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#Mac would have someone else to go beg for attention from so Dennis gets a break
psychocharlie · 9 months
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Charlie has uncle issues
For a month now, Dennis has been staying at the bar late into the night, locking it up himself. He took everyone's keys, leaving only Charlie's copy to open Paddy's in the morning. The Gang resented this and protested, but Dennis was adamant and took away everyone else's keys on the grounds that they were all a bunch of irresponsible shitheads who forgot to lock up the bar. The fact that someone had robbed the cash register one night was also a strong argument for Dennis' rightness (and no one suspected that Dennis was this "someone" who had robbed Paddy's to carry out his plan). So for a month, Dennis staying the longest and closing the bar. Charlie also often lingers, because the bar needed to be cleaned up before closing, which, as everyone knows, is Charlie work.
Of course, Dennis made this scheme so that he and Charlie would have time to be alone and talk about their business without looking suspicious. Especially since the Gang started noticing their odd behavior. Especially Mac. Oh, Mac has become unbearable. Suspicious, obsessive, and jealous. Reynolds should get something much better than this bar trick to distract him. And he was going to do it later.
But that night Charlie left early, while even Mac, Dee, and Frank were still at the bar. His mom called him and begged him tearfully to come over and help her with something, and he left. So it's only been about 15 minutes since everyone left, and Dennis was really getting ready to close up and go home, because Charlie wasn’t there, and Dennis hadn't been doing his «business» in a while. And neither had his friend. After that terrible nervous breakdown in his bad place he hadn't touched a single person yet. 
The man is briefly distracted by his phone before getting up from the counter and walking away. Grinning, he replies to a message from a pretty girl on a dating site he's been DENNIS'ing for a few days, anticipating the inevitable culmination of their dates – first passionate and then bloody, filling his entire being with power and strength. In those moments, he truly felt like the actual Golden God.  Only then did the gaping hole in his chest, the God Hole, cease to ring with its emptiness, and he felt whole. Then and in some other rare moments that Reynolds preferred not to think about.
Before he can even finish the message, the door swings open, causing Dennis to flinch and lift his head, and Charlie plops down behind the bar.
– I'm gonna kill him. – Charlie's voice is hoarse, and he's literally growling, looking sullenly like a beast ready to pounce on you and tear you to pieces. His eyes burn with anger, but it's not a hot flame of rage, it's something colder, even more sinister. Hatred.
Dennis quickly presses the send button, no longer caring what he texted to that sweet fool, and sets the phone aside. All his attention is on Charlie now.
– Who? – His voice is soft and cautious. He pulls a bottle of whiskey and two glasses from under the bar, deciding it is the best choice for the circumstances. «Is that the last thing his victims see?» – wonders Dennis. Charlie, meanwhile, empties a glass of whiskey under his gaze. In one gulp.
– Uncle Jack. 
Dennis sighs heavily and presses his lips together, sipping from his glass. Uncle Jack. Charlie was always out of sorts after seeing him. Usually he just got weird, twitchy or depressed. Sometimes he'd get irritable and start shouting at everyone. But this time it was the real hatred. Cold and full of contempt.
Dennis remains silent, and his buddy pours and drains another glass again. Gradually his face softens, the hatred fading from the green eyes, making way for deadly fatigue and despair and resentment. 
– I want him to die like a goddamn brute. – Voice's desperate, almost whisper. The formerly tense posture of a predator ready to pounce changes as well, Charlie's body slouches, shoulders droop. Then Dennis finally decides to speak, quietly and calmly. 
– I understand, bud, you have every reason to want him dead. He molested you.
Charlie stands up again and screams. Dennis sees the desperation in his eyes. 
– He didn't molest me!
– He did, – Dennis replies quietly yet firmly, bringing the half-empty bottle to his friend's mouth. He presses his lips together, digging his fingernails into the old wooden surface, exhales heavily and, closing his eyes, allows Dennis to get him drunk.
– He did. - His voice sounds like an echo, barely audible repeating Dennis' words as Charlie lowers his head, resting it on the counter. Reynolds flinches. This is the first time Charlie has ever admitted it. They all knew it, but Charlie had always denied it, indignantly and furiously, without admitting it. So had Dennis with his Ms. Klinsky thing. But now Charlie finally admitted it and allowed himself to be vulnerable around him. Dennis drains the rest of his whiskey and patts the bar next to Charlie's shoulder in a reassuring gesture, hesitant to touch him right away.
– Alright... – there’s a pause in the air as Dennis tries to think of what to say now, – you know... do it. You have every right to. 
– I'd like to. – His voice is muffled. – I wanna do it every time he reaches out to me with his creepy hands. He fucking hugged me today. But I can't. 
– Why not?
And Charlie lifts his head and shakes it. He looks now like an abandoned puppy who's lost all hope of finding a home. He sighs heavily and starts to talk. He talks and talks and talks. Talks about how much his mother loves that bastard Jack, how she's cared for him all her life. The stupid bitch throws a little family party of his birthdays and even bakes the cakes for him, but she can't even remember the exact age of her own son, not to mention wishing him a happy birthday. He tells how upset and hysterical she would be if her brother suddenly disappeared. She’d call the police and they would find Charlie. And after him, probably Dennis as well. And Dennis nods, nods, nods, doesn't understand why he didn't think of it himself. Like, it's so obvious and logical. He hadn't thought of it because his mind was busy thinking that Uncle Jack should die in agony like a filthy animal, which he was.
They drink another bottle of whiskey and gradually change the subject. Now they are discussing the failure of the gang's scheme this afternoon and who is to blame (It was all Dee! That bitch is totally unartistic and can't even play such a simple role in our plan!), when suddenly Charlie speaks up and changes his face again:
– But if I ever see him molest a child in person... I'll kill him. And then I won't care about the consequences. I just won't be able to bear it. I'll take a hammer and smash his ugly face in. I'll crack his head like a walnut. I'll hit and hit and hit his head until I stop recognizing him at all. He'll die in agony like an animal, he'll–
Dennis can see that Charlie is about to boil again: his hands are clenched into fists, his eyebrows are drawn together in a broad line, and his teeth are clenched tightly together, almost gritting. Dennis swears he can hear them grinding. 
– I'm staying out of his perverted business, but if I see this–
– Oi-oi-oi-oi-oi-oi-oi-oi-oi-oh-oi! – he grabs Charlie by the shoulders and shakes him, repeating an old tried-and-true ritual, trying to distract and calm him. 
– Oi-oi-oi-oi, yeah, – he mumbles back and nods, closing his eyes to calm himself. Dennis pours him another whiskey.
***
At home, Reynolds is met by Mac with his stupid questions about what took him so long and where he was. 
– I was with a girl, – Dennis angrily waves him off.
– Oh, with a girl? – Mac's eyebrows rise in a familiar expression as he spreads his arms across his chest, glancing at his neighbor, – I knew you took away everyone's keys just to fuck chicks at Paddy's! Did you fuck her on the bar stand? Or on the pool table? On my favorite pool table? Spit it out, man! 
– Get yourself a goddamn boyfriend, Mac, and fuck him on the pool table or wherever you want, but get the fuck off me! – Dennis yells at him irritably and disappears into his room, slamming the door behind him. Mac is really starting to get on his nerves. Something has to be done about this.
Finally, after a long day, Dennis lies down in bed with his eyes closed. His imagination immediately pictures Uncle Jack's mutilated body on the Paddy's basement. His face is unrecognizable - smashed with a hammer, it's just a bloody mess, pools of blood spreading around. His hands, which Jack had always been so self-conscious about, which he had always tried to hide, conceal, visually enlarge, were now severed. Jack's severed hands will never be pets for Charlie. Charlie will take the smallest jar he has and chop them up in there, slicing off each finger individually like sausages. «Oh, look, Uncle Jack, your hands are so small they can only fit in this silly little jar. How pathetic is that, Uncle Jack. It sucks to have hands small like this, doesn't it?» And then he throws the jar into the scalding heat of the furnace.
Dennis clutches the sheets with his fingers, his lips drawn together in a thin line. The last thing he thinks about before he falls asleep is Uncle Jack's dreadful death, which he deserves.
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