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psychocharlie · 1 year ago

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Electric Dream Machine 2.0

Disclamer: the song I used here is NOT mine. The song is called Kill you by Dethklok. All rights to the song belong to Dethklok and Brendon Small. Please don't throw me in Mordhouse's secret prison for this, I used it just for fun. The post with song lyrics is here and the previous AU post is here.

The day after that conversation about Uncle Jack, Charlie doesn't show up at Paddy’s. Dennis thought he had managed to calm him down and put the matter to rest, but apparently it didn't go as smoothly as he'd hoped.

When Dee asks about Charlie's absence, Frank shrugs and talks about trying to get him out of bed, but he didn't want to go and said he'd stay home in bed. And in fact, the oldest member of the gang assures him, he's been kind of weird and moody lately, and even stopped playing Nightcrawlers. A heavy sigh completes the last words, and Frank's frustration is visible to the naked eye.

– Anyway, – he continues, – I figured I'd better leave him alone, the guy deserves a day off.

Mac rushes to go check on his best friend, but Dee stops him:

– Where the fuck you going, asshole? Frank said our guy's in a bad mood today and you got the empathy of a toothpick.

– YOU THINK YOU BETTER, BITCH?! – Mac is outraged, he immediately turns to yelling, and the usual Gang’s bickering begins. Dee retorts that, unlike Mac, she has no plans to go bothering Charlie, who just needs to be left alone for today.

Dennis watches this silently with his arms crossed over his chest. Yes, he wants to see Charlie. Yes, he needs to find out how he's doing and try to calm him down somehow. But he's already too wary of spending too much time with Charlie, especially for Mac. Mac is possessive and jealous of everyone. He’s jealous of Charlie because he's his best friend; he's jealous of Dennis as his roommate and, almost obviously to Reynolds, as the object of his unrequited crush. And because of his jealousy, he becomes increasingly unstable. So Dennis didn't want to provoke him any further and kept quiet.

– Will you two just shut the hell up for a second?! – Frank didn't often raise his voice, but he was really tired of Dee and Mac's pointless arguments, and his concern for Charlie seemed to get the better of him. – You two are just going to piss him off, so unless you want something thrown at you on the way in, stay out of it. – Frank stops talking for a moment, opens a beer can and turns to Dennis. He takes a big sip and looking at him a little too intently. – If you want to go and check him out, let Dennis go. You have a strange way of calming him down, – the man says that words directly to him, – maybe he'll even want to join us at the bar afterwards.

And that's it. This is exactly what Dennis was waiting for, without interfering in the Gang's arguments. That things would somehow work out so that he would be sent to Charlie's and he wouldn't look suspicious in his concern for the janitor.

– Yeah, you're right, I'll go see him.

Only Mac explodes with resentment again, like a kid who's been robbed of his candy.

– But Charlie's my best friend!

– Nobody takes your best friend away, you prick. - Dennis snorts and heads for the exit, thinking that he should do something to distract Mac before he gets even more irritated.

***

When Charlie hears a knock at the door, he hesitates to open it, and Dennis stands under the door for another five minutes, knocking and begging Charlie to open it. He finally gives up and lets the visitor in, but immediately returns to his couch without even looking at him, muttering «don't bother me» instead of saying hello.

A very peculiar picture appears before Dennis's eyes: Charlie, wrapped in a blanket, sits on the edge of a couch that looks like a battlefield, with a synthesizer and a coffee table piled high with some junk. On the table are two half-empty cups of what looks like very strong brewed tea, empty beer bottles, an open can of glue, a can of spray paint with a sock on it, and most importantly, a notebook covered with incomprehensible scribbles and crooked drawings. Charlie was writing something down, but no one could make out his notes but himself. Well, maybe Artemis, if she's lucky.

Dennis looked from the messy table to Charlie himself, disheveled, unwashed, with red, watery eyes and a face stained with colored markers. Charlie Kelly had always been known for his disregard for personal hygiene, but now he looked as if he hadn't washed his face since he was born. And he was clearly wasted from the chemicals and alcohol.

– Hey, buddy, what are you doin–

– Shh! Shut up, and let me work, I told you! – Charlie shushes him and starts tapping his fingers on the table. Not paying any attention to Dennis anymore, he mumbles something to himself, barely audible. – I don't want to...have to...kill you.

Reynolds can barely hear anything, and he moves closer, listening to his friend's faint murmurings. – They'll fnd out... I... feel blue, – Charlie slurring some words and quickly sketches something incomprehensible and schematic in his notebook, lest he forget.

– Are you writing a song? – Dennis connects the dots, sits down on the couch next to his friend, and gently touches his shoulder. But Charlie, lost in the creative process, seems to have forgotten that he's not alone, because the touch startles him so much that he jumps up, screaming.

- I'm sorry, man, it's okay, it's me. It’s just me. – Dennis frowns, a little startled by this sudden and intense reaction, and moves away from Charlie so as not to stress him further. The disheveled man still doesn't answer the question, instead he brings the jar of glue to his nose and inhales a few times. He hands the jar to Dennis, grumbling to himself that he can't think of a follow-up.

Dennis resignedly accepts the glue, closes his eyes and breathes deeply over the jar, trying to ignore the swarm of restless thoughts in his head, mixing with Charlie’s quiet mumbling.

– Like to take all the skin off your face.

Dennis opens his eyes and places the glue on the table. His hands are shaking. He seems to got out of huffing glue, which is why his head starts spinning so quickly after just a few minutes of deep breaths he makes over the glue jar. And the dizzy head makes the whole thing even more surreal.

He looks at Charlie: his movements are jerky, sometimes he taps his drunken fingers on the synth keys, playing something, but he's displeased – «no, no, no, not like that, it sounds like shit!» – and he looks like a big sad moth under his old brown blanket. – Like to take all the skin off your face.– He repeats it again, picks up the melody, and finally seems to find the right sound, because a triumphant smile lights up his face. He plays the melody again, repeating the same line a third time, tasting it.

Mesmerized, Dennis watched the process, no longer interfering. There's something beautiful about this spectacular sight.

– Like to smash all your... brains, – Kelly continues to mumble, scribbling crooked letters in his notebook, but this time he has some difficulty. – Like to smash all your brains... all your brains... Shit! – man slams his fist on the table, unable to find the right words, and the beer bottle falls and breaks. But the sound of breaking glass suddenly evokes some interesting associations in Dennis.

– Like to smash all your brains with a... vase? – Dennis asks quietly, touching Charlie's hand with his fingers to get his attention. His touch is as gently as possible. The janitor's eyes widen, and he stares at Dennis for a few seconds, his pupils so damn dilated that his eyes seem almost black.

– Like to smash all your brains with a vase. – He repeats Dennis' sentence twice, tastes it on his tongue and nods contentedly. – Yeah, yeah, that's good!

After that, Charlie stopped seeing Dennis as a stranger and even perked up a bit, allowing him to join in the creative process. Lines are written, fanciful pictures are drawn in Charlie's imagination, a simple but appropriate melody follows the words, and Dennis feels like he's stuck in one of his strange dreams. The pictures Charlie's imagination paints are both strange and bloody. It's unlikely, Dennis thinks, that he himself could come up with an epithet about a fly laying eggs in a dead body, but Charlie, with his abstract imagination and strange ideas, does, and Dennis really likes these macabre line.

He gives in to the urge, and during the simple playback between these lines and the next, he jumps off the couch and dances around singing «Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!» like those old glam rock songs he used to listen to in college. Well, not just in college. He still likes to listen to good old Guns n' Roses, Kiss, Mötley Crüe, Queen and of course his main idol since he was a teenager – David Bowie.

And Charlie, unexpectedly, appreciates the impulse, nods enthusiastically and smiles at Dennis, letting him know that he'll leave it in the song. Later, Dennis adds a few more «danceable» moments to Charlie's lyrics in the same way, enlivening them and giving the otherwise somber lyrics some drive. But the author himself doesn't mind, he starts to have fun either, even though he continues to pour his anger into the lyrics. And Dennis belatedly, but still realizes for whom and what about this song is written.

He does, but he keeps distracting wasted Charlie with more cheerful melodies. Kind of therapeutic, huh? There's a reason Dennis studied psychology. It works.

Charlie's song is creepy and bloody, but not in a realistic body horror way, but in a cartoonish way: absurd in its cruelty and non-obvious methods and instruments of murder. The mere desire to break his face with ice cream cone is worth a lot. Weird, cartoonish, but undeniably violent. For some unknown reason, Reynolds finds Charlie's out-of-the-box thinking very inspiring. And the whole situation - writing a song together, Charlie, gloomy and now cheerful, glue, spray paint, beer, disheveled hair, dancing together – it all seems so vaguely familiar to Dennis, as if it had all happened once before... a very long time ago. But it all feels so pretty familiar. He's sure he's seen it before.

– Oh, that was a great song, man, –Charlie says, almost falling on Dennis due to the amount of inhaled chemicals and beer in his bloodstream. But at least he's quite happy now. – Thanks for helping me out. I like the way it turned out.

And then Dennis remembers why this moment seemed so familiar. Years ago they had written and even performed Dayman in a similar way. Oh shit. – Yeah, that song is real rock 'n' roll, man, you're a talent! Too bad Electric Dream Machine doesn't exist anymore, we could even play it on stage.

– Noooo, – mooed his friend, already half on his shoulder, shaking his head languidly from side to side. – No one can hear this song. Only you. You know why. You know. – Charlie's voice becomes more and more slurred as he slowly falls into a sleep of exhaustion and glue.

The smile fades from Dennis's face, erasing any trace of his former mirth. The song, though it was catchy and fun despite its somber lyrics, still reflected real emotion, serious emotion, and was a heartfelt wish from Charlie for Uncle Jack, who totally deserved it.

When Dennis looks at Charlie again, he is already asleep on the couch, hugging the blanket with a silly smile on his face. At least that makes Dennis happy, at least he's not dreaming about something creepy and bloody. He finds another blanket on the floor, covers Charlie and moves the junk-filled table and the synthesizer away from the bed so that his friend won't knock it all over when he gets up to take a leak. Then he leaves quietly.

***

– Hey, Dennis, did you go see him? How's he doing? Still won’t leave the house?

Of course, Reynolds is greeted with questions when he comes back. He calms everyone down by saying that Charlie is better now, but he fell asleep, which is why he didn't join him at Paddy's. The gang is somehow satisfied with this answer and he's left alone.

But Dennis still has some lines from Charlie's new song running through his head. And he can still see his friend's sleepy but momentarily serious face repeating «You know why. You know». And then Uncle Jack's face appears. Deep in his thoughts, the man doesn't notice that he's humming.

– I don't want to have to eat you

I won't fit into my swimsuit.

– What are you singing there? – he's called out by Dee, who's already slowly getting ready to go home.

– Mm? – Dennis flinches in surprise and shakes his head. – Nothing, just a song, Dee. Just a song.

Dee shrugs and just walks away while Dennis stares at her leaving for a long time. Then he turns around and goes into Paddy's office, locking the door behind him. There he goes through the drawers for a long time, goes through old newspaper, takes some, also takes scissors, a sheet of printer paper and starts to cut something out.

After a few minutes, he has a crooked inscription made of different-sized letters cut from newspaper headlines, which says: «I know what you did».

#iasip #charlie kelly #dennis reynolds #serial killers au #charlie and dennis are murder buddies #charden #headcanon #Dethklok – kill you #songfic

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fahye · 9 months ago

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book recs: feb 2024

(disclaimer: I have spent nearly three months languishing and sullen with post-COVID symptoms and have read, over dec-feb, eighty-one books. this is a ruthlessly streamlined list of recs that does not include, uh, all the rereading of sarah maclean and charlie adhara and georgette heyer books.)

AT FIRST SPITE by olivia dade - what if I moved in next to the man who ruined my engagement to his younger brother, and tried to ruin his life by playing monsterfucking audiobooks really loudly?? a heartfelt and lovely romance that also expertly sets up a great small-town setting for an ongoing series.

THE REFORMATORY by tananarive due - historical horror based on the existence of a real school for boys, clear-eyed and brutal in showing the the effect of racist systems in the 1950s american south. compelling as hell. even if you're not usually into horror, I'd recommend this: the ghost aspect is light-handed and really not as important as the horror of what humans do to other humans.

SOMETHING WILD & WONDERFUL by anita kelly - this is a m/m romance about walking the pacific crest trail which made me see the appeal of very long walks. a miracle! it's gentle and emotional and well put together; the characters really grabbed me.

THE BELL IN THE FOG by lev a.c. rosen - the followup to 'lavender house', and somehow even better?? a historical mystery series featuring a queer private eye in 1950s san francisco who looks into crimes against other queer people. amazing queer history! ACAB! I hope there are fifty more books in this series.

FEAST WHILE YOU CAN* by mikaella clements & onjuli datta - beautiful, greedy, terrifying small-town horror that is also a fucking fantastic, gorgeously written sapphic love story. this one IS for the horror fans. it gave me the absolute creeps but I couldn't put it down.

LADY EVE'S LAST CON* by rebecca fraimow - I described this on bsky as 'if you like Leverage, space opera, old screwball comedies, and dashing sapphics who are at all times spiritually wearing a leather jacket: this one is for you' and I stand by that. huge amounts of fun.

LONG LIVE EVIL* by sarah rees brennan - I will be screaming from here until forever about SRB's first adult fantasy book. if you like the isekai'd-into-a-villain-character setup and want it to be hilarious, genre-savvy and wildly angry and clever, you will roll around in this like a blood-stained mud puddle and then beg for more.

THE LAST HOUR BETWEEN WORLDS* by melissa caruso - really clever and original fantasy about a woman on maternity leave who gets dragged into saving a cocktail party which is falling through increasingly murderous and bizarre dimensions. LISTEN, JUST GO WITH IT. it's a seriously cool adventure.

YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY* by cat sebastian - yes, it's another m/m romance about queer history in the mid 20th century, this one between a baseball player and the journalist assigned to write a story about his slump. made me care about baseball. cat is a genius.

*I read these as ARCs, they're not available yet but consider preordering or keep your eye out for them!

#book recs

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