ext_20269: (mood - black dreams)
[identity profile] annwfyn.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] writing_shadows
The café had been a small and cramped one. It was really a sandwich shop, with two small tables jammed uncomfortably in the back, but the coffee it served was good and the hot chocolate was the best in Cambridge. Rain had had a large mug of cinnamon hot chocolate, and combined with the brown eyes and soft slow smile of the man sitting opposite her it had made her feel warm to the tips of her toes. Looking at her companion, and with some dismay Rain had realized that she definitely had the most awful crush on her supervisor.


*****************



There should be a word for the process of walking through autumn leaves, Rain thought. Just like there should be a word for the exact colour of candlelight, or the sensation you felt when someone you loved put their arms around you.

Maybe while she was at it, she could find words for all the different ways that colours smelled, or the thousand different kinds of shadow you could make with a paintbrush. But first, she would settle for a phrase to describe the exact, shoe crunching, bounce inspiring and all round glorious sensation of walking through the autumn leaves.


*****************



“Do you want to do something for Halloween?” Rain asked. The words sort of came out in an odd rush, tumbling off her tongue like boulders. Solomon looked startled, and a little embarrassed.

“I…I…I don’t know…” he said and Rain felt her heart sink. Something of what she felt must have shown in her face, because Solomon went a little red around his ears and shook his head, more flustered than ever before.

“I…I mean…no…I don’t mean…”

He paused, and took a very deep breath. His eyes were very bright when he looked at Rain.

“Yes. I would love to.”


*****************



Rain had always loved Halloween. It didn’t quite match Christmas, when she and Poppy had indulged in crazed and competitive orgies of present buying (and her father had always grumbled that he’d have to work twice as hard next year just to finance the bloody pair of them) but it had its own special magic. She especially loved carving pumpkins. She could spend hours working on her pumpkins, shaping noses, mouths, eyes and ears. Sometimes she would give up on giving them faces and instead carve gleaming scenes of witches, cats, wolves and bats, dancing across a rich orange sky.


*****************



“I love him, mum,”

Maggie didn’t say anything at first, but surveyed her daughter with a frown. Really, she supposed, she should have seen this coming. Theresa was never going to settle down with a nice boy who they could bring into the family business, was she?

Maggie suspected it was her fault for sending the twins to that posh school. It had seemed such a good idea at the time, but fifteen years on, she had to admit she did worry a little. Still, it could have been worse. At least Terri hadn’t gone and turned into an accountant.


*****************



Cooking with Sol was one of her joys.

Rain had never much bothered with cooking at home – her mother did that, reigning over the kitchen with a will of iron and a ladle that could and had doubled as a lethal weapon. But here, in this tiny flat in an almost nice part of Cambridge, she grew to love it. She and Sol loved to experiment; pumpkin risotto, watercress soup, duck a la lemon (which was like duck a l’orange but sharper and lighter).

After dinner they would curl up on the sofa and drift off to sleep in each other’s arms.


*****************



“Bloody ‘ell,” Poppy commented. “That looks just like ‘im, that does,”

Rain grinned, although technically Poppy was saying that Sol looked like a pumpkin which wasn’t exactly the nicest of things to say about her boyfriend. Still, she had carved this one remarkably well.

“I’ll make another later,” she said. “It’ll look like me. I’m setting them up together in the window of the new flat. It feels like a good omen, I think.”

“A good omen?” Poppy said.

Rain nodded firmly, the other words staying locked instead her head.

I think we’ll be together until we are both dead.

Date: 2011-10-07 11:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] castorlion.livejournal.com
Bah! Nary a mention!

Clearly your twin brother just doesn't matter to you. *sulk*

Date: 2011-10-07 02:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lslaw.livejournal.com
That was delightful.

In my defence, Solomon the Geist version began life in an Elseworld, and in Elseworld fic I always kill your PCs (well, sometimes other people's, but yours an alarming amount of the time).

Also, it was the sweetness, the security of the relationship that made the whole thing work; a love that transcended his abject terror of her family was of course a love that would transcend death. Rain was absolutely the one thing that Solomon came back for; tragedy demanded, therefore, that his choice result in him losing her.

Actually writing her death was one of the hardest pieces I've done, even though in the end there wasn't any real detail.
Edited Date: 2011-10-07 10:17 pm (UTC)

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