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Friend: I hope you're happy.
Me: I hope you're happy, now that you're choosing this, I really hope you get it and you don't live to regret it. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY IN THE ENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY, MY FRIEND! SO IF YOU CARE TO FIND ME, LOOK INTO THE WESTERN SKY AS SOMEONE TOLD ME LATELY, EVERYONE DESERVES A CHANCE TO FLY AND IF I'M FLYING SOLO AT LEAST I'M FLYING FREE TO THOSE WHO'D GROUND ME TAKE A MESSAGE BACK FROM ME TELL THEM HOW I AM DEFYING GRAVITY, I'M FLYING HIGH, DEFYING GRAVITY, AND SOON I'LL MATCH THEM IN RENOWN, AND NOBODY IN ALL OF OZ, NO WIZARD THAT THERE IS OR WAS, IS EVER GONNA BRING ME DOWN! BRING ME DOWN! AW WAH WAH WAH WAH-AAAAAAAAH!
Friend:
Me: What.
![My first ship.
I was going through the textbook for my anthropology class, when I got to a picture of James Watson (right) and Francis Crick (left). When I looked at them, my tumblr-tainted mind automatically shipped them.
You see, Watson (American) and Crick (England) were the first to publish their double-helical model for the structure of DNA, along with New Zealand native Maurice Wilkins. Their research was based off of Rosalind Franklin’s research and photographs of DNA.(Enter ship)
Franklin, a single woman, was a lesbian. This was socially unacceptable in a religion-heavy England, and she wanted to prove that it was natural. From a young age, she studied biophysics in order to say that it wasn’t a choice, that it was coded in her every fiber. When contemporary found her out, they immediately devised a plan. They diagnosed and treated her for Ovarian Cancer, thinking that the X-rays they used would either tamper with any evidence that she could find within her own DNA, or radio the gay out of her.
Franklin, knowing that she had little power to stop them, sought someone to pass her work off to. She secretly enlisted a native Brit, Crick, who was also a homosexual. She knew that he also wanted to see if Homosexuality was genetics, but so he knew whether or not to look for it in his own children. He didn’t want them to bear his pain.
Franklin also sought an American, someone whose morals would be just as liberal, if not more. She traveled to America under the guise of work, and found young James Watson, another homosexual that was a closet case with a wife. He, however, was much more open with the concept of homosexuality, and merely had a wife (Elizabeth) that served as a political safety. That’s not to say that the marriage was all business - the two were absolute best friends, and would do anything for each other. Watson’s goal was to define the social aspects of the homosexual through DNA. He researched Freudian-based theories of “gay” behavior, and figured that there may be a physiological change that corresponded. The “gay” gene, if it existed, would have to be more than a single change, but rather a group of changes that had physiological and behavioral impacts.
She arranged for the two to meet up, working to solve the question on the shape of DNA, though this almost backfired. The two instantly hit it off, forming a rather close relationship. Franklin was wary that the possible [probable (definite)] affair would trigger the same reaction that would get her killed, so she immediately called in a third party, one Maurice Wilkins from New Zealand. They had exchanged ideas on DNA before, and she knew that Wilkins would be the straight eye for the queer guys.
Slowly being poisoned by the X-rays, Franklin watched as the two succeeded beyond her wildest hopes and dreams. As she lay on her death bed, watching the men complete her work, she held in her tears of joy. She knew that the Human Genome would be far more vast than she could figure out in her lifetime. She simply wanted the question to be asked, so that others answered.
Watson and Crick received the news of Nanna Franklin two days after she passed. It was only by word-of-mouth from other scientists that they found out, and they were devastated. In fact, after they found out, they consulted those near her as she died. Her last words were “To live so gay and happy, to die and be free from their cancer.” Putting together the pieces, Watson and Crick realized that there really was no cancer, and that she was killed by a treatment she didn’t need.
The two were then struck with fear by the sheer animosity it must have taken to kill someone for being a lesbian. This served to them as a warning sign for any advances they could make with their countries. The next few years were terror-filled, as some unknown power may have been searching for them. Their contact was minimal, but passion-filled. As they received the notice for their nomination for the Nobel Peace prize, they almost didn’t attend, yet Wilkins was also invited to take part, making the prize nomination more credible.
For years these mean continued on their fake lives of heterosexuality. Watson returned back to the states, fearful that England’s unknown killers would off him as they did Franklin. Crick, at Watson’s urging, also moved to America, though on the complete separate coast. Their meetings, infrequent due to the overwhelming terror they felt for their positions, we scientifically-based. The hotel rooms they rented, separately and sometimes in separate hotels, were always locked and the blinds closed, two queen-sized beds in each. On some occasions, they didn’t even fuel their love with a night of physical passion, but let it simmer with a cuddle, a kiss, or even a passing wink.
With the onset of AIDs, the “Gay Disease,” the two had completely lost contact. Crick would stay up late nights, drinking the pitiful American ale that tasted nothing like the savory beers back home. He would shuffle into the bathroom, look at himself in the mirror, and wonder what reason he had for living. His “Slim Jim” would always be at least an arm’s distance away from forever.
Watson took day trips to the ocean with his posing wife, where he would simply cry in her arms as she ran her fingers through his hair, just like Francis did. He listened to the radio as talk show guests bickered about how gays were tainting the nation with AIDs, wishing that he had the genetic proof that homosexuals did not have a genetic disposition for the disease, more so than anyone else, and to prove that the disease itself was not God’s punishment.
Somewhen, mid 90’s, the two chanced a meeting together. The two were by then old a wrinkly, but they still saw the same twinkle in each others’ eyes, showing them back in the single-helix days. Thought they did not physically touch other than an embrace, they drank each others’ presence as though the day was hot and dry. As experienced experts in their field, they met every month or two, seldom a peck on the cheek, let alone more. They had aged beyond the fiery bursts of lust, and now only wanted the love.
In 2004, James Dewey Watson sat near the front of Francis Harry Compton Crick’s funeral service, holding in the tears that matched in number the proteins in a single strand of DNA. He sat with his wife on his right, Wilkins on his left, and Crick in his heart and mind. He took nearly an hour to move from his seat after the service.
Yesterday, for the first time, James walked up to Francis’ grave stone.“You told me that I was the Adenine to your Thymine. I want you to know that I will never find even a Uracil.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4pyihLgZ31r5m5meo1_400.jpg)
