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Parabola	By : Ennead Category: +M through R > Metalocalypse > Slash - Male/Male Views: 1106 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Metalocalypse, nor do I make any money off of any of the fan works I create of its characters.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
This story was written after the airing of Season 2 and before the airing of Season 3. It is intended to be set at an indeterminate date some time before the events of the Season 2 finale.
Ever since the night Charles had gone out and gotten sloppy with them, Nathan had found himself curious about the man who ran his business. He rarely displayed emotion beyond concern and annoyance, but he obviously had emotions. No matter how they might tease the guy for it, they knew - or Nathan did, he wasn't sure how smart Murderface was - that he was a human being. That night had thrown it into sharp relief, and he realized he knew astonishingly little about Ofdensen. The man lived in the same house, for fuck's sake. Why was he such a mystery?
Setting out to resolve this once he was stubborn enough, Nathan pounded on the door of Charles' office before letting himself in anyway. The CFO looked up with an expression of mild surprise.
"Nathan. Can I help you with something?"
He slumped down on the couch by the wall, making himself comfortable before fixing Ofdensen with a somewhat stony gaze. "Why don't we. You know. Know you?"
Charles frowned. "I don't follow."
"You're our manager. Lawyer. Guy. You live here. Always have. We don't know anything about you though. You never talk to us. We talk to you but you don't talk. Back. Hm."
"Why do you care?"
Suddenly, Nathan felt as if he was the one on the spot. The way Charles asked him that, it was as if he expected him not to care. And it was true... he supposed until now he'd never expressed a whole lot of interest in the manager's life or interests or feelings. But hell, he was part of Dethklok too, in a not-music kind of way, Nathan figured. There was no reason for him to be...
It struck him what was bothering him, then.
"Aren't you lonely?"
For a few moments, Charles was genuinely speechless, and it showed on his face. Nathan wondered if he had fucked up somehow. He wasn't supposed to care about the guys, but they never said they couldn't care about Ofdensen. He didn't make the music, it was okay to care about him. Dethklok would still be brutal.
"That... I... What brings this up, Nathan?" Charles said inadequately, struggling and failing to appear as if he was unaffected.
"We had a lot of, yknow, fun that night when you went and got drunk with us. Figured you don't ever do that. I don't see people here. Seems like all you do is work. For us. That's not cool. Even Murderface knows you have to, what the fuck is it..." he thought briefly. "Take it easy, you know. Like that shitty song he made. He knows, and he doesn't know fucking anything. So you must know that too."
There wasn't a candy coating to what Nathan was saying, and Charles appreciated that. It wasn't comfortable, though, being suddenly cared about after quite some time as the robot butler of Mordhaus. He'd figured, that night as an exception, that they saw him only that way. They certainly didn't demonstrate anything else... until now.
"I don't really have much time for 'taking it easy', you see. I have a lot of work that needs doing on a daily basis. I don't have time to be happy."
The second he said it, he regretted it. He had not intended to phrase it that way, though it was the bald truth. Charles liked to see the boys happy, but he himself rarely had moments of happiness all to himself. He was... too busy to be happy, as he said. The reality of that was heavier as he heard it aloud, and he sagged slightly in his chair. Had Nathan not been staring intently at him, he would not have noticed the change in the man's posture - but he did.
"That's bullshit."
"I--"
"You're an all right guy, Charles," Nathan said plainly, shrugging at him as if he didn't understand what the problem was. "Why the fuck don't you think you should be happy?"
"I don't... it's not that I don't think I should be, it's that I don't have the time--"
The singer cut him off, frowning with the concentration it took to explain his thoughts properly.
"I'm not stupid. I sound stupid but I'm not. You said you don't... have time. To be happy. But you make time for everything, you organize things. That means you won't, yknow, make it. Make time for it. You don't think it's a... priority."
He glanced at Charles with a strange look on his face. "I think it's a priority."
Ofdensen had no idea what to say.
"How about, you focus on working, and I'll just fucking cut in when I please and decide you're going to enjoy yourself," he continued more brightly, not really sounding as if Charles had an option. "You work for me, technically, so that's what we're gonna do."
"That's not--"
"Shut up, Ofdensen," Nathan said rather more fondly than he meant to, wondering why that was. "I'm going to go fuck around. And then later you're gonna fuck around too."
The massive lead singer paused at the door, and shot the stunned Charles another odd look.
"You're not a robot, even if you think you are."
Then he was gone, and the office felt very empty.
*********
Nathan was chilling in the hot tub with a cold beer, feeling quite good about himself after the talk with Ofdensen. The guy hadn't really gotten a chance to argue with him, which worked out because he was shitty at talking and Charles was smarter than him. The only thing that stuck in his head like a seed between his teeth was what the manager had said before Nathan took over the discussion.
I don't have time to be happy.
What a fucking terrible way to live, Nathan thought. Was that seriously how Ofdensen spent his days? Hell, Nathan made sure he spent as much of his time as possible being happy, even if it delayed albums or caused undue damage to personal property not belonging to him. You only got one life, as far as he knew, and why the fuck not spend it enjoying yourself?
He felt sad for the CFO, remembering how he'd shrunk in realization when the words left his lips. It couldn't feel good, saying that, knowing it. Charles was a smart man, there was no way he wasn't miserable knowing how lonely he was. He had to be aware of it. Nathan frowned unhappily at this thought.
"Whats you is sads abouts, Nat'an?" Toki interrupted his thoughts, dropping happily into the water next to him. "Yous not look so goods."
"I talked to. Uh." he wondered if he should tell the other guys about his quest to make Ofdensen's life suck less. It was pretty unmetal, but... no, he shouldn't say anything. They'd only fuck it up. Toki meant well but he was kind of bad at keeping secrets. Skwisgaar didn't give two fucks about three fucks and Murderface was purposefully malicious. Pickles... well, Pickles might actually be okay. He'd think about it. Nathan realized Toki was looking at him expectantly and shrugged.
"Just fuckin fans and stuff. You know."
"Ah yeahs. I reallies hates dem fans," Toki said offhandedly, reclining in the tub and closing his eyes. He had a candy headache again.
Nathan rose suddenly from the water, drying himself off and tugging on his pants. He wanted time to think, and the hot tub was not a place where a guy could be left alone with his thoughts. Already processing, he padded off to his room to coordinate what was going on inside his mind.
This was going to take time.
*********
Charles retreated from his office earlier than usual, phone calls and paperwork mercifully light that day. He slipped back into his private quarters, unreasonably exhausted.
Maybe Nathan was right. No, he knew Nathan was right. It wasn't as if he hadn't been aware of his own loneliness, of the monotony of his life despite near death experiences and band antics. He didn't have any friends, and he was a grown man. He spent every day, every waking moment, working. The suit felt hot all of a sudden, and he struggled out of it irritably.
Dressed only in his briefs and undershirt, he stretched out on his couch and stared at the ceiling. Though it was full of his possessions, he spent little time in the roomy quarters set aside for him. The office was always where they could find him, and was often where he fell asleep with his face pressed to papers and wood, too tired to keep working. In that instant, he felt immeasurably small and alone.
Nathan did care, though. This puzzled him as he thought about it, and he wondered why the hell the frontman had come to him in the first place. Why he had started considering Charles' feelings and whether or not he was lonely. It didn't seem like something which would typically cross Nathan's mind.
That wasn't to say Nathan was exactly cruel or thoughtless; quite the opposite, actually. Charles knew that the singer was quite considerate at times, and even when he was being ridiculous, he usually did not mean any harm. Perhaps it was unreasonable to think that Nathan was beyond caring about someone else's feelings. He felt more sure of that as he thought about it.
Charles lost track of how long he lay there, watching the plaster, recounting his own life and seeing how much of it had been for himself. The answer was, barely any of it. His desire to get up waned, and he relaxed into the cushions a bit more, out of defeat rather than comfort.
Why did Nathan care more about his happiness than he himself did?
With that, the exhausted manager fell asleep, the feeling of cold loneliness encompassing him.
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Parabola