AnCatKatie
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
It's been a while...I've had schoolwork. And then I realized schoolwork still wasn't getting done as much as I tried, even if I wasn't writing, and decided to write over the last couple days.
Holy shite, a lot happened in this one. It's getting complicated again, sorry everyone.
I had to edit a bit to make it PG in the beginning. PG13 version's available by email or PM, as usual, and isn't all that PG13...I tried...I think I did pretty well, considering up till now I was used to writing about Oisín from Cath's point of view, and this messes with my mind.
The italicized bit in Ruth's POV is a flashback, if that was confusing...
***
They were twin threads of flame in the night. When Ruth stepped away from Oisín finally, practically dizzy from their kisses, the silence of the night all around hummed an undertone vibrating through her body, and the warm air gave way to the slight chill of the wind.
Oisín, with an irrepressible slanting smile, blushed and bit his lip, looking at her, before his general awkwardness fell away and he was caught staring. He thought he could catch in her eyes what little he could piece together about her past. It wasn’t happy; it ran like the streetlight reflections, bright and dark and unstoppable. She folded her arms around herself against the cold around the same time he automatically put an arm around her.
“So what now?” she whispered, drifting from the outside world, attached to him.
“Were you going to play at anywhere else tonight?”
“I don’t think I could…I’d be pretty distracted.” She grinned. “Even though sometimes it feels like I could drum with my eyes closed, sleeping, or while doing something completely different, I don’t think that would help in this case.”
He looked a little relieved, his face still reddened. They had stopped walking, their foreheads touching as they spoke, and he abruptly ducked away, then looked back sideways at her. “Well?” he asked.
“I am definitely coming with you. That’s not a question.” She fell back into step beside him, feeling light, and twined her fingers with his.
The night didn’t seem all that cold anymore when they came to his place. Ruth wasn’t really aware of her surroundings, actually; she caught that it was rather small and all one level. She realized she’d become accustomed to wandering up stairs, sleeping on the roof…she caught his glance. Oh, no, they would definitely not be doing much of that.
In the doorway, his eyes were eclipsed and lit. He pulled from their intertwined fingers gently so that he and Ruth were hardly separated by anything, and kissed her softly. The streetlights outside etched over his hair and the side of his face. She could feel each individual movement their bodies made, and…it was strange, how natural this felt.
She didn’t know if he knew about Isaac. He’d known a little, and whatever she’d accidentally told him over the phone eight years ago. It didn’t matter. Every inch of her felt alive when before, she had been as if in sleep, functioning perfectly—but unawake; something about Aodan had deadened her to the world.
Ruth had been happy, for the most part. And when she had known Cath, before all of this had happened, she had come across Oisín a few times. How strange, that things had been so different.
She undressed slowly, and somehow that brought it all back; she sat naked on the edge of Oisín’s bed staring into the darkness, her eyes tight.
“Ruth?”
“It’s nothing. It’s not you. I’ll be fine, ‘Sheen.”
She could feel him settling beside her, and it struck her suddenly that this was very funny. She bit back a giggle and grew more serious, absently noting the heat of where their skin touched. He looked at her and waited.
Why had she thought Oisín was anything like that boy she’d known once in seconds of brief, inconsequential time? A little of that Oisín remained, but he was a little more serious, running headlong into things.
“I was in a very bad relationship eight years ago. It shouldn’t have happened, but I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried. It’s…been a while since I’ve been reminded of that.”
“Was that why you left?”
She nodded, her hair brushing over her shoulderblades to fall across her stomach. She shivered a little.
There was a long moment where she felt practically like crying, there was so much understanding in his eyes. She didn’t know that it was because Cath had had almost the same situation she’d described. Ruth gave a little laugh and scooted against him; they both fell down against the mattress, her head pillowed against the little hollow between his neck and shoulder. He brought his arms around her, a general lightness of being coming upon her, and ran his fingers lightly over the burn scar over her back, his eyes reflective. She stared at him: she hadn’t thought anything could come into contact with that part of her body and not hurt.
It was so much more personal when they touched than it had been with Aodan. Oisín’s arms brushed away from her back and with that contact, she felt practically electrified. It was like racing into the sky. She caught at his hands and blindly traced roadways across his warm skin, staring up into his eyes that had eased so much into amazement. Their warm depths held her, as if she walked in some secret place inside the earth.
He placed a kiss on her forehead, his eyes disappearing from her sight, his chest settling over hers lightly.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, still concerned.
“No,” she breathed in the twilit room, the streetlights merging around her shoulders and sparking in her eyes. She kissed him hard, her body rising up to his hesitantly.
Those snatches of telephone static and speech over the phone, years ago, were so different than the Ruth he was becoming aware of. Those two times merged briefly for both of them—they hadn’t seen each other much before, besides that.
Her feet brushed against his toes; she made a face—he had cold feet.
“What?” he laughed, his face about a millimeter from hers, his hair brushing against her forehead, his eyes all heat and heart.
“You have cold toes,” she yelped.
Cold…Phoenix’s floor…had been cold, the floorboards appearing iridescent with the powers of transformation the sun gave. Ruth sat with her back against the wall by the window, the phone cradled cold next to her ear.
“Yes…I’d like to make a call to Ireland…Ireland, yeah, Dublin…the number is…” She listened after she spoke it, and said it again, frowning. “What d’you mean, it’s changed? No, I wasn’t trying to call…hold on, feck, I’ll just—“
She spat out a phone number at random when she was told she'd be put on hold, and after not a few questions, not liking the way the operator started asking around. She felt shaky still, emotionally out of whack after sitting in a waiting room and avoiding doctors’ questions. It still felt like someone had scraped out her insides and filled them with needles and fire. Phoenix assumed Ruth was sick, since she’d curled up on the couch as soon as she came home, wrapping her arms around herself.
Oh. It was Cath’s phone number…she felt a rush of loss suddenly; it had been forever since she’d seen Cath, who probably had no idea in hell why she’d left…
“Hello?” she asked shakily. “…Oh. Cath’s not here? Well…will you tell her I’m sor…”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence; inexplicably, she started crying, and Oisín tried to calm her down. She probably said too much to him; she didn’t remember what it had been afterwards…
All of this ran in her mind in seconds as she ran her hands along his body. Their mouths were locked, so her little exclamation of surprise was muffled. She broke away from the kiss, breathing hard, and gripping his face so they wouldn’t start again and she could speak.
“Oisín!” Ruth realized. He grinned.
“That phonecall…eight years ago. You told me you loved me.” She ducked her head when he nodded, and wrapped her arms back around him. He could feel her smiling.
Ruth was still caught in the intensity of his eyes, Oisín erasing any pain she had ever once had. She fell asleep in his arms, a little while later. He felt a strange contentment, that he was somehow a solution to her problems, and at their incredible closeness; he could feel their hands connected still, though he was growing a little tired and the fingers jumbled together. Oisín fell asleep with the strange feeling that he understood Ruth more than he had before—it was inexplicable, but he felt he could practically sense what she felt. He was probably imagining it...
***
Everyone had left the Blue Café. Well, for the most part. Eve and Larry were in the process of exiting, and Bono had finally gotten Edge out of his face—the guitarist had been concerned Bono was still drunk even though he did his best to show him he wasn’t. Edge was outside now, most likely; Bono couldn’t see the doorway well from where he was, close to backstage. He bumped into Adam.
“Have you seen my lighter, Bon?” Adam asked, with a puzzled look on his face. “I think it was backstage…”
Bono was definitely not going to criticize him for smoking. He shook his head.
“Actually, I should probably be asking—have you seen your kid? He’s the one you should be keeping track of.”
“He’s outside with Edge, most likely.” Bono winced. The stage lights, from here, were like small hard fists against his eye, nauseatingly blue and white.
Adam leaned against the wall, causing the lights to swing back in Bono’s face, with an expression that was pretty close to disapproval as it went with Adam.
“You know,” the bassist told him, “you shouldn’t have gotten so pissed tonight. I’m not saying I haven’t done worse—“—Bono snorted; it was obvious—“—but I don’t have kids.”
Bono sighed. Just under the faint dissipating haze of alcohol was a big mass of guilt.
“You’re right.” He deflated a little where he stood. “Ad, I fucked up majorly.”
It seemed Adam could tell he wasn’t really referring to tonight. “Edge guessed something was up. I suspected so; you looked like hell already when you arrived.”
“Yeah…” He went through the whole explanation of how he and Ali had been so distant lately, and that he was afraid it was something to do with him. He dragged out the thing he had been most unwilling to mention to practically anyone, that he thought they might not be in love anymore.
“It’s like when we broke up right after high school. None of it makes sense…”
Adam was perceptive; he caught the sudden intensity of Bono’s inward-looking stare. In an unbalanced, tentative sort of way, some of this was beginning to make sense. He held up a hand to stop the singer from talking.
“You said that about a minute ago, that it was like then, and you trailed off like this…and something about dreams…and…” Adam trailed off himself, his eyes focusing into a great cool surprise.
“This is about a woman, isn’t it,” he stated.
“Well…”
Adam was about to blurt that there was something Bono hadn’t mentioned, that had happened before: that it might be about Cath. How wasn’t the question, or why; Bono had been messed up shit after his fiancée had died. That statement died in the next instant; there came footsteps. Adam shut his mouth.
“Something’s—“ came a different voice, frantic or concerned, in Bono’s hearing. The lights punched across his vision again; Adam was walking back the way he’d came, throwing a meaningful glance Bono’s way that connected what he'd heard with what he saw.
Phoenix was charging backstage, looking rather concerned about something, and quite literally ran into him, whatever she was about to say knocked out of her lungs. Bono found himself staring up into her eyes that wavered a little in his vision…maybe it was the lights; he was so confused. Huh. They were green. He had known someone else with green eyes…something to do with Larry…red hair…
She stood up and yanked him back to his feet, but he still felt dizzy. She steadied him, frowning, and he looked up and saw those eyes again, and the face almost the same as in the dream. It was unsettling; he knew what she looked like, but in an impossible way…he couldn’t accept it.
“I…uh…” Thanks, he meant to say, but he blurted out, “I think I’ve seen you before.”
“I don’t have time…” she began again frantically. He shook his head, his eyes focusing, and continued, “in a dream…”
She fell silent at that, briefly, stopping midstep; she’d started to continue walking. “That must have been some fall you took,” Phoenix said, turning back and steadying him again. He brushed her hands off, protesting he could stand on his own, and he’d just had too much to drink earlier. The beginnings of a laugh crossed her face.
“Oh yeah. You were the guy…” She frowned again, her face growing more serious. For a moment, he saw an expression on her face like she believed what he’d told her, that he’d seen her before. Impossibly.
“…outside. Listen, everyone in here has to leave. I thought I saw—“
He wasn’t sure how it happened. In replying, he hadn’t spoken—he’d just collided against her, and almost fell again—as she spoke, he felt a strange rush of—something—and felt that inexplicable chill run through him again, gripping him almost painfully and giving way to an unstoppable warmth that made his knees buckle. Oh god.
He wasn’t sure how it began, but she didn’t finish what she said, because he was quite suddenly kissing her, his body freezing and thawing equally as his mind, confused by this paradox of a woman, pretty much shut down. He felt her hand that had been lifting him up clench on his shoulder, and she shoved away from him, eyes very wide.
“You said you were drunk. All right, I believe you,” she began, before she turned her head and cursed, practically yelling. “I was right…”
At his confused expression, she turned back, saying, “something’s burning.”
There had been red and orange among the bluish lights he’d seen before—and—he’d thought it was warm, but he’d assumed…
She was practically running, very fast, pulling him out the doorway. The smoke was now visible, from where it had been billowing around him. “Lar—Eve—“ he coughed, finding the handle of the door and pulling his hand away from it when he felt the agonizingly hot metal. He coughed again and stumbled out, crawling past the pool, feeling grass beneath his fingers, and finding the sidewalk by touch, his eyes stinging. When he stood up again, coughing again hard, he saw he’d found Phoenix. Her eyes were wide again, totally contrasting with his mental image of her.
“Are they back inside—“ He nodded. “I think so—“ She was gone, back, as fast as he’d came, and before he knew what he was doing, he half-crawled after her, feeling his way back again. He heard her shout into the crackling flames, and no response. Bono shot bolt upright when he heard a loud cracking sound, and rushed forward, breathing out hard against the smoke. It was thicker, closer to the fire, and the heat rushed over his face, crawling under his clothes and boiling across his skin. He found by feeling, again, Phoenix, lying down. Her face was warm and wet.
“Oh god,” he choked, and blindly felt for her arms, picking her up and throwing her across his back and walking, crawling, stumbling through the heat haze and the long banners of smoke until he fell exhausted to the pavement, hoping firemen, doctors, someone would come. Exhausted, he looked back, heat still searing across his eyeballs, and saw the silent shocks of flame streaming endlessly up, and on, and on.
Holy shite, a lot happened in this one. It's getting complicated again, sorry everyone.
I had to edit a bit to make it PG in the beginning. PG13 version's available by email or PM, as usual, and isn't all that PG13...I tried...I think I did pretty well, considering up till now I was used to writing about Oisín from Cath's point of view, and this messes with my mind.
The italicized bit in Ruth's POV is a flashback, if that was confusing...
***
(1986)
They were twin threads of flame in the night. When Ruth stepped away from Oisín finally, practically dizzy from their kisses, the silence of the night all around hummed an undertone vibrating through her body, and the warm air gave way to the slight chill of the wind.
Oisín, with an irrepressible slanting smile, blushed and bit his lip, looking at her, before his general awkwardness fell away and he was caught staring. He thought he could catch in her eyes what little he could piece together about her past. It wasn’t happy; it ran like the streetlight reflections, bright and dark and unstoppable. She folded her arms around herself against the cold around the same time he automatically put an arm around her.
“So what now?” she whispered, drifting from the outside world, attached to him.
“Were you going to play at anywhere else tonight?”
“I don’t think I could…I’d be pretty distracted.” She grinned. “Even though sometimes it feels like I could drum with my eyes closed, sleeping, or while doing something completely different, I don’t think that would help in this case.”
He looked a little relieved, his face still reddened. They had stopped walking, their foreheads touching as they spoke, and he abruptly ducked away, then looked back sideways at her. “Well?” he asked.
“I am definitely coming with you. That’s not a question.” She fell back into step beside him, feeling light, and twined her fingers with his.
The night didn’t seem all that cold anymore when they came to his place. Ruth wasn’t really aware of her surroundings, actually; she caught that it was rather small and all one level. She realized she’d become accustomed to wandering up stairs, sleeping on the roof…she caught his glance. Oh, no, they would definitely not be doing much of that.
In the doorway, his eyes were eclipsed and lit. He pulled from their intertwined fingers gently so that he and Ruth were hardly separated by anything, and kissed her softly. The streetlights outside etched over his hair and the side of his face. She could feel each individual movement their bodies made, and…it was strange, how natural this felt.
She didn’t know if he knew about Isaac. He’d known a little, and whatever she’d accidentally told him over the phone eight years ago. It didn’t matter. Every inch of her felt alive when before, she had been as if in sleep, functioning perfectly—but unawake; something about Aodan had deadened her to the world.
Ruth had been happy, for the most part. And when she had known Cath, before all of this had happened, she had come across Oisín a few times. How strange, that things had been so different.
She undressed slowly, and somehow that brought it all back; she sat naked on the edge of Oisín’s bed staring into the darkness, her eyes tight.
“Ruth?”
“It’s nothing. It’s not you. I’ll be fine, ‘Sheen.”
She could feel him settling beside her, and it struck her suddenly that this was very funny. She bit back a giggle and grew more serious, absently noting the heat of where their skin touched. He looked at her and waited.
Why had she thought Oisín was anything like that boy she’d known once in seconds of brief, inconsequential time? A little of that Oisín remained, but he was a little more serious, running headlong into things.
“I was in a very bad relationship eight years ago. It shouldn’t have happened, but I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried. It’s…been a while since I’ve been reminded of that.”
“Was that why you left?”
She nodded, her hair brushing over her shoulderblades to fall across her stomach. She shivered a little.
There was a long moment where she felt practically like crying, there was so much understanding in his eyes. She didn’t know that it was because Cath had had almost the same situation she’d described. Ruth gave a little laugh and scooted against him; they both fell down against the mattress, her head pillowed against the little hollow between his neck and shoulder. He brought his arms around her, a general lightness of being coming upon her, and ran his fingers lightly over the burn scar over her back, his eyes reflective. She stared at him: she hadn’t thought anything could come into contact with that part of her body and not hurt.
It was so much more personal when they touched than it had been with Aodan. Oisín’s arms brushed away from her back and with that contact, she felt practically electrified. It was like racing into the sky. She caught at his hands and blindly traced roadways across his warm skin, staring up into his eyes that had eased so much into amazement. Their warm depths held her, as if she walked in some secret place inside the earth.
He placed a kiss on her forehead, his eyes disappearing from her sight, his chest settling over hers lightly.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, still concerned.
“No,” she breathed in the twilit room, the streetlights merging around her shoulders and sparking in her eyes. She kissed him hard, her body rising up to his hesitantly.
Those snatches of telephone static and speech over the phone, years ago, were so different than the Ruth he was becoming aware of. Those two times merged briefly for both of them—they hadn’t seen each other much before, besides that.
Her feet brushed against his toes; she made a face—he had cold feet.
“What?” he laughed, his face about a millimeter from hers, his hair brushing against her forehead, his eyes all heat and heart.
“You have cold toes,” she yelped.
Cold…Phoenix’s floor…had been cold, the floorboards appearing iridescent with the powers of transformation the sun gave. Ruth sat with her back against the wall by the window, the phone cradled cold next to her ear.
“Yes…I’d like to make a call to Ireland…Ireland, yeah, Dublin…the number is…” She listened after she spoke it, and said it again, frowning. “What d’you mean, it’s changed? No, I wasn’t trying to call…hold on, feck, I’ll just—“
She spat out a phone number at random when she was told she'd be put on hold, and after not a few questions, not liking the way the operator started asking around. She felt shaky still, emotionally out of whack after sitting in a waiting room and avoiding doctors’ questions. It still felt like someone had scraped out her insides and filled them with needles and fire. Phoenix assumed Ruth was sick, since she’d curled up on the couch as soon as she came home, wrapping her arms around herself.
Oh. It was Cath’s phone number…she felt a rush of loss suddenly; it had been forever since she’d seen Cath, who probably had no idea in hell why she’d left…
“Hello?” she asked shakily. “…Oh. Cath’s not here? Well…will you tell her I’m sor…”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence; inexplicably, she started crying, and Oisín tried to calm her down. She probably said too much to him; she didn’t remember what it had been afterwards…
All of this ran in her mind in seconds as she ran her hands along his body. Their mouths were locked, so her little exclamation of surprise was muffled. She broke away from the kiss, breathing hard, and gripping his face so they wouldn’t start again and she could speak.
“Oisín!” Ruth realized. He grinned.
“That phonecall…eight years ago. You told me you loved me.” She ducked her head when he nodded, and wrapped her arms back around him. He could feel her smiling.
Ruth was still caught in the intensity of his eyes, Oisín erasing any pain she had ever once had. She fell asleep in his arms, a little while later. He felt a strange contentment, that he was somehow a solution to her problems, and at their incredible closeness; he could feel their hands connected still, though he was growing a little tired and the fingers jumbled together. Oisín fell asleep with the strange feeling that he understood Ruth more than he had before—it was inexplicable, but he felt he could practically sense what she felt. He was probably imagining it...
***
Everyone had left the Blue Café. Well, for the most part. Eve and Larry were in the process of exiting, and Bono had finally gotten Edge out of his face—the guitarist had been concerned Bono was still drunk even though he did his best to show him he wasn’t. Edge was outside now, most likely; Bono couldn’t see the doorway well from where he was, close to backstage. He bumped into Adam.
“Have you seen my lighter, Bon?” Adam asked, with a puzzled look on his face. “I think it was backstage…”
Bono was definitely not going to criticize him for smoking. He shook his head.
“Actually, I should probably be asking—have you seen your kid? He’s the one you should be keeping track of.”
“He’s outside with Edge, most likely.” Bono winced. The stage lights, from here, were like small hard fists against his eye, nauseatingly blue and white.
Adam leaned against the wall, causing the lights to swing back in Bono’s face, with an expression that was pretty close to disapproval as it went with Adam.
“You know,” the bassist told him, “you shouldn’t have gotten so pissed tonight. I’m not saying I haven’t done worse—“—Bono snorted; it was obvious—“—but I don’t have kids.”
Bono sighed. Just under the faint dissipating haze of alcohol was a big mass of guilt.
“You’re right.” He deflated a little where he stood. “Ad, I fucked up majorly.”
It seemed Adam could tell he wasn’t really referring to tonight. “Edge guessed something was up. I suspected so; you looked like hell already when you arrived.”
“Yeah…” He went through the whole explanation of how he and Ali had been so distant lately, and that he was afraid it was something to do with him. He dragged out the thing he had been most unwilling to mention to practically anyone, that he thought they might not be in love anymore.
“It’s like when we broke up right after high school. None of it makes sense…”
Adam was perceptive; he caught the sudden intensity of Bono’s inward-looking stare. In an unbalanced, tentative sort of way, some of this was beginning to make sense. He held up a hand to stop the singer from talking.
“You said that about a minute ago, that it was like then, and you trailed off like this…and something about dreams…and…” Adam trailed off himself, his eyes focusing into a great cool surprise.
“This is about a woman, isn’t it,” he stated.
“Well…”
Adam was about to blurt that there was something Bono hadn’t mentioned, that had happened before: that it might be about Cath. How wasn’t the question, or why; Bono had been messed up shit after his fiancée had died. That statement died in the next instant; there came footsteps. Adam shut his mouth.
“Something’s—“ came a different voice, frantic or concerned, in Bono’s hearing. The lights punched across his vision again; Adam was walking back the way he’d came, throwing a meaningful glance Bono’s way that connected what he'd heard with what he saw.
Phoenix was charging backstage, looking rather concerned about something, and quite literally ran into him, whatever she was about to say knocked out of her lungs. Bono found himself staring up into her eyes that wavered a little in his vision…maybe it was the lights; he was so confused. Huh. They were green. He had known someone else with green eyes…something to do with Larry…red hair…
She stood up and yanked him back to his feet, but he still felt dizzy. She steadied him, frowning, and he looked up and saw those eyes again, and the face almost the same as in the dream. It was unsettling; he knew what she looked like, but in an impossible way…he couldn’t accept it.
“I…uh…” Thanks, he meant to say, but he blurted out, “I think I’ve seen you before.”
“I don’t have time…” she began again frantically. He shook his head, his eyes focusing, and continued, “in a dream…”
She fell silent at that, briefly, stopping midstep; she’d started to continue walking. “That must have been some fall you took,” Phoenix said, turning back and steadying him again. He brushed her hands off, protesting he could stand on his own, and he’d just had too much to drink earlier. The beginnings of a laugh crossed her face.
“Oh yeah. You were the guy…” She frowned again, her face growing more serious. For a moment, he saw an expression on her face like she believed what he’d told her, that he’d seen her before. Impossibly.
“…outside. Listen, everyone in here has to leave. I thought I saw—“
He wasn’t sure how it happened. In replying, he hadn’t spoken—he’d just collided against her, and almost fell again—as she spoke, he felt a strange rush of—something—and felt that inexplicable chill run through him again, gripping him almost painfully and giving way to an unstoppable warmth that made his knees buckle. Oh god.
He wasn’t sure how it began, but she didn’t finish what she said, because he was quite suddenly kissing her, his body freezing and thawing equally as his mind, confused by this paradox of a woman, pretty much shut down. He felt her hand that had been lifting him up clench on his shoulder, and she shoved away from him, eyes very wide.
“You said you were drunk. All right, I believe you,” she began, before she turned her head and cursed, practically yelling. “I was right…”
At his confused expression, she turned back, saying, “something’s burning.”
There had been red and orange among the bluish lights he’d seen before—and—he’d thought it was warm, but he’d assumed…
She was practically running, very fast, pulling him out the doorway. The smoke was now visible, from where it had been billowing around him. “Lar—Eve—“ he coughed, finding the handle of the door and pulling his hand away from it when he felt the agonizingly hot metal. He coughed again and stumbled out, crawling past the pool, feeling grass beneath his fingers, and finding the sidewalk by touch, his eyes stinging. When he stood up again, coughing again hard, he saw he’d found Phoenix. Her eyes were wide again, totally contrasting with his mental image of her.
“Are they back inside—“ He nodded. “I think so—“ She was gone, back, as fast as he’d came, and before he knew what he was doing, he half-crawled after her, feeling his way back again. He heard her shout into the crackling flames, and no response. Bono shot bolt upright when he heard a loud cracking sound, and rushed forward, breathing out hard against the smoke. It was thicker, closer to the fire, and the heat rushed over his face, crawling under his clothes and boiling across his skin. He found by feeling, again, Phoenix, lying down. Her face was warm and wet.
“Oh god,” he choked, and blindly felt for her arms, picking her up and throwing her across his back and walking, crawling, stumbling through the heat haze and the long banners of smoke until he fell exhausted to the pavement, hoping firemen, doctors, someone would come. Exhausted, he looked back, heat still searing across his eyeballs, and saw the silent shocks of flame streaming endlessly up, and on, and on.
It's nice for Ruth to be happy for a change...I felt bad about some of the earlier chapters. 
He does it so well naturally...
