stained - oliver & inigo
The pitter patter of raindrops colliding with tin foil roofs was almost peaceful.
Almost.
The key to every story is the almost, the could-have-been, the words following but, the sigh and explanation of what shouldn’t be. The almost, in this case, the storm raging on. Peaceful. Oliver would laugh at the idea. Weathermen calling it a super storm, a monster, breaking records and shutting out power in nearly all of Savannah.
But Oliver’s train still ran, even this late at night, even with inches of water pooling at the station like eddies along a stream. He still attended mundane classes and rode home, treading through foggy forests of please, not this again. Not another day of solitude and whispers behind closed doors, his name dancing along the tongue of those who did not understand. They seemed to be everywhere since the moment he was old enough to recognize the hatred people could harbor. People including himself.
B u t f o r o n c e, the pitter patter of raindrops didn’t bring comfort. It stormed down so hard, thunder booming in constant recessions of drum lines, that Oli forgot how to think. Mind clear except the flash of the clouds.
Ares briefly wondered if this was Zeus’ bad temperament personified.
It would be much easier to find solace in the weather if it wasn’t for the trick, trick, trickling of red from underneath Oliver’s hood. He felt it drip from a pounding (not unlike the thunder, which the two had seemed to agree on a common harmony, beating against him together) gash in his head, unable to distinguish the end and beginning of the wound. But bleed it did. He had pulled up the hood to cover it, at least for the bus ride. Red splotches dripping onto his white shirt, like the tears of hellions.
And now, the only solace he had was alone in the reverie of a ghost town of a train station bathroom, hovering over sinks with chipped paint and walls peeling themselves, holding bunches of paper towels in his fists. Pressing them to the injury, watching with hazy carelessness as they too, stained red.
Oliver barely noticed the opening door.
“S’occupied.” He mumbled, clouded from blood loss and bashed ear drums.