Drinking the storm
Summary: KtR10 - The beauty of life is mirrored in a thunderstorm.
Warnings: Rese/Cass friendship
Set: Story-unrelated
A/N: This was written last fall, when the weather was similar to the one in the story. My room is directly under the roof. It was one of the most wonderful things I ever witnessed.
The boundless beauty of life is mirrored in a thunderstorm.
While flashes hunt each other and open up jagged scars in the black cover of night, the world is cast into an eerie half-darkness. The storm pelts the windows. The clattering and splashing of water on a hardened surface is a sound absolutely unique. Along with the howling of the wind tearing at the half-open windows, it provides an atmosphere of breathtaking beauty.
It's a display of the wild, undeterred force of nature.
Thunder shakes the roof as the strumming rain increases. Lightning strikes, once, twice, immediately chased after by thunder. The air smells different. Lively and pure. Indescribably strange and yet strikingly familiar. After a week's worth of heat and sunshine the night chases away the last remnants of summer by letting Heaven's wrath crash down on sleeping, unsuspecting and unpremeditated human beings. Most of them scramble deeper under their covers, close the windows and pull down the blinds. Most try to ignore the proof that nature still has undeterred dominance over the fragile beings that walk on Earth.
Rese opens the window.
She loves the wildness of the storm, the lightning that adds sharp and jagged cuts to the soft image of the world. She loves the scent of nature, of wet wood and drenched asphalt, of mud and grass and trees. She loves the distant rumble of thunder, sometimes rolling in slowly, sometimes coming in sharp, crackling bursts that make her flinch. She loves the rain, never-ending, cascading, sacred rain. And she loves its sound, its smell and its touch on her bare skin. Heaven is lamenting, overflowing with grief and sadness and anger. But in every tear, every sob, it demonstrates its unwillingness to give up. The rain tells about losses and despair. The lightning is anger and defiance. The thunder is strength and trust.
Rese loves the storm.
Cassidy sometimes thinks that maybe Rese has been born during such a storm like the one they are witnessing now. It suits her. Her dark hair is a flame of black water. Her face is relaxed as she breathes in the scent of the rain deeply. Her eyes take in the ragged lightning and the short intervals of landscape visible between the bolts. Her entire figure leans towards the window and though it isn't opened entirely a few droplets of rain touch her skin. They seem to caress her, softly and gently, and he catches himself feeling jealousy rising like acid in his throat. He'll never be able to have her like he wants to. She is like the storm: impossible to catch and impossible to hold on to. Wild and free, and nobody can stop her when she has something in mind.
He finally mounts the last stairs to the attic and stops again to watch her. Wind plays in her hair. Her entire figure is absorbing the strength of the thunder storm, drawing energy from it like others draw energy from sunshine and food. From where he stands he can feel the soft, cool wind tug at him but he refuses to give in, to surrender to it the way Rese surrenders to the storm. He resists and watches her instead. His eyes take in her figure greedily, her muscled arms and legs. Her slender shoulders that can carry so much more than they should be able to carry. Her head, held high even while she holds her ground against the storm. Her hands rest on either side of her, softly sitting on the window sill. Here, right under the roof, the storm is even louder than downstairs. The constant drumming of the rain colors the silence and hides him until he finally decides to step closer.
Cassidy comes up behind her. He leans forward and breathes in the soft scent of her still-wet hair.
Rese is so distracted she only notices him when he slips his arms around her and she can feel his breath close to her ear. Instinctively, she tenses. The sky is illuminated by a pair of brilliant lightning bolts and she holds her breath. The picture she sees is so beautiful she wants to cry. She wants to cry – and, at the same moment, she wants to laugh. Wants to fly, to join the lightning in its dance, wants to feel the rain on her face and the wind in her hair. She wants to breathe in the raw, pure force of nature.
What anchors her to earth, to the floor of the dusty, dark attic, is a pair of strong, lean arms dotted with freckles. Carefully, she relaxes into Cass's embrace and leans back, closing her eyes for the first time since the storm began. It is slowly losing strength. The pelting rain is reduced to a small splattering against the window-panes. The lightning flashes a last time and dies. The thunder recedes. Darkness covers them again, impenetrable, and suddenly she feels the cold wind brushing her face. The figure behind her radiates warmth.
Rese is like the storm. He cannot pin her down, hold her, define her as something she is or isn't. It's impossible. Like the storm she is quick and strong and beautiful and fearful at the same time. She is oddly vulnerable and defensive in moments and angry and aggressive in others. The stunning beauty of her character is laced with her faults, as is the storm and the rain. But it's so much more human. So much more beautiful.
It wasn't until he met Rese that Cassidy learned to love the storm, as well.
Sometimes Rese wonders why on earth it is that she can still feel this deep connection to Cassidy even though they have known each other for years now. He is so much to her: her best friend, her hunting partner, the only person she trusts entirely and the only one who would ever be allowed to touch her like that. Contentedly, she sighs and lets him hold her. Dying lightning shapes the world one last time, illuminates the storm in all its brilliance and beauty.
She loves the storm.
Cass feels her relax as she leans into him and is content with just holding her.
Friends.
Right now, it's fine with him.