Chapter Text
Neil was hungover, and Paris was simply unbearable when one was hungover. The romanticised American ideal of a sophisticated and seductive city was destroyed the moment he stepped foot off the smoke-filled train. He, in typical gangly Neil fashion, proceeded to bump into an elderly woman who swore violently at him in French, his hands making their way to his mouth as he violently coughed up his left lung from the cigarette fumes and level of pollution around the city. His friends didn’t seem to mind, though, bumming their cigarette butts on the ground themselves and ogling at petite French women who didn’t even give them the satisfaction of eye contact.
His time in Europe thus far was one filled only with debauchery. Neil and his friends spent dusk till dawn at dark lit lounges that the middle class bourgeois could dream of. Nights that were only spread by word of mouth. Clandestinely hidden behind the Parisian gothic architecture that was illuminated by day. The flirty banter and scent of alcohol waltzed around the room, sweat dripping on ties and vests of men, the adrenaline of decadence and illicit activity. Women with painted dark lips and angular bobs, rouge and shrill giggles provided a counter-melody of the performers and their silky sweet, husky voices. Gin and tonics served on fake silver platters. Couples ending the night prematurely to leave for one's respected hotel, the burning of the gazes left by many embedded imprints on Neil’s back. He didn’t belong here.
Neil felt acutely out of his body for the majority of his time in Europe thus far, finding it ironic that he and his colleagues came from the death of adolescence and disciplinary school a fortnight ago. Well-ironed uniforms and photos with family, doting grandmothers that kissed the cheeks of their well respectable, newly graduated grandsons. He scoffed, unaware of why he chose to go on this trip anyway. At least his father was off his back, he’d learnt after that play that he needed to play the part of a dutiful son, it was more important than the role of Puck or any character he once foolishly dreamt of playing. Sure, he didn’t like where the trajectory of his life was going, any of his friends or himself, but he needed to fill the void of his own thoughts somehow, and being consistently around others who believed they were invincible and didn’t have a ounce of critical thought to take up their brain space helped numb any turmoil he may have boiling up in himself.
Home was where his scowling father, feeble mother and Harvard pre-med textbooks sat. Awaiting him like a doctor giving bad news. Gone were the days of foolish childhood dreams, playful rebellion and enamouration with a world Neil once believed to be filled with beauty and aspiration and revolution. He had to prepare himself for scalpels, patients etherised on tables, 9-5 sensibilities and drinks with friends he didn’t really like and unfulfilling relationships with Staceys and Betsys and Georginas. Adulthood never seemed more stifling.
Neil wandered aimlessly around Champes de Mars at 5th Avenue, cradling a takeaway cup of scalding black coffee in his right hand, gesturing and naming the pigeons that he came across through his meandering with his left hand. His eyes now honing in on the eclectic group of people surrounding him. Locals scowl at tourists for standing too long in front of gates or queues and roll their eyes at blank stares in consequence of someone speaking to them in a language other than English. Neil hears the word cretin uttered under someone’s breath and laughs, looking at a squealing child manically jumping around the fountain he finds himself looking at.
Neil expected to be participating in some type of culture throughout his tour of Europe, but found his friends were simply not interested in museums or art galleries or even local cafes with buttery and soft pastries or sweet tarts that melted in a person’s mouth. He resorted to leaving his hotel room only an hour or so after he and his friend’s made it back after a night of hedonism incarnate. Eye bags apparent and feeling a constant light-headedness enduring any of his fruitless attempts at cultural enjoyment. His father seemed very willing to provide him the funds for such a trip, citing his transition from “foolish, theatrical boyhood to intellectual and displinced manhood” as the main reason for his benefactor status and continued support of Neil. It was never always like this though, he will never forget the urgency in which he left Henley Hall those two odd years ago, his friends and teacher left staring at a moving car out in the snow. He starts to panic at the mere recollection of the moment. A pinprick concentration of fury that builds up in his temple whenever he even looks at his father that he’s got used to concealing aptly. His relationships around him were only ones of survival, to be alone with his thoughts for a large amount of time could leap to the most adverse of spirals.
Neil sits down on a bench and twirls around the ring on his slender finger, one he found at a stall not too far from here. It’s appearance is relatively thin, though still engraved are intricate tiny flowing lines that curve, it's gold metal giving a worn and Hellenistic appearance. Endowed on it’s top lay a dainty blue fire Opal stone. All he could do was stare at the ring on it’s rack until the merchant told him it’s name of the stone and origin. The colour was reminiscent of something, it gave him a feeling of warmth and comfort. In complete disregard of the price, Neil handed over his Franc currency and adorned the ring the moment he could get it on his finger.
His eyes then lead him through the trajectory of the skyline, past people’s heads, the Eiffel Tower itself and to a person sitting on a fountain. The person’s burgundy red sweater sitting comfortably on their broad chest, complementing their layered button up and brown corduroy slacks. They were reading a novel. Neil took his glasses out of his pocket and pushed them onto the bridge of his nose to squint and see it’s author. Camus… interesting. It’s Neil's glance up that stops him dead in his tracks.
The colour that is so familiar and sits so comfortably on his ring finger manifests itself in the eyes of him. His now longer, sandy, tousled, beach blond hair. Eyes that so easily pierced through one's soul, alongside a jaw hallmarked by facial features once meticulously studied and known to Neil’s physical presence and mental mindscape. Here he was, sitting, cross legged, on a magnificent and bottle green Parisian French fountain, not hours away from him or tragically unattainable to Neil, but metres away, with the ability to once again hold out his hand, reintroduce himself, and meet Todd Anderson all over again.