Don sat against the wall with a comic book in his hands, watching Charlie work. He was getting better at not getting caught staring--he had nothing but time to cultivate the skill--and it was kind of a satisfying sight, for two days' work. He'd take victories where he could get them for now. Charlie's clothes were clean, and he was working fast and easy, like he used to, no anxiety visible in the line of his shoulders. Don had shaved him again that morning, and taken the opportunity to make sure both their cuts were healing well. They still matched, both scabbed over, but Don had avoided looking into the mirror this time.
Last night, touching Charlie really seemed to have helped--he'd smiled at Don like he was actually happy, if only for that second, and that was a big step. Don would hold Charlie's hand any time if that was the way to get through to him, maybe get him thinking of the two of them as a team, a partnership. If Don could just get Charlie thinking in the right direction, Charlie would find a way out for both of them. Charlie'd make a plan--and that had to be what he was doing here, making plans, Don could work out that much from the numbers he wrote down when he finished a calculation. Charlie's plan would be smart, precise, something better than shooting everyone and running to nowhere, and Don would execute it. He'd get Charlie out of here, get him home--
Don jumped when the walkie-talkie in his pocket crackled. He was still watching Charlie, who looked up at him instantly, eyes going wide, his hand dropping to hold the chalk in a slack grip. Don checked his watch and muttered, "10:10, c," squirming as he pulled the radio from his pocket. It crackled again in his hand, and this time Williamson said, "Wake up, Mac."
"Yeah, what is it?" He kept his eyes on Charlie. Charlie was staring back in his direction, his dark blank gaze fixed on Don's hand, holding the radio.
"Put Know-It-All in handcuffs and bring him up to the garage."
Don went utterly still for a few seconds, instinctive rage rushing through him. His words caught in his throat just long enough for Charlie to shake his head once--a minute, desperate motion--as Don's thumb jabbed the talk button. He shut his mouth so hard his teeth clacked, slid his thumb away and squeezed the radio until his finger joints hurt.
"What?" he whispered furiously, "What, you just--"
"He's the boss," Charlie said, in a small, hoarse voice, and Don bit down everything else he wanted to say. He couldn't blow it now, and Charlie should not have had to remind him of that. Williamson had made his point before, and he could make it again: Williamson controlled the door. He controlled the guys with guns. He controlled Don and Charlie both. Don might be able to refrain from hurting Charlie himself, but he was powerless to stop Williamson from doing it. Don had to be patient. He had to be still. He had to wait until he had a plan.
Charlie was just standing there, waiting for Don to do something, and Don realized that the best he could do now was to spare Charlie the suspense. He got up and went to his duffle, digging into the pocket where he'd stashed the cuffs. There hadn't been a key for them, but if it came to that he could pick them. That would be something to worry about later, on the other side of whatever he was taking Charlie to in the garage.
He went to Charlie and took hold of his right wrist, skinnier than it should be, the bump of bone prominent and the skin so pale Don could see every vein under the faint shine of sweat. He pushed up the sleeve of Charlie's sweater, flipping the first cuff open, and Charlie whispered, "Behind."
Don froze.
"Behind my back," Charlie elaborated, his voice a little steadier but no louder.
He turned to face away without pulling his wrist from Don's grip. Don stared at the back of Charlie's neck, skin bare and unshielded by the familiar fall of curls. He could see the short hairs standing up over Charlie's spine, the fine shiver running through him. Cold, Charlie always seemed to be cold...
Don cleared his throat, forcing himself to think ahead--to think at all--and said, "Do you want to take your sweater off?"
Charlie's arm twitched in Don's grip, but he nodded, seeming to understand--if he took it off now, he could put it back on after, dry and clean--and Don let go of him. He stood with the cuffs in his hands and watched as Charlie shucked off the sweater, folded it neatly, and set it down on the table on top of his notes.
Charlie placed both hands behind his back, palms up, fingers curled, and Don nodded to himself. He had to do this. He'd cuffed lots of people he didn't want to, this was just one more. He'd done this a million times, snapped on the cuffs and rattled off their rights--and then the cuffs were clicking shut on Charlie's wrists and Don wasn't saying a word. Charlie didn't seem to have a right to anything Don could think of, not in this tiny jurisdiction. Don took his hands from the warmth and cold of Charlie's wrists and the cuffs, closing one fist in the back of Charlie's shirt, his knuckles pressing into the small of Charlie's back. He tugged, and Charlie turned and walked beside him to the door, where they both stopped, wondering.
Don reached out and turned the knob, and when he pushed, the door opened. His heart started to race, and Charlie said very softly at his side, "It won't ever be open any other time you try it. You can drive yourself crazy checking."
Don glanced sideways at him--how many kinds of crazy had Charlie been driven, in a hundred and thirty days?--and then propelled him through the door, following a half step behind. There was no one else in the basement, no one on the stairs, no one in the kitchen. Don opened the door to the garage and found it entirely sealed to light from the outside, lit by two bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Williamson was standing there alone, and there was a sturdy-looking wooden chair set in the exact center of the floor, over the drain, facing the back of the garage.
Don guided Charlie down the two steps to the cement floor and said, "As ordered."
Williamson nodded shallowly, looking them both over with a minimal sort of approval, and then came and grabbed Charlie by the arm--by his left elbow, the one Charlie seemed to hold when he was cold or nervous. Charlie flinched at the touch, and Williamson smiled a little. Don unlocked his fingers from Charlie's shirt with an effort and remained standing where he was as Williamson led Charlie over to the chair, guiding his hands over the back. Charlie squirmed a little in the seat, rolling his shoulders to get his elbows into a less uncomfortable position against the edges of the chair back. Don got the feeling Charlie had been there before.
Don couldn't resist glancing toward the outside door. It was just him and Williamson in the garage with Charlie. He could shoot Williamson, grab Charlie...
And probably get shot himself by Jimmy or one or all of the others, waiting outside the door, or attracted by the sound of the gunshot. Assuming he got a kill on the first shot, assuming Williamson didn't draw when Don did and shoot him or Charlie, assuming all kinds of things he couldn't assume, not with Charlie's life on the line. Don forced himself to be still, to wait.
Williamson drew the Beretta from his hip and Don tensed, folding his arms and pressing the back of his hand against his holstered weapon, but Williamson didn't take aim. He drew his hand back and smashed the gun across Charlie's face in one quick, economical motion.
Don flinched at the blow. His fist clenched, knuckles hard against his holster. He'd never wanted so badly to kill someone, or to hurt them in the process. Williamson had struck Charlie near his left eye, opening up a cut just beside his eyebrow that immediately poured blood down his face. Charlie kept his head down, panting, but didn't make a sound as the blood ran forward across his cheek and down the line of his jaw. Don stood his ground.
Williamson turned the gun, glancing at the barrel and wiping it on his sleeve. Without looking up, he said, "Mac, I brought you up here to clarify the chain of command."
Don's stomach rolled, and he understood, instantly and sickeningly. Charlie had told him, "It's a rule." And like an idiot, he'd thought he could get away with doing what he liked, as if no one would know. As if it were true that no one was watching them just because Don couldn't see them watching. They had so much to lose--Charlie had so much to lose--and Don had risked it for nothing. Williamson pressed the barrel of his gun against Charlie's bare cheek, and Charlie flinched and then froze again. Williamson dragged it down his throat, then punched Charlie hard in the chest with the hand holding the gun. Don could see that the blow struck at just the right angle to slam Charlie's shoulder blades against the top of the chair back. Charlie gasped, his head snapping up, and Williamson had already sidestepped, so the fine spray of blood off Charlie's face missed him entirely.
Don kept his face as expressionless as he could, watching. Mac would be disgusted, he thought. Anyone would be disgusted, watching a defenseless man bound and beaten. But Mac would know he had to stand and take this. Mac was getting increasingly clear on the fact that this job wasn't going to end much better for him than for the genius.
"I'm the boss," Williamson said. "Know-Nothing here is my prisoner, who I have hired you to guard. There are procedures. You weren't thoroughly briefed, but I thought you might be smart enough to pick things up as you went along."
Williamson moved around to the near side of Charlie, so that he had his back to Don, blocking his view. His hand snapped out, holding the gun, down toward Charlie's arm, and for an instant, when Charlie screamed, Don thought Williamson had shot him. But there was no blood, and no bang. A radial nerve strike, most likely; Don had experienced that in hand-to-hand training, and it hurt badly enough when it was your opponent's fingers. The barrel of a gun would be worse. He wondered, again, where Williamson had been trained. He was disturbingly good at what he did.
Charlie's scream was short, subsiding into gasps as Williamson stepped aside. Blood covered the entire half of Charlie's face that Don could see, running over the corner of his mouth, dripping from his chin. He was twisting to his left, trying to curl around his injured arm. Williamson walked around behind him and Don could see Charlie cringing away to the limits of his ability to move, the cuffs biting into his bare wrists and his elbows twisted against the back of the chair.
Somewhere inside, Don was drawing his gun, shooting Williamson in the face and damn the consequences--anything it took to be kneeling next to Charlie, getting him free, getting him away. But there in the garage, under Williamson's eyes, he was standing very still, arms crossed, every muscle tensed, watching. Waiting.
Williamson came around Charlie's right side, holding his right hand out--there was no way Don could draw his gun faster than Williamson could bring his to bear--and then made another lightning move, punching with his left hand this time, down at Charlie's back. Charlie didn't scream this time; Don could hear his breath escape him, and the ragged sound of his inhalation. He was trying to curl forward and to his right as Williamson moved in front of him again. A kidney punch, awkward with the seat back in the way--except that Charlie had already been cringing forward and to his left, exposing his back.
Williamson took a step away from Charlie then, and something shifted in his body language, the violence suddenly going latent. Don took an involuntary step forward, drawn toward Charlie, already thinking ahead to what he could do in the way of first aid. Williamson took another few steps away and then smiled and said, "There we go, Mac. Your turn."
Don stopped where he was--conspicuously out of his observer's position near the door, still a few feet short of Charlie--and met Williamson's eyes for the first time since he'd walked into the garage. But there was no mistaking this, and no escape; even as Williamson tilted his head, Don was walking forward to stand in front of Charlie, his hands in fists at his sides, well away from his gun. Before Williamson said anything, Don kicked Charlie in the shin--careful, controlled, not as hard as it probably looked, but he had to get Charlie's attention, and he couldn't risk a gentler touch.
Charlie didn't raise his head, but he looked up at Don. Both his eyes were wet, the left one rimmed with blood, but Charlie--c--Don's brother--was right there, scared and in pain, but not broken, not hiding, not yet pushed beyond his ability to endure. He blinked up at Don, head still bowed, gaze steady. He was waiting too.
Don tore his eyes away to glance at Williamson, raising his eyebrows. Awaiting orders. Williamson seemed to perceive that Don wasn't going to do anything--beyond that first kick--that he wasn't ordered to. He seemed amused.
"Hit him, Mac."
Don didn't hesitate, just turned his eyes back down to Charlie's and struck fast and hard to Charlie's left arm, right below the shoulder. If Charlie was still hurting from the nerve strike, it might disrupt the sensation; if not--well, you couldn't do much harm there. Charlie shut his eyes on the impact, his whole face screwing up and a grunt of pain escaping him, and Don's stomach lurched. It had felt good. Even though it was Charlie, even though it was terrible, sickening, still--he was finally able to hit something. Charlie's eyes flicked up to his again, and Don gritted his teeth against the fierce physical pleasure of action as he held Charlie's gaze.
Williamson spoke before Don looked up for instruction. "In the stomach this time."
Don nodded slightly at that--order received--and telegraphed the blow every inch of the way, until his fist struck Charlie in the belly, just below the ribcage. It was an awkward angle, and though he threw a hard punch--so satisfying, so exactly what his arm and fist and body wanted--it wouldn't be enough to do serious damage. That Houdini thing was a myth. Charlie shut his eyes again, and his breathing hitched badly but continued.
Don glanced up at Williamson while he listened to Charlie's hollow gasps--he had done that, he had hit Charlie hard enough to disrupt his breathing, and he could hardly breathe himself, couldn't let himself think. Williamson jerked his chin toward Charlie.
"Face. I want to see fresh blood."
He'd have to strike on the clean side of Charlie's face to be sure; he had a feeling Williamson would require do-overs if he turned in a substandard performance. He tilted his head, as if choosing his options, delaying until Charlie's eyes were on his, and then he went perfectly still. The instant he saw Charlie freeze in automatic mirror, he punched him neatly in the nose, at just the right angle to bloody it without danger of breaking it. A fresh gush of bright blood ran down over Charlie's mouth, and Charlie winced and then tilted his head back, showing his throat to Don and breathing open-mouthed. Don shook his hand out, knuckles throbbing, forcing himself to breathe.
Williamson said, "Kick him," and when Don looked up, he added, "Not in the shins."
Don looked back at Charlie. He had his eyes nearly shut, but he was still watching Don. Don didn't have a hell of a lot of time to plan, but he thought he could trust Charlie to hold still, and as long as Charlie held still--
He turned and lashed out with a kick to Charlie's midsection full force, leaving nothing for Williamson to complain about. The heel of his boot connected precisely with the point of Charlie's left hipbone, absorbing most of the force of the blow. It'd hurt like fuck to walk for a little while, but he wasn't going to break Charlie's hip with a kick, and he almost certainly wouldn't do any organ damage as the rest of his foot hit Charlie's belly. He'd tried to angle downward to keep from tipping Charlie and the chair--Charlie would hit his head and elbows and hands on the cement if he went over backward, and Don didn't want to think about how ugly that could get--but the blow folded Charlie forward to the limit of his cuffed wrists. Don waited an instant too long to jerk his foot away, and Charlie coughed and then gagged.
He felt the weight of it first and then the heat and the wetness. His sudden flinch backward was only half what he thought Mac's reaction ought to be and half real horror as he stumbled back and saw Charlie's blood dark on his jeans from calf to ankle.
It occurred to Don, as he stared at the top of Charlie's head, that the blood had to be from Charlie's nose; with his head tipped back, it would have been running down his throat until he coughed it up. It was still fucking scary, washing away every other thing he'd felt since he'd first hit Charlie in a cold gush, and Don didn't bother to wipe that entirely off his face as he looked up at Williamson.
Williamson was studying Charlie, looking slightly annoyed. "Do you know how to apply a stranglehold? Properly?"
Don gritted his teeth and pushed down that burst of fear, because he had to do it, and it would almost certainly mean bringing this to an end, and he could do it right. When Williamson looked up, Don nodded, and stepped in close to Charlie, shoving him up against the back of the chair. Charlie looked up at him, his face a mask of blood and tears and sweat. Don wiped his hands on his pants and then put them around Charlie's throat, tilting his head back--chin up, safe as kittens, right? Unless it was the trachea you were aiming for.
Charlie didn't resist. Charlie looked up at him with something dangerously close to trust, and Don gritted his teeth and clamped down on fear and anger and everything. He couldn't look away from Charlie's eyes, and Charlie didn't need to see that. Don stepped in closer so he'd have proper control, straddling Charlie as he sat in the chair, and then he shifted his grip and started applying pressure.
Charlie looked startled at first, his eyes going wide and then blinking rapidly. His mouth worked instinctively, like he couldn't quite believe this was really happening, that there wasn't air to be had. So close, Don could hear the tiny sounds of Charlie's mouth working, reaching for air he couldn't inhale. His eyes slid shut as his tongue pushed out, and all at once Charlie started to fight, straining up against Don, jerking in erratic, uncontrolled motions.
Don tightened his grip, slippery as it was with sweat and blood, and kept his fingers wrapped firmly around the back of Charlie's neck so he couldn't whack it on anything as he bucked. Charlie brought up a knee that hit Don hard in the thigh, and Don winced and shifted, nearly sitting on Charlie to keep him down, holding his grip as Charlie's lips turned blue and the temptation to let up--let him get just a little air--became nearly irresistible. But if he did that he'd have to start over, and it was nearly over now--Charlie's frantic struggles were weakening, and then he went abruptly still. Don let up immediately, keeping his hands on Charlie's neck just long enough to tilt his head all the way back, opening the airway for that first rattling breath, brushing a thumb across the still frantically beating pulse in his neck.
"I didn't tell you to stop."
Don jumped, straightening up and stepping away from Charlie all at once, badly startled. He shouldn't have been able to forget Williamson was there.
Don wiped a hand across his forehead and said, "You didn't tell me to kill him, either."
He knew as soon as he'd said it what the reply would be, and reran the possibilities in his head--shoot Williamson in the face, now or never, grab Charlie, dead weight and injured God knew how badly...
Williamson, expressionless, said, "Kill him," and Don had faced down guns in his face but he had never felt like he was in this much danger. He could hear his own heart pounding in his ears, and he knew what he had to do.
Don folded his arms, mustered up a standard-issue glare of annoyance, and said, "No," in a steady, sturdy voice without hesitating for more than a second.
Williamson raised an eyebrow, but he didn't pull his Beretta and shoot Don in the face. This had to be the right track: if he'd been wrong he'd be dead already. The room was silent except for the low, wet rasp of Charlie's breathing.
"I'm not going to kill him," Don elaborated, glancing at Charlie--still breathing--and then back at Williamson. "It's not the kind of work I do. You're definitely not paying me enough for it, especially considering I haven't seen a dime yet. And anyway, you don't want me to kill him."
There was a flicker of expression on Williamson's face at that, there and gone, and Don smiled, hoping it didn't look as queasy and desperate as it felt.
"He's a hell of a lot more valuable to you than I am, I know that much. You just want to see what I'll do if you tell me to kill him, and there's your answer: I'll tell you to fuck off. So now you know."
Williamson smiled back, shaking his head, for all the world as if Charlie weren't lying there with maybe a bruised larynx, maybe a damaged kidney, maybe choking on his own blood any second now. As if he wouldn't have killed Don if he'd failed that test--but he'd brought Don up here to clarify the chain of command in more senses than one. It could be him in the chair next time, just as easily, with Williamson's hands around his neck. He didn't think Williamson would see any reason to let up before Don was dead.
"Smart," Williamson said, because Williamson could see Don had gotten the message. "I do love having the smart ones around."
He holstered his gun and pulled out a small key, and when he tossed it Don caught it with a quick, steady hand and went straight around to kneel behind Charlie. Don closed his eyes for just a second, while his face was hidden from Williamson, but there was no time for more than that. Charlie was hurt. He'd hurt Charlie, he had no idea how badly. He had to take care of Charlie.
Don had to try three times to get the key into the lock, and then make a quick grab to keep Charlie from falling off the chair. He got one arm around Charlie's back and the other under his knees, lifting Charlie against his chest as he stood. The handcuffs were still dangling from Charlie's left wrist and the key was safe in Don's pocket. Williamson was smiling as Don straightened up, but he went to the door and opened it for him, leading the way inside and down to the basement.
At the bottom of the stairs, Williamson turned back, blocking the door into Charlie's room, and waved Don toward the other side.
"Get those clothes off of both of you. Easier to wash them before the blood dries."
Don stared blankly for a second, and then looked down. He could feel the blood cooling on the leg of his jeans, and his shirt was smeared with blood where Charlie's head rested against his shoulder. Charlie's t-shirt was streaked and spattered with blood, and his pants were wet in spots.
"Before it dries, Mac," Williamson said, and Don lifted his head and bared his teeth in something like a smile.
He laid Charlie carefully on the floor in front of the washing machine, detaching the dangling cuffs from Charlie's left wrist before anything else. There was a red line around Charlie's wrist, already darkening to a bruise against the bone. Don set the cuffs and keys on top of the washing machine along with his walkie-talkie. He wiped his hands on his shirt and then took his holster off, setting it down beside the cuffs, and then crouched awkwardly to take off his boots, staring at the floor, listening to Charlie breathe, pretending Williamson wasn't standing there waiting for him to take his clothes off.
Don shucked off his shirt and jeans quickly, without letting himself think, and stopped there; his shorts and socks were clean. Then it was Charlie's turn, and Don put his back to Williamson, kneeling at Charlie's side and easing his t-shirt up. Charlie was entirely inert, not so much as a flicker under his closed eyelids to suggest he was coming around. The bleeding was slowing, and the blood on his face was congealing, dark and stark against his pale skin. His lips were reassuringly pink under the gore. When Don peeled Charlie's t-shirt off, he could see the bruises already appearing on Charlie's torso: two dark blotches at belly and chest where he'd been punched and a neat outline of half of Don's boot lower down, the heel disappearing under his pants. Don unbuttoned Charlie's jeans and tugged them off, keeping his eyes on his own hands as he did.
He lifted Charlie into his arms again as he stood, and it was the weirdest sensation out of two days of non-stop weirdness: Charlie's skin warm and soft against his, Charlie's cheek heavy against his bare shoulder, the tickle of Charlie's breathing against his chest. The strangest thing about it was the way the contact was reassuring, in a deep-down animal way--every sense told him that Charlie was alive and with him, close and safe as he could be.
Don turned to face Williamson and Williamson jerked his chin toward the open door, stepping past Don to pick up Don's stuff from the washing machine. He laid it all on the floor just inside the door as Don walked toward the cot, shut the door and then locked and barred it just before Don's knees gave out and he sat down hard on top of the messy heap of Charlie's sleeping bag.
Charlie's head lolled back over Don's arm, and Don tried to think of what he had to do next--triage, first aid--though there wasn't a hell of a lot he could do beyond cleaning Charlie up, and he was running full-tilt into an adrenaline hangover. He didn't know if he could even stand up again right this second. He curled forward to lean his forehead against Charlie's, close enough to feel Charlie's breath on his cheek, stinking of blood and bile but still moving, still alive. Don could feel a shaking in his arms and didn't know whether it was himself shivering or Charlie. He could hear his own breath in the space between them, nearly as loud and as hoarse as Charlie's.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, and it had to be safe enough now, when Charlie couldn't hear him, couldn't hear his voice sounding so ragged and small. "Charlie, buddy, please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry."
Everything--no.
A lot of things hurt. c was pretty sure some things didn't hurt: his balls, for one. Or two. His legs didn't really hurt, except maybe a faint throb in one shin, nearly drowned out by everything that hurt more.
His right shoulder was another, and not only did that not hurt but he felt warm there, warm and--
c opened his eyes, and Don's face hovered just above his, frowning. The gaudy smear of blood across his forehead and one cheek was new. The warmth on c's shoulder was Don's left hand resting there, and Don's right hand was holding a warm wet washcloth against c's face.
c blinked a couple of times, and Don said, "Hey, c, you with me?"
There was something cool against the back of c's neck. He looked around without moving and worked out that they were in the bathroom. He was propped up against the toilet, his head tilted back against the rim, and Don was crouching over him, and...
c's eyes slid down from Don's face to his neck to his chest to the soft gray of his jockey shorts, hovering not at all far above c's own boxers, and then his eyelids felt heavy and he let them fall shut.
"c?" Don said softly, and then sighed, and c thought he should open his eyes again, or say something, but his head hurt, and his throat hurt, and a lot of other things hurt. Don was touching his shoulder and his face, gently and warmly, and c didn't really think he needed to say anything at all for a little while. Don would understand.
He heard Don say his name a couple of times, but he was distracted by the slow, steady throb of the pain beside his left eye. He could see it as a wave function if he concentrated, and he was trying to work out how to quantify amplitude and whether he could incorporate color or prickliness when cold water splashed over his face. He opened his eyes--the right further than the left--blinking rapidly and doing his best to glare, though he couldn't, really, because it made his face hurt worse and corrupted the data.
He tried to say, "Hey," instead, but only a thin, painful whisper emerged from his mouth, and he wasn't sure Don would be able to derive any particular meaning from it. Don was still crouching closely over him, having just wrung out the washcloth over his face. Don moved away a little bit--just far enough to stick the cloth under the tap, just far enough for c to realize how much warmer he was with Don so close, all that skin radiating heat. He became a bit distracted by the view--Don's back was broad and bare, and c spotted two scars there before Don twisted around and settled over him again. When the cloth touched his face this time it was warm, and c closed his eyes only long enough for it to pass over them.
When the damp warmth settled over his throat, c swallowed cautiously and tried again to speak.
"That's nice," he whispered, thin and painful but at least intelligible, as he looked up at Don. There was blood on Don's shoulder, as well as on his face. None of it seemed to be Don's, though; Don only looked hurt in his eyes. c wanted to say that he wasn't really badly hurt--this wasn't nearly as bad as the time Williamson had hit him in the head so hard that he woke up vomiting, for instance, or the time he'd had his elbow dislocated and Williamson waited and waited and waited to put it back. But he knew Don wanted to take care of him, he remembered that from... last night? It seemed longer ago than that. And anyway it would be hard to say that much. And a lot of things did hurt.
The worry in Don's eyes seemed to ease a little when c spoke to him, even though it was just two words, and Don said, "You're gonna have a scar here."
He raised a hand next to c's face, not quite touching the spot. "Should've had stitches, but I taped it up and I think it'll hold."
c nodded a little bit, just a slight motion, but it hurt anyway. Don winced when c did, like looking into a mirror.
"I want to check if you've got a concussion, all right?" Don asked. "Just blink twice for yes, if it hurts too much to talk."
c smiled a little bit at that--it didn't hurt to smile--and then blinked twice. Don smiled a little bit back. Just like looking in a mirror.
"This is going to hurt," Don said, and then he put his hand on c's face, dragging his left eye further open, and started shining a light in his eyes. c blinked a lot--yes yes yes no no no yes no yes yes--but Don's hand stayed steady on his face, and the light flashed back and forth from one eye to the other and back before it finally went away. He could feel water running from his eyes, but Don just wiped it away with the cloth.
"Looks okay," Don said. "Your pupils are the same size and reactive to light, that's a good sign. Do you remember what time it was, the last time I told you the time?"
c blinked twice, took a breath, and said, "10:10. Don."
Still just a thready whisper and it hurt like a bastard, but it made Don smile at him, so c figured it was worth it.
"Good," Don said.
He looked down, his fingers tracing over c's other hurts, and c watched at first, Don's fingers running over his skin with all of Don's skin in his peripheral vision, but seeing the touch and feeling it all at once was too much, and he had to close his eyes.
"You're gonna have some nasty bruises," Don said, "But I think you'll live."
c opened his eyes again and blinked twice. Don nodded solemnly and reached for something on the floor by his foot. It turned out to be an orange tablet as big as the tip of Don's thumb. When he held it up he said "I want you to suck on this until it's gone, okay? It's just sugar. Not quite orange juice and a cookie, but it's the best I can do right now."
c blinked at the part about orange juice and a cookie--that almost made sense to him, but he didn't know why--and then hastily blinked again for yes, raising his shaky right hand to take the tablet from Don's fingers. He licked it cautiously before he stuck it in his mouth, but it was sugar, orange-flavored, and his mouth watered painfully at the taste of it. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had anything so sweet. He held it on his tongue, letting it dissolve, watching Don watching him. When the last trace of sugar was gone--and he rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, swallowing hard, to be sure--c licked his lips and then his fingers, and then smiled at Don the best he could and whispered, "Thanks."
The sugar felt warm in his stomach, and he imagined he could feel its diffusion into his bloodstream. He started to feel a little more alert almost instantly--enough to contemplate lifting his head sometime in the foreseeable future, maybe. He glanced down his own body again, letting his fingers trail over his skin as Don's had.
His throat hurt almost as much outside as in, and he remembered fighting uncontrollably against Don's grip, Don's weight pressing him down and down into darkness. Lower down, he could hardly bear to touch the bruise on his chest, half-obscured by hair, but ugly. Both his wrists were ringed in red, and his poor left arm... It wasn't its fault it was non-dominant and he didn't, in the view of his captors, need it quite as much as the right. c cupped his right hand briefly around his left elbow before he continued his exploration down on his stomach.
There was a round bruise from a punch, and below it an oddly neat bootprint from Don's kick, fading toward the toe and stronger further back. It disappeared under the edge of his boxers, and c pushed them down in pursuit of it, to the point where the bruise turned black, where Don's heel had struck his hipbone. Pain radiated from the spot, a deep, slow, serious throb. It was the bone that hurt, he thought, like healing fingers or a well-bashed skull.
Above him, he heard Don hiss with sympathy, and Don's fingers traced lightly over the borders of the bruised skin, just where it didn't hurt. The backs of Don's fingers brushed his hand, still pushing down the waistband of his boxers, and for a moment he just wanted to push further, push them off, and see what else Don would touch so gently, if c bared it.
Then Don's hand lifted away, and c remembered that he wasn't really ready to lift his head yet, let alone try anything more strenuous, so it was probably for the best. Don's hand came back holding one of that morning's coffee mugs, filled now with tap water. c raised his eyes to Don's and blinked twice, as emphatically as he could, parting his lips to be sure of making himself clear. He didn't raise his hand this time, but Don didn't seem to mind holding the mug for him. He set one hand against the back of c's neck and raised the mug to his lips with the other.
c tried not to drink too fast, but Don kept the mug tilted so carefully that he wasn't in any danger of choking. When he'd gotten enough he blinked once, firmly, and Don took the mug away and held up a white tablet, small enough to swallow. Probably. It said 800 on the side facing c.
"This is ibuprofen," Don said. "It should help your pain, but it might hurt your stomach if you take it without eating anything. You can have it later, or you can take it now and if your stomach starts to hurt we can deal with it."
c looked from the tablet back to Don, baffled. He didn't know why Don had 800 milligram ibuprofen--that was a lot, he knew that was a lot, good stuff--but it stood to reason that any dose of it he gave to c was a dose he couldn't use himself later if he needed it. But Don wanted him to feel better--wanted to give him a choice about feeling better, even. c blinked twice and opened his mouth again. He could probably have managed to get the tablet into his mouth, but he didn't raise his hand and Don set it on his tongue quite competently, raising the mug again so he could get another sip of water to wash it down. It didn't work as fast as the sugar, and tasted much worse, but c smiled at Don and whispered, "Mister nice guy."
Don raised his eyebrows, smiling a little but looking almost as surprised by c as c usually was by him, which was only fair.
"Did you miss the part where I did half of this to you?"
c blinked once, slowly, deliberately, as clearly as he knew how. No. He hadn't missed anything: not the way Don had looked him in the eye as he hit him, as he choked him, like c was a person, like it was something the two of them shared and not something Don did to some thing. He hadn't missed the way Don hadn't liked doing it, and hadn't done a thing he wasn't ordered to. He hadn't missed the way Don had let c correct him about the handcuffs this time, when it really mattered. He hadn't missed this, Don cleaning up the mess he'd made of c.
Don still looked baffled. c felt around with his left hand--it hurt to move it, an ache up and down his arm, but he could manage just fine. It wasn't like having his elbow dislocated at all. The cloth Don had been using was there on the floor, though it had gone cool now. c picked it up and transferred it to his right hand, drawing Don's attention. While Don was looking down at his hands, c raised the cloth to Don's face, wiping at the streak of blood on his forehead.
Don looked up under the touch, meeting c's eyes with a searching gaze, but c just blinked twice--yes--and went on scrubbing Don's face clean, and then his shoulder. Don held perfectly still, permitting his efforts. When the last of the blood was gone, c let his arm sag, and Don took the cloth from him and rinsed it again.
"Thanks, c," he said softly, and he ran his hand over c's hair.
c smiled and let his eyelids sag nearly shut. Don moved further away from him, to his left side, and said, "Come on, you don't want to sleep here, do you?"
c opened his eyes again, looking up at him, and no, it wouldn't be a good place to sleep. He was cold, without Don over him. Don slid an arm behind his shoulder and pulled him up to a proper sitting position. c could feel the twinge in his belly, where it would have been much more painful if he'd pulled himself up. His head and his hip throbbed harder once he was upright, and it hurt to put his weight on his left leg. He went a little dizzy, and had to lean his head against Don's shoulder. Maybe he didn't have to lean quite so heavily, or stay put so long, but Don didn't seem to mind.
Don was worried by the way Charlie was leaning on him. There wasn't any sign that he had a concussion, and none of his other injuries seemed critical--though there'd be no telling about the kidney until Charlie took a piss--but he didn't seem able, or willing, to walk on his own from the bathroom to his cot.
Then again, it might just be that he was cold; Don hadn't bothered to get either of them dressed before he started working on Charlie. He'd have liked to get Charlie covered up--as much to hide the darkening bruises as to keep him warm--but the only clothes available were the dirty ones Charlie had taken off that morning before showering. They reached the cot and Don stopped, keeping his arm around Charlie to steady him.
"You want to put your clothes on?"
Charlie looked from the paper bag to the blackboards to his cot, and Don frowned. He didn't want Charlie thinking that he should get back to work--not if he could barely stand up by himself, and he had to be in far too much pain to even think about math right now, though maybe he wanted the distraction. But he'd be cold on his cot without clothes, since he didn't seem to want to actually sleep inside his sleeping bag. Don gestured toward the cot, hoping to distract Charlie from whatever calculation he was performing about how badly he wanted yesterday's sweatpants and socks.
"You know you could zip that up, it would be warmer."
Charlie looked up at him, and Don could see him choosing his words. He cursed himself for not phrasing it as a question that Charlie could answer by blinking. It hurt just listening to the ragged whisper that was all Charlie could get out of his throat. The bruises there were ugly, black and purple, and Don thought he could make out the shape of his own fingers. The sight made him feel sick, but he couldn't look away.
"Panic," Charlie said, and waved his hand in a vague gesture at the cot.
Don thought that over for a second and then nodded. "You panic? You're too confined, right? Can't get away from anything."
Charlie nodded shallowly, and Don glanced back at the cot. Charlie would have to sleep on his right side. It was the opposite of the way he usually slept, and he was bound to try to flip over and fall on the floor or something--God knew he'd fallen out of bed often enough as a kid.
"Okay," Don said, keeping one hand on Charlie's shoulder to steady him and leaning down to grab the sleeping bag off the cot. "I think we can do better than this."
He wrapped the sleeping bag around Charlie (like a cape, and he remembered Charlie, five years old, running through the house on the third day of a cold with his blanket tied around his neck and trailing behind him. Ten minutes later he'd crashed on the couch, cheeks flushed red, curly hair damp with sweat, his blanket just a blanket again) and guided him down to sit on the floor.
Don went to the cot first and tipped it up on its end, watching for a moment to make sure it would stay--but the end was square, the legs flush to the ground, so it ought to be all right. Then he stepped around it to where his stuff was piled, near the door. The sight of his radio and holstered Sig and the handcuffs and key, all piled neatly on the floor, stopped him for a second. He grabbed the handcuffs and key and stuffed them into a pocket of his duffle, laid his holster and the walkie-talkie on top, and picked up his bedroll. He tossed the ground mat down parallel to where the cot had been and practically at Charlie's feet where he was sitting, watching. Don unzipped his sleeping bag and laid it out on top of the mat and all the way to the wall, and then put his pillow at the far end of the side with the mat.
"Okay," he said, "come on and lie down."
Charlie looked up at him, half curious and more grateful than Don could stand to see. Don waved toward the side with the pillow.
"That's for you. I just hope you don't hog the covers."
He went over to his duffle and shrugged his holster onto one shoulder, then opened up the bag. For a second he considered putting some clothes on, but decided not to. He didn't want to if Charlie couldn't. Don picked up a handful of comic books and went back over to the makeshift bed, where Charlie was already lying on his side with the sleeping bag carefully spread out to share. He'd pushed the pillow as much to the middle as he could and only rested his head on the very end. Don stepped over him to lay down on the side nearer the wall, setting his holster and gun down by the wall as he looked up to confirm that the cot screened them somewhat from the door. He lay on his side, propped on his elbow instead of laying down on the pillow, and dropped the comic books between them.
"Here you go," Don said. "All you need is chicken soup and it's a real sick day."
Charlie smiled at him, raised his left hand to his mouth and mimed a cough. Don gave him a little smile and nodded, pushing the comic books closer. Charlie took one, squirming around to hold it so that he could see it without lifting his head, and Don took another and spread it out on the concrete past the edge of the sleeping bags, turning onto his stomach to read with his chin propped on his wrists.
He played games with the comic books when he read them, to make them last longer. He'd glance for just a second at a panel and then shut his eyes and tried to remember every detail he could of what he'd seen, including words in the bubbles. Or he'd close his eyes and imagine it as a movie, trying to improve on the dialogue and figure out how they'd do the special effects. He could make two pages last an hour, if he worked at it, interspersing his games with glimpses of Charlie.
Now he didn't even have to look; there were maybe six inches separating them. He could feel the warmth of Charlie's body alongside his own. Charlie didn't fidget, but he turned pages much more often than Don did. Don had done five rounds of the eyewitness testimony game--he was improving, he could remember nearly every color in a panel accurately after the quickest glance--when he realized Charlie had stopped turning pages. Don looked up and saw that Charlie had folded the comic book over, and was letting the book rest on the pillow as he stared at it.
Don pushed up on one elbow to see which page he was finding so fascinating, but it wasn't even a page of the comic: it was a full page ad for some teen drama that had come out a couple of years ago. Charlie looked up at him and then set a finger on the page next to a blonde girl in a low-cut shirt. Don had never thought that Charlie was really into blondes, and he raised an eyebrow, smiling.
"You like her?"
Charlie swallowed laboriously and then whispered, "Never seen one."
The smile vanished off Don's face and his stomach dropped, and even as he realized exactly what Charlie meant he was groping for something else, anything else--never seen a TV ad, never seen a TV show, never--
Never seen a girl.
Not that Charlie could remember, anyway. Not that c could remember. Don forced himself to smile, because Charlie didn't seem upset, and started to say the first thing that came to mind.
"You want to be--" and then he stopped short.
Charlie--c--tilted his head and mouthed, "What?"
Don shook his head but explained anyway. He didn't have the heart not to. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to be alone with her."
But that wasn't an option, of course: Charlie couldn't be alone, anywhere, ever, and the idea of trying to leave him alone with--for--Don shook his head, trying to push the whole idea away. It didn't bear thinking about.
Charlie just smiled, though, a little lopsided in his battered face, not seeming to mind Don saying something so stupid. He blinked once, deliberately, for no, and whispered, "I'm good."
Don smiled cautiously back and went back to looking at his comic book, but it was hard to concentrate. Soon he was turning pages nearly as fast as Charlie.
c glanced at Don as he reached for another comic book, and realized that Don had been entirely still--his chin on his wrists, his eyes shut, his comic book open to the same page--for the entire time it had taken c to read that installment of Batman and Robin's adventures. This seemed to be taking Don's tendency to linger over his comic books to an extreme. c whispered, "Hey," as loudly as he could.
Don didn't move, and c was reluctant to actually make an effort to wake him. It was kind of nice, lying here. c nestled down into the pillow and lay still, watching Don sleep, perfectly motionless except for the rise and fall of his breathing. He didn't dare to touch Don, but he could feel the heat and the solid presence of Don's body, inches from his own, sharing covers. The pill Don had given him seemed to have taken the edge off his pain--the waveform was much less interesting now, more uniform--a smooth steady ache that he found almost entirely ignorable.
c watched Don sleep and let the expression spin out, playing with numbers that were all his own, for once--nothing anyone wanted from him, nothing anyone here would ever be able to understand, abstraction piling on abstraction until he had no idea whether it was math anymore, or just a game he was playing in his head.
He thought again about getting up and doing some actual work, but he liked this, lying here warm and quiet with Don, doing his own math in his own time. It didn't have to be translatable. He didn't have to construct a single split-second timing sequence from it. And he'd fucking well earned this today, hadn't he? Williamson was nicely pragmatic about what work Know-Nothing could be expected to do after something like this; there was an excellent probability (he'd place it in the upper eighties, perhaps as high as ninety, Williamson's own favorite) that the boss wouldn't even bother with a dinnertime visit tonight.
c maneuvered slowly backward, slipping out from under the sleeping bag without disturbing Don. Once on the concrete, he didn't give himself time to shiver, but pushed to his feet as quickly as he could, crouching with his hands on his knees and his feet spread wide until he could be sure of his balance. His head and hip throbbed, and he noticed that his bruises had darkened further--everything certainly hurt more standing up--but he managed to limp over to the light switch by the door and, after a quick glance around to memorize the altered layout, shut it off.
He made his way back to the sleeping bags and heard movement as he crouched down, reaching toward the floor. Don shifted, tossing the top sleeping bag back.
"Hey," he said softly, and c felt Don's hand reaching toward him, searching. When c set a hand on Don's arm, Don's hands settled on him, easing him down to the floor. c held on even after he was safely down, so that Don had to turn onto his side, facing him. Don held on too, his hand on c's shoulder, and c closed his eyes and listened until Don's breathing settled back into sleep, Don's hand resting heavy and open on his side.
His own hand rested carefully still on Don's arm. He didn't quite hold on, but he didn't let go, either. There was math in Don's breathing, numbers in the warm skin under his fingers and the heat they shared. They were a closed circuit, a completed matrix. c closed his eyes and followed the expression where it led.
Don woke up again to Charlie shaking his shoulder and the brightening light of someone opening the door, and reached automatically for his gun. The cot half-blocked the light, and would block them from the sight of whoever had opened the door until they stepped inside. Don was on his feet, his gun in his hand, before he quite knew what was going on. He dropped the sleeping bag back down over Charlie and patted his shoulder, half reassurance, half a warning to keep his head down.
Charlie seemed to understand, tucking his head into the pillow. Don barely had time to register that Charlie's bruises looked worse now, even in the uncertain light, before he was stepping onto the concrete floor, glancing at his watch as he headed toward the door. It was nearly seven--at night, he thought, it must be his hour off--but it wasn't Williamson at the door, just Jimmy standing there staring at him. Don blinked at him, wondering how many kinds of bizarre picture he presented, nearly naked and holding his Sig.
He smiled slightly, which seemed to disconcert Jimmy, and picked up his jeans from the top of the stack of clean laundry just inside the door. Jimmy ostentatiously turned his back as Don pulled them on, and Don grinned as he did them up. It was nice to be the one making somebody else squirm for once. He checked his safety and tucked the Sig into the back of his pants and the walkie-talkie into his pocket before he pulled on a t-shirt. He grabbed his duffle and the paper bag of Charlie's dirty clothes, and stepped over the threshold.
When Jimmy turned to look at him, he smiled again, and Jimmy actually stepped away from him this time. Don locked and barred the door and brushed past Jimmy to throw stuff into the washing machine. Jimmy muttered, "Fucking weirdo," not quite under his breath, and headed up the stairs.
Don turned all the washing machine settings to cold and switched it on, then headed upstairs to the bathroom for his shower and shave. He still felt off-balance and disoriented--it was dark out, which seemed right, except that it felt like the middle of the night or early morning, heading toward dawn. His time-sense was going to get as scrambled as Charlie's, if it wasn't already. Life down the rabbit hole was like that.
He got into the shower, thinking vague middle-of-the-night thoughts about rabbits--he'd read a book about them in high school once, hadn't he? Two of them had been brothers, one a genius and the other a leader, and they'd both been heroes, together. He'd been annoyed by the book then, the way he was annoyed by everything in high school that seemed to be telling him to be nice to Charlie. He thought he could stand to read it again now--he remembered it being long, for one thing, and it'd kill some time.
He washed up on autopilot, and his hand was on his dick, stroking absently, before he really gave any thought to what he was doing. He hadn't jerked off in... he couldn't actually remember how long, which didn't surprise him much if he considered he'd been on a case for the last four and a half months straight. He thought, randomly, of what he'd almost said to Charlie, about leaving him alone with his comic book girl--and Charlie was alone now, wasn't he? And that was a really badly counterproductive line of thought in this situation.
Don pushed away the image of Charlie--his bruises and blood, leaning like he couldn't stand on his own--which was making him feel vaguely sick. Don shut his eyes and pretended he had all the time in the world to shower, calling up the usual vague images of women--the blonde from the bar, months ago, for instance--but she seemed like someone he'd only heard about, as if he had amnesia too, like his whole life had closed down to that room he lived in with Charlie, and only the past three days were real. The only woman he could remember clearly was the girl in the comic book, with Charlie's finger planted next to her frozen smiling face.
He gritted his teeth and thought of her, of gravity-defying women in spandex and masks from the comic books he'd been reading, of nothing at all, and friction did the job. He finished washing up, feeling awake and a little bit good. Some unacknowledged tension was gone from his body, a counter flipping over to zero. Some still-thirteen-year-old part of him thinking why don't I do that all the time? Then he was out of the shower, drying off and dressing, shaving.
He was cold when he stepped out of the bathroom. He headed straight down to the basement and moved the clothes to the dryer, turned the settings to hot. He checked his watch, realizing with a smile that he could go back in to Charlie whenever he felt like it, since Williamson wasn't in there with him. His stomach growled as he thought it, though--he didn't know what the hell had happened to lunch today, but even down the rabbit hole it was time for dinner.
He took the stairs two at a time back to the kitchen, and one of the guys was sitting at the table, eating a sandwich and staring out the window into the darkness. Don went to the fridge and got out stuff to make his own sandwich, and the guy--Sam, it was Sam, the one who'd been in the kitchen that first day who wasn't Jimmy--looked up at him. Don nodded a little, and Sam nodded back.
A couple of minutes later, as Don was putting things away and debating whether to go eat in the basement, Sam said, "Jimmy said you had the lights off down there."
Don looked up, saw the mildly curious look on Sam's face that had to be hiding much more--Jimmy wouldn't have stopped at the lights being off--and grabbed a can of soda from the fridge before he headed over to the table to eat. He sat down across from Sam. It was past time he started getting a better idea of who was who upstairs, and Sam was the first one who'd showed any willingness to talk.
"Yeah," Don said. "Well, no windows, Know-It-All doing his thing twenty hours a day. Get totally fucked not knowing whether it's day or night."
Sam nodded slowly, and Don let him stare, eating his sandwich in big bites. He'd want to make a sandwich for Charlie, too, look around for some fruit or cookies or something, see if there was anything that would keep for a while, maybe start a little stash of snacks. He'd have to see if he could get Charlie to nibble on things, might help him get some weight back. And if there was a single thing that looked like a treat in this kitchen, Charlie deserved it today.
Don glanced up again at Sam to find Sam still watching him, and raised his eyebrows. Sam just snorted and shook his head.
"Christ, you couldn't pay me enough to babysit that freak."
Don kept chewing, and noticed with a certain degree of professional detachment how very much that sounded like the sort of thing he'd punched people for saying to him in high school. Sam seemed to know exactly what he'd said and was watching for a reaction, but whether it was the nap or the shower Don was feeling calm, and it was easy not to show anything. When he'd swallowed, Don said, "Yeah, well, it's not really hard. He does his thing, I get paid."
Sam shrugged. Don kept eating, thinking things over. Sam was the reasonable one up here--or it was his job to seem like the reasonable one. Here he was talking to Mac, sympathizing with him just when Mac was bound to want to trust someone. He missed Terry desperately--she could have told him how to exploit this, the best things to say--but he didn't need her to tell him not to say more than he had to, or give himself away more than he could help.
"Boss thinks you like the brain," Sam said, again while Don's mouth was full.
Don shrugged. Williamson could probably be pretty certain Mac liked his genius charge after today. He might think he had Mac in line; he might not. He certainly had the rest of his men in line and that included Sam, which meant Don might as well be sitting here with the man himself. Don washed down his bite with a gulp of soda and said, "I try and like people I gotta be around all day. Makes life easier."
Sam nodded, looking away, and spoke off-handedly. "Just between you and me, I wouldn't go getting attached to that one."
Just between him and Don and Williamson and everyone else in the house but maybe Charlie, Don didn't doubt. He wondered whether that was a specific warning or a general one, and how the hell he'd tell the difference. Not like there was much he could do either way except keep his boots on and his gun handy. Their strategic situation sucked: he was going to have to wait for something to break upstairs, if Charlie didn't spontaneously decide to offer him some better ideas. Maybe he could find some way to upset the balance of Williamson's men, but he didn't think he could do it through Sam. Sam was paying too much attention.
"Liking's not the same as attached," Don said firmly, popped the last of his sandwich in his mouth, and stood up.
Sam went on sitting there as Don made a sandwich and rummaged around looking for goodies--he found a couple of apples that looked all right and some crackers, but no sweets. He wondered if there were some kind of black market trade in groceries and, if so, how he could possibly find his way into it. He grabbed a soda, settling everything safely in one arm. Jerking his chin toward the stairs, he said, "Get the door for me?"
Sam nodded and followed him down. Don detoured quickly to grab his and Charlie's only-moderately-damp clothes from the dryer, and then let himself into Charlie's room. he didn't look back as Sam shut, locked, and barred the door, but he allowed himself a single deep breath, unobserved. It was a bad sign that he was starting to feel safer down here than up there, when up there was closer to freedom. It would be a dangerous habit of thought to get into, but he could feel it creeping toward him, and he wasn't sure there was any way to stop it.
Don focused on Charlie instead. Charlie was up, standing at one of the boards further down the room with all the overhead lights off, the work light shining directly on him and that board. He had his left hand braced against the board, and he was fully dressed again, sweatpants and sweater and all. He looked just like he had three days ago, until he turned his head toward Don. The light shone directly on his face, on his left eye nearly swelled shut, on the black line of the cut and the white stripes of the tape standing out against dark purple bruising. His nose was red and swollen, too, and there were dark bruises ringing his throat. He smiled at Don as he stood there, still holding a hand against the blackboard to stay upright.
Don smiled back as best he could and waved at the food. "Come on, dinner time, take a break. You shouldn't be working."
Charlie shrugged, but came away obediently. "Got bored," he whispered, and Don winced at the rasp.
Charlie lowered himself awkwardly to the floor, and Don let him do it for himself, putting the sandwich directly into his hands once he was down. He settled beside Charlie, hands between his knees. It was too dark over here to read, with the overhead lights off, but that was all right. He'd gone through way more than his daily ration of comic books today. He should probably start working out to kill time and to keep sharp, shake the impulse to sleep away his forced confinement. Charlie trusted him a little more now, he thought. He might not have to be so careful about keeping quiet.
For now, though, he would sit with Charlie and make sure he ate. Charlie was pressed close to his left side, so that it was the right side of his face in Don's peripheral vision, undamaged but for the fading line of a shaving cut on his jaw. Don raised his left hand to his own face, rubbing his thumb against his lip to feel the roughness of his own small cut, and Charlie swayed a little bit, leaning against his shoulder. Not because he couldn't sit up, Don thought--he'd been standing just fine when Don came in--but because he wanted to be close.
He remembered that the rabbits in the book he'd read had been like that too, always squeezing together in their little burrows, taking comfort from each other's presence. Don picked up an apple from the assortment at Charlie's feet and leaned against Charlie right back.
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