exsiliumlogs | You think your days are uneventful, and no one ever thinks about you.

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You think your days are uneventful, and no one ever thinks about you.

Date & Time: 2/12/2013
Location: The training rooms at the hold
Characters: Charlie Cutta and Chloe F-dizzle
Summary: Charlie is as dense as London fog
Warnings: look you just don't wanna be reading this ok go do something else ~~but no, there's nothing but dumb emotions here~~

Christ, it's weird.

It's like living in a house and suddenly realizing you've just spent the past ten years walking right past a door you never knew existed. One moment she was alone and miserable by choice, the next, it's a week later and she has memories from years ago pinned neatly at the forefront of her mind. As if they'd always been there, even if ( logically) she knows they weren't. Or were but just not there, blocked away like a bad case of amnesia.

And she's not even going to try and wrap her mind around the thought that she was really here ten years ago just a few days before.

Either way, it's untangled a lot of doubt, a lot of worry and frustration. Enough so that when she waits just outside the training room where Charlie's probably swinging away at a punching bag like Rocky Balboa, she's not nervous or upset.

--All right, maybe just a bit on edge.

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He's actually not swinging away. He's not doing anything but walking in slow careful circles to wind himself down, to catch his breath. She said ten minutes and he doesn't want to be breathless and drenched in sweat when she gets here - doesn't want to be tanked up on adrenaline when she-- what? Christ, he has no idea what he's supposed to expect from this. He thinks she remembers (probably more than he does; the longer it is since coming back from Uruguay, the harder it is the make sense of what came before it), but doesn't know what that means or what's changed, if anything.

Shit, he thinks. He strips off his gloves and the wraps under them, taps the toes of his shoes absently on the floor. Shit, he's sick of being sick with nervousness; it makes his goddamn head hurt, makes him want to get into it with someone which is exactly the opposite of what he should be looking for. Didn't exactly do him any favors before. Charlie towels off his face, goes to pull a drink from his water bottle and finds it empty. There. Perfect excuse; he'll go fill it from the fountain, skip out before she gets here--

So of course she's right there in the hall when he shoulders open the door. Charlie breaks stride, pulling up, fumbling with the end of the towel hanging around his neck. "Hullo magpie."

The name takes her momentarily by surprise.

"Hello yourself, cowboy." She's close enough that plucking the bottle from his hands isn't that much of a task-- though Chloe's quick to find it disappointingly empty.

"You don't look all that shot. What's the matter, darling, too tame for you?"

If she wants to take his water bottle, he's not going to be fussed about it. Instead he catches each end of the towel, hanging the weight of his arms off it. He shrugs. "I was nearly done, just cooling out."

Charlie jerks his chin at her. "You look--" Old. No, that isn't the word he's looking for at all. "Fit."

....fit.

The man's prone to shoving his foot in his mouth on the regular, but this spectacular display of ineptitude earns him one solid Look, courtesy of Chloe Frazer.

"Jesus, Charlie, you haven't been drinking again, have you?"

"What? Fit's a compliment," he lobs back defensively, plucking his water bottle back from her. He unscrews the top, more for something to do with his hands than anything else.

"I haven't packed up any of your things, so they're just scattered about." He pops the top the last few rotations, says as much without looking up. "Might take a bit to get it sorted."

"And you really think I want to get away from you that badly?" She asks, hands in her pockets to keep from fidgeting, or going after the bottle again. He might not remember any of it at all, given how he still seems to assume she wants nothing to do with him.

Or maybe he wants nothing to do with her.

He cocks his head toward her like a dog that's heard the call of something interesting - the sound of a familiar car passing or the bay or some like-minded animal -, but for a moment doesn't look up. Instead Charlie absently scuffs his wrist against his mouth, his lip, the thin white scar there. He smells like sweat and feels gritty and gangly.

"Well shit, I don't know," he says, meaning it to be a sturdier kind of answer as he glances toward her, squinting. Instead it's a little more evasive, a little more unsure. Doesn't she? Sure, they'd been thick as anything for the past week but that was a long time ago (for her, wasn't it?). Didn't mean she was done being tired of his shit, did it?

Chloe can't read through it. Maybe if this was about someone else-- maybe if she was objective and it didn't involve her, the lines on his face would tell a story she's more than capable of translating.

As it stands, though, it feels more like fumbling around in the dark for even the barest hint; has no idea what Charlie's thinking in there.

"Mate, I've been spelling it out for you for the past half hour." It comes out sounding nothing short of exasperated. Blunt, even. There's a knot beneath the skin of her belly and its been there so long that Chloe couldn't care less about keeping up casual appearances. They're not dancing around this any longer.

"If you don't want me around, just say so."

His mouth pulls awkwardly like he doesn't know what to do with it, what shape to press it in to say the right things in the proper order. Because there's a gut deep urge low, low in the pit of his stomach that's been sick of this for months, one that's jut been exacerbated by--

--shit, everything to do with that timeline mish mash nonsense. Of her being young and sharp and not knowing anything but knowing he's talking a load of shit. If nothing else, he knows he's fucking tired of it. Tired of guessing what she wants him to say.

Charlie screws the top back on the empty water bottle, muscle in his jaw working. Christ, he wants to rail on something. Should've had this damn conversation somewhere where there was more to hit. But he tells himself that he has every intention of saying something, using his goddamn mouth like an intelligent human being instead of some pub thug with too much booze for brains. Instead he catches out with his hand, gets a fistful of her jacket's collar and jerks her a half step to him in a way that's not gentle and not polite. Which is really just an appropriate precursor to how he tries to kiss her: clumsy, but heated. Sharp and too much force, but a necessary weight.

It doesn't matter that it's Charlie Cutter doing it: the way his fingers roughly close around her collar to pull her in has her suddenly sharp and rigid against his knuckles. More reaction than thought, a burned in response from too many barfights and skirmishes, from the need to carry a smaller gun and keep it safely tucked away where the asshole lunging at her neck won't notice. Her fingertips are at his throat-- ready to gouge right into sensitive pressure points-- when his mouth falls heavy over her own.

The part of her brain that's made of cold steel and logic stays locked up, sounds off like an alarm in response to intimacy that reads more like desperation, but beyond it, what's left, made both strong and weak by separation and guilt, by time and time spent in the shadow of her former self, presses right back to drown out the din. Of blood and tarot cards and gold coins and the feeling of his leg beneath her cheek, weary as anything.

Her fingers slide up to grab his jaw; settle there, immobile, caught somewhere between the struggle to reject or indulge. Stays passive till his lower lip is close enough for her to sink her teeth into it, and then-- discarding every last trace of awareness, of thought-- uses it to give her control of his mouth with her own.

Edited 2013-02-16 06:06 (UTC)

It's not something Charlie thought through enough to have expectations about what her reaction would be, but if he'd had the time to deliberate, the fierce way she presses back - all teeth and the edge of her fingers digging into the tender skin of his jaw and neck - probably wouldn't have been his assumption. The heat of her hand and her mouth and the sting of her teeth. A tautness in his chest and god, it makes his breathing heavy. Makes him want to-- Christ.

They're in some bloody public hallway in the middle of the afternoon. Anyone could walk through. Which, really, those bastards - whoever they might be - can go to hell for all he cares. He makes a low growling noise against her mouth, fingers tight on the collar of her jacket. The water bottle slides from under his arm, pings hollowly against the floor and then rolls away somewhere, as he catches his other hand up: touches her shoulder, skuds his thumb against the curve of her neck - gentle, strangely at odds with the heat of his mouth, the scrape of his teeth, the shape of his nose pressed against her cheek as he kisses her.

Two months. "I shouldn't've--" he says, words catching from the nip of her teeth and the too eager press of his own mouth. Two months and he's spent them being a miserable old sod. "I should've cleared out so you could just shoot him."

Those words, muttered hot against her skin the way someone else might say 'I want you' or 'I need you', or even just 'stay', shatters the fragile glass keeping sense at bay. Drags her back to France and the memory of him pale and withered beneath the sting of her accusations, phrasing near exact to what he's currently breathing out like some kind of an apology. There's a fresh scar on his lip and it's pressed to her mouth and--

The knot comes back. His grip feels like a vice, one set by her own hand. Chloe pushes against the line of his jaw.

"Don't."

That sharp tension is suddenly there on his skin from her fingers and he doesn't-- Why she'd-- For fuck's sake, he's trying and she won't even let him do it. "What?" The sound is all gentle and bewildered, huffed out across her top lip as his fingers shift on her jacket: loose and then sharp again, digging in against the leather. He's soft for all of a moment, thumb stroking her throat, then goes tough and steely. "Chloe--" his mouth chases after her's, tries to catch and nip and just. Just.

God he's never gone so quickly from wanting to kiss someone to wanting to shake them.

This time there's no hesitation. His warmth, the soft scrape of calloused fingers and all the comfort that comes with it falls flat against her defenses. She doesn't yield.

"No, Charlie-- listen to me." Chloe jerks back hard enough, while her hands slide down to brace firm over the center of his chest, that the thick stitches keeping her collar fixed to the rest of her coat start to snap. "--Christ, just stop for two seconds, okay?"

He lets her go the second the stitching starts to give: snatches his hands away from her like he's been burned and takes a full step back himself, hitting the water bottle with his heel and sending it spinning away across the floor. It makes the distance between them-- manageable.

Fine. All right. If she wants him to stop, he'll bloody well quit.

Jesus, it's irritating. Frustration hot on the back of her neck like a flame where the fabric's been digging in-- and it shouldn't be. She's not trying to shut him out, for fuck's sake all she wants is to help but he's grabbing at her like a child and her teeth are set and--

And god, she's an adult. Grown past her temper, worked her ass off to claw her way through all the miserable, selfish habits she'd spent years nursing along without remorse. Letting it win out now would just be a piss poor case of self-sabotage. Something she's had more than enough of by now.

So Chloe stops, runs the heel of her palm over her face and breathes till there's no numbness in her fingers. Till she can find her way across the distance he's placed in a fit of confusion to take hold of both ends of his towel. It's damp with sweat, salt stinging the tips of her fingers.

"Don't tell me I was right."

Edited 2013-02-16 11:31 (UTC)

There's a dull pressure there at the back of his neck from the towel and the barely there weight of her hands. His skin feels gritty and his tongue dry and everything that comes out of her mouth, simple as it is, chips at something angry and sharp clattering around his insides. Charlie breathes out heavy through his nose, clumsily lifts both his hands to touch her jaw. He scuffs his thumb meditatively over her lower lip in a way that he knows is grossly, offensively intimate. It's something to make her balk but, shit, if she's going to put herself within arm's reach and if she's so damn keen on throwing herself across the alter or in front of a truck or in front of the barrel of a gun and pulling the trigger with her own hand-- well, she had better well learn to tolerate a bit of discomfort then.

"Maybe," he says, flat and blunt. "But it's not like you're wrong either."

Edited 2013-02-16 15:49 (UTC)

The noise that slips out beneath the press of his thumb somewhat resembles a laugh, though it lacks momentum, lacks so much as an ounce of genuine, appropriate humor. Charlie knows better than most anyone that intimacy on that level serves only to bother her. Either he's still in a state of desperation, or he's aiming to annoy. Or both.

And shit, she's gone soft. The past two months have been too bloody long. Not that they haven't gone longer without speaking. Not that she's ever needed him close to feel at ease. But it's been two caged months spent cut off by more than just distance; the line between them so vast and sharp that neither of them dared to even bother attempting to cross it, despite desperately needing a solid handhold to cling to through the worst of it, that has her--

That her hands are already tracing the smooth, white line of his scar. That when he opens his mouth to speak she focuses more on it than on what he's saying: soft skin and coarse stubble and heated breath up against fingertips and her chest is so tight she's shocked there's nothing shoved against it to stop her from breathing. She doesn't want to have this conversation. She should run.

"Think it's safe to say we've both made our mistakes..." Chloe's thumb slides down his cheek instead, past the slope of his neck to settle in the hollow of his collarbone. Her lips work with too much effort, voice low and unnaturally unpolished when she adds: "I'm sorry."

Edited (My iPad ate part of this :l) 2013-02-16 17:41 (UTC)

As if he wasn't aware, as if it wasn't obvious. He can feel it in the skip of her mouth under the careful brush of his thumb, in the low catch of her voice, and in the pressure of her thumb against his throat. There's something to be said about absence and hyper awareness, and how he wants to lean into those narrow points of physical contact - metal filings to a magnet.

Instead, Charlie taps her chin with his thumb and carefully draws his hands from her face. He smooths the rumpled collar of her jacket with a fastidiousness that's deliberate to the point of being an obvious diversion to keep from-- shit, what? To keep from sliding his hands into her hair, thumbs tracing along the shape of her ears, fingers at the nape of her neck. Because god knows that's likely to get him in trouble. Because there's a way that she says she's sorry that's broken up and thick and he can't in good conscious hold her to it. Not like that anyway.

So he straightens her jacket. The touch is succinct. Purposeful. It's something sensible, something that needs to be done rather than some kind of sentimental gesture. Christ, there's a knot high in his chest and it takes him a moment to-- Charlie clears his throat. Huffs out a laugh that vibrates against the press of her thumb. "Me as well."

And just like that it's done.

All the residual fear clawing away at her insides, all the tension pent up in her shoulders melts off under the slow roll of his fingertips over the leather of her collar. She's made of stronger stuff than most, counts it off in the various accomplishments she's managed during the course of her life, reminds herself of it every time she spends a dollar or a euro, but these days Chloe finds she's at her strongest when she's holding someone else up.

"Shit--" She mutters, chuckling with her chin tilted low against her shoulder so she doesn't have to stare at all the sharp angles of his smille. "This is fucking awkward, mate."

Yeah, so maybe it is just a bit. Charlie makes a low noise, all breathy and hollow, and tells himself to let go of her bloody jacket. He's being foolish about this whole thing and would be better served to just uncurl his hands, have a good laugh and be done with it.

So he does. Gives her a pat, releases her collar and catches her chin. "Oi, c'mere bright eyes," he grumbles and plants an imprecise, sloppy, frankly stupid kiss on the corner of her mouth before gently butting his forehead against hers. Then he turns her loose, takes a half step back and ducks his head. Now where the hell'd that damn water bottle go?

The hand at his throat speeds the process along; shoves him off to keep from encouraging his juvenile behavior, though she's still grinning all the while.

"You still haven't told me what I ought to do with my things."

He checks her back with a small tap to the shoulder from his knuckles before stooping to fetch the wayward bottle. He jams it up under his arm where it isn't likely to go escaping again any time soon.

"Well I don't mind them in my flat," he says, shooting her a sidelong glance as he straightens. He shrugs. "But they really are all over the place, so maybe if there was - you know - a bit of consolidation." Like put it in a spare drawer or that empty space in the closet, as novel as it is to keep finding gold coins in the crack between his mattress and the wall.

"Oh yeah?"

Speaking of cracks, Chloe cocks her head to one side while he's bent over. The view sits well with her; definitely something she's missed. Which is why when she moves up behind him to walk on by, she's quick to express her deep inner emotions with a solid slap on the rear.

"Awfully generous of you."

Christ-- Well, all right then. Straightening, Charlie scuffs his hand over his buttocks and tries very hard to frown after her. "Cheeky tart," he mutters. Honestly, just no sense of propriety whatsoever. It's downright shameful. Which would naturally be why, when he catches up with her, he gives her a little pinch to the hip as he falls into step.

"Well I thought so, but I won't keep you from sleeping on the floor if you'd rather leave it stacked on your side of the bed."

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