Disclaimer: No matter how many birthday cakes I wish on Dead Poets Society still does not belong to me.
Greetings from Providence!
Chapter Seven
Like relaxation it takes Steven remarkably little time to get used to sleeping with Charlie. So it's not at all weird, when 10 days into his vacation (and 23 days after getting dumped by Jeffery) he's waking up to the sounds of Bad Romance coming out of his phone with Charlie sprawled beside him facedown in the mattress and Cat Dennings curled up against his face. He half-falls out of the bed knocking down a pile of manuscripts and retrieving his phone out of his jacket.
"'lo?" He says without checking the caller ID, no point since his glasses are resting on the side table.
"Steven?" A voice says, just a little bit louder than in really necessary over the phone.
He silently curses, "Hi mom." He feels strangely guilty talking to his mother while only wearing his briefs, oh and one sock, even if it's only on the phone. "I, uh, I've been meaning to call you." He shoots a glance over at Charlie and pads into the bathroom wrapping a robe around himself. Now that the guy he's been having casual sex with is out of sight and he's slightly less naked he feels a little bit calmer.
"Your friend Jared-"
"Gerard." Steven corrects, his mother is infamously bad at names.
She sighs through her nose, "Yes, that's what I said. Your friend Gerald called me after I left you a message at home, he said you were in Providence of all places. Some sort of stress-leave vacation."
"Yeah. That's pretty much it." He lies.
"Is this about that boy your were dating? Jeremy?" His mother had been weirdly okay with him being gay. Actually the first thing she had said after he came out was 'Don't worry, we'll find you a nice Jewish boy'. She had been using Vermont's gay marriage as an incentive for him to move back home for years as well as trying to hook him up with one of her friend's sons, Isaac Goldberg. "Well he obviously wasn't the one. You know when I met your father-"
"It was like you were looking at an optical illusion and you finally saw the picture. Yes mom, I've heard."
"I just don't want you to give up hope. You know I saw a website advertised on television the other day-"
"I'm not joining J-Date." He scoffed, "I don't care if Brenda's daughter met her husband through it."
"Alright, fine, fine. Are you going to come home for Thanksgiving? I need to know how many people I'm cooking for. I'm assuming it'll just be you."
Steven looked down at Charlie's vanity, it was covered with soaps and lotions he had nicked from hotels and packages of pomade. "Yeah, just me." He looks at his reflection in the mirror.
"Hmmm, maybe I could invite Isaac Goldberg-"
"Goodbye mom." He says hanging up and setting his phone facedown on the vanity. His head hurts now, though whether that's from the phone call or being drunk under the table by Charlie's friends he's not sure. Surprisingly he really liked Charlie's group of friends, and he had never really been good at socializing with people. Last night they had gone out with Cameron who Charlie knew from boarding school and his wife Blix, who was from some unknown Nordic country, 6 feet tall and completely gorgeous. She was also able to drink 5 grown men under the table which just adds to her list of admirable qualities.
He pads back over to the bed throwing off the robe halfway. Charlie turns his head and blinks at him sleepily. "Hey."
"Hey," Steven says flopping onto the bed, Cat Denning's immediately climbed over Charlie and rearranged herself above Steven's head on the pillow.
"I think she's attracted to your hair. Like a bull with a red flag."
"There are so many things wrong with that sentence that I'm just going to choose to ignore it." Steven says "How's your hangover?"
Charlie hums, "Not bad. After a few nights with Blix you learn to stay away from the hard stuff. Who were you on the phone with?"
Steven groans but Charlie turns up onto his side to look at him, "My mom. She's trying to set me up with Isaac Goldberg."
"Who the fuck is Isaac Goldberg?"
"Literally the only gay Jewish guy my mom knows. She's still mad that my older sister eloped, I think she's trying to relive her wedding fantasy through me. But of course I'd need to have someone to marry first."
It was weird talking about his relationship woes with Charlie. Not that he thought they were anything serious because they obvious weren't, but still, it was awkward.
"I read somewhere," He adds after a pause so long Steven had actually thought he had gone back to sleep, "that in Judaism people are technically married after they have sex, is that true?"
"Eh, kind of. You need to have two witnesses to begin with."
"We could call Neil and Todd. We did have sex in their bed after all, it's only fair."
"You're the worst." Steven says hitting him in the face with a bolster pillow.
"Ow! Spousal abuse!" Charlie says tackling him and holding him down so he can plant wet kisses along his collarbone. And well that's that.
Charlie spends a lot of time over the next couple of days planning his party. Which he calls Operation Get-Chris-and-Knox-Back-Together. Naming things has never been one of Charlie's strengths. "Are you sure it's worth it, just to get some of your friends back together?" Steven asks looking over Charlie's shoulder at the laptop screen. He was planning to have the whole thing catered and everything.
"Please, I spent twice as much to get Todd and Neil together, besides what else am I going to do with all the money I inherited. I'm the only heir to two different families. Besides I'm a romantic." He firmly clicked the 'add to cart' button and shut his laptop.
"So, what are you going to be for the party?" He asked throwing and arm around the back of the chair, half so he could look at Steven and half so he could crack his back loudly.
"I beg your pardon?"
"It's a Halloween party, you have to come in costume." Charlie didn't roll his eyes, he didn't need to, his tone said it all.
"Can't I just wear orange and black or something?" This was traditionally how he avoided both looking like a fool and being called out as a spoil sport on Halloween. Once when he was in college he wore a cowboy hat, but that was about as elaborate as his costumes had been since he was 12 and he dressed up as Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet.
"It's a costume party," Charlie said again, "Don't tell me you're one of those people who doesn't like Halloween, or I may have to ask you to leave."
Steven actually had always liked Halloween as a kid. Though he had grown up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood the school's he had attended weren't. Unlike around Christmas when he always felt left out Halloween was something he had always been able to share with his school friends.
"Fine I'll dress up." He says relenting and Charlie grins at him stupidly happy. "So, Knox and Chris. True love forever and ever?" He perches himself on the counter because really there isn't anywhere else to sit in the kitchen with Charlie and a stack of plates occupying the chairs.
"Yes. And no." Charlie hums thoughtfully. "It's like, you know how people say getting back together with an ex is like putting bad milk in the fridge and thinking it'll be better later?"
"People don't say that but okay."
"Chris and Knox aren't like milk though, they're like I dunno. Pie."
"Pie?" Steven asks, Charlie really has a thing for these food analogies he's noticed.
"They just hadn't baked long enough separately, you know like the crust and the filling, so they didn't work when you put them together and you just couldn't keep cooking them like that. You had to make them separate again so they could get done." Charlie pauses, "Maybe eggs benedict would have been a better example. Let me start over."
"Charlie. I get it. I did graduate from MIT, please give me a little credit."
"Alright," He says, "But the point is I think they've grow up enough on their own and they could actually work out this time."
Steven frowns, the one and only time he had gotten back together with an ex it had ended with a rubix cube being chucked at his head. So he had his doubts that this whole plot would even work, but Charlie seemed happy planning his party and Steven wasn't about to burst his bubble.
Not until two days later when he's standing on his porch sorting the mail does Steven get a glimpse at how dangerous this could actually be. He squints at the Charlie shaped thing moving dangerous fast down the drive way. "What the fuck?" He mutters under his breath and then louder, "What the hell are you doing!"
"I'm skateboarding! Lookit me I'm a menace to society!" And that's when Charlie tumbles ass over heels straight into the concrete with a resounding crack which will haunt Steven's dreams for the rest of his life, he's sure. Then he's beside Charlie and he doesn't know how he managed to get from the gate to here but it doesn't matter because he's bleeding.
"Oh god, you're bleeding." He reaches up to wipe the blood out of Charlie's eyes. "You idiot! This is what happens to people with too much money and too little common sense! Fuck." He says, and then again. "Fuck." He can't tell where he's bleeding from because it seems to be trickling from underneath his hair. It might just be a scrape or something but head injuries are terrifying things so he calls the ambulance anyways.
So, 15 days into his trip Steven finds himself right back where he started, in the emergency room dealing with a head injury.
The paramedics are wheeling Charlie into an examination room. The blood was only from a scrape just above his forehead, under the hairline but they're worried that the impact may have caused some real damage. "Sorry," The paramedic says to Steven, "Immediate family only."
"No," Charlie says reaching for his sleeve, "No, he's my husband. We're commonlaw." He says, sounding a little hysterical. Which might explain why Steven doesn't just yank his arm away and contradict him. After all he doesn't want the doctors to think Charlie has brain damage or something.
"Alright." The paramedic says leading them into an examination room, she helps Charlie up onto the table where he sways once dangerously but otherwise seems fine. Steven steadies him and smiles at her until she leaves the room. Then he turns on Charlie.
"What the fuck!" He asks, angrily but not loudly. "You can't just lie to the hospital! I'm not your-" He stops, Charlie is trembling against his arm where he's supporting him. "What's wrong? Charlie?"
"I fucking hate hospitals." He squeezes out, "Doctors, dentists. I just can't, okay. I'm sorry."
"Oh." Steven says dumbly, feeling like a total asshole.
Which is why when the doctor's come in to examine Charlie (he does have a mild concussion) Steven just holds his hand and doesn't say anything unless he's spoken to. Then he drives Charlie back to his place with a list of care instructions ("Now no strenuous activities you two." The doctor had said) and expects Charlie to go to sleep on the couch. Only he doesn't. He follows Steven up to his room and curls around him on the bed sighing and whispering "Thank you".
Suddenly everything's messy and complicated and scary.
And Steven doesn't give a fuck.