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Sunshine By: Amphitrite (papervanity@gmail.com) Rated: PG Pairing: Charlie/Mike Summary: A vacationing Charlie shacks up with Mike in his
house in
“Mike! Have you asked a girl yet?” Charlie looked over at where his new friend was sitting a few feet away from the television, eyes glued to its screen and thumb slamming repeatedly into the “X” button of his DualShock controller. “Aren’t you going to answer her?” Without turning his head, Mike answered, “She’ll shut up eventually.” Charlie only frowned. Even though he was getting more used to the lack of love and affection Mike displayed towards his parents, it still made him feel slightly uncomfortable. He tried again. “Um, do you want me to answer her for you?” “No, then she’ll just make you go too, and I don’t think friends are supposed to let their parents humiliate their friends.” Charlie looked bewildered. “Go to what?” Mike grumbled something and then shouted, “Die, monsters die!” and after a few moments of rapid button pressing, he said, “Some freak from school told Mom about a stupid dance they’re having at school and now she won’t stop bugging me about it. And she keeps talking about how I should go with some girl.” “That’s not so bad, is it?” Charlie asked curiously, moving to sit next to the other boy and watch in morbid fascination as his character killed all the enemies on the screen and then began prowling around the warehouse. While he did not approve of the games Mike liked to play, Charlie admired the fierce concentration Mike maintained on the game while still being able to hold a conversation. “Girls are lame,” Mike answered shortly, then yelled, “Nooooo—” in despair. His face crumbled and he began to holler obscenities at the screen as it blanked out and then returned to a previous checkpoint. He started to grumble again. Charlie couldn’t help but think that Mike was rather amusing when he was caught up in his games. “Are girls lame like chocolate is?” He asked, continuing their interrupted conversation. He grinned, now used to (but still not understanding) Mike’s aversion to candy. “Girls are even lamer than chocolate,” he declared. Charlie laughed. “Then they must be very lame.” “Yeah, they are. All they care about is how fake they look and what their loser boyfriends think of them and ugh, they’re so stupid. Girls are so pointless and they should—” The door opened but Mike promptly shut up but kept his eyes on the screen. Charlie looked up to see Mr. Teavee standing at the doorway, watching his son with a resigned expression upon his face. “Good evening, Mr. Teavee,” Charlie said politely. The man smiled kindly at him. “Hello, Charlie. Hello, Mike. Mike.” The boy appeared to not have heard him. “Son.” Charlie prodded Mike, who made an annoyed sound and said exasperatedly, “What, Dad.” “I just wanted to tell you that dinner is ready and if you don’t come down soon, your food will get cold.” “Whatever,” Mike said at the same time that Charlie answered, “We’ll be right down, Mr. Teavee.” Mr. Teavee shook his head with a wry smile on his face and went downstairs. * “Your friend Nicole was telling me about the new skirt she bought just for Friday,” Mrs. Teavee said hopefully as they exited the shop. Mike rolled his eyes for the thousandth time that day. “I don’t care,” he replied through gritted teeth. “And I hate Nicole.” Charlie looked curiously at him. “What’s Friday?” “Oh, Charlie! Perhaps you can help me convince Mike to go. There’s going to be a dance held at school on Friday and this stubborn little boy here,” Mike glared at her, “refuses to go. But he needs to get out and make some friends instead of just staying holed up all day playing those horrible games.” “Charlie’s my friend,” Mike grumbled. Charlie looked at him sharply, surprised to hear such a sentiment coming from him. Then he beamed, glad that Mike deemed him worthy of the title of a friend. “Exactly! And you like him, don’t you?” Charlie noticed that for some reason, Mike’s cheeks turned slightly pink at this statement. But his mother was completely unaware and kept talking. “Wouldn’t you like to know other boys, too? And maybe some girls?” “Other boys are losers. And I hate girls.” “I’m a girl,” Mrs. Teavee interjected adamantly. Mike rolled his eyes again and kicked a crushed soda can in the middle of the walkway aside. “No you’re not,” he muttered. Charlie couldn’t help but snicker a little. “You know, Mike, it’s not as if you’ve ever been to a school dance. Why won’t you just go and see how it is? If you really don’t like it, then I suppose that’s okay. But you can’t say you don’t like it if you haven’t ever tried it.” “Oh my god, Mom, why are you making such a big deal out of this? You never cared about stuff like this before! And for the last time, I don’t want to go to one of those stupid things! Do you know who goes? Losers. Freaks. Girls. I don’t like any of the people there and I don’t dance and I don’t want to go because it would be so boring. And before you ask, I don’t want to go with a girl, either! They’re spoiled and stupid and they don’t understand anything!” “Mike,” Mrs. Teavee said sternly, stopping in front of a clothing shop, “lower your voice, for heaven’s sake. You will stop making a scene and you will quietly go into this shop and find something nice to wear to the dance on Friday. You will not grumble or complain or make up excuses. Now go.” Mike made a cross between an exasperated, annoyed, and angry sound and without looking back at either of them, stomped into the store. Charlie looked up at Mrs. Teavee, who was staring at the shop window, shaking her head. She sighed and looked down at Charlie. “What on earth am I going to do with him?” “He really is a nice boy, Mrs. Teavee,” Charlie told her confidently. And Charlie wasn’t lying. Mike may have appeared to have rough edges on the outside, but sometimes he did things that were unbelievably nice. Like asking if Charlie needed more pillows and if he was comfortable enough, showing Charlie how to play some of his easier games, not laughing at Charlie when he didn’t know something, and even just sharing his stuff with him. Mrs. Teavee scoffed at his words. “Nice boy, huh? I wish. He makes my head hurt.” Charlie smiled and told her he was going to go find Mike. She decided to just stay outside and take an aspirin for her headache. He waved and entered the store, looking left and right for Mike.
After minutes of fruitless searching through the large store, Charlie found him browsing unenthusiastically through a rack of t-shirts. “There you are,” Charlie said, rushing to his side and peering at the clothes. “What are you doing?” “Hey, Charlie. What does it look like I’m doing?” He yanked a shirt out and after reading its graphic, wrinkled his nose in disgust and shoved it back in place. “I hate this. I don’t want to go to that stupid thing! And I don’t get why she suddenly cares whether I’m making friends or not. It’s never mattered before.” “She’s your mum, of course she cares.” Mike rolled his eyes and randomly grabbed three shirts off the rack, plus two pairs of pants from a nearby stack. He headed off to the fitting room and Charlie followed.
Charlie looked at Mike’s reflection in the full-length mirror. The t-shirt was simple, a deep navy blue with an artistically done flame on the front. The pants he had on were black, and looked practically identical to all his other pants, only a tiny bit fancier. “It looks really good,” Charlie told him with a smile. But Mike didn’t seem to be listening, his eyes focused on something behind Charlie—or were they focused on Charlie himself? “You’ll have all the girls fighting to dance with y…” He trailed off as Mike stepped closer than he already was. When Mike reached a hand out and slowly ghosted his fingers down the side of Charlie’s face and gently shut his gaping mouth, the other boy stopped breathing. Mike kept his hand on Charlie’s shoulder, near his neck. Charlie didn’t move, fearing that it would cause the other boy to draw away, or that he would suddenly wake up from a bizarre daydream. Mike looked nervous. But then he appeared to make his mind up about something and leaned forward, his eyes looking somewhere below Charlie’s own. Charlie’s heartbeat sped up a thousand times faster than usual and suddenly, he knew what Mike wanted to do, and although he didn’t know why, he knew he wanted Mike to do it. He closed his eyes and when he felt Mike’s hands gently framing his face, he leaned forward to meet the other boy. Mike’s lips sealed over his own and Charlie felt his heart soar. The other boy’s lips felt foreign against his own—unfamiliar, but nice. They were warm and soft and pliable and even though they were slightly chapped, they were Mike’s and that was all that really mattered. It was Charlie who finally pulled away, his lungs begging for more oxygen. Upon his face was lit a brilliant smile, and he had no idea what all this meant, but the only thing that mattered right now was Mike and the fact that Charlie desperately wanted to kiss him again. “Mike…” He looked at Mike, surprised to find that he looked the exact opposite of joyful. In fact, he looked horrified. “Mike?” he tried again. Mike mumbled something that included words that sounded vaguely like ‘Charlie’ and ‘sorry’ and then ran out the door, leaving it to slam loudly. Charlie cringed as the tiny cubicle reverberated. Then he quickly grabbed the clothes (including Mike’s original shirt and pants) and ran out the door as well, intent on chasing Mike down. * He found him sitting on a chair in a remote corner in the back of the store and joined him without missing a beat. Mike refused to look at him, and Charlie felt a portion of his joy deflate at this obvious dismissal. “Charlie…” He sounded choked up and Charlie wondered if Mike was crying. He draped the clothes on Mike’s chair and sat down in the chair next to him, cautiously laying a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Mike whispered, twisting away and hiding his face in his hands. “Why are you sorry?” Charlie asked, partly curious and partly confused at this strange new side of his friend. “I thought you enjoyed it. Unless you didn’t and I just read you wrong.” He bit his lip, eyes on the profile of Mike. “I liked it,” Mike confessed in a whisper. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I made my first friend in what seems like forever and then I had to go and ruin it with my…this. I’m such an idiot.” “Nothing is going to ruin our friendship and you are definitely not an idiot,” Charlie declared. “Besides, I don’t see what the problem is if you liked it, and I liked it… Mike…” He bravely took the other boy’s hand in his. “I want to do it again,” he said, lowering his voice to nearly a whisper as well. Mike looked like someone had just gifted him with video games to last a lifetime. He smiled—really, genuinely smiled—and Charlie’s heart leaped at the sight. “Do you really mean that? You liked it? You want to do…” He turned bright red. “You want to kiss again?” Charlie blushed, too, and gripped the hand in his firmly, as if to affirm the fact. “Yes.” Then he shyly leaned over and pecked Mike lightly on the cheek, near his smile. Mike squeezed his hand so hard Charlie thought it would break, but he still didn’t wrench it free. The boys just looked at each other contentedly for a moment, both still in awe and their hearts bursting with excitement and joy. It was Charlie who broke the silence with a shy admission. “I wish I were a girl so I could go with you to that dance,” he said quietly. Mike’s smile
widened. “I don’t,” he answered, and lightly covered their joined hands with
his free one, squeezing affectionately. “I hate girls.” |