steamfic
“It’s cold,” Andy announced over the wind, pulling his coat tighter and hunching down in the saddle. From a few feet away Merrick made an indistinct noise, wrapped up in a scarf and hat and looking nearly as miserable as Andy felt. Another blast of wind hit them full in the face, sending snow down his collar and making his eyes water, and the blond repeated for good measure, a whine working its way into his voice, “It’s fucking cold. I fucking hate snow. And fucking winter. And those motherfuckers running the TMR.”
“So when are we going to get moving again?”
The conductor looked at them both, back out the window of the station, and laughed. “We blew out our pneumatemp hydrolator when we hit the ice on them tracks landing. We ain’t going nowhere for a week at least.”
They looked at each other, frowning, and Merrick shook his head. “We have to be in Wikipaw before then.”
“Well you ain’t gonna.” The man took off his cap, wiped his face with it, and shoved it back on roughly before giving them both a good look. “Look, why don’t you boys grab a room in the station, then go out and enjoy the delay? There’s plenty o’ girls who’d love to see some real young urban types round here.”
“We have to get to Wikipaw.” Andy ran a hand through his hair and looked over at the redhead, who shrugged. “When’s the next Airship coming through?”
“In this weather? Lucky if it didn’t plum crash somewhere. Won’t be headed back out for a while anyway.” A pause. “Next town down the line has Landrails, though, if you boys are that set on getting out. Might still be running on the ground.”
“Why is it so fucking cold out here motherfucker!” Andy swore again, dropping the reins to stick his hands under his arms. The horse plodded on steadily, picking its way around whatever obstacles it sensed under the snow in a way no one had been able to get the Clanker versions to do. Merrick glared over from behind his sodden muffler and steaming glasses. “We should’ve just fucking stayed in that dirt hole.”
“Uunngh,” Andy nearly agreed, readjusting his goggles to try and keep the wind out of his damn eyes. “The money’s only going to be there until the third. Or we‘d have spent that week out on the prairie for nothing.”
“Not fucking worth this bullshit either way.” Merrick suddenly yelped, pitching forward as his horse made a high, pained noise and dropped to it’s front knees. The redhead scrambled out of the snow bank as Andy reined his horse to a stop, wheeling around and sliding off his animal with a sharp string of curses. Merrick brushed at his clothes frantically, trying to get off the snow and repeating with his own litany of profanity, glaring around to where Andy was trying to get the fucking worthless horse back on its goddamn feet. “Fucking hell!”