This is where he'd normally laugh. There was an easiness in him, good-natured, kind-hearted, comfort-laced life where an immunity to misfortune grows. He feels the emptiness where that part of him should be right now, where it always has been. The same sensation one gets when one loses a limb; he's heard their bodies remember what's missing, itch what no longer is attached to them, sense pain where it's been severed.
The muscle in Charles' neck shifts, a sign of something being swallowed back: a thought or word, something of the like. Even he can't pinpoint it, only knows that the response is not what he was looking for.
"Do you?" he finally positions back, returning the favor. His voice, unlike hers, isn't weak. It's not meant to cut, but it demands a conversation.
The question settles, cooling in the night, before he takes a half-step forward, an attempt to regain her attention. "You can be brutally honest with me, I promise," he goes on, "and if you believe it's nonsense, I'll accept it, but do you believe that would have happened had we been on a proper set?"
charles has been unfailingly nice to her. he has tried to one up some line that he set for himself since he handed her a brand new cell phone with no strings attached. she still doesn't understand it, a clouded layer on top of the questions he's continuing to pile up before her. the cars to drive, the lunches on break from dunkirk, everything that points towards
"a proper set?" the question has a direct answer, she can still hear the sound of the saw on the table, how close she'd pulled charles to her in the moments after. it also has its connotations, the unsettling way footsteps creak through the hall. she can blackout many things from her life, she can ignore this if it means some modicum of safety.
"what are you trying to say?" her eyes cut back to him, the flash of a thread about to snap with the pressure she's suddenly facing. if she were a better person she might take a deep breath. but, she's never been the better person, she's only been in disguise as one when he smiles at her from set chairs.
"just say it." the words are harsher than she means, she can't take them back, "you don't think this is proper set, why?"









