The cold. Always the cold. Even inside, wrapped in thick layers of wool and fur, Jon and his friends shivered and huddled around a brazier. The coal in the center burned as red as Ghost's eyes, but only faint waves of heat reached them. They played cards and swapped tales and passed around a filched wine skin, Grenn, Pyp, Toad, Samwell, Jon, and Ghost. The others mostly spoke of girls and how they missed them. Kitchen wenches that wore the aromas of bread and stew like Dornish perfumes, and farm girls whose beauty hid beneath layers of freckles and unkempt braids. They joked about questing their way to Mole Town and digging for buried treasure before they had to say the words.

As the night lagged on the others staggered to their sleeping quarters, leaving Sam and Jon alone.

"It would be nice," Sam said. "To be kissed."

Jon nodded. He often wondered what it'd feel like to be inside of a woman, kept himself warm on many evenings with the thought of it as he stroked himself to sleep. Sam continued to speak, his voice comforting in the otherwise empty tower.

Jon leaned a little closer to hear Sam's quiet, timid voice. His eyes darted to Sam's lips, thick and pouty like the rest of Sam's face. The cold cracked and bled all their lips, but it also gave a flushed look to Sam's cheeks that stirred something within Jon as he watched his friend speak.

He leaned closer and stopped himself with a start when he realized how near he'd draw to Sam's lips.

Sam still chatted as if he didn't notice that their mouths almost touched, his voice the steady murmur of a Godswood's stream. Sam licked his chapped lips and the action made a sigh shuffle out of Jon's own mouth. Sam's words froze on his tongue. He watched John with pale eyes. It was the perfect moment to steal a kiss, but Jon backed away an inch, embarrassed by the thoughts nudging at the edge of his mind.

Jon opened his mouth to suggest they go to sleep.

Sam wove his thick, clumsy fingers into Jon's black curls and pulled their lips together.

Samwell Tarly did not kiss like a craven. He sucked and lapped at Jon Snow's mouth with the same eager passion he brought to the dinner table. Both their mouths tasted of onions and brown gravy; both of their bodies smelled of sweat, and training, and old woolens, and their natural musk, but Jon didn't mind. A high born lady should smell of rosewater, a septa of prayer incense, a milk maid of the stables, and Brothers of the Night's Watch should smell of black wool and the training yard. In the end, maid or man, did it matter? The wind roared cold outside in the night. Cold, everything always cold. Jon felt it in the joints of his body, smelled it in the stones of the wall, and tasted it in the air against his tongue. Winter was coming, but Sam was a reprieve from the cold and Jon pressed their bodies tighter together, relishing in their shared heat.