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“So far, my sister, my parents, your parents, and Beth the beet farmer in West Elm have texted me about this.” David tossed his phone back on the counter and stalked over to the back wall to adjust the scarf display.
“People are excited, David,” Patrick replied. “It’ll be the first time the aurora is visible here in decades.”
“Potentially,” David retorted. “Potentially. Potentially!”
“Jeez, David,” piped in Roland, who was carrying a pile of cheese to the checkout counter. “I thought you were a romantic! No love for the northern lights?”
David rubbed his hands over his face before starting to ring up Roland’s purchases. “I’m just being realistic. I sense that neither of you spent a week glamping in Iceland waking up at 2 in the morning every night to drive around in a glorified Jeep practically frost-bitten, hopes high as the sky, only to see absolutely nothing!”
Roland glanced at Patrick across the room. “Well, me and Joce are going to drive out to the darkest field we can find to try to see it. If you’re not going, that’ll leave more room for us to be a little vocal if you know what I —”
“Thanks for coming in, Roland!” Patrick interjected, walking over. “Hope we all get to see the aurora.”
Roland left with a jangle of the bell as Patrick rubbed David’s shoulders.
“I’m just not trying to get my hopes up,” David sighed, eating ice cream on the couch as Patrick cued up the next episode of the Great British Bake Off.
“I know, I know.”
“And everyone, everyone is focusing so much on this! And what if it doesn’t happen? Or there’s unexpected clouds! Or all the pressure of expectations build up and fate intervenes to prevent the aurora at all!”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s how solar wind works but I get what you mean.”
“Do you, though?” David waved his ice cream spoon wildly. “This is everything that I try to avoid. You know this is my strategy - it has to be. Keep expectations low, allowing for some pleasant surprises but minimizing nasty letdowns.”
Patrick hummed. “I do know that this is your strategy, but I also know that there have been times when you have let yourself be optimistic, and it has worked out.” He lifted David’s left hand and placed a gentle kiss on his wedding ring. “So I will be waking up to try to see the aurora. They're saying we'll have chances the next three nights. And I would love if you joined me.”
“That’s not fair,” protested David, clearly affected. “Also, you sound like my therapist from 2009.”
Patrick settled down into the couch, leaning up against his husband. They quieted for a moment.
“Will you pack snacks?” David asked quietly.
“For an excursion potentially happening at 1:30 in the morning? I honestly wasn’t planning on it.”
David just stared at him. The theme music for the Bake Off began to play on the TV.
“I mean, yes, of course I will pack snacks, David. I think this will be good.”
The first night it rained. David said nothing, mostly because he was asleep.
The storm had started rolling in around 7 in the evening, the kind of storm you can feel in your bones.
David and Patrick got ready for bed without really discussing it, though the local WhatsApp group was filled with notifications. Mostly from people who still thought there was a chance for an aurora sighting, against all meteorological sense.
Shortly after they turned out the lights, a huge bolt of lightning flashed followed by a deafening crack of thunder. They both jumped, then laughed nervously.
“C’mere,” said Patrick, pulling David closer to him.
“We’re not going out aurora-hunting tonight, right?” David asked into the dark of the room.
“I think the weather’s made that pretty clear that we should stay in,” Patrick replied.
“Oh, thank god,” said David. “Kara from the bee farm has really lost her mind.”
David snuggled deeper under the covers, tucking himself up against Patrick.
The second night they saw something. Maybe.
“David, pretend there’s no chance at all of an aurora sighting. Do you want to sneak out with me and go make out in the car in the middle of the night like we’re teenagers?”
“I wish this had happened when we were dating and you lived with Ray. Then I would be all over these late-night shenanigans.”
“Oh, and what’s different now?” Patrick continued getting dressed. His bedside clock gleamed with the time - 12:30.
“Um, we’re married and have an entire house and I can make out with you whenever I want?”
Patrick pulled on his sweatshirt. “Allison from down the street said she thinks she can see something. If you’re coming with me, now is the time.”
David threw his head back on his pillow before mustering all his energy to get out of bed. “You know I hate missing out.”
They made their way out to the car, David in a hat and coat on top of his pajamas.
“I think we just need to get out of the neighborhood with the streetlights and trees,” Patrick said.
After a mile they pulled over onto a side road with no lights. For a moment, they just sat, enjoying the silence.
“Ready to get out?”
“Now or never,” replied David.
They got out of the car and stood in the middle of the road looking up.
“What are we looking for?” David asked into the night.
“Green or purple,” Patrick said. “And not flashing, if it’s a flashing light it’s just a plane or a satellite.”
“Mhhhmm.”
Patrick walked down the street, then pulled out his phone to take a picture of the sky.
“David, look here,” he said.
David walked towards him. “What?” he said, craning his neck.
“No, here,” Patrick held out his phone. There in the picture were faint purple streaks across the sky.
“What?” David said. He zoomed in on the phone with his finger, then returned his gaze to the sky. “You just took that right now? How? I can’t see anything…”
“The lens can capture more light than the human eye. So the aurora is there, but barely, with enough light for the camera to see it but not us.”
“Is that true in Iceland, too?”
“Yes. The photos that people post are not what they actually saw with their eyes.”
David leaned into Patrick, coat sleeve against coat sleeve.
“Well, that’s some comfort that I wasn’t missing out. Then or now.”
“Mmhmm.”
The quiet around them was all enveloping, not a car even on the main crossroad. Above them the stars were visible in the blackness, constellations glimmering.
“Well, you were right about one thing. It is kind of nice being out with you in the middle of the night. I can see the romance.”
Patrick laughed, breath visible in the cold, before leaning up to kiss his husband.
“I love you. Thanks for doing this with me, even if only our cameras saw the lights.”
“I love you, too.”
They stared at each other, smiling dumbly in the cold and dark before David’s eyes twitched.
“I have gummy bears in my coat pocket, David.”
“Oh, thank god.”
The third night, when Patrick’s midnight alarm buzzed, David was simply too tired to say anything.
Fully prepared for disappointment and with his circadian rhythm already shot, he mindlessly rose, threw on wool socks and a sweatshirt over his pajamas. Downstairs, he grabbed a bag of licorice and shoved it into the pocket of his heaviest winter coat, putting it on and moving silently into the car.
Patrick joined him shortly thereafter, holding two travel mugs of hot water. Patrick pressed a quick kiss to David’s cheek and then they were off.
The skies were clear, stars twinkling above them, the skinniest of crescent moons just visible. Patrick drove a little further out of town, pulling over in the dirt next to a field.
David stumbled out of the car, clutching his mug in his gloved hands.
“Oh my god! Patrick, look!”
There it was. Faint blotches of deep purple mostly, spread wide, interrupted by bold dances of green.
Patrick walked around to the side of the car and pressed his side into David’s, leaning his head on his shoulder.
The silence of the surrounding fields embraced them, making the world feel big and still and full. David wrapped his arm around Patrick’s shoulders as they stared in unison up into the night, the sky performing for them. The purple became clearer as the green seemed to shimmer.
“Oh!” said David suddenly. “Take out your phone!”
Patrick held up his phone and took a picture, then another one with the exposure length increased. “Wow, it can see more than us.” The photos were filled with somehow even more color than the sky, the faint light even bolder.
David looked back up. “This is still better than the photos, here in real life. We can see the movement better, and like, we’re really here.” Patrick pressed his shoulder into David’s in response.
“I mean, we’re still going to send those photos to Alexis, obviously. And I don’t think she knows that science about camera lenses versus human eyes.”
“Of course,” Patrick laughed.
They stood there a while longer, turning to watch the aurora move across the sky and sipping from their mugs. When the chill nipped through their jackets and their hot water turned tepid, they got back into the car.
“Hey,” said David, as Patrick went to turn the keys in the ignition.
David leaned across for a quick peck. “Thank you for this. I would never have seen this without you.”
“I’m so glad you came.” Patrick leaned across slowly, cupping David’s cheek in his hand and savoring a slow, sweet kiss. “This was special.”
David smiled softly, blinking. “Definitely worth it.”