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Kris struck the ground with a nasty thud that made their cheekbone hum and buzz real bad, like an old greasy guitar string getting plucked too hard. If anyone had actually been around to see it they probably would've winced.
It took a few blinks, but they eventually managed to peel themselves off of the chewed-up asphalt and kept on trucking, because they had places to be tonight— well, one place in particular, somewhere better than their house, which is where they should've been. Just one last little errand left to run before the night was up, and the holiday got kicked down the road again like a bottle on the ground, at least until next year, when we'd all get dressed up again and pretend to care about all the families who've sent out their annual cards, showing off lives on the hazy margins of our mind's eyes.
They pushed and pulled and kneaded their hands together, smashing them against their cracked lips and trying to resuscitate their fingertips from the bitter wind chill with a few hot breaths. Drops of beady blood welled up, from fault lines across the skin of their knuckles. Everything was harsh and rough to the touch. If they were being honest with themselves, it was really stupid to not bring gloves— but using their bike had been a last minute call, and they'd been cooped up all day helping their mom get the house ready for hosting, so they hadn't even gotten a chance to gauge the temperature beyond their phone forecast, and that wasn't any good with a nasty wind like this. Only about twenty minutes (give or take) had actually passed since they'd mustered up the nerve to sneak out of the Dreemurr Family Christmas Eve party through the garage; they'd planned on just walking all the way through the woods to Brokeback, but they'd spotted their bike leaned against the wall with all the other old junk and realized they'd get there in a quarter of the time if they just rode. It took some grimy hands-on work to get things going, since their bike was a mess of fogged-up, frosty metal, cobwebbed-spokes, and soft tires, like an old horse that needs a bit more time to get up to a gallop. If they had their license, they could've just driven, but they'd been putting that off for a while because they didn't particularly enjoy the idea of finally seeming 'mature enough' in their mother's eye to be forced to run awful errands on awful interstates with interchanges that would kill you if they got the chance. Especially on a night like this, with all the black ice and potholes and lack of light and other shitty winter-isms. Why the hell do we wish for white Christmases, anyways? In Kris' mind, they were entirely a pain in the ass: a slippery, frigid nightmare that made the mass migration from house A to house B which the holidays entailed infinitely more difficult for only a mild aesthetic comfort. What gives?
It was a nasty sheet of ice that had made them topple over in the first place, anyways (although they had also just tried to cut the street corner between the Hospital and the Town Hall a little too tight). They were rushing because wanted to gain enough distance so that their mother couldn't reasonably call them back to the house. Well, kind of— they were also rushing because they wanted to see Ralsei really, terribly badly. There wasn't any special occasion, or reason they needed to see him, per se, but the urge was bad that it scorched through their calves and stomach like licks of fire as they pedaled and panted; ashy saliva dripping all over their skin that burnt right through to the bone. So even though their cheek was all scraped up and their knees ached with each new bend, they kept on pushing, as fast as they could manage, whirling around the bunker and further out into the woods that ran parallel to the highway.
The ranch at Brokeback would ordinarily be about a fifteen minute drive, which might be equivalent to a forty-five minute bike ride, but that was only if you didn't know the back roads and little cut-throughs and root-riddled nature paths that you can only really get to know when you've been biking through the same town your whole life. So Kris was pretty confident they could be there in thirty-five, thirty if they pushed it harder. Since they were already about halfway there, they fired off a quick "b over in 15" text to Ralsei, even though Ralsei had told them to not bother coming when they'd texted him about it last night.
In a perfect world they could've just invited Ralsei to the family party, but he was really adamant about needing to be close to a source of darkness for his existence to remain stable, and in the aftermath of dealing with the Roaring the only trace of darkness which still bled over to the Light World came from way up on the peak of a small mountainous stream called Brokeback Fountain. It was a place Kris had grown up going to, actually— there was a small ranch on site that Asgore occasionally bought stock from, and Kris had ended up getting discounted horse-riding lessons from there as a result, since they'd always loved animals and Asgore figured it might help them exercise a little more. The guy who owned it and managed it on his own was a strange old skeleton who went by Dr. W.D., or just Doc for short, though nobody seemed to know what he had his doctorate in, or anything about his past, really. He'd been living out on the edge of Hometown forever— Asgore said he'd known Doc even as a kid, and he'd always lived out there on the ranch, tending to his tasks silently but with care, always leading a modest, simple, satisfied life. On that awful day when Kris had carried Ralsei's limp body from the ruins of Castle Town out to the Fountain, rigid and frosty to the touch, Doc had intercepted the pair in the middle of the woods, somehow, and offered to take in Ralsei at the ranch and care for him, at least until he was feeling better. He didn't want any payment or anything; he just said his old wooden cottage had been feeling a little more empty as of late, and that the mountain air would be good for Ralsei's health. So that's where the goat boy had been staying for the past month or so, a little weak but still alive, running little errands and taking care of the a small assortment of livestock. He said he was enjoying himself. Kris didn't think he really meant that, but there wasn't very much they could do, and Ralsei was adamant about not leaving the ranch under any circumstances. It was frustrating— though it was understandable that Ralsei was a little rattled from the whole near-death-experience thing, he always refused to budge whenever it came to expanding the possibilities of his own life, or even just when it came to talking about himself beyond the most abstract and general of terms.
Kris tried to get out to the ranch as much as they could, but it was tough to schedule with school and the like, especially since Toriel was still skeptical of anything related to the Dark World. So they always had to bike alone, and they reckoned they'd only been a handful of times, and they'd only gone with Susie once. Maybe that was enough, and maybe they should just be grateful to have that time, but they weren't. Every time they pedaled away from their friend back into town it squeezed on their lungs real bad, until it stung and they couldn't breathe at all, and sometimes they'd even have to blink over and over again until all of the hot sensation in their tear-ducts had subsided. Why him? is a question Kris frequently asked themselves at night, when they pulled on their sheets and pillows and prayed that somewhere in their dreams there'd paws full of warm fur waiting to push back. Why did Ralsei had such an effect on Kris, a sort of emotion that nobody else seemed to be able to pull out of them? Perhaps it was too tangled and psychoanalytic of a question to peg a quick answer to, but they tried anyhow.
There were still details to be worked out, but they'd been work-shopping a hypothesis for a while now that everyone in Hometown saw them as an extension of their own investment portfolios, as in, a stock to be traded and evaluated. Perhaps that sounds crazy, but they had real logic behind it: Kris had been one of the seven original humans in the flagship version of the Monster Adoption Program, which seems to be getting more controversial by the day, so therefore it can be reasoned that every monster in Hometown had a vested interest in making Kris a happy, productive, and upstanding member of society, such that their own social capital and political standing might be improved. So they were a stock in the sense that they needed to be managed carefully, with some mix of economic savvy and genuine care. All the other young kids were encouraged to be curious but never too curious with them, never too rough, told to handle Kris with soft hands but never with too much force, and to not bring them too tightly into hugs or punches, just a safe acquittance, never left out but never brought all the way in. All the adults were roughly the same, really, just with a additional edge of disciplinary punishment every now and then, enough to guard them onto an exalted path of high median incomes and demonstrably positive health outcomes. It was too bad they'd turned out to be a little shit and pretty mediocre at most of every hobby they were forced into having.
Now, there was one crucial exception to this, and that was Susie. She had such a good heart and gave such little little care to social convention that she just always just treated Kris without any particular pretense or preference; just a cool kid who did some cool things. Of course, when it really counted, she'd put her life on the line for them too. But increasingly Susie found herself pulled away from the outskirts of Hometown's social ecosystem, where Kris had made their home. It was really just because of a bunch of little things: she went to all of the track meets now, for example, and somehow Noelle had talked her into joining choir, where she mostly sang tenor because of how low her voice was, and despite her lazy protests Kris saw just how bright her eyes lit up when she sang next to her totally-not-a-crush. She'd been gradually becoming a part of Hometown High School's social crowd, easing her way into the fold of acceptability, and while she never failed to rope Kris into conversations or club meetings, they knew she'd eventually grow tired of dragging them around to stuffy panel-lit classrooms only for them to not have anything meaningful to contribute. It's just like hanging on to a bad investment; one day you learn to cut your losses and move on.
Then there was Ralsei. Notably, he was not an exception to the interrogative 'investment' framework which plagued everyone else in Hometown. He asked obnoxious questions; he was overbearing, he got too worried, he stuck his cute little nose in places it didn't belong, like their parental relationships and love life, he tried to micromanage their homework schedule, he wanted every detail of every day of their life. But it was different with him— everything was different with him. Kris didn't have any good words to use for it, or any definitive answer, or anything that could explain how hot their cheeks got as they finally pulled into the ranch's back lot and threw their bike carelessly against the half-rotted wooden fence, all soaked through with algae. It only made sense in moments. There was the one time back in the Dark World when they came to him heaving and crying, totally distraught, and he'd spent the next few hours giving Kris a full-body massage until they could fall asleep. Last week on the ranch he'd been teaching Kris how to do a basic two-step waltz, and when he'd taken their hand to begin, the goat-boy had stopped and just stared at it for a good minute straight, chalk-full of curiosities about all the little folds and cuts and wrinkles and veins, amazed by how woven clusters of skin cells worked. He was patient. He cared in a way that didn't expect anything, anticipate any outcome, hedge a bet on any particular result. It was a kind of care Kris wasn't used to receiving, and they didn't know what to do with it. So they just kept walking, circumnavigating the muddy front yard, jumping up the front steps laced with sheets of ice and right up to the side door of the veranda porch that Ralsei always used. They inhaled for four, held for seven, exhaled for eight, and finally knocked on the door, three times for good measure.
It only took a few seconds for the goat to come out with a quiet smile, the type he saved for the people he knew and cherished. He was bundled up in a pink sweater lined with silver-y tinsel and minty green pajama-pants, looking just about ready for bed. Kris barely had the chance to step inside before they were wrapped into a hug, a real tight one.
"You shouldn't have come." Ralsei laughed to no one, half-serious, half-kidding himself.
"Hey, don't patronize me. I know where I want to be." They snickered in turn. "Couldn't leave my cowboy alone on Christmas."
The pair waddled inside, blushing, brushing shoulders against each other, pretending every stolen touch was an accident and every little look was a strange twist of fate. Ralsei commanded Kris sit by the old brick fireplace for a moment, just to warm up for a bit, and so that they didn't get sick. They were only wearing a raggedy old flannel with a white t-shirt underneath and a pair of their brother's now ripped jeans— for better or worse, it was the closest thing they owned to festive formal-wear, and it was not made for weather like this. But after a bit of huddling into themselves and jittery small talk, Ralsei announced that he had packed up a small travel tent with snacks and blankets, and suggested that the pair of them might do a cute little Christmas Eve campout up on the higher parts of the riding trail, near the Fountain. Kris agreed, and even suggested they sleep and spend the night up there, since it was so late already. Ralsei was, unsurprisingly, quite amiable to this, and offered to go tack up the horses.
"Eh, don't bother with two. We can both fit on Smokey, don't you think?" Smokey was the massive, coal-black draft horse that Doc had purchased on a whim. She could be a little ornery but generally didn't spook at much, unless something really crazy happened. Plus, Kris was more than a proficient rider at this point. "You can have the saddle and I'll just, like, sit behind you. Or we could just go bareback, if you'd be comfortable with that. Not too long of a ride up to the Fountain."
The goat boy's ears fluttered, nervous and fickle, like flimsy antennas on a bug. "Oh, Kris, I don't know. I mean, I'm, y'know, I'm not a very good rider, a-and we'd be awfully squished. It's really no trouble for me to just get two horses ready!"
Feeling a bit cheeky— perhaps they were emboldened by the fire— Kris wandered over to a nearby coat rack and pulled off a frayed cowboy hat, fitting it onto their overgrown hair with a suave flip of the wrist. "Oh, c'mon, you've got a real cowboy over here. Cowthey. Whatever. Y'know I'm gonna keep you safe, right?"
"W-Well, uhm….I suppose if you insist!!"
It didn't take any further convincing for Ralsei to scurry off to the stables and re-emerge at the back of the ranch with Smokey on a lead, trotting along casually, all bridled-up but completely saddle-less. He held a fierce internal debate over whether he should wake up Dr. W.D. and ask for express permission to take out the horses at such an hour, but the Doctor had always been a very lax caretaker who had trusted Ralsei with full responsibility and dominion over the stables. Plus, Ralsei already knew Kris would be annoyed at the overwhelming nerdy-ness and need-for-validation which the act of asking would invoke.
Kris waltzed outside languidly, opting to keep the hat, amused as they watched their well-furred friend busy himself with hitching his hefty camping supplies onto the horse's back. As their eyes adjusted to the dim light, they couldn't help but notice that Ralsei looked a bit unkempt, or at least looked something other than his usual brand of hyper-hygeine— he had a few cowlicks of fur bouncing around at the back on his head, and some frizzy splitting at the edges of his coat, with a bit of yellowing in certain spots too. It was probably just because the poor boy had been about ready to get into bed, but Kris made a mental inventory of it anyhow.
Ralsei attempted to hoist himself onto Smokey's well-muscled back with a hop, but fell a couple of embarrassing inches short. He was getting ready for a second pass when he felt a pair of firm hands take hold of his midriff from behind.
"Ready? I'll give you a push."
With nothing more than a shaky nod, Ralsei pushed up once again; but this time, at the apex of his meager leap, he found himself temporarily loosened from the harsh pull of gravity, and he felt felt so free that he wondered if he was in flight, and if his horns might rip right up into the fabric of heaven. But magic can't last forever, so his stomach came back to Earth and hit the horse's bony spine with a thud. He threw himself upright with a shudder.
There was a grunt from below him, swiftly followed by the push of a shockingly muscular torso, which fit itself squarely against his hips and back. Kris gingerly took the reins from their friend's hand and tucked their chin into his shoulder.
"Geez, you're way too tense, Rals. You're gonna scare the poor horse." They whispered it into his ear, blowing empty air with a coy smile. "Chill out a little."
"Oh, gosh, sorry, Kris!" His brain was all dry haze and dizzy heat.
"Put your weight back a little. Like further into me."
"Mm, uhm, o-okay. Like this?"
"Yeah, perfect. 'Attaboy."
They patted his thigh; then, they urged Smokey down into the woods with a soft kick, where there wasn't much for visibility beyond their phone's flashlight. So while Kris couldn't see Ralsei, they could hear him breathing in-and-out all crazy, like a broken air-conditioner, and they could feel that his heartbeat was well out of ordinary time.
They trotted along like that for a while, mostly quiet, crunching through the frost, clenching their frigid fingers, pushing against the other's body for any scraps of warmth they could get, while pretending it was just the natural sway of the horse's body.
"Did you have a good time at the party, Kris?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure." They deadpanned it, the words thrown out lifeless on arrival, like a crappy paper airplane.
The goat-boy sniffled. "You don't sound so convincing when you say it like that."
"Eh. It was just kinda shitty."
"Do you want to talk about it? Too hot?"
Ralsei was quoting a little adage the two of them had invented with one another: a few weeks back, Kris had tried introducing Ralsei to the sport of wrestling, and while Ralsei had already been reluctant from the start, once he'd been pinned to the ground by his friend he'd screamed to be released; after profusely apologizing, he insisted that Kris hadn't done anything wrong, but that his own body and heart had gotten 'too hot' from the feeling of not being in control, and it had started to physically hurt after a while. So 'too hot' had become a sort of shorthand between the two of them for situations that were too uncomfortable to talk about, or that would disturb the peace of the immediate moment.
"Nah, it's…fine." They could hear the trickle of the Fountain stream from afar. "Just, I dunno. It's kinda weird without Dess. Y'know? She used to— like, back when me and Noelle were kids, she used to be the one who would interpret all the adult routines for us. Like, y'know, she'd show us when we were supposed to laugh, when to take it seriously, how to make it all actually entertaining, beyond just the presents and stuff. So, like, as soon as it was without her, it all just felt strange and foreign again. I'm just not good at all the small talk and family ritual stuff." They smiled, just a little. "I mean, by that logic, that means I'm still a child, which, like, fair, honestly."
They were greeted with a soft squeeze on the wrist. "Oh, gosh, Kris, I'm awfully sorry to hear that. I'm sure it's tough when you're alone to handle all of that social…maneuvering, and those kinds of things. It gets really scary sometimes! Especially because I know you're maybe not on the best of terms with everyone there. But, uhm, I hope you could at least make the most out of it, anyhow!"
"Not really."
"Well, I…I'm sorry. In that case, then, hopefully this little outing can provide you some…uhm, relief, I suppose?"
Kris smiled and ducked their head, accidentally knocking the tip of their hat into the temples of Ralsei's glasses. "Yeah. Like the sound of that."
It had only taken a few minutes for the two of them to pitch their tent; other than the dry wind which would blow in every so often, the conditions weren't too bad, since not much snow was left on the grassy knoll they'd opted to use. Ralsei had even brought a portable battery and a string of orange-y Christmas lights to hang up along the inside of the cramped old thing, which was festive fun and a practical lighting rig in equal parts, offering soft visibility without sacrificing, well, sleep-ability. Still, they had to prepare a rain tarp, since it was expected to snow overnight.
"Gosh, Kris, isn't the snow just magical?" Ralsei was in high spirits.
"Yeah. It's magical how fucking cold it makes me when it gets wedged in my socks."
Despite himself, he couldn't help but giggle at Kris' crassness. "Oh, come on. It's Christmas Eve and you're not even a little bit moved by the snow? No sparks of joy in your heart?"
Kris was smiling too now, prodding helplessly at a makeshift campfire that just wasn't seeming to catch. "Uh, no? Do you have a good reason to want to get snowed on?"
"Well, the point isn't practicality. It's…"
He stopped to think for a second, not quite sure he was ready for the depths of thinking he'd inadvertently waded into.
"It's sort of like…well, it's like magic, in a way. I know you said there wasn't any magic in the Light World, but snow seems like magic, sometimes. Because you have all these…y'know, routines, and errands to run, and sights you're used to seeing, and then all of a sudden there's this white powder everywhere, and suddenly everything's all thrown up into question! It's like some kind of divine intervention, from way up above us. I think it makes me remember not everything's under my control. Like, no matter how good of a weekly schedule I can make, or no matter how good science gets, or anything like that, life can never be 100% predictable. There's always a chance for everything to flip itself around. And that's kind of beautiful, in a way. I don't think it's a bad thing to be inconvenienced every once in a while."
"Damn." Abandoning their fire for the time being, Kris zipped down the tent and slipped inside, gesturing for Ralsei to follow. "I always forget how smart you are."
The two of them lounged around for a while, preparing lackluster s'mores, gorging themselves on grocery-store popcorn, giggling and kicking and sharing stories under the soft haze of the lights. Their sleeping bags drifted slowly closer as the minutes burned away, though not from conscious effort; it was as if they were magnets, with a life of their own.
After a particularly stupid pun from Kris, which garnered far more squeaky laughter than it deserved, the human drew silent for a moment. Maybe it was just the hallucinatory pulse of the early morning, but they were feeling a little bold, and so they asked something they really knew better than to ask.
"What if you came back with me tomorrow? Just for Christmas. You'd like it."
But they were only greeted with that same old pre-canned smile. "Oh, Kris, I'd love to, honest, but, you…you know I can't go so far away from the fountain. I'm sorry."
"Why?"
The goat-boy winced, like he'd been slapped. "I, uhm…too hot."
"Nope. Not letting you play that now. This is too important."
"Kris! Please?" He yipped like a puppy. "Look, Kris, I…uhm, I just want to have a nice evening with you tonight. I want this to be a place where you can put your worries aside for a few hours. I really appreciate the offer, really, but please don't worry too much about me."
"Bullshit. Gimme an actual answer." They grinded their teeth, spitting out words between their canines, harsh, unruly, taught, like arrows from a hunter's bow.
"This isn't enough, Rals. I want more than this place. More than Brokeback. I want more than once a month. I want…more of you."
Like a child, Ralsei gnawed on his fingernails with his front teeth, trying to make it hurt bad enough that it would stop the hot tears and snot which were suddenly at risk of dripping down his face.
"Kris, you know I'm not— this isn't— I wasn't ever meant survive the sealing of the Dark Worlds. You…you know that." His voice was a frail, ugly chirp, that felt like barbed wire in his hot throat. "I've overstayed my welcome. This isn't…I'm not…really alive. Not like your family and friends are. I don't…I don't have stories like them. I don't have a real life like they do. So, please, don't worry—"
Wordlessly Kris pulled themselves out of their ratty sleeping bag and crawled on all fours to where Ralsei laid. They straddled his body, pushing his shoulders down tight against the vinyl tarp with their hands.
"Kris?"
"Fuck all of that. Seriously. Fuck everything you just said. You're…" They looked at the terrified boy beneath them in a daze, studying his features, more closely than ever. At such an intimate distance they could make out the heavy bags under his eyes, layered and folded like those rocks that are millions of years old, and the sharp tinge of his breath, not as minty as usual. They looked all over, over and over again— his heavy, watery eyes, his wet nose, his shaky eyebrows, his polished, pink horns, his puffed out cheeks, blushed and warm, the ungroomed fur around his open mouth, the shallow little breaths he could manage. He was the prettiest person they'd ever seen. It didn't feel right to be able to behold him like this, so vulnerable; it was the sort of scene that belonged in movies and high-art, not in the eyes of a dirty loser like them. And yet, here they are, despite everything. So they kept talking.
"Look, I don't know if I believe in the Angel, or a God or anything like that, but someone as good as you, Rals…it's gotta some kind of sin for you to not take a chance on really living. You're so good, Rals. You're so smart. You have the best heart of anyone I've ever met. And, like, you're so goddamn handsome. You can't keep that hidden from the world. I honestly think it's gotta be some kind of moral crime. It's…a sin. Someone like you deserves to be loved. Really, really loved."
The pair stared at each other for a while; really, really stared, deep beyond the glassy eyes, to something beyond, something spiritual, something way out of this place. It pulled their faces closer and closer until there was nowhere left to be found in the world except for each other's lips.
Their first kiss started with the clinking collision of teeth, but after a second they began to settle into the strange contours of each other's mouths. Kris led the charge with the invasion of a warm, dry, desperate tongue, which was gleefully received by Ralsei. They squeezed each other's stomachs and hips and rears— they nibbled, they pushed and they pulled, and they didn't breathe very much— Kris growled and Ralsei bleated, pathetically, uncontrollably, inconveniently, not out of hope or expectation, but pure, simple desire, pure necessity.
Then they collapsed into one another, Kris dropping onto their friend's stomach with a thud. And they laid just like that for a good few minutes, and while it was technically a period observed in pure silence, if you'd asked either of them in the moment they would've told you it was overwhelmingly and unconscionably loud, a mental wall of noise on noise on noise. But it was Kris who broke the silence, eventually.
"When's the last time you showered?"
Ralsei shuddered, feeling what could be most closely approximated as motion sickness. "I can't…Kris, please. I can't do this to you."
"Ralsei. Please, man." There was a harsh break in their voice, the type they hadn't experienced since they were a pimple-ridden pre-teen. "Even if— look, I don't care if you want nothing to do with me, but I want you to take care of yourself. I need you to do that."
Silence. Then,
"…I haven't gotten out of bed in…i-in two days. This is— I wasn't— I wasn't going to, until you called. So, I—"
He blew a massive stream of snot and mucus out from his nostrils, dirtying his own sweater, coughing and choking and losing himself entirely in ugly, disgusting, awful sobs. It was a meltdown that a toddler might have.
But Kris wasn't angry, or even very emotive at all. They simply rubbed their friend's shoulders and back for a while; they propped him upright with a gentle push and slowly helped him remove his sweater and then his pants, until he was left only in a pair of cotton boxers. After quickly stripping down themselves, they took Ralsei's hand and guided him through the narrow entrance of the tent, out past the dying embers of the fire, out past the post a now-sleeping Smokey was hitched to, all the way out to the Fountain.
It was a dark body of water, about twenty feet across and five deep, black and slippery but crystalline, and very fresh. When the stars caught the edge of the current they refracted and split into millions of pieces, scattered and reborn across the infinite deep, drowning in their own endless light.
Kris eased a toe into the water— it was frigid— but they kept stepping until they were submerged at shoulder length, and gestured for Ralsei to follow suit.
"Come on. I know how to wash fur real good. I grew up in a family of goats, remember?"
Ralsei could barely stand the harsh shock of the frigid river, but the rare tinge of warmth in Kris' voice kept luring them deeper and deeper, until they were all the way inside.
"I…"
"Huh? You say something, Rals?"
"I love you. Kris." It was only a whisper, fragile against the harsh brush of the wind above. "I'm sorry if I'm not supposed to say that. But I love you so much."
A wicked grin crossed Kris' face, brighter and giddier than what any of Kris' acquittances would've ever told you was possible, Ralsei included. "I love you too. Really love you. My…sweet lil' cowboy."
And so they washed each other, just like that, sharing a dented bar of minty soap, scrubbing each other's hard-to-reach corners and overtired heads, exchanging thousands of little touches as big and bright as all the stars in the sky. They'd almost certainty both come down with a cold in the next few days, but they were so warm inside that they knew they'd both come out of it just fine eventually.
Towards the end of the night, while they were just about ready to pull themselves out of the Fountain and start drying off, it began to snow. It dripped down from Heaven, slow, cautious, patient.
Kris pointed up, straight up, reaching out to the stars and the snowflakes and all the other light that remained in the world. "Damn. It really is pretty."