(Untitled)

[teenagerenegade]

Normally, though Charlie loves snow. He grew up in Upstate New York, so he figures that it's kind of a requirement. He worries about Edmund, though. He knows what he went hrough. He does his best to keep him warm. Today, he built a snowman outside their hut (he spends less and less time at his own hut), stayed out in the snow until his cheeks

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[sluttylyingliar]

There's a train taking people around the island. A Christmas train. A Christmas train that Santa rides around in, apparently. If the one vial of coke Rachel had left wasn't still full, she'd swear up and down this whole thing was some crazy trip she couldn't come down from. She rolls her eyes as the train slows down to dump her off as she trudges the rest of the way, past the candy canes and twinkling lights and creatures and shit. God, she really hopes she gets that job as a stripper. Something normal, at least.

She makes her way up to the compound, shuddering at the cold and nods at some kid standing in the middle of the stairs. As she passes she slows down, taking a moment from her silent bitching to notice that the kids looks like he's about to freeze to death and upon further reflection, maybe just took a bottle of pills. Great.

"Hey," she says, walking back down. "If you stay out here like that, you're going to literally freeze your balls off."

[sluttylyingliar]

"So are you going to tell me why you were freaking out then?" she asks, steering him towards the kitchen's table as she starts to grab things for coffee.

[teenagerenegade]

"I think...a friend of mine killed himself," he tells her, sitting down where she puts him and, for the first time, making a concerted effort to bend frozen fingers.

And thats not even the worst part; the worst part might well be that Kip did that because he didn't know that Charlie Bartlett remembered him. Charlie knew his name.

[sluttylyingliar]

"Oh," she says, pausing for a second. She thinks, briefly, of Jimmy Edwards and the part she had to play in all of that. "Wait, is he here? Should we go find him?" This seems to require immediate action that Charlie isn't really going for?

[teenagerenegade]

He gives her a look that's pure are you fucking kidding me and then he shakes his head.

"No," he says, rubbing his nose on the back of his hand again. "No, he's not here."

[sluttylyingliar]

"How in the hell do you know all of this if he isn't here?" she asks, turning back around after setting the coffee to brew. "Is that his? That bottle?"

[teenagerenegade]

"I'm guessing you're kind of new still if you don't know that this sometimes happens," he says, placing the pill bottle and the note on the table in front of him. "Sometimes these...things from home, they show up here. I could've hoped for better news, you know?"

[sluttylyingliar]

Great. Rachel sure as hell doesn't want anything from home and knowing her luck, it'd be a rubber hose and a Bunsen Burner.

"Well shit," she says, bringing over two mugs of coffee, black. "So you just got all of that, then? That's why you were freaking out?"

[teenagerenegade]

He nods, looking down at his hands. He avoids looking at her.

"Yeah. It was just..." He swallows. "It was just there waiting for me when I got out of the shower."

[sluttylyingliar]

She pushes the hot mug closer to him, wishing she was the kind of person who was better at this. "That sucks. That's shitty as hell, actually. Who was this guy?"

[teenagerenegade]

Charlie wraps both of his hands around the cup, and it's almost too hot to hold like this, but he does, anyway.

"His name's Kip." He can't bring himself to use the past tense. "He came to me at school and asked me for help. I did my best."

[sluttylyingliar]

"There was a kid back when I was in high school. He killed himself...it was kind of my fault," she confesses, figuring maybe it will help that she screwed up worse. That, or it's totally conceited. One of those.

"At least, you know, you tried to help him."