Work Text:
The blistering cold of winter had begun to set in at Fort Spencer.
Boyd lay in bed, a moth-eaten quilt tucked up to his chin. All was quiet save for the hearth burning steadily in the next room over, a fire that had been fed and strengthened upon the arrival of their midnight guest. The warm light snuck through the cracks under the door to Boyd’s room, but the heat of the fire itself barely reached beyond the threshold. The flicker alone seemed to taunt Boyd with its promise of warmth.
Boyd’s eyelids were heavy, yet he couldn’t sleep. How could he when a stranger was among them, living in the same space, mere meters away from Boyd’s quarters? His mind reeled, recalling the story from hours before. Life in the Sierra Nevadas was few and far between, especially in these harsh winter months. Anxiety crept up his throat. It was how Colqhoun had survived that gnawed at his mind most. He knew the strength that could be gained in such a short amount of time from consumption of…
Boyd swallowed. His stomach ached. He knew personally the sudden burst of energy from only a taste of human blood. What strength could be earned from the flesh itself? He couldn’t help but think of the stranger who had arrived that night, eyes wild with fear and flesh shrunken to bone. Had the meal they had offered upon his arrival really satiated him?
Boyd gingerly crept out of bed, his desperation for warmth exceeding the fear that lingered within him. The bed frame creaked under his shifting weight. The floor was ice under his feet. He grabbed one of the thinner blankets from his bed and held it tight to his shoulders as he breathed harshly through chattering teeth. The fire could allow him some respite. Surely Hart wouldn’t mind.
He stumbled through the dark to the door and peeked into the parlor. He flinched as the timber snapped in the fireplace, with a noise that felt as loud as a gunshot within the otherwise silent room. Boyd’s eyes drifted to the form silhouetted by the fire’s flickering light. It moved slightly as it breathed.
Boyd inched towards the fire and extended his pale fingers, aching from the cold and twitching in anticipation for the warmth he craved. He knelt before it, careful to keep a bit of distance between himself and the form of Colqhoun. The logs had begun to blacken. They crumbled at the slightest prod with the stoker. He took a fresh log and nudged it into the flames. It roared with life. He savored the delicious heat as it enveloped his face.
Colqhoun breathed a low sigh. Boyd stiffened, his knuckles white around the stoker. A low voice rasped through the quiet:
“No need to worry. I’ve already eaten.”
Boyd turned, expecting to meet Colqhoun’s gaze, but he was fast asleep. His face was mostly obscured by his matted mop of hair, but Boyd swore he glimpsed a flash of white teeth from the great, tangled mess that was the man’s beard.
Boyd couldn’t help but shiver; from the sudden cold in the room or from fear, he didn’t know. Perhaps he misheard. It could have been the wind. Fort Spencer was a ramshackle excuse for any sort of military base, after all. It could collapse around them any moment. A strange noise here and there wasn’t unheard of.
He reached his hand to the blanketed mass beside him, and gently tapped the man’s shoulder.
No response.
Boyd let out a breathless, shaky laugh. Maybe Slauson had been right to send him away. He released his grip on the stoker, and returned it to its rack beside the fire. He rubbed his hands by the fire a final time before rising and retreating to his room. His eyes never left Colqhoun until he closed the door.
In the final moments before Boyd succumbed to sleep, when the fire had reduced to a few measly embers, he couldn’t help but feel someone’s gaze on him in the dark.