Charlie Hall

Charlie Hall ♔ 27 ♔ Empathetic Mimicry “She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong." - Neil Gaiman

[carvcrbernard]

There’s a nod given at the logic in her statement,one he’ll accept with ease. For all he’s always had a comfortable relationship with violence and the bloodshed that he was capable of inflicting and did so regularly, Bern had never once expected or thought any less of those who struggled with the nature of it. He wasn’t sure where Charlie fell but what did matter was that she was trying so when there was a shake of her head as though  to dismiss some thoughts from her head, he’s happy to let her move the subject along. “I’ll be a lot better when we get those bastards.” Not once had he ever made a secret of his hatred for the Initiative, and he was certain that no one else would be feeling anything but the same towards them now. “And once we get our guys back.” He didn’t know the Scottish girl well but he did know Rhys, thought him to be a good man, someone he wasn’t willing to leave in their clutches. “You?”

[runaway-hall]

There isn’t a lot she could add to the sentiment. It would be better to put down their enemy, to reclaim their people who are hopefully unharmed. But that is too much to wish and right now she believes the best case scenario is that they simply aren’t dead. And she notes that Bern never truly answered the question. Sure, he might be better than he is now, but that doesn’t exactly shed light on his mental state. Still, Charlie had to give him credit for how he is handling the situation at all, because it sounds like his brain is intact. It sounds as though he hasn’t lost his marbles just yet. They needed those levelheaded people right now. Gwen’s leadership fell at a good time. She nods her head once in agreement before answering his question with a shrug, “Hanging in there.” It seems to be the only phrase she can string together that doesn’t feel like a total lie. “Still a little terrified.”

[aureliaxselvaggio]

Lia was beginning to feel restless again, though for once she wasn’t finding the Estate stifling as she had so many times in the past. Instead she was welcoming the steadiness that it brought and glad of the constant source of company when she did so poorly on her own. There had been a vow made to herself to kick all her habits but staying clean with no distraction was as hard as it got. That was what had brought outside in search of someone to pass the time with and her search pays off when she spots a familiar redhead. “Looks like you’re getting good at that.” Looking down at the other woman’s hands there’s a dark look that crosses her face at how the times have made warriors and soldiers out of them all and how much she wanted to make someone pay for that.

[runaway-hall]

There’s a shrug of Charlie’s shoulders at the interruption, the suggestion she’s getting good at unloading and reloading her gun. Maybe she is, the movements becoming more fluid with each dismantling but the weapon still feels heavy in her hand, like she can feel each bullet and the lives they will take. Or maybe they are the ones they’ve lost. Rhys. Ailie. Jesus Christ, Ailie. Every time she thinks of the girl in an Initiative cell she shudders, quick to build dams in her eyes to keep tears from flowing like rivers. None of them deserve that, but especially not Ailie. She’s still trying to figure out her place in this world. She’s still scared. “Guess it helps,” she comments softly, reloading the gun and placing it down on the table before her. She needed the distraction but she’ll welcome that in Lia. She’s always liked Lia. “Sit with me?”

[carvcrbernard]

It didn’t surprise him any more to see his fellow members doing things that he wouldn’t have normally expected from them before the attack. They all handled it in different ways and dealt with it how they could. Bern couldn’t say he knew Charlie well enough to know if this was out of the norm for her but he’d certainly never come across her with a gun in her hands before - from what he’d gathered her power was usually weapon enough. Her fingers handle the gun well and while he prefers to use his own body to inflict harm, he’s had enough practise with firearms to be mildly impressed. Not enough to give the redhead anything but a low suggestion. “You should try a different one now.”

[runaway-hall]

Charlie isn’t alarmed by the voice, perhaps due to senses on high alert since a man burst into the bar with an army behind him. Her shoulders stay still and her hand steady on the handgun. She knows the voice that interrupts her own training. Not well, but she can place a face to it and it was her turning to gaze up at Bern, something like the ghost of a smile on her lips, if only to be polite. “Yeah,” she agrees quietly with a nod of her head, “Just wanted to be the most comfortable with this one.” Because it’s hers. Seamus gave it to her and she didn’t ask question on how he got the firearm. It doesn’t matter now. She shakes her head, red ringlets rustling around her shoulders as she attempts to change the subject, “How are you?”

[runaway-hall]

The Estate feels the safest but perhaps it’s the grandest target for the Initiative. Still, Charlie finds herself spending more time at the Selvaggio home than her own, terrified she’ll return to find an agent waiting for her, like a monster under her bed. It could merely be the idea of safety in numbers, that so many of her own rush in and out of the building like it’s equipped with a revolving door and there’s something comforting in that, something normal. Something like family. And that’s what she has to fight for now. That’s the reason she sits outside at the patio table alone, unloading and reloading the handgun until it starts to feel like second nature, like the weapon is a part of her toxic skin, which still feels cold even in the California heat.

[devouringbeast-blog]

voices carry » eli & charlie

[devouringbeast-blog]

The words aren’t a promise, no matter how much he’d like to pretend they are. It’s not the kind of confession he might hope for, it might not guarantee him anything but tonight, but he clings to it with selfish hands curving around her frame. There’s more armor than he ever wants separating them, but right now every second is more than he thinks he had the right to. He was dying. He felt it, blackness crowding his vision, knew it in his bones, and whatever stay of execution he was granted, he doesn’t know if there’s a better use for his hands than holding her now. And if he’s left with any regrets it’s that he’s still bound from something as simple as smoothing the hair from her face.

“Me neither.” The quiet answer might be more of a promise, but if he’s been reluctant to commit to a life here, he doesn’t see other options now. Not just for his father and his vengeance, but because at some point he crossed a line he can’t go back from. There’s nothing waiting for him in New York anymore. Nothing but an empty apartment, that life he tried to make for himself rendered an illusion he can’t cling to anymore. He can’t go back to fucking strangers or pretending he’s fine alone.

He can survive alone. But he doesn’t know if he would ever call himself fine or okay, not when all he’s left with is his guilt and his addictions. She might be the worst of them, but he doubts he’ll ever be able to get himself clean again. Not until she tells him to.

It hurts when a breath escapes him, in more ways than one. Not just the stretching of skin that reminds him of the ragged wound in his chest. That exists as a constant right now, every wrong move reminding him of a bullet punching a hole straight through him. But Rhys is gone, maybe Ailie, and they’re his people regardless of how close they stand. The girl’s too close to innocent to be in Initiative hands, and Rhys holds too much of his respect. “Shit.”

If he could he’d go after him now, start tearing apart the city to find out which rock they hid him over. But there are few guarantees he won’t bleed out before he sets foot over the threshold, and that kind of weakness is an awful thing, one he’s never had to live with before. His eyes close for a moment, fingers tracing idle patterns against the blanket, wishing he could pull that comfort straight from her skin. But she tries to offer him another kind, and he’s just as grateful for it. Nick’s okay. He might’ve dragged him into this, but at least he doesn’t have the weight of another dead brother on his soul. “Good. He shouldn’t’ve been there.”

[runaway-hall]

All she wishes for now is a selfish act. But Eli’s hand in her own would prove an immeasurable comfort. She wouldn’t pray for the freedom and her peers or the death of the Corinthian. She would help see to that on her own. When he is out of darkness, she silently swears to throw her all into finding Ailie and the rest of them, breaking them free of the Initiative’s hold and putting another dent in their system. They dared to attack on her territory and it would not go unpunished. But, for now, all she wants is to be small and weak, holding Eli’s hand until she feels ready to unleash hell upon the Syndicate’s enemies.

They aren’t allowed that. Or rather, she isn’t. He could walk away at anytime while Charlie would always be a prisoner to this flesh. It’s unfair to trap Eli there as well. And yet he stays, using his thought to be last breath to swear to her that he loves her, a sweetness she doesn’t deserve. Because she couldn’t return that favor, couldn’t hold him when he aches just like he couldn’t touch her now as a comfort. There’s a blanket between them that feels more like an iron maiden, but it’s the best they can hope for. But it feels like relapse, it feels like the night before he ran away - the reason she worked so hard to gain control of her ability. It feels like losing him all over again.

Even if he swears he isn’t leaving her. Not this time, and there’s words echoing in her head of a dying man admitting he wants to stay. But perhaps all he meant was he wanted to stay on Earth. He wanted to live. Now with that freedom returned, she couldn’t say those affections are still the same. Maybe a living man couldn’t love her as aggressively as a dying one.

“Don’t blame yourself for that,” Charlie instructs quietly, “I know Nick wouldn’t.”

There’s a pause before a soft smile pulls at her lips. “Ryan might. But Nick wouldn’t.” But there’s more serious reasons for the injury to the man’s stomach that have her fingers splaying against the mattress like a substitute for comforting bare skin. “If it wasn’t him, it was going to be someone else. He’s alive. That’s enough.”

[runaway-hall]

Do you think Eli meant it when he said he loved you?

He thought he was dying. We’re friends. He loves me as much as any of his other friends.

[devouringbeast-blog]

voices carry » eli & charlie

[devouringbeast-blog]

The poor excuse for a joke doesn’t make her smile, but something does, and he doesn’t question it when it’s all he wants right now. Her next to him, warmth radiating off her skin even if he thinks he’ll burn himself if he tries to touch her right now. But he’s lost track of all the times he’s skated around those rules, and his hand curves around her frame to hold her a little tighter. That blanket serving as armor until it’s safe to touch her again. And it doesn’t occur to him this time that it won’t be.

Only that he doesn’t deserve it. He’s under no illusions that he ever has, and he can’t hate her for greeting his confessions with silence. There’s always been too much blood on his hands. This time it just happened to be his own, rendering weaker than he’s ever been in his life. It’s not a thing that can sit easily, and the only reason his breath flows so steadily in and out of his lungs now is because the people he cares most about managed to get themselves free.

It’s a selfish way to measure it, especially when he doesn’t know what the rest of the fallout looks like. He knows what the inside of the Tavern did, and if they tried to leave bodies behind he can’t believe his was the only one. It’s just not a question he’s ready to ask.

“Yeah?” There’s something quiet and hopeful echoed in his gaze, the words placed somewhere in his memory next to that I missed you he’s been holding onto.He’s not stupid enough to think she’s lying, not when she was waiting by his bed. And he doesn’t try and pretend that’s not exactly where he wants her. Even if right now that means gloves hiding her hands and a blanket between them. “Dunno about okay. I think you should stay and make sure.”

The cocky words sit easier on his tongue now, more than the taste of blood and terror as they threatened to drown him. It’s about how he always figured he’d go, but maybe he’d had himself convinced he could greet it with any kind of grace. Instead he’d scrambled desperately for something to hold him here, and he’d ended up following the red strings he thinks he tied to her fingers years ago.

“Bet she loved that.” The thoughts enough to put a smile on his lips, but it’s a short-lived thing when she gives him a name of one of the missing. “They have him? Rhys?”

[runaway-hall]

There’s something far more comforting about this, even if they aren’t touching. Even if it doesn’t resemble that night he requested she ask him to come up. Eli might’ve been hoping for a more physical encounter but perhaps they both accepted that simply each other’s presence had proven to be enough. Maybe that’s all they’ll ever have - a few stolen moments where she can touch him but the time limit constantly changes and she’ll never know when it’s up. They could settle close that night, fingers tracing the inside of palms and Eli played with her hands like a child might at discovering fingers exist. It felt like forever then. It felt like she had time to spare.

But there’s bedding sitting between them now, a blanket making it easier for him to hold onto her and her fingers covered with latex in case she does need to inspect the bullet wound. They don’t have time, even if that what she told him she wanted from him. Maybe he has time to give, but she doesn’t.

“Not going anywhere,” she swears, voice cracking from exhaustion and sadness. There’s no where else she’d rather be even if she could think of something to occupy her hands. And she might give over shifts to others who wanted to check on him so she could take a break to grab some food if she could muster up an appetite. But even if a task had been instructed of her, she doesn’t think she could do it. Leaving Eli is not an option.

Because even if he doesn’t truly love her like he confessed to, she loves him.

“I don’t know,” she tells him honestly about the missing member of the group, a few names on that list that they haven’t been able to locate yet, “Everyone has been instructed to meet here but a few haven’t shown. He hasn’t. Ailie.” That name is too difficult to say allowed and she stops with lips mashed into firm line. There’s an attempt to shrug it off that’s half-hearted, little ability to feign that she doesn’t care about the missing persons lists at all. If her biggest worry had been Eli, it didn’t stop others from sitting inside her skull with talons clinging to her brain.

For a moment, she buries her nose against the blankets, breathing deeply in that calming scent, that one of Eli that still clings there despite spending more time atop her own mattress than his. “Nick’s okay,” she finally states, changing a subject to someone she could at least see and could give a better update on.

[naomi-carson]

If Naomi had been gifted with the ability of laser vision, her glare would have surely destroyed the mobile device in her hand ten times over. And if she did have laser vision, she’d stand at the correct distance away and fire a red hot beam right into that Corinthian’s head. As much as she wants to think about the more than satisfying image of having that Corinthian dead at her feet, Charlie’s familiar voice interrupts her thoughts. Naomi lifts her gaze, lowers her phone or a moment, but the glare in her eyes remained. The further on they went in with this war, Naomi’s was certain that the look would remain stuck on her face…. but then again that wouldn’t be much different than house she was before all this started. “Picture of the Corinthian,” Naomi explained as she handed the phone over to Charlie. “Friday drew it before he even showed up here I think.” 

[runaway-hall]

The phone is handed over easily and Charlie covers the screen with a curved hand, latex still covering her fingers to keep them concealed, as she stares at the sketch. Friday is talented, is her first thought because it does resemble the man he kicked down the door and made demands of them. Her suspicions of him are confirmed. She stood in front of him, had a conversation with that man. She had his phone number because he held sketches out, one of the woman beside her. The Initiative’s Friday is less talented, and probably not holding an ability in their DNA. But his face stands as a warning that none of them heeded. “Shit,” she mumbles under her breath as she hands the phone back, “Does she have any more drawings of him?”

[devouringbeast-blog]

voices carry » eli & charlie

[devouringbeast-blog]

She’s quick to check on his bandages, though with enough caution to ensure she never makes any real contact with his skin. It’s a familiar game, but it had gotten so much easier to buy into the hope that it wasn’t one they’d have to play anymore. Every moment he’s stolen, every kiss or brush of fingers that he couldn’t have claimed from her years ago, right now they’re just as distant as they’ve ever been. But she settles next to him, and there’s something equally as familiar about pretending he doesn’t notice gloves or hoodie sleeves pulled down to keep them apart.

It’s no small relief when she ensures that his sister’s okay, and if it’s selfish that he doesn’t ask about more he’ll accept that title. He knows there are more he should be asking about, but his energy’s failing as quickly as it came, that constant ache in his chest a draining thing, and moving hadn’t done him any favors. It’s hard enough just to try and offer her a smile at the question.

“Like I’ve been shot.” It’s said with a familiar, dry sarcasm, as though it wasn’t one of the more terrifying moments of his life. Tomorrow it won’t be. It’ll be just one more scar, and he’ll try not to look at it and wonder why he’s still alive when it’s the same thing that had killed Cal.

For now he’s just careful when he shifts to give her space, the wound still too raw to risk more movement than that. It’s not until she settles that he says anything else, head tilting against the pillow to look over at her. He doesn’t want her apologies, uncertain what they’re even for, but especially not if it’s for her still being alive. “Alright, maybe it’s not the only thing, but it matters a lot.”

Eli has to stop himself there, because whatever else might follow sounds too much like dying confessions he’s already emptied into a bloodstained phone like some form of last rites. Only he hadn’t died, and now he can feel those words sitting between them in that space he doesn’t try to breach right now. He couldn’t take them back if he wanted to, some pacing monster settling in his chest the moment he’d admitted it to both of them. He’d put miles and years between them, and all it had done was leave him with more regrets and too many questions of what might’ve been.

Only they’re followed now by the cold realization that she hadn’t said them back. It matters less right now when she’s still settling in next to him, and there are a thousand other horrors to try and focus on. He doesn’t know who was hurt or killed in the fallout, who might’ve been taken, or what they’re going to do next. If he’s killed a Corinthian before, he’s in no shape to go after one now.

He’s hurt, his family’s hurt, and Charlie doesn’t love him back. He’ll take what comfort he can just from her presence next to him and deal with the rest when it comes.

His hand lifts, fingers hovering for a moment over the wound on her forehead that’s being held together with white tape. But there’s no healing grace in his fingers, just a regret that she’s hurt at all. If he could he’d try and quiet that pain, but he can recognize when her walls are up, and maybe it’s for a good reason. He settles himself for reaching down and tugging at his blanket instead, drawing it up over her waist before he rests his hand against the fabric. It’s close enough to holding her for now, and maybe close enough is the best he can ever hope for.  “I’m glad you’re okay.”

[runaway-hall]

A smile never appears on her lips at the attempt of a joke. Perhaps if it’d only been him that’d been hurt and no one went missing. Maybe if she could touch him with bare hands, run fingers through his hair as she swore to him that they’ll find their missing friends, that she loves him too. Only that is a promise that chokes her. Her brain rationalizes it quickly as the desperate words of a dying man because he couldn’t possibly love someone he couldn’t touch. Why would he bother? Especially when he’d been familiar with many beds that were not his own over the time that she’d known him. Any of those women could give him more.

And yet, he’s always returned to her in some aspect, whether to crash on her couch in a drunken daze or after years of radio silence on the east coast. Her eyes close slowly as the blanket is draped across her frame and the pressure of his hand sinks in. It’s so agonizingly familiar, a heat she’d grown too accustomed too knowing that it would be ripped away from her when they’d both need it most. But she smiles, something soft and quiet, only a flicker of the expression at all. But it’s there. Eli’s there, and that counts for something.

“I’m glad you’re okay too,”  she confesses shakily, sniffing back more tears as the chokehold certain words have on her throat begins to loosen. “I’m really fucking glad you’re okay.”

There’s something like a laugh bouncing in her chest, a small glimmer of light in the darkest twenty four hours of her life. Charlie doesn’t flinch with each movement Eli makes, perhaps because everything he does is slow today, careful not to irritate a healing bullet wound. But this is a familiar place for them, fingers hovering over flesh with that heated temptation of simply what skin feels like on skin. Now his fingers hover over bandages like the mere proximity might erase the wound. He won’t touch her. He knows better.

“Rhys is among the missing,” she informs him, head settling comfortably against the pillow as her eyes drift to the white gauze covering his skin. The bandage work is a nice job. “Ryan helped out the most.”

[devouringbeast-blog]

voices carry » eli & charlie

[devouringbeast-blog]

The answers are only so comforting when the best she can say about his brother is that he’s alive, and the thought that his friend took a bullet just for standing too close to him sits like dead weight in his stomach. He nods his head all the same, almost wishing it were harder to let his body settle back against the mattress. He’s not sure it would obey him anyway if he tried to force himself from his bed just to see they’re safe with his own eyes. But he has to ask, his sister too absent from that list, and the last he saw of her she was lying unconscious next to him. “Lia? Is she alright?”

He doesn’t know if she’s the one that’s responsible for the bandage around his chest, but he knows she’s the one responsible for his life. She hadn’t left him, despite his own orders, and if it might’ve been safer for her he can’t help but be grateful. He didn’t want to die, not really, even if he fully believes that all he’s capable of is destruction. It doesn’t change how selfish he is.

And his dying wish looks like it’s been granted, because it’s Charlie sitting in front of him now.

Only she ducks her head in the next moment, apologies spilling off her tongue that he doesn’t need. He doesn’t catch the glimmer of tears in her eyes, but he hears the way her voice fractures, and he’s quick to try and push himself upright just to get himself closer to her. “Hey, hey- ah, fuck.”

It’s a mistake, and he sucks air in between his tightly gritted teeth with a sharp hiss. It pulls at his muscles, nerves on fire and reminding him of the bullet that punched a hole straight through him. His hand’s quick to press against the wound, eyes shutting tightly as he forces himself back to stillness. The thought that follows is a shameful one, a quick and fleeting desire for something that’ll take the pain away, and he wonders if they’d even risk giving him anything.

The wave fades after a moment, and this time his motions are slower, forcing his eyes open and shaking his head. There’s an attempt at a smile, but it wears crookedly when it’s harder to force. “It’s okay. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

He stretches fingers out afterwards, tugging at the sheets next to him in invitation. “Come here.”

[runaway-hall]

It’s the last thing she wants and the last thing Eli deserves right now, but he offers her his comfort because he cares about her. Because he swore to her over the phone that he loved her, that he probably always has. It makes her feel selfish, that guilt sinking lower in her gut that she can’t even answer his question on what happened to Lia. He must move for her but her eyes are shut too tightly to block out tears she didn’t want him to see that all she catches is the hiss of pain.

It’s only then that Charlie moves, swiftly on her feet and hovering over him like she could help him in some capacity, and latex-covered hands suggest she can, even if the material makes her palms sweat. Eli eases himself back into a more relaxed position and she’s careful to tug the blanket away a bit more to check if blood has soaked through the bandage. But it doesn’t look as though he’s truly irritated the wound - just frustrated his healing skin.

“That’s not all that matters,” she states through clenched teeth as she sniffles back tears so they wouldn’t fall onto his chest, because perhaps today she’d learn they’re made of acid too. She gingerly tugs at the bandage, satisfied when nothing red sinks through and straightens her spine.

Suddenly, it’s a mistake to have attacked the Initiative, even if later she won’t believe that. Because they’ll always be in danger just because of their DNA. Each of them will experience another raid, another injury, another loss. Their greatest prayers can only be selfish ones - that this time they aren’t the ones buried six feet under, this time they aren’t the ones black-bagged. She shoves the heels of her palms against her eyes like she could erase the memory of Eli’s blood painting the wood floor a new shade of red.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats again, never clarifying what the apology is for because it could be because he’s hurt or even simply because she can’t stop these tears from falling. But it’s only the start of the war and there would be more nights like this. She doesn’t want to get used to that.

But there’s an invitation to take that all beside Eli. And if it’s still frightening to face, it’s a place she wants to belong even when her skin says she cannot. Kicking off her shoes, Charlie cautiously climbs into the bed, careful not to irritate Eli’s injury which causes her own discomfort in the pull of muscles in her arm. She winces quietly before settling beside him on the soft mattress, an expensive one and it feels like it. With arms tucked underneath her to keep them from Eli, she settles on her chest, cheek pressed against a different pillow as she watches him with all the attention of a child in awe.

After all, Eli lived.

And with a few deep breaths, she resolves to settle her nerves to grant him the conversation he needs. “Lia’s okay,” she answers finally, “A few people are still unaccounted for but Seamus is making house-calls now. How are you feeling?”

[runaway-hall]

shadow preachers » an eli & charlie fanmix

so contagious - acceptance || stop the world i wanna get off with you - arctic monkeys || irresistible - fall out boy || the prettiest - adna || where have you been? - manchester orchestra || smokestacks - layla || please don’t go - barcelona || set the fire to the third bar - snow patrol & martha wainwright || waiting - alice boman || jet pack blues - fall out boy || i found - amber run || iron man - nico vega || unsteady - x ambassadors || gunshot - lykke li || nightcall - kavinsky || speak in tongues - placebo || wherever you will go - charlene soraia || love songs drug songs - x ambassadors || alone together - fall out boy || shadow preachers - zella day || angels - the xx || tourist - yuna || leave your pretty to me - semi precious weapons || words - birdy || devil’s backbone - the civil wars || darling, i want to destroy you - afi || draw your swords - angus & julia stone

[naomi-carson]

Naomi’s outside on the steps over looking the Estate’s backyard and gardens. In light of everything that has happen in the last few months it the farthest she’ll let herself wander now for the time being. The last time she stepped outside the Estate’s gates she barely managed to escape and get back alive and the second time she went out the raid had happened. And both times that damn Corinthian was there. It’s that reminder that has Naomi staring down at her phone, glaring at the photo she took from Friday’s.  “I’m going to fucking kill him…” she growls under her breath as her grip tightens on her old phone and glares down at the Corinthian’s portraiture. 

[runaway-hall]

Charlie has zero plans to leave the Estate. Not with Eli still out of commission and only a few of them collecting at the Selvaggio home. There’s still people missing, like Ailie and she hates how much fear that chokes her with. None of them should be in the Initiative’s confines, but especially not Ailie. She doesn’t know if that kind heart could survive in there. A bit of sunlight might clear her head but it only blinds her vision, eyes squinting against the brightness as she steps up next to Naomi, missing whatever words she mumbled to her phone. “What’s that?” she asks, tipping her head in the direction of the picture she can barely make out as her hand presses against the butterfly stitches keeping the slice on her forehead closed.

[devouringbeast-blog]

voices carry » eli & charlie

[devouringbeast-blog]

Silence follows the greeting, a quiet relief held somewhere in that moment that leaves him grateful for it when his memories are struggling to realign themselves. Somewhere in there are fractured pieces of a conversation that he can’t even swear was real, or just his mind creating some last comfort for him while his life slipped away. Only he’s alive now, and he doesn’t think he should be, a hole in his chest that insists it more adamantly with every breath. 

He lets out one of them now, because if he’d stolen comfort from just the sound of her voice on the other end of the line, his last seconds hadn’t been spent in silence. Not when there’d been a few last words he wanted to scream into the ether, a fierce desire to know if the woman in front of him was okay, if she’d made it without him. She sits next to him as proof of it, and it’s easy to separate dreams from reality this time. Because his imagination would never paint her so hurt, or so sad, and those gloves covering her fingers would be the first thing he’d strip off.

He wants to reach for her now, but there’s too much distance between them and he can’t say she’d welcome it. Because she looks like she’s fracturing, and too much of his heart threatens to follow just at the sight of it. That’s always when she pulls away the fastest, too terrified of her own skin, scared to touch him, and he’s just left with the residual fear that he’d never touch her again.

As it is, his body feels too heavy and foreign now. There’s some distant curiosity who bandaged him up, how long he’s been out, if he’s still in danger of closing his eyes and never opening them again. It’d be a cruel fate now, and one he doesn’t want to consider with Charlie sitting next to him.

She shouldn’t have to witness that, and he’s not stupid enough to think it wouldn’t hurt.

Then the silence starts to drag, and he clears his throat before trying to offer her a smile. It doesn’t come easily this time, not with her eyes rimmed red and her forehead taped together with butterfly bandages. “Rough day?” There’s a quiet, protective anger just at the sight of it, his own state rendered less important. Someone hurt her, hurt his sister, and he hates that his list stops there because he doesn’t know where anyone else stands. He refuses to consider that they’re sitting in a morgue somewhere, but he’s stood too close to death too many times to buy into it.

“Is everyone okay?” he asks, and he can’t fake any humor this time. Not when it’s too tempting to try and drag his traitorous body from his bed to try and find those answers and see for himself.

[runaway-hall]

He tries to to joke with her and perhaps on another day it would’ve worked. Charlie would’ve smiled, offered some sarcastic comment back but it takes all her willpower to keep her voice from cracking on the accusation that she thought he was dead, along with all her strength to keep her power from acting on, from items flying across the room and her body to be rendered untouchable. But it’s not different from now, when all she wants to do is kiss him, swear that if he could give her time then she could give him everything, every piece of her, pray so gratefully that he’s breathing. But one touch would only hurt him further and she can’t muster up the strength to take that one last leap and remove the gloves.

Charlie may not answer the sarcastic question on how her day went. Eli doesn’t need it. The evidence is a cut that might scar along her brow, a scrape from a bullet hidden behind a bandage around her bicep. Her mind feels separated from her body, two entities floating in exhaustion and this must be how cars in junkyards feel like. She’s waiting to be gutted of her more useful items and stripped of her metal; the rest of her tossed in the trash.

“Jackson’s alive, came in with Naomi and Seamus,” Charlie recounts the slight panic of when the trio burst through the door. But at least they’re alive and accounted for. “Nick got shot, but he’s gonna be okay I think. Ryan and I got him out.”

But recalling dragging the dead weight of Eli’s friend sparks fresh tears to her eyes, guilt a heavy weight upon her chest that puts pressure on her emotions to expose themselves. Her only defense is to try and breath a little more evenly, keep those abilities in line. But it’s days like this, where mere emotions could hurt someone that she thinks her life couldn’t be worth all this trouble.

“I’m so sorry, Eli,” she sniffs, head bowed in penance but mostly to hide her tears, “I should’ve gone back for you too. For everyone. I left you there.”

[devouringbeast-blog]

voices carry » eli & charlie

Consciousness comes slowly, little awareness of anything around him except the distant hum of cars. It’s followed by quiet breaths, the first sign that he’s not alone, and there’s an odd sense of dread and curiosity who he’ll find himself waking up next to. It’s a bad sign that he can’t remember last night, but it’s nothing new, and the lingering aches  are just as familiar.

Until he takes a breath, and there’s sharp pain lancing through his chest. It draws a grunt from between his lips, forcing heavy lids open. The first thing he’s greeted with is a vision of a familiar ceiling, his bed back in his father’s estate. And it takes him too long to remember how he got here, blinking rapidly to try and clear the fog and confusion from his mind. It’s not until his hand settles over his bandaged chest that it comes back in a rush.

There’s a sharp inhalation of air when it does, head tilting up because he can’t quite force the rest of his body to follow. Left Blank, the shooting, Lia, Jackson, Nick, Charlie. Their faces run through his mind, but that surge of panic is dulled almost immediately when he finds one of them waiting for him. A quiet relief that has him sinking back against the mattress.

It takes him a minute, clearing his throat before he can get the raspy words to come out, struggling to find a familiar tone as if there’s any reason to be cocky now. “Hey beautiful.”

@runaway-hall

[runaway-hall]

No one asked her to stay by Eli’s side but Charlie felt some responsibility for him that didn’t resemble a burden. Guilt hadn’t nailed her feet to the floor nor did some desire for control over something so wild. It’s a word that chokes her, something Eli let slip when he’d been dying on the harsh floor of the Estate, where she can still see the blood someone had already cleaned up. Maybe she did that. The past few hours have been a blur and all she can remember thinking is her tears do little to pick up the red stain.

She’d proven useless when they reached the Estate. Ryan held together the wound on Eli’s chest as Charlie laid on the floor beside him, frozen in fear. She couldn’t touch him. All she would do is copy his ability and leave him in more pain. It might’ve killed him. Instead she whispered pleas to him, cries that he wouldn’t be dead, that he couldn’t die after such a confession.

But the trouble is, she couldn’t believe those words. How? How when she could never touch him before, and even now it is debatable on just how much physical human contact she can handle? He thought he was dying. Perhaps he wanted that last connection before he went. Maybe he just meant he loves her as one of his own family. But there’s something inside her, warm and bright, that hopes differently, that keeps her in this chair beside his bed, head propped up by her elbow on the nightstand because she’s exhausted but sleep won’t come.

It’s possible she’s babysitting a corpse until his eyes open and he moves to sit up. But the pain must stop him, a hand at his bandages that Ryan had put there because she’s still unable to touch him. It’s the reason for latex covered fingers now, gloves she found in a first aid kit. Somehow, Eli manages some cocky words as though he’s chatting her up in a bar. But she looks like hell, she thinks. There’s a gash on her forehead held together by butterfly stitches and a sleeve torn off for the bandaged crudely wrapped around her bicep, all things she demanded she do herself when she couldn’t trust Ryan could touch her. She hasn’t slept, shown in the bags weighing down her eyes and the translucent color to her flesh. But she’s been sitting here waiting for him to take his last breath. And he didn’t.

“Hey,” she whispers, voice cracking from disuse and the tears building in her eyes that she doesn’t wish to fall and show how weak she feels when she believes he’s dying.

[runaway-hall]

sunflower field » a charlie hall mix

where we used to play - afi || the funeral - band of horses || maybe tomorrow - stereophonics || lost cause - beck || my body is a cage - peter gabriel || innocence - björk || warrior - kimbra || breath of life - florence + the machine || the fear - ben howard || sunflower field - a.u.t.r.y.! || keep the streets empty for me - fever ray || the wild one - kaye || colorblind - counting crows || lights (bassnectar remix) - ellie goulding

[devouringbeast-blog]

Fear’s never been an emotion that Eli’s welcomed, too reckless and too volatile all his life. And it’s hard to say now if that’s been one of his better qualities or one of his worst, it doesn’t matter anymore. Not when there are a thousand crushing down on them now. A very real terror that he’ll die here, never knowing if his brother’s okay, if his sister’s going to wake up. Never seeing Charlie again, and another cough rips through him that might’ve been a sob once.

He deserves this, punishment for the bullet Cal took that he should’ve, but it doesn’t make him face his own death with any more grace. There’s still too much he wants to do.

“Sorry.” The word rips through him, and if it aches that she doesn’t say it back, he can barely feel it above the pain spreading cruel fingers through his veins. And it’s easy to see his life in a jagged collection of memories and find that same red string dragging him through all of them, a promise that at the end of it he’ll find her waiting in his future.

Only now he doesn’t have one, and he feels that thread slipping away along with his consciousness. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I just wanted… I want…you.” The words die out along with his vision and his hold on the phone, blackness finally claiming his sight as it slips from his grasp.

[runaway-hall]

If this is the last moment she gets with Eli, she should tell him the truth, offer him similar words. Swear that she loves him, that she always has. That she fell somewhere between his father telling him to keep his distance and rain drops staining the carpet of her bedroom floor. It may have been how close his fingers hovered over her skin or those teasing comments that suggested she had more primal feelings for him. He’d never been wrong, but toxic flesh refused her that lifestyle until he ran off without telling her where he was going. Maybe if she had known it would be the last time, she would’ve begged him to stay.

This time Charlie knows. This time, Eli’s giving her that moment to say goodbye, but it isn’t a gift she wants. Her attempts to stop his apologies are in vain and his voice sounds weaker after the last fit of coughs. She almost isn’t able to catch the last words he says, but it still stings like a knife to her gut, pulling more tears from her eyes, hot as they burn her skin.

“Eli,” she says, voice breaking with the inability to stay strong for him. But he isn’t answering. The sound on the other end is silence and it’s the loudest noise she’s heard in her life. “ELI!” she shouts this time like perhaps her voice alone can call him back from whatever light he’s trailing, “Come on, stay with me. Stay with me!”

“Hang on,” she shouts, perhaps to Eli as another desperate plea or maybe to the couple in the backseat as Ryan desperately tries to hold Nick together. Or maybe just to herself. No one answers. But she doesn’t hear a thing from the other line as she tosses the phone away with a curse and screeches the car to a halt in front of the looming Selvaggio Manor.

[devouringbeast-blog]

She silences him, and any other day he’d let her. He’d shut his mouth and ignore whatever inspired him to open it in the first time. Too much liquor or some fleeting moment of bravery. She presses forward anyway, asking him again where he is and he can’t really deny her anything. Not when it’s followed by some wretched hope that he might actually get to see her again. “Yeah. I’m here.”

But that hope’s not a lasting thing when he starts coughing, lungs convulsing and pain ripping through his chest in the motion. There’s blood coating his teeth, lingering in the back of his throat until he thinks he might just drown on it. It makes him more desperate to get the words past his lips. “Just let me say it. You deserve to hear it.” Right now it’s stupid to think he could pretend this was anything else. Three years in exile and she’d still haunted him, every dream he’d ever had of her a torturous thing when he’d fully believed it was the closest he’d ever get to touching her.

But he’d trade every one night stand he’s ever had for that brief second of simply feeling her lace her fingers with his. That single bright memory of blue frosting on her tongue and the way she’d looked at him afterwards. “I love you. Probably always have.” His voice cracks beneath the weight of that desperation and fear he’s been trying not to feel, but there’s suddenly less contentment in just hearing her voice when it sounds so far away.  “And I want to stay.”

[runaway-hall]

The admission of his location has the engine roaring louder, her body instinctively working to get her to Eli’s side as quickly as she can. If her head still throbs with pain, she no longer feels it and her will alone might force the wound closed on her arm from the graze of a bullet. She should’ve picked a more useful ability up along the way. She should be able to help her people, to heal them. Instead they’re missing and dying and she’s just driving a stolen vehicle to the Estate like she can make a difference.

But her foot almost slams on the break when Eli presses something he wants to tell her and the confession makes her heart stop. If they’re words she’s always wanted to hear from him, she hadn’t been fully aware of that desire. Mostly there had always just been fear, because she couldn’t touch him and she’s proven time and time again that she’s still uncertain to how much time she has with skin to skin contact even now. Her flesh is untrustworthy. Who could love something they cannot touch?

Eli apparently, and tears rush down her cheeks to smudge the faint layer of sweat and grim coating her skin. “Shut up,” she hisses her instruction, too concerned that the coughing fit he had signals the end to his breathing all together. “Don’t say that,” she pleads, car flying through red lights and around curves, “Don’t say that like you won’t get to later. I’m almost there. Jus-just don’t say that like this is the end.”