Marron shivered. What a depressing day. Blustery fall days were always the worst when they were Mondays after glorious Indian summer weekends. He shrugged further into his jacket, till the collar was up to his ears and the air he breathed was filtered through the buttons. The soggy autumn wind was whipping leaves off the trees, last kamikaze bursts of color, until the pavement was plastered with fallen gold and red and brown.

His hands were fisted in his jacket pockets, but his fingers were still cold. ~Ano,~ he thought. ~A good enough day for feeling sorry for oneself.~ He tried to cast a different eye on the lead grey sky, to enjoy the flutters of shiny wet leaf-color slurrying across the walk and down the hillside. But he was losing feeling in his toes, and feeling sullen. So he leaned against the wooden fence at the edge of the sidewalk, buried his nose in his jacket, and sulked.

So immersed in his dejected musings-- the trees shaking gold off their branches like ritual suicide-- he didn't hear the booted footsteps that scuffed next to him. When Gateau plunked down next to him, leaning his thick arms against the railing, Marron jumped, and then only felt foolish as well as miserable. "Hello, Gateau."

Gateau made a noise suspiciously like a martyred sigh. "You think I'm disgusting, don't you."

Marron blinked, attention sufficiently shifted from the landscape. Somewhere beneath the ridiculous overacting, his friend looked genuinely upset.

"You think I'm ugly, and overbearing, and rude--" Gateau looked about ready to divulge another dozen or so adjectives, but he caught his breath when Marron abruptly raised a hand.

"Gateau?" he lifted the back of his hand to Gateau's forehead, felt him for fever. His face was flushed and warm, but Marron suspected that his own hands were awfully cold—not the best of indicators. He pushed back the trailing bronze-blond bangs from the other man's eyes, frowned. "Did you accept candy from strangers again?" he asked, his voice lilting as if he were trying not to laugh.

Gateau scowled, but did not shove Marron's hand away, as Marron thought he would. "Oh, come ON, Marron. I don't have food poisoning--"

"Again," Marron interjected softly, ruffling Gateau's hair wryly and putting his hands back in the relative warmth of his pockets.

"--and I'm feeling fine. I'm just..." Here he demonstrated another fine example of a sigh, "depressed." He met Marron's eyes from underneath his hair, attempting to be sly about it, but Marron was watching him steadily and Gateau had to blink away.

Marron exhaled slowly. Gateau was going to talk about it. and probably for hours. The weather led some to morbid internal philosophy, he supposed, and others to long-winded complaints. He was surprised when the silence stretched another few heartbeats, when Gateau didn't meet his eyes again. Again he thought he saw a flicker of true grief underneath his friend's carefully kept expression. He risked a hand to the elements, rested it on Gateau's shoulder. "Gateau? What's bothering you?"

He was surprised again when Gateau drew his hands from his coat pockets and took Marron's hand in his own-- warm!-- fingers. "Geez, Marron, your hands are ICE. Don't you-- "He faltered, "have gloves, or a warmer jacket, or something?" he ended lamely.

Marron smiled dryly. "I think Niisan borrowed them. He said he was going out today..." Damn but Gateau's hands felt good, such warm pressure melting the icicles from his fingers. Aa, but he was saying something, wasn't he? Oh. Carrot. "I didn't ask where."

Gateau's laugh was short. "Good thing." He met Marron's eyes almost ruefully. "Nothing you'd want to know about."

Had there been an emphasis on *you*? Or was Marron hearing things, too much time in the cold wet affecting his brain? "Did you--" When was the last time he had to *ask* Gateau to talk about what was on his mind? "Did you want to talk about something?"

Gateau looked like he had forgotten his opening statement, like he regretted it. "Ah, k'so. Forget it, Marron; you're cold. You should go--"

Warning bells were going off in Marron's head, for Gateau to skirt a conversation topic was unusual, to say the least. And he still had hold of Marron's hands, an anchor point of sweet dry heat in this whole freezing dreary day. Marron's mouth was moving before his sluggish brain had quite caught up. "I don't think you're disgusting, Gateau. I'm sorry you thought that I did."

Gateau looked caught, realizing that Marron had twisted his fingers around so he could no longer tell just who was holding whose hand. "I-- I'm glad. I'm just always shooting off at the mouth, you know? You're always listening to some shit or another from me. And-- you didn't even wave at me when I did a mad keen handstand in the leaves for you."

Marron felt sheepish. "I didn't see you, Gateau. I would have... waved." He felt an unexpected chuckle rising in him. "I'll confess, that's not entirely true." Gateau's face fell, but Marron smiled up at him. "I would have laughed, and then waved."

Gateau's grin was positively beatific, and he reflexively squeezed Marron's hands. "Even better," he said.

"Do I have to be worried about you still?" Marron asked, narrowing his eyes in mock contemplation.

"You were worried about me?" Something was shining off the edges of Gateau's face, luminous in the fall afternoon.

Marron swallowed, wondering why his stomach tightened at the sight of Gateau's dimly-disguised glee. "You were uncharacteristically quiet, of course I was worried. Next thing you know, Niisan would stroll by in a-- in a dress or something. Just not right." He wasn't entirely sure why he'd used that example, but it diminished Gateau's smile not a whit.

"Carrot? Cross-dress?" He snickered. "Now, *I* would look great in a dress, just because I look great in anything." He winked.

Marron felt warmth crawling from his fingers through to the rest of his body. This was more the Gateau he knew, not that strange silent sad-looking man who'd-- who'd held his hand. His breath caught. He saw a shower of crimson leaves fall in the distance, gloriously framing the sudden concerned look on Gateau's face.

"Marron? You're still cold, aren't you-- here, let's walk..." Gateau put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him snug against his broad chest. Marron didn't quite have the words to say that not only did he not feel the cold, he was feeling disconcertingly warm. How did the man stay so hot? He was wearing a jacket only as thick as Marron's own. Gateau was still talking. "...to somewhere we can find some hot chocolate." Marron expected a wisecrack there, about the relative hotness of Chocolate or her sister-- but there wasn't one. Just a soft leaf-crunching silence, and Marron realized just how good he felt. Not just that he wasn't alone any more, but that it was *that* arm around him, *that* heartbeat sounding beneath his ear. Stupid weather, making him philosophical. But he found a small smile hidden somewhere under his heart, and it surfaced all unexpected as he wound his arm around Gateau's waist, walking in step.

Gateau raised an eyebrow, looking down at him. "Oi, Mar. You okay, man?"

"I am now," Marron said, and meant it.