leave the light on when i'm coming home to you

[kindofbroken]

It's nice out. This, in itself, is not unusual. In fact, to start as such is probably misleading, as there's nothing particularly unusual about one of the small scenes going on at the beach at all.

The scene in question is this: Charlie Crews is seated on the flattest of one of the outcrops of rocks that grace the beach, in a slightly modified

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[endlessdel]

She puts her hands on his shoulders first. Then she slides her hands around his chest. Then she presses her body agains his back. And then she is hugging him. She wants to anchor him before he floats off, leaves her for a higher plane because he is hers even if he isn't her brother.

"Stop trying to leave me Charlie," Del whispers. "Or I will flap my wings and then there will be a hurricane."

[kindofbroken]

"I'm not leaving," he murmurs, keeping his eyes closed. He concentrates on every other sense he has, concentrates on staying in the moment. (Sometimes he wishes that he were. Sometimes he wishes that he could. Sometimes he wants to be anywhere but here. Anywhere but here or Pelican Bay.)

"Flap your wings and make a hurricane. Like the butterfly on the other side of the earth."

[endlessdel]

"You're drifting to somewhere else. The calm place, the heart of the storm where all is still. Tempus Frangit Charlie," Delirium said smiling sadly. If there was anyone who knew that place it was her. It was at the heart of her realm after all. She was the calm and she was the storm just like her sister was both life and Death. "My wings are clipped but I would destroy the world for you and mine. I used to flap and millions of people would feel it."

[kindofbroken]

"I try, sometimes," he admitted, voice quiet. "But in the end, I'm still here." He straightened up, staring out at the sea. He was here, in this moment, on this island, in this body. (He was in the past, in a jail cell, in a house full of people he hadn't killed, in a car with a dead man, in an orchard with the one.)

"I'm still here."

[endlessdel]

"You're still here and I am too. I try every night to leave even though I love my children because the world needs insanity, it needs madness to cope with everything else. Without me there is no sanity and that scares me," Delirium said quietly. She wondered what the world was like now that she was gone. When Dream had disappeared the world had fell into chaos; people stuck in sleeping comas, people unable to fall asleep no matter what, people driven insane by lack of sleep or too much sleep. It had been terrible. "But my human body is a prison, I cannot leave."

[kindofbroken]

Crews didn't have anything to say that could help. Prison was a term that was too familiar to him. And this place was one. He didn't know how to get out save by death, and that - that didn't appeal to him. There were any number of reasons that he had to stay. Were he offered a ticket back to Los Angeles, he would take it but for now, he had to stay here. So, instead, he held onto her hands, holding them tight, as if to keep her here.

[endlessdel]

"Don't worry I am going to live my lifetime here and then when I am done my sister will take my hand and there will be another Delirium who is also me. And they will mourn me who is gone and then celebrate me who is alive," Delirium said smiling as Charlie held onto her hand. They were anchoring each other and making sure they didn't drift and when Dani was here again they would be strong enough to hold her too.