The Concrete Canary

[ConcreteCanary]

It's not so easy moving on. It's harder to forget. It's all about the whole notion of having a heart broken right before you know whats coming then being left in silence. Sometimes I dream that I'm constantly kept in that final moment when I saw him last. When I was holding him in the empty hotel room and staring out at the stars and telling him everything would be alright. How was I supposed to know that maybe even that wasn't good enough? Maybe instead what I should have been telling him was that I was sorry. Sorry for whatever I had done that made him leave

A hand was shoving through the citrine strands that left her as her namesake of Canary. The name of Charley Cadence had long since been abandoned since she had joined the Underground and it's unity with the Crimson Scarf. The girl had a few more bruises these days, a few more broken pieces of her heart scattered on her sleeve but the little ingenue had given up the gems and jewels for a life of concrete and sorrows.

Still even in those dim lights she could shine, perched on a stool on the tender's side of the bar and watching the new act perform even as she ran a cool glass of ice across her brow to temper out the heat of a brand new shiner.

After the unexpected and unplanned goodbye that left her in an empty room and on her own again, Charley had done nothing more then decide to change herself. She left the name behind and became what she assumed she was always meant to be. The Concrete Canary.

She had abandoned the old days and ways of a jeweler and ended up tending bar at the fetish club and adding on another job requirement of being the wound patcher as much as the punching bag. It really depended on the day, but it was a day and that was all she could ask for.

Still there were the nights like these where she couldn't forget the past and her thoughts were drifting back to a hotel room that once wasn't so empty and a time where she didn't wear the tattooed pieces of a shattered heart on her sleeve.

It was nights like these where she stayed up as long as she could if only to keep herself from sleeping... in order to keep herself from dreams.

Charley knew well that in these nights her nights would be colored in nothing more then images of him and it broke her heart all over again.

She missed him, her night born Drifter. Nothing more then the highway man always taking his journey over and on her canary heart.

[ConcreteCanary]

I didn't expect it to happen again or maybe I did. Another empty room without a note or goodbye, just another numb place in my heart without solace. Did I feel abandoned? Maybe I did but then again I couldn't help but think maybe it was just my mind erasing someone else. Perhaps the Drifter was just another make believe comfort in my mind and the reality was just coming back to haunt me. All so possible and yet I still believed I feel the warmth of his skin against my own in the middle of the night in my bed as I dreamed. Never once had we shared an intimate moment and it made me wonder what was worst as I thought over my past. Sharing those moments and losing them or never having them and being tormented by the what ifs...I know his distance, his disappearance has altered me. I know there's more that has changed me, but even without a cage to keep me in, I've lost my voice. Without him, I'm losing the reason and answer of what it is to feel...

Her fingers scratched along the shattered pieces of the broken heart tattoo decorating her forearm as she gazed upon the stage where Ariahn now performed. Charley's shift long had been over but she found herself lingering with no place else to go. Her limbs felt stiff with exhaustion and her soul far more worn from the beatings and the healings to go through every single night. It all was getting to her and yet she never spoke a word over it all as it was better to endure in silence.

A smile was slanted in a quiet awkward angle to the black gold and indian ink marked Ariahn as she approached the bar and lifted brows sharply over those vibrant strange eyes "Shouldn't you be heading home by now, Canary?" "Nah not much feeling like familiar company tonight." "Huh. Well Just don't get yourself all caught up in any trouble. Don't think I don't know about your death wish."

"I don't have a death wish..."

There was dispute in the tone but Charley could taste the lie on her tongue as she grimaced over to the other woman as Ariahn grinned around her lip ring. Chin jerked in the direction of the stage.

"You need to get your heart put back together again girl, why not let the Canary sing?"
"Singing isn't going to put me back together, Tiger."
"Pretty broken girl... you think he will?"
"I wish he would."

The swirling storm of color in her eyes rested level upon the Canary before Ariahn shook her head with a sigh. The Tiger knew all too well those feelings but she couldn't help but wish for that bit of spark brightness to come back to the Canary. The little ingenue didn't belong here, but Tiger just didn't have the heart to turn her away. Clawed fingers reached out and landed to grip lightly on the smaller woman's shoulder.

"Stay as long as you like, just don't let the dark devour your light in the shadows hmm?"

A feral grin and a shrug before Ariahn wove through the crowd to prowl and hunt the night, leaving the Canary to look after her before staring at the door with a headful of dreams and wishful thinking.

[ConcreteCanary]

Everything feels a dream, an illusion, a hallucination. Did I play at make believe with this world around me? Did I dream them all up again and left myself losing my mind. Maybe it wasn't just my heart that shattered this time. Or perhaps this is just the silent nudge from fate that I'm meant to be on my own. Yet still I find myself holding on, waiting and watching the night thinking maybe just one day he'd come walking back through that door and into my life again. Even if he did... would he want me now... after all that's changed...

"Come on Canary we're going to be late!"
"I'm coming!"

It was another active day, another busy time for distraction that Charley found herself grateful for as she gathered up the rest of the supplies before catching up with the girl waiting on her. It wasn't the other woman's stance or impatient tap of foot or her sharp expression that likely would catch the eye when others first met Charley's coworker. The eye catching distraction was the soft violet hue of the woman's skin paired with the rose quartz strands of hair to frame her near elven soft features and bright glowing green eyes that carried no pupil or white. If anything when Charley first met Dor she understood more then anything the reason why Dor would choose to help out in the Sanctuary as much as with the club.

Charley had heard that there were many men that asked after Dor for one to share their bed, but Dor wouldn't hear of it. Instead the woman seemed perfectly content with being the supplier and transporter for the club and the Shelter. Given the woman's particular talent, Charley couldn't blame her.

"Daydreaming again?"
"What? No of course not."
"Right."

Dor flashed the Canary a grin before slapping her on the shoulder. There was no countdown or warning before they both seemed to disappear in thin air as Dor transported them to the carnival. They made quick work of catching up with the others to set up for the carnival, pitching in and helping out. It had to be one of the most unusual and entertaining ideas that Finn and Avy had come up with to raise money for the Shelter but then again... who didn't love a carnival?

Charley always had been drawn to carnivals, the shining lights and odd macabre appeal so perfectly blended together to make a lively, wild time while they existed in the simple lives of others. Standing in the midst of it all she couldn't help but wonder how the others would have loved this... namely him. The thought of him had her shoving a hand through citrine strands as she frowned and pushed herself back into focusing on work. It helped because day after day the loss of him was tearing her apart. Day by day she was learning that life wasn't the same without him, that without him... she just wasn't... herself.

[ConcreteCanary]

I remember once Cyrus had called himself a monster. I remember sitting in the room with him the night before he was gone and sitting out in the night with him. We were telling our stories of our past like those that wished to forget or rather maybe we just didn't want to recall what had happened. For me it was easier when I didn't remember anything of my past besides what I had been told. The life I was fashioned with. Now when I look at the stars and I feel my skin like it is alive with the same light of stars I wonder if he ever came back... would he see me as a Monster too? Would he want me then... if I was something more then human... if I was something more then me?

"Are you going to perform?"
"I don't know, are you?"

Sapphires flickered over to Dor with the snarky retort smoothed over with a grin as they worked together to set up another carnival game. It was the break of dawn and the crew from the shelter already were up and working. Tonight was opening night with its lively promise of fun and entertainment, charity and relaxation. The air itself seemed to carry a shining brightness of promise or maybe it was just the laughter and good spirit of those around her.

The joke was on them both. Canary knew easily that Dor tended to keep to herself and keep to limited exposure after her endurance of an elite of the lonely hearts brigade. Canary had found that Dor had a rap sheet of disappointment and heart break far longer then her own and far more damaged. Canary couldn't blame the woman for keeping to herself but then again it was hard for people not to stare at Dor with how she looked. There was no altering the lilac flesh and rose quartz mane of the teleporter. The funny thing was that as 'normal' as Charley appeared she knew the inside didn't reflect the outside.

"Damn."
"What?"

The curse from Dor had Charley pulling from her own thoughts as she watched the teleporter throw down a string of lights in frustration.

"They're all dead..."

The words hit Charley like a slap and left her shaking on her feet as she swallowed down that feeling of nausea as the pinprick sting of stars clung to the corner of her eyes. Her mind was grasping again for a fragment of memory she never could reach. The world went black until it was swimming with vibrant shades of amethyst, lilac, rose quartz, and peridot.

"Canary... Canary...!"
"I... I'm fine."
"Heh. I'll say."

Dor was smirking as she gestured to Charley even as she helped the girl to her feet. A thousand string of once dead lights were now glowing with the thriving shine of electricity from where the Canary had fallen. The teleporter could only slap her hand against Charley's shoulder with a grin and a murmur under her breath before nudging the blond again until she came to smile.

"Not bad. So. Like I said before... you going to perform tonight? You should. You should sing."
"And you should fall..."
"The last time I did the one I fell with didn't hit the ground but he didn't make it back to me either."
"The Space Dog?"
"You could call him that."

The girls shared a laugh even as a handful of stringed lights were thrown towards Dor who easily was able to avoid them with one side step. Brows lifting as she shook her head. Charley could tell Dor missed the hotheaded adrenaline junkie but Dor just didn't talk much about that. Instead Dor did what she always did... she changed the subject.

"You should sing tonight. C'mon Canary it'd be the perfect time to make it back on stage."
"No... like I said. I made a vow and I'm keeping to it."
"What if... he doesn't come back?"
"Then I guess I never will sing again."

Turning away Charley muttered out some excuse to be on her own as she rushed off to the storage shed to grab some extra equipment. She couldn't help but notice the Nightengale and the Mockingjay giggling in a cotton candy fight fest with Mouse, or the peripheral glance she caught of Avy and Finn as he pulled the Willow from a pile of stuffed animals and kissed her.

Those looks she remembered well, those looks she longed for. Charley never felt more alone then she did when she was surrounded by them all. Tonight would be no different. No matter what they said.

[ConcreteCanary]

It doesn't fade that sensation of loss, that feeling of pain and loneliness. I can't move on no matter what I do. When I close my eyes I think of him, when I sleep I dream of him. So many times I have tried to make myself move on and forget but each and every time the dreams return... he is there... waiting... and I don't know what to do. How am I supposed to endure dreaming of one that left me behind and walked away? Promises are words. Empty words. But he made no promises to me... he never spoke any vows or promised himself to me. I could have just been a stepping stone and he has moved on. Maybe I was only a stepping stone but even if I was... why, damn it, why do I still dream of him with the silent realization that if he came back... I'd let him walk all over me if that was his wish. Just to have him back again. I'm lost. So lost and he never will know that even without breadcrumbs I still want him to find me again.

She had abandoned the merry making and revelry of the gathered from the Shelter as they worked on the final touches of the carnival. It felt strange to have such high moods of jovial appreciation and childlike wonder to witness as soon as the carnival came to life on opening night. How long did Nightengale and Mockingjay try to convince her to relax and take some time out with them to enjoy the carnival before they realized that the Canary really wasn't herself?

There was still so much work to be done and it didn't end or begin with the carnival. The carousel they discovered seemed beyond working order and had been left abandoned in one unlit corner of the lot. It was there that Charley found herself drawn as she stepped up on to the carousel and stroked the cold muzzle of one of the motionless beasts. In hushed whispers she spoke comforting words of greeting before she found herself wrapping her arms tightly around the beast.

Her cheek pressed to the cold jeweled surface of the unmoving stallion as she yearned to feel warmth and life again to spill through that fixture of equine beauty just as she yearned for that feeling of soul born warmth to exist once more as a flickering flame within her.

It seemed as soon as he had walked out the door and left her alone in the night that kindle spark had all but been snuffed out. Her heart was far from a trick candle. Once snuffed out it became so difficult to come to light again.

All of it unspoken to exist within her thoughts and emotions became all too much. His name haunted a curling whisper at her lips as she near collapsed to the floor of the carousel and set her back to the shining mirror as she dropped her head in her hands.

So long ago on the same night that she had sworn never to sing again she had sworn that she would not cry... not ever again... over him.

Tonight in the darkness she broke one of those vows.