Baby it's cold outside
It's one of those days.
Those days when time seems to slow to a quiet rumble, like water turning a bend in a river just before the long drop over a waterfall.
The cold air sweeps into every nook and cranny it can find, through cracks in the window frames, and through the doors opening and closing as students pass in and out of the hush that is the library. The great expanse of the hall - reaching up higher and higher to the bowed beams making up the impressive arc of the ceiling - fills up with the quiet chaos of shuffling papers and scribbling pens; of problems being solved quickly and efficiently.
Merlin pulls the collar of his worn black pea-coat more snugly around his neck and pushes open the doors, heading out into the icy wind that chases the leaves across the ground and the makes scarves wind tighter around students’ necks.
Light filteres through the mask of dreary clouds that lay close; blanketing the earth in gray intimacy. Merlin watches a couple wander across the quad, huddled together for warmth, dead leaves scuttling along in their wake.
Their heads are inclined towards each other in closeness drawn from simple familiarity and words well up inside Merlin to describe them. He wants to find words to wrap around the pair and the barren tree branches framing them, to caress them in fond words of heat and tenderness and affection. Merlin wants words to capture longing and soft touches and cold winter nights spent bundled by the fire sipping hot cocoa with tiny marshmallows slowly melting in the mugs.
“Hey, dreamer,” a voice murmurs by his ear, warm breath gusting across the skin of his cheek before being whipped away by the stiff frigidity of the wind. Strong arms draped in fine, green wool wrap around his waist and he leans back into Arthur. Arthur who is warmth and trust and passion. “Hungry?” Arthur asks. Merlin nods. “Let’s go get some food then, shall we? You are too thin, you should eat more.” Arthur continues to chatter and a smile steals across Merlin’s face as their hands twine together, and they walk away; towards warmth and light and laughter. As it turns out, the only word Merlin needs is Arthur.