Fear is only a verb if you let it be-Charlie/Renee for 1sentence
Title: Fear is only a verb if you let it be
Fandom: DC Comics
Characters/Pairings: Charlie/Renee… sort of
Prompt: 1sentence , theme set Epsilon
Word Count: 2,612
Genre: Varies |Db
Rating: PG
Warnings: …het? Kind of… dancing along the ship line at the very least
Notes: Should I feel bad for writing this? I feel bad for writing this…
Also 05, 14 and 19 happen while Charlie is Lantern’d. 32 and 40 are references to the second Question series o/
#01 - Motion
He tilted his head, watching the way she stretched, back arching, arms overextending at the elbow, the way she ran her fingers through her hair to work out the night’s tangles, but before she could catch his eye, he looked away and clambered out of creaky, old bed, snagging the shower before she wasted all the hot water.
#02 - Cool
Tot finds them back to back, eyes closed, meditating, and he shakes his head in exasperated amusement before wrapping them in several layers of blankets for the night.
#03 - Young
He stretches his legs out in front of him, sliding lazily down the park bench, eyes searching until he points out a young woman as she crosses the street; Renee only grudgingly admits he has excellent taste.
#04 - Last
Eventually he opened one eye, and managed a wheezy, broken chuckle, though she still had to lean in to hear him when he hushed, “Keep making faces like that and it’ll stick.”
#05 - Wrong
He catches her off guard one night, lifting her up into the sky by the collar of her jacket and she is sure that he’s finally going to kill her, but instead he takes her by the throat and tells her her hair looked better short before tossing her onto a rooftop and disappearing into the silver shadows the full moon throws over the city.
#06 - Gentle
For as heavy as he felt carrying him out here, Charlie falls onto the cot almost soundlessly; when she brushes his hair out of his lack of a face, he takes her hand at the wrist to stop her and an uncomfortable silence falls between them.
#07 - One
After she had pumped another dose of morphine into his failing body, he had wrapped an arm around his stomach and muttered he was just so goddamn tired, Renee, and it hurt so fucking much, before he’d fallen asleep for another twelve hours; it was the only time she ever heard him complain.
#08 - Thousand
There are so many small, scared eyes staring up at her afraid, and the only reason she doesn’t fall down sobbing right there on the spot is because Charlie comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her; she can’t decide which is worse: those thousand eyes or the way Charlie shudders and buries his face in her hair like she should be stronger than him.
#09 - King
He lets her hold her own, but when she tells Black Adam to just end it for her, his throat clenches for just a second; in the weeks that come, he half expects Renee to finally push the man one step too far, and it is almost a relief when they find Amon and forgiveness finally radiates off Black Adam in heavy, delirious waves.
#10 - Learn
She always found it most annoying when Richard gave her that half exasperated, half amused smirk, and made Charlie come over to show her what she was doing wrong instead of just telling her himself; the way he touched her wrists just so made her feel delicate, which was only more frustrating when he had to turn away from her to cough.
#11 - Blur
For the moment they are running, and it feels like nothing will ever get in their way again; they will do this forever.
#12 - Wait
She shudders when she wonders how long he was sitting in the back of her car before he said anything about the cigarette.
#13 - Change
He watches her draw question marks on her cast and knows he’s getting through to her if only a little, but it isn’t until she sees past herself and finally goes to see Kate Kane that he knows she’s ready.
#14 - Command
She finds him eventually, standing at the top of a hill that overlooks Hub City, and when she barks at him, demands one last fight even though she’s battered and bruised and barely standing, he turns and there is the vaguest hint of a familiar smirk at the corners of his skeleton grin.
#15 - Hold
He spends the night afterward trying to tell her that she had to do it, one life for many, perfect sense, but it isn’t until he finally, finally shuts up that she lets him get close enough to hold her; she shakes with the force it takes to keep from crying, and in the morning she grabs her jacket and leaves him curled fitfully asleep on the corner of the bed.
#16 - Need
Every now and then, he would watch her lift a cigarette to her mouth and he hated how much he wanted to ask her for one.
#17 - Vision
Once, he opened his hand and held it up to the sky, and the way he tilted his head to peer through the space between his fingers, she imagined he saw the world in a way she would never understand.
#18 - Attention
“Go for it. It’ll get you off my case at least,” she finally says, and he gives her such a startled, innocent look, she has to roll her eyes and clarify, “You’ve been staring at her all night,” but he just shakes his head and waves one hand, no no, I couldn’t.
#19 - Soul
He tells her to stop pretending she likes hurting people, and even if it’s in the vicious growl she has become accustomed to she can still hear Charlie underneath it all.
#20 - Picture
She realizes suddenly, looking up at the sky as it starts to pour snow down on a city she’s forgotten the name of, that he died today, and instead of those terrible terrible flashbacks to grey eyes and wheezing breath, she sees him smiling and telling her it’ll all be alright.
#21 - Fool
He teases her in that overstated yet quiet way of his, and ends up tripping over the deep palace carpet; their lips come dangerously close to touching, but she finds herself leaning towards him just slightly as he pulls away embarrassed.
#22 - Mad
Years later, a thief calls her crazy and she grins through her mask and tells him there’s no such thing before punching him square in the jaw.
#23 - Child
There was something deeply peaceful in the way he treated people those first few days after they arrived in Kahndaq, the way he accepted the lei without question, the way he tossed a handful of rice into the air, the way he lifted a little girl up over his head and swung her around like she was his own just because she asked him to; there was such stark and unwarranted trust in the girl’s eyes, Renee had to pause a few seconds just to watch.
#24 - Now
When she pulls the mask off and meets the eyes of her reflection, tracing the Mark where it burns across her forehead, she can almost see him in the room behind her making idle commentary on female obsession with appearance and beauty, even as he carefully teased the single curl out of his slicked back hair.
#25 - Shadow
“Listen,” he says and holds up his hand; for a moment, they are nothing but shadows in an alleyway, but then… then a car rushes by and a couple twirls together across the street, and a child laughs like bright silver and gold, and she feels herself breathe with him and she knows they’re breathing with the city, and she almost understands.
#26 - Goodbye
As revenge for having the insufferable gall to meditate for ten hours straight, Renee finds the reddest lipstick she has and draws big cartoon lips all over Charlie’s face before leaving for the evening; see if she cares if the robbers or vandals or whatever else lives on this street laughs themselves stupid when they break in and find him.
#27 - Hide
It was strange meeting all the people who used to know him, like hearing echoes from another life he’d lived too long ago to remember.
#28 - Fortune
The day after they’re attacked at the warehouse, two separate doctors - one from Metropolis and one from Star - finally get back with their tests, but they only echo everyone else he’s gone to; he laughs so hard he almost breaks, and for a few nights afterward, he buries himself in research instead of keeping an eye on Renee like he knows he should.
#29 - Safe
She refuses to admit she was worried he’d died too no matter how many times he asks, but maybe she is fussing over him too much, even if he’s still covered in big, purple bruises where they tried to beat answers out of him.
#30 - Ghost
It was such an ugly sound when the lighthouse keys came down on the table, and Tot had wandered inside before her, letting the tips of his fingers trail over the banister; out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something of Charlie in the slight cant of his shoulders, and the way he hummed thoughtfully, maybe sadly, to himself.
#31 - Book
He leaves the Crime Bible to her because he knows that she will try to destroy herself again after he dies, and even if his skin crawls just being around it, it will offer her questions to pursue until she can pick herself up by her own two feet.
#32 - Eye
Sometimes his eyes were grey, and when his eyes had lost their color like that, he was always very very still, and he didn’t smile as much, and he moved like the world was falling to pieces around him, and he’d pause on the street corner to watch something she tried to see but couldn’t, and when she touched his arm, he always turned and the bright blue came back and he’s smirk and tell her not to worry; she never asked why his eyes lost their color sometimes, but when he finally breathed his last in the bright white snow and the cold, they went grey like she remembered and it sent a terrible, ugly chill down her spine.
#33 - Never
When the doctors finally pull out the last IV and shut off his heart monitor for good, she asks him how he feels, and he clicks his tongue against his teeth, eventually admitting he feels pretty good all things considered; she grabs the back of his neck and kisses him for having the gall to pull through after all, and he smiles weakly against her mouth before returning it.
#34 - Sing
She warns him again and again and again, but she has to throw a shoe at the shower door before he stops pretending he can belt Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien like it should be.
#35 - Sudden
She watches him go from smiling to doubled over choking on the air in half a second flat, and all she can think to do is slide her arms around his shoulders and help him stay standing; he thanks her past the ragged scratch in his throat, and she shakes her head and hugs him tight to her rather then accept it.
#36 - Stop
He didn’t have to say anything; just the vaguely disappointed look he gave her was enough to make her sigh and put the bottle down.
#37 - Time
They lie in the grass beside each other, waiting for the sun to come down in Gotham, and except for the occasional cough the moment goes on calm and undisturbed.
#38 - Wash
She presses the wash cloth against his shoulder blade, tracing a thin scar - she knows it’s from a blade if only because she has a few scars like it herself - and when she asks him how he got it, he tenses, folds in on himself, mutters a name she has never heard before - Jackie - and begins to hum Danny Boy, at least until another coughing fit takes his voice away.
#39 - Torn
His funeral goes unattended except for Tot and Richard and her; the monks that pass by have the good graces not to say anything to them, and she has to resist the urge to toss his hat into the grave with him before she leaves.
#40 - History
When they come to Kahndaq, he can feel the burn of the city in his chest and he already knows what will become of her; he hums the faint snatches of music she sends him and when Renee asks, he tells her it’s an old, old lullaby.
#41 - Power
Through the haze in his vision, he follows the curve and coil of a muscle in her arm as she clenches her hands together in front of her face and he can’t help wondering what has upset her so.
#42 - Bother
“If you poke me again, you’re gonna get smacked,” she states, only half serious and only half awake; a few minutes later they are both deeply asleep while the plane purrs heavy and loud around them.
#43 - God
After searching for hours, she finally finds him in a church, sitting in the furthest pew with his shoulders slumped forward, and she smacks him so hard he wakes from whatever trance he’d been in and gives her the most offended look she’s ever seen - as if communing with a god who isn’t listening is really a reason to abandon the apartment without even leaving a note.
#44 - Wall
She presses her hand against the green and blue and orange graffiti, and when she closes her eyes, she feels him there, his arms wrapped round her waist and his face buried in her hair, but he’s not shuddering, he’s just murmuring to listen listen listen, never forget but accept the pain till she wants it to stay, and this time she understands, even if it’s only for a moment.
#45 - Naked
“Charlie! Get out!” she barked when she finally noticed him pausing just a little too long in the door; he laughed and caught her shirt as she threw it at him, vanishing down the hall.
#46 - Drive
The big old van rumbles to life and Charlie grins sidelong at her before sending them careening through the parking garage and out onto the busy street.
#47 - Harm
She has never seen him so ferociously, impossibly angry before; when the man’s arm snaps right in half and she hears something around his collarbone crunch, she grabs Charlie’s arm, reminding him it won’t bring the little girl back.
#48 - Precious
“Don’t ever lose your passion,” she hears him mumble from the spare bedroom, and she drops the apple she’s peeling to run in to him; he doesn’t say anything else, but he gives her the softest, kindest smile, cupping her cheek and drawing a cross on her forehead with his thumb.
#49 - Hunger
They cut a swath across the sky and through the darkness to the truth; she realizes she no longer asks because she wants the answer but because the taste of the question on her tongue is more satisfying then anything in the world, and she pulls his hat down over her eyes and heads out into the falling dusk.
#50 - Believe
He sets his hands against her hips, his forehead against hers, and tells her it’ll all be okay; she doesn’t say anything, but eventually she leans into him and let her fingers bunch into the shirt cloth at his back.
Fandom: DC Comics
Characters/Pairings: Charlie/Renee… sort of
Prompt: 1sentence , theme set Epsilon
Word Count: 2,612
Genre: Varies |Db
Rating: PG
Warnings: …het? Kind of… dancing along the ship line at the very least
Notes: Should I feel bad for writing this? I feel bad for writing this…
Also 05, 14 and 19 happen while Charlie is Lantern’d. 32 and 40 are references to the second Question series o/
#01 - Motion
He tilted his head, watching the way she stretched, back arching, arms overextending at the elbow, the way she ran her fingers through her hair to work out the night’s tangles, but before she could catch his eye, he looked away and clambered out of creaky, old bed, snagging the shower before she wasted all the hot water.
#02 - Cool
Tot finds them back to back, eyes closed, meditating, and he shakes his head in exasperated amusement before wrapping them in several layers of blankets for the night.
#03 - Young
He stretches his legs out in front of him, sliding lazily down the park bench, eyes searching until he points out a young woman as she crosses the street; Renee only grudgingly admits he has excellent taste.
#04 - Last
Eventually he opened one eye, and managed a wheezy, broken chuckle, though she still had to lean in to hear him when he hushed, “Keep making faces like that and it’ll stick.”
#05 - Wrong
He catches her off guard one night, lifting her up into the sky by the collar of her jacket and she is sure that he’s finally going to kill her, but instead he takes her by the throat and tells her her hair looked better short before tossing her onto a rooftop and disappearing into the silver shadows the full moon throws over the city.
#06 - Gentle
For as heavy as he felt carrying him out here, Charlie falls onto the cot almost soundlessly; when she brushes his hair out of his lack of a face, he takes her hand at the wrist to stop her and an uncomfortable silence falls between them.
#07 - One
After she had pumped another dose of morphine into his failing body, he had wrapped an arm around his stomach and muttered he was just so goddamn tired, Renee, and it hurt so fucking much, before he’d fallen asleep for another twelve hours; it was the only time she ever heard him complain.
#08 - Thousand
There are so many small, scared eyes staring up at her afraid, and the only reason she doesn’t fall down sobbing right there on the spot is because Charlie comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her; she can’t decide which is worse: those thousand eyes or the way Charlie shudders and buries his face in her hair like she should be stronger than him.
#09 - King
He lets her hold her own, but when she tells Black Adam to just end it for her, his throat clenches for just a second; in the weeks that come, he half expects Renee to finally push the man one step too far, and it is almost a relief when they find Amon and forgiveness finally radiates off Black Adam in heavy, delirious waves.
#10 - Learn
She always found it most annoying when Richard gave her that half exasperated, half amused smirk, and made Charlie come over to show her what she was doing wrong instead of just telling her himself; the way he touched her wrists just so made her feel delicate, which was only more frustrating when he had to turn away from her to cough.
#11 - Blur
For the moment they are running, and it feels like nothing will ever get in their way again; they will do this forever.
#12 - Wait
She shudders when she wonders how long he was sitting in the back of her car before he said anything about the cigarette.
#13 - Change
He watches her draw question marks on her cast and knows he’s getting through to her if only a little, but it isn’t until she sees past herself and finally goes to see Kate Kane that he knows she’s ready.
#14 - Command
She finds him eventually, standing at the top of a hill that overlooks Hub City, and when she barks at him, demands one last fight even though she’s battered and bruised and barely standing, he turns and there is the vaguest hint of a familiar smirk at the corners of his skeleton grin.
#15 - Hold
He spends the night afterward trying to tell her that she had to do it, one life for many, perfect sense, but it isn’t until he finally, finally shuts up that she lets him get close enough to hold her; she shakes with the force it takes to keep from crying, and in the morning she grabs her jacket and leaves him curled fitfully asleep on the corner of the bed.
#16 - Need
Every now and then, he would watch her lift a cigarette to her mouth and he hated how much he wanted to ask her for one.
#17 - Vision
Once, he opened his hand and held it up to the sky, and the way he tilted his head to peer through the space between his fingers, she imagined he saw the world in a way she would never understand.
#18 - Attention
“Go for it. It’ll get you off my case at least,” she finally says, and he gives her such a startled, innocent look, she has to roll her eyes and clarify, “You’ve been staring at her all night,” but he just shakes his head and waves one hand, no no, I couldn’t.
#19 - Soul
He tells her to stop pretending she likes hurting people, and even if it’s in the vicious growl she has become accustomed to she can still hear Charlie underneath it all.
#20 - Picture
She realizes suddenly, looking up at the sky as it starts to pour snow down on a city she’s forgotten the name of, that he died today, and instead of those terrible terrible flashbacks to grey eyes and wheezing breath, she sees him smiling and telling her it’ll all be alright.
#21 - Fool
He teases her in that overstated yet quiet way of his, and ends up tripping over the deep palace carpet; their lips come dangerously close to touching, but she finds herself leaning towards him just slightly as he pulls away embarrassed.
#22 - Mad
Years later, a thief calls her crazy and she grins through her mask and tells him there’s no such thing before punching him square in the jaw.
#23 - Child
There was something deeply peaceful in the way he treated people those first few days after they arrived in Kahndaq, the way he accepted the lei without question, the way he tossed a handful of rice into the air, the way he lifted a little girl up over his head and swung her around like she was his own just because she asked him to; there was such stark and unwarranted trust in the girl’s eyes, Renee had to pause a few seconds just to watch.
#24 - Now
When she pulls the mask off and meets the eyes of her reflection, tracing the Mark where it burns across her forehead, she can almost see him in the room behind her making idle commentary on female obsession with appearance and beauty, even as he carefully teased the single curl out of his slicked back hair.
#25 - Shadow
“Listen,” he says and holds up his hand; for a moment, they are nothing but shadows in an alleyway, but then… then a car rushes by and a couple twirls together across the street, and a child laughs like bright silver and gold, and she feels herself breathe with him and she knows they’re breathing with the city, and she almost understands.
#26 - Goodbye
As revenge for having the insufferable gall to meditate for ten hours straight, Renee finds the reddest lipstick she has and draws big cartoon lips all over Charlie’s face before leaving for the evening; see if she cares if the robbers or vandals or whatever else lives on this street laughs themselves stupid when they break in and find him.
#27 - Hide
It was strange meeting all the people who used to know him, like hearing echoes from another life he’d lived too long ago to remember.
#28 - Fortune
The day after they’re attacked at the warehouse, two separate doctors - one from Metropolis and one from Star - finally get back with their tests, but they only echo everyone else he’s gone to; he laughs so hard he almost breaks, and for a few nights afterward, he buries himself in research instead of keeping an eye on Renee like he knows he should.
#29 - Safe
She refuses to admit she was worried he’d died too no matter how many times he asks, but maybe she is fussing over him too much, even if he’s still covered in big, purple bruises where they tried to beat answers out of him.
#30 - Ghost
It was such an ugly sound when the lighthouse keys came down on the table, and Tot had wandered inside before her, letting the tips of his fingers trail over the banister; out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something of Charlie in the slight cant of his shoulders, and the way he hummed thoughtfully, maybe sadly, to himself.
#31 - Book
He leaves the Crime Bible to her because he knows that she will try to destroy herself again after he dies, and even if his skin crawls just being around it, it will offer her questions to pursue until she can pick herself up by her own two feet.
#32 - Eye
Sometimes his eyes were grey, and when his eyes had lost their color like that, he was always very very still, and he didn’t smile as much, and he moved like the world was falling to pieces around him, and he’d pause on the street corner to watch something she tried to see but couldn’t, and when she touched his arm, he always turned and the bright blue came back and he’s smirk and tell her not to worry; she never asked why his eyes lost their color sometimes, but when he finally breathed his last in the bright white snow and the cold, they went grey like she remembered and it sent a terrible, ugly chill down her spine.
#33 - Never
When the doctors finally pull out the last IV and shut off his heart monitor for good, she asks him how he feels, and he clicks his tongue against his teeth, eventually admitting he feels pretty good all things considered; she grabs the back of his neck and kisses him for having the gall to pull through after all, and he smiles weakly against her mouth before returning it.
#34 - Sing
She warns him again and again and again, but she has to throw a shoe at the shower door before he stops pretending he can belt Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien like it should be.
#35 - Sudden
She watches him go from smiling to doubled over choking on the air in half a second flat, and all she can think to do is slide her arms around his shoulders and help him stay standing; he thanks her past the ragged scratch in his throat, and she shakes her head and hugs him tight to her rather then accept it.
#36 - Stop
He didn’t have to say anything; just the vaguely disappointed look he gave her was enough to make her sigh and put the bottle down.
#37 - Time
They lie in the grass beside each other, waiting for the sun to come down in Gotham, and except for the occasional cough the moment goes on calm and undisturbed.
#38 - Wash
She presses the wash cloth against his shoulder blade, tracing a thin scar - she knows it’s from a blade if only because she has a few scars like it herself - and when she asks him how he got it, he tenses, folds in on himself, mutters a name she has never heard before - Jackie - and begins to hum Danny Boy, at least until another coughing fit takes his voice away.
#39 - Torn
His funeral goes unattended except for Tot and Richard and her; the monks that pass by have the good graces not to say anything to them, and she has to resist the urge to toss his hat into the grave with him before she leaves.
#40 - History
When they come to Kahndaq, he can feel the burn of the city in his chest and he already knows what will become of her; he hums the faint snatches of music she sends him and when Renee asks, he tells her it’s an old, old lullaby.
#41 - Power
Through the haze in his vision, he follows the curve and coil of a muscle in her arm as she clenches her hands together in front of her face and he can’t help wondering what has upset her so.
#42 - Bother
“If you poke me again, you’re gonna get smacked,” she states, only half serious and only half awake; a few minutes later they are both deeply asleep while the plane purrs heavy and loud around them.
#43 - God
After searching for hours, she finally finds him in a church, sitting in the furthest pew with his shoulders slumped forward, and she smacks him so hard he wakes from whatever trance he’d been in and gives her the most offended look she’s ever seen - as if communing with a god who isn’t listening is really a reason to abandon the apartment without even leaving a note.
#44 - Wall
She presses her hand against the green and blue and orange graffiti, and when she closes her eyes, she feels him there, his arms wrapped round her waist and his face buried in her hair, but he’s not shuddering, he’s just murmuring to listen listen listen, never forget but accept the pain till she wants it to stay, and this time she understands, even if it’s only for a moment.
#45 - Naked
“Charlie! Get out!” she barked when she finally noticed him pausing just a little too long in the door; he laughed and caught her shirt as she threw it at him, vanishing down the hall.
#46 - Drive
The big old van rumbles to life and Charlie grins sidelong at her before sending them careening through the parking garage and out onto the busy street.
#47 - Harm
She has never seen him so ferociously, impossibly angry before; when the man’s arm snaps right in half and she hears something around his collarbone crunch, she grabs Charlie’s arm, reminding him it won’t bring the little girl back.
#48 - Precious
“Don’t ever lose your passion,” she hears him mumble from the spare bedroom, and she drops the apple she’s peeling to run in to him; he doesn’t say anything else, but he gives her the softest, kindest smile, cupping her cheek and drawing a cross on her forehead with his thumb.
#49 - Hunger
They cut a swath across the sky and through the darkness to the truth; she realizes she no longer asks because she wants the answer but because the taste of the question on her tongue is more satisfying then anything in the world, and she pulls his hat down over her eyes and heads out into the falling dusk.
#50 - Believe
He sets his hands against her hips, his forehead against hers, and tells her it’ll all be okay; she doesn’t say anything, but eventually she leans into him and let her fingers bunch into the shirt cloth at his back.