I asked Xaphrin to give me a prompt for me to write, this is what came up.
Artemis shivered and pulled her hood down further over her face. It did little to protect her from the biting cold of the Russian snow, coming down thick until the very air seemed as white as a piece of paper.
Kaldur grabbed ahold of her arm, just to locate her in the swirling, blinding snow. Either of them getting lost out here in the cold wouldn't end well, so he held tight to her arm, just to keep the two of them together as they tried to navigate the cosmos of the tundra, all while shivering.
Leaning in close to her ear, Kaldur said to her, "I think we are done here." It was hard to hear him over the winds, but Artemis nodded all the same. His breath was warm as it touched her frozen skin, and Artemis was grateful for it.
"Which way back to civilization?" Artemis asked, leaning in close to his own ear.
Kaldur thought for a long moment, staring at the white winds that were swirling around them and pushing at their bodies. He couldn't see anything in the white mess of the storm, but he relied more on his sonar senses than anything, trying to locate which direction was south. Back to the city they had been staying at before they ventured out here into this blizzard in attempt to locate the broken meteorite carrying alien tech.
Or so the Justice League had said.
"This way," Kaldur said at last.
Artemis felt him pulling at her arm, and she following him through the thick snow that was quickly mounting beneath their feet. Arctic Russia was cold, but it still didn't phase Kaldur that much. To which Artemis was jealous; thanks to his Atlantean physiology, he could pretty much swim around naked in frigid waters, bare his skin to even the coldest of temperatures.
Although he had pulled his jacket over himself. But his feet. Still bare.
After what seemed like hours of treading through of hellish dimension of a frozen wasteland, Kaldur though he saw dim yellow lights piercing through the veil of the snow. "I believe we are close," he said to Artemis, his lips almost to her ear. Artemis nodded; she couldn't talk with her teeth chattering the way they were.
Briefly looking up from beneath her thick hood, she saw the same city lights that Kaldur had seen. A wave of relief went through her body; soon she'd be out of this storm, and back inside their cheap motel room. Hopefully able to take a hot shower and then curl up in thick blankets by the old stove.
When they finally got back into the cold motel room together, Artemis pulled her coat and gloves and shoes off, and immediately went to turn the heater up that sat along the base of the wall. Kaldur watched her with steady eyes. He wasn't as cold as she was, for he'd felt colder, but still he drifted over to the heater with her.
"Russia is quite cold, isn't it?" he asked, trying to make small talk.
"Yeah, no shit," Artemis said, her teeth chattering. "Beyond cold. Freezing. Worse."
She put her hands out in front of her, nearly placing them on the hot metal that slowly began radiating heat towards her. Back in the edges of her mind, she wondered how bad it would hurt if she did so. Would the ends justify the means? Probably not.
"A warm shower might help," Kaldur said.
Artemis looked up at him.
"I–I mean," Kaldur said, looking away from her and blushing, "that hot water can raise your external body temperature faster than hot air can." His blush deepened, and Artemis smiled and chuckled at the look on his face.
"Yeah, that's true," she agreed. "But that feeling when you step out of a warm shower…not something I want."
"Understandable," he said.
Minutes of silence passed between them as they sat in front of the old metal heater, both of their hands placed in front of them, as they tried to get warm. Eventually, Artemis could feel her skin starting to thaw. Kaldur eventually removed his coat, and sat it on his lap. Artemis peeled her over shirt off, and then stuck her covered toes towards the heater.
"Hopefully this night will be warmer than the last," Artemis grumbled.
"I believe it will," Kaldur replied. "After all–" he glanced behind them to the unmade bed that stood just behind them, "–we will be sharing a bed."
The only reason for the single bed was because of the cost. A double bed room would have cost more money than they had wanted to spend, and they both reasoned that they could handle sleeping in the same bed. There was nothing to it, nothing to be self-conscious about. But as with the past few days they'd spent searching northern Russia for the alien meteorite, they both couldn't help but feel a strange heat kindling between them.
Artemis and he would lay in bed for long hours for a time, trying to see if one another slept soundly, and eventually they'd nudge closer to each other in search of warmth. And Artemis would nudge the back of his legs with her heel, and feel heat rise within her when she felt him stir in his sleep.
Artemis kept telling herself that nothing was going on.
But it was pointless to tell herself that. Denial was futile. She'd had a crush on him ever since she saw him that night when she'd been welcomed to the team. And it had grown stronger as time passed: when she had held him away from the lava in the magic castle, when she had fought him so many times in training, when she had joined him all those nights ago when he felt weak and needed his vitals restored.
Artemis couldn't deny it; she had it bad for him.
"Well this is nice," Artemis said after a while, her attempt at conversation lame.
"Yes," Kaldur replied. Nothing more, nothing less.
"I'm hoping to stay warm tonight," Artemis said, her voice lowering and a blush darkening across her face as she slid her eyes to the side to see him. She saw his lips twitch into a smile for only a moment.
"I hope so too. More for your sake than mine."
She snorted. "Always the martyr, aren't you?" she asked him, turning her eyes back to the radiator in front of her. Warmth was spreading throughout her muscles and blood, and she no longer felt like she had to dig her nails deep into her bones to find heat anymore.
"I didn't mean it like that," Kaldur said, turning around to face her. "All I meant is that…well, I can handle the cold better than you can…so sleeping in the cold…"
"It's okay," Artemis said, a faint smile on her lips. "I know what you mean."
Kaldur sighed in relief.
"It's getting late," Artemis said after a time. "We should turn in." She couldn't deny that a small, certain feeling of excitement went through her at those words. While they prepared for bed, Artemis had to stay on constant alert that she didn't sneak peaks at him, and stayed focused on whatever it was she was doing.
The lights turned off. Artemis pulled the sheets and covers and blankets up over her, feeling Kaldur shift in the bed next to her. Their backs were facing each other, and they both gravitated towards the edge of the bed, careful to keep their distance. But as the night wore on, they drifted closer and closer to each other, attracted by the warmth and drawn to the presence of each other.
Around midnight, Kaldur slung his arm over Artemis' hip, and she inhaled sharply. He was warmth, so she pressed back up against him. She didn't even bother telling herself that it was to ward off the cold of the Russian nights; she wanted to be next to him.
"You are not asleep?" she heard Kaldur asked.
"Clearly you aren't either," Artemis replied.
"Clearly." He shifted a little, trying to get comfortable and untangle his legs from the sheets and blankets that crowded them both. "Are you still cold?" he asked her quietly.
"A little," she admitted. "But not much. Hell of a lot better than being out in the snow."
"I agree," Kaldur replied. "Far better."
Another moment of silence passed between them, so long that they each thought that the other had fallen asleep. But they remained awake, bundled next to each other in the bed, trying to stay warm. Artemis breathed steadily, deeply, and she noted small hints of Kaldur's scent as he warmed up. He smelled mostly like sea salt, but there was a hint of something earthy as well. It made her happy, for him to be so close.
"Kaldur," Artemis said again, immediately letting him know that she was not asleep. "What do you think about this?"
"About…what exactly?" Kaldur asked, peeling his eyes open to look at her dark form under the covers.
"This," she repeated.
"I'm sorry, I'm not following," he said. "What do you mean by 'this?' It is a vague term, and I don't know precisely what you are thinking, so–"
His words were cut off when Artemis spun around in the bed, turning to face him. Awkwardly, Kaldur put his hand back on her hip, letting his eyes linger on the covers.
"You've never given any thought to it?" she asked. Before he could ask her what she meant yet again, she spoke; "How we've kinda been leaning up on each other this past month? How we always seemed to get paired for missions together? How, right now, we're currently in the same bed…?"
Kaldur blushed, and Artemis couldn't see it in the dark.
"I suppose, I have given it a…little bit of thought," he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. "But, I had thought…assumed…that what we have is platonic at best."
"What we have now is…platonic," Artemis said. The night made her feel bolder, more in control of the words that came from her tongue. "But I had hope that somewhere down the line…it would be a bit more than platonic…"
Her words lingered in the air between them.
Kaldur breathed in slowly, thinking over what she had said. "I…I don't know what to say," was all that he managed to tell her.
"It's okay," Artemis said, rolling back over before pressing herself back against him. Kaldur didn't know if it was for warmth this time, but he still wrapped his arm around her. "We've got another full week or so of this…plenty of time to think…"