Not thirty seconds had passed since Miles had let his niece pick the music before he was already regretting his decision. As Bass turned around in his seat to look at Charlie, seemingly holding back a laugh at her expense, Miles ripped her iPod off of its cord and tossed it back to her, abruptly cutting the jazz music off mid-note.
"Sorry, kid," he told her. "But we're not listening to that crap. Even if it is your birthday."
"What's wrong with my music?" Charlie challenged.
"I knew that there was a lot that we were going to have to educate you about now that you're twenty-one, but I didn't think that the lessons would be starting before we even got you to a bar," Miles insisted. "No more of that jazz crap that Ben makes you listen to. Tonight you listen to real music. Classic rock."
Charlie turned her attention to the passenger seat, seeking out Bass's help, but he was already digging through Miles' cassette tapes for what he thought she should learn about first.
Miles had taken his task of educating Charlie in the ways of being a legally drinking adult a little too seriously, since by the time that their designated driver, Bass, managed to get her home it was already well after four in the morning. Still, that didn't stop the other two, who had most definitely had far too much to drink, from laughing and singing as they stumbled through the doorways of her house.
"Do you two think that you could maybe keep it down?" Bass hissed out. "Come on, Miles. I think Charlie's learned enough for the night."
He had intended to leave his friend in the car, but Miles had been out of the passenger door and halfway up the driveway before he'd had the chance to stop him. Now, he was left trying to coax his friend into leaving while he knew that at any moment the other two were going to wake up Ben and Rachel and he wasn't overly interested in taking the fall for that.
Instead of heading for the door though, Miles turned to head for the kitchen. He was determined to find Rachel's hidden stash of booze, as if he hadn't already drank enough before they had gotten there.
Bass didn't bother going after him, since Charlie appeared to be the bigger problem for the moment. She was dancing around her living room, half-tripping over various pieces of furniture, while singing a new song that she had learned that night. She was getting almost all the words completely and utterly wrong.
"Clearly it's time for you to go to bed," Bass insisted. "Preferably before you break something."
She paused her singing for a moment, but not her dancing, as she complained, "Come on, Bass. Be fun. It's my birthday."
"Actually, it's 4:38am, which makes your birthday officially over," he countered.
She ignored that and drifted back into singing, until she once again found herself at a loss for what the lyrics were and took a break to taunt him, "Stop trying to be so responsible. What are you? My dad?"
That was certainly not a comparison that he wanted to be made, especially since the thoughts he had about her were already inappropriate enough without him acting as a paternal figure to her.
"I'm not your dad," he responded a little too gruffly.
"Well then dance with me," she insisted as she moved closer to him, knocking into a table on her way by, and stuck out a hand for him.
He could still hear her uncle in the kitchen, swearing as he tore the room apart, and from the sounds of it he was making the whole room look like a tornado had hit it. Bass knew that any second now the two of them were going to wake someone up and he could only hope that it wouldn't be Rachel. All signs pointed to it being a bad idea, yet he couldn't quite resist the pleading look in Charlie's eyes and so, against all of his common sense and survival instincts, he grabbed her hand and began to dance with her to the erratic rhythm that she had set.
It all seemed perfectly harmless, or at least that was what he was trying to convince himself of anyways, until Charlie fell into his chest and took the opportunity to make a move. Before he had the chance to stop her, she already had his face in both hands and had begun sloppily kissing him.
He had to muster up all of the strength in him in order to force himself to pull her off of him. In any other situation, he probably would have been all over her at that point, but with her that wasted he knew that it was more than just a bad idea.
Drunk Charlie very quickly turned out to also be a handsy Charlie as she steadied herself with two palms pressed against his chest. He wasn't certain, but he was fairly convinced that the way that her hands were slowly gravitating lower was intentional.
Bass grabbed her by the wrists to try to quietly stop her as his eyes darted over to the doorway of the kitchen, where Miles remained perfectly oblivious to what was going on in the room next to him.
"Miles won't notice," Charlie insisted. "And if he does he won't care." Her voice came out in an exaggerated whisper as she added, "I think he might be drunk."
"I think you might be right," Bass told her. "But so are you. Drunk enough that you don't know what you're doing."
"I'm an adult, remember?" She challenged. "I can make my own decisions. It's my birthday. Are you really going to turn me down on my birthday?"
"First off, it is not your birthday anymore," he pointed out. "And second, you're drunk enough that you'd probably kiss anyone you weren't related to that was standing in my place. Hell, if you thought it had a face, you'd probably start trying to make out with a mop right now."
Charlie seemed to take quite a bit of offense at that as she wavered on her feet and indignantly argued, "No. That's not true because I don't think about kissing a mop when I'm sober."
That took him off-guard enough that she was able to slither out of his grip and suddenly her hands were back on him again. Luckily for Bass, her newfound handsiness also came paired with a fleeting attention span.
Before Bass had to start the argument all over again about how she needed to keep her hands to herself, Miles called out from the next room that he had succeeded at finding more alcohol and that captured her attention. Bass's relief at her being distracted from him for a moment was very short-lived though, since inexperienced drinker Charlie seemed to think that she wasn't already intoxicated enough. He found that hard to believe as he watched her practically fall over her living room table and into the TV on her way towards the kitchen. Still, she did manage to successfully make it through the doorway, relatively unharmed.
Bass was not so fortunate. He was just about to follow her, since he figured that the children could use a little supervision, when he heard footsteps behind him on the stairs.
He was only slightly relieved to find that it was Ben, and not Rachel, as the other man, who clearly was not pleased about being woken up at that hour, questioned, "What the hell is going on down here?"
As the only one in the room and the only one even remotely sober enough to answer that question without making things even worse, Bass was left to try to explain things on his own.
"Charlie and Miles might have had too much to drink," he responded, although he knew that there was absolutely no maybe about it.
Ben didn't seem overly impressed with that answer, but it was clear that he was even less happy with the state of his daughter as she came through the doorway with a new drink in hand, which was spilling over the edges of the glass as she walked. Miles was close on her heels and seemed too pre-occupied with scolding his niece for spilling the precious scotch to even notice that his brother was standing there.
As Charlie began to head towards him, Bass was still trying to figure out how he was going to dodge her, if she was still in her clingy state from earlier, without making it obvious just how attached to him she was at the moment. He knew that, if she let it show, it would only make the situation even worse for all of them.
"How much did you two let her drink?" Ben asked as he looked over at where his daughter was swaying a little beside Bass.
Charlie seemed to sense that she was in trouble then, so she struggled to put on her serious sober face and tried to explain for herself. "I didn't have that much. Really. This is only my first drink." Although Bass had to admire the look of sheer determination on her face, her actual follow-through at trying to disguise how incredibly drunk she was was less than successful. "Okay, maybe my second. I'm not sure, but it's my first since we got home." It wasn't long before she realized that her father was unconvinced and she decided to switch her strategy, from trying to downplay how much she had drank, to a new strategy of just insisting that it was her birthday over and over again as the only explanation that she was willing to provide.
As he listened to his daughter defending herself, Ben was still left wondering about more than a few things. Namely, why the fact that it was her birthday meant that she felt the need to ensure that she got alcohol poisoning and he was especially wondering why it being her birthday meant drunk and rowdy Miles being worse than her going out alone, with no adult supervision.
He tried to voice those concerns, but Charlie and Miles were clearly not in a state to take the trouble that they were in seriously, so his attention quickly turned over to the guilty party that had not been drinking.
Bass got the brunt of his anger then, since he was the only one sober enough to fully understand why he was getting in trouble and to not just laugh and spout things that only half made sense in response. That and, as was made perfectly clear by Ben's lecturing, because he was the one that should have been sober enough to stop those two many drinks ago.
Although she had perfectly good intentions, Charlie's jumping in to try to defend Bass only led to him getting into even more trouble. Against whatever she had been expecting to happen, Ben was clearly not impressed with her recalling how it couldn't be Bass's fault because he had been "trying to be Mr. Responsible" and he "didn't even really kiss her back that much".
"Out. Now!" Ben growled out before Bass could provide any kind of explanation or defense for himself.
He probably could have tried to argue with being kicked out, but the other man seemed like he was a little too busy trying to half-drag Charlie up the stairs to talk things over, so instead Bass turned to try to goad Miles into leaving.
That wasn't working though, so Ben told him, "Just go. I'll deal with him."
Once Bass was gone, Ben resumed herding his daughter up towards her bedroom. He eventually succeeded at that, then headed back down the stairs to force his brother onto the couch, all while grumbling about how Miles had better be planning on cleaning his kitchen up in the morning.
On his way back upstairs, he paused for a moment in Charlie's doorway to make sure that she hadn't gotten back up, only to find that she was already passed out on top of the covers, still fully-clothed. By the time that he made it back to bed, it was already after five and he was more than a little tired and grumpy.
Unfortunately for him he wasn't able to go back to sleep quite yet, since he found his wife sitting up in bed, looking for answers.
Charlie woke up the next afternoon with a horrifying hangover, only to walk downstairs and find that her uncle appeared to be completely fine. His biggest problem seemed to be the mess he'd made the night before, judging by the way that an almost constant stream of complaints was leaving his mouth about how he shouldn't have to be forced to clean the kitchen up, especially considering he didn't even know where half of the things were supposed to go anyways.
"Well maybe you should have thought of that last night," his sister-in-law responded unsympathetically. "But I'm sure that Charlie can help you with that. Can't you, Charlie?"
Rachel turned to look over at her daughter expectantly, but Charlie didn't want to help with anything. If people didn't stop making so much noise, her head was going to explode, so instead of helping she just let out a loud groan before falling down, face-first, onto the couch.
"I think that she learned her lesson," Danny commented in an amused tone. He had woken up the night before just in time to hear all of the racket and had debated getting up to go get something to drink as an excuse to see what was going on, but had abandoned that idea in favour of staying in bed where he wouldn't be able to get dragged into whatever argument had been taking place. Watching the fallout of the night before unfold in front of him, he decided that he had made the right decision.
Charlie was already embarrassed enough around her family, but she was sure that it was nothing compared to how she would feel the next time that she had to see Bass. It was unclear when exactly that would be though, since she was pretty sure that her parents had banned him from their house for all of the destruction that he had allowed to happen and, okay, possibly for her little outburst about having kissed him.
She felt a little guilty about having gotten him banned, but the idea of not having to see him again in the near future did appeal to her. After all, she was sure that Bass would think her behaviour the night before had been hilarious and would probably be laughing about it for months on end.
She just hoped that he would believe it had just been the drinks making her act that way as she vowed to herself that it was what she would tell him the next time that she saw him.
The next time she saw him turned out to be another night out that was arranged by Miles, who seemed to have already forgotten about just how much trouble he had managed to get her into the time before.
There was no way in hell that she was drinking this time, lest she slip up again even worse after she had just managed some damage control, so instead she had offered to be the new designated driver. That allowed Bass to drink and she soon discovered that he drank at a pace that could almost compete with Miles' own.
"Charlie, come here," Bass insisted as a clumsy grin formed on his lips. "Come keep me company."
Charlie was already sitting in a seat beside him and wondered what exactly he was expecting her to do, since it would be pretty difficult at that point to get any closer to him without sitting in his lap. Maybe that was what he was hoping for though considering the way that his eyes were raking up and down her form.
"You're not a little girl anymore, are you?" He asked her.
She was admittedly enjoying the way that Bass was paying attention to her after a few too many drinks, but she was also wondering whether it had anything to do with her or if he was just a flirty drunk in general. She decided to do a little experiment on that as she turned her attention over to to a dark-haired woman over by the bar, who was dressed far more skimpily than she was, and asked him, "Why don't you go see if she wants to keep you company?"
"I could," he agreed. "But you're much better company than she is."
"How do you know that if you haven't even talked to her?" She challenged.
He ignored that question altogether as he leaned a little closer to her and suggested, "Miles has already basically ditched us for that Nora girl. What do you say we leave without him?"
Although he had seemingly been compulsively hitting on her throughout the night, Charlie discovered then that his attention was not easily transferred elsewhere. She had always thought that it was ridiculous for her to imagine that there might ever be anything between her and her uncle's best friend, but she was really beginning to wonder if that was so absurd after all, considering his drunk-goggles appeared to have their tunnel-vision focused strictly on her.
It wasn't long before Charlie discovered that being left babysitting the pair of drunk men was much less fun than being drunk herself the time before had been. Miles at least seemed perfectly content to be taken care of by his new friend Nora, but that still left Charlie to drive an especially friendly Bass home.
She managed to make sure that he got inside and was just turning to leave when she felt a pair of strong arms wrap around her waist. She looked down in surprise as she felt Bass tug her backwards in an attempt to get her onto the couch with him.
Maybe she liked Bass—okay, there was no maybe about it—but it wasn't exactly her fantasy to get dragged onto a couch by him when he was drunk enough that she hadn't been able to fully understand a single train of thought he'd had for the last hour. She kept her feet planted firmly in place as she attempted to pull free of his arms' hold on her.
"Bass, stop." She argued. Her voice became more urgent as she lost her footing and fell backwards on top of him. "Stop. I'm not sleeping with you while you're drunk."
"Come on, Charlie," he slurred out in protest. "It's late. Just stay here with me."
Charlie was about ready to bite and claw her way away from him if need be, but instead she was left in complete shock as he loosened his hold a little and nuzzled up closer to her. She held her breath for a moment, then she felt her heart-rate begin to calm back down to normal as she realized that he had just been trying to cuddle up to her the whole time.
As she began to relax with the knowledge that he wasn't going to try anything, she realized that it was actually kind of nice lying like that with him. Still, she knew that not leaving would definitely mean that she would be in for a world of trouble from her parents the next morning. While that was a compelling reason to get up, she also knew that staying would mean a golden opportunity to get to see how sober Bass would react in the morning to having talked her into staying there.
That was an answer that she definitely wanted, plus Bass had already drifted off halfway into sleep, so she let her eyes fall shut as she decided that she would just give it five more minutes. That was all. After five minutes, she would see how she felt and make her final decision.
She woke up the next morning, still on Bass's couch, to find sunshine streaming in through the window. Clearly she hadn't managed to make it that five minutes.
She moved to sit up and the shift in her weight must have woken Bass up, since he brought an arm up as if he intended to rub at one of his eyes, only to have his path obstructed by Charlie's abdomen. He opened his eyes and let out a small laugh before commenting, "One of these days we're going to end up both drunk at the same time and wake up the next morning in a lot less." He seemed to brush his own suggestion off though as he added, "Although that would require Miles to ever be the designated driver, which there is no chance of ever happening, so maybe not."
Maybe it was her newfound confidence after all of the attention that she had gotten the night before, she wasn't sure, but somehow Charlie found herself admitting, "I'd much rather be out of my clothes around you when we're both sober."
He seemed to wake up more at that as he half-sat up, with Charlie still seated on his chest, and told her, "Well that could be arranged."
Charlie knew that she was already going to get home way too late and there was a good chance that she wouldn't be allowed to leave the house, which he was no longer permitted in, once she got there, so she decided that she may as well take advantage of that offer while she still had the opportunity. She toyed with the hem of his shirt between her fingers for a few seconds before her gaze flickered back up to his as she asked, "Are you sober now?"
"One hundred percent," he insisted. He hesitated for a moment and cracked a smirk as he added, "Unless you want me to stop and take a breathalyzer to prove it first."
"Just shut up and take your shirt off."
A/N: Please read and review! :)