Don woke up with a start, as he'd been doing all night. He held still until he'd identified the sound of Charlie's breathing six feet away, muffled but audible. Once he was sure of that, he checked his gun. He was pretty sure that hadn't been a dream-- that Charlie had actually tried to get it from him. It hadn't been the Charlie from his dream, months back, though: no dead-eyed stare from his angry baby brother. Charlie had looked as shocked as Don felt, and that sheepish mutter of "I didn't actually have a plan"--that was his brother all over.
Charlie was in there somewhere, which was reassuring and maddening at the same time. Don lay still, breathing slowly and evenly, thinking it over. He was as sure as he could be without a partner's perspective that his observations were solid. Charlie hadn't seriously been trying to get hold of his weapon, hadn't intended to hurt him. He hadn't been nearly as frightened of Don, even when Don had pinned him to the floor, as he had been when they first met. That was the beginning of trust. If Don could get Charlie to trust him--if Charlie had heard what he said about planning--this could work. It could work. They could survive. He just had to be patient.
Don shifted up onto one elbow and rolled far enough from the door to see that there was a faint light coming from underneath this time. He felt like he'd slept enough; time to start another long day, waiting. He sat up and reached for his holster, shrugging it on by feel and slipping the Sig into place. He looked around the room, trying to see what he could in the minute amount of light.
He remembered the layout of the room. It wasn't like there was much of anything to trip over, but it felt different in the dark--weirdly less claustrophobic when he couldn't see the walls around him. After a minute he got to his feet and walked to the chalkboard Charlie had been working at the day before, careful not to touch the board itself and smudge the writing, feeling along the frame until he got to the work light. He turned it so it was pointed away from where Charlie slept and then clicked it on.
It was just after eight-thirty by his watch. He'd gotten about eight hours of sleep, give or take the interruption, and Charlie should have gotten at least five by now. He seemed to remember that that was enough for Charlie to function on, more or less.
Don glanced over toward the cot where Charlie slept, only faintly illuminated by the indirect light. Charlie was almost entirely hidden by the sleeping bag, just one foot sticking out with a sock hanging half off. Don walked over without thinking about whether he should, stepping softly. Charlie's skin where it showed was purple with cold, and Don tugged the edge of the sleeping bag down to cover his foot, which shifted the cover slightly away from his face.
Don knew he should go back over by the door, put away his bedroll and let Charlie get as much sleep as he could without risking disturbing him, but except for that scuffle last night, this was as close as he'd gotten to Charlie since finding him. His whole body ached to be hugging his baby brother, or better yet throwing him over his shoulder and making a break for it. Don's hands closed into fists, and he shut his eyes and waited until the impulse passed, until it was just a bad idea lurking in his brain and not a tactical plan his body was on the verge of executing without him.
Don crouched down and looked into Charlie's shadowed, sleeping face. His eyebrows were drawn down into a little frown that Don had never seen before except when Charlie was actually in the middle of a problem. He had always slept like a baby: sprawling and innocent, kicking and elbowing anyone unlucky enough to be stuck sharing a pup tent, or a hotel bed, or a back seat with him. Now he lay huddled under his sleeping bag, arms drawn in tight, utterly still. Don raised a hand and then hesitated--but if Charlie woke up he could just say it was time to get up, and Charlie wouldn't argue.
Slowly, gently, barely making contact, Don brushed the backs of his fingers over Charlie's forehead. Charlie's whole face scrunched like he was going to sneeze, and then he exhaled and seemed to relax, twisting away from the touch and settling again. His face looked like Charlie's face then, easy and careless. Don smiled, as reflexively as Charlie had relaxed, and then there was the sound of the bar lifting on the other side of the door, loud in the silence.
Charlie sat bolt upright at the sound, his hands clutched tight to his chest. Don straightened up almost as fast, stepping quickly toward the door, into the line of fire between it and Charlie. He kicked his sleeping bag aside and drew the Sig before the door swung back. Jimmy-or-Sam, standing there with two travel mugs in one hand, the other still on the doorknob, looked at Don oddly as he reholstered his gun, but said only, "Coffee."
Don swallowed. He could hear Charlie gasping behind him, trying to be quiet, and pitched his own voice to cover the sound. "What, no donuts?"
Jimmy-or-Sam held out the mugs impatiently. When Don took them, he pulled a couple of slightly squashed foil-wrapped energy bars from a pocket of his baggy pants. He set one neatly on top of each travel mug, then shook his head and pushed the door shut in Don's face.
Don turned to see Charlie sitting with his knees drawn up and his face in his hands. Don winced.
"Hey, c," he said softly, "come on, have some coffee, up and at 'em."
Charlie nodded without raising his head, and then looked up at Don, glancing back and forth from him to the spot where he'd been crouching, next to the cot. Nothing so overt as asking the guy with the gun what the hell he'd been doing. Don walked over, offering Charlie the mug in his right hand. Charlie's hands shook as he reached for it, and he knocked the energy bar onto the cot.
"Didn't mean to wake you up like that," Don said, closing both his hands around his own coffee mug as he looked down at Charlie's head, at a loss for what else to say. He didn't dare start actually apologizing to Charlie--it wouldn't look right, and if he started he wasn't sure he could stop. He'd just have to hope that Charlie started picking up what he meant, sooner or later.
Charlie wrapped his hands around the mug, and ducked his head toward the wisp of steam escaping toward the lid. It was hard to tell whether the slight movements of his head were shivers or nods. Don moved away to give him some space, switching on the overhead lights. He kicked his sleeping bag into a heap and sat down on it to drink his coffee.
After a couple of sips, he ripped open the foil on the energy bar and took a bite, wincing at the not-quite-right chocolate taste. He washed it down quickly with more coffee. There was a small crackling sound from the cot, and Don looked up to see that Charlie had opened his, too. Don took another small sip of his coffee, watching Charlie take a bite. He wrinkled his nose, and the expression of distaste was painfully familiar--how many times had he seen Charlie frown just like that at his vegetables? Charlie took a casual sip of his coffee, his shoulders only hunched against the cold and the general affront of being awake, and he was almost Charlie, every movement, every habit.
Then something crossed his face, and he picked up the energy bar again, eating it in quick, methodical bites without betraying the least distaste. Like he knew he didn't have a choice except to starve, like he'd never had a soft-hearted mom who let him have a snack before bed if he got hungry because he hadn't finished his dinner.
He thinks his name is c, Don thought. He doesn't know anything but this. He thinks this is who he is. If Charlie had any chance to ever get better, to ever be Charlie again, it lay in getting him out of here alive. A long shot all around.
Don didn't look over again. He finished his own breakfast, crumpled up the foil and dropped it inside his empty mug, and set it neatly by the door. Then he got up and zipped and rolled his sleeping bag and floor mat and pillow, returning it to the same tidy bundle it had been before. He set it down beside his duffle, and only then looked over at Charlie--c. He was sitting up on the edge of his cot, head tipped back to get the last drops of his coffee. When he lowered his head and caught Don's eye, Don looked away, and Charlie got up and went to the table.
Once Charlie was busy, Don let himself take a long look at his brother. Charlie's stubble was taking on truly crazed proportions now, and while it wasn't as easy to tell with his hair shorter, he had that unwashed hermit look that he'd gotten sometimes when he'd stayed out in the garage for a few days straight without venturing further into the house than the downstairs bathroom.
"Hey, c," Don said, and Charlie tensed as he looked up. Don summoned up a half-smile, trying to soften the words, but said just as bluntly as he ever would have, "When's the last time you took a shower?"
Charlie didn't look offended, though, and he didn't look sheepish. His eyes went deer-in-the-headlights wide, just for a second, and then he looked away. His voice shook a little as he said, "That depends on what day it is. I lose track."
Don gritted his teeth, not letting Charlie see him flinch. That was Torture 101, depriving your victim of time-sense. God knew how long it had been since Charlie had had any, locked away with no windows and only his visits from the guards to go by.
Don glanced at his watch. "Well, it's now 8:52 in the morning on--" he actually had to stop and think. It had been a long time since he'd given a fuck about the date. He'd been on his own private Charlie calendar for 131 days now.
"November thirteenth," he finished, and Charlie was watching him from the corner of his eye. "So you'll get a shower today, and you can start keeping track from now, okay?"
He waited, watching, and Charlie gave him a tiny nod before he turned away, looking through his papers again. Don turned away too, digging his walkie-talkie out of the pocket of his bag he'd dropped it into before he went to sleep. No time like the present to find out how much he could use this thing to ask for. Still crouched near the door, he clicked it on.
"Hey, Mac here, who's on the door?"
There was a long pause, long enough for Don to wonder if anybody up there even had a radio turned on, or if the radio Williamson had given him was just for his own amusement. Then his radio clicked on and a voice said, "Jimmy. Whaddya need?"
Don shifted his weight, listening to Charlie not making a sound behind him, not a paper rustling, not a breath audible.
"Know-It-All here needs a shower."
Jimmy snorted. "We usually just hose him off when he starts to smell."
Don leaned his forehead against the hard plastic of his walkie-talkie, listening to the quick quiet shuffle of Charlie walking to the bathroom in stocking feet, the closest thing he had to a hiding place. As the water switched on, Don pressed the button on his radio.
"Yeah, well, you're not usually locked in with him twenty-three hours a day. He needs a fucking shower, so why don't you come down here and unlock the door?"
Ominously, Jimmy just said, "We'll see what the boss says," and then clicked off.
Don rubbed his face and muttered, "Fuck."
If Williamson thought Don had overstepped--if this was seen as an attempt to subvert security procedure, getting Charlie upstairs--worse, if Williamson thought Mac was being too kind to his charge and started to wonder why...
The toilet flushed, and a minute later the water shut off. Don glanced over to see Charlie wiping his hands on the stomach of his sweater. He couldn't let Charlie see him uncertain about this. "You have clothes to change into, c?"
Charlie looked around the bare room, and Don winced. Stupid question. But Charlie shrugged and said, "Upstairs somewhere, I guess. Somebody gives them to me when I wash up."
"Okay," Don said, "Okay. Good. Somebody should be--"
And he was listening for it, from his position near the wall, so he heard the footsteps clattering down the stairs and raised a hand toward Charlie as the bar was taken off the door. Don kept his eyes on Charlie for a second, enough to see him flinch from the sound, and then he straightened up with one hand on the doorframe, blocking Charlie from the sight of whoever was coming in.
It was Jimmy. Not Williamson, which seemed promising; maybe Don had gotten away with this one.
"Come on, then," Jimmy said, looking irritated. "Let's go."
Don looked back at Charlie, but he was just standing there, looking at the floor, shoulders drawn in. When he glanced back toward the door, Jimmy was glaring at Charlie, and Don could see all too easily how petty annoyance and boredom would lead to the casual cruelty Charlie obviously expected. Don crossed the distance to Charlie and took him by the arm.
"Come on, let's go," Don said quietly, and when he tugged Charlie moved, walking ahead of him to the door. Don brushed past Jimmy, keeping himself between Charlie and the thug, steering his brother up the stairs.
Another of the guys was waiting at the top, holding a paper shopping bag. He held it out and Charlie just stopped, frozen between him and Don. Don took the bag and turned Charlie toward the living room and the bathroom beyond, trying to ignore the fact that Charlie didn't seem to know the way. Don opened the bathroom door and gently shoved Charlie inside, but when he set the bag down on the sink without stepping inside, Jimmy said, "Oh, no," from behind him.
Don turned, trying not to think of how trapped Charlie looked, standing shivering in the small room. "What do you mean, no?"
"I mean, if he goes in there, you go in there with him, dumbass," Jimmy said, looking obnoxiously satisfied with himself. "I'm not waiting an hour to take a piss because he locks himself in there and we gotta disassemble the fucking door. Anyway, he could have an accident or something. You'd better protect him."
Don gritted his teeth at the tone, not bothering to look like he didn't want to punch Jimmy. Mac would want to punch Jimmy at this point. Anyone would. His fists were clenched, his arms tensed, but Don couldn't hit Jimmy any more than he could hit anyone or anything else here.
"Fine," he said flatly, because Jimmy's hand was drifting toward his radio, telegraphing another call to Williamson for backup. He'd doubtless get it. Don had a feeling nobody so much as looked sideways at Charlie without Williamson's express permission, not given how tightly everything seemed to be controlled.
However he'd been terrorized, it was all part of the boss's plan--which meant that if Williamson was letting Don treat Charlie a little bit like a human being now, it wouldn't come without strings.
"Fine, look, I'm going in with him."
He stepped inside the bathroom, closed the door and locked it. There was barely space for both of them to stand without touching each other. Charlie stared at the floor, arms folded around his middle, waiting for God knew what.
Don leaned against the door, stealing the unobserved minute to think. He was alone in a small room with Charlie, behind a locked door that he controlled. He could turn on the water and probably baffle whatever audio surveillance there might be, whether mechanical or human, as long as he spoke softly. Now would be a perfect time to call for help, if he had any to call for.
Even if he couldn't tell anyone else where they were, though, this was the first halfway safe opportunity he'd had to tell Charlie who he was. There were a million things he wanted to say all crowding together in his throat and choking him--starting with I'm not going to hurt you, I'll never hurt you. I'm your brother. Your name is Charlie. I missed you. I love you, and I don't know why I never bothered to say so before. I'll get you out. I'll get you home. You'll be all right.
He was reaching for the sink tap when he saw Charlie flinch and crashed back to reality: he couldn't tell Charlie a damn thing, and Charlie wouldn't believe him if he did. Not now. If Charlie started to remember on his own, then there'd be no avoiding the risk, and Don would have to explain it to him. If Charlie started to really trust him, once they were planning together, then he might as well tell him. They'd have plenty of secrets to keep then. But now was not the time--not even close to it.
Don converted his motion into a grab for the bag, and Charlie didn't relax, but he didn't raise his hands into an actual cower, either.
"Okay," Don said, turning toward the sink as he opened the paper bag. There was a small, paper-wrapped bar of cheap soap on top of what looked like a change of clean clothes, and he took it out and offered it to Charlie. He took it after a second's hesitation, hand shaking. Don opened the cupboard under the sink, forcing himself to ignore Charlie's trembling, and pulled out a towel and washcloth. He set the towel on the edge of the sink and handed the washcloth to Charlie, who took it, still staring at him, still watching him and waiting.
"Go on," Don said, gesturing to the shower and choking back reassurances. Nothing he could say would make Charlie trust him. He had to keep quiet. He had to be patient. He had to let Charlie watch him doing nothing.
"And don't forget to wash your hair."
Charlie just blinked at him, but Don turned to face the door, folded his arms and waited.
c stood staring for a moment at Don's back, mesmerized by the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed. He was so close c could see sweat on the back of his neck, just like the damp chill on his own nape. c tore his eyes away, turning and pushing the shower curtain back and getting quickly inside. When he had the curtain drawn again it was a little easier to think; he could almost pretend Don wasn't out there, wasn't in the small room with him. Don would let him pretend, in fact, which the others generally didn't, on the rare occasions when they let him have a real shower. c knew better than to question it, though.
He set down the soap and washcloth on the shower ledge and quickly began to remove his clothes, tossing them over the curtain as he took them off. Sweater, t-shirt, jeans, and boxers, and then he had to lean against the wall to get his socks off. Somehow he managed not to fall, and not to think too much about the silent presence of Don on the other side of the thin vinyl curtain. He wondered if Don had turned away from the door, if he was standing there watching with that look on his face. c froze, listening for any sound of movement, but he couldn't even hear Don breathing. The room was so still he could hear the TV somewhere else in the house, but not a sound in this room except his own thumping heartbeat, loud in his ears.
He turned on the tap to drown it out, skipping awkwardly back from the gush of cold water. He could hardly bear to put a hand into the stream to gauge the temperature, and the ache sank instantly into his bones. He shivered violently, clenching his teeth to keep quiet, goosebumps springing up all over his body. Once the water had progressed from cold to tepid, c turned on the shower and stood under the spray, rubbing his hands over his skin for the friction heat as the water continued warming up.
It felt so good, so horribly good, to be wet and halfway warm and getting clean, with no one actively harassing him. He let himself forget--when he could--how filthy he was, how disgusting it was, but he could smell himself most days. Whatever Don had in mind for later, c appreciated the shower.
When the water finally got hot enough to chase away his shivers--nearly scalding, but he didn't mind, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been really warm--he reached for the soap, peeled off the paper wrapper and lathered up the washcloth. He washed quickly but thoroughly, scrubbing fiercely at his skin, under his arms, down his back, contorting into weird positions until he had hot water running everywhere. He washed his face twice, scrubbing the cloth over the constant maddening itch of stubble, and then started on his hair. He scrubbed soap over it until it was foamy and slippery and then worked his fingers through the impossible tangles of it, tugging at the knots until they gave up--or until he yanked out the offending strands. He wasted precious seconds of hot water rinsing strands of hair off his fingers, herding them to the drain with his toes.
c nearly yelped when the water turned suddenly cold, but managed to strangle it back and stayed under until his hair was clean and rinsed. He shut the water off sharply, shivering all over again and suddenly once again conscious that Don was just outside the curtain. He took a breath, preparing himself to ask for a towel, when Don's hand appeared over the top of the curtain, holding one. c took it, drying himself quickly. Cold water was running down his neck, down his back, and he scrubbed at his hair, trying to dry it before he moved down further. He wrapped the towel around his hips, bracing himself to step outside and dress, but before he could reach for the curtain Don's hand appeared again, this time holding a clean pair of boxers.
c was suddenly, helplessly seized with the urge to cry, because he was so fucking grateful for that hand holding those shorts, and because he knew--the way he just knew things, though he had no names for them, no faces or memories to have learned them from--that it wasn't fucking fair, wasn't fucking human, to have to feel so grateful for such a thing. He swallowed hard and shook his head, pushing the feeling away, and then grabbed the boxers from Don's hand and put them on under his towel. When a t-shirt appeared over the curtain, he was ready for it and pulled it on, tossing the towel over the curtain rod. He heard Don take a step away, and no further offerings followed. When he pushed back the curtain, Don was facing the door again. It was as kind as handing across a towel, that carefully and obviously averted gaze. c experienced another wild surge of gratitude and pushed it down as best he could. Don was starting to make a habit of being kind to him, and c still didn't know how to analyze that pattern. He'd have to wait for more data.
c quickly pulled on the clean sweatpants and socks Don had left out, noticing as he did that Don had packed up his dirty clothes in the paper bag that had held the clean ones. He stood still for a moment when he was done, staring at Don's back, and then said, "Um."
Don turned to face him. He had c's mechanical pencil clipped incongruously to the strap of his holster; he must have rescued it from c's jeans before bagging them. Don seemed to follow c's gaze, because he immediately pulled it off, offering it eraser-first.
Handle toward my hand, c thought again, and it had been a knife, hadn't it? That was how you passed knives, you held out the handle, and when you took it you said--
c cleared his throat and closed his hand around the end of the pencil and said, "Thank you."
He looked straight into Don's eyes as he said it, and maybe it was just some knife-handling protocol from some recess of his own cracked brain, but Don seemed to understand. He nodded and let go, and c turned half away, shoving the pencil into the pocket of his sweatpants and hauling the drawstring in, because they were already sagging on his hips. He felt as much as heard Don shifting down the wall, further into the room, and when c looked up at him, Don gestured toward the sink, where a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste had been laid out for him.
c rubbed his itching cheek against his shoulder as he stepped to the sink. There was no razor there, which was half disappointing and half a relief, but mostly something he'd rather not think about with Don standing so close behind him. He put toothpaste on his toothbrush and focused on getting his teeth really actually clean for the first time in days. If his mouth tasted as much of copper as of mint when he was done, at least his teeth felt smooth.
When he'd finished spitting in the sink and shut off the tap, Don said, "All set?"
c only flinched a little at the sound of his voice, turning to face him, and then held perfectly still as Don leaned in and past him, picking up his toothbrush from the sink. Don put the toothbrush in his back pocket, and when he turned to open the door, c saw that there was a disposable razor beside it, and his stomach sank. Only a reprieve, then, and Don must have been briefed on the procedure, to have known to keep the razor from him. c shivered as Don's hand closed on his arm, pushing him out into the colder air of the hallway.
He kept his eyes turned down, walking where Don--Mac, he was Mac out here--guided him. He was on guard for a shout or a blow all the way to the door, and felt himself relax a little when he set a foot on the basement stairs. He was halfway down when Jimmy appeared at the bottom. Mac's hand tightened on his arm and he froze, trying not to recoil visibly, staring down at Jimmy's boots.
Mac prodded him, and he took another step down and then another, Mac almost stepping on his heels. He was only two steps away--close enough, he knew, for Jimmy to grab him--when Jimmy said, "Lemme take that."
He felt cold--colder, he was already cold everywhere but where Mac's hand wrapped hot around his arm--at the thought of Jimmy taking him anywhere. Mac shoved him forward, and he stumbled down the last two steps with Mac's hand holding him up, toward Jimmy and then past him, through the door and into the room where his name was c and he could almost breathe as Mac's hand finally let go.
Somewhere behind him, though he didn't dare look back, Mac said, "Fuck off, if Williamson wants his dirty socks he can pick them up later."
c winced--Williamson wouldn't like to hear about Mac saying that--but he stayed where he was, breathing, arms wrapped around himself for what warmth he could generate by shivering.
Don stepped through the door--nearly into him, because c had halted just over the threshold--and slammed it shut behind them. They both stood there, perfectly still and so close that c could feel Don's breath against the back of his neck, until they heard the lock turn and the bar drop on the other side.
Don's hand brushed across the small of his back, there and gone before he could flinch, as Don stepped away from him. He dropped the paper bag with a muffled metallic sound, and c turned to watch as Don crouched over his duffle bag, his jeans tightening across his ass. c had a moment of figure/ground confusion, arrested by the motion and shape of Don's body, and then by the items in his pocket thrown into sharp relief, toothbrush and razor lined up with their handles neatly parallel.
He couldn't tear his eyes away, even as Don straightened up and turned to face him. Only when Don said, "Hey, one more thing and then you can get to work," did c realize that he was staring at Don's knees and drag his gaze up. Don was holding an aerosol can that some helpful gradment of hidden memory identified as shaving cream in one hand and the razor in the other, looking at c with an expression he couldn't read at all.
Charlie was just standing there, shivering, and Don stayed still, keeping his face neutral and waiting for Charlie to respond. Don knew the shower thing must have been scary for him, but the sooner he could get everyone--Charlie included--used to Charlie being upstairs sometimes, the sooner they might have a real chance at making a break for it. He'd felt Charlie relax when they reached the basement steps, and that was the only sign he'd had so far that Charlie felt safe with him, or at least safer with him than he did in general. Don had barely had time to register that fact before Jimmy had scared Charlie, popping up like that--hell, he'd startled Don. But Jimmy was on the other side of the door now, and if Don was just patient, Charlie would calm down and come back to him again.
He had a sneaking suspicion Charlie was waiting, too, as he stood there and watched Don and shivered, still damp from his shower and probably cold without that ratty sweater that stank like he'd been wearing it for four months solid and crunched in spots when Don wadded it up. There had been handcuffs at the bottom of the paper bag, underneath the perfectly ordinary clean clothes, right beside the toothbrush and toothpaste and disposable razor. They were still there now, underneath Charlie's dirty clothes, and they were going to stay there.
The purpose of the handcuffs had been clear enough. Charlie was allowed to handle chalk and a single mechanical pencil, either locked in alone or in the presence of one or more armed guards. There was no way they were going to hand him something with blades and let him go. And once Charlie was in handcuffs, under the supervision of a bored, armed guard, irritated at having to babysit him...
Charlie raised his hands then, together, wrists up, and Don flinched from the bravely expressionless look on his face.
"That's not necessary," Don said firmly. "Here, go shave."
One of Charlie's hands moved toward the razor, and then both jerked back and he wrapped his arms around himself again. "It's a rule."
Don stared at Charlie, trying to work out a way around this, fighting the frustration welling up into real anger. This was stupid, such a dumb thing to get stuck on. Charlie didn't have to do this, he wasn't going to put Charlie through this.
"It's a stupid rule, okay? So let's just skip it."
Charlie shrank from the word stupid in a way Don had never seen before--when had Charlie ever been called stupid?--but said almost inaudibly, "It's still a rule, it's still--"
Don sighed, shifted the shaving cream and razor into one hand and grabbed Charlie by the arm with the other, pulling him, unresisting, to the bathroom. When he had Charlie standing in front of the sink, facing the spotty little mirror, Don set down the stuff on the sink and leaned in the doorway. Charlie just looked up at him, and somewhere in his eyes, Don could see a hint of his brother's stubbornness. He knew how hard it had to be for Charlie to put up this much resistance, but he was not about to give in. He was not putting cuffs on Charlie. He was not going to be any more a part of this than he had to, not when he and Charlie were alone down here.
"Look," Don said, "Williamson put me in here to keep an eye on you. That's my job. That means I tell you what to do, and I am telling you to just shave and get it over with and stop arguing with me about it."
Charlie flinched as though Don had struck him, and Don winced. He shouldn't be bullying Charlie into accepting a little freedom, but it did seem to have done the job. Charlie reached unceratinly for the shaving cream. Don sighed and looked away, shifting to the outside of the doorway to give Charlie some space.
He could hear the wet soapy sound of Charlie lathering his face, just as he'd been able to hear Charlie's every move in the shower, and just like before, it was weirdly, sickeningly intimate. Intrusive. Now, at least, Don was perfectly free to move away.
He pushed off from the doorway, and at that moment there was a loud clatter from the bathroom. Don turned to look just as Charlie reached into the sink with a shaking hand to pick up the razor he'd knocked in. Don hesitated, opening his mouth, about to tell Charlie to take it easy, which would be stupid. There was nothing easy about this for Charlie. Even under a layer of shaving cream, Don could see that his jaw was clenched, and he had the razor in a death grip. Don could see it shaking as he raised it to his face, and this was crazy, Charlie was going to cut himself to ribbons.
Don leaned in hastily, his right hand catching on the doorframe to keep him from falling on Charlie as he reached to stop Charlie's hand with his left. Charlie flinched from the motion and moved spasmodically, taking a wild swipe at his own face that Don lunged to push aside. He felt the stinging slice across his own thumb at the same instant he saw red well up on Charlie's face, like it was one wound shared between them.
The razor fell from Charlie's fingers, and Don muttered, "Fuck," and pushed past him, grabbing a wad of cheap toilet paper off the roll. Charlie was almost cowering against the sink, frozen, and Don used his left thumb to press the toilet paper to Charlie's jaw, hard enough to be putting pressure on both their cuts simultaneously. His fingers rested against the hot damp skin of Charlie's throat. He could see, in his mind's eye, his blood and Charlie's flowing into either side of the non-barrier of the toilet paper. With a clinical detachment miles away from the baffled terror in Charlie's eyes and the sting of his own broken skin, Don thought he was about two minutes too late now to hope that Charlie hadn't been exposed to anything transmissible by blood contact since he was taken.
He had to look away from Charlie's staring eyes, so he twisted around in the tiny space to grab some more toilet paper, dropping one red-soaked wad in the toilet and replacing it with a clean one.
"Okay," Don said quietly, "okay, so you're right. A rule's a rule."
When he glanced at Charlie's face, bafflement was starting to win out over terror. Don supposed the standard script called for him to be in the process of beating Charlie to death for cutting him at this point, not admitting--however obliquely--that it had been his own fault.
He eased his thumb off the toilet paper, holding the scrap against Charlie's cheek for another minute as he looked at the cut on his own skin. It was a neat straight double line at the tip of his thumb, and the flow of blood had already slowed to seeping. When he peeled the paper away from Charlie's jaw it was the same, two parallel lines just at the edge of his jaw. Don ripped a single square of toilet paper, pressing a bit to Charlie's cut until it stuck there and holding the rest against his thumb with his finger.
Charlie was backed against the sink, and Don reached around him to fish out the razor, switching on the tap to rinse it off, his own hands shaking just a little.
"Okay," he said, in a low, gentle voice like he'd use on anybody traumatized almost beyond the ability to process speech, trying to steady them both. "So if you can't hold a razor without having your hands cuffed, then you just won't hold it, all right? Chin up."
Charlie's eyes widened and then closed, but he obediently tilted his chin up. Don left the water running, so that there'd be some sound in the tiny space other than the two of them breathing. He set the fingers of his left hand against Charlie's jaw, holding him still.
Charlie flinched at the first touch of the razor, his eyes squeezing tightly shut. Don wondered if the others had done this to him, if they'd been rough and cut him up enough to make being handcuffed--or going three days without a shower to avoid the whole issue--seem like the better choice. Don had to go slowly to keep from cutting Charlie; he kept making small moves, like he was trying to drop his chin and then remembered that he was supposed to keep it up. They were nearly chest to chest, and Don could feel the speed of Charlie's breathing.
He tried to tune out Charlie's fear and focus on just one thing: the cowlick on Charlie's cheek, identical to the one on his own that he'd spent his later teenaged years figuring out how to shave properly. By the time he was in college he could do it in two practiced flicks, and by now it was muscle memory, automatic, but of course to get Charlie's he had to do it backward. He might as well have been working left-handed, leaning in so close he could feel Charlie's breath on his cheek. When he was done he reached behind Charlie to rinse the razor, shifting back and looking at Charlie's face, pale above the shaving cream, naked and pink where Don had already shaved. He still had his eyes closed, the lashes dark against his skin. He looked like he hadn't seen the sun since he'd been taken. He probably hadn't.
"So it probably feels like I'm about to cut your throat, huh?"
Charlie's eyes flashed open as Don tapped the wet razor against the sink, startled and as confused as ever. Don smiled, and it was almost automatic, almost easy. It was Charlie, after all. He was here with Charlie.
"You can say yes. I mean, that's what I'd be thinking."
"Y-yeah," Charlie whispered, nodding fractionally.
Don nodded back. "Well, you should know, in this position, with your chin up, your trachea actually gives some protection to the major vessels in your neck."
He touched his knuckles to Charlie's Adam's apple, and it shifted as Charlie swallowed under the touch.
"If I was going to cut your throat, I'd push your head down, like this." He slid his left hand into Charlie's wet hair and pushed gently down, until he was looking at the crown of Charlie's head, pressed a knuckle lightly against Charlie's throat.
"See, the veins are exposed, that way." He tugged gently and Charlie's head tilted back instantly, chin up as far as it would go, his cheeks bright pink all over now. Don nodded. "That's it. Chin up, safe as kittens."
Charlie gave him a quick flash of smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, but he didn't mutter Pompous ass, and roll his eyes, the way Charlie always did when Don mentioned kittens and safety. Don lowered his eyes to Charlie's chin and got on with shaving him. Charlie's lips were parted now, and his eyelashes kept fluttering, like he was peeking at Don and then shutting his eyes again. Don kept his eyes on his work, letting Charlie settle down on his own.
The last part was tricky, working around the cut and the toilet paper stuck to it, and then Don was done, taking a half-step away. He stood to the side of the sink, rinsing the razor and watching from the corner of his eye as Charlie ran an exploratory hand over his smooth cheeks. Don tucked the razor back into his pocket along with Charlie's toothbrush, both of them headed for his own shaving kit, and then raised his left hand, peeling back the toilet paper adhered to his thumb. It stung a little, but the blood had started to dry along the cuts in two neat dark-red lines. He stood there, flexing his thumb cautiously, and then heard the minute sound of Charlie peeling the paper off his face.
Don looked up, mouth pointlessly open to tell Charlie not to do that--too late, for one thing, and not like he really needed to keep yelling at Charlie, for another--but Charlie's cuts were clotting too, just a dark double line along his jawbone. Charlie leaned toward the mirror, peering at himself, and then, without moving his head, looked up at Don. For once, for a moment, there was something not at all scared in his eyes. Don smiled and raised his left hand to Charlie's face, turning the cut on his thumb toward the mirror and looking at their reflections.
Charlie pushed his cheek slightly against Don's hand, and Don said, "How do you like that? We match."
He would have said more, but the words died in his mouth as he met Charlie's eyes in the mirror, looking at the two of them side by side. They were so close, so alike, and Charlie had to see it. He had to know. Don could swear there was something in Charlie's eyes and he just waited for Charlie to say we always did, could almost hear the words. It would be all right, they would keep the secret somehow, they would make their move so fast it wouldn't matter--
Charlie cleared his throat and said with an audibly brave effort at flippancy, "So what does that make us, then? Blood brothers?"
Don blinked, controlling his expression, clamping down on the urge to grab Charlie, to make him see it. He looked away from Charlie's guileless eyes, taking his hand away from Charlie's face so Charlie wouldn't see it curl into a fist.
"Yeah," he said, picking up the shaving cream and turning to the door. "Something like that."
c knew he'd said the wrong thing, though he couldn't quite work out what the right thing would have been, or in exactly what way his answer had been wrong. Perhaps he'd assumed too much closeness between them--but that was hardly fair, when Don had implied the equivalence first. Don didn't seem to be actually angry at him, though he'd spent all the hours since c's faux pas sitting near the door on his bedroll, staring at a comic book. He'd only moved once, when someone pounded on the door, and c had been startled, but little more; Don had kept between him and the door, and it had turned out to be lunch. c had gotten quickly back to work, but he'd heard Don walk up behind him, and Don said softly, "It's twelve-thirty now, c. Don't forget to stop and eat."
c had nodded without taking his eyes off the board, and a while later he'd even remembered to stop and eat between iterations of his calculations. Every time he'd looked over at Don, Don was still looking intently at the same comic book. He didn't seem like the sort of person c would imagine having difficulty reading--he'd said he'd passed physics, after all--but he wasn't turning pages very often. c never caught Don looking at him.
Having an idea of the passage of time was disquieting in some respects; he suddenly had an idea of how long his calculations were taking, and with it, a nagging sense that he ought to be going faster, getting more done. When he heard the bar lift, his heart started to speed up, but he didn't approach true panic until Don murmured, "Quarter after six, c," at the scrape of the lock.
He focused on his current calculation, working furiously, as Don left and Williamson came to stand in his peripheral vision. He didn't stop until he had the figures, and turned and scribbled them down before he finally faced Williamson. Williamson was staring at him--at his face, he realized a little belatedly. Because he'd shaved. He felt himself flushing, his stomach lurching as he realized that Williamson would ask him about it. But Williamson looked away, at the papers on the table, and said, "How are the calculations coming?"
He cleared his throat and said, "Pretty well. I should be finished with this run soon." He picked up his results sheet, and Williamson took it from him, looking over the numbers with a practiced gaze--he didn't know the first thing about applied mathematics, but he knew how to read the results after all this time. c didn't know how much time. He wondered if Don--if Mac--could tell him, and then thought that Mac probably shouldn't. There was probably a rule.
"I don't see a ninety-percent success sequence here," Williamson said finally.
He nodded, not allowing himself to be frustrated with Williamson for stating the obvious. He just stated the obvious right back. "That's why I didn't tell you I had one, because I'm not finished yet. This is a very complex--"
"You hadn't shaved yet when you left the bathroom," Williamson said, without looking up from the page, and he flinched. He'd known this was coming, he shouldn't fall for such simple fakes, but he always did. He always wanted to, because even a second spent not anticipating the blow was better.
"That's true," he said, because it was and there was no point denying it. "Mac wanted me to do it down here. Actually, he did it. My hands were shaking."
So far so good, every word true. Williamson finally looked up from the page and then grabbed his chin, turning it to show the cut on his jaw. It throbbed, now that he was thinking of it, though he'd managed to forget it was there for most of the day.
"Uh-huh," Williamson said, and he should have sounded skeptical, or amused, or something, but there was nothing there to work with, nothing to analyze. He kept very still, and Williamson's hand forced his chin up to an uncomfortable angle. Chin up, safe as kittens, he thought, but he wasn't reassured at all.
"He handcuff you? I know he brought the cuffs down here."
His eyes darted involuntarily to where the paper bag had been, but Don--Mac--must have taken it with him when he left. Williamson's hand tightened, pressing against his airway, so that his whispered, "No," sounded strangled and desperate.
Williamson let go all at once, folding his arms, giving him a silently displeased look. His elbow throbbed and his fingers ached, he was sweating and freezing, and he knew he would crawl on his knees and beg for mercy if Williamson wanted him to.
He whispered, "I tried to tell him--"
"What makes you think you should be telling him anything, Know-Nothing?"
He flinched and stayed silent, and Williamson moved close to him, close enough that he could feel Williamson's body heat. It just made him feel colder. When Williamson's hand fell hot and heavy on his shoulder, he shivered. Williamson's grip tightened to the edge of pain.
"Mac doesn't take orders from you, Know-Nothing, he takes orders from me."
He nodded quickly, but it was too late. One small error at any step and the whole progression went inescapably awry. Williamson's hand moved to his face, stroking across the naked skin of his cheek, and his stomach turned, wondering if this would be the time that Williamson finally did all those things he'd whispered and hinted at before--but it was worse than that, of course, Williamson always found a way to make it worse than he expected. This time Williamson leaned in, the breath of his words hot and damp on his face, and said, "He'll do anything to you that I tell him to, Know-Nothing. Any old thing."
Williamson's fingers traced across his mouth and he had to shut his eyes tight, gritting his teeth against the useless urge to scream, his gorge rising.
Some voice of rebellion was crying He wouldn't, Don wouldn't, but Mac would, if Williamson ordered it, and he knew that. His eyes prickled at the thought, and Williamson's finger dragged his lower lip down. Williamson said softly, "He's got those handcuffs, after all, but..."
The silence was terrible, breathing Williamson's breath on every inhalation, and finally he opened his eyes, looking up at Williamson looking down at him as though he were just another page of unsatisfactory results.
"But maybe he wouldn't need them," Williamson said, one eyebrow quirking up so briefly he couldn't swear he'd seen it at all. "Maybe you'd like that, huh, Know-Nothing? Maybe you're just waiting for me to order Mac to fuck your sweet genius ass."
And he knew--the way he knew some things, and he didn't want to know how he knew this one--what this was, that the implication of receptive homosexuality was the implication of un-masculinity was the implication of un-humanity, but knowing why didn't lessen the power of it. Williamson's words still made him feel small and naked and powerless all the same. His stomach roiled and his cheeks burned with shame because maybe it was true, maybe he would like it--
"And maybe you'd better eat your dinner before you get back to work," Williamson said abruptly, his voice back at a normal volume, his hand dropping away.
He hadn't even noticed that Williamson brought in food, but when he looked there was a plate of spaghetti and a plastic cup of water. The spaghetti was half-cold, and the smell turned his already-unsettled stomach. He could barely hold food in his mouth to chew it. The very feeling of it was revolting, and Williamson watched every move he made. He ate anyway, because he had to, and the food sat like lead in his stomach while he worked under Williamson's eyes, as fast as he could without making mistakes. He felt colder after he ate, and tired, his brain going slow and foggy on him and his handwriting wandering across the board--adrenaline-crash and digestion made a poor combination for brain and fine-motor function.
He nearly dropped the chalk when he heard Williamson switch on his radio and say, "Mac, time's up. Let's go." He forced himself to keep working, not to respond as the bar lifted and the lock opened and then the door--but Williamson hurried out, and Mac didn't come in. The door shut again, and once he was alone in the room c let himself go still, waiting to see who would come in, and with what orders.
Don had taken the precaution of sitting at the top of the stairs this time, so when Williamson called for him he walked down, slow and silent on the first few steps, and then loud and quick at the end. When he opened the door he stood back a little to let Williamson out, but Williamson caught him by the right arm and pushed him back toward the foot of the stairs, pulling the door shut behind him.
Don opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on--he couldn't let himself think This is it, couldn't look guilty, but oh God, what if--but Williamson said, "Shh."
Williamson didn't let go of his arm, didn't move away from him, and he was facing Don but seemed to be looking past him, through him. This wasn't about Don, though he didn't know what the hell it was about. Williamson was holding Don's right arm with his left hand, which meant there was no way Don could draw his gun without telegraphing the move to Williamson, no way he could draw faster than Williamson could. A bare-handed kill wouldn't be as fast as he needed, and only quiet if Williamson didn't fight back competently and viciously, which he would.
Perhaps three minutes had passed--way too much time with Williamson touching him, both of them silent, as close as he'd been to Charlie that morning over a razor--when Williamson abruptly pushed him toward the door.
"Go on."
Don nodded obediently, glad to get away, and let himself back in.
His guard came inside, and outside the door the bar was lowered and the lock turned, and then Don said, "Hey, c. It's seven-twenty now."
c looked at him, searching for some sign of what Williamson had ordered him to do--what he might want, whether it would hurt, and how much--but his half-smile was as disarmingly kind-looking as ever. c suddenly wondered what that smile hid, whether Don had always had his orders, what it was he hungered for when he looked at c.
Don turned away and c went back to his work. When he went to the table to write down his next set of figures, his sweater was there, clean and nearly dry, still warm and smelling like dryer sheets. He didn't dare look toward where Don was sitting on his bedroll, staring fixedly at his comic book, but he picked up the sweater and pressed it against his face for a moment before he put it on, and the dampness of his eyes faded into the dampness of the freshly-washed garment. c tried to analyze the gesture--surely such a kindness was meant to keep him off-balance, or was somehow pragmatically motivated--but it was hard to see beyond the fact that it was kind.
He struggled quickly into the sweater, tugging the sleeves down over his chilled hands and hugging himself in it just for a moment. If he didn't think too much about any of this, if he got back to his work immediately, he could have that much time not waiting for whatever would come next. If this was a fake, c wanted to fall for it. The blow always hurt less if you weren't anticipating it.
He got to work again, pushing himself faster and faster. He could find the .90 success probability by tomorrow, if he didn't sleep too much. It was so close, he just had to balance the factors--he could see it in his mind's eye, the perfect line he was pushing toward. He could also see the computer screen displaying the program that would find it for him before he could drink a cup of coffee.
No point thinking about that now. He went on to the next calculation, and the next after that. The sweater cooled before it dried, leaving him clammy and chilly as he worked, but he tuned out the discomfort, tucking his left hand inside his sweater for warmth, the right curling into the usual fist. It was hard to make the transition from chalk to pencil when he had to record his results, but he managed, one set after another after another, until he was halfway through a calculation and felt the warning twinge in his right hand. He tried to write faster, even knowing it was futile, as if he could outrace the errant impulses of his own muscles.
His hand twitched and then seized entirely, the chalk slipping from his grip to break on the floor. He jerked at the sound, looking over at Don, who was, naturally, looking back at him with a small frown. c went cold inside--he was being too slow--now, it would be now--and crouched, awkwardly withdrawing his left hand from his sweater and trying to flex the crabbed and useless right, rewarded only with a shock of pain from wrist to elbow as the muscles of his forearm cramped as well. He heard Don's heavy, quick footsteps approaching, saw Don's boots, and then Don grabbed him, hauling him to his feet by the arms. c couldn't quite choke back a sound, something like a whimper.
Don frowned harder and pushed him up against the cold rough wall--not against his chalkboard, at least, so he wouldn't lose the calculations.
"Let me see your hand," Don said.
c shook his head wildly, though he knew better than to actually struggle. "I can--I'll get back to work, just let me--" He shouldn't be arguing either, and Don was still frowning.
"Just let me look--"
His hand closed around c's right wrist, hot and strong, and there was no point, but c jerked back against his grip anyway, and succeeded only in smacking his elbow against the wall.
"Stop it, c," Don snapped, and then, "I'm not going to hurt you."
c froze, staring at Don, resistance forgotten in the face of that patently absurd and oddly sincere-sounding statement. Don seemed aware of what he'd said, meeting c's eyes with a grimace, and c cleared his throat and said in a small voice, "It's nothing, really. I'll get back to work."
"Yeah, you will, in a second," Don murmured, looking down at c's hand.
Don held it between both of his, so warm that c almost didn't care what came next. Don peeled c's frozen fingers back, gently but firmly, and drove a thumb into the cramped muscle of his palm. c gasped, shuddering, and the hard touch shot through his body, easing him everywhere and gathering as heat, low in his belly. He leaned heavily against the wall, watching Don's fingers work warm and strong over his hand, and when Don looked up and grinned at him, dark eyes bright, c could only smile dazedly back.
Don's hands moved ceaselessly over c's hand, raising friction heat on his sweaty skin, pressing hard into the muscles at the heel of his hand and squeezing his fingers. It hurt, but the pain was a relief compared to the dull ache of the freeze, and Don's touch was making his heart beat faster in an almost entirely unfamiliar way. Don leaned close to him, his body heat a welcome contrast to the chill of the wall at c's back. He smelled freshly washed, the crisp smell of his soap and shampoo distinct from any c could remember noticing on anyone else before. He shifted his weight against the wall, feeling the warmth in his belly shift lower and hotter, suddenly glad for all different reasons that he was wearing his baggy sweater again. He glanced at Don's face and saw Don still smiling, and it dawned on him that Don actually liked making him feel better.
It was such a startling realization that it cooled him a little--which was good, he realized, with a faint thrill of fear that drowned quickly in the continuing sensation of Don's hands on his, because he had no way of knowing how Don would respond to him responding like that. Still: Don liked to make him feel better. It wasn't, precisely, that everyone else he knew was a sadist. Williamson, for instance, seemed much too utilitarian for that; and several of the others didn't seem to get any unusually intense joy out of hurting him. But sheerly as a matter of efficiency, entertaining oneself by making someone else more miserable was far more effective than the reverse: exploiting entropy rather than defying it. He'd been shown the odd spasm of mercy by the others now and then, but Don seemed to actually like to make him happy, and now that c saw it he didn't know how he hadn't seen it before.
He also didn't know how it fit with Williamson's plans for him, and that was almost troubling enough to seriously distract him from Don's hands. Don let go just then, but stayed standing there, close to c, keeping him effectively pinned against the wall, watching his face. Don was smiling less broadly now, but still smiling, his eyes still warm, and c didn't want to think about how Williamson might be using Don's kind tendencies against him. He cleared his throat instead and said, "Your hands are warm."
It was a stupid, obvious thing to say, but Don just grinned at him and replied, "Yeah, well, yours are fucking freezing. No wonder you drop your chalk."
c stared at him for another minute as Don still didn't move away, and then, cautiously, he offered his left hand. Don smiled and took it between his, and c leaned his head back against the cold rough surface of the wall. For a few more minutes, he wouldn't think about anything.
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