Because Simon/Tom is true love. You just haven't realized it yet.

One note before you read on—"so" and "musical" were slang during the Victorian era for gay. If someone asked, "Is he so?" or "Is he musical?" it was a sly way of asking, "Do you think he's gay?"

Musical

Tom liked Eton.

Well, at least that was what he wrote in his letters to his family. He sent them photographs and wrote them letter and insisted that everything was wonderful, when in reality he sometimes found himself wishing no one had ever even considered the fact that he might need a formal education. Because in all honesty, a formal education was only part of what he was getting, and the rest of what came along with Eton was not pleasant at all.

Tom realized that it was completely his fault that he did not like Eton. It was his useless personality that brought him endless hours of torment. For though Tom was intelligent, he was not confident, outgoing or athletic. However, he was not shy or clumsy either. This left him in the worst of places: the middle. For the outgoing boys were the ones with all the friends and the introverted young men were the ones who were bullied. The athletic ones bonded over football and racquets and the awkward ones faced cruel punishment. Tom might not have been confident, but he was certainly an open young man, and though he was by no means maladroit, he definitely was not the first to jump at the declaration of a game of cricket. This left him in the middle—ignored.

And so Tom was surprised when, on a Thursday night in May, Simon Middleton approached him in the library. But he was only surprised, not startled, for it was true that Tom had watched Simon for some time. It was hard not to. The boy was almost constantly there. No matter where Tom looked, he saw him—laughing with his friends, managing to not get caught nodding off in class, and always, always with a gleam in his eye that Tom knew meant his classmate was up to something.

"So, Doyle… Were you invited?" Simon asked, sitting down across from Tom at his favorite table towards the back of the library. Tom was jarred by how Simon's voice was at a normal, room-level instead of a library-safe whisper.

"Eh…excuse me?" Tom whispered back, pushing aside his mathematics textbook in order to make room for conversation with Simon. He had never truly spoken to the other boy before, though they were both in their second-to-last year at the school and had had many classes together. It was no surprise to Tom that they had rarely spoken, as no one ever spoke to Tom, but he wondered how Simon even knew his name.

Simon shrugged and then leaned back in his chair. For a moment, Tom had felt that they had shared a conspiratorial moment, but now that was all vanished. "I suppose you weren't then," Simon said. "Otherwise, you would know what I'm talking about."

Tom cleared his throat, glad that he was so used to remaining composed and therefore did not color easily. Still, he wasn't incredibly quick on his feet, and so it took him a few moments to retort, "Maybe I do know what you're talking about. Maybe I don't trust you."

Simon shrugged once more, but then proceeded to sit up straight before placing his arms on the table, his hands meeting together, fingers laced. "You'd have an invitation," he prompted.

"Well, so would you," Tom said with a nod.

Simon let out a chuckle, and Tom was surprised that the librarian had not yet emerged to scold them. "You're right," Simon said. "I would have an invitation—if I was invited." Tom frowned, about to pull his textbook back towards him. Simon was being completely ridiculous. "Don't you care what I'm talking about?" he added, and Tom looked up to see a smirk on the other boy's face.

"No," Tom answered, his voice finally reaching room-level. It was at this point that the librarian chose to appear from behind the nearest shelf and glower at the two boys. Tom immediately glared down at his book, though Simon remained seated as he was, smirking his awful smirk, until the librarian disappeared. Finally, Tom could not help himself any longer, and when he looked up once more at Simon he whispered, "Alright, what are you talking about?"

Simon made a face, rolling his eyes slightly, as he leaned back in his chair once more. "No idea, really. I just know that Rolls and Bosanquet are prancing about with blue buttons on their lapels and the Shah or whoever has been more talkative than usual today, almost as if he wants to find out what they're up to." He reached forward and idly played with the corners of the pages of Tom's text book. "So I assumed there was some sort of club or society that was handing out invites that I did not receive."

Tom could not help but feel that Simon was acting oddly. "And you thought that I would know what it was?"

Simon shrugged. "I don't know." He paused, and Tom went back to his work, but then Simon interrupted him. "Do you want to take a break?"

Again, Tom looked up at the boy, completely perplexed. Part of him felt that the whole situation was strange, but then he remembered how lonely he was at Eton and realized how splendid it would be to have a friend. "Alright," he said, and he followed Simon out of the library, leaving his open book behind, knowing he'd have something to return to in the case that what seemed like a positive approach went completely awry.

They walked through empty corridors and down walkways until they reached a courtyard, where they stopped to breath in the warm late spring air. It was the beginning of the Summer Half, and all of the boys had just returned from Easter break. Tom had spent it with his grandmother, attending church services and socials and remembering what it was like to celebrate half a world away.

Simon pulled him from his thoughts. "We've never spoken much," he acknowledged.

Surprised at his companion's words, Tom did not answer for a bit. He took a few deep breaths, gazing up at the stars. "No, we haven't."

"You're friends with Hopewell, aren't you?" Simon asked.

Tom frowned, picturing the tall, thin, awkward boy in many of his classes. "No," he said. "No, I don't think we've even spoken." He was, in truth, a bit offended that Simon would think such a thing of him.

"Ah," Simon said, nodding. Tom turned to look at him, and noticed that Simon was staring up at the sky, his blue eyes focused on the stars as Tom's brown ones had just been. "Yes, I knew that," Simon continued, and then, turning to look at Tom, he laughed and said, "Did you always think…do you ever wonder if Hopewell was so?"

Tom blinked, confused. "So?" he asked.

Another deep laugh came from Simon's throat. "Oh, you know. So. Musical."

"Oh!" Tom said, suddenly understanding. He felt himself lose his composure now, heat rising to his face. "Well, I never considered that about Hopewell…" He really didn't want to consider anything remotely sexual about that boy.

Simon seemed to become more alert at his words, though. "But you considered it about someone else?"

Tom frowned. Had he? Or perhaps he had thought it about himself. Was it odd to stare at the boy before him now and find him to be attractive? Or was it natural to find others attractive, regardless of their sex? It wasn't as if he wanted to kiss Simon, or anything beyond that. Well, maybe he wanted to kiss him. But just to see what it felt like.

Apparently, his silent musings provided the answer Simon was looking for. Tom's thoughts were answered when Simon surprised him by leaning forward and kissing him.

He nearly jumped out of his skin at first, but then relaxed, concentrating solely on the feeling of the other boy's lips on his. For a moment he worried whether others would see them, for it wasn't as if they were alone in a dormitory, and even there they could be discovered—but then he forget about it all and succumbed to the feeling of the moment, running his hands into Simon's hair, like a girl he had quickly kissed for one unchaperoned minute at a ball had done to him.

Tom was surprised when he felt Simon's tongue running urgently along his lips, but he parted them, realizing that this was what it felt like. The other boy placed his hands in Tom's hair as well, and Tom deepened the kiss before reaching, almost vitally, up the back of Simon's shirt and running his nails along his back, exploring whatever he could quickly get his hands on and pressing himself closer.

Would someone round a corner, step outside, look out a window and see them? It was this thought that made Tom pull away from Simon, his hands shaking, his palms sweating. It took him a moment to relax before he glanced at Simon, who was smirking once more and tucking his shirt back into his pinstripe trousers. "Have you ever...?" Tom began, but didn't know what to say next.

"Kissed another man before?" Simon asked. "No…no, I haven't. But I've done more than that with a girl." And then he offered Tom a cheeky grin, one that embarrassed him and made him feel stupid for not having done even that much with a girl—with someone he was supposed to want to touch.

What if he didn't like it? Tom thought to himself, and he felt his face heat up even more, if it was possible. He thanked the moonlight for casting his face in shadows so that Simon would not be able to see him blush. "Well?" Tom simply asked, not sure where to go from there and even more unsure as to how he would feel if rejected.

Simon shrugged, smoothing out his shirt. "Well, I liked it," he said, and Tom let out an audible sigh of relief. "But you stopped, so I suppose I'll be going now."

"No!" Tom shouted, and then hated himself for being so impulsive and desperate. "No, I didn't stop because I didn't like it. I stopped because…well, what if someone sees us?"

The other boy shook his head. "Well…is it worth the risk?"

Tom bit his lip, gazing up at the stars once more. For a moment, he wished he knew something about them in an astrological sense rather than in a scientific way. He might, then, be able to read that everything would turn out alright, just as he had seen old women do at markets and fairs in India. Then, perhaps, he would feel at-ease with what he was about to do.

"I suppose," Tom said, and then he took a step forward and kissed Simon once more.

You've made it this far! Now read and review! (Even if you think I'm crazy. I completely understand.)

Oh, and if you're interested… Just wanted to note, going by the information in the books and on Wikipedia, the "OCs" I listed in this aren't really "OCs" at all—Rolls refers to Charles Rolls, the future managing director of Rolls-Royce, Bosanquet refers to Bernard Bosanquet, a cricketer, and "the Shah or whoever" refers to Aga Khan III, the future 48th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims and future president of the League of Nations. All three would have been at Eton with Tom and Simon. Hopewell is the only actual OC.