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I.
Richard had always known he has this affiliation to romanticize life more than what it actually is. His fatal flaw. Longing for the picturesque of it all. The beauty of the grotesque. That stroke of perfection on an unfinished art. And sometimes, when the sun is just the right warm, and there's a sliver of peace as he lays in the grass with his back on the sun, watching Francis in his striped one piece bathing suit that shows off his lanky arms and stops mid thigh reading underneath a huge umbrella while faintly registering voices of Bunny and Charles chasing a swan in the lake as Henry and Camilla spectates them somewhere, Richard could think it would last. They could last. That the hours of those afternoons would somehow stretch and it will never end. Foolish, he knows. He has always known he has a tendency for it. Francis doesn't stop reminding him when he finds a chance to do so.
The freckles on Francis' shoulders are almost as ruddy as his hair. Ginger red, and it litters the expanse of his pale skin that Richard was used to seeing covered in corduroy and silk. Even the way he crosses his legs has that Edwardian air that reminds him of men written by Oscar Wilde.
Francis, of course, had taken notice of his staring. Richard would be surprised if he hadn't. In fact, he had suspected that Francis had known for and was keeping this performance up for a while. Something that Richard had grown to know. Francis likes it. He loves it. Being perceived. Being watched. Being studied.
He tilts his head down to look at him from above his sunglasses, finally meeting Richard's eyes with a little squint. He's reading Brideshead Revisited and Richard fights the urge to tell him he reminds him of Sebastian. Richard thinks he already knows that. Richard thinks he had known that. They're both insufferable after all. In their own distinct way.
“What is it?” Francis sounded annoyed. Richard only puts the sunglasses he has been biting 'round his mouth to flip a page from a book that he had forgotten. He thinks his back is already scorching from the sun but he doesn't really mind.
“Won't you be joining the rest of the class soon?” He glanced up, Francis had looked away to watch the class from afar. Camilla was holding onto her hat tightly as Henry tries to shield her from one Bunny Corcoran who with his sleeves rolled on to his elbows, and pants to his knees was splashing water all over her. Charles who was in one of Francis' spare bathing suits, pulling him away and into the water and failing to no avail as Bunny thrash away from his hold. It keeps repeating itself. When Richard looked back, Francis was watching him with a fond look in his eyes. Richard tried not to make anything of that.
“Later.”
There will be no later, soon the sun will set and the rest of the group would be too tired to move and they'll retire to the comfort of his home. Richard didn't say that, instead just basked under the heat of his exposed back. A little color would be nice this time of the year.
“You've been reading the same exact book for a month.”
Francis makes a show of flipping a page. “Do you know that you're as insufferable as Charles Ryder.”
Richard had laughed. “You're no better than Sebastian Flyte.”
Francis closed the book. “Oh, so you read?”
Richard shifts, resting his cheeks on his folded arm, eyes looking up at Francis' slender figure laid casually on one of them folding chairs. He hid a grin none the better, Francis could see through them.
“I think so.”
Francis laughed, that wrinkle around his smile and his eyes like perfect strokes in a drawing. The chapness of his lips making his lips redder, a shade darker than the flush in his cheeks or the edge of his elbows, the point of his shoulders, the knob of his knees.
Francis had caught his eyes wandering, of course he did. He always does. He never does anything about it though. Not since the lake, not since the incident at the boat. The "No". The pull away. The apologies. Francis never prods. Francis had stopped asking.
“You're doing it again, Richard.”
His voice was teasing, eyes performatively glued to his book. Sometimes Richard wonders how much he could prod before Francis stops him. Before Francis asks him again. Before he has Francis try again. He never does find out. Instead, he brought the glass of orange juice casted aside to his lips to sip, flipped a page on his own book and smiles.
“You're insufferable.”
He heard Francis muffled, when he looked up, a smile was hidden on a glass of orange juice as well as Francis sips in them. Richard tried to ignore the warmth inside his chest. It settled like a good day in his stomach. A flutter.
Sometimes, later that day when he was slouched in a couch as the rest of the class discussed unprompted a topic in Greek, Richard's eyes focuses on Francis and his animated gestures and smiles. Sometimes he thinks it might actually be them. He doesn't dwell on that for long, his back too stiff, too painful, too clothed for his sunburn.
II.
When Francis kisses, it's direct and playful, and all too sensual.
Seated on one of the tables, Richard wraps his arms on slender waist after Francis made a show of reaching for a book on one of the shelves. Richard couldn't even remember who leaned in first. One moment he was trying to look for a book, the next Francis was beside him too close, bumping into him until he sat on a table, surprised. And he was tiptoeing to grab a book, and he was smiling at him with that challenging look. And then they were kissing.
Richard thinks it might be the illusion of infinity he gets a whiff of every time they're at Francis' country house. As if everything didn't matter. Doesn't have to.
So Francis wraps his arms around his neck and the book falls with a thud, but in the largeness of this manor he doubts anyone would've heard that. Nor the whimper on Francis' throat as he lifts to have him sit on his lap.
The kiss was anything like the rest and also was not. Francis was lithe against his grasp, and buzzing against his lips.
He kissed him for so long. A smile tugging at both their lips. Francis tasted distinctly of peaches. He had thought he'd taste more of a cigarette than anything else.
Sometime after, Francis made a particular sway of his lips and both of them spur away, panting. Richard wondered where he got the strength to look him in the eyes but he did and Francis was looking at him with the same embarrassed frown. Their breath too close, the body too warm.
And then Francis was climbing out of him, fixing his waistcoat and his hair and the tap of his shoes were loud in the silence of the room. The huge window inside the library was too sunny. It made Francis' hair look fiery, and his skin glowing when he turned around.
“Do I look decent?”
Richard presses his lips together, then lifts the book in his hands slightly. “You do.”
“Okay.” He hums. “Dinners at six.”
And then he was walking away. Richard grabbed the discarded book on the floor and inspected it, putting the one he had grabbed back to the shelf to read the other one instead.
III.
There was a knock outside his door and then there was Francis, on his robe leaning against the frame of his door, arms crossed and head leaning.
“What are you doing?”
Richard lifts the books on his lap. “Reading.”
And then Francis was closing the door and climbing on his bed, feet swinging in the air as he lays on his stomach beside him, watching him read.
Richard didn't mind. He continued on. The dim light from the warm lamp reminded him of reading under his blanket as a kid from a book he had found in their garage. How it got there he could never know. Francis looks flawless against velvet robes and blankets. Richard didn't know what came over him when he closed his book and brushed a strand of red hair away from his forehead, Francis closed his eyes and hummed.
“Done?”
Richard looks at him. “What did you want?”
Francis swings his legs again. Richard ignored the silky expanse of skin swaying in the air languidly.
“Wanted to take a bath and wondered if you would like to join me.”
Richard stares. “I bathed.”
Francis hums again. “You don't have to get wet.”
And so he did join him. Perched on tiled bathroom as Francis adds fragrance on the tub. Richard knew reading when there's a likelihood for him to get wet was unwise but he really couldn't be bothered.
He watched, and waited, back against the bathtub, book against his lap, legs crossed as Francis tests the warmth of the water, the smells, and when it was all in his preference, slowly made a show of taking his velvet robes off his body.
Richard looked, Francis had wanted him to. His back was lined perfectly. His skin smooth, and warmed by the shadow of his hair and the dim candle light. The softness and slope of his ass. The slight hair in his thighs.
Francis turns and Richard pointedly avoids looking down. But slowly he saw his legs dip the water, then the other one, and then he was sunk in. Head tilted at the edge. Richard swallows. The sight, atmosphere, straight out of an erotic daydream.
“Do you want a cigarette to go with that?”
Francis opens his eyes with a snicker. “I just brushed my teeth, Richard.”
And then there was silence. Richard found he couldn't read the book, only admired the beauty of it all. Francis' body soaked in water, the angles of his face shaded just right from the dimness of the room. Lips parted just right.
His hand dips the water, Francis didn't mind.
So he did just that, played with the water. The little petals from a singular rose Francis had found somewhere. Sometimes Richard thinks Francis might've fallen asleep, but then he'll open his eyes from time to time to look at him and Richard meets him.
IV.
“Where's everybody?”
Camilla wanted to pick wild berries that Bunny claimed to never exist in the first place. Henry had asked him if he'd like to join him but he declined, wanting to finish the book he had been reading in his free time.
He said just that.
Francis hums for a minute, thinking, and then his eyes were at him. Richard flips a page. And then Francis was walking towards him. When he looks up, Francis had grabbed his book and seated himself on his lap, burying his face at the crook of his neck before giving him his book back.
Richard could smell the entirety of him. His nose against soft neck. He was consuming him. Francis. Richard stared at his book, Francis wrapped his arms around him tighter. He's surprisingly heavy, which reminded Richard that no matter how beautiful and slender he is, Francis, is a man. He taps his thighs.
“Don't say anything.”
Richard didn't, just let him. He smelt of cinnamon, oud, and something just uniquely Francis. His book settled on the table beside him as he rests his hands on slender hips, accentuated better by his waistcoat. Too formal on this lazy afternoon.
Richard taps a rhythm, then draws shapes. And when he heard a hum, he started to caress his thighs in a sequence. And he felt it, feather like kisses against his neck, the body that was lax started to stir above him. And then Francis was pulling away to kiss him.
Soft lips, no longer chapped. Richard thinks it might be the balm he had seen Francis applying. He kisses him, and he kisses him. And again. And Francis was shifting, straddling his lap, cupping his cheeks. Richard liked it. Kissing. He liked kissing, he found. Unsure if the action in itself or just Francis, he never let himself think too much of it. He thinks he just likes kissing. And it happens to be with Francis. He could kiss Charles and it'll be the same, or Camilla. Even Henry. Even Bunny if he had taken a pint, he might've liked it. He wouldn't have known. He's just kissing Francis. And Francis was Francis.
He kisses in a dance. The push and pull away. The slight linger of his tongue. The lazy grind of his body. And then the kisses on his neck. And Richard could close his eyes forever. It doesn't even feel remotely sexual, just comfortable.
Kissing.
Kissing Francis feels comfortable.
And his lips were against him again, and they were just kissing. Familiar. And then Francis hands were on his hair, brushing, tugging, his own hands on slender waist, shy. And they're just kissing. Until Francis tugs his hair back and pulled away, briefly.
“Cubitum eamus?”
And Richard shouldn't have said yes. He liked kissing Francis because it didn't have to mean anything. It doesn't have to mean anything. But to cross that line. To feel the clench inside his chest, the flutter at the pit of his stomach.
He kisses him again. And again. And Francis fought the kisses to pull back and drag him upstairs.
V.
Richard thinks he might be losing his mind.
The gauze curtains of Francis' bedroom flows languidly with the wind as the lazy afternoon air enters the room. Richard realized his window was half open and Francis didn't seem to realize so. Richard also doesn't mind so as Francis undresses in front of him. Dancing in a silent rhythm that he seems to be the only one hearing. He smiles when he sees him and kisses him again before completely flaking his shirt away. Richard shakes his head. Dramatic as always.
“Are you dancing?” He teases, a bit impatient. And Francis rolls his eyes, leaning down to where he was seated in his bed to kiss again. Annoyingly brief.
“It's called foreplay, Richard.”
A stupid one at that.
And then he was twirling again and then approaching him with mischief in his eyes and then he was undressing him.
He let Francis do the work. When he had opened it, he pushed him down the bed and climbed over to straddle him. He had been doing that all week. Richard doesn't know what to make of it. He never had the chance to do so because Francis was kissing him again. And this time with a bit of an urgency. Just a bit.
“I could kiss you forever, you know that?”
Richard thinks he knows. When he didn't say so, Francis just stares and Richard stares back. The silence stretched between them, unmoving, uncaring. Richard reached to tuck a strand of red hair away from Francis' face and he realized distinctly, that he liked it. His hair. Too dark inside a room, but with the afternoon sun shining inside, it's copper. And ginger. And everything red and brown. And Richard liked that. Liked him.
“I hope you never change.”
And Richard doesn't know what he means by that. He smiles anyway, because Francis kisses him, in the mouth. Slowly, sensual. Like he always does when he kisses. Almost melancholic. As if you'd know you'll miss it. The rhythm of his lips. The dance and the chapness.
And then there was tongue and Richard could just about lose his mind.
VI.
Francis was smoking as he steers away from the country house. Camilla by the passenger seat as they talk about Greek and anything else. Richard watches outside the window. The way the trees started to reappear from what used to seem like an endless meadow. And then more trees, more mountains.
He could hear Francis and Camilla laughing and from behind, he could see Charles and Bunny arguing over a map as Henry nods at him in the wheels.
When he slumps back and watches the two in front of him laugh, Richard has a distinct feeling that everything isn't going to be the same.
Francis made a particularly loud quip that made Camilla laugh and Richard looks at him, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror.
Francis had smiled, and looked away.
The dread settled at the pit of his stomach as he crossed his legs and looked outside. The radio hummed a familiar tune and Richard closed his eyes, in his mind, he sang along.