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Meryl has forgotten what cold felt like.
She hadn't noticed it at all, not inside Shadow Moses, not on the snowmobile, not climbing into the helicopter her uncle had left for them, and now, with her hand pressed against the glass of the window, watching the snow fall in an early-spring blizzard, she's realizing that she hasn't felt cold since she came to Alaska.
"I wonder what else I missed," she murmurs to herself, and behind her, reflected in the glass, she sees Snake's face come up, look over at her from where he's brushing out the fur of one of his dogs.
"What was that?" he asks, voice neutral, and Meryl shrugs.
She feels like she should be bundled under a blanket, yearning for hot chocolate, or for a sip of her uncle's hot cider (sometimes he would let her have it, the burn of heat and cinnamon and the splash of whiskey he added when her mother wasn't looking warming her from the inside out), like a child again, watching winter turn into a wonderland. But her shoulders are bare, and she can't feel the chill, even though her breath fogs against the glass.
"It's nothing," she says, and comes closer to the stove, well-stoked and casting a warm glow over the room. The snow building along the windowsills is dyed orange in its light, and so is the snowy underbelly of the husky sprawled across his lap, its blue eyes tracking her like a wolf's. "Hey, girl," she murmurs to the creature, and its tail thumps, a paw stretching towards her; obligingly, she sits next to Snake and digs her fingers in under its collar. "Just thinking about things."
Snake grunts, and pauses to unclog the teeth of his brush. There's a little snowdrift next to him, and fur sticking to the dark fabric of his jeans; she idly plucks it free, rolls it between her fingers, until the dog grumbles in complaint and bats at her hand, begging for more attention. "You're a big baby," Snake tells his husky, and his voice is sweet as he says it, underneath the cigarette-growl.
Meryl buries her hands in warm fur. It is warm, she can tell it is, but her hands don't feel warmer for it.
"... We'll have to," Snake murmurs, and she looks over at him, where he's looking down at the dog, "find one more home."
Meryl wonders if Snake can feel the cold, if he was dosed with the same things she was, made resistant. She wonders if he'll be frozen, without his dogs warming his bed, piled at his feet, crowding around his legs as he goes out to feed them.
"Well, I"m sure there's someone out there who's desperate to have a big baby," she says, and strokes the dog's belly. Their hands brush, and Snake doesn't even twitch. "And then we can go find whatever's next for us, right?"
"Right," Snake says. "Find life."
• • •
She can't feel the cold, and Snake's lips on her feel lukewarm against the nothingness.
"This isn't working," she says, and he looks up at her from against her stomach, face shadowed. The stove is the only light, and it paints his edges with fire, flickers across the ceiling, glints against the snow-covered windows. "I'm sorry," she says, because she is, because she wanted to want this, wanted her jaded hero to want her, wanted to think that just because her interest in men was gouged out of her it didn't mean her heart was, too. (She wonders if it's not just the psychotherapy, if she's broken from what Ocelot did, too--)
"It's fine," he says, and slides off her, lets his legs dangle off the edge of the bed, rests his cheek against her ribs. His hair tickles, a little, and his scruff scratches, and it feels infinitely more real than his hands and lips and warmth.
They lay in silence, and Meryl realizes that his breath was already even and soft when he pulled away.
Instead of thinking about that, she winds her fingers into his hair, strokes and pets him like he's one of his dogs, and he grunts, relaxes more than she's ever seen him.
It's fine, she replays in her head, and wonders if he was trying to prove something to himself, too.
• • •
The blizzard ends before the night does, and they break through the snowbank that's swept up over the porch, side by side, and Meryl feels like she's drowning in the smell of cigarettes and beer. He'd insisted she take a coat, and she doesn't feel warm in it, but his vices cling to the fur around the hood, and in a way it's comforting.
Snake is a real person, and he's kind of fucked up, she thinks, as he sweeps the steps with his foot. It's comforting, and terrifying. He'd been cruel, and jaded, and kind, and brave, and he'd done his best to shatter her hero worship the moment they'd had a second to talk.
She thinks she sees why, watching him shove bottles of beer into the snow, settle down to watch the moon sink towards the horizon.
The dog slinks out, leans against her hip, and she stands there, watching Snake watch the moon. He's a hundred miles away from her, and she'd think it's sudden, except every day he's drifted, further and further, leaving her behind.
He turns, looks over his shoulder, and smiles, sudden and earnest and warm. Her heart lets out a cry, surprised, desperate, and he holds out his hand--
The dog abandons her, trots to his side, presses her nose to his face, and he laughs, soft and careless, in a way he's never laughed at anything she's said or done.
"Hey, girl," he murmurs, and lets the creature collapse against his side, wraps his arm around it, rubs his face in its fur. "What am I going to do with you?"
Meryl's heart crumples in her chest, and she looks away, at the crescent in the heavens, wondering if it's something wrong with her or with him.
Maybe it's both.
• • •
She doesn't sleep, and she watches the dawn come through the snow-covered windows as soft grey light, filling the room as she drinks Snake's beer.
She thinks it might be ice cold. It must be, after sitting out in the snow.
• • •
"Meryl," he says, softly, and sits beside her.
Before he can break her heart, she turns towards him and says, "I'll take the dog. Don't worry about it. She'll be in good hands with me."
"What?"
"The dog," Meryl says, again, and watches his face, wonders if he knows how open his thoughts are, surprise, dismay, relief. "You're going to live, right? You can't stay here in this cabin forever."
"Meryl," he says again, and she says, "Just get me to Anchorage."
They're silent for a long, long time, and then he takes her beer bottle, finishes it for her, and says, "Okay. Anchorage it is."
Anger tries to rise in her, that he doesn't argue, doesn't try to make this work. It can't break through the cold blanket on her heart that she still can't feel.
"We'll leave at noon," he says, and stands up, to get breakfast for the dog.