Work Text:
How long had the two of them walked? It was impossible to measure, when the landscape was so vast, so white and unchanging. When they walked it was like two figures of ink moving across a blank page. And the cold numbed them, the cold burrowed deep inside them, the cold turned the hate and mistrust they had felt towards each other into ice and the ice broke.
It broke.
And under its surface there was something more fragile and precious.
-
They spent three days in the tent as the storm sang and soared outside around them. On the fourth day, they emerged to the snapping cold and began, once more, to haul. They had to shovel the sledge out of the new snow that had built up around them. The digging was hard and they were tired by the time they set off.
They hadn’t walked for far before the cold began to sink deep into Francis’ bones. The white was blinding — the wind blew small sharp pieces of ice onto the exposed parts of his face, leaving his skin raw. Then, his left eye froze shut.
They stopped again and James approached Francis; he gripped him by his shoulders and steadied him. The loss of sight from his left eye made Francis’ feel dizzy and vulnerable.
‘We have to be careful,’ said James. ‘Don’t try to open it. Don’t touch it.’
He made Francis sit on the sledge while he set up the tent. Once it was ready for them, he led Francis into it and sat him down, then removed his own gloves and face mask. He gently removed Franics’ eye protection and face mask, then lent in, his face closer to Francis’ than it had been before.
James held Francis’ head steady and Francis held his breath. James opened his mouth and breathed warm air onto Francis’ shut eye. It tickled over his sensitive skin. James did it again, and again. Francis’ eye felt incrementally warmer.
James pulled back and tentatively felt around the frozen eye with the pad of his thumb. He lent in and breathed onto it again, then, with the warm tip of his tongue, he licked away at the slowly thawing ice. He repeated this. Francis’ heart beat hard in his chest.
James’ tongue was hot and soft and wet. It was gentle and Francis could feel its strokes as the numbness abated. James breathed on him again, checked it once more with his thumb, pressed his tongue against it and briefly held it there.
Then he withdrew. ‘Try it now,’ he said.
The skin pulled a little, but it opened. His sight was blurred. Francis’ blinked, blinked again, as James still cradled his head in his large hands, and, after Francis blinked a third time, a cold tear fell down his cheek.