Title: Campfiring (for Joolzie and SDQ)
Author: Bernie
Rating meh R implied
Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction
Pairing: Marian Hossa / Martin Havlat
By rights, this should have ended even before it
began. He is nervous, that much is painfully obvious, biting on his bottom lip.
You can't do anything; you have to wait for him to come to you. You know that
much.
His eyes are focused on what is in front of him. Fire:
hot. Bread: uncooked. He is going to put the two together for breakfast. Put
the two things together - flame to flesh of any kind - and it burns.
That is the only thing you are sure of. Fire burns.
Everything else is a total state of flux. The birds should be flying backwards;
the moon should have risen this morning in the west. The past seems months and
years ago from now. Even yesterday seems like it actually happened five years
ago and is a faded memory.
You woke up this morning, and that was it. You weren't
shoved out of slumber, gasping into wakefulness with your heart in your throat.
You didn't wake up scared of what you had seen and what you had wanted in your
dreams. You just woke up, and stretched, and cursed the rocks digging into your
back and the stupid fucking countryside. When you woke up you were alone, but
he was really all around you.
The sleeping bags are zipped together, upside down as
it was dark and you two were to tired from what had happened, to anxious to
curl together and sleep to worry about putting the bags together properly. They
are still warm and the groundsheet is messed up. The other pillow has the case
half off. There are clothes scattered around the tent.
It was freezing cold last night despite being the
middle of summer, and the two of you had told ghost stories over the campfire.
Why? Because you are fucking stupid. What is funny around a crackling fire with
the sky still pink streaked from the sunset is actually not so damn amusing in
a pitch black tent when even the sound of your breathing echoes into the
rusting noises outside and makes you think of bears and goblins andÉ
"Martin? Wake up!"
It's a shouted whisper.
"I'm awake, what?"
"That noiseÉ"
"It's the windÉ"
"It's not the windÉ"
"Is so."
"Is not."
"Is so."
And this is more like it, he laughs and the mood of
encroaching terror breaks. You can hear what you think might be owls and
suddenly you love that they are scurrying about their lives. And that you are
within arms reach of what you have always wanted most.
"I'm cold." Marian whispers. "Pass my
sweater?"
But you pass him one of yours, and you know, sad idiot
that you are, that tomorrow you will wear that sweater yourself and feel and
smell him warm around you.
When you finally walk to your side of the fire he is
staring carefully at the ground. It's cold, but the good cold, the chilly feeling
of a world waking up. There is nothing around you, and you are all alone in the
mist. And soon it will be hot and the sun will be overhead, and you can walk
behind him, watching the sweat trickle down the back of his neck.
But of course, today is not like yesterday.
He is not talking to you, intently focused on what he
is doing, but he is not exactly ignoring you either. He is passing you things,
and not flinching away from you, but not welcoming your touch either. Carefully
pulling away and re-creating space between you, space, but you hope not
distance. You don't know what he is thinking concentrating so closely on what
he is doing. If you could do it without scaring him away, you would go help
him.
What could you say? What you want to say the most is
'thank you for loving me'. But you would just blush and shove each other and
spazz out.
And what if he doesn't love you? What if last night
just happened and now it is all over or he has to find a way to kill you and
leave your body for the wild animals.
"MartinÉ" and he hands you a drink and he
smiles and you warm up from the inside out.
Because he has never loved you like he did last night.
Had never taken a sweater but then deliberately taken his shirt off. Had never
before climbed out of his sleeping bag on one of these camping trips to weasel
his way purposefully into yours.
It's not like you have never had lips on yours before,
not like you have not felt a guys lips before. But not those lips, not this
guy.
The fire should be pouring out cold air this morning.
There should be ice on the ground and night should veil the world again. But he
hands you tea, and is making toast. And what /should/ be is not what /is/. What
/could/ be is fulfilled.
He is wearing your sweater and you have pulled his wind
breaker around you.
He is making you breakfast. And the sun has risen, and
the world is holding the two of you up, exactly as it should, today.
End
