Reaper's Touch

Hex: Snow

"I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, 'Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.'"
— Lewis Carrol

"Hex! Hey, Hex! Wake up! Quick!"

Hex heard the voice in her sleep and groaned, rolling over to get away from it, but the voice continued.

"Come on! Wake up, baby! It's important!" This time the voice was tinged with a hint of whininess.

"Wha-ju want?" Hex mumbled sleepily into her pillow.

"Look!"

She opened her eyes and saw Gus standing by the window in his bedroom. He was shirtless, grinning, and pointing at the glass, which appeared pale and foggy from her side of the bed.

"What?" Hex demanded, pulling herself out of the warm cocoon of covers she'd created.

"It's SNOWING!" he exclaimed happily.

Hex had just reached the window and was now watching the big flakes of snow as they hit the glass and built up in layers on the frozen ground.

"Seriously? You woke me up for this?" she asked, glaring at Gus.

Gus shrugged. "Well... yeah... it's the first snow of the year!"

"Yeah and we'll be looking at it 'til April so... YAY, Gus!" Hex said sarcastically, waving her hands.

Gus laughed, like he always did when she was being bitchy. And like always, it disarmed her immediately.

"Yeah, but the first one is still fun!" he said.

"It's more fun to sleep."

"Fine! Me and Moon will go play while your boring ass sleeps, then!" Gus said.

"You didn't think this ass was so boring last night!" Hex shot back, slapping her behind through her sweatpants.

"Hm... yeah... I guess," Gus said, looking her over.

"You GUESS?" she exclaimed playfully, and she wrapped her arms around him from the back, his eyes following hers until she disappeared behind him. "You fucking guess, huh?"

"Okay, it's your brain that's boring then. The part of it that hates snow," Gus said.

Hex kissed him between the shoulder blades, tasting the salt on his skin, and rested her cheek against his warm back. He exhaled, and she closed her eyes contentedly.

"I'm not denying I hate it. I can't believe you like it after all we went through," she said.

"About that- this is also the first snow we aren't homeless in," Gus said, nodding his head as if agreeing with himself.

Hex pulled away from Gus's back and thought about this. It was true. It was also the reason, she suddenly realized, why she didn't like snow. She associated it only with misery; the misery of finding shelter, the misery of insomnia from being too cold to sleep, the misery of being buried alive beneath piles of blankets that did little to keep the wet, freezing air out, and then the blizzards...

The blizzards were a completely separate hell in their own category of suffering. That first year in Chicago, right after she'd found Adam, they had both almost died during their first blizzard. Hex was from Florida and Adam had never weathered a blizzard outside before, though he'd seen them from inside the safety of a warm house. The other homeless people warned them to get into one of the shelters before they were too full, but both of them with their thirteen-year-old brains had stubbornly believed they could handle it with no problem. They spent half of one night underneath a bridge before realizing that a blizzard wasn't just uncomfortable but that their actual lives were in danger.