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“Okay. Who the fuck put Offdensen in here?”
Nathan Explosion stood at the center of attention in the Mordhaus living room, pinching a scrap of paper between two fingers and glowering at each of his bandmates in turn. It was New Year’s Day, and the after party was in full swing. Toki and Skwisgaar sat on either end of the long leather couch, surrounded by groupie girls and decked out in New Year’s beads and stickers from head to toe. The pair exchanged jovial looks, while Pickles, sporting a pair of 2008 New Year’s glasses, stood holding one of the girl’s zebra print bras out like a chalice, in which they’d put the shreds of paper for the game. The living room was silent for half a beat before laughter erupted on the couch from the two Dethklok guitarists.
“Hah! You drews it! You drews his name!” Toki shrieked, wiping a tear from his eye and choking in air. “Now you has to has seven minutes in heavens with hims!”
“Ja, dats ams da rule!” Skwisgaar said, and he and Toki shared a high five over the heads of a pair of girls.
“Fuck that. This is bullshit, I’m drawing a new one,” Nathan said, and he dipped his hand into the bra cup for a new name. Pickles jerked it out of reach, but not before Nathan managed to nab the greasy corner of a Dimmu Burger receipt and lift it under his nose.
Charles
“REALLY.” Nathan dropped the name onto the floor and turned about the room. “What the fuck, guys, I want a real name,” he said, and he half-glanced toward the brown haired groupie girl in the hot tub, the one he’d had his eye on for most of the night. “Can’t you put like…” He cast around in his mind for her name. “Crystal, or someone, in there?”
“Nope! That’s your name, you gotta do it!” Pickles said, while Skwisgaar and Toki nodded congenially from the sofa. Murderface spoke up from the corner of the room, where he sat alone, flicking cotton out of the armrest of his chair with a knife.
“Juscht so we’re all clear here, Nathan, I was against thisch idea from the beginning,” the bassist said coolly. His paper New Year’s hat was perched lopsided on the triangle of his hair, and the thin white chin strap was digging into the fat under his jaw, turning one chin into two. “I was all for putting in schome of the girls names, you know, trying to liven things up in here, but these buncha homos inschisted.”
Nathan ignored his comment and turned back toward the drummer, who was swirling the bra delicately in his hands, tossing the little papers around to mix them up. Nathan made a grab for it, but Pickles ducked out of reach.
“Hey! No redraws!” Pickles said, and he whipped his head toward the guitarists and said quickly, “Toki, run and get Offdensen!”
“Okay!” Toki cried, and he lurched to his feet and out of the room before Nathan could open his mouth to protest.
The guitarist was back in record time. Nathan had only just started tearing a new piece of paper into shreds to write names on when he reappeared, towing their bedraggled and cross-looking manager by the elbow. Nathan took one look at him and felt his blood run cold.
He'd been asleep.
If Nathan knew one thing about their manager, it was how much he hated to be interrupted, particularly during the late hours of the evening. Well, maybe not hate -- Nathan couldn't imagine Charles ever hating anything. So then he really really strongly disliked it. Nathan glanced frantically around at the others for some sign that they understood their predicament, but no one else seemed nearly as concerned.
“What’s going on?” Charles asked after a moment, drawing his robe tight and looking from face to face for some sort of explanation.
Nathan said nothing and took a step back toward the opening of the hot tub, covering the discarded paper scraps with the heel of his boot. He was suddenly aware that none of the groupies were wearing bras anymore, since Murderface had started that whole 'bra confiscation' thing earlier, so there had to be like, six or seven sets of tits out, which would be like, 12 or 13 total tits, and with Charles in the room it suddenly wasn’t super funny or hot anymore. Nathan watched their manager’s face for some sort of reaction, but his eyes seemed to slide right over the half a dozen girls and focus in on the band.
“Nathan has something he wants to tell you!” Toki announced, and the singer felt the bottom fall out of his stomach.
“Nathan?”
Charles said his name expectantly, and the front man bowed his head, letting a dark curtain of hair fall in front of his eyes.
“Yeah, he has to tell you something,” Pickles said when Nathan failed to respond, and without warning the drummer’s skinny hand snatched at his wrist and dragged him hard toward the gaping mouth of the supply closet. “But he has to tell you in the closet!”
Too many beers.
He’d had way too many beers for this.
Like, way too many.
How he managed to keep from falling was hard to say, but somehow Nathan stayed upright, tripping over his big feet as the room spun wildly around him. As the door frame careened into view he shoved out his hands and caught either side of it, keeping a grip as Pickles shoved hard in between his shoulder blades.
“Guys? A little help here?” Pickles called after a minute, out of breath, and suddenly there was more pressure on his back, and the feel of many hands all contributing to the collective effort of shoving him into the closet for seven minutes of heaven with his manager. Nathan’s arms were soon wobbling, but it was a sneakered foot in the back of the leg that eventually did him in, and as he fell to the floor the door snapped shut and locked behind him.
It was a few seconds before Nathan managed to open his eyes, and when he did he found his nose inches from a pair of slippered feet. Skinny ankles. Really hairy legs. They’d shoved Charles in first. Nathan didn’t dare look up, knowing damn well what he’d see, and instead focused on disentangling his limbs. By the time he’d climbed to his feet the music from outside the door had reached a record volume, effectively drowning out the voices of his band mates and the sounds of the party. Feeling blindly for the door with his hands, Nathan tried the knob. It jiggled a quarter inch in each direction, locked from the outside.
So he squared up a shoulder and charged.
THUMP
THUMP
He was too drunk to really feel if it hurt or not.
THUMP
It probably didn’t hurt, since he couldn’t feel anything, right? If it hurt now, that would be a bad sign that it’d hurt in the morning when he was a little more self aware, a little more sober. So the fact that it was numb now was good. Right?
THUMP
“Nathan.”
THUMP.
“Nathan.”
“What?” Nathan called over his shoulder, as he squared up for another run.
THUMP
“Would you stop that? You’re going to break your arm,” Charles snapped, and Nathan stopped and let his arm dangle by his side. Still numb. He’d thought Charles was going to say ‘break the door.’ It felt a little weird that he hadn’t, a little scary that he mentioned his arm, because he really couldn’t feel it now.
“...Sorry,” he remembered to say, and he saw Offdensen’s’ outline shrug tightly in the dark. The yellow light coming in from the sliver under the door wasn’t enough to make out his face, but Nathan had a feeling he was frowning. He could just sort of sense it.
There was an awkward silence, punctuated by the heavy, thumping bassline of the music in the main room. Nathan scuffed his boot heels across the floor, a weird concrete-like surface that felt not unlike sandpaper, and waited uncomfortably for Charles to say something first, as he inevitably would.
He didn’t have to wait long.
“Did you actually have something you wanted to tell me?” Charles asked finally, and Nathan shook his head. His eyes were adjusting now, and he could see the manager’s face a bit more, the squarish outline of his jaw and the unhappy wrinkles in his forehead. His arms were crossed protectively in front of his chest, and Nathan could just make out the wiry hairs peeping out above the V neckline of his robe, how they sort of caught the light as though they were blond -- or, more likely, grey.
“I’m assuming this is part of a game,” Charles said, and Nathan stayed quiet in affirmation. “What is it?”
“What?”
“What game is it?”
Nathan felt a prickle of shame, and mumbled his answer:
“Svnminffinhvnm.”
“What?”
“Seven minutes in heaven.” He repeated more clearly, mortified to hear the words leave his mouth.
“Oh.” Charles was quiet, and then, “Is that the one where you have to pair off and ah, stay together for… seven minutes?” He finished half-heartedly, having answered his own question. Nathan didn’t answer, just stared at the crack under the door. The gritty concrete of the supply closet ended abruptly just beneath the wood, and met up with the smooth stone tile of the living room in a harsh line. The concrete was a lighter color, like silver grey, where the stone was more like slate black. The song outside changed -- Death, now. Crystal Mountain, and when that song finished, Wolverine Blues, Entombed. Charles was tapping his foot, but not in time to the song. Just fast, impatient little pat pat pats on the floor.
“How long do you think it’s been?” The CFO said eventually, and Nathan looked up in time to catch him glancing at his bare wrist, mouth rounded in surprise. “Oh!”
“What?”
“I ah, forgot I took my watch off.”
“Why did you do that?" Nathan asked.
Charles gave him a shrewd look. “I was asleep,” he said, and that was weird, because Nathan didn’t really think he’d ever slept before. At least, he’d never thought about it. Charles always seemed so… alert, or something. Well rested. Probably from all the sleep he was apparently getting. Still, it seemed strange that he'd take his watch off to sleep, just as it seemed strange that he slept in a robe. Or, well, actually he probably didn't sleep in the robe. He'd probably just thrown it on when Toki came and got him. Nathan rarely felt overdressed, especially not around Charles, but considering he still had on the tux from the New Year's party they'd attended earlier that night their roles felt quite reversed. Charles seemed incredibly conscious of his relative inadequacy and fiddled hopelessly with the tie of his robe before saying, “It feels like it’s been at least five minutes now. Don’t you think?”
Not really. Felt more like an hour, to be honest, but Nathan just grunted noncommittally and scuffed his boots across the floor again, and tried to look at something else besides the manager and his V-cut robe. The closet had a weird smell to it. There was an old fashioned mop bucket in the corner, the kind he’d used to use back when he worked at Dimmu Burger and had to scrub the bathroom floors, but this one was black, not yellow. Nathan peered over the edge to see if there was any water in it, and Charles mirrored him.
“What are you looking at?”
“Uhhmmmmmm nothing?” Nathan said, staring into the empty bottom of the bucket. It was dried up, and the plastic was kind of crusty looking. Real old, but spotlessly clean. Like Charles.
Nathan almost smiled at that thought and turned his attention to the mop sticking out of the bucket. It leaned crookedly against the wall, stringy hairs dangling down toward the floor. Without thinking he reached out and touched them to see if they were wet. His fingertips came away dry, but weird, like, a powdery-bleachy residue kind of feeling, and he quickly rubbed them on the seat of his jeans. The CFO watched his exploration wordlessly for some time, and Nathan pretended like he didn’t notice the eyes following his movements in the dark until Charles spoke again.
“It’s definitely been more than seven minutes now. Maybe they’ve forgotten about us,” he said irritably, and he poked his head around the front man’s shoulder to get a look at the door, standing on the toes of his slippered feet. The music was still playing just as loudly, and no voices could be heard over the shreddy, rumbly chords of the guitars. There wasn’t enough room for Charles to squeeze by to reach the door, so he gestured impatiently and said, “Will you please try knocking?” just as the vocals of the next song began:
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.”
“Yeah, uh, I don’t think they’ll hear that,” Nathan said, raising his voice to be heard over the noise.
Charles took a calming breath. “Just. Try.” He said. When Nathan didn’t immediately jump into action he seemed to draw himself to full height, and with an awkward, clumsy shuffle, he slipped between the side of Nathan’s body and the wall and marched for the closed door.
TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP
TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP
“Seriously, they won’t hear you,” Nathan said, staring at the back of Charles' head as his fist sounded incessantly on the door.
TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP
“Guys? Are you listening out there?” Charles called loudly, and he shifted his hand so that it was the bottom of his fist, rather than his knuckles that were hitting the door now.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
“They won’t hear you, and besides,” Nathan repeated, a little louder, “it’s not always exactly seven minutes.”
That seemed to catch the man’s attention. Charles whipped around to face him, eyes flashing dangerously in the dark.
“What?”
“Yeah, I mean. It’s. Sometimes it goes for longer. I don’t know.” Nathan explained, withering under the CFO’s gaze. “I think uh, Pickles had the timer, and like, he’s probably not watching it super close… Uh, sometimes they just let it go for longer too, y’know, to give you more... time.”
“That’s not following the rules,” Charles said sharply, and he let his fist fall in favor of crossing his arms. His foot resumed tapping, and Nathan had a vivid recollection of his mother standing in the kitchen of his childhood home with a wooden spoon, scolding him. “This is… I just… Unbelievable... I mean really… And isn’t Seven Minutes In Heaven sort of a children’s game?” Charles asked, his voice creeping up a notch. When Nathan didn’t answer he elaborated, “I just mean, I haven’t heard of it being played since I was a kid.”
Nathan raised an eyebrow. “You’ve played it before?”
“Well, no,” Charles backpedaled, and the energy that had bubbled up in him so suddenly started to dissipate. “But I ah, I’ve heard of it. Heard of people playing it at the time. In college.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like you go to a lot of parties, so, what would you know?” Nathan said defensively, trying to rid himself of the mental image of the CFO as a college student. He didn’t necessarily get what Offdensen was trying to say here, whether he was trying to imply Nathan was like, sexually juvenile or something, but he could tell this wasn’t exactly high praise.
Charles gave him a pitying look. “Well, Nathan, considering we literally just arrived back from one, I think you’ll find your argument doesn’t carry a whole lot of weight.”
“That wasn’t much of a party,” Nathan shot back. Industry parties never really were, and tonight’s had been especially disappointing. Whoever had hosted the party, some interchangeable douchebag recording studio executive, had figured setting up a giant projector of Times Square was enough to keep a few hundred people entertained. How wrong they were. “I would have rather sat through another of Toki’s Monsters Inc birthday parties. With the clown. That’s how bad it was. Besides, this was like the first time you’ve gone out in like 50 years, so it doesn’t count.
“I go to a lot of parties,” Offdensen said after a minute, quietly. “Industry parties. Recording studio parties. We went to one last week too, ah, Roy Cornickselson’s 65th.”
“Uhhhhh, I really… That’s…. Look, I think we’re talking about very different kinds of parties here,” Nathan said, and he heard Charles snort in the dark. An unusual sound coming from the manager, ever serious, strange enough that he’d do it once, but then Nathan could have swore he snorted again and he gaped openly. Charles pretended not to notice as the wheels turned in Nathan’s head, piecing together the situation, why Charles’ wobbly posture was so familiar to him, what the smell was that clung to his clothing, why he was babbling so much and why he’d let his temper get the better of him. And then it clicked.
“Hey. Are you drunk?” Nathan asked.
Charles tutted.
“No, Nathan, I’m not drunk.”
“Okay. It’s just. You smell like booze.”
“I think you’ll find that’s you,” Charles said, but Nathan shook his head.
“No, it’s not. We’re drinking crap. You smell like… I dunno, good shit.” The scent of alcohol was stronger now that he’d picked up on it. A thick, syrupy-sweet smell, like warm cherries, close in the proximity and stagnating in the supply closet with the scent of bleach and sweat from someone else’s encounter only minutes earlier, Pickles or Skwisgaar and one of the topless groupies. “Cognac,” the singer blurted, unsure where the memory of the liquor came from, but certain it was what he smelled.
The CFO made a weird noise, a short, impatient blast of air out his nostrils, and then fell silent. Nathan listened to him breathe for a while, concentrated on the smell of the cognac and the body smell, sweat and soap and Charles’ cologne. And he remembered where he recognized the scent from, some bar they’d managed to drag the guy to where he’d ordered top shelf brandy and drunk himself half to death, one of the only times he’d ever gone out with the band. Years and years and years ago. Nathan had had to carry him out to the car.
This was definitely the same smell. It had to be. Nathan never drank that shit and neither did any of the other guys, so where else would he have remembered it from?
Determined to be validated, the singer tried again:
“So... you’re not drunk.”
“No.”
“‘Cause you can say it if you are.”
“I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
Nathan paused, because Charles’ tone had gotten sharp, but he plowed on a second later. “Yeah you are,” he said, and then suddenly, unprompted, “I mean, it’s fine if you are, cause like, I’m really drunk.”
Almost immediately Nathan felt his face and neck grew warm, and he was suddenly very thankful that the closet was dark so Charles couldn’t see him turn red. That was kind of a fucked up thing to say. Like, that wasn’t cool. That was like. Weird, right? Sort of like, the kind of shit he’d say to a chick when he was trying to seem vulnerable or sensitive or whatever. Definitely not the sort of thing he should be saying to a dude, and to Charles at that. What the fuck.
“Are you ah, going to be sick?” The CFO asked cautiously, and Nathan shook his head.
“No.”
He wasn’t. Probably, anyway, since one could never be too sure, but he didn’t feel sick. But, God, this was awkward. The manager had half-frozen at his revelation, arms crossed so tight in front of his body he looked as though he might snap himself in half, or corkscrew like a cartoon character. Whatever the singer’s intended effect had been, it certainly wasn’t to make things worse.
“So uhhhhhhhhhh,” Nathan said, casting around for a subject change. Outside, the music had changed from Sepeltura to Iron Maiden. Murderface had commandeered the AUX cord. “Um. Uh. Did… when did we go to Cornickelson’s party?” Nathan asked at last, landing on the subject at random.
Charles stared at him incredulously before answering. “Last week. Saturday night. You remember, it was in the ballroom of The Plaza. They ah, had the big Christmas tree up.”
“Oh.” Nathan kind of remembered being in New York. Kind of remembered a huge Christmas tree and a bunch of elderly people in evening attire. “Yeah. I uh… thought that was a charity event.”
“It was. Roy asked for donations to The New York Foundation for the Arts instead of gifts.”
“Oh god, what a lame fuckin’ party idea,” Nathan bemoaned, and Charles snorted again.
“No, I suppose it’s quite different than what you’ve got going on here with all the ah, college party games.” Charles said, and then under his breath, “Those girls certainly look to be in college.”
Nathan could tell from the tone that it was some sort of slight, but before he could work out exactly how he’d been offended he heard a small giggle in the dark, and then a quiet, somewhat delirious:
“I may ah... I may have had one drink.”
Nathan balked.
“No fuckin’ way. Offdensen, are you kidding me?” he said, and he gave the man’s shoulder a shove in the dark, or what he thought was his shoulder. Charles buckled under the unexpected weight and threw out a hand to steady himself on the wall.
“It would have been rude not to take advantage of the open bar,” Charles said in his defense, and Nathan grinned.
“Fuck yeah it would have! Are you fuckin’ sloppy right now?”
“I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say, ah, sloppy,” Charles began, but Nathan cut him off.
“Yeah you are, you’re fuckin’ sloppy. I knew it. I fuckin’ called it. I fuckin’ -- I could tell!”
Charles let his hand slide from the wall and re-crossed his arms. “Are you sure you didn’t just see me at the bar?”
“No. Honestly I didn’t even know you were there until the limo ride back,” Nathan said truthfully. Charles had not ridden with them to the event, so for all he knew the CFO hadn’t been in attendance. “I don’t think I noticed you the whole time. But, well, I wasn’t really around the bar too much.”
“Sounds like you were enjoying yourself, then,” Charles said, and Nathan barked a short laugh.
“Pshft. No. I would’ve rather gone to Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.”
“Nathan, we’ve talked about this, it’s not -- “
“I KNOW, it’s not filmed live. God,” Nathan snapped, exasperated and unwilling to have a repeat of this conversation. “Still, worst fuckin’ New Year’s party of my life.” Not that any of the others really stood out as being exceptional, but on the scale, the one tonight had definitely been a big fat zero.
Charles hummed in mild interest and asked, “Any particular reason why? Besides it not being ah, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve?”
Nathan thought about it. “Uh. Pretty much everything, I guess. The projector sucked, could hardly see the ball drop. No good food. Oh, and nobody told us it was a New Year’s party, so nobody brought any chicks. ‘Cept fuckin’ Skwisgaar. So it was boring as fuck and we all just stood around at midnight looking like a bunch of jack-offs eating the shitty fuckin’ cocktail weenies.”
Charles laughed. It was loud and close, and sort of vibrated the stagnant air around the utility closet, and Nathan flinched a little. He wasn’t used to hearing that sound, the big, round, full laugh, like he’d said something genuinely funny. Not from Charles. Sure, he’d heard the guy’s fake ‘executive’ laugh plenty of times, and his dry, humorless laugh when they fucked shit up so bad it was almost funny, and he’d heard his like, fatherly chuckle before when the CFO was trying to be their pal, but this was different. This was like, real Charles, -- Chuck, without the suit and tie. A wall was down, or maybe a couple walls, and Nathan was horrified to discover he kind of liked it, his stupid laugh, even though it was loud and objectively ugly. Cause like, seriously, what a nose on that guy. He sounded like a shot goose.
“Sounds like you should have been at the bar with me,” Charles said as his laughter died down. “Well, me and all the other bachelors,”
“Whoa. Hey. I’m not a bachelor,” Nathan corrected, and Offdensen smirked.
“My mistake.”
“I’m not. I’ve uh. I go on dates and stuff. I get girls. Stop smiling. If anyone’s a bachelor it’s you, old man.”
Charles laughed again, but quieter this time. “You’re not wrong,” he said. “Although I would like to point out that you were all told to invite dates at the last band meeting. I don’t think any of you paid particular attention -- except Skwisgaar, it would seem.” Nathan said nothing, so Charles continued, “Still, I suppose I do feel a little responsible. I could have prearranged some dates for you. But you haven’t all liked that in the past.”
Nathan let out a big breath. “It’s whatever. Too late now, anyway." He kicked out at the mop bucket, just a little tap with his boot, and it scooted an inch across the floor. "Guess I’m just doomed to have a shitty year. Fuck this holiday, fuck 2008, just. Whatever.”
“It’s not too late,” Charles countered kindly. “You still have your after party. And those, ah, young ladies out there.” He gestured over his shoulder toward the closed door.
“Yeah, but I’m not in here with one of them, am I?” Nathan said bitterly.
Charles eyed him sidelong and nodded. “That you are not. Still, you’ll be out of here soon enough, and then you can start the New Year off on the right foot.”
Nathan thought about that for a minute. He tried to picture the brunette groupie’s face in his mind, the one he’d been eyeing out in the living room, and tried to imagine what it would have been like to kiss her at midnight. It didn't’ work very well. Nathan didn’t really kiss groupies all that often. There just wasn’t usually a whole lot of opportunity for it, and for whatever reason none of the girls ever really seemed that interested in kissing, which was fine, like, he wasn’t complaining if they wanted to do something else, so then that begged the question, when was the last time he’d kissed someone? It couldn’t have been that long, right? He’d kissed Rebecca. And he’d been with girls since her. He had to have kissed at least one of them. Right?
Charles was fiddling with the drawstring of his robe, eyes politely averted. Nathan watched him, and noticed how his hair was just slightly out of place, and how his glasses were missing, and how his skin was flushed, presumably from the alcohol at the open bar, and he wondered then, when was the last time Charles had kissed someone? Had he kissed someone more recently than Nathan had kissed someone? Or had it been a very long time? Before he knew it and without thinking, Nathan had opened his mouth and asked:
“What about you?”
“Hm?”
“You didn’t er… you know… at midnight, right?” Nathan clarified.
“Oh, no,” Charles said, laughing again, that big sound. “Not me.”
“Oh.” Nathan paused. “Well, like, it’s not too late for you either, then,” he said, and Charles glanced up at his face.
“No, no, I’m afraid the New Year has officially begun for me,” Charles said. “I already fell asleep, so it feels like the First.”
“It… doesn’t have to be. Too late, I mean.” Nathan frowned and tried to get his words right. Something was just. Up. Maybe it was the bleach smell, the bleach and the alcohol scent mixing in the cramped space and fucking with his head, and maybe it was thinking about kissing someone with Charles this close to him, a warm body that smelled, y’know, kind of nice, and maybe it was all of those things and none of them, but something was up. And Nathan found himself taking a step closer to his manager, boot soles scraping the gritty floor and making the older man jump in the dark.
“It’s pretty far after midnight,” Charles said, his chin lifting marginally as Nathan approached so that he could keep his face in focus.
“How far after?” Nathan asked. Charles’ arms uncrossed in a whirl and he brought his forearm up to his nose.
“I, ah, my watch,” he tried to explain, turning his bare wrist out for Nathan to see. Thin, white skin, marked by two thick depressions where the band of the watch dug near-constantly into his flesh. “I don’t know the exact time.”
“So it could be midnight,” Nathan said, but Charles shook his head quickly.
“Actually, it’s probably closer to three-thirty. Might even be four by now.”
“We could pretend.”
“I -- what?”
Nathan took another step forward, and Charles eyes slid down his body, down the vantablack legs of his suit trousers to his boots and then back up again. He swallowed and stayed where he was, his face set into a mask of stone. Nathan paused a few inches from him and tried to explain his thoughts, his rationale, because in his head it was starting to take shape.
It was New Year’s Eve -- Day, whatever, it was New Year’s and neither of them had you know, had anyone at midnight, so didn’t it sort of make sense to just make do? And like, sure he could wait till he got out of the closet and try and pair off with one of those girls, but what if he didn’t get out in time? What if the guys didn’t let him out until morning, or worse, what if they never let him out? Would he then have a whole year of bad luck to contend with? God, he really didn’t need that, you know, with the new album coming out in the summer. So wasn’t it worth it to do everything in his power he could to prevent such a thing? For the sake of the band?
Every second that ticked by was one second further away from midnight, so if this was going to happen it needed to happen soon. It needed to happen now. If anything he was just being practical, and Charles would see that, if he could just explain it to him the way he thought it in his head.
“I’m not… good with words,” Nathan started self-consciously, and Charles nodded in concerned understanding as the front man took another step that brought them closer, and another, until the front of his boots touched the toes of Charles’ slippers. Nathan looked down at the man’s face and it was open, more vulnerable than he’d ever seen it, closer than he’d ever seen it. There were fine lines and not-so-fine lines, imperfections he’d never noticed before, things he knew he’d never be able to forget now that he’d seen them, and he realized Charles was probably doing the same thing, noticing all the ugly little details of his own face that were only really visible close up. Nathan was pretty sure he had lines too now, from the drinking and from not sleeping enough, and probably just from getting old, which had to be weird for Charles to see since they’d met when he was so young.
And then Charles licked his lips, and Nathan remembered what the purpose of their closeness was, and he said, “So I’m just. I’m just gonna say it. I uh. Fuck, Charles, can… Can I kiss you?”
Charles’ eyes popped almost comically, like they did in cartoons, and Nathan saw his Adam’s apple bob under the skin of his throat. Not a bad reaction -- not much of a reaction at all, to be honest, but Nathan could deal with that. The CFO didn’t speak, didn’t move his head, just stared openly until the front man moved in closer.
“Is that a yes?” Nathan asked, and he was surprised to hear his voice had taken on that deeper, husky quality he used when speaking to girls. Charles appeared frozen in place, arms stiff at his sides and feet rooted to the spot. Nathan took that as a sign to continue, since you know, he might as well push his luck until the guy actually stopped him, so he took a breath and bent his head so that the tips of their noses barely touched. Charles’ nose was cold and sharp, and this close Nathan could hear his breathing, short and rapid like an animal. After a moment’s hesitation he angeled his face and leaned in.
“You’re drunk,” Charles whispered against his lips, and the brush of them was like a buzzing magnet, pulling Nathan down until he’d closed the last of the space between them and pressed their mouths together. And, God, fuck that was good. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the fact that this was his manager and that they were sharing the kiss in the supply closet off the Mordhaus living room, but he hadn’t gotten this fucked up about a kiss in years. Beneath him, Charles was soft, and hot, and when his lips parted Nathan tentatively stroked his tongue between them to a groan of fervent approval. Nathan delighted in the sound, the wrongness of it, because no sound that dirty should ever leave the manager’s mouth and yet it had, sending a jolt of electricity crawling from the front man’s hairline down the length of his spine in tingling waves. His every nerve felt raw, on edge, over-stimulated in an almost painful way as the tip of Charles’ tongue ran feather light along his bottom lip, and Nathan moaned stupidly in his throat because that was fucking wrong, wrong wrong wrong but so fucking good.
The urge to grab Charles, to snatch him and pull their bodies together was overwhelming, but Nathan kept his hands firmly in check, digging his nails into the meat of his palms until they stung. There was a line somewhere close by, and the front man knew if he crossed it, intentionally or not, things might end far worse than they were bound to, for Charles was nearly at his limit. The man was shaking like a leaf, Nathan could feel that much in the space between them, and the kiss felt terribly temporary, as though at any moment it would break away into nothing. Desperately, Nathan reached up a hand to cup his cheek, to keep the connection for as long as he could, and it was lightly stubbled and feverishly warm against the skin of his palm.
When at last it felt as though the kiss had reached its natural conclusion Nathan pulled back to look at him, and found that Charles’ eyes were scrunched shut tight. When they opened a moment later they were heavily dilated, a ring of warm brown around the black.
“Was… was that okay?” Nathan asked. Charles’ nodded a fraction in each direction. and the front man felt his heart give an odd squeeze. It had been okay for him too -- no, more than okay, it had been fucking exhilarating, the most fucked up kiss of his life, and a good kiss, too. In that instant it didn’t matter that it had been with Offdensen, because fuck, whatever, he was drunk, and Charles was drunk too, drunk enough that he thought Nathan was funny and drunk enough that he had let himself be kissed. And Nathan was drunk enough to enjoy it, enjoy him, because fuck, it's not like they ever spent any regular time together. Offdensen was always preoccupied with something, never around when Nathan wanted him to be, and so yeah, if he was starved for a little of the guy's attention what did it matter? No one had to know this happened, none of the guys would ever have to find out. And even though a tiny voice in the back of his mind kept asking “Is this gay? Is this gay is this gay is this gay?” Nathan was able to tune it out in favor of a second kiss. But as he leaned in again he felt pressure on his chest, and looked down to see Charles’ hand on the lapel of his tux.
“Nathan,” he said, gently, and the front man paused to look at him. A certain resolution had returned to the manager's face, a sort of stern, parental quality that Nathan recognized immediately as his own defeat. The interruption had given the man time to recuperate, to formulate an escape, and he'd done it with one word. There was no need to say anything else. Nathan understood perfectly what his silence implied, because it looped now in his own mind, free from the fog of the moment; one kiss was a mistake, but two? Unjustifiable. Slowly, reluctantly the front man drew back a step, and let his hand drop from Charles’ face to fall flat at his side. The motion made his bicep thrum with pain -- the earlier attempt to break down the door had caught up with him at last.
Rather than continue to stand in Charles’ personal space, he backed up a few steps until his shoulders hit the stone wall of the supply closet. From there he sunk down until his backside touched the floor, drawing his knees up and resting his forehead against them. Charles had the courtesy to wait until Nathan wasn’t looking to wipe his mouth on his sleeve, and he continued to stand in the same spot, hands stuck deep in the roomy pockets of his robe. A very casual stance, Nathan thought, as though he were trying to emphasize with his body language that everything was fine, just fine, thank you very much. When it probably wasn’t. After all, how could it be?
After a few minutes of silence Nathan raised his head. “Are you mad?”
Charles looked down at him. He looked surprised, as though the question had interrupted him mid-thought. “No, Nathan. I’m not mad at you,” he said sincerely. Nathan felt his stomach unknot a bit, but there was a caveat to the manager’s tone that prevented him from feeling completely absolved of guilt.
“But?”
“No ‘buts,’” Charles said, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose anxiously before continuing in a short rush, “I do feel, ah, responsible for this, and I want you to understand that in no way are you at fault here. Do you understand?” Nathan gave him a blank look, so he continued. “Please just... try and put this from your mind and we can just ah, move on. Business as usual.”
Nathan raised his eyebrows skeptically but decided not to press the issue. He didn’t have anything to say yet other than ‘I’m sorry," which seemed pretty inappropriate considering the apparent gravity of the situation. So he said “Okay,” and leaned his head back against the wall.
And then he raised it again as a new thought crossed his mind. "Was it bad for you?"
"I-- was -- what? No, Nathan, that's ah, besides the point," Charles said, exasperated, and Nathan imagined that if he could have paced the small floor space of the closet, he would have started long ago. "And I don't want you to think about it that way. Good or bad is irrelevant. Really, I think it's best we don't dwell on it. Just let it go. Of course, that's not to say that if you should feel the need to discuss it that we can't, because we can, and I'd really prefer you discussed anything of ah, this nature with myself first before consulting ah, Dr. Twinkletits, for instance. You know my door is always open." Charles finished his speech and looked at Nathan for confirmation. "Capiche?"
Nathan shrugged his uninjured shoulder, and Charles nodded as though it were the best he could have expected.
The song floating underneath the door now was softer, and Nathan could at last hear the voices of his bandmates and the sounds of water sloshing in the hot tub. He tried to concentrate on what they were saying, but by this point their speech was collectively slurred beyond recognition. After a minute of listening it occurred to Nathan that if he could hear them the reverse would probably be true, so if he were to try pounding on the door again or talking to them through it there was a good chance they’d hear. But to get to the door he’d have to walk past Charles, who he was very determinedly not looking at, so pretty much they were trapped forever unless someone decided to do something.
Lucky for him, someone did decide to do something, but it was neither him nor Charles in the end. As the sound of the lock clicked outside the closet both his and Charles’ heads snapped up, and before either of them could move the door swung open.
“aaaaaaaaaaAAAANND let’s see what’s goin’ on in here!” A disembodied voice cried out as a bright flash went off, momentarily blinding the pair. Nathan squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light, and a handful of faces swam into view. Skwisgaar, Pickles and Murderface all crowded around the entrance, while Toki and a few of the girls stood on tiptoe behind them to catch a glimpse of the inside of the supply closet.
“Wow. This ams the saddest pictures I’s ever seen,” Skwisgaar said, staring at the screen of his dethphone and clucking his tongue. He turned it to face the closet occupants, and Nathan could make out his hunched outline on the ground, hidden behind the enormous washed out face of their manager. The flash had robbed him of his features, and it looked more like a ghost in the foreground with a hunchbacked goblin on the floor.
Charles didn’t look at the picture. He was already marching directly for the door, holding his shoulders tensed and back ramrod straight. The group parted automatically to let him through, and by the time Nathan stood up the manager had reached the edge of the living room and had turned back around to speak. Judging by the expression on his face, he had a great deal to say and not a lot of energy to say it.
“Good night, gentlemen. Please don’t include me in any party games in the future without my expressed permission,” he said. As he turned to leave he met Nathan’s gaze over the heads of the others, and the two exchanged uncomfortable grimaces before he turned and left the room.
Nathan followed the path he’d cleared out of the closet and blinked in the bright light of the living room, unchanged since he’d left it so many minutes ago. The brown haired groupie was still in the hot tub, and when she caught him looking she crooked a finger.
Pickles appeared at his side with a beer, and Nathan accepted it and drained it in one go.
“So, did you two lovebirds enjoy your seven minutes in heaven?” Pickles asked, snickering. Nathan scowled, crushed the can and tossed it haphazardly toward the drummer’s head.
“Fuck off," he said, and he undressed and climbed into the hot tub.