abyss ↣ joe sugg au

twenty four

[Trigger Warning: mentions of depression/suicide]

Charlotte doesn't see Joe for the rest of the evening. She decides to take on her favourite hobby, so she people watched. It would of been dull if it wasn't for the shards of purple and blue and green light striking across the room, illuminating the drunk and the drunker. Charlotte couldn't help but feel a little sad though, because when Alfie shuffles into the light occasionally, it's never with Zoe. She smiles at a woman who's ushering her daughter passed the booth because they were both wearing matching tutu's and she was a little bit in awe, but she tried not to dwell on it because she's just a cheap brunette.

Joe and Zoe had disappeared from the bar sometime ago and Charlotte tried not to mind that it wouldn't really matter if she was here or not. Eventually though, her patience wore thin and she decided to head to the attached hotel. Alfie pulled her into a tight hug before she left though, thanking her and promising Joe wouldn't be long. She just smiled and shrugged her shoulders before taking off her shoes and heading out. She faintly hears Joe's Mum introduce herself to someone as Zoe's Mum and couldn't help but wonder if Joe was ever included in that bracket as she did so.

When she got to their shared room, she tried not to think about the last time they shared a hotel room together. Instead, she was thankful for the fact Joe's bag still remained on his bed. She pulled her own bag open in search of her pyjamas. She pulls out her shorts and her chest grows tight as she sees the top beneath it. Joe's a bitch. She picks up the MTV top and the rest of her toiletries and checks out the bathroom before locking the door and turning the shower on.

Ten minutes later and Charlotte pulls on the pyjamas Joe packed for her and then she took a minute to look at her reflection in the mirror. All she saw looking back at her were the lights of the hall downstairs - purples and greens cascading into one another, the cheap brunette sitting by herself beneath it all. That's the image that blinds her better nature as she unlocks the bathroom door just as Joe unlocks the one to their whole room. He looks worn, all pale-skinned and fragile and Charlotte would of hugged him if she didn't feel like such a sell out.

Joe wordlessly gets undressed, pushing his quiff further back with his same ratty bandana and he swapped his painted on jeans for a baggier pair of sweatpants.

"You didn't tell her, did you?" Charlotte asks and she folds the day's clothes back into her bag. She lifts her head just in time to catch Joe shake his.

"Why?" And it came out as a whisper, an almost silent plead.

Joe shakes his head some more, tears building up in his lashes.

"I know it's stupid, but I almost fear the world not looking back at me like I'm some sort of sin." Joe's voice sounds like it'd been snagged by a shard of glass and Charlotte's eyes fluttered closed for a brief second before she folded herself up at the foot of her bed.

"Zoe looks at you like you're her little brother she's scared to see grow up. She looks at you like you're the brightest star in the whole damn sky Joe."

"Let's not talk about it okay Char?" Joe huffed, messing around with his bag.

"Why?" Normally Charlotte would just drop it. Hell, she's spent many hours of many nights sitting in silence because Joe didn't want to talk about it but Joe was here, in this hotel room, not long back from his sister's wedding, the sister who had not long ago told Charlotte all she wanted was to know what happened that night. Charlotte could see it in Zoe's eyes today, the unmistakable hope and belief she had in her brother and Joe is so detached from the feeling of love that he can't see it in the broadest of daylights.

"Drop it Char. Seriously, you don't understand." And the words cut through Charlotte like knives because fuck Joe. Charlotte didn't claim to be a lot, she was very little in fact, but she was always in sync with Joe, always. She never claimed to understand, she just did and to be told that she's wrong makes Charlotte's heart retreat back from the bones that keep her upright.

"What don't I understand?" She asked, trying to keep her tone neutral.

"The look in my Mother's eyes maybe. I see all the dirt she wants me buried under when I look her in the eye. See all the times she wished me dead and the burning hatred behind her sockets." Joe's voice was thicker now, drilling the words into Charlotte's head like she didn't know, when he knew, Joe knew that Charlotte was the kid who locked herself in her bathroom everyday after school and drew a better life on the bathroom floor with a shampoo bottle. Joe knew that Charlotte's parents would of happily let her die with her cheek smudged against the tiles, with the same shampoo dried in her hair.

Joe seems to realize though.

"Shit, I'm sorry." He gushes, dropping to his knees beside Charlotte and wrapping his arms around her, like he was trying to protect her from those memories.

"It's fine Joe. You've had a long day." Charlotte huffed into his neck. They sit like that for a long time, two beds above them but the ground seemed more than enough. The ground was way more than the water they used to walk upon on tightropes.

"You make me feel drunk." Joe's words split the silence in two, running down Charlotte's middle right to her core.

"Well I'm certainly cheaper." Charlotte huffs a laugh and Joe pulls back. He's not laughing though, his eyes searching, trying to reach out.

"No, Char, shut up for a second. Listen to me now -- please." He sighs, clutching her hands between them.

"I hate them Char, I hate everyone who's ever made you feel like you don't matter. Everyone who made you walk to the middle. But I thank them too, and I know it's selfish and cruel because I hurt so bad when you hurt but without them, there would be no second chances and I'd hate that, despise it even because the truth is, my second chance might be a total dick at times, but I wouldn't want it to be anything else. In this life, or the next, or the one after that I'd still hope that you were my second chance." Joe confesses.

Charlotte's heart is swollen and beating so loudly she's sure Joe can hear it. She leans her forehead against Joe's, laughing so her breath tickles his pierced lip.

"And I know, I know that I'm not the first chapter, and I might not be the last but please, please if I could just be a few pages in between." Joe mumbles against Charlotte's lips.

In this exact moment Charlotte could of sworn their was nothing else to this earth than Joe and his lips and the burning sensation of his lip ring which she half hoped would be engraved onto her own for eternity and longer. Through the nudges and childish giggles Joe showcases, Charlotte has never felt so detached from reality as she does now.

It's so hard to remember the cold wind whipping across Charlotte's cheeks and the cold railing beneath her fingertips when her whole body electrifies with heat in every place Joe is touching. Right now, Joe feels like every bit of her past, every moment of her present, and every second of her future and in a tangle of limbs on the floor of a hotel room, Charlotte struggles to find a reason why he can't be.

PLEASE COMMENT AND VOTE BC JOE AND CHARLOTTE FINALLY PROFESSED THEIR LOVE GOODBYE XXXXX