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Charlie nearly launched his phone across the room when the door to the D.C. MeepBnB he was sharing with Pim swung open, hitting the wall in a way that made Charlie cringe and fear for the precious security deposit, even though the government was footing the bill for everything. He couldn’t help but let a louder-than-intended “holy shit, dude” slip out when Pim, disheveled and rough, stepped through. His late grandma would probably tell him to never say anything about someone’s appearance, but Charlie couldn’t help but stare. It was just that morning that Pim had been his usual pepped up self, all proud of his freshly-pressed suit and dinky flag lapel pin that he’d picked up at a sketchy gift shop. He had even hyped himself up in the mirror to slick back his nerve ending (“We’re meeting the president , Charlie! We have to look good!” he claimed, before letting out a scream that probably made all the neighbors hate them).
It looked like Pim had rolled around on the subway tracks and then tried to outrun one of the many government snipers that Charlie was 100% convinced were lurking around the city, his suit all wrinkled, wiry nerve ending flattened from stress and not gel, and sweat stains as obvious as the ones Charlie had after walking all the way back to the apartment from the White House post worm cabal run-in. Pim trudged in, kicking off his now scuffed little oxfords, tossing the keys onto a nearby table, and locking the door behind him.
“Hey, Pim. How’s the, uh, Jimble campaign going?” Charlie asked warily, though he could already guess the answer. He repositioned himself on the couch that was acting as his bed for the week, leaving room for Pim.
Pim looked up with an unamused stare, his deep purple eye bags standing out in stark contrast to his worryingly gray toned skin.
“Horrible.”
Charlie raised an eyebrow. “That bad?”
“Mhm,” Pim mumbled, flopping into the cushion next to Charlie and burying his head in a pile of throw pillows. Charlie wrinkled his nose, just a bit grateful that Pim couldn’t see him. Charlie could typically smell Pim’s usual crisp, fresh laundry smell from a foot away. Now it had been replaced by the stale scent of his 18-or-so hour day.
“Do you wanna talk about it? Tell a peon like me about politics?” he asked the back of Pim’s head, trying his best to stay lighthearted.
Pim gave what Charlie assumed was a nod. Probably the most pathetic looking nod he’d ever seen, but that wasn’t important. Pim turned his head so he could speak, resting the side of his cheek on the pillow and lazily tracing the beaded details with a finger.
Pim answered flatly. “Charlie, it’s awful. Everything is terrible.”
That wasn’t anything Charlie didn’t know already. He reached out to pat Pim’s shoulder.
“Yeah. I know dude.”
“Jimble is just… He’s–” Pim started, before cutting himself off, frustration leaking into his tone.
“Incompetent? Gross?” Charlie offered.
Pim sighed. “Yeah.”
“Damn.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to get him ready for the debate. I don’t– I don’t know if it’s even possible, Charlie.” Pim said, pulling off his loosened, rumpled tie and halfheartedly tossing it across the room, vaguely aiming for the same corners his shoes were in. It landed nowhere near them.
Charlie held back his obvious response. The memory of the lamb covered, diaper wearing president was still far too fresh in his mind. And his nose. “I mean, it’s in a couple days, right? What else do you have to do?”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start. He has policy books, you know, the issues he’s supposed to know. But he hasn’t touched them in months.”
“Yeesh.” It really was classic American politics to get stuck with a guy like Jimble by default just because the other, actual president died and then have him up for potentially another full term. But he wasn’t going to tell Pim that right now.
“There’s just… I mean, Charlie, you saw him. There’s no way I can get him trained on his issues and ready to argue for them.”
“Yeah…” Charlie trailed, “Honestly, man, if you’re asking me, I don’t think it’s possible either.”
“And I haven’t debated since… since school. When I ran for class president.”
Charlie tried to conjure up a visual of a version of Pim with about 15 years shaved off. Maybe he looked about the same, but with a little more hair? It was definitely possible.
“Did you win?” Charlie asked.
“No. They forgot to put my name on the ballot.”
“Oh.”
“It’s fine, it was ages ago. I just-- Charlie, I just wanted to help. But it’s going to be a disaster,” he muttered, rolling onto his back to stare absently at the popcorn mesothelioma ceiling. “And it’s not just the debate. There’s so much more to do.”
“Hm. You can’t just make the guy some flashcards, or something?” Charlie suggested.
Pim shook his head again, dejected. “Even if I did get him to sit down and study his talking points, he still has to be able to hold his own on national television. Even against someone like Mr. Frog. No offense, Charlie, I know you’ll probably vote for him if you even do go out and vote… And with the way he presents himself now…”
“Hey, you don’t need to say anything else man, I get it. He’s a fucking mess. And I mean, as for me, I don’t think a single vote will matter, anyway.”
“Actually–” Pim started, before stopping himself, too drained to enlighten Charlie with whatever lecture about democracy and the peculiarities of the electoral college he had brewing in his mind. He let out a lifeless sigh. “Never mind.”
Pim curled up tighter on his half of the couch. Charlie glanced at his arm: his hands were still scratched up and freshly scabbed from the bushes the anchorworms shot him out into. The confirmed existence of mass media manipulation and a reminder of Charlie’s political apathy was probably the last thing Pim needed right now, but god, Charlie couldn’t just sit there and not give him some reassurance. But if he chose his words right and spoke carefully…
“Well… I dunno,” Charlie started, his tone deliberate and as encouraging as someone like him could get it to be, “You did what you could, and I have a feeling it might go better than you think.”
Pim squeezed his eyes shut. “You don’t have to lie to me, Charlie,” he said flatly, “It’s going to be a disaster.”
“I’m not lying! I’m just saying, man, you never know,” Charlie continued tentatively, shifting his gaze back to the wall in front of them. He was never as good at comforting people as Pim was, and he always just felt awkward when he had to. “Like, if there’s nothing else you can do, it’s out of your hands.”
“But I just wanted to help,” Pim repeated, barely audible.
“I know. You did what you could.” All Charlie could do was emphasize what he’d already said. Wasn’t the whole thing simple? Try as Pim may, Jimble was clearly unfit for the presidency and didn’t even want it in the first place. Anyone could see it. Well, anyone but Pim. “But you don’t have to, like, kill yourself over this. It’s just a job.”
“It’s just a job…” Pim echoed, unfocused and tired eyes looking at Charlie though half closed lids.
“Yeah, dude. It’s okay.”
“But we’ve never given up on a job before. Never.”
Charlie scratched one of the scabs off his wrist. He had to do something with his hands. “Well, uh, no, I guess we haven’t. But it’s not, you know, a badge of honor to run yourself into the ground over work.”
Pim was silent for a moment as he took in Charlie’s words.
“Charlie, I kind of just want to give up.” His tone was hushed, shameful, as if he were letting Charlie in on some deep state secret that would ruin his life if it got out. But once again, it wasn’t anything that Charlie couldn’t read on Pim’s face from the moment he stepped into the apartment.
“I know you do, man. Maybe it’s time to call it a day on this one. You can’t manage an entire presidential campaign on your own. Or even if I helped you. We have, like, zero political experience. I have no idea why Mr. Boss sent us on this job, actually. We can just watch Meepflix or something and call him tomorrow and bail out on all this.”
Charlie pulled out his phone to look at Meepflix’s current offerings, when a wet sniff pulled Charlie’s eyes back to Pim. His eyes were covered by his hands, which were barely big enough to hide anything at all with how massive his eyes were in the first place. Charlie saw a couple small, shiny beads of liquid threatening to fall, and Charlie’s own eyes widened at the sight. Oh shit . He sat up from the couch slouch he’d fallen into.
“Woah, hey, Pim, it’s okay, dude. Seriously.”
“I want to give up.”
“Yeah. I know. I know, dude,” Charlie said as gently as he could.
“I can’t– I can’t take any more of this,” Pim whined, his voice broken and strained with his efforts to keep quiet. His breathing sped up, interrupted by sniffs every now and then– and it made Charlie’s heart hurt. “I just can’t, Charlie!”
“Pim, slow down. You need to breathe.”
If Pim said anything in response, it only came out as garbled, watery gibberish. With such high stakes and little success, it wasn’t all that surprising that the insanity of the Jimble campaign was the job to send him right over the edge, and hot tears rolled down Pim’s face. He abandoned any attempt at containing himself, his distress clear to see. There was no use anymore. Charlie could only watch, brow furrowed and feeling his own panic rising as he overloaded his brain trying to figure out what to do. Was there anything in his job training that would tell him what to do? If there was, he forgot it a long time ago. He hovered his hands around Pim awkwardly, debating whether to reach out and close the distance.
“Do you, uh... You need a hug?” he tried, only to be cut off before he could say anything else.
Pim practically launched himself into Charlie’s arms, almost knocking him onto his back. The fabric of Charlie’s hoodie was immediately soaked with tears. Charlie wrapped an arm around Pim’s shoulders and rested the other on his back.
“Oh, Charlie, it’s horrible!” he sobbed.
“It’s gonna be okay, man.”
“I-I’m just so overwhelmed !”
“Just breathe.” Charlie felt like he was starting to run out of the comforting lines he was cycling.
“I can’t d-deal with this anymore!”
“You don’t have to, man. You don’t have to,” Charlie murmured, rubbing Pim’s shoulder.
“Charlie…” he cried, before dissolving into more harsh sobs and incoherent mumblings about “Jimble” and “nukes” and “democracy.” Charlie could only keep him company as Pim worked through his emotions (or maybe more accurately, as the emotions worked through him…)
“Hey, Pim?” Charlie asked softly, when the tears seemed to slow. Even if he wasn’t the greatest with words, he had no problem being a sentient bean bag if that’s what Pim needed. But he couldn’t possibly sleep easy that night if he just left things as they were.
Pim nodded against Charlie’s chest, breath still hitching every now and then.
“What do you usually do when you’re, like, stressed?”
“Uh, I,” he croaked, clearing his throat, “I have a bath. And some tea,” he mumbled.
God, Pim had some healthy habits. Charlie tried not to think about his own.
“I’m drawing you a bath, then,” he decided, not even having to think about it.
Pim pulled back, eyes red and puffy. “Charlie, you don’t have to do that,” he said weakly.
“I mean, I don’t, but I want to.”
“Charlie…”
“Pim.”
“Are you sure?”
“Dude, I swear to god I’m gonna lock you in the bathroom if you don’t let me do this.”
Pim laughed shakily, before giving in and letting Charlie go get the bath running. He laid on the sofa as he waited, only realizing then how sore and drained a full day of running around had made him. He definitely didn’t start the day thinking he’d end up having a breakdown in front of Charlie (a bit naively, he thought he’d be spending the evening fending off reporters on the White House lawn). Still, rather unsurprisingly, he needed that release more than he’d thought, his mind too occupied with press conferences and policy and debates to stop and think about himself.
As Pim tried to decompress on the couch, Charlie finished filling the bath and came back in a different hoodie. He was holding the other, tear stained one, under his arm. Pim tried to ignore the twinge of guilt he felt for messing up his hoodie. He was probably planning on wearing it tomorrow and now it was ruined. Charlie must have caught him staring.
“Don’t worry about it, man. I’m just gonna run to the laundry on the corner and get you some tea. Oh, and I, erm, tried to make it nice for you. With what was in there.”
Pim answered hoarsely. “Thank you, Charlie.”
“Yeah. It’s whatever, man. You’d do it for me,” Charlie mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.
Pim headed into the bathroom as Charlie left the apartment, changed into an outfit without all the tear stains. The bathroom was the same one that they’d both gotten used to over the last week, but Charlie had drawn up a hot bath complete with white, foaming bubbles. An empty bottle of hand soap (formerly on the sink counter) sat in the trash. Pim smiled to himself. It was a thoughtful gesture…and just the sort of thing he’d come to expect from Charlie. Charlie was so much better at caring for people than he gave himself credit for. He peeled off his suit and hung it up on one of the door hooks to be dry cleaned later. He sank into the warm water, comforting and calming, letting his body and mind stop for the first time in days. He closed his eyes to enjoy the silence and the dim light streaming in from the window above the toilet…
Then Charlie knocked on the door, stirring Pim from his thoughts. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed.
“Yeah?” Pim called out.
Charlie cracked the door open and slid in a plastic bag. His voice was muffled through the door and the gentle whir of the bathroom fan.
“Hey, so, uh, the store had tea, but I don’t think we have a kettle. Or mugs. So I got you an Arizona. I can, like, microwave it, I guess, if you want it hot…?”
“That’s okay, cold is fine. Thank you again, Charlie. Really,” Pim responded, voice still a little weak and echoey from the bathroom.
Charlie closed the door softly. He did what he could–now all he could do was sit back down on the couch and turn on the TV to pass the time. Pim could use all the hot water he wanted, even though Charlie would need his own shower at some point. Pim definitely deserved it more. And if Charlie was left with all the freezing water, he wouldn’t say a damn thing about it. It wasn’t long after though that Charlie paused the episode of Mr. Frog he had running (it was about to be valuable archival material, in his defense) when he heard the bathroom door open. Swirls of steam made their way into the living room and dissipated in the next second as Pim trudged over to the couch with his tea, dressed in the most horrific, neon D.C. tourist shirt Charlie had ever seen. He must have run off and bought it at a street corner while Charlie was out smoking. But as a connoisseur of bum outfits, Charlie was almost proud to see Pim embracing it. He made room for Pim on the couch once again. His relaxation was visible as he laid his head back, though he was still definitely sleep deprived. Even a relaxing bath couldn’t undo those deep eye bags that Charlie just couldn’t stop staring at for some reason.
Charlie looked at the clean hoodie folded next to him on the couch, then at Pim. Fuck it.
“Hey, this is still warm from the dryer,” he tried nervously, holding it out.
Pim looked up at him, confused.
“Erm. I mean, you need sleep. And it’ll be comfortable. LIke a, uh, towel from the dryer. It could help you sleep. Only if you want, though,” Charlie explained clumsily. If God was listening (and Charlie knew the big guy probably was), Charlie hoped he’d make sure Pim didn’t notice his sudden drop in brain cells.
“Oh!”
“Only if you want! You don’t have to. I was just offering,” Charlie started to backtrack.
“Oh, no, I just didn’t expect…I… I’d actually really appreciate that,” he stammered.
He reached out to take the hoodie, just for Charlie to pull it over his head for him. Charlie smoothed out the tangled strings. Pim was practically drowning in the worn, orange fabric of Charlie’s sweatshirt, and it was probably the most content he’d looked all week. Charlie stared for a little longer than he should have.
“C’mere,” he muttered, pulling Pim in to lean against his side. Pim didn’t resist, and let Charlie’s shoulder support him. Charlie leaned his head closer to the top of Pim’s.
“I think I’m going to finish off the job with Jimble,” Pim said.
“What? Dude, you were just crying over that shit.”
“I know. But I just need to see things through.”
“I mean, I can’t tell you what to do, but are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Yeah. I just.. I can’t walk away from this. Even if it’s just work. But I think I’m just going to have to get used to the idea that Jimble isn’t going to be elected.”
“That’s the best idea you’ve had for the whole campaign.”
Pim narrowed his eyes at Charlie, before he let out a gentle laugh that Charlie could feel travel up the arm Pim was leaning on. “Yeah, I guess neither of us had any idea what we were getting into. I just needed to relax to see it.”
“Exactly, dude.”
“Thanks, Charlie. Again.”
Pim buried himself further into his borrowed hoodie, eyelids drooping.
“Wanna watch something?” Charlie asked again.
“Mhm. You choose.”
Charlie put on a random documentary about marine life, the type of thing he’d watch when high off his ass. It was actually pretty informative, and he briefly considered watching more of this sober. He was watching some fish weave around in a bright coral reef when he realized Pim hadn’t spoken in some time.
“Hey. You feeling better?” Charlie asked hesitantly.
Pim was silent.
“Pim? You good, man?”
Charlie looked down. He wasn’t surprised when he saw Pim totally conked out, snoring softly. He looked on quietly for a few seconds, watching Pim’s chest rise and fall in a steady, slow rhythm, before realizing he was probably being creepy. He stared at Pim a lot lately…
He yawned. It was a long day for both of them. Pim leaned in closer against Charlie, rubbing his cheek against Charlie’s arm… and Charlie knew instantly that they were both doomed to be stuck on the couch together for the rest of the night. He nestled deeper into the cushions and put his feet up on the coffee table, closing his eyes and wrapping his arms around Pim. He didn’t mind. Not at all.