Who: Charlie and Hurley When: Mid May Where: Driving Range What: Talking about relationships and stuff. Or so Hurley is assuming. Rating/Warning: PG Status: Complete
Aside from the golf course on the Island, Charlie didn’t do a whole lot of golfing. He was a little too twitchy for that sort of sport, the kind that required more concentration than physical skill--although, truth be told, he wasn’t so gifted with that, either. But when Hurley suggested a trip to the driving range, the idea of whacking a few balls into the stratosphere was damn appealing. Living with Verity was making him a little more tense every day. He had a lot of frustration to work out.
Hurley had just finished paying for their two buckets of golf balls and was heading back to where Charlie was. He was feeling for the guy, whatever the issue might be. He could just feel through the texts his friend's simmering frustration. Hurley was determined they were going to have a good time. He was just like that, wanting everyone to be happy and making sure it happened to the best of his ability. It seemed he was the same way on the Island, with the so-called golf course he'd created after finding a set of clubs. Of all the crazy things to survive a plane crash.
"Here you go," he said with a smile, setting Charlie's down, then brushing away with a chubby hand the curly locks of hair that spilled into his face. Hurley decided maybe he really needed to get a trim and not recreate his Island look.
“Haven’t done this in ages,” said Charlie, thinking that the bucket of balls looked like a basket of eggs. He stared downward into it. His brain tired and squishy. Sleep hadn’t been so easy lately, either. Not when he was so...frustrated.
Hurley watched Charlie stare zombie like into the bucket of balls as if it were a Magic 8 Ball. Finally he chuckled as he plucked one from his own bucket. “Dude, unless you got Jedi powers I don’t know about, the ball’s not gonna come out on it’s own.” He placed his on the tee and started lining himself up. Carefully his big frame shimmied into position and he did everything he’d seen golf players do on television - which wasn’t often since he usually just surfed the channels instead of lingering. “So, what’s the deal with Verity, dude?” He took the shot and the ball sailed away with a ‘whack!’. Hurley watched it for a long moment, waiting until it landed somewhere pretty far along the turf, nearly hitting the containing net.
Charlie chuckled, but only quietly; he knew a Jedi. But Oldie-One Kenobi was not the sort of friend he went to for love advice. He watched Hurley send off his first ball before reaching down and setting up one for himself. “The deal is that I might have to move out,” he said sullenly. “I’m not sure I can take the close quarters. Definitely sure I can’t take her breastfeeding in front of me anymore.” Whack!
Hurley was at the end of his backswing and just descending on the ball when Charlie said the last part. He completely missed and nearly fell over as his momentum carried him off balance. "Whoa! Dude!" He caught his balance with the golf club and turned to look at his friend. "Dude way too much TMI." He was trying not to have that mental image of the kind young woman he'd met when he'd helped Charlie move in.
"I thought you two would have like, hooked up by now. I mean, even with everything Verity told me when you were moving in." He had sensed the slightly awkward tension of mutual attraction between the two during that moving day, and Verity had randomly decided to give Hurley the 411 of what had happened between them prior.
It took Hurley a full thirty seconds to realize he wasn't supposed to have said anything about that to Charlie. Suddenly self aware of the flub, he went into panic mode: avoid eye contact, get back to the task at hand, pretend it hadn't happened. He busied himself with lining up with the ball again, glancing at the farthest marker several hundred yards away. He swung, the ball pinged and sang off into the distance.
Charlie's head snapped up. He was down again, crouching in front of his tee. What Hurley didn't know was that Charlie had eavesdropped on that conversation he'd had with Verity. He'd been less than ten feet away, around the corner, holding his breath, his hand even over the baby's mouth... which he wasn't particularly proud of. Hearing Verity's cryptic statements about what the two of them might have been was what started his current predicament.
"Actually…….. … I overheard some of that." He felt he better fess up. It was pretty clear that Hurley was embarrassed over spilling the beans. He could do that much for his friend.
"Huh?" Hurley played stupid for a second but one look at Charlie and he knew there was no point in carrying on. "Oh...how...how much?" There had been quite a bit. He looked up at Charlie as the smaller man stood over his tee.
Charlie frowned at his ball and squinted into the distance. "Enough so that it's totally awkward. For me anyway." He let another ball fly and sighed. "She liked me more than I realized, but now she's given up. All that."
Hurley’s face screwed up into his thoughtful expression. He placed another ball onto his tee. “Dude, if you knew, how come you didn’t say anything? To her I mean.” He swung, flubbed the hit and the ball fell far short of his earlier hits. He huffed to himself. He had to do better than that, he’d played enough Wii golf in the interim from their last outing.
Charlie made a glary expression, but not necessarily at Hurley. When he looked serious at all, he tended to look mad. “What can I say?” he asked. “She’ll know I was eavesdropping. If things get awkward, I’m out another place to live.”
"Well you could say I spilled the beans. Cuz technically I just did." Hurley offered as he thoughtfully scouted out where he was going to hit his ball to in the far off net. "Then it wouldn't be awkward. Well, at least that part." Whack! "If you do have to move, dude, you can stay at my place. There's plenty of room." Not that Hurley didn't think his friend should give love another shot, but he certainly couldn't stand by and watch this guy whose dream world was obviously a shared experience with himself just go off and live on the street.
Charlie was quiet for a moment, frowning deeply before he broke the slightest of smiles. He sighed. Hurley really was becoming a good friend. The ‘bean spilling’ had been in his favor after all. “Thanks, man.” He sent another ball off into the blue. “Do you mind if I ask...what did she look like, while she was saying those things? I couldn’t see her. I could only hear.”
"What?" Hurley said daftly as he swung. He regarded Charlie a moment, brow scrunched and eyes squinting as he thought hard. "Uh...she seemed kinda sad? I mean she was totally smiley and stuff when she was talking about you but got all, I dunno, that look chicks get when they're disappointed about something when she was talking about that Roland guy and you and things getting all weird and her thinking you won't date her after what happened. Least that's the only expression I know. I'm not exactly lucky with the ladies, dude." He set up another ball and took the shot. "What was that whole deal anyway? What happened that was so bad?" Hurley didn't exactly have the same filter Charlie might in asking some sensitive questions.
In reply to that, Charlie fell silent as what Hurley had said soaked in. There was also the fact that he didn’t like to talk about what happened involving Roland. It was a pretty messy situation. But if they were going to be friends like in the Dreams, Charlie knew it had to be a two-way street. He didn’t want to keep mum while Hurley was divulging his side.
“Verity and I had gone on a couple of dates. We weren’t exclusive or anything, or at least we hadn’t talked about it. That was probably my fault. Anyway, she met Roland, who happened to be my roommate, and… she says her hormones were going crazy. They… you know.”
Hurley's eyes went wide as he stared at Charlie. "Dude, so wait. Christina is Roland's kid?" He also couldn't figure why Verity would use the excuse of wild hormones for sleeping with a guy. It was like stating the obvious; you're turned on and you decide to sleep with the person you're seeing. Why the explanation? Unless it had been the result of an OC event.
“What? No.” Charlie scowled before realizing what he said had been confusing. Hell, he had lived through it and it still confused him. “No… she got pregnant after a dream she had. There was no dad. Except in her dream. And Roland… was just a guy who made himself available when she was lonely.”
He still often wondered why it hadn’t been him, or if it should have been him. They were dating and Charlie had always felt like you shouldn’t jump into bed with a girl you were really serious about. Then again, he didn’t jump into bed with anybody, especially not since the dreams.
Hurley gawked at Charlie. “Dude. That can happen?” That sounded about as impossible as aliens kidnapping people and experimenting on them. Even with all the wild and crazy this area provided, immaculate conception hadn’t been something Hurley had thought would be one of those things. One could see him trying to work out how the hell that was possible, and he finally shook his head after a minute and went back to hitting golf balls. “So what are you gonna do, man?”
Charlie also returned to his game. Or tried to. In reality, he just stared down the ball and wondered if he’d revealed too much about what Verity had been through and done. “I’m trying to go the friendship route,” he said. “Which was working until I overheard what she said. Now I guess I’m trying to get it working again.”
He finally sent another ball flying. “And there’s also the kid to consider. I’m crazy about the little thing. I don’t want to end up in a situation where I have to leave her behind.”
For his part, Hurley thought Charlie was being overly dramatic about the whole thing. He thoughtfully swung at another ball and watched it sail away, shading his eyes with a hand like he was some sort of pro.
“I think you’re like, making a mountain of an ant hill, man. Just tell her I accidentally told you what she said, and that you didn’t know, and that if she’s game for trying again, you’re game. And if not, you’re cool being friends. She really likes you Charlie, she’s not gonna kick you out.” He looked over at his friend and smiled warmly.
Charlie was, unfortunately, prone to being overly dramatic. There were a lot of maturity issues that had never quite gotten sorted out when they ought to have been. Emotionally, he was a teenager in a man’s body. Er, minus the height.
But he was willing to concede to Hurley that he was working himself up. He chewed on his black-polished fingernails and watched the ball fly. “But...what if, ultimately, I’m not cool being friends?” Worst of all, Charlie knew he tended to act very badly when he didn’t get what he wanted. He turned into a real ass-hole and he’d never really figured out how to control it. And his track record with Verity wasn’t spotless.
"Well...then you'll come live with me, dude. We can hang out, go to movies, and you know, bar stuff. It's not like you can't still visit and be a part of their lives." Hurley, the eternal optimist. He set up another ball and sent it singing into the evening sky. The colors in the sky were slowly blending into vibrant hues of red, orange and purple.
Charlie took a deep breath, the sort that’s meant to cleanse the spirit. Hurley had always had that effect on him. It was easy to see why they’d been such good friends. It was a yin and yang sort of thing. For the first time in this world, Charlie felt convinced they could do it all over again here, too. Maybe even become best friends.
“Thanks,” he said. “Sometimes I need to be reminded of stuff like that. Be pulled back from the edge and whatnot.”
"No problemo." Hurley replied. He wasn't entirely sure what he meant by "the edge" but chalked it up to his dramatic nature. They spent a few more minutes hitting golf balls. On occasion Hurley would tease Charlie and goad him into being competitive.
"Hey let's make a bet. Whoever hits the net first wins, loser buys dinner." His stomach was starting to grumble and he was craving In and Out burgers.
Charlie cocked an eyebrow at said net. It was a good several hundred feet away. A worthy challenge. His smile, full of childlike playfulness, reappeared on his face in full. The weight on his shoulders was much lighter now. Halfed, perhaps.
He set another ball down on the tee. “You’re on, mate.”