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Charlie wakes up in Paddy’s basement to a puddle of his own vomit. Everything hurts, an ache he can feel all the way to his bones. His skin is crawling with a million little spiders digging into his body and making a home there.
He doesn’t remember what happened last night. Every time he tries to think about it his head spins. He can feel someone shaking him, but his ears are ringing and his vision is blurry and he just wants to go back to sleep.
He tries. He closes his eyes but a sharp slap to the face has them open again.
“Hey!” he tries to say, but his tongue feels too big for his mouth so it comes out as more of a pathetic groan. Talking makes his head hurt. A lot . He winces in pain, even as the hands keep shaking him.
Everything is still fuzzy, but slowly it’s coming into focus. Mac’s face is in his, close enough that he can smell the beer on his breath. Charlie cringes away.
“Du’ ge’ ‘ff,” Charlie doesn’t know why his words keep getting all jumbled and slurred, it’s like his brain forgot how to make his mouth move.
Mac doesn’t back away though, and has his vision clear, Charlie can see Dennis, Dee and even Frank standing behind him.
Charlie groans again and shoves at Mac’s face, trying to push him away, but his hands feel like they’re made of lead and disconnected from his brain so it doesn’t do much.
“Sleepy,” Charlie mutters, letting his eyes close again. God, he really is tired, tired enough to sleep for days, maybe never even wake up.
Mac slaps him harder this time, enough to make his damaged brain rattle in his skull.
“Ow!” He yells, then winces at the volume of his own words.
“Stay the fuck awake Charlie,” Dee snaps, hoisting him up from under the arms. Her hands are big, touching his body in ways he doesn’t want, and shoved into his mouth so he can’t scream.
Despite how weak he feels, Charlie lashes out, kicking his legs and screeching like a banshee and trying to ignore the feeling of being pressed into a bed, held down by strong hands that gag him until he’s sputtering and choking. He feels like he’s drowning, because this wasn’t supposed to happen anymore, not that he’s a grown man and can defend himself.
Small hands, roaming his body and telling him everything is okay and to not be too loud because Mom is in the other room Charlie, you don’t wanna wake her, do you? And Charlie’s confused because wrestling with Mac doesn’t feel this bad and scary like this does.
So, Charlie screams because he finally has the chance and turns to bite the hand on his shoulder, tasting blood.
Someone else screams too, high-pitched and annoying. Probably Dee, stupid bitch. It just makes him clamp down harder because he feels weak and stupid and he isn’t sure what else to do. His vision dances with black spots, little spiders probably trying to eat his brain. Charlie feels like he can’t breathe.
“Jesus Christ Deandra, get away from the kid,” someone snaps. It sounds like Frank, always so protective of Charlie. It feels nice to know that even when his real dad is dead and floating in the Irish Sea, Frank has his back.
Dee must let go because he slumps awkwardly against the wall. His vision clears. Mac is still in front of him, only a little farther away this time. Good. Charlie’s feeling fuzzy and weird and needs his space right now.
“Everyone out,” Dennis snaps, his voice leaving no room for argument. He keeps a hand on Mac’s shoulder though, ensuring he’ll stay. Charlie can’t help but be thankful for that.
He needs Mac right now. Mac, who'd always been there when Charlie felt this way before, standing guard by his bedroom door when they were little kids and Charlie begged him to come over because The Nightman had visited again.
Charlie needs Dennis too. Dennis who’ll call him names like pal and buddy , names that should probably make him feel stupid but just make him feel safe. Dennis has big big feelings in his own messed-up way.
Frank and Dee leave. Frank will probably yell at her. Serves her right, stupid bitch.
Mac settles into a more comfortable position on the floor. Dennis stands over him, likely worried about getting his pants dirty or some shit. Charlie just curls further into himself, trying to be small. His head is still pounding. His throat is raw and burning.
Everything hurts, even his insides all twisted up with spider’s silk.
They all stare at each other. Well. Mac and Dennis stare at him, with squinted eyes and furrowed brows. Charlie just looks at the floor.
“Wha’ happen’?” Charlie finally asks after the silence becomes too much.
“Charlie,” Mac heaves a heavy sigh.
“That’s what we were gonna ask you,” Dennis says.
Charlie doesn’t have a response for that. He just sniffs and scratches his nose. As he does so his arm rubs against the fabric of his shirt and it hurts.
Charlie hisses in pain and looks down and oh . There are cuts littering his entire forearm, not enough to make him bleed out, but enough to hurt . And now that he sees them, they really do hurt. There’s more than he can count (not that Charlie can count very high). They’re on both arms, the little superficial cuts stand out stark against his pale skin.
He feels dizzy, head spinning as he takes in the scratches. The room is spinning, his ears ringing and he can’t stop himself from leaning over and vomiting. He gags, body painfully lurching with each dry heave.
Mac just barely misses being spewed on, leaning out of the way as Charlie hacks up whatever’s left in his system.
Mac puts a gentle hand on his back and rubs slow soothing circles. Charlie leans into it, catching his breath. Then Charlie looks to Mac and Dennis for answers. Their eyes are squinty and brows furrowed with what can only be described as worry.
“Wha’s goin’ on?” Charlie tries again.
Mac runs a hand down his face with another sigh and looks at Dennis desperately. It makes anxiety swarm in his stomach, like a bunch of wasps buzzing around. Charlie numbly wonders if he should try to throw up again to get them out.
But forcing himself to puke again would just make Dennis and Mac more worried and there’s already an impressive puddle of vomit on the floor, void of wasps and spiders, so he must be okay. Or, at least okay as he can be right now.
“We found you passed out on the floor with these,” Dennis finally says, holding out a little orange bottle. Charlie squints at it.
He takes the bottle in a shaky hand. It’s empty.
It takes Charlie a second to remember why but then he wishes he didn’t.
———
Charlie was on his way to the waitress's apartment, hoodie pulled up to protect himself from the rain. It was still mid-day—the perfect time to check up on the Waitress as she was away at work—but dark out thanks to the storm.
He didn’t mind. Rain and sewer water were basically how Charlie bathed himself anyway.
He was having a bad day but wasn’t even entirely sure why. The gang hadn’t done anything especially cruel to him lately, he didn’t have to sleep in the bar because Frank had some whores over and he didn’t have any nightmares.
He just felt bad, but not the way he does when he goes to his Bad Room. He feels… defeated. Now that he thinks about it, he has for a while. There have been so many days where he didn’t want to get out of bed when he wanted to drink himself into a coma.
And it’s so fucking hard to even explain the emotions bubbling up inside him because Charlie has never been good at words. Maybe he could explain it in Irish but that just makes him think of body bags and a dad who never cared and the rough waves inviting him to jump off a rocky cliff.
He currently was drunk and high, having huffed too much glue and drank too much beer but that’s nothing new.
This feeling of utter despair though. That’s new.
He feels small and hopeless. A forty-something-year-old man with no purpose in life except for bashing rats and cleaning toilets.
Charlie’s not as stupid as he seems, he knows the bar only stays open because he’s able to clean up the rest of the gang's shit. But at the same time, he wonders if things would be better without him. If things would be easier for the gang.
Mac and Dennis wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore. Charlie hates the way their eyes squint at him when he says something particularly self-destructive.
Their friendship might be old, but their relationship is new and budding and Charlie feels like he’s failing them in every way. He doesn’t have sex with them, can’t offer them protection like Mac can, or carefully thought out advice like Dennis. He’s just stupid little Charlie, who causes more problems than he fixes.
He thinks about the waitress more than he should for someone in a relationship (he’s been pinning after her and keeping her safe from afar for years and he’s supposed to just stop? What if she gets hurt? It would be all his fault).
He’s dead weight. A pathetic man who is sad and lonely even when his boyfriends are sitting next to him.
It makes him wanna die a little.
He wouldn’t have to see Dee, the look they give each other every time they meet eyes, a shared fucked up history that neither of them will talk about. Would she care? Probably not. She’d just be happy there’s one less person calling her a bird.
Maybe Frank would care. He likes to act like he doesn’t, but he treats Charlie better than he treats his children.
Even as Charlie goes through his routine, he can’t stop thinking about being six feet under or even thrown off a cliff, body as lifeless as he feels as it hits the inviting waves of an angry sea.
He hates bad days like this. Hates his stupid fucked up brain. Hates how he doesn’t wanna get out of bed, how he wishes he could melt into the futon like he was never even there in the first place. Hates how he cries like a pussy once he knows Frank is asleep, muffling the sobs into his pillow.
Charlie hates how these days have been happening more and more frequently.
When he gets to the waitresses house he does as he always does, numbly going through his routine. It was when he was going through her medicine cabinet that he saw it.
A little orange bottle of pills. They must be new because Charlie has never seen them before. He picks it up, struggling to read the label, only really picking up that they’re for anxiety and a controlled substance.
Without a second thought, he put them in his pocket. Maybe they could help get rid of the spiders that crawled around his brain? Maybe it would finally help him get a good night's sleep, one where he’s not gasping awake, deciphering if his dream was just that, a nightmare or a fucked up memory he’d long since repressed.
Later, when he’s still feeling like a piece of trash (and not the cool kind that he and Frank find) he grabs the pills and takes one with a swig of beer. He’s in the basement. There are rats to bash but yuck puddles to clean, but Charlie can’t seem to peel himself off the dirty floor.
Everything feels numb and horrible and with a thumbtack he found on the ground he starts drawing tiny lines on his arms, trying to make himself feel something , anything , even if it was pain.
It works, a little, so he does it again.
Three tiny superficial cuts on his arm. Then another three. Then another.
One, two, three so Charlie doesn’t die.
One, two, three so Dennis doesn’t get in a horrible car accident after drinking too much beer and getting behind the wheel.
One, two, three so that Mac doesn’t get in a fight he can’t win and hits his head on the pavement and bleeds out.
One, two, three, so that Frank lives forever because he’s old and nothing scares Charlie more than losing the only people who cared about him.
One, two, three, so that Dee stops hating herself and taking it out on men like Charlie, who are desperate for any kind of positive recognition.
One two three so Charlie stops feeling this way.
He grabs the orange bottle. One two three. He washes them down with beer and waits. Nothing happens. It’s not like huffing glue where the high is immediate. But Charlie needs to forget everything and he needs to now, so takes three more, hoping that this time it will make it all go away.
It doesn’t so huffs some more glue. And takes three more.
Then everything feels fuzzy and weird and Charlie is so so tired and cold and even though a small part of his brain realizes that was a bad sign, he closes his eyes. He wouldn’t mind sleeping for a long, long, time. At least until this horrible feeling went away.
———-
“I think I tried to kill myself,” Charlie says without thinking, his voice raw. He doesn’t look up at Dennis and Mac, afraid of their reactions. They all make fun of Dee for her fucked up thoughts of death. If Mac and Dennis do the same to him, Charlie doesn’t know what he’ll do.
Probably take more pills.
No one says anything for a long time. Charlie feels like he’s choking on the silence. He keeps his head down.
Then the strong unmistakable arms of Mac are wrapping him in a tight hug, a little awkward since they’re both on the floor but comforting nonetheless. Charlie can feel Mac shaking as he crushes Charlie against his chest.
“Jesus Christ Charlie,” Dennis finally says, breathless. “Don’t fucking do that.”
“Hey,” Mac snaps in return, his voice thick. “Don’t be an asshole.” He’s still shaking.
“Killing yourself is so God Damn selfish,” Dennis continues. “What the hell man.”
Charlie sniffles because Dennis is right but that still doesn’t mean Charlie is totally okay with being alive.
“Dennis, lay off,” Mac says, his voice leaving no room for argument. It makes Charlie feel a little better knowing that Mac won’t let Dennis yell at him like that.
“It’s okay,” Charlie shrugs. He knows that’s how Dennis shows he cares, by lashing out because he doesn’t know what else to do with his big emotions besides being angry.
“No, it’s not,” Mac says, pulling away. Charlie mourns his touch, but then Mac gently cups his face and turns it side to side, examining every inch.
“Why?” When Mac says it his voice sounds small and broken. Charlie hates himself impossibly more for making Mac sound like that.
He wants to apologize. Instead, he says “I’m too sober for this.”
Dennis scoffs. “Dude, you almost died because you weren’t sober enough .”
“Yeah,” Mac agrees. “It was scary as hell walking down here and seeing you passed out in a puddle of your vomit. And you’re like, cold as shit. Like, something is seriously wrong.”
Charlie winces. “Sorry,”
“Don’t be,” Mac says but Dennis is quick to cut him off.
“You should be,”
Charlie's breath catches and he blinks rapidly to try not to cry, because god damn it, he is sorry. He’s so fucking sorry Dennis and Mac had to see him like.
“What the hell would we do without you?” Dennis continues. “No actually, don’t answer that. I don’t even wanna think about it. But now I am god damn it, god damn it, Charlie .”
Mac glares at Dennis before turning back to Charlie. “You’re shaking a lot too,” he says, and that’s when Charlie realizes he is shaking, and hard, shudders that rack his entire body. His breath is fast and shallow too, like it’s stuck in his diaphragm instead of his mouth like it’s supposed to be.
“Am I dyin’?” Charlie croaks, because he kinda feels like maybe he is. And now that Dennis is chastising him, he doesn’t want to anymore.
Mac runs the pad of his thumbs under Charlie’s cheeks, wiping away tears. And. Oh. He’s crying too.
“No,” Mac is quick to say.
“I won’t fucking let you,” Dennis replies. Mac looks over his shoulder again and there must be some unspoken communication because the next thing Charlie knows Mac is dragging him to his unsteady feet.
“Can you walk buddy?”
Charlie shrugs, letting Mac manhandle him up the stairs. Frank and Dee both turn to stare at him and Charlie shrinks under their gaze.
“Charlie—” Dee starts but Frank elbows her in the ribs and she shuts up, watching as the three of them stumble out the door.
Dennis climbs in the driver's seat while Mac settles into the back with Charlie, letting Charlie burrow into his side.
The drive is blurry. Charlie keeps going in and out like a radio station that’s a touch too far away to keep listening to. Charlie’s not even sure where they’re going, not that he particularly cares. At one point he feels Mac’s arm gently carrying him.
He trusts Mac and Dennis though. So he lets them take care of him.
———-
Charlie wakes up warm and comfortable in a bed that isn’t his own. He starts to panic, eyes snapping open and chest heaving. He’s about to make a scene when it all comes flooding back to him.
The pills, the gang finding him, Mac and Dennis driving him to their place, checking his temp tire, and forcing him into a warm bath.
He remembers Mac whispering things about hospitals and doctors and pretending not to hear. He remembers Dennis putting lotion that stings on his cuts and carefully pressing bandaids to them. He remembers collapsing into Dennis’s bed, his two best friends sandwiching him on either side.
Charlie is still wrapped up in their arms now, Dennis’s head on his chest and Mac’s arm thrown around his stomach, holding him close.
It feels nice, and safe in a way Charlie hasn’t felt in a long time. He’s asleep again in a matter of minutes.
———
Charlie Kelly has a weird relationship with sex. He doesn’t dislike it, but he doesn’t like it either. He doesn’t seek it out like Mac or Dennis do or is addicted to it like Frank probably is.
He doesn’t hold people down and do things to them they don’t want like Dee. He doesn’t come in the middle of the night to play snuggle bunnies or wrestle.
He barely even has sex in the first place. He doesn’t like it. It’s gross and sticky but in all the wrong ways.
So when Charlie wakes up screaming and thrashing, he’s not surprised the nightman had crawled into his head and made a home there for the night, taunting him with memories Charlie thought he’d long since repressed.
Maybe taking too many pills and huffing too much glue and drinking too much beer will do that to you.
Dennis is already awake and immediately puts space between him and Charlie. Charlie can’t help but be thankful for it. If anyone understands the nuances of repressed painful memories surrounding sex and childhood, it’s Dennis. He sits crisscross on the edge of the bed as Charlie pushes himself up to face him.
“Hey buddy,” he says, voice soft in the way he only reserves for Charlie. “How you feeling?”
Charlie just shrugs. He feels physically better than earlier, but mentally still just as shitty. He hopes Dennis doesn’t ask him about his feelings. Neither of them are really the talk about their emotions type.
Mac isn’t here, probably in the shower or cooking breakfast. Now he’s the talk-it-out kinda of guy. As much as he loves to react with psychical violence he’s also the only one to get Dennis and Charlie to open up.
“Did you really try and kill yourself?” Dennis asks not one to beat around the bush. Charlie shrugs again.
“It’s a yes or no answer Charlie,” Dennis snaps. “Did you try to kill yourself?”
“I dunno okay!” Charlie responds, voice shrill, anger his go-to emotion. “God, leave me alone.”
“No. You don’t get to be alone after pulling something like that.”
Charlie huffs, frustrated and annoyed that Dennis is right.
“I didn’t want to kill myself,” he finally says. “I just wanted it all to stop.”
“What to stop?”
Charlie waves his hand uncomitetly. “The nightmares and spiders in my brain and ghouls in my stomach and shit.”
“So you thought stealing the waitress's pills would help?”
“Why do you even care!” Charlie screams, throwing his hands up in anger. Dennis’s face flashes with hurt, but Charlie ignores it. “I overdose on glue like every other fucking night and you never said anything then!”
It’s enough to shut Dennis up. He sits there with his lips pursed. Charlie squirms in the silence and refuses to look up from where his hands are resting in his lap, picking at a thumbnail. He also won’t look at the bandaids plastered all over his arms because if he pretends hard enough then none of last night is real.
“Of course I care Charlie,” Dennis finally says after a minute, his voice uncharacteristically small. He sounds choked up and it’s enough to make Charlie look up. “I don’t want you to die . I don't want you to want to die.”
Charlie scratches his nose. “What if I want to though?”
“Then we’ll take care of it,” Mac says, entering the room and making Charlie jump. He smiles sheepishly and sits right next to Charlie.
Charlie sniffles. He feels small and hates it, hates it when his boyfriends worry about him. “How?” He croaks.
“I dunno,” Dennis replies. “Probably therapy or something.”
“Therapy is for pussy,” Charlie responds immediately.
“No, it’s for badasses who are badass enough to deal with their issues instead of shoving them down.”
“What about shove it down with brown?”
“Did that work for you last night Charlie?” Mac asks. “Shoving it down with booze and glue and pills and cuts?”
Charlie frowns and doesn’t respond. He just grabs his arm where he had
Charlie huffs a laugh and gently shoves Mac. “You guys need therapy too,” he says. “You’re so incredibly fucked up.”
Mac makes a face like he’s offended but Dennis doesn’t disagree. “I mean obviously, we’re all super fucked up in the head.”
“Dee and Frank too,” Charlie says, feeling brave enough to cuddle into Mac’s side. Mac welcomes him with open arms, warm and inviting.
“Yeah but you could never get Frank to go to talk to a shrink,” Dennis says. “And Dee already goes to her shitty therapist.”
Charlie wrinkles his nose. “I don’t wanna go to her. She was weird and talked about skin too much.”
“Yeah, not her,” Mac agrees. “We’ll find like. The best goddamn therapist in Philly. Besides, Lady doctors suck.”
“Can we afford that?” Charlie asks because they barely make enough money to afford food and rent as it is and he doesn’t wanna be the reason the heat stops working or the power goes out.
“We’ll make Frank pay,” Dennis replies. “He cares a shit ton about you for some reason. He’ll definitely pay for it.”
“And you’re not gonna like… add this shit to the file you have on me or whatever?” Dennis pauses for a second, opening and closing his mouth. “Because you need help too man! Like, your own goddamn file and everything.” Charlie quickly cuts in before Dennis can continue.
Mac nods enthusiastically. “Yeah Char, we’ll go. If it’ll make you feel better.”
Charlie shakes his head yes. “I wasn’t the only one raped as a kid.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Whatever,” Mac waves his hands through the air. “Blah blah blah, we all have trauma, we all need help.”
Charlie snorts. It’s not very funny, but he’s tired and sad. Mac smiles softly at him and presses a kiss to Charlie’s head, Dennis reaching over to take his hand.
Charlie still feels shitty. He still kinda wants to die, kinda wants to peel off the bandages on his arms and scratch at the cuts until they bleed again.
But he has Dennis and Mac with him, sandwiching him on either side and shielding him from all the horrible things in the world.
He doesn’t need to think about Uncle Jack or Dee or the ghouls probably making a home in his head.
He just thinks about Mac and Dennis.