Categories > Anime/Manga > Legend of the Galactic Heroes > pale september
5 a winter morning just like any other
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1Ambiance
Between winter and spring the heater in their wing of the dormitory breaks down while the nights are still long and grey and waking up is a long torturous decision between four layers of bedding and empty cold air. They shove the beds together in the corner as far away from the window as they can get, tape the long musty drapes along the cracks in the sill and stuff a fraying shag rug along the bottom of the door, roll into bed with 'a million clothes on', and it's never warm enough. Reinhardt says they aren't being scientific about it; he asks Reinhardt what scientific measures they aren't taking and Reinhardt exhales through his nose in a short impatient huff, bites down on his lower lip and sucks it for half a minute before saying that true scientific progress is never automatically arrived at but tried and tested. Then Reinhardt reaches across and tugs at his hair and he can see Reinhardt's eyes floating half-shut, translucent pupils darkening and shifting in focus, and he knows the topic has moved on.
"Kircheis," later, when he's nodding off over his books and he wakes up to a crick in his neck and Reinhardt shaking him and cold, it's so cold, "Kircheis, I'm going to bed," which means that he gets up and burrows under the covers with Reinhardt, huddling close to each other against the cold with Reinhardt's chin pressed against his shoulder and hands folded against his chest, all curled together like twins sharing a womb. Concentrate hard enough, he thinks, and soon it will get warm enough to fall asleep; just as he feels the cold no longer trying bite at him safe under the sheets, he's stirring slowly awake to the sound of vehicles moving through the streets and the slow gradual lightening of the eastern sky that never really turns to sunlight. But this is the part he likes, that's better than sleep; this is when he lies awake and pretends to be asleep and the tail-ends of his dreams float about behind his eyelids so he can barely tell which dream this is that he he's woken up to. Reinhardt abruptly asks him what he's looking forward to, in spring, and he says, that there will be flowers in the gardens again.
"I didn't know you liked flowers," Reinhardt says.
He doesn't point out that it's not a really masculine thing, to admit to a fondness for flowers.
"I like flowers," Reinhardt says when he stays quiet, muffled against his chin, and he nods his head and bumps his nose into Reinhardt's forehead, Reinhardt's hair the colour of the early daffodils that push up against the brittle topsoil and shake themselves, like kings coming out of hibernation, to bask in the first true sunlight of the year.
"Kircheis," later, when he's nodding off over his books and he wakes up to a crick in his neck and Reinhardt shaking him and cold, it's so cold, "Kircheis, I'm going to bed," which means that he gets up and burrows under the covers with Reinhardt, huddling close to each other against the cold with Reinhardt's chin pressed against his shoulder and hands folded against his chest, all curled together like twins sharing a womb. Concentrate hard enough, he thinks, and soon it will get warm enough to fall asleep; just as he feels the cold no longer trying bite at him safe under the sheets, he's stirring slowly awake to the sound of vehicles moving through the streets and the slow gradual lightening of the eastern sky that never really turns to sunlight. But this is the part he likes, that's better than sleep; this is when he lies awake and pretends to be asleep and the tail-ends of his dreams float about behind his eyelids so he can barely tell which dream this is that he he's woken up to. Reinhardt abruptly asks him what he's looking forward to, in spring, and he says, that there will be flowers in the gardens again.
"I didn't know you liked flowers," Reinhardt says.
He doesn't point out that it's not a really masculine thing, to admit to a fondness for flowers.
"I like flowers," Reinhardt says when he stays quiet, muffled against his chin, and he nods his head and bumps his nose into Reinhardt's forehead, Reinhardt's hair the colour of the early daffodils that push up against the brittle topsoil and shake themselves, like kings coming out of hibernation, to bask in the first true sunlight of the year.
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