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Brassius gazed out at the landscape through the window of the bus as it shifted from grassy plains to sandy and then clay soil, and then the rocky outcroppings that appeared as they approached the mountain. There weren’t many folks on the bus from Artazon to Zapapico – most people got on the route to Levincia instead. Even fewer on the route further north to Montenevera, by way of Glaseado.
A handful of snowboard-hauling kids and Brassius were the only ones who took the mountain shuttle up from the bus stop at the base to the large station near the peak of Glaseado Mountain. The sun had set hours ago and the light pollution of Levincia in the distance lit up the southeast sky so faintly that Brassius might be imagining it. The slopes were illuminated by periodic lights along the ski lifts but this provided little light among the dark cliffs and trees of the mountain. Brassius tried not to think about the kids snowboarding in the night, and how they were taking their lives into their own hands. The snow was deep on the slopes and gleaming with a crust of ice from the cooling temperature of the evening. Tiny flakes fluttered down from the trees. The dark sky was mostly clear but some pale grey clouds had blown in, and Brassius wondered if this would ruin his view.
The Aurora Borealis was a rare sight in Paldea. The news had announced that due to magnetic storms and clear weather, the chances of glimpsing vivid pink and green lights in the sky were very high the night of that winter solstice. The best location to take in this inspiring sight was, naturally, Glaseado peak.
Brassius had packed his foldable outdoor easel and paints into a backpack which barely fit over all the layers he had donned. He had chemical handwarmers and Mareep wool scarf, gloves, and hat (dyed a fashionable dark purple, green, and violet, respectively). His winter coat was rolled tightly into a bundle which he carried with him, jostling against the pokeballs on his belt. He had put perhaps too much planning into this trip.
He had been struggling to sell his work for several years now, and his confidence would ebb dangerously when he could neither sell nor produce any art. Pushing himself out of his comfort zone to see something new had been advice from one of his newer friends. Acquaintances, really. A tourist, a foreigner who’d made an astute observation about Brassius’s work displayed in a gallery, commenting on the direction Brassius had taken with ink paintings of grass type Pokemon in a post-industrial landscape. Brassius had snapped defensively at him, but the point remained–a soot-covered Hoppip floating through chimney smoke wasn’t exactly groundbreaking. They had got to talking and the man, a musician called Hassel, had shared some of his dreams and ambitions with Brassius, and given indirect, tentative advice when Brassius mentioned artist’s block.
They had met up around Mesagoza several times since then, at first by chance. Once Brassius had paused to listen to someone playing guitar beside the central fountain, and only recognized Hassel when he saw the blond ponytail swaying as he nodded his head to the song, tapping his foot and strumming, lost in his own world. They had gotten coffee afterward and it was Brassius’s turn to tease Hassel about playing cliche songs. They’d glimpsed each other at museums and outdoor summer concerts, and then struck up something like a friendship. At least, it was fun to argue with Hassel, and although he claimed he’d been tutored at home in a different region, Hassel knew more about art than most of the alumni of Brassius’s old Art Institute in Lumiose, and he spoke a lot less pretentiously and more insightfully about it. He called out Brassius for wallowing when he was down, and then invited him out to a new exhibit or show, smiling softly when Brassius regained his spark and offered critique and analysis of what they’d seen or heard.
He had not suggested going up to the coldest region in Paldea on the shortest day of the year, not directly. Rather, Hassel had mentioned that his own travels often inspired him, that he wanted to see the Ten Sights, and that perhaps pushing past one’s comfort zone was required to grow as a person and as an artist. He’d seemed to be speaking of himself, but Brassius had noticed that Hassel was leery of offering unsolicited advice or making requests of others. Where he was confident criticizing art and music or when discussing Pokemon battles, Hassel's words were more hesitant regarding other people’s choices.
They exited the shuttle just outside the station, where the snow was pressed down by plows and feet and illuminated by bright lights. The station had an adjoining lodge and restaurant, and vertical racks held skis and snowboards from the workers and customers. The ski lift came up near here, and the slopes were below, partially lit and much too dangerous at night, to Brassius’s mind. Glaseado resort was still largely underdeveloped, although Brassius had heard there were plans to make it a snowboarding destination and perhaps even open a League gym in the small mountain town. Brassius thought it a little redundant with the lovely Montenevera right there, but Pokemon gyms were hardly his purview. He rarely visited the mountains at all, let alone the more outback and wild Glaseado.
Several Snover were perched beneath a snow-covered fir tree. The Glaseado shuttle station was an expansive wooden hall with wide windows and thick crossbeams that suggested not a wood cabin so much as a manor. It was decorated with green and red garlands and lights for Christmas and had a large fireplace in the far wall, surrounded by armchairs and couches. The knitting club was held on Tuesdays, according to the sign, and the vast building was mostly empty. Christmas music tinkled from the speakers, and the bar was closed and shuttered. Brassius paused near the benches and vending machines near the door, where he took a folded map from the brochure stand and unzipped his winter coat to rearrange his scarf, put the heat packs into his pockets, and made some other last-minute adjustments. The paints would freeze if he didn’t deploy the heat packs appropriately, though he had another strategy in case this failed. Then he zipped and hooded up, and stepped out into the crisp icy crust, carefully, and across the well-lit road and onto the trail that would lead him up to the peak.
The trail meandered between trees, stairs set into the path, before it climbed up to the bald peak of the mountain where the scenic site signpost told visitors where they were – if they had somehow missed the view. Along the trail were branching paths leading to Pokemon dens and campsites and other scenic places. Brassius had traced and retraced the maps carefully back in Artazon, making sure he knew his route.
His breath clouded the air as he walked, gloved hands stowed in pockets. Only the sounds of wild Pokemon, the squeak of his boots on the snow, and the creak of trees permeated the chilly air. The sky between the trees was patchy with clouds, and between these Brassius could see stars. No hint of the aurora yet, but that was supposed to be more visible later in the night. As he walked, enjoying the solitude, he became more aware of low, deep growling from somewhere up ahead and off the path.
There were strange tracks in the snow, unusually large ones for the Pokemon Brassius knew lived here. There were human tracks, too, many of them going up and back down the path, and trainers who had visited the Pokemon dens and detoured into the deeper snow left tracks as well. Brassius looked up more than he looked down, anticipating the sky show he was here to see.
He scaled the first set of stairs set along the path and wondered if there was a Beartic den nearby. His Pokemon wouldn’t do very well against any territorial ice-types. Perhaps an Abomasnow? But as the growling grew louder, Brassius examined the snow for prints and found none of the root-like imprints Abomasnow might leave behind. Instead, there were claw marks here, large ones.
Brassius slowed his pace and crept forward, curiosity piqued. He left the path when he heard the low growling, like a Pokemon in distress. There was a trail made by someone with larger strides than him through the deeper snow drifts, and he followed along. As he rounded a bend toward a secluded clearing at the edge of the mountain-face, he heard another, quieter sound. It was muffled and hard to make out, but it sounded like someone was humming a song. The growls were much louder and Brassius leaned out from behind a tree and froze, eyes wide, when he saw the source.
It was enormous, the spike on its back sharp and gleaming. Baxcalibur, grey-blue and growling a threatening growl, was crouched over the side of the snowy mountain and attempting to slash at a wall of ice. Even bent down, it looked fierce and very large. But the movements and growls sounded desperate, and the humming was coming from somewhere up ahead, and so Brassius moved closer, as carefully as he could.
There must have been a rockfall or an avalanche, because snow and ice covered the side of the mountain where the humming came from, fresh snow and ice that looked like it had recently fallen or been piled there. The Baxcalibur was strangely desperate and perhaps worry was clouding its judgment because it did not use its most powerful move, the sharp spike on its back, to clear the debris. Or perhaps, thought Brassius suddenly, this might endanger whoever was in the cave. He gasped, realizing that there had to be a human there too, judging by the humming. How had they not frozen to death? Why weren’t they calling for help? Who would sit trapped in a frozen landscape and surrounded by growling dragon Pokemon and feel the urge–and act on the urge–to sing?
He had an idea and it only worried him further. He took a careless step and the deep snow crunched and squeaked beneath his boot.
Baxcalibur stopped, alerted by the sound, and turned, rising on its hind legs until it towered over Brassius, whose mouth dropped open.
“Oh,” he said dumbly, hands raised before him. “I’m not…” the fear was nearly paralyzing, but the ice dragon wasn’t attacking him. In fact, it was looking desperately at him, and Brassius swallowed and came to his senses.
“Yes! Yes, I think I can help,” he said hoarsely. He had wanted to sound soothing but this was beyond him under the circumstances. “I don’t know if you can understand me, but I promise I’ll be careful. You may wish to stand back.”
He fumbled and then simply popped his gloved hand in his mouth to pull off the glove, unzipped his coat with nimble fingers and reached beneath it for the correct pokeball. This he tossed gently and light flashed to reveal a two-headed, green and red Pokemon that cried out in two voices that overlapped to sound like sizzling peppers, like laughter, like a higher growl. The humming stopped and an accented and muffled voice said,
“Greetings! Is someone there?”
“Yes! We’ll get you out,” Brassius called. “Stand back, if you can? Padrón, this is a rescue operation. Can you manage a gentle flamethrower? Melt the ice and snow without burning anyone.”
The Scovillain stomped impatiently, the green head shaking while the red pepper-head nodded, orange tongues flaring. It opened one of its mouths wide and illuminated the clearing with a brilliant, if thin, flamethrower aimed at the scratched ice from behind which the voice had issued. This melted before their eyes beneath the sustained heat. The ice that had held together fragments of rock like concrete dripped away into water, hissing with steam. The debris was almost immediately diminished.
Then Baxcalibur, which was closer than Brassius remembered it being, gave a terrible roar that sent him jumping and clutching at his chest. The dragon rushed forward, its claws easily pushing past the steaming debris to reveal the mouth of a cave. Brassius gave Scovillain a word of praise and returned it to its ball. His eye caught movement in the trees behind him, but his gaze was drawn almost magnetically to the newly-revealed cave in the mountain.
From the steaming, hissing cave emerged a person. Brassius blinked because the image was striking, and it reminded him a little of the beauty of icons he’d seen of mother and child. It was Hassel, as he’d guessed, clad in his leather jacket and looking a little blue about the lips but absolutely beaming, blond hair and gold eyes glimmering in the snow-reflected starlight, emerging from the mist with a small and strange little dragon cradled in his arms. He set it gently down and it toddled forward and was embraced by its parent Baxcalibur, which was growling at a very different pitch.
“Br-brrr-Brassius! You r-rescued me! Thank you,” Hassel was shivering, Brassius noticed suddenly. He looked glowingly happy, not like he’d just been trapped and freezing to death, but like he’d run into an old friend while out grocery shopping. Like he was delighted to be rescued but even happier it had been by Brassius.
Brassius swallowed, and then unfurled his scarf and took off his hat and gestured at Hassel to bend down so he could put them on him. The leather jacket had a lacework of frost decorating it, turning the dark brown leather silvery grey in the dim light.
“What-how-” Brassius began, but paused and finished his task. Hassel continued to shiver, his teeth chattering.
“You foolish man, what were you thinking? You’re freezing! Come here,” Brassius barked, unzipping his coat completely and attempting to share body warmth with the freezing lunatic beside him, mostly by hugging him.
“Ah, one mo-moment, please, Brassie,” Hassel said, an icy hand pushing Brassius back and stopping him in his tracks.
The shadow from behind Brassius floated out and Brassius jumped again, letting out a noise of surprise. It was an enormous seahorse, algae floating behind it, looking reproachfully at Hassel. Brassius recognized Dragalge from a practice battle he’d witnessed. The Pokemon waited beside Brassius as Hassel lavished his attention on Baxcalibur and the Frigibax.
“My apologies. Baxcalibur, Frigibax. I’m so sorry for earlier. Are you well?”
He addressed the dragons as if they understood him, and Frigibax did indeed make a gesture with its short arms, but its evolved caretaker made a sound in the back of its throat and ignored him.
“I’m so very glad!” Hassel exclaimed, as if this was the confirmation he wanted. He leaned forward and because the ice dragon was bending down to take care of its small one, Hassel easily reached the top of its head. He planted a quick kiss there and stepped back, though the dragon did not seem to mind him now that it had reunited with Frigibax safely.
Brassius noticed suddenly that there was movement in the cave, and then the middle evolution emerged, trudging up to them on its hind legs and coming all the way up to Hassel, pulling on the side of his pant leg. Hassel dug a hand into his pocket but his fingers refused to grasp whatever was inside and he took his hand out and frowned at its lack of dexterity.
Brassius huffed out angrily and cracked two heat packs, popping them into his gloves which he stretched to cover about half of Hassel’s hands, each. Hassel’s mouth dropped open as Brassius reached into Hassel’s pants pocket, retrieved the treats, and offered them to Arctibax with an open hand. Hassel closed his mouth and watched as Arctibax snatched the treats from Brassius and munched on them loudly. Some of the color returned to Hassel’s cheeks. He looked near tears or laughter, it was hard to tell. Brassius grabbed him by the elbow and steered him back to the road, Dragalge floating behind them. It made a strange sound and retreated into its own pokeball at Hassel’s belt. Brassius had never before felt like a Pokemon had slammed the door in on itself when it returned to its ball, but that was the impression he got now. But he didn’t pause. It was imperative to get Hassel warm, and quickly. As they walked, Brassius mentally debated taking off his own coat and decided that it would be too small for Hassel anyway.
“When you’re warmed up again, you’re going to tell me what in Arceus’s name you were thinking,” Brassius snapped, feeling the leather of Hassel’s worn jacket creaking, stiff with frost beneath his arm. “You’ll be lucky if you don’t lose your fingers and toes. I thought you wanted to be a musician!”
Hassel bit his lip but the laugh defeated him and escaped. It did something funny to Brassius’s lungs.
“You sound just like the Baxcalibur,” he said, and there was a warmth to his smile that made Brassius look away and walk faster, tugging Hassel along.
“Are you going to kiss me, too?” Brassius said without meaning to, and without looking at Hassel.
Hassel was silent for several moments, the arm Brassius was pulling going more easily. He glanced back to see if he had overstepped, but Hassel just looked thoughtful.
“Perhaps,” the dragon tamer said mysteriously, with another small smile. Brassius refocused his eyes on the path before he tripped.
For several minutes, the air was full of silence, an odd new tension, and the sounds of snow crunching under their feet. The patchy grey clouds of earlier let loose snow flurries. Brassius worried his lower lip with his teeth and felt far out of his depth. He saw the lights of the station up ahead and exhaled a plume of white air.
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t blast your way out of that cave, you with your team of dragons,” Brassius said, plowing ahead and pulling Hassel behind him toward the station. Hassel was walking in a bit of a daze now, and Brassius was getting a stomachache.
“Hmm? Oh, certainly,” Hassel agreed. “Certainly I could b-blast my way out. But it’s their h-home, I didn’t want to destroy it.”
The chattering of Hassel’s teeth had gotten audibly worse, but they had finally made the short walk back down to the station. Brassius tugged open both sets of doors and they were inside. His hands had been going numb from the short walk, though he’d hidden them in his pockets. Brassius wondered how long Hassel had been stuck in an ice cave with ice Pokemon and felt hot anger and an awful stomachache coming on.
Like earlier, the station was completely empty, a vast hall echoing Christmas music and glimmering with fairy lights. The ceiling lights activated upon sensing their motion. Brassius looked around and his gaze landed on the fireplace and the throw blankets on the couches around it. The fire was blazing embers, but there was more firewood set aside a distance away.
He led Hassel over to the fireplace and loosed Scovillain again, and heaved several of the larger logs one at a time into the fireplace, arranging them to make sure air would reach the flames once they kindled. At his gesture, Scovillain’s fire had the fireplace blazing and crackling in no time. Hassel had sunk down not on the couch but the floor in front of the fireplace, and looked to be basking in the heat and near sleep. He’d looked this way after they’d sampled shots of Orujo after a bad music gig once, where the restaurant owner had wanted smooth jazz and the manager had booked a punk rock group in either a miscommunication or some kind of vendetta. Hassel had phoned Brassius, who had just finished his piece for the city-wide competition, and they had imbibed together, laughing about Hassel’s group getting kicked out. Brassius hadn’t felt as worried, that time.
“Absolutely not,” Brassius muttered, turning to his friend and narrowing his eyes. “You need to get undressed.”
“I beg your pardon,” Hassel said faintly, proper as usual despite being half-frozen. “For a moment I thought you requested that I take off my clothes. In a public space.”
Brassius felt warm near the fire. He turned to gaze directly into Hassel’s eyes and said, “That’s right. Strip.”
He felt guilty immediately as the blood suffused Hassel’s face in shock and embarrassment and he broke into a coughing fit, but then they were both laughing and the tension was broken. Brassius still lacked the confidence to maintain the facade longer than a moment.
“Help me with this, at least,” Brassius said, taking Hassel’s arm and indicating his leather jacket. It was thawing, the frost coating it turning to droplets of water. Hassel obliged him and tugged it off, a little clumsy and stiff from the cold.
“I assume your confinement was the result of some absurd accident?” Brassius asked, laying the jacket across another armchair to dry and proceeding to help Hassel remove his boots. They were more for fashion than warmth, Brassius noted with continued disapproval, and while Hassel’s hands and fingers had flooded with color and were now red rather than white, his fingers were still clumsy in their movement. Brassius pulled off the socks despite Hassel’s protests that it was unnecessary and he could do it himself and he ran hot, actually. Hassel quieted and extended his legs toward the fire as Brassius fetched several throw blankets and cushions from the couches. He had taken off his own winter coat and his vest and sweater, and now he unbuttoned Hassel’s checkered shirt slowly, keeping an eye on his hands and the brilliant pink of his cheeks.
“Funny you should say that,” Hassel groaned, covering his face with the back of his hand and nearly smacking Brassius in the process. “Oh, I’m so sorry. You’re right, of course. I could have gotten out of there anytime. I was hoping to calm down the little one and the guardian. We were battling, you see. I always wanted to meet Paldea’s ice dragons, and the Champion told me this was the perfect time to spar with them! But I made something of an amateur mistake, I realize that now. It’s… not exactly flattering to admit.”
“More than one, I’d say,” Brassius muttered sulkily.
“I was just so excited to find a Baxcalibur in the wild! I wanted to battle it, and I may have disregarded some very clear signals that only became evident to me in retrospect. I had Dragalge out for a battle. I had never measured our strength against Paldea’s strongest dragon type before! I did not realize that Baxcalibur was not simply territorial, but was minding its family and its shelter. No wonder it fought so fiercely! It took me a moment to notice the body language was all wrong. I ah, I may have engaged a little too quickly.”
Brassius was sitting very close to Hassel on the floor, and as he guided the man’s arms out of his tartan shirt, he saw those amber eyes overflow with emotion. Without thinking, Brassius wiped the tears away with the side of his thumb, as if he were smudging a painstroke or applying a finishing touch to an unfired clay sculpture.
“I wanted to catch one, when I first heard of them. But they are very rare, and I was just so excited to find one in the wild. The thought of battling turned my head. It redirected Dragalge’s water attack with an ice move, and set the mountain shaking. That’s when it changed the tone of its growl and I finally spotted the younger ones and the cave. Their home.”
Hassel shook his head in self-reproach.
“I heard the avalanche then, but it was my fault. I ran for the cave and made it in just before the entrance was blocked off. I wanted to calm Frigibax and Arctibax, but also to reinforce the structure of the den. Dragonite and Noivern helped. But they aren’t exactly amenable to ice, you know. And Dragalge was on the other side, and there wasn’t much room to blast out without compromising the den itself, not until we stabilized it. And then Frigibax began to cry! I had to help it calm down.”
“So you decided to freeze to death instead?” Brassius said, with some bite. He noticed only then that his hand had lingered on Hassel’s shoulder, which was growing warm. Brassius pulled back, feeling suddenly too warm himself.
“Hardly,” Hassel was smiling at him in that way again, not with his mouth but with his entire expression, and most of all with the warmth of that amber gaze. “I was going to finish the song and have Dragonite give a careful attack, a measured pulse. Admittedly, your strategy was better. I haven’t taught Dragonite any fire moves. But I never would have guessed you’d have a fire type! What was that Pokemon? I only caught a glimpse of it.”
“Padrón is a Scovillain,” Brassius said, reaching for his belt.
Hassel's hand intercepted his.
Their eyes met, and Brassius relaxed his shoulders. Hassel took this as permission and unbuckled his belt, and Brassius didn’t dare move, some need squirming in him and making his toes curl and his mouth pinch. He remembered to breathe.
“Third one,” he whispered, and Hassel tapped the pokeball gently before setting the belt aside.
Scovillain emerged with its sizzling double laugh, and stuck its tongues out at Brassius. He exhaled and broke into a smile, watching as Scovillain attempted to provoke him but then got into an argument with itself instead.
“Fire and… grass?” Hassel sounded uncertain.
“Indeed. I think they’re native and unique to Paldea,” Brassius mused. They watched Scovillain snap and argue among its two heads for a few moments. Then it went toward the doors, as if it sensed something outside.
“Where? Oh, dear.”
Hassel had leaned around Brassius, and being taller he could see even from the floor that there were large silhouettes near the doors. He and Brassius stood up, and Brassius threw a blanket over him because now Hassel was in just his undershirt, and his clothes had not finished drying off near the fire.
“They followed us,” Hassel gasped, already halfway across the room. Brassius hurried after him, carrying his boots and eyeing the dragons at the door.
“Put these on at least, and don’t even think of walking off like that, you nearly froze your fingers off-”
“Don’t fret, Brassie, I don’t think they want us to go with them,” Hassel interrupted softly. He took the boots and tugged them on bare feet and they went out of the station into the streetlamps and the lightly-falling snow together. Scovillain stuck its tongues out at the dragons.
Baxcalibur gave a very low roar, more of a growl, and then visibly bowed to Hassel. Frigibax was swinging its head from side to side playfully and sleepily. But it was Arctibax that crossed the distance, from the treeline to the light of the streetlamps in front of the empty ski racks, leaving a set of tracks. It headbutted Hassel lightly above the knee with its snout and gave an odd, purring growl.
“Really?” Hassel said, looking astonished and delighted again. He looked questioningly back to the Baxcalibur and back to Arctibax. “You’re sure?”
The Baxcalibur gave what sounded more like a snort than a growl and turned around, walking away with surprisingly light steps in the snow considering its weight. Frigibax toddled after it.
Hassel blinked several times and took out a minimized pokeball from a back pocket, tapped it back to regular size and held it out.
Arctibax pressed its nose against the button and glowed and went inside.
The pokeball shuddered once.
Twice.
Click.
Hassel picked it up and returned inside with Brassius and Scovillain, which sniffed the pokeball with both heads and lost interest.
Brassius congratulated Hassel on his new Pokemon, and Arctibax emerged almost immediately to curl up near the fire as if it didn’t mind the heat in the slightest.
“I’ve got to do some research regarding ice dragons and warm temperatures,” Hassel said thoughtfully. They were sitting on the floor in their blanket nest with their backs to a couch, their legs parallel and the fire crackling before them. Hassel’s clothes had dried out, and his heat was palpable and steady beside a much calmer Brassius. Hassel considered Arctibax and the fireplace. “Something strange is going on with temperature regulation here…”
Brassius had bent his knees and withdrawn his paints from his bag, and was painting something and gazing attentively between the fire, Hassel, Arctibax, and his canvas.
Hassel too split his attention between watching Arctibax and Brassius for some time.
There was a faint glow outside, above the snowy clouds, greenish and pinkish hues shimmering in the night sky.
“What were you doing up here, Brassius?” Hassel asked suddenly. “I haven’t heard of any ice-carving competitions.”
“That’s Montenevera in February,” Brassius said without looking up from his painting. “No, I was hoping to paint a seasonal phenomenon. But I find myself inspired by a different muse tonight.”
“Oh,” Hassel’s blush was faint in the firelight. The overhead lights had dimmed at their lack of motion. Hassel had looked up the next scheduled shuttle, which was not until early the next morning. He glanced up and something caught his eye. “I do not think I thanked you properly for rescuing me, dear Brassie.”
Brassius glanced sharply up from his painting and set the canvas, palette and brush aside, suddenly licking his lips. He noticed Hassel’s gaze and followed it to the netting of fairy lights above them. There was a clump of something green with white berries tied together with red ribbon and situated above the couch–the loveseat–they were leaning against.
“I was only jesting when I said…” Brassius paused. “Hass, you should not feel obligated-”
Hassel’s eyes were glowing brighter than the fire when he turned them to Brassius, and he looked very serious and solemn when he said, “Don’t confuse obligation with inspiration, please. You’ve brought me out of ice and to the fire. Even as neither of these is your chosen type, you’ve shown mastery over both. Now, stop me, please, if I misread you.”
Achingly slowly, Hassel brought a large, now warm hand to Brassius’s face and hair, green curls settling between calloused musician’s fingers. Even more slowly he leaned forward, eyes gauging as Brassius stared and gaped at him. Brassius blinked rapidly and then closed the remaining distance.
It was a bit chapped, but warm, and both of them made embarrassing noises into the kiss as they oriented their heads to align. It wasn’t very deep or long, but it energized both of them so that when they parted, Hassel and Brassius met elated gazes. Soon, they were laughing again, making holiday plans, and glancing not too furtively into each other’s faces, eyes, lips, smiles.
The Aurora Borealis glowed unseen high above them. They glowed in each other’s company in the empty station, talking into the night.