shadows_have_offended | (no subject)

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Classes were back in session, and Neil is pretty sure he's about to go insane. The classes aren't hard, and he's doing well, but everything has just been the tiniest things, one after the other, and he's not entirely sure how to deal with any of it. So he just tries to keep everything quiet and still in his chest. For the most part it works. For the most part it's actually pretty easy.

And then he gets a paper back in a class. One of those reflective things, tell us what you did over vacation, for English, and it's all marked to hell. Inappropriate features prominently on the second page, over and over again. Neil doesn't really understand. He wrote about going to Mass on Christmas with Gabriel, and about the morning after. There was nothing inappropriate about it. Except that it's queer.

It flames in his chest. Something related to his father telling him to quit the play. Something related, even, to Keating telling him he wasn't trapped. Darrow has been so good. Now it's just the same as everything else, and it hurts.

Inappropriate.

He winds up in front of Goodnight's door because something draws him there. He knows what draws him there. It takes him a minute to knock on the door, still clutching that damn essay in his other first, feeling stupid and hurt about it. But it's better than hiding in his apartment, or the end of the dock, or somewhere worse. He knocks again, heart in his throat.

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Goodnight answered the door to find a rather pressed-looking Neil Perry there, tense all over, with something clutched in his hand.

Without a word, Goodnight ushered him inside and quietly closed the door again. Mercy Beau watched Neil from his bed, tail thumping the floor at his familiar presence.

"What's the matter, son? You look like you been through it."

"I--thanks." Neil shuffles into the apartment, wringing his hands, feeling stupid now that he's here and Goodnight was graciously letting him inside. He shouldn't have come. He shouldn't be burdening people with things that are stupid, that he knows are stupid and pointless.

His feet carry him. He paces, even though he doesn't really want to. It's just all he can do.

"We had to write a paper, for English. And we got them back. And I thought I--it was just supposed to be what we did over break, and that's what I did, I wrote about what I did, but the teacher failed me on it?" He flaps the paper ineffectually.

He closed the door behind Neil and found himself a seat on the edge of the couch. He watched Neil pace.

"Here, let me take a look."

Neil was a terribly articulate young man, coming from a private education. Goodnight knew he was likely a decent writer, and he was probably a rather creative one, once he had the leeway.

Pathetically, Neil sulks over to the couch and sinks down beside Goodnight. He hands over the paper and puts his head into hands. It feels like admitting something, but he's not sure what. And he's suddenly even more grateful that the paper didn't involve anything incriminating from the holiday break.

"I'm such an idiot," he mutters. "I should have just written about...the snow storm or something. That was before school started."

Goodnight looked over the paper, skimming the contents and the comments around it, along with the red lines marked all over it. He frowned.

"Might not have been able to be so open when I came from, but I don't see any reason for this to have been marked as inappropriate in a place like Darrow," he huffed, rather offended when he realized the teacher must have taken issue with Neil talking about his boyfriend. It was either that, or the blatant mention of religion, but Goodnight didn't see how that could be inappropriate in a personal essay.

Neil scrubs at his face, tucking his fingers against his mouth. "I couldn't have said anything like this back home," he says. "I...I shouldn't have..."

His fingers slid up and into his hair and he tugs for a moment.

"Stupid." His voice trembles a little bit. "I should have just written about the snow storm or something. Nothing wrong with writing about a snow storm."

"Darrow is not like the world where either of us came from. You had no reason to think you couldn't have written something like this. I've half a mind to talk to this teacher of yours."

Goodnight was-- well, he felt rather outraged, actually. Neil was a good student, and he was a good writer - there was no reason for his essay to have been marked so poorly other than simple bigotry.

"I--no."

He looks up, eyes wide and shocked and frankly terrified for a moment. He wants to snatch the paper back from him, but that seems more telling than anything else. And what on Earth does that accomplish.

He stares at Goodnight, at those soulful blue eyes that always, terribly, hurt Neil's chest to look at too long. "No, I don't need you to talk to anybody, I just--. It's fine."

"This is nothing but close-minded, short-sighted, cruel bigotry," Goodnight huffed, feeling that tightness in his chest. It was an injustice, one he could actually do something about, and he'd be on the right side of the law this time.

"This is the kind of nonsense that small people do to crush others and there's no place for it in a school."

He supposed it would help no one to lose his temper, so he took a breath and tried to ease back down. He looked at Neil, who seemed hurt and scared, and he ached all the more.

"I'm sorry, son. I just hope you understand, you are not the one in the wrong here."

"No, I know I didn't do anything wrong, I just--I picked the wrong thing to write about this time." Neil shrugs a bit. He presses it all down, down, where it belongs in his chest, and it feels a bit like trying to repack something that's exploded, something that won't fit now, but he tries anyway.

It will have to fit for now.

"I'll be alright. Just...frustrated. It's the first I've had something this rough since I've been here. But I--it's hardly the worst."

"Neil." Goodnight's voice was soft, gentle even, but it had a firm edge behind it. "I see what you're doing, son."

He knew that look: the look of pushing something so far down that one hoped it would just stop existing. He also knew that was a quick way to an ulcer, or to a dozen other unpleasant things. Like holding a gun and realizing it had an empty chamber.

"Bein' frustrated, even bein' hurt, is fine. Maybe you can't even do anything about it - maybe fighting him on it won't fix anything. But forgetting it isn't going to do you any favors either."

It's hard, all of it is, but Neil bucks up about it and takes a deep breath. He nods, because Goodnight speaks to him now the way that he spoke when Neil first arrived in Darrow: soft and authoritative, knowledgeable.

"No, I'm not--it's just not going to do anything to be all fussed up about it, I guess. You know?" He leaned back on the sofa, like he might disappear into the cushions. "Being angry doesn't do anything. So I'm better off just...trying to move on. And not mentioning my boyfriend around that teacher ever again."

"It's not going to do anything to ignore it, either. To ignore how it makes you feel and to keep it all inside. Being angry gets it out, at least. Move on, sure. And don't give the bigot any reason to come down on you again... But don't resign yourself, Neil."

He'd seen enough of that, done enough of it, that he didn't want to see someone as young as Neil fall down that same road.

Neil was quiet. He was awful good at resigning himself, these days, but this wasn't so bad, after all. A bit of clever maneuvering, more than anything else. Some self-editing. He hated that. But it wasn't the worst.

He made a quiet noise when he suddenly had Mercy Beau's wet nose pressed up against his palm. He hadn't heard him move over from his little bed. But there was the dog, big square head pressed in close like this was exactly what he needed right now. Neil supposed it wasn't bad to have.

"Beau's got a knack for knowing when someone needs something," Goodnight said with a small smile.

"Here, stay a while. You want some tea or coffee?" He wanted to take care of Neil for a bit, if the boy would let him.

Neil sighs and scrunches at Beau's ears a bit, which the dog tolerates gallantly, big face split in an easy, happy sort of bull dog smile. It eases Neil a little bit, and he finds himself a little more relaxed. He supposes all he really needed was someone else to know that he failed the paper. That means a lot, in the end, he thinks.

"Coffee," he says. Then, a bit sheepishly, "With some scotch in it, if you won't give me a lecture about that. I'm old enough to have it."

"Son, I was younger than you when I started putting alcohol in my drinks," he assured. He headed into the kitchen to start a cup of coffee and he found a good bottle of scotch.

When the coffee was ready, he poured a mug for each of them, spiked both, and brought the mugs over on a tray with the cream and sugar.

Neil adds a fair amount of sugar to his, and just a little cream, until the coffee changes colors. He curls up a little bit, but Beau is still giving him attention and he doesn't really want to dislodge the dog because it's comfortable and nice. He sips the coffee after a moment.

"We didn't even do anything," Neil says, after a long, protracted silence. It's sullen and bitter to say. "I didn't even have to cut anything I wouldn't want to talk to with a teacher out, because we didn't do anything that night, after church. We just went back to mine, and in the morning I tried to make breakfast like my mom always did, because I thought that'd be nice, because he took me to church."

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