Harry Styles Imagines/Blurbs

Sleeping by the Fire

He smiled to himself, remembering your excitement for the first fire of the season. You’d forced him to trudge out back to the stack of wood—out in the bitter cold, mind you—and bring back enough logs for five years’ worth of fires. Or at least it had felt like it. But your childish enjoyment of the whole ordeal made it much more bearable—so much so that he didn’t even really mind when you ordered him to the attic to get down the Christmas quilts. “We just NEED them!” You’d insisted, regardless of the fact that there were plenty of other fluffy blankets around the house. “Well we need those too!” You’d argued with a look of incredulousness at his ignorance. He’d just rolled his eyes with a laugh and set off for the frigid peak of the house, completely in love with your adorable quirks.

You’d both managed to cocoon yourselves in layers of blankets, pillows and couch cushions and any other puffy thing you could find wedged around you to form a makeshift nest in front of the roaring fire. Your giggles kept him company late into the night, his chuckles vibrating at your back in response. But soon your giggles died down just like the wisps of flames, and your breathing slowed to the occasional crack of the charred wood. For a long time he stared into the embers, his lips pursed in thought and his thumb softly rubbing circles on your warm arm. But then you’d sighed in your sleep and turned slightly, molding yourself closer to him and snuggling down further. His lips upturned again and he pressed them to your hair as you pulled his arm further down around you.

And despite his playful objections before, in that moment he couldn’t have agreed with you more. With your body all smooshed against his amidst tangles of blankets and warmth, with your mouth slightly parted and the glow of the last coals casting a warm hue on your face, with your hair tucked just behind your ear and your eyelashes dancing ever-so-slightly on your cheeks, he couldn’t wish for anything better. The way you subconsciously gripped his arm, the way your chest marched slowly upward and back down, the way you seemed to still be smiling—perhaps not from your lips but from the way your nose twitched every now and then and your eyelids fluttered a bit and your cheeks rose with your dreams—well, he couldn’t think of anything more beautiful. The logging in of wood, the bitter cold, the trudge up to the attic, building the fire, having to re-build to the fire to your specific speculations, and even the ridiculous Christmas quilts— it was all worth it. Worth it to talk and laugh and have you fall asleep with your cheek smashed against his chest. And as he watched you shift again, his own body and arm moving and cinching and making sure you were rightly comfortable, he wished for a thousand more trips to the wood pile. Anything for another moment like that.