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Agent cautiously stepped forward, she had found herself woken up minutes ago by a strange sound. Some soft thuds and an odd crackling noise, her intuition and gut instincts pointed towards an enemy, yet logically it didn’t make sense. They were in a wooden cabin in rural forested Quebec, who could have possibly traced them there?
She slowly descended the stairs, taking care with each step as she tightly held her Kunai. While her watch made her invisible, she never found herself to be above extra precautions. Once she reached the lower floor however, she came across a peculiar sight.
The fireplace was ablaze, as someone had fed the inferno in it, with some dry wood. That person in question was sitting in front of the fire, wrapped in a large and heavy blanket. They didn’t seem to notice her presence, as she inched closer to them.
When she was less than a meter from the individual, she recognized who it was, the team’s mechanical engineer.
She paused as she stood by his side. His glassy eyes stared into the fire, reflecting its dancing orange flames, as the fuel it fed on crackled and let off small storms of embers and ash. A small smile was on his lips, as he watched the excited blaze rise and fall in rapid succession, over and over again.
“Meccanico?” she asked curiously, “Is everything alright?”
He blinked as he heard her speak, before slowly turning to face his fellow mercenary. He looked confused, but also somewhat relieved.
“Yeah…” he spoke softly, “I’m alright”
Agent looked at him, not even saying a word, before sitting down right next to him. Kenneth looked slightly surprised by this, but turned back towards the fireplace, focusing on the warm flames within.
“I thought someone must have broken in.”
“Oh….” he said, “Sorry for waking you up. I really-”
“It’s fine Meccanico,” she politely cut him off, “I don’t believe the others have heard you anyway.”
They sat there silently together, basking in the warm glow of the fire, when Kenneth suddenly chuckled.
“Is something the matter?”
“No, uh, not really”, he said, “I just thought of something.”
She raised an eyebrow at this, intrigued about what was on his mind.
“What is on your mind?”
“It’s just a memory,” he said slowly, “something I remember…”
“Go on…”
He sighed and shifted under his blanket, thinking about how to put his thoughts into words, in a way that wouldn’t sound odd. He scrunched up his face as he tried to think.
“I..really liked fire when I was younger.”, he said finally, “I’d curl up next to the fireplace back then, sitting there and watching it jump up and down…”
His words trailed off as he looked back into the fire, his face easing up as the tension from mere moments ago seemingly vanished into thin air. Agent didn’t seem to mind it, she was quite intrigued in this little story, and was willing to wait for him to take his time. The others hadn’t woken up yet, and it seemed likely that they would be unbothered for a while longer.
“Anyway, yeah, it’s a habit I’ve had for a while…” said Kenneth, “Dad would call me a ‘firebug’ while Mom would call me a ‘curious moth’...”
He let out a chuckle as he reminisced on these thoughts, “I couldn’t really sleep tonight, so I’d figure that I’d let myself relax…”. He smiled as he stared at the fireplace once again, delving back into his thoughts, as an orange glow covered his face.
Agent didn’t say anything, but she moved herself closer to him, where there was merely a few centimeters between them. She slowly reached her arm around him, and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him closer to him.
He glanced at her, with an eyebrow raised, but didn’t go against it. He moved some blanket over to her, so that she could cover herself with, which she wordlessly accepted.
So they both gazed into the fire as they held each other, sharing their warmth under a blanket, and getting lost in their own thoughts. In peaceful and comfortable bliss.