signed_sabrina | [charlie]

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charlie

[charlie]

For a very short time, Sabrina considers avoiding Charlie.

He's going to read her unhappiness as easily as ever, and then she's going to have to talk about it, this thing that she feels like she's only a breath away from ruining. Only it would hurt them both to do it, and he'd figure that much out too.

It still seems like some kind of betrayal, to carry these feelings, to consider pouring out her griefs about others to Charlie. Some part of her insists she doesn't deserve the comfort, that part that always belongs to the Night, that part that whispers just like him that she ought to let what hurts her keep giving pain and to grow strong off of it.

Sabrina hates how much she can't tell who the idea really belongs to.

She waits until dark, and then she sneaks in through Charlie's window even if she doesn't have to, kicking off her shoes and crawling into his bed.

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He'd been half asleep and still, when Sabrina crawls into bed with him, he shifts over to make room.

"Hi," he says, eyes still closed, reaching for her with one hand, his eyes still closed. "Did you come in through the window?"

Sabrina moves easily into his grasp, even if she's wriggling out of her clothes and shoving them out from under the covers, something else's she's practiced at-- though her bra and panties stay on, the main objective being to feel Charlie's warmth against her.

All done, she curls up against him, cheek on his shoulder.

"Through the window," she agrees. "Even when we're fully responsible and independent, I plan to crawl in through the window at least twice a month."

"Okay," says Charlie, curling his arms around her, letting her settle in against his chest, the t-shirt that he's wearing worn and soft. "Just as long as you know that your key works and you can use it any time you like, you can get in any way you like, I guess."

"It's romantic," Sabrina murmurs, and it would be easy to just let herself fall asleep, to let it be easy. The rest of her tension would drain away, and she could put it aside for a while longer.

Instead, she sighs, nosing against the warm cotton under her face. "I think Rosie and I had a fight. I'm not sure. We were talking, but I messed it up, and I'm honestly not sure how."

He turns his head, dropping a kiss into her fair hair and squeezing her shoulders.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks. "Talking it through might help you figure some of it out."

"I think so, if it's okay with you. She... at a couple of points, it seemed like she thought things might not be fair to you, and I haven't gotten that feeling from you, but maybe I should have been asking." Sabrina hates to feel this uncertain, clumsy with her words and feelings.

"She doesn't want me to call her my girlfriend."

"Okay, well..." Charlie takes in a breath while he thinks things through, finally opening his eyes and looking up at the ceiling. "That sounds like two different problems, so let's go one at a time. You don't have to worry about me, Brina. You never have to worry about me. But maybe...it took me a little while to get my head around things, didn't it? You and Rosie...Nick too. Maybe Rosie's worried that I still feel that?"

Even though, had she needed to put her money where her mouth is on it, she would have said she knows she are Charlie are fine in this, it helps to hear it. Her muscles release just a bit. "I'll worry about you whenever I please," she murmurs, but it's with a kiss to the hinge of his jaw.

She considers the rest for a moment. "Maybe. I think so. I asked her if she'd talked to you about it, but I don't think that made it any better. I feel like I can't manage to do any of it right, or that I don't know how to talk to her about what she's feeling."

"Just as long as you know it's not necessary when you're doing it," he says, smiling when she kisses him. "Then maybe you need to just let her...muddle through it? Yeah, it'll suck a bit while she figures it out, but she'll get there. She always does." He squeezes her shoulders. "Not everyone's got themselves figured out, Brina."

Charlie's always been pretty lucky where that's concerned; he's always known what he is.

"I... totally believe you're right," Sabrina answers, in a tone that suggests she doesn't want it to be the right answer. She'll accept that it is, though, especially safe here in the darkness of Charlie's room, Charlie's bed. "It does suck, though. I feel guilty, like I'm putting her through something. I feel... a lot of things. That I haven't necessarily put into words."

"You wanna try?" he asks, stroking his hand up and down her arm, a touch designed to be soothing. His other arm stays tucked around her waist, keeping her in close against him. "You know I'll listen to anything you've got to say, Brina."

She curls closer, tangling their legs, eyelids lowering.

"I know you will," she murmurs. "I just-- back just after Nick was gone, when we were trying to decide where to even start, I was already having to make up for both his and my mistakes. That she didn't feel as if it was a real relationship, maybe. And trying to start something that was more properly ours, that was fine-- I'm sorry, I'm not making sense." She presses her face against the soft cotton of his shirt. "That calling her my girlfriend wasn't okay, and that it meant some kind of change in her as a person, when I've been walking such a wire, pursuing and trying to prove myself and my feelings and-- maybe I need things from her too. Maybe I need her to take a leap too."

Charlie tangles his fingers into the white-blonde strands of her hair, cradling the back of her head. "So maybe you need to say that to her?" he says, gently. "She's from a different time to us, Brina. Being with you...being your girlfriend...it means...It's a big thing for her, right? It's a adjustment." He frowns, slightly, stroking her arm. "And if it's not a bridge you can cross then...maybe you guys need to talk about what that means." He shrugs. "You know I'll support you both whatever. I'll love you whatever. Always."

"I don't know if she wants to hear that right now," Sabrina murmurs, allowing herself a moment to squeeze her eyes shut, to be soothed by the gentle stroke of his hand through her hair. "I think you're right that I need to just-- let her work through it. And the time thing."

She tenses slightly at that last bit, pressing her face into his neck for a moment or two.

"I'm okay with her not wanting that title. I just feel... stupid, a little, and worried."

He feels her tense, feels the way that she presses against him, and he combs his fingers through her hair until she speaks again.

"Stupid? Why?"

"I used it for a long time, and I didn't even know I was wrong," she says quietly, her cheeks flushing warm. "I always feel like I'm learning I've fucked up after I've been doing it for too long, and then if I'm upset to find it out, I'm making it all about my feelings."

Her face crumples a little.

"I feel so wrong, like I'm a wrong thing. Not just this. Maybe that's why it hurts so badly, though. No matter that I tried to do it differently, I still ruined it."

"You're allowed to feel things, Brina. You both are. But the problem with that is, sometimes your feelings are going to get in the way of each other. That's...kind of what living with another person is, I guess." He thinks about his mom when he says it; she either wore her feelings close to the surface or it was like there was no-one home at all. "And I don't think you ruined anything. I think you both just need some time to breathe."

"I think you're right about breathing room," she says, and her eyes feel a little hot and wet when she closes them. "I hate that this upset me. I feel like I failed a test, and then I feel bad for feeling it. I need to be able to look at it more clearly, maybe think about that different backgrounds thing. We've been dating, and we've said we love each other, and it's been... months. Calling her my girlfriend seems more like a statement of fact to me, than a declaration."

She pushes back the tears, turning her head so her chin rests against his shoulder.

"Did I skip being worried about being bisexual? Am I bisexual?" Dark eyes peek up at him, genuinely puzzled, and then a little smile, because she can't help it, where Charlie's concerned. "And what about you? If that gender-changing thing happened to me, would you kick me out bed?"

"Honestly? I think labels are kind of overrated," says Charlie, stroking his hand down her back. "Unless they're really important to, which they might be to Rosie, in which case...awesome, I guess? But that's something she needs to figure out for herself." He thinks about her other question for a long moment. "I don't...have experience with guys, but I guess I'm not, like, inherently adverse to the idea or anything." He drops a kiss into her hair. "And, anyway, that's a trick question. You'd still be you, so, no. Never kicking you out of bed. Ever."

"I guess that it didn't really occur to me," she hums. "A lot of things changed for me, when I learned about my-- my bloodline. A lot of things have changed, really." She wonders if the version of herself in Greendale is so far from the girl she'd been on the night of her sixteenth birthday.

But she's also more than ready for a distraction from the hurt she's been nursing, and so she moves away from the topic.

"Hm, maybe this place will get a notion and let me test you on it," she murmurs, nosing against his neck. "I hope I'd be a hot guy, at least."

"Can't see how you'd be anything else," says Charlie, feeling the way that Sabrina's mood shifts, as she nuzzles into the line of her jaw. "Probably like, a foot taller than me and properly ripped."

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[charlie]

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