Almost

The warmth in Misko’s hands almost felt like a blessing. It was a cold night in October, and it had been a week since they’d been through a proper town. Darkness sprawled out around them, gentle and cool as the blush of dusk faded from the horizon in the welcoming wave of night. Blue lumbered back to the campsite in the dark. They were strong, but even so, in their small stature, they were dwarfed by the mound of timber in their arms. Misko smiled and Blue approached, a comical heap of sticks with skinny-jeaned legs.

“Alright fire man, do your thing, and hurry. I’m freezing” Blue exhaled heavily as they dropped the heap to the ground

Misko chuckled as he rolled his sleeves up to his forearms. Careful not to get over-excited lest he have to replace yet another flannel shirt. Money was scarce, and while they hadn’t much need for it, that was no reason to go burning it.

Blue pretended not to notice how much Misko had grown into himself over the past few months. His forearms were thick and strong beneath his cuffed sleeves. His beard cut his cheekbones into knives. It was hard enough to look away from him regularly, but when he began his breaths—turning his lungs to furnaces, then his heart, and his veins, growing in spirit with every inhale—it was impossible.

Misko plunged his hands into the timber and with a zephyrous sigh set the timber ablaze.

He seemed so peaceful in his meditative spell, focused, careful, but peaceful. It couldn’t have been farther from the truth. He could still hear his neighbors screaming, the children running from the “monster” he was. The acrid scent of burning flesh, sacrificed to no one. The blood sill smelled fresh. The memory was a lump of hot coal stuck in his throat. He’d been angry that day. He hadn’t known the ease with which he could destroy.

As he opened his eyes, Blue caught the last of the embers fading from his irises. They smiled at him, and he smiled back in spite of himself. Blue thought this was magic, a blessing. He loved her for that, and for sticking around. For calming him that day with her gentle eyes. They were a deep brown like her cheeks, like, fresh earth, like the timber they carried. Dark and deep, like the ocean, like the sky, like their name.

They hadn’t much left to leave behind, but that which they had they’d abandoned without question. Blue swimming in their denim and comically wide-brimmed hats was the only home left.

Misko cleared his throat. He always did that when he had an announcement to make as if he were beginning a big speech at a podium, rather than the whispered declarations in the dark.

“Yes?” Blue asked expectedly.

“I got you something”

“Oh really, when did you have time to get me something, we haven’t seen a store in days, you better not have wasted your money on something stu-“

He cut her off with a blaze from his hands, wrapped around a little parcel of tin foil. She gasped in awe at the sight and the smell and at Misko’s rare smile that stretched to his eyes.

When the fire subsided, there was only the foil steaming in Misko’s hands.

“Careful, it’s hot” he warned with a smirk as he passed Blue the foil, wrapped in a pulled from his bag.

They carefully unwrapped it to find a hot, freshly baked piece of chocolate cake, their favorite. Blue smiled, hard, their eyes watered, almost sad for being so happy.

And again, for a moment, the warmth in Misko’s hands almost felt like a blessing.