Cold New World
There's a belief that things exist in opposites. So while it's hot and summery now, at least where I am, somewhere else it needs to be just as cold. But what if it was more than that? What if it just kept getting colder? So cold that even the heat of passion couldn't keep the chill away forever. Some place where everything ends up frozen in the end.
TL;DR: I wrote a sad and a gay. And I'm so sorry for that first one.
Prologue.
There is a color, a unique one, that things transition into when they get cold. Not chilled, but truly frigid.
The color objects gain before the frost starts to form and shine on top of them.
It is a strange, ethereal blue that hovers over the soon-to-be-frozen.
It's a color that only cares that it is very, very cold.
1.
The cheap wooden door buckled inwards as the noise of muffled blows snuck around its edges. It was simply designed, and probably bought in bulk when the strip first opened, however many years ago that had been.
The single glass pane centered in its upper half had shattered from the elements long ago, but still held itself in place, echoes of the past caught in its spider-webbed shards. At least until a firm hit set them free, flying away from their former prison and into oblivion.
The noise pierced the silence of the room, the frigid air wrapping itself around each tiny fragment of glass and carrying them into the camouflage of the frost, immediately returning everything to its absolute, icy stillness.
The door bowed inward again and groaned a deep, heavy groan, physical agony splintering away from it, bit by bit.
There was a pause, the chaos ceased, and everything returned to how it had been, trapped in it's silence.
But only for a moment.
With the next hit the door shattered, screaming and splitting in half, sending a shower of wooden splinters clattering and sliding across the icy tiles of the floor.
Two hooded figures leaned into the room, glinting eyes barely visible through their heavy layers and wrappings.
After quickly scanning the room, they entered.
2.
Eddie rushed to the front of the room, stumbling over his own layered clothes as he moved. He quickly undid one of the thick sheets he was using to cover himself, and pinned it over the gaping hole in the broken display glass at the front of the abandoned store. It was a routine he was used to, at least now. Keeping heat where you wanted it was more important than eating now.
The tables and mannequins next to him had been stripped bare, probably when all of this had started too, judging from the dust that had settled onto them. Their pristine whites of their plastic skin had become a sickly grey.
He wondered how all of those stolen televisions and gadgets were working out for the looters. They'd jumped into action the moment the hysteria began, back before it had even gotten that cold. Back when there was still electricity.
They took the "valuables", but they should have taken what was really valuable now; The clothes. How warm was the glow of a black screen?
The front door had a window that wasn't broken into pieces, and Eddie walked over to look outside. He wasn't sure why, it wasn't going to be any different than last time.
And it wasn't.
The sun, heralding dusk, was shining over the rooftops, painting reds and oranges over the snow and ice covered... everything. It didn't bring any warmth anymore, and even if it did it would just start snowing again. The one positive about the negatives was it was too cold to snow. It made traveling easier.
A crashing started up behind him, and he turned away from the stillness outside to watch the chaos beginning in the room.
His shrouded friend had begun tearing apart the wooden display shelves littering the room. They were empty, maybe a few pieces of copper wire here, slashed anti-theft cables there, but nothing valuable or worthwhile.
One moment the structure was standing peacefully, as it had been for months, and the next an enormous boot was sticking through it, bringing it crashing down to the floor in a pile of wooden shrapnel. Just like the door that had gone before it.
Shelf after shelf fell, almost hypnotically, one after another as the storm of flying limbs swept from one side of the room to the other.
Eddie loved watching his friend in his element, he had ever since they'd started traveling together. His enormous size belied a softness nobody would notice just by judging his appearance. Though, with how wrapped up he was, there was barely a shape to be judged in the first place. You couldn't judge him by how he talked, either, because he didn't. Ever.
Not once in their time together had Eddie heard a word from him. It wasn't that he was rude, but... maybe he really just didn't have anything to say. He spoke with his actions, and his actions said a lot. Words didn't come out of his mouth, but sometimes Eddie could see that tears still came from his eyes.
The thundering stopped, and his friend began to push all the broken pieces into a pile, as neat as they would allow themselves to be organized.
How long ago had it been, now? Eddie wracked his brain, trying to remember specifics. It used to be hard enough remembering dates back when they had meant something, so now it was even worse. His sense of time was like a sieve.
It had been a while... probably close to half a year. You couldn't gauge time from the seasons any more, they were all the same:
Winter.
Cold.
It had been right after the first snowstorms, right after the power went out for good. Eddie thought he had prepared, he thought he had been ready, gathering supplies when everyone else was losing control and trying to steal and riot their cares away.
3.
A furious storm of sparks created a dazzling show of lights on top of the wood. Again, and again, until finally there was a loud pop and a fire roared to life, the disused shelves finding new purpose in the flames. Eddie watched the embers spreading, charring more of the treated wood, turning it from dull browns to heated whites. Truly opposite of the white outside.
The two sat down, shivering, and began their unveiling as the heat of the fire spread around them, wrapping its warmth over their chilled bodies.
The scarves came off, then the wraps. Earmuffs, masks... layer after layer cast into two growing piles on the floor in a familiar shedding of cocoons.
Finally both heads were bare; Grey, white, and _almost_black fur took new breaths, and the fire cast four pointy shadows onto the walls that twitched in their new freedom, and the cold.
The two of them together made for possibly the saddest and most pathetic wolf-pack ever made. They were complete opposites of each other, almost alarmingly so. A pair that would never be together under any other circumstances.
Eddie was shorter, not drastically so, but at least half a foot. His hair was lighter, and less dense. He was pretty lean, but not exactly in shape for his size.
His friend on the other hand was massive and well built. Dark, almost black fur covering his tall and rippled body, and dense enough that he needed far fewer layers to keep warm. He knew survival skills, actual survival skills, like starting fires and how not to die.
Those natural canid layers were what had been keeping them going for so long already, but even those had begun to fail in the face of the always worsening cold.
Sitting next to each other, laid bare in the light of the flames, the differences between them seemed even more severe.
Why would someone so well designed for the harsh realities of life go out of their way to save someone so weak and pathetic? That was a question Eddie asked himself a lot.
4.
They were diagonally across from one another, sitting on the shortest shelves, hunched over the small fire and soaking up as much of the precious warmth as they could.
The damp clothes they had been wearing were strewn around the rest of the open space near the flames, in a desperate attempt to get them dry before the sun rose again In the morning.
Their packs that had been all but invisible earlier sat open next to each other, with some food wrappers littering the ground in front of them. Energy bars, packaged snacks... they'd used the last can of soup between the two of them weeks ago.
Hot food... hot food was something Eddie would kill for now, at least expression wise. There were people killing each other for cold food now, let alone any hot stuff. It seemed rude, mean even, to joke about things like that in this cold new world. People were suffering. As much as he and his friend were too, they were still better off than what so many others woke up to as the days passed.
At least, he hoped that was the case. It was a terrible thing to hope for, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. He had to believe the two of them were going strong, at least stronger than the next pair.
Eddie's friend shuffled in his seat, he seemed nervous, worried even. Unusual for him.
Another fidget, a shifting of his eyes, and a faint sigh. His mouth slightly popped open, lips spread, and then...
Then he...
"I'm scared."
The words quickly came from his mouth before it closed back up tight. He had murmured it quietly, almost inaudibly. Barely a_whisper_, but he had done it.
Eddie was shocked. Far more than that, even, but there wasn't a way to describe the sensation flowing through him right now.
His friend never spoke.
Ever.
For him to speak, after all this time of stoic silence, after all the months of stress and travel was, well, unspeakable.
"What do you mean you're "scared"?" Eddie nervously replied, having some trouble getting his own words out. His friend continued to stare into the fire.
"I don't..." He trailed off, and Eddie couldn't make out the rest of the words, if more had been there.
"I, um, I can't hear you."
A deep breath, a pause, another fidget... time was moving slowly in the firelight.
"I don't want to die."
How could you reply to a statement like that? His talking out of the blue was worrying enough, but saying something like that was... something else entirely.
"I don't think anybody wants to die, man." Eddie said back, trying to play it off casually with a smirk, and one errant tooth sticking out of his lips. That was something he wished he'd gotten taken care of back when dentists still worked their dayjobs.
His friend continued to stare, unblinking, unmoving. No response at all.
"Why do you think you're going to, um, die?" Eddie prodded. He didn't want to push anything, but there must have been a reason his friend said what he did.
"I'm cold." he bluntly, unemotionally answered.
"Well yeah, we're all all cold. Why does that make you think you're dying?"
"I'm cold... on the inside."
5.
What was something like that supposed to mean? Was there a way to answer it correctly? Eddie didn't have any idea if he should or shouldn't say anything back. If he did, he might come off as pressuring. If he didn't, maybe uncaring? Maybe the best answer was to wait and let the fire talk for him.
The two continued sitting, staring into the flames, watching them wiggle and pop in the growing pile of ashes.
"I want you to start moving south... Eddie, once I'm gone."
"Stop saying things like that, it's really freaking me out. We already are moving south."
"Not fast enough, not to survive. And I want you to take my pelt. It's thick and will keep you- "
"STOP!" Eddie shouted. The noise came from somewhere deep inside him, in a place he wasn't familiar with. This talk of death, of mutilation, it disturbed him. Part of him didn't want to talk about it outright, but the other part couldn't handle the thought that something might happen to his friend.
If he ignored it, it couldn't happen. And even though he knew that was wrong, he didn't care. He needed his friend. His wonderful, nameless savior of a friend.
"Why are you saying these things? Why is this the first thing you're talking to me about? I don't even know what your damn name is!" Eddie wailed.
His friend quietly raised an arm, reaching under his coat and pulling something metallic out from around his neck. A quick yank, and the necklace popped out of it's clasps and fell around his hand. He held it out towards Eddie, and the silver "J"began to swing and spin in front of them both.
It wasn't anything fancy, just a silver letter. No gaudy rhinestones or colored inlays or embroidering. Just a solid, flat letter on a matching silver chain.
Eddie had never seen it before, even with how close they had sometimes been. Had it always been hiding under that thick fur? Was... it something that should have stayed there?
"Take it."
"What is it?"
That was a stupid question.
"Just take it."
Eddie reached his paw out and let the dangling ornament fall into it. He closed his fingers tightly around it, feeling it press into his flesh. Quickly he figured out what it meant.
"You're name is Jay?"
"My letter is."
"But that's your name, right?"
"No."
Eddie shook his head.
"I don't understand. What's your name then? Does it start with "J"?"
"It doesn't matter, that's my letter."
This time Eddie threw his arms up in frustration. He was shaking from a combination of nerves, frustration, and the cold.
"Why are you doing this!"
Again the shouts from that strange place inside of him, some strange sensation in his gut resonating fiercely with the noise coming from his mouth.
"Out of the blue you start talking and it's all this morbid shit and name games! This is serious! We're trying to survive! The world ended, and you want to waste your first conversation since we met on being stupid! I liked you better when you kept quiet!"
The fire in front of them paled in comparison to the flames blazing inside of him, burning and scarring his spirit in ways he couldn't feel.
6.
"I'm going to lay down..." his friend whispered, and walked from his seat to the bedroll that had been hiding beneath the largest of the garment piles. He didn't bother to take them off, rather, he slid smoothly in beneath them.
It went without saying that this choice, somehow, didn't make things too hot. At least not anymore. But it seemed like every week another new blanket or jacked graced the top of the pile. Desperation was a hell of a thing.
Eddie was left sitting alone. His mind was a whirlwind a different thoughts and emotions. He wasn't really sure what he felt like, and so he kept sitting, looking at things.
What things? He wasn't even sure. Whatever could catch his eye long enough to stop thinking about his troubles.
The icicles... the fire, again... but they all led back to his friend, sleeping with his back turned to him, lightly snoring. The pile lifted gently up and down, over and over again. It was oddly calming to watch, and Eddie seemingly couldn't keep his gaze away no matter how many times he tried. His eyes always wandered back, faster each time after he looked away.
Finally he was too tired to stay sitting. All day it had been walking and barreling through closed doors (and a few walls). His exhaustion was never a gradual buildup, instead it liked to hit him like a truck when he most wanted to stay awake. Why couldn't he just grumble to himself for a few more minutes?
Eddie quietly got up and tiptoed to the pile his friend was sleeping under. He had to search for the layer that was on the bottom, but after a few guesses he managed to find it. He carefully slid himself in, his back against his weary friends.
The fire dimmed as if on cue, but the smoldering white ashes would still keep them warm enough.
7.
Eddie wiggled, and wiggled, slowly working his way out of his clothes all while trying not to move too much and wake up his friend behind him.
Sleeping without clothes would seem like it would make things colder, as if it weren't already hard enough to stay warm at night when the temperatures dropped even further, but it didn't. Sharing body heat did far more to keep them warm then extra clothing could ever achieve.
Eddie had felt extremely awkward the first time his partner had stripped bare in front of him. That was way back when they were quite a bit further north, in the small camp they had set up together.
Well maybe he had done a few things for it.
Okay, maybe the camp was already set up when he had been dragged into it, unconscious, by the stranger he was now laying next to. But he had helped, kind of. Mostly gathering up whatever food and supplies had been left in the area, before they decided to move on to someplace else.
Eddie scowled, trying to remember what he had been thinking about before his poor mind got sidetracked. Before the gears in his brain could spin back, he felt a shuffling behind him, and suddenly an arm slung over his bare chest.
Right, now he remembered, he was thinking about nudity. Because of course he had been.
The lack of shame his friend had had always amazed Eddie, especially thinking about it being the first time they had even slept in the same room. Eddie had turned around to grab something, and by the time he turned back his friend was completely nude, sliding into his sleeping bag.
Eddie had seen much more than he'd expected to, and he hadn't expected anything in the first place. His friend saw the look on his face, gave a small smirk, and finished laying down. Needless to say, Eddie had continued to sleep in his own bag that night. Time had changed that too, though.
Every few days they moved closer together, as their relationship became more established. It was about a month (probably) until they were sharing the same bag, which cut down drastically on the weight they needed to carry around on their travels. Eddie still kept his clothes though, at least for a few more weeks.
His shirt went quickly, and he was happy to find how comfortable it was pressing fur to fur. His pants lasted for longer, but still came off in the end. He had been nervous, but his friend didn't seem to care. He always seemed to sleep just as well no matter how much clothing was involved. At least one of them was getting a good nights sleep.
Back in reality, Eddie hesitantly grabbed hold of his friends hand and held it into his own fluff. He was still a little confused, and a lot troubled, but he still cared.
Another minute passed, then another, and then another hand slowly pushed its way under his side. He knew exactly where this encounter was going. Eddie learned quite awhile ago that his friend liked to do more than just give hugs.
8.
To be honest, Eddie had never thought much about ever doing... things, with other males. Before everything had gotten cold he'd been, as far as he was aware, solely interested in the opposite sex.
He certainly wasn't a saint, by any means. He was just as filthy as any other male canine. He enjoyed porn with females in it. He had sex with females. He also did a lot of other things with females that weren't quite sex but would be considered_very_ close by most practicing experts in the field, and almost all retirees.
He was quite the ladies wolf. He used to tell himself that a lot, even though it sounded really stupid. But he got enough tail that it didn't bother him at all. It was just a little positive reinforcement.
Then everything got cold, and colder, and all the females left, or they got taken, or killed... or other horrible, terrible things that kept them away from his crotch.
Once he and his friend had started sleeping nude together, Eddie had finally realized how long it had been since he'd gotten any. He still thought he wasn't interested in males, but pent up libido did monstrous things to the brain.
The most his partner had ever done was sling his arm over his chest, and he was pretty sure that was a reflex he did naturally in his sleep, at least the first few times. After Eddie repeatedly didn't do anything about it, it was a more frequent thing. But it was nice, being held. But every night his arm crept a little lower, and it was down to Eddie's abdominals when he finally decided to do something about it. He'd always been pretty direct about things, even before everything changed. He, on the other hand, had not.
Without even thinking he'd reached behind himself and grabbed a handful of his friends... package. The thought of anything sexual was just too overpowering to him at that point.
There was a surprised grunt, probably from his friend,maybe from himself, and Eddie flipped over, facing his friend for the first time in such a compromising situation. He'd felt something pushing his hand away, and it definitely wasn't anything with fingers. He'd pushed in, grabbed more firmly, and added his own growing spire to the mix.
It wasn't a sensation he was expecting. Warm, kind of slimy, definitely wet... but also kind of nice? His squeeze tightened, forcing them more together in their little ball of warmth.
His hand started to maneuver on it's own again, like it had been doing since he'd climbed into the bag. Things got warmer, they each started panting onto each other as the growing sensations traveled through them both. Right as Eddie was reaching his peak, there was an actual pair of hands pushing him away. Then his friend had thrown himself out of the bag and walked away, but Eddie had understood. It wasn't because of anything bad, it was because if they had finished together there would have been a hell of a mess.
Eddie had continued laying down, watching as his friend finished himself off in plain view. His large, black, hairy hands gripping himself as he thrust into them. There was another, then one more, and then the hands came off and Eddie looked on in wonder as his friends swollen, knotted rocket bucked and pulsed. Once, twice, and then a stream of glistening white sprayed from the tip and hit the ground with a smack. More pulses, weaker ones, with less leaving his body, before finally going limp and started to dribble.
He didn't know why, but Eddie liked what he had watched. But the important thing, he'd thought, would be if he was still interested after he himself finished.
He had jumped from the bag, and walking away from everything, his own member throbbing and sore from lack of climax. Before he could reach down and grab hold a pair of hands came from behind, around his sides, and grabbed hold of it.
The sudden touch, the gentle pressure squeezing him, Eddie had cum instantly, exactly the same way as he'd just seen. All he had been able to do was to stand and pant, and watch as it happened.
And that had been it. His first experience, but not his last. Turns out, he had enjoyed it after all. And maybe then some.
9.
What was happening this time was different, yet similar. A familiar hand clasped his fuzzy fruits, sending an actually welcome chill through Eddie's body. Then, a familiar prodding at his backside.
Having actual dude on dude sex was the last thing Eddie had ever expected doing in his lifetime. But this situation had played out before, and the first time he'd played along, out of sheer curiosity. Everything he had expected from it had been wrong.
The prodding halted, in a familiar spot. There was a... wetness, at his rear, and something resting gently on his exit-turned-entrance.
His friends paws gripped him tighter, and Eddie felt him sliding himself closer against him, really meshing their fur together. Which also meant that something else was moving closer as well.
The faint moisture turned into a faint pressure, then a definite pressure. Eddie heard a low grunt and knew what was coming. In one fluid motion his friend drove deep inside of him. Eddie's muscles instinctively clamped down, angry at this immense reversal of function. Not as badly as the first time, but still not enjoying what was happening.
It didn't hurt, in fact it never had the few times he'd done "this". There was another quiet grunt, something pushing deeper inside of him. It was getting to the point where it would be too wide for him to handle, but that's always where it stopped. He'd never been knotted, thank god. Eddie didn't think his poor rear could handle something like that, being this "inexperienced" in how it worked.
That was okay though, his friend always stopped just before that point. His friend was a hell of a gentle lover, though thinking about it the reason may have been that if, heaven forbid something happened, they'd need to be able to move quickly. That would be difficult with a knot in your ass and two pairs of legs fumbling around each other.
The pressure faded, much to the pleasure of his muscles, then shattered any hope they had developed and increased again.
And again.
And again.
It wasn't exactly a wonderful feeling, having something sliding in and out of such a sensitive place so many times, but it didn't feel bad, either. After awhile it turned into sort of a zen sensation for him, and it made his own tool throb in a wonderful way. So many sensations, all of them at least passable, and most of them really nice.
The pumping got harder, the hands gripping his body tightened more, and then in an instant Eddie understood everything. The whirlwind in his mind stopped (The one in his ass did not), and all the questions that had plagued him month after month finally answered themselves.
His frie-... J had saved him because he had_needed_ to save him. He'd dragged him into the warm of his camp because he needed someone to take care of. He'd needed someone to teach, someone he could help survive. Something to fill whatever had left a hole inside of him, whatever his past had left him with, or without.
J did it because J cared about him, he really, truly cared, more than Eddie had ever realized. He cared so much, and Eddie had tried to take it all away from him just a little while earlier. He'd almost fucked everything up, so badly. It was probably the biggest mistake he had ever made thus far in his short life. Why J had needed him in the first place didn't matter.
A moan suddenly escaped his muzzle, made of both pleasure and anguish. For a moment in the frozen time around them, they were one. One creature made of warmth and compassion, filled with sensations Eddie had come to cherish far more than he ever realized before. For just a moment he was somewhere else, somewhere warm and not covered in ice, and with the only person he cared about anymore.
One more grunt, and he felt a wonderful warmth starting to spread deep inside of him, further with every pulse he felt. J was sacrificing his own warmth to make sure he would be alright, giving up a part of himself to help the fool that had put him down so harshly a little while ago.
This was what love was. Everything was because J loved him, and Eddie had never given any of it back.
J naturally slid out, and Eddie stayed still, staring at a wall in awe of his realizations. After a few minutes he finally worked up the courage to turn around and say something.
"J,I think... I think I lo-"
J was already back asleep, snoring lightly, his nose puffing out small and rhythmic bursts of vapor. But that was okay, Eddie was pretty sure he knew. Maybe he wouldn't have to proclaim his love out loud, either.
He just wished he had realized it sooner. He'd never loved anyone this way before. He hadn't known what it was. The fact this affection was for another male floored him even more, but he didn't care.
10.
Morning came, shoving away the cold night and bringing another equally cold day. The fire had died, but still smoldered and smoked in the dim room. The last glowing embers, mixed with the hollow light of the sunrise, cast two shadows onto the far wall of the room.
One stirred.
One did not.