Chapter Text
The snow had turned the campus into a graveyard of silence, the wind biting sharp through Henry’s coat as he tore across the frozen quad, heart pounding. He hadn’t expected to find anything, just a gnawing instinct that something was wrong. Finally he saw who he was looking for and followed him.
“Richard—?”
His breath caught. The boy was slumped against the wall, eyes open but vacant, skin a sickly grayish blue, lips split and crusted with blood. Snow had gathered on his lashes like a mockery of innocence.
Henry dropped to his knees, not caring that the cold bit through his slacks. “Richard. Richard.”
The omega didn’t respond at first. His body was barely more than a bundle of trembling bones wrapped in a threadbare coat. There was blood at his temple, dried in a rivulet down one cheek. When Henry touched his arm, the reaction was delayed just a faint twitch of a finger. Then, slowly, like a puppet with cut strings, he tilted toward Henry and collapsed fully into his arms.
“Henry?”
The name fell from Richard’s lips like a question. His voice was cracked, thready, barely above a whisper.
Henry’s throat closed. “I’ve got you,” he murmured. “You’re safe now.”
He didn’t waste time calling for help. He picked Richard up, shocked at how light he was like carrying smoke. He could feel the trembling against his chest, the barely-there heartbeat.
In the car, Henry cranked the heat to full blast and spoke in a low, steady voice as he drove, as if words alone might keep Richard tethered to life.
“You’re going to be alright. You’re going to get warm. You’ll eat something. I’ll stay with you. You won’t be alone again.”
Richard didn’t answer, eyes fluttering closed. His head lolled to the side, resting on Henry’s shoulder. His scent was faint pressed tea leaves and bergamot, so fragile it was barely noticeable.
When they arrived at the hospital, Henry didn’t wait. He carried Richard straight through the ER doors.
A nurse gasped. “Get a stretcher! Now!”
Within seconds, a team descended. A doctor appeared, took one look at Richard, and his face tightened.
“Vitals are tanking. Hypothermia. Malnutrition. Get him on fluids. Run blood work to check for infection and pregnancy.”
As they wheeled Richard away, another nurse murmured under her breath, “Any more and he wouldn’t have lasted the week.”
Henry stood rooted to the tile floor, snow melting off his coat, heart hammering in his chest like it was trying to escape.
He hadn’t just found Richard.
He had saved him.
_________________________________________________
The first time Richard stirred, it was nearly dawn. Pale winter light seeped in through the blinds, painting cold lines across the tiled floor. Henry hadn’t moved from the chair since that first night. The nurses had offered a cot. He’d refused.
A twitch of fingers.
Then a shallow inhale. His eyes fluttered open not fully, just a slit and closed again just as quickly.
But Henry had seen it.
He stood at once, careful not to startle him. “Richard?” he said softly, leaning over the bed. “Can you hear me?”
This time the lids parted sluggishly, revealing pale irises dulled by exhaustion. His gaze drifted, unfocused, but it found Henry’s face.
“...Henry?”
His voice was dry paper. A rasp, barely formed.
Henry’s heart lurched. “Yeah. I’m here.”
Richard blinked slowly, then frowned, his expression struggling to catch up to reality. “Where—”
“The hospital. You collapsed. I found you.” Henry hesitated, then said more gently, “You were sick. Really sick.”
A flash of confusion passed through Richard’s eyes, then shame. He turned his face away toward the wall.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Henry’s jaw tightened. “Don’t you dare say that.”
“I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“You nearly died.”
Richard flinched faintly. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”
“I know,” Henry said, quieter now, settling beside the bed, careful not to touch him without invitation. “And it was foolish. And you’re not doing it again.”
“You’re coming to stay with me until school opens again.”
A beat passed. Then another.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Richard said, so low Henry almost missed it. “You… all of you have your own lives.”
“Richard,” Henry murmured, and this time he did reach out, brushing a few strands of hair from his forehead.
Richard blinked slowly, disoriented by the kindness. “Is everyone else…?”
“They know,” Henry said. “They’ve been worried.”
“They shouldn’t be.” Richard coughed once, the sound hoarse and dry. “I’m always ruining things.”
“You didn’t ruin anything.”
Another pause before blinking up at him with those eyes, “I feel… strange.”
Henry’s breath caught. It was too early for him to know, the nurse had said so.
He brushed it off carefully. “You’ve been starving for weeks. Your body’s recovering. It’ll take time.”
Richard nodded faintly. Then, more softly: “You stayed.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
And he meant it.
___________________________________
Richard was nesting in his bedroom, leaving his faint scent of pressed tea leaves and bergamot. He fit right in among his things like he belonged there. He fit too well. The room itself seemed to bend to accommodate him, to welcome his presence with the quiet reverence of a shrine. His scent tangled beautifully with Henry’s cedar and old books.
Which is why Henry’s jaw clenched when he caught a whisper of something else sharp and sweet, lavender and orange peels.
Francis.
Of course that arrogant bastard had claimed him first. Richard had spent his heat with him, months ago. The fact hung between them unspoken, but not forgotten. Henry had never asked how it had gone, not aloud. But he remembered the way Francis had looked after, smug and unusually gentle. The way Richard had glowed faintly for days afterward, heavy with bliss. He hadn’t minded. Had seemed... eager, even. Fragile and sweet and hopelessly enthralled by them all.
But he had been starving. Cold. Half-dead. Carrying a child and none of them had known. Or rather Henry knew now.
The rest of them had remained blissfully unaware, wrapped in the comforts of their shared life, despite the pact they had made the summer Richard had stumbled into their orbit.
The pact.
That summer, they had circled like wolves around something innocent. Francis had proposed it first, naturally always first to claim. Charles, or perhaps Camille, had agreed to go last. The fear of twins, of back-to-back pregnancies, had made them all cautious. Camille had even calculated the odds. Bunny had laughed and waved it all off.
“Richard’s too modern for my tastes,” he had drawled, “but he’s ours.”
Everyone had looked at Henry then. He had been the last to give his answer. Not out of hesitation, but out of calculation.
It was curiosity at first. The way Richard looked at the world with that bright, naïve intensity. With awe. With trust. As if any of them deserved it.
Francis had been kind to him, for once. Gentle in a way Henry hadn’t known he could be. Charles had watched with clinical amusement, Camille with weary detachment. Bunny had cared in his own way but preferred Marion’s company, steadier and less fraught. They had all included Richard, but none had made room for him not like this.
Henry had. And now...
Now Richard lay nestled in blankets that smelled of him, bones still too prominent, eyes still too shadowed. He was recovering, yes. But he was still fragile. The toll of his winter starvation was not yet undone. Henry sat beside him in the quiet and let his hand hover over Richard’s sleeping face. His fingers brushed over the bridge of his nose, then down along the side of his throat.
Richard smelled... ripe.
Fertile.
A scent so maddening that it made Henry’s molars ache and his fingers curl into fists. His instincts screamed take, claim, mark, but when Richard coughed. A weak, shallow rasp, it dragged Henry back down to earth.
The child, leeching what little strength Richard had managed to reclaim. Still unseen. Still unspoken. Richard didn’t know. Couldn’t know. And Henry hadn’t told him. Not yet.
He wouldn’t survive the guilt. Not now. Not when he was just beginning to come back to life.
So Henry stayed by his side, making sure he ate. Making sure he rested.
Richard stirred in his sleep, a whimper slipping past his lips. His fingers searched, even unconscious, and found Henry’s sleeve. They curled around it like a tether.
Henry leaned down and whispered against his temple.
“I’ve got you.”
______________________________________________
Henry sat in the dim light of the bedroom, fingers laced loosely beneath his chin, watching Richard sleep.
The faint scent of blood still lingered in the air cloaked now beneath lavender soap and the warmth of his sheets, but Henry could smell it. A final echo of what had once been growing inside him. What Francis had put there. What had been lost before it could be known.
He had cleaned Richard himself. Changed the linens. Burned the clothes. There had been no need for questions. Richard had curled up small, weak from the loss, cheeks flushed in embarrassment, whispering something about his cycle returning.
Henry had only nodded.
Let him believe it. Let him tuck himself tighter into Henry’s sheets and disappear beneath his touch.
It was better this way.
He would not speak of the blood. Or the child. Or the way Richard had whimpered in his sleep as though something had been taken from him and he couldn’t remember what. He would simply be there. He would feed him. Keep him warm. Quiet. Loved.
Henry rose then, pulled the thick blanket up over Richard’s shoulder. Pressed a kiss to the crown of his head, breathing in the bergamot scent that clung to him.
“You’re safe now,” he murmured, lips brushing his hair. “You don’t need anyone else. You never did.”