abyss ↣ joe sugg au

forty

[Trigger Warning: mentions of depression/suicide]

THIS IS THE LONGEST CHAPTER BUT FUCK ITS ONE OF MY FAVOURITES CAN I EVEN SAY THAT ABOUT MY OWN WORK IDK BUT ALSO AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER WATCH OUT FOR THE OVER EXCESSIVE USE OF THE WORD 'MAN' IM SORRY BYE

Understand, that the minute Charlotte walked into Joe's life it was no longer his. They had crashed and burned in the middle of no man's land and tried to disconnect themselves from past lives and they created a whole new world from soil and barbed wire and the broken remains of someone else. However, this is a part of Charlotte's life Joe had never known. He'd soaked up all he could from the words she spoke so quietly, but other than that it was foreign.

He pushed the door open from when it had been forgotten about during the bustle to get Charlotte out, leading to a completely wrecked apartment that looked entirely different now it wasn't basked in the intimidating shadows of the night. His hand took several seconds to move away from the doorknob, and even longer to finally shut the door behind him.

Joe traipsed around the apartment, fixing the sofa cushions and bringing half drunk mugs of coffee to the kitchen. He poured any remaining liquid down the sink and then filled it with warm water, washing the mugs and leaving them to dry on the drainer. He went into Charlotte's bedroom and pulled off all the sheets, putting them in the washing machine and sat watching it go round and round and round for longer than was probably healthy. He grabbed a bag from the bottom of Charlotte's wardrobe and filled it with all of her clothes that were still hanging there. He scrubbed at the floor in the same spot Charlotte had fallen, there was nothing there but the memory and Joe wanted it gone. As he used the table to help him stand, his fingers skimmed over something softer than wood and he straightened to look at it.

It was a little leather notebook, propped open to where Caspar's number was and Marcus and Niomi scribbled in brackets underneath and he guessed it's what Bill used to contact Caspar. He picked it up to put in the bag, but as he lifted it from the table - it revealed a high quality photo of Leah planted on the front page of a newspaper. It had a rip from one corner to the over, straight down the centre of her body and it had been so long. He couldn't help but fall onto one of the chairs, dragging the pad of his finger over Leah's profile so hard that the printed ink stained his finger black. It was prom. Her prom night. Their prom night when this photo was taken. Leah had rid of her glasses and worn contact lenses for the first time that night, desperate to upstage every other girl at that blasted prom.

Joe remembers the after party now, so vivid and mocking in his mind. Leah's parents had forbid her to go but Joe had snuck her in anyway, downing shot after shot with interlinked hands and shotgunning until they passed out.

Leah had turned up with a bruised wrist the next night.

She never told Joe how she got it.

He screwed up the newspaper then, battling with it until it lay a mess of paper on the floor and Joe sobbed into the crook of his arm. His thoughts tripped onto why on earth Charlotte had it in her apartment. She'd told him, one of the very first nights on the bridge she didn't read shitty newspapers.

It hit him then, the night Charlotte came home from Caspar's and broke down within a few minutes of walking through the door. She couldn't speak at first, every syllable she tried to pronounce just brought forward a fresh set of tears. Joe had run a bath and washed Charlotte's hair and kissed her shoulder. He'd platted her hair when it was still damp and dressed her in his MTV top and let her smoke his last cigarette whilst they led top-to-tail on the bed.

It took a long time, but she finally stubbed out the cigarette and pushed herself up on her shoulders.

"Joe. I--I know you said that uh, that when Leah wasn't smiling she was beautiful. But, god when she was. She was breathtaking, wasn't she?" Charlotte asked. There was no accusation or anger in her voice, it was soft and almost in awe and Joe sat up.