Just another little miscellaneous excerpt from my only-sort-of-being-written long form Anderperry fic, The Throstle. I just wanted to attempt Anderperry from another point of view for once.
Charlie had noticed that there was something slightly weird in the way Neil treated Todd. Part of the weirdness was that there was a special way Neil treated his roommate even when he wasn't present. Whenever Neil mentioned Todd, even casually in passing – "My math notes aren't that good but you can ask Todd,"..."Oh, Todd definitely said something about that a couple nights ago..." – there was always that barely-more-than-invisible excited tensing of his neck and shoulders. It almost wasn't even there, and it was most certainly unintentional. An electric fondness always seemed to radiate involuntarily from Neil whenever he thought about his absent roommate. "Fondness" seemed like a perfectly benign emotion, and it made sense – Neil and Todd were definitely kindred spirits in a way – but it still made Charlie vaguely uncomfortable.
Neil and Charlie had been best friends since they'd started at Welton in the seventh grade. They'd been allies from the beginning, giving each other significant "I know! It's bullshit, right?" looks behind teachers' backs. But Neil only ever mussed Charlie's hair in moments of silliness and elation, or swatted affectionately at his shoulders when they were being goofy. He never sidled up to him and kicked gently at Charlie's feet to get his attention or leaned on him and peered at him with his head on Charlie's shoulder. Those kinds of things were reserved exclusively for Todd.
He'd witnessed Neil playing with a loose thread on Todd's sweater for an entire study session once. He'd noticed Neil sliding smoothly and melodramatically onto the bench next to Todd just to bump his left elbow with Todd's right as they ate, just to be a pest. He'd heard Neil's clear, bubbling laugh muffled in the shoulder of Todd's blazer when someone told a joke.
These were the moments that Charlie pretended not to notice.