Cold of Night
By Chash
[I'm in a winter mood, gods above know why. It's kind of cold and I watched Inuyasha,
that's probably it. I got very inspired
by the bright Ferris wheel in the Inuyasha ending, so here's fic. Amazing how my works.]
Quatre
could see his breath. More than see, in
fact. He believed that he could probably
reach out and take it for a few minutes.
After those few minutes it was gone, having faded so slowly into the
night sky that it was imperceptible. It
was both sudden and expected at the same time and Quatre didn't know what to do
with it.
He was
walking towards home on the frost covered street. The stars were bright in the night sky and
his hands were jammed as far as they could go into the warm pockets of his
brown jacket in an attempt to keep the blood flowing through them. He feared to take them out because the last
time they had been an eerie blue.
At first,
he could barely tell that they weren't just the bright stars. Then he felt the snow hit him and looked up to
see the stars spiraling down from the sky.
He danced there for a moment, spinning around beneath the falling
sky. Then, suddenly, he heard a high
laugh, like a sprite, and turned.
"Sorry!" a
boy with bright violet eyes laughed. "I
didn't mean to stop you. It was very
cute to watch. Would you like some
cocoa?"
Quatre
didn't like being called cute by a complete stranger, but it was bitter cold
and cocoa would be wonderful, so he found himself nodding. The boy smiled and gestured for Quatre to
follow, walking down a road through the forest.
Quatre followed without quite knowing why. He could study the boy's back from here and
was interested to see a long brown braid falling over bright clothes. Judging from the reds and greens, which would
be jovial in day, but were muted in the darkness, and the flashes of silver
coins, Quatre assumed the boy was a gypsy.
Once he had been told to stay away from gypsies, but he might freeze to
death in this night, as beautiful as it was.
Without
warning, the trees opened into a gypsy camp.
It was four or five caravans and a coffee pot, Quatre could see three
boys and some mugs. The boy with the
violet eyes waved at the boys.
"Hey, I
offered him some hot chocolate! Will you
get it, Heero?" [1]
Another
gypsy with cold blue eyes grunted and went to the coffee pot. Quatre looked around. Out from where they had come, he could see
the road, blocked by the deep evergreen trees.
He passed by the caravans and turned away from where he had come. His breath caught in his throat.
Down about
twenty feet from the caravans was a river, and across the river was a massive
Ferris wheel. In the spokes, lights
played patterns as it spun in the falling snow.
In the river, near frozen, was a broken reflection of light and movement. In the night sky, the stars hung like
snowflakes behind the turning ride. He
felt something warm going into his hands and turned away enough to see a boy
about his age with auburn bangs falling out from his face. The boy's green eyes focused toward the
Ferris wheel, and Quatre could see the patterns of light playing in those
eyes. He wasn't sure if that reflection was
more beautiful than the real thing. He
turned back to see and still wasn't sure, but kept watching the shining Ferris
wheel.
"It's
beautiful, isn't it?" asked the green eyed boy.
Quatre nodded. "It's all that
brings us here every winter. There are a
thousand places we could go, a thousand places we do go, but we always end up
here in the winter. It's the best way to
feel warm in the night."
"You're
right, it is. It's never warm like this
anywhere else," replied Quatre, taking a drink of the cocoa. He felt the whipped cream tickle his lip. The boy next to him reached out to wipe it
off and even after, Quatre could feel the contact of his finger burning there,
the warmest thing in the cold of the night.
He knew the boy was looking at him, but he kept his eyes focused as the
light pattern changed. It was
indescribable [2].
"You should
come back, then," said the boy with the deep green eyes.
"I walk
home every night."
"Then you
should stop by. It will keep you
warm. Duo told us how you danced in the
snow. I approve of that and so do they. So you should come back every night. We'll always welcome you."
Quatre
smiled. "His name was Duo, then?"
"Yes. I'm Trowa.
What's your name?"
"Quatre."
"Come back
to us, Quatre."
"I think I
will," he took another sip of cocoa and stood with Trowa as the Ferris wheel
lit their frames.
Even
walking home without cocoa or lights, the night didn't seem cold anymore.
Owari.
[1] Y'know, I could have changed
my plan for the fic at this line and made it into a massive, massive orgy. Yes, you may throw rotten fruit at me for not
doing so. I have a shield.
Wufei: That's a Kero-chan stuffed toy.
And no one ever wants to hurt Kero-chan.
[2] It is… I don't know if everyone loves that ending as
much as I do, but my favorite part is that Ferris wheel. Maybe it's just me…
