Work Text:
1994
That night, the moon was bright and clear; emmental cheese craters vivid and alluring through the dark night sky, with a vampire silver sheen glowing down onto Philadelphia.
Charlie liked those types of nights. Those were the nights where the moon cast a bright illuminating hue to the rooftop of his home, reflecting off the tiles and scintillating a warm glow, enough to fend off the Nightman himself. And it was a good thing it did, mind you, as the Nightman was barely a hair's breadth away, sleeping in Charlie's bed with his strange, invading scent of moth balls, musk and cheap cologne. It was exhausting, to be seventeen and still running from his painful clutches. The rooftop was a place he couldn't get, his tiny hands simply too weak to climb out of the window and up to the tiles. He'd surely fall to his death if he tried, which was merely another safety blanket for the security of this moonlit place.
Charlie was smoking a cigarette from a pack he'd stolen from the local store, and was watching the way the ash floated in the midnight breeze, trees distantly rustling from the sidewalk and a siren blaring a few blocks down. It's the peace and tranquility he craved; the noiseless noise of the city, all far too separate to him to be of any close significance to him. Distant reality, enough to keep him grounded in his own and not get lost in the light polluted stars.
He laid on his back, beneath a musty tartan blanket, head propped up on a folded up t-shirt. He may or may not have been crying, but his cheeks were damp and his nose was definitely blocked up and snuffling. The smoke tasted nice and warmed his lungs, the feeling of suffocation having never felt as fucking sweet as this.
A clatter resounded on the tiles near Charlie, making him jolt out of his goddamn skin. Eyes flitting around, he noticed a small rock near him. The rock was followed soon after by a shout, from a familiar voice.
"Hey asshole, you up there?"
A sigh exhaled from Charlie's chest and he wiped his eyes with haste, before calling back. "No."
"Haha, very funny. I can see your goddamn cigarette smoke, idiot."
Charlie's eyes lingered on the cigarette held in his fingers and huffed a quiet laugh to himself. Trust Dennis to turn up tonight, at such a time. He wondered what the guy wanted, predicting insomnia. Dennis had a habit of invading Charlie's personal space when he couldn't sleep.
"Make your own way up," he called after a moment. "I'm not coming down to get your sorry ass."
A few minutes passed as Dennis got round to the alley and climbed some flimsy metal steps, hefting himself up onto the roof tiles. "I don't know how the fuck you get up here so easily," he huffed out a laboured breath, making his way over to Charlie. He sat down beside him, cheeks pink from exertion.
"Practise," Charlie shrugged. He looked across at Dennis, seeing his angular face cast with the light of the brightly shining moon and the slight hue from nearby streetlamps by the house, casting shadows beneath his eyes and onto his cheeks. "How did you know I was up here?"
"Well, you weren't in your room," Dennis mused. "I threw a stone at the window and your uncle looked at me funny through the curtains."
"Oh."
"And this is where you always are if not in your room at night. Weird choice, by the way. These tiles are not comfortable."
"It speaks more of you than it does of me that you know how much time I spend up here," Charlie raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "How many nights have you come and stuck your nose in dude, seriously?"
"Well, don't be shitty about it," Dennis frowned, and pulled his knees up to his chest grumpily. "I couldn't sleep."
"When can you?"
Dennis shrugged. "Fair point."
Charlie cast his eyes away again, looking back up at the moon. It was a good focus, something his eye could reliably drawn back to. Morosely, he took a drag from his cigarette, not noticing that Dennis was watching him.
"Have you been crying?" He asked into the quiet, prying shamelessly as he noticed the residual dampness of Charlie's eyes and the subtle blotches on his cheeks.
"It's kind of none of your business," Charlie muttered. He ashed his cigarette onto his t-shirt, carelessly, not caring if the fabric got burned.
"So that's a yes, then," Dennis scoffed. "I could tell, anyway. You've still got teary eyes."
"So why did you ask?"
"Because I wanted you to say," Dennis grabbed the stone that he'd thrown up and clattered by Charlie, tossing it in his hands absently. "I'd have preferred it if you did."
"Why?"
"Uh, because I'd know you trust me," Dennis said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Except it wasn't obvious, because Dennis and Charlie were never like this. They never spoke like this. They were never honest.
"And why the hell would I trust you?"
"Because... I'm a good person to trust with this stuff."
"What stuff?"
Dennis rolled his eyes in frustration, exhaling a long, harsh sigh. "Does everything have to be spelled out for you, dude? Are you still a kindergartener?"
"No!" Charlie snapped defensively. "I just don't know what you're going on about."
"And whose fault is that?" Dennis narrowed his eyes. "Certainly not mine. I can't be held accountable for the fact you can't keep up."
"If you've come up here to be an asshole then I swear to God, I will push you off this damn roof," Charlie scowled. He smoked his cigarette down to a stub, before tossing it carelessly away. It landed on the roof tiles, not far away from his feet.
"No you won't," Dennis quipped.
"You're pushing me to it, dude. Seriously," Charlie groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Every night you come over and get in my space, you just come to be a dick. But I-I'm seriously not up for it tonight. So either be less of an ass, or go and bother somebody else."
Slowly, Dennis' face fell into a gentle knot of confusion. "But that's our thing. I come round, I'm a dick to you, you're mean back, and we both feel better."
"It's not gonna work for me tonight," Charlie said bluntly. "I've had enough... bad. I don't need more of it, even if it's in a frenemies who love taking the piss out of each other way, okay?"
"Oh."
A sigh puffed from Charlie's lips, looking blankly up at the stars as he laid on his back. He felt heavy and numb, like there was a weight on his chest and a vacuum in his mind, sucking out the last of his glimmer inside as he gazed at the glimmer of galaxies light years out of reach, entirely and wholly unattainable. His eyes watered, and the stars blurred into a black blur, the moon a mere smudge of white. "In fact, you should just... go. I'm not fun to be around right now. Go to Mac or something." He managed to speak without his voice coming out too clogged, although a lump rose in his throat as he spoke.
Dennis frowned, completely unsure how to respond to this. Part of him wanted to do just as Charlie said — to leave and go and bother Mac, and not put up with an emotional mess. But most of him wanted to stay. He was curious about the tears in Charlie's eyes, as it was a sight he didn't usually get to behold. Moreover, he didn't want to see Mac, or he'd have gone there in the first place.
Charlie was his choice of friend to irritate in the early hours of the morning, because he knew Charlie understood this sort of pain. Respectively, Dennis understood Charlie's pain, too. And he wasn't foolish, it didn't take a genius to work out that Charlie was up here to escape Jack, and it certainly didn't take a genius to realise why he was escaping him in the first place.
Really, that's why they understood each other; like a really bastardised camaraderie. And it was all unspoken, never uttered between them, but each boy knew this pain.
This is why, after a moment of hesitation, Dennis decided to say nothing in response. Instead, he laid down beside Charlie, keeping a respectful gap of personal space between them, but still quite close — close enough so that Charlie knew that Dennis was there for him, because God knows he wasn't capable of verbalising that in any other way but subtle implications of body language.
Charlie heard Dennis lay down, and saw him from his peripheral vision. It hurt, which was confusing in itself. Something like that shouldn't hurt; in fact, Charlie was certain it was a gesture to try and cheer him up. Nevertheless, his chest panged and his teary eyes overflowed, tears dripping silently from the corners of his eyes and dribbling down the sides of his head and into his thick mass of hair. It didn't feel like offense, it didn't feel like betrayal, but it still definitely hurt. A warm sort of hurt, that made Charlie want to move towards him. Like a moth to a flame. Like a moth to the goddamn moon.
"The stars look good tonight," Dennis said quietly. He rested his arms at his side and looked where Charlie was, at the night sky.
"Yeah," Charlie croaked.
"Full moon, too," added Dennis. "Makes me wanna sleep even less, just so I can stay looking at it."
Charlie nodded, and said nothing more. His voice was too thick as the waterworks opened, wanting to keep his tears as quiet and inconspicuous as he could. A breath trembled in his nose, though, only able to disguise so much.
"Can I have a cigarette?" Dennis asked. It seemed like a bad time, but he asked anyway.
"Sure," Charlie got out, sniffing harshly and grabbing his pack of cigarettes from beside him, tossing them and a box of matches across to Dennis carelessly.
Dennis caught them masterfully, taking a cigarette out and balanced it between his lips, fiddling with the matches. He lit the cigarette, and Charlie's eyes flickered over to watch the flame of the match illuminate Dennis' face through his blurry vision. He couldn't help it. There was something fascinating to him about Dennis' features, where he often struggled to look away.
"What?" Dennis raised an eyebrow, and rested his body back into a comfortable laying position.
"What, I'm not allowed to look in your direction now?" Charlie scoffed, deflecting, with a harsh sniff. His tears were tailing off a little.
"...I dunno," Dennis muttered. It took a lot of energy to not reply with something cold or sarcastic, as he was wont to do, but he remembered Charlie's warning, and decided to not be an asshole. Besides, he didn't want to make him cry anymore.
He focused on the cigarette, inhaling the sweet nicotine into his lungs, letting his sleep deprived body crave it, and his sunken eyes fixate on the smoke in the air as he exhaled.
"How do people comfort each other so easily?" asked Dennis.
"I wish I knew," Charlie mumbled.
"I see it all the time. People get sad, and their friends will coddle them and hug them and tell them all these false promises. I don't get it, Charlie. Does that help? Because I never thought it looked very helpful."
"It seems awkward," Charlie said. He sniffed again, and wiped his nose, but let his tears stay damp on his temples. "Like... there, there. All that weird stuff. People can just say that shit, and like... hug each other and it not be weird. I don't get it."
"I don't either," Dennis said. "But there's nothing to do instead of that. Dead end." He offered the cigarette across to Charlie, holding it over to him. He eagerly took it, and inhaled greedily, before passing it back to Dennis.
They both sighed in unison. "This is all just a totally complicated way of you saying you want to comfort me, isn't it?"
"I think it is, yeah," Dennis said quietly.
"I wanna comfort you, too."
"I'm fine. I just couldn't sleep."
"It's not just anything," Charlie raised an eyebrow. His tears had naturally come to a stop. "Why couldn't you sleep?"
"We don't talk about that," Dennis just responded with, immediately shutting that down with a little scowl. "That'd be like me asking you why you're crying on the roof. Except I'm not going to, because I already know. And you already know why I couldn't sleep, too. But we don't talk about it." He inhaled the cigarette deeply, and puffed out the smoke in a huff.
Charlie chewed his lip. "What if I want to talk about it?"
"Do you?" Dennis raised an eyebrow. "Go on then. I'd like to see you try."
Charlie opened his mouth, and then closed it. He shook his head. "Okay. I don't wanna talk about it."
"Exactly," Dennis snapped grumpily. "Why'd you have to go and break the silent rule, man? Now things are weird."
"It's your fault for bringing up comforting me," Charlie quipped quietly.
"Keep it up like that and I'll hug you," Dennis threatened.
"Ew," Charlie wrinkled his nose, as if the thought of such a thing disgusted him. It didn't, really. Nothing about Dennis like that could truly disgust him, as much as he wished it did.
A gentle laugh huffed past Dennis' lips. "Yeah. Ew." He passed the cigarette to Charlie to finish, which he did — swiftly so.
"I do trust you, by the way," Charlie said after a moment, lost deep in thought.
"Yeah, I know," Dennis added softly. "It was just a convoluted way of saying that you can cry in front of me. It's cool. I get it. It's not like I'm gonna tell anyone."
"Thanks," Charlie mumbled. "That was actually super comforting. Maybe we are good at it."
"Maybe we can actually comfort each other instead of the rest of the world who just say weird empty words," Dennis mused. "Empty words are worse than not being comforted."
Charlie nodded, sighing. He glanced across at Dennis, whose gaze was fixed up at the sky, the reflection of moonlight cloaking his eyes with a shimmery, silver sheen.
It was mesmerising. Charlie's hand found itself slipping across without conscious instruction, seeking out Dennis' to wrap around, to hold.
Dennis looked surprised as Charlie's fingers slid between his, but he didn't object. He just quietly held his hand, linked in the space between them, resting on the cold roof tiles. Fingers grasped, the two lay in silence for a while. Chronically awake, eyes cast to the sky, tiredness setting in bags and wrinkles beneath their eyes that really shouldn't be appearing until ten years down the line.
Every now and then, Charlie looked over at Dennis. Truly, he couldn't help it — the appearance of the boy had always drawn Charlie's focus, the prominent nose and the angular cheek bones, the outgrowing curls in his hair and his piercing blue eyes. He seemed like a separate entity entirely, and to be his friend felt out of place, although it was still very much welcomed.
Dennis was a dick, sure. But something about his way of speaking, his way of being, made Charlie believe him when he went on seething rants about how he was a God, and demanded respect from his fellow classmates. If somebody could truly look like that, rage like that, live like that and above all, understand Charlie like that, then Charlie certainly thought that he likely couldn't be human, as no other human had quite reached the magnificently diverse extremes that Dennis had before.
He could be so angry and hostile and cruel, yet here he was, laying on Charlie's rooftop in the early hours of the morning, holding his hand and sharing the silence as the communal understanding of trauma hung unspoken in the air between them.
"I really care about you, Charlie," Dennis broke the silence, his voice tentative. "I—I'm probably just saying that because I'm sleep deprived as shit, but... you do know that, don't you?"
Charlie exhaled a shaky breath, closing his eyes to prevent any tears from forming again. His lip felt wobbly. "...Uh, I—I guess I do now," he mumbled with a slight laugh, self-conscious but incredibly, incredibly touched.
Dennis cared about him. Maybe Mac was right — Charlie should believe in God, after all.
"Good," Dennis said quietly. "...Y'know, you're a total freak. Like, the weirdest fuckin' guy I know. But I really— fuck, this sounds so embarrassing and sentimental, but... I really don't know what I'd do without you, man."
"You trying to make me cry again or something?" Charlie huffed a shaky laugh. He squeezed Dennis' hand, heart pounding as he became completely overwhelmed by the sincerity coming from usually such a flippant guy.
"No," Dennis said. "I just, like, really want you to know. Like, I've gotta say it at least once at some point, so I figured I'd get it over now with so then it can just become a standard unspoken thing between us," he tried to rationalise. "Don't think I've gone soft or anything, because I straight up won't ever be honest with you like this ever again."
"But tonight's an exception?"
"Yeah," Dennis nodded. "Tonight is the only exception."
Charlie sighed, but nodded in understanding. He chewed his lip, mulling over all the feelings in his vulnerable mind, hand holding tightly onto Dennis'.
"Aren't you gonna say stuff back?" Dennis scoffed, raising an eyebrow.
"I'm no good with words, bro, you know this."
"Yeah, I know you're an idiot, but you're still capable of being nice or having feelings and shit."
"I know I am. I've— I've got loads of feelings. Too many."
"So tell me some, and then we can share the load," Dennis implored. He stroked the back of Charlie's hand with his thumb, although the action wasn't a conscious one. His thumb seemingly did this of its own accord, out of the subconscious need to comfort Charlie, to reassure. "Christ knows I could do with some more feelings, so it's only fair that way."
Charlie swallowed a lump in his throat and sat up, his hand slipping quickly out of Dennis' as he felt it growing sweaty, not wanting to embarrass himself. See, he was self conscious so suddenly because as Dennis said those words and Charlie laid there, emotions brimming over, he realised that he really, really wanted to kiss him.
It made sense, really. Dennis was beautiful, and the combination of his complexion beneath the moonlight and his cold hard exterior melting away into sincerity made Charlie's heart pound and his head spin and his hands grow clammy at the thought of it.
"Hey, what is it?" Dennis frowned, sitting up too. He looked at Charlie with a confused, almost partially offended expression, the quizzical knot in his brow tugging and casting shadows down onto his eye bags. "I thought I'd cracked you, then. Thought you were gonna sing my praises, dude."
Charlie bit his lip. "I said I'm not good with words," he mumbled.
"Right," Dennis shrugged. "I guess, yeah. I mean, whatever—"
"You said this night was an exception to stuff, right?" Charlie cut Dennis off, looking across at him and making eye contact with his stupid stupid stupid diamond eyes. He could imagine getting lost in them for hours.
"Yeah," Dennis said, tone confused.
"Can it be an exception for anything?" Charlie asked. He quickly went over the possible outcomes in his head — either Dennis would kiss back, not kiss back but not be offended, push Charlie away and start yelling at him for being weird and gay, or push him off the roof. One of those outcomes was good. Two if he counted the general desire to throw himself off the roof most nights anyway.
Dennis' expression slowly softened, but Charlie wasn't sure why. "Yeah, Charlie. Whatever happens or gets said is just tonight, and it stays between us. I swear."
"Okay," Charlie nodded. Palpitations fluttered his chest, and he wiped his sweaty palms on his legs, nervous energy coursing through him. He bit his lip, gaze flitting between Dennis and the roof tiles, Dennis and the roof tiles, Dennis and the roof tiles.
And then, back to Dennis.
He counted down from three in his head, before quickly leaning into Dennis and pressing a clumsy, brief kiss to his lips. His cheeks burned up, fingers shaking with nerves.
He pulled back quickly but couldn't make eye contact out of embarrassment. His eyes were averted as his cheeks burned red, his breath awkward and a little stunted. But after a long moment of complete silence and complete lack of reaction, an outcome unaccounted for, Charlie's gaze slowly lifted to look up at Dennis.
The sight he was met with was an unexpectedly welcome one, and it made Charlie's stomach fill with a warm, bubbly sensation as his feelings overflowed from his brain and had to take up space in the rest of his body, like his fingers and his chest and his intestines and his legs. Dennis' eyebrows were gently turned up, an expression of soft shock plastered on his face. His eyes were like saucers, wide and gleaming in awe as his lips stayed parted, stuck in place as he clearly tried to process what had happened.
"...Why are you looking at me like that, I told you I was bad with words," Charlie joked softly.
"You kissed me," Dennis said quietly, expression unchanging.
"Well... yeah... how else did you expect me to share the load of all my dumb feelings without words?" Charlie shrugged, fiddling with his fingers as his blush stayed strong on his cheeks. "It's not like that's the first time you've been kissed, I dunno why you're so shocked—"
"Because you kissed me," Dennis repeated. And then, he hesitated, mouth open as his going to speak and getting stuck mid-word. "Uh... Do it again."
Charlie's eyebrows raised, not at all expecting that request, least of all so explicitly and clearly. He swallowed a nervous lump in his throat and nodded quickly, scrunching his eyes closed and leaning in again, pressing a tentative, brief kiss to Dennis' lips.
However, as soon as he went to pull back this time, Dennis' hands quickly cupped Charlie's cheeks to keep him close, pulling him back. "Don't tell fucking anybody, okay?"
"I won't if you won't," Charlie muttered shakily, feeling his face heat up once more under Dennis' cold fingers. He let himself get pulled back in completely, feeling his own heart beat in his throat as Dennis kissed him again, softer, less briefly; lingering, in fact, lips clumsily locking together.
Charlie wasn't sure what to do with his hands, so they rested awkwardly in his lap, one of his fingers just nudging against Dennis' knee, nervous disposition and general inexperience getting the better of him. It felt nice to kiss him, though. It felt better than any other kisses he'd endured, making his chest flurry in an overwhelmed little tornado. And he knew that realistically, this would likely not happen again for a very long time, if at all. So he decided to savour it. He savoured the safety, the way they felt like the only people alive in the whole world, kissing without direction and with innocent intentions and sharing the load of their stupid bad feelings and trying to replace them with good ones.
Dennis pulled away after a moment, exhaling a wobbly breath. "Damn, you uh— you really had a lot of those feelings to share around, huh?" He awkwardly commented. He licked his lips, laying back down and refraining from kissing Charlie again, lest it develop into anything else, like attachment or lust or commitment or love or something weird.
Charlie watched Dennis lay back down. He opened and closed his mouth, looking off into the distance as he tried his best to relive the feeling of being kissed like that already, barely seconds after experiencing it. "Yeah," he said vaguely.
"That can't mean anything, y'know."
"Not after tonight," Charlie commented absently, nodding in blind agreement. He knew though, that he'd likely think about this every day for years to come.
"No falling in love with me allowed."
"Don't flatter yourself. We're just comforting each other," Charlie lied. He lied through his goddamn teeth, pushing all the inconvenient emotions taking root in his chest deep, deep down below the surface.
"Yep," Dennis said shortly. His face was still red — he was lying too.
Maybe one day they'd get reminded of how this kiss felt after decades of moving past it and forgetting it, after years of pretending those feelings weren't there and carrying on like normal, when they're made to kiss in front of a camera dressed in stupid costumes. Maybe, Dennis' hand on Charlie's cheek would feel weirdly familiar, and for a second, he'd wonder why, and then remember this night. How Dennis was there for him. How his cold exterior melted away and they made an exception, and allowed themselves to hurt together and feel together and hold each other for one, ataraxic night.
Charlie couldn't help but look at Dennis', unable to take his eyes off him. He didn't lay down again, hoping naively in the back of his head that Dennis might sit back up and kiss him again. "...What about when you come up here again?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Charlie shrugged. "Like, what if it's not just tonight that's the exception, but like... any night that you come and sit on the roof with me?"
Dennis raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Charlie said. "And then the rest of the time we can just go back to being friends who are mean to each other. But... I-I don't want to never kiss you again."
"Why?"
"Because it's nice to feel comforted," Charlie admitted. "And to not pretend around everyone all the time."
Dennis hummed in thought, chewing his lip. "...Okay," he nodded after a moment, and held his hand out to Charlie — who took it, and shook it firmly. "Deal."
"And nobody else can know."
"Obviously," Dennis rolled his eyes, pursing his lips in an attempt to remain nonchalant. In truth, however, his chest felt uncomfortably full of emotions, which was a state of being he'd been recently growing to be quite unaccustomed to.
Slowly, Charlie laid back down next to Dennis, tugging the tartan blanket from beneath him and draping half over Dennis, half over himself. The warmth was much appreciated, especially atop the cold, uncomfortable roof tiles, so Dennis searched for Charlie's hand beneath the blanket and gripped it tight.
They didn't say anything else, although both of them wished they could — both wishing they had the emotional ability or verbal capacity to tell the other that things were going to be alright. But they didn't. They couldn't and wouldn't say something of such sentiment, not in a lifetime.
It wasn't really needed, though. The moon still shone bright above them, and the subtle taste of each other remained on their lips. Dennis' eyes soon slipped closed, regardless of the discomfort of laying on his back on the hard surface of the roof — somehow, it was easier to sleep here with Charlie's hand in his than it was in his comfortable bed in his room, in the home of his parent's whose marriage was crumbling. And soon enough, Charlie's eyes slipped closed too.
In his sleep, he turned on his side to huddle closer into Dennis. Instinctively and subconsciously seeking his warmth and his light, like it was programmed into his way of being. Like a moth, flying towards the moon.
The two boys slept better than they had in months. The next morning, they parted ways without so much as mentioning what they shared the night before. Dennis went home, Charlie went inside. But sure enough, less than a week later, Dennis found Charlie upon the roof again.
And so, the routine would continue. Nothing would be recalled between times, but every night Dennis joined Charlie on his roof, they felt. They cried. They let the shit all bottled up inside flow, and then, they'd comfort each other with either kisses, or held hands, or simply sharing a cigarette.
It was enough to make these nights more bareable. It was enough for each of them to have a reason to push through.
It was enough.