Iserlohn was a great place, except for the fact that after a few months of living there, things kept breaking that no one knew how to fix. Sure, there weren't that many differences between plumbing in the Alliance and the Empire, so they could handle clogged toilets, but when some long buried piece of computer code encountered an error, no one could figure out how to get the lights in the hallways out of "twilight" mode for almost two weeks.

In the beginning, this had been funny, because it certainly made even the drabbest corridors feel like more ideal spots for an amorous tryst, and so some of the ladies of Iserlohn had been more eager to pretend that certain corners were more isolated than they really, technically were. But it got old as soon as the novelty wore off, especially as the feeling of constantly having to adjust his eyes between the dim corridors and the bright white lights of the offices and homes in the fortress. Walking through the gloom for fifteen minutes and then arriving into the brightest fucking room he had ever seen… It was annoying.

Someone had figured out how to fix it, but it had taken time. It wasn't like they could get on the phone with Odin and ask for the tech specs on their captured fortress. Nobody had left user manuals lying around. Like, what if some spy could use the light control system to shut down the Thor Hammer. Yeah, right. Poplin had to laugh at that thought.

The lights not working right had only been a portent of things to come, though, because while lights were relatively harmless and uncomplicated, the weather system that controlled vast parts of the fortress— from the greenhouses that made it self-sustaining, to the central "outdoor" area that made it feel like a planet, to the essential climate control and ventilation in every other space occupied by people— was labyrinthine, esoteric, complex, and any engineer's worst nightmare. And it had been showing signs that something was wrong with it.

Like, sometimes you'd walk into a room and you'd find a fine layer of grit all over everything, like a filter had blown and was sending all its particulate matter through the winding tunnels and out of this air vent. Or sometimes, there'd be a great sucking wind so strong in a hallway that you'd think that it opened onto pure vacuum, and all the air was trying to get out, but that wouldn't make sense in the dead center of the fortress.

Things like that had been going on for a while, and it was setting everyone on edge. He'd hear people talking about ghosts in the machine and "what if it stops filtering the air, and we die of carbon monoxide poisoning?"

When someone had said that in one of the bars in front of Poplin and Konev, Poplin had been nodding along with the worry, though only in an abstract sense, as he was very drunk at the moment, but Konev had put his hand on the guy's shoulder and said, "Do you really think Admiral Yang wouldn't evacuate us? And then there'd be a way to fix the issue, I'm sure."

Konev was just good at calming people down like that. Poplin sure wasn't.

So, when Poplin woke up in the middle of the night— for whatever night was worth in a space fortress— freezing cold, his first instinct was to find out what Konev had to say about it. He usually slept in the nude, and so crawling out from under his blankets into the blisteringly cold air of his room took some effort. The glass of water on his bedside table had frozen, and the moisture from his breath had frosted into little icy patterns on the wall. It shocked Poplin that he had managed to sleep through it being that cold for that long, but maybe it had been a rapid-onset temperature drop, and he had better get dressed and get ready to evacuate fast, just in case this was the thing that was wrong with the Iserlohn weather system for good.

Konev didn't answer his phone when Poplin called him, still in the process of pulling on his pants, so Poplin was left to wonder if this temperature drop was an isolated issue in this part of the fortress, or if Konev tended to wear more to bed than Poplin did.

He shivered as he exited his room, rubbing his hands together for warmth and wincing every time he had to touch a metal door handle. He ran into several other people en route to Konev's room, all equally confused and cold.

"You know what's going on, Poplin?" he was asked.

"Not a clue," he said, jogging past. "Better ask Cazerne that question."

To get to Konev's room, the fastest route was to head across one of the elevated walkways that branched over parts of the open, faux-outdoors, area of the fortress. When Poplin opened the broad door to head inside that climate zone, his question about the temperature being an isolated incident was answered. Fat, cold snowflakes were raining down, the cleverly hidden humidifiers remaining activated, even as the temperature plummeted. The usual circulation of air picked the flakes up and sent them swirling in huge flurries around the open space, landing on everything, but piling up wherever there was a corner. The metal walkways, despite their textured surface, were slippery, and Poplin skidded as he ran, leaving long trails of comically elongated footprints where he passed.

He at least made it to Konev's room without falling and smashing his face open, or skidding and slipping out underneath the rails to the ground far below.

Poplin pounded on Konev's door, covering his hand with his sleeve so that he wouldn't have to touch the cold surface directly.

"Konev! I know you're in there!"

He didn't actually know this, and he supposed after a second that he could be knocking on the door of an empty bedroom, but he was proven right in his exuberance, as a sleepy Konev pulled the door open.

Konev did wear much more pyjamas than Poplin did; he had long thermal underwear on. It wasn't like it was cold in Iserlohn usually, but maybe the saying was right— a man who wears thermal underwear to bed is a fool every night but one.

"It's three in the morning," Konev said by way of greeting.

"How do you not care about this?" Poplin asked, gesturing broadly. "The weather system's fucked again."

"Mhmm." Konev began to shut the door. Poplin stuck his arm in to stop him.

"And you're not worried?"

"Admiral Yang likes his sleep disturbed even less than I do," Konev said. "If there is a real problem, I'm sure he's getting it taken care of as fast as he can. Or he's told someone else to take care of it, while he stays curled up in his nice, warm bed. Which is exactly what I'm gonna do."

Poplin made an annoyed face. "Come on, you should see what's going on outside."

"What's going on outside?"

"You have to come see it."

Konev looked at him for a moment, then sighed. "You've already woken me up, I guess." And he held the door open so that Poplin could come in.

Poplin did, sitting down on the bed while Konev pulled his uniform on directly over his pyjamas. He still took care to fasten his scarf nicely, though. Poplin had pulled the blanket up around himself by the time that Konev was dressed, and he understood why Konev had been so reluctant to leave his bed. It was nice and warm.

"What is it you wanted to show me?" Konev finally asked.

Poplin grinned. "Come on."

They headed out through the hallways, down the elevator, and then Poplin heaved open the door into the outside area, once again being met with a blast of icy, snow-filled air, though this time they were on the ground level instead of on the slippery walkways.

"Look at this!" Poplin said. "It's snowing!"

"I've seen snow before, Olivier," Konev said. "You would know."

"But not in a space. There's a first time for everything."

Konev was dismally considering the state of some flowers in a flowerbed, which were poking out of a snowdrift. While his back was turned, Poplin gathered up a handful of snow, holding it behind his back."I don't think the greenery is going to survive," Konev said dryly. "At least, not these ones."

"What about the farms?"

"Won't be the end of the world if they have to replant," Konev said. "It's not like we can't get supplies in."

Poplin nodded and accepted that explanation.

"Does this weather put you in the mood for going on a hike?" Konev asked, turning to Poplin and smiling a little.

"Nah," Poplin said. "There's nowhere good in Iserlohn to hike to. Puts me in the mood for something else, though."

Konev rolled his eyes. "You have a one track mind, man."

"That wasn't even what I was thinking about!" Poplin protested.

"Oh? You've decided to branch your tastes out from thinking about women endlessly? I'm sure all the ladies of Iserlohn will be disappointed that you're abandoning them for some other pursuit."

"Just temporarily."

"And what's got you distracted?"

"This!" And Poplin tossed his hidden snowball directly at Konev's head. Konev ducked— dogfighting instincts didn't go away even out of the cockpit— and scooped up his own handful of snow to retaliate. The snowballs volleyed back and forth between them, until Konev managed to get the upper hand and hit Poplin square in the face, the snow entering his open mouth and causing him to cough and spit it out, leaning over, hands on his knees, half-laughing.

"You can't ever let me win, can you?" Poplin said, wiping the stinging snow off his face.

"You'd be mad if I let you do anything," Konev pointed out.

"Be different if we were in Spartinians."

"Last I checked, we weren't fighting this war with snowballs."

Poplin's hand, wiping the last of the snow away from his upper lip, came away with blood on it. "You put a rock in there or something?"

Konev came over to investigate. "Might've been a bigger chunk of ice in that one. Sorry," he said, sounding genuinely apologetic. "I'll buy you a drink next time we're out to make up for it."

"'S just a scratch," Poplin said, wiping the blood on his pants.

"I've got some ointment in my room."

"You aren't gonna let me be all stiff upper lip about it?"

Konev rolled his eyes at that, "If it's a deep cut, the ladies of Iserlohn won't find your new scar that attractive."

"How do you know what the ladies of Iserlohn find attractive?"

"It's not as though women have a completely alien sensibility."

"Hunh. Not something I've ever been able to figure out."

"Hasn't seemed to have stopped you."

"You're right about that." Poplin slung his arm around Konev's shoulder. "Alright. Save me from being un-handsome, then."

"You couldn't even just say 'ugly'?"

"I'm wounded that you could ever think that someone as handsome as I currently am, and charming, too, could ever become ugly."

Konev did chuckle at that, and he let Poplin lean on him and gesticulate all through the journey back to Konev's room.

"Was it worth getting out of bed for?" Poplin asked.

"I suppose so. Though since getting back to sleep will be harder now that my bed is freezing cold, I don't know if I'll be thanking you when I have to be awake all day tomorrow."

"A little sleep deprivation never hurt anybody," Poplin said as Konev opened his door and let them both in to the small bedroom.

"Sit," Konev said, gesturing to the bed. Poplin sat. Konev fished around in his desk drawers for a small first aid kit. Once it was located and its contents verified, Konev pulled his desk chair over to sit in front of Poplin, their knees knocking.

Poplin watched with some amusement, but when Konev pulled out an antiseptic pad and reached towards his face, Poplin grabbed his wrist. "I'm capable of wiping my own nose, you know. Not something that your higher Valkyrie count makes a difference to."

Konev gently extracted his wrist from Poplin's grasp. "I feel bad, though."

"So you're gonna kiss my boo-boo and make it better?"

Konev didn't respond to that, so Poplin sighed and let him wipe the stinging alcohol pad across his lip, then follow it up with a gentle dab of ointment. His finger remained on Konev's lip just a fraction of an instant too long— enough for Poplin to realize that there was something in the air between them. He met Konev's eyes, questioning, as Konev withdrew his hand.

Konev seemed stiff for a second. Poplin could feel the tension in his legs, where their knees knocked together. "Can I?" he asked.

"Man…" Poplin said, unable to respond in either direction, so surprised that for the first time in his life, he wasn't sure what he wanted.

That was enough for Konev, though, and he leaned in, pressing his lips to Poplin's, then starting to pull back. But Poplin had figured out what he wanted well enough, and he reached up towards Konev's face, and they were kissing for real, warm and funny and not at all like Poplin had thought it might be— though he wasn't sure he could say if he had been thinking of it before, or not.

Konev's hand was tangling in his hair, wet with melted snow. Poplin grinned and flopped backwards on the bed, tugging Konev along with him. He hit his head on the wall a little, but he didn't mind.

"Gonna disturb my next door neighbor," Konev said, but he was just saying things.

"Just think, we're sparing my next door neighbors the burden of living next to me, for one."

"Shut up," Konev said.

"Hah," Poplin said. "Okay."

And Konev was kissing him again, on the cold bed with them both covered in snow, and it was good enough that Poplin forgot about everything else in that moment.