Don remembered to give Charlie another ibuprofen around eleven. He'd already gotten back to work by then and wouldn't stop, glaring mutely but fiercely when Don tried to pull him away from the chalkboard. Don finally went to sleep himself, for a few fitful hours, in the shared sleeping bags by the wall. He left his gun lying on the floor by his head, where Charlie could have reached it if he particularly wanted to. If Charlie was going to trust him, Don figured he might as well start trusting Charlie.

He fought his way up near to consciousness once, but Charlie was asleep beside him, and Don thought hazily, Well, that's all right, then, and went back to sleep. The next time he woke up Charlie was back at the chalkboard, though he couldn't have slept more than an hour or two. Don felt wide awake. It was barely four in the morning, but he sat up watching Charlie for a while.

He was startled as hell by the arrival of Sam bearing coffee and power bars, and Charlie actually followed him over near the door to get his hands on the coffee. Don drank his, ate his power bar and some crackers that were still sitting on the floor--Charlie's apple and half the crackers had disappeared at some point while Don was sleeping--and then turned on the rest of the lights and tried to pretend like it was daytime in some meaningful sense, though after the first rush from the coffee he started running down.

He thought about suggesting a shower, but Charlie had that really focused look on his face that suggested he still didn't intend to be interrupted, and after giving a second's thought to the idea of parading him past the guys this morning, battered as he was, Don gave up before he even started. He paced, stretched, did a half-assed workout with his eyes on Charlie the whole time. Charlie didn't seem to hear a thing. Don gave Charlie another pill when eleven rolled around again, and fell asleep for a while with a comic book in his hands. When he woke up, lunch was sitting at his feet and Charlie was still working.

He ate and paced, touring Charlie's chalkboards to see if anything looked familiar, but he'd never paid that much attention to what Charlie actually wrote out, always waiting for Charlie to boil it down to the FBI Agent's Digest version. He spent some time figuring out how close he could get to Charlie and the chalkboard he was working at before Charlie started swatting him away. Pretty close, as it turned out: less than a foot if he was careful and quiet and didn't try to touch the chalkboard. Closer from the left side than the right, not surprisingly, but if he walked up behind Charlie he couldn't get within two feet before Charlie whirled around, startled at first and then annoyed.

Don was standing at the back wall, trying to figure out if there was a window concealed behind the left-hand chalkboard, when he heard Charlie clear his throat and turned toward him. Charlie was standing by the card tables in the middle of the room, holding a sheet of paper in his hand.

"Tell Williamson." His voice was louder than it had been yet, almost steady. "I'm done."

Don nodded once, slowly, not really sure what that was supposed to mean. Charlie staggered over to the sleeping bags and lay down on the side nearer the wall where Don had mostly been sleeping. He tugged the pillow squarely under his head, went to sleep, and stayed that way for about twenty-four hours.

c knew it was Don right away, because no one else would wake him by kicking him gently. He rolled onto his back and winced.

Don crouched down beside him and said, "Yeah, here," and pressed a tablet to his mouth. c swallowed it dry, and then pushed himself up to sit and drink the water Don offered him.

"5:30. PM. On the nineteenth. Williamson's coming down." Don said. "Thought you'd rather be awake and medicated."

c nodded his thanks, smiling though his bruises all hurt worse than ever--they'd had time to get ripe while he was sleeping through an entire day--and Don smiled back. Then came the sound of the door opening, and Don straightened up and stepped away. c closed his eyes and listened to Don's brisk footsteps until they were gone. He opened his eyes when the door closed.

Williamson paused by the vertical cot, and looked it up and down in a pointed way, but c didn't even bother to think about standing. Williamson walked over in front of him, leaning lightly against the now-cleared card tables. He held up the single sheet of paper that held the distillation of the last however-many-days' work.

"You're sure about these results?" he asked.

c nodded. Of course he was sure. He'd checked all the best probabilities three times. He knew whose ass was on the line if things went wrong. He'd made no superfluous assumptions, he'd done exactly what Williamson wanted, with machine-like precision, if worse handwriting.

"You're sure," Williamson repeated.

"I'm sure," c said. His voice sounded low and rusty to his own ears, but it didn't hurt quite as badly as he expected it to.

Williamson nodded and pulled a folder out of his coat, dropping it on the table behind him. "Get to work on this."

c nodded. There would be intel on the next job: numbers, diagrams, pages of observations--all carefully stripped of any identifying information or extraneous factors Williamson didn't want him to consider--and instructions for the scenario he was to construct. Input, output. Machine-like.

Williamson looked down at him, sitting in a tangle of sleeping bags, and it occurred to c to worry, just for a second, about how it would look, and whether Williamson would be angry. But Williamson snorted something close to a laugh, shook his head again and pulled out a walkie-talkie, into which he said, "Hey, Jimmy, come open the door, and bring Know-Nothing's dinner."

c leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes then, listening to Williamson wandering around. He'd look at the boards, but he never asked c what they meant anymore. He'd stopped pretending to care at the same point he'd stopped pretending that c was anything other than a brain on legs to be controlled by the regular application of pain and terror. c rubbed his elbow and listened for the opening of the door. When it came, he pushed up to his feet, walked near to the door to take a plate of food, plastic fork, and bottle of water from Williamson's hands.

Then Williamson and Jimmy both left, and c was alone again, for the second time in three days. Well, it was possible he'd been alone the day before, too, but he'd been asleep, so he hadn't appreciated it. He celebrated by taking a piss, though Don not being there didn't make much difference at this point. They were both pretty used to each other, as far as c could tell, and becoming expert in the fine art of pretending the bathroom had a door.

He took a look at himself in the mirror as he washed his hands. He was able to open his left eye further today than he had been when he'd gone to sleep, and the bruising was going green at the edges. His nose seemed pretty much back to normal, and the razor-cut on his jaw was healing nicely, just a pink double line now. The bruising on his throat was starting to fade, all brown and green like camouflage. He wiped his hands on his sweater, and then pulled his shirts up and peered down at himself.

The bruises on his belly and chest were going nicely multi-colored, but the bootprint was still dark and his hip still hurt like hell. He reached around and poked awkwardly at the bruise over his kidney, but all he could really tell was that poking it hurt. He'd known pretty much as soon as Williamson had hit him that the single blow hadn't been enough to leave him pissing blood, and that was really the only important metric in the circumstances. c readjusted his clothing, resisted the urge to poke at the neatly-taped cut on his head--it was fresh, Don must have redone it before waking him--and went out to the card tables.

He ate standing up, flipping through the first few pages of the parameters. Another robbery, like they mostly were, but Williamson was changing things up again. Not surprising, though it would mean more work for c. He'd introduced a lot of factors that would be tricky to quantify, let alone predict. If he seriously wanted probability calculations on skirt lengths for the female accomplices, this was going to take forever. Still, it was a good, novel MO, highly unlikely to be connected back to any of the others. c had been the one who'd explained to Williamson how important it was to keep changing, keep moving, to avoid patterns to avoid getting caught. Williamson seemed to listen to him on that, at least.

Williamson...

c turned and stared down at the sleeping bags. It had to be obvious that they'd both been sleeping there, and even though c had been fully clothed, it seemed to him that it would read as something other than what it was, to Williamson or any of his men. And yesterday--no, the day before--they hadn't been fully clothed at all. Don had climbed out of the sleeping bags wearing only his jockeys, and for a moment he'd actually been straddling c, as he bent to squeeze c's shoulder. Then he'd walked away, and the light from the doorway had flashed on a dark bruise on his inner thigh.

So Williamson and the others would be thinking that Mac and Know-Nothing were fucking. Had Williamson ordered it? Was Don trying to make it look that way? But then Williamson would look approving, not amused, and he would have asked c pointed questions to confirm whatever he thought was going on.

He acted amused, though, and that meant--they would be allowed? c tried to work out whether this would make it more or less likely that Williamson would order Don to rape him, but there wasn't sufficient useable data. Williamson's threats had always been vague--and always only threats--up to the time Don arrived: but Williamson had now threatened him with Don specifically, and the other day in the garage might well have been a kind of trial run.

But if it was, it had certainly reassured c at least as much as it could possibly have reassured Williamson: he knew now what it would be like, if Williamson ordered Don to do anything to him. It would be like that, all over again. Don would look him in the eye, wait until he was ready, hurt him as little as possible. c would be a person to Don, before and after and during, and it would be something between them that Williamson only stood aside and ordered. It was hardly frightening at all, if he thought of it like that, but Williamson would find a way to make it terrible--and Don would hate it, he realized. Don didn't seem like the type to enjoy rape any more than he'd enjoyed beating c while he was bound.

Well, and maybe c couldn't actually prevent that, but he could head it off in a way. If they could do it here first, privately, on their own terms, wouldn't that be better? If Williamson couldn't order them to do anything they hadn't already done, it would spike his guns a little. He might not even bother then. c would be confirmed as the faggot Williamson occasionally accused him of being (and what would that make Williamson's Mac? Nothing the others didn't already think he was, so there was little enough risk to consider there) but he didn't think he'd mind that much. There wasn't anything wrong with being gay, after all. He knew that.

And he was, wasn't he? Situationally, at least? Wasn't that what it meant, when he'd rather lie beside Don and watch him sleep than imagine some girl in a picture naked? He closed his eyes for just a second, experimentally imagining Don naked--not a great imaginative leap at all, all that skin and warmth and smiling brown eyes, crouching over him--and, oh, yes. He opened his eyes, catching himself against the table as he staggered, blood rushing to his dick. Yes. He was very definitely gay. At least in this room. And there was nothing wrong with that: even Williamson didn't seem to mind.

c glanced at the sleeping bags again.

He'd just have to hope that Don didn't mind either, or this could get tricky. He was at least unlikely to be violently disturbed by the idea--not only was he generally reluctant to harm c, but sleeping together, especially as unclothed as they'd been at first, seemed like the sort of thing that would be avoided as queer by the kind of guy who'd take serious offense. And Don had seemed attracted to him in some way from the beginning. The day before, Don had seemed to be playing some private stalking game, repeatedly getting as close to c as he could until c repelled him--moving in over and over as if drawn by gravity, some force he couldn't resist.

Well, gravity acted to draw two bodies toward each other, more powerfully at smaller distances. c would move closer, and they'd see what happened next.

It seemed like déjà vu, at first. Don glanced up from his comic book to see Charlie standing at one of his freshly-cleared chalkboards, and he could swear he saw him erasing the exact same thing he'd been erasing the last time Don had looked up.

Don glanced at his watch. It was pushing midnight, and he should really try to get Charlie to get some sleep sooner rather than later, if he wanted either of them to approach a normal circadian rhythm. It'd be useful if only for reducing the likelihood of being caught sleeping when somebody came down here. Charlie didn't need to miss more meals than he already did, and Don didn't need to be caught off guard more than he already was.

Charlie started writing again, and Don shifted sideways for a better angle, setting down his comic book. As he watched, Charlie wrote down exactly the same equation he'd just erased. Don stared at it, trying to spot somewhere that it had changed. Charlie seemed to be staring at it, too, pacing a step to one side and a step to the other, as if it would look different out of the corner of his eye. Then he turned back to the board and scrubbed it out again.

Don started counting. He got to two hundred and forty-seven before Charlie started writing again: exactly the same equation. Don grinned.

"Hey, c."

Charlie shook his head in that "I'm not listening, don't interrupt me" way he had always had. Don could tell him his hair was on fire right now and he'd just keep shaking his head and staring at his chalkboard, or at least he could have done that to Charlie, before. c seemed to pay a little more attention to his surroundings, but then, c had to.

Don closed down that line of thought, thinking instead of how Charlie looked better tonight, his bruises and balance all improved for a day asleep, diving straight into some fresh project Williamson had brought him. Don stood up and started walking toward him, coming at him from behind and to the right on a forty-five degree angle. He hadn't really experimented with angles, before. He stopped a foot from Charlie's shoulder and waited, watching as Charlie erased his work yet again.

"c," he said, practically in Charlie's ear. "Earth to c."

Charlie turned his head and glared at Don over his shoulder. "I'm working."

"No," Don said, reaching out and prying the chalk from Charlie's fingers. Charlie resisted for a couple of seconds and then gave up. "You're writing and erasing the same thing over and over, and you have been for an hour."

"Look," Charlie said, "just because you can't comprehend the subtle refinements--"

Insulting the intelligence of everyone around him. God, it was just like trying to get him to come in for dinner when he was on a tear. "You can't comprehend when you need to give your brain a break. Come over here and sit down with me for five minutes, and then I'll give you your chalk back."

Charlie looked pointedly from Don to the box of chalk on the table, but Don just grabbed him by the shoulder and started pulling, and about four feet away from the board its hold over him seemed to break. He relaxed under Don's hand and walked with him to the sleeping bags, slouching down beside him.

Don leaned against the wall, stretching his legs, and looked over at Charlie sitting with his elbows on knees, head in hands.

"Hey," Don said softly, "how are you feeling, anyway?"

Charlie shrugged, and looked up at him with a half-smile, blinking both eyes as wide as they'd go--still not symmetrical, but closer.

"Better," Charlie said. "I, uh, I do that sleeping thing sometimes, just crash like that. I hope you didn't think I was dead or anything."

Don nodded. Charlie didn't need to know exactly how much time Don had spent sitting by him, watching his sleep for signs of rapid eye movement and assuring himself that if Charlie hadn't had a concussion, he couldn't have lapsed into a coma.

"So, this is how it works, huh?"

He waved toward the table, freshly stocked with all-new sheets of paper covered in numbers, and the chalkboards, wiped clear.

"Williamson brings you some stuff and bang, you do math magic?"

"Magic, ha," Charlie repeated, but he was still smiling a little bit. "Yeah, something like that. It used to be--"

He hesitated, glancing over at Don, and Don leaned forward and looked curious but non-threatening with all his might. Charlie looked away, folding tighter into himself, but he kept talking.

"Williamson and I used to--it was like working together, almost like--almost a partnership. I mean, he was the boss and I was the one who got held at gunpoint and locked in all the time, but mostly he didn't--it wasn't like this, as much."

Don nodded, though Charlie was looking away from Don, and probably couldn't see it. Charlie just kept going.

"We--the first job we did, I did with him, that was--I knew how to do that. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew. And then there were other jobs, and I would--I would tell him what we should--what his guys should do, and he would listen, or tell me something else to do, but then we--we had this one job and--it made sense to design everything to avoid the possibility of casualties. You kill people, it's worse, they look harder for you, you leave more forensic evidence."

The Cincinnati job, Don thought. A security guard shot in the head on the way out, by a man Williamson's size. He thought he could see where this was going, and folded that thought down inside, where it wouldn't show on his face, wouldn't stop Charlie from talking.

"But Williamson thought I was being too careful, thought I was trying to control--he wanted to make a point, so he--he killed a man, told me all about it after, and that's when I--I started--I yelled at him."

There was a half-hysterical bubble of laughter behind the word, disbelieving. Don scooted around so he was facing Charlie, and he could see Charlie was holding his elbow again.

"That's when he did this?" Don asked, reaching out and setting his hand over Charlie's, squeezing gently.

Charlie raised his head, met Don's eyes and then nodded, just once. "Dislocated. Left it like that for--I don't know how long, I never knew how long anything lasted. It felt like a long time."

Don winced at that, and let Charlie see it this time. He slid his hand down to Charlie's wrist, pushing his sleeve up, and Charlie let his hand fall away so that Don could cup the bare elbow in his hands.

"Does it hurt now?"

About a month since the original injury and reduction of the joint, and Charlie didn't seem to have any nerve damage in his left arm, at least.

Charlie shrugged. "A little. It's not a big deal."

Bracing the elbow in one hand, Don took Charlie's wrist in the other, watching Charlie's face for pain as he tested his range of motion. It wasn't horribly diminished--he seemed to use the arm pretty much normally--but it was clear that he'd sustained damage, now that Don thought to check. A month in, he wouldn't even be finished healing yet, really.

"It'll keep getting better," Don said firmly.

Charlie nodded, but his eyes were back on his blackboard, flickering from place to place as if he was reading something he hadn't written yet. Don squeezed his wrist and then let go, and somehow that made Charlie look at him, suddenly intent.

"What about you?" Charlie asked. "How's a nice guy like you wind up in a place like this?"

It was Don's turn to look away, biting his tongue against the impulse to say, I came looking for you. Not yet. Charlie was starting to trust him, but it was still far too soon to lay the truth on him and expect him to keep the secret.

"It's a living," he said lightly instead, looking from one blank chalkboard to the next, remembering faintly and distantly the chalkboards in the garage, and in Charlie's office.

"And it's not--" he looked back at Charlie, to find him watching carefully. "It's not the kind of job you can walk away from if you don't like it, you know?"

Charlie nodded his understanding, and he touched Don's shoulder lightly, with a quiet smile like forgiveness on his battered face. Don sat still, smiling back at Charlie, letting the moment stretch until it was almost too much to bear. He looked away and picked up a comic book, not quite shrugging off Charlie's touch.

"So, come on, isn't it time for your daily dose of improbable physics and masked heroes?"

Charlie's hand tightened on his shoulder, and when Don looked back Charlie was a thousand miles away, staring into nothing, his lips moving slightly like he was communing with the math gods. Softly, voice level, so he wouldn't break the trance, Don said, "Don't tell me you just had a breakthrough based on Batman and Robin."

"Improbability, actually," Charlie replied, still not looking at Don but starting to smile. "Oh--of course, I--"

Don smiled back--he didn't know how many times in his life he'd seen a lightbulb go on above Charlie's head, but it was still fun to watch--and then Charlie was looking straight at Don, smiling at him, moving toward him. Don raised his arm to catch Charlie in a hug, smack him on the back, except the angle wasn't quite right and before he knew what was happening Charlie's mouth struck his, and while Don froze in total shock Charlie's lips were soft and slightly parted, there and then gone. Charlie pushed up off his shoulder and took two quick strides to the card table, grabbed some chalk and started writing as soon as he reached the board.

Don opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, raised a hand to his face and rubbed at his lips. Charlie hadn't just--no, Charlie had. He'd been--excited, and thinking of something else, but he'd definitely--

Charlie had kissed him. Kissed him. And, it belatedly occurred to Don, he hadn't actually told Charlie he shouldn't.

He looked up at Charlie, who was scribbling so furiously he was actually raising a little cloud of chalk dust. That meant it was shitty chalk, Don thought, in a numb, bemused sort of way--he should try to get Charlie some better chalk--no, he should get Charlie out of here, home to his own chalk. Don cleared his throat and said, "Hey, c."

Charlie kept on writing furiously, chalk tapping, sliding, hissing against the board, and he moved sideways to start on a fresh board, scribbling notes and a diagram.

"c," he repeated, louder, and this time Charlie waved his free hand in Don's direction, no, busy, go away.

That meant he knew Don was there and was ignoring him on purpose, and Don hesitated. If he actually wanted to talk to Charlie now, he'd have to physically get up and go over there, peel him away from his chalkboard and force him to listen--and he might be staying over there as much from embarrassment as because he was working on a serious breakthrough. Although from the speed of writing, he also seemed to have figured out something important. He probably hadn't meant anything by it. He'd just been excited and now he was hoping Don would just forget all about it and leave him alone to work.

And Charlie's work was important, much more important than proving some kind of point. It was fucked up and weird, but Don could deal with fucked up and weird for a few hours easier than he could deal with Charlie having his elbow dislocated again because he was slow off the mark. And sitting here and shutting up was a hell of a lot easier than being made to dislocate Charlie's elbow tomorrow.

And, truth be told, he didn't really want to get that close to Charlie again right this second, just in case Charlie--c, who didn't know Don, who'd never seen a girl before--got the wrong idea or something. That would make it worse. No, he would let Charlie work for now, and in the morning, when they'd both rested and gotten some distance from it, Don would just--set him straight. He'd be calm, Charlie would be sheepish, this whole thing would blow over, and later, when they were out of here and Charlie had his memory back, Don would probably tease him about it.

Or maybe they would never, ever speak of it again. That would be all right, too. Don picked up a comic book and set himself to think about anything that wasn't Charlie for a little while.

c lay still, watching Don sleep again. It was almost like having a hobby, he thought, watching Don while he slept. When Don was awake, it was almost like having a friend, although what with one thing and another 'friend' was probably not the most precise possible term for it.

For now though, Don was sleeping and c was watching. He'd just woken up himself, and he'd left the work light shining on blackboard six when he lay down to sleep, for just this purpose. Don was lying on his side--his left side, lucky bastard, while c still couldn't even quite manage to sleep on his back--with his head pillowed on his bottom arm and his back to the wall. His gun lay on the floor with its holster. c could reach it as easily as Don could from where they lay, but c had no interest in reaching for it. Don had been right, for one thing, a gun would do him no good until he had a plan. And anyway, Don had told him not to do that again.

He hadn't told c not to kiss him again, which c chose to consider promising. His lips had touched Don's for perhaps as long as his fingers had touched Don's gun a few nights before, but Don had only frozen in surprise, not knocked him to the floor. If Don had been really angry about it, he'd have hit first, not frozen. If he froze it meant he was more surprised than anything else, and surprise was something c could work with.

c touched his own lips, remembering that brief contact as he stared at Don's mouth, softened now in sleep. He scooted closer to Don, holding his breath, but Don slept on, undisturbed by his presence. c reached out one hand, letting it hover over Don's arm and then settle painfully slowly onto his sleeve, feeling the warmth of his skin through the soft fabric. He dared to inch closer. His head was entirely off the pillow now, his cheek nearly touching the point of Don's elbow. He slid his hand slightly up Don's arm and felt the tensing of muscle as Don moved. c froze, eyes wide, waiting to be caught.

Don shifted in sleep, raising his arm and throwing it over c, tugging him closer, and c closed his eyes and curled in, the top of his head against Don's chest, Don's arm heavy and lax over his side. His heart was pounding so loudly that he was surprised Don didn't hear it, and the vague arousal of waking up warm and close to Don was coalescing rapidly into an actual hard-on. c shifted his hips a little, not wanting to actually take his hand from Don's arm to adjust himself, and then let his hand slip down to Don's stomach. There was more heat there, or maybe it was himself that was hotter at the muscular feel of Don's body under his hand, rising and falling as he breathed.

c turned his face up against Don's chest, shifting his hips closer, his knee against Don's thigh. He was breathing Don now, the smell of him filling c's nose, and the hot, thick air in the tight space between their bodies made his head swim. His hand was moving down Don's belly before he knew he meant to do it, rucking up his shirt to touch bare skin, hair crinkling under his fingers as they trailed to the top of Don's jeans, the metal of the button skin-warm under his thumb.

Don gasped, and c felt it against his face, under his hand, felt Don awake and in motion--Don's hands on him and over him, pushing him onto his back--his dick throbbed, yes, yes, please, yes--and Don's weight moved over him, Don's breath hot on his face for an instant--

And then Don was scrambling away, flinging the sleeping bag back and surging to his feet, leaving c lying cold and exposed as Don stood, panting harshly, one hand out as if to stop c from following him, fingers spread wide. Don was silhouetted against the work light, but c could make out the wideness of his staring eyes.

Don said, "No," not loudly, but so forcefully that c felt pressed back against the concrete by it.

He swallowed, resisting the urge to cover himself--his dick was still hard, his own breath coming as short as Don's--and said the first thing that came to mind.

"Why not?"

Don opened and closed his mouth repeatedly before he finally said, nearly as forcefully as before, "Because I don't want to."

c tamped down the many, many scathing things he might have said on the subject of doing things one didn't want to do, and nodded slowly, calmly. Don didn't want to. Well.

"All right," he said, pleased that his voice sounded steady, maybe ever so faintly amused. His hard-on was easing, his heart rate slowing. He was conscious of the ache of the bruise on his back, but he couldn't turn away from Don to avoid it. He just squirmed a little as he settled back more comfortably against the pillow and tucked one arm behind his head. The cool air striking his skin told him that the motion had drawn his shirt up above the top of his jeans an instant before Don's eyes darted down.

Don shifted back a step, seeming uneasy, but his voice was firm as he said, "All right. So that's it."

c smiled and shook his head. "No, it's not, but I accept your premise. You don't want to. I do want to. We have two opposite propositions before us which must be reconciled, like P and--"

"Do not start talking to me about P vs. NP," Don snarled, suddenly, startlingly fierce, and c blinked.

"What do you know about P vs. NP?" he asked, pushing up on his elbow.

Don had seemed quite genuinely ignorant of advanced mathematics. Had Williamson planted a ringer? Did he suspect c of botching the mathematics in some way? Don did spend a lot of time staring at the chalkboards, but it wasn't as if there were anything else to stare at, and c had never seen any evidence of Don doing any sort of math himself.

Don seemed taken aback by the question, as if he hadn't expected c to find it odd that he was familiar with one of the great unsolved problems of mathematics. But this hesitation was brief, and then he said,

"Nothing, except that it's got nothing to do with real life. This is not math, c, you do not get to put me on your chalkboard and calculate how you can get your way with me. I said no, and I meant it."

c was briefly distracted by the idea of Don, if not on, then up against, a chalkboard. He licked his lips, looking up at him, and then said, in a careful, quiet voice, "Are you going to hit me?"

"Am I--"

Don cut off his first answer and ran a hand through his hair, turning his face away, casting his profile against the light. c reminded himself to keep breathing.

"No," Don said, in a low, soft, weary voice. "God, no, c, I'm not going to hit you, I just--"

"Okay," c said, and he could feel himself wavering, almost. But his reasoning was sound. He needed to do this, they needed to do this, before the issue was forced. He didn't think now was the time to present the logic of the situation to Don, but that didn't mean the logic didn't remain compelling; and he knew what he wanted, and he could safely ask for it, this once, in this room, with this man.

"If you're not going to hit me, then I'm going to keep asking."

Don stared at him in silence, and c stared back, waiting. Now would be the time, if Don were really seriously determined to stop him, when Don would walk over and hit him, hard. Just once, probably, somewhere he wasn't already hurt, with a closed fist rather than a booted foot, but he would do it, and it would make things much more difficult.

Don rubbed a hand over his face and then said, "Not while I'm fucking sleeping, you're not."

He crossed the space between them and bent low over c, and their eyes met as c tensed in anticipation of the blow. Don's mouth went hard, and he shook his head the slightest fraction, holding c's gaze as he grabbed his gun and walkie-talkie and the sleeping bag he'd knocked aside. He turned away, walking beyond the cot, and c lay motionless, listening to the sound of Don bedding down by the door.

After a while, c scooted into the space where Don had been lying, pushing the pillow aside and curling down into the sleeping bag as he pulled the other half over himself. The warmth and scent of Don still clung to the soft flannel, and c closed his eyes and breathed it in as his eyes watered and his body was wracked with shivers. Don hadn't hit him. He didn't know why not, but he had to think it was a good sign.

Because I'm your brother, that's why not.

Don had been stupidly desperate to drink his coffee that morning, burned his mouth straight back to his throat and nearly gagged scalding coffee all over himself. His tongue and the roof of his mouth felt raw, but at least the discomfort reminded him not to keep mouthing the words, over and over, as he had while he lay in the half-dark by the door for hours before the coffee showed up. The words rattled in his skull instead. I'm your brother. I'm your brother. I'm your brother, that's why.

Charlie was in the shower, and Don was leaning against the door, carefully not looking at himself in the slowly-fogging mirror. He was more uncomfortably conscious than ever that Charlie was naked on the other side of the curtain. He couldn't avoid hearing the slick-skin sounds of him washing, and his brain kept skipping away to think of his own last shower and wondering whether--but Charlie wouldn't, would he? Where Don could hear him? And he--

It was sickening, and it was sick--I'm your brother, I'm your brother, I'm your brother--but that was just it. Charlie was sick, whether brain damaged or psychologically scarred, and this was a symptom. That was all it was, just a sign that Charlie had been hurt, and if it made Don uncomfortable, that wasn't any more Charlie's fault than Don's second case of chicken pox.

Though as he recalled, he'd blamed Charlie for that at the time. He'd been twelve. It had seemed reasonable.

He couldn't think of any way to stop Charlie from thinking about it now that he'd started--he couldn't even think of a way to stop himself from thinking of it, and God knew he'd be happy to. It was partly the problem of thinking of a negative: Don't think about how your brother wants to fuck you, yeah, great, that was worse than not thinking of pink elephants and what oranges smelled like and whatever else they'd been told not to think about back in Intro Psych.

Mostly, though, it was just that they were together twenty-three hours of every day in a room with no windows. There were exactly two distractions available: math and comic books, and apparently sitting down together to stare at spandex-wearing superheroes was not helping matters, so Don was officially tapped out. Hell, if he'd been locked in with anybody but Charlie, they'd probably be looking pretty good right now--and if he was honest with himself, there had been that instant this morning, when he'd been half awake and felt somebody's hand on his skin. Before he'd woken up enough to know it was Charlie, it had felt better than anything had in a long damn time.

But it was Charlie, of course, and he'd only reacted that way because he hadn't known--and Charlie was only behaving this way because, awake or asleep, he didn't know. Tempting as it was to tell him now and make him stop, this was the worst possible time to try it. Charlie was wildly unlikely to believe him, for one thing, and even if he did, Williamson was bound to notice Charlie suddenly behaving differently toward him. He'd find out why, he'd find out exactly who Don Eppes was if he didn't know already, and then Don would be dead, or maybe just taken away from Charlie. Either way he'd be helpless to help Charlie while Williamson did what he pleased.

The shower turned off, finally, and Don shut his eyes just in case Charlie had something in mind--but when he grabbed the towel and held it over the curtain rod, Charlie took it from his hand just as quickly as he had the last few days, and he didn't step outside until he had his boxers and t-shirt on.

Don stuck close to the door, watching Charlie from the corner of his eye. He seemed to be behaving normally, and Don relaxed a little as Charlie dressed. Maybe being upstairs, nearer the others, was working to Don's advantage, encouraging Charlie to keep his mouth shut.

Charlie started brushing his teeth, swiping at the mirror with his left hand, and Don let himself think ahead to the morning's parade past Williamson's thugs and another long day confined with Charlie. He was taken completely off-guard when Charlie said casually, "You have a pretty fantastic ass, you know."

Don froze, once again feeling weirdly as if Charlie had just drawn a gun on him. Keeping his face blank, he met Charlie's eyes in the mirror with what ought to have been a quelling look, though Charlie went on smiling slightly. The swelling around his eye was going down, though the bruising was still spectacularly multi-colored and the gash still stood out, a black line of scabbing in the bruises. Charlie's hair looked longer, weighed down with water against his forehead and the back of his neck. His mouth was covered in white foam. He raised his toothbrush slightly, flashing his teeth, and said "You wear your jeans that tight, somebody was bound to notice."

Don gritted his teeth, closing the small distance between himself and Charlie and jostling him a little against the sink as he grabbed the toothbrush from Charlie's hand.

"Okay," Don said flatly, "that's enough, you're done. We're not talking about this."

Charlie just smiled wider and pressed back against Don as he bent to spit. Don glared at the back of his head and stepped quickly away, rinsing the toothbrush under the tub tap. He shoved the clean toothbrush into his pocket and grabbed Charlie by the arm. Charlie prudently grabbed his own dirty clothes, and Don yanked the door open and propelled him through it.

Charlie stumbled and Don held him up, marching him quickly through the house, for once barely noticing the presence of the other guys. Sam fell in behind Don as they headed down the basement stairs, and when Don had shoved Charlie inside and slammed the door shut behind them, he heard them locked in. More than he ever had been before, Don was acutely aware that he was just as trapped as Charlie was behind that door.

He realized he was still holding Charlie's arm and let go, taking a couple of quick steps away. The cot was still standing on end; he should put it back so Charlie could use it. Charlie wouldn't think to do it if Don left it there.

He could hear Charlie standing still behind him, breathing a little quickly. Waiting. Don cleared his throat and spoke without turning.

"I want you to quit it, c. I'm asking you to quit it."

"Okay," Charlie said, too easily, and Don closed his eyes and bit back a groan.

He turned around warily and said, "By 'okay,' you mean that you acknowledge that I'm saying that but you don't agree to it, don't you?"

Charlie grinned. "You're a quick learner."

He didn't feel quick. He felt tired of this, queasy and edgy, as raw as his mouth. He didn't know how long he could cope with this, and he didn't want to think about what he might do when he couldn't cope anymore. This wasn't right, and he didn't know how Charlie could keep mathematics and not keep that.

"So either I have to hit you, or you're going to keep this up."

Charlie nodded briskly, like that was obvious.

Don sighed. Charlie was sick. It wasn't Charlie's fault.

"That's kind of a shitty thing to do, c."

"Yeah," Charlie said, "well, so is beating somebody whose hands are cuffed behind his back, huh?"

Beyond pulling a gun on him; this time he felt like Charlie had actually hit him. Don kept very still, steadying himself, controlling his expression down to nothingness. Charlie's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open--he could see he'd scored with that one--and Don reminded himself that hitting Charlie was not the answer to this. Still, that didn't mean he couldn't shut Charlie up.

He turned away sharply, digging through his duffle until he fished out the handcuffs. He moved fast, grabbing Charlie's wrist and snapping a cuff on, and Charlie flinched hard, yanking his other hand back so that Don had to reach for it and haul it in to fasten the cuffs, binding his hands before him. Charlie stared up at him, wide-eyed and pale under his stubble, and Don gritted his teeth and turned away again. He grabbed Charlie's razor and the shaving cream and then turned back, pressing them into Charlie's hands. Charlie took them, but didn't move, staring up at Don fearfully, making Don feel sicker than ever.

"Don," Charlie whispered, "I'm sorry."

He swallowed hard against remorse and bile, and gritted out, "You shouldn't be."

Charlie stood very still, and Don said more loudly, "I'm not going to hurt you. I'll take those off if you don't want to shave, but I'm not going to do it for you anymore."

Charlie's hands clenched tight on his shaving stuff, and curled in toward his chest. His eyes shut tight and his shoulders hunched. He nodded shallowly and turned away, walking toward the bathroom with small, silent steps. Don watched him for a couple of ragged breaths and then sank down to sit on the cool floor, his head in his hands. He was fucking this up badly, but if there was a right way to handle the situation, he didn't know it.

He listened to the running water and occasional clattering of Charlie shaving, dropping things, clumsily picking them up with his bound hands. Speaking of shitty things to do. Fuck.

Don pushed up to his feet, grabbed the handcuff key and headed over to the bathroom, but Charlie was already splashing water awkwardly on his face. He was nicked in a couple of spots, but at least he was shaved. Charlie didn't say a word, but when he held his hands out to Don they were shaking. Don wanted to hold them, steady them, give his brother a minute's comfort, but that was what had gotten him into this position in the first place, thinking Charlie would know affection from a come-on. He held each of Charlie's wrists just long enough to unlock the cuffs, then stepped clear of the door so Charlie could get to his chalkboards, tucking the handcuffs into his pocket as he did.

Charlie didn't bolt, though, leaning against the sink like he wanted to look small.

"I didn't mean it like that," Charlie said, low but nearly steady. "I just meant--optimally, neither of us would have to do shitty things. But you had to. And I have to."

Don opened his mouth, but he couldn't think of an argument for that. He shook his head and turned away.