yet another fic
Title Charles' Very Wonderful Day
Rating E for Everyone
Pairing Charles/everyone to some extent
Summery Something's wrong in Mordhaus. It's way too fucking quiet.
Something was wrong. Something was drastically, gravely wrong. It was frightening, really, how quiet Mordhaus was. Charles checked every security camera a thousand times over but there was no sign of any of the usual mayhem.
Toki was building models; that was nothing new. Skwisgaar was fucking some FBL, as per usual. Nathan was drinking quietly in his room; strange, but not unusual. Murderface was watching the science channel with Pickles; a bit odd, but not entirely uncharacteristic.
Charles did security checks every hour on the hour since 9 AM, and started to do them every half hour around 1:30. It was now 5:54. 6 minutes now…
5 minutes…
3 minutes…
2 minutes…
39 seconds…
16 seconds…
NOW.
“I’m calling for an all systems check. Numbers 100-262, do you copy?” Charles gripped the Dethy-Talky almost hard enough to crush it. The security check went without hiccups or news. Just like it had gone all day.
Charles could feel his chest tighten. He tore off his tie and flung it over his desk, trying to breathe. Shirt buttons scattered over the floor as he clawed open the shirt. Have to breathe, have to breathe.
It didn’t help. Charles merely sat in his chair, gripping the arm rests, and shaking slightly from anxiety. Where was the chaos? The destruction? The lawsuits?? All gone. Taken from him. What the hell was he supposed to do now?!
--
Dinner time rolled in smoothly, just like the rest of the day had. All band members showed up, not a single snide comment from any of them or even a tiny glare. They just sat at the table, having a calm discussion about band matters and recent gossip they had heard.
Their manager entered, staggeringly drunk off his collection of very valuable foreign wines and looking very disheveled. His shirt was still torn open, and it appeared as if he’d been sweating a great deal, when in reality, he probably just spilled some of the expensive Indian White Wine on himself while belting out the lyrics to Star by David Bowie. In fact, he started over and was muttering them as he stumbled to his seat at the head of the table.
“Tony went to fight in Belfast…”
Pickles jumped in his seat when he saw his part time lover and full time friend sit down heavily into the chair (sit, here, meaning crash). “Whoa, Charlie! What the hell happened to-“
“Rudi stayed home to starve.” Charles hiccoughed and rested his chin on the table.
“What the fucks?” Skwisgaar muttered to Nathan, eyeing Charles as though he were Toki on acid.
“But I can make iiiit all worth while-“
“I think it’s Bowie,” Nathan whispered back just as Charles flopped back into the seat, throwing up his arms and screeching:
“AS A ROCK N’ ROLL STAR!!”
The lawyer/manager/body guard/accountant groaned softly and scooted around in his seat, closing his eyes. There was a small, pitiful whine as he shifted. Toki thought it sounded like ‘why?’
“Whys what, Charlie?” The young Norwegian tilted his head curiously.
“Why??” He moaned loudly and writhed in his seat. “Why are you all torturing me??”
Dethklok regarded each other with a confused glance before looking back at their wasted manager. Pickles got up and walked over to him, crouching down to be eye level with him in the chair and running a hand over the not-quite-perfect hair.
“Yer wasted. We should getchya ta bed,” The drummer’s voice was low and soothing, and made Charles smile fondly when he opened his eyes. He leaned in to kiss Pickles, but the drummer recoiled, not being a fan of coffee-booze-mouthwash breath.
“I jus’ wanna know why… you guys are bein… weird t’day,” Charles muttered against the chair cushion he thought were Pickles’ lips.
“Yeh noticed?”
“Course I did,”
Pickles chuckled and kissed his forehead before hauling him right side up in the chair. Nathan, Toki, Skwisgaar, and Murderface were all lined up in front of Charles with their hands behind their backs. Nathan stepped forward and presented Charles a watch.
This was no ordinary watch.
This watch was black leather, steel, and gold. The dial was so black, light seemed to get trapped inside it. It didn’t reflect anything. Though, tilted a certain way, there was a holographic image of Facebones and tilted the opposite direction, it was CFO in Gothic lettering. It was surrounded by elegantly delicate spikes, thin as needles but not too long to stab anyone. There was a small gold pentagram for the crown and the hands were decoratively carved red diamond. The band itself was made of different coloured crystals set inside stainless steel.
Charles stared at the watch and groped blindly for it before having Nathan press it into his hand and give his hand a squeeze. The hulk of a man walked off to the side, keeping his head down and not saying a word.
Toki walked up, smiling, and presented his idol with a helicopter model. It was small, wooden, and painted carefully. Each detail was carved carefully and accurately. The helicopter was similar to their very large, touring helicopter, but toned down. It looked very classy, even if it was demonic. Though, from the craftsmanship, it looked like it could only hold one, maybe two people.
“Is proot… proof… prota… uh, models of a hatredscopter I has design-ed for you, Charlies,” Toki handed him the model and hastily placed a kiss on his cheek. He ran to Nathan, blushing like a tomato and biting his finger to hide his embarrassed smile.
Skwisgaar gave Toki a weird sidelong glance before whipping out a large rectangle from behind his back. The rectangle was actually a very expensive desk set he had personalized for Charles. Everything was white, black, or red, shining expensively in the torchlight of the dining room. There were several different sized pads of paper, all dyed black with thin red lines, with special pens with white ink to show up on the paper. Impossible? Not with Skwisgaar’s sex appeal and bandoogles of cash.
There was a calculator with enough buttons to not only confuse the drunken man receiving the gift, but also to do the intense calculations for Dethklok’s annual cash intake and flow, and all the other formulas he used on a day-to-day basis.
“Justs figures you could use dis. Whatever,” Skwisgaar waved it off and laid the set on the table next to Charles. He stepped up to him and bent over to give him a tight hug before strutting over to the other two, leaving Murderface standing in front of the manager.
Charles blinked blearily up to Murderface, still extremely confused and drunk. Murderface presented a decorated hand gun; one of his Civil War replicas that he modified. Just like the other gifts, it bore the initials CFO in fancy lettering, though the initials on this present were on the butt of the gun in white gold.
“It’sch… ya know… whatever,” Murderface placed the gun next to the desk set and clapped Charles on the shoulder, flashing a fond smile for a brief moment. He trudged over to the others and stood by Nathan, looking up at him with a very satisfied hint of a smile.
“I… I don’t get it. ‘S not my birthday… ‘s not Christmas… What’s going on?” Though he couldn’t process what was happening or why they had given him these gifts, Charles was already replacing his old watch with his new one and fiddling with the propellers of the hatredcopter.
“Happy Fahther’s Day, Charlie. We love th’ hell outa ya,” Charles suddenly had a lap full of Pickles and a mouthful of Pickles’ tongue.
So yeah, it was a pretty good day.