abyss ↣ joe sugg au

thirty three

[Trigger Warning: mentions of depression/suicide]

Charlotte woke late morning, apparently. When Charlotte finally pushed herself up on her elbows, she realized Joe was talking on the phone to someone. His voice was still thick with morning and his hair had been pushed off his forehead several times, the knot at the back of his head solid evidence. Guessing he was talking to Zoe by the dopey smile on his face, Charlotte extended a hand to the floor and grabbed Joe's boxers, pulling them up her thighs without a thought because well, they were the nearest and they're fucking comfy okay. 

She sits on Joe's waist, scratching her fingers through his fringe so it flops over his eyes again. A little puff of air from between Joe's lips shoots a few strands upwards, but only to fall right back down in the exact same place. She continued to mess with Joe's hair (because it was actually rude to look that good in the morning) until he shoved her off and threw up a finger.

Charlotte frowned with a pout, before crawling under the covers once again and wrapping herself round Joe's thigh. After a few minutes of Joe listing the ingredients he used to cook dinner three weeks ago, Charlotte became bored and bit at Joe's thigh, adamant on being every shade of annoying. 

Eventually, Joe made an excuse of something along the lines of editing photographs - but only to hang up and lift the covers up to crawl down beside Charlotte. She should feel bad, because Zoe was Joe's sister and they had five years to catch up on but Charlotte really needed to kiss Joe. Like, right now.

"You're fucking annoying." Joe grumbled, but peppered kisses all over Charlotte's face and neck and shoulders nonetheless. 

Charlotte scratched her chin, "-and then I added three onions, that were perfectly sliced and evenly distributed throughout the surface area of the pan I'll have you know-"

She would of continued but Joe pulled at the elastic of his own boxer shorts that were still tucked round Charlotte's hips.

"Don't you have any clothes of your own?" Joe twisted the fabric round his finger and chuckled into Charlotte's mouth. 

"Nope." Charlotte grinned, clashing teeth.

Joe nuzzled into Charlotte's neck, making her squirm as his hot breath hit there and she was about to bat him away but the mattress started to vibrate with an incoming phone call. Joe threw his eyes up and searched through the sea of sheets to find his phone. 

"Hi mate." He chirped, leaning on one elbow. "Oh, she's right here. Let me pass you on." 

With that, Joe passed the phone to Charlotte who pressed it to her neck to ask Joe who it is. When he mouthed 'Caspar' in response, Charlotte threw Joe a pointed look as if to say how the hell does Caspar have your number? 

"We might have swapped numbers when you went to the bathroom." Joe shrugged. 

"Which one of us is you're girlfriend, Jesus." Charlotte mocked, raising the phone to her ear. 

"Oi." 

"Oi yourself Cinders." Caspar's usual bubbly voice seeped through the receiver. 

"Why are you calling at this ungodly hour?" Charlotte rolled on her back, pulling the covers off her. 

"Charlotte it's past midday." Caspar teased. 

Charlotte frowned and held the phone away from her to squint at the time.

"Oh so it is. Still, you should know I'm not approachable until the late evening when my body has had a full three hours to adjust to it's waking life." Charlotte pinched her nose. 

"Well, my dear friend, I'm calling strictly on business." 

Charlotte sat up against the headboard then. It was a thought that was creeping up on her more each day, the fact Joe was paying for practically everything now and she could sell her flat but she didn't ever think it was the right time to bring that up with Joe, nor did she want to go back to that fucking place. 

"Shoot."

There was an actual sound of pages being turned on the other end and Charlotte rolled her eyes without even intending to. 

"Well, it's Summer - the prime season for marriage. However, you'd be starting fresh and in trades like this you get a lot of clients from recommendations, so I'd say you've missed this years prime time. However, I do have something for now." Caspar informed. 

Charlotte huffed out a sigh but tried to stay optimistic. 

"Shoot. Try and make the bullet wound less deep this time, though." Charlotte grumbled.

There came a fond kind of chuckle on the other end before Caspar cleared his throat to continue. 

"Well there's that restaurant two blocks away from you, the Orange Lantern I believe it's called. They're hiring waitresses." Caspar said a little too fast, failing in the attempt to hide his apprehension. 

Charlotte winced. That name brought back too many memories. One's of which consisted of her family alongside Andrea and Kian's sitting around several tables pushed together in the heart of the restaurant when she was such a small kid. She could almost feel the fresh bite of wind on her cheeks whilst she stood guard for Andrea and Kian, who'd taken up the hobby of kissing behind the play park. 

"Oh, I'll pop down there. Thanks." Charlotte forced a tight smile although she knew Caspar couldn't see. She put the phone down with absolutely no intention of ever setting food in that restaurant.