Because I make far too many;

The truth coiled on the floor between them in an errant patch of moonlight.
He wasn't certain what had woken him; some muffled mutter of Todd's, the faint echo out of a poet's dream, perhaps. Or had he dreamed himself, some vision forgotten in the moment of coming awake? Perhaps it had been nothing-- mere chance stirring him from his rest to stare at the bars of shadow across the ceiling, to stand and peer through the rimed panes at the slumbering campus.
His roommate shifted in the other bed, turning his face so the silver light fell across it, dead to the world. Neil smiled at nothing and knelt to retrieve the blanket, throwing it over Todd's sleeping form. Careful to cover his feet. The act was a joke, a conceit; but as soon as the thought formed in his mind he felt a shiver-- deep, seated at the base of his spine. The same chill he'd felt in the classroom; not cold but somehow somber, sacred. Visceral. He tried to remember Todd's poem, mouthing the lines voicelessly and coming up somehow short on his own-- what was it-- and his hands reach out and choke me, and all the while he's mumbling... the cadence caught in his throat at last, and he stood as still as granite, eyes shut, trying to commit it more perfectly to memory. The low, stumbling phrases; the boy's hesitance giving way to the rush of words, quicker and bolder with bitten edges and breaths between. He'd sat enraptured; it had been an unexpected outburst of beauty, something indescribably perfect and spontaneous. He'd suspected that Todd would do something amazing, eventually-- once his shell of shyness cracked, once he managed to eke out a space beyond the shadow of his brother's grand and smothering reputation-- but he'd been unprepared for the poem. Neil had been aware of the potency of the moment, the fact that something significant had happened. Truth. Truth.
The same urgent sense hung in the air now, conjured by the words he whispered to himself. They weren't his; belonged to the sleeping boy; but he made them his own in his own heart. It was what he was; an actor, a speaker; intoning others' phrases, imbuing them with enough of himself to evoke in the listener what he himself felt. He was a bit giddy; felt inhuman, insubstantial. A creature of mercurial light and smoke standing in the space between their lives, looking down upon them with ancient eyes. Something had happened; those words Keating had unleashed had changed their lives in a subtle and thrilling way.
A muddle of emotions welled up inside him, and he felt he might shout-- could not contain the pounding of his heart, needed to give voice-- if ineloquently-- to his certainties. He took a deep breath. He was quicksilver and wild; he was as he had always been and never dared to be.
Todd mumbled something in his sleep, nearly inaudible, and kicked his feet free of the blanket. His creased brow smoothed, and he settled back into stillness.

Neil laughed softly, and the moment faded; he was only a boy with cold bare feet on cold bare wood, clad in worn flannel pajamas. Yet somehow the fire did not go out of him; he took a slow, steady breath, eying the bars of light and shadow on the wall. Something important had happened; they had all been changed in an instant, irrevocably. Neil shook his head and slipped back into his own bed.

"Was it weird playing Robin? Now that you know him, I mean, and with him being there."

Neil glanced over at his friend briefly, eyes darting back to the icy path before him. Snow on Midsummer's Eve; the City never failed to surprise him. He considered the question for a moment, shrugging.

"Not really? I didn't really think about it, during."

Within the confines of the stage, the span of the play, reality had suspended itself for Neil. That was part of the appeal acting held; one ceased to be oneself for a time, immersed in the role, willingly accepting the fiction. Living someone else's life, in part. It wasn't that Neil hated his own reality-- far from it, especially now (bittersweet though that admission was.) But he liked the adventure, the chance to lose himself, to be someone impossible and amazing in ways he could never be on his own.

"For me... Robin wasn't Robin, when he was on stage," Neil added thoughtfully. The Puck had been Bottom-- an excellent, if ironic, performance-- and the fiction had been at the forefront of Neil's mind, allowing him to ignore the reality of the situation.

"You were," Todd added with a nod, his breath steaming in the frigid air.

"Mnn." No cloud of fog accompanied the actor's words; a quiet reminder that he was no longer quite among the living, animate and lively as he seemed. They strolled along in companionable quiet for a while, considering the evening. Happy overall; the tragedy following the last performance of Midsummer, on a similarly snowy evening not long ago (for them, at least; ages ago, by some standards,) not forgotten, but certainly lessened by the pleasant glow of tonight's unmitigated success. Even the troubles of the curse were forgotten, their fathers' images having disappeared some time ago, when midnight struck.

"I'm not sure you quite captured him," Todd said suddenly, a calculated air of haughtiness in his voice, grin belying the apparent seriousness of the comment. Neil gasped, feigning indignation.

"What do you mean by that?" He could guess the gist of this joke, though. Neil sidled a little closer to his friend, a lascivious smirk curving the corners of his lips upwards. He winked, doing a credible impression of Robin's appraising, inviting glance, raising a hand to adjust the crown of branches he wore. A single pale rose sat jovially upon it, bright against his dark hair. Considering the centuries of practice he hadn't had, Neil did a decent job of it, mimicking the Puck's ever-inviting attitude.

Todd laughed delightedly. "Absolutely nothing!" he assured Neil, waving off the comment.

"I should hope so." Ever one to play to the audience, Neil slipped an arm playfully around Todd's waist, hand coming to rest on the other boy's side, moving close enough that their hips bumped together lightly. It was oddly comfortable, and something in Neil thrilled at the contact-- though for a moment he was uncertain what it was that appealed to him. The act, or the reality.

Todd's cheeks were pink, he noticed. Was that merely the cold? Had he been that flushed before? He was still smiling, though there was a note of shyness to it now, and he seemed a little stiff. Uncertain, but-- not displeased? Neil thought, perhaps, he'd taken the act too far. He slowed his steps, his friend coming to a halt alongside him, and turned inward a little to face him.

Neil hadn't moved his hand, and they stood together, bodies separated by only the barest of margins. Another few flowers were tucked into the lapel of Todd's coat, and the night smelled of ice and roses. Neil hesitated, not quite sure why he'd paused, what had happened.

Todd reached up, fingers brushing against Neil's face as he pushed the crown back a little, dispelling the shadows that had fallen across the young actor's expression. Pushing aside the costume, and with it the act. The pretense. Neil's hand had drifted to the small of Todd's back when the other boy had shifted; he didn't remove it, and after an achingly long moment, Neil placed his free hand uncertainly on Todd's hip, eyes intent on the other boy's face, trying to gauge his reaction. He was himself; only Neil, no grand and ancient trickster-- but for a moment he felt like more, unnatural and mercurial, standing beneath the snow-softened streetlamps. He licked his lips nervously. Todd let his hand fall, coming to rest lightly on Neil's chest.

Neil glanced down at the fingers curled lightly into his scarf, then back to meet that clear blue gaze, shyly cast through a fringe of golden lashes.

He leaned forward, hands slipping together so his fingertips touched behind Todd's back, and kissed the other boy. His dearest friend, the only reminder of home he had. Todd shivered a little-- no fault of the cold, Neil was certain-- but did not pull away, his lips parting hesitantly as he returned the kiss, hand snaking back up to brush Neil's throat, to rest on his shoulder. They pressed against one another, heedless of the cold, the fact that they stood in plain sight of anyone who cared to look, a kind of subdued desperation drawing them together.

They pulled apart after a time, mutually embarrassed and uncertain of what to say. But pleased; wholly pleased, in spite of a lingering guilt about what they'd just done. Suddenly shy, Neil took a step back, chill air rushing between them-- though he didn't break contact entirely. After a moment's deliberation, he let his hands fall from Todd's sides, instead twining his fingers with the other boy's.

Neil smiled nervously, nodding his head in the direction of their building, an unspoken question. Todd nodded, shifting a little closer so they stood shoulder to shoulder, hands clasped.

They walked home through the midsummer snow.

[reference; post, log]