hold back the river

“Oh the horror.” While his voice was rather dry, his face had a small smile on it. Humor was almost easy, infectious as the laugh that burst from Ries. Belenus found himself laughing along, the sound rumbling from his chest in an unfamiliar way.

The question came back around to him, and he stretched the offending limb in front of him. He flexed the toes, tipping it from side to side. It didn’t hurt, the cramp had long faded, but he noticed a little bit of soreness when he tucked it back beneath him.

“The cramp it had is gone. Probably nothing more than a strain, if anything. I really should have stretched.” Granted, he was no doctor, but he knew the feeling of a strain. How it hurt only vaguely, but would ache when he least expected it. How he would feel it throb at night. But it would heal, as the rest of his body had. Belenus put a smile on his face again, a distraction.

“Its mostly cold.”

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The laughter felt like a victory. Ries would take it as one, pride settling into his chest like a fire in a hearth. He had a laugh rusty with disuse, but a nice one nonetheless. The smile transformed his face into something more handsome, something more welcoming.

It was good to know his leg didn't hurt anymore. A strain, he said. He should have stretched. "I probably shouldn't have suggested we hunt a deer without making sure you were okay," he said in return. It was definitely on him for pushing before his companion was ready.

It's mostly cold.

That it was, especially as the sun had begun to dip. Ries wasn't as bothered by the chill, but he supposed it was cold out. Tentatively, testing the waters, he scooted a touch closer.

"If we huddle, it's not so cold," he began, the faintest prickle of heat in his cheeks. "If that's okay with you."

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Ries was quick to redirect the blame onto himself, taking it as if it was his own. Belenus frowned, but said nothing. Half the burden would remain on him, he refused to release it. And should the moment appear, he’d accept more onto his shoulders. He would carry that weight, carry it as long as necessary. What was one more to a man so riddled in burdens? Not much, that was certain.

The next words caught him by surprise. He stilled, eyes wide, blinking a few times just to make sure the world didn’t fall apart around him and he would wake back in the snow, beside that tree. He’d heard of others huddling for warmth in the colder parts of their menagerie of battlefields, tight coils of fur he’d once wished to join, but sooner found lacking. Huddles hadn’t been uncommon, and he’d never been invited. He let his eyes drop away, skitter to the horizon line and back, then away again. The tense silence stretched on for a moment too long, before he dropped his head to his chest in disgruntled embarrassment.

“I-” He swallowed enough to hear his throat click.

“I-uh. I wouldn’t be opposed. If you aren’t. For warmth.” Belenus tried not to be so visibly flustered. It wasn’t working as well as he had thought. If Ries could peer at the skin beneath his fur, he imagined it would be bright red with the heat that flushed his cheeks.

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Ries hadn't expected his question to fluster the man so, nor had he expected to feel so flustered himself. Normally, he would not mind the proximity, and even now he didn't. Not really. It was just...

Well. He didn't really know what it was.

"I'm not. Opposed, I mean," he said, his own face warm as he shuffled a little bit closer, and then a little more, and then committed to the motion and, if not moved away from, would squish himself up against Belenus' side. The warmth was immediate, seeping in through his fur and soothing the chill that he hadn't even been fully aware of until it had been chased away.

An awkward clearing of his throat, and Ries would ask, "Is this okay?" Belenus had said it was okay, before, but in practice? Maybe he'd changed his mind.

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Their fur intermingled, and Belenus couldn’t tell if he wanted to crawl out of his skin to get away, or lean in closer. He caught the edge of his lip beneath an incisor, trying to forcefully make his muscles relax. It worked, somewhat, his stiffened back going from less board and more linoleum. Bendable, almost. He twitched one of his ears to try and offset the heat he thought was pouring from his. Everywhere. He wondered, for a moment, if Ries could feel it too.

He coughed, once, just to get his head back on straight, and lowered his head back down to his legs again. After a moment, he even shuffled over to lean more against the warm body beside him. It was nice, in a way that would have unsettled him if he wasn’t already so tired of being unsettled.

“Very okay.” He hummed, low and steady, flicking his gaze up to Aries’s, then away again. Watching the horizon as best he could from his low vantage point. Even as his eyes threatened to close the longer he lay there. He forced them open wider, fighting off sleep with every heartbeat.

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There was a tingling sensation under his skin, awkward and uncomfortable and strange but not necessarily unpleasant. Ries was far from touch starved, so it was not that. His heart was hammering in his chest, so loud he was certain it could be heard from the outside.

As awkward as he felt, the proximity was nice, and Ries was tactile by nature. Naturally, he found himself curling closer to the other man, shifting into a more comfortable position against the larger frame.

A soft huff of laughter escaped him as Belenus' multicolored eyes fluttered shut and were forced back open again, as though he were fighting sleep. Ries could feel the tug of exhaustion making his own lids heavy, his body warmer and comfortable enough that it was difficult to stay awake.

So he didn't. It was with a soft sigh that Ries allowed his eyes to fall shut, and soon after his breathing deepened and evened out as he drifted off into a content slumber.

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It was strange. The warmth that emanated from his side. How long had it been? Since he’d had brothers and sisters boisterously pressed close? Since he’d had anything but what little he could scrape and scrimp for? Since Belenus had held anything but a name and the scars carved into his skin. It was..nice. In a way he couldn’t put into real words in ways that actually mattered.

Ries’s breathing deepened, evened the rhythm of sleep, and he turned his head just enough to observe him. A strange man, in an even stranger land. Carrying so much light, but a hidden depth of loss. Trusting him despite his dubious origins and even more dubious mental state. Part of Belenus wanted him to never learn the distrust that categorized his worldview, that scorched place over his heard where he’d been burned too many times. He watched him for a little while, as if trying to be sure he was actually asleep, before he let his head fall sideways off his legs onto the ground. He watched the steadily darkening sky, waiting for that first bright star to show its face.

Belenus didn’t believe in gods, not anymore. But he prayed to whatever one would listen before his eyes finally closed.

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