long moment.

“So—closed off,” Neil finishes, deflating. “I want to get to know you, but you won’t let me. Any time things get deeper than—than our favorite colors, you clam up. You wouldn’t even tell me your favorite book the other day, Todd. Your favorite book!”

Todd, briefly, is overwhelmed—he wants to explain himself, wants Neil to understand why he didn’t answer his question the other day, but the same instinct Neil is talking about has him unable to explain. The truth of Neil’s statement is painful, but it’s the truth of his desire that is so frightening, because Todd knows that if Neil ever gets his wish and understands who Todd really is, then he would undoubtedly regret ever wanting to know more. Horribly, a lump of tears appears in the back of his throat.

“Neil,” Todd starts, desperate for this conversation to end and feeling cornered, “it’s not like—it’s not like you’re so eager to tell me things either!”

“I tell you things,” Neil says heatedly, and his tone is a little frightening. Todd hates this.

“N-not everything,” he says earnestly. It feels like he has to drag every word out of himself, his breath catching in his chest painfully. “But—but it’s alright, w-we can—”

“No,” Neil says, a stubborn set to his brow. “Ask me anything.”

Todd knows, without question, that if he picks something Neil is comfortable answering then he will not have a viable excuse to avoid any of Neil’s questions. “Your dad,” he says, terrified that Neil will hate him. “You—you never talk about your dad.”

Neil goes still, and there’s a silence so long Todd thinks it might kill him. Finally, Neil says, very quietly, “That’s not fair.” His voice is small, but abruptly anger comes flooding back into Todd’s chest, a feeling of injustice fueling his next words.

“No, it isn’t, is it?” he says, voice hard, although it’s still pathetically quiet. They sit there for long moments in tense silence, Todd desperately trying to keep himself from hyperventilating, before Neil speaks softly.

“I didn’t realize—Todd, I’m sorry.”

Todd looks up from his boots to find Neil looking at him with regret written across his entire face. He continues, “That was—I shouldn’t have pushed you like that. I didn’t realize it was like—well.” Like my father, is the absent end of that sentence, and Todd feels himself softening.

He takes a deep breath. “It’s alright,” he says, but Neil shakes his head.

“Let me make it up to you. I know a place—I go there to think, sometimes. I think it would—I think it might be a good place for us to talk?”

Todd’s heart sinks at the idea of ‘talking’ more with Neil, and it must be written somewhere on his face because Neil is quick to amend: “I won’t push. In fact, I’ll do most of the talking, even. A secret for a secret.”

“You didn’t actually find anything out,” Todd reminds him, but his chest feels warm, reassured by Neil’s attempt to atone and relieved he’s managed to understand Todd without Todd having to explain himself.

Neil waves the words away. “What do you think? It’ll take most of the day, but it’s worth it. I don’t think you’ve left the property since you got here.”

Todd is convinced, but he’d pretty follow Neil anywhere anyway. “That sounds nice,” he says softly, and the smile Neil gives him dispels any lingering fears about what ‘talking’ entails.

…

They set out on horseback at around two o’clock, Todd on Good Morning and Neil on a black horse named Lord Byron, Todd now well-versed in controlling Good Morning’s speed and direction after weeks of practice (and hard falls) in the pasture.

He follows Neil in single file around the winding mountain paths, peering into the dense forest on either side and listening to the chatter of birds in the treetops and the hollow hoofbeats on the packed earth. The air is crisp, chilly but not enough for their breaths to become visible, and the sky is one deep expanse of blue with only a few thin white clouds to mar its surface like dry brushstrokes. The forest is still green, the pines, forever unchanging, standing tall and needled, but the pinecones littering the ground and crunching under-hoof speak to the changing seasons just the same.

They ride in relative silence for about an hour, the path too thin for riding side by side and Todd thusly unable to hear much of what Neil says without him shouting it. The company is still nice, though, and Todd finds himself almost disappointed when they reach a clearing and Neil begins to dismount, signaling the ride has come to an end.

Neil grabs the blanket he’d thrown over Lord Byron’s back, watching Todd with barely restrained eagerness as he dismounts Good Morning and ties her reins to a thin young tree nearby.

“Ready?” he asks, almost the moment Todd finishes tying the knot, and Todd laughs at him.

“I think you might drag me there anyway, even if I wasn’t.”

“Maybe,” Neil says airily, and then he’s linking his arm through Todd’s and walking them both across the clearing and into the woods on the other side.

They walk for maybe a minute before they reach a large, jagged rock face, smooth and gray, that leads to a sharp drop-off. And beyond the drop-off….

It’s one of the most beautiful sights Todd has ever seen. He leaves Neil, who is laughing, behind in order to scramble across the rock face and see the view below with as few obstructions as possible.

The rock, mostly horizontal, slopes just slightly downwards, jutting out of the rounded top of the mountain they had just spent an hour twining up. Below it, a valley opens up, and the mountains on the other side pour down into it in an avalanche of color. Bright candy reds, yellows, and oranges with only the occasional spot of green almost completely cover every mountain within view, deciduous trees outnumbering the evergreens for once, the mountains just low enough to justify their changeable nature. A silver river threads between the mountains at the base of the valley, dancing with white-crested waves, and large swathes of still-green grass spread out from its banks. Taller mountains loom in the distance, a hazy dark blue, and the unblemished cerulean of the sky is so bright it almost hurts Todd’s eyes just to look at it.

“Do I even need to ask what you think?” Neil says, appearing at his shoulder, and Todd grins at him.

“It’s incredible, Neil.”

Neil’s answering smile rivals the valley below in beauty, his rosy cheeks and brown eyes autumnal and somehow suited to the yellows and reds of the world around them. Todd itches to write it all down before it all fades into imperfect memory. For the first time, he finds himself regretting leaving his journal behind, regrets not allowing Neil to look at what he could do.

Todd catches himself staring at Neil too long and quickly tears his gaze away, instead looking back down at the valley. Writing poetry about Neil’s smile suddenly seems ridiculous and shameful and ugly—which is why he hadn’t wanted Neil looking at his poetry in the first place.

Nausea builds. The thought of Neil, in all his oblivious innocence, learning what Todd had done, what Todd was continuing to do, but this time towards him—

“I come here when I need a moment to myself,” Neil says, jerking Todd out of his spiraling thoughts. “When I don’t want anyone to find me.”

“Thank you for showing it to me,” Todd says softly, heart still in his throat, and Neil’s gaze on him is warm.

“I’m glad I did. You suit it.”

Todd flushes, and Neil lowers himself so that he’s spread out on the blanket, which he must have set down while Todd was busy being awestruck. Neil leans back on his hands and pats the spot beside him. Todd sits down next to him, the rock cold and hard on his legs and hands despite the blanket. They sit in silence for a moment, just looking, listening to the sound of the wind through drying leaves. Their sweaters are just barely enough to ward off the chill, November coming fast. A crow caws in the distance, and a question that has been on Todd’s mind since about halfway through the ride bubbles up again.

“How did you find this place? It’s so…”

“Far from the ranch?” Neil finishes. Todd had been about to say ‘hidden’, but he nods anyway, curious.

Neil presses his tongue to the corner of his mouth, thinking. “I wasn’t… when I first got here, I was unhappy. When I ran away, I had been picturing myself as an actor, making it big on Broadway, or something ridiculous like that. But instead, I wandered around for a few days, scared out of my mind but even more afraid to go home, and when someone told me that a man was hiring out on his ranch I jumped at the chance to finally get some food and somewhere to sleep.”

Todd’s heart sinks as he listens, realizing his question had prompted a much rawer story than he’d been anticipating. He abruptly understands that this is what had happened earlier, only with the roles reversed—but instead of clamming up and resisting, Neil was actually giving him the honest answer to the question he’d asked. Guilt, unbidden, starts swirling in Todd’s stomach, and he rushes to stop Neil before he tells him too much.

“Neil, I’m sorry, you don’t have to—”

“I want to,” Neil interrupts, raising his eyebrows and giving Todd a reassuring smile, albeit it’s somewhat dimmed. “It’s okay.”

Todd sucks in a breath, bites back the But I don’t want to hear it that threatens to leave his lips. Instead, he nods. “If you’re sure….”

“I am.” But even as he says it, Neil lapses into silence, seemingly stuck where he’d left off. Todd waits patiently for what feels like long minutes, but eventually he realizes that Neil must need nudging, if not an out from the conversation.

“You wanted to be on Broadway?” he asks hesitantly, and Neil lets out a bitter laugh that Todd has never heard before.

“It was stupid. I’d gotten it into my head that I wanted to be an actor, even snuck myself into a community production. My father doesn’t approve, you see. That’s for fairies,”—he says it bitterly, and Todd flinches at the word—“not for young men studying to become doctors.”

“And you got caught,” Todd says, when Neil falls into another silence. Neil breathes in.

“Yeah, I got caught. He was going to send me to military school, and I tried to—and then I thought about my options, and I ran away. Like I said—stupid, right?” he smiles, but his eyes are sad, and the sight of the expression scares Todd in a way he can’t quite describe.

“It’s not stupid,” he insists. “It’s—brave. I didn’t leave for any reason like that.”

Neil snorts derisively. “Like what? For some far-fetched dream?”

“For any dream at all,” Todd says softly, and Neil looks at him for a long, long time.

“I’m not as brave as you think,” he says, eventually. “But—thank you. It means more than you know.”

Todd can feel that Neil is holding something back, something that’s causing the shame he can still see lingering in his expression, but he doesn’t push. He feels he should offer something in return, something more than a vague allusion to the fact that he’d run away at all. He still won’t explain that, the slur Neil had spat out earlier still rattling in his bones, but he can offer something still, something that still feels raw and tender and that he still holds in the most secret part of himself.

“My dad threatened to burn all of my books when—a few nights before I left,” he says, and Neil looks up at him. His gaze feels like it might burn into Todd’s if he holds it for too long, so he looks back out towards the valley, watching a large dark bird fly across the expanse of it. “They were—he didn’t understand them. He thought they were, um, influencing me. Badly. So he started taking them off my shelves in stacks and carrying them to the fireplace downstairs. So.”

Todd takes a deep breath. He’s shaking. His speech is choppy, staggered and erratic, but Neil is a patient listener. He just sits there with Todd, waits through his deep breathing, and Todd is immeasurably grateful as he forces himself to continue. “When he was downstairs with—with the first stack, I—somehow—managed to stand up and take some of my favorites. Stuffed them under my mattress. Only five. Small ones. So he didn’t notice some were missing.”

“You still have them with you,” Neil murmurs, following the thread, and Todd nods. “You brought them.”

“I took them when I—when I left. My favorite book isn’t there, because it got burned. It was one of the first ones, I couldn’t save it.” Tears push at the backs of his eyeballs, a hard, hurting pressure, but he still tries valiantly to hold them back. Recounting the memory is more difficult than he’d expected, something about saying everything out loud making it feel simultaneously more real and frustratingly trivial.

“What was it?” Neil asks softly, and Todd breathes in through his nose.

“Leaves of Grass,” he laughs. “Keating’s favorite. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you earlier. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for making you listen to this, not when—not compared to what you—”

“Don’t be sorry,” Neil says, and he grabs Todd’s hand, squeezing it. Todd looks over at the feeling to find Neil’s face startlingly close to his. “Please, don’t apologize. Please.”

Todd wants to kiss him. His face is so close, and he’s just listened to Todd nearly cry over a pile of replaceable books, and his lips are so red—

Todd leans closer, just by an inch, but even that movement has his heartrate spiking. Neil’s eyelids lower, his gaze flicking down towards Todd’s lips. Todd inhales sharply, suddenly aware of how he must look, lust-filled and predatory, too big, taking advantage of Neil in a vulnerable moment. Self-disgust is what first flashes through him, and then there’s fear, which fizzes through his chest and down his arms and legs, his fingers and toes.

He shoots to his feet, yanking his hand out of Neil’s. “Sorry—sorry—” he manages, and Neil is only just starting to stand, frowning, when Todd turns and begins to walk back up the rock face. It’s all he can do not to outright run, eager to get out of the clearing and away from the conversation they’d just had, the tension hovering thickly in the air even as he makes it into the clearing.

He ignores Neil’s calls of his name, entire body tensed and practically vibrating with his pounding heart as he unties Good Morning, mounting her and turning her back the way they came. Neil doesn’t follow him, or at least isn’t hurrying to catch up, and Todd is relieved.

It’s not until he’s halfway back to Dead Poets that he realizes Neil hadn’t ever told him how he’d found the lookout point, and with a sinking feeling, wonders if he’ll ever be able to return to the lookout point with Neil at all.

…

Todd holds Neil at arms’ length for the next few days, more than aware of Neil’s hurt puppy-dog looks but desperately afraid of how Neil will look if he finds out about Todd’s perverted thoughts. Images of Neil’s disgusted looks, of him telling the others, of the others beating him, of the others doing worse, things he’d heard done to homosexuals in the news, relentlessly flash through his mind. Even in his deepest fantasies, the ones where Neil reciprocates, he can’t picture it without being found out and killed. That is what happens to people like him. They don’t live happy lives, and they certainly don’t spend them with lovers, at least not for very long.

This was supposed to be a fresh start for himself, but he’s beginning to think he will never be able to escape this, that he should accept his life as one of isolation and be done with it all.

He just needs some time to put these feelings back in order, to resist temptation and let the infatuation die. If he’d done that in September, he’d be in a much better place—he wouldn’t even be dealing with this at all.

It doesn’t matter that meeting Neil has been the best thing to ever happen to Todd—Neil would be better off without Todd, and that is a truth that Todd will not stop torturing himself with.

They still talk, about the chores that need to be done and about the poetry Keating has them read every night, but they don’t talk very personally and they certainly don’t talk about the lookout point, at least not after Todd shuts Neil down quickly when he first attempts.

It’s been three days since Todd almost kissed Neil when they’re all sitting down to dinner, listening to the thin drizzle outside get heavier and heavier. Thunder eventually cracks outside, and Keating sets his fork down on his plate. “Doesn’t sound like it’s getting lighter. Are all the horses in the stables? Might get dangerous.”

Todd looks at Keating, confused. “W—what makes it dangerous?” he asks quietly, still a little nervous to speak in front of the entire dinner table at once.

“Storms can blow debris around; lightning can strike the horses. Same things that make it dangerous for a human being. Some farmers leave their horses out and let them find their own way, as their superior animal instincts can guide them better than we humans can,” Keating explains. “Our pasture isn’t big enough for shelter, so we close them in the stables and hope they don’t spook too badly. Did you get everyone in?”

“Some are still in the corral,” Rob says, through a mouthful of potato. “None out other than that. I’ll get them after—”

Todd, abruptly, remembers that he’d let Good Morning stay in the pasture when he and Neil had been bringing the rest in, as a treat for her good behavior lately. The thought of her all alone and scared with no shelter has him shooting to his feet, startling Rob enough that he stops talking.

“Good Morning,” he says, scooting his chair back from the table and slinging his jacket on. He starts running for the door, yelling out over the booming thunder: “Good Morning is out. I need to—I’ll go bring her in!”

The wind almost immediately knocks him over the moment he leaves the house, howling almost more loudly than the thunder, which seems to be in a constant state of rumbling. The sky is dark and angry, rain pelting down so hard and fast that Todd can barely see in front of him. He runs towards the pasture half-blind, slipping only a little in the mud as he goes, pushing his sodden hair out of his eyes and quickly numbing to the icy cold water tricking down his collar and soaking through his jacket.

He's shivering by the time he gets to the pasture gate, hands numb as he fumbles at the latch, but his only thought is Good Morning, how scared she must be, how she could already be hurt. The wind is strong and could pick up something heavy enough to hurt her, and lightning has been flashing brilliantly, each bolt followed by a deafening clap of thunder. He grabs the lassoed rope that hangs on the latch and drags the gate open, sprinting inside and calling Good Morning’s name.

“Good Morning!” he shouts, but it feels like he can’t get enough air in his lungs to get loud. He can barely hear himself over the wind and thunder, the raindrops making an unholy racket as they slam into the ground and tin roofs. “Good Morning!”

He runs blindly towards the back of the pasture, where he knows Good Morning prefers to graze. Lightning flashes and he sees the shape of her highlighted for a brief moment, posture alert and wary. Relief is a brief flicker through him as he slows his approach, holding his hands out peaceably.

“Easy, girl. Easy,” he soothes, but she still rears as he gets closer, her whinny nearly carried away by the wind. He should back away, but she usually calms when he’s near, calms with his touch. Maybe she can’t hear him—he can barely hear himself. If he can just get close enough to put a hand on her, let her feel that everything is alright, then maybe….

He inches closer, and she rears again, her eyes rolling as more lightning flashes and thunder booms so loudly Todd can feel it in his chest. It must spook her, because suddenly, she’s turning around to run, and Todd, stupidly, speeds up to try to catch her.

Lightning flashes again, so brilliant his entire field of vision goes white, and a sharp pain lances through his entire skull.

It’s not until Todd is blinking awake again, head throbbing fiercely and blinking rainwater out of his eyes, that he realizes he must have passed out. He’s lying in the mud, the sky still roiling and pouring rain, and he thinks he must have gotten struck by lightning.

Someone is saying his name. He turns his head towards the sound, a sharp ache ringing up his neck as he does, and finds Keating kneeling at his side, Neil just behind him. They look fuzzy; Todd can barely keep his eyes open.

“Todd, son, are you with us?” Keating says, patting his cheek. Todd struggles to focus on him, his head throbbing so hard he feels his gorge starting to rise. He gags. Keating is quick to roll him onto his side, causing more pain to lance through his head. He vomits onto the grass.

He’s vaguely aware of Keating rubbing his back. “You’re alright, it’s alright, son. You’ve got a concussion, but it’s a good sign you’re awake at all,” he’s saying. The rain makes him sound muffled, parts of his sentence fading with the bouts of thunder. “Neil, help me get him onto my back?”

Todd feels someone grab his shoulders and tug him into a sitting position, and the movement sparks a pain so intense that the world once again fades away into a comforting blackness.

…

Todd wakes up lying in a bed, something he hasn’t done in over a month, and for a moment, he thinks he’s in his own bedroom at home, waking up after a long afternoon nap. It’s not until he shifts and realizes his head is aching that he remembers last night, shame and confusion rippling through the still waters of familiarity and routine.

He turns his head, wincing, and looks around the room. He must be in Keating’s house, on the upper level, which he’s had no cause to explore before. It’s a small room, with painted white walls and chipping wooden furniture, blue curtains swaying in front of an open window. There’s a squat dresser along the wall opposite him, and a closet door set into the adjacent wall, just barely ajar. He’s lying on a rickety twin bed shoved into the corner of the room, a small nightstand and lamp to his left, and there’s an empty chair with worn lacquer pulled up to his bedside. The bedroom door, sharing a wall with the dresser, is directly across from him when he looks to his left, and it’s through there that Neil appears, carrying a very appealing glass of water.

“Neil,” Todd greets, his voice raspy. “What happened?”

“Oh, thank god,” Neil says, rushing to sit in the chair and setting the water on the table. “Keating said you were just sleeping it off, but I was wondering—”

He cuts himself off as Todd begins to push himself up, the pain in his head much more tolerable that it had been last night, at least in his hazy memory. “Here, let me help you sit up. How are you feeling?”

“I’m alright,” Todd says, but he tolerates the hand on his upper back helping push him upright. Neil passes him the glass of water, which he drinks from gratefully. “My—my head hurts, but it’s alright. What happened?”

“You rushed out in the middle of a storm is what happened,” Neil says, taking on a lecturing tone that Todd doesn’t particularly like. “You should have waited for us, Todd! God, you could have been killed!”

Todd wracks his brain, desperately trying to remember what had happened. He remembers rushing out in the storm, like Neil said, and running to get Good Morning out from pasture and back to the stables. She’d been spooked, had run away, and then— “Did—did I get struck by lightning? Is Good Morning okay?”

“Lighting?” Neil asks incredulously. “Todd, Good Morning kicked you. Do you not remember?”

“Oh.” Good Morning had kicked him. Todd remembers getting too close, and knowing it too, but he hadn’t realized…. He raises his hand to touch the corner of his forehead, where the throbbing seems to be emanating from, and feels a bandage wrapped across it. “Is Good Morning alright? Did she make it back to the stables?”

“The horse is fine, Todd,” Neil says, and there’s genuine annoyance in his voice. He shifts closer to the bed and turns his body to more fully look Todd in the face. His gaze is intense, and Todd finds himself looking at the green knit blanket covering him in order to avoid it. “We left her out because she was too spooked to get close to. She kicked you in the head, Todd. We’re lucky she only got you a little. Do you realize you could have gotten brain damage? That you could have died?” There’s a terror in his voice that Todd doesn’t understand, even as guilt curls in his stomach like smoke.

“I’m fine,” Todd says. “I knew what I was doing, Neil. I didn’t die. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“I’m going to worry about it!” Neil tells him. “You clearly aren’t worrying enough!”

“I worry enough just fine,” Todd snaps, irritated and guilty and confused as to why Neil keeps pushing this. His headache is getting worse. “I can take care of myself, Neil, so just—just leave it alone! I’m fine!”

“I’m not going to—Todd, I care about you,” Neil says, letting out a disbelieving huff. “You’re acting like that’s wrong, like it’s wrong to worry.”

There’s a beat—Todd feels like he might throw up. “Well, what if it is?” he croaks, and then his voice gets stuck in his throat. Mute, he tears his gaze away when Neil looks at him with big eyes.

“It’s not,” Neil says softly. “You deserve—I want to. I want to care about you, Todd, let me take care of you.”

Todd, horrified, realizes that his bottom lip is trembling. He bites it, hard, and stares at the blankets in an effort to will the tears away. Doubt and hope swirl together in a disorienting cocktail, and hope is always the more dangerous of the two. “I’m okay, Neil, but thanks,” he says, when he feels like he can speak without his voice wobbling too badly.

“I enjoyed our conversation,” Neil says, and it’s abrupt enough that Todd looks at him, frowning in confusion. Neil continues once he’s holding Todd’s gaze, voice earnest. “At the lookout point. You—you made me feel safe, like I could tell you anything and you would be there to catch me. I was so happy when you shared something back, and I could be there for you too, to listen and to hold you.”

Todd inhales sharply at the words, flinches when Neil’s fingers suddenly curl around his, warm and dry around his clammy cold hands. He looks down at where their hands now meet, heart galloping through him; Neil doesn’t draw away, instead only squeezing tighter.

“I didn’t share everything,” Todd says, unable to look back up to see Neil’s expression. “If you—if you knew—” He can’t force more words out, his lips trembling terribly. Neil deserves to be taken care of, to be listened to and held. Todd? Todd is a different story.

“Todd,” Neil whispers. “Todd, it’s okay. My god, it’s okay.”

“You’ll hate me,” Todd manages, tears making his vision blurry.

“I could never hate you, Todd,” Neil says, and he sounds so confident that Todd almost believes him, here with his warm hand in Todd’s cold fingers, unflinching and all-encompassing. “You deserve the world. I—please. Trust me.”

“Okay,” Todd whispers after a moment, and he almost means it. Maybe he can—maybe he can try. Just one more time.

For Neil.

…

NOVEMBER

Todd takes about two weeks to recover, spending his nights lying in Keating’s guest bedroom and his days on his living room sofa, unable to do hard labor until he gets the all clear from the doctor, who had seen him the morning he’d awoken and for once a week afterwards. Keating had given him his own lecture, this one simultaneously less and more terrifying than Neil’s, but he then proceeds to leave Todd to his own devices, only instructing him to make sure his activities remain quiet and restful, which Todd has no trouble obeying.

He reads, mostly, from his own small stack and from Keating’s library, and talks with Keating about each book in front of the fire. He feeds the chickens in the morning and takes short walks around the property with Neil in the afternoon before dinner. Time passes in such a pleasant haze that he hardly notices when they slip into November and his birthday is nearly upon them.

It's three days after Todd’s given the medical all-clear and one day before his birthday when Keating holds both him and Neil back after dinner with a proposition.

“I have an occasional buyer that lives up the mountain aways,” Keating explains, once they’re all sitting in his living room, a brilliant fire lit in the fireplace. He’s given Todd and Neil both a tiny glass of brandy, which tastes disgusting but gives Todd a pleasant warmth that has him continuing to sip at it. “He doesn’t buy very often, but he’s been interested in three horses we have for a while now and has finally decided to buy.”

“That’s great,” Neil says, when it seems like Keating is expecting a reply.

“Right you are, my boy,” Keating says, pleased. “The issue is, Mr Silva lives in a relatively undeveloped part of the mountains. There aren’t many roads, and what roads there are, are thin and twisty. A car, much less a truck with a horse trailer, would struggle to even make it halfway.”

Neil cocks his head, curiosity brightening his handsome features. “How do we get them up there, then?”

“Horseback,” Keating says, leaning back in his chair. “You ride your own horse and lead the purchased horses by rope behind you. Normally, I would have Rob and Michael do it—they’re more experienced—but I thought you two boys might enjoy a little time away from here, with Todd’s injury and Neil’s moping.”

Neil sputters, turning a bright pink Todd has never seen before, and Keating chuckles. Todd frowns at Neil, confused and looking for answers, but Neil won’t look at him. When he looks at Keating for answers instead, all Keating does is wink, which doesn’t help clarify anything.

“It’s a day and a half’s trip there, so you’ll need to camp out twice. There are clearings along the way that are good campgrounds,” Keating says, once Neil has resigned himself to staring into his brandy. “You boys know how to camp?”

“Yes,” Neil says, as Todd shakes his head. Keating and Todd both look at him curiously, so he elaborates. “I was in Boy Scouts. My father wanted me to make Eagle, thought it would look good on college applications.”

“Well, even without Eagle, it sounds like you’ve learned a very practical skillset. Even if not quite for the purpose your father intended,” Keating says with a conspiratorial grin, and Neil laughs, delighted. “Well, what do you say, boys?”

“Yes,” Neil says, and he sounds so excited Todd finds himself nodding along without really thinking about it.

“Excellent,” Keating says, clapping his hands together. He stands. “You’ll set out tomorrow, since Neil here knows what he’s doing and the weather’s supposed to be fine, at least according to the radio. Let me find you a map, and we can go over everything with a visual. Exciting!”

Todd glances at Neil as Keating moves around the room, excitement blossoming in his chest as Neil beams at him, clearly thrilled. He grins back—their conversations have deepened, lately, on their walks even without their regular nighttime chats in the barn. He thinks maybe—

Maybe, he might just be feeling a little bit brave.

…

The weather is indeed fine when they set out, uncommonly warm for November and with blue skies, paler than the deep blue of October and painted with transparent clouds. The grass is dead and the leaves are brown, but the evergreens still stand fully covered, every needle coated in a fine filmy substance that makes the green of them faded and pale.

The horses are well-behaved, and Todd is in charge of leading them as he follows Neil along the path. Neil is atop Byron again, but Todd has exchanged Good Morning, too old for a long journey, for Houseman, a blonde Appaloosa with a sweet temperament. Yeats, Dickinson, and Tennyson all follow behind him, whickering softly on occasion but mostly content to walk in silence.

They spend the time talking about everything and nothing, breaking at streams and consulting Keating’s map, but straying from the path is easy to avoid and there aren’t many places where the road diverges. Before Todd realizes it, the sun is setting and they’ve arrived at a clearing, Neil announcing it might be a good time to set up camp.

“I had no idea you could do all of this,” Todd says, amazed as he watches Neil coax a small fire to life. Neil laughs as the flame catches and flings himself over to settle by Todd, ignoring his own bedroll in favor of laying on Todd’s, propping himself up on an elbow as he lounges. He’s close enough that he could lay his head on Todd’s thigh, where he’s sitting cross-legged, and Todd flushes at the very thought. He shifts away, just slightly.

“We’re just lucky I remember even half of this,” Neil says, oblivious to Todd’s train of thought. “I was exaggerating a little when I told Keating I knew what I was doing. It just sounded so adventurous. I had to make sure he’d let us go.”

“So you put us all in grave danger?” Todd shoots back, amused. “Risked our lives so that you could feel like Robinson Crusoe?”

“That,” Neil says thoughtfully, “and the fact that it would be more time I’d get to spend with you.”

Todd’s heart leaps painfully. “We spend all day together, Neil.”

“Not like this,” Neil says, smiling up at him softly. “Not alone.”

Todd hums his acquiescence, nervous to speak, and they lapse into a comfortable silence. They’ve eaten already, slices of cornbread and canned beans, like cowboys, and Todd thinks it had been the best birthday dinner he could have asked for. Just him and Neil, under the stars and with only each other for company, laughing and free from the pressures of the world, if only for a little while.

Todd finds himself speaking before he can really think better of it, confession suddenly heavy on his tongue and eager to get out. “Today’s my birthday.”

Neil sits up, stares at him. “What? Todd!”

Todd shrugs, blushing and already regretting his choice to open up. He should have realized Neil would make a fuss about it. “It’s no big deal—I’ve barely ever celebrated it, anyway.”

“Whatever!” Neil laughs. “You should have told me—I would have gotten you something! How old are you now?”

Todd feels a small smile bloom across his face. “Seventeen.”

Neil grabs his hand, squeezes it. He’s been doing that a lot, lately. “Almost free,” he says. “I’ll be eighteen in January, and then I won’t have to worry about anything.”

“You’re worried?”

Neil’s smile fades, but only a little. “My father—he’s certainly looking for me. Or, at least I’m worried he is. But if I can hold out until January, he won’t be able to send me anywhere. I’m already living without his money, he won’t have anything left to control me with.”

Todd squeezes his fingers where they’re intertwined with Neil’s, heart leaping as Neil’s eyes flick down to look at their hands, grin growing bright again. “That’s so good, Neil,” he says quietly.

“Just two more months for me, and then a year for you, and then we can leave. Go to New York. You can become a writer, me an actor. They can’t stop us.”

Todd listens, an indescribable joy rising in his chest as he hears Neil describe a future for himself that includes Todd in it, that involves them living together, making a life together. It isn’t the first time he’s brought it up, but the happiness in hearing it, over and over, only seems to increase with every discussion, each repetition a commitment renewed. “We can leave earlier than that,” he says, and Neil leans closer. “We really only need to worry about your birthday. My parents—I doubt they’re looking for me, at least not anymore.”

Neil frowns. “But you’ve only been gone for a few months,” he says, and Todd shrugs.

“They’re probably glad to be rid of me. I think they’ve always felt that way. My brother—he was all they wanted. I must have been an accident, or something. I’m a—I disappoint them. Especially after—” He stops, realizes he’d been about to tell Neil, about to ruin everything, their plans for New York and their friendship and their night. “The point is, they don’t care.”

“Todd,” Neil says, his voice so quiet and gentle that Todd suddenly feels the urge to cry, “why did you run away?”

“Neil—”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Neil says, “but I think I—I think it would be good for you to talk about it.”

Todd looks at him, thinks about his promise weeks earlier, I could never hate you, Todd. He finds he still believes him.

But there are other ways he could lose Neil—Neil could stop talking to him, could become hesitant and distant. Their plans for New York could fade away, not cancelled but no longer mentioned, forgotten in the face of what Todd is and what it means.

But then, he thinks—Neil is bound to find out eventually. Todd can tell himself he’ll sit on this for the rest of his life, content to live with Neil as friends, but he’s not sure he can hide himself away all the time, not with Neil so close. And what if Neil moves away eventually, gets married, has kids? Where will Todd be? Abandoned, lonely, heartbroken?

And, a small part of him whispers, Neil seems to maybe—to possibly—he likes to hold hands, to hug and to give Todd compliments about his eyes and hair, and Todd may not have had many close friendships in his life but he’s fairly certain male friends don’t treat each other like this.

Neil’s voice suddenly jerks him out of his reverie. “It’s alright, Todd,” he says, sounding resigned. To Todd’s horror, he starts drawing his hand away. “You don’t have to—”

“Wait—” Todd chokes out, and he holds Neil’s hand fast. “I—I’ll tell you, Neil. You, you deserve to know.” His heart is in his throat, pounding so hard he almost wants to gag with it, but he finds himself determined underneath the fear. Neil has given him so much of himself, has given Todd so much patience. Todd wants to give him something, even if it’s the darkest part of himself.

Hope flickers across Neil’s face, but he tamps it down. “Are you sure?”

“I want to,” Todd says, and Neil squeezes his hand. “But I don’t think I can—well. I.”

He falls silent, trying to find the words. His entire body is shaking, trembling, the only steady part of him the hand in Neil’s. Neil, just like he’d been at the lookout point, is patient, and it’s this repetition that allows Todd to keep talking.

“I go to, um. I went to a private school. Balincrest. We lived there. I, um, had this r-roommate,” Todd starts, body shaking so hard he can barely breathe. He forces himself through it, the silence between his words so delicate it feels like gossamer. “He—um. We. I l-liked him. And he liked me—back. We, um, we would,” he takes a deep breath, and Neil leans up to hold his arm.

“Todd, it’s okay. I know, I know,” Neil soothes, and a sob breaks out of Todd before he can stop it.

“You don’t, Neil, we were—we were kissing! And the teacher c-caught us and Paulie blamed me and my parents, they were so—so mad and they—they were going to send me to a camp and all I could think about was the e-electroshock—”

Todd sucks in air, hyperventilating. He remembers everything in flashes—kissing under the bleachers, the coach finding them and dragging them out roughly, his parent’s expressions. His father had taken the belt to him that afternoon, the only time he’d ever been punished with it, and he remembers thinking about how Jeffrey had been punished like that, only once, for stealing from a family friend, the thought comforting and alienating in equal measure. He’d listened to them that night as they’d discussed options, lobotomies and electroshock and pills, video therapy and manual labor, and felt a fear and betrayal so profound he doesn’t think he can look at them ever again.

“Todd,” Neil is saying, and Todd abruptly realizes that there are arms around him, squeezing and rocking. “I know. Me too. Me too, Todd, please, me too.”

Todd draws in deep breaths, timing them to Neil’s, and it isn’t until he’s nearly back to breathing regularly that he realizes what Neil is saying, realizes that Neil is still touching him gently, still saying his name with affection. He collapses the rest of the way into Neil’s arms, boneless with exhaustion and tentative relief. It was over. He’s done—it’s out.

For long moments, they stare into the fire together, Neil rubbing a thumb across the back of Todd’s hand.

“What do you mean?” Todd rasps out eventually, sniffing, his face sticky with dried tears. “Me too?”

Neil lets out an exasperated huff, drawing back. Todd’s heart barely has a chance to sink before Neil’s hand is on his cheek, his face just bare inches from Todd’s.

“This is what I mean,” Neil says. “Okay?”

Todd feels like he’s floating, unreality ballooning in his body. “Okay,” he whispers, and then Neil is kissing him.

It’s chaste, Neil’s lips dry and warm against Todd’s, and pleasant. Todd stares at Neil when they part, Neil’s gaze searching his for something. “I love you, Todd,” he whispers, and the joy in Todd’s chest too much to hold, pushing at his ribcage so that he feels like he may just split open at the seams.

“Me too,” he says, and then Neil is drawing him into another kiss, this one deeper, heated and wet, and Todd sinks into it, melting, trusting Neil’s hands to hold him up.

There will be other issues, he’s sure. Neil hasn’t told him everything, and he’s not sure how this will continue when they’re back at the ranch. But right now, he’s kissing the boy he loves under the stars, his darkest secret thrown out of himself and caught in gentle hands, and he thinks it’s enough.

It’s more than enough.