So this is lexplexboblex's present for the dps secret santa exchange! They gave me a few different prompts to work with, so I decided to combine two of them.

Neil/Todd AU where Todd's dad is a doctor and invites Neil over for dinner (a la the Danburys with Knox)
Neil/Todd laundromat AU

So, I hope you enjoy this, and please excuse all of the shitty poetry I put in there, I usually write spoken word poetry, so my rhyme scheme level is at like 0. Still, that seemed to be what Todd normally does too, so hopefully it's accurate enough :)

"Where are you off to, all dressed up like that?" Charlie asked as he sauntered over, leaning against Neil's doorway with his customary grin fixed in place.

Neil sighed as he straightened out his school jacket once again, making sure nothing was out of place as he prepared for what was likely to be a tedious night. "The Anderson's. My dad has me going to dinner at their place tonight so that I can talk to Mr. Anderson about his career as a doctor."

The two boys shared a look, an understanding passing between them both that none of this was something to be desired. "Well, look on the bright side," the brunette drawled, "they could have a daughter." Neil snorted, and Charlie's smile widened. "That's right, I forgot you weren't really into that kinda thing."

"Charlie!" Neil barked, eyes wide as the other boy raised his hands in feigned innocence.

"What? No one's around." He was right, the dorm hallway was deserted, everyone else still fighting for a space in the showers, Neil's room mate, Harris, included. Not that Harris would have even taken notice of his and Charlie's conversation had he been in the room, always too busy listening to the music playing in his head to pay much attention to anyone else. Neil had been room mates with him since their first year at Welton, but he still only knew maybe four things about the boy in total.

"Still, keep your mouth shut." Neil insisted. "Jeeze, I don't know why I tell you anything."

"I know, you make terrible life choices Neil. You really need to stop doing that." The dark haired boy rolled his eyes, flipping his friend the bird before he pushed passed him out the door.

The Anderson's house smelled heavily of potpourri, the sickly sweet scent so strong that it was almost enough to mask the underlying hints of smoke that lingered in most everyone's homes. Mrs. Anderson was the stereotypical house wife, soft spoken and gentle in her actions, a string of pearls around her neck and hair stacked up on her head. She showed Neil into a living room lit by soft lamp light, Mr. Anderson rising from his space on one of the floral print couches, newspaper put aside for the moment so that he could shake the boy's hand. They offered him a place to sit on the matching couch opposite the father figure before Mr. Anderson began delving into his tales of the emergency room, wasting no time before getting into what Neil's father had asked of him.

To be quite frank, the doctor's tales didn't interest Neil in the slightest. He'd never found himself particularly fond of blood, and gore kind of made him want to throw up. He just hadn't really gotten around to telling his father that yet. Still, he made sure to nod and make affirmative noises in all the right places during Mr. Anderson's stories, even expressing disbelief when it was needed. Despite that, such things could only hold his interest for so long, and eventually he found his eyes wandering around the room every now and then, though not for long enough that it would be considered rude.

Neil was more than surprised when he came upon a boy around his own age sitting in the room with them, on a love seat off to the side, that he somehow hadn't noticed before. He offered him a smile, one that he boy returned in the form of only a small turn up at the corners of his lips, before his blue eyes moved back to the notebook in his lap, hand moving across the page as words flowed from his pen. It was no wonder Neil hadn't noticed him then, if he were always so quiet, not even the scratch of pen on paper coming from his silent corner.

Neil wondered if he could possibly pull the boy into the conversation, draw the topic away from the five year old whose mother had rushed him into the hospital after swallowing his goldfish, and try to find something out about the enigma whose presence seemed to carry no weight. He didn't seem like he wanted to be bothered though, not with the way his shoulders hunched over, bangs hanging low over his blue eyes, defensive even though he was in his own house. Well, that part Neil could understand fairly well. He allowed the boy's father to pull him back into the conversation then, granting the boy his peace.

After what had to be at least an hour of 'Weird and Gross Things that Doctors Apparently Have to Do,' Mrs. Anderson called everyone to the table for dinner. The dinning room kept up the charade of being lived in just as well as the rest of the house, each piece of the whole seemingly straight out of a home magazine, though none of it looked actually lived in, no character that came from being used. After the call for food a great thumping noise came from the stairs leading into the kitchen, revealing a boy that looked much like the one Neil had seen before, if aged a few years. His hair was shorter, and there was a smattering of freckles across his face, along with eyes that were brown instead of a startling blue like his brother's.

Said larger boy was sat by Mrs. Anderson next to Neil at the table, with the boy appearing around his own age sitting across from him, next to his mother. Their father, of course, took his place at the head of the table.

The lasagna that Neil was served could probably be some metaphor for how bland this family was, but he wasn't suffering through Hellton's meatloaf, so at least there was that. The only sort of dinner conversation that transpired appeared to be coming from Mr. Anderson, the strong worded man going on more about his work before shifting topics to his oldest son, Jeff, who was at college.

He was met with some rebuttal there though, as the elder Anderson seemed not to be the type to simply let his father speak for him. He corrected his father when he got something wrong, and when attempting to give an anecdote of his life at Harvard, would bulldoze through his father's attempted interruptions as if he didn't even notice them. From the way the scene played out, it wasn't hard to see that such behavior was a common occurrence.

The side of the table opposite from Neil was completely silent throughout all of this, eating their food with no hindrance from the commotion going on around them. At one point during a very rare moment of silence, Neil tried to pull the quiet boy across from him into conversation as well. "So, where is it that you want to go to college?"

The boy at least tried to respond, eyes wide with surprise as he started with, "um," before his father immediately ran him over.

"Todd is going to Harvard as well. He's going to study medicine just like I did, and like his brother is doing now." At this Todd's eyes dropped back to his plate, the perfect picture of submission.

This new topic gave Mr. Anderson something completely new to talk about, and he started up again with gusto about his family's vast history in the medical profession, and how his sons would continue to carry on this tradition. Unlike his brother, Todd made no corrections when his father began talking about his life and his future, instead simply staring at his half eaten lasagna with a look that said he wanted to be anywhere other than where he was. Honestly Neil felt bad for him, he knew exactly what it felt like to be in that position, to have someone plan out your entire life for you while you stood by, unable to say anything. Hell, that was the reasoning behind why he was even there in the first place.

It seemed that out of all of them, Todd was quickly becoming Neil's favorite Anderson.

After dinner, Dr Hager was called to come pick him up and bring him back to the school, and Neil was left with some time to kill before he arrived. In order to avoid more talk of doctors, and nurses, and ER waiting rooms, the dark haired boy went off in search of the high schooler he hadn't heard a word from all night, hoping to at least have one conversation with the quiet boy before he left.

He managed to find Todd in the back garden, the place a beautiful testament to the amount of time his mother must have put into it. He found the brunette boy sitting sitting on a wrought iron bench, old fashioned lanterns lit and hanging on both sides of him, granting him just enough light to continue scribbling in his notebook. Neil sat down next to him unannounced, his sudden presence causing the boy to once again look up with wide, surprised eyes.

"Um, hi." He started, if a bit hesitantly.

"Hi." Todd responded in a voice that was surprisingly rough, though that most likely sprung from how little he used it.

"Um, so I saw you writing something, do you mind me asking what it is?"

Todd's eyes dropped to the paper in his lap, and his hands tightened around the edges reflexively. "I-it's, uh, just something fo-for English class."

Neil had two options, he could either take that as his answer, and move on to a different topic, or be nosy and press on. Well, no one ever said Neil was a tactful person. "What kind of thing?"

"A p-, a poem." Todd's speech was so quiet that had there been much other noise around, Neil wouldn't have been able to hear him. As it was, the very faint trilling of crickets were threatening to drown him out.

The brown eyed boy kept his voice gentle, knowing he was trying to pry into something personal. Then again, if it was something Todd was turning in at school, the poem likely wasn't too personal, which then dignified his next question. "Do you mind if I read it?"

Todd swallowed, obviously debating with himself internally as his eyes skimmed over his work, trying to judge whether it was suitable enough to share. Eventually his grip on the book relaxed marginally, enough so that when he held it up Neil was able to take it from his grasp. The lettering was a blocky print, and there were words scratched out with other ones added in, but it was written clearly enough that Neil could still make the writing out with ease.

I never held winter
in much favor,
hated the chill
that sank into my bones,
the runny noses
and scratchy turtlenecks,
Christmas card pictures
full of false smiles.
Hated how everything slept
while I was still awake
isolated from those
who would die in the snow,
meanwhile
I had to trudge on.
Hated how everything lost its color
naked black tree branches
on a stark white pallet,
pencil and pen
never called me in
the way springtime paints do.
Hated the necessity of inside
stuffy rooms
full of dry heat
causing my nose to bleed
six days out of five,
but still better
than the threat of pneumonia.
Still,
I think I could learn to tolerate
the winter's chill
if it kept me away
from these household walls
colder than 30 below.

"Todd, this is good, this is really good." Neil said in a voice that was light with awe.

"Y-you think so? I thought I m-might rew-rework it some more." Todd seemed somewhat shocked, like he couldn't believe someone had actually complemented him on his writing.

"N-no! I mean, it's your poem, but I think it's great right now." So maybe Neil was being a bit more enthusiastic than entirely necessary, and maybe that sprung from the fact that he liked Todd a bit more than entirely necessary, but the other boy's face lit up like Christmas had come early none the less.

"Y-you really think so?" It was a timid question, and the hope in Todd's voice was tangible.

"Of course I think so! Todd, you're really good. Can you promise me something?" At this Neil turned, his leg coming up to rest between the two of them on the bench so that he could face Todd more fully. "Promise me you'll keep writing? And then next time I see you you'll let me read some again?"

"U-um, yea I, I think I can do that." The blue eyed boy looked hesitant again, but Neil's responding smile seemed to leave him a bit starstruck.

"That's great! When-"

"Neil, dear?" Mrs. Anderson's call from the back door cut him off, her unimposing figure silhouetted by the light coming from the house. "Dr. Hager's here for you."

The raven haired boy stood, if a bit mournfully. Sure he'd wanted to leave this house from pretty much the moment he set foot inside it, but the garden, well the garden held a genuine Todd Anderson, and Neil could understandably be reluctant to leave that.

"Yes mam, I'm coming." The taller of the boys called before turning back around. "So, I guess I'll see you around then, huh?"

If anything Todd looked just as forlorn as Neil at their parting. "Yea, I guess."

"You won't forget our promise, right?" At this Neil began walking backwards, knowing not to keep Dr. Hager waiting, but yet not quite finished with Todd Anderson either.

"Right." Todd's voice was quieter this time, as if the boy was shrinking with every step Neil took.

"Well, good-bye then."

It was barely audible, but Neil heard Todd's soft, "bye," right before he turned back around, though that was only because he was listening for it.

It had been three weeks since Neil's trip to the Anderson's house, and during that time, it had become apparent to him that he would very much like to see the youngest of the family again. It wasn't some sort of love-sick longing, like at first sight he had been struck by cupid's arrow and was now falling over himself in longing. Todd had been intriguing though, with so few words to say to anyone, but yet a master of them all the same. Neil wanted to put a stethoscope to his head and try to listen to all of the thoughts he was having that he would probably never speak, but yet were interesting all the same.

He also wasn't going to lie to himself though and say that Todd's appearance hadn't affected his first spark of interest, bright blue eyes that held the clarity of a cloudless day had grabbed his attentions like nothing else had before.

Unfortunately it seemed that he was more apparent in his longing than he had thought (either that or Charlie was far too perceptive for his own good) because the brunette boy placed himself at the desk in front of Neil after everyone had cleared out of their English class for the day with a smirk that never carried good intentions. "So, the Andersons have a hot son then?"

"I don't know what you're talking about Charlie." Neil dismissed as he continued shoving papers into his binder's pockets.

"Come on, you've been thinking about somebody." The other boy insisted. "You weren't doing this when we came back from break, so obviously it was at the Anderson's that you saw him." Charlie paused, waiting for a confirmation, but continued on when none came. "Did you suck his dick?"

"Charlie!" A balled up page of Neil's doodles was launched at the brunette's head, bouncing off harmlessly, though Dalton had flinched none the less. This only sent him into a fit of laughter though, as if all of his speculations had been confirmed, because, with Charlie's ability to read his friends, they in fact had.

That weekend was the boy's monthly trip into town, and Neil took this as his chance to do the mound of laundry that had built up since he had arrived at Welton. The laundromat was basically deserted when he entered, Hopkins the only other person, and stationed in the farthest corner, looking none too pleased with the chore he had to do. Neil chose a machine towards the middle of the various white rows that littered the store, and began sorting out his clothes, not bothered about taking up three different machines for his whites, colors, and darks considering there was very little demand at the moment.

He was just putting his change into the first machine when the bell above the door sounded the approach of another customer. Neil looked up to find familiar pools of blue staring back at him, and a smile broke out on his face almost reflexively. "Todd!" He called, as if it needed to be announced to everyone else in the store, though he could bet money on the fact that that Hopkins most definitely didn't care about who was around him. He gave a wave that probably made him look like a loon, one that the other boy returned with the hand that was not clutched around the straps of a large duffel bag, the motion awkward as he attempted to keep the notebook in his arms pressed against his chest in order to prevent it from falling.

Neil patted the washing machine across from his as one would do a seat that they were offering, and, as if having been waiting for an invitation, Todd made his way hesitantly over. Hefting the large bag onto one of the machines, he offered Neil a smile, and the boy swore that his heart didn't nearly leap out of his chest. It was like the attraction he had felt upon their first meeting but intensified by ten, as if all the pinning he had done over the past few weeks had built this unassuming boy into an Adonis in his mind. This was ridiculous, Neil Perry was calm, cool, and collected at all times. He was charming, and level headed, and definitely did not swoon over pretty boys that were shy to a point of near physical pain for them and everyone around them.

"So, what brings you here?" Fuck, that was lame. He was obviously here to wash clothes, jesus christ, use your head Perry. "I mean, um, you don't have a washing machine at home?" That was possibly even less smooth, but there was no taking it back now.

"Um, m-my mom is really old fashioned, so she likes to wa-wash everything by hand. Jeff is going b-back to Harvard soon, and wanted her to wash his clothes for him. She said he ha-had to do his own, though. S-so, he paid me to do it for him. I-I figured I'd just take them here though i-instead." Todd had been pulling clothes out of the bright red bag as he said this, following Neil's example of using more than just one machine.

"Hey, that's smart. Saves you a bunch of hassle too. And, bonus, you got to run into me again." Neil gave a small laugh, but on the inside he was dying. He probably just sounded so pretentious, oh god.

"Oh, a-about that. We might s-see more of each other next year."

"Oh yea? Why's that?" Not that Neil would complain of course, at the moment he was about to jump for joy over the fact that Todd was speaking with him in a manner that didn't feel like pulling teeth...Honestly, if he would have known that three weeks of pinning were going to do this to him, he probably would have done something different along the way, this was beginning to get shameful.

"There's going to be an o-open spot next year. M-my parents have been trying to get me in for years, b-but the school's always been full."

"Oh yea, I heard about that. It's actually my roommate, Harris, that's moving. Apparently his dad got transferred to England or something, they're leaving over Christmas break. Hey, maybe you'll be my new roommate next year." Neil gave a hopeful smile, and to his relief Todd returned it.

"Yea, that would be nice. I-I'm glad I met you, now I al-already know someone there." Todd turned for a moment to dig change out of his pockets and put them in the slots, and Neil's eyes were drawn immediately to the open notebook he had, peeking out from underneath the duffel. He could only make out the first few lines of what was written there,

On the question of you
you're a great tree
standing up tall
for all to see.

Suddenly the bag was shoved over on top of the poem, covering the entirety of it, and Neil met Todd's disapproving eyes with a frown. "Hey, you promised."

"I di-didn't know you were gonna be here. I ha-have more poems at home. You can read those."

"Well why not this one?" Neil persisted, stepping closer to the bag, though the brunette was partially blocking his way.

"This one's not done yet." Todd insisted, Neil's sudden proximity leaving him a bit confused, and he took a small step back. "I have finished ones you c-can read if you l-let me go get them."

Experimentally Neil took another step closer to the boy, slightly angled this time, and the responding surprised step back put him out of the way of Neil's end goal. "You said the one you let me read before wasn't finished."

The brunette's cheeks were turning steadily red, and his response came out like more of a breath than actual words. "Well, yea, but-"

He didn't get to finish, the other boy cutting him off by snatching up the notebook as quick as he could and taking off with it, running down the white lined isle before switching to another one. It took Todd a moment to figure out what had happened, but when he did he took off after the other boy, unfortunately not quite quick enough to catch him despite his desperation. "Neil, this isn't funny. Neil, give it back. Neil!"

Neil wasn't paying any attention to the brunette's begging though, too busy trying to read and run at the same time without crashing into one of the machines and ruining his whole scheme.

On the question of you
you're a great tree
standing up tall
for all to see.
Branches held high
and roots buried low
the picture of strength
for all below
the strong,
and mighty oak tree.

On the question of you
you're a stream
crystal blue
reflecting the sky
with perfect clarity.
Babbling
churning
giggling brook
these noises
that sound like a melody.

On the question of you
you're a flower
bright and true
with petals stained the colors
of sunset.
Delicate beauty
passionately unfurled
for all to see
come morning.

On the question of you
you're a garden
built for two
and I
am a humble little bumble bee.

Neil finally slowed to a stop once he was done reading, allowing Todd to catch up to him, though they both simply stood there for a moment, catching their breath. The other boy thankfully didn't seem too mad at him, just embarrassed half to death, cheeks stained a bright scarlet and blue eyes unable to meet Neil's own.

"So, uh, who's the poem about?" It was an evasive question, sure, but one that had curiosity gnawing at the dark haired boy's insides, his breath held in anticipation.

"I-it, um, well. You see I, uh-" The poor thing couldn't even form the beginnings of a sentence, too flustered to even look his companion in the eye. Which could be a tell that pointed in Neil's favor, though he couldn't be completely sure yet.

"Is it about some girl at school?"

This time when Todd answered he was able to look up at his counterpart through his eyelashes, and dear god Neil hoped he was reading this right; this could either go incredibly well, or very, very poorly. "N-no, no girl. A-and no one a-at my school either."

There was a pause in the conversation as the two boys looked into each other's eyes, each trying to get a read on the other before they made a move, each trying desperately not to mess this interaction up.

"So, um," Neil finally started, all 'now or never' and other such phrases running around inside his head, "would you want to go get a cup of coffee or something? While the clothes are washing I mean, I'm sure they'll be fine. I don't think Hopkins has any interest in our stuff. You know there's this cool cafe just a few blocks over, and they have this jasmine tea that's just to die for. They're hot chocolate is really good too, and I'm rambling right now, aren't I? I should probably stop that and let you answer." The dark haired boy gave a nervous laugh, hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck in embarrassment. Todd was smiling at him though, a promising sign if there ever was one.

"Yea, I-I'd like that."