firelight
Late December comes with a thick snow blanketing the fields around the little house Levi inherited and like clockwork, Mike falls ill. A yearly tradition at this point, Mike suffers through days bundled up on the sofa in front of the fireplace, going through enough tissues to make up their own landfill. Levi won’t let him use his usual handkerchief.
“That’s probably why you catch this thing so easy,” Levi chides him as he empties the small trashcan Mike keeps filling with tissues–the plush kind, with aloe to keep the skin around his nose from drying and cracking as well as those germ-wicking dots. Levi had driven to three different stores to find them. “All that thing does is collect germs and put them back on your face.”
“Quit fussin’,” Mike can feel his heartbeat in his skull and he hasn’t breathed through his nose in what seems like years. A chill winds itself through the thickness of his clothes, seeking to dissolve the marrow in his bones. Once a Southern boy, always a Southern boy; he would never truly discern what entity chased him from the warmth of his home to the sepulcher of New England winter. “Just go to work, I’ll be fine.”
Levi huffs his protests but fills up an old plastic water bottle, leaving it on the floor within arms’ reach before he trudges off to the B&B.
The green-striped sofa is the longest one in Levi’s little house, but of course Mike’s giant stature does not fit on it comfortably. The blankets Levi had tucked around Mike early that morning (“Tighter than my own asshole. You’re welcome.”) weren’t long enough, either, so while he’s covered down to his thighs, the rest of him has to make do with his regular sweatpants and multiple pairs of socks. He is still cold.
Muffin, Levi’s late mother’s cat, proceeds to give no shits about Mike’s feelings.
“You goddamn bastard,” Mike mutters almost directly into a very tiny, furry anus. “I hate you. So much.” But the cat continues to sit, occasionally knead at the two inches of down that exist above Mike’s chest (at this point, he thinks the blankets might have just become a part of him, an extension of his flesh) and flick his fuzzy tail in Mike’s ever-fuzzy face. Life is shit but he plans to die on the short couch soon anyways. Levi has been merciful enough to rig the TV for him, mounting it on the opposite wall so Mike can see it without moving. The endless stream of House of Cards is his only consolation leading him into the next world.
When Levi gets home, he doesn’t come in right away. The headlights of his car illuminate the sun room but Mike still does not move. Muffin, too seems to be too satisfied on top of his personal mass of sickly warmth. The fire has long since died. The lights outside cut out and he hears soft footsteps climbing the stairs from the cellar. Muffin graciously stabs his weight into Mike’s ribs as he jumps off to investigate the intruder.
A cloud of the winter chill seems to follow Levi around as he pads quietly through the kitchen and dining room. It’s how Mike tracks his movements: The smell of snow. The bag he carries sounds heavy, and when Levi comes around to the fireplace Mike sees that it’s filled with wood Levi had carried up from the basement. The bag also carries Levi’s snow boots, already kicked free of snow, which he sets on the hearth to dry. Levi sighs at the dead embers and crushes old newspaper, piles on a few quarter-logs that Mike himself had chopped the last summer, lights a match and carefully watches as the flame catches first to the paper, then to the dry wood, slowly rendering tree back to ash.
“You let it die,” Levi accuses with no emotional bias telling towards anger or pity.
“Mm,” Mike grunts and it both scratches the itch in his throat and reawakens the pain that was settled there. He watches Levi pull off his socks, tenderly rub salve into his heels to prevent cracking. The minty smell of the balm mixes with the smell of the day’s sweat. “Good day?”
Levi shrugs an answer and rubs the excess salve into his hands. “Nothing special. Brought you soup.”
Mike starts to thank him but it just sends him into a round of coughing. Immediately, Levi is by his side, unwrapping and slipping him a cough drop and checking his forehead with a chilly, sticky palm. With an effort, Mike extracts his arm from under the blankets and pulls at Levi until he is resting completely on top of his broad, cushioned chest. Levi grumbles but settles into a comfortable position, his head resting on Mike’s shoulder.
“You’re cold. S’nice.”
Levi presses a still-frozen button nose against Mike’s neck and he shivers. A small, cold hand finds its way up to Mike’s head, scratches gently at his scalp, warming itself against his sickly skin.
The coughdrop Levi gave him turns his mouth and throat to a menthol-numbed cave. He doesn’t mind.
