The sky outside was navy blue, you'd never suppose it was morning already. But that's what winter brought; a lot of cold, and a mass of dark. Most would say it was depressing, but Todd, his poet, would call it beautiful. The end of a year. Fall brought the death of summer, in the form of rotting leaves and gusts of chilling wind. Winter was the death of fall, summer and spring. Snow coated the world and everything that had once been; coated memories of every human who had survived the year and all the joys and sorrows it had brought along with it.

A modest gap between the curtains allowed a streak of morning blue from the sky to cascade over the sleeping boy by Neil's side. The room was dark, but that narrow glimmer of the outside world lit up Todd's features ever so slightly, enabling Neil to make out the brief movement of his eyelids and the way his mouth was parted, just barely. Side by side in Todd's bed, there wasn't much allowance for stretching or turning, or any kind of movement. But that was just how Neil liked it; close to the boy he loved. Close enough to inhale his sweet scent that had become so familiar over the last few months, and close enough to feel Todd's warm breath reach his own neck in the fashion of a gentle tickle.

The world was quiet and would remain that way until Todd would wake and kick-start Neil's universe. He'd never known how capable Welton was of being so silent. With so many students – rowdy ones, at that – it seemed impossible. But just as the snow blanketed the earth and muted every sound it came across, there was no sound through the halls, the corridors, the rooms next to their own. It was like magic, witchcraft; something conjured up by a playwright with a wicked and wild imagination.

But it was so real. Because Todd was here, curled into Neil's side, just as he had been when they'd whispered 'goodnight'.

Last night, Neil and Todd had been lying separately, in their own beds, facing each other in the dark. Each night commenced in the same manner; they'd change for bed, turn out the lights and bring their covers tight around themselves. Only when things grew quiet and they knew they were utterly alone, completely private and in their own solitary world together, one of the boys would leave their beds, sacrifice themselves to the cold air of the room, and join the other.

It had been Neil's turn to surrender to the harsh coolness of the night for a brief second which, when the bedrooms of Welton settled into the winter night, felt much longer. It always felt like a lifetime, when Neil was parted from Todd in any situation. It only seemed right when they were side by side, shoulders touching or fingers laced, lips locked and their breathing falling into a synchronised pattern.

He'd dashed across the small space that separated their single beds, and practically jumped on top of Todd. Todd, of course, had welcomed him in with a soft laugh and wrapped him all up. Neil became nothing more than a bundle of Todd's duvet and arms wrapped up all the way around him, pulling him in tight and close. Hiding beneath the covers, they stole kisses that they'd felt they'd missed out on during the day. Neil, for example, had been desperate to kiss the tip of Todd's nose when they had been crossing the walkway outside, the cold turning the blonde boy pink. Todd, on the other hand, leaned in and kissed his boy's lips with an impatient urgency that he'd been suffering with since breakfast, when Neil had smiled at him in that way he always did; beautifully, and genuinely, but somehow suggestively.

Neil would complain about how unfair the whole thing was. Why did they have to wait to express themselves when everybody else seemed to have the freedom to do so? He liked how Todd would calm him down and kiss him to shut him up. Todd agreed, but he'd say that it made moments like this more special and precious, and although Neil believed that every moment with Todd was special and precious, even if he kissed him and embraced him and whispered to him every single second of every day, he understood what the other boy meant, and accepting those words made their lack of freedom somehow more bearable. They had something that nobody else could understand – that not even they had quite grasped yet. No word, no sentence, no verse of a poem, could precisely explain what they were doing and what they shared. If they were handed a dictionary to help them, they wouldn't know where to start.

So sometimes, it was okay to be restricted in public, because both boys had the knowledge of everything that was true between them. Late night meetings in their beds had become the highlight of every day each boy trudged through. What happened during the day no longer mattered when they ended it together in the same bed, laughing and smiling and touching and closing their eyes with a height of contentment neither experienced anywhere else.

And now, in the early morning, Todd's steady breathing would lull Neil back into a light sleep that would get him to breakfast hour, when every boy in the school would wake and change, and know nothing about Neil Perry and Todd Anderson's night together. Perhaps some boys would be the same. Hiding something special and worshiping it once they had a moment of privacy.

Neil bowed his head and pressed his lips against Todd's hair that was messy from sleep. No matter what the day may bring, it started this way and ended this way, and everything in between was mostly insignificant. He smiled and closed his eyes; his face still buried in the blonde's hair, and emptied his mind of thoughts irrelevant to this moment. Drifted away into a light and easy sleep that was dreamless, enveloped in the scent and feel of Todd Anderson.