Author Notes: My sincerest thanks yous to sjofn0nott(lj) for beta'ing.

Because this is Charles' life and the universe hates him, they are interrupted before they can get anywhere meaningful. At this point it would appear that the curse is trying to kill them both by pure frustration alone. Charles would have to say that the curse is doing an excellent job of it. If Nathan is interrupted on the downward path to his knees one more time, Charles swears he is going to kill someone. Speaking of which, Nathan Explosion on his knees is hot, like unfucking believable, cum in your pants hot. Charles doesn't know which of the boys convinced Nathan that you haven't lived until you've given someone a blowjob, but Charles loves them for it. Some day he will figure out which one it was and buy them their own third world nation. He hoped it was Pickles, it would be relatively easy to buy him one of those small, fractured, opium producing states.

Pickles, who was not quite passed out but in a vegetative state, started hollering from the living room. The phone was ringing. Since the oh so tragic mishap with the popcorn, the phone no longer rang in the conventional manner. The screen lights up and there is the faintest smell of burnt popcorn. Pickles happened to be starring blankly at the phone exactly as it happened. The shouts interrupted the very engaging downward path of Nathan's tongue. Charles never realized there would be so many obstacles once he had decided to go through with the sex.

He made it to the phone, with his unbuttoned pants sliding down his hips just before the phone went to the now defunct answering machine. It was Crystal Mountain Records and they had agreed to Charles' completely unreasonable terms. He would have shouted for joy, but he is a real lawyer now with the piece of paper to prove it, and anyway, if he cheers he's liable to lose his grip on his pants.

Sometime during the conversation Nathan came to stand in the doorway. He'd taken the time to replace his pants but not his shirt. Damn, it had probably fallen behind the bed his mother was planning to sleep in tonight. He should fix that before she came home.

Nathan was leaning up against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his bare chest, smiling. Charles had on his serious lawyer face but Nathan could see through it to the giddy excitement underneath. Well, if they had to be interrupted at least it was good news.

When Charles puts down the phone, Pickles lifted his head up long enough to ask after the phone call.

"It would seem," Charles began, still amazed by the news himself. "That Dethklok ah, has been signed by a major record company."

His mother shows up sooner than he was expecting, so it ends up not mattering so much that they were interrupted by the phone. Charles figures at this point either they will either have sex again or the world will end and once one happens the other won't be nearly so important. His mom cooked a genuinely home cooked meal. She got Toki to help but he ended up being even more of a terror in the kitchen than Nathan. The smoke detector went off twice and Pickles was forced to remove the batteries. The shrill beeping was harshing his buzz.

Because no one's luck is that good, Murderface showed up at the start of dinner. He was rude and smelly and he belched loudly. For some strange reason Nina seemed to like him. She insisted on giving him second helpings of everything. He tells her that for an old bitch, she's alright and against all common sense she finds him endearing. Charles escaped to his bedroom at the earliest possible convenience, because some how he has regressed to a sullen teenager who hides behind his bedroom door.

He escaped before he can remember to tell people that there is a meeting tomorrow to sign the contract. Oh well, the people in the living room already have some idea and Charles can just use his cell phone to call Skwissgaar and the other one.

Once he is done with the phone calls, he starts to hear peculiar noises from the living room. It reminded him a bit of that one awful time he went camping and some bird of prey laid waste to an entire warren of rabbits just outside his tent. He would go investigate but he was still channeling his inner moody teen. So instead he sits on his bed and pouts while trying to read up on contractual law. There is just something about his mother's presence that makes him feel like a kid again, and not in a good way.

After a while Nathan comes by to find him.

"Dude, what are you doing in here?" He didn't even bother to knock, just walked right in and interrupted the good sulk Charles had going.

Charles wasn't about to admit that he's pouting because his mother brings out the worst in him, so he grunted and turned the page like he was actually reading. Nathan continued.

"Your mom is teaching us this totally brutal game. You write shit on pieces of paper and then some has to pick a piece of paper and act that shit out without making a fucking sound."

"I do believe that is called charades?" Charles made it a question as he has played charades with his mother before and no variation of the game could be called brutal except in a bang-your-head-against-the-wall kind of way.

"Right, charades," Nathan agrees. "It's totally awesome!" This feeling reminded Charles a lot of when he first met Nathan. All the words are familiar but he can't quite place what they mean in this particular context.

"What do you mean awesome?"

Nathan grinned like a fool and tried to drag Charles off the bed. "The person who picks has to act out what it says on the piece of paper."

"Right," Charles agreed standing reluctantly. He's played charades before; he's familiar with the rules.

"So," Nathan said like it should be obvious. "If we all write something really gay on our pieces of paper and Murderface picks it..." Nathan trailed off waiting for Charles to get with the program.

"Oh!" That really should have been obvious. "That sounds ah, very entertaining." That would explain why it sounded like a wounded creature dying in the living room.

"It is," Nathan said leading the way and grinning like mad.

As Charles followed him into the living room and the raucous laughter and girly screaming, he was already thinking up horrible, horrible things he could write down and make other people try to do. He thought he would go for a blend of needlessly obscure along with blatantly gay. Catamite seemed like an excellent choice. Not only would William have to face the slight to his tenuous masculinity, but he'd also feel like an idiot when he needed the term defined. When Charles imagined the potential look on William's face, it almost made the horrors of his mother's visit seem worthwhile.