abyss ↣ joe sugg au

eighteen

[Trigger Warning: mentions of depression/suicide]

Joe's hands were hot on the steering wheel and his skin was burning against the icy cold of the window and Charlotte was silent beside him. Her feet were tucked underneath her, her head lent against the head rest as the road ahead stole her attention. Joe shouldn't be looking, but he couldn't help it, Joe needs her to paint the colour in his eyes, he needs her to root herself in his sockets so his vision is never frayed again.

As Joe stole quick looks, he noticed the reflection of the passing cars in Charlotte's eyes, masking whatever lay beneath. It wasn't fear he saw, it was unnamed and Joe's skin felt itchy because they had always been so in sync and now, although they're sitting barely a metre apart, she's never seemed further away.

Joe drove up a steep hill and put the car into park. He looked at Charlotte as if to say 'will this do?'  but Charlotte stayed completely still for what felt like a lifetime, before muttering. "How tumblr of you." 

Before Joe could reply, she kicked the door open and stepped out. Charlotte climbed onto the bonnet, before clambering onto the top of the car. She knew Joe wouldn't mind, she knew he'd happily watch it burn. Charlotte crossed her legs and lay her hands in her lap, before taking in the view of the city. The horizon was dotted with bright lights of many colours and you could even make out some street lamps and cars and Charlotte wanted to watch it go up in flames.

"I found this place because of my photography course, actually." Joe muttered as he climbed up the back, sitting as far away as he could on the small area of the car roof in case Charlotte still hated him. Joe probably wanted Charlotte to make a comment about the fact he was doing something with his life, but instead she connected the obsessive amount of photographed landscapes to the photography course and that was it. 

Joe thought about making conversation, thought about asking Charlotte how Caspar was, after he'd walked into the store a month or so back and saw him wrapped around her in the cereal isle and discovered exactly what her second chance entailed. Thought about asking her how work was or if the leak in her ceiling had got any worse but he didn't, because he didn't care. He was just so glad that her heart was still beating.

"Why are you here?" The slight breeze bit at his lips as his cheeks flamed red because fuck it Joe, that was never meant to be heard by anyone but you.

Joe watched as Charlotte swallowed thickly, extenuating the sharp curve of her jaw. She pulled her lip between her teeth and let her eyelashes flutter a few more times, before she spoke to the wind.

"I don't belong anywhere else."

She didn't seem happy nor sad about it, she just seemed accepting, like it was something she'd been fighting with for so long and now she's lost and she's having to come to terms with it.

Joe's eyes stung and he yearned to pull her in close, to kiss her hair and whisper into her neck but it felt like there was not only a bit of car roof separating them, but the whole world and every galaxy as well.

"You have a home back there Charlotte, you have a boyfriend and a job and a future ahead of you. A dead end road, this is." Joe felt tears prick the deepest corners of his eyes and he scrubbed at his face with frustration.

There was silence for a long while, the distant sound of cars and the wind whipping at the few trees surrounding them were the only noise. Joe didn't leave all those months ago because he could nor was it because there was a pretty girl on his arm willing to kiss the pain away, it was because their was one blasted tree left in that forest, and it had been set on fire in front of his eyes and what good would it do if he stood their and watched it burn to ashes?

"I hated you for leaving me that night." Unfairly so, Charlotte thought to herself nonetheless.

"I've thought about you every day." It seemed Joe's brain-to-mouth filter was forgotten along with the rest of the world but he didn't care because he wanted Charlotte to know how loved she is, wants her to know that he would spend the rest of his life collecting the stars from the sky just to prove it.

"Why didn't you call?" For the first time there's a hint of sadness, traces of pain in her voice.

"Why didn't you call?"

"I thought you hated me."

"You did hate me."

"Fuck you. Seriously you fuck."

Joe risks a smug smile before moving inches closer to Charlotte, aligning their knees. 

"You're amazing." Joe said honestly. Charlotte's posture stood to attention, her head turning to face Joe, her eyes raking over ever visible part of his body in search of honesty.

"J--"

"No, let me finish." Joe shushed her. "You know I'm broken glass, but you keep picking me up even though you could get hurt. You know what I did and--and--fuck, you gave me the keys to my own fucking car and got in it with me. Even though I'd just told you what I'd done, the terrible things I've done,  you're still sat here next to me and you haven't even questioned me once, you just accepted it like I'd told you the flowers had died in your favourite field but it's okay because you can plant some new ones and you've never told me once that what I did was wrong, or that it was right but you make it feel okay and then I thought maybe I was hallucinating because who goes to a bridge in the middle of the night without a coat because you don't need a coat when you're dead, but instead finds something more beautiful and more prepossessing than death itself. But then you went away for so long and I knew it was real because I felt it all the time, in every movement I made but even more when I didn't move at all and the only thing that was keeping me alive was knowing that your second chance was worth waiting for. And you know, Leah told me if I survived it was for a reason, and I have every right to believe that my reason has something to do with you."

Charlotte stared at Joe for a long time, a bit dumbfounded and a lot in love and she looked back towards the horizon, and all of a sudden the sky turned beautiful and she knew she was often sad but in this moment she fell in love with the world and adored all the oxygen inside her lungs and she wasn't scared anymore.

She reached out blindly and linked her fingers with Joe's, leaning her temple against his shoulder and took a moment before saying, "I just want to let you know that I prefer rainfall over sunshine and maybe that explains why I'd choose you over anyone else. You're my home."

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