Braving The Storm

That night was dark and foggy, thick clouds masked all the natural light in the gloomy night sky, only the dim flickering light of the old rusty street lamps lit their path to the nearest bar. Neither Conrad or Jude wanted to be there per say, there was a huge storm scheduled to hit Atlanta that night, blow back from a tropical storm. They would both rather have been at Chastain helping to sift through the chaos, they both thrived in chaos or were at the very least were good enough at holding it together for it to appear so, but that wasn't going to be possible, not tonight anyway. Bell and Claire had practically kicked them to the streets after the little stunt they had pulled in the ER. If either of them was being honest they were damn lucky to even still have jobs at this point. They had both had pretty rough days so far even excluding the ER mishave. They both walked silently alongside each other, neither of them wanted to talk about their day, they both just wanted to forget about it and there was no better way they knew of to do that except to drink it away.

A boom of thunder trumpeted through the sky, causing Conrad to shiver and move just a tad closer to Jude. Jude noticed and couldn't help but smirk a little but he decided not to say anything about it at that moment in time. 

They walked in that same comfortable silence all the way to the nearest bar, no one said a word until they saw a familiar red sign on the door, most of the shops and taverns had one.

"You've got to be kidding me," Jude sighed, ripping the delicately taped red paper right off the door and waving it in front of Conrad. "One little storm and everyone is losing their minds," he scoffed, irritatedly throwing the paper on to the pavement.

Conrad chuckled a little, "I don't think it's that piece of papers fault that the bar is closed but what whatever makes you feel better."

"I don't know about you but I need a drink," Jude groaned, ignoring what Conrad had said.

Conrad nods in agreement, "It has been a long ass day and I need a drink too." Conrad had so much on his mind right now, including things that Jude didn't know about or anyone else for that matter and he intended to keep it that way. He had enough to deal with at work without everyone knowing about his "personal" issues but he really was under a lot of stress nowadays, especially with the sudden reappearance  of Marshall on his mind.

"Well I suppose one of the bars in this town has got to be open right? There's only about a thousand," Jude said as he bent over and picked up the crumpled, wet, paper off the ground.

"Yeah. Here's hoping," Conrad smiled a little as he watched Jude try and stick the paper back to the door. "I think that one is a bit of a lost cause," he chuckled a little.

"You and me both," Jude smiled, setting the paper in front of the door. "Man, those winds are so brutal they blew this sign right off the door," he joked.

Conrad chuckled, "Yes, and 'the winds' guided the paper all the way to its peaceful resting spot directly in front of the door. Come on, let's get out of here." 

With that they began to walk again and they fell back into the same peaceful comfortable silence as before. It wasn't long after they had started walking to the next  bar that rain started to gently cascade around them. The drops started small, gently pattering on the ground as they rained down, but it wasn't long before that gentle pitter pattering turned into a loud sledgehammering. Each drop came crashing to the ground, bouncing up just to soak them all over again, the wind whipped the rain so it felt like bullets against their bare skin. Neither of them had jackets or anything to protect them from the elements, they had planned on just riding their bikes like they usually did but they had made a last second decision not too, one that they were both silently regretting now. All except for the pounding of raindrops against the pavement it was still silent between them.