baby, how you feelin'?

Did the tension in the room thicken, or was it just her own brain convincing her of that? Had she made this weird by not being more… eager? It shouldn’t have felt so odd, but she was used to this kind of borderline lewd behavior under the false pretense of solitude in her bedroom. Sure, that was probably more showy than this would ever be, but having two other people in the same room as her made it all the more intimidating. 

Not even liquid courage seemed to be enough to save her from herself in a moment like this.

“Who knows, maybe bad lighting will make it look more seedy,” Hope offered, not sure the suggestion was helpful or not, but hoping it did something to ease the tension. Charlie was kind, and she had probably asked the best possible person for this favor it would be fine if she could just stop stressing. 

“Well, better yours than mine. I’m pretty sure any post with mine out would be taken down in a millisecond.” It was all very inflammatory, and a shirtless Charlie could just be the icing on the cake.

“If it’s too dark, Susan won’t be able to tell what’s happening,” Jamie pointed out. “You can’t give Facebook moms any room for doubt. They’ll cling on to conspiracies in a heartbeat to believe what they want.” 

“Yeah, my mom’s one of those, too. She used to preach about not believing everything you read on the Internet but nowadays she’ll call me to ask if I read about how Biden died and was replaced by a robot from China.” Charlie motioned to the two, leading them down the hallway to his bedroom. It wasn’t usually a super clean space, but he’d tidied up with the expectation that they’d be taking pictures there, which made it look like a classier space than it was.

“Besides, if you were going for seedy, maybe you should’ve asked Hot Toddy to be in the photos. His meth mouth would give these pictures a je ne sais quois I could never,” Charlie joked, hoping to ease whatever weird tension had sprung up over the threshold of his apartment. He whipped his shirt off casually, eyeing Jamie as he fumbled with the camera, almost dropping it.

In a town where Elle constantly felt like she had to watch what she said and what she did, like she had keep looking over her shoulder, Charlie was her safety blanket. He was familiar and warm, and whenever he was around, she was reminded that things hadn’t always been so bad and maybe there was still hope that it could be good again. For all the things that Elle hated about the town, the few things she loved seemed to make in bearable 

She was quiet while she waited for him to reveal his dare, her eyes on his face while she watched his mind work. It amazed her that she still remembered the little quirks he had, the way the corners of his mouth twitched when he was thinking, the way his eyes narrowed just slightly. Some things never changed, and that was something that she was grateful for.

When Charlie finally spoke, Elle let out a soft laugh, thinking that he was joking. But, then he kept talking. For old times sake. It couldn’t hurt, right?

There was a moment of silence as she tried to talk herself out of it. She was engaged, so she shouldn’t. But, it was so tempting. More tempting than she could justify. So, without saying another word, and ignoring the voice in the back of her head telling her not to do it, she leaned in, reaching to gently pull Charlie towards her but the neck of his shirt, and kissed him.

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Charlie had sworn to himself he wouldn’t do this. He hadn’t rolled back into town to create problems for anyone. He didn’t want to be the arbiter of chaos in the already dreary lives of his friends. 

So maybe it was the cold and isolation going to his brain. It had only been two days of it, but there wasn’t an end in sight. Charlie had never been very good at being alone. Or maybe it was the champagne, an expensive brand so the mayor could show off to people with real money that had stopped using Gravewood as a vacation destination years ago. 

Or maybe it was Elle herself. She was in his brain, too. She’d dug a home for herself there years ago and try as he might, Charlie could never get her out of it. With the warm touch of her lips to his, he knew he never wanted to.

He had imagined this kiss would transport him back in time - to awkward meetings of the lips after Homecoming dances. But it didn’t. He wasn’t thinking of the past. He wasn’t thinking of anything but Elle in that room, at that moment.

Jamie gave Charlie a disapproving look. He wasn’t so much disappointed in the excess as he was with Charlie’s whole demeanor and how strange it was to be in his house. The Dyer household was not a place made for joy and good memories no matter how hard the twins tried. Naturally, he had to be suspicious of anyone attempting to bring it.

“I still feel as if you’re making a bigger deal out of this than any of us. A gift is still a gift even if it’s not under a tree you know,” Jamie pointed out, expression softening as Charlie got into the decorations like an overexcited dog. Kahlua shrieked her enthusiasm when Charlie emerged with a shimmery garland, waving her tiny hands around after the tail.

“Speaking of Hard Times…” he started, weaving around Charlie’s catwalk. Jamie unwrapped the garland from his shoulders and held it out for examination before heading to the old fireplace. It hadn’t been used in years, the black pit of old logs now filled with dust and empty cans. Jamie had always thought of cleaning it up and trying to get things working again but never found the time to commit. Another fire hazard in the house didn’t seem very enticing, but a little Christmas cheer looked… alright.

Jamie went back to the box for some tape before getting to put up the garland over the mantle as he explained.

“I only invited you to the bar because Hope said you agreed to help her piss off her mother but with your company, we run into a small problem of having two men at a gay bar with a girl. Doesn’t really sell the whole idea that you two are fornicating so…”

He took a step back to assess his work before looking back at Charlie for both approval and understanding.

“I was hoping that maybe you could handle some of this yourself while I take care of uh, some other stuff.”

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“Yeah, I guess my stunt at the ski resort doesn’t help the story we’re selling either. Susan Kang is many things, but stupid is totally not one of them,” Charlie mused, rifling through a box of decorations. It was the holidays, so he would obstinately ignore Jamie telling him that he was only invited to this night on the town as part of a dirty scheme. That was an unspoken truth about his life anyway. Charlie was there to bankroll the debauchery. 

“What, do you gotta change the kid or something?” he asked, sniffing the air which smelled fine to him - a little like musty, old carpet and Newports, but the Dyer house always smelled like that. When he looked up, Jamie was retreating. Without Kahlua.

“You’re not gonna take - hey, wait!” 

Jamie disappeared. Charlie was left alone, stockings in both hands, while Kahlua happily made spit bubbles where she sat on the floor. He stared at her, unsure if he was supposed to do something with her. Did she require entertainment? If he turned his back to keep decorating, was she going to crawl into the fireplace and get stuck in the chimney? 

He didn’t like this. Charlie didn’t even have pets because he wasn’t responsible enough and here he was, alone in a room with a tiny fragile infant staring at him with huge eyes like she could sense his fear. 

“Hey dude...” he said to her. She stuck her whole hand into her mouth and slobbered on it. Charlie looked through the decorations for something she could play with. 

By the time Jamie returned, the living room was halfway to becoming a Christmas wonderland and Kahlua was wearing a stocking on her head, pointing around like she was directing Charlie where to put his decorations.

INTRODUCING... DAN

name: Dan (just Dan) race: half-orc class: monk (way of the drunken master) languages: common, gnomish, orc, giant proficiencies: animal handling, athletics, acrobatics  tools: brewer’s tools, quarterstaff alignment: chaotic neutral

background:

As a baby, Dan was abandoned in the woods by his real parents. He was picked up by a traveling gnomish family who took him back to their tiny village, which is how he grew up with the Whistlenooks. They named him ‘Dan’ on account of the ripped, broken sign he was found with, on which all that was written was his name. Dan.

All of his life, Dan has been bigger and stronger than those around him. He was able to reach high places the other gnomes could not; he could lift larger rocks, build settlements and do repairs in record time. He got used to being a hot shot in their little gnome community. 

With his adoptive brother Cela at his side, Dan has lived a content life. But he always yearned for adventure, to see the world beyond their gnomish village. And, though he would never admit this, Dan wanted to find his real parents. So he set out on the path to adventuring, assured that he could overcome any and all obstacles!

For twenty-two years, Hope had been the best possible kid. Never once, in her younger years, did she dare cross her Mother. She was a last hope, much as her name proclaimed, and all she wanted was to be the kid that her Mother dreamed of when she closed her eyes at night. 

But, honestly, fuck that. Twenty-two years of censoring herself, suppressing her own thoughts and feelings, and forcing herself into the box her Mother had built for her were finally boiling over, and Hope was determined to make the biggest possible mess in the progress. 

It had been too long since Hope had found herself actually enjoying life, and the evening had been a breath of fresh air. The black dress that she had fished out of the depths of Elodie’s closet clung to her in a way that she never imagined being comfortable with. But, as it turned out, liquid courage was a real thing, and she had stopped worry about the way it rode up her thighs somewhere between the second drink and the final round. 

Now, with the world a touch more hazy than it had been when she left the house, Hope was committing to chaos even more with these photos. It was stupid, and all together very petty to do this just to spite her mother. Plus, Jamie was right, and she could just actually sleep with Charlie to save herself such a hassle. But, this seemed more fun. 

They had made their way into Charlie’s apartment. They had gotten a few photos at the bar, but nothing all that scandalous to anyone with common sense and an understanding of modern society. “Right, so, make Susan’s skin crawl,” Hope mused, doing her best to not feel awkward. It wasn’t, really, she was used to being on camera by now. But, that might have been part of the problem. She couldn’t seem to aware of what she was doing, could she?

@sry-chrlie​

Years ago, if you had told Charlie he was going to have a night on the town with only Jaime Dyer and Hope Kang as company, he never would’ve stopped laughing. It didn’t seem possible to have fun when Gravewood’s biggest goody-two-shoes were hanging off your arms. 

Well, he’d been proven wrong before. Maybe never to this caliber, though. Showing Jamie (Janie?) and Hope the ropes of partying only made it all more fun. Charlie was always content to do the same old shit, but that night, he got to see it with new eyes. His two companions were like fresh newborn babes entranced by all the neon lights and secondhand glitter falling from the faces of middle aged gay men. It hardly bothered Charlie that he’d promised to be the designated driver; he could withstand sobriety when his company was this entertaining.

Retiring to the relative calm of his apartment was not the end of the party, either. There were still pictures to be taken. Only now... Charlie did feel an awkwardness threaten to creep upon them. Even Janie tugged her skirt down a bit further now that they weren’t under the glare of club lights.

“The lighting’s not great in here ‘cause I don’t have a lot of windows,” Charlie said in an apologetic tone. “I live in a renovated firehouse, you’d think it’d be bright but it’s more like the batcave. C’mon. My room’s got a better aesthetic. And I figure it’s... y’know... more suggestive.” 

That would be the task for the evening. Now that Marianne had gotten a whiff of the Mothman and decided she was on the trail of Gravewood’s greatest discovery. She was, but Charlie couldn’t have her knowing that. He’d admitted too much over those air waves. He couldn’t allow his secret to get out. It was still the one escape he had from nights spent wallowing in anxious thought.

If anyone knew how to answer the Ultimate Question, it was Damaris. Something told Charlie she wouldn’t appreciate him asking for tips, however. So he put all of his trust in Stari and her ability to pretend to be him while he was... pretending not to be. It was very confusing, like one of those pictures with the twisted stairs. An optical illusion but for his brain. Best not to think about it too hard.

The plan was to drive out to the quarry for a little picnic. Like Mari had said, they would make themselves the perfect bait for a brand new serial killer while Stari crooned in the background under a voice changer. Keeping in mind the very large foot he’d put into his mouth, Charlie rolled up to Mari’s house that evening sans the alcohol. He’d packed a sweet, completely sober picnic. 

“Ah, I see my chariot awaits,” he said, leaving his car to find Mari’s already running and waiting. From behind him, he pulled a small bouquet of lavenders and offered them to her, determined to make this look as much like a date as possible, if only because he knew Mari hated it. 

“Moths hate lavender. Did you know that? The first strike against that theory of yours.”

Nothing made her words sound as childish as having them tossed right back at her.

Marianne almost visibly cringed at how ‘exploring’ sounded when Charlie echoed her. Had she still been under the spotlight, perhaps it would have been visible. Instead, Mari was grateful that Charlie had diverted his attention elsewhere.

For a moment she thought they might simply be ships passing in the night, two people with their own agendas intersecting and then continuing on. But considering how the other part of the equation was Charlie North, it wasn’t much of a surprise when he instead struck up a conversation.

Mari reached for the matches in her pocket, carefully balancing the book and candle in one hand and a match in the other to re-light her candle. It was a necessary action, but also something to keep her from thinking too hard about Charlie’s words.

There was something about the darkness. It had a tendency of making one look for ghosts that weren’t there.

Even if Charlie was making a lot of sense…

“I don’t disagree with you,” Mari reasoned, waving the flame on the match away before it could burn too close to her fingers. “I mean, the electrical in this building hasn’t been updated since it was originally built. The building didn’t get a renovation so much as a little facelift. I think it’s why the lights were flickering like they were before the power went out. That’s not just the result of wind. The new needs far exceeded what was originally planned. I don’t know if Windsor is just cheap or if there were unknown time constraints. But…”

But… what? She was a professional pessimist. There was no use in changing things up just because their setting had them tending towards the dramatic. Marianne wasn’t about to go full conspiracy board, but she knew that she’d feel a whole lot better if there was something nefarious behind the resort. It might help to justify how she’d accidentally ruined things for everyone.

Why wouldn’t a super fancy mountainside escape have a generator?

“Maybe this project was a long time coming, but this all feels really sudden. What’s the election cycle here? The first motive for bribery is usually a power play.”

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“Mayoral terms are four years. I don’t think Windsor’s seat is up for a while. My dad’s re-election campaign is kicking off in January ‘cause his seat’s up this November, but I really doubt Harry and Marshall are so buddy buddy that Harry would build a whole resort for him. If they are, that puts a whole new perspective on my childhood.”

Charlie didn’t realize that he and Mari had started to walk down the dark hallway together until they were doing it. He wasn’t sure what he was even looking for. Just that he knew there was something to find. He had keen senses for this bullshit. He’d been surrounded by it his whole life.

“I know bullshit when I smell it and like... sniff sniff, y’know?” He whipped his flashlight around rapidly, like there was someone out there hiding in the shadows and he only needed to be fast enough to catch them. Some little wormy mayoral aide with the secrets to everything.

“I caught my dad talking to him earlier,” he mentioned. He left out the conversation topic, unwilling to share Damaris’s business when it wasn’t his place. Instead, he said, “maybe the room they were in is like... where the mayor’s got his shit all filed away? I’m sure there’s paperwork somewhere. They haven’t had time to move anything back to the main office.”

In any other circumstance, this blatant obsession with Daddy might have embarrassed him. Something about the dark and the cold had seeped into his brain, though. Comforting, too, was the fact that he’d caught Marianne slinking around out here with a candle. They were in this together. 

Blowing warm air into his hands, Alec rubbed them together outside Charlie’s apartment door. It was the hesitation as he stood just outside of the one place and person who had always felt unmistakably like home that rankled the most. For the most part, they’d done a decent job of toeing their invisible line of normal, the play at ignorance that kept them from bringing up what had happened at Black Bear. 

It wasn’t like it cycled through his brain constantly or anything.

Alec’s heart hadn’t seemed to get the memo, though, as it kicked wildly beneath his ribs. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d seen each other since, but it would be the first without a buffer. No practice, no party, no one but the two of them. The fact that it was even a conscious thought Alec had at all was what frustrated him most. 

Nothing had been easy since he’d been back, like every piece of the finished puzzle that had been his life had swelled and warped until nothing fit like it should. He’d run from less. And boy did that option feel like the best one he had.

Instead, he rapped his knuckles against the door, a familiar rhythm that was muscle memory at this point, and then stepped back to rub his icy hands together. The cold had settled deep into his marrow and he hugged his jacket tighter around himself as he waited, teeth chattering with both cold and anxiety. But mostly cold. Definitely cold.

But when Charlie’s door swung open and he appeared, smiling and at ease and normal, something in Alec’s chest coiled tight, tight, tight, before it loosened its grip entirely and a genuine, lopsided grin stretched across Alec’s face. He laughed, snagging the small bag of gifts he’d set down from the floor and then giving Charlie’s shoulder a small conciliatory pat. “We’ve all been there, bud.” 

Moving past him inside, he sighed with audible relief at the warmth that engulfed him, causing a few violent shivers as the cold began to loosen its spindly fingers from his very soul. “Jesus’s fucking balls, it feels good in here.”

His anxiety returned a little, however, as he collapsed onto the couch, setting his small bag of gifts at his feet, and reality began to seep in with the warmth. Charlie’s apartment looked the same as it always had, but he couldn’t help but note how different it all felt now. With Oliver, with the resort, what had once been his only solid foundation now felt like little more than unsteady ground.

It was easier to focus on the reason he’d come, using his mother’s yearly ritual as a buffer. “You ready to see what Daisy Flynn’s hippie prophesy said we’d need this year? I’m still holding out hope for a rose quartz dildo of my very own. I think it might be my year, North.”

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Gravewood was below freezing that time of year, still coated in a blanket of snow. Alec was a little bit of a pussy to be feeling it this hard though, when he’d only popped in to the apartment straight out of Bessy’s warmth. “You good, dude? I can brew some coffee or something if you need to warm up. You’re looking mad hypothermic.” 

He reached out to touch Alec, to rub his shoulder in the hopes of generating some heat, but he stopped short. Something so small that he’d never had to think about before was suddenly a problem for the world’s greatest minds: was he allowed to touch Alec now? Or had he messed that up with a mouth that overflowed? He wished, in that moment but not for the first time since the ski resort, that he wasn’t such a constant forest fire. He wished he’d frozen up on that mountain like everything else, so that his mouth had stayed shut.

His hand dropped lamely back to his side. He replaced it with a terrible Mr. Freeze impression, “Stay cool, bird boy.” 

Going through Daisy’s gifts was a nice veer into something normal. It was a yearly routine and Charlie could settle warmly into it. He perched on the edge of his stiff Ikea-brand chair, making grabby hands for the gift bag. “One of my greatest joys in life is knowing that your mom makes most of her dildos out of malachite because it’s supposed to be like a magic pussy slayer,” he said. “Your mom is the best lady I’ve ever met.”

“He is. But, I just can’t make eye contact with him anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to again.” For the first time in a long time, Elle had been honest about something and it actually felt good. She didn’t feel like she had to keep her secrets locked away so tightly. Whether it was because of the dimly lit room that offered a feeling of safety, or because it was Charlie that she was there with, she wasn’t sure. But in that moment, Elle Reynolds felt like a person again.

The way Charlie reached out and touched her felt so familiar. Anyone else would’ve lost a hand, but not Charlie. She’d known him for so long, and trusted him so deeply, it just felt natural. The walls she’d built up around herself seemed to melt away, even if only temporarily, in the company of her oldest friend, the first person that she’d let in all the way. Even though things were different now, Charlie would always be the one person in Gravewood that Elle would trust with her life.

She was quiet as Charlie spoke, listening to the explanation she had been so curious about. Had it been wrong to ask such a deep question right off the bat? Probably. But what was the point in beating around the bush.

“It doesn’t sound pathetic at all.” She said, shaking her head. A part of her understood where Charlie was coming from. As much as she claimed she hated the small town, it was also the only home she’d ever know and it always would be. “Whatever the reason, I’m glad to have you back home.” Reaching out, she placed her hand on Charlie’s knee and gave it a gentle squeeze, a genuine smile on her face.

That smile, however, faded when Charlie said he had another dare for her.

“Okay, hit me with it.”

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Charlie didn’t often confess how much he loved his hometown. Everyone else he knew seemed to dream of escaping it. To admit that he’d had the chance and spent the entire time wishing he was back in that small, secluded corner of West Virginia felt like exposing too much of himself. To have told Elle was maybe the most mortifying of all.

She didn’t react how he’d expect, however. There was no argument. She didn’t lecture him about squandering all his opportunities. She just smiled at him and squeezed his knee to let him know his secrets were safe with her.

How could he have ever hated Gravewood when people like Elle were here? When everything he ever loved was here. The rest of the world be damned. 

A million spicy dares danced in his brain. So many embarrassing things he could have Elle do that would leave her blushing and him rolling on the floor in laughter. The champagne was getting to him now so everything felt warm and easy, like her smile. Except it wasn’t easy. It hadn’t looked that way for her, not for a long time. Charlie wanted to make it better, but he had no idea how.

“I dare you to kiss me.” It came out fast. Before he could think about it too hard. He braced for Elle to slap him or laugh it off. “Just... one good one. For old times’ sake. I have to at least show you how much better I am at it, right?”

Stari stared at Charlie, like she tended to do when drunk. It was like her need to memorize people’s faces was reined in normally, leashed up and kept at a manageable distance, but these drinks (one of which Damaris had lovingly dubbed The Stari) knocked all her walls down. Now she was staring and sighing and pouting, and acting entirely too much like a Person Who Cares. It was unseemly.

“Everyone ever?” she said, scrunching her nose as though the mere thought was pungent. “Sounds disgusting.”

He settled in next to her, and she rested her head on his shoulder, and she was drunk as shit, but something in her was awake enough to be grateful for her recovering ability to touch people again. “It’s what you get for running away before the game’s over. But you can be my second marriage. I do need to be North Star at one point in my life.”

She sat up (a bit too quickly) at the mention of Alec, and her thoughts were thick and opaque but she remembered, still, what Mack had told her. One of many secrets that hadn’t been Mack’s to tell, that Stari had subsequently locked away forever.

Charlie’s in love with Alec, Mack had said.

Stari wouldn’t say it out loud, even now, so she just stared again - and she probably should have been responding to something, but she couldn’t remember what had been asked. 

“How do you know when you’re in love,” she asked, quickly adding, “do you think?”

Stari stared at him and Charlie couldn’t analyze the expression. Either she wanted to rip his face off and wear it over her face (which would hardly have been original, Gravewood already had that brand of spooky story) or she was in love with him. The latter seemed more probable. 

He looked around to see if anyone else was noticing this. Mack was already having a rough night. He’d hate to break it to her that Stari had a big ol’ crush on him. “I always thought I’d be better as a second husband anyway. I’m a trophy husband. The guy you marry after your first divorce glow up.”

He jumped in surprise as she quickly sat up, briefly scared she was going to make a move. He wasn’t sure how he’d react to that. Or how he was supposed to react to that. It was Charlie so he was inclined to go along with all forms of physical affection, but that didn’t make the middle of this party and all their friends the right place for it.

She started talking about love again and again, Charlie glanced around. “Um...” He wanted to answer her honestly, but that would require a level of reflection he wasn’t sure he had the heart for that night. “I don’t know. In my ultra limited experience, you don’t realize you love something ‘til you lose it.”

Jamie thought he knew what he was signing up for when he sent Charlie his family’s Christmas list but there was no way he could’ve anticipated the absolute avalanche of Christmas cheer that poured in through his front door. There were bells and pine, velvet ribbons and a very big sack that wasn’t just a metaphor for testicles. Charlie hadn’t been kidding about making Christmas memorable for the Dyer kids but Jamie couldn’t help but wonder if part of it was just Charlie trying to relive his youth. 

The house was empty of children save for Kahlua who was too young to go bowling. She was but an unwitting witness to the sparkles and red hair that blew into the house, thrilled by the shiny tinsel and Charlie’s little pom pom. She bounced in her bouncer, her tiny feet scraping against the carpet as she tried to make her way into a box filled with shiny baubles.

“Is this real?” Jamie asked as he circled a small tree, examining the pines for authenticity. He couldn’t recall if they’d ever had a real tree in the house before, even if he could remember a tree during a Christmas past. 

All memory of the holiday laid in murky waters, even for Jamie whose mind was a steel trap. It was almost like his brain was trying to protect him from the dangers of lurking too close after what had happened years ago, determined to bury the idea of joy and family coexisting. Jamie couldn’t help but feel a little optimistic about this year while surrounded by so much stuff, however. The colours alone were enough to rouse excitement in his chest, thought of his siblings’ faces on Christmas morning was just the icing on the cake.

He plucked a clear ornament out of a box and held it up to the light, its shiny surface gleaming with potential. Jamie glanced at Charlie.

“I thought you said you were just bringing over presents. This is a lot more than gifts, Santa.”

@sry-chrlie​

"Ho ho ho to you too!" 

Charlie was in the Christmas spirit like he'd never been before. Perhaps it was the magic of that old Santa hat he'd found. Perhaps buying all the gifts had grown his heart three sizes. Whatever it was, he knew he'd gotten carried away, but he didn't care. He came rolling up to the Dyer household with all the gifts from Jamie's list, five rolls of wrapping paper, stockings, candy, and just about every decoration he could find. 

Refracted light bounced off the ornament Jamie held, reflecting snowflakes onto his delicate face. Charlie had brought such an abundance of holiday magic that not even Jamie could escape it, no matter the power of his grimace. Maybe that had been the strategy all along. Or maybe Charlie had a fat wallet with little else to do with it and someone had finally told him yes. 

"You can't have gifts without a tree to put them under," he said in his own defense. "And a tree needs ornaments. And your house would look stupid as hell with a decorated Christmas tree but nothing else. It all flows together. You're distracted by the details, but I'm a big picture kinda guy. The big picture being this house is about to look like Santa's motherfuckin' Wonderland." 

He'd started to unload all the shopping bags full of decorations. "You'll have to help me figure out where shit goes though. Like... this?" He pulled a green strand of garland from one of the bags.

Jamie had not been convinced by all the commotion Charlie had made over Christmas until he came downstairs to the sight of the kids all awake and crowded around the tree in the living room. The house was vibrant and alive with festive energy for the first time in years.

His suspicion had dissolved incrementally with every appearance Charlie made, each one bringing with it another confirmation that he was here now and ready to make reparations. As much as Jamie hated to admit that he needed the help, he couldn’t deny the relief he felt as he watched his siblings fawn over their new toys.

A fondness had bloomed in his chest for Charlie over the past few weeks, from his helping hands to his candid confessions. Perhaps it was not the friendship he had envisioned when he was a kid, but it felt just as safe if not comforting in the light of recent events. Charlie was surprisingly reliable, gentle, fun. He could see how he and Alec gravitated towards one another with the ease in which they’d both whittled down his guard.

Jamie couldn’t help but worry about his lack of gift as the wrapping paper in the living room piled up. He scrounged his brain for ideas of what he could’ve possibly gotten for Charlie that he couldn’t give himself. what could he have given Charlie that would’ve made him light up like the tree he bought them?

“What? Dragons?” Jamie asked dumbly, stirred out of his thoughts by a flurry of feet running around him. Jack had latched onto Charlie, swinging on his bicep like a small monkey while Stella had taken her to her high chair.

“Breakfast, dollface,” Johnnie reminded Jamie with a cheesy grin as he passed him into the kitchen, to which Jamie immediately made a face at. “Surprised you’re not at Magenta’s.” Jamie retorted as he slunk into the kitchen after them.

“Christmas is a family holiday, Jamie. Why would I be anywhere else but home?” Johnnie replied breezily as he took out a few glasses from the cupboard. He smirked at Charlie and Jack, eyes lingering a beat too long on his way to the table.

Stella and Jamie exchanged tired looks as Johnnie struck up conversation with Charlie after the second pass of plates. Jamie couldn’t even be mad at him. It’d been a long time since he’d seen Johnnie so cavalier around the kitchen, waltzing into it like he wasn’t afraid of what he’d find in there. In a way, it felt as if things were finally starting to heal.

Jamie rolled his eyes and took out ingredients from the fridge. The smell of sizzling bacon and fresh pancakes filled the kitchen as Jamie worked on breakfast to the white noise of chatter behind him.

“Alright, so we’ve got chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes, toast, bacon, eggs, syrup, butter, homemade lavender blueberry jam courtesy of Marie…” Jamie listed as he brought the plates of food to the table. His dishes were in no way beautiful, but the food was hot and unburned and plentiful.

“There’s more OJ in the fridge if anyone wants it,” he added as he looked over the table, cleaning his hands with a dishcloth. “Also, I’d like to remind everyone not to put your dirty dishes into the sink. Haven’t been able to get ahold of the plumber since it’s the holidays and all.”

Jack piped up, mouth already crammed with pancakes. “Why don’t you ask Charlie? He looks like he could fix a sink.”

“I think we’ve asked enough of Charlie Claus this year,” Jamie told him with a sheepish laugh as he took a seat at the table. “None of this would be happening without him so be sure to say thanks, alright? And don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“Thank you, Charlie,” Stella said sweetly.

“Yeah, thanks Charlie!” Jack chimed in after, mouth now empty.

Johnnie propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. He wore a little smirk on his face that didn’t seem to ever leave it, like he knew more than he let on. “I appreciate it, dude, but I gotta ask: why so generous? I mean, I ain’t born yesterday. Nothin’ in this world is free and you’ve really gone the whole mile.”

Jamie opened his mouth and then shut it after realizing that Johnnie had brought up a good point. He really didn’t understand why Charlie had decided to double down on their family in particular that season. Slowly, he looked to Charlie for an answer.

Rarely did Charlie find himself without something to say, but with all those big, shiny Dyer eyes on him, it was hard to find the right words. If this had been a Hallmark movie, this was the scene where Charlie spouted something about the true meaning of Christmas. About how the Dyers had taught him about family and magic. But it wasn’t a movie. The real truth was that Johnnie may have known nothing in the world was free, but Charlie grew up in an entirely different world. One where he got everything he wanted. One where he didn’t have to think about money at all. He could swipe his credit card without any pang of guilt or anxiety about when the debt collectors would come a-calling.

Those were not the right words to say. Confessing that money didn’t matter to him would sound a lot like bragging, in that kitchen with those kids. Instead, Charlie shrugged it off.

“I didn’t buy my parents anything this year so I had the extra cash and needed somewhere to blow it,” Charlie explained. “I’m chronically bored, but today was fun. I like having fun. Simple as that.” He shrugged, reaching over to ruffle Jack’s hair.

“Just how loaded are you?” Jack asked curiously, not even feigning innocence as he looked Charlie over, inspecting him for a wallet that might be easy to pickpocket away. Stella shoved him.

“Can you at least wait ‘til after Christmas to rob Santa?”

It turned into a shove fight at the table, which was Jamie’s cue to stand up and shoo everyone away so he could start cleaning up the mess. Johnnie gave Charlie one last lingering look - of speculation, maybe a little judgment, Charlie couldn’t tell - before disappearing to call Magenta.

“Be careful with any loose articles,” Jamie warned when they were alone. “Jack’s got sticky fingers and you make yourself such an easy target.”

“Me? An easy target?” Charlie shook his head. “You’re outta your mind. Who’s gonna jump a dude that’s always packing these guns?” He flexed, trying to make Jamie laugh as he began the arduous task of cleaning up breakfast without a sink to do dishes in. Jamie swatted him away like a fly.

“You’re slumming it on the wrong side of Gravewood but you still couldn’t resist wearing clothes more expensive than our property value. You’re an exotic fish in a very dull barrel and Jack loves playing with guns. Which I’m trying and failing to phase him out of.”

Charlie frowned. Jamie’s dad had said something similar at Friendsgiving. He’d been right and Jamie was too, but that didn’t mean Charlie liked to think about it. He preferred being happily ignorant of the wealth disparity between him and his friends. When he was forced to consider it, he just felt guilty. “I don’t have any other clothes,” he replied, but he stopped trying to bug Jamie and started helping clear the mess.

By the time they’d reorganized the kitchen and cleared the living room of empty boxes and torn strips of colorful paper, Johnnie had taken the kids to Canary Park for some good ol’ Christmas sledding (with the ulterior motive of meeting Magenta there). Jamie gave the overflowing kitchen sink a disparaging look. He stared at it silently for too long before addressing Charlie again.

“The festivities are over, if you hadn’t realized. You can go spread Christmas cheer somewhere else now.”

Charlie didn’t want to go anywhere. He was having a decent time hanging out with Jamie. If he left, he’d just wallow alone in his too empty apartment, overthinking things until his anxiety consumed him. Jamie was a welcome distraction, even if Jamie wished Charlie was someone else.

“Let me look at your sink,” he said, ignoring Jamie’s obvious attempt to kick him out.

“What? So you can break it further? No.”

“Seriously, let me take a look. My apartment has old pipes, too. When I first moved in, nothing worked and plumber services around here take forever. I watched like a hundred YouTube tutorials on how to fix it ‘cause I didn’t want to shit in a bucket,” Charlie said. Jamie shot him an expression that looked something between annoyed and disgusted. “I didn’t shit in the bucket. That’s the point. ‘Cause I fixed my own pipes. The things a man can learn to do through desperation.”

“I was serious when I said you’d done enough,” Jamie answered, although he didn’t sound as convinced now that he was faced with the mountain of dirty dishes towering in his broken sink.

“Then pay me for my labor.”

Jamie gritted his teeth. “Have we not established that I—”

“Stop,” Charlie admonished, putting up a hand to mute Jamie midsentence. “I don’t want your money. Pay me in booze. I know you’ve got some around here.” Jamie folded his arms, poised and ready to argue about it (probably just because Charlie had cut him off), but Charlie swooped in again before any poisonous barbs could be shot out into the air between them. He closed in on Jamie, who was backed against the kitchen counter and could not escape his charms. Charlie cupped his jaw gently, the same way he had under the mistletoe that afternoon. “C’mon, Jamie. It’s only a sink. I’m not binding you to lifelong debt.”

Jamie reached up and put his hand over Charlie’s. Charlie assumed he was going to rip it away, but instead he stilled there, staring. He was a conundrum of hesitance; his expression was surly and skeptical, but Charlie could feel Jamie’s heart pounding in his throat and he wasn’t sure what those two things meant for him.

“I have a bottle of Kraken from Johnnie somewhere,” Jamie muttered in acquiescence.

“Ew.” Charlie scrunched his nose. “Why don’t you just spit into my mouth?”

Jamie finally did shove his hand away. “You’d like that too much,” he retorted, slipping away to find the bottle and leaving Charlie to the sink job. “There’s a toolbox at the bottom of the pantry.”

Charlie got to work. He grabbed a kitchen towel to lay out on the floor (he didn’t trust the dingy, cracked linoleum not to scratch him and give him tetanus), taking his nice Christmas sweater off for good measure. He lay on his back, using his phone’s flashlight to inspect the kitchen pipes hidden away under the cupboard. When Jamie returned, he played his role as tool-hander-over but mostly kept out of the kitchen, only speaking to Charlie from the depths of the living room. No matter how hard he tried, Charlie couldn’t get Jamie to stay in the kitchen with him. Like plumbing was one of Jamie’s fears and he was avoiding the sound of clinking metal.

It was a simple issue. A connection in the pipes that had gone loose from rusting over. Charlie had to MacGuyver the situation by fitting a sliver of something into the broken joint before tightening it, but all in all, he was done with the job within the hour. When he was on his feet again, he tested his work by turning the faucet on. No leaks. He could’ve made a real go at this whole blue collar thing, if he felt like doing this for pennies in houses he didn’t want to be in. But no… that was for alternate universe Charlie who wouldn’t grow bored and miserable of that life in two seconds flat. This Charlie was ready to badger Jamie again for shitty rum.

He wandered into the living room, flopping next to Jamie on the couch and immediately grabbing for the rum - which had already lost a quarter of its volume.

“Care to put a shirt back on?” Jamie chastised. “Children live here.”

“No one’s home but us,” Charlie reasoned. “Free the nip, Dyer. It’s a whole movement.”

He was joking, but if he really paid attention, he could see the way Jamie looked at anything that wasn’t him. The TV as it played some public broadcast Christmas program. The decorations, the tree, the weird stain in the ceiling that looked like Jesus. Everything in that room was more interesting to Jamie than Charlie. He took a contemplative swig of rum. It went down hard.

“You drunk already?” Charlie asked.

“Regrettably, no.”

“Mhm. Still think I got some catching up to do.” Charlie tossed the bottle back again, taking an extra large gulp of the rum just because he could. Jamie reached over, attempting to stop him from chugging half the bottle, but it didn’t turn over fast enough; Charlie splashed a shot’s worth of rum down his chest. “Ack!” he cried out. “See? This is why I didn’t put the sweater back on.”

Jamie huffed but said nothing. He was looking at Charlie now. Really looking. Charlie watched as Jamie’s eyes followed droplets of rum as they slid down his chest, rolling over the hard lines of muscle in his stomach, until coming to a stop to pool in the fine hairs just above his belt. There Jamie stared, like Narcissus hoping to discover his own reflection.

“Did you fuck Alec?”

The record scratch could have been audible with the speed at which Jamie ripped his eyes away from Charlie’s bare skin to glare at his face. “What?”

“I don’t know why I’m asking, ‘cause I know you did. Alec told me.”

“Of course he did.” Jamie snatched the bottle of rum back to swallow a mouthful of its contents.

“You didn’t tell me. You kissed me and didn’t tell me.”

“You kissed me,” Jamie corrected. “I don’t see how anything else is your business.”

“We kissed each other. It was mutual but one of us was working without all the information.”

“Oh, so you wouldn’t have done it if you’d known about Alec first? Great. That’s rich. Glad to know I’m expendable at the existence of an Alec Flynn dick clause.”

“It’s not that, dude. It’s just—”

“Just what? Just that it pisses you off?” Jamie was riled up, squeezing the neck of the Kraken bottle. He looked at Charlie with a dark gaze, searching for something in Charlie’s face. Charlie didn’t know what it was he wanted, but the more Jamie used words to back him into a corner, the more he did feel pissed off. Jamie had an innate ability to make Charlie confess things he wasn’t certain he actually felt until Jamie was speaking them into existence. “Who are you jealous of then? Huh? Me or him?”

“Maybe you’re the jealous one, Jamie,” Charlie shot back. “Why else would it matter so much to you that I know?”

“You wanna know? Fuck it then, Charlie, I’ll tell you everything. Every last detail about the ways Alec defiled me up at the mayor’s brand new frozen tundra.”

“Do it. Tell me.” Anger burned in Charlie’s chest. Or maybe it was something else. Either way, it was hot and red and it crawled along his nerves until he was grabbing Jamie’s jaw again, moving him closer. “Was it like this?”

tw: this ain’t no mf pg rated shit, this shit rated P*RN

The most surprising addition to his holiday roster had been Jamie Dyer. Surprising that Jamie wanted to spend time with him full stop, let alone all that had occurred between them that past week. Late night ice skating. Decorating the Dyer house for Christmas. A kiss under mistletoe, and then one or two more at Hard Times for good measure. Charlie had no idea how he'd gone from fighting with Jamie at Marie's to discovering the way his lips felt at all angles, but he didn't want to question it much. 

Especially not after what Alec had told him. The image of Jamie with Alec was like a knife sliding across his thoughts sharp side down, fraying all of his nerves as it went. Charlie was some sort of rebound for his best friend if he thought of it like that, so he adamantly decided not to. 

He showed up on Christmas morning and told himself it wasn't for Jamie's sake. He wanted to see the looks on the kids faces. That was the best part of getting someone a gift. He couldn't miss out on it for petty things like a slow broiling jealousy.

The pay off was worth it. By the time all the presents had been unwrapped, Charlie was too distracted by the Christmas cheer shining brightly in the glossy eyes of the Dyer kiddos to give his forbidden knowledge much consideration.

"CANDY!" Jack screamed, emptying a stocking full of sugary sweets onto the living room floor. 

"'ey, no fucking way," Johnnie chastised, rising from where he'd been expecting the new catalyst for his Mustang and kicking a chocolate bar out of Jack's reach. "Breakfast first. Even on Christmas."

Jack started to argue, but Stella calmed him before he could explode by ruffling his hair and proclaiming: "Jamie pancakes are the best thing about Christmas." 

"I want pancakes shaped like machine guns and battle tanks! Jamie, please." 

"I want mine shaped like dragons. Or rainbows," Stella requested, picking Kahlua up from where she sat under the tree, playing with a glittering bauble. 

"What about rainbow dragons?" Charlie suggested, raising an eyebrow in Jamie's direction. He stood up to follow everyone into the kitchen, but Jack roared excitedly at this and came barreling over to grab onto him like an excitable chimpanzee. 

"Battle tank dragons."