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“Mr Dalton? …Mr Dalton?”
Charlie, eyes still closed, slowly came to consciousness. He frowned, immediately missing the sweet, achingly heavy sleep he had been enjoying after the adrenaline rush of Neil’s performance. He knew that voice, didn’t he? It belonged to a man, and sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Was it just because of the tiredness still lingering at the edge of his mind, or because there was something peculiar- something distinctly uncharacteristic- about his tone?
“…Mr Dalton, wake up.”
Now that it sounded a little sterner, he knew exactly who it belonged to. Charlie’s eyes flew open, and he flailed for a second, pushing himself up to a half-sitting position on his creaky single bed. His room was cloaked in shadow, with only a dim pre-dawn light peeking through a crack in his curtain but there was no mistaking those heavy-set frown lines and thick, perpetually-drawn eyebrows.
“Mr Nolan? Sir?” Charlie rubbed some sleep from his eyes, trying desperately to gain his bearings. Was he in trouble? Again? He could feel a lump in his mattress where he stored his contraband magazines, and in the very bottom of his closet he knew a pack of cigarettes was hidden in his coat pocket. Maybe they had searched his room, and were ambushing him now? He tried to surreptitiously look behind Mr Nolan, who hovered in the middle of the cramped room, looking large and out of place. He waited for his eyes to adjust. How early was it? His closet was closed (thank God!) and Cameron was still snuggled up in his own bed, dead to the world. Lucky bugger, he always slept more soundly than Charlie.
“Mr Dalton, I…” Mr Nolan’s low voice wavered, and Charlie frowned. This wasn’t some weird dream, was it? Mr Nolan sounded unbalanced in a way Charlie had never heard before. He was suddenly very aware of the room’s cold temperature and shook away some of the remaining fogginess of sleep.
“Sir, what are you doing in here?” He whispered, glancing again at Cameron.
“Mr Dalton, I think you should come out into the hallway.”
“Sir? What time is it?” He frowned, tugging his blankets tighter around him. Mr Nolan didn’t respond as he went to open the bedroom door, allowing warm yellow light from the hallway to creep across Charlie’s side of the room. He covered his eyes with one hand, feeling his stomach begin to sink. Mr Nolan’s voice was hushed in a way that felt like he was concerned about more than accidentally disturbing Cameron. Something was wrong.
He silently threw his blankets off and followed Mr Nolan into the hallway. It was somehow even colder out here than it had been in his dorm room. Mr Nolan closed his dorm door behind them, and Charlie registered that they were both in the pyjamas. He immediately wanted to make a joke about Mr Nolan’s striped dressing gown, but the hard, drooping line of his professor’s mouth made him stop. Mr Nolan took a deep breath, before continuing in a slow, deliberate tone that set Charlie on edge.
“Cha- Mr Dalton, I received a call just over an hour ago that contained some… tragic news.”
Charlie froze. He waited, unblinking, for Mr Nolan to continue. The silence stretched on for a second longer, and he remembered one of the Welton Core Conduct Rules: Always respond respectfully to a professor when you are addressed.
“Sir…?” His voice sounded croaky and trembling, even to him.
“Mr Dalton,” a mask of professionalism set over Mr Nolan’s achingly tired expression, and his eyes lingered on the wall just behind Charlie’s ear, “Neil Perry passed away late last night.”
Charlie’s breathing sounded loud in his ears, but he didn’t seem to be inhaling any air. It can’t be. He can’t- Neil can’t be-
“…What?” His response was barely a whisper, and for once Charlie wished desperately that he didn’t have his audience’s full attention.
Mr Nolan studied him for a second. “Last night, Mr Perry-”
“How?” The question tumbled out of him with a rush of air that only reminded him how constricted his lungs felt. It can’t be. Not Neil. Not Neil. Anyone but Neil.
“Mr Dalton, are you-?”
“How?”
Mr Nolan pressed his lips into an even thinner line and for some absurd reason Charlie wondered if he was going to get a demerit for interrupting the headmaster. Fuck, Charlie, who cares about demerits?
“He… he took his own life.” No. No, Neil wouldn’t. Neil couldn’t… Neil wouldn’t leave them. Wouldn’t leave him. Mr Nolan’s eyes dropped away from his and Charlie realised distantly that the teacher was embarrassed. A dull, throbbing anger was starting to build in his throat. Taking his life wasn’t fucking passing away.
Charlie was aware that he was shaking his head. “No,” he whispered.
“I’m afraid so, Mr Dalton.”
“No. No, Neil wouldn’t do that. Neil wouldn’t- wouldn’t do that to us.” To me. Selfish, Charlie. He could hear Neil's chiding reprimand.
A new furrow appeared in the space between Mr Nolan’s eyebrows. Disapproval. Well, good thing Charlie was well practiced in the art of disappointing people and not caring. Not like… not like Neil, who always cared.
Neil wouldn’t. Charlie had just seen him, standing tall and bright and alive with twigs intertwined in his hair and spotlights reflected in his eyes. He had been good. He had been great- he was just beginning. Everything was just beginning. Neil wouldn’t.
(Deeply shadowed eyes. Mouth clamped shut whenever his father entered the room. A cracked voice. “I don’t give a damn about any of it.”)
A slow, painful realisation was creeping up his throat, and his breathing was becoming more ragged by the second. Neil would.
A spike of guilt lanced itself in his gut. He had been worried about his fucking cigarettes? When Neil was… when Neil…
“Mr Dalton, I’m afraid he did.”
His friend. His longest friend. His best friend.
“Mr Dalton?” Mr Nolan’s voice was steady, but tinged with that same embarrassment. What are you embarrassed about? Neil wasn’t something to be embarrassed about. Charlie could feel his shaking hands, and brought them up to his cheeks. They came away wet.
Mr Nolan made an awkward, tilting motion and he grasped Charlie’s shoulder. A memory of choking back tears of pain and humiliation while his hands gripped the oak desk. Assume the position, Mr Dalton.
Charlie swayed backwards and roughly shoved the hand away.
“Don’t touch me,” he spat. You didn’t care about him. You didn’t even know him. Why the fuck was this cold, stony-faced jackass who he was talking to right now? Where were his friends? Where was Keating? Where was his mum, goddammit?
“Perhaps I’ll allow you a moment to compose yourself,” the headmaster’s tone was cold with a jagged warning and Charlie didn’t care. He wanted Neil beside him right now.
“I don’t need to compose myself.” Mr Nolan was already entering another dorm room a few doors down. Charlie leaned heavily against the wall, pressing his palms against his eyes and trying to stem the flow of hot, wet tears. Stay angry, Nuwanda. He could deal with anger, with recklessness, with a weightless disregard for his own wellbeing. (Or, at least he could when he knew he had Neil to watch his back and prepare a safety net.)
He wouldn’t. He would. Why didn’t I know that Neil fucking would ?
But he could feel his indignancy and his rage and even his confusion beginning to leak out with his thick tears. What was he supposed to do with what was left over? This crushing, all-consuming, painfully grounded hollowness? Stay angry, please.
Nuwanda was gone. He had disappeared somewhere between the play and waking and all that was left was Charlie. Weak, lonely Charlie who was pressed against the wall and curling in on himself and trying desperately to muffle the gasping sobs that were racking through his body. He missed being angry.
It had only been the beginning.
He was distantly aware that Mr Nolan had reappeared, and a large, familiar presence took its place next to Charlie. A hand tentatively rested itself on his shoulder but it was still wrong. It was too heavy, too large, too calloused. It wasn’t Neil. He shrugged it off.
“Charlie?” Knox’s voice was frail and uncertain. Charlie didn’t respond. He took a shuddering, snotty breath and wiped one sleeve against his nose and mouth. Looking up, he took in Knox’s tear-streaked face and reddened eyes. He looked like shit. Charlie shook his head slightly and Knox crumpled.
Neil would hug him, Charlie thought dumbly, as the taller boy’s cheeks grew ruddy. Neil would say something reassuring.
He wasn’t Neil. He watched Knox cry in silence.
“I was- I was going to tell him about- Chris,” Knox hiccupped. Charlie wasn’t sure why that mattered, but it sent a fresh stream of tears down his sticky cheeks.
There was so much still left to say between them. Did Neil know he was Charlie’s best friend? He must have known. He must have. If he had known then why… why would he give it up? Charlie realised with a kind of detached panic that he couldn’t remember what the last thing he said to Neil was. They had been shouting at him from the crowd- compliments, praise, stupid fucking jokes -and he had no idea what he had been saying. Did Neil even hear any of it? If- if Charlie had said something different, would it have changed his mind? What was their last exchange? How could he not remember? Some shitty best friend you are, Slick.
A few minutes later, Pitts and Meeks joined them, terrifyingly silent. They were both looking blankly at the floor, numb and unfeeling. Charlie envied them. He swallowed, feeling vaguely like there were pieces of glass shards lodged in his throat, before directing his gaze towards Nolan.
"...What did his note say?"
Nolan's weighted frown deepened. "His note?"
"Neil's... note. The one he left."
"There was no note, Mr Dalton. I'm... sorry."
The glass in his throat shifted into barbed wire. No note? They always left a note- in books, or plays, or movies. Always. He didn't even say goodbye.
Nolan looked at the huddle of broken boys, a flicker of pity crossing his face. He turned away, and Charlie abruptly realised where he was going.
“Wait-!” He cried out, his scratchy throat screaming with pain. Nolan turned impassively. Fuck. Todd.
Everything had only been beginning.
“I- I need to tell Todd.” He heard Knox’s breath hitch, and Pitts stiffened. He could feel the cold tear tracks on his cheeks and his heart was hammering in his chest. The idea of having to see the light drain from Todd’s eyes was already adding salt to the open wound in his chest, but…
But Todd deserved better than to hear it from the cold, stony-faced jackass that was Mr Nolan. And Charlie owed it to Neil to look after Todd.
Nolan frowned. “I don’t know if you’re… in the right state to-”
“Please, sir.” Charlie didn’t know if he had ever said please to Mr Nolan before, and the headmaster’s heavy brows raised in surprise. He hesitated again, before nodding.
Numbly, Charlie made his way to Neil and Todd’s- to Todd’s – dormitory. NeilandTodd. ToddandNeil. There hadn’t been anything… official between them but all the Poets had seen it. They had seen the beginnings of something more. There was nothing, now. No beginnings. No middle. Just an abrupt, ugly end. Charlie wasn’t ready for this. He couldn’t do it.
He had to do it. Neil would want him to do it. (Neil his friend-longestfriend-bestfriend-deadfriend)
He opened the door. One bed empty. One bed with Todd.
Charlie lingered in the dim doorway, watching his sleeping form. Couldn’t they wait until he woke up later? Of course not, he berated himself.
He felt movement behind him, and knew instinctively the other Poets were surrounding him. He needed to do it. With the Poet’s solid- or, if not solid, present – forms behind him, he crept into the room and knelt beside Todd.
The boy was curled up away from him, relaxed and blissfully unaware that everything had changed. He wiped his eyes roughly one last time and took a shaky breath. His pale hand, stark white in the pre-dawn sliver of light, reached out and shook Todd’s shoulder. His voice came out trembling and fractured.
“Todd?”
All that followed were ugly, ugly endings.