Their dorm room was infused with the smell of pot, a dank, smoky smell that lingered on the sheets and their clothes. Rain hissed and tapped outside, announcing the Christmas holidays with a freezing storm that had drenched Peter during his sprint from campus to the halls.

"Fucking precipitation, piece of shitaki mushroom that it is," Peter mumbled, throwing his keys on the table as he entered the room. AJ looked up from the sheet music he was scribbling on, and his chest suddenly got hollow. Peter's long hair fell in thick wet locks around his face, and the pounding rain had turned his lips bright pink with the cold. Lungs about to collapse, AJ went back to the sheet music and tried not to look up.

As AJ watched through the curtain of his fringe, Peter began extracting himself from his wet clothes as quickly as possible. His leather jacket (newly-safety pinned and spray-painted pink) first, then the hoodie, and now he was reaching for the hem of his t-shirt-

"I'm going to have a fag-" AJ said abruptly, jumping off his bed and going to the desk drawer for a packet of cigarettes. If he turned around, he knew what he would see. He'd seen it by accident so many times before: an endlessly marble-smooth torso, pale like cream, and vaguely-suggested hipbones that dipped into the waistband of some ridiculously tight jeans.

But he didn't want to think about that.

"For Christ's sakes go outside. What are you trying to do, hotbox the dorm?" Peter griped, unbuttoning his jeans.

AJ looked over his shoulder, careful to keep his eye line levelled at the floor. "It's raining."

Peter scoffed, and then gestured to his soaked body. "I know."

They had a small balcony, one you could barely fit two people on, and it was mostly occupied by the geraniums Peter's mother kept sending them to "brighten up their halls of residence". AJ glanced at the balcony through the sliding doors and shuddered. He'd get very, very wet and cold out there.

"Not fair," he mumbled.

"Life's not fair," Peter grinned, shoving AJ towards the glass doors. "Out."

"No."

"Yes."

And then, predictably, they were locked in one of their pointless wrestling matches. AJ put his back foot out to steady himself, shouldering Peter's bare chest as the bigger boy pushed hard. It was never a fair fight, in all honesty, because Peter had about fifteen pounds and three inches on AJ.

So it was surprising, really, that it was Peter who fell over, albeit through AJ's use of tactical groping.

Which left the room silent.

And Peter on the carpeted floor, jeans unbuttoned and bare skin glowing in the hazy fluorescent light. Breathing hard, barely propped up on his elbows. AJ realised he'd crossed a line, between the thick silence clogged with the smell of pot and the undeniable fact that AJ had just put his hand in Peter's jeans.

"I'm going to go out for that fag now," he muttered.

Peter let him go, despite the desperate fluttering feeling in his stomach, because he knew in a second AJ would be barging back through those doors, wet and earthy-smelling with rainwater. Eyes wide and dark with something they both knew, but neither had a name for. Because it always happened this way.

Lying back down on the floor, Peter wriggled out of his jeans and began to count down from five. He would not get further than three. He never did.