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The night was quiet. Very quiet. The silence seemed to stretch out in a thick layer that extended over the farmland, the moors and all the way to the forest in the distance. Even the sounds of monsters were absent. They must all be asleep like the twolegs, he thought.
A bunch of those monsters had placed themselves outside the twoleg-nest earlier in the day, and twolegs that he didn't recognize all bundled together in the entrance before being let in. Now they were all in their nests, it sounded.
Ravenpaw couldn't pinpoint exactly why all this got to him specifically on this night, although he had a theory. Presently he was positioned on the barn roof, where he had scooped down some of the stick, puffy snow so as to not freeze as he sat. He tried to soak the atmosphere in, to feel what was different in the air tonight of all leaf-bare nights. His pale green eyes drifted over the hills and to the thick patches of snow-covered trees so far away. He rarely if ever felt longing in his heart for his old home, not anymore, but as he stared, a tinge of melancholy lay in his heart. The cold air in his fur and ice on his paw-pads was barely noticed, even when his body began to shiver. The tom didn't want to go inside to the warm hay, not yet; not when his heart was restless like this.
The shade on the roof tore his eyes away from the forest and directed them at the sky, where the stars shone clearer than usual, and whispered a prayer: "Dear Starclan. Please look down upon my clanmates this night. Please let them have warmth and prey as good as mine. Make their hunting easy and their dens strong. Please support my friends, Firestar and Graystripe and Sandstorm and Cloudtail and everyone else in my clan. May their bellies be full, their enemies dull and the stars bright on this Longest Night."
The last part was a traditional prayer he had learned as a kit in the clan. He had just finished when he noticed a familiar presence behind himself.
!!!!!!!!!
While Ravenpaw was on the roof by himself, Barley lay alone in their nest, stirring from his slumber from the lack of the other tom's soft fur next to his. When he awoke and noticed Ravenpaw's absence in the barn, he wasn't worried. It wasn't uncommon for the black cat to wander off on his own; he simply liked to be alone sometimes, especially when he was contemplative or sad, and he would always come back when he was fed up with his own thoughts. Barley would then be there to greet him and listen to his troubles. If Ravenpaw didn't want to tell, Barley would simply cuddle and lick him, so that his best friend wouldn't feel alone. And then they would go about their lives again as if nothing had happened.
But tonight was especially cold, and Barley realized he did not want Ravenpaw to be outside alone with his short fur. The black and white tom stretched his whole body, shook himself awake and padded to a corner of the barn. There he crouched by a large pile of hay and listened and smelled.
[I]Scritch scratch.
Definitely mice. Barley shot out his razor-sharp claws and snatched a rodent out of the hay. He slammed it into the ground and killed it without drawing blood, then took it in his mouth and went outside in the pitch black to search for his companion.
Barley searched around the twoleg-nest, the dog-nest, the field where the two used to play in the warm seasons, the frozen river. He couldn't see nor smell Ravenpaw in any of his usual "thinking-places" a little farther off either. The mouse in his mouth might have been obscuring his sense of smell, but the black and white tom started growing worried. On a normal leaf-bare night this would hardly bother him, but something felt off about this one in particular.
At this point, it wasn't unlikely that Ravenpaw had run off to visit his old friend Firestar, which he on rare occasion did. But Ravenpaw always had an important reason whenever he did, such as when he told Firestar about the location of his missing nephew. Ravenpaw and Barley had had fights in the past relating to the aloof black cat taking the long travel on his own without telling Barley first. It had worried the older cat sick at times (it also didn't help that Barley knew Ravenpaw had been in love with the ThunderClan leader, making the loner jealous at times, something he had never quite admitted to his best friend). Could this be such an occurrence? If so, what if Ravenpaw had run off to ThunderClan in the cold and dark, and possibly collapsed from exhaustion? The cold could kill him! And he hadn't eaten in a while either. Barley's tail and ears drooped. He had to check inside the barn one more time, in case the other tom had returned while he was out. If not, he would leave the mouse in their nest and go to Clan territory himself to try and save him.
Cold and worried, Barley returned to the barn in a hurry. But, as he approached the red structure, his big ears pricked up at something in the dead silence. If he listened as hard as he could, Barley could barely hear a familiar meow. It was not coming from inside the barn, but from above it. Relief streamed through his veins; Ravenpaw wasn't in danger after all!
The barn-cat went inside the barn and to one corner where a series of haystacks were arranged perfectly for a light creature like a cat to climb. From on top of them, the loner could use his powerful legs to leap onto one of the rafters in the roof. He walked quickly on top of them with experience and balance, the dead mouse still in his mouth. The tiny creature had begun to go stiff. The loner climbed out the window to the gutter and jumped to the rooftop above it.
And then he saw him. The back of him, anyway. Familiar black pelt, so smooth and clear; a scent so sweet; a cat so familiar that Barley could recognize it in darkness darker even than this. Barley's heart filled with a warmth that stretched around his whole body. The stars suddenly seemed brighter, and they shone down on the surrounding snow, lighting it up around the dim cat like a blessing from StarClan themselves. As Barley watched, Ravenpaw finished his meowing, which the other now recognized as a prayer, and the white-tipped tail in front of him twitched slightly before the beautiful head that belonged to it turned around. The tom's eyes, clear and striking and green as olives, sent a surge of electricity through Barley's stomach; they always had this effect on him.
"Barley," Ravenpaw said simply, before averting his striking eyes.
"Are you alright?" Barley knew the question sounded stupid as soon as they graced his whiskers. Of course his companion wasn't alright! He had gone to be with himself, after all, and on the roof no less. The reason Barley had singled out the roof as the one place the tom would not go, was because of how thick and chilly the snow here would be. Who would ever go here in these conditions unless they were miserable? Just thinking about it made Barley want to pull his companion inside and cuddle him until the pain went away.
Ravenpaw didn't answer his question directly. Instead, he asked, "Come sit with me?"
He didn't need to ask twice. They sat together, just enough distance between the two that their furs didn't touch. As much as Barley yearned to feel the other's body against his, he didn't want to invade Ravenpaw's space without permission; the younger cat sometimes needed this space when he was in one of his moods.
"Don't you want to come inside?" Barley suggested mildly.
"Not yet. I want to see the stars for a bit longer," answered Ravenpaw, who didn't take his eyes off them. Meanwhile, Barley didn't take his eyes off Ravenpaw.
"What's bothering you?" he pried.
"It's the Longest Night tonight, I'm sure of it."
"The Longest Night?"
Ravenpaw's eyes met Barley's again, surprised. Then a shiver visibly went through his body, either from cold of embarrassed laughter, earning a smile from Barley.
"I forget you're not as familiar with Clan-culture as I am," he said apologetically.
"Then explain...please." Barley shifted his body to look at the other, still not touching him.
Ravenpaw stared into space and took a deep breath, his first words coming out almost like a sigh.
"The Longest Night is a Clan-tradition. I am not sure about to which extent it goes in the other Clans, but in ThunderClan it's a kind of celebration on the longest, darkest day in leaf-bare; that's where the name comes from. At that time of darkness clanmates, kits especially, can get scared and hopeless more easily, so we have traditions to help us hold on to some good feelings. We're extra nice to our rivals, we decorate the camp with pinecones and ferns and other nice things we can find. And we give gifts to the kits and elders, although we tell the kits it's from StarClan."
"What kind of gifts?" asked Barley. He was always surprised and intrigued by the Clans and their strange customs.
"Oh, just some especially tasty prey or feathers and pinecones they can play with. Maybe even pretty stones if we find them. You know, things that kits find exciting. Then we put them next to their dens while they sleep. You should see their little faces when they wake up!"
Ravenpaw smiled, and Barley purred in response. His best friend had always been so fond of kits. Barley sometimes wondered sadly if what Ravenpaw really wanted was to find a she-cat he could have his own kits with. The thought didn't make him feel jealous like with Firestar, but it put weight on him, like he wasn't good enough. He quickly shook the invading thought off.
"It sounds lovely," was what he said. "And it sounds like you really love this tradition."
"Yes. Greystripe and I, when we were kits, would try to stay up on our Longest Night, just to see StarClan come down and deliver our gifts. Of course, we didn't last long before we both fell asleep." He laughed with delight. "That was the only Longest Night I got to experience though. If I experienced another leaf-bare in ThunderClan, I would have been one of the warriors to decorate the camp and fetch gifts for the elders. It's a strange thought."
They both sat in silence and looked up at the stars for a while. Barley finally decided to break the silence.
"Do you miss it? Is that what you're thinking about?"
Another pause. Eventually, Ravenpaw nodded somberly. "I won't lie, you're not completely wrong. But...you know I'm happy here, Barley," he said decisively, looking back at his most beloved cat. "It's true that I sometimes think about the forest and even miss it, but I would never go back if given the choice. My life is with you now."
Barley felt so touched that he dared to carefully lean his head down and lick the black tom's cold shoulder once. Then they kept looking at the stars.
!!!!!!
"I don't want you to catch a cold or whitecough, you know." Barley looked at Ravenpaw with begging yellow eyes. He had such loving, bright eyes, thought Ravenpaw. He stared back into them, unblinking.
"I won't, now that you're here," Ravenpaw reassured. The smaller cat finally closed the awkward distance between them and leaned his head against Barley's white shoulder. Their post-brooding awkwardness was a common routine between the two. They always managed to close the gap eventually. Ravenpaw had decided to take the first step this time. Barley responded in turn, leaning his own head onto his partner's.
"You worried me when you disappeared like that," he mumbled.
"I'm sorry," Ravenpaw responded. And he was. He truly was. Making Barley afraid like that...the thought troubled him deeply. He leaned his shivering body further into Barley's thick, long fur, like a kit seeking comfort in its mother's soft familiarity.
All of a sudden, the longing for Barley's presence grew unbearable. The smaller tom tried to bury as much as he could of himself in the other, his muzzle and eyes engulfed in Barley's fluffy chest. He drank in the familiar scent as if his life depended on it. Meanwhile, Barley swung his thick tail around him and twined their tails together, as well as their front paws. Then he tenderly licked the other's head with rhythmic strokes.
"I'm sorry," Ravenpaw whispered again, mew muffled by the bigger cat's fur. "I didn't mean to make you worry."
"It was...more than that," Barley admitted hesitantly. "I was scared you'd decided to leave for the forest. I didn't want you to be out there all alone. And...I was afraid you would choose your Clan over our barn."
Ravenpaw read between the lines and realized that by 'Clan', Barley must mean 'Firestar'. It was true that he had been infatuated with the ThunderClan leader that saved his life in the past, but now there was only one cat in his heart, and his heart was currently pressed deeply into that cat, as deeply as was possible. He was usually never very verbally explicit about his affection, but right now he had to reassure the cat he loved.
"No," he answered simply, smiling to himself. "I would never leave my own mate, you know that. I am not an unfaithful cat."
He could feel Barley's breath slightly hitch in his chest and purred with amusement. Although both of them knew in their hearts that what they had was much more than friendship, they had never used that word to officially describe it before. It was so uncommon for two toms to love each other like that. Before he met Barley, Ravenpaw thought he was the only one.
"Please come inside," Barley blurted out, voice thick with emotion. "I can't stand the cold, and I want to sleep. Here." The black and white cat tore himself away from the other, turned around and picked up a mouse that was practically an icicle.
Ravenpaw purred with laughter. "I think we can do better. Come on." He walked in front of his now official mate. His heart soared with the triumph of his subtle confession and evident reciprocation, and this pang of confidence led him to very teasingly flick his tail over Barley's chin as he walked past, looking back through slitted eyes. Barley looked as if he had been hit by lightning, and he sped past his partner and into the barn.
Before Ravenpaw made it to the ground, Barley stood proudly in front of him with a freshly killed new mouse. He blinked lovingly and padded to their nest, where he put the critter down. "Happy Longest Night, Ravenpaw! Please come and share this with me."
"My pleasure," Ravenpaw answered. They lay down close together, enjoying each other's warmth and company. Ravenpaw thought that no mice he'd caught in the forest had tasted as good as this.
After their meal, they assumed their usual sleeping positions, with Barley curled around Ravenpaw, encircling him with his thick pelt. This time in particular, any respectful distance was disregarded. Barley curled his tail around the exposed front of his mate to cover as much as he could with protective warmth, and Ravenpaw answered in turn by curling his own tail right above the other's rear end.
They seemed to lay tighter together than usual that long night, both purring loudly till they fell into a blissful sleep. Right before he drifted, Ravenpaw could swear he heard Barley mumble: "I love you."
They didn't feel the need to rise before sunhigh the next day.