Work Text:
“I don’t even know what a pronoun is, dude.” Charlie admitted as he and Mac picked up the keg they were moving.
“I don’t even think you know what a noun is, Charlie.” Dennis looked away from his beer purely to insult Charlie.
“He doesn’t.” Frank answered for Charlie whilst he walked past them to go into the back office.
“I don’t.” Charlie confirmed. Dennis arrogantly chuckled and turned back to facing the bar. Charlie paused walking and he and Mac put down the keg. Mac took this as an opportunity to check his phone. “Okay then, Mr. Smartypants, why don’t you tell me what a noun is?”
Dennis faced back to Charlie, clearly caught off guard. “Me?” he pointed at himself.
“Uh huh.” Charlie replied in a patronizing tone.
“A… a noun is a word… that–“ Dennis thoughtfully rubbed his face. “Uh- Lots of words are nouns.“ he said confidently, hoping that would be the end of it.
“Uh huh. And care to give an example of what those words might be?” Charlie asked with a passive aggressive smile.
Dennis proceeded to splutter a load of gibberish, getting more embarrassed with each second that went on. “Oh!” Dennis acted as if he’d suddenly remembered something. “I gotta- I gotta go help Frank with that, uh, that thing he needed in the back office.” he lied, quickly following after Frank.
“He’s such a bastard, man.” Charlie muttered as he bent over to pick the keg up again. Mac looked up from his phone, put it in his pocket, then picked the keg up too. “I still don’t know what a pronoun is.”
“It’s like a word that you call people, y’know… like, ‘he’, ‘she’.” Mac described it in a way that Charlie would hopefully understand.
“Heshe?” Charlie asked, taking a hand from the keg to gesture at his crotch.
“What?!” Mac replied.
“‘Cause I don’t think you can call people that anymore, bro.” Charlie scolded Mac, giving him an extremely judgementally expression.
“Not ‘heshe’!” Mac dropped the keg so he could massage his temples, trying not to lose his very short temper. “‘He’ and ‘she’, two separate words.”
“Oh…” Charlie murmured. He was finally getting it.
A notification came from Mac’s phone, so he pulled it out of his pocket again. “I gotta go do a thing… Alone.”
“Oh, come on, dude! We haven’t moved the keg.” Charlie complained, gesturing at it.
“Trick Dennis into helping you.” Mac turned on his heel to leave, but then stopped and turned back around again. “Where are you putting the keg?”
“Where we put the extra kegs!” Charlie yelled, infuriated by such a stupid question.
“And nowhere else?” Mac checked sketchily.
“Why would I put the keg somewhere else when we have a place to keep the extra kegs?!” Charlie shouted, sounding more unintelligibly angry with each word.
“Okay, sorry, dude. Jeez.” Mac rolled his eyes and walked away.
Charlie angrily rolled his neck and stormed over to the back office to get Dennis. He opened the door and found Dennis reading one of the newspapers that had been in the office for a few months. Neither Frank nor Dennis acknowledged him opening the door. “I can’t believe they said you were my father!” Dennis said to Frank, furious about the newspaper’s take on Maureen’s murder investigation. “That’s like… slander! Or libel… one of ‘em.”
Frank looked away from cooking the books to give Dennis a dumbstruck expression. “So you care that the newspaper said I was your father, but you don’t care that they implied you’re a murderer?”
“I- Wha- No.“ Dennis looked up from the newspaper to scowl at Frank. “You’re twisting my words, man.”
“I’m not twisting anything, that’s what you said.” Frank remarked with a quirked eyebrow.
Charlie loudly cleared his throat, feeling invisible. They both looked at him as if he’d materialized out of nowhere. “Dennis, need your help moving the keg, man.”
“Where’s Mac?” Dennis grouchily asked, slamming the newspaper onto the desk. Charlie work was beneath him.
“Out.” Charlie said, doing air quotations. It was glaringly obvious when Mac went out to meet men, he was always so shady about it.
“Oh, goddamn it.” Dennis took his feet down from the desk. “Every time he goes to that gay bar he comes home and gets glitter all over the couch. Do you know how hard it is to get glitter off a couch?!”
“I don’t care!” Charlie grunted, doing a little frustrated jig. All he wanted to do was his job.
“Can’t you just do it yourself? It is Charlie work.” Dennis already sounded exhausted and he’d yet to even stand up.
“I’m 40, dude!” Charlie started his spiel, putting a hand out to list his ailments on his fingers. “I can’t keep doing all this shit on my own. Do you know how many Charlie 1-2’s I’ve done?! Do you know how many times Frank’s hit me with the 2x4?!”
“Why in the Christ is he hitting you with a 2x4?!” Dennis looked between Charlie and Frank, horrified yet slightly amused.
“‘Cause his back hurts.” Frank casually explained.
“So you hit him with a 2x4?!” Dennis yelled. Charlie started to groan out of frustration, which then morphed into a full on screech. It was loud enough and angry enough to make Dennis and Frank shut up. “Fine, I’ll help you move the keg. Goddamn…” Dennis muttered as he stood up.
They walked back into the bar and towards the keg. As soon as they got near it, Dee marched through the bar’s front door. “Dennis, I told you not to rape girls in my apartment!” she yelled, apparently having no awareness of what was and wasn’t acceptable to say in public.
Dennis nervously looked over his shoulders, seeing if there were any customers listening. “Jesus Christ, Dee! You can’t just go around yelling that shit!”
When Dee tossed the evidence at Dennis, he caught it on reflex. “So you’re denying it?” she curtly asked.
“Of course I didn’t rape any girls there, do you know how goddamn small your apartment is?” Dennis scoffed, looking down at what Dee had thrown at him. Charlie seemed to be the only one disturbed by what that sentence implied. “What the hell is this?” Dennis asked, holding the shorts up to investigate them.
“I don’t know, Dennis. Some weird fetish shit, I imagine. Just keep it out of my apartment.” Dee answered, putting a hand on her hip.
Charlie looked at what Dennis was holding too, then noticed one word on the waistband that he could read. “Does that say ‘Men’s’?”
Dennis immediately dropped the bike shorts with the hole in the back, exclaiming with disgust. “Dee, you bitch! Those are Mac’s!”
“Ew!” Dee exclaimed, quickly taking her hand off her hip. It was less disgusting when she thought they belonged to some random woman. “I’m washing my hands.” she muttered as she stormed into the women’s bathroom.
“That’s naaasty…” Charlie said, grimacing down at the shorts.
“Shit, I’m washing my hands too.” Dennis mumbled, walking off towards the men’s bathroom.
“What?! Come on, at least move the keg first!” Charlie begged, on the verge of repeatedly slamming his own head into the wall. He knew Dennis would get distracted and never help him. “Just don’t, y’know, touch your face or anything.”
“It’s not Ebola, Charlie.” Dennis sniggered. “It’s…” his expression turned into a grimace, “Mac’s butt.”
“Exactly! You’ve lived with the guy for, like, fifteen years and you’re telling me you’ve never accidentally touched his underwear before?” Charlie made a surprisingly compelling argument.
“Fine, goddamn it.” Dennis begrudgingly agreed to help. He walked back over to Charlie and they picked up the keg. “Your back would probably hurt less if Frank stopped hitting you with a 2x4.” he said in a condescending tone as they headed down the stairs to the basement.
“Well, you don’t know what a noun is, so I’m gonna keep getting my medical advice from people who do.” Charlie patronizingly replied, as if basic common sense was medical advice. Dennis glared at Charlie and let go of the keg out of spite. It fell out of Charlie’s hands. “What the fuck, dude?!” Charlie yelled, putting both hands on his head.
“‘Dude’! ‘Dude’ is a noun!” Dennis had a triumphant eureka moment as the keg went tumbling down the stairs.
“Unbelievable…” Charlie said under his breath, annoyed by Dennis’ grin. He followed the keg down the stairs and wandered over to where it had banged into, right in the far corner of the basement. “Huh…” he said to himself when he noticed what the keg was next to. “Since when does the bar have a workout bike?”
“The bar has a bike?” Dennis asked incredulously, walking over to see it.
“You think it’s Frank’s?” Charlie assumed he was the only person in the bar who could afford such a thing.
“Yeah, like his feet could reach the pedals.” Dennis sarcastically replied.
“…Why is there a hole in the seat?” Charlie murmured as he looked down it. The basement was too dark to see if there was anything inside.
“I don’t know, man…” Dennis had an instinctive desire to kick one of the pedals, so he did. He then immediately wished that he hadn’t.
They both made noises of horror. “Mac…” they said in unison, giving each other looks of concerned disgust.