A/N: For TheWonderfulWorldOfLiars! She (at least I assume so) requested that I write some EarnestxCornelius so... Here ya go! ^^ I researched Cornelius and Earnest on the wikia so I should have their characters down, but if you see any OOCness at all I apologize... :/ I also apologize for any spelling/grammatical errors it's early here in the US while I'm visiting so just yeah I'm kinda tired...

Any who, I hope this is enough fluff and like I said, it's Earnest and Cornelius lovin' so if you don't like boy boy/shounen ai/yaoi, don't read! But if you do, I hope you enjoy! :3

Ivory flakes fell from the dusty sky in whips, turning cheeks and fingers and noses red, turning warm and steady bodies into frigid, jolty ones. It was winter in Bullworth academy, and the harsh snow wasn't about to yield to anyone who decided to travel outside. Even classes were canceled due to slick streets and more than enough accidents on anything with wheels, adults and teenagers alike being put in hospitals and being taken care of at home with cuts, bruises, and even broken bones.

The girls stayed in their dorms, warming up with blankets and passing the time by gossiping and getting into cat fights. The boys stayed mostly in the dorm, though some chose to bear the cold and have snowball fights or to throw chunks of ice at the girls dorm. Some chose to make a short walk to the library, some even took shelter in the garages in the autoshop and attempt to concoct an ice resistant bicycle.

Earnest Jones was among the few Nerds whom made the dangerous journey to the library. His already frail body was frozen to the bone, his thin coat soaked through by melted snowflakes. He was thankful for how warm and cozy the library usually was as he took off his wet layer of a failed attempt for warmth.

The first person he spotted was sitting at a table, his eyes wide and interested as he intently read along the pages of a math textbook. Cornelius Johnson's eyes flickered excitedly along the pages. He didn't even realize the head Nerd was seated across from him.

After only a few minutes, Cornelius nodded as he turned the page. His focus was momentarily taken from the information on the textbook pages, and that's when he looked up at Earnest. At first he looked slightly surprised, as he was taken off guard, but he soon smiled warmly in greeting. "Is there something I can do for you?"

Earnest just shook his head, a smile playing on his pale lips as well. He adjusted his position so his head was against his forearm, held up on the table by his elbow. He watched Cornelius go back to his reading, and his mind and eyes began to wander.

He first noticed the smile still tracing the other boy's lips as he read along the text, and how excited his eyes were. Earnest knew Cornelius loved math and that he had a 4.0 GPA, and the love and passion that showed through merely from his expression was proof of it all. He then looked at the few strands of hair bouncing along the dark forehead as the boy nodded. Earnest's arm leaned off more to the side and his head went along with it, green eyes flickering now at the loosened scarf surrounding a most likely soft neck. His mind wandered further and he played attention to more details, such as the twitch his jaw made when he found something extra interesting, the length of his eyelashes, the shape of his lips, and overall a whole bunch of things most others wouldn't care to notice about Cornelius.

By then, the dark skinned boy had a creeping felling that someone was watching him very intently, almost as intently as he was staring into his textbooks. He stopped reading for a moment, pausing to look up at a lopsided Earnest. He looked awfully tired, and very pale.

"You've been quiet for a while, are you okay?" the thinner teen leaned forward to whisper, a finger jammed in his textbook.

That seemed to wake Earnest up, as he jolted up quickly. Cornelius did the calculations in his head and was sure that light traveled faster than his leader by a few milliseconds.

"Yes, compadre, I am just fine. I'm... thinking." Earnest offered a grin of reassurance.

Cornelius cocked his head slightly to the side. "What might you be thinking so hard about, dear leader?"

Earnest's color came back as he fiddled with his fingernails. Knowing the other boy, what he wanted to say would most likely be taken the wrong way. Yet again, he was Earnest, and Cornelius knew about him as well. Then again, what he wanted to say would be taken the wrong way by about anybody...

But he couldn't lie to an amigo. As gay as it sounded, he couldn't lie that he was tracing the lines of the darker boy's lips over and over, and remembered the flutter of his long eyelashes as he turned the pages with thin fingers... he was thinking about Cornelius in such an odd and unusual way. Had he ever looked at Algernon like that? Not to his knowledge. Thad? Bucky? Beatrice? Not them, either. But these things about the Johnson just intrigued him in such a way.

"About a close friend," Earnest answered, a small yet genuine grin lining his mouth. He looked down. It wasn't a complete lie, he would consider Cornelius as a close friend. After all, why was he sitting in a pretty much abandoned library staring at the kid instead of catching up on his "novel" as he had intended? It was still tucked away in his shirt.

Cornelius didn't speak again, but he didn't look back down to the book. He straightened his head and squinted at Earnest, studying him. The lighter boy could feel the brown stare seeping in to him, looking upwards was almost unnecessary.

"Do you like me?" The question rang out almost like a gunshot in a sleeping household. Earnest hesitated before he answered.

"Of course, compadre!"

"No, I mean," the darker teen mumbled, nodding with his eye downcast. He then looked up. He was finding the correct word choice.

"Have you ever though that, possibly," Cornelius faltered slightly, "in the future, I could be more than... just... a compadre to you?"

Earnest's mouth slid to the side of his face. Of course Cornelius knew the leader didn't think like that, but of course the leader knew Cornelius would think like that. He was about to object when he really thought about it, when he began to imagine some relationship with the teen that could be more... amorous.

He couldn't deny that the idea was somehow... interesting. Possibly exciting, if you thought about it. Again, he couldn't lie to Cornelius. Yet he didn't want to sound so... gay.

"I can't deny that," Earnest threw up a hand, as if he was weighing options, "it's not such a bad idea..."

The darker hid his smile with a hand on his chin, fingers curled upwards to the bottom of his nose. Earnest could clearly see, however, the gleam in his eyes, and it surely wasn't his glasses.

Ah, he was waiting for an invitation. He couldn't deny the look that the teen was giving him. Besides, he wasn't in a relationship and he hadn't been in a while, and, well, it was Cornelius. Cornelius Johnson, amazing Juliet in the school play. The longer he looked into his gleaming eyes, the more he wanted to... be with him.

So he finally stepped up to the plate and asked for the darker teen's hand in marriage. As he was in the middle of his sentence he realized he was saying the wrong thing and quickly changed it to asking his hand to hold around campus, to have more than just a relationship as compadres, and finally to be the amazing Juliet in his life.

The immediate answer was yes, of course, who could resist an invitation such as that?