Here's the second chapter! Thanks to everyone who followed my story! However, if you are going to follow it, I'd be really grateful if you left a review. It doesn't have to happen every chapter (although that would be really awesome), but a review every once in a while is really inspiring. Okay, enough of that. Here's the next chapter, I hope you enjoy it. Also, don't worry. I promise this is a Charlie x Patrick story, its just going to take some time for these characters to figure that out. :)

Again, I don't own these guys.

2. Charlie

The months passed on in a similar fashion as those first few weeks, add or subtract a few details.

Dream about the Brad-who-accepts-us-for-who-we-are.

Fool around with the Brad-who-does-and-can-not.

Spend a week pining after the Brad-who-ignores-me-with-paranoid-fervor.

Repeat.

My main salvation from this inevitable course of events is on the Saturday nights, when the gang and I put on our Rocky Horror Picture Show Live. I, of course, play Franken-furter, and it is glorious. I mean, I get to prance around in a corset, black Speedo, fishnet tights and heavy make-up, lip-syncing to one of the best movie soundtracks ever written in front of an enthralled audience. It never gets old.

However, something out of the standard routine happened during on of the football games. I was shouting out fanatic encouragement to Brad, who happens to be our star quarterback, when I noticed the kid who laughed so hard during my Callahan impersonation sitting on the bleachers across from Sam and I. He was shifting nervously in his seat, throwing glances in my direction. I threw out the possibility of him having a boy crush on me (I blocked Sam from view, who was sitting on my other side, so the usual infatuation with her wasn't a possibility) and went with the notion that he might just be quite shy. Now that I think about it, I hadn't ever seen him hanging out with anyone. Surprisingly, he initiated conversation.

"Hi Patrick", he acknowledged me after a while of building up the confidence.

"Hey, you're in my shop class!", I replied. I was feeling pretty good watching Brad win the game, and I felt like this kid really wanted someone to talk to him. Plus, I was pretty pleased he hadn't addressed me as "Nothing". In middle school, some kids kept calling me Patty, so I told them to call me Patrick, or nothing at all. Naturally, I've been known as "Nothing" by everyone ever since.

"I'm Charlie", he answered in a voice that tried to be confident.

"And this is Sam", I said, leaning back so Charlie could see who I was pointing at. Sam waved and him and said hello before we asked him to sit with us. He agreed and I absorbed myself in the game and Brad's every movement again. I explained the details of the game, while Charlie listened intently. I felt an appreciation towards this strange, quiet boy who listened like I was telling a favorite story instead of a detailed football play-by-play analysis, so I invited him to come to the Big Boy with us after the game. He looked at me like I was a saint, or maybe an alien saint, and then agreed to come with us.

We all piled into Sam's pick-up truck with Charlie in the middle. I noticed the way Charlie would glance at Sam out of the corner of his eye, smiling faintly. I realized that he, like most any boy who had sat next to Sam for more than three minutes, was becoming quite smitten with her. This was something I would have to continue to observe. Sam attracted more guys than was for her own good, and most of them left her even further down in the dark hole she dug a little deeper every time she hooked up with another guy. So far Charlie didn't seem like one of these guys, but you never know. Sam is the closest friend I've ever had, and she is dearer to me than I could ever say. It has always been Sam who has helped me put myself back together every time things with Brad get to be to much for me to handle on my own. Which is often. She accepts me for who I am, and loves me for it, which never ceases to amaze me. So I have always tried to protect Sam from all of the guys that surround her, but I haven't really been able to do anything useful. Eventually, I just dropped back to comments like, "You deserve better". I hope that she'll believe me one day.

When we got to the Big Boy, we sat down at a booth across from the entrance; Sam and I together and Charlie on the other side of the table. We were both curious about this new friend of ours, and asked lots of questions, which Charlie answered honestly. He told us he was 15, and his Aunt Helen told him he should be a writer one day, but he didn't know what he would write about. I smiled and said, "Write about us. You can call it "the Slut and the Falcon", and we all started laughing. Sam then asked what his favorite band was, and he said the Smiths, which got the two of them talking. I decided then and there that Charlie was a good guy, if a bit awkward and quiet.

I let Sam carry the rest of the conversation about the books he'd read and such, partly because I decided I wouldn't mind it if someone like Charlie asked Sam out, and partly because I noticed Brad coming in with a few of his team mates. Brad directed them to a booth in eyesight of me, and we would occasionally glance over at each other and smile. This is as close to a date as I get with someone who is terrified of his homophobic father and friends finding out he likes to take it in the ass from "Nothing" Patty Patrick. I know its hard to have a homophobic family and that I probably could never understand just how difficult it is for him, but he chooses the friends he has. I used to hang out with the same "popular crowd" before I met Sam and realized I could have friends who liked me anyways and would never give my secret away. I just haven't seemed to be able to get through to Brad that it is possible to have friends who know who you really are and still like you.

I redirected my attention to the conversation between Sam and Charlie when he asked her how long the two of us have been going out. We both burst out laughing, and it was so funny it took a good two minutes to stop.

"What's so funny", he asked with a confused expression.

"We're brother and sister.", I told him through my continued laughter.

"But you don't look alike", he said, and I left it to Sam to explain how our parents had gotten married and how we were actually step-brother and sister. I couldn't help but notice a slight look of relief pass over Charlie's face once he realized Sam was still available. I smiled to myself and we spent the rest of the night talking about our different friends that he should meet and the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which he had never seen before. We invited him to come see it next time and with that, decided it was about time to head home. We drove Charlie home and when we dropped him off he looked at us like we were some sort of imaginary creation of his. I told him we would see him in school on Monday and then we drove off. I felt like I needed to reassure the kid that we liked him and would indeed see him again. He really didn't seem to have any friends other than us, as of that night.

On the way home I asked Sam about Charlie. She gave me her Sam expression, the one where she thinks I'm being very silly.

"Oh please, Patrick. He barely knows me. He's sweet and all, but I doubt he could handle me if he really knew what I was like", she said, eyes focused on the road.

"I'm pretty sure he wouldn't care if you were an alien from outer space. Did you see the way he looked at you? Besides, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would shun you for the skeletons in your closet", I retorted.

"Yeah, well, I don't think he's very serious. I don't want to be somebody's crush. Don't you dare give him any encouragement. I rather like him and would hate for things to get weird between us. He probably just doesn't meet many girls. He'll have a new crush next week". And with that the conversation was over, although I felt as though Sam was underestimating our new friend. All the same, I wouldn't go against Sam. I would introduce him to some other girls at the next party we have, and see how that goes. Besides, I had enough to worry about with my own love live, without getting absorbed in that of my sister and a guy I had just gotten to know that night.

Brad and I hadn't gotten a chance to see each other yet this weekend, and I was aching for him to show up at my door. But as we pulled into the empty driveway, I knew that couldn't happen. The only time he came to me was in the middle of parties, where he hoped that no one would notice if we were gone for a little while. Ever since I fell out with his crowd, he'd been coming to my parties, and all of our friends didn't care that I was gay, and didn't pay enough attention to notice that every time I disappeared, Brad would, too.