8Sorry for that little foreshadowing at the end of the last chapter. It won't happen again, I promise! *winks*
Chapter title: Taylor Swift's Out of the Woods
Blurryfaces
Chapter four – Are we out of the woods yet?
Amy's right on one point: Shaun is nice-looking. But that's it.
He's just an other dull man bimbo, kind of like Jackson, except he's a lot less cocky and smart and he's a brunet. He's the complete opposite of Todd, actually; not that Todd isn't handsome, but their best friend is scrawny and a little geeky. The only feature they both possess is the hair color, and the attraction to the same girl.
Charlie doesn't like him. Amy is blind.
Shaun takes his date in his pretty car. Charlie likes to think he refused for Amy to take them to the school on her Vespa because he would have lost his manliness or some crap. It gives her a reason to despise him even more. It doesn't matter whether or not she made up the reason; she feels better thinking he's a bad guy.
She's already there when they both arrive, waiting impatiently in the chills of the evening. She doesn't care that she's going stag to the formal, she doesn't care what people might think. She just wants to spend a nice night with Todd and Amy, loosen up a little, and go back home, chest filled with the beats of the music. However it doesn't happen that way.
Amy's too preoccupied by Shaun, and Charlie can't decide between interrupting their romance and hurting her friend or staying silent and hurting herself. Of course she decides the latest. She isn't that selfish.
She can't stand looking at the two, dancing slowly together on a shitty valse, Amy's nose pressed on his shoulder, Shaun's hands on her waist, like they're together. They freaking aren't. They're just dates to a stupid winter formal that lasts a single night (Charlie hopes nothing will happen that night).
Amy's a manizer, if that word exists. And Charlie watches over her in the dark.
She sees Todd in his black suit, alone at a table with a Dr Pepper in his fist. She sits next to him, smiles as a hello, drinks some more liquor poisoned by Jackson's alcohol flask. She offers him some, so he shrugs and takes a sip from her drink.
"I wouldn't mind not remembering some of this." he mumbles, hands buried in his pants' pockets.
Charlie silently agrees. Her drink is cold. Her hands are wrapped around it like it can keep her warm. She just needs something to hold on to. Something to tell her that this night is going to be shorter than first assumed. Something to shake her awake and tell her this is just a boring dream that will soon fade away in reality.
"Where's your partner gone?" she asks Todd. He shrugs.
"Off with some guy. Don't know him."
Charlie silently agrees. Todd shrugs once again. It's a repetitive mantra they built.
"You can always ask her out."
Todd stares at her like she's suddenly grown a second head. "Why the hell would I kill myself that way?"
"I meant, why don't you just wait for Shaun guy to be gone for some drinks to ask her for a dance? She'll say yes."
"Of course she'll say yes. She's Amy McGougal. She's in love with every shredded guy but she doesn't even notice her best friends." Out of rage, Todd stands up and decides to abandon his Dr Pepper and drown his sorrow in illegal alcohol.
Charlie wonders if she should imitate him. The truth is, she's too lazy to even get up, and she hasn't planned on ending up drunk off her ass. Tipsy, fine. Ethylic coma, no.
Instead she thinks about what Todd just said. She thinks about the percentage of truth in his words. It equals almost 80%.
Amy's not selfish, far from that, she's just stuck in an eternal daydream in which she imagines that everybody's perfect and likes her. There, shielded away from the horrendous price reality costs, she dances along with pretty princes, forgetting the knights guarding her a few feet away.
Charlie knows Todd's in love with Amy. If love's really a thing of course, if that's not just a big teenage crush. She should feel jealous. She always feels jealous when boys take interest in Amy's persona, but Todd is the only exception. Perhaps because he's a good guy, perhaps because she knows he could treat her well as he already treats her well. He may not be incredibly hot like all the suitors Amy dances with, but he's by far the most beautiful on the inside (she's aware of how cliché that sounds but she loves this trope in the books).
Sure, he's a little possessive and bossy sometimes - when Amy wasn't there and it was just Todd and Charlie, she remembers how little and shy he thought he was - but she made him a better person.
Charlie isn't sure if she made Amy a better person or if Amy made her a better person. Yes, they helped each other. They still are. Amy relies more on Charlie's advices than she did two years ago when she did what she wanted to do without anyone warning her for the consequences to come. On the other side, the British girl got to help Charlie getting out of her comfort bubble; she made her get out of the house more, meet new people, go to parties (she never did go to parties before, it looked like something dangerous with liquor and drugs and boys judging your curves), explore the world.
Except Amy only explores dreamworlds.
Wonderland is shit, Charlie thinks. It's full of nightmares and grinning mad cats and drugged caterpillars. It's not a place you want to be stuck into. She knows it, she read the original book, and it doesn't seem to be extraordinarily fun to Alice.
"I should've been named Alice." Charlie thinks out loud.
"What?"
She looks up, sees Todd handing her a poisoned drink. "Just thinking." she says, taking the paper cup.
"Aren't we all?" he mumbles as he takes his previous seat next to her.
A long moment of silence passes, during which Scott McSteroids gets caught by Coach Finstock for dancing with Danny - the teacher lets go of his prey as soon as he got it though as everyone immediately wonders if he's being homophobic - and Charlie takes little sips of her drink, slowly feeling the familiar tingling of the heat growing inside her.
McSteroids finally gets his dance with New Girl. Everything seems to end well for him. Charlie's envious.
In the corner, Matt the photographer takes a few pictures of the different couples, probably to pin them in BH's weekly journal. He's going to get well paid for the Stiles and Lydia odd bond, for sure, especially since the rumors that Lydia might try to take her revenge on Jackson after their violent breakup turned out to be true. Thankfully he does not wander around Todd and Charlie. He still fears the girl after she's threatened to smash his camera and throw it down the river as he was trying to snap a random picture of her.
"I want to go home." she murmurs. The fire in her stomach hurts her now. She feels like she could throw up.
"Yeah." he replies weakly. She looks at him and sees his stare transfixed by Amy's thin figure. For her instance, she can't even look at her best friend. It's only going to wake up the monster in her belly.
"I don't get it." he says. "Am I not doing enough?"
"You're doing plenty." Charlie answers. Her mouth feels like she's got gum stuck in it.
"There was only one girl." he goes on. "I never had anyone before. My mother broke up with my dad when I was three, so my dad had this plan, to make me the man he was, but I never complied. I was never like him, so I'm his disappointment. And I'm his only son." Charlie listens, her moistened eyes glued to the dancing redhead in the middle of the gymnasium, so perfect in her white dress, so untouchable she could be a thousand stars away from them and it would be the same story. "I failed my dad. I'm failing Amy now. The only thing I really have is my dog and my computers. Don't take it wrong, I love my Trojan dog, he's the sweetest pet in the whole world, but that's a very small reassurance for such a big fuckup."
He looks away from Amy and stares at Charlie, who feels like he's seeing through her.
"I see the way you look at her." he slowly says, his voice far away from this place but still very clear in the crowd. "The same look is on my face when I see her standing in the hallway, laughing at one of Isaac's stupid jokes."
"You're drunk." Charlie points out without conviction.
"I'm tipsy, maybe I drank a little too much, but I still know what I'm saying." he replies harshly. He closes his mouth for a moment, and 'Not just a Girl' by She Wants Revenge is played. It's incredibly cheesy. He opens his mouth again, and the glimmer in his eyes is nothing but alcohol's fire. "You like her too." His voice has lost its darkness and it seems like he's about to fall asleep on the spot. "It's okay though. That means I'm not alone, you see? We're in the same boat. The same Titanic. And it only just hit the iceberg."
Charlie feels like crying. She doesn't.
"You want to dance?"
He considers her open hand a second and takes it, stands up. She leads him to the dance floor, where they meet Lydia and Stiles, Danny and Axel, Josh and Sydney slowly dancing together. He puts both of her hands on her waist, she wraps her arms around his neck, she drops her head on his chest, he tilts his chin on her hair. She feels like she could open her mouth but she knows he won't say anything back. So instead she choses humor.
"We're kind of like Harry and Hermione."
She feels Todd's surprised chuckle vibrating at the base of her crane. "What?"
"You know. I'm the bookworm. You're the... malnourished guy with tangled hair."
"That would make Amy Ron."
"The hair color."
"I didn't know Harry wanted to get it in Ron's pants."
Charlie can't hold back the laugh that escapes her lips. The loud music covers it quickly.
"Yeah, well... Maybe imagine that Amy's not Ron, but Ginny. After all, Harry gets the girl at the end."
She feels Todd smile more than she sees it, in the way his Adam Apple bobbles. "But what about you?" he asks, suddenly serious, if a little groggy.
She plays dumb. "Oh, well, Hermione enjoys the quiet atmosphere of the place filled of Earth's most dangerous weapons: the library."
"Charlie. I know you since we're twelve. You're the Hermione to my Harry. We're like brother and sister."
Charlie runs her tongue over her lips, looking down at her feet in a very Amy way. "I still have to find a Krum." she answers slowly. "But for now, I'm going to pretend to like loneliness for a while."
- and you can say anything, you can say anything, and you can say anything to me -
...shouts the amp before the song finally ends.
She takes the hand that was on her waist in her own and squeezes hard. The song shifts, and promises to be a pogo.
He doesn't really seem to be up to jump around like a kangaroo (neither is she, really), but she does know that it would do them both good to just let themselves go. It's like punching into a pillow when you're frustrated. It's less violent than actually hitting someone, and it's as useful.
She doesn't know the song, and she probably won't remember its title tomorrow; she lives in the moment, never lets go of Todd's hand to remind herself that she isn't alone in this hell.
She steps away from him, but doesn't let go of his hand. "You coming? It's burning in here."
They head to the door leading to the night outside to find a distraught Jackson Whittemore, staring at the floor like a kid who got caught hand in the sweet jar. He doesn't smell like Hugo Boss anymore; he's sweating stress through every pore.
"You okay?" Todd says, almost stumbling into him. After all, the prick's still his team captain, Todd is allowed to care for him.
Jackson looks up, apparently not expecting to see someone here. "I'm fine." he replies harshly.
"We'll leave you at looking at your Gucci then." Charlie snaps.
Todd looks at him one last time before she pulls him away into the night.
They are bitten by the cold air, sharp in comparison of the boiling energies swimming in the gymnasium. Charlie watches her breath fly out of her lips in a tiny cloud.
"Hey, look." Todd suddenly laughs, all memory of a stressed out Jackson vanished from his mind at the sight of Scott and Allison in a full making out session between the yellow school buses. "It looks like they made up apparently."
Charlie can't help but smile. She winces afterward for good measure. "We better give them the privacy they need. It stinks like teenage hormones in the area."
He chuckles as they disappear behind the gymnasium, away from the buses and the exhalation of sex, to sit on an abandoned bench.
Charlie is glad she decided to wear those pantyhoses finally. Her arms are covered in goosebumps and she desperatly needs warmth.
From where they are, they can still hear distinctly the music pouring out of the ballroom. For the moment, it's an old Lady Gaga song. She imagines Amy dancing on Extraterrestrial with Shaun. She damns her imagination.
"I'm literally turning into an icecube." declares Todd on the spurt of the moment. "When I'll turn back, I'll have the real Peggy Carter by my side, please."
Charlie snorts, barely understanding the reference. "You tell me! I'm in a short dress with nothing else but panties and high heels."
"I can give you my tie." he suggests selflessly.
"Oh, how kind of you."
He snorts again, the fire of alcohol still raging in his stomach. He runs a hand on his face. "Damn I'm so tired. Like, I could just lie down and that'd be it, pick me up tomorrow."
"On my bike?"
"Don't care. I'll be hungover then. I'll probably don't remember it."
"Will do then."
"Thanks. You're my best bro." He bumps his fist against hers and lets it drop lazily on his knee, his motions more slow and badly coordinated than usual. Charlie finds herself trying to decipher the different kinds of black in the dark surrounding them, up until he begins to talk about something she thought they were over with. "You know, I find it amazing how, despite the fact that we have this enormous crush on the same girl - it's just so cool that we're still friends. That we don't fight like in those stupid tv shows with those stupid love triangles."
She choses to stay silent. Partly because she doesn't know what to reply, but also because everything is already said.
"But it's shitty at the same time, you know." he continues. Maybe he doesn't care if she doesn't want to hear what he has to say, but he pours his soul anyway. "Because even though we don't fight now, we're doomed to be raised against each other later. And if Amy doesn't notice either of us, then we're both miserable. Three scenarios and every time there's one of us who ultimately ends up losing."
The darkness is opaque, too opaque to even discern a silhouette. The birds have gone to sleep a long while ago, so have all the insects. Them humans are probably going to let themselves fall into Morpheus's gentle embrace soon too, letting the night be guarded by monsters and fallen saints.
"In drama class, we call this a tragedy." she murmurs.
She doesn't know if he heard her nor does she look at him to inspect any sign of understanding in his features.
She shivers. Her poisoned drink from earlier has done nothing but increase the strength of her headache.
The warm lights coming out of the gymnasium's windows lighten their faces, otherwise they would've been part of the night as well.
"Maybe we should get back inside." she proposes. Todd, whose head was starting to fall on his chest, nods. "We're going to catch a cold."
"Agreed." he snores. He grabs her hand and she helps him get up, slides an arm around his shoulder so he can tumble to where his car is parked. She thinks about getting him home and abandon her bicycle here, but on the other hand, she doesn't have a driver license yet and she doesn't want to risk an accident.
"How much did you ingest?" she groans. He's leaning his dead weight on her and she doesn't know how long she'll last.
"No' muchhh" he mumbles.
"It's not normal." she comments with a wince as he trips over his own feet. "You sure it was just alcohol in your drink?"
They are half-way to his car when they hear screams.
Charlie raises her head first, hearing them sooner as she's, in their pair, the less intoxicated.
"Whatz goin' on?" he mumbles groggily.
"Shhh."
She strengthens her grip around his shoulders and moves forward, deciding to go check out what the hell is causing those screams.
They seem male. Hysterical, but not injured. She's seen enough horror movies thanks to Amy to notice the difference between terror and pain (she's regretting ever seeing one now).
"I think it's coming from the field." she thinks out loud.
Todd looks up. "Lacrosh 'ield?"
They stumble in the parking lot in front of the gymnasium out of which a few dancers are coming out, alarmed by the shouting.
She doesn't have time to settle him against his black Toyota that a running man appears in front of them. Because of the darkness, she doesn't recognize him right away. She remembers his voice though.
"Jackson?"
"HELP ME!" he hollers, heading toward the flow of people going out of the gymnasium.
It's at this moment that she sees the blood on his clothes like dark ink, and the tiny corpse in his arms.
"Is that Lydia Martin?" people shout, while others scream: "Call the fucking 911!". Some are too busy running to their respective cars and get the hell out of here, probably thinking that whatever attacked the broken doll is still around. They aren't wrong, Charlie thinks numbly. The man, or the beast, can be hungry still.
A little crowd has formed around Jackson and he yells at them out of panic, never letting go of Lydia's body.
Like hypnotized, Charlie abandons Todd's drugged form against the car and walks, slowly, too slowly, to the carnage that is Queen Bee's mortal envelope. It's even worse up close.
Lighted by the lights of the gymnasium, an important part of Lydia's side has been ravished. Her beautiful strawberry blonde hair is moistened with red, her perfect face is splattered with hemoglobin. Her eyes are thankfully shut, but Charlie can imagine that if they were still open, they would have looked like dead fish's. Blank. Staring at the nothing in front of them, the image of her aggressor printed on her retina.
She smacks a hand on her mouth. No matter how hard she tries, she can't look away from Lydia Martin's lifeless body.
An ambulance arrives five minutes later. They have the time to look at the grass darken with blood underneath Lydia and Jackson.
"What happened?" Charlie asks once they took her and the police sirens start screaming on their way to the school.
"Nothing." Jackson says. Silent tears stream down his Ken doll cheekbones.
She looks up to him, a crease of disgust twisting her mouth. "You're usually a better liar."
He stares down at her with such hatred she has to step back. "Shut the fuck up, Zeidi. You have no idea what I just went through."
She can't help but open her mouth, bewildered. "It's amazing how self-centered you are." She's supposed to walk away now, but she doesn't even though he keeps looking at her like she just spat on his father's grave. "Is she going to be alright?" she asks, afraid of his answer.
He looks away, turns his head toward the police cars that are stopping in front of them. "I don't know."
It's past midnight when the Beacon Hills' county releases them. After a few questions, they had started to understand that all the answers were the same, so they plan to send some of the few most traumatized students to the hospital, including Jackson. Charlie isn't part of the few thankfully.
"Call your parents." one of the officers, whose badge declares he's called Strauss, says to her. "We can't have you roaming around a potential crime scene, especially if you drank." He sees the look on her face, and adds: "Not so long ago I was your age too."
She nods obediently and Strauss steps away, probably to repeat the same thing to Sydney who's shivering against Josh.
Charlie doesn't have her phone on her. After all, dresses rarely have pockets, and that's something that should be dealt with quickly.
Todd has one though. She hasn't seen him since she saw Lydia bleeding out in Jackson's arms.
"Oh shit." she mumbles, finally realizing that she left him on his own, out cold, against his car. She doesn't even know if the police found him. Blaming her own stupidity, she slaps her forehead. "God dangit!"
She runs, stumbling slightly because of the alcohol in her system she's been trying to ignore, to the place where she settled him down; and of course she finds nothing but his Toyota. That's when she starts to panic.
She yells his name. Hears no answer.
He's probably knocked out somewhere, she thinks. She hadn't realized how much he had drank, she should've known he was really intoxicated. He's usually honest, but not that heart-telling. She should've known. Why hadn't she?
She turns around, looking for him in the shine of the cars' lights. One merry-go-round. Two merry-go-round. She sees black butterflies before-
Amy stops her at three, right when she's ready to call the cops.
"Charlie!" the redhead cries out as she dives into her friend's arms. "I couldn't find- I didn't know where- where you were- I thought the same thing that attacked Lydia attacked you too!" She squashes Charlie against her chest and the brunette can't help but hug her back, on the verge of tears. "Don't ever do this to me again. Don't leave me alone, okay?"
"You weren't alone." Charlie speaks, squeezing her as tight as she can.
Amy looks down at her, her eyes moistened. "He's just Shaun, he's never going to replace my best friend. Why would you think that?"
Charlie feels an immense weight disappear from her shoulders and suddenly she's able to breathe again; that is until she remembers him.
"Todd-" she manages to say between two sobs. "I left him on his own- I don't know where he's." She gets away from Amy's powerful grip (she's doing Krav Maga after all) and numbly walks to the policemen.
Amy stops her halfway. "What are you doing?" she whispers.
"I should tell them that Todd's missing." Charlie repeats what's been on her mind.
"No no no, you can't." stammers her friend, and these multiple negations come out of her mouth in white puffs. "I know Todd's been drinking, Shaun told me he himself poured hardcore alcohol in his drink."
"The fuck?" Charlie shouts, now perfectly awake. "He drugged him on purpose?!"
Amy seems as angry as she is. "He said he just wanted him to have a good time as he seemed pretty bored - anyway, it doesn't matter now, because Shaun left-"
"Without you?!"
"I dumped him, Charlie, as soon as he told me what he did! It's over."
Charlie looks at Amy, really looks at her. And her best friend has never looked so betrayed and miserable.
She nods. Smiles. Tries to pretend that it's going to be okay. Then goes back to normal.
"We can't tell the cops because they're going to think he got drunk on his own. Plus he's underage." she understands.
"Exactly."
"Awesome. Also I may have drank some of the thing your boyfriend poisoned, so I may or may not be very sober."
Charlie tries to give her some as she smiles, but it comes out more wrong than anything. Amy's mouth twists in a way she hasn't seen in a very long time.
"He's not my boyfriend." she hisses, closing her hands into shaky fists. "He's not even my friend."
Charlie nods, and breathes out slowly. "That's good." she manages to say. "Very good. I always had a bad feeling about him anyway."
Amy looks down at her feet and chuckles humorlessly. "You always have a bad feeling about all the guys that take interest in me." she murmurs.
But Charlie shakes her head. "No. Not all of them."
Amy looks up, meets her stare, smiles quickly and tightly. She takes her Charlie's hand, just to know that this one is not going to leave her.
"Todd's probably still around." the brunet says. She's never been that optimistic before, but if she tries hard enough, her wishes can eventually come to not be vain.
"We're in former dresses." whines Amy.
Charlie squints, trying to remember something as her thoughts are currently a little blurry. "Don't you have peruvian ponchos in your trunk?"
"I came in Shaun's car." Amy reminds her with an annoyed pout.
"Of course you came in this fucker's stupid car."
When Amy's cross, she has the tendency to speak with an English accent more prominent than ever; when Charlie's pissed, she's used to curse like a trooper.
"I can't believe the shit that is happening right now." she continues, pulling at her hair in anger.
"Okay, we're going to find him. Now." Amy says as she takes Charlie's bare forearm. "I don't want his dad panicking, do you?"
Just thinking about Todd's father makes Charlie shiver, and not because of the cold this time.
That's how they end up, around one in the morning, searching the woods behind the lacrosse field for a clue that would eventually lead to Todd Wells.
"We should track his phone." Amy proposes as she stumbles upon one of the many roots.
"Great idea." says Charlie, voice filled with sarcasm. "The only problem is that Todd's the computer genius here. But oh, how unfortunate! Todd's not here!"
Amy doesn't have the strength to complain anymore. She just walks, until her long legs get caught in a fern again. "Bloody hell!"
"Watch where you're going." advices Charlie, giving her a hand.
Amy's so exhausted she doesn't even remember how to walk. The excitement during the ball has been banished by the terror at the sight of Lydia's bloodied form, and the stress of the police's interrogation.
Now she just wants to go home.
In an other scenario, she would have loved a walk in the woods at night. However there was real danger behind all this, and repercussions if they didn't find Todd.
Charlie feels the same, and she hates how she trips over every little thing every five seconds. She looks at her feet, and mixes the right and the left. At one point, she thinks she's going to get crazy as at every little shake of her head her vision just gets more blurred.
"This idiot could have had the time to find his way home by now." she groans as she doesn't notice a threatening branch and gets painfully hit on the forehead.
Amy, phone out to light their path, silently agrees. "I'm gonna kill Shaun." she decides.
"Then I'm going to team up with you."
"The more the merrier. This wanker made this happen."
Charlie smiles to herself.
"And how do you plan on taking him?" she adds to distract them from the temperature, the possible killer in the woods, and the terrifying reminder that she's going to wake up with an horrible headache tomorrow.
Amy pushes a vicious plant from her way with her heel. "Sneakily. Pretend I'm not furiously cross at him at a murder level, and bitchslap him. And yell that he's a cheater, a drug dealer, an egocentric bastard, an irresponsible asshat that deserves nothing but to get bitchslapped several times in a row, all that in the hall so everyone can witness."
Charlie's impressed. "This makes me love you more." she blurts out without really thinking.
Amy chuckles. "I know. Love you too."
Charlie doesn't have the time to react to her love letter (when she thinks about it later, she thinks that it was most probably a platonic love letter. Best friends tell that they love each other all the time). None of the two girls really have the time to do anything actually when the woods break in front of them, and a terrified figure with erratic movements crashes on Amy with a shriek. The redhead screams like she's being decapitated with a blunt axe, pushes the person away, gets back on her feet, her dress damped and dirtied by the humidity of the ground.
"Oh my god, Todd! What the bloody hell on earth?!"
Charlie laughs, her survival instinct killed by the fire inside her, and runs to the poor boy who's panting on the ground. When Amy orientates the light of her phone on him, they can see his eyes. Blood shot, open wide. It looks like he's been through his worse nightmare. His once perfect black suit is torn at some places and he's got a scratch on his left cheek, slightly bleeding.
Charlie stops giggling and thinks that's enough cardiac arrests for one night.
She crouches in front of him. "Todd." she whispers worriedly, seeing that he's obviously in shock. "Are you okay?"
She thinks about getting him a blanket as he's literally shaking uncontrollably. Unfortunately the girls themselves only own their formal dresses.
"He's obviously not okay." Amy says as she crouches next to Charlie and runs her hand over Todd's face, swiping away the drops of fear on his forehead and the tears on his cheeks and chin.
"I saw-" he manages to say, gripping Amy by her skirt like it's his anchor and he's about to drown. "I saw-"
"Shhh. It's okay." she murmurs, gently caressing his hair. "Help me get him up." she says to Charlie who obeys.
They take one arm each, and he finally manages to stand on his own, if a little drunkly.
"I shaw mawns'ers." he manages to say. His pronunciation is terrible though, and the girls don't understand him at first.
"What is it?" says Amy.
"A f-fight." he precises as his gaze wanders erratically. "With rifles. And v-vampires."
"Wait, what?"
"There were three girls." he continues, showing two fingers. "Allison Argent was there too- she was trying to k-kill the vampires!"
Amy looks at Charlie worryingly but the brunette is as lost as she is, if not more.
"I am so going to kick Shaun's ass." the redhead groans.
"Come on, let's get you home." Charlie says with her best mother voice. Unfortunately, it comes out like a weak squeak three octaves higher than intended.
When she tries to get him to walk, he stops her by gripping harshly both of her arms. She winces with pain.
"No you don' ge' it." he murmurs, eyes darting from behind Charlie to Amy. For a moment, he looks like a lunatic who just got out of psych jail. "They're s-still here. They could att-tack, any moment now-"
"And that's why we're going to take you home." Charlie replies, faking a trembling smile. Amy continues to smooth Todd's wet hair. Now that she's closer to him, Charlie notices that he smells like a wet dog. She's not particularly fond of that smell. "And give you a well deserved bath." she finishes, her nose crunched with disgust.
"What she said."
"But-" Todd tries to argue.
"Shush it!" Amy silences him with an imperial finger.
When she checks the time on her phone, she's surprised to see that it's not one in the morning, but three.
"Okay. We're going to use this old trunk as a checkpoint." she says, taking charge. "We came from... the south west?"
"We should look for Venus." Charlie indicates, suddenly remembering something useful, and Todd rests all of his drunk weight on her shoulder. "We're all tired here, so try not be that of a burden!" she murmurs angrily.
Todd straightens his spine as much as he can without pathetically losing his balance.
"I think I found it!" Amy says, perched on the trunk. "The brightest star, right?"
"Yep!" Charlie giggles. Amy jumps off the chopped down tree and comes help her friend with Todd.
"Am I a burden?" he says with a terrible pronunciation. When the girls look at him, he seems devastated.
"No." Charlie immediately replies, feeling guilty. "Of course not. You know I didn't mean it."
"But you said it anyway." he doubts as they lead him out of the little clear around the trunk.
"Most of the words that come out of my mouth, I don't mean them. I don't even know what I'm saying right now to be honest, the flow just keeps coming out of my mouth and I can't stop it-"
"Yeah. You gotta see through the mask." Amy cuts her as they duck to walk under a large branch. "Careful, leaves."
Todd doesn't see them and receives a load of brown leaves in the face. "Ugh."
"You say it!" Charlie laughs.
"I hate vampires." he mumbles.
"Well that's a good thing, because I think I might have a wooden pike back home. Y'know, to pierce their heart and send them back to their ugly cold coffin!" Amy says, affirming her grip around his middle.
"God I love you both so much." he lets out, head hanging.
"Us too." she replies, smoothing his hair again. "Us too."