Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

4:00 AM — Tuesday

The air in the living room is unfamiliar. It’s frozen, spiraling in the empty pockets. Charlie can’t breathe, and his heart is racing. Knees to his chest, he rocks without rhythm. The couch groans under his shuddering—worn springs sink him awkwardly into the form until he’s lost in its embroidering.

Three beers, two Red Bulls, and a few huffs of the special sauce. He repeats it like a grocery list, scanning for the thing that brought out the ugliness inside him. His heart slams against his ribs, veins taut beneath clammy skin.

Am I going to die?

The headaches come later in the night—an hour into the buzzing sensation, maybe a few hours. Any sense of time surrenders to make room for panic. When his head begins to swell, Charlie shuts his eyes like a scared child blocking out the shapes in the dark. His ears ring next, and the swirling colors under his eyelids force them back open. It’s an unending cycle.

Three beers, three Red Bulls, and that jar of glue he found on the road. That was the culprit—Charlie’s sure of it. Though Charlie is never really sure of anything. He extends a timid leg to the ground, hoping to ground the shaking by rubbing his worn-out sock into the carpet. The sensation scares him. Whatever the adult equivalent of “the floor is lava” is, this is it. Another wave of headaches, followed by a fire in his throat. He wants to throw up whatever is in his system, or at least drown it with more booze.

Two beers. Three Red Bulls.

His leg grazes an empty bottle and he jumps. The soft clink rattles in his skull. Eyes squeezed shut, he vaults to his feet, hands rigid as he palms his way through the dark. Charlie runs to the wall, desperate to chase the ringing from his mind. As he moves, he trudges through a sea of discarded bottles and crushed cans—weeks’ worth of a sickly routine. His heart won’t stop beating.

I’m going to die. How much did I drink? One bottle? Two? Twelve?

The wall arrives suddenly, and Charlie throws himself into it without hesitation. A damp thud clears the ringing from his ears, knocks a lick of sweat from his burning head, and makes room for nausea. It starts at his toes, jumps to the knot in his stomach, then to his throat.

He vomits in the dark, spraying a boozy froth into the emptiness of his room. The sensation sobers him, and Charlie remembers to cover his mouth as another wave comes. Hot curd fills the palm of his shaky hand. He scans the dark for the outline of a door—any door.

Shut your eyes if you’re scared, buddy. It’ll be over soon.

Charlie takes a step, feeling a can underfoot that crunches like broken glass. Another step—then one that betrays him.

His foot presses against an overturned bottle. It spins out from under him, whizzing away into the dark, sending him spiraling to the ground. His knees connect first, then his chest.

Once the bottles stop wobbling, they coddle him, silencing the ringing and everything else in the house except his heaving breaths.

It’ll be over soon. Just shut your eyes and relax, Charlie.

Hours stretch into eternity. The smell of rank liquor and bile shuts out his senses. A calm settles in, yet Charlie still shakes like his insides want out. His body is limp, eyes adjusting to the dark, scanning the graveyard of bottles surrounding the couch. In each one, a voice whispers from the half-drunk remains, lulling him into a false sleep before wrenching him back awake.

Just two beers. That’s it.
This place is a mess, Charlie.
Lie back now, buddy. Don’t move
You made such a mess.
I think you have a serious problem, dude.

The last voice. Mac.

Charlie thinks of Mac and shuts his eyes. A limp hand digs through his back pocket and pulls out a cheap phone he traded Cricket a pack of smokes for. Flipping it open blindly, he dials the numbers like muscle memory. It rings twice before he’s brave enough to raise the phone to his ear. The stench of vomit and beer worsens, and Charlie vomits again—this time soaking the sweat-stained tee shirt he threw on earlier in the night.

Mac’s shirt. The one he accidentally left while packing.

Suddenly, Charlie remembers exactly how many beers he had—a number too embarrassing to say out loud. An inhuman number.

Uh, hi. You’ve reached Mac—

“Mac?” Charlie mutters, nearly dropping the phone from his limp hand. The sound of the older man's voice shuts out the horrors of the dull apartment, and Charlie clings to it. He holds the phone to his ear like it’s the sun.

Sorry I can’t come to the phone right now. Feel free to leave a message and I'll listen to it later and, uh, get back to ya.

The warmth is gone just as soon as it arrives. The phone beeps a sad tone, then silence. Charlie lays there, listening to the low hum of the phone’s battery. A beat of shame washes over him. Then it leaves, just like his relief. He ends the call and lets the phone go.

Charlie’s heart isn’t racing anymore. The room stops spinning, tips on its side, and crashes into nothing.

There’s a graceful silence now.
Then the stink crawls in.
Then—nothing.

When he wakes, the room doesn’t change.
It never does.

Morning light never bleeds through these curtains because Charlie stapled a ratty towel over them months ago. It’s always dark.
It smells like bile and beer—like a breath you hold too long and can’t exhale all the way. He lies there, curled up in the crust of himself, shirt damp and sticking to his chest.

His eyes flutter open, adjusting to nothing. More bottles on the floor than he remembers. It takes several minutes before he can stand.
Propping himself up on one knee, his bones creak and snap into place. As he wobbles upright, the sickness clings to him. It’s dull and familiar—the kind of nausea that starts to feel like company.

An alarm clock cries out in a boarded-up closet—a welcome noise to fill the silence. He remembers setting the timer for three in the afternoon, although the orange light creeping in through the padded windows suggests it’s much later.

I’m late for work.

The thought is mechanical, ignoring the fact that Charlie hasn’t worked at Paddy’s in almost a month. The wound is still fresh, but muted by the constant buzz of cheap liquor. He only remembers the pain—not the guilt of being let go by Frank, not the walk of shame past his old friends and out of the neon atmosphere that was his only real home.

Charlie pulls off his shirt and throws it onto the couch. It slaps against the indentation of his favorite spot, making a splatting sound that echoes in his ears. Then come his pants, his tattered boxers, his socks. The cold air sends goosebumps up his body, and he shields himself like the walls are watching. Charlie hates being naked—but he’s filthy. Too filthy for even a grubby rat like himself to bear.

Carefully maneuvering through the sea of aluminum and cracked glass, he grabs an old dishtowel nailed to the wall and tears it in two. His right hand rubs himself dry while his left palms over his waist, looking for pockets where there are none. When he’s satisfied enough to forget the dried vomit on his arms and neck, he drops the towel and heads to the corner that serves as a kitchen.

A microwave full of dishes balances on a stack of newspapers. A hot plate sits unplugged in a rotting backpack. The mini-fridge is cracked open from overfilling. He kicks it open with his foot and kneels. Grabbing a beer, he twists the cap off easily. Red lines indent his palm, but the pain is ignored.

“I guess I should clean up a bit,” Charlie squeaks aloud, his voice raspy from a night of hurling. The sound of it makes him jump. He calms his nerves with a hearty swig of beer. It’s like water—quenching in the right way. Rejuvenating.

In three long gulps, the bottle is empty. Charlie places it back in the mini-fridge.

As the sun settles over the world outside, the meek Irishman floats through his apartment in an embarrassed silence. He shovels cans and bottles into a trash bag, kicks a pile of broken glass under the couch, and lays an oily bedsheet over the pools of orange puke still drying on the floor. He’s not really present. Somewhere along the line, Charlie left his mind and floated upward—phasing through the bricks of his complex, taking flight across the skyline of Philadelphia.

He only comes back to himself when the job is done. A switch flips on, flushing out the emptiness with a sickly yellow light. Charlie scans the room, ignoring the trash bags behind the couch and the grime caked in the corners of the ceiling.

Good enough. He flips the light back off.

In the dark, he crosses the room to a pile of clothes growing wild on an ironing board and dresses. His signature green shirt jacket over his bare chest. Piss-soaked boxers from last night. Jeans sagging at the belt, still looped through.

He’s worn the same handful of clothes for years now, never touching the deeper pile. Charlie likes it that way—or at least, it’s easier. There’s probably nothing useful at the bottom anyway. Old childhood shirts. Frank’s ill-fitting suits. Maybe even a rat carcass or two. All he needs is something to cover his body.

Once he’s comfortable in the dampness of his clothes, Charlie heads for the front door. Crossing the small apartment, his hand is on the doorknob in seconds.

He grips it with a limp hand.
Then remembers his phone.

“Where did I…” Charlie trails off, rifling through the piles in the house. He shakes out the cleanup bag, skims his hands around the pile of clothes, and even checks the wet clothes drying on the couch. Stumped, he lifts the couch by the seat and sees the phone coddled in a bed of brown glass. Setting the couch down, he kneels and reaches a shaky hand underneath. Cracked shards tickle his fingertips, but he grabs the phone with a heavy grip and pulls it back. Flipping it open with a hungry stare, Charlie squints to read the scrolling ticker tape along the bottom of the screen: one missed call.

Charlie’s heart flutters. Maybe it’s just nausea, but he could swear it skips a beat.

“He called.” Charlie's voice whispers, wording it almost as a question. A warm sensation trickles in through his fingertips, but by the time it reaches his brain, it’s ice cold.

He shakes his head, shoving the phone into his pocket. Mac was just calling back. He didn’t know it was me.

A lump squirms past the nausea and into Charlie’s throat. He wouldn’t have called back if he knew it was me.

The thought is shaken from his head—a side effect of his drunken twitching. Shoving the phone deep into his back pocket, he eyes his bare feet. A small laugh rolls out, barely strong enough to pass his cracked lips.

You’re such an idiot, Charlie Kelly.

Sitting on the couch, Charlie digs a pair of sneakers from under it with his toes and slips them on without socks. The cracking interior rubs against a sore on his ankle, but he’s too drunk to care. He stands, gives one last look to Mac’s shirt drying next to him. Then to the bag of cans spilled out onto the floor.

He sighs, ready to leave the apartment and hope—like always—that he never has to come back.

He walks to the door, swinging it open and stepping into the dim hallway. The air only gets colder as he does, and Charlie buttons up his shirt jacket in response. Letting out a shaky breath that carries the stench of booze past the boundary of his front door, Charlie rubs his shoulders.

“I need a drink.”

Chapter Text

At night, Philly is a flickering bulb—half-lit and twitching. Charlie walks the streets like a ghost, sneakers soaked from old puddles, shoulders hunched into his jacket as if it might fold over and swallow him whole. It’s late. Could be 2 a.m., could be 5. He doesn't check. Time doesn’t work right when you’ve got nothing to be on time for.

Neon storefronts and tiny apartments crammed between them slide past. Charlie walks along the sidewalk, kicking a can until it clatters and lands just out of reach. He turns a corner and eyes the doors as he goes, poking around like a dog sniffing garbage bins. Every window is fogged with condensation. Every handle won’t budge when he pulls. The lights are on, but no one’s home.

Eventually, he finds a liquor store. The sign is dead, but a sterile white glow bleeds from behind the barred glass. Charlie doesn’t recognize the place—which is good. It's hard remembering where he's still welcome in this part of town. The bell’s long since broken, and there’s no clerk in sight. Just a dim flicker behind the counter and a cracked security mirror watching dust drift by.

Charlie lingers at the door, pretending to tie his shoe while scoping out the place. It’s not bravery—it’s math. He needs this. The shaking's already started.

He slips inside. Cold aisle. Fluorescent buzzing above like bees in his teeth. He grabs a tall can off the shelf—something cheap and gold-colored—and tucks it under his coat.

But he’s not fast enough.

“HEY!” A voice from behind the counter—young, angry, way too alert for this hour. The kid vaults over the register and barrels forward, knocking over a stack of snack cakes on the way.

Charlie bolts. He slams the door open and takes off down the sidewalk, the can slipping out from under his coat and splitting open behind him. Foam sprays the street, but he doesn’t stop. He’s already running too fast. Gasping, he rounds a corner and collapses behind a dumpster, hands on his knees, wheezing beer breath and bile.

Life goes by too fast for Charlie to handle anymore. He sits down, ignoring the cold squish underneath his jeans.

Calm down, buddy. Just relax and you’ll feel better.

Footsteps splash in the road. Once. Twice. Then they fade. Charlie waits in the alley’s dark pocket, his gaunt figure cloaked by the dumpster. Silence creeps in. The coast clears.

It’s just us now, Charlie boy.

He shakes his head, swatting at one ear like he's trying to dislodge a bug—or a memory. That voice has rooted itself inside him, threading through his thoughts like mold through drywall. It isn’t his. It never was. But it talks like it owns the place.

Keeping his back to the wall, Charlie inches toward the storefront again. Surely they wouldn’t expect someone to be dumb enough to come back this soon. Once up against the corner, he peeks out and spots the can: dented, still hissing, foam pooling at the base. He stares like it’s a steak on a silver plate.

He takes a breath. Then darts.

He swipes it from the sidewalk and keeps moving, nearly giggling. It's an ugly sound—thin and cracked—but it’s joy in some form. As he runs, he lifts the fissured can to his lips and sucks at the split, drawing out whatever booze it has left. The first mouthful is gritty with dirt, but the beer drowns that fast. It’s nourishing—like sucking life straight from a wounded animal.

By the time he gets home, the can is dry. He chucks it in the trash beside the front steps, then sinks onto the bottom stair, finally catching his breath.

The beer offers no comfort. It sloshes sour in his gut, the nausea clawing up his throat. He buries his face in his hands, breathing deep and slow. In. Out. Again. Again. Until the count vanishes and all that’s left is the hollow scrape of breath. It’s a painful kind of silence. Nights like these were usually spent with the Gang.

Frank lurking in the office. Dee and Dennis bickering endlessly behind the bar. Cricket starting fires in the men's restroom, and Mac…

Charlie pulls his jacket tighter around himself. Mac would be at his side, talking nonsense about his muscles or pitching another doomed plan to make Paddy’s a household name.

He misses those nights.

It’s a kind of hunger no beer can dull. But he tries anyway. He wobbles to his feet and ducks behind the trash can. The street’s still empty.

He’s gotta piss.

Unbuckling his belt, his jeans slip straight to his knees, heavy and shapeless. The reek hits him hard—his own sour stench curling back into his nose like a ghost of bad choices.

Mac used to do his laundry, desperate to get the smell out. Charlie can’t even remember the last time he wore clean clothes, let alone washed them himself.

He yanks himself out through the slit in his boxers, chuckling to no one as the cold air bites at his thighs. It’s stupid—juvenile, really—but he still gets a kick out of pissing outside.
Takes a second to start.
When it flows, it brings a relief so deep he groans.

He tips his head back and shuts his eyes, humming a little tune under his breath. The trickle against concrete is rhythmic, almost meditative, and for one fleeting second, he feels calm.

A couple walks by across the street. Charlie doesn’t notice. They do. One scoffs. The other grimaces and crosses the road. They vanish behind a row of parked cars without looking back.

When it’s done, Charlie blinks his eyes open.

He’s still holding himself, cock in hand, staring into the dark alley.
The beer finally settled into his blood, and the rain-slick cobblestone ahead glows faintly under the orange streetlights—like a red carpet rolled out just for him.

He glances over his shoulder with a sudden twitch.
Was someone there?

Quickly, he hikes his jeans up with one hand, then staggers backward, melting into the shadowed bricks of the apartment building. The wall is cold against his back, almost soothing. He lets go of the denim, letting it slump to his ankles again. This time, his boxers drop with them.

He slides down the wall slowly, like a man being folded in half.
His body is thin and twitchy, already sinking into itself.
The alley breathes around him.

One hand slips down, almost without him realizing.
He wraps his fingers around himself, clumsily. Not hard. Not yet.
It’s barely pleasure—just motion, a habit. A way to disappear into sensation.

Charlie breathes out a laugh that sounds more like a shiver. The air’s cold and so is he, but the skin under his palm is warm and pulsing. It’s something to hold onto. Something that makes him feel real, even if only for a second.

His hips move lazily. He doesn’t mean to. It just happens.
The alcohol swirls in his stomach, nausea coming in waves that blend with a low heat blooming at the base of his spine. He presses the back of his head to the brick wall, letting it support the weight of his body and the mess of his thoughts.

“F-fuck...” he whispers, barely loud enough to hear. His breath fogs the air in front of him, sticking to the brick. His other hand clamps over his mouth. Not to muffle the sound, exactly—more like instinct. Shame.

His cock is fully erect now, standing uncharacteristically proud in the dark of the alleyway. The strokes become a steady labour, as do his groans. 

Turning his head, the drunk scans the street for passerbys. When he’s certain the world around him is empty, his eyes falter back to his erection. Even in the dark, Charlie can see the boldness of his cock as it swells in his sweaty palm. It’s pathetic, but he needs it. Not just the release, but the escape. His eyes flutter shut. He tries to think of anything—anything—to tip him over the edge.

Charlie shuts his eyes, squinting till he sees colors under his baggy eyelids. Come on, man. Think of something.

He tries Dennis’ dumb porno drawings. The Waitress, wrapped in a towel, swearing at him from her window.
Nothing sticks. His body’s moving, but his mind feels far away.

And then—

Mac.

Shirtless, leather pants, striking a stupid pose. His big, round eyes. That dumb pout. That tiny, hopeful smile like he was waiting for Charlie to say something. To notice him.

Charlie’s stomach lurches.

Look at you, my little mess.

His body picks up the slack of his tired hand, and before he can wipe the image of Mac from his mind, a wave of heat spirals from the crown of his head. He groans, deeper this time. His hips buck once, twice.

The shame hits at the same time as the rush—an overwhelming flood that makes his knees give out. He slumps against the wall, coming into the cold puddle below without even looking down. He’s shaking, face buried in his palm.

It doesn’t feel good. Not really.
It just feels like something.
Like grief, maybe. Or a reminder that he can still feel at all.

He stays there for a long time, head in his hands.

His knees ache on the pavement, but he doesn’t move. The pressure of his palm against his face is the only thing keeping him tethered. His fingers smell like sweat and alley rot, and something else he doesn’t want to think about.

Charlie can’t remember the last time he came. Weeks? Months?

The question loops around his skull like a stone in a dryer — loud, pointless. Fruitless. His mind only leads him back to places he’s tried so hard to avoid.

I’ll make you feel good, promise. Just relax.
There we go.
See? Doesn’t that feel good?

His shoulders seize. He presses harder into his face until black spots strobe behind his eyelids. He doesn’t want to remember. But it’s too late. His skin already remembers. The way it held the touch. The way it flinched from it. Suddenly, his hands feel alien, violating.

He doesn’t hear the footsteps at first. He’s too far gone, crouched with his pants still sagging at his thighs, face cradled in his palm, the rest of him slack and lifeless. His breath fogs out into the alley like smoke from a broken pipe.

A shoe scuffs against the pavement.

Charlie freezes.

It’s the kind of sound you only hear when everything else is dead quiet — the light scrape of a rubber sole, the quick drag of someone trying to stop in place too late. Charlie lifts his head just enough to look.

A silhouette stands at the edge of the alley, barely lit by the flickering streetlamp overhead. For one beautiful, horrible second, Charlie thinks it’s Mac.

But it’s not.

“Are you okay?” An elderly voice croaks out. The voice is hesitant, trying to make out the form crouched in the dark. Instead of a response, the voice is met with a flurry of movement.

Charlie scrambles. His jeans are still tangled at his knees, and when he tries to yank them up, he nearly falls flat on his face. His body isn’t responding fast enough — his legs feel underwater, his head thick with liquor and shame. He tugs his boxers up with shaking hands, yanking the belt through the loops with a frantic rattle.

“Jesus Christ,” The man mutters, finally. It’s barely audible, and flat — not mocking, not angry. Just… stunned.

Charlie’s up and moving before he knows it. Not thinking. Just running. His boots slap against the wet pavement, almost slipping on the slick cobblestone as he throws himself down the side of the alley and out toward the empty street.

Wind hits his face and he keeps running, half-hoping he’ll trip and split his skull open on the curb. But he doesn’t. His legs carry him forward, pathetic and stubborn, like they don’t know any better.

He disappears into the dark, swallowed by the city’s silence. Crouching behind another dumpster blocks away, Charlie thinks of his apartment. He hates it, but it’s just about the only place he feels safe now. 

He glances down at himself. His silhouette doesn’t look like a man anymore. It’s something smaller. Bonier. Animal-shaped. Frightened and far from its nest.

He pats his coat for his phone, out of instinct.

Nothing.

His hands go to his other pocket, then the inside of his jacket. Still nothing. The panic starts like a slow rise in his stomach and punches up into his throat.

When he comes up empty-handed, the blood drains from his face. Where is it?

Running through his memory, he disappoints himself with nothing but the image of a cracked cellphone lying somewhere in a dark corner. 

“Goddamnit!” he barks, slamming his foot against the dumpster. The metal rings out in protest, and pain shoots up his toe. “Fuck this. I’m going home.”

Charlie stands, shoulders hunched, and steps out of the shadows.

Who cares if that guy’s still nearby? Who cares if he followed? Let him. Let him tell somebody. Let him laugh. Let him put Charlie’s name in his mouth — it wouldn’t be the first time.

He crosses the street, turns the corner, eyes low. Doesn’t bother hiding his face. The world stopped caring about Charlie Kelly a long time ago.

His apartment building looms into view. Three floors of rotting brick and yellowed windows. He marches up the cracked sidewalk, ignoring the dead plants in the lobby window, and climbs the front steps two at a time.

He hesitates at the door.

The alley had been silent. No signs of pursuit. Whoever that old man was, he was gone now — too disturbed or too tired to give chase. Charlie wipes his brow with his sleeve, breathing out hard.

He looks up.

The sky is a dull purple now — that strange in-between color just before sunrise, when everything feels like a bruise. The clouds don’t move. The stars are gone.

Good morning, Philly.

He opens the gate, heads up the stairs, and shoulders through the door to his place. It creaks and jolts beneath his grip like it might come off the hinges.

Inside, everything is exactly the same.

The room is just as he left it- kept in stasis with all his bad memories hung on the walls. The couch sails into view as his eyes adjust to the dark. With one hand, he swipes the clothes from the cushions and lays down. 

The cushions sink beneath him, still damp and worn out. He doesn’t bother brushing away the crumbs ground into the fabric. He just lays there, arms folded over his stomach, the silence in his apartment thicker than the one outside.

The hum of the fridge cycles in and out like tinnitus. Somewhere down the hall, a pipe groans. His body feels like it’s sliding off his bones, every joint swollen with exhaustion. But sleep doesn’t come.

Instead, he stares at the ceiling, the cracks in the plaster like veins branching through a body he doesn’t recognize. The air stinks of stale beer and mildew and something sweet, rotting—something sticky and unseen under the coffee table. He should clean. He should wash his hands. He should cry, maybe. But he doesn’t move.

The weight of the night crushes into his chest like a second ribcage, sharper and more useless than the first. He thinks of the man who saw him, faceless and framed in orange light. He thinks of Mac. The worst part is, they blend together. One blurred into the next.

His palms sting where they pressed to the brick wall, and he realizes he must’ve scraped them while running. He brings one to his face and stares at the small slice across the heel of his thumb. It’s already starting to clot. Already healing, and he didn’t even notice it happen.

Charlie turns onto his side, curling in toward himself until he’s just a ball of limbs and sour breath and regret. His jeans are still clinging damply to his hips. He doesn’t take them off. Doesn’t close his eyes.

Chapter Text

Wednesdays carry a kind of forced optimism in Philadelphia. Midweek mercy. The churches crack their doors open for half-full sermons. The corner bars, desperate to drag in the sluggish and the broke, trot out their weekly bait:

FORTY PERCENT OFF ALL SIXTEEN OUNCE DRAFTS!!!

Everyone loves Wednesday—except Charlie. Charlie hates Wednesdays. It’s the only day that means anything anymore. The one thing pinning him to the calendar.
Not for work. Not for friends. For his mother.
Every Wednesday, without fail, he shows up. Not because he wants to—he gave up wanting things a long time ago—but because something heavier than guilt keeps dragging him back. If it weren’t for Wednesdays, time could blur again. Days could melt into each other. But that one day sticks out like a bad tooth.

It’s an unwelcome night—same as all their nights. Pasta night. Another fucking pasta night. Charlie hates pasta. The way it wiggles around in his bowl, how it sticks between his teeth when uncooked (which it always is). Sometimes he wishes they would just order out, sit in the living room while they eat, and then Charlie could be on his way. But his mother insists on cooking. Maybe it’s her way of apologizing, even if she can’t remember what she’s apologizing for.

“Come in, Charlie!” Mrs. Kelly chirps from the kitchen, her voice hoarse, barely passing through the screen door. Home smells like latex gloves, mildew, and cheap powder. The living room looks like it’s trying to remember what comfort used to feel like. Faded floral wallpaper peels at the corners, yellowed and sagging like old skin. A drooping couch and lopsided loveseat face a bulky television draped in yellowing lace—the kind of detail meant to feel elegant but now just collects dust. A nightstand sits awkwardly beside it, wrapped in the same doily. In the middle of it all, the ashtray still smokes—cigarette butts packed deep and burned far past the filter. The air is thick with the sick-sweet smell of tar and mildew. The whole place feels stale.

To Charlie, it died quietly years ago, and no one bothered to bury it.

A creak upstairs adds ambiance to the empty front room. Mrs. Mac is still living with his mother—a fact that disturbs him. The two are well past their prime and slipping mentally, all the more reason to keep them sequestered. And yet, they exist in a strange bubble.

Walking into the kitchen, Charlie covers his nose at the smell of charred meat. From the cottage-style oven, a billow of black smoke clogs the overhead vent. His mother, grinning ear to ear and eclipsed by smoke, looks totally unaware.

“Oh, my little Charlie bear!” she recites, her mauve lipstick cracking as her smile grows wider. She opens her arms mechanically, hurrying across the yellow tiles and throwing them around her son. Charlie leans back, arms locked at his sides, forcing a breath through his nose.

“Hey, Mom.”

Wasting no time, he spreads his legs and steps back, gently rending himself from his mother’s unaware grip.
“What’re you burning?”

“Oh, just lasagna,” she says, turning to the oven with a frail hand on her hip. She pauses, then turns back with a forced smile. “I am not burning it, Charlie. I’m cooking it.”

As Mrs. Kelly waddles back to the oven, Charlie opens the kitchen cabinet. He doesn’t want to eat anything from this house—doesn’t want to leave his fingerprints anywhere—but he’s starving.

“When was the last time you ate, young man?” Mrs. Kelly sighs, echoing Charlie’s inner voice. “You look so thin.”

“I eat like, all the time, Mom,” he scoffs, dodging with little effort. He blindly reaches for a can of tuna and holds it to his face. The label’s worn off, but a scrap of paper clings to the lid—an illustration of a kitten pawing at a red string. Bingo.

Charlie pries it open and pivots into the living room as Mrs. Kelly scolds him for spoiling his dinner. He ignores her.

As he steps in, he nearly trips over the presence of Mrs. Mac, who has somehow fused with the couch. She’s a miserable-looking woman, always cigarette in hand—a slouchy ghost hidden in a cloud of smoke that never dissipates. Her hair is ashy grey, her skin faded and firm.

“Hey, Missus Mac,” Charlie slurs, shoveling cat food into his mouth with a twitching hand. She doesn’t say hello—just stares at a point beyond the television.

Charlie holds the can to his lips, drinking the sour juice that singes his nostrils. He’s not hungry anymore, but he sits on the arm of the loveseat instinctively.

Just then, his mother pokes her head out of the kitchen walkway.
“Charlie, honey. I’m gonna start the lasagna over from scratch. Why don’t you go play in your room until then, yeah?” she says in a tone so cheery it breathes life into the smoky room. Before Charlie can respond, she’s gone.

He furrows his brow.

Mrs. Mac grunts, swatting at an invisible fly with her cigarette. A chunk of ash lands between the cushions.

“Mom, I’m not really hungry. I think I’m gonna get home,” Charlie squeaks. He jumps up, teeth grinding as the cushions croak under his weight. The house is starting to feel like his apartment—a moldy coffin that defies logic.

As he passes in front of the television, Mrs. Mac lets out a protective groan, as if afraid the screen might disappear if she looks away.

Just as he reaches for the door—already imagining the alleyway’s blessed air, even if it stinks of rot and grease—his mother’s voice calls out, sweet as syrup and twice as sticky.
“Where are you off to so soon, Charlie bear?”

He freezes, one hand on the knob. The screen door hums with summer heat on the other side—a soft buzz of life he’s not ready to face but desperately needs to escape into.
“I was just gonna step out for a sec,” he mutters without turning around. “Air’s real… tight in here.”

Mrs. Kelly clucks her tongue like he’s just said something delightfully foolish.
“Well, don’t be gone too long. Next Wednesday, your Uncle Jack’s coming by to see you! Isn’t that nice?”

Charlie turns slowly, his spine stiffening like someone just rang a fire alarm in his bones. His stomach gives a small, involuntary lurch, like it’s trying to duck out through his shoes.
“What?” he asks flatly.

“Your Uncle Jack,” she repeats brightly, like she’s talking about a cartoon character. “He said he’s been thinking about you! Wanted to stop by, say hello. It’s been ages.”

“I don’t—” Charlie’s hands fidget. His eyes dart to the living room, where Mrs. Mac exhales another cloud, completely inert. “I don’t wanna see Jack.”

Mrs. Kelly blinks, her mauve lipstick stretching slightly at the corners as she tries to process this. Like trying to run new software on a dusty, blinking machine that never got updates.

“Oh, don’t say that. He’s family. You used to love him when you were little!”
“I didn’t,” Charlie says quickly, then softer: “I really didn’t.”

A pause.

Mrs. Kelly gives a little laugh, as if Charlie’s made a joke she doesn’t quite understand but feels obligated to respond to. She moves toward him, brushing invisible crumbs off her housedress.
“He’s driving all the way from Glassboro,” she offers. “At least stay for dinner.”

Charlie scratches the back of his neck, nails catching on the grit of dried sweat and secondhand smoke. His eyes flick to the door, to the living room, to the walls that always feel like they’re leaning in.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “We’ll… talk about it.”

He opens the screen door, pushing himself down the steps and onto the street. The sun still hangs in the open air, shining down on the city’s evening noise. Mrs. Kelly watches him go with a half-smile, confused, like a dog watching its owner leave for work.

Charlie waves, turns on his heel, and disappears into the crowd.

He walks fast, hands buried in his jacket pockets, even though it’s too hot for layers. The sky is that late-evening shade of bruise, and the sidewalks buzz with busted streetlights and the occasional rat doing its own errands.

Uncle Jack.

He tries walking faster. Doesn’t help. The thought moves with him, under his skin, into the soles of his feet.

He can’t remember the last time he saw Jack. Years—back when things were weird. Not the usual weird. The kind that makes your throat tighten. The kind that makes you feel small even though you’re almost grown. That quiet, too-friendly voice. The way he used to grip Charlie’s shoulder like he was testing how far it would bend. Always with those too-white teeth and that grin that doesn’t move past his mouth. Like a dog showing off its canines.

Charlie kicks a soda can down the street and watches it rattle off into the gutter.

He’s not afraid of Uncle Jack. Not anymore. He’s older now. Meaner, maybe. Feral around the edges. But still—the idea of sitting across the dinner table from that man, pretending everything is normal—it makes his skin crawl.

He scratches the inside of his arm, fast, like he can dig the memory out.

Maybe his mom really doesn’t remember. Or maybe she remembers something else. Something easier. Something more convenient.
Did I even tell her what he did?

That’s the thing about Wednesdays. They’re made for rituals. Pasta. Smoke. Smiles. Lies baked into the sauce.

Charlie turns the corner onto his street, head down, shoulders up. He can already picture next week. Jack in the kitchen, arms open, waiting for a hug like no time has passed. Like it’s still safe.

Maybe he won’t show. Maybe he’ll forget. Or get lost. Or die. That’d be nice.

Charlie pushes the thought away before it turns sticky and permanent. That’s enough family for the day.
Next Wednesday will come, regardless.
They always do.

“I could always run away,” Charlie mumbles out loud to himself, eager to hear a voice that isn’t laced with sugar and senility. He doesn’t like to think of his mother that way, but it’s true: she’s batshit crazy.

“It would be easy. Just throw all my stuff in a big truck and hit the road.”
Where would you get a truck, Charlie? Besides, where would you go? You’ve never even left Philadelphia.
“I know, but I can try. I mean, who knows. Maybe I’m brave enough to do it this time.”
Charlie, you’re a lot of things: stubborn, weird, smelly, strangely smart. One thing you’re definitely not is brave.
“I am brave, dude.”

Charlie retorts louder this time. He picks up the pace of his walking, brushing past a couple walking hand in hand. They mutter something in his direction, but he’s lost in thought.
Rats aren’t brave, Charlie.
“I’m not a rat, Mac.”

He yells, stopping in place. The volume wakes him up from his monologue. A few people look up as they walk. A woman sitting on her balcony sets her book aside and stares down. Charlie scoffs, shoots the woman a goofy smile, and starts walking faster.

Mac has never called him a rat. Mac has never called Charlie anything bad in his life, at least not anything that stings like rat . Dennis calls him a rat. Dee does too. Hell, even Frank praises Charlie for his rat sense when he fishes Frank’s keys out of a hole in the wall.
“I’m not a rat,” he mumbles again, this time just for himself, quieter. Not angry. Just… hoping it might be true if he says it enough.

The city around him blurs into orange streetlights and the distant rattle of traffic. He passes the corner store without looking in, passes the bench where he once found a dead pigeon folded like an envelope. He doesn’t notice the stink of hot garbage or the flickering light above the hardware shop. Just the voice in his head, echoing like it’s lived there forever.

Charlie’s building comes into view—hulking and dim, like a forgotten filing cabinet stuffed into the corner of a dying office. He takes the stairs two at a time, avoiding the elevator. He doesn’t trust things that hum or hang by wires.

But the closer he gets to his door, the more he feels it—that wrong kind of quiet. A presence. Not danger. Worse. Familiarity.
And sure enough, there he is.

Cricket.

Curled up outside Charlie’s apartment like a rat that’s dozed off mid-scam. His hoodie is shredded, one sleeve torn clean off. He’s barefoot, one sock wrapped around the other foot like a cast. A crusty duffel slumps at his side. His beard looks like it tried to escape and failed.

“Charlie!” he beams, leaping up like he’s been summoned from a grave. “I knew it was still your place, man. I had a feeling.”

Charlie sighs, leaning against the wall, the weight of the evening finally catching up to his spine.
“Crick. What’re you doing here.”

“Oh, y’know. Just… in the neighborhood,” Cricket says, eyes darting like moths. “Heard you were around. Thought I’d swing by. Brought a gift.”

He unzips the duffel and pulls out a cloudy bottle of something grayish-pink, sloshing with a grim glug.

“Don’t worry—it’s mostly safe,” he says brightly. “Only blinded one guy. And he was already blind, so it technically evened out.”

Charlie stares at the bottle, expression blank. “I don’t want whatever that is.”
“You will,” Cricket says, voice low and sing-songy. “Trust me. It’s the good stuff. A little bit of homemade Jesus.”

“I’m not looking to get drunk with you, man. Not tonight.”

Cricket steps closer, voice dropping. “C’mon, Chuck. You look like a guy who’s had a Wednesday.”

Charlie flinches. His face twitches like a skipped heartbeat. Cricket’s a bastard, but the man hasn’t earned the name soldier of God for nothing.

“I’m serious,” Cricket says. “You look haunted. Let me help. Misery loves company, right? And I’m excellent company for rock bottoms.”

Charlie looks at the bottle again. He can smell it—burnt syrup and nail polish remover. The kind of thing you drink just to test if you still can.

He thinks of his mom’s voice. The lasagna. The smoke. Long nights sleeping in the tub, hiding from shadows in the dark.

He unlocks the door and pushes it open.
“Just don’t sit on my couch, dude. You’re like, soaking wet,” Charlie mutters.

Cricket’s face lights up like a cartoon hobo in front of a pie on a windowsill. He slides past Charlie, waltzing into the apartment like he’s finally made it home.

Charlie rolls his eyes, steps inside, and lets the door swing shut.

Chapter Text

The bottle stinks like melted plastic and regret. Charlie tips it back anyway, grimacing as the warm, bitter sludge hits his tongue. His throat tightens on instinct, but he forces it down, letting the burn coat his insides. He hopes it might sterilize something rotten in him.

Cricket lets out a wheezing laugh from the floor, sprawled like a dead roach on the carpet, one shoe off, sock missing. One hand juts out—a hungry claw grasping for its next meal.

“Gimme that,” he spits, giggling to himself as Charlie looks past him. The bottle is handed off, and Cricket laughs into the remaining sludge.

Outside, the world braces itself for the day. Buses grumble over potholes, storefronts fill the empty streets with shuffling sounds. The collective groan of the world bubbles up like a slow spill across buildings—but none of it touches Charlie’s apartment. Inside, the air stays dim and sour, thick with the burn of whatever’s in Cricket’s bottle.

“What arrrrrre we drinking, Crick?” Charlie slurs, his drawn-out sprawl catching him by surprise. As if activated by a code word, the booze-laced swill stirring in Charlie's gut begins to change him. Cricket’s purposeless grin stretches past the corner of his face. The room grows twice its size, then shrinks, then grows again. Charlie leans back, forcing a nervous smile as his eyes dart to the wall.

“Just some stuff I found around the camp,” Cricket coos, his voice laced with uncontainable laughter. He rolls onto his back, kicking his feet out like he’s jumping on air. Charlie rolls his eyes. He never likes Cricket all that much—only appreciates his scrappiness. Still, he’s welcome company. Cricket passes the bottle back, and Charlie falls into it. He swallows the last of the mix. It tastes gray. A metallic oil coats his throat, settling in his gut with a surprising warmth. The smell of spoiled fruit and smoke.

Cricket smacks his lips, watching the empty bottle fall onto the couch beside the scruffy Irishman. He stands up, brushing off his knees as he stretches.

“We need more. C’mon, I’ve got a couple more jars pickling back at camp.”

Charlie’s eyes are closed, and he scrunches up his features like he’s lost in a bad dream. A soft groan slips from his lips, barely audible under the buzz of an old refrigerator.

“I don’t…” he trails off and shakes his head. “I—I don’t wanna go nowhere, man. I’m gonna stay right here.”

Cricket ignores him, placing a grubby hand on Charlie's arm. Both men flinch at the touch—cold, clammy skin exchanging months of grit and grime. Pulling him to his feet with more force than expected, Cricket smiles and throws his arm around Charlie. The weight is familiar, intrusive.

“Trust me, buddy. When that stuff’s ready to come back up, you’re gonna thank me for bringing you outside.”

They step outside just as the sun spills over the rooftops, bleaching the city in that early, unforgiving light. Charlie and Cricket move through it like ghosts. The sidewalk is already warm beneath their shoes, damp with last night’s sweat and beer. A smell like hot dog water and exhaust lingers in the air—a humid funk that clings to their skin. They don’t speak at first. Charlie’s head throbs in rhythm with his steps, and Cricket shuffles beside him, kicking at empty bottles and muttering under his breath.

As they pass an alley, Cricket pauses to relieve himself without ceremony, then catches up, swaying a little. A rat scurries past his foot, unfazed. He catches up after a moment, swaying a little more now, like a boat rocked by invisible waves.

“Y’know,” he slurs, blinking up at the sun like it’s mocking him, “I hate this city. Hate it. Filthy bitch. Everything’s crumbling or leaking or trying to kill you. The people, too. They all look like—”

His mouth closes and swells in his cheeks. A finger rockets upward, pausing the moment between them as Cricket swallows something large and shakes his head. He spits on the ground, a dark orange bile spilling from his lips as he wipes his mouth with a soaked sleeve. The two continue walking, the thought long gone and buried in an embarrassed silence. After a moment, Cricket springs back to life and points a crooked finger at a bus stop bench.

“You ever sit on one of those? You will get crabs. I don’t care what kind of pants you’re wearin’.”

Charlie snorts but doesn’t say anything. He’s used to this—Cricket raving with the conviction of a man who’s been wronged by every brick in the city. And maybe he has.

Charlie looks over his shoulder as they walk, watching his apartment slip out of view as they turn a corner. Booze in full effect, the tops of the buildings around them seem to stretch infinitely upward, sagging into melting points of color. Trees bend down like they’re whispering secrets to the sidewalk and break off into webs of green and orange. The same car appears twice in the road. Three times. Four. Cricket’s home moves sporadically, so Charlie follows him without protest—even if sometimes Charlie swears they’ve walked in an occasional circle, retracing steps they haven’t finished taking. When drunk, the city is alive in a way that is pleasing to Charlie—honking horns like laughter, barking dogs like applause, a radio playing from an open window somewhere high above, spinning a forgotten song he used to know.

A boy across the street kicks a ball in their direction. Charlie cracks a tired grin while Cricket flinches and whimpers. Kicking it back with unbridled force, Charlie watches the ball rocket into the air and bounce far out of view behind an alley corner. The kid turns around, raises his middle finger, and chases after it.

“Damn kids,” Cricket spits, jutting his hand toward the sky as if to get God’s attention. “This is supposed to be our future?”

Charlie chuckles to himself and holds in a morbid thought: Cricket, we don’t have a future. As they continue on, he feels the liquor begin to dissipate. The buildings around them stop shifting. The distant orchestra of city life becomes more difficult to bear. Instinctively, his pace quickens, and Cricket keeps up. Despite Cricket’s many shortcomings—his filth, his delusions, his smell—some lonely part of Charlie likes being in his presence. When they’re together, Charlie doesn’t feel out of place in public. He’s no longer a man down on his luck, a freak, etc. Together they are two rats, disheveled and shrouded in a cloud of filth, barreling through the streets in search of their next fix.

They turn a corner near Market, and Charlie slows. He rubs his eyes like he’s seen a ghost. Four or five blocks down, Paddy’s stands hunched and squat in the distance, still shadowed by the taller buildings around it. The familiar green awning flickers behind heat haze, half-obscured by passing cars and a guy screaming at his phone. Charlie stares for a second too long. It looks the same as always—small, shitty, eternal.

For a moment, he pictures going in, getting a beer, maybe sitting at the bar like nothing ever changed. But that place doesn’t belong to him anymore. Maybe it never did. Just a stage he passed through, where he never got more than a line or two.

Cricket notices his stare and nudges him. “Forget that place, man. They never treated you right. You were the heart of that joint, and they just let it rot. You and me?” He thumps his chest, then Charlie’s. “We’re the same. Trash boys. Little sewer freaks. But, like, in a cool way.”

He grins—a gap-toothed mess, swaying harder now. The more drunk Cricket gets, the more sober Charlie becomes.

“I mean, look at us. We’re survivors. Everybody else is out here playin’ pretend, and we’re just outlastin’ the whole damn circus. Roaches, baby.”

He throws an arm around Charlie, who flinches at the smell—some mix of mouthwash, lighter fluid, and whatever he slept on last night. Suddenly, Charlie wants to be back home. He no longer wants to be near Paddy’s, near Cricket, near the light. 

“Besides, sobriety is for losers.”

Charlie scrunches his nose, turning away from Cricket and his piercing death breath.

If sobriety is for losers, and I’m a loser, then why aren’t I sober?

A woman walks by and holds her nose, mumbles something under her breath as she fumbles for her keys. Cricket shoots her a dirty look and pulls Charlie along as he turns down an alley. Eventually, the skyline fades behind them, replaced by chain-link fences and underpasses slick with algae. They reach the edge of Cricket’s world, tucked beneath the railway bridge, where broken shopping carts form makeshift walls and a tattered tarp flaps weakly in the breeze. Charlie hesitates at the threshold. It’s darker here, cooler too. He can feel the weight of things—of being forgotten, of choosing to vanish.

“Home sweet home,” Cricket mumbles, stumbling inside. “We don’t need anything else, man. We’ve got each other. And a little bit of Jesus wine.”

Charlie follows without a word, his feet moving even as his mind stays behind—still standing somewhere on Market Street, blinking into the sun.

As he ducks inside, his eyes adjust back to reality. A sundried rug covers the bare dirt floor- rings of yellow and red radiate from the center where Cricket sits meditatively. The tiny hovel is filled with an orange tint from the tarp struggling in the wind under its weights. A cot is mashed into the corner, kicked to the side by its owner. Cricket pats the ground in front of him, a friendly invitation that can't help but seem like a threat. Sitting down, Charlie feels his knees pop as he crosses his legs. 

Cricket pats along the edge of the rug, eyes bulging in a peppery smile as his hand sinks in slightly. He pulls back the rug, revealing a shallow hole tucked away from view.

“One for you, and one for me,” Cricket recites to himself, rolling a jar towards Charlie and then placing one by his side. He smiles, reaches into the hole again, and repeats himself. When he reaches into the hole again, Charlie objects.

“What?” Cricket slurs, his eyes still glazed over in ecstasy. “Don’t tell me the great Charlie Kelly cant handle his-” He burps, catching a stray rope of yellow spit in his open palm. “Sorry.”

Charlie holds up a hand, flicking his wrist upwards. “Two is enough, dude. Trust me.”

A small part of him envies Cricket. Booze never lingers long enough for Charlie. A decade and a half of heavy drinking has left him in a perpetual state of needing. Disappearing had become less about the feeling of booze and more about the search for it.

Cricket shrugs and in one sleight of hand, spins the lid of a jar open. His tongue hangs from his mouth, mechanically licking his scabbed lips before guzzling the jar with a newfound hunger.

Charlie looks down, grabbing a bottle and holding it loosely in his hands. Seeing Paddy’s clouded the hunger for booze that had drawn him from his apartment in the first place. The hunger was different now- he wanted to see the Gang.

He wanted to see Mac. Wondered what he was up to. 

Opening the jar instinctively, he raises it to his lips, mouths his name. The edge of the rim presses into his bottom lip. For a moment, a fraction of a second, he hesitates. It was early. Maybe, he could muster up the courage to come by and see how everyone is doing.

We can’t keep doing this, Charlie.

You’re in rough shape, kid. You’re scaring the customers.

I don’t hate you, Charlie. You know that. I just…

Charlie can see Mac’s face when he closes his eyes. He’s in pain, squinting with his usual smolder.

I can’t watch you get any worse than this, dude. It’s not good for me.

He feels the bottle press lightly into his lip, a sentient force that moves his hand with it. Opening his eyes, he sees Cricket with an arm outstretched, tipping the bottle in Charlie's hands with the frailty of a butterfly. His eyes are glazed beyond sight, face drooping to show the true extent of his exhaustion. When Cricket isn’t smiling, he looks like a monster.

“Whatever you got going on in there doesn’t matter.” Cricket coos with a scratchy drawl like coal. Charlie nods in his head, taken aback but strangely comforted. His eyes snap back to the liquid, finally acknowledging the awful stench that surrounds his face. 

“I forget you’re a priest, dude. It’s like, totally your job to be comforting or something.” 

Cricket gives a weak smile, hand still pressing the jar into Charlie’s mouth. He watches the man across from him squint, shake a thought from his head, and then drink. It’s a slow sip, then it builds into a barrage. Charlie empties the jar in seconds, coughing up a long hair that pickled in the battery acid brine.

“There we go. See? Feels better already, doesn’t it?” 

Charlie nods. Feeling the eyes of a ghost of god on him, he offers a flat smile. “Yeah, Crick. It feels just fine.”

That’s enough to bring life back to Cricket. He raises up, prying the next bottle open with a much sloppier demeanor. Charlie does the same.

The two uncap their potions, clinking them together, and throw back the liquid until it’s all gone. This time, Charlie feels it immediately. From the tips of his toes to the ratty brown hair raised on his head, a buzzing sensation send him floating down onto his back. Paddy’s becomes a distant memory again- still floating around him, but pleasant. The walls are made of cellophane, his old friends suspended in a state of longing. They miss him, and that is enough to keep the walls of his mind from crumbling with grief.

As he lays against the hard ground, resting the back of his head against his palms, he smiles at Cricket. 

“Y-You know wh-” A wave of nausea shared between the two. “You know what we should do? We should get some beer.” Cricket sits up, his ears at attention. Nodding, he scrambles to his feet, eyes bulging out of his head.

“Yes. Yes, more beer.”

The mangy man scrambles towards the entrance, practically crawling on all fours. Charlie lets him go, closing his eyes. As he hears Cricket laughing manically as he disappears down the alley, Charlie picks up the faintest sound of running water. He knew they were close to the river, but the tarp made it impossible to tell where the sound was coming from. It lulled his aching bones, and his eyes became heavy. They fluttered shut for only a second, but when he opened them back up he was cloaked in a beam of moonlight. He groaned, sitting up and checking a watch that wasn’t there. The first thing that hit him was a blunt headache. Next came the smell of Cricket’s “Jesus wine”. A thick, sickly perfume seemed to fill the shelter. Charlie gathered himself up onto his hands and knees and pushed himself out into the night.

“Cricket?”

The alleyway is empty. The connecting street is bathed in darkness, streetlights knocked out and windows shuttered. Charlie clutches his forehead and walks out to the street. He calls out again, expecting to find Cricket sleeping somewhere between his camp and the curb. The alley feels tighter than before, but it opens all at once, spitting Charlie back out into society. The streets are dead silent, with only the muffled ambience of the bars down the block tethering him to the world.

As the pressure in his head rises, Charlie grits his teeth.

“Cricket!” he shouts, not even posing it as a question.

“Charlie!” A voice responds, laced with that familiar vaudeville charm. “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.”

Cricket emerges from behind a car, arms wrapped around a cardboard box. The Paddy’s brand logo runs across the side, standing out even in the dark.

“Look what I found,” he chirps triumphantly, flashing Charlie a toothy grin before shoving the box into his arms. It’s unreasonably heavy, wet in the corner where Cricket’s been gripping it. Looking into the open lid, Charlie immediately recognizes the tightly packed bottles.

“Whoa, Crick. I’d totally forgotten I even bottled this.” For a moment, Charlie smiles. He remembers the month he spent learning how to brew his own beer in the basement of Paddy’s. A grueling, time-consuming hobby—perfect for killing time. Of course, like most things Charlie does, the project was ultimately abandoned, left to collect dust in the vault of his mind once the next shiny endeavor came along.

“Where did you get these?” Charlie asks, looking up, curious.

Cricket smiles with the gleam of a child, giddy with a naughty secret.

“I snuck into the basement of Paddy’s looking for some free booze and found these.”

Charlie furrows his brow. “What else did you steal, Crick?”

The hobo throws his hands up, almost mockingly. “Hey, I didn’t steal anything. Dee practically threw ’em at me once I got caught. Said something about cleaning out all your old crap.” He pauses, bouncing on one leg as their eyes settle back on the beer.

Charlie clears his throat. “Did anyone ask about me?”

“Yeah, of course they did.” Cricket’s tone softens, losing the cartoonish drawl in favor of something more familiar, more human. “It was just her and Frank closing up. I told them you were with me, but they were busy cleaning and didn’t want to bother you, I guess.”

He pauses, fake smiling through his teeth as he nervously reaches into the box and pulls out a bottle. “Are you, uh—were you trying to get sober before today? Dee mentioned you were trying to get clean.” His voice is laced with rare sincerity, almost guilt. His hands fumble at the gnarled bottle cap and pry it open. “I know I said sobriety’s for losers, but I don’t wanna make it any harder for you if you’re really trying to—”

Charlie raises a hand, shifting his weight as he waves off Cricket’s nervous spillage. “No, man. No—I’m just, you know... you know, having a good time or whatever. I’m not trying to do nothing but my own thing.” His voice is frail, pumped so full of insecurity it’s spilling out. Cricket knows better, but only nods.

The sentiment falls flat. Charlie envies Cricket’s free hands as he raises the bottle to his lips. The two stand suspended in the night. When Cricket finally speaks, it’s a low gargle as he coughs up the suds from Charlie’s spoiled beer.

“Dee said she put some mail that came for you in the box as well. Old notes and stuff.”

Charlie nods, uninterested in whatever bills or random scribblings he left behind when he was fired. He waves Cricket on, and the two turn on their heels.

“Wanna go back to my place?”

Cricket shrugs, already pivoting toward the sidewalk like they’ve done this a thousand times. Maybe they have. Charlie follows behind him, dragging the heel of one boot as they cross beneath the hum of a flickering streetlamp. The shadows stretch out ahead of them, long and weightless.

He doesn’t answer the question. Doesn’t need to. They both know where they’re going.

The city buzzes low around them—the clink of a bottle behind a dumpster, the scurry of rats along a sewer grate, the faint hum of a siren far off. It’s all just background noise, a shitty lullaby they walk straight through. Charlie tugs his coat tighter around himself, shoulder brushing against Cricket’s for a moment too long.

Neither of them says anything about it.

By the time they reach the edge of the block, the sky’s begun to lighten—not with the warm blush of dawn, but something colder, more washed out. The kind of light that makes everything look worse.

Charlie doesn’t look up.

He just keeps walking.