DISCLAIMER: I own nothing
Tomorrow
by Joodiff
Lightning briefly illuminates the hot, stuffy room, but there is no accompanying growl of thunder. Not yet. The storm hasn't quite reached the city. It will, and soon, and maybe when it does there will be a brief respite from the stifling heat. It will be unbearably humid tomorrow, when the rain has passed, and down in the CCU's basement there will be snapping and snarling as tempers fray in the confined space with its dismal lack of air-conditioning and external windows.
Not tomorrow, Grace thinks, as she soft-foots back towards the bed, trying not to disturb her somnolent companion. Not tomorrow, for it's the early hours, but later today.
Another bright flicker of lightning, briefly turning everything, inside and out, to silver. She pauses by the window, looking out through the gap in the curtains deliberately left to facilitate at least some movement of air. The night is burnt as it always is in London, the sky an ugly dull orange from the ever-increasing light pollution. The tiniest of breezes is gently stirring the leaves on the big tree by the fence. Harbinger of the storm. The temperature is still uncomfortably high – too high for restful sleep – but it has dropped a degree, maybe more.
Julie Carter is still dead. Her killer is still just an anonymous shadow capering out of their reach.
Oh, yes, tempers will fray, down in the dungeon. Heat and frustration. Anger. Resentment.
Boyd will push them the way he always pushes them. Hard, impatient.
Someone, maybe her, maybe Spencer, will eventually bite back at him, causing a storm of an altogether different nature.
Again, the world turns an eerie silver for a moment, and this time Grace thinks she hears the faintest rumble, far in the distance.
Both storms seem inevitable.
Turning back towards the bed, she is surprised to find Boyd watching her. In the gloom he is only shadows and angles, his bare skin pale against the dark sheets. How long he has been awake is a mystery. Silent and solemn he watches her. Maybe he is thinking of the storms to come, too.
"It's going to rain," she says.
There's a grunt of a reply. He's not a man renowned for wasting words. Another flash of silver slices the night. Dark eyes, deep-set and intent; the detail gone in a split-second as the lightning fades. A few steps and she's settling back down next to him, her skin immediately sticking to his. Heat and sweat, the summer's ferocity and their own. Sex and anger and love, all twisted up with the discarded bedcovers.
"You stink," Grace accuses, because he does.
"So do you," he tells her, because she does, too.
The smell of urgent sex in a soaring heatwave. Animal. Visceral. Not unpleasant at the time, but afterwards…
Tomorrow – later today – they will be dressed and clean and scented, jasmine for her, sandalwood for him. They will fight and bite and clash, and Julie Carter will still be dead when they withdraw to lick their wounds.
It's too hot, but she curls against him anyway. Waiting for the storm – the one that will bring rain – she whispers, "I love you."
This time Boyd does not grunt. This time he strokes her hair and says the words back to her, his voice a now-familiar murmur in the night.
They don't speak again, not until the rain is driving hard against the window, and the thunder is roaring over the city.
- the end -