#thatsmyhyde

Snow did not come often to the house outside of London, but when it did it came in full force, coating the yard and the roof and the chimney in white. The chill was harsh and nipped the stubbornest leaves from their places on the bare skeleton trees. 

A roaring fire in the fireplace, fresh-baked bread, and of course the pleasant company in the house kept its residents warm, but it could not stop the fearful chill that settled round Gabriel Utterson’s heart when he found his charge was not in bed, nowhere to be seen around the house—that chill that only worsened when he found small bare-feet footprints in the snow outside. 

Immediately he flew into a panic. Another of his walks to London, his flights back to his home that always ended in pain. There was nothing he had done that could stop him, and no matter how he worried, at least once a month he would wander off, often barefoot, often in the middle of the night, in one of those awful futile attempts to go home. More often than not he would end up at his bedside comforting him, keeping a careful watch to make sure that he managed to fall asleep. 

He was already sickly. If he was outside in the frigid cold… 

It took barely a moment for him to prepare for the chill, finding his overcoat and hat at the ready and a sturdy pair of boots near the door. He quickly found his way through the blinding snow that stung his eyes, but it was still difficult for him—but finally, he spotted a tiny figure wandering aimlessly through the storm. 

“Edward!” he called, holding his hand just over his eyes to keep out the snow. “Edward, come back here!”

The figure stopped, swaying there for a moment before collapsing. The chill in his heart seized up, and he ran forward to try and catch him. 

In the snow, shivering—he wasn’t even wearing a coat, he wasn’t even wearing shoes—lay Edward Hyde, his charge, hair soaked from the snow, eyelids fluttering. With careful hands he lifted Edward into his arms, feeling that same chill as he felt just moments before as he noticed just how cold he was. As he walked back to the house, the limp figure in his arms stirred to curl up closer against his chest. 

The trek back to the house seemed to take far longer. As soon as they were inside, Gabriel flew to action, ordering the servants to draw a hot bath and start preparing something warm to eat. He carried Edward as quickly as he could up to the bedrooms, holding him to his chest to warm him up. The heat of the house seemed to do him at least a bit of good, and he stirred once again in Gabriel’s arms to clutch at the fabric of his shirt with both small hands. His heart wrenched when he saw how frostbitten and raw Edward’s hands were. The cold had done him no good, to be sure.

Laying him gently on the bed, he pulled out the blankets from the cabinet nearest the bed and began to undress him, wincing at the soaking wet clothing which had practically frozen to his skin. With cautious hands he wrapped him back up in the blankets, careful with the frostbitten and abraded areas of his body. 

In a few moments he awoke, his eyelids fluttering for a moment before he fully awakened. “Where are we?” he asked, voice raspy and abrasive. “What’s happening? Did we get to London?”

Gabriel’s heart sank. “No, little one, we did not,” he said gently, ruffling his hair. “It was snowing, you were half-dead. You weren’t even wearing a coat or shoes… what on earth did you think you were doing?”

“I wanted to go back,” he said carefully, nuzzling up to Gabriel and pulling the blankets around himself. He was still very cold, and his skin was altogether burnt red and a frigid purple-blue that was likely as painful to feel as to look at, but he was alive. Thank god, he was alive, and that was what mattered. 

“You know we talked about this, Edward,” he chastised, smoothing out his hair with a gentle hand. Edward shivered, curling up close to Gabriel and pulling in close to him, wrapping both arms around himself tightly. “You can’t go out in the cold without a coat—especially not without shoes. You know what’s happened to you before. The snow does awful things to you, you’re not built to go outside in the cold—”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Edward mumbled, but he still looked upset. 

“Yes, I can,” Gabriel said sharply. “You are sick now, are you not? All because you went outside again.” 

“’M not sick,” Edward said, and sneezed. He wiped at his nose with the blanket and then promptly began chewing on a corner of it, his hands still slightly shaky. 

“Yes, you are, Edward,” Gabriel said with a sigh. He looked over him—he was still shivering, and his hair was tangled from the wind and snow, but he was alive. He just had to keep telling himself—he was alive. He was safe. Almost automatically he picked up the brush which sat by the side of his bed and started to brush out the tangles. 

“Mm.” Edward shivered, wriggling away from the touch. “Hurts.”

“It’s not meant to feel nice. I’m going to tidy you up and you’re going to like it.” He watched Edward wiggle away for a moment longer before just relaxing, allowing Gabriel to brush out his hair without any more struggling or pulling away. 

In a short while he had managed to tidy Edward up quite a bit. “Are you feeling any better?” he asked.

“Mm.” This being the only reply, Gabriel merely sighed and put away the brush. A servant stepped in, gently knocking on the door first. 

“The bath is ready,” she said. “If you would like to bring young master in now?”

“Thank you,” he replied, picking Edward up, blankets and all. He struggled a bit at first, but eventually he once again relaxed into Gabriel’s arms. Once they’d made their way to the bath, he unwrapped Edward from the blankets and gently placed him into the bath.

“Ow.” He winced at the heat, and Gabriel sighed.

“You really must take care of yourself. No more running about outside in the cold without shoes, no more of… whatever you think you’re doing when you get into fights with the cats. I don’t want to have to confine you to the house, but to be quite honest if you do it again I will have to.” 

Edward pouted, turning away from him in the tub and managing to splash him with water at the same time. Gabriel let out a long-suffering sigh and prepared the towel, getting ready for the excruciating process of getting Edward out of the tub.

A good deal of water on his clothes later, he had finally managed to dry him and dress him in new, dry clothes, including a warm fur which he immediately began to pet as if it were a real animal. He carried him downstairs to the table, where the servants had just finished setting out something warm and soft—a glass of warm milk and something that most likely had once been bread—for Edward to eat. 

“There. Warm up. After this we’ll go sit by the fire.”

With no small amount of reluctance, he began to eat, only taking small bites. After a long while spent sitting in relative silence with the only sound being Edward, chewing alternatively on the bread and his sleeve, he was finished—or as finished as he really could be, considering the amount of food he was even capable of eating. 

“There we are, little one. Come on now, come sit by the fire.” He guided Edward back towards the fire, sitting him down on the rug and draping another blanket over his shoulders. “There you are. There’s a dear. All nice and cozy.”

Edward leaned down next to him, looking very comfortable. “Can you read to me?” he asked quietly.

“Of course,” he said, standing up and hovering beside the bookshelf for a moment. “Let me see, what would you like me to read? I think I have a few novels somewhere…” He dug through the stuffy old stacks of books, eventually landing on a novel and picking it up, rejoining Edward beside the fire and starting to read.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.”

Immediately after this, Edward frowned. “That’s wrong.”

Gabriel sighed. “This was written nearly eighty years ago, dear. Don’t worry about the content of the story, just listen and try to fall asleep.”