What Do We Do Now, Carl? {Carl and Shere}

[elliedocter]

It's strange how people react to death. Some wail hysterically for hours, some get angry, smash things. Some blame other people, some blame themselves.

Some though, like Ellie, don't really react. she didn't know how too.

How are you supposed to react when the only person who ever seemed to understand you was gone in the world? The person she could rely on even when he wasn't around. The person she felt she had taken for granted.

She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten, the last time she'd washed. Those sort of issues leave you and she had taken to sitting in her room, barely able to move. Her face red with unspoken pain as she hugged the only things she'd had left of him.

His aviator hat and his glasses. She sniffed at last taking a breathe, her body curled on the small arm chair she'd stuffed herself into trying to figure out what to do with herself.

"Get a grip Ellie. You coped without him before" a voice mentioned in her mind. "He wasn't with you for months. At least you have Shere Khan."

Right. Like he was helpful right now...

Sniffing she wiped her nose on her arm, eyes still seeping tears. It had been steadily raining for the past few hours and she turned to face it, the dull grey light of Tinagel's city pouring through. She found no comfort in the rain, no comfort in anything.

She just didn't know what she was going to do without him there.

[carlfredricksen]

What Ellie didn't realize was that she hadn't been alone since Carl died, because Carl was still right there. It was kind of funny, wasn't it? He had been feeling kind of invisible compared to Shere Kahn lately, but at least then he was still able to be there for her...but he didn't realize that until he really was invisible. And now he had to watch as she just...crumbled. God, he never wanted that. Even when he knew he was dying, all he wanted was for her to be happy. He had done everything to distract her from his death, but it didn't work....

Of course it didn't. It was Ellie. His Ellie who had a heart that was almost too big for this world. Who was his best friend in the whole world, and it wasn't like it was her fault that she had no idea how much he wished for a different title in her life. It didn't mean she didn't still care.

And he cared too...so, so, so much, which was why he was watching her cry, holding onto that aviator hat and the glasses that he once saw as a necessary burden...but honestly, he'd love to feel them on his nose again. It'd be great to feel anything at this point...but especially, if nothing else...he just wished he could hold Ellie. Tell her that he was right here, that he would never leave her. How much...how much he really loved her, but it was okay if she wanted to stay with Shere Kahn, that he'd always be her friend, no matter who she loved...just...just being able to tell her anything would suffice.

But he couldn't. He had tried everything, but it seemed like the most he could do was let his hand hover over her shoulder like so, so it would look like he was touching her at least.

And if he were still alive? His throat probably would've been sore with the number of times he repeated, and still was, "Ellie, I'm right here...please, there's got to be some way for you to see that..."

Even if it meant that he'd never know what it would be like to kiss her like he had dreamt so many times, even if he had to wind up being the best man at the wedding where his Ellie became Mrs. Kahn, he'd take it if he could just let her know that he would always be there for her.

[shere]

When Shere had looked up at that star and wished with all his heart that Carl Fredericksen was dead and gone, he had never imagined it would amount to anything. Not that he wouldn't have still done it if he had, but it hadn't occurred to him that anything would come of it. All he'd been thinking of was the fiery sensation he got in his chest when he thought about Ellie and the way that kid looked at her. They were "best friends" or whatever, but Shere wasn't stupid, he was well educated in the ways of the world, and he'd read a book or two in his time. He knew how these things could turn out. It was obvious that Carl was head over heels for the girl, and...well, Shere had started hoping that maybe he could win her over before she realized that she might just love Carl back.

And right now, all he knew was that he hadn't heard from his...he didn't want to call her a girlfriend, but that was the closest thing to what she was, and she was the closest thing he'd had to one in a long time, whether he wanted to admit it or not...whatever, he hadn't heard from her in a couple days, and he was hoping she hadn't run off to South America or some place with the Carl kid.

So when he finally found her in her room, crying (did it count as breaking and entering if it was your own girlfriend's place and she'd invited you over on previous occasions? Maybe?), he was a little baffled and...a little bit touched, although he would have cut/burned/punched anyone who tried to accuse him of such.

"Ellie...hey, you all right?" He moved to her side, not bothering to announce himself or knock on the door or whatever (that wasn't much his style), blissfully unaware of the disembodied spirit drifting around. "Did somebody hurt you? I'll burn them." He meant it, too.

[elliedocter]

Ellie proceeded to jump out of her skin when Shere surprised her. It was the first human contact she'd had in days (Carl's ghostly presence not included unfortunately) so when he spoke to her, she almost backed up further away as if his touch would make her worse.

His question was typical, of course she hadn't told him, she hadn't told anyone, how could she tell someone something that to even think was hard enough. To put it into words would be admitting the truth.

And to admit that Carl was dead was...was not going to make her feel any better right now.

If it was possible the young woman held onto Carl's things tighter. She did not look at Shere and her face nudged against the aviator hat.

"Carl's gone" she said. Of course, not reiterating that gone meant dead was probably a bad thing, she squeezed herself smaller in her ball like shape and reside there. "Gone..." she whispered again.

Gone...dead...unable to come back.

[shere]

What the hey was going on here? Why was she so upset, why was she all...not-looking-at-him, and holding onto that stupid hat? Shere wasn't sure what she meant by 'gone'. Gone like he went back to where he came from, where Shere had always thought he ought to have stayed?

"Gone where?" he asked bluntly. He still hadn't put the pieces together yet. Still thought that wish he'd made was just a wish, and wishes didn't come true for guys like Shere Khan. He was a villain, he was the bad guy, he wasn't the guy who wound up with a happy ending at the conclusion of the story.

Maybe he'd recognized that for a while now...maybe that was why he'd wished so desperately that Carl would just fall out of the picture forever. Because as long as he was around, there was always the feeling that Shere was getting in the way of somebody else's fairytale ending, the one he didn't deserve.

Up until he'd met Ellie, he'd been all right with his lot in life. He knew what he was, knew that the things he'd done would probably lead him to a nasty place in the end, and he'd come to terms with it.

"Hey, come here..." he murmured, wrapping his arms around her as he sat down next to her. "Look, I don't know where he went, he's an idiot for leaving, but babe, you can't just...fall apart over it, you're more than that. And...you got me."

Yes, that sounded just as lame out loud as it had when he'd thought it up.

[elliedocter]

Ellie's face was murkier than an expressionists painting; her bottle green eyes dead with despair. How could she explain to Shere what had happened to her? What she had seen. Watching Carl die was not the full reason of why she was broken up inside - it was Carl yes, but she had never seen a death, never lost anything that important to her.

It was because now she felt lost. alone.

Carl was her constant companion through everything after all, and as Shere spoke his bit, she felt numb, despite - for Shere - lame words. "He died in front of me" was her answer, her voice stolen in the air. She bit her lip, wiped her eyes, and shivered.

"You're soaking wet!" she said, at last in response. "You'll get sick...you should get warm..." she got up from the floor, shoving his arms away and started fussing on the idea of a towel in the cupboard.

Carl hadn't seemed sick and he'd just...dropped dead. She was suddenly sure she couldn't take any chances. She hadn't got fully across the room, when something went through her, a shiver, cold...and she stopped dead and turned to look back at Shere behind her.

"Did you say something?" she asked.

Maybe. just maybe Carl could be felt after all?

[carlfredricksen]

It was weird how he could still hear, wasn't it? Carl knew enough about science to know how hearing worked, so why was it when all of the components that allowed for hearing were decaying in a grave somewhere around town, he could still hear Shere Kahn walking into the room? What was perhaps even odder was that he was almost relieved at his rival's presense...key word being almost, of course. He would still much rather it be him trying to comfort Ellie, but maybe...maybe this apparent bad boy wasn't so bad. Maybe he was just what Ellie needed to get through this...he had to be. Please, please, he just had to be or Carl wasn't the least bit sure of what he was going to do. It wasn't like he could just die again.

He let out a sigh (another thing that really shouldn't have happened, come to think of it...this whole science thing was dying about as quickly as he had) as he backed off, standing off to the side. Maybe he could at least be Ellie's guardian angel here. Make sure that Shere was doing his job right...even though he bristled when Shere Kahn called him an idiot for "leaving".

"Excuse me, I did not leave on my own volition, thank you very much," he snapped uselessly before he could remind himself that he was being unreasonable and hey, he should've been glad that the jerk was trying, right? Which involved probably not calling him a jerk in whatever was left of his head. Too bad the whole "take a deep breath and count to ten" thing wouldn't work, but as far as Carl knew, he couldn't really do too much if Shere wound up getting him steamed....could he? I mean, sure, you always heard about ghost stories and ghosts causing all sorts of trouble...but how true was it when Carl had never felt so powerless? It was probably part of why he had gotten so angry when Shere dared accuse him of just leaving. How could he not see that Carl would never leave Ellie if he could help it? It was the whole reason why he was still standing here when he was so darn useless! Maybe Shere did really care about Ellie, fine, but he shouldn't have ever made the mistake in thinking he was the only one, or that he was even the one who cared the most.

In the midst of his angry thoughts, however, Carl found himself yelping in surprise as Ellie walked straight through him. He was really having a hard time getting used to the fact that people and objects could do that and it just gave him the willies....

Except then he heard Ellie's tone when she asked Shere if he had said something. He whipped around, his own eyes wide. Could this be true?

Shaking his head, he said, "El, no, it's me," one last time, this time trying to reach for her arm, because maybe...just maybe there was hope?

[shere]

Shere wasn't sure what she was referring to when she asked if he'd said something. Of course he'd said something, he'd offered to hurt whoever had hurt her, and after that, he'd done his best to reassure her that she wasn't so leave-able as all of that. Was she even listening to him?

"Yeah," he said, a little miffed but trying not to show it, since he could tell that she was obviously quite distraught. "El, don't worry about me. I've been wet a few times in my life. Grew up in the jungle. I don't get sick."

That was true, as far as Shere knew. He had an apparently indomitable immune system, and hadn't had so much as a cold in recent memory. He certainly wasn't going to catch anything from a little rain water.

"Would you just tell me if you're okay? You look like somethin' the cat dragged in." Not very romantic, but truthful. "I'm gonna stay here until I know that you're all right. Even if I have to chain myself to the end of your bed. I'll do it, ginger snap, you know I will. I'm not afraid to get kinky for the people I care about."

...ugh, what was that? When had he decided he was going to go out on a tangent about his feelings? When had he decided it was all right to have feelings?

[elliedocter]

Ellie felt her eyes darken as she looked over at Shere. This was not the time for jokes! This was not the time...for anything. Ellie didn't feel like she deserved to smile again, that she had downright let Carl die in front of her.

She took a breathe, letting this miffed Shere speak, and turned back to look at him with the towel and chucked it at him anyway. "For you're information Shere, I appreciate you're trying to help me, and believe me, I'm all for helping people when they're down but right now, I am NOT okay...my best friend is dead, it's not...not.."

Dammit she couldn't even hold that sentence in anger, let alone in tears, and they started the water works again.

"It's not...time for this...so either say something nice...or nothing at all..." she said, steeling herself up again. If she had had a guard up with people when she'd been happy, she was sure that letting people in now would be even harder.

She hadn't felt Carl's arm, but she thought she could...feel something, and it caused her to shiver. She was shivering quite a bit probably due to not eating.

[shere]

Shere bit his lip and glanced down at the floor. He felt a massive wave of guilt wash over him - he cared about her, a whole lot, and she was upset and for the first time, it really bothered him that he was failing massively at fixing it.

Then she said...that, and Shere felt that hot wave of guilt turn into a cold feeling of dread in a single instant, like somebody had dumped a bucket of water over his head. Well, wasn't that ironic? He wished on a star that Carl would drop dead, be out of his way forever, and...wait, was she serious? Dead? Like...keeled over dead? What were the chances of that?

He didn't even know what to say to that. He could let his disbelief show, he could ask her if she was sure, but...he could tell, she was sure.

"What happened?" he asked, catching the towel and going after his hair with it. Hair had to be dried first or it'd drip all over everything else. He stepped toward her again, a little warily, frowning. "Ellie, c'mon, was there an accident? Were you there? Are you gonna be all right? I mean, are you hurt, like injured?" Obviously she was hurting, he didn't have to be a genius to see that.

"Hey," he added, draping the towel around himself and laying his hands on her shoulders. "Listen, I came over here hopin' for a little action, but if you need me, I'm not leavin'. I'll make steaks or somethin', you hungry? I always get hungry when I'm sad."

[elliedocter]

Ellie wished she didn't have to explain, but she did. She did all over again, and she ran a hand through her hair, as Shere tried to get his answers.

"He had a cardiac arrest....he collapsed...went blue...and his heart stopped...and I could do nothing."

It sounded almost scientific, but what else could she say, tell Shere how much Carl had bore into her soul, that she had begged him not to die?

Not something you tell your boyfriend. "I'm not injured" she whispered, though it was clear she had, mentally. "and...I'm really not hungry..."

She wanted to laugh, coldly, at the idea of a sad Shere Khan, what was that all about, sounded like a fake to her. She actually felt jealously of that cockiness now.

"I don't need you here" she said, but she was lying, lying so much that she actually had to carry on the lie by walking away from Shere, and trip.

She collapsed on the floor, and though it just knocked the wind out of her it just caused her to cry, really cry, for everything it was worth.

"Go away." She moaned, "Please JUST. GO AWAY."

[shere]

Everything in Shere Khan's womanizing heart told him that getting the hell out of there was the best idea he could possibly have had. She was in some sort of state of grief-induced neurosis, and that was just...not the kind of situation he handled well.

And because that was what he wanted to do, he knew immediately that it was most certainly not what he should do. He had been doing terrible things on instinct for so long now, he knew what it felt like to do the wrong thing. Leaving her here, right now, like this, would be the wrong thing.

"Not a chance," he said, and he was a little proud of the confidence with which he said it (considering it was the opposite of what he wanted to do). "Sorry, babe, you're stuck with me."

And then she was on the floor and...fighting instinct turned into fighting the unexpected urge to take her in his arms and promise her that he would personally burn and destroy anything that ever made her feel this way again. He crouched beside her, and drew her into his arms, holding her against his chest as she cried.

That was when he knew...that was when he really knew the despite every attempt he had made to deny it. He didn't have any way of disguising it anymore, not with how much of himself he was sharing with her just by staying here and not hightailing it for the horizon when things got difficult.

"Ellie," he said, his lips moving against her hair. "Ellie, I'm not leavin'. You hear me? I love you, and I'm not leavin'."

[elliedocter]

Ellie wanted to fight him, Ellie wanted to turn her face away, Ellie wanted to call him every name under the sun at what he'd said, daring herself to be bolder. Instead, Ellie found her lips to his, Ellie kissed him harder than she had ever kissed him before, and Ellie found herself whispering something in his ear that she was not expecting herself to say, not to Shere...

"Then..." she'd whispered, "don't leave...stay with me..."

In all the moments that Ellie had considered her life, this was not one of them, the bad boy, the boyfriend, the boy who never shared his feelings had shared them, and she was too emotionally ripped apart to know how to even reply that she wasn't sure how she felt any more...

And yet, right now, the feeling part didn't matter to Ellie...the part that did matter, was the fact he was leaving her like Carl did. The fact that he was still here now, at her most hideous.

"Prove your love to me..."

[carlfredricksen]

God, this was probably the worst time in the world for Shere to act like the jerk that Carl had suspected that he was. Yet it seemed like, at least at first, every other word that came out of the man’s mouth was at best impolite and at worst infuriating. Carl wasn’t the violent type, but something about being dead was making it a lot easier to imagine his fingers around the blonde man’s throat when he saw just how much her “boyfriend’s” words had upset her. Couldn’t Shere see that she was in pain, or was he too damn happy with the idea that Carl was the bad guy here? Selfish, that was what it was, and it was ticking Carl off like nothing had ever ticked him off before.

But then, just as easily as he had said that she looked like something the cat dragged in, Shere said that he would stay until he was sure that Ellie was okay, which made Carl both calm down and deflate…because that was exactly what he was doing, wasn’t it? Looking out for the woman he loved…God he didn’t want to think that Shere loved her, but at the same time…I mean, she needed someone who loved her, right? If it was this guy that Carl didn’t like…this was so confusing, and the God that Carl kept on referring to, even though the evidence of such a being’s existence was seeming less and less certain. Which was weird, because he had always thought he’d have the answers when he died…then again, when he rarely had thought of when he’d die, he had imagined pearly gates and people with fluffy wings standing on equally fluffy clouds. And he would’ve been really, really old, and would’ve already taken Ellie to Paradise Falls and…who knows? Maybe she was Mrs. Fredricksen, and maybe they would’ve died together in their sleep, or at least would’ve followed each other soon after being together for so many years.

This? This wasn’t the least bit what he had in mind, their only means of contact being his touch that maybe was making her shiver. That wasn’t enough for Carl. He had thought that even just the slightest acknowledgement of his touch would be, but it wasn’t, not when she wasn’t even seeming the least bit hopeful at it. Then again, why should she? There was no reason for her to find hope when, as far as she knew, he was gone forever, something that Shere had been too dense to hear her say the first time, apparently, which just annoyed Carl even more as he walked away from Ellie, keeping his eyes sharp on Shere. Maybe if Shere tried any funny business, that would make him able to enact some sort of revenge.

Unless…because one minute, Ellie had been telling him that she didn’t want or need him here, but then he said those deadly three words that Carl was pretty sure could destroy him, even if a part of him had hoped that was the case. “I love you,” he said, and Carl realized that part of why it was destroying him was because Shere had gotten the chance to say it before he did. And then she kissed him. Carl had only imagined what that would be like, seeing them kiss, and usually it involved him waking up in a cold sweat.

He no longer had the luxury of waking up and brushing the images away. It was like his knees were buckling again, except he couldn’t just faint and make it all go away. All he could do was watch, watch as she begged Shere to stay with her, much like she had once asked him…and this was his punishment for not obeying her.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he hadn’t been staying here the whole time like he thought. Maybe he had gone to the other side…except he wound up in Hell. Why he was still there, he didn’t know. He knew by now that all he had to do was go through a wall or a door, and he didn’t have to stay. Obviously, Ellie didn’t need him, and even if she did, there wasn’t anything he could do for her at this point, and all he could do was watch as Ellie showed her love to someone else, and he didn’t even at least have the luxury of being the best friend for her.

But he stayed, because where else could he go?

[shere]

Shere Khan had actually been asked to prove his love to girls a number of times. What made this situation unique was the fact that he actually possessed any of the love he was being asked to prove.

Nevertheless, being Shere Khan, he knew exactly what a girl meant when she said something like that in that tone of voice. Even if she'd never done this before, there was more than a little natural instinct that already had to be guiding her. He was pleasantly surprised, though, by the intensity with which she was suddenly conducting herself.

She was distressed. She was mourning the loss of her best friend, and yeah, he should have felt guilty about this, but he couldn't quite manage to muster up the attack of conscience that would have required. The girl he had...feelings for...was, if he wasn't violently mistaken, offering herself to him, and heck if he was going to turn her down.

"I can do that," he breathed, pressing another kiss to her lips, then her forehead, her temple, and down to her neck. "You got me as long as you want me, baby."