#charloe

They were not friends. They had never been friends.They preferred sitting in silence; side by side or fave to face. They were not frie ds. They could never be friends.

Charlotte got up, her step wavering. Too much to drink. Too many ghosts. Too many bruises.

As she made her way out of the bar, she was dimly aware that guys were giving her a wide berth. They usually needed a sharp word or even a knife but tonight they didn’t dare look up.

It must be her shadow. As she slipped into the dark night, his scent followed her. His heavy step echoed hers. His silence wrapped her silence.

"I don’t need an escort, Monroe."

"Yeah whatever. Just going home."

It did make the night lighter. It did make the way home shorter. 

No, they were not friends. They were something that couldn’t be defined by words. Something that existed between their gazes, in their synchronized fighting… in the same way they drank too much and cared far more than they let out.

Charlie paused at the door. Without a glance behind her ahoulder, she waited with her hsnd at the handle.

"After you Charlotte."

See, the thing is, she’d always assumed Monroe had the kindof power he did until all too recently because he was… maybe not brilliant,even thinking that word around that man feels wrong, but at least the rightlevel of intelligent mixed with opportunistic and manipulative. The relativeacceptability of that leadership strategy, and for the record she has nopositive feelings about it, does not change the fact that it worked. Maybe hewas in the right place at the right time and just kept getting lucky, but-

They’re on the road for what feels like two weeks, and asthose days pass she gets a different picture.

He’s not actually a bad traveling companion. Likes the soundof his own voice a little too much, maybe, but it’s a good voice. She getsquieter, and it feels alright like that. Easier for her to shut up and listento stories about people who it turns out she doesn’t really know at all and-

Everyone’s biased, she knows. Monroe has some strong opinions,some of them on the edge of full-on emotional wounds. He isn’t necessarily rightabout anything. But it’s at least different, and makes her feel seen, and-

It is a whole other thing when they have to deal with otherpeople.

Again, instinct says to keep her mouth shut so she does. Herabilities to get out of situations tend to rely on the fact that she’s youngand pretty and female and a good shot and has recently learned she enjoys roughsex, some combination of those factors working in her favor to at least keepher alive so far. Monroe has three out of five there – well, two she canconfirm and one she’d bet everything she has on but for the moment she’s finewith not knowing – but that’s not where he starts. In a given situation,without any threats made just yet, he’s more…

There’s something magnetic in him, and he’s clearly got decadesof practice talking his way out of things, and for the most part it works.

Biased as she is, and distant as she tries to make herself, evenshe gets a little drawn in.

Nothing that happens in these weeks means she likes him, orwould even voluntarily tolerate him if they weren’t establishing this routineof saving each other’s asses on a regular basis for no apparent ulterior motiveson either side. But she can understand why other people have. She canunderstand, more than she ever thought she would, how the world changed how it did.