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Clementine never liked the rain.
She knew it was a strange mixture of that night, rain pouring hard on the windows of the large house as she sneaked outside and grabbed the foreign man’s hand, letting him lead her far away from Lee and also the hard rain at the farm that night, her mind racing with images of Mike crawling along the floor with his legs gone, blood trailing behind him.
Either way, she did not like rain or storms and as she stood in the doorway of the smaller barn, she watched the rain hit the ground aggressively, mud splashing around, the sleeves of her red jacket soaked from how often she held her hand out and let the rain tickle her palm and the leather of the sleeves. She flinched as the sky lit up for a second, a loud bang of thunder following after, forcing her into shutting the doors fast and sliding the wooden plank through the handles.
She turned back around, a slight shiver going down her back at the sudden warmth and silence from the inside of the barn, the small fire set up in the middle crackling pleasantly. She looked at Gabe who added a thin piece of dry wood to the fire, his jacket hanging on a stick nearby, left to dry. When another shiver sped down her spine she hurried to the fire and slipped off her jacket, placing it next to Gabe’s equally soaked one.
The light of the fire bounced around the barn freely as she sat down, bending her legs and bringing her knees to her chest. At the sudden warmth embracing her, Clementine allowed herself to breathe out and relax, tuning out the raging storm outside, looking over at Gabe who met her eyes and his lips pulled into a supportive smile.
She attempted to return the smile but it disappeared as quickly as it came, her eyes trailing back to the fire, watching the burning wood and listening to the crackling it made as it burned. “Nice fire.”
“David taught me.”
Clementine didn’t question the use of his name, already familiar with the frustrated questions that ran through Gabe’s mind whenever she asked about it. She couldn’t help her curiosity then - “Do you not consider him your father anymore?” - and she winced and cringed deeply when she remembered, but she dusted up her ‘people skills’ quickly with each day she spent in human company again,
The small cracks between some of the planks of wood in the walls helped with the rain and cold, but they certainly didn’t help with the light, and sooner than later the barn lit up again, going back to darkness quickly before a loud thump of thunder echoed throughout the building again. Clementine didn’t know why, but she found it even scarier now, the sound coming from all sides and appearing more raw than before.
In a force of habit, she shifted closer to Gabe and his hand came to rest on her shoulder, inviting her to rest her head on his shoulder, as has happened more and more recently, boundaries coming loose. “It’s really loud tonight,” she mumbled, reaching out to grab Gabe’s other hand that was reaching for another thin piece of wood.
“I should put another one into the fire,” he said in protest, chuckling, but he let her clutch it tight and run her thumb across his palm, running across a scar from his thumb to his index finger.
“You can do that later,” she replied with a hint of curiosity in her voice. “You never told me you had this scar.”
He blinked, looking down at her with playfully narrowed eyes. “You never told me you had that scar.” She followed his gaze to the poorly stitched bite on her forearm and then met his eyes again, pouting.
“Okay, fair, but my point stands. What’s up with it? I’ve never gotten a wound in that place.”
“It’s just an embarrassing story from second grade,” he protested weakly, knowing he’d find himself explaining it anyway. “I don’t have any cool story like you most likely do.”
“I don’t have cool stories!” Clementine argued, “It’s just a dog bite I got that I poorly stitched in a barn. That’s not cool. I didn’t even get to use a real medical needle.”
Gabe just stared at her for some time before she heard the irony, groaning. “Okay. Fine. It’s an unusual story, but I still wanna hear yours!”
“I just had a friend since I was, like, six,” He began, “I don’t even remember his name anymore. He was a bit of an ass. And yes,” He interrupted when Clementine opened her mouth with a smirk, “I didn’t break the swing and trick him into using it as a prank, okay?”
“You fell off a swing?”
“A broken one!” Gabe’s defense came fast when he saw Clementine grin wider. “He noticed one of the screws was messed up and instead of telling me, he let me swing really high until it broke off.”
Clementine tried to imagine the scenario and cringed, letting his hand go momentarily to clutch her own. “That sounds kind of terrifying. How did you get the cut?”
“I guess I just kind of hit a sharp rock or something, cause I don’t really remember. I had a sprained wrist, though. Kate didn’t let me talk to that friend after that.”
“I mean, yeah, sounds smart.” She looked down and grabbed his hand again, running her thumb across the scar again lightly, only ghost of a touch. “That’s a cool story, though. Falling off a swing.” She grinned up at him. “Sounds really badass. What else did you do? Fall off a slide?”
“Shut up,” he said without any real bite to it, turning his head away and pulling his hand back to put another stick into the slowly dying fire. “That’s a whole different story.”
Clementine burst into laughter and he smiled, letting her take a hold of his hand again. “Okay, now the dog story. I’ve been curious about that one since I met you.”
“Alright, fine. It started with me falling into a river to escape a group of bandits.”
“You have to be kidding me.”