//dear leo// barsandmelody︱au︱

You Were Never Gone

You were never gone.
No, you were never gone. 

Hannah Ellis - You Were Never Gone

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/tilly/

Once she made sure Leondre made it to his room, Tilly pulled Charlie by the sleeve into the den. What a mess. When Leo didn't show up at 6 to take his meds, she figured he was probably dragging out his walk home in order to delay the whole process. Never in a million years did she expect to see Charlie standing at her front door.

„I saw all these scars and don't tell me those are old, cause I'm not dumb Tilly –„

„He actually showed you his arms?" that was incredibly odd and so out of character for Leo, who was too embarrassed to wear short sleeves around the house, let alone showcase his arms in a store.

She made herself comfortable on the sofa as Charlie nervously paced around.

„No, he didn't – Jake, he was his usual jerk self, he pulled his sleeve up and I – Tilly, what happened?"

Ah, so the divine intervention came from Jake - the last person on planet Earth Tilly had expected it from. She was dying to talk to Charlie and tell him everything, for months now, but they weren't her secrets to tell. They were Leo's. So Tilly kept her mouth shut, silently watching her older brother slowly suffer and fade away right in front of her eyes. It killed her, but not respecting what he wanted would be even worse.

"What did you tell him?" the nervous pacing came to a halt as Charlie turned around to stare at her like she suddenly sprouted another head from her shoulders.

"What do you mean?"

"That day, when the two of you fought, what did you tell him?"

It was bugging her for months, but Leo didn't want her to talk to Charlie - he made his wishes perfectly clear at a 3 am screaming match they had.

"Oh. It was nothing. Why?"

Suddenly, his whole demeanor changed, telling Tilly that it was in fact, something. A very big something.

"Well, it must have been a pretty big nothing, because this is the result." she simply stated, adding in a casual shrug.

"What do you mean?" Charlie's head snapped towards her as if the words burned him and once again, she simply shrugged.

"I... found him,-" she trailed off, looking for the right words "-after your fight. He did that after you left."

It was still difficult for her to talk about that night and the panic she felt when she saw Leo lying on the floor, motionless. She started fearing that the worst has happened, but then he turned his head to look at her and she could have cried from joy, right then and there.

"I think I'm going to be sick." while Tilly was lost in her own thoughts, she hadn't noticed the way Charlie paled almost instantly, nor did she notice how naseous he looked.

"It's my fault." he squeezed out through clenched teeth and dropped his weight on the opposite sofa.

"It's all my fault."

"Charlie, it's not - you can't blame yourself. I can't blame myself, mom can't blame herself - there's nothing we could have done." Tilly mused, having more then enough time to think it all through. The first few days after it happened were the worst and she could barely face Leo with all the guilt she was feeling.