A/N: Apologies for the delay, but life and writer's block got in the way. Hope it's worth the wait. :)

For a long time, Christine was afraid to move.

Her legs were headed into achingly cold territory, but she'd have almost preferred frostbite to giving up the pressure of Erik's gloved fingers on hers. How was it possible for such a small touch to both soothe and excite? Her spine had softened into the flannel blanket beneath it, her shoulders slackened, yet her insides sparked in a way that echoed the meteors darting overhead.

Every one of her senses had awakened to his grip, and she was startlingly aware of her surroundings: the rolling snaps and hisses of the bonfire; the crisp, smoky scent of the burning wood; the treetops tenting into a starry sky and, far below them, her breath coalescing into crystalline puffs.

She felt, as Erik had put it, as though she might vibrate off the face of the earth.

Her time-honored anxiety was swift to creep in and pepper her with questions. What did this mean? What should she do next? Would he try to kiss her? Did she want him to kiss her?

She almost scoffed out loud. If there was one thing she'd never found cause to protest, it was kissing.

No, she was getting ahead of herself. Even without seeing him, she could detect his stiffness of frame. The hand-holding had been a remarkable concession on his part. For now, it was enough. It was more than enough.

She should have been content to lie in silence, to not risk ruining the moment, but the wine had loosened her tongue. She held in her words until she thought her chest might burst, and then they tumbled over her lips like a flood through a dam.

"There's something grounding about the night sky, isn't there? Like the world around you might be crumbling to pieces, but it's all so inconsequential in the grand, beautiful scheme of things."

"A cold comfort when one is still mired in a cesspool of crooks and tyrants."

She shifted to look at him. "Why do you dislike people so much?"

His gaze stayed trained on the sky, but his grip stiffened. Tension, hot and jittery, erected itself like a barricade around him. "With few exceptions, they disappoint when it matters most."

She could not resist. "Am I a disappointment, or an exception?"

"That remains to be seen." His tone was light; the thumb of his clasped hand brushed against hers.

"And what must I do to earn your good opinion, sir?"

"Sing for me."

Still he did not look at her, and she studied his impassive expression, his drawn mouth. "Again? Here?"

"Yes."

His demand for her voice sent a bolt of warmth arcing through her chest. She lay her head back on the blanket and released a long, audible breath. What to sing? She looked to the sky for inspiration, and she let the words spill out before she could overthink them.

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you

The pair of them lay parallel and unmoving beneath those stars, staring upward, their joined hands in the space between them their only point of contact, of movement. Erik's fingers twitched as she sang; his grip tightened on a particular lilt of her voice.

She sang three verses and a chorus before she stopped. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't really remember the rest."

He was silent for a long moment, and she turned to find he'd closed his eyes. He flexed his hand, fingers loosening and tightening around hers once more. Then he did look at her, and she was surprised, as always, by how bright his dark eyes could burn.

"Why did you come back?"

The question came without preamble, catching her off guard. "I..." Her mouth could not seem to form words. "I don't know." A pause. "Should I not have?"

He released a shaky breath. "I don't know."

There it was again: that mysterious and tiresome inner struggle of his. What was he afraid of? It felt too soon to pry, his thoughts far too distant, but wine and fire and strong, bony hands had weakened her inhibitions. "You can take off the mask," she said quietly. "Please. I don't mind." Did she? Maybe it was the alcohol, but she felt a small surge of confidence as she said it.

Erik's jaw tightened. "I would rather not," he said, and he released his grip on her, returning the gloved hand to its former resting place on his sallow chest.

The contents of her stomach roiled. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't—"

"I don't want to discuss it."

She could have kicked herself. She clenched her teeth in frustration: frustration at him, certainly, but even more at herself. She'd brought up his face too soon, far too soon, and it was decidedly unromantic to boot. The tender seedling of intimacy that she'd coaxed out of hiding was curling in on itself, retreating to where it had lain dormant beneath a layer of frost.

She had no hope of rekindling whatever wonderful thing had just passed between them, but the thought of him staying angry at her was too much to bear, and so she was determined to diffuse the tension by any means necessary. She combed through a mental filing cabinet of topics to broach and, as was often the case in these high-stakes scenarios, her brain short-circuited.

"Do chickens sleep?"

A strangled noise emerged from his throat. "What?"

"I mean, I assume they do. I've just never seen a sleeping chicken, or even a picture of one."

Erik briefly closed his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Of course they sleep."

She propped herself up on an elbow to face him. "Do they bury their faces in their back feathers in that adorable way that other birds do?"

"Sometimes."

She bit her lip in an attempt against further questions, but she was too invested now that it was clear how little she actually knew about keeping chickens. "Do they have...like...little beds?" she asked. A horrible idea lodged itself in her brain, and she couldn't stop herself. She leaned in and added, "Perhaps...featherbeds?"

He turned to glare at her, and her spirits lifted at the sound of his exaggerated sigh. "If I show you the sleeping chickens," he said, "you must enter into a binding verbal contract to cease all puns."

"I'll never agree to that," she replied, getting to her feet, "but I'm going to make you show me regardless." To her surprise, Erik shrugged and rose from the blanket without protest. She set to collecting the discarded wine mug and beer bottles and blanket as he headed for the coop. He'd unlatched the door and was waiting for her in the fenced-in run as she made her way, arms laden, to the back door. "Just going to dump this stuff inside," she said, and she opened the door quickly in an effort to keep from dropping everything.

A white blur shot out of the kitchen. It was followed by a cacophony of frantic squawking and fluttering and barking that spurred her into urgency. She dumped her effects on the kitchen table and rushed back outside, where Erik held a straining dog by the collar as the hens scuttled in every direction. One had already made its way out the door.

"Grab Siebel," Erik called to her.

She looked at him in wild-eyed disbelief, but his focus was on Caesar, who lunged even more excitedly at the sight of the hen scampering out into the open yard.

Christine lunged for Siebel, but the chicken evaded her. She hung back for a moment, letting it grow accustomed to her presence, but the kitchen and bonfire threw only so much light out into the deep woods. If she didn't act quickly, she'd lose sight of the chicken altogether. With two quick, giant steps that sent pain shooting through her sore ankle, she managed to snatch up Siebel in both hands.

She was met with a violent frenzy of flapping wings and pinching talons, and a sharp beak that jabbed at her fingers. Feathers hit her in the face, knocking her glasses askew and mussing her hair. She let out a distressed squeak and held the hen at arm's length, and as she leaned back to avoid the feathery maelstrom, something caught her by the hair. She shrieked.

The hen was extracted from her grip, settling into complacency as Erik's hands closed gently over its wings. Christine whipped around to see what had gotten hold of her: a low pine, the needles having worked themselves into the thick tangles that were no doubt formed as she lay on the blanket. She winced and yanked the branch free of her scalp.

Erik's back was to her as he latched the door to the peacefully restored chicken coop. There was a strange sort of hunch to his frame, as though he'd become ill, and it took her a moment to realize he was shaking with silent laughter.

She stayed rooted to the spot, still too stunned to speak.

His lips were drawn tight when he approached her, more laughter threatening to spill forward at any second. "Forgive me," he said, wiping at his eyes, "but was one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed."

Her cheeks were hot, but she managed to produce a weak smile. "It seems I have a lot to learn about chickens," she replied. "Where's Caesar?"

"Back inside."

She tugged off her gloves. Her hands stung, and even in the dim light she could see they'd been scratched and punctured by Siebel's sharp beak and talons.

"You're injured," Erik observed. "I apologize; I should not have made light of it."

She shook her head. "It was objectively funny. I'm sure I'll laugh once I can breathe again."

"Regardless." He opened the door, pinning a sheepish Caesar to the kitchen floor with a stern look, and motioned for her to go inside.

"I'm so sorry," she said as she slipped past him. "I didn't think—the dog—"

He waved her words away. "He would never hurt them. He endeavors to get as close as possible before they peck him. It's a masochistic sort of pastime."

Once they'd shed their outerwear, he led her to the bathroom, where he pulled ointment and adhesive bandages from a high shelf in the cabinet. "Let me see," he instructed. She hoisted herself up onto the counter so she'd be closer to his eye level.

Oddly, he began his examination at the crown of her head. "Hm," he murmured. "Hold still." He set a palm at one side of her head to anchor her, and with deftly cautious fingers, he plucked a pine needle from her hair. Her cheeks flamed, and she'd opened her mouth to thank him when he extracted a second needle. And then another. And another. Six, in total, laid in a small pile at her side.

Once he'd finished, he cupped the other side of her head to check his handiwork, in effect cradling her face in his hands. He seemed to register this new intimacy at the same time she did, his eyes flicking to hers and away before he let her go. "Your hands," he said, as gruffly as a smooth-edged voice would ever get. She held them out for inspection.

The scene was an echo of when he'd doctored her ankle, his sinewy hands working with dexterous precision—but he was even closer now, his head bent forward as he dabbed ointment onto her skin. The smell of the bonfire lingered on his clothes. She was almost thankful that every inch of her hands stung under his ministrations, because it kept the more intrusive thoughts at bay.

He released her in order to cap the ointment, and she took a good look at her hands. At the sight of the myriad tiny cuts, all chicken-inflicted, she started laughing.

It was a gradual, rolling laughter that built in her chest and expanded into her belly, until she was nearly doubling over as it became harder to breathe. Erik stopped what he was doing and watched as she was driven to near tears. His face was inscrutable, but his eyes shone.

"I'm so sorry," she gasped. "It's just...after this, and the river, and the bear..." She shook her head. "You must think I'm an idiot."

His lips took on a wry twist. "Perhaps you show a certain ineptitude for wilderness survival," he replied. "But, to your credit, you are remarkably adaptable." He peeled open the first of the band-aids and wrapped it around her index finger, which had sustained the worst of the abrasions. His next words were uttered with quiet reluctance, like a confession: "No one short on intellect could sing so well."

Christine had never been one to take compliments well. She blinked. "I don't understand why you like my voice so much."

He was focused on bandaging a second finger, but based on the way his neck muscles constricted in response, she suspected he'd have avoided eye contact regardless. "It's as if," he said softly, "it drifted straight out of a dream."

"Like...like ethereal? Because I don't think—"

He cut her off with a shake of his head, and his voice went even quieter. "A dream of mine, specifically. As though…" He paused to bandage another finger. "As though my subconscious willed into existence what it most wanted to hear."

He closed the box of bandages and reached up to return the supplies to the cabinet above her head. The motion brought him so close to her that his sweater brushed against her cheek.

It was too much. He had pulled her into his orbit long ago—she could finally admit as much—but now that orbit tightened, and her whole body thrummed at the new proximity. To get any closer, though: that would disrupt the respectful balance they'd created.

Then again, under the rarest of circumstances, stars were known to collide in a brilliant surge of heat.

His eyes met hers as he lowered his arm from the cabinet, and he must have seen the longing plain in her face because he slowed. His hand, instead of dropping to his side, slid under a loose strand of hair at her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. Her hands found his waist and hovered there, scarcely touching. He cupped the back of her head.

It was with agonizing slowness that they drew closer. She all but stopped breathing, yet her heart beat so fiercely it hurt. Erik's breaths were heavy and measured. His face dipped down to hers, so close there was now only shadow where his features had once been. She lifted her chin just slightly. When she closed her eyes, she felt his breath against her lips.

But he moved past them, skewing off to one side, his masked cheek sliding against hers. His lips brushed against the pulse point beneath her ear; his breath was hot on her skin. "Christine," he whispered, her name a cutting prayer on his tongue. "I don't—I can't—"

Her fingers grasped gently at the hem of his sweater. "What is it?"

"This is...unwise."

"So was canoeing the river," she whispered back, "but I don't regret it at all."

There was a huff of air against her neck, and he dragged his lips onto hers.

Her own mouth parted to accept him, a tiny whimper of gratitude sounding in her throat. He was so soft, an anomaly among his rigid thinness, and she sank into the lush heat of his mouth with easy abandon. Theirs was a slow duet: a sweeping exchange of pressure, of lips parting and closing again. It felt almost unreal that she should be here, kissing this strange woodsman who had been so prickly at the outset, yet it felt comfortingly familiar, even as her toes curled at the press of his lips.

He was the one to pull away, and all too soon. His wide eyes were as alarmed as they'd been when she'd first arrived. His hand fell from the back of her head, and he took a few wary steps backward. "It's late," he said hoarsely. "We—you—should sleep. The bed is yours."

"But—"

"I have to put out the fire. Don't wait up on my account." He was out the door like a shot.

Dazed, Christine slid off the countertop to look in the mirror. Her face was flushed, her lips rosy and swollen, her hair basically a tumbleweed. She worked through the knots with her fingers and tried to sort out the hundred thoughts warring for her attention, but she was tired, and Erik had kissed her. His reluctance both before and after were of no consequence to her right now—not when she wanted to go to bed unencumbered by doubt, with only the memory of his kiss to carry her into dreamland.

She finished untangling her hair and glanced down at the available toiletries. There, in the toothbrush holder, was the spare toothbrush she'd used—the one she'd had no expectation of ever using again, once they'd parted with no means of contact. He had kept it.

Erik was nowhere to be seen when she emerged from the bathroom, so she kept to his wishes and didn't wait. She slid under the covers of his bed and smiled sleepily to herself: the sheets still smelled like him, as did the pillow beneath her head. She closed her eyes and replayed the kiss over and over in her mind, until she was nothing but blank thoughts and heavy limbs, and a slowing heart that had begun to beat for someone else.

This chapter is dedicated to Melancholy's Child, who has consistently demanded a scene involving a runaway chicken.