Chapter Text
"Oh, come on Charlie," Pim says. "This job will be fun!"
He glances back at Charlie, who has been lagging behind him on their walk over to their client's place. Charlie showed up to work this morning looking kind of peaky. Even after Glep brewed him a cup of coffee he still looks a bit worse for wear.
It's a beautiful day. The sun is shining and the birds are chirping and even the nice houseless man around the corner is doing his signature dance with much more energy and verve today than usual. A lovely blue bird lands on Pim's shoulder and sings into Pim's ear a lovely and slightly loud song. Pim kisses it on the cheek and it flies away to its beautiful blue bird family.
"I mean, we're not marriage counselors, dude, I just think they should be hiring a professional." Charlie sniffs. "I mean, this guy sounds like — from what the Boss said, I don't know, man, I'm not sure there's anything we can do here."
"I'm sure we can help him, Charlie," Pim says, smiling back at him with twice the usual wattage. Charlie squints a little against the sun.
He's far enough ahead of Charlie — almost seven sidewalk squares — that Pim decides to stop and admire this patch of flowers on the side here and wait for Charlie to catch up. Beautiful buzzing bumblebees fly fatly around. He wants to kiss one of them but he's learned that's not a great idea. Normally he'd pull Charlie aside to look at the flowers, but Charlie doesn't seem to be in the mood for it. Pim crouches down to smell them. They actually don't smell that great, but they're so stunning that he supposes it's hard to multitask.
From down here he sees a lone little flower, an oddly pleasing shade of orange. Impulsively he reaches out and plucks it, tucking it into his shirt pocket. He hears Charlie's footsteps close behind him and stands up quicker than his back would appreciate.
"I think we're here." Charlie says, and they are.
Their client's apartment towers above the city's skyline, a dark concrete monolith with tiny windows. In the courtyard outside there is one struggling plant that Pim feels the urge to take a glass of water to.
Charlie presses the buzzer. "We're Charlie and Pim from The Smiling Friends. We're here for, uh," Charlie checks his phone, "Blimbo?"
They wait a moment. Charlie is looking up at the building with a skeptical look on his face. Pim notices a gentleman in a dark corner sleeping very deeply.
"Come in," a reedy voice says from the intercom. They come in.
Blimbo lives on the 68th floor. It's a long elevator ride up in the tiny elevator, which seems to be slightly tilted towards where Charlie is standing, and also shakes violently the entire ride up. The elevator finally shudders to a halt, regurgitating them onto the floor. Pim has to admit it's not the most cheery place in the world. There are odd dark stains in the carpet of the floor, and the lights flicker. Rhythmic wet noises emanate from the walls. That said, it's far from the worst place they've been to. When Pim points this out, Charlie sighs and says nothing in response.
Pim knocks at the door or apartment 684. Clattering noises come from inside. He looks at Charlie, who looks at him back.
After a moment, the door swings open to reveal a gaunt, pale critter with visible sweat stains under his armpits. He seems to be vibrating intensely, like he's just gotten out of an ice bath. His skin looks slimy and shiny even in the dim hallway lights. He smells a little like goat cheese.
"Hello, Mr. Blimbo!" Pim says, looking up at Blimbo with the warmest most optimistic smile he can muster. "I'm Pim and this is Charlie, and we're here to put a smile on that beautiful face of yours!"
"Hey," Charlie says.
"Hi." Blimbo mumbles down to his feet.
They stand there in silence for a moment. "Uh, can we come in?" Charlie asks.
"Yeah sure I guess you can come in and stuff," Blimbo says, sprinting into the darkness.
The first thing Pim notices are the mounds of cans strewn around the couch. Even in the dark (the curtains are drawn) Pim can see some of them leaking a strange greenish gelatinous fluid. At least the piles of cans look like they've been herded into semi-organized piles.
"So, uh," Charlie says conversationally. "what's—what's the situation here, man?"
"My wife won't talk to me," Blimbo says. Which is basically what The Boss told them.
Blimbo opens the door to what must be his room and immediately dashes to sit down at his desk, upsetting a thick layer of cans in the process. The cheese smell is intense in here. There are six monitors on Blimbo's desk in the corner, all of which seem to be showing gameplay footage with an illustration of a pink-haired girl with cat ears and humongous eyes in the bottom right corner. As Pim's eyes adjust to the darkness he realizes the walls are plastered with various posters, drawings, and figurines, all of the same girl in the video.
Next to him he hears Charlie suck in a breath then cough.
"Um, you have a lovely place," Pim says as convincingly as he can.
"What's with the, the, uh, girl with the ears," Charlie asks.
Pim has the sense that another person hasn't been in Blimbo's apartment in quite some time, and when he glances over at Charlie Pim knows he's reached a similar conclusion. One of Blimbo's monitors lights up a bright white.
"Dude, are you seriously on Paypal sending someone," Charlie squints, "a hundred and fifty bucks, like, right now?"
They both watch Blimbo send someone one hundred and fifty bucks.
"She's my wife."
"Well, I mean, do you have a marriage certificate?" Charlie scowls right after asking, like he already regrets the question.
Blimbo shuffles around on one of his shelves. He pulls out a paper and hands it to Charlie, who holds it a little lower so Pim can see it. The certificate, which binds Blimbo and one Nyanchan together in holy matrimony, appears to have been issued on printer paper. There's a green line down one of the sides where Pim supposes the printer must have run out of ink or something.
Something falls off the shelf with a plasticky clatter. Blimbo screams and rushes towards it.
"Alright," Charlie claps his hands together, setting the marriage certificate aside on a particularly tall stack of energy drink cans, "well, me and Pim are going to, uh, go to the bathroom real quick, do-do you know where I—where we could find it?"
Blimbo looks up from where he seems to be performing resuscitative care on a small figurine. "Oh, it's down the hall and then to the left," Blimbo says, voice suddenly much less pitchy.
"Cool, thank you."
As soon as they get in the bathroom they huddle. Though Pim's actually not quite sure why they're huddling, considering they're already in the bathroom and presumably out of earshot. Pim's sort of glad it's dark in here; he's not particularly eager to see this place in the light. Which might be an unkind thing to think, so he unthinks it.
"Dude, I just — this is the third one this week." Meaning a specific genre of client for which Charlie has come up with quite a few nicknames over the years. Pim wonders how Shrimp is doing. "It's the exact same thing with the last guy. The only thing that's different is that he thinks he's married to this girl."
Charlie reaches to turn on the faucet and runs his hands under the sputtering stream of water. He reaches for soap and there must not be any, so he reaches for a towel emblazoned with something that in the dark looks kind of terrifying.
"Look, why don't we— why don't we do the same thing as last time? There's a party down at 35 Mimble Way," Charlie says, tucking the towel back onto the towel bar. "Dude, look, he-he even has a towel with her face on it."
"Charlie, I'm—" Pim lowers his voice, "I'm not really sure bringing this guy to any crowded places is, you know, the best idea."
"Oh nah man, don't worry, I'm sure it's — I don't think this guy has anything, I checked."
"You checked?"
"Yeah." Charlie swallows. "I-I really think our problem last time was, I mean, so, that guy had a bunch of mags lying around, so we probably should've—but, you know, lesson learned, so I was looking around and I didn't see any of that here. So we should—we should be good."
Pim's not exactly sold, but, well, he doesn't have many ideas himself outside of cleaning up some of these cans, and Pim supposes that bringing their last client to that party did technically make him smile in the end, even though he didn't get the girl he wanted. Which,
"Charlie, I know this might be kind of a weird idea, but these characters have an actual girl behind them, right? Like-like it's recording their face and stuff."
"Yeah," Charlie says slowly.
"So, what if we, you know, reached out to this girl—"
"Dude, no. This guy's probably been stalking her for— god knows how long. I bet—I bet she finally just blocked him on everything."
"Yeah, no, I get it," Pim concedes. Just — it's one of those gut feelings Pim gets sometimes, but when he thinks about mentioning it to Charlie it sounds ridiculous, so he lets it go. "Maybe we should head back. Blimbo might be getting — " Worried? Suspicious?
As it turns out, Pim shouldn't have been concerned; Blimbo seems completely engrossed the videos playing on his six screens, which flash epileptically and are actually starting to give Pim a headache. Belatedly it occurs to Pim that Charlie and him didn't really need to make that trip to the bathroom at all.
"Did you have fun?" Blimbo asks, typing feverishly.
Pim blinks. "What?"
"Myeh-heh-heh," Blimbo says. Like he actually says it out loud. Pim frowns.
"I guess?" Pim ventures.
"No—no, we didn't have fun, no."
Something in Charlie's voice is off, and he looks — embarrassed, or at least Pim thinks that's what Charlie looks like when he's embarrassed. Pim stares between him and Blimbo, feeling like he's missed a step in their collective algebra equation. Then he's hit with a bright bolt of realization. All the blood in his body is immediately in his head.
"Oh—" Pim finds himself waving his hands like he can physically dispel the misunderstanding. "No—no, sir, we weren't—"
Charlie clears his throat loudly, slapping his hands against his thighs. "So, uh, anyways, maybe we should — maybe we could start by cleaning up some of these cans. Do you have-do you have any garbage bags we can use or something?"
"I have some under the sink," Blimbo says.
"And after that, we—we were thinking that you should come with us to a party!" Pim says brightly, recovering. "We can get you all nice and dressed up and maybe you'll meet someone new!"
"I don't want to meet someone new," Blimbo says, not turning around. "I want my wife."
"If you want to win her back, women love — I'm just saying, dude, women love experience," Charlie says, already retreating to the living room.
"And I'll help you pick out a nice outfit," Pim adds. "What do you say, Mr. Blimbo?"
Blimbo cracks another Fahrenheit can. His shaking seems to have reached borderline-seizure levels. "Do I have to go outside?"
"Well, yeah." Pim frowns. "But - but I promise it'll be okay. We'll be right there with you the whole time."
He listens to Blimbo type for a few moments. "Fine."
"Yay!" There's no time like the present, so Pim immediately beelines to Blimbo's closet. As soon as he opens the door he is immediately buried in an avalanche of cans.
Some of the fluid from those cans is leaking grossly onto his skin, which starts to burn on contact. Gasping, he tries to dig himself out, but he can't find any purchase, and all he manages to do is move the cans around. He's about to start really panicking when a familiar hand grasps him by the wrist and hauls him out of the pile.
"Dude," Charlie says, though Pim's not quite sure whether Charlie's talking to him or to Blimbo.
"Charlie," Pim replies, scratching at his arms. "I-I think — I don't know what's in those things, but it's starting to really burn."
"Ah, yeah, you can't get that stuff on your skin," Charlie says, nodding sagely. "You should—you should probably get some water on that."
Back to the bathroom. The sink is too tall for Pim. It's one of those free-standing porcelain sinks with no countertop to negotiate his way up to and no cabinet handles for leverage. Maybe if he climbs onto the toilet and from there stretches his arm under the water he can manage it, but it'll be a bit of a reach.
He's mentally calculating his approach when Charlie appears in the doorway and wordlessly lifts Pim under his arms up to the sink.
Pim doesn't really ask Charlie to do this sort of thing. Usually he can manage things just fine on his own. Pim's not the lightest critter in the world, and also it's just a bit embarrassing. Not that he doesn't appreciate it, not at all, it's just...
"Thanks, Charlie."
Charlie clears his throat.
Pim manages to swing his feet over the lip of the sink and rest his feet on the sides, Charlie's hand on his back keeping him from toppling over onto the floor. It's warm, Charlie's hand that is, and a little sweaty. As Pim runs his arm under the water he tries to remember the first time Charlie ever gave him a lift like this, and can't. He sees Charlie's arm move in the dark. There's a click and the lights come on, temporarily blinding Pim.
The bathroom isn't dirty, not like he was expecting: a bit of mildew, a few dark blotches of mold, some holes in the wall drooling orange rust, but overall not bad. A little guiltily he thinks he probably should have given Blimbo the benefit of the doubt. Lined up on the floor by the shower he spots some bottles with delicate pink floral designs on them; he smiles absently to himself.
Then there's a slurping sound. A look in the mirror confirms his suspicions.
"Charlie, are you sure you should be drinking that?" Trying not to look annoyed.
"It's all good, man," Charlie says, smacking his lips. "You just gotta be careful not to spill it on yourself."
Pim frowns. "I mean, it kind of burnt my skin, Charlie, I-I'm not sure this stuff is good for you." He can smell it off Charlie, sickly-sweet marshmallowy orange.
"It probably isn't," Charlie agrees. He takes another sip.
"You know, we should maybe get Blimbo off those energy drinks," Pim says, letting it go. "He's really not looking too hot, Charlie."
"Yeah, we should probably cut him off." Charlie sniffs. "I'm-I'm honestly impressed he's still alive. You know one can has enough caffeine to make a whale's heart explode?"
"Oh my God," Pim says. He really should have stopped Blimbo from opening up that can. "Are-are you serious?"
"Yeah, no, they did a test and everything. Not like a big whale, though, I think it was like a humpback or something."
"Should—should we go out and stop him from drinking the rest of that can?" Pim turns the faucet off and climbs carefully down from the sink. A couple years ago he would've just jumped down, but his knees have been kind of sore recently. The water does seem to have helped somewhat; there's a small red blister forming on his arm that burns much less than it did before.
"Ah, he's probably fine," Charlie says, but when Pim hurries through the hallway, he follows.
"Uh, Mr. Blimbo?" Pim tries. "Listen, do you — maybe you could put your drink down for a moment so we can pick an outfit for you?"
"Outfit?" Blimbo repeats, not looking up.
"Well, yeah," Pim says, sliding up to him bomb-squad careful, thinking he might take advantage of Blimbo's distraction to gently ease the drink out of his hand, but Blimbo's white-knuckling the can. "You want girls at the party to look at you and think you look handsome — not that you don't look handsome right now," Pim hastily adds.
"But I don't want girls to look at me," Blimbo mumbles.
"Look, dude," Charlie says, "like I said before, women love experience, and you're never gonna get, uh, get anywhere if you don't put yourself out there."
Pim gives up on trying to steal the energy drink from Blimbo. He motions at Charlie for an empty garbage bag; Charlie looks at him, a little puzzled, and gives him the garbage bag full of cans he's holding instead. Pim figures he can work with this.
"I don't want women," Blimbo is saying as Pim gingerly forges a path through the cans to Blimbo's closet. "I want my wife."
"Okay," Charlie sighs, "so—"
Charlie's good at this sort of thing, so Pim leaves them to it, getting up on his tiptoes to sort through Blimbo's clothes. He doesn't have very many, and the few shirts and pants he does have seem to be covered radioactive-looking stains. Pim reaches shyly further into the closet, prepared to yank his arm back in case any more of that stuff decides to attack his skin, when his hand closes around something that feels promising.
"How about this?" Pim asks, holding up a bundle of clothes, miraculously stain-free, to Blimbo, who, Pim now notices, Charlie has somehow gotten to surrender his drink.
Hands trembling violently, Blimbo takes the clothes. His expression is skeptical, or maybe just constipated.
"We'll, uh, we'll give you some privacy," Charlie says, guiding Pim out of the room and closing the door behind them. They both look at the landscape of Blimbo's living room, which for now full of mountains of dark aluminum that leak malicious glow-in-the-dark substances. It actually looks a bit like an art installation.
Pim blows out a breath, shakes himself a little. "We should probably get this place all cleaned up for Blimbo while he gets dressed," he says brightly.
"Right," Charlie says, not looking particularly enthused by the idea. Nevertheless they set to work gathering up cans from the floor, Pim newly armed with some oven mitts he borrowed from the kitchen.
"A lot of the time it feels like most of our work is just cleaning up," Pim says, cheerfully scooping cans into a garbage bag, confident now that his hands (and arms) are safely covered by mitts. He likes tidying up, the minty feeling of every thing living in its proper place, though of course he doesn't quite have the knack for organizing that Alan does. "Maybe we should be called the Smiling Maids!" he jokes, chuckling a little.
He sees a little shiver out of the corner of his eye, and he turns, thinking he didn't hear Blimbo come out, but it's just Charlie, busy tying up a garbage bag. Just then, the door opens.
"Oh my god," Pim says when he sees Blimbo.
"Uh," Charlie says.
"You look amazing!" Pim beams at Blimbo, who is in a very fetching getup (if he does say so himself): a nice, if slightly wrinkled, white button-down, smart-looking suspenders, and dark green (or maybe purple) trousers. It's missing something, though.
"Uh," Charlie says again.
"Wait, wait, wait," Pim says, dropping his garbage bag and rummaging in his pockets. "Where did I... ah, there it is!"
He carefully pins the bowtie to Blimbo's neck, then steps back to admire his handiwork. As he thought, polka-dots go quite well with the rest of the ensemble. Then he gives Blimbo a little kiss on the cheek for the finishing touch.
"How do I look, Yellow," Blimbo says, presumably to Charlie.
"You, uh," Charlie clears his throat wetly, "looking good, man, you-you look very, uh." They all wait a moment for the conclusion of that sentence but that seems to be it.
"Well, no time like the present," Pim says, and there's that big warm feeling of a plan coming together. "Where did you say the party was, Charlie, 35 Mimble Way?"
"Yeah," Charlie says, watching Pim glide Blimbo away from the malignant fumes of all these nasty energy drinks and towards the door. "Pim," he says under his breath, looking at Pim a little sideways, "do you seriously carry a bowtie with you? Like—like all the time?"
"Well, yeah," Pim says, puzzled. "Y'know, just in case I need to dress up."
And then there's this look on Charlie's face that Pim's never seen before: sort of confused, maybe, but that's not quite it, or at least there's something else there too, he thinks, it's different from Charlie's typical confused look. They've worked together long enough that it's rare that Pim has a hard time reading him. But before he can start coming up with any theories it's gone, Charlie's face settling back into its usual neutral expression.
"Alright," Charlie says. On their way out the door he takes a swig from a nearby open can.
There's someone in the hallway. A pretty girl, in fact, with jingling keys, unlocking the apartment next to Blimbo's. She has long brown hair like in the commercials.
"Oh," she says, noticing them. She waves. "Hi, Blimbo!"
Blimbo immediately runs screaming out the nearest window.
"Oh my god!" Behind him, Pim hears Charlie shout with surprise. He can feel his own heart squeeze with terror as he dashes towards the window, hoping against belief that Blimbo's alright, but they're on the sixty-eighth floor... he shuts his eyes against what must be waiting for him outside the window. He wonders, through the panic, how Charlie can stomach looking at videos of this sort of thing.
"He's alright," Blimbo's neighbor says, though Pim really doesn't see how he could be. "There's a mattress down there."
Pim slowly unscrunches his eyes. Sure enough, he spots Blimbo lying unharmed on a mattress some distance below, which has been strategically placed, it seems, on the roof of an adjacent building. At some point Charlie has come up next to him to peer out the window too, one hand holding his hat to his head.
"Does he, uh, do this a lot?" Charlie wants to know.
Blimbo's neighbor shrugs. She has a really nice shrug, and pretty eyelashes also. "Sometimes." She smiles. "I think he's a bit shy."
"If it's okay to ask, do you know Blimbo very well? We're Blimbo's friends, and we were sort of wondering, if, uh,"
"Pim," Charlie says, "we should probably get going —"
Her pretty eyes go thoughtfully up to the ceiling. "I wouldn't say I know him that well. I moved in a couple of months ago, and we share a bathroom. Sometimes we talk through the door. He's very sweet."
"That's—that's good," Pim says. He can see Charlie giving him a Look in his peripheral vision. "Um.."
"Well... I guess I'll see you two around." She goes into her apartment, leaving Pim waving at an empty hallway.
In the elevator, Pim takes a breath.
"I don't think it's a good idea, Pim," Charlie says.
Pim frowns, looks at him. "What?"
"I mean, he — this guy can't even look at her without throwing himself out a window, dude, I-I just don't think we should be trying to set these two up."
"But, Charlie, she does — she does seem quite fond of him," Pim says, a bit deflated, or he guesses really never inflated in the first place. He's starting to wonder when was the last time this elevator was inspected. "I think it might be worth a shot, I don't know, I-I don't see how it could hurt."
Charlie doesn't look convinced. "Look, I'm not saying — just, I dunno man, these things can — I've seen these things go real bad, Pim, I mean, if it doesn't work out, they still share a bathroom, and-and I'm willing to bet that he probably can't get out of his lease for another couple of months at least."
"Well," Pim grasping for a good reply. Sometimes it's hard to reason with Charlie; he's already so reasonable. He stares down at the elevator floor, which has muddy shoeprints crusted onto it.
Just then elevator shakes violently, sending Pim careening into Charlie's side, who catches him and sets him easily upright again like Pim's an upset teacup. Pim's pulse is still quick from that rush of adrenaline earlier, and he feels a little unsteady on his feet, though that really might just be the insane juddering of the elevator, which seems prone at any moment to plummet to the earth. He doesn't like heights.
"Thanks," Pim says, trying to smile. He thinks he sees Charlie's expression soften slightly, maybe, though the light is flickering overhead and he can't be sure. Finally the elevator shows signs of slowing.
"Like I said, I don't — I'm not trying to — let's just see what happens at the party, okay, and then, you know, we can go from there." Charlie sniffs. He's staring intently at the elevator doors, probably just as excited as Pim is to get out of this thing. "Let's, uh, let's go get Blimbo."
"Alright," Pim says. His shoulders are still a little warm from where Charlie's hands were. They step out of the elevator.
It's one of the biggest parties Pim has ever been to in his life. So many moving, warm bodies, wriggling around him like worms. When they got here the sun was about to set, and now that it's dark out, or at least he thinks it's dark out anyways, he can't really tell, the party seems to be in full swing. He lost Charlie almost immediately after they walked in the door.
He's holding onto one of Blimbo's suspenders, ostensibly to avoid losing him too, though if Pim's being honest it's mostly that he doesn't want to get lost himself. After a pit stop at a 7/11, Blimbo is now coated with a generous film of Old Spice, which mostly masks the cheese smell but not completely. But that's probably only an issue if you're standing very close to him like Pim is. And there are so many people at this party anyways that everything smells like beer and hair and old carpet; Blimbo must actually smell nice in comparison. Maybe not right this second, because he's bending down and breathing on Pim — or, no, he's actually saying something.
"What?" It's hard to hear anything over the thumping music (personally not Pim's cup of tea, though he supposes can see the appeal).
Blimbo mouths something at him.
"WHAT?"
"I SAID, WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW?" Some spit particles land on Pim. He resists the urge to wipe his face.
"Oh," Pim says, thinking. "Maybe you should —"
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU."
"MAYBE YOU SHOULD TALK TO SOMEONE," Pim shouts. "LIKE — IS THERE ANYONE HERE WHO LOOKS, YOU KNOW, INTERESTING, THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE TO GET TO KNOW, MAYBE?" His voice starts to give out near the end.
"NO," Blimbo shouts back.
"Okay, well—" There's a tap on Pim's shoulder. He turns around to see a gentleman in a beanie staring at him.
"Hi!" Pim says as cheerfully as he can; maybe Blimbo just needs someone to lead by example. "Nice to meet—"
"WHAT?" The man yells. Suddenly Pim discovers a newfound appreciation for Blimbo's breath.
"NICE TO MEET YOU," Pim yells back.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY ZYN?"
Pim blinks. "Uh — no, I don't actually know what that is —"
"DO YOU HAVE ANY ZYN?"
"NO, I-I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS." Pim can feel himself going hoarse. "SORRY."
The man huffs at him in disgust and disappears into the crowd.
That was odd, Pim thinks, turning back to Blimbo, who is — not there.
"Okay," Pim mumbles to himself. Think, Pim. Whenever he used to get lost as a kid he would stay put, just like his parents told him, for a couple hours or days until they came back to find him. Unfortunately, it seems to Pim like that strategy might not be useful here, not that he can even stay still in the first place, with all these legs and hips jostling him around. His head has started pounding to the rhythm of the beat. He feels a rush of empathy for Charlie.
Around him people have started shout-mumbling along to whatever song's playing right now. Pim can't make out the lyrics. He can't really move.
Pim takes a deep breath in, steeling himself, and tries to push his way through to the door, or the wall, or something; the process quickly acquaints his eyes with multiple elbows (or he hopes they're elbows). At this point the crowd has become almost liquid; he gives up and lets himself get swayed between knees and sweaty thighs, rubbing his temples and trying to shield his head. He hadn't realized the party would be this big. Do people actually have fun doing this? There's no space to dance, really, or at least dance the way Pim likes to dance, and most people seem to just be writhing to the beat. Outside there's some kind of loud explosion, or that's what it sounds like, but nobody seems to react to it at all.
He sees a brief flash of yellow in the corner. Pim tries to vaguely orient himself towards it. Earlier in the party Pim's seen flashes of that same yellow, which have so far all been false hope, just bright T-shirts or scarves or some things he really would prefer not to remember or see again. At this point he'd just like to get outside, or near a window, or anything.
Somehow he manages to navigate slowly towards the yellow he saw. A fortunate alignment of legs allows Pim to catch a glimpse of what turns out to be Charlie. He's relieved for about five seconds, until he gets closer and spots: the bottle in Charlie's hand, and, also, the person he's sitting with, a critter with long eyelashes and bright red lips, leaning precipitously over where Charlie's sprawled out on the couch. Pim sees Charlie's mouth move, and the girl laughs in response, twirling her hair.
He thinks he might need to get out of here.
It takes some time for him to make it to one of the walls. He hugs it as he tries to find the door, dodging flailing limbs and thrown bottles and mysterious dark puddles. There's a window; good enough. Pim cranks it open and crawls out, tumbling into some bushes.
From out here the hot press of the party suddenly seems so far away, like the distant beating heart of something Pim is starting to realize he might not understand now, or maybe ever. He lies there in the bushes for a minute, feeling the cool small leaves against his skin, catching his breath. On the grass there are people in various states of consciousness. To the right of what Pim has come to think of as His Bushes, a man is lying there face-down, hopefully just taking a nap.
He didn't drink but he feels drunk. Pim tilts his head back, staring up through the open window at the patterns of colorful lights strobing across the ceiling. It all just sounds like one very long song. He's tired. His eyes drift closed. He could fall asleep like this.
"Pim."
Pim opens his eyes, though he already knows who it is. He knew before Charlie even said anything. Who else would it be.
"Hey, Charlie," Pim says, a little surprised at how weak his voice sounds in the dark cool night air. Charlie peers down at him from the windowsill, and smiles, inverted. Then he disappears.
Maybe he's gone back to that pretty girl, or even another pretty girl altogether. Multiple pretty girls. Women like Charlie: he has the sort of easy, steady confidence that makes people feel safe around him. He's the sort of person you can rely on, the sort of person that makes you feel braver just standing next to him.
If he stopped playing around, Pim thinks, Charlie would have a beautiful wife by now, a beautiful wife and beautiful kids that will make him happy, and he would live in a beautiful house with a beautiful fence that will make him happy. And Pim will be happy to see Charlie happy, because Charlie's his best friend so of course he wants Charlie to be happy, he wants Charlie to be happy all the time forever, always, he wants Charlie to be happy even though he's started to get this dark gritty feeling in his chest sitting right here in the bushes, now aware of the branches that have been poking into him for a while now.
Pim stares at a streetlight until he starts to see patterns form. He tries not to think. There's a dull, awful dread clotting inside him; the streetlight starts to feel like his own personal sun. At least until it gets blotted out.
"C'mon—we gotta—we gotta get up, Pim," Charlie grunts. Sweaty hands close around Pim's. Charlie tugs him up to his feet easy, but he misjudges how hard to pull; they stumble together in the grass before Pim manages to find his footing. He hears a distant bark of laughter, followed by a retch.
"Charlie," Pim says. He feels like the old coffee maker in the breakroom, the broken one, when it stopped making coffee and started making pained little whirring noises instead.
"What's, uh, what's up, dude."
"I lost Blimbo," Pim tells him, immediately stricken with guilt at leaving Blimbo to fend for himself in there. He looks around wildly, but of course Blimbo is nowhere to be seen.
"Pim," Charlie says, listing forward, both his arms resting on Pim's shoulders, his chin coming to rest on top of Pim's head. "Pimpimpim, it's—listen—don't—don't worry about that guy, Pim, he's-he's a grown — he'll be okay."
He's not so sure. "Okay," Pim says, wondering if he has an undiagnosed heart condition.
Charlie straightens up. He looks at Pim, who suddenly has a hard time making eye contact. "I'm drunk," Charlie informs him seriously. Pim believes him. Most people, including Charlie, don't know that Charlie's actually a bit of a lightweight.
He smells like Jack Daniel's, which makes Pim feel a little queasy, along with something sickly sweet. He remembers that he's supposed to be mad at Charlie, or at least annoyed with him, for abandoning him (and Blimbo). He tries to hold onto a bit of that irritation, but that past him, the one that was mad at Charlie, now seems so far away, and the anger goes through his fingers like water.
Pim gently peels Charlie off him; he feels very awake, the world newly clear. He should at least, as the sober one, make sure Charlie gets home safe.
"Are you alright?" he asks Charlie, who is swaying on his feet.
"I'm—" Charlie burps, swallows. "I'm alright." He narrows his eyes at Pim suspiciously, or thoughtfully, or drunkenly. Pim feels the sweat cool on his neck. "Are you alright?" Charlie asks.
"I—" Suddenly Pim feels like crying. Maybe it's a brain condition. "I'm alright," he says, mustering a smile that must look convincing enough. "We should — my place is," too far to walk, "maybe we could take a bus, or-or the office isn't too far away..."
"Oh, nah, 'sall — all good, Pim, don't worry, I-I got you. Listen. Listen," Charlie says, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Pim, my-my place's just around—it's around the corner, Pim, you-you just gotta, you know. You know how to get there. I'm drunk," he says again, and laughs.
Pim does actually know how to get there. At the moment he's really not feeling too sure about the prospect of actually going into Charlie's apartment, or the process of actually getting there and so forth. But he has to get Charlie home — get Charlie to his place. And then once he drops Charlie off and goes back to his own place then he can make himself some tea, yes, he'll make himself some tea and read a nice book and he'll go right to bed and in the morning all this will seem like a distant memory, in fact he probably won't even remember what he was so worried about the night before, and when he wakes up and puts his feet down the ground will be steady and easy again.
"Yeah, I-I know how to get there." Behind them there's the sound of glass breaking, followed by screams. He tries to crane his neck to look, but Charlie has decided right now to lean his warm weight on Pim, so he can't, and anyways at the moment it's a lot harder to bring himself to be concerned about whatever's going on at the party, already so far behind them. Pim's too short for Charlie to comfortably wrap his arm around his shoulders, so instead Charlie rests his arm on Pim's head.
They set off down the sidewalk. It's one of those perfect cool almost-summer nights; the thumping bass of the party recedes behind them. Pim can hear the frogs in the grass croaking hopefully, and the hum of the streetlights overhead, burning bright spotlights into the sidewalk, where there's nowhere to hide. And Charlie, mumbling hotly into the top of Pim's head.
"In-in season 7, people don't really know this but they actually — they killed him off, like, permanently, it was a whole narrative arc where they were — they were trying to find a replacement for him, like they-they was mourning him and everything." Charlie hiccups. "It was fucked up, dude, like—like they were trying to build a ladder to heaven and-and shit."
Another bottle of beer has somehow materialized in Charlie's free hand, the one that's not currently on Pim's head. Not for the first time that day Pim finds himself trying to manufacture a distraction in order to ease someone's drink away from them. Charlie stumbles, clutches Pim to keep his balance as they walk.
"It was—I'm not gonna say it was—I-I really, I personally think that was the moment the show matured, like they uh really found their footing, because their whole thing was like, y'know, very-very, uh, what's the—episodic, and, y'know, that's cool, because a lot of shows at the time— and-and I think it really just goes to show that, uh, people—people watch it and they think oh, well, it's just a show, y'know, it's-it's not — but there's emotional depth," Charlie gesturing expansively with his beer, "you, like, care, and I-I-I know that sounds — but, like — which I think, if you ask—I think that's way harder to do in, like, like outside of a serial—serialized context, so, y'know, all I—I just think that people don't appre—appreciate how hard it is to write a show like Mr. Frog."
"Wow," Pim says.
"Yeah," Charlie says.
They're quiet for a bit. It's starting to get dark; the streetlights here are old. The few that haven't burnt out yet buzz tiredly above them, enduring the small white moths throwing themselves against their orange lamps. Him and Charlie stumble from patch to patch of exhausted light.
"Maybe I should watch it."
"Aw, you don't have to, man," Charlie mutters. He shifts his weight on Pim's head a little.
Pim feels a sudden, unaccountable flair of irritation. "Well, I want to."
Charlie doesn't say anything. They walk for a while.
"Looks like you had fun at the party," Pim says conversationally, keeping his voice upbeat. "Did you find anyone — find anyone special there, or," immediately wishing he never opened his mouth at all, "or, I mean. Yeah."
He feels Charlie shrug. "I guess."
Charlie takes back his hand and his weight, stumbling a little ahead, teetering in a nonexistent wind. They're deep in the suburbs now. Pim can't hear the party anymore, and here there aren't any frogs, or at least they've stopped croaking. The trees that line both sides of the street are a darker dark. It’s quiet enough to hear his pulse in his ears.
"Charlie," Pim says nervously. They're so close to Charlie's apartment, he thinks just a block away, and if they can just make it there—
"It's—it's all good, Pim, I'm just gonna," shuffling clumsily towards a nearby utility pole, audibly swallowing, "I-I just gotta-gotta open this real quick."
Pim trails behind him, hovering, but he knows if he tries to stop Charlie physically it's probably just going to piss him off. "Charlie, I-I really don't think — I just think it'll be easier to open the bottle when we're back at your apartment, you don't want to open that on that nasty old rusted box over there," which Charlie proceeds to do, leveraging the bottlecap against the corner and popping it open. Beer froths out of the bottle. Charlie takes a long pull, then smacks his lips.
"Sorry," maybe seeing the look on Pim's face, "did you—do you want some?" Charlie holds the bottle out to him.
"I'm alright," Pim says. Bravely, he thinks, bravely he takes Charlie's hand in both of his own, pulls him gently back towards the sidewalk. Charlie's hand is extra sweaty in Pim's, probably because he's drunk and overheating. Charlie always runs warm.
"Sorry," Charlie mumbles, staring down at their hands. "I forgot you don't drink."
Pim starts to feel a bit chilly in the night air.
"It's not that I don't drink," Pim says, quieter now. He feels like he should have something else to say after that but he doesn't. He steps back a little, out of the light, half-expecting Charlie to pull his hand away. But Charlie follows him.
"Pim," Charlie says.
"Charlie," Pim whispers. "Look up."
Above them there's an opening in the trees. Stars have crowded inside it, bright curious winking eyes. A few wisps of clouds light across the dark sky, carrying the last of the remaining day, or maybe just the glow of the city. The moon hangs over them like a fingernail.
"It's beautiful," Pim says, quietly, almost afraid to scare the stars away. It's cold enough now that he can see his breath disappear into the air. Inside him he feels long and desperate knots ease, and a rising warmth like watching the sun rise, or going to work, but better, warmer, because Charlie's here, and everything is better and warmer when Charlie is with him.
"Look, Charlie!" Pim gestures with his head because his hands are busy holding Charlie's. Even though there's no reason really to be holding onto him at all now that they're both safely back onto the sidewalk. But maybe Charlie's drunk enough not to notice that yet. "That's Orion. Oh, and there's the Big Dipper!"
Charlie cranes his head to look. "Dude, I don't-I'm not an expert, but I don't think that's the Big Dipper."
"Oh. It's not?"
"Nah, dude, that," pointing with his beer-hand, "that's the Big Dipper, 'cause — the handle. If you follow, uh, follow the side of it then you can see the Little Dipper, it's-it's right over there."
They look at the Big and Little Dipper.
"Huh," Pim says, a bit surprised at Charlie's unexpected astronomical knowledge, but now that he thinks about it it makes sense. He sighs wistfully. "It's too bright near my place to see much of anything, usually, but I bet you probably come out here all the time to look at the stars."
"I don't."
"Huh?" Pim thinks that cluster of stars over there might be Gemini, but he can't be sure. He makes a mental note to study up on some constellations when he gets home, so that next time he's over at Charlie's he'll have a bit more to show for himself.
"I mean, I don't actually—I never really..."
A red dot blinks across the sky and eventually disappears. Contentment settles over Pim like heavy felt. He wishes he could stand here forever, with Charlie, just looking up at the night sky. Just like this.
"Charlie." Pim squeezes Charlie's hand. It's still a bit sweaty. "I'm glad I'm here with you."
He finally tears his gaze away from the sky, ready to nudge Charlie towards his apartment. But Charlie isn't looking at the stars. His expression is strangely vulnerable, almost lost; he looks younger than Pim's ever seen him look before.
"Charlie?" Pim asks softly, a bit startled to see Charlie like this. Steady, unflinching Charlie, reliable like gravity. Maybe he's feeling sick. He did drink quite a lot. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," Charlie swallows, pulls his hand away. He doesn't meet Pim's eye. "Yeah, I—I think I—maybe we should, uh, maybe we should get going."
"Alright," Pim agrees, trying to shove down the sudden, irrational hurt that clots in his throat — they should get going. He realizes that Charlie's missing his hat. It's lying on the ground next to Pim. It probably fell off Charlie's head when he was looking up. Pim picks it up quietly, following after Charlie, who stumbles towards the bright opening where the trees stop, swaying with every step. He sees Charlie take another swig from his beer, raising the bottle high into the air, almost upside down.
Charlie fumbles out some sort of keycard, tapping it impatiently against the reader, and they head into the dark airless lobby, which smells like vinegar. His apartment is on the second floor. Pim eyes the stairs, which are concrete, their edges reinforced with rusted metal. Not the sort of thing you'd want to take a nasty fall on.
"Charlie, maybe—maybe you should let me—"
"Nah, dude, I-I got it, I'm—I got it."
Pim watches helplessly as Charlie climbs the stairs to his apartment like he's summiting a mountain, both hands on each raised knee for leverage; with every step he sloshes a little beer on his pants. Pim follows a little behind him to his left, though of course if Charlie trips and goes tumbling backwards Pim's not sure he'll be able to do anything other than cushion his fall.
Pim doesn't even register Charlie slipping, much less reaching out to catch him. But here they are, anyways: Pim on the top step, twisted painfully sideways, one hand, now both hands, fisted in the front of Charlie's hoodie desperately trying to hold on, Charlie at nearly a 45 degree angle, both of them breathing hard. He takes a couple steps back, shoes scraping across the concrete, attempting to haul Charlie up. Finally he pulls with the last of his strength and Charlie comes up, stumbling into him. They land on the ground. All the air in Pim's lungs gets flattened out of him. He'll probably have a nasty scuff on his back in the morning. Something cold is soaking into his shirt.
"Shit," Charlie mumbles. They lay there for a moment, their chests heaving against each other, before Charlie scrabbles back, stumbling to his feet. It smells like beer. "Sorry, dude," Charlie pressed up against the wall like a scared animal, holding the now empty beer bottle to his chest like a shield.
"It's okay," Pim tells him, getting to his feet. There's a beigeish stain seeping down his shirt. "Um — maybe we should get inside."
"Yeah. Yeah."
At the door Charlie fumbles with the keys, trying a few that don't work before finally getting it open. Pim follows him cautiously inside as he flips on the light. He expects Charlie to collapse on his bed but instead he (damn it) goes straight to the fridge. After some clinking around in there Charlie extracts a can of beer, but instead of chugging it he just walks to the center of the room holding it, looking kiddish and small in his barren apartment. He's lived here longer than Pim has but he still hasn't unpacked; he lives like he'll just up and move one day.
"You can—you can come in," he says to Pim, who has been hovering by the doorway. Pim comes in. In the harsh overhead light everything looks suddenly real, all the shadows scrubbed away.
Now Charlie collects his laptop from his desk and slumps into his bed. Pim stands there for a moment, unsure. In the end he goes over to the kitchen cabinets and fumbles for some kind of cup. He finds one with a bizarre illustration on the front and fills it with tap water (avoiding a pot in the sink crusted with...something). There's the sharp clean sound of a tab being cracked behind him. He goes over to Charlie, who has essentially liquified against the wall, his laptop whirring against his chest, mouse dangling off the side of the bed.
An idea occurs to him. "Charlie, could I have some beer," Pim says a little slyly, offering Charlie the mug of water in exchange. Charlie peers at him a moment and then gives him the beer, staring at him expectantly.
At this point Pim, standing at the side of Charlie's bed, has a few options: he could simply return the beer to the fridge, though there's no guarantee Charlie won't simply retrieve it as soon as Pim leaves/turns his back; he could run and dump the beer out into the sink, since he would imagine at the moment it would take a while for Charlie to set his laptop aside and revert to a solid state and so forth, too long for him to stop Pim; or he could...
Charlie cheers as Pim downs the beer, which is cold against the back of his throat, pooling soapy in his stomach. Every swallow beats hard against the hollow of his eardrums. When he's done, the threat neutralized, he crushes the can between his hands with some effort, hunts a moment for Charlie's trash can. He turns off the overhead while he's at it, without permission, and then it's just him and Charlie and the light of Charlie's laptop.
"Dude, I didn't—I didn't know you could chug like that," Charlie says, laughing, almost sloshing the water out of his mug. Pim toes off his shoes at the foot of the bed and carefully sits next to him, scooching up a little bit so their shoulders are almost touching. On screen a blond man with a beard asks if they got caught crossing the border. “I got so many mods on this thing, dude, I'm-I'm honestly surprised it even boots up, y'know I got—I got—uh..."
Charlie downs the water like he hasn't had anything to drink in days, his throat bobbing. When he sets the mug down on the sheets it's empty. Pim watches Charlie customize his character into a lizard woman with outlandishly exaggerated features. He starts to feel the effects of the beer, a warm, heady fuzziness. He feels sleepy.
"Dude," Charlie says, staring hard at the screen. He pauses; Pim can hear his throat work. "I'm sorry for, like. Tonight."
"Oh, it's alright, Charlie, it wasn't so bad. And we got to look at the stars, didn't we?"
"No, I mean, like." Charlie sighs through his nose. He has that sad, lost look on his face again, the same one from earlier, under the stars. Something's bothering Charlie, but Pim doesn't know if he should ask, if it's something Charlie wants to share. He tries to think back to earlier in the day. Sometimes these sorts of clients get Pim down, not just his usual sympathy but something heavier, something that sits with him through the rest of the day, and maybe Charlie feels the same way, though Pim has never noticed it.
"Just. How are you so."
"Hmm?"
"Like, just. You're just a really nice — person," Charlie says, glancing at Pim before looking away again. Someone has just put one thousand embarrassed bees inside Pim. He can feel himself going red.
"I mean, I don't know about—Blimbo—"
"Dude, fuck Blimbo, literally nobody gives a shit about that guy, 'cause—listen—don't—don't let anyone make you feel like you're not, dude, because you're—like, it actually — when you first got hired, it-it kinda pissed me off, 'cause I was like, there's-there's no way anyone could actually be this good, but you are, like you're—you're the best person I know." Charlie clears his throat. "So."
Pim's heart is loud in his ears. He feels something cresendoing in his chest, and dizzily he thinks he's about to do something very silly right before he kisses Charlie. Or tries to, anyways.
"Ow." Pim rubs his eye.
"Hold on, hold—here," Charlie shoves his laptop off his lap, sitting up a bit, tilting Pim's face in one hot hand, and then they do kiss, for real this time. Charlie tastes like beer and dough, and unsurprisingly he's very good at this. Kissing him doesn't feel like Pim had imagined it; no fireworks go off around them. It just feels good, and right, easy like breathing, like they should have been doing this all along.
"Wait," Pim pants, pushing Charlie away so he can swing a leg over Charlie's, straddling him. "I think — maybe we should get this off you," tugging at the hem of Charlie's hoodie, "because, um, there's beer on it."
"No, yeah, that's, uh, that's—that's a good—yeah," Charlie swallows as Pim slides his hoodie off him, hands coming to rest on Charlie's belly. Pim can feel the heat radiating off him. He thinks, somewhat insanely, that if everyone had a Charlie then they'd both be out of a job, but everyone doesn't have a Charlie, only Pim has a Charlie. He kisses Charlie's nose, adoration swelling in him, so much he can't stand it; there's not enough him to hold all the happiness he's feeling.
Charlie starts fumbling with the buttons of Pim's shirt, mumbling to himself. Pim tries to help him out with it, but as soon as Pim's shirt is off suddenly Pim feels naked and raw in front of Charlie, thinking this is all wrong, he shouldn't be shirtless at all, like maybe he should put his beer-shirt back on and say goodnight to Charlie and walk quickly home and lie face-down on his bed. Charlie laughs, and for a second Pim feels his insides curdle with shame, but then Charlie kisses him, easing Pim's shirt off him, one hand on Pim's waist. Suddenly he remembers the flower from earlier. He wonders if it's still in his shirt pocket.
"What's—what's that?" Charlie asks.
"Oh, it's a flower I picked this morning." It's been flattened but it's still lovely. Something occurs to Pim. "It's the same color as your hoodie."
"Huh," Charlie says absently, looking at the flower.
Pim leans over, tucks the flower behind Charlie's ear.
"There," Pim says softly.
"Pim," Charlie says, staring at him. "I think I'm in love with you, dude."
Then he leans over and throws up over the side of the bed.
"Oh, Charlie!" Pim exclaims, bouncing off the bed to grab some paper towels, Charlie groaning behind him. He tries to find some kind of vinegar or baking soda or something in the cabinets, but all he finds is some Clorox wipes, which he supposes will have to do. He layers them over the dark stain in the carpet, figuring he'll take care of it properly in the morning. Charlie is snoring softly. Pim looks at him for a while. Then he grabs the blanket and covers Charlie with it, climbing into bed with him and curling up next to him. Charlie is like a space heater. Pim passes out immediately.
"Good morning, Charlie!" Pim says cheerfully. The bacon's about done; Pim transfers the slice to a plate with the pair of Chinese takeout chopsticks he's been using to cook.
Charlie groans. "Dude, what—what time is it?"
"Oh, it's a little after 7," Pim tells him. "Sorry I didn't wake you up earlier. I figured you might want to sleep in."
Charlie makes a noise like he's been flattened by a semitruck, arm reaching out to fumble at his desk for his phone, which Pim has left charging there, along with a glass of water, some Advil, and Charlie's hat. Pim notes with some amusement that the flower is still behind Charlie's ear. Charlie blinks blearily at the objects on his desk, glancing at Pim. His expression is hard to read.
"You didn't have much in your fridge to cook with, so I hope you didn't mind that I did a bit of grocery shopping," Pim says brightly. "Is over-medium alright?"
Charlie pinches the bridge of his nose. "You did, uh, you went out and got — that?"
"Well, yeah. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" Pim tugs the eggs off the skillet with his chopsticks, humming to himself. He arranges them nicely on the plate, the two eggs the eyes and the bacon forming a smile, and brings the plate to Charlie, who must be starving based on the look on his face.
Charlie takes the plate and stares down at it. Maybe he's looking for a fork to eat it with. Pim goes to get one. "Hey, Pim, uh — "
"Yeah?" Charlie doesn't seem to have much silverware, or if he does, Pim hasn't found it yet, only a drawer full of disposable plastic forks and spoons. He grabs one of the forks, removes it from its plastic wrapping.
"I've got—I've got kind of a crazy headache, man, would it be alright if you —"
"Oh, I got you some Advil, it's right on the desk."
"No, I mean I — I think I need, uh, I think I might need some space to, y'know, clean up and stuff."
"Oh," Pim says, uncertain. "Do you — do you want me to get you something else for your headache, or —"
"No, that's-that's alright, I, uh." Charlie won't look at him. He swallows, still staring down at the smiling plate of eggs and bacon. "I think, uh, maybe we should — maybe we should just, y'know, pretend last night didn't happen."
"Oh," Pim says. He's still holding the plastic fork. There's that empty feeling, like someone's stuffed cotton balls into his ears, actually like his whole entire body is packed full of heavy cotton balls.
"I just—I feel like—I just don't want to make it weird, dude, you know?"
"No, I." Earlier this morning he washed the beer out of his shirt in Charlie's sink as best he could before going to the store; he feels the dampness of it now, the cold chill of the air. "I get it."
Pim sets the plastic fork gently down on the countertop. "I'll — I'll see you at work."
"Yeah."
Pim leaves.