Chapter Text
The weather was getting colder. There was a slight nip in the air when you went out that was fiercer than it used to be and the winds sometimes whistled right through all of the thick, cosy layers you were now required to wear when you left the house for fear of catching a cold otherwise. Underfoot there was a light dusting of frost that crunched under winter boots and reminded you with every step that the seasons were changing. It was like the falling of leaves and the crackle they make that signals that Autumn is well underway except this was colder, purer.
The tall fir trees stood proudly showing off their colours on either side of the pathway the two men walked on; stretching so tall that they were almost bowing to become a canopy roof, sheltering the men from the winter winds and the rest of the world. One of the men motioned towards the foliage and made a joke that caused the other to shove him away slightly. But only slightly. Their hands still held tight in each other’s grasp in a way that had nothing to do with the bitter chill in the air. Their gloves would have been strong enough to keep the chill away but this hand holding was a symbol of something much stronger, more powerful than wool.
The one who made the joke laughed at the shove but immediately tucked himself back into the side of the other as they continued to make their way along the path. The winter sky was a bleached grey but they didn’t see it beyond the trees that were helping them stay in a little world of their own: a world where it was just the two of them with the wind gently blowing the branches of the firs and the sharp little crunch of frost below their feet. They didn’t even know how long they had been walking for, and indeed they wouldn’t until they came to the end of their current path and realised how quickly the navy of the night sky had started to appear. It was winter now and they had less time to take leisurely walks outside in the cold.
It was magical, the crunch barely a breathy whisper and the trees just a green smudge on the sides of their vision, so engrossed in each other they were. They did not need to look where they were going. They knew that their feet would guide them to where they needed to go. They knew when the trees thinning and became sparser that they would exit the park and walk the same old pavements back to their tiny apartment. They could walk on auto-pilot and not pay attention to anything but their walking partner. They did not need to see anything else. They did not need to look where they were going, nor where they had been. And besides, why did they need to go anywhere when they were together?