“How long did they say it will be until exfil?” You asked, curling on the backseat of the Humvee, zipping your white camo jacket higher up under your chin. You breath formed little clouds around your mouth as you spoke. You were almost out of gas, and you had to conserve as much of it as possible, so turning the heating on was a luxury you couldn’t afford.

“Six hours…” Gaz replied, putting his gloved hands against his mouth and blowing hot air on his palms to warm them up.

“And how long are we already waiting?” A follow-up question from you.

Gaz pulled up his jacket sleeve a little, peeking at his watch underneath. “...30 minutes.”

You groaned loudly, leaning your head against the frost-covered window. The frost-patterns on the glass were so pretty… but sooooo cold. Six more hours of this? You were going to turn into an icicle.

You scooched across the backseat, closer to Gaz, and leaned against his side. For warmth, of course. He didn’t protest. At this point, any and all methods of warming up were welcomed.

And another hour later, Gaz let you put your hands into his jacket pockets, so he could hold them for you and keep them warm. Fighting against the cold that was creeping into the Humvee, trying to share body-warmth, you both gradually blurred lines between what’s appropriate. It was a matter of survival.

You couldn’t even see outside of the car anymore, ice and frost-patters covered entire windows. And they were the only thing shielding you from the outside world, where temperature was way below zero, snow kept falling, and wind kept howling.

“I’m fucking cold…” you mumbled.

“Yeah, you don’t say…” Gaz huffed, shuddering. “Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious.”

“Shut up! It’s your fault we’re stuck here anyway!” you elbowed him.

“My fault?!”

“You misread the satellite images.”

“Well you didn’t check in with HQ and we didn’t know we lost comms for hours!” Gaz retorted.

“That wouldn’t even be a problem if we were going in the right direction! And besides…”

Gaz closed his eyes, trying to be patient as you kept talking, blaming him for everything. He knew you were just miserable and cold, and that’s why you were snappy right now. But by God… he was freezing his ass off here, and your string of complaints was really not helping… If you could just stop talking for a second.

He acted without thinking, just to shut you up. But when his lips touched yours, both of you could only think one thing—

—warm.