"Tell me again, English."

"No."

"Why not?"

Wes sighed, scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Because I've told you nineteen --"

"Eighteen."

"Eighteen times already, and if you don't understand it yet, then it's not my problem anymore."

"That's cold. Not as cold as this frozen fucking tundra we're trudging through, but cold just the same. And I understand, I just don't believe."

"What's so hard to believe about random rips in the space-time continuum? Relatively, I mean."

"Oh, so now you're going to stop being pissy?"

"I wasn't -- " Wes stopped. Sighed. "Yes. Talk to me, Gunn. It might help keep us warm."

"Do you know where we're going?"

"No. Don't start."

Gunn snorted. "I wasn't. It's not like I can tell where the fuck we are in all this white-out. We're living Amiri Baraka's nightmare. You realize this, don't you?"

"I can think of quite a few people for whom this would constitute a nightmare. We don't have to play the race card."

Gunn snickered. "No justice, no peace."

"Don't make me hit you."

"Your fist would snap off at the wrist."

"I would at least have the satisfaction of ramming it down your throat first. Beating it in with my stump, if I had to and yes, fine, all right, I'm being pissy. It's bloody cold and we're lost, and we're going to die out here and that's just...stupid."

Wes was several paces ahead before he realized Gunn had stopped.

Turned around, hugging himself a little. "What?"

"You think it's stupider to die out here than it is to die anywhere else?"

"Don't you?"

Gunn just looked thoughtful, standing perfectly still and making Wes freeze by association.

"Come on, man! Think while we walk."

Gunn shrugged, picked up the pace. Taking this far too bloody well, really.

"Why aren't you suffering?"

Gunn smirked. "Didn't you know? Black folks radiate heat."

"Black... what? Have you gone insane?"

"It's true. Inner cities are always the hottest -- all them Negroes, packed in together."

"... I hate you."

"I'll remember that when it's time to decide whose ears we cut off first for food."

"We won't live long enough to starve."

"Yep, we will." Gunn pointed into the white. "Shelter up there."

Wes squinted fruitlessly. "I reiterate; are you insane?"

"Nope. But I am fully equipped with 20/10 vision."

"I --" Wes bit off some particularly choice invective. He could allow a dying man his fantasies. Gunn was bald as a bloody egg -- he had to be losing heat by the nanosecond.

But it was Wes whose legs stopped working several yards from the building that did, in fact, exist. Gunn hauled him along companionably, and they were in...

Well, it was a shack, no bones about it.

But it was clearly an insulated shack, with a small fireplace, a stack of wood that came from Lord knew where, blankets, a two-way radio --

"Gunn. I'm in love."

"English, please, we haven't even had sex yet."

Wes blinked. "With the shack, you lunatic."

Gunn snickered and proceeded to build a fire. And then stripped them both with a sort of silently snarky efficiency.

Well, the snark didn't come in until Wes protested.

Body heat, of course.

Cocooned together in blankets in front of the fire, naked and very much entwined.

Wes failed spectacularly at not thinking about it.

"I'm not gay, you know."

Gunn kissed him. Slowly, roughly, and with intent.

"... I still hate you."

"Yeah, well, death is stupid everywhere."

"It's a part --"

Gunn kissed him again.

Warmth.