Dennis had to congratulate himself on a good hiding spot. Seated on the ground between a box of foil packets of peanuts and a few stacks of neatly folded unused sick bags, Dennis could just barely see out through the small open-air "window" designed to keep flight attendants from bashing into each other when they rounded the corner into the little cubby, but no one could see him unless they walked right up to the window or ducked into the alcove.

He hears footsteps and slides further down the wall as an extra precaution until he recognizes the tousled hair and tally mark t-shirt. He scrambles to his feet and reaches an arm out around the alcove, catching his elbow as he passes.

Charlie at first looks understandably startled, having in his mind just been grabbed by a hand emerging from what he'd been under the impression was a blank wall, but grins excitedly when he realizes it's Dennis.

"Charlie, Charlie," Dennis whispers. "You got any beers on you?"

"Yeah man, yeah," Charlie agrees, reaching into of one of the deep pockets on his baggy jeans and drawing out a can, which he immediately forks over. "Why're you hiding in the flight attendant place anyway? Did you bang the flight attendant?"

"No," Dennis says, taking the beer gratefully. "no, I banged something much worse." He slides his hand down Charlie's arm and pulls on his wrist, none too gently. "Get in here if you wanna talk, you're gonna draw attention to me that I really do not need right now."

Charlie considers it for a moment, shrugs, and slithers onto the ground. He shimmies underneath a shelf that's just the right height for him to fit under, less than an inch of space between his head and the shelf's bottom. Once he's properly positioned and out of sight, Dennis lets him go and focuses on cracking open the beer. The lack of space has the length of both their left legs pressed up against each other, their feet against each other's hip pockets. Dennis can feel another beer in Charlie's. He assumes Charlie can feel, though likely not enough to identify, a travel-size bottle of lube and one condom short of a roll in his own.

Charlie takes a long swig of beer, sighing out a euphoric, pleased 'ahh' when it hits his tongue like it's not the...fifty-seventh beer of the day, as Dennis reads on Charlie's shirt. That's of course assuming he hadn't downed a few beers out of Mac's line of sight, the way he is right now.

"So," Charlie says, grinning as he wipes his mouth with the side of his tan, freckled arm, leaving the skin slightly wet. "What brings you here?"

Dennis settles in, interest piqued. He does love telling stories.

"Oh, I'll tell you what brought me here," Dennis says. "But first?" He holds up his half-empty can. "A toast, my dear Charlie, to Frank's bad taste in women."

"Oh, yeah, I'll drink to that," Charlie says, taking the can out of his pocket and bumping it against Dennis's and then taking a long sip, eyes lighting up and squirming on the floor a little like he's annoyed by having to wait to swallow to start his tale. "Cuz this one time, he and I were…"

Dennis gestures for Charlie to stop, hindered by taking his sip second and thus too caught up in having a throat full of beer to stop Charlie before he can start talking. "Shh, Charlie, shush," he admonishes once he's done swallowing. "I'm telling the story."

Charlie shrugs, deflates a little, leans back against the wall. "Oh. I guess that's fine. I like listening to stories."

Dennis takes another long sip, just to wet his vocal chords, then begins: "Well, for starters, Frank is genuinely under the impression that he invented the mile high club, only he calls it by a different name, the 'airplane sex squad', or something, and when you hear about his idea of a perfect partner for his trial run of this squad, Charlie, you're gonna…."

Dennis stop mid-sentence. The strange pose he contorts his body into makes Charlie at first think it's because someone dropped an ice cube down the back of his neck, but then Charlie realizes he's ducking out of sight of the little window above Charlie's head.

"Long story short," Dennis whispers. "I banged some North Dakota trash, and that trash is standing right on the other side of that wall." Dennis points past Charlie. Charlie looks over his shoulder, then realizes there's nothing to see but wall and looks back at Dennis. "And I can't let her find me."

"Come over here, then," Charlie whispers back, indicating to the spot next to him by releasing his pinky finger from his beer can and pointing. "It's more hide-y." The way Charlie pats the floor beside him, beckoning Dennis over with his eyebrows raised, gives Dennis a flashback to the aforementioned "trash" patting the seat next to her, shortly after calling Dennis her fucking boyfriend of all things. Dennis represses a shudder,

But this time it's not her that's beckoning him, it's Charlie. He finds that thought relaxes him completely and he proceeds to crawl over, having to duck a little to get beneath the shelf that Charlie, due to their height difference, is sitting under just fine. It ends up with Dennis half-lying on the floor that Charlie's sitting on, and makes Dennis feel a little awkward, like he's too aware of the fact that he's really close to laying in Charlie's lap.

"Is she gone?" Dennis asks, and then swiftly regrets it when Charlie moves to get up. Dennis makes an annoyed noise and grabs his thigh to keep him sitting, grabs it a little high without meaning to, realizes it and lets go fast. "No, no! Don't get up. It was a dumb question. Just stay...in fact, no, come down here, lay down like me. Yeah."

Charlie sinks down lower on the ground without asking why, but now Dennis kind of feels like they're side-by-side in a really hard bed, which is awkward in a whole new different way. Then again, Dennis has actually had Charlie laying flat on top of him on a futon so he supposes this is pretty low-key as far as awkward situations go between the two of them.

"How will we know when she's gone?" Charlie whisper-asks. "Are we gonna have to stay here forever?" He looks briefly horrified, like he's honestly considering, like, forever. Dennis sighs.

"No, dude," Dennis whisper-answers. "We just gotta give it until the plane lands, then she'll have to go back to her seat so she can leave."

"How will we know when the plane lands?" Charlie asks.

Dennis purses his lips. "I admittedly don't know too too much about planes, but I have a feeling it's gotta be pretty noticeable when the plane hits the ground if you're laying on the floor."

Charlie hums. "I don't really get it, but I'm gonna trust you, cuz that's just easier to do, and I'm drunk, so I'm gonna pick 'easier' over, uh, the other one. I forget."

Dennis grins at that. "You should always trust me, Charlie. I never steer you wrong."

Charlie scratches his neck, then catches Dennis's eye and grins kinda sheepishly. "Yeah, I guess you're right, man. You're usually good to me, I feel like."

Sighing, Dennis lays down on his own bicep and tries to listen for footsteps. He doesn't hear anything, but he supposes she could be standing just outside. Best to stay put. He absently bites at his own lip while he tries to come up with a plan, and then he catches Charlie watching him do it.

He meets Charlie's eyes and gives him a slow smile.

"Hm?" Charlie asks, blushing a little. "Why're you lookin' at me like that?'

"Just reading your shirt," Dennis says, stretching slightly and pulling his own shirt taut over his chest. "So, fifty-seven?"

"Yeah," Charlie says, distracted, "reading" Dennis's shirt as he stretches, and then frowns. "No. Fifty-nine. I have to remember to tell Mac I drank two more."

"Wow," Dennis laughs through his nose. "That's almost sixty beers. You must be awfully drunk, Charlie." It's half-fond, half-teasing.

"Yeah, well," Charlie runs a hand through his hair, ducking his head like he's embarrassed but when he looks up again the gleam in his eyes seems uninhibited. "I mean, I'm good drunk." His lips, red and swollen from having brushed against the rim of five dozen beer cans, curve into a lazy smile.

"I bet you are," Dennis says. "In fact, I know you are."

Charlie opens his mouth to say something, but the sound of heels on the floor just behind the wall they're both against stuns him into silence, and his eyes go wide and panicked.

"Is it the lady?" Charlie mouths, then mimes glasses, large breasts, and….a beard? Huh? What is that?

Dennis doesn't have time to play charades. "Scoot!" he hisses, and then when Charlie doesn't obey, or more likely judging by his expression doesn't understand the request, Dennis gets a hand behind the small of his back and another beneath his knees and bends Charlie until he gets the hint and grabs his knees and then Dennis directs him to scoot up underneath the shelf, mostly hidden.

Just as swiftly, Dennis gets himself into a shape that would make a yoga teacher applaud, and nestles his body into a shelf of first-class yet-to-be-made-hot towels. They both hold still, holding their breath and maintaining eye contact the way two young children going to the doctor might hold hands.

A pair of high-heeled feet meander their way into the alcove. They stop just in front of Charlie. He squeezes his eyes closed, pinches his face up tight, tries not to be seen. Dennis holds his breath, watching with wide eyes and rapt attention. The flight attendant opens a file marked "Incident Report" that's been noticeably left out on a tabletop rather than put away. Dennis has a strong feeling it's been left out because the gang's antics that day had made it clear they weren't done making them need it.

The woman takes the papers and taps them on the shelf that Charlie's hiding under, one-two-three times. Dennis sees Charlie's fingers twitch in response to each tap. Dennis feels a sudden, almost insurmountable urge to shoot across the small space between them and take Charlie's hands in his own to make him stop.

The spectacled redhead carries the now evenly stacked papers and walks over to where Dennis is hiding. Dennis feels Charlie's eyes wide on him, but the woman merely grabs a stapler. There's a loud "click" that Dennis, not seeing the stapler, knows from context is a stapler and doesn't flinch at but Charlie, who should be able to see the stapler, flinches hard.

She sets the stapler down and carries her incident report packet around the corner and back out into the cabin. Dennis breathes a sigh of relief and shimmies out of his hiding spot. Charlie, who was far less crammed into his and could've gotten out much more easily, waits until Dennis is back out in the open to creep out of his hiding spot.

"That was intense," Charlie whispers. His face is red and his forehead is sweaty.

"Yeah, man," Dennis breathes. There's a distinct, heavy pause. They're both on their knees from crawling and there's not much space left in the area. Dennis can't stop staring at Charlie's collarbones, left exposed by the stretched-out collar of his slightly oversized V-neck.

Dennis finds himself reaching out to touch them. Charlie's breath hitches slightly but he doesn't make any move to stop him. Dennis trails his finger along his shoulder, along his collarbone, then creeps up along Charlie's neck. The feather-light touches should be tickling him; the look on Charlie's face says that's not quite the sensation he's getting.

"What...uh, what are you doing to me, Den?" Charlie asks, voice barely above a whisper, like he's not sure it's safe to speak yet.

"I dunno, Charlie, " Dennis murmurs back. "I must be... awfully drunk."

There's a breath of a second, two whole inches to move, and they're kissing. Dennis leans in first but it took only the briefest moment of instability to do it and now Dennis isn't sure he'll ever be stable enough again to stop. Charlie tastes like beer and cola and when Dennis lets Charlie get his tongue into his mouth he starts to kind of taste a hard liquor, too, and Dennis is frankly a little worried he still tastes like the inside of the mouth of a random girl from North Dakota, but Charlie keeps making these little noises that escape out the side of Dennis's lips, and they make him think that Charlie isn't minding anything about this at all.

When they break apart for air, a very breathless Charlie shakily breathes, "I love letting you make decisions."

Dennis grins. "You did say they made your life easier."

Charlie nods, weakly. "They do, they really do."

Dennis grabs Charlie by the belt-loops and pulls so their hips are flush against each other. "Seems like they make other things harder."

Charlie snorts. "I said I like your decisions, not your jokes." Dennis pulls on his belt-loops a little harder, moving him in a specific direction and notices that Charlie's lashes look really long up so close, especially when they flutter closed all flustered like that. "Mmm, okay, yes, though, more decisions."

"We gotta be quick," Dennis says, lips brushing Charlie's neck right at his pulse point. "We'll be landing soon."

"Then get…like..." Charlie squirms, maneuvering his thigh between Dennis's and vice versa, "here," and he rolls his hips against Dennis's thigh, and Dennis is groaning at the feeling of Charlie's trapped cock, feeling every hot inch of it against the skin of his thigh even between two layers of denim, getting him gasping and desperate even before Charlie's thigh is properly grinding against his crotch.

Dennis throws an arm around Charlie's waist, keeping him close, and then presses his fist against the small of his back to get him arching his hips more firmly against Dennis's and also, as a side effect, curving his back and pressing his chest up towards Dennis's face. Dennis takes advantage of the new position, tugging the collar of Charlie's shirt further out of shape until he can see the pink of his nipple. Dennis licks and sucks at the skin until he feels the bud harden between his teeth.

Charlie's arms are locked around Dennis's neck and he keeps getting Dennis's curls wrapped around his fingers as they scramble for purchase. He's probably doing it by mistake but the slight sting is driving Dennis crazy and the fact that it's not quite enough to really hurt is driving him crazier.

They're panting and gasping and if anyone came by they'd hear them immediately, but it's been a long time since Dennis felt anything like the way he feels when Charlie's eyes flutter closed and he makes the nicest noise and Dennis feels a hot splash on his thigh.

Charlie gets a hand inside Dennis's pants before Dennis has a chance to think, the other hand guides Dennis's jaw up so he can lick his way back inside of his mouth. And he's still grinding, whining, shamelessly wringing himself through his aftershocks against Dennis's thigh. God, Dennis loves drunk, shameless Charlie. Sixty beers in and horny is a good, good look on him.

Charlie pulls back and stutters out a moan, Dennis feels him squirt again through two layers of jeans and, god, the way Charlie squeezes his eyes closed at the same time he squeezes Dennis, the way he wrinkles his nose making the freckles go blurry even up so very close, the way his mouth falls open saying Dennis's name like it's a fucking prayer …

Dennis lets out a moan that would be perfect if it were performative like usual but it's real , and he gushes all over Charlie's hand.

He and Charlie have only a second to collapse onto each other and catch their breath before Dennis realizes that they've been very, very loud. He looks up to see if they've been caught.

They have.

"Oh my god, Boggs party, have some decency!" the attendant is shrieking. Dennis isn't sure how long she's been there or how long she's been yelling. Her hand is over her mouth and her cheeks are bright pink, but Dennis's keen eye catches that she is definitely not pointing her gaze in a chaste direction but rather seems quite interested in the way Charlie's now-wet jeans give such a good indication of what he's got inside.

"Oops," Charlie giggles, wiping his hand on said jeans.

"Hey," Dennis says. "Uh...so what happened here was, uh..."

"No!" She cries. "No! Just...stop...humping and get back to your seats, for the love of god! Do you not realize that the motherfucking plane is landing?!"

Intimidated into silence by the hysterical crack in her voice, Dennis grabs Charlie by the hand and pulls him down the aisle. They're drunk and didn't quite have a chance to come down from the high of coming just yet, so they're giggling like schoolchildren.

"What all did you touch? Oh, my god. This entire supply is tainted," the attendant wails, far behind them now. "What is wrong with you?"

"Oh my god, dude, I feel bad," Charlie says, but he's laughing so hard his ribs ache. "We just absolutely ruined her day."

"Whatever," Dennis says. "Hey, see you in LA, yeah? I gotta go drop off some trash in North Dakota." He starts to walks off without looking back at Charlie.

Charlie calls out, "Whoa, hey, uh, Dennis?"

Dennis turns around, his face both open and unreadable. "Yeah?"

"If it turns out that girl's staying on the plane," Charlie advises, looking like he's choosing his words real carefully. "You should probably not stay on it."

Dennis nods at him. "I should trust you more often, man. You never steer me wrong."

Charlie watches as Dennis walks, slowly, like a man condemned, back to his bad decision. He walks into the next cabin and drops down into a seat next to Dee, who's chugging a beer, cheered on by Mac up on his knees and facing backwards from the next row.

"By the way, I don't know where you've been," Mac says to Charlie while Dee takes a breather, "But as the Bud Selig of the group, I'm sweeping it under the rug."

"Appreciate it, man," Charlie says, then gestures at his stretched-out shirt. "Oh, I drank two more beers. Mark me, bro!"

Ten minutes later, Dennis is strutting in come-stained jeans through an airport in North Dakota.