John almost never joins them on these outings - and even when he does, his impartial mask is impeccable, stripped of anything more than friendly affection for Francis, and it only falls away once they are safely in private again. Clandestine meetings, secret kisses, whispers in the middle of the night. It feels like a fever dream, one that dissolves with the mist once the sun rises, and Francis wakes up alone in a cold bed again.

He is sick of it.

“Yes, and I’m tired. You could have joined us. Seen me then.”

John must read this unhappiness in his expression, because his brow narrows in concern. “Won’t you let me in?”

“Won’t you kiss me here?” Francis shoots back.

John glances behind him, at the empty midnight street. “Let me in and close the door, and I will.”

“What are you so ashamed of?” Francis asks, harsher than he means, but not harsher than he feels.

“I’m not ashamed.” It’s a bald-faced lie, and they both know it.

“Then why did you not come out with me?”

“I was busy.”

Yes, it’s always this excuse. John drowns himself in his studies, writing letters to his father, parenting his brothers, all the legal textbooks that are piled high on his writing desk. It is an ascetic life, designed specifically to leave no room for frivolity. For temptation. For him.

Francis raises an eyebrow. “I worry that I am not enough in your favour to merit even a crumb of your time.”

“You don’t have to worry,” John says, stepping into the hallway so that he is out of sight of the street and putting a hand on his forearm. “I’m here.”

“Are you?” Francis snaps.

John gives him a puzzled look and glances down at the space between them, as if to say, isn’t it apparent?

“I don’t mean here,” Francis retorts, pulling his arm free so that he can wave it to indicate the room around them. “I mean here.” And he jabs his finger right into the centre of John’s chest.

John’s face pales.

“Francis, come on - you know my sentiments.”

“Oh, I’ve had enough of your sentiments, your affections, your partiality!” Francis turns away and strides into the drawing room. John closes the front door quietly and follows behind. “It is all just sensibility dressed up, to keep me on your hook without having to break whatever rules of propriety you’ve written for yourself.”

John’s hand brushes his elbow. “Francis, please…”

“Don’t touch me.”

The hand falls away. “I’m sorry,” John says. “Though I’m not quite sure for what.”

Francis aims for the most vulnerable spot. “You’re a coward, Jack.”

He hits his mark. “Not this again!” John says in an angry whisper. “Why, because I will not kiss you in public? Because I will not make a public declaration of attachment to another man?”

“I didn’t say public, but our friends would understand.”

“Oh, perhaps - but one loose whisper and we’d be exposed. It’s too much of a risk, to gamble our names, our futures, on the discretion of those hedonists. You know that.”

Francis feels his own hands curling into fists, and he bites back a frustrated sob. “You would not be so afraid to show it - to risk it - if you truly loved me.”

“I-- I do,” John hedges. “You know I do.”

“Do - what?” Francis challenges.

“That!”

“But you will not even say the word?”

John swallows, and Francis sees his jaw tense up. But he does not speak, and after a moment Francis knows he will not.

“Then your love is just a lie, Jack.”

Francis feels a tear spill free and run down his cheek.

John’s expression goes intentionally, carefully neutral.

The agonising moment stretches out endlessly between them.

“Francis, you’re drunk...” John starts, but Francis cuts him off.

“Get out.”

“Frank--”

“I will see you in public, or not at all.”

John’s expression hardens against this, and Francis sees the way that the anger swells up through John’s body and then gets forced down again. Because god forbid John Laurens would allow himself any display of genuine emotion.

John gives him a curt, silent nod, turns on his heel, and leaves.

Francis drags himself upstairs, allowing himself to cry properly now. Because despite his flaws, his fears, his stubbornness, he does love John - and he believed, foolishly, that his tender attentions might teach John how to feel it in return. To feel anything. But all he has ever really found beneath John’s careful words and masterfully managed expressions is anger - at himself, at his family, at the world, the divine, the stars, the truth.

But John will not indulge even his rage.

Francis fears that he will push down so much of it that eventually it will burst free and consume him - and everyone else who is foolish enough to love him despite it.

He loves John, yes.