the blood in our future

When Weather Calls

A/N: Hope everyone's having a good night/day! :)

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By the time he and Lucy had made their way into the auditorium, the hall was almost entirely packed already.

This came as no surprise to Lockwood. The conditions outside were worsening by the minute. The wind was blowing stronger and stronger now, pretending to lay off only to come back with fingers even more frostbitten.

There was thunder, too. He was pretty sure he'd heard the first roar of it only seconds ago. A low rumble in the distance, ready to make the earth quiver in fear; ready to shake it to its core, to split it right open and spit out something unrecognisable.

As a child, Lockwood had been afraid of thunderstorms. Especially right after his parents' death.

His parents had died in a car accident so violent it had sparked an explosion. They had died in fire and in smoke and in heat. They'd died in a light so blinding they'd become it.

Lockwood hadn't been there, but when his eyes had closed, he'd seen it all the same. Even back then, he'd had enough of an imagination for visions of it to nestle inside of his head.

He'd heard the bang, heard their screams, indistinguishable first from the screeching of the tires, then from the car caving in on itself. He'd felt, he'd smelt the ash on his skin, dark and revolting. He'd seen how little had remained, after the yellow and the orange and the black, of the people who'd been supposed to come back home to him.

Even before, he'd been scared of thunderstorms. Kids oftentimes were. But after his parents had died? It had been a different beast entirely.

Suddenly, he hadn't just been afraid of a little loud noise. He hadn't just been afraid that, out of every house in London, lightning would find theirs in a malicious heartbeat.

No, he had been afraid that it would find him. Even under his thickest blankets. Even with books blocking out every window.

Anthony had been afraid that, once it struck, once light flashed and thunder exploded, nothing but charred earth would be left. He had been afraid that he'd die just like his parents had, in fire and in smoke and in heat.

His sister, always older, always wiser, had tried to calm him down however she could.

As soon as the bad weather warnings had started coming in over the radio, she had hidden with him under his many blankets. She had taken out her flashlight, turned off every other lamp in the house so that lightning would not see them, and read aloud to him from some children's book or another.

She had tickled him once the rain started pattering against the roof, against the windows.

She had made up stories with growling monsters once thunder set in, drowning out its rumbles with her voice for as long as possible.

And she had held him tight once lightning finally came. Once he was nothing but a scared, shivering mess, and no blanket could warm him. Once all he was able to see, able to feel and smell, was the explosion, over and over and over again.

Jessica had never asked him why he was so afraid of thunderstorms in a house protected by a lightning rod, in a house that could not catch fire because of them. Nowadays, Lockwood assumed she'd already known.

Lightning had found their parents. Why shouldn't it come for him?

Only it hadn't. Lightning had never come for him.

It had come for Jessica, instead.

This was what made him lose his fear of it: The knowledge that however much he begged it to take him, however often he stepped outside, however high he climbed at the height of the storm - Lightning would never come for him.