'tis the season (to love you)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Daylight.

The faint sun rays stream through the frosted windows, warmth blazing through the aftermath of a bone-chilling night. After the fury of the storm, a blissful calm.

Brett wakes up. His feet are cold. He finds himself breathing into the wispy strands of hair on a very familiar head, his mind finally registering the balmy press of a chapped mouth against the thoroughly unprepared skin of his throat, and wait, oh no, oh shit, oh fuck—

His heart promptly seizes in his chest.

When it all comes right down to it, he probably shouldn't be this blown away by something as simple as bunking together with a friend, except that it's not that simple, not when they've already bunked together a few times before as kids and on this trip, though never this close, this entangled: near-inseparable. But this proximity—it means something now. Something different, something more, and where it would've once been nothing more than a warm ember lodged between his lungs, a safely platonic slip of a thing he's allowed to share with his best friend—now, it threatens to sear through his organs like acid.

It takes every inch of willpower to prevent himself from slithering closer to the tantalizing heat of Eddy's skin and leeching off of it or from running away all the way back to Brisbane screaming his head off, miles of snow and road be damned. Both outcomes will no doubt result in the end of their friendship and maybe disownment from the family tree courtesy of Nana, so in the end, he chooses inaction for the time being—petrified limbs, stuttered breaths in his lungs, a silent meltdown inside his cranium.

Eddy's not awake yet. Hell, he has time to have two silent meltdowns if he wanted to.

Brett eventually manages to drag himself out of his stupor and take steps to extricate himself from the worst of the proximity, wiggling his torso out from within the thicket of Eddy's limbs like a man on a mission, which he supposes is the whole point of this, the mission being: do not fuck this up!

He's probably already fucked this up beyond repair last night, but. Maybe it's best to look at the bright side. A very effective self-preservation tactic, as it were.

After a few more careful tugs, Brett manages to free his upper body from the confines of their once-shared embrace. He shifts down their makeshift bed with slow movements, finally coming nose to nose with the man who means everything to him. Under the delicate glow of the morning sun, Eddy looks softened in his continued slumber. At peace. Warm and beautiful and—

And not wearing any pants. Right. Fucking hell.

Brett closes his eyes and breathes in deep for a few seconds. Seeing as this phenomenon was his doing, he's just going to compartmentalize the fuck out of this situation and pretend the legs tangled with his own are just—wearing skintight clothing. Really tight. Yes. Good.

Oh, who is he even kidding anymore.

So it seems he's been reduced to a weak-willed mess of a human being. Goddamnit all, but he's better than this, really. Was better than this, once.

(Seems love can make a fool out of anyone.)

Before he can work himself into a fit over that particular line of thought, the eyes in front of him slowly flicker open, taking in its surroundings inch by bleary inch until it manages to focus on Brett's face at long last.

And then the body he's entangled with tenses up.

Brett just barely remembers to drag his gaze away from where he'd been absentmindedly studying the Cupid's bow of his best friend's lips, moth drawn to flame.