[ random ficlet : The First Snow ]

Nov 30, 2007 04:33

Fandom: Yoroiden Samurai Troopers
Title: The First Snow
Author: Trahn (me)
Pairings/Characters: Date Seiji / Hashiba Touma
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I only own the writing, not the characters.
Summary: Touma hates the cold, but he loves the snow. Seiji just loves Touma. A little, sappy wintertime cutefic in commemoration of the first of the season's snow.

If I could only have you near
to breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
upon this winter night with you
-- Sarah McLachlan, "Song for a Winter's Night"


The quiet felt like it was drowning him out, his own personal darkness by the dying embers of the fire that had long since gone out. It was cold, and the charcoal was already frigid, providing no warmth for pale stiff hands hiddin within shirt sleeves. There was a fine layer of snow on the ground, encompassing everything, and the fragile flakes of white winter were still falling slowly, as if they meant to be seen. The green of the trees and the blue of their tents was visible only in small flashes through the thin coat of white, like ink splattered on a blank canvas. He sat in front of their tiny dead campfire with his head tilted back, looking at the stars that peeked through the clouds.

He tasted snow on his lips, felt it on his cheeks and forehead and nose, icy and wet and exhilerating like a long fast run. There was just something about the snow that stunned him. He hated the cold, and would gladly sit inside wrapped in blankets on days as cold as this, reading or watching television, but when it snowed it was something different entirely. It was as if the rest of the world ceased to matter, the white blocking all else out like a bad dream. The good, the bad... the sounds of his slumbering friends failed to penetrate his peace. Their fights, their dreams, the lingering anger he had felt - in the face of this first snow of the season, it all paled.

He was unaware that he was being watched, as he sat in the snow like a child, coat unzipped and too-long sleeves slipped over his hands, the pale flakes catching in blue hair, dotting his face and melting almost too soon. The approach of the viewer, the hand on his shoulder took the archer so by surprise that he nearly fell backwards into the snow and Seiji's knees, catching himself only at the last moment, wide azure eyes looking up at him.

Shifting so that he was no longer standing behind his friend, but more or less in front of him, he was aware of the snow that fell around him, decorating the coat he had clumsily thrown on over his pajamas when he realized that Touma was missing from their tent. The boots he had shoved his bare feet into on his way out did little to warm them, but he didn't turn to go, instead kneeling in the snow, feeling the cold and damp as it melted under his legs. He caught Touma's puzzled look, and did nothing to clear the confusion.

"Let me see your hands." It wasn't a question, reaching out to catch the archer's hands when he obliged, holding them tightly - Touma's hands were ice cold, even more telling of how long he had been out in the snow than the accumulation of the sticky white stuff on his thin jacket. Seiji's hands over Touma's were warm, and the snowflakes that fell on their clasped fingers melted quickly under the influence of that heat. "You've been out here for a long time."

His tone didn't ridicule, or show the kind of disappointment it usually did when Touma dared the elements, but a sort of vague amusement that lifted the corners of his mouth in a thin smile, fragile as a snowflake; he didn't know what that tone meant. But Seiji hardly seemed to be paying attention himself, watching the blue-haired boy in a way that made him warm and uncomfortable at once, and the swordsman's abrupt movement, bringing his right hand from Touma's left to his face, brushing a few stray ice crystals from his cheekbone, startled by how chill the archer's skin was, like a porcelain doll in the foyer during the wintertime.

Neither of the snow-coated Troopers anticipated what happened next, Seiji leaning in to press his lips lightly against Touma's, a warm chaste kiss whose warmth belied the obvious winter around them. It lasted bare moments, but felt as if it had much longer. In that brief moment, the warmth and contact was all that mattered, lips that met, Seiji's hand still holding onto Touma's more tightly perhaps than was necessary. It was as if the snow had ceased to fall, for they did not feel the cold of its touch on their skin.

When they parted, their eyes met, and Seiji's slow small smile showed, brightening the dark of the winter night around them like a flashlight. "You're being silly," he said, voice soft and light, affectionately teasing. "Come back to bed, Touma."

Standing, their pants coated with sticky white snow that melted to make the fabric cling to them, both smiled, sharing a private moment. They had snow on their skin, in their hair, on their clothes, but the peculiar warmth each felt warded off the chill of it, like magic or something deeper.

christmas 07, yst, 28, seiji/touma, winter 07

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