Author's Note: Back again... on the road again... but not really because I'm writing not driving... again..?
What is my life...?
Prompt for this month is from Terces Tardis!
'Julian and Caitlin go on a boat ride and things go wrong.'
"I didn't know you liked sailing," Caitlin commented as Julian led her down the pier towards a large sail boat. It was striped blue and grey, with the name Zipper stenciled across it's hull.
Julian laughed. "I can't sail to save my life," he told her, turning just before the sail boat and gesturing at a smaller vessel tied to the dock. "This motor boat, however, I can handle just fine."
Caitlin grinned. "Of course it would be too much of me to think that a hard-working metahuman specialist who lives only in collard shirts and slacks would actually be able to handle a sail boat."
Julian rolled his eyes, pushing up the sleeves of his aforementioned collard shirt a bit self-consciously. "I wear clothes other than this," he mumbled, pouting a little.
"I was kidding, Julian," Caitlin sighed, shaking her head. She was dressed in a casual short sleeve shirt and jean shorts, and Julian thought she looked young and cute and wind-swept gorgeous, not that he would ever say that aloud.
"Right," he said. "Are you going to get in or should we just stand here and look at her?"
"Oh no, you're not one of those people that refer to boats as a 'her', are you?" Caitlin groaned, accepting his hand and letting him help her into his boat. She settled in the seat facing rear, right next to the drivers spot. "I've never understood that."
Julian shrugged and untied the rope that held the boat to the dock. He then followed her inside the vessel, sitting down in the drivers chair and putting a key into the ignition. "I've never really thought about it. She can be an it if you would prefer that."
"It's fine, Julian," Caitlin responding, shaking her head a little. "Now where are we going?"
"Well..." Julian started the boat and carefully steered it away from the dock. Caitlin smiled as she saw the small furrow of concentration between his eyebrows that always appeared when he was focusing on something. "There's this small island a bit away from the mainland. I've... never actually been there, to tell the truth, but I found it on a map."
Caitlin laughed. "So for all we know it could be inhabited by half-civilized donkeys?"
Julian glanced at her, giving her an odd look. "It... could? I guess?"
He turned his attention back to the water around them and Caitlin did the same. It was a warmish, windy day with about three puffy clouds dotting the horizon.
"I think there might be drinks in the cooler," Julian said after awhile, nodding over his shoulder at a small red cooler resting in the bottom of the boat.
Caitlin got up and grabbed onto the center pole to keep her balance as she moved over to the cooler. She grabbed herself a beer and looked up at Julian. "Want one?"
Julian grinned and shook his head. "No drinking and driving, remember?"
"Right, sorry," Caitlin said, laughing. She sat back down and opened her beer, taking a sip. It was icy cold and completely delicious.
After a couple of minutes, Caitlin began to see some large, dark clouds rolling in from the horizon. She squinted up at them, using her hand to block her eyes from the sun. "Julian? Aren't those clouds moving a bit... fast?"
Julian slowed the boat down and looked up, too. He frowned. "It wasn't supposed to rain today. I checked the forecast right before we left, just to be safe. I'm pretty sure there was a zero percent chance of rain all the way until 5:30."
Caitlin glanced down at her hand as a droplet of wet hit it. The rain made the back of her hand look all shiny, and she glanced up at the sky. Another drop hit her cheekbone, then just above her left eyebrow.
Julian winced as he began to feel the rain, too. "Maybe it's just a passing shower?" he suggested hopefully.
Caitlin eyed the dark clouds, which seemed to stretch out for miles in every direction. She murmured a dubious "maybe", however, not wanting to get Julian all freaked out and worried.
Pulling out her phone, Caitlin looked up the weather. She tapped her foot impatiently as the site loaded, and once it did, she frowned. Then she checked if she she was even looking at the weather for the right place, and turned her phone towards Julian so he could see.
By this point, Julian had stopped the boat. They rocked and bobbed in the steadily worsening waves, and Julian almost lost his balance as he leaned forward to peer at her phone screen.
"It says it's still sunny," he said, confused.
"With a zero percent chance of rain," Caitlin agreed. "Weird?"
"Indeed..." Julian murmured.
Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance and Julian shot a nervous glance at the sky. "We need to get to land," he said, starting the boat back up. "I've got a lightning rod on this thing-"
"You have a lightning rod on here?" Caitlin asked incredulously.
Julian shrugged. "Well, Allen got struck by lightning, the Speed Force is always making lightning storms, and there are metahumans out there that can control weather. So yes, I had Cisco put a lightning rod on my boat, just in case."
Caitlin tilted her head. "Fair point," she acknowledged.
Julian increased the gas and the small motor boat shot through the waves. Caitlin squinted through the steadily increasing rainfall. "I think there's land over there!" she called over the sound of the wind. "Just turn left a little."
"I see it!" Julian vociferated back. "We're almost-"
Just then, the sound of the motor abruptly began to splutter. The boat jerked forward a couple more feet and then everything went quiet.
Julian swore loudly and hit his palm against the steering where. Caitlin grabbed her purse and placed it under her seat to prevent it from getting wet before getting to her feet. She grabbed the center pole again, but Julian sent her a hurried look. "Keep away from that," he warned. "That's our lightning rod and if lightning strikes you're going to get fried."
Caitlin quickly retracted her hand and walked over towards the back seat of the boat. She grimaced as she found the seat all wet but kneeled on it anyway, peering over the side at the motor.
"I can call Cisco," she offered. "See if he can walk us through fixing this thing."
"Well, uh, I already know what the problem is," Julian mumbled, seeming embarrassed. "There's, uh... there's no gas."
Caitlin raised her eyebrow. "There's... no gas."
"Right," Julian agreed. "Which, um, shouldn't be the case, but I, uh... I guess I just forgot to fill it up?"
Caitlin groaned, planting her head in her hands. Julian winced and pulled the key out of the ignition so he could join her at the back of the boat.
More thunder rumbled, and a flash of lightning lit up the darkened sky. Caitlin shivered. It had dropped at least ten degrees since they set out, and the cold rain and sea spray from the waves wasn't helping.
"What are we going to do?" Caitlin asked dejectedly, watching as another strike of lightning flashed. She thought she might have even seen the actually bolt hit the water in the distance, but it was too far away and gone too fast to tell.
Julian opened his mouth, then closed it again. "I... there might be some oars in the bottom of the boat?"
Caitlin nodded and both of them began to search the boat. Caitlin found a life vest (helpful), the cooler (unhelpful unless they got thirsty or needed ice packs for something), and a couple of granola bar wrappers (unhelpful). Julian didn't do much better.
There were no oars in the boat.
More lightning flashes were lighting up the sky now, and Caitlin mentally counted the spaces between rumbles of thunder. The storm was close, if not right on top of them.
"It still says it's sunny," she sighed, taking another glance at the weather channel. "I don't understand what's causing this."
"I'm surprised you've got connection out here," Julian said.
"I'm going to try to call Cisco," Caitlin said, going to his contact and pressing call. "He might be able to vibe us out of here."
Before she could say another word, a terrific crash of thunder rumbled and the air around them turned staticky. The largest (or maybe just closest) lightning bolt that Caitlin had ever seen shot down from a cloud and hit the water right next to them. At the same moment, a huge wave sprang up behind them, turning the boat on it's side.
Caitlin screamed, and went under. She floundered towards the surface of the water only to find that the boat had capsized and she was under it. She found her phone still clenched in her hand, and quickly stuffed it in the tight back pocket of her shorts. Then, arms trembling with cold and shock, Caitlin shoved at the boat, trying to get it to turn back over.
Not succeeding, Caitlin took a huge breath and swam under the side of the boat. Her head bobbed above the water again to Julian yelling her name.
"Caitlin!" he hollered, frantically searching the water. "Caitlin!"
"I'm right here!" Caitlin called back. She caught sight of her purse, floating in the water, and gratefully swam for it. Her license, money, and credit card were all in there, and it was a relief to know that she wasn't going to lose them.
Awkwardly putting the bag over her shoulder in the water, Caitlin continued towards Julian. He had managed to grab the life vest, and he offered her a hold on it as they bobbed in the waves.
"We need to get out of this water, now," Julian said urgently. Another sequence of thunder and lightning echoed in the sky, and he glanced up. "As in, right now."
Keeping one hand on the life vest so the waves wouldn't pull her under, Caitlin reached into her back pocket for her phone. Thankfully it was still there. "I'm going to activate the Flash signal," she explained to Julian. "Even if they can't help, at least they'll know where we are."
He nodded, and Caitlin held her breath as she turned her phone on. Please still work please still work please please please still work...
It did.
"Oh thank God," Caitlin breathed, rushing to get to the Flash alert app just in case the water decided that it was going to break her phone before she could. She pressed the center button, and it told her the signal had been activated.
"Well," Julian said awkwardly after a silence passed where Caitlin stared at her phone, waiting. "I think maybe we should try and swim to shore. I don't care how fast Allen is- we could still get hit by lightning before he arrives."
Caitlin nodded quickly as she secured her phone in her floating purse. She and Julian began to swim towards land.
It was slow going. Caitlin wasn't a very good swimmer, having grown up in a basically land-locked city her whole life. The waves were rough and they kept crashing over her and Julian's head, which made it even more difficult to get to land.
After what felt like a half hour but was probably only about ten minutes, Caitlin stopped swimming and grasped onto the life vest to catch her breath. She wiped the wet strings of hair out of her face, breathing heavily.
"I really don't feel like we've gotten any closer," Julian groaned, staring out at the land mass they were heading to. A wave lifted up and crashed over his head, but he popped back up in an instant, wiping water from his eyes with an annoyed look on his face.
"Me either," Caitlin panted, shutting her eyes for a moment and wishing that she had somewhere she could sit down. Swimming was not her strong suit. "I don't understand why Team Flash isn't coming to help."
Julian shrugged. "I really don't know," he admitted. "Maybe your phone was damaged from the water, and the signal didn't go through?"
"It's possible..." Caitlin murmured skeptically. Then she sighed "We should keep going."
They kept swimming. After awhile, Caitlin noticed that she could touch the ocean floor. She and Julian exchanged glances and kept going. Soon enough, the beach they had spotted from across the water was underneath their feet.
Caitlin collapsed to the sand, chest heaving. She shut her eyes and relaxed for a moment, rain still hammering down on her face. Julian threw himself next to her, the life vest still gripped in one hand.
He reached out with the other and brushed Caitlin's hair away from her face. "We did it," he panted, victorious.
"Yeah..." Caitlin murmured, forcing herself to sit up. "Where exactly did we get to, though?"
Julian glanced around him, unsure of the answer to her question. They were on an island, definitely, with a small beach surrounded by long grasses and, further back, a woods. Caitlin couldn't spot any houses, but it was hard to see through the trees.
They were about to get to their feet and try and find some shelter among the trees when the sound of lightning made Caitlin look up.
But not the thunder kind of lightning.
Speed lightning.
"Barry," Caitlin breathed, relieved.
Barry skidded to a stop beside them, sand flying up into Julian's face. The blond coughed and gave Barry a dirty look. "Thanks, Allen. Great timing."
"Sorry, guys," Barry responded, wincing. "Mark Mardin broke out of prison and we had to get him neutralized. This sudden storm was just an aftershock of what he was doing in the city."
"It's fine, Barry," Caitlin sighed, shaking her head. "Just take us home."
After Barry had flashed them back to Julian's apartment and the two of them had taken hot showers and dried off, they both landed on the couch, exhausted. Not having a pair of dry clothes, Caitlin had dressed in one of Julian's dress shirts and a pair of his shorts held up with a belt. It was an interesting style, but Julian thought she looked rather cute.
"Well, thank you for a nice day, Julian," Caitlin said after a long silence. Her purse was hanging in the entryway over a heat vent and her phone was in a bag of rice. She couldn't leave until her clothes were done in the dryer, but she didn't totally mind.
"Nice?" Julian spluttered. "How was that nice?"
"Well, the first part was, anyway," Caitlin grinned. "And I got enough exercise to last me the rest of this week. So I'd say it was pretty good."
Julian laughed and placed his arm around her shoulders, kissing her temple. "Glad I could make you happy."
Caitlin smiled up at him. "You always make me happy."
Author's Note: MY GOODNESS THAT WAS CLOSE! Like, dude! I am right on the edge for posting time! I honestly thought I wasn't gonna be able to get this in on time :P
