Body Heat

[justformemes]

THE BODY HEAT MEME

Post with your character! They're now stuck in a very cold place of your choice. It can be anything, such as a freezing chamber, a cavern or a small cabin in the midst of a blizzard. The choice is up to you.

Comment around! Now your character has some company in this bone-chilling environment. The two of them share two things in common: clothes completely unfitting for this weather (be they summer clothes or even lingerie) and a blanket.

A blanket? Yes, just one warm blanket and no other ways to escape the cold. The two of them will have to share it in order to stay alive in this weather. Don't worry, you're sure to find a common language in this terrible situation!

So, uh, have fun, I suppose. Try to not freeze to death!

Protip: friction and body heat are both excellent ways to fend off cold.

Comments

[teenyoda]

"You sure?" Because that's not what he was thinking and he wouldn't agree to it. No way was he going to bundle himself up in a fur while she shivered. He couldn't do it.

[steeledskin]

Sansa nodded. A slow, fur-edged nod.

"I would not mind--" sharing. "But if I could keep it a little longer--!"

She was kind. But she was not that kind.

[teenyoda]

Aww, come on, Sansa. It wasn't like he'd try anything. "What like... you want to share like... passing it off? That's not going to do any good, Sansa. We need to store body heat. To share body heat."

1/2

[steeledskin]

"Body heat?"

Her composure crumbled; her poise petered out.

2/2

[steeledskin]

Fortunately, her cheeks were already so so red from the cold. It hid the creeping flush.

"N-no. We can't."

[teenyoda]

"Well, we might have to. It's what you do in cold places, Sansa. Wrap up as many bodies as you can and try to keep all the heat your body gives out so you don't get hypothermia or frostbite." He wasn't really cluing in to why she was so offended. Hey, he didn't smell, okay?

[steeledskin]

Blanket-sharing was not such a foreign concept. She'd shared with Arya when she was younger. And Jeyne on cold Winterfell nights. With Myranda Royce, as well, back in the Vale. But it was not always because of the chill and it was certainly never with anyone who wasn't another lady. Except my lord husband, she thought. And frowned.

"I am not so warm--" she cautioned him, trying to defy the very laws of science to convince him out of this scheme. "I have little heat to offer you."

[teenyoda]

He grinned, shoulders shaking a little as he looked at her. "It builds up under a blanket, Sansa. We all give out a certain amount and if we can get both of us under there, we can get a lot warmer. It's not just what you can offer me, but what we can do to keep us both able to keep our fingers and toes. I've already sent a text to have someone come get us, but until the worst of the storm passes, we're stuck here."

[steeledskin]

She endured the explanation. Of course, she understood it. She'd understood the concept from the first moment it had been properly floated through the conversation. But her gentle defiance had been (perhaps) too understated.

"Stiles," she huffed. Her breath turned to smoke on the air -- even inside, and thereby proving the need for warmth. "It...I'm not certain...I don't think I ought to."

[teenyoda]

"Ought to what? Not freeze to death?" He gave her a frown for a moment before it finally clicked. "God, Sansa. I'm not trying to cop a feel or anything. It's not like that. It's survival, not... ah, not a date or anything. I'm not going to... do anything."

[steeledskin]

She looked hurt. Not least of all because the content of his words was found mildly offensive, but also because she worried he misunderstood her. It wasn't his intentions that mattered so much as the image that might be projected. She and he could snuggle up under a whole pile of blankets and do nothing but discuss daisies and she would still have incriminated herself in the eyes of many. For who would trust their words?

"I know you won't. I wouldn't think -- you're not..." Her expression darkened. "Is it truly what has to be done?"

[teenyoda]

He would, maybe, given the opportunity, but this was not it. He shifted a little, lifting his hands to try to blow on his fingers. "Unless you want to talk to an ice cube in an hour, yeah. Propriety sort of goes out the window for survival, Sansa. No one's going to give you a hard time about this."

And if they did, he'd fix that.

[steeledskin]

"Jon will look sour to learn of it. Please -- you won't tell him, will you?"

It was bewildering. To take what she'd learned: boy rules and locker talk and guy stuff -- to take it and understand that Stiles and Jon nurtured such a friendship. How could she trust him not to turn and confide such proximity in her brother? Half-brother.

But before Stiles answered, she was already shaking the fur off her shoulders and offering it across to the cold ill-dressed Stiles. Passing control of the blanket to him seemed a better idea than spreading it wide and offering for him to join her immediately.

[teenyoda]

"If Jon's a smart guy, and I'm pretty sure he is, he'd know exactly why we were doing it. I won't tell him, but if he's the one that walks in, he's not going to come over and do anything to you."

Watching her take the blanket off and hold it out to him had him moving quickly, coming over and wrapping it around her again, even if he maybe slid himself under a bit, feeling some of the lingering heat from her as he did. "Do you want to sit down, maybe? Get comfortable, considering we might be here for a while."

[steeledskin]

It was seductive in the plainest most platonic fashion. The brush of one warmed arm against another not-yet-there. Some part of her eager to care for others felt the chill in his limbs and she moved instinctively nearer; the heart was ready to share what the brain could not. Sansa tucked herself against Stiles's side and felt the blanket make a cocoon around most of her and some of him.

"Yes," she nodded. "Yes, let's sit. And talk. We should talk."

Because if silence hung, she feared she'd move nearer.

[teenyoda]

"Okay, well..." He balked. The bed was the only piece of furniture really designed for two, but saying 'hey, let's move to the bed' sounded bad even to him. Okay. So, let her decide. Hah. Then it wasn't his fault and she could see it was logic.

"Where... do you want to sit?" He tucked the blanket around her a bit more, her moving closer giving the more room to almost close it. Ah, that was nice.

[steeledskin]

Now came time for a manoeuvre twice as awkward as the stilted conversation between a pseudo-medieval gal and a modern young man! Sansa peeked about the room and -- certainly, she saw the bed. And certainly, she denied it outright. Not least of all because it barely looked like a bed to begin with, but instead seemed a crude collection of slats and straw. And so the side of the dead hearth would do instead. The stone of the fireplace protruded from the wall so that a small corner was made: one side stone and the other stacked logs. Sansa watched it with her eyes and made a bare tilt of her head to indicate the space where two bodies might comfortably sit shoulder-to-shoulder.

"There," she said as she began a clumsy co-dependent step towards the space. She linked her arm around his. That, at least, could be done. "A wall each for a backrest."

[teenyoda]

"Um, yeah. Yeah, sure. Let's go over there. Should we, um, drape it over us from the front or around from the back?" He was trying to work out the particulars and not make it seem like he was pushing her into doing anything. He knew how particular she could be about propriety and he figured if he gave her options and let her decide for herself, then maybe she wouldn't feel so cornered.

In the corner.

[steeledskin]

"The front."

Her thoughts tried hard to bend pragmatically. Sansa steeled her arm around his -- as if, paradoxically -- depending on his help would grant her the courage to be near him. And when they reached their slim corner, she was the first to sit. As a lady, she was entitled to that mild boldness.

"Until, at least, the wood is too cold upon our backs. Stiles, we must make a fire of something or we'll--" Perish. She looked up at him from the floor -- the furs lifted to allow him space to slot in beside her.

[teenyoda]

He waited for her to sit, then slid into the space left for him, tucking himself in quickly to let them pull the fur closed against them. "Fire I can do, but we don't have anything to burn. We're a little on the screwed side in that regards and I haven't figured out how to just... poof wood here."

[steeledskin]

Her side was snug against his. Of course, it was not the closest she'd ever been to someone. But it was the closest she'd ever been to him. And from either side of light summer fabrics she could feel the telltale signs of life: body heat and the occasional twitch of muscle. It was visceral and she flushed again to imagine he felt much the same from her. Her fingers crushed and creased in the furs. Her knees drew up against her chest.

"The bed," she whispered. "If you cannot poof, can you chop?" A fire would not be a perfect solution -- but there was something enticing about sitting out before the flames with her head tucked easily on his shoulder. Something about the intersection of necessity and choice that appealed to her.

[teenyoda]

"That wood looks way too old, Sansa. And in case you haven't noticed, I don't exactly have anything to chop with." He could feel her against him, warm and getting warmer, each breath she took pressing her side into his for a moment.

"The furniture here isn't exactly, ah, burning conducive. Might sort of be that way for a reason." Like so that the house didn't burn down.

[steeledskin]

Her expression soured. Here was the bounty she reaped for having ideas: refusals and explanations. "Your magic!" She said with a softer insistence. "Does your magic not chop...?"

What good was magic if it could not stand in for a sharp edge? In truth, she had a childish habit of reducing his magic down to whatever she needed at the time.

Not that it mattered. He'd already named the wood unusable.

[teenyoda]

"No, my magic does not chop. It burns. It ices. It rumbles. I've been working mostly on elemental stuff. And bubbles." And fireworks and snow for her, but she didn't need to know that right now.

But he felt bad, inadequate, like he'd failed her. His chin drooped a little.

[steeledskin]

It was difficult! Balancing her lingering-sticking-aggressive sense of social dread for sharing so much space with his limbs. Balancing it with a desire not to wound him or hurt him or offend him. And when she glanced rightwards she could see that she had failed. Sansa drew breath and shrugged her shoulders tighter. She curled her toes.

"Our...body heat," she whispered the word with such nervousness and guilt, "will have to be enough. In the morning -- when the sun breaks -- we might go looking for a tree? One with little branches. Easy to snap."

Said as a question, now. And not as an imperative slight against what he could provide her. But deep down she understood that there were other young men who would have had a sword at their hip.