First Snow (Michael/Dare)

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

The first thing Dare noticed when he stepped outside the shop with Michael was how unbelievably cold it was. "F~ing...Jesus Christ it's f~ing freezing out here!" His brows knit, and his shoulders immediately hunched up. The hand that held Michael's tightened into nearly a claw and his other speared into the pocket of Michael's sweatshirt. "How the f~ does it even get this cold?!!" Dare couldn't seem to take another step.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael licked his lips and tried to tone down the smile that threatened. He looped his arm around Dare's head and used his other hand to straighten the cloak as far around him as it would go since the hand connected to that arm was in the vice that was Dare's hand. "I told you it was cold," he said, then looked around the street, wondering how long it would take Dare to notice the white flakes falling around them, then instantly disappearing once they hit the ground.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

A shiver raced down Dare's spine at the feel of that warm cloak settling around his shoulder. He didn't know how it was going to help at all for a moment, then some of Michael's body heat made it through the sweatshirt he was wearing. "This isn't cold," Dare insisted. "It's f~ing... freezing!" There wasn't any better way to describe it. Dare looked at Michael, his eyes wide, brows still knitted. "I swear it wasn't this cold the last time I came out here!" He could understand the temperature dropping once the sun went down, but this much?!

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"I hate to tell you," Michael said, wrestling the smile down again as he looked at Dare. "But it gets a lot colder than this after New Year," he warned, then flicked his eyes out around them again only to bring them back to Dare's, sparkling softly. He guessed he knew what to get Dare for Christmas, a couple of nice, thick cloaks.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare swore again, under his breath this time at Michael's news. He couldn't imagine it being any colder than this! How could people survive in this kind of cold? Why in hell would anyone choose to live here?! Dare blinked as something caught in his eyelashes. He jerked slightly, the hand in his pocket coming out to wipe it away, though he couldn't feel anything there. He reflexively glanced up and he saw something, but his first thought was rain, and so he closed his eyes tight and brought his head back down. He wasn't getting wet, though.

Dare opened his eyes cautiously, and whatever it was, tiny flakes of something, was falling slowly, not bulleting to the ground. Dare looked at it, then turned his head only to see that there was more, lots more, gleaming in the light of the full moon. What was it? He brought out his hand again and tried to touch one, but it flitted away from his hand like dust. An idea started to form in the back of his mind, but it took some time to fight its way through a lifetime in Southern California. "Is it snowing?" he asked Michael, the cold forgotten for now.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael smiled and nodded, "It's been snowing since I left the castle." It was a relief to be able to smile finally, after pushing it down in fear of offending Dare. "By the morning it should be sticking," he added, watching Dare. He locked the memory of Dare's first reactions in his mind for a private laugh later when he needed something to make him smile.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

"Whaddyou mean, sticking?" Dare asked, his gaze avidly watching the tiny bits of white. How did snow stick to anything? It was frozen water, right? Shouldn't it all just be sitting in piles or something? Dare reached out to try catching another snowflake in his hand--a snowflake!--but it seemed to escape as easily as the first one had. He didn't tune Michael out, but a lot of his concentration was absorbed in trying to catch one of the little bastards.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael grinned broadly at Dare and then held his free arm out with the cloak draped over it. A few white flakes stuck to the dark fabric for a couple of seconds before fading away into little drops of water. "When the ground's cold enough, it stays on the ground instead of melting like it is now."

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare's brows lifted, both at Michael's words and his demonstration. He pulled his hand back under the cloak and caught part of it, holding it up a bit like Michael had to catch some of the flakes. They disappeared too quickly for him to even begin to see one of the patterns like they'd made in elementary school. His brows knitted again, and he looked aside at Michael. "So it's all going to melt?" He didn't want it to melt! He looked away from Michael again and resumed catching snowflakes with the bit of cloak he held, determined to get as much out of this as he could.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Now that Dare had the edge of the cloak, Michael let go of Dare's hand to put his arm around Dare's waist. "Once it gets here it will pretty much stay for a couple of weeks if we're lucky." It could happen that the snow would last longer, but the most Michael thought it would stay constantly would be a couple of weeks. Being walked in on by Emilian was forgotten in face of seeing Dare's reaction.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

"A couple weeks?!" Dare repeated, his gaze flickering worriedly toward Michael again. "Isn't it supposed to just... stay? I mean, winter's not over that fast, is it?" The moment the questions were asked, Dare looked back down at the cloak again, drawing it up higher in the hopes that he'd see something before they melted this time.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"Well, it doesn't stay cold enough all the time," Michael said, still smiling, though it had tempered into something not quite as obvious. "And it's not always cloudy and snowing. The best times are right after it's snowed a few inches, prettiest blue skies, and it sparkles in the moonlight." There were plenty of times when Michael had sat and looked at the snow at night from his window or from high in a tree. He loved the moonlight.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare frowned at that, but it made sense, in a way. It didn't rain all the time, so he couldn't really expect it to snow all the time, could he? He still didn't like the idea of it melting, though. He couldn't imagine a couple weeks would be long enough to get his fill. "We'll have to do that moonlight thing," Dare said absently. He wanted to get everything out of this.

Speaking of moonlight, Dare looked up from the cloak back to the floating white sparks in the darkness. It was incredible how they just floated like that, hypnotizing in a way. Dare would have watched forever, but another snowflake caught in his eyelashes. He rubbed it away again, and as he did so, he got another idea. He wondered if you really could catch snowflakes on your tongue. Forgetting that Michael was watching, Dare stuck his tongue out to try.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael grinned, but nudged Dare. "You can't eat the first snow," he said, laughing lightly and shaking his head. It was an old saying he had heard, a superstition about the first snow cleaning out the air or something. He didn't know how truthful it was, but he had made a habit of not eating the first one, it felt somehow taboo.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare blinked and pulled his tongue back in, looking aside at Michael. "Why not?" he asked. "Is there something wrong with it?" He looked back out to the snow, but he couldn't see anything ominous about it. "Are you sure?" It was frozen water, wasn't it? Obviously there was a lot about snow that Dare needed to learn if he was going to live out here.