Blaze

Rating: PG

Written: April '99

Category: Romance. It's a mood piece.

Disclaimer: I don't own Jess or Jim. Those . . . um . . . people do.

Summary: Short on plot, big on clichés. Well, I guess it's not that bad. More like . . . big on emotions. (is *that* a cliché?)

Author's note: Beware; I was feeling really poetic the night I wrote this.

Feedback: Yes! Allicatt3@aol.com

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Blaze

by Rocket Jesse

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Sparks and pops emanated from the fire, a blaze of yellow and orange that did next to nothing in providing the heat that its watchers needed. It was so fascinating to look at something that is able to kill, trying to escape the confines of the small campfire, providing good effects but bad intentions.

A small cat lay not too far away, curled up inside his sleeping bag and ignorant of the simple, well-known irony of the fire. It purred softly, able to sleep because it knew instinctively how to generate its own warmth.

The fire had two spectators. One of them was a pretty girl who was sick with the flu. Even sipping hot chocolate with a blanket wrapped around her in front of the fire, she still shivered visibly and dearly wished for warmth. The other was a striking boy of about the same age as his ill partner. They considered themselves adults, though some might argue they were just headstrong teenagers. The boy had a thinner blanket for himself and sat, with the girl, on their sleeping bags. He waited for her to finish her drink so he could tuck her in and say goodnight.

"I'm so . . . I'm so cold," she weakly told him, hoping for the reprieve from the icy breeze she knew he could give her.

"Do you want to go to sleep yet?" He spoke gently and patiently, amazed at what this disease had done to her temper; it was now non-existent, so he had no fear of saying the wrong thing and getting rebuked for it. She was normally so mean and hurtful, and it touched his heart how fragile she had become.

"Not yet. I want to finish this." She took another sip from her hot drink, of which a fourth of the mug remained. Again, she wished for his warmth.

"Here. You can have my blanket." He draped it over her on a whim, but didn't and wouldn't regret the action. She had to stay warm, and that was that.

She put the empty mug on the ground and pulled the blankets around her more tightly, trying to ward off the chill that endeavored to seep into her bones.

Seeing her shiver still, he moved closer to rub his hands up and down her arms. She seemed to lean in to him just the slightest bit.

"What do you say we go to bed now?" he very nearly whispered in her flushed ear. He'd quickly learned that loud noises would make her ever-present headache even worse than it was to begin with.

"I . . . I . . ." she started, embarrassed that she needed to ask him this. "I won't be able to sleep if I keep up this shivering. I need to be . . . warmer." She tore her eyes away from the fire and turned them on his, waiting for her wish. She knew he understood her, and that he'd do it for her without question.

"Do you want *me* to keep you warm?" A hint of a smile followed his expected query.

She nodded, eyes desperate and pleading.

"Alright." The hinted smile became a full-fledged one. "I'll zip our sleeping bags together then."

Slowly, she crawled off so he could join their bags. She let herself become lost in the fire again until he finished.

"Come on in." He patted the fuzzy gray lining next to him. He was sitting, halfway underneath the top bag, while he helped her in. The way he was looking into her eyes stirred something deep inside of her, and she felt a wave of love for him even stronger than she ever had before. At that moment, all she needed was to be in his arms.

Soon enough, the two were laying in one another's embrace, relishing the feel of being nice and toasty warm. The joy of just being able to be so near surpassed this by far; the feeling their closeness gave each of them was incomparable to simply being warm.

She was hypersensitive to everything he did. She could feel every beat of his heart, hear every breath in his lungs, smell the scent that belonged to him and no other.

"Is this better?" The tenderness in his voice was shocking; this side of him showed itself rarely.

"Mmm-hmm," she murmured lazily into his warm chest. His heart leapt and she could feel every beat in rapid succession. Even after he calmed, she still felt it like it was her own.

That was what put her sleep; his heartbeat. It even stayed with her in her dreams, keeping the fever-induced nightmares at bay, letting her see images of him and her together.

And once she was asleep, he smiled to himself, knowing that he held his sleeping beauty in his arms. The last coherent thought that passed through his mind before sleep claimed him was the wonder of kissing her to wake her up.

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