Title: Little Things, written for sm_monthly theme "Spider"

Raye was just about to slip on her shoe when she noticed it, and thank God that she did; otherwise, her reaction would have been far more devastating and much more likely to end in total mental breakdown and property damage. The rush of panic was so sudden and overwhelming that she felt her throat release a scream before she could realize and stifle it.

"AAH! Ew! Ew! Ew! MINA! Help, Mina help help!" She backed away, bleating helplessly. "Ew, Oh GOD, gross, ew!"

Mina had just finished pulling her hair back into a ponytail, and was frozen with both arms above her head like a stickup, a hank of blonde in each hand. "Rei, what is it?"

They had finished the show an hour earlier. All the other Sugars had already left, with their friends, partners, hanger-ons, and a professional athlete or two, leaving Raye and Mina to finish getting dressed before packing it in. Raye danced around the dressing room, scratching at her bare arms. "There's a dead spider in my shoe."

Mina's mouth dropped as she clapped her hands to her face. "Oh, yuck! Yuck!"

"Get rid of it!"

"No way!" Mina backed away from the innocent-looking black pumps like they hid a pound of C-4.

"I'm not touching it! I hate their legs!" It must have been the complimentary Hangar One she had been sipping all night, because the squealing level was rising to a new high watermark as she fell over Mina in the rush to the doorway. Raye practically yanked it off its hinges. "Darien!"

The figure at the end of the hallway, dressed impeccably in a dark suit with no tie, his matte silver shirt unbuttoned at the top, gestured impatiently at the phone stuck to his ear.

Raye kept on him. "Please, please Darien! Darien, come here! We need you!"

He let them jump around for a few more hysterical minutes before finishing his call and hanging up. "OK, I expect this out of Mina, so what is your excuse for acting like a freaking lunatic?"

"Spider!" she spat. In her haste, she forgot to berate him for his assholey choice of words. "In my shoe! Please, please go and get it out!"

Darien scoffed. "Heeeell no! I fucking hate spiders! What, you think that because I'm the guy that it's my job or something to dispose of disgusting-assed crawlies?"

"Yes!" Raye barked, disregarding everything she had said previously about gender roles

"Fuck that! I hate their goddamn little crawlie legs!"

Mina hopped from foot to foot like a child that had to use the restroom. "Oh my GOD, you're kidding me. You SUCK."

Darien's face darkened. "Well, screw you! I'm not going to kill it!"

"I'm not either," Mina whined from the doorway. They were silent for a moment, as Raye fidgeted nervously in place, before Darien came to an executive decision.

"Get Mako. We'll have her flush it."

Mina jogged off, ponytail swinging. "I'll try and get her before she leaves! She was going to go out with Jason's friend but I think they're still in the back!" She rounded the corner and burst through the double doors, leaving Darien and Raye alone in the hallway.

She purposely avoided Darien's eyes.

Naturally, he picked up on it like a shark scenting blood in the water. "Raye, what's the matter?" he asked brusquely.

She made a dramatic display of nonchalance. "Nothing," she said, leaning against the wall, her arms crossed tightly across her body like a pretzel. Internally, she knew what was coming; it was pretty much unavoidable, and ignoring the elephant in the room was turning it into a dinosaur. A ten thousand pound winged dinosaur with lasers shooting out of its eyes.

"Are you acting weird towards me because we had sex?"

Raye hoped that he didn't notice her cringing, but she didn't hide it very well. "Yes."

He fiddled with the case on his phone. "You told me it wouldn't be an issue."

"I know," she muttered, her face growing hot. It hadn't been—at the time. He had caught her doing—that—after a show last week, alone in the dressing room, still wearing her stage getup of white lingerie and garters, with a plastic rosary around her neck. She had been lost in the moment, sweating slightly and inching towards release, when he had barged in unexpectedly. She knew her eyes had widened as much as his at that moment, both of them lost to shock, before he rushed to her and pinned her up against the wall, attacking with his mouth. She had kissed him back, wet and frantic, like she was drowning. It wasn't a far step for them: he was her friend, and her agent; they had known each other for years. He saw her practically naked on a weekly basis.

She had forgotten herself as he threw himself into her without a moment's hesitation and fucked her completely senseless.

Back in this hallway, in this time, she sighed. "It just can't happen again."

"Was I that bad?" he laughed, trying for a joke to break the tension, and let it slide away as it died. He straightened unnecessarily, his eyes dark. "Why? Because of Trista?"

"No, not because of her." Although the fact that he had a girlfriend was a pretty clear motivator, Raye thought, before deciding to just come out with it. After all, if she couldn't be honest with someone who had been inside of her, who could she be honest with? "It's—you really want to hear this?"

He moved close enough to face her; before last week, she would have no problem with the proximity. "Yes, I do."

His voice was gentle at that moment, just like his face. If he had been someone other than Darien, and she had been someone other than Raye, perhaps he would have touched her face, or drawn her closer to comfort her with an embrace. But he was Darien, and she was Raye, so they stood on opposite ways of the hallway and stared at each other until she continued.

"Because I want someone, too, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, OK?"

He looked slightly startled at that admission. A smile crossed his face, and it was probably the first time that Raye saw him without his guard up. "What's wrong with me?"

Her eyes dropped to the floor, and back up to his eyes before answering. "Well, besides the fact that you've been cheating on your girlfriend for years?"

"Don't throw that at me. Trista and I are mutually dysfunctional."

"Even so," she said. "There's a woman out there somewhere, and she's going to be the one you settle down for. And I know I'm not her."

"You don't know that."

"Yeah, I do. Darien," she moved forward boldly, closing the space between their bodies to mere inches. He hitched in his breath. "I know I'm not her. And I don't want to trick myself into thinking I could be her, because then I'd be pretending and lying to myself, and I'd be so hung up on thinking that I might be her, that…that I'd miss him, when he does come along." She let out her breath and stared at the ceiling. "Whoever he is. I'd wish he'd hurry up and find me, already."

Somewhere in another room, people were shouting and slamming cases shut, the clamor muffled slightly through the walls.

Darien cleared his throat. "Raye?"

She looked at him. "Hm?"

He touched her on the arm and squeezed it before speaking. "You're going to make some guy fall absolutely fucking ass-backwards in love with you." He held her gaze, as if daring her to disagree with him.

Something passed between them. "You really think I'll find a guy to put up with my temper?" she smirked, feeling some of the tension that had been pressing down on her evaporate like dead mist.

Darien smiled back, wide and genuine. "You really think I'll find a girl that will make me settle down?"

She thought briefly of letting a burn fly out, but what came out of her mouth was: "I do."

He dropped her arm and backed up against the wall, running a hand through his usually perfect hair. "I sure hope so." He shrugged. "But you know, if I don't?" he said, raising his eyebrows at her suggestively.

Raye knew what to do. "Mmm, it wasn't the best I've had."

He scoffed. "Oh bullshit, I had you moaning. Never would have pegged you as a moaner, Raye. I think they heard you in Moscow."

"And you," she said, leaning back and smiling, relieved that the sentimentality was over. "What a dirty mouth."

"It gets the job done," he smirked.

She was about to say something artfully scathing when Mina pounded through the double doors, Makoto following closely on her heels. "I got her!"

Raye gave him one last look before pulling Makoto to the dressing room door. "It's in the left one. Please, please get it out intact; I don't want spider guts smeared all over my insole."

Makoto rolled her eyes as she opened the door, armed with only a single tissue. "You should be the one doing this, Darien. You big pussy."

"I'll get you a raise, baby. Now go kill."

"Brave girl," Mina muttered, twisting the end of her ponytail. "But I guess she's used to it; Noah's a freaking slob. My brother found a half-eaten Pop-tart under the couch with a dead mouse stuck to it."

Raye blinked at the mention of Mina's brother, but shook it off as Makoto returned, holding a crumpled tissue aloft. The three of them visibly recoiled away from her. "Good news! It wasn't a spider!"

"Really?" Raye frowned. Maybe she had overreacted.

Makoto grinned and held out the tissue. "No, it's a cockroach. Oh, and it's still alive."

Mina screamed and shot down the hallway like a cannonball, with Raye and Darien bringing up the rear. Makoto's laugh followed the retreat. "You guys! How can you be scared of something so little?"

Raye allowed herself one glance at the dark-haired man running alongside of her before turning away and calling back down the hall to her laughing friend. "Little things can hurt, too."