singillatim | A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

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A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

Who: Chloe Frazer & others
What: Catch-all; open prompts
When: March and April
Where: Around Milton

Content Warnings: Self-injury content related to the echo effects. Descriptions of canon typical violence and murder. Talk about hunting/eating animals.

Chloe doesn't trust Methuselah as far as she could throw him, and a trip through a mine where she's forced to rely on the goodwill of a bunch of cop types does not sound like her idea of a good time. Also, sticking around Milton when most of the people who 'patrol' (imagine her air quotes) are away is a great opportunity to snoop in people’s houses.

Anyone who remains in or returns to Milton may find her either doing her usual wild running in the woods, checking her snares for snacks, or sneaking around newly empty locations to see what's been left behind.

Aurora nights are a different thing, however. Chloe likes to think that she's done her best to do right by the people that she cares about, but the truth is she's cut a few throats in her day, stepped over others to make sure that she would wind up on top. Something about the aurora this month brings every one of those memories roaring back. It has her running faster, drinking until she can't see, and doing risky climbs onto (and jumps between) rooftops, trying to escape the feeling.

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Chloe looks up at a voice calling her name, which is kind of funny because she doesn't remember sitting down. She's still shivering, but almost doesn't feel cold anymore. It's fine.

“H-hey, stranger.”

She’d get up, but she's so tired.

Okay, she's freezing. He can tell pretty much right away, considering just how many years he's spent out there in the cold, especially after the ships got stuck in the ice. Billy doesn't even have to be a doctor anymore to be able to tell the symptoms of hypothermia at this point, even though he isn't sure why Chloe is so cold. Why didn't she just go inside?

(After all, it's not like he can feel exactly just how terribly cold the fog around them is, after all.)

It makes Billy realise just telling her to get up isn't going to do much good. If she was capable of doing so, surely she would have done it at this point.

So rather than forcing her to go up, he instead squats down to her level - more or less, since he's.. still so tall, even when you don't take his legs into consideration.. - and stares at her for a moment, a slight frown on her face. It looks like he's either pained or thinking about something really complicated, even though he's not opting to share it out loud.

After a moment of it, he finally moves. His hands peel the gloves off his hands, putting them into his pockets. Once his hands are bare, he moves to grasp her hands into his own, his hands awfully warm. There's a slight hesitance in the movement, but Billy grits his teeth and gets himself over it - the fact that this takes effort for him very clear from the way he squeezes her hands a little once he's holding them, like he's convincing himself to not let go right away.

"Why are you being foolish?" There's definitely some annoyance in his tone. Nothing too strong, or rather nothing angry. It's more the worried kind, even in his relatively soft tone of voice. "You should not be out right now."

Chloe hisses when he takes her hands - his hands are so warm on hers that it makes the joints in her fingers ache - but she doesn't pull away.

She takes a shaky breath. “Normally I could have made it there and back even in the cold… this fog, it pulls on you.” She tries to squeeze his hands back but can't really move her fingers. “I couldn't go any further.”

"You should have been more careful."

He knows it's not really her fault. If her explanation is true - and he has no reason to doubt it, because even though he can't feel what the fog is doing to people, Billy has already long ago realised that he hasn't felt the cold the way others here do for months now - then it's not like he can blame Chloe for being caught by unforeseen circumstances. By some sort of unnaturally strong fog.

But he can't help but say the lightly chastising words anyway. (It's exactly because he cares. Billy wouldn't bother to speak up if he didn't. He wouldn't bother to hold her hands, and even continue to hold her hands now, despite the way her hands feel so foreign underneath his own, especially when Hickey's are his only comparison material.)

"I will take you home as soon as we can be sure you are warm enough."

“Yeah, yeah.” Chloe sounds dismissive but it really is nice to be cared for, to know that someone saw her and was worried for her. She probably should have turned back once she’d realized the dragging effect the fog has on her, but it's a bit late for that now.

Her hands are long-fingered and rough and calloused from climbing, even here where she should have gloves on. They're also so cold that they've taken on a yellowish cast, clearly not good.

“Your hands are so warm.” Her voice still stutters a bit through her shivers. “Is that the fire?”

There's a slight nod in response to her question, but it's not really what Billy is focusing on right now. Instead his expression only seems to get more worried the longer he stares at her - and the more he realises in just what kind of bad state Chloe is right now. It makes him second guess his plan of just sitting out here with her until she's a little more warmed up. It might already be too late at that point.

It makes his brain quickly overwork itself with trying to find a different solution. Usually he'd offer his coat since he doesn't need it as much as she does, but it's not like she's underdressed for the weather. It's just the weather itself. And trying to drag her out of here when she probably can't move by herself sounds impossible for Billy, with his thin, long limbs that still haven't fully gotten over the damage scurvy did to them. He might break his back even just attempting to do so.

.. It only leaves one alternative, right? Even if he doesn't really like it. It makes him pinch his lips together with reluctance, but it's not like he's just going to leave her like this here now.

"You have to promise to not think anything strange about what is about to happen."

Don't ask him what's about to happen, Chloe!! Just promise so he can at least feel a little reassured, alright!!

Billy looks so stressed that Chloe’s about to crack a joke asking if she really looks that bad, but then he speaks again.

She gives a shuddering little laugh. “I trust you, and I'll promise, but you have to understand how alarming that sounds.”

"If you already think it sounds alarming, then imagine how much more alarming it is from my point of view," he grumbles.

Not that his grumbling is making him stop. No, he's grumbling exactly because he's going through with it in the first place, and a part of him can't believe he's actually doing it. It's not like anything is obligating him to help Chloe, after all. But it's very much the same case as back in that burning house. Something about the idea of just leaving her here like this, after all the help she has offered him, feels bad.

So Billy moves. First just his hands, taking off his winter coat, but then he fully moves to sit down next to her in the snow, folding his coat neatly up into his lap so it doesn't get covered in the snow as well - a neat freak even in these little moments. None of these actions are what he was stressed about, since he can't really feel the cold right now the way most people do.

No, what he was so stressed out about is his next move. Which is to put an arm around her so he can draw Chloe closer until she's leaning against him. This isn't the holding hands of a moment ago - nope, it's full body contact. It's practically a cuddle.

Billy's body is so warm - especially now he's stressed out about the intense physical contact happening right now!! - that he's practically a furnace to lean against.

He doesn't say anything. If anything, he just looks like he's trying really hard to not spontaneously combust.

At first, being enveloped in warmth like this after the painful cold of the fog is so nice that Chloe barely registers anything else about the situation.

However, as her shivers start to die down, she can feel the strained tension in him wherever they're touching.

“Are you okay?”

Maybe giving her warmth like this is making him cold.

It does take a moment for him to speak up after she asks that question. Though he at least doesn't sound shaky or like he's cold when he does.

"It's just that I'm unused to it," he says - or, honestly, it's more a mumble than him actually saying it, though it should be audible enough to her anyway with how close the two of them right now. And it's true. Even though Billy is used to close physical contact by now, that's with one person. Extending it to a second person, even out of necessity, isn't that easy when you've been pretty much touch starved for the rest of your entire life before recently.

It feels awkward to talk about though. Even more awkward to admit to. Maybe that's why Billy doesn't linger on it, instead asking her: "Is it helping?"

Please at least tell him it's helping. That he isn't getting all awkward and flustered for nothing.

“Yeah,” Chloe says, smiling a little. “I can't believe you're so warm without your coat, you fire guys are crazy.”

She tilts her head, having heard the earlier mumble. “Unused to what, huddling under a tree in freezing fog?”

"Unused to huddling," he admits.

Mostly because it's Chloe. He's already admitted so much to her at this point that it truly doesn't feel anymore like it could hurt to admit even more. It's not a point Billy often gets at with people, but here he is. Huddling, indeed.

At least it's a productive huddle, since it's definitely starting to sound less like she's turning into an ice cube.

"This amount of physical contact has never been common for me." Or anyone in his time, really. And on a personal level for Billy, it feels even stranger to do it with a woman, when he's been so desperately trying to avoid any and all contact with them back home, lest he be trapped in a life that would be a nightmare for him. "I only ever share this much of it with Cornelius."

“Lucky bastard,” Chloe says with a little smile, as if she hadn't been sleeping next to someone with the same power mere days ago. “Has some of the warmest nights in Milton, I bet.”

Her own shudders are dying down little by little, which is good but maybe not so good for Billy since now she can talk more.

“Well, your virtue is safe with me. Don't you guys live in pretty close quarters though? On the ships?”

Just don't make him regret his good deed here, Chloe. Though-- the longer they're sitting here, the more it feels like Billy's body does relax a little bit. It truly is just a little bit, but maybe it's the very, very faint start of a desensitisation process here..

.. maybe.

Or it's just that he has her babbling to focus on now, which is sounding a lot more like the way she usually does - so straightforward and blunt. Nosy, too, in some ways, though at least this is something Billy doesn't mind speaking about as much.

"Generally speaking," Billy slowly answers. "But I got to have my own small cabin on the latest voyage."

If you could even call it a cabin. More like three walls very close together and a curtain to hide it from the world.. But Billy is still aware it's more privacy than most are allowed to have on board.

"It's since I was a steward. I served the officers, so I had to be close by at all times of the day and night in case they required anything from me."

“Ohhh, a steward.” Chloe doesn’t really know what that is. “Sounds fancy. Not my thing, but nice that you got a little extra privacy out of it.”

Billy might have guessed by now that she's not the greatest at taking orders.

“I always picture polar explorers as these like, rugged guys on dogsleds.”

Yeah, her reaction is entirely unsurprising. That seems like Chloe, alright. Not that he entirely disagrees with her. Sure, he'd rather be doing this than certain other tasks on the ship, but after years of having to serve those three lieutenants in particular, it has definitely soured Billy on the job too.

That's not what he speaks up about though. No, it's instead the other thing he addresses.

"You would be surprised how many men in the navy are thoroughly unattractive," he grumbles.

(Really, it's a sign of how relatively comfortable he feels with Chloe that he's willing to both openly discuss stuff related to his sexuality like this and openly bitch with her. Congratulations on unlocking this side of Billy, girl.)

"It is a good thing that Cornelius also happened to be on the same ship, or who knows what I might have had to resort to."

Chloe throws back her head and laughs, cold forgotten for the moment. Who’d have thought that sweet little Billy Gibson had that in him?

“Is that your type, then? Mischievous elves?”

That's what Hickey looks like to her, sorry mate.

He lets out a slight sound. It almost sounds like a groan, were it not for the fact that it's still partially being held back.

"Do you mean to suggest he is unattractive?"

.. granted, Billy does figure that of course Chloe wouldn't understand if she doesn't like men. Just like how it's hard for him to see the appeal in any given woman. So rather than lingering on that, he adds, sounding almost a touch reluctant: "He has many good qualities."

And plenty of things that threaten to drive Billy crazy, but.. you know. No romance out there is perfect, right.

“Oh, no, he's charming in his own way!” You’ve got to admire that seemingly effortless confidence either way. “Seems kind of short for you, is all. Like he's got to stand on a crate so you can kiss.”

Thanks, Chloe, for at least being able to acknowledge he clearly has amazing taste. Obviously.

"Is that not one of Cornelius' good traits? He is inventive." Maybe sometimes a little too inventive, but.. you know. Even so. "If I could ever predict every single move a man I would be together with would make, I think it would bore me to death."

It's definitely frank by his standards, but it helps that Billy feels like Chloe of all people might understand the sentiment, considering what her own personality is like.

Clearly. Obviously!

“Ugh, I know what you mean. That marriage stuff isn't for me, but marriage to a boring guy would be even worse.”

She’d probably gnaw her own arm off from the understimulation.

“Did you guys meet on the expedition or did you already know each other?”

"No, I did not know him before we were both on Terror."

There's a slight pause. Usually he'd leave it at that, worried that all other details are too personal, things that could leave him vulnerable.

But.. this is Chloe. He's pretty much literally cuddling with her to keep her warm. Maybe it's alright for him to talk about it, even if it's just this once. To say the things he's never told anyone else about. (Maybe, deep down, he wants to talk about it for once, rather than shoving it down and hiding it as he's used to.)

"I.. caught rumours on board that the caulker's mate did not know any naval terms. It sounded slightly odd to me, but-- in an interesting sort of way." He pauses. It's clear that he's never really had to think about how to word any of this before, never had anyone to tell it to. "So I felt like I had to see it for myself and seek him out."

This is not a reference that Billy would understand, but this is what Chloe had always imagined summer camp to be like: out in nature, curled up next to her friend, warm and safe and talking about stuff that both doesn't matter and is the most important thing in the world.

The story makes her smile, too. She'd recognized enough of herself in Hickey that she can kind of guess where this is going. That weasel, she thinks, but admiringly. Maybe it hadn't worked out for him in the end, but what a way to go out. Catch Me If You Can shit.

"So, you're into bad boys, huh?"

.. give him a moment to contemplate what this modern notion of 'bad boys' might be, Chloe. Apparently the Aurora can't translate all modern slang that specifically. Thankfully the words themselves give him enough context clues that he arrives at a view that is - reasonably - accurate, despite the cultural difference between them.

"I do not think Cornelius is necessarily all that much worse than your average man."

He sounds serious enough about it that it's likely he means it. Billy's very negative view of people as a whole certainly is part of it, though, alongside the fact that he doesn't really mind some of Cornelius' bad acts as much as others might.

"It's simply that he's more upfront about it. If that is what you would consider a 'bad boy' in your time.." He shrugs a little, but still doesn't move away from her side.

“I’m not trying to malign your taste in men, here!” After all, she’d just compared him to herself. “I'm just saying, you hear a guy is a little shady and immediately decide you need to meet him?”

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