Chapter Text
Neil knew, better than anyone, that Todd Anderson was special. Ethereal, even. He was warm and earnest and gentle in a school that, most days, was more excrement than excellent.
It should have come as no surprise when someone else seemed to come to that same realisation.
It was fine. Todd deserved the recognition. Neil wasn’t jealous.
Not at all.
Neil blamed Keating.
Blood pressures tended to run high in his classes on normal days. Every time they entered the classroom the open windows, faded black and white Whitman portrait, and faint aroma of Earl Grey tea wafting from Keating’s office would send a thrill through each of the boys. What would it be that day? Jumping from desks? Ripping textbooks to shreds? Leaving the classroom behind entirely? Keating always seemed to know exactly what kind of strange, roundabout way of teaching would serve his class best.
(This, as it turned out, was no normal day.)
At the beginning of the lesson, Keating had, hands in his pockets, started winding his way between the student’s desks. He didn’t call for quiet, but as soon as he had begun to walk a natural silence fell over the boys. Even Charlie seemed to be waiting for some indication of what reaction Keating was looking for. Every now and then, the teacher would pause at a boy’s desk and hold eye-contact for an uncomfortably long moment before moving on.
The boys stared, nonplussed.
As Keating finished his round and headed back to his desk at the front of the room, Todd turned back to watch him. Neil caught the other boy’s gaze and wiggled his eyebrows, grinning when Todd pressed his lips together to avoid letting out a nervous laugh that would break the silence. Todd turned back around to the front, watching Keating settle himself in front of his desk. Neil lingered on the back of Todd’s head for a moment longer, admiring the way the midmorning sun reflected in his hair and highlighted his smooth, bare neck.
“Love!”
Neil snapped his attention to Mr Keating, who, if he wasn’t mistaken, was looking at him with a knowing twinkle in his eye. A nervous muttering began to crop up over the room, as boys huffed and shuffled in their seats.
“Love, boys,” Keating continued, smiling easily at the discomfort, “is the driving force behind some of the most beautiful poetry ever written. Beautiful, I say, not best, because you can be sure there are some agonising love poems out there.”
From the back corner of the room, Neil heard a cough that sounded suspiciously like Charlie trying to cover up, “Knox.”
“Shut up, Charlie,” Knox hissed, as a few boys chuckled.
“That’s enough, Mr Dalton,” Keating interrupted, carefully avoiding looking at Knox. “You boys are young, with red-blooded passion coursing through you! Perhaps you have felt love. Think of your friends. Your family. Your sweetheart, if you are lucky enough to have one. Perhaps you believe you are too young to have felt true love. This is outrageous! Outrageous!”
Some of the boys were looking at each other with stifled laughter and raised eyebrows of, Can you believe him? Neil focused very intently on not looking at Todd.
“Look at you-! You all look away, you shirk my gaze because you are uncomfortable. Love will make you uncomfortable! Listen, the poets don’t tell you, but that is the primary purpose of love. It forces you out of your life, it demands you to be better. I tell you, boys, when (not if, when) you think you feel a thread, or a dangling loose end of love, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you, you grab that thread. You take that invisible string with both hands. You hold it tight and you unravel it and you see it through till its end, you hear me?”
Keating was clutching his heart earnestly, and any remaining giggles or snorts had faded away. Neil knew his own mouth was slightly agape, and he should probably be more focused on composing himself. Keating looked from boy to boy, and his eyes seemed to soften a little bit further when they landed on Neil’s face.
“I said, do you hear me?” Keating repeated, louder.
“Loud and clear, Captain!” Charlie hollered from the back, and a chorus of hurried voices saying “Yes, sir,” followed. Neil felt himself beam as he repeated it with the boys to his left and right. He was positively determined to make it through this part of the lesson without looking at Todd. There was no reason for him to, right? He knew that Todd didn’t- couldn’t -requite his feelings, so there was no reason that all this talk of love would bring the image of a shining, pale neck to the forefront of his mind. No reason, at all.
Keating seemed to have no regard for Neil’s carefully planned, platonic ideas, because he immediately glanced to his right to stare straight at Todd, who startled in his seat. Neil followed his gaze, tracing the outline of Todd’s hunched shoulders and bowed head.
“Do you hear me, Mr Anderson?” Keating was quiet, but firm. Neil wondered how, out of all the boys in the room, the teacher could instinctively know who’s voice was missing from the chorus.
“Y-yes, sir.” Even from here, Neil could see the embarrassed tinge of pink beginning to rise in that pale neck. Keating straightened up and clapped his hands together.
“Excellent! In that case, boys, we will be diving briefly back into the Bard himself; for where better to gain a knowledge of that invisible string than from Romeo and Juliet! You may find the romance to be short-lived and foolish, and all the more reason for you to read it, I say.”
Neil saw Pitts slump in his peripherals just as he felt himself perk up. Shakespeare again, finally! After finishing the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the following lapse between Winter and Summer plays, he had found himself sorely missing the thrill of speaking in iambic pentameter. Keating reached onto his desk and picked up a stack of books.
“Let us assign roles, then! I want you boys to commit when we read- when we perform- next lesson. Any volunteers for Romeo? No? Well, that’s probably good. Never trust a man whose first preference is Romeo, boys. Stick, congratulations. You’re our leading man.”
Stick, a row ahead of Neil, smiled and reluctantly accepted the role as one of his friends slapped his arm playfully. Keating tossed a book onto desk.
“Excellent attitude. Now, there is no Romeo without a Juliet. Who…” Keating’s Cheshire cat smile grew wider, and he slowly turned his whole body to his right. “Mr Anderson, let’s make something of that promise, eh?”
Neil grinned, watching as Todd shrank into himself. God bless Keating, and his uncanny ability to force a well-deserved spotlight on the boy.
“Sir- I, I really don’t think I can-”
“Nonsense, Anderson. The lines are already written for you, this time. You’ll have no problem and,” his eyes flitted to Neil briefly, “I’m sure you have plenty of willing friends to help you rehearse.”
“Sir-”
“Hell yeah, Todd!” Charlie whistled from the back, and Neil laughed quietly as Todd looked straight up at the roof. If he had to guess, he’d say the boy was resigning himself to a painful and imminent death.
“Thank you, Mr Dalton. Or, perhaps I should call you Tybalt.”
Neil chuckled as murmurs and excited whispers rose again throughout the room while Keating assigned roles. He himself was given a pretty small part, but didn’t mind too much. Most of the boys in the class had already seen him act, after all. It was only fair that they got a chance, too. Neil leaned forward in his seat, about to call out to get Todd’s attention. Just as he opened his mouth, Stick reached over to tap Todd’s shoulder. Todd whipped around, relaxing a little when he saw who it was. Stick gave a crooked smile and adjusted his glasses, saying something Neil couldn’t make out as he raised his copy of Romeo and Juliet. Todd smiled, a little awkwardly but wholly endearingly, and mumbled something in response. Stick laughed loudly, and clapped Todd on the back, and something sour twisted in Neil’s stomach.
Suddenly, he didn’t feel quite as excited to see Todd play Juliet.