Chapter Text
Dispatch hates romance movies.
Absolutely despises them.
The plots themselves are fine, he can't find anything outright offensive about them.
But something about seeing the characters kiss, laugh with each other, or share "that special look in their eyes" just makes his skin crawl. He can bear it for a little while before he needs to storm out of the room and spend time doing anything and everything else to get it out of his system. Burying himself in his work was the easiest option. Depending on the scene, it can take minutes, to hours, maybe even days if it was a particularly "bad" one.
When he watches them with Arnold, be it they just came on the TV or Arnold chose the movie, they get a bit more.. tolerable. He still can't stand hearing them whisper sweet nothings or profess their love from the highest rooftops, but it's not so overwhelming that he needs to leave the room. Instead of focusing on the screen, Dispatch can just look at Arnold.
He can watch Arnold's eyes widen in surprise at sudden confessions, and observe how his gaze softens at the final kiss before the credits roll.
Studying the reactions someone is "supposed" to have at these movies is.. akin to watching someone play with fire. Dispatch doesn't want to get burned, heavens no. Who wants to do that? But seeing the way Arnold lights up and willingly decides to dance with the flames is a spectacle all on its own.
…And maybe, just maybe, after enough watching and studying and observing.. he'll be able to burn too.
Everyone wants to burn. That's what he's been taught. If you're not burning, you're cold, waiting for the warmth of your own fire or basking in the heat of others while you wait. Or trying to steal some for yourself. And Drew isn't cold, he's perfectly fine, really. But he's supposed to be cold. By all accounts, he should be freezing. But he's not. He doesn't crave the fire. It crisps his clothes and leaves blisters behind instead of catching on him and letting him burn like the rest.
They all light up like bonfires once they catch their spark. They dance, they flicker and everyone watches on in awe as the shadows they cast dance along the walls with them. And Drew watches on in his sweater, pretending that he's cold while he practically boils and wants to claw his way out of his own skin.
At least Arnold isn't burning, either. He's not alone in this. The two of them can be "cold", together.
Arnold's the only one between them that can actually feel cold. Having already burned once, he might feel it even more closely than other people.
Funnily enough, he didn’t dress like it. He wore his heart on short sleeves, thin pants, and barely shivered. The only indicator that he was cold at all was how much he sought out warmth.
Arnold would bask in others' recounting times of laughter, or sparks flying at a kiss. Their recollections of that special look they shared before suddenly bursting into flames, when they knew that they'd finally found warmth at last. He’d share their smiles and nod along, prodding for more stories. In the light of the fire, it almost looked like he was burning, too.
He also spent time with people already burnt. Charred wood, like him. They shared tales of fires that fizzled out, those that were doused by water or smothered until nothing was left but ash. The smell of smoke and a time long gone was enough for Arnold, on these days.
And Drew watches. He watches Arnold sit dangerously close to the campfire, rubbing his arms and trying to heat himself up. He studies the way Arnold clenches his teeth to prevent them from chattering before he grins. He observes how Arnold reaches out to the flames and lets them lick at his fingers before pulling away with barely a sootmark on him. His hand trembles. And Arnold looks so, so cold.
To Drew, “cold” was an entirely alien concept. But from what he's heard, he knows it must feel awful. Suffocating. The pins and needles of frost must have hurt so badly; it was the only reason to explain why people ran at him with lighters and gasoline when he explained he's never caught fire.
He sees Arnold standing there, watching people dance as their flames engulf them. He hugged his arms for warmth, curled in on himself, and shook.
It must be painful.
It certainly felt painful, standing there, watching someone he cared about freeze.
Drew's previous attempts at burning- or, people’s previous attempts at burning him, had ended in disaster. His charred clothes and used up bandages were proof enough of that. He could still remember what it felt like, frozen still and helpless as someone tried to warm him up; and instead of getting warmth, only getting hot, blistering pain.
But Arnold was worth that pain. He was worth that pain and more.
So he gathered lighters, he gathered matches, flint, steel, anything that could somehow set him on fire. Give him something to stop Arnold’s shivering. Arnold would be far less interesting if he froze to death, that’s what he told himself as he gathered more matches. He cared about Arnold, but he couldn’t have cared about him that much. If Drew really cared, then he wouldn’t need to resort to such measures to warm him. Drew would have just burst into flames, and that would be the end of it. So Drew didn’t care about Arnold that much.
He clicked lighters against his clothes, scraped matches against his skin, clacked flint and steel and threw it away once it wouldn’t make sparks. Bandaids and subtle cloth patches in his sleeves were all he had to show for his efforts.
And Arnold was still cold.
Arnold would need to leave soon. That’s what people told him, once they explained the cold. People who are not burning could sit by other people’s fires for as long as they wanted, but they’d need a fire of their own, eventually. Everyone did. There was no substitute for one’s own fire; the fire of friends, blankets, jackets, nor sweaters could truly keep out the cold. They just weren’t enough. That was the reason everyone needed a fire for themself.
Otherwise, they’d freeze.
That was the way of the world.
Catch fire, or freeze.
Drew had been here before. With someone, at risk of freezing. The ends to their stories were never.. Happy. Regardless of whether or not people found their own fires elsewhere or simply let the cold overtake them, they’d be leaving Drew either way. The issue only got worse, since..
Well, Drew was cold.
Everyone said he was cold. And so, he was cold.
A freezing person wouldn’t want to spend time with something that would only steal more heat away from them. Their first instinct would be to seek out a flame, with shelter, to shield them from the chill. Nevermind the frost that clung to their wrists and silently begged for them to stay.
Drew had lost many people to the cold. To his nature.
To what he lacked.
He refused to let that happen again.
The harder Drew tried to catch on fire, the worse the results got.
Quiet dinners only left him feeling hollow inside afterwards, when the both of them went to sleep, and Drew knew he still felt nothing different.
There were supposed to be candles, but after the flames nipped his fingers, he put them out and elected to go without them. He was mentally kicking himself as he ran the burn under cold water to prevent any further injury.
One time, he put on Frank Sinatra. “For background noise”, that’s what he used as an excuse.
Really, he was hoping to invite Arnold to dance. The songs were a popular choice, for people trying to make sparks fly. Drew would catch fire then, certainly. And then he’d be able to keep Arnold warm. That way, Arnold wouldn’t need to leave for a fire of his own. Nothing would need to change between them. Arnold wouldn’t be consumed by another’s flames, put in a state where Drew couldn’t reach. And worse, where Arnold wouldn’t want to be reached.
But, instead of dancing..
There was nothing.
Arnold only closed his eyes where he sat on the couch, resting his head on his hand as he listened to the music. He brought his legs up to lie on the couch, and absentmindedly tapped the cushions with his free hand, as if stuck in a trance.
Drew didn’t want to disturb him. All he could bring himself to do was watch, drink in the strange sight and try to figure out just what caused this kind of reaction. It certainly didn’t have any sparks.
A few days later, and with some careful prodding, he got his answer.
As it turns out, Arnold had danced with another to this musician. These songs specifically.
Their flames cast soft shadows on the walls as they swayed gently in their living room, warming the whole house enough for their little one just a door away.
And Drew brought the spent kindling and ash out from the long burnt-away fire pit, in an attempt to start a new fire.
He’d never seen Arnold look so cold.
Things went back to normal after that. As “normal” as the two of them could be, in a world where everyone was expected to burst into flames.
Drew continued to cook alive in his sweater, pretending that he was as cold as he should have been. Arnold kept moving on, playing with fire after fire after fire while never truly being warmed. One day, Arnold would find someone who set off a spark, then he’d go bask in his own flame, leaving Drew only able to watch, and just barely understanding why people hated the cold.
—
The clock ticked away on the wall of Drew’s home office. Tick, tick, tick, off and away, into the night.
Earlier, the second he got home, he threw off his jacket to try and cope with his overheating, followed it to his desk where it landed, and draped it over the back of his chair. He kept the old thing on all day, slowly accumulating more and more heat until he felt he was going to explode. Thankfully, in his own home, there was no need to keep up appearances. Hence the haphazard throwing. But despite his efforts, and the fan pointed right at his face, the room still felt swelteringly hot.
He was working on the schedules of a few different drivers; the task was offloaded to him by a manager who swore this was the last time they’d ask for help. They'd pay him back for it later, Drew just needed to fill it out and let them sign off on the document, and that manager would owe him a favor. So, he squinted his eyes and stared down at the time-blocks that were beginning to blur and melt together.
He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling, pinching the collar of his shirt and pulling on it a few times in quick succession. It did little to help; the air only flowed over his collarbone and a smidge of the way down his chest. But, it was something.
It was a bad idea to watch that movie. He could barely focus. Adding insult to injury, everything- from the air around him, to his seat below, even the fabric of his clothes- felt sickeningly warm.
Still, there was no making up for lost time now.
He’d just need to.. Push through it.
Get this page done, and then he could sleep. And maybe turn down the thermostat first.
He twirled his pen in his fingers and sat up to work.
A small smile flickered across his face when he read a name near the top of the list: Mr. Adlawan. Drew knew him very well. He could pen him in.. ah, there. A brief, eight hour shift that was one technician short of a full team. He’d fit in there like a glove.
The other shifts, well.. he could go down the list and fill them in that way.
Mr. Adams, available on Wednesday and Thursday. There were open shifts on both of those days, so Drew scheduled him for both. That’d be.. Two 12 hour shifts, nearly back-to-back? He’d be fine. Mr. Adams was a tough fellow, from what Drew heard. At the very least, he survived every other time Drew scheduled him.
Next, Mr. Bingham. Free from Tuesday to Friday, how fun! Drew scratched his pen tip against the page. The ink from his pen got quickly absorbed by the paper, feathering out lightly around the curves of Drew’s numbers. He could work 10 hours each day, and coupled with what he already had planned out, that would be… 55 hours total for this week!
Then, there was Ms. Carter-
Ah, wait…
Drew squinted his eyes at the paper. There wasn’t a Ms. Carter on the list. Looking further down, he did find a Mrs. Farnsworth, with a note to give her the same hours Ms. Carter used to take.
…good for her.
He quickly wrote down when she’d be spending her time; eight hours, starting early Monday morning, that odd six hour block on Wednesday.. And..
Drew stared down at her name, reading it over and over and over.
Mrs. Farnsworth.
He didn’t know her while she was still Ms. Carter. He certainly didn’t know her as Mrs. Farnsworth. All he had was the habit of penning her schedule every now and then, always after Mr. Bingham and before Ms. Davis. It was only a collection of names with numbers following after them, organized alphabetically for the former and by day for the latter. A neat system that he could follow as easily as calling out the colors of the rainbow.
But, now…
Ink pooled on the page where the nib sat. It started out as a small black dot and threatened to bloom further beyond, like mold over damp walls, should the pen not be moved.
Drew quickly raised his hand and huffed at himself.
He was being ridiculous. First that movie, and now this.
The romance in that movie wasn’t that pronounced. At least compared to others. The dynamic between the female and male lead was just as one would expect. Some banter, growing closer, and eventually wanting more than just “close”.
They only kissed and got handsy before the camera cut to another scene. Nothing explicit was shown on-camera. By all accounts, he should have been fine.
And yet here he was, shaking his pen back and forth between his index finger and thumb like a twitchy metronome. He just couldn’t get that saccharine sweetness out of his mind. It stuck to the inside of his skull like molten candy and dripped onto the rest of his body. His overheated imagination turned it into phantom fingers that ran down his arms, over his ribs, around his lips-
It was wretched. It was awful. And the room was entirely too hot.
Just a single letter.
It was only a single letter.
The letter r, and a new name, lower on the schedule.
Such a small change, such an inconsequential change. But it crept down his spine and burned at his clothes like he were being used to light a match.
Drew forced his hand to the buttons on the fan’s base. His finger thudded against the “Raise Speed” button, over, and over, and over until the fan was whirring loudly and spinning its blades as fast as it could.
The whirring took up the entirety of the room, even blowing away the ticking of the clock.
He lowered his head and stared blearily into the wind for a moment, before his eyes were forced to shut from the force of the gale.
A blissful chill spread over his skin, hitting his face and barely grazing his neck and collar. Drew sighed in relief and put down his pen, undoing the button at the very top of his shirt to let more of the cold in.
A soft knocking suddenly cut through the whirring.
He sat up straight and held his shirt closed, looking to the source of the noise.
There stood Arnold, his hand still posed to strike against the entryway. He changed into his pajamas- or more accurately, indoor clothes. A simple white t-shirt and shorts. It would look comfortable, save for the fact that Arnold kept one arm hugged around his torso and the other close to his chest for warmth.
“You’re still awake?” Drew asked, buttoning his shirt.
“So are you,” Arnold replied, gesturing in Drew’s direction with his hand.
Quietly, Arnold crept over to Drew’s desk, bringing his hand in to hug his other arm when he got in range of the fan.
Stopping just over Drew’s shoulder, Arnold peeped at the schedule that he certainly wasn’t supposed to have access to yet. “You’re still working?”
Of course he was. Drew nodded and looked back up, bringing his arm to cover up the top of the schedule with his sleeve. “It’s just a favor for a friend. It should be over quick.”
He examined Arnold up and down one more time, before narrowing his eyes at the other. “How come you’re over here? You look ready to pass out.”
“Oh, it was too cold for me to sleep.” Arnold briefly turned his gaze to the hallway, and gently stuck out his chin to point to it. “I was originally going to turn up the thermostat, but since you were awake, I thought I should ask you first.”
Drew balked at the suggestion. Turn up the thermostat? Using that would slow-cook the whole house with no hope of escape. He was already melting into his chair and using his fan to keep the heat at bay- he hated the thought of doing anything that would make the problem worse.
…but, he abhorred the thought of being a bad host even more.
“No, let’s not use the thermostat. I’ve got a faster way. Cheaper, too.” Putting down his pen and pushing himself from his chair, Drew started towards the hallway.
Arnold tilted his head at that last addition. “Since when did you care about..?” He shook his head; that was unimportant. “What are you planning?”
Despite Drew moving to leave, Arnold had stayed behind his desk. He was still huddled close to himself; the sight briefly reminded Drew of someone shivering in an igloo. Or maybe a cave, if the shadows cast from the lamp and the colors of the office were taken into consideration.
“I’ll start up the fireplace, and grab your blanket to put in the dryer. You can sit in front of it until the dryer’s done.”
Now that sounded weird. Arnold furrowed his brows and tilted his head further this time, to imitate the look of an eyebrow raised in suspicion. “You told me you hated using the fireplace.”
“Eh….” Drew glanced in the direction of the living room, clasping his hands and lacing his fingers together in front of him. “It’s not.. my favorite.” He admitted, his voice falling flat at the end.
“But!” He put on a smile and turned back to face Arnie. “It’ll just be for a little while, so it doesn’t matter. I can just hole up in here with my fan, or turn in early tonight.”
To his surprise, Arnold’s expression didn’t relax at his words. In fact, Arnold shook his head. “No, that’s not fair. And besides, you told me starting and stoking the fire was “annoying”. I’ll think of something else.”
He glanced around the office with a hand on his hip, as if the solution to his problem could be somewhere around him. For Arnold’s efforts, he found Drew’s jacket, humbly draped over the desk’s chair.
“Here, this looks good. I’ll just use this.” He plucked the jacket from the back of the chair, gathering it up in his arms.
The jacket was made of two fabrics; a soft, brown corduroy on the outside, and a fuzzy, yellow plaid cloth on the inside. The pockets on the front looked perfect for keeping his hands inside, and the jacket even came with buttons so he didn’t need to hold it shut himself.
Drew paused, his eyes drawn to the jacket just as much as Arnold’s were. He opened and closed his mouth silently a few times, his throat suddenly feeling too dry for words.
“...no. No, you don’t want to use that one.” With uncharacteristically soft footsteps, Drew came over, taking the jacket in his hands. He tried to gently pry it away from Arnold, but couldn’t bring himself to properly pull at the fabric.
“Why not..?” Arnold tightened his hold on the jacket, and looked at Drew in confusion. To his quiet surprise, he saw Drew staring down at the jacket with a faraway haze in his eyes. His eyebrows had lifted from some prior shock, while his lips were pressed into a thin line, somewhere between hesitancy and.. regret.
Drew didn’t answer. He was busy running his thumbs along a seam and feeling the texture of the corduroy’s lines. The seam was still strong, no signs of coming undone any time soon. It would keep the sleeve attached to the shoulder for a long time, should there be no outside interference.
“...it looks fine to me.” Arnold continued, lowering his voice. That seemed to snap Drew out of his trance; he looked up and stilled his hands. But that faraway haze didn’t leave.
Drew turned his head to the side, in the direction of the fireplace. His shoulders rose as he took a silent breath, before he returned his focus to the jacket. “It's too thin, so it won’t keep you warm. I’ll get you something better.” He explained, tugging on the sleeve.
The jacket remained firmly in Arnold’s grasp. He turned his head and leaned a little closer, trying to catch a better glimpse at Drew’s face. “You were wearing it just fine, earlier.”
When Drew looked up, the haze was split. From his softened eyes, to his barely open mouth, and the silent plea that refused to leave his lips, Drew looked like a key part him had torn, and whatever was kept behind it planned on coming out.
Drew swallowed, holding the tears shut in order to speak. “...I made this for a friend, a long time ago. When I gifted it to him, he gave it back a few days later. Told me it wouldn’t keep him warm.”
His gaze fell down to the jacket once again. It lingered on the stitching, followed the thread up the sleeve, to the shoulder, and stopped at a blank spot below the collar. When Arnold didn’t reply, Drew turned his head in the direction of the fireplace and forced himself to continue.
“He said he had something better for keeping himself warm at home, anyways.” The words fell out of his mouth, clattering and crumbling to the floor unceremoniously. They tasted bitter, like ash, but Drew slowly took them out one by one, in the same way one would politely spit out spicy food and drop it on their plate.
At those words, Arnold had to stop himself from digging his nails into the jacket’s fabric. It was innocent in this; the real target of his indignation was the utterly incomprehensible being who returned a homemade jacket. They were years away, far back where Arnold couldn’t reach. Unless…
“...I haven’t met this guy, have I?” It was a good thing that he was already whispering. Made it much harder for his anger to fully seep through his words.
Drew shook his head. “No, we haven’t been in contact much, a while after that. For reasons unrelated to the jacket.”
His hands reached up to adjust the collar, popping it up to look presentable. Against the crumpled rest of it in Arnold’s arms, it didn’t do much to help.
“We just… drifted apart, I suppose.”
Quietly, Arnold took a breath in and held it in his chest. Drew was too busy to notice; he was taking the cuff of the jacket sleeve and pressing it between his fingers, rubbing them back and forth against the fabric’s cords.
That other person did not matter right now. His anger would not fix how Drew was grieving. In fact, it would likely make it worse. He had someone more important to focus on.
Arnold let the air out of his lungs slowly, careful not to make too much noise. Loosening his grip on the jacket, he tilted it towards Drew, offering him some more fabric to touch.
“If it’s okay for me to ask..” Oh, how to word this.. Arnold lightly tapped his index finger against the underside of the jacket in thought. “..Why did you keep this?”
Drew picked up the offered fabric by the lappels, barely lifting it out of Arnold’s arms. “It’d be a waste to throw it out.”
He traced a faint rectangle around the plaid markings with his thumb, just below the collar. “After he gave it back, I made some adjustments so it’d fit me instead, and.. took out the part where his name would have gone.”
He turned the inside of the jacket towards Arnold, showing him the mismatched patch in the plaid he was tracing. It was a pale, worn out yellow, where the stripes stopped and continued on the other side as if nothing had changed.
A small smile began to play on Drew’s face, despite himself. “It’s silly, isn’t it? I got the idea from the lunchboxes we used to carry around as kids. Only instead of masking tape, there would be a clear pocket for him to slide in a piece of paper with his name on it.”
He continued to stare at the jacket. As he looked at the stripes and stitches, the smile drained away, leaving a forced nothing behind.
Just to see if he could remember, Drew took his index finger and pretended to write in the empty space. It traced out gentle arcs and stocky lines, copying a handwriting that wasn’t his own.
“I thought embroidery would be far too personal, and I was no good at the craft, anyway. So he was going to add his name in; that way, he could claim the jacket for himself.”
Drew stopped, his finger pausing where the stripes were growing.
“In the end, it was a good thing I didn’t try that out. The thread would have taken a longer time to remove.”
Even the stitches on the clear plastic were difficult. He had to snip the thread and pluck each scrap out with his fingers, one by one. Piece by piece.
Arnold stood there, waiting. The silence hung heavily in the room, keeping Drew’s head down to focus only on the jacket. He was tracing the outline of the missing name again. His thumb would creep up the side of the empty patch, then lift away and return to the lower corner. After a short pause, he’d do it again, only rarely changing it up to roam along the bottom plane.
Once it was obvious Drew had voiced all he wanted to say, Arnold shifted gears from listening to trying to articulate a response.
Coming up with comforting words should have been easy. Drew willingly gave Arnold everything he needed to know what was wrong.
From what was said, the right thing to do was to express sympathy. Say something that could make the pain go away. Something that could fix the situation.
If he couldn’t do that, and Arnold knew he couldn’t, then he at least needed to make it bearable. Make the pain hurt less, or provide a distraction without crossing the line into ignoring the problem entirely.
But what do you say, to something like this?
It would be an easy question to answer, if he were Drew’s friend. In his shoes, Arnold would apologize immediately. Apologize for returning the jacket, for saying he had something better at home, and for falling out of touch.
That last one wasn’t relevant to the matter at hand, as much as the salt in the wound stung. So, ignoring that for the time being, what Arnold needed to address first was…
“I’m sorry that he didn’t appreciate your gift.” The words felt foreign on his tongue, underbaked and clunky. Like raw clay. It wasn’t anywhere near how precise he wanted to be, so Arnold pressed on.
“And, I’m sorry he compared your jacket to something else.” Arnold’s hands dug into the bundle in his arms. The corduroy gave way easily, letting him bury his nails in the fabric with no resistance. “I mean- who does that? Not just returning a gift, but saying he had something better at home! How ungrateful could you possibly be?! He doesn’t sound like a good friend at all-”
He was interrupted by the sensation of Drew grabbing his wrist. Looking up, Arnold was surprised to find that Drew had torn his gaze away from the jacket in order to glare at him.
Drew’s eyes bore into Arnold’s. Watching. Studying. Observing. With a subtle hint of a threat. If looks could kill, Arnold would have been pierced to death with a thousand ice daggers.
The two of them remained in this stalemate for some time. Drew almost dared Arnold to keep talking. Keep running his mouth. Talk badly about his friend again, see what happens.
But nothing came out. Arnold stood there, frozen in place.
The longer Drew stared, the worse the atmosphere got. A chill started at the base of Arnold’s spine, and slowly crept up the rest of his back. It clawed and scratched, scraping itself higher and higher, until it reached the base of Arnold’s neck to wrap a frigid hand around the back of his throat.
But just as quickly as it came, the tension left. Drew grit his teeth and let out a breath in a short hiss, before letting go and taking a step back.
He softened his gaze and stared at Arnold apologetically, putting the guilty hand behind his back. “I’m sorry, I let myself get carried away. That was too much.”
“No, no- you’re fine. I started it.” Arnold waved away Drew’s apology with his hand, taking the opportunity to flex his wrist and check for damage. There was no lasting pain, just a weird phantom-pressure where Drew had grabbed. He didn’t know what he was expecting.
He adjusted the jacket in his arms, and offered Drew his hand, palm out and fingers outstretched.
“Can I start over? Please?” Arnold got carried away, much like Drew did. Granted, they had different ways of expressing that, but the general sentiment was the same. Arnold said too much to defend Drew’s gift, and Drew put his hand on Arnold to defend his friend’s memory. They were both even, in that regard. So, shouldn’t they start over, and try to do better this time?
Drew stood there, staring at Arnold’s outstretched hand in faint confusion and suspicion in equal measure. Out of everything he could have asked for, he wanted a do-over? Did Arnold really get over Drew putting his hand on him that fast?
By the looks of it, yes. Arnold lifted his arm once to bring attention to it, and stared at Drew as if he was trying to figure out if his question was heard.
He wouldn’t have blamed Arnold for getting angry at him. It was only natural. Drew had gotten angry, so it made sense for Arnold to get angry in turn. Even animals followed the rule of an eye for an eye. And yet, there Arnold’s hand stayed, offering an invisible olive branch.
Drew slowly extended his hand and shook Arnold’s, peering over every aspect of Arnold’s body language for any sign of hostility. “Sure, just.. watch your words.” His gaze steeled for just a moment, replacing the remorse with a flicker of the cold from before. “I know it might not sound like it, but he was a great friend. Let me make that clear, out of all of this.”
This time, it was Arnold’s turn to look at Drew in suspicion. He furrowed his brows and tilted his head to the side, shaking Drew’s hand in turn. It wasn’t an accusatory look, more the scrutinizing and perplexed blend you give when someone does math wrong on the chalkboard.
“Well.. alright. If you say so.” The jacket in his hand seemed to prove otherwise, but Arnold wasn’t going to push his luck by bringing that up.
Quick recap time, alright. Arnold could do that. It would be much easier the second go around. “Again, I’m sorry he didn’t keep your gift. And I’m sorry he said it wasn’t good enough.”
Drew flinched, withdrawing his hand and dropping his gaze back to the jacket. Arnold was wrong; it wouldn’t be easier the second time around, and in fact, he made it worse.
“It is good enough-” Arnold quickly added, raising the jacket up a bit for emphasis. “-I don’t know why he didn’t keep this. I’d want to keep this.”
“..you would?”
Arnold nodded, speaking with the same assurance one would have at saying the sky was blue. “I would.”
Drew couldn’t think of a reply.
At first, Arnold was worried he’d stepped out of line again. This jacket wasn’t meant for him, after all. Coveting things that don’t belong to you, even hypothetically, usually got people in trouble.
But instead of lashing out, putting on a front, or running off to start up the fire place, Drew was.. Standing there. Silent. Looking at the jacket and trying to figure out what had changed between his friend giving the jacket back and Arnold wanting to keep the ragged thing.
Arnold picked up the collar and turned it inside out, so that the blank patch would stare up at him. The stripes didn’t notice the intrusion among their kind, running through the inside of the jacket without a care in the world. He scratched lightly at the seams with his nail, revealing soft yet sturdy yellow threads keeping the mockery in place.
It should have been removed, along with the clear plastic. The patch was sewn on top of the plaid, instead of the plaid having a section cut out for the two fabrics to be sewn together. Keeping it in while taking away the plastic would have been much more trouble than it was worth.
And yet, it was there. Barely a scratch or a tear in sight.
Maybe Drew even redid the stitches after removing the plastic, just to keep the scrap in place; but that was just speculation on Arnold’s part.
He looked back at Drew, the other man still staring down at the jacket. Carefully, so as not to startle him, Arnold took a slow step forward.
Drew snapped out of his trance, eyes darting up to meet Arnold’s. His hands reached out to take the jacket away, but hovered too close to his own body to do so.
Arnold lifted up the collar to turn the patch towards Drew, then spoke.
“Why aren’t you angry at him?” He let the patch face Drew for a few moments, before letting go of the collar. “He basically took your jacket, chewed it up, and spat it out.”
His words almost returned to that wild, loud, run-away state he burst into during his first attempt at apologizing. While they still burned with that same amount of vitriol, Arnold took care not to repeat his past mistake. He used the whir of the fan as a point of reference, only letting his voice rise to being audible above the spinning blades, and nothing more.
“He should have known better than that.”
Drew shrugged, bringing his arms in and turning his head to the side. “He didn’t need to keep it, Arnold. I’m not beholden to someone accepting a gift I made, even if I put a lot of time and effort into it.”
Tsk- Arnold held back a breath and started tapping his fingers against the underside of the jacket.
Damn him for being right.
His friend didn’t need to accept the jacket, yes. But he could have been kinder about it. He could have said it didn’t fit, or that it wasn’t his style, maybe even that he didn’t like it but appreciated the effort.
He absolutely- did not- need to say that he had something better at home.
Arnold slowly let out a breath through clenched teeth. He was thankful to the fan for covering up the hissing noise. If Drew was not angry about it, then he did not need to be. Drew had already forgiven his friend, so Arnold didn’t need to hold pain that wasn’t his own against someone he’d never met.
Now that everything was out- the jacket, why Drew didn’t want Arnold to use it, everything- and had Arnold had put his frustration to the side, the air felt empty. Silence stretched between them, the fan only emphasizing the lack of human voices. There was nothing left to say, neither of them were finding something to do.
And Arnold was still cold.
“Let me see something.”
After making sure that Drew’s eyes were on him, and not staring at the fireplace through the wall, he began to unfurl the jacket.
The body of the jacket fell first, swaying lightly from the momentum, then falling still. It was followed by the sleeves, which slipped out from Arnold’s fingers to rest at the jacket’s side.
Drew was watching him with cautious fascination, studying the way Arnold held the jacket in his hands.
Arnold’s nails weren’t digging into the corduroy or clenching the fabric hard enough to leave wrinkles. He was holding it up with only the minimum amount of pressure to keep the jacket from slipping out. So, Arnold wasn’t going to tear it apart. That was good- Drew’s posture relaxed at that observation. Still, that didn’t explain what Arnold was planning.
“What are you trying to do?”
Arnold let go of one side of the jacket, pausing to answer Drew’s question. “You’ll see.”
He slid his hand through the upheld sleeve and pulled it over his shoulder. It hung loosely around his forearm and grew a bit snug past his elbow, but the underside of the corduroy felt surprisingly nice against his skin.
The other hand followed shortly after, going through its own sleeve. Once it made it out the other side, Arnold shrugged the back of the jacket over himself and adjusted the collar to sit out properly.
The jacket was far more suited to Drew’s proportions. The sleeves extended past Arnold’s wrists and the section over his shoulders clung a bit closer than he would have liked. But it was relaxed everywhere else, wrapping his body in a gentle embrace much like a blanket would.
Arnold looked down at himself, first at his front, then over his shoulder to look at his back. With his plain shirt and shorts, Arnold looked like he was just awoken from sleep and threw on whatever was closest in order to answer the door. But the feel of the jacket was exceedingly comfortable. He could imagine himself falling back asleep in it, not bothering to take it off before collapsing into bed.
“I don’t know what your friend was talking about, this is nice.” A few seconds of admiring the jacket later, Arnold turned to face Drew again.
He was holding his arms, but not to keep himself warm. It reminded Arnold of the way an animal might bring every part of their body together, before darting off into the bushes.
“You won’t get cold in that?” Drew narrowed his eyes, scanning everywhere it didn’t fit. A breeze could slip in past the buttons, worm its way up the loose sleeves or crawl down the collar. Not to mention, the material was somewhat thin. Would it even keep in Arnold’s body heat?
“Why wouldn’t it?” Arnold grabbed the jacket by the lappels and pulled it forward. “I’m not that cold, this’ll be enough for me.”
…
It would be enough..?
Drew held back a scoff and shook his head. “At least go and warm up your blanket. I’ll finish this schedule and wait with you in the living room.” He waved Arnold off with his hand, shooing him away like one might dismiss a dog that didn’t know any better.
“Fine by me; see you in a bit.” Ignoring or perhaps not caring about the gesture Drew just made, Arnold turned and left the office. The soft thuds of his footsteps echoed down the hall, growing fainter and fainter until they got muffled, then practically disappeared. That must have been Arnold reaching the carpeted stairs.
Satisfied with the distance between them, Drew turned around and returned to his desk. The fan whirrs covered up his own footsteps, only letting the rumble of his chair being pushed be heard.
Drew picked up his pen, scribbling on a nearby notepad to get the ink flowing again. After a few back and forths, the nib stopped indenting the page.
Now, it returned to writing as it was supposed to.
Lines curved into loops, which slowly got smaller and smaller, until the pen wasn’t moving at all.
“This’ll be enough for me.”
The direct opposite of what his friend said, all those years ago. His friend wasn’t a liar, and always had Drew’s best interest at heart. Drew trusted that friend with his life, so when he said that the jacket wasn’t good enough, of course Drew believed him in a heartbeat.
And yet, here was Arnold. Someone he didn’t know for nearly as long. Who he grew to care about through miracles and just bad luck on his part. A subordinate, to a roommate, to.. Drew didn’t know a word for what they were, now.
“This will be enough for me.”
…God.
Drew wanted to believe him.