Disclaimer: No matter how many birthday cakes I wish on Dead Poets Society still does not belong to me.
Greetings from Providence!
Chapter Six
Weirdly, having sex with a guy he's only known for a few days in a car in the parking lot of a zoo was not the strangest thing that happened to Steven Meeks that day. That would be after when they pulled up to Charlie's house.
"Charlie?"
"Yes?"
"Why is Dr. Murder standing on your front lawn?"
"Uh, about that-"
"Charlie!" Dr. Murder shouts waving his arms, "Code Red! Code Red!"
Steven is jolted with a sudden burst of realization. "Omigod, that's the guy from the house. Am I living in Dr. Murder's house!" He turns and glares at Charlie who is looking at the steering-wheel sheepishly trying to conceal a grin.
"Charlie!" Dr. Murder says again limbs flying akimbo as he runs down the pathway that leads down from Charlie's front door to the driveway. "Code red!"
Charlie rolls down the window, which is the old handcrank style and just aids in the ridiculousness of the situation. "Cat Dennings died!"
"No, that's code maroon! Jesus Charlie I made you a chart and everything it's not that hard to keep track. No Knox got dumped."
"So you brought him to my house?" Charlie rolls his eyes, "Thanks Neil, I really appreciate that. Nothing I like better than dealing with an inconsolable Knox on my day off." He climbs out of the car narrowly missing jamming the steering-wheel into his stomach. "Also don't you think my cat dying should be higher on the priority list, I feel like code red is like the worse thing that can happen. Knox gets dumped like twice a month."
Steven watches unsure whether he's supposed to follow or stay put until Charlie spins around clearly looking for him. He runs back to the car and pulls his door open leaning in close to whisper; "God, I'm so sorry, my friends are ridiculous, you're awesome, and you can totally come and have that shower. Did that sound like a come on? It wasn't. Just, you said you wanted to shower and-"
"Yeah, I got it Charlie." Steven said brushing past him and striding into the house with Charlie and Dr. Murder following behind. Clustered in Charlie's living room was a red-eyed Knox, a redheaded guy, a gorgeous women with the fairest blonde hair he'd ever seen, a blonde guy who seemed vaguely familiar and a dark haired girl. They all look up as he walks in. "Uh, hi. I'm just...don't mind me" He babbles making a bee-line for the stairs and banging his foot painfully on the wrought iron in an attempt to get up the stairs as quickly as possible.
Steven spends significantly longer in the shower than is really necessary, reading the labels of Charlie's shampoo and body wash, and it's not until after he's out of the shower fumbling for his glasses that he realizes that the shirt that's on the floor is not in fact his. "Oh fuck." He mutters running a hand through his wet hair debating whether he should just put the shirt on and go back downstairs or if he should hide up in Charlie's bedroom.
Hiding wins out. Though he does end up putting Charlie's shirt on, it's a long sleeve thermal, which is why he probably thought it was his. Only this one has a faded Harvard logo. Steven's unsure whether this means Charlie went to Harvard or if it's meant to be ironic. Or possibly both.
He can hear voices drifting up from the open space in the floor where the staircase is, the occasional shout or laugh breaking above the hum. Steven wanders around Charlie's room feeling like an intruder yet not being able to stop himself from snooping at least a little bit. He's got stacks and stacks of manuscripts which seemed to be in a random order, but now that he's looking more closely he can see that they're actually organized by category and flagged with little yellow post-it notes.
He picks one out at random, a sticky note on the top declaring it be: "Not total crap". Though that categorization causes him to question both Charlie's taste and how bad "Total crap" must be. He still has a grudge against teen fiction for ruining the quiet town he had moved to after graduation. Forks was actually a pretty decent place to live until all the fangirls showed up in droves.
Steven's a third of the way through a horribly written manuscript involving some chick who can see what people are thinking, not hear, but see. Like she goes around all day watching everyone's personal subtitles. Suddenly the top of Charlie's head appears on the stairs. "Hey," He says, "You can come down, almost everyone's gone. 'Cept Neil and Todd but they don't care."
"Uh, okay." Steven says setting the manuscript back on top of the pile and giving Cat Dennings a pat from where she's curled herself up on the duvet. Charlie's wearing his shirt and it gives him a weird little thrill that he's never had before. They're probably about the same size but he's got broader shoulders and he can see where it stretches a little.
"So, you're friends with Dr. Murder?" Steven asks following him.
"Yeeeeeah." Charlie says, "Though Neil's kind of embarrassed about the whole thing, it was his first acting gig. Though, I mean his dad did always want him to be a doctor."
"I'm sure it's exactly what he pictured," Steven adds quietly, Charlie's entire first-floor is really just one room afterall. For the neighbourhood it's tiny in fact, only one bedroom and one bathroom yet somehow it's large enough to contain Charlie and all his stuff.
Dr. Murd-Neil is sitting on a stool in the kitchen with the same blonde guy from earlier Ted or something leaning on the counter. Now that he knows he's Jeffery's brother he can see the family resemblance, the line of the jaw and the nose. Although this guy doesn't give off the same aura of self-importance.
"Hey," Neil says looking up and waving, his hands encased in Charlie's over mitts which just so happen to be in the shape of sharks. "Nice to see you again, Steve right?"
"Steven." Charlie corrects before Steven has the chance.
He nods affirmatively. "Did you guys go to Harvard together?" Steven looks down at his, or rather Charlie's shirt.
"No!" He says at the exact same moment that Charlie says "Yes!". "Er, um well I mean we kind of did. I went to MIT and Harvard's like just on the other side of the bridge."
"So we were only 364.4 Smoots away from one another. But like we didn't know one another."
"Plus or minus an ear."
"What?" Charlie says.
"It's 364.4 Smoots plus or minus an ear."
Neil nods vaguely, "Uh, okay." Luckily the timer for the oven decides to go off at that moment thus ending the awkwardness.
The unknown Anderson turns to Charlie, "Jeffery keeps texting me, says he sent you a message and you didn't reply."
Charlie sits down on Neil's vacated chair. "Yeah, well I'm on vacation, and he's on his honeymoon." he adds darkly. "Seriously Todd, I'm not Jeffery's personal lapdog, if he needs something he can call the office."
"Dude, who are you and what have you done to Charlie Dalton?" Neil asks his hands full of the try he pulled from the oven, "Cause last time I checked you were crying over your 5 year crush on Jeffery over his wedding cake."
"You're a dick." Charlie snaps.
"Yes. But I made candied bacon so if you want some you'll just have to deal with it."
"Uh, using my bacon, my sugar, my pan, and my oven. So no I really don't. Neil drop it seriously." Charlie says, all traces of humour gone from his voice.
"Alright, alright,Jesus." He pulls the tray out of the oven and branishes it in Todd's direction. "You want some?"
"Yeah, hmm, candied bacon, that definitely sounds like something I should be putting in my body. Isn't it like everytime you eat a piece of bacon you loose a second off of your life? You'd probably loose like five for everytime you eat that." Todd says.
Charlie halts, his hand hovering over the tray, "Wait. Is that true!" He pulls it back, which is probably a good idea, health issues aside, melted sugar burns are skinpeelingly awful. He looks over at Steven who just shrugs, he's less concerned with the fact that it could take 5 seconds off his life and whether his mother would at all be able to find out if he ate any. He hasn't gone to Temple in almost 2 years and he's still not sure how he feels about God, oh and that whole sleeping with dudes thing, but damn it, not eating pork was the only Jewish-y thing Steven was able to do. And he was loosing the battle on that one too with the introduction of candied bacon.
"You know, must people think that the Jewish dietary laws came about due to infections from tapeworm and other parasites from poor cooking methods." He blurts out.
"Wha?" Charlie asks, a piece of bacon in his mouth, apparently deciding it's worth the 5 seconds he's going to loose.
"I'm trying to justify eating this so I won't go to Jewish hell."
"I though Juadism didn't have a hell?" Neil asked his hand wrapped around Todd's waist, still encased in the shark oven mitt.
Steven took a long calming breath and then blew it out. "It's complicated. But I probably shouldn't. Just in case." He gives the tray one last sad glance. "So your friend, Knox, is he okay?" He asked.
Todd shrugs, "I guess it depends on what you mean by fine. I mean he's an absolute wreck-"
"-But that's pretty much normal for him." Neil finishes, "Knox's tends to get really attached to the girls he dates really quickly. I mean him a Tarah were only going out for like a month."
Jeffery had told Steven once that he was too distant, never as invested in the relationship as maybe he should have. In a stupid way he's envious of people who can become so invested in those they love, or those they think they love. Just open up their hearts and let everything in with no questions. But since holding Jeffery at arms length in an attempt not to be hurt had sort of worked maybe he shouldn't worry about it so much.
"Really he's still hung up on Chris." Charlie says from his perch on the counter, he bangs his heels against the lower cupboards, scuffing the cheap wood.
"Wait...are you all gay." Steven says. "Are you exclusively friends with the gay 20 somethings of Rhode Island?"
Charlie giggles, not laughs, actually giggles at him like he's 12 or something. "You're cute. No, Chris the girl from the zoo."
"Oh. You mean the cute blonde girl who said I'm taller than you?" Steven counters.
"Unfortunately we're going to have to add judging distance to Chris' list of flaws. The other things on the list is that she dumped Knox and also she won't give me a friends and family discount to get into the zoo. But alas, as always I formulated a brilliant plan while you guys just comforted Knox with empty words. I am throwing a party."
Neil groaned and Todd looked a little terrified. "Seriously Charlie? I thought the cops threatened to arrest you last time."
"What could they arrest me for? Showing people a good time?"
"Uh, no it's called disturbing the peace. Dude, look it up there was a whole episode of Dr. Murder about it."
This was true. The episode was actually about a dinner party Dr. Merder had thrown which turned into chaos after he turned in Dr. Murder.
"Need I remind you," Charlie says from his perch, "The last time I threw a party I did it because you had a crush on this shy writer I knew from work and I wanted to help get you together."
Todd turns to Neil wide eyed, "Wait, what?"
"Uhhhhh." Neil says. "We should go." He says half dragging Todd by the arm to the front door.
"You through a party to get me and Neil together? Who does that?" Todd snaps half at Neil and half at Charlie before he disapears from view out the front door.
"The best friend you will ever have." Charlie calls solemnly after them, he turns to Steven. "Party? You in?"
"Uh. I guess so." He says, flustered. "I'm probably not doing anything else."
"Good." Charlie says. "C'mere." He throws out one of his legs and uses it to hook around Steven's waist and pull him closer. He's still sitting on the counter so Steven has to look up at him slightly.
"Yes?"
Charlie runs his hands over his shoulders, "You're wearing my shirt."
"I am."
"We should fix that." Charlie whispers wetly against the shell of his ear, already running his hands up the back of his shirt.
So they do.
A.N. I seem to get a lot of inspiration for this fic while watching Food Network, which may explain all the awesome food.
-C