Things were tense with you and Francis. You two were acting like nothing happened. Still around eachother all day everyday. Working in Julian's class in the morning, studying with the group in the afternoon, playing cards or at a movie or reading in the evening and then over at his house or the twin's house at night. And then...every once in a while on weekends you'd get tipsy and end up crashing on Francis's couch.

Or...you'd end up kissing him.

It was always these hazy, dreamlike memories of it when you'd wake up. And both of you would go about like it never happened. Casual and cold. He'd made a pass at you one day in the fall, gently cupping your face out in the rowboat when you pulled away and muttered an embarrassed no...and of course the first thing he said upon meeting you was "Cubitum Eamus?" Which you later realized was him asking you to bed in Latin...

You loved Francis...found him exquisitely beautiful, gentle, witty, intelligent, funny and charming...you admired him endlessly...found him to be a story book prince or gothic victorian hero made real...but you were both boys.

The shame, the panic, the anxiety of it all...over powered your love for him...so you kept turning down anything more than a drunken make out every now and then...

This was one of those weekends you'd fallen asleep on his couch...you wake up to see Francis's outline perched in the windowsill next to you, looking out on the snow sorrowfully. A jar of cherries between his knees as he sits there in his pajamas. He idly looks out at the fluffy white flakes coming down and bites another cherry. "Oh you're up..." He says dullyly without even turning around...

Were you two really going to go on like this forever?