The work was moving fast, and it took Charlie time to recognize why. It wasn't that it was easy--he had as many false starts as good ones, and from the look of the algorithms he was developing the calculations were going to be horrendous. But the job was taking shape in his head, and he stayed immersed in it for long, still stretches of time, painstakingly pinning down one corner at a time on the board in scribbles of chalk.
Don paced behind him, in and out of his peripheral vision, steady as the beat of Charlie's heart--steadier, since Charlie hadn't been sleeping much, and his heart tended to race when he bent over after a piece of chalk, or stood from sitting to eat. He'd been trying to rest here and there, lying down when he noticed that Don was, or when the light in the room took on that particular sharp-edged quality which meant that his thought processes were about to spiral off into total chaos. But his sleep was all dreams and his dreams were all nightmares (Don's sobs echoing on and on and on; silence) so he never lasted long before he was up and working again.
And Don was always there, a steady, silent presence. Williamson came in a few times with further data (the security movements altered their pattern, and he had to spend hours on a calculative detour, working out how to weight recency versus a longer baseline for predictive purposes), but he didn't take Don away again. Charlie wrenched his brain momentarily out of the job to actually look at them, and realized that Don wasn't crowding toward the door, or toward Williamson, anymore. He stayed on the other side of the room now, watching intently, but he was wary rather than eager.
Charlie looked back down at the papers Williamson had handed him. Don was his, and for all Don was meant to distract him, Don guarded him from distraction--not only from any of the others taking him from his work, but from his own fear of the others.
Not that that meant he had less to be afraid of, Charlie thought, showing the page in his hand a small, grim smile. But the things Don couldn't guard him against--well, that was why he had to work fast. He had a job to do, and he couldn't do it without Don.
Don had been locked in with Charlie for about sixty hours straight by the time Williamson walked in without a folder under his arm. As far as Don could tell, Charlie had slept for about four of those hours, restless, mumbling urgently sometimes. Don woke whenever Charlie lay down, and kept watch over him until he shook himself out of his sleep and went back to work.
Charlie looked up from what he was doing when the door opened, looking expectantly at Williamson. Don saw the exact moment he realized that Williamson wasn't there to bring him more data or poke around his results. He went pale, his hand clenching tight around his chalk, and backed up slightly, right into his chalkboard. Don's stomach lurched in sympathy, his heart pounding, his fist clenched.
"Mac," Williamson said, and jerked his chin toward the door, "you're out."
Don looked at Williamson, who met his eyes without expression, and then at Charlie, who wouldn't meet his eyes at all. Don turned away and headed out the door, stopping short on the threshold. Skip and Randy were standing in the hallway, and Don almost choked on his next breath, his hand twitching automatically toward his right hip, where Mac's gun wasn't. Randy smiled, and Don could have killed him right then, was actually trying to calculate in his head whether Williamson would actually kill him for it or only--
Skip stepped in between, grabbing Don's arm and pulling him away--not down the stairs, but across the little hallway, to another bedroom. It was smaller than Charlie's, but there were no boards over the windows. Slanting afternoon light streamed in, yellow and warm, almost blinding. Skip pushed him inside and Don stumbled to a halt in the middle of the little bare room, blinking. Skip slammed the door shut, and was dropping into a folding chair beside it, gun in hand, when Don turned.
"Get comfy," Skip said, nodding toward the other folding chair. "It's going to be a while."
Don forced his hands open, but they closed into fists again right away. He stalked to a corner instead, the one nearest to Charlie's room, and sat down to wait in a dim, chilly triangle of shade.
Charlie stayed where he was, trying to breathe. Williamson wasn't looking at him. The door was standing open, though he'd heard another one close nearby; was Don so close? But too far--it was Williamson stalking back and forth across the room now, treading the same path Don paced. Charlie tried to quantify what it was that made Don's motion a comfort, and Williamson's a menace. It had to be quantifiable. Everything was quantifiable.
Pattern of past behavior suggested itself immediately, and then Randy stepped into the open doorway and leaned there, and pain bloomed in Charlie's chest. He leaned his head against the board, listening to himself gasp, unable to take his eyes from Randy even as Williamson veered off course and approached him. Randy watched him right back, smiling slightly, and Charlie blinked rapidly, his eyes stinging, sweat breaking out all over his body, his hands aching and shaking with the tension of his fists.
He jumped when Williamson spoke, almost in his ear.
"You and I are going to have a talk," he murmured, and Charlie forced himself to turn his head, to look up at Williamson, his face surrounded by flickers of light in Charlie's vision. He didn't smile, didn't frown, didn't betray a single emotion.
"But first, you're going to spend a little quality time with Randy, to put you in the proper frame of mind."
Charlie shook his head slightly--involuntary as the shiver coalescing up his spine--and Williamson hit him hard across the face, backhanded. Charlie stumbled, his hand sliding across the board, smearing the chalk and gaining no purchase, and he fell almost in slow motion, failing to catch himself or be caught. He was still looking up at Williamson, and Williamson had something black in his hand. He knelt, resting one knee on Charlie's belly to keep him still, keep him from catching his breath, and raised it to Charlie's face. He fastened it over Charlie's eyes, blocking out all light.
"This will help," he murmured, and then the weight was gone from Charlie's belly.
Charlie didn't hear his footsteps, just the sound of the door being closed. Being locked. Being barred. And then Randy said, "Hello there, Know-Nothing."
Don's head jerked up when he heard the other door close, and the bar drop. He glanced at Skip, but Skip was staring at the ceiling, his arms crossed over his chest with his gun still in hand. Don pressed his ear to the wall just in time to catch the sound of footsteps on the stairs, descending briskly. Williamson.
That meant Randy was locked in with Charlie.
He could shoot Skip, get across the hall and shoot Randy, that would take out two before he'd have to face Williamson coming back up--
Muffled by the intervening walls, he heard Charlie's voice--just an indistinct murmur at first, forming into words as it rose in volume. "No, no, nonononononopleaseno--"
Don was on his feet, staring down the barrel of Skip's gun.
"Sit," Skip said flatly. His eyes were cold, his finger was on the trigger, and his sights were on Don's head.
Don stared while Charlie begged, and sat like a puppet with its strings cut when Charlie went silent.
He tried to pull away from the hand on the back of his neck, but then Williamson said, "Breathe." He couldn't ignore the command and hauled in a breath, air stinging his raw throat. He choked halfway through, coughing and sobbing. It wasn't until he tried to rub his nose that he realized Williamson was holding his head between his knees.
Charlie closed his hands around his own ankles and hung on, trying to catch his breath. He was flinching from Williamson's steady grip but trying not to noticeably pull away.
"Now tell me," Williamson said, when Charlie was mostly quiet. "How's the job coming?"
Charlie's first attempt to speak came out as nothing more than a garbled bark of sound. He bit his lip, focused, and tried again.
"We--well," he managed. "I think."
He tried to actually dredge the job up out of the tarry blankness of his brain, fear-soaked and shivering.
"Security movements--"
"Good," Williamson said crisply. "I see you and Mac have been playing Scrabble. Do you like it when he fucks you?"
Charlie shuddered and choked all over again, his moment of control dissolving--Don's hand had rested on the back of his neck sometimes, just where Williamson's hand was now, and Don had whispered in his ear sometimes, but never--
"No," he whispered shakily, even though it was the wrong piece of the truth.
Williamson squeezed hard, shaking him a little, and Charlie had a flash of vision--a lion, shaking its prey, on a television screen--a memory--and his heart began to race again, his hard-won breath leaving him as his chest went tight.
"No," he gasped, "no, no, no, no," but his body didn't listen and neither did Williamson. His neck was wet and cold when Williamson let go, and he didn't remember to try to get his back against a wall until Randy's fingers touched his skin, and then it was too late.
For the first hour, Don thought Charlie's screams were the worst part. His own breath came short while Charlie screamed, his own heart racing--Charlie was always screaming no and please and stop, stop. It was always anticipation, always terror. So far, nothing sounded like pain, like he was being hurt yet. But the waiting was worse; Don had seen enough to know that Charlie was used to being hurt. It was the waiting to be hurt that would be worst for him now.
But after an hour there began to be more silences, and Don couldn't move while he couldn't hear Charlie. He stood frozen with his forehead pressed to the cold glass of the window, watching the light die, straining for any sound. If Charlie was screaming, at least Charlie was breathing; if he was silent--
He'd been soaking wet, the last time. There was a bathtub right there. And Randy would--Randy would fucking love it, the little monster, the fucking textbook sociopath. Don stared out the window and wished he were back in the woods, wished he'd shot Randy in the head the instant he got Charlie clear of him. Wished he'd touched Charlie, wished he'd kissed him goodbye this time, wished he knew Charlie was breathing.
When he screamed again, Don inhaled, feeling sick with fury, and shaky with something like gratitude. It shouldn't have been a relief.
"Please," Charlie whispered, his voice no more than a husk, tears saturating the blindfold and seeping down his cheeks. He couldn't stop shaking. Randy's fingers walked up and down his arm. Up and down.
He had his back pressed to the wall, his whole body laid out straight; if he tried to curl up, he'd touch Randy, lying close beside him on the mattress.
He could smell Don sometimes, when he managed to get a breath through his nose. Don and himself and sex and all the things that had been good--had felt good--and Randy was lying there now, touching him, taking Don's space, taking Don's place.
Charlie choked on his next breath, and the breath after that was a scream, and underneath it Randy laughed, closing his hand on Charlie's arm to keep him still.
Charlie had been quiet for a while now, however hard Don pressed his ear to the wall, or however long he held his breath, listening. He had nothing but logic to listen to: they wouldn't kill Charlie in the middle of his work. They wouldn't.
Williamson wouldn't; but Williamson was careful and smart, and Randy was nothing but a psycho on Williamson's leash, locked in alone with Charlie. Don looked from his own curled fists to Skip's gun, considering it; but Charlie would be sure to hear that shot. Don couldn't risk doing that to him.
So he stood still in the corner, listening to nothing, waiting, until the door opened.
Williamson switched a light on, and Don blinked against it, only then realizing how dark it had gotten; the windows reflected back the yellow light, hiding the empty night outside. Williamson's gun was holstered, freeing his hands for...
Don stared.
Williamson smiled and offered him one of the bottles in his hand. Bud Light with a twist-off cap. His mouth watered, his stomach growled, and Charlie screamed. Don turned his head, clenching his jaw, swallowing hard to keep from gagging--all those nights he'd spent, three months drinking beer in his dad's house, in random bars, with Coop, with Terry and David--three months, while this had been happening to Charlie.
Don heard the folding chair creak as Williamson settled into it, the sound of a beer cap being twisted off. The sound of Williamson taking a drink. Don squeezed his eyes shut and kept breathing.
"If there's anything on your mind," Williamson said, and Don turned to look at him. He'd set down the other beer and taken his gun out; Skip had disappeared. "I find myself with some time on my hands, and I'm in a listening mood."
"Fuck you," Don muttered, still straining to hear. Charlie's voice was getting weaker with every hour. He'd been exhausted going into this. How long could he go without breaking completely?
Williamson laughed, blocking any sound from across the hall.
"I'd make a nice change from the genius, huh?"
Don gritted his teeth and stared, and Williamson shook his head and stood. "If you're not feeling talkative, I think I know someone who is. Excuse me."
He took another pull from the bottle in his hand and walked out, leaving the second beer on the floor, as though he'd forgotten it. Don stared at the light shining on the condensation, and listened.
Charlie pressed himself into the corner as tightly as he could. He could hear, almost feel, Williamson's presence, a few inches away. He'd lost track of Randy again. He might be anywhere, might be right beside him, watching him--
"Breathe," Williamson said, and Charlie heard him drinking something before he spoke again. "Now. Let's review. You don't like it when Mac fucks you?"
Charlie cringed, pressing his face harder to the wall. It wasn't like that at all--wouldn't be, if--and Randy might be listening, and--
"Know-Nothing!"
"He doesn't," Charlie blurted, coughed and breathed as his throat tried to close, tried to grab the words back. Williamson's hand closed on his left elbow, squeezing hard and twisting ever so slightly, just enough to remind him, as if he could ever forget.
"He doesn't want to--to hurt me. He doesn't. Do that."
"He doesn't fuck you." Williamson's voice was steady, not a question. A command.
"He doesn't fuck me," Charlie whispered back, shaking. He'd been ready to tell Williamson anything about what he wanted, but--not Don, he'd never meant to betray Don this way--
"Does he let you fuck him?" Williamson asked, taking his hand away, and Charlie closed his own hand protectively over his elbow, even though he knew it showed his weakness. He had too many weaknesses to keep from showing. He was nodding before he could think about it.
"Does he like it when you fuck him? Does he come for you, genius?"
Genius, like Don called him, the same way he said Charlie, but it was cruel in Williamson's mouth, tarnished like everything else he spoke of. A high-pitched sound broke from Charlie's throat, and he buried his face against his knees. Williamson's fingers closed his hair, tugging his head up, and Charlie squeezed his eyes shut tight behind the blindfold.
"Does he like it when you fuck him?" he whispered, and Charlie could feel Williamson's breath warm against his cheek, smell the beer he'd been drinking.
He tried to pull away, to shake his head, but Williamson held tight, and Charlie was pinned, shaking, and could only tell the truth. "I don't know."
Randy hauled him to his feet and wrapped something soft around his shaking right hand. It was the cloth he used to erase the boards, and he realized that a second before Randy's hand closed around his and dragged it up, pressing it against--
"No," Charlie gasped, trying to keep his hand still, trying to pull it back. "No, that's--no, I need that--no--"
Randy laughed in his ear, his whole body pressing against Charlie's, his strength forcing Charlie's hand to slide against the slate, obliterating hours, days--he didn't even know which board he was at, what he should be trying to remember--
He struggled wildly, some last desperate burst of adrenaline driving him--it was his work, they only kept him alive for his work, and if that was gone--he couldn't--he had to--"No! NO!"
He only succeeded in turning himself around, and Randy took him by the shoulders and dragged him sideways across the board, beyond the end and across another. Charlie lost his feet and Randy was carrying him, pinned against the wall, using his own body to destroy his work, and Charlie flailed against him, kicking wildly and screaming, wild animal noises coming from his throat.
Suddenly he was whirling, a brief sick airborne moment before he hit the ground on his side, curling up automatically; it was only on the next breath that he smelled urine, felt the wetness and realized what he'd done.
"Fucking freak show," Randy snarled.
Charlie's left arm was grabbed, twisted up, and Randy was dragging him across the floor as he struggled feebly, trying to calculate how many boards might have escaped, unable to think, barely able to breathe for terror and shame.
"You're going to need washing up."
His cheek touched the tile, and when he heard the tub switch on, he found himself on his hands and knees, crawling desperately away. Randy caught him before he'd gone far. There was nowhere to go.
Don stood and waited--for some sound from Charlie after the last round of screams, for something to happen--and eventually he found that what he'd been waiting for was the moment when he couldn't wait anymore. He turned his back on Skip, faced the wall, and unbuckled his belt.
He wrapped it around the knuckles of his right hand with quick, precise motions. He'd had practice with this. He knew how. He could channel a lot into one blow, he could judge the distance just right, he could keep from breaking his fingers or making too much of a mess.
He raised his left hand to the wall and tapped with his knuckle, gauging the distance from the perpendicular wall to his left and the window to his right, trying to guess which side they'd started from, studding it out. There.
Don heard Skip stand up behind him as he drew his right hand back, smashing his fist hard into the drywall. It caved but didn't punch through. Don was already winding up for the second effort, a little lower than the first. Skip was yelling behind him, but Don yanked his hand free of the plaster and hit it again, higher this time, and then he sidestepped toward the window, and punched again, as hard as he could, harder. He was starting to feel it in his hand, in his arm, but it didn't hurt enough.
He kept going--kept hitting--again and again, moving back left when he got to the window and punching holes all down the wall, again, again, again, his breath coming fast and his arm moving on automatic, in a steady rhythm that still didn't carry enough anger, enough fear, away from him and into the wall.
Somebody was yelling behind him again. Not Skip, and he didn't realize it was Williamson until there was an arm around his neck, yanking him back and then down to the floor. He lay on his back staring up at the light, half blinded with the wind knocked out of him. Williamson knelt with one knee on Don's chest, as Don tried to breathe. Williamson snapped his fingers, his hand coming briefly between Don and the light, and someone handed him something. Don turned his head, thinking of fighting, thinking of going for his gun, but it was his right hand he'd been hitting with, and he was starting to actually feel it now.
Williamson was holding his hand, weirdly carefully. He dropped Don's belt on the carpet, and Don's eye followed, watching the smear of blood on black leather.
A sharp stinging pain on his hand brought Don back to somewhere like himself, and he tried to pull away. Williamson just pushed down harder with his knee and clamped down harder on Don's hand.
"That was fucking stupid," Williamson said, pressing a wad of gauze to the cut on Don's hand, pulling it back to look and then pressing it down again.
Don winced. The cut was long--running from the knuckle of his index finger down to the base of his thumb--and probably filthy with plaster dust. Don glanced up at the wall, trying to count the impacts. They'd probably have to replace the drywall; there wasn't enough left to patch.
Williamson sprayed something on his hand, and Don jerked and hissed. Williamson snorted and shook his head , bandaging Don's hand with neat, precise movements. It looked professional, practiced, but there was blood all over Williamson's hand as he stood up. Sloppy. Weird.
Williamson held that hand away from himself, fingers curled, as he said, "Next time I'll let Skip stop you, Mac."
Charlie huddled next to the bathtub, wrapped inadequately in a towel, listening to the endless awful thudding sounds. He thought they were coming from across the hall; from where Don was. Had been. Might be.
Then they stopped with a last loud thump, and that was worse. Charlie sat shivering, wondering if he could find clothes, wondering whether Randy was perched in the doorway, watching him, wondering why he was being allowed this respite--but he knew that one. It wasn't a respite. They were making him listen.
The sounds gave way, after a last hard crash, to ominous silence. He heard the door open, quick footsteps across the carpet and into the bathroom, and before he could cringe away there was a hand on him, pulling him half-upright. He cried out involuntarily when the blindfold was ripped off; the light was blinding, and the first thing he saw was Williamson's hand before his eyes, streaked in red. He tried to move, but Williamson was sitting on the edge of the tub, and had Charlie between his knees. He clamped them around Charlie, pinning him in place, and shook his hand at Charlie. The blood splattered onto his face.
"Do you know whose this is?" Williamson asked.
Charlie shook his head, and Williamson caught him by the hair, pinning Charlie's head hard against his knee.
"Yes, you do," Williamson said. Charlie could smell it, coppery on every gasping breath. His stomach turned. There was no limit to how much they could hurt Don. "Tell me whose it is, Know-Nothing."
Charlie squeezed his eyes shut, groping for words--words he mustn't say, words he must--and he whispered, "Mine."
Williamson's hand clamped over his mouth, cool and wet with Don's blood, and Charlie gagged, curling convulsively around his stomach, but there was nothing left in him. When Williamson's hand released him, he heaved in a breath and another, coughed and choked and said, "He's mine, don't, please--"
And that was, oh, that was the wrong thing to say, Williamson shouldn't know that Don was his, shouldn't know that he knew that Don was his; but Williamson didn't seem to notice what Charlie had said. He pulled Charlie's head back until the tears streamed from the corners of his eyes to his ears, until Charlie had to meet his impassive gaze.
"How's the job coming, Know-Nothing?"
Charlie swallowed, resisting the urge to try to look out into the room, to see his boards--even if nothing was lost, even if he could work fast, it was a bigger job than ever, it was going to be so hard--
Williamson saw it, and his hand tightened. "Tell me," he said, low and dangerous.
Charlie sobbed once, bit his lip and tasted blood--Don's blood on his skin, Don's--but Williamson was implacable, and it was true. "I don't know," he whispered. "I don't know if I can."
"But you have to," Williamson said, calmly, like he'd known all along. "Because you know who'll pay if you don't."
"Please," Charlie whispered, listening to the silence across the hall, thinking of Don's sobs in the middle of the night. He knew who would pay if he didn't. "I can't--I can't without him--please don't--"
Williamson let go of him all at once, stood up and went to the sink, and Charlie stared at him, dazed, while he washed the blood from his hands. He walked out without another word or a backward glance.
Don sat with his hands between his knees, his right hand throbbing in time to his heart, staring at his watch and waiting. He'd heard Charlie cry out just once, and then nothing. An hour had passed after that sharp sound, when Skip suddenly stood up and said, "Come on, Mac."
Don bounced to his feet and followed Skip out the door and across the hall and into Charlie's room.
Only the worklight was on, shining on a badly smeared chalkboard. It took Don a minute to spot Charlie, sitting in the furthest corner from the door, pressed back into the walls. He looked up as soon as Don walked in, made a small convulsive movement toward him and then subsided, letting his head fall against the wall.
Don walked over to him slowly, looking around the room. There was almost nothing except that smeared chalkboard to show signs of struggle, though Don was sure there had been one. Charlie was dressed in his other change of clothes, t-shirt and sweatpants and clean white socks, his arms wrapped around his knees. As his eyes adjusted to the light, Don could make out a bruise on one cheek, his hair slightly wet, but there was no other sign of injury. Of physical injury.
"Hey," Don said softly, lowering himself to his knees when he got within arm's reach.
Charlie's head came up quickly, and Don could make out the dark spattering of petechial hemorrhages around his eyes. Sign of strangulation in an autopsy, but there were no marks on Charlie's throat. It might have been anything.
"Don't," Charlie whispered, and his voice was thin and small. He winced like it hurt to talk. "Don't touch me."
Don nodded slowly, raised his hands palm-out and started to back away, but Charlie lurched toward him again as he did.
"Don't go," he whispered.
Don nodded again.
"I won't," Don said softly, and he sat down against the wall, just out of reach. Charlie seemed to notice his hand then, and Don held it out, knuckles up, showing him the bandage. Charlie winced and laid his head down on his knees.
Don leaned his own head back against the wall, tucked his injured hand against his gun, and breathed. Charlie was here. He was here. It could be worse.
After a while, Charlie tipped over sideways in slow motion, coming to rest in the fetal position with his back to the wall and the top of his head pressed against Don's hip. Don reached over slowly with his right hand, trying to put it out in front of Charlie's face where he would see it coming, and Charlie pulled it down, tucking Don's hand against his chest and cuddling it like a teddy bear. Don spread his fingers on Charlie's ribs, feeling Charlie's heart beat against his palm, and sat perfectly still, keeping watch as Charlie finally slept.
Charlie opened his eyes exactly where he'd closed them, curled between Don and the corner, Don's injured hand held to his chest. He finally felt less dangerously exhausted than he had, and sleep seemed to have cured him of the terror-hangover that had brought him to huddle in the corner in the first place, hardly able to speak or move or even bear to be touched when Don was finally returned to him.
A certain amount of terror still lingered: Williamson hadn't told him anything he didn't already know, but he hadn't wanted to think about it. He had to do this thing, and do it right, not only for his own sake but for Don's. He stared across the room at the smeared board under the worklight, trying to reconstruct its contents even as he lay there holding Don's hand to himself and wondering if there were any other way.
But no. He knew Williamson's patterns of behavior as well as he knew anything but math. Williamson controlled every angle; Charlie only controlled his own work. All he could do was the job before him. Resolved, he let go of Don's hand and struggled up to sit, wincing as he realized that his entire body had stiffened into that fetal curl. Beside him, Don said, "Four hours, attaboy."
Charlie looked over to find Don watching him, his head tipped back against the wall, his eyes shadowed. Don looked at him searchingly for a moment, and then held out his left hand, showing Charlie his watch. It was a little past three.
"Morning of December eighteenth," Don said. "You good if I crash for a little while?"
Charlie swallowed and nodded. Don looked so tired, and there had been those sounds. "You're--you're good?"
Don glanced down at his hand. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a scratch."
Charlie looked down at Don's hand, resting awkwardly on the carpet. The light was bad, but he could make out small cuts around the bases of his fingernails. His knuckles looked bruised, and he held his hand carefully, as though it hurt. Charlie recalled the way he'd been clutching it, and hoped, probably pointlessly, that he hadn't contributed to Don's pain.
But there was nothing he could do for Don now except his job, so Charlie just nodded and said, "Okay," and got to his feet.
He walked over to the card tables, rolling his shoulders in a vain attempt to loosen the knotted muscles of his back. There were two new sheets of paper lying under the box of chalk, and Charlie stared at them for a moment before lifting the chalk away and picking them up. The up-facing sides were blank, but when he turned them over he found his chalkboards: digital photographs, he supposed, taken before--before. Printed out at high resolution, and while he had to squint to read a few lines, the copies were good enough to allow him to reconstruct everything.
Naturally, Williamson would not have allowed the job to be delayed. He'd only been making a point, and even if the instrument with which he made the point was Randy, it was always Williamson in the end. Charlie swallowed, staring down at his work in his hands, and was reaching for the chalk when a flash of color made him look up.
Don was kneeling on the mattress, the two sleeping bags on the floor behind him, trying to pull Charlie's blanket from where it had gotten stuffed down between the mattress and the wall. After a moment he stood and pulled the mattress up vertical; when he let go to pick up the blanket out, it toppled over onto its other side. The side no one had lain on before, not Don, not Charlie, not Randy. Charlie stood blinking, dazed, as Don shoved the mattress up against the wall, spread out one sleeping bag and then lay down. He balled up Charlie's blanket under his head, pulled the other sleeping bag over himself, and then lay still. For a moment his eyes were open, gazing toward Charlie, and Charlie stayed frozen until they closed.
Don was asleep on the other side of the room, and his work was undisturbed. Just like that, everything snapped back into place, everything was once again as it should be, give or take the bandage on Don's hand and the ache in Charlie's neck. Just like that, the night before was made to disappear. It was almost more frightening than the fact that it had happened at all.
Almost.
Charlie forced himself back to work, and by the time he'd finished copying out the contents of the first board he was adjusting the algorithm he'd half worked out on it. By the end of the second the security movements were clicking into place, the pattern forming in his head and flowing onto the board. When he'd gotten that more or less worked out it gave him an idea about the structure of the electronic security system, and he began mapping it out on board seven just as the lights switched on.
It was Don; having flipped on the switches by the door, he was already walking to the bathroom, checking his gun and giving Charlie a quick smile as he went. Charlie smiled back briefly and immersed himself in his work again; he began writing out the variables he still needed to confirm in pencil on the wall beside the filled chalkboard. He'd moved on to standing at the card table, staring at schematics and a table of engineering specifications, when Don said, "Hey, let me do that."
Charlie looked up, frowning--he didn't think Don was really up to predicting the effects of explosive force on structural steel--and only then realized that he had his left hand on the back of his own neck, still futilely attempting to work the knots out. Charlie lowered his hand as Don moved behind him, and Don's hands settled warm and strong on the back of his neck, thumbs pressing into cramped muscle until Charlie lost all track of what he'd been looking at.
He remembered the first time Don had touched him, rubbing his cold-cramped hand. Don had always been his, right from the start, before he'd been able to fathom that it could be true. His touch was already familiar, and Charlie knew Don and himself well enough to see the moment coming, like the peak in amplitude on some wave function, the moment when simple animal comfort turned to heat, desire. There--that touch, that press of Don's fingers, the slight scrape of the gauze on Don's right hand at the side of Charlie's neck, and Charlie's breath came short. His head sagged forward as his dick hardened, and Don kept touching him, so close Charlie could feel the heat of his body down his back.
Charlie didn't even think it through, just tried to shift back against him. But Don anticipated him, moving when he did, and the only way Charlie could close the gap was to turn under his hands, pulling Don down into a kiss. Don's hands kept moving over his back, touch frustratingly muffled by his t-shirt until Charlie pulled away to take it off. Don watched him with a small smile on his kissed-wet lips, and Charlie pushed him back to the wall--carefully between the boards--and unbuttoned Don's shirt as he kissed him, only occasionally sidetracked by the feeling of Don's hands on his own bare skin.
He wouldn't let up long enough for Don to actually take any clothes off, but got both their jeans open and had his hand on Don's ass when Don said against his mouth, "Do you want--"
Charlie was nodding into another kiss before Don could get the rest of the sentence out. The next time Charlie let him up for air, Don managed to say, "Stuff's in the bathroom."
By the time Charlie had retrieved it, leaving his own jeans where they fell, Don was naked and waiting for him on the mattress. Don didn't seem as tense this time. Charlie was as much convinced that he liked it afterward, when Don followed him to the bathroom to clean up together, as during, when Don came in his hand, shuddering and gasping his name.
Don got dressed again when they were done, but his eyes were sleepy and soft, and he lay down when Charlie tugged on his hand. Charlie curled up against his back, covering himself and Don with his red blanket, and slept until someone brought food, and then got back to work. There had been something in the specifications, something important. The next time he looked up, Don was pacing again, and Charlie stole a second to smile at him. Don, turning at the end of the room, saw him and smiled back, and Charlie went on working for hours with that smile held warm in his belly.
Don stood in the corner of the room, watching Charlie work. He'd finally finished the days of calculations, and was into the second day of doing what seemed to be the same sequence of equations over and over with different numbers. He kept writing down results and frowning at them and then trying again, and again, and again.
It was weird to recognize the pattern, to know that it meant the job was coming to an end. Don found himself calculating how long it would take Charlie to finish this time, and how long it would be until the next job, and how long that would take, and how long Williamson would wait before starting to push Charlie again.
Don stepped away from the wall and started pacing again. He really ought to start working out again. Develop a routine. Sit-ups would probably be an all-new kind of aggravating, although it seemed to hurt less each time Charlie fucked him. Maybe he was just getting used to it. He could feel himself getting used to all of this, to a world the size of a single room and the silence of Charlie keeping his back turned for eighteen hours of every day. He would come to Don--when he got stuck, or when he noticed that Don was lying down, or when some internal timer went off, once in every twenty-four hours over the last few days--and start with kisses, and he never exactly asked, but Don found himself rolling over for Charlie every time.
He was getting used to it--even getting to like it. He didn't think he could have said so out loud, but Charlie never asked in words, and there was no point lying to himself. He didn't get that sick-falling sensation when Charlie pushed inside him anymore; he was hard way before Charlie laid a hand on him. It wasn't normal by a long fucking shot, but it was usual now, and at least if Don lay back down afterward, Charlie would lie down too and get more than an hour's sleep at one time.
Pacing from one wall to the other, Don wondered if there was any chance he'd ever be more use to Charlie than this. He knew he'd made things better for Charlie--kept him safe from most of the routine torment he'd suffered before, supplied him with some kind of human comfort--but maybe that was the end of what he was accomplishing. Maybe he'd made the status quo tolerable enough that Charlie wouldn't see any need to try to escape, if he'd ever have been willing to risk it at all. Without Charlie's help, the very best Don could do for them was to get them both killed; Williamson held all the cards, kept all the exits covered. And if Charlie didn't want to escape, independently, it might never be safe to try to persuade him. He still didn't know how far Charlie would trust him; he was only mostly sure about how far he could trust Charlie, and he could never expect Charlie to keep that kind of secret in the face of torture.
Don stopped short, facing a chalkboard Charlie wasn't working at, with notations spilling off the slate and onto the wall around it. The only question left, really, was whether this--right now, right here, Charlie's life in this room--was worth everything he'd done. Don stared at Charlie's handwriting, the sharp-cornered fours and cramped twos, so different from the scrawl Don had once been familiar with. He'd found Charlie, and he was taking care of Charlie the only way he knew how. He couldn't have done anything differently: couldn't have refused to come after Charlie just because he might not be able to pull him out, or because it might take a long time, or because he might find himself doing things he wouldn't have under any other circumstances.
Still, later that night when Charlie climbed on top of him, pressing hungry, smothering kisses to his mouth, Don stole a second of air to say, "Charlie."
"Mmm?" Charlie murmured, his mouth sliding distractingly down Don's jaw to his throat, his hand covering Don's cock so that Don had to bite down on his lip and concentrate to find the words.
"Charlie," he whispered, "do you ever think--"
Charlie's fingers covered his mouth, and Charlie's teeth closed lightly on his ear. "No," Charlie whispered. "Don't think. Shhh."
Don opened his mouth, but Charlie's fingers pressed inside, and Don found himself sucking at chalk-and-sweaty skin, fingertips pressing against his tongue. By the time his mouth was free again, he'd forgotten what he meant to say, but then it hardly mattered. Charlie wasn't going anywhere.
Williamson stood there in silence for an almost unbearably long time, frowning down at the three closely-written pages that comprised Charlie's final results. Charlie didn't even pretend he wasn't watching every movement of Williamson's eyes down the pages whose contents he had long since memorized. When Williamson said, without looking up or tilting the page, "You're sure about this?" Charlie knew he'd latched onto the specifications for the explosives.
"I can go over it with you if you want," Charlie said, waving to a stack of papers when Williamson glanced up. "The physics are fairly straightforward, although the failure mode prediction gets kind of involved."
Williamson squinted at him for a moment and then shook his head.
"You do the math," he muttered, looking back down at the page.
Charlie reminded himself to breathe. He'd done this thing, absolutely the best he could. It was out of his hands now. Well, almost out of his hands. It was still right there within his reach.
"It's going to be difficult," Charlie said, as Williamson flipped to the last page.
Williamson glanced up at him, raising one eyebrow. "Not your problem anymore, Know-It-All."
Charlie gave him a grim semi-smile. "So you won't blame me if anything goes wrong, then?"
Williamson looked back to the page, frowning harder. "If you've given me a solution that's not functionally possible--"
"I didn't say it was going to be impossible," Charlie said firmly. "I said it would be difficult. The team is going to have to stick to the plan exactly or it'll fall apart. If they don't stay on schedule to the second, this won't work."
"So you only demand that they be as good at their jobs as you are at yours," Williamson said.
It was strangely close to a compliment, reminiscent of their early jobs, when Williamson had seemed at times to like him, or at least to like his abilities. Charlie would have smiled at that once, blushing and clutching at the crumb of approval, stammering out some response; now he said nothing, waiting.
"Maybe I should send you on the job, huh?"
Charlie blinked. "Even if you were seriously entertaining the idea, it wouldn't be the most efficient use of my skill-set."
Williamson nodded; it was no more, nor less, than the truth, and of course Williamson would never let him out on a job.
"What is it you want me to do, then, apart from hire a good crew, which is my business?"
His business, and already done, given the time constraint. Charlie had wound up having to design the job around the Christmas holiday time window, allowing himself a few guesses about how it might affect security staffing, since that was one of the few areas in which he hadn't been deluged with solid information. Whoever they were, the team had already been assembled, and were probably already on their way to the job location.
"Give them a good leader," Charlie said firmly. Williamson looked up at that, meeting his eye steadily. "If you led the team, for example, they'd stick to the plan exactly."
Williamson smiled a little. "You flattering me, Know-Nothing?"
Charlie's lips twitched, and he shrugged. "It's my job to know effective tactics when I see them. You're effective. You'd get the job done."
"Of course I'd get the job done," Williamson said, shaking his head. "I'm not about to let you take the credit for my save. Why don't I send Mac, hey?"
Charlie looked to the far side of the room at that, where Don was leaning in a corner watching them. He'd obviously been listening, and there was a strange look on his face, almost hopeful. Maybe Don would have liked that; his pacing might be reassuring to Charlie, but it had to indicate a certain degree of boredom. Charlie tried to think of it as if it were an actual possibility relevant to job utility, and not merely a threat on Williamson's part.
"No," Charlie said finally, looking back at Williamson with a small frown. "Wrong leadership style. Mac tends to seem open to negotiation."
Williamson snorted, and Charlie said, "There won't be time for negotiation on this one."
"I get it, Know-Nothing, I heard you." Williamson folded the sheets in half decisively. "I'll take your comments under advisement."
He half-turned toward the door, stopping to look at Don for a long moment, as though he really were considering sending him on the job. Charlie didn't move, didn't look at Don to see how he withstood the scrutiny; and then Williamson walked out.
Charlie made it as far as the mattress on shaky legs, and Don caught him as he started to fall, lowering him to its surface as his eyes closed.
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