Where: Downtown Park
When: New Year's Eve - 11:45 p.m.
Beau barely noticed it at first. Snow was just another thing the sky did to him. Another inconvenience stacked on an already heavy life. He hunched deeper into his jacket, thin fabric doing more pretending than protecting, and he promised himself it would pass. It always did. He watched the first flakes melt against the metal slats of the park bench, listened to the distant hum of traffic. The town was still alive, reining in the New Year. It wasn't going to get bad. It would be fine. Just go back to sleep.
He laid down, resting his head against the bench and watched as each snowflake fluttered down from the sky. The cold began to sink in. It crept its way up his sleeves, slid down his spine, settled into his bones. The bench leached what little warmth he had left. The metal was unforgiving, the kind of cold that didn't just make you shiver but it made everything ache. His fingers stiffened, numb enough that he had to keep flexing them just to prove they were still apart of him. Snow thickened, soft at first and then relentless, gathering on his shoulders, his hair, his lashes.
Midnight edged closer. Beau lifted his gaze up to the flickering streetlight. His heart was thudding louder as his anxiety began to creep in. If he didn't get up, he was going to freeze to death. But now he wasn't even sure he could remember how to get up. It would be fine. It would warm up in the morning. He closed his eyes, beginning to hum softly. "What I would give for some fucking coffee or whiskey, or both..." He muttered under his breath. "Just sleep, Beau, just sleep." He spoke, but in a different dialect, Dorian, the gentle and soothing version of his personalities.
