OTF #12 - Trying To Stay Warm

PLEASE READ: I am taking the 30-prompt OTP challenge fav.me/d5dn7ex and CHANGING it to be "OTF"--"one true family," not "one true pairing." I believe, as you all know, that Poirot and Hastings have a COMPLETELY INNOCENT, brotherly type bond, but I just wanted to make that extra-clear here. Most of the themes on this challenge are G-rated and can apply to familial relationships just as easily as romantic (and I thought they were just too cute to pass up, hence me jumping on the challenge bandwagon ), and the few that aren't, I of course will be finding innocent substitutes for. In a few of my OTF drawings Japp or Miss Lemon will feature instead of Poirot or Hastings or with them, because to me, Poirot, Hastings, Japp, and Miss Lemon are just one big adorable family!
Just to say again, this is familial, brotherly love! Not slash 

In replacement of the “doing something hot” prompt, I changed it to “trying to keep warm.” See what I did there? I feel like I’m stretching it, but, you know! But who cares. I wanted to write this.

    Hercule Poirot shivered. Arthur Hastings frowned.

    “Look here, old man,” he said a little hesitantly. “I’m really very sorry about all this.”

    “It is not your fault, mon ami,” the little man replied, “At least, not entirely.”

    Hastings’ frown deepened, his thin hands restlessly rubbing at his arms in an attempt to warm himself up. Poirot, who had moved over to the corner and seated himself upon the bench, shivered again. His quivering breaths were coming out as great puffs of misty white into the freezing cold air.

    “I do wish you’d let me give you my jacket,” Hastings said after a moment’s silence.

    “Ce non!” Poirot ejaculated. “You wear only the light sweater underneath.”

    “I’m sure I’d be alright. You mind the cold more than I do.”

    Poirot did not respond, and Hastings let out an exasperated sigh. He honestly wasn’t sure if Poirot was refusing his offer out of kindness, or to punish him for getting them into this mess by making him watch his friend and his frequent shivers. He tried to convince himself it was the former. After all, Poirot’s scathing stares every two or so minutes were punishment enough. It had, of course, been entirely an accident. How was he to know you could only open the ruddy door from the outside? But then, Poirot had known. Somehow Poirot always knew things. But of course if Poirot hadn’t insisted on going out to investigate the place when it was freezing cold and already dark this might never even have happened. But Hastings didn’t allow himself to blame his friend for very long. Before he had even finished attempting to justify himself he was feeling the same old pangs of guilt again in his stomach. It had been his fault. And now they were stuck in a barren, drafty old room hidden behind a locked door which looked like a bookcase in the middle of January with no way of sending for help and no way of keeping warm. Thank heaven Japp had scheduled to meet them at the old house the next morning and of course he would find them there, but this night was going to be a cold one.

    “Stop pacing, Hastings, you shall wear a hole in the floor,” Poirot snapped suddenly.

    “Well, in this situation that might actually be a good thing,” Hastings replied hotly.

    Their tempers were indeed the only things in the room that were hot.

    “I apologize, mon cher,” Poirot responded quickly. “It was not right of me to crier, ah, how is it? To cry at you so.”

    “I think I will sit down, though,” Hastings sighed. “I’m getting tired.”

    He sat down on the bench beside his friend and pulled his collar up, wrapping his arms around himself tightly. For a time the only sounds that could be heard were those of the two men’s breathing and occasionally the rustling of their coasts as they rubbed their arms in an attempt to generate some warmth. But neither could keep warm on their own. Little by little they could feel themselves getting numb with cold and at last Poirot broke the silence.

    “Mon dieu!” he cried. “It is as cold as the glacier in here.”

    “It’s cold as ice, Poirot,” said Hastings dully, his lips cold and chapped. “And this isn’t exactly the right context for the phrase. It’s supposed to refer to –”

    “I do not think at this moment that I care very particularly what it is supposed to refer to, Hastings.”

    “Oh, right…”

    The younger of the two men tried to slide down a little deeper into his jacket to hide his face, but it only made his legs colder as the protruded farther out into the open air.

    “You know,” he said after a moment’s thought, “My little brother Aspen was in the Scouts, and he told me once that if you sit with your backs to one another you can share your body heat. If we sat sideways on the bench we could do it.”

    Poirot frowned. “That is not the very dignified position, mon ami, to use each other as the hot water bottle.”

    Hastings scowled at his companion. “It’s not as if anyone will see.”

    Poirot frowned and turned his back to his companion. He said nothing, but Hastings knew he was saying yes to the idea. With a slight smile he slid over, sitting sideways on the bench, so that his back was pressed against Poirot’s. Both were silent for a moment as they felt what could be described as a sort of melting sensation stretch across their backs. Hastings tucked his hands under his legs and moved a little to find a more comfortable position on the bench. Neither spoke, but they both knew it had been a good idea. Sharing their body heat would get them through the night, and then in the morning back in Poirot’s flat there would be warm drinks and warm blankets and real hot water bottles from Miss Lemon, and everything would be alright again.