what if it was? she couldn't think through the logic of his question. the house is silent, but she's used to hearing the creaks and groans of something which has been left to decay. she'd rather push it all from her memory, even as charles continues to try and pull back the curtains towards some other dark corner.
"set decor." the phrase seizes something in her chest, her brain already trying to bury the idea that something bad could have happened. it didn't, they were still here. it could all be resolved by asking julian, seeing if people had been dismissed. but does she want to know?
"why do you keep asking me?" she gazed across the balcony and into the woods, avoiding his leveling gaze. her tone already wavers, but she doesn't crumble yet. "why don't you feel safe?"
This is where he'd normally laugh. There was an easiness in him, good-natured, kind-hearted, comfort-laced life where an immunity to misfortune grows. He feels the emptiness where that part of him should be right now, where it always has been. The same sensation one gets when one loses a limb; he's heard their bodies remember what's missing, itch what no longer is attached to them, sense pain where it's been severed.
The muscle in Charles' neck shifts, a sign of something being swallowed back: a thought or word, something of the like. Even he can't pinpoint it, only knows that the response is not what he was looking for.
"Do you?" he finally positions back, returning the favor. His voice, unlike hers, isn't weak. It's not meant to cut, but it demands a conversation.
The question settles, cooling in the night, before he takes a half-step forward, an attempt to regain her attention. "You can be brutally honest with me, I promise," he goes on, "and if you believe it's nonsense, I'll accept it, but do you believe that would have happened had we been on a proper set?"












