Chapter Text
The wind was howling, and so was the snowfall. The trees opened up their branches to holler as I kept on sauntering through the tranquillity of my slumber.
A slight shiver cascaded down my bare chest, kindling my eyes to awaken as the hazy world of a dreamless sleep began to fade away with the mist of the blizzard fog.
Henry’s jacket was lazily tousled over my unveiled body, its potency unmatched to the warmth of his chest. I could hear his dazed hums and sighs as he unknowingly traced meaningless shapes or perhaps even letters down my glacial back.
I sat up only briefly, just in order to clutch and make amends with the privilege of seeing his glistening face momentarily immune to the world’s snowstorms and merciless tempests.
I couldn’t help but whisper to myself in thought how beautiful he really was, how he had been my muse and my saviour and how safe I felt in this ever so silent and opulent room that smelt like the very first morning I met him and every day after that.
I was fortunate to have been given the miraculous gift of not only knowing him but also the bequest of being able to embellish him in my everlasting tenderness and drown him in the barbarous rivers of my igniting love for him.
In turn I am graced with his own retaliation to my offerings. His dreadful cooking, his rigid demeanour, and the familiar scent of his jacket suits that engulfed me with the scent of home.
I was stupidly fragile and sickly. Winter has always found a way to wither me with its unpitying brumal habits, yet by some miracle Henry had managed to rescue me from its peril at every drop of hail.
“Richard?” he whispered my name with the raspiness of his drowsy voice that I had contentedly grown accustomed to its delicacy. I closed my eyes despite knowing his awareness of my evident consciousness. His hand travelled to the unkempt waves of my hair.
I couldn’t see his face but envisioned a smile that I swore upon its existence. His warm hands cradled me like a home I never had before I strolled into his hauntingly captivating world and the beauty and ichor it came with.
The cold held no place over the shelter Henry had solely built for me. Every stone was a kiss he had bestowed upon me, every brick a silent memory nobody but us knew of its occurrences, sacred words whispered only to kindle my heart alone, and lastly, the stable celling of his presence alone.
“I love you" I whispered as a sudden rainfall began to make its descent down to the genesis of hail.
“And I love you” he rustled into my disordered curls, and his words hushed me like a cherished lullaby.
I let him rescue me again as the blizzard began to roar more vigorously than a dozen lions. I permitted him to save me, treasuring the inevitable certainty that this would not be the last.