"When I suggested going away for the winter holiday," Reeve said, "you know, I was thinking of . . . Costa del Sol, maybe, or Wutai." Snow slanted at a forty-five degree angle from the slate-grey expanse of the overcast sky to the heavy white drifts already piling up around the Lodge.

"Mmm," Vincent said. He seemed to be having no trouble either with the cold or with the precarious footing, which Reeve considered to be entirely unfair. Although he had pulled his cloak tighter than usual around himself.

"You know," he added, pointedly: "Somewhere warm."

Vincent gave one of his eloquent little shrugs, one of his almost-not-there smiles. "I burn."

"All right," Reeve said. "So maybe not Costa del Sol."

"It is peaceful," Reeve said, twitching the curtain back from the window of their room as Vincent shed his snow-damp cloak. "I have to grant you that." Beyond the well-trampled margin of the lodge, snow spread in an unbroken expanse of glittering white. A handful of snow-covered pine trees cast deep blue shadows against the hill. "It's like everything's sleeping."

"You mean there's nothing for me to kill?" Vincent slung himself into the couch by the fire and laced his fingers together across his stomach, his skin even whiter against the unrelieved black of his clothing. "Whatever shall I do with myself?"

Reeve slanted a glance at him, but there wasn't any real bitterness in his voice, just amusement so dry it cracked. And it was still startling how much smaller he looked with his cloak off—still tall, but so thin, and all leg. The fact that everything he wore was black didn't help. "It gives us an excuse not to go out," he finally offered with a leer, and was rewarded with a low, dry chuckle.

They ordered food up—Vincent ate quite a lot for someone so thin, but presumably the thinness and the appetite both stemmed from some metabolic change to his system, and that was a topic Reeve didn't especially want to broach. Not on vacation. Then they settled in before the fire with a bottle of the robust red wine that Vincent preferred. Vincent let one of his long legs drape over Reeve's lap without comment. Reeve took shameless advantage of that to massage his calf, and for a moment it looked like Vincent was going to protest, but then he gave in, rolling his head back with a little sigh. After a moment he swung his other leg up across Reeve's lap.

Vincent drowsed. Reeve shifted him and got up to move the wine bottle before someone kicked it over and got dregs on the hearthrug. He paused by the table, trying to figure out the best way to lure Vincent off the couch and into bed, and whether just being completely crass about it might not be a bad idea if it'd get things moving faster. It wasn't as if they'd never had sex before, of course, but Vincent was—Vincent was hard to read, even if you knew him well. And his reserve extended in often unexpected ways.

Reeve's ponderings turned out to be moot, however; when he half-turned back, Vincent was already there beside him, silent as a shadow, and before he could even get his mouth open to say something, Vincent was kissing him, and a few seconds after that Vincent had him pinned to the bed.

Oh, he thought as Vincent stripped his shirt off, well, that was gratifyingly easy.

But not actually that surprising, because Vincent was spare and awkward with words—unless he was being morose, and really, spare and awkward was better than morose—but direct and confident with actions, once he'd made up his mind.

Practice made it easier to navigate the maze of buttons and clasps on Vincent's clothes; more to the point, experience had taught him which ones were ornamental only. "That's completely unfair, you know," he said—Vincent had him completely stripped, and he had just got done with the buttons of Vincent's shirt.

Again the little smile, the elusive flicker of amusement, so difficult to engender and so rewarding. "If it makes you feel any better . . . " he said, and pulled loose the cloth that held back his hair. Loosed, it fell half in his face, but didn't quite hide the high curve of his forehead (the Valentine forehead, he had once said, the Valentine nose; we were a distinctive family, if nothing else).

They got off his tangle of belts and then his pants and then it was skin on skin and Vincent's long fingers on the angle of his cheekbone and Vincent's thigh pressing between Reeve's legs. Oh, yes; for all his discomfort about his scars and his claw, Vincent was still far better with actions than words.

Then Vincent slipped his thigh out of the way and got his hand around Reeve's cock, and Reeve stopped analyzing.

Reeve shifted a little until he could roll over, roll them both onto their sides, and wrap his own hand around Vincent's length. Vincent made a low rumbling noise far back in his throat, his eyes slitted and bright in the firelight. That was good, that was very good, and he found himself moaning too. He pressed forward until their cocks touched, and hissed an indrawn breath at the sensation and heard Vincent make a very quiet but very needy noise, and, god, getting Vincent to make noises was like a drug. So he wrapped his hand around both of them—and his hand wasn't quite big enough, but then Vincent's fingers closed over his, and he sighed, and thrust a little. And Vincent ground against him, and growled, and, oh.

It might have taken a while, or almost no time at all. He couldn't tell. All he could tell was that Vincent was breathing hard and shuddering next to him, and then his own hips jerked and he was coming. Vincent made a low noise and bit him on the shoulder, and through the haze of pleasure he shifted his hand to wrap it firmly around Vincent and it was just a few more strokes before he felt Vincent pulse warm over his hand.

They lay side-by-side for a while, breathing hard, and then Vincent said, "I bit you."

"Yeah," Reeve said.

"Mmm," Vincent said, and, to Reeve's considerable relief, didn't attempt to use this to feel guilty. "We're here for three days?"

"Yeah."

"Mmm," he said again, and then, with a little smile that curled up at the edges—but not an almost-there smile, a real smile—said, "Perhaps we'll even get outside one of those days."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Reeve said.