It was the end of another hard day and after a delicious dinner Margaret found Arthur and Francis sitting on the western porch, wrapped in the quilts they took from their rooms, observing the setting Sun and the scenery while playing cards. She gave them their tea and sat on the bench against the wall, observing the two leisure on the floorboards. "Did you know the most important people in your life are the ones you can picture sitting on a porch with?" Francis asked while he glanced at his friend, trying to figure out the row of cards he was hiding from him. "Really? How quaint! And how about that, here we are, sitting... Alright, I pass, your move, frog," the Brit murmured and took another card from the deck. In the meantime, Joseph had joined Margaret and was now puffing his pipe. He noticed Margaret giggle to herself and shifting her fingers to which he bluntly asked: "What?" She chuckled cheerfully and then said more to the two playing than to her husband: "I love the type of relationship where you are totally comfortable around each other and there's no pressure to act a certain way. There's no awkward moments. You can be weird and lazy when you're together, make fun of each other, tickle each other, and then just laugh it off like you are best friends, because you are. A relationship, where you call each other cute nicknames and there is lots and lots of laughing involved in the time you spend together, but you can also be serious. You can just be yourself with the comfort of knowing that's what the other person loves the most." They both looked at her, Francis wryly smiling, a confused look on Arthur's face. "And what do you mean by that?" he asked, cocking his brow. "I think your mother meant to give a speech before she could ask something that's been on her mind for a long time," Joseph said sternly and rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine! I'll come out with it! Bosey, Francis: how long have you been dating now?"
Francis choked on his tea and Arthur's face turned from him to his parents, cheeks red and eyes wide open. "We're not-" Francis coughed and stood up, thumping his chest to be able to breathe normally again. "We're not in a relationship, how could you even think that?" Arthur asked furiously and rose from the floor to help his friend. "There's no need to become emotional, dear," Margaret said shyly, feeling as if she'd brought the subject up at a wrong time. "I'm alright, Arthùr, thanks," Francis said when he wasn't coughing anymore, his throat hoarse from the sudden hot tea in his trachea. "Whatever," Arthur just snapped and went for the door, the Frenchman's woesome eyes following him. "Where are you going?" his mother asked. "Running, what do you think?!" Arthur yelled from inside the house, leaving the porch in silence. "Forgive her, she can be a little too nosy sometimes," Joseph said, earning a rigid look from his wife. "Non, it's alright," Francis said and picked up Arthur's blanket from the floor. "He always goes running when he's upset," he added when they noticed the Brit go over the hill a little while later. "I'll go talk to him, I know where he's going," Joseph said and left.
Only this time Arthur wasn't just running. He was dashing through the forest, sprinting for the few miles to Mary's shack in order to wear his body out completely; if someone were to see him, they could've said he was running for his life from something and he was - from all the confusion going on his head. A few minutes later upon seeing the house through the trees, he slowed the tempo; his lungs and legs were burning. "They're all a bunch of eejits," he wheezed when reaching the remnants of the house, chewed by time. He sat on the stone steps, the sides of it covered in moss. For a little while he tried to regain his composure and to relax his muscles, his head empty of all unnecessary thoughts. It wasn't until some time later, when he noticed his father through the overgrown thicket, they came flooding back. Now that he thought about it, the words he had spoken so freely, as if a flow of water running down the cliff, had been maybe slightly too sentimental, but he was sure Francis hadn't gotten the wrong idea. "He knows I am a British gentleman and he knows what a close friendship between two of those is. Surely enough, he's French, but it remains the same," was the last thought he had with himself before Joseph sat next to him. "You're much faster than you were before," he said while looking at the now darkening forest. "Well, I have had to do a lot of running these days," Arthur remarked. "That saddens me," Joseph replied, and took out his pipe. "You smoke much more often nowadays." "I do?" the old man chuckled, stuffing tobacco into the wooden piece of art, deer carved onto it. "I guess my children worry me more now than they used to." "Look, there is nothing between me and Francis. It's just a close friendship between two gentlemen, you know that," his son explained and folded his arms, his face a little bitter from his words. "Arthur, I may be old, but I'm not blind," Joseph sternly said, and looked at the Brit with his stark grey eyes. "What do you mean?" Arthur answered his gaze with his emerald ones. "I see the way you look at him - eyes full of fondness and laughter. You smile more often now when he's around and you care for him so, it all comes out from the way you speak. At first I was skeptical about it when your mother told me all these things, but now - when I have seen it with my own two eyes - it's as clear as day to me," Joseph said, furrowing his brows. "What is?" Arthur asked, although his pink cheeks already signaled he knew. "You feel that you may be in love with him, subconsciously or not. But it isn't so." Arthur shot his eyes open and looked at his father, feeling suddenly empty. "What?" he only hushed and continued to stare at Joseph.
"For I have also seen how he looks at you. Lust shining in his eyes, words coated in honey playing on his lips. When I was young, at war I saw many men like that during the missions the British empire had co-operating with the French. They play women for fun - surely he's been quite the devil, hasn't he?" Joseph asked and Arthur's face told him he was right. "But you see, when we weren't near any village, they would advance towards the more feminine soldiers in our troops for a quickie or to have some toodle-pip. It's all just a game for handsome men like him. You're just his next conquest." "Times have hanged, and you don't know hi-" "I don't know him, but I know people." Arthur was interrupted by his father. "You don't know the lengths his kind would go just to play their game." "But he-… I..." Arthur was at loss for words. For the time he had known Francis he knew he could trust him and count on him anytime, but now his father - the man he had always looked up to and who had never been wrong; who had traveled the world and seen life - told him otherwise. With regret, he started to doubt Francis' words; all these talks, and he remembered what Antonio and Gilbert had said during their first meeting. They, who had known Francis for much longer than the Brit had and knew probably everything there was to know about him. "And all those phone-calls they've made asking about... about..." he thought to himself in agony. He buried his head between his arms and they sat in silence for some time.
"Alright, I'll take it from your point of view and your feelings. Let's say he accepts your feelings and you two have fun for a while. Soon he'll grow tired of you and will try to leave and I know you would do anything to make the one you think you love stay. Understand this: at some point you will realize you have done too much for someone, that the only next possible step to do is to stop. Leave them alone. Walk away. It's not like you're giving up and it's not like you shouldn't try. It's just that you have to draw the line of determination from desperation and from being used. What is truly yours will eventually be yours and what is not, no matter how hard you try, will never be. I know it, Arthur: I know he will never be. The way you're acting at the moment... You're not upset, hurt or angry. You're just tired. Soon you'll be even more tired of putting in more effort than you receive. You'll be tired of holding on for nothing. You'll be tired of believing all your lies you tell yourself and you'll be tired of all the lies he's telling you. You'll get tired of getting your hopes up and being disappointed. Again. Listen to me, you have to end your friendship with him," Joseph said sternly. Arthur, a morbid look on his face, felt as if his heart just dropped. He didn't want to think he'd have to spend the rest of his days without the company of such a great friend. Joseph continued to explain using his son's point of view, seeing it worked: "You're holding onto him in the hopes of becoming happy with him. I know it's hard to wait around for something you know might not ever happen and that it's even harder to give up and walk away when you know it's everything you've ever wanted. But you're my son, Arthur - you're strong, and I know you will make the right decisions. You'll be better off without him."
Arthur shook his head, not wanting to believe what his father was saying, but he respected him too much to believe he could be wrong. "I need to... I'll go riding with Aini, don't expect me back before nightfall," he said before darting off the stairs. Joseph looked at him until he was lost to him between the trees. He stood up, sighing. "You're wrong," came a voice behind him. The old man turned around to see his mother, Mary, stand at the doorway. He just shook his head and got on the trail to go back home, knowing there was no point in talking to her.
"What did you tell him?" Margaret shrieked furiously when he was back in the farmyard. "He got back, running like crazy and stormed off with Aini without saying a word!" "He'll be back well before dawn," Joseph said and entered the house. "What did you say to him?" his wife demanded, Francis stopping midway on the stairs upon hearing raised voices from the floor below. "I just told him to get a grip! To quit pursuing something he will never obtain! To forget that Frenchman!" the old man yelled. "How dare you?! Don't you want him to be happy?!" Margaret screamed, shocked by the way her husband had talked to his son. "Of course I do and that's why I told him to stop! Man is not supposed to lie with another man! He will never become happy with him, Francis would just use him and move on! Think how miserable he'd be then! Stop meddling with his affairs!" "Me? You're the one who told him to stop seeing his best friend! I'm just trying to help him, help them both and help us!" Margaret yelled, and left to the kitchen. "You're not trying to help, you're organizing his life as if a playhouse!" Joseph replied, and left to his study, silence falling to the house. With a heavy sigh, Francis went to his room and sat by his window, waiting for Arthur's return.