and full of it why no one else can believe in this you wanna feel
somethin' to call your own that they can cut out they can't cut it out

The days since the chance encounter with Charlotte had left Reese, to say the least, in a tizzy. She still wasn't sure how she had made it back to what passed for her home now, the warehouse in the middle of what once was a thriving business sector, now left to echoes of the past, empty and decrepit. She remembered the phone call, the cell phone pressed to her ear as she searched through bags and boxes, chests and trunks, discarded piles of clothes and boxes of paints and brushes and canvases in search of the little pills.

So rarely, did she motivate herself onto the little white deaths, the oppressive clamminess of her thoughts, the itchiness and scratchiness of her skin, the heaviness of her thoughts. But now... the visions of the night before had frightened her, had entranced and enchanted her, and she couldn't shake it, couldn't shake the shadows and the screams, the voices and the trails of blood and bodies. How much of it was reality blurred, even at that point, the thought, the understanding of whether or not Charlotte herself had only been a vision, she didn't know, couldn't tell, couldn't swear to.

Even the pills, swallows two at a time, could not stop her, could not keep the paint and chalk and ink from flowing, covering canvas and walls, sheets of paper and parchments and cloth alike, the images sprawling, flaring. Charlotte's face, again and again, the face of the man, the one that had been named Thomas, images of hooded figures, and over and over the crimson eyes, the gleaming and perfect features. Sleep had been rare, even rarer than usual, as she tried to exorcise her demons.

Hours bled to days, days to nights and back again, cigarettes overflowing from ashtrays and ceramic mugs, pizza and oriental and mexican consumed when the hunger became painful enough to make itself known, little pills of speed offset at long last with a shot of laudanum when her eyes burned, and fingers were raw.

She had collapsed, at long last, in the middle of the open section of the warehouse, piles of old sketchpads clustered about, sheets of newly sketched and drawn images fluttering from walls and crates and steel posts, easels holding a few paintings, while others laid on the floor or propped against a wall in various stages of completion and drying.

That was where she was, still, asleep, covered in bits of charcoal and smears of paint, wearing a loose pair of drawstring pants, an oversized tunic that falls off a shoulder, her hair in tangled disarray. Even now, even in the grips of sleep, rest did not come easily, as even in the sleep the dreams, the images did not leave her in peace, her eyes flickering back and forth beneath closed lids, her breathing erratic and uneasy even as the source of her obsession slips into the warehouse.

and full of it why no one else can believe in this you wanna feel
somethin' to call your own that they can cut out they can't cut it out

"You found me." The words are a bare whisper, Reese's voice raw and raspy from tears, or screaming, or disuse, a ragged breath drawn in as her lashes flutter to reveal the weary red rimmed eyes of stormy blue-green, her tired gaze finding Charlotte's face as the woman leans around her, arms settling around her, a faint smile brushing against one corner of her lips. One hand rises, smudged and splattered with the paint and charcoal and graphite of the images around her; the movement is sluggish, the limb weighing a hundred pounds, or so it seemed, aching and burning, made of cotton, as fingertips brush ever so lightly against the line of Charlotte's jaw before falling back across Reese's stomach, lashes sinking closed again as the drug-induced slumber takes her consciousness once more.

Her body curls, instinctively, drawing closer towards Charlotte as the vampire carries her across the warehouse to the makeshift bedroom. Cardboard boxes of books, of paints and brushes, sketchpads, canvasses are scattered about the corner that holds the bed, and bags of clothes from second hand shops and designer boutiques alike piled around the room. Of all the things in the room, of all the chaos, there was one shelf, one row of organization, a bookshelf that had been dragged over towards the wall and turned on to its side, made into a long table of sorts; upon it stacks of sketchpads, worn and abused and bedraggled were set one after the other stacked ten high across the surface, and at each corner a picture frame: one the last family picture of she with her family, she a few years younger, her brother with them, the classic 'perfect family' picture, and stuck into the corner of the junction of glass and frame a candid photograph, creased and worn, she and her brother in younger years, teens, perhaps, each holding onto the others hands as they spun round and round in a park, streaks of light and blurs of motion surrounding them, and utter glee and abandon on their faces. The photo on the right was a simple one, him in a Marine Corps uniform, strong and proud, the American flag as the backdrop, and beneath the corner of the frame a handful of letters, well worn and often read by the look and feel of them, and the dried husk of a small clutch of flowers that protruded from one of the envelopes.

The bed was little more than the steel frame and mattress and box springs, though the sheets that covered the matress were of soft silk, the blankets thick and warm, and a dozen or two pillows of various makes and sizes were scattered across the surface of it amidst pencils and pens, colored markers and torn pieces of paper.

Her body settles, sinking into the piles of blankets and pillows with ease and familiarity as Charlotte lays her onto the bed, but even still she clings to Charlotte, curling towards the woman as she sits beside her, one arm flung up to settle somewhere around Charlotte's waist or drape across the woman's knees, her head turning into the slow and gentle caress through her tangled strands of brown and copper tints. Her body slowly relaxes, as the slow and gentle hum drifts in the air around them, a soft sigh of something bordering contentment drawn from her. It had been years, perhaps, since she had had the sound of someone's voice to soothe her dreams, her brother was the last, reading to her for hours, sometimes she thought it might've been all night, though he would deny it if she asked. Ten, fifteen minutes passed before the rapid movement of her eyes beneath closed lashes finally calmed, her shallow breathing settling into a more comfortable, relaxed pattern and she slipped into something that actually resembled sleep.

Hours passed, as the two of them stayed like that, Reese's exhaustion slowly smoothed away by true and calming sleep, before at long last the pattern of the rise and fall of her chest shifted once more, and small signs of life became evident, such as the stir of her limbs, arms and legs stretching out away from her in a long, catlike motion, a sigh slipping between her lips as the fog of sleep begins to slip away.

and full of it why no one else can believe in this you wanna feel
somethin' to call your own that they can cut out they can't cut it out

Reese stirs still from her slumber, fingers curling in as she pulls herself into a ball, wrapped within the fetal position for a long moment before she rolls onto her back, tangled in the twist of sheets, her eyes slowly drawing open more fully, blinking languidly as she processes the presence of another. Hardly an unusual situation for her, to have found herself in bed with another, a stranger, even, a nameless face, but this... this face she knew, and it brought a smile to her lips. "Charlotte." She croons, her voice worn but still warm. Her head tilts, her long form slowly unwinding, unfurling as Charlotte speaks, her smile only growing slowly as she absorbs the words. Coveted. Pleasure rose, washing over her, happiness at such a simple thing, to be wanted, not discarded, to be welcomed and not shunned...

"Why do you look so sad, Charlotte?" The almost whispered inquiry slips from her lips, her hand rising, fingertips coated with splatters of dried paint rising to brush, to slip ever so softly along the curve of Charlotte's cheek, Reese's lips curling into the softest smile as she feels the skin, marble encrusted and perfect, porcelain and silk. "You shouldn't be sad, love, you're here, I'm here... it's all going to be all right now, don't you see? You found me." Her words were soft, murmured, as she rises, as she draws to a more upright position, slipping up to her knees beside the other woman, her hands rising to brush the loose strands of hair out of her face, pulling them back behind her ears, the back of one hand turning, rubbing against her eyes to wipe the remnants of sleep from them.

Her gaze turns, briefly, slipping away from Charlotte, then, to the room around them, creases of worry, the beginnings of panic stealing into her eyes and expression as she takes in her room, where she is, where Charlotte is. A hand falls, sweeping across the side of the bed, plucking half a dozen pieces of sketch paper from between the sheets. Her eyes follow the black and white lines, the shadings of oil and chalk, and her nostrils flare as her breathing becomes shallow, her fingers tightening at the edges of the paper that crumples beneath her touch. Her eyes shift to become unfocused, a sharp swallow, as her gaze darts up and around, to all the easels, the discarded sketches and trials, the pieces and fragments of Charlotte's life, to Reese nothing more than her imagination.

"No, no, no..." She almost moans, her arms curling in across her stomach, distress on her features as she looks up towards Charlotte. "You weren't supposed to see, you shouldn't have... I didn't mean to, I'm sorry, please... please don't be sad, don't be angry, they always get so angry..." Her words break, her voice cracking, as tears rise, her shoulders curling in as her chin droops towards her chest. "I don't mean to draw it, to draw them, the things I see, I just don't know any other way to make them stop, I know it's not real, I know it's nothing, only demons, my demons, Charlotte please, don't be sad." She pleads, her lashes rising, damp with the tears that trickle over her drawn cheeks, glistening in the luminescent-lit room.

and full of it why no one else can believe in this you wanna feel
somethin' to call your own that they can cut out they can't cut it out

"What do I... what do I see?" Reese echoes, her glistening eyes dropping to the images that Charlotte splayed out in front of her, her hands drifting to brush over the edges of the pictures as each was laid out. So many times, she had been asked that question, and so many times she had given an answer, this answer, or that, half truth, or not even a truth at all, it had become so much easier to just tell them nothing, that there was nothing there, that it was just figments of her delusions... how long had it been since she actually tried to answer? Her teeth scrape, working against the inside of her cheek, pinching at the inside of her lips as her fingers continue to wander, brushing along the lines and curves of the images on the charcoal and chalk drawings as she searches, tries to find words, cohesive and strung together words that would actually make sense to anyone other than her.

"I... I don't know, how. It's... they've always been there, since I was... since I was little and played house and tea party and it was okay then, my imaginary friends, the ones that no one else could see. And then... and then, one day, it wasn't. I tried, for a while, to pretend I didn't see them, didn't hear them, the voices in my head, the shadows and people, but it was so hard, is so hard to tell sometimes, which ones every one else sees, and which ones they don't. Some of them, it is not so hard to tell, with their faces like monsters, or... small, like... like little ants but not ants, people..."

"And then... sometimes, it's... it's little pieces of them. People, or places, but only in the window pane, or in the mirror, or in the steel plate or shiny hubcap. Sometimes, I look through a window of a shop, but I don't see what's really inside, I'll see... different people, different displays and counters, things that just... don't fit. I'll hear... voices, conversations from people that aren't there, aren't really there, but they're having the same conversation over and over. The machines, here, I hear them sometimes when I'm trying to sleep, the needles and the foot pedals, a hundred of them, and it's so loud, and I can't... I can't make it stop."

"Other times it's... it's like movies, when movies came on tapes, and not silver discs, and you know when you had your favorite movie, and your favorite scene of the movie was somewhere in the middle, and you'd rewind and play, rewind and play, over and over again, and you'd memorize every line and every expression... and then you go back and you start it from the beginning and you let it play. And then it gets just to your favorite part and you can feel it, that moment of giddiness, or fear, or expectation, or wincing, cause you know you're going to cry... but it doesn't really play. It just... skips. Back, and forth. A dozen frames, played in random order out of what should be... a hundred, a thousand, and you know you're missing something, you know there's words there, you can see their lips moving, and hear the stuttered stopped syllables, but it's so ... random, and static, that you can't tell, you can't make out what it is they're saying."

"And then... then, sometimes, it's like... standing, in the middle of a kaleidoscope. Only... not always so pretty, or shiny, as you would imagine the inside of a kaleidoscope to look like. But you're there, in the middle, and there's someone else, or lots of other people with you, and ... but there's not just one of them. There's... two, ten, a hundred, broken little pieces of them, and it's hardly ever pretty, hardly ever glamor and sunshine and smiles and laughter, but screaming and pain, and blood, and they say things, cruel and mean things, to each other, to the people in their broken fragments of the kaleidoscope that is my world, my life, my insanity. Naughty things, bad things and mean things, only they don't really want to hear them, they don't really want to know if I've seen them, or haven't, they ask me, in their lab coats and their clipboards, or their sweater vests and dress slacks, 'what is it that we see today, Clarissa', but they don't want to know, they get so angry, and upset, 'it's not nice to tell lies, Clarissa', 'people don't do that sort of thing, Clarissa', 'i would never do that to my daughter, Clarissa', 'you can't listen to the voices, Clarissa, they lie to you, they're nothing but lies and deceptions, tricks of your mind.'" She mimics a series of different voices, in the last phrases offered, fingers curling in, digging into the palms of her hand, crescent shaped dents dug into her skin.

A ragged breath taken, then, as she tries to force herself, her thoughts, back to the questions, to the conversations here, not there, glistening eyes slipping again to the pictures in front of her, and up briefly towards Charlotte, then.

"He was...He is there, in your kaleidoscope. I see him, shadows of him, and you," She murmurs, one hand loosening its grip on itself, her fingertips sliding over the image of Thomas and Charlotte, and then her head straightens, her gaze scanning the room around, and behind Charlotte. "So many times, he hurts you, and you hurt him, only it ... it isn't, exactly, that isn't it, just right, and then there's you, watching him, waiting over him, just... like a guardian angel, and then there's..." Another light scrape of teeth against the corner of her lip, her weight shifting in her crouch from one foot to the other, her arms sliding to wrap around her legs as her knees come to rest against her chest, her cheek dropping to cradle against her knee. "Then there's the times where you... you kiss, and makeup, all there, all in the kaleidoscope, more sometimes, than others."

Her cheek slides, til her chin is the part resting on her knee, as she turns her attention back to the last image that Charlotte had offered, had laid out, and her lips curl into a frown, her shoulders bunching in on themselves, her fingers tightening around the calves that they hug. "The monsters, in the dark, I see them, too, if you are cold then they are frozen, you my angel, and them the devils, they speak with voices of stone and ice, they wear their spite and power like the cowls they use to conceal their faces, they are... they are death, but not even like the death you give, in the shadows that I see, empty husks left in the wake of you, but they... they herd... they slaughter, because it amuses them and hurt because it amuses them, the china doll girl, they... these are my monsters, my demons, the things that hurt me in the dark, that plague my thoughts, my demons that I cannot shake, cannot exorcise, though I have tried, I have tried so many times, so many ways, I have prayed to so many gods to take these evil things from my heart, and my mind, to cut them out of my soul." A ragged breath is taken, at long last, the flurry of words escaping in a rush, tears glinting in the corner of her eyes.

"Why? Why, Charlotte, do these things haunt me, why would my mind be so cruel as to play these tricks on me, to make such stories and pictures and words, why could it not be a fairy tale that I see, of all the things for my mind to make, why these things? I don't want to see them, and I never tell, I never tell anyone any more, they get so angry, is that... is that why you are here, have I made someone angry, again?"

"Please, Charlotte... I don't mean to be bad, I don't. Please, I don't want to go in the ground. It's dark, and cold, and... that is where the monsters live, in the dark. I'm so frightened, Charlotte, I'm afraid of the dark, and what waits for me there, when I die, I have created such... horrors, in my thoughts, if these are the seeds of my soul then surely it is hell that waits on the other side for me. There is no innocence in me, don't you see, if there was I would not be so wicked, I just... I want to stay, with you, my angel and mother and sister, I look at you and you see me, you see all the broken pieces of me and you don't run away, you don't lock me away so you don't have to see, I just... I want to stay here, with you."