prologue
The thing about Neil Perry was that it was hard for Todd to really pinpoint the moment he fell in love with him. It was like trying to know the second you became drunk, you knew when you started drinking and you knew when you woke up with a hangover but that actual moment of drunkness was elusive.
What wasn't elusive however was the moment Neil and Todd stopped being best friends. They had been 9, best friends since children and practically inseparable. Or they had been until Neil was put in a different fourth grade class and suddenly they were a lot more separable. It's not like Todd couldn't handle Neil having other friends, it was just that those friends weren't his friends. Suddenly Neil was off gallivanting with Charlie Dalton and they had jokes and games and things Todd wasn't a part of. But Todd still got to see him, after school usually, or on the weekends. Neil was still his best friend and he was still Neil's, but it was different.
Then sixth grade rolled around and instead of going to the public middle school Neil's father decided he would be better suited going to a different, private middle school on the other side of town. Suddenly Neil was gone at 6:00am on the bus and didn't come home until 5:30pm and even then he was usually whisked off to one of the dozens of extracurricular activities his father insisted on. Neil's weekends were filled with homework and soccer practice while Todd sat in his bedroom and found solace in books. Sometimes he would stare out his window into Neil's bedroom and their he'd be, reading a book or doing homework. And Todd thought it was odd, how they could be so close and how he could feel so far away from this boy who not so long ago he had shared everything with.
The realization that he was in love with Neil was also easier to pinpoint. It had been sometime in the winter the year Todd had turned 13. There had been a freak snowstorm and Todd had been sent out to shovel the driveway, a fruitless attempt since the snow was coming down faster than he could clear it away. Neil's parent's had apparently had the same idea and for the first time in ages they were both in the same place at the same time. They had talked and it was like nothing had even changed, Neil complained about his dad, Todd nodded along sympathetically and made stupid jokes. Even though he was freezing and tired Todd felt happier than he had in ages.
That night he dreamt that he and Neil were standing outside in the snow again. Neil held out his gloved hand, "I want to show you something" he said, only his mouth wasn't moving. Somehow they ended up on Neil's roof, the whole town spread out beneath them, much more beautiful than it ever was in reality. "I want to show you something." Neil said again his eyes impossibly large and brown as he leaned over and kissed Todd. That was when Todd jerked awake, the fact finally clicking into place after all these years. He was in irrevocably, irrationally, head-over-heels in love with Neil Perry.
A.N. This fic is heavily based on the John Green novel Paper Towns (which is fantastic and I highly recommend) and thus does contain some general plot spoilers because while the details are different some of the scenarios are similar/the same.