[flashback drp] split only to meet again (chel/chris)

[DarkHeartedSorrow]

radio silence

Chris waited for what felt like an eternity for Chel to come say goodbye to him. He knew she was pissed, and he couldn't blame her. He'd gone about this all wrong and it was turning out really shitty. But at the end of the day he was doing this for both of them. The money from the military would give them a chance at a decent future.

He just needed to keep telling himself that.

Eventually, long after his a** was numb from sitting on the steps to her house, he got up and left. He couldn't wait forever. He had newfound responsibilities. He rested his head against the window of his recruiters car, bag in his lap, and took a deep breath to stop the stinging in his eyes as Chel's house became a speck in the distance.

He told himself he'd be back.  

[chiickadee]

Silence is golden but duct tape is silver

Chel ran away for 6 days.

Nothing exciting and edgy. She crashed on a friend's couch. A friend who's parents' patience had worn thin taking care of another child, and was now threatening (in a kind voice- always that Canadian Kindness that bled into Michigan from time to time) to call her parents if she didn't.

Simple solutions: Chel needed a roof and her parents were the only ones willing to provide it because they were legally obligated to. A mess of tears as her mother proclaimed to be worried sick (odds were, she was, and Chel was glad to see something other than hollow bones and broken wings) and her father snapping at her the moment the door closed. Chel noted her mom had a bruise on her neck (probably more under the clothes); their cause wasn't hard to deduce. "How dare you? Look at what you did to your mother- and yer aunt- she already got to worry 'bout Chris-"

Grounded for running away. Grounded longer for arguing.

No one dared address the real problem. It was easier to think small: child runs away, child is punished. Small minds, small thoughts.  

[DarkHeartedSorrow]

boot camp

Training was torture. He'd spent the majority of his life disregarding rules and regulation. Inconvenience meant it wasn't getting done. Authority was laughable to nonexistent.

Turned out, that wasn't a good outlook to have in the army. It was frustrating to get yelled at and not talk back. It was worse to have to take the punishments. He frequently heard Chel's voice in the back of his mind telling him to just back out. Just leave. This is ******** ridiculous. We don't need this s**t. He wished they didn't. He gritted his teeth and forced himself through it because he was positive this was the solution.

He didn't make friends. Not in the sense that they show you in the movies. There was no bonding over sweethearts waiting at home or tragic backstories. He honestly didn't care to hear it if there were. The connections he made were means to an end. Someone to tell him about inspections. Someone to throw his a** out of bed before he was caught oversleeping. Someone to silently hold the seat opposite him so he wouldn't have to talk to anyone.

Through it all it felt like hell, because he didn't have Chel to commiserate with. Worse yet because he knew she was home and fuming, and he wouldn't hear from her. He sent her letters like clockwork only to get nothing in return. He considered writing to his parents to ask if she was okay, but if she ever found out she'd be even angier.

So he greeted every day with the same grudging, unpleasant acceptance and counted the days til he could go home with money in his pocket.  

[chiickadee]

Parking Lot

What did Chel have to do but bum around in an abandoned parking lot? What was there to do without Chris to rope into it? The Clyde to her Bonnie was gone and now everything felt less eventful. Sure she could hang out with any number of friends, and most of the time she did, but it wasn't the same.

So why not wander in the dark late into the night? Going home couldn't have mattered less. She was very much in the peak of her angsty teenager phase; she mattered to no one, and nothing mattered to her.

1 am turned into 2 am quickly and quietly. Nobody bothered her at this hour, this neighborhood, this quiet of night.

So when two figures approached her in shadowy cloaks, she was more than a little on edge.