Floor 32,000,201 (Winter in July) + The Abbey Of St. Phallusine

[falsicrimen]

Winter had always been his least favorite season - traveling was at its most difficult, even on foot, and harsh conditions always meant longer missions, time wasted, and frustration galore - but Abel liked to think he’d soldiered through it admirably, in spite of all its hardships, for at least half the past decade. A freak snowstorm in the dead

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[falsicrimen]

He shouldn't have been nearly as comfortable being dragged up from where he'd fallen by the throat of his cassock, but in truth, this sort of thing happened to him often enough. Though usually under far less friendly circumstance. Even if he was occasionally rather intimidating, Leon generally seemed to mean well, and that was more than enough for Abel. That, and the fact that he wasn't actually being strangled, at present - not that that had once damaged his opinions of his assailants, yet.

"Ah, no, really- Just drop me somewhere near the fireplace, that sounds nice. I'm sure I'll thaw out just fine in no time at all." Reaching up to grasp numbly at Leon's wrists, Abel made a game attempt to push him gently off. His hands were ice cold, even through the fabric of his gloves, but he managed at least to smile warmly (if weakly) over his protests.

All of his foolish theatrics aside, he didn't want to be too much more of a burden. Leon had already put up with him exceptionally well, as such a useless bodyguard. Whether or not he had saved the other man's life a few times, it was nothing commendable when compared with the patience it took to put up with Abel all the rest of the time - a few more days in these close quarters, and Leon probably would want to wring his neck. Not that Abel could really fault him, there.

"You should take the bed. I'd only get the blankets all soggy, like this."

[ooc: ♥! Sounds good to me. o7]

[lionguard]

"Then you should undress." Leon never had possessed much in the way of tact. Most of the time, he simply kept his mouth shut. A hand on Abel's shoulder pushed him gently towards the fireplace and he turned away, to the packs that had their spare things: only one set of spare clothes each, but one was enough, as long as one was dry. He'd lost most of his sense of modesty in the days they'd traveled together, which were opening up into weeks now: long monotonous days through cold and barren landscapes, nights spent bunking down in whatever shelter would have them, broken by scenes of desperate violence to tear apart the illusion of safety that repetition lent to their days.

He had seen things in the darkness that he wanted never to see again. Some of them had come from Abel. And whatever pretense was kept intact between them by silent mutual agreement, what Leon saw now when he looked at the man was far more than he'd seen at first glance. But men were rarely what they seemed to be on the surface, and no matter how much Abel seemed to want Leon to see him only as the most useless bodyguard AX could have assigned, he didn't forget.

His awareness of the other man charged any room they shared, any space behind closed doors. Even now the tension was thickening, until it seemed as though he could reach out and touch it. It confounded him that Abel never seemed to feel it, never reacted. "Here." He held out dry pants, a dry shirt. "Take the other things off and put these on." His gaze was an unrelenting promise. Only when he'd shoved the garments into Abel's hands did he give the man his back, adding softly, "You're no good to me if you freeze to death."

He understood enough, he thought. It did no good to tell Abel not to let himself sicken and die. If the man lived for anyone, it wasn't for himself.

((ooc: ♥ ))

[falsicrimen]

Before he had even properly recollected his calm, Abel was already covering for his moment of shock, the brief but obvious pause elicited by such an abrupt order, with a faintly sarcastic huff, a matching, wan smile. "Ah, too serious! Even good advice sounds like a threat, coming from you, you know."

And then it was almost too easy to laugh his moment of awkwardness off, stepping a little farther toward the heat of the hearth as he glanced back only passingly at Leon. It was kind of him to lend a hand, but he should have known he didn't have to do that. Abel had never once asked him for a real favor (unless "Are you going to eat that?" counted), and he didn't expect anything more than token courtesy from him. That would have been completely counter to the way things actually were, anyway, with Abel in charge of Leon's safety, and completely unconcerned with his own.

And none too subtly about the latter, if Leon could read him clear enough to push him so adeptly toward following his brusque direction. "Well, if all else fails, you have my permission to use my poor, frozen body for a shield," he said, but made no further attempt to stall. Once the other man had turned his back on him, Abel put his dry set of clothes aside and knelt down only a little awkwardly to remove his boots before starting in on the rest of the uniform.

Several minutes of fumbling and one or two near-silent swears under his breath later, he'd managed to fight his way out of his wet, cold cassock and into his spare shirt and pants. The former he had only buttoned up as far as he could manage through the middle, sloppily dressed but certainly not scandalously so, and as he wrung the melted remains of icicles out of his hair, he remembered to give the all clear. "All right, then, I'm perfectly decent. It's safe to look."

Or safe as it ever was, at that. To say Abel was entirely oblivious to the way Leon acted around just him - especially in such close quarters - would be giving him far too little credit. He wasn't half as imperceptive as he preferred to seem, either. But he'd had far worse company, and far less bearable tensions to endure, over the years, and pretending not to mind the occasional uncomfortable silence was easier than it should have been. ...Though it proved a guilty competition with his conscience, still. "That is, ah, thank you- I think I'll be all right, now."

[lionguard]

Awareness swelled with every rustle of cloth behind him. Abel's modesty seemed rather more resilient than his, and so Leon thought it best to preserve whatever pretense of privacy could be afforded them, but it wasn't easy. It wasn't a simple matter to keep where he was with his back turned instead of giving into what he wanted, which was to go to Abel while he was still half-dressed and put his hands on his bare shoulders, to what end he didn't know. The urge to do that, or something like it, had made its existence known in several of the spaces they had occupied together, especially as of late.

But he waited for Abel's all-clear before turning back and approaching him, and it wasn't his shoulders that he touched but one of his hands, with a quiet, "Let me see." There was no sign of frostbite as far as he could tell; his fingers were stiff and icy cold, but not discolored. He chafed them between his hands to bring the blood back into his skin, then did the same with the other hand, glancing down at his bare feet on the stone floor. It was like ice underfoot, and nothing to walk around on without some kind of covering. "You should go get into the bed."

It wasn't his place to badger the man into conceding to his own health. Quite the opposite, when he was the one meant to be looked after. And yet there was no one left, no other protection or even company that could be offered to him; he had lost everything, everyone he'd known after the devastation of his world, and knowing that his time with Abel was only temporary hadn't stopped him from getting...attached.

It wasn't just concern. It was a raw ache, a loneliness that went so deep in him that at times it was all he could do to keep himself from reaching for the other man, when the want in him was so great it was like pain, just for the chance to find oblivion in someone else's arms. But for all the tension that lived with them Abel never gave him a sign, and so he hadn't broken, not yet. Though somehow now his hand had become entwined with the other man's and he hadn't yet let go. "You should go," he said again, in an even quieter voice. "Abel."

[falsicrimen]

He almost found it funny, the way Leon insisted - as if he were the one who was determined to linger, as if Leon couldn't have just sent him to the bed, in the first place, rather than finding any excuse to touch. Abel flexed the fingers of his freed hand, feeling loaned warmth creeping into his skin, the sensation slow in returning. It was probably a bad idea to dwell on the rough-gentle quality in Leon's touch, the way he was so incredibly casual about it, and how Abel was somehow on the wrong side of that equation, now, feeling antsy for no discernible reason but making no move to take back his hand, either. Better judgement had never been his, though, and at the sound of his name, a bare whisper, he squeezed Leon's hand warmly, in both of his own.

And smiled, the way he always smiled when he wasn't entirely certain of what it was he'd missed - even if that wasn't exactly the truth of the matter, now. No, he had some inkling, but every part of him that wasn't busy attempting to suss out the other man's hidden agenda was completely and utterly skeptical of there being any underlying current to Leon's apparently confident demeanor at all.

"Actually, ah... I think I'd rather sit by the fire for a little while. Whatever's left of me that's still frozen will melt faster, that way." It would be awkward enough to spend another uncomfortably tense night sleeping back-to-back with Leon. If he could at least put it off long enough to warm up again... Well, he wouldn't be tempted to leech heat from the obvious source. Or not any more so than he would be, naturally. It was hardly a secret any longer that Abel tended to toss in his sleep - nor that he preferred closer to further when it came to sharing sleeping arrangements. A few awkward mornings were par of the course, though, really.

"You don't have to join me- But I wouldn't mind if you did."

[lionguard]

Had Abel wanted, he'd have slept on the floor himself instead of in the bed, frozen though it was. But it would never go so far that he would be asked that, he thought; the man would sleep at his back like tension didn't exist, tossing in dreams until he found himself wanting to put his arms around him to quiet him...that would have been a warmer way to sleep, as well. But it would never have gone that far either, Leon knew, and as for himself, he didn't have the willpower to insist on a separation.

He stood still for a moment, wanting to make an argument: the floor was too cold to sit on, the fire wasn't strong enough to heat him. But the words wouldn't come, and as much as he told himself it wasn't because he wanted to share the bed with Abel that night, when it was so bitterly cold as to necessitate a closer intimacy than simply lying back to back, all the arguments sounded hollow even in his own thoughts. But then there was Abel's invitation, quiet and earnest and a source of warmth all in itself. He turned away and, absurdly, felt himself flush.

There wasn't even a chair for one of them to sit on, let alone two. After a moment's consideration he went to the bed and dragged the topmost blanket off, folding it over and laying it down before the fire; at least it might be some kind of insulation against the icy chill of the stone floor. And there was another source of warmth, this one hidden in their things, which he retrieved: a bottle of whiskey from the town before the abbey, tucked away in his pack and forgotten until now. He turned with it in his hand.

"Do you drink?" The question was abrupt, but it occurred to him that he had no idea what restrictions there were to Abel's particular religion, what his priesthood required he abstain from.

[falsicrimen]

Between an unhealthy dose of exhaustion and the dim, flickering light of the fire, Abel was fairly certain that faint blush on tan skin he might just have caught a glimpse of was only in his mind. An odd trick for his eyes to play, though he couldn't help but find the thought distinctly charming, all the same. He'd always enjoyed his brief flights of fancy, anyway - perhaps especially so whenever it came to prying behind the thick outer shells of the habitually stoic type. And Leon was nothing if not exactly that type.

Smiling a little too cheerily for someone supposedly still half-frozen, he didn't hesitate to hop onto the blanket by the hearth and take a seat. His feet were ice cold, still, but even that flimsy barrier between his soles and the floor was something of a relief. Arranging himself well within the warm aura of heat baking off the crackling fire, Abel glanced back over his shoulder just in time to catch Leon digging through his luggage. The question that popped immediately to the forefront of his mind he didn't even have a chance to ask, however, as a moment later he was staring at a bottle with the same dumbfounded look on his face.

In truth, there were quite a lot of things Abel wasn't technically supposed to indulge in, given his station (however low it was) within the Church. He'd never been the most exemplary of holy men, however, and he didn't intend to begin setting an example, yet.

"Well, only a little," he admitted, though that wasn't quite true, either. "I'm something of a lightweight, you know, so I tend to get into trouble when I do. My boss has sent me on some pretty terrible jobs after catching me acting oddly where I might be seen."

[lionguard]

Leon had to smile at the thought of Abel tipsy, wondering what abnormal behavior from a man so cheerfully melodramatic at most times would look like. It was brief, only a twitch of his lips and his face turning away again to hide it as he sank down on the blanket at the other man's side, within arm's reach yet still preserving a careful distance. "There's no one here to see you but me."

His legs bent and he sat forward with elbows braced against his knees, christening the bottle with a first drink and handing it off to Abel after. The man knew his own limits, or so he assumed. As for himself, he could toss them back until he was well and drunk and barely show it, except for a little unsteadiness, a little slurring of his words. Tonight he felt like getting well and drunk; at least he would be warmer, for a while.

"When we part," he said slowly, watching the way the fire twisted around wood and glowing embers. "When you don't need to protect me anymore, I mean. You'll be given another assignment?" He knew so little about who this man was, who his organization was. Why they cared to protect someone like him.

[falsicrimen]

"And that sounds like the perfect precursor to any effective blackmail," Abel admonished him, the bright color of amusement still rich in his tone, free from any real sense of accusation. He did accept the bottle when Leon offered it to him, at any rate, and handed it back a short swig, a cough, and a wheeze later. The warmth of the liquor he welcomed, but he could have clearly done without the burn. Although he claimed to drink heavily when he did drink, he certainly didn't do so as any seasoned veteran would; remaining stubbornly the same for the better part of his long, long life made little headway for any ability to adapt. Even in such superficial sense.

"That's right." Nodding, he reached down to wrap his slightly warmer hands around his still thawing feet, his knees pulled up to his narrow chest in a pose that almost seemed to counter Leon's far more casual look. In general, Abel kept rather quiet about the finer details of his occupation, but a straightforward question like that he could answer easily. He made it no secret that his work was non-stop, grueling, and completely vacation-free, anyway.

"Ah, but don't worry-" Abel flapped a hand at him, affecting a smile that was perhaps meant to seem coy but fell quite short of the mark. "I won't try to replace you. I'll simply have to go on living with a Leon-shaped void in my life, if we never meet again. I'm just a romantic at heart like that."

[lionguard]

He huffed brief laughter, as short as the smile had been but genuine, before he drank again, handling the whiskey like a familiar old friend. "I guess that's something." His voice was a little raspy, but he made no grimace when he swallowed again, before passing it back. By all appearances he was far more practiced at this than Abel, though he was never sure what behaviors were affected on the part of the priest and which were true. "It's good to be remembered." What had once been his name and his home and everything else was gone to him now, and he possessed little else but the name he went by now. He hoped Abel would keep it for him.

It was enough for now, though, just to share the man's company, passing the whiskey back and forth. The kind of oblivion drunkenness brought on was a kind one. He got even quieter if that was possible, gazing into the fire as though he was trying to find something, the heat of a flush creeping into his skin.

"I used to do this." His voice was beginning to slur a little when he spoke again. "Body guard work. Things like that." It was probably why he found it so hard to break the habit of looking after his companion as much as he was looked after himself.

[falsicrimen]

"I can't say I'm all that surprised," Abel replied, any detriment to his own speech not pronounced enough to hear without listening very closely. Even if he was beginning to feel the effects of the drink, he was far too practiced in his careful upkeep of that dopey facade that even now it seemed still natural.

When he'd professed his utter lack of shock, however, he had been perfectly sincere; in this way, Abel thought of himself as nothing more than a precautionary measure, a fail-safe. He had little doubt Leon could take care of himself just as well, and would have, too, had he known how to fight the type of darkness in this world for so long as he had in others. In Abel's domain, the rules were different, though, and no one knew them better than he did - well predating the present state of society, as it was.

And for all of his supposed age and purported knowledge, here he sat, letting down his guard in the midst of a blizzard, acting irresponsibly in spite of better judgement he should have had. His feet were somewhere far away, still chilly but no longer desperately so, and he wasn't the most graceful in handing off the bottle, anymore. He spoke in an entirely overwrought sigh when next he opened his mouth, leaning abruptly into Leon's shoulder with that weary huff of breath.

"No, not at all! You definitely seem like that sort of guy. I mean, dependable, too. Even if you aren't much for conversation."

[lionguard]

The weight of Abel's head against his shoulder was an abrupt surprise. The man sounded barely tipsy, but maybe he was just more practiced at hiding it than he had led Leon to believe. His cheek felt warm enough, even through the fabric of Leon's shirt.

"I'm not, though. Dependable." And he must have been more drunk than he thought, too, to be saying this aloud. A hand lifted and found Abel's hair, fingers twining lightly into the long strands. "Maybe I used to be. I guess I wouldn't be here if I still was."

He didn't know what he was saying. It didn't seem to bear close examination, either. He lifted the bottle in his other hand to his mouth and found that there was less than a third of the amber liquid left; had they already drunk that much? He lowered the bottle until it rested against the floor, then let it go to wobble a few moments before settling on its bottom.

His arm went around Abel's shoulders to pull him closer, a little roughly. He had to fight the urge to turn and press his lips to his hair, his skin, his mouth...anything. It wasn't right, it wasn't something he had any right to do, but there was fire in his veins, a pulse thudding in his ears. The drink, he told himself fiercely, trying to believe it.

[falsicrimen]

His disappointment at Leon's less than flattering admission was eased considerably by the unexpectedly gentle touch of his hand, those fingers winding through his hair a strange comfort he hadn't known he needed. At best, he'd assumed, Leon would push him back, and he'd laugh it off in his less than sober state - a good solid hit wouldn't have put him off, either, as it was the standard response to Abel's occasionally over-affectionate manner. It rarely fazed him to be treated as roughly, though he often made a show of crying foul at the time. He was half man, half punching bag, and eventually he took it all in stride.

Perhaps that was why the arm around his shoulders startled him so, his addled mind brought halfway out of its own drunken stupor and back down to earth. What he found when he landed there was that he really didn't mind - but beneath the terse, awkward silence of the moment, Abel couldn't pretend he might've, even stone sober and not nearly so envious of the warmth Leon radiated.

Lifting his head (quick and painless, to break the tension), Abel caught his balance on a fistful of the front of Leon's shirt. His smile was thin and bright and thoroughly embarrassed, in spite of his best efforts. "Uh, bed!"

He shook his head, feeling only a little dizzy; wait, that wasn't what he'd meant to say. "I-I mean, you were probably right, before- It's quite late, and we should probably just... Go to bed?" Though it wasn't as if they'd have any reason to be up bright and early, the next morning, snowed in as they would surely be again, by then. Hopefully Leon hadn't thought that far ahead (though it was a miracle at all that Abel could, and thus hard to press his luck). "It wasn't my intention to keep you up all night, rather."

[lionguard]

Abel was lucky, maybe, that Leon wasn't quite drunk enough to take that first comment as the invitation it could have been, or he might have found himself kissed after all. He wasn't, though--he was still sober enough to realize it wasn't how it sounded even before the qualification, and sober enough, too, that his heart seemed to twist in his chest at how badly he wanted it to be the way it sounded.

But not sober enough for much more than that, it seemed. He staggered wordless to his feet, with his arm around Abel to help him to his. It was beginning to be cold again, especially with each step that brought them away from the fire. He felt alternately fevered and chilled and he didn't know if it was the drink in him or the want, but he let Abel go after a few steps and mumbled, "You first," meaning for him to get into the bed before Leon did. The man took up most of the room, anyway; Leon was by no means small but he slept still as a stone while Abel tossed and turned, and sleeping beside him was often an exercise in maneuverability, especially in a bed as narrow as this.

He went back to the hearth to retrieve the blanket they'd left, gathering it up in his arms. It wasn't much but they would freeze without it. His boots were toed off, one after the other and he nearly staggered, waiting for the chance to climb into the bed after Abel. The blanket was heaped down onto the priest in an ungraceful sprawl, and Leon was shivering a little when finally slid under it, reaching instinctively for the closest source of heat.

[falsicrimen]

He shouldn't have had to reach far, as it was. Diving between the ice cold sheets had proven no refuge from the cool stone floor underfoot, and though the fire had brought up his temperature considerably, he was still chilled enough to catch a shiver, again, as well. By the time Leon had joined him, Abel was more than happy to huddle up under the woefully inadequate covers. Though less intense than that of the roasting firewood by the hearth, body heat was far more inviting - and even if he made it a point not to cling to Leon outright (that had been too close a call already, before), the distinction was barely worth making.

"Ah- You're wrong, you know," Abel said, from where he had cozied up close enough to Leon's chest to feel the distant beat of his heart. He was still muddling through alcohol-inspired drowsiness to collect complete thoughts, but no longer did he feel so terribly exhausted. Or at least not in mind; there was nothing to do about his heavy limbs, sore, tired muscles.

"You aren't a bad person, no matter how you've ended up here. Trust my good judgement. I'm not in the business of being as totally heroic as I am for bad people, after all." A comforting pat on the shoulder and a half-serious smirk affirmed that this was somehow meant as a compliment, before Abel dissolved into little shakes of laughter where they were pressed up against each other in their mutually ridiculous predicament.

[lionguard]

It had to be the drink which resulted in them so readily pressed together, Leon thought; his hand wound up on Abel's shoulder, and the man's head rested next to his chest, and for several moments he didn't dare press for anything more. Warmth was enough compensation, the cold soon retreating as body heat began to collect under the covers. But by the time the light and heat of the crackling fire died down to cooling embers, they would be colder. When he thought of that, he slid an arm again around Abel, bringing him gently nearer, tucking his head under his chin.

The soft laughter had him smiling briefly again, though this time Abel would miss the expression on his face. It was infectious, though, and if the man said he wasn't a bad person then he was willing to believe it for this night, if only to believe himself worthy of the company. "I'll take what I can get," he said in a drunken murmur, his lips moving against Abel's hair. His hand, resting on Abel's back, moved in a slow uncoordinated caress, from the top of his spine to the small of his back.

After a moment, the motion repeated. His breathing grew quiet, and deeper, as he became aware of all the places they were pressed together, and how quickly warmth had collected into an almost fevered heat. If it hadn't been so cold outside of the shelter of this bed it would have been uncomfortable, yet he didn't want to move away. Without conscious thought he let his hand drift over Abel's back several more times, that overcareful stroke following his spine, until when he lifted his hand again it went to the man's hair instead, his fingers entangling in the strands.

"Abel." His voice sounded very low, thick even to his own ears. He sounded like what he was, drunk, but if he hadn't been drunk he didn't know how he could have broken through the struggle to say this. "I don't--want this to end. I don't want to leave you."