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When Charlie kisses her, it's sad and it's sweet.
Much like the night that led to this moment; nothing like she ever imagined anything could be, aside from the dregs of liquor that kept her warm in the dead of winter, when the heating went out in her shithole of an apartment. South side Philly and it's emaciated buildings might have been below Deandra Reynolds once- when her dreams were more than constant grasping.
But between the cage that had encased her body, and the iron bars Dennis steadily forged around her mind,a shithole of her own and a bottle of something like warmth were all the mansion and jewels she could ever hope for, and she had come to terms with this. The words taste bitter, but there's something romantic about the talent who could've made it. The kind of talent no one is ready for. Like Amy Winehouse. Girls like her, they fly too close to the sun and burn. This is what Dee tells herself when Dennis looks at her, eyes gleaming, wearing the satisfied smile he saves only for her. Sometimes she swears he is their mother incarnate, all soulless and immaculate.
There were many times in her life that she felt Charlie was more a brother than Dennis ever was.
She supposes that's why when he pulled away and, “oh shit,” she laughs likes it's a performance. Improv at its best.
She expected that to be the end of it. That's why when he came back at her, fervent and ravenous, all sweetness gone, she responded the only way she knew how.
Like a reflex. The snap of an insult or the way she cracks open a beer.
Charlie kisses her; it's sad and sweet and nothing like Dennis. She carries these memories with her, each one loosening the noose that's been around her neck since she came into this world.
.
The four of them are six beers deep, not counting the vodka Mac and Charlie brought (Mac's mom gave it to Mac as a go get laid gift, one of the few gifts in the MacDonald home) There's no sign of stopping either, judging by the stock pile of exotic liquors their father brought home. Dee tells Dennis it's the only reason he has any loser friends in the first place, and when the truth burns white, hot through his skin, she never feels sorry for him.
Tonight was supposed to be the night she lost her virginity. It was less a thing for her and more a thing to show him, I'll show him. “Dee, you fat bitch! You really think anyone would want to touch you?” Thing about it is Sweet Dee became her epithet long before she knew what it means when a boy says “sweet”.
It went like this. When she was fourteen sans back brace and heart deep in the closest thing she could call to love, she told Tommy Lafever, there on the jersey shore, she had done sex sooo many times (like, so many times, with tongue too. Lies.) The way he took her hand and smiled at her, eyes traveling, approving and eager, she learned then how to get under a boy's skin. Even if it was just a lie. Lies like that had consequences. Pretty soon after, rumours began to spread and boys just like her, craving to fit in, had a name to use. ‘Slut’, ‘Sweet Dee’, all the same. Truth wasn't something that mattered too much in middle school.
Nothing came of it with Tommy Lafever, anyway. Nothing but a sharp rock to the side of Tommy’s head and his mother's screaming that followed. Dennis didn't even look at Dee when he snatched her up to hide under the boardwalk, tears hot on her cheeks. Huddled next to her, behind a weathered collum, he kept his eyes fixated on the red in the sand. Neither are sure how long they stood there like that. But She remembers how Tommy healed up and never snitched; instead, just starts the rumors that carve her path to adulthood. She remembers the way Dennis looks at her, cocksure grin and wolf eyes, when she brings it up one night. She isn't quite sure if he would have started those rumors had Dennis not knocked him out, but hindsight leads her to thank him anyway.
Dee tries not to think about that day, though a lot of those days play in her mind, leaving knots in her stomach that she still thinks a drink will untie. (They never do.)
Prom was a bust for everyone, not just Dee’s virginity; which is why she had no problem driving her brother and his friends home and away from the gang of cool kids that should have been her friends. Not like Dennis would have let that happen, even before the brace came along to do the work for him. At Least she'll have company and she won't be expected to sleep with them. That's little reconciliation, though, the way Dennis is pacing, white knuckles and sweat.
Dennis is raging after the whole ordeal with his prom date, and it stirs something inside of her, something misshapen and horrible that she pushes down with another swig of her dad's absinth.
Her mood is black, and her head is swimming when Charlie sits down beside her- a mop of brown hair that suits him and his normal dirtgrub attire. Clearly, prom was just another night to get fucked up with friends. Social nuances had always been beyond him. Ignorance must be bliss. He's all toothy grin and red eyes when he yanks the absinth out of her hand. He drinks the rest of it, oblivious to her scowl.
“How ya doin there, Dirtgrub?” She asks,hard edges around her words and eyes. Charlie just smiles, gaze dead set on her.
“Oh great, great. Thanks for that.” He tosses the expensive bottle over his shoulder, and lets his voice drop low, “Hey, see, what's with the whole clown thing going on? With the cheeks and the lips and the eyes. I mean, I get you wanna actually look like a girl and don't wanna embarrass the shit outta yourself, but come on. It's prom, Dee. Not Halloween.” He's saying this to her like she's the stupid one, and it takes everything in her not to scream and punch him in his mouth hole.
Instead, an unconscious hand shoots to her own face. She recalls Dennis and his saccharine smile when she'd asked him how she looked earlier in the night, his grip firm on her shoulder and hip, hot breath on her neck- how she soaked up his words.
“Oh yeah? And what would you know anyway, Charlie? You went to prom wearing the same thing you've been wearing since Thursday.” It comes out softer than she intended. She resigns. Dee Reynolds is a fighter. Always has been. Thanks partly to Dennis and her bitch mother, partly to denial. Now, she’s got these assholes.
“Whoa, whoa, Dee.” Charlie threw his hands up. “I didn't mean it like that. I just mean you're pretty. You know? Without makeup and whatever this shit is” He is still hushed and his finger tips toy with her mother's ill-fitting taffeta. “You don't need to dress up like a scary clown to get people to notice you. Sweet Dee's enough on her own, you know?” He touches her hair, and makes a noise that's something like a laugh, though Dee can't tell. “I would bang you.” Her eyes narrow, “Just don't tell Dennis, cause he will break me.”
Dees too-plucked brows furrow together and she isn't sure what to make of it. These days anytime something semi nice is said to her she's braced herself for the raucous laughter that follows. She can take the burn now. Especially from Charlie.“What the fuck do you think-” Before she can cut him back, Mac and Dennis are shouting at her, “Go find more beer, Bird lady!”
This is getting old. “Go get your own beer, boners. I'm going to bed.”
“Ah. Ah. Ah. Dee. Sweet Dee. You look so lovely tonight, despite that horrific, archaic contraption you've got going on. Don't waste all that hard work. Go get us some beers and come back. Try to look pretty, don't talk, make yourself useful for once.” His smile is nasty, but she stays dead locked on him. They're like dogs in that way. You look away; you submit. Dee had never been one to submit.
“Dude, ew.” Mac's face twists, but Dennis isn't there. “Why do you always keep her around? She's fucking gross.”
He's waiting on her to fire back, but in the everything she could've said, she decided on nothing.
You want some beer, brother? I'll get you some fucking beer.
The edges around the hollows of her cheeks are hard- harder, even than before. It's something Charlie notices. That's why Charlie follows her. That, and he's pretty sure Dennis's dad might have something other than beer back there.
It's like that well into their 40s. Dee doesn't know it yet, but may be some innate part of her can sense it. So when she comes back into the room, Charlie with 2 twelve packs and Sweet Dee with a face full of sour smelling foam for Dennis, everyone laughs (excluding Dennis). She even gets a high five. Next time it's Charlie playing errand boy. She's feels relief; She thinks, something like satisfaction
Though, words like that are pretty fluid these days.
.
It's level three of Chardee Macdennis. Emotional battery. The twins are on the winning horizon, and perhaps Dee even more than Dennis is ready to mangle their stupid little action figures and stomp them to hell. Dennis locks eyes with her, and when they're glasses clink together and they down the rest like Vikings before a raid, she knows it's only water and knows it doesn't make a goddamn difference.
She's got scars so thick, nothing can touch her. Dennis made sure of that.
Mac and Charlie start in on her, it's mostly Mac, and he almost surprises her with the way his words cut.
“Pathetic whore.” She remembers, “Roast beef pussy bitch. You think we don't hear what they say?” “When you die alone in your apartment cause some guy hears about what a useless whore you are and pulls out your insides, and there's no one there to remember you, blame no one but yourself, Dee.” “You'd bang every one one of us if it meant you got to hang around.” “Your dreams are fucking pathetic, you think a drunk whore that came from Reynolds trash will ever be anything but a parasite?” “You're fucking tragic, Dee. This feels more like an intervention than a game, am I right, Charlie?” “ Hopefully this will knock some sense into your sad leeching off of other people's success ass, and you'll do us all a favor and kill yourself.” “Remember this Deandra Reynolds, You'll never be anything unless we want you to be.”
Later she'll learn the ugliness (truth) behind those words, but at the moment Dennis is rigid behind her. She can feel his God hole filling up with the harvest from seeds he had planted within her. This was the other half of him he had cultivated. No one gets to Sweet Dee. He made her up strong and sharp, and she takes it all with a smirk.
“Nice try, losers. I thought you'd get a little more creative than ‘drunk whore, go kill yourself”, but I see I've overestimated you.”
“What the hell, man? I mean what the fuck was that?” Mac gaped at Charlie.
“What the fuck was that? That's called breaking someone down psych-o-logic like. And you just shat all over it, Charlie! Bird jokes? Really? This is the game, dude. Ruthless, Charlie! Ruthless! Bird jokes are not ruthless!”
“I don't know it, man, sounded a little harsh to me, and to be fair she actually does look like a bird,” Charlie did that weird thing where he looks down and scratches over his ear, “Kill yourself? We’re trying to win a game, man, not eat someone alive.” He laughs awkwardly and Mac is incredulous.
“Who said anything about eating, Charlie? It's all about winning-”
“Don't worry your pretty little heads, dickbags,” Dee cut in, “No one's killing and eating anyone. We won fair and square.” She can feel her brother’s approval, “You just suck at emotional battery, Mac.” She takes a swig of beer and smiles triumphantly at Dennis. His smile is subtle and he's sizing her up.
In the months that follow, she never forgets how Charlie just adopted a could be aggressive stance, and stayed silent. Aside from the occasional “Bird lady. SQUAWK!” and stupid flapping arms.
That's not to say the things Mac said didn't hurt. Or whatever hurt used to feel like. She's just amazingly skilled at burying it like a dead body. Like it'll be her life if someone digs it up.
So, that's what pills are for (What they've always been for), and it stays that way for a few months. Before Charlie finally decides Dee is being pathetic and weird and starts taking her to the diner, and weaning her down with kratom until her DTs pass. Though, she still isn't sure if she's grateful.
After the game and Charlie and Mac's departure, Dee and Dennis are sharing their victory drink. Nothing can bring her down. She knows Dennis can smell it all over her, and when it's the two of them, level and golden, she knows she's got him. He's eyeing her like a wolf and his pale, cold digits slink around her wrist. She matches him. She's all grown up now, and it's both of them this time. It's strange how she knows that he looks at her and sees a thing he's made, and as long as he's looking at her like he is now, it doesn't even phase her.
The fleeting moments of “Why keep on, when it will never change?” get shoved deep down inside of her, a companion to red sand, blue eyes, and cold hands on her forearms.
.
She's so drunk at this point when she closes her eyes, she can't decide if she's spinning or floating. The whole thing is making her want to vomit, so she heads for her bed, not feeling like puking just yet. Somehow, she manages to remove her back brace before laying down. Maybe she'll fall asleep. She can hear the steady tenor of her brothers friends speaking in the room down the hall.
Sleep takes her like the blanket of her mother's Valium Dennis gave her. Faces swim before her. Mismatched pieces of memories stick together and pull apart giving way to blurry wishes. Distorted, dream like things.
When she feels his long cold fingers on her forearms, she decides she must be under water, because her insides are screaming, and nothing feels real. Dennis is hot in her ear.
His breath is so rank with liquor even she can smell it. “I know you didn't get what you wanted tonight, sis…. I didn't either.” Dee can feel his teeth, like wet knives.
He slurs, and she can't move, and her skin is freezing. She's so cold, her voice water, caught in her throat. It isn't supposed to be you, asshole.
“But i've been thinking about it. And you know… fuck all them. We've got each other, Sweet Dee. Lucky for you, you've got me, see. and I love you, and I want to help you with your... little problem. I should've thought of this ages ago. It should be me. Always, me. ” He shutters.
Somewhere in her mind she muses about how her brother's weight on her back isn't too different from the back brace she wears every day, and the feeling of fear is too eroded by liquor for it to matter.
She loses her virginity on prom night and her back brace when she's 20. She never loses Dennis though. She stands up straight and tall despite the noxious miasma inside of her. She calls it strength and thinks it's more to do with her other half than her back brace. Every piece he takes from her, she replaces with fire, and it isn't solid, but it works for her. Over the years the chasm widens and the more he takes, the more she burns.
She wonders if Dennis will ever stop taking.
.
It's no surprise that Frank Reynolds idea of a lesson involved exhuming their dead mother. Dennis clung to her, like he always does when life catches him off guard and his well crafted delusion of control slips. He will always cling to her in those moments because she is him and he is her, and brought into this world together, she will be the closest thing he ever has to control over himself. It almost makes her feel sorry for him. He's sobbing and clutching her forearms desperately over spilled beer. In all the years Dennis spent taking and taking and keeping her under his thumb, he never quite cultivated his own resilience. (Not to mistake delusion for resilience.)
He isn't even saying anything. Just holding her forearms and shoulders racking with the kind of sobs only uncapped repression can bring.
Make no mistake, she pities him. But the fact that she sees more of herself in her mother's rotting bones and sinew than she sees in her own twin, shakes something deep in her core; like everything has shifted on its axis. She moves to the bar to crack open two more beers.
.
It's the Christmas break of the year she gets her back brace removed. She feels the weight of the world drop at her feet. Boys look at her like they're hungry, and it takes Dennis a few months to fit her new found attention into the shape of the world he has created. They will never be as good as him, after all. Neither will she.
One night Barbara is out and Frank is out and Dee comes home, because fuck Penn and fuck that bitch she rooms with. She expects to see all of them. Dennis, Mac, and Charlie- the only thing that makes her feel like Christmas isn't just another day of the month. If she isn't lying, shes missed them. She's missed them so much, she doesn't even care that all they'll do is rag on her the moment they see her.
But Dennis is out banging chicks with Mac, cause “Holidays make for lonely people and lonelier women, Deandra. And what better way to spread Christmas cheer than by spreading the legs of those in need?”
Dennis is crazy, but sometimes he isn't too far off, because Charlie comes over that night, and they binge on whiskey and chocolate cause It's just them, and when it's just the two of them they’re kings. They get shitfaced, and he plays her parents piano and she sits on top singing christmas carols about Santa getting antlerd in the vagina. (and he can't believe how hot she is.) They don't fuck, to be sure; but they kiss and they laugh and it isn't so lonely; They don't talk about it again. It isn't even awkward.
.
Dee is one fucked up bitch with the capacity to burn cities to get what she wants and she knows it. It's one of her things she wields when nothing is easy, and nothing is ever easy. She thinks that's why she's so grateful for Charlie, because it is easy with them. If Dee is fucked up, then Charlie is too far gone to matter. When they're old and dying of liver failure, it'll just be them, too. They're that special type of fucked up you get when the world shits out a human being and continues to shit on it til it dies. Trash like them live long and die slow. That's why it will just be them at the end. That's why, despite the spectre of Dennis behind her eyes, sometimes they get a little too close, and it never changes a thing.
.
“Seriously, the poetry thing was, like, great” Charlie says and she's sure he wants to ruin everything.
They're sitting on the floor in the bar, and he's looking up at her, eyes focused, brows knitted together. Her posture mirrors his.
“It was, wasn't it?” She smiling, and sort of cocks her head to the side, and her edges are soft and suspicious. If she were a color, Charlie thinks, she would be blue. Not the Jersey Shore-almost blue of Dennis. Blue like glaciers and blue hole drinks at Sudz.
“That other thing was kind of great, too.” He looks down, and scratches his above his ear like he isn't sure if those words even make sense together.
There it is, Dee thinks.
“Mmmhm, I wouldn't call it kind of great. Maybe kind of alright, maybe nice. I don't know. It's easy to throw words around,” She shrugs and Charlie decides he's got his opening.
“If you ever wanted to, you know… try again sometime, I'm just saying I wouldn't be opposed…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Charlie,” Dee’s shoulders drop and she pulls herself up and over to sit beside him. “What are you actually saying?” The question is blunt, and Dee is nothing if not blunt, but God damn it, they had never fucked before and she was afraid it would ruin their thing. A kiss is a kiss, but two fucked up people fucking can really fuck some shit up- she breathes.
“What the hell, Dee? I like, love you and shit. Christ, you've known that since middle school.”
“What?” Dee screeches decidedly bird like. No. No. No. No. You're fucking it up, Charlie. Don't make me say it. We had a thing! You're ruining the thing!
Charlie is looking at her and she can't read him and it scares her like nothing has ever scared her. “Really? I mean, I'm pretty sure I've told you this before…”
Dee is still not saying anything. Her eyes are just wide and blue and trained on him.
He backs up “Forget I said all of… that. Look, Dee, I haven't even thought of the waitress since def poetry night… We don't have to make anything out it or anything.”
“Well, no. Cause we can't.” Dee responds. They aren't the words she wants to say, but they are the words she says, because it would be too easy to say anything else. That alone makes it a trap. Dennis has taken so much from her already.
“Look, can we just be frank here? We've had this thing going for a while now, and it's been nice. You do you're weird garbage thing, I do me. Sometimes we hang out and we get each other and it's cool and eventually Dennis and Mac die, and it's just us and our liver cirrhosis and everything is great! Don't fuck that up, Charlie!”
“Wait, what?! At first I was following you, but then you lost me with the whole liver psoriasis thing…”
Dee rolls her eyes, “Cirrhosis.”
“Right, psoriasis. I don't know what me and you have to do with gross skin diseases, but-”
“Forget the liver thing! Just don't talk about feelings. Don't say those words,” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Charlie swears she almost looks sad. “You take the whole love thing, and you shove it way deep down in your guts where it can never find you, and everything stays cool. Are you following me, Charlie?”
“Right…” He starts, still clearly confused,”But, hear me out, we can you know…. Maybe not hate on each other all the time and hang out… more... alone... maybe? Like we used to… I miss that shit.”
The tips of his ears are red, and she's not so familiar with this feeling, but it's something that feels right. Its Charlie. Charlie's always been something other than another web Dennis wove around her. And to be honest she misses those days too.
She resigns, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Charlie looks surprised. He did bomb last time. But that was only because he wasn't even sure it was real and fucked it up like everything else. “Okay. Okay, yeah. Wanna get outta here? There's gotta be food somewhere.” He helps her up and at the diner, they order chicken sandwiches and Charlie doesn't scream “BEAK!”
He slinks his hand across the table to find hers. It's December in Philly. They walked the whole way to the diner, but his hands are warm. She doesn't think about Dennis or the way his hands will never be warm. And somehow it still isn't awkward, or weird.
Even at Paddy's the next night, or the next, when Charlie's proximity to her makes her tingle and she doesn't hide her smile.
.
Sometimes, Dee thinks, all that remains of her are the scorched edges Dennis left behind. He has his God hole, and she has her own sort of chasm. Charlie, though, gives her something solid to hold on to. She knows Charlie has his own chasm, and it's edges are jagged and sharp, too. Sometimes, she thinks, that's why it works. When his warmth is on her she feels his edges catch along her own. It's something like wholeness and something like peace. She knows there are parts of her that Dennis will have forever, and that's just the natural order of things. But, he can't take this from her; no one can. She'll burn up anyone who tries.
A/N: It's been years since I've done any fic, but “the gang misses the boat” and the erosion of Dennis just kind of forced this out of me. Forgive the spelling/grammar errors. This was written on my phone cause no computer. Here's to fucked up people writing fucked up people! Hope you guys enjoyed. Also this was inspired by clockwork_hart and the stunning laughs, like god. That is some top notch writing if you're into this writing style and got the charlie/dee bug.
Thanks for reading.