Neil hadn’t been doing ok recently. The play was over, he was no longer Puck, standing on cloud nine like nothing could hurt him. The winter break was also coming up, which meant he had to return to his family, the one thing in the world he didn’t want to do. Things didn’t exactly blow over well after the play. Neil was good. Really good. But his father didn’t think so. That night, he came to you instead, to seek your presence after the fight. You’re his dorm mate, partner, and biggest comforter.

Neil was laid on your bed, laying on top of you as you held him close, running a hand through his hair gently to comfort him, soothe him, help him. You were well aware he was definitely depressed right now, he was probably aware of it too, but masked it really well in front of everyone else. The rain gently poured outside, battering against the window, providing a quite background noise.

Neil hadn’t really been speaking this entire time. He didn’t come here for advice or a lecture, if he wanted that he would’ve gone to his parents. So he went to you, because he knew you’d just hold him, speak when you felt the time was right, and let him exist as him. But the silence was broken not long after a particularly loud thunder strike came from outside,

“You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be.. and I don’t wanna go home right now..”

unfortunately, midnight had already hit. Today was the final day of school for the term, the time we got to go back home after the holidays, see our families, but that was the last thing Neil wanted to do right now. He just wanted to savour this moment. Not think about what awaited him back home.