The Charm Offensive

by Alison Cochrun

Charlie wishes he could cup his hands around the feeble Dev flame, blow on its embers to keep him going before he burns himself out completely. “Do you get like this a lot?”

He takes an exceptionally long shower, trying to make up for the four days he didn’t shower, for the days he could barely get out of bed at all.

Same

“I’m serious.” He sits up so he can look down at Dev, black hair matted and messy against a hotel comforter, glasses crooked on his nose. “Let me take you on a date tomorrow.” “For practice, you mean?” Dev clarifies. “Sure.” Charlie swallows down the lump forming in his throat. “For practice.”

“Please, Dev,” Charlie says, but Dev can hear the smile in his voice, “just go to sleep.” So Dev does. It’s the best sleep he’s had all season.

A version of Charlie Winshaw who belongs only to him, even if it’s only for a minute, even if it’s only for one practice date.

The cable car arrives at the observatory on top of the mountain, and as they spill out with everyone else, Dev pulls back his hand. Charlie understands. He’s the star of a reality show, and he has six girlfriends, and any one of these tourists could recognize him and take a picture—a picture that could end up on any number of gossip sites. But for one glorious minute, Dev was holding his hand in public, and some things are too spectacular for fear.

“Now, come on. I’ll carry you. Climb on my back.” “I’m not a child, Charlie.” “No, you are a grown man having a temper tantrum and throwing your flip-flops at innocent flowers.” “I have blisters!” “Yes, I know, sweetheart. Come on.”

“This isn’t a terrible date,” Dev says into his ear. And maybe it’s because they can’t see each other’s faces, but Dev takes a sharp breath. “It’s maybe the best date I’ve ever had.”

Dev knows Charlie is handing him something important, something he’s never trusted anyone else to hold before. “Oh, love,” Dev says, leaning in to kiss the cluster of freckles to the left of his nose. “I already see you.”

He’s not sure he’s ever wanted someone like he wants Charlie in this moment, and there’s nothing Charlie could say to change that.

Dev says oh, love, and some dormant thing—some part of Charlie that has secretly always wanted to be someone’s love—comes to life inside him.

When Dev finally releases his mouth, Charlie sighs. “You make me so fucking happy.”

Delilah calls Daphne a con artist, and Angie jumps to her defense. Charlie is exhausted with all of it.

I really hope angie and daphne get together after all this damn bs

Dev will always put the show first. Charlie can’t believe, after everything, that he’s only just now realizing this.

“Honestly, after tonight, fuck the show.”

No literaly, like girl theres a million other reality dating shows

“No, Dev.” Charlie laughs. “That was just for the show. Daphne and I spent the night doing Korean face masks and watching You’ve Got Mail.”

Dev once said it is impossible not to fall in love on a boat. Charlie should have known better than to doubt him.

Charlie is carved from marble and meant to be showcased at some Italian museum, but it’s Dev’s body he treats like a precious antiquity.

Charlie props himself against the headboard and Dev props himself against Charlie. It’s never ever been this good.

“You are the most beautiful man in the world.” “I’m really not.” “You are,” Charlie says, brushing kisses along his cheekbones. “You’re so good at seeing other people. I wish you could see yourself.”

“I lied,” Dev hisses five minutes later as Charlie struggles to put on the rest of his clothes in a back room. “I was really jealous.” “Sweetheart, I know.”

Shit, he loves Dev. Fully. Stupidly. Maybe irrevocably.

Twilight mention

“I might be awkward, though,” Charlie warns him. “You better be awkward. The awkwardness is what does it for me, honestly.”

Charlie turns and sees Maureen Scott wading across the park in her heeled boots, her silver bob completely unrumpled by the wind.

Im talking bout bob

Dev pulls Charlie in close by the knot on his tie. “You never say the wrong thing, love.”

“Ha. Ha.” Dev makes those two syllables as cutting as possible. “It’s so humorous when you mock him for not conforming to your hypersexualized notions of masculinity.”

Protective boyfriend

up. His violin eyes are almost molten amber in this light, and the sun hits his cheekbones, the sharp point of his chin. Charlie feels so absolutely certain.

He’s always known how this story ends, because it has ended the same way for thirty-six seasons. Dev doesn’t get the happily ever after, but he would settle for less if it meant being with Charlie. Because the alternative—losing Charlie—is going to destroy him.

Im gonna be sick

Charlie thinks about Dev and about the beautiful simplicity of being seen.

“Yes, I have a therapist. Everyone has a fucking therapist,”

“I don’t think happily ever after is something that happens to you, Dev. I think it’s something you choose to do for yourself.”

I fell in love with Daphne, who has become one of my closest friends. It’s not romantic love, but I think it matters just as much.

So dissapointing

Not just the show itself, and not just this moment, but every moment from the first, when Charlie fell out of a car at Dev’s feet. Practice dates and real dates and New Orleans and Cape Town and maybe, maybe, other places, too. Places they’ll visit together, side by side in adjacent first-class seats. Food to eat and mountains to be carried across and a house to come back to, always.

“Honestly, who even cast last season?” Dev asks from their couch. “Was the network trying to make it a queer party?” “I do not remember it feeling like a queer party when we were filming it,” Charlie says, and Dev prepares himself to be outraged. “Except for you, love. You are always a one-man queer party.” “Damn right I am.”