Author's note: First attempt at a Furuba fic, so be nice. Oh, and thanks to Ky, for the last minute beta...I feel your pain, now. XP Third attempt at proofing this thing. :pained look: I never realised that present tense could be such a bi-otch! Enjoy, and please do tell me if you find any more verbs that aren't in the right tense.
-A Day Without Rain-
He wishes it would stop, this infinite pounding of water on the leaves, on the rocks. He hates the rain.
He hates the rain with a passion: the cloying damp of his clothes, the feel of pellets plopping onto the crown of his head. More than anything, he hates the never-ending exhaustion that comes with it. He can never hold his head up when it rains.
His head aches where he smashed it against the rocks. His palms ache where he clenched his nails so tight. His heart, his very soul, aches with the pain of knowing that she does not care for him. That she will not follow him, to come and comfort him.
He hears her approach, the sound of her retching tugging ever so painfully at his guilty chest. He knows she followed, to come and comfort him, and he cannot stand it.
She always tries too hard. She is always too cheerful. She is always there for him, smiling her stupid smile, cooking her stupid food. For the first time, he can't stand it. He hates it that she always tries so hard (why can't she just do what she wants?) to please everyone. He hates that he needs her to be that way, hates that he has to depend on her in such a weak, worthless way.
The rain seems to pound harder into his skin; it beads, then falls off him into the churned mud beneath his clawed feet.
One trembling step at a time, she comes nearer, her breath escaping in harsh gasps.
Mommy loves you.
No she didn't. Mommy hated him, feared him, feared what lay beneath his childish features. Now she would do the same.
She steps toward him, almost at his side. He can't stand it anymore, he can't-
He lashes out, mutilated hand (claw, he thinks) scraping across her chest; a gaping wound appears. In a perverse thrill, he delights in the mark. She will hate him anyway, why not make it easier on her and just hurt her, hurt her till she can feel no more?
The falling droplets lash down on him, their thunderous roar mingling with his internal anguished cries.
Somehow, though he is soaked through his hide, he feels her tears on his flesh. Salty redemption, he realizes. She is frightened, ever so scared.
He feels his body morphing, turning more human. Finally, the water drips down a tendril of hair onto his nose, sliding off onto her face.
She stares up at him, wonderingly. He crushes her to him, sobbing unrestrainedly into her hair.
With a small poof, he is turned into a cat. Even in his animal form, he lay stretched on her legs, weeping tears of the deepest sorrow.
As she carries him home, he realises that it has finally stopped raining.
He will show her, one day, somehow, what he is like. Truly, he will. He has a feeling it will always be a day without rain when she is around.