Rain

Disclaimer: Wahh! why do i have to say this? I don\'t own it!

Rain

Chapter Two: Vicious and Spike

Sheets of freezing rain poured upon the streets as a fine mist floated above the ground. Few people now dashed upon the streets, trying to run between the raindrops. The dim illumination of the streetlamps gave a mysterious glow to the nearly deserted street.

Eve watched the cabs and people from an alley. Her black hair now soaked and in her eyes. She pulled her hands to her mouth for cover as she lit her cigarette. The glow illuminated her wet face and storm gray eyes. Eve then pulled the collar of her black long coat up around her neck and shivered as the cold water slithered down her back. For a moment Eve just stood in the rain, her eyes closed and her face turned up toward the sky. She opened the side of her mouth to let out a stream of light gray smoke and looked back at the street. A black case emblazoned with a crimson dragon leaned at her side. Eve glanced at the case and then at the shadows ahead of her. She then closed her eyes and smiled as she took her cigarette out of her mouth and exhaled another line of smoke. Eve then bent down to lift up the case and disappeared into the shadows.

~*~

It was raining. It always seemed to rain when she visited him. He watched the cars speed by him as he leaned beneath an overhang, attempting to keep dry in the wet weather that seemed to cover the city. Personally, he liked the rain, it cleansed, it purified the bloodstained and filthy ground that he always seemed to walk upon. He sighed as he brushed some silver colored hair out of his hard, ice colored eyes. The bird that usually resided on his shoulder nowadays was at his home now. It would not be needed tonight. He wasn’t dressed formally either, as per usual. In fact, he was dressed in a simple pair of black jeans and t-shirt of the same color. He had grabbed his brown trench coat that he hadn’t worn in years and now waited for his contact to arrive.

His stormy courtesan, his crimson dragon, he could call her that, and only he could. She belonged to him. The shadows next to him seemed to carry a familiar aura now. He smirked in his usual way and closed his eyes. “You’re late tonight,” he said softly. His voice always sounded soft, but tonight it was for real.

“There was a line at the gate, my ship was delayed,” a feminine voice answered from the shadows. A plume of silver smoke then blew from said shadows, indicating that she was there.

“I heard you had problems on one of Jupiter’s moons. With a certain cowboy?”

“Raven? Yeah, I ran into him. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. Men all have the same weakness, you should know that. Grin and other men of his… preference are the only ones I know that don’t have that weakness,” the voice said lightly.

“True, a beautiful woman can be a great weakness, but also a great strength.”

“I saw Julia,” she said in a whisper.

The man’s eyes opened abruptly. “Did you now?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s sad when one as lovely as her is reduced to a paranoid chick with a handgun,” the voice joked cruelly.

The man smirked once again. “Is she now? Good to know.”

“I heard that he’s alive,” the voice stated.

The man’s smirk faded and was replaced by a cold glare as he placed his hand over his left shoulder and squeezed it. “Did you now?”

“He’s become a cowboy. Although, it doesn’t surprise me, he always was a bit dramatic.”

The man snorted and the smirk returned. “Of course…. Do you have it?” he asked.

“The bloody eye? Yeah, the guys finished the last batch of the bloody eye a few days ago. I have what they had finished already with me now,” the voice said more seriously. “Do you have my money?”

The man nodded as he pulled a leather bag from the ground next to him. “Yes. It’s too bad this is your last run, I’m going to miss our chats,” he said.

“So am I, old friend. But, like all things, this too must come to an end. My face was broadcasted on Big Shots a few weeks ago, so I can no longer be the courier. You know the rule. How can I stay in the shadows if I’ve been exposed to the light?” the voice asked as a black briefcase with a red dragon emblazoned upon it slid behind his legs.

The man sighed and nodded. “Where are they assigning you now?”

“Yenrai wants me as a bodyguard. You know how he is with strays.”

The man groaned. “That peace –loving buffoon? Sounds like a promotion into boredom to me.”

“Well, we can’t all have your luck, can we, Vicious?” the voice asked lightly.

Vicious smirked once again as he picked up the case and slid the bag of money into the shadows. “I’ll see you again, Eve,” he said.

“I have a feeling, you are the stone and the syndicate is the pond. Are you going to cause a splash, Vicious?” the voice asked.

“No, I’m going to change the tides,” he said as he stood and vanished into the rainy night.

~*~*~*~

Rain, it always reminded him of two women that he had once known. One was Julia. The other was a mysterious woman that had always seemed to be followed by the rain. Her eyes were the color of the sky when it rained. That storm gray that made you feel sad and warm at the same time. She had a warmth in her that no other woman he had ever met ever could possess. She was a storm on a summer night, exciting, cooling the humidity laden air, that made you want to run and play in when you were a child. That’s what she had been. Julia was a tragic beauty, a tragic love that he had once possessed, but now that he thought on it, it was never Julia that he truly loved. She had been attainable, a fallen angel. The one he had wanted was always shrouded in shadow, almost like a storm goddess of the night.

Why she had crossed his mind in the first place was unknown. He then glanced out of a window in the hotel that he was staying in, it was raining. ‘So that’s why,’ he thought to himself.

He wondered idly if she was still alive, that storm goddess, as he stood and walked over to window, leaning against the frame. Then he saw it in the darkened night. A flare of a cigarette and the flash of lightning that revealed a figure standing in the rain from the shadowy darkness of the alley across the street. The figure vaguely resembled her, but something else inside him nagged that he go outside and investigate. Quickly, he snatched his leather bomber jacket and tossed it over his white t-shirt garbed frame as he shoved his feet inside he boots and ran out the door.

~*~

She didn’t know why she had followed him, maybe it was morbid curiosity, maybe it was fate, she didn’t know. All she knew was that she was supposed to wait in the shadows across from his building. From what she could see, he still looked like her old friend. His hair was as disheveled as ever, reminding her of a mossy green growth on his head. She snickered slightly at that thought. He still seemed to be the same lanky guy that he had always been, skinny but well muscled. She probably shouldn’t have been there, she probably should have left, the syndicate was in chaos, and she needed to be there. But here she was, standing outside his l anl and watching him like she had all those years ago, when she had thought she was too good for him, when she had been stupid and self-centered. She regretted those long years, those years that eventually wore her potential happiness away, driving him into the arms of another’s woman.

The rain always made her feel so depressed, so empty. That’s what she had become, empty. She was a shell of a woman now, not worthy for him or anyone else, save maybe as a one-night stand. That’s all she was now, a toy to be played with for one night and then be discarded the next morning like that evening’s trash. She watched as lightning flashed; showing him to her for a brief moment, before placing her back in the shadows once again.

~*~

He dodged traffic easily as he ran across the street. She was there, he could feel it. He could smell her cigarettes, the ones that smelled like cloves. Then he found her. Her eyes were the same gray that they had always been, but they also seemed empty. She looked thinner now and paler than she had once been. Her face was more angled now, making her beauty sharper. Even with the scar that traveled over her left eye now, she was still beautiful. “Eve…” he whispered softly.

Her head looked up sharply, her eyes now focused on his. They went wide for a moment and she took a step back. “Spike!” she gasped.

“It’s been a long time,” he said.

Slowly, she nodded. “Yeah, a long time. I’m glad to see that you are still alive and kicking,” she commented.

Spike snorted. “If you could call it living.”

“It has to be better than what I’m doing,” she joked.

“Eve… I’m sorry about Mao,” he apologized.

“It’s okay, Spike, I’ll get over it. I should go, the Than probably want to yell at me some more for being absent while Mao was killed.”

“Where were you?”

Those storm gray eyes darkened with sadness and regret. “Vicious… I had been with him the night before at a club… later that evening, he-”

“Eve…” he whispered as he placed his hands on her shoulders.

Eve wiped her eyes and sniffled slightly as she pulled away. “I’m okay, Spike. Nothing I can’t handle. I-I don’t know why I even came her tonight. I already know that I’m going to be kicked out of the syndicate for letting Mao die. I might as well just paint a target on my chest and walk into a cowboy bar. I’m as good as dead now. The Red Dragon can’t protect me any more.”

“And Vicious?”

“A slap on the wrist I’m sure.”

Spike ground his teeth together. Vicious was going to get away with hurting her and killing Mao. He then gathered her soaking wet form into his arms and held her close. “I’ll protect you, Eve,” he whispered into her hair.

Eve’s eyes went wide again as he held her. Was he using her like all the others? Could he really protect her like he said? Eve had fallen in love with the brown eyed man all over again. she wouldn’t deny herself even the slightest chance if she could really be with him. ‘Even for one night,’ she thought to herself as she sighed and let him lead her across the street and out of the rain.

~*~*~*~

Levii: Okay everyone, here\'s numbah 2! the first part with Vicious is before the series starts, the part with Spike is a few months after Mao is killed by Vicious. if ya\'ll didn\'t know that already, that is. Anyways, remember to read and Review! tell me what you think of this story! please! maybe you can suggest more pairings that i didn\'t think about with Eve... or maybe i should continue with just Spike? what do you guys think?