Twenty
- Suikoden, Viktor and Flik
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"No," the lump said.

"Huh." Accepting this, Viktor kicked his snow-encrusted boots off to stand by the door, then pulled off his gloves and his heavy wool vest. "Funny, you'd think it was cold out there or something, way you carry on."

"It is cold out there." The voice of the fur lump was muffled but clearly aggrieved. "It is cold beyond imagining out there, unless you happen to be a large half-shaved bear with too much alcohol in his system to notice."

Viktor rumbled out a laugh and rubbed his palm over his half-frozen nose. "Shit, little southern pantywaist thinks that's cold... haven't even had any trees explode yet!"

"... trees don't explode, Viktor." The voice sounded less than certain.

Viktor grinned widely, baring all his teeth. "You know what? You tell me that again a month from now, once winter starts for real." A pine knot exploded in the fireplace and both Viktor and the lump twitched.

"It's going to get colder than this?" The lump drew in on itself, becoming smaller. "You know what, Viktor, I don't think that I think very much of this town of yours."

"Hey, s'okay, we don't think that much of you either. And, hey, if you're cold I can--"

Viktor stopped dead and jerked his head back as three feet of steel shot out from under the pile of furs, its sharp tip pointed blindly but unerringly at his nose, so close that his eyes crossed as he tried to focus on it. "Oh, no," Flik said, letting no part of his body but his sword hand be exposed to the air. "Oh no. If you attempt to put your cold hands, your cold nose, your cold feet, or anything else that you happen to own that is cold on me, I swear by the length of my blade that I will remove that body part from you first before I dice you into chunks and have your hide tanned into another blanket."

Viktor considered this for a moment, then dove neatly under the sword blade and grabbed Flik's wrist in one very cold hand. There was a scream of purest outrage, and he was bleeding profusely a moment later, but he squeezed hard and Flik's sword clattered to the floor and after that things went pretty much as they always did. And after that, when he grinned at Flik and asked if he was still cold, Flik just scowled bitterly at him and bandaged up Viktor's cut shoulder for him, warmth steaming from their skin.