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She couldn’t remember when autumn had stopped being her favorite season. She may have liked it as a little girl, but now… now it was a constant reminder of London, of its dark streets and what had lurked at night there all those ages ago, of the wet cobblestones and of the blood that was painfully visible, the red shocking against the grey. It was also a reminder of stormy nights, of thunders that seemed to scare a little girl more than anything that was in her home - ironically- and of said little girl coming at night in her bed, seeking some comfort.
So, in all honesty, she had a lot of reasons against being a fan of autumn. Or, at least she did. But that was before autumn started meaning other things. It was before she discovered the way the sky looked just before it rained, that color which was neither gray nor blue but somewhere in between, but still painfully familiar.
She had also discovered the rustle of leaves under her feet when she took a step back after drawing the attention of too many pigeons at a time – apparently the cakes her old friend made were a lot better than anybody had given them credit for. And alright, maybe he wasn’t too happy with the idea of them being used on pigeons, and maybe neither he nor Nikola were mature enough to agree that those cakes were the exact thing that had got them to at least tolerate each other, but she knew that he was making the cakes with less sugar now. It’s bad for the pigeons- he had said with a grunt when confronted about it, as if there was any chance she would have thought that he had read that in a book and not know exactly where he got that info from.
Of course, autumn was also rain. The kind that fell at night and drenched her to the bone while she was walking the streets, the air around her heavy with electricity, an umbrella floating above her head as Nikola wrapped his arms around her, the warmth of his skin almost intoxicating against her own, despite all the layers of clothing that were between them.
But, most of all, autumn was the taste of mulled wine, the way the beverage went down her throat and spread through her whole body, not leaving anything untouched, the taste of cinnamon mixing with the one of bergamot a bit too well on her tongue- she had recently discovered that mixing wine and Earl Grey isn’t as weird as one might have thought. And alright, she may have been manipulated into having that opinion by a certain bastard that had suggested that this was just a tasty albeit boring way of mixing bodily fluids, but said bastard had had a point.
That was a combination that shouldn’t have worked, not normally, but then again, what was her love life if not living proof that it was exactly this kind of combination that worked, just like the one between a woman who had forgotten to love autumn and a man who couldn’t imagine not loving it.
Then again, how could he not love autumn, with everything it meant? How could he not love it, when it was autumn when he first met her, when it was against fallen autumn leaves that her crimson dressed rustled all those years ago, that day when he fell in love with her?
It was in autumn when the pigeons were most grateful, grateful enough to assault whoever was feeding them at the time, not giving a damn about the fact that said person had a certain reputation when it came to dealing with creatures and getting startled by pigeons was going to tarnish her otherwise perfect resume, and it was amongst the pigeons she had first kissed him, really kissed him, the first time it was really her and they were on equal planes and she was not some time travelling vixen from the future who was out to seduce him – not that he minded that either, spring had had its perks too, come to think at it. But there, amongst the pigeons, she had kissed him knowing that this time, she wanted to risk staying, that this time, she would give whatever was between them a chance. It had been silly and it had been a bit sloppy and he had scared the pigeons away when he caught her in his arms and danced with her, but that memory was still engraved in his mind.
Of course, it was also in autumn when the rains were the heaviest, the kind of rain that got her all wet, making her clothes one with her skin. In hindsight, that might have been his fault, actually – she had trusted him with her umbrella after all, but having her so close to him was bound to make him lose his focus sooner or later. Alright, so the umbrella may have flown in the opposite direction. Well, that was certainly not his fault. Who invented metallic umbrellas anyway?
He had always had a special relationship with rain, since the day he was born, and while Helen sure loved the part of him that had indeed ended up becoming a child of darkness, even if she would have died before admitting that, it was during rain that he felt at ease with the other part of him, the one that was closer to light. It was that part that allowed him to feel the air crackling with electricity during a storm that allowed him to feel the electric charges dancing against his skin. It was there, in the middle of a storm, with Helen in his arms, he felt most at home.
But, most of all, it was in autumn he had the perfect excuse to drink mulled wine. Well, it wasn’t exactly mulled wine anymore, not after he and Helen had decided experimenting a bit and added Earl Grey tea to the mix. That had happened after he had figured that if that combination tasted good on her tongue there was a good enough chance it was going to taste nice in a mug too.
And yes, mixing tea and wine may have sounded weird to others, especially to William for some reason who had had the audacity to mumble some bullshit about compensating stuff that was certainly not true. But to him? The first impression was that of the wine, playful and flirty, but with some undertones that were amazingly rich and complex once you got used to them. In contrast, the tea was serious and heavy and with an almost imperceptible playful note of bergamot. It was that exact note that made it work in the end, that brought everything to new dimensions once it started heating together with the wine. In short? A match made in heaven.