Of Thieves And Do Gooders

Raven’s Point Of View

Snowflakes drifted down into my face and assaulted my eyes, I blinked them away and swatted at a few as I trudged threw the fallen snow, leaving muddy footprints in my wake. The ground was covered in a thin white blanket and there was a steady fall of flakes at that particular moment. It was pretty clear that the snow wasn’t stopping anytime soon, it would probably snow all through the night.

Where in the hell had Damion gone? I swear to God, once I catch that kid I’m going to strangle him with his own entrails…maybe his large intestine…My thought left when I came around the far side of the mansion. I could have sworn that Damion led the two kids back around to the front, and yet they were no where in sight. But maybe that was just what he had wanted me to think. If I snuck around the back instead and caught them from behind, or could find a decent place to wait them out…they would have to come looking for me eventually.

I thought about that and smirked devilishly. Around the back it was. I altered my course and started to walk through the snow again, now in the opposite direction. I made sure to stay in my old footsteps, so that I wouldn’t disturb anymore of the snow, since I had a sort of fascination with snow and didn’t like messing it up more than was necessary. Crunch…crunch…crunch…I halted at the back left-hand corner of the house and listened carefully, thinking that I had heard something similar to speech. A-ha, the fools thought they could talk while I was around, how foolish, I had perfect ears and was always vigilant.

I went into stealth mode and crept forward silently only allowing the quietest of sounds to emit from beneath my shoes. The soft crunch of the snow was something I couldn’t stop completely, but I had quieted it quite a bit. I realized the sound was being muffled by a number of things: 1) the snowfall and 2) the heavy beat of music rolling out of the house and causing the ground to quiver. As I got closer, I realized that the sound wasn’t so much talking as it was yelling shouting even.

“--lp!” I frowned and stalked forward a little more, to better hear what was being yelled. “--body there?” Then it dawned on me, the hole that the plumbers had dug, the one that I had almost walked into when I had first arrived at the mansion. I stepped carefully up to the hole and stopped, then dropped down on my stomach and shimmied forward from there, using the edge of the hole as leverage to pull me up enough to look down into the hole.

Instantly, I saw a head of golden hair bobbing around on the floor of the hole. Hayden was pacing at the bottom--or at least trying to, there wasn’t much room--and kicking up random tufts of snow in irritation. “Nobody’s coming outside when there’s fucking warmth and fun inside--and who puts a fucking hole out in the middle of fucking nowhere?” he asked himself and kicked the side of the hole. I stifled a giggle when a load of snow fell from the edge of the hole and landed on his head and one of his shoulders. That set him off into more swearing. With a sudden violent shiver of his shoulders, Hayden sat down, leaning his back against the nearest wall. He exhaled and I saw his breath pass through the air and disappear, even in the darkness I could see that his hands were red from the cold and goose bumps had formed on his bare arms. What kind of idiot went out into the snow without a jacket or gloves?

I thought about that for a minute and decided that it wasn’t that dumb…considering I was only wearing my cropped leather jacket myself. I turned my attention back down into the hole and observed Hayden for several long moments, admiring the contrast the snow made against his dark skin and the way the shadows adhered to his face and made him look mysterious, dark almost. And then I shook myself into rational thought and backed away from the hole, my face flushed from the cold, but mostly at my obvious staring problem, I felt like such a stalker at that last minute.

Now I stood up and approached the hole at a normal pace, my footsteps making more noise in the snow than I would usually allow. I looked down in the hole with raised eyebrows, Hayden was already on his feet, looking hopefully up at me. And then the hope disappeared and he scowled.

“Hi.” I waved at him and squatted next to the hole.

“Hi,” he muttered darkly.

“Sorry, were you expecting Santa Clause?” I mocked.

“No,” Hayden replied dryly, looking at the side of the hole rather than at me.

“Aw, is someone grumpy because they fell in a hole?” I asked in a baby voice.

“Shut up, just help me out of here will you?” Hayden reached his hand up toward me and wiggled his fingers at me, trying to get me to take his hand.

“Hold on there,” I said, as tempted as I was to take his hand and hold onto it, I stood up again. “You’re forgetting a little thing called ‘Physics’. And Physics says that me trying to pull you out of that hole is not only physically unlikely, but will result in both of us landing in there, and as much fun as that sounds, I think I’d like someplace less cold.”

Hayden scowled and dropped his hand back at his side, then said, “Well why don’t you go get Lee or something? He could lift me.”

“Good suggestion, but I have a better plan.” With that said, I turned and walked briskly around the side of the house where I found a sturdy looking bit of rope coiled and half-covered in snow. I picked it up and returned to the hole.

I dangled the rope triumphantly over the hole and Hayden rolled his eyes. “Whatever, just throw it down, it’s fucking cold out here,” he said harshly.

I shrugged and lowered the rope into the hole, but just as Hayden was about to grab it I jerked it back up, grinning. “It puts the lotion on the skin, or else it gets the hose again,” I said in a sleazy tone, quoting one of my favorite movies, Joe Dirt.

Hayden gave me a scathing look, but was trying to keep from smiling at the same time, which totally ruined the attempt. “Just throw me the damn rope,” he ordered with a quiver in his voice. Okay, he was getting cold and therefore cranky and a cranky Hayden wasn’t very much fun.

“Fine, fine,” I laughed and dropped the rope into the hole. I waited for Hayden to get a firm grip on it, planted my feet and made sure I was in a wide stance and then gave him the okay to climb up. Now that I think about that first test tug on the rope, it was a bad idea to let him try and put his weight against mine. Because the second all of his weight was pulling on the other side of that rope, my knees buckled and I pitched forward, my feet sliding across the snow with ease. I could feel the dread and embarrassment and even the fear wrench at my stomach when I toppled into the hole with a yell. I knew what was coming the moment I landed on something soft and warm that happened to speak and said elegantly, “Fuck.”

I jumped up and maneuvered so that I wasn’t on top of Hayden, and for the sake of something to do besides apologize, I grabbed the rope and started to coil it back up.

Hayden was on his feet in a matter of seconds, and looking desperately back up at the mouth of the trap we were in. Then he looked evenly back at me and we stared at each other for a long moment, something bubbling on the surface of Hayden’s emotions until he finally said, “Nice going Dumbass.”

“Me?” I asked incredulously, gesturing to myself in disbelief.

“Yes, you,” he poked me in the shoulder, giving me a harsh glare.

“You were the moron who pulled me down here!”

“And you said that you had the rope! ‘No I got it, go ahead and climb up’,” he mocked, waving his hands from side to side in a gesture that was obviously meant to make me look stupid.

“I do not sound like that,” I replied sharply.

“Uh, yeah, you do,” he persisted stubbornly.

“I do not.”

“Do to.”

“Do not.”

“Do. To.”

“Look at me, I’m Hayden, I like to act all tough but let holes in the ground kick my ass,” I mocked, prancing around the hole and flapping my hands through the air.

“Oh, yeah, real mature.”

“Your mom,” I said sticking my tongue out at him. “That was immature,” I informed him knowingly.

“You’re a stubborn idiot. You couldn’t just go get help could you? No-o, you had to do it all by yourself and make things twice as bad,” Hayden snapped, crossing his arms over his chest.

I saw him shiver and noticed that his teeth were chattering. I hesitated and swallowed hard, and before I could consider what I was thinking, I said, “I’m not going to snuggle with you just so you don’t freeze to death.” My stomach clenched.

Hayden looked up at me, surprised. “W-well good!” he said, faltering for only a second.

“Fine!”

“Awesome!”

“Great!”

“Grand!”

We took turns pretending to be ecstatic and then I turned around and drew a quick line with my foot across the bottom of the hole. “This is my side of the hole, you keep yourself and your gross little guy parts over there, on your side,” I ordered, making a brushing motion with my hand. With a huff of air I turned around to face the wall and sat down in the snow, my shoulders quivering due to the cold.

“Who said my ‘guy parts’ are little?” Hayden demanded heatedly, clearly insulted.

“I did,” I said simply, still not looking at him. The hole wasn’t more than a few feet across so I could almost feel his body heat resonating off of him.

“How would you even know that? You’re an idiot, you don’t know that,” Hayden said and I heard him drop to the ground in what I imagined was a pout.

“And it’s not like I want to either. You’re sick, as if I would even want to see you naked,” I retorted.

“Who said anything about seeing me naked?” Hayden demanded, startled. “You’re so random! What the hell is going on in that damn head of yours?”

I flushed and was glad that the cold easily covered that up, and the fact that I had my back to him. “Too much,” I informed him cheekily, without turning to look at him. I shook my head from side to side and flung snowflakes and drops of water everywhere.

“Hey, watch it,” Hayden complained and pushed on my back in retaliation.

“Don’t push me, I’m a girl, you aren’t allowed to do that,” I told him and finally turned so that I could glare at him.

Hayden was already facing me and had apparently been looking at the back of my head. I frowned when I saw that he was shivering more violently than he had been before. Quite suddenly, I found myself wondering exactly how long he had been sitting in that hole before I had come around.

“Sorry,” he muttered insincerely.

I ignored him. “Are you all right?” I asked skeptically, although I wasn’t exactly sure what it was that I was going to do about it if he wasn’t all right.

He looked for a moment like he was really looking at me, carefully, analyzing me, taking in every physical feature from my long eyelashes to my delicately pointed chin. I shifted a little, but held my ground and asked again once a whole minute had passed, “Hey? Did you hear me?”

Hayden blinked, and then asked, “W-what?”

“I asked if you were all right, you don’t look like it,” I informed him, trying to keep the concern from my tone and failing. Things seemed a lot brighter if I could just keep the atmosphere light.

“No,” Hayden said with a small chuckle. “I’m fr-freezing my b-balls off over h-here,” he finished, looking at the ground and brushing snow off of his shoulder, which was ridiculous because more snow just took its place. His arms were red now and the goose bumps didn’t look like they planned on leaving.

I clenched my teeth and played that sentence over in my head. “I…uh…didn’t really mean…what I said, you know…earlier,” I muttered, looking down at my red fingers, which felt like they were aching from the cold.
“W-what?” Hayden asked through chattering teeth.

“About the…f-freezing to death,” I muttered embarrassedly, aware that my teeth kept trying to chatter too, but I had a jacket so the cold wasn’t nearly as bad for me. Besides, I had spent plenty of Winters on the street, so I doubted this little bit of exposure would be so hard on me.

Hayden’s jaw tightened visibly and he looked at me, taken aback.

“I mean, that I won’t let you f-freeze to death,” I elaborated, with a blush. And if that meant…sharing body heat then fine, it wasn’t like it would be that unpleasant, just awkward. Incredibly and unbelievably awkward.

“I-I…Uh…th-thanks…” Hayden murmured, looking down for a moment and then he moved to get up.

“Wait, I’ll c-come over there,” I told him and stood up much faster than he could. I shuffled over to him and plopped down next to him in the snow. After that though, my mind sort of went blank, and just kept screaming, what are you doing? over and over again. “Here,” I said and grabbed his arm, noting that even to me his arms felt cold. Gingerly, I pushed myself into his lap and felt his muscles tighten in response. I ignored him and adjusted my jacket slightly before I hooked his arm around me beneath the jacket and did the same with his other arm. Next, I leaned forward and pushed myself against his chest and put my arms around his upper torso so that I was as close as humanly possible.

I could smell the faint scent of his aftershave when I leaned my head against Hayden’s shoulder, savoring the heat that was resonating from the skin on his neck. Absently, the tip of my nose touched the warm hollow at the base of his neck. I let out a breath and Hayden jumped slightly from where my breath had touched his skin. I didn’t bother to apologize, I knew bringing attention to the action would have just made it worse. After a tense moment, Hayden leaned his head down and buried his face into my shoulder and beneath my hair. I gave a slight shiver when his breath fanned out against my skin.

“Someone’s gonna find us,” I muttered, more so to myself, “then everything will be fine and you won’t lose any toes.”

“I l-like my d-d-damn toes,” Hayden replied slowly, like his brain was slowly shutting down.

I smiled faintly, thinking vaguely about how good he smelled and wondering if this is what it would be like all the time if...I shook the thought away. “Good, because you’re k-keeping them,” I replied after what felt like awhile. Hayden laughed softly against my hair and goose bumps rose on my arms, on impulse I tightened my arms around him, trying to make my skin return to normal. It didn’t work. Hayden abruptly returned the pressure, although I think it was an absent movement, because honestly, I was starting to think that he was drifting in and out. And it was starting to scare me.

____________________________________

Hayden’s Point Of View

Tired. Warm. Comfortable. No…not warm…cold…really cold. But still comfortable. I was an idiot to go outside in the dead of Winter without a jacket or a long sleeve shirt or something. But that thought wasn’t registering very well, at that point nothing was really registering.

Except the person in my lap. Raven was there and she was staying with me, in my head I mean, I wasn’t slowly forgetting that she was there. I mean how could I? There was a constant reminder every time she started to become less animate. She would shiver, or exhale, or move a little bit or talk and suddenly she would come rushing back like she had never left. And she was warm, so goddamn warm that I didn’t want to let go, not with the bitter bite of the snow waiting for me when I did. And she smelled good, or at least her hair did, since that was the closest thing to my face, I hadn’t really noticed it before.

I couldn’t let Damion have her. Not now, not when I needed her most. No, not ever. If she ended up hurt…It wouldn’t last anyway, he was so flaky when it came to girls. But what then? Keep them apart and then leave it at that? What about Laura? I pictured Laura vaguely in my mind and then ignored that picture.

I think I drifted asleep once, but woke up when Raven said something about losing my toes. “I l-like my d-d-damn toes,” I replied without thinking much about it. Everything was so hazy.

Raven seemed to shake herself out of something and then answered, “Good, because you’re k-keeping them.” She was cold too, I realized, but I couldn’t really do anything about it and it was frustrating.

I was drifting off again when her arms constricted around me, alarming me for a second--what had I missed? Had she said something? Was everything all right? But she didn’t say anything and I tightened my arms around her, just for an instant and then readjusted my arms so that I felt like I was getting more heat back in my arms. Raven’s shoulder was more comfortable than I thought it would be and her hair still smelled good, it was relaxing hearing her slow, even breathes. And then came the occasional irregular breath mixed with shivering and teeth chattering. Every time she breathed against my neck it woke me up again, I knew I was missing something, something important and I would try to focus, but it never really worked.

“…den?”

I started and looked up. Where was I? What was going on? The cold air rushed against my face and I remembered and pushed my face back against Raven’s hair, desperate for the warmth and the comfort.

“Hayden?” Raven asked warily.

“Yeah?” I asked in a quiet voice, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

“Will you stay aw-awake?” she asked, moving one of her arms up my back absently.

I was awake after that anyway. “Yeah, sure.” It wasn’t like I was trying to fall asleep.

“How fucked up is this?” Raven asked suddenly, making a sound that resembled a hysterical laugh.

“Pretty f-fucked up,” I replied, not quite sure what she was talking about.

“Freezing to death, ten feet away from a room full of people,” she laughed again, but it wasn’t really a laugh, it was too astringent. “F-fucked up…” she whispered again, sounding like she was talking to herself, and I was just there so that she didn’t look crazy.

That was pretty fucked up, when you looked at it from that point of view. I found myself chuckling about that. I pictured everyone’s faces when they found us days later because the hole would be filled with snow and cover our bodies, the shock and the grief when they found two huddled forms in the bottom of some damn pit, frozen to death, skin blue and frosty and stuck together, eyes open only enough to see the person with them. It wasn’t really that funny, but I laughed anyway. Fucked up, really fucked up.

I knew I was drifting off again, because I was starting not to feel the cold so much and I didn’t shiver either, it was getting easier to just sit still and relax against that numbness. But Raven kept shivering and that would remind me of where I was and of why I needed to stay awake. She’d asked me to stay awake after all. Not that I knew why. Maybe because she couldn’t sleep herself, which I guess made sense, not all people could sleep easily when they were being frozen alive.

“Hayden? You still awake?” she asked warily, somehow managing to keep her teeth from clacking together when she spoke.

I acknowledged the question in my head, but it took me a minute to come up with the answer--was I awake? Finally I replied, “Yeah.” It was a quiet response, I knew, but it felt like I was wasting energy and warmth by saying anything lengthy, which was why it was confusing me how much Raven was talking. She was even using sentences, I was impressed, or I would have been if I had been thinking coherently.

Raven pulled back suddenly to look at me and the cold slipped between us and I felt like I had been dunked into ice water in the dead of night. Every muscle in my body tightened and I drew her against me again, breathing quickly, trying to reestablish my warmth, my comfort. “Don’t,” I said feebly, shivering uncontrollably while Raven hugged me tightly, or at least I think it was a hug, everything was getting hazy again.

“You don’t,” she said in a tight voice that only pushed my confusion further.

“Don’t what?” I asked after a moment to draw in the right amount of air to respond.

“Don’t do that,” Raven said as if it were obvious. What the hell was I doing? Seeming to understand my confusion she elaborated, “The whispering and the relaxing, stop sleeping, and stop,” she swallowed hard before finishing, “dying.”

A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the weather. “I’m not,” I said stubbornly. I might have been doing all of those other things but I wasn’t dying, I didn’t want to die, so I couldn’t have been dying. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t like I was just giving up.

“Yes you are, so s-stop, just…just…don’t die on me,” she whispered suddenly and something hot and wet landed on my neck and trickled down my collarbone. I focused on the warmth for a long time before it went cold and found myself disappointed. I wanted that small bit of heat to come back, but it never did, it was gone.

I could feel myself drifting a little but tried to hold onto reality long enough to reply, at least. I couldn’t comprehend what had hit me--warm rain? Did that even exist? And it was snowing anyway, as if it would rain and snow at the same time. “I won’t,” I told her between clenched teeth, stifling the shivering.

“Don’t sleep again,” Raven ordered and sniffed a little, which I thought was odd--was she getting sick from the cold?

“I’m trying,” I informed her matter-of-factly. What did she think I was doing there? Counting sheep and singing myself a lullaby? The same hot wetness hit my neck again and I lingered on how warm it was for a long moment before it finally hit me. She was crying that’s what that was, not warm rain--why had I even thought that? “Stop that,” I muttered and absently moved one of my hands up her back and to the back of her neck, trying to comfort her, making it seem like I was holding her, not the other way around.

“I’m not doing any--” she hiccupped and sniffed once, “--thing,” she finished stubbornly.

“Liar,” I accused with an attempted laugh that didn’t make it past my lips. Her neck was warm too, I noticed a little blankly, drifting away from the conversation for just a second. I pulled my hand back down into her jacket and held her tighter, as if trying to squeeze the heat out of her. Then the situation came rushing back to me, she was crying, I remembered that. I had to do something about it. “We’ll be fine, someone’ll find us…I’ll be fine, so, stop crying…please?” I almost begged, but a whisper was all I could manage, I was so tired, I just wanted to sleep and it was the one thing that Raven didn’t want me to do. Damn it.

“I’m not…” Raven replied feebly and then she went rigid against me. After that though, I closed my eyes, meaning to just blink, but my eyes wouldn’t open again. The cold air rushed around me, but I only acknowledged the cold, sort of like a dying man acknowledges a wound. He knows it’s there, but he doesn’t see a point in doing anything about it.

“Down here!” Raven was shouting and I all I could think about was how loud she was being. What the hell was she even yelling about? That was my last thought before everything seemed to phase out of existence. She couldn’t just sleep, that was the logical thing to do.

__________________________________________

Raven’s Point Of View

“I’m not…” I started to say weakly and then I heard something. I listened hard, holding my breath as every muscle in my body tightened. Yes, there it was again. People were walking somewhere nearby and talking. Then laughing. Leon, I realized, recognizing the laughter immediately.

“Down here!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, springing off of Hayden within instants. “Leon! We’re over here!” I jumped up once and felt the cold air graze my lower back. Then my legs gave out under me, and I became aware of how weak my knees had become, shaking from the cold and yet numb at the same time. I stole a glance back at Hayden, but his eyes were downcast and his head had lolled to the side. Damn it, he’d fallen asleep again. I couldn’t just give up, it wasn’t an option. Maybe Hayden could lay down and fall asleep and freeze to death but I couldn’t, I had the survival instincts of a person who had eluded death too many times. But more than that, I couldn’t just lay down and die because then Hayden would die. He had family left, plenty of people who would miss him if he were gone, who would cry at his funeral and throw some extravagant ceremony in his memory. I didn’t have that.

I pulled my sleeve across my eyes, moving the tears away and sniffing when my nose ran. I felt miserable and a headache was forming, my legs were numb and I couldn’t feel my fingers. My hair felt like miniature whips that clung to my head, waiting to strike me whenever I tried to turn too quickly. With a deep intake of air, I reached down past my pain and misery and found some foreign, stubborn will to live.

Now, stand up, I told myself. I obeyed, lurching to my feet with an absence of grace. My knees began to buckle again. Use the wall as leverage, I commanded and my fingers dug into the side of the hole, into mud and snow alike, forcing its way beneath my fingernails. Good, now how can you draw attention to yourself? Look around, what can you use? My eyes skimmed around the hole and I took a quick inventory: rocks, snow, mud, Hayden, rope, and myself, that’s all there was. I picked up the rope and weighted it in my numb hands. What could I use it for? There had to be something I could do with it.

My legs gave out beneath me again and my knees plunged into the snow. I followed suit and exhaled sharply when my forehead touched the snow on the floor of the hole. The cold stung and bit into my skin, but I couldn’t will myself to move, it felt so much better to just lay there and not move, to relax my stiff muscles and let my eyelids drift shut…

But I couldn’t. I told myself that too many times before I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. I dug my fingers into the snow and felt nothing, but I could see the snow that I had scooped into my hand and crushed it beneath my fingers. I bit my lower lip and concentrated, picking up another fistful and carefully condensed the snow into a rough, lumpy ball. With some strength I didn’t think I had, I hurtled the snowball up into the air and out of the hole. It didn’t sound like it had hit anything though. So I scooped up another fistful of snow, crushed it into a ball and hurtled it out of the hole.

“Down…here!” I shouted weakly and swallowed hard, trying to pull air into my lungs. I had thrown too many snowballs to count and finally collapsed again, my muscles tensing in protest to my physical activity. Suddenly, I was gripping the rope fiercely in one hand while I groped for a sizeable rock with the other. Once I found a rock that filled my palm, I wrapped the rope around the middle and tied it into a thick knot. With one final, hysterical attempt, I lobbed the rock up and out of the hole and fell onto my knees again, panting with the effort that it took simply to keep trying to warm my body. Then came a sound that was music to my ears, a solid, hard, thump. The rock had hit the house.

I froze for a long moment, holding my breath and gathering enough strength to stand before I grasped the rope and jerked it back down, the rock came tumbling back into the hole, and pulled a decent amount of snow with it. I grabbed hold of the rock with my numb fingers and threw it again, with even a little more force than before, hope putting more strength into my muscles. Another loud thud. I tugged the rock back and threw it again, hearing another beautiful thud. And the I threw it again, and again, and again. I must have thrown it ten times before my arms started to weaken and the hope began to leave again, dissipating with every snowflake that covered my body.

I fell to the ground, panting and dropped the rope. It was hopeless, I don’t know why I thought that anyone could hear the small amount of noise I was making. If I had broken a window maybe it would have been different. I stole a glance over at Hayden and my heart tightened in my chest, he was still sitting with his head lolled to one side. I crawled over to where he was and furiously brushed the snow off of him, ruffled his hair and found that it was wet. Without much thought going through my head, I took of my leather jacket and laid it over Hayden’s head, intent on keeping the snow off of him. My arms were past the point of feeling the cold anyway.

Absently, I crawled back into Hayden’s lap and collected his hands in my own. His hands were much larger than mine, with strong, slender fingers. I tried to cover them anyway, shield them from the cold. Then I leaned forward and pressed myself against his chest, vaguely catching the scent of leather from my jacket when I leaned my head against his shoulder. I didn’t hear Leon’s laughter again, I didn’t hear footsteps, I didn’t hear anything. All I could hear was the faint beat of Hayden’s heart mingling with the sounds of my own heartbeat.

You’re dying, a small voice in my head seemed to comment almost casually, as if it were an observation. I know that, I thought back darkly, and focused on the smell of leather. And ifyou are dying, what does that make Hayden? It asked, still sounding indifferent. I stiffened and opened my eyes, suddenly realizing that they had been closed. Hastily, I pushed the leather jacket to the side so that I could see Hayden’s face. His eyes were closed and the muscles in his jaw were relaxed, his face was pale while his cheeks were reddened. He wasn’t dead, I knew he wasn’t, he just couldn’t be, I had heard his heart beating--I could still hear it beating. I readjusted my jacket so that it was laying across his chest and shoulders and fell back against him, leaning my head near the base of his neck. He’s fine, I assured myself, even though I knew that he certainly wasn’t “fine”, I wasn’t doing so well either. My own mental voice sounded hollow and tired, as if telling me to just give up, fall asleep like Hayden, he looked like he didn’t even feel the cold anymore. And distantly, I knew that that wasn’t a good thing, but still, he looked so peaceful that it was almost painful to look at him.

Last chance, the small voice said, a little more life in it, less like a person talking to a movie screen. ‘Last chance’? I thought with a frown and strained to keep my eyes open. Yeah, you’re going to die aren’t you? So why not justdo it. He won’t even notice, the voice elaborated, and I vaguely registered that the small voice was mine, but, deeper, like the voice I had used when I was “Raymond”. Do what? I wondered, thoroughly confused. And then my eyes drifted to Hayden’s face again, where water drops rolled down his cheeks from his wet hair, I watched in particular as a stray water drop moved down his forehead and onto the bridge of his nose, then it continued its journey to the right of his nose and swerved at the last moment to halt on his upper lip. I stared at the water drop for a long time and then thought, oh, that.

Then I wasn’t staring at the water drop, in fact, I had forgotten that it existed. I was just staring at Hayden’s lips, still and soft-looking. The first time we had kissed had been an accident, embarrassing and overall unpleasant, well the result had been unpleasant anyway, the act itself was something else completely…

Last chance, the small voice chimed again, lulling and hypnotic.

I exhaled slowly and couldn’t take my eyes away from Hayden’s lips as I gingerly began to lean forward, just slightly and stopped again. Bad idea, stupid idea, I told myself with something like a quaver in my thoughts. Then the thoughts sort of just drifted off, and I considered just falling forward, I didn’t feel like supporting the weight of my body anyway and if my lips happened to touch Hayden’s in the process then how could I help that? Gravity willed it. But I didn’t go completely slack, I leaned close enough so that my lips were approximately an inch away from Hayden’s. His warm breath reached out and touched my cheek and mingled with my own breath and I found myself breathing faster as my heart rate picked up. Then, finally, finished with speculation and thought, I closed the distance and lightly pressed my lips against Hayden’s. His lips were warm and motionless beneath mine and I closed my eyes, wondering distantly if that was what it was like to kiss a fresh corpse, if I was kissing a fresh corpse.

I pulled back away from his mouth, just a little and laughed lightly, sending a fog of breath into Hayden’s face, but he didn’t notice. This must be what makes Romeo and Juliet so famous, I thought a little wryly, bittersweet romance, that two people who love each other can only be happy and truly together in death. It was a morbid thought and I laughed again, kissed Hayden once more on the lips and leaned my forehead against his with a strange sigh filled with some sort of sadness and acceptance. My eyes fell shut sluggishly, I was going to die, in one of the most fucked up ways possible; with every nerve in my body going numb and my brain shutting down and knowing that Hayden was going to die the same way. But at the very least, neither of us was dying alone.

I opened my eyes again and took in the sight of two very blue eyes staring into my own. In a single instant, my stomach clenched, my heart leapt into my throat and I stayed completely still. I didn’t have the will to move, and even my cheeks couldn’t muster the energy to blush. For the longest moment of my life, all that Hayden did was look into my eyes and all I could do was stare right back, acutely aware of every point that our bodies touched. Hayden opened his mouth a few times, like he wanted to say something, but kept closing it again, as if his vocal cords were frozen solid--and maybe they were. I couldn’t talk either, all I did was release a breathless laugh and placed another careful kiss on his lips, that was my only conscious thought before I felt my eyes fall shut again and I was vaguely aware that I had put all my weight against Hayden.

__________________________________________

Hayden’s Point Of View

She was close to me, really close and I couldn’t help staring at her face, taking in every small physical feature that existed there. But more than that, I was staring at her closed eyes, wondering silently when she was going to open them, if she was going to open them. Her forehead was against mine and I was intensely aware of the contact. After a few seconds I tried to say something, but only managed to let out a shaky breath.

A moment later, every muscle in my body tightened. Raven opened her eyes, slowly, but surely and for what felt like forever, we just stared into each others eyes. I opened my mouth to try and talk again, but my brain shut down completely when I looked at her, I only succeeded in looking like an idiot. Then, Raven just smiled and laughed breathlessly, then another second passed and she leaned forward and kissed me, gently touching her lips to mine. Her lips were soft and surprisingly warm and sent a strange warmth to spread throughout my body, starting from my head and burning somewhere deep in my chest. A moment later and Raven pulled back just enough so that our lips weren’t touching, but our foreheads were and she closed her eyes again. After that, I could feel the instant that she let all of her weight fall against me and I knew she was asleep. Or at least I thought she was asleep, she had to be asleep, because she just couldn’t be dead, especially not if she was on top of me. I would never forgive her if she literally died on me.

After that kiss I couldn’t even really focus on anything else, not even the snow that kept trying to bury us alive. Every once in awhile I would shift slightly so that I could get some of the snow off of us, but other than that, I sat completely still. Raven’s forehead was still against mine, but she hadn’t moved in the slightest, her eyelids didn’t so much as twitch. But more importantly, I found myself staring at her damn lips, which were now slightly parted as she heaved slow gusts of warm air on my neck, making me shiver involuntarily. What was wrong with me? I tilted my head to the side so that Raven’s forehead wasn’t touching mine anymore and so I wouldn’t have to look at her lips anymore. Her face landed heavily on my shoulder and I winced. Oops. But she didn’t wake up, she stayed exactly the same, now breathing closer to my neck than before. It’s just because her breath is warm, I told myself simply, determinedly.

But even when I wasn’t looking at Raven’s lips, I could still feel her lips, like they were still on mine. I knew it was crazy, and stupid and creepy, but still, I remembered the contact vividly. Not like the first time in the hospital where I was being a dumbass and it was completely accidental. This time was different. Did she just want to forget about it again? What was her motive? Why did she even kiss me in the first place? Was it just because she thought we were going to die? Did she just pretend I was someone else? I stiffened when I thought of my next possible reason. Did she pretend that I was Damion?

No, hell no, that wasn’t the reason, it couldn’t be, I wouldn’t let it be the reason. I had to know. With a major pep talk on my part, I willed myself to move my arms and push Raven away from me slightly. Her head lolled to one side and the cold air slipped between us. I ignored it. “Raven?” I asked, my voice strangely raspy, and I shook her lightly. She didn’t respond. My hands tightened on her shoulders in frustration, I needed to know. “Raven!” I said more loudly, but my voice was too weak to be a yell, I shook her more fiercely. I searched her face, looking for a sign that she was waking up. But there was nothing. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold and her lips were still slightly parted. Then, just for a moment, her eyelids flickered, however, they didn’t quite open.

“Raven, God damn it, I know you can hear me so wake up,” I shook her again and let out a sigh. When the hell had she gotten so heavy? I could barely hold her up. “I need to know something, right now. It’s fucking important,” I enthused. Still nothing. I gave up and let her fall against me again, and hit my head on her shoulder in exasperation.

“Ow…”

I lifted my head, surprised to hear the murmur.

“Fucking hard head…” Raven murmured tiredly.

This was it, this was my chance. “Raven? Raven, I need to know something, can you answer a question for me?” I didn’t wait for her reply, and continued, “Do you like Damion? Why’d you kiss him?” I blinked for a long moment after I had asked my questions. That hadn’t been the question I wanted to ask, so why did that come out of my mouth?

Raven sighed a little and I knew she had heard me. “…Now?…tired…later…” she said distantly, already drifting back into sleep.

“No, Raven, there might not be a later, I need to know now,” I persisted, pushing her back so that her head fell to the side and jolted her into awareness. “Please?”

Raven’s eyes landed on me and her lips trembled. “I…don’t know…meant nothing,” she answered in a strained voice. I released her and she leaned against me again. So she didn’t know why she did it? That was…a little better, I guess.

“Raven?” I asked quietly.

“Hmm?” she muttered in response.

“Why…” I hesitated, “…why did you kiss me?” I felt like an idiot asking it. But we were going to die, weren’t we? Who cared if I looked like an idiot if I at least got some answers in the process?

Raven muttered something and I blinked, trying to decipher it. When I failed I asked, “What?”

Raven grumbled slightly and managed to push herself up closer to my ear. “I said…you’re a dumbass,” she said more clearly but still in a strained tone. What? Why was I the dumbass now?

“Raven, why--” I broke off mid-sentence when a blinding light flooded into my eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my head away, my head filled with swear words and the constant feeling of annoyance. What the fuck?

“Holy shit…” I recognized Lee’s voice instantly, and wished he would just get that fucking light out of my face. “Hey, over here, I found’em!” he bellowed and I would have been surprised if people in China hadn’t heard him. I squinted up in the direction of the light and heard Lee shout down to me, “Hayden?”

I blinked heavily and thought distantly, I’m not going to die. A small laugh of hysteria bubbled deep in my throat and never quite made it past my lips. And then I passed out.