Thanks Lauren, LK and Emma.
Two days of rain.
Two whole days with big, fat raindrops falling from the sky, on her hair, on her clothes. Drops of water masking the ones already coursing down her cheeks. She didn't cry, no, no. She was raining, becoming this huge thing, this amazing river that no one could stop.
No one could stop her, it would be too much. They'd look at her as if she had lost something these days; maybe it's the luster, maybe it's the compassion, maybe it's just her laughter, but they all look at her like she's lost something.
Maybe she has, but that's not why she cries. It's not why she rains.
Precipitation from her body because he was there with her, turning her to the most amazing pool of delicate liquid, cool and sure and safe. He was there, commiserating with the clouds to bring her down from the sky. And she fell so hard, little pitter patters of want and need forming puddles all over her bed.
He helped coerce her from the pretty clouds and she'd never felt so wonderful to fall. Nine point eight, even to a raindrop was damn fast, but she was swept away despite the fear. She wanted him, she needed him, would have him.
And again, her whole body was consumed by humidity, weighed down by moisture. It made her more fluid but much heavier, sadder, forlorn.
He'd brought all of her down and then he just passed through, a cold front, moving on across the land. She should have known, rain couldn't last that long and surely she wasn't a monsoon. She was a little storm, a tiny blip on weather radar... that's all she'd ever be to him.
He could have been a natural disaster but he was just a front, a front that changed everything it touched. Maybe he'd finally just blow clear across country and leave her little cloud the hell alone.
She still wanted, still craved was still a deluge of pain that needed to be let loose.
And then sun came out, dried her up, dried her all up until she was deserted again.
She could make herself into rain, but damn, she was still human.
"I didn't mean to fall asleep, sorry," and she was gone from his bed, skin covered hastily by clothing, snuffing out the remnants of his passion. She was gone from the sad excuse that he calls a home.
He wakes up alone and finds the consequences aren't enough to quell the desire to have her in his arms again. God, all that energy, that fire.
Her heat had seared his skin and he pretended to ignore the delicate tears on her cheeks. She'd waited too long for his release and he hated it but damned if he didn't love her. He was old and she was old and young and much more than he could handle.
She went up in flames, hot, hot heat licking his flesh.
Incendiary, the kiss she placed on his lips when he gasped her name into her mouth. And she swallowed it hard, swallowed his words hard like flames gasping in oxygen only to explode.
Her body arched against his and pinpricks of heat and spark lit behind his eyelids. She'd ignited and there was no tempering the inferno he'd caused. Gorgeous, strong, red, red, red, passion.
The embers tried to flicker out but they stayed lit, even as he rolled over in his sleep and pulled her to him. She was awake and she sighed. He'd woken too then, kissing the naked skin of her neck, something in his chest willing to break free to tell her... tell her something. He needed to tell her something but he didn't really know what it was.
So he'd kissed all over her neck, a match igniting her again. She went up like kindling.
The sadness in her eyes was soft but there was heat between their bodies, bodies that kept coming together no matter how much he wanted to stop it. He wanted to, he wanted to stop loving her, it hurt him too much not to give everything over.
They made love twice that night and thought neither one really acknowledged it, the gasoline they'd added wasn't even needed. The can of it sat by the bed as he, in his head, runs through her sighs and whimpers.
"Sorry, sorry, sorrysorrysorry," the words echo in his head. Flame snuffed out.
He's fifty, feels fourteen, wants to call her back and maybe hold her for a bit longer.
He smiled at her, one minute after shift was officially over, a bright thing blooming onto his face.
"I know, it's okay Griss, really, it didn't mean anything," and her smile is almost genuine and he almost buys it when she walks away, an artificial spring in her step. Spring, things live in the spring, bloom and flourish. He felt only winter.
He wants to tell her the formula for calculating the energy in springs, wants to tell her how damn volatile she is. She's a coiled piece of metal held down by a steady hand... a hand that knows it has to pull back eventually.
They'd never looked at her the way he had. He could see them in his head,-she and that other someone-on the sofa watching a ball game, she while interested, nose in a forensic journal. She and he would catch eyes over the coffee table, the announcer blurting the score while the other man would smile at her.
She'd smile back, placated. But that other man, he'd never understand. That other man would never understand the fascination in her eyes, the questions on her lips. That other man would never even try to comprehend the depth that she'd dug over her years.
That other man, that other man wouldn't be him.
One time, once it was. God, that perfect morning, morning or noon or something.
But it meant nothing, not anything, all that energy uncoiling from her limbs, from her lips, from her bones and her heart. Nothing, nothing, so much nothing.
Nothing but strong dirt in his mouth. He remembers the delicate green of the plant he'd sent to her at work. He remembered it sitting on the break room table all of shift. It sat there, waiting to be taken; she'd never expected it to be hers. Never, never, never.
But Catherine had pointed it out to her, a soft hand on her shoulder, pointing out the gift. She'd nodded as Catherine left and he'd watched behind the glass, watched her read the card. Her forehead crinkled and she turned around, made sure no one was watching and let out a sob.
She pushed the tears from her eyes fast, touched two fingers to a leaf and then to her lips. Years ago, that was years ago.
She'd trashed that damn thing so fast that he was stunned and then she walked from the room, eyes heavy with tears. So were his.
No one would notice. Three years back, no one noticed red-rimmed eyes; he didn't cry.
No one noticed this time either.
No, no, no, it meant everything. It meant tears on his cheek when she was gone, it meant fingering the empty space in his bed, it meant everything. He wanted to just bury himself deep down in the earth so he couldn't hurt her anymore, so she couldn't hurt him.
He hasn't cried in twenty years.
She can't do it again, she can't. She's strong, not that strong. She's only a breeze, not a gust and she can't seem to build up enough energy to blow him away.
He tightens his arms around her and she shoves her arms outward, pressing against his but damn, he holds hard.
He keeps her captured in the net of his arms, a butterfly waiting to be pinned to his wall.
But he doesn't pin her, no, no. He strokes her carefully, pulling back after examining his need, and waits for her to fly away. From raindrop to butterfly. She's so fucked up.
Wind can brush away all those dead leaves that were covering her up but she was so, so alive. He wanted to feel how alive she was again; he needed her to fill all the places inside of him that were hollow with her warm, warm heat.
She'd blown in so fast, so, so fast that his head spun, body caught up in the tornado of her skin
Lips pressed against hers, they exchanged breaths and the cool breeze of her love gently licked his face. He promises never to let her go, never to let her go. And he bottled her up, a typhoon in a jar and held on tight, knowing that if he ever let any of her go, she'd never blow back his way.
There was no happily ever after, there really never was.
Their after was the desert, lone and hot ready to ignite waiting for rain to blow through and quench the earth that had been parched for far, far too long.