tags for those who asked :3 @mintraindrop @fairielux @lyslsstuff

He screws open the bottle, wrapping two fingers around the cap and twisting, pinching it tighter until he can feel the pressure of hard plastic against his bones. It comes loose with a horrible pop and wet-dry groan, like stepping on a snail shell and feeling your heart squeeze impossibly small. The knuckle of his pointer finger feels bruised. He’ll be able to feel that in the cockpit tomorrow, he thinks, apathetic. 

Lando’s not stupid enough to drip nail polish all over the couch and carpet, so he wipes the excess pinkness on the inside of the vial’s mouth, watches it flow down into the deep below. He leans forward, shrimp like, into a pose nearly heart attack inducing if you’re Jon Malvern, and sets the bottle down onto the coffee table where it belongs, the clink of glass-on-glass a mocking toast to what is probably one of the stupidest decisions of Lando’s young life. 

The first layer of sticky pink that hits Lando’s nail feels like a cold balm, a strangely soothing alien feeling, like the beginnings of an itch you can’t scratch. He has a staredown with the rosy droplet for a few moments, like it might be able to telepathise something from Oscar if he just squints his eyes at it sternly enough. The droplet smooths out in slow-motion, dispersing over the surface of Lando’s abused-looking nail, flowing down the edge and onto his skin, spreading like blood from a fresh wound, impossibly bright against the backdrop of his skin. 

He quickly daps at the spill with the synthetic tip of the tiny brush, just before some of it can drip onto the couch or his clothes. The excess liquid he uses to paint the rest of his nail in careful strokes, imagining it’s Oscar’s nail under his care again in a desperate bid to regain some control over his shaking hands. If this were Oscar’s hand he wouldn’t have let it drip down like that, he would’ve been more careful not to. He would’ve anticipated what the nail polish was thinking before it could so much as blink.

Satisfied with the soft cotton-candy gloss on his finger, Lando jabs the cap back into place so he can use the bitten-down nail of his other thumb to wipe away the excess liquid. It hurts when he digs his nail into the cuticle, the edge like the sharp side of a bread knife, the skin too sensitive. He grits his teeth and pulls all of the pink off from where it doesn’t belong.

The couch feels like it’s trying to swallow him whole when he leans back into it. His lower back hurts, fed up with his guilt-induced hallucinatory session already. 

Lando lifts his nail close to his face and admires his work. He wouldn’t call himself an expert, the most preparation he did for Oscar’s nail salon adventure was watch a youtube tutorial, but he thinks he did quite a good job back then, and he clearly hasn’t forgotten the craft by now either. The nail polish itself is still quite nice, he thinks. Slightly translucent, with a thinner film forming in the middle, the edges shining the pinkest, framing the shape of the nail with a cutesy little ombre. The light from the obnoxiously bright chandelier in this stupidly fancy hotel room makes tiny pinpricks of white light dance around on the surface, stars in a bright pink night. 

He kind of gets the fuss now, he thinks. It’s nice to feel even such a tiny part of you feel special like this – appreciated. The thought of being pretty swims around between the folds of Lando’s brain before sinking down and out of his body, headed for the very core of the earth, a heavy piece of lead. 

He’s not pretty. Lando likes that he’s small, that the muscles he’s worked so hard for have remained tightly packed, not intimidating until he wants them to be. He likes that he can pout his lips and flutter his eyelashes and most men will give him what he wants. Someone like Oscar is pretty, with his smooth curves and lingering baby fat. But Lando’s not pretty

Despite the brewing squeaziness in his stomach, Lando bends back down and takes the brushed cap of the nail polish back in his hand, going through the motions of wiping the excess pink off and bringing it to his next nail now almost on autopilot. He repeats the same process for every nail, his mind blacking out and conjuring up a new fantasy for every layer he sullies his clean hands with – first it’s just a vision of what he’ll look like with all ten of his fingernails painted, then it’s a view of his own palm pressed against the sultry soft skin on the inside of his thighs, the pink tint almost glowing in comparison, on the next slide a pair of thigh-high socks and a garter belt materialises out of nowhere, overlaying themselves onto the previous image like something out of a badly photoshopped porn magazine.

All of it makes Lando’s stomach draw into a tighter and tighter knot. He feels too seen– no, viewed in his own mind. He feels disgusting, like a pervert, a sick fucking freak. 

Right under the nausea in his stomach, his cock throbs like a livewire, on the rhythm of his shivering heart, the cold of the still-drying nail polish like a collection of conduits. Nine of them – then ten.

When he’s done he takes a second to focus only on screwing the cap back on, getting a good grip on the vial without smearing any of what’s on his hands, lifting the fragile thing up without letting it shake out of his grasp. 

Once he’s sure no excess pink will smear or spill anywhere he puts the bottle down with a tinny knock. He straightens out his spine, flattens himself to the now cold back of the couch, and spreads his hands out in front of himself, starfish-like, palms facing the air and all ten pink nails facing himself. 

The sight is alien, barely more than a trick of his own delirious mind. 

But when he brings his hands back down, folds them carefully against each other and runs a gentle fingertip along a bright pink spot– it’s cold. Smooth. Surreally so, not the natural cellulose smoothness like usual. 

It’s undeniably real.

But as it stands, Carlos isn’t talking to him. He’s just laying in his bed, lying on his side turned away from where Oscar has been trying to offer him a glass of water for the past five minutes, refusing to acknowledge him. 

He shouldn’t have gotten in the car sick in the first place, Oscar thinks privately, listening to Carlos’ nails clacking rhythmically on his phone screen, the soft thumps of skin against glass occasionally broken by Carlos’ sniffling. Why he refuses to just ask for some tissues is beyond Oscar, but it’s also kind of the least of his concerns. 

Carlos swings a hand backwards to push his phone into Oscar’s face. On the tiny, dimly illuminated screen stands three words, typed carefully into the notes app:

Piss off Piastri.

“You missed a comma,” Oscar says, unimpressed by Carlos’ absolutely neanderthal attempt at communication. He’s not leaving until Carlos grows a pair and just tells him what his fucking problem is. Or, more accurately, why he feels the need to blame Oscar for all of his problems. 

At least this time it’s not him who got the short end of the stick, Oscar thinks selfishly. His mechanics, bless them all, were able to patch up his side pod in time for the restart after Checo’s double murder-suicide. It’s a miracle considering the state Carlos’ car ended up in, beached on the runoff at Casino with his front left tyre probably swimming somewhere in the harbor. 

Carlos yanks his phone back, types furiously for a second, then shoves it back in Oscar’s general direction blindly. The screen reads:

Piss off.

“No,” Oscar says. “Maybe if you drink some water I will,” he offers. 

Carlos sighs, full-bodied and shivery, then puts his phone face-down on his bedside table with a thump. Without sitting up, he twists his neck and torso towards Oscar, only his face visible above the covers. 

Even in the low light Oscar catches the wet sheen to his wide eyes and the red tip of his nose, bottom lip pushed out into a pout even more than usual. He looks downright pitiful, Oscar wants to look away. He doesn’t – he can’t. 

Carlos gives him a look, more judgemental than considering, probably meant to be scathing instead of kicked-puppy. He sits up slowly, moving each shaky limb at half-speed, bones popping and fabric rustling in unease.

Once he’s sat he gives Oscar another mad-sad-absolutely-pitiful look and pulls his blanket all the way up to his shoulders before reaching out a trembling hand in a give me motion. 

“Why do you only have a t-shirt on if you’re sick?” Oscar scolds before pushing the glass into Carlos’ hand, he flinches away from it, burnt by the cold. 

Carlos raises the glass to his lips, screwing his eyes shut and opening wide to guzzle down all the water at once. A few droplets make their escape, sliding down Carlos’ chin and neck to pool at the neckline of his shirt. 

Oscar wants to get a handkerchief and wipe the wet away carefully. This situation is making him feel awfully maternal. It’s getting a bit weird, maybe.

“There you go,” he says. Carlos looks at him weird again – still mean but maybe a bit thankful, although he might just be reading into it – before putting the glass down and picking his phone back up.

Once he’s finished typing, he turns the screen around to show Oscar. 

I’m not sick. Please leave now.

“Sure you aren’t. What’s your temperature?” Oscar spits, eyebrows raising in disbelief. Carlos is acting like an actual child, petulant and proper annoying now. 

He tilts forward, reaching out a hand to press it to Carlos’ forehead as a makeshift thermometer. Carlos flinches away from the gesture, visibly repulsed. He knocks his skull on the headboard behind him and realises he has nowhere to escape, no choice but to let Oscar pamper him.

Exactly as he’d suspected, Carlos’ skin is burning to the touch. 

“Right. I take having a fever doesn’t mean you’re sick then?” Oscar condescends. Carlos glares at him, defeated. 

“D’you have an actual thermometer anywhere, or…?” He asks, pulling away and letting his hand limp by his side, more aware of the thin skin covering his knuckles than he ever has been in his life, the burn from Carlos’ body seeping slowly into his own. 

Carlos thinks for a moment, eyes rolling upwards while he scours his brain for possible thermometer locations in his hotel room. He looks a bit like he’s praying, like he was pulled straight from a renaissance painting, all shiny eyes and sunken cheeks and burning pink undertones – on any other day Oscar might scold himself for thinking he’s beautiful, but he doesn’t have it in himself today. 

Carlos opens his mouth to speak before he remembers he’s sworn himself to silence and slams his jaw shut. He shakes his head no. 

“Right,” Oscar says resolutely. No way he can convince Carlos to take some paracetamol if he doesn’t have the evidence to back up his claims of Carlos’ sickness. Instead he thinks to find the next best thing and starts going through his mental checklist of things to do when someone around you is sick: 

 -  Bundle them up real nice and warm (partially done, props to Carlos on that one)

 -  Open the windows, let some light in, let them bloom like the flower they ought to be

 -  Lower their fever either with medicine (failed) or a cold bath (not happening)

 -  Cook them some chicken soup (he would sooner burn down the kitchen trying than call room service to Carlos’ room, considering he’s not Carlos. He shouldn’t even be here. And Lando shouldn’t have known how to break him in either.) (doomed to fail from the beginning)

All of those items are taken directly from the list of things his mom used to do for him back when he was an ankle biter living back home. He decides not to think about that too hard. 

Oscar considers his options for a second, fingers tapping idly on the corner of a bedside table, before slapping his thighs like he’s George Fucking Russell – desperate times call for desperate measures, and he must admit George is excellent at this sort of stubbornnes when it comes to mothering grown men. He makes his way over to the floor-to-ceiling windows of Carlos’ sad clinic of a room and draws the blinds open before Carlos can so much as grimace. 

He hears a yelp from behind him, probably a result of Carlos’ retinas burning out the moment he was exposed to actual daylight since God fucking knows how long. Oscar feels a little bad maybe, he’s trying to make things better for Carlos, not worse. 

But, at the end of the day, Carlos did this to himself, so he doesn’t really care.

“There we go,” he says, back still turned to the rest of the room, admiring the view outside. The sun is setting, and the harbour is beautiful as ever. But it is getting late. He opens a balcony door to let some fresh air in, thankfully it’s not cold out, yet. 

When he turns back around, Carlos looks somehow impossibly worse than he did before, something about the lighting intensifying the red rimming around his eyes and his 5 o’clock shadow and distinctly not-artfully tousled hair – which Oscar didn’t know Carlos’ hair could do before this, it’s kind of disturbing in an uncanny valley way.

He looks genuinely bad. 

Oscar feels bad just looking at him, like he’s the one who kicked this pathetic, 29 year old puppy.

“Jesus,” he says, emphasis on the jeez, grimacing involuntarily at the sight in front of him. 

Carlos pouts at him, dead-eyed and probably suppressing the need to spit an acrid what? at him. 

“You look like shit,” Oscar tells him anyway, Carlos doesn’t even need to ask verbally, that’s how lucky he is to have Oscar here. Carlos’ pout and frown deepens to a new low at that, somehow. 

“Oi, don’t shoot the messenger, mate.” Oscar walks over, settling himself on the edge of Carlos’ bed, careful not to crush any toes beneath him. Carlos flinches anyway, which he tries not to be offended by.

For a second they just sit there in silence, Oscar pondering a possible solution to this Carlos-shaped problem that’s suddenly made it impossible for him to go on with his normal life. He got P2 in Monaco, for fuck’s sake, he should be out celebrating. Instead here he is, pampering his– whatever he and Carlos are. Teammate’s friend. Fuckbuddy. Fate-assigned rival. 

Whatever, it doesn’t matter.

He hears Carlos pick up his phone and start tippy-tapping away again. He doesn’t pry, he doesn’t have it in him to be preemptively mad at Carlos for telling him to Piss off again. In reality, he’s not sure why he’s still here, either. 

Carlos is sick, and there is no one else here to take care of him. And, okay, maybe this is his fault too, a little bit. And he’s not a dickhead, so he’s here, taking care of Carlos, because he– maybe it’s because Carlos just deserves it, to be taken care of at a time like this. Doesn’t matter who does it, just matters someone does. 

(And maybe, just maybe, Oscar likes that he’s the one to do it. But won’t admit that, not to Carlos and not to himself.)

When Carlos is finished typing, he seems to hesitate for a moment, staring at his screen with bunched eyebrows and an expression that can only be classified as wet baby bird. When he slides the phone across his lap, slow and steady, not brash like before, the screen reads: 

Oscar, why do this?

It’s four words, one of them is just his name, so really it’s three words. It’s a simple question, really, quite open too. He’s not sure what he could answer, to Carlos, or to himself. 

“You’re sick,” he reasons. “And you’re not gonna take care of yourself, clearly.” Carlos sighs at that, defeated, he shrugs for good measure. 

“At least you admit it now, that’s a step.” Oscar deadpans. Carlos’ eyes widen, realising his mistake. If he’s sick he can’t tell Oscar to leave within reason. And Carlos hates being unreasonable, as much as Oscar does, if not more. Even if he continues to blame Oscar for things that clearly weren’t his fault, but whatever. 

“Right, so…” Oscar starts, realising that this situation won’t be solving itself any time soon. Carlos won’t – possibly can’t, or at least shouldn’t have to – take care of himself, and there’s probably nothing in this lifeless hotel that could help him. No thermometer, potentially no painkillers either, or at least Carlos hasn’t asked for one, no easily available chicken soup. Just one slightly larger than average and absolutely pathetic-looking manchild. And Oscar. 

Oscar, who just moved to Monaco. To an apartment with a thermometer, a proper, private bath and medicine he doesn’t have to ask his trainer for. Probably no ingredients for chicken soup, but he could get some, there’s even a kitchen to make it in. 

A plan forms in his mind. 

He gets up, puts his hands on his hips to get in the optimum headspace for an inspection of Carlos’ room, and starts scanning the floor. Carlos’ clothes are laying in an offensively well-organised pile on a chair off in a corner. 

He makes his way over, looking for a hoodie, preferably non-rosso corsa, because he absolutely cannot let Carlos out on the street – hell, out of bed – in just a t-shirt. When he finds a sweater, light beige and warm-looking, he tosses it blindly in Carlos’ direction, ignoring the panicked shuffling and incessant tapping of nails-on-glass.

“I’m packing your stuff so you can leave,” he clarifies, guessing the reason for Carlos’ confusion not-so-blindly. 

Once he finds Carlos’ suitcase and successfully stuffs it full to the brim with Ferrari branded merch, he plucks out what he assumes to be Carlos’ wash bag and makes his way to the bathroom, stuffing it with whatever he can find on the counters, probably robbing the hotel in the process. 

When he emerges, Carlos is still just sitting cocooned in the bedsheets, sweater sitting crumpled and untouched on his lap, an alarmed expression on his face. 

“Carlos” he starts diplomatically, “if you’re not going to take care of yourself then– I’m taking you home, and that’s that.” The raw frustration in his voice surprises even himself, and Carlos sits there for a moment, looking either shocked or wounded, Oscar isn’t sure. He scrunches up his whole face for a moment, disgusted or considering, then sighs and lets his tensed shoulders go lax, accepting the fate Oscar’s designated for him. 

When he thinks back to it later, a few days on after Carlos had already healed from whatever mild cold he’d oh so bravely survived, Oscar isn’t at all sure why Carlos had just let him make that decision. He’s a grown man, for fuck’s sake. He didn’t actually need Oscar to take care of him. 

He could’ve just– said no. 

But he hadn’t. And somehow that confusion hurts a million times more than if he’d just told Oscar to Piss off again. 

—

Once they’d arrived at Oscar’s apartment, just a few minutes away by car, and made their way up to Oscar’s floor – Carlos on wobbly legs and watching sheepishly as Oscar had pushed his suitcase around for him, of course – then let themselves in and wordlessly agreed to just give up and settle into bed for the day, Oscar found himself lying next to Carlos in his own bed. 

No pretense, no hatesex or whatever they’ve been pretending it is. No snide comments about the collision or how unfair it is for Carlos to have DNF’d while Oscar went on to podium. No complaints about Carlos being a big baby about any of it, even though it’s all low hanging fruit, it would be so easy to reach, to pretend they would rather be anywhere else.

They just lay there, in the dark, Carlos snuffling quietly while Oscar stares at the ceiling, thinking about everything in an attempt to try and think about nothing.

In the dead of the night, to the wall opposite Oscar’s side of the bed, Carlos says something.

Even through his sleep-hazy mind, he hears it clear as day, in Carlos’ voice, weary with half a day of stubborn, childish disuse.

Thank you.

When he thinks back to that day later, and maybe he won’t even admit this to himself, it’s the only thing Oscar can really remember, the memory like a needle that’s pierced his heart – invisible, easy to ignore, but always on the verge of digging in. 

Oh, does he remember the lie detector? Fucking hell. Of course he remembers the fucking lie detector. Could he ever not.

“Hmm,” he says, trying to school his voice into something that doesn’t sound suspiciously like yeah I remember how you giggled and blushed and hid your face into the crook of your elbow, I watched every single moment of it or the somehow catastrophically worse yes I’ve been jacking off to the knowledge of you having to re-buckle the straps because your monster-sized fingers wouldn’t fit into the space mine were perfectly fucking snug in, so thanks yeah I reckon I remember the lie detector.

Instead, he says, in an unfortunately conspiratorial tone, “I don’t recall it was that tight for me.” Which is somehow worse, and more revealing, than just the truth. If he’s lucky Lando won’t make the connection between Oscar remembering the lie detector and being able to fucking, compare their hand girth like an actual stalker.

“Heh, right,” Lando huffs. “You and your dainty princess hands. I’m jealous, Osc, mine are like, fucking monstrous,” he teases, mischief in his voice like he’s not just flipped Oscar’s world upside down. 

Lando shimmies both his hands out of his pockets and lifts them chest-level, demonstrating his point to Oscar. 

Inexplicably, some primal part of his brain decides that he should be listening to his mirror neurons instead of basic etiquette. He lifts his hands to match. “Yeah,” he says. 

“See? Tiny.” Lando says for emphasis, taking his other hand and craning it all the way over just to poke Oscar’s frozen-still limb. If Oscar wasn’t already used to Lando’s complete disregard of personal space, he’d think it was weird. Well he’d probably think it was weird if he could think at all right now. 

“Yeah,” he says again, pleasantly surprised that his tone is still bored levels of flat. Fucking hell. 

“Well, you know what they say about a guy’s hands…” Lando jests. He turns – to Oscar’s utter horror – to look him dead in the eye, anticipating something; Oscar’s reaction, maybe even a response. 

Oscar opens his mouth, says, voice mortifyingly rough, “right,” realises that there’s no way that’ll be enough to save either of them from social oblivion, and continues. “Big hands, big-” he fails to think rationally, “ego?”

And Lando- Lando laughs. Not a big outburst, just a cackle, of sorts. It brings the crinkle back to the corner of his eyes and snaps the tension from his shoulders. 

The mission had started out just like any other when it comes to recon: Find the place, get in, get whatever deceptively important paper or flimsy pen drive or suspiciously placed ammo cartridge someone was stupid enough to leave behind, then leave. 

Infiltrating their targeted building had gone fine, it wasn’t supposed to be a difficult mission anyway – it’s why Toto sent them out to do it in the first place. Easy enough for the new recruits to do, their Captain had reasoned. Bunch of bullshit, if you ask Ollie now. 

Most probably their whistleblower had been a fraud, or just blind enough to have missed the loaded crossbow – an absolutely ridiculous weapon to use in this day and age – mounted and tied to the handle of a door inside, ready to shoot at anyone who dared enter the property. Either way, it doesn’t matter. 

Because they’re fucking stuck here now, for God know long until the exfil team decide the area is safe enough to go and get them. At least this time they’re smart enough to check for danger before entering. 

Ollie seethes about it all, deciding the heat of his rage is at least enough to keep him alive. Kimi, on the other hand, is getting colder by the second. 

They’ve been limping for at least an hour now, kept warm only by the layered camo gear they’d been provided, Ollie leading the way and Kimi holding onto his shoulder for dear life. Probably questioning the decisions he’d made that got him into this situation in the first place.

And thanking the stars for the luck that had allowed him to leave from that rickety deathtrap alive. 

The arrow is still lodged into his side. Kimi says it didn’t hit any of his vital organs, but it’s not looking good. The pool of blood soaking through his shirt is ever-growing still, and they won’t know how fucked he truly is until Ollie can get a better look. 

Judging by the shade of blue Kimi’s lips have turned since, Ollie’s not so sure he’ll make it back at all. 

He decides not to think about that until he has to. Get to safety first, and then face mortality. 

– 

The shack is- well, it’s a shack. More welcoming than the frozen tufts of grass and frigid wind outside, but not homey by any definition.

“Right,” Ollie says, once Kimi had picked the lock – he’d really rather just have shot through it, but they can’t have the boar alerted to their presence, or whatever.

It used to be a hunter’s cabin, probably. A wooden little thing, one of those all natural establishments with the walls made of nothing but tree trunks, a single rectangular window sitting opposite the door, no curtain for insulation. Long since abandoned, if the layer of dust and frost covering the tables is anything to judge by. 

Kimi has just enough energy in him to grunt victoriously, before promptly collapsing into the one bed pushed to one of the walls. Still conscious, still breathing, still Kimi enough to complain about the stiffness of the mattress once he’s settled.

Ollie closes the door behind him, and surveys the little room for anything useful. He spots a table, cluttered with old mugs; a tree trunk thicker than those used for the walls, filling in for a chair; a long defunct stove, which he can probably light up from the inside and at least get some heating out of. 

He looks at Kimi, lying on his back with a hand clutching at his injured side, plops his backpack down on the floor and says, curtly. “Be right back.” 

– 

Seeing the pain contort Kimi’s face every time Ollie touches him is the worst part of all of this, he thinks. 

Back out in the woods – blessedly boar-free as far as he could tell – he’d found some firewood, or so he’d thought. It’s better than nothing, but most of what he’d collected had been too wet and cold, more icicles than twigs really. Impossible to light on fire.

His nose is freezing, and so are his hands. But every time he touches Kimi on the bit of stomach he has exposed so Ollie can treat his wound the skin feels colder than his coldest bits. So he continues. 

– 

Kimi is chatty, usually, it’s probably why Ollie likes him so much. They hadn’t clicked right from the moment they met, it was a bit of a process at first, letting Kimi talk his ear off until he realised he actually quite likes the company. Until he realised Kimi likes it when he talks, too. 

He’d felt lucky, when it was announced they’d get to go on a mission together.

And in a way he still feels lucky now, feet frozen and back sore from sitting curled up on the trunk-chair, watching Kimi’s every breath. This way he knows someone is taking care of him, at least. 

Back at the base he’d probably have gone insane by now, knowing his- friend was out in the depths of fucking Siberia, injured and unable to come back “home”. This way, at least he’ll know when something happens to him. Takes away from the helplessness, if only a little. 

You never realise how much someone means to you until you’re about to lose them, he supposes. 

All he can do now is hold Kimi’s hand through his sleep, getting incrementally warmer now that they’re safe, and pray to whatever God or Gods may be out there that he’s never really had a reason to believe in before. And hope Kimi will still be chatty once he wakes up. 

– 

The first coherent thing that leaves Kimi’s mouth when he wakes up is. “Cold.” 

And, despite the grim reality of their situation, Ollie can’t help but chuckle. “Me too,” he says, watching the puff of his breath settle in the freezing air.

“Orsetto,” Kimi starts, and Ollie’s heart skips a beat. Kimi had taken to calling him that nickname ages ago, and like, codenames are normal in the military, especially at higher ranks.

But they’re not at the higher ranks, and Ollie seriously doesn’t think little bear is an acceptable codename for any soldier. But it’s Kimi’s nickname for him. So he likes it. Maybe a little too much, in a situation as vulnerable as this. Kimi hasn’t let go of his hand. 

Kimi doesn’t continue his sentence, instead he looks at Ollie for a second, a weak little smile wrinkling his eyes, and lifts the arm further away from Ollie silently. 

For a moment or two, Ollie has no idea what that means, and Kimi must realise his gesture wasn’t immediately understandable – he’d probably blame it on their “cultural difference” if he had the energy to jest right now. 

“C’mere,” he croaks, and suddenly snuggling up to Kimi seems like the best idea Ollie’s ever had. He smiles back, and lifts himself from his seat, knees creaking. 

Kimi scoots over, pressing himself into the wall to make space for Ollie, and he feels his cheeks heat with the mental image of what they’re going to look like – lanky limbs and at least one abashed expression, cuddling under a pretense. 

Ollie realises, as he settles in, that this whole situation really feels like just a pretense. Shuffling in close and laying a careful arm over Kimi’s waist so as to not disturb his wound, he realises that he wouldn’t mind doing this some other time. 

Neither of them sleep, they lay there unmoving, shivering at first but slowly warming up in each other’s body heat. Careful not to touch too much when Ollie first lays down, but growing more and more unabashed as time goes and reality fades out from around them. 

By the time Ollie can feel all his limbs again, he decides he’ll at least ask Kimi if they can do this again, once they’re back at base, when no one can catch them. 

They’re pressed together limb-to-limb, legs in the same criss-cross pattern as the corners of the very wooden shack they’ve taken to calling theirs, arms pressed to waists and Kimi’s curls tickling Ollie’s neck. Downright domestic.

And it’s nice. It’s really nice. 

– 

Ollie must’ve shut his eyes at one point, because the next thing he knows it’s already morning, a sliver of golden sunlight nearly blinds him when he sits up. 

He panics for a second when he remembers where he is, but relaxes when he breathes out and doesn’t see the gust of it crystallize in the air. It’s finally warm inside. Maybe the twigs weren’t useless after all. 

Kimi is still sound asleep, snuffling into his own bicep, his dog tag dangling out of his shirt and glistening in the morning light – deceptively beautiful. Still alive.

Raking his eyes down Kimi’s sleeping form, trying to absorb all the peace he radiates, Ollie remembers why exactly they’re here. He should check on the wound. 

He hooks a finger under the seam of Kimi’s shirt and drags it up his injured side, just enough to see that the bandage has indeed soaked through. He feels a bit dirty as he does it, even though he knows it would have made no sense to have woken Kimi up before knowing whether he needs his bandages changed or not.

A bit heartbroken about having to rouse Kimi from his sleep, Ollie shakes him awake. Kimi opens his eyes, first bleary, then alert, then fond once he notices Ollie. 

He rolls over to his back and puts an arm over his forehead, almost artfully. “Man, I slept like a baby,” he croaks. 

Ollie laughs. “Glad to see you’re doing better. Thought for a second the crossbow might’ve bested you,” he jokes, keeping it lighthearted despite the grim reality of their situation. He’s quickly learning why soldiers all have such shit humour.

“Nah, they won’t take me out so easy,” Kimi says, distant.

“I will need to change your gauze though,” Ollie nods in the general direction of Kimi’s wound, hesitating to actually put a hand on him. “Fuck,” is all Kimi says, but he sits up dutifully. 

Ollie rummages through his backpack for clean bandages and the last dregs of sanitizer still on him after yesterday’s cleanup, while Kimi takes his shirt fully off. It’s a bold, perhaps stupid decision on his end, it may be less frosty than when they got here but the temperature is still nowhere near warm enough. Ollie tries not to notice the goosebumps rising on his arm, the dog tag now calmly settled in the valley of his chest, framed by the now hard peaks of his nipples. He has an important task to attend to here. 

He sits back on his log-stool, and starts to unbandage, then carefully clean and finally rebandage Kimi’s wound. All the while he can feel Kimi’s eyes on him, watching for the comfort of knowing what is being done to his body, watching Ollie work. His cheeks heat, helpless. 

“All done,” he says once the final corner of the gauze is tucked away safely, and looks up at Kimi, their eyes meeting quietly. 

Kimi says, quieter than Ollie’s ever heard him before, with something he’d call shyness if he knew the other any less, “thank you.” His breath is finally warm again, Ollie is close enough to feel it. 

For a moment, Kimi’s expression does something weird, Ollie goes cross-eyed trying to catch what it might be they’re sitting so close together. 

In the space between two moments, Ollie finds the time to listen to the wind howl outside, the shushing of leaves and pitter-patter of a squirrel that seems to be equally fond of this cabin as he finds himself to be. 

And in the next moment, Kimi kisses him. 

If Ollie has ever felt the frost on his skin, he doesn’t remember it anymore, nothing has left a strong enough impression on him to even compete with the feeling of this – of Kimi’s lips on his, the feverish burn of him flowing from one body to another, intertwining them. 

As insane as it may be, Ollie wishes exfil never arrives, that this moment never has to end.