Work Text:
The house is silent. The torch lights were dimmed to their lowest level, the faint lights curving around the shape of a sleeping Juanaflippa tucked in bed. Starlight twinkles outside the balcony, a soft breeze pushing air into the house.
It’s the calm nights like these that Charlie’s come to appreciate. The nights where the constant buzzing in the back of his head can quiet down into a soft trickle of thoughts and feelings, taking each in stride. Mostly these nights are spent with Mariana, the two sprawled out awkwardly on the floor, both staring at the ceiling as they thought or dissociated, sometimes passing disconnected thoughts or words to the other.
“… Do you think I should start working out?” Like that.
Mariana hums. Charlie hears her shuffle, but he doesn’t turn his head to watch.
“I don’t think you have to,” she said. “Actually, I think you could pick me up now if you tried. You are very strong. I remember when you held Jaiden up on your shoulders so she could reach the button on the wall on our first day here. You did not break a sweat. Big muscles. Very buff," she concluded.
Charlie huffed a laugh. “Thanks.”
It was the soft stuff like that that got to Charlie. Most of their days were spent with sarcastic remarks or angry ranting in their respective languages that the other definitely would not have understood. But underneath all that, when stripped down to their very bare feelings at the end of each day, they just enjoyed each other’s company. They were like dirt and clean hands—not always pleasant, but always inevitably finding each other again. For Charlie and Mariana, it was different almost every time.
Sometimes their floor conversations were deep and meaningful, sticking to Charlie throughout the week. Maybe when he opened up about his neglectful father and the series of incidents that happened to his seven other siblings, Mariana’s comforting words and firm grasp on his hand still felt fresh on Charlie’s skin the rest of his week. Maybe.
And on the other hand, sometimes their conversations were utterly… stupid. They’d sit there and seriously talk to each other about the confusing origins of yogurt and what it could possibly have been sourced from (Mariana was an advocate for the simple “cow” answer, while Charlie was constantly running through his disconnected knowledge on some third grade documentary on food processing he barely remembered), or gossip about the other islanders and come up with outlandishly unrealistic reasons to hate their relationships.
While Charlie always had fun on those nights, tonight didn’t feel like one of those. The air felt still. Mari’s hand had at some point found its way into Charlie’s grasp, and Charlie certainly wasn’t complaining. He was just enjoying picking out shapes in the grooves of the ceiling when Mari broke the silence.
“Slime, do you have a heart?”
Charlie hummed, shifting his head a bit. “I don’t think so. I don’t have any organs, really. Why?”
“ Sólo curioso. I have never met a slime before you.”
“That makes sense. We’re pretty reclusive people.”
Mariana laughed at that, full and loud. Charlie had to slap a hand over her mouth so as to not wake their sleeping daughter, but Mari only pushed it off. “You’re funny, Slime! You are not reclusive, you big liar. I have yet to see you meet somebody you cannot talk to.”
Charlie shrugged, returning his hands to their place, folded over his chest. His eyes brisked over the ceiling again. “Well, we mostly live underground for the beginnings of our lives. Then we come out when we find skinsuits. Don’t ask where we get them—it’s a cultural thing.”
“I bet they’re corpses,” Mari quipped. It wasn’t prying—never prying. Just a joke.
Charlie choked down a laugh, deciding on a broad smile instead. “The world will never know.” Yeah. Only he and Mariana could joke like that.
“Going back to the heart thing,” Mari went on. “If you do not have a heart, how do you control your body? Or your brain? How do you feel things?”
Charlie shrugged again. “I try not to think about it a lot. It’s just—‘hey, I’m alive! That’s amazing! Let’s keep it that way!’ And I move on with life. I guess slimes just aren’t all that common, y’know? We’re just more confusing humans. Like, impossible humans. We’re literally impossible, but we exist. We’re probably the luckiest creatures alive.” Charlie chuckled, soft and airy. It fit the moment, and kept Flippa asleep.
Charlie heard Mariana hum thoughtfully, then felt her hand drop on top of his again, quickly pulling it away from his chest so she could grasp it easier. Charlie couldn’t help but grin at the motion.
“I guess I’m pretty lucky then, too. To wake up every day to the face of impossibility.”
“Wow. Mari. You’re supposed to struggle with English, what the Twitch? You’re massively failing; that was the most poetic thing anyone’s ever told me in my life.” He tried to cover up the growing flush in his cheeks with jokes. Charlie didn’t mean to make himself out to seem special, but… he liked it when Mari said stuff like that.
The smile on her face was evident in her tone. “That’s the Mexican power, stupid.” Mariana squeezed his hand, her’s swallowing his own.
Charlie swallowed the lump of emotion in his throat. “I should’ve known.” His gaze bore into the wall, fingers pressed close against Mari’s. The torchlight flickers and dances along the wood grooves, casting shadows and faint gold glow.