Work Text:
12:45pm
On a Thursday
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“...her hands were just so strong, I knew I couldn’t get away. Not even if I wanted to, which I didn’t, because again – perfect ten.”
Dennis has been talking about this girl for over half an hour now. He’s leaning back against the bar, one elbow resting on the surface while his other hand traces up and down his throat, like it’s made of some luxuriously soft and expensive fabric and he’s admiring the texture.
“The way she walked into that club was just... mmm.” Dennis sighs, tipping his head back further, exposing more of the massive, hand-shaped bruise curling around his long, pale neck. “Walked in the room, and she commanded it, you know? She commanded the room like she lived there. Like we're all friends of one of her roommates, and she’s coming in to tell us to quiet down cuz she’s got class in the morning. That level of command. Of power. Of confidence.”
“Wow,” Dee says. Her tone’s too flat for her to mean it, but Dennis grins and takes it as an excuse to continue talking.
“Her eyes were like diamonds. Glittering green diamonds, shining in the middle of a sea of untainted white.”
“Emeralds,” Dee offers. “The word you’re looking for is emeralds.”
“The emerald wishes it had the dazzle,” Dennis snaps. “No. Not like emeralds. Nothing like emeralds. Like glittering. Green. Diamonds.”
Holding up her palms, Dee quickly utters, “My mistake!”
“But more important than her eyes, or her hair, or her skin, or her power – more important than any of that, were her…”
“Hands!” Mac fills in. “Dude, we know! You’ve talked about her hands, like, eight times already now.”
“Don’t ruin my flow, Mac!” Dennis snaps. “I’m trying to do something here. Weave you guys the tapestry of feelings and sensuality that this vixen gave me.”
“Vixen,” Dee snorts. “Probably just got her braces off last semester.”
“Of middle school,” Mac adds.
“She was legal,” Dennis snaps. “Not that you could tell by her hands.”
“Here we go again,” Mac mutters.
“Beautiful and tiny – just these delicate, dainty things, so perfect they truly could’ve been fresh out of a womb, so clearly never been touched by sun or hard work.” Dennis scoffs. “Not like this universe, even cruel as it is, would let something so beautiful be subjected to any sort of hard labor. So they were soft, too. It was like being caressed by living shea butter – and then strangled by it.”
“I dunno, Den,” Mac remarks, tilting his head to peer at Dennis’s neck. “You’re sure her hands were like... tiny? Dainty? Delicate? That mark looks like it was made by someone with massive fingers.”
“Jesus, you’re right!” Dee cries. “Are you sure you didn’t get strangled by a gorilla? Look at the size of that handprint!”
“That’s just because she was squeezing so tight!” Dennis insists, hand flying up to his throat like he’s suddenly self-conscious. “My god, her grip, it was insane for someone so petite! She could just squeeze and squeeze without stopping! I couldn’t…”
“Get away if you wanted to, which you didn’t, we know,” Dee finishes. “Dennis, you’re just cycling now. You’re in a loop. End it here.”
“Fine. Long story short,” Dennis says, right after telling the entirety of the incredibly long story, “She was breathtaking. Like staring at the sun.”
“Staring at the sun doesn’t make you lose your breath,” Dee remarks, rinsing a glass in the bar sink. “It makes you lose your vision.”
Shaking his head, Dennis waves her off. “Same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Mac insists, running a hand through his hair in the seat next to Dennis and playing with the ice in an otherwise empty glass. “Ask a deaf person.”
“Deaf people can both see and breathe, Mac, so I’m not sure what good that’s going to do me.”
“Plus, it’d be hard to ask a deaf person anything,” Dee chimes in, bouncing on her toes a little. “Cuz they can’t hear.”
The ice slides back down into the cup. Mac rolls his eyes. “Whatever, you knew what I meant.”
“I... did not, Mac,” Dennis insists, shaking his head. “No. But anyway, back to my story…”
Dee groans. “No. You’ve been telling this same ‘story’ for forty minutes. Can’t we talk about something else?”
“Sure!” Dennis says. “Who else has gotten sweetly choked by a five-foot-seven goddess named Brittanica this week? Anyone? Cuz if so, by all means, let’s talk about that.”
A few more strands come loose from Dee’s ponytail as she shakes her head. “I still don’t believe anyone’s actually named Brittanica,” Dee remarks. “Either you’re making up that name, or she was.”
Dennis sighs. “You just can’t even fathom a relationship not built on lies, Dee. Brittanica wouldn’t lie to me, just like I would never lie to her. What we had was founded on passion, the kind of passion that transcends truth and lies.”
“So which is it? She’d never lie to you, or your passion transcends the fact that she clearly did?”
Laughing, Dennis holds up his palms. “Who knows? Passion means never having to think about stupid shit like that!”
“Beautiful,” Mac snorts. “We ought to rent you out to Precious Moments. Dee, can I have another beer, please? On the rocks?”
“No, I refuse to do that,” Dee replies. “I don’t know when you started doing that but you need to stop doing it right now. You are not drinking a beer on the rocks in this bar.”
Mac straightens up the way he does when he’s about to make some big point. “That’s funny, Deandra,” Mac says, “because last I checked, uh, typically the bartender doesn’t tell the owner of the bar she works in what he’s going to do or not going to do in his own bar. So, uh that said…”
Banging his fists on the bar, Mac bellows, “Beer! Rocks! Now, bitch!”
Rolling her eyes, Dee states, “You know, if this was a real bar, I could probably sue you for calling me that.”
“This is a real bar,” Mac says.
Dennis glances at her over his shoulder, “What, did you think this was a fake bar?”
“No, I didn’t think it was a fake bar, I just…” Dee lights up. “Wait, so can I sue him?”
“If you want to go into debt from legal fees, sure,” Dennis suggests. “Bear in mind, though, you haven’t a shred of evidence, and if you try and bring me up onto the stand as a witness I’d say you’re just a crazy bitch.”
Mac whoops in victory. He and Dennis high-five, laughing.
“You guys realize that calling me a crazy bitch in court would only help my case, right?” Dee interjects. “You guys realize that?”
“You guys realize that?” Mac mimics in a high-pitched baby voice.
“You know what? I’m gonna, gonna sue you for that too!” Dee declares, thrusting her finger in Mac’s face. “Yup! Gonna sue the pants off you for that one!”
“No, Dee, come on, you can’t sue him for that. Only if he devalues you specifically as a woman, or if he sexually harasses you,” Dennis explains. He pauses a moment, thinking, and then points to Mac, “In fact, I bet you could probably sue her for saying she’s gonna take your pants off just now.”
Dee lets out an indignant little cry. “But I didn’t say I was gonna take his pants off! I said I was gonna sue his pants off!”
“Still,” Dennis shrugs. “Pants, off. That’s some pretty graphic sexual imagery right there.”
“Haha!” Mac throws up his arms up into the air like a goalpost. “Sued, bitch!”
“You’re only strengthening my case!” Dee cries.
“You’re only strengthening my case!” Mac mimics.
“Nyeh!” Dee fires in return.
“Nyehhhh!” Mac replies, holding it out slightly longer than Dee’s.
“Nyehhhhhh!” Dee shoots back, continuing the trend.
Sensing that this might take a while, Dennis straightens up, crossing the bar to where Charlie is lightly batting two pool balls together with his hands over at the pool table, the same place he’s been this entire time.
“Did you enjoy my story, Charlie?” Dennis asks, tone light but eyes gleaming dangerously. He sits down on the edge of the table, right next to where Charlie’s standing.
Charlie glances over at him, irritation clear on his features. “Did you have to be so graphic?”
Dennis picks up one of the balls Charlie’s fiddling with, the striped 8-ball. Rolls it around his hands for so long, Charlie’s starting to think he’s truly got no intention of answering his question just as Dennis leans in close to his ear.
“Well,” he murmurs, breath hot on sensitive skin. “I couldn’t exactly tell them the bruises came from you, now could I?”
He drops the ball into a pocket where it clatters against a couple others that have already been sunk. He winks at Charlie, and saunters away.
“Feels like there’s a lot of middle ground between those two options,” Charlie mutters to himself, fishing the 8-ball back out. “But whatever.”
Halfway back to the bar, Dennis calls without looking back, “Oh yeah, and there’s some kind of urinal situation in the bathroom. Clean that up. Urinals count as Charlie work.”
Irritably, Charlie drops the 8-ball back into the pocket with a loud clatter. He goes to shove his sleeves up and head towards the bathrooms, but instead decides to ditch the jacket entirely. He’d lost the buttons on the cuffs ages ago, and they have an irritating habit of sliding down. He stops briefly in the back office to shrug off his jacket, and then heads towards the men’s room.
“Atta boy, Charlie!” Dennis grins from the bar. Charlie rolls his eyes at him. Dennis gives him a possibly sarcastic thumbs-up.
After a quick stop to grab his bucket of cleaning supplies from under the sink, Charlie’s sitting on the floor of the men’s room, scrubbing the underside of a urinal (and what medical abnormality resulted in that misfire? Was it a dwarf, peeing upwards? A normal-height man with an incredibly long dick bent up right at the very end?), when he’s startled by the sound of the door hitting the wall as Dennis walks in.
“Hey, Charlie,” Dennis greets him cheerfully, walking over to the least-cracked mirror and examining his neck. He slowly spreads two fingers across a small area to pull a segment of the skin tight, looking closely at the burst capillaries under the skin and the mottling all across it. Releases it, presses his index finger just below his Adam’s apple. That’s right where the crook of Charlie’s thumb had fallen, so there’s an extra-dark bruise there. Dennis prods at it, none too gently. He winces, but he’s smiling.
“Hoo boy, Charlie,” Dennis says, a tone like he’s about to burst into laughter at any second. “You sure did a number on me!”
Jaw shifting in irritation, Charlie remarks, “I thought we already talked through that.”
“We did!” Dennis says, nodding at Charlie. “Oh, yeah no, we definitely did! No hard feelings or anything stupid like that.” He tilts his chin up, making his voice go a little tight. “I’m just admiring your handiwork.”
Charlie puffs an annoyed breath out his nose and mumbles, “Alright, weirdo.”
“Weirdo?” Dennis echoes, furrowing his brow. “Charlie, there’s nothing weird about admiring what the human body can do. The human body is capable of some amazing things. Sometimes that’s feats of strength and other times it’s simply a beautiful pattern that blooms up on your flesh to indicate to the world that someone has hurt you.”
“Jesus,” Charlie mutters.
Smiling at himself in the mirror, Dennis continues, “I like to think of them as galaxies, as nebulae. They’re just so pretty. You see what I mean?” He tilts his head to the side, gestures at the spot where the pad of Charlie’s middle finger had dug in especially deep, leaving a dark cluster of maroon in the center of a more muted greyish-green. “That swirl there? Kinda reminds me of the cosmos, almost.”
“Reminds me of bruises,” Charlie says, slightly too loud, like he’s trying to drown Dennis out even though he’s stopped talking. “The kind you get when you get your ass kicked in a video game, and then try and make up some bullshit fake rule that says you didn’t, so you get your ass kicked in real life. Because that’s what happened, Dennis. That’s all that happened.”
“That’s not all that happened, though,” Dennis clarifies.
A deep blush fills in the spaces between freckles on Charlie’s cheeks. There’s a long pause.
“Well,” Charlie finally says, swallowing. “That wasn’t supposed to happen, so I’m pretending it never happened. And normal people, normal friends? Would never talk about something like that even if it did happen.” He’s rambling now, he can feel it, but he can’t stop. “I told you I wouldn’t say anything, I told you that you could tell people whatever you wanted about the bruises…”
“Which I did,” Dennis grins.
“Which you did,” Charlie echoes back. “So that’s the end of it then, right? We can stop talking about it?”
“Yeah,” Dennis agrees after a short moment. “Yeah, we can stop talking about it.”
“Good,” Charlie says. “Okay. Good.”
The sound of coarse bristles against porcelain fills the bathroom as Charlie resumes cleaning. There’s a long, long moment where that’s the only sound he can hear. It’s a soothing repetition, and it soothes him further to know it’s coming from his own hands. Brsh-brush. Brsh-brush. Brsh…
“Oh!” Dennis cries. Charlie’s gaze snaps up without him entirely intending it to, and he sees Dennis massaging the bruise he must’ve just been prodding at.
“Come on, dude!” Charlie cries, dropping the brush with a deep sigh. “What is this?”
“What is what, Charlie?” Dennis asks. “I’m not allowed to look at myself in the mirror?”
Charlie throws his hands up. “You’re allowed, I guess, but it’s a little weird, to be honest, that you just had to come molest your neck right now, while I’m in here cleaning – the cleaning that you told me to do!”
Dennis opens his mouth to speak, but Charlie interrupts, “And also, I know for a fact that you have a magnifying makeup mirror hidden somewhere in the back office, and you carry a hand mirror on you at all times. So it’s even weirder that you came in here just to use that mirror, stabbing at the bruise I gave you and calling it pretty and saying how it’s, what was it? Reminding you of the universe and the stars and the planets and whatever, while I’m sitting right here trying to clean.”
“And then,” Charlie continues, not giving Dennis any chance to interject, “after all that weird shit, you start talking about what happened like you’re fucking proud of it or something. Are you, Dennis? Are you fucking proud?”
Dennis gapes like a fish. “I…”
“Cuz if you want, man, I can go out and tell everybody right now, so everyone else can be proud of you too,” Charlie offers. “I can go out there right now and tell them that you were being a little bitch over Mario Kart, so I had to shut you up, and in like ten seconds flat you came in your fucking pa---”
“Okay,” Dennis hisses, reaching out a hand towards Charlie and glancing at the door. “Keep your fucking voice down, jesus. You’ve made your point. I’ll leave you to clean the urinals in peace.”
“Thank you,” Charlie breathes. “That’s all I ask.”
“Yeah, well, enjoy your fucking urinals, Charlie. Hope they were worth blackmail,” Dennis snaps, and in a blink he’s out the door.
“I will,” Charlie says pleasantly to the empty room, getting the brush’s calming momentum going again. Brsh-brush. Brsh-brush.
True to his word, Dennis leaves Charlie alone long enough to get all the urinals clean. Not too keen on going back into the bar, though, Charlie pops open the cabinet under the sink and pulls out two bleach bottles - one full of booze, one full of bleach - and settles against the wall with them.
Before he can even get a decent buzz going, though, Dennis is back. With a huff, Charlie screws the cap back onto the bleach bottle that actually contains bleach and asks, “What the fuck do you want now?”
“Jeez,” Dennis holds up his hands. “Fiery today, aren’t ya? Look, I just gotta compare your hand to the bruise. Mac won’t stop asking questions about Brittanica’s hand size, and Dee’s threatening to Google whether or not squeezing harder leaves bigger bruises to fact-check me, that bitch!”
Charlie stares up at Dennis with raised brows. “So, what, you just need me to squeeze your throat again, casually?”
Rolling his eyes, Dennis fires back, “Yeah, make it sound dirtier why don’t you? No! I need you to gently lay your hand on my throat while I look in the mirror, for, like, a second. For research!”
With a sigh, Charlie gets to his feet. “You know,” he says, “whenever someone says ‘for research’, it’s always something fuckin’ weird.”
“Looks like you’re gonna do it, though,” Dennis remarks.
“Quickest way to have someone stop doing what you want?” Charlie offers. “Mock ‘em for doing it.”
“Sorry,” Dennis says, and the weird part is it almost sounds genuine.
Walking up to Dennis’s side, Charlie looks up at the bruise. “So what, do I just…?”
“Here,” Dennis says, taking Charlie’s hand and lining up each finger with the corresponding mark on his throat. “There. That looks about right, I think.”
Furrowing his brow, Dennis amends, “Wait. No, that can’t be right.”
He bends Charlie’s thumb away from his neck. “Ow!” Charlie cries.
“Sorry,” Dennis says, and there’s that weird sincerity again. “I just can’t believe it!”
“Can’t believe what?”
Dennis pulls Charlie’s hand away from his throat, brings it back for a second, then pulls it away again. “Your hand is bigger than the bruise,” Dennis cries. “How is that possible?”
“I dunno, man, it’s just my hand,” Charlie protests. He tries to pull away, but Dennis holds him fast. “Uh, speaking of which, can I have it back, please?”
Humming softly, Dennis murmurs, “One second.”
“Huh?” Charlie asks. “Why?”
Dennis is staring at the skin of Charlie’s broad palm. The skin is rough and calloused in a lot of spots, but there’s soft, new skin in a lot of places too. Tracing around the edges of the callous just below Charlie’s ring finger, Dennis states, “Your hands are so rough, Charlie.”
“Yeah,” Charlie agrees. “Not like Brittanica.”
It’s said easily, but Dennis’s brows shoot up. “Oh, Charlie,” Dennis says, his tone seeming to imply that Charlie has said something incredibly sad. “Those hands I made up never would’ve been able to do something like this. I knew that from the start, but now I can say that for certain.”
Charlie looks up at him, confused. “Uh,” he says, “okay? I wasn’t…”
“I really like your hands,” Dennis breathes, drawing his fingernail lightly over the creases and lines crossing over the skin of his palm. “Your hands are really strong, and rough, from working…”
“Uhhh,” Charlie tries again to pull away. “Can I just…”
“They’re so strong, and they felt so nice around my neck,” Dennis says, pulling his other hand away when Charlie curls his into a fist, but still not letting him go. “So strong. I couldn’t get away, even if I wan...”
Charlie punches him square in the jaw. Dennis is barely over the initial shock of that when he’s flying backwards, the wind knocked out of him against the tile floor. Charlie’s on him in a blink, one large hand on Dennis’s chest to keep him on the floor, his other hand still curled into a fist, pulled free from Dennis’s grasp and poised in front of Dennis’s face.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Charlie screams. “You asshole! Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone, huh?!”
Slamming a knee into Dennis’s stomach and leaving it there, Charlie continues, “What, is this funny to you? You gettin’ some real big laughs out of fucking around with ol’ Charlie? You gettin’ some nice, big belly laughs?” He presses his knee in harder, not relenting until Dennis grunts in pain. “You laughin’ it up down there on the floor, Dennis?”
“That’s...ow, Charlie, jeez! Take it easy, man, I’m not...”
The sound of the slap Charlie lays across Dennis’s cheek echoes around the bathroom. “I don’t believe you! You never stop fucking talking!” he cries, gripping Dennis by the hair so hard that nails scrape scalp. “Just shut the fuck up for once! Shut the fuck up!”
The door hit the wall with a loud slam. “Alright, jabronis, take it outside, I’m…” The self-proclaimed “sheriff of Paddy’s” blinks in surprise, clearly not expecting the fight he burst into the bathroom to break up to be between his co-owners. “Uh…”
“Stay out of it, Mac!” Charlie growls. He grabs Dennis by the front of his shirt, pulling him slightly up off the ground, then lands a sharp punch in the ribs that also slams Dennis’s back right back down against the floor, hard, hitting the same spot he’d landed on when Charlie had first tackled him.
“Mac,” Dennis croaks, and coughs a little for effect. There’s a heavy thud of footsteps across the ground, and then Mac’s got an arm around Charlie, arm tucked beneath Charlie’s and hand resting on his chest, lifting him away from Dennis.
Charlie’s huffing in Mac’s grip, red-faced and steaming but not fighting the embrace. “You’re a fucking asshole!” he shrieks, swinging his feet to try and reach Dennis. Mac drags him back out of kicking range, face full of confusion and concern. “You goddamn fucking asshole!”
“What’d he do?” Mac asks, glancing from Charlie to Dennis.
“Nothing!” Charlie shrieks. “It’s just what he is and I’m fucking sick of it! I’m leaving!” He halfheartedly thumps a fist against Mac’s arm. “Put me down!”
Mac releases him. Charlie lands awkwardly, tripping over one of Mac’s boots and landing in an awkward pile on the floor.
“Oh, shit, I’m…” Mac reaches to lift Charlie up off the floor.
Charlie waves him off, getting to his feet. “It’s fine,” he says to Mac, then glances at Dennis and spits a final, “Fuck you,” before storming out of the bathroom and into the bar.
Almost getting bowled over, Dee stumbles out of the way and eagerly asks, “Who was fighting? Was it Cricket and that guy with all the eye tattoos?”
“No one,” Charlie snaps, breezing past her, “fuck off.”
“Hey! The fuck did I do?” Dee cries, which makes a little pang of regret flare in Charlie’s chest, but he stuffs it down quickly.
Charlie intends to just storm out into the street, but he’d left his army jacket in the back office rather than dealing with pushing up the sleeves. Cursing under his breath, he makes a sharp U-turn, again almost running into Dee, who this time steps aside wordlessly.
Unfortunately that’s enough time for Dennis and Mac to make their way out of the bathroom. Dennis rushes over to him immediately, Mac following along with the same look of concern and confusion on his face.
“Who was fighting?” Dee asks Mac, catching him by the arm. “Charlie wouldn’t tell me.”
“They were,” Mac stage-whispers, gesturing at Charlie and Dennis.
“They were?” Dee echoes.
Dennis grabs Charlie’s shoulder. Charlie pulls away effortlessly, turning the corner so sharply he narrowly misses bashing his hip against a bar stool. “Charlie,” Dennis says. “Come on. Don’t leave. I was only messing around.”
“That’s the problem, Dennis,” Charlie hisses, rounding the desk to pull the jacket off the back of Frank’s chair. “You’re always just ‘messing around’ with people, you never stop, you never shut up and just leave something alone!” He tosses the jacket over his arm and throws up his other hand. “You know what? I’m done talking to you. Fuck you. Fuck with somebody else for a change, cuz I’m out of here.”
It wasn’t the best plan, Charlie realizes, walking into the back office with Dennis behind him, because now he has to get past Dennis to walk out the door. Mac and Dee are blatantly talking about them over by the jukebox, repeatedly glancing over and pointing at them.
“I wasn’t trying to fuck with you, Charlie!” Dennis insists. “I really do like your hands!”
Charlie opens his mouth to speak, then quickly snaps it shut. He takes a long, deep breath through his nose, eyes squeezed shut and eyebrows raised. He shakes his head slowly.
His eyes reopen as he shoves Dennis harshly to the side. Dennis stumbles, catching himself on the desk, knocking over a coffee mug full of pens in the process. By the time he regains his balance, Charlie’s stormed back into the bar proper, getting cornered by Mac and Dee as he pauses to shrug his jacket on.
“Charlie!” Dennis cries, running over to where the three of them are standing. “Dude! Come on, don’t leave, man, calm down!”
Charlie shoots him a cold look over his shoulder, then parts Mac and Dee like the Red Sea and starts heading toward the door.
“Charlie!” Dennis says again. “Dude! You’re not even gonna talk to me now?” He shoves past Mac and Dee, nudging Dee into the jukebox.
“Hey!” she yelps, but Dennis completely ignores her, catching up to Charlie and grabbing his wrist.
“Dude!” Dennis cries. “Come on, man, don’t…” Charlie doesn’t even look at him, just jerking his wrist out of Dennis’s grip and continuing towards the door.
Growling, Dennis slams a fist against the bar. “Fine! Fucking go then!” Dennis shouts. “Go, cuz then we’ll all know the real reason you’re walking out!” His ears are ringing with rage. “You’re walking out because you’re fucking jealous!”
“Jealous?” Mac echoes.
“Yes!” Dennis screams, kicking over a barstool. “Yeah, jealous that my kinks are hot and worth talking about while he probably likes some real weird, nasty, freak shit best kept in the dark!”
“Hoo boy,” Dee laughs awkwardly.
“So? What is it?” He knows it’s a stupid, childish play, but Dennis has to say something. “What’s your poison, Charlie? Huh? Smelling armpit hair? Licking eyeballs? Dressing up like Santa Claus?”
Charlie freezes in his tracks.
“Oooh,” Mac winces. “Dennis, uh, I wouldn’t... “ Dennis glances over at Mac, who quietly mutters, “Uh, his mom…” Charlie whirls around with murder in his eyes. Mac holds up his hands in defense.
“Yeah?” Dennis cackles madly. All logic is gone, he’s just glad to have something to sink his teeth into. “Your mommy too, huh? So it runs in the family? McPoyles got milk and incest, Kellys got San---”
“You know what?!” Charlie screams. Dennis swears the walls shake, glasses clatter together behind the bar. “You know what, Dennis? You think choking’s so fucking hot? You like choking so fucking much? You wanna be choked so fucking bad, Dennis?”
He grabs Dennis by the collar of his shirt, dragging down and making Dennis slightly unsteady on his feet, bringing him down to his height. He sinks jagged, dirty fingernails into Dennis’s throat and seethes, “I’m gonna fucking ruin it for you.”
His nails ease off of Dennis’s skin, hand flattening against the skin and then gripping tight. Dennis manages to squeak out a soft noise before his throat’s squeezed too much for him to make sound.
“Charlie…” Mac tries, but Charlie shakes his head.
“Back off,” he warns. “You heard the shit he said. Besides, he’s been bragging all fucking day about how much he likes this.”
Another choked little noise escapes Dennis’s lips. Charlie glances back at him, grinning. “Something on your mind there, Den? I can’t quite hear you.”
Dennis, already in an awkward stance, loses his footing completely, having to cling to Charlie’s arm to stay upright. “Looks like you’re having a little trouble standing,” Charlie remarks. “Maybe you should lie down.”
In a move that seems almost too fast, Charlie’s got him flat on his back on the bar. A couple of glasses get knocked off, one definitely sounds like it shatters. Dennis almost manages to get his feet under himself as he goes down, so Charlie swings himself up there too, sitting on Dennis’s thighs and effectively crushing any attempt to escape.
Dennis’s mouth opens and closes in silent cries; whether he’s failing to form words or just failing to make sound is unclear. His eyes, at first open wide in shock, squeeze closed. His face is turning red. Charlie squeezes tighter.
“Charlie!” Dee yelps. He ignores her. Dennis grabs onto Charlie’s arm. Charlie’s not sure what he’s trying to do, but it doesn’t do much. He scoffs.
“Did you forget I was doing this with only one hand?” He gathers Dennis’s wrists up in the grip of his free hand, pinning them just above Dennis’s head. That elicits the first sound Dennis has tried to make in a little while. It’s barely even a gasp, quiet even to Dennis’s own ears, but Charlie hears it and something glitters in his eyes, just barely.
Dennis squirms on the bartop, pushing his torso and hips up as much as he can with Charlie holding him down. Rolling his eyes, Charlie leans down to Dennis’s ear and mutters darkly, “I don’t know if you’re trying to hump me or escape, but you’re not getting away with either.” And it’s true. The way Charlie’s sat on his thighs rather than his hips, Charlie’s weight combined with the rapidly increasing weakness from the lack of air - it’s clear neither of those options are possible.
From where Dennis is laying, the lights above the bar are giving Charlie a glowing halo. The lights go a little wonky suddenly, bisecting Charlie’s face in white slashes with blurry rainbow outlines. His heart flutters; it’s all so beautiful. A larger, blurrier figure crashes into the scene, wrapping its arms around Charlie’s torso and pulling him back. A pair of disembodied hands come from above his head, trying to pry Charlie’s hands free.
The pressure releases, and Dennis finds himself eased upright, coughing and gasping like he’s just been underwater. His head pounds as he glances around the bar, which all seems faintly dreamlike. The ringing in his ear gives way to a whooshing sound, which eventually becomes clear enough to distinguish as voices. Yelling voices. Way too much yelling for as much as his head hurts. He tries to say as much, but it comes out as a wheeze that provokes another coughing fit. The coughing seems to make the arguing louder. Both the coughing and the arguing are making his head hurt.
Dee, who was the one who eased him into sitting and is therefore standing right the fuck next to him, screaming her head off, is yelling, “You’re out of fucking control, Charlie! You’re out of fucking control!” over and over again.
His gaze still focusing, Dennis spots Charlie, and by extension Mac, who still has him in the bear hug he used to pull Charlie off of him. Charlie, who is hanging limply in Mac’s arms, says something that Dennis can’t hear over the rushing in his ears. Whatever it is, though, it’s enough for Mac to put him down. Before Dennis can react, Charlie’s on his feet and out the door.
“Charlie,” Dennis croaks, feeling the words barely eking their way out around his bruised trachea.
“He’s gone,” Dee replies. “Mac told him to go home, cool off. He can’t just be here strangling people, we…”
Dennis lies back down, enjoying the feeling of the cool bartop against the back of his pounding head.
“So, uh,” Mac stammers out. “Am I the only one who noticed that Charlie’s hand lined up with that bruise from earlier, like, exactly, or?”
“Not the only one who noticed,” Dee replies breezily. “Just the only one willing to say it out loud.”
“Oh,” Mac says.
Dennis is sitting up again, swinging his legs over the edge of the bar, and hopping down, all in one motion. Dee moves to stop him, but Dennis slips right by her, and then he’s out the door.
As soon as he’s gone, Mac chuckles. “Man,” Mac says, “I really can’t believe Brittanica has the exact same size hands as Charlie!”
“Oh my god,” Dee cries. “How are you a person? How can a person be so dumb?”
Dennis can hear them arguing right up until he slams the door shut on his Range Rover and speeds off.
//
“I really wasn’t making fun of you,” is the first thing out of Dennis’s mouth when Charlie opens the door. “Well,” he amends, tilting his head to the side slightly. “Not at first, anyway. I was, I admit, at the end there, but just to get you to stop walking away from me, I swear, I didn’t mean any…”
“Oh, dude,” Charlie breathes. His faces pinches up strangely; for a second Dennis is worried he’s about to cry, but it passes. He steps aside to let Dennis in. “I don’t even care if you were, anymore, at this point. I lost my shit back there, and I’m....” Charlie winces at the state of Dennis’s neck - the second grip had mostly lined up, but not quite, making Dennis look like he’d been recently strangled by a squid or an octopus. “Oh, fuck, Den, have you seen your neck…?”
“Yeah,” Dennis half-sits, half-leans on the arm of the couch. Or, well, the arm of the bed, technically, because the futon's folded out, but that’s a weird sentence. “But, no, man, it's...I mean, I…” Dennis swallows. “Maybe I could’ve handled that situation a little bit better, uh…I mean, I guess I can see how things could’ve been, y’know. Misunderstood.”
“Yeah, what was all of that, man?” Charlie asks, leaning back against that door right next to the couch that he never seems to open. “You were acting so weird, all day. If you weren’t just fucking with me, then what…?”
“You could’ve killed me, Charlie.”
Charlie freezes, gaping. “I...that’s what you’re so worked up over? That I could’ve killed you?” His voice cracks a little. “Dude, I know we don’t always get along, but I’d never just up and kill you, man, like, jesus christ, Dennis, that’s fucked, I’m…”
“No,” Dennis interrupts. He reaches over, grabs Charlie’s hand. “Y-your hands, they’re so strong, they’re so strong, I could feel it, I could…” He brings Charlie’s hand to his throat, guides it, lining it up with all the bruises from before. “I’ve never felt that before, Charlie.”
“I…” Charlie’s head is spinning. He pulls his hand back. “I don’t know what to say, Dennis.”
“Charlie,” Dennis whimpers. “Are you still not getting it? You are strong enough to kill me.”
“So?”
Dennis grabs Charlie’s hand again, gets it back on his throat and makes it squeeze. “So fucking try.”
“Dennis!” Charlie yelps, snatching his hand back and staring down at his friend with an overwhelming amount of concern. “Oh my god! I know stuff sucks sometimes, but come on, man, you’re asking me to kill you?”
“No!” Dennis snaps back. “I’m just saying that I know you could!”
“So?”
“So that’s fucking hot, Charlie! And I can’t stop fucking thinking about it!” Dennis half-sobs. “Every time I swallow, every time I fucking breathe, my throat aches and I remember how your hands felt. I remember the rage in your eyes.” Dennis swallows. “You look so good when you’re angry, Charlie. The... command. The power. The confidence. It’s a good look on you.”
“Oh my god,” Charlie whispers, his tone frustratingly unreadable.
“I wasn’t sure you’d stop,” Dennis continues. “I... I thought you probably would, cuz it’s you, but there was a moment where I definitely had that thought, like, like my mind was assessing the situation and recognized how strong you were and how mad you were and I was like maybe he won’t let go in time and that’s when I…” Dennis swallows again. “And that was just over some stupid video game. When I really got you going at the bar, when you slammed me against the bar and climbed on top of me and told me I couldn’t escape…”
“You were asking for it,” Charlie mutters.
“I was begging for it,” Dennis affirms, biting his lip.
“Jesus,” Charlie breathes out a soft laugh. “You really are a freak, aren’t you?”
Dennis nods slightly. Charlie shakes his head, but there’s a smile just barely playing at his lips. “Well?” Charlie asks. “You came all the way over here. You wanna ask me, or what?”
Dennis blushes, avoids his eyes. Charlie sighs, his voice going a little softer, a little bit kinder. “C’mon. It’s okay. I did it twice now, I could probably do it a third time.”
And then Charlie’s eyes flash dangerously and his voice takes on that sharp edge again. “And I really wanna hear you say it, Dennis.”
Dennis blinks, staring up at him through his lashes. “I want you to choke me, Charlie,” Dennis says.
“Yeah?” Charlie replies. “That’s it? You sure that’s all you want?”
“I…” Dennis blushes further. “I want you to choke me while I jack off.”
“Yeah, that’s more what I was expecting,” Charlie grins. He shrugs. “Alright, weirdo. I guess you better take off your clothes and get on my bed, then, huh?”
Dennis swallows and nods. He unbuttons his shirt, shrugging it off and tossing it to the side, then tugs the t-shirt he’s wearing underneath off over his head and ditches that, too. He glances at Charlie, briefly, making sure he’s looking. He is. He toes off his shoes and kicks them aside and then unbuttons and unzips his jeans. Locking eyes with Charlie, he slides both his jeans and boxers off his hips, shoving them down his legs. His cock bobs slightly, brushing his stomach, already almost fully hard. Dennis sits down on the bed and stares up at Charlie, awaiting further instruction.
“Damn,” Charlie remarks, nodding appreciatively. “You sure look good naked, holy shit.”
“Thanks,” Dennis laughs. “I...you know. The gym, or whatever.”
“The gym did not give you that,” Charlie replies, staring at Dennis’s lap. “Jesus. I’m glad you didn’t ask me to choke you while you fuck me, cuz that thing is big.”
“I’m sure yours is too,” Dennis insists, turning all kinds of red at all the unexpected attention and praise.
“You wanna see?” Charlie offers.
Dennis’s eyes widen. “I...yeah, Charlie, I really kinda do.”
“Guess you’ll have to be extra good for me then,” Charlie replies. He runs a hand through Dennis’s hair, curves his hand around the back of his head to rest on his jawline for a moment before travelling down to his neck. Charlie squeezes Dennis’s throat once, quickly, then releases. Dennis’s breath hitches, and Charlie grins.
“I know,” he says, “and you’re gonna hate me, but you look so good like this. Can I play with your nips first?”
“I…” Dennis blinks. “Yeah, Charlie, you can do whatever you want. Just choke me while you do it.”
Chuckling softly, Charlie smirks, “Man, you’re really desperate for it, huh?” But he acquiesces, squeezing his throat with one hand and trailing the other along Dennis’s chest. He circles one dime-sized nipple with his thumbnail, not quite touching but swirling closer and closer on each rotation until…
“Ahh,” Dennis keens softly as Charlie releases his throat a bit at the same time he brushes his calloused thumb over his nipple.
Charlie grins. “I knew it,” he cries. “God, I’ve wanted to do that forever. So little and pink, I knew they’d be sensitive.”
“That doesn’t really,” Dennis gasps out around Charlie’s gentle grip. Charlie can feel the vibrations of the words in Dennis’s throat, feel the bob of it when he swallows. “Doesn’t really correlate.”
“Doesn’t it?” Charlie remarks, pinching the hardened bud between his fingers and rolling it, achingly slowly, pulling up on it slightly as he does. The muscles in Dennis’s thighs clench. A cracked little ghost of a moan escapes his lips.
Letting go of Dennis’s throat, Charlie dips his head and latches onto the neglected nipple, sucking and nipping in equal turn. Charlie’s not sure if the gasps and pants he hears are from the sudden availability of oxygen or the attention Charlie’s giving him.
He leans back, pausing to blow on the wet skin, and smiles at Dennis’s flushed face, his puffy lips, blown-out pupils. He looks horny as shit. He looks good. “Alright,” Charlie says, “you’ve been patient.” He rests a hand on Dennis’s throat. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” Dennis breathes, reaching for his cock.
Charlie bats his hand away. “Oh, uh, yeah, change in plan there, sorry,” he says.
Dennis’s eyes go wide and betrayed. “Charlie…”
“Hey, shh, relax, you’ll still get jacked off, don’t worry,” Charlie assures him. “You’re just so into my hands, I thought you might like to know how it felt to have one around your throat and one around your dick, maybe.”
Dennis gapes. “I... really?”
Shrugging, Charlie replies, “Sure, man. I mean, why the fuck not, right?”
Not really having much of a reply for that, Dennis opts to instead just grab Charlie’s hand and wrap it around his cock, which is at this point fully hard and aching to be touched. Dennis guides Charlie into the rhythm he likes best, guiding his hand up and down along his length.
“I got it,” Charlie assures him, pushing his hand away. “In fact, you wanna put your hands behind your back? That do anything for you?”
Groaning, Dennis admits, “Yeah, it does a lot for me, actually. Man, I wish we were at my place. I’ve got all kinds of stuff we could use. You could–”
The words die in Dennis’s throat as Charlie abruptly grabs it, squeezing tight. “Don’t ruin the surprise,” he advises, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. Dennis’s eyes go wide as he nods slightly, then slip closed as his mouth falls open in what Charlie can only assume is a silenced moan.
Charlie eases off slightly. “Hey, you with me?” Charlie asks. Dennis nods. “You gotta let me know if this gets to be too much. Don’t let me choke you out.” Another nod, and Charlie resumes the pressure. There’s just enough time before his airway constricts for Dennis to cry out softly, a cross between a moan and a sob. Charlie’s heart hammers.
His cock is absolutely leaking in Charlie’s hand, and Dennis is holding his elbows behind his back, making him arch his back (or maybe he’s doing that just for show - you never really know, with Dennis) and pulling his shoulders military-tight. His thighs are spread wide, his head thrown back in ecstasy, and it’s Charlie’s hands that are making him melt like this.
Charlie’s a little wary of what he’s about to do, but Dennis seems close, so he doesn’t think he’ll have to maintain this for too long –- he squeezes Dennis’s throat about as hard as he thinks he can without doing actual permanent damage, leans in and whispers, “But unless you’re really and truly about to fuckin’ die, Dennis, I’m not letting this pretty throat go until that pretty cock comes. So you might wanna come soon.”
He presses his forehead to Dennis’s and tries to look as sincere as he can as he lies through his teeth, sneering, “Cuz you’ve been a real pain in the ass today, so I might not even let go if your baby blues roll right back into your head. I might not even let go if your body goes limp. I might not even let go if–”
He sees it even before he feels it; Dennis’s eyes go suddenly soft and gentle and gorgeous right before Charlie feels his cock pulsing and gushing over his fist. He milks him all the way through, maintaining the grip on his throat until his cock softens in his hand.
Letting go of him completely, Charlie takes a step back to appreciate the view. Dennis is completely coated with his own come, dripping down his chest and almost hairless stomach, dipping into his navel and soaking into the soft trail of hair trailing down from it. He’s fallen back onto his elbows against the bed, his skin glimmering with sweat in the afternoon sunlight filtering in through the window. His chest is heaving. Charlie admittedly hasn’t seen a whole lot of paintings, but he thinks there’s gotta be one out there of some dude who looks just like Dennis looking exactly how Dennis looks right now.
“Charlie,” Dennis breathes, voice raspy, “c’mere.”
Obediently, Charlie walks forward. Dennis sits up, curling his fingers into Charlie’s belt loops. “Charlie,” he says again, “did I do good?”
Charlie grins, running a gentle hand through Dennis’s hair. “You did amazing, Den, you were…”
“Did I do good enough?” Dennis clarifies, tugging at Charlie’s belt loops more pointedly.
“Oh!” Charlie makes the connection. “Oh, yeah, fuck, man, yeah, you can…”
Dennis has Charlie’s boxers and jeans down to his knees in two seconds flat. He curls a hand around the shaft of his erection and slides his mouth over the tip.
“Ohhh fuck,” Charlie breathes, curling his fingers tighter in Dennis’s hair. “Oh fuck, Den, your throat, are you…”
Staring up at him through his lashes, Dennis slowly slides his mouth down the full length, his throat muscles fluttering around him, and Charlie’s starting to think he might die.
He feels Dennis swallow around the head of his cock and lets out a moan that sounds like it came from his toes. Dennis reacts to that by moaning right around Charlie’s dick and oh god, this isn’t even fair. This isn’t even fair.
“Dennis,” Charlie moans. “Oh fuck, Dennis, fuck…”
He reaches out and strokes two fingers over the bulge in Dennis’s bruised throat where his cock is. Dennis whines softly. It’s all so much, almost too much sensation. Charlie feels his orgasm coming, like a rubber band about to snap inside him.
It shoots through him like lightning. He could swear he feels his cock vibrating deep inside Dennis’s throat as Dennis swallows around his release, keeps swallowing until Charlie, oversensitive and embarrassed, shoves him away. He kicks off his jeans but pulls his boxers back into place, never one for casual nudity. Dennis, clearly not having the same concerns, just uses his own t-shirt to clean himself off and then discards it, sprawling spread-eagle across Charlie’s bed.
Before Charlie can second-guess himself, he crawls onto the bed too. He’s immensely relieved when Dennis curls an arm around him, pulling him in to lay on his chest.
“Is Frank gonna come home and see this?” Dennis asks, and shit, his voice is wrecked.
“No,” Charlie assures him. “He’s in, uh, Singapore I think. Maybe Seoul. Somewhere Asian-y that starts with an S.”
“Mm,” is all Dennis says. Charlie lies there in silence for a moment, just listening to Dennis’s heartbeat, listening as it evens out, calms down from all the activity he’s just gotten done doing. He tilts his head up slightly, staring at the three different layers of bruises he’s left on Dennis’s throat. He’s starting to see the galaxies Dennis pointed out, he thinks, now that there’s more color and depth there. Dennis’s breathing evens out into the deep, even breathing of sleep; it’s no wonder he’s exhausted.
Charlie settles in against Dennis’s warm, bare skin in the soft orange light of evening. The cats aren’t outside yet, so everything’s calm and peaceful for once. So, not ten minutes after choking him for the third time in twenty-four hours, Charlie falls into peaceful, post-orgasmic sleep on Dennis’s chest.