Chapter Text
He means it as an apology. That much she's sure of.
Charlie is standing in her doorway, brows knitted. His grin is betrayed by the creases around his eyes and where his eyebrows join. In his hand is a tiny bag, pigs checkered the surface, encasing a bright pink and bright blue pill. In all honesty, that's the only reason she hasn't slammed the door in his stupid, fat face.
"Hey, Dee... "
No, she definitely still wants to slam the door in his face. Not that it would do much to assuage the yawning pit inside of her, now seemingly filled to the brim with hellfire and fury thanks to these cocksuckers. But it would sure feel good for a minute. She's not above it.
Still, it's a rare thing for her to be on the receiving end of an apology. And she fucking deserves it, after the way those assholes burned her. And Dee has never been above taking what she's given, either. Gnawing it down to shards and marrow, gums bloody and ravenous for more.
Plus drugs, so yeah.
She'll take it.
She nods her head, giving him the signal to enter. Glares at him for good measure.
Its been a few days since she's been back to the bar. That little comedy stunt they pulled snapped her out of the numb fog she'd been in, blinded her with enough rage to wash out the greyscale. But did nothing so far as helping or fixing her. (She's less and less sure such a thing is possible. Fix what? ) If anything it served to remind her of how hopeless the whole god damn thing was. Her dreams, while being the delusion that kept her somewhat sane, was just that- a delusion. And god damn if it wasn't hers to have and hold. Seeing Dennis lose his shit had been a balm to the burn. If anything, she told herself, he's just as much a delusional hack as she is. Knowing and seeing are two different things though. So yeah, felt good. Deserved even. Too many days in the same shitty bar around the same shitty people and the separation between bodies and time blurs. Eventually what matters and doesn't become one irrelevant timeless monster. Either way she would live another day to get the fuckers back. Whether hurting them hurts her or the other way around doesn't matter anymore. This is the world they've built, and it's built on a very certain and unrelenting paradigm. And yet one of said fuckers is in her apartment right now, pathetic written all over his grubby little form. What on God's green earth drove him to break the paradigm is beyond her. She wants to break him. Instead she waits.
"Ah... You look good." Charlie nodded, one hand on his hip, the other gesturing towards her and the room wild as ever, "place looks good. Been keeping up with things I see. Door locking and other such peopleings... " watching him nod like that was giving her a head ache, though it might as well be the liquor she's been slamming for days.
"What are you doing?"
"Oh you know, just ran into frank's bridge crew and they had some E, and your old buddy Charlie remembered how much Sweet Dee loved her E in high school. I thought I would do the gentlemanly thing and-"
She snatched it out of his hand and scanned the tiny bag, and oh "It has been a long time... "
"-figured we could celebrate you know, your success and not killing yourself or whatever-"
"Oh my god- my, my success?! You mean the gigs where Frank paid people to laugh at my jokes and a skeeze ball to bang me-
"... To be fair the banging was all you-"
"-and fly me around in a plane for 9 hours?!"
"Yeah the uh, banging wasn't part of the-hey, and also not all of it was fake, okay? We got the idea cause you were funny in the first place, Dee. Shit. And that's saying something cause we'll, you're never funny." He shrugs his shoulders with enough sense to appear apologetic, "But that low, you were great. The first gig- hundred percent real. No shit. Had to have something to work with or we couldn't have pulled it off so... "
Dee stares at him, arms crossed, wishing desperately she wasn't clinging onto every pathetic scrap of praise he was handing out.
"Well... That still doesn't make me feel any better so-"
"Look we just wanted to get back the real you, you know. You're an important part of the gang, Dee. Dennis and Mac know it too. Fuck man, Dennis is such a baby when he doesn't have you around to make himself feel all superior and shit. Mac is a baby cause Dennis is being a baby. And Frank... You know dude we just can't have you offing yourself or talking about it, or like apologizing when we make fun of you. That's not you. Not the Dee we know and love. The Dee I know and love. I know what we did was kinda fucked up, but it's just cause we care about you. "
That's what does it. So stupid that it does. What gets her all choked up, heart guts in her throat, and she can feel it threatening to spill through her teeth in a torrent of anything and everything she'd shoved down to survive. What got her to eat trashcake in the first place. And it's Charlie that's here. Why is it always them in the end?
Instead of dealing with that shit, Dee leaves it good and dead on the inside where it belongs. "There's a beer in the fridge."
Just like that the moments gone. She takes a seat.
When he plants himself next to her on the couch, beer in hand, she finally summons the courage to look him in he eye. His eyes are surprisingly clear for this time of evening. Green and thoughtful as ever. Freckles spread across his cheeks, he's so close she could count them. He looks down to her hands, considering the bag.
"You remember last time?"
Dee shrugs, "Not really. It's been over two decades. I think not remembering is the point. " Not remembering, just move past it.
"Oh, I remember." Charlie says like a secret, and he gives her this sort of halfway grin that makes her think maybe his face isn't so fat and stupid after all.
Mac and Dennis book it down the street like madmen with the kind of energy and spark only drug fueled youth can provide. It's nighttime and the air is sticky. Humid, and her blonde hair is in tangles. Clothes cling uncomfortably to Dee's skin, and the one working street lamp casts long technicolor shadows across the cracked pavement. It's beautiful in its way. She can hear their shouts grow quieter as they near the broken streetlamp a block away and louder again as they circle around. Running back to where she and Charlie sit on the sidewalk.
He passes her a bottle of orange juice. When Dee tries to swallow it, she has to force her throat to cooperate, and everything feels strange and warm and so fucking good. Charlie sits behind her and rubs his gross fingers all over her scalp, sending the best sorts of tingles up and down her spine. He said he liked the way her hair felt, and normally this would disturb her, but when you're on this shit every body liked to touch everything. Makes you even look at the worst and closest people to you with a fondness you can tell yourself is the drugs coursing through your veins.
Mac got a decent hookup for ecstasy from one of his cousins who frequents the Rainbow. She had never tried the substance before tonight. At first, she resisted, but Dennis promised with his babygirls and I promise and she'll always always follow that promise. From him. They're connected in that way, and it will always never be enough.
Later, when she's grown, she won't be sure if it was because it's her first or if because back in the day it was just better. But she'll be sure nothing ever compares to nights when she was 15 and high as she'll ever, ever get. There with the people she's connected to- a part of her will think they have her same notion.
"Why are they racing eachother again?"
Charlie's voice brings her out of her scalp massage stupor. Little lights behind her eyes disappearing and her vision swims before her. She struggles to keep her eyes from closing for a moment before rejoining earth.
"Oh. Uh, well first Dennis said that if you go on a run, It'll kick in faster because cardio gets your blood pumping and shit. So they start running back and forth down the street and then Mac kept, like making it about winning and feeling it first, and so now they're just trying to outrun each other. Though I'm pret-ty gone right now, so someone should probably give them some water or something and tell them to stop before the dehydrate and someone has to call an ambulance, cause Charlie I will not stick around for that shit. "
"Huh. Cool. Does it work?"
"I don't know. I was just gonna watch them test it out. Make sure it works. Judging by the fact their still going I think it just might."
Charlie resumed massaging her scalp and humming a little tune. Before long the patterns he traced on her skull began to form geometric shapes behind her eyelids. Blues and greens and mismatched blobs of heaven converging with all the love she'd lived her whole life searching for. Fuck Dennis and his promises. She isn't him, god dammit. She is her own person, and her own self, and she has a friend who cares and he rubs her head cause it feels good to him. The world began and ended at the points where his fingers met her skin, and yes she could fucking get used to this.
"Hey Dee?"
Damn it.
"Mm?" she struggles to pull herself back down to earth, again. Somehow, she's not mad at him for pulling her out of it. Bummed at the loss of contact, but somehow just as happy to be next to him. He stops and takes a seat next to her as Dennis and Mac circled the broken street lamp, wailing and laughing like kids on Christmas. Mac has Dennis and Dennis has Mac. Then there's her. Charlie. It's something, and just now it's perfect. Perfect. Everything, everything.
"Wanna go check out the train tracks?"
Dee thought for a moment before looking back at her brother and his boytoy, and again at Charlie and his smile and how he's looking at her, her, her. How could she have ever not seen it?
"fuck yeah."
"The train tracks?" Dee looks at him and snorts, "Nah, you're misremembering. "
"No. No, no. I'm not. Remember? I convinced you to jump on and then the thing started moving. We wound up in Delaware. Had to call Dooly cause-"
"He was the only one with the car. " They both finish at the same time, and their eyes meet, smile matched for smile- and oh, there's that feeling again. Shove it down, Dee. Shove it down.
"God damn, maybe I shouldnt if I'm just going to let you talk me into a train yard again-"
"Ah, Come on Dee, you had a blast. It was great. Remember?" He leans in. Leans closer to her and she can smell the beer on his breath, feel the cusp of what was. "Remember. Remember. Remember. " Charlie chants all low and focused and it's them, just them. It's unnerving how easily those memories return unbidden. The butterflies that accompany them.
The edges of what was spill in, and more than image it's sensation and the way it had felt in her belly, in her heart. Looking out from an open smelly boxcar. Her and Charlie and the wind carrying their voices far away. There was nothing but the river, the dark sky, and the hairs on her arms standing up when he touched just behind her ear. A feeling she didn't know was ever-could ever be real. She remembers being ready that night to be literal singing hobos with Charlie forever. Just leave the world, her shitty mom and Dad, school, Dennis and that fucking backbrace behind.
Just me and you and Peter Nincompoop.
The next day was a sad and embarrassing affair, but she remembers the night before more. That it had been worth it. How after they had been thick as thieves. Where did that go? The walls between them, thick as the bricks and mortar in Paddy's walls.
Without another word she pops the blue one in her mouth.
"Are you kidding me? What the hell, Dee?!I wanted the blue one!"
And of course.
"What's the difference?" Dee's voice is shrill, though not as shrill as Charlie's. They're alike in that way, screeching and ridiculous and sincere all at once.
"I don't know. The guy didn't say. It's-"
"Charlie," She takes a breath, closes her eyes. Bring it back down. "It's my apology drug. You came here. To me. Remember? Don't ruin this. God damn it, I thought this was about me or us or whatever. Trains and singing. "
"Okay, Jesus. Okay. " He gives her one last stare, rolls his eyes and pops the pink one in his mouth. As he begins to chew, Dee balks. "you still chew it up? That's disgusting."
If a pink flush tipped his ears at that, she can't say for sure. "Well Frank still shoves em up his butt, so it's better than that. And if I recall correctly Missy, you were the one that told me, to feel it real good you should shove it up-"
Now it's Dee's turn to blush, "Okay, okay. Shut up. I get your point. And hey, that was a long time ago. So. No need to bring it up."
She swears it has to be a Charlie thing. The way he can look at you after some half formed ass fucked topic you did was brought up. And while simultaneously laughing at you for it, make it seem like its the coolest thing you've done in your goddamn life.
Kids got issues. Why, for some reason they complement hers, she will never know.
you know this is what you want. (fuckfuckfuck)
Dee falls back against the couch, ignoring his stupid leering face with its freckles and how she can remember where each one is placed, even when she's not looking, "Where do you wanna go? Can't waste this here in my apartment you know? It's gotta be big. It's gotta be great."
Charlie looked at her with those clear, green eyes again. Something else is there, this time. Something like amusment. Anticipation. It's not accusatory or belittling. It's great, and it's everything she could ever want directed just at her. It's what she wants, what she's always wanted. what she's missed since she forgets when, will always forget. He smiles that dopey grin that pulls at her insides. In all honesty, she's flattered, he did this for her. Wanted to do it with her.
A beat passes, and she smiles back.
"Thinking what I'm thinking?"
Just like that, the two of them book it out of her apartment, down the stairs and out into he street. By the time they're out the door, her legs burn, and her lungs burn, but she feels something. Something- and later she'll say it was the drugs. Though it's only been 5 minutes.
Unsurprisingly, No one bothers to wonder why two full grown adults are running like hell down the street.