“Dude, come on, it’s in my beard!”

Ethan cackled as he bounded through the kitchen after mashing a snowball right into Andy’s hair. He knew he didn’t have long to escape retaliation.

“You fuckin’ BEAR!” Andy came stumbling after Ethan, having collected a small handful of snow from his head and the back of his neck.

Ah, crap. Now that his boyfriend had used his all-too-on-the-nose bear trigger, Ethan was done for if he got caught.

Which was, of course, his goal. But what kind of bratty bear would he be if he didn’t take the first snowfall of the year as an opportunity to cause a little bit of trouble, first?

Ethan had to turn on his heel quickly when Andy’s large frame appeared in the doorway to the living room lunging at him, and without thinking, he dashed into the den.

With Andy right on his tail, Ethan was cornered. The only unblocked exit from the den was the door out to the backyard, but now that his bear trigger was activated, going outside would put him at a severe disadvantage.

Despite the two men being the same height, Andy appeared to loom over Ethan, causing him to shrink backwards until he felt the very poorly-insulated sliding glass door press up against his back.

The cold glass on the back of his neck sent a shiver down Ethan’s spine. He was already so primed to the effect that his eyes started rolling back in his head before Andy’s smooth voice had even left his mouth.

“That’s right, love… and what do bears do when it gets cold out?”

“H-hibernate…” The word came out slurred as Ethan used the last vestiges of his slowing thoughts to try to figure out when he had slid down the door onto the floor.

“That’s right! They hibernate. Everything slowing right down. All that activity coming practically to a halt. Body and mind so slow as they go into hibernation… the colder you get, the slower you get…”

Ethan mumbled a soft “mhm” as he automatically curled up on the floor, his eyes too heavy to keep open. He didn’t notice Andy plug in the electric blanket to preheat it for after their play, but he definitely noticed the frigid draft washing over him as Andy opened the sliding door to the backyard.

Ethan was lost to reality, the drop in temperature having slowed his thoughts to a halt and rendering his body all but immobile in his hypnotically-induced hibernation.

Andy grinned, bent down, and reached outside to collect a few handfuls of still-falling snow. It was time for revenge.