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Sometimes, Natlan can be cruel at night.
The winds nip at banners and foliage with an aggressive bite, trying to tear off what little pieces they can, feeding a desperate storm that cannot be satisfied.
The winds demand a sacrifice, he used to say ironically. But as the fighting progresses and he feels the weariness in his own bones, aging all too fast like his parents before him, perhaps the Anemo Archon that granted his vision isn’t as benevolent as he once thought.
He’d give up his hat any day, all of them, even the clothes off his back and his entire career, his vision and his gun– As long as the sacrifice isn’t the one next to him.
Ororon so painfully far, ears flicking in fitful sleep.
No one could sleep under these circumstances. Especially not Ororon, slated to head right off into battle and bear his ancient name proud.
They didn’t even have beds, stationed at the stadium as they were. Not enough for all the injured, and not enough for all those who’d earned their rightful few precious hours of rest after nonstop war-efforts. The Pyro Archon herself proclaimed that everything would end tomorrow, with the help of the 6 heroes, she promised. Each of those heroes and all those considered vital to war recovery like himself, a vet, were ordered to rest tonight. Not that much rest would be had. At the very least they had woven fabric torn from merchant stalls, rough, scratchy, but better than those who slept with nothing but the clothes on their back.
He pulled the cover around himself tighter, shivering– Contrary to popular belief in other nations, Natlan is plenty capable of being cold. Especially when the Sun is blocked out by abyss. The fabric rustled heavy, thick woven material, simultaneously uncomfortable and bad at trapping heat. He can grit his teeth and force his eyes closed all he wants, but they’ll still chatter, and he still won’t be any more well rested for the surge in patients he’ll be expecting tomorrow.
“...Ifa.”
His eyes jolt open and Ororon is still where he settled down to rest on the hard clay floor, a few paces away. Only previously, Ifa saw his back. Now it was his face.
“I heard you shivering. Are you cold?”
It’s so characteristically Ororon to ask simple questions like this that sound like it could’ve been another random day in a sunnier world, even with the threat of tomorrow looming, Ifa can’t help but smile, because that’s just what Ororon does to him.
“Dude, it’s freezing.”
Ororon reaches a single hand out into open air as if to confirm the obvious, pulling it back into the meager warmth of his own cover. “Yea. I can’t sleep either.”
He sighs. “...Neither of us are gonna get any rest in this cold.”
“Yea… pretty bad.”
“You,” Ifa says pointing at Ororon, “Need to keep trying. You’re… too important.”
To me, he wants to add. But he doesn’t, because now isn’t the time or place. Love had no place on the battlefield. Ororon is better off leaving, never knowing how much Ifa worries and frets like all the other desperate housewives he’s seen left behind in war.
Ororon pouts, and it’s one of the few expressions his usually vague face will emote with any kind of significance. “Can’t. Too cold.”
He chooses to hold back his sigh this time, because it’s clear this conversation will get him nowhere. Natlan needed their heroes to be well rested for tomorrow, and that included Ororon, who’s currently pouting like a child.
Everyone’s too cold. He’s too cold. Ororon has a point, no one can sleep like this, but–
An idea comes to him, which he immediately wishes and dreads. Something he’d secretly thought about once, one faraway Natlan Winter ago. His blanket at home is so much warmer, but he still had this idea, it’d feel so much warmer with someone next to him.
Before he can stop himself, realize what a terrible idea it is, how it’s going to permanently stain this ‘friendship’ in something undoubtedly romantic– He picks up his cover, and drags it over towards Ororon. He settles his body on half the cover, and opens the other half up towards Ororon.
“I-It’ll be warmer,” he stammers explaining himself, and hopes that the faint lamps of the stadium hall are too dark to reveal his reddening complexion.
Ororon’s eyes go wide and for a terrible awful moment, Ifa thinks he’s made a mistake. This was a horrible idea and everything’s going to be awkward between them for the rest of their friendship, if Ororon even decides to continue being friends with him– Before he scoots off his own cover, joining Ifa on his, and throws his own overtop the both of them.
His friend is so quick to nuzzle into his chest and wrap his hands around his arm, Ifa thinks it’s almost like he premeditated it.
It’s an action so daringly more than Ifa thought he’d get. He thought Ororon would be reserved, that he himself was the fumbling goose between them, always putting too much thought into the single brush of fingers when exchanging mugs of mead–
He doesn’t dare to even consider that Ororon might want this as much as he does. He can’t, not with war at their footsteps. Ororon already had too much to think about, he couldn’t possibly put that on him.
It’d be cruel, he reasons. Ororon shouldn’t be thinking about me, he should be thinking about keeping himself alive.
Maybe that’s what Ororon thinks about right now, breathing so softly against Ifa’s bare chest, because of course there are no pajamas in war, and he’s not sleeping with his tight-fitted shirt closed. The skin to skin is almost too much, crossing into the territory of too hot and not the bitter cold they’re using as an excuse to come together like this.
At least, it’s an excuse to him. For Ororon, in Ifa’s both ideal and nightmarish world, this is just survival.
He wants to offer comfort, wants to ask his friend how he’s feeling about all this, but he’s just not Ororon. He doesn’t have the same ability to say whatever’s on his mind.
Perhaps Ororon can seek it for himself as his breathing evens out, grip loosening around his bicep, and Ifa can tell that he’s finally drifted off to sleep. His friend seems so much more at peace at rest, and Ifa wonders if he will wake up with drool on his shirt. Gross as it is, it’s simply Ororon, and he won’t mind.
His chin finds rest perched atop Ororon’s head, and he has to debate with himself, where does his spare arm go?
Internally, he does know where it goes. He’s always known. He’s thought about it, time and time again.
Cautiously, he wraps it around Ororon.
The other man doesn’t stir. Not even when, selfishly, Ifa pulls to draw him in closer, body to body, tangling their legs to feel Ororon’s cold limbs against his own.
Like this is how he can keep Ororon warm, and he scolds himself for worrying about a different circumstance where Ororon’s body might go cold.
Okay, even if he isn’t trying to proclaim his love right before his crush goes into a great battle he might not come back from–
Pyro Archon, Anemo Archon, whoever’s listening– Please don’t blame me.
Ororon will go to war, and he will stay right where he is now. Comparing one to another, it’s like comparing a withering purpurbloom to the dandelions he hears about in Mondstat. One blooms where there is death, living only after destruction has taken place. The other is fickle, its purpose involves dying young.
But Ororon can’t become a sacrifice of the winds, not yet, and hopefully not ever. It can’t happen while he’s still tucked away in Ifa’s arms, safe, where he should be.
The hero would best not be awake when his first tear falls, because part of being a vet is being strong for the sake of others.
He just needs one night.