Work Text:
“Scott?” Pyro’s voice was closer than Scott would have liked, and yet, he could not tell if he’d been seen.
Not even if he wanted to.
You see, sometimes Scott just needed a minute.
The corner he found, tucked away under a stairwell seemed an ideal place to decompress before he inevitably had to return to society.
But now he was stuck.
Inexplicably, he’d become even colder than usual –which was saying something- and the next time he tried to move, Scott was simply frozen in place.
Curled in on himself, knees to chest, head down, Scott had been stuck for some half an hour if his sense of time was to be believed.
And, to make it worse, his face was also frozen, meaning he could not call out to anyone.
How stupid it was, for the ice mage to fall victim to his own ice.
He did want to be found, but not by his ex-best friend. Scott was sure that if Pyro found him literally frozen in such a pathetic way, he would be cruelly mocked.
“Scott, are you alright?” So, Pyro had seen him then. “Um,” he sounded rather unsure of himself, in a way that Scott hadn’t heard since their youth.
But that was not Scott’s focus. The only thing he could think about was the mocking words that were about to come out of Pyro’s mouth and the rumours they would likely start.
All of Scott’s hard work, all of his hopes for a new, better beginning, shattered by one moment of wea-
Scott was cut short in his own thoughts by the sound of footsteps clacking across the floor towards him.
Piss off, piss off, piss off... Scott really wished he was able to speak or even look up.
But he was frozen like some statue.
Once the footsteps were right beside him, they stopped.
Almost gently, a hand made contact with Scott’s shoulder.
The place that it touched instantly felt warm. Of course, Scott had forgotten, Pyro had awakened their fire abilities.
Perhaps he would melt the ice that Scott had found himself stuck in?
But too fast, Pyro withdrew their hand and the ice just reformed.
“Gods, you’re cold!” He exclaimed, audibly surprised. No shit, Scott thought bitterly. At the same time, he was also thinking that he wanted that warmth back.
It didn’t seem like Pyro was going to mock him, but even if he was, that could wait until later.
Scott mainly wanted to be able to move again.
“Are you...” Scott could practically hear the frown in their voice. “Are you frozen?” As they spoke, Pyro tapped the top of Scott’s head, as if to test his theory.
Where the top of his finger should have gone into Scott’s blonde hair, it bounced off, making a faint clink noise.
“Okay, um...” Pyro drew in a breath sharply. “I expected something, but I can’t say it was this.” After another moment, he spoke again, “right, so...” another hesitation, “I’m going to sit really close to you. Just don’t be surprised.”
Why?
Why was Pyro going to sit next to him? How was that going to help?
Moments later, he could hear Pyro sit down and a second after, their sides were pressed together, and Scott understood.
Pyro was like a living hot water bottle. Not just his hands.
Those same hands were on his neck a second later, imbuing their warmth into his very bones.
If he could have sighed in relief, he would have.
***
Pyro had long since fallen silent when Scott’s neck was thawed enough to move.
He turned to look at his childhood best friend, still stiff neck protesting, and found a look of very real concern there.
Now, that expression shifted to something softer. “Hang on,” they mumbled, placing a hand on either side of Scott’s face.
Genuinely, Scott didn’t think he’d been so warm in his life, ever.
He’d thought it was normal, the cold that he’d felt in his bones, every day, since he was small. He did live in Tegrith, after all, and the mountains were cold.
But since he’d awakened his powers, he’d realised it was not normal, rather, he’d been feeling the power in his bones, just waiting for the right time to appear.
Another minute later, Scott could move his face. But now that he could talk, he couldn’t find the words.
He’d thought Pyro would mock him for this weakness, but that was seeming less and less likely with each passing minute. If Scott didn’t know any better, he would have said that Pyro cared.
“Sucks that you’re not immune to your ice.” Pyro huffed out a breath, not removing his hands from Scott’s face.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The moment he opened his mouth, his teeth began chattering at an alarming rate. If he was able to move the rest of his body yet, it was likely that he would be shivering like crazy.
Almost like it was a reflex, Pyro looped one arm around Scott’s waist and pulled him even closer. “I didn’t mean that as your fault, I just meant in general.” When Scott opened his mouth again to reply, Pyro continued hurriedly, “maybe don’t talk for another minute so you don’t knock your teeth out or something.”
Although Scott didn’t appreciate being told not to speak, Pyro had a good point. If he continued shivering at the rate he was, he was bound to lose a tooth or two. “Okay,” he said through his teeth, pressing them together to stop them knocking together.
“I’m thinking,” Pyro started, “that we might be better off in my room. It’ll be warmer in there than out here.”
As much as he’d like to protest, Scott would not reject any heat he could get. He really needed to be warm. Only, his legs were still-
“Scott, I’m well aware that you’re stubborn but I’m going to carry you upstairs. We’ll never mention it again; I would just like to help.”
Pyro sounded to genuine that Scott was inclined to believe them. But he did not trust the fire mage, he’d done nothing to deserve it.
He had so many reasons not to trust him, and yet, they were there at that moment. Pyro was sharing his warmth with Scott when he really needed it, which was what led him to blindly place his trust in someone he hadn’t trusted in eight years.
“W-w-we never speak of t-this,” Scott repeated, fighting the chatter of his teeth.
Pyro smiled faintly and stood, taking his warmth with him. The only thing that prevented Scott from pleading for the heat back was the other man bending over a second later and heaving Scott up into his arms.
The weather had gotten warmer in Tegrith, warm enough to be comfortable without the insulated coats they all wore nearly year-round.
This, of course, meant that two young boys, no more than eleven, were outside, running, ducking and weaving their way through the rocks and buildings.
Usually, tag was such a difficult game for them to play; the snow made it hard to see; the cold preventing them from staying out long; heavy coats weighing them down. Today, they could run faster than usual.
They were both having so much fun that they weren’t watching where they ran and the blonde boy of the two, who was running from the other, didn’t see the large branch laying in his path.
By the time he noticed, the boy was already stumbling over it and falling, hitting the ground with a sickening crunch from his leg.
“Scott?” the brunette boy called, sounding concerned, even more so when they saw the tears that immediately sprung to the blonde boy’s eyes. “Where does it hurt?” he asked, already kneeling in front of their friend.
“My leg.” The blonde reached for his leg in tears but was swatted away by the other’s hand.
“You’ll just make it worse,” he sounded like his mother as they hauled his friend into his arms to find one of their parents for help.
Over a decade after it happened and Scott was thinking of a memory from Tegrith.
That moment reminded Scott of that day, comparing Pyro carrying him back to his mother that day and today, as they carried him up the stairs of the academy, struggling slightly with the position Scott had gotten frozen.
“D’you r-remember that time I broke my l-l-leg?” Scott couldn’t help mentioning it. He wondered if Pyro still remembered that memory, amongst others, or if he’d left it all behind with Tegrith.
“I do,” his voice was quiet as they reached their dorm hallway.
Pyro remembered? Maybe their memories of Tegrith, of the time they spent together wasn’t fully overshadowed by the wide world. Scott didn’t doubt that Pyro had been everywhere he could possibly have been, seen things the ice mage could only imagine in his wildest dreams.
But he still remembered such a specific memory, so very long ago. “O-oh.”
“You didn’t think I’d remember?” Scott thought he glimpsed a flash of hurt in their face. “I remember everything from our childhood. I would never forget it.”
“Oh,” he said again, managing to stop his teeth from knocking for a moment.
He could feel the ice thawing around him, but it seemed to melt quite a lot slower than it should’ve. Maybe it was because of the magic that had created the ice.
Without replying again, Pyro opened the door to his room with their elbow and shoved it open, immediately beelining for the couch in front of the empty fireplace.
Gently, Scott was deposited onto the cushions and Pyro turned to the pile of logs in the corner, lifting a few and dropping them into the fireplace. Instead of using a match like any normal person, Pyro snapped his fingers and a spark jumped into existence, falling onto the wood and immediately setting it ablaze.
This time when Scott opened his mouth to speak, he was shushed immediately by the other man, who came over and dropped down beside him. “Most respectfully, shut up. I would like if you’d keep all your teeth.”
The nerve?
“E-excuse m-” Scott was cut off again, but this time by a finger being stuck in his mouth. Uh, gross?
“You can kill me for that in,” Pyro glanced down at his non-existent watch, “whenever you’re not shivering anymore.” A moschiferous grin had settled on the other’s face as their removed their finger from where it had landed between Scott’s teeth. “Now c’mere, you’ll warm up much faster.”
As much as he wanted to protest, both the cold in his bones and the dislike of having a finger in his mouth kept him quiet as Pyro wrapped an arm around him again and moved them closer together.
Combining the heat radiating form Pyro and the fireplace, it didn’t take more than a few minutes for Scott to regain control of his own limbs and tuck them under himself to stop them shivering.
At some point, his head had found its way to resting on Pyro’s shoulder.
“Has it always been this cold?” Pyro asked.
Scott nodded, “not quite this bad, but always completely freezing.” He was glad to find that his teeth were not clacking together every time he tried to speak.
“Oh,” Pyro sounded kind of sad. “When we were children, I always thought you just had a terrible tolerance to the cold...”
Scott laughed quietly, “Me too, honestly. A bit counterproductive that I can freeze myself, amirite?”
“No kidding,” Pyro laughed along with him, “can’t say I was expecting my day to go like this.”
“And you think I did?” he raised one still-shivering hand to poke Pyro’s cheek.
After a few more moments of silence, he asked what he’d been wondering for days, “what was it like? Travelling, I mean.”
“I thought you didn’t have any interest in the world?”
“Don’t break the peace,” Scott warned.
“Alright, alright,” They held up one hand in surrender, the other still around Scott’s midsection. “It was amazing.” There was an air of childlike wonder to Pyro’s voice that Scott had missed. “I saw so much and met so many cool people. The world is so much bigger than we were led to believe. But there’s one thing I wish I did.”
“And what is that?”
“I wish I’d asked you to come with me.”
Scott couldn’t help the surprise that flashed across his face. Pyro had... wanted to bring him?
He’d thought that Scott was one of the things Pyro had wanted to leave behind, and if he’d known otherwise...
“I’d probably have come with you.”
“Maybe after we get out of here, I can show you some of the world.” There was no hesitation to Pyro’s voice, no reluctancy to make the offer.
“After we go home.”
“Of course. I missed you, Scott.”
“And I you.”