Tiger Winter - 24. North

Emmett wriggled his toes on the snow, delighting in the contrast between the cold, the chill of the fat snowflakes that fell onto his bare skin, and the warm soft breeze which blew across his body. A splashing in the water forced him to open his eyes, and there was Jian, sitting on his surfboard, kicking his feet in the clear waters of their private beach. For a moment, tiger and polar bear watched each other silently, each smiling, and then Emmett left the snow, crossed over the golden sand, leaving only a single footprint in the narrow strip, and waded out into the sea. By the time he reached the board, and placed his hands and forearms either side of Jian’s hips, his feet were no longer touching the sea floor.

“Hey Xue,” Jian kissed his upturned face softly, “you remember when we did this out at Key West?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Emmett grinned, scanning Jian’s perfect body, “only I don’t remember you being naked on that beach.”

Jian giggled and glanced down at his crotch, where his body was responding to the closeness of his mate in the usual manner.

“Oops.”

“You know I’ve wanted to do something since we were at that damn beach,” Emmett murmured softly, moving closer as Jian parted his knees to make room.

“You liked the beach…”

“I liked the air conditioning…” Emmett retorted gently, “Now hush…”

Emmett couldn’t let go of the board for fear of upsetting them both and dumping them in the water, and whilst swimming was fun, he was fairly certain neither of them could hold their breath long enough for Emmett to indulge in his favourite sexual behaviour. Instead Jian was the one who had to hold his tumescent member and lined it up with Emmett’s waiting lips. The polar bear grinned with satisfaction, because Jian behaving in a subordinate nature was both unusual and deeply erotic whenever it did happen. He slid his lips over the salt-damp velvet skin of his lover’s cock. Nothing was better: buoyed up by the sea and the tiger striped surfboard, with Jian’s breath already coming in short little gasps, sucking and lapping at the young man’s perfect erection. Emmett ran his fingers down the furrow of Jian’s spine and across the stripes that made him even more exotic than he had already been.

The stripes, along with the matching surfboard, had attracted a lot of attention on the beaches of the Florida Keys. All week Jian had fielded questions about why he had gotten such odd tattoos until Emmett had simply replied they were birth marks and gone back to reading about the winter party of Sir Walter Scott, stuck in an ice cave under the snow. Lying on a beach next to Jian, it was hard to be jealous, but Emmett still managed, if only just. Wherever he went on the beach, shade was his biggest worry, and they often ended up with Emmett under a large umbrella planted by one of the many beach front bars, with Jian just outside the dark circle, lying in the sand and sunning himself exactly like a feline would.

But despite the intense heat, and the fact Emmett had burnt the back of his neck on the first day by leaving the safety of the hotel room for all of half an hour without sunscreen, it had been a wonderful trip. Never before had Emmett packed so few clothes to leave home, spent the week living in one pair of board shorts, a single pair of thin cotton jeans for the evening, and three t-shirts. Just as Emmett had been shocked after that first snow to find all the little tiger owned were flip flops, Jian was just as aghast to find the polar bear didn’t own a single pair of anything approaching sandals. Apart from his good shoes for wearing out to dance floors or with suits, everything else he had were snow boots and work boots. Emmett wasn’t a big fan of the flimsy flip-flops, or the way the straps dug into the skin between his toes, and preferred to go barefoot in the sand or sit on his towel in the shade, watching Jian play with the sea.

Few things were sexier than watching the boy appear from the surf, his board under his arm, running his fingers through his hair, dripping sparkling diamonds from his skin, with the black strap of his board leash around one ankle. He was casual and perfect, and Emmett didn’t mind sitting in the shade, watching the boy he loved walk towards him. Jian would enter into a dozen random conversations in the space of half an hour, dash through the surf to race someone he didn’t know for the chance at a big wave, cheer on others who caught their own amazing curls and pulled stunts and tricks in the air. Emmett wasn’t jealous of the brief touches or the knuckles against shoulders, the easy relaxed manner all the surfers had with each other, because whenever Jian looked his way, the boy’s eyes lit up. Everyone who walked their way had ready smiles and easy chatter, and Emmett adored sitting with Jian crossed-legged between his knees, his thick arms holding the boy against his chest, being introduced as his boyfriend.

They had sex all over their hotel room: often in the shower, but on the floor, the bed, in a mess of towels between the bathroom and the main room, and once in the middle of the night on the balcony. Emmett had woken to find his lover gone, and Jian had been naked, leaning on the balcony rail looking out at the sea, the stars and the unpopulated night. Emmett had fucked him from behind, stifling Jian’s groans with his hand over the young man’s mouth, kissing the back of Jian’s neck to silence the deep timbre of his own pleasure. The warm night breeze had swirled around them, and Emmett had decided he could cope with the heat as long as he could become entirely nocturnal. The following day they had drawn wolf whistles on the beach for the quarter-sized love bite Emmett had left on Jian’s tanned skin, and the marks Jian’s sharp fingernails had dug into Emmett’s forearm. Jian had just grinned at him, and shot him a vision of the night as he jogged towards the bright sea.

In the pure clear waters of their private dream-sea, Emmett brought the young man off in his mouth, Jian whimpering and groaning as loud as he liked, with no worries that anyone would hear them. The tiger abandoned his board and they swam naked in the shallow waters, teasing each other until Emmett ended up lying in the warm underwater sand, Jian straddling his hips, the sound of their lovemaking amplified by the lapping of the waves as the snow fell from a clear blue sky. Jian purred, and they traded love and desire back and forth until Emmett needed no words at all to tell the young man that he was the centre of the universe. They fell asleep in the dream, buoyed up by the soft water with their heads pillowed on the fine golden sand, and Emmett couldn’t even imagine how he had lived his life so long without knowing how good it could be.

*

“Hey Pita!” Emmett ruffled the dog’s ears as the husky rushed over to him, and then began to take of his boots. “Babe?”

“Kitchen!”

“You’re back already?”

“Our second class got cancelled: the vet got called out to deal with a big emergency involving a car crash and a horse,” Jian leant out of the kitchen door with a wince, “so Pitanê and I went for a run along the river.”

“And how are my two best boys?” Emmett petted the big husky, ruffling his fur and dragging his fingers through his thick ruff. “You went for a run?”

“He’s going to need a bigger harness soon,” Jian abandoned whatever it was he was doing in the kitchen and instantly became the centre of Pitanê’s attention, “the old one is getting tight across the chest. He’s growing up into a big boy now. Yes, you are!” Jian kissed the dog’s nose, wiped his hand over his mouth and pressed his lips to Emmett’s cheek. “He’s not a scared little puppy anymore babe.”

“Don’t I know it,” Emmett stroked his hand down the husky’s spine, and left Pitanê to continue to stare hopefully up at Jian as he cooked. Ten minutes later, Emmett had changed, stepped over the gate into the kitchen, and wrapped his arms around his mate while Jian basted the roast brown skin of a large duck. Emmett growled softly in his ear, and thrust his crotch very slightly against Jian’s hips.

“Xue! I’m cooking…” Jian protested weakly.

“Been thinking about you all day, pretty Tiger,” Emmett rumbled in his best come-hither voice, “does the food have to be dealt with now?”

“Xue…” Jian quivered under his hands, a purr already rumbling in his chest. “Rain will be home soon…”

As if by magic, Emmett’s sensitive hearing picked up the sounds of footsteps on the little porch outside before the door opened, and stopped feeling up his boyfriend, stole a thin slice of cucumber, and began to investigate the fridge for snacks. It had been a long day, and the complex scents of the food Jian was cooking made him hungry. Huan-Yu stopped at the kitchen doorway and arched an eyebrow at Emmett as he removed himself from the fridge, chewing on a strip of smoked cured salmon his father had sent down. Emmett could tell the panda knew exactly what he had been thinking about.

“I thought I might join the two of you for dinner.”

“Sure,” Jian smiled. “There’s plenty of food. I was going to do a stir fry to go with the duck anyway.”

“Are there pancakes?” Emmett asked, scanning the contents of the fridge.

“Yes, and I defrosted some char siu bao for you.”

“You’re the best.”

“I know,” Jian grinned and licked his teeth, “now go lay table and feed the dog.”

Emmett would have retorted, or squeezed the tiger’s pert arse, but one look between his mate and the panda, and Emmet knew Huan-Yu had things he wanted to say to the young man. Pitanê snuffled around Emmett as he refilled the husky’s water bowl and laid down his food in the corner of the wooden floor living room. Pitanê wagged his tail and woofed softly, so Emmett gave the dog a strip off his piece of jerky as well, and began to clear the table of paperwork. Half of it was Jian’s, and along with his course notes and studies, the young man had begun both an annotated map of his explorations in the zoo, and a slim but beautiful scrapbook of their trip to Key West. Emmett had never known a person take so many photos, especially of things he already knew, like waves and beaches, and Emmett featured in a lot of them. Whenever the young man had gone to surf, Emmett had been left with the camera, and having only been berated once by Jian for having taken not a single photograph all day, the bear snapped as many pictures of Jian, surfing, laughing, talking, running through the water or standing with his board as he could. Scattered among the photographs on the coffee table was one Emmett had taken of the sun between the palm leaves, and then a second one from the same angle as Jian had leant over him to ask what he was doing. In the picture Jian was smiling, his eyes shining, and his hair just about to drip water onto the camera lens. Emmett tucked the other photographs away with the scrapbook, but kept the last one with him, and slipped it into his pocket. It was far from the best picture, but just from glancing at it, Emmett could tell the boy loved him, and it was good.

Jian had made duck, pancakes, and stir fry that was largely green and smelt of garlic. He also garnished the table with the defrosted and steamed char siu bao, a platter of cucumber slices and spring onion slivers, and a bowl of hoisin sauce. Emmett instantly dipped his finger into the sauce and sucked greedily, all without taking his eyes off Jian.

“Tease,” the tiger accused.

“Uh-huh,” Emmett agreed with a sly grin.

“I’ll make you pay for that later.”

Emmett sighed; he was sort of counting on it.

Huan-Yu came to join them not two minutes later, by which time Emmett was already assembling a veritable army of duck pancakes. The panda made his own without the duck, just little soft cylinders of soft, thin dough containing green vegetables and the bok choi garlic sauce the stir fry had been cooked in.

“How was your day?” Emmett asked politely, and the panda shot him an unreadable glance.

“Fine, thank you. Yours?” Huan-Yu’s ingrained politeness won out and he sighed gently. “Sorry. I am not sure what I should do.”

“About what?” Jian tucked himself into his usual spot on the sofa and ate the duck in the most delicate and erotic manner Emmett could think of.

“I have been offered a promotion at work.”

Into the stunned silence, Emmett barked with tense relief.

“That’s great Huan-Yu: really awesome. I’m so glad you went for it!”

“You might not be,” the panda sighed, “it does raise some issues.” His dark eyes tracked Pitanê as the dog finished eating and stalked across the room the curl up in the black space under the television. “I don’t really know what to say.”

“Rain…” Jian began, and then his tone changed as he switched back into his native language. Emmett wondered if he should try and learn, because it sounded important: but it also sounded largely incomprehensible. “…it’s alright. Just tell him.”

“Tell me what?” Emmett frowned at the private conversation that had been going on without him whilst he ate. “What’s going on?”

“I was thinking of selling the house, or perhaps renting it out as a whole unit.” Huan-Yu looked evenly across the table at Emmett, and the polar bear could easily read the stress in his dark eyes. “The new position involves some travel: I thought I might get an apartment on the other side of town, closer to the office.” He sighed, “I don’t want to leave the two of you ‘in the brink’ as it were.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Jian seemed much more confident than Emmet felt, “we’ll be fine.”

“We will?” Emmett arched a pale eyebrow.

“Yes, Xue. I have faith. After all, we should have somewhere of our very own.”

“When?” Emmett asked the panda carefully. Jian still had a few months of his nine month internship remaining, though Vienne had assured him that getting his position at the zoo paid and full time would not be an issue.

“Time enough for Jian to finish out his course. I’ll rent the place to you in the mean time?” Huan-Yu suggested. “How does that sound?”

“Thank you Rain,” Jian smiled warmly, “thank you for letting me stay here.”

Huan-Yu said something complicated in Chinese again, and Jian giggled as his cousin stood, smiled, bowed to them both and departed upstairs. Emmett frowned at the man he loved.

“What did he say?”

Jian chuckled, and snuggled up into Emmett’s lap, kissing him deeply.

“He thanked The Great Spirits that I found someone who wanted me, ‘cause I’m irritating to live with!”

“You’re not irritating,” Emmett pushed his hands into his lover’s clothes.

“See: I always told you we were perfect for each other.”

*

Emmett wriggled his toes in the thick snow and scented the frozen air. There was salt in the air, thrown up from particles of the sea ice, the close red textures of meat, the warm mustiness of fur, and the bright delicate scent of his mate. Emmett turned to where Jian stood near the sled, taping the snow covers over his all-weather ski boots, and the little tiger’s orange eyes flashed up as he smiled. Emmett was washed with warmth from his lover, even over the distance between them, and Emmett grinned and licked his lips as he remembered how they had pressed themselves together in the sleeping bag, sharing body heat and kisses, making love and heating up the tent until the snow under them had melted. Now he watched Jian pack up the last of the sled, tuck a bottle of hot water and some jerky inside his jacket and pull Emmett’s seal fur parka on over the top of his clothes.

“You ready?” Jian called across to him.

“Waarom!” Emmett raised his muzzle from the pinkish snow surrounding what had been the salmon he’d eaten for breakfast. “Rooarn!”

“Oh I’m glad you think so!” Jian shot back, “it’s twenty-nine below!” he covered his face with one mitten, “and I can’t feel my nose!”

Emmett paced over to his lover, skirting around the back of the sled and the dogs who stood with their tugs held tight out behind them. Emmett had borrowed the five other dogs from Silas and Mesier, and had been incredibly proud of the way Jian handled them. The young man’s natural control with animals transcended all training and species boundaries, and within hours he’d had the dogs settled and happy, and doing every little thing he wanted. Pitanê helped, roped up at the front alongside the experienced lead dog they had been lent, who was the all black with a white mask and white paws dog Jian had first become so fond of at the Quachegan’s kennels. Beside him, Pitanê was learning everything he could about picking the best ice and controlling the movement and motions of not just one man and sled, but also the four other teams and wheel dogs who ran behind them. The sled itself was a small and lightweight affair, and everyone who didn’t know about Emmett’s particular advantage when it came to travelling in the snow thought they were woefully underprepared for the task ahead of them. The sled was barely eight feet long and held only the tent, their sleeping gear and the food for the dogs and Jian. Emmett had already been pretty successful in his quests for seal, and the polar bear’s hunting trophies were also loved by the dogs. Emmett was not surprised to find the huskies preferred raw meat to kibble if they could get it.

The polar bear wiped his bloody muzzle in the snow, and then rubbed himself up against his mate. Jian instantly pulled off one glove and buried fingers and face into the thick dry fur of Emmett chest. He sighed happily, and Emmett rumbled in response.

“You’re such a lucky bastard; I can’t believe you have trouble keeping cool in these temperatures.”

“Hurrnt.”

“Oh don’t be silly,” Jian pulled his face away from Emmett’s warm pelt and look up at him sternly, “I regret nothing.”

“Rooam!”

“Well alright then! Let’s go!”

Emmett watched as the man he loved opened up the carbon fibre poles of the kite, pinned the thin rip stop fabric to the beams, and sent the mechanism flying skywards. Emmett had barked with surprise the first time he had seen it, because Jian had spent his first real pay check on the contraption, and whilst it was a very practical shape, it was decorated in blending swirls of polar white and tiger orange and black like a strange and personal ying-yang. Emmett couldn’t help but love it. The dogs set up their excited barking when they saw the kite, because they knew it was time to be off, and Jian unhooked the snow brake, left the drag line trailing behind the runners of the sled, and stamped into his short skis. How Jian had become so incredibly proficient at cross country skiing in such a short space of time, Emmett didn’t know, but having watched the boy mould the waves like he was born for it, and then borrow a snowboard and boots, point himself down the side of a mountain and shred the powder like a pro, Emmett had decided there was nothing Jian couldn’t do if he put his mind to it.

The dogs followed Jian and his kite happily, and they made good time over the ice even though it was grippy with salt. Every couple of hours Jian stopped to flip the sled and scrape of the accumulated ice. Like everything else, he had the process down to a fine art that now took mere moments. Emmett paced along with the sled, happily switching from a trot to a lope as they went, warming his muscles and stretching himself. Sometimes he stopped, just to roll around in the pristine whiteness and remind himself that he was, at last, in the Arctic.

It had not been the simplest of things to accomplish, but the university had finally decided they wanted to have the prestige that having a polar explorer on the staff would give them. Emmett had submitted a proposal for funding to go North, with the intention of navigating using only traditional methods in order to make a study which would be able to verify and shed light on the accuracy of the reports of the first Arctic explorers, and he had roared in delight when the application had been returned, a signature and a big green official looking stamp confirming that he could have the money for the trip. That night he and Jian had found themselves in the dreamland they adored, looking out over the ice caps. Rising out of the earth had been a column of light. Emmett knew theoretically it didn’t exist; but its connotations were obvious. Jian had finished his internship at the end of September, and had been instantly hired as a full time level two keeper for the Indo-Malaya exhibit, specialising in the care of the Sumatran tigers and the clouded leopards. He adored giving tours, talking about the animals, feeding and caring for them. When Emmett met his co-workers out, they would always insist that Jian was the only keeper they knew who actually liked cleaning cages: Jian always smirked and said it was the best way to get to know the cats. Sometimes Emmett wondered just how much conversation Jian had with other animals, but he could never bring himself to ask. Either way, he bought them Christmas turkey’s before he and Emmett had left for a much shorter Christmas trip home for the second time.

There had been something lovely about arriving in Moosonee for Christmas and getting to introduce Jian as his mate, his partner, and the man he adored. Rye had jumped up and down in the most over enthusiastic manner known, and instantly asked them when they were planning on getting married. Everywhere they went, people called his lover Jian-the-Tiger, and Emmett could see the young man glowing with every word.

Better still had been returning at the end of March and surprising everyone apart from Silas who had known they were coming. They had stocked up on dogs and fish, and other cold weather supplies, and Emmett had hitched the dog trailer to his truck, and pointed them north: he hadn’t looked back.

The weather was good for travel over the ice. The sun was up, and the sky was blue, and the snow stayed smooth and flat. They had passed through an ice boulder field just north of Bathurst Island a week earlier, and Emmett wondered if they were the only people who had gone through Polar Bear Pass without seeing any other bears at all. Emmett had smelt them, mothers with their young mostly, and they had found paw prints Jian had carefully documented, along with other evidence of their lives, but all real bears had fled when Emmett walked across the land. No polar bear wanted to argue with a big male shifter.

When Jian had first broached the subject of getting time off to travel with his partner to the North Pole, Vienne had been so excited she had instantly liaised with the head of the polar exhibit to do a temporary display about the trip: about travelling with huskies as modern day explorers, and about the wildlife they encountered as they travelled. After that, and the incredibly fast paced verbatim discussion Emmett had tried to navigate his way through as Jian relayed it to him, getting the time off hadn’t actually been an issue at all.

That morning Emmett had stood in his Canada Goose parka and salopettes, the only clothes he had actually brought with him, and taken their navigational reading with the sextant. The lovely brass object in its wooden chest was by far the heaviest item they had brought with them, other than the sled, but it was also the most important. Emmett’s funding relied on him using the sextant for all their location purposes, and whilst they had a marine satellite GPS tracker on board and switched on, it’s only purpose was to validate their results. Emmett had sat on the sled bag with Pitanê’s head in his lap as he chewed the end of his pencil and completed some very complicated maths, but their position was exactly right and just ahead of schedule. Emmett’s heart had soared just a little as he read off, for the eleventh day in a row, the highest bearing north he had ever travelled: 87° N.

They were close.

It was never dark that far north, so after they had run for twelve hours, Emmett watched Jian unhitch the dogs and put them to bed on their chain, and then the young man had unpacked from the sled all that safely could be, and tucked himself into the little snug bed-for-one Emmett had designed to fit into the space. They would only sleep for a few hours, and then when the temperature had dropped still further, they would run again. It was colder, and both Emmett and the dogs would be able to run harder and faster. Emmett stayed in his fur, and burrowed himself against the cold snow, his face pressed to the ground as he cooled down. Jian hadn’t joked about the polar bear’s trouble in getting too warm, and Emmett had quickly discovered running all day warmed his body far more than he had ever expected. The dense coat of hollow furs that made up the bulk of his coat kept him so warm he desperately needed the super-cooling effect of having his paws in the deep snow – just like the dogs did. When he had cooled sufficiently, he moved to curl up next to the sled bag, and pressed his nose against the opening of the zip. After a moment, it opened by inches, and Jian’s half concealed face peered out at him, a bandana covering his nose and mouth.

“Hey Xue-bear.”

“Wooarm.”

“We’re still on schedule? Everything’s going well?”

“Haaarm.”

Jian’s eyes glittered in the constant twilight.

“I miss you, Xue. Last night was fun…”

Emmett grinned his happy bear grin and pressed his muzzle against the cloth that covered Jian’s lips. The boy fought with the sleeping gear to find his hand, then pulled the bandana down so that he could kiss the bear back. As their lips touched, the sky above them exploded into a riotous dance of colour.

“Wrroal.”

Emmett rolled onto his back as Jian unzipped the sled bag the rest of the way. The young man, still basically fully dressed, crawled from bed to bear and snuggled himself onto Emmett’s chest and belly with the sleeping bag wrapped over all the bits of him that weren’t pressed into the thick polar pelt. Emmett wrapped his arms around his lover and together they stared up at The Great Spirits. Now, they had watched them many times, both in the little garden of their own house on rare Toronto nights and lying in the thick Moosonee snow. Jian knew all of the colours, knew the dancing patterns they made in the sky, and Emmett could feel his heartbeat slow down as they watched the powerful and colourful storm weave over their heads. No matter how many times they watched the Northern Lights, Emmett was always reminded of that first time; standing in the back garden of the house he had grown up in at a stupid time of the morning, watching the colours change as they played across Jian’s smooth and shining features. It was something he would never forget.

“You’re beautiful.”

“Hey Xue…” Jian turned, straddling Emmett’s naked torso. Emmett reached up and brushed the young man’s silken hair away from his face.

In the ethereal twilight they were both coloured by the vibrant shades of The Great Spirits, and it was somehow hard to know where the lines were drawn between their bodies. And it didn’t matter that it was more than thirty degrees below freezing, or that having sex in the snow was never actually as much fun as it seemed, because Emmett didn’t care. He pulled the opened up sleeping bags around them both and held his lover tight. The white snow around them was bathed in half a dozen colours, the lights of those who had come before them dancing in the sky, for love, for joy, for loss, for sorrow. Whatever they danced for, Emmett felt his heart swell with emotions too complicated and wonderful to put a label on, because when he looked at the tiger in his arms, the only colour he saw was gold.