A/N: Pretty shocked I've never seen this before so I decided to write it myself.
Charlie sat at the bar forlornly; Dee and Dennis were out "Christmas planning" as they said, Mac was probably pretending to work out somewhere, and Frank—well, he preferred not to think about what Frank got up to when he wasn't around. By all logic, the bar should be open. But, well, Charlie was the janitor, not a bartender. And everyone would never let him live it down if he tried it.
No—to hell with them. He'd do it. He'd open Paddy's up without them, he'd serve the drinks and clean the glasses. He could do it; he wasn't a monkey, after all. How hard could it be? Standing up resolutely, he pulled his hat and jacket on and marched outside. Besides, it was a Tuesday, two days before Christmas, at noon. No one would come in anyway, but when the rest of the gang did, and they saw Charlie, suave and independent behind the bar, they'd have no choice but to cut him some slack.
So, he unlocked the front door, pushed the graffiti covered gates up from their place in front of the small windows, and set to work wiping the tables down with a clean-ish rag soaked in bleach water. He entertained himself as he worked, telling himself jokes, singing little songs, and the first hour seemed to pass like twenty seconds.
The second hour…well, that was a whole other story. It didn't take him long to realize that without anyone else, this place was not only lonely, but also boring. So, he popped open a beer and began drinking.
It was probably on his third beer—two or three in the afternoon, he thought—that someone finally walked in. He was standing languidly behind the bar, his awkward form swaying slightly with his hands splayed out on either side of him, "Heyo! Welcome t' Paddy's, I am the tender of this 'ere bar, what can I do you for?" He called out, merrily-in his opinion, to the man who walked in.
He looked about Charlie's age, but he had a good half a foot on him, plus the rugged good looks of an action movie star. The kind of guy Mac would go gay for. And, god, he looked fucking familiar as fuck. His long-lashed eyes blinked bemusedly at Charlie before chuckling and finally, "How 'bout a whiskey—double actually."
The small man picked up the tumbler, nodding and smiling, and then turned to the wall of liquor, looking for the right bottle, "Uh—" he could do this, he could do this. He coughed once and reached forward to pick up a bottle of amber colored liquor in front of him. Maybe he couldn't read, but he was pretty sure he knew what whiskey looked like. Pouring the other man a generous glass, Charlie replaced the bottle and passed the strange, beautiful thing in front of him the glass. "H-here."
"Thanks, dude." The stranger looked tense, though, that wasn't really shocking considering he was drinking a double whiskey at two in the afternoon at a shitty bar in a shittier part of Philly. "Guess you guys don't get much business, huh?"
"Nah, not really. Dennis an' Mac—they own it—don't tell 'em I said this but, they're not—" He cut himself off when he heard the door swinging open, jumping slightly. He'd just been about to totally tear down his best friends to some stranger. Holy shit.
"Charlie! What the hell bro!" Mac called out to him, "What're you doin' dude? What is this? Why're we open?" He looked at Charlie as if daring him to answer.
"Dude, I was so freaking bored, man, you don't even get it! I was sitting around waiting for anyone else t' open the place up, but no—you all have better things to do than open up the bar. So poor ol' Charlie here had to do it, you see, I just had to." The verbal diarrhea spilt from his lips as he tried to explain himself to his clearly irate friend.
His clearly irate friend, who would clearly kick his ass if he didn't get out from behind the bar.
Scurrying out from behind the bar, he noticed the guy watching them curiously. Then he noticed the guy coughing softly to get his friend's attention, "Guessing this is either Mac or Dennis, am I right?" He looked back at Charlie and smiled a smile that looked half amused, half disgusted. What was he disgusted with? The way Charlie let himself get treated like a servant?
Charlie shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot, "Uh, y-yeah. That's Mac." God, thank heaven he'd never had the chance to say what had almost come out of his mouth. The guy's would've killed him if they'd heard some of the stuff he thought about them when they weren't around.
But they were fucking assholes. It didn't make them any less his best friends; it just meant that sometimes, he wanted to kick their dumb, douchey asses. But he didn't. They were all he had, honestly, and he wouldn't give them up for the world. Most of the time.
"So, what's this Charlie, we leave you on your own for a few hours, and not only do you open up our bar without anyone else, but you start talking about me and Dennis to strangers?" Charlie wanted to roll his eyes, but he didn't. He wanted to laugh, but he didn't.
"Whoa, your buddy here's just been doin' his job, hombre. I think you might need a chill pill." Oh, god. The strange, familiar handsome man didn't know what he wasn't getting himself into.
"Chill? You're telling me to chill?! Excuse you, Mr. Nobody, I believe this is between me an—" Mac's face went slack and he stared intensely at Mr. Handsome-Nobody, "Holy fucking…you're Dean Winchester!" He exclaimed, his eyes still wide as he pointed at the man, "Charlie, Charlie. Remember Dean?"
Holy shit. No wonder he looked so fucking familiar. Dean Winchester and his brother had gone to school with them, just for a few months, but during that time, the gang had completely hero-worshiped the guy. He was tough, he drove a boss car, he was a lady killer, and he was wittier than anyone that handsome had a right to be.
Mr. Handsome-Winchester-Man for his part looked tense and on-guard. Well, more tense, more on-guard. "Am I s'posed to know you?" He asked tersely, looking between the two other men.
Taking a seat beside his long-time idol, Mac shooed Charlie back behind the door, ushering for drinks, before turning back to Dean, "Uh-Yeah, dude, we went to high school together, remember? Eleventh grade? We used to hang out with you?" That wasn't exactly how Charlie remembered it, as far as he remembered, Dean had hated having them around, but after the gang had all burst into tears, sans Dennis, who hated the guy, he begrudgingly let them stalk him.
And he did mean stalk in the very literal sense.
One day, however, a ragged looking man had grabbed Charlie while he followed Dean silently, holding a hand over his mouth and a knife to his throat, "Scream, boy, an' I'll bleed you like a stuck pig." He had released his hand from Charlie's mouth before continuing, "Now, the hell d'you think you're doin' followin' my son around town?"
"I-I-I-I-I—" His mouth opened and closed, like a fish trying to breath out of water.
"You, you, you, what boy? In fact, how do I know you're even a boy?" The man's voice got dark and cold, and Charlie's blood was racing in his veins, as if its movement could somehow propel him out of the man's grasp and away to safety.
He gulped, "He's just so…cool." What else was there to say? That…was what it came down to. Dean Winchester was the coolest kid he'd ever seen.
The man chuckled in disbelief and threw him from his grasp, "Kid, you're one weird son of a bitch, know that."
"Hey!" Charlie called out indignantly, "My mom's not a bitch!" That did it for the guy, he doubled over in laughter, shaking his head at the young man in front of him.
"Nah, you're right. Sorry kid. This whole thing's been a big misunderstandin', 'kay? Just don't creep around my son like that no more, got me? You wanna talk to him, go talk to him. 'Fore he's the one with the knife to your throat." But Charlie didn't. He just stayed away after that. Scared enough to leave the other teenager alone entirely, even at the goading of his friends.
So…yes, Charlie remembered Dean Winchester.