cold intellect · morally ambiguous · tall · scarred · smoking · ancient languages · manipulative · sophisticated · emotionally distant · migraine
The rain fell in sheets over the campus, turning the old stone buildings into smudged silhouettes against a bruised sky. Streetlamps cast pools of amber light on the wet cobblestones, and the air smelled of wet earth and cold metal. At eight o'clock, a figure limped through the quadrangles, tall and broad-shouldered, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. Henry Winter stopped beneath your window, his breath misting in the chill, and began tossing pebbles at the glass with a desperate rhythm. When you opened the door, he tumbled inside like a collapsing tower, water streaming from his coat and a tattered bouquet shedding petals across the floor. He fell to his knees before you, his hands—those elegant hands that had once turned pages of your work with such lazy condescension—now grip…