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Fucking Corvo, thinks Farley, getting arrested in the summer, slated for execution in the winter, and Fucking Burrows too - his six month cutoff for Corvo's... well, cutoff, as it were. Leaving them trapped in the Hound Pits Pub with its draughty floors and ill-fitting windows in the month of Ice, unable to run the lamps at night, and most of the day is night - All of it, the worst possible twist of fate, and even Farley Havelock is freezing.
A gale pushes through the Hound Pits and steals the last of the heat from the walls. Outside, what could be called a blizzard rages, though the streets are too densely-built for any truly strong winds, the roofs are quickly disappearing under a sheet of snow, and the roads, disused as they are, are thick with ice.
Teague's teeth are chattering.
'It's cold!' says Farley, turning on him, 'We know! No need for your amateur dramatics -'
'Void but I wish they were amateur dramatics,' says Teague, chafing at his arms, 'I feel like I'm going to die here.'
Lord Pendleton - Treavor - is bundled in his full suit, winter coat, and the blankets from his bed next door. He looks pitiful.
'It is... rather cold, Farley. Really rather cold, actually.'
Farley sighs, but aquiesces, and puts another stubby quarter-log into the stove.
'You're both being greedy,' he says, 'these have to last all night, and probably all of tomorrow too -'
'Don't care,' says Treavor, 'cold.'
Teague hums in agreement. What a pair of bastards. A lot of the time, Farley can't recall why he even likes them, let alone why he'd like them enough to share a bed - not seriously, never seriously, he tells himself, but it's important to blow off steam, and Farley has plenty of steam. He pours another three drinks, and once he turns around to serve them he says -
'Martin! If you set my sheets alight I will kill you with my bare hands,' and Teague dutifully shuffles himself, now swaddled in a sheet, out of the danger zone. Bastard.
'You're washing that yourself,' he tells him, 'your coat is filthy, and Lydia tells me off enough as it is.'
'Heh,' says Treavor, 'Wallace says she's insubordinate about us.'
Farley tsks - 'There isn't any subordination here, so how can she be insubordinate? You should tell your man to... to... Outsider's balls but it's cold -' he draws back the curtain to take a peek at the thermometer he's stashed on the outside sill - it's long past freezing; the mercury has dipped below any of the graduations on its shaft - he throws the curtain back into place and starts pacing.
'Th-that bad, eh?' says Treavor, sipping at his glass, shivering, then throwing the whole lot back with a shudder. When he scoots closer to the stove, he gets a warning look from Farley -
'Just because they're your sheets doesn't mean I won't be absolutely fucking furious when you burn the pub to the ground.'
'Pshhh,' says Treavor, 'the sn-now will just ex-xtinguish it.' and Farley doesn't find that entirely comforting, actually. He'd hate to have Treavor burned - on his watch, he'd hate to have Treavor burned on his watch!
'Farley,' says Teague, after a few more minutes of pacing, 'will you please sit down for a moment? You're making a breeze.'
'Exercise keeps the body on form and the mind on track. I'm keeping myself warm.'
'You're making me dizzy,' Teague says, lighting a cigarette before pulling the sheet up to his ears, 'it's hypnotic. You're putting Treavor into a trance.'
'Hrn,' says Treavor.
'See, he's really gone! I once saw a stage magician do this - terrible, heretical stuff of course, but really amazing. He made a man pretend to be a hound -' he swaps his cigarette into his other hand to give Treavor a shove, '- Treavor, you're a hound.'
'Not even hypnotised,' Treavor mutters, 'just cold. Conserving - con... conserving my energy.'
Farley takes Teague's cigarette lighter from him, and lights up himself - the hot smoke would be nice if he didn't also have to breathe the cold air - 'If my old dad were here,' he says -
'And thank the Void that he isn't!'
'- Shut up, Martin - he'd say we were being a complete bunch of wimps. He was out on the tundra, where your piss would freeze before it hit the ground, he used to tell us that.'
He resumes pacing, and Teague groans, rearranges his sheets, and bends around to take another look out the window.
'Is Samuel still out there?'
'I think Callista managed to entice him in with tea... I hope she did. But I suppose an old fellow like him must be pretty hardy -'
'From Dunwall there came an old man,
Who joined with the Loyalist plan,
He just loved to float,
So he lived on a boat,
And hated to be on the land,'
Treavor recites in an odd, sing-song sort of a voice, and when Farley gives him a puzzled look, he answers with a kind of tired wink before shuffling around in his sheets again - 'I just made that up. I think it's quite good.'
'It...'s not bad,' Farley agrees, eventually, though he's rather had his train of thought knocked by spur-of-the-moment limericks - and though exercise does indeed keep the mind on track, it hardly helps a man come up with rhymes.
'Can - can we stick another log in the s-stove?' asks Treavor, after a few moments of silence - it's only been a few minutes since the last one was added, so it wouldn't fit anyhow. Farley tells him as much, and Treavor says -
'Oh. I am... really very cold indeed, though.'
Treavor's nose is pink, but his lips are really quite blue. Teague looks at Farley, and even his smug contenance betrays a smear of concern.
'Are you... quite alright?' Farley tries, worried, 'Would you like another drink?'
'Oh,' says Treavor, 'fine, I'm fine, but I'd... I'd have another if you're offering.'
Teague passes his glass over, and Treavor snakes a hand out of the blanket to grab it - fails to hold it, and it slides out of his slack grip and smashes on the floor.
'Oh no,' says Treavor, dumbly. His fingers, too, are blue, and Teague actually recoils when he touches them -
'Fuck me but you're cold, and I thought I had bad circulation -'
'Would that I could,' Treavor mutters sleepily, 'but my cock is an icicle and would probably break off.'
'Oh get up,' says Teague, pulling at his arm as Farley crosses the room to touch the back of his hand to Treavor's ice-cold face - 'Fuck me,' he says -
'I just told you about my icicle,' says Treavor, being yanked around like a ragdoll by Teague -
'Stop,' says Farley, 'stop, he's chilled -'
'- I noticed -'
'- No, I mean, chilled. You keep shaking his arms around, he'll have a heart attack.'
'He'll what?'
'A heart attack! I once had... a man go overboard, freeze like that, we warmed up his hands and his arms and he died of a heart attack.'
'I'm not... I didn't go overboard,' says Treavor.
'No,' Farley agrees, 'you'd not last a day in the Navy.'
'Thank fuck.'
Farley rolls his eyes. He's confused, or he'd never say such things about the Navy. 'Come here,' he says, 'take that blanket off -'
'Off?' says Teague -
'Well it's obviously not doing him any good, he's just wrapped the cold in with him.'
'Is that... how it works?'
'I'm sure Piero can give you a much more in-depth explanation if you're desperate -'
'Alright!' says Teague, burrowing into Treavor's discarded blanket -
'No you don't, you'll have to get undressed too.'
'I'll have to get undressed? I didn't even know he was getting undressed!'
'He's frozen, you're not, so we transfer your not-frozenness onto him -'
'Wait,' says Teague, 'wait, I'm beyond lost right now. I'm stripping off and doing what?'
'Holding him. Transferring heat -'
'- And he's stripped off too? Is this some kind of -'
'- If it was some kind of - of -' he's not going to say it, '- if it was something like that, you two would hardly be -'
'You know I do have feelings, Farley, and Treavor, how do you feel about this?'
Treavor has ended up drowsily draped against Teague's shoulder, blanketless but still in his outerwear.
'I'm... I'm not even cold anymore, you know? You spent so long arguing I've warmed back up. Can I have my blanket back?'
Teague tests Treavor's hand against his, and gives a decisive, 'Nope! Farley, look, you're going to have to undress him if you expect me to undress, and... Hey!'
'Hey?' says Farley, batting Treavor's hands away to unbutton his greatcoat -
'Why aren't you getting undressed? You're warm, aren't you, what with "Exercise Keeps The Body On Form" stuff.'
'Yes...' says Farley, wriggling Treavor's floppy arms out of his jacket sleeves, 'but yersufhter.'
'I'm a what?'
'You're.... you know... suhgtuh,' Farley mumbles, and then to Teague's disappointed look, 'you're softer, alright? So you'd... mould into his -'
'Are you sure this isn't some kind of -'
'It is not any kind of anything, Martin! I'm trying to save this idiot's life -' he tosses Treavor's cravat to the floor, and unbuttons his shirt, and then sighs with the deepest despair, '- but he's wearing a corset, so I have decided to let him die.'
Teague lets out a laugh he'd managed to stifle for the whole time Farley was speaking - 'You didn't find it so hard to get him out of it on -'
'Shut your mouth! Forget it! Forget it! I'll undress, you get him out of that... contraption...'
'It's not even tight ,' says Treavor, at the same time that Teague says, 'I'm down to my undershirt, Farley, I'm doing this now -'
'No,' says Farley, stripping out of his jacket and flinging it across the room -
'Well, we can both do it,' says Teague, 'because I'm already undressed -' he picks awkwardly at Treavor's laces, '- so I'm going to save your life with my fat gut, Treavor, how's that?'
Treavor gives a violent shiver, 'You'd best hurry up, or your fat mouth is going to end it.'
'You wound me,' says Teague, 'both of you, you're both awful.'
'You wouldn't have us any other way,' says Treavor, and though Farley's not looking at him, he knows that he's winked again.
'Oh shit,' Farley's got his shirt off, and it's terrible out there. He swings one of the blankets around himself - 'are you done with him yet? My nipples could cut glass -'
'Just gimme a-'
'You're incompetent,' says Treavor, 'you're a-a-an idiot. Do you know how to undo your shoes?'
'I'm trying! Wallace is a fucking... sadist if he does this to you every morning. Farley, get over here, the Navy does knots -'
'It's like a shoelace! You.... f-fucking -' Treavor twists his arm backwards -
'Oh! No!' Farley and Teague exclaim simultaneously, 'Arms shouldn't... they shouldn't do that!'
- and pulls the knot free despite his stiff, clumsy hands, letting an exasperated sigh as he does so, 'It's not even tight.' he says again, swinging his shoulders a few times until the top lace picks up enough slack, then shucks the corset altogether, letting it crash noisily to the floor like an oddly-formed piece of armour. He looks horribly vulnerable all of a sudden, in just his boots, trousers and undershirt, so Farley pulls him under the blanket with him.
Teague is not in the blanket - 'Am I just... going to stand out here with my tits out while you spoon, is that it?'
'Get in the blanket, Teague.'
'Oh, it's Teague now, is it -'
'Sorry, High Overseer. Get your tits in the sheet with us - and Treavor, take your damned undershirt off! The whole point is skin contact -'
'Of course, Admiral,' Teague says, sliding in the end of the blanket, 'and it's not any kind of -'
'You can call me my Lord if he's going to be High Overseer,' says Treavor bitterly, muffled by this own undershirt being pulled roughly over his head - when he emerges his hair is mussed and his expression slightly dazed, and Farley crawls out of the blanket to collect the other sheets from the floor.
'Now,' he says, directing them as though a sea battle, 'Teague, press your front to his back -'
'You can say spoon, Farley, I won't judge -' Teague hisses as his aforementioned tits make contact with Treavor's ice-cold shoulderblades, '- you were not lying when you said you were cold, huh,' -
'Why would I lie?'
'- and Treavor,' Farley says, raising his voice ever so slightly in command, 'will press his front to my back once I get in.' He starts tucking blankets around the pair -
'You'll be Dunwall's biggest Little Spoon,' says Treavor -
'It'll be more of a Pendleton Sandwich,' Teague says, and Farley rolls his eyes as he climbs back between the sheets, shuffling backwards until his back hits - his body makes a terrible little shriek before he can stop it - Treavor's frozen chest.
'You!' he squeaks, still unable to control his pitch, 'Are very cold!'
'I know,' says Treavor, sneaking his icy little hands up and around Farley's chest, 'and you are both very warm.'
'How are you still conscious?' Farley asks, feeling Teague's hands make a similar path around Treavor, sealing themselves into the gap between his back and Treavor's belly, and he can feel Treavor's laugh against the back of his head.
'Sheer force of will.'
Teague's laugh, he feels through the bedsprings - 'That sounds about right,' he says, 'I'd be damned if that's not how you do everything.'
'Probably,' Treavor breathes, cupping his hands over Farley's pecs, and then walking down to his hips. 'You're so strong, Farley.'
'Years of work,' says Farley, 'start every morning with exercise, and - oi! Hands to yourself!'
Treavor's hands slide back up over Farley's abdomen - 'You're the one that stripped me off and put me in your bed,' he says petulantly.
'Don't make me regret it.'
'And what am I?' says Teague, 'Chopped liver?'
'Oh,' says Treavor, and pulls himself away from Farley, just a little, to instead rest his hands on top of Teague's - Farley can feel them, cool against his spine -, 'you're an impressive specimen too, High Overseer.' and Teague's chuckles vibrate through all three of them.
'No funny business back there,' says Farley, 'I was trying not to let you die.'
'Very noble of you,' says Teague - his hand sneaks apart from Treavor's to run one finger down Farley's back - he twitches at the touch -
'I mean it! Or you can both go to Treavor's bed and freeze.'
'You're an evil man,' says Treavor, 'and that'd freeze you too.'
'I have a stove and my health,' Farley says, 'I'll be fine.'
'Evil,' Treavor reiterates, and attempts to rearrange his left arm, pushing it back under Farley's - in a fit of sentiment, Farley grabs his hand, just for a moment, before letting go, and Treavor's fingers draw a few weak shapes against Farley's slack palm.
They fall to silence, or near enough; the wind howls between the buildings, and whistles against the windows. The sign over the outside door rattles and squeaks, and Treavor's right hand alternates between stroking lightly at Farley's chest and clutching over Teague's behind him; selfishly, Farley finds himself preferring that, just because Treavor's fingers are still far too cold to be within striking distance of his nipples.
Farley's settled into a light doze with Teague's hand stroking at his bicep when -
'Turn around,' says Treavor, suddenly, 'we all have to turn around -'
'What?'
'Farley's crushing my arm, it's completely dead, I need it out before it drops off, shuffle!'
'Void below,' Farley grumbles 'I was almost asleep.'
'Well that's probably why you were lying on it so heavily -'
All three of them roll right, onto their backs and then opposite sides, and Treavor's dead arm smacks Teague in the face when he tries to wrap his arms around him.
It is quite nice, though, Farley thinks, to hold someone - this isn't sentimental, or anything, just that it's nice, and clammy though it is, Treavor's back feels... comforting pressed to Farley's chest. Farley gets his own back for Treavor's earlier cheekiness by running his own hands over Treavor's chest - he squirms.
'Oh don't do that, Farley, lie still. I thought you were almost asleep.'
'The onus being on almost, Treavor. I'm wide awake now.'
'No funny business back there,' Teague mocks, and then jumps - Treavor must have pinched him.
'Oh,' says Treavor, 'you are both so warm -'
'You're still so cold,' says Teague, 'what is wrong with you?'
'Oh, plenty,' Treavor says, matter-of-factly, and doesn't elaborate. Farley tightens his arms around him, and barely registers the softness of sleep washing over him.