Lonliness

by Swiss

Title: Lonliness Author: Swiss (dragonswissarmyknife@hotmail.com) Characters: Iolaus, Hercules, Iphicles Challenge: #19 - Lonliness Summary: Hercules keeps speaking to Iolaus, even after he stops shivering. Because without him there's no one else, and because the silence is so empty.

Hercules breathed shallowly against his friend's temple. The contact both calmed and troubled him, because Iolaus was so cold.

All around them the ice loomed blue and grey in the shadow, an icy prison of interlocked crystal. It pressed against his shoulders and scraped his head. He was afraid to breath on it, in case it collapsed. A dangerous shelter, but there was nothing else.

They should have known better than to leave the last village. That morning the atmosphere had been a fast-moving skyscape, reels of wool the color of iron. Churning and churning, like heaven's distillery. Ugly, a warning. But he'd wanted so badly to make it to Corinth, home to visit his brother. And so when he'd stood with Iolaus looking up at that sky, he'd let his friend's caution fall on deaf ears.

Iolaus had given him a rare hard look, but then he'd shrugged. Because if Hercules was going, then he would follow.

Now Hercules wished to all the gods he had listened. Barely halfway they'd been forced to take shelter, completely overcome by the fierceness of the cold and the cataclysm of snow. Lost in the pelting miasma, they'd found nothing but a hollow in a drift, quickly covered by fresh, crushing powder. They'd huddled there, trapped, but more alive than if they stayed out in the deadly temperatures and aching, gelid wetness of the storm.

The merciless cold had been too much for his friend. Tortured, he'd trembled convulsively as the temperature had sunk past layers of fabric and skin and melted to spread frost at his core. Hercules had cupped his ears, pressing his face into his shoulder to stave off frostbite. But the numbing cold had eventually reached even through his demi-god defenses, and their shaking and low whispers had eventually lapsed into complete stony silence. Energy spent.

Iolaus had stopped speaking hours ago, lapsing into the exhausted, shiverless stupor of a man very nearly frozen. The space around them was too small, too fragile for Hercules to even rub his arms. He'd had to settle for holding him close, trying to provide some shelter other than the inadequate cotton cover under the ragged vest, a last minute purchase days ago when the weather had suddenly turned and Iolaus' borrowed cloak had proved inadequate. The cloak he would die for now. But they'd lost it in a scramble down hill, fighting the wind.

Hours and hours ago. Now, there was no sound, not even the wind. Feeling numb, barely coherent, Hercules filled it with quiet conversation that was only a little desperate.

"Iolaus," The temperature of the air choked him, made breathing a wound. His friend's chest had heaved with it before he'd finally subdued, too tired to fight so hard. He swallowed, ice in his throat, "E-eh-olaus?" There was no response. He muttered a low sob, drawing the stiff body closer. He feared the man had fallen into a coma, to deep to hear his voice. Too deep for anything but the cold. He whimpered, "Iolaus."

His bones felt thin, too close to the surface of his skin. It hurt to move his joints.

He buried his face in the shoulder of his friend's vest, though the warmth there had fled. He pleaded, "Don't be angry with me, okay? I-I know I was st-stubborn...s-so stubborn..." he trailed off, feeling the tears burning as they froze against the corners of his eyelids. He clutched his friend tighter. "But I n-never meant for this. I-I never..."

Hercules held onto hope. They were days late already. Someone, someone would find them. "We're going to be okay," he comforted his partner. "I-Iphicles knew we were coming. As s-soon as it's s-safe, he'll come."

Iolaus remained quiet. And even with the man wrapped so close beside him, the silence felt lonely.

They only found them because the of the cloak caught on the tangled lower branches of a tree at the bottom of a hill where high snow had piled. It has stuck out like an epiphany against the dead white landscape, a tattered flag over an unlikely grave. A dark thought.

But it had given his guard a mark. They'd fanned out and found the hollow shortly; a younger soldier had almost fallen through the weakened snow. Iphicles had never been so pleased with incompetence.

The actual rescue was much bleaker.

By the time they were found, they had been lost in the snow for a full day and night. Peeling back layers of the crusty white drift, the miserable depression had revealed two ashen, curled forms, made almost inhuman with the cold. He couldn't see his brother's eyes for the frost that clung to them. Even worse was the little body he huddled over, the one that didn't move.

It wasn't more than he had expected. Even as they'd set out, he'd known it was a long shot for Iolaus. It had been too long, the conditions too frigid. It was expected, even if it didn't make it any easier.

Softly, he spoke and reached towards his brother and the dear friend sheltered in the ring of his arms. "Hercules," he said. "Hercules, let go of him. Give him to me."

The hollow-eyed man looked at him, helplessly. Dazed, he clung to his friend. "He's sleeping,"

Iphicles' heart wrenched. With infinite gentleness, he commanded, "Let go, brother. It's alright."

Carefully, carefully he eased the cold little body out of his brother's arms. Iolaus' limbs stayed curled; rigor, frozen. He cradled the small, icy form against his chest for a moment, paused to take in the blue, translucent eyelids and bloodless lips. He put a palm against the brittle, unspectacular curls, dead straw under his hand.

"You'll take care of him." His brothers voice was raw and questionably lucid, begging. But sure.

Believing he would, could. And Iphicles thought of how cruel it was that the first time his little brother trusted him in something, and he had no choice but to fail him. "I've got him," he soothed the younger man, trembling frailly. "Rest now."

Faith in the words, Hercules let himself fall limp into the arms of those who could help him. And Iphicles left him with them, carrying the body in his arms back to his shivering horse. He wrapped him in a saddle blanket, knowing that no healer could save Iolaus any longer.

But he had promised. And he would take care of him, until Hercules had enough senses that he could.

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