TITLE: Storm

FANDOM: CSI: Miami

NOTES: writers_choice: rain

Speedle POV, post-‘Dispo Day’

It was a waterfall that fell that night, slamming the window pane over and over until he’d cranked up the stereo to drown it out. Drown the water. Hah.

Strangely poetic, he mused, that there should be a storm, a torrent of Furies, and all for him, it seemed, and the darkness behind the glass. He’d never been fond of this deep, profound shit, but this time, it bled into his consciousness as water seeped through the crack in the ceiling he had never fixed, never got round to.

He’d found the note on the fridge, the reminder that guns need cleaning. As if his aching ribs and aching soul weren’t reminder enough. And still, the water fell against the aging window, and he looked into the darkness to see more swelling clouds, with no break for the moon or the stars.

Light obscured, eclipsed, and metaphor was a bitter medicine, wasn’t it? He knew he’d screwed up, only had to look in Calleigh’s eyes, in H’s. Their words meant nothing, all spiky, uneven lines on a screen, no substance, no truth. He wanted the truth.

So, numbed by the alcohol and the clattering lullaby, he only wanted to sleep, to drift. If only he weren’t caught in another storm, another time. Where water was cool metal that could Stop. You. Dead. And Hollis knew all about that, didn’t he?

He’d been saved by a vest and an incompetent thief, but he had to face their eyes and their lies, and he wondered for a moment if it was all really worth it, if CSI was worth it. He honestly didn’t know any more.

Then, the window blew in. Ducking to the side, the glass missed him by a fraction, embedding in walls and furniture and clutter. The tempest whipped at the room, carding through his hair like a lover, kissing his face with moisture. This could be absolution, he thought, a sign. If he believed in signs.

No, just another storm, another angry mystery with too many variables and not enough truth. As he sat in the dark, the rain soaked his life, drenched his dreams and blew him a metal-edged memory.

He just had to wait out the storm.