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Title: Safe
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Character: Ryan Wolfe
Rating: G

Ryan loves everything about thunderstorms.

When he was a kid, he was afraid of them. The disorder and the thought of getting struck by lightning were both very intimidating reasons to be petrified to set foot outside. He isn't sure when he stopped being terrified and started being fascinated, but he thinks that it was right after he moved out. The first night that he had been in his (trashy, dumpy) dorm with all his boxes neatly in a row, arranged by size, the thunder was loud enough to make his ears ring. He'd been able to feel the muggy, sticky heat that meant a storm was coming earlier in the day, so he hadn't surprised by the storm itself. What he had been surprised about was how safe it made him feel.

It was at that moment that he had realized the storms were easily predictable, and that the sounds - the wind, the crack of thunder from the middle of nowhere - were perfectly accompanied by soft music (The Beatles, he thinks), and that he could pass the hours of the storm staring out at the cascading water against the cheap window.

Every time a storm comes by, that's what Ryan thinks about. The first night away from his 'home' in a place that wasn't familiar in the least, the smell of wet air and stale cardboard, the feel of well-worn carpet beneath his feet. But most of all, the steady knowledge that anywhere he went, there would be the muggy heat bursting into torrents of water. (It's maternal, but he isn't one for metaphors when conciseness will suffice.)

Thunderstorms don't make him feel small, not really. If anything, they make him feel bigger for being able to walk outside in them without being lost in the flow of everything. He still isn't sure why knowing that all water cycles puts him so at ease. Maybe it's because it's comforting to think that while he's watching the rain, it's easy to imagine that he's seen the same drops before, even if it was in a different place or time.

It's just another way to make himself feel safe.