Title: Storm Chaser
Rating: FRK
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or situations that are familiar to you.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Oneshot. She's the category F5 and he's the little wooden shed in the backyard that never stood a chance.
The most destructive tornado on record was on March 18, 1925, when a funnel cloud, later deemed to be an F5, materialized in Missouri, USA, and tore a path through the southern borders of Illinois, and Indiana.
Since then, and likely eons before it, man have been fascinated with the swirling vortex of wind and debris. Why'd it start? What path will it take? How can you predict it?
That's the thing.
You can't.
Sure, meteorologist and scientist follow air currents and temperatures and highs and lows to figure out the estimated time a certain weather system will arrive and how dangerous it has the potential to become, but predicting the existence for a funnel cloud, itself, isn't as exact; all that's said is there 'might be a potential for funnel activity'.
A guess, an assumption, a probability that all hell will break loose.
There's a reason the phrase 'As unpredictable as the weather' was coined. You'll never know when the earth beneath you is going to shake, you'll never know when the winds will circle around you, you'll never know when the tides will rise above you.
You'll never know about the anger in the ground and air and water around you, just that it will, some day, break forth in a wonderful, stunning, agonizing rush.
And as he's come to learn, she's no different.
He thought he could pinpoint when she'd strike, where her swirling clouds would form, and how to survive her, but just like every other man who thought they had Mother Nature and it's awesome power figured out, he was wrong.
She's an unstoppable force, barreling across the prairies, eclipsing the mountains, and swallowing everything around her, and if you think you could stop her (as many a man has been foolish enough to claim), she'll end up stopping you, long before you've even had the chance to marvel at the breathtaking fury of Kensi Blye.
It's terrorizing, traumatizing, and hypnotizing all in one.
And on that fateful day in April when he first witnessed her storm, he has since longed to be at the centre of it.
She caught him off guard like an earthquake. Shook him, rattled him around, and made life as he knew it crumble around him. His footing, once relatively stable, was rocked and any lesser man, who hadn't faced similar, though much weaker storms in his life, would have fallen to their knees.
As it was, he struggled mightily to not collapse in the eye of her storm, staying feebly upright in the knowledge that man, himself, was no match for her.
But she breathed around him, regardless; her torrential rains flooding his mind, her scorching haze igniting his body, and her bitterly cold aura biting his lips.
He had no way of saving himself. No ability to outrun her, no place far enough to hide, no skill when it came to eluding her choking grasp; just him, and her violent, crippling, beautiful chaos.
And just as he knew she would, just as he long predicted, she's swiftly blown him off his feet and swept him into her whirlwind.
His hair is in his eyes, his face stings from her brisk winds against his skin, his blood both freezes and boils in his veins. He was never built to fight against her (very few men ever are), and every second she blows around him, she rips away layer after layer until his foundation is merely dirt and ash and unrecognizable wreckage.
She's the category F5 and he's the little wooden shed in the backyard that never stood a chance.
He's caught in her updraft and he's whipped around as if a ragdoll; thrown about like a penny in a washing machine. Only he isn't coming out clean and shiny; he's battered and broken and hurt and bruised, because it's what she is. A glorious tropical storm that will never die itself out.
Just when you think she's lost her bluster, exceeded her reserves, and poured herself dry, she'll roar back to life; a volcano that never empties, a tsunami that never stops flowing, and before you now it, you'll wade into her rushing waters, you'll get in too deep, and you'll drown.
He begs, and he pleads, and he prays for her gale force winds to snap his neck or tear him limb-from-limb, 'cause there is no way in Hell his malleable body, with it's brittle bones and thin, soft flesh will ever withstand the inevitable worst part of her.
The fall.
And when it does happen (as if it hasn't happened already), he'll land on his feet, only to feel the weight of gravity force his tibias through the soles of his feet and have his wrists snap when he braces himself against solid earth. The wind will rush out of his lungs, his head will collide with the ground, and the heart that she has ahold of will stop beating.
No one ever said the fall she'd make him suffer would be easy.
Many a man has tried to harness the wind and use it to their will, with their windmills and their turbines and their canvased sailing ships, but with enough force, the blades of a windmill can be blown off as easily as dandelion seeds at the breath of a baby; turbines, while rarer, have snapped in half with too much strain; and with just the right gust, sailing ships will sink.
Being near her, being surrounded and engulfed by her, it's a dangerous job. There are safer things to do in life, like base jumping or maybe being an explosives expert, but none of them, let's be honest, have her.
He's a goner, he knows that.
She's struck him by lightning; she's torn the ground out from underneath him; she's capsized his ship, she's thrown her worst, but he's still not letting go; too high to land without getting hurt, far too deep to ever dig himself out.
So, he'll grab his gun and his badge and he'll secure his vest and he'll hold on tight.
For as long as she continues to spin and blow around him, he'll continue to chase her storm.
Author's Note: I was wanting to try something different... ~ I was trying to combine the different storm elements of tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. because I couldn't settle on one system ~ It's shorter than I wanted, but I could only stretch the metaphor so long. ~ The April I mention was April 6, the day Kensi and Deeks meet in 'Hand-to-Hand'.