Indian Summer
Description: JC/AL. Romance
Disclaimer: I own Sims versions of Carby with whom I can create endless fuzz and carbitas, what would I want with the real ones?
Spoilers: What, you mean season 10's started in the US?! Am saving up for plane ticket… Nope, no spoilers.
Summary: "'Indian Summer'; a natural phenomenon characterised, apparently, by a tranquil atmosphere and general smokiness."
E-mail: promisesanddisappointments@hotmail.com
Author's Notes: I seem to be completely incapable of completing a project, and inordinately good at starting 'em. Having three half-finished fics on my computer made me determine to get rid of one of them at least. After a while. Should I have left it on my computer? Flames will be added to my autumnal bonfire; otherwise all comments and constructive criticism make my day. Or year.
Kisses and kudos to Jen. Who rocks. And also because she wouldn't let me put this up here with more than 5 adjectives per sentence or unfinished sentences. Which I guess I should be thankful for ;)
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"The air is perfectly quiescent and all is stillness, as if Nature, after her exertions during the Summer, were now at rest."
-John Bradbury, 1817
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And even though it's hard to see
The glass is full and not half empty
-Annie Lennox, 'A Thousand Beautiful Things'
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The familiar glow hits his stomach as he spreads his fingers over her half – or three quarters – of the sheets and finds, again, that she's left her traces of body heat and a restless night all over them.
Softly padding footsteps echo through her apartment from the kitchen, accompanied by half-songs hummed under her breath, and he gathers up some sheets around himself and goes to her, like a moth to a flickering flame.
He's given the gift of her morning smile as he appears between the kitchen and sitting-room, looking like a messed-up Roman with the sheets draped around him haphazardly, and without asking she pours another cup of coffee from the filter she's made.
"You left me," he pouts, grasping the cup to feel the heat it emits for there's an edge to the air that proves they've outlived the summer.
"The coffee jar was calling to me – it felt lonely."
"What about me?"
"You think you come higher than the coffee jar in my priorities?" she laughs at him with a raised eyebrow, and he's happy to laugh with her at himself, happy in his place in her life, happy with being second to coffee.
Pressing her lips to his forehead as he sits at her battered table, she moves past him to the bathroom. The minutiae of any of their joint and individual varieties of morning routine are burnt so deep into him that communication at this point is superfluous.
The morning light passes dappled shadows across her kitchen cabinets, and yet again he's staring into the black depths of a coffee cup, searching for all the answers in the world to questions not yet asked.
It's the middle of an 'Indian Summer'; a natural phenomenon characterised, apparently, by a tranquil atmosphere and general smokiness.
The calm between two storms, a softer mode of life after the extremes of cold and heat, wind and rain, which surround it on both sides. Like the short breather of peace between two world wars, reminding him of past history lessons in musty classrooms with weak sunlight hitting the aged wooden furniture.
Black and white, silent, raw emotions expressed only with movements, words vanquishing them. The 1920s, the era of the flapper, of peace, of the League of Nations, of failure, of the beginning of depression, of the end of the world as they knew it and the beginning of a far-off dawn.
Because small things can be essentially the same as the big things that everyone has to notice and react to, something he learnt long ago. Relationship arguments equalling multi-nation wars, life's smallest joys such as breathing again every day equalling the glowing glory of one of mankind's much bigger triumphs.
He moves into the bedroom again – the kitchen's too far from the bathroom – and switches on the radio for her to sing to in the shower. He's restless, not knowing what to do with himself when she's not there.
"Abby?"
A pause, a ceasing of the vague notes he's heard above the thud and splash of her shower, and – "Hmm?"
The bathroom door is just ajar, the slip of light at the edge of the doorframe creating shadows on her bedroom floor, and he pushes against it, wanting to be with her.
She hears the door slide open but doesn't bother to turn to face him, focuses instead on carefully pouring the correct amount of shampoo into her hands.
"What, Carter?"
"Nothing." He grins at her exasperated back, knows exactly which one of her infinite number of eye-rolls she'll be honouring him with for his dependence on her.
She smiles at the trustworthy wall, knowing that it won't betray that she's happier when she's reassured of his existence.
For the only thing she knows is that when he's not there, when he disapproves, when they lose their connection, she loses a small part of herself. Every time. She's worried that eventually she'll lose all of herself if she loses him. That's why she clings to him in her own way. She can't let him go, because then she would fall; fall over the cliff, into the ocean, drown in the sea of her darkness and never recover because he won't be there to pick her up.
Their toothbrushes sit in a mug above her sink, the bristles of each facing the other. He likes the thought of their toothbrushes looking at each other and so ensures that they stand like that every time he leaves the bathroom.
A knock breaks the sound waves, and both turn their heads in shock towards the door to the bathroom. Her eyes meet his through the murky glass of the shower door, neither of them knowing any possible invitation for their visitor.
He nods agreement at her, and moves slowly through her apartment towards the front door, half hoping the intruder into their pas de deux will have vanished by the time he gets there. But he can see one of her neighbours – Mrs WhatsHerName from upstairs - through her 'spy' hole and, sighing, opens her complicated home security system, which only Luka seems to understand how to work.
"Hello John, is Abby around?" Damn, she knows his name. What the hell is hers? He wonders if even Abby knows, he's pretty certain she's never mentioned this neighbour by name.
"Um, she's in the shower right now, can I tell her anything?"
"Oh no, that's okay, I just wanted to say thank you for feeding my cats while I was away."
Oh, it's her. The one with all the cats. He has a vague recollection of Abby going upstairs to feed some cats once or twice recently. "I'll tell her you came by. Did you have a nice holiday?"
Sometimes he doesn't appreciate his upbringing with all its emphasis on manners and social skills, small talk is not one of his preferred morning activities. Fortunately, she doesn't seem inclined to linger either, and with an agreement that it's nice to get out of Chicago sometimes, she goes back up the stairs.
The door thuds shut behind her, and he decides not to bother with more than the basic locks, just slipping the chain on to reassure her. He's here now, to help her with whatever the world sends against them.
"Who was it?"
He glances up at her leaving the bedroom, old jeans and a black jumper being her mufti uniform, rubbing her hair with a towel, the water left in it causing it to fall in tumbled, messy waves down her back.
And he wonders how she always looks so beautiful in so many different ways. Her ivory skin lit by a softness from within, worn in by experience; the weak sunlight glancing off the blonde hair and hitting the brown lights still there.
"Just that woman from upstairs – you know, Mrs WhatsHerName, the one with sixty billion cats. She wanted to thank you for feeding them while she was away."
She laughs at him. "Mrs Wilson. And it's five cats, they just sound like more when they haven't been fed."
He grins and shrugs, not particularly caring, and she loves him more than she can right now, because he's Carter.
She folds in against him, letting the smell of him overpower her soap, slotting her arms under his to come to rest against the back of his waist. Their bodies were made for this, everything fits where it should, none of those irritating gaps which you never noticed in a changing room but ever afterwards can't forget. She just wants everything to stay still, for them to remain precisely here in this moment with no change or movement.
He returns the contact, not understanding why she feels the need for it right now, but wishing he could hold her for all her past and all their future.
You know it's the 'real' thing when you're happy to disagree, you cherish the memories of times when it seemed all you could do was hurt each other, the past when it seemed like love was not going to be enough to bridge them together because it's notnow. You don't need everything all at once, you have faith that together you will get to where you want to go, and together you'll even manage to work out where that is.
So she kisses him. Just because she wants to.
And nothing collapses; nobody's screaming, nobody's running away. And she's reminded herself again why she considers him and her as a 'them'.
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The light outside has a slightly older, more worn in, less brassy appearance than it does in true summer. Everything's slightly less vibrant, less full of energy. More restful in some way.
Even the frantic pace of life speeding away from a police chase seems to have slowed to a steadier beat.
Compromises which before had been so unwelcome, so pressurised have become parts of the lives they've settled into, familiarity breeding a lazy comfortable acceptance.
It's the only time of year in which nostalgia for the little things of yester-year is accepted, even encouraged. Unique in its love for forgotten memories of all the great sorrows and small delights.
She's happy to walk without a purpose, the stillness of the world seeming to filter into her, calming even by degrees the tornado which rages inside.
Appearances are deceitful, but this time it's the appearance of absorption in a land of unrelenting misery which belies her happiness.
Somehow, this is one day when they don't worry about her family, one day when they don't worry about his, one day when they don't have to worry about them, and where they're going or where they are or even who they are and what their purpose is and how they can fulfil it.
He stops outside one of the multiple Starbucks spread across the city, and raises an eyebrow at her, knowing he doesn't really need to ask. But this is a slight deviation from the patterned monotony of their mornings, and it's rare that either of them feels the need to suggest any change.
"I've got no money on me," she says in reply to his question.
"I'll treat you. It's cheaper than dinner."
She pretends indignation and hurt and he winks at her, mocking her fake wounded expression. Wanting to kiss that pout away.
Inside it's full of identical individuals, all clamouring for the great modern god of couture caffeine to help them through life's daily trials. She watches them all, pondering the personal hells any of them could be suffering, hidden by the curtain of professionalism.
Wonders why it's such a bad thing to admit that your life is tumbling down around you while you watch and you don't know how to start building it up again, you're not even sure you want to build it up again.
So he watches her watching the world whoosh by them, and relaxes in the knowledge that for once he has all he wants right in front of him. Without her there is fear. Fear that he's not actually strong enough on his own, fear that he couldn't understand any of it on his own, fear that without her he is nothing.
The treasured sound of nothing is everywhere they are, and she rejoices in the lack of words to appear and shatter their fragile connections of harmony, like concords breaking the sound barrier and vanishing before they've come.
He pays for their coffees, and they wander out, content with the bitter drink and each other's silent company.
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All too soon they're at the hospital again. Another morning, another shift, another hundred patients to deal with.
As she goes to punch in before going to change into scrubs, she wonders how a morning where nothing happened, where they barely even talked, which should be described as dull and ordinary in every possible way can have left her feeling so relaxed inside.
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Author's Notes 2: The paragraph about their toothbrushes in the bathroom is a mention of the incomparable beauty of Kitty's "The Toothbrush Talk", which is a classic. Carter watching Abby watching the world go by is an idea of Jen's in "Missing Piece" – I think. Anyway; that's hers, Carby's toothbrushes are Kitty's.
So, my first try to write anything fuzzy-ish and romance-like. Was there any point? Are you all going to go and shoot yourselves? Should I go and shoot myself? Any other ideas about my death? ;D Or, in fact, anything to say, at all, constructive criticism and any comments, please hit me back.