A/N: Written for my own prompt: "black."

No slash intended. Please read and review. Thanks.

So Long and Good Night

The sick feeling hadn't left him since that first collapse in the snow. As he stood in the window, the stripped-down bed behind his shoulder, he could barely wrap his mind around it: wearing his new, black suit for the first funeral of his lifetime.

It wasn't the funeral that bothered him. It was who the funeral was for that put this twisted nausea in his gut. He shouldn't have to be in this too-thin procession, going to bury Neil. He shouldn't be wearing this suit. It still made him lurch to think about the way his mother had said it.

"You need a new suit, Todd."

"What? Why?" he has replied, in that half-tearful state he couldn't snap himself out of.

"It's tweed. You can't wear tweed to a funeral. You need a nice, new suit in black."

He had to swallow back the bile creeping into his throat, listening to her words again in his head. And he was wearing it. The red tie felt like a turned-down noose, smothering his heart. Of all colors. Red.

He had wanted to go down to the morgue and be with Neil before they tucked the body in the coffin, but he had been too afraid to ask. He knew they would have denied him. No one wanted to hear anything about Neil. The only thing they were talking about was whose fault it was.

How the hell was that important? Neil is dead. People should be talking about that. People should be talking about how wonderful he was and worrying about whether he's happy wherever he is. People should be crying over never being able to know what he could've done in the world. People should be getting drunk because they can't stop seeing his eyes in their heads. People should be living because Neil can't do it on his own anymore.

Finding someone to blame isn't going to bring him back.

When they came to strip his bed, Todd stood in the doorway, silent and crying. They didn't look at him or talk to him. He had returned to inivisibility. He had returned to a painful inability to act on his desires. He had wanted to scream at them for touching Neil's sheets. He had wanted to tear away the blanket from their unfamiliar hands. He had wanted to throw them out and curl up on that bed, pressing himself into the mattress until he found his friend again. But all he had the strength to do was stand half-way in the room and half out in the hall, unable to control the tears.

They had ripped the bedcover away and pulled off the pillowcase as if it was absolutely necessary to erase any evidence of Neil's existence. They hadn't done it with compassion or despair or any kind of longing. Neil's absence had no effect on them. And Todd just couldn't understand how that was possible. The whole world should be on it's knees, choking on every breath.

"Todd?"

Charlie's voice came softly from the doorway, and Todd felt his stomach turn again. The other boy had never been soft before.

"You ready?" Charlie asked, leaning against that same doorpost, where he had made his debut on the first day of the year. Todd looked at him, the room's gray shadows blanketing his heart. Charlie was wearing black, too. They both knew they would never be ready for this.

Todd couldn't help but cry, as he helped bear Neil's casket out of the church and out to the cemetary. He whimpered, only heard by the other boys, who were failing at stopping their own tears. The weight of that sleek, black casket threatened to overpower them, and Todd thought his shoulder might cave in.

They had left the casket closed. No chance to see Neil one, last time. All Todd had been able to do was touch the lid, mumbling some grief-stricken apology, as Charlie and Knox seized him by the shoulders and tried to ease him loose.

"I know what happened, Neil," Todd has whispered. "I know it was your father. I know. It's okay. I know."

"Todd, get off now, we have to carry it out," Charlie had said. "Please, Todd, come on."

"I know it. I know it, Neil. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I wasn't there," Todd had spilled, his fingers sticky with tears and sweat against the black. "I'm so sorry, Neil. Please forgive me, please."

"Todd, it's okay. It's okay. We have to go now," Knox had urged painfully.

"Neil, I'm sorry," Todd had mumbled, his eyes gushing, his whole face shining. Charlie had squeezed him, his tears more discreet, and had remembered the handkerchief in his coat pocket. He had taken it out and dried Todd's face, cursing that damn handkerchief his father had bought him last year that he had never used until now. Todd had choked and leaned in against Charlie for a minute, sobbing inconsolably. Charlie had slung an arm around him, wracked with a pain that still surprised him because he was supposed to be untouchable.

"We have to go, Todd," he had whispered, the other boy's tears seeping into his shirt. "We have to go bury him."

Keating had watched from other end of the little church, his heart burning. He had managed not to cry this far into the ceremony. He attributed that to both his lifetime experience of hiding grief and to all the tears he'd privately shed in the last few days.

With all the pain he had experienced thus far into in his life, little compared to watching those boys struggling to do their duty as casket-bearers for their most beloved friend. He half-wanted to go to them and help them out, but he knew it wasn't his place. Eventually, Todd and Charlie pulled away from each other and all of them managed to lift it.

"Captain," Charlie had called out. "We need your help."

And Keating had swallowed hard, before making the leaden journey down the aisle and sliding his shoulder under a corner of the casket. Cameron hadn't dared to show his face at this ceremony, and there needed to be an equal number of men on each side of the casket. They had begun to walk back toward the door without a word to each other, all of them weeping, all of them aching with more pain than anyone else at that funeral.

Neil has only been dead for three days. Todd knows they bury the dead fast, but he also knows that everyone just wanted to get it over with so they could move on with their lives. He has no idea how he is going to just – move on. There is no moving on from this. Neil's dead. He's gone. How could anyone ever stop suffering?

Todd suddenly has vomit shooting up into his throat, thinking of how they carried Mr. Keating like this when they won their first soccer game – propped high on their shoulders in victory. Neil is the victorious now – the victor over his parents, the victor over the hearts of his casket-bearers. He has them all beaten. And now they glorify him, hold him high above the rest, as if this is right.

And Todd doesn't want to put him down, now. He wants to carry Neil all the way to paradise, to the end of things. He wants to write a poem in red lipstick all over the clean, black lid of this treasure chest on his shoulder. He wants to have a real funeral – a Dead Poets Society funeral. He wants to say the words that belong to Thoreau, hoping it might light up Neil's heart again. He wants to carry this casket through the snow-covered fields, screaming poetry, screaming it until the world knows what they've lost. He wants to scream Neil's name. He wants to scream it until it's exorcised from his heart and his mind and his writing. He wants to give the right eulogy that doesn't ever fucking mention that Neil was a "good student" and a "good son" – but a eulogy that exalts his life force and his acting and his passion, a song of praise for what kind of friend he was and what kind of inspiration. Todd wants to tell the world that he's carrying his savior in this casket, his God damn savior.

He's burying his savior. And his black suit isn't nearly as bright as that casket.