Shiny Demon

How Come I See You in the Rain

Seb stared blankly out the rain-spattered window of the hotel. The suite was unsettlingly quiet and stuffy, save for the anxious sounds coming from Viv as she tried to reach the outside world. The power had been out since early that morning.

Viv released a grunt of frustration and she pressed the screen more forcefully as though that might make the internet comply. "Nothing is going through!"

Seb said nothing. He knew she wasn't really talking to him. He was just the only live body in the vicinity. Nicky and Elladine had gone off to their room to "nap" or so they said. Viv had the bedroom to herself, since he'd made camp on the sofa in the common area, but she insisted on hanging out in there with him, since she believed sitting on a bed all day would give her too many ticks in the lazy column from whatever all-seeing judge whose opinion she was alway bothering with.

He should have brought a book. It was embarrassing really. How useless and bored he felt without his phone. He'd always scoffed at Viv's mentions of a digital detox, but maybe there was something to it. He didn't know what to do with himself if he couldn't listen to music, text, read the news, or look at pictures of Doom. He had no distraction from thinking of Stevie.

He felt physically sore from how much he missed her. It was brutal on a gut level to be torn away so unceremoniously from someone he'd been dying to see for so long, especially now that he'd admitted it to himself. Someone he always craved to be around, even when he was angry at her. That was the nice thing about her. They could be stroppy with each other and not worry that the other would throw the whole baby out with the bathwater. Except, of course, for when they both did exactly that. When they'd gotten too close and dug into each other's sore parts before they were ready for it and had to snap back away like melted plastic curling back from a flame.

His head was still spinning from what she'd told him. He should be relieved that she didn't sleep with Rafi, right?

Seb knew she had feelings for him. But he didn't know that she had admitted it to herself. He assumed she was numbing out with sex and avoiding her feelings. But she was actually feeling everything. Seb meant something to her... And still she pushed him away and shut them down without even asking him how he actually felt. It was a particular brand of cruelty that scared the everloving shite out of him. And it hurt like hell. The idea of going through that again...

She did seem different now, though. He didn't think that was just his wishful thinking. There was a softness now that she hadn't allowed before. He recalled the way she'd kiss the other guys in the Villa. Ferociously. Like an animal ready to be attacked at any moment. Never let them catch her with her back turned. But this past week when he'd kissed her, she dropped her defences. A soft sigh, tension abandoning her shoulders, a blossom unfurling.

"Ooh! I got an alert on Insta!" Viv gasped. "A message from AJ!"

She still wasn't talking to him so much as to the air, but it interrupted his thoughts nonetheless. He rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the rain. He would've really liked looking at the rain with Stevie.

"Oh no." Viv's frantic typing stopped abruptly. "They're not going to make it to Ibiza."

He snapped his focus onto Viv. "What?"

Her eyes scanned down the screen. "This is terrible! They're all flying out tomorrow."

His mind scurried, trying to gain purchase against the slick, hard edge of this news. "They can't just leave." Panic swept a cold sweat over his skin. A second ago in his mind, Stevie was opening like a flower in his arms. Now she was slipping away completely, getting on a plane and getting further and further out of reach.