a_littlefaith | (no subject)

(no subject)

When it comes to her own music, Beth is of two very different minds.

There's a part of herself that knows she's talented. She can write thoughtful lyrics, she can set them to interesting, intelligent melodies, and she can play nearly any instrument. Her voice is both sweet and powerful, something she can hear when she listens to herself after she's been recorded. But at the same time, she has terrible insecurities about it all, convinced she's only fooling herself, and all of this will never amount of anything resembling a career.

But here she is. This is an album, it's her album, fully finished, and it sounds good. Not only that, but people are buying it. They want to spend money on this.

Beth plays a short set, not wanting to overwhelm herself, then mostly just talks to people at the release party. It's still crazy to think they're here for her, but everyone is really friendly and happy and supportive. It relaxes Beth and by the time she realizes someone is staring at her, it's nearing the end of the party. A lot of people have left already, the bar has emptied out a bit, and she's standing alone near the stage door, off to the side and out of the way, so she can put her guitar away.

Her corners her there.

She's been watching ever since she realized he was looking at her, but only out of the corner of her eye, thinking there really wouldn't be anything to it. Guys are weird sometimes, she's used to that. It's the memory of Gorman that she's not used to, not yet, even less used to it than she is the memory of her own death. There are things she's dealt with and things she's ignored, and as he corners her in that tiny hall just beside the stage, a shiver runs up her spine and she tastes green apple candy.

Turning, Beth flashes a quick smile and tries to get past him. "Sorry, I just gotta-"

"You were really good up there," he says, stepping closer to block her way. "You've got a great voice. Great look, too."

"Thanks," she says, trying to stay bright. Her mouth is flooded with the taste of that candy Gorman had pushed between her lips and she tries not to taste it. It isn't real, she's only imagining it, but it's sweet and sticky and she licks her lips, trying to force the taste away.

"Yeah," he says, putting his arm against the wall so there's nowhere for her to go. She doesn't even have her knife. Just the guitar behind her, barely a weapon at all, especially in a space as small as this. "You're really pretty, you know. Would it kill you to look at me?"

Beth glances up, sees Gorman, no matter how impossible it is, and glances away.

"I really have to get goin'," she says, her voice coming from far away. "But thanks."

"Hey," he says, pressing closer to her. She can feel his breath on her cheek, on her neck. He's so close and she can see Gorman's face and taste the candy and she wants to scream. "C'mon, stay awhile."

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He'd meant only to be going back to say hi to Beth, to wish her well. The bar is quieter now, a lot of the people who'd been there gone, and it feels easier to approach her like this rather than trying to push his way through various other friends and fans. If this were anyone else's album release, he probably wouldn't be here — he's never paid all that much attention to music — but with Beth, he at least likes to show his support. She's good at what she does, and he likes her music. It just still feels a little like it's part of a world he doesn't belong in.

As he gets closer, though, he just barely manages to make out the conversation, inasmuch as it is one, and then he can barely think straight. The sight of that asshole pinning her against the wall and leaning in close doesn't help on that front. Without meaning to, he thinks for a moment of his Uncle Scott and that woman, a memory that makes his skin crawl and his stomach turn to have to carry. His hand closes on the back of the man's shirt to drag him off Beth, the other pulling back to punch him hard in the jaw. "Can you fucking hear? She said no."

The memories are overlapping with this moment and as the man is suddenly yanked away, Beth hears glass shattering, the jar shattering over Gorman's head. She can smell death in the bar, mingling with beer, hear Joan on the floor beside her, moaning in reanimation, as real as the sound of Chuck's voice.

She's angry suddenly. No longer just scared, but furious, and Chuck hits the guy, but then Beth pushes herself off the wall where she'd been pinned and flies at them both. Her hand lashes out, curled into a fist. It smashes hard into the guy's face, not a good punch necessarily, but her knuckles drive satisfyingly hard into his cheekbone.

"If you come anywhere near me again, I'll kill you," she says breathlessly.

"Fucking crazy bitch," the guy says, clutching his face. "It's a compliment."

"Yeah, it's really fucking not," Chuck says through clenched teeth, so angry he can barely see straight. That isn't enough for him to let down his guard, though, even if Beth seems, fortunately, to have been spurred into action. He wouldn't have blamed her at all for staying frozen in the face of something like this, but this asshole deserves all the ire she can throw at him and far more bruises than the ones he's already likely to wind up sporting. Chuck wants to take care of that himself — to do serious damage, leave cuts and broken bones in his wake, find some way of making obvious what could have happened here so no one else wants anything to do with someone who'd refuse to take no for an answer like that. As long as Beth isn't huddled against the wall, though, it's her fight. He'll back her up, but he can keep himself in check, too, no matter how utterly goddamn furious he might be.

"You're lucky you're able to stand right now to walk away. Which I suggest you do while you still can."

At first Beth isn't sure he's going to do it. He hesitates, wavers for a moment, and she thinks she's going to need to go for the knife in her bag. She's no longer afraid and whether it's due to Chuck's presence beside her or her own sudden return to the present she's not entirely sure.

Having Chuck here with her makes a big difference, though, and she stands by his side, her arm pressed against his, and stares at the man looking back at them. Waiting for his second attempt at an attack.

But then his shoulders deflate and he steps back, still glaring at the two of them. "This is bullshit," he mutters as he walks away, but Beth doesn't bother answering. The energy seems to go out of her all at once and she sags a little, leaning against Chuck.

It isn't good enough. Chuck is used to anger, feels it often enough that he barely notices it half the time, but rage like this is something different, something personal. A part of him still wants to trail after the man and make sure he doesn't try anything like this again with anyone else, teach him a real fucking lesson that would be impossible to ignore. Only Beth's presence at his side keeps him from doing so. Instead, he closes his eyes for just a moment, forces himself to take a slow, deep breath, and when he opens them again, he wraps an arm around her shoulders, moving cautiously and holding her gently so she can move away without any effort if she needs. He doesn't want to touch her if she isn't ready for that yet, and he wouldn't blame her if she wasn't.

"Are you alright?" he asks, a quiet concern in his voice that he would give to few others. He doesn't think Beth is physically hurt, at least, but he doesn't really know what happened before he stumbled upon the scene, and he doesn't want to just assume.

A part of Beth wonders if she shouldn't be uncomfortable with Chuck's arm around her, but the truth is, it's comforting and steadying and more than anything, she wants to turn into his chest and climb inside the protective circle of his arms and close her eyes. The physical part of their friendship is long over, she knows that's something they'll never go back to, but she still loves Chuck, loves him like all the other friends who have become her adopted family over the years, and she knows he would keep her safe.

But she needs to keep herself safe, too. So she nods, lets herself be comforted by his arm around her, then pulls herself together and stands straight once again.

"I'm okay," she says finally. "Nothin' really happened, he didn't... it just reminded me of stuff. From before. Stuff I haven't really, um... stuff I don't think about much. Ever."

Chuck nods slowly, not needing to press for anything more than that. He remembers her mentioning something vaguely once, when he was worried about not wanting to push Laura, but even if that weren't the case, it wouldn't be his business to ask her to tell him more about it. Whatever she does want to share, though, he's here for. He's not the best conversationalist, especially when it comes to sensitive matters, but he can at least try. Anyway, he sort of gets it, albeit in ways he doesn't like to talk about. It's hard to explain having knowledge of things he hasn't done and some of the memories rattling around in his head. He might not think about them much either, but they're there still.

"You shouldn't've had to now," he says, frowning. "You wanna get out of here? Or at least go sit down?"

Maybe refusing to think about it is part of the problem, she thinks. Part of why she can't do anything but freeze when something like this happens. Beth is stronger than that, she's not the girl who cut her wrist all those years ago, and she should be able to stand up for herself.

"I wanna get out of here," she says with a nod. "He... I could taste green apple. A candy. The police officer from before, he took one out of this glass jar on the doctor's desk and forced me-"

She cuts herself off suddenly. She hadn't meant to say any of that, but the words have just come out.

Immediately, instinctively, Chuck feels a white-hot rage course through his veins again. It's over now, and better for Beth just to get out of here, but a part of him still wants to go after the man who cornered her tonight and take all this frustration out on him. He wasn't that police officer, but he was still fucking sick in his own right. She shouldn't have had to deal with that now or the onslaught of memory from her past.

Staying with her seems more important than his desire to hit something, though, so he takes a breath, willing himself to try to calm down. "Let's get out of here, then," he says, starting towards the door. "Wherever you wanna go. And we can get you something that doesn't taste like green apple, if you think that'll help."

Beth laughs, the sound bubbling up a little unexpectedly, and then she almost starts to cry, but forces it back. It's such a simple solution, just to get something that doesn't taste like green apple, and yet it's exactly what she wants. In her current state, she doubts she would have thought of it, but it's perfect.

"Coffee," she decides. "Full of caffeine and sugar so I can stay up all night."

Judith is with a sitter right now, but Beth has to go home eventually. Probably sooner rather than later. If she can just sit in the living room all night and watch old movies and bad TV, she thinks she can deal with all this.

"Perfect," Chuck says. It's strangely comforting to have something he can do, some concrete way of helping her that isn't just offering nebulous support. The instinct alone isn't one he's all that used to, but while he knows, on some level, that it may be enough for her just not to be on her own, it feels oddly inadequate. Coffee is such a small thing, but it's still a plan, still something that she seems sure will help. It makes sense, too. If he were her, he'd probably want to find some way of staying awake, too. "Sleep's overrated anyway."

It isn't, but they're probably both accustomed enough to going without it. "And, you know, if you want company while you stay awake or anything, I don't have anywhere to be."

Edited 2019-01-18 09:27 (UTC)

"Did Laura come here with you?" she asks and it's the first time she's felt a little bit more outside of her own head and her own experiences since the moment that man approached her. It feels better, thinking about someone else. Something else.

She doesn't want to take Chuck away from Laura if she's going to be waiting for him. Even if he finds Laura first, they can all leave together if they have to.

Then again, Laura strikes her as being pretty independent most of the time. Beth doesn't know her well, though, and she doesn't want to make assumptions. Asking about someone else centres her like not much else has.

"Yeah, but she ran into a friend," Chuck says, shrugging. She's been acting weird anyway, and he doesn't think it has anything to do with Beth being his ex. Hell, he's barely even talked about that. It was such a long time ago, and so short-lived, and they're friends now. No, whatever is going on, he has a feeling it's more because of what happened at the end of October with that awful fucking movie, what he saw that night and what he said. He should've kept his goddamn mouth shut.

He doesn't want to dwell on that now, though. It won't do any good. "It's fine, I can text her, let her know where I am."

"Okay," she says softly. "If you're sure."

It's so much easier to think about that. Beth doesn't think she would ruin their relationship just by asking Chuck to help her right now, but she also doesn't want to screw things up even a little. She doesn't want to give Laura any reason to be mad at Chuck or her.

"I always thought you'd be the who kept everything all bottled up," she says with a wet sounding laugh. "I just wanted to forget all this stuff that happened at the hospital. It seemed so much easier."

"The problem with keeping everything all bottled up is it still never really goes anywhere," Chuck says, as significant an admission as he could make. He still prefers to do it, finding it far easier than dealing with messy, unpleasant emotions, but it doesn't actually fix anything. Especially in a case like this, though, God knows he can't blame Beth for trying. Of course she would want to forget about something like that. He has things he wishes he could forget, too, fragments of other people's memories buried in his head that he'll never fully be able to erase no matter how hard he tries.

"It is easier, at least for a while, until it's not anymore."

She can't help it, even as flustered and uncomfortable as she feels right now, she has to laugh at what Chuck has just said. In all the time they've known each other, which is significant at this point, she never imagined their positions might be reversed like this. Beth is lucky to have him as a friend, despite what she's sure he would say about himself, and she wishes he would give himself more credit in general.

But even still, with how much she believes in him, she couldn't have expected this.

"Yeah," she says on an exhale. "Yeah, I know. You're right. I just... I didn't want to confront this. Somehow bein' dead felt easier. Is that messed up?"

It takes more effort than it should for Chuck not to let out a laugh at that, though there's nothing particularly humorous about the subject at hand. He shakes his head, though, shooting Beth a wry sort of expression. "No," he says, then reconsiders that. "Well, probably. But that's how I felt about a lot of things when I got here." For a long time, he'd wished he stayed dead, finding it easier to die for a cause than to have to live without one. He knows that for Beth, things happened in an odd order, that she'd been here for a long time before she remembered having died, but he thinks he gets it even so.

"When things end, they just end. You know what happened, you go from there. But something like that..." Not sure how much he can or should speak to that, he pauses for a moment. "Seems harder to carry around. Harder to shake."

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