#charlana

[the-little-prophet]

The Sky is...Changing || Charlana

Buck Little was leaving Swynlake. 

Charlie wandered back to his flat with his mind reeling around this news. On one hand, it felt like an inevitable conclusion to... everything. His father hadn’t loved it here. In many ways, he hated this town, blamed it for the destruction of his marriage and his too weird son. But he’d felt stuck here. Stuck in a job. Stuck with his injury. Stuck in his depression. 

But even Swynlake could push people too far. And this time, with the latest disaster... Charlie and his father had both been trapped in the Hunger Games, Charlie hiding in his bunker while his father had tried to hunt him down. 

He’d emerged from the Swynlake trance with watery, tired eyes, hugged Charlie, and told him he couldn’t stay in this place any longer. That he needed more help, and he couldn’t get it in a town that made his problems bigger and more dangerous. 

So he was leaving. Going back to Boston, to stay with some old friends. Charlie was going to have to get all his stuff out of his old house. He was going to have to put his bunker...somewhere. 

Or maybe...

Maybe he wouldn’t. 

Charlie sat on the couch at his flat, YanYan snoozing on one of its arms, staring blankly at the TV until the door clicked with Alana’s key. She’d spent some time with the Tritons after everything, which was pretty typical for a Swynlake magical disaster. He looked up as the door opened and caught her eye.

“Hey, uh, can we talk?” 

@alana-the-brilliant

[weasleyismyking540]

Well....

So many options lol....

Decisions, decisions.....

[the-little-prophet]

Cat’s Outta The Bag || Charlana

So objectively, it was kind of ridiculous to stand outside one’s flat like YOU were the one intruding. But that was exactly what Charlie and Lana were doing before they confronted the evil, allegedly psychotic sorcerer trapped inside Lady MacBeth’s body. And, hopefully, tried to convince her to commit to changing her ways. 

Sure, it hadn’t worked so far in the near 1000 years that she’d been alive and trapped! But yeah, maybe if Charlie and Lana gave it a go.

Naturally, Charlie was having plenty of doubts, concerns, and second guesses about this.

Hence his fidgeting now. He and Lana hadn’t exactly talked about the best way to go about this. It didn’t seem right to trick YanYan into getting into the cat carrier in case she put up a fight (plus kung fu moves). That was not the best way to earn her trust. But it also felt kind of naive to try to have this intervention without any kind of security in place. 

“Maybe if we uh... lock us all in one room so if she tries to escape, it’s harder?” Charlie fretted, sending a glance toward the door. If you listened faintly, you’d hear the sound of the television; YanYan always watched her soaps at this time. 

@alana-the-brilliant

[the-little-prophet]

What episode of Doctor Who is this? || Charlana + Fu Dog

When it came to the Lady MacBeth/Yan-Yan/Evil Cursed Cat thing, Charlie very much felt like he was in the wrong movie. 

Having a possessed, evil cat felt like something that would happen to a more interesting member of the Swynlake Community. Like...Hades Acheron for example, or Howl Pendragon. He could imagine a comedic version of this plot maybe blowing through Ruff 2 Fluff, but even that would be a bit of a one-off-- like an episode of Doctor Who that would guest star the likes of Ian Lightfoot and Gregory Eeyore, before the Doctor and his companion (who was probably like a Belle Acheron sort, y’know, intelligent bookshoppe keeper felt a bit right) took off again.

But here sat Charlie and his roommate (who was a mermaid technically, but that didn’t really mean magical shenanigans happened to her; that’d be a stereotype), in [name redacted], meeting Fu Dog, a guardian of an important magical society, to talk about a centuries-long feud and... what to do about it. 

That was the hardest part, really. Once they got all the information, they’d have to decide what to do. 

He was absolutely in the wrong movie.

As he waited for Fu Dog to arrive then, he nervously tapped the top of his coffee cup with his half-bitten off fingernails. Couldn’t help it. He’d honestly not expected Fu Dog to have much time for this sort of thing, or not to take them seriously, but apparently the name ‘YanYan’ had been enough for him to agree to a meeting. When Fu Dog pushed through the door, Charlie tried to sit up straighter. 

“Oh er-- do you want anything before we start?” Charlie asked when he hoisted himself onto a chair. “I can um, get you a ... tea or something, if you’d like.” 

@alana-the-brilliant

@american-dragon

[the-little-prophet]

In Our Bedroom After The War || Charlana

So the whole hey I think your sister’s (our) cat might be a demon or something project had to be put on hold for the holidays, understandably. Things had been hectic for the Tritons through the fall in general, with Aquata’s campaign. Politics flooded straight into Christmas shopping and decorating and Charlie off to Toronto for two weeks like he did every other year. He got back to stories about nightmare fog and barely kept himself from laughing. Not because it was funny; nothing about Swynlake disasters were funny. It was just the irony of Charlie, boy of nightmares (though they weren’t really nightmares, huh?), missing the nightmare-event of the century. 

But Swynlake was quiet now. The first night Charlie slept at home in his flat, he’d not dreamed anything at all, not of the past or Swynlake’s shaky future.

But the next night, he dreamed about the Great Wall again, and Lady MacBeth yowling after the sharpei. He’d watched them bounce from post to post. He tried to follow, but couldn’t keep up.

So he brought it up to Alana again at breakfast the next day as best he could, considering the...er... culprit was sleeping on top of the couch. 

“So uh, I dreamed it again.” He said and poked his fork toward Lady MacBeth. 

Alana had known exactly what he meant, and she nodded. 

So they’d cleared some hours out-- Alana gave an excuse to Jake and then they dropped off Lady MacBeth at the Triton’s house. Y’know, just in case while they were tripping through time Lady MacBeth realized what they were doing and killed them. If she were a demon. Or something. 

Charlie sat nervously on his bed as Alana came in. His palms were already sweaty; in one of his hands was a picture of the Great Wall, so hopefully he’d be able to uh...aim well. 

“So uh, what did you tell Jake?” Charlie asked. “Y’know because--I mean, I don’t think we’ll be trapped but...just in case.” 

@alana-the-badbitch

[the-little-prophet]

So, your cat is cursed || Charlana

There’d been another Swynlake dream, in which Charlie had been a poor sugar worker on the outskirts of Swynlake Port. There’d been pirate raids and magic was hush-hush-- pretty typical Swynlake dream stuff and therefore a welcome respite to Charlie, who rarely died in these dreams unlike his own. 

That was not the dream that Charlie wanted to talk to Lana about today.

Instead, it was the dream that sandwiched the pirate one. At first, Charlie actually thought this dream was just that: a regular dream. He didn’t get them very often and normally they were riddled with anxiety as well, like, Charlie not doing well on a test, or Charlie’s magic getting exposed and getting kicked out of his medical program. 

This dream featured Lady MacBeth doing kung-fu on the Great Wall of China with some kind of anthropomorphic dog. 

Super weird.

In fact, the next morning, Charlie laughed about it with Lana in passing. “I had the weirdest dream ever. You think Lady MacBeth knows kung-fu?” 

But two nights later, he had the same exact dream. Like, exactly the same: the same moves, the air punctuated with yowls, the same ending.

Then he dreamed about Lady MacBeth flying a plane in 1917 at the Battle of Keilbergmelen. 

Then he dreamed about her chasing the same dog down in Paris, France. 

And he was getting that feeling, a kind of dream-sense developed over his entire life. These dreams lingered with him when he woke up. They were too sharp; he remembered them too well, as if he was actually there... so maybe he was. Maybe, for some reason, he’d been pulled into Lady MacBeth’s past. A very long, torrid, definitely magical past. 

Soooo he asked Lana to meet him at [name redacted] and bunked down at a corner booth until she arrived. Couldn’t talk about this at the house after all, not with Lady MacBeth listening.

“Sooooo remember that time I had a dream about Lady MacBeth fighting that sharpei on the Great Wall of China?” said Charlie as he fiddled with the straw in his iced matcha. “I’m uh--having it again. Like...a lot.” 

@alana-the-badbitch

[the-little-prophet]

a bomb in your heart || Charlana

@alana-the-badbitch

Something Charlie had learned very young was that disasters came in all shapes and sizes. There were slow-moving, hurricane-shaped disasters-- things you saw days in advanced and had to sit and wait for, like digging your own grave and inviting the hurricane to meet you there. Then there were disasters all shaped like lightning strikes, flashing and burning, leaving charred imprints of what once was behind. Like ghosts. 

Tornadoes were the kind of disaster meant to chase you. 

Sinkholes were disasters no one saw coming, building underneath your feet and then swallowing you whole. 

Then there were microscopic disasters: cancer, bacterial infections, viruses. These things broke into your house and set it on fire from the inside. 

When Lana called to tell him she was going to be staying at home for a few days, the disaster had already happened. But to Charlie, the call rang the alarm. He knew disasters. He knew them like the prickle on the back of his neck, like deja vu, like the split second before he fell asleep. Something’s wrong, blared his own sirens. Something’s wrong. Something happened. Something still might. 

These thoughts followed on Charlie’s heel and made his hands itchy and his brain race. He tried to banish those thoughts-- he always did. But his alarms never turned off, simply turned up and tuned in, catching murmurs in classrooms before the start of class about a party over the weekend. He heard Lana’s name, and stuff about crying and leaving early and drama queen and slutty dress, too much to drink. 

Something happened. 

It was a microscopic disaster-- the house was already burning, and no one realized it yet. 

So he showed up at the Triton house a few days after Lana’s phone call after class, wearing his backpack and holding a tupperware full of snacks, because he couldn’t not bring snacks, because he needed to have something to hold in his fidgety hands. Benjamin opened the door and cocked an eyebrow at him, then pursed his lips. 

“Er, is Lana--” okay? Home? Alive? What happened? Something did. I feel it. Like an aftershock “-- can I talk to her?” 

“Wait right there,” Benjamin said briskly then disappeared up the stairs. When he appeared at the top again-- only a few moments later-- he called down. “Okay, come on in, shut the door behind you!” 

Charlie did, closing it very gently, like the house was made out of legos. He scurried up the stairs then and pushed open Lana’s door. 

“Hey,” he said. 

[the-little-prophet]

to date or not to date || Charlana

Charlie: lana something really weird is happening to me and i don't know who else to go to but you and i know this is going to come across as totally pathetic and loser-ish and weird but i geniunely don't know what to do and im sorry

Charlie: i think someone thinks im dating them but i didnt think i was dating them and so how do i

Charlie: 1. confirm this person thinks what i think they think and

Charlie: 2. uh what do i do after that