A/N: The end of the line, kiddies.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Stranger Things Have Happened
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It was one of those days where you got up even though it seemed like too much of a hassle.
The rain had been coming down steadily for days, the sky overcast and gloomy, and everything wet and dim. Life didn't stop because the rain wouldn't, though.
Too bad, really—would've been a good day to sleep in.
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She probably wasn't coming.
It had nothing to do with the rain.
He lay on his bed, still unmade from when he'd rolled out of it earlier, staring up at the ceiling, idly watching smoke drift from the tip of his cigarette to make lazy, hazy patterns in the air before it dissipated.
His eyes slowly went to the window. The rain was coming down hard again. It had been alternating between a drizzle and a storm for several hours now—days, really, although sometimes it felt like it had been years. If he concentrated, he could just catch his neighbor's guitar; moody weather made the guy break out his acoustic, and make music just as moody as anything outside.
Usually it was annoying.
Today it gave him a different kind of feeling.
Water slapped against the glass, and he absently focused on it, then tried to see through it. To no avail—the world beyond the window was a murky blur of grays and blacks.
She would have said it was perfect weather to curl up under a blanket and nap. They'd done that a few times, the uneven beat of rain on the glass lulling them to sleep. Thinking about it made him wonder why he'd bothered getting up today, especially since he still ached everywhere. He didn't actually have anything to do today. For which he'd silently been glad upon seeing the still ugly purple bruise on his left cheekbone when he'd used the toilet right after he'd woken up—kind of injury like that made people ask questions, and he was tired of them.
He took his cigarette out of his mouth and absently tapped it against the overflowing ashtray sitting on the sill: ash was getting long, and he didn't want to start a fire, especially when the weather was shitty. He returned the cigarette to his lips and went back to contemplating the window.
She wasn't coming. It had been a week, but she wasn't coming.
Weird how repeating that to himself didn't seem to make him stop expecting her to come in any minute. Probably because it just felt like he was waiting for her to come back from the store the way he had a million other times. Maybe once the day passed without her coming he'd believe it. Or maybe he'd do it all over again tomorrow.
All he had was time.
The rain eased up some, no longer as violent, and he could make out his neighbor much better: that moody guitar that always sounded so desperate and lonely and made him hate being in his apartment. He caught a low murmur, knew his neighbor was singing too, and decided the guy must have been having as shitty a week as him—he never sang unless life was really giving it to him.
He looked out his window at the murky world and thought about pulling on a shirt and socks and shoes and leaving. He didn't like being here all of a sudden.
But there was always the off chance that she'd show up, even though he knew she wouldn't.
He probably wouldn't see her again, after last week.
But she might come back. And if he was out when she came back, she didn't have a key to get in.
He stayed, finishing his cigarette and rubbing the butt out, then staring at the ceiling until he fell asleep.
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Water pelting glass woke him up.
He opened his eyes slowly and stared up at the ceiling before they blearily went to the window. He stared at the blur for a long minute, listening first to it, then listening for his neighbor.
No guitar.
He blindly reached out and fumbled his pack of cigarettes off the bedside table. He flicked the lid open, reached in…only one cigarette left. He stared up at the ceiling, blinking and silent, for a long time before he decided—Fuck it—and pulled it out of the carton. He tossed the empty pack back onto the bedside table, fumbled for his lighter and tossed that next to the pack once he'd lit his last cigarette.
His back hurt, but he didn't want to get up. He didn't feel like doing much of anything, really. If she'd been there, she would have laughed at him, probably, before she crawled onto the bed with him and told him to move over and make room for her.
She wasn't there—the place was too still.
She wasn't coming.
He blew out a long stream of smoke and went back to watching the rain come down.
He wasn't sure how long he laid there, watching the rain come down without actually seeing it—it could have been seconds, it could have been hours, it could have been days—before he felt the air in the flat shift, and he looked over toward the door and found her there, gray eyes surrounded by spiky, wet lashes watching him solemnly, dark hair plastered to her cheeks and forehead.
She smelled like rain and newsprint, and he knew she'd used a newspaper to try to keep dry.
She was always forgetting her umbrella.
They looked at each other in silence. Then:
"Hey."
He watched her for a second, taking in the way she looked weary and hopeful and was trying so hard not to show either, before moving over on the bed just enough for her to fit and saying:
"Hey."
It was enough.
She shrugged out of her wet coat, let it plop to the floor and walked to the bed. She slipped in next to him, took his cigarette from his mouth and took a drag, then reached over him and tapped it against the ashtray on the sill.
Ash was getting too long.
He closed his eyes and decided to ignore the fact that she was damp and he was fast on his way to being in the same spot.
Wasn't like a little rain'd kill him, and he'd had worse, besides.
She settled her head against his shoulder; her wet hair made his skin itch some, but he ignored it, only reached up and tunneled his fingers in her hair the way he'd missed doing. She stretched an arm over his chest, slid a leg over both of his, like she was afraid he'd disappear if she didn't touch him. He reached down and grabbed her thigh and pulled her leg up higher, over his hips, then moved his hand to her knee and squeezed it gently.
He thought about saying something. Something like: Where had she been? Something like: Was she okay? Something like: He was glad she'd come back.
In the end, he decided not to say anything.
Sharing his last cigarette with her was enough.
She took another drag before she slipped it back between his lips, and he could taste her on the paper. Faintly, he heard his neighbor's moody guitar start up again. He felt her head leave his shoulder, felt her lean up and press her lips against his jaw.
That guitar didn't sound so desperate and lonely, now.
His flat, either, with her filling it.