This was prompted by the lame pun in the title of this 'fic. The wife egged me on. She is a bad influence. I hates her. Not really.
Summary: Even the robot has a birthday. Spoilers through the season three premiere. Rated PG-13.
Charles in Charge
It was their manager-lawyer's birthday in a week. It wasn't common knowledge: Charles Ofdensen had never sent an e-vite in his life, nor did he drop hints, surreptitiously or otherwise about what he might like, present-wise. The only reason the collective members of Dethklok knew that the CFO did, in fact, have a birthday was because Toki had snooped around in his office one afternoon while Charles fielded complaints elsewhere. In a meticulously organized file cabinet (one of four), he'd found all of the guy's birth certificates, and Charles', as well.
He decided to bring it up with his bandmates when they were on the road in their gigantic tour bus, because Charles wasn't ever-present, though they knew from experience that he was only a button on the video monitor away. "Sos, you guys, I was lookings in Charles' office and founds something very interestsings," Toki proffered.
Nathan looked nonplussed. "What, like a dildo or something?" he rasped. He smirked. "I bet he uses one."
Skwisgaar grinned, pausing as he toyed with his ever-present guitar, fingering the neck nimbly. "Ja, I bet he puts it up his-"
"No, wait, I'm not talkings about a dildos," Toki cut in. He beamed. "I founds out when Charles' birthdays is!"
Murderface, from the high rise area of the bus, looked down at him disdainfully. "The robot hasch a birthday?" he spat.
Toki looked a bit crestfallen, but soldiered on bravely. "He saveds us alls from financials destructions," he reminded them gently. "Don'ts you thinks he deserves someone to acknowledges his birthdays?"
"No," Murderface said immediately.
Nathan shrugged. "He doesn't tell us anything. He didn't even tell us about his birthday - you did." The front man squinted. "How old is he anyway?" he rumbled.
"Thirty-fives," Toki said proudly. He pointed at each of the band mates, loosely arranged in a semi-circle around him. "And Nathans is thirty-ones, and Skwisgaar is twenty-eights, and Pickles-"
"Somebody sahy my nayme?" the drummer drawled, walking into the gathering room area of the bus with a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair dripping from a shower.
"Toki was justs telling us how olds we weres," Skwisgaar sneered derisively. He pointed up at Murderface. "How olds is he?" he demanded.
Toki blinked. "Thirty-nines."
"Whoa," Nathan blinked. "You're older than all of us. Brutal."
"With age comes exscperiencsh," Murderface lisped, glaring. He pointed accusingly back at Toki. "Why haven't you told usch how old you are?" he yelled.
Toki shrugged. "I'ms thirty-twos."
"Yous older than mes!" Skwisgaar gasped. He stared moodily at his guitar after this, like it had personally wronged him.
"So, ah," Pickles finally intervened while Skwisgaar and Murderface brooded and Toki and Nathan just kind of stared around. "Was this sahme sort o' pahrty game?"
"Toki found out that Charles' birthday is coming up," Nathan informed him.
"Ah."
"That's rights!" Toki clapped his hands a couple of times. "We should gets him somethings. Or makes him somethings!"
Skwisgaar seemed to have found his voice anew. "Ja, yous could makes him another macaroni murder ladys," he said meanly. Toki's face fell.
Nathan waved his hand to shut them up. "Actually, that's a good idea," he muttered.
Pickles raised an eyebrow. "Macaroni ahrt?" he said skeptically.
"No. Making something. We could write him a song." Nathan's face was set in its usual vague scowl, but the band knew when he was onto something and paid attention accordingly. "Like, a tribute. You know, for being our manager. And stuff."
"You already wrote a schong for my birthday," Murderface frowned.
Nathan frowned back. "We're musicians," he scoffed. "That's what we do. I mean, except for Toki, who makes fucking murdered macaroni chicks for people." Toki sighed.
"Sos okay, but what kinds of songs?" Skwisgaar chimed in.
"Fuck if I know."
"Wehll, I dunno 'bout you guys, but I'm gonna get high and see where thaht takes me." Pickles left the room. When he came back, he was toting a new bottle of booze, his favorite bong, and probably some other things stored in the pockets of his robe.
Nathan looked at him. Pickles looked back. "That ... is a good idea," Nathan said at last, eyeing Pickles' stash appreciatively.
Hours later, the guys were collectively toked out of their minds, lounging around in a happy daze. At some point, they'd started watching re-runs on the Game Show Network, which had determined who among them had the mettle for "$100,000 Pyramid" (Nathan, mostly; Murderface had proven good enough at it, but he got angry and liked to punch TV screens when the contestants didn't answer quickly or correctly enough for him). They were collectively transfixed by "The Price is Right", particularly Skwisgaar, whose mouth watered at all the elderly women participants wearing cat sweaters. "I shouldsa been Bobs Barkers," he muttered.
Eventually, they started watching old sitcoms. Murderface hated Urkel, Punky Brewster, and especially "That stupid, curly-haired kid" from "Boy Meets World", but nobody wanted to watch "That 70s Show" besides him, nor did anybody but Toki laugh at the antics of the kids on "Saved By the Bell". "Oh, hey," Pickles said as the theme song for "Charles in Charge" riffed through the air. He began singing along, tapping out the rhythm on his legs. He was halfway through the chorus when he realized that everybody was staring at him. "What?" he asked. "Ain't you guys ever seen this show b'fore? It's ahawesome!"
"It's the worst show in the history of the universe," Nathan said flatly. Still, his face had firmed into an expression of lucidity. "But it's given me an idea."
The guys were terrible at keeping secrets. Charles knew something was up immediately when they arrived back at Mordhaus and couldn't keep from eyeing him surreptitiously when he was in the room. He'd even seen Toki and Skwisgaar look at him, look at one another, and then giggle. "So," he prompted when they were finished with their dinner. "Is there anything new?"
"Whats could possiblys be new?" Skwisgaar asked. The others were quick to chime in. Charles resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Finally, after some more obvious glances back and forth between band members, Nathan made a noise. "So like, we have something, uh, in the studio to show you," he mumbled. He never made eye contact. Charles imagined he'd gotten a lot of practice at it in the principal's office during high school before he'd dropped out.
Blinking, Charles followed the band to their private recording studio. Their instruments were already set up, save for Skwisgaar, who walked over to his amp to plug in his guitar. Charles perched on the edge of one of the room's leather couches, waiting patiently.
Nathan cleared his throat. He gripped a microphone in one beefy hand, and rumbled into it. "So we found out it's your birthday today," he began. "So we wrote this song for you. Well, I mean, we covered it. It's kind of a shitty song."
"Nathans, you're ruinings its," Toki complained, shouldering his instrument.
"Okay, fine, let's just play it. One, two, three ..." A heavy metal version of the "Charles in Charge" theme song began to form from the amassment of noise coming from Dethklok's instruments. "He's there just to take good care of me," Nathan shouted into the mic. He and Charles made eye contact: "Like he's one of the family."
"Charles in charge, of our days and our nights," the entire band chimed in. They sang the chorus together, and then broke away as Nathan muttered, "I want Charles in charge of me." Next came an impressive guitar solo by Skwisgaar, and then the chorus repeated. After the last chord held out, the room was silent, the members of Dethklok collectively watching their manager-lawyer, trying to determine whether he'd liked his gift; whether they'd done well; whether he was proud of them.
Charles blinked, once, twice, and then exhaled slowly. "Well, that was interesting," he said. He could tell the response was not what they'd hoped for - Toki looked despondent, and Murderface had begun biting his lip, a sign that he was going to have a tantrum. "Really, I liked it," he offered. "I liked what you did with the tune, and nobody was off-key." He sighed a little as he saw that the band still wasn't convinced. "It was a very nice birthday present," he said reluctantly. "Thank you."
"Yeah, well, you're welcome," Nathan muttered, but Charles could tell he was pleased. He politely excused himself to his office, his inner-sanctum, upon which he poured himself a glass of brandy and began sifting through some papers on his desk. Any of the truly important stuff he kept locked up - the file cabinets that Toki had found his way into did not contain any trace of the government operatives that he headed, nor his actual birth (or death) certificate, which he did not ever plan to show the band.
He'd expected them to be curious about him after a while, of course - that was why he'd planted the fake birth certificate in the first place. His boys weren't stupid - Nathan legitimately penned most of Dethklok's lyrics, and Skwisgaar really did have the fastest guitar fingers in the world. All of them brought their own talents to the group, and though Charles knew they tried to keep up an image of not caring, they spent a lot of time together, even in their downtime. It was an easy camraderie, comfortable, even, and Charles liked to see it. He liked it when they were happy.
That was precisely why he didn't want to ever have to tell them about everything that went into keeping them safe. It was too much, and their reputation of "most brutal metal band in the world" aside, he was pretty sure the information would kill them, metaphorically and otherwise. Charles didn't want that. He'd put far too much time and effort into Dethklok to see it get bogged down in the boys trying to deal with all of the things that their manager had put himself in charge. He did it because Charles Ofdensen loved them, and would willingly die for Dethklok. He already had.
He took a sip of brandy and smiled to himself, then made a mental note to get Dethklok's birthday present added to his iPod before his morning workout.