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“Gentlemen,” Keating said, pacing the front of the classroom with his usual quiet mischief, “the world has never lacked for things to say, only for ways to say them when saying them outright would cost too much.”
He let that sit, twiddling the small stick of chalk between his fingers.
“There are entire languages,” he continued, turning to scrawl unsaid in a looping hand across the board, “that history has politely misplaced. Codes built not for war, but for the heart. Glances held a beat too long. Notes passed and burned. Some people would communicate using something as simple as a hand fan.” He mimed fanning himself for comedic effect, trying to present himself as a debutante, to the laughter of his class.
“Even flowers, gentlemen,” Keating snapped back into an authoritative stance, pacing in front of the chalkboard. “Arrangements so carefully chosen they could confess love or warn of danger without ever uttering a syllable.”
A ripple of interest moved through the room. Neil Perry leaned forward, eyes alight, already imagining a stage that hadn’t yet been built. Todd Anderson stayed very still, pen hovering uselessly above his notebook, as if the words might bruise him if he pressed too hard.
“In the nineteenth century,” Keating said, softer now, “there existed a practice called floriography — the language of flowers. It allowed people to speak when they were forbidden to. To be honest when honesty was unsafe.”
His gaze drifted, not accidentally, toward the back of the room.
“For extra credit,” he added, smiling, “I’d like you to find one of these lost languages. Learn it. Translate something personal. Something you’ve never quite known how to say.”
The bell rang. Chairs scraped. Boys laughed and complained and filed out into the corridor.
Todd remained seated, heart knocking strangely against his ribs.
Neil turned in his chair, grinning. “Flowers, Anderson,” he said lightly, as though it was nothing at all. “Can you imagine? Entire love letters made out of petals.”
Todd swallowed. “I—” he started, then stopped. His voice felt too loud in his own ears. “I didn’t know they meant things.”
Neil’s smile softened, just a fraction. “Well,” he said, gathering his books, “then I suppose someone ought to show you.”
As they walked out together, neither of them noticed the way Keating watched from the doorway—fond, knowing, and just a little afraid of what boys will do once they realize there are ways to speak without speaking.
——
Neil was startled upright at his desk by a sharp, deliberate rap-rap-rap on the door—so measured it almost sounded practiced.
“Neil!”
Ah. Charlie.
With a long-suffering sigh that was more fond than annoyed, Neil pushed back his chair and crossed the room, yanking the door open just in time to find his friend frozen mid-gesture, fist still raised as though he were prepared to knock again purely out of spite.
He blinked. “What on earth are you doing?” Neil asked, incredulous. “You never knock when you come in.”
Charlie lowered his hand slowly, a grin tugging at his mouth. “I know. That’s the point.”
Neil squinted at him. “The point of what?”
“Meeks was just telling me about Morse code being a legitimate form of communication,” Charlie said, launching forward without waiting for an invitation. “Dots and dashes. Whole conversations tapped out on walls. Very clandestine. Very dramatic.” He tapped out another quick rhythm on the doorframe for emphasis. “Thought I’d give it a go.”
Neil snorted despite himself, stepping aside to let him in. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. If this is Morse code, it translates to please stop.”
Charlie laughed, flopping down onto Neil’s bed like he owned it. “You’re just uncultured,” he said breezily. “Keating’s got us all learning dead languages and secret signals. I’m expanding my repertoire.”
Neil shut the door behind him, shaking his head, though his smile lingered. “Next time,” he said, “try speaking like a normal human being before I assume the building’s on fire.”
Charlie only grinned wider. “So?” he said, already making himself comfortable, sprawling across Neil’s bed like he’d claimed it by right. He fished a slightly crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket, tapping one loose with his thumb. “What have you chosen?”
Neil leaned back against his desk, arms crossed, trying (and failing) to look casual. “I think I want to do flower language,” he said. “There are far more meanings than I thought there would be. Whole conversations, apparently.” He gestured vaguely with one hand. “And Shakespeare used it onstage, so it’s practically sanctioned by the canon.”
He didn’t mention the other things he’d read about Oscar Wilde, about green carnations worn like a dare, about men who had learned how to recognize one another without ever saying the word love. He didn’t say how the idea had lodged itself somewhere in his chest and refused to leave. In his more theatrical moments, he’d even considered wearing one himself. A small, defiant flash of green against the Welton uniform. Dress code be damned.
Charlie laughed, delighted, and lit his cigarette with a long, indulgent inhale. “Naturally,” he said. “Very you. So what, are you going to start swanning around with bouquets now?”
Neil smiled, but the thought had unlocked something deep in his mind, and he couldn’t help the plan that was already hatching.
Flowers were easy enough to come by, he realized. The groundskeepers kept the campus immaculate, beds of carefully tended blooms lining the paths like something out of a postcard. There was the greenhouse behind the science building, warm and smelling faintly of damp earth, where no one ever went unless they had permission or curiosity. And just beyond the school gates, past the edge of Welton’s watchful brick, there was town: a small florist tucked between the bakery and the tailor’s shop, the kind of place run by someone who didn’t ask questions.
Flowers could be found. That wasn’t the problem.
The problem — if it was a problem at all —was knowing exactly who he might give them to.
——
“Neil, where did this come from?” Todd asked, laughing despite himself as he lifted the small, solitary daisy from where it sat on his desk. It looked almost accidental there — too bright, too alive against the neat stacks of books and paper — as though it had wandered in on its own.
“Oh, that?” Neil shrugged, the motion carefully casual, an effortless smile already in place. Anyone else might have believed it. Todd, however, didn’t see the hour Neil had spent pacing the quad, turning the stem between his fingers, arguing with himself about whether this was foolish or reckless or worse — obvious. “I just picked it from outside,” Neil said. “Thought you’d like it.”
Todd huffed softly and rolled his eyes, though his fingers lingered on the petals longer than necessary before he set the daisy back down, aligning it neatly with the edge of his desk. “Does this have anything to do with your flower language thing?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Anderson,” Neil replied, solemn as a priest, before ruining it entirely with a quick, conspiratorial wink.
Then he was gone; out the door, down the hall, leaving behind the faint scent of cold air and something unsettled in Todd’s chest.
Todd stood there for a moment, staring at the daisy as though it might explain itself if he waited long enough. Finally, he turned. That was when he noticed it.
An old book sat on Neil’s desk, its spine cracked, pages yellowed with age. The Language of Flowers.
Todd hesitated, glancing once toward the door as if Neil might burst back in and catch him mid-trespass. He didn’t. Curiosity won, as it always did. Todd crossed the room, lifted the book, and carefully flipped it open.
——
On the second day, Todd was startled to find a tiny cornflower tucked into the front page of his notebook, its blue petals a vivid shock against the clean white paper. It had been placed with care. Not crushed, not bent. Just resting there, as though it had always belonged between his notes on Latin vocabulary and attempts to decode Keating’s half-legible scrawl.
Something deep in his chest tightened at the deliberateness of it.
Todd had always known, in that quiet way that doesn’t ask permission, that he wasn’t like the other boys his age. He had been told often enough — too soft, too gentle, too quiet. Feeling too much had always been his undoing. For a few years now, he had understood, dimly but certainly, that he didn’t like girls the way boys were supposed to. The realization had arrived without drama and stayed without explanation.
After moving to Welton, Todd had sworn solemnly, silently, not to let himself feel that way about anyone again. Not after Tommy Harrison in grade eight at Balincrest, whose smile had meant everything and nothing all at once. That vow lasted precisely until Neil Perry had approached him on day one, and introduced himself like they were about to be co-conspirators.
The cornflower stared back at Todd accusingly.
Neil had a habit of getting carried away — ideas ballooning into performances, jokes turning into declarations. Todd had learned to ground himself, to not read too much into things, especially when it came to Neil. Especially when it came to his own feelings.
But this was difficult not to overanalyze.
He had, of course, gone through Neil’s book the night before. The first flower had been easy to dismiss.
Daisy — innocence, loyal affection.
Entirely harmless. Safe. Almost boring.
This was not.
Todd glanced around the classroom. Charlie was whispering something animated to Knox, who was trying and failing to look like he wasn’t listening. Meeks was adjusting his glasses, already halfway lost in thought, while Pitts tapped his pencil in a steady rhythm. No one was paying him any attention.
Todd stood, walked back to Neil’s empty desk, and picked up the old book again. The spine creaked familiarly as he flipped through it, fingers moving faster now, heart thudding with each page.
Cornflower — delicacy, gentleness.
Todd shut the book a little too quickly.
Heat rushed to his face, blooming from his cheeks all the way up to the tips of his ears. He pressed his lips together, forcing himself to breathe evenly.
“Okay,” he murmured under his breath, barely audible over the scrape of chairs. “Okay, Neil.”
Two can play this game.
—
Neil nearly laughed out loud when he found the violet pressed carefully into the pages of Five Centuries of Verse. He had been halfway through rehearsing a monologue under his breath when the colour caught his eye — deep purple, unmistakable.
He closed the book slowly, reverently, like it might vanish if he moved too fast.
“Well,” he whispered, grinning to no one in particular.
He didn’t need to guess who it was from. Todd might have been quiet, might have shrunk into himself when called upon, but Neil had always sensed something coiled and fierce beneath the surface. Todd felt deeply. Neil had seen it in the way he listened, in the way his eyes lingered.
He flipped back to the page he knew by heart.
Violet — modesty, faithfulness.
A laugh bubbled up in his chest, bright and breathless. So Todd had looked. Had understood. Had answered.
Charlie flopped down beside him on the steps outside later that afternoon, cigarette already dangling from his lips. “You look like you’ve just discovered the wheel,” he said.
“Art,” Neil replied airily. “I’ve discovered art.”
Charlie snorted. “Sure you have.”
Neil only smiled.
Despite the thrill sparking through him, a quieter voice lingered in the back of his mind, warning him to be careful. Nobody knew the full extent of his feelings toward Todd. Nobody knew how far those feelings extended, or how they tangled with the parts of himself he was never allowed to name.
He was playing with fire.
And God help him, he found it exhilarating.
He knew exactly what he’d do after the next Dead Poets meeting.
—
The sprig of fern appeared on Todd’s pillow two days later.
Todd found it after lights-out, the dorm quiet save for the rustle of pages and Knox’s muffled whisper to Pitts down the hall. The fern lay there simply, unadorned, its green fronds fanning outward like an open palm.
Todd sat on his bed for a long moment before touching it.
Fern — sincerity; secret bond.
The plant itself was unremarkable. You could find ferns anywhere — at the edge of the woods, behind stone walls, along forgotten paths. That, somehow, made it worse. Made it holier.
With careful hands, Todd carried it to his desk and taped it between the pages of his notebook, joining the daisy and the cornflower. A small, quiet archive of things he was not supposed to want.
—
The camellia came later.
It was winter by then, the ground frozen hard and unforgiving, and Todd knew immediately that Neil hadn’t simply plucked it from the quad. The white camellia waited for him on his desk after dinner, wrapped in brown paper like a secret.
“Someone’s got an admirer,” Charlie said loudly as Todd slipped into the room.
Todd nearly dropped it.
Neil, across the room, didn’t look up—but his shoulders were suspiciously tense.
Todd waited until later, until the noise settled and Charlie retreated back to his own room.
White camellia — adoration.
Todd pressed it flat between the pages of his book and lay awake for hours, heart aching with something dangerously close to joy.
—
His reply was ivy.
He wound it carefully, quietly, around the bedpost nearest Neil’s side, where it could be hidden if needed, but seen if you knew to look.
Ivy — fidelity; attachment.
Neil noticed before breakfast. He froze, hand stilling on the frame, breath catching so sharply and putting a skip in his step to the point where Pitt’s would later ask him if he was alright.
“Perfect,” Neil said faintly.
—
The last flower came without ceremony.
A single forget-me-not, slipped into Todd’s coat pocket on a morning when the sky hung low and gray. No book left open. No desk disturbed.
Just a promise.
Forget-me-not — true love; remembrance.
Todd didn’t look it up. He didn’t need to.
He carried it with him all day, pressed close to his heart, a quiet language spoken fluently between them — unseen, unspoken, and impossible to take back.
——
“Neil,” Todd asked as he closed their door behind them, shrugging his coat off to hang on the back of his chair. The room smelled faintly of winter and something softer, almost like the lingering scent of camellia, ivy, and a faint hint of the tiny flowers they’d shared in silence. “Can I ask you something?”
Neil froze, unsure whether to brace for panic or leap for joy. “I don’t know, Todd,” he said with a nervous chuckle, deliberately keeping his gaze elsewhere. “Depends on what you’re going to ask.”
“Well, I— I just—” Todd stammered, brows furrowing in that gentle way that made Neil want to rearrange the universe just to smooth them out. “Do you… do you mean it? Any of it?” His hand hovered, then brushed against Neil’s arm, a tentative bridge.
“Jesus, Todd,” Neil said, tilting his head back, a smile spreading across his face. “Yes. All of it. Whatever you want it to mean, I mean it.”
Todd squinted, pressing closer. “What does that mean? Just… well, what do you want it to mean?”
Neil swallowed, the words almost mocking in their simplicity and impossibility. A game of chicken between hearts, bound by society’s rules and the great queer tradition of repress, repress, repress. He scanned Todd’s face but he found no hesitation, no fear. Only curiosity. Only daring.
“Todd Anderson,” he whispered finally, hands trembling as they found their way to Todd’s shoulders, “it means that I am irreparably in love with you.”
He glanced away, bracing for shock, denial, ridicule; but instead felt warmth. Todd’s arms wrapped around him, grounding him in a way nothing else could.
“Oh my god,” Todd breathed, forehead against Neil’s shoulder. “I thought you’d never feel the same.”
Neil’s heart skipped. “You mean—”
“Yes!” Todd interrupted, cupping Neil’s face in his hands. His eyes caught the faintest trace of cornflower blue in the light, and Neil could almost swear he smelled camellia and ivy lingering from past exchanges. “All of it, Neil. Every single bit.”
Neil laughed quietly, exhaling tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Then I suppose,” he said softly, brushing his thumb over Todd’s knuckle, “we’ve just proven that Keating’s whole secret language assignment is actually useful.”
The forget-me-not still rested safe in Todd’s coat, small and unassuming, but heavy with all the things they had dared to feel, and all the things they had never spoken aloud. Neil pressed his forehead to Todd’s, the world outside momentarily fading. The dorm, Welton, even the rules of society, and for once, the language of flowers was enough.