(no subject)
The red sand cakes under their boots as they walk through the swampy water. It is nearly impossible to get proper footing in the desolate swamps that were left out of Oz’s great history for a reason. The mud feels like quicksand -- but these women are soldiers; they have survived much worse in their recent travels than ruined boots and soaked pants.
It isn’t a physical challenge, though. The adept woman of letters, who has let the thrill of adventure distract her before, needs to return home for her own sanity, everything is pulling her home, except the mud; which is attempting to drown her from the ankle up. Thinking of home reminds her of the nagging guilt that takes the shape of her brunette guide. She can’t think of her family amongst the Winchesters, or the wonders of technology without replaying the last few weeks.
Charlie’s clothes have become tattered, forcing her to throw every piece of home away, and now her sneakers were so caked with mud she could wiggle her toes around in the mud if she pressed against the front of her shoe. Her clothes are not the only thing that suffered, though. Perhaps her confidence has been affected by her guide’s casual avoidance of Charlie’s advances, but the constant fear of death has kept her far more on edge then rejection.
Fear came to Charlie first in battles, which had been so frequent she never parted with her gun. Dorothy had left out the constant ambushes, daily near death experiences, and how victory can feel impossible against the witch’s endless army. Charlie has learned to deal with this, and until a few weeks ago all she dealt with were a few stab wounds, claw marks and bullet wounds.
It is failure that scared her, that made her feel guilty. Charlie swore to protect one of the last friend’s Dorothy had. Dorothy was due back in a day or two. It was supposed to be easy, yet Charlie still ended up with the woman bleeding out on her lap in the middle of nowhere, hours before Dorothy was expected to return. Now every time Charlie looks at Dorothy she can’t help but remember how tormented Dorothy looked on her return.
“Just a few more miles, half a day’s walk and we’ll be there,” Dorothy attempts to provide support. She has turned to steel trapped in a magical land, she fighting against everything that builds the world that contains her. People can’t help but admire her. They can’t help following her, even if it means the uncertainty of death.
“We could still turn back, or I could just go on my own if it’s really that close,” The mud stunk like rotting animals and failure, like everything Charlie has tried to avoid had made its way here and died. She fiddles with the hem of her shirt and focuses on her footsteps. She can’t get stuck in her fears now.
Ignoring her attempts at an escape, Dorothy presses on, offering only, “You won’t find your way back without me.” It resonates in Charlie’s core, it is the truth: without Dorothy’s blood as a tie back to this world, Charlie can’t come back without some serious spell casting.
"There’s no Wi-Fi in Oz,” Charlie plays it off as a joke, but Dorothy’s face lights up with confusion.
“Wi-Fi?” Dorothy asks, almost embarrassed to be out of the loop.
“It’s, uh-for computers. It’s really the best, you can do anything on it-talk to people, play games, watch television- I can’t believe you haven’t used computers yet, it’s literally the best thing to happen to science since…well Science?” She enthuses, avoiding the more difficult concepts like internet.
“Oh,” Dorothy says. It’s so short and sweet; everything Charlie expects. Dorothy has never been one for intense emotional displays, and the only piece of technology she cares about is her motorcycle in the garage of the bunker.
The women walked in silence and except for the small reassuring smiles that Dorothy gave as she picked Charlie up when she fell, the contact is kept to a minimum. Perhaps the air is too heavy to talk of anything life changing or the weight of Charlie’s departure is too much for both of them to speak.
“This is it,” Dorothy declares, throwing her backpack on the first piece of solid ground in at least an hour. It was a forest clearing with no visible doors to use as a portal. Even with the key, Charlie doesn’t see a way to get out of it, but she is still not in on Dorothy’s plan.
“If you wanted to take me camping all you had to do is ask,” Charlie deflects, following Dorothy’s movements to figure out what she is supposed to be doing.
“I’m setting up camp, but I doubt this is what suburban families do for fun,” Dorothy has warm, radiating this energy that makes Charlie blush. It’s clearly one of the better moods Dorothy has been in since they’ve arrived, and Dorothy has never failed to impress Charlie. Charlie has been after her for a while, but decided pissing off her friend with flirty faces was the last thing to do on her list. Besides, every chance Charlie tries to flirt ends up going right over Dorothy’s head. It seems the dating game was a lot different back in the forties. “Will you gather some wood?” Dorothy asks, but she isn’t looking at Charlie anymore. All her attention is on the spell she has to cast as she flips through an ancient looking book that Charlie has never seen.
“Sure,” Charlie can’t say anything else but that. She wants to apologize for the death of her friend, or confess how crazy she drives Charlie, but it would only embarrass her. No matter what happens, she is the one leaving, and Dorothy is the one who has to trek back through a lake of mud for someone she owes nothing to.
Charlie isn’t the best at navigating woods, and, of course she isn’t the strongest solider in the legion, but she has always been silently skilled. She has always been the party mage, though Dorothy makes her feel like a knight, at least when she sends Charlie on impossible tasks. Charlie is flattered by Dorothy’s confidence in her, but flattery has never been so painful.
It took an irrational amount of courage to walk further into the woods when Charlie lost the Sun in the dense foliage of trees. She has never been happy with what she finds in the dark, but she is not one to abandon a quest.
The stillness is eerie, and it feels like something is watching her and did not want to make a sound. Charlie blames her paranoia on her mistrust of the foreign landscape. Deep breaths, Deep breaths. Charlie repeats it over and over again in her head, deciding if anyone tried to attack her, she could just throw ten pounds of newly found wood at them. She walks with the wood weighing down on her, but the forest seems to go on forever. Her anxiety returns as the thought that she might never find her way overtakes her.
She looks up to try and orient herself, but the trees reach up and towards each other, blocking out the sunlight. The only way to make it back is to trace her steps, but it is too dark to see if she is heading the right way.
Strong arms and soft hands grab her shoulders, pulling her into the darkness. Charlie closes her eyes tightly and prayed it will be something she can take as she throws the wood in the general direction of her attacker.
“I should have warned you how endless this forest is,” Dorothy’s voice is Charlie’s anchor, returning her from all her terror.
“Is th-the spell ready?” Charlie says as she clings on to Dorothy’s voice and the pumping pulse in her ears overpowering every thought process.
“Let’s get you calm before I throw more at you,” Dorothy smiles and it pulls Charlie back to reality.
Charlie sat around the bare area, lined with rocks, as Dorothy stacks the wood in a pile. They have done this a thousand times, Charlie gathers the wood, and Dorothy sets it on fire. It is almost symbolic of their relationship: Charlie hands her heart to Dorothy and Dorothy ends up reduces her hopes to ash. Charlie is doomed.
A small pot was set up above the fire, held there by a system of branches to keep it in place. The one good thing about living outside ability is how quickly you learn how to build almost anything out of wood. Charlie can only imagine how bad the chafing would be for clothes made out of wood, but she does not intend to stay long enough to find out.
“Are you making something yummy?” Charlie asks as Dorothy fills the pot with a small amount of water and seasonings, and Charlie wonders if it will be a soup. As she asks her question, though, Dorothy takes her knife and cuts a smooth line along her hand, dripping blood into the pot. They both frown at Charlie’s question.
“I would be a little worried if you switched your diet to my blood. Maybe even a little suspicious considering pale how pale you are,” Dorothy teases and Charlie lets out nervous laughter. She can’t decide if it’s more embarrassing to make such a silly mistake or have someone poke fun of her for it. Dorothy sympathetically throws Charlie a pack of trail mix once she wraps her hand in a small white cloth that is stained red within seconds.
“Are you okay?” She’s bleeding for some stupid spell that Charlie asked for. It’s my fault. Dorothy doesn’t let her grab her hand, doesn’t let her look at it; she pushes on with the spell.
“Just a side effect,” Dorothy doesn’t want comfort. She never is one for it. She is just as closed off as Dean was at first. That’s what being a solider does to you when it’s all you know. The difference being that Dorothy didn’t have a person like Sam to nurture, all she had is a destiny. Charlie wants to be the one to comfort her, has tried to be there for her, but Dorothy had friends, and they’re dead. She isn’t eager to replace them.
Being useful is the only way Charlie figures she can get close to her. That or needing help, those were the only times Dorothy allows herself to open up.
“So what actually does this do?”
“It opens a portal. Since you can’t take the key back with you, we need a substitute. And a little bit of Oz goes a long way,” Dorothy explains as she stirs the mixture. It’s thick, red, and bubbles violently.
“Why your blood though? Why do you have to practically bleed out,” Charlie asks, she was poking too much as Dorothy does not make eye contact. Dorothy doesn’t look up from the pot, and that is enough for Charlie to know she is asking too many questions.
“It’s just easier,” Dorothy says shortly.
“Easier?” Charlie can’t shut herself up; she wants to know every procedure, and every part of the spell. Charlie knows Dorothy doesn’t want to talk about the spell, but that only raises more questions.
“Fine, if you really want to know I’ll tell you,” Dorothy tries not to yell, but the tension she’s releasing can only be carried with a brutal tone. Charlie freezes; she knows she is going too far. “It’s easier to use my blood because you are my friend. We could use yours, but with mine, I can keep track of you if I need to. We could find each other if we need to.”
“Why?” Charlie asks as she is intrigued by the magic Dorothy is using.
"Why would I help you, bleed for you?” Charlie nods, mutely.
“I like you,” Dorothy says it like it’s obvious.
Charlie smiles as she retreats back to her stump by the fire, “I consider you a friend, too.” She wishes she could say I like you, too, but she’s pretty sure that’s not what Dorothy means.
“Well that’s great. Now that all that stuff is out of the way let’s get on with getting you home,” Dorothy continues with the spell as she attempts to move on from the conversation. Dorothy can’t handle another friend, even if Charlie deserves her friendship.
Dorothy pours a majority of the liquid into a vial, and then proceeds to craft a necklace out of it. She runs a small, rough string through a small hole on the cap of the vial, like she had been storing and planning this moment for a while. “Come here,” Dorothy says, and then promptly adds, “I need to make sure it fits.”
Charlie stands so close to Dorothy, she can feel the limited air between them, can see every mark on Dorothy’s face from the curve of her face to slight pout of her lips. She’s studying Dorothy, but Dorothy refuses to look at anywhere but the necklace. Charlie can’t decide if Dorothy is that oblivious or if she is avoiding Charlie’s eyes because she wants to kiss her. Charlie fights every urge to kiss her, even though she’s sure she could get away with it, that she might even get something back.
Dorothy ties the necklace, small and dark red with flecks of green herbs, onto Charlie’s neck. They look into each other’s eyes, finally, and Charlie sees the same fight in Dorothy’s eyes, the same resistance. She knows she might regret this later but she knows these are their last moments together for a long time. She might be bad at flirting, but when there’s a beautiful woman in front of her, Charlie’s always made the leap, eventually.
She can’t help it when Dorothy’s lips are so close. She barely has to lean in before Dorothy does the same. Charlie puts her hands on Dorothy’s back, wrapping herself around her, while Dorothy puts her hand on Charlie’s jaw and kisses her so intensely that if she wasn’t leaning her weight on the other woman she would fall.
It’s hungry like they’ve been starving for weeks just looking at each other. Their lips press hard against each other trying to taste as much of the other as possible, to savor every second before Charlie leaves.
Charlie doesn’t want to stop; she just pulls Dorothy as close as possible, kisses her with a sense of celebration. She has wanted to kiss her since she stumbled into the bunker, but never thought she would get the chance. She wants this moment to go on forever until she collapses from lack of oxygen.
“Leave,” Dorothy says into Charlie’s mouth, and in seconds Charlie is so far away, in an entirely different dimension and every part of her aches.
It’s the Winchester’s garage, the last place she had been, but every part of her is collapsing in on herself. She has so much inside her, she doesn’t know if she should scream or cry.
“Go back, go back,” She screams at the vial, but nothing happens. She only has a brief understanding of the spell, but it isn’t enough to get back. She has no idea if she will ever even be able to see Dorothy again, and the very thought is suffocating her. The sense of betrayal and confusion washes over Charlie. She can’t comprehend why Dorothy would give her no definite way back. Her breathing is so erratic and frantic as she tries to stop herself from sobbing.
She collapses against the garage door and prays that the Winchesters are on a hunt, or that perhaps she isn’t as loud as she thinks she is. She can’t imagine opening up to the Winchesters about heartbreak.
She can’t think about anything else though, she can only feel the pressure on her skin; how soft everything feels, how weak her body is when it isn’t pressed against the other woman. Every injury she received in Oz isn’t even comparable to the amount of pain she is in now, she is drowning in everything she felt, she is lost with no idea how to get home.
She is good at spells, she is a good hunter but the only way to get home is on the other side of this door, and it doesn’t exist anymore, she would never see Dorothy again. Dorothy is basically dead to this world. A ghost or memory that is doomed to disperse into ethereal and never appear again.
“Please,” Charlie has no idea what to do but what she’s always done: she dries her tears and picks herself up, even if this is one of the worst times. She’s been alone before. She’d always been alone before the Winchesters so she searches the garage for her car and tries to distract herself. It’s not a useful tactic at all, but it doesn’t do anything but make Charlie want to give up completely until someone finds her, but she continues anyway. She just doesn’t know why she always has to be so strong, so unbreakable, so smart and so stubborn, she’s too much of everything and she can’t contain herself at all. She needs to leave Oz behind.
Her small yellow car is all the way in the back of the garage, with the keys and everything else she brought in the back seat. She promises to kill the Winchesters if her car is locked, and she is relieved when it opens.
She starts the car, puts on the cheesiest break up music she can find and cries as she pulls out of the Winchester’s garage. She decides she doesn’t want to check in until she has a few days of game time to recover, she loves the Winchesters but she isn’t up for their usual brand of crazy.
The steering wheel feels weird in her hands, and her car is filthy with all the mud that she tracked in but she can’t care about that right now. It’s a long drive home and Charlie needs a week’s worth of sleep before she can go back to reality.
Charlie just wishes she could have an ounce of self-control every time she breaks down so bad she has to pull over. She curses herself for being so pathetic over a kiss but it doesn’t stop her sobbing.