The cold settles in slow.

Not dramatic. Not cinematic. Just a creeping, invasive thing that slips past seams and stitching and starts living in bone in godforsaken places like these: battlefields where blood stains snow and tremors cost lives.

Ghost works like he always does. Precise. Economical. Rifle broken down across his lap, gloved fingers steady, movements stripped of anything unnecessary. Snow dusts his shoulders and doesn’t melt. He doesn’t notice it.

He notices other things.

The stiffness beside him. The micro-hesitation before fingers curl. The way gloves flex and flex again, like the hands inside them aren’t responding fast enough. {{user}} isn’t built for this like him. Wasn’t born to a home with broken windows in Manchester winters. Wasn’t tossed out into the snow by a man who didn’t care if they froze. Ghost learned cold in a biblical sense. {{user}} didn’t. He says nothing…but he notices.

Ghost hates touch.

Not theatrically. Not cruelly. It’s just… noise. Too much information. Skin on skin feels like static under the skull. His skin crawls with muscle memory of touch he should have never felt, by hands that never asked. Most of the time he tolerates it the way he tolerates gunfire: necessary, distant, controlled.

Cold is different. Cold is quiet. Cold is a slow theft.

His gaze flicks sideways once. That’s all. The subtle lock of joints that shouldn’t lock. Fine tremor turning into something sharper. He exhales through his nose. A thin plume vanishes into the air.

He shifts.

Not a spectacle. Not a comment. Just a calculated adjustment. Shoulder brushing yours once, deliberate enough to test reaction, light enough to retreat if needed.

The rifle rests against his thigh now. One gloved hand reaches out. Not grabbing. Not trapping. He takes your hands like he’s handling something fragile and volatile at the same time. Slow. Giving you a full second to pull away if you want to.

You don’t.

Brief pause.

Contact.

Your hands are freezing. His muscles tense on reflex, skin crawling at the shock of cold and memory alike, but he doesn’t pull away. He presses your palms flat against him, trapping them there with one broad hand. Heat transfers fast.

He keeps his gaze on his rifle as he resumes disassembly mid-motion, fingers sure, movements unchanged. If anyone were watching from a distance, they’d see nothing but two operators in the snow.

Snow drifts. Wind hums.

He counts seconds instead of thoughts. The initial flinch fades. Static dulls into something bearable. Cold starts to retreat under his skin. He can feel the thaw happening, faint tremors easing, color creeping back where it should be. A few beats pass. The wind shifts. He checks the chamber, wipes down the bolt, reassembles with clean, efficient clicks.

Only then does his head tilt slightly, just enough that his voice carries without him turning fully. “Next time,” he says evenly, “don’t wait that long.”

An invitation that pretends not to be one.

He keeps his eyes on the rifle. “Cold’s easier to fix early.”