HOOKED | charliebabe

#O6; IDIOT

☆彡

Babe listens to the door click shut behind Charlie and Jeff. Finally and totally alone. In a strangers house. Alone.

Fucking idiots, Babe thinks, limping his way to the sofa. He plops down, patting around himself in attempt to locate the remote. It's no where to be found. And he's not getting up to look for it. Not lazy, injured. He decides instead to take a shower, tossing the pillow from his lap and using the arm rests of the sofa to support his weight while he stands. His adrenaline from earlier has long since left him, and so the pain in his legs and midsection, along with the pounding in his head, make walking near unbearable. He wills himself not to pass out as he slowly makes his way to what he's pretty sure is the bathroom.

By the time he makes it, it has taken him four times longer than it would an uninjured person, and he leans almost fully on the walls. With baited breath and shaky hands, he manages to get the door open and slump inside, nearly collapsing against the countertop and barely managing to catch himself. He looks at himself in the mirror, fights through the splotches in his vision to look himself in the eyes. Dark bags hang heavily from each socket if his eyes, pink and purple discoloration making him look as though he has never known sleep in all his twenty-four years. He looks just as shitty as he remembered. Just as pathetic.

When his vision clears and the thrumming in his lungs becomes background noise, he stands straight to lift his shirt. As expected, it's pretty bad. Almost his entire chest is dark navy blue, and whatever isn't, which isn't much, is a sickly green color, fading out into yellow. His ribs extend so far out of his body that he can pinpoint the exact spots where a few of them drop out of line with the rest, veering either too far up or too far down. Yes, its quite bad. His legs are in better shape, littered with similar bruises and only a few moderate cuts that have already started to close up.

Even though he feels like death, and looks like death, he at least knows now that he won't die. Doesn't know if that's a good thing or not. He doesn't want to think about it, and so he doesn't, and instead starts digging through the drawers and cupboards in search of any kind of painkiller to kill the throb of his wounds. He finds some easily enough and downs five with one gulp from the tap, feeling the cluster of medication slither down his throat with the coolness of the water. He cringes at the feeling, the fullness, and takes another sip as if to wash the sensation away.

His shirt already thrown to the floor, he strips out of his pants afterward, leaving them in a crumbled pile with his shirt and boxers. The water on his back feels like heaven. He closes his eyes and tentatively brings his face under the stream, flinching back only a second later. The gentle pressure of the water felt like millions of needles being pressed into his wounds, and he thought it would, so he just turns around and lets it fall over his shoulders.

After thirty minutes of gentle scrubbing and more than a few breaks to bite down on quivering lips, choke back painted whimpers, Babe turns off the water. Watches a week's worth of dirt and grime swivel into the drain like a tornado.

He dries himself, careful of his wounds (if he sheds a few tears, that's none of our business), and limps back to Charlie's room with only the towel around his waist. Once arrived, he catches sight of himself in Charlie's full length mirror, and thinks his bruises look even blacker against the pale backdrop of his newly washed skin. He looks like something rotting.

Babe takes himself in for a moment more before clenching his jaw and grabbing out a new set of clothes. This time, shorts. No more denim to irritate the cuts on his legs. He dresses and hangs up his towel with struggle, deciding to lay it over the foot of Charlie's bed frame after lifting his arms to hang it on the drying post has him nearer to tears that he would like to admit. Perhaps he is in worse shape than he thought.

Of course, most of the pain comes from his chest. Each breath feels like knives in his lungs, and he knows from experience that broken ribs will feel like that at the beginning before mending themselves. Still, they need to be wrapped for that to happen, and quickly, before he begins swelling too much. With the coke still doing its rounds in him, more internal damage is just about the last thing he needs.

However, as he turns to Charlie's personal half-bath for the first aid kit he knows is there, he becomes suddenly winded. His heart clenches and unclenches behind his ribs, and black begins to tug with down until his feet slips from beneath him and he slumps to the floor. The dark consumes him before he even closes his eyes.

☆

Charlie hums a song as he skips ahead of Jeff, swinging the bag of takeout they got at Babe's favorite stall, as supplied by Alan. Jeff saunters behind him calmly, holding his own food much more carefully than Charlie, looking up from his phone only when Charlie calls his name. By the time they reach their neighborhood, the sun hang heavily in the sky, casting a hellish heat down onto the pavement below their feet and on the top of their heads.

Charlie's skip naturally slows to a walk as they reach the base of the steps, looking back to make sure his brother is following before beginning his trek up to the fifth floor, sweat beginning to dot his forehead. He unlocks the door and revels in the cool rush of AC that rushes at him as soon as the door opens, quickly remembering the warm food in his hands and becoming excited. "Babeee! Oh, P'Babe!" He walks into the living room to find the cushion he left the older man on empty; no trace of him. His eyebrows furrow briefly before realizing that Babe is probably in the bathroom, or napping in his room, or grabbing a snack in the kitchen. He isn't in good enough condition to leave yet. Even though he was stubborn, Charlie knows that he is aware of that fact.

He heads first to the bathroom, where the mirror is still fogged slightly with condensation, and water still drips lightly from the shower head; tap, tap, tapping against the metal drain with every drop. Empty.

He begins to feel some emotion coil in his gut, something small and scared and worried. Babe wouldn't leave. He wouldn't.

His room is next. He finds the door cracked ajar, and the feeling in his stomach flutters to life into something big and ugly. Babe, Babe, Babe. His body is limp on the floor. Charlie first becomes aware of his feet, only just peeking out from behind his bed. Even at this distance, Charlie can see his worsened condition. His bruises have blackened behind the blueberry shade he hoped they would stay, and his skin was very white and sickly. This idiot, Charlie thinks to himself, rushing to Babe and kneeling by his side, this idiot. What had possessed him to believe he was well enough to shower all by himself? At the very least, he should have waited until he had returned home in case this exact situation happened.

Babe should have known the heat would make him lightheaded. He should have known washing his body would irritate his wounds, even if he was gentle, which Charlie is almost sure he wasn't. Gentle. Charlie can't imagine it.

Jeff enters the room shortly after him, gasping something small before helping Charlie lift Babe up onto the bed. Babe's open eyes stare blankly at the wall behind them and then at the ceiling. Charlie feels sick as he forces his hand to close them, like Babe is a dead man.