Title: Favourite Colours
Author: Japanese and Chocolate/Sarbear12456
Characters/Pairing: Helen/John
Prompt: Diehard Challenge – Sunshine and Rainbows
Summary: A picnic without a blanket on a dreary day.
Helen and John were having a picnic. Surrounded by the smell of flowers and dirt, somehow sweetened by the passing rain, with traces of the food they had been eating for the past several hours. Despite this, plenty still remained. Toffee and biscuits, tea cakes and pastries with an accompanying flask of ice tea. The trees would have provided shade, had the sun been shining, but in this case had served to slow rain to a drip. And though they had much forethought in regards to what they would eat, neither had remembered the necessity of a blanket to the success of a picnic, and both had spent hours sitting on the damp ground, dirt ruining their clothes irrevocably. Not that they minded. In fact, neither payed much attention to their surroundings, wrapped up in the safety of knowing that no-one would venture to this park on such a day and their attention devoted completely to each other.
"Favourite colour?" She asked. Toying with one of the delicacies on the ground beside her.
He smiled gazing into her eyes none to subtly. "Blue."
"And why is that?" She asked with a smile.
"No reason." He teased, though they both knew why. "And you?"
"I don't have one." She said, leaning her head back so the ends of her scandalously loose hair brushed the ground. "I could never decide. Each colour has its own…personality."
He, discreetly, ran his hand through her blonde curls. "What is…" he looked at the leaves and grass around them, "what is green's personality?"
She smiled, stroking one of the fallen leaves almost lovingly. John watched the movement. "Green is strong and soft. It's the most predominant colour in nature, essential in the survival of all life on earth." She looked back into his eyes.
"And yellow?" Glancing at the daisies that spread throughout the park despite the gardeners best efforts.
"Yellow is bright and happy. And optimistic."
"Red?"
The carefully cultured roses of the park were only a few metres away. "Red is controversial. Love and hate, anger and passion, all bundled together. Like the sweet smell of a red rose, and its thorns" John was the one studying history and language amongst their small group of friends, but found that she could just as easily speak with enough elegance to capture her audience. He had often found himself lost in her voice.
"What do you think of purple?"
"Purple is a nice medium. It's not as strong as red, but stronger than blue."
By this time she had once again diverted her attention to the food they had brought, and he couldn't help but wonder what the combination would taste like. Helen and caramel. He determined to find out and soon his lips capture hers.
Minutes later, when both were lying on their backs, he continued his initial line of questioning.
"What is blue like?" He asked as they looked up at the sky where clouds were just starting to fade, allowing glimpses of the blue that lay beyond. "Blue is calm, peaceful." She inched closer. "I believe that it is my favourite colour at the moment." She smiled. Both continued to look up at the sky, with the sun now shining brightly, and in the distance, a perfect rainbow of every colour formed.