“Are you not coming? I want you to come with me.”
Fingers coiled and worked into the mesh of sticks—of firewood gathered in burly arms, and he nurtures the flames—raw, dwindling, flecked with malice in blacks and crusted white ash— he surely stinks of it by now, is coddled in it by now. But the fire, when it flickered, when it rose and roared with naught but saccharine intent, warmth curled around tufted strands of gold.
Smudged hands, grooves thick and ridden with dirt, with puce in the state of coppered red and ferrous brown, an inked story of their throes, poke at shortened logs, trimmed and sliced beneath the glint of axe—and though chips of teeth and wood were spat from his assault, the fire sputtered and coughed the final wheezes of warmth from beneath his work.
He paid little attention to her words.
The fire demanded his gaze, his digits, and when he was told she would bathe, a blasé nod lulled from his head. But the fire was ravenous, now, with jaws of lurid orange snapping at his cheeks with unrelenting ferocity.
———————— ɪ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴍᴇ.
He pauses, neck craning, and though essentials call for him to stay, to tend and coo at warmth, the hushed laugh escaping his lips brings him back to his feet.
‘ I am coming. But this is your fault if the fire dies. ’