Work Text:
He first sees her standing outside, tendrils of hair flying as the hoarfrost wind nips at cheeks flushed pink with cold.
It is cold outside, he reflects, catching his own breath in the warm office air as hers comes out in small, heated puffs; watching as she inhales. She does not seem to mind the temperature. As a chill breeze sweeps by, forcing her to close her eyes because of its harshness, she smiles into the wind.
At times, she appears to be staring off into the distance, her look wistful and yearning, gazing at something that he cannot see. And other times, he swears she’s staring at him, her look no longer vague or dreamy, but piercing, honest, and real. Yet he knows she cannot see him; they are separated by layers of steel and glass. She must be a phantom, a figment of his imagination derived from his lonely mind.
At night, he longs for gentle hands to stroke his hair; for hands to soothe his fevered face with their coolness, the temperature he imagines – no, he knows – her hands to be. Her hands are always in her pockets, the only sign she is cold. They clench when a stiff wind passes by, whipping up her long coat, and he hopes that she is cold.
No, he reasons that she must be cold. Though she smiles into the face of the biting wind – laughs, even – she has to be, he needs for her to be cold. He needs her to be human; he needs her to be real and tangible.
When that time of day approaches; when the clouds shift in the sky and the sun is revealed once more, he blinks. He always does. And when he stares out the window again, hoping, wishing desperately to glimpse her lone figure standing against the wind, he sees nothing. She is gone.