Bill Hader Oneshots

Rain (SNL Era)

He was soaking. Soaking, dripping, drenched. Soaked. It was all that could be expected from anyone who had spent any time at all outside in this weather. The gentle but constant roar of rain drops kamikazing into concrete filled my ears.

"Are you trying to get me evicted?" I asked, breathless. I had run down four flights of stairs, not bothering with the elevator. My building's elevator moved like a plastic bag in the wind. Sometimes in the direction you encouraged it to, but other times it moved up and down seemingly at the will of the cosmos. Frequently it would stop, pausing for a moment in space before carrying on.

All that was too much to deal with when someone was throwing rocks at your (very fragile!) apartment window. I had been eighty percent sure that the superintendent would bust out of the building behind me, yelling. No such thing had happened yet. Though, I supposed that didn't mean it wouldn't. And I really didn't want to find another place to live.
Bill didn't say anything, just watched me like I was a movie.

"Bill? Earth to Hader. Want to tell me why you're standing outside my door at two am?"

"Yes," he said finally.

"Okay, go ahead."

"No, not- Do you remember today when we killing time between rehearsals and you were trying to balance a coke bottle on one finger."
I remembered. Of course, I did, it was less than six hours ago, though it felt like days, felt like worlds apart from where I stood now on the stoop of my shitty New York apartment. I was wearing a soft nightgown, appropriate attire for melting into your bed under covers, but not for the October weather. We were shielded from the rain, but behind Bill I could see it coming down like a screen where the overhang protecting the stoop ceased. It looked as though by stepping out from beneath the overhang might be the same as stepping through a portal to a much wetter universe. It had only started raining recently. I had hear the melodic patter of showers, mock-rain, begin as I shunned out of my street clothes and prepared for bed. Earlier today it had been sunny. The first really sunny day in three weeks. That's why Bill and I had walked to the corner store that sold Coke out of real glass bottles, that's why we had taken our time on the walk back, that's why I had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk (amidst classic New Yorker protest) to point of a bird I saw then that I'd never seen before. We had strolled back to 30 Rock and waited until rehearsals began, playing around and chatting and Bill doing bits and me laughing too loud and-

"You asked me if there was something that made me know for sure I was in love."

I stared at him.

"Do you remember?" He knew I did. He just wanted me to say something, to know I was listening.

"I remember."

"The answer is yes."

"You drove to my house in the middle of the night to say 'yes?'"

"Yes." There was a beat and I thought I might start laughing, but my breath was caught in my throat in a peculiar way. The moment felt pregnant. I marveled at how strange it was that I could still think, still ramble in my own head even in this pregnant moment. A moment so thick with tension. I wasn't stupid. A guy shows up to your house, drenched in rain, talking about love. It felt wrong to think. I should be in rapt attention, focusing on what's coming next, I thought, because that's going to be important, I know it. The problem was that I had no idea what was going to come next. I shifted my weight. Even though I was maybe four feet from the rain I could feel it splashing against the ground and misting onto my bare ankles. My shoes still weren't completely on; I hadn't had a chance to put them on properly and it was too late now, whatever was coming was coming and I didn't want to scare Bill of, so my heels jutted awkward out of the back of my sneakers, the tongue of the shoe bound too tightly by the laces to allow my foot total entrance. It was a miracle I hadn't tumbled down the steps like a slinky.

Oh God, what if he's about to tell me he's in love with Kristen or something.

I realized suddenly that all this incessant thinking had happened at racing speed. It had only been a second since Bill last spoke and then his lips were moving and my heart was thudding loudly in anticipation.

"I know I'm in love when every time someone says her name I pay attention. And, um, when I read all my text messages twice before I send them to make sure I don't sound like an idiot." Instinctively, I stepped toward him. He noticed this but didn't stop.

"Well... I guess, I know I'm in love when I take a taxi at two in the morning to throw rocks at her door because I have to tell her that I love her." I was trying not to grin.

Bill Hader, you fucking sap. You movie loving romantic.

He kissed me. The October cold seemed to recede like an outgoing tide. His hand found the curve of my jaw and my arms wrapped loosely around his neck. My heels lifted and I rose to tippy toes, the balls of my feet in the middle of the soles of my shoes.

Earlier that day, when I asked him that question, he had shrugged and asked it back. I had told him I knew I was in love when I was always in a good mood with him, even when I wasn't. When things that normally made my angry or annoyed seemed charming around him. That's love, isn't it? When you see the good in the bad? Now, the spray of the rain around my ankles felt like the ocean.

We pulled away softly after a while.

"You know, you're really pulling of the classic rom-com 'soaked with rain during the dramatic confession' look," I told him.

"Am I?" he asked and swept a few tendrils of a hair that were channeling water in his eyebrows.

"Mhm," I said and kissed him again, just because I could.

"Was I really that dramatic?"

"Absolutely. I though Spielberg was hiding in the bushes with a camera somewhere," I teased playfully.

"And they said I couldn't do drama."

"What an artist."

"Hey, I'm suffering for my craft," he said earnestly, "I'm freezing out here."

"Wanna come inside?" I asked. His eyes widened slightly, realizing the words we had said.

"If you don't mind me dripping on your floors."

"Hey, you almost broke my window, you might as well." I took his hand and we walked into the unmanned lobby. The elevator made several unrequested stops to let no one in, but I paid no mind. It even seemed charming.