Twenty-four hours after Williamson had taken the results away and given Don back to him, Charlie was reduced to sitting in the little recessed space between the door and the bathroom (a closet, he'd finally realized, with the doors and hanger rod removed) facing the door. He set his chin on his knees and wrapped his arms around his shins, keeping his back firmly to the wall and trying to guess what the next job would be.

They were supposed to be random, of course, but it was nearly impossible for the human mind--even Williamson's very clever one--to generate true randomness. Though Charlie had carefully explained to him the importance of leaving no identifiable pattern, as it was the repetition of any pattern of crimes which would eventually get a repeat offender caught, Williamson's jobs tended merely to distribute pseudo-randomly across certain variables: geographic location (of which Charlie was never precisely aware), type of institution targeted, the size of the haul, the team required, and on and on.

Something was nagging at Charlie, though; something was different now, and he couldn't think of what. There was a variable he wasn't considering. It would be easier if he could write it out on the board, lay it all out in rows and try to find what was missing, but he had never let Williamson know he played this guessing game. It would be dangerous to write anything down. He sat still instead, rehearsing the development of every job he could remember, trying to tease out all the salient features.

Charlie hated having nothing to do. Partly it was just the idleness; ideas sifted through his brain when he wasn't focused on assigned work, blooming and mutating behind his eyelids. The mere knowledge that he wouldn't be allowed to pursue a theoretical line of inquiry wasn't sufficient to make them stop. He'd learned not to try to use blackboard space for his private thoughts, but they continued to play out regardless, until the next job wrenched him away and left him with only the memory of an insight.

Worse than that, however, was the anticipation. When he was working on a job, he could at least be certain that Williamson would not allow any interruption which kept him from his work for long. Between jobs, however, the other men were free to do what they liked with him. Having no work to dive into left Charlie feeling more than usually exposed, and simultaneously without any way to distract himself from the feeling.

He slept as much as he could, and read Don's comic books when Don offered them. Don didn't turn away from anything Charlie wanted, but Charlie found his personal paradox extending to Don. He was unusually, intensely conscious of the gun tucked under Don's arm, the strength--the potential violence--coiled in every inch of Don's muscular body.

He startled badly when Don dropped into his line of sight, crouching between him and the door, and cornering him in the shallow space of the closet. Don quickly raised both hands palms out, and tipped backward onto his ass with a thump. Charlie couldn't help twitching a smile at that, and Don smiled more confidently back.

"Easy, genius," Don said, after they'd both taken a few breaths and the worst of Charlie's brief adrenaline surge had passed off. "I was just going to challenge you to a chess marathon."

Charlie blinked. "A chess marathon?"

"Sure," Don said easily. "I mean, you can't keep beating me forever. If we just keep playing over and over, eventually I'll win, right?"

Charlie tilted his head. "Well, given infinite time--are we allowing for a learning curve?"

"Sure," Don said, his smile widening. "Let's allow a learning curve."

"Given infinite time," Charlie repeated pointedly. "Probably."

"Uh-huh," Don replied. "Come on, unlimited games, unlimited bets."

It had to be better than sitting in the corner and driving himself insane with an unwinnable guessing game. Charlie nodded and pushed himself to his feet, watching the quick, lithe motion of Don getting up out of the corner of his eye. He felt a shiver in his belly, something between hunger and fear, and then Don was smiling at him and he smiled gamely back, walking over to the freshly redrawn chessboard.

Charlie bit his lip, deliberating over his bet on the first game, but eventually pitted a hug against Don's habitual Scrabble wager. Something flickered through Don's eyes when he said it, an oddly naked expression passing over his face before he grinned and said, "Don't you go easy on me, genius."

Charlie smiled back and shrugged. "I'll get plenty of chances."

After he'd won, Don gave him his winnings with good grace, carefully tucking Charlie to his right side, well clear of the gun under his left arm, and Charlie rested his head against Don's shoulder and stood still in his embrace. It was Don, after all, just the same as always. He could do anything to Charlie at any time, and he'd never chosen to; he wouldn't now, either. The pattern was fixed. With Don's familiar smell on every breath and Don's hands resting on his back, Charlie was beginning to relax when Don shook him gently.

"All right, genius, game on. Let's go."

Charlie smiled and bet a kiss on the next game, and again on the game after that, and again on the game after that, and Don did not keep a particularly careful count when Charlie collected his winnings. After the fourth game he was sandwiched between Charlie and the wall, with his hands in Charlie's hair and Charlie's hands on his hips. It was only when Charlie's hand slid toward the front of his jeans, tilting his own hips away to make room, that Don muttered, "No, just a kiss, come on. Next game."

Charlie pulled away with an effort, raising one hand to Don's face. He traced the edge of the fading bruise around his eye and said, "Scrabble again?"

Don smiled and nodded, skin wrinkling under Charlie's fingertips, and Charlie smiled back.

"If I win," Charlie murmured, letting his fingers drift down Don's cheek, "I want your mouth."

Don's eyebrows raised, his lips parting to ask, and Charlie ran his thumb over Don's lower lip.

"Wherever I tell you to put it."

Don flicked the tip of his tongue against Charlie's thumb, and blood rushed to Charlie's dick even as Don stepped back.

"Deal."

Charlie ended the game in fourteen moves--he'd have been able to do it faster when they first started playing, but Don really did seem to be improving--and moved toward Don even as he set his chalk down. Don kissed him without hesitation, but set one hand flat against Charlie's chest.

"Gimme one more game before I pay up?" Don murmured against Charlie's lips. "Six is my lucky number. I'm due."

"There's no--" Charlie mumbled back, his lips dragging against Don's. "No statistical evidence--"

Don's tongue slid into his mouth, silencing him, and he was breathless when Don pulled away. Don's hand moved sideways across his chest, thumb brushing his nipple through his t-shirt.

"One more game? Please? Scrabble or sex."

"One," Charlie agreed, a little dazed, and picked up his chalk.

Don made his opening move, and Charlie barely glanced at the board before making his own, his eyes drawn irresistibly to the wetness of Don's mouth. As Charlie watched, Don's teeth raked thoughtfully over his lower lip, and then Charlie heard the quick tap of Don making his move on the board. Don's mouth curved into a smile before Charlie forced himself to look away and make his own next move.

The game went on in a haze. Charlie barely paid any attention to his own strategy. Don kept licking his lip, or rubbing one finger thoughtfully across his mouth, and once a smile flashed across his face as he considered the board, brown eyes bright and narrow, taking Charlie's breath away. He saw as much as heard Don say, "Hey, Charlie, look," and even so it took him a minute to comprehend it.

He looked up at the board just as Don dragged his thumb over Charlie's king, whispering warmly in Charlie's ear, "Checkmate."

Charlie stared at the board, and then turned to stare at Don.

"You did that on purpose. You distracted me."

Don's grin faltered slightly, as though he thought Charlie would take his victory back from him.

Charlie grinned. "I guess you were right about that learning curve."

Don's smile widened and he said, "Well, don't worry, you'll get a reprieve. It'll take me a while to draw a Scrabble board."

Charlie set his hands to Don's cheeks, thumbs at the corners of his mouth, and said, "Why don't you just shut up about Scrabble for a little while."

Don was lying on his back with Charlie curled against his side, his head on Don's chest. Charlie's blanket was draped over both of them, sweat still cooling on his skin everywhere the air touched. The worklight was still on, shining toward the abandoned Scrabble game on the chalkboard nearest to the bathroom. Charlie liked the strategy and the math involved in scoring, but he was as bad a speller as ever, and Don didn't have a dictionary handy to end their arguments. Still, he'd been up 219 to 73 when Charlie had given up on making another word and started trying to distract him.

Charlie's approach had been a little more direct than Don's, but just as effective. Now they were lying together on the mattress, with Don idly running his hand through Charlie's hair. It curled around his fingers like it didn't want to let them go, and Don stared at the ceiling and tried to think of something to say. He and Charlie didn't talk much, for all the endless hours they spent locked up together--even for the last few days, when Charlie hadn't had a job to work on and seemed to be going crazy with boredom, they'd hardly talked. Don had never been so quiet with Billy, or Terry, or any other partner, but those stakeouts seemed like dreams--memories of the distant past. Don felt the impulse to ask What's the first thing you remember like a physical thing, welling up from his gut, and choked it back with his mouth already open. He didn't think he'd want to hear Charlie's answer.

Instead, he murmured, "D'you know why you don't remember things? You hit your head or something?"

Charlie squirmed against him, an all-over motion Don identified after a couple of seconds as a shrug.

"I don't remember," Charlie said. "Maybe I've always been like this."

Don shut his eyes, thinking of Charlie not knowing, not having any idea what he didn't know, or how much he'd lost. Who he'd lost. But Charlie caught Don's hand and moved it until Don's fingers rested at Charlie's hairline on a thin, old scar. Don's throat went tight even before Charlie said, "There, maybe. It's the only scar that's been on my head since before I can remember. Maybe that's when I started forgetting."

Don moved his fingers crosswise over the narrow scar, letting Charlie's hand rest over his, and he didn't say You were eleven, Charlie. Don had been sixteen, and Don's driver's license had been three days old. Their parents had both been working that day. Don had been given the car keys, Charlie, and a shopping list, and sent to the grocery store.

He'd been arguing with Charlie about something--Charlie had just joined Don in high school that year, they were always arguing about something--and never even saw the stop sign before he blew through it. He didn't know what happened next--noise and motion and the sick crack of his own arm--and when everything stopped he looked over to see Charlie was hanging limp in his seatbelt with bright red blood running down his slack face.

Don remembered sitting slumped against the steering wheel for what seemed like hours, years. The pain of his arm cut through the adrenaline in waves, but nothing else hurt nearly as bad as his certainty that he'd just killed his baby brother.

Charlie's hand fell away from his, and Don let his palm flatten against Charlie's hair. Very softly, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to be heard, Charlie said, "The first thing I remember..."

Don held perfectly still, didn't even breathe, until Charlie sighed. His next words were a little louder, though still a whisper. "I woke up in a car, in the passenger seat."

Don's hand tightened convulsively on Charlie's head. He could see it, clear as day, the moment when Charlie opened his eyes, blinking blood from the lashes, and said, "Donnie? What happened?"

Don had been able to hear the sirens then, and the shouting of people around them, and he'd started to laugh even as Charlie started to cry. He knew he had to stop--Charlie kept saying, "Donnie, what happened?" but Don couldn't stop. Charlie was alive.

"My head hurt, and my fingers were in splints."

Don almost choked on the words. No, they weren't. They weren't then. They weren't when Charlie was eleven. But that wasn't what Charlie was trying to tell him.

"I didn't know where we were, where we'd come from or where we were going, but I--I sat up and looked back. Williamson--I don't think I even knew his name, but--Williamson laughed. He said--he said all I--"

Don lowered his arm to hold Charlie closer. He could feel Charlie's entire body tensing as he spoke, a faint shiver running through him and transmitting itself to Don. He leaned in and pressed an awkward kiss to the top of Charlie's head, and Charlie pressed his cheek against Don's chest.

"He said all I left behind me was a trail of--of bodies. So maybe--maybe that's why I don't--"

Don kept his arm tight around Charlie, thinking of Casey Perez and Derek Albright, a gangbanger in Chicago, two men on the side of a road--but that trail of bodies wasn't Charlie's, at least not in the way Charlie seemed to fear, from the hollow tone of his voice and the rigid set of his shoulders under Don's arm. Don opened his mouth to try to tell him so, but there was nothing he could say, nothing Charlie would be able to believe. He set his hand on Charlie's shoulder instead, rubbing gently.

Charlie shook his head, shifting to press his face against Don's skin, hiding his eyes. Don felt the warmth of his breath, but had to strain to hear him as he said, "I could be doing so much worse."

"Trust me," Don said. "There's an I in conceit."

Charlie scowled at the board. "Why should I trust you?"

Don smiled. "Because I don't need to cheat to kick your ass and we're not betting anything on Scrabble anyway?"

Charlie transferred his scowl to Don, and then back to the board. He could spell note off Don's N, miss the double word score, and not use either of the Cs that had been sitting obstinately on his side of the board for nine turns now. Or--

"Ha!" Charlie said, grinning triumphantly, and wrote in cone. "Double word score! Two and one and one and one is ten."

Don opened his mouth on a grin, and then they both froze at the sound of the door being unbarred. Don had already gone for target practice earlier that morning, and lunch had appeared less than an hour ago. Don squeezed Charlie's shoulder and stepped in front of him as the door swung open. Charlie stayed where he was for a second, peering over Don's shoulder, but it was Williamson with a box in his hands, and Charlie scooted out from behind Don to meet him as he dropped it on the near card table with a promising paper-dense thump. Charlie was already reaching to pull the lid off when another box landed beside it, and he looked up to see Skip turning away, and Randy approaching with another box.

Charlie looked up at Williamson, who was smiling slightly and holding out a folded sheaf of paper. "Here's the precis," he said, and Charlie extended his hand halfway to it, expecting it to be snatched away. Williamson's smile widened, and he laid it in Charlie's hand.

"Get to work," he said, already turning away. "This one's going to take you a little while."

Charlie started reading, then glanced at the boxes, then toward the door, to find Williamson lingering there.

"That's to get you started," Williamson said, jerking his chin toward the boxes. "We're still gathering intel, you'll get updates as needed."

Charlie looked back at the boxes, and then sank to the floor as the door shut behind Williamson, reading carefully through the six sheets which laid out what he was expected to do. The plan was carefully detailed, lacking only the logistics that would actually make it work--that was to be Charlie's job.

Even as he started building the plan in his head, trying to work out what he didn't know, a part of his mind was reaching back to the old guessing game, checking this job against the others to see how it fit into the not-quite-a-pattern. It was the most complex job he'd been given so far, but not entirely unlike previous jobs. They'd done one with a crew of eight; they'd done one using some explosives; they'd done one with a similarly layered and complex security system. Charlie considered each variable, wondering what the betraying pattern of the jobs would eventually turn out to be, when it suddenly struck him.

There was a constant to all the jobs: he'd planned them all. And that made it obvious which variable had changed, too, which variable he'd been ignoring until now. Don.

Charlie looked up sharply at the thought, and found Don sitting near the foot of the mattress, reading a comic book. Charlie stared at him for a moment, through the slight cover of the card tables' legs. Don licked his lip and turned a page, and Charlie forced himself to look away, heart racing, the words on the page blurring before his eyes.

Williamson had given Don to him. And then Williamson had taken him away with increasing frequency, which only served to heighten Charlie's focus on Don. Williamson always been intensely interested in the nature of their interactions. It was Williamson who had first forced Charlie to contemplate sex between them, by threatening him with rape. The last time Williamson had seriously questioned him, all he'd wanted to know about was Don.

Don had won the chess game by distracting him, but Don was a distraction every hour they were locked up together. Charlie didn't know what game Williamson was trying to use Don to win, nor how many moves they'd already made, but he knew that he didn't dare lose.

He didn't think he'd made a sound, but Don said, "Charlie?" and Charlie felt himself flinch even as he looked up, wide-eyed. Don was leaning forward, nearly on his hands and knees, watching him with dark, worried eyes.

"Hey, genius, you okay? What's he got you reading?"

"Nothing," Charlie whispered, shaking his head. "It's--nothing."

He stared back down at the page, trying to still his racing thoughts, trying not to feel the pull of Don's presence, even now, trying not to be distracted.

"It's just going to be difficult."

Don stopped, halfway to the house. He was following almost exactly in Williamson's footsteps, because there wasn't quite a beaten path through the ankle-deep snow yet. Here in the yard directly behind the house, it stretched away to either side of the line of footsteps, drifted and white and pristine. Don bent over, scooping up snow with both hands, his fingertips instantly beginning to sting with cold as he packed snow into a ball nearly too big to hold in one hand.

When he straightened up, holding the snowball, Williamson was standing a few strides ahead, watching him with a strange, thoughtful expression. Don stood his ground, turning the snowball in his hands and packing it tighter, and Williamson smirked, shook his head, and turned away.

Don had to shift the snowball from hand to hand to get his coat off, and wound up briefly holding it in the crook of his arms to take off the fingerless gloves that had appeared in the pocket of his coat on the day of his third trip out for target practice. Williamson stopped outside the door to the house, wiping his feet, and Don stood juggling the snowball in his half-numb hands and kicking snow off his boots. Williamson cleared his throat, and Don looked up, startled, because it wasn't like Williamson to do anything as delicate as clear his throat to get anyone's attention.

Williamson wasn't looking at Don, but thoughtfully studying the row of shoes and boots on the landing, just inside the door. He glanced at Don's feet without ever looking at his face, and Don gritted his teeth and stared over Williamson's shoulder though the open door. The sun from the kitchen window was shining on a row of keys, hanging on little hooks on the wall. Car keys, he thought. The end hook didn't have any keys, just a collection of multi-colored rubber bands. If Williamson told him to take his boots off, there probably wouldn't be any way to avoid leaving them down here, trying to protect Charlie in his stocking goddamn feet.

Williamson didn't say a word, though, just turned away and walked on inside. Don wiped his feet on the mat and followed him all the way upstairs, carrying his snowball through the warmth of the house, all the way up to the room where Charlie was working. Williamson locked him in, and Don stood just inside the door for a minute, watching.

Charlie was right where Don had left him, right where he'd been for a day and a half now. He was sitting on the floor between the card tables and the far wall, the contents of all three of the boxes spread around him in piles. He had his pencil constantly in hand, periodically making notes or scribbling something on the back of a page, but he hadn't so much as touched the chalkboards so far. He'd lain down to sleep for maybe an hour last night, but that was it. Don had to leave food on the card tables, because if he came any closer Charlie looked at him like he was going to steal the papers, and wouldn't unfreeze until Don backed away.

"Hey," Don said, putting his hands behind his back as he did.

Charlie looked up at him, blinking like his eyes had to adjust to the light. Charlie smiled tiredly, like he knew he was supposed to, but he didn't say anything back.

Don smiled. "Come here for a second, okay?"

Charlie frowned at Don, like he didn't understand the words. He looked back down at the page in his hand and rubbed his eyes. Don could see how tired he was in that second, and if he could just get Charlie to step away from the job and lie down, he'd probably sleep for hours. But it really was a big job, and Charlie didn't have any more choice than Don did about doing what Williamson said. Less, in fact.

He didn't even have much choice about doing what Don said; he set down the page and pushed himself to his feet and walked over toward Don. Don felt just bad enough about that to give up on his first plan for the snowball. He took a step inside instead, meeting Charlie halfway and bringing the snowball out from behind his back as he did. Charlie frowned at it, uncomprehending, and Don broke it apart in his hands, raising it over Charlie's head and crumbling wet, packed snow down on him before he quite knew what was going on.

Charlie jumped, reaching for the back of his neck, and let out a strangled squeak, quickly choked off.

"What--" he gasped, dancing around like it had gone down his shirt, trying to brush snow out of his hair at the same time, "That's cold."

"Sorry," Don said, watching Charlie and realizing that he wouldn't throw the snow back into Don's face, wouldn't try to avenge himself in any way at all. "It snowed. I thought--you probably haven't seen snow, have you?"

Charlie stopped jumping up and down and looked at Don with an expression disturbingly reminiscent of Williamson's out in the backyard--thoughtful and hard to read. Charlie bent his head and shook some snow from his hair into his hands, looking at it even as it melted on his palm.

"Crystalline water," Charlie murmured. The flakes disappeared against his skin as he spoke, leaving just a sheen of wetness behind.

"I'll bring you some more next time," Don said, reaching for Charlie's empty hand. Charlie flinched when Don's fingers touched his palm, and Don winced and started to pull away, but Charlie's hand closed strongly--hotly--around his.

"You're freezing," Charlie said, frowning down at Don's hand and then up at his face. "Your hands are freezing."

Don shrugged helplessly. "Snow will do that."

Charlie smiled a little and caught Don's other hand, pressing them palm-to-palm between his and rubbing them briskly, up and down from his wrists to his fingertips. Don stood and let him, watching snow melt in Charlie's hair and on his shoulders. When Charlie stopped, Don went on looking down as Charlie leaned up for a kiss, letting Charlie go on holding his hands clasped. Charlie's mouth felt hot against his, and he was conscious of the roughness of his own cold-chapped lips against Charlie's.

Charlie pulled away after a minute, their mouths making a small wet sound that jolted through Don, hot and sharp. But Charlie was already looking over his shoulder, toward the papers on the floor, his fingers curling around Don's.

"I have to..." he said, without looking back at Don.

It would have been easy to pull him away, distract him--for his own good, because he needed the break, needed some rest. But neither of them had any choice about doing what they were told.

Don pulled his hands from between Charlie's and took hold of his shoulders, turning him away, back toward the job at hand. He dropped a brief kiss on the back of Charlie's neck, and said, "Go on, then, genius."

Charlie was beginning to get a handle on the shape of the thing. He'd need to do a projection of security-team movements and responses to stimuli, but he had plenty of data to work from and more was forthcoming. He'd have to analyze the electronic system as well, to work out where disruptions would have the best effects. He'd have to calculate the types and sizes of charges to use in coordination with likely security responses, and plan the movements of the team. He'd probably have to break them all the way down to pairs--maybe even two solos--and it was entirely possible the plan would wind up calling for nine.

He rubbed his head, staring at the stacks of papers arrayed around him, fragments of algorithms, patterns, and calculations blooming chaotically in his head. Everything circled around in his brain so he couldn't pin down a starting point to work from, and at the middle of all of it was the question of Don, and what Williamson was really doing.

Charlie kept trying to work out logically whether Don was in on whatever it was with Williamson. He didn't think it could be determined deductively, though; there were too many assumptions involved, either way. If Don knew his part in Williamson's plan, and was playing it out in accordance with orders, then he was an incredibly good, careful actor--but then Williamson would have chosen someone with just those qualities to carry out his plan. On the other hand, Williamson didn't trust anyone with more information than absolutely necessary; if he could make Don serve his purpose unwittingly he'd have done it. All of Don's actions toward Charlie, all the things he'd said, might be sincere.

But none of that explained Don's earliest reaction to him, the naked hunger in his eyes the very first time Charlie had seen him. That... that just didn't add up at all.

The job didn't add up, either, Charlie thought, shuffling the papers again as though they would make more sense in another arrangement. It was too much effort, too much complication, too much risk. If Williamson was trying to break his own pattern of careful, tidy jobs by suddenly becoming reckless and grandiose, it was going to backfire in a hurry.

Still, it was the job he'd been given; he'd have to find a way to make it work. He'd have to find some way to make sense of Don, too. Something empirical, because logic would not suffice. But for now he'd go after the problem he had data for, and let the rest wait. Charlie got to his feet and picked up a piece of chalk, turning to the empty board. It was time to get started.

"Okay," Don said, ejecting his empty clip as the fragments of the last tennis ball drifted to the ground. "Now you're just fucking with me."

Williamson snorted and tossed him a fresh clip to change out. Don caught it and tossed back the empty.

"Moving targets," Williamson said firmly. "You need the practice. And it's the targets moving toward you that you usually have to worry about."

Don shook his head, but raised his weapon again, sighting down the barrel toward the backstop as Williamson raised his radio and said, "Again."

There was the familiar sound of a pitching machine discharging a ball, and another bright-green projectile came flying toward Don on a low arc. He blew it out of the air, already shifting toward the next one, the next, the next. He had a steady rhythm going, and by the time he'd shot down the seventh he knew to shift his weight, turning in anticipation of the eighth--

--which was a half-second too soon. He fired even as he was moving, but the fucking thing slammed into his stomach while he was still off-balance from the turn and the recoil. It knocked him on his ass, all his breath escaping in a hollow whoosh.

He lay in the snow with his eyes shut, working his mouth, trying to make his lungs remember how to inhale as a gun fired above him--Williamson taking out the rest of the targets. Don's eyes popped open as he finally took a breath, and Williamson was standing over him, gun in hand. Don was still blinking against the bright midday light as Williamson raised the gun and pointed it at Don's head.

Don froze, not even breathing as his heart pounded triple-time, hand tight on his own gun. There was no way he could get it up in time, not from this angle.

"Bang," Williamson said. "You lose." He holstered the gun and reached out a hand to Don, adding, "This is why we practice."

Don glared at him and struggled up to his feet without help.

There was a bruise on Don's belly, just below his ribcage and slightly to the left side. It was perfectly, uniformly round, and an ugly red-brown. Very fresh; it must have come from today's target practice, though it didn't look like the mark of a fist and Charlie couldn't imagine what else might have caused it.

Charlie wanted to ask, but didn't want to talk about the hour Don spent away from him every day with Williamson. Asking would only give him more data he couldn't use: truth or lies with no way to distinguish for certain. Actions would speak more reliably than words, and Don hadn't objected at all when Charlie wanted some action.

Now that he had Don naked Charlie wanted to kiss the bruise, but Don would misinterpret the downward movement and pull him away. Charlie ran his thumb across it instead, gently tracing the arc of one edge as he leaned in to kiss Don. Don's eyes closed and he groaned into the first touch of Charlie's lips on his, and then Charlie shifted on his knees, lowering himself over Don again until his cock brushed Don's, and Don's mouth opened as he arched into the touch.

Charlie pushed his tongue inside, tasting Don's mouth, sinking into it even as he rolled his hips, his cock barely touching Don's, a tease for them both. Don's hand tightened on Charlie's knee and his hips jerked up, but Charlie had his rhythm and pushed up as Don did, keeping the contact slight. He wanted more, his whole body screaming for it, every inch of his skin as hungry as his cock as it slid for just a second against Don's. His balls tightened, pleasure skittering down his spine, every muscle tensing, wanting more.

And that was the plan.

He had to breathe, pulling his mouth from Don's with a sucking sound, his cock jumping at Don's ragged moan as he let his lips slide wetly down Don's cheek. Even the prickle of Don's skin--not quite stubble, not yet--made him want more, and Charlie was distracted for a while, tonguing the hard line of Don's jaw as Don writhed under him, his head thrown back, hips arching up, cock thrusting wildly against Charlie's. And still, Charlie didn't even know where Don's left hand was; his right was on Charlie's knee, not pushing, or pulling, or forcing in any way.

Charlie's lips brushed Don's ear, and he remembered about the plan. He shifted his weight, lower and to the side, so that Don's cock could thrust against his hip, and his against Don's. His thumb rubbed over Don's nipple and he licked the soft skin just below Don's ear, thinking dizzy thoughts about symmetry as Don gasped and jerked beneath him, sliding his cock against Don's sweat-slick skin.

"Don," he whispered, just like the plan. "Let me fuck you."

Don went absolutely still, and Charlie instinctively froze too. He could feel the pounding of Don's pulse through his skin, Don's cock hot against his hip. His own heart was hammering wildly. He wanted--God, he didn't even want to know anymore, he just wanted to fuck--but the knowing mattered, too, and he'd rehearsed it all in his mind already. Don would argue; Charlie would offer to be fucked instead, and Don's apparent reluctance to risk hurting him would be pitted against his resistance, and then--

Charlie moved his lips against Don's temple, and started to lift his head so he could look Don in the eye and gauge where they were at in his mental script. Don's hands moved fast, though, catching Charlie's head and holding him right where he was. Charlie heard himself make a small startled sound, and Don turned his head, sighing a long breath against Charlie's mouth and then kissing him, licking into Charlie's mouth slowly, carefully, as if Charlie would break. As if Charlie would pull away, as if he could.

He slid a hand up into Don's hair, holding on right back, returning the kiss and thrusting slowly against Don's hip. Don jerked up against him and then went still again, kissing Charlie like there was nothing else, like they weren't naked, weren't touching. Don's tongue curled against his, and Charlie barely had breath left to moan, thrusting against Don's hip and pulling back from the kiss.

Don didn't let him go far; their lips were still nearly touching as Charlie gasped. Don's hands held him down, too close to meet Don's eyes, too close to do anything but sink into another kiss when he'd caught his breath. It occurred to Charlie, in a dim, distant way, that Don was putting off the inevitable argument, but he didn't care. His hand slid down Don's throat, over his chest, to curl around Don's hip, anchoring him as he moved against Don. His cock skidded on Don's skin, and he broke his mouth from Don's--to breathe, to beg, anything--but Don only let him have a single quick inhalation before kissing him again, fast and rough.

Then the world tipped sideways, and Charlie was lying with his back to the wall, watching wide-eyed as Don got to his feet, walking away. Charlie panted helplessly, wondering what was next--but Don only turned out the overhead lights, leaving the bathroom light and the worklight on. It cast the mattress where Charlie lay into shadow, but there was plenty of light for him to see Don crouching naked over his duffle bag, digging through it for something. Charlie's heart was pounding, his cock so hard it hurt, and if Don pulled out a comic book, he would--

Don straightened up with something in his hand that made a plastic, crinkling sound, and walked back to the mattress. Charlie couldn't read his face--though he couldn't miss the hardness of his cock, so whatever this was, it couldn't be so bad. Don crouched and grabbed Charlie's hand, pressing the thing into it, and then lay face down on the mattress, pillowing his head on his folded arms. Spreading his legs.

Charlie bit his lip and tipped his head back hard against the wall, because he couldn't--he couldn't come now, just from the fact that Don was lying there--

He looked down at what was in his hand: a small plastic bag. He sat up a little, in the narrow space between the wall and Don--Don was just lying there, all skin and radiating heat and bare ass and strong thighs opened to him, just because Charlie had asked--and tipped the contents of the bag into one hand.

A box of condoms. A bottle of lubricant.

Charlie dropped everything, reaching for his cock and squeezing hard, just there, because he could not--and his brain was running away on its own track, asking why, asking what it meant--but what it meant was that he could fuck Don and do it properly. Like the laws of thermodynamics or the order of operations, he knew how to do this, and lubrication was vital.

Charlie took a breath and moved, kneeling up to straddle Don's hips--again. The condoms slid down the mattress to lie against his knee, but he'd dropped the lube right onto the small of Don's back. When he picked it up, Don flinched.

Charlie bit his lip, set the lubricant down next to the condoms, and leaned forward over Don's back. He rested his hand on Don's shoulder, and the skin was beaded with sweat, the muscle beneath it rigid, vibrating with tension. He could have asked are you sure, but he suspected that Don was. He hadn't been delaying the argument, only making up his mind, and now it was made up.

Don had said he didn't have sex with guys; he'd never done this before. Charlie thought that he had, himself, though he didn't remember it. That had to be why he knew what to do, why he thought he knew how it would feel. He wanted to say I won't hurt you, but the words sounded ludicrous even in his own head, and anyway he wasn't at all sure that it was true.

He pressed a kiss to Don's hairline, instead, dragging his lips softly down his spine to the nape of his neck, his hand moving in slow circles on Don's back. He thought he felt Don relax by some tiny degree, and suddenly it occurred to him that he knew just what he wanted to say. Charlie swallowed, playing the words over in his head--but Don had told him to remember them, and he had.

"If I hurt you," he whispered, "then I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you."

Don shuddered all over, but he seemed to relax a little, too, and Charlie licked the sweat from the back of his neck and then knelt up, shifting himself between Don's thighs, nudging them further apart with his knees. Don's skin was hot against his, and Charlie set his hands on Don's ass. There was just enough light to distinguish the darker skin of his hands from the paleness of Don's ass, but Charlie was lost in the feeling, skin soft over muscle, Don squirming beneath his touch.

Irresistibly, his right hand slid in, finger seeking more heat, softer skin, until his thumb touched--just--there--and Don's whole body jerked. He made a muffled sound like a curse, and suddenly Charlie could see him breathing, shoulders heaving in a quick rhythm--and that was better at least, he thought. You had to breathe.

Charlie reached for the bottle of lube, opening it up and squeezing some onto his fingers--it was cold on his skin, and he winced in anticipation--but when he lowered his fingers to Don's ass, Don only shivered a little, spreading his legs wider. Charlie hesitated a moment, just touching, and then pushed with one fingertip--hard, harder--and he said, "Breathe."

Don gasped and his finger slid in, disappearing inside Don's body, slick and tight and hot. He had to shut his eyes against the sight, gritting his teeth as his cock throbbed, slowly twisting his finger in the grip of Don's body, feeling the small movements Don made from inside.

Charlie started easing his finger in and out, and his hand seemed to know what to do, flexing and twisting in patterns that felt as right as any mathematics. He listened for Don's breathing, trying to match his rhythm, in and out and in and out. He went on and on, easing along, until his wrist was caught in a hard grip. Charlie's eyes flashed open to find Don looking back over his shoulder, an almost desperate look in his eyes.

Charlie gave him an apologetic smile and reached left-handed for the lube, squirting more onto the fingers of his immobilized hand, half of it missing completely. Don jerked, his grip loosening, and when Charlie slid two fingers in, his eyes closed. He laid his head back down, though his hand stayed where it was, loosely circling Charlie's wrist.

Charlie kept his eyes trained on the back of Don's neck as he eased his fingers in--tight, tight, tight, so good even just around his fingers, and then Don's head twitched up, just a little, and Charlie grinned and curled his fingertips. Don's hand went tight on his wrist again, his head jerking up. He didn't look back, and Charlie crooked his fingers again, because he knew this part; he didn't know how, but he knew. Don made an inarticulate noise and took his hand away, and from the motion of his shoulders Charlie thought he was covering his face. Charlie bit his lip, working his fingers back and forth, and then leaned forward, resting his forehead against Don's back so he could slide his left hand under Don's body.

Don shifted a little, letting Charlie's hand slide under his hip to find his cock. He was half hard, and thrust quickly into Charlie's grip as Charlie twisted his fingers in Don's ass. Don was panting, his hips jerking back and forth between Charlie's hands, and Charlie kept moving as steadily as he could, pressing open-mouthed kisses to Don's skin. His cock ached, jerking in sympathy with his fingers sliding into Don, with Don's cock hardening in his hand, and finally he couldn't wait anymore.

He removed his hand from Don's ass first--Don made a startled, choked-off sound--and then from Don's cock, pushing himself upright. It took him a moment to find the condoms, longer to get the stupid box open and one packet separated from the others. His hands were shaking, his heart pounding. He could hear himself gasping for breath, and Don doing the same thing beneath him, a half-beat behind, echoing. But when he shut his eyes and let his hands go, they knew what to do, rolling the condom on, finding the lube again, and then his hand was on Don's ass, holding him steady--open--for the press of Charlie's cock, slow, slow, steady and in in oh god in.

He thought Don was saying something, but the sound was far away and all Charlie could feel was this, his body pushing into Don's body, his cock squeezed tight. He tried to go slow, but it was so good, and then Don moved under him, moved toward him, and Charlie slid in fast and deep. The arm he was holding himself up with was wobbling, and Charlie slid down as slowly as he could, resting his weight on Don, his cheek pressed to Don's spine, his ear over Don's heart, and he couldn't hear anything else. His hips started to move--not on every beat, but every fourth, and then every third, small moves at first and then more, pushing up again and fucking Don helplessly, mindlessly, more, more, more. Don started pushing back, meeting his thrusts, and Charlie couldn't hold back anymore, turning his face to Don's back, muffling a cry against Don's skin as he came.

He lay still for a moment, after, trying to catch his breath. Don was very still beneath him--and then he squirmed, under and around Charlie, and Charlie slid his right hand down to Don's hip and tugged. Don seemed to know what he wanted, tilting to his left so Charlie could slid his hand under Don's body again. He made a small noise as Charlie began to stroke him, thrusting into Charlie's fist, and every motion of his body touched Charlie's cock, still inside him, sending aftershock jolts of pleasure through him. The feeling was almost unbearable, and when Don came he went silent, but Charlie gasped, "Fuck, fuck, fuck," against his back as his cock was squeezed tight, thrusting helplessly.

When Don went still, Charlie finally, carefully pulled out. Don's breath hitched and Charlie winced in sympathy--he thought he knew how that felt, too--and then rolled to his feet, headed to the bathroom to clean up. His hands shook under the water as he washed them, and his legs felt rubbery. His whole body felt strange, alive and awake in a way that was at odds with the warm post-orgasmic sleepiness he could feel at the edge of his consciousness. He shut off the water and stepped out of the doorway, and then stopped short. Don was standing beside the doorway, his forehead leaning against the wall, his eyes closed.

Charlie licked his lips but couldn't quite bring himself to speak. He reached out to touch Don's shoulder, but Don jerked away just before he made contact, and stood staring at Charlie with wide, dark eyes, unblinking. Charlie bit his lip, and then, moving slowly, stepped in toward Don. He could feel Don tensing, but Don didn't pull away or raise his head. Charlie closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to Don's mouth, and Don stayed frozen, not even breathing against Charlie's lips.

Charlie kept his eyes turned down as he stepped back, moving around Don to go back to the mattress. One sleeping bag was missing--lying in a heap near the door--and Charlie carefully smoothed the other over the mattress, lying down with his back to the wall and covering himself with his blanket. He heard the shower switch on, and as long as he lay awake, watching the rectangle of light from the bathroom doorway, he never heard it shut off.

Williamson had to know something was up. He couldn't have missed it, when Don was so eager to get out of the room that he practically knocked Williamson down as soon as he opened the door to get Don for target practice. He hadn't said anything, and Don hadn't said anything, and now Williamson was just standing next to him, watching him shoot bottles in whatever pattern he was directed.

It wasn't, exactly, that he'd needed to get away from Charlie--although Charlie kept shooting him these looks like he thought Don was about to fall over and die, and that had gotten old within an hour after he'd given up on getting any sleep. He'd just needed to move, to get out, take a deep breath and know that there was a world outside that room--that mattress.

Don had known Charlie might want to, he'd known, and he could have said no. He hadn't, and it was all right. He hadn't hurt Charlie; Charlie hadn't hurt him. Hell, it had felt kind of good at times--good enough to get off on, so he really couldn't complain much. It was just--just weird, physically, and if he'd stood in the shower and shivered for close to an hour, it was just a physical reaction to unfamiliar stimuli. It was just--

"Every other green one," Williamson said, and Don nodded once and forced himself to stop thinking--just count and fire and count and fire, all the way to the end of the clip.

Don came back from target practice and challenged Charlie to a game of chess, and Charlie felt relief rush through his chest like his first deep breath in hours. Charlie made a few quick notations on the board to hold his thought, and then joined Don at the chess board.

"What are we betting?"

Don grinned and said, "Come on, Charlie, it's not about what you win, it's about the love of the game."

Charlie grinned back, a little unbalanced by the change in Don from that morning--he'd spent hours pacing, in between short-lived attempts to sit down which Charlie couldn't watch without feeling sick to his stomach. But now Don had come back to him, and Charlie passed him the white chalk and awaited his opening move.

Knight's pawn. Charlie smiled--it was Don's third-favorite opening, comprising about twenty percent of his first moves--and rejected the first three strategies that presented themselves to him. He countered a little randomly, with Queen's pawn, just to see what Don would do next.

The game stretched out over thirty-seven moves, and Don accused him of going easy but took enormous delight in capturing Charlie's queen, even though Charlie put him into checkmate only three moves later. Charlie tugged Don down into a kiss, his hand on the back of Don's neck, and Don leaned down easily this time, his mouth opening to Charlie's. Charlie smiled, breaking away, and asked hesitantly, "Maybe we could play Scrabble later?"

Don grinned, and the light in his eyes as he straightened up told Charlie it was exactly the right thing to say. "You realize we haven't actually finished a game yet?"

Charlie wrinkled his nose. "I didn't think it had an end. Isn't it more a trial of endurance?"

Don just shook his head, turning away to clear the chess board and redraw the Scrabble set, and Charlie went back to work. When he was standing in front of his calculation, though, he hesitated with the chalk in his hand, his mind returning to the larger problem.

Don was his. He was willing to accept that as an axiom, after last night, and move forward from there. That meant Williamson was using Don to distract him from something, something Don wasn't aware of--and it had to be something to do with this job, because the last one had been routine apart from Don's presence. Lulling him. This one was complex, more complex than anything Charlie had ever done before.

It was more than that, though. Charlie frowned at the board, thinking it through. It was more complex than it should be, far too much planning for the payoff involved. Charlie turned to look around at the stacks of papers he was working from, recalling Williamson's casual mention of further recon in progress, and--it would help, it might well be absolutely necessary to pull off this job, this way, but the economics were all wrong. There was nearly as much money being pumped into this job as could possibly be gotten out of it--

If the payoff was what he'd been told it was.

Williamson had gone to the trouble of bringing in Don to distract him, and then given him a job of unprecedented complexity to work on. Don was there to keep him from thinking too much about it, because if he thought too much about it he'd see that it was a test.

But Don was genuinely there to guard him, too--the shootout on the roadside, while he was being transported in a rush.

The job wasn't the point. The point was that somebody--somebody who could provide a payoff worth all of Williamson's trouble--wanted to see what he could do. You couldn't put an item up for sale without revealing that you had it in your first place, which made it more likely to be stolen; God knew they'd constructed enough heists around appraisers.

Charlie stared blankly at the board, trying to think it through logically, verify the progression--but it all fit, it explained the variables, and it made his path clear. If they wanted to see what he could do, then he had no choice but to show them.

Don half-woke when Charlie moved, and lay blinking at the darkness, wondering vaguely whether something was wrong. But Charlie was curled up against his back, his hand on Don's hip, radiating heat through the thin barrier of Don's shirt and jeans. Don had remembered to get dressed again while Charlie was already dozing off--he wiggled his toes in his boots, and reached out his left hand to touch his gun where it lay ready on the floor. Everything was where it should be.

He closed his eyes, sleep settling over him again, and then Charlie shifted away slightly. Cold air slid into the space between them like a gun at the back of his neck, and Don jerked sharply and entirely awake. He stared wide-eyed into the dark for a second--Charlie naked at his back and the door locking on the outside and his gun under his hand and his boots on--and then he was on his feet, bolting toward the dubious refuge of the bathroom. He was on his knees on the tile floor by the time he realized that he'd picked up his gun on the way, and his hands were shaking almost too hard to check the safety and put it on. He couldn't force himself to set the weapon down.

Twenty-one days to make a habit, and he'd been locked up with Charlie for twenty-eight, so long it seemed normal, so long he was--sleeping with his brother, he was getting fucked--

Don gasped, and then lunged blindly toward the toilet--but nothing came out on the exhale but a sound echoing back, a wounded, animal noise. He slapped both hands over his mouth--gutshot, he thought wildly, falling sideways to slump against the side of the tub, nightmare coming true, gutshot. He tried to hold his breath, but the sobs tore through him uncontrollably. Don shook like he was in the grip of an earthquake or a hurricane, something vast and vicious and utterly beyond him.

Twenty-eight days, and he was no closer to getting them out.

Charlie lay very still in the darkness, listening. He shut his eyes, and after a while he began to shiver, and pulled the sleeping bag firmly around himself, but he couldn't stop hearing. He knew, dimly, that he ought to go toward the sound, toward Don, that he ought to offer some comfort. But he knew just as well that Don was trying to keep quiet, trying not to be heard. He knew that it was him Don was hiding from. He remembered the taste of blood in Don's mouth, the sound of the shower running and running and running long after the water had to have gone cold, and he knew why.

After a while the sound got quieter, and after a while his own shivering eased. He still lay awake, looking through the darkness toward his boards, working out the next step of the job at hand. He had to work quickly. Don wouldn't last much longer.

Williamson led him to the back of the yard, instead of across it. The snow had been melting, leaving drifts that showed the slight contours of the ground, in between patches of dead grass over saturated earth. The sun was shining, and Don was getting to know the cold well enough to distinguish the day as slightly above freezing--practically balmy for mid-December. Wherever the hell they were.

They headed into the trees on a beaten path, and when the yard and the house had disappeared from view, Williamson stopped and waved Don ahead of him.

"You're shooting bottles again," Williamson announced. "But today the targets hold still and you move."

Don looked down the path, scanning for a glimpse of green glass. If he just took off running now--down the path until it curved and then on and on, just running, running, getting away--

Williamson said, "Ready, set," and Don was off and running as Williamson drew a breath to say, "Go."

On his third stride he heard Williamson giving chase, and he looked around for bottles even as he pushed himself faster. He was nearly even with the first one when he spotted it, stumbling as he pivoted to fire off to his left at a bad angle. But he was rewarded with a crack-crash, and he was running on before Williamson had quite closed the distance between them.

He found the second bottle in good time, firing off to the right on a tight angle, and as the bottle smashed he heard Williamson stumble behind him. Don bared his gritted teeth and ran on faster, pulling away, but his shot at the next bottle went wide, and before he could falter to take a second shot, there was a pistol crack behind him, and the bottle exploded in his peripheral vision. Williamson was cleaning up his leavings; Williamson was two strides behind with his gun out.

Don spotted the fourth and fired, and then the fifth and then the sixth, and it had been a month and more since he'd run any distance. Even on rough terrain--the path was rocks where it wasn't snow or mud, swerving wildly through the trees and up and down--he felt his body catching the rhythm of it, settling to its pace. His arms swung left and right to take the seventh bottle and the eighth in quick succession.

He jumped down a steep section of the path, landing with a splash and a jolt and running on. He heard Williamson make the same jump behind him and kept running--he could run forever, though the clip wouldn't last as long--and on impulse he decided to miss the ninth bottle altogether, not even taking a shot at it. He was even with it when Williamson fired, and didn't turn his head to see the green glass flying.

He stumbled taking aim at ten, and Williamson gained ground--he was barely a stride behind Don, longer fucking legs, but Don ran on and on, eleven and twelve and up a hill and down--he was on his last round, and he'd saved one. His clip should have been empty, it might be the end of the course--but he glimpsed green and whirled to fire, skidding almost sideways in the mud. He'd have gone down if Williamson hadn't caught his arm, and the bastard was grinning and panting.

It was only when he said, "Fun, huh, Mac?" that Don realized he was grinning back.