The blanket landed over Exile's coils, exile froze not the way a man froze when startled. The way an animal froze when the world abruptly made sense again everything in him changed. The smell hit hard enough that even Snow Team felt the shift secondhand before Leaf Team fully did. Felicity, soft fabric and sleep and skin and the warm, impossible sweetness that belonged to her specifically, saturated into the blanket in a way that made absence feel less abstract and far more cruel.
Exile's eyes widened in a way that would have looked ridiculous on anyone less terrifying, his coils gathered around the blanket without crushing it, the motion instantly, disturbingly careful.
Marx put both hands up, "before you guys tackle me, she gave me her blanket Victor is my witness."
Every head turned.
Victor looked briefly like he wanted to walk into oncoming traffic. "Sadly," he said, "he's right."
