Two and a Half Men: Waking up as Charlie Harper

AN: Big chapter: 3k words. See ya all on Thursday.

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[2 days later – Charlie's House – Kitchen – 10:05 AM]

Charlie stood in front of the fridge, holding it open like it owed him answers. His eyes scanned the shelves aimlessly while his brain chased a very different kind of problem.

Alan sat at the kitchen table, sipping coffee like it was the only thing keeping him from collapsing into a full-body tantrum. Lisa had already left for work. Berta was in the laundry room, yelling at the dryer.

Charlie let the fridge door close and leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, mind racing.

"I need a lawyer," Alan said again, voice flat and defeated.

Charlie rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"I know."

"I'm going to lose everything, Charlie. House. Car. Kid. Future. I'm one missed payment away from selling toe pics online."

Charlie's eyes narrowed, not at Alan, but at the memory clawing its way to the surface.

Vegas. Year 1998. The old Flamingo. Poolside bar. Blonde hair, red lips, dark humor. Smart. Dangerous smart.

Irina Denvers.

His eyebrows lifted slightly. He could almost hear the saxophone solo playing in the background when he first saw her. She was wearing a black bikini and a smirk that screamed litigation. They drank tequila, argued about the ethics of prenups, then hooked up for three days straight. Penthouse suite. A custom stripper pole inside where she gave him a strip tease. Then endless sex and drinks. They never left the room for three days straight. 

During that time, she gave him her number and address, hoping to start something serious.

He also remembered how it ended.

Irina said she loves him.

On day four, Charlie left before sunrise. Left a note scribbled on hotel stationery that said, "It's not you, it's my unresolved trauma. You are too beautiful and too good for a drunk fuck like me. The diamond earrings are for you as a way to express my apology. Sorry."

Then he ghosted her.

Now he had to find her.

Charlie pushed off the counter and walked over to the drawer near the stove. The one filled with junk. Old takeout menus. Spare keys. Receipts from bars that no longer existed.

He pulled out a small black leather notebook. Contacts. Scribbled over. Beer-stained. But still legible.

He flipped through the pages.

Under "D" he found it.

Denvers, Irina.

Address: Malibu. Something about a beachside condo with too many glass windows.

He stared at it for a second, like the ink might bite him.

Alan looked up from his coffee.

"What? Did you think of someone?"

Charlie nodded slowly. "Yeah. I think I might know someone."

Alan's eyes lit up. "Really? Who?"

Charlie snapped the notebook shut. "Her name's Irina. We, uh… we were involved. Briefly."

"How involved?"

Charlie pulled a chair from the table and sat down across from Alan, the little black notebook still in his hand.

"Let's just say," he began slowly, "I spent three days with her in Vegas. We didn't leave the hotel room. Or wear much clothing. Or sleep. She once threatened to sue the bartender for putting ice in her whiskey."

Alan blinked. "So she's... intense?"

Charlie smirked. "She's a lawyer, Alan. Intense is her love language."

"Do you think she'd help me?"

Charlie leaned back, rubbing his jaw. "That's the thing. I kind of... disappeared on her."

Alan squinted. "Disappeared how?"

"I left her a note. Took off at dawn. Gave her diamond earrings and a lifetime of abandonment issues."

"Charlie!" 

"What? She said she loves me and wants to get serious, and I wasn't emotionally ready for that type of commitment."

Alan groaned and buried his face in his hands. "So she probably hates you."

"Probably," Charlie admitted. "But 1500 bucks earrings. So, there might be a little hope."

Alan leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling like it held the secrets to his survival.

"So what's the plan?" he asked, voice muffled through his fingers.

Charlie tapped the notebook on the table. "We go see her."

Alan blinked at him. "We?"

Charlie nodded. "You think I'm sending you alone to charm a woman I once emotionally nuked? She'll use your spine as a coat rack before you finish introducing yourself."

Alan hesitated. "Okay. So we go together. Do we call first?"

Charlie stood and walked toward the sink, grabbing a bottle of water. "Nope."

"No?"

"Nope. She's the kind of woman who has caller ID and a hit list. If she sees my name, she'll answer with a sniper rifle. I shouldn't have given her my number. I'm lucky that she didn't track my number to my house."

Alan stared at his coffee like it had betrayed him.

Charlie took a long sip of water, then wiped his mouth and sighed.

"We'll go in person. Be polite. Civilized. You'll do most of the talking."

"Me?" Alan squawked. "Why me?"

"Do you want me to do everything for you?" Charlie said, setting the bottle down, "Let you live in my house. You eat and drink without paying anything. You use everything here, ever thought of paying the bills? Electricity and internet ain't cheap. Now, you wanted a lawyer, I found a good one. And you ask, 'Why me?' You wanna live on the streets?"

Alan's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again like a malfunctioning puppet. He finally threw his hands in the air.

"Okay, okay! You're right! I'll talk! I'll grovel! I'll offer her my spleen if that helps!"

Charlie gave a slow, sarcastic clap.

"There you go. That's the desperate energy I was waiting for. Irina feeds on it."

Alan muttered something about karma and death-by-lawyer as he stood up and grabbed his hoodie from the back of the chair.

Charlie went to grab his keys.

"Wear something decent," he said, looking Alan over like he was a bad Craigslist couch. "She eats weak fashion for breakfast."

Alan looked down at his shirt. "It says 'I make spreadsheets sexy.' That's a good icebreaker."

Charlie gave him a look so dead it could've applied for a tombstone.

"Change."

Alan groaned and trudged toward his room.

Ten minutes later, Alan reemerged wearing a plain button-down shirt that was only slightly wrinkled and jeans that didn't scream 'I lost a custody battle yesterday.'

Charlie nodded, only mildly horrified. "Passable. Try to smile like you're not in pain."

"I am in pain."

"Perfect," Charlie said, grabbing his sunglasses. "She'll sense the emotional decay. Lawyers love that."

They stepped out the front door, Charlie locking it behind them.

Alan hesitated on the porch.

"Wait… what if she slams the door in our face?"

Charlie patted him on the shoulder.

"Then I fake a seizure and you crawl through the pet door."

Alan blinked. "There's a pet door?"

Charlie walked past him toward the car. "No. But desperation creates new doors."

...

[Later 11:45 AM]

The house sat like a Bond villain's vacation home. Modern architecture, floor-to-ceiling windows, a driveway made of black stone tiles, and a mailbox shaped like a miniature gavel. There was even a fountain shaped like a woman decapitating a contract.

Charlie parked out front and turned off the engine.

Alan stared at the building like it had whispered death threats.

"She's rich."

"She's a lawyer, of course, she's rich," Charlie corrected, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.

"Are we going to die?"

"Not if you let me do the talking for the first sixty seconds. After that, you're on your own, buddy."

Alan nodded grimly.

They stepped out of the car and walked up the long pathway, shoes echoing off the stone. The door was black, probably metal plating, and definitely capable of launching electric shocks if she was in the mood.

Charlie rang the bell.

There was a pause. Then a woman's voice came through the speaker. The tiny door camera focused on his face.

"Charlie Harper."

"In flesh."

"Why are you at my door?"

Charlie held up both hands. "Peace offering. Truce. Civil visitation. No tequila involved. Completely professional visit."

"Who's with you?" She asked.

"My brother Alan," Charlie said. "He's… legally imploding."

Another long pause.

Then the door clicked.

Charlie looked at Alan.

"She didn't kill us yet. That's a win."

They stepped inside.

The interior was even colder than the exterior. Glass everywhere. Chrome. One white couch in the middle of the living room that looked like it cost more than Charlie's car. A massive bookshelf filled with law journals and what appeared to be a shrine to Sun Tzu.

And then she entered.

Irina Denvers.

Blonde. Black suit. Heels that could pierce drywall. Her eyes were lined with the same intensity as a sniper scope. She stood in the hallway like a queen deciding which of the peasants she'd forgive today.

Charlie offered a tight, awkward smile. He was surprised to see that she was still wearing the earrings he gave her all those years back. 'Wait a minute! Don't tell me...'

"Irina. You look... murderously radiant."

She crossed her arms and stared at him like he was an expired coupon.

"I should've sued you for emotional damages."

Alan immediately stepped forward, hands clasped like he was auditioning for a role in Desperate Man Begs for Mercy.

"Miss Denvers, hi. I'm Alan. And I'm currently being destroyed in divorce court by a woman who has retained legal representation so good I think her lawyer has killed before. I need help. Desperately. Financially. Emotionally. Possibly spiritually."

"Shut the fuck up," She shut down Alan, then grabbed Charlie's collar and kissed him hard.

Charlie stood frozen, lips still pressed against Irina's as her very expensive perfume hijacked every thought in his head. His brain was doing parkour between What the hell, Am I dead?, and Did Alan just die watching this? Why is she kissing me? I was expecting a slap or a knee to the balls.

Irina pulled away with the precision of a queen who had just stamped her seal on a royal decree.

"You left," she said flatly.

"I know," Charlie replied, blinking like a man who had been slapped with silk gloves full of trauma.

"You left a note."

"Yeah... well, it was heartfelt."

"You called yourself a drunk fuck."

"I was trying to be self-aware," Charlie muttered.

Irina's expression didn't shift. "It was written on a napkin from the minibar."

Charlie winced. "That minibar was out of paper."

Alan, still rooted to the spot like a confused bystander at a telenovela audition, finally found his voice.

"I—uh—Hi again. Sorry to interrupt your... passionate... assault?"

Irina turned her gaze to him. Alan shrank back like a vampire facing a sunlamp.

"I don't do passion anymore," she said. "Now I just do courtrooms, settlements, and destroying men like bowling pins."

Charlie held up his hands. "And yet... you didn't kill me just now."

"I'm still deciding," she replied, walking away toward the living room with the grace of a predator who knew the meal would come to her eventually. "Come, sit. Don't touch anything unless you want to spend the night reading a legal affidavit about property damage."

Charlie and Alan shuffled in, taking seats on the edge of the white couch like they were waiting for a dentist with anger management issues.

Irina poured herself a whiskey from a decanter shaped like a lion eating an IRS auditor.

Alan cleared his throat. "So… about my case..."

She held up one manicured finger. Then took out her phone, made a call, and within a minute, a maid came with a file and pen. 

"Start from the beginning and don't leave anything out..."

[1 hour later]

Alan was hunched forward on the white leather couch like a man reading his own obituary. A half-empty glass of water sat untouched on the coffee table in front of him. His shirt had come slightly untucked during the tale. His face was a tragic mix of shame, exhaustion, and trauma-induced indigestion.

Irina sat in a black leather armchair across from him, legs crossed, pen in hand, scribbling notes with a precision that made Alan sweat.

Charlie?

Charlie had fallen asleep.

Fully horizontal on the other end of the couch, arms crossed over his chest like a dead pharaoh, sunglasses still on. He had dozed off somewhere between the part where Judith "accidentally" logged into his bank account and the moment she stole his emergency stashed cash from inside the teddy bear labeled "For Jake's Braces."

Irina, still writing, didn't even look up.

"So let me get this straight," she said, pausing just long enough to flip the page in her legal pad, "she tricked you into signing over your house, rerouted your paychecks to her account, and now she's filed for physical assault because you allegedly hit her during a nightmare?"

Alan nodded with the intensity of a man on trial for his own stupidity.

"It was one of those dreams," he explained. "Zombies were after me. So, I grabbed whatever I could find around me and threw. It hit her."

Irina scribbled furiously. "Did you apologize?"

"Of course! She kicked me out and then filed a complaint."

Charlie stirred slightly, muttering in his sleep.

"Not the mango slices… Berta said they're poisoned…"

Irina flicked her pen toward him. "Is he okay?"

Alan looked over. "He's… fine. Probably dreaming about strippers and regret."

Irina looked back at her notes. "Alright. So, she forged signatures, seized joint accounts, framed you for assault, and is now demanding full custody and 90 percent of your future income. Is that everything?"

Alan hesitated.

"She also kept my toothbrush."

Irina finally looked up, deadpan. "She kept your toothbrush."

Alan nodded solemnly. "It was an electric one. With Bluetooth."

"Tragic," she said flatly, flipping to a new page. "We'll add that under 'Emotional Sabotage.'"

Charlie suddenly snorted awake with a soft "Wha...?!" and sat up, looking around in panic.

"What happened? Did the IRS find me?"

"No," Irina said. "Just your brother living a real-life Greek tragedy written by someone on edibles."

Charlie rubbed his face and blinked at Alan. "Is it over? Please say yes. I've had dreams shorter than your marriage."

Alan nodded weakly. "I think I covered it all. Unless we count the time she sold my autographed poster of Patrick Dempsey for twenty bucks and bought sushi with it."

Irina set down her pen.

"Well, I've heard worse," she said.

Charlie gave her a skeptical look. "Really?"

"No," she replied. "But I like to pretend I have hope for humanity."

Alan looked up at her with genuine desperation. "Can you help me?"

Irina leaned back in her chair, thoughtful. "Technically, yes. But I'll be honest with you. You are what we in the legal world call a 'walking ATM with no PIN code.'"

Alan looked confused. "Is that good?"

"No. It means she's been draining you because she knows you won't fight back."

Charlie nodded. "That sounds exactly like Alan."

Irina continued. "Here's what we'll do. I'll file a motion to freeze all financial transfers, re-open the deeds under fraud investigation, and counterfile for emotional and financial abuse. Then we go for joint custody and build your image back up with character witnesses."

Alan blinked. "Like who?"

"There are people whom you pay, and they will say whatever you want. Leave that part to me."

Irina leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with the cold fire of someone who'd once won a lawsuit against a Fortune 500 company and made the CEO cry on the witness stand.

"She wants to play dirty?" She said with an evil smile. "Then we'll bury her in paperwork, subpoenas, countersuits, and psychological evaluations so thick her own lawyer will start Googling yoga retreats. I'll make her regret the day she learned how to spell 'alimony.'"

Alan blinked rapidly, trying to keep up.

Charlie muttered under his breath, "And now she's the terrifying ex I actually like."

Irina stood and straightened her blazer like she was about to declare war.

"Your case begins now," she said, grabbing the folder. "I'll send over the retainer contract, court filings, and a psychological profile of your ex that's technically illegal in five states. Congratulations. You're not totally screwed anymore."

Alan, visibly emotional, stood and clutched his chest.

"You're a saint. A terrifying, powerful, oddly attractive saint."

Irina looked at him flatly. "Sit down before I change my mind."

He sat so fast that the couch squeaked.

Just then, there was a sound from the staircase.

Footsteps.

Charlie glanced toward the stairs… and froze.

She appeared like a slow-motion scene from a teen drama filmed on a suspiciously high budget.

Long dark hair, oversized sweatshirt, no pants, heavy eyeliner, two legs covered in tattoos, and the unmistakable expression of someone who was trying to decide if she should run away, start a fight, or say "Daddy?" for dramatic effect.

Laura.

Twenty-five now. Still had the kind of chaotic hotness that screamed campus troublemaker. She paused at the bottom of the stairs, holding a half-eaten granola bar and looking like she'd just seen a ghost.

Or, more accurately, someone who had once been very naked in her room. A former camgirl who used to stream on freakyfans with a mask on. She and Charlie hooked up after Charlie dropped around 3 grand in a private chat, 7 years ago. They hit it off, had lots of sex as usual. He was the one to pop her cherry. It was a very emotional situation. But this one left on a sweet note. There were no tears or screaming, just peace. After that day, she stopped doing live streams for some reason and decided to do something other than selling her body online.

At present, she owns her own tattoo parlor. 

"Charlie?" she said.

Charlie blinked. "Laura?"

Irina looked between them, one eyebrow raised. "Wait. You two know each other?"

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