#I mean Lou might pass away by the end of it but it’d be worth it

[seekaster]

The only thing I want in this world is a season of Dimension 20 with Ally, Lou and Zac on the same side of the table

[cherry-moonlight]

Life Could Be A Dream - Chapter Three

{NOS4A2 - Charlie Manx x Reader}

{A/N} While the -x-x-x-’s here are used to imply time passing, I also noticed they mark where the warning begins, and only lasts until about half way between them so that works for a marker if you need it! The scene isn't graphic, and only includes lots of feelings from the reader afterwards. Also, thanks for hanging in for my first three Charlie-less chapters. Our favorite vamp will appear in the next one. ;D

Warnings: Implied s*icide, minor character death.

Chapter Three - The Damaged Find Each Other

Black spots clouded my vision in large patches, smatterings of light flecks dancing around within them. My ears were ringing, a low, consistent hum laced with the beating of my heart as my legs trudged forward. There was no indication of where I was, until the dark clouds that kept me from seeing began to dissipate slowly. I inhaled, trying my best to figure out where I was. As I did so, the familiar scent of peppermint and pine filled my nostrils.

Ah.

The dream.

My vision slowly twisted from pitch black to blurry, snowy white as I gained more control of myself and my legs, becoming clearer-headed by the second. The ringing in my ears was replaced with a hazy sounding song in the distance, which I quickly recognized to be the phantom song I’d heard on the radio at Carmody’s, but without the static that found its way through every note.

I was reminded of how Vic asked if I had always heard music that no one else did. It made me laugh. What was she playing at? At the same time, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly alarmed. I chalked it up to the long day. Maybe it was just in my head. She didn’t push the subject any further when I told her no.

My eyelids fluttered, taking in the long road lined with tees ahead of me; my steps crunched in the snow. The lights in the distance were still just so closely out of reach.

I surely thought I’d never experience the dream again after watching it’s contents unfold in front of me not too long ago. It had only been a week since I’d left home, but I was on a new path in life now. If my dream wasn’t a sign for such a change, what could it have been a sign for?

The cold still couldn’t touch me, but light snowflakes fell like rose petals against my skin this time. The feeling was foreign all the same. One didn’t feel snowflakes against their flesh, but these were soft enough that I welcomed it all the same.

No matter how far I walked in any direction, I couldn’t find the source of the song that seemed to float through the air like a butterfly on a summer breeze, intertwining with each note of the ghostly melody. This time, the dream felt as though it were all a distant memory. I supposed I’d dreamt of this wintery place so many times, it was becoming all too familiar, even though the dream itself had begun to change between the last time I’d had it now after years of remaining the same.

Trying to listen closely this time, I heard no sounds of laughter or life like I did last time, and while the song held a hint of catchiness when I’d heard it in the shop, this particular setting ignited a strange pang of melancholy deep within my heart. Sadness reared its head as I began to long for something I wasn’t sure I’d ever had. Not able to put my finger on what that something was, I tried my best to push the feeling away.

But to no avail.

After a moment, I heard my breathing tremble, felt it rattling in my chest.

My fingers found their way to my cheeks, dabbing them lightly in disbelief before I looked down to study the wetness that rubbed off on them, looking almost iridescent in the moonlight and lights that danced up ahead. Despite my upbringing, I hadn’t cried in ages. Crying showed weakness in my mother’s eyes, and I was going to be damned if I let her have the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

I quickly wiped my tears on my clothes, not wanting to think something like a silly, lyricless song would make me cry after all this time. Instead of picking up the pace like I had before, I made my way down the road slowly, staying in the tune with my surroundings— searching for the meaning in anything I could find. When I squinted at the lights before me, I could make out what looked like a long track, lined in the colorful lights. It reminded me of a roller coaster, one I’d seen before.

“{Y/N},” I heard a man's deep velvety voice say, just above a whisper in my ear.

By instinct, I turned to face it, accidentally opening my eyes too widely.

“Oh, Vic,” I sighed sleepily, realizing my dream had disappeared in a flash as my groggy voice squeaked. “I was dreaming, you scared me. You sounded like a man.”

Rubbing my eyes, I sat up from the couch they’d graciously lent me until I could find a place to stay, stretching my arms. It was a low moment for me, having to explain that I was essentially homeless when Vic asked if I lived close to the shop, but the kindness of strangers proved to exist when she trusted me so easily. All it seemed to take was her relating to me with her own trouble with her parents in the past. Though it was brief, it somehow brought us closer together almost immediately.

The damaged really did find each other.

“Gee, thanks,” she smirked.

She wore a black motorcycle jacket and bootcut jeans, her unkempt hair looking as though it’d been concealed under a helmet. Over the past week, I’d noticed she’d taken off on her dirt bike a lot, more than what seemed usual for someone who claimed to want to be home with her son all the time. Though it was hardly my business, I wondered where she went for hours on end.

“It’s already eleven, you’re gonna be late if you don’t get ready,” she urged, a gentle reminder of the day's purpose for me.

I simply nodded and willed myself to my feet, remembering what was ahead of me.

The day after I left the house, I received a call that my mother had overdosed on a cocktail of pills and alcohol. The news should’ve come as a shock; should’ve felt as though I’d got punched in the stomach or plunged into ice water. Instead, I felt as though I knew it was going to happen that way. I thanked the caller for the notification and hung up my cell. It didn’t matter that I was eighteen. She’d gotten her last laugh, and I was truly alone in the world.

Truly an orphan.

-x-x-x-

With a sigh, I smoothed down the black dress Vic had taken me buy for the grim affair a few days earlier, looking around the confines of my now old house. It was going to be taken by the state, and I didn’t have the resources to fight it. If I was honest, I didn’t really want to. It was better off left in the dirt, a memory to be covered up and forgotten about like a child’s toy.

So much had changed in a week. My life was turned upside down in a matter of seconds, and things only continued to change. Seeing the chair my mother often sat in empty struck an odd nerve that I didn’t think it would. I walked around the table, running my fingers along the wooden top before sitting in the chair myself.

It was where they found her. Slumped over, alone.

With my hands on the arm rails, I braced myself, as though the chair might combust, or really, as though I might fall to pieces if I didn’t hold myself there.

Everyone spoke well of her at the funeral. I wasn’t even aware she knew so many people who’d want to be there, but I guessed she’d put on a front that she was a great person everywhere else but at home. Still, the side of me who desperately wanted her to change, who screamed inside as they lowered the casket six feet underground, was grateful they showed up for her.

I didn’t speak about her. How could I after the way we’d parted? I stayed silent, letting everyone think I just couldn’t muster the emotional stability to do so. Maybe that didn’t make me any better than her at some points.

I stared blankly at the table, wondering what was going through her mind at the time, since my whole life I’d never seen her care enough about anything or anyone else.

My father and my brother were at the funeral, which might’ve shocked me if I weren’t feeling so confusedly numb. After more than ten years, they looked so different than I remembered, yet exactly the same. Though my emotions were scattered among a cruel scale of uncaring and caring too much, when I saw them walk over, I did want to throttle them both; shake them to their cores and ask them what they thought they were doing. I wasn’t even sure they recognized me, though. Not until they approached me.

Even after just a very brief chat, I realized it wasn’t that they were better people than my mother for leaving. They hadn’t escaped her clutches or wanted to do better for themselves. They were exactly the same as her, maybe even worse, which was a shame to see in my brother as well. Neither of them were worth remembering, and while my heart shattered at the notion, my head felt clearer being able to find closure and let go of what could be or could’ve been. My cedar chest would definitely become emptier when I got back to Vic’s and burned my father's phone number into nothingness.

I really had nowhere else to turn now, and I was more than grateful for Vic and Lou.

My eyes drifted around the kitchen, and I remembered the way my parents fought with each other. Random objects flying across the room, the smell of liquor seeping from their pores. I always stayed huddled up at the top of the stairs, listening to their arguments about things that never really seemed very important to me. It forced me to be more mature at such a young age, minding my behavior and walking on eggshells. I remembered how one night, their arguing had finally worn on me. I walked out of my front door in nothing but pajamas and the slippers on my feet, only a small child, in the middle of a snow storm. That was the night before my father disappeared from my life. After that, the rest was a blur. 

Not wanting to wallow in self-pity any longer, I shook the thought from my head and stood up from the table. Taking one last trek up the creaky stairs that were almost like a soundtrack to my childhood, I made my way to my room to grab some of my things and shove them into a duffle bag. The rest could burn to the ground for all I cared.

As I took one last look and walked out of the front door, I was tempted to light the match myself.

“Ready to go?” Vic asked.

She had been waiting for me outside. It was her idea to come back to my place to get my things and “say goodbye” properly. She was sweet, but I couldn’t even begin to explain to her that it wasn’t worth it to me anymore. Still, I took the opportunity it offered me. I needed clothes and there were a few things I hadn’t meant to part with when I’d left in the first place.

“Yeah, I think so..” I began, walking down more rickety steps from my front porch. “But, hey.. I don’t want to go back to the house just yet. Can you take me to work? I need to do something other than sit and think today.”

“Course,” she agreed, no questions asked.

I liked that about her and Lou. They seemed to understand, no matter what.

-x-x-x-

The rest of the day went by a hell of a lot quicker than I would’ve liked. Tidying up around the shop, I picked up a broom and absentmindedly pushed it around, focusing on the way the bristles brushed against the cement as I searched for anything and everything to do instead of having time to think. But when I looked down, I noticed a bracelet I never took off was missing from my wrist. An audible gasp escaped me, followed by an exasperated curse.

“What’s the matter?” Vic asked, walking towards me with Wayne who was close on her heels.

“I lost my bracelet.. It was the only thing my mom had ever given me that wasn’t attached to some kind of condition,” I frowned, wringing one hand around my wrist lightly as I held onto the broom with the other.

“I’m sure it’ll turn up, just keep looking,” was all she said before she passed right by me and grabbed her helmet.

I nodded, sighing as I decided it might not have been worth keeping, anyway. Getting sentimental over my mother wasn’t like me, especially when I’d never really paid much attention to the bracelet once I put it on years ago, but I guessed it was a normal reaction in the given situation.

“Where are you going?” I heard Wayne ask her as they headed back out front.

“Stay here with dad and {Y/N}, okay, Bats?” She responded.

And with that, I heard the roar of the dirt bike’s engine kick up and fade off into the distance.

At about ten minutes to closing time, Vic walked over to me with pride in her step and a large grin on her lips. She looked up to something, and I wasn’t sure what to think. Before I could ask what happened, she held her hand out and dangled a small gold chain with a crescent moon charm in the air in front of me.

“My bracelet!” I cried, more excited than I’d expected to be over it’s return. “Where’d you find it?”

“It was on the ground,” she shrugged, a nervous energy seemed to permeate from her, and I was reminded of the first day we met.

When I looked up to thank her, I noticed her eye was bloodshot, a thin trail of deep red blood dripping from the outer corner of it. Concern was an understatement as I dropped the broom and rushed over to her.

“Vic, are you okay? Your eye…”

“Oh what? This? I’m fine, it’s just allergies. I rode through the woods this time, I usually don’t,” she explained.

“But it’s bleeding,” I pushed. “Let me get you a towel or something to clean it,” I said, turning around and looking for a clean towel.

“You should stop riding your bike through the woods so much….” Lou walked over, standing next to the pole with the phone on it.

When I found a suitable towel, I handed it to her, watching as Lou took the “Help Wanted” sign down and crumpled it in his hands, something clearly bothering him as he eyed her with an intense gaze. Not wanting to get in the middle of whatever spat they may have been having, I picked up the broom again, averting my gaze back to the floor as he took her aside and spoke to her privately.

A few moments passed before I heard the phone ring. Not thinking anything of it, I walked over to it slowly. The shop was almost closed and whatever was so important could wait, but I wanted to make a good impression on Lou and Vic. When my eyes fell on the phone, I suddenly remembered the cords had been cut. My expression twisted into pure confusion as I studied the phone.

How is it ringing?

I reached out towards it even slower than I’d approached it and put the receiver to my ear as though it might burn me. Noticing Vic storming towards me with a fire in her eyes that I’d never seen before, I swallowed hard. She stopped dead in her tracks when she noticed I had the phone. It almost looked as though she had stopped breathing as she stared me down, waiting for whatever she was expecting to happen.

“Hello...?” I spoke into the phone, trying to remain calm about what I thought was only the impossible phone call, until her features then morphed from confused to fearful.

“Where’s Wayne?” Vic questioned into the open air to no one in particular with clear panic lacing her voice, stomping closer to me in her boots as though I’d done something wrong.

At the same time, I heard the voice of a little girl at the other end of the phone, her tone full of snark and sass before she hung up the phone with a loud slam.

“You’re not Vic McQueen.”