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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
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Somewhere during the night, the relaxation got out of control. He didn't pay attention to how many refills he got, or how many glasses he downed; his only guess was 'too many'. It was all he could manage to call a pair of Klokateers to retrieve them along with the car they'd taken there, before returning to Nathan at the bar to wait. The singer looked more sideways than Charles recalled him being.
"Car's coming."
"Cool."
Squinting at his half-full glass, Nathan downed the remainder of his beer and pushed it away. He'd had much more than the other man had, but he was also far larger; he was only marginally intoxicated. The effects on Charles were quite obvious, but welcome, since he was most definitely not tense or thinking about work any longer. However, he was spinning around on his barstool rather jovially, and this indicated he'd have a pretty sore head in the morning. Especially if he fell off.
"How much did you drink?" Nathan inquired, ready to catch his manager if he pitched off the stool.
"I dunno," he mused, pausing in his spinning to shrug lopsidedly. "More than a little, less than a lot."
Charles resumed spinning, in the opposite direction this time. Nathan resisted the urge to facepalm. "Good. Good."
What they'd set out to accomplish - or what Nathan had, rather - had only been touched upon. They'd spoken about a broad variety of things, but most of them only gave him Charles' opinion on outside matters. he wanted to know more about the man, himself. Just him. Not what he thought about this or that. Who gave a fuck, when it came down to it? But time with Charles was, one way or another, time with Charles - he was getting some quality time in, that was for sure. Did this make his manager feel cared for?
He hoped so.
Nathan shot a sidelong glance at the man in question, wondering through the moderate haze of alcohol what was on his mind. He appeared to be watching the bartender inbetween half-spins in his stool. Grabbing his shoulder to halt the spinning, which was clearly making Charles dizzy, Nathan nodded towards the barkeep.
"Why do you keep looking at the bartender? Do you know him?"
Charles shook his head, a little harder than was necessary. "No no. No. I don't know... the guy. No."
"You're pretty wasted," Nathan observed. "Hmm."
"I was just... he looks like... a person I used to be acqu, er, acqu-- a person I used to know," Charles finished, having a little trouble with his vocabulary. "Someone I was familiar with."
"Friend?"
"Could say that."
Something about his responses gave Nathan pause. Charles was clearly very, very drunk; yet something of him still had the presence of mind not to actually answer the questions being asked. It was the first time it had happened all night. But he could tell that something was not being said.
Why?
Before he could ask, Charles' phone beeped discreetly. A fumbling moment passed before the manager was able to produce it from his pocket, but his reaction was jovial. "We can go home! The car is here. Let's go."
Nathan largely supported the other man out to the car, since Charles was having a marked difficulty walking in a straight line at a respectable angle. Veering off into the bushes, though, was something he could have accomplished easily, had the frontman not been there to get him into the vehicle.
"And this is why I called the car," Charles said, quite aware of how difficult walking had been.
"So," Nathan said as they began the brief drive back, "Are we done for the night?"
"If you want. This is your show, remember? You're making me take a break. It's up to you."
He mulled that over. "You should come back to my room and hang out more."
"Then I'll do that. I make no promises though, I may fall asleep on your floor."
Nathan couldn't help but smile at the idea of it. "Dignified CFO of Dethklok passes out on bedroom floor, is found covered in permanent marker drawings. News at ten."
"Don't draw on me," Charles warned, giving him a warning glance. "I'll get you."
"No promises."
They shared a grin. It had been a pretty good night, after all.
Charles supposed that what Nathan had said before was true; he was pretty wasted. He really hadn't intended to drink quite that much, but making casual, normal conversation with Nathan had made the time - and the drinks - fly by without him noticing. After a while, taking a gulp from his glass while making a pointed expression over the rim of it had become punctuation for certain kinds of sentences, and he'd forgotten they were even really drinking at all. It had all become so... comfortable.
He pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window, head swimming with a lack of control he was unaccustomed to. It was no good to try and compose himself; he knew it wouldn't work. No way around it, Charles was drunk. May as well make the best of it and continue to enjoy what remained of the night, right? Right.
"So how has this whole 'getting to know me' thing worked out for you, Nathan?" he asked once the car had pulled up, depositing them at the door. "Not as interesting as you thought I'd be, am I?"
"I dunno, I wouldn't say that," Nathan shrugged. "Besides, we just got started."
"I'm really not that fascinating."
"I don't mind if you're not."
Charles pondered that, but couldn't really get his head around it. Not in his state.
"Here, come and sit the fuck down."
Nathan was holding his door open; were they at his room already? Boy, where did time go, Charles wondered. He went in and sat down near the head of the bed, crossing his legs and tucking his feet under his knees neatly. "Twenty questions, now?"
"Dunno. It seemed like you had something you weren't talking about."
"Did it."
"Yep."
There was a pregnant pause, which Charles broke. "You're not as drunk as me, are you?"
"Not even close."
"I see." He considered this. "Is that on purpose?"
"Not really. I just didn't get that drunk tonight. Didn't happen. I didn't plan it or anything."
"Hm."
Nathan eyed him from where he sat at the foot of his own enormous bed. "So what's the deal? With the, uh, bartender. I notice things."
"Nothing to tell you there, Nathan. I don't know the man."
"Come on. Don't act like I'm an idiot."
Reflecting upon the past day, Charles knew it would be unwise to behave as if Nathan was less perceptive than he was. It would not be appreciated by the frontman, and they had been doing so well that fucking it up over... this... it seemed negligent.
"He just reminded me of an old boyfriend. It's really nothing, like I said."
He looked up from the view of his ankles and saw Nathan observing him very carefully. Nothing was being said, and this made Charles exceedingly nervous.
"Huh." And then, "Boyfriend."
"Yes. Look, I separate business and pleasure..." Who was he kidding - what pleasure was there to separate anymore?- "...you boys never needed to know, so I never told you. It's not really a secret, it was just never relevant. That's all."
"Huh."
Ten minutes of complete silence passed while they both processed this. When Nathan next fixed his gaze on Charles, he noticed the man's chin was touching his chest. The poor guy had fallen asleep sitting up, he realized, after spending all night drinking and spinning in circles.
Boyfriend.
Nathan thought about it. There was no reason Charles couldn't be gay, nothing that excluded it from being a possibility - yet he'd never considered it. And it was true, until recently they'd never pried enough into his personal life for it to really come up. It made sense for it to be kept from the band. Everything else was.
Charles was gay.
It didn't seem like the massive revelation it felt like it should have been. Nathan felt as though he should have been shocked, but he was only mildly surprised. Had he suspected it, maybe in the background... no, he couldn't have. There was nothing for him to go on, nothing to fuel any suspicions. So why was he so... unmoved by it?
His thought process stopped about there. He couldn't even be bothered to consider it further. Charles was gay, and that was... new, but fine, and who gave a fuck anyway? Alcohol always made his mind ramble when it didn't need to.
Nathan looked at the sleeping, slightly swaying form of the man in question. How he slept sitting up was a mystery, but he would probably eventually fall over. It was this that brought Nathan to push him gently onto his side, where he spilled like a drink all over the bed. A boneless sprawl was far preferable, if less dignified, than sleeping in a sitting position. Much better.
He realized Charles was still wearing his shirt. Not just wearing his shirt, but now sleeping in his bed. Hmm. Thoughts for later, perhaps, he decided.
Or thoughts for now.
Something about Charles being awake, even drunk off his ass, made him tense up. His face, his shoulders, all of it had still been just a bit more solid than it needed to be before he fell asleep. Like underneath he was still thinking, still worrying, still working. Like the knowledge of being Charles was too much to bear without some measure of control. That didn't seem good.
But there, asleep in the expanse of borrowed clothing, Charles finally looked entirely at peace. His face was so calm, so relaxed, that it very nearly didn't look like him. Nathan reached over and removed the skewed glasses from his manager's face, throwing them at the distant bedside table and watching them skitter across its surface. Especially without those - Charles looked so content.
Nathan fell asleep watching him exist.
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Parabola