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Cold, cold as shit.
Numb hands, numb toes, chapped lips and everything else. They certainly hadn’t expected the altitude to have such a devastating effect on their extremities. But here was a house, a ramshackle old place, not quite falling apart but not altogether sturdy either. Really, like Donald. And him too, if he were being honest with himself. The sun was out, the breeze should have been refreshing, but as he pushed ahead up the winding path to the top of the hill all he could stop to think was that he couldn't wait to just get inside and sleep for a few hours.
The door wasn’t locked, not even close to barricaded. The house wasn't empty, nor was it cluttered. Just right. There'd be time to figure out who had lived here later, if Donald didn’t tear through any of the papers here for rolling paper first. And then they fell to the floor, just there in the middle of the place like they'd been meant to fall there all along.
Tired legs, trembling hands, broken toes. Boots too beat up and not well suited to the climate. They'd gotten more than they bargained for here in this forbidden land. One week into Kyrat with all the intent to sample the local fauna, and all they’d found was exhaustion and shuttered windows along the roads. Banapur had been a bust, Tirtha had been unwelcoming. People were tired of their story even before they’d met them.
Who wanted to listen to two British chaps past their peak pushing Spiritual Nirvana on the edge of a blunt?
Donald had sprawled out on his back, gazing up through the dust motes that cut through the shuttered windows. He stared down that beak of a nose with such conviction that he may as well have burned a hole in the ceiling.
“Reg-"
“Hmm?”
“I'm tired, let's go home,” he said, and Reggie could hear the ache in his voice.
“Can’t, Don, those red coated fucks nicked our passports at the border remember?”
“Bollocks.”
Out of his coat pocket Donald tugged the remnants of a long-forgotten blunt. For a time they'd lost the taste for marijuana. Travelling brought out the worst in them, and Kyrat had only sharpened that edge. Not even good green could soften the blade of stress cutting down their backs. They could put on a good show, synchronize and syncopate like they were always meant to do, but any more it was all just a show. A tired, drawn out joke nobody knew the punchline to any more.
“Could see what that Noore wanted, anyway,” Reggie said, kicking back against the wooden beam that jutted up from floor to ceiling.
High above him old colorful decorations still hung from the rafters, remnants of a life left behind. Dust swirled in little eddies where the afternoon breeze pushed through the eaves of the old house, and he turned his head to watch as the pungent smoke of Donald's joint coiled and unfurled in a lazy column up into the rafters to wash away with the eddies.
“In time,” Donald said through a sigh of smoke, offering the last of the smoke up to him.
Neither of them bothered to move for a long time, too glad to just be stationary for a moment. Always on the move, one going, the other following. Sometimes running full tilt, sometimes scrambling on scraped knees and bloody knuckles. This was one of those bare-bones broken-skin bruised and battered excursions. One where neither one really wanted the other around. But where Donald went, he followed.
That was the way of it. Couldn't be any different, couldn’t change things now. Even with the stale punch lines and same old same old. They had enough wild stories for a lifetime, and those were things he really cherished.
“Tired. Let's go home.”
“Reg we can't.”
Right, they had just had this conversation.
“Should we set up shop here?” Reggie asked.
“You really think we're going to snag any fools around here?” Donald shook his head, flicking away the butt of his joint and sitting up with a groan.
His hair had grown considerably in the time it had taken them to get down to Kyrat. They hadn’t taken the easy route to get here. Showers had been sparse, and luxury grooming time even more so. There was a mohawk amongst the stubble, a former glory of its proud self. He needed a good shave on his face too, but then again they both did. Both of them, absolute messes.
“Do we have anything better to do?”
Donald shrugged, slouching forward, and Reggie found his hands reaching out to grab his shoulders, rubbing encouragingly. It was a simple gesture, something they often shared between each other in moments like this. Like a pep talk or a stress reliever, a reassurance. He was there for Donald, and Donald would be there for him too.
“Cold,” Donald mumbled, and certainly he could agree with that.
His hands were still stiff with the chill of their windy uphill hike. Working them into his partner's shoulders seemed to help ease the ache in them.
“Think there's blankets stashed somewhere?” Reggie said, eyeing the piles of old belongings scattered haphazardly across the floor and piled in the corners.
“Oh, everywhere. But are they clean? Un-smelly?”
“Decidedly not, by my nose’s account.” Reggie grumbled, realizing just how musty the place smelled even over the tang of Donald’s day-old blunt.
A few days of incense and good tokes and the place would smell like home, or at least like something akin to home, but he didn't even know if they'd be bothered to stay that long.
“My turn,” Donald said, shrugging his hands off then, “don't get to have all the fun.”
“I'm good Don, don't,” Reggie shook his head, leaning back against the beam behind him again.
“Yogi.”
“I'm not gonna call you that with no-one around, mate.”
“Tired.”
“I know.”
Donald fell back, ending up halfway in his lap, and Reggie let his head tip back to stare at the ceiling again.
There were bullet holes, two or three of them, straight through to the second floor, big enough to see through if there had been light upstairs. They’d have to patch that, or maybe not. He could decide later.
Donald flopped onto his side, already half asleep, and he could feel his calves tingling with the static from sitting still for too long.
Pins and needles, an aching heart. The need for comfort.
“Hey. Donald.”
No response, even as he nudged him gently to move.
“Yogi.”
That got his attention, and the scruffy, sorry thing lolled his head back just enough to meet Reggie's eye.
“Move over."
And he did, just enough even on the spacious floor to give Reggie room to sprawl out right where he was. As soon as Reggie was horizontal, Donald was scooting back into him. Always the little spoon, always.
“No, now it's my turn,” Reggie muttered into his shoulders, noting how horribly he smelled of sweat and dirt and forest in the worst possible way.
He probably did too. No harm, no foul. Nothing new, not after that cow fiasco. Nothing could smell worse.
“Piss off. ‘m comfy,” Donald muttered.
There was no way either of them could be. Not on the uneven hardwood floor, no pillows or lamps or blankets, in the middle of the day with aching joints and backs.
“I took a rain check. No shoulder rub cashed in yet mate,” Reggie reminded him, and that was all it took for Donald to relent.
This was something neither of them had ever discussed at lengths. What they were. At the best of times they found themselves surrounded by men and women with similar ideals and idols, all wanting to reach that highest high right there with them. At the best of times they could afford separate rooms, separate beds. At the worst of times, well, likely right now, all they had to keep company were each other.
Some cold night a long time ago they had found themselves just like this. And neither had complained when they shared that ratty sleeping bag together in the middle of the woods that night. Neither of them had said a damn thing in the morning either. And since then it had been an unspoken, mutual exchange of physical contact.
With his head nestled comfortably against Donald's shoulder, that arm slung behind him and around his shoulders to make them both more comfortable, he knew he could sleep. It was enough contact for them both to find peace in the moment, enough to stifle that aching loneliness even for a little while.
Later that evening they could figure out something to eat, maybe even bother to figure out where to go next or what to do. But right then, with Donald's sudden kiss to the top of his head, he just wanted to forget about anything else. There would be time for worrying, and for planning, and for eating.
Right then, it was time to rest, warmed and secure if only for a moment in the arms of someone who would always follow, no matter where.