Hi. This is just a short little thing that I wrote because I was depressed and listening to Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson's "Winter Song" Um.... rated T. Its set in the same AU as my earlier fic "Trust In That", and takes place afterwards. This standsalone, but if you want more Franada fun, read "Trust...", too!

Okay, have fun!

Francis was feeling ridiculously depressed, and he thought it had something to do with the weather.

He wasn't the type to get depressed. Nope, that just wasn't Francis. But sitting at the window and staring outside at the whistling, furious wind whipping in the first signs of a storm, Francis felt decidedly…down. Lonely. This wasn't like him at all.

Gilbert and Antonio noticed this, too.

"Hey, amigo, lets go drink!" announced Antonio, waltzing into Francis' room. "There's no students around, now, we can do what we want to!"

Gilbert slouched in behind him. "Yeah, lets get hammered! I think we're the only ones left 'round here. We rule the school!" he crowed.

Francis, Antonio, and Gilbert were teachers at a private boarding school for international high school students. Antonio taught Spanish and Home Ec, Gilbert taught chemistry and physics, and Francis was a student teacher for French. All three had once gone to the school themselves, so they felt they owned the place. And really, as all the students and most of the other teachers had gone home for Winter Break, they did own it. At least, until next Tuesday.

But the absence of students only served to make Francis more miserable. Now he understood what was making him so upset - Matthieu was gone, too… actually, he was supposed to return tonight, but with the storm rolling in from the sea, that seemed like that would be impossible.

"Eh… I do not particularly feel up do getting 'hammered' as you so elegantly put it," Francis muttered, pulling his long blonde hair back into a horse-tail.

Antonio and Gilbert stared.

"What?" they asked in unison.

"I do not feel like losing my motor skills, running around naked, and waking with a headache in a puddle of my own vomit!"

"-What?-"

Francis shoved them out of the room. He knew they would be back, and probably toting beer, but first they'd have to get it, and it was most likely locked in the school kitchens, where some of the smarter members of the faculty had hidden it, knowing it was the Bad Friends who would be alone in the school for two weeks. Francis had a few hours of quiet.

To mope…

He had actually (selfishly) been hoping that Matt would be here, with him, during the holidays; his parents, unfortunately for the poor boy, were dead. But his Ukrainian friend Katyusha had invited him to spend Christmas with her and her siblings - her sister Natasha and her brother, Ivan Braginsky, who was a teacher at the school. Francis supposed that he should be happy that Matt was able to spend the holidays with something resembling a family…

It just sucked that he would not be back tonight. He was supposed to be back a few days before everyone else so that he and Francis could spend time together.

Francis shuffled to the window, staring outside again. The wind had picked up, even more than before, and snow was beginning to form, flying almost horizontally like icy projectiles, congregating in crevices, the wind being too fast for them to stick. It would be vicious out there, below freezing. Francis shuddered, just thinking about it.

A muffled banging came echoing down the hall; it was so loud that he could hear it through the closed door to his room. He figured it had to be Antonio and Gil. Sure enough, a burst of Spanish cuss words - mixed with some Italian, Francis noted in amusement - and an even louder bang (an explosion?) reached his ears. Smiling despite himself, he fished out his iPod and put in the earphones, turning to a depressing indie mix that Matt had made for him a few days before he left.

It was warm in the room, and lack of sleep - he couldn't sleep, not really, not thinking of who was no longer beside him - made him drowsy. He couldn't shut off his brain completely but slowly, ever so slowly, Francis began to doze.

He woke again only a few minutes later, to a repeated tapping, a shivering of glass - Sacre bleu, but what were those two imbeciles up to - ?

Francis opened his eyes, looking around his room, then gasped when his eyes hit the window.

"Matthieu!" he breathed, darting to the window and unlocking it, sliding it open. Matthew was standing outside the window, drawn into himself and shivering violently but with a small smile stretched across his features. He fairly fell through the window, and Francis pulled him in, shutting the pane and wrapping his arms around the boy.

"H-hi F-Francis," chattered Matt. "M-merry Christmas… l-late."

"Matthieu," Francis breathed, running his hands up Matt's arms - he wasn't even wearing a coat! Just a thin jacket. It was below freezing out there and Matt was white and shaking violently. He grabbed the blanket off of his bed and wrapped it around his love, then returned to embracing him. "Matthieu, what are you doing here? Was your plane not cancelled - and why are you at my window? Without a coat?"

"Ah… w-well… the plane was cancelled, but I'd p- promised that I'd be h-here … so I drove. A-and the gate was locked, so I just l-left my stuff in the car and j-jumped it, but the f-front door was locked, too, s-so I had to walk around the school to see if the b-back door was open, and it w-wasn't either so I walked around for awhile, and I couldn't f-find your room until I r-remembered you were in the t-teacher's wing and I had to go halfway back around the s-school to find it… and n-now I'm here."

Francis blinked, processing.

"You… did that… mon cher you did that-"

"B-because I wanted to see you!" and Matt smiled so angelically that Francis' heart melted.

"Oh, cher…" he hugged Matt as tightly as he could, and Matt hugged him back through the blanket, the shaking very slowly starting to subside. "You must have been outside for an hour!"

Matt just shrugged, biting his lip - his gorgeous, gorgeous nervous habit. But this time, Francis noted with some alarm, his usually full red lips were white and starting to turn even faintly blue. Of course, Francis knew how to warm them up. He leaned in an kissed Matt.

"Mmph!"

The Canadian let out a noise of surprise, then relaxed and kissed back, trying to move his arms under the blanket. Francis grinned into the kiss, deepening it even as he tightened his own hold on the blanket, effectively keeping Matt's arms pinned to his sides. Francis loved how his hands could circle Matt's thin forearms, keep him captured. He ran his hot tongue over Matt's lower lip, and slowly it began to warm.

After a moment, they broke away, both breathing heavily enough to cause embarassment. In fact, Matt's face was bursting with a blush.

"Thanks, Francis…. I guess I feel better now," Matt mumbled, ducking his head.

"Hmm… I don't think so. I think we need to warm you up a little more…"

He pushed at Matt's shoulders, and Matt tried to throw out his hands to regain balance but his arms were still trapped and he toppled with a cry, abruptly silenced by Francis' mischievous lips. He ran his hands along Matt's neck, down his shoulders, gripping his hands and then bringing them to his mouth, breathing gently on them.

"You're hands are like ice, mon ange."

"I-I just have bad circula - wah!"

The door to the bedroom swung open and almost hit Matt in the head. He found himself staring up into two pairs of very smug eyes; one pair green, one pair red. And he could tell, even from his position on the floor, that they were grinning rather lewdly.

"Haha, you should have listened to my awesome advice; I knew he'd be back!" crowed Gilbert.

"Hi, Matt, want a drink?" asked Antonio.

Matt yelped and tried to twist away, but Francis was not about to let that happen, so after a moment he gave up and simply closed his eyes and whimpered. These were his teachers! They should not be seeing him pinned the floor, and they should not be offering him drinks!

"Ah, so you got the kitchens open…" noted Francis, seeming unperturbed with the position that he was in - pressed flush against Matt's body, his knee between the younger's legs. In fact, he rubbed his knee gently in circles, causing Matt to choke back a squeak as his head became fuzzy.

"Yeah! It was awesome!" announced Gilbert. There was an unsettling amount of plaster dust in his silver hair, and Antonio was covered in the same way - plus a few charcoal marks, by the looks of it.

"What would be even more 'awesome' Francis breathed heavily, licking up Matt's neck as he did so, "is if you would leave me and mon chou in peace…"

"Aye, aye Captain!" said Antonio, eyes gleaming, saluting and dragging Gilbert out with him, six-packs in tow.

"Hey, Antonio…" Gilbert's voice echoed in the hall before the door shut all the way, "why'd Francis call the kid a cabbage?"

"Now…" murmured Francis to the quivering, mortally embarrassed Matt, "where were we…?"

Owari.

A/N Okay obviously I don't speak French... But I was reading a few fics, and the endearment "mon chou" came up. Being a good little illiterate, I typed it into Google Translate. I got "my cabbage" as the translation... Imagine my confusion...

However, some nice people who actually SPEAK French brought it to my attention that "chou" also means something along the lines of "poppet". So now I am no longer confused.

Still... it reminds me of soup...