[R] How Much You Had, So Much to Lose (Charlie+Simon) {FIN}

[Shazari]

Charlie checked his watch -- a nice big Movado that his grandfather had given him once, with a huge face and two tinier faces that would tell you what time it was in London or Tokyo. He liked face watches, the three-hand kind with just numbers for the 3, 6, 9, and 12, and hashes in between. He liked face clocks too -- none of this indi-glow business with a stopwatch built in and a thingamajig to tell you, You just burned ten calories! Rock on! Charlie did not rock on to the thought of burning ten calories. He felt tricked-out watches were stupid.

He'd ordered coffee, which had also been something of an adventure in Salvador Dali-land, due to their insistence on giving everything hip nicknames: do you want a talle, or a grandioise, or a giganté? ("Those names are completely non-descriptive," he'd answered, "and they aren't words. And they all seem to mean 'large.' I just want coffee in this size cup." He'd pointed.

"Alright, the talle!" Charlie gave her a look that said, If I don't read off the name of the Rootin' Tootin' Fresh and Fruitin' breakfast at IPoRoP, what makes you think I'm going to speak your strange Martian coffee language? "Do you want any boys or girls with that?"

He stared blankly. "Any what."

She held up artificial sweetener in pale blue and pale pink packets. "Boys. And girls." He rolled his eyes.

"Coffee. Black.")

Now, as he waited, he milled uncomfortably in the tiny aisles. The shelves in front of him were filled with stainless steel thermoses (thermii?). He flipped up the sign hanging off the edge to read it. Thermos Syncs With Your Blackberry!, it said. Charlie did not understand this interplanetary dialect. He was, in fact, terrible at blending in most anywhere that had free Wi-Fi.  

[cibarium]

Antique as it was, the Movado was still perfectly capable of telling Charlie that the person he'd arranged to meet here should have arrived by now. Or perhaps he'd already arrived and he'd just missed him -- but, no, the boy was tall, he'd be fairly easy to spot, the type to often get caught up in a crowd but rarely get lost in one. Simon was late.

Not that he ever really intended to be late, though. Things just tended to happen along the way that made him so. Sometimes he would get lost if he was heading into an unfamiliar part of town. Other times he got caught up lending a hand in someone else's errands, carrying grocery bags or looking for lost items or holding ladders steady.

He showed up eventually, though, just like he said he would. But the first thing Charlie would see to alert him of this wouldn't be his face, a voice, a wave to get his attention.

At seven minutes past the agreed time, he heard a metallic clatter from a few feet away -- rows of neatly aligned thermoses spilling onto the floor and rolling around in little curlycues. In the middle of the mess stood Simon Ferris, who appeared to have magically caused the shelf to collapse by accidentally nudging into it. He had a sad, resigned look about him that suggested this sort of thing happened to him often.  

[Shazari]

Simon Ferris made Charlie feel awkward. This was a little odd and unfair, considering Charlie hadn't just been the one to elbow a bunch of the seasonal merchandise onto the floor, but he was already resigned to the idea that it was so. Charlie crossed around the shelving to where Simon stood horrifiedly rooted in his spot and assessed the damage: he had been tricked by Charys into games of "Fifty-Two Pickup" with about as many casualties. Either Simon was all elbows, or the Shufflepucks people had deliberately set up some kind of elaborate dominoes formation with their travel mugs, designed to shame unsuspecting customers who didn't always mind their peripheral vision.

Charlie set his talle down on a different shelf across the way. "Stealth isn't your strong suit," he greeted, straight-faced. "Duly noted." He knelt and began scooping some of the mugs towards himself, then setting them in military mug formation on the shelves.  

[cibarium]

"S-s-s-sorry, I'm sorry," he'd begun to quietly stammer the second Charlie crossed his attention. For a few seconds he just stood above him and wrung his hands, feeling guilt sink into the pit of his stomach that he was letting someone else clean up after his own mess -- at the same time he felt like it wasn't his place to help, since Charlie seemed to have the situation under control. He'd probably just end up getting in the way. And Charlie was probably annoyed enough with him as it was. But still...

Simon shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other, and, finally, shakily sank to the floor himself. "I'm sorry," he said again, as he gingerly began attending to some of the thermoses Charlie hadn't addressed, "I-I-I'm late, and n-n-now you h-have to deal with this, I'm s-sorry."  

[Shazari]

Charlie assessed instantly that Simon Ferris had some kind of anxiety disorder.

The natural and obvious recourse for this was, of course, to sweetly and gently brush off the incident, using a soothing tone and quiet, coaxing words. Unfortunately, this was Charlie. Charlie having a 'Soothe' setting was like a blender having a 'Mangle' setting: each had some settings that were basically pretty similar, got across more or less the same idea, but which it would still be kind of disturbing to try and label with that particular verb.

"Don't be ridiculous -- you're like an apology machine gun. I don't have to deal with anything. I am choosing to help you." He gave Simon a reassuring look that didn't turn out to be very reassuring either: apparently Charlie's 'Reassure' setting also looked a lot like 'Mangle.' The track runner reached to grab another thermos that had rolled partway under the shelving unit's kickplate.  

[cibarium]

Charlie's version of a reassuring look indeed was not very reassuring at all. Really, Simon didn't even register the attempt, only seeing the same exasperated deadpan look he was wearing a few seconds ago. He was growing to expect this look to be cast in his direction very often if they were going to have an extended association with one another. Despite the other's attempts at assuring him he was fine... well, needless to say, he wasn't convinced. Charlie still looked annoyed and Simon still looked guilty.

Simon moved to speak, to make yet another apology. Seeing Charlie's look, however, prompted him to clamp his limps shut with a short, shaky breath, and shyly avert his gaze.

After a fresh bout of fidgeting he opted to reach a hand out towards another mug partly bathed in shadow from the shelf. For some reason this one was stubborn to move the direction he was pulling it towards, though; maybe the handle had snagged on something? He shifted his fingers a bit to try and lift it away from whatever the obstruction was, only for them to creep up and touch something on the other side. Another hand.

Charlie's hand.  

[Shazari]

Charlie's dignity was saved by not dropping the mug, but only just barely. He looked down at where Simon's slim, jittery fingers were brushing his own, a darker tone against his own sunnier skin. He felt awkward. He felt decidedly awkward. The watch he was wearing on the hand that was touching Simon's hand seemed to be ticking oddly loudly.

After a second of feeling awkward, he let go (still feeling awkward). "That one'll probably be dusty," he cautioned. "You may want to wipe it out before you put it back." Charlie had already moved onto the next thermos.  

[cibarium]

It was very likely the only thing stopping Simon from having dropped the mug himself was that single, precious moment of disbelief between the touch and actually realizing the touch had happened. Really, this shouldn't have doubled the tension in the air around them so much -- this very same person had slung Simon over his shoulder and carried him to safety not too long ago -- but for some reason, these two square inches of skin touching was exponentially more uncomfortable than having an entire arm-plus-shoulder wrapped around his torso.

Nodding stiltedly, he pulled a cloth normally meant for his glasses out of his pocket, and busied himself rubbing the dust off the thermos, then took care to make sure it was as well-aligned on the shelf as the rest of them. With the couple more Charlie took care of during that, those were the last ones.  

[Shazari]

"There," Charlie commented, dusting off his hands, "crisis averted, you can relax." It sounded a little like an order, which really wasn't surprising, given Charlie's track record with Simon (which included the sack of potatoes carrying incident). He got to his own feet, hands on his knees as he pushed himself up to stand. At first, Charlie shifted as though he meant to reach down a hand to help Simon up -- but then he shifted and retrieved his coffee instead. He was still feeling a little awkward.

His coffee was a little cold when he sipped at it. He opened his mouth to speak, but -- sensing this would prompt more scattershot apologies from Simon -- he thought better of it. "Did you plan to get a coffee? And maybe a slice of quiche or something?" he asked instead.  

[cibarium]

Simon wiped his hands off with his cleaning cloth (though Charlie thought this might have been an excuse to do more fidgeting) before tucking it clumsily back into his pocket, and hoisted back up into a standing position himself. He was mindful of the shelves this time, and, uncharacteristically, his posture drew him up to his full height for once. This was in a small part because his cheerleading captain had suddenly rebounded in energy and enthusiasm, which renewed his paranoia the boy might be stalking him, but also mostly due to the fact that he was worried Charlie might give him a once-over and bark at him to stop slouching.

So the crisis was averted, but he was far from relaxing.

"Umm," he started, indecisively, chewing his lips and toying with one of his bracelets. Charlie was starting to notice that, along with his generalized anxiety, Simon was what some people might refer to as a 'waffler.' Really, they could have just cut a slice of awkward out of the air and eaten that. "I-I-I dunno, I... I guess?"  

[Shazari]

Charlie helped the situation. He helped the situation totally. He helped the situation by standing just where he was, raising an eyebrow as if to say, well?, and then standing there some more.

He sipped at his slightly cold coffee, but by and by he noticed that his pointed look hadn't had the desired effect. Simon just stood there, looking a bit intimidated by the look Charlie was giving him, and fidgeted. The fidgeting was a little distracting.

"Well?" Charlie finally opted to say, with a gesture towards the line at the register. He held back, sometime before Christmas would be good.  

[cibarium]

"Oh--"

Simon looked back towards the counter Charlie had pointed at, and then back at Charlie, a hand reaching up to hover timidly over his chin. Somewhere along the way he'd honestly forgotten that he would actually have to go and order his coffee and quiche if he wanted to have some. He could count the people in line from where he was standing; there were at least half a dozen people queued up behind the register, which translated into making Charlie wait even longer.

He couldn't do that, not after showing up late and making a mess out of the thermos display.

Turning back towards Charlie, he lowered his hand to his chest and said, "M-maybe w-w-we should just go find a t-table..."  

[Shazari]

Charlie studied Simon for a moment, seemed to be assessing him in his weathered winter jacket. "Alright, well, there are children starving in Africa," he said grimly. Simon honestly had no idea what he was getting at, but he seemed pretty displeased about it.

Nonetheless, a moment later, Charlie had pivoted on his heel and chosen a window-booth at the far end of the store. There was a girl at one of the tables, with dark violet-indigo hair under a red beret, having what they could clearly overhear was an animated debate with her boyfriend over who would do X more impressive thing because they loved each other. Charlie gave her a hard scowl as he passed by, a scowl Charys would have recognized as the "you dye your hair, the evidence proves it" scowl. Simon was relieved when the girl in the red beret didn't notice.

Charlie finally sat in the booth, taking the farther side that would let him look out across the other tables while they talked. He set his coffee down in front of him, and started pulling off his own jacket: it was white with red leather sleeves, the unmistakable letterman's jacket of a Meadowview varsity athlete. "I didn't see you at the funeral," he was saying. It came out sounding like, therefore you could not have been at the funeral.  

[cibarium]

Simon clumsily shrugged off his own jacket (his arm got momentarily trapped in a twisted sleeve) while sitting down himself, setting it down next to him. Underneath he was wearing a layer of... more weathered fabric. Besides his school uniform, which was kept in immaculately good shape out of fear of death, a lot of the clothing he owned was about as frayed as his nerves were most of the time.

He rested his hands on the table, where he proceeded to do something like an exaggerated version of twiddling his thumbs. When Charlie brought of the funeral, though, his hands quieted, resting flat on top of each other.

Charlie hadn't seen him at the funeral -- clearly Simon knew the one he was talking about, given both his reaction and the fact neither of them were the type to hang around at funerals on a regular basis. It was for that woman they'd found dead under the boots of that Negaverse officer. Neither of them had ever seen her before in their entire lives, but they still felt... obligated.

"I'm sorry," he said, eyes cast downward. This time, at least, he'd only said it once. "I... I c-couldn't make it."

He took in a deep breath, released it in the form of a quiet, guilty sigh.

"I had detention."  

[Shazari]

Charlie was really staring at him now. "You had detention?" He blinked. Once, twice. "For what?!"