All That's Gold is Gilt || Ben & Ruby
It was raining, which was always nice.
Just dandy it was. How he so appreciated its natural affinity for soaking every fibre of thread that it touched when you had the misfortune of being outside in it, and the talent it had for fogging up windows and running droplets across them in rivulets as his car moved with what amounted to grace throughout the dusky city-streets of Chicago.
He remembered that as a child before he went to bed his mother would tell him stories that the rain was the tears of the angels, and upon asking just what they had to cry about, she responded that they grieved as the people not of the heavens below them did, their beautiful souls offering them pity in their most melancholy of hours.
On the day of her funeral, the sun had shone thick through the air, with not a single drop of rain.
Perhaps the angels were not so inclined to share everyone's pain.
With languid eyes, Ben peered through the fogged windscreen to take note of the passing street signs that were so familiar to him, illuminated by the low glow of street lamps. It would've been several years ago now that he met first Ruby Quick, which meant that... well, that it would've been several years ago that he would've found himself in the similar position of driving to her apartment at not entirely reasonable hours.
Those visits had been less on the professional side of things, however; but tonight, tonight it was all business. Strictly business.
And god damn if he didn't hate business.
The car turned into the way where Ruby lived, and he pulled it to a seamless halt outside, the tyres slicking up the water of the kerb underneath the tread. As soon as he stepped outside he could instantly feel the the run-off of water from his hair onto his face, and he didn't waste much time in the dash up to the doorstep, making his way up to where he knew Ruby's apartment to be be.
The tap, tap, tap upon the door signalled his presence, resounding in the otherwise silent hall, and with the usual sparks of a usual grin, he waited.