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Lup would say it was a mistake, if it weren’t for the light of creation tucked securely into her traveling pack. Barry had let her carry it without comment, because it was warm and she was so, so cold.
This wasn’t the first arctic world they had happened upon. It wasn’t even the worst. This plane, at least according to those who lived there, had always been cold, leaving its inhabitants much more suited for the climate than those the starblaster crew had found cycles ago, freezing half to death in a nuclear winter.
That didn’t mean she was suited for it, or that Barry was for that matter. But she supposed half a dozen freezing nights were slightly better than a vored plane. Especially if Barry was with her. In fact, Lup would even go so many as ten nights freezing, if the payoff was what it was.
And it looked like she might have to, if the blizzard accumulating in the atmosphere was any indication.
“I think, uh, I don’t think the tent is gonna do it tonight, Lup.” Barry was trying not to let the nerves show in his voice. Lup could hear them anyway. If the storm wrecks our shelter, then we’ll freeze to death, if we die, then the light will be lost again, if the light is lost then this plane-
“Up ahead,” There was a shape in the distance Lup recognized as a more solid shelter, likely one of the small outposts scattered across the surface of this plane. Most of the population lived underground, the storms too fierce and unpredictable to make a proper living above. But there were still buildings scattered about, research outposts and cabins like this one, built to grant amnesty to travellers unlucky enough to be caught in a blizzard.
Barry focused ahead, then turned to face Lup. It was getting dark enough that shapes in the distance were hard to make out without darkvision. Lup was sure the fact that Barry couldn’t wear his glasses under his snow goggles didn’t help, so she elaborated. “There’s a building up ahead.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, lucky us, huh?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Lup couldn’t see or hear much of Barry under the layers of snow gear, but she knew him well enough to sense his relief. It made her feel a little better, despite her wet gear and icy eyelashes and nonfeeling toes. And they’d be settling in for a long rest soon anyway.
The storm was only just beginning to pick up when they finally reached the shelter. Barry slammed the door behind them as Lup summoned several globules of light to illuminate the room. She then made her way over to the fireplace, quick to summon a flame in the hearth. The light of creation wasn’t that warm.
Lup sat on the floor in front of the fire and started to pull off her snow pants as she took in her surroundings. There was a metal box in the corner, likely storing provisions if there were any left in this particular encampment. The fireplace was piled with brown sand, a synthetic substance that Lup recognized from the villages underground, which burned much more efficiently than any wood on this near-treeless plane. There was an open burlap bag to the left of the hearth, full of the same substance. That was a good sign. If the kindling was stocked that likely meant the foodstores were too, if Lup ever got up to check. Now that she was settled she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to get up again. She wanted to shed all her heavy, wet clothes and fall into a trance. The small mattress to the right of the fire looked incredibly appealing.
Barry sat down next to her, dropping his bags and beginning the slow process of removing his own gear. He was just as exhausted as her it seemed, even if his body was better at regulating the cold.
Lup lay back on the floor, then leaned forward again to warm up her freezing toes with her considerably cold hands. “Its fucking freezing,” she said bluntly.
“I know,” Barry answered, rubbing at his eyes. “At least we don’t have to worry about freezing to death.”
“Speak for yourself Barry,” Lup said, stretching out and pressing her fingers against the side of Barry’s face. “My poor elf body can’t take this plane.” She usually ran warmer than him. Right now she was cold to the touch.
“I don’t know how-” Barry took her hand from his face without thinking, holding it for a second too long before the panic set in and he dropped it completely. “I don’t know how you live like that. I know, elf blood, but-”
“That’s my point , dear Barry.” Lup did lean back this time, deciding her toes could warm each other just as well as her hands could. And it was easier to not reach out and take Barry’s hand again if she didn’t have to look at him. “I’m not going to live. And that ice out there ain’t gonna be easy to bury me in.” She knocked at the floor for emphasis. “You’re gonna throw out your back.”
Barry chuckled. Their humor was darker than it used to be, than it should be, but- well, Lup still never failed to make him laugh. “You’ll warm up.”
“I might .” After a moment, Lup sat back up. “How long do you think this storm is going to last?”
“Uh, no clue. I hope not more than a day or two because honestly we’re uh- we’re not looking too hot on provisions right now.
“Did you check that box?” Lup gestured towards the presumed food container in the corner.
Barry squinted, following her motion. “Oh, um. Shit, no, I didn’t even see it.”
It was Lup’s turn to laugh, throwing her arms up above her. “Dancing lights, my dude, I cast them for you!”
“It’s still only partial light!”
“Wear your glasses!”
Barry groaned, digging into the side of his bag now that snow goggles weren’t taking up half his face. He slipped his glasses on. “Happy?”
“Very,” She reached forward again, pushing the glasses up the bridge of his nose with her pointer finger. “Now go check out the food and water sitch.”
Barry let out a sound that had just a bit too much humor in it to be a resigned sigh, lumbering to his feet to investigate the container. Lup directed one of the globules of light to follow him, no dark-vision and all that. “I think we’ve got- three or four days in here if we ration. I’d hate to use it though, if we can avoid it.”
“This storm better not last that long.” Lup replied. The walls around them creaked against the blizzard, as if to knowingly contradict their wishes. “Fuck this plane.”
Barry laughed, settling back down next to Lup. “It’s okay. The people aren’t that bad.”
Lup eyed the bag that held the light of creation. “You’re right.” She hoisted it up into her lap. “Which is why we’re getting this back to the ship. I’ll walk through a fucking storm for it. I’ll fast for a fucking week.”
Barry smiled at her, unassuming, like he didn't even realize that he was. Lup caught his eye, then shifted the light of creation back beside her. “But we’re gonna eat first. Cause we hiked for like, twelve fucking hours today.”
Barry laughed again and- damnit it made her want to scream, that such a sound made her feel so much better. She was tired and wet and hungry and had just spent days searching desperately to save a plane from mass extinction but she heard that laugh and wanted to just- lay down with him in front of the fire. Share a meal with him. Not fall into despair.
Lup turned to lift up her other pack, removing two small packages from its contents. They were a joint invention of hers and Taako’s, transmutation and evocation giving rise to heated non-perishables. It wasn’t the first time Lup had been grateful for it (nuclear winter cycle had been bad ).
Lup held out one package to Barry. “Here. We can start rationing tomorrow if the storm doesn’t let up. If it does I’ll cast the seeking spell in the morning and we can start heading back to the ship again.”
“Sounds good,” Barry said, just as his stomach rumbled.
“Shit my man, you should have said something sooner.”
“Eh, you know. Better to wait til camp. And I uh. Kind of forgot.”
“Really? It’s all I could think about.” Lup fought the urge to throw herself back dramatically again, instead taking a wonderfully warm bite of her food. “What else is there to think about? Snow, snow, oh look is that a snow cloud?”
“We’ve uh, definitely seen some more interesting planes together.”
Together. The word echoed in her mind, playing in tangent with memories of the cycles they’d traversed, doomed and saved, for research, for posterity. For any number of reasons really, that were all less memorable than looking to eachother to see what they thought of a lava firefall, a prismatic plain.
Lup glanced at Barry out of the corner of her eye, then stubbornly shifted her gaze to the fire, humming in affirmation.
The rest of their meal was as uneventful as it could be, save for a particularly noisy gust of wind that sent a chill down Lup’s spine despite the fire and her warm food. She hated the cold. The mattress next them looked more appealing by the minute, two thick blankets tucked neatly in. But Lup ignores it, instead easing her discomfort from they day by talking to Barry. Not about the mission, or the plane, just. Talking. Endlessly, directionless. If you had told her 40 years ago it would be her favorite pastime, she and Taako both would have laughed you to zero hit points.
"We should get some sleep," Lup said eventually. She was torn on whether or not to bring it up, but she knew Barry never would, and the bags under his eyes were stark even against the shadows cast by the fire. Humans needed sleep. And even elves needed deep rest, after days like this one.
"Yeah," Barry agreed. He stood up awkwardly, shifting his gear to finish drying off in front of the fire. "I'll take, um. The left?"
It was farther from the heat of the flames. Barry was almost always thoughtful with her, unselfish in a mundane way that she found unfamiliar. She certainly wouldn't let Taako have the warm side of the bed if she could help it.
Then again, she was an elf. It made sense for her to be closer to the source of warmth. Most efficient use of energy and all that.
"Sounds good." She answered. Lup pulled their own blankets from their packs. They could double up tonight, at least.
Barry shuffled to the left side of the bed, settling himself at the very edge before looking up, uncertain. "Uh, if this is- it might be too small. I can sleep on the floor."
"No way Barry, I'm not giving up any body heat." The words were out of her mouth before she could think of them, instinct kicking in before the secondary impulse of over thinking. She layered their own blankets on top of the ones already in place, as if to prove her point. Without another word she slipped in next to Barry, laying flat on her back with her hands resting on her sternum after she pulled the blankets nearly up to her chin. She heard a quiet “okay” from Barry at the motion. There was still some space between them. Enough that if he wanted to Barry could have laid on his back, or rested his arms at his sides. He didn't.
They'd slept next to each other before. Lup had probably shared a bed with every member of her crew, though she didn't care to remember specifically whether or not she'd crossed everyone off the list. Normal boundaries didn't mean much, when you fought and lived and died together.
But it took on a different connotation like this, with a bed small enough that if she were with Magnus she would have probably been lying on top of him without thinking twice. The only reason she wouldn't do the same with Barry was that it felt unfair, that she would feel giddy and nervous and content in a special kind of way and he- wouldn't. Probably. It wasn't worth thinking about. Her suspicious distance seemed terrifyingly obvious in the space between them, her breaths just a little too measured to be relaxing into a trance.
"You don't have to squeeze on the edge like that, Barry." Lup whispered.
It was dark enough that Barry forgot Lup could see his expression, twisted into something like embarrassment before he answered. He was making it too obvious, overcompensating for his want to be too close by being way too far away. It wasn't subtle. He wouldn't do the same thing with Magnus, or Lucretia, or even Taako if it was cold like this. "I- right, yeah. I know." He shifted closer, then to his back. "Uh, thanks."
He was close enough now that Lup could feel a little warmth, his arm pressed against hers. "No problem, hombre." she answered, "Try to get some sleep. You've been running on fumes lately."
"You too, Lup."
"Goodnight." she told him.
"Goodnight."
In general terms, Barry was taking longer to fall asleep than he might have otherwise. But Lup didn't know that. She was too preoccupied with trying to feign a trance. She really should let him sleep. Humans needed so much of it. But the minutes ticked by, even without a clock to count them, and he was almost close enough to be close.
The wind howled, and a shiver ran through her.
“Barry?” Lup whispered.
There was a breath where Lup worried he really had fallen asleep, before she head Barry’s tired voice. “Yeah?”
I’m cold, she wanted to say. Come closer.
“I’m cold,” she said instead.
Another beat. “We could- we could throw our coats over.”
Lup shook her head, then remembered without his glasses, in the low light of the hearth, he probably couldn’t see her. “No, they’re still wet.”
“Oh. Right. Um. We might- we might just have to tough it out then.” Barry scratched his shoulder in the dark. “I’m sorry.”
Just turn over. Lup thought. Just turn towards me and we would be nose to nose, and my arms could be over yours and we would be warm- but she couldn’t bring herself to say it any more than Barry could. They both lay still.
“It’s okay.” Lup said finally. Her own voice was rough. “I’ve tranced through worse.”
Barry let out a humored breath. It wasn’t really funny just- the bizzarity of it all, of exactly how much worse they’d had to sleep through. They were camping out from a blizzard in a creepy shack in the middle of nowhere and it was a good day. Things were looking up for the year.
Barry didn’t respond after that. The understanding was there though, the contemplation of their situation. The two fell back into softly-charged silence, trying very much to drift to sleep with the other lying next to them.
Barry eventually did, though it was only the bone-deep exhaustion that allowed him to.
Lup wasn’t so lucky. She had to focus to rest, the inverse of the human beside her. It was hard to focus on her own breathing when his was right beside her.
Lup shifted deeper under the covers. Barry’s hand lay palm-down between them, visible only through dark vision. Maybe it would be better to keep her head above the covers, where she couldn’t see how within reach he was. She pulled herself back up.
Lup closed her eyes. She needed to focus. And not on Barry. She cracked her eye open again. He slept still next to her, chest rising and falling with his even breathing. He looked peaceful, despite the last few days. It made her ache.
Maybe if she could touch him, just to ground herself, she could stop losing sleep over it. It wasn’t any different, just because they were laying together and he was sleeping. It wasn’t weird. Lup had once woken up nearly suffocated by Magnus’ arm slung over her. Merle had no qualms with using her stomach as a pillow. She and Barry had touched in countless little ways more often than she bothered to remember (and she had been keeping track for...a while there). He was sleeping anyway. If nothing else she could claim she’d drifted off too much during her meditation.
Carefully, Lup moved her hand between the two of them. She found Barry’s hand under the covers, slowly let her own rest over his. Lup let out a quiet sigh of relief at the contact. She ran her thumb over the edge of his hand, let her fingers slip between his. Barry’s hand tightened, as if to hold her own.
Lup squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart ached at the unknowing gesture, but she felt warmer. She imagined she could feel Barry’s pulse, up her arms and through her. A human heartbeat was quicker than an elven one. It left her electrified, in a way, but blissfully calm despite that. She counted Barry’s breaths next to her.
That was what she tranced to for the rest of the night.
-
Barry woke partway through the night. He wasn’t sure what had woken him, but the storm outside, screeching even louder than before, was a good contender. He pulled himself onto his side with a sigh, subconsciously curling closer to the source of warmth under the blankets.
Barry’s eyes shot open. If he’d been any more conscious, he might have reacted by rolling off of the small, unfamiliar mattress. That he was sharing. With Lup.
He started to pull away, ready to apologize to Lup if she was done trancing because really, this building had no windows and he had no idea what time it was- but something anchored him.
Lup’s hand was wrapped carefully over his, each finger patterned between his own as if by design.
Barry closed his eyes, trying to think straight without falling back asleep, and without seeing Lup’s silhouette against the dull light of the hearth.
It wasn’t an accident. If she had been cold in her sleep, she would have turned closer, to the fire or to him. Was she needing comfort?
Barry opened his eyes again, dragging against the urge to keep them closed and drift back to sleep. Lup lay comfortably on her back, seemingly content in her trance. So maybe it was just a gesture, Lup caring about him. She didn’t know how badly it affected him. So there didn’t have to be a reason behind it. She was free to hold his hand whenever she wanted, even alone in the cold in the same bed. That’s what friends did, what Lup did. He loved her for it.
Barry closed his eyes again. So it wouldn’t be wrong to hold her hand back. They were sharing a bed for Pan’s sake, and they had held hands before. When they had needed to stay together in a dark cavern, when she needed to pull him up over particularly rough terrain, when she’d held him close that awful, awful year, when he realized-
There was nothing wrong with it, if he didn’t read into it. And if it were a little indulgent, well- he’d just been marching through the arctic for three days. He could do with a little indulgence.
Carefully, Barry turned his hand so it faced up. Lup’s hand fell perfectly back into his own. Her palm was warm. It made him feel grounded. It made his heart race and stop at the same time. It felt nice, and simple and uncomplicated, like there wasn’t an impending apocalypse between them. Like there was only a few inches. He squeezed lightly, and felt himself start to fade.
Maybe in the morning she would smile at him, and see their hands and laugh and kiss the back of his, and he could tell her what he’d always been saying, and she would raise their joined hands as if it were the most obvious admission in the world, like she had always been saying it back.
Maybe not, probably not, but he was already falling asleep again, and he felt Lup squeeze his hand back before his consciousness left him.
-
It was still dark and storming when Lup lifted from her trance. Worse, it was colder than it had been before. Lup turned towards the hearth, barely embers by now, and slid her hand to the floor next to her, feeling around for her wand. A moment later she conjured another flame atop the synthetic kindling. She put her wand back down and turned towards Barry.
He had shifted in the night to lie on his side, much closer than he had originally settled. His hand was loosely wrapped around her own.
Lup watched him quietly in the shadows of the flame. He seemed peaceful. More so than she had seen him in a long time. She wanted to reach up her other hand, trace his face where the worry lines usually lay, memorize the feeling of it without them. Instead she remained unmoving, and did her best to commit the look of it.
As the minutes passed, the chill set in again, even with the newly rekindled fire. Lup was plenty rested. It might do better to sit in front of the fire. Then again, if she did that she'd either be going without a blanket or robbing Barry of one. Neither option was particularly appealing. And as much as she could never admit it, she’d rather stay close to him for as long as she could.
Lup stared at her hand, held securely in Barry's own, even after he had turned in the night. Towards her. She wouldn't read into it. She wouldn't. He was asleep. There was no motive behind it.
Lup turned her own body, slightly closer than she had been before. She could feel Barry’s breath, their hands still linked between them.
This would be easier if he was awake. If they could talk, and lean close because they were excited. When they talked, it could make Lup forget how badly she wanted to lean forward and kiss him until the underlying urge to do so became nearly overwhelming and she snapped back to reality. Like this, Barry was wordless, and Lup was undistracted, left to feel the coil wind tighter and tighter.
Lup closed her eyes. She wasn’t going to focus on what she couldn’t have. She could enjoy what she did have, Barry content and warm with his hand in hers, even if she wasn’t quite as close to that warmth as she wanted to be.
Lup lay like that as the final hours of the night passed. There was no reason to get up, nothing to do but wait for Barry to finish sleeping so they could head out in the morning. They would have to go outside to know for certain, but the storm seemed for the most part to have gradually waned until the creaking walls of the cabin fell silent. And if watching Barry close was a side effect of the waiting, well, so be it. No one was around to fault her for it.
It wasn’t until the fire began to dwindle again that Lup felt Barry begin to stir. She stayed decidedly still, and opened her eyes a moment after his.The look he gave her was tired and content, like the morning hadn’t caught up with him yet. “Hey, Lup,” he said quietly.
Lup swallowed, preparing for the break in her voice after hours of disuse.“Hey Barry,” she answered. She wanted to lean closer. She wanted to be wrapped up in his arms and pull the covers over their heads and pretend. Instead she slid her hand out of his, as inconspicuous as she could, and prayed he wouldn’t question why she’d stayed in bed hours longer than she strictly needed to.
Barry blinked, and Lup watched the worry return to his face. “Oh, um-” Lup could almost see the panic behind his eyes, like he was tearing apart a room looking for something to say. “Are you cold?”
Lup sat up, creating distance between them. She needed to, or she might try to hug him, which was not something you did after sharing a bed with the person you’ve been secretly in love with for decades. “I’m okay,” she answered. “Pros of sharing body heat.”
“Right.” Barry sat up as well, rubbing the back of his neck. Lup eyed the motion.
“I think the storm passed last night, if you want to head out after breakfast,” she said.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be good.”
Lup reached for her wand, fully igniting the fire in the hearth once more. She didn’t want to sit in the cold while they packed up.
Their breakfast was quiet, and they packed quickly. No good reason to waste daylight. More so, the cabin felt....it felt like it was insisting something, which Lup did not care for at all. It felt like a place to do something really dumb, and she didn't think she could deal with the fallout of that while backpacking the light of creation another two dozen miles back to the ship. Barry was already avoiding meeting her gaze, as he had done almost every time they'd had to share a bed in the past. It made her want to tear the mattress apart. It made her want to pull him down onto it and make him look her in the eye, and maybe his breath would leave him and he would reach up to touch her face and tell her it was what he'd always wanted, that they could wait another day, they could have this.
Lup shoved their provisions roughly into her pack. None of that would do any good. She just hoped that maybe once they both had their goggles on he would look her in the eye again.
So she cast the seeking spell without dawdling over the components, and made only one or two jokes as they pulled back on their snowgear. It felt like getting dressed after a night of something she would much rather have been doing, except without any of the satisfaction. Well, almost. She could still feel his hand warm in hers if she closed her eyes, could remember his face without worry. She'd had worse nights. She'd had people who loved her the way she wanted him to who had loved her less.
As they stood in the doorway to the cabin, Lup swung her arm across Barry's back, one last casual touch before she ran out of excuses for it til nightfall. At which point they would probably (hopefully) be back on the Starblaster. Barry startled, then turned back to face her questioningly. And for a moment she was frozen, before they even stepped out the door. For a moment his eyes held hers and she wondered (not for the first time, not for the last time,) if he could possibly know.
Then, “You ready to go Barry?”
Barry stared for barely a second before he nodded, pulling his snow goggles down over his eyes, and Lup patted his shoulder once before letting her arm fall back to her side. They could talk about it later. They always had time.