Thank you for reading up to this point. This is the third chapter. From here on out, I'll be further detailing the relationship of Charlie and Marcus. Please give me your feedback and please read the notice at the bottom when you're done.
"No my guh-sta." Charlie let out a heavy sigh, causing Tommy to look at the paper once again. "I'm not seeing the difference here, Charlie."
Charlie had been at it all day, attempting to teach Fuller simple phrases. Sadly, a slow day at the Clinic just meant that Charlie got to deal with attempting to teach an Americano, Spanish.
"You know what, screw it. Reading it isn't helping you." Charlie snatched up the paper, exasperated. "Now listen to the pronunciation. No-me-goosta." Fuller was finally able to repeat it perfectly, and Charlie soon began teaching him other phrases with the same method.
After what seemed like hours upon hours of working with a nearly incompetent American, Charlie was finally able to leave and see what Marcus was up to. The only problem with doing this was actually finding the guy. The only thing that Charlie knew about him was that he liked booze, so he had to be at a cantina, somewhere. As Charlie walked down the road, searching for any signs of the boy, he heard a very distinct, "El alcohol-o. God damn it! Booze! Booze you moron! How hard is it to realize I want booze? I'm at a fucking cantina am I not?"
Charlie rushed in to the building to find Marcus screaming at the poor bartender, who obviously didn't know any English. He grabbed on to the fuming boy in an attempt to calm him down.
Charlie looked at the struggling bartender, "No más, gracias." The bartender gave Charlie a thankful nod and ran off to attend to the other patrons.
"No! I'm not done with you, you bastard! I want my alcohol!" Marcus screamed, obviously unhappy with the disappearance of his supplier. Charlie ushered the boy out of the bar and walked him towards the condos.
"You are a pain in the ass." It didn't seem to be so much directed at Marcus as it was a flat out statement of fact.
"I love you too." Though this seemed to catch Charlie by surprise, the other teenager didn't appear moved at all by what he had said. He actually had just recently noticed Charlie's presence once he had gotten over his anger at the bartender. "You're awesome, Charlie. You know that? You're awesome. You can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but you really are a good guy."
"I'm a pain in the ass?" Charlie asked in surprise. He wasn't the one being dragged towards the condos, drunk off his ass. When no response came, he turned to see Marcus was quietly staring off at the beach while he walked. He was obviously completely tuned out of the conversation. Charlie let out a heavy sigh as he continued to walk Marcus back to the condos. "Yep, I'm the pain in the ass."
"Good morning, Charlie, why so tired?" Charlie raised his head from his arms and looked around to see where that voice had come from. Was it another dream where he heard her voice? It couldn't be; it was too real. "Charlie, are you okay?" A hand skillfully found its way to Charlie's forehead, and as he realized that it belonged to Brenner, his face turned bright red and his skin became hot.
"Yes. Sorry, I didn't sleep too well last night." It was true; Marcus had been annoyingly affectionate until he finally passed out at eleven. He would have fallen asleep much earlier, were it not for the seemingly infinite bottles of various alcohols he had hidden throughout his condo.
"Are you sure? Your face is really warm." Lily was now right in front of him, her face merely inches from his. Her breath was so sweet and warm, and she was surely the most attractive woman Charlie had ever seen. At that moment, he wondered how his gaze could ever stray from her face, and just like that, she was gone. She told him to try to rest better tonight and walked away, giving a brief wave in his direction before disappearing behind a door.
"So why couldn't you sleep last night, little buddy," Tommy seemed to appear just as quickly as Lily disappeared, "hot date run a little long?" Charlie could never seem to fully grasp at Fuller's humor, but he was pretty sure what the man was implying. Charlie simply scowled at Tommy before resting his head back on his crossed arms.
At noon, when every place in the village other than the clinic seemed to be filling up, Charlie awoke from his nap and spotted a familiar figure heading towards the building. He ran towards Marcus, wondering what he could have done to himself this time. When Charlie had come close enough to the boy, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with him other than the fact that he was cursing under his breath with each step.
"What the hell did you do to yourself this time?"
"I need aspirin, okay? The people at customs took all mine." Marcus was obviously in some sort of pain from the way he was acting. Charlie quickly figured out what was wrong with him.
"You drank too much, yesterday," he practically yelled. Charlie was obviously satisfied with the way that Marcus flinched and stuck his middle finger up at the direction the noise was coming from. "Do you remember anything about last night?" He was much quieter now.
"Not really." Pure panic suddenly showed in Marcus' eyes. "I mean, of course. You were amazing, Charlie. I'm glad you were my first."
"We didn't do that, dumbass." Marcus let out a sigh of relief when he heard this.
"Thank god. Because I have no recollection of last night, and selling that whole, 'my first,' crap is getting harder to do."
"You are extremely fun to talk to, when drunk, though. Much nicer than when you're sober. 'Charlie, you are absolutely amazing. You're like, you're like, you're like… candy. Yeah, candy. You're skin is like caramel, and your eyes are like chocolate, and you taste like sugar. You're like Charlie from Willy Wonka. You're my candy man, Charlie!" Charlie's slurs seemed to reawaken a memory in the back of Marcus' mind, and the look of surprise on the American's face was priceless.
Charlie expected embarrassment, or denial, but he was instead met with, "Shit, that does sound like me. That explains why I have 'The Candyman Can' permanently burned into my memory." Charlie couldn't help but laugh at this and dragged Marcus towards the clinic, wishing to get him in and out before Zee could notice him.
Little did Charlie know that it was far too late to hide the boy from Zee.
Otis walked up behind Zee as she watched Charlie and the boy head towards the clinic.
"What up Loca? Now who could do something so bad they'd get your pretty little face all scrunched up and angry?" he asked as he nonchalantly bit into the lollipop in his fist.
Instead of responding to his obvious come on, Zee pointed to Marcus and murmured, "Gringo." Cole looked at the boy and who he was with, then back at Zee. He looked at the boy and Charlie, and the two seemed to be getting along fine. Charlie was chatting along, laughing, and generally smiling more than he normally would; they overall seemed comfortable with each other.
"I don't get it, Loca. Charlie seems happy." Cole looked over at her, but she simply stared. Whatever it was, she didn't feel like sharing it. "Whatever it is, you'll eventually tell me. You can't resist this." Cole jokingly motioned to his body with his hands, causing Zee to laugh and hit him playfully. Soon after, she continued glaring at 'Señor Cox.'
Charlie had Lily make the transaction, not wishing to give Zee a chance to interrogate Marcus or having Tommy asking any questions. Lily handed Marcus the aspirin, for which he was very grateful, and Marcus handed her a stack of bills.
"Trust me; the service you have just provided for me is worth far more than this money, so just take it all." Lily gratefully took the wad of cash and left to show it to Zee and Cole. Marcus wasted no time in popping a handful of the pills into his mouth, downing them with a large gulp.
"You're lucky I didn't tell her why your head hurt, or you'd be in the middle of lecture gigante. Lily would rip you to shreds for drinking at your age." Marcus stuck his tongue out at Charlie.
Marcus then looked rapidly around where they were. Satisfied with the relative lack of people in the hallway, Marcus quickly kissed Charlie then attempted to escape, but he was quickly reeled in by the other boy. Charlie pulled Marcus in for another kiss and then whispered, "See you later; try not to get too wasted." Marcus simply nodded, for once having no snappy comeback. The boy looked at the other and walked away, almost as if he were uncomfortable with the situation.
Charlie began walking around the clinic to see if he could go do something interesting, maybe see what Fuller was doing.
Zee took the next hour or so off to have lunch. However, instead of lunch, she had far different plans. It was time to have a talk with this Marcus Cox.
"Hey, gringo! We need to talk about Charlie." That voice was familiar. Where had Marcus heard that before? He ripped the sunglasses from his head, wincing yet again when he managed to rip a few hairs from his head. He really needed to work on being a bit more careful with that. There, in front of him was a rather pissed off looking Doctor Alverez. This wouldn't be fun.
I know that it's extremely short, but I wanted to get this chapter over with. Please give me your feedback on the story so far.
Finally: I would like to announce that after this chapter the rating will be moved up to M because of Marcus' language and the adult themes. Please don't be turned off to it because of the rating, the only reason it is that way is to avoid violating any rules.
Thank you for reading, and please review so I know what you like and don't like. I would love to read your opinions about the story and how you think it's going.
Translations:
No más, gracias: No more, thank you.
Gigante: Giant.