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Author's Note: One of the things I remember the most clearly about being in England, was not being fussed at all by the rain. You just took it on board as part of life, and went out into it with a brollie, wellies, and duffel-coat. It was just something you got on with, because if you didn't, you'd spend like half the year inside.
However, on weekends, when it was rainy, the sound of it drumming on the conservatory roof always made my father go to sleep. It was nice to tangle up in sheets and not have to go outside and just hear the hush of the rain. So, I decided to write about that feeling.
So drabble!
Songscape: Monsoon, by Caliko, 3am by Matchbox 20, Fearless by Cyndi Lauper, The World Spins Madly On by The Weepies, Collide (acoustic) by Howie Day, Just be Friends (piano version) by Che, I'm Yours by Jason Mraz, Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden and One Day by Trading Yesterday.
Orbit.
The rain murmured against the windowpane; a cat scratching at the peeling paint, and the dusty resin between glass and wood; begging to be let in. The clear noise of it, hushing across the outside of the house, was resonance. It filtered through the cream curtains, with the muffled glint of daylight, casting a muted honey-tone (washed out, and watercoloured) across a geography of sheets. With the rain clawing outside to be let in, Alfred shut his eyes, and let the sound balm over his nerves. English weather was as pleasant as England himself: a few revolutions and seasons within the space of a day, rain and/or shine, more often hail and some dusted ice on the car window. Mostly rain though, England was a man of rainy days. He was also unafraid of them.
The day before, with the wind whipping and vicious, threading beads of rain into their eyes and hair, England had resolutely lowered his umbrella, and stalked into the rain. The hiss of the rain, and snap of his coat in the wind silhouetted his figure better than anything else. Cloaked in sound, he insisted on going about his business.
Alfred, if I took a rainy day every time the weather was like this, I would never get anything done.
But today it was Sunday, and as the morning crept into the bedroom, the curtains turning the rainlight the colour of resin, prisms and honey. The light stuck to the crisp, new sheets, and lurking in the middle of the trailing, tracing light was a tousled haystack of hair. The duvet curled and tangled about Arthur's thin shoulders, cocooning him from the world, and the musty scent of the rain.
If he took a rainy day every time the weather poured down into him, nothing would get done.
Alfred, with all the care of not waking a sleeping infant, pressed his fingers into Arthur's hair, meshing them and letting the pale blond colour curl and tangle about his fingertips. Alfred sighed, happy, and feeling the world spin around them. The planet turning at somanymilespersecond, and quickly he rolled over, and nestled against Arthur, breathing in the thick scent of his hair, as it coiled against the air. Four hundred and sixty five metres, nine hundred and thirty metres.
With a hazy murmur, Arthur hummed, barely waking. "Alfred?" Arthur pressed into the mattress, the duvet clinging to his body. Alfred slid closer, tangling his arms around Arthur and pulled him closer, pushing his nose into Arthur's hair, inhaling, and nuzzling.
"You smell like rain," And he did. He smelt like growth and revival; like the world coming alive under long pianist fingers of water. The sharp scent of rain in grass, springing up, and wrapping around them.
"I'm trying to sleep, Alfred." Arthur's voice was the hush of the air, the shush, the rush of it.
"Don't let me interrupt you, old man." Alfred pulled and pressed the length of his body against Arthur, the curling, turning sensation of the planet, and the growing ground. He rubbed his cheek against Arthur's hair, breathing thickly, and Arthur wriggled back into his chest.
"Fine," He breathed. A moment. "I'm tired."
"I know." Alfred adjusted his position, linking his arms across Arthur's front, and sliding them gently. An orbit of warmth, and Arthur nuzzled into them, the sheets ruffling and tussling against them. Alfred could feel the sensation of strength, of green fields sliced with hedgerows, and oak leaves musty in the snapping rain, in his arms. England bright with revival. Thick with energy. Long patterns of light and rain on the window. The land leapt up, the earth tilted to the eastern sky, yowled at the sky, and Arthur's energy was both spent and shivering out of its old skin; a snake unsheathing in long grassland. All over him, everything was fighting to live, and Arthur gently tied himself into the blankets, tangling, and fraying.
With a squirming movement, Arthur settled in his arms. "Love you." It was a sleepy, but sincere hum of affection. A beat, between them, and a patter of rain on the sill, still begging to be let in. "Git." Arthur added as a more conscious afterthought. "I forgot to call you a git…"
"It's fine; I was thinking it in my head." Alfred assured Arthur, and pressed the slightest kiss along his jaw-line. "Sleep. It's a rainy day." Alfred pressed close, encircled, and let the shifting sheets cloak them in warmth and shuffling noise. The world span on, gently, surely, inexorably; Four hundred and sixty five metres, nine hundred and thirty metres, one thousand and ninety five metres. Round and round, the world span by, and the rain slid down the windowpane, asking to be let in through the filmy amber light.
May your quills be ever sharp.