A/N: Written for a drabble prompt over at livejournal. The prompt was "storm".
There was a way storms worked. I remember that part very clearly. Every time, it would get very still. The air was tight and nervous and it made everyone scurry around and hide in their houses and rooms and beds. That was supposed to be the "calm".
I saw it all the time, I saw it every second that wretched man entered the room and we lined up at the foot of our beds. The way everyone's hair stood on end. The way we all knew it was coming. The way that, with a single drop of a hat, you knew when the winds changed and you were in for it. I remember the feeling.
I feel it now.
So why doesn't he?
"My real name is Eugene Fitzherbert," he says. Yes, ok, maybe we both missed the start of it, the way the air tightened because the air was, quite literally, tightening already. I can forgive that. I can overlook it. But then, at the camp fire, all relaxed and telling her stories, stories I told so long ago, just because she was nervous and couldn't sleep otherwise. Eugene didn't feel it then, didn't feel how the air was crackling. Didn't feel the build up. Maybe, just maybe, he was too tired.
I felt it. I felt all of it. I was sitting on the sidelines screaming at him while he benched me because some little naive girl smiled at him in a way he's not used to. Flynn Rider wouldn't fall for that. Flynn Rider looks out for himself, and he's better off for it.
He missed all the signs. Every time the thunder of guard boots on the ground came into earshot he got more and more cocky! I couldn't keep track if the storm was coming or going over him tripping over himself to make sure this girl has a good day. And, really? A boat? It's hard to believe that I came from such humble, idealistic, moronic roots. Does he not see the clouds? Hear the thunder? See the lightning crackle every time someone's eyes rested on his face for half a second too long? It's a wonder Eugene Fitzherbert wasn't carted off and jailed today, and now he's getting her on a boat and even hiding a lantern like he actuallycares about this girl.
Flynn Rider doesn't care for anyone but himself. Flynn Rider is an island, much like the one he'll own once he gets that crown back. Flynn Rider thought that maybe,maybe, Eugene had learned not to care about other people too.
Apparently I was wrong. Apparently, he still cares. Cares for her.
There's a calm before a storm, and I've been living on it ever since Eugene Fitzherbert pushed me to the back of his head and opened up to this girl. But no one can avoid the storm forever. Sooner or later, it hits you. You have to take notice. You can't outrun something that's closing in on you from all directions. But, as Eugene has proved, you could be completely and entirely oblivious to it.
It always comes. The storm always gets you. With harsh winds and hard rain and blinding lightening and deafening thunder. Sometimes it's loud, creating a cacophony until you can't even hear yourself think and you retreat so someone else, someone like me, can step up and know how to protect you, how to handle it. Sometimes it's quiet and you don't realize you're in it until there's no way to get out, and you try and push it out of your mind and forget all the fear you felt to the point where it crippled you into submission, and you put on a brave face and deal with it because that's the only way.
And sometimes, it's a green light shining on the shore.