Title: Wet August
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Naturally, anything so valuable as ER characters does not belong to me.
Summary: Glimpses of a rainy summer afternoon. I hate those! (the afternoons, not the glimpses.) But this one's the fuzz I promised, and Carby too, which makes up for a ruined August day.
An apartment door in Chicago glided the path of its usual arc, silently, soulfully, as if it knew that in the action it revealed a private glimpse of a home. A man stepped across the threshold, heart accelerating in eager anticipation, as it always did when he stood here.
With a nod of his head, he scanned the room before him, then cocked it to settle on locks of gold-streaked brown hair strewn across the arm of the sofa.
"Hi," the hair rearranged itself against the linen couch-cover as its anchor spoke.
"Hey," he smiled, walking around the sofa for a front on perspective of the furniture and the figure sprawled languid across it. He took a moment to gaze at her: one socked foot tucked beneath a denim clad leg, the other resting on the coffee table beside her; a hand eloquently supporting the back of her neck; long fingers clasping a book, laid on her stomach for safekeeping while she welcomed and stared at the new company.
"You're soaked," she noted idly. He glanced at the circular droplet marks turned commuter insignia adorning his ill prepared t-shirt.
"It's pouring out there."
She smiled, darted a look towards the window and the bruised sky and darkened city on the other side. No matter the reputation for horrible climate, it was not supposed to be this dark in August. Summer was meant to be yellow, goddammit, not grey. "That's why I'm in here."
His lips curved upward in response. "Now I could've sworn you're just lazy."
She reached out with the book, swatted him on a drenched arm. The back cover of the book curled at the liquid contact. "Damn!"
He chuckled, gently doubling to press his lips against hers for an instant before straightening. "I'm going to go take a shower."
- - - - - - -
Hours later, she remained in the easy position, though now she actively read. A few feet away, dry now, he lounged, as best the apparatus would allow, in a desk chair before a computer.
"How do you spell promissory?"
"P-R-O," without diverting attention from her current literary adventures, "M-I-S-S," keys clacked her dictation to the screen.
"Okay. How about sleight?"
Still unwilling to ignore the pages spread just above her chin, even for an instant. "S-L-E-I-G-H-T. If you can't spell it…"
"Ingenuity?"
She spelled it, on the verge of huffily, now determined to override any signs of distraction.
"Sansculotte?"
Frowning at the book, she spat the letters out.
"Deutercanonical?"
"What kind of paper are you writing anyway?"
"Oh, the erudite kind. Soupçon?"
This time she deliberately drew her focus towards him. Glaring, she lowered her voice to a calculated pitch. "L-M-R-Z."
Though her mouth stayed flat, stubbornly lacking mirth, his resolve faltered somewhat more easily. His eyes squinted as he released an echoing chortle, then lapsed into gasps of laughter at his clever self-entertainment.
"Abby!" he choked, unable to resist the hilarity of her still apparently unhumored glower.
"Ha ha, abuse the English major," she barked, though a glance at sparkling eyes proved her irritation nonexistent. "Sounded more like smut to me."
And though his joke was not worth laughing at, hers certainly was.
"Maybe it was," he rose from the chair, sidling close to the end of the couch where her head lay.
"A smutty med student evaluation?" She pushed him away as he leant to her face, keeping him at a distance by a palm to his chest.
A smirk. "I wouldn't be the first." He bent closer, inches from her skin.
"Isn't that disgusting, John Carter."
He laughed, abruptly regained his upright position. "Yep."
Brushing a lingering forefinger across her forehead, he swept past the end of the sofa to the kitchen. "Grape?"
"G-R-A-" she called, interrupted as a green ball of thinly skinned juice came hurtling over the back of the couch, landing with a splatter in the crease of her open book.
- - - - - - -
A while later she lay asleep on the sofa, the book that had given the invitation to slumber clasped in a hand that draped over the edge of the furniture, fruit long-since preserved between its pages.
Every minute or two he glanced at her over his display of open medical journals from his perch at the kitchen table. He'd stare, transfixed, for a moment, checking for the gentle swells of her chest as she breathed, then reluctantly return his attention to his required professional pastime.
"BARRRRUUUM!" a roar of thunder shook the page he had been balancing a few degrees separate from the rest as he read. He looked up, startled. He nodded toward the back of the room to confirm her presence on the sofa just in time to watch a figure stepping through the window to the fire escape.
Of course, he would have never willingly ventured outside during a thunderstorm; frankly, the thought of electrocution petrified him. He sat, unsure, for a while, watching unblinking the pane through which she had exited. Finally he straightened, hesitated, then strode her path and climbed over the rim of the sill.
She was seated, soaked, legs dangling over the edge of the metal staircase, casually filing her nails. He took his place beside her, though he could not match her nonchalant manner, and raised an arm to shelter his eyes from the pelting water.
A minute passed. Another. Supervising her filing. Drenched, he prompted her. "Needed fresh air?"
She tensed her cheek muscles in a small smile. "It's too cozy in there."
He lifted his head to look at her face, signs of sleep still etched upon it beneath beads of rain. "Guess that book wasn't so good after all?"
She laughed; he'd made his case against romance novels to no avail since he'd discovered her obsession: she'd insisted they were valuable esteem boosters, he that they were a waste of brain activity. She shook her head. "No, no, I just needed the air conditioner."
"During a thunderstorm?" incredulously.
She turned to him, equaling his tone. "In August?"
"Will you come in if it's on?" He stood, extending a hand. "This metal escape is a lightning magnet."
She looked up at him, down her nose, and spoke in her most rounded, sugary, know-it-all voice, eyes pointedly blinking, her mouth as much an 'o' she could manage. "The storm's miles away." Yet she reached for his outstretched hand, stowed the nail file in a back pocket, and let him guide her indoors.
- - - - - - -
Dry clothes, a dinner and three degrees fewer, he wandered about the apartment. Turned on a light in the spare room, made the bed in the bedroom, brushed past her several times where she stood at the counter laying out dishes to dry.
"I wouldn't have dismissed you from your duties if I'd known how restless you'd become," she remarked after he rearranged the CDs left on top of the stereo for the third time.
"No, no, this is great. Thanks again," he dismissed, drifting into the kitchen to take her hand from a plate and kiss it in appreciation. She jerked the hand away and resumed toweling the plate. He departed her area, and paced the dining room before ambling to the living room again. He straightened the antimacassars, flipped through her book that rested on the coffee table until he came to a part about a horseman who swooned repulsively for the maid and set it back down again with more than a gentle smack.
Finally deciding his entire opportunity for usefulness had wasted away, he settled himself on freshly fluffed cushions and flipped the power on the television. He scanned a few channels, pausing on the news, some sports scores, the end of CSI, though the beginning credits were the best part. When she joined him, slipping sideways under his crooked arm to lean against his torso, he switched the television to its usual grey reflective state with a resounding electrical crack.
"What's up?" she asked, stroking the back of his shower-warmed hand with hers.
"Nothing's on," he groaned, willfully ignoring her implied meaning. "The power's going to go off anyway."
"No. I mean you."
He idly caressed a strand of her damp hair, relished in the touch of her hand. "I don't know," he offered, emphasizing the 'I.'
She lay her head against his chest, and he could feel an eyebrow arching through his t-shirt. He disregarded it, waiting until she lifted her head in impatience before he spoke. "This is just bizarre."
She strained to read him. "What is?"
"Unreal. How can a day be this good without us even doing anything?"
She balanced an opening smile precariously on her lips. "You're not used to it?"
"No, thank God." The scale tipped, spreading her mouth in a grin.
"Me neither." She squeezed his still-warm hand and placed a peck on his closest cheek before relaxing back against his body, reclining to a comfortable position.
A flash of lightning far more intense than the others illuminated the room as they adjusted against each other. He heard her inhale a jagged breath, and supposed he'd done the same. In awe rather than fear. Abruptly, the light retreated, taking with it their artificial ones.
Left encased in jet black, purple flashes before their eyes where the light had been, he stirred against her. "Goodnight?"
Through the half-eerie dark he heard a low chuckle. "Not yet, okay?"
*******
Author's Note: I notice I never use names. They just don't seem to fit. But just to clarify: 'she' is Abby, 'he' is Carter. So this was a complete turnaround from my last fic. I think it might concentrate un poquito demasiado on Abby's lounging positions rather than anything of…substance. What did you think? Please review!
Oh, and thanks to Jen for suggesting Abby's reading genre of choice. Of course, after I asked, I forgot where I was going to include it, so I sort of just pasted it in. But thanks!
Thanks so much for reading. And remember, reviews make my day!