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Charlie had always been a fan of sleeping, but lately, they spent almost every night rolling around, trying to catch some sleep. The digital clock on their nightstand indicated it was well past 2 am already, so, giving up, they woke up and went to the kitchen to get a beer.
“…Morning?” Charlie said as they saw Zari already up, drinking a glass of water on one of the kitchen tables. She looked tired.
“Hey.”
“You’re up early. Or late.” Charlie opened the fridge and got their beer.
“I know. I can’t sleep.”
Charlie sat on the chair next to hers. “Same.”
They stayed silent for a while. Charlie had never been in the Waverider’s kitchen with this much silence. It was almost unsettling. They looked at Zari, who was lost in thought. Don’t do it. Just walk away. They kept silently repeating.
“So, what’s troubling you, love?” Charlie asked, admitting defeat.
Zari scoffed. “Really? Since when do you care?”
Charlie chuckled. That was the thing. They couldn’t stop caring.
“I don’t know.” They shrugged. “Strange night makes strange friends?”
Zari sighed. Charlie could tell she needed to vent.
“Ray almost died today because of me, and I can’t stop replaying it in my head.”
Charlie remembered that moment. A group of vampires were holding Ray hostage to use him as a bargaining chip when Zari struck them with her wind powers to liberate him.
“He would’ve died if you hadn’t hit him, Z. You had no choice. Those vampires were nasty.”
“I could’ve aimed better, for once.” Zari touched the totem hanging from her neck. “But this thing didn’t exactly come with an instruction manual.”
Charlie’s throat tightened. They felt guilty not sharing their past in relation to the totems, but they just weren’t ready for what it all entailed.
“You see the team every day, Charlie. You know how much they try to be better. Sara trains every day, and Ray has his suit with his hundredth update, but I? I’m still the same girl shooting air like a kid with a water pistol.”
“So? You know the team doesn’t care about that.”
“I know, but I do. I trust the team has my back. The least I could do is make sure I got theirs too.”
Charlie tightened their lips together.
“You know, Amaya was supposed to guide me in this.” Zari continued talking. “She believed our totems were connected and that we were supposed to meet.”
Zari smiled at that memory.
“What happened?” Charlie asked.
“Legends chaos,” Zari answered. “I mean, she did help me, and she was right about the totems, but I don’t know. I think there’s more to it.”
Charlie looked at her and realised this was pretty much the first conversation they’d held where they hadn’t directly called each other names. And it was the first time Charlie hadn’t been outright acting as the punky persona she had carefully crafted around Zari to stop themselves from getting too close and start feeling… exactly what they were feeling.
“Anyway, I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.” Zari chuckled nervously as she stood up to leave. “I’m going to bed.”
“Wait.” Charlie reached for her hand and locked their eyes with hers. They had lived for thousands of years, but nothing had ever mesmerised them more than Zari’s eyes. “I can help.”
“With what?”
“Training.” Charlie looked down, readying themselves to tell the truth, partly, at least. Here we go. “I knew someone once. Another totem bearer.”
Zari raised her eyebrows. “What?”
“A perk of being alive for hundreds of years, no? You get to know a few people.” Charlie tried to hide their nervousness in their smile.
“You knew a totem bearer from another time, and you didn’t think to tell me?”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to, really. But I didn’t know how to tell you. Especially being in Amaya’s body and the—”
“Especially? Why especially in Amaya’s body?”
“Nothing, I—” Charlie sighed. Fuck. “Let’s just say that I was there, okay, when the totems were created. And Amaya’s, the spirit totem, is a type of magic that isn’t that far from…” Me, they wanted to say. “Shapeshifting.”
Zari took a few seconds to digest the information.
“So you’re her, what? Ancestor?”
“No, no. I was never a totem bearer. It’s just that the magic components are similar. I change forms from one human to another. But she, instead of the physical form, changed the spirit. That was how she was able to fly, jump and swim like an animal. She got in contact with her own spirit form, and then she spiritshifted, kind of.”
“Okay,” Zari said as she was processing the information. “I guess that makes sense.”
“I really am sorry for not telling you sooner, Zari”, Charlie apologised again. “Just let me make it up to you, yeah?”
In the end, Zari agreed, and the next morning, Charlie started coaching her on how to take the most advantage from her air totem. They knew that from the moment they both started spending time together, real, quality time, Charlie would lose all their emotional barriers against Zari, and they would end up falling for her. But deep down, if they were honest with themselves, they knew Charlie had started falling for her way before that.