Chapter Text
Summary of Chapter:
Charlie has always known he was different, and deep down he knew that he would be hated for it. And he was. Outed at 16 and kicked out, he turned to the streets of the biggest city that would engulf him, swallow him up in his self-loathing, anger, fear and unbearable sadness. NYC. And it did swallow him up, leaving him for dead, for a time. Until he found the best of the city, the place in the dark and dank where glimmers of light shone. Family. Home.
Charlie
For Charlie Spring, the streets of the city are still too loud, too chaotic and too dangerous, filled with the men who had hurt him, who had used him. But the railroad tunnels? Those are his safe spaces, those were home, where he can breathe and where he can create.
Music has always been his refuge. Putting on headphones, shutting out the world and just surrounding himself with the brilliance that someone had created, that someone had pulled from the air like magic and put into beats and melodies all their thoughts and feelings. They wordlessly allowed him to work through his own thoughts and feelings.
The first time he held sticks, he didn't need a song, he barely needed a beat. His fingers coursed with power, with promise. It traveled along the bones of his fingers, the skin of his hands, the blood of his arms and the sinew and muscle of his chest until it exploded on his heart. The electric current of possibility, of a life line.
At first it was just noise, just release, just a physical act that pushed out thought and reason, hurt and betrayal. He pounded whatever he could, the side of a building, a tin can, the train tracks. He pounded until his hands burned and bled, welts cauterized with blood. He felt sanctified.
It would have been enough if it was just that, if it went no further.
But one day, walking the tracks as he sometimes did, looking for treasure, for answers to questions he hadn't known he'd been asking, he saw something. It's a rusty cowbell. Attached to its handle is a red string that disappears into the darkness of the tunnel.
He looks around, waiting for some trick, but his curiosity and a sizzle that feels like destiny urges him on. He picks up the bell, slides a stick out of the back pocket of his jeans, and taps the bell. Just that little pat seems to reverberate in a symphony of melody. He looks around, as if being watched, being urged to follow the string, to see what else waits in the darkness of the train tunnel.
So he does.
All the time, he taps against the cowbell, marveling at how each step changes the pitch of the echo that fills the tunnel. About 100 feet in, the pull of the string is harder, it’s attached to something else. A large plastic bucket like Charlie has seen some of the buskers in the park use to create music.
The string doesn't end there, it wraps around the handle and continues into the darkness. He unravels the string from the bucket and flips it over, sitting down on it before taking both sticks to the plastic between his legs. Again the feeling reverberates through his core.
He's itching to keep playing, but curiosity wins over and he stands after a few beats, dropping the cowbell into the bucket and following the string. There's a small part of his brain that worries that he could be falling into some sick trap, but that sizzle under his skin just doesn't care. If this is the way he goes, then so be it.
Next is a large, beat up, tin bowl. When his drum stick strikes it the echo against the tunnel’s cavernous walls ring and vibrate for an eternity. After that, the string led to another, smaller bowl, and a smaller bucket.
He has a whole ghetto drum kit before he realizes that he’s good and thoroughly lost. He can't remember how many turns he's taken, he's left no “breadcrumbs,” no tracking marks. He kicks himself for not leaving the string where he found it so it would be able to guide him out. He doesn't even know which way would get him to the light of day faster.
“And, this is where I die,” he says aloud, louder than he's meant to, as his voice's echo seems to build on itself.
He hears a laugh somewhere in the distant dark. It should have terrified Charlie, but there is just something so…wholesome about it.
“Hello?”
“Not to die,” a voice answers from the same place the laugh has come from. Then the tunnel has a shock of light. It comes from a flashlight under the chin of a tall Asian guy who steps around a corner. “But perhaps to truly live. Mwahaha!”
It reminds Charlie of the camp counselors who used to gather them all around the campfire for ghost stories. It was spooky then and it is spooky now. The guy seems to understand and moves his flashlight away from his face.
“Sorry. Just having a laugh.”
Charlie smiles. “I just… wasn't expecting… anyone to…”
The boy leans forward. “You followed a red string into a dark tunnel; what exactly were you expecting?”
Charlie thinks for a moment, then shrugs. “Nothing… everything.”
“Well, we don't have everything, but we have enough. Come on,” the guy urges Charlie to follow him. So, Charlie does and he doesn't even second guess himself. For the first time in his life.
“I'm Tao by the way.”
“Charlie.”
“You've got some sick beats, Charlie.”
Charlie blushes in the dark. “You heard me?”
“We've been hearing you for a while. We've been waiting for you to find us.”
“We?” Charlie asks, stopping. “Find us?”
Tao points his flashlight into a corner and that seems to be a signal because two figures emerge from the shadows. It’s a very tall, very skinny girl with large hair and glasses and a shorter, chubbier boy. They both look about the same age as Charlie, late teens or early twenties.
“Elle, Isaac,” Tao introduces. “This is Charlie.”
Isaac waves with a big grin, but Elle comes and stands in front of Charlie, almost too close. It should feel uncomfortable, he should have flinched away, but it wasn't and he doesn't.
“Hello,” he says, barely louder than a whisper.
Elle reaches down and pulls the red string from the hand not clutching the handle of the portable drum kit they'd just gifted him for reasons he hasn't sorted out. She gathers it into her fist before slipping it into his t-shirt's front pocket.
“You've pulled the string, Charlie,” she says, low and throaty. “Are you ready for your destiny?”
He blinks. He swallows. He nods. “So ready.”
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