Anderperry Oneshots Collection

Touch

AN: Hey yall, sorry for the break, I was going through a breakup but I am back at it and better than ever

Todd, as a rule, avoided hospital visits whenever possible. Long waits, sick people sounds, the machinery, it just stressed him out. It was a good thing, then, that he lived a very low-key lifestyle, working as a writer out of his cozy little studio apartment. 

But when Todd broke his wrist, the dreaded became unavoidable.

Luckily, the closest hospital had a walk-in clinic, and after filling out an awkward sheet with the wrong hand, he was able to see a doctor. 

Alone in the exam room, Todd sat on the noisy fucking paper and tried to relax. The way it smelled made his nose itch.

Todd held his wrist steady in his free hand, tracing his fingers lightly over the swollen bruised pattern that was beginning to appear. He accidentally bumped it, winced in pain, and moved on to something else. Todd was good at the waiting game.

The room was sterile and uncomfortable, with fluorescent lights and no windows, and Todd wondered how anyone was supposed to walk out of one of these rooms feeling better. 

Not that he expected to. What he expected was that someone in a white coat would walk in and wrap his wrist before writing him a prescription for chalky white pills. Pills that he would avoid like the devil, because what was that statistic about veterans and drug abuse?

He rolled his eyes, unable to remember.

Todd was reading a poster about heart disease when his doctor walked in. He had his nose buried in a clipboard, probably trying to make out the chicken scratch produced by Todd's left land.

What the hell...that's not... no, Todd thought, his mouth agape. This wasn't just some doctor, this....

"Good afternoon, Mr. Anderson, I'm Dr-"

"Neil?"

The doctor looked up with those same brown eyes from all those years ago. He looked different now, older, but Todd watched his face light up in a way that was unmistakably Neil Perry. 

"Todd?" his smile didn't change after all. 

"I...it's been a while," Todd was grinning wider than he had in years.

"Yeah! Yeah, I haven't seen you since...well, I guess since you enlisted."

It had been a while. The two roommates were deemed inseparable by their friends, but as it turned out, the powers that be decided they didn't deserve their storybook ending. 

The night of Midsummer was the last time they'd seen each other. That was the memory stagnating in Todd's mind all these years: Neil staring at him as the black car drove away, the sickening look of hopelessness.

Todd had heard somewhere, a rumor perusing around the halls, that Welton's golden boy was being enrolled in a military academy. 

For many nights, Todd slept in Knox's dorm, just to ward off that feeling of loneliness. His own room became a haunted place; Schrodinger's cat. If he never went to the place he and Neil had once shared, then Neil must be simultaneously there and not there, alive and dead, happy and hollow, all at the same time. 

 One half of Neil was one half more than he had, so Todd stayed out of his room, and went to serve in Vietnam the second he turned eighteen. If nothing else then for a slight chance to say goodbye. 

If Neil really was going to a military school, maybe he was joining the army. And if they both went to fight, there was some dwindling hope--a snowflake's chance in hell--that the two might find each other. Any lead was better than no lead at all, so Todd went.

They did not find each other. 

And in the end, Todd was only more lost. By the time he got home, there was no family there waiting to welcome him, to jump into his arms. The poets had moved on with their lives, each finding their own purpose. Neil was still nowhere to be found. 

Todd called the Perry household from the airport, only to find that Mr. and Mrs. Perry had unfortunately passed away, it was basically a town legend, and sorry, who is this again?

Todd had been prepared to hold Mr. Perry at gunpoint if he could give up Neil's location, but now his only clue on Neil's whereabouts was gone.

So that was it. Todd gave up. All this time and he had nothing to show for it.

He moved to New York. He lived paycheck to paycheck for a while, but luckily people tend to have sympathy for veterans, and helped him out. He relied on the kindness of strangers and neighbors to eat, and by the time he was making enough to support himself, he had a community he belonged to.

When he had enough in his savings to quit his job and pursue writing full-time, Todd felt like he had finally gotten over it, like the absence of Neil didn't weigh down on every aspect of his life.

Until now.

All those old emotions seemed to come back in a flood, but Todd forced himself to have restraint. This was just a high school roommate after all. At the end of the day, they had only really known each other for...what? Four months?

And yet four months felt like forever.

"...So, um...broken wrist?" Neil asked, reading off the chart.

This snapped Todd out of whatever daze he'd been in, bringing him back to the harsh and delightful reality. Neil was here! 

"Oh, yeah." Todd held out his right hand for Neil to inspect. 

He did, supporting his wrist with a feather-light touch that sent a chill down Todd's spine. 

"Ow," Todd winced.

"Sorry," Neil winced as well. "How'd you do it?"

Todd blushed in embarrassment. "I tripped over a stack of books, landed wrong."

Neil tried to hide his half-smile. "How very poetic," he said jokingly, and met Todd's eyes.

Blue.

It was like the word has blaring in his brain, bouncing around his head. Todd's eyes weren't just blue, they were a blue specific to Todd; kind and timid and really fucking attractive all rolled up together. 

Neil impulsively leaned forward so slightly he hoped Todd didn't notice (although he was sure he did), bringing his face just ever so slightly closer to Todd's.

"What's the verdict, Dr. Perry?" Todd asked.  

Neil swallowed hard. "I can't treat you in good faith."

"Hmm?"

"A, uh...conflict of interest?" Neil sighed. "Look, Todd, I'm going to be honest with you. I've never been good at this medicine business and frankly, you deserve a better doctor than I am, you deserve better care than I can provide you."

Todd was hearing all the things Neil wasn't saying. 'you deserve better.'

Neil went on. "I can, however, send you away with my phone number, and ask if you want to maybe get coffee on Saturday? Catch up?"

Todd smiled shyly. Was Neil Perry...asking him out? He really hoped so.

"That sounds great."