young forever [CLINT] ●

[Charlie Bennet]

Charlie was not feeling very happy as she pulled into the driveway in front of her house. Her thoughts were scattered, and really she probably shouldn’t have been driving in the first place, but these things hadn't really occurred to her in light of how distressed she felt. Why was she distressed? Everything. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong that day had gone wrong, and she was already rather hormonal anyway. It had started in the morning, when her hair refused to curl, straighten, or do anything that resembled ‘cute’. She had been forced to pull it into a ponytail, and even that didn’t look good. Her face was broken out, and her makeup hadn’t wanted to cooperate either. She had bombed her test in chemistry, she was sure. She had gotten into a fight with one of her friends and her girlfriend had broken up with her. Who cares if they’d only been dating for two weeks, it wasn’t okay if she wasn’t the one ending the relationship.

The car door would be slammed rather hard as she turned to make her way up the pathway toward the house. It would be completely missed by the girl that neither of her mothers’ cars were in the driveway. She only had one thought in her head, and that was getting into the house and having a nice breakdown. Charlie wasn’t normally prone to tears, but she’d had a lot happen today and really she just wanted someone to hold her. She was almost an adult, she knew, but even adults needed help sometimes. She had never been taught to be ashamed of her feelings, and while she refused to cry in public, she didn’t mind having a good cry when she was at home if she felt the need.

Pale fingers curled around the doorknob and pushed the door inward as she stepped forward fluidly. Shoes would be deposited next to the door, and the fact that the house was very quiet was another indicator missed by her as the girl took several steps inward to lead her into the living room. “Mooommmmyyyyy.” She called, sniffling a bit as the tears that had been welling in her eyes all day started to spill over. She would stop dead, however, when she realized that neither of her mothers were on the couch… but her brother was. Hands raised automatically to rub at her eyes as she tried to quiet her sniffles. “W-where is she?” She questioned, her voice only sounding slightly pitiful.

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Clinton Bennet

[Clinton Bennet]

The nice thing that came with working six days out of the week instead of five was that, divided over six days, a forty hour work week was shorter than other professions. Clinton liked that. It gave him what felt like extra time during the day, time to himself. He could do whatever he wanted— even if most of what he wanted miraculously turned into house chores by default. That afternoon, he’d got home and cleaned up quite a bit before flopping on the couch with his sketchpad in hand. Patterns would slowly but surely explode from his pencil, and once white pages would be adorned with a myriad of scribblings as he worked quietly for a couple of hours.

The slam of a car door was enough to jolt Clinton from his detailing, and his head turned behind the couch as the sounds of someone continuing up to the house and inside entered his ears. As Charlie came into view, Clinton instinctively sat up fuller. Her cry had him cringing internally, but his features remained rather calm. Charlie, what’s wrong? Why are you crying? These thoughts didn’t explode passed Clinton’s lips but remained inside the confines of his mind. Did something happen at school? Are you hurt? Physically? Emotionally? Who did it? Is there something I can help with? Just tell me, Charlie. I’ll do whatever you want or need… Still, none of this left Clinton’s rapidly flipping cranium. He wanted the right words, always.

It seemed that he wouldn’t get the time to decide on what to say, however. Charlie had jumped right into sniffling question. Where was Mommy? Clinton frowned. He knew both their mothers worked though Jaime at different hours, of course. However, he didn’t keep track of their schedules nor had he seen either earlier. Lips pressed together as he struggled to articulate that he didn’t know. “Probably…. At work,” he offered quietly back at her. It probably wasn’t what she wanted to hear; he was sure of that. However, he didn’t know what else to say, really. Do you need a hug or? More unvoiced questions came to pass.

[Charlie Bennet]

There had been a time in Charlie’s life, perhaps not that long ago, though it seemed to be to her, that Clinton’s silence didn’t matter. She just assumed he cared. He didn’t have to say or do anything, he was her brother, of course he cared. That time had long since passed, however, and she no longer made such assumptions. Sometimes she wanted to ask him if he did, if he ever had, but those questions never passed her lips. Because she was afraid of the answer no matter what it was. She had somehow managed to push her brother away while keeping the desire for him to be close all at the same time. She wanted him to hug her and tell her it was okay, but at the same time she didn’t want him to touch her.

When the answer came she nodded, pulling her sleeve down over the heel of her hand and wiping at the tears on her face. She managed to smear eyeliner across her cheek in the process, but she didn’t really notice as her hand fell back to her side. “D-Do you know when she’s going to be back?” She questioned, her voice just as quiet as his. Normally Charlie was a loud person, but the room seemed heavy with silence, and even if she wasn’t crying she wouldn’t have wanted to speak too loudly – it didn’t seem right somehow.

She hovered in the doorway to the living room for a moment longer before walking fluidly to the couch and flopping back on it. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, and her chin was rested on them. The space between them was minimal, perhaps the closest she’d willing sat to him since he came back. She didn’t know why. She just knew she didn’t want to go cry alone, that just seemed so much more depressing.

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Clinton Bennet

[Clinton Bennet]

Pale lips remained pressed together uncomfortably as uncertain eyes reflected the girl now rubbing at her face. There had been a time and place where he wouldn’t have hesitated to stand up and draw her into a hug. Words would have come quickly then, spilled out in tones of worry and empathy. She was one of the few people he had let in, after all. She mattered so much more than he could express, and readily he knew he’d die for her if necessary.

Charlie didn’t trust him, however. Clinton knew that. He’d done too much damage in teenhood, and even after repenting there were scars he couldn’t make disappear. He had unhappily accepted this fact the moment she withdrew from him after he had left the correction center, yet in moments like this, it put him at a loss of what to do. He wanted to comfort, of course, but would she let him? Did he even have a right to? The answer he felt was innately ‘no’ to both, and Clinton trusted his gut on such matters. It had yet to lead him astray once he had allowed it to become a part of himself.

As the question was asked, Clinton took an inaudible breath inwards. Truthfully, he probably would have preferred her screaming and shouting to the awkward quietness she was now displaying. It was too foreign to him, too unlike the Charlie he knew. None of these thoughts became words, though. He had no right to make note of such little qualms. “No,” Clinton admitted softly, glancing away from her after a moment, his mind fumbling through the details of the day in hopes of finding a single strand of information he knew already was not there.

Before Clinton realized it, however, Charlie had circled the couch and fallen back on it. Instinctively, he set his pencil and pad to the corner table however with his hands free, they awkwardly gripped at one another in front of him settling for an awkward bridge. The closeness was nothing he would have expected from her, and that in itself was enough to worry him more. Gaze flickering from the redhead to her hands, Clinton frowned softly. Should he draw closer, perhaps draw her into a sideways hug? Should he just pat her on one of the knees she had drawn up to herself and say something … say what even?

For a few seconds, Clinton struggled with uncertainty, and after a few more seconds, he simply glanced forwards to the tv silently. Taking a soft breath inwards, he hesitantly reached one hand over to cup one hand over Charlie’s. He’d be quick to recoil if she moved it too quickly, but it was the best he could do without spending the next hour fretting in silence.

[Charlie Bennet]

Awkward. It was usually something that the girl could dispel. She had plenty of friends who would be deemed ‘awkward’ after all. She befriended everyone and, in fact, the man sitting next to her was the whole reason that she had been able to befriend quiet and shy people. She learned to deal with silence, learned to read body language, and learned to be patient – all of these things she had learned from him. And yet, now, sitting next to the one person she should have been able to trust, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She could have made small talk, asked about his job, asked if he’d gotten any new tattoos, asked what he was drawing, she could have talked about the fucking weather. But she didn’t. Pink lips were simply pulled into a frown as more tears stubbornly worked their way down her cheeks.

Just as she was deciding that perhaps it would be better to go cry alone, that hand closed over her own. Her initial reaction was to stiffen considerably. Purple eyes flashed sideways to look at him, almost as though she couldn’t believe that he had touched her. However, where one might have expected to see anger or repulsion in them, those things wouldn’t be found. She was simply too emotionally tired to pretend that she didn’t want her brother to touch or comfort her. Slim, pale fingers pushed between his, and pressure was applied. The small gesture was ridiculously comforting to her.

“Sorry.” She muttered, looking away once again. She was apologizing for crying, she was. Her apology definitely didn’t have any sort of deeper meaning, it definitely didn’t have anything to do with how she’d treated him. That’s what she told herself, anyway.

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Clinton Bennet