her hands were cold
he knows that he cannot go near her, not when he is like this.
The fire rushes through his veins, as does the agony. He does not have blood in him – it's all been replaced with pain and flames, all screaming along with him somehow, roaring like flares and explosions, crackling in promises of destruction and heat. Every nerve in him burns and the pain is all he knows in that moment, as he is defined by fire, and only fire.
Eventually, the blinding light that his eyes see fade into black as he falls into blissful unconsciousness.
For a moment he is not a person, or a thing, or a single being. For a moment he has transcended what he was, a single man.
Instead, he is fire, coursing through the air as he escapes the confinement. He wants to expand, to release, to fly far and wide away from the source. He wants to be more, to spread and to multiply.
For a moment he is not Ronnie, but a force so great and powerful there is no way to describe what he has become, not fully enough to do it justice. For a moment there is no Ronnie; just the fire, the heat and the light.
But memories of cool hands cold like the five points of a star against his own palm, a pale, beautiful face, brown hair that shines gold under sunlight and sweet lips curving in a rare smile more precious than diamonds remind him that he is Ronnie, not an explosion going everywhere. He is someone.
He is a man that would die to protect the one he loves, and the fire will not burn that part of him away. Not now, not ever.
He lashes back at the flames with the only weapon that he has - himself. He is Ronnie Raymond, engineer, over-paid plumber, pizza lover, the classic All-American Boy, fiancé to the most brilliant, beautiful woman alive. The flames burn and burn at him, and he thinks he might lose himself to the destructive, hungry, ravenous flames. He holds on tightly to the thing that matters most, the strongest piece of himself.
In that moment Caitlin is his focus as he gathers instead of dispersing as the fire would have done. And when he does gather, he falls unconscious again.
He dreams of the first time he kisses her. It was their third date, the third dinner together and everything had gone wrong. The waitress had messed up the order, the food had been terrible and the unexpected rain hadn't made Caitlin very happy.
But apparently he'd done something right even he'd done all the planning for the failed dinner, even after it had gone spectacularly wrong because at the door of her apartment, Caitlin had cracked a smile and then kissed him.
People, coworkers joked – behind her back – that she was the Ice Queen. Ronnie knew that she had cold hands, but her lips had been warm and soft against his.
When he finally wakes up after pulling himself together he - mostly Ronnie but partly uncontrollable bursts of fire that burns everything but himself - finds that it has been ten months since the accelerator and he is not sure how to return to Caitlin. She must believe he is dead. He believed he would die; he expected to die.
By now she would have moved on. By now Caitlin – Caty, the ice to his fire – would have moved on from his absence because she had steel in her core and held herself like a queen.
And he – he is a monster, a creature of fire. He always had a flare, a personality like fire that contrasted beautifully to Caitlin's composure, but this – this is not safe. He can barely control the fire that is now a part of him. He is an unstable force, an explosion; the very thing he sought to protect Caitlin from. He cannot return.
In the back of his mind he hears Caitlin, strong and beautiful Caitlin lose control and scream his name, sobbing and crying. She begs him to come back and he is tempted.
Caitlin, I have to do this.
It's for the best, he tells himself as he looks at the rain clouds gathering in the sky like it did on the evening of their third date, their third dinner, their first kiss. This way she does not have to reopen past wounds at the sight of him only to receive new ones when something goes wrong.
It's better this way, is he tells himself, but it does not stop his heart from breaking, shattering into a million pieces like cracking ice.
When he cries the tears steam off his face and leaves only crusted salt behind.
(Fire and ice cannot touch. Fire burns and destroys indiscriminately if not held in check, regardless of how much it loves the glistening, diamond-like ice.)
an i: so iris talking about a burning man anyone excited?
an ii: so in my head this was a lot clearer but then I got high on chocolate and a lack of sleep so this is what you get.
an iii: and despite caitlinxbarry being my favourite I'm not writing them why