Hi everyone, I'm suds!
I've ben sucked into QH once again after a freaking year because of SaHil 🤣
Since Monday, Ive been trying to find fics about them, but unfortunately there aren't many.
Which I had to fix.
Because every ship and OTP needs fanfiction. Every. Single. one.
This is sort of a hypothermia fic?
I don't know, I only wanted to write about them huddling for warmth but then feelings happened.. so yeah.
Hope you enjoy <3
And there's probably a lot of errors grammatical and informational ones too, because I seriously haven't been paying attention to the actual plot until now, so sorry, please forgive me if I get anything wrong :) i wrote it during my break.
This is canon compliant, well as much as I could get it. I'm a shitty writer.
HOPING FOR SOMETHING MORE
The door is locked. The handle doesn't budge, no matter how hard he tries. Behind him, he can hear the chatter of her too cold teeth, and whispers of words that he cannot get a grasp of sweeping out of her mouth.
Must be praying, he thinks idly, while trying once again to kick open the door, though again ending up with futile results. Good. We need all the help we can get.
Trying to suppress the disappointment that is for sure colouring his face, he turns to go and sit down, though not before he sweeps the room once again with his eyes to see if there is a switch. Any switch, a button would do- he just needs one. But alas, nothing has changed in the cramped, cold space since they had first entered.
"'m cold,"
Later, Aahil will convince himself that the small shriek he let out was not at all girly, and that he had only jumped because the cold floor was damper that he thought it would be.
He looks up to see Sanam, hunched into her self. Legs locked to her chest, head hidden behind her knees, she looked just as pathetic as he felt, and couldn't even se her face behind the hair. It was the first time he heard her say something that was comprehendible in the last ten minutes.
"of course its cold. We are in a freezer, what did you expect? Idiot,"
Aahil shakes his head and slowly stands up once, and the cold seeps through his jeans, making his joints ache and muscles stiff.
"You should get up and get some blood flowing- you'll be dead before you know it if you just sit there,"
A small nod and some whispered mutters are what he gets in return.
Sanam starts to get up, hands braced against ice aluminum, and that's when Aahil sees that she has paled considerably in the last few minutes, and is shaking like a leaf caught in the wind.
Muttering a curse, he swiftly covers the three foot distance between them and bends over to help her get some balance. He gasps when he takes hold of her arms. They feel as they are chilled to the bone.
Walking around will do her nothing, but she needs to get warm before she gets in serious danger.
She struggles weakly against his hands, but Aahil ignores the protests, and soon Sanam stops, head dropping limply onto his shoulder, icy breath tickling his ear and making him notice his own shivers.
Body heat will do us both good, he thinks, trying not to think or care about their proximity and stiltedly rubs his hands down her arms, willing them to warm up.
It was one of the first things he had learnt, sharing body heat.
During the cold winter nights, when Abu got too angry, the lashes against his hands would turn into ugly thick welts, and Ammi would take him outside, trying to cool the pain left in his arms. They would sleep there, two souls huddled against each other, his Ammi's warm arms enveloping him, distracting him, telling eerie stories about fire and love, blood and war, and Aahil thinks that this is what Sanam needs now.
A distraction. Something that would make her forget her surroundings. Aahil knows he can survive, he's gone through much worse than this, but she is delicate; and will break.
He suddenly laughs, a broken, hoarse sound that makes the girl in his arms burrow into his chest further. He wanted to break her, and when she is finally crumbling, he can't think of why he did in the first place.
After waiting for Sanam to stop moving, he carefully removes an arm from where it was laid against her torso. She whimpers from the loss of warmth, and Aahil shushes her.
"Hey shh, I'm just getting my phone okay? We'll have to see how long Rehaan is going to take, okay? Shh,"
Sanam looks up, eyes bleak and nose a startling red. Aahil frowns, she mirroring the expression on his face soon after.
"Are you sick? Your nose is red, and shit, is that why you were sneezing?"
Sanam shuts him up by brushing his hair with freezing fingers. Aahil tenses, waiting for the inevitable blow that he knows will never come, and Sanam finally says something.
"Y-ou had ice in- in your hair, tha-that's why i-," she suddenly starts wheezing, and clutches the lapels of his shirt to steady herself, before continuing.
"I'm co-cold? Why -why are you so w-warm, I cant bre- breathe?"
She phrases the words like a question, and Aahil suddenly realizes that he seriously needs to do something before they freeze to death.
Awkwardly, he maneuvers her limp weight, and takes her to the array of boxes and carts placed in the corner. He sits down, leaning against a cardboard box that smelled distinctly of something rotting, and sits Sanam down into the V of his legs. Maybe she finally realized what was happening, because she suddenly was trying to get out of his grip.
"What- what are you doing?"
Looping an arm around her waist, he pulls her back in and tightens his grip slightly. "Sharing body heat," he replies tersely, taking is phone out of his pocket with his free hand, and trying to press the right buttons with numb fingers.
"We'll freeze if we don't," he adds, just as the phones rings before he could attempt to call for help.
Sanam relaxes against him, and Aahil answers the call, praying that something else wasn't wrong now.
"Hello, Aahil Bhai?"
"Yes, who else do you thing it is? How long is it going to take?" Aahil leans his head against the box behind him, and takes a deep breathe, cold air filling his already burning lungs.
"Not long, not long at all, we'll be there in around fifteen minutes, and we'll get you out in no time Bhai,"
"Be here as quick as you can, the cold is unbearable, man, I don't know what to do. My feet are getting numb,"
he winces before he even finishes his monologue, the air around him thinning and he has to lean against Sanam head and just breathe, and the phone disconnects before Rehaan has the chance to reply.
Sanam shifts, turning sideways, head on his chest and resting her feet against his knee, and sighs. He pockets his mobile, wrapping both his arms around her and resting his chin against her hair.
"I swear it wasn't this bad last time,' he mutters, partially to him self, and partially to distract the both of them to not to succumb into darkness.
Sanam tenses against him, and her hold against his shirt tightens.
"Y-you been somewhere this co-cold before?"
Aahil places his hands on her arms, and they slowly gentle their grip, but he doesn't let go. She needs to be warm. That is his priority.
"Yeah."
"h-how?" her small voice holds something inquisitive and concerned, and Aahil decides that if she is lucid enough to want to talk to him and lie with him, she probably wont remember anything if they get out. When they get out.
"My- My Abbu," he starts, before clearing his throat and trying again.
"He, uh, was a very uh, angry man. And I was a- a very naughty kid, as you can probably guess," he laughs hollowly, but stops, as a searing pain starts to drill into his head.
This is bad. He continues.
"When- when I would do something bad, he would find creative punishments for me, to stop me from being bad. B-but I swear, I wasn't being bad then- I -I was protecting Ammi-," he stops, eyes aching without strain, and he doesn't know whether he's stuttering because of the cold or because of the memory.
Sanam shifts again, blindly laying her hand against his stubbled cheek, and coughs slightly before speaking.
"You aren't that b-bad, you love y-your family and you came he-here to help, I know, I-I saw you,"
Aahil, shocked at the way she perceives him, waits for her to continue, but when she doesn't, and just takes deep breaths, which he is sure is burning, resumes telling his own story.
"She- Ammi- accidently burned the roti, and Abu got so angry and he just- kept hitting her and it was so bad, so bad- Ammi just stood there, taking it, and I felt so hopeless, so I pushed him and yelled at him. He threw me into the freezer- we had a big fridge," Sanam doesn't laugh at his weak, pathetic attempt to lighten the atmosphere, just holds his cheek and shakes her head against his chest.
"You don't h-have to, i-its private, I don't want t-to intrude,"
"You'd rather want to talk about freezing to death then?"
Sanam doesn't say anything, and Aahil sighs.
"Look, I'm just trying to distract us and keep us awake, its only for a few minutes, Rehaan said so himself. You trust Rehaan, don't you?"
This elicits a mumbled response in the fabric of his shirt. "I just don't want to open old wounds,"
And even quietly, as though she is talking to herself rather than the man she is huddled up with, she says, "I trust you too."
He expels a breath of cold air and tries to dissipate the painful pins and needles that gradually travel through his legs.
"Don't worry, these wounds aren't healed yet, you aren't doing anything,"
She nods and reluctantly motions for him to continue.
"Yeah, so I was in the freezer, it was locked and cramped and I could hear Ammi screaming at Abbu to let me out. Which he did, after a long time. Ammi fixed me up though- and- and I cleaned up her cuts and bruises."
Aahil looks down at the silver flooring and closes his eyes. It is exhausting talking about things that he has nightmares about, and the cold is now a welcome feeling. He feels as though his lungs and skull have been shredded apart with swords of ice.
"You okay in there?"
He moved back and tilts her chin, only to find Sanam a dead weight against his hands. Fear suddenly clouds his senses, and he shakes her, angling his head forward to see if she is breathing, and almost faints out of relief when he feels sharp shards of air tugging out of her.
"Sanam? Hey, wake up, you need to wake up-"
He pats her face repeatedly, but she doesn't show any sign of coming into consciousness, head lolling to the side, eyes closed and wispy tendrils of hair framing her face.
His frantic movements are stopped when he hears dull steps outside of the room, and he uses the energy he has to pick up the girl in arms, a limp, light weight, and runs towards the door, kicking at it with numb feet and yelling with a hoarse voice that reminds him of crunching gravel.
"Please, open the door, Rehaan, is that you? Sanam has fainted- open the door- anybody?"
"We're here Bhai, just wait," Rehaan's calm voice soothes him a little, and he looks down at Sanam and her pale, fading face, and her hold against his shirt, tight, as though she thinks he'll protect her from the world.
"We're going to get out just fine, okay?"
Please be okay, please make her okay, he prays.
Tada. 1.9k of feelings, coldness and cuddling.
Don't ask me why they ended up in there, I don't know my self 🤣
Thanks for reading <3
Ps. The title is taken from New Dawn Fades, a late 1970's song by joy division :)
pps. if theres something wrong with font, im sorry- i just cant get it to be good.
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