Five People Charlie Pace Slept With (And One He Didn't)
Title: Five People Charlie Pace Slept With (And One He Didn’t)
Rating/warning: R. Very strong sexual themes, drug references, voyeuristic tendencies, slash and non-con. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Characters: Charlie, various OC’s, Lily (the drug addict), Claire
Genre: smut, romance, angst, flangst
Spoilers: up to Greatest Hits/TTLG I guess
Summary: as the title implies. Written for my 50_darkfics table for the prompt of “Lust”
Disclaimer: all mine. Or maybe I’m just a terrible liar.
Find my other 50_darkfics prompts HERE
~*~
Her name was Sarah.
He was barely seventeen, she was sixteen and her parents were away for the weekend so they had the entire house to themselves. They’d been going together for nearly four months now and she had admitted shyly to him that she wanted to give herself to him.
Neither of them had slept with anyone before.
His hands were unsteady, his palms sweaty as he struggled with the condom, studiously avoiding Sarah’s gaze as she watched him with wide eyes, clutching the floral coverlet to her chest as if she were trying to hide herself from him. When it was finally on Charlie turned to her and tried to smile reassuringly but his jaw seemed stiffer than usual so it felt more like a grimace as he slid underneath the covers and began to kiss her, his lips bumping clumsily against hers, their tongues touching carefully.
She reached out to touch him first. It was just a tentative stroke of fingertips down his left bicep, but even that was enough to make him shiver. He responded in kind, touching her gently, trying to figure out what she liked and what she didn’t, delighting in the hiccupping moans and suppressed gasps that she was eliciting.
After several minutes of this however, he decided that it was about time to have a proper go and so he swung one nervous leg over her hips and a second later he was straddling her, his breathing shallow as he stared down at her breasts.
He went a bit mad then, over eager in his lust. One of his hands began groping desperately between her legs and Sarah began to gasp and moan, rocking her hips up against his hand. Incensed, Charlie gave a groan and went to push inside her but then…
“Wait!” she said suddenly, tears springing into her eyes.
Charlie froze instantly, thinking that he’d somehow done something wrong. “What?”
“D’you…d’you think it’ll hurt?” Sarah whispered fearfully.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Charlie assured her, stroking her dark hair tenderly back from her face. “I’ll be really careful okay? And if you ask me to stop then I will. I promise.”
She bit her lip, nodded, and then shut her eyes. “Okay.”
When he pushed his tip into her she didn’t exactly scream but it was something pretty close. Immediately terrified that he was hurting her too much - that he might be damaging her - Charlie pulled out again. She gasped with the pain but then just as suddenly she grasped hold of him. Charlie nearly choked as she guided him back to her entrance again.
“No, wait,” he struggled for a moment between his want to just pummel her into the mattress until she screamed and the absolutely overwhelming terror that was yammering at him that he was going to hurt her. “I’m hurting you.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said bravely but he could tell that she was trying not to cry. “Please, Charlie?”
Charlie stared down into her soft brown eyes and swallowed hard. Sarah smiled tremulously and shut her eyes with a sigh. And Charlie, terrified and hating himself but also loving the rush of almost primal sensation and emotion rolling over him more than he’d care to admit, shut his eyes too, and pushed himself fully inside her.
Afterwards Charlie lay beside her, drenched in sweat and asked her if she was okay.
“I didn’t think it’d hurt that much,” she said quietly, her voice hollow. “I thought it was meant to feel good.”
“I think it gets better,” Charlie said, feeling slightly desperate. He wanted to show her that he was willing to share this experience with her, that he wanted to be a good boyfriend and take care of her. “You know, the more you do it.”
“Probably,” Sarah said evasively and she reached for her bra.
A week later she broke up with him. Charlie never saw her again.
~*~
Their names were Jasmine and Mary. Or maybe these two were Priscilla and Jodie? Or was it Jasmine with Jodie and Priscilla with Mary?
Charlie couldn’t exactly remember but he did know that he was twenty two and they couldn’t have been much more than eighteen but they were young and hot and they were all really, really drunk so who really cared?
The fantastic thing about groupies he thought as he watched the two of them hungrily, was that half the time you didn’t even need to do much of anything, the girls did all the work. Generally girls tended to strut around a lot when they with him - either that or they did a lot of moaning and screaming and thrashing about. He wasn’t all that modest about his skills in this particular area but it still always managed to excite him when he managed to make them scream.
He’d already had his way with one of them tonight (Priscilla? Jasmine?) while the other one watched them, urging them on, making suggestions in a low voice. Now the girls were doing some rather entertaining things together, touching and kissing and licking, removing their remaining, flimsy pieces of clothing and doing all manners of unspeakably good things. Charlie was merely enjoying the floorshow for now, occasionally taking swigs from the almost-empty bottle of champagne and letting himself grow hard.
“Why don’t you both come here?” he asked after a while and they crawled onto the bed with him, every single, flawless, sweat slicked, curvy inch of them.
“I think it’s my turn now,” the second girl, the blonde, said, her words slurring as she placed a messy trail of kisses from his mouth down to his nipples and then down onto his belly. The first one, the dark skinned one with the wicked hands, pressed herself up to his side, rubbing her naked body along the length of his, her tongue in his ear.
Who needs drugs? Charlie thought fuzzily as he lay back and just let them do what they wanted to him. Two sets of hands moved over his body, two warm mouths touching his skin. All you need is a shitload of booze and a couple of young willing girls and you’re pretty much guaranteed of a fantastic night.
The next morning the blonde girl was sitting on the floor, half dressed and practically sitting in a puddle of her own vomit, crying her eyes out. The dark girl had already left. Charlie retrieved his jeans and went into the bathroom to splash his face and wake himself up a little. He had a pretty killer headache but apart from that his body felt relaxed and unwound after the previous night’s events. Coming back into the room he stared down at the girl who was still sobbing into her knees.
“What’s wrong?” he wanted to know. “Aren’t you going to go home?”
“I lost my mobile last night,” she hiccupped through her sobs before looking up, mascara bleeding down her face. “I don’t know how I’m going to get home.”
Despite himself, Charlie felt a twinge of guilt. This girl didn’t really mean anything much to him but he didn’t like the fact that she was crying because of a situation that he’d gotten her into.
“Here then,” he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and threw her a fifty pound note. “Go hail yourself a cab.”
She stared up at him incredulously.
“Is that it?” she wanted to know, her voice growing angry. “You’re just gonna send me home?”
“You expected me to ask you to stay?” Charlie raised an eyebrow and the girl struggled to her feet, tottering ridiculously on her heels.
“I’m a big fan of your music,” she told him aggressively. “I thought that…”
“Look I’m sorry luv but they all say that,” Charlie told her coldly. “I have another show tonight and I can’t afford to waste time arguing with you right now.”
The girl stared at him a moment longer, her lower lip jutting out stubbornly and then she scoffed and headed for the door, shoving past him. Charlie sighed heavily and turned as she opened the door.
“Look I’m sorry Jasmine,” he said, the name slipping out without him even thinking. “I thought you understood that this is the way that things work when…”
“My name’s Jodie.” She said, glaring at him. “Goodbye Charlie.”
~*~
His name was David.
Charlie was twenty four and he was thirty two and he had the biggest range of stuff for the cheapest prices and Charlie was desperate - absolutely desperate for a fix. He was also flat broke. He’d already spent pretty much all of his last royalty cheque and he wasn’t getting another one for at least a fortnight. He had nothing of value left to sell except for his guitar (and he wasn’t going to sell that for anything) and God he was just itching, burning, hanging out for a bloody fix.
Tommy was long gone. After the debacle with Lucy, Charlie had been swinging from dealer to dealer, trying to find one that wouldn’t cut his stuff with drain cleaner or bi-carb and sell for double the average street price. Charlie had bought from David before, as had Liam, and he knew that David sometimes let you do IOU’s - he’d done one once for his brother in return for what Liam had merely described as ‘a favour’. Favours didn’t sound like such a bad thing at the moment to Charlie. If a dealer was going to give him an IOU just on the basis of him doing the guy a favour then he was going to be laughing.
He called him and twenty minutes later they met in an alleyway and Charlie explained his predicament.
“I haven’t done any IOU’s in a while,” David said in his quiet, careful voice. “You’re sure you want to do this Pace?”
“I need a hit,” Charlie said desperately, trying to keep his voice level and failing miserably. “Please David mate - I’ll do anything.”
David eyed him up and then turned on his heel.
“Follow me then.”
He led Charlie down several backstreets, up a rickety staircase and into a dark and shambolic flat.
“Is this your place?” Charlie asked as David shut the door behind them. “It’s very…” he groped for the appropriate word as David disappeared through a doorway and came back presently with something clasped in his hand. “…Moody.”
“Thanks,” David said flatly. Next thing Charlie knew he’d been flipped around so that he was pinned up against the wall and Dave’s forearm was across the back of his neck.
He struggled automatically and yelled out but David hit him in the back of the head and Charlie’s forehead smashed up against the wall, dizzying and disorientating him.
“You’re mine now so do exactly as I say,” David said in that quiet, terrifyingly cold voice. Charlie froze. He might’ve been half out of his head with withdrawal (and a possible concussion now for that matter) but he was still lucid enough to question being pinned up against the wall and threatened.
“What are you on about?” he managed to choke out.
“Your brother never told you what favours I usually ask for,” David said, a sudden revelation in his voice. “Did he?”
Charlie’s brain worked frantically for a moment and when it clicked into place he cringed against the wall with his eyes shut, horrified.
“Oh God…”
“If you want the goods for nothing more than an IOU then you’ll do what I ask you,” David loosened his grip on him slightly and Charlie gasped in relief, turning just enough to see his captor dig into his jeans and pull out a small plastic bag full of heroin. Charlie practically began salivating at the sight of it. His nerve endings all screamed out blue murder and his hand reached for the drug without even thinking…
David snatched it out of his reach, his eyes cold and blank.
“Every favour gets you a hit,” he explained. “It’s quite simple really. The greater the favour the greater the reward. You got it?”
“Please,” Charlie panted, his eyes on the baggie. “God…stop waving it about would you? You’re killing me here.”
“Then turn to face the wall…” David said, turning him around forcibly as he spoke. “…And shut up.”
“No…wait…”
Another blow to the back of the head had Charlie reeling. He rested his forehead against the wall, powerless against the older man. He had a good foot on Charlie and at least fifteen pounds - most of which was muscle. With several deft hand movements, Charlie’s belt was gone, followed by his jeans and then his boxers. He shuddered when he felt David moving behind him, the crinkle of a condom wrapper, the dealers thin fingers against his skin and then...
Charlie screamed. The pain was unreal - the extent to which it hurt was just…he couldn’t even describe it. It felt like someone had grabbed a hold of him with their fingernails and was tearing him apart from the inside out. He screamed again.
“Bend over,” David grunted. “And fucken’ relax or it’ll hurt you even fucken’ more.”
Tears running down his cheeks, Charlie did as he was bade and David pushed slowly into him. Every second was excruciating and Charlie began to panic a little - he knew that there would still be more to come. Once David was fully inside him, he paused for a moment and Charlie did his best to catch his breath and to try and stop his legs from trembling - he was terrified that they might collapse underneath him at any moment.
He started screaming again as soon as David began to move.
By the end he was sobbing uncontrollably and his body was trembling so badly that he couldn’t even stand up. He collapsed to his knees and then fell against the wall, his jeans still around his ankles as he gasped through the shudders of disgust and pain that were wracking his body.
“Here,” David said after he’d zipped himself back up again. When Charlie saw the full baggie being offered to him he lunged forward and undid the elastic band hurriedly, lining up a row of powder on his hand and inhaling it as quickly as possible. He sat there and let the numbness wash over him - the pain and disgust rolling away as the drug took effect. He barely even heard David talking as he went into the kitchen to get himself a beer. “You can have the whole bag. Sorry I got a bit carried away. If you just want a hit next time then a quick blow will be fine. Now take your shit and get of my house.”
Charlie re-dressed himself and stumbled outside, nearly falling down the steps in his haste to get away from the memory of what had just happened - what he had let happen.
When he woke up the next day, he swore that he was never going to let David do that to him again. He was better than this - he could get the money for his drugs. He’d start busking again, do whatever he needed to. He didn’t need to resort to…to that.
But a week later saw him returning to David’s flat without calling ahead, banging on the door like a man possessed.
“Back again so soon,” David said, surprised as he shut the door behind him.
“Shut up,” Charlie snarled, dropping to his knees in front of him. “And take off your fucking jeans.”
~*~
Her name was Lily.
Charlie was twenty five and she could’ve been anywhere from twenty four through to somewhere in her thirties as far as he knew. She was thin and blonde - almost skeletal from hard drug use. For all he knew she could’ve been anorexic too, infected with God knows what, paranoid or schizophrenic or even a homicidal maniac who was just waiting for the right moment to slash his throat.
All he knew for sure was that she had the most intense pair of eyes that he’d seen in a long time and that she had made it no secret from the moment he walked into that bar in Sydney that she was interested in him - oh yes she was very interested in him. And when she found out that he was in Driveshaft…well that had been the end of that.
“I love Driveshaft,” she had gushed over the top of his beer. Her voice was low and raspy, abrasive like sandpaper, making him shiver. She had a gin and tonic, then vodka with soda water and while she knocked back the next half dozen drinks he bought for her after that, he began to whisper licentious things into her ear.
She was all but falling all over him by the time they managed to crawl back to his hotel room together. They each took a ridiculous amount of heroin and then ordered up room service and champagne on Charlie’s credit card. Between the alcohol and the drugs, neither of them were really all that cogent but somehow they ended up tangled in the sheets on the bed with her tongue down his throat and his hand down the front of her jeans.
She gasped in surprise when he managed to strip her jeans off in one fluid motion without even moving his other hand from where it was pressed flush against the burning heat of her centre.
“Where did you learn how to do that?” she gasped against his lips as her hips bucked wildly against his hand. At the same time she began to push at his jeans, at his boxers with desperately bony hands, moaning with want.
He smirked against her lips, feeling smug as all hell. He knew exactly what she wanted and he was all too happy to give it to her. Pulling the crotch of her panties aside, he stroked two fingers gently down down down…
She writhed beneath him, crying out as she gripped the sheets beneath her.
“Oh I’ve picked up a few tricks in my time luv,” he told her. And without further ado he pushed deep inside her, delighting in the guttural, choked “Fuck!” that stumbled from her throat.
They did the deed mainly clothed in their haste, Charlie merely pulling the crotch aside on her panties because he just couldn’t be bothered pulling them off. It added a new sensation as well, the fabric rubbing along one side of him as he thrust deep into her. Every sensation during sex seemed magnified when you were high and Charlie always tried to use it to his full advantage.
Afterwards they took another hit off the bathroom counter and then Charlie spent several hours chain smoking a packet of cigarettes out on the balcony wearing nothing but his jeans and his faithful old hoodie. The night was quite balmy but when he came back inside to try and get some shut eye Lily was shivering and when he touched her arm she felt cold. Despite his drug addled state Charlie still somehow managed to realise that she might get sick from the cold and so he threw the blanket over her and ended up passing out on the floor using his own arms as a pillow.
The next morning she beat the utter crap out of him trying to get one last hit off him and he got kneed in the groin about a million times. When he finally recovered from her attack and his diaphragm had dropped back down into the right place he took a quick hit and let it settle in his system before he checked out of his hotel room and called for a cab to the airport.
Sometimes, he reasoned with himself as he half-dozed in the airport lounge, it just wasn’t worth going to all the trouble of being charming and buying a girl drinks when they were just another junkie who only wanted you for your drugs or some bimbo who was with you because they thought you might be a good lay because you used to be in a band.
It hadn’t been a bad night last night. Not really - between the drugs and the alcohol and the sex - but the morning after had been spectacularly bollocksed as far as he was concerned.
Lily was the last person that Charlie would ever sleep with.
~*~
Her name was Claire.
Charlie was twenty five and she was twenty two and she was pregnant when she met him. Very, very pregnant in fact. And she was blonde and sweet and…God he liked her. Really liked her. Liked her in a way that he hadn’t felt since…well to be completely honest he couldn’t remember ever feeling like this towards anybody.
It was never about the sex. There wasn’t a raging internal fire of passion or a fireworks display sparking off their skin every time they touched. It was more subtle than that - a tingle of butterflies in his stomach. Or maybe it was more like a soft warmth that came straight from her smile - a warmth that spread throughout his body and made all his muscles unclench and relax and unravel until he was little more than a tangled, lovesick mess.
That’s not to say that they didn’t have moments when the two of them were so on fire that they were all but scalding each other - but it was always when they were arguing. Even then it seemed somehow muted, they never seemed to yell at full volume or lash out with all their strength. They both seemed to realise just how fragile it was, this tentative thing they were beginning together.
He had been honestly surprised at the advent of their first kiss - the daring peck on the cheek that she had instigated after his gift of the Bjorn. Blushing furiously, he had wondered when exactly he had become so enamoured of this girl. She made him feel so goofy - like a teenager on his first date with the prettiest girl in school. And he was constantly amazed that one of the things he loved the most about her was that she didn’t make him want to steal her away for a quick shag in the jungle.
She made him feel…well, tingly. Which sounded stupid really. But it was about as eloquent as he could make his feelings about her sound without moving on to quoting Shakespearean sonnets or singing power ballads.
She made him want to kiss her gently, languidly. Not hard and fast and frantic with tongue and teeth and unadulterated lust. He wanted it to be soft and cosy and warm and familiar - lips against hers, against her peach-soft cheeks, against the very tip end of her nose. And later on there certainly were beautiful kisses shared between them - chaste and soft and wonderful. They were kisses that he revelled in, growing dizzy from her scent and her taste like she was some kind of new drug to replace his heroin.
Beyond these kisses there was the occasional hug or handhold. Once or twice there was a daring moment when he wrapped both his arms around her shoulders and laid his head against her neck or she would touch a hand to his knee and squeeze gently. Other times she would reach a hand to brush his fringe out of his eyes or his hand would hover between her shoulder blades or on her lower back - but beyond all of this, there was nothing more.
He loved the brief moments of touch between the two of them. They seemed so much more fulfilling than all his quick tangles between the sheets had ever been. He yearned for so much more from her - but not the things he usually wanted. He wanted to run the barest brush of fingertips along her jaw line. He wanted to trace every single curl of blonde hair from top to tip. He wanted to clasp her tiny hands in both of his and plant butterfly kisses along her knuckles.
His favourite kiss would always remain their final one. He couldn’t remember ever experiencing a goodbye before that he had honestly wanted to go forever but as he had stood up from Aaron’s cradle and turned to face her he had half expected a film score to swell up out of nowhere and serenade them. She glanced up at him several times as he walked over to her on stiff legs, busying herself with her folding and packing. But when he knelt in front of her, one hand barely touching her knee to steady himself, she laid her things aside hastily.
Charlie knew very well that this was going to be the last time he ever saw Claire and it was taking every single ounce of self control he had to stop himself from completely losing it and turning into a hysterical sobbing mess. He had to keep this brief, say his goodbyes and then go before he did something stupid that would allow Claire to put two and two together. She had to believe that he truly thought he was going to come back from The Looking Glass, that he wasn’t about to go off on some suicide mission…
“See you soon,” He said as cheerfully as he could, hoping that the smile on his face didn’t look too much like a grimace.
Claire leant forward and touched a hand to Charlie’s knee, mirroring him unconsciously. She still looked thoroughly unhappy with the whole situation and there was a slight desperation to her tone when she spoke. “Be careful Charlie,” she mumbled. “Okay?”
Charlie tried for a brave smile. “Yeah,”
There was a pause as Claire’s eyes dropped to his lips and she leant forward a little. Recognising the body language instantly, Charlie gladly leant forward and captured her lips with his.
And oh God if ever there had been a kiss that Charlie would want to remember in every infinitesimal detail it would be this one. It was quiet and soft and tender and beautiful and amazing. His hand twitched, wanting to reach up, to tangle in her hair. He mastered the impulse however and instead pulled back - knowing that this kiss, as perfect as it was, couldn’t go on forever or Claire would start to wonder. The parting of their lips seemed much lonelier than usual - the knowledge that he would never kiss her again making it sad and bittersweet. But Charlie still smiled as he pulled back - he couldn’t have asked for anything more from a kiss like that. Claire smiled back at him in turn, her eyes full of hope...
Charlie dropped his eyes, hoping against hope that she hadn’t seen the beginning of tears flooding into the corners of them. Pushing himself to his feet, he turned and began to walk away from her without looking back. Each and every step was agonising to Charlie, knowing that every single one was taking him further away from Claire and closer to the inevitable - and to his death.
Perhaps he could have pushed a little harder with her, made the last physical relationship he had with someone the most meaningful of all. He never would have, never could have just fucked her like he had so many others. And it was all wrong anyways - the timing was wrong and they weren’t ready as a couple and he was going to die anyway and God he just didn’t want to screw up what had been the purest relationship he’d ever had with a woman (or man) in his life.
To Claire he would have made love - if he’d only had the time.
Rating/warning: R. Very strong sexual themes, drug references, voyeuristic tendencies, slash and non-con. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Characters: Charlie, various OC’s, Lily (the drug addict), Claire
Genre: smut, romance, angst, flangst
Spoilers: up to Greatest Hits/TTLG I guess
Summary: as the title implies. Written for my 50_darkfics table for the prompt of “Lust”
Disclaimer: all mine. Or maybe I’m just a terrible liar.
Find my other 50_darkfics prompts HERE
~*~
Her name was Sarah.
He was barely seventeen, she was sixteen and her parents were away for the weekend so they had the entire house to themselves. They’d been going together for nearly four months now and she had admitted shyly to him that she wanted to give herself to him.
Neither of them had slept with anyone before.
His hands were unsteady, his palms sweaty as he struggled with the condom, studiously avoiding Sarah’s gaze as she watched him with wide eyes, clutching the floral coverlet to her chest as if she were trying to hide herself from him. When it was finally on Charlie turned to her and tried to smile reassuringly but his jaw seemed stiffer than usual so it felt more like a grimace as he slid underneath the covers and began to kiss her, his lips bumping clumsily against hers, their tongues touching carefully.
She reached out to touch him first. It was just a tentative stroke of fingertips down his left bicep, but even that was enough to make him shiver. He responded in kind, touching her gently, trying to figure out what she liked and what she didn’t, delighting in the hiccupping moans and suppressed gasps that she was eliciting.
After several minutes of this however, he decided that it was about time to have a proper go and so he swung one nervous leg over her hips and a second later he was straddling her, his breathing shallow as he stared down at her breasts.
He went a bit mad then, over eager in his lust. One of his hands began groping desperately between her legs and Sarah began to gasp and moan, rocking her hips up against his hand. Incensed, Charlie gave a groan and went to push inside her but then…
“Wait!” she said suddenly, tears springing into her eyes.
Charlie froze instantly, thinking that he’d somehow done something wrong. “What?”
“D’you…d’you think it’ll hurt?” Sarah whispered fearfully.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Charlie assured her, stroking her dark hair tenderly back from her face. “I’ll be really careful okay? And if you ask me to stop then I will. I promise.”
She bit her lip, nodded, and then shut her eyes. “Okay.”
When he pushed his tip into her she didn’t exactly scream but it was something pretty close. Immediately terrified that he was hurting her too much - that he might be damaging her - Charlie pulled out again. She gasped with the pain but then just as suddenly she grasped hold of him. Charlie nearly choked as she guided him back to her entrance again.
“No, wait,” he struggled for a moment between his want to just pummel her into the mattress until she screamed and the absolutely overwhelming terror that was yammering at him that he was going to hurt her. “I’m hurting you.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said bravely but he could tell that she was trying not to cry. “Please, Charlie?”
Charlie stared down into her soft brown eyes and swallowed hard. Sarah smiled tremulously and shut her eyes with a sigh. And Charlie, terrified and hating himself but also loving the rush of almost primal sensation and emotion rolling over him more than he’d care to admit, shut his eyes too, and pushed himself fully inside her.
Afterwards Charlie lay beside her, drenched in sweat and asked her if she was okay.
“I didn’t think it’d hurt that much,” she said quietly, her voice hollow. “I thought it was meant to feel good.”
“I think it gets better,” Charlie said, feeling slightly desperate. He wanted to show her that he was willing to share this experience with her, that he wanted to be a good boyfriend and take care of her. “You know, the more you do it.”
“Probably,” Sarah said evasively and she reached for her bra.
A week later she broke up with him. Charlie never saw her again.
~*~
Their names were Jasmine and Mary. Or maybe these two were Priscilla and Jodie? Or was it Jasmine with Jodie and Priscilla with Mary?
Charlie couldn’t exactly remember but he did know that he was twenty two and they couldn’t have been much more than eighteen but they were young and hot and they were all really, really drunk so who really cared?
The fantastic thing about groupies he thought as he watched the two of them hungrily, was that half the time you didn’t even need to do much of anything, the girls did all the work. Generally girls tended to strut around a lot when they with him - either that or they did a lot of moaning and screaming and thrashing about. He wasn’t all that modest about his skills in this particular area but it still always managed to excite him when he managed to make them scream.
He’d already had his way with one of them tonight (Priscilla? Jasmine?) while the other one watched them, urging them on, making suggestions in a low voice. Now the girls were doing some rather entertaining things together, touching and kissing and licking, removing their remaining, flimsy pieces of clothing and doing all manners of unspeakably good things. Charlie was merely enjoying the floorshow for now, occasionally taking swigs from the almost-empty bottle of champagne and letting himself grow hard.
“Why don’t you both come here?” he asked after a while and they crawled onto the bed with him, every single, flawless, sweat slicked, curvy inch of them.
“I think it’s my turn now,” the second girl, the blonde, said, her words slurring as she placed a messy trail of kisses from his mouth down to his nipples and then down onto his belly. The first one, the dark skinned one with the wicked hands, pressed herself up to his side, rubbing her naked body along the length of his, her tongue in his ear.
Who needs drugs? Charlie thought fuzzily as he lay back and just let them do what they wanted to him. Two sets of hands moved over his body, two warm mouths touching his skin. All you need is a shitload of booze and a couple of young willing girls and you’re pretty much guaranteed of a fantastic night.
The next morning the blonde girl was sitting on the floor, half dressed and practically sitting in a puddle of her own vomit, crying her eyes out. The dark girl had already left. Charlie retrieved his jeans and went into the bathroom to splash his face and wake himself up a little. He had a pretty killer headache but apart from that his body felt relaxed and unwound after the previous night’s events. Coming back into the room he stared down at the girl who was still sobbing into her knees.
“What’s wrong?” he wanted to know. “Aren’t you going to go home?”
“I lost my mobile last night,” she hiccupped through her sobs before looking up, mascara bleeding down her face. “I don’t know how I’m going to get home.”
Despite himself, Charlie felt a twinge of guilt. This girl didn’t really mean anything much to him but he didn’t like the fact that she was crying because of a situation that he’d gotten her into.
“Here then,” he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and threw her a fifty pound note. “Go hail yourself a cab.”
She stared up at him incredulously.
“Is that it?” she wanted to know, her voice growing angry. “You’re just gonna send me home?”
“You expected me to ask you to stay?” Charlie raised an eyebrow and the girl struggled to her feet, tottering ridiculously on her heels.
“I’m a big fan of your music,” she told him aggressively. “I thought that…”
“Look I’m sorry luv but they all say that,” Charlie told her coldly. “I have another show tonight and I can’t afford to waste time arguing with you right now.”
The girl stared at him a moment longer, her lower lip jutting out stubbornly and then she scoffed and headed for the door, shoving past him. Charlie sighed heavily and turned as she opened the door.
“Look I’m sorry Jasmine,” he said, the name slipping out without him even thinking. “I thought you understood that this is the way that things work when…”
“My name’s Jodie.” She said, glaring at him. “Goodbye Charlie.”
~*~
His name was David.
Charlie was twenty four and he was thirty two and he had the biggest range of stuff for the cheapest prices and Charlie was desperate - absolutely desperate for a fix. He was also flat broke. He’d already spent pretty much all of his last royalty cheque and he wasn’t getting another one for at least a fortnight. He had nothing of value left to sell except for his guitar (and he wasn’t going to sell that for anything) and God he was just itching, burning, hanging out for a bloody fix.
Tommy was long gone. After the debacle with Lucy, Charlie had been swinging from dealer to dealer, trying to find one that wouldn’t cut his stuff with drain cleaner or bi-carb and sell for double the average street price. Charlie had bought from David before, as had Liam, and he knew that David sometimes let you do IOU’s - he’d done one once for his brother in return for what Liam had merely described as ‘a favour’. Favours didn’t sound like such a bad thing at the moment to Charlie. If a dealer was going to give him an IOU just on the basis of him doing the guy a favour then he was going to be laughing.
He called him and twenty minutes later they met in an alleyway and Charlie explained his predicament.
“I haven’t done any IOU’s in a while,” David said in his quiet, careful voice. “You’re sure you want to do this Pace?”
“I need a hit,” Charlie said desperately, trying to keep his voice level and failing miserably. “Please David mate - I’ll do anything.”
David eyed him up and then turned on his heel.
“Follow me then.”
He led Charlie down several backstreets, up a rickety staircase and into a dark and shambolic flat.
“Is this your place?” Charlie asked as David shut the door behind them. “It’s very…” he groped for the appropriate word as David disappeared through a doorway and came back presently with something clasped in his hand. “…Moody.”
“Thanks,” David said flatly. Next thing Charlie knew he’d been flipped around so that he was pinned up against the wall and Dave’s forearm was across the back of his neck.
He struggled automatically and yelled out but David hit him in the back of the head and Charlie’s forehead smashed up against the wall, dizzying and disorientating him.
“You’re mine now so do exactly as I say,” David said in that quiet, terrifyingly cold voice. Charlie froze. He might’ve been half out of his head with withdrawal (and a possible concussion now for that matter) but he was still lucid enough to question being pinned up against the wall and threatened.
“What are you on about?” he managed to choke out.
“Your brother never told you what favours I usually ask for,” David said, a sudden revelation in his voice. “Did he?”
Charlie’s brain worked frantically for a moment and when it clicked into place he cringed against the wall with his eyes shut, horrified.
“Oh God…”
“If you want the goods for nothing more than an IOU then you’ll do what I ask you,” David loosened his grip on him slightly and Charlie gasped in relief, turning just enough to see his captor dig into his jeans and pull out a small plastic bag full of heroin. Charlie practically began salivating at the sight of it. His nerve endings all screamed out blue murder and his hand reached for the drug without even thinking…
David snatched it out of his reach, his eyes cold and blank.
“Every favour gets you a hit,” he explained. “It’s quite simple really. The greater the favour the greater the reward. You got it?”
“Please,” Charlie panted, his eyes on the baggie. “God…stop waving it about would you? You’re killing me here.”
“Then turn to face the wall…” David said, turning him around forcibly as he spoke. “…And shut up.”
“No…wait…”
Another blow to the back of the head had Charlie reeling. He rested his forehead against the wall, powerless against the older man. He had a good foot on Charlie and at least fifteen pounds - most of which was muscle. With several deft hand movements, Charlie’s belt was gone, followed by his jeans and then his boxers. He shuddered when he felt David moving behind him, the crinkle of a condom wrapper, the dealers thin fingers against his skin and then...
Charlie screamed. The pain was unreal - the extent to which it hurt was just…he couldn’t even describe it. It felt like someone had grabbed a hold of him with their fingernails and was tearing him apart from the inside out. He screamed again.
“Bend over,” David grunted. “And fucken’ relax or it’ll hurt you even fucken’ more.”
Tears running down his cheeks, Charlie did as he was bade and David pushed slowly into him. Every second was excruciating and Charlie began to panic a little - he knew that there would still be more to come. Once David was fully inside him, he paused for a moment and Charlie did his best to catch his breath and to try and stop his legs from trembling - he was terrified that they might collapse underneath him at any moment.
He started screaming again as soon as David began to move.
By the end he was sobbing uncontrollably and his body was trembling so badly that he couldn’t even stand up. He collapsed to his knees and then fell against the wall, his jeans still around his ankles as he gasped through the shudders of disgust and pain that were wracking his body.
“Here,” David said after he’d zipped himself back up again. When Charlie saw the full baggie being offered to him he lunged forward and undid the elastic band hurriedly, lining up a row of powder on his hand and inhaling it as quickly as possible. He sat there and let the numbness wash over him - the pain and disgust rolling away as the drug took effect. He barely even heard David talking as he went into the kitchen to get himself a beer. “You can have the whole bag. Sorry I got a bit carried away. If you just want a hit next time then a quick blow will be fine. Now take your shit and get of my house.”
Charlie re-dressed himself and stumbled outside, nearly falling down the steps in his haste to get away from the memory of what had just happened - what he had let happen.
When he woke up the next day, he swore that he was never going to let David do that to him again. He was better than this - he could get the money for his drugs. He’d start busking again, do whatever he needed to. He didn’t need to resort to…to that.
But a week later saw him returning to David’s flat without calling ahead, banging on the door like a man possessed.
“Back again so soon,” David said, surprised as he shut the door behind him.
“Shut up,” Charlie snarled, dropping to his knees in front of him. “And take off your fucking jeans.”
~*~
Her name was Lily.
Charlie was twenty five and she could’ve been anywhere from twenty four through to somewhere in her thirties as far as he knew. She was thin and blonde - almost skeletal from hard drug use. For all he knew she could’ve been anorexic too, infected with God knows what, paranoid or schizophrenic or even a homicidal maniac who was just waiting for the right moment to slash his throat.
All he knew for sure was that she had the most intense pair of eyes that he’d seen in a long time and that she had made it no secret from the moment he walked into that bar in Sydney that she was interested in him - oh yes she was very interested in him. And when she found out that he was in Driveshaft…well that had been the end of that.
“I love Driveshaft,” she had gushed over the top of his beer. Her voice was low and raspy, abrasive like sandpaper, making him shiver. She had a gin and tonic, then vodka with soda water and while she knocked back the next half dozen drinks he bought for her after that, he began to whisper licentious things into her ear.
She was all but falling all over him by the time they managed to crawl back to his hotel room together. They each took a ridiculous amount of heroin and then ordered up room service and champagne on Charlie’s credit card. Between the alcohol and the drugs, neither of them were really all that cogent but somehow they ended up tangled in the sheets on the bed with her tongue down his throat and his hand down the front of her jeans.
She gasped in surprise when he managed to strip her jeans off in one fluid motion without even moving his other hand from where it was pressed flush against the burning heat of her centre.
“Where did you learn how to do that?” she gasped against his lips as her hips bucked wildly against his hand. At the same time she began to push at his jeans, at his boxers with desperately bony hands, moaning with want.
He smirked against her lips, feeling smug as all hell. He knew exactly what she wanted and he was all too happy to give it to her. Pulling the crotch of her panties aside, he stroked two fingers gently down down down…
She writhed beneath him, crying out as she gripped the sheets beneath her.
“Oh I’ve picked up a few tricks in my time luv,” he told her. And without further ado he pushed deep inside her, delighting in the guttural, choked “Fuck!” that stumbled from her throat.
They did the deed mainly clothed in their haste, Charlie merely pulling the crotch aside on her panties because he just couldn’t be bothered pulling them off. It added a new sensation as well, the fabric rubbing along one side of him as he thrust deep into her. Every sensation during sex seemed magnified when you were high and Charlie always tried to use it to his full advantage.
Afterwards they took another hit off the bathroom counter and then Charlie spent several hours chain smoking a packet of cigarettes out on the balcony wearing nothing but his jeans and his faithful old hoodie. The night was quite balmy but when he came back inside to try and get some shut eye Lily was shivering and when he touched her arm she felt cold. Despite his drug addled state Charlie still somehow managed to realise that she might get sick from the cold and so he threw the blanket over her and ended up passing out on the floor using his own arms as a pillow.
The next morning she beat the utter crap out of him trying to get one last hit off him and he got kneed in the groin about a million times. When he finally recovered from her attack and his diaphragm had dropped back down into the right place he took a quick hit and let it settle in his system before he checked out of his hotel room and called for a cab to the airport.
Sometimes, he reasoned with himself as he half-dozed in the airport lounge, it just wasn’t worth going to all the trouble of being charming and buying a girl drinks when they were just another junkie who only wanted you for your drugs or some bimbo who was with you because they thought you might be a good lay because you used to be in a band.
It hadn’t been a bad night last night. Not really - between the drugs and the alcohol and the sex - but the morning after had been spectacularly bollocksed as far as he was concerned.
Lily was the last person that Charlie would ever sleep with.
~*~
Her name was Claire.
Charlie was twenty five and she was twenty two and she was pregnant when she met him. Very, very pregnant in fact. And she was blonde and sweet and…God he liked her. Really liked her. Liked her in a way that he hadn’t felt since…well to be completely honest he couldn’t remember ever feeling like this towards anybody.
It was never about the sex. There wasn’t a raging internal fire of passion or a fireworks display sparking off their skin every time they touched. It was more subtle than that - a tingle of butterflies in his stomach. Or maybe it was more like a soft warmth that came straight from her smile - a warmth that spread throughout his body and made all his muscles unclench and relax and unravel until he was little more than a tangled, lovesick mess.
That’s not to say that they didn’t have moments when the two of them were so on fire that they were all but scalding each other - but it was always when they were arguing. Even then it seemed somehow muted, they never seemed to yell at full volume or lash out with all their strength. They both seemed to realise just how fragile it was, this tentative thing they were beginning together.
He had been honestly surprised at the advent of their first kiss - the daring peck on the cheek that she had instigated after his gift of the Bjorn. Blushing furiously, he had wondered when exactly he had become so enamoured of this girl. She made him feel so goofy - like a teenager on his first date with the prettiest girl in school. And he was constantly amazed that one of the things he loved the most about her was that she didn’t make him want to steal her away for a quick shag in the jungle.
She made him feel…well, tingly. Which sounded stupid really. But it was about as eloquent as he could make his feelings about her sound without moving on to quoting Shakespearean sonnets or singing power ballads.
She made him want to kiss her gently, languidly. Not hard and fast and frantic with tongue and teeth and unadulterated lust. He wanted it to be soft and cosy and warm and familiar - lips against hers, against her peach-soft cheeks, against the very tip end of her nose. And later on there certainly were beautiful kisses shared between them - chaste and soft and wonderful. They were kisses that he revelled in, growing dizzy from her scent and her taste like she was some kind of new drug to replace his heroin.
Beyond these kisses there was the occasional hug or handhold. Once or twice there was a daring moment when he wrapped both his arms around her shoulders and laid his head against her neck or she would touch a hand to his knee and squeeze gently. Other times she would reach a hand to brush his fringe out of his eyes or his hand would hover between her shoulder blades or on her lower back - but beyond all of this, there was nothing more.
He loved the brief moments of touch between the two of them. They seemed so much more fulfilling than all his quick tangles between the sheets had ever been. He yearned for so much more from her - but not the things he usually wanted. He wanted to run the barest brush of fingertips along her jaw line. He wanted to trace every single curl of blonde hair from top to tip. He wanted to clasp her tiny hands in both of his and plant butterfly kisses along her knuckles.
His favourite kiss would always remain their final one. He couldn’t remember ever experiencing a goodbye before that he had honestly wanted to go forever but as he had stood up from Aaron’s cradle and turned to face her he had half expected a film score to swell up out of nowhere and serenade them. She glanced up at him several times as he walked over to her on stiff legs, busying herself with her folding and packing. But when he knelt in front of her, one hand barely touching her knee to steady himself, she laid her things aside hastily.
Charlie knew very well that this was going to be the last time he ever saw Claire and it was taking every single ounce of self control he had to stop himself from completely losing it and turning into a hysterical sobbing mess. He had to keep this brief, say his goodbyes and then go before he did something stupid that would allow Claire to put two and two together. She had to believe that he truly thought he was going to come back from The Looking Glass, that he wasn’t about to go off on some suicide mission…
“See you soon,” He said as cheerfully as he could, hoping that the smile on his face didn’t look too much like a grimace.
Claire leant forward and touched a hand to Charlie’s knee, mirroring him unconsciously. She still looked thoroughly unhappy with the whole situation and there was a slight desperation to her tone when she spoke. “Be careful Charlie,” she mumbled. “Okay?”
Charlie tried for a brave smile. “Yeah,”
There was a pause as Claire’s eyes dropped to his lips and she leant forward a little. Recognising the body language instantly, Charlie gladly leant forward and captured her lips with his.
And oh God if ever there had been a kiss that Charlie would want to remember in every infinitesimal detail it would be this one. It was quiet and soft and tender and beautiful and amazing. His hand twitched, wanting to reach up, to tangle in her hair. He mastered the impulse however and instead pulled back - knowing that this kiss, as perfect as it was, couldn’t go on forever or Claire would start to wonder. The parting of their lips seemed much lonelier than usual - the knowledge that he would never kiss her again making it sad and bittersweet. But Charlie still smiled as he pulled back - he couldn’t have asked for anything more from a kiss like that. Claire smiled back at him in turn, her eyes full of hope...
Charlie dropped his eyes, hoping against hope that she hadn’t seen the beginning of tears flooding into the corners of them. Pushing himself to his feet, he turned and began to walk away from her without looking back. Each and every step was agonising to Charlie, knowing that every single one was taking him further away from Claire and closer to the inevitable - and to his death.
Perhaps he could have pushed a little harder with her, made the last physical relationship he had with someone the most meaningful of all. He never would have, never could have just fucked her like he had so many others. And it was all wrong anyways - the timing was wrong and they weren’t ready as a couple and he was going to die anyway and God he just didn’t want to screw up what had been the purest relationship he’d ever had with a woman (or man) in his life.
To Claire he would have made love - if he’d only had the time.