Orion flew over the ice, the blades of his skates loath to touch the ground.

Having grown up in the Astorian mountains, the perils that came with ice and snow were textbook to him. The moment he heard the scream, he'd set off across the lake at breakneck speed, a habit cultivated in his childhood when the townsfolk would quickly move in to save many a hapless tourist who had wandered too far from shore. Still, he'd never raced against time the way he was doing now, and he had always thought twice before putting his own life at risk.

But today, his mind had focused with meditative intensity on a single thought: what if the man who fell was Culver? If he'd learned anything about the prince, it was that the man was impulsive but not imprudent, and if he had gone out to the lake with a blizzard approaching, he had to have been terribly disturbed to the extent of impairing his judgement.

And God knew Orion had certainly upset Culver enough.

As he sailed over the ice, he took off his huge jacket and unhooked his flashlight. As he reached the gaping hole in the ice, his heart seemed to leap out of his mouth and plummet right through it to the bottom: the man standing distraught at the edge of the hole was not Culver.

He came to a stop a couple of meters from the edge. "Help!" cried the man, barely managing to stay upright. "The Prince -"

Orion shoved his jacket into the man's arms. "Keep it dry, call for help, ask for a hot bath," he rattled, bending down and undoing his shoelaces.

"But -"

"Get away from the ice, it's weak -"

With a pained, almost morbid groan, the ice gave way.

Orion plunged into the water, skates and all. Instantly, his body seized up and the cold invaded his body like a million needles. His very thoughts seemed to freeze. But he was prepared. Clamping his mouth shut to prevent himself from gasping, he turned on his flashlight and kicked off his skates. Kicking as hard as he could, he managed to make it to the surface.

Frigid water splashed against his face as he drew in a huge breath. Clenching his jaw, he readjusted his waterproof snowboarding goggles, thanked God that it was daytime and dove.

He knew he had only a couple of minutes before his own body stopped responding. Swimming diagonally downwards, he swung the flashlight around, praying desperately that he'd find Culver soon. He could swim only so deep before the pain in his ears became unbearable.

He was starting to run out of air. But he could go deeper. Pinching his nose, he blew it gently. His ears popped, and the painful pressure on his eardrums vanished. Kicking harder, he swam towards the bottom, still looking.

He had almost given up when the blurry beam fell upon a human shape in the water. It was Culver, and he wasn't moving. Grabbing him from behind, Orion kicked towards the surface, pulling off Culver's jacket along the way. His lungs burned as he used up the last of his oxygen. The surface was within reach. His movements were weakening. Desperately, he stretched one arm towards the nearing light.

And then he broke the surface.

Blinking to adjust to the sudden light, gasping again and again to fill his lungs with life-giving air, he swam towards the edge where the man was lying down with his arms outstretched. "Get him out," Orion coughed. "Grab him by the underarms."

The servant complied. With him pulling and Orion pushing, they managed to get the limp Culver out of the water in a few seconds. Orion followed next, thankful that there was someone to help him. But there was no time to catch his breath.

"Don't stand up," Orion instructed, grabbing the edge of the servant's coat. "Get down on all fours. Drag him towards the shore."

Together, Orion and the servant dragged Culver for some five meters, stood up and carried Orion to shore. Once safely off the ice, yet another problem awaited them - Culver wasn't breathing.

Orion felt himself go even colder. "Did you call for help?" He asked as tilted Culver's head back and checked his throat for blockages.

"Y-yes," the man answered. "But it's taking long, the snow's piled two feet high."

"Do you know what door they're coming from?"

"The one next to the loading dock for kitchen supplies."

"Leave behind your skates and start breaking a trail." Orion checked for a pulse. There wasn't one. "If you go far enough to lose sight of us, come back. I can't deal with two invalids right now."

The servant turned and set off while Orion began CPR. "Man - with - such - attitude," he huffed as he pumped Culver's chest. "And such an...hah...anticlimactic...end? Come on!"

Orion had rarely prayed as hard as he did now. He couldn't let Culver die without apologizing to him. His eyes teared up and his throat seemed to get clogged. Himself soaked to the bone and starting to suffer from hypothermia, his motions grew slower and weaker. "Wake up," he begged. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Culver, wake up!"

In a single burst of energy, he pumped Culver's chest hard. The Prince gave a twitch, his eyebrows pulled together and finally -  bringing a rush of relief so overwhelming Orion actually allowed himself a tear or two - he began to cough and vomit water.

"Oh, thank goodness," Orion panted, sitting back onto his knees. "I could hear his ribs creaking."

"Gugh!" Culver gasped. With Orion's aid, he turned onto his side and coughed some more. Realizing that someone was with him, he set his eyes on Orion, but they were bleary and unfocused.

When Culver was done coughing, Orion helped him sit up and checked him for signs of injury. "All good," he observed after a few seconds, and then pulled him into a tight hug. "Come here," said he. "Get warm."

By the time the servant returned with two other men and a spare coat, Orion had wrapped Culver in his jacket, securing the hood tightly on his head. He had also discarded Culver's shoes and replaced them with the dry skates the servant had left behind. The man himself was slumped against Orion with his head resting on the latter's shoulder.

"He's not shivering," Orion reported to the men who were approaching. "It's hypothermia. We need to get him inside as fast as possible."

The men didn't need telling twice. They walked ahead to break a trail while Orion followed with Culver in his arms. It wasn't easy. His health was not what it used to be, and being sopping wet in an ill-fitting coat with the wind blowing meant that he himself was quickly approaching Culver's state.

It took ten agonizing minutes to reach the castle. By then, Orion could no longer feel his limbs, and he kept his grip on Culver by dint of sheer determination. Staff were waiting within the doors, but he refused to hand him over to them. For one, his joints were locked in their positions and it hurt to move them. For another, he had come within a hair's breadth of losing Culver forever, and it had shaken him beyond all reason. He clung to the Prince like a drowning man to a log, and nothing - not even the protests of his own body - would prompt him to let go.

With the butler shouting instructions left and right, Orion and Culver were rushed into the elevator - Orion hadn't known until then that the castle even had one - and straight to Culver's room. Orion practically collapsed onto the carpet and barely managed to save Culver's head from cracking against the doorknob. "Help him," he groaned, shaking off the hands that tried to take off his sweaters. "I'll manage. Help him."

Orion nevertheless needed help to peel Culver away from his body. Still keeping an eye on the now semi-conscious Prince, he slowly, painfully removed his clothes and pulled on dry replacements. "Hey! Stop that!" he snapped at one of the staff members tending to Culver who had started rubbing Culver's feet. "Get his torso warm first!"

"Let's put him in the bath then," someone suggested.

"The bath's for me!" Orion snapped. "God, are you trying to kill him?"

"But -"

"How can you live on a mountain and not know the first thing about hypothermia?!"

"I live in -"

"I don't want to hear it!"

"Mmmmm. Loud." Everyone fell silent as Culver finally stirred, drunkenly reaching out before him. "Orion?"

"Yeah. I'm here." Inordinately pleased that Culver had asked for him, he crawled over in as dignified a fashion as crawling could be. "How do you feel?"

"I'm sorry."

Utter dismay twisted Orion's features. Touched to the very depths of his heart and drowning in regret of his own, he moved closer and enfolded Culver in a gentle, affectionate hug. He didn't care that others were watching. He didn't care that he was dressed only in a single layer of clothing and was still cold. In that moment, all that mattered was that he had hurt the only person who had looked at the man beneath the drug addiction and bad attitude, the one person who had never stepped back no matter how much he pushed him away.

"You don't need to be," he said, allowing Culver to nestle his face into the warm curve between his shoulder and neck. "You did nothing wrong."

The others assembled in the room exchanged puzzled looks. Orion ignored them and tightened his arms around Culver. "Rest," he whispered. "We'll talk after you wake up."

"Don't go. I'm sorry. Please don't go -"

"I'm right here." Orion stood up, carried Culver to the bed and tucked him under the comforter. That jolted the rest of the small assembly into motion and they dispersed, one to call the doctor, one to bring more blankets, one to inform the king about the day's events and others to arrange for a hot meal. Culver kept asking for Orion, but the return of the latter's normal body temperature had been accompanied by the return of reason and he kept a decent distance until the room was empty.

"Orion, I'm cold," Culver complained. "You took my blanket."

The total weight of the blankets piled on Culver probably exceeded his own, but Orion resigned himself to a tired chuckle. "Why can't you be this docile all the time?" he asked, sliding under the blankets too. Culver shifted so he was curled into Orion's side, his face pressed into the larger man's neck. "That's better," he mumbled, satisfied.

"Your father will have me beheaded if he sees us like this." Despite his words, Orion willingly drew Culver close and smiled down at him. To his intense surprise, Culver's sleep-laden eyes were open and fixed on him.

"I'm not a girl," the Prince responded. "T'will be fine."

"And what's he going to say when he finds two supposedly straight men imitating puzzle pieces?"

"Too cold to care."

"Well, that's that." Orion settled in too, deciding to make most of the luxurious, shrivel-the-wallet-price blankets. Culver closed his eyes and smiled with a touch of glee, displaying a hint of the spoiled baby Dr. Deo had said he used to be. "My luck isn't that great, you know," Orion said. "Your father is going to come through that door and lop off my head."

Orion's fears came true barely an hour later. His exhaustion had caught up to him and he had nodded off with his chin on top of Culver's head. He was in the middle of sleepily trying to recall why his nose was filled with the smell of pond water when the door burst open and a short, beefy man with salt-and-pepper hair, footsteps heavy as an elephant's and a booming voice stomped into the room, closely followed by a harried middle-aged woman.

"But sir," she was saying,  "you shouldn't distur -"

"Let me just take a look at him - hallo! Who are you?"

Orion tried to detangle himself from Culver's arms and the mass of blankets they both were under, but failed miserably. Culver clung to him, as Orion had previously described, like a limpet, and the more he struggled the more suspicious the King's expression became.

"Uh, uh, good afternoon, Your Majesty," Orion stammered, bowing as much as he could with a grown man dangling from his neck.

"Good afternoon." King James walked to the chair by Culver's desk and flung himself into it without taking his eyes off the nervous stranger in the room. "Now. Who are you?"

"Orion Blake. Cul - His Highness fell through the ice, and I used to live in the mountains, you see, we have a big lake that people fall into like dead leaves, and -"

"You saved my son's life."

"Um. Yes?" Orion couldn't help but turn it into a question. Somehow, simply admitting to saving the Prince's life seemed too arrogant.

"Thank you." The King's face softened, and his expression of distant severity dispersed to reveal a jovial old man with laugh lines and the aura of a premium grandpa. "You have done me a kindness I can never repay."

If your son ever tells you he's gay, your acceptance would be repayment enough, thought Orion. "Please don't feel like you need to repay me. I owe His Highness more than I can imagine, so I consider my debt partially repaid."

"Are you his friend?"

"Yes, Your Majesty." Friends who fought like hungry shrews over a worm, but who can tell?

"I'm glad he has a friend like you." The King's eyes fell on the top of Culver's head peeking out from the blankets. He laughed a little, seemingly unfazed by his son's proximity to Orion. "And I am so happy I get to see this. This gives me enough teasing material to last me a decade."

Orion blinked. "Teasing...decade...eh?"

"I'm sorry, I'm using jest to hide how shaken I am." With a shake of his head, King James sobered up. "Once you become a parent, you fear nothing more than you fear losing your child. There is no fear worse than it, Orion. Not even the fear of God."

"I understand, Your Majesty."

"Please, son, we can settle for a simple "sir." You deserve that liberty, among others."

Orion couldn't speak for a few seconds. To him, the fact that the King - no, that Culver's father - had called him "son" was way more important. When he did speak, his voice was rather thick. "Thank you, sir."

"No worries. When I heard what had happened, I felt like the world had come to an end. You see, he and I fought bitterly earlier today. So it isn't just him you saved today, son. You saved me too. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if something had happened to my child."

Orion didn't know what to say to that. "Well - you must be tired too," the King said, heaving himself out of his chair. "Get some rest. I'll ask for a guest room to be readied, and -"

"If I may, sir, I can't get out." Orion squirmed demonstratively, eliciting a painful squeeze around his waist and a rather animalistic growl.

King James let out a hearty, booming laugh. "Well, well, he's taken a real liking to you," he observed, unaware of how many different ways his words could be taken. "I'll have you go through the trouble of being my son's teddy bear."

With that, he turned and made for the door. However, he stopped at the door and turned. "Stay for a day," he said, and it didn't sound like a request. "Now that my boy has finally made a friend, there's some things you should know."

"Yes, Your Majesty - er, sir."

"And Orion?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Make sure Culver doesn't know of tomorrow's meeting."